Say Bye-Bye to Stress Today!

The screaming kids, your obnoxious boss, the family remember you can’t stand; you locked your keys in the car.  No matter where you go, sometimes your friend stress will be there to lend you a not-so-helping hand.  Although some things are unable to avoid, you can help try to ease stress levels the best you can with some of these 5 nutrition strategies below:

BIGG Tip 1:  Eat Ground Turkey.

Remember Thanksgiving dinner?  Turkey is loaded in the amino acid L-Tryptophan.  L-Tryptophan gets broken down and converted into serotonin in the body, which helps give you that ‘feel good’ feeling.  It then converts to melatonin, which helps regulate your body’s sleep patterns and cause sleepiness.  Ever feel tired after Thanksgiving dinner?   It is because of the amino acid L-Tryptophan in your turkey.  Try adding a portion of ground turkey here and there to your diet.  Bottom line:  The L-Tryptophan in turkey will help support relaxation.

BIGG Tip 2:  Got Green Tea?

Green tea contains the amino acid L-Theanine.  Studies show L-Theanine helps reduce anxiety, decrease stress levels, and support relaxation.  Green tea contains traces of L-Theanine, so sometimes it is best to grab L-Theanine in supplement form for those who are looking to benefit more from this amino acid.  I always opt for decaf green tea to avoid the caffeine, which can cause the opposite effect you are looking for.

BIGG Tip 3:  Chow Down on Some Fatty Fish.

Try fatty fish like salmon, tuna, and mackerel or if you are vegan opt for walnuts or flaxseeds which are loaded in omega 3 fatty acids.   Particularly we are interested in the main components EPA and DHA, or ALA, which is found in vegan sources of omega 3 acids.  Studies show EPA and DHA have a great impact on proper brain function and regulating a healthy body.  On top of supporting brain health, healthy fats help reduce cholesterol, help lubricate your joints, and give you great skin.

BIGG Tip 4:  Skip the Coffee and Go with Chamomile.

Chamomile tea helps with relaxation, muscle relation, and aids digestion.  Try some later in the day or late night to help you calm down after a long day.  Yes, coffee is great for a quick energy boost first thing in the morning or before your workout, but too much can level you with an energy crash, adrenal burnout, and make you feel like you need to keep reaching for one cup after another to you’re your body functioning.  Ease off the coffee to 2 cups a day earlier in the day, and try to switch it up to decaf teas late night to reduce anxiety and stress levels.

BIGG TIP 5:  Sugar is the Devil.

Sugar can be your body’s worst enemy.  People who have diets higher in sugar tend to have a body with higher cortisol levels (higher stress on the body). This can throw your body into an unstable environment with nasty insulin crashes.  Too much sugar throughout the day can make you more anxious than those who consume minimal sugar and more whole grains (fiber).  Watch your sugar intake and try to cut out processed carbohydrates the best you can on a regular basis to help reduce stress and maximize your energy levels.

Don’t live in stress!  Too much can lead to a higher rate to develop depression, stroke, and heart disease.  Remember you are what you eat.  Decrease your stress levels today!

Get To Love Avocados!

Add these bad boys into your diet regularly for better body composition and better health!  Avocados are loaded in healthy fats and low in carbohydrates (mainly fiber which is a GOOD thing).  The bulk of them are made up of monosaturated fats which are great for helping increase your metabolism and keeping your natural testosterone levels high.  This means more muscle and less fat for you if you calories are in check with your activity levels!  One whole avocado has a little less than 300 calories, which may seem like a lot.  Portion wise, you can start adding ¼ or ½ of an avocado to a meal a day with a protein and a vegetable or starchy carbohydrate for balanced nutrition.  Here is some avocado info for you:

• Avocados are actually a fruit.  They are loaded in B-vitamins and many minerals your body needs that help fight off diseases.
• Diets that include healthy fats help keep your muscle building, fat burning hormones in high gear.  Add in some good quality exercise and you are set on the right track.
• Monosaturated fats and healthy fats help lower cholesterol.  They also help give you beautiful skin.
• You can make healthy homemade guacamole with avocadoes, limes, a small dash of sea salt and low sodium spices to your flavoring for a healthy snack or homemade dip that takes no time to make.
• You can replace spreads like cheeses, mayo, and creams with avocados depending on the recipe to give you a healthier kick that still satisfies your taste buds

BIGG TIP:  I personally love adding avocadoes or making homemade guacamole spread with a lean protein and vegetable medley for dinner or late night to cut out all the unnecessary starchy carbs late night.  Think about it.  If you are sitting around doing nothing when you get home, your body might not need as many starchy carbohydrates. They could have more of a chance to get stored as body fat if they aren’t used properly.  Eat smart!

