How To Reduce Inflammation

So I want to make something clear before we get into how to reduce inflammation is that not all inflammation is bad. A lot of times people associate inflammation with an ailment whether it’s injury, stress, and being unhealthy which isn’t wrong but what is missing is the benefit of your body’s ability to create inflammation for processes in the body.

Two functions that inflammation plays a positive role are your immune system and for muscle recovery. With your immune system, inflammation signals your body to send white blood cells and other chemicals to kill off foreign invaders. For muscle recovery it does something similar except it is sending signals to stimulate satellite cell proliferation which is a key process is regeneration of muscle tissue AKA hypertrophy.

Anyway let’s get into the bad inflammation and how to reduce it. So chronic inflammation in the body is linked to cancer, arthritis, mental illness, and many other diseases. Good thing about it is that you can most likely manage it through lifestyle changes.

This includes:

-Drinking half your body weight in ounces of water(180lb person would need to drink 90oz of water per day)

-Sleep 7-9 hours a day

-Consuming 1-2 cups of fruit and 2-3 cups of vegetables per day

-Exercising for 30 minutes per day

-Control blood sugar

-Manage Stress

-Drink Hydrogen Water**Not much research has been done on this but I drink it regularly and noticed a difference in my energy levels

-Consume Turmeric

-Consume omega 3/6 foods(fish,walnuts, olive oil)

-Limiting gluten intake

And many more!

The big picture here is just having a healthy lifestyle you can manage the general levels of inflammation that cause abnormal reactions in the body. No pill or “detox” program will fix it!

If you need help getting your fitness goals started especially as the summer is approaching, feel free to reach out to us!

Coach Evan

Do Your Health Audit

In our society today, we tend to focus on our finances and family but often put our wellness on the back burner. Working long hours and taking care of our families can get in the way of focusing on our well being. It’s important to realize though that your well being directly affects everything you do. If you’re not sleeping optimally then you’re negatively affecting your prefrontal cortex of the brain that is directly associated with decision making as well as almost DOUBLING your risk for injury. Both of those directly affect your work and your family time. That’s just one of the many examples of how not taking care of yourself affects everything you do.

 

So with that, I thought this would be a good time to re-evaluate health with this simple “Health Audit”. Health isn’t just exercise. It isn’t just eating optimally. It’s everything. Exercise, Nutrition, Sleep, Hydration, and stress management. Measuring all these areas will help determine what areas you could improve on to better your health.

 

So … would you take a few minutes to rate yourself 1-5 in the following categories? Where 5 is “I’m crushing it” and 1 is “I’m terrible at this?”

 

Exercise: _____

Nutrition: _____

Sleep: _____

Hydration: _____

Stress Relief/Self Care: _____

 

If you complete this and find that you need to improve in more than one area, don’t overwhelm yourself and try to do everything at once. Focus on one area of the time. Too often people try to make radical changes too quickly and it ends up not being sustainable.

 

If you are also looking for some guidance on any of the areas I’m happy to chat to see what I can do to help you become your healthiest and happiest self!

 

 

Coach Evan

We Are “Under-Muscled”

All we hear about nowadays is how America is becoming more and more obese with every year. When you go to a doctor’s office they do your vitals including having you weigh yourself and proceed to calculate your BMI(Body Mass Index) which is controversial on measuring someone’s overall health since BMI doesn’t take in account the amount of muscle you have. Personally, I’m 6’3” at 275lbs so by that calculation I’m 34.4 on the BMI formula which means I’m obese by their standards. HOWEVER, I currently have 132.7lbs of skeletal muscle mass and am at 17.4% body fat which means I’m in the healthy range for percent body fat(healthy ranges are 10-20% for men and 18-28% for women). So I’m actually healthy since a lot of my weight comes from muscle mass. I never get sick, I don’t get injured with everyday activities, vitals are always good, and I’m able to do the things I love to do without being restricted by my own body. This is exactly why we need to start talking more about the issue of being “Under-Muscled”.

