What is really important about nourishment is not so much what’s in the food that you are eating but how much you get out of the food that you are eating. If you really want to maximize the nourishment when eating nuts, it’s very important to soak nuts in water. Soaking them overnight in water is even better. What happens is they start to germinate. The protein in the nuts increases and the carbohydrates start to break down into sugar so it’s readily absorbed into the body. The next day when you wash the nuts they are much more digestible. When doing this, it is always best to use raw nuts. With raw nuts you get a 15% absorption rate of nourishment. If soaked in water overnight you get an 85% absorption rate. This is especially true for almonds because they are very hard and difficult to digest. When soaked, the fats turn to fatty acids which are the good fat, and the starches turn to sugar. So remember when trying to get the maximum results of nutrition from eating nuts, start with raw nuts, soak them overnight in water, and wash them the next day. Once the process is done, you can eat them whenever you want and you will definitely maximize your nutritional result.
Corny Joke: What do vampires do to stay healthy? They take bitamins!
Here are four fitness resolutions I recommend for 2012:
Increase your weight. Many people simply do not use enough weight when weight training. Remember, the secret of weight training is the “Overload Principle”. This principle states that you must work a muscle to exhaustion so that when it builds itself back up, it is stronger, firmer and larger than before.
Train slower. Most people train so quickly that the momentum of the weights does most of the work. You should move the weight at a two to four-second count on the concentric contraction, which is usually the raising of the weight. You should also move the weight at a two to four-second count on the eccentric contraction, or the lowering of the weight. If you clang your weights, you are training too quickly.
Breathe. It is important to remember to breathe during each and every repetition when strength training. Holding your breath will prevent you from giving maximum effort during the exercise. It can also be dangerous and actually cause you to faint or feel light-headed. There are many ways to breathe, depending on the exercise but, when in doubt, breathe naturally.
Keep moving between sets. Staying seated or inactive between sets will cause your energy to drop. Your blood will tend to pool in your extremities and, again, will prevent you from giving a maximum effort each set. Get up, walk around, shake your arms and legs, and take some deep breathes. You will be much better prepared to give it your best effort during the next set.
Be committed to these resolutions and see how much more you get out of your workouts!
See you at 100, years that is!
Corny joke for the day:What kind of coffee were they serving on the Titanic when they hit the iceberg? Why, Sanka, of course! Told you it was corny!
The best most of us can hope for during the holiday season is a “maintain, don’t gain” scenario. Due to the holiday parties and prevalence of treats during the season we probably will not be able to lose weight or dramatically increase our level of fitness but we can maintain them. Here’s how.
Weigh yourself first thing every morning. You put on weight one pound at a time. By weighing yourself every morning, you will prevent large weight gains from sneaking up on you. If you see your weight increasing you must do something about it of course. This means eating less and exercising more.
In addition to weighing yourself every morning, it is important to track your fat gain as well. Since muscle weighs more than fat for the same amount of volume, it is possible to lose muscle and gain fat and still maintain the same weight. This is especially true if you stop working out and start eating more. The best way to track fat gain is it to monitor your percent body fat. You can do this with skin fold calipers or hydrostatic weighing, both of which are difficult to do, or you can simply measure your waist with a cloth measuring tape. Since most people add fat around the waist first, by monitoring your fat gain by measuring your waist. If you start adding inches around your waist, you are adding fat. And, just like with your weight, to prevent fat gain you will need to eat less and exercise more.
While eating less and exercising more is easier said than done, it is easier to do if you have the motivation of knowing that you are starting to add fat. Remember, it is a lot easier to keep weight off than to lose it once you put it on!
Corny Joke for the day: Where do polar bears vote? Why, at the North Pole, of course!
There are two parts to a healthy diet; nutrition, or what you eat, and nourishment, or what you actually absorb from what you eat. In many ways, nourishment is the more important of the two. Nourishment, of course, has to do with digestion. And one of the best ways to improve digestion is to drink something hot before a meal to prepare the stomach for digestion. The best thing to drink is hot tea or hot water with lemon. The Chinese have been endorsing this health tip for centuries. Herbal teas or ginger teas are best. Unfortunately, coffee does not qualify!
