Tony Horton's Notes
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Greetings my friends,
I'm excited to introduce you to the Learning Breakthrough Program (LBP), an effective, innovative, inexpensive, exercise-based treatment for ADHD and reading problems.
I am always looking for new, non-medication treatments for both ADHD and reading problems, and I believe this is one of the best. It is actually not new, in that it has been in use clinically for 30 years. However, some of the science behind it is new. It is based upon the principle of stimulating the cerebellum, a region at the back of the brain that has connections to the front parts of the brain, which is where the symptoms involved in ADHD and reading problems originate.
By stimulating the cerebellum through physical exercises, like standing on a balance board, juggling, standing on one leg with your eyes closed, and a variety of others, you can actually bring about improvement in concentration and reading fluency, by taking advantage of the connections from the cerebellum to the front parts of the brain.
The beauty of the Learning Breakthrough Program is that it makes this therapy affordable, convenient, and actually fun. You order the kit and do the exercises at home. You can demonstrate for yourself that it is working by doing the before and after comparisons the kit shows you how to do. So, you get immediate positive reinforcement, which is a powerful motivator to keep you, or your child, doing the exercises.
One of my sons and my wife benefitted enormously from cerebellar stimulation exercises, my son with a reading problem, and my wife with a coordination problem (yes, these exercises also improve coordination and athleticism!).
LBP can--and should--be used as part of a comprehensive treatment program that also includes education, coaching, tutoring, perhaps medication, and perhaps additional complementary treatments.
I am so enthusiastic about LBP that I have leant my name to endorse the product. I have become a consultant to the company, and while they do pay me for my time, I would never endorse a product I did not totally believe in. While we do need more research to prove the efficacy of LBP, I have seen enough anecdotally for me to be a big-time fan of this effective, convenient, and affordable treatment.
I think LBP is one of the most exciting innovations in the treatment of ADHD and reading problems since the advent of stimulant medication in 1937. And it carries the possibility of going one better than medications, in that it addresses underlying causes.
The only drawback to LBP is that not enough people know about it. I hope to help in the effort to change that soon!
To learn more, go to the LBP web site, learningbreakthrough.com
all warm wishes,
Ned Hallowell
I'm excited to introduce you to the Learning Breakthrough Program (LBP), an effective, innovative, inexpensive, exercise-based treatment for ADHD and reading problems.
I am always looking for new, non-medication treatments for both ADHD and reading problems, and I believe this is one of the best. It is actually not new, in that it has been in use clinically for 30 years. However, some of the science behind it is new. It is based upon the principle of stimulating the cerebellum, a region at the back of the brain that has connections to the front parts of the brain, which is where the symptoms involved in ADHD and reading problems originate.
By stimulating the cerebellum through physical exercises, like standing on a balance board, juggling, standing on one leg with your eyes closed, and a variety of others, you can actually bring about improvement in concentration and reading fluency, by taking advantage of the connections from the cerebellum to the front parts of the brain.
The beauty of the Learning Breakthrough Program is that it makes this therapy affordable, convenient, and actually fun. You order the kit and do the exercises at home. You can demonstrate for yourself that it is working by doing the before and after comparisons the kit shows you how to do. So, you get immediate positive reinforcement, which is a powerful motivator to keep you, or your child, doing the exercises.
One of my sons and my wife benefitted enormously from cerebellar stimulation exercises, my son with a reading problem, and my wife with a coordination problem (yes, these exercises also improve coordination and athleticism!).
LBP can--and should--be used as part of a comprehensive treatment program that also includes education, coaching, tutoring, perhaps medication, and perhaps additional complementary treatments.
I am so enthusiastic about LBP that I have leant my name to endorse the product. I have become a consultant to the company, and while they do pay me for my time, I would never endorse a product I did not totally believe in. While we do need more research to prove the efficacy of LBP, I have seen enough anecdotally for me to be a big-time fan of this effective, convenient, and affordable treatment.
I think LBP is one of the most exciting innovations in the treatment of ADHD and reading problems since the advent of stimulant medication in 1937. And it carries the possibility of going one better than medications, in that it addresses underlying causes.
The only drawback to LBP is that not enough people know about it. I hope to help in the effort to change that soon!
To learn more, go to the LBP web site, learningbreakthrough.com
all warm wishes,
Ned Hallowell
The choice to exercise and eat right every day is choosing a better life.
Choosing to not exercise and eat garbage is choosing to have a less productive, unhealthy, miserable life. Harsh? When I talk to folks about life before regular exercise and healthy eating they tell me over and over again that life was often a train wreck. I always hear how the switch to a lifestyle of regular exercise and healthy food made life infinitely better.
This is a rare universal truth.
It's not about weight loss or fitting into smaller clothing or looking better. These are not reasons that keep people motivated over time. They are short term misguided objectives based on your need to be liked.
Make the switch right now, because it's the only way to keep father time from kicking your ass.
TH-
Choosing to not exercise and eat garbage is choosing to have a less productive, unhealthy, miserable life. Harsh? When I talk to folks about life before regular exercise and healthy eating they tell me over and over again that life was often a train wreck. I always hear how the switch to a lifestyle of regular exercise and healthy food made life infinitely better.
This is a rare universal truth.