 

How much muscle mass someone has is a key indicator on someone’s overall health, science has shown. From reduced risk of all cause mortality to reducing the risk of physical injuries. This is more directed to people that are older since muscle atrophying gets progressively worse as we get older. The principle “use it or lose it” applies for skeletal muscle. If you aren’t stimulating muscle groups regularly, then muscles over time will atrophy as a negative adaptation. How do we slow do or potentially reverse the muscle atrophying? Strength training at least 3 times a week along with eating adequate amounts of protein.

 

So if you are an individual who is looking to have more energy, move better, and be healthy for the years to come. You need to add strength training to your routine. Don’t know where to start? Feel free to call or message my email!

 

Coach Evan

“Cheating” On The Weekends

I hear it all the time where people do well with their nutrition habits Monday-Friday and then the weekend comes. They booze and eat foods that don’t nourish their bodies. This is a problem for anyone who is trying to adapt to a healthy lifestyle!

 

So here are some things that you can do if you have a tendency to “cheat” a lot on the weekends!

 

1)Don’t Shoot For Perfection

-If you are out to eat and there aren’t many healthy options people who “cheat” on the weekends will be like screw it and get something like a bacon cheeseburger with fries. In this situation, you could simply ask for a side salad instead of the fries. You will be more successful if you have the mindset of doing the best you can instead of just shooting for perfection.

 

2)No Food Rules

-A great example of this are people that go through phases of no drinking at all and or phases of binge drinking. People with this mindset often hold out for a while but then eventually they come back to it and they have maybe 1..2…3…4 drinks because they aren’t able to control themselves and they think since they had 1 drink that they “blew there diet anyway”. It’s OK to have drinks in moderation.

 

3)Stop Making Excuses

-No excuses for eating something that is considered unhealthy. You won’t be able to come up with the actual reason why you are overeating in the first place. Excuses such as “it was a holiday… My friend pressured me… I was stressed…” and the list goes on. When you are in that moment to make the decision of eating something unhealthy or not, take a step back and reflect why you have the temptation. You might find your answer instead of making blanket excuses.

 

4)Take Responsibility In Your Decisions

-People often associate food with a moral decision. There is no good or bad when it comes to making a food decision. What happens when you make food choices based on morals is that you have the boomerang effect in which you offset a good decision with a bad decision. Example of this is you eat healthy on Friday night and then Saturday night comes around and you eat a tub of ice cream to balance it out. Take responsibility for your decision and move on whether it’s good or bad.

 

I hope this helps those that struggle with eating on the weekends and if you need more ideas on how to become a happier and healthier you, feel free to reach out!

 

Coach Evan

4 Keys to losing weight for good

Over the years I’ve helped people lose 100’s of pounds and get their health in a place where they are in control instead of letting health control them. Most people I initially see have lost some weight with various dieting strategies before seeing me but always gained the weight back once the program was over.

 

The reason is simple.

 

The nutrition plan they were on wasn’t sustainable and they didn’t have a plan for after which led them to gain the weight they lost all back.

 

Here are 4 things we focus on when creating a sustainable weight loss program for our clients.

 

1)Nutrition plan doesn’t make you feel deprived

-Too many programs focus on cutting out everything that you currently like which can be done for a short amount of time but we will usually go back to the old eating habits eventually.

 

2)Don’t make it complicated

-Because it doesn’t need to be complicated at all. Try to keep things as simple as possible so you don’t have to put much thought into it. The more complicated it is, less likely you’ll stick with it long term.

 

3)Strength Train

-Strength training has many benefits and one of those is to ensure the weight you are losing is body fat! By consistently stimulating the muscles it allows you to get stronger and maintain muscle as the weight comes off!

 

4)Have a plan

-You’ve probably seen 30 day programs. Problem is, what do you do after 30 days? It’s great if you get results during that time period but all the effort is put to waste if you don’t know how to keep the weight off. Always have a plan!

