The traditional time for New Year’s resolutions is still a month away, right? That kind of thinking will only make your job a little harder come Jan. 1. Or it might just sabotage your chance of success altogether.
[no time like the present]
“I tell folks, ‘Let’s change right now,’” says Steve Baum, tribe leader of Iron Tribe Fitness in Brentwood. “Most people wait until January to set resolutions, but if you are not willing to do it right now, you are going to keep putting it off. You are better doing whatever little bit you can until you build a routine,” he says.
Valerie Silberman, a personal trainer and class teacher at the St. Louis Jewish Community Center, has a strategy for making it all easier. “One of the biggest tricks is to have your bag packed for the gym in the morning, have your snack and go straight from work,” she says. “I knew that if I went home first, I would feel warm and comfortable and I wouldn’t want to go back out in the cold. If you get in the habit of going straight from work, you are more likely to get it done.”
[no excuses!]
Appointments overcome procrastination, Baum says. “Hire a personal trainer, make plans to meet a friend or get into a program that makes you stick to a plan. That way you are accountable not only to yourself, but to other people.” Also, small classes can lead to friendships that create motivation. You get a feeling of camaraderie and it becomes supportive when you get to know each other, Silberman says. “You are working hard but still having fun.”
[why wait/weight?]
Especially when it comes to improving your body, there’s no time like the present. After all, the more you eat, the more dieting you’ll have to do later. And with exercise, the sooner you start, the sooner sweat and exertion will become part of your lifestyle.
[add weights]
“Cardio training by itself is good for your heart, but it is not going to do a lot to speed up your metabolism permanently,” Baum says. “Weight training will benefit your heart strength and build lean muscle.” A body with more lean muscle functions more efficiently and looks better. “Lean muscle requires more fuel, which ramps up your metabolism and has other benefits for things such as bone density,” he explains.
[a method to the madness]
The right diet for weight loss means the right foods, not simply less food. “There is no such thing as a right or wrong food—it is a lifestyle that people need to shoot for,” Baum says. Too often, he says, “People restrict calories, and when you restrict calories your metabolic rate slows down.”
Especially around the winter holidays, it’s tempting to be naughty. “A lot of people gear up by telling themselves, for example, that they will have to exercise for 60 minutes if they eat this piece of pie,” Silberman says. “That puts a thought process to it, and maybe they won’t eat the pie. I have always been of the mentality that I don’t want to deprive myself of something I really enjoy, so I will allow myself one or two bites.”
[the difference]
“Coming into the gym and doing 20 or 30 minutes, three or four times a week, is a great start,” Silberman says. “It can make a massive difference in your energy level.” It will, however, take you about 30 days to create a new habit, Baum says. “Just do it.”
[a better outlook]
Glasses are great—if you don’t mind the hassle and expense of finding where you put them, having to replace them after you’ve accidentally stepped on them for the third time and adjusting the hinges when they start falling off your face. Or there’s LASIK.
a permanent fix
Laser Assisted In-situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) has provided an alternative for millions of patients in the past 15 years. “It’s for anyone who wants to lessen their dependence on glasses or contacts,” says Dr. Stephen A. Wexler of TLC Laser Eye Center. “Most patients say it is life-changing.” If you’ve ever needed glasses, you know why. “For most people it is remarkable,” says Dr. Jay Pepose, of Pepose Vision Institute. “They go through a 20-minute surgery and the next day they are out driving without glasses or contacts.”
love at first sight
LASIK has been widely embraced, if the numbers are any indication. About 800,000 Americans annually undergo a procedure, the most common being LASIK, to address refractive errors, which prevent light from focusing on the retina, the light-sensing tissue at the back of the eye. LASIK is a two-stage procedure, Pepose explains, in which a protective flap on the cornea is lifted for access to a deeper part of the cornea. “We sculpt that inner layer with a second laser,” he says. “Once we have changed the shape of the cornea, the light is going to be bent differently. Instead of falling in front of the retina or behind the retina, it will fall on the retina, like an image focusing on the film in a camera.”
enviable results
More than 90 percent of LASIK patients achieve vision measured between 20/20 and 20/40 without corrective lenses, according to the American Association of Ophthalmologists. Vision of 20/20 describes normal acuity at 20 feet from an object. In comparison, a person with 20/100 vision must get 20 feet next to an object that a person with normal vision can see at 100 feet. As for costs, LASIK typically will set you back $2,000 to $3,000 per eye, and most patients do both eyes in one visit.
thumbs up?
