Category Archives: Fitness

Workout Wednesday: Tuck Those Abs

Every once in a while a workout comes along where you really have to employ what I call the “brace.” It protects your lower back AND develops those lower abs into a rock hard segment of that 6-pack you’re going for.

Check here for the full definition. But basically you have to tense your lower abs so it feels like your belly button is touching your back. It took me a really long time to figure out how to workout with this part of my body tensed but, since that point, I’ve seen huge changes in my stomach definition. Put your hand on your lower belly and try it!

For today’s workout it’s extra important to brace because there will be a few exercises that test your core strength:

Beginner through intermediate (12 minutes)

– 20 seconds on/ 20 seconds off

– each exercise 3 times in a row

Advanced (16 minutes)

– 30 seconds on/ 10 seconds off

– each exercise 4 times in a row

Exercises:

1. squat jumps (too easy? squat lower, jump higher, go faster)

2. elbow-in pushups (in plank, on your knees, or against a wall)

3. lunges (too easy? lunge lower, go faster)

4. bird dogs (hold the “bird” on each side for 2 seconds, stretch as high as you can)

5. russian twist (legs in an upside-down “V”, 90° angle, or straight in the air, sit on your tailbone and keep your back straight)

6. plank (for advanced, do it with little swimmer kicks)

Have you ever done one of these workouts? How did it go? I hope you’re having a happy day. We’re coming out of winter so keep your chin up! 🙂

Workout Wednesday: Feel That Bum Burn!

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My workout class is growing as it’s wonderful. We’re getting lots of guests of patients and they’re starting to show up even when their original friend isn’t there! That class is my favorite hour of the week because I get to see people progress and get stronger right before my eyes. I love it. Maybe they can feel it and that’s why they keep coming back. Or maybe all they feel are their muscles burning the next day, who knows…I’m just glad I keep seeing their happy, sweaty faces every week.

Last night I kept yelling “Do you feel that in your bum?” Haha. I couldn’t post that in the title because my brain is just a little too dirty…anyway! This workout seems to workout the glutes more than usual. So enjoy it!

Beginner through intermediate (12 minutes)

– 20 seconds on/ 20 seconds off

– each exercise 3 times in a row

Advanced (16 minutes)

– 30 seconds on/ 10 seconds off

– each exercise 4 times in a row

Tip: As always, you’re the only one who can make this exercise hard. It’s only 12/16 minutes so just grin and bear it, push yourself to fatigue, it will all be over soon.

Exercises:

1. Speed Side Hops (beginner-side steps, advanced-jump very quickly over an obstacle, if it’s easy, use a bigger obstacle)

2. Frog Squats (only go as low and high as your flexibility and strength allows)

3. Pike Push Up

4. Jump Knee Tucks (land as softly as possible, if it hurts your knees, quickly tuck one leg at a time)

5. Fire Hydrant

6. Mountain Climbers

Your bum is going to be sore tomorrow but, in a week, it will be even more shapely. Yay!

Happy Wednesday everyone! 🙂

Thriving Thursday: Whatchu Know About Sugar?

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The people in the Wellness industry (including myself) have been battling America’s sugar overload almost like it’s the plague. Unfortunately, our addition of sugar to EVERYTHING processed means that it kills almost as many people. However, surprisingly enough, there is a time and a place for sugar. Let me explain . . .

Every kind of sugar that enters your mouth, including carbohydrates, needs to be turned into glucose in order for your body to use it. GLUCOSE. This is the kind of “-ose” we’re going for here. Remember it. Unfortunately, there are very few food sources that contain pure glucose. Some examples of them are: glucose syrup (found in some of the good sports supplements), plant fiber (indigestible to humans), and amylose (plant starch). Plant starch sounds like the best options here and can be found in potatoes, wheat, and oats but with these forms of glucose our body absorbs it in chains of molecules and those chains must be broken down before we can absorb the glucose itself.

Keep up with me here!

There are TONS of other forms of sugar that contain glucose but they inevitably come with another kind of “-ose.” Because I try to eat food closest to its original form, I’m going to focus on sugar that has been through very little processing. Let’s see what’s in some of the most natural sugars:

raw cane sugar = glucose + fructose
honey = glucose + fructose + up to 22 other kinds of “-ose”
agave = glucose + fructose
fruit = sucrose = glucose + fructose
plant starch = pure glucose = dextrose (yes dextrose is 100% glucose)

It’s important to note that, although most of these natural sweeteners are made up of glucose and fructose, they are all combined differently. Some are found in molecular chains, some are just floating around, some are a combo of chains and floaters. I’m not going to dive into what combos are better but I can help you figure the correct time and place for eating sugar. Yay!

