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This Kind Of Morning Nutrition Can Help You Thrive

By Tim Irvine and Tamara Kung ND

My morning meal has evolved dramatically over the years. For the first 25 years of my life, I was religious about frozen from concentrate orange or apple juice, toast with a bunch of jam, and some sort of cereal. The latter was usually a ‘healthier’ options like Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, or Cheerios. Healthier when compared to Captain Crunch and Count Chocula. That is until I added a tablespoon or more of brown sugar, because there just wasn’t enough added sugar in my choices as they were. Ugh.

Contrast that with what I do now which is usually some sort of protein like eggs, yogurt with blue berries and natural granola, and often some amazing whole grain bread with natural peanut butter. I’m a coffee guy in training now (more about that in a different article) but it’s not part of my morning routine. Instead, I have one of these two options as my morning drink:

  1. 750ml of water with 3/4’s of a teaspoon of Biosteel sport performance powder, ¾’s of a teaspoon of Schinoussa sea vegetable super food, a teaspoon of creatine, and 4-6 drops of vitamin d3/k2.
  2. 300ml of unsweetened, non flavoured almond milk, 300ml of water, one full scoop (about 3 tbs) of Younited All In One Protein superfood mix, and a teaspoon of creatine.

I’ve evolved to these drinks based on my reading of what will give me the most bang for my health buck. Since I don’t have extensive education in nutrition, I thought I would get some feedback from someone who has much more knowledge of this area than I do. That’s where Dr. Tamara Kung, ND, comes in with an assessment of my concoctions. Let’s see what she thinks.

It’s great to see the evolution of your breakfast which reflects your constant desire to continue learning to become empowered to take control of your health. This is how we can find the best possible ways to enhance our physical and cognitive function. 

At first glance, these are great morning cocktails especially since I know you are quite active in your mornings, often enjoying a run outdoors as well.

We’ll start off with Cocktail 1.

I really enjoy the combination of Biosteel and Sea Vegetable for your lifestyle. I see it being beneficial for you for these reasons:

·       Electrolytes from Biosteel include essential minerals like sodium, potassium, and magnesium, which is helpful for those as active as you are. Replenishing sodium and potassium are 100% necessary for generating the electrical spark that gets your muscles to initiate movement, and also the sparks of communication within the neural circuits of your brain. For this reason, electrolytes can be helpful as a physical and cognitive performance enhancer. Since I’m aware that you are following mostly unprocessed, Real Foods, the extra sodium is safe to include. 

·       There’s a small addition of beetroot in Biosteel’s formula as well, which is a fun nitric oxide boost. This molecule helps dilate our blood vessels, increasing oxygen efficiency and studies have shown beetroot juice to improve endurance and physical performance.

·       You get convenient coverage of vitamins and minerals from Biosteel, and while I typically prefer using real food for achieving your daily doses, this is a very easy way to ensure your bases are covered. Because I know you eat mostly Real, unprocessed foods, I think this is a great supplement to your Real Food diet. For example, the extra folate helps with muscle synthesis, and is why Popeye the sailor man was famous for popping cans of spinach into his daily routine.

·       Sea vegetables from Schinoussa include ingredients like algae! This is a whole category of foods that  I think more people definitely need more of. It’s not common in Western diets. But remember that part of healthy nutrition is not just eating whole, Real Foods, but also diversity. Different foods offer varying amounts of nutrients. Spirulina and chlorella are Real Food sources of nutrients like iron, vitamin A & C which can help improve skin health, is a source of plant protein, and omega 3s with 500 mg per serving. Algae are a nutrient dense, antioxidant powerhouse and their efficient anti-inflammatory capacity contributes to protecting us from chronic disease as well!

Health Eating = Real Foods + Diversity

·       Vitamin D3/K2 is important for us Canadians to include. The combination with vitamin K2 is important to support cardiovascular health and protect us from calcifying are blood vessels. I often suggest having these levels measured and dose according to the results from your blood work which you can receive from your GP or friendly neighbourhood naturopath 🙂 

On to Cocktail 2:

·       Creatine is one of the most well studied amino acids and the supplement of this has been shown to improve physical performance in terms of strength and endurance. It can also increase lean muscle mass, which all again are helpful for athletes like yourself. 