Are you embarking on a journey to drop the fat and get that hot six pack? Typically the first month you start exercising and eating right you will tend to drop weight easily and steadily. The first week or two a lot of the weight you lose can be extra water weight. You know the stuff that gave you the bloat and not-so-sexy feeling. By the time your second month comes around you may notice that your body starting to level out. You might not be losing those 3-4 pounds a week you did the first month. In most cases, this is because you body is getting used to the calorie deficit. Do not feel discouraged if you are not losing weight as quickly as before! Just make sure you are in a slight calorie deficit with clean nutrition habits. Keep up with the workouts too, don’t stop! Aim for no more that two pounds lost per week unless you have a higher percentage of body fat to lose. More than 2 pounds a week could lead to losing metabolism boosting muscle. Keep going strong! Char.

Less Sleep ... More Body Fat

If you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night, often times it is your body telling you that there is some sort of chemical or hormonal imbalance in your body.  People tend to wake up during the night when there are abnormal spikes in cortisol levels.  Many people trying to drop the pounds may recognize this name from its association with belly fat and stress.  A lot of time these spikes are due to poor nutrition and lack of exercise.  You guessed it!  Before you start taking over the counter sleep medicine or prescription drugs to combat your poor sleep habits, ask yourself:  Am I exercising and eating right?  Try to work out more and eat cleaner foods for one month.  Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day to help regulate your body’s internal mechanisms.  Chances are your sleep cycles will improve drastically.

Char Biggs

I tend to say this a lot.  Will abdominal work really bring out your six pack abs? Many believe that if they do 300 crunches a day, magically this hot washboard will appear as they pull their shirt up.  This is not necessarily true.  In order for your abs to show, you need to strip off the layer of fat on top of them, and crunches will not do this at all.  Sit ups burn minimal calories to begin with, unless you are doing crunches 23 hours out of the day, and that caloric burn will still be minimal.  With that being said, abdominal work definitely should not be ignored because a strong core helps prevent injury and strengthens your spine and lower back.  If your goal is to bring out your abs, you are better off using exercises that use large muscles (aka burning large amounts of calories) such as squats or press/ pull exercises and to up your cardio to burn off the layers of fat on top of the ab.  This way when you do your abdominal work they will start to pop through as you workout intensely with a good nutrition plan.  I always love to opt to do abdominal work at the end of a workout, because you do not want to tire your core out too heavily prior to your workouts.  Doing too much beforehand will exhaust your core and make it less strong for the exercises that count to bring you your new hot body.  Sometimes doing tons of core work and not stripping away the body fat on top can actually make your midsection look bigger and bulkier— just some food for thought.

Whey protein digests at a quicker rate (at 1-2 hours) and has very high percentage of amino acids that digested in the body; making it very bioavailable.  A good time to include whey protein in your diet is immediately upon awakening, after you have fasted all night from sleeping.  This allows a quick uptake of protein in the morning to turn your body’s catabolic state off.  Another great time include whey protein is immediately after your workout to help repair muscles, build, and prevent them from breaking down.  This helps halt catabolism or spikes in cortisol levels (stress levels in the body).  Good sources of whey protein are found in ricotta cheese, dairy milk, yogurts, cheese, and whey protein powder.

Casein protein digests at a slower rate (up to 7 hours), and has a high percentage of amino acids that are digested in the body; however, it is less bioavailable then whey protein.  Good times to include casein protein are to add a blend with your whey protein at breakfast (this will allow fast and slow digesting proteins), mid-day or late night before bed.  Because casein protein digests at a slower rate it helps keep amino acid levels in the bloodstream higher for a longer period of time.  This helps prevent your muscles from breaking down, allowing your body to more readily use fats and carbohydrates as preferred sources of energy if your calories are in check and not in a large deficit from your baseline metabolic rate.  Having some cottage cheese or a scoop of casein protein before you go to bed can help your body prevent muscle from breaking down overnight while you sleep.  If you are watching your calories or body fat levels watch out for the sugars and carbs in the cottage cheese too late from bed time.  Good food sources with casein protein are cottage cheese, cheese and casein protein powders.

