Dr. Counet: Mr. Gardellini, first of all, I want to wish you a happy 84th birthday today. I can report that indeed you have the physical and mental equivalence of a healthy man in his late forties or early fifties. Congratulations!

Carlos Gardellini: Thanks, Doc. I’m very lucky. Actually, it was back at the turn of the century when I truly discovered the secret of exercise: it’s the fountain of youth!

Dr. Counet: I have seen your holopage – what we used to call a webpage – from that era. I must point out, www.BodyByCarlos.com was certainly way ahead of its time. The beginning of this century was revolutionary for brain science. At that time, we’d known for centuries that exercise was the key to maintaining physical youth. However, it was only in the 2nd decade that we discovered that our knowledge of the brain was flawed.

Carlos Gardellini: That’s right. Back in 2014, when I started studying for my first certification in personal training, I stumbled across this very flaw. Since the time of the ancient pharaohs we had always believed that we have all the neurons we’ll ever have by age five. But we were wrong! Brain researchers were fully convinced this was so, until we were finally able to develop the necessary tools and discovered that we can grow our brains continuously. There is no reason that a person of any age cannot develop and grow adolescent brain cells – neurons – through exercise.

Dr. Counet: And this knowledge changed your life?

Carlos Gardellini: Well, yes and no. In general – with a single exception – I’ve always kept myself in pretty good shape. Why? Before the cancer-curing nanotech breakthroughs of the 2030s, cancer devastated my family. One oncologist told my uncle four decades ago, “these cancers should have killed you. They didn’t for two reasons: modern medicine and your fantastic shape, even in your eighties.” So I’ve always had the personal motivation to stay fit. And, professionally, I’ve had access to incredible NASA studies. A 40-year old can become 70+ physically after just several months in space. Decades of data on earth shows that a 70-year-old has a 1-in-2 chance of breaking a hip, and a 1-in-5 chance of dying, after just a simple fall. NASA’s conclusion? Exercise and trick a body in its seventies into becoming decades younger.

Dr. Counet: What was that exception?

Carlos Gardellini: Back in 2008 I appeared in a multiple-award-winning documentary, Orphans of Apollo, which chronicled a project I worked on at the turn of the century. It scared me, seeing two vastly different versions of myself on the big screen, just seven years apart. Old friends didn’t recognize the present – fat – Gardellini! New friends didn’t recognize the younger – fit – Gardellini! Stress, age, aches, pains and laziness had taken their toll. So I set myself a goal: I’d use all my hi-tech knowledge to develop the world’s most efficient-and-safe training program. And in 2011, at the age of 50, I returned to the Haley’s Comet Marathon I’d run at 25, and beat my own time from 1986. I ran 12 minutes faster and have never looked back. All my training and life-extension tricks have been on BodyByCarlos.com for decades.

Dr. Counet: Is that what made you decide to become a Private Trainer (PT) in middle-age?

Carlos Gardellini: Only partly. The real blame lies with Mr. Lucas Kohlberg, who was the boss at the World Class Fitness Center in Brussels. Lucas had known me since my Fat Gardellini days, when I first started working out there with my own PT, Mr. Lynx Teta-Delozege Tepatondele. In early 2014, I first approached Lucas with an idea for the club to offer a version of one of my high-efficiency training regimes, “The 7-Minute Workout”. Lucas shared The Big Secret with me: worldwide there is a chronic shortage of middle-aged PTs offering specialized instruction for an increasingly older clientele. It was Lucas, with substantial encouragement from Lynx, who convinced me to get fully certified as a full-time PT and begin teaching classes and offering private training. That’s when I devoted myself to specialist training, literally offering people the mental, physical and spiritual fountain of youth. I knew it right there and then: now I get to enjoy the life of a young man, all over again! I’ve actually spent over half of my adult life getting paid to stay young and helping others to do the same thing. If that doesn’t motivate a person to get out of bed in the morning, what will?

Dr. Counet: Any current goal(s)?

Carlos Gardellini: Sure. Haley’s Comet returns in just 16 years, in 2061. How cool would it be to run a marathon underneath it again, at age 100, and beat my times at 25, 50 and 75?

