How Much Do You Know About Osteoporosis?
I’ll go first. Prior to working on this campaign, I knew absolutely nothing about osteoporosis. That’s not entirely true, I guess, because I had always assumed that it was a disease that only affected older people. While I was technically correct in my assumption that osteoporosis has a stronger effect on the 50+ crowd, I was unaware that taking small preventative measures in my 30’s could help me avoid this disease down the road.
Why Should You Care?
Did you know that one in three Canadian women and one in five Canadian men will break a bone because of osteoporosis? Each year in Canada, broken bones caused by osteoporosis are more common than heart attack, stroke and breast cancer combined for women over the age of 50 years of age. Despite the severity and prevalence of osteoporosis, a recent survey from Osteoporosis Canada, in partnership with Shoppers Drug Mart, reveals startling gaps in Canadians’ knowledge and understanding of the disease. The survey results show that half of those in their 30s don’t know the facts about osteoporosis and how to reduce their risk of developing this disease.
Additional results and statistics include:
• By 2035, it is estimated that almost 42,000 individuals will experience a broken hip per year, meaning that those in their 30s and 40s now are at risk
• 1.4 million Canadians have osteoporosis however, only five per cent of respondents rated themselves as knowledgeable about the disease.
• When asked about key facts of the disease, the majority of Canadians admitted they are not aware of seven of the eight key facts about osteoporosis and complications that are related to the disease
• Although guidelines recommend consumption of 1000-1200 mg of calcium per day, most women fail to reach this level with their dietary intake – many only getting 300 mg/day.
• In Canada, among people over 50 years old, 80 per cent of broken bones are caused by osteoporosis, while 80 per cent of Canadians who break a bone as a result of osteoporosis are never diagnosed with osteoporosis.
• As of 2010, the overall yearly cost to the Canadian healthcare system for treating osteoporosis and the fractures it causes was over $2.3 billion.
What Can You Do About It?
I promise that I’m not trying to scare you. I was just as surprised as anyone else to know how common osteoporosis becomes later in life and as someone who already lives with back and hip pain; this is something I am taking very seriously. It is highly recommended that everyone over 30 speak to a health care professional about osteoporosis and the steps they can take to protect themselves.
If you don’t feel like making a doctor’s appointment, as part of an effort to promote better bone health for Canadians, Osteoporosis Canada has partnered with Shoppers Drug Mart/PharmaPrix, whose pharmacists are equipped to provide education and advice to patients about osteoporosis management and reducing the risk. All you have to do is stop by your local Shoppers Drug Mart and ask any questions you may have.
I’m telling you, it’s never too early to start thinking about bone health and there are easy steps that you can take, at every age, to help prevent osteoporosis. Ensuring your diet is rich with calcium and vitamin D and adding regular exercise to your daily or weekly routine will help build bone strength and can make a difference in prevention of osteoporosis and fractures. I mean, if something this bad can be prevented, don’t you think we should put in the work?
Visit your Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacist today or visit www.osteoporosis.ca for more information about osteoporosis prevention and maintenance for better bone health!
Disclosure: I was compensated for my participation in this program but that doesn’t change the fact that osteoporosis is a very real and very dangerous disease that you should take seriously.
Join The #iHeartExercise Challenge With GoodLife Fitness!
Around this time last year is when I decided that I was tired of feeling sore, tired and lazy all the time and decided to something about it. I teamed up with GoodLife Fitness to give myself the jumpstart I needed and while there are still days where I don’t feel like picking my butt up off the couch, overall I am much more active than I was. I definitely feel a lot better than I did 365 days ago.
Well, February is Heart Month all across Canada and GoodLife, in partnership with the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, will be running a 29 Day Healthy Heart Challenge on Facebook throughout the month. This will consist of a daily challenge, along with exercise tips, recipe ideas, suggestions for reducing stress and getting better sleep, and advice for preventing heart disease and stroke.
If you are looking for a boost to get you started and don’t want to jump all in right away, GoodLife’s Healthy Heart Challenge could be exactly what you are looking for. Simply head over to the GoodLife Facebook Page and get started! I promise you that you will feel better about yourself after only a few challenges. You really have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking small steps towards a healthier you.
