The Big Kahuna
Once again, an apology for my absence the past few days, last week was the start of my senior year of college! I hope you guys are ready for some awesome stuff because my classes this year are packed full of health and exercise goodies! I’m taking great classes including:
– Kinesiological Foundations of Movement (big word, but it’s all about how the body moves and the best way to move for best fitness benefits.)
– Exercise Testing (All about finding out fitness levels, health status, and areas of possible growth)
– Social Psychology (Learning how people learn, act, and think in different societies)
– Statistics (Boring)
Since I haven’t posted anything in a few days, I figure I’d treat you guys to a big combo pack, one of everything – exercise, nutrition, AND lifestyle choices. I’ll try to keep it simple so you don’t have to read a book.
EXERCISE
I want to focus on that cushion your sitting on. No, not your couch or chair, butt your booty! That thing is a very important mass of tissue that has a huge impact on your daily life. It is one of the main muscles responsible for walking, standing, sitting, and squatting. It also has an impact on your low back and hips. Tight gluteal muscles (butt muscles) can pull on the hips and low back where they attach and cause unwanted pain. Believe it or not, you have three different butt muscles. The big portion is your gluteus maximus, then you have a portion that’s a little more to the side called the gluteus medius, and then a small portion that sits underneath the gluteus medius, called the glutes minimus. The medius and minimus tend to be a little weaker, not just because of the size, but because they are more responsible for lateral movements like side stepping. These muscles are crucial for balance and stability while also giving a person the good kind of “butt dimples.”
This exercise program is going to focus mostly on those two smaller gluteal muscles, while hinting at the gluteal maximus. There’s two major technique rules you need to follow while doing these, and that is 1) “tucking your tailbone in.” While I still worked in a physical therapy clinic, almost every patient couldn’t or didn’t know how to tuck their tailbone. The best way I can describe it is to imagine you have a tail where your tailbone ends, and you try to tuck it between your legs like a dog does when it’s scared. Another way that helps is to try and make your lower back round outwards instead of inwards. 2) Any time you bend your knees to do the exercises below, sit your butt BACK like you’re about to sit into a chair. You should still see your toes when you’re in a squatted position. What these techniques do is takes the pressure off of your low back, and makes you use your lateral gluteal muscles rather than your hip flexor muscles and a muscle called “tensor fascia latae.” Those muscles are strong enough and those aren’t what you’re trying to work out. Here is your workout!
Gluteal Workout #1 (explanations, alternatives, and alterations for advancement below the workout)
5 min. mandatory warm up (jogging, jump roping, jumping jacks, etc)
1. Lunges 10 x each leg
2. Squatted Side Steps 10 steps x each side to side direction
3. Pistols 5 x each leg
4. Side Lunges 10 x each leg
5. Kick Backs 10 x each side
6. Clams 10 x each side
REPEAT x3
Lunges: *See Body Weight Workout #1*
Squatted Side Steps: With your feet shoulder width apart and hands on your knees, bend your knees slightly and SIT YOUR BUTT BACK far enough so that you can see your toes. Keep your weight on your heels and TUCK YOUR TAILBONE. Without breaking form, step to the side keeping your feet flat to the ground. This one might require extra help, if so I will find a good video source.
No easier alternative
Advancement: Resistance bands, ankle weights ONLY if your form is impeccable.
Pistols: *See Body Weight Workout #1*
Side Lunges: Take a big step side-ways while still facing straight forward, and squat through the leg you stepped with while keeping the other leg straight, then stand back up and bring your feet back together, then lunge to the other side.
Easier Alternative: The shorter you step the easier it is
Advancement: Hold hand weights, wear a weight vest
Kick Backs: Get down on your forearms and knees, then kick your leg back and slightly upwards like a donkey kick. Focus on pushing your heel away rather than pointing your toes.
No easier alternative
Advancement: Ankle weights, pause when leg is extended in the air.
Clams: A creative name for hip external rotation while lying on your side. Lie on your side, and then pull your feet up towards your butt until your knees are at a 90 degree angle. TUCK YOUR TAILBONE, and then pull your knees apart while still keeping your feet together and without letting your hip roll back.
No easier alternative (If post-surgery back patients can do it, you can!)
