NIFS Healthy Living Blog

The holiday season is here, and Thanksgiving often marks the beginning of celebrations focused on family, food, and gratitude. While it’s a time to enjoy yourself, it can also present challenges if you’re trying to stick with healthy habits. The good news is that you don’t have to choose between enjoying the holiday and maintaining your wellness goals. With a few thoughtful approaches, you can do both!

Stay Active with Family Fun

Thanksgiving traditions don’t have to be confined to the dinner table. Incorporate movement into your holiday plans by organizing family-based activities that get everyone outdoors. A short walk after the big meal can aid digestion and provide a chance to connect in a different setting. You might also consider starting a new tradition, like a family hike or a friendly game of touch football in the backyard. Not only does this add a layer of fun, but it also helps balance out the indulgence of the holiday meal.

Enjoying Food Without Guilt

Thanksgiving is about more than food—it’s about spending time with loved ones and creating lasting memories. The key to balancing enjoyment with health is mindful eating, which lets you savor your favorite dishes guilt-free. Mindful eating encourages you to slow down and truly appreciate each bite. Pay attention to the flavors, textures, and aromas of the food, and listen to your body’s hunger and fullness cues. Take smaller portions to start, and go back for seconds if you’re still hungry. By eating mindfully, you can fully enjoy your meal, indulge in your favorite foods, and still feel good about your choices. Remember, this is a time to celebrate and connect with family, so let food be part of that experience, not something to stress over.

Structuring Your Plate for Balance

One way to enjoy the feast while keeping balance in mind is by being strategic about how you fill your plate. Start by prioritizing vegetables and lean proteins, which help keep you satisfied longer. Roasted vegetables, green beans, and salads are excellent choices alongside turkey or other protein sources. Aim for a colorful plate, with about half filled with veggies, a quarter with protein, and the last quarter reserved for your favorite indulgent foods, like mashed potatoes, stuffing, or that slice of pie you’ve been looking forward to.

Thanksgiving is an opportunity to celebrate family and food, and with a few thoughtful choices, you can make the most of both. By staying active through family-friendly activities and building a balanced plate, you’ll leave the table feeling good—both physically and emotionally. After all, the real focus of the holiday should be on making memories, and that’s something you can’t put on a plate.

Let’s be real. We aren’t always motivated to work out, and sometimes it’s hard to find that motivation. It’s even harder to find motivation when you don’t even enjoy exercise. It’s important to learn why getting active is so important, and it all starts with changing your mindset about it.

So Why Exercise in the First Place?

There are hundreds of good reasons why it’s important to stay active, but here are a few reasons that you might not know of.

• Exercise charges you up. Thirty minutes or more of vigorous exercise releases endorphins to the brain, giving you energy and an intense natural high. This can help you have more energy for your everyday activities and keeps you going.
  
• Exercise can help your positivity. Studies show that exercise is a great way to help manage depression. It not only releases endorphins, but it also helps clear your mind of stress, confusion, and worry
• Exercise can help with your social life. Exercising with others who are going to the gym for Group Fitness classes can be a great way to meet new people and help each other stay motivated.
• Exercise helps you sleep. Working the body and clearing the brain ensures a good night’s sleep. It can help regulate problematic sleeping patterns.

Switch Your Mindset

The biggest key to staying motivated with exercise is trying to switch your mindset. If you really dislike the idea of exercise, you need to switch the way that you’re thinking, or you’ll never get up and get active. Start to think of exercise as “being active” or “feeling healthy.” A great way to start is to increase the overall amount of movement and activity in your day. For example, you can start by walking 10,000 steps per day. You also don’t have to work out in a gym. Of course, gyms are useful and have a lot of equipment, but some days you can go outdoors or ride a bike. You can also try yoga or dancing as another method to stay active. At NIFS, we offer a variety of different Group Fitness classes to fit your needs and wants, so you are never bored or tied down to one form of exercise.