Do you warm up?

Warming up before a workout or sport is an important part of improving performance and preventing injuries.  Warm up with dynamic stretching moves that mimic the motions of the muscles you will be working that day.  Dynamic moves are active stretching where your body stretches the muscles with movements in constant motion.  These are not stretches you hold for a specific time, which is static stretching.  Holding your stretches, or static stretching is best post workouts and cool down, where you stretch the muscles worked for a time frame of 20-30 seconds.   The benefits of a proper dynamic warm up include:

• Increasing the rate at which your muscles contract
• Increase activity of the cells in the muscles
• Increase the amount of time a muscle can maintain a series of contractions (to a certain extent)
• Improving connective tissues in the muscle and their ability to accept force
• Decreasing the risk of potential injury
• Increased muscle temperature for enhancing oxygen through body’s red blood cells

Try some dynamic stretching moves out before your next workout to fully warm up the body for a better workout.

Char Biggs

Are you hurting or helping your results?  Seem to be stuck in a rut with your workouts?  Here is my first installment quick fix guide of things you could be doing in the gym that are hurting you and some BIGG tips to help fix or try out a new solution to your best body.

BIGG TIP 1: Not training intense enough.  

Have you been going to the gym performing the same routine, same exercises, at the same pace… over and over and over?  How long really are your ‘rest’ breaks between working sets?  Are you reading while working out?  On a perceived exertion scale of 1(Sitting doing almost nothing) – 10 (This is super intense, I need to stop now) you should be trying to push yourself to a range of 7-9 almost every workout.  Hard work = quick results.  Put down magazine, and train like an athlete (people with athletes’ bodies do not read magazines during their workouts). A simple key is to try to keep most rest breaks from 45-60 seconds you are trying to drop body fat or up to two minutes if you are working more towards pure strength gains.  Try supersets, drop sets, metabolic training, circuit training, push/pull workouts, upper/lower body workouts to push your body harder and up the ammunition.

BIGG TIP 2:  I am using 15-20 reps and can’t lose body fat still.

Higher reps and lighter weights don’t necessarily mean burning more calories.  15 reps or more will work more on slow twitch muscle fibers and endurance.  To gain muscle/tone up and really boost up your metabolism shoot for reps from 6-12 repetitions for almost all working sets, male or female.  Moderate to heavier weights (with proper form) will increase your metabolism post workout, so you burn more calories even while sitting doing nothing.  Try max interval training with body weight movements at home or add on 5 pound increments to your exercises until you feel comfortable lighting slightly heavier with good form.

BIGG TIP 3:  Ladies, is your purse heavier than the dumbbells you work out with?

This one is simple.  Ditch the 3 pound dumbbells in most cases.  Challenge yourself.  You will not gain massive amounts of muscle or look like Arnold Schwarzenegger by lifting weights you can reach from 6-12 reps.  Simply put, there is not enough testosterone floating around in your blood stream to bulk you up.  However, training the right way will tone you out and make you look like a superwoman vixen such as Halle Berry.

BIGG TIP 4:  I do 500 crunches and cannot see my abdominal muscles.

Your abs will always be there, they never go away.  They are just covered with a layer of body fat.  You cannot spot reduce fat.  You need to have the proper caloric balance of energy in, verse energy out to drop body fat and save your muscle.  Combine weekly strength training, up the cardiovascular work, and implement a clean diet; with the right proteins, carbs, and fats for your needs 80 percent- 100 percent of the time.  This will put you on the right track and bring your abs out in no time.

BIGG TIP 5:  I can’t put on weight no matter what I do.