Advancement: Resistance bands. Very affordable, various resistance strengths
If your glutes aren’t burning after this workout, then get yourself some resistance bands and ankle weights. If you can’t find resistance bands, I can provide. I can buy them for $4 apiece. I’m sure you can find sets on Amazon.
Make sure you do some gluteal stretches afterwards so you don’t cry when you go to sit down in a chair or stand up after sitting for awhile. Your glutes will be sore!
NUTRITION
When it’s hot, I snack. When it’s cold, I snack. When I’m awake, I snack. Snacking can sometimes get a bad rep but really snacking can really boost the effectiveness of your diet or nutritional goals. Snacking helps curb your appetite for meals, so you don’t stuff yourself full of food at dinner time. It helps those who are trying to eat healthier because there are tons of healthy snack foods. It also helps people who are trying to gain weight because decreasing your meal size while increasing your number of meals a day can really help get those extra calories in that you might not get if you try to eat a normal 3 meals a day.
My favorite snack foods aren’t always the healthiest but there is usually SOMETHING healthy about them. They might have pretty high sodium content or sugar content, but there’s usually something that makes up for it. Being that Phoenix is one degree away from bursting into flames, I tend to look for frozen or at least cold foods that are great for snacking. The best thing about that is almost all fruit and vegetables are best when cold. I love snacking on carrots, guacamole, and broccoli, anything that can cool me off while filling me up. I am also a Wheat Thins Toasted Chips. Those should have a warning label on them for being so addictive. Eating hummus, guacamole, or laughing cow cheese with those crackers are just too good. So here is a great guacamole recipe that has some spice to it. Just take out the jalapenos if you aren’t a spice nut.
Spicy Guacamole
3 avocados
2-3 firm medium tomatoes, seeded
1 small red onion finely chopped
(or use 1/2 onion and 1/2 bunch chopped chives)
1/2 bunch of cilantro finely chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, pressed
3 tbsp Lime juice
1/2 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
1/4 tsp ground black pepper, or to taste
1/2 tsp Cumin
Just scrape the avocados out and remove the pits, then squish with a potato squisher or fork or anything you can find that will mash the avocado up into a chunky paste. Add the other ingredients and mix! It’s simple, quick, and so delicious and nutritious. I’ve talked about avocados, garlic, onion, and tomatoes before in other recipes so I will save you the reading and say to look at my other recipes for the nutrition facts on those, but what you haven’t read is the nutrition facts on cilantro, jalapenos, lime juice, and cumin.
Cilantro has TONS of nutritional benefits, check it out! http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/cilantro.html Jalapenos have good sources of Vitamin A and C, and serve as an antioxidant. They also have something called capsaicin which helps with arthritis and dermatologic (skin) pain and itching, as well as possibly warding off prostate cancer. Lime juice is like any citrus, containing lots of vitamin C and has anti-cancer nutrients. Cumin has a good source of Iron, and is good for digestion and, yet another ingredient for this, it fends off cancerous cells.
What about that recipe doesn’t sound amazing? It’s delicious and has tons of nutritious ingredients. Do you have ingredients in your guacamole that others don’t? Care to share? Try this one out!
LIFESTYLE CHOICES
Move. Yep, that’s it. All you have to do is move. If you aren’t one to go to the gym, do exercise, or you’re someone who just doesn’t find any time to fit in a workout, just move! I am taking a class right now called Exercise Testing, and my professor (who has peer reviewed the textbook we use for the class, and has a huge impact in ACSM guidelines) told us about a doctoral student she is currently helping with their thesis. They did a test on the impact of walking on blood pressure and 
their results were unbelievable. They had a subject play out a normal 8 hour desk job, but for a combined total of 2 hours they had the subject on a treadmill desk (yes they have those!) walking 1mph. (That’s probably even slower than your normal walking speed.) Every subject showed massive changes in their blood pressure, which supported the hypothesis that even minimal walking throughout your day can have positive gains towards your health.
I’m going to challenge you a little more than that. Moving throughout the entire day will make your body realize it needs to provide you with the strength, stamina, and energy to do it. It doesn’t need to be an hour long walk, not even half an hour, but getting up every 30 minutes and going for a 10 minute walk around the office or outside will definitely help. It takes your mind off of work, it decreases stress, and it keeps your body moving and awake.
