You hear the expression thrown around a lot if you’re in the health and fitness community or reading books, blogs and listening to podcasts on health-related topics. It’s very common that we, as everyday Americans and athletes/CrossFitters even moreso, experience varying levels of restful sleep, energy, digestive function, immunity and the ability to recover from exercise. With so many stressors in our daily lives, not to mention the things we add on top as pleasure that are actually stressors, it’s no wonder we’re in a bit of a pickle when it comes to achieving healthy endocrine balance.

I have a close relationship with the condition of adrenal fatigue as I have suffered from it, at varying levels, over the last four years. While training for my first half-marathon here in San Francisco in July of 2007, I was experiencing what seemed to be very mysterious changes in my energy and moods. I was following a low-fat diet for the duration of my training under the nutrition advice of a Registered Dietitian who specialized in sports nutrition. The program included plenty of whole grains, dairy, some nut butter, very lean meats, vegetables and fruit – and would add up to as much as around 2,500 calories per day. Without eating much fat, that’s a LOT of food. I was eating at least six times a day. At the time, I was training anywhere from 60-120 minutes, primarily performing steady-state cardio exercise or sometimes interval training with minimal strength training included. This was a pretty far departure from the training I had done most of my life prior to beginning the half-marathon training. Needless to say, this was not a smart choice for my body.

While completing training runs adding up to around 20-25 miles per week, I would also attend three or four cardio kickboxing classes per week on top of that.  I distinctly remember attending a couple of those classes, which I had always done for the fun of it, and not being able to smile. My energy was just flat. It was like the air in my tires was gone and I couldn’t even muster up the gusto to finish the classes anymore. And these were classes I was even certified to teach, that’s how much I loved them. As if that wasn’t enough, I would frequently pick up a second cup of coffee for the day either before or after the kickboxing class (we’re talking 6/7pm here folks) to go home after the gym and work late into the evening on side-projects from my day job. Talk about burning the candle at both ends! I was very lean and felt amazing when I looked in the mirror and saw 6-pack abs for the first (and possibly only) time in my life, but my body was telling me that it wasn’t happy. And I wasn’t listening. I didn’t know that what I was experiencing was something real that was a direct result of the diet and lifestyle I was choosing to lead – thinking it was making me healthier!

What I finally learned after my exhaustion:

1. People who train hard and look lean are not always healthy.
2. Eating fat will not make me fat
3. Working out smarter, not harder is often the way to achieve performance and aesthetic goals.
4. Sleep is the cornerstone of being able to eat well, train well and to allow the body to re-set stress levels and lose body fat.

I felt like I had discovered The Holy Grail. Creating a lean healthy body actually required a lot less effort than I thought. 

What is stress?

Stress is a specific response by the body to a stimulus, such as fear or pain, that disturbs or interferes with normal physiological equilibrium. Stress can be physical, mental or emotional strain or tension and can be an occurrence (chronic or acute) or a causative factor in a state of dis-ease.

Read more @ Robb Wolf’s blog

A: This is an outstanding question, and I can really go in a number of different directions with it.

First, let me say that the single best way to get out of excessive anterior tilt is training oneself to not live in anterior tilt!  No amount of exercise will undo the damage you can do with your daily posture.  That’s the easy part of this response, though.

Next, I’ll say that I absolutely believe that we can overdo it with “core-specific” exercises.

As a parallel, just consider the shoulder.  The glenohumeral (ball and socket) joint is heavily reliant on both active (muscles/tendons) and passive (capsule/ligaments and labrum) restraints for stability. If you overdo it with rotator cuff exercises and train the cuff to excessive fatigue, individuals lose dynamic stability and can’t maintain the position of the humeral head in the glenoid fossa. Overuse conditions and injuries can occur.  I wrote about this in an old series, How Much Rotator Cuff Work is Too Much? – Part 1 and Part 2.

Similarly, the lumbar spine relies heavily on both active and passive restraints.  People can overcome lumbar ligament and disc injuries to live pain-free if they maintain adequate soft tissue control.  Likewise, many sedentary folks can live pain-free in spite of poor soft tissue function simply because the challenges of their daily activities don’t exceed the tolerance of the passive restraints (these are the folks who often blow out their backs trying move couches).

That said, we have to be careful about overreacting to this realization.  Just as the trend of doing thousands of sit-ups in the past few decades created a ton of back pain, you see a lot of completely deconditioned individuals who are hurting, too.  There has to be a middle ground between the two.  So, you could say:

Optimizing core function is really a delicate balance of exercise selection, volume, frequency, and intensity.

