1½ cups oatmeal, uncooked
8 egg whites
2 bananas, mashed
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp sugar substitute
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a blender, blend oatmeal, egg whites, baking powder and baking soda and until oatmeal is smooth. Combine oatmeal mixture with the remaining ingredients and mix all together. Place in a loaf pan (use cooking spray in pan) and bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until cooked.
Yields 6 servings.
Per Serving: 108cals, Protein: 6.5g, Carbohydrates: 20g, Fats: 1g
Delicious Flourless Banana Bread
Sugar Free & More
At One-to-1 Fitness we know that the hardest part of reaching your fitness and weight loss goals is sticking to your nutritional plan. If you are looking for a great place to shop in Red Deer for those items that make dieting so much easier make sure you visit our good friend Valerie up at Sugar Free & More.
A hidden gem to reaching your next goal, check out my recent interview at this seemingly Top Secret location.
Low Fat, Gluten Free and Diabetic approved products to improve your health, Red Deer’s Sugar Free and More Store! One-to-1 Fitness clients receive a 10% savings when you let Valerie know you train with us!
3434A 50th Avenue
Red Deer, Alberta
T4N 3Y4
Phone: (403) 347-1277
Open: Monday – Saturday 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Oatmeal Peanut Butter Balls
Ingredients
4 scoops Peanut Butter/chocolate Protein Powder
1 cup natural peanut butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ cup honey
Preparation
1. Put all ingredients in blender and blend well.
2. Roll into balls.
3. Wrap in wax paper and place in freezer.
4. Makes about 16 balls.
Nutrition facts per serving (serving size 4 balls):
Calories: 388
Protein: 31 g
Fat: 8.5 g
Carbs: 46 g
A Red Deer Personal Trainer Explains Water is a Key Element to Weight Loss
Red Deer Personal Trainer says, "water is critical catalyst for lasting health and weight loss."
Today’s post is a reminder from Red Deer Personal Trainer Cabel McElerry that water is a key element to weight loss. You haven’t had enough water today or yesterday but you can start correcting it for tomorrow. Our body is comprised of seventy percent water it is the single most important element to sustain life. The difference proper hydration makes on a day to day basis is enormous. Previously I’ve talked about the importance of total calories, balanced nutrition even the important role of starchy carbohydrates. Consider water to be the catalyst most recommended by Red Deer Personal trainers that brings all those other things together when trying to initiate healthy, permenant weight loss.
Water is a key element in digestion and absorption. Many vitamins and minerals cannot be absorbed without sufficient water present, the range of vitamin Bs and vitamin C are two examples of water soluble vitamins. Proper hydration can have a dramatic effect on the way we feel in terms of mood and energy levels. Chances are you may be among the seventy-five percent of North America that is chronically dehydrated. According to Robert O. Young, PhD in his book The pH Miracle it’s not unusual to lose two percent of your body water in an hour of exercise. He continues to explain; that two percent drop can result in a measurable decrease in performance. A further drop in body water can lead to physical and mental fatigue and a dramatic decrease in muscle strength and the capacity for work. By the five percent mark you will likely experience dizziness, drowsiness, impatience and headaches. Too drop further your heart can begin to race and you may collapse. All this may occur with as little as a seven percent drop in body water.
If you haven’t already interrupted your reading to get a glass of water you should do so now. Proper hydration begins with the minimum recommendation of eight glasses of water per day. Remember this is a minimum to sustain reasonable hydration, if you are already dehydrated you will need much more than this for a few consecutive days to attain a level of proper hydration. As a personal trainer my recommendations are for the average individual who exercises on average three to four days per week to try to consume one litre of water for every eighteen kilos of bodyweight. Its best, if possible to try to consume quality water such as water processed by reverse osmosis or that has been filtered by some means to remove a number of the impurities we may be faced with in normal tap water.
I challenge you for the next week to consume water based on these recommendations and see if you feel better. Be forewarned the first few days you may just make a few extra trips to the washroom as your body adjusts but you will appreciate it later. Until next time.
You're Eating Mutant Food…and it's Been Exposed to Harmful Radiation
Genetic modification and food irradiation sound like something fromt he movies but are very real.
I always preach to our clients that I think our food quality is terrible and getting worse. The more books, columns and journals I read the more shocked and disgusted I am at the state of even the unprocessed items in the grocery store. It’s not really surprising that one of the biggest health and weight loss trends of the last couple years is cleansing and detoxification because with all the unwanted elements we are unknowingly consuming our bodies are undoubtedly overloaded.
