Healthy tips and tricks for a busy schedule

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

In the beginning of the year, I shared a very personal weight-loss goal with my readers. I have to admit, though, that staying true to it has been a little harder than I thought — especially with last week's temporary departure of our beloved sports editor, Andrew O’Brien, who left town for a ski trip.

(I'm still secretly convinced he planned his vacation to align perfectly with playoffs so that I would need to run around Flagler County and Ormond Beach covering sporting events, in addition to interviewing artists for the launch of the Observer's Diversions section.)

Thankfully, one Observer reader, Bernard Short — father of Matanzas High student Kayla Short, who made history a couple weeks ago taking second place at the girls weightlifting sectional meet — sent me some very helpful healthy eating and exercise tips.

My favorite, and also the toughest for me to keep with my crazy journalist schedule, is “never starve yourself, you will only slow your metabolism and you will end up pigging out anyway.”

This is one of those things that I have always known, but working a full day on deadline, and then driving to Ormond to cover a regional soccer match, sometimes gets in the way. The solution, Bernard said, is to eat little meals and snacks every couple of hours. That way, your metabolism keeps running.

So, this week, I fully intend to stock the bottom drawer of my desk, where I hide my K-cups for the office Keurig (shh ... don’t tell my co-workers), with a stockpile full of yummy snacks. Of course, the idea is to fill up with low-calorie snacks — portion-control snacks, low-calorie popcorn and coffee instead of dessert. Something to think about next time my editor decides to surprise us with a box full of donuts at our story meeting.

Good thing Andrew will be back this week to scarf down all my favorite donuts for me.

On the exercise front, Bernard reminded me that if I don’t make it to the gym for an hour and a half every day, it’s OK. Two to three times a week for 20 minutes is all you really need.

“If you are going to look and feel really good, you need to exercise your core/stomach muscles,” he wrote in an email to me. “Old fashioned sit-ups are still the best way.”

Oh boy. When I read this, I started having flashbacks of middle school gym class. Laying on a mat on the hardwood floor at Indian Trails, staring at the bright lights suspended from the ceiling and hoping that the classmate holding my feet was paying enough attention to not miscount the number of sit-ups I was doing.

But Bernard is right. We don’t have to get all fancy with it. Sometimes, old fashioned is always still in fashion.

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