The party is over but that's ok

I was recently away as my kids had spring break. Before I complain, you should know that I fully appreciated the warm weather, the leisure time (although I am guilty of scheduling vacation days) and opportunity to explore a new place. On this trip I tried sour sop, star apple, naseberry, Blue Mountain coffee and pretty much jerk everything. The trip was invigorating, special, adventurous, beautiful etc.

When our plane landed at JFK last night I received an email from a friend.

When are you working out this week? I am aiming to go everyday this starting tomorrow at 9:30. I need to get back to my routine, traveling with the family vacation left me totally out of shape

I’ll have you know via Facebook I know for a fact this friend doesn’t appear out of shape and never has but I totally understand that she felt it. She added.

I know it’s against the Slayton rule to start over on Monday but I am.

I joked that it’s so sad. I was away at a place with an organic farm. I was eating greens, active and hardly boozing it up but still felt more than a little off. I told her I was rebooting today as well.

My healthy friend added I brought my nutribullet, my miraculous powders and found kale at a market in the Bahamas it’s not like I was pounding pina coladas but still...

If you’re still with me after the post Jamaica woe is meing let me explain. It doesn’t take a lot, especially when you’re in a good routine, to feel off after a week away. The three main culprits are the salt (when you’re eating most meals out), slightly less exercise (or less intense exercise) and a GI slowdown many experience.

Post vacation plan: 

• Go Plain Jane- hard-boiled eggs, simply grilled chicken or poached salmon are perfect. Befriend the steamer or hit the farmer’s markets for some fresh, raw greens. For condiments apple cider vinegar, walnut or coconut oil and lemon are where it's at.
• P and C or probiotics and chia daily. If your GI system slows down with the rest of you while away, I hear you. I love the cocochia packets as they contain both probiotics and chia. If your probiotic supplement is hiding in the cabinet time to put it near your toothbrush so you remember to take it.
• Sweat- cardio helps with jetlag if you have it and it also helps you loose that fluid. 180-200 minutes per week post vacation.
• Tea and turmeric- Yogi detox tea and Fennel tea are great post vacation tools. And turmeric is good for mood and inflammation…sprinkle away.

The silver lining in coming home feeling a little off is that it makes getting back into your routine (work included) sort of nice. At least I think so.
Do you feel off when you get back from a trip? In what way? What do you do to remedy it? 

Are You Skinny Fat? Find Out Why.

 When it comes to meals there’s breakfast and lunch but then there’s brunch. A similar combination exists when it comes to weight, there’s skinny and fat and then skinny fat. Skinny fat is a person who’s thin for the most part but has a high body fat percentage. Skinny fat can also apply to that friend who you think can eat “whatever she wants” and stay skinny. Skinny fat people may weigh the right amount for their height, they may look fine in clothes but under it all there’s extra, some mush, less muscle mass.

What type of exercise makes you skinny fat?
For some reason cardio, in particular spinning, takes a lot of heat for its connection to skinny fatness. A trainer named Charles Poliquin was asked about spinning in Oxygen magazine and let’s just say he was not a fan.

“In spinning exercise, the body adapts by storing both intra-muscular and subcutaneous fat in the thigh and hip areas to provide a more readily available source of fuel for the aerobic recovery periods. The body figures out, if I store fat there it reduces the time to get to the muscles to provide the energy source. Result: Kobe beef thighs and butt, all plump and marbled with fat inside.”

 I enjoy spinning (I’m a Flywheel fan) but I think the key word in the harsh (Kobe beef thighs?) quote above is “adapts”. Our bodies adapt to anything. I think those most in danger of being skinny fat, or not changing their bodies, are those who only spin. We need more than spinning and ultimately more than cardio too. Whether it’s superslow training, barre, Crossfit you need some strength work and variety. Getting better at something may be when your body gets worse. And let’s face it,  some skinny fat people don’t exercise at all.

When you eat may make you skinny fat

Another ingredient for skinny fatness is erratic eating.  Some erratic eaters skip breakfast, others “save up” for dinner. Or the biggest clue when I’m talking to a client when it comes to skinny fat is “I’m not hungry.” You’re not hungry when your body assumes food isn’t coming in regularly, so it hangs onto that fat. Hungry people are the ones burning through all their food.

Sitting
This information was relatively new to me. I mentioned it when reviewing Drop Dead Healthy. Sitting isn’t bad because you’re not moving. It’s worse than that. Lipase helps muscles absorb fat. When we sit, we don’t produce lipase so fat can “go off and do naughty things”. 

