The Cardio/Weights Debate

Recently my mom sent me this link with the attached question, "what do you think Whitter?":
http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/training-day/201104/warm-cardio-then-go-weights-right-wrong
I told her I would check it out and then write about it. This is a debate I've had with trainers, friends, family, and even strangers. One of the biggest problems with fitness is that EVERYONE has an opinion. Also, since it is a big industry there is a lot of research out there. This should be a good thing but I find it really overwhelming. You will read a recent study done by a University in Arizona that says you should do cardio in the morning on an empty stomach and then a month later read something from another "study" that says something entirely different. Fitness magazines tell you bread is bad in all forms and then the next issue on the stand will tell you to have whole grains. Um, hello? Where am I suppose to get whole grains from??? When I first started working out I asked practically everyone I could talk to about this question. It seemed to be the consensus of the body builders and trainers that you should do your weights first, their reasoning that you would burn through the sugar in your muscles so that your cardio would burn the fat. My sister, a die hard gym girl, said something different. She had a rockin' body and said that she had always started with 20-30 minutes on a cardio machine before doing her weights. She felt that this gave her muscles a chance to warm up and kept her heart rate up while she lifted weights, thus burning more calories throughout the workout. My opinion? I think my first challenge is to get to the gym and get myself motivated. I usually do a 10 minute warm up on the stairs and then hit weights for an hour or so. If I'm tired or in a hurry I go home. If I stay longer I'll do another 30 minutes on the elliptical. I don't think I would be doing myself a disservice either way though. I simply prefer to do it that way because when I get done sweating through my cardio I want to get the hell out of there. People who are just getting started need not concern themselves with which order they do this. They should do what they feel they get the most from and give themselves a big pat on the back for getting in the gym. They are already doing more than 50% of the population. 
-Whitney

My Gradual Ascension to Gym Rat

I am a Gold’s Gym girl. I’ve been a member of the club since 2003. To say that I didn’t work out much before I joined would be an understatement. I did no physical activity at all. My sister is the one who got me into the gym, then named Lifestyles 2000 before Gold’s took it over. She was doing their power yoga class every Saturday and invited me to come along one weekend and told me to bring my checkbook. I had no intention of joining. I had weighed the same plus or minus a couple pounds since I was in high school and I was 19 at the time. Plus I was eating terribly and smoking regularly, yuck! I went with her, loved the class and signed up for my first gym membership and started something I had no idea I would eventually love so much. For the first 6 months I had my membership I did nothing with it but my Saturday yoga class. I was so intimidated by the gym and how little I knew about it I wouldn’t even use the restroom in the locker room. Heaven forbid everyone knew what a fraud I was. I paid $25 a month to do 4 yoga classes. Finally someone took me under his wing and showed me a little more about what could be done in the other 2 levels of the gym where all this foreign equipment was. I worked with Nick and he was a one time body builder/recovering addict trying to get himself back into shape. He taught me about what to eat, how to lift weights, how a body responds to what you do to it and what you put in it. At this point I was hooked. I made small adjustments to my eating habits and cut soda completely out of my diet. Instead of grabbing a coke I had water. Every time I was thirsty for something I drank water, until I couldn’t imagine a day without it. I also found it to be an oxy moron to be smoking immediately after an hour of heart pumping cardio. That had to go also. Shortly after my new lease on life Nick decided he was still battling his demons and stood me up for a workout. I never saw him again. Luckily for me I was comfortable enough in my gym to keep going on my own. Since then I’ve done yoga, spinning, Zumba, weight training and yes, even cardio. I’ve dieted and researched and worked out with a trainer. Suffice it to say I’m an all in kind of girl and health and fitness are no exception. So why am I a Gold’s Girl? It’s been my home away from home. No matter which one I go to I feel the same way. I can put my music on, zone out, and do something good for my body. I don’t have to do anything but that.

-Whitney

I'm in shape...How many???

