My last week

Good evening!  This last week sure has been a great time of family, friends and fun.

Work was fantastic last week, it is so great to enjoy what you do all day, everyday.

We had a great family afternoon on Wednesday which included some shopping and movies.

Thursday I was fortunate enough to run in the Drumstick Dash 10k around Lake Harriet and finish.  It was 55 degrees out at the start which is also over 20 degrees warmer than my last 10k in October, oh Minnesota.

After the running and breakfast at home we watched football.  If you have ever met me you should know I enjoy watching football, so it was a great day.  In the afternoon we went to my Grandmas for Thanksgiving dinner.  It is always great to visit with family and eat good food.  I am not a huge fan of eating crazy things or pies so nutritionally I did pretty well.  I also wore a dress, but did not get a picture, sorry.

Addison and her cousin Lucas, they were both born July 8th, just different years

Friday I started my day with a workout.  I was so sore from the run Thursday I could barley move.  Then somehow I got roped into joining bootcamp, lets just say by the time I left it was not good.  When I got home I drank a TON of water to try and get all the lactic acid moving.  After we packed Addison's bag we went to my moms to celebrate Thanksgiving again.  Again I ate really well loading up on the veggies and protein with no dessert or alcohol (I know so lame).  Addison had a blast playing with her little cousin Joel and she even got to spend the rest of the weekend with my mom.

Cute video

We then got home late Friday night, packed for a weekend away and got about 5 hours of sleep before a trip down south!  Adam and I met his parents for breakfast in Clear Lake, Iowa.  Good old Denny's!  I did good with eggs, ham and bacon, I really don't think I could have done better at Denny's at 7am.

After breakfast we made our way down to Kansas City, Missouri.  The whole way I was on my phone trying to find us tickets to the Denver Broncos vs. Kansas City game and it paid off!  We got front row tickets on the 40 yards line for Sunday, right behind my Broncos bench!

When we got to Kansas City we went straight to the stadium to try and take a tour.  They were all booked at that time so we had to come back later.  We explored the Kansas City Royals stadium, downtown Kansas City and the NCAA headquarters.  We also took a visit to the NCAA Hall of fame, pretty cool!

Our tour at Arrowhead Stadium Started at 3:45 and lasted until after 6pm, it was so cool!  Lots of walking, visiting all the suites, exploring the field and press rooms and lastly seeing their Superbowl trophy.  Something you Viking fans know nothing about.

The field was covered to keep it warm for game day

After the tour we went to the Casino, I love my gambling and had a nice BBQ dinner.  I had coleslaw, bbq pork and some sweet potato fries.  I also did drink some but made sure to keep it gluten free!

SUNDAY MORNING!  Game Day has finally arrived.  Of course the continental breakfast at the hotel was loaded with junk.  We managed to eat a banana and a couple peanut butter packets.....yummmy 

We made it to the stadium nice and early for tailgating.  We did lots of walking and teasing the KC fans.  Adam won a Kansas City t-shirt, which we later destroyed with marker.  We made it to our seats right as the gate opened.  Since they were so close we wanted to be there early to watch warm ups and harass KC some more.  At the game is where I made my worst choices, only because I had to drink my hometown Coors and popcorn was about the only decent option for food.

The Broncos won, we didn't get kicked out of the stadium and we had a great time so that's all that I care about!

My new favorite QB, Peyton Manning, we got him to smile at us.

After the game we decided to drive all the way home with just a stop for gas.  I made it to work today in one piece while Adam got Addison and played with her all day.

My last week was a great week again filled with family, friends and fun!  If your still reading I want to leave you with this, a way I live my life.

Anything you want in life you have to make the time for it.  If you wait until you have the time it will never happen.  This goes for everything, health, relationships, fun and rest. With the holidays upon us it's going to be easy to get side tracked from your good decisions. Make sure to make the time for what is important to you.  Sometimes just knowing or thinking what is important is not enough.  Write it down, take a picture, publicly announce it.  If you say you want to do something, think it through and create a plan.  That is the only way to get things accomplished.

P.S. Addison didn't like Santa when my mom took her Sunday

Metabolic Efficiency

Ever heard the term metabolic efficiency?  If not, that's ok, a couple of years ago I hadn't either.

