Take a look at our February newsletter!
FEBRUARY 2023
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you holding up on that challenge? Are you still intentionally using muscles to control your descent down in the chair, OR are you just plopping down? Are you thinking about using your legs to lift your butt back out of the chair/commode, or are you using momentum and your arms to push off to get back to standing? Right now is crunch time, as February is when 90% of New Year’s resolutions start fading away, and we forget that initial excitement and motivation we had just a few short weeks ago. Luckily, you have me here to give you that righteous and proper kick right in the butt! They say that it takes 30 days to make or break a habit, BUT it takes 90–120 days to completely reprogram your brain to where things become automatic. Said differently, you will likely need to consciously think about using your muscles to sit and stand through at least March before it becomes so automatic that it happens naturally every time. So, get back to work! Every time you catch yourself “cheating,” force yourself to bang out 10 air squats as your punishment! You’ll learn sooner than later! Next thing you know, it’ll be January 2024, and you can say that YOU did 10,000 squats last year, AND you are stronger today than you were a year ago! And that, my friends, is something worth working for! Switching gears again, I’m still looking for a few more golfers to go to Scotland with me this summer! We currently have three guys who are committed and another three who are now on the fence due to potential grandkid obligations. I’d love it if we could get eight guys to commit, giving us a perfect number of people for what I have planned. We will be playing some of the nicest courses off the beaten path, visiting some really cool historical sites, and enjoying delicious refreshments in some great local pubs. Here’s a bonus! I’m currently working on getting a well-known retired pro to join us for half a day! He’ll work with us on the range for a couple of hours, then we’ll go to the pub and enjoy some great stories from his days on tour! Have I piqued your interest yet? In all seriousness, I’d love to get things squared away sooner than later, so if you’re interested and want more details, please reach out to me ASAP!
We are rockin’ and a-rollin’, baby! February is here, and we are in the dead heat of the season! February always flies by in the blink of an eye because it’s a short month, and because we barely get a chance to breathe! All of our schedules are jam-packed, resulting in trying to inhale a quick meal for lunch in the four minutes we have between appointments. And to be completely honest, we all LOVE it! Over the past 12–24 months, Jenni and I have worked very hard to assemble a team that truly believes in our mission: “to help as many people as possible avoid needless surgeries while maintaining a high quality of life.” This means that we are willing to do whatever it takes to help you, the customer, do just that, resulting in 6 a.m. appointments all the way through 7 p.m. appointments! And best of all, I’m not the one asking them to do this! My staff takes it upon themselves to do whatever it takes to accommodate the demand because they all know that if we can’t get you in, your chances for requiring pain pills or surgery dramatically increase. I’ll never forget the feeling I had halfway through last year’s season when I kept seeing my staff beat me to the office AND stay later than me! At that moment, I realized we finally had our company culture going in the right direction. FEBRUARY IS CRUNCH TIME So Don’t Give Up on Your Goals!
Up to that point, I never thought I’d ever get staff on board that cared as much or more about you, the customer, as I do. Fast forward to today, out of the 11 people we have on payroll, eight have been with us for over a year, and two are coming up on three years! I’m telling you all this to boast a little, but mainly to reassure you that we genuinely care about you. You are not just another number to us. You are like family. I hope the feeling is mutual, but if not, we will continue striving to make it that way until you finally cave and start drinking the Kool-Aid, baby! Switching gears, it’s time to check in on your homework. Last month, I reminded you of my yearly January challenge to strive for 10,000 squats over the course of 365 days … How are
P.S. I completely forgot that we are due to have our baby this month! Man, please don’t tell Jenni, as she’ll kill me! Flip to the next page, and I’ll update you on the nitty gritty! –Dr. Jake Berman
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These days, as taking care of our health becomes more important than ever, we hear a lot about our physical wellness and how to improve it using nutritious foods and exercise. But what about our intellectual wellness? What is intellectual wellness? The University of New Hampshire defines intellectual wellness as “being open to new ideas, thinking critically, and finding ways to be creative.” Essentially, this means thinking about the world around you with an open mind and putting energy into what you’re thinking, not just allowing your brain to run idly. YOUR INTELLECTUAL WELLNESS MATTERS! Challenge Yourself to Expand Your Mind
How to Foster and Develop Intellectual Wellness Intellectual wellness differs from other types of well-being. You need to work hard and challenge yourself to stay intellectually healthy. If you’re looking to improve or nurture your intellectual wellness, here are three ways to do it. 1. Learn a new skill. One of the main components of intellectual wellness is working to acquire more knowledge. This doesn’t need to be physics or engineering but can be something as simple as cooking a new healthy recipe, learning to draw, or attempting a DIY home repair project. The important part is that mastering something new provides an information- based approach to the world around you. 2. Remove subjectivity. We view every situation with a pre-formed opinion or bias. The truth is our brains are wired this way to streamline thinking, but to be intellectually healthy, we must work hard to push past it. Remove subjectivity by learning a different way to perform a task or challenge yourself to understand (or simply read) the ideas of others. Be objective, even when you disagree with them. 3. Improve your critical thinking. Next time you’re engrossed in conversation, try being thoroughly engaged and think about what is being said. Ask questions to yourself and others, and hash out what you agree with and things you don’t. Work to keep your brain active in everything you do by finding a connection to everything around you.
