Nutrition, part 2

Food is one of the joys of life, in my opinion.  It’s also necessary!  Choosing foods that are both good for us and fun to eat helps us live a happy life.

So how do we do that?

 

In general, we want to choose foods that are close to how they occur in nature.  Eating an apple is going to be better for us than eating an apple pie.  And sour apple candy isn’t even food and may not have any actual relationship with apples.  This principle means that whole grains are better for us than processed grains, that fresh veggies are on the whole better than canned, that fresh fruit is better than jam, etc.

 

However, we also want to consider that food is more than just fuel for our bodies.  Food is part of our culture and our social interactions.  When we’re considering apple pie, we may need to remember that our grandpa baked it with love and we get to hear him tell stories while we eat it.  That feeds us, too.  If we get so hung up on eating the “right” things, we may skip going out with friends and that’s not good for us either.

 

Most of the time, we want to choose real food, minimally processed, and cooked in ways that are good for us.  Sometimes, not so much.

 

Or, as my personal guru, Cookie Monster, says:  “Healthy food makes me a healthy dude” and “Cookies are a sometimes food.”  

Nutrition, Part 1

A third pillar of wellness is nutrition.  We can’t be well without proper fuel.  Today I’m going to go over macronutrients and tomorrow I’m going to talk about actual food.

There are three macronutrients:  protein, carbohydrates, and fats.  When we eat food, we’re ingesting some combination of these three.

 

Protein is crucial for building and rebuilding our bodies.  If we don’t get enough protein in our diets, we have trouble healing from injury.  Those of us who would like to change our body compositions toward more lean tissue also need protein in order to do that.  Vegetarians and vegans need to be careful to ensure that they are getting good sources of protein because most non-animal proteins don’t have all the essential amino acids we need to get from our diets, but it’s not that complicated.

 

Carbohydrates get a bad rap these days and a lot of them don’t deserve it.  Unless we have celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity, there is no reason to avoid our friends the whole grains.  Carbohydrates are a good source of energy for us.  Also:  veggies!  We love veggies!  Quality matters in carbs, though.  There’s a big difference between getting carbs from vegetables and whole grains and from a box of donuts.  When in doubt, choose the carbs with more fiber.

 

Fat is also essential for our bodies to function.  It is a dense source of calories, which is important when we are doing lots of exercise.  Quality matters here, too.  In general, the best fats for us are the ones that are liquid at room temperature.  Those are the unsaturated fats.  Saturated fats are solid at room temperature.  Focusing on getting our fats from healthy whole food sources like nuts and seeds, oily fish, and the like is a good way to get what we need without overdoing it.

 

We don’t sit down to a nice plate of protein, carbs, and fat, though.  We eat food.  I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Monday Workout: Balance Mood

Apparently, I’m in a balance kind of mood.  We’re working balance directly with the one-leg exercises and indirectly with the shoulder tap pushup, the quadruped lateral raise, and the plank.  Three rounds.

 

step up (to back lunge)	30
1 leg deadlift	20
1 leg db pass	10
db kick	30
good morning	20
shoulder tap pushup	10
squat to leg lift	30
quadruped lateral raise	20
plank	10

 

Thursday List: 7 More

So:  it’s time to recover.  What are we going to do?  Here are some ideas:

 

1.     Sleep.

2.     Eat.  Preferably something with actual nutrition in it, but something is better than nothing.

3.     Chill.  The fancy term for this is “quiet wakefulness.”  It can mean anything from meditating to reading to staring into space.

4.     Light movement.  This would be something like gentle stretching or a bit of a stroll just to keep the muscles limber and lithe.

5.     Hot or cold.  Or both!  Some folks like alternating sauna and cold plunge.  Some folks swear by ice.  Others are all about the heating pad.  Do you, but consider that ice is generally great for reducing swelling and heat is generally very soothing.

6.     Stuff that pushes on the body.  On the expensive end, we have massage.  Somewhere in the middle we have percussive therapy (the massage guns range in price, but the most expensive ones I saw in a quick visit online were about $150 and most were significantly cheaper).  For the budget minded, we have foam rollers and all their various relatives.  All of them help our bodies release tension and allow us to build flexibility.

7.     Other stuff.  That can be things like acupuncture or going outside or doing puzzles or looking at art.  If it feeds your soul, it’s good for recovery.

Recovery and Healing, Part 2

When we are “just” sore from whatever kind of movement we’ve been doing, whether it is our first steps around the block or our hardest, heaviest weight workout to date, we need to take some steps to recover.  Heck, even if we are not sore, we need to make sure that we give our bodies space and time and care for recovery.  Bodies like that.

The low-hanging fruit of recovery is pretty much stuff we should be doing anyway:  eating food that is good for us, getting enough sleep, and taking time for mental relaxation.  (This may be time to give ourselves a pat on the back:  we were doing an awesome job without even thinking about it!  Go us!)

 

If we need something a bit more direct, we have even more fun options, ranging from light movement (think yoga and stretching of a very gentle stroll) to massage to foam rolling. 

 

I want to be clear about something.  Often in our hustle culture, we absorb the attitude that we don’t have time to recover.  Our societal anxiety about being and doing enough can make us feel like rest is a waste of time and frivolous.  This is not true.  All of us deserve to rest and recover because we are valuable humans even if we do exactly nothing more with the rest of our existence.  And, if that turns out not to be convincing, I’ll give y’all’s Protestant work ethic a reason to recover:  it will make us more productive in the long run.  (I like the first reason better.  We are all beloved children of God or essential parts of the universe or however you prefer to phrase it to yourself.)  Bottom line:  work and then rest.

Recovery and Healing, Part 1

Another aspect of wellness is how we deal with recovery and healing.  That’s the focus for this week.

When we start getting more movement into our lives, we sometimes get sore.  And most of us, at some point in our lives, will have to deal with some kind of injury that requires us to pay attention to healing.  Recovery and healing often have similar aspects, but they are not entirely the same.

 

Today I’m going to be Captain Obvious and say:  if you are injured, seek medical attention.  DIY is all well and good, but most of us aren’t actually doctors.  Get a professional to check you out and then follow their advice.

 

Tomorrow:  dealing with non-injury recovery.

Monday Workout: Bonus Core!

This week, we have a bunch of exercises that work the core while we do other stuff.  Bonus points!  My favorite!  Three rounds.

 

suitcase swings	30
flies	20
renegade rows	10
db circles	30
bench press	20
front raise	10
mountain climbers	30
skullcrushers	20
brains	10