It's not about weight loss or fitting into smaller clothing or looking better. These are not reasons that keep people motivated over time. They are short term misguided objectives based on your need to be liked.
Make the switch right now, because it's the only way to keep father time from kicking your ass.
TH-
November 8, 2009
Heavier Americans Push Back on Health Debate
New York Times
By SUSAN SAULNY
Marilyn Wann is an author and weight diversity speaker in Northern California who has a message for anyone making judgments about her health based on her large physique. “The only thing anyone can accurately diagnose by looking at a fat person is their own level of stereotype and prejudice about fat,” said Ms. Wann, a 43-year-old San Franciscan whose motto in life is also the title of her book: “Fat! So?”
Hers has been an oft-repeated message this summer and fall by members of the “fat pride” community, given that the nation is in the midst of a debate about health care. That debate has, sometimes awkwardly, focused its attention on the growing population of overweight and obese Americans with unambiguous overtones: fat people should lose weight, for the good of us all.
Heavier Americans are pushing back now with newfound vigor in the policy debate, lobbying legislators and trying to move public opinion to recognize their point of view: that thin does not necessarily equal fit, and that people can be healthy at any size. Extra weight brings with it an increased risk of chronic disease, medical experts say, and heavier people tend to have medical costs that are substantially higher than their leaner counterparts. As a result, Congress is considering proposals in the effort to overhaul health care that would make it easier for employers to use financial rewards or penalties to promote healthy behavior by employees, like weight loss.
Other less-scientific arguments have also gained traction on blogs, chat shows and editorial pages since talk of the overhaul began in earnest, with the overweight cast as lazy or gluttonous liabilities and therefore not entitled to universal health coverage because of poor personal decision-making. As that thinking goes, a healthful eater should not have to pay for the consequences of someone else’s greasy burger binges.
Either way, heavy people — characterized as over-consumers of health care or as those who should miss out on discounts because of their size — say they have been maligned throughout the debate. “I thought, ‘Health reform? Yay!’ ” said Lynn McAfee, the director of medical advocacy for the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, an advocacy group for heavy people. But Ms. McAfee said it was not long before her sentiment changed to the more sober, “Oh no, we’re being scapegoated again.”
It is an uphill battle. But the health care debate has, unexpectedly, also provided an opportunity for new expressions of what Ms. Wann calls “fat pride,” the notion that weight diversity is a good thing and that size discrimination is as offensive as any other kind.
“The stigma is so heavy a burden that it took our community 40 years before it could go to Capitol Hill and lobby for ourselves,” said Ms. Wann, a member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, an advocacy group that organized a lobbying trip to Washington for its members this spring. “We’re kind of a popular punching bag. You can do incredibly discriminating, hurtful, hateful things to fat people in public and not only get away with it but be seen as some kind of superhero.”
On Capitol Hill, the association asked legislators for a public option from which fat people could not be excluded because of weight and for coverage that did not consider excess weight a pre-existing condition. “Basically,” Ms. Wann continued, “we want to be treated with respect the same as everyone else.” Americans are more overweight and obese than they were 10 years ago, or even one year ago, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America’s Health, which published a state-by-state study in June.
It showed that the trend is up sharply.
Two-thirds of all Americans are overweight or obese. In four states — Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia — more than 30 percent of adults are obese. In 1991, in contrast, no state had an obesity rate over 20 percent. And, according to the American Obesity Association, a research organization, poor minority women have the greatest likelihood of being overweight.
Weight is an incendiary issue, experts said, and that may be why it had such staying power as a hot topic of conversation through the health care debate. “All national health insurance systems are built on the idea that we’re all part of a community, we all get sick and die, so we’re going to take care of one another,” said James Morone, a professor of political science and urban studies at Brown University. “The best philosophical way to stop national health insurance is to say we’re not a community, it’s ‘us vs. them.’ ”
But what has been different about this particular issue, this year, is that “people are pushing back,” Professor Morone said. Peggy Howell, the public relations director for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, said she had been on the phone delivering her group’s message and answering more news media calls this year than ever before.
The message is simple, she said: “We believe that fat people can eat healthy food and add movement to their lives and be healthy. And healthy should be the goal, not thin.”
That idea is gaining strength and popularity among a segment of the overweight population that feels as though traditional dieting to lose weight does more harm than good, ultimately benefiting the $30 billion weight loss industry, not the public. “I get so angry when I feel people pushing a weight-loss agenda,” said Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor at City College of San Francisco and author of “Health at Every Size,” a book published last year whose title has become the rallying cry of the fat pride community.
“What we’re doing in public health care policy is harmful. We give a direct and clear message that there’s something wrong with being fat.” A federally financed study by Ms. Bacon, published in the book, found that there were many people who could be healthy in fat bodies. Ms. Wann used some of Ms. Bacon’s findings as her talking points when she visited legislators with other lobbyists for “fat acceptance” in May.
She said she felt encouraged that the health care bill the House Democratic leaders unveiled on Thursday does not allow changes in insurance pricing based on obesity. But there is still a long way to go before any bill becomes law. “For me, the takeaway point that was heartening and historic and exhilarating is that it was the first time we started lobbying for a humane health-enhancing system,” said Ms. Wann, who is self-employed and, in her own words, fat and uninsurable.