Here are some easy day to day opportunities that you can take advantage of to move more:
– Park further from the front door
– Stay standing in a waiting room
– Get out of the office for 15 minutes and walk around
– Put the candy dish across the room so you have to get up to get a piece
– Wake up 15 minutes early and go walk outside before it gets too hot
– Go on a walk before your nightly bedtime routine
– Walk every isle of the grocery store while you get groceries, even if there isn’t anything you need in a specific isle.
I challenge you to record how much time you spend moving throughout your day and how much time you spend sitting or laying down. If you spend more time sitting/laying down than you do standing/moving, try flipping the numbers. Try to move as much as you were sitting and try sitting as much as you were moving. There’s always room for growth. Even if you are moving most of the day, it doesn’t mean you never have an opportunity to move more.
See how much time you spend moving each day and if you want to know how you’re doing, reply or send me an email and I’ll reply with a “report card.”
What ways do you know help with increasing your time spent moving? Share them so more people can do it! Let’s get the world moving!
Spinach Fruit Pecan Salad
There is nothing more refreshing during the summer than fresh fruit and vegetables. Here I have my favorite salad that satisfies those summer cravings and has a great source of nutrients! My dad made this salad for dinner one night, and now ingredients for this salad don’t last longer than a couple of days in my fridge because of how often I eat this salad. The best part about this salad is the unhealthiest ingredient in this salad is the sugar-coating on the nuts. After I give you the recipe, I’ll give you some info on the ingredients to let you see just how great of a salad this one is!
Spinach Fruit Pecan Salad:
Ingredients:
4 cups packed baby spinach
1 cup sliced strawberries
1 cup mandarin oranges
¼ cup bacon bits (optional)
½ cup dried cranberries
¼ of a red onion diced
¼ cup feta or blue cheese
½ cup candied nuts (directions on how to make them below)
1 tbsp poppy seeds
Dressing:
¼ cup olive oil
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 clove of garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions: combine all salad ingredients together besides the candied nuts (the coating will come off if you add too soon.) In a separate bowl, mix together the dressing ingredients, and then pour over the salad. Top with the candied nuts.
The candied nuts can be any nut you want, but you need them to be chopped up, so preferably a softer nut like pecans or walnuts.
Ingredients:
7 ounces chopped nuts
2/3 cup sugar
¼ cup water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions: combine ingredients in a medium sauce pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until sugar goldens and starts to crystallize and the nuts are completely coated. Usually takes about 8 minutes. Pour onto parchment paper and chill for 15 minutes. When chilled, break off into small crumble, and sprinkle on salad.
Now for the nutrition facts! Spinach is one of the more known super foods out there, which means it is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. I encourage you to look into super foods and the nutrients they pack. The strawberries and cranberries have a lot of vitamin C which helps immune systems, prevent heart and eye disease, and some prenatal difficulties. They also have potassium and magnesium, both great for muscle performance and repair. The mandarin oranges give additional vitamin C and some vitamin A, a helper in immunity and skin care. Bacon adds some protein, and great taste! Red onion also has vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium, but also has some vitamin B6, which provides energy. The crumbled feta cheese has a great source of calcium, B vitamins, and riboflavin which helps break down the carbs, proteins, and fats. Olive oil is an anti-inflammatory that is also very low in sodium and cholesterol. Red wine vinegar helps cut glycemic levels of type 2 diabetes patients, slows down fat production in the body, increased calcium absorption, and serves as a mild antimicrobial, which means it kills and fends off certain bacteria. Garlic is another super food that helps with more stuff than I can even begin to list. I suggest checking out all of the benefits garlic has in store for you. Poppy seeds are so small, but pack quite the nutrition punch. They are considered an anti-oxidant, they have healthy fats and oils like most seeds and nuts, they are a good source of fiber, an excellent source of B vitamins, and have good levels of iron, copper, calcium, potassium, manganese zinc, and magnesium!
With all of these healthy ingredients combined into an amazingly refreshing salad, how are you still reading this blog and not already at the store getting the ingredients? I will always consider this to be one of my favorites, and to know I’m being healthy and still enjoying my food to the point of face stuffing is just the icing on the cake.
What is your favorite salad to make? What makes it healthy or un-healthy? Share recipes!
