Keeping New Year's Resolutions

Bobbi Janzen:
Somebody once said to me, "Don't treat yourself like you're a dog." And I have a very spoiled guide dog. I'm going to put that out there. I adore him. But when you do something good, don't automatically give yourself a cookie, but know that there are times to do so. One balance is on the other. So when I say make sure you love yourself, it's in all acts. Aspects, do something for you. But I'm one that says, "Yes, eat the cake." By all means, life is to be enjoyed. But we do so within balance, within reason. So, reward your body with proper nutrition. It needs to be healthy, but don't punish yourself either.

Joeita Gupta:
I'm Joeita Gupta, and this is the Pulse. New Year's resolutions can range from getting more exercise to eating healthier, to saving money or drinking less. There's nothing wrong with making resolutions. It's a great way to bring about change or work on self-improvement. But according to recent polling, February 1st is usually the day most people call it quits on their New Year's resolutions. Being unable to stick with a resolution can lead to disappointment for some people, but more often than not, people just shrug and say they'll do better next year. And whether one personally believes that the practice of making resolutions is powerful or just pointless, the tradition of making New Year's resolutions remains intact. Today we discuss New Year's resolutions. It's time to put your finger on the pulse.
Hello and welcome to the Pulse on AMI-audio. I'm Joeita Gupta. Let me start out by wishing you a very happy New Year. I hope you had a good holiday season. I hope you had a chance to relax, unwind, see some family, maybe get caught up on Netflix, even if you had a bunch of books that are piled up on your bedside table and you had a chance to plow through those and read them. I hope you had a chance to rest and recharge those batteries because 2023 is here and we are delighted to welcome the new year with a fairly light-hearted show. I know on the Pulse we tend to have a variety and sometimes we do a lot of serious shows and we have deep conversations.
But I wanted to tackle the New Year's resolution and I thought I would just talk to people about the most common ones. And the common ones, of course, as I said in the monologue, eating healthy, getting some exercise, saving money, that's my New Year's resolution for the year. We'll see if I do any if I can actually pull it off. But today we're going to talk to two experts Later on in the program, you'll be hearing from Alicia Connor, who is blind, but also nutritionist and a dietician. And Alicia's going to give us a couple of tips about eating healthy. But first I'm really delighted to welcome in our fitness expert Bobbi Janzen, who is of course a well-known personality on AMI TV and the host of Healthy at Home with Bobbi Janzen. And Bobby joins us today to talk about being healthy and getting some exercise in the new year. Bobbi, hello and welcome to the Pulse. It's great to have you with us on the program.

Bobbi Janzen:
Hi, thanks so much for having me.

Joeita Gupta:
So Bobbi, a lot of us start the new year off by saying we're either going to exercise more or we will start to exercise. If you're a bit lazy and you haven't been exercising at all, if we set these goals for ourselves at the beginning of the year, how important is it to have some specific goals or targets in mind as we set the New Year's resolution to exercise a little bit more?

Bobbi Janzen:
Well, personally, I don't believe in New Year's resolutions and I'll be totally honest. And the reason being is so many people use that fitness as a New Year's resolution and they end up feeling like they've let themselves down. So, as opposed to doing it as a New Year's resolution, what I do is maybe say, you know what, in the next year I'm going to love myself a little bit more. I'm going to do some things for me, making it a bit less specific and more forgiving and make that plan that, you know what loving me looks like, I'm going to move more. And that can change over time, but it's ... The more detailed, the more people seem to feel that they've let themselves or others down. So, that's my approach to it. Just put it out there that you're going to love yourself a little more. You might look at moving a little more, and then once you find the program that works for you, then you can set those details and those goals out.

Joeita Gupta:
So what do you recommend for someone who's getting into an exploratory stage in terms of determining an exercise regime or workout? Where's a good place for them to start?

Bobbi Janzen:
I find the most success comes when you find what interests you. I'm going to use Burpees as an example. Some people hate them, so they're not going to want to do them. So, activity looks different for all of us. And maybe that's swimming. Some people like that. So, that's something they can look into or it's what speaks to you or what do you want to try? So, find out what interests you, not what you feel like you're going to have to do. That it's like eating Brussels sprouts. Some people like that, some don't. It's like, I don't really want to do this. It's got to be something that you want to do so you can see that change happen and feel more successful.

