Pasta free spaghetti!

This recipe rocks!
It was given a gold star by the husband who is a big pasta fan...........even though it has none!  The pasta is replaced with spaghetti squash.  When cooked to just the right tenderness, the texture is pretty darn satisfying under your meat sauce.

Ingredients:

1 large spaghetti squash
1 lb. Natural ground beef (try to get organic or hormone free)
1 sm. onion, chopped
couple of cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 14 oz can diced fire roasted tomatoes
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
*lots of dried oregano (to taste)
*lots of onion powder
*lots of garlic powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
pinch of dried rosemary
1 tsp sea salt
pat of butter

punch a couple of holes in the top of the spaghetti squash and put it in the microwave and cook on high for about ten minutes (less time for a smaller one).  I usually throw mine in an hour or so before cooking the meal so I can take it out and let it cool for a half hour before I need it.  Brown the beef, onions and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a biol then simmer on low for about 30 minutes.
Slice the spaghetti squash in half and scoop out the seeds and toss.  Hold half of the squash on its end inside of a bowl and use a fork to scrape the strands loose form the skin.  keep scraping until you get as much out as you can.  Repeat with other half.  Toss the shells.  Toss with a small pat of butter.
Serve like pasta, pouring the sauce on top, sprinkle with dried parmesan (optional).

A Plant- Based Diet for Ultra Performance and Superior Health?

More and more we are starting to see the pitfalls of the “standard American diet”. It is no coincidence that it bears the acronym S.A.D……well, because it is nothing less than sad. Most of us don’t even know that most of the things that we are putting in to our mouths (and more sadly our kids’) aren’t even really food. The bulk of our diet is made in factories from refined white flour, partially hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup. It is then packaged in colorful little boxes with enticing pictures on the front and at a fraction of the cost of “real” food. By real food I mean those things our creator intended for us to eat, like beautiful, multicolored fruits and vegetables. The average per-person vegetable consumption is 0-2 servings per week. And we wonder why as a nation our health is failing. The foods we were intended to eat infuse our cells with vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants. Not only do these components contribute to optimum health, but they give us long-lasting, sustained energy by way of slowly released energy. This equates to nice, even blood glucose levels. Simple carbohydrate sources such as the ones we have all come to accept as the foundation of our diets (bagels, bread, pasta, crackers) have a more profound effect on glucose levels. Upon consumption there is a nice rise in blood sugar and energy, but hours later there is often a compensatory crash in energy levels. The blood sugar crashes from all of that insulin released as the body tries to deal with the big onslaught of fast digesting carbs.


One of the biggest pushes toward a high processed carb diet is in the endurance exercise community. Just about every book and magazine geared toward running or cycling touts the necessity of obtaining the vast majority of calories from starchy carb sources. It is often recommended that 50% or MORE of the daily calories should be from carbs, that they are the body’s preferred fuel source. Many participants even supplement further with fast digesting sugar-based gels and liquids during their activity.

We have to step back and ask ourselves, is this approach really the best? Even more importantly, is it the most beneficial to our health? Could we just be plain wrong? Endurance athletes are notorious for “bonking”, which in layman’s terms is running out of gas during an event. If all these processed carbs are so wonderful for sustained energy, why are we needing sports drinks and gels to get us through, and why are overtraining and overuse injuries so prevalent? Let’s take a look at it from another angle.

The Tarahumara are a tribe of Indians living in Northwestern Mexico. Running is a part of their daily life, not only as a lifestyle but as a necessity. They live in a very rugged and treacherous terrain with deep canyons and lots of vegetation. It is not unusual for the average tribe member to log between 50 and 80 miles every day at a marathon pace. The land makes it impossible to travel by horse or wagon, so they run from place to place to complete their daily tasks. The interesting part is that they are keeping up this frenetic pace on a plant-based diet. No bagels, no sports goo, no big bowls of cereal. Their diet is roughly 80% plants (squash, beans, corn), 10% fat and a measly 10% protein from the special occasion when they get some fish, mice or goat. Even more fascinating is that they run incredible distances and still feel great. One tribe member was said to have ran six hundred miles in five days to deliver an important message. When they ran in the 1928 marathon, they blew through the course and exclaimed “Too short! Too short!”

Scientists have done many tests and studies on the Tarahumara to see if they have some genetic propensity toward better endurance. Everything keeps coming back to the fact that they are products of conditioning not heredity. Their extreme, almost vegetarian diet translates into an unnaturally low pulse rate and blood pressure. These things (along with a high-antioxidant diet) are also attributed to generalized well being, better energy, and a reduced risk of disease.

There seems to be such controversy over eating a plant-based diet. Many people view it as extreme, when in fact it is actually where our culinary roots are. Prior to the factory age we had to grow, hunt and forage for our sustenance. Have we gotten so far from where we are supposed to be in regards to our diet that we are sabotaging ourselves? Why are we continually pumping more and more man-made carbs into our systems in the quest for sustained energy when really some beans and vegetables would do the trick? Nutrition science is always behind due to the old-school doctrine of the U.S.D.A., and people are given these antiquated RDA guidelines to follow which may not necessarily lead them to optimum health. I still think we are closer than ever to a revolution. More and more athletes are coming out, and very vocally about their switch to a vegetarian or even vegan diet. They are raving about how much better their performance is, and how they are no longer just surviving, but thriving!