Your Body Might Be Begging for a Vacation
We have all heard the lectures on the importance of being active and exercising, but what doesn’t get enough attention are the problems with overtraining. Overtraining isn’t something that only affects certain fitness groups because it is all relative to your personal physical condition. Whether you are in your underwear watching re-runs of Seinfeld every day and eating Top Ramen right out of the package, or you’ve ran a half marathon by 8 am and non-blended food hasn’t touched your mouth in months, (juicer’s I’m calling you out!) everyone can experience over training. I took a course last semester with the hefty title of “Physiological Foundations of Movement” and for a solid two weeks we studied over-training and the negative effects of being the opposite of a couch potato. I hope that this helps those who, as they are reading this, recognize the symptoms I’ve talked about and see that they might be overtraining, but even more importantly, I hope you take this post with a grain of salt because I don’t want to make you lose any motivation or results you have gotten from your current fitness regimen. I also don’t want you to use this as an excuse to NOT work out because the effects of overtraining are generally short-term, but the effects of a sedentary life can be very hard or impossible to get rid of (e.g. type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer) Dieting has a huge impact on your health and just like you can overtrain, you can over diet. Over dieting makes the d, i, and e all become capitols and it ends up looking more like DIEting. (that’s pretty clever huh?)
The general rule to knowing how much is too much is when your duration or workload is increased by over 10% a week. Now that is very vague because you could’ve started out already overtraining, but this is a guideline for someone who has had a workout plan correctly made up for them rather than experimenting themselves in the gym one day. To help figure out if you are over training, here are some identifiers:
– Decreases performance
– Change in the rate of loss (or sometimes gain) in body weight
– Reoccurring infection
– Always fatigued (not being able to perform daily activities as easy as before)
– Elevated heart rate and higher blood lactate levels during exercise (I will explain below)
– Psychological staleness (that “brain dead” feeling)
Everyone wants to get the biggest amount of results as possible as quickly as possible, so it makes no sense to over train because you’re becoming less efficient and your results won’t come as quickly. Overtraining has a huge effect on chemicals in your body, mainly coritsol. Cortisol has been mentioned before in my post about sleep called “Wake Up!” I would suggest reading it to get a better idea about what cortisol is. Cortisol is the primary stress hormone and overtraining increases levels of cortisol. Cortisol is responsible for unexplained weight gain which could be why you’re exercising in the first place! Overtraining can also cause excessive weight loss, which I have explained in my “The Calorie Conspiracy” post as being just as bad as having too many calories. Always being fatigued is a sad result of overtraining because the purpose of training is to make daily tasks easier and enabling your body to perform more at higher rates of efficiency but instead you start to get sleepy earlier in the day and you just want to sit or lie down all the time. Higher heart rates mean your heart is working harder than usual and I encourage you all to get informed about what your heart does and what can happen when it isn’t working in normal conditions. It’s something you should all know to prevent possible injury or future health problems. Blood lactate is responsible for those sore muscles you get after working out. Lactate gets into your muscles and crystallizes if you don’t provide enough oxygen to your muscles and once it crystallizes it turns into (microscopic) razor-sharp rocks in your muscles and every time you flex your muscles, they get irritated by the lactate stuck in them! The goal of working out is to get those lactate levels to decrease, not increase. Psychological staleness isn’t enough of an explanation to how serious overtraining affects the brain and other systems of the body. The last thing you want is to be fatigued and mentally, emotionally void. Your reaction time slows down, your ability to solve problems at work or school decreases, every aspect of your daily life gets affected by psychological staleness.
I always want you to push yourself with exercising, but the best results in exercise and health come from being the most efficient, not working as hard as possible. Some tips on what you can do if you feel like you have been over training, or you want to avoid over training are:
– Take a 2 or 3 day break in your exercise regimen. Sometimes it takes more than a day to recover, and I’ve actually seen great gains in my workout programs after I have taken a couple of days off.
– For a week focus more on a well-rounded, mild intensity workout. Do one exercise for each part of your body instead of 3, or if you are a cardio nut, decrease your speed and duration of your exercise and get a little more stretching in.
– Do activities you don’t usually do. Go to a rock climbing gym, something that can be more enjoyable and less focused on your exercise goals.