Taking photography trips over the years, trying different techniques, creating thousands of missed and bad pictures, reading books and articles from the Internet, taking photography classes, getting inspiration from other landscape photographers whose work I like and, sometimes, just pure luck. The sum of all those parameters, I guess. In the end, the eyes get trained at seeing things better wherever you are. And still it demands so much concentration for composition, looking for the right elements, and so on. It’s always a challenge. The harder it is to capture the frame, the more I love it.

2. What is photography for you?

Catching the light photons with my camera in a less chaotic way (haha just kidding)! I think it’s the whole journey up to the moment you click, capture the frame and then continue the journey afterwards.

3. Why did you choose Iceland and the USA?

The USA is very beautiful, gorgeous even, with fantastic and unique natural landscapes. I also happen to have close relatives living there, whom I visit them from time to time. But I would always go back anyway. At the same time, I have to say that I am also very drawn to arctic nature. There Iceland is my #1 choice. Once you’ve got the bug, you can never stop going back.

4. It is often said that to take pictures you must first take a big trip. Do you agree?

For landscape photography, absolutely. Unless you happen to live in a fantastic area, in which case the trip would be different, shorter, smaller. To be honest, I am always a bit jealous of those who live close to beautiful natural landscapes. For the trip itself, I document myself a lot on the area where I will travel, and I always have several itineraries depending on weather conditions. For the rest, I don’t prepare much. I know exactly what I need. Before setting off, I just ensure that I have all my photography gear, hiking clothing, a good sleeping bag, a tent, loads of protein bars, peanut butter (haha it’s essential) and that’s pretty much it. I like to photograph just before sunrise and just after, a bit less around sunset, and on overcast days. Fog is my favorite! I spend the rest of the time scouting the area. So there is no real downtime.

5. What is your preferred photography technique?

I tried many techniques and in the end I’ve gone back to the basics for landscapes. However, I sometimes use filters in certain situations. You simply have to, because cameras don’t have the full dynamic range. Hopefully that will happen in the future. As for the photograph itself, I try to do everything in the camera before taking it to the computer for post processing. At the moment I use Lightroom or Phocus software, but never Photoshop. I only use one frame, no high dynamic range (HDR) or bracketing technique. In addition, I would say that I believe that the quality of the photo always comes first. First I aim for a technically perfect photograph (focus, sharpness, depth of field); then I go for an artistically perfect one (lighting, composition, timing).

6. This particular photo has a special story, right?

It took me three years of travelling to Iceland to capture it right! The first year, the weather was very bad when I was in the area. The second trip to the cliff, I spent one entire “night” (June is the time of the midnight sun, so there is light at night) without sleeping, waiting for the wind to calm down so I could use the tripod. No luck. And the third trip was at end of September. It rained the day I got there and continued throughout the night. But just before sunrise I hiked the mountain anyway, the rains stopped… and boom! I had several minutes to take a few shots. I was so thrilled!

7. You used to travel alone, didn’t you? Was that to reconnect with nature?

I used to and still do travel alone. I love the solitude, the serenity. To be honest, it’s hard for me to travel with people, especially for photographic purposes. If I do, I lose the bond with nature. Most of the time I stay pretty far out of the comfort zone. It’s important to face nature alone.

8. The colors in your images are impressive. What is your recipe for creating such tones? How do you manage to find the optimum settings? Do you use filters to adjust the amount of light reaching your sensor?

I always try to get the best light (depending on the type of nature) and the best exposure. And yes, I do use filters. I do everything in the camera for one picture only, no cropping. But I don’t do bracketing, HDR, focus stacking or multiple exposures. I don’t stack them on top of each other like pancakes in Photoshop or the like in order to impress the Internet crowd with colors and high dynamic range. For me that’s not photography, but photographic design.

9. Your work is mainly characterized by landscape photography. How do you do to let the landscape talk?

Oh, I’m happy just to get people to talk about them (haha seriously). Well, I always try to look for beautiful, unspoiled places. So that I can show nature as it is, without human alteration. However, there are so many changes on our planet that it’s harder and farther to find that pure, raw nature. One day I might have to switch to industrial landscapes (haha I am kidding here)! Who knows? With time, those images with some human touches may speak to us even more.

‘Suddenly’, topics like wellness, workplace wellness, burnout prevention and work-life balance seem to be hot. Why the inverted commas?

