Running High!

I've recently taken up running (which I've always hated) so I was really excited to read this next report.

Apparently runners high, the euphoria that runners feel after a good long jog, really exists.

Researchers in Germany have reported that running elicits a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner's body pumps out, the better the runner feels.

Bare in mind, that to get a really good "high" most runners had to jog for at least 2 hours, but until I can work up to that length, I will have to settle for a feeling of mild euphoria.

Why Does Cardio Make Sense?

I'm a big believer in weight-training. Not only does it build muscle, but it also builds bone strength and helps burn fat, but new studies are casting doubt on the fat-burning benefits of weight training alone.

While it's true that increased muscle in your body will help you burn more calories at rest, the difference is pretty minimal. For each pound of muscle you gain, you burn between 30-50 calories more per day. We're talking about a tablespoon of salad dressing.

Weight training is also touted to have great after-burn effects. That is, it keeps your metabolism revved up longer than if you were to do cardio. This however, is based on you working at 75% of your maximum heart rate for a prolonged time, and few people weight train at that intensity.

Finally, if you're looking to burn calories, studies have shown that high intensity cardio (running an 8 minute mile, etc.) burns twice as many calories as vigorous weight lifting.

So if you're looking to lose weight, you definitely need to incorporate cardio into your routine. That being said, cardio alone will not give you the benefits of stronger bones and increased strength, not to mention a toned body.

I guess the moral of this story, as always, is that you should incorporate both cardio and weights in your workout for the best overall benefits.

Potatoes ... Really?

Potatoes are my favourite food. I love them baked, fried, roasted, you name it. And when I cut carbs, they are the one food I crave and find difficult to resist. That's why I nearly danced with joy when I red the following findings in the American Dietetic Association's Guide to Better Digestion."

The author's of the guide conclude that potatoes, corn and rice contain resistant starch, a unique kind of fiber that has incredible health and weight loss benefits.

Resistant starch is a type of dietary fiber found in many carbohydrate-rich foods, particularly when these foods are cooled. It resists digestion in the body, increases your body's ability to burn fat and also fills you up and reduces overall hunger. If that weren't enough, and believe me it is, studies show that it also improves blood sugar control, boosts immunity and could even reduce the risk of cancer.

Resistant starch is bulky, which makes you feel full, and because it can't be digested, it never enters the bloodstream. Without going into too much science, studies found that replacing just 5.4% of total carbs with resistant carbs creates a 20-30% increase in fat burning after a meal.

HOW TO GET THE BEST BENEFITS

Add approximately 1/2 to 1 cup of cooled resistant starch-rich food to your day. Make sure the starchy food is cool because the resistant starch is created after it is cooked and then cooled.

Some suggested foods include potato or yam salad, brown rice sushi or corn (in taco salad, burritos or quesadillas).

I'm going to bake (and cool) a potato right now!

Hollywood Diet Surprises

It's no surprise to read that a lot of A-list celebrities do some pretty unhealthy things to their bodies in their quest to fit into that coveted size 0, but recently I've read a couple of interesting (and fairly sane) tips that might work for you too.

Pass the Vinegar! Apparently a lot of supermodels eat greens doused in vinegar 20 minutes before dinner. Because Vinegar slows the glycemic effect of carbohydrates it makes you feel fuller, longer. If you're feeling full before you order a meal, you are less likely to order the 16-ounce steak with fries!

Pocket-size breath strips. The breath strips, or a mint-flavoured gum will keep you from eating dessert, even if you're hungry. Both the strips and the gum will numb your taste buds and alter the taste of food that you may eat afterwards. And if the food's not gonna taste good, what's the point of eating it?

Exercise for the Overweight

A lot of people who are overweight feel too intimidated to work out. But a new study has concluded that overweight and even obese people see significant cardio-vascular improvement when they exercise.

