COMPLIMENTARY NUTRITION CONSULTATION
Schedule your session with Jennifer Kaye today
Email: jennifer@informfitness.com or call: 212.755.9895
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MONTHLY RECIPE:
Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries |
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Replace your traditional sugar-laden sweet potato dish, or enjoy these any day of the year as a perfect complex carbohydrate snack or side. Sweet potatoes are rich in antioxidants, including Vitamins A & C, and can stabilize blood sugar and lower insulin resistance.
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
1 - 1 1/2 lbs. sweet potatoes
2 - 4 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. sea salt
To season:
1/2 tsp. paprika + 1/4 tsp. cinnamon OR
2 tsp. chopped rosemary
Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
Peel the sweet potatoes. Cut into 1/2-inch wide strips.
Place the sweet potatoes into a sealable plastic bag. Add oil, salt and spices of choice. Seal the bag and shake well to thoroughly coat the fries. Spread the potatoes out onto the baking sheet in a single layer.
Cook for 30 minutes, turning every 10 minutes. Transfer immediately to a paper towel-lined plate, and serve warm.
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QUESTIONS?
Call us at 212.755.9895
or
email info@informfitness.com.
www.informfitness.com
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Greetings! 
As we make the round of holiday parties and family get-togethers, high-calorie treats tempt us from every table. During this time, our diets falter, and many of us indulge in a bit of overeating.
Afterward, our first inclination is to hit the treadmill or the stair climber to work off those extra calories. This reaction is perfectly understandable since the fitness industry promotes cardio as the answer to weight loss, especially at this time of year as gyms try to guilt you into losing holiday pounds.
This month's feature article and client spotlight put cardiovascular exercise in perspective as part of an overall fitness program.
Happy reading, and happy holidays from all of us here at InForm Fitness.
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Setting the Record Straight on Cardio
By Adam Zickerman
I recently asked a client about his weekend, and he responded with a confession of sorts: "Fine. I ran three miles, but I know you don't believe in cardio."
I'm not actually against cardio. In fact, I enjoy cycling. Still, I understand why people have this impression, based on my media interviews and the InForm Fitness philosophy.
Rather than being anti-cardio, I prefer to think of myself as cardio agnostic. Current scientific evidence doesn't prove that cardiovascular exercise is necessary; neither does it prove that cardiovascular exercise is not necessary. Given that situation -- and the fact that long-term cardio can injure the body -- I advocate cardio in moderation.
When cardio exercise becomes the foundation of a fitness routine, the risks outweigh the benefits. In this month's Client Spotlight, avid runners Hence and Maria Orme share their story of the aches, pains and stiffness caused by too much of what they thought was a good thing.
Consider one of the principal precepts of physicians: Primum non nocere. "First, do no harm." If an exercise hurts your body, then the activity causes you harm. Painful legacies of the 1980s aerobics fad include bad backs, burned-out knees, and aching joints and serve as appropriate reminders.
Cardio and Weight Loss
The calorie-burning effects of cardio are also hardly worth the effort compared to the amount of exertion required. A one-hour run burns a measly 500 calories, and a pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories. To scorch enough calories to lose a pound, you'll have to run seven hours. Beyond the time commitment, that amount of cardiovascular activity can injure the body in the long term. (For those of you who enjoy running, we recommend Power Pass partner Joel Matalon, who teaches super-safe ChiRunningTM techniques to help you run without injury.)
The simple fact is weight loss happens when you take in fewer calories. Fitness comes from combining a sensible diet with strength training, which builds muscle mass and keeps your metabolism revved up long term.
A Waste of Muscle
As a rule, we start losing muscle mass in our 40s. By age 50 the rate of loss begins picking up speed, eventually outpacing the muscle we gain. Adding insult to injury, aging also causes our bodies to redistribute fat, usually parking it around our mid-section.
Cardio exercise won't reverse the process and can actually make it worse because it can cause loss of muscle mass. For older adults, especially women, medical studies show strength training is the exercise of choice because it builds muscles, increases flexibility, and decreases the chances of osteoporotic fractures caused by falling.
Regaining muscle mass through strength training also helps to redistribute fat where you want it and increases your metabolic rate, not just during a 20-minute session but all day, every day.
I hope this clarifies our official stance on cardiovascular exercise. If you like bike riding, go ahead. If you want to play tennis or take a jog, have fun. Given my agnostic view of cardio, I respectfully add a caveat to Nike's famed "Just do it." Please don't overdo it. |
Confused about Carbs?
By Jennifer Kaye
Lots of people are confused -- sometimes even fearful -- about the role of carbohydrates in their diet. Are they a one-way ticket to spiked blood sugar and weight gain or a great source of energy that should make up most of our daily calories?
The answer is both.
Most people know that the carbohydrate universe has two varieties: simple and complex. Simple carbs -- like the sugars found in fruit, dairy products and beer -- are called simple because our bodies can easily break them down to provide us with a quick burst of energy.
Complex carbohydrates are harder to digest. Your body has to do more work to process the nutrients, giving you a sustained, slow-burning fuel. Whole grains, beans, legumes and vegetables are in this group.
