Positively Fit

Anniversary of Opening (22 Years)

Positively Fit — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 07:43:14 +0000

September was a significant month for Positively Fit, marking our twenty-second year of delivering top-notch fitness training to our clients.

In 2001, I began training clients in their homes, collaborating with St. Luke's Hospital's community education programs, managing the fitness center at Pillsbury Foods, and working at various other clubs. The desire to consolidate my efforts into one location led to the opening of Positively Fit in September of that year.

Over the past 22 years, my team of trainers and I have consistently provided our clients with cutting-edge training practices. I invest heavily in education, regularly traveling with Jack, our nutritionist, and my husband, to stay updated on the latest fitness, hormonal, and nutritional advancements. This knowledge is then passed on to our trainers, ensuring our team can continue to offer the best services to our clients.

Reflecting on Positively Fit's 22-year journey, we've had to adapt to our clients' evolving needs. Initially, small group training was our focus, but personal training became the norm over time. We are now witnessing a resurgence of group training with our new Power Plate training.

One of the most significant adjustments we've made involves recognizing how everyone’s physiology responds differently to the stress of exercise. We tailor our training to suit each person's unique physiology and make necessary adjustments based on their response to exercise. We prioritize the well-being of our clients.

Gone are the days of celebrating the "I kicked your butt!" mentality, as we've learned it's not an honorable approach, particularly for our specific clientele: women over 40 dealing with hormonal imbalances in a toxic world with dietary challenges. We understand that as we age, our bodies become more sensitive to sugar and more reactive to stress. Our exercise programs are designed to complement these changes, not exacerbate them.

Our commitment to education and expertise has always set us apart. Many of our trainers have many years of experience. I have been featured in two books, multiple magazines, and recognized as one of the country's top trainers. Additionally, I produced and distributed a stability ball exercise video and served as the strength and conditioning coach at Notre Dame Academy for several seasons, working with various sports teams. I've also trained several volleyball clubs and high school athletes, preparing them for college sports.

Jack's expertise in nutrition perfectly complements our team's skills.

With clients who have remained with us for over 22 years, it's evident that we are doing something right. As long-time client Brenda M. puts it, "Maryellen is well-versed in the latest strength training approaches for women going through midlife hormonal changes. They understand the impact of cardio and other stressors on the body and teach us how to work out to minimize and even reverse the negative effects of stress on the body, considering individual needs."

Fabulous and Fit After 50

Positively Fit — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 06:01:35 +0000

Power Plate Exercise
The Ideal exercise for men and women over 50

Exercising on the Power Plate is an ideal way to exercise as we age. Power Plate is the world’s leader in Whole- Body Vibration technology. Leading scientists and fitness experts have collected more than 40 years of extensive research on the benefits of Whole-body vibration technology.

One recent study looked at older adults who couldn’t perform conventional exercises as well as they used to. One group used the whole-body vibrating platform, while another group used regular strength training.

Researches compared each group’s ability to perform daily activities (such as standing up from a chair, climbing stairs, and maintaining balance. The group using the vibrating platform scored a 50% higher improvement than the group that strength trained.
Even better, the group using the platform improved the speed of their reaction time (the other group showed no improvement). This is important because reaction time is crucial in the preventing of falls. In fact, another study found older women who used the platform dramatically reduced their incidence of falls!

The Power Plate really shines in building bones. Here’s how…

Many of your muscles, are attached to bone. So, when the platforms’ vibrations contract your muscles, they are gently torqueing your bones, stimulating your bone-building cells (called osteoblasts) to lay down new bone tissue.

(This also makes your bones mor flexible and less likely to fracture.)

In another study, women who exercise on a whole-body vibration platform increased their hip bone density! In contrast, the other women in the study who performed strength training exercises only slowed their bone loss- they didn’t reverse it. (Most other types of exercise won’t either such as; Pilates, yoga, walking to name a few)
Here’s another benefit you’ll love…

You will become more flexible.

People of all ages can reap tremendous health and fitness benefits from even the most modest of efforts- because the Power Plate does most of the work for you!

I Stopped Working Out and Lost Weight!

Positively Fit — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 10:35:25 +0000

by Lisa LeStrange

Don’t believe that headline? Well, it’s true!

Let me start by telling you a little about myself. I am a 55 year old breast cancer survivor and have been in full blown menopause for four years. I also have Hashimoto’s disease, which means my thyroid pretty much doesn’t function. Maryellen is my sister, so I have been advised on the most recent studies of how to be the healthiest version of me for years. This includes support from Jack (Maryellen’s husband) on the nutritional and supplement plan that best serves me based on a hair mineral analysis.