Small Steps

Sometimes you just have to take small steps to keep motivated. For instance, laying out your workout clothes or packing your gym bag the night before can remove several barriers in the number of decisions you need to make the next day. Or you can even have your gym bag in your car ready for the next day! You can also give yourself achievement awards, such as your favorite drink or new workout shoes. Use it as your motivation to get your workout done so that you can reward yourself with something you enjoy. Maybe you can even try a lunchtime workout. This will allow you to mix it up with some outside lunchtime training, and it can be an awesome way to experience natural light in your workout. Consider taking a brisk walk around the block or doing a quick HIIT workout before you go back to work.

Find What Works for You

The key is to really find what works for you. What might work for someone else might not be the right fit for you. Your health is your journey, and sometimes you must personalize it to make it worth it. Continue to try new things until you make your workout routine a habit. Remember that it’s okay to take rest days. But always get back up and fight the next day.

This blog was written by Emily Lesich, NIFS Health Fitness Specialist. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

Halloween is a day full of fun, costumes, treats, friends, and family! With all the food and candy, is it even possible to be “healthy” and still enjoy the festivities? The answer is YES. Take a look at these SPOOK-tacular tips to keep you and your family in good health.

Find a Balance

Halloween comes around once a year. It’s a time to feed your social and mental health, which may require easing up on the physical health guidelines for a moment. Remember, any decision you make for your physical health that comes at the expense of your social and mental health may not be all that great after all.

Let’s be honest, Halloween is FUN. The candy is FUN. Trick-or-treating is FUN. All this feeds our mental and social health. Plus, think about it: daily nutritional choices consistently over time have the greater impact on your health than nutrition choices on one holiday.

What does this “balance” look like? Keep reading.

Use portion control and omit the “off-limits” mentality.

All foods in moderation can fit into a healthy regimen. Instead of making candy off-limits, work it into your established routine. Still have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Make those meals nutritious, including fruits, veggies, whole grains, and lean proteins. At each meal, offer one serving of Halloween candy to everyone. Instead of the full-size pieces, make them like the “fun-size” or “snack-size.” This allows everyone to enjoy a sweet, while filling up on the nutritious foods that are important for physical health.

Make festive, healthy options.

On the day that you all go trick-or-treating, really get into the spirit! Make nutritious meals that are Halloween themed. Some examples include:

• Green-goop smoothie with Halloween straws: Include low-fat Greek yogurt, spinach, chia seeds, pineapple, and low-fat milk of choice. Try this recipe.
• Monster teeth: Slice a green apple. Smear peanut butter on one side of a slice (bottom lip of the mouth). Stick yogurt-covered raisins in the peanut butter. Smear a little more peanut butter on another apple slice and place on top of the raisins for the top lip.
• Boo-nana pops: Cut bananas in half and place a stick in the end as a handle. At the tip of the banana, add two chocolate chips as eyes. Serve frozen, cold, or at room temperature.
• Devil spiders: Make deviled eggs. On the top, put an olive in the center for the spider’s body. Then put slices of olives around the outer edge of the egg for the legs.
• Cute pumpkins: Peel Cuties/clementines/mandarins. Slice celery into small sticks. Place a celery stick at the top of each mandarin for the pumpkin stem.
• Yo-yo graveyard: Scoop nonfat Greek yogurt into cups. Crumble some chocolate cookies on top (just a thin layer to cover the top) for the dirt. Write “Boo” on graham crackers for tombstones. Place one tombstone in each yogurt cup.
• Spider sandwich: Make a sandwich of choice. Cut the sandwich into a circle. Place chocolate chips as the eyes (use peanut butter to help them stick). Use pretzels as the legs, sticking them into the bread or middle of the sandwich, with the tips sticking out.
• Ghost cheese sticks: Get individually wrapped mozzarella cheese sticks. Take a sharpie and make black dots for the eyes and a block dot for an open mouth. These make perfect snacks while you are out and about trick-or-treating.

