Family Fitness

Family Fitness Tips

Have fun with your family while keeping fit! Quick workouts, fitness fun, family games, and healthy recipes.
Courtesy of :
Sam Hawley
The Fitness Prescription

I hope you enjoy these tips. Feel free to browse our extensive archive for past posts and tips.
**As with all fitness activities, please consult your physician before participating in any activity or diet.

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Resolution Diet Plans

1/2/2016

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As the new year begins, I wanted to introduce some of you to some starter diets and detoxes and compare them. Hope this helps you choose the best way to develop a new you!
Whole 30: This is a 30 day lifestyle change where you basically eat only clean, natural foods for 30 days. There are many books related to the diet that help quite a bit. This diet is relatively simple to understand as it is basically clean eating. It is a good month challenge to start the year.

21 day sugar detox: This is a 21 day challenge to remove all forms of sugar or foods that could start sugar cravings. This diet is most useful with the related book that gives you recipes, meals plans, and three different versions of the diet based on your current eating habits. It is more strict and therefore harder than the whole 30 but is also shorter and proves to you that your body really is addicted to sugars. Great diet, but needs meal planning in order to get through it. Make sure and plan the start date accordingly knowing days 4-7 will be rough and you will be cranky. You will feel like a million bucks after that detox period though.

21 day fix: This is a portion control diet. You have to buy the kit that gives you portion control containers that are color coded for which types of food you can put in them. This is a great diet for people that want to slim down but are not fans of food type restriction. A very easy plan to follow and very effective for those that like portion controls.

Low carb: Perfect for those not wanting to spend money on a specific diet plan. Just monitor the number of carbs you eat per day and cut it down to 50 grams per day however you want. Yep, that easy.

Happy new year!

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Pumpkin Season

11/10/2015

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Pumpkin season and turkey stuffing conveniently fall in the same month... which means there is a delicious and healthy alternative to all of those tempting holiday meals! Skip the plastic pumpkins full of sugar and eat some goodies full of the real stuff... this season only comes once a year!

Benefits of Pumpkin

Vitamin A: keeps your eyes sharp
Fiber: aids in weight loss by keeping you full
Phystosterols: decrease bad cholesterol
Tryptophan: in the seed, which brightens your mood
Potassium: electrolytes useful for post workout

Healthy Pumpkin Recipe
Paleo Pumpkin Muffins
1 cup creamy almond butter
4 eggs
1/4 cup pureed pumpkin (best health benefits if fresh, not canned)
1/4 cup raw honey or agave nectar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Mix and put in greased muffin tins. Bake at 325* for 12-15 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. You can drizzle raw syrup, honey or agave over the top and heat them up before eating. (You can even add dark chocolate nibs for some extra flavor!)

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Listen to Your Body

9/17/2015

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As a trainer, a medical student, and a lover of real foods; I am going to go on a soap box. Bear with me. There is an idea out there of fitness and health and dieting being one size fits all. I always hear "this worked for my friend so it's going to work for me" or, even worse, "that worked for my friend and it just doesn't seem to help me and I don't know why"!

Listen up, friends. Our bodies are all wonderfully and amazingly different, as proven simply by some of us having illnesses and chronic disease that others of us do not. Some people need one kind of medication to resolve their medical problem and others do not tolerate it. This is because our metabolism, our absorption, and our reaction to medications are different.

So, translate this into dieting. How can a diet be one size fits all if our bodies can't even tolerate synthetically constructed medications that are standardized in the same way? And how can you assume that a certain regimen of exercise is ideal for EVERYONE. This is a problematic perspective that permeates our fitness world. If you go to a certain kind of fitness class, often the instructor will encourage you to do the exercises exactly like everyone else because it worked for the instructor. News flash, that instructor's body is not identical to those she is teaching. And I am not even talking from a fitness-level perspective. I am talking deeper down: her hips are not aligned in the exact way yours are and the arch of her spine does not have the same curve as yours. Unless you are twins, I suppose. You can't assume one squat form is perfect given diversity of bodies. There are WRONG ways for everyone but there is not one right way for everyone.

So, why this soap box? One size fits all does not work in the fitness and health or even the medical world. This all is a game of trial and error to see what works for your body. If one thing isn't working, try another. Try a new diet concept, try a new fitness class. If you are getting sick on your diet, it is maybe not for you (try various styles of clean eating with more or less meat or something). Understand that the first week of a new diet will make most people not feel well, so give it some time. If you keep leaving fitness classes or your trainer with pain rather than soreness, it may be time to look for a new class. And if your doctor has had to try new regimens over and over, understand that that is because your body has not found something that works properly for it.

