I have prepared an example for the first phase of an eight-week training program for runners. This program I am developing assumes that you can run at least 2.0 miles. Please do not attempt to start running if you have no previous training or health issues without consulting a physician.

Phase I of Program Information:

Choose two days out of the week for rest days.  This may very from week to week depending on your schedule and commits.  For example, I like to have Thursdays and Sundays for my rest days.  Remember this is imperative for proper recovery and injury prevention. The muscles in your body actually build and repair themselves during your rest days. So with that said, if you run every day, you won’t see much improvement.

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays: After you warm up with dynamic stretching, run at a relaxed pace for the selected mileage. After you run, make sure you cool down muscles and reduce heart rate prior to static stretching.

The goal is to increase your runs by a quarter mile each week. Can you recall running farther because you feel good from the endorphins kicking in?  Unfortunately, I have found this to not always be beneficial because it’s easy to loose track of your progress and you almost always think you can run more during your next run.  Which leads you down the road for overuse injuries. Running on a track or treadmill makes it very easy to keep track of mileage, but it is also really monotonous.  Trail running is very adventurous, dynamic and, challenging.  The surface is usually easy on the joints, unless the terrain is rocky.  When trail running, I use time to keep track of my distance.  If you find that most of your runs take place on the road and you’re not sure how far you ran, there is a website that figures out the mileage, MapMyRun.com. My last option is to drive my running route and measure the mileage using my car’s odometer.  But, who wants to do that with the outrageous gas prices and when they tired from running.  

Tuesdays: Cross-training activity (biking, swimming, elliptical trainer, roller blading) performed at easy to moderate effort for 30 to 60 minutes. If you're feeling very lethargic or sore, take a rest day.

Saturdays: This is an active recovery day. Your run or walk/run combination should be at an easy, comfortable pace, which helps release muscle tightness.

 Example

Running Program

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The Lake Health Patient & Community Library has compiled authoritative websites containing the latest information on the H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) pandemic to help keep you up-to-date and to answer questions you may have. If you need further information, please contact the Lake Health Patient & Community Library:

Email: library@lakehealth.org
InformationRx (Online Information Request Form)
Phone with voice mail: 440.639.4387

State of Ohio Information
Ohio Department of Health.
Access the Ohio Information Line, current H1N1 statistics for the State of Ohio, Latest Statistics, Travel Guidelines, General and Specific H1N1 Flu Information.

PandemicFlu.gov
One-stop access to U.S. Government H1N1 and other pandemic flu information.

National Information
Centers for Disease Control.  CDC website containing the latest information about the H1N1 Flu pandemic.

MedlinePlus
A service of the U.S. National Library of medicine and the National Institutes of Health.  Contains a wealth of information on the H1N1 Flu including a health check tool, interactive tutorial, and video. Available in Spanish and other languages.

International Information
World Health Organization.
World Health Organization (WHO) website about the swine influenza outbreak.

Hello, my name is Denise Fisher.  I'm employed by Lake Health as a Certified Licensed Athletic Trainer and Licensed Massotherapist.  My blog will contain topics related to sports medicine, physical wellness and strength conditioning.  My first topic is on avoiding overuse running injuries.  Please continue to read below.......  

Welcome to a brand new blog for dieters and weight maintainers!

My name is Dr. Barbara Berkeley and I am a physician who has been treating overweight and obese patients for the past 20 years.  I am the Director of Weight Management Services for Lake Hospital System and I also run a very busy weight loss practice.  Over the years, I have worked with thousands of people who were trying to lose weight and keep it off permanently.  In fact, I guess you could say that weight loss is my life.  This is a fact that sometimes annoys my long-suffering husband---especially when he has to wait around while I’m drawn into a lengthy diet-related conversation by a dinner companion or someone I’ve met on the street.

Once people find out what I do for a living, it seems like most of them want to ask me a question about  weight.  Usually the question is a variant of the following: why they can’t lose weight or why they keep regaining it.  For many people, there’s also a lot of confusion about what constitutes a healthy diet.  We all seem to have way too much information about topics that range from trans fats to glycemic index to metabolism.  There are labels and health claims on almost every food, endless magazine articles that tell us how to eat and an abundance of “experts” each claiming to have the ultimate eating solution.  This glut of information can be overwhelming.  What does any of it mean in the real world?  This is another type of question I’m often asked.

I assume that you have similar questions too.  What I hope to do in this blog is to give you some basic, down-to-earth information about food and weight.  As we simplify things, you may find it easier to negotiate our complicated food world.  I will also try to pass along information and supports that can help you lose weight and maintain it at lower levels.  In addition, as I read the latest medical studies on diet, I’ll discuss them with you.  Together, we’ll look at the things that make sense and discard the things that don’t.  Please feel free to ask questions. Blogs should be forums for discussion.  So post your comments and enter into the conversation.  And don’t forget that the Lake Hospital System will be supporting your efforts with many new programs for weight control and wellness.  I will keep you posted as these are rolled out.  You can find out more by following Lake’s website and through the Best of Health Line at                         .

Time for a disclaimer.  You should know right at the outset that anything you read in this blog is my opinion and mine alone.  While opinions are just viewpoints, I can say with confidence that my viewpoints are based on thousands of hours of real-life experience with people who struggle with weight.  When you look at the information that is offered in many books, on TV and on the internet, be sure to ask yourself whether it is coming from an experienced person with no hidden agenda.  Remember that diets are BIG BUSINESS.  Celebrity endorsements, magical pills, and overnight colon cleanses may sound enticing.  Consider the source! Ultimately, you will have to make up your own mind about the conflicting messages you receive.   I hope that I’ll be able to help you sort them out.

So, speaking of opinions, let me give you a little tour of my dietary world view.