So clearly, if you’re consuming the forms of sugar listed above, you’re going to be eating glucose and fructose. But what does your body do with all that? Glucose, once our bodies break it from whatever chain it’s in, goes straight to our muscles and liver to be stored. If we don’t use it quickly enough, it turns into fat. Fructose has to be processed and goes to your liver. Some of it turns into glucose and joins the other glucose in the muscles OR stays in the liver. From the liver it turns into fat which, unless burned immediately, stays fat and makes you fat!

Basically, unless you burn the glucose in your muscles and the fructose in your liver before it turns to fat, you’re going to get fat! The only way to burn those sugars is through physical exercise. You knew it was coming!

Strength Training (anaerobic): during the workout your body breaks down your muscles and then, over the next 48 hours, it uses all kinds of energy (and protein) to build them back up again. The muscle-building energy comes from the glucose and fructose. Muscle building keeps those things from turning into fat and, if you train hard enough, it will use some of your fat as energy too. That’s how people burn fat!

Cardio Training (aerobic): after a certain period of time, your body is just continuously burning energy. This energy must be replenished DURING the workout in the form of glucose (and inevitably fructose).

Action steps:

If you’re happy with your weight: sugar is ok! But only during a cardio workout over an hour-long or within an hour after an intense strength training workout. These amounts of time are heavily debated but this is what I believe.
If you’re trying to lose weight: no sugar is better. If you avoid sugar then your body will burn fat as fuel. Just monitor how you feel. If you start to get dizzy, light-headed, or shaky, eat half a banana and allow your body 10 minutes rest to stabilize.

Some good forms of sugar as fuel during and after your workout:

honey
brown rice or quinoa
bananas
carrots
sweet potatoes

Bad forms of sugar. Really bad, don’t EVER eat them, they are neurotoxic. As in toxic for your brain:

Nutrinova (acesulfame potassium)
Nutrasweet or Equal (aspartame)
Twinsweet (salt of aspartame)
Nutrasweet (neotame)
Sweet N’ Low (saccharin)
Splenda (sucralose)

Some good news for high intensity athletes:

If you’re looking for a fantastic, delicious, and quick powder to mix in your workout drink, try Skratch. It’s made by my new friend, Allen Lim, and combines cane sugar and dextrose. Dextrose, if you remember from above is 100% glucose. Perfect! It doesn’t have all the crappy sugar and other additives that most exercise drinks (like Gatorade) have. I’ve tasted raspberry and he gave me a sample of lemon-lime on Sunday which I drank during my workout last night. Oh-my-goodness it tastes SO good. No disgusting after taste and you can drink it for hours without getting that slimy feeling in your mouth. It’s delicious.

Have any questions or comments? Let me hear them!

Workout Wednesday: Lofty But Attainable Goals

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Do you have a weight loss goal right now? Most people, especially in this season, want to get more fit. What’s your goal? At work we are doing a 30 day weight loss challenge. Last night we did the first weigh-ins. For four weeks we challenge everyone to eat right at least six days a week and exercise at least three days a week. So I challenge you, if you have a goal, do the same thing!

If your goal is fat loss, get naked and get on the scale. If your goal is more lean muscle, find a flexible tape measure or piece of string and measure around the largest part of your stomach, arm, and leg. Then record the numbers. Somewhere that you won’t lose or forget.

Then start the baby steps. Plan your meals and your workouts. Don’t give yourself an option to deviate. Workout in the mornings before you start your day, and remove all sugary, bad-fatty foods from your house. No temptations. Don’t go out to eat if you can’t resist the hamburger and fries. It’s only four weeks! Challenge yourself. Be proud of every day you can get through in a completely healthy way. I think a person’s success is defined by the ambition of the commitments they can keep. So make your goal lofty but reachable, and then go get it!

I’ve been slacking off for the past 6 weeks. With the holidays and everything, it’s time for me to get back into it and start some serious training. Bike season is coming up! So I’m going to join the Challenge. But for me, it’s going to be a lean muscle challenge. So I used a tape measure and piece of rope. My measurements are: 32.5″ (stomach), 12″ (right arm), 24.5″ (right leg). I’ll let you know how I’m looking in 4 weeks!

Finally, here’s today’s workout:

Beginner through intermediate (12 minutes)

– 20 seconds on/ 20 seconds off

– each exercise 3 times in a row

Advanced (16 minutes)

– 30 seconds on/ 10 seconds off

– each exercise 4 times in a row

Exercises:

1) high knees – speed is most important with this one.

