There are three major divisions in sports and performance psychology. The first is direct research where top performers are studied. The second is educational in which the research findings are taught. The third is the direct application of the research findings to athletes, and top performers. It has only been in recent years that the direct applications of sport and performance psychology techniques have become available to the recreational athlete, to health concerns, and to all arenas of personal and profession life.

In Aikido, a Japanese nonviolent noncompetitive martial art, we often say wherever the head goes the body follows. The direct application of his theory is easy to see when throwing somebody physically. It is less obvious on a mental level.

One of the validating demonstrations I use to illustrate the mind-body connection is applied kinesiology or muscle testing. I ask an individual to hold their arm out horizontally from their body and to resist my downward pressure. I ask them to think of something negative, or false, and the arm becomes observably weakened.

When thinking of a positive, or truth, the body remains strong. Just the unspoken thoughts affect the body strength. It is hard to deny the direct effects of our thoughts on our body after this demonstration.

The application of sports and performance psychology techniques focus on the body and the mind. The body is relaxed and the mind is calm and focused. The steps taken are very similar to those used in self-hypnosis.

Our sense of balance is due to shifts of the special tiny stones within the vestibular organ in the inner ear. We tilt the head, the stones shift and the sensitive internal surface of the vestibular organ perceives this mechanical stimulation. The organ is very sensitive, so any movement makes it work and exercise.

Some people can walk on a wire while others are not able to keep balance standing on one foot. However, everybody can improve balance, although not to become a professional wire-walker, but to stand on one foot. Improving the balance is more than just to exercise the vestibular system. It requires better development and coordination of special muscle groups.

“Tree” Exercise

Start Position: Basic stand. Slowly transfer the entire weight to the left foot, every moment feeling yourself at balance

Movement:
Slide the right foot up upon the left leg, directing the right knee aside. When the right foot reaches the left knee, position yourself sturdily.

Lift up your arms with your palms touching each other in front of your chest. Slowly bring them almost above your head.

Keep very straight and feel well aligned. Relax, making as minimal muscular effort as possible.

Repeat standing on the right foot.
“Crane” Exercise

Start Position: Basic stand. The legs together, the feet parallel shoulder-wide.

Movement:
Slowly squat at the left foot simultaneously bending the right knee forward and up. Make your back round.

Simultaneously lift the arms forward and up and make their curve continuing the back curve with your head down and chin reaching to the bent knee.

Straighten your entire body still standing on the left foot.
“Monkey” Exercise

Start Position: Heels together, toes apart (ballet position #1).

Movement:
Shift your entire body weight to the left foot. Slowly squat, bending the right knee aside and lifting the right thigh parallel to the floor. Keep this position for eight counts.

Bend the body to the left, extend both arms up above the head and keep this position for eight counts.

Repeat while standing on the right foot
“Bird” Exercise

Start Position: Standing straight in front of the mirror.

Movement:

Extend the left leg back keeping the pointed toe on the floor. Lean forward with your back straight, making the leg-back line straight, lean the face down.

Slowly lift the straight leg, leaning farther forward so that the leg-back line stays straight.

Lift up the arms above the head, making them an extension of the leg-back line. Repeat eight for each leg.

Thanks for coming forth with your personal concerns…that was a huge step in healing yourself. As you know, there really is no quick fix for what you have been going through for years. Quite honestly, the best treatment for an eating disorder combines medical, phychological and nutrition counseling. However, you are in a good place to make longterm changes to your lifestyle. The rollercoaster you mentioned is what we call the “yo-yo” problem of weight cycling. It often comes from fad and quick-fix diets and risky weight loss techniques, which you probably know already. Like you said, you need to establish a healthy relationship with food, which for reasons only you know, has been an enemy to you. Finding happiness in yourself and working on building self-esteem is a good place to start. Often women (and men) use food as a form of punishment for the things that are wrong or uncontrollable in one’s life. Right now you have three beautiful children who look up to you and need you; they can serve as your daily motivator to heal yourself.
Foodwise, the best approach to acheiving and maintaining a healthy weight, as exhibited throughout this site, is through balanced diet and exercise. With a constant flow of energy into your system and regular exercise, you can establish a healthy rythm in your body – calories in, calories out; think of food as an essential fuel. Your body needs fuel on a daily basis, and you must find a balance bwtween overload and running on fumes. Most importantly you will want to get to a place where you are comfortable eating regularly, without starvation, bingeing or purging. Ultimately these unhealthy habits you are familiar with can increase your risk for serious health problems such as heart disease and some forms of cancer.
If you have the time, you may consider taking a college level course in basic nutrition. Not only will you learn about food but also about the importance of living a healthy lifestyle through balanced diet and physical activity, and establishing healthy habits.
Also, you may want to consider enlisting the help of a Registered Dietitian who specializes in eating disorders; someone you feel comfortable with who can work closely with you to help you overcome these hurdles. For a Dietitian near you visit the American Dietetic Association at www.eatright.org and go to the “Find a Dietitian” prompt on the left-hand side of the screen. Type in your zip code to receive a listing of RDs near you with their areas of specialty listed at the bottom of each page.
Additionally, the help and encouragement of friends and family members is important as well.
With these tips in mind, I hope you can learn a great deal about nutrition and health from our site. You may want to try one of the online meal plans to help you establish regular eating patterns – all the diets are calculated to what should be an appropriate level for your goals, and are balanced meal plans. It may help to think of it not as a “diet” but a healthy nutrition plan. You can also visit the virtual trainer portion of the website (under workouts) to get yourself on a regular exercise schedule. Regularity and consistency are the key to keep from falling back into the yo-yo cycle.
Although lengthy, I hope I have given you a starting place and some ideas to consider.
I wish you well!!! If you have further questions you may email me directly at dsaly@euniverse.com, or chat with me on the live chat M-F 9-5 PST.