What is Crossfit??

I get this question every day.  Since I am fully engrossed in it as a Crossfit certified trainer, and believe there is no faster way to get in amazing shape, here is a video.  This explains it better than my words ever could!  The beauty of it is that it is FULLY SCALABLE to anyone. 

People are starving....on purpose

There’s a relatively new diet out there called calorie restriction, or CR. Followers would argue though that it is not a diet, it is a “lifestyle”. They claim that reducing their daily caloric intake by 30% to as much as 50% is the fountain of youth, and there are studies showing they may increase their life span by as much as 40%. They brag of lowered blood pressure, blood sugar and heart rate. They claim that they get to a point that they really aren’t hungry any more. This seems difficult to believe when being hungry all the time is the #1 reason people fail at even conservative 15-20% under maintenance diets. Neuroendocrine profiles clearly show that animals under CR are continuously hungry. At what point do these benefits become perilous? Sure, low blood pressure is good, but to a point- past which it is labeled hypotension. At this level it can be a nuisance causing dizziness upon standing and fainting spells. Further on down the road it can deprive the brain and other organs of vital oxygen. Same goes for lowered blood glucose. If it remains too low for too long there is a condition called neuroglycopenia that can result. Basically, the brain suffers from too little fuel for too long and there is fatigue, slurred speech, ataxia (incoordination), blurred vision and confusion.

A 20 year study was recently completed and published in Science News Magazine. There is compelling evidence that CR improves the health and extends the life spans of every tested species. “Tested species” however includes worms, spiders, rodents, dogs, cows, and monkeys. This study looked specifically at rhesus monkeys. We are only recently starting to do in-depth research on human subjects. There are now enough human guinea pigs out there following this diet, er, way of life that we have some to track. Researchers believe “it is likely we will see similar results in humans”.

Much more well studied are the effects of anorexia nervosa. Much scarier are the similarities between CR and anorexia. The physical effects of CR include:

- Decreased RMR (resting metabolic rate)

- Loss of LBM (lean body mass)

- Loss of bone mass

- Decreased heart rate (bradycardia)

- Decreased blood pressure (hypotension)

- Decreased cardiac muscle mass

- Alopecia

- Food related obsessions

Other deleterious health effects of a persistent caloric deficit are low BMI and the effects of starvation. BMI under 18 is associated with significantly increased mortality from non-cancer, non-cardiovascular disease causes. In a nut shell, you are at a hugely increased risk of dying from just about anything- except cancer or heart disease. Nice. Severe calorie restriction may also lead to low-grade, insidious starvation effects on the body. In absence of adequate intake, the body turns to muscle, collagen, bone and remaining fat stores for fuel. Catabolic (muscle wasting) hormones such as cortisol are elevated, and catabolic (muscle sparing) hormones such as insulin decline. With too few calories, essential nutrient intake suffers as well, especially fat-soluble vitamins. These require fat for proper absorption. High calorie foods such as meat, nuts, dairy and oils are omitted due to their high caloric density.

Interestingly, every single one of these “effects” are also effects of Anorexia nervosa, but believers don’t want you to acknowledge that. Is this lifestyle a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Might these people already be the same people who would be more apt to fall into disordered eating behavior? Sometime back I saw two proponents of the diet, a husband and wife, on Oprah. Something about their demeanor bothered me. It wasn’t just that they were staunchly defensive of their “lifestyle”, but that more that they had no sparkle in their eyes. Oprah followed them through a typical days’ eating. They loaded up huge (I mean HUGE) salad bowls with greens, greens and more greens explaining that all those leaves only amount to about 30 calories. Then they topped off that massive mound with finely measured bits of more calorie dense items such as sunflower seeds and protein. Dressing was too “costly” calorie wise, so simple vinegar or lemon juice would have to do.

It seemed as though the rigid structure and deprivation of their daily existence had stolen something from their souls, they were more like automatons. Studies are showing that the later in life you start the CR lifestyle, the less the benefits. In other words, you have to starve for most of your life to reap the full benefits. Even more recently they say the life extending benefits may only be an added 2% to your life span, not the lofty 40% they originally claimed. Personally, I’m not signing up for complete and utter misery every single day for the rest of my life- to possibly add ONE year to it. Would you like a splash of lemon on those greens?

Post-vacation musings

Our family recently went on a wonderful four day cruise.  We relished every moment of being lazy, gluttonous and catered to.  Our biggest decisions each day were which ship restaurant to eat at, what activities to partake in, and where to shop next.  These few days of eating whatever we wanted whenever we wanted were freeing.  At home we cook healthy meals at home, and exercise most days of the week, so vacation is a time to take a mind/body break from all of it.
    It was very eye-opening a couple of days into the cruise when my husband's ankles and fingers swelled so badly from all the sodium in the food that he looked like the Michelin man.

