Food and Addiction

After back to back interviews this week, with two separate individuals, both looking to lose more than 60 lbs of excess weight and both being self-proclaimed “food-a-holics,” I presumed that addressing food addiction might be a helpful subject to tackle for my readers. After all, nearly 60% of the emails that I receive about nutrition and meal planning ask specifically about whether there is such a thing as a food addiction and if so, how might one break it. 

Like with all addictions, using a substance, be it alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, pornography or yes, even fatty foods, as a means to release stress or to provide immediate physical and/or emotional gratification, is a complicated pattern to break. Studies show that food, particularly high calorie foods consumed repeatedly over a long period of time, activate the same pleasure centres of the brain as highly addictive drugs.  Making “overuse” or binging behaviour more prevalent since with each act, the exposure to the substance needs to be increased, making it more difficult to satisfy the craving each time.

While reading this month’s copy of Maclean’s, I stumbled upon an interesting article that summarizes this very subject, and backs it with research done by two men, Paul Kenny and Paul Johnson. Normally, I wouldn’t go to great lengths to repeat the findings of rat studies, but the results found by these two gentleman simply baffled me, and support my belief that the key to weight loss starts first with nutrition, and then exercise.  

Kenny and Johnson, two researchers, published in the Journal of Nature Neuroscience, performed a study with a group of lab rats.  The rats were provided with all sorts of unhealthy, fatty and sugary foods. During the study, the rats were exposed to junk food only, but were also later given healthy food, in addition to the foods high in fats and in sugars.  Not surprisingly however, these rats opted only for the junk food, even when other healthy options were available.  Yet what’s even more intriguing, is that when the fatty, sugary foods were taken away as part of the experiment, the rats, now obese, preferred to starve themselves for days rather than to eat the healthy foods that were still provided to them.  (A Magic Calorie Ride, MacLean’s, January 17, 2011)

The power of junk food is enormous!  It’s the reason why there are over a “billion served” at fast food restaurants.   Like any addiction, you need to approach it with a support system in place and a good plan of attack.  I too, grew up on numerous cans of cola per day, and fast-food-Fridays.  It took me a long time to see myself through to where I am now, eating simply clean, healthy food from the earth….and not food from factories.  Digging yourself out of a hole that can only get deeper is hard work and could be the biggest life-challenge that you’ll ever face.  But the change is worth it!  Making the decision to make a change is the first step. Getting help and support is the next.  

Healthy Eating and Sample Meal Plan

As a fitness expert and certified nutritionist, I get asked everyday “…how can I know that what I am eating is healthy and will support healthy natural weight loss?”  Instead of meal planning for my clients, I give them a list of great healthy foods to look for at the supermarket, and tips on learning portion control and meal timing.

One of the most important things you can do with regards to nutrition is eating small meals often.  To keep your body from getting hungry and then overeating, eat 4-6 small meals per day.  Most people turn off right away when they hear this.  This doesn’t mean that you need to “cook” yourself extraordinary meals several times per day, but simply that you need to starve off hungry so that you keep your metabolism up and active, and so that you don’t overeat later.

Each “meal” should have about 30-40% vegetables and fruits, 30-40% lean protein, 20% grains, 5-10% fats.  Think small portion sizes.  Never stuff yourself full.  Meat portions should be the size of a deck of cards, vegetables should be 1 cup’s worth, with a tablespoon of olive or canola oil, and a half cup of grains.

Here are some examples of good forms of carbohydrates, proteins and fats to look for at the supermarket. 

Proteins

fish, tuna, white fishes, salmon, crab,  

beans

lentils

chickpeas

eggs

dairy such as yoghurt, milk and low fat cheese

whey protein to mix into fruit smoothies

Carbohydrates/Grains

whole grain bread

brown long grain rice (the kind that takes time to cook)

fresh baked brown whole wheat bread (no packaged foods…no added glucose-fructose)

100% whole grain plain rice cakes…not the ones with MSG (great with hummus, peanut butter or plain)

a variety of dark, leafy green vegetables

red and orange vegetables

Fats

Nuts

Avocados

Olive, coconut and canola oils

Natural peanut butter

Low fat cheeses (1-2 tablespoons per day max if trying to lose weight)

Example of a day of healthy eating

Breakfast 

Full 8 oz glass of water before anything else (try this with a straw)

2 scrambled eggs (only 1 yolk) 

1 piece 100% rye toast

Half a piece of fruit

Mid-Morning snack

Small whey or soy protein smoothie (mixed with water, milk, soy or almond milk) and your favourite fruit.

