Workout of the Day
Body Composition Routine

Why Do You Need More Sleep in the WInter

In the Winter many people wonder why it is so hard to get out of bed. Part of it is probably due to the fact that people don't want to get out of their warm bed but there is also some scientific reasoning behind it. During the winter there is not as much sunlight and when we are lacking in sunlight we convert the neurotransmitter serotonin into melotonin. When this conversion happens we want to sleep more. So it is natural to want to sleep more in the winter. This is one of the reasons why it is important to get some sunshine everyday.

Workout of the Day
Interval Cardio

Class Schedule for this Week
There will be no class on Thursday or Friday of this week. All other classes will remain as scheduled.

Workout of the Day
Body Composition Routine

Workout of the Day
Strength Routine

The Most Important Aspect of Sleep

When you talk to people about their sleep there are many questions that you can ask them. You can inquire about the quality of their sleep, whether or not they sleep all the way through the night, if they have trouble going to bed at night or waking up in the morning, but according to Charles Poliquin the most important thing to consider about your sleep is that you wake up at the same time every morning. If you are a person that wakes up at 6am on the weekdays and then sleeps in on the weekends then that is not optimal for your body. One somewhat easy change that you can make is to wake up at the same time on the weekend and take a nap during the day if you are tired. By doing this you allow your body's internal clock to become regulated which will only help your health, well being, and body composition.

Workout of the Day
Stength Routine

Cholesterol

Cholesterol is an often misunderstood topic these days. Cholesterol is not a good predictor of heart disease, and something that many people do not know is that it is actually not good for you to have too low of a cholesterol. If your cholesterol gets too low then your chances of things like cancer and strokes increase. If your cholesterol is low your will also have abnormal hormone production. Many of the hormones in the body are made from cholesterol, so if you cut all of the cholesterol out of your diet you will lose the ability to create proper hormone balance. Another interesting thing about cholesterol is that it can change by 20% based on the season. During the winter and fall your cholesterol will be 20% higher than in the spring and summer. So if you get your cholesterol checked in the colder months make sure that you account for the time of year.

Workout of the Day
Interval Cardio

How Depleted is Our Soil?

One of the most common things you here in the media is that a a good diet will supply all of the vitamins and minerals that you need and that supplements such as multi-vitamins are not necessary. Here is an excerpt from the 74th congress, 2nd Session, Senate Document no 264.

"Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until depleted soils from which our food comes are brought into proper mineral balance? The alarming fact is that foods(fruits, vegetables, and grains) now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain minerals are starving us - no matter how much of them we eat. The truth is that our foods vary enormously in value, and some of them aren't worth eating as food. Our physical well-being is more directly dependent upon the minerals we take into our system than upon the calories or vitamins or upon the precise proportions of starch, protein, or carbohydrate we consume. Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs, and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago. No man today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his stomach with the mineral salts he requires for perfect health, because his stomach isn't big enough to hold them. And we are turning into a nation of big stomachs."

The scariest thing about the testimony that was given to the Senate is that it was given in 1936! This quote came from the book The Miracle of Magnesium. Just think about how much further the quality of our food supply has diminished in the last 70 years. In our world today it is nearly impossible to get enough of the raw materials we need for optimal health. For these reasons it is vital that everyone is taking a quality multi-vitamin.

Workout of the Day
Strength routine

Margarine

If you go through the grocery store today there are trans fats everywhere. Try going through the grocery store this week to see how many products have hydrogenated oil in the ingredients. Trans fats should not be consumed by humans since they disrupt many processes in the body. Someone told me last week that you can actually run your car on margarine. The main ingredient in most margarines is trans fat and trans fats are actually very similar to motor oil. The are not good for us so do yourself a favor and try to avoid anything that has hydrogenated oils in the ingredients. If you do end up consuming trans fats one thing that can help is fish oil. The omega 3's help to push the trans fats out of the cells.

Workout of the Day
Strength Routine

Optimal vs Adequate

Today for most nutrients people go by the RDA (recommended daily allowance). What most people do not realize is that the RDA was developed in order to prevent disease. For example, the RDA, for vitamin C was set at the level you must consume to avoid getting scurvy. This is true for all of the nutrients, the levels are set at the level you need to avoid getting the diseases that result from a deficiency in that nutrient. What most people do not realize is that these levels are what you need to prevent disease not to have optimal health. If you wish to have optimal health then you must consume larger quantities of many of the nutrients. The same can be said about working out. There is a certain minimum amount necessary to stay lean and avoid sickness but this level is not the optimal level to really make progress and get leaner. In order to improve your body composition you must consume optimal amounts of nutrients and workout at the optimal frequency and intensity for your body. Doing the minimum will not work. Remember that extraordinary results require extraordinary methods.

Workout of the Day
Strength Routine

Number of Workouts

One of the most frequent questions that I get asked is how often people should workout. You should do something everyday with maybe one day off per week. Keep in mind that the type of workouts that you do throughout the week should vary. One thing that I learned from Charles Poliquin regarding getting stronger is that the more frequently you lift weights the more often you will stimulate protein synthesis. The more often you can stimulate protein synthesis the faster your body will change.