2) X plank – start in straight plank…if you can, jump out your legs then step out your arms to form an “X”, move them all back in and start again. Don’t forget to keep your body straight as a plank!

3) jump lunges – align your joints ALWAYS, shoulders over hips, front knee over toes.

4) crunches – look at the ceiling and lift your shoulders. DO NOT pull on your neck.

5) calf jumps – fluid jumping, very little bend in the knee. like you’re at a concert without any space. ps. the girl in this photo is ripped! So awesome.

6) wall sits – quads parallel to the ground. If it’s too easy for you, Keep your legs touching each other. Still too easy? Raise one foot off the ground, switch at the halfway point.

So what’s your goal and how will you do it?

🙂

Thriving Thursday: Ten Steps for Fighting the Flu (new, improved, and tested)

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Get your flu shot!! Oh crap, that didn’t work…Get your flu antiviral! Is anyone out there connecting the dots?? This year Fluzone and EVERY “health” department in the US ramped up their efforts to get every man, woman, and child a flu shot. They offered them almost for free on the doorstep of every pharmacy and work place. They put it on billboards, the radio, and TV. So why are we now close to an epidemic of flu outbreak? Because, like I said in this post, FLU SHOTS DON’T WORK.

Why does anyone think it is a good idea to put the virus plus a whole bunch of very toxic chemicals into your blood stream, effectively killing your immune system? Why not focus on doing everything you can to strengthen your body to fight the virus when you finally come in contact with it. Same goes for the antiviral.

The concept of vaccines are great. Inject the virus so that your body can learn to fight it off. Except that they are never sure which strain of the virus you will come in contact with and they mix it with lots of fun stuff like aluminum (thimerasol), antifreeze, bleach, and embalming fluid. Do you think that stuff helps your immune system? Really? Click here to read the CDC dancing around all the variables that make the shot useless.

Update (1/22/13): If you’re interested in a scientist’s research and opinion, please check out this article by Dr. Mercola.

Now, I have to admit, I got the flu. I had a fever, sore throat, sneezing, and coughing for three days. 36 hours. Five days later, the runny nose and coughing continues but now I’m coughing up some yellow stuff (sorry for the sordid details) because the crap that grew in my lungs is clambering out. I’m healing. Most other people I’ve talked to had the severe symptoms plus stomach issues for multiple weeks and the less severe ones for several weeks after that. I gave my body a chance to fight and it’s doing just that. I’m the very proud owner of a healthy body.

Ok, so now I’ll step off my soap box. If you didn’t get the flu shot, great job! If you did, just don’t do it next year. Please? For both healthy and not so healthy people, here’s how I dealt with the symptoms (even the severe ones) well enough to work 10 hour days.

1. NO MEDICATIONS. None. No Tylenol, no Advil, no cough medicine, and especially no anti viral like Tamiflu or Relenza. Regarding the over the counter drugs, dulling your symptoms is never a good thing. Listen to your body. If you’re tired, get some sleep, if your nose is running or you’re coughing, your body is trying to get rid of something, please just let it. And regarding the anti viral, the list of complications is SO much longer than the list of potential benefits. See here for what the CDC has to say about that. If you body can learn to fight off this one, it will have a better chance of fighting the next one.

2. DRINK WATER. Keep a water bottle near you at all times. Constantly be drinking from it. You should be peeing about every half hour. I’m not joking. Give your body the conduit it needs to flush out those bad cells. I can’t stress this one enough.

3. LOTS OF VEGETABLES. Eating a diet of mostly veggies has never been more important. Eat a varied diet of dark leafy greens (like spinach and kale), aliums (like onions and garlic), root veggies (like carrots, beets, and sweet peppers) and every other kind of veggie (like mushrooms, zucchini, and squash). Eat as many as you can in their raw form but if you get bored with that you can roast them, make them into soup, or even into pancakes! Cooking while you’re sick is no fun so make everything in big batches.

4. DON’T FORGET THE FRUIT. Keeping sugar out of your diet is really important right now but so many nutrients and immune strengtheners are found in fruit. Try to stick to fruit that is low in sugar but high in good stuff like Vitamin C and antioxidants. Eat oranges, granny smith apples, and all kinds of berries.

5. KEEP THE CRAP OUT. Completely eliminate dairy, refined sugar, red meat, and grains (including oats, rice, and bread) from your diet. Your body has to work extra hard to process that stuff and right now it needs all its energy to fight a virus. Definitely still get in your protein and healthy fats with things like beans, nuts, and organic poultry but cut out everything else.

