Thursday, October 8, 2009

Workout Of The Week

Warm-up
5 minutes of skipping

Soft-tissue work
Foam roller: Quads/ITB/T-Spine/Hams/Lats
Tennis ball: Piriformis/Glute Medius/Infraspinatus

Activation Exercises, Mobility, and Dynamic Stretching
1. Glute Bridge w/medicine ball adduction 20 sec isometric hold + 20 reps
2. Serratus pushups 15 reps
3. Rectus Femoris/Tensor Fascia Lata stretch (required to open anterior hip)
4. Pec major stretch (required to allow for squats)
5. Wall slides 10 reps (help activate lower traps)
6. Band pull-aparts


Strength Work

KB Clean & Push Press
6x16kg, 4x20kg, 3x24KG, 3x3x28KG

Cambered Bar Squats
Work up to 5x6x(Bar+110 lbs)

Blast Straps Pushups (BTR)
5x18, 16, 15, 15, 13

Glute & Ham Raises
1x10x&, 1x10x12, 2x10x15, 1x14x&

Chest-supported Dumbbell Rows
12x30, 12x35, 3x12x40

Weighted Plank
1x75 sec x 25, 1x75 sec x 35, 1x65 sec x 45

Seated Hip Abduction With Band
3x20 x mini jumpstretch


Time 90 min.

Garbage Cereal - Rant

If my mom is reading this, she'll get a good laugh because she knows just how much I love good old Golden Grahams cereal. As a kid, if I could have chosen to subsist solely from one "food" source it
would have been Golden Grahams cereal hands down!


Why? Well I was a kid for one, and even if you'd told me how bad that stuff is I wouldn't have cared. I mean, as a kid, you're invincible. And the idea of "nutritional value", just didn't exist to me as a kid.


Fortunately I've grown up... at least in that regard! LOL


My beef with the cereal companies is how they market their products. I was at the supermarket last week and I had the "lovely" experience of watching a kid pressure his mom into buying him four utterly garbage-filled cereals.


I am going from memory here, but they were:

1. Lucky Charms
2. Count Chocula
3. Cinnamon Toast Crunch
4. Fruity Cheerios


As a (relatively) educated adult, that list sounds like a dessert list to me. But this mother gave in to her sons pressure and bought them all. I actually had to pretend to be deciding between a couple other products on the opposite wall so I could stay and listen in to the whole fiasco.


The mother said she wasn't sure if the cereals were nutritious enough, and it was actually the boy who pointed out a number of marketing and labeling facts that eventually convinced the mother to buy them.


From my recollection, there was mention of:

1. "Low in fat"
2. "Whole grain"
3. "Fruit has vitamins&minerals"
4. "Heart Healthy"


The cereals chosen were all low in fat, but really, who cares? More than anyone else, kids need fats. Of course they need healthy fats, not the kind you WOULD see in cereals if fats were not so taboo these days.


Whole grain. This is about the biggest joke ever. Just because you start with a WHOLE grain, doesn't mean after pulverizing the hell out of it that there's much left of any nutritional value. That's actually the whole point of cereals. Take Cheerios for example. Made from Whole Oats. Wow.. that's great. But if you take 1/4 cup of actual oats, after all the processing that General Mills does to them you get a whole BOX of Cheerios. So the cereal companies are basically diluting the nutritional content of the WHOLE grains in their products.


Of course they have to fill it with something, so what do you suppose that would be?

JOKE INGREDIENT LIST

Check out the ingredients list of this Berry Burst Cheerios garbage cereal. Can you believe they have the gall to put a little heart right square in the middle of the page that says "May reduce the risk of heart disease".



Read the ingredients list and you tell me if you think this cereal "might" reduce your risk of heart disease, or flat-out CAUSE you to get heart disease!


Here's another one...


As if being filled with corn starch, corn syrup, and corn meal wasn't bad enough, they even use corn as their "WHOLE GRAIN" base from which to make the cereal. It's absolutely abominable!



IMPORTANT VIDEO

Check out these VIDEOS I found on the GENERAL MILLS GARBAGE CEREAL website. These videos are short--basically because there isn't much to say that takes longer than 3 seconds about their cereals when it comes to health--and are designed to make you feel confident that you're serving your family healthy foods. They have a registered dietitian speaking in effort to boost your confidence in the health of these products.


