Yes! Indulge on endorphins.
Fit people’s food beliefs
I read a book called “The Body fat Solution” by Tom Venuto last weekend. Here is a passage that I found interesting: it deals with our beliefs about food and how they affect our behavior and decisions. (The photo on the left has nothing to do with the book, I just placed it here because I think it’s cute :)“When it comes to food, I’ve discovered that fit, lean, and healthy people have a unique set of beliefs about food and a distinct set of metaphors they use to describe food and what food is for. The ones I’ve heard most often include:
- Food is fuel.
- Food is the best medicine.
- Food is construction material for the body.
- Food stokes the fire of metabolism.
- Fruit is nature’s candy.
- Lean protein is the lean muscle builder.
- High-fiber foods are nature’s Roto-Rooter.
I’ve never met anyone who talked about food with this type of language exclusively, who had a challenge with inappropriate eating or excess body fat. Think about that. When you look at it this way, food is no longer the problem, food is the solution and you become driven to eat the right foods rather than avoid food.”
Occasionally, as a mom, I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing. Monday night, as I waited in line for a press preview of The Hunger Games with my 11-year-old daughter Clara in tow, was definitely one of those times. Read full post
Spine stretch
Our spine consists of vertebrae and sponge-like discs. Gravity causes the discs to lose moisture throughout the day, resulting in a daily height loss of up to 1 to 2 cm (1/2” - 3/4”)! The moisture returns to the discs overnight, but not 100%. Over a lifetime, a person can permanently lose between 1 to 5 cm (1/2” - 2”) in height!
Many weight training moves (like squats & deadlifts for example) put a lot of additional pressure on the spine. Hanging from a pullup bar for at least 30 seconds is a fantastic stretch to help decompress your spine after an heavy weight-training session.
An article “Train through your period” from Oxygen Magazine. I agree that having your period is not a good excuse for skipping your workout, (unless of course you’re rolling on the floor with heavy cramps or feeling super weak & iron-deficient), but tip 4 about doing Zumba is probably the last thing I’d feel like doing!
More about period & PMS in this interesting blog-article: Is your period trying to tell you something?
I hate the title of this article but the content is pretty good. It also explains why we’re seeing more and more cases of celiac disease and gluten intolerance — and why going gluten-free is more than just a diet fad. Here’s a taste:
[We now eat dwarf wheat, a genetic hybrid and manipulation of the wheat our ancestors ate.] Dwarf wheat is that it contains very high levels of a super starch called amylopectin A. This is how we get big fluffy Wonder Bread and Cinnabons.
Here’s the downside. Two slices of whole wheat bread now raise your blood sugar more than two tablespoons of table sugar.
There is no difference between whole wheat and white flour here. The biggest scam perpetrated on the unsuspecting public is the inclusion of “whole grains” in many processed foods full of sugar and wheat, giving the food a virtuous glow. The best way to avoid foods that are bad for you is to stay away from foods with health claims on the labels. They are usually hiding something bad.
Not only does this dwarf, FrankenWheat, contain the super starch, but it also contains super gluten which is much more likely to create inflammation in the body. And in addition to a host of inflammatory and chronic diseases caused by gluten, it causes obesity and diabetes.
Gluten is that sticky protein in wheat that holds bread together and makes it rise. The old fourteen-chromosome-containing Einkorn wheat codes for the small number of gluten proteins, and those that it does produce are the least likely to trigger celiac disease and inflammation. The new dwarf wheat contains twenty-eight or twice as many chromosomes and produces a large variety of gluten proteins, including the ones most likely to cause celiac disease.
[…]
A major study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that hidden gluten sensitivity (elevated antibodies without full-blown celiac disease) was shown to increase risk of death by 35 to 75 percent, mostly by causing heart disease and cancer.[4] Just by this mechanism alone, over 20 million Americans are at risk for heart attack, obesity, cancer and death.