The study, conducted at the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, found that overweight and obese men who performed at least 30 minutes of moderate activity on most days saw 24% increase in their cardiovascular improvement. Furthermore, obese men in the study who did not exercise saw a 32% decrease in their vascular function.

Considering overweight and obese people are more prone to heart disease, these conclusions are pretty important.

Quick Motivation

I was just reading an article online where the author was discussing the theory of calories in versus calories out. We all know if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. Not brain science.

But what I liked in the article is that the author, Herb Duncan, gave an example of someone who had gained 20 pounds in 20 years. According to Duncan, if a person walks just 150 more steps daily (which could be done in 2-3 minutes a day), they would gain any weight at all.

Duncan then took this further and concluded that if someone goes to the gym just 10 times a year for approximately 30 minutes and does a light workout, they would actually lose 20 pounds over those 20 years.

Who can't spare 2-3 minutes a day? Really?

Water Loss and your Scale

When you first embark on a diet, especially a more stringent one, you will probably lose a lot of weight initially. Some of that weight is actually water.

The explanation sounds complicated, but basically when you are low in calories, your body releases stored glycogen to make energy so that you can live. When stored glycogen is converted to glucose during this phase, it releases three parts water for every one part glucose. While you're using the glucose for energy, you release the extra water in your urine.

Each cup of water that you urinate equals about a half pound of weight so if you're peeing 2 cups of water, your scale will say you've lost 1 pound.

While beginning an initial diet it's really important to drink more water to make up for this extra water loss. Yes, your scale will go back up, but it's water weight not fat, and the extra water will also help clear you system of waste products that are stuck in your body because there's no liquid to get rid of them!

Skip the Fat-Burning Zone

A lot of cardio machines at the gym have a "fat-burning zone" that you can choose. The idea behind this is that when you exercise in that particular zone of intensity, usually between 60 and 70% of your maximum heart rate, you will burn more fat.

It's true that at lower intensities, more of the calories that you burn actually come from fat as opposed to carbs. However, if you work at higher intensities, you'll not only burn the recently-eaten carbs, but you'll dig into these same fat stores.

The higher the intensity of your workout, the more calories you burn, and when it comes to losing weight, it's the amount of calories you burn during a workout that matters.

So if you can stand a workout that's a little harder, ignore those machine workouts and push your limits. You'll see results much faster.

Body Weight Exercises

Unfortunately, a lot of people are under the misconception that getting fit costs a lot of money. Gym memberships aren't cheap these days and creating your own home gym involves a lot of money up front. But you can get an amazing workout with nothing other than your body weight.

Here's a list of some of my favourite body weight exercises. They require little or no additional equipment and can be done almost anywhere.

Jogging / walking - You really can't beat walking or running for a cardio workout. As long as you have a good pair of sneakers, you can take a different route from your house every day and get a great workout.

Push Ups - I can do chest presses at the gym and break a little sweat, but after a few push ups, I'm dying. These are amazing for working your chest, and if you lower your arms and bring them closer to your sides (so that when you are lowered, your palms are below your underarms) it is a killer tricep workout.

Dips - Speaking of triceps. If you have two chairs, you can get a great tricep workout by doing dips. Place your hands on the end of one chair and your feet on another. Then lift and lower your midsection.

Crunches - All crunches, especially bicycle crunches where one elbow reaches towards the opposite knee, are great for building your abdominals. No machines required.

Squats - Want great legs? Then squats should be our best friend. Stand with your feet about shoulder width apart. Contract your abs as you bend your knees so that your upper legs are parallel to the ground. (Try to keep your knees from going in front of your toes during this movement.) Squeeze your buns as your return to your beginning position.

Hip extensions (bent leg raises) - This exercise, although seeming very simple, can be killer for your butt / glutes. On hands and knees, keep your abs tight and squeeze your glutes as you lift your right leg up in a 90-degree angle. At the end of the movement, your heel should be facing the ceiling. Return the leg to starting position and repeat with the same leg for as many reps as you can do. Then repeat the same movement with your left leg.