First of all, as a registered dietitian, talk about prostituting oneself out to the highest bidder. Technically, everything she says is correct. But it does nothing to change the fact that those cereals are nothing more than vitamin fortified desserts that "start" with a WHOLE grain base.


Have I not made it clear enough that GRAINS aren't the end all and be all of nutrition? Yes they have lots of fiber when you eat them in the form they grow in or with minimal processing, and they do have some vitamins and minerals, but grains' biggest component is starch. Like we need any more of that!


Check this out... good old Cheerios, which used to be the cereal my mom would buy us all the time because she said it was the healthiest, has now sold out to the sugar demons. How many different sugary Cheerios cereals are there now?
Cheerios Variety



There are ten varieties of Cheerios, and seven of them have an image of fruit on the front of the box. Of the seven that have an image of fruit:


- Regular Cheerios and MultiGrain Cheerios actually have no fruit in it at all


- Berry Burst Cheerios has freeze-dried fruit (near zero nutrition)


- Banana Nut Cheerios has banana puree in it (can you imagine what that looks like when it is poured out of the massive drum at the factory... it's gonna look and taste like a grey sludge... no yellow colour) another near-zero nutrition


- Apple Cinnamon Cheerios has apple puree concentrate in it, which did come from apples, but no longer bears any semblance at all to the original fruit (another near zero nutrition)


- Fruity Cheerios has pear puree concentrate in it, which is basically no different than apple puree concentrate, it's just a sugary liquid with trace vitamin and mineral content (another near zero nutrition)


- Yogurt Cheerios has dried strawberries in it, which I would like to think may be somehow better than the others, but I just know it's not (another near zero nutrition)


So as you can see the marketing practices of these companies try to present their cereals as healthful with fiber, fruit, vitamins and minerals, when in the end they deliver virtually nothing.


Don't get me wrong, I could enjoy a bowl of cereal, I do have a sweet tooth, but if I were to do so it would be a 10% meal, and truthfully, so long as Hagen Daaz exists, they'll be my 10% meals!


At least Hagen Daaz doesn't try to be "Healthy"!


As always I welcome and encourage your comments, both good or bad.

Better Fat Loss, Fight Cancer, and Prevent Heart Disease with Trans Fats

Who Else Wants To Know How To Get Better Fat Loss, Fight Cancer, and Prevent Heart Disease with Trans Fats

Trans fats have been condemned to hell by the media, and while man made trans fats are definitely not good for you, not ALL trans fats are created equal. In this article I will show you how specific trans fats will give you better fat loss, help you fight cancer, and prevent heart disease.


Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) is a type of trans fat that has been studied extensively due to its huge potential for helping with obesity, cancer, and heart disease.


Trans fats are produced naturally in the stomachs of ruminant animals such as deer, moose, kangaroo (not a true ruminant, but an exceptional source of CLA), bison, beef, sheep, and goats.


One particular trans fat called t-10, c-12 CLA has been shown to reduce fat mass and increase lean muscle weight in a number of different studies, while a number of other studies have shown the trans fat called c-9, t-11 CLA has effects that reduce inflammation and risks of cardiovascular disease.


Interestingly there are other studies that show the direct opposite to be true. Does this even surprise you? The one thing we should all know by now is that whatever science studies and proves is true, will often be found to be false in a subsequent study. This has happened numerous
times with studies on vitamins.


However, when both types of trans fat CLA are studied together, most studies showed reduced body fat mass, increase lean muscle tissue, and reduced incidencs of both cancers and heart disease markers.


The key element is that when science tries to isolate the effects of different substances, often the study methods influence the outcomes. But left to it's own devices, the human body will reap the benefits without experiencing the negative effects noticed in the studies.


Interestingly, when studies of the effects of CLA consumption involve its natural form INSTEAD of taking it as a nutritional supplement, once again, the health benefits are shown, with little to no adverse affects. (see I'm not writing this to sell any magic pills or potions to you!)


Another very important fact is that grass-fed animal meats contain between 300%-500% more CLA than their supermarket grain-fed counterparts.


So don't touch the stuff you find at your regular supermarket, unless it is clearly marked to be "GRASS-FED". If your local supermarket doesn't carry grass-fed meats, try your local butcher or health food stores.