According to Dr. Raymond Moore, a warm drink prepares the stomach for digestion by stimulating the glands on the stomach walls. To be easiest on the digestive system you want the water, or tea, warm but not too hot. The fluid should be about body temperature or 98 to 100 degrees In addition to helping with digestion, if you drink hot water or tea first thing in the morning it will help flush out the kidneys and will help the bowels move regularly and naturally
You do not want to drink something cold, either first thing in the morning or even with your meals as the body needs to work to warm up cold fluid, thus affecting digestion. In addition, when a cold fluid mixes with food in the stomach the result is a thicker composition that is harder to digest.
Corny Joke for the day: What kind of tans do Pilgrims get? Puri-tans!
Today’s Fit Tip brings us some very helpful tips and benefits about the importance of mindful eating from Dr. Chris D’Adamo. Dr. D’Adamo is a professor at University of Maryland School of Medicine and also works at the Center for Integrated Medicine.
Dr D’Adamo emphasizes the principal that it’s “not just what we eat but how we eat it”. It’s very important to get into the habit of mindful eating instead of mindless eating. You want to be engaged in the moment as opposed to just scarfing your food down. When we eat mindfully, we tend to enjoy our food. Eating is a pleasurable experience. By eating mindfully we are in the moment and can enjoy our food, frankly because we can remember what we did.
Beyond the sensory perception, there are also psychological benefits to mindful eating, primarily digestion. We secrete digestion enzymes just by thinking of the foods we are about to eat, so the process begins before we even take a bite. Another important tip is to slow down and chew more. The more time we take the longer the food is in our mouth so digestion is improved from the very beginning. When you break the large food particles down into smaller pieces, you masticate the food, which can be helpful with the digestion process. For people that suffer from acid reflux and indigestion, this can be extremely helpful. You may want to try this before turning to medicines. Last but not least, it can be a great weight loss tool. When you slow the process down, you will eat less. People don’t realize that it takes about 15-20 minutes from the time that the food is in your mouth to the time it reaches your stomach and makes you feel fuller.
You can give eating mindfully a try by taking one of your favorite foods and putting it in front of you. Look at what you chose. Feel what you chose in your hand. Does it bring back any memories? Smell what you chose. Are there any aromas? Engage your thoughts. Now put the food that you chose in your mouth but don’t bite. Notice the taste and texture. Finally, take your first bite. Did any of your thoughts change? See how different the experience can be.
Another important tip to remember and help with the process of mindful eating is to sit at the table. Less mindful eating happens when you eat in the car, between meetings on the run, or sitting on the couch in front of the TV. Also, remember to put the utensil you are using or the food down between bites. This helps with slowing you down. Remember, you want the fully chew the food.
Now we realize that you can not do this for every meal every day of the week. There will always be times when you just can’t, but it is important to beware of those times and to make a better effort for the next time you eat.
CORNEY JOKE: “You’ve got love your kids; they are always there when they need you.”
You have probably know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It is important to “break the fast” of your 7 to 8 hours of sleep (I hope you are getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep) and refuel with something nutritious before you start your day. Of course, that is easier said than done. For many of us, mornings are the most hectic time of the day. And just eating cereal does not qualify as a nutritious breakfast.
We recommend to always have hard boiled eggs in the refrigerator, ready to consume quickly or literally eat on the run (notice how I subtly worked the title of the fit tip into the text!). As we stated in earlier fit tips, eggs are one of the most complete foods you can eat. And, as we said in an earlier fit tip, consume the entire egg, yolk and all. The yolk actually contains lecithin, which is a fat emulsifier, and actually helps lower cholesterol instead of increase it.
We also recommend to have some fresh fruit and plain yogurt available as well. Two eggs, some plain yogurt (no sugar added) and fresh fruit is a very complete breakfast. And you can eat the whole thing in minutes, or take it all to go. You can also add some fresh orange juice or grapefruit juice to the mix but be careful of drinking too much juice as it contains a lot of sugar.
One of the things we learned in Gwinganna, the health retreat that our buddy owns near the Gold Coast, was to try and control your chi or energy first thing in the morning. Everybody has energy; different cultures call it different things. We all know we have energy or a mental frame of mind. When we get up in the morning a lot of the times, everything is focused in the pit. You’re thinking about what you have to get done in the day. You’re thinking about your schedule and activities. There is really not enough attention paid to the heart, the core, the gut, feelings, emotions and instincts. Not only of course is that where the more satisfying and more rewarding experiences in life come from but even in business these are often the things you need most to make decisions.