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- Garden Vegetable and Southwestern Egg Beaters – they used to have these years ago and they are back better than ever. For you time pressed cooks you just pour and heat up a great protein filled fat fresh breakfast meal. Many of you have tried Egg Beaters since they were introduced in 1972 as the first egg alternative. The Egg Beaters come in two new varieties: Garden Vegetable (made with real eggs, red & green peppers, celery, onions and seasonings) and Southwestern (made with real eggs, red & green peppers, onions, chiles and seasonings). No more chopping up vegetables!

_ Boca Burger Pizza – tastes great and a non vegetarian will never know! Tastes like the Morningstar version.

_ If you want pizza and a veggie burger here is the answer! The Morningstar Farms Tomato & Basil Pizza Burger stays moist and the flavor is very satisfying. It also has a good fiber content. There any many flavors now in most veggie burgers so the flavor choice is yours.

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The number of ways we can experience stress seems to increase on a daily basis. One unavoidable source of stress is the task of making decisions. I am not referring to the major anxiety that occurs when we agonize over an extremely difficult decision, but the stress created by the shear volume of choices we need to think about constantly. This may not be stomach-churning or ulcer-creating stress, but it takes a toll just the same.

Not long ago, the process of making a decision was much simpler because there were fewer choices to consider. Those days are gone. Choice is on the rise and stress follows close behind.

Take buying a car for instance. Do you ever imagine how many makes and models there are to evaluate before you finally buy the perfect automobile? There was a time when the buyer would have to choose between a Model A and a Model T. Flip a coin and pick a car. After you purchase the car (first you start wondering if it really is the right one!), you get to preset your radio stations. In the ’60s and before, there were five stations that you could program. Eventually it went to 10, then to 15 and even more stations to lock in for your listening convenience. You may as well go back to spinning the dial.

Carl’s Junior, the hamburger chain, uses this concept to sell their particular brand of fast food. Their commercials begin with a close-up of the face of a bewildered looking gentleman. His facial expression grabs your attention. What causes him to look so unusual? You’ve got to know! Finally, they show the scene from behind the man. He looks at the enormous number of cereals available. He is paralyzed by indecision. The announcer says, “Without us, some men would go hungry.”

Indecision keeps us from taking action. When we can’t decide what to do, we feel a loss of control. This leads to stress. Too many of us agonize over decisions that are not worth the trouble. The competition in this world is so powerful that it causes the various manufacturers of goods and services to supply quality product, otherwise they are out of business. Assuming the same price range, one mid-sized car is about as good as the next, one large pizza will taste like another, and a pair of good jeans is a pair of good jeans.

One way to avoid some of the stress that goes with indecisiveness is to go with your first impulse. Remember when you were in school and you had to take multiple-choice tests?

Didn’t your teacher always tell you that your first answer is more likely to be true than your second or third? Try to use this kind of rationale on as many of your smaller decisions as possible. You can help yourself avoid the cumulative effects of this type of stress.

Participants included 60 overweight Japanese men, with an average age of 37, who had high blood pressure. The men were divided into three groups: diet alone, exercise alone or diet plus exercise. The diet group ate 1,200 calories per day; exercisers performed more than one hour of aerobic exercise per day; and the third group did both. At the end of 12 weeks, blood pressure fell significantly for all groups, but benefits were the greatest in the men who were in the combination diet/exercise group. In addition, one-third of the men in the diet/exercise group brought their blood pressure into the normal range without medication, which is something that neither of the other two groups achieved.

Says study lead researcher Kazuko Masuo, “This study shows that exercise plus diet is best for reducing both blood pressure and weight. In addition, exercise alone is better than diet alone.”

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People often complain of feeling foggy or disconnected. They have lost their alertness, and so many times become forgetful, later perhaps leading to Alzheimer’s Disease. Or maybe it hasn’t reached these stages, but you have lost your productivity and creativity. This leads to an overall loss of living performance. This stage of disease is in the stage of “Mental Cognitive.”

How about when you feel tired all the time? This lack of energy exhibits itself sometimes for periods of months or even years. Can you sleep for eight or more hours and still feel the need for more? This is the “Energy” stage of the disease.