189 Steps to my destination. 189 steps will get you down but how do you get back up? Today was my first experience with the Santa Monica stairs. Sure I've heard about this place, but stairs are everywhere. Why drive to Santa Monica to run up and down a staircase? Because it's really effing hard, that's why. I consider myself to be in good shape. On a good day I might even go so far as to say great shape. I am not, however in great cardiovascular shape. When I do cardio at the gym I have to break it down into 10 minute sessions, watch TV, listen to music, imagine the people around me naked and I still hate it. I'm not going to make an argument against cardiovascular workouts because I know they benefit a body in so many ways. I will, however, come out and say that I hate them though. As of late I have been trying to kick my workouts into high gear. It seems as though just showing up and doing a little here and there isn't cutting it for me. You could call me somewhat of a junkie. When I was invited to do the stairs I said "sure, why not?". We went on a Saturday morning. Unfortunately this place is no secret, and like most places in LA, it was packed with people. There are two staircases that lead straight down from one road to another. One is made of wood and goes straight down, the other cement and has a zig zag pattern. Our first round was down and up the wood staircase and then looping over to go down the cement ones. Walking down isn't physically hard but it is very disorienting. I had to hold the railing and went down like a slow poke fraidey cat! The rest after that got easier and easier in that regard but I was sweating like a pig and panting like a canine. Down the cement, up the wood, passing people taking it at a slower pace in the middle lane. After we had done 4 rounds we ran down the sidewalk for another maybe 15 minutes and came out to Pacific Coast Hightway right on the coast. I see a staircase the leads straight under the freeway and ask, "what's that?" My running buddy replies, "I think it leads to the beach, you want to go?" Hell yes I want to go! Another staircase and small hallway later we are on the sand. I have to say it was an incredible morning. This is why I live in California. I didn't even mind the 189 steps back up to the car.
-Whitney

The bogging down of Calorie Counting

In January of 2011 California implemented a law stating that any restaurant with more than 20 locations would have to print their calories on their menus. Poor California Pizza Kitchen must be having a hard time showing all these health conscious Californians that some of their entrees have enough calories to last a person a day and may slip you into a mini coma. Starbucks had to join the troupe with the numbers on all of their goodies and didn't even miss a beat in creating their "under 150 calorie" snacks. Little two bite cakes on a stick for only 210 calories, oh my! People come into my restaurant and spend a little extra time studying the menu boards at the register, mouths agape. I've seen mixed signals from the Calabass-holes that come into my establishment. I work in the upscale area of Calabasas California and have aptly nick named my patrons as such since they well... you know pretty much are for the most part. Some people are so glad that the state has implemented this tedious numbering system they clap when they see it. I guess for some it puts things in perspective. Other people despise this information being crammed down their throats, especially if they have chosen to eat something bad they wanted to cram down their own throats. For me personally, I don't eat out often so when I do I like to indulge a little. I grapple with food guilt enough to not have to have a menu telling me in black and white, " you really shouldn't be having this". Luckily for me justification for how I've earned and or will burn all these off in the near future combined with a little selective eyesight has helped me keep from getting too bogged down in the numbers. I was very surprised indeed last night, however, at The Cheesecake Factory's little loophole they have found. Instead of reprinting however many menus for their 30 plus locations and the 20 some odd pages they include, when seating us at our table the hostess casually dropped a nutrition guide along with their standard menu. I didn't even glance at the thing knowing full well what I was getting myself into and by that I mean a big thick slice of deliciousness covered in cherries. Here is the question I am posing about this new era we have entered. How much can you depend on your numbers game? I am a firm believer in the basic knowledge that in order to lose weight we need to burn more calories than we consume and adversely the reason why we put on the pounds is because we are consuming more than we are burning. Pretty simple right? So what about all the little pesky details that come along with eating? Let's run through the list shall we? There is the fad diet of the 90's and one of my personal favorites, the low fat/no fat craze that swept the nation. This seemed to go hand in hand with the aerobics trend. People were putting on leotards and cutting all fat out of their diets faster than grocery stores could stock the shelves with "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter". The only problem with this phenomenon was that we soon found out that bodies actually need fat in the right form and quantity. When you don't eat fat you are relying on your muscle tone and what little calories you consume to keep you going. This makes you tired and I would imagine a little cranky.
We have all heard of Weight Watchers and probably know someone who might have been mildly successful with it. I personally can't count plain calories so I wouldn't even know where to start with adding points. Also I've done more working out than I have dieting in this journey of mine so I can say I haven't ever tried it. Weight Watchers must have something going for it though, it still seems to be thriving. I like to think of it as those cell phone plans with roll over minutes, you get so many points a week and if you haven't used them up I think you can cash them in on something great on Sunday. This might be completely false info though guys. Either way what a clever way to start marketing all your own food too? Why figure out the points when you can buy a box with the number right on the box. Smart business. I'm sure Jennifer Hudson as a svelte spokeswoman promoting you doesn't hurt either. I'm sure she didn't pay a personal trainer either.
What's next? How about Nutrisystem and all those copy cat companies like it that send you your meals for something like $6 a day! Forget about the fact that you're having frozen dinners and eating out of a box all the time, what is a person suppose to do after they drop the pounds? How does this person go out and live life while making healthy choices? It doesn't seem the most practical to me.
The last one I want to touch on is still my favorite so far... the low carb/no carb diet. Hello Mr. Atkins, where have you been hiding? Florida? This came out like a new rocket ship that everyone couldn't wait to ride. The basic idea behind those evil carbohydrates is that when they get into your body they turn into sugar. Unfortunately for my sweet tooth we all know sugar is pretty bad. Forgivable in small quantities but not really good for you. Still no sugar diet out there although I'm pretty sure I was on it all through high school and I turned out fine. Also not new but re-introduced through Atkins and The South Beach Diet was a little thing called the glycemic index: some foods are high (bad) and others very low (good) with me so far? White bread and potatoes bad, tomatoes and low fat mozzarella good. I know you won't be shocked to know that pretzels are bad since I've already mentioned them. Maybe I'm still not over it. Essentially when you eat something it takes a certain amount of time before it is in your blood stream. Once it's in there and you're feeling all warm and energized it takes a certain amount of time to work its way through said blood stream. Some things hit you like a slap in the face. Pretty exciting for a moment but not really going to last you very long. Other things slowly release themselves over time to give you a more sustained energy. I'll give you an example from the SBD (south beach diet try and keep up). A person would be better off buttering their toast than putting jam on it because the butter actually slows the absorption of the carbohydrates in the bread into your blood stream and gives you energy longer. Bet you didn't think that the combination in which you ate your food had much affect did you? I could go on and on with this fascinating piece of the pie but I'm feeling this is a little long winded and want to wrap back up with my calorie rant. So while all these Californians are pulling out their iphone calculators to add up all this new data I wonder if we are really getting anywhere other than up into the thousands? Will this keep people from making the wrong choices or at least have them going with the better choice when they eat out? Will this turn us into even more obsessive beasts than we already are about eating? I'm referring more to one gender than the other. Just like the restrictions on vehicle emissions wherein California was a front runner I'm sure the rest of the nation isn't far behind on the calorie bandwagon. Maybe we should all "weigh in" right now on our feelings about this. Just a little food for thought. Goodnight!
-Whitney

I have the secret

What I find to be the most challenging in the fitness industry are all the gimicks. It seems everywhere I turn people are looking for an easy way to be fit and look good. Cleanses are everywhere and you can't turn a corner without running into a billboard for the lap band. Every way we can cheat the system we do. Plastic surgery has been the go-to instant fountain of youth, fat sucking, face lifting magic tool for a while now, especially in lovely Los Angeles. You can't even swing a stick without hitting someone's breast implants in this town! At any rate I digress, this week I'm focusing on the diet aspect of things since this is such a big part of being healthy. I want to tell you a story of what I encountered the other day that I found to be the perfect example of gimicks and dieting. Here goes...
Friday afternoon I'm in the gym talking to Sharon. Sharon works out with my same trainer and is in great shape. I want to say she is maybe 40, with 4 kids and probably a size 26. She is asking me how I am coming along on my goal. I told her that my workouts had been intense but I was still needing to add more cardio and get my diet under control. She says, "Well I'll tell you what I've been doing. I have been drinking a pea-based protein shake in the mornings and weight is literally melting off of me!" No matter how much I know about statements like these and that there is no magic secret to being thin my ears still perk up when I hear it. I lean in with my do tell face. She says, "I didn't even intend to lose weight but I have been getting these terrible migraines and I finally broke down and went to a nutritionist to see if I had food allergies and that's when he put me on this protein and I love it. I'll write it down for you". I'm thinking "great if it helps, I'll try it!" So I ask her, "So you're just eating a normal lunch and dinner then?" Well no, not quite. She goes on to tell me that she is having salad for lunch with absolutely NO below ground vegetables. Now this was new to me. Once upon a time you could have all the veggies you wanted, they were all good for you. They come from the earth and can do no harm. After a little while of that researchers and dietitians decided maybe you could have veggies but steer clear of potatoes. Okay, fine that makes sense. They are starchy and high in carbs and do little for the body other than fill you up. But no below ground veggies seems extreme to me. Back to my pal Sharon whose weight is melting like butter on a hot summer day. Is she having salad dressing on all those leafy greens? Nope, just some basil, lemon juice, white pepper and a tad of extra virgin olive oil. Mmmm sounds tasty. For dinner for my skinny minny, a chicken breast steamed in a saute pan with lots of above ground veggies. Also she is working up quite a sweat at the gym with and without a trainer. The best part is, she thinks it is all the protein! I'm thinking to myself, if I consumed 800 calories in food and a protein shake a day while working out for an hour the weight would not only be melting off of me but people would be able to see my skeletal structure as well! The point of this story is to never dive into a one trick pony solution until you've been to see the stables if you know what I mean. Women who advertise for the lap band have been working out for years and the advocates for the HCG have disappeared back from whence they came having gained back all the before weight and then some. In an interview Kelly Osborne said that all the paparazzi kept asking her what her secret was for her recent weight loss and she replied that there isn't one. It took her months of hard work and a total life style change in the way she was eating to get to where she is. Think about it!
-Whitney

The Workout Diary

The workout diary

The battle I face every day is… What to eat??? I am a pescatarian. Meaning I don’t eat anything that walks or flies. Basically I’m a vegetarian who eats fish. Don’t ask me why I am ok with fish because if I think too long on it I get kind of weird about that too. I work out 5 days a week, usually 3 of those with a trainer. My trainer, an effervescent blackman with long braided dreadlocks, is a fire under my booty in the gym. I’ve been training with Marco almost ten months now and have seen muscles come out in places I have never seen before. So back to the battle at hand! What to eat, what to eat? Let me run through a typical day of my “diet” Wake up, work out on an empty stomach. Usually I do weights with some cardio. When I work out with Marco my workouts are an intense circuit or a superset. When I get home around 9:30 I make a protein shake and steel cut oatmeal with ground flax seeds. So far so good right? Then comes a little less consistency. I go to work usually with an apple in hand and no plan for the rest of my day. I’ll usually get to my job at a restaurant bakery where I get to eat for free. A blessing and a curse! We have all kinds of options to choose from complete with calories. We have salads galore, breads, veggies and eggs. Also on display are cookies, cakes, muffins and bagels. This is how my thinking goes, “okay I’ll have a salad.” Then the clock ticks on and I get hungrier and hungrier. Instead of making a salad and sitting down to eat it I grab a muffin, and throw half in the trash, I’m cutting calories right? Another few hours pass and finally things slow down and I’m eating lunch. I have a salad with vinaigrette, provolone, tomatoes, onion, and veggie bacon strips. That holds my hunger over for maybe an hour. Back to snacking. I’ll grab anything that is convenient. I snack on egg salad on crackers, tuna salad, cookies gag. By the time things slow down again I’m eating dinner at 8pm. This time I might have a sandwich other times I will have my apple with peanut butter and some cheese sticks. And that’s it! So what am I doing wrong? Obviously, too much sugar (don’t get me started on a bad day) and not enough of the good things I could fill my belly with. When I eat too many carbs I instantly feel it. I am slower, and hungrier. I have done the south beach diet and done really well on it. Normally I like a lot of structure in my life but when it comes to having to eat the same foods every day I am at a loss. Eating healthy takes planning and what feels like constant shopping. Often times when I go to the grocery store I spend over $50 and only have enough food to get me through a couple days. So what’s a poor vegetarian to do? This is what I am working on right now. I’ll be writing more shortly but for now I have to go so I can do a heavy tricep and shoulder day tomorrow. Bye for now!

-Whitney