The Fit Blog

I recently had to make a 3 day trip down to Sunnyvale California for work. It was a pretty good trip, as far as business goes (although the weather was oddly cooler than here at home in Canada).

Heading out of town for any length of time breaks up the normal routine. Sleeping, eating and exercising are all completely disturbed by meetings, work and jet lag. But with some effort, the potential damage to these three essential pieces of the fitness pie can minimized.

As I’ve mentioned in many previous posts, sleep is very important, not only for staying healthy and keeping your brain active, but for building muscle and weight loss.

Flying outside of your timezone will modify your sleep cycles enough to totally cause a run down. I find that flying East and gaining time is the most difficult. Regardless, catching some Z’s on the plane will help. Especially if you’re flying an all nighter. But there’s nothing worse than trying to sleep on the plane.

Bring on the plane:

• a neck support
• some ear plugs
• a blind fold

as soon as the first meal and movie is finished, plug your ears, support your neck, blind yourself and wrap up in a blanket. This will help get some necessary shut eye.

When you get to your hotel and your first night arrives, try to push yourself through to your normal sleep time. Otherwise, you might find yourself going to bed super early and waking up at 4am.

When it comes to eating while away, restaurants and fast food are unfortunately on the meal plan. But even when faced with double cheeseburgers and heaping piles of mashed potatoes, there are always ways of maintaining a healthy diet.

Always try to keep the Zone mentality in mind when getting a meal. Make sure to balance the protein to carb ratio, 30:40.

If you’re getting breakfast in the hotel restaurant, bacon, eggs and some fresh fruit would be ideal. Hold off on the potatoes and toast. Lunch or dinner requires something quick? Go ahead and burger it up, but skip the fries and toss the top of the bun. If a salad is offered as a side, always go that route instead of something fried.

Dinner portions at restaurants are generally huge (especially when paid for by the company) so know your limit. Just because there’s food on the plate doesn’t mean you need to eat it all. Try to skip out on the alcohol. It may be difficult, but at least stay away from the beer. Beer may taste great but we all know what it means to the bellies.

Working out, on the other hand, may be easier to accomplish during a business trip than while at home. The distractions of family life are not present and most hotels have at least some form of exercise room available.

Check when you arrive to see what time the hotel gym opens at. If you’re flying from New York to Santa Clara, you will probably be up before the sun rises so take advantage of the early morning and charge yourself up with a workout.

Most likely, however, the hotel’s exercise room will contain mostly treadmills and possibly one or two universal machines. You’ll be lucky if there are dumbbells or any other equipment. Make the most of what is available and improvise. Remember that no matter what kind of lack of equipment you’re faced with, you will always have pushups, situps, leg raises, squats and dips.

While away on business, you will be faced with all sorts of obstacles to your normal routine. The key is to try and keep up with your daily activity and manage to eat healthy.

Don’t give up and pretend that you will just continue with your routine when you get back. More likely than not it won’t happen. Once you get distracted from your workout schedule and eating plan, it is really difficult to get back on top of it.

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When most people think of a weight loss program, they first probably think of dieting. Second to that is usually some for of cardio – walking, running, elliptical, whatever. These two components are definitely important parts of losing weight. However, what many people don’t realize is that resistance training is also very important.

Resistance training is pretty much synonymous with strength training. It’s working your muscles against some sort of resistance. This includes body weight exercises like pushups, situps and air squats as well as other forms of resistance training including weight training.

Yikes – did you just say weight training? But I don’t want to get huge like Arnold. I just want to lose the bulge.

A common misconception is that weight training should be relegated for those individuals looking to gain muscle mass – who want the big guns. While it’s true that weight training is a necessity for bodybuilders, it’s pretty much a myth that lifting dumbbells and barbells translates into getting huge. In order for this to occur, bodybuilders need to eat a large number of calories on a daily basis. It’s just a difficult thing to do – especially for women. Substantial muscle growth requires hormones (like testosterone) that just isn’t as readily available in women. Even many men have much difficulty getting the big guns. For dieters, who are probably on some sort of strict diet (hopefully a Zone diet), getting huge should not be a worry at all. It aint gonna happen – not even close.