You can share these daily tips with your social network through Facebook and Twitter all month long using the #iHeartExercise hashtag. And, if you have a friend whose heart you care for, bring them in during GoodLife’s Open House. From February 15 – 19 every Canadian has the opportunity to work on their heart health in their local GoodLife club!
PS – It’s going to be hard but that’s what makes it worth doing!!
Project #DadFit – Win a 1 Month Membership To GoodLife Fitness!
So, this exercise thing is pretty fun once you get into a rhythm, isn’t it? I have been making my weekly trips to GoodLife Fitness and have even convinced my wife to start coming with me. Having the on-site daycare service has been a life saver, literally I guess. Next week I am going to start weight training, which is scary and exciting at the same time, so we’ll see how that goes!
Also, in order to celebrate the opening of a new GoodLife Fitness at 900 Exhibition Way, Lansdowne Park in Ottawa, I am giving away a 1 month Membership to a GoodLife Fitness near you! All you have to do to enter is fill out as many of the options as you’d like on the Rafflecopter form below and I’ll select a winner on July 6th. Good Luck and don’t forget to get your sweat on!
Project #DadFit – New Beginnings
Here we are again at this old familiar territory. Things were looking up for a while. I ran my first official 5K, was working out and running 5-6 days a week and even started eating healthier. I had never felt better in my life, mentally and physically, but I have let it all slip through my fingers. Now I sit here on the couch watching Real Housewives of (insert city here) because I’m too lazy to bother looking for the remote control, and I am not proud of myself at all.
All is not lost, however. I have faltered and regained footing before and I know that I can do it again. In fact, my new beginning starts today! My family were excited to welcome a video crew from GoodLife Fitness to our house this month so that I could share my story and struggles with staying fit. It’s not always easy to talk about our shortcomings but I do so with the hope that it will inspire me to work harder and possibly strike a chord in others who are dealing with the same struggles.
The GoodLife Fitness video is about Beginnings and I am really happy with how it turned out. Today is Monday, April 27th and on top of being my daughter’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Baby) this is the day that I begin my journey to a better me.
Project #DadFit – This Sh*t Is Hard
I knew the journey to a healthier me would be challenging but I had no idea it was going to be this difficult. Late last year I started running, hit the gym multiple times a week and even had P90X3 going strong. Nothing could stop me. Or so I thought.
Enter the busy Christmas season, snow on the ground and a bout of laziness and everything I had worked for is now far in the rearview mirror. I’ve wanted so badly to get back into my routines but I’m struggling to find the starting point. I’m now back to my old ways, which happen to include non-stop snacking, shortness of breath, sucking in my stomach to fit into my clothes and a complete lack of motivation to do any of the things I used to love doing, such as blogging and podcasting.
Inconsistency seems to be the only consistent thing in my life right now and I’m slowly working my way through it. What is this thing that holds us down even though we want nothing more than to move forward? I’ve watched all the motivational videos, seen what being out of shape can do to you and even interviewed a bunch of health experts, yet here I sit, unable to muster the strength to get off the couch.
I took a first step yesterday when I signed up for a trial membership at my local GoodLife Fitness and plan on attending my first session in the coming days. There is a lot of work to be done and I honestly have no idea if I’ll be able to get it done, but I’m going to keep chipping away at it in hopes that it’ll eventually stick.
I’m going to go ahead and assume that others are going through the same struggles that I am so I can feel like less of a failure and more of an every man. If you are struggling, feel free to share your story in the comments and maybe we can work through this thing together.
Win a 3 Month GoodLife Fitness Membership & Prize Pack!
To celebrate Heart Month and the fact that I am now officially a member at GoodLife Fitness, I am teaming up with GoodLife to give away a 3 month membership along with the prize pack shown above.
This February, GoodLife Fitness has teamed up with the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre to host the Healthy Heart Challenge to help keep your heart pumping!
Throughout the month, challenge participants will be encouraged to get CardioStrong through:
– daily cardiac stats and trends
– advice from a team of cardiologist and dieticians about preventing heart disease and stroke
– fitness tips and exercise ideas from GoodLife experts
– recipe ideas and nutrition tips to lower your risks
– suggestions for reducing stress and getting better sleep
As you complete the challenges, make sure you share your accomplishments and photos on social media using the #IHeartExercise hashtag. A lot of people won’t admit it but reading their friends journey to healthier lifestyles can be a striog motivator to get healthy themselves.
