Integral Fitness Solutions offers an integral approach to health and fitness based in the latest research. I am a certified fitness trainer who specializes in optimal nutrition and sports training. I am available for consulting and program design.
I haven't been posting here for a while, but I am still doing the health and fitness thing at Zaadz.
posted by WH @ 3:27 PM
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T-Nation has printed an interview with Dr. John K. Williams about xenoestrogens.
Xenoestrogens are man-made chemicals that can enter the body and mimic the effects of the female hormone estrogen.
Natural estrogens act with a larger molecule called a receptor, and once they do so, the biological activity associated with that hormone is turned on. You're basically flipping on a switch. Xenoestrogens fit in the same receptors that estrogen does and do the same thing that the natural hormone does. But in addition they can also turn-on more receptors — sometimes synergistically — making the effect of the estrogen or xenoestrogen more profound.
There have been plenty of studies showing a correlation between chemicals in the environment and the effects they have on the poor folks that are exposed to them. The earliest one I can think of is the one showing the women in Guatemala who were hitting puberty at 3-4 years old. They think this was caused by being exposed to tons of xenoestrogens.
One of the most recent articles, from just a couple years ago, showed that xenoestrogens can and do collect in our adipose tissue. Researchers took tissue samples from over 400 adults and 75% of the samples were found to have significant levels of xenoestrogens. DDT and its derivatives were present in 98.3% of the samples.
The scary thing is that, firstly, we're all carrying around xenoestrogens in our body fat, and second, it also showed us that different xenoestrogens act together synergistically to magnify their estrogenic properties. Basically the more you have, the more variety you'll have, and thus the more likely the xenoestrogens are going to pronounce themselves in different sorts of effects, from decreased sex drive to more awful things like cancer.
posted by WH @ 6:35 PM
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The Integral Fitness pod seeks to explore and implement an AQAL approach to health and fitness. However, we will not limit ourselves to Wilberian versions of integral; we seek all forms of integral understanding that can help us live healthier lives.
While the quadrants are an important part of an integral model, we also believe that the experience of deepening states (gross, subtle, causal, non-dual) through different integral practices, including fitness, are an important area of exploration.
We believe that no one approach holds all the answers, so this pod will have three moderators: a personal trainer/nutritional consultant (Bill), a life coach (Kira), and a yoga practitioner who also weight trains (Damon).
Please join us as we seek an integrated fitness and health model that can support and sustain our lives and our growth.
posted by WH @ 6:01 PM
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I've been preaching against soy for years, and here is another article calling its health claims into question, from the Guardian Unlimited.
For Dr Mike Fitzpatrick, the saga of soya began in Monty Python-style with a dead parrot. His investigations into the ubiquitous bean started in 1991 when Richard James, a multimillionaire American lawyer, turned up at the laboratory in New Zealand where Fitzpatrick was working as a consultant toxicologist. James was sure that soya beans were killing his rare birds.
"We thought he was mad, but he had a lot of money and wanted us to find out what was going on," Fitzpatrick recalls.
Over the next months, Fitzpatrick carried out an exhaustive study of soya and its effects. "We discovered quite quickly," he recalls, "that soya contains toxins and plant oestrogens powerful enough to disrupt women's menstrual cycles in experiments. It also appeared damaging to the thyroid." James's lobbying eventually forced governments to investigate. In 2002, the British government's expert committee on the toxicity of food (CoT) published the results of its inquiry into the safety of plant oestrogens, mainly from soya proteins, in modern food. It concluded that in general the health benefits claimed for soya were not supported by clear evidence and judged that there could be risks from high levels of consumption for certain age groups. Yet little has happened to curb soya's growth since.
More than 60% of all processed food in Britain today contains soya in some form, according to food industry estimates. It is in breakfast cereals, cereal bars and biscuits, cheeses, cakes, dairy desserts, gravies, noodles, pastries, soups, sausage casings, sauces and sandwich spreads. Soya, crushed, separated and refined into its different parts, can appear on food labels as soya flour, hydrolysed vegetable protein, soy protein isolate, protein concentrate, textured vegetable protein, vegetable oil (simple, fully, or partially hydrogenated), plant sterols, or the emulsifier lecithin. Its many guises hint at its value to manufacturers.
Soya increases the protein content of processed meat products. It replaces them altogether in vegetarian foods. It stops industrial breads shrinking. It makes cakes hold on to their water. It helps manufacturers mix water into oil. Hydrogenated, its oil is used to deep-fry fast food.
Soya is also in cat food and dog food. But above all it is used in agricultural feeds for intensive chicken, beef, dairy, pig and fish farming. Soya protein - which accounts for 35% of the raw bean - is what has made the global factory farming of livestock for cheap meat a possibility. Soya oil - high in omega 6 fatty acids and 18% of the whole bean - has meanwhile driven the postwar explosion in snack foods around the world. Crisps, confectionery, deep-fried take-aways, ready meals, ice-creams, mayonnaise and margarines all make liberal use of it. Its widespread presence is one of the reasons our balance of omega 3 to omega 6 essential fatty acids is so out of kilter.
You may think that when you order a skinny soya latte, you are choosing a commodity blessed with an unadulterated aura of health. But soya today is in fact associated with patterns of food consumption that have been linked to diet-related diseases. And 50 years ago it was not eaten in the west in any quantity.
In 1965, the earliest year for which the Chicago Board of Trade keeps figures, global soya bean production was just 30m tonnes. By 2005, the world was consuming nine times that a year, at 270m tonnes. World soya oil production, meanwhile, has increased sevenfold over the same period, from 5m tonnes to 34m tonnes a year.
