Filed under: Advice, Health, Fitness, Ask a Fitness Expert
Recent reports suggest that 30 minutes of moderate daily activity are not enough to stay healthy. Instead, 60 minutes are now necessary – particularly if you want to lose weight.
Don’t panic! For those of you who don’t like gyms or spinning … Read more
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Health, Fitness
Depression is the most common mental illness in Canada. In particular, young adult women experience a higher rate of depression than at any other period across the lifespan and the rate of depression in women aged 18-24 years is at least two times higher than the rate in men in the same age group. Medication and/or talking therapies are the front-line treatment strategies for depression. However, many people do not seek treatment, or wait too long to receive treatment.
Health professionals can never fully meet the need for treatment in mental health care and thus it’s also useful to look at other strategies that could reach a broader population who can’t access therapy or prefer not to use medication. One alternative strategy may be exercise.
Continue reading Treat Depression with Exercise
Filed under: Happiness, Health, Ask a Fitness Expert
We’ve all heard that fat is a feminist issue, but how many of us have considered that physical activity is a feminist issue?
At the Exercise Psychology Unit, we do research on how best to get people more active and enjoy the benefits of physical activity. However, when I watch news coverage about recent natural disasters, I am reminded that access and opportunities to engage in physical activity and sport can be a taken-for-granted privilege that is not always available outside western countries. Sadly, I have learned that due to political, socio-economic, cultural and religious barriers, many girls and women who live in socio-economically-deprived regions that are war-torn, gender-oppressed, and racist, lack these very same opportunities to be active that we so readily enjoy.
Continue reading Getting in Shape is a Privilege: Sport for Women in the Developing World
Filed under: Advice, Health, Fitness, Ask a Fitness Expert
Like many people this year, I decided to make a New Year’s resolution that would see me become more physically active. After years of performing the same workout three to four times per week, I wanted a change and to try something new.On the way home from work one evening, a friend recommended I try CrossFit and after telling him that I had no idea what CrossFit was, he responded: “Allow me to introduce you to Angie, Elizabeth, and Cindy.”
Over the next three days I became very familiar with Angie, Elizabeth, and Cindy. Not individuals, but rather the names of exercise programs given by CrossFit: Angie, Elizabeth, and Cindy represented sheer physical and mental exhaustion. For instance, Angie consisted of 100 pull-ups, 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 100 squats in thirty minutes. Elizabeth and Cindy weren’t much easier.
What exactly is CrossFit?
Continue reading CrossFit and Boot Camp: Are These Programs for You?
Filed under: Sex, Advice, Fitness, Ask a Fitness Expert
It is a common assertion that “sex sells,” which begs the question, can sex be used as motivation to get people more active? Some of the recent posts published by the Exercise Psychology Unit team have talked about some of the social benefits of … Read more
Filed under: Advice, Health, Fitness
Hold on a second. There’s a gene for obesity? Really?! Wow. Man, that’s bad news. Wait (panic kicks in)… What if I have it? Oh, I bet I have it. Great. So what, you mean I’m just “destined” to be fatter than your average bear? Seriously, what a cruel twist of fate that is.Continue reading Can You Fight the ‘Obesity Gene’?
They say you are what you eat, but perhaps you are also where you live. Decades of research in exercise psychology have tended to examine individual factors in an effort to motivate people to exercise, make them more confident and to persuade them to … Read more
Filed under: Happiness, Fitness, How to Be Happy
I’m sure many of you have heard, time and time again, about the numerous health benefits that exercise can provide for you, such as protection against cancer, heart disease and obesity. However, did you also consider the benefits exercise can have on your image? That’s right, being active can also help to bolster the impressions that others form of you (a fact that may have come in handy for this past Valentine’s Day).
Self-presentation is a term that refers to processes by which people attempt to monitor and control the impressions others form of them. At work, one may laugh at a colleague’s joke that is not funny at all, while on a first date one may skip dessert to avoid seeming overindulgent. These are all examples where self-presentation comes into play. Exercise is not an exception.