Almost 70% of Americans are overweight.  Why?  I firmly believe it is because we have gotten away from eating the foods that our bodies grew accustomed to over millions of years.  The further we depart from these foods, the fatter we get.   Essentially, we do not have adequate systems for processing foods that our genes never saw in the past.  Our food processing mechanism gets gummed up by these “unfamiliar” foods and the body diverts them into fat.  This is simple to understand if we think of our human bodies in the same way as we think of animal bodies.  A lion must eat the food that he is designed to eat.  We also have a diet that nature designed for us.  We only have to rediscover it to reclaim normal weight.  Along with leanness comes a lovely bonus:  vibrant health.

We have lungs because we have always breathed air.  Our body has a system for air breathing because that is the condition we’re lived in for millions of years.  If the world were to be flooded tomorrow, we would be unable to switch to water breathing.  Our genes can’t develop a new system in a day, a year, or even ten thousand years.  

Similarly, human beings lived in the out of doors for millions of years and ate the foods that they could hunt, pick or gather. Because of an endlessly long exposure to this diet, our genes developed systems to recognize and process these food products.  Like knowing how to breath air, our body also “knows” how to eat these foods.    Over the past 100 years—and with an escalating swiftness over the past 30 years, we have introduced huge amounts of “unknown” foods into our diet.   We are suffering dire consequences.  Our body can’t design new food processing systems in a day, a year ,or even ten thousand years. 

Which foods are the ones that our bodies “know”?  Think Metroparks.  If you needed to find a way to eat while stranded in the outdoors, you would be eating exactly as your ancient ancestors did.  Thus, your body would easily “understand” lean meats, poultry (birds), fish, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries, mushrooms and a few roots.   Until ten thousand years ago, humans did not grow any food themselves.  Grains like wheat, corn, rice, oats, barley and so on are new from the human perspective.  They do not occur in easily edible forms in the wild and were not a part of our original diet.

Another way to look at our current problem is to realize that ancient peoples had very little exposure to foods that wind up as sugar.  Foods that eventually become sugar in the bloodstream are sweet foods  (like sugar itself, honey or syrups) and starchy foods (grains, cereals, potatoes). Starches don’t taste sugary, but they are built out of long chains of sugar and are broken down into sugar during digestion. Once absorbed into the blood, starch and sugar become identical.  Both turn into a sugar called glucose. 

For most people, an overwhelming exposure to “S” foods (starch and sugar foods)—foods our ancient genes never planned for--- causes damage to the insulin system.   Insulin is responsible for handling glucose, but it wasn’t designed to handle such large loads.  Once that system starts to flounder, the body begins to store most of these S  Foods as fat.    In my world view, S Foods are the largest contributor to American obesity levels.  It is clear that when my patients  markedly limit S Foods, they lose weight and return to health.

But S Foods are not the only factor in our national weight gain.  Too much salt, too much saturated fat and too many calories are also problems.  How have all of these “unfamiliar” foods gained so much sway in our diet?  We can lay a lot of the blame at  the feet of food marketers.    In his recent book, The End of Overeating, former FDA commissioner David Kessler exposes the process by which food companies deliberately design foods to be ever more addictive.  Since fat, salt and sugar make foods particularly attractive, food companies spend big bucks to research the precise combinations that will  get you to eat more and more.  It is worth taking a look at this eye-opening book…particularly if you think that you are weak in the face of food.  You will find out that you are weak mostly because the foods that we encounter have been engineered to be almost fatally seductive. 

In future blogs we will get into all of this and more.  I look forward to the opportunity to learn more about you and your goals for healthy living.  Let me know what you would like to discuss and I will do my best to tailor this discussion to you and your interests.

  Welcome to my Lean World!

Lori Stevic-Rust, PhD

Medical Director, Lake Health’s Integrative Medicine Program

Reforming and improving healthcare is the focus and challenge of the future. In response to some of these challenges, a holistic approach to healing has begun to spread to major universities, hospitals, healthcare agencies and medical schools. This holistic approach, known as integrative medicine acknowledges that healing is about addressing the mind, body and spirit of the person.

Integrative medicine is a model of integrating care from the best conventional medical protocols with complimentary therapies such as acupuncture, healing touch (an evidence-based modality used by nurses to manage pain, wound/fracture healing, etc), massage and music therapy, yoga and wellness coaching for support with life style changes. The efficacy of these therapies have been widely studied with conditions ranging from gastrointestinal disorders, cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and stress related to medical illness and surgical procedures as well as pain management post-operatively.

The American Hospital Association reports that there has been a significant increase in hospitals offering complimentary therapies with only 8.6% in 1998 to almost 25% in 2004 with an additional 24% reporting plans to add services in the future. It has been reported that patients who use integrative medicine programs in a hospital are more likely to rate their overall experience higher.

The growing trend and appeal of integrative medicine appears to be coming from the consumers dissatisfaction with the current healthcare system including feeling rushed through appointments and viewed only as their disease or illness, e.g., the breast cancer or the diseased kidney. They want to be viewed in whole as the person with the disease. Healthcare providers are also embracing integrative medicine as a way to reduce their feelings of being overwhelmed and rushed in providing care under the current healthcare system.

At Lake Hospital System, we are committed to a holistic approach to healing. Subsequently, we have introduced integrative medicine services to our existing hospitals with plans for expansion to the new Tripoint Medical Center, which opens October 21, 2009. We are committed to providing a healing experience from the calm color choices, soft lighting in the rooms and hallways to the music and massage therapy that is offered as a complimentary service. In addition, our nursing staff is being trained in healing touch, an energy-based approach that uses the hands with gentle touch to enhance the caring and healing experience. Acupuncture, yoga, dietary counseling, massage and stress management will be offered in our new outpatient facility that will open with Tripoint.