Watch Out for the Pretenders
The ones to watch are the impostors of good nutrition: fake carbs that look complex but actually affect your body the same way as a simple carbohydrate or pure sugar. Made from once-complex grains, these deceivers have been so highly processed they no longer behave like their authentic relative. These imitators are found in the "white stuff": white bread, cookies, crackers, pasta, flour and white rice.
In the metabolism process, glucose (or simple sugar) is controlled and regulated by insulin, which either burns it for energy or converts it into fat for storage. Since fake carbs lack fiber, minerals and the small amount of protein and fat found in true whole grains, your body digests these foods very quickly, and the sugars rocket into your blood stream.
Your body responds to the spikes by releasing insulin to bring your blood sugar back to normal, but it usually overcompensates and sends too much insulin, which causes your blood sugar to crash. The cycle is perpetuated by cravings for more sugar and simple carbs to recover from the collapse.
Insulin moves excess sugar out of the blood and parks it in the muscles as glycogen, which we use for short-term energy. But if the short-term storage area is full -- and it almost always is unless you're running a marathon -- the excess is deposited as fat. This process also blocks the hormone glucagon, which maintains your body's glucose level by signaling your body to burn stored fat for energy. Not only are you storing extra sugar as fat, but you're also blocking the fat from being burned for energy.
The Skinny on Non-Fat Snacks
I call this the "Snackwells Phenomenon." These little non-fat/low-fat/reduced-fat/light products are now America's favorite cookie-even surpassing Oreos! In spite of their popularity as a "diet" alternative, we're still getting fatter.
Why? Fat makes food taste good. When it's removed or reduced, it's generally replaced with sugar. Since it takes a larger portion of fat-free products to feel full, you're likely to overeat. Many "light" snacks are chock-full of fake carbs, which cause people to gain weight.
Rules to Eat by
Carbohydrates are an important source of energy, and the authentic, complex variety, like whole grains, beans and vegetables, should make up most of our daily caloric intake.
Drastically reducing or eliminating fake carbs from your diet can be difficult, but you can be smarter about how and when you eat these foods. By combining them with fat or protein, rather than eating them on their own, you can minimize blood sugar spikes and your body's insulin response.
When you do choose refined or processed foods, like breads, cereals and pasta, look for choices with some whole grain left intact. Qualified whole grain foods contain a minimum of 2 grams of fiber per 100 calorie serving. Read the label, and don't rely on marketing claims on the package to make your selection.
Now, go enjoy your carbs and choose wisely. Your workouts will improve, the pounds will drop, and your body will thank you.
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Client Spotlight:
Hence and Maria Orme
Meet Hence and Maria Orme, two InForm clients and former cardio devotees who use exercise to release stress from high-pressure careers.
When pounding the pavement began taking its toll on Hence, he started the Power of 10 workout with founder Adam Zickerman. His wife, Maria, started training with InForm shortly thereafter. The workout caused both to experience a paradigm shift in how they approach fitness.
InForm: How did you find out about InForm Fitness?
Hence: We were in San Diego in 2006, and I read about a local trainer who used an intense, slow strength training routine. I called her but wasn't able to schedule a session. When she found out I lived in New York, she recommended Adam Zickerman, the "source" of her training program. I read The Power of 10 and thought Adam's approach was pretty revolutionary. I met with him in January 2007 and started training immediately.
Maria: I came to InForm through my husband, who was seeing great results. I was somewhat reluctant at first because I've always been a runner and into aerobic and cardio activities.
InForm: What made you decide to begin strength training?
Hence: I was running between 25-35 miles per week and starting to experience various aches and pains. Weight loss wasn't really a goal for me, but I wasn't losing any weight despite all the miles I put in each week. Plus, it was taking an enormous amount of time, and no one was paying me to log in all those hours.
Maria: I run three to four miles, three to four times a week, and I started noticing a lot of stiffness and problems with my back. I sit at a computer all day, which really abuses your body. So I decided to try strength training based on Hence's experience.
InForm: What results did you see from your strength training?
Hence: For almost a year, all I did was train once a week for half an hour with Adam. Over that period, I gained strength, and all of my running aches and pains disappeared. I now have a spring in my step, more energy and am no longer exhausted, like when I was running.
Maria: I didn't give up running because I enjoy cardio exercise. But after I started working out at InForm, my body began to change. I'm building muscle, which also helps me with my running, and after the workouts, I feel like I've done meditation or yoga. My muscles are tired, but I also feel very calm.
InForm: Do you ever get bored with your routine?
Hence: We don't do the same exercises every week nor do we do them in the same order. You go from exercise to exercise and work on different areas of the body. There is a good bit of variety built into the program.
Maria: It hasn't gotten boring for me because the sessions only last 20 or 25 minutes, and they are incredibly intense. You don't have time to be bored.
InForm: Have you had any unexpected results?
Hence: One thing I've learned is how important diet is to overall health. I've also discovered how our mind plays tricks on us: saying you can have a big dessert because you just ran eight miles. The math really doesn't support it since you only burn about 100 calories per mile. With strength training, you think more about what you eat, both in quantity and quality.
Maria: A few weeks ago, I missed my strength training session but did my usual running routine. The next day, my body was a disaster. I noticed the difference after missing just one session. Running doesn't give you the full range of motion you need to work your whole body, and it doesn't make you stronger.
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