This ensures everyone is filling up on nutritious options high in fiber and protein, which leaves less room for tons of candy. Now, do not mistake this for “NO ROOM” for candy. There is still room, but not as much. You are just making sure everyone is properly nourished and still having fun in the process.

When you get home that night, enjoy a few pieces of candy with the kiddos, then put it in a non-accessible place. You are in control of when and how much the kids get. You are also in control of when and how much you get as well. Refer to what I said about portion control to plan your approach here. Remain consistent so that you and the kids both have a clear understanding of when candy will be served. For example, one individual piece will be served with each meal. It gives both you and the kids something to look forward to and does not make candy off-limits, but instead teaches proper portion control and provides a positive relationship with all foods. In the long run, this reduces binging or obsessing over any one food.

Stay active.

One of the best things you can do is to get everyone moving and active. Be sure to get in a workout on the big day, even if it is a quick 20-minute HIIT session at home, or try this spooky workout. Get the kiddos moving with you! Walk from house to house instead of driving during trick-or-treating. Go on a walk in your costumes if you are not trick-or-treating this year. Or just go on a walk in your regular clothes and enjoy all the house decorations. You can also play games:

• Monster Tag: The tagger is a monster and anyone they tag becomes the monster.
• Monster vs. Ghost Freeze Tag: If the monster tags you, you become frozen until one of your ghost teammates unfreezes you. The goal is for the monster to freeze all the ghosts!

ENJOY HALLOWEEN!

Have fun with your family. Soak in the moments. Laugh a lot. Feed your mental and social health, knowing it will benefit your physical health in the long run and that choices you make consistently over time matter the most. Stay safe.

As always, reach out to your NIFS Registered Dietitian if you need some holiday nutrition support.

This blog was written by Sabrina Goshen, NIFS Registered Dietitian. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

Autoimmune diseases are a family of more than 80 chronic illnesses. According to the National Institutes of Health, up to 23.5 million Americans, or more than 7 percent of the population, suffer from an autoimmune disease. Autoimmune disorders arise when the body’s immune system, which is meant to protect you from disease and infection, mistakenly attacks healthy cells as if they were invading a virus or bacteria. Autoimmune diseases include arthritis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s Disease, Graves’ disease, lupus, Sjögren’s syndrome, and multiple sclerosis. Some other illnesses that commonly affect women such as Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (although not classified as autoimmune diseases) have similar symptoms including fatigue and chronic pain. Common symptoms of autoimmune diseases include chronic joint or muscle pain, extreme fatigue, difficulty sleeping, weakness, nausea, headache, and depression.

Staying Active Is Important

Many people with an autoimmune disease go through periods of being symptom-free, and then have sudden onset of severe symptoms called flares. It’s understandable that when you’re not feeling well, you may avoid exercise because it’s difficult to find the motivation and energy to be active. For many people with autoimmune disorders, however, moderate low-impact exercise and physical activity can be of tremendous benefit to their quality of life. Keeping active is especially important when you have an autoimmune disease for several reasons: exercise boosts physical energy; endorphin production is a natural painkiller; exercise can help reduce inflammation throughout the body; and exercise also helps combat the depression and anxiety that also often accompany this type of illness.

Exercise Tips for People with Autoimmune Disease

Here are some tips for exercising when you have an autoimmune illness:

1. Go at your own pace and figure out what works for you. Not everyone’s experience of autoimmune disease symptoms is the same. Start slowly with your workouts and work your way up to more challenging ones. Some days will be harder than others—adjust your workout accordingly. If you miss a day because of a flare, don’t beat yourself up about it, just make sure you get back to the gym as soon as you can.
   
