Exercise and the Myths about Building Muscle as we Age!

February is American Heart Month and eating a balanced diet is one of the best ways to keep our heart healthy.

On this episode of A SENSe of Wellness podcast, host, Susan Greeley and Cooking a la Heart co-author, Amy Myrdal Muller, MS, RDN, talk about bringing ease and joy into your diet and the importance of what we put into our bodies for our overall hearth health.

More about Amy Myrdal Miller, MS, RDN:

Amy Myrdal Miller, is an award-winning dietitian, farmer's daughter, public speaker, author, and president of Farmer's Daughter Consulting, an agriculture, food, and culinary communications firm founded in 2014. During her 27-year career, Amy has worked for Fleishman Hillard, the Rippe Lifestyle Institute, Dole Food Company, the California Walnut Board & Commission, and The Culinary Institute of America.

Today, Amy works with a variety of clients across the food system, including seed companies, grower cooperatives, commodity boards, national brands, campus dining operations, and restaurants.

Amy is the co-author of Cooking à la Heart: 500 Easy and Delicious Recipes to Help Make Every Meal Heart Healthy, © 2023 Linda Hachfeld and Amy Myrdal Miller, published by The Experiment. Cooking à la Heart is about the joyful, mindful pursuit of great food, enjoyed with people you love in settings that relax and inspire you to do more good things for your health.

On this episode of A SENSe of Wellness podcast, host, Susan Greeley and Charity Miles Founder, Gene Gurkoff, go on a walk and talk about behavior change, motivation, movement, and giving back. The two dive into New Years resolutions and making meaningful changes to improve health wellness, and to help others. They discuss the importance of community for sustaining motivation and the significance of actively giving back.

More about Gene Gurkoff

Gene Gurkoff is the founder of Charity Miles, an app that enables people to earn money for charity when they walk, run, bike or otherwise get moving. Charity Miles has won several awards, including a Webby for the Best Health & Fitness App and the SXSW People's Choice Award. Gene started Charity Miles in honor of his grandfather who has Parkinson's disease.

Follow Gene's social media channels!

Twitter and Instagram: @CharityMiles

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gene-gurkoff/, https://www.linkedin.com/company/charity-miles/

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the world, with 1 in 8 women expected to receive a diagnosis in their lifetime. While it is known that lifestyle interventions are effective in preventing this chronic disease, the foods on your plate may be a more powerful tool than you realize. In this episode of A SENSe of Wellness Podcast, host, Susan Greeley connects with Rachel Beller to discuss the role nutrition plays in breast cancer prevention. The two Registered Dietitian Nutritionists dive deep into curating your plate to sustain health and wellbeing and to equip your body to protect itself against breast cancer. 

#BreastCancerAwarenessMonth

More about Rachel Beller

Rachel Beller, MS, RDN, is a registered dietitian nutritionist offering private nutrition counseling and online classes that specialize in weight management and cancer risk reduction. She is the nutrition and media expert for Good Morning America and CNN, a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society, and a three-time best-selling author. Rachel has researched the role of nutrition in breast cancer risk reduction at leading research hospitals, and her signature program, The Beller Nutrition Masterclass, is a simple action plan for weight management and cancer risk reduction using the Beller Method™. You can learn more at bellernutrition.com

In this episode of A SENSe of Wellness Podcast, host, Susan Greeley connects with Ngo Okafor to discuss common myths about exercise and aging. Ngo addressed topics like our metabolism as we get older, building muscle and burning fat as we age, and his recommendations to improve exercise ability and overall health with consistency over time. 

More about Ngo Okafor

Ngo Okafor is a two-time Golden Gloves boxing champion and Founder/CEO of
Iconoclast Fitness, a private training facility on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue where
celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Brooke Shields, Chelsea Clinton, Ralph Fiennes,
John David Washington, and Danny Meyer get in their workouts. Ngo is also the creator
of “28 Days Greater”, a training and nutrition methodology that helps people lose up to
25 pounds in 28 days.

