My Daily Wellness Tip

3 Situations Not To Stretch

1. When the muscles you want to stretch is already over flexible. An over stretched muscle causes a weakness in the joint making it unstable and more prone to injury. It's important to find out what muscles are tight on your body in order to stretch those and avoid the ones that don't need it.

2. In the early morning. When you first wake up your muscles are still cold and lacks blood flow. This is especially a bad time to stretch if you have a bad back. Many people hurt their back putting on their socks because they flex their spine first thing in the morning. Get moving before you decide to stretch.

3. Before your workout. Static stretching (slow holding) will make you at least 5% weaker for your workout. Remember, stretching calms the nervous system and that is the last thing you want when your about to lift weight. Before your workout focus on moving stretches and warm up sets through full range of motion this fire up the nervous system and increase your performance. 

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One Size Doesn't Fit All

If you look at the ladies in this picture you can see that they all have very different body types. I can assure you that putting them in a general class together with the same program would not yield very good results. One of them may get injured, another one may not respond to the type of training, another one may end up looking worse than before and another one will have great results. It can't be perfect for everyone.

I've tried and seen so many group training programs, video's and boot camps in the past where everyone works out together towards one common goal of getting in shape with very little success of the perfect body in the end. Don't get me wrong, you can get in "shape" this way but you will never reach the level you can with a custom program dedicated to perfecting your body. To me sculpting the perfect body is an art and like sculpting a statue it takes time, precision and good judgment.

Here is a small scenario using the picture above to building a symmetrical, well defined body that most women would look up to:

Girl 1: Too bulky - Needs cardio. No lifting heavy. Drop the carbohydrates

Girl 2: Almost perfect symmetry - precision work is all she needs. Needs to work on resistance training and shaping the muscle more (side delts, abs). Protein level is important. Resistant exercise important.  

Girl 3: Big legs, small upper body - Needs to lighten the leg activity. Lose body fat and focus on stretching the chest, shoulders and hips.

Girl 4: Blocky, lacking shape - Needs to concentrate on muscle contraction and stretch through full range of motion. Split training is ideal. Needs to have diet perfect for building muscle.

Girl 5: Great symmetry for her height - If she was lose body fat she would have an almost perfect physique, needs to keep up the training but tighten up the diet and change her workout to circuit training.

Girl 6: Long Legs, small upper body - Needs to lose body fat which will bring down the size of the legs, focus on light running and general 10-12 reps resistant exercise for the overall body.

This is simply a first impression. You can imagine how many other details could be changed once we actually know what these women have been doing with their nutrition, exercise and lifestyle.

Whether you're a beginner looking to make a change or someone that's experiences with fitness but wants to get a little more specific, there is no better solution than a program designed specifically for you. If you live in Ottawa we can help, if not sorry.

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Quote Of The Day

"There Is No Next Time, No Time Outs, No Second Chances, Sometimes It's Now Or Never"

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500th Blog Post Anniversary

I was just about to write a post when I realized this is the 500th blog post on this blog. So I decided to celebrate by posting a low carb cake recipe;

Ingredients:

• Crust:
• 1 ¼ cup almond meal
• 2 Tablespoons butter, melted
• 3 Tablespoons sugar equivalent in artificial sweetener
• Filling:
• 1 ½ lbs (3 packages) cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 ¼ cups sugar equivalent in artificial sweetener (preferably liquid, see below)
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• ¼ cup lemon juice (fresh is best)
• 1 Tablespoon lemon zest
• ¼ cup heavy cream
• Topping:
• 1 cup sour cream
• Juice and zest from 1 medium lemon (about 2 Tablespoons juice and 1 Tablespoon zest)
• ¼ cup sugar equivalent in artificial sweetener (powdered erythritol or liquid sweetener preferred)
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

• Heat oven to 375 F.

• Prepare a springform pan. I like to put a piece of parchment paper over the bottom of the pan; no need to cut it to size, just snap it into place when you tighten the sides of the pan. Butter the sides and bottom of the pan, including parchment. Wrap the outside of the pan in heavy-duty foil to protect it from leaks.

• Combine ingredients for crust. Press the mixture into the bottom of your springform pan. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until fragrant and beginning to brown. Remove from oven.

• Lower oven temperature to 350 F.

• Gather ingredients for the filling. Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Scrape sides of bowl and beaters. (The mixture will gradually become lighter as you add in the rest of the ingredients, and the denser stuff will cling to the bowl. If you don't scrape, you won't be able to incorporate the remaining ingredients as well.)

• Add sweetener, vanilla, salt, and 2 of the eggs. Beat well, scrape.

• Add the other 2 eggs. Beat well, scrape.

• Add lemon juice, lemon zest, and cream. Beat well, scrape, and pour filling mixture into the pan over the crust.

• In another bowl, mix together ingredients for topping and set aside.

• Place a baking pan large enough to hold your springform pan into the oven and fill it halfway with boiling water. Place the springform pan into the baking pan and bake for about 60 minutes (give or take 10 to 15 minutes), until the cheesecake is mostly set but is still wobbly in the middle.

• Remove cheesecake from oven, spread the topping over the cheesecake, then bake for an additional 10 minutes.

• Cool to room temperature (1 to 2 hours), then chill completely for several hours before serving.

Nutritional Information: Each of 16 servings has 3 grams of carbohydrates plus 1 gram fiber, 7 grams protein, 28g of fat and 295 calories.

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Are You A Sumo In Disguise?

A sumo wrestler usually weighs anywhere from 350lbs to 500lbs. The one is an exception he's 770lbs! Though there is major genetic aspect to these sumo wrestlers getting this big (chosen when they are younger because they are naturally bigger) their traditional routines really have proven to put on weight since the 16th century. Most sumo wrestlers are required to live in communal "sumo training stables" where all aspects of their daily lives—from meals to their manner of dress—are dictated by strict tradition.

The worse part is, I see many people in assessments that follow a similar tradition as the sumo wrestler without knowing it. Here's the sumo's traditional routine;

6am - Wake up, no breakfast.

7am - Workout on empty stomach (meant to build up an appetite) for 5 hours straight, they work on flexibility, power, speed, and leg endurance performing about 200 traditional sumo squats a day

11am - Lunch consists of 10 000 calories of a mixture of a whole bunch of foods including; Sushi, rice, fried chicken, pasta, vegetables, beef, tofu and lots of the secret drink...beer. (The point here is that they raise their insulin so high that it will all be stored as fat...and some muscle...but mostly fat.)

After lunch - They go straight to bed to sleep for 2-3 hours. Making sure they don't waste those calories for energy.

Dinner - They repeat what they did at lunch time with more food (another 10 000 calories) and more beer, followed by sleep. (Beer is great for getting fat, it adds an extra fuel for your body to use before it reaches the glucose and finally your fat stores.)

Summery: So if you want to get fat, make sure not to eat breakfast and workout for hours of to really bring up cortisol and build up an appetite. When you finally get a chance to eat, (don't waste it) go nuts and eat as much of everything as you can especially carbohydrate calories and lots of beer. Follow that with a nap and repeat once more before bed time.

PS: If you don't want to get fat do the opposite

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The Vegetarian Myth

I don't usually do reviews for books but with this book I felt the need to. This is one of the most important books I've read this year on sustainability.

After the recommendation from my friend Luc to watch the documentary Collapse, It opened up a world that I didn't realize I was in. I never realized before the degree at which oil controls how we live and what we eat. A few months later I receive a recommendation from an author to read this book.

Let me warn you, she does not hold back in her writing. I consider myself a pretty extreme person and even I thought the action steps at the end of the book were impossible for our society to adopt at he moment but I have to applaud her for giving the extreme solution that way people can at least try to improve on some level. Like she says in the book "energy saving light bulbs are not going to change the world."

But in the back of my mind I kept thinking "If we all followed her advice we would change the world." What I found interesting is how she questions things that I had yet to hear questioned. Here is a short video of the author Lierre Keith.

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