Signs of healthy intellectual wellness include:
• Ability to see an issue from all sides • Purposeful exposure to ideas, beliefs, and people who differ from yourself
• Awareness of your core values • Capacity to learn new things
Balance: It’s More Than Just an Act
More studies reveal that balance is a great indicator of life span or disease. In fact, a recent study released by the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that people who could not balance on one foot for at least 10 seconds were nearly twice as likely to die within the next 10 years. But as we age, balance can become more challenging, and losing your balance can lead to falls or other serious accidents. Luckily, these mishaps are preventable with some help from balance training. Balance training just means taking a few minutes each day to perform simple exercises that help improve your balance, and according to the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, doing so can reduce the risk of falling by up to 40%!
Here are a few simple exercises you can do at home to improve your balance. For safety, we recommend completing these exercises near a sturdy surface you can use for support if you need it. Standing March While standing, slowly march in place for 20–30 seconds. How fast or slow you complete this exercise is up to you, but once you feel it becoming easier, you can pick up your marching pace or move to a different floor texture, like carpet, grass, or hardwood, for a challenge. The idea here is that marching forces you to temporarily stand on one foot, even for a few seconds.
rise from the chair without using your arms to help push you up. If this is too difficult, feel free to add a pillow or foam pad to the seat to reduce the distance between sitting and standing. Once you’re standing, slowly lower yourself back into the chair. Try not to fall back into it (which allows gravity to control the fall); instead, ease yourself into the seat. Repeat as many times as you can.
Heel-to-Toe Walk Standing straight, place one foot
directly in front of the other so the heel of your leading foot is touching the toes of the one behind it. Hold this position for 30 seconds before moving the back foot to the front of the previously leading foot, with its heel touching the other foot’s toes. Repeat as many times as you can.
Sit to Stand In a chair, sit with your
feet planted firmly on the floor in front of you. Then,
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BRING ON THE BUGS! FOODS THAT HELP — AND HARM — OUR MICROBIOME
Inside all of us is a bustling community of bacteria, parasites, fungi, and viruses. But don't worry! These microbiota work hard to keep our bodies balanced and healthy. They are so crucial to our health that they’ve been labeled a supporting organ because of what they do to keep our systems running smoothly. And what we eat can have a significant impact on the well- being of our microbiota. So, here are foods we can eat to help these tiny residents keep our health in check as well as foods to avoid so we don't sabotage the benefits they provide. Foods That Help Our Microbiome The key to helping our little microbiota is by creating a lower pH level in our colons. To do this, we need to consume foods high in healthy fiber. The microbiota in our bodies break down these fibers using enzymes and, as a result, ferment the fiber inside our gut. This fermentation releases short-chain fatty acids, or SCFAs, essential to lowering our pH. SCFAs make our colons more acidic and, by doing so, stop the growth of harmful bacteria that cannot survive in a low- pH environment. Foods that support increased SCFAs are indigestible carbohydrates and fibers. Our stomachs don’t break these down, so they arrive whole to our intestines, ready for our tiny microbiota to eat. These carbohydrates and fibers are called prebiotics, and while we can take many drugstore prebiotics as supplements, it’s always better to feed our little friends from natural food sources.
