Eating Right-- Abs are made in the kitchen. And on the treadmill. Not from crunches.

Same disclaimer as yesterday: We're not scientists, doctors, dieticians, or snake oil vendors. But we do make a lot of sense.

Also, an extra warning on this one. Imma give you some tough love.

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More regular conversations, in which I wish people would listen to me:

Them: "What kind of exercises can I do to get rid of this?" (points to jiggly tummy)
Me: Cardio.

Really?

Yes, cardio.

What about crunches?

Are you trying to develop a thin layer of muscle under all of that? Because you're not going to see it until that is gone.

What about Pilates?

Good for all over toning and conditioning, not good for burning off lots of pounds.

Well, my daughter/friend/sister-in-law/cousin/hair stylist is doing this ab workout and she says it's great!

I'm sure it is. But it's not going to get rid of belly fat. Sorry. Cardio.

What kind of cardio? Does walking count?

Maybe, but you need to be aware of how many calories you're actually burning, because it's going to be less than you think.

Well, my daughter does yoga. Maybe I'll just do that.

Oh. Okay. Let me know how that works out for you.

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I will never understand why some people want to argue with me about this. Do you think you're going to convince me that you can lose 10 pounds of stored belly fat in yoga? By breathing and stretching? And Yes, there are some great stomach exercises I can  give you, once you lose that layer of jiggle that is still going to hide all of your efforts.

Wait, let me say that again because that seems to be the part that people don't hear: That layer of jiggle is still going to hide all of your efforts.

Look, friends. We all want tight toned Victoria's Secret model abs. I teach fitness classes and train for marathons and my abs are still not clearly defined unless I suck in my breath, okay?

But if you're dead serious about losing the weight around the middle, you are going to have to accept the fact that "abs" are 60% efforts in the kitchen, 30% efforts in the gym, 10% genetics and willpower and you know, those few extra days we bloat up sometimes.

Because the belly area is where we start to store, under the general layer, visceral fat. This is the stuff that attches itself to organs and tissues. Tell me that you honestly believe that crunches are going to get rid of that stuff. And that general layer on the belly likes to stay there because your body, through the magic of creation/evolution/whatever you believe, likes to keep it there like a warm fuzzy protective blanket around all of your most important vital organs. The cells in our body have not yet evolved to realize that Taco  Bell is open late and SuperWalmart is open 24/7. Therefore, it still likes to store up whenever it can to protect the most important organs. And that warehouse stubbornly sits around our torso area.(Or, if you are a hippy running chick, your warehouse is just a little further south, but you get my point!)

So no, sorry, crunches will NOT get rid of it. Man, if crunches did half of what they were supposed to do I'd be so freaking ripped right now.

So, you want a thinner waistline and a toned sexy core.

Let's start with that 60% in the kitchen statistic I gave you. If I were to ask you "How do you eat during the day?" Guess what you would tell me? "Oh, I eat healthy." But as we pick apart your daily diet, most of you do NOT get the 5-6 servings of fruits and vegetables. You eat snacks you THINK are healthy but are sugary and overprocessed. It's okay to be there right now, I am not judging you, I am telling you that we can just make some adjustments and do better.

Typical American diet:
Breakfast-- big coffee drink "(I don't have time to eat", "I am not hungry in the morning")
Mid-morning snack (because now you are hungry)-- something from the vending machines or a storebought snack like minimuffins or 100-calorie snack pack with a sugary drink like another coffee or lemonade or soda. Or maybe you do buy yogurt and granola bars. Check the sugar content on those. Yuck.
Lunch- sandwich of some sort. Subway. Or cheeseburger. Or homemade. 2 servings of bread. And some chips. And another soda. You think the lettuce and tomato on the sandwich counts towards your veggies but it doesn't. You need 2 cups of lettuce to be a serving of veggies.
Mid Afternoon snack (because you need a little pick me up)-- sugary drink like soda or juice or coffee, and something sweet like candy or cookies. Here's an interesting tid-bit. This is the point of your day when stress starts really piling up AND you're hitting an energy slump so your BRAIN sends you signals that it needs extra glucose and makes you crave something sweet! But then you don't actually burn off that glucose and worse, the cortisol that is trying to help you deal with the stress doesn't work because rather than go through fight-or-flight, which demands a physical response, you just continue to sit at your desk. So guess what? Your body just sabatoged you into eating poorly AND storing it as extra fat. Booooo....
Dinner: Either fast food, or something frozen, or boxed. Maybe you do cook a full meal, in which case it probably looks like: Meat. Rice/pasta/potato. Vegetable. Bread.
10pm-- ice cream. Or candy from you're kids' holiday stash. Or cookies. "just a little"

So, by the numbers, you've had probably 2-3 servings of protein as processed meat. About 1 1/2 servings of fruit and vegetables. And about 6 servings of grains (and probably processed and not whole grain). About 3-4 sugary drinks. And in all honesty, we don't see anything wrong with this. This is pretty typical for everyone!

Well, with a few tweaks, we can reduce the calories, get in much more healthier fuel, STOP your body from sabatoging itself, and get some physical results.

Breakfast: EAT BREAKFAST!!! How about 1 scrambled egg and 2 slices of tomatoes on an english muffin. Wow! Yummy! Still don't have time to cook? How about just 1 slice of toast with peanut butter and grab a banana on the go.
Midmorning snack: Fruit. Pack your own snack packs of grapes and strawberries and pineapple. So sweet! Or apples with a spoonful of peanut butter or sunflower butter. Or raw almonds with some dried cranberries and a few chocolate chips.

make your own!



eat lots and lots and lots

Lunch: Instead of the sandwich, order the salad. Control the dressing and the cheese. Water. Or juice diluted with flavored carbonated water. Lemon water. Cucumber water. Mash up some strawberries and throw those in the bottom of your water glass. If you do want the sandwich, just skip the chips and the soda. Just the sandwich is about 500 calories, you don't NEED to add an extra 400!
Mid afternoon snack: Apple slices and nuts and a few pretzels and some peanut butter and some WATER.
Dinner: Salad. And roasted veggies. And some lean protein. And, if you're still hungry, maybe a little less potatoes/rice/pasta
10pm-- water!

