February Health Tips

Tip #1:  February and March here in the northeast are particularly challenging to find the motivation and desire to stay consistent on your exercise plan.  It is dark, cold and weather conditions often make it undesirable to get outside let alone drive to the gym or even get yourself to go into your home workout room!!  My tip for helping yourself to get out of your own way and get it done on a consistent basis is to “chunk it up”!  Most people I work with think they have to do a full workout all at the same time to get results.  In actuality, if you can’t motivate yourself to your full workout on a given day then break it up over the day or two days.  For instance, do 3 of your circuit routine exercises in the morning and then 3 more after dinner.  Or instead of doing 45 min of straight cardio break it up into 3 sets of 15 min that you disperse through the day.  You can fit in 15 min on a work break when working from home and then do another 15 before dinner and finish with 15 before you relax after dinner for the evening.  As a matter of fact doing it this way has a secondary gain of  boosting your  metabolic rate 3 times instead of just once and so you net a higher total calorie burn doing 3 x 15 min vs 1 x 45!!

Tip #2:  David Sinclair is the leading anti-aging researcher on humans with a lab in Harvard University.  He recently released a book and podcast series on his findings and his recommended practices for us to do daily to put our bodies into various states of hormesis which has been found to have anti-aging benefits.  Hormesis is when you tax the body in a way that takes it out of its comfort zone and thereby forces it to heal damaged cells and cell organelles which has an anti-aging effect.  One of the methods he recommends is taking the supplement NMN.  It is a precursor to NAD which is a substance in the body that is critical for maintaining health in the cells of our bodies.  As we age the levels of NAD diminish.  This decline in NAD+ levels is linked causally to numerous aging-associated diseases, including cognitive decline, cancer, metabolic disease, sarcopenia (progressive and generalized loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength), and frailty. Many of these aging-associated diseases can be slowed down and even reversed by restoring NAD+ levels.  For this reason Sinclair recommends taking 1 gram of NMN on a daily basis.  Check with your doctor and do your own research to see if adding this supplement to your daily habits may be of benefit to you without causing any interactive effects with other medications.  Dr Sinclair claims aging is not the result of chronological age but is due to cellular degeneration that can be reversed with specific habits.  Get his book on amazon for more information.  Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don’t Have To: Sinclair PhD, David A., LaPlante, Matthew D.: 9781501191978: Amazon.com: Books