To feed demand, new agricultural frontiers are being opened up in Brazil, where large areas of virgin rainforest have been illegally felled to make room for the crop. US-based transnationals are now exporting soya back to China, the country from which it originated, as newly urbanised Chinese switch to industrialised western diets. Thanks to US agribusiness, we have developed an apparently insatiable global appetite for the bean produced by farmers in the Americas.
James and Fitzpatrick became convinced early on that this entirely new dependence on soya was, in fact, a dangerous experiment. The dead parrots were no joke - they were the canaries in the coalmine.
For James and his wife Valerie, breeding the exotic birds down under was a retirement dream. They wanted to feed their young birds the best, so they began giving the chicks a soya feed. Parrots do not eat soya beans in the wild but the high-protein animal feed had been marketed in the US as a new miracle food.
The result was a catastrophic breeding year. Some of the birds were infertile; many died. Other young male birds aged prematurely or reached puberty years early. "We realised there was some sort of hormonal disruption going on but we'd eliminated other possible hormone disrupting chemicals such as pesticides from the inquiry," Fitzpatrick says.
So the toxicologist began a systematic review of the scientific literature on soya. After finding out about the plant oestrogens in soya, Fitzpatrick says, "My next thought was: what about children who are fed soya milk?" He calculated that babies fed exclusively on soya formula could receive the oestrogenic equivalent, based on body weight, of five birth control pills a day.
In fact, it had been known since the early 1980s that plant oestrogens, or phyto-oestrogens, could produce biological effects in humans. The most common of these were a group of compounds in soya protein called isoflavones. Food manufacturers had variously marketed soya foods as an antidote to menopausal hot flushes and osteoporosis, and as a protective ingredient against cardiovascular disease and hormone-related cancers. Large quantities of mainly industry-sponsored scientific research have been produced to back up these claims. The American soya industry spends about $80m every year, raised from a mandatory levy on producers, to research and promote the consumption of soya around the world. The rash of new soya foods can be seen as the latest in a line of innovative ways devised to use soya.
The hypothesis behind the health claims is that rates of heart disease and certain cancers such as breast and prostate cancer are lower in east Asian populations with soya-rich diets than in western countries, and that the oestrogens in soya might therefore have a protective effect.
Fitzpatrick, however, looked into historic soya consumption in Japan and China and concluded that Asians did not actually eat that much. What they did eat tended to have been fermented for months. "If you look at people who are into health fads here, they are eating soya steaks and veggie burgers or veggie sausages and drinking soya milk - they are getting over 100g a day. They are eating tonnes of the raw stuff."
Mass exposure to isoflavones in the west has only occurred in the past 30 years due to the widespread incorporation of soya protein into processed foods, a fact noted by the Royal Society in its expert report on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in 2000. When the independent experts on the scientific committee on toxicity trawled through all the scientific data, they concluded that soya milk should not be recommended for infants even when they had cow's milk allergies, except on medical advice, because of the high levels of oestrogenic isoflavones it contains.
On breast cancer, they decided that "despite the suggested benefits of phyto-oestrogens in lowering risk of developing breast cancer, there is also evidence that they may stimulate the progression of the disease". The lower risk of certain cancers among Asian populations might be due to other factors - their high consumption of fish, for example. They advised caution. On the effects on menopause symptoms, the evidence was inconclusive, the experts ruled. On bone density, the committee thought there might be some protective effects, but the data was unclear. The evidence on prostate cancer was mixed. Since isoflavones cross the placenta, the implications of pregnant women eating large quantities of soya were unclear. There was some evidence that soya-based products had a beneficial effect on the good HDL cholesterol but they were not sure that was down to the isoflavones. On the other hand - reassuringly - they judged that a study linking soya consumption to decline in cognitive function was not convincing.
What the committee also pointed out was that the way soya was processed affected the levels of phyto-oestrogens. Traditional fermentation reduces the levels of isoflavones two- to threefold. Modern factory processes do not. Moreover, modern American strains of soya have significantly higher levels of isoflavones than Japanese or Chinese ones because they have been bred to be more resistant to pests. (One way to tackle pests is to stop them breeding by making them infertile. It turns out that unfermented soya did play one role in traditional Asian diets - it was eaten by monks to dampen down their libido.)
Sue Dibb, now food policy expert at the National Consumer Council, was a member of the CoT working group that compiled the final report. She questions whether infant soya milk should still be on public sale and is troubled by the latest marketing of soya. "We looked in detail at the claimed health benefits for adults for soya consumption and concluded there was not sufficient evidence to support many of them. There may be benefits but there are also risks. The groups of adults of particular concern are those with a thyroid problem and women with oestrogen-dependent breast cancer. It worries me that soya is being pushed as a health food by a big soya and supplements industry. We ought to be taking a more cautious approach."
The Food Standards Agency advice is that soya's potential to have an adverse effect on babies' hormonal development is still controversial, but that soya formula should only be given to infants under 12 months old in exceptional circumstances.
Professor Richard Sharpe, head of the Medical Research Council's human reproductive sciences unit at Edinburgh University, was also a member of the committee's working group on phyto-oestrogens in food. He has been studying the decline in male fertility in the past half-century. He recently completed studies on the effects of soya milk on young male monkeys which showed that it interferes with testosterone levels. "In the first three months after birth, baby boys have a neonatal testosterone rise. The testes are very, very active in hormone production at this point and there is a lot of cell activity going on that will determine sperm count in adults and will affect the developing prostate. If you introduce a phyto-oestrogen, which can, in large amounts, alter these changes, you may predispose children to later disease. Soya formula milk is a [recent] western invention. There is not the historical evidence to show it is safe."
Manufacturers, however, argue that soya infant formula has been widely used without problems. "The industry has said that if the CoT comes up with clear science, we will take note, but the case is not proven," says Roger Clarke, director general of the industry's Infant Dietetics Food Association. "A lot of the work it looked at was based on experimental work with animals. There does not seem to be clear evidence of adverse effects, and there is demand for it. There are some markets, such as vegan usage, where soya is the only alternative."
