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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Are you suffering from malnutrition and don’t even realize it?

You might have read this title and thought  “there’s no way this applies to me.  I eat healthy, I take a multivitamin.”    Most people that come to see me are on some sort of vitamin, mineral or other type of supplement.  And they feel that this is helping to make them healthier.  These days the food industry even fortifies our foods with vitamins and minerals by adding them into frequently consumed foods like breads, milk, etc. 

So given all of these wonderful technologies we have in place how is it possible that you could be suffering from malnutrition?  The problem in North America is rarely that a person isn’t consuming enough vitamins and minerals the problem is that most people in North America are not properly digesting and absorbing their nutrients.  There is a very good chance that you’re wasting your money on your multivitamins and other supplements because you’re not absorbing most of them into your body so your body can’t actually use the vitamins and minerals you’re supplying it with.
Most people these days have digestive dysfunction believe it or not.  A lot are getting pretty significant symptoms and think that they are “normal” because so many people these days are experiencing them.  Unfortunately this day and age what is typical is far from “normal.”  If you’re experiencing any of the following you’re probably suffering from digestive issues: bloating, gas, belching after meals, stomach pain, cramping, getting sick once or more a year, not having 1-3 bowel movements per day, having bowel movements that have a strong odour, frequent headaches, and indigestion/heartburn.  There are many more symptoms that can result from having digestive issues as well; these are just the most common.
If you’re having digestive problems depending on the type of digestive dysfunction that are occurring you will probably not be able to absorb the nutrients properly from your supplements.  Some of the most common digestive issues are hypochlorhydria (too little stomach acid), leaky gut syndrome (your small intestines don’t properly absorb food), parasite infection and bacterial imbalances.  All of these can create an environment in your gut that can be preventing you from being able to get the bang for your buck from the supplements you’re taking. 
Step one is to work on your foundational principles. 
1.        Make sure you’re not eating any processed food (read ingredient list, if you don’t recognize and ingredient don’t eat it!). 
2.       Make sure you’re eating lots of raw foods (fruits and veggies that are uncooked).
3.       Make sure you’re drinking enough water (1/2 an ounce of water for every pound of body weight).  And I do mean water, not processed beverages, not vitamin water, not coffee or tea.......water!
These are the first step to begging the repair process of your gut function.  The next step is to identify what digestive issues could be creating your problems.  We can help you with this step, shoot us an email at info@peak-personaltraining.com to find out how we can help you.  And finally you have to fix that dysfunction to make sure that your body is actually able to get the nutrients it needs.   This is typically done through nutrition and lifestyle change, exercise change, and intelligent supplementation.
The important lesson for today.......you can’t just take a “magic” pill or shake to get health, you have to make sure your body is actually functioning properly.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Nine reasons you're not losing weight

The other day I was out at a party, having fun with some friends when somone I didn't know at the party found out I was a personal trainer they started going on about how they can't lose body fat no matter what they do. Having spent several years now as a personal training in Ottawa working with people who are looking for weight loss I've heard this sentiment many times. "I can't lose body fat no matter what I try." This is what inspired this article. Most people tend to be doing one or two right things to try to lose weight, but just can’t seem to get the results they want. Usually they’ll try exercising (which usually consists of a large amount of slower paced cardio) and they might try to watch what they are eating. In this article I’m going to go through and give you 9 things that are holding you back from dropping that unwanted body fat.

#9- Poor hydration: You should be drinking around ½ ounce of water for every pound of body weight. If you’re not getting close to this amount or more you’re probably dehydrated. This is going to have a negative impact on not just your weight loss but also your energy levels and health. For more info on how and why to hydrate check my article on hydration.

#8- Not enough food: This typically tends to happen more with female clients then male clients. People get so concerned with counting calories and wanting to get those results fast they decrease their calorie consumption WAY too much. I had one client who would not take my advice of increasing her calorie intake; she ate 900-1100 calories/day. And guess what after losing 4 pounds in the first month she didn’t budge one single pound for the next 8 months because she just wasn’t eating enough food so her body was shutting down her metabolism. Don’t get into calories counting or slashing calories out. Focus more on good food choices (non processed food) and reasonable serving sizes.

