Sunday, April 29, 2012

Fitness News #58 - How to Avoid Junk Food


Over the last couple of weeks I've been thinking about how much less junk food I eat, compared with about 3 years ago.  While there were many crimes, excessive soft drinks was way up there.  This morning sitting in the cafe, post bike club training ride, a lady I was chatting with go onto the topic of food addiction and non satisfaction.  Fundamentally she was saying that sugar based calories, in particular fructose did not trigger a message in the brain saying that you have eaten enough.  Then she went on to talk about how certain foods and chemicals cause addictiveness.  Well I have to agree, give me high sugar products like soft drinks, I can consume a bottomless amount and the junk was so compelling.

 

How to Avoid eating Junk


Don't buy it.  I'm serious, the bulk of junk eaten you have purchased yourself.  OK, but how do you get there, well I did it thru a process of migration.

Migration #1 - No junk food in the house

Walk away from the computer now and go to your fridge and pantry.  Make a list of what junk food you have.  Now promise to yourself that you will never bring it into the house again.

The majority of the food you eat is eaten at home.  If junk isn't in the fridge, then its not going to say 'eat me' every time you open the fridge.

Migration #2 -Eat the best food first

 You know what you want to eat to be healthy, make the effort to eat that food first.  Odd's on that will satisfy you and then the junk desire will be reduced or eliminated.

Migration #3 - The right selection when out and about

Whether that be in the food hall at the shopping centre or any other food purchasing situation, look at the value of the food by what it represents nutritionally, for example I'll put a preference to a serving that includes a green salad.

Migration #4 - Portion control

This isn't about denial, its where you end up once the addiction has been eliminated.  A recent example for me is how long its taking me to eat my easter eggs, I still have a pretty decent sash.  When I eat them, I only eat a fraction of what I would eaten in the past.

So what is the light at the end of the tunnel

Well where I ended up is that I eat a fraction of the junk I use to eat and the underlining reason for that is that I curtailed that addictive desirability, there is no denial, just a lack of interest.  Also my food costs considerably less

 

New RPM release - RPM55


On Saturday the RPM instructors got to preview the new release, we did a class at Darling Harbour.  See the picture, there were something like 150 bikes in the audience, occupied by instructors.  On stage was 5 instructors delivering the release.

So what's in the new release, you are asking...  OK, I'll spill the beans  :)



1 Listen To The Music (Motiv8 Extended Mix) - The Doobie Brothers
2 We Found Love    - Miss Piper
3 Loco (Empyre One Remix) - Manian
4 Good Feeling    - Flo Rida
5 Run With The Wolves - The Prodigy
6 Drowning (Avicii Remix) - Armin Van Buuren Feat. Laura V
7 Will I Ever (Dragon And Hunter Remix) - Paffendorf Feat. Fara
8 Paradise - Coldplay
9 Not Over You - Gavin DeGraw
Bonus 7 Overload 2011 (Voodoo & Serano Mix) - Voodoo & Serano

 

Classes

Fitness First 
Rockdale Mon 6.00am Ride
Five Dock Mon 5.45pm RPM
Rockdale Tue 6.30pm RPM
Top Ryde Wed 5.45pm Ride (new class)
Walker St Thu 6.00am RPM
Rockdale HiPf Sat 8.15am RPM
 
YMCA
Riverwood Mon 7.30pm RPM
Riverwood Tue 6.15am RPM
SCG
Stadium Fitness Centre Friday 6.15am RPM

Sleep Ride Eat Repeat
 

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Fitness News #57 - How to avoid dying

Easter has come and gone and like as individual as we are, we all did different things, however the 4 days back in the office and the gym is done and dusted, bringing us back to normality.

The majority of people in Australia will die earlier than they need to, but what are they dying of, well here's the deadly serious list. The ABS 2010 stats shows the most common reasons for death are;


Diseases of the circulatory system (I00-I99 31.7%
Neoplasms (C00-D48) 30.2%
Diseases of the respiratory system (J00-J99) 8.3%
External causes of morbidity and mortality (V01-Y98) 6.2%
Mental and behavioural disorders (F00-F99) 4.9%
Diseases of the nervous system (G00-G99) 4.3%
Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases (E00-E90) 4.0%
Diseases of the digestive system (K00-K93) 3.6%
Diseases of the genitourinary system (N00-N99) 2.4%
Certain infectious and parasitic diseases (A00-B99) 1.5%
Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue (M00-M99) 0.8%
Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (R00-R99) 0.7%
Certain conditions originating in the perinatal period (P00-P96) 0.4%
Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities (Q00-Q99) 0.4%
Diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs and certain disorders involving the immune mechanism (D50-D89) 0.3%
Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue (L00-L99) 0.3%