If you need more support. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us 🙂

 

Coach Evan

WOMEN NEED STRENGTH TRAINING

Lots of people have heard me talk about this through conversations because I cannot stress it enough that strength training is important for everyone but especially women in particular. The reason is because as women age, they go through more bodily changes then men do(pregnancies, menopause, etc) that can negatively impact on a lot of different areas that include:

-Losing muscle mass

-Losing bone density

-Increase body fat

-Sleep quality

-Decrease Joint health

-Decreased overall strength

-Lower energy

and other areas!

 

As you can imagine, this has repercussions.

 

The biggest one aside from the cellular changes is the risk of injury. A recent study showed that women 65 and over who fall will have a 50% chance of NEVER walking again. Thats not a typo. These are real facts.

 

I’ve had the pleasure of helping lots of women take control of their health whether its losing weight, putting on muscle mass, losing body fat, help getting them stronger, and help them create a body that they can feel confident in! Recently I had a womanwho mentioned that their bone density went up 18% from last year! Another woman went down 6.3% body fat in 4 months. Another woman has dropped almost 50lbs and is stronger than ever!(I have more but I’ll save the other stories 🙂 )

 

And guess what? It was done with both strength training and simple nutrition guidance.

 

Long story short, don’t wait until its too late. Start strength training today!

 

As always, if you have any questions regarding health, I’m happy to help!

 

Coach Evan

Flexibility vs Mobility

Most people think there is no difference between the two BUT there is.

Flexibility- the muscles ability to lengthen

Mobility- is the ability of the joint to move through its full range of motion without restriction or pain

 

Why is this important to know?

 

People think “I’ve got to do more stretching” if they are restricted in movement patterns.

 

This is only half the battle…

 

Your body also needs to learn how to CONTROL the new range of motion that you create when you lengthen the tissue when you stretch. If it doesn’t learn how to control the new range of motion that you create with stretching, it will just go back to the way it was, since stiffness can be created to bring stability to the joint.

 

When I assess someone, I’m measuring both flexibility and mobility so I can see what could be causing the dysfunction in certain areas. They are interconnected most of the time. If a muscle is stiff then it could restrain the range of motion or if the prime movers are weak and unable to perform the movement then that could also cause a restriction of range of motion.

 

So long story short, stretching alone will not help your muscle stiffness. You need to strength train as well if you want to improve your mobility for good so you can move without restriction!

 

Need help? Feel free to reach out to us at EA Fitness and Performance!

Do you have strong bones?

This isn’t something that is often not talked about until you get older and you start having bone density scans to make sure your bones have adequate thickness to them. Having good bone density will help prevent the risk of breaking or fracturing a bone.

 

Unfortunately women are at a higher risk for developing osteoporosis. 10 million people every year get diagnosed with osteoporosis and 8 million of those are women.

 

It gets worse………1 in 2 women over the age of 50 will break a bone because of osteoporosis.

 

Factors that will cause you to lose bone density include:

 

-smoking

-lack of physical activity

-low calcium intake

-low vitamin intake(specifically Vitamin C and D)

-menopause

-excessive alcohol intake

-age

 

Osteoporosis is a very serious condition but the great thing about it is that it is preventable with adjustments to your lifestyle! We have actually helped a lot of people(particularly women) improve their bone density. One recently in particular improved their bone density by 18% in one year! Things like strength training and modifying eating habits that are actually sustainable have been some of things I do with my clients to help get them results like this!!

 

So long story short, if you are a woman 50 and older then you should start doing the things necessary to improve your bone density so you don’t become a statistic!

 

As always, if you don’t know where to start and need extra support, feel free to reach out to me!

Choose your hard

Had a great talk with one of my clients the other day. We were talking about preventive health measures and how it’s not easy at times to keep doing. Whether that’s daily exercise, healthy eating habits, getting annual health screens, or anything health related. It can be hard.

I responded and said “you have to choose your hard.”

You can choose to be consistently doing the things that keep you healthy which can be hard.

OR

You can choose to deal with the health implications that are associated with unhealthy lifestyle choices. Which can be hard also.