The whole point of these changes is to temporarily get your mind and body to relax a little and recuperate. Just like you need breaks from work or school, your body needs breaks from exercise. Your body wants to be the best it can be, and as long as you push it, it will do everything possible to meet the desires you have, so appreciate and reward your body for doing such a good job by giving it a break!
Have you ever experienced overtraining or know someone who has?
P.S. For those of you more interested in the effect of over dieting and pushing your body too far, read and follow my sister’s post she just put up today. She is self hosted and has been blogging for years now and is quite popular. While I get about 100 views a day, she’s getting 5,000. Here is her link: http://www.myfoodnfitnessdiaries.com/
Body Weight Workout #1
What’s better than using your own body as equipment to work out? It’s free, you don’t need a membership, and you can do it in the privacy of your own home! I have posted an at-home workout previously, but this one will be for your entire body! This workout is going to be different than workouts you might normally see or do at a gym. This workout is all regulated by time, which means you don’t do a certain number of each exercise, but instead you do the exercise as many times as you can for a certain amount of time. The total amount of time this workout should take is 20 minutes. Benefits to this type of working out include, but are not limited to:
– Faster paced exercise for increased endurance conditioning and fat burning
– Exercises that implement every day movements.
– Easy to improve and progress
– Less risk of equipment related injury (mainly because there’s almost no equipment needed)
I want to stress the importance of form and technique in every exercise you do to prevent soreness in the wrong areas and/or injury. Let’s start moving!
Either have a clock with a second-hand, or find an interval timer on the web or smart phone app like “A HIIT Interval Timer.” Each exercise below, excluding the warm up, will go for 30 seconds, and once the thirty seconds is up, immediately start the next exercise. I suggest going through each exercise slowly to get the form down before you try the workout at full force, and when you perform the workout, keep track of how much you do for each exercise so you can keep track of your progression. After each round take a 2 minute rest. The workout is finished once you have done 3 rounds. The success of this workout is based on your effort. You can easily do this workout without breaking a sweat, but the point of this fast paced body weight workout is to push yourself to the maximum amount of repetitions you can possibly do in 30 seconds WITHOUT sacrificing form.
Body Weight Workout #1
MANDATORY – 5 minute warm up jog/jumping jacks/jump roping
BONUS – Complete the workout outside!
click to expand
1) Pistol Squats (15 seconds each) (If you can’t do these, try holding onto a pole or door frame for balance)
2) Up-Down Planks
3) Squat Jumps
4) Burpees
5) High Knees
6) Lunge Walking
7) Push Ups
8) Pull Ups (Finding a spot to do this might be tough, look up “body row on table”)
9) Plank
10) Mountain Climbers
If any of these exercises are too difficult to perform, here are some alterations you can choose to implement:
1) Double Leg Squat
2) On knees
3) Jumping in place
4) Start in the standing position, get down on your knees, then lay on your stomach, then get back up.
5) Jogging in place.
Rest for 30 seconds
6) Don’t take as large of steps, and don’t go down as far
7) Push up Position with extended arms
8) Hose Pull (Grab one end of a hose and start pulling it towards you, once you’ve pulled it all the way, run to the other end and pull it back into a pile.)
9) On knees
10) .Pick up one foot at a time without bringing it towards your hands.
With every exercise, there is usually one or more important techniques to prevent pain or injury. With the squats and lunges, make sure that your knees do not go past your toes; your toes should always be able to see the ceiling. With any plank or push up or exercise with your body in a straight line, do not let your lower back dip towards the ground, and tighten your stomach (like you’re about to get punched in the gut.) For Pull ups, don’t let your legs swing. Your body will probably start to sway back and forth, but don’t use your legs for momentum.
I hope you all have fun with this workout and get ready to feel the burn. Fast paced repetitive movement builds a lot of lactic acid in the muscle so make sure you drink LOTS of water and stretch after you’re finished.
Let me know your record repetitions for each exercise!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Milkshake
You might be a little confused. This doesn’t sound healthy at all and this blog was meant to be all about nutrition and dieting, right? It is! Did you know that collegiate and professional athletes will drink chocolate milk after their workouts or performances? There have been studies supporting chocolate milk as being a great post workout or performance drink. The reason behind it is that chocolate milk has everything you need after exercise. It provides a great amount of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals as well as a small amount of fat which, for competitors at that level, is just as important.
