What is on Your Plate? 

August is here.  Bringing both the slowness of the lazy days of summer, but also the excitement of transition to the faster pace of fall and the back to school buzz.  A sense of fun and a sense of excitement prevails this month, but this reminds us of how hectic life can get.  This is a great time of year to really examine all that is on your plate. 

The slowness of the month offers a great time to reflect on your eating habits, or literally “what is on your plate.”  Take a look.  Eating is an opportunity to nurture our body 3-5 times per day, depending on your eating schedule.  What is reflected back to you when you look at your plate?  Do you see vitality and color or dull and drab.  Chances are if what you see is dull and drab that is how you will feel after eating those foods.  It is no surprise that when stress alters our eating plan our bodies feel slow and fatigued. 

The way you eat and what you eat can help your stress levels go up or down. Certain foods and eating habits can be stressors on the body.  Stress in our lives can cause us to eat in ways that are not helpful. Stress can alter our digestive enzymes and hormones in a way that causes our body to get less nutrition out of the foods that we eat.  On the other hand certain foods and eating habits can help mediate the stress in our lives.

Here are some tips to eating well during stressful time:

            #1 keep healthy foods on hand – don’t get caught off guard and unprepared.  Some healthy snack ideas include homemade granola, trail mix, a whole grain muffin with nuts & fruit, greek yogurt and fresh fruit and vegetables.

            #2 practice non-distracted eating – stress takes a toll on your digestive system reducing your body’s ability to process essential nutrients.  Avoid eating in the car, watching TV, or working.

            #3 go for color on the plate – berries at breakfast, colorful pepper slices at lunch, sweet potatoes and wilted greens at dinner.

            #4 eat as close to the earth as possible – quick foods do not need to come out of a can or box.  Stir fried veggies are designed to be fast, shrimp cooks in minutes,  black bean quesadillas are a great mid-week dinner especially stuffed with extra veggies and topped with greek yogurt and salsa.

            #5 make time in your day for eating – healthy eating is a priority.  Make it a non-negotiable part of your day.

            #6 avoid foods that will stress your system- alcohol, foods in high fat and sugar- these foods have little nutritive value, replace them with foods high in fiber and protein.

Opt for the low stress diet.  Certain nutrients in food increase hormones in the body that actually fight stress.  Boost your immune system and lower your stress by including naturally stress-reducing foods.

Tip #1 – there’s the soothing effect of sipping a warm drink, regardless of the flavor — but certain herbs, like lavender and chamomile, have been shown to have a relaxing effect on their own.

Tip #2 – Dark chocolate, which is also rich in antioxidants can also help to reduce stress by lowering levels of stress hormones in the body

Tip #3 – Avocados are not only delicious mashed into guacamole or sliced onto a salad — they’re also packed with omega-3 fatty acids. These healthy essential acids are known to reduce stress and anxiety, boost concentration, and improve mood. Try salmon, flax, seed or walnuts for more omega-3 boosting power.

            Tip #4 – Nuts are full of vitamins, including B vitamins, and healthy fatty acids as well. B vitamins are an important part of a healthy diet and can help to reduce stress

            Tip #5- Choose whole grains and lean protein, like oatmeal, salmon, chicken, tofu, yogurt, or brown rice. These foods are digested slower and will keep you fuller longer to prevent hunger and can help control blood sugar levels, which can increase due to high levels of stress. 

            Tip #6- Go for purple, blue pigments in eggplants, blueberries, cranberry juice, cherries can help to reduce oxidative stress caused by pollution, sun exposure and poor food choices.

            Tip #7 – Slow down and learn to really enjoy your food.  Pause, breathe, relax and enjoy.

When schedules are busy and life is hectic it’s not always easy to make healthy eating a priority. However, when our bodies are fueled with good nutrition it’s easier to cope with stress and have energy to be active throughout the day.

To learn easy ways to make healthy eating convenient and timesaving and to learn more about how your own eating patterns and choices affect your stress level and your body, consider scheduling an appointment with a Registered Dietitian.

Kim Evans, RD is a registered dietitian in private practice at Vermont Center for Yoga and Therapy.  She is passionate about whole foods eating and about helping people assess how to fit healthy eating into their busy lives.

Leslie Langevin, MS, RD is a registered dietitian in her private practice called Nutrition for Life. She works with individuals to make simple changes in their lives to eat healthier, live longer and feel better.

PHYSICAL THERAPY CENTER OF VERMONT

Do you pee too often? Do you leak during exercise? Do you leak on the way to the bathroom???

IF you think you do, then you most likely suffer from stress or urge incontinence. Don’t brush this off as a normal problem us girls must put up with as the litany of ads for pads and medications would have you believe.  Although urinary incontinence is a common problem for many women, it is NOT normal.  Most women have heard of Kegel exercises that target the pelvic floor muscles. Unfortunately, one-third of women do them incorrectly, relying on other muscles to assist with the contraction.  For those women doing them correctly, most don’t know what their program should consist of and how to progress it to correct incontinence.