·       I’m excited about Younited’s product. It has prebiotics (a fancy word for fiber in the form of inulin and mushrooms), an array of both land and sea vegetables, a plethora of antioxidant, and anti-cancer spices, fruits and vegetables (like moringa & broccoli and mushrooms). The power of the entire food beats out supplements that just extract singular vitamins and minerals. The interactions of thousands of compounds in a Real Food are unmatched in their synergy when eaten in whole form – we have just scratched the surface in this realm but research so far shows whole foods beat out isolate nutrients more often than not!

Suggestions:

1.        The only addition I’d make to your cocktail rotation is the supplement of hydrolyzed collagen. 

o   Collagen is the  most abundant protein in our body and is an integral structural protein in muscles, tendons, ligaments, skin, blood vessels, gut tissue, and dentin in our teeth. Studies show that it improves healing and recovery after athletic injury, alleviates joint pain, and can protect the integrity of joints -as collagen can be directly deposited in these areas! 

o   Collagen also improves skin health, improving skin elasticity and it’s protective function.

2.        Diversity

o   The fact you have two different super drinks to choose from is great. I would recommend alternating them with every other day, or maybe one week on and the next week will be the other. This way you get a chance to absorb a variety of nutrients from all the different sources which helps to keep your vitamin and mineral levels topped up, and not heavy on only certain types. 

It is no easy feat to unhook yourself from old habits and what appears to be a heavy slant on processed sugary foods, so I want to give you a HUGE high five for that! The fact that we are discussing nutrition and ways to enhance every part of Level 2 Tim at this high level is not only fun, but I hope these incorporations leave you feeling better overall.

Thanks Tamara!

It looks like I’m on the right track and with a couple of additional adjustments I’ll be able to improve the good thing I have going. Hopefully you can take something away from this that will work for you. Cheers!

References:

Andrade, L.M., et al. (2018). Chlorella and spirulina microalgae as sources of functional foods, nutraceuticals, and food supplements; an overview. MOJ Food Processing & Technology, 6(2). Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lidiane-Andrade/publication/322888591_Chlorella_and_Spirulina_Microalgae_as_Sources_of_Functional_Foods_Nutraceuticals_and_Food_Supplements_an_Overview/links/5a745245458515512078e1ec/Chlorella-and-Spirulina-Microalgae-as-Sources-of-Functional-Foods-Nutraceuticals-and-Food-Supplements-an-Overview.pdf

Domínguez R, Cuenca E, Maté-Muñoz JL, García-Fernández P, Serra-Paya N, Estevan MC, Herreros PV, Garnacho-Castaño MV.  (2017). Effects of beetroot juice supplementation on cardiorespiratory endurance in athletes: A systematic review. Nutrients, 9(1):43. doi: 10.3390/nu9010043. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5295087/ 

Gurney T, Spendiff O. Algae Supplementation for Exercise Performance: Current Perspectives and Future Directions for Spirulina and Chlorella. Front Nutr. 2022 Mar 7;9:865741. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.865741. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8937016/

Patrick, R. Hydrolyzed collagen Found My Fitness. Retrieved from https://www.foundmyfitness.com/topics/collagen

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Lessons To Avoid Back And Shoulder Pain

By Tim Irvine

I have a problem. It’s not exactly world shattering, but it will allow you to learn from my mistakes.

While I’ve progressed my thinking in many areas, I seem to be stuck with a mindset from my 20’s as it relates to my physical capabilities. Back when I could sprint, jump, throw, catch, hit, etc., all at full speed, at any moment.

Time has moved on and, apparently, so have my capabilities. There have been a series of injures, none particularly catastrophic, but all avoidable.

Like the parallel bars in a park in Quebec last winter. Shoulder tear.

Or my no warmup hockey game the winter before. Searing back pain.

And most recently, an early morning, post-run deadlifting session. A different kind of back pain.

It seems ridiculous given my education, experience and profession, but taking my own advice has never been my strong suit.

Here is what you can learn from my ridiculous mistakes.

  1. Sitting can really mess you up.

I’ve gone from a day filled with workouts, sports, and more than 15,000 steps, to sitting 6-8 hours daily. Weekends are a break from it, but the overwhelming repetition of my butt on a chair wins in a landslide. What does this look like in real terms?

