Nutrition 101

This one comes with some disclaimers.  I am not a doctor or a nutritionist or a dietician.  I have a certification in fitness nutrition and opinions, but the scope of my practice does not extend to designing diets (in the sense of what people eat, not in the sense of what people avoid eating to reduce weight).  What follows is within the scope of my practice, which is general advice about macronutrients and micronutrients.  When I am giving my personal opinion, I will say so.

 

Nutrition can be complicated because we are each lovely individual snowflakes with our own bundles of food preferences, sensitivities, and metabolic propensities.  It is my opinion that we all have to do some experimenting to figure out, within the parameters of science, works best for our bodies.  It is also my opinion that there are no inherently “good” or “bad” foods, that no one should punish themselves for eating anything, and that health comes from happiness as well as other things.

 

However, there are some general guidelines that it is good to keep in mind.  Food is made up of what are called macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) with small amounts of micronutrients (our friends the vitamins and minerals).  While there are exceptions (looking at you, keto eating plans), most people seem to do best on eating plans that are sparing with fats, moderate with proteins, and heavy on the complex carbohydrates.

 

All macronutrients are not, however, the same.  Fats come in a range from fully saturated to fully unsaturated.  The easy way to tell a saturated fat is that it is solid at room temperature.  In general, the more unsaturated a fat is, the better it is for us.  Fats are tasty (mmm…. butter!) and give us a lot of calories in small doses.  They also can help us feel satisfied at the end of a meal.  People who want to reduce their calorie intake often find that cutting the fat content helps a lot.

 

Protein is the macronutrient we use to build our tissues.  Virtually no one in our culture needs to worry about protein intake.  We all get plenty.  Animal proteins often come packaged with a pretty high fat content, so we want to pay attention to that a little.  And, for those of us who have not been paying attention for a long time:  vegetarians have no problem getting enough protein and vegans just have to be a little conscious of getting a wide range of essential amino acids.

 

Carbohydrates are the current favorite target of bad press.  This is undeserved.  Our brains function on glucose, which is a simple carbohydrate.  Now, we are not hummingbirds, so just sucking down red syrup is not enough to make our brains and bodies function well.  Simple carbohydrates, like glucose and other sugars, join together into larger molecules to form starches.  In general, the more complex a carbohydrate is, the better it is for us.  Bulky starches and their friend fiber are our friends because they make us feel full and they keep our digestion moving along.  Mom was right:  we should eat our veggies.

 

The thing is, we don’t eat macronutrients; we eat foods.  Our best bet when choosing foods is to pick the least processed versions.  An apple is better than apple juice in terms of nutritional bang for calorie buck.  That said, we don’t chow down on a pile of wheat.  Choose foods that are less processed when possible.

 

Micronutrients are generally not a problem if we select a wide variety of foods.  I am not a super proponent of lots of supplements, but a multivitamin is a reasonable insurance policy against any gaps in our food plans.

 

Finally, drink water.  Most of us don’t drink enough water and we tend to drink too much other stuff that is full of calories.  Water makes us nicer, really.

 

To sum up:  eat veggies and drink water.  The rest is pretty optional.

Scheduling 101

Over the last weeks, we have gone over all the different kinds of work we need to incorporate into our fitness routines.  It’s a lot, so we might feel a little overwhelmed about how we are going to manage to do fitness and anything else in our lives, too.

 

Never fear!  Today I’m going to talk about scheduling and how to make it all work together.

 

One traditional way to make it all fit is to stagger workouts.  We do our cardio every day and add in strength training with some stretching and balance work on two days a week.  Maybe on one day we forego the cardio and take a yoga or Pilates class to increase our commitment to flexibility and balance.  It’s perfectly workable and gives our weight-training muscles a chance to rest.

 

However, there are a couple of tweaks to the traditional system that make it work better in less time.  May I introduce everyone to my two favorite things:  interval training and circuit training.

 

Interval training (sometimes called High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT) allows us to burn more calories and improve our cardio fitness in less time.  Once we are warmed up, we intersperse whatever cardio thing we are doing with bursts of about a minute of going as fast and/or hard as we can.  If we are, say, walking on a treadmill, we increase the incline and/or speed for a minute.  Then we recover for a minute or two and repeat.  If we are biking, we add hills.  If we are swimming, we go faster.  Our hour-long workout becomes half an hour.  What’s not to like?

 

When we combine this concept with circuit training on our two or three days a week that we plan to do strength training, we get even more efficient.  We combine our weight work with cardio intervals and we’re done with both cardio and strength in 45 minutes.  (Note:  the workouts I post every Monday are designed on this principle, so we have plenty of resources available!)  With a bit of planning, we can ensure that we are building in balance moves right there in the circuit.  This is why there are always core moves and often asymmetric or single-leg versions of exercises included in the workouts I write.

 

So a weekly workout plan might look like this:

 

Monday: half hour interval cardio, 5-10 minutes stretching

Tuesday:  circuit strength training interval workout, 5-10 minutes stretching

Wednesday: same as Monday

Thursday:  same as Tuesday

Friday:  same as Monday

Saturday: Pilates or yoga

Sunday: gentle walk and stretching

 

We’re done in under an hour every day except possibly Saturday, depending on class length.

 

Go play.

Monday Workout: Kettle Bells

I am in the mood for kettlebells.  Three rounds.