While 30-40% of all infants in the US are raised on soya formula - not least because it is given away in welfare programmes - soya milk for babies has always been confined to a small minority in the UK. So does Sharpe think exposure to soya from other sources - vegetarian soya proteins, the soya flour in factory bread, the hydrolysed proteins added as flavourings, for example - has a cumulative effect that might be worrying to other age groups? He says he is not concerned about people who eat soya foods in moderation or in the way they are traditionally used in oriental diets, but when it comes to modern processed foods, which use soya proteins in different ways, he prefers to turn the question round. "If someone said they were adding a hormone to your foods, would you be happy with that? There may be lots of effects, some of them may be beneficial, but would you be happy with that? I am not a fan of processed foods, full stop. And these quick fixes for protecting against ill-health - you know they can't be true," he adds.
A steaming hiss fills the kitchen of the top London restaurant Nobu, even after the lunchtime rush. Japanese chefs are filleting the evening's fish while stock bubbles and concentrates in its stainless steel vat behind. Executive chef Mark Edwards hands me a teaspoon of one of his soy sauces. Cool from the fridge, it is thick, rich, dark and sweet, yet remarkably clear from its long fermentation. The miso that he uses to marinade his famous black cod for three days is dense and strong from its lengthy brew too. Muslin cloths envelop delicate curds of tofu, made fresh each day and added in small cubes to miso soup.
Soya is used in traditional oriental diets in these forms, after cultures, moulds or precipitants have achieved a biochemical transformation, because in its raw form the mature bean is known not only for its oestrogenic qualities but for also its antinutrients, according to the clinical nutritionist Kaayla Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story. Soya was originally grown in China as a green manure, for its ability to fix nitrogen in the soil, rather than as a food crop, until the Chinese discovered ways of fermenting it, she says.
The young green beans, now sold as a fashionable snack, edamame, are lower in oestrogens and antinutrients, though not free of them. But raw mature soya beans contain phytates that prevent mineral absorption and enzyme inhibitors that block the key enzymes we need to digest protein. They are also famous for inducing flatulence.
Christopher Dawson, who owns the Clearspring brand of organic soy sauces, agrees. He lived in Japan for 18 years and his Japanese wife, Setsuko, is a cookery teacher. "I never saw soy beans on the table in Japan - they're indigestible."
Dawson describes the traditional craft method of transforming the soya bean through fermentation, so that its valuable amino acids become available but its antinutrients are tamed. The process involves cooking whole soya beans, complete with their oil, for several hours, then adding the spores of a mould to the mix, and leaving it to ferment for three days to begin the long process of breaking down the proteins and starches. This initial brew is then mixed with salt water and left to ferment for a further 18 months, during which time the temperature will vary with the seasons. The end result is an intensely flavoured condiment in which the soya's chemical composition has been radically altered. Traditional miso is similarly made with natural whole ingredients, slowly aged.
Most soya sauces (and misos) are not made this way any more, however. Instead of using the whole bean, manufacturers short-cut the fermentation by starting with defatted soy protein meal. Soya veggie burgers and sausages generally use the same chemically extracted fraction of the bean.
This meal is the product of the industrial crushing process the vast majority of the world's soya beans go through. The raw beans are broken down to thin flakes, which are then percolated with a petroleum-based hexane solvent to extract the soya oil. The remains of the flakes are toasted and ground to a protein meal, most of which goes into animal feed. Soya flour is made in a similar way.
The oil then goes through a process of cleaning, bleaching, degumming and deodorising to remove the solvent and the oil's characteristic "off" smells and flavours. The lecithin that forms a heavy sludge in the oil during storage used to be regarded as a waste product, but now it has been turned into a valuable market in its own right as an emulsifier.
In so-called "naturally brewed" soya sauces the processed soy protein meal is mixed with the mould spores and given accelerated ageing at high temperatures for three to six months. Non-brewed soya sauce, the cheapest grade, is made in just two days. Defatted soya flour is mixed with hydrochloric acid at high temperatures and under pressure to create hydrolysed vegetable protein. Salt, caramel and chemical preservatives and flavourings are then added to provide colour and taste. This rapid hydrolysis method uses the enzyme glutamase as a reactor and creates large amounts of the unnatural form of glutamate that is found in MSG.
Most commercial soya milk today is made from soya isolates, although some of the pioneers of soya foods as health products in Europe avoid the chemical extraction process and use whole beans to make their milk. The key selling points for both types of soya milk are that they contain complete proteins and oestrogenic isoflavones.
Bernard Deryckere, president of the European Natural Soyfood Manufacturers Association, says that his members' products, made using natural processes, are a healthy alternative to diary products. "A lot of people in Europe are lactose-intolerant. Soya milk was invented in China 4,000 years ago and today it's consumed by all types of people as a cholesterol-free source of quality protein."
Daniel's detailed examination of the history of soya milk, however, suggests that soya milk was made not to drink, except in times of famine, but as the first step in the process of making tofu. After the long, slow boiling of soya beans in water to eliminate toxins, a curdling agent was added to the liquid to separate it. The curds would then be pressed to make tofu and the whey, in which the antinutrients were concentrated, would be thrown away.
Dibb points out that if you are drinking non-dairy milk because you want calcium without cow's milk, there are plenty of other sources such as green leafy vegetables and nuts. And only those eating extremely limited diets are likely to be short of protein as adults.
Dawson, a lifelong vegetarian, does not drink soya milk and only eats tofu in moderation. "I will only use a product for my family if there is 200 years of tradition behind it. You are asking for trouble if you take an isolate from soya - yet so much effort seems to go into taking industry's waste and turning it into new food."