What can we do with this? The most important part of living a healthy lifestyle is LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. If you are hungry, eat. If you are tired, sleep. And do not eat or sleep if you are not. Stop arguing with your body and your body will thank you with health. If you feel sluggish after certain foods, cut them out. Find those foods that give you energy and you will wonderfully find that you have more energy all day and need less sleep and less caffeine.

Start simply. Eat real foods. This is not a diet, this is a choice. It is amazing to find that cutting out what I call "barcode foods" will change your life. From there, stop eating when you are full. Work out from that point by working on actually listening to your body.

As children, we have amazing hormonal feedback that tells our bodies to eat and drink when needed and not to do so if we are not hungry. As we stretch our stomachs, we lose this feedback and it becomes hard to know what our bodies need. It takes some practice, but you can retrain your body to understand this feed back. (If you want to know the science behind this, I am happy to explain farther)

Key points: listen to your body, fitness is not one sized, and eat real foods. Enjoy your healthy life :)

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Cardio Comparison

8/10/2015

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One of the most common questions I am asked is "What kind of cardio works best?"
So, I thought I would write out the benefits of the most popular kinds of cardio to determine which kind works best FOR YOU. In exercising, it is important to remember that no two bodies are the same. This is true of metabolism, balance, strength, ability to build muscle, and ability to lose fat. They key is knowing your own strengths and limitations and taking the facts in front of you and applying them to your fitness.

Walking: 149 calories/min, minimal strain on joints, slow paced, can do this anywhere. Great for those new to exercise and those wanting more social fitness.

Running: 409 calories/ min, more joint strain, takes time to train to burn more calories, can improve over time. Can build leg muscle and can be done anywhere.

Elliptical: 335 calories/30 min. Able to be done indoors with a TV or music. Minimal joint trauma. Able to set a pace and push yourself. Does not simulate a completely normal gait so may cause hip pain if done improperly.

Lifting: 112 calories/30 min. Benefit of burning calories for longer periods of time after training, can continue to burn for 24 hours. Builds muscle and strength as well as stimulates proprioceptive training (balance).

Rowing: 260 calories/30 min. Great for joined upper and lower body training. Some strength component involved. Good for posture. From a seated position so good for people with gait instability. Takes some instruction to learn to do properly.

Swimming: 223 calories/ 30 min. No significant joint impact. Good for injury recovery and strength. Lean muscle building and strengthening of smaller accessory muscles.

Try all of these awesome cardio exercises to switch up your routine. A combination of exercises is great for training many muscle groups. Happy training!

*All statistics from Health.harvard.edu and based on a 155 lb person doing moderate exercise

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Protein Paleo Cookies

5/19/2015

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I know what you are thinking... Those sound like healthy cookies and there is no way they will taste good. But seriously, this little kitchen accident turned out awesome and people keep asking me to make them again (people who are not paleo and do not care to eat real foods). So, trust me here. I started mixing stuff that sounded good because I needed a healthy treat and these babies hit the spot. Thank goodness I wrote the recipe down as I went because I have a nasty habit of throwing stuff together and never remembering how I made the meal.
If you have never had sunbutter or Buffbake, you have to try these products out. They are paleo, protein-filled, and so stinking good. My favorite is the cookie buffbake. I use the sunbutter as a peanut butter replacement. Just be aware that sunbutter can turn things green (no it's not bad, its just a chemical reaction when you heat the sunbutter).

Sunbutter Sea Salt Cookies
1/2 cup sunbutter
1/2 cup cookie Buffbake
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
A dash of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons coconut sugar
A handful of almond flour to thicken the batter (depends how fluid your butters are)
1 egg
Sprinkle Enjoylife chocolate chips and some sea salt on top
*Mix all the ingredients and cook for about 15 minutes at 350*

So easy, so delicious!

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Exercises for Legs and Core

4/21/2015

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When we have little time to exercise, it is ideal to optimize your workouts by doing exercises that target more than one muscle group. It is great to get core at the same time as your other target groups. Above are a few ways to target abs and legs.

You can even do these from home!

-Use chairs or bricks in exchange for elevated hurtles on the L-holds

-Use rocks, books, or any heavy and durable item for the drop dead lifts

-Hold a bag filled with items or a jug of water for the V-ups

If you want to make these movements even harder try these tips:

-Do single-leg dead lifts

-Flutter kick while doing L-holds

-Do triceps dips in the L-hold

Add some of these movements to yur daily routine and you will be impressed how quickly you see improvement in your core strength. Start with lower reps and time and work your way up to your goals!

Happy exercising!

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Tips on Staying Hydrated

3/24/2015

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Many people have a problem staying hydrating or knowing that they are dehydrated, according to most professionals almost 75% of people are mildly dehydrated at any given time. I definitely have this problem and am usually slightly dehydrated. Because so many people have this problem and I have noticed my own dehydration, I thought I would do some research to see the signs of dehydration and the amount you must drink to stay hydrated.