I was fortunate enough to hear a nutrition/exercise speaker today to learn more about the body, don't be too jealous.  The best way for me to learn is to take my notes and de-brief them so here you go.

Speaker info: Bob Seebohar MS, RD, CSCS and many others- was a vegetarian for 10 years, now a carnivore, he is also a writer and ultra marathoner  
www.bobseebohar.blogspot.com and www.fuel4mance.com 

Plain and simple, we need to teach our bodies to burn more fat and preserve carbohydrate stores.  
We store in our bodies: 
1,200-2,000 calories of carbs 80,000 calories of fat  (super lean athlete still stores 35,000) 
If you control your blood sugar, you use fat for energy.  Different factors that limit your fat burning are age, gender, activity level and sleep.  Fat Burning is what Bob called metabolic efficiency.  He will work/test people all the time that cannot even effectively burn fat.  The only way to truly know if they are burning fat is through metabolic testing.

If you want to change your metabolic efficiency you can through exercise (25% of your results) and nutrition (75% of your results).  When you improve it you will improve your body composition, reduce GI distress (gut health) and change your nutrient use. 

Controlling Blood Sugar to burn more fat!
Blood Sugar varies every 3-4 hours, so you should be hungry that often and eat 5-6x a day. 
It takes a body 4-8 weeks to adapt to a new nutrition plan and then we plateau.  It will take 12 months to really create a change.  After just 2 good weeks our body will start burning more fat.  After just 1 bad week it will revert back to old ways though.

If we fast then eat a lot it creates a high blood sugar, when our blood sugar is high we produce more insulin, insulin turns off fat burning (lipolysis)! 

Protein, fiber, and fat are what help regulate blood sugar and keep us from producing/releasing a lot of insulin.  Burning fat will help you look good on the out side and from inside out... 

Everyone always wants to know, What should I eat and how much?  Here are some tips:
-Diets consisting of 25% carbs have shown to lower cholesterol, lower triglycerides and increase HDL 
-Diets 65% fruits/vegetables, 35% protein, better controlled blood sugar/energy 
-Eat your foods in this order: Protein/fat, fruits/vegetables, whole grains (quinoa/brown rice), misses (everything else)
-No cheat days, they promote bad things
-When you feel like you need it, have it in minimal amounts ex.Chocolate 
-Cravings happen when your blood sugar is low, control your blood sugar to limit cravings 
-CHANGES ARE TOUGH, it takes 7-10 days to acclimate, when you go through carbohydrate "rehab" you will be crabby 
-Only need to eat during exercise if it is over 2 hours of activity 
-Focus on around 20g of protein post workout, more wont be useful
-Eat to train, don't train to eat 
-Only supplement he has found to immediately increase metabolic efficiency/fat burn is generation ucan, I haven't tried it yet so wont personally recommend it 
-My new favorite trick for when I am asked how much/what to eat:

Look at your hands, your left hand is how much protein to put on your plate and your right hand is how much color!


Hope you learned a couple things, I learned some new tips/tricks I am excited to teach all of you!


How aggressive do you want to be in changing? If your ready and can answer that without hesitation let me know!  

What really is gluten?

What really is gluten and all the hype around it?

Per Wikipedia:
Gluten (from Latin gluten, "glue") is a protein composite found in foods processed from wheat and related grain species, including barley and rye. Gluten gives elasticity to dough, helping it rise and keep its shape and often gives the final product a chewy texture. Gluten may also be found in some cosmetics, hair products, and other dermatological preparations.

Where else will you find gluten?

Sources of gluten in picture- Top: High-gluten wheat flour. Right: European spelt. Bottom: Barley. Left: Rolled rye flakes.

Others: Cereal, bread, pizza, bagels, pastry's, imitation meats (pork, chicken, fish, beef), some pet foods and ice cream.

So in Steph's words: Gluten is a cheap ingredient that can bind things together and adsorb water to make it look larger while adding flavor to make things taste good.  No wonder companies want to add this to their foods.

What is the big deal with gluten?

Gluten issues have been around for a while.  It used to be that just people with Celiac Disease where known to have issues with gluten but more and more people without Celiac are finding they have issues with gluten.

