Training

I recently wrote a blog called Top 5 Ways To Enhance Your Nutrition Plan and Diet, and the response I got was great! It’s awesome to see so many people that are focused on what they’re eating and ways to feed the body more nutrients! One of the biggest responses was to #2, adding more Plant Based Protein to your diet! I decided to bring in an expert, Raw Vegan Chef Rian Harris! Below you will see a video of Rian and I touring The Healthy Home Market where he shows us what areas of the store we can find some great plant based protein! At the bottom of this page you will also see 20 Different Sources Of Plant Based Protein!   If you didn’t read the Blog Post on how to Increase Your Nutrients, you may not know this, but Plant Based Protein has a bioavailability 50% higher than meat based protein. What that means is that the equivalent of 100 grams of meat based protein, you would only need 50 grams of Plant Based Protein! Sounds crazy I know, but it’s much easier for our bodies to breakdown Plant Based Protein than it is for us to break down meat, and it’s also easier on our organs. So whether you’re working your way toward a vegetarian lifestyle, or currently eat meat and are looking for ways to add Plant Based Protein, you will find what you’re looking for below for sure! Enjoy and as always let me know what you think, and always what you want to know more about! I love researching healthy living for you, so if you want to know more, I’ll always find the facts that are worth knowing!

Lets start with this…. If your muscles are not sore from working out, YOU’RE NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH!!! Says the trainer lol. When muscles get worked, they expand in size and as they recover they retract.  This fluctuation in muscle size can lead to the pulling of other muscles in the body.  Most commonly when we feel weak in the lower back the pain does not stem from the lower back, but from the gluteus muscles, hamstrings and I.T Bands being tight, knotting up and pulling on the lower back.  This can also happen if you do work your upper back, rhomboid or shoulder muscles in the same way, as they tighten they pull on other muscles. So what can we do to help alleviate the pain? Foam Roll! I recommend you watch the above video if you haven’t already to visually see how to hit each part of the body.  Below are steps of how to get your full body roll on!  Try to roll 10 times each way to start and get a feel for where you’re the most sore, then concentrate on the areas you feel you need it the most. Remember that the recovery part of fitness is just as important, if not more important, than what exercises we do, we must listen to the body and help it become its healthiest by giving it what it needs! Enjoy!   UPPER BACK – SHOULDERS : Place the roller at the base of the head along the Cervical Spine.  Press the hips and pelvis area up to the sky and slowly start to roll down your back to the thoracic part of the spine rolling over the rhomboids.  (Ladies be sure to watch that your hair does not get caught under the roll) LOWER BACK :  This is an important part to be careful of, be sure to keep your chest at an incline so that you can control the weight over this part of your spine.  (See the video for example) GLUTEUS MAXIMUS :  Your butt.  You’re guaranteed to be tight here.  Sit on the roller lean to the side slightly and roll back and forth.  Then switch the other side. HAMSTRING :  Again, another place you’ll be tight.  Place the hands on the ground to raise yourself up allowing your full body weight to press down on the roller. CALF:  Keep the same hand placement to allow full body weight compression. TURN THE BODY OVER SHINS:  If you’re a runner you absolutely want to be sure to roll out your shins to prevent shin splints.  Place your forearms on the ground as if doing a forearm plank.  Shift the shoulders forward and back to roll through the shins. QUADS:  When working the quads use the same forearm hold shifting shoulders forward and back.

LASTLY COMES THE GRAND FINALE OF ALL FOAM ROLLING

ILOTIAL BAND (I T BAND) :         This is going to hurt, no, really, it is. Place the side of your leg on the roller, with both hands on the ground and slowly start to roll down toward your knee.  Try to keep the feet off of the ground to allow the full body weight to press down on the roller.   Go slow rolling up and down and then switch sides. It will be painful the first few times, but remember the more it hurts the more it means your body needed it.  In a few weeks it wont be nearly as bad!  

