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How to beat the wintertime blues.
© 2012 Crestock
As the mercury drops, it’s easy to lose sight of our healthy summer habits. Walks in the park, a leisurely bike ride or a day of hiking can become distant warm-weather memories. As tempting as it might be to hibernate for the season, it’s important to stay active in these colder months, and the experts say it’s much easier than you may imagine.
“If you plan to veg, then you’d better plan to lose some muscle mass,” says Michele Cannell, health and wellness director of Liberty Township Powell YMCA. “According to the American College of Sports Medicine, you will lose muscle mass after just four to five days of not staying active.” Based on ACSM standards, Cannell says we should get 30 minutes of physical activity every day. Even short, 10-minute bursts are effective in maintaining health, she says.
Josh Bowen, quality control director of personal training for Urban Active, says cardiovascular training, resistance training and proper diet are key to maintaining not only long, lean muscles and a healthy heart, but also overall vitality.
“Fitness can be looked at like the fountain of youth in some degree,” he says. “Sound nutrition and activity can reduce your risk of all major illnesses: diabetes, heart disease and some types of cancers. It’s not always a given. However, fitness can help fight these deadly diseases and help our bodies lead a long and healthy life.”
Wendy Jett, corporate group fitness director for Urban Active, says mental state also is closely tied to physical fitness, and it can ward off one of the major illnesses among the U.S. population—depression. “Exercise has been shown time and time again to work better than antidepressants, and it’s cheaper,” she says.
Bowen says the best time to start a new goal is always right now. “Procrastination is the assassination of motivation,” he says. “Most people tend to like to start things on Mondays, the first of a month or some landmark date. Waiting only leads to excuses and excuses do not create fitness goals.”
There is no shortage of opportunity, with fitness clubs, parks and recreation trails located just minutes from virtually any home or office. Most clubs offer orientation to new members who are learning the ropes. Activities can include everything from circuit training on weight machines and ellipticals to such sports as basketball, racquetball, rock climbing and swimming.
Experts recommend a combination of activities to help improve the body. For maximum physical and mental variety, a combination of individual and group activities, possibly combined with personal training, may be optimal.
While group classes definitely have a physical benefit, many who participate say they feel more like fun than work. Terri Rosen, owner of Ohio Krav Maga & Fitness, says this feeling comes from working out alongside other people. “In any season, but especially the cold winter, it’s a lot easier to stick with a fitness program if you’re doing it with friends, and group classes are a great way to be able to do that,” she says.
Krav Maga classes are a combination of combative training utilizing punches, kicks and elbow and knee strikes, coupled with self-defense techniques. Krav Maga was developed as the martial art of the Israeli army, and so it had to be tailored to the ordinary citizen. When practitioners say anyone can do it, it’s really true. “The great thing about Krav Maga as a system is that it was designed to be learned easily and retained, because it is based off our natural reaction to an attack,” Rosen says. She says people generally take one-hour classes two to three times per week. No equipment is required—just roomy, comfortable clothing.
Martial arts training brings not only physical fitness, but also a change in attitude, Rosen says.
“The first thing I noticed about myself when I started training in Krav Maga was a shift in confidence,” she says. “I was a better manager at work. I was more confident when meeting new people, and I carried myself differently. There is a sense of empowerment that comes along with this type of training, and it’s really incredible to watch the transformation in a relatively short period of time.” It’s not all mental, though. Rosen says she dropped 30 pounds the first year she belonged to the club, which she went on to buy last year. Another trainer in the Gahanna location has lost more than 80 pounds doing Krav Maga. “I tell people all the time, it’s exercise in disguise,” Rosen says.
Another all-year opportunity that translates well to winter is boxing. Title Boxing Club offers one-hour boxing fitness classes that keep people moving in a fun way. The club is just that, a fitness club—not a training facility for professional fighters—so anyone can feel comfortable and welcome. “That’s the coolest thing about our place,” says trainer Eric Asher of the club’s Hilliard location. “It’s not intimidating at all. We’re here to work out and have fun.” Classes include a 15-minute warm-up with running, jumping jacks and plyometrics to increase speed and agility. That segues into 30 minutes of working different combinations with a heavy bag and then 15 minutes of cool down. “It’s a great workout, because we crank the music and you get to hit stuff,” Asher says.
Rick Rick
“Research shows that if you plan to go to the gym in the morning, and you have all your stuff packed and your lunch is ready for the day, you’re more likely to stick to your schedule,” he says. “You’ve made all these healthy decisions already. Getting to the gym can be checked off the list, and then you can carry on with work and family obligations.” Waiting until later in the day can let fatigue creep in and allow any number of excuses to pop up. Rick recommends making physical activity a top priority and adding variety to keep it fresh and fun. Most outdoor activities are still possible throughout the winter with some modification, he says, and so adding something outside the gym is a wise strategy. “Using the gym every single time tends to lead to burnout,” he says.