When I received my breast cancer diagnosis in October of 2013, things changed significantly. I was lucky. My cancer was caught early. And, after a lumpectomy and six weeks of radiation, I was declared cancer free. But the story doesn’t end there. One year later, I needed a full hysterectomy and wham … menopause. With it came relentless hot flashes, sleepless nights and weight gain.

As the weight started to creep up, I thought I could just work out harder to fight it. Miles logged on the treadmill, fast walks/runs with the dog and begging Maryellen to train me harder and longer didn’t get me the results I wanted. In fact, the weight just kept creeping higher. I’d argue with Maryellen asking her to push me more. But she would tell me I was done after just a few reps. So, I would sneak away and do more at home. Then, I’d lay in bed wide awake and tossing for hours – especially after a particularly hard workout. But I kept saying, “More, more, more!” And all I’d get was less sleep and the scale became my worst enemy. Maryellen and Jack would send me articles explaining that my body was completely stressed out – from the radiation and the heavy cardio exercise – but I just couldn’t stop.

“Because of Lisa’s breast cancer, radiation, Hashimoto’s and a full hysterectomy her adrenals took a huge hit. Her body was extremely stressed,” explains Maryellen. “The hair mineral analysis showed how stressed she was. Menopause made her body become more stress-reactive and even more sensitive to sugar and high glycemic foods. And she didn’t have the hormonal back-up to counteract the stress of her over-training.”

“When I would train her,” she continues, “I knew when she needed to stop the exercise session by using a heart rate monitor. When her heart rate remained elevated and did not come down as quickly as I would have liked to see, it was a signal that she was not adapting to the stress of the exercise. The increased stress, therefore, was only going contribute to her gaining body fat not losing it due to the higher amounts of cortisol that she was producing. Little did I know she went home and did the total opposite of what I encouraged her not to do! Funny! The truth comes out!"

A couple months ago, I stepped on the scale and about lost my mind. I finally hit rock bottom and decided it was time to listen to Maryellen. I stopped working out, and to my surprise, but not to Maryellen’s and Jack’s, I started losing weight. I also removed gluten from my diet. I knew that I was sensitive to gluten – I would get a yucky feeling in my gut after eating something with gluten. And, there are studies that prove that gluten has a negative effect on people with Hashimoto’s, so this was a good choice on several fronts.

Now I take nice leisurely walks with the dog, and I rejuvenate on the Power Plate twice a week. This is a marathon, not a sprint, but based on how I feel and what the scale says, this is the right choice for me. We recently vacationed in Colorado and I was concerned that since I hadn’t been doing any cardio, I would have trouble with the hikes in the altitude. Surprisingly, it was not an issue at all!

Do I look forward to going back to Buns, Guns & Core? Absolutely! But I will wait until my body (and Maryellen and Jack) says it’s time.

“Admittedly, Lisa is an extreme case,” concedes Maryellen. “But as women age we cannot exercise like we did before the age of 40. We see new clients coming into the studio on a daily basis who are suffering the effects of over training, including difficulty sleeping and weight gain.”

What do Weight Watchers, HCG and Medical Weight Loss diets have in common? The majority of people on these diets lose muscle mass!

Positively Fit — Mon, 21 May 2018 08:03:02 +0000

After measuring thousands of people’s body composition, using state of the art technology, for corporations, hospitals and at my own studio for over the 20 years as fitness professional, I have seen the same results over and over again. About 98% of the people who follow these diets had high body fat and very low muscle mass. They were just smaller versions of themselves.

Several years ago at a medical conference I was attending with my husband, one of the speakers, a M.D., talked about Weight Watchers and said something to this effect, “ Why is Weight Watchers so popular? It is repeat, repeat and repeat. Uninformed people who go on these diets look smaller and when they are satisfied with their looks they stop the “diet” then they go back to their usual eating habit. only to gain the weight back and more. Then they go back on the 'diet' because it worked before, only to repeat the same cycle.”

I cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your muscle mass or take measures to build muscle as you age. I found this great article explaining the importance of muscle.

https://paleoleap.com/the-importance-of-muscle/

It is very important to include weight training into your exercise routine. Make sure you are using weights heavy enough with good form that will actually make a difference. You don’t need hours in the gym to gain muscle. Call Positively Fit to set up your free consultation at 419-893-5105. We have the experience and know how to help you stay strong and gain muscle.

