Welcome to our panel discussion today; Perspectives on exercise for

mental health and well-being, balancing the mind, the body, and plate.

Today we'll discuss how exercise benefits mental health and

well-being, as well as how to balance exercise and nutrition with a

busy schedule as a student. Today, we will hear from leaders in our

Mason community, as well as experts in health and fitness. Let's

welcome our panelists. Todd Bramble, Mason's WE Athletic Director and

former women's soccer coach; Derek Vigon, Mason's sports psychologist,

counseling and psychological services; Annabelle Eastman, Mason

Division 1 cross country and track and field runner; Dacheka Kolcum,

Mason Division 1 soccer player; Deanna Busteed, Mason sports

dietitian; and Conor Langston, ACSM certified personal trainer for

Mason Recreation. I'm Becky Demus, Assistant Director of Fitness at

Mason Recreation as well as a certified personal trainer, group

fitness instructor, and health coach. Today we will begin the hour by

going through a few questions for our panelists. Upon entrance, there

are no cards at the registration table for you to jot down any

questions you might have for our panelists. You can additionally just

ask your questions during the Q&A and you can come up to the front

where I will point you towards the microphone. During the session, if

you need to use the restroom, they're located directly outside the

door across from the cinema. We will review your questions at the end

of the session as we'll have extra time for Q&A. Given the topic of

this panel discussion, let's start by outlining the benefits of

regular exercise for well-being and mental health. Experts recommend

that you aim for 150 minutes of exercise per week. That's on average

five 30-minute sessions a day of moderate physical activity. It's been

proven that exercise can prevent many illnesses and physical

conditions like heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, and

diabetes to name a few. So it's important for us to think of exercise

to not only treat but prevent these conditions from onset later in

life. Just like we would take medicine for our health, we should

exercise for our health. Exercise is just as important for our mental

health as it is for our physical health. It promotes changes in the

brain like neural growth and reduced inflammation as well as brain

activity that stimulates feelings of calm. This feeling is also known

as the chemical endorphins, which will raise your spirits. A recent

Harvard study found that running or walking for just 15 minutes a day

can reduce your risk of major depression by 26 percent. Aside from

mood, exercise helps you feel energetic throughout the day, sleep

better at night, improve your memory, and relieve stress. Now that we

know how and why exercise is so important, a good question would be,

how can someone adhere to a physical activity regimen when the

conditions are not optimal? I know that as a student, and I feel a

little easier in the beginning of the semester when you are really

motivated and eager, but we know that it can get pretty hectic with

juggling work, class, and having a social life. I'll go ahead and

shoot that question to Conor. Hello. Time is obviously something we

all have to deal with. Whether you're a student or working

professional, we all, especially now, have so many things to do with

the day. It's getting harder and harder to find a specific time to do

things we enjoy. But as Rebecca just said, the recommendation is about

30 minutes a day. It may be daunting to think about I have to set

aside 30 minutes specifically for this when in fact you can actually

just split it up. If you can't allocate 30 minutes for an activity,

split it up. In the morning maybe do a 10-minute walk, at lunch, you

could do a 10-minute walk, and then later before dinner or after you

could do a 10-minute walk. From personal experiences, my fiance

doesn't like to do one set of thing at a time. So what we do is, to

motivate her, we do a light jog in the morning and then we'll do a

light jog at night. For her, that works. That way she has a little

time for herself in the morning and after dinner. Great. Thanks,

Conor. Todd, what are your thoughts? I would just add on to that. We

don't all have the luxury of being a Division 1 athlete where our

exercise is structured for us by our coach. Adding on to what Conor

had said, having some self-awareness of knowing when your body is most

receptive to exercise is really helpful. Some people, it's best with

them to just knock out their exercise the first thing of the day, and

then they're done with it. Some people are fine exercising in the

evening. Everyone's different and knowing your biorhythms, I think, is

really beneficial for you to maximize the benefits that you would get

from exercise of picking the right time of the day that works best for

you. Yeah. I know for me, morning is definitely when I like the

exercise. So I know if I don't do it then, there's a lesser chance

throughout the day that it's going to happen. Annabelle, what are your

thoughts? Yeah, I think I'm going for what Conor said about breaking

up that if it's a 30-minute goal we have for the day. I think if I've

got a mountain of work ahead of me or a whole list of commitments,

sometimes that 30 minutes, it seems daunting to try and squeeze that

in. But if I get it done and I come back, my mind's going to be

clearer and I'm going to be more productive anyway. So that mountain

of work I had to do is going to be much easier in the end. You're not

going to regret a workout even if you might not achieve what the

original intentions were for the day, you might take a little bit

easier on yourself, but yeah, I can't personally say I've regretted

getting out the door and doing what I can on that day. Awesome.