Joeita Gupta:
I was wondering if you had a thought about whether, and this is especially true for someone who's getting into exercising for the first time, whether it makes more sense to work out individually or if you should take a class and work out with a group of people.

Bobbi Janzen:
That depends on the person. So, in my career, I have found some people that need that group connection and that support or that buddy. And especially since the pandemic, I see a lot of people that prefer working out on their own with some guidance from a video or a trainer, their own workout. It's a little bit of a changing landscape there, but it's going to depend on the person and what they enjoy. You want to find that success. So, it's what works for you. What do you like? Do you want to go to the gym with your friend? Do you want to go to a class? Do you need that extra support?

Joeita Gupta:
Bobbi, one of the things I've been wondering about is whether it gets kind of expensive if you decide to work out at home, lots of expensive equipment on the market, kettlebells, TRX machines. You think about all of the equipment that you can potentially buy and the price tag gets bigger and bigger. Now do you need a lot of fancy equipment or can you start out with things that are relatively simple?

Bobbi Janzen:
Well, as we show in Healthy at Home, you need zero equipment to get started and to get fit. Even after 20 some years in the industry, a lot of my workouts are equipment free, so it should, fitness costs nothing in essence.

Joeita Gupta:
Well that's good, but how long do you spend working out or how long do you recommend that someone who is new to working out actually spend working out in a, let's say in a day, for example?

Bobbi Janzen:
That's going to depend on their level. And my main point is your first step is to show up. Show up for you and whatever that looks like. And if you get five minutes in or if you add an additional walk, it's starting somewhere. As long as you start and then you can look at how many minutes a day or cumulative activity and what that looks like throughout your week. But just getting started and showing up, that is enough for now.

Joeita Gupta:
For a lot of people with disabilities, we might want to work out, but a lot of existing programs and DVDs and workout regimes aren't really adapted to people with disabilities. The assumption being that everyone who wants to work out is able-bodied and they can just follow along with the workout program as it is set up. How do you recommend people with disabilities take an existing program and adapt it to suit their needs depending on what their disability is?

Bobbi Janzen:
That's one of the reasons I actually got into what I've done for so many years, as far as adapting. So, my advice there is if there is a program that they're looking into, if they feel comfortable talking to that instructor or comfortable talking to their doctor, their trainer, anyone that can give impact or important advice on how to adapt that. So, somebody trained in the ability to do so and to change that program so that it gives that participant what they need from the program so they can feel like they've got this.

Joeita Gupta:
There are so many interesting devices out there that can give you all this data about your performance. You can count your steps. I think you can count your heart rate. I can go on and on. I'm wondering if devices like that actually help or hinder someone who's trying to work out a little bit more.

Bobbi Janzen:
It depends. It can either go both ways. I've seen it used for the greater good. I've seen it used for, actually, to create more confusion and chaos. Heart rate monitors, they can be good for people that understand how to condition within the proper heart rate zones. And usually, you have to have that education or have worked with a trainer that knows. So, there's that and that doesn't come with a nice state of directions that you should be exercising in this zone. So, that's where that one can get tricky step counters. It's nice to know. I enjoy my step counter. I use it when I'm out with my guide dog to see how far we've gone. Sometimes I like to challenge myself. So, that kind of data can be helpful. But once again, it's having that plan in place and that knowledge in place to use these to better what you want to achieve.

Joeita Gupta:
What would you say is the relationship between diet and nutrition and exercise? Could you start to exercise and work out vigorously in the morning and then, I don't know, go home and treat yourself to a box of cookies? Or is the relationship between food and exercise a little more nuanced?

Bobbi Janzen:
I love that question because somebody once said to me, "Don't treat yourself like you're a dog." And I have a very spoiled guide dog. I'm going to put that out there. I adore him. But when you do something good, don't automatically give yourself a cookie, but know that there's times to do so. One balances on the other. So, when I say make sure you love yourself, it's in all acts, aspects, do something for you. But I'm one that says, "Yes, eat the cake." By all means, life is to be enjoyed. But we do so within balance, within reason. So reward your body with the proper nutrition. It needs to be healthy, but don't punish yourself either.