These issues are, of course, not sudden at all. For quite some time, therapists, counselors and GPs have been seeing an increase in mental health problems resulting in burnout. That’s no surprise in a world with ever-increasing pressures on our work-life balance.

Fitness is a crucial part of wellness, but a person who is fit doesn’t necessarily feel well. Wellness is a much more complex subject that poses such life questions as: what motivates me, what makes me tick, how do I relate to the people around me, am I happy with my social life, how do I cope with stress, how do I maintain work-life balance.

Countless books have been written on these subjects. Yet in the end books are geared towards a mass audience. What counts is how we go about integrating book wisdom in our daily lives and how well we succeed in doing so.

The EU has now acknowledged that the rapidly increasing number of people experiencing burnout is not so much a question of fitness as a question of wellness.

In June 2014, the European Commission (OSHA) published a report calculating the cost of work-related stress. It concluded that “stress is the second most frequently reported work-related health problem in Europe.” Work-related health problems refer generally to mental health problems, cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disorders and diabetes, to name but a few on the list. Estimated at €617 billion for 2013 alone, this cost is comprised of factors such as absenteeism, health care costs, social welfare costs and loss of productivity. That’s kind of a big deal.

Belgian Wellness Law (Welzijnswet)

Belgium has now become the first country to create a law specifically addressing the prevention of burnout. This law states that companies on Belgian soil must offer workers protection against psycho-social risks* (the fancy term used for risk factors affecting Burnout). By 1 March 2015 organizations must have made a so-called psychosocial risk assessment in their organization to help their employees in ‘being well’ and to help minimize their risk of becoming ill. Other countries are sure to follow suit quickly in my opinion (for more information check www.life5.eu/wellness-law2015).

So what’s the missing piece of the puzzle?

Often ‘reduction of absenteeism’ seems the common way to measure how ‘well’ an organization is doing. Yet that’s a one-dimensional way of looking through the lens. What’s needed is for organizations to embrace mental and physical wellness of their employees in a broader, more long-term way.

This should include top-down strategies aimed at things such as healthy aging, harassment prevention, burnout recovery, integrative nutrition and stress resilience. We should stop separating ‘Work’ and ‘Life’ artificially when seeking a balance and start focusing on the whole person.

The company Life5 will give workshops in WorldClass about work-life balance, stress management, burnout prevention, and healthy ageing. Check at reception for the schedule or on www.worldclassfitness.be. These will be half-day seminars during weekends.

About Paul Schuchhard

Over the years I have worked with numerous organisations and individuals to support, educate and motivate them to redefine their purpose and goals. As a qualified counselor and coach I work with different psychological tools (CBT, NLP, Systems, TA). As a certified sports-nutritionist and trainer I help people deal with the physical symptoms brought on by stress and an inactive lifestyle.

I suspect that many of us have recently made New Year’s resolutions to change or to improve something in our lives. Such intentions usually take one of two forms:

• either we resolve to quit something such as smoking, snacking, working overtime and weekends, staying up too late, watching too much TV, procrastinating on jobs that need doing…the list can be quite long!
• or we resolve to start doing something new or to improve on an already established habit such as diet, exercise, making time for friends, reading more books, taking up a hobby, or getting back to a hobby that has given you pleasure in the past.

Whatever your resolutions may be, they all have one thing in common: they all involve a desire and willingness to CHANGE.

Stage One:

This is the stage of initial inspiration fueled by enthusiasm and excitement at the possibility of accomplishing something new and different. It is a stage of Hope and Belief. This is where we need to identify quite concretely WHAT we want to change and exactly WHY. Here is where setting a well-defined goal is needed. Make it realistic! Many people set goals that are so far beyond anybody’s reach that they set themselves up for guaranteed failure. Be brutally honest with yourself. Many of us have ‘desires’ that we would like to have instantly delivered by some magical means. We would ‘like’ to have it but really don’t want to have to do anything for it. How badly do you really want this goal? Do you want it and value it enough to put some real personal energy into making it happen for you?

Once you have identified and visualized your goal and motivation, break the project down into smaller steps and stages. A mix of final and intermediate goals seems to work well in keeping people motivated. Make each step towards the final goal measurable. If you are giving up smoking, you could smoke one less cigarette a day until you get down to a certain number. This makes the behavioral change very visible. When you reach any interim goal, reward yourself with something meaningful. Believe it or not, rewarding success and compliance still highly motivates us human beings!