“We’re all in this life raft together,” she said.
Correction: November 8, 2009
Heavier Americans Push Back on Health Debate
New York Times
By SUSAN SAULNY
Marilyn Wann is an author and weight diversity speaker in Northern California who has a message for anyone making judgments about her health based on her large physique. “The only thing anyone can accurately diagnose by looking at a fat person is their own level of stereotype and prejudice about fat,” said Ms. Wann, a 43-year-old San Franciscan whose motto in life is also the title of her book: “Fat! So?”
Hers has been an oft-repeated message this summer and fall by members of the “fat pride” community, given that the nation is in the midst of a debate about health care. That debate has, sometimes awkwardly, focused its attention on the growing population of overweight and obese Americans with unambiguous overtones: fat people should lose weight, for the good of us all.
Heavier Americans are pushing back now with newfound vigor in the policy debate, lobbying legislators and trying to move public opinion to recognize their point of view: that thin does not necessarily equal fit, and that people can be healthy at any size. Extra weight brings with it an increased risk of chronic disease, medical experts say, and heavier people tend to have medical costs that are substantially higher than their leaner counterparts. As a result, Congress is considering proposals in the effort to overhaul health care that would make it easier for employers to use financial rewards or penalties to promote healthy behavior by employees, like weight loss.
Other less-scientific arguments have also gained traction on blogs, chat shows and editorial pages since talk of the overhaul began in earnest, with the overweight cast as lazy or gluttonous liabilities and therefore not entitled to universal health coverage because of poor personal decision-making. As that thinking goes, a healthful eater should not have to pay for the consequences of someone else’s greasy burger binges.
Either way, heavy people — characterized as over-consumers of health care or as those who should miss out on discounts because of their size — say they have been maligned throughout the debate. “I thought, ‘Health reform? Yay!’ ” said Lynn McAfee, the director of medical advocacy for the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, an advocacy group for heavy people. But Ms. McAfee said it was not long before her sentiment changed to the more sober, “Oh no, we’re being scapegoated again.”
It is an uphill battle. But the health care debate has, unexpectedly, also provided an opportunity for new expressions of what Ms. Wann calls “fat pride,” the notion that weight diversity is a good thing and that size discrimination is as offensive as any other kind.
“The stigma is so heavy a burden that it took our community 40 years before it could go to Capitol Hill and lobby for ourselves,” said Ms. Wann, a member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, an advocacy group that organized a lobbying trip to Washington for its members this spring. “We’re kind of a popular punching bag. You can do incredibly discriminating, hurtful, hateful things to fat people in public and not only get away with it but be seen as some kind of superhero.”
On Capitol Hill, the association asked legislators for a public option from which fat people could not be excluded because of weight and for coverage that did not consider excess weight a pre-existing condition. “Basically,” Ms. Wann continued, “we want to be treated with respect the same as everyone else.” Americans are more overweight and obese than they were 10 years ago, or even one year ago, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America’s Health, which published a state-by-state study in June.
It showed that the trend is up sharply.
Two-thirds of all Americans are overweight or obese. In four states — Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and West Virginia — more than 30 percent of adults are obese. In 1991, in contrast, no state had an obesity rate over 20 percent. And, according to the American Obesity Association, a research organization, poor minority women have the greatest likelihood of being overweight.
Weight is an incendiary issue, experts said, and that may be why it had such staying power as a hot topic of conversation through the health care debate. “All national health insurance systems are built on the idea that we’re all part of a community, we all get sick and die, so we’re going to take care of one another,” said James Morone, a professor of political science and urban studies at Brown University. “The best philosophical way to stop national health insurance is to say we’re not a community, it’s ‘us vs. them.’ ”
But what has been different about this particular issue, this year, is that “people are pushing back,” Professor Morone said. Peggy Howell, the public relations director for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, said she had been on the phone delivering her group’s message and answering more news media calls this year than ever before.
The message is simple, she said: “We believe that fat people can eat healthy food and add movement to their lives and be healthy. And healthy should be the goal, not thin.”
That idea is gaining strength and popularity among a segment of the overweight population that feels as though traditional dieting to lose weight does more harm than good, ultimately benefiting the $30 billion weight loss industry, not the public. “I get so angry when I feel people pushing a weight-loss agenda,” said Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor at City College of San Francisco and author of “Health at Every Size,” a book published last year whose title has become the rallying cry of the fat pride community.
“What we’re doing in public health care policy is harmful. We give a direct and clear message that there’s something wrong with being fat.” A federally financed study by Ms. Bacon, published in the book, found that there were many people who could be healthy in fat bodies. Ms. Wann used some of Ms. Bacon’s findings as her talking points when she visited legislators with other lobbyists for “fat acceptance” in May.
She said she felt encouraged that the health care bill the House Democratic leaders unveiled on Thursday does not allow changes in insurance pricing based on obesity. But there is still a long way to go before any bill becomes law. “For me, the takeaway point that was heartening and historic and exhilarating is that it was the first time we started lobbying for a humane health-enhancing system,” said Ms. Wann, who is self-employed and, in her own words, fat and uninsurable.
“We’re all in this life raft together,” she said.
Correction: November 8, 2009
Excerpt from the feature article, page 66:
What else do you do to stay fit?