The great thing about this homemade milkshake is that there is very little fat in it, while still providing a great amount of protein, carbohydrates, and even a little energy boost to keep you from feeling exhausted after a workout!
What I put in my milkshake:
– ice
– milk
– ½ cup vanilla yogurt
– 1 scoop of protein supplement (see below for explanation/alternative)
– 1-2 tablespoons of honey
– 1-2 tablespoons of peanut butter
– chocolate syrup to desired taste (usually 1-2 tablespoons is plenty for me)
I use fat-free milk, which is a great choice if you are trying to watch your weight or fat intake, but if I had my choice I would use 2%. It is a great source of vitamins, minerals, protein and carbohydrates. The yogurt is great for probiotics to help digestion and absorption of nutrients and makes the milkshake smoother. The honey provides a healthy fast acting sugar preventing you from feeling tired after a workout. The peanut butter has some good fat in it like most nuts and seeds do, as well as a source of protein and carbohydrates, and amazing flavor! Chocolate syrup has no explanation other than it helps hide the supplement taste. I’m a sucker for chocolate so I add some in there.
I will be talking more about protein and other supplements, but a general explanation of what I think of them is this – you can consume as much protein as you want, but your body regulates how much protein it needs, and even has a storage of protein for times of less protein consumption. If you want to know how much protein you need each day, figure out your weight in kilograms, and multiply that number by 0.9. (If you are very active and regularly exercise, you can multiply by 1.1) That will show you how many grams of protein you need each day. If you consume more than that, your body either stores it for later use or excretes it. Taking protein supplements is great if it’s a healthy supplement and you are trying to meet your protein needs, but over doing the protein can lead to a hard case of “pouring your money down the drain.”
Alternatives and suggestions to some of the ingredients could include:
– Refraining from adding chocolate syrup
– Buying an all natural peanut butter which will limit the sugars and saturated fats
– A raw egg instead of protein supplement
– Adding a banana for extra vitamins, minerals, and fiber
– Greek yogurt instead of regular yogurt
This is an all around great milkshake and I would suggest it to anyone because of its flexibility. It can be altered to become a great meal replacement for people trying to watch their weight. It can be altered towards a post exercise drink, or even a weight gain drink. There is just so much you can do with this milkshake and the best part about it is, it tastes great!
What is your favorite drink for a meal replacement or post exercise drink? I’d love to hear other people’s opinions.
Side note – I love my magic bullet, it works amazing for stuff like this and I would recommend it to anyone. It is so much easier and convenient than a full-sized blender.
Wake Up!
After today’s post, I will have a blog for every major aspect of a healthy lifestyle. I plan to continue to add to each as much as I can. Once again, I want to thank all of you for your support and help in sharing my blog “Fuel for a Healthy Life,” and I hope you guys like what I am giving you so far. Please, don’t hesitate to message me with requests or questions. I love helping as much as I can and I want to give the readers what they are looking for! Now, wake up!
When you think your brain and body shut down, they are just shifting into different gears. Sleeping is one of the most essential parts of a healthy lifestyle and increasing the years in your life. While you’re asleep, your body is repairing your body from the day’s activities, and preparing it for tomorrow. Some things that sleeping aids in is:
–Muscle Repair: Throughout the day you are using and damaging your muscles just through daily activity, if you add in a workout, your muscles are really getting beat up. While you’re asleep, your body has the chance to send blood to these muscles and help repair and rebuild muscle, which is why it is recommended for exercise enthusiasts to take a nap after working out.
-Memory Consolidation: Just like a computer, your brain has temporary storage and permanent storage. While you are asleep your brain sorts through the day’s memories, sights, sounds, thoughts, etc. and chooses which to discard and which to keep. It helps compact the information it processed so that it can be stored away without taking up the space it needs for the next day’s incoming information.
-Hormone/Chemical Balances: Throughout your day, you deal with stress on your body and mind, emotional changes, or ingesting things like coffee or processed food. All of these affect your chemical balances and when you sleep your body gets to balance all of them out.
How much sleep is too little, how much is too much? I know anyone young enough to still be in school is crossing their fingers hoping for 12 hours. Though every person is unique and requires their own specific amount, Below is a general guideline to the right amount of sleep for each group. One consideration that needs to be taken into account is something called “sleep deprivation.” When you don’t give your body the amount of sleep it actually needs, you build a sleep debt. Your body will demand for that time sooner or later, and adding to that debt can lead to impaired reaction times and judgment. To make up for this debt, you need to find a day where you can allow yourself to sleep in and possibly find additional time to take a nap.
