I’m being compensated to write this post by Bookieboo LLC in a blogger campaign with Omron Healthcare. However, the thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own.

By now, you know that I participated in the Omron Fitness event with Bob Greene!  I was so excited to be able to meet and interview Bob Greene about fitness and healthy eating.  He has so much experience, including training Oprah and sharing his wealth of knowledge with his books and journals.  On September 24 Mamavation will be hosting a Twitter Party to celebrate Omron Fitness!  Stay tuned for more details!  Congratulations to the winner of the Omron Fitness Giveaway from Coupon Spice, Sacha S.  Your prize will be shipped out soon!

I was given the Omron Activity Monitor with Weight Loss Tracker (HJA-312) and NFC Communication tray & Tri-Axis USB Pedometer (HJ-323U) connected at www.omronfitness.com and you can link your account to www.earndit.com

I will preface this by saying that I have never used an Activity Monitor or a Pedometer before.  I absolutely LOVE both of these great products!  They are both very easy to use, but the do have some different features. 

The Pedometer (HJ-323U) is really very cool!  Once you set it up, you can wear it everywhere you go.  It really is a “set it and forget it” kind of product.  I clipped it to the top of my pants and just went about my day.  It starts and stops counting steps automatically, which I love.  I actually forgot that I was wearing it.  When I remembered, I checked it and I had already logged close to 4,000 steps!  Really?!?  4,000 steps just cleaning and doing laundry!  That was so exciting for me and it actually encouraged me to move more.  I was really trying to rack up those steps.  The pedometer will also monitor the calories burned and total distance walked.  It resets daily and records up to 22 days, so you don’t even have to think about it!  If you are looking for a Pedometer or are trying to get motivated to lose weight, I highly recommend this one!

The Activity Monitor with Weight Loss Tracker (HJA-312) is similar to the pedometer in that it will track your steps and your calories.  The way that it differs is that you can utilize it with more than just walking.  It will track your calories burned during even your everyday activities.  The pedometer logged all of my steps, but the Activity monitor logged even my movements during my activities.  You can truly get a full-picture of what your daily activity looks like.  It has 5 activity modes and can store up to 14 days of data in memory and 7 days on the display.  Plus, it connects with the NFC Communications tray for more stats to assist you with your weight loss.  The NFC Communications tray connects to your computer and the Activity Monitor wireless connects to the Communications Tray.  Very cool technology!

 Right now, Omron is having a Fall Into Fitness offer.  You can receive 25% off of the Activity Monitor, 25% off of the NFC Communications Tray and 25% off of the Pedometer (HJ-323U!)  Just use the coupon code: fallfitness to get this deal!  That makes the Activity Monitor and the Pedometer only $37.49 and the Communications Tray only $14.99!!  Go now and get your Activity Monitor, NFC Tray and/or Pedometer from Omron Fitness.  These tools will give you a great head-start for your weight loss and/or fitness program! 

My interview with Bob Greene went really well.  I was able to work out with him on the beach… I don’t have much endurance, so the workout was pretty tough.  We did a power walk across the beach and back.  He gave me some great tips along the way and I am excited to tell you about them!

Q: Are you a fan of HIIT workouts and if so, should you intermingle them with moderate cardio?

                A: I do like HIIT and I believe that you should mix them with the cardio.  If you read the final level 5 in my book, that is pretty much my   workout.  It is an hour of cardio, it has a lot of variety.  It adds as much variety as possible.  You get so much stronger with different activities because you exercise more muscles and different muscle patterns. 

                 Walking is very different than running and very different than even an elliptical.  Everything you do has a different muscle pattern and trains different muscles.  I also believe in at least one day a week, doubling the workout.  You can tweak the intensity down a little bit if you need to, but exposing your body to an endurance day once a week is powerful. 

Q:  I know that eating and fitness go hand-in-hand, but if you could only convince someone to do one and not both, which one would you recommend?

               A: That’s a really hard question for me because if you have read any book that I have every written, I talk about both.  I would do all that I could to talk someone out of just picking one.  I don’t know why you would have to choose one.  I will say this, though.  If you are active almost daily, it will change your eating anyway.  So, if I had to answer, I would say that is first. 

              When someone needs to completely change their way of life, I always put exercise in their life first.  It is much harder the other way around.  Where you concentrate on eating, because your eating will evolve over a lifetime.  Exercise should be a constant thing.  It just needs to be there.  I would start with fitness, but would be relentless with you changing your eating as well. 

Q: Do you ever have days when you just feel like you don’t want to eat right and you don’t want to work out?  If so, what do you do to really push through on those days?

              A: Wow.  Without sounding really neurotic, I haven’t missed a workout in over 30 years.  I work out every day.  It is not because I think you need to, it is because it warms up my body and it clears my head.  It’s like a coffee or tea drinker just needs that every day.  I am tempted by a great meal, a Thanksgiving meal or someone prepares you something amazing.  I will eat outside of what I would normally eat and not feel one bit of remorse for that.

Q: What inspired you to write your new book, 20 Years Younger?

              A: It was a lot of things, including starting a family.  But, what really inspired it, as I write in my introduction, was my first cross-country trip on a bicycle.  I was 40 or 41.  I trained really hard for it and I was in good shape when I started.  Something happened on that trip.  I was thinking clearly, my life emotionally came to me much clearer.  I had strong, strong revelations about life and the world in general.  All by myself… you are 8-10 hours a day with no one else around.  All you can hear is your breathing and your heart beating, in the desert, in the Rockies. 

                It was a revelation.  It was just an amazing thing for me to do.  Here I am in my 40s and I was always in good shape, but I was in way better shape than in my 20s or 30s.  I thought, what is it?  Is there anything that I can give information to others?  Because there is something in this. I felt amazing, so I started researching and I always wanted to do an anti-aging book.  So, it took 8-10 years to really talk to experts in the field and find out what can you change and how can you feel better?  Skin-care.  I had never taken care of my skin, but I started to.  Sleep.  Sleeping amazingly well.  So, it was a work in progress that started on that bike trip. 

Q:  How do your journals compliment your books?  Are they important?

              A: They are.  That is why I love the relationship with Omron.  A journal and a pedometer are very similar in nature – in motivating nature.  It is a ritual that you do hopefully daily.  It is something that gives you feedback about yourself.  Those are two very powerful things when you stop, pause… take out a journal or put on a pedometer, it is subtly saying that I care about myself and I want to learn more about myself.  The journal, I feel is very important.  Especially when you are dealing with a weight-loss topic. 

              The psychology around weight-loss can be complex and a journal allows you to uncover connections between events in your life and your behaviors.  Your boss yelled at you, you had a fight with your spouse… and you ate a Boston Cream Pie that night.  Those kind of connections don’t come in the day-to-day life until you sit in the quiet and write about yourself.