There are a lot of other body weight exercises out there. The ones mentioned here will give you a great workout, but feel free to add your own ideas. Just remember that these exercises can be quite intense and that, as with all strength training workouts, you should not train the same muscle 2 days in a row.

Snack Attack!

You work so hard eating healthy means and exercise. Don't blow your fitness goals at snack time. Obviously some snacks are better than other. Whether they're more nutritional or keep you feeling fuller longer, these snacks pack more for your buck!

Instant Oatmeal - Although this isn't as good as the slow-cook variety, it is still nutritional and keeps you feeling fuller than All Bran or Muesli.

Fruit / not Juice - Skip juice whenever you can and opt for real fruit instead. Juice has higher sugar content, while fruit has more fiber and makes you feel full, especially the pulp varieties. While you're at it, skip dried fruit which has less water content and thus doesn't fill you up as much.

Sugar-free gum - I've posted about this before, but chewing gum not only makes you feel full, it actually burns calories while you chew!

Miso Soup - This soup is protein-rich and protein is harder to break down than carbs, so you'll be burning more calories while getting rid of hunger pangs.

Whole Wheat bread - if you're gonna have a small sandwich, opt for whole wheat. It will make you feel more full than the white variety.

Beans - Beans contain high fiber which will keep you feeling full longer. You can add it to salad or soup, or just drizzle it with low-fat salad dressing between meals.

Pepper - Add some hot, red pepper to your savoury snack because it's known to fire up your metabolism.

And of course, you can always read my previous posts on blueberries and cinammon.

Plateau Help

If you're feeling frustrated that you've hit a weight loss plateau, you're not alone. Don't feel discouraged because hitting a plateau is a sign that you've been doing a good job.

While you've been working out and eating healthy, you have not only been losing weight, but your have made your body more efficient. This means that your BMR has decreased and your body needs less calories to keep it going throughout the day.

Congratulations. Good job. The bad news is, you now have to work even harder to subtract calories from your day. This is the time to re-evaluate your diet to see if there are even a few more calories you can subtract that way. Also, it's time to gear up your workout. Spend a few more minutes in the gym doing cardio and especially lifting weight so that you can continue burning calories throughout the rest of the day.

Once you treat that a plateau is a good thing, you will no longer feel defeated, but rather inspired to get past it and continue your fitness quest!

Exercise or Diet?

The last few posts have all been titled with a question. Well, there are a lot of questions when it comes to fitness and here at Everything Fit we try to give you some of the answers. And when there are no straight answers, we at least try to give you the facts so you can make an informed decision yourself.

This post's question is whether it is better to lose weight through dieting or through exercise, but let's break down why.

Dieting helps you create a caloric deficit. If you eat less calories than your body needs to stay alive (your BMR), then you will lose weight. Great, right? Well, not so fast. Very low calorie diets will actually slow down your metabolism so while you're eating less, your body learns to survive on less. And when you eventually start eating normally again you will actually gain weight because your body is used to surviving on less calories.

Exercise alone is a great way to lose weight, but there are drawbacks to this too. A lot of people assume because they're exercising that they can eat more than normal. It takes a lot of exercise to burn a pound of fat. That trail mix I gave up eating in my last post would take over an hour of jogging to burn off. What a waste of an hour.

Also, if you do too much cardio, you run the risk of burning muscle as well as fat, which will also slow your metabolism down.

So if you can exercise by doing cardio and weights and create a small caloric deficit that way every day (say around 500 calories per day) and you lower your food intake by about 500 calories a day, you would lose 1 pound a week without harming your metabolism in the process.

To Count or Not To Count

A lot of times we hear that if we want to lose weight we should count calories. As with all things, even this should be done in moderation.

Counting calories can be a pain. Who wants to pull out a notebook everytime they grab a snack? On the other hand, if you know you have to write everything down, you might not be as quick to grab that handful of trail mix. And studies have shown that people who write down everything they eat, actually do eat less calories.