Does Veganism Make You Skinny Fat?

Vegan Diets get picked on for making people skinny fat. I’m not a vegan but it’s not all vegan diets it’s vegan diets or any diet missing one of the following

• Protein- I know I’m going to hear it (read some of the comments in “are meat substitutes worse than meat”) but when I drop my animal protein down, I feel a little skinny fat. Organic chicken, wild fish, grass-fed beef, if you aren’t morally against them, may help. And yes, some vegans get plenty of protein.
• Good fats- certain types of fat, consumed strategically can decrease body fat. Omega 3’s in fish, omega 3 eggs and chia seed. We’ve also discussed the power of sunflower seeds. And finally, a little coconut oil is a good saturated fat.
• Vegetables- every 10-gram increase in fiber decreases body fat by over 3 percent in a couple of years. Not everyone who avoids animal products is automatically consuming enough fiber and certainly the same can be said of most omnivores. Salad is not enough. Try for produce at every meal and hone in on crucifers: broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy and kale. I also think cabbage needs more love.

We can joke at this skinny fat term but doctors are seeing lots of young people who aren’t overweight but exhibit signs of pre diabetes. You can be skinny fat on the inside too. Mark Hyman writes “they are normal weight but metabolically obese with all the same risks of disease and death as the obese. One in seven normal weight kids has pre-diabetes or Type 2 diabetes.”

There are also some skinny fat variables are out of our control. Getting older with the natural decline in muscle mass can lead to complaints of skinny fat. And some may feel skinny fat is fine. The New York Times documented the hipster belly among men that don’t want to be muscleheads. Just one more way I’m not hip.

Are you aware of the term skinny fat? What do you think it's about? If you spin, are vegan or sit a lot I'd love to hear from you.

What's More Important Cardio or Weights and Should You Do it Twice a Day?

I had lunch with an old friend yesterday. By old I mean a friend I’ve know since grade school, god knows we’re so far from old. We talked about work. He teaches film at Columbia and is in the process of making his first feature film. We moved onto friends, some soon to be married, some soon to be divorced and one in the middle of a very public scandal (more on that later). Toward the end of our meal, my friend said he had a nutrition question for me. I had to laugh because this was the last person I ever thought I'd be talking shop with. This was a friend for whom “green” in high school didn’t refer to kale, a friend who spent more time in the pubs one summer at Oxford than in class, you know the type.

My friend mentioned he had put on a few pounds and he and his brother have been debating something lately. He had started to run but his brother suggested he lift weights instead. He said:

You have to settle this, what’s better for weight loss cardio or weights?*

The cop out answer is they are both important and to a certain extent that’s true. However, if I have a client who wants to lost weight and start an exercise routine initially I would encourage a cardio-heavy regime. Cardio will give a faster initial result. After some weight loss and the cardio routine is established weights can be integrated. Once at a comfortable weight I would put more exercise “eggs” in the strength-training basket. If weight isn’t as much a concern I think a cardio/yoga or a cardio/barre class (the latter more so for women) compliment each other nicely. I told my friend to keep running but not too increase mileage too quickly or his appetite would go through the roof.  There’s such a thing as marathon munchies too. And as long as I mentioned food, let's be clear that exercise alone does not produce results. 

I then asked my friend how his girlfriend was doing. He said she was doing well and, as a teacher, enjoying her summer off. “She would’ve come to lunch but she’s on this twice a day yoga kick, isn’t that a little much?” I told him I didn’t think so. Many of my triathlete clients do an AM and a PM workout. I don’t think everyone needs two hours a day of exercise but a “doubleheader” once a week is a good way to ratchet up results. This double header can be two yoga classes, one hour of cardio and one hour of strength or simply a longer cardio (such as a run or a bike ride).

Lunch ended and I walked back to my office. I thought about how times had changed. Instead of concerts, we were now talking cardio. I also though about my friend’s comment about our classmate involved in the scandal (that may have something to do with phone tapping). “How funny is it that this is the same person who always wanted to be an archaeologist?” Maybe it’s not that surprising, he’s just doing a different type of digging now.

Are you more of a cardio person or do you prefer strength training? Ever do a double header? Is it funny how people can suddenly have an interest in exercise or nutrition? Does that mean that person is old?

*I hold no degree in exercise physiology so this post is the equivalent of a trainer or physical therapist giving nutrition advice which I loathe. Know that I am aware my opinion means absolutely nothing.