A Nigerian immigrant, Ngo came to the United States with no professional network or
net worth, but through hard work, mental toughness, and consistency built himself into
one of the most sought-after personal trainers in America.

After a childhood spent bedridden in Nigeria, Ngo moved to the United States to study
computer science at the University of Connecticut. Never one to shy away from difficult
tasks (he had his mother photocopy class notes when he was confined to the hospital,
so he could keep up with his schoolwork), Ngo took up boxing at the relatively advanced
age of 31—and proceeded to win two Golden Gloves National Championship titles
back-to-back.

Using the same laser-sharp focus, Ngo established his personal training business,
creating a model others would envy and earning accolades like the one from New York
Post anointing him one of “New York’s hottest trainers whipping beautiful people into
shape.” Those beautiful people include Naomi Campbell, Julia Roberts, Iman, Kahlana
Barfield Brown, and Chanel Iman. Ngo has gained this loyal following by espousing a
fitness belief that the mind is the most important muscle a person needs to develop.
“The body is a slave to the mind and will do anything the mind tells it to do,” he says.
Ngo is frequently quoted in publications as varied as Elle, Oprah Magazine, Men’s
Health, Women’s Health, and Glamour, and is often a guest on television programs like
The Today Show, Good Morning America, and Good Day New York.

When he’s not in the gym, Ngo works with the non-profit he founded, Champion Spirit
Foundation, which provides free exercise equipment in Nigeria, for children to learn
boxing, as a path to raising their self-esteem. Ngo still models when he can fit it in,
having appeared alongside the likes of Gisele Bundchen and Mary J. Blige in
magazines such as Vogue, W, V, and WSJ.

Despite all this, Ngo says his greatest accomplishment is being a devoted family man.
He’s a husband and father to two beautiful children, Chioma, 8, and Amara, 4.

We all know that a good night's rest sets you up for success in terms of your health and wellness. Listen to this episode of A SENSe of Wellness Podcast for a deep dive into the science of sleep and its impacts on all other facets of your health and well-being. Host, Susan Greeley, is joined by sleep expert Dr. Michael Grandner.

More about Dr. Grandner:

Dr. Michael Grandner is an internationally-recognized expert on sleep and health. Through his research, he studies how sleep is an important aspect of health, like diet and exercise. He studies not only what happens to our health when we do not get enough sleep, but also how and why people sleep the way they do in the real world. His work also includes studying poor quality of sleep and sleep disorders, as well as real-world solutions for sleep problems.

Current Position

Dr. Grandner is Director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine in the School of Medicine, Associate Professor of Psychology in the School of Sciences, Associate Professor of Nutritional Sciences at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Associate Professor of Clinical Translational Science. He is also Director of the Arizona Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic at the Banner--University Medical Center in Tucson, which oversees the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders using non-medication approaches.

In this episode of A SENSe of Wellness Podcast, Host, Susan Greeley, connects with Dr. Juna Bobby to discuss the importance of self care, resilience, and managing stress for overall health and wellbeing. They addressed the role that self-care plays in preventative medicine, the impact of the brain's biology and physiology and how it impacts mental health, the increased levels of anxiety and depression seen among teens, the importance of kids and young adults to understand the functionality of their brains, and even how boys may experience learning and mental health differently than girls in honor of Men's Health Month.

More about Dr. Bobby:

Juna Bobby, MD, DipABLM, earned her MD at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She is board certified in Diagnostic Radiology and Lifestyle Medicine. Juna is a returning guest faculty member and certified clinician for Stress Management and Resiliency Training and Resilient Youth program at the Benson Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is also a faculty member at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division in NYC where she teaches the Science of Resilience for Peak Performance elective.  Juna's passion is to combine neuroscience and evidence backed self-care tools to create science backed digital courses for K-12 which parents and teachers alike can incorporate into their daily lives, and for corporations to foster resilience in the workplace.