2. Have good support systems. Talk to your health care providers about your plans to exercise and ask for their input. Make an appointment at your gym to have a fitness assessment with a personal trainer. You may also find it fun and motivating to have a fitness buddy other than your trainer, someone you can attend group classes with, or even just meet a designated time to hit the cardio machines or do weights together.
3. Keep a journal of your daily activities, including when you exercise, the activities you did, and what you ate. If you find yourself overly exerted, you will probably see patterns start to emerge when you have the most or least amount of energy. Take these into consideration and adjust your routine to fit you best.
4. Give your body the fuel it needs to succeed. You may even want to consider an anti-inflammatory diet. Many autoimmune disorders create inflammation in the body, which leads to muscle and joint pain, as well as fatigue. You can consult with a nutritionist to see whether there are diet changes you can make to help you be successful.
5. Rest! Your body may have a hard time adjusting to the workload you are putting it through. Allow yourself to get adequate rest. Remember, this is a lifelong condition that requires lifelong attention.

This blog was written by Emily Lesich, NIFS Health Fitness Specialist. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

Vacation is supposed to be fun, enjoyable, and relaxing. When it comes to weight loss attempts or making healthy choices in general, however, traveling can be a challenge. Here are some of our RD’s best tips for healthy eating when traveling or on vacation.

• Pack your own snacks. If you’re road-tripping, instead of stopping at gas stations, convenience stores, or fast-food restaurants, pack a cooler with healthier alternatives, such as fresh fruit, washed and ready-to-eat veggies (carrots, cucumbers, celery, etc.), homemade sandwiches, protein and/or high-fiber granola bars, or single-serving yogurt cups or cheese sticks.
• Eat at home. If your vacation home or hotel has kitchen access, be sure to make use of it! Instead of eating out for each meal, which is not only expensive but also typically provides more calories, fat, and sodium, try preparing something for yourself at home.
• Move more. If possible, incorporate physical activity into your trip. No, this doesn’t mean you have to get a weeklong gym membership for your vacation; rather, spend time walking along the beach, riding bikes, or participating in another physical activity. If you’ll be on the road, be sure to walk around or stretch when you stop to rest.
• Stay hydrated. Bring a refillable water bottle with you on your trip to save money and stay hydrated, especially if you’re traveling somewhere with a lot of sun or high temperatures.
• Be mindful. Vacation shouldn’t be an excuse to overdo it, however; you should still enjoy yourself! Instead of indulging at each opportunity, perhaps limit yourself to indulging in a special or sweet treat just once a day.
  
  

This blog was written by Lindsey Recker, MS, RD, NIFS Registered Dietitian. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

A happy mind is a healthy mind. Here are three keys to working your way toward a healthier life.

1. Show Gratitude

One way to retrain your brain to feel more gratitude and happiness is taking pen to paper. Write down three things about your day that were positive and make you feel thankful. By doing this, you are shining a light on the good things in your life, which shifts your focus and will eventually lead to a healthier mindset.

2. Make Movement a Priority

According to the Mayo Clinic, being active for about 150 minutes a week can result in a drop in depression in most people. Examples of daily activity can be taking your dog for a walk, taking the stairs, working in the garden or backyard, or doing a bodyweight mobility flow to loosen up your muscles and joints. Whatever the activity, make sure you do some movement each day to get the blood flowing and your endorphins boosted.

3. Act in Kindness

Shifting your focus on others instead of just yourself is a great way to boost happiness. Spending time on others has been proven to be more helpful in creating a positive life than spending it just on ourselves. Examples of acts of kindness can be volunteering at a local shelter, running errands for a friend or family member, helping a friend move into a new house, or even buying a cup of coffee for the person behind you in line. Time spent on others is time well spent!

This blog was written by Jessica Phelps, BS, ACE CPT, Health Coach. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

We all know that physical fitness and wellness are prerequisites for a productive and healthy life. Exercise is good not only for the body, but for the mind as well. We want to ensure a future full of great experiences. For one population, our children, participating in physical activity may be becoming more and more challenging, whether it be from lack of interest, lack of support, or lack of funding for programs in their community. One area in which this population excels, however, is technology. Without a doubt, smartphone technology is a part of our current culture and most likely will be for a long time. For some older people, this might be a newer concept. At the moment, though, ensuring the future of physical fitness for the next generation will need to coexist with technology.