Lunch

Spinach salad with other colourful veggies, with half a can of tuna or chicken breast no bigger than the size of a deck of cards

Late Afternoon Snack

Half cup of hummus on celery sticks, carrots or ricecake

Dinner

Baked or steamed cod filet (deck of cards)

1-cup green beans drizzled with olive oil and a splash of red wine vinegar

Half cup of brown rice spritzed with olive oil (Rice tastes great with hot dijon mustard)

If you must have a dessert or sweet, one small square of dark 70-80% chocolate.

Healthy eating does not have to be time consuming or expensive.  You just need a little preplanning and thought so that you’re not grabbing for anything when you get hungry.  The farther ahead you plan your meals and snacks, the better off you will be.

For more information on eating well, or to book a healthy eating grocery store tour with a nutritionist, contact us at Fitness Anywhere.  www-fit-anywhere.com

New Year, New You! How to Stick to your Resolutions.

January is an interesting time of year for those of us working in the fitness industry.  Each New Year that comes, fitness professionals see a resurgence of energy and self-motivation that transpires simply from the turn of the calendar page. With it, the ability to start over, to shed ourselves of our old skins, to start afresh simply because it’s January 1^st, seems effortless. 

However, how many actually successfully stick to their New Year’s resolutions in the long term? And why do so many fail, and eventually creep back into their old patterns, be it smoking, eating poorly, or continuing to live a sedentary lifestyle?  Put simply, behavioural change, especially for adults who are very much already set in their ways, is difficult to achieve in the long term unless small, gradual steps are made.  What I often see as a fitness trainer at the turn of each New Year, are a fleet of newly motivated individuals, so eager to change their ways, and get started on their new path toward health and fitness, that they do everything all at once.  For example, if your New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, quit smoking, drink more water, exercise more regularly, and to eat more healthily, one of these changes alone could cause you unexpected disruptions to how you have become accustomed to living.  Planning for too many changes at once, can be too much for you to take on and could cause you to give up all together. Your best chance for success is to give yourself a long-term plan of attack that begins now, but includes small individual mini-goals to achieve in your own good time. Set all your desired changes as long-term, and plan to get to them by accomplishing very specific small, short term goals, such as quitting smoking alone, or by simply cutting out on fatty foods, or by committing to one set day for exercise per week.  What ever your resolution, achieve it by taking small steps towards it.  This way you do not become overwhelmed, overworked, and discouraged by shooting for everything all at once.  Work on one thing to change at a time, the one that is most important to you and your health, let your body and mind adapt slowly before you introduce another challenge.  

Behaviour is not an easy thing to change, but it is possible if you do it with patience, persistence and with a good progressive plan that follows sequential steps or mini-goals that ultimately lead toward your target goal.

Enjoy the New Year and all the motivation that it brings, but take things in stride, set your goals high, and plan to reach your goal by successively taking small baby steps toward it.

10 Fun Ways to Stay Fit Over the Holidays Without the Gym!

If you think that your only option for maintaining fitness over the holidays is a long boring hour on the treadmill, or mindlessly running through your usual sets at the gym, I challenge you to think differently.  Exercising outdoors is an invigorating way to share time with friends and family, while being fit.  Here are the top 10 fat-burning, calorie-consuming activities that anyone can do over the holidays.

10) Ice skating – Ice-skating can be an excellent exercise, not only is it good cardio, but it also works the large muscle groups of the legs, butt and core.  One hour of ice-skating can burn between 400-700 calories.

9) Tobogganing – Hauling a sled uphill, especially one carrying the load of a rosy cheeked child on it, and gliding effortlessly downhill afterward, creates the perfect rest/effort combination, like that of interval training, without you even realizing just how much you’re working. A good hour of sledding can burn 300- 550 calories.

8) Downhill Skiing – This well known winter sport tones the muscles of your hips, thighs and calves and burns 470 – 800 calories per hour.

7) Snowshoeing – An excellent outdoor cardio, allows you to explore some great untouched winter wonderlands.  Take the road less travelled and burn 420-670 calories per hour.

6) Road Hockey - This fun-spirited outdoor game is great to play during family holiday get-togethers no matter what your age or level.  A good hour of road hockey is excellent cardiovascular activity and can eat up between 400-800 calories.

5) Cross Country Skiing - The perfect full body workout!  You won’t feel a touch of the cold during this activity as cross country skiing has you burning 400-700 calories in a one hour bout.

4) Snow Ball Fights – whether organized into teams with specific battlefield rules or just random snowball tossing, a good snow ball fight will have you running, ducking and throwing hard.  Burn between 300-600 calories with this activity.