Another question, I think would be a great question for the students.

What motivates you to exercise during times where you might not have

the same resources, your routine is off, or you're in your off-season?

I know for me, even once I was no longer a student athlete and I was

finishing college, it was always difficult for me when the weather got

cold, I couldn't run outdoors, or even the gym was closed during the

holidays, or even travel can make it tough to get in that exercise

session. For me, this highlights why mixing up my load of exercise and

getting variety in my routine is so important. By attending group

fitness classes and then sometimes going out for a run, I don't get

too bored of working out alone when I'm occasionally forced to do so.

But I just want to hear from maybe Annabelle and Dacheka. What's your

perspective on staying motivated to exercise at those different times

of the year? Yeah, I think a lot of my motivation would come from just

trusting how important consistency is, which isn't always what you

want to hear. It's not the easiest answer. There's absolutely days

that you could just say you will take a rest day and when the weather

is better or when my friends are around to work out with, that's the

easy day. I think over time, you learn how important consistency will

be. When you can build up on those tough days and challenge your brain

to get through those, it'll make the easier days when the sun's

shining, gyms are open, it'll make those much more rewarding I think.

That's all about perspective, right? Yeah. To piggyback what Annabelle

says, there's always going to be an excuse if you look for one. I

think that the feeling after a workout outweighs everything. After you

finish a workout, you're going to feel good, you're going to feel

better about yourself physically, mentally, and if you look for

excuse, you are going to find one. I think just getting out there,

making yourself do it just for the after feeling is really worth it.

Then for our third question, I just want to start by stating I know

here at Mason Rec, we want to encourage students to exercise in a way

that fits their schedule and is enjoyable, and we want to help

everyone feel comfortable in fitness centers. We want people to know

that there are so many options out there for you. Just stay active on

campus and we're here to help you on your health and fitness journey.

We have fitness classes of all levels. But we also recognize that some

people may have different interests. Whether it's free group fitness,

boot camp, HIIT, or cycling, or even for those who are competitive,

some exciting events like a power army or indoor triathlon. But even

if being in a fitness center isn't your thing, then even offer some

outdoor adventures, pro running, and intramural sports. But that being

said, outside of Mason Recreation and our fitness centers, what

well-being resources are available to students at Mason, and is there

a difference between those available at athletes and non-athletes?

Derek, I'm going to head to you. There are a number of resources

available to all Mason students, and I wanted to just thank Becky for

identifying a number of the specific Mason Rec classes as well as

options that are set up for whatever your interests are. I think

what's also important is counseling and psychological services, CAPS,

offers a number of workshops for mental health and well-being most

days of the week. You can have individual meetings or attend a group

meeting if you'd like. There are a number of resiliency badge-specific

workshops through Center for Well-being, and CWB sends out a weekly

email of a number of resources available. I think it's also important

to bring up the resources that are specific to learning services, the

disability services offers, and as well as student health in terms of

a lot of different access points for whichever issue you might be

facing that these offices may be helpful in complementing some of the

stuff that you already have going on. But there's some amazing

resources available that are free, so I think it's important that we

are aware of those. Awesome. Thanks, Derek. Deanna, what about you?