Who doesn’t lose their temper on occasion, or feel down in the dumps? Has this escalated to total irritability, outbursts of anger or depression? This is the “Emotional”" stage of the disease.

The final stage of the disease is called the “Somatic”" stage. Victims have headaches, ranging from mild to severe migraine pain. They will also experience gastrointestinal malfunctions, such as diarrhea, bloating, indigestion and discomfort after eating.

This disease is called Candidiasis and is caused by the fungus Candida Albicans, or easily remembered as Yeast Disease. It is treatable, and even reversible.

However, it is a strict treatment with four separate modes.

Nutritional
Detoxification
Immunilogically
Antiviral/anti-fungal
Here’s information on how you can begin to feel better. Over indulgence in refined carbohydrates, present the body with an overdose of “sugar” one of the factors, producing gastrointestinal symptoms.

Decrease levels of toxic materials, such as carbon monoxide, insecticides, cleaning agents and other pollutants. Stay away from antibiotic drugs, which further destroy your own immune system.

Some of the various diseases found to be related to or directly caused by this disease are, all Herpes virus groups, Epstein-Barr (EBV), AIDS, Mononucleosis, just to name a few.

Or not. Twenty minutes into your hike, your heels feel like they’re riding against banana peels, forming rather disconcertingly large blisters and your toes are cramped tightly enough to allow for good rock climbing. The arch of your foot, most likely the foot you tend to favor, has become a source of severe discomfort. What the heck is going on? One hour later, you sit down, remove your $250+ boots and put on your sandals. Who cares about the snow on the ground when your feet HURT?

What just occurred is the common outcome of not breaking in your boots properly. Over the years, from Boy Scouts to now, I have heard many, many variations on the boot-breaking theme. Soak them in water, soak them in water with sticks stretching them sideways inside the boot, wear them while riding a bull (yes, I am from Texas), use saddle soap frequently as this will make the leather more “supple,” etc., etc. But I have shocking news for you. Veteran outdoors people already know this truth, but if the above story applies to you, hang onto something. This will amaze you … WEAR YOUR BOOTS A LOT.

Yes, that’s right. As frequently as possible, preferably before your big trek, or the above fictitious story may have you nodding in recognition and agreement. I’m not advertising for them, but my wife purchased me a new pair of Irish Setter hiking boots for Christmas ’99. I love these boots, now. They are soft, supple, supportive, Gore-Texed and Thinsulated ’til death do us part, amen. I DESPISED these boots new. They were hard, tall, difficult to lace, gave me blisters, and when I wore them, I felt like I was walking in moon boots. After a year of wearing them to every West Texas travel destination imaginable, and some I’ve made up; wearing them in knee-deep mud in a cotton field; and sitting on the couch rubbing saddle soap on them at an infrequent basis to maintain the “dark look” while watching TV; these are the boots I will die in. But the key is to WEAR them. I knew a fellow in Florida who bought a new pair of hiking boots to join me on a little trek up to Georgia. My boots then were pretty well broken, literally. His, so new they squeaked. Needless to say, after two hours of hiking and climbing, he sat down, removed his brand new boots, stuffed them deep in his sack, and produced a pair of well-worn cowboy-esque boots. I stared. He put them on. I started hiking to our pre-determined campsite, but he beat me there. Such is the power of comfortable footwear.

There are precautions to take while hiking to prevent blisters, hurt arches, pinched toes, etc. The most common of these is what we have already discussed. But a few small items can ease the pain if you have no other option. A small moleskin on your heel will come in handy for blisters. Arch support/odor-eaters will also be a nice thing to have, not to mention it will demonstrate your generosity toward your fellow hikers when you take your boots off.

These things can help ease the pain, but it is always better to practice preventive rather than corrective maintenance, especially on the trail.

Take care and I’ll see you out there.…

I am familiar with Tae Bo (or cardio kickboxing). I think it is a good idea to start with the basic tape and progress slowly to the more advanced workouts. Don’t feel like you have to maintain the instructor’s pace or pace of the video’s participants. Go at a comfortable pace, one that is challenging yet enables you to maintain proper form.

Regarding the pushups, just try to make small improvements each workout session, whether it’s another rep or getting closer to the floor in the lowering phase. It’s one step at a time. I think you will be surprised at how fast your upper body strength will improve with this exercise.

For this week, see if you can duplicate your cardio output and try to do a little better job with the pushups (don’t throw in the towel!). Have a great week.

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So, keep up the good work, upside down or whatever. You are eating very healthy foods in reasonable quantities. It also appears that you are not craving sweets or doing much emotional eating.

Sharon
Armand’s Reply
Trisha,

First of all, congratulations on the progress you’ve seen with the tape measure. When you lose inches, you are losing body fat — which means you are making positive changes in your body’s composition. Don’t be concerned, the weight will come off. Focus on the fact that losing fat is more important than losing weight.

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