The effort that has gone into creating the global soya market has indeed been enormous. Today it is dominated by a handful of American trading companies. Three of them - Bunge, ADM and Cargill - control 80% of the European soya bean crushing industry. These three, together with allied companies, are also estimated to control up to 80% of European animal feed manufacturing. They dominate the US soya market, and also account for 60% of Brazil's soya exports.
Before the first world war, only a very few soya beans were crushed. The Americans had begun experimenting with using the protein meal as animal feed, but farmers were reluctant to take it up because it was indigestible to chicken and pigs. The oil produced was considered "a bit of an embarrassment", according to Kurt Burger, a fats and oils technical expert at the Society of Chemical Industry, whose experience in the food industry goes back to 1944. It was mainly used in soaps because it was considered unpalatable. (Henry Ford later funded research projects to turn soya into plastic for car parts.)
Cottonseed oil, a byproduct of the cotton industry, was the main edible oil used in the US. But then the combination of disease in monocropped cotton and demand from European allies in the first world war for oil both to eat and to make the glycerine needed for nitroglycerine in explosives, stimulated American soy oil production.
It was not until the 1940s that industry worked out how to deactivate the enzyme inhibitor in the protein meal sufficiently for animals to tolerate it, and it was only technology taken from the Nazis at the end of the second world war that solved the problem of the oil's horrible smell and flavour. That left the way for the US to promote the soya that suited its agricultural conditions as part of the reconstruction of Europe through the 1950s. Soya oil exports to Europe tripled under the Marshall Plan, and heavily subsidised exports of surplus US soya ensured the commodity's dominance in animal feed. The subsidies continue. Between 1998 and 2004, US Department of Agriculture figures show that its soya farming received $13bn in subsidies from the American taxpayer.
Until 2003, the US was the largest exporter of soya. But through the 1990s, multinationals promoted the expansion of the crop in Latin America, helping finance farmers and building the infrastructure for soya exports. The attraction of Latin America is that land is cheap and labour costs are minimal too. Three years ago, the combined exports from Brazil and Argentina surpassed US exports for the first time. The cost is now being counted there in environmental damage and social upheaval. The cost to western consumers may yet be counted in health.
posted by WH @ 8:40 AM
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Here is the June edition of FitBits:
FitBits
Exercise ETC’s Review of Exercise Related Research
Compiled by Jeannie Patton, MS, CSCS
It’s official: Dog owners are more active, healthier
Dog ownership may be an effective intervention among adults and children for promoting physical activity. This study examined the relationship between walking, physical activity levels, and potential psychological mediators between people who owned dogs and those who did not.
A random sample of men and women aged 20 to 80 years participated. Questionnaires were mailed out in 2004 to collect information about demographics, dog ownership, leisure-time walking, physical activity levels, and theory of planned behavior (TPB).
Results of the analysis showed dog owners spent more time in mild to moderate activities and walked an average of 300 minutes a week compared to 168 minutes for non-dog owners.
The results of this analysis indicate an additional benefit to dog ownership. It appears that there is an increase in physical activity associated with the obligation to walk the dog. Fitness Professionals may be able to promote this additional exercise benefit to those who are thinking of getting a dog.
Brown, Shane. and Rhodes, Ryan. Relationships Among Dog Ownership and Leisure-Time Walking in Western Canadian Adults. Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2006; 30(2), 131-136.
Men & women perform squats differently, putting women’s knees at risk
It is generally accepted that female athletes exhibit different movement patterns compared to men, which increases their risk for ACL injury and patellofemoral pain. Why these differences occur is not so widely understood. Muscles of the trunk, hip and knee influence the orientation of the lower extremity during weight bearing activities. The purpose of this study was threefold: first, to compare the orientation of the lower extremity during a single leg squat among male and female athletes; second, to compare the strength of muscle groups in the trunk, hips and knees between the two genders; and third, to evaluate the association between trunk, hip and knee strength and the orientation of the knee joint during activity.
Twenty-four male and 22 female athletes served as subjects. Muscle force was measured in each subject for trunk flexion, extension and lateral flexion, hip abduction and external rotation, and knee flexion and extension. The frontal plane projection angle of the knee during a 45-degree single leg squat was also determined.
Results of the study show that men and women move in opposite directions during a single leg squat. This is consistent with other studies which show that women performing athletic moves (cross-cutting maneuvers, jump landing, etc.) tend to begin in a valgus (knock-knee) posture and move even more further into valgus, as opposed to men who begin in a valgus posture but move to more neutral alignment. This study also demonstrated that women produce less force than men in all muscle groups tested (with the exception of trunk extension.) The projection angle of the knee during the single leg squat was most closely associated with hip external rotation strength.
This is another study that documents the importance of balanced strength in the trunk, hip and knee musculature for proper knee mechanics, since women are more prone to collapse their knees inward (valgus) than men. Results of this study also indicate the importance of adequate range of motion in the hip adductors and strength in the hip external rotators. Fitness Professionals should pay close attention to strength and range of motion deficits in the trunk, hip and knee musculature and program to correct these deficits.
Willson, John, D. et al. Core strength and lower extremity alignment during single leg squats. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2006, 38(5), 945-952.
Weighted walking speeds metabolism, even at slower speeds
Walking is often recommended for exercise because it is low cost, easy to do, and functional, but walking does have its limitations. Those with limitations may not be able to achieve a walking speed that would facilitate cardiorespiratory or musculoskeletal improvements, and walking may not provide enough of an overload for those with higher fitness levels. The purpose of this investigation was to determine how oxygen consumption, exercise intensity, vertical ground reaction forces and loading rate were affected while using a weighted vest during treadmill walking.