A good rule of thumb is to drink 1mL of water per calorie burned minimum. Since the average person burns between 1200 calories and 2200 calories per day without including exercise. Assume the minimum you should drink per day is about 2 liters or 64 oz or 8 glasses of water. If you are exercising, you should add 1mL per calorie burned so 0.5 or 1 liter for a typical workout and more if you are completing higher intensity workouts.

One way to know you are hydrated, other than tracking your water intake, is to be sure of how often you are urinating. You should urinate 3-5 times per day and the urine should be pale yellow or clear if you are hydrated. Caffeine and soda can skew these urination readings since they are both diuretics and will make you urinate more often while also dehydrating you. Be sure to increase your water intake if you are drinking caffeines or sodas. Adding flavor additives to your water only increase the chemicals in your water, acting as a soda. Water with additives and sodas and juices do not count as you water intake for the day. If you must add anything to your water to flavor it, try cucumber, lemon, lime, grapefruit, or mint. Natural additives are better than chemicals if you MUST add anything.

Some of the signs of acute dehydration include fatigue, hunger, joint aches, dry skin, wrinkles, dark urine, and constipation. Signs of chronic dehydration include digestion problems, confusion, anxiety, urinary tract infections, premature aging, and increase in cholesterol.

My suggestion is to get a great spill-proof water bottle to stick in your bag and take it everywhere you go. Make sure to have finished at least one full liter in the morning and at least one in the afternoon.

Hope this helps you all understand how to better keep yourself hydrated! Enjoy the warmer weather :)

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Buzz-Words on "Healthy" Food

2/24/2015

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With so many hot marketing ploys out there that relate to the food we buy, how do we know what is healthful and what is simply creative marketing? I am going to go through a few food-product buzz words and explain what they typically mean for you, the consumer. I have also put together a few tips on how to better understand which products are actually better for you than others.

First think you have to understand is that food with a bar-code is always going to come with some misunderstanding about what it is. Because of creative marketing and FDA rules on what must be posted on labels, you can never guarantee what you are eating unless you eat real foods you make yourself from natural ingredients. Sometimes it is just not possibly to buy ONLY natural foods and we want to know how to best go about purchasing bar-code foods.

Low-fat: The amount of fat is represented by a percentage of weight of the product so the more ingredients without fat that you add, the lower percent of fat you can get. So the difference between the low-fat and the full-fat versions of foods is often that they added more unnatural ingredients to lower the fat percentage. Not that fat magically was removed from the product but it still tastes so good! Notice the calories from fat on the label and use that to calculate the real amount of fat in the product you are consuming.

Gluten-free: This label does not mean "healthy" it only means there is not the allergen gluten in it. It would be almost like labeling any food "nut-free" or "dairy-free" it only means that people do not have to worry about gluten in that product. This is great news for those with gluten intolerance that want to buy quick bar-code foods too. But these boxed gluten-free products often have just as many chemicals and additives as other boxed foods. While some companies are gluten-free and pride themselves in healthy ingredients, not all do. Make sure not to fall into this new marketing trap and look at the ingredients on the items you buy.

Sugar-free: The natural sugars in foods such as fructose and lactose must be chemically stripped from the ingredients and replaces with chemical-filled sweeteners in order to make something sugar free. Losing sugars is not worth the gaining of these potent chemicals.

All-natural: These porducts have to use SOMETHING to ensure you will buy it again, that is the point of marketing. Many products add cups of refined sugar to their "all-natural" product to make it delicious... and it is still all-natural. All-Natural Prego, for example, has almost a half cup of sugar.

Real Fruits and Veggies: This means they actually used real ingredients in your item. Great. What else did they use? Many of these products add a significant amount of sodium to their foods and drinks to get the same taste their consumers want while being able to label their product as healthy. Make sure to check the ingredients on the back. Even V8 has 20% of your daily recommended sodium intake in one serving.... what?

What you can do about all of this:

The ingredients on the back of the box/bottle are organized in order of percent of the product, so the ingredient that is the largest percentage is first. Make sure your product doesn't have more sugar or salt than other main ingredients.
If you cant pronounce something on the back and have never heard of it, I would suggest that it is not healthy and is full of chemicals.
If there is an entire paragraph of ingredients, the food is so processed and mixed, it is not real any more, no matter what the labeling says. Look for a short ingredient list that has real foods in it.
Be aware that ingredients that are washed out or only a very small portion (like chemicals used to break down the sugars) are not listed.
Buy as much real food as you can. A bag of ripe oranges is always better than processed oranges.

I have some old posts on bar-code products with great ingredient profiles, if you want to check some tested foods out! Happy shopping!