Some people are ectomorphs. This means you have a very fast metabolism.  That does not mean you cannot put on muscle though.  Analyze really how many calories you are taking in.  Chances are they could be under your needs.  In the gym, perform heavy compound movements like squats, deadlifts, and presses to boost your muscle building hormones.  Try adding an extra 500 calories into your diet.  Slowly taper them up 100-250 every week to make sure you are putting on muscle and not so much body fat.  Eat every 3-4 hours with enough calories for your needs in your meals for the day.  Aim for 1 gram per pound of body weight in protein, and 2-3 grams per pound of body weight in complex carbs for starters.  Add small amounts of healthy fats to your meals to meet the rest of your dietary needs.

Try some of these tips out and help boost through plateaus you could be reaching. Reach your goals! – Char Biggs

Smoking elevates cortisol levels which can cause your muscles to breakdown and add or keep primarily belly fat on your frame.  This comes along with an increase of internal stress levels.   Smoking can increase your body’s resistance to insulin.  Ever hear of syndrome X or type 2 diabetes?  This is where people have insulin resistance, along with factors of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and increase risk of type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease, and stroke.  Smoking can influence and increase the probability of developing symptoms to syndrome x and developing type 2 diabetes. Smoking and the harmful chemicals in smoking can directly influence these symptoms.  Do you think quitting will make you gain weight?  Not so much. Think about how the chemicals in cigarettes influence increasing problems with thyroid and polluting it as well as your body.  Your thyroid is a major contributing factor to determine how fast or slow your metabolic rate is.

Find other ways to enjoy life other than buying a pack of cigarettes or replacing smoking with food.  You don’t need to fix boredom with food or putting something like a cigarette in your mouth.  Make a list of positive things to do in your spare time instead of smoking.  With all the money you spend on cigarette packs a week you could get a nice relaxing spa day, get a manicure, go on a small vacation or treat yourself to new outfit to make yourself feel better.  Try to break the habit

Happy Hour!

Woohoo, it’s Friday!  Let the weekend begin and the work week end for most of us.  A lot of people love enjoying their Friday happy hours and after work cocktails, but they are also infamous for putting a hold on your body and good nutrition efforts for the week.  One or two drinks won’t completely ruin you.  However, if you are looking for a total transformation of your body in a shorter, achievable time or to make major progress in the gym, excess alcohol is a BIGG no, no.  Alcohol here and there is better off when you are in a ‘maintaining mode’ for your body, not a ‘body changing experience’.  If you choice to enjoy, here are 5 BIGG Tips to keep your body fat at ease:

BIGG TIP 1:  AVOID SUGARY, FRUITY DRINKS AND HEAVY BEERS.  Sugary and fruity mixers are loaded in calories and sugar.   Regular margaritas, heavy beers, hurricanes, long island iced teas and some fruity martinis can load on 300-500+ calories from ONE drink.

BIGG TIP 2:  GO CLEAR.  Stick with clear vodkas and club soda as mixers to cut major calories.  One shot of vodka has roughly 80-100 calories in 2 oz.  That’s jammed packed, and most likely your bartender is doing a 2 or 3 serving pour. It adds up fast!  Bacardi and Diet Cokes are good choices too; however club soda has less junk and fillers in it.  Sometimes too much diet soda can lead you to having worse cravings for carbs later on in the day with too much artificial sweetener.

BIGG TIP 3:  TEQUILA TIME.  Tequila on the rocks, makes your body pop they say.  A 2oz rocks pour of tequila has about 90-100 calories.  Flavor it with fresh lemons and or limes to help you out.  A rocks glass of tequila will keep you more incline to ‘sip it’ throughout the evening, instead of pounding down one drink after another leading to less calories saved on your gut.

BIGG TIP 4:  YES, I WANT ANOTHER (ON THE SIDE).  Order an extra tall glass of club soda or water with lemon and/or limes to drink on back and forth between drinks.  This way the extra liquid will help keep your stomach fuller, hydrated, and it will be more likely for you to keep you downing your cocktails one after another.

BIGG TIP 5:  RED WINE AND DINE:  Red wine is full of antioxidants, especially resveratrol! Get to love this stuff! It is an antioxidant which helps with anti-aging, lowers blood sugar levels, and has anti-inflammatory along with cancer fighting properties.  It is best if you keep your glass to a standard 1 serving 4-5oz pour.  The whole bottle won’t give you any extra benefits, just extra calories keeping body fat on your frame.

Have a great weekend … Char.