Today’s post will make a strong case for taking the time, effort and attributing dollars from your budget to consider switching to as many organic products as possible for the health and safety of your family. What follows is discussion of three common practices currently in place in North America used in the growth and production of fruits, vegetables and our commercial meats.
Genetic Modification – Likely not shocking or a surprise that genetic modification is being used to produce “better” or perhaps just more food for a growing world population. However this science is so new scientists still don’t fully understand the implications of genetic modification. Scientists are splicing genes from bacteria and even insects into different plants to produce crops that are more resistant to certain pesticides or common pests plaguing optimal harvest. As of now genetically modified organisms (GMOs) do not have to be identified on food labels. There is no specific amount of research that has been completed to identify the safety of these new food items. In some cases violent allergic reactions have been reported. An example from “How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy” is a soy bean that was modified from genes from a brazil nut to make it tastier. This may cause an adverse reaction in someone with nut allergies but would not be identified on the label. A study by Arpad Pusztai on potatoes showed that GM potatoes contained less protein, starch and were associated with abnormal organ development in the rats used in the study.
Food Irradiation – This item was fairly new to me, I think I had heard it mentioned at a prior time but never paid much mind. I must say now I am astonished that this even happens and with a quick google search you will find the specifics and endorsement of this practice on the Canadian government website. Food irradiation was developed or first promoted decades ago as a necessary means of destroying bacteria such as salmonella, listeria, and E coli. As referenced from “The Ecologist’s Report” June 2001, food irradiation has been heavily promoted by the US Department of Energy(DOE). The DOE feels food irradiation to be a good means of producing a commercial market for spent military and civilian nuclear waste, thereby reducing disposal costs. The radiation dose approved by the US FDA for meat products is nearly 150 million times more than a standard chest x-ray, 150million! If this doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable maybe the icing on the cake will be a study performed by India’s Institute of Nutrition in the 1970s. The results of this study indicated that feeding rodents freshly irradiated wheat produced chromosomal abnormalities and mutational damage. To top it all off I can’t even tell you how to accurately determine which foods have been irradiated other than that the broad list includes: most meats, most fruits and vegetables, wheat and flours, eggs, herbs, and spices. It makes a strong case for incorporating more organic products into your lifestyle.
Consume Organic Items Where Possible – If the above wasn’t enough to convince you a study conducted on children in Washington state showed that out of the test group only one child did not have significant amounts of pesticide present in his or her urine. That child happened to be on an all organic diet. So between genetic modification, irradiation and harsh chemicals it’s not hard to see why toxicity is becoming the norm and sickness and disease is on the rise. Unfortunately just making the decision to switch to an organic lifestyle isn’t clear cut and easy without a little extra education. An organic product is produced without many of the means of modern farming: pesticides, fertilizers, chemicals, hormones etc. But there is a grey area in identifying organic products. For something to be truly labelled as organic it must be grown under conditions that have not been subject to any of the above mentioned practices for a period of four or more years. However the new organic farmer within this four year period can label their product as organically grown even though it may still suffer some of the residual effects of the prior methods. So even shopping for organic products can be tricky, a little education and a keen eye can go a long way. What is great to see is there are more businesses catering to these growing concerns making an organic lifestyle more practical and accessible to the typical consumer, and though these products may cost a bit more, so does health care. You really can’t put a price on a long healthy life.
You're Working Out Too Much!
Yes you can exercise too much. I was struggling thinking of what to write about this week so I began to review some of my client notes thinking of what discussions I’ve had with some of my clients lately. Recently I’ve had a couple of my clients where I’ve prescribed an extended rest or detraining period. Two solid weeks away from the gym, nothing but light activity and only if desired, a prescription that will insure additional progress upon return.
This idea often just doesn’t make sense to most people. Our good work ethic tends to make us believe that if progress is not satisfactory then we must simply push on and work harder. Whether it be physical activity, work, or some other type of stress our body uses its vital resources to perform through each situation. If our body grows too low on resources it begins to break down: sickness, injuries, lethargy, all common symptoms of overtraining.
If we learn to identify when our body is running low on resources we can use extended rest periods to push our progress much further faster. The hard part is knowing when extra rest should be taken. Unfortunately signs of fatigue or overtraining can be easily ignored. Symptoms such as a sudden loss of desire for physical activity, tired or twitching eyes, restlessness and an inability to fall asleep easily, increased thirst or mild dehydration, prolonged muscle soreness and loss of strength are all common signs of overtraining or over exercising. If you didn’t sleep well last night because you haven’t flipped your mattress for a year; and you had a hard day at work today so your workout suffered you might be confused about whether you are overtraining.