Stress comes from many forms

Positively Fit — Thu, 03 May 2018 04:13:01 +0000

Stress comes in many forms. Environmental, toxic burden, internal and interpersonal stressor, physical including exercise and diet. To limit the negative effects of stress we all should practice, stress lowering strategies on a daily basis.

Exercise only to where your body can adapt to the stress of your exercise session. Do not over train

Positive self talk

Restful sleep 7-10 hours a night

Eat a healthy diet void of the foods you might be reacting to such as: dairy, processed foods and whole grains, just to name a few.

Say "No"

Employ rhythmic breathing

Listen to calming music such as Theta brain wave music or classical music

Keep things simple

Get a regular massage

Use the Power Plate at Positively Fit to rejuvenate and to lower the stress hormone cortisol

These are only a few of the many ways in which you can lower your response to stress. There are many nutritional products such as Taurine that can help your body stay calm. It takes a very concerted effort to avoid stressful situations and to help your physiology to calm down. Some of us are just “wired” or our physiology is super sensitive to stress and we might react 10-100 times more to a stressful situation then the person next to us. You can get a Hair Mineral Analysis to determine how your body reacts to stress and how to handle it better. Call Nutri Health at 734-856-9199 if you want more information on the Hair Mineral Analysis

Study from Texas A&M

Positively Fit — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 09:24:19 +0000

According to a study by the Department of Kinesiology, Texas A&M University, “the physical stress of overtraining may cause the hormones produced in the adrenal glands to become depleted.”

“This adrenal insufficiency refers to the inability of the adrenal glands to produce a normal quantity of hormones, which leads to a reduced ability in the individual to cope with stress.”

As a former over-trainer myself, I suffer from adrenal insufficiency. The last straw on the “camel’s back” was when I entered into perimenopause. My body said enough, and I had to completely stop exercising so I wouldn’t go into full adrenal burnout. Tough thing to wrap my head around since I was an athlete my whole life and loved to push my body to its limits!

After 20 plus years of being a fitness professional, my new mission is to help all my clients learn about protecting their adrenal glands—especially my female clients! Our adrenals are the backup for when we do go through the change of life, and if they are fatigued, then believe me when I say this: menopause is not going to be a walk in the park.

When you exercise, you need to be aware of whether your body is adapting to the stress of exercise. If you are overreaching and not adapting to your exercise session, then you will overload your adrenals.

Proper nutrition, balanced training, adequate recovery, and daily stress-management are all the components you need to consider whether you are a competitive athlete or a recreational athlete.

Why am I still gaining belly fat?

Positively Fit — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 09:22:03 +0000

When we are in perimenopause or menopause, our bodies become more stress-reactive. This is one of the major reasons why we can’t lose the belly fat. Being more stress- reactive means our reaction to stress is quicker and more extreme, and our recovery is slower. These stress-reactive responses also mean major spikes in our bodies’ production of the stress hormone cortisol and insulin.

Cortisol will have a major impact on fat gain, especially around the waist.

We need to make recovery and rest activities a priority at this time.

To name a few activities:

Meditation
Massage
Naps
Hot Baths ( add Epsom salts)
Laughter
Sex (one of the best ways to reduce cortisol)
Leisurely walks in nature
Yoga ( restorative forms only)
Sleep ( sleeping in)
Spending quality time with our loved ones

Our goal should be at least 15 to 60 minutes of any one of these activities at least 3 times a week.

These aren’t the usual activities we think of when it comes to weight loss and getting in shape, right? Yet we can’t fight our own physiology and expect to win! Our goal for training during perimenopause and menopause is to reduce stress, reduce cortisol, and ultimately reduce fat gain!’

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Weight gain and Exercise for the Coming of Age Woman

Positively Fit — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 09:47:07 +0000

Part I: My Story
“It is rare to find that premenopausal women who does not have some degree of adrenal dysfunction” *
Oh my god, what happened to me?
This is the story of a personal trainer who lost her “body” during the change of life.
I gained 80 lbs. during the change. I know now this was mostly due to adrenal dysfunction.
Our adrenals are both the glands of stress and of sex hormone balance. We need to protect our adrenals.
The adrenals secrete hormones to balance and modify our body’s response to stress. And with all types of stress that a women encounters throughout her lifetime, the adrenals will be the first to fail under stress.

Some of the stresses we might face:

One severe stressful event whether it is mental, physical, or emotional
Overworking to the point of exhaustion
Extended or severe respiratory infections
Chronic illnesses
Death, divorce, moving or childbirth
Nutritional stress: bad eating habits
Environmental stress and toxic overload stress

The one stress I see the most? Overtraining.

