+ How The Program Produces Results

We coach people all over the world, some in person and some remotely. In today's world of texts, emails, videos, video chats, and data (exercise and movement files from trackers), it easy to coach people remotely. Our philosophy is to interact with our clients on a daily basis in order to help them achieve their goals. We pay attention to details because details matter. We don't believe in long term training programs because they don't take in account how one is feeling on a daily basis. We live the life we coach, every day.

We are Health and Wellness, Marathon and Triathlon coaches, and MOTIVATORS. We help people achieve their goals. If you are motivated but don’t know what to do to achieve your goals (or have tried but have been unable to do so), want somebody to motivate you/keep you accountable, and/or want to transform your health & wellness, we may be the right coaches for you (take the survey on the “JVB Survey” tab to see if you might be right to work with us). Some of the goals we have helped our clients achieve include but are not limited to:

1. Getting faster as a runner or triathlete (including qualifying for the Boston marathon and the half ironman world championships where applicable after not being able to do so after multiple attempts)
2. Increasing energy levels
3. Becoming leaner, losing weight and keeping it off
4. Improving blood work
5. Helping people maintain fitness while injured
6. Improving their self-esteem
7. Lowering exercise, recovery, sleep, and resting heart rates
8. Minimizing injuries
9. Providing accountability and motivation where needed.

+ The Importance of Movement

People that move consistently throughout the day tend to have more energy, be leaner, be far less stiff, have better blood work, are injured far less, recover better from exercise, sleep better, are faster, and have a better mood, to name a few things. Many people are now equating sitting to smoking. We think of sitting as a (not so) slow death. Even people that exercise an hour every day (or more) are negatively impacted by sitting and/or being sedentary when not exercising, with some suggesting that either a portion (or their entire) workout could be negated by being sedentary after exercise.

Tracking your steps is one of the easiest ways to be accountable to moving. We encourage people to get steps throughout the day, versus "binging" on steps one or two times a day and sitting the rest of the time. In our experience, people that get 10,000 NON EXERCISE STEPS a day or more, that's steps when not exercising, seem to thrive. Achieving this type of movement everyday requires planning and time management. No excuses!

In the JVB Health & Wellness program, movement is different than exercise. To us, movement is keeping the body in motion throughout the day, but at a lower heart rate. Exercise is when we get our heart rate higher than our typical moving/walking around heart rate. Consistency is key!

+ Our Approach to Exercise

Doing the same things over & over again? We call this "living in the middle". Too hard to be enjoyable (so people don't want to do it regularly because they are miserable doing it) or too easy to give our bodies a real benefit. So, many people that exercise regularly don't improve beyond a certain point. They can't seem to lose the weight they want, they don't recover from exercise well so they don't improve their aerobic fitness to a level that their body is capable of (In other words, they don’t “maximize the science of their body” to achieve the best possible results). For runners/triathletes, this means that they don't get as fast as they want and/or they are regularly injured. We call this underachieving from an exercise and "science" or "exercise physiology" perspective. We help people achieve their exercise potential and help our clients achieve their goals by having them wear a heart rate monitor for all exercise (usually wrist based heart rate via a watch or wearable device on the wrist….and yes, some wrist based heart rates are accurate). Often, our clients go slower/easier than they are used to when they start working with us.

We take people out of the middle, with very easy, enjoyable exercise most days, and SUPER HARD workouts at certain points of training. Nearly every single one of our athletes set personal records (PRs) when working with us. Exercise is important, but it is just one of the 8 pillars that one needs to follow to be healthy. One of the biggest mistakes we see people make is that they assume that if they exercise, they don't have to follow the other 7 pillars, because they assume that exercise is more important than anything else. All 8 pillars are equally important and need to be treated as such. Runners and triathletes are particularly guilty of not treating all 7 pillars equally. We have our clients wear a heart rate monitor for all exercise (even strength exercises), and provide our clients with daily workouts with specific heart rate levels to maintain (sometimes super easy and occasionally super hard, but nothing in the middle), and provide our clients with daily feedback on their workout files, as well as what to do tomorrow. We are experts at interpreting exercise data.