This is not a license to be lazy, nut know when to take a break.
What I would recommend initially is to be keeping an exercise log so you have some documentation to identify your current performance levels. After an arbitrary period, say six weeks of steady workouts, try taking four to seven days of complete rest or what we refer to as detraining. Carefully document how you feel during the first few workouts of the next phase and again over the next six week period. At the end of the second period you can compare your progress and determine whether the rest helped or not. You may decide to increase or decrease your extended rest, or maybe even increase or decrease the training period before the next rest period. Over a time you will begin to be more body aware as to exactly how your body is feeling and performing allowing you to just know when extra rest is needed. This article is not a license to be lazy but a reminder that a little extra rest once in a while might push you over that next jump on the path to your goals.
North Americans are Fat, Lazy and Stressed Out!
Lazy North Americans
Recent exposure to another part of the world left me with a feeling of disappointment. We in North America are horribly inactive and the by-product of our industrialized society has really created the modern day health problems known as stress related illness.
A few weeks ago all forms of local media graciously reported that myself and fellow Red Deerian Glenn Moore were heading to Tanzania, Africa to climb the great Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. (www.thewaterschool.org) The fundraiser and the climb were very successful and our determined group persevered with 23 of 24 individuals reaching the 5895m summit, far higher than the typical summit success average. Personally it was the greatest challenge I have faced in my life so far, the effects of altitude and the limitations in your ability to work it creates is an incredible and very individual experience. At times I would walk no more than 30m before collapsing for 2-3 minutes of rest with a heart rate of likely 150+ bpm. The anxiety and frustration of an inability to perform or maintain my heart rate I am sure only made it worse. In just shy of six hours, but truly what felt like an eternity, I reached Uhuru (the Swahii word for Freedom) Peak under the careful and watchful eye of Odell, one of our porters who had become my personal guide for those last few kilometres. It’s a funny thing when you get there, you sort of can’t believe you made it, you quickly hurry to take your photos and videos as though you might forget altogether and just as quickly begin to head back down simply because inside you are so exhausted that you are afraid if you don’t get going right now you’re not sure if you will make it back to camp.
Now not to belittle the personal sense of achievement that myself and the others share for having conquered the world’s highest free standing mountain but this story is about how we in North America have created a lot of excuses to be inactive and the modern day illness called stress. I make my living in the fitness industry. I trained for this climb for about four and half months. Growing up a strength athlete I was way outside of my comfort zone but after losing 18lbs in preparation I felt I was in pretty good shape for the coming adventure. Spending time in Tanzania you suddenly realize in that part of the world being active is simply a way of life. It was unusual for me to see hand drawn carts of goods for sale, supplies and everything else in the cities. It was more unusual to see people walking, carrying many items miles from any city or town. However the best example of amazing fitness as a result of a lifestyle requiring a great deal of activity came on the mountain from our guides and porters. We were only carrying our 20-30lb day packs walking pole, pole (pronounce poleE poleE, Swahili for slowly, slowly) while our team of porters is carrying about 30-50lbs of their own gear and camp supplies and another 30-50lbs of your additional supplies, food, etc, usually balanced on their heads; walking quickly up the mountain and often in simple running shoes. Each day they would reach camp long before us, often with our tents fully setup and prepared and busy boiling drinking water and preparing the evening meal. On summit day Odell needed no rest but he would patiently rest and wait with me as I struggled to persevere onward. Our lead guide Godfrey travelled to the summit three times total assisting climbers to reach their destination. Another of our guides aptly nicknamed Masai (the Masai are Tanzania’s tribal herder/warrior people) ran a full marathon the day prior to our trek leaving the city of Moshi. It was by far the most amazing example of fitness, conditioning, commitment and hard work that I have ever seen.
I left that mountain with a true sense of respect for a people and culture that was previously foreign to me, but I also left with an awareness of how our complex lives have made us lazy and allowed us to create excuses for being ill and overweight. Day to day in North America revolves around our careers and this word stress is constantly applied to all the difficult decisions we must make every day. On paper it seems crazy that this could make us inactive, overweight, and sick but as I sit here in front of my computer I am reminded it’s very real. March 1-6, 2010 myself and 23 others trekked over 100kms through four distinct climates and faced numerous physical obstacles for the pursuit of clean water worldwide. And yet that exhausting task now seems easy compared to the tiredness I feel after spending a day in my office or dealing with the day to day tasks of life in North America. If you don’t like exercise, or on the days you simply don’t feel like it remind yourself that obesity is now labelled as an epidemic in North America. Try to find ways to set aside the “stress” of each day for a couple an hour or two and go and do something active. I bet if we all did this we would relieve major “stress” off of our health care system and some major illness would drastically decline. Just a thought.