In this article I am not going to give you all the details on the adrenals and how they function with the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, but let me sum up by saying my body was in “fight or flight” mode most of my life. I basically just wore out the adrenals with stressors. It worked well for me in my early years, enabling me to multi task, over-train, and stay very thin no matter what I ate.

Then… pre-menopause (perimenopause) hit.

My adrenals were too “tired” to function in a way to help me through a smooth transition. Weight gain happened overnight, and so did all the other symptoms of pre-menopause. My hormone doctor says I was one of the worst premenopausal cases he has worked with. Even some of my clients who see him now will mention that he told them how menopause kicked my butt.

To give you an example, I hot flashed every 20 minutes for years! No matter what hormones they gave me, nothing worked. My thyroid became very sluggish, I had insomnia and I had inflammation all over my body—basically, all the awful menopause symptoms times 10. Menopause was not kind to me!
I never had a weight problem my whole life, but during pre-menopause, I literally doubled my clothing size . Let me tell you, this had a huge impact on my self esteem and I developed a very poor body image. Not to mention, all the negative thoughts added more stress, which in turn added more body fat. It was a vicious cycle.
Since I am a fitness professional, I am supposed to look the part! Especially in this day and age where there are impossible high cultural standards of having a six pack. In the past, my clients told me they would never hire a trainer unless they looked the part. Talk about putting someone on notice.
Here’s the kicker, though: during this transition my diet was next to perfect since I live with my nutritionist! I am extremely disciplined when it comes to what I eat. I can only wonder how much more weight I would have gained if I had a poor diet. This is why I always tell my clients that they need to be 100% on their diet since that is one variable we can control. If the weight is not coming off or you are still gaining body fat, then the next step is looking at thyroid, hormones, stress levels, inflammation, overtraining, sleep patterns and a host of other issues.
Believe me, I know, though: it is not an easy task to lose the menopause weight. It is not easy to love yourself when you look in the mirror and you wonder where you went!
I have done triathlons, biked up to 100 miles a week, ran miles every week, roller-bladed every chance I got with getting a few days of strength training under my belt. I did “extreme” type workouts and most of the time left the gym feeling awful and feeling like I got beat up. But isn’t this how you should feel after a workout? Even after a long bike sometimes my legs were so shaky the first few steps were pretty slow.
Working as a fitness professional, I have observed over the years that the clients who did this extreme exercising usually were a fast metabolic type who could not calm their brains down, didn’t know how to sit and relax and were high achievers, aka type A personality. Getting involved in extreme exercise forced you to concentrate on your physical pain instead of the ant in your head. Now when I see a runner, I usually wonder what they are running from.
I know this article just might anger a few, but I am writing about my experience and the experience of hundreds of my female clients that I have worked with over the 20 plus years of training.

For my part, when I started seeing the weight pile on, I continued my “crazy” way of training only to keep putting on more and more body fat, especially in the belly. Like most of my clients, I thought that I needed to just exercise this weight off.

It was a real eye opener; when I would work out, my belly would stick out like I was 8 months pregnant. I even had a person ask when the baby was due. Funny in a way since I was 52 at that time…the one bright spot was she at least thought I looked young enough to have a child!

I would come home after work and my husband would take one look at me and say, “hey Buddha, you must have worked out.” Believe me when I say this was truly said with love. He has always been my number one fan even when I was at my highest weight. One year we went to about 9 medical conference and seminars on hormone replacement so he could learn as much as he could about what was happening to my body.

My husband is a certified nutritionist with a biochemistry back ground with a large nutritional practice. He is also the Chief Science Officer for a company that manufactures vitamins for companies all over the country. Thank god I had him as my advisor! It was because of his dedication to finding the solution that we did figure this out.

*Paoletti, Jim. A practitioner’s guide to Physiological Bioidentical Hormone Balance. 1st Ed.2015

Weight gain and Exercise for the Coming of Age Woman

Positively Fit — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 09:44:56 +0000

Part II: The Solution
In Part I, I shared my story as a woman and a fitness professional going through the change of life. In this piece, I want to explain more what happens to our bodies and how we can make this a positive transition.

First, here is a look into how weight gain happens during the shift into menopause. Think of a pyramid. Adrenals and ovaries on the bottom and thyroid on top. The bottom of the pyramid needs to be very strong. If adrenals are tired, most likely you will have thyroid problems. When the ovaries start shutting due to perimenopause, your adrenals are the gland that needs to make the hormones. If they are tired, they cannot produce the hormones. The base of our triangle has broken down.

