Achieve in 2011

Many of us realise that the start of a new year signals a time for reflection of the year that has past, as well as a time to re-evaluate our goals for the year ahead. However, few of us dedicate the time needed to really reflect on our achievements (or lack of them), nor do we think about the impact our accomplishments and failure to act have on our lives. Instead many of us make spur of the moment, flimsy goals of losing weight or eating better because we feel guilty about our indulgences over the festive season. We start the new year will all the best intentions of getting our act together in both work and home life, but before we know it, we're up to our armpits in work without any time left for family and friends, let alone the goals we had all the intentions of finally achieving. There we go again, drifting through the year without any direction or idea of whether we are on track to achieving what we want.

So do you know what you really want in life? Sure many of us have an idea of what we might like to achieve in the next year, but because of our fast-paced lives many of us forget about them until New Year's eve rolls around again. The good news is, this doesn't have to happen again this year, as there are a few changes you can make so that you really achieve what you want. For most of us, there are a couple of reasons why things aren't working out the way we might like it. Many of us keep our goals in our mind instead of writing them down, which means we can easily forget them when life gets in the way. However, the simple act of writing down your goals and revisiting them regularly throughout the year makes you more accountable and makes achieving your goals more likely. The other reason is, many of us don't set our goals properly.

Goals are usually set in a forward manner - we set our goals for the present year first, then we set our goals for the following year and then our goals for two years time. What happens with this forward thinking is we often overestimate what we can achieve in one year and underestimate what we can achieve in 10 years. A more constructive way to set your goals is to focus on the long-term goals first - that's what you want to achieve in 5-10 years time. Once you have these defined, you can break it down into three and one year goals. Your short-term goals over one or two years can then serve as a measure to keep you on track to achieving your long-term goals. This backward form of goal setting makes breaks large tasks into small, achievable steps and makes them less daunting. Don't believe me? Think back over the last 10 years and ask yourself if you had ever imagined that 10 years ago you would be in place you are today? Think about how far you could go in the next 10 years if you had a game plan.

To help you set your goals for the years to come and for 2011, spend some time reflecting on what you did and did not achieve in 2010? Why did this happen? What difference has this made to your life? What haven't you finished in 2010 that you need to carry over into 2011? Look at these questions for the following seven areas of your life: health, family/partner, leisure, finances, personal development, career and travel. Next, use this information to help you sent your long- and short-term goals in the areas of finances, property, family/partner, career, travel, possessions and community/charity. Remember to write your 5-10 year goals first, followed by your 3 year goals and then your 1 year goals. Write emotively and in the present tense e.g. "I feel elated and proud to have just completed my first ironman - it's October 2015".

Once you've pictured your life, make sure that you write your goals for 2011 and keep them in a place that you can visit regularly. Put the steps in place for you to achieve these goals and review your progress each month, so that you arrive at the end of 2011 with your short-term goals completed, as well as being well on the way to achieving your long-term goals. Now that's motivating!

Stand up for health

Think your 30 minutes of exercise each day is enough to keep you healthy? Think again!

Most of us have heard that for better health we need at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most, preferably all days of the week. However, what many of us don't realise is that this is not the only physical activity guideline that we should be following. According to the National Physical Activity Guidelines for Australians, the minimum level of physical activity required for good health includes four steps:

1. Think of movement as an opportunity not as inconvenience
2. Be active every day in as many ways as you can
3. Put together at least 30 minute of moderate-intensity physical activity on most, preferably all, days
4. If you can, also enjoy some regular vigorous exercise for extra health and fitness benefits

What these guidelines attempt to show us is our current sedentary lifestyle isn't good enough for keeping us healthy; for better health, we need to move as often as we can. Now more and more research is telling us the same, with many studies showing us a daily exercise session is not enough to combat the damaging effects that being sedentary for the rest of the day is having on our waistlines, blood pressure, blood cholesterol levels and blood glucose levels.

According to the research, prolonged unbroken periods of immobilised muscle that occurs with extended periods of sitting (such as when we commute, watch television or sit at a desk), reduces the ability of lipoproteins (substances that carry cholesterol in our blood) to efficiently mange healthy blood cholesterol levels. These findings have even been found in people who report exercising for at least 150 minutes each week. (the same 30 minutes of exercise on five days of the week).