Joeita Gupta:
Well, you mentioned earlier that you're visually impaired, and I am as well, and I'm sure you've noticed this, A lot of programs, especially online videos and DVDs aren't really inclusive of people who are blind. I mean, you can have the person on the screen working out, but they don't really describe what they're doing. So, you don't really get as much information as a sighted viewer. What sort of solutions have you used to try and deal with the fact that a number of preexisting workout programs aren't accessible to people who are blind?

Bobbi Janzen:
That's a really tough one because I know exactly what you're saying. It has been probably one of my most biggest frustration points is I can't just go by this DVD and pop it in and do exactly what they're doing. So, number one, don't be afraid unless it's something that's, that's a bit more of a dangerous exercise. So, when I took a Zumba class, it's not described. Don't be afraid to have fun and it doesn't matter what other people think. So, you're there to move. So, that's take the stress off there, but it's nice to balance it with some in-person stuff.
So, if you want to kind of get an idea of what the exercise is, so meeting with a trained professional in the fitness and exercise world to understand some of these exercises that might, you'll get the word pushup and if somebody doesn't know what that feels like within their body and they can't see the steps, if you have it taught to you, then you can go home and you put your DVD in and it's like, "Oh yeah, I've got pushups to do. I know where I'm going." So, for me it's combining the get some external knowledge to apply to your home DVDs until everything becomes this beautiful accessible world that we would love to see.

Joeita Gupta:
One of the things that I often worry about, to be honest with you is overdoing it, especially when I'm determined to start exercising. And so I'm wondering if there's a balance between low-impact workouts, things like going on walks or maybe going for a swim and how you balance things like that with high-impact workouts, like going to the gym and lifting weights. Or I'd even include jogging or running because that can really take a toll on your knees, for example. So, how do you find a way to balance all of those things?

Bobbi Janzen:
So first, with any exercise program, you should always consult with your health professionals because you need to find out if there is any restrictions. For me, and it's a strange restriction, I can't hang upside down due to my visual condition hanging upside down is out of the question. So, I find activities that don't involve me hanging upside down like a bat. But finding balance is, one helps the other, if that makes sense. So, once you have a plan with your physician, your medical professional, and you know what your limitations, I don't like that word, but what you should and should not be incorporating, there we go, into your workout. If they say, "You know what? Jumping jacks are just not for you." Okay, we're going to find a workout or something that's a little more mindful of that." But yoga, if you're a weightlifter, yoga helps stretch out the muscles that you've been using to lift.
Running, it's not for everyone, but it helps the cardiovascular system. If running is not one of the options for you, you can run in the water that takes the pressure off the knees. You can use an elliptical to do those cardiovasculars. So, you can find other avenues. They all reflect off each other. So, we need muscular strength, which can be body weight or like you said, weight lifting. We need cardiovascular, cardiovascular strength or health, which is either walking, running, swimming, sometimes it's yoga, anything like that. A more aerobic activity. And then we also need flexibility. It's good for the mind and the body to stretch and repair those muscles and keep us moving, but I wouldn't recommend somebody bite off all three pieces at once.

Joeita Gupta:
Look, Bobbi, I got one more question and I'm almost embarrassed to ask it, but one of the ways in which I've often gotten out of working out is by saying, "You know what? I live in a condo. I don't have a basement, I don't have room for a home gym, I just don't have room, period." So, that's how I worm out of working out by saying, "I just don't have a lot of space." What would you just say to somebody who's a condo dweller or lives in an apartment and feels that they just don't have enough room to work out?

Bobbi Janzen:
Oh, I love that one because I hear it a lot. If you have a space where you can either sit in a chair or stand or lay on the floor, any three of those, even if it's just one of those, if you have standing room, you can move. So, it becomes the excuse that you want to make. There's a way around pretty much anything. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Joeita Gupta:
Well, Bobbi, I have to say I am running out of excuses. You have given a lot of us a lot of things to think about. Now I know you're not big on New Year's resolutions, but you've certainly got me thinking about how to incorporate a little more fitness and movement in my day-to-day life. So, thank you so much for joining us here on the program.

Bobbi Janzen:
You're welcome. And thanks for having me. Take care.