Stage Two:

This can be the most difficult one. At this stage you still have the ‘ghost of the past habit’ looming, ready to sneak in at any time of confusion, uncertainty or emotional stress. The new habit is still young and not fully established, so most of us have a tendency to fall back on the familiarity of the ‘old’ pattern. Here we have to continuously push ourselves and remind ourselves of the long-term (if not immediate) benefits to our happiness and overall well-being that this particular change of behavior will bring. We need to be convinced that we deserve the very Best! ‘I AM WORTH IT!’

This is also where we are vulnerable to saboteurs and distractions. Well-wishing friends will often tell you things like: “Oh, you look great! You don’t need to exercise SO much”; “Here, have some dessert. One piece of cake can’t hurt”; “You know you are always the first person to leave the office in the evening”; “Come on, it’s HOLIDAY!” Most often, these things are said with no malice at all. Yet whenever you change from the predictable pattern of ‘You’, it can threaten others by causing them to look critically at their own behavior patterns.

There is a wonderful folk tale from Africa that can inspire us here:

“An Ant found the carcass of an elephant. The Head Ant told him that he had to dispose of it by eating it! This seemed like an undoable and daunting task. He started out one bite at a time but he was overwhelmed at the enormity of the task! The ant began to despair. He took some time to think and eventually he called all his friends who were so very happy to help a friend in need! In no time the elephant carcass was consumed.”

Moral of the story? Enlist a support network of friends who can help remind you of the WHAT and the WHY and who can motivate you and encourage you when hurdles arise and motivation starts to falter!

At Stage One you are encouraged to reward yourself; at Stage Two you are encouraged NOT to punish yourself for any setbacks. Life happens. It is not so important that you fell off the bicycle; the important thing is that you get back on it. And that you are now aware of the potatoes that can possibly hurt you and interrupt your journey. Every misstep is an opportunity to learn more about yourself.

Stage Three:

Maintenance equals practice, practice, practice! The day that you wake up and think ‘of course, it goes without saying’ you realize that you have established a new pattern of behavior. You have changed the programming and now have a default setting. Rather than being seen as a good reason not to behave in a certain way, any ‘excuse’ now becomes an annoyance in itself! That is not to say the temptations won’t arise and relapses won’t happen. They will. But the desire to behave in a certain way has become ingrained in the psyche and the behavior has now become habitual. In other words, a consciously and consistently practiced behavior has now become an unconscious pattern of behavior. Once established, that New Habit needs to be paid attention to every day. But that’s what you’ll want to do anyway. Why? Because it makes you feel so good about yourself!

Eating at the table started as a way to solve problems; the chiefs of the tribes, clans or groups in dispute had to sit together and share their food. This particular happening was a milestone towards more social behavior. They started to set a few rules, for instance: do not raise your voice at the person opposite of you; do not bring your weapons; do not eat from your guest’s or host’s plate, and eat all the food you are given.

Since then, we have evolved our customs around the table. We use food as a means of seducing, feeding, and controlling, and even for its original conception: negotiating.

My fascination with food started precisely around the table. I’m certain that we all have great memories of dinners with family and friends where everyone tried everyone else’s dishes. Or even better, we remember dinners that were prefaced by the expectation of what would be served. Those dishes were the main character of the evening, followed by multiples stories, jokes, teasing, and flirting from the dinner guests. It would be great to eat like this every single night. Yet, the reality is something else.

How have we changed around the table?

Apparently my food choices have been gradually related to how I’ve chosen my friends, furthermore, how I ditch them, and I can tell you without a doubt , they’ve done the same. The standards associated to food that once were fundamental to human gratification have traveled so far into a grey area that is difficult to say what you are eating is what you would really like to eat. What we choose is distorted into a synonym of choice equals goals.

This is confusing, because the set of values that we applied to choose our food have changed, and we have changed along as well, complicating the methodical process of feeding yourself and others. We encounter so many conflicting options such as novelty vs. tradition, in which we are willing to experience new trends. Then there is technology vs. nature, in which we are surrounded by packs of fortified, enriched foods. Convenience vs. care, economy vs. extravagance, and so on.

