Saved by the Light

As we all prepare to turn our clocks forward, it is a perfect time to starting thinking about all that we can gain from our extra hour of light. While the mornings will be darker for a while, this may be a perfect time to get started on a variety of after-work activities. Light tends to provide extra energy and motivation, so take advantage of this! While there are a lot of directions we could go with this, let’s look at just a few ways that you can use this time to help improve your overall health and start getting ready for the summer season.

The first things that could really make a difference in your overall well-being is getting into an exercise routine. In winter, it is always hard to stay on track, both with the holidays and the general dreariness of the weather (thought this year has not been too bad!). With the coming of spring, and summer only a few months away, it may be time to focus in and get focused on your exercise routine. Use that extra light to help keep you going after your workday has ended. Get to the gym, play a sport, go for a run or bike ride, or just walk around your neighborhood. Whatever movement you can fit in, go for it. There is no time like the present to start on a fitness program, and this extra sunlight is a perfect excuse to get started.

If this does not speak to you, let’s think about what else we can do to utilize this time. While exercise is important, we can also focus our attention on how we are nourishing ourselves. With the sun still out, you could come home from work, open the windows, and get going on preparing some meals. Cooking for yourself can make a huge difference in your overall health, but so often we default to what we can pick up on the way home. It’s funny how the sun being up later makes us feel that the day is not over. Use that time to get some cooking in and your body will thank you.

On a similar note, you could also spend your time working on growing your own food. There are many wonderful varieties of fruits and vegetables that come on during the summer and if you start now, you could have your own little garden ready to go in no time. You will, of course, have to work with the space you have, but even if you just grow one plant, the byproduct of your labor will truly be one of the healthiest foods you have ever eaten! There is nothing better than eating plants right off the vine, especially when it will be the most pure form of organic growing around.

One last option for using this time is to just get out in the sun. Most Americans are deficient in Vitamin D and while supplementing can help, there is no substitute for old-fashioned sunlight. Most of the winter, we barely get out in the sun, and when we do, we are covered from head to toe. That means that we are at our lowest levels of Vitamin D coming out of winter and need to build back up our supply. Now, with the sun still out after work, just walk outside when you get home and soak in the rays. Go for a walk with your arms and legs showing, or just hang out in the yard for a while. Whatever you do, this is really the first opportunity of the year to consistently get in your sun exposure.

While these options are all beneficial, in the end it comes down to what your goals are and where your motivation is coming from. Whether you’re getting ready for beach season, or just want to increase your energy, these tips will serve you well. If you have other goals, your actions may be different. Either way, the point is that extra sunlight provides an opportunity, and if you are prepared, you will not let it get away. So remember to turn those clocks forward, and wake up Sunday ready to hit the ground sunning! 

Go With Your Gut Feeling

Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Upset Stomach, Diarrhea…this is the list of issues that a swig of Pepto-Bismol is said to relieve. Pepto isn’t the only over-the-counter drug to help us with our stomach issues, though. We have Alka-Seltzer, Tums, Maalox, and many more. Each of these has been created to help us get around the discomfort we seem to find ourselves in after eating. But what about eating should lead to discomfort?

The prevalence of gut and digestive issues is alarming, but most people fail to realize just how important gut health really is. We load up on junk food, wash down some Pepto and bam, we’re good to go. But Pepto and these other antacids are only treating a symptom, not the cause. This is like putting a t-shirt over the warning light in your car: it makes the light go away, but it doesn’t keep your engine from blowing up.

Your Digestion: The Gatekeeper

To address the issues of upset stomach, heartburn, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, etc., we must first understand the role of the digestive system. Our guts have the unique and vital role of allowing in the nutrients we need to survive, while blocking harmful substances.  When you stomach is not happy, it is not asking for you to ADD something on top to shut it up. It is telling you that what you just ate was not a good choice. It is telling you that something about your last meal was poisonous. It’s telling you that you need to change something about your diet or else things are going to start getting much worse. But what do we do? We ignore it, cover it up, and just keep going as if we know more than our bodies.

Unfortunately, after consistent exposure to toxins, your digestive system will start breaking down. It will react poorly to most meals, but will not give you a clear signs that it is failing. Other issues start popping up, though. Acne, allergies, arthritis, memory loss, hair loss, dry skin, bone de-mineralization, ear infections, and just getting the everyday cold more than you used to. You see, your body depends on a strong, decisive gut to prevent anything harmful from entering the body. But once it starts breaking down, the great wall that once protected us can no longer function. Toxins of all kinds can start making their way in, and this can manifest itself in very different ways in different people. The one commonality: poor diet.

It’s In the Food

Now here’s the hard part. What exactly is a poor diet? What was once bad for us is now good, and what was good before is now bad. There is no consistency in what our health care professionals tell us, so we are stuck.  While I cannot say that we know exactly what leads to digestive issues in all people, there are a few things that have been commonly shown to play a role in many of the health concerns listed above.

The foremost culprit of gut irritation is dairy. Most people have some level of sensitivity to milk and milk products, especially as they age. We have specific enzymes in our bodies when we are young that help us digest milk sugar (lactose), but as we age, we stop producing this enzyme. Add to this that casein, a type of protein in milk, is also difficult for us to digest, and you now have two major gut issues with dairy.

The second most common issue is gluten. This is a protein found in wheat and other cereal grains such as barley, and rye. Again, gluten can be very difficult to digest, therefore leading to irritation of the gut. While “gluten-free” is becoming a trend, we must also remember that gluten-free does not mean healthy. Besides the fact that these products are often loaded up with sugar, preservatives, and other undesirable ingredients, we must also recognize that other grains, such as corn, rice, oats, and millet actually have similar proteins to gluten. While these have not been as highly associated with health issues to date, there are still some people that have a hard time with even these.