3) Snowman Making – This light-hearted activity will bring you right back to the days of your youth…and the squatting, rolling and lifting will bring your body right back there as well.  This winter pastime burns 200-300 calories.

2) Shovelling the snow – The least fun activity of the list but the most necessary.  Snow shovelling works the muscles of the upper and lower back, arms and shoulders, burning between 450 – 1230 calories depending on the size of your walkway and the heaviness of your snowfall.

1) Making Snow Angels –Clearly the most effortless and short lived exercise of the list, yet still an excellent addition to any of the above activities, as all four limbs move in unity, burning 200-250 joyful calories per hour… a smile on your face is guaranteed during this one.  

Embrace the winter this year!  Break a sweat outside.

Water…Your Key to Health and Weight Loss!

Did you know that many people live day to day in a dehydrated state? Our bodies are made up of 75% water and 25% solid matter. The average male needs to 3.7 litres of water everyday and the average female 2.5 litres of water in order to properly lubricate  joints, prevent kidney stones, to maintain good healthy skin, to ward off colds, flu and other winter ailments, as well as to maintain proper organ function. Most importantly, it keeps us from poisoning ourselves from our own waste.

Water is also the key to weight loss. Without water, vital chemical reactions aren’t present in order for proper digestion to occur, so your body won’t metabolise fat properly without it.  Paradoxically, by not having enough water, your body retains fluids in an effort to keep a reserve, and can cause ankle swelling and other conditions that make you appear bloated, overweight and unhealthy.

Exercise, salty foods, caffeine, and alcohol dehydrate the body. Drinking a full, pure, 8 oz. glass of water first thing upon waking is an excellent way to rejuvenate the body and reactivates your sleeping digestive system. Carry a refillable bottle of water with you and sip it throughout the day. Drink 500 ml of water an hour before any physical activity, then another 200 ml 20 minutes before, and then again every 15 minutes during activity and enjoy another 500 ml post workout.  

If you find it difficult to put back so many glasses of water, try drinking with a straw.  This facilitates ingestion as the water goes down much more quickly and easily.  Always keep it on you, and never let yourself get thirsty.  At this point you’re already dehydrated.

Remember that the well-known 8 - 10 glasses per day is the bear minimum to avoid dehydration.   Add an extra glass for every 25 pounds you are over weight.  If you are physically active or live in a hot or a cold dry climate, you can nearly double this amount. If you’re not currently drinking close to the recommended amount of water, slowly and gradually add a glass of water per day so that you don’t over work your kidneys all at once.  Stay healthy by staying hydrated.

For more information on how to stay healthy and fit, go to www.fit-anywhere.com

Are You Starving Yourself Fat?

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When it comes to weight loss, eating habits and proper nutrition play an enormous role in your success.  You can train hard everyday, but if you’re not fueling yourself properly, it will be impossible to get the results that you’re looking for.  What is the number one mistake that the average working person makes with regard to their eating habits?  Nope, it’s not one too many happy meals, but rather skipping meals all together. 

When it comes to weight management, cutting back your calories is certainly a good remedy for trimming the waistline, but how you eliminate those excess calories is just as important as what you eliminate.  Counting calories has never been a practice that I’d condone as a personal trainer.  However, being mindful of your body’s daily caloric needs is very important when it comes to having a healthy weight.  Your body needs calories in small amounts regularly in order to keep your metabolism up and working to burn the calories that you consume.  However, skipping meals, especially breakfast, can greatly affect how your body uses the fuel that you provide it.    

Imagine that your body’s metabolism is like that of a campfire.  In order to keep the fire burning without going out, you must continuously maintain it with sticks and twigs and small fire logs, keeping the flame hot by regularly adding more good fuel to it.  Forgetting to add more wood to the fire would result in a weak flame, or could even put the fire out, leaving you merely with smouldering embers.  Once you realize that it’s time to add more fuel to the fire, it could be rather difficult to get a hot flame back.  Your tendency might even be to add a rather large log in a desperate attempt to get it going.  However, you needn’t be a scout to know that an oversized fire log will take days to burn over embers. 

The same principle applies to your metabolism.  If you skip a meal, or let yourself go hungry for too long, your “fire” will diminish as well, since it’ll have nothing to sustain it. Once you do decide to eat again, chances are that your body will have placed itself in a starvation mode, slowing the metabolism down, storing up energy in the form of fat.  This is the body’s means of survival since it doesn’t know when it will eat again, and therefore conserves whatever fuel it had last.  Unfortunately, it conserves it as fat on your body.