Joeita Gupta:
Healthy at Home with Bobbi Janzen airs Wednesdays at 8:00 PM Eastern on AMI TV. You can also stream the show anytime on ami.ca or on the AMI TV app. Okay, so we've now established a couple of good habits for exercise, but we know that's maybe what, 50% of the equation, 30 40% of the equation. A lot of being healthy in the new year comes down to eating healthy. And I'm really delighted to bring in my next guest, who is Alicia Connor. Alicia Connor is a blind nutritionist, dietician, YouTuber, book author, an all-around awesome person. I'm actually very sad that we'll only have half the program to talk to Alicia today. But with that said, I am delighted to welcome you to the program. Thank you so much for joining us.

Alicia Connor:
Great to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Joeita Gupta:
So, around this time of year, as with exercise, I'll often say, "You know what, I'm going to eat healthy or I'm going to eat healthier." But inevitably I fall off the bandwagon and I start to eat sugar and chocolate and junk food and I'm not alone in having these particular problems when it comes to diet and nutrition. Why do so many people fail?

Alicia Connor:
Well, for one, the intention, I want to eat healthier. It's not specific enough. So, we need to break it down into actionable steps. We have an idea and that's great, but what does that feel like throughout the day? And we eat and drink throughout the day and then our body really likes movement. Our bodies, our human being bodies were meant to move. And so finding ways to move throughout the day. So, how think about do you want to feel? Because that motivation, the challenging week, that can snowball into challenging months and then letting go of habits can be really easy.
Actually, something I've been saying, I used to say this years ago and I brought it back recently was, "There's a million reasons to do something and there's a million and one reasons not to." So, there's always going to be shenanigans and the less, the more we're get back on in the moment versus letting it go. Because imagine you create these habits and you're holding onto them and you're not holding onto them tightly, like stressed out and tight with a tight grip or your hand hurts, right? You're thinking about how to break down your habits and actions in a way that's absolutely doable. So, say you want to in, I don't know, somebody wants to exercise more. Joeita, what's something that you'd like to do next year in 2023?

Joeita Gupta:
Not to spend so much money, to be honest with you.

Alicia Connor:
Okay. So, yeah, that's perfect because everything like money and health, it's related. So, what would be a baby step thing that you could do to help you with that goal?

Joeita Gupta:
So, you are saying that we should actually try to have something very specific that we would work on. Well see, that's really interesting. But I find that when it comes to food, eating healthy, diets, people aren't really thinking about what they're eating and the healthy options they want to incorporate. Often people are thinking about what they want to exclude or leave out. I'm not going to drink pop anymore. I don't want to eat carbs anymore. How useful is the strategy of eliminating entire food groups when it comes to an overall desire to be eating more healthy?

Alicia Connor:
Yeah, I mean depending on what the health challenge is, if it's really helpful to not have alcohol or not helpful to have some kind of sugar for a period of time before getting lab results done or something, maybe that's helpful. But it's not like to say that you're never going to have X, Y, Z. That's probably not realistic. So, honestly, I think the more honest you are and realistic with the approach, the better it is. One of my clients just said to me earlier that they're going to enjoy a glass of wine with their girlfriend when they hang out and that they weren't willing to give that up. And so it's figuring out everybody has their thing and what's the most helpful. And so it's like how are you going to have it and think about instead of giving up chocolate, maybe you have a really good chocolate square a couple nights a week or something, so that you're having it.
Because there's also a balance. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get to call my clients monsters. We each have a monster inside and if we don't feed that monster, in lots of ways, socializing, fun, laughing, having a good time, all of the areas in life that help fill, fill the cup, the life cup up, then we increase the risk of the monster coming out. And so if we do too much restriction, then the monster, a lot of people say, "I'm going to eat low carb." And they have chicken and salad for a while and that's very low carb. And so having the beans, the lentils, the sweet potato, the quinoa in there to have a balanced meal so we feel full and we have that carbohydrate could be actually helpful. So, a lot of times people crave dessert after a meal maybe because there's no carb there. I'm not saying it's going to work for everybody, but it's a strong habit perhaps for some. But trying to an extremist approach is not something that's going to be sustainable long term.

Joeita Gupta:
The other thing I often feel is that I'd really like to cook at home, but I get home from work and I am so exhausted. I honestly feel it's much easier to just use Uber Eats or go to a restaurant and get out of having to cook and clean up after myself. But that's inevitable. So, how do we deal with a situation where you might have a desire to eat healthy at home but you're just too tired to do it?