 

kb swing	30
kb twist	20
kb 8/overyet	10
leg kicks	30
bench press	20
Arnold press	10
squat raise	30
flies	20
Russian twist	10

  

Amazing Stickie and the Bear Crawl

This week, the Amazing Stickie is working on her abs.  (Fine.  She does that every week, but I drew her working on her abs this time.)  She is doing this by doing the bear crawl.  To begin, she puts her hands and feet on the floor and makes an inverted V out of her body.  Then she crawls forward using her right arm and left leg and then her left arm and right leg.  Ten steps is a good amount.

As a variation, instead of making a V out of her body, sometimes Stickie begins on her hands and knees.  She lifts her knees just slightly off the floor and then crawls forward as usual.  Both are good for Stickie and, therefore, for us as well. 

Flexibility and Balance 101

Unfortunately, we don’t just need cardio and weight training to be physically fit humans.  We also need flexibility and balance.  I touched on this a little bit yesterday in talking about Pilates, which is a good way to improve both flexibility and balance, but it is not the only way.

 

Flexibility first.  I have bad news.  Most of us are getting less flexible all the time.  This is because we tend to skip even maintenance in this area.  How many workouts have we ended without a stretch?  I think we assume it’s not necessary because it feels good; we assume that all fitness things need to be unpleasant to be effective.

 

So how do we turn this around?  First:  exercise is not a punishment.  If it hurts a lot, we are doing it wrong.  (Sometimes it’s a bit uncomfortable, but that’s different.)  Second, we learn how to do flexibility right.

 

There are various schools of thought about stretching.  Personally, I think doing static stretches first thing in a workout is a good way to get hurt.  We want to warm the body up a bit before we stretch those muscles, which means we can do a little walking or we can do dynamic stretches (think of things like high knees, or windmills, or twists) if we want to do some flexibility work before our main workout.  There is some data to suggest that doing flexibility first reduces our weight lifting performance, but we may not care about that if we are not going for a world record.  I prefer to stretch after other workouts, when the body is good and warm.  It is best to stretch whatever muscles we have been using for our workout and science says holding stretches for 30 to 60 seconds works best.  Alternatively or additionally, we can add a flexibility practice like a yoga or Pilates class to our routines, but please note:  flexibility is one of those things that works best if we do it every day.  Five minutes can make a big difference.

 

Balance is a life skill.  We are all getting older and one of the major predictors of mortality in older people is falls.  Good balance is basically insurance against icky stuff like hip fractures.  I have good news:  balance is easy to incorporate into our daily routines, both in and out of our workouts.

 

In our workouts, we work on balance any time we do core work or asymmetrical work.  All those single leg exercises we do are for balance, as are things like single arm clean and presses and woodchoppers.  Our work on our pretty princesses and all our other core exercises help with balance, too.

 

However, we can sneak balance practice into regular life.  We all (I hope!) brush our teeth in the morning.  If we stand there on one leg, we are practicing balance.  Same deal for doing the dishes or waiting in line at the store.

 

A safety note about balance work:  start slow and easy and make sure that there is a counter or sturdy piece of furniture to hold on to if necessary.  We don’t want to fall while we’re learning.

 

We can do this.

Pilates 101

Most people I talk to are pretty clear on why cardio and strength training are good ideas, but they get more puzzled when Pilates comes up.  A lot of folks see the equipment and assume that it’s just an expensive form of torture, or they see a mat class and figure it’s just some flavor of yoga with less granola.

 

When we start Pilates, it is best to avoid the DIY route.  It makes a huge difference to have a knowledgeable and perceptive instructor to help us learn what Pilates has to teach us about our bodies.  So, unlike when I wrote about cardio and weight training, I’m not going to lay out where we should begin our Pilates journeys, but rather discuss why we might want to start one.

 

My favorite reason to do Pilates is that it makes me feel good.  The focus on the breath and on the mind-body connection is part of that and that focus is available to the very beginning Pilates student.

 

Of course I have lots of other reasons.  I like the way Pilates works synergistically with the other workouts I do.  The precision recruitment of muscles that Pilates requires refines my movement in every other part of my life.  The strength and endurance I get from my weight training and cardio help me access more of the Pilates repertoire.

 

I am not, by nature, a flexible person.  Pilates helps me lengthen my tight muscles, creates mobility in some of my stubborn joints, and makes more space in my spine.  Better, the exercises do all that without me having to hold a static stretch for a long time.

 

Then there is the core control and balance part.  Life, as we all have figured out by now, is full of surprise potholes, wayward hedgehogs, slippery floors, and other tripping hazards.  Successfully coping with all of that without falling on our behinds requires core control and the balance it enables.  Pilates gives us that set of tools.

 

Finally, there is the posture bit.  Not only does good posture make us look better, it makes us move better.  Better movement reduces pain in our bodies.  What’s not to like about less pain?

 

Interested in pursuing some Pilates?  Talk to me.

Monday Workout: Remember These?

It has been a while since we did bench dips, so I thought we’d revisit them.  They are a great exercise for triceps.  However, if there is no bench (or sturdy chair) available, kickbacks are a perfectly good substitution.  Three rounds.

 

suitcase swing	30
deadlift to curl	20
bench dip or kickback	10
(lunge) punches	30
rows	20
pushups	10
squat to leg lift	30
front raise	20
brains	10