  • Slightly rounded forward shoulders put the shoulder joint in a poor functional position. When you are doing some parallel bar work after a decade away from it, this new shoulder position is a disaster. Ouch!
  • Short hamstrings, short hip flexors, weak abs. When you start moving fast, and I use ‘fast’ loosely these days, with major structures like these tugging on your pelvis and spine with reduced abdominal support, bad things happen. Painful things happen.

Solution: Don’t sit so much (Nobel prize, here I come). If you do need to sit, change position or move every 30 minutes. No joke. EVERY 30 minutes.

  1. Warmups are actually good for you.

Before a track meet, my daughter needs to be there over 90 minutes ahead of her event so she can warm up properly. She’s 16. If a 16 year old trained athlete needs an hour +, why do I think it makes any sense to show up, forgoe the warmup, and just giver’ in my hockey game? Spoiler alert, there is no reasonable answer for this other than something including the word stupid. The pressures of time usually means we cut the warmup short, or remove it completely. Take it from me, this is a bad idea.

  • No warmup means muscles are not prepared for demands placed on them, dramatically increasing the risk of a strain – aka a tear.
  • No warmup means the neuromuscular system is not ‘primed’ to protect joints and their supporting structures resulting in an increased risk of ligament or tendon injury.
  • If you really want to increase your injury risk, workout first thing in the morning without a warmup.

Solution: Always, always, always warm up. The more intense your activity, the longer and more specific the warmup needs to be.

  1. Know where you are at and do what fits.

If there is one lesson that is most important for me, and many others, it’s this one. If I just put my M.Sc. to work for myself, I would program and train myself much differently, and the first two lessons above would be mute. I’d sit way less and warmup really well. Everything would be much less risky as it relates to injuries.

Solution: Forget about what was and focus on what is. Where are you at today and what is appropriate to be doing? It doesn’t mean the pursuit of performance is dead, the process just needs to be thoughtful and match one’s current abilities.

Bonus considerations.

Tissue pliability changes with age, but more so with use. Keeping your muscles pliable, flexible, supple goes a long way to keeping your movements ‘young’. If you are 30 and have been sitting for your job the last five years, your tissues have lost pliability. Realize this and remember this is how Tom Brady played until he was 45.

When you do sustain an injury, appropriate activity really helps with recovery. Gone are the days when rest was the go to way to recover from any kind if tissue injury, including surgeries. My most recent back injury is a perfect example. I hurt it in the morning but had a full day ahead of me and I had to plow through. Appropriately. I took my own advice for once and moved carefully all day with a resulting 30-40% decrease in my pain before heading to bed. Had I laid on the couch all day, I would not have had the same improvement.

The above is written with tongue in cheek, however, the messages are no less important. There are many things I do right, but a lack of time usually leads me to make decisions I know are not ideal, but I think I’ll be able to get away with it. Sometimes I do, but when I don’t, the result is a real pain.

Take my advice and be smart with your decisions

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Can Your Fitness Handle These Baselines?

By Tim Irvine

There are many ways to be ‘fit’, but general fitness is important for ‘moving as young as possible’ for as long as possible. And it’s not just about moving well when you are over 40. Think about a toddler in a full, deep squat and then that same child as a 10-year-old. They have already lost their ability to squat optimally, and that negative adaptation continues over time.

Dr. Peter Attia is a world-renowned expert on longevity. His research has further proven how important movement and exercise are to many health factors.

When he works with clients, he has several baseline physical tests that he uses to establish objective metrics for a person’s current state is. These measures are all based in science and translate to how healthy someone is. To learn a bit more about how these translate to health, you can watch this video.


So how do you stack up?

Below are some of the assessments that he uses. These should not be looked at as things to go out and try today unless you already have a lot of experience with them. As described, they are meant for a 40-year-old other than the VO2 max. Performing any exercise to a max effort has injury risk, and the last thing I’m trying to suggest here is to go out and push yourself past your tissue limits. It’s all about establishing your baseline. I suggest stopping any of these when you get to the point of ‘wow, this is really hard’. Dead hang and Farmer carry especially.

  • Dead Hang – two minutes
  • 90 degrees at the knee static squat – 2 minutes
  • VO2 max is in the 75th percentile
    • Use this link to determine a submaximal measure of this and then input it into this percentile ranking tool. Farmer carry your body weight for two minutes (75% body weight for women)
  • Farmer carry for two minutes
    • Men – 100% of body weight
    • Women – 75% of body weight

You can incorporate a few others into the mix: vertical jump and deadlifting your body weight ten times. I think it’s safe to say you want to be in the 75th percentile or higher for vertical. Age-related norms for vertical can be seen here, but they are reported in centimetres.

