As I write this the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving, I just got done reading “I love you all the time” to my 3 1/2 year old niece and tucking her in to bed with tears in my eyes.

While I don’t get to see my brother and niece nearly as often as I’d like (we live 1,500 miles apart) I love them both dearly, and love the time I do get to spend with them. I have a ton to be thankful for, and while some days I have my pity partys, I am truly thankful for the people and opportunities that surround me.

Being optimistic, grateful, and generally happy is really important to me. As I mentioned in my post about Attitude as a key to success on my Kilimanjaro, it really does affect your entire body. 

Mood impacts physical performance

Because I think this is a really fun thing to do, we’re going to do a quick test.

1. Stand up.
2. Bend forward as if you are going to do a toe touch, and note how far you go. Feel free to repeat it a few times so you feel warmed up.
3. Now, I want you to take a few minutes and think about something that makes you really super happy and sends you mentally to your happy place. It can be the memory of a recent vacation (or an upcoming one), your favorite food, or how much you love that first cup of coffee in the morning. Figure out what that one thing is, really focus on it, and savor it.
4. Now, redo your forward bend. Note how far you go. We’ll talk about the results in a minute, but for now we are only partway through our test.
5. Shake that out and reset your body.
6. Now, I want you to think about something that makes you really angry – just makes you blood boil. If you are in Seattle and had to drive this week, that should do it. Otherwise, feel free to think about your latest fight with your spouse or boss, the new TSA regulations, or whatever else just makes you really, really angry. Spend some time really getting riled up.
7. Now, redo your forward bend. Note how far you go.

Weird?

For most people it is weird. Most people find that thinking happy thoughts increase their forward bend – oftentimes significantly. And conversely, the angry thoughts reduce it.

Happy thoughts = increased performance. Angry thoughts = decreased performance

The forward bend is just a cheat sheet for what goes on in your entire body as relates to your mood and attitude. Happy thoughts relax your body, make you better able to perform, and decrease the overall stress levels in your body. The angry thoughts make you more tense and less able to perform.

How do you translate that to real life?

The obvious one is that working to quickly shake off a bad mood has very real benefits to your body.

But, here are some concrete tips:

• Shake off whatever is bothering you before you get to the gym or go for a run.
• Stay calm while driving. A tense body does not lead to good reaction times. (Deep breathing is a lifesaver here , as is good music)
• Don’t go to bed angry. We all know we don’t sleep well when angry, now you know part of the reason why.

What are you thankful for? I’d love to have you share in the comments below.

P.S. Go ahead and think a happy thought to reset your body. I’d hate to be responsible for what may happen next.

While we all know cognitively that we are going to outlive our pets, it doesn’t make it any easier to watch them grow older and be able to do less and less. The picture above is my 13-year-old English Setter. She is my girl, my princess.

She is curled up on the couch next to me now as I type this, and sleeps a lot more now that she used to. But, she is still an active dog, still loves throwing and barking at bones, stalking squirrels, and going for walks.

The anti-aging process for pets is the same as it is for people. Movement.

Just like “move it or lose it” applies to people, it applies to our pets as well.

So, my girl doesn’t get any slack. I still take her on walks as often as possible, make her climb stairs, and make her jump in to bed by herself.

The Bed

I’m not mean about it making her do it herself – on the rare occasion that she can’t make the leap in to bed, I’ll come over and give her a boost. She lets me know if she needs help. But, I make her try first. She requires a bit more of a running start than she used to, but she can make it.

The Stairs

I have steep, and by steep, I mean STEEP stairs going down to my basement and family room area. She has learned that she needs to go slower than she used to.

More recently, she has started falling up the stairs, and I quickly realized her back hips aren’t functioning as well as they used to. I put my Z-Health/movement coach hat, and asked myself, “if she was a person, what would I do?”  Well, to improve movement in an area, you can rub the area to bring awareness to it and wake it up. I figured the principles were the same, so decided to give it a try.

So, our new routine for her climbing up the stairs, if she has been napping prior to that, is that she walks over to me, I rub her rear hips for a minute or two, and then send her on up. To keep her moving slowly enough, I talk to her in a calm, soothing voice and I stay right behind her so she feels safe.

Now that we’ve started our new routine, she has yet to fall up the stairs.

Walks

We have a 2-mile loop that we take in our neighborhood. When I first moved here 5 years ago, it was 30-40 minute walk for her to get the most out of it. It was her version of interval training — trot along quickly in areas, but then also stop for every kitty.  Today it took us closer to an hour to make that same route. Slower, yes, but she is still making it happen.

On a weekend when I have hours to spare, we’ll still even get in 4-5 mile walks. That literally takes hours, but for as long as I can, I don’t want her body to stop thinking it can do it.

The Net

Her senior pet exams come back virtually perfect – exam after exam. Her last exam they told me that her bloodwork is that of a 7 or 8-year-old dog. For a girl almost twice that age, I was thrilled!

Winter is now upon is in Seattle, and neither of us loves the cold and wet, but every chance we get, we’ll be out there after her Fountain of Youth.

I love this video, because it really represents what I think is possible for everyone. A life of movement and not letting your body slow you down. It’s what I want for myself, my friends, and my clients. It’s also the goal of Z-Health, which is why I so love the system and believe in what it can do for everyone — lifelong athleticism and knowing your body isn’t going to let you down.

You may not ever catch me on stage in a leotard, but this video should be inspiring for everyone.

Anyone (or anything) that can tell you they know exactly how many calories you burn in any activity is flat-out lying to you. The best anyone can do is make an educated guessed based on the “average” person – however you define that. Current weight, muscle mass, metabolism, and how hard you are working all get factored in.

So, the only thing we can REALLY do is count our intake. The National Weight Control Registry shows that individuals that manage to lose 30+ pounds and keep it off 5+ years eat between 1400 and 1800 calories per day. That is a tried and true model for success, so I think it’s a good one to work from. (NOTE: They also exercise an hour a day – it’s not ALL about the food.)

My favorite iPhone app for tracking calories is an application called Lose It!

• It’s Free
• It allows you to save your meals so you can easily repeat from day to day
• It allows you to create your own foods
• It lets you choose what nutrients you want to track (I like to track my protein)
• It has a fantastic food database. I’m super-impressed with the food database
• It remembers the portion size you last used with that food
• It lets you enter your weight and weight loss goals and helps you determine your daily caloric target (which you can also override)

It also lets you enter your exercise, but I have to admit, I have yet to use that feature.

P.S. If you really can’t live without a number to put to your training session, you can assume 400 cals for good, solid hour of work. Yep, that’s it.