Fitness Alliance Newsletter
optimal health tools for the modern human
                                                                                            July 2014
In This Issue
Summer Strategies
Label Lies
Morning Ritual
Structure lean fuel
Nutrition Fact
Quick Links
Summer Health Strategies 

As a Fitness Professional, it's always great for me to see people outside enjoying a walk with their families, taking the dog for a stroll, enjoying a bike ride with a friend, or new Mothers doing their best jog pushing one of those crazy decked out strollers. Seeing people enjoy the weather and moving their bodies around town rather than hanging onto a treadmill at Lifetime Fitness is really where it's at and where the true message of active fitness kicks in.

So rather than delve into the mechanisms of Insulin or talk about the detriments of Gluten, I thought sharing a few Summer Health Strategies from an Eating, Exercise, and Reading standpoint would be great.

 

EXERCISE

Here's the biggest thing: you don't always have to go to a gym to exercise. Getting outside, especially when the weather is optimal, allows your body to move the way it was designed to move. Although great for a spike or challenge of exercise, treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, and rowers, do not allow for natural human motion, and in many cases can generate faulty mechanics. Human propulsion, the kind of motion where you actually propel yourself forward through space, and negotiate turns and terrain, is what the body thrives on.

 

Sleep

Yup, you should consider sleep as an integral part of health and exercise. Getting quality sleep is so importantt for a ton of reasons, but mostly to allow your body to regenerate. Also, it is well known that preparing for sleep is just as important: tv off an hour or so before, no other lit electronics, but perhaps a book and shower make sleep that much better.

 

Circadian Rhythm

Staying in tune with your inner Biological clock maximizes quality sleep and requires getting to bed as close to sundown and up when it rises. This is a natural innate process. Getting a walk in at sunrise is a fantastic way to get your body parts warm and moving and to organize your thoughts for the day.  

Read about the importance HERE 

 

In 'n Out

Quick, Efficient, and Effective Resistance Training of 20-45 minutes 3-4 x's per week is enough for most of the goals out there. If you strategically choose the right exercises in the right order with the appropriate resistance, you can kiss those hour and a half jaunts to the gym goodbye. Get together with a fitness professional to get organized and a plan of attack.

 

EATING

Summer Grilling is fantastic! Besides a vegetarian, who doesn't love some grilled, marinated, and spiced fish, chicken, or beef? Even veggies and fruit can make an appearance:

grilled pineapple, mushroom, and pepper kabobs are one of my favorites.

Farmer's Markets are a hit in the summer and can offer some great produce that hasn't been trucked across the country.

Grass-Fed, Wild, and Pastured Meats are turning up in more and more places, easy to find on the Internet, and becoming more affordable. Better for you in terms of 'good fat' profile and, well, feedlots suck.

 

READING

As you know, one of my biggest missions is learning and sharing the facts about eating and exercise. We are constantly inundated with the wrong eating and nutrition advice at the supermarket, on tv and print media, the FDA food guidelines, and even by most doctors. Skyrocketing obesity, diabetes, conditions/diseases and an overburdened healthcare system truly attests to it. Most infuriating is that the science is all there about what is 'good and bad' for the human body but it is ignored in favor of whatever agenda you choose to place on it.

 

Anyway, if you have the inkling to learn some of the stuff I have learned throughout my journey thus far, without too much of the intense science, I can recommend these three books to start:

1) The Omnivores Dilemma 

by Michael Pollan 

A great account of 4 typically eaten meals and their effects on human health.

2) Wheat Belly by William Davis Md

The facts behind that grain which is wreaking so much havoc.

3) The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf

The Paleo diet is the healthiest way you can eat because it is the ONLY nutritional approach that works with your genetics to help you stay lean, strong and energetic! Research in biology, biochemistry, Ophthalmology, Dermatology and many other disciplines indicate it is our modern diet, full of refined foods, trans fats and sugar, that is at the  root of degenerative diseases such as obesity, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, depression and infertility. -Robb Wolf

 

Enjoy your Summer! Get outside and move that body, gather around a fire, cook some great food, and set your course for a journey of  

Optimal Health.