Read more @ Eric Cressey’s blog

This year we will be holding our 3rd annual BBQ & Open house on Saturday May 26, thanks to all our members for the past 2 years in helping out with this fun event and a chance to mingle with others and bring your friends. This year all proceeds will go to Kidsport, a foundation that helps families that don’t have the means to put their kids into organized sport. Donations will provide kids in Calgary with the ability to participate in sports.

This year we need a few volunteers for the event for the following

• Borrowing a BBQ (Transport and Set-up) (1 volunteer)
• Help with finding donations for beef & prizes (2 Volunteers)
• BBQ Chef (2 volunteers)
• Baked Goodies (multiple volunteers)
• General Organization (1 Volunteer)
• Judges for the in house competition (5 volunteers)
• Optional – Kids Competition (1-2 volunteers, will be dependent if we get volunteers for this)
• Please email admin@crossfitai.com if you can help

What: CrossFit AI BBQ & Open House
Where: at CrossFit AI
When: Saturday May 26th @ 10am-3pm
Format:

Chinese Dragon Dance

• This will kick off around 10:30am

BBQ & Baked Goodies - $5 (includes your BBQ, baked good)

• This will go until the BBQ ends
• all proceeds go to Kidsport to help families that don’t have a financial means to put their kids into organized sports in Alberta

Team Workout with Friends – Email admin@crossfitai.com to register

• Invite your friends to come down and do a team workout with you, the movements will be programed so that EVERYONE can learn and perform quickly
• The Team WoD will be fun! And it will give a chance for those that have not experienced CrossFit before to do it with their friends.
• You don’t have to have a team to participate, we will place you with a team, with you and your friend or you can be placed solo
• $10 to register per person, which includes the WoD and BBQ, baked good and water post workout

Firebreather’s Workout – Email admin@crossfitai.com to register

• This workout we invite all that are well versed in all the basic CorssFit movements, we will do a competition in heats of 5
• $10 to register per person, which includes the WoD and BBQ, baked good and water post workout

Last week, we began the dialog with my introductory post on akrasia – the act of knowingly working against one’s own interests – but we didn’t get into any details. Today, I’m going to try to provide a few answers. I’m going to delve into the reasons for akrasia, particularly as it pertains to making bad eating choices. I won’t discuss psychological issues, per se, instead focusing on physiological explanations, but keep in mind that the two are often one and the same. You can’t really separate the mind from the body (well, without killing the person, that is).

Whether we pick up the phone to order takeout, open the candy wrapper, shove the spoon into the jar of Nutella, or accept the offered slice of cake, we are making a decision. Most health experts say making the healthy decision is a matter of willpower. So that if you make an unhealthy decision you simply don’t want it badly enough. Like Bob Newhart in that old Mad TV sketch, they seem to think all you have to do is just “STOP IT!”

Well, it’s not that easy. Otherwise, folks wouldn’t be making these decisions that go against their better judgment. Otherwise, they’d indeed be “stopping it.”

So why do we do it?

Many – perhaps most – poor dietary choices stem from an inability to resist cravings. And who can blame you, really? Whether they’re for chips, sweets, or something specific like wheat, cravings are difficult to ignore by design. Their very purpose is to get you to give in to them, to override your rational side and promote decisive, single-minded pursuit of whatever it is you crave. Something, then, is at the heart of these cravings. Something physiological. But what?

1. You’re missing something from your diet and your ancient genes are misinterpreting the modern cravings.

There’s often a disconnect between what our animal bodies need or desire and what our human minds know is best. When the animal body perceives a deficiency, some nutrient lacking in the diet, like salt, it often develops a craving for that nutrient. 20,000 years ago, if you were salt-deficient you would have gone looking for shellfish or rock salt, because those are the salt sources you knew. Your food memory bank was rather limited in scope. Today, that same salt deficiency might manifest as a craving for Pringles or Cheezits, because those foods are listed under “salt” in your food memory bank.

#12- Can’t do legs because I got injured a while ago and I always….

Yada yada yada. This comes from guys who are afraid of doing legs because they are scared of getting hurt again or more like they are afraid of using light weights to correct their structural imbalances. Those are the big huge upper body boys and skinny twerp legs. As a matter of fact, they should walk on their hands; it would be less of a burden on their lower back.  If they would put as much work in their legs as they do with their chest and arms, they wouldn’t complain of knee problems. Your body needs to be as proportional from left to right as from top to bottom. It was proven that those who suddenly started training their legs as much as they do with their upper body, they improved in all their lifts on the upper body and increased in size as well, without talking about the change in their overall shape.