An Australian study found a detrimental relationship between television viewing time and waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, fasting blood glucose levels and triglyceride levels, even when the participants were meeting the exercise guidelines. The adverse consequences of prolonged sitting time have also been further verified in findings from a Canadian Fitness Survey that found people who spent the majority of the day sitting had a significantly poorer long-term mortality rate, even if they were deemed to be "physically active".

Before you go getting too depressed about the thought of having to find more time to exercise, there is some good news. Simply standing up more throughout your day can benefit your waistline, body mass index, blood pressure levels, blood cholesterol levels and blood glucose levels, irrespective of the amount of exercise you do. So for optimal health, make sure that on top of your 30-minute daily exercise session, you are also sitting less, moving more and moving often. Think of movement as an opportunity for better health, rather than an inconvenience and choose the active way to do things. You can start now by standing you from your desk and stretching your legs ..... it's that simple!

Spring Racing Carnival: Hold to keep your waistline

Fashions on the Field, lawn parties, bubbles and amples of finger food - you've got to love the Spring Racing Carnival. While many of us attend Spring Carnival for the races, some of us are more interested in the antics on the other side of the fence. Picnics of the lawn complete with endless sparkling wine, beer and food can easily ruin anyone's attempt of reaching their perfect beach body, not to mention leaving us a little under the weather the following day. Arrive at the end of the Spring Racing Carnival with a spring in your step by following my six tips:

1. Choose the most important day: If you're attending a number of spring race days, limit the overindulgence by choosing the most important day to let your hair down. Too much of a good thing can see you drinking too much, eating poorly and skipping exercise sessions for a number of weeks, which is not good for your waistline or your health.

2. Include an early morning exercise session: Before you start getting ready for your day out in the sun, make a morning exercise session a must. Moving your body will help you compensate for some of the extra kilojoules you'll be consuming trackside.

3. Plan and pack food for the day: Not having food at hand will mean you'll have to waste time lining up with the other hundreds of people desperate for a bit to eat. It's either that or go without food for the day, which is definitely not recommended at any time, let alone when you're enjoying a few drinks. Pack a picnic basket full of sandwiches, low-fat dips, cheeses, fruit, nuts and crackers. These snacks will help keep you satisfied all day and reduce the likelihood of a post-race fast food dash.

4. Enjoy the day: Take your focus off the food and alcohol by enjoying the company around you and the entertainment in front of you. Make the day about having fun with your friends instead of seeing how much food and alcohol you can consume.

5. Be alcohol smart: Swap the regular wine and beer for lower alcoholic or carbohydrate varieties. While the lower alcoholic varieties are recommended over the low-carb varieties, both will offer you fewer kilojoules than their regular counterparts. Reduce your consumption by putting your drink down in between sips and remain hydrated by alternating your alcoholic beverages with water. This will also help reduce the likelihood of intoxication.

6. Eat the foods you love all year round: Develop a healthy relationship with food by enjoying the foods you love all year round, but in moderation. When we deprive ourselves of the foods we love, we;re more likely to overindulge when we do allow ourselves the chance to eat them, which sets up a cycle of deprivation and overindulgence. At the races, enjoy sandwiches and sparkling wine, but leave the fried foods for someone else.

Healthy Bones Week

Every eight minutes, someone is admitted to an Australian hospital with an osteoporotic fracture. If we don't start looking after our bones, by 2021 this amount will double. The biggest problem is that osteoporosis (where the bones become fragile and more likely to break) is a silent thief, often progressing without any symptom until a bone breaks. However, the good news is that for many people, an osteoporotic fracture can be prevented or at least, the risk of fracture reduced.

Many of us think of bone as being solid, but its actually a living tissue that is constantly being renewed. Throughout life, old bone is lost and removed by cells called osteoclasts, while new bone is built by osteoblasts; a process of removal and formation that's usually balanced, thereby maintaining skeletal strength. However are we reach our peak bone mass (when our bones are at their strongest), our bone strength slowly begins to decline. It's this peak bone mass, and the resulting rate of bone loss that are the major determinants of osteoporosis development.