A total of ten subjects performed a standardized walking test under four weighted-vest conditions (0, 10, 15, 20% of body mass). The walking test consisted of 4-minute stages at the following speeds: 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, and 4 miles per hour.
The results showed a significant difference in oxygen consumption in the weighted vest condition at all walking speeds. Vertical ground reaction forces increased as speed and vest mass increased. In regard to loading rate, using a weighted vest with 15 and 20% body mass showed a significant difference.
The results of this study support the use of a weighted vest to increase the metabolic cost and the dynamic loading of the skeletal system during walking and can also help Fitness Professionals determine appropriate vest mass. At lower walking speeds it may be necessary to use more weight to increase metabolic cost. At higher walking speeds a lower amount of weight will increase the metabolic cost. This study also indicated that the increases in ground reaction and loading forces were greater in all weighted vest conditions (22%) compared to the increases in metabolic cost (9%). This would indicate that wearing a weighted vest could significantly increase the mechanical stresses placed on the skeletal system without experiencing undue physiological strain.
Puthoff, Michael, L. et al. The effect of weighted vest walking on metabolic responses and ground reaction forces. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2006, 38(4), 746-752
Exercise benefits for the elderly may be more universal than expected
Many older adults are under the impression that they are too old to begin exercising and have little faith that they can improve function. These psychological barriers often affect motivation and adherence. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of walking and resistance training on the function of older adults.
The subjects consisted of 45 women and 19 men with an average age of 83.5 years from an independent living facility. Subjects were divided into a walking group, a strength-training group, and a non-exercising control group. The subjects were supervised during training that took place twice a week for 4 months.
The participants who were in the walking and strength training groups showed significant improvements in overall body strength, flexibility, balance and agility compared to the control group. Interestingly, the results of this study showed improvements in areas that were not specifically trained. It appears that in advanced old age the benefits of exercise may be more universal and less exercise specific, since the lower the fitness level the easier it is to establish an overload. Fitness Professionals could share this research with older adults to help document that it is never too late to begin an exercise program, which may be able to both offset age- related loss of function and preserve function longer.
Simons, Robert and Andel, Ross. The Effects of Resistance Training and Walking on Functional Fitness in Advanced Old Age. The Journal of Aging and Health. 2006; 18(1), 56-69.
posted by WH @ 6:13 PM
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For those of you out there who like it to hurt when you work out, at least sometimes, I'd like to recommend CrossFit.
Friday 060721
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
Walking lunge, carrying 25 pound dumbbells, 10 steps
Weighted pull-ups, with 25 pound dumbbell, 10 reps
Post number of rounds completed to comments.Monday 060724
Thruster 3-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1
Post loads to comments.
posted by WH @ 8:07 PM
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As many of you have no doubt noticed, I haven't posted here for a while. Part of the lack of posts has been a time issue on my part -- too busy to maintain two blogs, my Zaadz pod, and various other responsibilities.
posted by WH @ 1:02 PM
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From Prevention Magazine, their top 100 diet tips -- and I make no claim to their value here, just reproducing the article for those who might be interested.
Renew your commitment to weight loss with help from top nutrition pros. By Top Dietitians of the American Dietetic Association
Got a diet dilemma? Ask a true diet pro: an RD, or registered dietitian. Her job is turning complex nutrition research into doable plans for real people.
Courtesy of the American Dietetic Association (ADA), we took our readers' eleven toughest diet problems and ran them by some of the top dietitians in the US: RDs who, in addition to their private careers, serve as media spokespersons or heads of specialty practice groups for the ADA.
Here's what they told us, in their own words. These tips are solid gold, learned from successful experience with thousands of clients. Some tips are new. Some you've heard before, but they're repeated because they work. This treasure trove of RD wisdom could change your life-starting today.
I Can Only Handle One Diet Change Right Now. What Should I Do?
1. Add just one fruit or veggie serving daily. Get comfortable with that, then add an extra serving until you reach 8 to 10 a day.
2. Eat at least two servings of a fruit or veggie at every meal.
3. Resolve never to supersize your food portions--unless you want to supersize your clothes.
4. Make eating purposeful, not mindless. Whenever you put food in your mouth, peel it, unwrap it, plate it, and sit. Engage all of the senses in the pleasure of nourishing your body.
5. Start eating a big breakfast. It helps you eat fewer total calories throughout the day.
6. Make sure your plate is half veggies and/or fruit at both lunch and dinner.
Are there Any Easy Tricks to Help Me Cut Calories?
7. Eating out? Halve it, and bag the rest. A typical restaurant entree has 1,000 to 2,000 calories, not even counting the bread, appetizer, beverage, and dessert.
8. When dining out, make it automatic: Order one dessert to share.
9. Use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate.
10. See what you eat. Plate your food instead of eating out of the jar or bag.
11. Eat the low-cal items on your plate first, then graduate. Start with salads, veggies, and broth soups, and eat meats and starches last. By the time you get to them, you'll be full enough to be content with smaller portions of the high-calorie choices.
12. Instead of whole milk, switch to 1 percent. If you drink one 8-oz glass a day, you'll lose 5 lb in a year.
13. Juice has as many calories, ounce for ounce, as soda. Set a limit of one 8-oz glass of fruit juice a day.
14. Get calories from foods you chew, not beverages. Have fresh fruit instead of fruit juice.
15. Keep a food journal. It really works wonders.
16. Follow the Chinese saying: "Eat until you are eight-tenths full."
17. Use mustard instead of mayo.
18. Eat more soup. The noncreamy ones are filling but low-cal.
19. Cut back on or cut out caloric drinks such as soda, sweet tea, lemonade, etc. People have lost weight by making just this one change. If you have a 20-oz bottle of Coca-Cola every day, switch to Diet Coke. You should lose 25 lb in a year.