People define "exercise" in a myriad of ways, and it seems that every exercise expert has their own opinion about the best type of exercise, from high intensity to low intensity and everything in between. We define exercise as getting our heart rate above our resting or walking heart rate for a period of time. Movement is a different pillar (see above) and we treat it separately from exercise. To us, movement is being active at a non-exercise heart rate level. Both exercise and movement are super important for us to do consistently, most days.

BELIEVE in the program! If you do not believe in the program, the 8 pillars, and our advice/coaching, it will be very hard to be successful. Belief in the program is critical for success. This doesn't mean one has to follow 100% of the program to be successful. Even those that follow some of the pillars some of the time have success. However, if one doesn't believe in something they are trying to implement, one (almost always) does not have success. We've had some clients over the years that did not believe in the program to start, and almost 100 out of 100 times, they do not have success.

Keep an open mind! Some of the things the program recommends will be things you haven't done historically, tasks your friends say won't work when you tell them about it, and/or things you have tried in the past that have not worked. The JVB Health & Wellness program will educate you so you can make your own decision on various things, but the program will sometimes ask you to do things that don’t make sense to you at the time. People that are successful under the program keep an open mind and are willing to try things that haven't worked in the past and/or that don’t make sense at the time. Often, what one tried in the past didn't work because it wasn't done in conjunction with other pillars (for example, only one of the 8 pillars were followed). If one is closed minded about trying various things recommended in the program, they aren't successful more often than not. A few examples where we see people be the most closed minded is in the area of food and nutrition (and this discussion could easily be included in the nutrition pillar also, but they are included here because we are hoping you may open up your mind and try new things!). Our clients often report various things to us so we can better assist our clients in achieving their goals. Go to "Health and Wellness Reporting" under "Services:

Learn more about Health and Wellness Reporting

+ Why Sleep is so Important

In our experience coaching people (athletes and non-athletes), those that sleep MORE (as well as follow the other 7 pillars most of the time) are healthier, are sick far less, are sharper mentally, weigh less, are far less injured, and recover from exercise far better, to name a few things.

We encourage people to sleep 7- 9 hours a night, with the sweet spot of sleep duration being 7.5-9 hours. This is based on our own personal experiences, the research we've done, and probably most importantly, what seems to work best for our clients. And consistency is key with sleep. We prefer that on most nights people get the same amount of sleep on a circadian rhythm. Go to bed at a reasonable time and wake up at about the same time each day without the assistance of an alarm. Our clients that consistently sleep 7-9 hours every night (that's actual sleep, not just time in bed), are far healthier than those that average 7.3 hours of sleep a night with large sleep duration swings between 5-10 hours a night (of course our body can handle this for a while like when we have a baby, but over years it definitely takes a negative toll). Like most things in life, consistency is key.

Sleep is definitely one of the pillars that people suffer with before working with us, with many of our clients regularly sleeping 5-6 hours a night (and sometimes less),. Oftentimes, lack of sleep is attributable to poor time management (i.e., prioritizing something else as more important than sleep, and occasionally it is due to other reasons like sleep apnea, sleep parasomnias, alcohol/drug consumption, stress, caffeine, and anxiety to name a few things). We hear from new clients that when they sleep more than that, they don’t feel well, so their body is telling them they don't need more sleep. When we first talk with our clients that don't sleep a lot, we tell them that in our experience, most people that go from under-sleeping (say ~5-6 hours per night or less) to sleeping 7.5-9 hours a night actually feel worse for a week or two as their bodies get used to sleeping more. The body is not used to the additional sleep and often reacts by making one feel more tired, more groggy, and not as well on an overall basis. This is only temporary. Your body needs to "get over the hump", in other words, needs to get used to more sleep. This takes 1-2 weeks of good sleep of at least 7-8 hours (again, not time in bed but time asleep). Once one gets over the hump and gets used to sleeping more, one feels glorious, much better than they did when sleeping less. Conversely, when one gets over the hump and starts sleeping 7-9 hours a night and then reverts to old habits, in other words sleeps less than 7 hours a night, one generally feels horrible and useless the next day. If this happens to you, sleep more, because your body is telling you it needs it. Overall, as you get your body sleeping more and over the hump, be patient and BELIEVE that you will feel better after a few weeks of transition time! If you don't believe, you will not feel better.