Suggested amount of hours needed for each group.
| Infants | +/- 16 |
| Teens | +/- 9 |
| Adults | +/- 7 |
*During the first trimester of pregnancy more sleep may be needed
There are stages of sleeping and each stage has certain characteristics and effects on the body.
–Stage 1: You can be awakened easily, your muscles and eyes start to relax, and if you have ever woken up with fragmented images, you were most likely in stage one. Also, if you are like me, you may twitch a lot and have the sudden sensation of falling and wake up.
-Stage 2: Your brain starts to slow down with occasional sleep spindles (random fast brain wave activity.) Stage 2 is where almost half of your sleep time is spent.
–Stage 3: very slow delta waves with interrupted smaller, faster waves begin.
–Stage 4: Delta waves are almost exclusively produced, and waking someone up from this stage is very hard to do. There is no eye or muscle activity, and if awoken during this stage, you may have a very hard time adjusting and will be disoriented. For children, this is the stage where wetting the bed and sleep walking usually happen.
–REM sleep: breathing increases, eyes jerk rapidly, limbs may become temporarily paralyzed, heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and for males, the situation you deal with in the morning happens. When you wake up during REM sleep you usually remember really weird and bizarre dreams.
Now for those who find every moment possible to take a mid-day nap, pay attention! There is always confusion as to how long a nap should be. Your first cycle of the stages of sleep takes about 90-120 minutes, including REM sleep. During REM sleep your body starts to produce more and more cortisol, which is the hormone directly responsible for stress. During the night your body produces this hormone so that you are alert and ready for the next day, but when you nap into the REM stage, you’re adding to your already daily amount of cortisol. The trick is to wake up before the REM stage when napping. A nap should last no more than 75 minutes. This will give you the rest you need without the additional hormone responsible for stress and wear on your body.
Lastly, those who deal with insomnia or have trouble staying asleep for the healthy amount of time should look at these tips to possible better sleep. Even if you don’t have a problem sleeping, following some of these may give you better quality sleep.
– Make the room as dark and quiet as possible. Light coming through your window or under the door, stereo or alarm clock lights, keeping the television on, all of these affect the quality of sleep.
– Relax before getting into bed. Sometimes you get caught up on your computer or television show and go straight to bed once you’re done. You just finished packing your brain full of information by doing those things, and then expect it to let you sleep right after. Try to make a habit of allowing 30 minutes before you plan to go to bed and just relax. Use that time to get ready for bed, get a drink of water, etc.
– Look into and talk to your doctor about melatonin supplements. Melatonin is a hormone directly responsible for sleep. (I would suggest time release capsules) If you aren’t into supplements, look into foods that have good sources of melatonin, like cherries, and consume them an hour or so before you plan on going to bed.
Any questions you have please feel free to ask me and I can try to help you answer them, and if I can’t I can offer some sites that contain great information on sleeping.
Hope you enjoyed!
Abdominal Workout #1
Well the first “Fuel for a Healthy Life” post got a lot of positive feedback and views, so I want to thank those of you who shared it with others! The only way I am going to get my blog out there is with your help, sharing and following my posts. Yesterday was about nutrition and the right amount of calories you should consume, but today is going to be about how to burn those calories and fire up those muscles.
Since this is the first post that will be under “Exercise/Fitness,” I am going to focus on the muscle group that is most important to keep exercise and fitness safe and effective.
The abdominal muscle group is made up of 4 different layers of muscle! You can see by the picture each layer is a little different. They work together to perform any movement you may need to do, which is why they contribute to almost every exercise there is. The ability to contract and hold your abdominal muscles during exercise is crucial in preventing back injuries, and stabilization to prevent muscle pulls and tears. I’ve pulled an abdominal muscle before and it really shed some light on how important those muscles are and how often you use them for everyday life.
The best part about abdominal workouts is that you don’t have to go to a gym! You can do everything on the floor of your own home, or your backyard if you want to get some sun and sweat a little more. Under the workout, I have posted some reminders on form and technique to help target your abdominal muscles, as well as a little explanation about the workout and additions to the workout if it becomes difficult or is too easy.