But muscle mass is a good thing for the dieter and it’s very important to include resistance training in any sort of weight loss program. Here are some reasons why.

• More muscle equals a higher metabolic rate. Research has shown that regular resistance training may boost your metabolic rate up to 15%. A higher metabolism means more fuel gets burned faster making it easier to maintain a healthy weight.
• Resistance training can boost bone mineral density, decreasing the risk of osteoporosis and fractures.
• It can strengthen weak body parts and joints, reducing the risk of injury in day to day activities and sports.
• Resistance training creates muscle and changes the body composition which improves an individual’s appearance.
• Muscle takes up less space than fat. Building muscle changes the ratio of fat to muscle on the body, helping to create tone.

So if you’re currently on a diet and have been thinking about getting to the gym and incorporating some weights, find a good weight training program and add it to your weekly routine. If you have always thought of weight lifting as a guy’s thing or something that’s strictly for bodybuilders, think again. Weight lifting and resistance training is great for all of us, regardless of our goals.

12 Comments | In: diet, weights | | #

So you’ve committed to losing some weight and have set a goal in mind. Step one complete. Now what? How do I achieve this goal? Fortunately for you, there are literally thousands of resources on the web that can help, including thefitblog.net, of course. Shameless plug aside, it’s true. If there were one resource that can actually get you to your goal weight, it’s the web. A few articles ago, I reviewed a bunch of social networking fitness sites. What I discovered today was a similar kind of site, but less geared towards social networking and more geared to helping you get on the train to successville.

Diet Television could possibly be the diet site to end all diet sites. You sign on and they more or less just tell you what to do. They get your body stats and interests (whether your looking to be lifting weights or going for runs) and from that, determine when you should expect to reach your goal and what can be done to help get you there. They devise a workout plan and include instructions for each of the exercises. They also provide lots of nutrition and diet information. The best part of all of this, of course, is that it’s completely free.

The motto for Diet Television is “Learn it, lose it, link up”, aptly describing its inclination towards goal setting and assistance. Like the social networking sites, you can create a profile and “link up” with others, which can be a source of some inspiration as you watch other individuals get closer to their goals. The site is in Beta and is still under construction, but with its simple, intuitive interface and the obvious large amount of thought put behind it, it definitely looks promising and is worth at least checking out.

1 Comment | In: diet, exercise | | #

Although recent diet “fads” have been proponents of low carbs and high proteins, the concept is certainly not something new. In fact, it’s been a common practice in bodybuilding for decades. Dave Draper, for example, went on tuna-and-water diets back in the Venice, California Muscle Beach Golden Era heyday in order to get cut and lean up.

But the “fad diets” do have a point – just as protein is important for bodybuilders to gain hard muscle, eating good amounts of protein is important for losing weight – or more specifically, breaking down the body’s fat storage. When high amounts of glucose or simple carbohydrates are ingested, insulin is produced to break down the sugars and ultimately, store any unused energy as fat. This is why eating a tub of your favourite H

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I’m an oatmeal guy on most days. But I’m also a guy and, like most people in this modern day and age, somewhat time constrained – especially during the week, in the morning. In order to get my oatmeal in, I turn to the trusty microwave. I put about half a cup of oatmeal in a bowl, cover the oatmeal with water and nuke it for exactly 1 minute and 35 seconds. Add a bit of honey and milk, and I’m good to go.

However, oatmeal does get tiresome and some days I want a little change. Some days, I want an egg for breakfast. But I just don’t have time to get out the frying pan or boil some water and I’m not one to eat a raw egg. So once again, I turn to the trusty microwave. Crack the egg in a microwave bowl and whisk it up with a teeny bit of milk. Nuke it for a minute and you’re set. I’ll usually also put the egg on a piece of multigrain or whole-wheat toast and top it off with a couple tablespoons of salsa.

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Today, the CBC reported that a “huge” U.S. study has found that “Diet soft drinks [are] linked to health risks”. The study “included nearly 9,000 observations of middle-aged men and women over four years at three different times. [It] looked at how many 355-millilitre cans of cola or other soft drinks a participant consumed each day.” The researchers found that regardless of whether the study’s participants drank diet or non-diet sodas, there was a 45% increased risk of new-onset metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome describes an umbrella of symptoms such as central obesity (apple shaped body), high blood pressure, high cholesterol and onset diabetes.

