If you celebrate Christmas, the clock is ticking on the days you have left for shopping. If you’ve hit a wall on what to get your friends or family, consider a gift that will enhance your loved one’s health and well-being. With obesity at an all–time high, just about all of us know someone who could stand to lose a few pounds and make positive changes in their health.

Here are some gift ideas that a fitness enthusiast (or someone who should perhaps become more fitness minded) might enjoy:

Foam roller
A foam roller is a great self-massage device and sports performance tool that should be in every exerciser’s closet. Foam rollers are excellent for helping massage sore muscles, smooth out scar tissue and work out the kinks in an active body.

Gift card to a sporting good store
I suggest gift card recipients who happen to be new exercisers start with a great pair of shoes, but sports equipment, exercise equipment and workout gear are other ways to put a gift card to use to support an active lifestyle.

Subscription to a health, fitness or nutrition magazine
This is the gift that keeps on giving! Receiving a health- oriented magazine each month is a wonderful way to keep health and fitness at the top of someone’s mind. I recommend The Nutrition Action Healthletter, MORE, and Cooking Light (I subscribe to all 3!).

Exercise tubing
Exercise bands are an easy-to-use, economical, and very portable exercise option. I use them a lot in my in-home personal fitness training and in my “Fit and Fabulous FitCamp for Women over 40″ in San Jose. I find them to be very versatile and useful for developing strength. Most local sporting goods stores carry exercise bands. For online shoppers, The Perform Better Catalog is a great source. I recommend the economy tubing at Perform Better. If you buy 3 bands, you get a 4th free and they’ll throw in door straps for free, too!

Gift certificate for a massage
Just about every fitness enthusiast enjoys and can benefit from a good massage. New exercisers will appreciate a massage after those first few workouts!

One month of tuition at a fitness boot camp
Fitness boot camps offer all the benefits of personal training at a fraction of the cost. They are an economical way to get a strength and cardiovascular workout while enjoying the motivation and camaraderie of fellow campers. I run a special FitCamp just for boomer women in San Jose, California. If you’re near me, I hope you’ll look me up (www.lifesportbootcamp.com).

The clock is ticking if you’ve got gifts to buy! Consider enhancing someone’s health in 2009 by giving the gift of improved fitness and well-being.

Becky

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Today’s weight loss tip for boomers is…….

Avoid drinking too many calories

This is actually the very first tip I give to my personal training clients in San Jose when I begin to work with them. I saved it for tip #5 here on my blog, as I wanted it to appear as we approach all the holiday parties. This tip is really timely for these next few weeks.

I won’t begrudge anyone the occasional glass of wine, juice, a non-fat latte or mocha–or whatever drink floats your boat. However, many of us drink waaaaaayyyyy too many calories. I will put out this challenge to anyone reading this blog post: If you currently struggle with your weight, write down everything you eat and drink for the next 4-5 days. Everything. Extract out the liquid calories. You might be surprised. Research shows that some folks drink more than 800 calories a day in the form of liquid beverages. Yikes. Not good for a boomer waistline. How does this happen? The juice smoothies, the full fat mochas, the tall glass of orange juice, the mixed drinks or wine here and there. They add up.

The tricky part with liquid calories is that they don’t really “register” in our brain. We don’t eat less to compensate for the higher calorie beverages we drink. Therefore, those of us who drink a lot of calories are probably battling excess weight.

The good news is, this is a pretty easy fix. Stop drinking so many calorie filled beverages!

It’s a lot easier to drink fewer calories than it is to eat fewer calories. It’s a challenge at this time of year with lots of holiday gatherings and festivities. Some traditional holiday drinks (eggnog, hot buttered rum) can really pack on the calories. If you’re going to enjoy extra liquid calories this month, it’s best to accommodate somewhere else in the energy balance equation. Just remember that if you accommodate too much, you’ll wind up with lots of empty calories from non-nutritious beverages, and your overall nutrition will suffer. I guarantee you’ll feel worse and have lower energy levels, too! This will affect your exercise efforts.

The moral of this weight loss tip: Always be mindful, especially at this time of the year, of the calories you drink. They often sabotage the best laid weight loss plans.

Yours in health,

Becky

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