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Probiotics

2/11/2015

3 Comments

Probiotics are typically taken to help restore the normal flora of your gut. There are tons of helpful bacteria in there that actually help you digest foods properly and help to keep bad bugs from taking over in your intestines. They basically work for you and do a better job than you can do on your own. But there are so many types of probiotics out there, and they can be fairly expensive. So which kinds should you be looking to purchase? There is very little regulation on probiotics, so it is important to know what you are buying.
Vocabulary
Prebiotics: These basically prime your gut to encourage the good bacteria to thrive. Include inulin, lactulose, and psyllium.

Probiotics: A stain of bacteria synthesized to grow and help other bacteria grow in your gut.

Symbiotics: Prebiotic with a probiotic. So inulin with lactobacillus.

Antibiotics: Kill bacteria. They are not always specific in their killing and can kill the good bacteria with the bad.

Facts

Milk transmitted probiotics have only been shown to be viable for 2 weeks. Long-term use of this form of probiotic is not going to be as effective as tablet because of the short shelf life.
You can get natural food probiotics from fermented foods such as kimchi and sauerkraut.
There are a variety of strains of probiotics. Some that are recommended include lactobacillus casei DN-114 001, Lactobacillus reuteri ATCC55730, Bifidobacterium lactis Bb-12, Steptococcus thermophillus. These are some bacteria that are normal flora which is what we are trying to maintain in your gut with probiotics.
There are a variety of therapeutic doses for probiotics based on the bacterium used. Some have higher colony units than others but that does not necessarily correlate to greater effectiveness given the dose needed to be useful is different for each bacterium.
You can get them in capsules, tablets, powders, liquids, or incorporated into food such as yogurt. The benefits to each by clinical trial are mainly in what an individual tolerates best.

Uses

Preventing ulcerative colitis caused by antibiotics
Decreasing insidence Crohn's disease exacerbations
Limit symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome

At the end of the day, a lot about probiotics has been proven clinically. Some physicians swear by prescribing probiotics with antibiotics and others believe it is a waste of money. If you are using a potent antibiotic, have a bowel syndrome, or have had stomach viruses lately, they are worth trying at least for a round to see if they work for you. Choose based on the popular bacterium rather n the colony units and choose form based on what you will actually take.

Sources
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002586/
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/answers-to-your-questions-about-probiotics?page=2

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Health risks of Soda and Juice

1/27/2015

8 Comments

All beverages are not created equal. Over the years, there has been a lot of mixed information and confusing advertising surrounding things like juice soft drinks--and since I am from Arizona, I will call these sodas rather than coke or pop ;). Since I am interested in aiding your overall health and wellness through this fitness blog, I want to give you all a few facts about just how unhealthy processed juices and carbonated beverages can really be.

Soda
-Carbonation has been linked to increased incidence of bone density loss. This means becoming closer to having osteoporosis. This may be caused by decreased intake of calcium by soda drinkers or by the carbonation changing the pH status of the body causing increased utilization of calcium and phosphate to act as a buffer taking those key elements out of the bones.
-Sugar in excess can lead to diabetes. This you probably know. But drinking fluids with high sugar in excess causes larger insulin spikes more often which encourages the development of diabetes. Excess sugar also encourages cavities to grow in your teeth.
-Diet soda is not better. It may actually be worse. In order to make something "diet" or "calorie-free" you have to use many toxic chemicals to strip the ingredients and these chemicals are still left around for you to ingest. Things like aspartame (that are carcinogenic) are in these diet sodas. Your body retains sodium and therefore retains water to compensate for the toxins placed in it by consuming these diet sodas. People typically report gaining weight with diet sodas as compared with dropping soda all together.
-Soda is filling and it fills you with useless calories. You are less likely to drink water or intake enough calcium if you are drinking sodas than you are if you do not. You are not actually physiologically less thirsty after drinking a soda because it is not hydrating you, but you think you are less thirsty and are not encouraged to down a bottle of water. This is dangerous and can leave you chronically dehydrated. This causes skin problems and aging as well as puts a lot of stress on your organs.
- Soda consumption across the world has been linked in research trials to obesity and weight gain, especially in children.

Juice
-Sugar in drinks is still sugar consumed. Basically the same problem as with soda: you drink empty calories not contributing to your nutrition.
-100% fruit juice IS NOT 100% the fruit you are buying. Those crafty marketers! What this means is that everything in the bottle came from a fruit or veggie, but not necessarily the one whose flavor you just purchased. Let me explain. The thing you are buying is diluted with much more sugary and sweet juices like grape or pear to make the product cheaper. Check the ingredients on the back of the bottle to see what you are getting.

Looking for alternative drinks? Try the green smoothies that list their natural ingredients or buy your own. Make sure to check the list of ingredients on anything you are buying. Try tea or coffee instead of soda.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1829363/

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