Perspiration inspiration
Devoted exercisers, fitness experts offer words of wisdom, motivation

Mon Apr 9 2007

Healthy Living / Shamona Harnett


IF you celebrated Easter yesterday, you probably feel as overstuffed as the turkey you gorged on.

Now you're looking for some inspiration -- a way to get back on track to swimsuit season.

Here is a compilation of some of the best and most inspirational advice I've come across during recent interviews:

Who: John Wichers, a Dutch-born Winnipegger who took up running later in life -- at age 46. Twenty-three years later, he's completed 22 full marathons, close to 40 half-marathons -- and just last year alone, he ran 12 races.

Advice: Wichers advocates doing "silly things" -- physical activities that others might consider off-the-wall. For example, one winter Wichers did a run across a frozen Lake Winnipeg. In 2002, he incorporated his favourite activities into a charity adventure when he ran and cycled from Thompson to Winnipeg with his best friend following him in a trailer. He ended up raising more than $11,000 for his workplace at the time, the Rehabilitation Centre for Children, a hospital for kids with special needs.
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Plus, he enjoyed the challenge of meeting his goals.

"It builds character. Once you start something you see it through. That's the biggest thing. Never give up. Start something and be big enough to finish it," says Wichers, 69. "You're not (running) for anybody standing on the sidelines. You're doing it for yourself."

Who: Jari Love, Calgary-based fitness guru and creator of creator of Get Ripped! -- a series of best-selling resistance exercise videos.

Advice: Men and women should include weight training in their workout regimens, says Love, who was recently in Winnipeg to promote her latest video.

The ultra-sculpted 41-year-old says women, in particular, should not be afraid that weight training will add unwanted beefiness. In fact, working out with weights helps battle the bulge by boosting metabolism and building muscle tissue -- both factors that make the body look leaner.

Love says she has fought her own genetics by working out with weights. (Her biological parents were obese.) An added bonus: Using weights helps maintain bone density and stave off osteoporosis.

Who: Cheryl Bartmanovich, a Lake Francis woman who appeared on Dr. Phil and Oprah after losing more than 100 pounds in one year through exercise and a healthy diet.

Advice: Bartmanovich, who has become a marathon runner and motivational speaker since dropping her excess weight in 2004, says that a workout buddy can keep you motivated.

But if you're like Bartmanovich and prefer to actually work out solo, find an online exercise community, she says.

"Just because I'm running by myself doesn't mean I can't talk to people with like interests -- somebody to whine to if you've had a bad day," says Bartmanovich, who, while trying to lose weight, found motivation by chatting on a Dr. Phil website bulletin board.

Who: Phyllis Reid-Jarvis, a Winnipeg registered dietitian and author.

Advice: Reid-Jarvis advocates fasting once a week -- but not the kind of extended food deprivation that's typically associated with the practice.

Instead, Reid-Jarvis recommends that normal, healthy adults (people who aren't pregnant, diabetic or suffering from an eating disorder) fast for a few hours once a week.

Starting off with a moderate six-hour fast (after a hearty breakfast) and increasing each fast by an hour until reaching a 10-hour fast is both psychologically and physically beneficial, says Reid-Jarvis.
She notes that going for a few hours without food will help you understand when you are truly hungry or full. "In our western culture, we have the opportunity to eat 24/7," says Reid-Jarvis, pointing out that most people tend to take full advantage of their eating opportunities -- gorging to excess. Not only are our stomachs too big, she says, but we tend to eat "on cue" rather than when we are hungry.

"When you fast, your stomach actually shrinks. And after they walk through the process of breaking their fast, they will realize what it feels like to be comfortably full -- not stuffed, not uncomfortable, not ready to burst," says the 14-year industry veteran.

Who: Dr. Melissa Hershberg, a Winnipeg-born physician who now lives in Toronto. She wrote The Hershberg Diet: Discover How the Fourth Macro Can Help You Shed Pounds and Beat the Metabolic Syndrome, a book that advocates the importance of eating more water-packed foods.