“My husband and I started the Tony Horton P90X exercise program a few weeks ago; it comes with 12 workout DVDs, which I like because I prefer exercising at home. Now I’m strong enough to do a pull-up – the first time I did one I was so excited that I called my kids and husband into the room!”
What else do you do to stay fit?
“My husband and I started the Tony Horton P90X exercise program a few weeks ago; it comes with 12 workout DVDs, which I like because I prefer exercising at home. Now I’m strong enough to do a pull-up – the first time I did one I was so excited that I called my kids and husband into the room!”
Does Exercise Boost Immunity?
By Gretchen Reynolds
Two recent experiments hit rather close to home at this time of year. In the first, published last year in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, researchers divided mice into two groups. One rested comfortably in their cages. The other ran on little treadmills until they were exhausted. This continued for three days. The mice were then exposed to an influenza virus. After a few days, more of the mice who’d exhausted themselves running came down with the flu than the control mice. They also had more severe symptoms.
In the second experiment, published in the same journal, scientists from the University of Illinois and other schools first infected laboratory mice with flu. One group then rested; a second group ran for a leisurely 20 or 30 minutes, an easy jog for a mouse; the third group ran for a taxing two and a half hours. Each group repeated this routine for three days, until they began to show flu symptoms. The flu bug used in this experiment is devastating to rodents, and more than half of the sedentary mice died. But only 12 percent of the gently jogging mice passed away. Meanwhile, an eye-popping 70 percent of the mice in the group that had run for hours died, and even those that survived were more debilitated and sick than the control group.
Is this good news or bad? This is a particularly relevant question as two important human events converge: the peaking of the fall marathon and other sports seasons and the simultaneous onset of the winter cold and flu term. Scientists are diligently working to answer that question, perhaps because they are as interested as the rest of us in avoiding or lessening the severity of colds and the flu. The bulk of the new research, including the mouse studies mentioned, reinforce a theory that physiologists advanced some years ago, about what they call “a J-shaped curve” involving exercise and immunity. In this model, the risk both of catching a cold or the flu and of having a particularly severe form of the infection “drop if you exercise moderately,” says Mary P. Miles, PhD, an associate professor of exercise sciences at Montana State University and the author of an editorial about exercise and immunity published in the most recent edition of the journal Exercise and Sport Sciences Review. But the risk both of catching an illness and of becoming especially sick when you do “jump right back up” if you exercise intensely or for a prolonged period of time, surpassing the risks among the sedentary. (Although definitions of intense exercise vary among researchers, most define it as a workout or race of an hour or more during which your heart rate and respiration soar and you feel as if you are working hard.)
Why exercise should affect either your susceptibility to catching an illness or how badly a particular bug affects you is still unclear. But it does appear that intense workouts and racing suppress the body’s immune response for a period of time immediately after you’ve finished exercising and that “the longer the duration and the more intense” the exercise, “the longer the temporary period of immunosuppression lasts — anything from a few hours to a few days has been suggested,” says Nicolette Bishop, an associate professor of sport and exercise sciences at Loughborough University and the author of a review article about exercise and immunity published in January.
A telling new study, published in August in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, looked at cellular markers of immune system activity in the saliva of twenty-four, Spanish, professional soccer players, before and after a strenuous, 70-minute match. Before play, the saliva of most of the players showed normal levels of immunoglobulins, substances that help to fight off infection. Afterward, concentrations of saliva immunoglobulins in many of them had fallen dramatically.
Related
If scientists aren’t sure yet why intense exercise temporarily depresses the immune system, however, they seem to be closer to understanding why, once you’ve caught a bug, intense exercise can make the symptoms and severity worse. In work at the University of Illinois, reported last month in the journal Exercise and Sport Sciences Review, some of the same scientists who’d studied mice and flu looked at just what was going on inside the cells of the affected animals. They found that the leisurely jogging rodents showed signs of a very particular immune response to the flu. In general, and this is true in both mice and men, says Jeffrey A. Woods, a professor of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois and one of the scientists involved, viruses evoke an increase in what are called T1-type helper immune cells. These T1-helper cells induce inflammation and other changes in the body that represent a first line of defense against an invading virus. But if the inflammation, at first so helpful, continues for too long, it becomes counterproductive. The immune system needs, then, at some point to lessen the amount of T1-mediated inflammatory response, so that, in fighting the virus, it doesn’t accidentally harm its own host. The immune system does this by gradually increasing the amount of another kind of immune cell, T2-helper cells, which produce mostly an anti-inflammatory immune response. They’re water to the T1 fire. But the balance between the T1- and T2-helper cells must be exquisitely calibrated.
In the mice at the University of Illinois, moderate exercise subtly hastened the shift from a T1 response to a T2-style immune response — not by much, but by just enough, apparently, to have a positive impact against the flu. “Moderate exercise appears to suppress TH1 a little, increase TH2 a little,” Woods says.
