New study shows that the 220 – age 
Max Heart Rate. A new study shows this is not accurate for women. The female formula is 206 – 88% of age.
For a 30 year old bride, this means your predicted maximum heart rate is 206-26.4 = 179.6 or rounded 180. (the old formula would put you at 190).
Read more about the study in this NYTimes article.
Good news that women get their own research!
I heard a great tip yesterday from Ask Dr. Bride. We will be hosting a webinar together on July 28 at noon. We will be giving our top “last minute tips to shape up and feel fantastic on your wedding day”.
for those of you who are nearing your wedding day.
Save the date of July 28 at noon PDT. The webinar will be 30 minutes of our advice covering fitness, health and sanity then 15 minutes for your questions. Hope you can join us!
Ask Dr. Bride suggested that to feel great in the days leading up to your wedding, it will help reduce your stress to do something for someone other than yourself. You’ve been the bride for nearly a year by now and you have been thinking about you, you, you (as you should). For one day or even a few hours, go do something for someone else. It will ground you, refresh you, and take some pressure off of being a bride….for just a short while.
I hope everyone had a fun filled long weekend. Now that we are back to a “normal week”, we need a little detox after all of those fun festivities. Here are a couple of tips, not only for Tuesday, but for after your long weekend that include some friendly tips for Detoxing your system. It’s not a quick fix to truly clear your body of toxins. Instead think of ways you can be toxin free, long term.
Cut the coffee
Joel Fuhrman, M.D., author of Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (Little, Brown and Co., 2003), says one sign that a food is “toxic” is that you feel bad for a short time when you give it up; in the case of caffeine that typically means killer headaches. “You don’t go through withdrawal when you stop eating broccoli,” Fuhrman says.
Like many aspects of detoxification, the wisdom of forgoing coffee is hotly debated. Many doctors believe that drinking one or two cups a day won’t harm most people, though pregnant women and those with hypertension are well-advised to avoid the stuff. Others point out that in addition to disrupting sleep when drunk too close to bedtime, coffee causes the jitters and often travels with other less-than-healthy foods–namely sugar, fatty cream and gooey pastries.
Coffee detox tips: Whether you go cold turkey or reduce gradually is a matter of preference. If you drink, say, five cups of coffee a day, you might cut down every two to three days from five cups to four and so on to minimize withdrawal symptoms. Another choice is to reduce the strength of your coffee by filling your cup with more decaf and less regular every couple of days. Some people just want a warm drink in the morning and feel satisfied sipping a cup of hot water with lemon; try it.
Take a break from booze
Going the teetotaler route can improve digestion and sleep, boost energy and sexual function and lessen muscle pain. The effect that alcohol has on weight gain is complex and controversial, in part because researchers are unclear as to whether alcohol calories count as much as food because of how they’re metabolized. But if you’re drinking, say, five or six glasses of dry white wine (at 70 calories a glass) each week, you can figure that giving those up could lead to a loss of about half a pound a month. Another benefit of abstaining: Research clearly shows that drinking spurs appetite.
And even moderate amounts of alcohol may increase the risk of breast cancer. A recent article in the journal Public Health Nutrition found that women who average more than four alcoholic beverages a week increase their breast cancer risk by 7 percent for every drink.
If you’re a social drinker and just want to detox from alcohol, Hyman suggests taking a booze break. “If you can give alcohol up for several weeks, but don’t notice much of a change and you really miss a glass now and then, go back to drinking,” he says. Hyman recommends limiting yourself to no more than five glasses a week. Red wine, he notes, appears to provide the best health benefits since it contains flavonoids, antioxidants that may prevent heart disease. Alcohol detox tips: Some people prefer to ease their way off the fermented grapes and grains, while others switch from hard-liquor drinks like martinis to wine. But for social drinkers doing a short-term detox, most doctors recommend going cold turkey.
Kiss the sweet stuff goodbye
We’re genetically wired to love sugar. In fact, eating sugar and fat seems to stimulate the same brain receptors as morphine. The fix isn’t free, though: Sugar uses up precious antioxidants, substances that help remove natural byproducts caused by oxidation, which play a role in heart damage, cancer and other problems. Sugar is also associated with high-fat, high-calorie foods that cause weight gain, diabetes and heart disease, though the only proven downside of sugar consumption itself is dental cavities.
The first step to kicking the white stuff is to avoid hidden, or added, sugars that manufacturers load into all sorts of prepared foods, including bread, pasta, ketchup and salad dressing. Finding these requires a bit of detective work, since sugar is often indicated on food labels under other names, like fructose, sucrose, dextrin, dextrose, corn syrup and malts. (Turn to page 188 for more on the four things you should read on every food label.) “If you simply avoid hidden sugars, you stop feeding the addiction and soon reset the sensitivity threshold of the nerves that are hooked up to taste buds,” explains David Katz, M.D., director of the Yale Prevention Research Center in Derby, Conn., and author of The Way to Eat (Sourcebooks, 2002). “Your sweet tooth will be satisfied with lesser amounts.”
