Want to Get Fit? Choose the Right Fitness Plan

Want to Get Fit? Choose the Right Fitness Plan

Backsquats at boot camp

Backsquats at boot camp

If you want to lose weight, stop doing your 5 mile runs or your hour-long treadmill sessions and replace them with high-intensity interval training or Cross Fit training instead.

One of the reasons why people continue to struggle with their weight despite engaging in regular exercise is because they’re not doing the right kind of exercise! Studies have confirmed that exercising in shorter bursts with rest periods in between burns more fat than exercising continuously for an entire session.

By doing Cross Fit or another high intensity workout, such as TRX Training, you can cut the duration of your exercise session in half and still burn fat! One study showed you can burn more fat exercising for 20 minutes than for 40 minutes. In the study, women either exercised for 20 minutes, alternating 8 seconds of sprinting on a bike with 12 seconds of exercising lightly, or exercised at a regular pace for 40 minutes. After exercising three times a week for 15 weeks, those who did the 20-minute, alternating routine lost three times as much fat as the other women.

This type of exercise works because it produces high levels of chemical compounds called catecholamines, the so called “fight-or-flight” hormones, which allow more fat to be burned from under your skin and within your muscles. The resulting increase in fat oxidation is thought to drive the increased weight loss.

High Intensity Exercise Increases Growth Hormone Production

The higher your levels of Human growth hormone (HGH), also called “the fitness hormone”, the healthier and stronger you will be. After age 30, your levels of human HGH begin to drop off quite dramatically, this is called “somatopause and leads to the dreaded “middle age spread”. Maintaining your HGH levels is increasingly important as you age. You will experience vibrant health and strength the longer you can keep your body producing higher levels of HGH.

You must engage your super fast muscle fibers in order to naturally increase your body’s production of HGH. Regular aerobic cardio such as running only works your slow muscle fibers, and can impede natural HGH production by causing your super fast fibers to atrophy from lack of use. Only high-intensity power burst cardio training, such as Cross Fit exercises, TRX Training or others, will engage your super fast fibers and promote HGH production.

The Benefits of Strength Training

Women tend to avoid exercises that will increase muscle mass, but carrying more muscle has many health benefits, including:
• Improved blood circulation
• Increased metabolism
• Increased bone density
• Increased energy
• Decreased body fat
• Improved posture
• Increased range of motion
• Increased body functions

Strength training is recommended for women of all ages, including seniors. Retaining your skeletal muscles is one of the most critical elements of human fitness to keep you strong, functional and healthy. Your muscles also help regulate glucose and lipid metabolism and insulin sensitivity, which protect you against obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Cross Fit and high-intensity interval training which have intense speed and power exercises trigger a mechanism in your muscles that actually promotes muscle growth.

TRX Suspension Training - Total Body Workout

TRX Suspension Training – Total Body Workout

Exercise Slows Down Your Aging

Exercise also has other anti-aging benefits such as it can prevent or delay the onset of heart disease, hypertension, obesity, and osteoporosis, which are all common ailments associated with advancing age.

Also, if you can control the aging process inside your cells, as one anti-aging theory suggests, you should be able to control your rate of aging. Telomeres are part of your chromosomes which are inside each of your body’s cells. When your cells divide, these telomeres shorten and when they get to a certain level you will die of old age.

Exercise can not affect the telomere shortening process, but it can be accelerated by an unhealthy lifestyle. Exercise plays an important part in the prevention of aging. So, lack of exercise, obesity, stress, and smoking, all cause production of free radicals that speed up cells splitting and the telomere shortening process.


Need more ideas for Cooking Healthy Meals, then check out: The Healthy Urban Kitchen Cookbook The Healthy Urban Kitchen is a simple, step by step system for shopping, cooking and eating the world’s healthiest foods. It was created for busy people who want to improve health, have more energy, and prevent disease.

Be Thankful, Buy Local & Consume Less

Be Thankful, Buy Local & Consume Less

Heritage-bourbon-red-turkey

Bourbon Red Heritage Turkey

Back in the day, around 1621 to be exact, it has been estimated that the Pilgrims ate about 550 calories per person on Thanksgiving Day. Today the average person will consume about 2,000-to-3,000-calories for their turkey meal. Even though food was scarce, the Pilgrims ate locally and consumed less out of necessity. In most places in the United States, your meals come pre-packaged, prepared and sitting on store shelves waiting for consumers. You have a choice in what you buy, where you buy it and what you eat and what you throw away. Just in the United States alone our agri-business companies produce so much food that we waste 40 percent of it. That’s almost $100 billion worth a year.

