ADVE R TI S E M E N T
WELCOME HOME BABY
CAR SEAT SAFETY
One of the first responsibilities
parents face before bringing home
their new baby is choosing and
installing a car seat. Use these
tips to help ensure your child will
be safe and secure while traveling:
CHOOSE YOUR SEAT WISELY
Accepting a hand-me-down car seat
is not the same as hand-me-down
baby clothes. Never use a car seat
that has been in a car crash or shows
signs of extreme use.
DO YOUR RESEARCH Make sure
you are up-to-date on car seat safety
guidelines, ratings and recalls. Visit
the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration web site ( nhtsa.gov)
for the latest information.
CALL IN THE PROS Based on a
study done by National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration, typically
more than 70% of child safety seats
are improperly installed. Make sure
your car seat is correctly installed by
contacting a certified child passenger
safety technician at your local police
or fire department.
For more tips on car seat installation,
watch the Welcome Home Baby videos
on better.tv/welcomehomebaby.
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State Farm - Bloomington, IL
getfit
8. YOU DO ONLY YOGA.
While it’s great for flexibility and helps improve strength, the typical yoga
session is not going to incinerate calories. A recent study found that
it takes 90 minutes of hatha yoga to burn 200 calories—about the same
as window-shopping or a casual stroll.
THE SOLUTION: If you’re doing an hour of yoga five days a week, you
need to shift three of those days to aerobic activity, says Kara Mohr,
Ph.D., an exercise physiologist and founder of MohrResults.com,
a fitness and nutrition consulting company. “I always encourage my
clients to do yoga because it’s excellent for raising the mind-body
connection, which helps stop overeating,” she adds. But you need to
think of it as a supplemental activity if your goal is weight loss.
9. YOU ALWAYS RUN AT A STEADY PACE.
If you want to increase your speed, you won’t improve your time without
interval training. “It teaches your muscles to burn energy more efficiently,
so you can go faster,” Porcari
says. “You’re also training your
legs to move quicker and getting Try a speed coach. Itami’s
mentally used to the idea.” Fi Trainer headphones
THE SOLUTION: Porcari
have an ear clip that takes
recommends starting out with
your pulse and periodi-
a one-mile warm-up, then
cally interrupts your play-
doing four to six rounds of
list with an “exercise
running at slightly faster than
slightly harder” nudge.
your regular pace for a quarter
mile and slightly slower than
Fi Trainer headphones with built-in
heart-rate monitor ($59.95; itami.com).
your regular pace for a quarter
mile. (If you’re outside, try
going from telephone pole to
telephone pole.) “The goal is
gradually to lengthen the faster-
paced intervals and increase
the tempo,” Porcari explains.
He adds that to prevent injuries,
it’s best to keep such speed
work to once or twice a week.
10. YOUR WORKOUT IS THE SOLE
ACTIVITY YOU GET.
Sit all day and you’re missing out on burning an easy 900 extra calories.
That’s the difference between what people who aren’t sedentary melt in
nonexercise activity during a day versus what couch potatoes burn, says
James Levine, M.D., Ph.D., an obesity expert at the Mayo Clinic and author
of Move a Little, Lose a Lot. “Humans are basically built to be moving. The
mechanisms that drive metabolism switch on when a person stands and
they switch off as soon as she sits,” Dr. Levine says.
THE SOLUTION: The more active you are, the better. At the very least,
you should get up every hour and walk or march in place. One easy
change Dr. Levine recommends: Pace the floor when you’re on the
phone. Make it a habit and weight loss will be just several calls away! Q