Abdominal Workout #1:
1) 5 minute warm up jog/jumping jacks/jump roping
2) 30 second plank ( or knee planks if regular planks are too difficult)
3) Dead Bug Kicks 15 ea. leg *ball is not required* (don’t include arm movement if too difficult)
4) Mountain Climbers 15 ea. leg (the faster and further up you bring your feet, the harder it is)
5) 30 second side plank ea. side (straight arm if bent arm is too difficult)
6) Cross-Over Crunches (regular crunches if cross over is too difficult)
Repeat all exercises except warm up 2 additional times.
In every picture I have drawn straight lines that I want you to focus on keeping when doing these exercises. When your lower back starts to bend or arch up, you are taking the weight off of your abdominal muscles and loading it onto your back, which may cause back pain. For exercise #3, I want you to imagine that you are trying to squish a grape under your low back. This triggers your transverse abdominals which is key to keeping pressure off of your back. With both plank exercises (2 & 5) it is important to keep a straight line from your shoulders to your feet. It should look like a PLANK of wood. For exercise 6, it is important to completely rest your head in your hands. Your neck and head should be dead weight when doing this exercise to avoid neck strains.
If this workout is too easy for you, I challenge you to try adding a physio-ball to the planks, a hand weight with the dead bug kicks, touching your hand to your knee with the mountain climbers, continually touching your hip to the ground and picking it back up with the side planks (which you would then do 15 on each side,) and cross over sit ups instead of crunches. Before advancing to these alterations, make sure you can still do them with correct form. Form is more important and will give you better results without causing harm to your body.
The Calorie Conspiracy
This is the first “Fuel for a Healthy Life” post and I’m taking it by the horns by talking about the right amount of calories an individual actually needs each day. I have been going to school nutrition and fitness for a few years now and the information I’ve been learning come from large organizations such as ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) and MayoClinic.org. Lets dig in!
Most people’s biggest mistake when trying to lose weight is that they eat the littlest amount of calories possible. What they don’t know is that they are setting themselves up for a bigger battle than they are fighting currently. Whether you lie in bed all day or run a marathon, your body still has something called a “Basal Metabolic Rate,” which is the amount of calories it takes just to keep your bodily functions working correctly like your heart beating, your stomach churning, brain sending signals, etc. If you don’t give your body the amount of calories it needs for its BMR, you starve your body and it only works with the calories it has. Now that might sound like a good way to lose weight, but you are making your body work on empty, and eventually your body stops working properly. It is important not to cut out the calories you need for your BMR, but instead take the calories away from the second part of your caloric equation, your exercise frequency. Any calories you add to your BMR depends on the amount of exercise you are involved in.
I am going to show you how to correctly calculate the right amount of calories you need each day so you can have a better handle on what goes in and out of your body…as in “caloric expenditure”. This equation will require a calculator unless you can count toothpicks faster than Dustin Hoffman. (If you didn’t laugh, go rent Rain Man.)
To figure out your BMR, you need your height in inches, your body weight in pounds, and age. For the not-as-young readers, this is not a time where you want to ‘forget’ your age and round down. Be specific.
MEN’S BMR equation: (12.7 x height in inches) + (6.23 x weight in pounds) – (6.8 x age) + 66
WOMEN’S BMR equation: (4.7 x height in inches) + (4.35 x weight in pounds) – (4.7 x age) + 655
That number is just what you need to properly function, once you have that number you need to account for physical activity.
Little or no exercise multiply your number by 1.2
1-3 days of sports or light exercise, multiply by 1.375
3-5 days of moderate exercise and/or sports, multiply by 1.55
5-7 days of hard exercise or strenuous sports, multiply by 1.725
Anything harder or more frequently, such as two a day’s, multiply by 1.9
Now, for those that want to lose some weight, subtract 500 from your final number. To lose more than 1-2 pounds of fat a week is considered not safe because your body has to react to the change in calories. 1 pound of fat is 3500 calories. If you subtract 500 calories from your daily caloric needs, in one week that is 3500 calories, or 1 pound of fat.
If you have any further questions, post comments and I will get back to them as soon as I can! I hope this helped and has given you a little more control over your daily nutrition.
Fuel for a Healthy Life 