What do you think are some of those resources? To piggyback on what

Derek just mentioned, some of the events well-being as a host of

options for anyone on campus and that they're open to both athletes

and non-athletes. Mindful Moments is an area on their website where

you can go in and take part either in person or online to some

mindfulness exercises. There's also free meditation scripts that you

can click on and follow through. Derek mentioned the resiliency badge

and that is a badge program. It's fully online, it's available to

anyone. It helps identify what resiliency is and take you through a

pathway on how to build resiliency and how to incorporate it into your

life. There's a mental health first aid training where you can learn

about identifying mental health. It's great for awareness about

yourself, it's great for awareness about people that are surrounding

you, whether it's fellow students or even family members, just

understanding the signs and the symptoms of mental health and maybe

how it plays out for you and for other people. I did want to also

mention, it's an offshoot that Sodexo does have some well-being

resources and that they also employ a dietitian. I'm a dietitian,

that's specific for athletes so I'm a limited resource specifically

for athletics, which is different, but there is another dietitian on

campus that can walk you through dining halls, if you have food

allergies, help navigate and customize your eating plan. Again, a

registered dietitian can deal with medical conditions like allergies,

intolerances, diseases, and even eating disorders. That is a massive

resource on campus that's available to general student population. It

is a very valuable one. Awesome. Thanks. One resource I want to make

sure that we don't forget, especially in this very virtual digital

world, is BurnAlong. Mason has a partnership with BurnAlong. It's a

virtual platform for not just fitness classes, but you could take a

seminar, you could do classes from any length from all the way down to

a few minutes to an hour, and it's all free. As a Mason student you

have a free account and you can just go on and search,

go.burnalong.jmu. If you even just search the well-being age, the

Center for Advanced Well-being, they have a dedicated site for

BurnAlong. It's pretty easy to register. We have some fitness classes

on there and you have access to thousands of different gyms or

companies that also have fitness classes on there. Awesome. Our next

question. It should be no surprise to us that nutrition is just as

important as physical activity. Some people struggle just as much with

healthy eating and food choices as they do with physical activity. How

does one balance nutrition and physical activity? With that, how do

you get started? Is there a difference for maybe free competition,

you're an athlete or maybe different times of day? Can you speak on

how someone who has food insecurity and/or limited finances could try

to improve their nutrition? I'll let our dietitian get started on this

question. Thank you for the question. I can remind you of some these

parts of the question as well. I'll just start with, how do you get

started? Well, first of all, nutrition is very personal, it's very

dynamic, very individual. Probably the first thing to mention is that

eating is as important, if not more important in some ways than

exercise because you really can't out-train a terrible diet, like just

exercising and recommendations of 30 minutes a day is awesome, fully

supportive. I exercise daily myself. It's amazing and exercise is

definitely medicine. However, because you move does not mean you can

eat whatever you want, unfortunately. If you have a medical condition

of any kind, it is important to be mindful of and adhere to

recommendations to help support your health. The two work very

synergistically together, incredibly important. That being said,

depending on what your individual goals are, will change the way that

you eat and also your philosophies around eating. There are so many

different ways to eat and we use the term like plant-based or

vegetarian. There are so many different ways to define vegetarian; it

maybe different for me, it be different for Todd, it might be

different for Derek. It's your definition of what you're following or

subscribing to can be very unique. My first piece of advice around

that is you want to go to reputable sources of information. I just

feel like everyone thinks they're a nutrition expert. It can be really

troubling because it is a very evidence-based, science-based field,

and it's important to go to reputable sources. Instagram and Snapchat

and Facebook are lovely, but not everything that's on there is true.