It’s clear how, with an average can of coke containing almost 8 teaspoons of sugar, regular soda can increase the likelihood of metabolic syndrome. However, what is unclear, and what the study fails to identify, is how sugar-free soft drinks can be linked to the problem.

I believe that, in general, diet or not, soda is mostly consumed by individuals with higher daily caloric intakes – not necessarily from the soda itself, but in other dietary elements. Therefore, while it may be possible to enjoy diet soft drinks and not have any symptoms of metabolic syndrome, looking to identify how soda contributes to the problem by simply looking at individuals diet\non-diet soda preferences is not going to shed an ounce of light on the role of pop in health problems. Instead, the whole diet will have to be looked at in future studies, limiting the uncontrollable dietary variables.

2 Comments | In: diet | | #

There has been no end to the number of articles being published over the last little while regarding the benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids. From the heart to the brain, Omega-3 seems as essential to the protection and maintenance of our important organs as other important vitamins and minerals. And while some drug and food administrations are still weighing in on it, most professionals will agree that whether or not to get your daily dose of Omega-3 should be a non-argument.
While the amount that should be taken daily isn’t established by any regulating bodies, some organizations suggest that males get at least 1.5g per day, while females are well off with at least 1.1g. However, some individuals suggest higher levels. Dr. Sears, the author of “The Zone Diet”, suggests a regular intake of 5g per day.
But how does one get the “required” amount of Omega-3′s into their diet? Here is a list of the top sources of Omega-3 fatty acids:

• Flaxseeds or Flaxseed oil supplements (2tbl/3.51g)
• Fatty fish or fish oil supplements (ex. salmon or cod liver) (4oz/2.09g)
• Walnuts (0.25 cup/2.27g)
• Boiled cauliflower (1cup/0.21g)
• Soybeans (1cup/1.03g)
• Steamed broccoli (1cup/0.2g)
• Omega-3 fortified eggs
• Omega-3 fortified bread
• Loads of other omega-3 fortified foods at the grocery store

For more information on Omega-3 fatty acids, check out WHFoods.

1 Comment | In: diet | | #

Dumb Little Man has a good little article giving some good reasons why drinking enough water throughout your day is important and discusses some valuable tips to help make water drinking a habit. For most of us, water isn’t the greatest tasting drink around and when faced with the options, more than not, we will choose pop, coffee, tea or juices instead of the clear natural H2O. However, there are many health benefits to choosing water as your fave beverage. The article cites weight loss, heart health, clear skin and cancer risk reduction as just a few of them.

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Although I’ve had my fair share of protein and nutrition bars, I have never had a Zone Perfect bar. However, the ZonePerfect Nutrition Company claims that their bars “contain an ideal balance of carbohydrate, protein and fat to keep you satisfied longer.” They seem to mimic the Zone diet philosophy. Coincidentally they’ve named their brand after the diet. Beyond the usual product claims and boasting that can be found on one’s own company website, the ZonePerfect site offers a bunch of other neat fitness and nutrition related things… for free… They have a healthy living page and a nutrition program page that both offer some nice bits of info. In particular, I found their recipes to be worthy of an actual attempt to be made by me. Perhaps not all companies are about the bottom line after all. Ok. Sure they are. ZonePerfect also has shakes in case you’re on the liquid diet.

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The six pack – a quest to achieve the ultimate look in the mid section. Unfortunately, also probably very very difficult for most of us and probably impossible for some. Truth is that we all have a six pack in there somewhere. And if you incorporate some amount of abdominal exercises into your weekly workout, it’s probably near as good as it gets. However, you can perform zillions of crunches and hanging leg raises and still have nary a one pack. Like most muscle definition, the six pack comes through diet. In order to get that muscle out from hiding, you will have to lose the fat surrounding it. Plain and simple… er… perhaps not so simple. But take it from Tom Venuto, author of “Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle”. He says,

It takes training to increase strength, build endurance and DEVELOP the abdominals, but to SEE the definition in your abdominals – or any other muscle group for that matter – is almost entirely the result of low body fat levels.

And if you’re concerned about his credibility, just take a gander at the pic above.