One other thing we've found to be prevalent among people is the use of sleep aids (prescription or over the counter based). Sleep aids just mask a problem, putting a band aid on an underlying problem that needs to be fixed. We don’t really sleep when medicated, instead we are just zonked out, and as a result our sleep quality is often poor. Some examples of underlying problems include but are not limited to sleep apnea or other sleep parasomnias, the cumulative effect of not sleeping enough, alcohol or drug consumption, too much caffeine, taking sleep aids, and poor time management and planning. Not having good sleep hygiene also contributes to poor sleep. Each one of us is different, but we need to give ourselves the best chance to sleep well and long WITHOUT THE USE OF ANY SLEEP AIDS. Sleep aids can also cause other health issues, particularly the ones that are prescription controlled substances (and the over-the-counter ones also do damage too). We find that those that take sleep aids have much higher resting, exercise, and recovery heart rates for (at least) 1-2 days after taking a sleep aid than those that don't take them (and sometimes much longer). They often wake up with a hangover feeling, which slows them down throughout the day and makes it harder to follow the other pillars like movement, exercise, time management, stress management, and positivity to name a few. IF YOU ARE TAKING SLEEP AIDS, TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT HOW YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO GET OFF THEM (unless your doctor says you absolutely need them for medical reasons). No sleep aids should be your goal, 100% holistic. The JVB Health & Wellness program is holistic and will help you sleep much better if you believe in the program and follow all of the pillars most of the time.

One of the greatest things we've found about following the program is that it helps people sleep better.

• EXERCISE: The program has you exercising easy most days, which wears you down by the end of the day so you are tired. Exercising easier most days often has a calming, meditative effect on people and aids sleep (without a sleep aid!)
• MOVEMENT: Those that move a lot throughout the day and are active tend to sleep much better as they are tired by the end of the day (another natural sleep aid)
• NUTRITION: When we eat healthier, with a goal of mostly unprocessed, unrefined foods (more on this below), you will sleep better after a few weeks when you get over the food hump. You will feel better, have more energy, and your body will be more satiated with healthy food, and sleep much better!
• TIME MANAGEMENT: Those that manage their time to get more sleep feel far better when sleeping more as a result. Time management is critically important to getting in enough sleep each night.
• STRESS MANAGEMENT: Those that manage their stress sleep BETTER. One of the biggest points in stress management is saying no. This often means saying no to something in the evening right before bed so you go to bed earlier (for example (1) not watching as much TV and/or binging on your favorite TV series' back to back to back that make you stay up far too late. Say NO and turn the TV off earlier!! Choose sleep instead! or (2) surfing the internet on your tablet, phone, or computer too late, which keeps you up too late and also reduces the sleep you get each night. Say NO and turn off the devices earlier! If you say NO more, you will sleep more!
• SLEEP: For the aforementioned reasons, with natural and holistic methods, you are sleeping more so you are less tired and have more energy (after getting over the hump discussed above). More energy begets an easier time following the pillars.

+ Our Advice On Nutrition

Our advice is simple. Eat as much unprocessed, unrefined food as possible. It’s not about being perfect and eating 100% unprocessed all the time, as this isn’t sustainable. It is about trying to eat unprocessed, unrefined food a majority of the time (and hopefully most of the time). It’s not about being labeled as a certain type of eater– paleo, vegan, vegetarian, high carb, low carb, etc. It is not about a diet. It is about finding unprocessed, unrefined foods that you can eat sustainably over time, food that you enjoy eating. If you don’t enjoy what you eat, you WILL NOT eat it sustainably over time. So find the unrefined foods you love and manage your time (including planning) to figure out how to eat it most days.