Advice: Ditch the dried fruit and opt for fresh, says Hershberg, who explains that a bunch of grapes is a decent amount of food for relatively few calories. On the other hand, eating a bunch of raisins -- the same fruit with its water removed -- will give you double the amount of calories and sugar, and leave you feeling less satisfied.

"Those foods are healthy, but they are also dry. So every bite that you put into your mouth is a calorie. People can just eat tonnes of calories and it doesn't fill their stomach up because there's no water," says Hershberg.

As well, water-packed foods such as fresh fruits, veggies and lean protein tend to be packed with more nutrients than their dry counterparts -- crackers, pretzels, etc.

Writer: Shamona Harnett

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Lucky in Love-The Secrets of Happy Couples and How Their Marriages Thrive has left my library to a destination where I hope it can have real impact. It has a lot of nuggets of bolded advice in it (based on her interviews of 100 couples that I hope will have some impact on their own. They will have more meaning however, if you pick up a copy of this book.

-If your friends and family do not think you are making the right choice, listen.

-When they meet, vital couples feel immediately at home with each other.

-When it comes to falling in love, do not dismiss your first impressions-Trust yourself.

-As they begin their relationship, neither member of a vital couple is trying to win.

-Polar opposites are not likely to remain happy together for long.

-Happy couples often experience themselves as being the same and different-As friends and lovers.

-For a marriage to be strong, both partners must stop being single at heart, and come to be married at heart.

-Happy couples establish and follow productive daily routines

-Happy couples establish and follow meaningful family routines

-In the happy couple two souls become one.

-Happy couples usually describe each other as their best friend.

-Happy couples drink each other in-internalized shared identity.

-The happiest of couples share a life Dream.

-If the dream is good for the dreamer, the shared dream is good for the marriage.

-A marriage stands an excellent chance of succeeding when one or both partners are naturally cheerful people.

-Happy couples expect each other to do their best

-When they argue, happy couples follow the rules

-Happy couples care more about the health of their relationships than about winning arguments.

-When an argument is not worth having, happy couples force themselves to walk away.

-If a couple is to be happy, is is essential that the partners see each other, and see themselves, as equals-regardless of how the world may see them.

-Happy couples do not, 'let it all hang out' -re anger and aguiments

-When they cannot agree on how to solve a conflict, happy couples manage to agree, at least in part, on what the problem is.

-When it is impossible to agree, it is important to try to understand.

-When compromise is not possible, happy couples make sure that each partner at least has a say in how things will turn out.

-When an agrument is resolved in terms of what is best for us, rathe than what is best for me, both partners come out happy.

-Happily marred people believe in being able to admint, at least to themselves, that they could be wrong.

-A happy marriage can help both partners to outgrow the worst character flaws of youth.

-Spouses are happiest, and most likely to change for the better, when their mates bolster their self-confidence.

-Marriages work best when partners encourage each other to come into her/her own.

-Marriages thrive when couples set clear limits.

-As with all marital arguments, formulating an ultimatum in terms of what is best for both partners is the wisest strategy

-Infertility may hurt happily married spouses individually, but it does not hurt them as a couple.

-If a child in trouble is a blow to any marriage, it is also equally an opportunity for wife and husband to build new love and respect for each other.

-As marriage enriches the self, so do children enrich the marriage.

-Just as the strong couple must share a vision of life, they must also share an understanding of loss.

-Couples cope best with tragedy when they are at peace with themselves.

-Self-forgiveness is an essential element in coming to terms with family tragedy.

-The strong couple finds a way to create good from bad, life from death.

-When they need help, happy couples instinctively assume help is available, and they keep looking until they find it.

-Most happy marriages are held together by a powerful and enduring sexual bond-even when partners do not fully realize it.

-Happily married couples are more than friends. They are mates (sexual bond).

-Happily married couples see each other's best selves.

-Happy long-term relationships are based in a fundamental chemical match.

-Vive la difference! (between the sexes)

-For happily married couples, it is strictly in the realm of fantasy and sexuality that mean were "superior".

-Almost universally, happy couples strongly believe in, and steadfastly practice, monogamy.

-It is essential not to take any major action that you will have to keep secret from your mate.