Many studies have shown the self-presentational benefits of exercise (known as the ‘exerciser stereotype’). A recent study conducted at two Canadian universities (University of Alberta and University of Western Ontario) illustrates the exerciser stereotype among 470 respondents. In this study, participants were instructed to “think of people who do not exercise regularly” and were then asked to rate them on a series of personality (e.g., motivated, happy, undisciplined) and physical (e.g., healthy, fat, energetic) characteristics. They were then asked to “think of people who exercise regularly” and to rate them on the same list of characteristics.
Who do you suppose had the better rating?
Continue reading Want to Impress People? All it Takes Is Exercise!
Filed under: Advice, Health, Fitness
If diamonds are a girl’s best friend, then what are chocolates? It is not uncommon to find yourself in a love-hate relationship with chocolates. You love that sweet, savoury taste as they melt gently and smoothly on your tongue to the warmth of your mouth. But, soon after consumption, you begin to wonder if you might have had just a few too many. You bust out the mental calculator, and using your chocolate-stained fingers, you start playing the game of counting calories. Then you make (empty) promises to yourself about how next time, there will be more self-control, or how next time, it will be different.
Not long after this bout of will power and a period of chocolate abstinence, there it is again, that devilish voice in your head. It seems to be a mind reader, and it’s even more reliable when you are feeling upset or when stress has gotten the better of you. Then the voice starts putting imaginary tastes in your mouths and thoughts of how gratifying it would be to just have another piece flood your brain. Now, all you want is to indulge in that decadent, sugary goodness.
Well, looks like you’re in a bind. Or rather, a chocolaty, sticky situation…
Continue reading Want to Curb Your Cravings? Get Moving!
Filed under: Happiness, Health, Fitness
There’s been something I’ve been meaning to get off my chest. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure I’ve enjoyed for some time now and I don’t think I’m alone. It may not seem horrible to you, but trust me, it’s deadly. My guilty pleasure began two months … Read more
Filed under: Happiness, Health, Fitness, Ask a Fitness Expert
One to two percent of North American girls and women suffer from anorexia nervosa (AN). This psychological disorder mainly affects women and is characterized by caloric restriction and the unrelenting pursuit of thinness. Without treatment, AN contributes towards significant morbidity and may be fatal. Although only a small proportion of women meet clinical criteria for AN, body image dissatisfaction and unhealthy dieting are prevalent within North American culture and are normative features of the social interaction between women. Thus, efforts are also being made to consider AN as a social and political problem.
Continue reading Is Exercise a Good Treatment for Anorexia Nervosa?
There has been a general recognition that the fitness of Canadians has declined over time, yet we have never had a clear sense of the magnitude of this decline. As widely reported last week, we do now and the news is disturbing. Let me explain the … Read more
Filed under: Happiness, Health, Fitness
Physical activity has many commonly known benefits including weight management and the prevention of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some forms of cancer. Perhaps a lesser-known fact is that physical activity helps keep the mind sharp, too. A … Read more
Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Fitness
A new year…a new you? We are all too familiar with the New Year’s resolution game. For many of us, forming a new year’s resolution often consists of making statements like “This year, I am going to get more exercise,” or “I am going to quit smoking.” Unfortunately, many of these good ‘intentions’ are often never executed and end in a vicious cycle of making and then breaking promises to ourselves.
Why do we find it so hard to translate such good intentions into actual behaviour? One reason may be that while we really do want to change for the better, we often do not supply ourselves with a recipe that we can follow. Just like baking a cake usually requires both the ingredients and a recipe telling you how to use those ingredients, becoming more healthy involves the same strategy. While you may have all of the necessary ingredients to become more active — motivation, new running shoes, a buddy, and the latest fitness fashion apparel — it is hard to get started if you have not made a plan to tell you how you can use these ingredients.
Tips for creating a plan, after the jump…
Continue reading How to Create a Plan for a Newer, Fitter You