20. Take your lunch to work.
21. Sit when you eat.
22. Dilute juice with water.
23. Have mostly veggies for lunch.
24. Eat at home.
25. Limit alcohol to weekends.
How Can I Eat More Veggies?
26. Have a V8 or tomato juice instead of a Diet Coke at 3 pm.
27. Doctor your veggies to make them delicious: Dribble maple syrup over carrots, and sprinkle chopped nuts on green beans.
28. Mix three different cans of beans and some diet Italian dressing. Eat this three-bean salad all week.
29. Don't forget that vegetable soup counts as a vegetable.
30. Rediscover the sweet potato.
31. Use prebagged baby spinach everywhere: as "lettuce" in sandwiches, heated in soups, wilted in hot pasta, and added to salads.
32. Spend the extra few dollars to buy vegetables that are already washed and cut up.
33. Really hate veggies? Relax. If you love fruits, eat plenty of them; they are just as healthy (especially colorful ones such as oranges, mangoes, and melons).
34. Keep seven bags of your favorite frozen vegetables on hand. Mix any combination, microwave, and top with your favorite low-fat dressing. Enjoy 3 to 4 cups a day. Makes a great quick dinner.
Can You Give Me a Mantra that will Help Me Stick to My Diet?
35. "The best portion of high-calorie foods is the smallest one. The best portion of vegetables is the largest one. Period."
36. "I'll ride the wave. My cravings will disappear after 10 minutes if I turn my attention elsewhere."
37. "I want to be around to see my grandchildren, so I can forgo a cookie now."
38. "I am a work in progress."
39. "It's more stressful to continue being fat than to stop overeating."
I Eat Healthy, but I'm Overweight. What Mistakes Could I Be Making without Realizing It?
40. Skipping meals. Many healthy eaters "diet by day and binge by night."
41. Don't "graze" yourself fat. You can easily munch 600 calories of pretzels or cereal without realizing it.
42. Eating pasta like crazy. A serving of pasta is 1 cup, but some people routinely eat 4 cups.
43. Eating supersize bagels of 400 to 500 calories for snacks.
44. Ignoring "Serving Size" on the Nutrition Facts panel.
45. Snacking on bowls of nuts. Nuts are healthy but dense with calories. Put those bowls away, and use nuts as a garnish instead of a snack.
46. Thinking all energy bars and fruit smoothies are low-cal.
What Can I Eat for a Healthy Low-Cal Dinner if I Don't Want to Cook?
47. A smoothie made with fat-free milk, frozen fruit, and wheat germ.
48. The smallest fast-food burger (with mustard and ketchup, not mayo) and a no-cal beverage. Then at home, have an apple or baby carrots.
49. A peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat bread with a glass of 1 percent milk and an apple.
50. Precooked chicken strips and microwaved frozen broccoli topped with Parmesan cheese.
51. A healthy frozen entree with a salad and a glass of 1 percent milk.
52. Scramble eggs in a nonstick skillet. Pop some asparagus in the microwave, and add whole wheat toast. If your cholesterol levels are normal, you can have seven eggs a week!
53. A bag of frozen vegetables heated in the microwave, topped with 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese and 2 tablespoons of chopped nuts.
54. Prebagged salad topped with canned tuna, grape tomatoes, shredded reduced-fat cheese, and low-cal Italian dressing.
55. Keep lean sandwich fixings on hand: whole wheat bread, sliced turkey, reduced-fat cheese, tomatoes, mustard with horseradish.
56. Heat up a can of good soup.
57. Cereal, fruit, and fat-free milk makes a good meal anytime.
58. Try a veggie sandwich from Subway.
59. Precut fruit for a salad and add yogurt.
What's Your Best Advice for Avoiding those Extra Holiday Pounds?
60. Don't tell yourself, "It's okay, it's the holidays." That opens the door to 6 weeks of splurging.
61. Remember, EAT before you meet. Have this small meal before you go to any parties: a hardboiled Egg, Apple, and a Thirst quencher (water, seltzer, diet soda, tea).
62. As obvious as it sounds, don't stand near the food at parties. Make the effort, and you'll find you eat less.
63. At a buffet? Eating a little of everything guarantees high calories. Decide on three or four things, only one of which is high in calories. Save that for last so there's less chance of overeating.
64. For the duration of the holidays, wear your snuggest clothes that don't allow much room for expansion. Wearing sweats is out until January.
65. Give it away! After company leaves, give away leftover food to neighbors, doormen, or delivery people, or take it to work the next day.
66. Walk around the mall three times before you start shopping.
67. Make exercise a nonnegotiable priority.
68. Dance to music with your family in your home. One dietitian reported that when she asks her patients to do this, initially they just smile, but once they've done it, they say it is one of the easiest ways to involve the whole family in exercise.
How Can I Control a Raging Sweet Tooth?
69. Once in a while, have a lean, mean salad for lunch or dinner, and save the meal's calories for a full dessert.
70. Are you the kind of person who does better if you make up your mind to do without sweets and just not have them around? Or are you going to do better if you have a limited amount of sweets every day? One RD reported that most of her clients pick the latter and find they can avoid bingeing after a few days.
71. If your family thinks they need a very sweet treat every night, try to strike a balance between offering healthy choices but allowing them some "free will." Compromise with low-fat ice cream and fruit, or sometimes just fruit with a dollop of whipped cream.
72. Try 2 weeks without sweets. It's amazing how your cravings vanish.
73. Eat more fruit. A person who gets enough fruit in his diet doesn't have a raging sweet tooth.
74. Eat your sweets, just eat them smart! Carve out about 150 calories per day for your favorite sweet. That amounts to about an ounce of chocolate, half a modest slice of cake, or 1/2 cup of regular ice cream.