Well, this is when friendship enters into place

Nowadays, food, instead of giving us a thrill, is making us anxious. I must admit that I have acquired many of my food choices through-out the years by travelling and enriching my taste spectrum. Being an eater (as some people called me) and daring to try different cusines, I thought most people would be willing to do the same when the opportunity arises. But to my surprise I have encountered a segmented eaters environment. There are people that are so fixed into disciplinarian, not-fun-at-all diets, that their health consciousness is taking over, producing a mismatch with me. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m very health conscious as well, but I’m not a fanatic. I couldn’t eat the same dish every evening. I allow myself the privilege to eat what is offered.

To find a common ground, I’m forced to make sets of friend based on food. It’s not like the old days where I had friends with whom I could go clubbing, other with whom I could explore a city or take a trip to a museum, others whom I could tell anything and those whom were good for a girly talk. Yes, this is how I used to do it. The pure idea of expressing yourself with your food choices, the sensorial enjoyment, the emotional experiences, have become a burden. To minimize this unpleasant feeling, I socialize and invite by sets. One night to my veggie friends, the other night, those who count calories or proteins or whatever is on the table (those I like to tease the most), then the super fit “all about nutrition”, then the micro-biotic lovers, and other nights those who enjoy every single dish and drink without reservation. It is they who understand that to get the best of what you are eating, you have to do it in total relaxation. Stress plays the devil when it comes to food, and even more with indulgent treats. Stress equals storing.

The only disadvantage to this situation, as you can imagine, is that I can never invite the whole group at once. I need to combine here and there like an alchemist to get suitable sets. Sometimes the mingling works, let’s not talk about when it doesn’t.

Having said all this, where am I standing when it comes to food and friendship? I can honestly say that I love food but I love my friends too, regardless their peculiarities. In fact, these make them special to me. Although I complained and tried to change them (like they did to me), gathering around the table is still a pleasure that awards moments to be remembered, despite the fact that I’m not sure that I truly like all that I eat, nonetheless, I eat it all.

1. Physical

When we are asleep, our bodies are actually very busy doing necessary repair work, rebuilding and regenerating themselves after a day of wear and tear. General tissue repair, skin regeneration (yes, “beauty sleep” is real), and heart and vascular rest and repair are all among the benefits of a good  night’s sleep. During sleep, our bodies are producing necessary hormones. Two of the more interesting hormones currently receiving a lot of study are cortisol (anti-inflammatory and linked to eating behavior). Studies are showing that sleep deprivation leads to disruptions in the levels of these two hormones. They are also suggesting strong links to increased appetite, metabolic changes and weight gain (which might be due to the midnight snacking!). Have you ever noticed how we tend to sleep more when we are feeling ill? This is nature’s way of making sure that our immune system gets the extra boost of energy and support that it needs to fight off germs and infections. So, lack of sleep leaves us sluggish and slow, contributes to obesity and makes us open to whatever bug is going around.

2. Mental

Studies have shown that people who are well rested have better cognitive performance. They learn and process information faster, and retain it in the memory better. Motor performance, both in speed and accuracy, is better in a rested state when compared with impaired performance when tired. Judgment and decision making is often slower and less effective, and we are more prone to accidents when dealing with a state of sleep deprivation. So, lack of sleep can impair our concentration, slow or reflexes, influence our judgments, and even jeopardize our personal safety and the safety of others. The warning “Don’t drive or operate heavy machinery when drowsy” is there for a good reason.

3. Emotional and relational

Research into brain waves during sleep indicates that activity in the centers of the brain that control our emotions and our social interactions is drastically  decreased during deep sleep. This indicates that sleep may help a person rebalance the day’s emotions and thus maintain emotional stability and good social functioning. In contrast, the area of the brain that deals with imagination and dreams is quite active during the REM cycle. Psychologists who work with dreams and do dream analysis suggest that this is the self-regulating center which helps us process current issues in our daily lives.

They also believe that the brain is actively working on coming up with creative solutions and inventive ideas even while we are asleep (more about dreams in a future article). So, lack of sleep can lead to mood swings, increased anxiety, and highly emotional responses to frustrations. When we are exhausted, even the smallest task can look overwhelming. Extreme sleep deprivation has been tentatively linked with depression. On a relational level, we tend to become less patient with the behavior of others when we are not getting enough sleep. We react to people rather than respond to them. Communication and social politeness suffers. Here we often see an increase in anger and aggression in people who are normally mild and easygoing under rested conditions.