#7- Too many carbs- In North America we’re carb overloaded. Almost everybody over consumes on carbs, this is in large part due to the typical American Food Pyramid or Canadian Food Guide and their unbelievably high serving sizes for grains. Even if you’re eating whole grains if you’re having 6-12 servings of grains per day you’re not going to be progressing towards your goal of weight loss. Now I’m not suggesting a low carb diet, carbs are a great thing you need them to live. However, try to get your carbs mainly from fruits and vegetables. Remember carbs are in almost every single food, outside of meat or fish.

#6- Avoiding fat- This is one of the biggest problems I see is people avoiding fats like the plague. Unless you’re eating a lot of deep fried food, fast food or potatoes chips you’re probably not over weight because of too much fat intake. I have to increase the fat consumption of most of my clients that come to me. I want to be clear when I say it is important to be increasing fats I’m talking from natural unprocessed sources, ie. Nuts, oils, avocados, meat, fish, etc. These are all good fats and they are going to help you towards your weight loss. If you’re consuming dairy products do NOT get low or no fat products. Get diary that has fat in it, don’t get the skim milk or the 1%, get some that has higher fat contents in them. Dairy is supposed to have fat in it, that’s what Mother Nature intended. If it is fat free or low fat it means it’s been very processed and nutrients have been taken out of the food.

#5-Too much aerobic exercise in the “fat burning” zone: Most people do endless amounts of cardio to lose weight, thank you mass media. Unfortunately this is far from the most efficient way to lose weight. For those of you who hate doing an hour of cardio every day I’ve got some good news for you. Slow long bouts of cardio is one of the least efficient ways for people to lose weight.

If someone has been completely sedentary and inactive they do need to start by doing some basic cardio (just get moving, go for walks or bike rides outside), however if you are in pretty decent shape you need to switch things up and start doing something different because as you develop more cardiovascular fitness your body becomes very efficient at storing fat. Go take a look at your local gyms aerobic classes. Pick out one or two regulars in the class who need to lose some weight, then come back in two months there is a good chance they will be the exact same size or bigger. Their body becomes so efficient at burning fat they begin to burn less calories with every workout. For more information on this check out this article on interval training.

#4- Not enough anaerobic exercise- Most of you are going to be saying to yourself what the hell is anaerobic exercise?? I’ll skip over the nerdy science stuff and give a simple explanation. With aerobic exercise your body uses oxygen as the main source of energy, with anaerobic work your body is working so hard that it doesn’t have enough time to use oxygen for energy so it uses glycogen (stored carbs) and a couple other chemical reactions to give you energy. Any easy rule of thumb to know if the exercise you’re doing is anerobic; if you can’t do the exercise for more than 30 seconds to a minute and half without taking some sort of rest or recovery then you’re training anaerobically.

For example, if you are in the weight room and you do a 8 reps on bench press and can’t get that 9th rep out. You would need a break to continue working out (this would be anaerobic). Picture a football player who sprints as fast as he can from one end of the field to the other, he wouldn’t be able to continue sprinting he would need to take a walk to recover (this is anaerobic). The reason it is important is when your body works anaerobically it elevates your metabolism and according to research it stays elevated anywhere from 4-48 hours afterwards. You do not get the same elevation in metabolism from aerobic work.

#3- Too little intensity when working out- When it comes down to it most people just don’t work hard enough when they are working out. As a personal trainer I see this with almost all new clients. They think they are working really hard and killing themselves, but they are far from really pushing the envelope. When you look at most people looking to lose weight and they are in the weight room they go through their little circuit of 8 exercises taking breaks long breaks, chatting in between. What they should be doing is getting some good quality work done in the gym. I would take 20 really hard minutes in the gym weather it’s weight room or cardio over 60 minutes of moderate intensity work for most people.
#2- Poor Sleep Habits- This is a big one where people go wrong. Most people are getting a terrible night of sleep these days. Over the years I have heard hundreds of different peoples lifestyles and sleep is one of the biggest problems. Most people get a broken night of sleep where they wake up several times and have problems getting to sleep or they can’t fall asleep in the first place, or they simply don’t leave themselves enough time to sleep. Step number one make sure you’re getting 8 hours of sleep every night. Step 2 make sure you’re getting to bed between 10:00 and 10:30 every night. Most people I talk to wine about having to go to bed that early and say I’m a night hawk I like to stay up late, I’m not tired at that time of night. The reason they’re not tired is because that is what you’ve conditioned your body to do. But all you’re doing is fighting Mother Nature again.