So to keep your bones healthy and help prevent the development of osteoporosis, follow my strategies for healthier bones.

Eat dairy: Dairy products or calcium-fortified alternatives are important for bone health, because 99 per cent of the calcium in the body is found in bone and teeth. The rest can be found circulating in your body, where it plays a tightly regulated role in heart health, muscle and nerve contraction, and clotting, Without adequate dietary calcium, circulating levels of calcium are maintained at the expense of our bones. Eat three serves of dairy products each day.

Drink milk in your coffee: The caffeine in coffee increases urinary calcium excretion and decreases calcium absorption, leading to a reduction in bone density. If your calcium intake is less than 750mg per day, a daily caffeine intake equivalent to about three cups of brewed coffee is enough to promote bone loss. However, research shows that this effect can be balanced out with a diet containing adequate calcium, as the body can balance out caffeine's effects by reducing calcium excretion later in the day. Make sure you're getting about 1000mg of calcium a day (in you're over 51 years you'll need more) and limit caffeine intake to no more than 300mg/day.

Limit your salt intake: Salt directly affects the amount of calcium our bodies excrete in urine. That means the more salt we eat, the more calcium we excrete. For every 6g of salt consumed, urinary calcium excretion rises by 20-60mg, which is quite alarming considering the average Australian consumes 9g of salt each day. Luckily for us however, our body has the ability to compensate for this form of calcium loss, by increasing calcium absorption in the small intestine. However, if dietary calcium is insufficient, then the amount of calcium absorbed is less than needed to offset this loss and the body takes it from the bones.

Resistance train regularly: Whatever you do, start resistance training. It will promote a slimmer appearance, stronger muscles and stronger bones. In fact, when it comes to exercise, bones are exactly like muscle: it responds by getting stronger. In fact, regular resistance training and weight-bearing exercise (such as running or walking) can reduce the risk of developing osteoporosis by 59 per cent (although it cannot reverse advanced bone loss). Include at lease 2-3 weekly resistance training sessions.

Enjoy a healthy, balanced diet: A lifetime of dieting is likely to lead to an inadequate intake of important bone nutrients such as calcium, which increases the risk of developing osteoporosis. On top of this, maintaining a low body weight reduces the mechanical load placed on an individual bone, which is a cause for concern because bone responds to mechanical stress such as body weight by stimulating the formation of osteoblasts - the bone-building cells - thereby improving strength.

Get outside more: Instead of sitting in front of your computer during your lunch break, why not go outside and soak up some of the sun’s rays. Why? Because UV rays are the best source of vitamin D – a fat-soluble vitamin that increases absorption of calcium and phosphorus in the gut, maintains calcium levels in the blood, and helps strengthen the skeleton. Without getting your daily does of sun, you are at risk of developing thin, brittle or misshaped bones, which leads to bone deformities and fractures. Exposing 15 per cent of your body to the sun for 6-8 minutes a day in summer or for 20 minutes in winter, will help you ensure you reach your daily vitamin D requirements.

How to be flat out and fabulous

If you're like most people under the age of 30 (me included), there's a good chance you're currently not too concerned about what your health status maybe 30 years from now. It's safe to say, us younger generations have a greater sense of invincibility and we generally tend not to worry about the things that don't affect us. But that doesn't mean we don't care at all.

According to the HealthFocus Trend Study, the main wellness concerns for people under the age of 30 include fatigue, stress and depression. It seems all this striving for immediate gratification has left us overwhelmed and sapped of energy.

While there's no doubt that following a healthy lifestyle can help you in years to come, many of us forget about how it can benefit us right now. Being fit and healthy can change your frame of mind, push you to achieve your goals, give you the energy to do whatever you want when you want and enable you to simply to be your best. And the good news is, it doesn't take as much effort as you think. By making these small changes to your lifestyle, you can get a whole lot more out of life.

1. Forget perfectionism: Striving for perfectionism sets us up for a fall, particularly when things don't go our way. Succumbing to the negative thoughts that persist after an unfavourable event discourages us and reduces our desire for future success. That is however, unless you learn from the slip-up and use it as a vital step on your journey towards success. Remember, persistence is the key.

