Exercise And How It Might Help Kids With Autism

I bet you didn't know that this month was National Autism Awareness Month. I wanted to find out if exercise could play a role in helping kids with autism. What I found out was that there is still debate on how much it could help autistic children, but it definitely isn't going to hurt.

Autism can have varying affects on children from mild to severe affections. So it is difficult to say how exercise will help the child, but the only way to find out is to try. Exercise and physical activity helps develop their motor skills, social development, and emotional maturity. But, like many kids nowadays it is very important to help them maintain their healthy weight and improve their coordination. Lack of physical activity is becoming all too common in all our kids whether they are autistic or not.

So here are a few tips to help get your autistic child acclimated to physical activity:

• Check with your doctor first, just in case there are limitations to what your child can or cannot do. The doc might even have some suggestions on what to start off with.

• Encourage the child to participate in activities that require a lot of body parts such as jumping rope, weight lifting (if old enough), or jumping on a trampoline. To improve balance and coordination try activities like swinging or cartwheels. Hand eye coordination and motor skills can be improved by playing catch or basketball.

• Exercise can help with emotional control as well. Choose activities that your child enjoys so it will be fun. Exercise has been known to be an anti-depressant of sorts because it raises your serotonin levels which makes you feel good and relaxed.

• Structure the exercises to the ability of the child and then build upon those successes. For each new hurdle accomplished, the child will be eager to try exciting new exercises.

My thought is like I stated earlier, which is more kids in general need to become more physically active. It will help them with their self confidence, paying more attention in class, keeping the weight off, and avoiding these health issues that are creeping up on them at an earlier and earlier age. But, for autistic kids it is that much more beneficial. I see no downside to them being active. Also, it will force you to be active as well because you will have to keep up with them. So maybe in the process, you will lose a few pounds. Is that so bad??

Fat Loss Isn't Always What It Looks Like

When it comes to fat loss, portion control seems to be used a lot by professionals, myself included. But sometimes portion sizes aren't always what they seem.

For example, if you had a bag of chips and the same size bag of baby carrots, are you eating the same amount of calories? Well, I looked it up on the internet. 4.25 ounces of Koo Koo Roo baby carrots is 75 calories, while 4 ounces of Lay's potato chips is 600 calories. Consequently, you would have to eat a lot more carrots to equal those 600 calories of chips.

So a lot of it does come down to what you are eating, not necessarily how much you are eating. What perfectly illustrates this point is the book Picture Perfect Weight Loss by Dr. Howard Shapiro. I was turned onto this book awhile back by some other fitness professionals. I haven't read the book entirely, but I have looked at the pictures and this is what the book is about.

Dr. Shapiro shows you pictures of foods with equal caloric values and shows that you can eat a lot of healthy foods at one sitting and still not equal the caloric value of a particular junk food.

For example, he shows on one page a picture of a 2 ounce hot dog (really about 1/3 of a hot dog), 2 ounces of sausage (about 1/4 of a sausage), and 1/3 cup of macaroni salad. This equals 530 calories. On the opposite page he shows you 5 ounces of shrimp (about 8 pieces), red bell peppers, and onions, 2 portobello mushrooms, 6 asparagus spears, a potato, zucchini, corn on the cob (probably minus the butter), and 2 lbs of watermelon (about 2 - 1/4 slices). All of those foods equal up to 530 calories total.

He has many more examples of this in his book. It really starts to hit home to some people that you can eat a good amount of food AND stay within a reasonable allotment of calories, IF you make healthier choices with your foods. By looking at all those foods, the visual stimulation starts to kick it in for people.

So remember, you do have to take into consideration how much you are eating, but that can be greatly altered by what you are eating. The fattier foods will always have more calories in them then their healthier counterparts. Check out this book and see what you can learn.

How Total Wellness Effected My Health Screening

Recently, I had to get a health screening for my insurance. It had something to do with giving us credit towards our flexible spending account. I'm not really sure, I just went because my wife told me (which guys, as you know is something we just do sometimes).

But that isn't the point of this article. The point is to go over my results to illustrate how this total wellness process (exercise and eating right) works.

First, they took my blood pressure, which the number doctors would like to see is 120/80. I checked in that morning at 116/73. So that looked good.

The machine that took my blood pressure also took my resting heartrate which registered at 68. Now for my age that is considered above average, but understand, resting heartrate is most accurate if taken right when you wake up in the morning. I had been up for several hours and already exercised, so mine actually might be a little lower. It isn't an entirely accurate way of gauging health, but they do say if your resting heartrate is over 84 that might be dangerous.

So next was my blood work. This was going to be interesting to me because a few years back my father had to have a stint put in due to some blockage. Consequently, I was told I need to watch the cholesterol levels because of the genetic factor.

My Triglycerides came out at 138, which anything under 150 is considered normal. 150-199 is borderline high. 200-499 is considered high and greater than or equal to 500 is considered very high. If this number gets high, then it can raise your risk for heart disease, diabetes, or stroke.

My total cholesterol is 150, which anything below 200 is desirable. 200-239 is borderline high and greater than or equal to 240 is considered high. Keeping the number low will help prevent blockage in your arteries that can lead to strokes and heart disease.

My HDL, which is the good cholesterol, was 45 which is near optimal. Below 40 is low, 40-59 is near optimal, and greater than or equal to 60 is high. I would like to see my HDL's a little higher, but this will suffice for now.

My Total Cholesterol/HDL ratio was 3.3. An average risk is 5.0. A 1/2 average risk is 3.4 and 2 times an average risk is 9.4. So I was good here.

My LDL (the bad cholesterol) was 77, which anything under 100 is optimal. 100-129 is near/above optimal. 130-159 is borderline high. 160-189 is high and greater than or equal to 190 is very high. Basically, keep the LDL's low and the HDL's high.

Finally, my glucose level in my blood was 75 which I guess was fine. The report didn't say anything good or bad which I assume if it was bad they would have said something.

So all-in-all I seem to be doing pretty good. And this could be you too! Exercising and eating healthy (not all the time but most of the time) helps keep everything in check to make sure my body functions the way it is supposed to. Following this type of lifestyle will increase the chances that I will continue to get to do the things I enjoy doing as I grow older.

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Video for Leg and Butt Workout

I finally was able to shoot the video for the Leg and Butt workout I discussed a few weeks back. I've had several people try it and yes, they were sore. So proceed with caution. I do like it a lot and for women it is especially beneficial because it is the high impact exercise that will help strengthen your bones.