Finding just general healthy recommendations for nutrition in general,

nutrition.gov and then eatright.org, are probably two of the best

overviews of nutrition. But then if you have very specific dietary

recommendations, just being very careful and mindful to go to experts

in those fields. I know that's very general. Is there a difference for

pre-competition? Yes, definitely. If you are planning to exercise in

an hour or two, what you eat is pretty important. Carbohydrates are

the main fuel for movement in general, they're digested really

quickly. Protein and fat are digested very slowly and so you don't

really want to be exercising with a full stomach of things that don't

digest easily. It's not going to make you feel good, even if you're

just doing something not very intense, like Ab-roll, or Pilates, or

yoga or even stretching. Having a full stomach of things that don't

digest well doesn't make sense. But in terms of energy production and

having a lot of energy and feeling good and fueling your activity,

eating foods that are rich in carbohydrates. So fruits are fantastic,

grains are fantastic. You don't want things that are super-duper high

in sugar. Making it a good, healthy choice makes really good sense

staying away from really high-fat items, highly processed foods, and

foods that are really high in fat and protein are probably not great

choices. But again, not eating necessarily like five minutes before

you step out the door to go for a run. That's the pre-competition or

pre-exercise nutrition. Again, it focuses on healthy carbohydrates

sources. Then finally, can you speak on how someone who has food

insecurity? This is a big topic and one that hit home for a lot of

people during the pandemic, going into environments that maybe they

weren't expected to. Maybe they had a meal plan on campus or weren't

expecting to go to a different location, or they weren't able to work,

didn't have money for their regular provisions. The nice thing is

there are lots of stores that have bulk items, that are less

expensive. Going to places where you can buy large amounts of rice or

large amounts of beans that are nutritionally dense in terms of energy

content, but are individually packaged or even the precooked

individually vacuum-sealed rice. There's massive difference between

buying a large bag of rice versus something that's convenient. So

staying away from convenience foods, and going to stores where you can

buy things in bulk that are less expensive or buying 10 buckets of

pasta for $10 and then trying to buy protein that isn't necessarily as

expensive. The precooked, ready to go Perdue chicken, that's going to

be a lot more expensive than actually buying something like chicken

thighs that are less expensive. Buying them in bulk, maybe freezing

them, taking the skin off so they're a little lower in fat. Great

source of protein, but not as expensive as something convenient. Some

quick simple examples; buying frozen fruits and vegetables. A lot of

people say is it the same nutritional value? It actually is and almost

better and oftentimes better because it's flash frozen, and if you

don't get any added sauces, gravy seasonings, it's just the

vegetables, so they're locked in nutritional value. You can do

whatever you want with them. You can throw them in an omelet, you can

put them in a slow cooker, you can toss them with the chicken thighs

we just talked about. There are lots of ways to get lots of good

nutrition. Beans, rice, pasta, canned tuna, canned vegetables, frozen

vegetables, frozen fruit, and even canned products as well. That tends

to be a little bit lighter on the budget, and even milk. Powdered

milk, again, may not sound amazing, but you can reconstitute with

water and it has roughly the same nutritional value. Making choices

between organic and non-organic and money super-duper tight, that may

be a decision that you buy the non-organic milk because you want the

calcium, the vitamin D, the protein, the healthy carbohydrates, but

you don't have the 8 or $9 a gallon. It's going to go for the $2 a

gallon. I'm just making those choices and trade-offs. Awesome. Thanks,

Deanna. I love the comment about not just immediately jumping for

diets and everything you see on Instagram because I just recently saw

a graphic that showed all the different diets throughout the decades

and it made me laugh because one minute one thing is celebratory and

then the next everyone's doing another. I think it's really important

to go to the experts when it comes to how you should eat. I'm putting

out everything that I'd like to eat, but making sure to scale back on

the bad things and push for the good things. I try to eat in small

portions throughout the day. That works for me instead of eating three

big meals, and I've tried to drink lots of water at every single meal.

I think that's what I found I've gotten a group that works for me that

feels good for me and then having one day or two that you can eat that

piece of cake, as long as you're not over eating the bad stuff. I

think moderation is what works best for me. Like she has mentioned,

that your body needs calories, needs nutrients to keep exercising. We

want to make sure to not forget to fuel yourself before exercising

because that's an issue that I have personally. I just I wouldn't eat

afterwards. But your body needs the calories to burn and it's not

converting. Something that someone asked me recently in another

discussion I was having was, "Do you need to eat less on days that are

your rest days or that you're not exercising as much?", and my

response was to really listen to your body because your body's

repairing on those days. I thought that was an interesting question.

Because the average individual, that might seem like a logical way to

eat, but we definitely need to fuel ourselves and repair those muscles

on off days. Awesome. For our next question, we're going to get into a

little bit about burnout, which I think has been a very popular topic

lately and then also a little bit about injuries and exercise and how

that works. Even though it shouldn't be any surprise that athletes

suffer from burnout and injuries, it can happen to anyone. Many people

get really excited to start a new training regimen, and then they make

improvements to their health but they try to ramp things up too

quickly or they take some time off and try to get back into it too

quickly and I don't know progressing appropriately and getting

injured. Whether it's an average individual or an athlete, how does

burnout over training and stress injuries impact exercise? Derek, I'm

sure as a sport psychologist, you know all about right now. I try

listening to the body, I think that that is absolutely foundational.

The mind body connection is so prevalent here that oftentimes stress

we may feel psychologically or mentally may show up physically so that

as a result of not sleeping well, doing all this work for my midterm

on my finals, going out with my friends, eating a poor diet that may

yield some physical tension or mental stress. I think how much we're

sleeping, oh my God, that's important, so dang important. As athletes,

because we're using our bodies in such demanding physical ways like we

this recovery time is going to be a little bit longer than the average

person who's not using their body in that kind of way. I think also

specifically for genetics and how sleep has affected our well-being is

also an important piece to consider. When I'm thinking about

overtraining and stress injuries, that's sometimes maybe due to a

specific internal rule that that person may have to meet a certain

criteria that's they've seen online or that Oh, I know that when I

look at this picture and this person has like two or three percent

body fat like, oh my God, I just want to look like that and how

realistic is that, unrealistic. That may not be super healthy for your

specific body, or really any specific body. But sometimes I think it's

important that we're looking at how do we individualize the training

plan or the exercise for your specific body, for what you need to feel

physically well and mentally well. I think that sleep and recovery are

such huge important parts as well as diet and finding the right time

that your body is awake. I'm like Becky I have to exercise in the

morning. Exercise for me after 6:00 p.m. is like almost never a thing.

I need to make sure that I structure my day so I can enough time in

the morning to actually do what I need to do. I think, particularly

with athletes when there's injury, because athletics is such an

important integral part of their identity, being taken away from the

sideline, from the thing that I identify with so much is going to

yield some feelings, probably some sadness and low mood, maybe some

irritability, maybe some frustration, could yield a number of things.