On the other hand, intense or prolonged exercise “may suppress TH1 too much,” he says. Long, hard runs or other workouts may shut down that first line of defense before it has completed its work, which could lead, Woods says “to increased susceptibility to viral infection.” So, if you have just completed a strenuous 20-mile training run and have, in consequence, a depressed immune response, avoid colleagues who are sniffling. Wash your hands often. “I would recommend everyone get the annual influenza vaccination and the new H1N1 vaccination,” Woods says. But if all of that has been for naught and you now feel the early stirrings of sickness, “listen to your body and be prudent in your exercise decisions,” Woods says. In general, moderate exercise, such as a leisurely jog or walk, may prop up your immune response and lessen the duration and severity of a mild infection, but be honest about your condition. “If you don’t feel well, especially if you have fever or body aches, I would recommend stopping daily exercise until you are recovered,” Woods says. “It is okay to exercise if you have a simple head cold or congestion — in fact, it may improve the way you feel. I would avoid heavy, prolonged exercise with a head cold, though,” since it can unbalance that important T1 and T2-helper cell response.
And take comfort in the results of the most recent study to look at actual, practicing marathoners. In it, 1,694 runners at the 2000 Stockholm Marathon informed researchers about any colds or other infectious illness they developed in the three weeks before or three weeks after the race. Nearly one-fifth of the runners fell ill during that time period. That’s higher than the rates in people generally, but it still means that the overwhelming majority of runners didn’t get sick.
By Gretchen Reynolds
Two recent experiments hit rather close to home at this time of year. In the first, published last year in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, researchers divided mice into two groups. One rested comfortably in their cages. The other ran on little treadmills until they were exhausted. This continued for three days. The mice were then exposed to an influenza virus. After a few days, more of the mice who’d exhausted themselves running came down with the flu than the control mice. They also had more severe symptoms.
In the second experiment, published in the same journal, scientists from the University of Illinois and other schools first infected laboratory mice with flu. One group then rested; a second group ran for a leisurely 20 or 30 minutes, an easy jog for a mouse; the third group ran for a taxing two and a half hours. Each group repeated this routine for three days, until they began to show flu symptoms. The flu bug used in this experiment is devastating to rodents, and more than half of the sedentary mice died. But only 12 percent of the gently jogging mice passed away. Meanwhile, an eye-popping 70 percent of the mice in the group that had run for hours died, and even those that survived were more debilitated and sick than the control group.
Is this good news or bad? This is a particularly relevant question as two important human events converge: the peaking of the fall marathon and other sports seasons and the simultaneous onset of the winter cold and flu term. Scientists are diligently working to answer that question, perhaps because they are as interested as the rest of us in avoiding or lessening the severity of colds and the flu. The bulk of the new research, including the mouse studies mentioned, reinforce a theory that physiologists advanced some years ago, about what they call “a J-shaped curve” involving exercise and immunity. In this model, the risk both of catching a cold or the flu and of having a particularly severe form of the infection “drop if you exercise moderately,” says Mary P. Miles, PhD, an associate professor of exercise sciences at Montana State University and the author of an editorial about exercise and immunity published in the most recent edition of the journal Exercise and Sport Sciences Review. But the risk both of catching an illness and of becoming especially sick when you do “jump right back up” if you exercise intensely or for a prolonged period of time, surpassing the risks among the sedentary. (Although definitions of intense exercise vary among researchers, most define it as a workout or race of an hour or more during which your heart rate and respiration soar and you feel as if you are working hard.)
Why exercise should affect either your susceptibility to catching an illness or how badly a particular bug affects you is still unclear. But it does appear that intense workouts and racing suppress the body’s immune response for a period of time immediately after you’ve finished exercising and that “the longer the duration and the more intense” the exercise, “the longer the temporary period of immunosuppression lasts — anything from a few hours to a few days has been suggested,” says Nicolette Bishop, an associate professor of sport and exercise sciences at Loughborough University and the author of a review article about exercise and immunity published in January.
A telling new study, published in August in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, looked at cellular markers of immune system activity in the saliva of twenty-four, Spanish, professional soccer players, before and after a strenuous, 70-minute match. Before play, the saliva of most of the players showed normal levels of immunoglobulins, substances that help to fight off infection. Afterward, concentrations of saliva immunoglobulins in many of them had fallen dramatically.
Related
If scientists aren’t sure yet why intense exercise temporarily depresses the immune system, however, they seem to be closer to understanding why, once you’ve caught a bug, intense exercise can make the symptoms and severity worse. In work at the University of Illinois, reported last month in the journal Exercise and Sport Sciences Review, some of the same scientists who’d studied mice and flu looked at just what was going on inside the cells of the affected animals. They found that the leisurely jogging rodents showed signs of a very particular immune response to the flu. In general, and this is true in both mice and men, says Jeffrey A. Woods, a professor of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois and one of the scientists involved, viruses evoke an increase in what are called T1-type helper immune cells. These T1-helper cells induce inflammation and other changes in the body that represent a first line of defense against an invading virus. But if the inflammation, at first so helpful, continues for too long, it becomes counterproductive. The immune system needs, then, at some point to lessen the amount of T1-mediated inflammatory response, so that, in fighting the virus, it doesn’t accidentally harm its own host. The immune system does this by gradually increasing the amount of another kind of immune cell, T2-helper cells, which produce mostly an anti-inflammatory immune response. They’re water to the T1 fire. But the balance between the T1- and T2-helper cells must be exquisitely calibrated.