LABEL LIES chapter 1  
  Eating Primal means close to the source, minimal processing, and not too many ingredients. Too many foods in the supermarket and restaurants today are filled with umpteen fillers, preservatives, and  chemicals your can't pronounce. You need a science degree to find out what they actually are and are suppose to do. Granted, the food industry has a lot of people to feed and the supply needs to be stable from farm to market and in transport and on the shelf. The problem lies in companies touting their foods as healthy, when in fact they are anything but, especially when they target children with youth diabetes up 20% in just the last 10 yrs.

 

Here are 3 prime examples: 

1) Cheerios (and the rest of the breakfast cereals)

 

General Mills and the rest of the cereal manufacturers want you to think cereal is 'What's for breakfast'  and it's healthy. They are anything but. Grains, added sugar, food colorings, with a splash of milk are not healthy. Despite what you grew up on, are told by your doctor, dietician, or nutritionist, or how attracted you are to the colors, characters, and endorsements by the American Heart association....
- Grains are not healthy no matter who tells you otherwise
- Excess carbohydrate consumption is the leading cause of most conditions and diseases we now face.
- Wheat counsels and the government who subsidizes them are the ones telling you that grains are healthy.
- Most nutritionists, dietitians, and doctors are still peddling the whole grain ideology even though the science and facts, (and the current state of human health), state otherwise.

From the Cheerios website:
"They're low in fat, have no saturated fat and are naturally cholesterol free. Cheerios is also an excellent source of folic acid and a good source of fiber."
Ingredients:

Whole grain oats, modified corn starch, SUGAR, salt, tripotassium phosphate, wheat starch...and a bunch of synthetically added vitamins.

Anything but healthy!
The Morning Ritual (no, not that one)
How do you start your day? For me, and many other like-minded cavefolk, it begins with preparing the body. Thinking of the body as a machine, an engine that needs to be warmed up before it can hit the streets, is a good way to look at it. Growing up in Canada, having to start you car, and let it warm-up for 20m before driving is a good example of a warm-up. That said, mornings start with a cold body that needs a little preparation for the day in order to get stuff going. 
I have, and can recommend, four morning 'rituals' that prepare the body for battle.

 

1) Acquire Range of Motion
2) Breathe
3) Detoxify
4) Nutrients

Getting  joints, tendons, ligaments, nerve tissue, arteries, and fluids like blood, lymph, enzymes from organs like the liver and pancreas moving first thing, sets the stage for a healthy machine throughout the day. After a night of rest, or more like unconscious gymnastics (have you ever seen a video of yourself during sleep?!) the most important thing is to require joint range of motion and get stuff moving. Have you ever seen what a dog or cat does first thing after getting up from a nap? Reacquire range.  A morning walk with the dogs, a cup of awesome green tea, and doing these basic movements work for me.

Read the Rest 

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Healthy Quotes 

The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around ~Thomas A. Edison

 

No Diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office  

~George Bernard Shaw

 

"The diet heat hypothesis that suggests that a high intake of fat or cholesterol causes heart disease has been repeatedly shown to be wrong, and yet, for complicated reasons of pride, profit, and prejudice, the hypothesis continues to be exploited by scientists, fund-raising enterprise, food companies, and even governmental agencies.

The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century." -Dr. George Mann

 

All Fats are not Created Equal!

Meat: The best being wild, pastured, and grass-fed. Conventional raised animals (feedlot) are raised on grains which generate inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids in the animal which are directly transferred to the person eating the meat.

Fruits: Coconut-Olive-Avocado are excellent sources of beneficial fats
See you next month
...thanks for reading
...spread the word 
...forward to friends
...be happy & stay healthy
                                       
 -Bill The Urban Caveman