#11 – I’m discouraged; I can’t lose weight on the scale

I can’t figure out why people can’t understand why the weight on the scale is not important. One thing is for sure, doctors are so anal with the fact that you need to be a certain weight compared to your height that people are brainwashed about it. Would you rather lose 5 pounds of metabolically active muscle mass and gain 5 pounds of fat mass, which in my books brings you to a whopping 0 pounds difference on the scale and you still look and feel like crap. Or would you rather gain 5 pounds of lean mass and lose 5 pounds of fat and look healthier and feel much better in your clothes? The scale is very deceiving, so get your bodyfat done the real and reliable way, with calipers.

#10- It’s easy for you trainers.

Guess what…I started training at 12 years old, and didn’t stop ever since. Every day I wake up with that craving of getting a solid workout. But I am not going to lie to you, some days I don’t even want to look or talk about weights. Why? Every single day we trainers have to motivate people, find the hidden (sometimes very well hidden) potential, light the fire and keep the fire from burning out due to some plateau or just lack of will. My job is to make it easier for you to have results, be and stay motivated. You are absolutely right; it’s easy for us since we have all the tricks and tools to stay healthy, but staying lean and healthy takes as much dedication and motivation as getting there.

#9- I don’t want to do weights because I gain mass very fast

This is one of my favourite comments coming from girls. But when I get it from guys, I rather walk away and pretend I didn’t listen. Are you coming from a different planet? Are you some kind of freak of nature? Am I the one who is doing something wrong? Hell, I have been training for more than 20 years and you tell me that you can do the same in 2 months? Come on, tell that to someone else. Lifting weights has so many benefits that just doing a simple full body workout will bring you great results without looking like the incredible hulk. The benefits are endless so stop trying to find excuses for working harder and feel a bit of lactic acid going through your muscles. I understand that this is no treadmill workouts but weights will speed up your metabolism a lot more than the treadmill will. Look at it this way, people who does cardio think that their heart is the one burning the fat, but what makes your heart work? That would be your muscles. So the more lean mass you have, the more fat you will be able to burn.

Read more @ BodhiFit

If you are still using a scale to measure your progress in body change, it will be virtually impossible to know what kind of weight you are losing. Just because you are losing weight does not mean you are losing fat.  Too often it is not fat people are losing but rather water or even worse, muscle. This leads to yo-yo dieting and  weight rebound. A loss of muscle will make the metabolism less efficient in the long run. This is a key reason why chronic dieters have a more difficult time getting any sort of result as they age.  To avoid this issue get something to monitor fat loss.  We like the Tanita body fat monitors as they are an easy to use tool to get a general indication of whether you are losing fat or muscle. They can be found HERE.

2) Stop counting calories and start paying attention to your body.

Counting calories is a one-size-fits-all process that works for very few. Instead of trying to practice food avoidance or portion control, pay attention to the signals your body sends. After each meal, monitor hunger, cravings and energy levels. These sensations can act as biofeedback tools that give you insight into your hormonal fat burning metabolism and help you adjust your diet. By eating in a way that generates less hunger and cravings and more stable energy you can fine tune your diet to the perfect approach for you. Eating this way will result in eating less calories without even trying and will turn weight loss to fat loss. One hint, protein and fiber are the key tools to balance these sensations so eat more of them.

3) Learn the process and stop doing protocols

Your body does not conform to simple math equations and does not respond like everyone else. You are unique and therefore require an approach that matches your individual metabolism.  Instead of following a one-size-fits-all diet, or an off the shelf program, spend some time finding out your own fat loss formula.  Approaching body change this way assures you will have something that always works even when your metabolism goes through changes (aging, children, menopause, etc.)

Read More @ The Metabolic Effect

Our team this year is the following,

• Dan Rogers
• Aaron Johnson
• Oleksiy Dakhno
• Jenn Swagar
• Heather Street
• Amy Adamson

Alternates

• David Swagar
• Sheri Mything

Best of  luck to our team in competing with the top 30 gyms in Western Canada at the Richmond Olympic Oval, in Richmond B.C. on April 27-29. If you are looking to do a weekend get away, come on down to Vancouver, B.C. tickets are available for purchase on the CrossFit Games website and cheer on our team!

I was asked a while ago about how I make things so simple in my personal day-to-day applications. I gave it some thought and the story that comes to my mind is the one I give my “Teams” at the beginning of our relationship.

Usually a Team will come to me at the beginning of their “off season.” One of the local high school coaches will want to jump the competition by starting the next season almost immediately. I’m cool with that and work in some rest in the first few weeks. I mean seriously, you can go hard or you can go long, but long and hard is an injury or burn-out waiting to happen. I’ll save that one for a future topic.