I think what's important is that we don't rush our recovery in terms

of our injury when we're getting back. Sometimes if I'm needing to

meet the specific goal or the specific kind of image, I may overtrain

in a way that Oh, I can handle this or I did this last year at eight

times or my friends can do this, so that means that I can do this also

without really listening to like, Oh right, I've been managing this

shin splint or this angle injury or this ACL for awhile, and it's

acting up, so I want to listen to that. I'm thinking about this in

terms of prevention rather than intervention. Listening to my body so

that it does not yield this extenuating circumstance injury over and

over and over again. I think what's also important too, is a lot of

times for athletes well-being, is enhanced through exercise. Is there

a way that if you're injured or if you're burnt out, that you can

still be part of the group by vocally encouraging your teammates,

standing on the sideline, being part of the group even if you're

injured. Because then that's going to enhance a sense of self

connection to the group, sense of well-being and still show that you

are indeed part of this team. Something else that I like to think

about too, that we see with some athletes is what's called the female

athlete triad, which is a combination of low bone density, sometimes

struggling with food choices and amenorrhea. There are a lot of

resources available to treat this. I think sometimes what we see too

with some of the hypermasculine man is needing to look a certain way

so that maybe they won't be balancing different parts of their workout

to any kind of overusing certain muscle groups in that sense. I think

those are some important things too. I think with regard to burnout,

burnout can look a lot of different ways. I would imagine at least I

know I felt this. Certain people can feel burned out during the

semester. They're just super tired and overwhelmed and there's all

these things going on. Similarly, burnout in athletics can also look

the same in terms of, I'm just bored of this exercise routine at this

time or we've just been doing the same thing. Can we just get to the

games already? That may yield essentially some dissatisfaction. Could

be a low level of depression, could be withdrawing from activities, it

could be loss of interests in things, could be low energy over or

under sleeping over or under eating, so some similarities with what we

would see with depressed mood. I think what's important is that we're

varying our exercise so we don't get bored. We're doing other things

like maybe adding a day of yoga or adding a day of meditation or

trying a different cardio workout, and of course, we want to consult

with our coaches and our strength and conditioning folks and as well

as our personal trainers or group fitness instructors to make sure

that what we're doing is actually right for us. I think lastly, it's

really important that we're setting realistic goals. That within these

goals, this is actually going to be achievable based on what my

baseline data was or what I've done previously. I've never won a

marathon before, so I don't anticipate going to win the next marathon

because that's not something I've done in the past or even come close

to. But maybe what I can do is train for the half and knock a few

seconds off my mile time or etc., to set a little bit more realistic

goal that makes sense for me. I think that that was a lot of

information, a lot of topics that I'm happy to answer about in the

Q&A. Thank you for that. I've seen so much of that even just in terms

of clients coming to personal trainers and saying, I want to look like

this. I think knowing so many of the other benefits outside of the

aesthetic ones for exercise and knowing all the health benefits and

really trying to bring those to the forefront, to me as crucial. But

yeah, I think all of those ideas about burnout are wonderful. Dianna,

I'd love to get your input there. Yeah, I just wanted to mention and

Derek 's mention, female athlete triad, which is like very specific to

females, but on a bigger picture is something called relative energy

deficiency in sport and they use the acronym, read flag. It's actually

a condition that males and female athletes can both be affected by.

Essentially it's too little energy taken in relative to the amount

that is needed for basic physiological function plus what you're doing

for exercise. It's really common in athletes to try to reduce what

they're eating energetically to meet a certain goal, certain body

weight, a certain body composition which has already been talked

about. Over time what happens is it down-regulates a lot of hormones

in the body and in female athletes, the big like red flag is things

like injuries, like stress fractures and amenorrhea which is the lack

of menstrual periods for three months consecutively. When this happens

in female athletes, they stop producing bone because estrogen is no

longer replaced. It's a little bit easier to identify in athletes

because they have these menstrual irregularities. In male athletes

however, we don't really have marker, but we know from the limited

research that it does affect male athletes. It affects their

testosterone levels and leads to the same host of things like logical

issues, like Derek was mentioning from a depressed mood, injuries,

decreased performance, poor sleep, reduced appetite because after a

while your body shuts off the hormones that cause or drive hunger. It

generally leads to these athletes sort of tired, cranky, injured often

not improving. Sometimes their body weights not really that low, it's

not unusually low. But again, it can affect both male and female

athletes and can lead to the triad. In females, it also can lead to

something called the triad in males but like we see cross-country

runners that have, males that have repeated stress fractures. Again,

these are sort of overuse, burnout, maybe under eating, this

combination that happens to both males and females. Somethings to be

sort of aware of and noticing the signs and symptoms yourself. It

doesn't have to be "an amazing athlete," it could just be some of

that's exercising every single day, just not eating enough to support

all the activities. We'll shift on gears a little bit and go back in a

little bit about motivation and maybe modes of exercise. What are

potential social factors to consider related to exercise? I know that

some people have different preferences like exercising alone or with

friends but how does this relate to motivation, sticking to a routine,

etc? With this we want to think about motivation, friendships. I know

sometimes teams obviously are just different people around campus to

exercise with. I'll go ahead and let Connor start and then you can

actually just go down the panel if anyone has anything to add in.