Humans are designed to function based on the cycle of the sun. Our hormone release is in large part triggered by the sun rising and the sun setting. If you’re getting to bed around midnight and getting up at 8:00 the next morning you’ll be throwing your hormones out of whack. I’ve seen a person who could not lose any weight once they switched their bed time to 10:30 without making any other changes he began to lose weight immediately. Not only will it help with your weight loss you’ll no longer need as much caffeine because you’ll have far more energy.

#1- The Wrong Attitude: This is probably one of the areas that most people need a lot of work on. Most people spend too much time being negative with their thoughts. Don’t look at exercise as being tough and a lot of work. Look at it as a way of challenging yourself, if you can get into the gym and get through a hard work out it can help you to build confidence in handling the other challenges life hands you.

Don’t look at eating healthy as a form of depriving yourself, thinking about how much better you’re going to feel not only with better energy and health , but also the increased confidence when you start to shed inches off your waste and hips. If you go into your weight loss challenge thinking that it’s going to be impossible, no fun and it’s going to suck that’s exactly what your experience is going to be and you won’t be getting to your goal. If you take a different perspective and look at it as a challenging journey that has a light at the end of the tunnel and you keep your positive perspective going you’ll get to that light at the end of the tunnel.

Most people when they ask me what they should do to lose some weight don’t like the answer I give them because it’s not a quick fix; it’s not some miracle pill. It’s going to take hard work, commitment and it will be a long journey. But once you get to your weight loss goal I guarantee you it will all be worth the hard work and effort.

For more free information check out our free resource section of our website at http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/resources.html

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

How can you get rid of your love handles?

In the last post we talked about some of the problems of using exercise to target specific areas for fat loss.  In this post we will quickly cover how to target one area that people typically want to lose the bulge. 

Do you want to trim down your “love handle” area at the side of the stomach?  This area will often get an increase in body fat from people who are having issues with the hormone insulin.  If you’re having an increase in fat in this specific area that means you’re probably doing something in your nutrition that is causing a steep increase in your insulin levels.  When you think about insulin you probably think about diabetes.  But just because you don’t have diabetes doesn’t mean you’re in the clear when it comes to insulin and fat loss. 

To simplify it insulin’s job is to decrease the amount of sugar that is in our blood stream and store the sugar for use later or take it to be used as energy.  First it is important to understand that all carbohydrates spike insulin levels.  Certain types of carbohydrates like processed sugar and grains spike insulin levels more, while others like fruit will spike them slightly less.  And finally most vegetables create very small insulin spike. 

What does this have to do with targeting your love handle area? Well, insulin signals your body it’s time to store fat, the more insulin that gets released the more fat is stored.  Many people think that by eating a low fat diet they can avoid this, but unfortunately your body has a process that converts any excess carbohydrates into fat.  And a lot of this fat storage will store in your love handle area specifically. 

So what can you do to help decrease fat storage in this area?  Try to have your insulin levels more steady throughout the day.  Here are a few easy steps to help you accomplish this. 
1.        Eliminate processed sugar.  This can “sneak” into people’s diets, especially if you drink coffee multiple times every day and have sugar in your coffee. 
2.       Time grain and starchy foods within 1-3 hours after you workout.  If you have done intense exercise your body will have used a lot of its carbohydrate stores, so this will spare you the excess sugar that will get converted to fat.
3.       Never go more than 4 hours without eating.  This will help to level out your insulin levels and give you less food cravings and better energy on top of helping you target that love handle area.
4.       Eat more non-starchy vegetables than any other food group.  Vegetables are a great carbohydrate source that are dense in vitamins and minerals and won’t give you large insulin spikes. 