Enjoy the challenge these tests provide but do so safely.

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The Best Goal Setting Approach For Youth Athletes

By. Coach Danny Carrillo

Setting ambitious goals should be encouraged and we should not be afraid of taking a step back to add elements that might seem small but will ultimately make a big impact on achieving what we set out to do!

The concept of using a process oriented approach is based on my own experience, as well as learning from one of my favorite resources, The Language of Coaching by Nick Winkleman.

Goal setting brings purpose to your daily learning environment and ultimately, helps to define what you pay attention to in your surroundings.

Think about the last time you set a goal. Was it a short-term or long-term one? Was it focused on a single aspect of your life (i.e. health, career, personal development, etc.)? Was it focused on the achievement itself?

Odds are your goal fell under one of the following categories, and more likely the latter:

  1. Process- Oriented Goal
  2. Outcome- Oriented Goal

In our daily lives, we tend to set outcome-oriented goals because they can oftentimes feel like they’re easier to measure. For example, losing a certain amount of weight, or lifting a particular amount at the gym. However, I challenge you to start breaking bigger goals down into smaller process goals, so that you feel like you’re making regular, consistent progress. You may be wondering– why would that make a difference? Let me give you an example:

If the goal is to lose or gain 5 lbs and we only focus on a loss or gain as the measurement, we can get disappointed in not seeing progress regularly. Instead, if our goal is to visit the gym for 4 days throughout the week we have more flexibility. Going to the gym is part of the process. That way, the progress towards your goal can be attributed to the consistency of going to the gym, rather than taking drastic, unsustainable measures to hit your desired outcome.

This doesn’t mean timelines aren’t important when pursuing an ambitious goal, but I believe that taking a process-oriented approach makes the journey a lot more enjoyable since it provides you more flexibility on the journey.

These types of goals are also present in the context of strength and conditioning. A process-oriented goal is one that relates to a specific feature of the motor skill being practiced (ex. squatting). Whereas an outcome-oriented goal, is one that focuses on the results of the motor skill practiced (ex. Squatting with the intention of transferring the skill to learning how to jump to catch a ball).

As a coach, it is my responsibility to ensure that the goal/desired outcome my athletes are working towards is appropriate for their current skill level. It is also important to remember that once I have taught the desired skill, I need to take a step back and let my athletes figure things out for themselves in a safe and encouraging environment.

By taking a step back, I allow my athletes to embrace their own process in learning the skill while making sure to provide them the opportunity of becoming more confident in themselves and their abilities!

Ultimately, I believe that it is important to keep yourself accountable, but life happens, and goals may take a bit longer to achieve sometimes and that’s okay! I believe a process-oriented approach can extend to other areas of our lives because it not only lets us achieve everything we set out to do, but it also allows us greater learning opportunities and makes the journey that much sweeter.

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Summer Musts Before Labour Day

Tim Irvine

Summer is never long enough, but if we put our minds to it, we can maximize our enjoyment.

Everyone I know has their favourite things to do in the summer. People who do things they love that bring them joy are healthier.

Here are seven things you should try to get in before the end of the labour day weekend.