Some people would not make good candidates for LASIK. “It probably wouldn’t be a good option for someone who has corneal scarring, a disease of the cornea, or dry eye that isn’t responding to treatment,” says Pepose. In addition, it may not correct larger refractive errors, Wexler says, because “there is a limit to how thin and how flat we can make the cornea.” He adds there are other options for those patients.
And for patients ‘of a certain age’ who want to get rid of those annoying reading glasses—uh-uh. LASIK does not treat presbyopia, the loss of close-up vision after age 40.
wavefront technology
About five years ago, ophthalmologists began using computerized equipment called wavefront technology to map the eye and determine the needed corrections. Corneal reshaping previously was decided by asking the patient to give feedback by looking through test lenses, as in an eyeglass exam.
“In the past we averaged the correction across the eye,” Pepose explains. “The wavefront gives us a direct measurement so we are lasing in every spot across the cornea, and it is 25 times more accurate.” And the percentages of patients with higher levels of correction have grown, as well, he says, with some patients able to see better than 20/20. “Each of these steps has brought further and further refinement.”
[beauty is skin deep]
Time is not our friend, but modern medicine, on the other hand, can be very friendly. A combination of invasive and non-invasive procedures can take years off the face, and who wouldn’t want that for 2015?
the slings & arrows of time
“There are four basic things that happen to the skin as it ages,” says Dr. Richard Moore of The Lifestyle Center. “These begin to become evident in our 40s and more evident in our 50s and 60s. Smoking and sun exposure makes them worse.” The first signs, Moore says, are color changes, usually pigment changes due to sun exposure. “Second, dynamic wrinkles form when you make a facial expression and static wrinkles become ingrained after we get into our 40s,” he explains. “The third change is increased laxity due to the loss of collagen and support structures, and fourth is the loss of volume, which gives the face a hollow and saggy appearance.”
help is at hand
“There are things that can bring a more organized and youthful effect to your skin. It is just a matter of how much work you want to do,” says Dr. Joseph A. Muccini Jr. of the MidAmerica Skin Health & Vitality Center. “For example, there are a lot of new things happening in skin tightening,” he says. While there is no non-surgical procedure that will equal the dramatic results of a face-lift, “there are many people who might be perfectly happy with a procedure that is non-invasive or minimally invasive.”
One alternative uses heat to tighten the skin through ultrasound, Muccini says. “Another skin tightening device uses radio frequency waves to heat the skin,” Moore adds. “The skin is heated very comfortably and stimulated to produce new collagen over the coming months. We can achieve a tightening of the jawline and lift the cheeks.”
restoring volume
“The other big thing used to rejuvenate the appearance is restoring volume,” Moore says. “We all lose collagen as we age. Some people lose it more rapidly than others, due to genetics or lifestyle choices.” That’s where dermal fillers come in: they replace the tissue lost under the skin.
The biggest category of dermal fillers is the hyaluronic acids, a substance naturally present in the body’s connective tissues, Muccini says. Hyaluronic products are injected and restore volume that helps us lift the face. “Most hyaluronic acid fillers last six to 12 months,” says Moore, and “the body breaks it down as it breaks down your own collagen.” He adds there are longer-lasting products also.
ironing the wrinkles
Then there’s Botox, one of several neuromodulators used to treat wrinkles. “These products limit facial expression so that you are less likely to develop those deep creases,” Moore explains. Basically, they paralyze the muscles. “We only put them in very specific areas,” Muccini adds.
lasers & peels
Laser treatments can be used to lighten age spots, as can chemical peels. “Peels remove a superficial layer of skin,” explains Moore, “and can get rid of some of the pigment damage.” Micro-needling devices, such as SkinPen, stimulate the face to rejuvenate itself. “It puts minor wounds in the skin, but they are barely felt because the skin is numbed,” Moore says. “The person appears to have a mild sunburn for about 24 hours, but the body repairs that injury and sends fibroblasts to lay down new collagen.”
As for finding the right person and procedure for you: “It is 100-percent an art, so look for someone who has experience with multiple modalities,” says Muccini. “The changes can be impressive and improve a person’s self-esteem and feeling of well-being dramatically.”