So looking at the major ones, what can we do to avoid being done in by them

Diseases of the circulatory system

 The #1 killer in Australia, its predominately about heart disease and takes out almost a 1/3 of us.  So how to we avoid this sucker, well according to Mayo there are 5 things you can do;
  1. Don't smoke
  2. Exercise
  3. Eat healthy
  4. Maintain healthy weight levels
  5. Preventative screenings 

Neoplasms

 What the frig is Neoplasms?  Its a fancy word for cancer and takes out almost a 1/3 of us too.  Yeh, sometimes your number comes up, but the general risk of number can be reduced.  Having a look at the prevention advice, such as Cancer Council Victoria and other places and what do we see;
  1. Don't smoke
  2. Exercise
  3. Eat healthy
  4. Maintain healthy weight levels
  5. Preventative screenings 
 mmm... a pattern seems to be appearing... seems you don't need to be a rocket scientist to be smart with your bod.  Ask yourself about the final 1/3 of death reasons, how much of that can be prevented by applying the same intelligent decisions to your lifestyle

Classes

Fitness First 
Rockdale Mon 6.00am Ride
Five Dock Mon 5.45pm RPM
Rockdale Tue 6.30pm RPM
Walker St Thu 6.00am RPM
Rockdale HiPf Sat 8.15am RPM
 
YMCA
Riverwood Mon 7.30pm RPM
Riverwood Tue 6.15am RPM
 
SCG
Stadium Fitness Centre Friday 6.15am RPM
 
Sleep Ride Eat Repeat
 
 

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Fitness News #56 - Easter eating

Today while at work, totally focused on work of course, I thought about all the chocolate being sold  and wondered how we got to this situation.  As usual, Google is my friend and it tells me that chocolate eggs started in 1820 as a delicate piece of food art and then moved to the line of manufactured chocolate we have today.  And then I decided that should be the topic for this weeks post. 

 Chocolate Eggs vs Real Eggs

 Now your heard the phrase:   "waiting for the coconut to drop from the tree"  well that's exactly what has happened to me tonight, I've received a post that pretty much sums up what I was going to say, written a little different, but here it is;
Jason Grossman
If you are looking for a few healthy tips checkout what Qualified Nutritionist Sinead Smyth suggests below: 5 Helpful Tips for Not over indulging at Easter
1.Chocolate is on the shelves 365 days of the year, so don’t worry it’s not only available just for the 4 days of Easter. Plan a treat, enjoy it and move on!
2.Add some extra exercise. Most of you have 4 full days off work, use this time to add in some extra exercise that you enjoy, going for a walk with a friend, jog along the beach (No excuses Perthians it’s going to be 30degrees over the weekend!)
3.If you get given lots of chocolate & really don’t want to eat it & throw off your healthy eating, give it away to someone less fortunate. Better yet, set the example and buy something non-chocolate based for Easter to give to your loved ones: )
4. If you’re worried about over eating, just stick to your normal size plate and what you would normally eat at that meal time. Just because it’s there in front of you…doesn’t mean you have to eat it
5.Swap a chocolate egg for a really egg! Check out the comparison in nutrients…it speaks for itself:

Solid Chocolate Egg 100g
Energy 2206 kJ
Total Sugars 54.6 g
Protein 7.6 g
Fat 30.5 g

Hard Boiled Whole egg 100g
Energy 583 kJ
Total Sugars 0.3 g
Protein 12.4 g
Fat 9.5 g


Back in the 50's

Your've heard me say how the population in the 50's were so much thinner than today's population, but yet they had little food compared with all the information of today.  I went and searched for 50's Easter meals and uncovered this one from 1959 A 1950's Easter Brunch

Suggested Menu for an Easter Brunch
Additional recipe:  Hot Cross Buns
Applying modern standards, you can see the strengths of challenges of what they had, but somehow a day of excess seems to have a lot less than the excesses of today

The Modern Easter

Nowadays we know that eating healthy doesn't mean starving yourself, its about eating smart.  Once again google is my friend and up pops some mouth watering recipes, that if we hadn't been told so would see them almost as wicked    Healthy Easter Recipes and Menus  Awesome !!!!!

Classes

Easter Weekend Classes (Fri - Mon)

SCG
Stadium Fitness Centre Friday 6.15am RPM - not on
Fitness First 
Rockdale HiPf Sat 8.15am RPM - not on
Rockdale HiPf Sun 9.30am Ride - I'm covering the class
Rockdale Mon 6.00am Ride - not on
Five Dock Mon 5.45pm RPM - not on
YMCA
Riverwood Mon 7.30pm RPM - not on

After Easter Weekend Classes  (Tue - Sat)

Fitness First
Rockdale Tue 6.30pm RPM
Walker St Thu 6.00am RPM
Rockdale HiPf Sat 8.15am RPM
YMCA
Riverwood Tue 6.15am RPM - Release 54 original
SCG
Stadium Fitness Centre Friday 6.15am RPM

Sleep Ride Eat Repeat