In the mice at the University of Illinois, moderate exercise subtly hastened the shift from a T1 response to a T2-style immune response — not by much, but by just enough, apparently, to have a positive impact against the flu. “Moderate exercise appears to suppress TH1 a little, increase TH2 a little,” Woods says.
On the other hand, intense or prolonged exercise “may suppress TH1 too much,” he says. Long, hard runs or other workouts may shut down that first line of defense before it has completed its work, which could lead, Woods says “to increased susceptibility to viral infection.” So, if you have just completed a strenuous 20-mile training run and have, in consequence, a depressed immune response, avoid colleagues who are sniffling. Wash your hands often. “I would recommend everyone get the annual influenza vaccination and the new H1N1 vaccination,” Woods says. But if all of that has been for naught and you now feel the early stirrings of sickness, “listen to your body and be prudent in your exercise decisions,” Woods says. In general, moderate exercise, such as a leisurely jog or walk, may prop up your immune response and lessen the duration and severity of a mild infection, but be honest about your condition. “If you don’t feel well, especially if you have fever or body aches, I would recommend stopping daily exercise until you are recovered,” Woods says. “It is okay to exercise if you have a simple head cold or congestion — in fact, it may improve the way you feel. I would avoid heavy, prolonged exercise with a head cold, though,” since it can unbalance that important T1 and T2-helper cell response.
And take comfort in the results of the most recent study to look at actual, practicing marathoners. In it, 1,694 runners at the 2000 Stockholm Marathon informed researchers about any colds or other infectious illness they developed in the three weeks before or three weeks after the race. Nearly one-fifth of the runners fell ill during that time period. That’s higher than the rates in people generally, but it still means that the overwhelming majority of runners didn’t get sick.
I was training my client Mark the other day and I asked him if he thought any of his friends could get through the workout I had just put him through. He thought for a while and said, "Maybe a couple." Mark is 48 and has dozens of friends who can't begin to touch his level of fitness in their present state. Most of them would have never gotten through his pull-up and push-up routine without hurling or quitting half way through. At 50 I might have 4 friends who can get through most of my workouts. All younger than me. I'm not here to brag or boast, but I am here to let you know that as the clock ticks into the future so do your opportunities to improve physically, mentally and emotionally.
When I was training Mark I also asked him if he saw himself working this hard in his 60s, 70s or 80s. He said he hoped to. The truth is, if he kept it up, there'd be no reason why he couldn't do most of his present day workouts in his 70s and 80s. Here's a guy doing sets of 30 push-ups and 10 plus pull-ups for an entire workout, who couldn't do that in college. I'm not saying that college linebackers are going to bench 375 lbs in their 70s, but I am saying that the human body is capable of amazing things well into your 70s and 80s, if the human mind is willing to show up too.
Quite often older athletes struggle because of their unwillingness to mix these up and stay consistent. If you have a one, two or no dimensional approach to exercise you leave yourself wide open to injuries and issues as you get older. With injuries comes disappointment. With disappointment comes fear. With fear comes less exercise period. The words "I used to ______" make me angry. The glory days are not over! They are right now. You just need to know what to do and how to do it. An example is when I see older folks running. At some point you have to realize that the thing that brought you, might be destroying you now. Bent over choppy strides is an indication that yoga never happened in previous years. The effort is there, but lack of acknowledgement that something is wrong is the problem.
If you're reading this and you're younger than 50 and haven't made movement and healthy eating a priority yet, then do yourself a favor and get busy because the clock is ticking and the last third of you life will be bleak. Look around at the people in your life who've made it to 60, 70 and 80 who haven't taken care of themselves. What do you see? Issues. Lots of issues. Is that any way to live your life? Trying to solve these issues with pills, potions and processed foods? I think not. Consistency, Variety, Intensity and Curiosity are the keys to lifelong health and fitness. If you mix it up, you'll avoid the pitfalls of aches, injuries and the fear of failure as you get older.
The Future ~ Coming Soon. Bring it Now!
When I was training Mark I also asked him if he saw himself working this hard in his 60s, 70s or 80s. He said he hoped to. The truth is, if he kept it up, there'd be no reason why he couldn't do most of his present day workouts in his 70s and 80s. Here's a guy doing sets of 30 push-ups and 10 plus pull-ups for an entire workout, who couldn't do that in college. I'm not saying that college linebackers are going to bench 375 lbs in their 70s, but I am saying that the human body is capable of amazing things well into your 70s and 80s, if the human mind is willing to show up too.
Quite often older athletes struggle because of their unwillingness to mix these up and stay consistent. If you have a one, two or no dimensional approach to exercise you leave yourself wide open to injuries and issues as you get older. With injuries comes disappointment. With disappointment comes fear. With fear comes less exercise period. The words "I used to ______" make me angry. The glory days are not over! They are right now. You just need to know what to do and how to do it. An example is when I see older folks running. At some point you have to realize that the thing that brought you, might be destroying you now. Bent over choppy strides is an indication that yoga never happened in previous years. The effort is there, but lack of acknowledgement that something is wrong is the problem.
If you're reading this and you're younger than 50 and haven't made movement and healthy eating a priority yet, then do yourself a favor and get busy because the clock is ticking and the last third of you life will be bleak. Look around at the people in your life who've made it to 60, 70 and 80 who haven't taken care of themselves. What do you see? Issues. Lots of issues. Is that any way to live your life? Trying to solve these issues with pills, potions and processed foods? I think not. Consistency, Variety, Intensity and Curiosity are the keys to lifelong health and fitness. If you mix it up, you'll avoid the pitfalls of aches, injuries and the fear of failure as you get older.