On Black Friday ( which starts on thursday, Thanksgiving Day this year, in case you didn’t notice all the ads telling you this) is the ultimate push to consume more and more stuff…..The New Oxford American Dictionary defines Black (adj.): characterized by tragic or disastrous events; causing despair.

They tell us that Consumption makes the economy work. But in this day and age, Over Consumption seems to be the norm.

Try adding a few of these things to your holiday festivities:

1. Be Thankful, really. Write your Gratitude List and share it at the dinner table.

Woman performing a deadlift

Woman performing a deadlift

2. Do your exercise routine in the morning, you know you will never have time later. Here is a Cross Fit Workout of the Day (WOD) that is a good one to do on your own. Its called ¼ Gone Bad. You do one of 3 exercises for 15 sec every minute, so basicly you sprint for 15 sec. then rest for 45 sec. as you move onto the next exercise. The exercises we did were sumo deadlift high pulls, then pushups, then box jumps on a tire. But you can substitute any exercises you like.

Do it for 15 minutes which is 5 rounds of each exercise and when you’re done your breathing hard and feeling good. Check out some great Cross Fit WOD’s.

3. Buy Local. Buy Free Range Organic if you can. Shop at Farmer’s markets and small local groceries. Remember Saturday is Small Business Shopping Day.

4. Consume Less. Put less food on your plate. In true Paleo form make it 2/3’s vegetables and 1/3 proteins and some healthy fat. Pretend to go back for seconds later. Try the Sweet Potatoes and Brussel Sprouts instead of the mashed potatoes and stuffing. Skip the gravy too.

5. Eat til you are 2/3’s full, we all know how food has a way of expanding in our stomachs.

6. Drink a big glass of water before your meal.

paleo-pumpkin-pie

Paleo Pumpkin Pie

7. Try making some Paleo Sweets this year. Try the Paleo Pumpkin Pie I made last year, Or  Find some more recipes here >>

8.. Consume alcohol early in the evening and then stop.Much of the problem with drinking is not the alcohol but the sugar that comes with it. A “typical” margarita or vodka & tonic would be loaded with sugar. Beer is loaded with gluten and has a significant sugar content. As for wine, opt for the dry varieties as they have less sugar.

If you must drink, imbibe earlier in the evening as far away from bedtime as possible. Alcohol turns off your growth hormone release which is Not good for your health, recovery or body composition. So if you are wondering why your fat reducing is not working cut out drinking for a month and see what happens.

Or try the Paleo King, Robb Wolf’s “Paleo Margarita” recipe. The drink consists of 2 shots of tequila gold, Juice from 1 lime and a splash of seltzer water. Its quite good actually.

tcho-milk-chocolate

Tcho Milk Chocolate

9. Have some Chocolate for dessert, because we can’t give up all our vices now can we? My favorite is TCHO, its a Local Small Business on Pier 17 in San Francisco. And they do an awesome chocolate factory tour. And it comes in MILK Chocolate this year!

These 6 lifestyle changes are your first line of defense against heart disease

These 6 lifestyle changes are your first line of defense against heart disease

Heart in your handLast week, my 78 year old Mother had Open Heart Surgery unexpectedly after a heart attack that came seemingly without warning. Her heart attack only showed up as a burning sensation in her chest so she actually wasn’t sure what was happening to her because she had no idea she even had heart disease. Other than having high blood pressure and being on blood pressure medication, she was living a healthy lifestyle.

So what happened? And why aren’t women more aware of heart disease? From what I have learned it’s all about a lack of awareness and sometimes even denial.

“A recent national study conducted by the American Heart Association showed that fewer than 50% of American women know that heart disease is their leading killer.” – AMA website

“Heart Disease remains the number one killer of women in the U.S., and younger women are twice as likely to die after suffering a heart attack as men of the same age. – Vogue magazine (Nov 2011 issue)

Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the United States and it claims the lives of almost 500 000 women each year. There is more awareness and media exposure for about Breast Cancer which claims the lives of about 30,000 women each year.

I have seen denial about health issues first hand with my own family. My mother admitted she ignored the warning signs and how her body was feeling. She thought being tired all of the time, having a hard time sleeping and shortness of breath were just “signs of aging”. Having lived a healthy holistic life she is “shocked” she has heart disease. Like a lot of women she thought she was doing everything right.

Nieca Goldberg, M.D. a cardiologist at NYU’s Langone Medical Center, says, “Women don’t have what I call the Hollywood heart attack that men have – severe chest pain, for instance. They might be tired. They might just feel uncomfortable.”

Denial is common in heart disease

Denial is common in women with heart disease.

Surveys suggest such denial is common in women with heart disease.

 

Now after an emergency 5 Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery which saved her life, my mother is asking the big questions. Why did I get this and why didn’t I know I had heart disease? And as her daughter, I am asking those same questions too. Both of my parents now have had heart disease, a genetic predisposition could be one of the risk factors of heart disease.