The third group actually includes a number of items, but all for the same reason. Beans (especially soybeans), nuts, and seeds all have high concentrations of yet another irritating protein, lectin. In high quantities, these items can also become a problem. The good news is that if you find the sprouted versions of these items, you will have greatly decreased the lectin amount in each. Cooking can also help, but sprouting is really the best.

What To Do

As you can see, there are a number of food items that may cause issues. If you do have a concern about your diet having a negative effect on your gut health, don’t worry about cutting EVERYTHING OUT. The best way to determine what may or may not be an issue is to take out one thing at a time for 2-4 weeks, then reintroduce it. If you feel better after your time away from it, then just keep it out and try cutting out one more item. If you don’t feel any different, reintroduce the item in 2-4 weeks and see how you react. If you react poorly, keep it out of your diet and try the next item. As you see, our goal is to discover not only whether you feel better, but also if you react poorly once your body has had a break from constant exposure.

Through this method, many people have found relief from not only digestive issues, but also many of the other issues we discussed earlier. Auto-immune disorders, joint issues, inflammatory issues, and more can all be traced back to gut health. So, work on the cause, not the symptom, and see if you can start living in better health today!

The Laziest Ways to Lose Weight

It's always nice to have a variety of ideas for how to lose weight, so here are some good ones from an article I came across recently. Click the link below to read about 14 tips for losing weight without much effort!

http://fitbie.msn.com/slideshow/laziest-ways-lose-weight/slide/1

This just goes to show that losing weight and staying healthy does not have to be hard, it just has to be sustainable. In case you don't have time to read the whole thing, here are my favorites:

1) Move while watching TV

Unless you have a very active job, there is no reason for you to go home after a long day of sitting and sit more! This doesn't mean you can't still enjoy your favorite shows though. Do push ups between the breaks, foam roll during the show, or do jumping jacks after every break. Whatever it is, keep moving!

2) Stop Between Bites

Eating slowly has been shown to have dramatic effects on food consumption. When you eat quickly, you can get a lot more down than when you take your time and really enjoy your food. By taking breaks and eating slowly, you end up getting more out each meal while eating less!

3) Sleep More

There are not many things that are more important than sleeping for weight loss, so get in as much as you can!

The one thing I was not a big fan of was the popcorn tip. While it may have fiber, nighttime snacking is not usually associated with successful weight loss. Having a few bites is not a big deal, but "a few bites" and popcorn never seem to go together. So take it easy on that one, but full steam ahead with the other habits. 

Until next time, let's pick a healthy habit that is easy to do and start doing it!

Get Down Like It’s 1889

Let’s reflect for a moment: how much have you moved today? Did you go for a walk this morning? Stretch at lunch? Hit the gym after work? What about the last few days or the last few weeks? Have you been active every day? Most days?

What we have found is that in our modern society, people just do not move enough. Not only this, but I would also say that most people do not realize just how much the human body needs to move to stay healthy. We live in a world of instant results and instant gratification, full of technology capable of doing almost any task. This is not a bad thing; in fact it is the best of things. It saves us time and money when used appropriately. The problem here is that we cannot assume that everything can be achieved instantly, or that there will always be new technology to solve our problems.

The quantity and quality of our movement is a perfect example of something that technology cannot replace. We believe that if we just do the right exercises, have the right equipment, follow the right program, that we will be able to achieve great success with limited time and/or effort. We have nothing to reference when setting our expectations about movement, because none of us are moving! Worse yet, everything we see about health and fitness has the same message: get fit fast. Workout DVDs, supplements, exercise products – everything claims to produce results with a limited investment of time or effort.

If we know that this is not the answer, then where do we look to establish a trustworthy frame of reference? I would suggest that we look to our grandparents, great-grandparents, and generations before them. 100 years ago, many of the prominent health concerns of today we’re almost nonexistent. Type II diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc. – all of these things have become more and more prevalent in modern times, and there are a number of reasons why. The one that we are concentrating on today, though, is movement.

In the past, it would have been common to be moving around ALL DAY. Some people were involved in more physically demanding work, most people walked when they needed to go somewhere, and everyone was doing more cooking, cleaning, yard work, etc. This is the frame of reference we should be using to evaluate our current movement, not the 8 Minute Abs commercial.

So ask yourself, how does your movement compare to that of your great-grandparents when they were your age? If you want to be healthy and feel your best, there are just no short cuts, you HAVE to move. And the more you move, the better you will feel. Walk around the office, get a standing desk, exercise daily, play a sport, where a pedometer. Whatever you do, you should try to stay active as much of the day as possible. No, you will not be able to keep active for 8 hours out of the day, but could you be more active than you are right now? Probably. Start there, and work your way up. Start with 5 minutes more a day, then move to 10 minutes more, then to 15, then 30, and so on. You don’t have to go from 0-60 in 4.2 seconds. Just get there eventually and it will be a much smoother ride to fitness than cycling through the myriad of health gimmicks out there. For optimal health, you must build habits, and movement is one of the most important!

Cutting-Edge Core Training

This week we have a special guest blog from strength and conditioning coach, Shyam Soin. Shyam is the owner and head trainer at Zenith Strength in Santa Clara, where he specializes in training athletes to perform their best. While this article is written for the competive athlete, we can learn a lot about what "core" training really should be. If you want a core that looks good AND keeps you safe, this program will show you the way.

Core Stability Training

As you will see, this is high level core training, but the principles are just as useful for the elite athlete as they are for a grandparent, parent, or business person. We all need a strong core to do the things we love, and this is how your going to get it.

For more videos of some of these moves, check out some of our previous posts: Core Training Posts.