The Future ~ Coming Soon. Bring it Now!
Dear Hilton,
Great news about your chiropractor and family. Not surprised the
walking stopped working. The body needs several kinds of movements
during the course of a week for real change to occur. This is why P90X
works so well and why it's become so popular with a wide array of
people. From Cheryl Crow to Ray Lewis. Tell them I'm looking forward
to their success stories after the 90 days are up.
Your travel schedule won't be a problem with P90X. You can do 90% of
the program in a small space with one or two resistance bands. More
than half the program is body weight training. Make a plan and set a
goal to complete the 90 days, because each day you eat right and
exercise your health, fitness and quality of life improves. Each day
you don't, it won't.
Good Luck!
Tony Horton
Great news about your chiropractor and family. Not surprised the
walking stopped working. The body needs several kinds of movements
during the course of a week for real change to occur. This is why P90X
works so well and why it's become so popular with a wide array of
people. From Cheryl Crow to Ray Lewis. Tell them I'm looking forward
to their success stories after the 90 days are up.
Your travel schedule won't be a problem with P90X. You can do 90% of
the program in a small space with one or two resistance bands. More
than half the program is body weight training. Make a plan and set a
goal to complete the 90 days, because each day you eat right and
exercise your health, fitness and quality of life improves. Each day
you don't, it won't.
Good Luck!
Tony Horton
It's not the Democrats and it's not the Republicans, it's YOU! Your inability to move your ass and eat right is a burden on the rest of us. If you've turned things around, I thank you for your courageous effort. Just keep going. If you have not then find a way. Now! I'm tired of listening to all the whining and finger pointing from people with no discipline and bad habits. Good Health Care starts with YOU taking care of your health!
The turning of summer to autumn brings many things here in the north land. The days get shorter as the sun's track beckons the south horizon. In the early morning, a cold bite braces the face and body as frost shines its frigid face... signaling the start of the new season. The water in the lake is now cold, repelling all but the most hardy swimmers and boaters. The tourists have all gone home, leaving a sleepy rural village in their wake. And of course, the call of fall is the call to arms.
Brothers in snow, we stand on the precipice of the new season. Now is the time to think boldly, to plan, to act. We do this now, with imperfect information, and no guarantees about the future. With zealous resolve we plunge ahead dreaming of the glory that lies ahead, mere weeks from now. The season is emerging like dawn through the nebula bringing promise and hope to us all. No eternal reward will forgive us for wasting the dawn, so heed the warning and act!!
All to soon friends, we will be shredding together again. Snow will soon be falling from the sky in inches and feet, covering the mountains and providing the canvas for our art. The joy of expression fulfilled in deep powder... it lies just ahead. But where and when, these are important variables that need defining...
So, in closing, consider that Thanksgiving is a mere 58 days away. With any luck, I'll be skiing deep POW by then (though I'll probably be dodging rocks on a low angle, sketchy slope, with "variable conditions"). Soon after we'll be skiing together as a team, reliving the joy of seasons past and reveling in the snow of tomorrow.
Peace brothers & sisters and remember to think snow everyday...if you believe in it, it will come.
Out
J
Brothers in snow, we stand on the precipice of the new season. Now is the time to think boldly, to plan, to act. We do this now, with imperfect information, and no guarantees about the future. With zealous resolve we plunge ahead dreaming of the glory that lies ahead, mere weeks from now. The season is emerging like dawn through the nebula bringing promise and hope to us all. No eternal reward will forgive us for wasting the dawn, so heed the warning and act!!
All to soon friends, we will be shredding together again. Snow will soon be falling from the sky in inches and feet, covering the mountains and providing the canvas for our art. The joy of expression fulfilled in deep powder... it lies just ahead. But where and when, these are important variables that need defining...
So, in closing, consider that Thanksgiving is a mere 58 days away. With any luck, I'll be skiing deep POW by then (though I'll probably be dodging rocks on a low angle, sketchy slope, with "variable conditions"). Soon after we'll be skiing together as a team, reliving the joy of seasons past and reveling in the snow of tomorrow.
Peace brothers & sisters and remember to think snow everyday...if you believe in it, it will come.
Out
J
Experiencing grief is a natural reaction to loss. Loss is a part of life. Most of us associate grief with the death of a loved one, the loss a job, a relationship, or even when we receive a medical diagnosis which threatens our health. Events on a grander scale will trigger anxiety and grief. The 9/11 attacks, hurricanes and natural disasters create a sense of fear, loss and lack of security. Any time we feel a sense of loss, we grieve and the grieving process affects us in ways that can be confusing, complicated, and overwhelming.
Each person’s grief is unique and your grieving process will be different from friends or family who are experiencing the same or similar loss. Most people who experience grief go through physical, emotional and behavioral changes while working through the pain of loss. Knowing what to expect may help you deal with the process as you or someone you love goes through it.