2. Nourish yourself from the inside out: The foods and drinks you put into your mouth affect not only your weight, but your appearance as a whole. Make sure you're getting plenty of wholefoods such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, wholegrains, lean meats, fish, eggs, low-fat dairy products and legumes, as they contain essential nutrients that will keep you looking and functioning at your best.

3. Become Fit2Date: Put a new spin on your old workout sessions, by signing up to Fit2Date - the exercise session where fit singles train with other fit singles. It's the perfect way to multi-task; workout so you're looking and feeling great, while at the same time meeting new friends, and potentially a partner.

4. Make a Friday list: Instead of spending all your weekend running errands or doing housework, complete your chores during the week. Make a "Friday list" of all the tasks you want done by Friday. Monday could be for cleaning and Tuesday for washing, while Wednesday lunch could be for appointments. That way you can relax on your weekends.

5. Be happy now: Forget about waiting for that miraculous event to happen that will finally make you happy. By waiting for problems to resolve, you may never be happy. When one problem ends, another one starts and happiness becomes elusive. Life is not a dress rehearsal, so life it for today. Be happy with what you have right now, because tomorrow is another day.

Maintaining weight when active

If you've been watching Dancing with the Stars lately you have probably seen a few of the contestants appearing a little bit lighter than when they first started with the show. First there was the image of Esther Anderson ribs protruding from her revealing outfit, and then there was Blair McDonough looking extremely "sick" as he lost between eight and 10kgs in less than two months. Both stars have been training about 20 hours a week, as well as keeping up with the other commitments, so it's no wonder the weight has been falling off them.

This weight loss is not an uncommon scenario by any means. Many athletes including NRL players, struggle to maintain their weight throughout the course of the season. Grueling training sessions, combined with long minutes on the field, mean players need to consume large amounts of food, at regular times throughout the day. This is not always possible for the players who suffer from a loss of appetite post game, who are too tired and sore to prepare any time consuming meals, and who lack the motivation to shop and cook. It's also likely that many of athletes and celeb come dancers, fail to realise the important role carbohydrates play in fueling their active bodies and ensuring weight maintenance is in fact possible.

To maintain weight, an athlete (or any person for that matter) needs to eat as many kilojoules as he or she is expending. If they are losing weight, then they are not eating enough food and it's likely that they are not making the best food choices either. Often the times of training sessions or sleep ins post-game can see athletes skip meals, while fatigue has many of them relying on takeaway foods or restaurants for their meals. These choices make maintaining weight extremely difficult.

For weight maintenance, it's important that an athlete follow a pattern of frequent meals and snacks so that high energy requirements are met. Relying on just two or three large meals a day is not enough to see high energy requirements being met. These eating patterns also do not make it possible to achieve the desired adaptations from training, as key nutrients are not being provided at the correct times i.e. pre- and post-training and competition. For the athlete to succeed with weight maintenance throughout the season, they need to be organised and disciplined at eating at regular intervals (5-6 times pre day), even if they don't feel hungry.

Meals and snacks need to be high in carbohydrate (the number one fuel when you're exercising), moderate in protein and low in fat. Often it's not possible to eat all the necessary kilojoules, so this is when high-kilojoule fluids such as flavoured milks, smoothies, liquid meal supplements such as Sustagen, cordials, fruit juices and sports drinks become handy. Fluids supply a compact form of kilojoules and nutrients, and are more easily consumed than large amounts of food.

It's also important to add extra kilojoules to snacks and meals. For example, sugar, honey or jam can be added to breads or cereals; smoothies can have added ice-cream, yoghurt, honey or protein powder; and avocado or other spreads can be added to sandwiches. Another option is too look for lower fibre foods. While it's important to meet fibre needs, too much can lead to fullness and gastrointestinal discomfort, which can stop athletes from meeting their daily energy needs. Choosing lower-fibre forms of breads and cereals is recommended occasionally.