1 Comment | In: abs, diet | | #

Quinoa, pronounced keen-wa, has been gaining in popularity lately as a more healthy grain substitute. Similar to other grains, quinoa has a long history. For thousands of years it has been a staple food in South America. According to wikipedia, “the Incas, who held the crop to be sacred, referred to quinoa as “chisaya mama” or “mother of all grains”, and it was the Inca emperor who would traditionally sow the first seeds of the season.”

Unlike ordinary rice and wheat however, quinoa has more essential fatty acids and much more protein (12%

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For some, the phrase, “take your cod liver oil”, may bring back disturbing memories of a mother feeding them a spoonful of some of the most vile tasting liquid known to man. I never had to deal with it, but I can only imagine how evil it must have felt as a child – almost punishing. However, what may have once seemed absolutely disgusting beyond words has only recently had a light shone on it, showing why taking your cod liver oil may, in fact, be something that we all should continue to do on a daily basis.

Once upon a couple generations ago, fish oil was a daily given. It was thought that because of the rich vitamin A and D found in it, fish oil helped keep people healthy and prevent the contraction of some diseases. More recently, it has been discovered that it’s not necessarily the vitamins that help, it’s long chain the omega-3 fatty acids that are the wonder component. You may have noticed how grocery stores are getting stocked with milk, juices, eggs, all fortified with omega-3, but why? What is it about omega-3 that is so important?

There are two omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish oil in particular, that are key – eicospentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).

EPA is important to controling insulin levels. EPA is also beneficial in reducing the risk of cancer, arthritis and other chronic diseases. In March 2007, Dr. Mitsuhiro Yokoyama at Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine performed a study that showed that “long-term use of EPA at therapeutic doses is effective for prevention of major coronary events in high cholesterol patients.”

DHA may be even more beneficial than EPA for the human body. DHA is a major fatty acid found in the retina, sperm and brain. DHA can reduce the levels of blood triglycerides in humans and may reduce the risk of heart disease. Low levels of DHA have also been associated with Alzheimer’s, depression and ADHD. Most importantly, however, is the effect that DHA may have on the brain. No other organ in the body has as high a concentration of DHA than the brain. The fact that human breast milk is loaded with DHA may account for why one study indicated that children fed breast milk tended to score 10 percent higher on IQ tests.

Nutrition expert, Udo Erasmus includes omega-3 fatty acids as an essential part of his “Udo’s Choice Food Pyramids”, saying that omega-3 fatty acids (and slightly omega-6) “help reduce fat production in the body” and “increase fat burning and heat production, and shift the body from burning glucose to burning fats.”(*)

Fish oil may taste nasty, but fortunately no longer needs to be taken in the putrid liquid form. The supplement section of the local grocery or health food store or pharmacy will contain a whack of fish oils in capsule form. Dr. Barry Sears, the creator of the Zone diet, suggests a daily intake of 5 grams of fish oil.

3 Comments | In: diet | | #

Why is it so difficult to maintain a healthy diet, when it’s easier to cook a healthy meal than it is to cook a high fat\carb meal?

A chicken breast and a side of cooked frozen veggies takes practically no effort. Even throwing a frozen pizza in the oven takes as much effort (take it out of the box and struggle with the cellophane wrapper). Yet, I guess on those lazy days, it just seems more appealing to eat a cheesy pizza than some bland, semi-dry chicken and veggies.

My suggestion, however, is to cook a bunch of stuff up on Sunday – several chicken breasts, some turkey bacon or maybe even a pot of turkey chili. Throw some in the fridge and some in the freezer. Make your meals microwavable and you’re gold.

Frozen veggies go a long way too – throw a couple cups of frozen green beens and a couple cups of frozen broccoli in a tupper-ware container with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Add a couple slices of cut-up deli meat and bring that to work for lunch. Throw it in the micro for a minute (don’t make it too hot – it’ll stink the office up) when you’re ready to eat and give it a stir. Tastes pretty good, takes no time and is incredibly healthy. Lots of fiber, some protein and the good kind of fat and carbs. Gold.

1 Comment | In: diet, recipe | | #

Sure this guy is cut and looks extremely badass, but this is certainly not the way to get your protein after a workout.

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