  1. Swing in a hammock.
    1. Research is sparse on the benefits of swinging in a hammock so let’s just go with the obvious. It feels great! To have all your weight supported and feel that gentle swing motion is just awesome. And since hammocks are almost always between two trees, you benefit from being below a big green canopy.
  2. Have a three-swim day, including one in the moonlight.
    1. The feeling of dipping or jumping into refreshing water is such a mental reset on a hot day. Doing it three times in one day takes it to another level. The feeling of the water on your skin, the temperature difference, the buoyancy. So many unique feelings to enjoy. You are best to find a lake or ocean for this one, but always have a partner for safety.
  3. Walk in the woods.
    1. There is ample research on the benefits of being in a forest. Time spent in and around trees naturally reduces physical and mental stress. We can all benefit from a break from the usual urban stresses.
  4. Go barefoot on the beach or grass.
    1. Many people swear by this practice. Some suggest a positive energy transfer from earth to the body, but the research is inconclusive. Conclusively, going barefoot on uneven surfaces like sand forces the muscles of your feet and ankles to work how they are supposed to. Even better, it feels so, so good on your skin.
  5. Soak up some sun.
    1. Getting direct sunshine has many proven health benefits. The most celebrated is the production of vitamin D. Dermatologists are right; too much sun can damage your skin, so make sure it is an appropriate amount for you. Choose the start or end of the day to avoid those intense mid-day rays.
  6. Play in the rain.
    1. When was the last time you did this? For most adults, we can’t remember the pure joy of playing in the rain. Kids love to do it and always have a blast getting wet and dirty. Let your guard down and go have some fun in the rain. The laughs and smiles will be worth the laundry.
  7. Watch the sunrise.
    1. Peace and quiet. We all crave this. There is no better time to get a dose than at sunrise in the summer. It’s also a great way to be mindful, which we all know is beneficial for our mental health.

You now have your checklist. See how many of them you can get checked off before labour day 2022 is in the background.

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Save time, make gains: The efficient 3/7workout

By Tim Irvine

Alex Hutchinson wrote an incredible article about the 3/7 workout. In short, it is a five-set program with escalating repetitions, but only 15 seconds of rest between sets. You can learn all about the details by reading it here.

There are two key messages. One, to gain strength effectively, muscles must reach a point of failure. The 3/7 method accomplishes that as long as you are using 70% of your maximum weight for a given exercise. Not particularly surprising, but many people who resistance train don’t reach failure. Why? It hard. And painful. These are two things that most people shy away from.   

The second key message is efficiency. In my opinion, this is the most important factor in staying in a routine. If it’s too long and we get bored, or we find ourselves in a hurry, the likelihood of us continuing over the long term decreases. But if we can get in and out in a short amount of time, AND create progress, well that’s very motivating.

My conclusion about the 3/7 workout is that it is exceptional for efficiency and effectiveness. It creates gains in a short period of time, even in high-level sports. That’s great for motivation as well as allowing us to manage our busy lives AND take care of our physical selves. I acknowledge the hard work and pain part can decrease motivation, but the beauty of the 3/7 is that it is a very short duration with not a lot of time to think about it. Contrast that with six sets of six reps of heavy squats with two and a half minutes of rest in between. That’s close to 15 minutes. That is a lot of time, period. It’s also a lot of time to think about how hard and painful it will be. That works against our nature of wanting to avoid pain and suffering.

Give it a try if you are just getting back into workouts, or if you just want to mix things up. Your body will thank you either way.

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Protect Your Joints From Injury

By Tim Irvine

Moving is an incredible cure for so many physical and psychological ailments. It is imperative we move, but it’s also important that we move correctly to avoid pain and/or injury.

In the world of ergonomics, there is a saying. ‘The perfect position is the next position’. Meaning, always change the position your body is in to avoid adaptations that put your joints out of alignment.

Sitting, for example usually results in rounded shoulders and a low back. Excessive or prolonged time in these positions alters limb mechanics and corresponding joint positions. When we move dynamically, those joints don’t magically return to their optimal position, they remain out of alignment and these small imbalances increase the wear and tear on the joint structures.

What can we do to reduce the risk of joint degeneration?

  1. Move-in all directions regularly.
    1. For example, if you are a runner and do so multiple times weekly, you need to perform some movements that ‘undo’ the mechanics of running so your body does not get pulled out of balance.
  2. Avoid getting stuck in any one position for too long.
    1. In our society, most of us are desk-bound which means sitting way more than we should. That’s a problem waiting to happen for our joints. Work from all sorts of different positions during the day. Standing, sitting, lying, etc. Just keep changing and avoid joints getting ‘stuck’ in certain positions.
  3. Hydrate.
    1. Yes, you’ve heard it over and over, but it works. Consuming ample amounts of water helps keep our joints hydrated and reduces the risk of damage. Sugary beverages don’t count as they add inflammation to the body.
  4. Eat a low inflammation diet.
    1. When we perform a dynamic exercise like tennis, for example, it naturally inflames the body. This is good inflammation. If we eat an inflammatory diet, however, we are not allowing the exercise inflammation to recover. We’re putting nutrition inflammation on top of exercise inflammation and that sets us up for problems.
  5. Stay strong.
    1. This is probably the most important strategy of them all. If your muscles weaken, they allow for more joint movement for the same given activity. This may mean the range of motion can exceed ‘strong’ ranges and put the joints, tendons, ligaments, and muscles in vulnerable positions. Weakness may also allow the joint to move in ways it shouldn’t, thereby increasing the risk of acute injury.
  6. Supplement with products when necessary.
    1. Our diets are not perfect. Sometimes we need to supplement with products that promote better health. For joints, an example is a collagen supplement.

