My Daily Wellness Tip

The Skinny On Salt

When dieting for a figure or bodybuilding show many competitors drop their sodium intake 3 days before the show in order to hold less water under the skin and give them a leaner look. Hydration is a means of survival and like many of the bodies systems sodium/potassium work to keep the body in homeostasis at all times, as you will see.

Sodium is responsible for extracellular fluid and potassium is responsible for intracellular fluid. It would be fun to just eat potassium foods and drop sodium foods in order to have full muscle with little water under the skin but unfortunately the body doesn't let us do that.

When you drop sodium from your diet, your blood pressure decreases because of a decrease in blood volume and water is pushed out of your vascular system. If the water isn't in your blood vessels it means it's going to be around them and that means holding water subcutaneously (say goodbye to that definition).

With a drop in sodium or by over consuming potassium a hormone called aldosterone signals your kidneys to immediately conserve sodium. The problem is that water always follows solutes and if re absorption of sodium happens; water will follow, making you look flat. Check out this study result that shows how fast this can happen after you drop sodium:

Normal Diet Low Sodium
	1 Day	2 Days	6 Days
Urinary Sodium 217 (mmol/day)	105	59	9.9
Aldosterone 10.4 (ng/100 ml)	11.7	22.5	37
Serum Sodium 139 (mmol)	139	139	138

Even though urinary sodium is almost half from day 1 one to day 2 serum sodium stays identical.

The bodies natural physiology is to keep 65% of fluid intracellular and 35% extracellular. What I have found to work best with athletes has been to aim to keep your sodium level and potassium level at a regular level (1-3g of sodium and 1.5-2g of potassium from food) and provide a slight drop in sodium the night before the show. It's a small move that makes a small difference but at least it's a safe move making sure you don't screw up all that hard earned work and weeks of dieting.

 

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Why You Should Have Some Carbs

I've been bashing carbohydrates for a while now (for good reason) and figured that today would be a good day to give you the reason I still choose to have some carbohydrates in our meal plans. Now don't take this as a free pass to eating junk food, over consumption of carbohydrates are still the number one reason people are overweight and when I talk "carbs" in this post I'm talking about low glycemic carbohydrates not the tasty sugary junk food that you wish I was talking about.

The big "up side" to carbohydrates and the reason they are part of our meal plans at Free Form is that they are protein sparing, meaning they help you maintain your muscle mass which in turn will keep your metabolism going strong and keep you from gaining fat in the long term. The reason carbohydrates are protein sparing is simply because they are used as an energy source first thus leaving protein alone to do it's number one job (repair).

The lower your carbohydrates the more weight you will lose but also the more muscle you will spare and this is where you need to have good judgement of how low you should go. The trick to getting ripped and maintaining muscle mass is to basically keep your carbohydrates to a level where your body can still lose weight (1lbs a week) yet you are not sparing too much muscle in the process. Some people handle carbohydrates very well while others can't. I can put one person's carb count at 250g a day and someone else's at 30g a day. That's a big difference.

If your someone that puts on weight very easily (endomorph) then you should keep carbohydrates low because you are naturally prone to storing body fat and will naturally spare a lot of muscle. If you don't put on weight very easily (ectomorph) then you should probably bring your carbs up to a point where you're not sparing any hard earned muscle. If you're in the middle (mesomorph) I would keep the carbs in the middle say around 100g a day.

I have also found that regardless of your genetics or body type, if carbohydrates are kept too low for too long the body falls into survival mode and will stall fat loss so another startegy could be to have refill days like in my book Abs On The Go.

So there you have it, there is a good side to having carbs apart from it's yummy taste in the mount and the satisfying feeling in the belly. Now make sure to count them so you don't get carried away.

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How To Increase Your Energy - Naturally

When I talk about Increasing energy I'm not talking about some type of energy drink or pill that will get you all fired up. Those things are short term burst that only lead to long term problems. I'm talking about making sure your hormones that give you energy are in balance and at the right level for you. Here is a little story about when I experienced low energy on a on-going basis, it should help you make changes to your lifestyle to make sure you don't fall into the same rut I did and hopefully take your energy to a new level.

I first experienced low energy when I first opened my business 4 years ago I was working non stop and my diet was the worst it had ever been in my life. My priority at that point was the survival of my business and nothing was going to set me off track. At the time I have to say I didn't even know I was tired because I was so focused and determined and I really didn't think it was a big deal. Until one day I was beat down and noticed I had so much trouble getting up in the morning and so much trouble going to bed at night, my creativity (one of my big strengths) became non existent and I had trouble solving the smallest of problems. I also noticed I had a very low libido and no appetite in the morning.

I felt really out of it and almost depressed. I had reached my breaking point so I decided to get my hormones tested. It turned out that my cortisol level was through the roof. Cortisol is a hormone that gives you energy but if you abuse of it, it is detrimental to your health. In essence It was pre-aging me.

So how did I change that journey?

The first step was to start eating clean again, no more blood sugar roller coasters where I would skip breakfast and sometimes even lunch to find myself eating 2 big meals (sounds a lot like the sumo diet). I actually had lost my appetite too. Then the next step was to start working out consistently. I hired one of my trainers to train me, that way I knew I had that appointment that I could stick too and place it a priority.

A big part of rebalancing the cortisol was to make sure I slept because that's when your body is in repair. So I decided to back away from the computer and stop thinking about anything work related after 7pm. After 7pm was time for me and Chelsea at that point. I made sure there was absolutely no light in my room not even the alarm clock. I dropped coffee completely and started to sleep a lot. I can't tell you how much this helped. For supplements, I supplemented with rodiola rosa which is a natural adaptogen that helps your body re balance it's cortisol and made sure to take my multi vitamin and b complex vitamin.

All in all my energy came back perfectly after about 2 months. That may seem long but it really wasn't because I had been in that low energy rut for so long.

Now I keep up these habits all the time, I may have the occasional coffee or big cheat but I'm very aware of the slippery slope I can get myself into. My energy is always constant and I really do feel amazing. If you're in a similar situation I was in, I hope this article helps you take action.

 

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Going Against Common Sense

100 calories must be OK right?

Today I really wanted to write about common sense, because I feel it's something that really holds us back. Your natural sense of understanding makes the topic of nutrition quite difficult to grasp. It's like when I first read about how hockey players born in January have a way higher chance of making the NHL then the people born in September, to me it didn't make sense. Why would the month they are born in have anything to do with it. Well it does read here to find out. 

The examples I wrote below have such a common sense feel to them that If I knew very little about nutrition it would make a lot of sense to me too. As you will see they don't.

"If I eat fat, I get fat"

Truth: Fats are not what is making people fat. Insulin is is what regulates fat accumulation and the only macronutrient out of the 3 (protein, carbs, fat) that produces high amounts of insulin is carbohydrates. Fat has no effect on insulin.  Even though common sense would tell us that fat would be the thing to avoid. Carbohydrates convert to fat and the're really the one's to be avoided.

"If something is fat free it's healthy. 

Truth: Fat free is unhealthy. Our bodies need fat (except trans fat) for survival. Not only that, when a companies remove it's fat from a product it usually adds sugar. Sugar again, is the real issue in making people unhealthy. Skittles are fat free does that mean the're healthy?" 

"I'll restrict my water intake for a few days so I will look great for that day on the beach"

Truth: The human body is always looking for homeostasis, if one hormone is imbalanced another will change in order to counter it's effect. Well, the same is true for holding water, the more water you drink the more your body will rid itself of water. The less you drink the more it holds on to it. Better strategy? drink a lot of water and lower your carbohydrates because they hold water.  

"To lower my cholesterol I just need to avoid eating cholesterol"

Truth: Cholesterol is essential and needed for rebuilding important hormones. Avoiding natural foods that contain cholesterol like eggs will only make your own cholesterol levels rise not decrease. Similar to the water situation I described above. If something is needed for survival to the human body and it's not getting it, it will find a way to store it. In this case storing it is not a good idea.   

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Activate Your Abs With This Ab Workout

by James Elliott 

So many people are in the dark when it comes to training abs. Crunches? Sit ups? Cardio? The answer is NO!

I find that when I compare my hanging style abdominal training routine to regular crunches I get about a 10x greater response in results!

The way abs work is simple; The abdominals are fast twitch fibres that respond best to either weighted compound movements or explosive compound movements which is why my hanging abdominal training routine will work! Try it out:

2 minutes x 3 sets ! That’s it !

1. 30 sec - hanging pike

2. 30sec - low to medial leg lifts

3. 30sec- windshield wipers

4. 30 sec knee’s to elbows .

All done as fast as possible with full range of motion.

For those of you who need a visual effect to understand, I decided that I will start writing on this blog on a regular basis so I will submit a video in the future to further demonstrate this post!

Good luck!

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Can You Just Burn It Off?

 

Many endurance athletes believe that they can burn off the carbohydrates that they consume without causing any damage to their health. Well, they're not entirely wrong - let's break it down: 

Carbohydrates once digested do one of four things: 

1. They are immediately used as energy
2. They are stored as glycogen to be used as energy at a later time.
3. They are turned to triglycerides and used as energy or stored as fat
4. They are converted to cholesterol

As you can see, it's true that we can burn off excess sugar as energy however we can't burn off insulin that has been released in response to the amount of sugar that has entered the portal vein. Eating high amounts of carbohydrates will increase insulin which leads to metabolic damage, setting up a chain reaction of hormone disruption and biochemical cellular reactions. This leads to increased inflammatory responses, cellular growth, blood clotting and insulin resistance (even if you burn off the carbohydrates as energy.) 

The reality is that even if you go for a long run after your carb load, you may burn off the sugar but the insulin has already created damage to your health. A better solution would be to skip the carb load and to have regular balanced meals of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and fibrous vegetables throughout the day providing a low insulin response but a 3/4 full tank of carbohydrates. Then a few days before a run you taper down your activity level to help fill up glycogen and provide yourself with a full tank of gas for the race.     

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