 Celiac Disease is:

• a genetic, inheritable disease.
• Approximately 1 in 133 people have CD, however, only about 3% of these have been diagnosed. This means that there are over 2.1 million undiagnosed people with Celiac disease in the United States.
• characterized by damage to the mucosal lining of the small intestine which is known as villous atrophy.
• responsible for the malabsorption of nutrients resulting in malnutrition.
• linked to skin blisters known as dermatitis herpetiformis (DH).
• not age-dependent. It may become active at any age.
• Celiac Disease can be life threatening

Celiac disease cannot be "caught," but rather the potential for CD may be in the body from birth. Its onset is not confined to a particular age range or gender, although more women are diagnosed than men. It is not known exactly what activates the disease and Celiac disease is life-long and currently incurable. The only known treatment at this time is strict adherence to a gluten-free lifestyle.

Great, I don't have Celiac so that means I can eat all the gluten I want?
Not exactly.

Symptoms of a gluten sensitivity include bloating, abdominal discomfort, pain or diarrhea, or it may present with a variety of other symptoms including headaches and migraines, lethargy and tiredness, attention-deficit disorder and hyperactivity, muscular disturbances as well as bone and joint pain.

Until recently, the terms gluten sensitivity and Celiac disease were used interchangeably in medical literature. However, emerging research indicates that gluten sensitivity has a broader scope than Celiac disease. If the medical history of a patient, along with clinical tests, rule out Celiac disease and wheat allergy, a diagnosis of gluten sensitivity can be considered. However, certain criteria need to be met before a diagnosis of gluten sensitivity can be confirmed.

Treatment for this condition is a gluten-free diet.  Prescriptions are typically not necessary since its a sensitivity.  Sensitivities can also decrease or cease with time unlike Celiac Disease. 

In closing, gluten is a cheap ingredient found in a lot of different foods that is hard for our bodies to digest.  Just about everyone I have worked with could benefit from reducing or cutting gluten out of their diets.  If you are noticing any of the above symptoms or struggling with weight loss try an 30-90 day elimination of gluten.  You might just feel better then you thought possible and its not that hard to do either!


For more info check out my sources and websites I study!
www.lakewinds.com
www.wikipedia.com
www.wsj.com
www.webmd.com
www.gf-blog.com

Final Results

Happy Snowy Monday to you all!

All results are finally in and tallied, it was so close.  All of you in the top 5 were just tenth of percents away from victory!

Top Body Fat % Lost:
Alison S
Danica C
Becky M
Jen G
Lisa T

Top Weight Lost:
Jen G
Lisa T
Diane T
Alison S
Jessica B

Congrats to everyone in the challenge, even with small results you can say you accomplished something.  Yes, we did have men in the challenge but all the females saw the best results.  Congrats to Alison for taking victory.

Good luck to all of you over the next two months.  It will be tough with the holidays but keep up your activity, think about your nutrition and check out this post for more holiday eating tips: http://stephaniewinters.blogspot.com/2012/11/holiday-eating.html

Our next Challenge will be in January.  If you want to see where you are between now and then let me know!

Have a great week.

Holiday Eating

It is November and that means that our next 8 weeks will be filled with good times, family, friends and a lot of food.  All of those things can be great in moderation but when you have party after party and event after event the calories will add up.  Here are my success strategies to your Holiday eating, and drinking!

1. Be realistic, don't try to lose weight during the holidays
2. Make a realistic goal to maintain your weight or workout 3x per week
3. Don't skip meals, you will be starving and then overeat
4. Pre-eat, when your heading to an event have some healthy veggies and protein at home ahead of time to limit the unhealthy calories at the event
5. Throw away or give a way leftovers, if they are in your house you will eat them
6. When filling up your plate don't forget to add the veggies
7. Focus on eating while sitting down with a plate, grazing over the buffet line can be dangerous
8. Be careful with alcohol, it can lower you inhibitions and create you to overeat
9. Alcohol is also a lot of empty unneeded calories, have a glass of water in between each drink
10.  If you overeat one meal don't let it ruin your day, get back on track with the next meal
11. Take the focus off food, volunteer at a shelter, feed my starving children or a church to spend time with family
12. Plan group activities like a lighted holiday walking tour or window shopping at a local mall
13. Make items you can't eat like a gingerbread house, snowflakes, decorations and ornaments
14. When eating at a potluck bring a healthy dish
15. Always eat all your food on a plate and don't let the food on your plate touch, you can only have so much that way
16. Stay on top of sleep and your workouts, when your not sleeping well or in your normal workout routine you will want to eat more
17. When your ''bored eating'' clean, take the dog for a walk, brush your teeth, drink some water or chew a piece of gum
18. Don't over restrict yourself, you will crash and burn at some point if you do
19. Make a goal for January 1st and stick to it, don't let your holiday eating continue into the New Year
20. Have a great holiday season and spend some time with those you care about