How much sleep per night do we actually need?

Most experts recommend 7-8 hours for most adults. However, some people can get along with a few as 5-6 hours, while others may need up to 10 hours. Occasional sleep disturbances are common throughout the population. But when they continue for an extend period of time, we are clearly dealing with sleep deprivation and a specialist should be consulted.

Marcie Sires has been a Psychotherapist-Sexologist, Holistic Wellness Counselor, and Communications trainer for over 25 years. She works with individuals, couples and families. She is also a corporate coach in Life5. For more information, please visit www.life5.eu.

Both skiing and snowboarding demand a lot from the body, as cold muscles are called upon to perform a variety of tasks on the slopes, not to mention the high levels of concentration needed to stay upright, pick the path and avoid less controllers riders. The last thing you want to happen when you come on holiday is to injure yourself. Especially if the sun is shining and there’s a fresh blanket of snow.

A morning yoga practice of a dynamic flow yoga will warm up the body with strengthening and stretching asana in order to get prepared for the day on the ski slopes. It will awaken the mind, bring heat to the cold muscles and build stamina for your turns and powder runs. An evening practice of gentle, restorative yoga after a full day skiing or snowboarding will unwind and relax the tired body. This gentler, longer session with pranayama and meditation exercises helps the mind and the body to really let go, allowing you to enter a state of deep relaxation after a hard day’s exhilaration. Finally, some spontaneous yoga practices on the snow slopes will help you to become aware of you true self and of your attitude.

In Sanskrit, yoga means union: union between the body, the mind and the soul. Nowadays, we are increasingly losing the connection between our mind and our body; we are distancing ourselves from nature and no longer know what we should believe in. Yoga enables us to find our own inner path. Yoga high in mountains is a unique way of relaxing, one that helps us to be consciously aware of the beautiful landscape, to have a relaxed feeling of physical well-being, and to find inner peace.

Yoga in the snow promises not only a mountain adventure, but also an energizing and revitalizing experience in the beauty of nature and the good company of like-minded people. The yogi non-skiers will be surprised to discover the pleasure of the winter sports combined with the yoga practice. The non-yogi skiers will be astonished to feel the benefits of yoga in the body and the mind. The yogi-skiers will just enjoy this combination so much that they will cultivate gratitude, feel contentment, and surrender their lives.

Yoga high in the mountains will let you feel alive and connected to nature as well as to everyone and everything around you, discovering that love flourishes in your life!

Anna Baroni (Yoga instructor)

www.yoga-yourlife.com

The Brussels 20km, The Uccle 10km, the Semi Marathon, the Ladies Run, and so on. All kinds of running events take place in Brussels each year. And they are attracting more and more participants. Some of you would like to participate for the first time. But you don’t know where to start preparing?

Based on my triathlon experience and background as a Personal Trainer, I want to share with you five tips on how to start running without injuries and to enjoy running in the city:

1. Buy adapted running shoes: Before starting, make sure you have running shoes that have been adapted in order to avoid injuries to your knees, ankles, or back. I see too many people running with old shoes or un-adapted material. Risk of injuries or back problems increases week by week without adapted shoes. Therefore, I advise you to go to a specialized store (Joggingplus, Trakks, etc.). They will analyze the way you walk and run, and advise you about the best choice of shoes for you.  In the supermarkets, you find only neutral shoes, which most of the time are not adapted to your running type (pronation or supplination).
2. Structure your training – set up a training plan: Running any kind of distance requires discipline and structure. Therefore, you need to set up an achievable and reasonable training plan (see attached sample training plan). There is no need to train every day. Respecting rest periods and alternating training types (endurance, interval, speed or long distance) will make you more successful.
3. Prepare physically: Functional training, stabilization exercises (Power Ball, BOSU, etc.) and core workouts are key success factors for you future running competitions. You can add a specific session during the week or finish  a running session with core and stabilization exercises. Underestimating this part can create injuries and imbalances over the long term.
4. Run outside: In order to get used to real conditions, I advise you to run outside – in the city, in parks – in order to alternate ways and types of training (flat, interval, hills etc.). Brussels offers all types of terrains and is not as flat as it seems. Brussels also offers great opportunities to run in the rain or when it’s cold outside. If the weather conditions get too difficult, you can use treadmills at WorldClass to train cadence and intervals. Avoid long distances on treadmills.
5. Respect yourself and you limits: Even if you run with your friends or challenge colleagues, it is clear that running with other people increases motivation. However, I advise you to always respect your own rhythm, go at you own pace, and monitor your heartbeat rate. Monitor your performance using Apps (RunKeeper, SmartRunner, Polar etc.). Going over limits will increase the risk of injuries and create demotivation.