So now you can go out and start to target a specific area to lose fat.  And remember you don’t have to switch all four habits at once.  You can start to work bit by bit to make small improvements that will last.  For example, if you’re consuming a teaspoon of sugar with your coffee.  Start by decreasing to half a teaspoon first, and continue to consistent small improvements.  If you’re eating 2 times every day, increase to 3 times first.  It’s better to make continuous small changes that will last than to make a bunch of really big changes that you can only maintain for a couple months.   
Check out our next blog to learn how you can target your stomach.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Give me an exercise to target the fat on my......

Almost every single client who’s looking to drop some fat or tone up always ask me to give them an exercise that will help them lose fat _______ .  You can insert any number of different body parts.  The thing is there has been no research to prove or indicate that there is a strong relationship between doing exercises that will target specific areas of fat.  For example, just because you have more fat on your stomach doesn’t mean that doing crunches or any other ab exercise is going to burn more fat in your stomach than anywhere else in your body.

Most people don’t have an understanding of how the body gets rid of fat.  Here is a quick explanation of the way that you “burn” fat is that your fat cell gets the correct signal from your body indicating it needs energy.  You fat cells will release fat into the blood stream which will take it to the muscles and the rest of the body to be used as energy.  But your body doesn’t necessarily take fat from the area that is being worked, it will take fat from fat cells all over your body.  For example, just because you do crunches doesn’t mean your body is going to use fat from around your stomach.

Another reason most people think that they can lose fat in a specific area is that there is a myth out there that fat will turn to muscle or that muscle can turn to fat.  This is not true, fat cells and muscle cells are two completely different structures.  They do not totally transform, it would be equivalent to brain cells turning into heart cells.  This is another reason that it isn’t really possible to target a specific area to lose more fat through an exercise.  Even though you can target a specific area to increase the amount of muscle that doesn’t mean that the fat will disappear in that area.

Tune in to our next blog post to learn how you actually can target specific areas of your body to lose fat......I’ll give you a hint it has nothing to do with picking the right exercise.

For more free information to help you reach your goal check out our free resource section of our website at http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/resources.html

Thursday, December 2, 2010

What is organic food?

I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day and somehow it came up that I buy most of my meat from local farmers who raise organic free range meat.  He didn't really know what organic meant.  I always tend to forget that although organic food is becoming more mainstream a lot of people don't really know what the differences is between organic food and conventionally food. 

Here are a few things that set organic food apart from conventionally raised food:

·  Synthetic fertilizers must not be used. Instead, organic materials such as animal and plant wastes, compost, including crop residues, are used.
·  The soil is kept fertile through the use of animal and plant waste; however, sewage sludge is strictly not allowed.
·  Synthetic pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, etc must not be used. Instead, natural means of pest control, for example by allowing organisms (e.g. ladybugs) which eat pests to thrive, are practiced. In fact, populations of these organisms are deliberately built up. Natural agents are also allowed, although in controlled amounts.
·  Crop rotation is practiced. This helps to preserve and even enhance the quality of the soil, and also encourages a balanced and diversified ecosystem to thrive. It also helps in weed control.
·  Cover crops are grown. Cover crops are used to restore nitrogen and organic matter into the soil.
·  Genetic engineering and modification must not be involved – much of the dangers of GMO are presently still unknown.
·  Plant produce must not be irradiated. That process damages the food and makes it harmful to us.
·  No chemical preservatives, flavourings or additives must be added to the foods.


Animals can be considered organically raised if the following conditions are met:

·  They must be fed organic food, e.g. organic grains. Commercially farmed animals are often given unhealthy junk foods, including the remains of other animals, which are sometimes diseased.
·  They must not be given artificial hormones, antibiotics, drugs, steroids, etc.
·  Genetic engineering or modification must not be involved. No playing god.
·  The meat and other animal food products must not be irradiated. As mentioned above, the process damages food and makes it harmful when consumed by humans.
·  No chemical preservatives, flavourings or additives must be added to the meat.

Remember it is very important if you do not know the farmer to buy certified organic at the grocery store.  This means that the farm has been certified, other farms can write organic without the product which actually doesn't mean much.  Most fruit, vegetables and meats that say organic are usually certified organic, but make sure to read those labels.