Do you enjoy exercising?  Have you found something you love and stuck with it?  Are you an exercise swinger, doing everything from yoga to CrossFit, still searching?  Exercise is a sore spot for some of my clients.  They hate the gym and therefore don't try anything else.  Yet, doing something, even if it's just going for a walk, is better than doing nothing, according to new studies published recently on the relationship between exercise and longevity rates. 

Can too much exercise be bad for your health?  It turns out the answer is yes, but only in a very small population of long-term high-endurance athletes.  Most of us don't qualify here.

What about the relationship of exercise to food?  I used to be a runner.  I also use to eat many, many brownies before running, justifying their consumption with exercise.  It turns out this is disordered eating...an eating disorder.  It's a combination of Binge Eating (one of the top three eating disorders) plus Exercise Dependence.  And an obsession with exercise can have far-ranging consequences. 

As an aside, here is a helpful article about what not to say to someone who has an eating disorder. 

Exercise can be approached like eating.  Finding the right amount is about coming to understand your bio-individuality.  Once you know what exercise you like, find a way to incorporate it into your life and make it not just a habit, but part of your lifestyle.  I'm still working on this.  How about you?  Do you have exercise you like and regularly enjoy?

P.S.  Laughter is great exercise!

For the month of February, I challenged myself to post one healthy tip per day on my Instagram account.   It was a lot of fun and there's so much more where that came from!  While I knew I had a lot of nutrition education to draw from as a patient and as a student, this community was so great about providing their own healthy tips and ideas.  Thanks so much for a great conversation.  And per your many requests I've provided a PDF file of #28healthytips that you can download, hang on your fridge, mail to a friend, or stick on your filing cabinet!


Get your 28 Healthy Tips Here

Now, 28 healthy tips is a lot.  It can feel overwhelming.  If you are looking to make changes that last, start with implementing just one or two tips.  Conventional wisdom and scientific studies show that it can take up to 40 times before a new habit sticks and is incorporated into your lifestyle.  It helps if you do it with a friend who can hold you accountable.  Once those one or two tips have stuck, try one or two more tips and before you know it a positive snowball effect of change is occurring in your life.  Also, setbacks are a good thing so stay away from the F word (failure).  Setbacks, mistakes, falling off the path, whatever you call it, you need to have them to keep moving forward.

I'd love to hear from you!  What tip resonated the most?  Which one would be the easiest to achieve?  Which one would be a stretch goal?  For me, breaking up with sugar is a constant process, a constant stretch goal.