Here are some tricks to help make your holiday favorites a little more healthy

1. Refrigerate your gravy and after it cools skim some or a lot of the fat off the top to reduce the amount of total fat
2. In your dressing use less bread and more onions, garlic, celery and other vegetables, add fruits like cranberries and apples to sweeten and moisten with low sodium broth and applesauce
3. Skip the dark meat and skin on the turkey
4. Cook your green bean casserole with potatoes instead of cream soup and top with almonds instead of  fried onions
5. When making mashed potatoes avoid a ton of whole milk and butter and substitute with chicken broth, garlic, garlic powder and rice milk
6. Make your own graham cracker crust for desserts to lower calories
7. Look for other healthy recipes online, some website I use are http://skinnyms.com/ and http://healthylivinghowto.com/  here are two I found from the Mayo Clinic

• Quick Holiday Nog — Four bananas, 1-1/2 cups skim milk or soymilk, 1-1/2 cups plain nonfat yogurt, 1/4 teaspoon rum extract, and ground nutmeg. Blend all ingredients except nutmeg. Puree until smooth. Top with nutmeg.


• Desserts — Make a crust less pumpkin pie. Substitute two egg whites for each whole egg in baked recipes. Replace heavy cream with evaporated skim milk in cheesecakes and cream pies. Top cakes with fresh fruit, fruit sauce, or a sprinkle of powdered sugar instead of fattening frosting.

I hope you were able to find a few pointers to help in your holiday success, if you have other good ones let me know or leave a comment below!

Sleep

How is your sleep? Are you getting the 7-9 hours straight you need a night?  Above you will see a breakdown of our nightly cycle and what our bodies are doing while we sleep.

Here are some tips to help you get your sleep!
-Limit your caffeine to the morning with none after 2pm
-Do a brain dump 2 hours before bed
-Turn off computers and TVs one hour before bed
-Later sip on decaf tea, listen to soft music, do some light reading
-Leave phones and electronics outside of your bedroom
-Make sure your bedroom temp is low 67-69F
-Take Epsom salt bath 1 hour before bedtime
-Try small protein and fat pre-bedtime meal
-Take magnesium at dinner or before bedtime

Happy Sunday

Happy football Sunday to you all.  Addison is napping and I am watching my Broncos beat up on Cincinnati.

While I sit on my bum I figured I would get some writing done and food cooked.  The bonus is it keeps the house warm and cozy!  Here is what I am cooking for the week....

Brown rice
soaking black beans
chicken - spicy, BBQ and plain
Spicy chili chicken soup

Recipe for soup:
2 1/2 teaspoons chili powder

• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch-wide strips 
• 1 cup chopped red bell pepper 
• 1 cup chopped green bell pepper 
• 1 cup chopped yellow bell pepper 
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 cups fresh corn kernels
• 1 (32-ounce) less-sodium chicken broth
• 1 crushed tomato
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• (you can add onion as well)
• Preparation
• Cook chicken, Chop chicken; set aside.
• Heat broth over medium-high heat; bell peppers, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Sauté until vegetables are tender. Stir in chicken, corn, and tomatoes; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 15 minutes. Add lime juice.

My favorite thing about cooking is mixing ingredients I think would taste good together then trying it out.  I also enjoy searching different recipes then adding/omitting different things to make it a healthier option.

Enjoy your Sunday and go Broncos!

If you are looking for some more reading check out another blog I contribute to
www.osrpt.blogspot.com