What also happens, is that when you skip a meal, you choose to overeat at the next meal, so not only does your body store extra energy as fat as a response to being starved, but overeating at one sitting stretches your stomach so that it will need all that much more to feel full the next time you decide to eat.  You stomach is the size of a fist, keep that in mind when you’ve heaped a mountain of food on your plate.

You can avoid such detrimental eating patterns by eating small meals and snacks every 2-3 hours 4-6 times per day, with a cessation 3 hours before bedtime.  After a good grocery shop, take a little time afterward to prepare snacks, cutting up vegetables and fruit, rationing portions of nuts and other snacks so that they are ready when you need them.  Never let yourself go hungry!  Keep your fire burning with regular, balanced meals and healthy snacks.

If you’d like more information on how to maintain a healthy weight by eating properly and regularly, contact me at www.fit-anywhere.com

Fit Pregnancy

Pregnancy is an exciting and exhaustive journey. Whether you are trying to conceive or you are already a proud mummy, motherhood is a ceaseless, selfless struggle toward one of the greatest gifts we can receive as a human being, becoming a parent. From the moment that you decide that you are “ready” and the time is right, until…well, perhaps their University graduation, your child’s health and wellbeing are at the forefront of your priorities. Making healthy choices, such as having proper nutrition, and starting or continuing an exercise program are essential when trying to conceive, during pregnancy, and post natal.

The old fashion notion that pregnant women are fragile beings, who shouldn’t exert themselves, is no longer. Gone with it is the idea that a pregnant woman “eats for two.” We all know the importance of exercising and having good healthy eating habits for all people, so that importance becomes even greater during pregnancy. With the help of a good fitness trainer who is certified and experienced in training this special population and who works closely with your doctor, your chance of conception, your pregnancy and labour, and your post childbirth recovery can all be greatly improved.

Here are a few of the benefits of exercise during pregnancy:
Increased maternal aerobic fitness
Promotes appropriate body fat/weight gain
Facilitates labour (think endurance here)
Prevents the onset of gestational diabetes
Improves circulation and reduces the incidence of varicose veins
Improves posture and muscular balance (essential to counter the shift in your centre of gravity)
Improves core strength
Increases postpartum recovery
Increases self-esteem, self-confidence and helps you cope with the physical changes

Every pregnancy is unique and a personalized program should be developed with both a trainer and a doctor. However, in general and depending on which week of pregnancy you are in, exercise can be adapted to include 3-5 sessions per week, at a moderate intensity, for a maximum of 30 minutes per session, doing non-weight bearing, low-impact movements. Activity that imposes the risk of abdominal trauma, exposure to hot, humid or high altitude conditions should be avoided.
Fitness Anywhere trainers are educated and certified in Pre/Post Natal Fitness and follow the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, as well as the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology’s guidelines very closely. If you have any questions, talk to your doctor. To learn more about the importance of exercise for pre and post natal women, call us today.

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Strength Training: Why Running Alone Just Won’t Cut It

So you’ve decided to take up running to get yourself moving and feeling healthy and fit again. That’s great! You certainly have made the right initial step toward improved health and fitness, but is it the only step? Certainly not! In fact, cardiovascular exercises alone are not enough when it comes to having complete fitness and health. Exercises such as running, swimming, aerobics and cycling are essential for keeping blood pressure normal, lowering bad cholesterol and increasing good cholesterol, and for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death. However, including resistance training (weight lifting) is a must and the ultimate compliment to cardio when it comes to weight loss and overall health and fitness.

Here are some of the benefits of including resistance training into your fitness routine:
- Decreases body fat
- Promotes joint stability
- Increases muscular strength
- Increases muscle mass and decreases body fat
- Increases resting metabolism
- Improves balance, coordination, and agility
- Improves strength in your core (back, pelvis, abdominals)
- Improves posture
- Increases self-esteem and body image
Resistance training can include training using your body weight, using machines or lifting free weights.

Unfortunately, although less and less, women tend to shy away from weight training for fear of increasing their size, getting bulky, or developing overly large, masculine muscles. To the contrary, weight training increases your resting metabolism far more than cardio exercises alone, so that your body burns more calories while you are not exercising. In order to maintain your developing muscle mass, your body needs to use more calories for fuel, so instead of storing calories, your muscles essentially eat up excess calories. Women do not have the testosterone levels that men have and therefore will develop small but strong muscles that help give great shape to the body. Hours and hours of weight training and high levels of testosterone are what yield large muscles. Including a 1-3 sets of resistance training exercises for each of your major muscles 2-4 per week, will not make you big, but will make you lean and firm and will help you on your road to weight loss and overall health and wellness.