Health = Happiness

Exercise, health, nutrition, and happiness are all connected. The daily decisions we make affect our daily outlook, our overall happiness, and our well-being.

Here one finds tips about how to stay well, integrate exercise into daily life, and how to eat nutritionally because it feels and tastes good.

You can also follow my tweets about various topics, workout times and updates here: Twitter Treats

• Beware the Hot Dog August 10, 2011
  

  As Dangerous as a Cigarette?

  I know, I love hot dogs too, and deli meats and all that good stuff, but read this article and you may think twice…

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neal-barnard-md/processed-meat-cancer_b_919034.html

  Studies have found a direct correlation between consuption of hot dogs and other processed meats like bacon, sausage, and ham and cancer.  Specifically colorectal cancer.  Directly from the article: “Every 50 grams of processed meat you eat on a daily basis (that’s about one hot dog) increases your risk of colorectal cancer by 21 percent. And just as there is no safe level of smoking, no amount of hot dogs, bacon, sausage, ham or other processed meats comes out clean in scientific studies.”

  The link between the foods and cancer is not definable to one single item, but think about this.  When we evolved, our bodies evolved based on the greens, fruits, and meats that were available to us.  Untainted, unmodified, unprocessed.  The food revolution that has occured in the past 100 years has led to an explosion of heart disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and cancer.  Personally, this is a risk I am not willing to take.  I want to be the first in my family to live past 100 years, and if it means not eating hot dogs and paying a little more for my food, well then it seems like a worthwhile investment to me.  You get what you pay for when it comes to food.  It’s not like buying an on-sale t-shirt from H&M that’s a good deal.  A “good deal” with food usually isn’t.  It means its 1) OLD, 2) SPOILED, or 3) BAD FOR YOU.

  If you are what you eat, then I’m happy to be labeled as hippie-organic YES! Organic Market.  I’ve been made fun of more than once for eating raw bell peppers at work. 

  I’ll be smiling in the sunshine, riding my bicycle in my 80′s and competing in ultra-masters events.  It is unfortunate, but I won’t have much empathy for those careless enough to let themselved be labed BigMacs.  The warnings are there, you just have to heed them.  You always have a choice.

• Sickle Cell Reminder! August 1, 2011

  Piggybacking off my last post…

  Just a reminder to ALL ATHLETES, that on your physicial you must show whether you have sickle cell trait.  For everyone, here is a reminder about Sickle Cell Anemia and Sickle Cell Trait, which tends to mimic heat stress.

  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/os-sickle-cell-trait-where-now-0726-20110725,0,676999.story

  Many young athletes, usually youth football players, have died due to complications of sickle cell trait and heat stress, not knowing they even had the trait.  PLEASE READ!

• Overcoming the Opressive Heat. July 29, 2011
  

  View from the Getty Museum, Los Angeles

  Ah, Summer.  We waited so long for you.  We thought of you as we watched friends’ cars get stuck in snowdrifts, as we found ourselves being an hour late to work by no fault of our own, and as we updated our collection of fleece jackets and UGG boots.  Spring went by in a blink and then Summer settled in.  It feels like we had about a week of nice weather before we had our streaks of heat.  First just a day or two, now it’s weeks at a time and even Metro relented and allowed the population to carry water bottles and drink on the metro lest they pass out while walking up the broken escalators.  You know it’s hot when Metro concedes.

  For people walking or exercising in the heat, our main concern is hyperthermia, an elevated body temperature.  Body temperature rises naturally with exercise as the muscles produce heat.  This is offset with sweat and an increased breathing rate.  Since the body is at most 20-30% efficient, 70-80% of the energy expended during exercise appears as heat (Powers S, Howley E, pg 223).  Being that we live on the East Coast (I miss my West Coast!), we need to worry about the relative humidity as well.  A high relative humidity reduces the vapor pressure gradient between the skin and the environment. On a hot/humid day, like today, the vapor pressure in the air is close to the vapor pressure on moist skin; therefore, the rate of evaporation is greatly reduced.  High sweat rates during exercise in a hot/humid environment result in useless water loss.  Sweating does not cool the skin, evaporation does.  Without evaporation, our body temperature rises until we must stop or our body forces us to stop!