Yeah, I think if we learned anything from the almost previous two

years is how sociable exercises become, especially for student

athletes when the SEAA started to cancel tournament and then seasons.

Suddenly you went from being in with the whole team doing something

almost every day to being at home. People tend to lose that social

aspect of exercise. Even if it wasn't like, hey, I just get to see you

in the morning for a run or a warm up. It was something to look

forward to and you always have that accountability with your

teammates. Or even if you're not on a team, things like CrossFit has

become huge, Peloton. It gives people the opportunity to be part of a

community. Even Peloton, if you're not able to go out, you can be on

the screen with 20 other people. Then you get to look forward to that

Monday, that Wednesday, that Friday doing something the same as other

people and so you build that community and that camaraderie. Sometimes

it ends up actually you meet after the movement so you develop those

friendships. I think we have to realize for some people, they thrive

being alone and some sports are good for that, like some track and

field events, like sprinters generally you do things by yourself. It's

not a relay, swimming sometimes you do something by yourself. For some

people that works, but for certain sports, soccer, football, baseball,

it's very team-oriented. We don't realize the effect it has on our

social well-being. But for motivation, I think definitely some people

can thrive from being in a group whether it's small because it gives

someone else the same playing field. It's accountability. You can lift

each other up if someone's having a bad day. Let's say Mary's having,

maybe she didn't wake up and she's not feeling so great. Maybe we can

do a little less intensive of a workout so that way she can still do

something, but she won't get burnt out or she won't feel worse after

the workout. I feel like that's become even more important nowadays. I

think even after the pandemic, people, because they were alone for a

while, they even want to do more sociable activities now because they

realized well, I was missing out on all these connections being home

by myself. I think people are going to be more willing to join the

CrossFit or the Zumbas or the Salt Cycles or just group fitness with

two to four people, I think that's going to become even more important

down the road. We do that, not just personal training but group

training too so if you want to bring a friend, Connor can get you a

session with a friend. Anyone else that wants to charm in? Yes. I

think one of the things about exercise that is really important in

terms of motivation, is actually having it be enjoyable. I know I was

a divisional athlete while I was in college and I was so accustomed to

beating myself up. The coaching, it is hard. It was rigorous. That was

many years. When I started exercising on my own, I was like, wow, this

actually feels good and I like it and I want to try all these

different things. That is one of the neat things about exercise is

finding what speaks to you, what you enjoy and what makes you feel

good physically. For some people that's walking, for some people

that's jogging, for some people that's running and some people it's

running marathons. It differs based on the individual. That's probably

first and foremost. Then I have to go back to some of the advancement

of well-being, tools is understanding what your strengths are. If you

are a relater and you like to be around people like Connor mentioned,

doing a social activity is going to be a lot better for you. Whether

it's a group of friends that go for a walk or a run, or you're signing

up for a class where you're going to be with your people that you

really enjoy that, or if you're someone that's super driven by

competition. Maybe you want to sign up for a race, that's going to

motivate you and keep you motivated and engaged. I think of those two

things in particular and at least, solitude and competition maybe,

drunk driving or relater, or responsibility. Early in my career I

started working, couldn't really figure out a time to fit in exercise,

I was working a couple of different jobs. Responsibility was the thing

that got me to the gym in the morning. I started teaching classes and

I had to be there at 6:00 AM. In fact, this morning I tried a 6:30

yoga class but then I was up and out and then met someone for a walk.

But having some responsibility to be somewhere at a certain time,

sometimes that can be your motivator. Like I have to meet Joe or I

have to meet Jane because I said I was going to be there. I think the

motivation piece is really individual and it just depends on what your

strengths are, how you're driven and what you enjoy. Trying to do

something and you don't like and doesn't make you feel good, it's

really tough. I'll just say a couple of things. I think, of course, as

the other folks have said so far, humans want to seek pleasure and

connection. Potentially a group fitness class or some organized group

exercise activity may yield those things. I know for me at least if

I'm exercising with other people, I'm going to feel held more

accountable to meeting some of these exercise goals. I also get to

channel my inner competitor and really just get to be full of

adrenaline and motivated to hopefully win this Peloton race. Then I

think also, it's good to sometimes exercise alone because maybe that's

the time to process and to think about things and to be active and get

to be lost in your thoughts. I think it's a combination of doing both

that could be beneficial. I'll just add one more thought to the

perspective that I gained through 30 years of coaching as it relates

to motivation. I had the pleasure of coaching Dostra for four years. I

would say in the summer when she was getting ready for fall season, if

she went out and did a fitness assessment to see what her level of

fitness was, it would be okay. But if she came out to the field with

me and I was pushing her, she would do more. But if she came out to

the field with eight of her teammates or friends, that's when she

would do the most. I think that peer motivation is really powerful.