Urban Active’s Jett says even ordinary daily activities can make a big difference over time. Because it’s human nature to conserve energy during colder months, she says we’ve got to push against our instincts to get up and get moving.
“I am a big advocate of two things, year round,” she says. “One, move as much as you can during your regular day. Take the stairs, park farther away, walk the dog, work in the yard, rearrange the furniture—do whatever you’ve got to do to keep moving.”
“Two, true exercise is more enjoyable when you do it with someone you like,” she says. “That’s why taking classes and/or having a trainer dramatically increases someone’s chances of being successful.”
The YMCA’s Cannell is another proponent of working activity into life in small, everyday ways, and building up to winter sports that can be both challenging and rewarding.
“If you’re a beginner, then think about taking that brisk walk around your neighborhood with your family or your pet,” Cannell says. “If you are a little more advanced, taking that hike or skiing is the activity for you.” She recommends about 10 minutes of warm-up for outdoor activities in the winter, as well as periodic checks of how the body is responding. “Pay attention to whether or not you can talk during the workout,” she says. “If you can hold a conversation, then you are not pushing yourself beyond your limitations.”
Part of what drives people indoors is the chill in the air, but that can be virtually eliminated with the proper attire, Premier’s Rick says. Wool is a good choice for natural fibers, because it wicks moisture away from the skin. Cotton, on the other hand, holds on to that moisture.
He recommends, from the bottom layer out: a synthetic base, preferably sleeveless to reduce bulk; another layer or two determined by the activity and the wearer’s preference and then a top layer that offers wind protection. “Some people think they’ll just throw a fleece on, but if the wind starts blowing, you’re going to get very cold, very quickly,” Rick says.
Winter not only poses barriers to physical health, but also to our emotions and mental state. Fewer hours of daylight, sometimes stressful social interactions and the pressure to overspend for the holidays can cause distress, sleeplessness and a general feeling of malaise. Staying active can do plenty to keep us in a productive frame of mind, but approaching the blues from another perspective doesn’t hurt.
Bethany Contini, spokeswoman for Positive Changes Hypnosis, says positive thinking can make a huge difference in our lives. “Continue to think positive thoughts and you can expect positive results,” she says.
She recommends using visualization techniques during those long winter evenings when we may feel at loose ends. “Start by closing your eyes,” she says. “Then let yourself dream of your future just as you wish it to be. When you have mentally experienced that future in full color and with all the sound and positive feelings that go with it, simply open your eyes and write what you experienced.” Contini recommends using positive, affirming language and reading what you’ve written out loud.
She says stress isn’t something that happens to us, but rather something that is created by how we respond to things around us. It also can be an impetus for positive change. “If you don’t like or enjoy what is happening, take self-responsibility for changing things,” Contini says. “When you do, you’ll be coping with stress without even trying.”
Jerry Greenspan of Columbus Fitness Consultants says one of our big problems as Americans is using food as a drug to treat our emotions. Winter weather drives many people inside, and rather than being out in the world being active, they sink into the unhealthy habit of watching too much television and eating as a response to boredom or stress.
“The best thing to do is to develop a healthy relationship with food,” Green-span says. “People should use food the way it was designed to be used, as a fuel.” Most people eat emotionally and have done so all their lives to varying degrees, he says. Because there is so much information out there, talking to an expert is the only reliable solution, he says. A nutritionist can boil it down to the basics and tailor the information to the needs of the individual, and a psychologist can help people identify the emotional triggers they may possess. From that point, the solutions may be surprisingly simple.
“You’ve got to substitute another activity for the eating,” Greenspan says. A hot shower or bath can relieve some stress, and a glimpse in the mirror afterward may offer further motivation. Placing a sign on the refrigerator (“Am I eating because I am hungry?”) can provide another visual reminder.
Food offers a chemical boost in the form of dopamine, but something that takes 30 seconds to eat can take an hour to work off, Greenspan says. Another potential solution is to find that dopamine in another form. For that, turn to an indoor sport that’s popular in all seasons: romance. Sex, whether it’s the whole deal or just preliminary stuff like trading long back rubs, can offer a whole host of benefits. The mood is lifted, a relationship is strengthened and it burns calories. “If people replaced food with sex, we’d have a lot more happy, skinny people in the world,” Greenspan says.
Kristin Campbell is a freelance writer.