Finally, it's important to remember that for weight maintenance it's about eating the right quantity of good quality food. It's not about pigging out on nutrient-poor, kilojoule-dense foods. Excessive kilojoule intake will promote fat storage, while a reliance on nutrient-poor food may result in nutrient deficiencies. Weight maintenance is about achieving balance in the food you eat.

Caffeine in sport

Pill popping in sport has again been bought into the spotlight with the recent hospitalisation of AFL star Ben Cousins. This time it wasn't for his illegal drug taking but instead his legal concoction of caffeine and sleeping pills. I'm not going to talk about the sleeping pills he used to wind down after the game, but what I will focus on is the use of caffeine in sport.

This is not the first time the issue of caffeine use in athletes has been a hot topic of discussion. In 1988, pentathlete Alex Watson was thrown out of the Olympics for caffeine use. Although caffeine has never been a banned substance, it has appeared on the restricted list with a positive test recorded when caffeine in the urine was above a certain level. The reason for this classification related to the fact it is impossible to ban caffeine completely without banning coffee and other beverages and foodstuffs that contain caffeine. In 2004 however, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) removed caffeine from the prohibited list allowing full use of it in sport. Despite its removal from the prohibited list, caffeine use in sport has continued to be scrutinised.

In 2005, WADA reconsidered placing caffeine tablets back on the prohibited list when reports that our very own rugby players, including George Gregan, were taking caffeine tablets for performance benefits. After this, WADA placed caffeine on a monitoring program for its use in competition. Now after the latest caffeine issues to hit our footballers, WADA will reconsider placing caffeine back on the prohibited list when they meet in September this year.

So why the big uproar with athletes using caffeine in sport? The answer is simple - caffeine is an ergogenic aid, which means using it can improve an athlete's performance. Caffeine is known to stimulate the central nervous system, reducing an athlete's perceived effort and increasing their time to fatigue. This means they can train and compete for harder and for longer. New research is also showing that caffeine can increase muscle contractility and subsequently increase power and endurance in relatively low-intensity activities.

To get these benefits, research shows athletes need to consume low-to-moderate levels of caffeine which is equivalent to 3mg of caffeine or less per kilogram of body weight, in order to receive the performance benefits from caffeine. This amount of caffeine can be taken before and during endurance exercise and research shows that more gains in performance are not seen with caffeine doses above 3mg/kg of body weight. Despite this, research has seen some studies use caffeine amounts as high as 13mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight, which increases the likelihood of side effects.

Like the general population, caffeine affects athletes differently. However, research shows high levels of caffeine consumption (classified as intakes above 500mg/day) can increase heart rate, impair or alter fine motor control and technique and result in over-arousal. Impairments in fine motor control and technique can lead to poor ball skills in sports such as rugby, AFL and netball, while over-arousal can interfere with recovery and sleep patterns, causing athletes to look for other pills and portions to help them sleep. The long-term consumption of high doses of caffeine are discouraged by health authorities.

Athletes rarely turn to coffee for their caffeine hit because coffee has a variable caffeine content - an Australian study in 2008 found that caffeine content in a single shot of coffee varied from 25-214mg of caffeine. It also contains other compounds that may negate the ergogenic effects of caffeine. This is why athletes turn to No-Doz (caffeine tablets) for their caffeine hit. No-Doz contains 100mg of caffeine per tablet making them perfect way to take a measurable amount of caffeine, free from other compounds. Even if caffeine is considered legal, ethically the idea of popping a pill to improve performance is something athletes need to consider.

At the AIS, athletes are educated about caffeine, including the potential situations of performance enhancement, the benefits of using low doses of caffeine to achieve these effects and the risk of side effects. However, the AIS does not stock concentrated forms of caffeine and does not provide caffeine to athletes for performance enhancement, which quietly suggests, ethically there may not be as much of a place for caffeine in sport as athlete would like to believe.

Like the AIS, athletes of all sports need to be educated about the positive and negative effects of caffeine consumption. Sport is competitive and there's no doubt athletes are looking for the competitive edge over their rivals, but even if caffeine is considered a legal substance by WADA, ethically idea of popping a pill to improve performance needs to be considered by all athletes. It's through education athletes can make a better choice for themselves.