Most of the cruisers were overweight, and we watched as they piled the food so high on their plates it was spilling over the sides.  I saw a guy standing in line for more food while still munching on a sandwich from the previous load. Another lady had just finished a couple of plates of food and came back to the table with three pieces of cheesecake, and 2-3 other desserts- and ate it all herself.  Now don't get me wrong.  We were enjoying the chocolate covered strawberries and chocolates delivered to out suites daily, and dined and imbibed enough to return with a few unwanted pounds.  It was scary to think of how profoundly this way of eating affected my husband, who works out regularly and maintains a healthy diet.  It is easy to see how much stress the standard American diet puts on the body if his extremities could swell to those extremes. 

   A few of my clients seemed to be curious as to why we didn't take our exercise clothes or plan to exercise while on board.  My very simple answer is that a vacation is defined as "leisure time away from work devoted to rest or pleasure".  Exercise does NOT fit into that definition.  I have come to a place of balance in my life which I did not have even a few years ago.  Not being able to abandon the workouts for a few days to rest and recharge is the definition of imbalance.  I subscribe to the 90% rule.  If we eat clean and workout 90% of the time, there is 10% of wiggle room left over.  I have spent many years in that place where there was no balance, fretting over every missed workout and uncounted calorie.  I've come to realize that I didn't look/feel any better being obsessed, I just made my life empty.

"Muscle toning" workouts

Many people, especially women desire a fit, lean, toned body. There seems to be some controversy in the fitness community about how to achieve this look. Many people seem to believe that there is a different means by which you “tone” muscles as opposed to getting the big, muscular look. That’s actually not true, both looks require some form of resistance training, usually free-weight training. In order to get that definition, muscle needs to be built. Many trainees work out with weights that are too light due to their fear of getting “bulky”. There are so many other factors that weigh in to getting large muscles. One is genetics. There are few, but not many people with a genetic propensity toward gaining muscle quickly. Most of these individuals are men, since muscle growth is largely dependent on the hormone testosterone. Women naturally have very little of this hormone, so this is one reason why it is highly unlikely that most women need to worry about excess muscle growth. Another factor is nutrition. You need to be in a major caloric surplus to put on massive amounts of muscle. These top bodybuilding competitors that scare most of us with their huge shredded muscles consume thousands of extra calories a day to support that muscle growth. That is another reason most women need not fear getting too muscular, most women don’t eat a surplus of calories each day. If anything, many women are in a chronic deficit due to trying to “watch their figure”. You simply cannot build muscle without the building blocks (amino acids and carbohydrates) available. The last factor is the use of anabolic steroids. Unfortunately, a vast majority of athletes that appear “too muscular” to fit in with the mainstream are using these substances. So if you don’t have superior genetics, eat mass quantities of protein and carbohydrates or take ergogenic aids (anabolic steroids) you can train as hard and as often as needed without fear.

The principles involved in getting the toned, tight look are threefold. The increase in muscle size from training is what gives that nice, shapely look to all of the body parts. The second factor is cardiovascular activity to burn off that layer of fat that is blanketing the muscle. Lastly, and most important is nutrition. The most well planned out and rigorous workout program will be unsuccessful if the trainee’s diet is not intact. A proper amount of nutrients to support the workouts, and the right foods. 100 calories of French fries is not equal to 100 calories of oatmeal.

The take home message is that there is only one way to a nice, aesthetically pleasing, toned physique. It is with a good, balanced training and cardio program coupled with a clean, healthy diet.

Watch Those Incidentals!!

In-ci-den-tal
adjective-
incurred casually and in addition to the regular or main amount.

In all my years helping people to lose weight, I have figured out some tricks to get a client's weight loss moving again when it has stalled. The one I want to focus on today is the accurate tracking of "incidentals" in one's diet. I'm not merely referring to the bites of left over chicken finger or cheeseburger off their kid's plate that wasn't accounted for......but a more sneaky and insidious form of excess calories, the kind when you're measuring everything with your little scoopers and measuring spoons.......and STILL going over by a couple hundred calories per day?? How is this possible?
I'll tell you how. The next time you grab your half-cup or cup scooper, dunk it into that oatmeal container, scoop it up and level it off- try throwing that on the scale. You will find that there are more grams of oats on the scale than what the package label says is supposed to be in a half cup serving. To get the true serving size, you can't even fill the scooper all the way to the top. I know, ugh. A little more bad news, nuts are even more heinous. If the package says 1/4 cup is a serving size, and you level off the scooper full of nuts you are easily getting another half a serving. This is a big deal, because nuts are so calorie and fat dense. As an experiment, I weighed out my 28 grams of nuts (the serving listed on the package) and then put that into the 1/4 c measuring cup- it wasn't even close to filling it up. Bummer.
On to the GOOD news about all of this? Now you know, and now you can easily shave a pretty decent amount of calories off of your daily total and get back to where you THOUGHT you were in the first place. Oh, and.....I didn't even mention all that coffee mate and those packets of Splenda you weren't counting.....