Can Exercise and Technology Coexist?

Being somewhat skeptical of the coexistence of exercise and technology, I, like some people, associate the latter with inactivity and laziness. In the past, this might have been the case; however, a new generation of technology is now capable of training children to be more active while using technology. This was evident with the evolution of video game technology such as Wii Sports and Microsoft Kinect games.

The next evolution, naturally, moved to smartphones. Nearly every person has a smartphone and spends hours and hours per week staring at their screens. Then apps were developed, and have built a new outlet for fitness that not only utilizes the strengths (technology) but the interests (fun and leisure) that really entice children to exercise without even thinking about it.

Smartphone Technology That Gets People Moving

Here are some examples where smartphone technology is positively impacting people’s lives with exercise (source: Wezift.com).

• Pokémon GO: Users use an interactive app to walk to Pokémon sites. At that point, a virtual battle ensues. Afterward, the user tries to find the next real-world location for the next battle. Sometimes these sites are common areas where likeminded individuals can meet up and battle with friends. It encourages walking, a proven method of burning calories and promoting a healthy lifestyle.
• NFL Play 60: The National Football League’s app, geared toward fighting childhood obesity through activity, specifically 60 minutes per day. NFL players get involved and help inspire the youth to be physically fit.
• Kids Fitness—Daily Yoga: This app is geared toward the benefits of yoga, teaching children 10 basic poses and movements. This free app helps kids understand the foundational concepts of yoga.

Find the Exercise That Keeps You Engaged

Getting involved with exercise can come in many forms. There are thousands of ways to exercise with thousands of plans. The best one, however, depends on you. What will you do to exercise and keep exercising for a lifetime? That, my friends, is the best exercise in the world. Keep your eyes open for new ideas and concepts as the fitness world is ever-changing. At NIFS, we are dedicated to making sure you are connected with our staff through all forms of social media. Connect with a NIFS Health Fitness Professional to get started on your fitness journey today! Until next time, muscleheads rejoice and evolve!

This blog was written by Thomas Livengood, NIFS Health Fitness Instructor and Personal Trainer. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

When you hear about fitness and wellness, one of the first things that comes to mind is getting a workout, usually at a gym, fitness center, or club. Some people can get exercise in other ways, such as outdoor activities and sports, while many others receive plenty of fitness at the workplace (think lumberjacks, steel workers, and factory workers). If none of these sounds like you or if you and you feel as though the fitness route is a tough road to travel, there is hope. There are things you do in your everyday life that give you an opportunity to burn calories.

Believe it or not, we all are burning calories all day, everyday. This is your metabolism, and without it you would not be alive. You burn calories when you are watching TV, riding in the car, and even sleeping (albeit a small amount). Many daily activities that you might not think about help you burn more calories throughout the day. Do you consider walking the dog, raking the yard, or cooking a meal as calorie-burning opportunities? Well, again, it’s not equivalent to taking a HITT class or aerobics class, but you are going to burn more calories with increased activity.

How Many Calories Do These Activities Burn?

How many calories can you expect to burn with these day-to-day chores and tasks, you may wonder? In the sedentary state, people usually burn a couple calories per minute. If you were asleep, you could guess that you are burning fewer calories, and if you were sprinting up a hill, the calorie burn would increase. CalorieLab provides some of the following data that might come as a surprise as it pertains to tasks that you might deem as mundane.

Chores

• Sweeping the floor: 39 calories/15 minutes
• Doing the dishes: 22 calories/15 minutes
• Cooking, with food prep: 26 calories/15 minutes
• Scrubbing the floor: 48 calories/15 minutes

Playing with children or pets

• Light play: 31 calories/15 minutes
• Moderate play: 51 calories/15 minutes
• Vigorous play: 68 calories/15 minutes

Get Motivated to Do More and Move More

Using this as a motivation, the work you do around your home is meaningful in many ways. Making sure that you have a nice, clean living environment ensures that you are taking proper steps to a healthy lifestyle, while pride and self-confidence get a boost as well. On top of all of this, your activity burns calories! Finding ways to burn the amount of calories you want might be a difficult task, whether you can’t find time or don’t like to do it, although keeping moving and staying motivated to do better at home is a great start. Good luck, and as always, muscleheads rejoice and evolve!