Another bonus of writing things down is that most people grossly underestimate how many calories they're eating. So writing things down is actually an educational process. All those months of eating trail mix and thinking it was just a quick snack? Did you know that a cup of trail mix is almost 700 calories? That's more than half of my day's caloric requirements. Yikes.

A good compromise is to write down what you're eating for a few weeks. This will give you a good idea of how many calories most of your meals and snacks are. Once you have a better grasp on what you're really eating, you can lay off writing everything down.

All I know is there won't be any more trail mix in my cupboard.

Geek Fitness for Fitness Geeks

I’ve been pretty excited with all the latest developments that blend technology with fitness. I’m looking forward to Nintendo soon-to-be released WII Fit and Sega Toys has already released their Get-Fit Earphones that check your pulse via your earlobes.

Of course there’s also the Nike+ system that tracks your runs with the use of an IPod and a special chip in your Nike+ shoes. Well, now there’s news that Nike+ will soon be compatible with other cardio equipment including ellipticals and exercise bikes.

I’m pretty competitive with myself so the fact that I can use any of these items to push myself to work harder, whether I’m running outside or using the step-climber at the gym is pretty exciting for me.

Anything that can give me motivation, I say bring it on!

What's First: Cardio or Weights?

This is debated almost as much as “which came first: the chicken or the egg?”

There are benefits to doing both your cardio and weight-training workout first. Trainers argue that if your goal is to build endurance or speed or to train for a race, then cardio should be done first, before your muscles are fatigued from weight-training.

Similarly, if your goal is to gain strength or power, then it makes sense to do your weight-training first, before your muscles are fatigued from cardio. An intense cardio workout will burn both fat and carbs, and carbs are the key source of energy when weight training, so you may not be able to lift as much if you’ve already finished your cardio workout.

I’ve also previously posted that you burn your fat by increasing your lean mass, which will help you burn calories all day long. So it makes sense that weight training should also be a priority in your workout

A new study has found yet another reason to push weight training to the forefront. The Journal of Applied Physiology reports that participants who weight train before cardio have more heart-related benefits.

Researchers behind the study say lifting weights can increase blood pressure, which stiffens arteries. Doing cardio after weight training releases chemicals that cause the arteries to dilate and lower your blood pressure.

So there you have it, unless endurance performance is your main focus, it is probably a better idea to weight train before doing cardio.

Now if only we could decide if the chicken came before the egg!

No Time: No Excuse!

Just a few minutes of intense exercise ever day can produce the same results as traditional endurance training.

Authors of a study published in The Journal of Physiology followed 2 groups of college-aged students who performed 6 training sessions over 8 weeks. One group did 4-6 30 second bursts of all-out cycling separated by4 minutes or recovery during each training session. The other group did 90-120 minutes of continuous moderate-intensity cycling each day. Over 2 weeks, the short burst group spent 2.5 hours training, including recovery time, while the moderate-intensity group spent 10.5 hours training. Still, despite the difference in training volume, both groups showed similar improvements in exercise performance.

The authors pointed out that the training required to bring these results is very intense, but if you're generally healthy and you check with your doctor first, this may cut your time in the gym in half. And who can't use extra time in their day?

Eating Blue

A new study is suggesting that eating blueberries or taking blueberry extract may help people lose weight by reducing the intake of calories.

Researchers in the US and New Zealand fed blueberry extract to rats and found that the rodents gained 10% less body weight than rats who did not receive the extract.

The blueberry-fed rats also had an 85 decrease in food intake. Because of this, researchers are suggesting that blueberries and blueberry extract has a satiety effect (makes you feel full).

In addition to possibly helping you lose weight, blueberries are also a great source of antioxidants, which may help prevent or repair cell damage that could lead to heart disease, some cancers, Alzheimer's and other health problems.