Hey, Sugar...

Let’s talk about sugar.  I love sugar.  It’s not just me, either.  Babies prefer sweets because hey! calories!  Brains prefer glucose as a source of energy and, like all those -ose words, glucose is a sugar.  (All right, otiose is not a sugar and it’s not sweet either, and I’m sure there are other exceptions, but otiose doesn’t usually turn up on food labels.)

 

However, the thing about sugar is that, aside from calories and some instinctual comfort, it doesn’t have a lot to offer us, all by itself.  This makes it tricky for those of us—ahem—all of us—who need to pay attention to avoiding too many calories.

 

While all sugars more or less process the same in the body, sugars that exist in whole foods already are better choices.  Which is to say a bowl of strawberries is better than a bowl of strawberry jam (processed with sugar) or strawberry ice cream (ditto).  The strawberries have vitamin C, manganese, B9 (folate), and potassium in them, so they’re more than just a pretty berry with a sweet aftertaste.

 

Sugar consumption, of course, is an issue for folks with diabetes (both kinds).  It seems to increase inflammation in tissues.  Some folks find that eating more sugar leads to more hot flashes in populations who experience them.  Also, sugar can be addictive and thus challenging to wean ourselves away from.

 

Please note:  I’m not saying to avoid all sugar everywhere all the time.  Just make good choices.

Monday Workout: Lunges are good for us

Another fun batch of compound exercises for this week.  If your knees don’t like lunges, just do curls.  If your brain doesn’t like lunges, too bad:  they’re good for you.  Three rounds.

 

step up	30
(lunge to) curl	20
Arnold press	10
squat to leg lift	30
rows	20
kickbacks	10
jacks	30
1 leg deadlift	20
brains	10

 

Five Ingredients for Success

Working out is great, but there are some things we can do that are NOT working out to make those workouts better.  Here are five:

 

1.     Drink water.  Hydration is essential to our bodies’ processes.  Enough water will help us work out better and longer and recover faster.

2.     Eat.  Those of us who decide to work out to lose weight sometimes don’t eat enough.  We want to choose nutrient dense foods to fuel our workouts.

3.     Wear the right shoes.  No one wants shin splints or a sprained ankle or plantar fasciitis.  Heck, we don’t even want blisters.  (Sometimes, like when we do yoga or Pilates, the right shoes are no shoes at all.)

4.     Use safety equipment.  Those strong legs we are developing while biking won’t do us a bit of good if we crack our skulls open.  Wear the helmet—or the knee pads, or the life jacket, or whatever.

5.     Have fun.  Most workouts do NOT have to be drudgery.  Take a friend, turn up the music, get silly, whatever it takes to make it more like play.

Warning!

It is entirely possible that workouts should come with a warning label.  Not because workouts will make us sore or tired, although they most likely will if we are doing them right.  Workouts can be addictive.  They can be a gateway drug to a whole new kind of living.

 

We start with maybe a little walk around the block.  That leads to longer walks, or maybe even some running.  We get better shoes.  Our muscles get stiff, so suddenly we start stretching.  We realize that we like our runs better when we have a good breakfast first.  One day we wake up and there we are:  eating our veggies, drinking water, pumping iron, and high on cardio.

 

The good news?  Most of us can get addicted to working out with no real ill effects—I mean, most of us feel worse from taco-and-margarita night than from the average workout.

 

Go play.

Issues...

In the book group I belong to, we are reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.  The premise is that Harold gets a letter from a former coworker, Queenie, who is dying in hospice, roughly 500 miles away in Scotland.  He writes back, but on his way to the mailbox, he decides he needs to deliver the letter in person and he just starts walking, right then.  He’s wearing boating shoes.  He doesn’t have his cell phone.  He doesn’t tell his wife.  I’m not done reading the book yet (although it is really hard not to read ahead!), but so far it is lovely.

 

(I’m not suggesting that any of us start out on a 500-mile trek with no preparation and bad shoes.)

 

In the portion I read for last week, Harold struggles.  He gets blisters and shin splints.  He gets tired and discouraged.  And, as he continues to walk, he finds himself remembering hard times in his life, difficulties with his wife and his son, failures.

 

I mention this because the phenomenon is familiar to personal trainers, Pilates folks, yoga teachers, and body workers.  Harold has “issues in his tissues.”  In other words, sometimes when we work our bodies, it releases emotions and memories and past traumas.  This can make the hard work we do with our bodies harder.

 

Knowing that this is a real phenomenon can help us cope.  Continuing to move our bodies (with kindness!) and to breathe can help, too.  Working out is no substitute for therapy or medical care, but it is a useful adjunct.

 

Keep breathing.

Monday Workout: Sneaky Core

This week we are doing some work with our obliques and our back muscles while we happen to be working other stuff.  Core work goes way beyond crunches!  Three rounds.

 

woodchoppers	30
flies	20
YTA	10
1 arm clean and press	30
bench press	20
curls	10
overhead curtsy or march	30
deadlifts	20
pretty princesses	10

Compounding the Issue

I am big on compound exercises, which are exercises that use multiple joints and muscle groups at the same time.  Here are some reasons why:

 

1.     They’re efficient.  We get more workout in less time when we do compound exercises.

2.     They amp up our metabolism.  Whether that means increased weight loss or an extra cookie is up to the person working out.

3.     They’re practical.  Anybody who has ever moved understands that very few things in the real world are shaped like barbells and dumbbells.  When we need to use our strength in our regular lives, we don’t often use just one muscle group all by itself.

4.     They’re more fun.  This one might be debatable, but I’m going with it.  When we have to coordinate the movement of multiple body parts, we have to use our brains and that’s way more interesting than just waving some dumbbells around.