How’s it going?
Last month, we encouraged you to work on your balance and eat slowly. We’re going to progress things now with two new habits to finish out 2017. These four keystone habits will set us up to really progress things in 2018.
We’ll keep it quick today:
Nutrition Habit #2: Use our EVOLVE Hunger Scale and aim for 5-6 at most meals. Try to avoid 8-10.
While we don’t preach calorie counting or excessive restriction, eating too much, too often is a common problem in our society. And when you eat until you’re absolutely stuffed at most meals, your body almost forgets what it feels like to be nourished and appropriately satisfied. But, we can retrain this. We had trouble conceptualizing advice like “eat to 80%,” so we developed our own food scale. Check it out (click to enlarge). This is a strategy you can employ anytime, anywhere, no matter what type of food is being served.
Physical Habit #2: Perform one set of clam shells to fatigue before activity like running or hiking.
Hip muscle weakness or inhibition is common in the majority of lower body injuries that we treat. The hips are the “keystone” of the lower body, and the modern world (lots of sitting and driving, paved surfaces, etc.) set us up to have hip muscle imbalances. The prime culprit is the gluteus medius. It’s located in your posterior-lateral hip, about where the top-center of a back pocket on a pair of jeans usually falls (we’ve had patients call it the “corner butt”). Even if you don’t have an injury, most people can benefit from giving this muscle a wake-up call.
We find that the best place to start is with an exercise regression called a “clam shell.” If we start more advanced, your body compensates with other muscles, and the gluteus medius doesn’t actually get worked. You know you’re doing this right when you feel a deep, satisfying muscle burn in your “corner butt.” Doing one set to fatigue during a warm up is a great way to activate a key hip stabilizer.
Keep up your habits of eating slowly and practicing balance, and add these two into your daily routine. Cheers!
Brian and Abby
PS – Did you see our articles on knee pain? Check them out: