Adventures in Clean Eating

Read Part I here.  Yesterdays lessons learned dealt primarily with nutrition.  Today, I’m going to share with you five lessons I’ve learned relating to exercise.

6.  Everyone needs to exercise.  You need to make exercise a part of your routine.  It doesn’t matter if you naturally look like Giselle.  Our bodies are meant to move.  If you’re sedentary, you are unhealthy, regardless of what you look like.  Try to get in the habit of making it to the gym three times a week for about 45 minutes, for a combination of strength and cardio.  If that seems miserable, find something that seems less so.  If you hate running, take up walking.  See if there’s a class at the gym you enjoy.  Netflix, On Demand, and YouTube have countless (basically free) exercise videos.  If there’s a sport you played as a kid, see if there’s an adult league in your area.  I’m sure if you look around, you can find some activity that’s tolerable to you.  If you don’t do it for your physique, do it for your heart.  Your ticker needs to be worked to stay strong.

7.  Everyone needs to strength train. From a health standpoint, strength training will increase your bone density and prevent injury.  This is particularly important as you get older and your bone density naturally decreases with age.  From a weight-loss standpoint, regular strength training will increase your metabolism.  Although 30 minutes of weight lifting won’t burn nearly as many calories as cardio, muscle burns more calories than fat.  So, if you have more muscle mass, your at rest calorie burn will be much higher the more muscle you have.  Basically, you will burn more calories doing lazy things like watching TV or sitting in front of your computer if you have more muscle.  From an aesthetic standpoint, muscles are sexy.  People are finally starting to get that.  Even Victoria’s Secret models have six packs now.  I’m so sick of hearing girls say that they don’t strength train because they don’t want to look like guys.  Ladies, you do not have enough testosterone to bulk up.  Your muscle will stay lean, I promise.  Plus, a little mass isn’t a bad thing.  “Skinny fat” girls look gross.  If you’ve already lost weight through diet, strength training will help that excess skin look more taut.  Yes, muscle weighs more than fat, but you should distance your perception of yourself from that number on the scale.  Real quick, do a Google image search for a pound of muscle versus a pound of fat.  See the difference?  I currently weigh more than I did five years ago, but I’ve dropped two dress sizes in that time, and I’m a hell of a lot healthier to boot.  Such is the power of strength training.

8.  You need to stretch. I never want to stretch after a workout.  I’m usually so beat I just want to go home.  But, stretching will vastly decrease your risk of injury and next day soreness by increasing the blood flow to your muscles.  It will also increase your athletic performance by both helping your muscles grow more quickly and increasing your range of motion.  So, it’s worth it to take a few minutes at the end of your workout to stretch out the muscles you’ve used.  Do not stretch before your workout.  Studies have shown that this actually increases your likelihood of injury, so save the stretching for your cool down.  A good way to warm-up is to do a modified version of whatever workout you plan to do, going through the same motions with a lighter weight or doing your cardio on a lighter setting/more slowly.  When you do stretch, don’t bounce, as this creates small tears in your muscles that will create scar tissue.  You want to go for easy, static stretches.  You should feel the stretch, but it shouldn’t be painful (I wish someone had told this to my dance teachers who used to push me into the splits as a kid…).  I also try to hit up a Vinyasa yoga class at least once a week to get an extra good stretch in case my cool-down didn’t cover it, but that’s just me.

9.  Mix up your workouts. When you first take up exercise, you will probably start to notice changes in your body sooner, rather than later.  The changes will be gradual, but they’ll start showing within a month if you’re working out consistently.  After a couple months, though, you’ll start to plateau.  That’s because if we do the same thing over and over again, our bodies get used to it and stop responding.  This is especially true for weightlifting, but it applies to all exercise.  If you lift weights on your own, make sure you change up your routine every six weeks at a minimum.  Instead of only running as your cardio, work some cross-training in the mix.  This will not only help your progress, but it will also keep you interested in your workouts and prevent injury from over-training.  Personally, I like to mix up my weight-lifting using BodyPump classes, DVDs, and doing my own thing in the weight room.  I also have a variety of cardio exercising I like, like running, swimming, cycling, taking classes at the gym, and doing cardio circuits.  It really helps prevent burnout when you have another workout you can do when the one on your schedule sounds miserable.

10.  Drink coconut water! My whole life, I’ve had really bad issues with cramping.  You know what’s not fun?  When your toes cramp up when you’re wearing pointe shoes.  Even after workouts that aren’t particularly strenuous, like a three mile run, I can develop really painful cramps in my legs and feet.  A couple months ago, when after a boot camp class I got a Charlie horse so bad that I couldn’t stand up (much less drive home from the gym) for 20 minutes, I decided I needed to take control of this problem.  Based on my research, the problem could be caused by dehydration, potassium deficiency, or a need to replenish electrolytes.  I drink a lot of water, so I figured it wasn’t dehydration.  I also eat two bananas a day, so I doubt it’s my potassium.  That left my electrolytes.  Adding a little salt to my water wasn’t working (and it was gross).  I could drink Gatorade, but I didn’t want to take in all the sugar when I wasn’t burning enough calories during my workout to counteract it, and my stomach can’t handle artificial sweeteners so G2 was out.  Once I tried coconut water, I was sold, and I haven’t cramped up since!  This stuff is yummy, low-calorie, and really works.  As an added bonus, it’s a pretty great hangover cure, too.  I buy mine in bulk from Costco to cut cost, and save them for after particularly sweaty workouts.  I’ve also seen them at the grocery store in re-sealable larger bottles, so drinking half and then saving the rest of a different workout is a good option, too.