The Cook & The Coach Blog

Beachbody Black Friday Sales

11/25/2014

Beachbody's annual "Black Friday" sale is back. The great thing is that you don't have to wait until Friday to take advantage of these deals. Whether you are shopping for yourself or someone on your Christmas list, you will be able to find some equipment or program for just about anybody. The programs range from low intensity workouts like Slim Series and Hip Hop Abs to some of the most intense workouts like Insanity Asylum and P90X. If you aren't sure what program is right the fit feel free to send us a message.

You can find the full list of sales and availability by clicking on any of the pictures.

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Top 5 Healthy Gift Ideas

11/19/2014

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If you've been in any retail store recently you've seen the Christmas stuff all over. The holiday shopping season is totally here and you are bombarded with ways you can spend your money. The point of this post is to try to encourage you to give the gift of health this year. Every year Americans spend $700 billion on Christmas gifts. What if just 1% of that money was spent on fitness and health related products? I know some of it would go to waste like other gifts, but think of the momentum we could create if instead of giving ugly sweaters or coffee mugs you gave some of the gifts listed below.

Just in case you need a little more motivation, here is a message from some of our friends at Beachbody wishing you a Happy and Healthy Holidays!

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EPOC - Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption

11/11/2014

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If you are anything like me, when I first was learning about nutrition and our body's metabolism I was trying to take in information from everywhere. It wasn't just good enough to know that eating green leafy veggies was healthy, I wanted to know why? I didn't want to just accept that High Intensity Interval Training was a better way to burn fat, I wanted to know why? I think the knowledge of knowing why is so important in making lasting changes to your lifestyle. You don't just have to take someone else's word for it, you understand the science behind it. If you guys are ok with it I would love to share some science with you from time to time, those of you that are like me trying to find your way with your fitness and health and want to go deeper you have us as a resource. So today wanted to share with you the concept of EPOC or Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption.

EPOC, what is it and how does it affect weight loss?

The main concept here revolves around creating an oxygen debt during exercise, that later needs to be repaid. Let's start by explaining how the debt is created in the first place and to understand that I'll briefly explain our body processes energy.

Energy Transfer Systems

Our body has three major systems that provide our cells (muscles) with energy. Let's use running as our activity of choice, specifically running as fast you can.

ATP/PCr System
When you start running the first system that kicks in is the ATP/PCr system. This system uses the energy in the bonds between Creatine and Phosphate in our cells. This system will provide roughly 10 seconds of energy.

Glycolytic System
After that, your body switches over to the Glycolytic System. This system uses glycogen stores in your muscle tissue and breaks that glycogen down into glucose. That glucose is then used to regenerate ATP (our cells energy source). This system has some byproducts, pyruvate and NADH. We eventually hit what is called the anaerobic threshold (AT), because ATP generation can't keep pace with energy expended, and we need to switch to the next system which requires oxygen. A person will usually be able to exercise intensely for about 80-90 seconds before this threshold is hit. You'll notice this when you are running when you have to make a more drastic slow down in your pace and you notice a little burning in your legs.

Oxidative Phosphorylative System
Once you hit that threshold your body then kicks into the third system the Oxidative Phosphorylative System. This system needs oxygen in order to function, hence oxidative in the title that means with oxygen. This system is the real powerhouse in energy transformation and supplies our cells with a bulk of the energy they need after that initial 90 seconds or so. Activities that do most of the work in this system would be considered aerobic activities because they are done WITH oxygen.

Repaying your Debt

Oxygen consumption doesn't immediately match up to energy demands when you begin an activity. As explained above it can take up to 2 minutes before your body kicks into that third stage of ATP generation. Prior to hitting your anaerobic threshold you are creating an oxygen deficit quickly. The rate slows as you get into the oxidative phorphorylative system but you never fully catch up. Therefore, the more intense your workout/activity, will result in a larger oxygen debt or deficit.

This is where EPOC comes into play. After you are done working out your body needs additional oxygen to do 3 main tasks:*

Metabolize additional nutrients
Replenish the energy stores that have been used up
Reload the depleted oxygen stores in the muscle and blood

Other things that also play into EPOC include elevated post-exercise body temperature, increased activity of the heart and respiratory muscles, and elevated levels of metabolism-boosting hormones. Excess oxygen is also needed to aid in protein synthesis and recovery of muscles that were stressed during your workout.

Therefore, exercise intensity directly relates to longer excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). This is why we recommend the workouts that we do versus straight cardio or traditional weight lifting with longer breaks between sets. It is because of this that higher intensity workouts that involve some strength training is the best solution for fat loss. If your goal is something else, than there are other options out there.

Just one specific example of how EPOC works, in one study an individual that did circuit weight training (bench, power clean, and squats), 10 reps, 4 sets of each and completed all of that in 31 minutes, had an elevated EPOC for the next 38 HOURS!!!! They actually stopped measuring at 38 hours so it actually could have been longer. This is where the magic happens when it comes to boosting metabolisms and fat loss. It's not what happens during the workout that really matters its what our bodies do to recover from that workout that really affects body composition.

I'll end with a quote from Alan Aragon:

"Caring how much fat is burned during training makes as much sense as caring how much muscle is built during training."

*Information from The Essentials of Sport and Exercise Nutrition, Certification Manual 2nd Edition

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The Impossible/Possible P90X2 Push-Ups

11/6/2014

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These push-ups were the death of me for so long. I think the maximum that I was able to get weeks 1-4 was maybe 3 reps. I stuck with it. Laura suggested using two medicine balls, but I was stubborn to get it with only one. After 4 weeks of basically failing at this move, I was able to get 12 in a row!!!

Just goes to show that if you are consistent with your actions to grow and improve, you will eventually. It may take a month, maybe a year, maybe multiple years, but you grow so much as person during that journey. If you can't tell I'm not only talking about doing push-ups, you can apply this to in area of your life where you want to achieve growth.

We hope this video inspires you to keep working at something that you are struggling with right now. If we can help in any way, please comment below and we would love to chat.

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I Am a Beachbody Coach, I Am a Healthcare Professional

11/4/2014

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Shut the front the door, right? How can I say that....I didn't even go to medical school and basically flunked out of Organic Chemistry II and never took a single biology class in college!
Let me start out by saying that I am in no way bashing doctors. I completely respect the education they have and the work that they do to take care of the sick and injured. They are well trained in disease management, surgical procedures and the biology of the human body and have a lot of knowledge.

So how can I call myself a healthcare professional? I think to answer that you have to define what is health? Meriam-Webster defines health as:

So in the scope of nutrition and fitness the definition that I think most closely applies could be either the first or second option. Health is being well, free from disease AND the condition of one's body and mind.

I think you also need to define what healthcare is. According to Merriam-Webster, it is:

I think we need to break down this definition a little bit. Healthcare is the prevention or treatment of illness. Right there it is saying that it doesn't have to be both, and by saying or it might even elude to it being one or the other. The second part, by doctors, dentists, psychologists, etc. Clearly there is a bias towards formally trained medical professionals by this definition, but it does leave the door open with the etc, and that is where I come in.

Doctors, dentists, and psychologists, (given our current system of "healthcare") I would argue are more on the reactive or treatment side of illnesses versus the preventative side. They see numerous patients every day, typically for a short period of time. According to a 2010 report by the CDC 51.5% of doctor's visits, patients spent less than 15 minutes with a doctor and 89.8% spent less than 30 minutes.* I'm not blaming the doctors, as I'm sure they would like to engage more with patients, but that is just how the system is setup.

Another piece of the "healthcare" system that I believe is at fault is the mindset of the patient going into these short appointments. If anyone watches any television these days, they are bombarded by commercials from drug companies offering a solution to every problem known to man. In the same CDC report, doctor's recommended education services or lifestyle changes 43% of the time versus medication therapy, which was brought up in 75% off patient visits.* Even though people were given options to change their lifestyle, they often end up resorting to medication because it is easy to do. Why workout for 30 minutes a day and spend a little more time cooking meals when a pill will solve your problems???

So getting back to on topic, let's see how I, can have the gall to call myself a Healthcare Professional. It lies in the definition, PREVENTION of illness. Of the chronic illnesses that people reported to see doctor's for, roughly 60% of them are lifestyle diseases.* This includes blood pressure issues, diabetes, and weight management to name a few.

What I do as a Beachbody Coach revolves around encouraging people to change their lifestyle by adding exercise and eating healthier foods. It's these lifestyle changes that will help people combat those lifestyle illnesses and live healthier lives. So it is for this reason that I consider myself and every other Beachbody Coach out there a Healthcare Professional. We spend countless hours helping people learn about the role nutrition and fitness play in a healthy lifestyle. We motivate and encourage people daily to keep going...and even though it is more inconvenient than taking a pill, it is the better way to live!

*Information regarding the CDC report can be found at the following link.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ahcd/namcs_summary/2010_namcs_web_tables.pdf

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Beachbody Black Friday Sales

Top 5 Healthy Gift Ideas

EPOC - Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption

Energy Transfer Systems

Repaying your Debt

The Impossible/Possible P90X2 Push-Ups

I Am a Beachbody Coach, I Am a Healthcare Professional