6. VITAMIN D. Vit D3 is one of the most necessary and under-appreciated vitamins in the human body. We aren’t outside to produce it even close to as much as we should be. I am all for getting your nutrients from your food but this one is very very hard to get without being outside all day. So find a cleanly sourced brand and take a very high dosage. About 10,000 IU. Yep 10,000 every single day. You will be amazed at the results.

7. HOT TODDIES. Add a Hot Toddy to your pre-bedtime routine. My mom taught me this one and it works like a charm. Stir together boiling water, the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoon of honey, and a tablespoon of whiskey or bourbon. The lemon disinfects your throat, the honey soothes it, and the whiskey makes you sleepy. And it tastes and feels SO good.

8. STEAM YOURSELF. Take a hot bath before bed to loosen up your congestion and your muscles. If that nose still won’t come unstuffed, do an intense steam. Add some rosemary extract and boiling water to a bowl. Put your head over the bowl and then a towel over your head and the opening of the bowl. Breath deeply taking breaks whenever you need to. Keep the towel on until the steam stops flowing from the water.

9. HUMIDIFY. If you have a humidifier, put it right next to your head when you sleep. It will counteract the dry winter weather and keep you from coughing the night away.

10. SLEEP. Lots and lots of sleep. Cancel your plans and go to bed at 8:30. Sleep in. Sleep all weekend. Take naps. Anytime you’re asleep, your body has a chance to repair itself. And isn’t it awesome to have an excuse to sleep all day anyway?

Eating, sleeping, and drinking like this is hard. Seriously hard. You have to do every single step in order for it to be effective. I’ve been doing it for 8 days now and will continue to do it until I’m back to 100%. And while it’s difficult and frustrating at times it’s better than skipping work or school and feeling like crap all the time. A runny nose and a cough is infinitely more appealing than being bed ridden for two weeks.

Update (1/22/13): In the article at the top of this post, Dr. Mercola also recommends

Optimizing your Gut Flora
Regularly take, high-quality doses of animal-based Omega 3.
Eat natural antibiotics like oil of oregano and garlic.
Wash your hand frequently (but not with the completely unnecessary antibacterial soap!)

Why don’t you just try this? What do you have to lose?

Workout Wednesday: Hop Back to It

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This is my first workout post since the Holidays. I’ve finally detoxed myself off of the ChocoCheese Diet: a sophisticated diet of only chocolate, cheese, wine, and NO exercise to speak of for the 10 days surrounding the Holidays. And I’m finally over the flu. Do you think the two were related? Hmmm.

I’m over the fever of my flu but still have a lingering cough and some sniffles. No matter! Read this awesome blog post about if you should or shouldn’t workout when sick. So because my fever is gone, I hit the yoga mat for some light exercise on Monday and then did the Beginner form of this workout yesterday. Today I’ll be back on the bike trainer doing intervals for an hour or so.

Anyway, it’s the New Year. We don’t have any more excuses. You have to get back to your regular routine whether you like it or not. And yes, I’m really struggling with this one too. Want to face it together?

Beginner through intermediate (12 minutes)

– 20 seconds on/ 20 seconds off

– each exercise 3 times in a row

Advanced (16 minutes)

– 30 seconds on/ 10 seconds off

– each exercise 4 times in a row

Exercises:

1. side hops

2. leg balance – touch the top of your water bottle or the seat of a chair (switch sides at 10 seconds)

3. push up

4. hip raise

5. plank (with kicks for advanced form)

6. squat jumps

REMEMBER: this workout only works if you push yourself. HARD. This is the most difficult part of getting back into home workouts… but I don’t wanna push myself… just do it, you won’t regret it, I promise.

What are you struggling to pick back up this New Year? How are you going to beat it? 🙂

Monday Advice: Enjoy Your Holiday Meals!

Workout Wednesday: Don’t Stop Now!

Workout Wednesday: Do You Brace?

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The brace: anyone heard of it? Not like for your teeth or a broken limb, for your abs silly! It’s this position that you should be aware of no matter what type of exercise you do. It strengthens your core, supports your back, AND helps give you that awesome 8-pack you’ve been dreaming of.

Brace: tighten your lower abs. Tighten so you feel like your attaching your abs to your lower back. Now keep your abs there and breathe. This is how you should be exercising. There are exercises where the brace is more important but if you can learn to do this throughout your exercise routine you’ll start to see huge differences. This applies to weight lifting, riding bikes, running, swimming, EVERYTHING!

Finally for today’s workout:

Beginner through intermediate (12 minutes)

– 20 seconds on/ 20 seconds off

– each exercise 3 times in a row

Advanced (16 minutes)

– 30 seconds on/ 10 seconds off

– each exercise 4 times in a row

Exercises: