Jul

Fit Your Feet

The correct shoe can mean the greatest training and competitive season you’ve ever had and a poorly fit shoe can derail your progress and sideline you. As we age, without the correct anatomical support, the bones in your foot can collapse under the weight of gravity from all the added high impact exercise we sustain to stay healthy. Fortunately for all us runners, there’s a simple way to analyze your gait and you don’t even have to rely on the “experts” at Fleet Feet. Personally, every time I purchase a pair of shoes at Fleet Feet, I get a different diagnosis. One of my all time favorite running shoe companies, Mizuno, provides a precision online fit assessment and then recommends a specific model to try out. You can opt to buy their brand or search elsewhere with the info you attain from the fit assessment. I personally love Mizuno. The lightweight feel of their shoes coupled with the quality and ability to keep up with my training is why I go back to them again and again.

Here are the different elements of the test:

: Female Flexibility Test

: Finger Test

: Foot Rotation

: Foot Strike Test

: Foot Type

: Knee Test

: Leg Axis Test

Jun

Apps Are So Out

I know, I know… Apps are the next “It” thing if you are in business. But I am proposing that you NOT carry your cell phone everywhere you go. And hey, especially when you are exercising. Because, if anything, exercise is your hour to yourself everyday. And it should be peaceful and quiet and you shouldn’t have emails buzzing and text messages being sent and you shouldn’t be looking at yet another florescent screen just to follow an exercise routine. No, I’m thinking all you need is your eyes, your ears, your heart, your arms and legs to carry out the most physical part of your day. Forget technology, get in touch with something even more intelligent and complex–your body.

So I’m developing a CoreFit Deck that you can take with you. Get the first of these workouts here and print out so you can just grab them and go to the gym. In fact, why not just take a few in your gym back so all you have to do is follow the pictures and do the routine. Simple. And it won’t even show up on your data usage.

Feb

The Power Poses

We know our minds change our bodies. But do our bodies change our minds?

Powerful people typically are assertive, confidant, optimistic, risk takers, tend to think more abstractly. Physiologically they have more testosterone (dominance hormone) and less cortisol (stress hormone). High power alpha males in nature have high testosterone and low cortisol and powerful and effective leaders also have high testosterone and low cortisol.

Amy Cuddy describes her 2 min experiment;

“this is what we did; we decided to bring people into a blast and ronaldo experiment and these people adopted for two minutes either high-power opposes or low-power poses.”

The results

High Power Poses produced a 20% increase in testosterone (dominance hormone) and a 25% decrease in cortisol (stress hormone).

Low Power Poses produced a 10% decrease in testosterone (dominance hormone) and a 15% decrease in cortisol (stress hormone).

Simply expanding your body for two minutes produces very significant increases in your hormonal levels. These hormones are the same hormones that drive our confidence and our success in many cases. Amy Cuddy makes a strong case for the body’s ability to influence the way we think. Simply faking a motion for two minutes can convince you that you do belong, you can be successful and that you are powerful.

Feb

The Heart Loves Yoga

Yoga for Atrial Fibrillation

The first ever yoga study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found yoga to be a safe, effective and relatively cheap therapy for improving the lives of heart patients.

The study conducted by The University of Kansas Hospital found that,

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Feb

Bone Mineral Density and The Athlete

Start thinking about Bone Mineral Density. It’s an important factor in injury prevention, now and in your future health–and it’s cumulative. That means if you’re an athlete and aren’t getting the proper nutrition, rest and relaxation your body needs now, you’re setting your body up for failure later.

Bone Mineral Density is a cumulative history of energy availability, hormonal fluctuations, genetics, good nutrition, behaviors and environmental factors. As you get older, bone mineral density falls as our muscular infrastructure changes. When you do damage to your body, by starving/binging yourself, exercising too hard, not getting enough sleep and allowing stress to become a regular component in your life, you seriously alter your future body.

Jan

The Kick Ass Diet

Your fat cells won’t ever go away (without lipo anyways), but cellulite (the matrix that holds your fat cells together) can be reduced by how much you diet and exercise. Fat cells shrink and expand depending on how much fat you are taking in, so if you reduce the fat in your diet, they will shrink and will not be held taut against the cellulite matrix.

Siggi’s is one of my favorite diet secrets. I use it in the afternoon for a boost at lunch. With only 100 cals and 14 grams of protein, this is one of the highest non-synthetic forms of pure protein out there.

100 cals, 0 g fat, 11 carbs, 14g protein
all natural milk from grass fed cows
no aspartame, sucralose, gelatin, artificial color, preservatives, or high fructose corn syrup
Milk produced without the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone

Stay tuned for a CoreFit book of health & wellness which includes meditation, workouts, nutrition plans and mental health awareness. Basically my secrets to staying young and fresh and most important healthy–leading a Kick Ass Life.

Jan

Low Carb Clementine Almond Cake

This whole clementine cake is a classic Sicilian recipe, which I adapted from a book by Nigella Lawson. This cake is made using whole clementines that have been boiled until tender, then pureed into a smooth, intoxicatingly flavored paste.

Since it is flourless it’s easy to make this low carb by baking with natural sweetners. The low carb recipe is by Alejandra Ramos of Always Order Dessert.

Flourless Clementine Almond Cake Recipe
Adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson

Ingredients
4 clementines (about 13 oz)
6 large eggs
1/2 cup erythritol + 1/2 cup granulated Splenda (OR) 1 cup granulated white sugar
2 1/4 cups of ground almond meal (or 9oz of almonds finely ground)
2 teaspoons pure almond extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

Directions
Place the clementines in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and let simmer 1 1/2 hours, until very tender. Remove from water, then chop and remove seeds. Add the remaining boiled clementine (everything but the pits) to a food processor or blender and puree until smooth.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and line a springform baking pan (this is a sticky cake; you NEED a springform pan).

In a mixer with a whisk attachment, beat the eggs for 5 minutes until very light and frothy. Add the sweetener or sugar, ground almonds, almond extract, salt, and baking powder and beat again for 5 more minutes until very light. Pour into the prepared baking pan and bake 50 minutes to 1 hour or until set. Let cool in the pan, then unmold and serve.
Low Carb Note: Using the mix of sweeteners that I used, the cake works out to about 9g of net carbs per serving, which is fantastic. (The cake has 10 servings.)

Jan

You are Beautiful

It doesn’t look like a chiseled Ryan Gosling or a Victoria Secret runway model. Still it’s beautiful, no?

This is the velella (Velella Velella), a small free floating hydrozoan. It’s currently the only known species in the genus.
They’re also known as sea-rafts or by-the-wind-sailors, for the obvious reason that it uses the the “sail” you can see in this image for locomotion. Because of this, they are often found washed up on beaches.

Jan

CoreFit Healthy Diet

The CoreFit healthy diet… Eating real food. Balancing out your vices with your good choices. Not pretending you need to eat perfectly every second of the day. Giving yourself a break, mentally and physically. Reiterating that food is nourishment for this icy cold day.

-Shayna

Herbs De Provence Roast Chicken

1 Whole Roasting Chicken

1 lb Whole Organic Carrots, sliced big and chunky

1 lb Whole Organic Celery, sliced in 2-3in segments

2-4 Organic Yellow Onions, peeled and roughly sliced

2-4 Cloves Organic Garlic

2tbsp Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a roasting pan place washed chicken, breast side up, pat with paper towels to dry and cover with 2tbsp olive oil. Massage in and cover chicken. Sprinkle herbs de provence over chicken and salt and pepper. Place cut veggies in and around chicken. Throw in the over for 1-2hrs, 20min/lb.

Use leftover chicken and bones to make chicken soup tomorrow!

Jan

Democracy/Autonomy

Democracy means a lot of things in America; it means we are allowed to make and spend money the way we please. it means we are able to cross financial class barriers and be competitive with our success. and it also means that the majority dictates the larger picture. the larger meaning of what we want to represent to the world. Moving forward, it means keeping the faith.

In life, we also have choices. Personally, professionally, that you “take this obligation to yourself freely,” these carry us forward. Autonomy from the Greek words for “self” and “law” means “one who gives oneself their own law.”
Choose yourself. Choose to invest in yourself and your ideas. With every minor step forward, your subconscious will see the value in making good choices. And the larger democracy of our beliefs will move us forward with or without resistance. No matter what you believe, struggling is always the more difficult proposition. But it usually produces really great results.

Tagged with mens health …

Yoga for Atrial Fibrillation