The JVB Health & Wellness program has its clients report a number of factors on a daily basis (more on this below under the Accountability pillar), and the reporting for food is simple. What percent of your food did you eat yesterday that was unprocessed vs processed, expressed as 90/10 (4 slices of cheese). You estimate the split, but include in parenthesis anything you ate that was processed. You can base the split on volume of calories consumed, quantity of food, etc. So 90/10 means that you ate 90 percent unprocessed foods and 10 percent processed foods yesterday.

We encourage people to shoot for at least 80 unprocessed food consumption daily, and those that are looking to lose weight, have health ailments, and/or want to be the healthiest should shoot to eat at least 90% unprocessed food each day. Eating healthy requires planning and time management also so you don’t end up in a place where you are hungry and end up making a poor (refined foods) choice. If you aren’t sure what is unprocessed vs processed, email us at JIM@JVBwellness.com and we will tell you how we look at it.

+ Take Control of your Day

To this end, we must manage our time around our daily responsibilities (work, family, friends, and other things we love to do) so we can allocate time to our health. This isn’t always easy, and it isn’t about being perfect with our time. It’s about being directionally correct most of the time. Frequently, we hear (often unhealthy) people say things like:

• "I don't have enough time to exercise"
• "I don't have enough time to prepare my food"
• "I don't cook" or "I don't know how to cook"
• "I'm a picky eater"
• "I can't stand [INSERT FOOD], no way I can eat that!". We all like and dislike different foods. It is about finding what foods you like to eat that are healthy. There are at least hundreds.
• "I’m too busy to sleep more" or “sleeping more doesn’t matter as much as other things”
• "I don't have enough time to go food shopping"
• "I can't eat healthy because the rest of my family doesn't want me to eat healthy (and in fact, they criticize me and tell me that the healthy way I am eating and living is unhealthy, even though I know that can’t be true)"
• "My spouse/significant other, my family, and/or my coworkers make me feel guilty when I exercise and/or eat a certain way”

We’ve heard almost every excuse in the book. We tell people “it’s not that you don’t have enough time to invest in your health, it’s that you choose to spend your time in other ways”. Good Health and wellness doesn't happen by mistake. It requires commitment and investment in our health. No judgment here, but if you decide to spend your time watching Netflix specials for 3 hours every night, eating processed snacks, and sleeping less and not exercising, you HAVE MADE THIS CHOICE. If you want to be healthier, you must commit to being healthier! Here are some time management tips:

• Set aside time to exercise easy most days. Schedule it! One is much more likely to exercise if he/she plans ahead. Every night before we go to bed, we say to ourselves, how are we going to get our exercise in tomorrow. Some days are easy, as our schedule allows us to get it in at some point in the day (and the time varies every day because our schedule changes so much. Sometimes we do it easily in the morning (which requires us to force ourselves to go to bed earlier so we get at least 7 hours of sleep, and sometimes we can do it a lunch or after work). Sometimes we can’t fit exercise in, and that’s ok, so long as we are doing it most other days. Don’t sweat it, missing a workout shouldn’t cause us stress!
• Over communicate your plan! Share your schedule with people that are impacted by your schedule (likely your family/significantly other(s)) in advance (not your coworkers, boss, or subordinates, see below for a separate discussion on this point). Talk to your family/significant others about your exercise schedule for the next day (and upcoming weekend for your longer workouts), make them aware of what your plan is and when you plan on doing it so they know. One of the biggest pitfalls we see is that people don't communicate their schedule to their significant others in advance. They plan their schedule out but don't tell their significant other. As a result, when the person gets dressed to exercise, the significant other gets annoyed because they didn't know and your workout often gets derailed and all of the sudden you end up not working out. We see this all the time for people that don't communicate their plan/schedule, particularly with triathletes (who usually exercise the most in terms of duration because they are training for 3 events (swim, bike, and run). Unfortunately, sometimes even when you communicate your schedule with your family sometimes your workout gets derailed. The key is to plan in advance. For example, if you are married with 2 young kids, consider setting a goal to try and minimize the impact of your workouts on your family.
• Less is more! Don't talk about your exercise at work. We recommend you don't tell anybody at work that you are going for a workout. It is none of their business, and if they know you went out for a lunch workout and/or if you got in a few minutes late or left a few minutes early, some of your coworkers will judge you for it. They'll say things like "Joe thinks his health is more important than work" or "Ronnie isn't committed to work because she exercises at lunch" and many other things. We've seen it all and actually seen people's careers derailed because of it. It is much better to make your exercise happen without talking about it at work. Don't lie about it, just don't proactively tell your coworkers what you are doing. And be careful of social media. If you post your workouts to a site from your exercise watch or other workout site, people will be able to see your exercise and when you did it. For this reason, you may not want to friend your coworkers if you think there is any risk whatsoever that they or somebody else at your company will judge you for it. Many people are jealous when they see somebody exercising for a variety of reasons and will judge you for it. Don't take this point lightly. We've seen it happen time and time again. Keep it to yourself.
• Plan when and how you will get movement in each day (in addition to exercise). Movement and exercise are two different things under our plan, so you need to plan in advance how you are going to move throughout the day. We encourage people to get 10,000 non exercise steps every day (preferably accumulating these steps throughout the day vs "binging" and getting them in a few "big sessions" a few times throughout the day and then sitting the rest of the day, being sedentary). Don't get us wrong, getting 10,000 non exercise steps is the goal. If you need to get them in a few times a day, do It! . Non exercise steps are the steps you get when not exercising. Ways to increase your steps include but are not limited to (1) walking to work and home from work, (2) take work breaks to walk around, (3) where possible, walk around during work calls (ideally people shouldn't be able tell you are walking around. Make sure your mobile phone reception or work headset work properly (if you walk around your office during a call). It is extremely annoying to talk to somebody with poor reception. And if you do this, don't tell people you are doing it. Less is more. Just make it happen! Many of our clients walk around the city or Central Park or at an airport doing calls. A much better place than work and much healthier than sitting during calls.

+ How We Deal With Stress

Some people can make small changes and achieve their health and wellness goals, while others need to make large, drastic, life transformational changes to achieve their goals. Committing to and investing in your health is a good start, but change needs to be consistently implemented over time in order for us to realize sustainable improved health and wellness. Managing stress and anxiety is a key component to success.

We’ve seen people follow 7 of the 8 pillars consistently over time and still not meet their goals if stress and anxiety is consistently high. There are so many stressors in our lives today – our job, significant other, families, money problems, coworkers, taking on too much, and the list goes on and on. We work with our clients to construct individual stress management strategies to reduce/eliminate unnecessary stressors, discuss how to tactfully say “NO” when applicable, and how to deal with stressful home and work situations. We talk through stress with our clients and give them suggestions on how to keep stress low given the situation. Saying "no" is critical and time management also factors in here.

+ You're Not Alone, But You're Responsible

Accountability can come in many different ways, from hiring a health and wellness coach like us to keep you accountable and to motivate you, to getting on a scale (although JVB Health and Wellness prefers to judge improved fitness by the way our clothes/belts fit vs focusing too much on a scale), a fitness tracker, GPS watch, heart rate monitor, a friend, a co-worker, a group exercise class, an app, a work/friend challenge, etc.

The JVB Health & Wellness program recommends reporting certain things daily to be accountable.

+ Positivity and Mindset are a few secrets to success

If you aren’t positive about following the JVB Health & Wellness program (or anything else in your life) AND don’t believe in it, you will not achieve your goals.

Putting yourself in the right mindset for various situations is also critical to success. Accept your situation and environment and do the best you can for each situation you are in. Setting realistic goals and then executing these goals is key! Talk is cheap. Plenty of people say that they want to be healthier, but then expect things to happen magically. There is no magic pill to good health. It requires planning and execution!