Sugar detox tips: Use spices such as cinnamon and flavorings like almond and vanilla extracts to add a sweet taste to foods. To ease particularly severe cravings, nutritionist MaryBeth Augustine recommends one cup of a bitter tea, such as chicory root or burdock root, at each meal. If you have a pang for something sweet, enjoy a piece of whole fruit; the skins of apples, pears and other fruits are rich in fiber, which slows the rate at which carbohydrates break down into sugar in the body. After a sugar fast, try to stick to the World Health Organization’s guideline of keeping sugar intake under 10 percent of calories, or about 50 grams (12 teaspoons) for a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet.
Over the last 10 years, sales of ready-to-drink bottled teas (brands such as Snapple, Lipton, Arizona, and Sobe) have increased almost 10-fold.
These bottled teas are really more like diluted sugar water than a nutritious drink. Recent research at OSU shows that a cup of freshly brewed green or black tea has up 100 times more antioxidant activity than bottled teas.
Why are antioxidants important?
Fitness Tip: There are a host of bodyweight exercises that you can do in your very own home or outside in the yard that are not only wildly effective, but they are GREAT for your body! My favorites: push ups, squats, lunges, tricep dips, wall sits.
Nutrition: When reading a nutrition label, note that ingredients are listed by weight. If crackers contain mainly flour, flour will be listed first. Try to stay away from items – and beware of seemingly “healthy” items, like granola – that have sugar or sweeteners listed as the first ingredient!
Fitness: How much is too much? Symptoms of overtraining are decreased appetite; muscle tenderness; head colds; allergic reactions or both; occasional nausea; sleep disturbances; elevated resting heart rate; elevated blood pressure. Rest is part of every workout program.
Nutrition: Drinking diet soda and diet beverages may actually make you hungrier and more prone to eat excessively, as some studies have shown. In fact, many women who drink diet beverages may be just as overweight as their regular-soda-drinking counterparts. Please evaluate whether or not you really need to drink these beverages during the day. They do not contribute and vitamins, minerals, or other important nutrients.
Fitness: After vigorous aerobic exercise it is important to take 10 minutes or so to cool down gradually. Do not stop abruptly and bend over. For example, after a long run or jog, walk around and keep moving, rather than just stopping.
Cooling down properly (moving around) redistributes the blood that may have pooled in your extremities when you end your workout, and it prevents muscle stiffness because it allows the metabolic wastes to be worked out of your muscles.
Nutrition: Is eating a low-carb diet good for you? No. Carbohydrate foods, like whole grains, fruits, and starchy vegetables (such as squash and potatoes) all contain a whole host of essential nutrients. Processed carbs, like refined white sugar, white bread, and white rice, have been stripped of many of these essential nutrients and contain just carbohydrate. Granted, this carbohydrate is good fuel for the body and brain, however, eating these whole grain brown counterparts instead (like whole wheat bread and brown rice), is a healthier choice because these foods have not been stripped of essential nutrients and fiber.
Fitness: After vigorous aerobic exercise it is important to take 10 minutes or so to cool down gradually. Do not stop abruptly. For example, after a long run or jog, walk around and keep moving, rather than just stopping.
Cooling down properly (moving around) redistributes the blood that may have pooled in the extremities when you end your workout, and it prevents muscle stiffness because it allows the metabolic wastes to be worked out of your muscles.
Packaged and boxed convenience foods have often been so processed that they are void of essential nutrients. They are also very high in salt and preservatives. Sacrificing a few extra hours per week to prepare wholesome meals can often pay back dividends in the long run. High-salt meals may lead to future problems like high blood pressure, which is often treated with a life-long prescription of medication. Pay now or pay later?
Speaking of blood pressure…..make sure you do not hold your breath while you are lifting weights. It can make your blood pressure sky rocket. Don’t worry too much about your breathing pattern; (if you wish to focus on it think about blowing the weights away from you) rather just remember to breath!
Healthy Eating:
Snacking is necessary for kids and adults, as it helps to stabilize blood sugars and provides extra fuel between meals. To prevent snacking from going overboard, pack small snacks in little containers or plastic bags. These serving sizes will be enough to help nourish you between meals. Need some snack ideas? Read our recommendations for healthy snacks.
Fitness:
Heart attack is the #1 killer of women. Symptoms of a Heart Attack feel different in women than in men. Men talk about the elephant sitting on their chest. Women are more likely to experience other warning signals, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting and back or jaw pain. Women also tend to delay telling others about their signals to avoid bothering or worrying others. Learn more about women and heart attack from the American Heart Association.
The first tip today is from Erica, one of our bride bloggers.
When searching the house for a snack, start in the refrigerator, not the pantry. Fruits and veggies are healthier, have more fiber (in most cases) and more filling.
Use R.I.C.E. for injuries. If you suffer from a sports related injury, use R.I.C.E.
Rest = Take a break from exercise or any type of movement that may stress the injured area. A minor injury should be rested for one or two days, while more severe injuries may need longer.
Ice=Ice the affected area. Icing reduces pain, limits swelling and bleeding, and encourages rapid healing. Wrap ice in a towel to avoid direct contact with the skin.
Compress=Compress the injury with a stretch bandage. Make sure not to wrap it too tight, just enough to support the injured area comfortably.
Elevate= Elevate the limb. If possible, try to keep the injured part above the level of the heart. At the very least, try to keep it higher than the hips. This helps limit swelling and also prevents movement of the area that is injured.