75. Try these smart little sweets: sugar-free hot cocoa, frozen red grapes, fudgsicles, sugar-free gum, Nutri-Grain chocolate fudge twists, Tootsie Rolls, and hard candy.
How Can I Conquer My Downfall: Bingeing at Night?
76. Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The large majority of people who struggle with night eating are those who skip meals or don't eat balanced meals during the day. This is a major setup for overeating at night.
77. Eat your evening meal in the kitchen or dining room, sitting down at the table.
78. Drink cold unsweetened raspberry tea. It tastes great and keeps your mouth busy.
79. Change your nighttime schedule. It will take effort, but it will pay off. You need something that will occupy your mind and hands.
80. If you're eating at night due to emotions, you need to focus on getting in touch with what's going on and taking care of yourself in a way that really works. Find a nonfood method of coping with your stress.
81. Put a sign on the kitchen and refrigerator doors: "Closed after Dinner."
82. Brush your teeth right after dinner to remind you: No more food.
83. Eat without engaging in any other simultaneous activity. No reading, watching TV, or sitting at the computer.
84. Eating late at night won't itself cause weight gain. It's how many calories--not when you eat them--that counts.
How Can I Reap Added Health Benefits from My Dieting?
85. Fat-free isn't always your best bet. Research has found that none of the lycopene or alpha- or beta-carotene that fight cancer and heart disease is absorbed from salads with fat-free dressing. Only slightly more is absorbed with reduced-fat dressing; the most is absorbed with full-fat dressing. But remember, use your dressing in moderate amounts.
86. Skipping breakfast will leave you tired and craving naughty foods by midmorning. To fill up healthfully and tastefully, try this sweet, fruity breakfast full of antioxidants. In a blender, process 1 c nonfat plain or vanilla yogurt, 1 1/3 c frozen strawberries (no added sugar), 1 peeled kiwi, and 1 peeled banana. Pulse until mixture is milkshake consistency. Makes one 2-cup serving; 348 calories and 1.5 fat grams.
87. If you're famished by 4 p.m. and have no alternative but an office vending machine, reach for the nuts--. The same goes if your only choices are what's available in the hotel minibar.
88. Next time you're feeling wiped out in late afternoon, forgo that cup of coffee and reach for a cup of yogurt instead. The combination of protein, carbohydrate, and fat in an 8-ounce serving of low-fat yogurt will give you a sense of fullness and well-being that coffee can't match, as well as some vital nutrients. If you haven't eaten in 3 to 4 hours, your blood glucose levels are probably dropping, so eating a small amount of nutrient-rich food will give your brain and your body a boost.
89. Making just a few changes to your pantry shelves can get you a lot closer to your weight loss goals. Here's what to do: If you use corn and peanut oil, replace it with olive oil. Same goes for breads--go for whole wheat. Trade in those fatty cold cuts like salami and bologna and replace them canned tuna, sliced turkey breast, and lean roast beef. Change from drinking whole milk to fat-free milk or low-fat soy milk. This is hard for a lot of people so try transitioning down to 2 percent and then 1 percent before you go fat-free.
90. Nothing's less appetizing than a crisper drawer full of mushy vegetables. Frozen vegetables store much better, plus they may have greater nutritional value than fresh. Food suppliers typically freeze veggies just a few hours after harvest, locking in the nutrients. Fresh veggies, on the other hand, often spend days in the back of a truck before they reach your supermarket.
91. Worried about the trans-fat content in your peanut butter? Good news: In a test done on Skippy, JIF, Peter Pan, and a supermarket brand, the levels of trans fats per 2-tablespoon serving were far lower than 0.5 gram--low enough that under proposed laws, the brands can legally claim zero trans fats on the label. They also contained only 1 gram more sugar than natural brands--not a significant difference.
Eating Less Isn't Enough--What Exercising Tips Will Help Me Shed Pounds?
92. Overeating is not the result of exercise. Vigorous exercise won't stimulate you to overeat. It's just the opposite. Exercise at any level helps curb your appetite immediately following the workout.
93. When you're exercising, you shouldn't wait for thirst to strike before you take a drink. By the time you feel thirsty, you're already dehydrated. Try this: Drink at least 16 ounces of water, sports drinks, or juices two hours before you exercise. Then drink 8 ounces an hour before and another 4 to 8 ounces every 15 to 20 minutes during your workout. Finish with at least 16 ounces after you're done exercising.
94. Tune in to an audio book while you walk. It'll keep you going longer and looking forward to the next walk--and the next chapter! Check your local library for a great selection. Look for a whodunit; you might walk so far you'll need to take a cab home!
95. Think yoga's too serene to burn calories? Think again. You can burn 250 to 350 calories during an hour-long class (that's as much as you'd burn from an hour of walking)! Plus, you'll improve muscle strength, flexibility, and endurance.
96. Drinking too few can hamper your weight loss efforts. That's because dehydration can slow your metabolism by 3 percent, or about 45 fewer calories burned a day, which in a year could mean weighing 5 pounds more. The key to water isn't how much you drink, it's how frequently you drink it. Small amounts sipped often work better than 8 ounces gulped down at once.
How Can I Manage My Emotional Eating and Get the Support I Need?
97. A registered dietitian (RD) can help you find healthy ways to manage your weight with food. To find one in your area who consults with private clients call (800) 366-1655.
98. The best place to drop pounds may be your own house of worship. Researchers set up healthy eating and exercise programs in 16 Baltimore churches. More than 500 women participated and after a year the most successful lost an average of 20 lb. Weight loss programs based on faith are so successful because there's a built-in community component that people can feel comfortable with.
99. Here's another reason to keep level-headed all the time: Pennsylvania State University research has found that women less able to cope with stress--shown by blood pressure and heart rate elevations--ate twice as many fatty snacks as stress-resistant women did, even after the stress stopped (in this case, 25 minutes of periodic jackhammer-level noise and an unsolvable maze).