The next best thing for the body to do is to put body fat on, because we carry hormones in our body fat. I have observed that the women who usually have the most body fat are those that lead a stressful life. Many of my clients are those that used to train like I did. We all looked great, but inside we were doing a whole lot of damage.
Then, our bodies become even more stressed because of the lack of hormones, so the body sends out signals all day long for cortisol and if we are resistant to it: more body fat! Not to mention the toxic load we will have stored in our fat tissue which interrupts our hormones even more. Whew!! No wonder…

When it comes to training, women have to eat more and train less to lose weight, which is the exact opposite of what most of us were taught to believe. I have worked with hundreds of women who were overtraining and under-eating and in the meantime ruining their hormones in an effort to become thinner and leaner. This mindset backfired on them. They became heavier and their body image became worse. These women started to really beat themselves up because they thought that this type of strategy would not fail them. “It worked before” is what I often hear.

Well, ladies I am here to tell you that most of us had the hormone reserve back when we were younger to counteract the damaging effects of overtraining. We do not have the hormone reserves to train like we did in our earlier age. I found that out the hard way!
Starving ourselves is a one of the biggest stresses on our bodies. The fitness experts at Positively Fit know when our clients are not eating enough or the wrong foods. It shows up when we monitor them during their workout.

The key to training during our transition is to monitor the stress. All exercise is fight or flight. So, we monitor our clients so they do not get over trained, release too much cortisol or stay in fight or flight too long. In my case, since I was close to adrenal burnout, my whole approach to training had to change. Weight lifting consisted of only 4 sets, sometimes 2, depending how my body reacted to the stress of exercise. I only lifted 2 times a week and did leisurely biking only for 15 minutes one time a week. Many times during my transition, I gave up training completely for months since working was stressful enough on my body.
Guess what? I actually gained strength.

As we age, we need muscle on our bodies for so many health reasons. Weight training is the best way for premenopausal and menopausal women to exercise in order to stay healthy, strong and to get the weight off.

To do this right, we need to monitor ourselves. At Positively Fit, we tell our clients we want them walking out feeling like they could have done more and feeling better than when they came in. Let me say that again…you want to walk out of an exercise session feeling like you could have done more! Hard lesson to learn…since the fitness industry is more about taking people to extreme fatigue and over-training almost everyone unless the clients are being monitored through HRV, cortisol and hormones. An example? Right now the fitness industry is heavy on Tabata workouts or extreme exercise which was actually designed for 20ish year old professional athletes in their prime of hormone balance.

What about training for the long haul?
Some people who are genetically gifted can get away with high intensity training, but that is a small percentage of people. High intensity cardio or any type of training that makes you get into heavy breathing for a length of time causes the lungs, heart and brain to shrink since there is so much free radical damage that we cannot overcome.

A special caution for those with known thyroid problems: there is a very good chance your adrenals are taking a hit. Thyroid and adrenals go hand in hand; they are the main organs of the triangle I spoke of before.

I have come to believe we need to protect our adrenals at all cost, be kinder to ourselves, slow down the hectic pace of life, and most of all quit overtraining!

Extreme Fitness = Extreme Stress

Positively Fit — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 09:41:04 +0000

Yesterday, I received a phone call from a past client who called to tell me I was right.

Honestly, it is really nice to get phone call like this once in a while! 

She got a Groupon and decided to try a local Extreme Fitness bootcamp.

She told me that she was appalled by the lack of caring and professionalism. First, there was no assessment or discussion of any physical limitations or medical history when she got there. The instructor, or should I say, “trainer,” never checked her form during any of the exercises, or anyone else in the class for that matter. She has an old injury in her shoulder, and when she told him she could not do a certain exercise, he hastily told her to switch to push- ups, which I know would injure her further. She even mentioned that there were individuals who were older than her in the class, and her comment was, “I was worried that they might have a heart attack!”

Finally, she had to quit in the middle because she was ready to throw up, but the trainer did not even seem to care. Throwing up is an effect of overtraining (stress) and/or a blood sugar drop—definitely a red flag that should not be ignored.

This client did get results at my studio but needed to take a break to concentrate on her studies. Needless to say, she will be back!

Extreme fitness equals extreme stress. If you have a metabolism that is very reactive to stress, this is not the class exercise modality for you. All exercise is stress! You need to find the right balance where your body can adapt to the stress of exercise. At Positively Fit, we customize a client’s exercise program to their unique response to stress and their ability to recover. From this method, we are able to create a customized fitness plan that works with (not against) every individual’s metabolism and physiology.

No injuries, no added stress, and definitely no throwing up—just the amazing feeling of reaching your body’s full potential.