Alicia Connor:
Yeah, so I'm a big fan of batch cooking. So, say you make chili or it could be vegetarian, it could be a meat chili. It doesn't matter. A pot of something that's balanced or a cup or a bowl. And so I might make one or three batches of soup in one, at the same time. Because for me it doesn't take me more time, that much more time to make a little bit more. And then I feed my freezer once a month and then I eat from my freezer. So, that reduces one, the expense of ordering out.
And then two, it's healthy and it's like instant gratification whether or not I heat it up on the stove or in the microwave and it's what I need and what I enjoy. And so I think it's knowing, thinking about how you want to feel and move throughout your day so that you can do some planning in advance. So, it's like we don't go on vacation without a plan. We have the tickets to go to wherever, we have the transportation, we have the place that we're going to stay. And it's the same with eating healthy. We need a plan.

Joeita Gupta:
A lot of people will say, "Okay, it's a new year. My plan for this year is to start the keto diet or to do intermittent fasting and that's how I'm going to get healthy or I'm going to lose weight or that's how I'm going to meet my nutrition goals." Whatever they might be. I'm curious about what you have to say about some of these diets. Most of them can be pretty fashionable just in your capacity as a nutritionist and as a dietician.

Alicia Connor:
Well, I think, I've worked with a lot of people that have done these diets to lose weight and they do lose weight. But in the end of the day, anyone, all humans on planet earth right now need to come up with and maybe work with a professional to help them create their own system. Because I've also seen people lose weight and then regain that weight that they just lost because they didn't have that next plan. And so these strategies could be helpful, but long term it's good to have the sustainable plan because the vacations, the holiday meals are going to happen. And so you need a plan for not only the weight loss, if that's what your goal is, but also the transition into reality and building in restaurant meals and these occasions within the plan so that it becomes something that's part of the lifestyle versus this thing after the new year. I do this extreme thing for three months and then I go back to normal.

Joeita Gupta:
I just have about a minute left, but I wanted to ask you, and I'm sorry I can't give you more than a minute to get into this, but often people eat for emotional reasons. They eat when they're bored, they eat when they're stressed, they eat when they're lonely. Now in under a minute, how do people deal with the emotional causes of eating or overeating?

Alicia Connor:
I think that's really important to bring up. And I think finding ... It's having the emotions and finding non-food ways we need to nourish ourselves for nutrition and energy and for our bodies optimal function, our best function, the best we can. And using food for comfort, our culture trains us to think this way in many ways because marketing is basically telling us to eat. Like when in doubt, eat and then, oh, and then eat. Anytime is an opportunity for eating and that's really not a helpful approach. So it's not you the individual, it's our system and food culture. And there's also things like a lot of my clients that I've worked with, they say, "I grew up where I couldn't leave the table unless I finished my plate or the starving people in wherever." And these things stick with us long term. And so I think the main thing is thinking about how you eat, your pattern of eating as well as when you have emotions, have that go-to list of things that you can do in lieu of food When you check in, like, am I hungry?
Check in with yourself. If you truly are hungry, then have something if that makes sense. But if you're, if you've been fed and you're going to have, you're going to eat soon, then come up with a shortlist. Maybe five things that you could do in lieu of comforting yourself with food. And I mean you could do the hot tea and things that don't have any calories that are quite pleasant, even bone broth or something like that could be nice. But in terms of strategies, can you go for a walk or can you call a friend or family member or somebody or have fun. Watch a video that's entertaining or listen to something like a comedy thing that's just a couple minutes long. Like disrupt, either find comfort in another way and stop in the pattern of comforting with food in a healthy way.

Joeita Gupta:
That was a blind nutritionist and dietician, Alicia Conner. Okay folks, I gave away my New Year's resolution. I am always trying to exercise and eat healthy, but I am also trying to save money. I will see how it goes and I'll check in with you after February 1st to see if I actually manage to stick with, I'm planning to do a no spend challenge for the month of January, so I'll see if I can actually manage to keep from spending money. I'll keep you posted on that. But that's all the time we have for today. If you have any feedback or if you want to share your New Years' resolution or whether you even bother to make them, you can always let us know in the comments down below. Please don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and to the YouTube channel so you can be notified about other future videos.
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