-Happy couples follow a policy of talking themselves out of attractions to others long before they leave the stage of temptation.

-Happy couples display a pervasive and fundamental equality on the question of money.

-A good marriage supports each partner's development in every realm: in love, in family, and in work.

-In the good marriage, partners have a good deal of faith in each other even they are concerned that the other may be wrong.

-Happily married people 'do well by doing good'.

-If a marriage is to be happy, both partners must feel that their particular division of labor, and of authority, is fair.

-Once a couple have children, they must function as a team in order to be happy.

-If the small child puts stress on his parents' marriage, the healthy grown child can just as surely support their marriage.

-Those couple who thrive in their older years have made peace with the past.

-Just as the adolescent must separate from his parents in order to lead a healthy adult life, so the parent must separate from the child in order to enjoy a healthy old age.

-When spouses are proud of their life together, they are not preoccupied with life's end.

Check out more about the author and her other books by clicking here Sharyn Wolf books

Wolf is also the author fo Guerilla Dating Tactics and 50 Ways To Find A Lover.

Or you can search on the following topics by clicking the link.
Relationships
Dating

More recommendations of other useful relationship books and articles coming over the next months. Suggest your favorites in the Comments or email to me.

We like to think that fine books, tapes, games and music deserve loving second homes. Search a portion of our books at Biblio. Or browse our books and more at Library Thing.and view details about our Library there.

Here's hoping the book will have a big impact at its new home. Keep working on your love life! It's worth the effort.

Last week, I gave blood, took part in the Terry Fox Run raising money for cancer research, and also the Rock for Relief fundraiser by the Canadian Red Cross/92 Citi Fm and Two Small Guys with Big Hearts Trucking raising money for Hurricane Katrina relief. A couple of quarters for a panhandler, a few more bucks here and there for other causes that approached, and lot of thinking about making a difference. Who is this masked man, others asked? The World's Rearranger (thank you Robert Plant)

A funeral for a fine young man, Dustin Hickie, 16, a close friend of my daughter, touched me deeply. Why is the answer to cancer's ravages still so elusive? There is so much more I can do in my life on earth to help others, even a bit, and I knew my effort had been weak at best so far.

So I gave myself a kick in the pants with the help of Dustin and my friend Del and my father and others who have gone before. But it still begs the questions, why does it often take someone leaving this world to get us to act? Why are we so insulated? How can we, as individuals, act against the pain and suffering, hunger and illness without turning ourselves inside out again and again with feelings of hopelessness and helplessness? How can we stop the tears for a while and see the lights of hope again?

The opportunities to to make a difference will appear, if we keep our eyes and ears open and we find out what touches us personally. What brings tears to our eyes and sobs to our chest? Or just get involved. What is the first thing we think of in the morning...the last thing at night. Your passion for these things will keep you coming back.

It took the death of a young man I didn't know well, but I liked, far too early in life, to give me better focus. Other events had hurt but did not have that effect. In this way he lives on with me and my daughter. You will find inspiration in your life to make a difference if you look.

I can do more! I hope you can to.

Would you like Willa to not only perform the vows at your wedding, but also sing one of her selection of favorite wedding song? At no cost to you! One couple will be selected. You will become our featured couple of 2005. You and her will work together to create the vows that will last forever and choose a song that has real meaning for both of you.

Tell us what songs do you want, what kind of vows, where should it be held, who will come, what will the after marriage celebration be all about and all the other things that are running through your mind. Tell us in 500 words or less what would be "The Perfect Marriage Day" for the two of you. Send us your entries now to "willaweddings@rempelgroup.com"

If you live outside of Winnipeg or elsewhere around the world, Willa has a marriage day advice program that is inexpensive and will ensure your vows, songs and other planning is as perfect as possible. Contact us at the email address above. Consultations start as low as $50. Couples from outside Winnipeg are welcome to send in their The Perfect Event entries to win a free consultation with Willa.

To book Willa for a marriage ceremony in 2005 please contact her immediately by email or through the Rempel Group offices at (204) 256-5008 to ensure you get the time and date you want.