Are you taking any supplements to help aide in your muscle recovery after working out? The reason why I’m asking if you are taking a supplement for your recovery is because a friend of mine who is also a client mentioned how sore she was this morning and when I had mentioned a supplement called L- Glutamine she was unsure what it would do! I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to share my Top 3 Supplements For Exercise Recovery.  You’ve probably heard me mention that eating an organic whole food balanced diet is by far the best way to ensure your body is getting the nutrients it needs, but even then, there are still some great nutrients we could benefit from during muscle and exercise recovery!  These three supplements are specifically designed to help aide in muscle recovery, the building of lean muscle, boost the metabolism and burn more body fat! If any of these sound like something you’re working towards, keep reading! We may as well go ahead and just start with the one that got us on this topic, and that was L-Glutamine. 1.  L – GLUTAMINE – Is an Amino Acid that’s found in our muscles, there’s actually more L-Glutamine in the muscle than any other Amino Acid.  During your workout you could deplete your L-Glutamine stores by more than 35%! One of the functions of L-Glutamine is to naturally create HGH (Human Growth Hormone) which plays a major roll in how much fat we burn.  For ladies this is even more important because your bodies do not produce nearly the same amount of Testosterone as men do, so you need it more for muscle recovery. If you’re sore a lot and you’re looking for some assistance, try taking 5 grams about 20 minutes after your workout and you could even take 5 before bed. 2.  BCAA’s – We just talked about a great Amino Acid, and number two is similar only this is a Branch Chain Amino Acid. BCAA’s are essential to building muscle, and are made up of leucine, isoleucine,  and valine. Amino Acids are simply what you have when the body breaks down the protein we eat at a molecular level so it can be used by the body.  They are stored in high concentration in the muscle and are depleted during our workout.  Supplementing with them helps muscle recovery by filling the muscle with the nutrients it needs and can also help us avoid muscle protein breakdown. No matter what type of exercise you’re working on it is ALWAYS a good idea to give the muscle what it needs to be healthy, and if you’d like to try BCAA’s try 5 grams before and after your workout, either in a pill form or a powder form in your drink! 3.  Beta Alanine – Here’s another great Amino Acid you should know about, especially if you’re doing any endurance work, like running long distance, or even lifting weights for more than an hour at a time.  What happens in the body as a result of intense long duration’s of Anaerobic exercise is we build up Lactic Acid.  This is what gives us the burning feeling in the muscles and if not dealt with quick enough it can cause serious fatigue and loss of energy!  Beta Alanine naturally increases L-Carnosine in the muscle cells ultimately diluting the lactic acid and giving you a chance to work out longer and harder! So if you’re trying to burn a lot of calories by working out for long periods of time or are just working out for long periods of time because you love it, Beta Alanine is great supplement to consider.  You can get it in a pill form and take 2 servings per day or about 3 grams. Working hard is the name of the game, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, so do yourself a favor and give the body what it needs so you can take your health and fitness to the next level!

If you’ve been following my blog, or have ever heard me speak on nutrition then you already know I always always always recommend cooking and only cooking with organic coconut oil, reason being it has the highest flash point of any oil. By flash point I’m referring to the temperature the oil will breakdown at a molecular level. If you want to read more about how oils break down you can read my blog Good Fat Bad Fat. Today I am going to tell you about why recent studies show that the Saturated Fat in Coconut Oil are not made up like all other Saturated Fats. It starts with the type of fatty acids or triglycerides coconut is made up of, which are Medium Chain Fatty Acids. Most saturated fats are made up of Long Chain Fatty Acids that contain about 12 or more carbon atoms. Let’s not get too scientific here, after all, we want the facts, how can this fat help us lose fat?!? It’s all about how the Medium Chain Fatty Acids are broken down and metabolized. When they enter the body and get to the digestive tract, they are immediately sent to the liver and then either used as energy right away or they become what are called ketone bodies and actually help to speed up the metabolism with a thermogenic effect! Not all food is created, or in this case destroyed equally, some foods are metabolized more efficiently than others, and in the case of coconut oil, is broken down easier in the body, with some recent studies showing the body burning more than 100 more calories per day, just from the metabolizing process! So, we know that Medium Chain Triglycerides are broken down easier, and we know that the breakdown process can create a thermogenic effect. We’ve got two clear cut reasons coconut oil can help burn more calories, and more calories burned can lead to more fat loss, IF, and I repeat IF your daily meal plan has you at a caloric deficit. Meaning the only way we lose weight is if we burn more calories per day then we consume, so can I am not saying coconut oil on its own is going to help you lose weight. Which leads me to one more thing that I learned about how Coconut Oil can help us lose weight, and that’s by helping to suppress the appetite because of how full it can make us. I quickly mentioned Ketone Bodies earlier, and what we do know is that when the liver creates ketone bodies due to the coconut oil, the appetite is suppressed. All and all what I learned is the answer is YES, coconut oil can aide in weight loss, which brings us the most important question I am sure I will get and that’s how should I eat it, and how much should I eat? Let me start by saying, even though we’ve explained how the saturated fat is different in molecular make up, it is still saturated fat, so please consult your dietitian or doctor before trying anything, I am not recommending this for anyone, I am simply letting you know what I’ve learned. Recent studies that have been in clinical trials had individuals eating 2 tablespoons per day, which is 240 calories and 24 grams of fat. It’s important to know that the body DOES need good saturated fats to be healthy and  to function properly, so at 24 grams you’re safe (If your dietitian or doctor say so). Some ways you can eat it, are 1. Right out of the jar, 1 Tablespoon at a time 2. Put it into a smoothie, or protein shake 3. Add it to your vegetables or even a sweet potato or anything like that See what works best for you, everyone is different about how they consume foods so what works well for me, may be different for you. The most important thing to know is that most all studies I’ve read speak to the positive effects coconut oil will have on your body due to the Medium Chain Triglycerides. I hope you found this helpful and that I’ve answered some of your questions!

Having trouble staying away from snacking on things that we know aren’t the best options? Below are 20 quick on the go snack ideas, and I’ve provided you Calories Protein Carbs and Fat so if you’re sticking to a specific ratio for your meal plan you’ll be able to add these in with no problems!!  Don’t let all of your hard work exercising go to waist by snacking on something you shouldn’t be, choose one or a few of these to help you get by!