Giveaway
To get you started on the right foot, I am giving away a GoodLife Prize Pack that includes 1 GoodLife Fitness gym bag, a 3-month GoodLife Fitness membership, 1 branded water bottle and an #IHeartExercise t-shirt (various sizes available). The value of this prize pack is estimated at $250.
To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment below telling me what your biggest obstacle is on your journey to becoming a healthier you. The giveaway closes Feb 28th and is open to residents of Canada, excluding Quebec. Good Luck and don’t forget to join the Healthy Heart Challenge on Facebook!
Project #DadFit – The McDonald’s Conundrum
DISASTER!
Just as I was getting back on track after a horrendous Halloween nightmare, a brand new McDonald’s pops up quite literally around the corner from my house. I have two major detractors to my DadFit plan and they are pizza and McDonald’s.
If I am being completely honest, while I have still been working out, I have also been to the new McDonald’s for one reason or another on four of the seven days it has been opened so far. As you can imagine, this type of behaviour is NOT conducive to a healthier me… To be fair, three of those trips were only supposed to be coffee runs that somehow ended up with breakfast attached to them.
Also, cinnamon melts. C’mon, man!
Anyway, I need to figure out what I am going to do with this new wrinkle. It’s easy to say, “have some self control, man”, but people who suffer from junk food addiction will understand what I am talking about. My first course of action is going to be driving a different way to work and I’ll go from there.
In the good news department, the excellent people at New Balance read about my journey and hooked me up with some sweet new kicks (is it cool to call them kicks?) to help with my running. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet but I signed up for next year’s Ottawa Race Weekend 10K and I’m a little frightened by it. We’ll dive in to more about the race and the shoes in a later post but for now, I’ll leave you with this question.
How about you? Do you have a health kryptonite? What is it and how do you deal with it?
Project #DadFit – The Long and Winding Road
To say that I have been struggling lately would be a gross understatement. What started as an ambitious attempt to sculpt myself into a model of fitness, has now become a weekly struggle to even pack my gym bag. I’d love to blame Halloween for this but it started well before that.
The funny thing is that I was doing so well. I was 6 weeks in to my workouts, completed my first 5k run and had started eating better on a daily basis. Then we got some bad news, which had me working longer hours, followed by some even worse news and then I let the whole thing slip away. As it stands, I have not worked out in over two weeks and my nutrition level is at a zero, unless coffee and pizza have some sort of nutritional value.
Now, this is NOT a ‘woe is me’ post and in fact, it is quite the opposite. As I sat on my couch last night, drinking a beer, eating leftover Halloween candy and generally feeling disgusting, I remembered what it felt like when I crossed the finish line at the Army Run and how great it felt after completing my first week of the P90X3 program, and I immediately got up, packed my gym bag and left it at the front door.
Life dishes out all kinds of different scenarios and it is up to us to choose how we are going to handle them. In this instance, I have decided to choose my health over feeling sorry for myself. There is no failing, there is only road blocks to navigate until you get to the next check point and I intend to get there running.
Project #DadFit – Week 5: A P90X3 For Me, A P90X3 For You!
This has been an interesting week. I was flying high after running the Army Run 5K last weekend and was looking forward to carrying that forward into this week’s workouts. As fate would have it, I came down with something and was unable to do too much exercising. I still managed to skate with my son’s hockey team and squeeze in a visit to the gym but overall I was pretty laid out with the sickness and didn’t eat well at all because of it.
That said, I still feel motivated and hope to get back on track starting today! Before the sickness last week, I had been trying out the new P90X3 program from Beachbody Canada. I had tried the original P90X program last year but found it way too difficult for someone with my build and lack of flexibility and endurance. The P90X3 program is much easier for me and at only 30 minutes each, the disks are more than manageable. That’s not to say I don’t struggle at times but I have been going at my own pace and have really enjoyed the results so far.
After talking to the people at Beachbody Canada, they have agreed to let me give away one of their P90X3 programs to one of you! I’m telling you, no matter what you think about your abilities, you CAN do this program. Warning: There will be times that you swear at Tony Horton during the workout, so you’ll want to make sure the kids are out of earshot. Good Luck!