100. Sitting at a computer may help you slim down. When researchers at Brown University School of Medicine put 92 people on online weight loss programs for a year, those who received weekly e-mail counseling shed 5 1/2 more pounds than those who got none. Counselors provided weekly feedback on diet and exercise logs, answered questions, and cheered them on. Most major online diet programs offer many of these features.
posted by WH @ 12:48 PM
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From Charles Staley's site, an excellent article aimed at more serious weight trainers.
Why Your Workouts Suck: 7 Points to Ponder
Hey, if your workouts DON’T suck, great! But even the most successful athletes and gym rats have bad workouts from time to time. Here’s why...
1. You Call It A “Workout.” The language you use affects how you view the World. Think for a moment about what images you conjure up when the word “exercise” is used as opposed to “training session.” Or “diet” versus “nutrition plan.” When you use the word “workout,” you’re at a disadvantage right from the start. Now you can call it whatever you want of course, but at Staley Training Systems, we use the term “training session.” The word “training” implies a purpose... above and beyond burning calories or looking buff at the beach. It implies the acquisition of skills. So have some respect for the words you use!
2. It’s No Fun. A lot of people have a hard time with the notion that going out of your comfort zone can be “fun,” but, I believe that human beings are essentially goal-seeking creatures. We enjoy stretching ourselves in pursuit of higher achievements. We are competitive at our core, especially when we have a strong reason behind what we’re doing (see point #4 below). Many people attempt to distract themselves at the gym by listening to music, scoping out the hot chick/dude on the treadmill, or talking on the phone. What I’d suggest however, is to learn to love the process...think of every rep as an athletic performance...make it a game...fake it till ‘ya make it! Also, learn to love the process as much as, if not more than, the result.
3. You’re A Sadist. Now although it’s true you’ll need to get out of your comfort zone to make progress in any area of your life, there’s no point in seeking pain! I call this principle “The Law of Sustainable Progression.” It simply means that small but sustainable changes will ultimately result in more progress than large but non-sustainable changes. Think of it this way: you can’t lose a significant amount of strength, muscle, or any other positive fitness attribute in one day, no matter how slothful you are for that 24 hour period. This being true, it also stands that you also can’t make noticeable gains in one day, or even one week, even if you push yourself mercilessly. Dr. Steven Covey, author of the best-selling Seven Habits book series calls it “the law of the farm.” Covey likes to say that “You might be able to cram for a final exam, but you can’t cram on the farm.” He’s simply referring to the fact that in natural systems, things take time; no matter how impatient you might feel. So be patient, and again, learn to enjoy the process as much as the result.
4. You Don’t Have A Plan. Quick: What’s your primary training objective for 2006? If it took you more than 5 seconds to answer, you don’t have a plan. My second question to you is “Why not?” Isn’t it worth the time and effort to develop a clear, compelling mission? After all, when you have a strong enough “why,” the “how’s” take care of themselves. I’ve written extensively about goal-orientation in the past, and most people understand the rudimentary mechanics of setting goals. However, many people fail to set goals that are compelling (which means “to pull.”) If have a goal, great! But do you have a goal that’s pulling at you, that’s just begging to be accomplished? If not, I’d suggest you get to work…if you’re TRULY serious that is.
5. You Have No Support. I think it was Einstein who said (and I’m paraphrasing) “The moment you have a unique idea, you become a minority of one.” And guess what? The moment you start getting serious about training, you also become a minority of sorts. Your friends and family will question the sanity of your new lifestyle. People will ask you why you want “all those muscles” anyway?! They’ll warn you about the dangers of creatine while they wolf down their third Crispy Crème. They’ll talk to you about how their doctor says weight training is unhealthy. Sound familiar? You need a training partner at a minumum, or I think I recently heard something about a Distance Coaching Group somewhere didn’t I? ;-)
6. Your System Is Bad. Having a sound methodology can spell the difference between miserable and remarkable. While there are endless varieties of bad systems, most of them fall into the category of what we call “The Terrible Triad:” single-joint exercises performed slowly on machines. The “wonderful triad” then, refers to multi-joint exercises performed at an accelerated pace using free weights. Here’s why: First, multi-joint movements (squats, presses, lunges, pull ups, and so on) not only train more muscle per exercise, they also make greater demands on the stabilization function of your smaller synergistic muscles. Second, faster movement speeds result in greater muscular tensions than slower movement speeds. I bet you are thinking; “But I insist on lifting weights under complete control!” To which I respond: did I ever say you shouldn’t use complete control? Why is it that people think speed and control are mutually-exclusive ideas? And finally, if you’re a beginner, machines are OK for now. But just like you eventually shed your training wheels, I’d urge you to shed your machines as well. It doesn’t have to happen overnight, but it should happen, because muscles are meant to control resistances, not just push against them!
7. You’re Soooo Confused. It’s remarkable to see how many people fail to take action because they think they don’t know enough yet. So allow me let you in on a little secret: you know all those big dudes in the gym...those really intimidating guys lifting gargantuan weights as they yell and scream to celebrate their own beastly dominion over the weights? A lot of those guys don’t know what they’re doing either. It’s just that they don’t realize that they don’t know what they’re doing. There’s really no way to shortcut the learning process— everyone starts out not knowing, and then over time, their knowledge grows. So by all means, read, ask questions, read this newsletter, hire a trainer (be careful though), and learn as you go. You’re going to make mistakes. Then you’ll learn from those mistakes. Eventually, you’ll know so much that you’ll have a whole new set of questions!
posted by WH @ 8:23 PM
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"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thought. With our thoughts, we make our world." ~The Buddha
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