Typically, people complain of joint pain as they get older. This is in part because of the natural ‘experience’ or wear and tear on the joint over time. More often the degradation is a result of poor habits applied over years. We don’t do ourselves any favours and then seemingly out of the blue we start experiencing joint problems. Practice joint health habits early and often and you will be able to continue to move young as you age.

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Gaining Doesn’t Have to be Painful: Sustainable Habits From the Comfort of Your Green Zone

By Dr. Tamara Kung, ND

A couple of years ago I watched a Ted Talk given by Dr. Stephen Seiler, a professor in Sport Science at the University of Agder in Norway. He described a surprisingly contradicting phenomenon he noticed in top-performing endurance athletes that went against the frequently quoted and deeply embedded “No pain, no gain” mentality so prolific in our society. 

So many of us grow up learning that to improve, we have to push ourselves through pain and sacrifice. Cue all the brutal montages in the movies of super-intense training with scrunched-up faces gasping for air and bodies dripping with sweat, and the illusion they are training this way every single day. 

What piqued Dr. Seiler’s interest was when he was out for a run one day and saw one of the top athletes he had previously studied in his lab, approach a hill while on her run. He knew she was capable of high levels of performance, so was taken aback when she stopped running and began walking up the hill. To him, if there was a hill, he’d push himself to run up there as fast as he could, so why was this talented athlete not running when she could clearly do so?

What he discovered was that most of the elite athletes stay in their green zone most of the time. 

  • The green zone is defined as the level of activity where you can hold an easy conversation and feel only a mild level of exertion. 
  • Yellow zones are when you can respond in a few word phrases and feel a moderate level of exertion. 
  • Red zones are where you are gasping for air and feel extremely pushed to your exertional limits (what we see in the movies).

An example was taken from the all-time winter olympian Marit Bjørgen who let researchers gather data from all her training years. During her peak years of training, Marit’s year would be in the green zone for about 800 hours and less than 100 hours in her yellow and red zones. 

Furthermore, the best marathon runner in history, Eliud Kipchoge, takes the same approach. “I perform 80 percent on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and then at 50 percent Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday”. Lots of green zone in his training.

Spending most of their practice in the green zones allows the most successful athletes to build a strong foundation for those moments of yellow and red zone intensities. It’s a place where they can practice comfortably, enjoy it, and recover, day in and day out. And that’s where the success comes from.

Practice needs to be sustainable, that’s where our bodies and minds rewire and create new adaptations and improve our performance.

Daily moderately high intensity can lead to burnout and stagnation, and unfortunately, this is what happens to a lot of people when they get excited about hitting a new workout regime hard. They believe they will see more benefits if they go all out every day and get frustrated when they can’t sustain this. It’s because it’s not sustainable, and this idea of No pain, no gain is not realistic.

Now, let’s apply this theme to other skills as well.

Nutrition

  • Green zone examples:
  • Replacing one processed snack with berries / your favourite fruits and nuts instead. 
  • Having a hearty, colourful salad for lunch 1 day per week
  • Incorporating one new fruit, vegetable, bean, or any plant food per month
  • Yellow zone examples: 
  • Having a cup of berries on alternating days for your snacks
  • Having a colourful salad on alternate days for lunches
  • Avoiding eating after dinner on weekdays
  • Red zone examples:
  • Avoiding added sugars and processed foods 
  • Having colourful meals that contain all 7 colours daily
  • Enjoying at least 40 different foods a week

Sleep

  • Green zone examples:
  • Putting blue-light-blocking glasses on as dusk approaches to protect your melatonin
  • Turn on a salt lamp or light candles in the evenings
  • Silencing device notifications 2 hours before bedtime
  • Yellow zone examples:
  • Take your phone/ any device out of the bedroom when you sleep
  • Avoid sitting on the couch watching tv at night, and discovering alternate activities to do instead.
  • Red zone examples:
  • In bed at a time where you achieve 8 hours of sleep
  • There are no devices or screen use at least 2 hours before bed

As you can see, we can apply this green zone style of training to the lifestyle habits that we want to practice supporting sustainable health. Your green zone practices should be relaxing, and most importantly enjoyable. Configure a green zone practice that feels best for you, something you look forward to and will be able to sustain and build up your strength and success in!