Yeah, to pick that. Do you agree with that? I agree. Good. To pick up

off what he says, I think it's the accountability thing when you're

with a teammate or someone who pushes you, you're going to try to beat

their record as being from somebody who spent the last 20 years of her

life with team. I think that's the best me. The best version of myself

is when I'm being pushed by my teammates. I think that you just got to

find your motivation. What motivates you, what's going to make you the

best version of yourself. I agree with everything. I don't have much

more to add, it was very well said. Probably in the rare population of

people who are very, very internally motivated really can go and run

on seven days a week. Usually a few of those days I do maybe go to a

participant type of class where I'm being pushed by others and seeing

if I can match or beat them. All great points. We've got our last

question and then we'll take some Q&A from the audience. For our last

question, this is going to go to our personal trainer, we're going to

talk about goal setting. We know that goals need to be specific,

measurable, reasonable, and time-bound, that's that SMART acronym. But

let's get into the specifics regarding setting goals for exercise. How

does one decide on goals for activities? Well, regarding the

importance of goal setting as we just mentioned, the SMART acronym, if

we're going to start an activity, we need to understand, why am I

doing this? Who is this for? What's the end game? I know we've

mentioned previously about intrinsic and extrinsic values. Do I want

to feel a certain way? Or do I want to look a certain way, or both?

Are you doing this for yourself? Are you doing this to look good for

someone else? Personally, I would like you to do it for yourself

before trying to look good for someone, but we each have different

goals, obviously, that's going to differ per person. But we want to go

because we need to have a way to track ourselves and keep ourselves

accountable. Let's say you want to run a 5K for a charity. I'm

actually training someone right now for that specific reason, for

Thanksgiving 5K. Her goal was just to run the 5K. She's not trying to

do new world record for a 5K, she just wants to be able to run from

the beginning to the end. I'm like, okay. I asked her about her

previous amount of exercise, why she doesn't run. We started off doing

a very light jog. That was her first goal, getting comfortable with

jogging. Then once she achieved that goal, we set up the next goal.

Let's see how far you can get at this pace. Then we aimed for a

certain time, I can't remember on the top of my head, but once she hit

that goal, she felt really good, she felt motivated because you could

see from the previous three months, she was leaps and bounds ahead of

where she was in the beginning. Once we hit her goal of the 5K, then

she was like, "Okay, I hit my goal, what now?" I'm like, "Set a new

goal. What else do you want to do? There's a million things you could

go from here." It's about realizing that even though you can hit your

goal, you can always make more goals along the way. I think my

favorite part about goal setting is that you write your goals in

pencil, because they all might need to change on any given day,

setting a few different levels of goals so that you can always plan

for different situations. We talked about how one decides on goals for

activity, what about those people who maybe don't get to work with a

personal trainer? How would you encourage some people who are maybe

brand new to exercise, I'm just walking in a gym for the first time?

That's the benefit of talking with someone because sometimes you don't

know what you want until you talk to someone about it, or you write it

down. Sometimes when you start a conversation with someone, then you

start hearing, you don't have this, but you want to learn this. Then

once you talk on that they go, oh yeah, then I want to try this. Once

you start a dialogue with someone, that's when the ideas start flowing

and they get more comfortable. They're just speaking about

generalities. I would say it's best to talk with someone beforehand,

or jot down some notes because you may not know how you want to say

something, but then once you talk to someone who understands what you

want, then you can really explore your options. At Mason RAC, we have

not just personal trainers, but we have some fitness attendance on the

floor who can help anyone who's new to the gym become a little more

oriented with the equipment. Then we also have instructors. I think

utilizing some of those experts is really crucial. Just talking to

even caps can help you towards a type of exercise that might be good

for you. [inaudible 00:45:50] Yeah. Go ahead. Speaking from a

different perspective, I think that in order to reach your goal, no

one can do it for you, so I think that you have to be able to have

that mindset that okay, I'm going to do something, because the

personal trainers can't do it for you. I think that as long as you

understand us, it might not be the easiest thing. I think nothing

really worth it is easy. But exercise doesn't have to be something

that's going to hurt you, something that's going to be painful. It

could going on a walk. I workout during a TV show. I think that

exercise looks 100 different ways. As long as you have the mindset

that I'm going to be able to do this, I'm going to get better at this,

I'm going to feel good, then it's going to be a lot easier. Yeah.