The following foods contain the highest amounts of natural prebiotics:
• Garlic • Onions • Leeks • Asparagus • Bananas
• Seaweed • Wheat • Oats • Barley
To get the most out of these prebiotic-packed foods, eat them as close to raw as possible!
Foods That Hurt Our Microbiome Just like foods can help give our microbiome a major power-up, many foods can harm it. Even worse, some foods encourage harmful gut bacteria to thrive and make us sick. Here are the top foods to stay away from:
• Artificial sweeteners (like stevia, aspartame, and sucralose)
• Fried foods • Red meat • Soft drinks
These foods help grow harmful bacteria and actively disrupt the environment of our microbiota, so it’s best not to include these so our little helpers stay healthy!
TAKE A BREAK!
Feta Chicken Burgers Inspired by TasteOfHome.com
INGREDIENTS
• 1/4 cup finely chopped cucumber • 1/4 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise • 1/2 cup chopped roasted sweet red pepper • 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp Greek seasoning • 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1 1/2 lbs lean ground chicken • 1 cup crumbled feta cheese • 6 whole wheat hamburger buns, split and toasted
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat broiler. Mix chopped cucumber and mayonnaise and set aside. 2. For the burgers, mix the red pepper, garlic powder, Greek seasoning, and black pepper. Add chicken and cheese; mix lightly but thoroughly (the mixture will be sticky). Shape into 6 patties about 1/2-inch thick. 3. Broil burgers, remembering to cook both sides thoroughly. Serve on buns with cucumber sauce. If desired, top with lettuce and tomato. Enjoy!
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1. Are You Keeping Up on Your Squats? 2. Intellectual Wellness: What It Is and How to Improve Yours 3 Exercises to Improve Your Balance INSIDE THIS ISSUE
3. Prebiotics to the Rescue! Feta Chicken Burgers
4. Improve Your Workouts With the Mind-Muscle Connection
USE THE MIND-MUSCLE CONNECTION Mind Over Matter Isn’t Enough!
Turn off distractions. Remember the music or podcast we mentioned earlier? Turn it off! This also includes silencing your phone or turning off any nearby TVs. It may take some time to get used to working out in silence, but with nowhere else to wander, the brain has an easier time focusing on those muscle movements. Visualize the muscles you are using. Every time you move, whether using a stationary bike, taking a walk, or lifting weights in a gym, picture the muscles you’re using in your head. Imagine the muscle fibers stretching and contracting with each movement. Use cues to remind you of your working muscles. Sometimes, our minds drift off during a workout, and that’s normal. But if you
Many assume working out is the muscle's job, pushing weights around as we enjoy a song or listen to a podcast. While this may be a fun way to pass the time, you're not doing your fitness any favors with your mind elsewhere. When you work out, you should use a "mind-muscle connection," or purposely think about the movement and contractions of your muscles as you use them. This is better because when your brain consciously focuses on your muscles and their contractions, it employs more muscle fibers to complete the task. You build strength in a more complete, well-rounded way. If you're not using a mind-muscle connection yet, don't worry! Here’s how you can start next time you’re ready to sweat.
find your head in the clouds more often than you’re thinking about your exercise, it might be time to use a few cues. A cue simply reminds you of what you’re physically doing. One way to incorporate a cue is to talk to yourself with each repetition. For example, if you’re performing a bench press, you can say “up” when you push the bar away and “down” when you lower it toward you. Utilize time under tension. The slower you perform your exercise, the more opportunity your brain has to talk to those muscles you’re using. Try holding each repetition for three seconds before moving on to the next, and as you hold, visualize those muscles for the entire three seconds.
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Is Your Meal Plan Causing the Majority of Your Symptoms?