Based on my own experience in long-distance running and triathlon events, I have developed a clear and easy 4-week program that will help you achieve 10 km in less than 60 minutes.

How to read the program:

4 session / week

X’ * X’ = X minutes run * X minutes walk

Endurance = 75% maximum heartbeat rate

Good luck and enjoy running!

Vincent Buekenhout is a certified Personal Trainer and Spinning Instructor at WorldClass. Don’t hesitate to contact him if you want more information about running and endurance programs. Vincent has successfully completed in two Ironman events (Nice 2009 and 2010) and is currently preparing for the Luxembourg Triathlon planned in June 2014.

My name is Julie Fairclough. Some people are curious about my origins, so I let me begin by telling you a bit about that. I was born in Canada, to a Canadian father and a Mexican mother. On my father’s side, my grandmother is Jamaican and my grandfather is English. I did most of my studies in Mexico City, where I studied Journalism and Communication Sciences. Besides the United States, where my father now has his practice, I lived in Amsterdam, where I studied script writing, and then Madrid, before coming to Brussels seven years ago.

My hobbies, like everyone’s else’s, are reading, travelling, exploring. However, sport has been a big part of my life, so much so that I decided to take it up professionally 12 years ago, working in my field and giving classes as well. I loved my work but this new occupation too. Finally, coming to Brussels gave me the opportunity to give into a 100% experience with it.

How did you spend the end of the year?

My end of the year was very exciting. I loved the warm and serene attitude of the people. The frantic joy of Christmas shopping gave the city a merry feeling. Walking through the streets I got the smell of Christmas on the markets, in the restaurants, all over the place. That gave me a seasonal dose of nostalgia, but I enjoyed every single day. I spent Christmas with my husband’s family and my sister, who came from Holland to Brussels. We were 20 people wining and dining, laughing and in short celebrating Christmas. After this, we traveled to Austria to see my dear friends in Vienna. The city was crispy with all the snow and frost, a bit ghostly and romantic at the same time. And of course we didn’t miss the chance to slide down a few slopes on our skies.

How did you know WorldClass?

My husband actually told me about the club in Diegem.

What brought you to work with WorldClass?

Right when I came to Brussels I decided that I didn’t want to start working in the same field as before. With two small children growing up, my husband and I just couldn’t be travelling as much as before. In Madrid I had been working for a radio broadcasting station and giving classes on the side, which I enjoyed enormously. So I approached WorldClass in Diegem, and they took me on for Cycling and Core. Later on I gave Power Yoga and Zumba classes. I’ve been part of WorldClass ever since, and happy to be here. What I like most about WorldClass is the staff. All my colleagues have become friends, and that makes the environment in the club engaging and cordial. I get a lot of support as well, with training and classes. I feel very fortunate to belong to WorldClass.

Do you have any advice for our members?

Doing sports is a gift to the body. Keep on training, and your body will thank you for it.

2014: Time for a personal health strategy? This article is NOT about 10 tips to stick to your New Year’s Resolution. But it IS about preventing a disease that millions of people get without knowing it: type 2 diabetes. It creeps up on us because of a lack of exercise, too much refined food, and too much stress.

Diabetes mellitus type 2 is a disease that can largely be prevented. It’s often called a “self-inflicted” or “lifestyle related” disease, and it develops over many years. If you do not know what type 2 diabetes is, I will try to “compact” the explanation at the risk of oversimplification: it’s a disease where your body can no longer adequately process the energy it gets from the food you eat. Normally you eat your food,  it gets converted into sugars (glucose) during digestion, your blood sugar levels rise in response, and a hormone called insulin is released to help get that energy into your cells. In type 2 diabetes patients, however, the cells have become insensitive to opening the door, they don’t “hear” the insulin knocking on the door. This combination of insulin resistance in your muscle cells and a lack of insulin production ultimately creates a vicious and chronic circle where glucose and insulin can build up in the blood to dangerous levels. That’s the story in essence, but Google it to get the full explanation. MayoClinic.com is a good website to visit.