Workout of the Day
Strength Routine

Immune System

Often people want to know ways to get healthy. One of the best ways to keep from getting sick is to eat a proper diet and ensure that your digestive system is working properly. 70% of your immune system is in your gut so the foods that you eat play a huge role in determining your overall health. If you eat foods that are lacking in nutrition or that are inflammatory foods for your body then you are going to have trouble staying healthy. However, if you consume a good diet(which is different for everyone) while avoiding foods that you are sensitive to you will ensure that your immune system functions properly. So what are signs that your gut could be functioning better or that you are eating foods that your body does not do well with. Any type of autoimmune disorder is a dead give away that you have been eating foods that your body does not like. This could be anything from arthritis, type 1 diabetes, thyroid disorders , eczema, psoriasis, celiac disease, chron's disease, or allergies. All of these disorders and many others come from eating the wrong foods. Other signs that your gut is not functioning properly are digestive issues such as diarrhea, constipation, bloating, gas, indigestion, and heartburn.

Workout of the Day
Interval Cardio

Food Sensitivities

Food sensitivities are something that we do not normally think about but they can affect the results that you get when trying to lose weight, gain muscle, or get leaner. If you are sensitive to a food then you are basically allergic to it. This does not mean that you are going to get hives or break into a rash if you eat the food but it does mean that the food causes a stress on your body. When a food puts a stress on your body it increases your cortisol levels and makes your digestive system worse which does not allow you to pull nutrition from your food as well. So what are some common foods that people are sensitive to. Eggs, dairy, wheat, and soy are all at the top of the list when it comes to food sensitivities so if you have a hard time getting rid of stubborn fat you may consider cutting these foods out for a couple of weeks and see what happens.

Workout of the Day
Strength Routine

Strength

Many people think that the most important thing in fitness is cardio. The question I always ask everyone is what are you more likely to need in everyday life, the ability to lift something or the ability to run 5 miles? The answer is always going to be that you need the strength to be able to lift things. For example, this weekend I was on a flight to Phoenix and I noticed that there were several women in their 40's who could not lift their carry-on bags into the overhead compartment. They had to get help from others on the plane. In our lives we are much more likely to have to lift or move something heavy than we to run 5 miles and your training in the gym should reflect the fact that we need strength in everyday life. The most common problem I see with newcomers to the gym is that they are too weak. Just remember that muscle mass not only protects your immune system but it is also much more metabolically demanding thus it allows you to burn more fat.

Workout of the Day
Strength Routine

What do all Nutritionists Agree On

Changes in the Class Schedule
Thursday and Friday of this week the 9am class will be moved to 8am

When it comes to nutrition there are many different opinions. If you go to tbe book store you will find an endless number of diet books that all have different methods. The truth with nutrition is that it is an individual thing. Most nutritionists tend to prescribe diets that work for them. So if you got together a large group of nutrition experts what would be the one thing that they would all agree on. It wouldn't be how much protein, fat, or carbs to eat, and it wouldn't be which types of fat or carbs to eat. The one thing that everyone would agree on would be that people should eat more vegetables. Vegetables are the ideal carb source as they provide large amounts of nutrients for a very minimal amount of calories and insulin response. Vegetable intake is one of the keys to attaining your body composition goals. I often consider green vegetables to be a negative calorie food, because it actually takes more calories to digest them than they contain. So you can eat as big a portion size as you want of green vegetables.


Workout of the Day
Interval Cardio

Trick or Treating is Exercise

This Halloween I noticed something very disturbing. We had several kids that came to our door huffing and puffing from walking around the neighborhood. A couple of kids even complained about how tired they were from walking around the neighborhood. The sad thing is that for many of these kids the walking that they did while trick or treating is probably more exercise than they are used to doing. If kids are tired from trick or treating then they need more exercise. The lifestyle for most kids today is to go to school then come home and either watch tv, play video games, or get on the computer. We need to find ways to get kids more active and one of the best ways is for the parents to be more active. Kids love to workout. I have never had a kid come into my facility who did not want to at least play with the equipment and try what everyone else was doing. So if you are having trouble getting your kids moving, then start to workout yourself and see if your kids take an interest. More often than not they will be interested.

Workout of the Day
Body Composition Routine

Turn Back the Clock for Better Health

Yesterday, we turned back the clocks and everywhere people got helathier. I heard a stat on the radio the other day that when we turn back the clocks the incidence of heart attacks on that day are cut in half. Why would this be? Last week we talked about the importance of sleep for balancing your hormones. When we turned back the clocks everyone got an extra hour of sleep and since most people chronically undersleep that extra hour makes a big difference for the overall health of our society. So what happens when we undersleep. When we have not rested enough our bodies are under stress which causes a release of cortisol. If we chronically undersleep then our bodies are always under stress which means chronically elevated cortisol. Chronically elevated cortisol makes us insulin resistant, and also ramps down your thyroid. This creates the perfect environment for gaining fat and losing muscle. When we become insulin resistant our bodies also lose the ability to absorb magnesium properly and magnesium is needed for relaxing sleep and smooth funtioning of the heart muscles. So by adding an extra hour of sleep to everyones day we helped a large number of people balance their hormones better and this is the key to better health and body composition. So the take home lesson from all of this is to get more sleep!

Workout of the Day
20 min interval workout