Adherence is one of the biggest reasons why people don't get that

regular exercise for an extended amount of time. They shoot for really

unrealistic goals and then they're not able to stick to that routine.

Well, we've got a few minutes to answer any questions. Anyone in the

audience has anything for us? If not, you also have the opportunity to

schedule a one-on-one consultation with our personal trainer, Connor.

He will be tabling at the fitness centers next week, and so we have a

sign-up sheet outside as well. Actually, one question that I know

might come up that a lot of people have asked me on a nutrition topic

I've had, and again this goes with Instagram, social media, people

talking that aren't actually certified experts. But should I try not

eat after certain time at night, so like 7:00 PM or something like

that? Or is it best to eat before my 5:00 AM workout even if I don't

feel like I can eat that early in the morning? Deanna, do you want to

comment on that? Yeah. Those are some big questions. It depends. The

end of the day, it really depends on what you've eaten throughout the

day. Eating frequency and distribution, so how often you eat

throughout the day and how well it's spaced out, is really critical.

Nobody should be eating late in the afternoon and then dinner, and

then that's enough. That's generally not an advisable way to eat. We

want to try to eat every 3-4 hours, and that's just for our brain. Our

liver stores carbohydrate for our brain, and we need to refill it, it

empties after an overnight fast. Even if you're not doing a vigorous

form of exercise in the early part of the day, we certainly have to

free feed the [inaudible 00:48:47]. That's really, really important.

People will get symptoms of hypo or low blood sugar, shaky,

lightheaded dizzy, not feeling well, poor concentration. Even if we're

just getting up to take an exam, it's really important to feed our

body in the morning time, particularly some carbohydrates, a little

bit of protein is fantastic. Eating throughout the day, really

critical. Let's say you don't for whatever reason because we all know

it happens. Get super busy studying exams, activities, practice,

whatever. Yes, if you haven't eaten enough throughout the day, in

relation to athletes and people that are physically active, relative

energy deficiency is about, did you take in enough energy for what all

you did? Plus what you need to maintain all of this. If you haven't

eaten enough, it doesn't matter that it's 10 o'clock at night. You

need to eat or you're not going to recover. You're not going to sleep

well. It's going to affect all of your hormones in relation to mental

health, appetite, digestion, muscle protein synthesis or repair of

tissue. It's fair insulin, very dynamic process. We take those rules

and throw them out the door if you really haven't done a great job.

Now, if you've eaten something before you've exercised and you've

practiced recovery nutrition, and then you went throughout your day,

went to classes and ate a well-balanced lunch, and you ate a good

solid dinner, you're good, I'm not going to recommend a big bawl of

ice cream necessarily every single day before bed if you don't need it

and it's not necessary. But again, if you haven't really eaten well,

I'm absolutely okay. Then, specifically for athletes, there's a quite

a bit of research that now shows that athletes that are doing some

form of strength training, which is all of our athletes at Mason,

20-40 grams of protein within close proximity, sleeping actually helps

increase muscle strength and size. Having that snack before bed, if

you will, small high protein, low carbohydrate snack actually helps

with the athlete meeting their goals, generally speaking. What does

20-40 grams of protein look like? Chicken breast the size of the palm

of my hand is about 20 grams, and if you double it, my whole hand,

it's about 40, or a lovely Siggi's or Chobani or Icelandic or Greek

yogurt, will get you to about 15, put a little bit of nuts and granola

on top and you're done, or PB&J with whole grain bread with glass of

16 ounces of milk. Get to love it. Granola milk, my favorite. I love

it. The internal rule that Derek mentioned earlier, no one said that

is a rule except maybe some people on social media. Does not work for

everyone. Awesome. Well, that about wraps it up for our panel

discussion on exercise, mental health, and well-being. On behalf of

Mason ICA, Intercollegiate Athletics, and CAPS, Counseling and

Psychological Services, as well as Mason Recreation, we would like to

thank you for attending our lunch session today, as well as thank our

lovely panelists for joining us. If you would like to learn more about

or explore recreational services as well as psychological services

that are available to you on Canvas, you can visit recreation.gmu.edu

and caps.gmu.edu. Again, feel free to stop by our table outside these

doors on your way out to gather some educational materials or sign up

for an information session with a personal trainer. Thank you and have

a great weekend. Thank you. Good job.