  

  Cool off, Bro.

  This is why we athletic trainers never let athletes train with a fever.  We also have a saying, “At 85 and 85, stay inside to stay alive”.  Meaning at 85 degrees with 85% humidity, your body can’t cool down with evaporation, so just stay inside.  This is also why we acclimitize our athletes to heat.

  Heat acclimation results in a lower heart rate and core temperature during submaximal exercise.  Ideally, I like to use 2 weeks to become heat acclimitized.  I think back in March on an 80 degree day I was melting, and now 80 degrees would be a cool day.  Starting at 15-20 minutes of exercise, go in the morning when its cooler, 6 or 7 am.  Work up to your desired amount of cardio (45-60 min?).  Then, after 3 days, start going at later times of day, like 9-11 am.  Cut back on time, back to 15-30 min, and work up to 45-60 in 3 days.  Then the tough part, working out at the hottest time of the day, 1-4pm.  Again starting at 15-30 min and working up to 45-60 min, taking short breaks in the shade if needed.  Again, this process takes a few weeks and it is UNCOMFORTABLE.

  Here are the changes that occur in the body with proper acclimation:

  1. Increased plasma volume
  2. Earlier onset of sweating
  3. Higher sweat rate
  4. Reduced sodium chloride loss in sweat
  5. Reduced skin blood flow
  6. Increased heat shock proteins in tissue

  EXP Diagrams

  Core temperature and variations in sweat rate are also affected by the following characteristics:

  • Height and weight – heavier people sweat more
  • Degree of acclimation – well acclimated people sweat earlier and more
  • Fitness level – fit people sweat more
  • Hydration status
  • Environmental conditions
  • Clothing
  • Intensity and duration of activity
  • Heredity

  Loss of adaptations are rapid, with reductions in heat tolerance occurring within a few days of inactivity.  Repeated exposure to heat is required to maintain heat acclimitization.

  So, in summary.  Be careful, stay hydrated, acclimitize yourself and take breaks if needed.  Remember, I have your back.

  

• Workout Today 6/6 June 6, 2011

  All -

  Since too few people again would be available to meet up, we will hopefully try for Thursday 6/9.  If I don’t hear from at least 5 people for Thursday (by 7 am same-day), I will not try to organize any more conditioning sessions for the summer.

  For today if you choose, please do the following workout:

  Aerobic Warmup, then:

  1 mile, 20 seconds slower than goal pace

  Rest 2:30

  4 x 1/4 miles (one lap around the field or a track is a quarter mile), each at goal split pace.  For example, if your goal is to run an 8:00 mile, each quarter would be 2:00, 7:30 would be about 1:53, 7:00 would be 1:45, etc…

  Rest 2:00 each

  4 x 200m (half a lap) at faster than goal mile pace.  Use your mile split and halve it, then subtract 15 seconds.  So a 2:00 1/4 mile becomes a 1:00-:15 = 45 second 200.

  Complete rest after each rep.

  Enjoy and hope to hear from you Wednesday for the workout on Thursday!

• Workout Today 6/2 June 2, 2011

  Who loves the heat??  If exercising outside, be sure you are out exercising no more than 30 minutes if you are not acclimated. Go inside to cool down if necessary.  Drink plenty of water.

  Unfortunately we won’t make the 5 person limit today, so we will shoot for Monday 6/7.  I hope you all are working out cause the fitness gap will catch up with you faster than you think   Remember, the goal is to be in shape prior to season start, not at the season’s end.  Take steps now to prepare.

  Please do the following workout today:

  Warmup – 1x Aerobic + 1x Strength; Check your Soccer Summer workout sheet for these

  Run 1 lap around the field, a quarter of a mile, then do the following:

  Lap 1: 75 Squats; Lap 2: 40 Pushups; Lap 3: 40 FULL SITUPS; Lap 4: 50 Mountain Climbers; Lap 5: 25 Burpees

  Rest between laps as needed.  “Cool down” with another 2 laps.

  Remember, for Monday please email or text me by no later than 7am to ensure we have enough people.