None of that is really unreasonable. And really, even if you just changed up lunch and mid-afternoon snack you'd be saving almost 600 calories.

The bottom line:

Tip the scales in your favor. Know the numbers. How much are you storing up and how much are you burning off? Replace some of those bad ideas with new favorites!

Happy Eating and Running! ~Jen

Eating Right-- The War on Carbs is OVER (Part 1 of a miniseries on eating right)

So, unforuntately, we gals get caught up in issues regarding our weight. Now, when you become a crazy runner chick, health generally takes a priority in your life, because you have to fuel up properly and you run off a bajillion calories so you tend to stay slim. With that in mind, people always have to add their input regarding our health, their own justifications for their health, and the ability or excuses that make up our world of diet and exercise. That being said, we're going to talk about some of the things that we commonly hear from our friends and coworkers and families, and hopefully share just a little information. (Disclaimer: we are not scientists. Or doctors. Or dieticians. Or snake-oil vendors.)

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Here's a fun little conversation I get to have with people at least once a week.

Them: "I cut carbs right out." "I don't eat carbs" "I'm doing low carb diet."
Me: soooo.... are you eating your fruits and vegetables?

"Oh yes, of course. I have salads and carrots and celery and apples...."
You know those are carbs right?

"What?!"
fruits and veggies... carbs...

"Oh, well I mean I cut the carbs like breads, pastas, rice...."
so how are you getting your Vitamin Bs? Or Fiber?

"What?"
Your whole grains are your best sources for fiber and vitamin B and other minerals.

"Oh, well I will have some whole grains."
Right. So you do have fruits and veggies, you are eating your whole grains. But you're saying you're not eating processed junk food, is that right?

"Uh.... I guess..."
GREAT!!! Just keep doing that!!!!

I'm by no means the carb police. I am a fitness instructor and a chef and I had my own weight loss journey and I put myself out there with this blog. And, not to brag, but I am slender enough that people often need to ask me what I do or tell me what they do. I honest-to-goodness get people coming up to me in the grocery store to tell me about their diet plans. And most of the time, people have no idea what they are doing.

And me? I'm not qualified to tell you what to do.

But if you tell me you don't do carbs, or sugar, or fat, or that you are trying to "eat healthy" then maybe I can make a few suggestions. Primarily:

I wish I could say that there was indeed, weight loss in a bottle or a specific diet that would work for anyone, everyone, and be super easy and cheap and delicious. But here's the cold hard science: 1 pound = 3500 calories. How you spend or control those 3500 calories is entirely up to you. Trade your greasy hamburger for TONS of lettuce that is lower in calories? It will work. Exercise an hour a day and change your afternoon snack from soda and sugary granola bar to water and a banana? It will work. Drink a smoothie that claims to be a weight loss miracle but, in reality, just has a lot of fiber and protein to sit heavy in your stomach and just relies on calorie deprivation? That will work too. Not because it's a miracle product, but because it's relying on basic calorie deprivation.

So you see, I have no real simple answer about what to eat and what not to eat. Most of the time, I have no idea what to say when you tell me that you are eating healthy, because I don't know what that looks like compared to how you used to eat. I have a feeling if I sold you on a diet plan that consisted of only 1200 calories of chocolate cookies and then told you you only had to walk 30 minutes... you'd still lose weight eating all those cookies because of the simple calorie deprivation. (But don't do that. That seems just a bit irresponsible.)

But for the sake of my sanity, please quit telling me you don't do carbs. You NEED carbs.

Do you know what carbohydrates are? A group of organic compounds consisting of carbon, hydrogren, and oxygen, which can be broken down into energy.

How does that relate to the 3500 calories = 1 pound principle? A calorie, is in fact, a measure of energy. Actually, it measures in terms of heat which is why we refer to "burning off calories."

So, you know how you move and breathe and think hard all day right? You NEED ENERGY!

I like to ask people to think of their bodies as a warehouse. If you take in the amount of carbs that you need send out as energy, your warehouse stays clean, right? It comes in, it ships out. But if you take in excess carbs or even low carbs but you don't send them back out as energy, they have to pile up on the shelves, waiting for their turn to get used up and shipped out. Your body/warehouse starts storing up lots and lots of excess energy, and eventually, you have to expand your warehouse to hold this excess. You know what this looks like on your actual body? Yeah, fat. Sorry, no nice way of putting it.

So maybe slow down the intake and start sending out more energy bundles and you'll start clearing the shelves and your warehouse will be light and clean again, right?

Okay. Bottom line people. Educate yourself. Don't do "no carb" because it worked for someone else. Don't buy into someone's miracle shakes when the ultimate principle is still calorie deprivation. Burn off more energy. Break down that stored energy and send it on its way. Walk, run, dance with your kids and grandkids. Don't eat pizza for an entire week. Quit drinking sodas and enjoy the great outdoors more.

Love your body. Be gentle with yourself. Eat your fruits and veggies. Move more.

Also, if you do lose weight eating only 1200 calories in cookies, send me the before and after pictures. And money, because I copyrighted that miracle diet.

Happy Eating and Running! ~Jen