This blog was written by Thomas Livengood, NIFS Manager, and Trainer, and posted in loving memory of him and all the great blogs he wrote for NIFS over the years. To read more about the other NIFS bloggers, click here.

Welcome to the final installment of the productivity series. If you need a second to catch up, check out these posts regarding action (productive) vs. motion (busy), the Ivy Lee Method for prioritizing, and the Pomodoro Technique for time management. But if you’re all up to speed, we’ll dive right in!

Feeling Ashamed of Falling Short

Up to this point, I’ve covered topics and methods that are all geared toward the act of being productive. But what happens when you fall short of the productivity goals that you set for yourself?

Maybe you’ve stared down at the to-do list on your desk and asked yourself, “How did I only get this much done today?” Maybe you start to beat yourself up, or scold yourself like a parent would their kid. If you’ve ever found yourself in this position, you are not alone. Many high achievers have described themselves as having an “internal cattle prod” when it comes to their own productivity, constantly pushing themselves to do more and go further, until finally they reach an unsustainable pace. Researchers have coined the term productivity shame in regard to this phenomenon. But why do so many of us experience this feeling with regard to work?

A Productivity Expert on the Causes of Productivity Shame

Jocelyn K. Glei is an author, lecturer, and host of the podcast Hurry Slowly. She researches and presents on ways to optimize productivity and creativity, and how to be more resilient in the workplace and in our daily lives. She describes productivity shame as “a toxic substance that slowly corrodes your ability to take any joy in your work.” She cites examples that may sound all too familiar to some, such as committing to a workload that you intuitively know is unrealistic. Or maybe you set an incredibly challenging goal for yourself (not inherently a bad thing) but you fail to set up a structure for support or accountability, then berate yourself for failing to reach that goal.

Glei has run into this numerous times with students in her class and those with whom she consults in the workplace. She cites potential causes as our instant-gratification culture, one that is fueled by social media and technology. If we have to wait for something to download because the internet connection is weak, if our Instagram post doesn’t get a certain amount of likes right away, if we have to wait longer than 2 minutes in a drive-thru line, its nearly to the point where some feel accosted by these things. It’s downright annoying. Over time, we may slowly be wiring ourselves to expect this same level of speed when it comes to our creativity and productivity—which only sets us up for failure.

Tips for More Realistic Productivity

So how can you combat productivity shame? How can you be more realistic in both the workplace and in your daily life when it comes to your to-do’s? Here are a few techniques you can use today to avoid productivity shame:

1. Limit your to-do List to only the absolutely necessary things. Try the Ivy Lee Method the night before, but limit it to your big-ticket items, and no more than two or three. The more on your list, the more likely that guilt will creep in at the end of the day.
2. Set aside designated time within your day to work only on those two or three big to-do’s. If you work in an office, have a closed-door policy for an hour. If you work from home, set a timer, put the phone in a drawer out of sight, and close out unnecessary tabs on your computer. Those small, seemingly insignificant distractions add up in a big way.
3. Find an accountabili-buddy. This can be someone in the workplace or your personal life who can act as a check-in for you on the way to your goals. Having a physical means of accountability can help you stay on track, whether it’s a project at work or a side hustle at home.
4. Get up and move! Sometimes a short workout or even a walk can stimulate ideas, clear your mind, and spur creativity.

Give a few of these a try, and see if that inner guilt trip voice of “shoulda-woulda-coulda" quiets down for a bit.

This blog was written by Lauren Zakrajsek, NIFS Health Fitness Instructor, Personal Trainer, and Internship Coordinator. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.