But noted genetic researcher Dr. Robert Hegele, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada Lecturer at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2009, says “When it comes to heart disease, lifestyle usually trumps genetics.”

Dr. Hegele’s work is unraveling the nature vs. nurture debate that has intrigued scientists for years. He says that for about five per cent of patients, the effect of genetics is so strong there is little they can do, but that 95 per cent of us can override our genes by following a healthy lifestyle.

“To be sure diabetes, a result of the obesity epidemic, factors heavily in the recent increase in the heart disease, but there has also been a devastating lapse in awareness, particularly among women. Studies show, for instance, that women today are much less likely to call 911 and more likely to delay going to the hospital than they were just 5 years ago.”

“And yet any hesitation”, notes Elsa- Grace V. Giardina, M.D., a cardiologist and the director of the Center for Women’s Health at Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons, only makes matters worse. “ When you finally do get to the hospital, there’s been a lot of damage.”

Plus there has been a spike in deaths among younger women in their 30’s and 40’s.

When a heart attack strikes a young woman, she is likely to suffer debilitating damage or die. In a study that looked at gender differences among heart attack victims, researchers found that heart attacks were far more likely to be deadly if the victim was female. In fact, when Dr. Viola Vaccarino and her colleagues looked only at patients under age 50, they found that twice as many women as men died in the days following a heart attack.

Part of the explanation for this frightening statistic is that young women with heart attacks often get either no treatment or they receive delayed care. Sometimes women, and sometimes their doctors, miss the attack because they don’t realize that the symptoms of a heart attack may vary with the patient’s gender, says Vaccarino, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine.

ekg graphic

EKG Electrocardiogram

Compared to men, during a heart attack women are much more likely to experience back pain, indigestion and nausea and/or vomiting, rather than chest pain, as their symptoms.

But, while doctors are at a loss to explain why heart attacks occur in otherwise healthy young women, they have pinpointed a group who are at an elevated risk. Women who smoke, are obese, have diabetes and/or high blood pressure are more likely than others to have a heart attack.

My mother had high blood pressure as an elevated risk, but she didn’t smoke, wasn’t obese or have diabetes. Having never taken medications in her life, she is now on a smorgasbord of medicines including a blood thinner called Coumadin,.

The following symptoms could signal heart ills:

1. Angina (chest pain). Can also include back pain or deep aching and throbbing in the left or right bicep or forearm.
2. Breathlessness. Also may include waking up having difficulty catching one’s breath.
3. Clammy perspiration.
4. Dizziness. Unexplained lightheadedness, even blackouts.
5. Edema. Swelling, particularly of the ankles or lower legs.
6. Fluttering. Rapid heartbeats.
7. Gastric upset (or nausea).
8. Heavy fullness. Also may include pressure-like chest pain between breasts and radiating to left arm or shoulder.

If you are experiencing these symptoms please do not wait, contact a doctor immediately for your own safety.

Being aware of personal risk and treatment options can empower a woman to live a long and healthy life.

Heart Healthy Cooking

Heart Healthy Cooking

These top 6 Lifestyle Changes are your first line of defense against heart disease:

1. Stop smoking cigarettes and avoid secondhand tobacco smoke.

2. Get at least 30 minutes of physical activity each day. See CrossFit >>

3. Blood pressure is optimal at less than 120/80 mm Hg. If there’s a slight rise in pressure, the first line of self-defense is to improve your lifestyle habits.

4. Cholesterol levels are important for women to know. Total cholesterol optimally should be less than 200 mg/dL; LDL (bad cholesterol), less than 100 mg/dL; HDL (good cholesterol), more than 50 mg/dL; and triglycerides (a type of fat in the blood), less than 150 mg/dL.

5. Eat a heart-healthy diet that includes fruits, vegetables, grains, low-fat or nonfat dairy products, fish, legumes, and sources of protein low in saturated fat (such as, poultry, lean meats, and plant sources). Limit intake of trans fatty acids such as those found in hydrogenated oils.

6. Maintain a healthy weight, balance the calories you eat with the amount you use up each day. Diabetes (high blood sugar) is becoming more common in the United States. Unhealthy eating habits and gaining too much weight are leading causes of type II (acquired) diabetes.

Overwhelming evidence suggests that heart disease can be prevented in women.
Every woman should know what her risk level is and her prevention goals and the best way to reach them.

Need more ideas for Cooking Healthy Meals, then check out: The Healthy Urban Kitchen Cookbook The Healthy Urban Kitchen is a simple, step by step system for shopping, cooking and eating the world’s healthiest foods. It was created for busy people who want to improve health, have more energy, and prevent disease.


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