One final study that I'd like to bring to your attention found that mothers who ate and drank organic grass-fed cows' meat and milk had 50 % higher rumenic acid (a type of trans fat) levels in their breast milk. In humans, rumenic acid is converted into CLA, which is responsible for the above noted effects.


The jury on this one, as always, is clear. Eat what nature provides for you in the form it exists in in nature, and you will reap the benefits. Try to put it into a magic pill, and you can't be sure that you will get the effects you seek, and you may even get some you don't want.


Over time science will study various nutritional substances and show that one thing works and another doesn't, and then later their studies will show the opposite. The incredible human body always knows exactly how to use all the nutrients in exactly the right way to get the best possible health benefits.


When selecting foods always choose organic if possible, choose fresh whenever possible, choose pasture raised forage and grass-fed meats, and in general, be wary of foods that require a big label that tries to convince you of their health benefits.



References:


Banni S, Angioni E, Murru E, Carta G, Melis M, Bauman D, Dong Y, Ip C (2001). "Vaccenic acid feeding increases tissue levels of conjugated linoleic acid and suppresses development of premalignant lesions in rat mammary gland.", Nutr Cancer 41 (1-2): 91–7

Donnelly C, Olsen AM, Lewis LD, Eisenberg BL, Eastman A, Kinlaw WB. (2009), "Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) inhibits expression of the Spot 14 (THRSP) and fatty acid synthase genes and impairs the growth of human breast cancer and liposarcoma cells.", Nutr Cancer. 61 (1): 114–22

AmarĂ¹ DL, Field CJ. (2009), "Conjugated Linoleic Acid Decreases MCF-7 Human Breast Cancer Cell Growth and Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 Receptor Levels.", Lipids 26

Lee Y, Thompson JT, de Lera AR, Vanden Heuvel JP. (2008), "Isomer-specific effects of conjugated linoleic acid on gene expression in RAW 264.7.", J Nutr Biochem 26

Ha YL, Grimm NK, Pariza MW (1987). "Anticarcinogens from fried ground beef: heat-altered derivatives of linoleic acid.", Carcinogenesis 8 (12): 1881–7

Fite A, Goua M, Wahle KW, Schofield AC, Hutcheon AW, Heys SD. (2007), "Potentiation of the anti-tumour effect of docetaxel by conjugated linoleic acids (CLAs) in breast cancer cells in vitro.", Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. (Scotland, UK) 77: 87

Kritchevsky D. (May 2000), "Antimutagenic and some other effects of conjugated linoleic acid.", Br J Nutr. 83 (5): 459–65

Belury, M.A. (October 2002). "Inhibition of carcinogenesis by conjugated linoleic acid: Potential mechanisms of action.", Journal of Nutrition 132 (10): 2995–2998

Ip C, Scimeca JA, Thompson HJ. (1994), "Conjugated linoleic acid. A powerful anticarcinogen from animal fat sources.", Cancer 233 (3): 1050–4

A C Watras, A C Buchholz, R N Close, Z Zhang and D A Schoeller, "The role of conjugated linoleic acid in reducing body fat and preventing holiday weight gain.", International Journal of Obesity (2007) 31, 481–487

Pariza MW, Park Y, Cook ME. (Jul 2001), "The biologically active isomers of conjugated linoleic acid.", Prog Lipid Res. 40 (4): 283–98

Tricon S, Burdge GC, Kew S, et al. (September 2004). "Opposing effects of cis-9,trans-11 and trans-10,cis-12 conjugated linoleic acid on blood lipids in healthy humans.", Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 80 (3): 614–20

Lukas Rist, Andre Mueller, Christiane Barthel, Bianca Snijders, Margje Jansen, A. Paula Simoes-Wust, Machteld Huber, Ischa Kummeling, Ursula von Mandach, Hans Steinhart, and Carel Thijs. (2007). "Influence of organic diet on the amount of conjugated linoleic acids in breast milk.", British Journal of Nutrition 97: 735–743

Friday, October 2, 2009

Get My Help

Hey Folks,

Gotta make this quick, but scroll down to the comments section and tell me in as much detail as you can exactly what kind of content you'd like to receive from me.

Tell me exactly what will help you most...

Nutrition?

Training?

Mindset?

Social support?


You tell me?


I deliver!


Deal?


Until next time!

:)
Shane