Normal grief symptoms span the physical, emotional and behavioral, including low energy, changes in sleep or eating patterns, feelings of numbness, sadness, anger, guilt or anxiety. During the grieving process, people become withdrawn, unproductive, fidgety and restless. Concentration is difficult and sometimes visual or auditory hallucinations can take place. Typically, symptoms are most intense and frequent shortly after a traumatic event and should gradually subside over time. Keep in mind, it can take anywhere from months to years before a person fully comes to terms with a loss. If the sense of closure doesn't happen, functioning normally can be difficult and the risk of physical and/or mental illness increases.
Working through the pain of loss is a complex process. Expect two steps forward and one step back toward closure. There is no right way to grieve, but ultimately the sense of loss and grief should subside over time. If the road gets rockier and doesn't seem to smooth out after a while, seek assistance from a grief counselor or other mental health professional who is knowledgeable about grief issues. A professional can help you better understand your grief and assist you in moving forward through the healing process.
You may be wondering what any of this has to do with exercise and eating healthy food. I'm here to tell you that the main reason why so many people can't maintain a fit and healthy physique for a whole lifetime is because they're not willing to let go of the person in the day 1 photo. Intellectually you know that the fit and healthy you is a better you, but the person you were before is a dear old friend that's hard to abandon. There are memories, experiences and pleasures that make up who you were, and it's hard to wrap your arms around the idea that this person is gone forever.
Going from overweight and out of shape to fit and healthy (in a relatively short period of time) is daunting and traumatic for many people. Nobody talks about it because there's no clear cut way to deal with it. Some folks make the transition easily while others still see themselves as the overweight, unhappy person they were on day 1. The thoughts and memories that cause profound emotions from your past don't go away just because you lost weight and got strong. Day 90 (after doing Power 90 or P90X) is a very scary day for many people. While it's an amazing accomplishment it also signifies the death of an old friend and the start of what can be a difficult new beginning. The old me is gone, now what?
The loss of the old you can be as sad and overwhelming as the loss of an old friend. You have transformed yourself physically and with that comes emotional and behavioral changes. There's nothing on the website or in the guild book that helps you with the emotional aspects of this change, so talking about it is step one. Just like with any traumatic event it's helpful to know there will be bumps in the road alone the way. A place of understanding and acceptance comes with time. This is why it's so important to start a dialog. Talk to friends and family and encourage them to support your important life altering change. We are here to help each other get through the good times and the bad. If you keep asking questions, keep doing your best and stay accountable to like-minded people, then the grieving period will be short and a healthy and fit lifestyle will be yours forever.
Each person’s grief is unique and your grieving process will be different from friends or family who are experiencing the same or similar loss. Most people who experience grief go through physical, emotional and behavioral changes while working through the pain of loss. Knowing what to expect may help you deal with the process as you or someone you love goes through it.
Normal grief symptoms span the physical, emotional and behavioral, including low energy, changes in sleep or eating patterns, feelings of numbness, sadness, anger, guilt or anxiety. During the grieving process, people become withdrawn, unproductive, fidgety and restless. Concentration is difficult and sometimes visual or auditory hallucinations can take place. Typically, symptoms are most intense and frequent shortly after a traumatic event and should gradually subside over time. Keep in mind, it can take anywhere from months to years before a person fully comes to terms with a loss. If the sense of closure doesn't happen, functioning normally can be difficult and the risk of physical and/or mental illness increases.
Working through the pain of loss is a complex process. Expect two steps forward and one step back toward closure. There is no right way to grieve, but ultimately the sense of loss and grief should subside over time. If the road gets rockier and doesn't seem to smooth out after a while, seek assistance from a grief counselor or other mental health professional who is knowledgeable about grief issues. A professional can help you better understand your grief and assist you in moving forward through the healing process.
You may be wondering what any of this has to do with exercise and eating healthy food. I'm here to tell you that the main reason why so many people can't maintain a fit and healthy physique for a whole lifetime is because they're not willing to let go of the person in the day 1 photo. Intellectually you know that the fit and healthy you is a better you, but the person you were before is a dear old friend that's hard to abandon. There are memories, experiences and pleasures that make up who you were, and it's hard to wrap your arms around the idea that this person is gone forever.
Going from overweight and out of shape to fit and healthy (in a relatively short period of time) is daunting and traumatic for many people. Nobody talks about it because there's no clear cut way to deal with it. Some folks make the transition easily while others still see themselves as the overweight, unhappy person they were on day 1. The thoughts and memories that cause profound emotions from your past don't go away just because you lost weight and got strong. Day 90 (after doing Power 90 or P90X) is a very scary day for many people. While it's an amazing accomplishment it also signifies the death of an old friend and the start of what can be a difficult new beginning. The old me is gone, now what?
The loss of the old you can be as sad and overwhelming as the loss of an old friend. You have transformed yourself physically and with that comes emotional and behavioral changes. There's nothing on the website or in the guild book that helps you with the emotional aspects of this change, so talking about it is step one. Just like with any traumatic event it's helpful to know there will be bumps in the road alone the way. A place of understanding and acceptance comes with time. This is why it's so important to start a dialog. Talk to friends and family and encourage them to support your important life altering change. We are here to help each other get through the good times and the bad. If you keep asking questions, keep doing your best and stay accountable to like-minded people, then the grieving period will be short and a healthy and fit lifestyle will be yours forever.