PART 1
Blood Sugar Stability Many individuals have heard the words “blood sugar” used together before. It is the marker on the blood test that doctors often use to tell you if you’re becoming prediabetic or diabetic. Blood sugar stability, meaning how stable your blood sugar is throughout the day and night, is vital to your metabolism, mood, sleep, stress control, energy, strength, and ultimately how efficiently your body is functioning. Blood sugar stability is basically the dictator of your quality of life. How do you know if your blood sugar is stable throughout the day and night? Well, I am glad you asked. The one blood test that looks at your glucose level is not enough to determine your blood sugar stability. Other blood tests, like Hemoglobin A1c, Serum Insulin, Triglyceride Level, and HDL (Good Cholesterol) level, can help to determine your risk factors for a metabolic dysfunction called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance occurs before prediabetes and means that your body is not metabolizing food efficiently — specifically carbohydrates and sugar. Long story short, this is what starts to cause the symptoms you are feeling that were disclosed above. Insulin resistance is most affected by too many carbohydrates, sugar, and alcohol in the diet without enough lean proteins. The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging reports that 1 in 3 Americans aged 50-plus are consuming diets that are protein- deficient. Protein is the main building block of the cells in our body. It is vital to break down sugars and stabilize our blood sugar levels. If our meal plan does not have the proper ratio of carbohydrates, healthy fats, and proteins, our blood sugar becomes unstable. To say it simply, your blood sugar rising and falling throughout the day and night classifies as unstable blood sugar. You typically will not feel this happening as it is happening inside your body. This instability of the blood sugar is causing the body to store food, which is converted to sugar. Stored sugar is then turned into adipose (fat) tissue in our body. Blood sugar instability is a primary cause of your weight gain. This should be evaluated deeper from within by checking your blood tests. This has been a lot of information. We will continue to dive into this in the March Newsletter. Stay tuned for Parts 2 and 3! –Jenni Berman
• Are you tired throughout the day for three or more days per week? • Are you frustrated by abdominal fat? • Are you gaining weight despite your best efforts to diet and exercise? • Are you stressed three or more days per week? • Are you waking up throughout the night or having trouble falling asleep? • Are you crashing around 2–3 p.m. in the afternoon? • Have you been told your blood sugar level is borderline or increasing? Well … If you answered yes to two or more of these questions … keep reading. If you didn’t answer yes to two or more of these questions … keep reading because you are going to learn something that will help you regardless, and you will certainly learn something that could help someone close to you. Let ME Tell YOU … Feeling tired throughout the day, having less energy than you used to, and getting the “muffin-top” around your midsection or the “apple belly” is not part of the normal aging process. Waking up at night, having difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, and having less patience is not part of the normal aging process. Feeling more stressed, anxious, and frustrated is not part of the normal aging process. And you should not be increasing the amount of medications and pills you are taking just to treat these symptoms you are having. Yes, you are experiencing symptoms. We need to identify the cause of these things you are feeling and treat this to see success. So, let’s dive into it and unpack what we are actually trying to say … If you are struggling with weight loss, there are three main areas to look at initially. Once these three areas have been analyzed, then it is time to dig deeper, deeper, and deeper until you find the root cause of the weight component. 1. Blood sugar stability 2. Cortisol hormone (To be continued next month …) 3. Gut Health Vitamin Levels (To be continued next month …)
We’re having our second baby this month! Our projected due date is Feb. 28, so we’ll see if it actually happens this month …
So, I think we should have a little fun with this. We have no idea if the baby is a boy or a girl, so I think we should have a competition. I think that the competition should be this: Who can guess the baby’s sex, height, weight, delivery date, and delivery time? And the tiebreaker will be if they has hair or are bald! And just for even more fun, let’s hear what your guesses are for a first and middle name! Whoever gets the MOST correct answers will win $500 in Berman Inc. credit! And if anybody guesses EVERYTHING correctly (excluding name), they will get $5,000 in Berman Inc credit! Are you freaking kidding me? I must be losing my mind!
To enter this ridiculously crazy competition, all you have to do is go to our Facebook or Instagram page, find the post that outlines this competition, and comment your answer on that post! And the best part is that you can even share our post on your page so that if one of your friends guesses right, you can benefit from it! Said differently, if the person that wins comes from a comment on your page because you shared our post to your page, you BOTH will get $500 in Berman Inc credit! So, scan the QR code with your phone OR click the link, and let’s hear your guesses!
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