If you search “Red Deer Personal Trainer” on YouTube you will find I have posted a morning and evening video from each day of our trek explaining what it was like and how I felt, it’s amazing to hear my voice change on summit day and how foggy my thinking was at times.
It's Not NORMAL to Live Each Day With Pain
There are certain things we do like clockwork. Generally we have our teeth cleaned every six months and book our next appointment after each cleaning. We change the oil in our vehicles at steady increments and don’t wait to run out of gas before we fill up. And most of us see our physicians annually in an effort to ensure our bodies are functioning optimally. And still it seems many of us may be a little confused about maintaining the physical performance of our bodies; particularly when it comes to our ability to move, perform and live without pain. Having been a personal trainer in Red Deer for more than twelve years I have encountered literally thousands of people that seemingly believe it’s normal to have a certain amount of physical pain in their lives as they age. From sore knees, elbows, hips and shoulders; to day to day back pain and headaches; many people feel this is an acceptable sign of aging.
I hope today, together we can break this paradigm. It’s not normal to live with pain, especially where serious injury is not a factor. Injury or not with some basic understanding of how our body works to move; chronic pain can often be reduced, eliminated or prevented altogether.
Massage is a key treatment for improving the health of soft tissue.
Soft tissue needs maintenance just like our teeth, cars and our internal organs and immune system. What we think of as the skin that covers our muscles and the muscles themselves is actually an elaborate system of multilayered tissue. The layers of tissue from the outer layer of the muscles (known as the fascia), the independent muscles in each group, and the layers of the skin are actually all designed to move freely over one another. Over time, lack of increased circulation and movement to different areas of our body, (primarily from in-activity involving these areas) allows adhesions to form that prevent these tissues from moving freely. A good example of this is pinching your skin. Someone very fit will often be able to pinch (just their skin without much if any fatty tissue) and have a lot of mobility of the skin when compared to someone not as fit. The fit person would have less impingement of their facial layers.
When our facial layers become impinged or are unable to move freely our body compensates by altering our patterns of movement, our posture, and joint alignment. Any and or all of these inevitably lead to pain and injury. As society continues to develop more conveniences our lifestyle habits provide more repetitive in-activity and ultimately the day to day pain that many people experience.
Here is what you need to know in order of priority to live a pain free life:
1) Treat soft-tissue impingement regularly. Massage therapy is one of the best treatments available to break apart facial adhesions and increase the mobility of the facial layers. The results of treatment are almost immediately notable. The problem with massage is most of us don’t use it enough. If you are currently experiencing day to day pain that is not related to a specific injury I highly recommend discussing treatment with a qualified massage therapist. A couple treatments in the same week followed by regular treatment 2-3 times per month will likely have significant and immediate impact on how you feel. Ongoing treatment in this fashion will almost certainly eliminate and prevent further pain throughout life.
2) A body in motion stays in motion. This simply means we need to move on a regular basis and if you don’t use it, you will lose it. Exercise is essential if you want to live a long, enjoyable pain free life, and when used with regular massage therapy goes a long way to guarantee prevention of pain. 30 minutes of steady motion of any kind (the more of your body in use the better) each week will be an acceptable minimum.
3) Maintain joint alignment. This recommendation is the most broad as it may be controversial with a number of people. People in general, active or not will likely experience some joint misalignment, the hazards of our complex internal structure versus gravity. Joint misalignment can often be improved with regular stretching, something that none of us ever do enough of. Ten minutes of static stretching per day (broken into 2-3 minute increments) will have a tremendous impact. A more direct approach would be to also work with a reputable chiropractor. Now not everyone is comfortable with a chiropractor, and even though I have worked with chiropractors most of my life even I am not comfortable with them all. I would recommend meeting with one before a consultation before ever receiving an adjustment and I would also recommend using a chiropractor who avoids using aggressive velocity adjustments.
If only everyone educated themselves and used these three services and therapies with the same type of regularity we do the dentist, lube shop or our physicians the world would be in a lot less pain.