Juna posts educational videos about sleep on her new Youtube @fallasleepeasy, hosts the MindBodySpace Podcast, is the Resilience Coach for the Valissima Institute, Leads a Teen Lifestyle Medicine Initiative, and launched Wellness Programs at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Columbia Law School, and has held workshops and given grand rounds at many organizations including MUFG, Edward Jones, Canyon Ranch, Yale Radiology, Mt. Sinai Medical Center, and more.

Did you know that work-related stress causes 120,000 deaths per year in the U.S.? 65% of professionals classify their work as being a very significant or somewhat significant source of stress, and 54% of workers surveyed admit that work stress impacts their home life.

As we say goodbye to April, Stress Awareness Month, and enter May, Mental Health Awareness Month, we wanted to take a deep dive into work-related stress and its impact on health and wellbeing. Host, Susan Greeley had the chance to sit down with Madelaine Claire Weiss, author of Getting to G.R.E.A.T: 5-Step Strategy for Work and Life. Together they uncovered actionable steps to help busy individuals combat stress and burnout while transforming their lives from the inside out.

Susan and Madeline covered topics of burnout across professions and among healthcare providers, work-life equality, and Madelaine’s pioneering 5-step strategy for balancing work and life based on science and stories.

More about Madelaine

Madelaine Claire Weiss (LICSW, MBA, BCC) is a Harvard trained Licensed Psychotherapist, Mindset Expert, and Board-Certified Executive, Career, Life Coach with an MBA, currently in private practice in Washington, D.C.

She is a co-author in the Handbook of Stressful Transitions Across the Lifespan, and bestselling author of “Getting to G.R.E.A.T. 5-Step Strategy for Work and Life.”

Madelaine is a former group mental health practice administrative director, a corporate chief organizational development officer, and associate director of the Anatomical Gift Program at Harvard Medical School.

She has been featured on NBC, W4WRadio, Fox TV, Talk4TV, has written for Thrive Global, Authority Magazine’s Editor’s List, CEOWorld Magazine—and led webinars for MedSense, the American Bar Association, Harvard Law School Association, and The International Association of Business Communicators. Her widely well received trainings include Skadden Arps, Vinson & Elkins, Wilkinson Barker, and Cozen O’Connor law firms; Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, National Association of Realtors, DC Academy of General Dentistry, AARP, Wharton Innovation Summit, and the Bureau of National Affairs.

According to the CDC, 41.9% of the U.S. population is obese. This common and serious disease is often preventable with a proper diet and exercise regimen.

In this episode of A SENSe of Wellness Podcast, host Susan Greeley connects with Dr. Michael Dansinger to discuss preventing and reversing chronic metabolic disease through lifestyle medicine, the keys to sustaining a healthy weight, adhering to important lifestyle practices, and the links between obesity and other chronic diseases. 

More about Dr. Michael Dansinger

Dr. Dansinger is a nationally-recognized expert in nutrition and lifestyle coaching. He published a well-known clinical trial that compared the effectiveness of 4 popular diets, which demonstrated that there are many effective eating strategies rather than one best diet for everybody. 

He is a Member of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Tufts Medical Center, in Boston, where he directs a diabetes reversal program that he founded in 2006. He has been a nutrition, diabetes, and obesity expert for WebMD for more than 15 years, and he led their online diabetes community for 5 years.

Dr. Dansinger was also the nutrition doctor for NBC show, The Biggest Loser for over 10 years, and he helped create The Biggest Loser diet and book series.

Did you know that only 12% of people are metabolically fit? In this episode of A SENSe of Wellness Podcast, host, Susan Greeley sits down with Dr. Mindy Pelz to talk about the truth behind fasting and metabolism.

If you’ve ever been curious about the increasingly popular fasting movement, but are unsure if it’s right for you, how to start, or how to do it safely, then this episode is for you. Dr. Peltz is a pioneer in the principles of a fasting, lifestyle, diet, variation, detox, hormones, and much more.