What you want to do when you get up in the morning is kind of control your chi. You want to get up and get out of bed and then take the energy from your head and push down into your stomach and heart while taking deep breaths. Make sure you breathe through your nose and really warm the breath while pushing the energy down into your heart and stomach area. This will help to make you more aware, in the moment, in the present and hopefully give you the chance to really get centered and enjoying your day.
We end today with a famous question from my good buddy Tony deLeede. How much can a koala bear?
Here’s a very simply exercise to help reduce chronic knee pain:
Stand with your feet and knees comfortably together. The key word is “comfortably”.
Bend over so that you can put your hands on your knees.
Keeping your feet flat on the ground and your knees together, rotate your knees 10 times in a clockwise motion and then 10 times in a counter-clockwise motion. Each rotation should take about 1 or 2 seconds.
You will be amazed how much better this simple exercise will make your knees feel. It helps to bring circulation to the knee joint and helps to increase the flexibility in your knees as well.
For a neat video of this exercise, brought to you from Bondi Beach in Australia, click here!
See you at 100; years that is!
Corny Joke:Did you hear about the dolphin that lost his best friend?Seems he no longer had any porpoise in life!
The video version of this fit tip is coming to you from Paradise Island, in the Bahamas.
The ankles play a critical role in alleviating back and knee pain. The ankle is the first major joint that comes into contact with the ground as you walk or run. When you walk your legs absorb three times the force of your bodyweight. When you run, it is significantly higher. If you walk or run with stiff ankles you transfer all the shock of the impact to your knees and back. Therefore, it is important to maintain strong, flexible ankles and to completely roll through your ankles when you walk or run.
One of the best†exercises to maintain flexibility in your ankle joints is ankle rotations. Supporting all your body weight on one leg, and with the toes of your opposite foot on the ground, rotate the non-weight bearing ankle clockwise in as large a range of motion as possible for 10 rotations. Then reverse the direction and repeat for another 10 rotations. Shift your weight to the other foot and repeat the same two movements with the non-weight bearing ankle, 10 rotations in each direction. These exercises can be seen in the accompanying video.
You should perform these flexibility exercises everyday. You can also repeat them any time your ankles feel tired or tight. You will be amazed at how much of a difference these simple exercises will make in your ability to walk with a full range of motion in your ankles. This, in turn, will make a difference in the strain put on your knees and back.
Corny Joke for the Day: What happened to the frog that parked illegally? It got toad!” (I told you it was corny!)
Here is a simple technique to reduce discomfort and restore range of motion when suffering from a stiff neck due to muscular imbalance and tension.
Test your range of motion looking to the right and looking to the left. Depending on which side is limited, place your hand on the opposite side of your head with the fingers along the temple line and the thumb at the corner of the jaw. Push with moderate pressure on your hand with your head for a 4-count (one thousand-one, one thousand-two, one thousand-three, one thousand-four). Release. If need be, repeat the routine. Your range of motion should have increased to the restricted side because you fatigued the muscle group preventing the contraction to that side, that being the OPPOSITE muscle group to the side you are turning.
Test your range of motion looking up and looking down. Again, depending on which direction is restricted, fatigue the OPPOSITE Muscle group by doing the following:
If your range of motion is restricted looking DOWN, place both hands behind your head with the fingers of each hand on the top of the skull and the thumbs at the base of the skull. Apply moderate pressure with your head pushing UP against your hands for a four-count. Release. Repeat if necessary.
If your range of motion is restricted looking UP, place your hands in front of your face with the fingers on the forehead above the eyebrows and the thumbs on the jaw line. Apply moderate pressure with your head pushing DOWN on your hands for a four-count. Release. Repeat if necessary.
These exercises are easier to follow when you watch the accompanying video.
As with many things in life, the secret is to push in the OPPOSITE direction that you think you should.
One final note. Do not push too hard with your head. You can easily strain your neck muscles and then you would be in a worse position than when you started. If that happens, don’t blame me.
This week’s corny joke: How much can a koala bear?