Anyway, I start the session with a lecture that goes something like this:

“Gentleman (or Ladies), I would like to take a moment before we let all hell break loose, and demonstrate a life lesson to you all. This will give you an idea of how LIFE is. We have the luxury today to use this example in our sport, but I stand before you letting you know, that SPORT is a MICROCOSM of society. What goes on in sport is a lesson that has great carry-over to your future as a contributing adult.

Let me have 10 volunteers, c’mon…don’t be bashful QUICKLY, give me 10!“

The drill instructor in me begins to rear its ugly head.

Natural Selection

I then get, by the nature of task, the 10 most “Go For It” individuals. Right here is a lesson within the lesson. They actually began the never-ending process of the “Natural Selection” process.

With the 10 “volunteers” I ask for two and ONLY TWO, guys who will again, volunteer for all the shit tasks that I will have them do for the purpose of this demonstration. Two guys will look around, not sure of what is going to be asked of them, only knowing that it’s going to suck somewhat, but not for too long, and tentatively move away from the other EIGHT.

With all the emotion and dramatization I can muster up, I YELL emphatically…

“THERE! RIGHT THERE! THESE TWO WILL GO TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF PLAY…AND WHAT DID THAT TAKE?”

Read More @ Elite FTS

Like most practitioners and health professionals, I feel blessed and lucky to have the clients I have.  They share their deepest fears and most private matters with me, and I respectfully store it all in a big vault.  But the greatest gifts they unknowingly impart to me are the lessons they teach me.

After so many years of practicing nutrition, sometimes I forget how hard it can be to change your eating habits.  I had two clients this week that had completely different starting points, but both needed to come off gluten.  At the one-week follow-up visit, I asked each one how her week went.  Client A said to me, “Everywhere I look I see gluten.”  That led to a whole discussion about the process of change, and we spent time reinforcing the optimal foods for her and how they would heal her body.  Later that day, I met with client B and was reviewing her food diary.  She said to me, “Everywhere I look I see protein.”  Unlike her counterpart, she was able to hone in on the task at hand, and the change was effortless.

How can two people see the world of eating on such different ends of the spectrum?  I call it selective editing.  Simply be defined, we prioritize the work we are ready to do and draw a line in the sand for what we won’t.  We are our own rate-limiting reactions; although we often stand in our own way, we can also learn to clear a path to our successes.

Read more on the Poliquin Lifestyle Blog

10 Fish Oil companies and 3 major retailers are being sued by the Environmental Blue Line Network & another consumer product advocacy group unethical practices in the testing of their fish oil products by not putting labeling them properly. These companies are being sued as PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) was found in their products. PCBs are a man made chemical compound that is tasteless, and odorless there are also 209 compounds of PCBs that can be made. You can find PCBs in the coating of electrical wiring, cutting oils, lubricating oils, hydraulic fluids, sealants etc…(more can be found on wikipedia), these compounds are linked to causing cancer or allowing cancer cells to express themselves, now doesn’t that sound yummy? According to the researcher from Blue Line Network, he advised that many companies test for as little as 7 out of the 209 PCB compounds in their fish oils. I would assume to save money to be able to sell it cheaper to the consumer market. The bottom line of this lawsuit is, if you got crap in your fish oils then put it on the label! But then again in their defense, who would want to buy something that says 400mg of DHA, 300mg EPA, on and we also got 100mg of WD-40.

It is the utmost importance that as consumers that we do a little research to educate yourself, there are hundreds of “natural supplement” companies out there, and the price difference varies on the same product. The rule of thumb we can use is companies that cut corners will have a lower price,  a lower guaranteed potency of their ingredients, and questionable quality of the source. You would have to wonder for example why Costco Kirkland Fish Oil only cost $10.99 for 400 capsules, compared to Nordic Naturals, or the ones we carry Poliquin for $40.99 for 120 capsules. For my BioSignature/Nutritional Clients I only recommend Nordic Naturals for a store bought brand, as they are manufactured and tested the same way as the Poliquin brand is, it is also backed up by caliper measurements for my follow-ups.

Below are the companies being sued

• GNC Liquid Norwegian Cod Liver Oil
• Nature Made Cod Liver Oil
• Nature Made Odorless Fish Oil
• NOW Foods Shark Liver Oil
• NOW Foods Double Strength Cod Liver Oil
• NOW Foods Salmon Oil
• Solgar 100% Pure Norwegian Shark Liver Oil Complex
• Solgar Norwegian Cod Liver Oil
• Twinlab Norwegian Cod Liver Oil
• Twinlab Emulsified Norwegian Cod Liver Oil

The two retailers also in this lawsuit are:

• Rite-Aid Corp
• CVS Pharmacy
• GNC

For more details you can find the case article @ Natural Product Insider or Fishoilsafety.com