Humans most of the time are thinking about the present or short term when it comes to making decisions, which is why it’s easier to put off health in the short term because you don’t see the negative effects enough to become worried about it. You have to go on medication, you might need surgery, or it might shorten your lifespan. If you hear these from your doctor you are more than likely to take action on your health most of the time. You only can do what your health will allow you to do so why wait until things get “hard” to the point where you can’t do the things you love? Start now. Your future self will thank you.

If you don’t know where to start, feel free to reach me!!

Is Boutique Fitness Right for Me?

If you’re ready for results it’s time to ditch the health club…

There was a time when we got all the exercise we require from our daily activities. But as hunting and gathering lead to farming and eventually the industrialized world we live in today the need for human “labor” has been nearly eradicated. Now that we work desk jobs, eat our meals from the hot bar at Whole Foods, and enjoy a generally sedentary lifestyle we are required to reintroduce this missing physical activity. For some reason, the question of how to add physical activity, or work, back into our lives is one that has proven to be puzzling, controversial, and difficult terrain to navigate.

 

In response to the demands of the market the fitness industry has grown tremendously, particularly in North America where an estimated $28 billion was spent in 2015. Much of this industry is dominated by health clubs and large gym franchises that offer a sampling of strength equipment, cardio machines, TV’s, massage chairs and minimal staffing. Granted  how many staff members do you need when your members don’t actually attend the club? In a study done by students at UC Berkeley found 67% of gym memberships are never used in the population they surveyed.

 

“If you are not going to the gym, you are actually the gym’s best customer.” -Stacey Vanek Smith, NPR

 

The savvy marketers at big box gyms know how to target their marketing towards individuals who won’t actually come to the facility. As humans we often get a rush of excitement by a new fitness undertaking. “This is it, the time I actually change, no looking back,” you say. The challenge is that the health club has made zero commitment to you. They don’t care if you show up or not. Luckily there is someone out there who does.

 

Boutique fitness is the alternative to the traditional health club model. Boutique gyms offer specialized classes based on the expertise of the owners, teachers, or coaches. CrossFit boxes, Barre studios, Bikram yoga, parkour facilities, spin classes  are all great examples of the boutique fitness model.

 

These communities succeed when the all parts are working together; the owner, staff, and clientele all succeed when they each meet their goals. This synergistic effect leads to faster results and more satisfaction from all parties. As a client you have a team of coaches and fellow members who are all rooting for you, teaching you, and most importantly holding you accountable. Becoming fit doesn’t have to be a chore, a challenge, or a pain point. In fact, it can even be fun 😉

 

Boutique gyms have been seen rapid growth in the past decade as clients recognize that when it comes to fitness, not all gyms are created equal. Some of the most common excuses sound like:

  • “I have a hard time sticking to a routine”
  • “I’m just too busy to exercise”
  • “I get bored with going to the gym, it always feels like work”
  • “I don’t know how to lift weights/choose a routine/eat the right food”

 

These are great excuses, but since you’re ready to make a change it’s time to ditch the excuses and focus on RESULTS. By implementing a system that counters your excuses you’ll be left with the only option, the results that you want to achieve.

 

If you struggle with sticking to a routine you will benefit from the coaches, friends, and community members that you’ll meet at each class. A group of people that will ask you about your day, learn about your goals and life, and most importantly encourage you to show up consistently to your workouts.

 

If you claim to be too busy then you should sign up for classes ahead of time. The wide variety of classes that are available each day at time frames that are consistent with your schedule make it easy to squeeze in an hour long workout.

 

If boredom is your challenge then a workout that changes every day is exactly what you need. Not only that but the different coaching styles and friends you’ll make at different times of the day make each class a totally unique experience.

 

If information is the enemy then relax, because that’s already been taken care of for you. Your coach has put a lot of thought into a training program that will improve your fitness and will be by your side to instruct you on form, breathing, and what weights to use. Keep an eye out for group nutrition challenges to boot!

 

To get the results you want sometimes you need to try a new approach. If that trip to the gym feels more daunting than Frodo walking the ring to Mordor then it’s time to see what a boutique gym has in store for you!