Reference:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237096628_Does_Polarized_Training_Improve_Performance_in_Recreational_Runners

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Are Big Cushioned Running Shoes For You?

By Tim Irvine

One of my favorite health and wellness authors, Alex Hutchinson, wrote a great article on running shoes and how cushioning is all the rage. Almost everyone has a pair of ‘joggers’. Those are the ones that distance runners use and are specifically designed to help make running safer, more efficient, and faster. Well, at least that’s what the manufacturers are trying to do.

It only takes a moment in front of a wall of shoes at your favorite running store to see the huge variety in styles. In particular, we are in a time of big cushioning. Ten to fifteen years ago it was minimalist shoes with as little cushioning as possible. ‘Let the foot do what it’s supposed to do’ was the rationale. In part, that is still true, but we’ve evolved since then.

In Alex’s article, he references the Vaporfly by Nike as one of the reasons cushioning has taken off. It made a controversial improvement in elite running times. The improvement was substantial, and people questioned whether it was even fair. To their credit, Nike nailed the ‘performance’ side of their goal. The other great thing was it inspired lots of needed research about cushioning. You can read Alex’s article to find out lots of cool detail about research methodology, but the point of this article is to help educate you on your decisions when picking your own runners.

The most important part, which is also referenced in the article, is to choose a shoe that is comfortable and feels good for you. When I was running marathons, I used New Balance 501s. As I learned more about running, and shoes, the 501s would not have been a recommendation for me based on my foot mechanics and what that shoe was made for. But I have a wide foot and it was a wide shoe, so that was a comfortable fit. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in matching your foot with a shoe that supports it properly, but if it’s not comfortable, it may create problems for you.

When you are buying that new pair, try at least three different models/brands. The more you try, the better your education and ability to find that perfect comfort level. Be cautious about any claims, as peer-reviewed research is growing but the evidence is still light.

Understanding your foot mechanics is also important. If your salesperson can’t provide some basics, then see someone like Victoria Lavinskas or Katie Snowden at Totum. They are exceptional therapists as well as runners and they can provide you an understanding of your own unique mechanics.

Eventually, the research will catch up and provide us with some more definitive guidance on how these different shoe designs help or hurt us. In the meantime, we take in all available information, match it with comfort, and get out and enjoy ourselves.

PS If you are looking to improve your running, or to get started in running and want to do it right, take a look at our RunSmart program. It’s an amazing education!

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Do This One Thing For Overall Health

Tim Irvine

I’m often asked, “If you could make one recommendation for overall health, what would it be?”

Man, that’s a tough one. Sometimes being science and evidence based is restrictive. Each situation is different and my ‘one piece of advice’ would be different for everyone. Individuals require individual approaches.

There are an almost infinite number of possible answers to this, but I’m going to provide two personal favorites to this question: 1a and 1b.

1a is to move in nature. It doesn’t matter to me if you are walking, rolling, running, or biking. Just get out and move in nature. The movement and the greenery have been studied extensively and there is an overabundance of evidence 100% of the population will benefit from both.

1b is to sleep well. As with moving in nature, the benefits of sleep for body and brain are extensively proven scientifically. Recovery, emotional control, cognitive ability, hormonal profiles, etc. Good consistent sleep is incredibly beneficial to your overall health. It’s not up to me to tell you how much that is because everyone is different. If you want a guideline, I’d say 7.5 – 8 hours nightly, uninterrupted. If you are wondering what your natural schedule is, you would need to sleep without an alarm clock for at least a week or two, and on those last two days of the period, you would find out how many hours you sleep naturally. That would then become your nightly goal.

So, there you have it, my one-ish answer to the magical question. You are seriously ‘winning’ when you are doing both above well.

Now I have a question for you? Which one do you think you could improve the most on, and what will you do to take one small step in that direction? Information is power, but information and action is what really counts.