Cravings...are they in our heads?

I'm writing this post from beautiful Victoria. I realize how fast paced my life is in the big smoke when I come here. Yesterday I got out of my PJs at 3PM. It was glorious.

As soon as I arrived at my parents' house, I gobbled up a couple of my mom's yummy butter tarts. I had been craving them for a couple weeks and asked my mom on more than one occasion to make sure she made them. Biting into her tarts brings me back to many holidays from the past. The way the pastry flaked, the texture of the filling has never changed since I was a child. It is easy to say that my butter tart craving was purely emotional/psychological. But can all our cravings be categorized so easily?

Today I'm doing my regular segment on Arlene Bynon's 640AM talk show via the phone to address this question. Are our food cravings emoitional or physiological? And how poignant given the time of year. Stress runs high. The holiday triggers positive and negative emotions more than any other time of year. We fall back on coping mechanisms to help us deal with higher levels of stress. For many of us, these coping mechanisms include increased food and alcohol intake.

Our emotions often have an effect on our brain and body chemistry and our brain and body chemistry can have an effect on our emotional state of being. It's a cycle without a clear start or end point. But the biggest player in this cycle is stress.

Stress alters our body chemistry by increasing the production of a number of hormones including adrenaline, corticotrophin (ACTH) and cortisol. The particular hormone released depends on the degree of stress. Stress can also stimulate the release of other hormones while at the same time inhibiting the release of others. Stress can also effect dopamine function in our brains. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that regulates movement, emotion, motivation, and the feeling of pleasure.

The problem is that many of us suffer from chronic stress making us cortisol junkies. We just never stop producing and releasing cortisol. Cortisol effects our mood by making us hypervigilant, anxious or even depressed. We end up craving high sugar high fat foods to increase serotonin levels in our brain. But shortly after our indulgence our serotonin levels dip again and we're back at the beginning of the cycle. In addition, high sugar high fat foods are better at satisfying the pleasure centre of our brains. In effect, stress not only makes us cortisol junkies but it also makes us become 'addicted' to foods that will temporarily balance out our brain chemistry. Cortisol will also disrupt our sleep and keep us up at night. Lack of sleep increases our stress levels.

So I don't want to be a big bummer so close to the holidays. But this cycle needs to be stopped if we don't want stress to make us sick, tired, fat and depressed. How you ask?

1) Get professional help from fitness and health professionals who know how to break this cycle. We do at Urbanfitt.
2) Make sure you're taking pharmaceutical grade fish oil to help stabilize your mood.
3) Ensure you're taking a high quality multi-vitamin and boost vitamin B intake (B6 is used to make serotonin) but don't take it close to bed. Vitamin B can make you hyper.
4) Live in the present. Start being mindful of your moment to moment food choices and start noticing how you're letting day to day stressors effect you and BREATHE instead of eating a damn chocolate bar.
5) Food journal for a week and see if you can link your bad food choices with stressful events in your day. Awareness is the best place to start.
6) Make sleep a priority. If you don't, you won't be able to break the stress/food cycle.
7) Exercise. Duh. Like you needed me to remind you yet again.

That's all I'm giving away today. I've got to go back to being on vacation. Let's see how long I can stay in my PJs today.

Happy ho ho ho to all.
Jane
www.urbanfitt.com

Did low fat diets make people fat?

Yes. Yes. Yes. The whole low fat eating phenomenon couldn't have come at a worse time for our society. According to a 2006 study out of Cornell University, people eat an average of 28% more total calories when they eat low-fat snacks than regular foods and obese people eat up to 45% more calories.

We were lulled into a false sense of security by the low-fat diet advocates that as long as we were eating something that was low-fat we were making the right choices. The kicker is that low-fat doesn't mean low calorie. More often than not, low-fat snacks = high-sugar snacks. As well, those good ol' low fat snacks are only around 11% fewer calories than the real deal snacks we were trying to avoid.

So let's do the math...if we eat 28%-45% more total calories when we eat low-fat snacks and these snacks are only around 11% fewer calories then we eat an additional 17%-34% more calories when we think we're being good. BAD!

I've just been talking about calories so far. Now let's get to the impact high carbohydrate, low-protein and low-fat diets have on our health. 47 million Americans suffer from metabolic syndrome characterized by several of the following:

1) Central obesity AKA lots of belly fat
2) Atherogenic dyslipidemia AKA high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol AKA plaque build=up in our arteries
3) Insulin resistance or glucose intolerance so that our bodies can’t properly use insulin or blood sugar
4) Raised blood pressure (130/85 mmHg or higher)
5) Proinflammatory state AKA our bodies are constantly inflamed
6) Waist circumference of greater than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women.

Guess when experts started paying attention to what is now referred to as metabolic syndrome? Right around the time the low-fat diet craze hit. Soon metabolic syndrome will overtake smoking for the number one risk factor of heart disease.

Health and fitness experts have a lot of work to do if we're going to reprogram thinking around low-fat high-carbohydrate eating. Food manufacturers are all to happy to capitalize on the latest health trends by marketing packaged and processed foods that appear to be healthy. First it was low-fat labelling. Now it's low-carb labelling. Here's a really simple rule. Stay away from packaged and processed foods as much as possible.

So the big question is, what should we eat now? In addition to reduced portion sizes, exercise and reduced sodium intake, most experts agree that people with metabolic syndrome should avoid simple carbohydrates and high-glycemic-index foods.

At Urbanfitt we go a step further to combat metabolic syndrome. We offer the most cutting edge health and fitness coaching by following Charles Poliquin's methodology to ensure our clients are achieving optimal health from the inside out. Charles Poliquin is one of the world's top strength coaches, an exercise physiologist and has designed a system for rebalancing the body referred to as biosignature assessments and protocols. Wondering if you suffer from metabolic syndrome? Come in for an assessment and we can get you on track in no time. And we walk the talk and live and breathe our own advice.

Over and out.
Jane
www.urbanfitt.com

Should you buy a gym membership in January?

Moooooo! This is the sound you'll here at most gyms after New Year's. Like cattle people flock to gyms in record numbers after the holidays. Why? Generally for the same reasons:

1) They feel like fat slobs after over-indulging during the holidays.
2) They've decided that this year is going to be different, a new year filled with healthy behaviours. That is, they've jumped on the good ol' cliched New Year's resolution band wagon.
3) They think just by being a member of a gym that somehow that will make them fitter. Almost by visualizing themselves at the gym, they have 'done' something to improve themselves.
4) At dinner parties or when out on the prowl, people can say what gym they are a member of so they fit in or so they can seem like they have their shit together.
5) And the least likely reason people join gyms post New Year's is because they have a plan of attack to get fit. They have designed a fitness program for themselves and need a venue to execute their master plan to achieve a level of fitness they never have before.

If you haven't gathered yet, I'm quite cynical about gym membership sales post New Year's. I've worked in the industry for a very long time and started working at gyms at the age of 17. The truth is that most gyms oversell memberships knowing that a very high percentage of people will not even use their memberships.

Let's just say a higher end gym membership costs a minimum of $70 per month. Then let's say that eventually someone only makes it about once a week. That's over $15 per visit. Pretty good deal for the gym huh? The high pressure sales tactics that are common at many gyms is what attracted me to the former Level Five Fitness. More often than not, when people joined Level Five they used their memberships. We had excellent retention and attendance. If it wasn't for this unique consumer friendly boutique fitness studio, I wouldn't have my own personal training studio today. We had a friends buy from friends sales strategy.

So if you're going to join a gym please consider the following:
1) You need a plan in order to get fit. Just showing up at the gym and randomly engaging in different activities or classes will not optimize your time spent. Plus it's much easier to flake out of a workout if you're not deviating from a structured plan of attack.
2) Consider hiring a trainer even just to set up a program for you to make sure you're getting the most out of your time and money.
3) If you want to change the way you look, handing someone your credit card won't do it. Beating your body up with random intense exercise won't do it. Changing your body is 80% nutrition. If you want to shrink fat, you need help desiging a nutritional program too.
4) Consider joining a pre-registered class or running group or some other structured activity if you haven't been disciplined enough to exercise consistently on your own. We are social creatures and need the support of others to make hard changes in our lives.
5) Write down your fitness goals and post them on your fridge or your bathroom mirror. Brainwash yourself into changing.
6) Call Urbanfitt to set up a free personal training sampler. I guarantee you will walk away with information that will empower you even if you don't decide to hire us as your one stop fitness makeover consultants (we do personal training, program design, nutritional coaching, chiropractic care and active release therapy and sell supplements to ensure your body is getting what it needs to transform).

Over and out.

Jane
416-964-3309
www.urbanfitt.com

Are the holidays a time to get porkier...or not?

It's really up to us whether or not we gain weight. It could be easy to blame all the work parties, family get togethers, and your co-worker who happens to have treats on her desk. But ultimately we are responsible for the hand to mouth reflex that often kicks into high gear during the holiday season.

It's easy to find endless lists of holiday eating tips that will help us minimize weight gain. However, these lists are useless if we don't change our mind-set about food over the holidays.

It's really very simple...if we think we're going to gain weight during the holidays then, guess what? WE WILL GAIN WEIGHT. If we think the holidays are time to ignore our nutrition and fitness then we will find ourselves playing catch up in the New Year trying to 'get back' to where we were before the holidays hit. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. What we think will happen is going to happen.

If we think we can exercise self control and not gorge on everything in sight and roll ourselves into bed at the end of a festive evening, that's what's going to happen.

Personally, I think it would suck to be on a holiday rollercoaster of gaining and losing every year. I don't deny myself my fave holiday treats. I just don't go overboard with it at one sitting. Believe it or not, I love holiday baking. But I limit myself. I just don't like the feeling of being over-stuffed or over-sugared.

STOP, THINK, THEN EAT!

And here are some obvious tips:
1) Don't go to a cocktail party starved. Those little hor-duerves can be packed with saturated fat and calories and they add up fast.
2) Decide how much you're going to drink and stick with it.
3) Stay away from creamy or sugary holiday cocktails.
4) If you know you might go overboard at a party or function, limit simple carbs/starches and fill up on proteins and vegetables.
5) If your family culture is all about love and celebration through food, eat slowly so you don't get pressured to eat more right away. Or just lie and say you have a stomach ache when your momma pressures you to take seconds or thirds.
6) If you think you're doing a good job eating crudite (i.e. chopped up veggies) stay away from the dip. duh...
7) If you love cheese, stay away from the really creamy super high fat cheese.
8) Do NOT stop working out if you plan to indulge a little. January is the busiest time of year for the fitness industry for this reason. Don't be a cliche.
9) Set your New Year's resolution before New Year's Eve. There is no time like the present. If you can be healthy and exercise self control during the holidays, you can do it almost anytime.
10) And for last time, don't blame parties or other people for your hand to mouth reflex.

Peace.
Jane