So what approach should you take to avoid getting type 2 diabetes?

Tip 1: Avoid frequent blood sugar and insulin peaks. If you eat too much in a single meal or often eat processed foods (white bread, white pasta, white rice, sugar, juices etc.), then you can bet your blood sugar levels will peak often. To bring these sugar levels down, your body will need to secrete high amounts of insulin to neutralize the elevated blood sugar levels. Do this: have a look at the foods in your daily food plan, and if refined-floor foods, cornflakes, jams, sandwiches, candy and energy bars are a major part of them, think twice and cut them out where you can. Replace them with more wholesome foods. The closer a food is to its natural state, the better. That means it will not spike your blood sugar as much as processed food. In short: if processed it, don’t eat it. So eat more vegetables and foods that slowly release their energy.

Tip 2: Learn to deal with (too much long-term) stress. Stress releases stored sugar in your blood. When you are continuously stressed, your body produces hormones that make you feel edgy to help you complete your deadline or challenge. Stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline flood your system, and as a result your muscles and liver will release stored sugars to enable you to keep working until midnight. Sounds great? Well, the downside is that too much stress over time will burn your body’s organs out from the inside. That’s the part why it is called burnout. If you feel that your stress levels are “always” out of control, I recommend seeking professional help to learn how to cope with and lower them.

Tip 3: Exercise your heart and major muscle groups regularly. If you don’t work out yet, start today and create a regular exercise schedule. Why? 80% to 90% of the glucose (sugars) that gets into your blood normally ends up in your muscle cells if the insulin is doing its work correctly. Exercise helps your cells remain sensitive to the insulin so that they open up. There is plenty of evidence that shows that when we exert our muscle cells those cells become more sensitive to the insulin knocking on the door. If you don’t have time to exercise, then make the time! That may sound hard, but I guarantee that once you are diabetic it will cost you much more time. So see it as an investment.

Tip 4: Avoid weight gain or yo-yoing up and down. The more body fat we accumulate, the more likely we are to become insulin resistant. So keep a healthy weight or get back to it. Yo-yoing causes much stress on your body (see  Tip 3). Moreover, fat around the waist is especially risky for creating metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes. Do this to check out the current state of your body fat levels. Measure your body fat levels in the gym by asking one of the trainers or myself. We have a handy device that you hold in your hands and that will measure your body fat levels within 10 seconds.

Tip 5: Ask your doctor for a “fasting glucose test”. As I said earlier, type 2 diabetes is not something that you develop overnight. It often takes decades to develop and to be diagnosed as such. Diabetes is a progressive disease. You don’t get it “on a Monday morning” because you had a heavy party over the weekend. Fortunately, there are some early warning signs that can detected in your blood (the pre-diabetic stage or “Syndrome X”). Since prevention is the key, a blood test from your doctor on an empty stomach can establish if your blood sugar levels are elevated when they shouldn’t be (on an empty stomach these levels should be low). It’s also good opportunity to check other indicators of systemics problems, such as elevated cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

Tip 6: Drink more coffee!? Yes that’s right, drink more coffee. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (during an 18 year study) found that coffee drinkers taking between 4 and 6 cups a day had a 29 to 54% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Interestingly, decaf coffee did not offer any protection nor did 1 to 3 cups of regular coffee…

Come and join one of my seminars at WorldClass (10 euros per participant) every other Tuesday evening from 19:00 to 20:15. I’m looking forward to meeting you there!

NOTE: This article is not medical advice, so please consult a doctor if you have specific questions about diabetes or other medical conditions.

Paul Schuchhard is a qualified counselor, a certified sports nutritionist and personal trainer, and a highly experienced corporate communications adviser and trainer. Visit www.paulschuchhard.com or www.life5.eu to learn more about life coaching, stress and burnout coaching, nutritional coaching, counseling and corporate Away Days focused on well-being.