To learn more about incontinence and how PHYSICAL THERAPY can help you, please call the PTCVT at the Williston Sports and Fitness Edge at

(802) 860-1358 to schedule an appointment with Sally Drudi

Dear Club Members,

It has always been our goal to provide our members with the best possible Group Exercise Program in Vermont.  The combination of top notch Instructors and Directors and our dedication to bringing you the very latest Group Exercise formats and programs has allowed us to not only meet this goal but exceed it.  The introduction of Les Mills BodyPump, BodyCombat, BodyAttack, (and look for BodyStep this fall) and Zumba has helped us achieve a record number of participants in our Group Exercise program.  To continue to assure the highest quality classes and the most motivating and safest environment anywhere we will be rolling out a “ticket” system of registration for some of our classes beginning August 1^st.  Please read the attached policies.  While these policies may be new to us they are very common among other very busy clubs like ours throughout the country.  As members of the International Health Racquet and Sports Club Association we have spoken with many of the country’s biggest and best clubs to assure we are providing you with the best possible experience.

We greatly appreciate your understanding and patience as we implement these new procedures.

Sincerely,

Michael Feitelberg

President

Let us help you make the most out of your membership! Whether you want to lose weight, gain muscle, improve your cardiovascular capacity, work with a personal trainer, try out yoga, get into Body Pump, or all of the above–talking with a fitness consultant for your Initial Consultation is a great place to start!

The Initial Consultation is a vital aspect of achieving your fitness goals. Talking with a consultant will actually help you talk to yourself about what you are willing to do in order to make your goals happen.

The Initial Consultation is inevitably goal-driven, but will also touch on what you have done in the past and what you want to do in the future. The IC will be a time to discuss your previous fitness and health history: as well as your current physical state and activity. From there, you and your fitness consultant will talk more about why you’re at Sports and Fitness Edge and what you want to do while you’re here.

Everyone has to start somewhere, so lets figure out where you are starting, today. Your trainer will gather a few of your baseline measurements such as weight, percent body fat, blood pressure, flexibility, muscle strength, and muscle endurance.  Collecting this information will give you a great idea of where you want to go from here.

Near the end of the IC, you and your fitness consultant will be able to figure out the perfect demo session for you. It may be a session that brings you through the entire Cybex machine circuit or it could be a full one-hour session with one of our Certified Personal Trainers.

Everything about the Initial Consultation is for you! If you ever feel uncomfortable with a question or measurement, you are encouraged to say so. Your IC and demo sessions are included with your membership, so take advantage of them! They are the perfect opportunity to ask any and all questions you may have about Sports and Fitness Edge. Again, let us help you make the most out of your membership–which all starts with your Initial Consultation.

Please feel free to email me at cassandram@sfedge.com to set up yours, today!

Summer is officially here!  We have lot’s of outdoor things to do.

The outdoor pool in South Burlington (off of Twin Oaks Terrace) is open and heated.  We also have outdoor tennis courts in Essex, and both South Burlington locations.  Additionally we have the outdoor climbing wall in Essex.

Stay tuned for more information on member bbq’s too!

Sports & Fitness Edge is cheering on Andy Butterfield and his team as they compete in the Spartan Race. 

 To see what it is all about…http://www.spartanrace.com/

UNDERSTANDING THE POWER OF INSULIN –Diabetes or Not!

By Ginger Vieira

Whether or not you have diabetes, understanding the power of insulin is crucial to goals in both weight loss and strength development. Insulin is responsible for both storing fat onto the body and for helping the body build muscle, but the balance between storing too much fat from too much insulin when you’re trying to build muscle instead is a careful one.

Insulin transports the glucose in our blood (from the food we eat) to our muscles if the “glycogen stores” in the muscle cells need replenishing, as well the stores in our brain (we need sugar in our brain to think!). The stores of energy need to be replenished most commonly in the morning before we eat breakfast (because we’ve been fasting all night and used them up in our sleep), and after we exercise (because, again, we’ve used them up).

So, if you eat carbohydrates following a workout or first thing in the morning, the first place the insulin is going to take those carbohydrates are to the glycogen stores in your muscles and your brain.

THIS IS GOOD, because if those stores are empty and your body is trying to refill them without extra carbs/insulin, the muscle will continue to break itself down which will hinder its ability to build itself stronger.

 Powerlifters and bodybuilders who are NOT diabetic, make sure to eat large amounts of carbohydrates after a workout because it causes their pancreas to naturally produce more insulin and carry those carbohydrates to the glycogen stores. This is an important part of muscle recovery for an athlete. Some people actually get insulin prescriptions from their doctors and attempt to take extra insulin even though their pancreas is making plenty because it allows for even more carbohydrates to be digested at once. This is obviously dangerous and plenty of bodybuilders have induced severe hypoglycemic episodes when they aren’t careful with their dosing.

When will insulin store carbohydrates as fat? When your glycogen stores don’t need to be filled. That’s a large reason why low-carb diets help a person reduce body fat, because when you’re eating mostly proteins and fats your body needs much less insulin in order to digest that fuel and convert it to energy. Proteins and fats cannot be store as fat on your body as easily for this reason. The less carbs you eat = the less insulin you produce = the less food potentially stored as fat.

To lose body fat, your goal is to reduce carbohydrate intake throughout the day—except for breakfast and post-workout meals.

To help ensure muscle growth, your goal is to increase carbohydrate especially at breakfast and post-workout meals, but also spread equally throughout the day. Non-workout days can contain less carbs, and more proteins and fats. Workout days should contain more carbs and proteins, and less fats. This is a nutrition approach known as “carb cycling.”

I had great success with a low-carb, higher-protein diet when I first started weightlifting, training in the method of a bodybuilder (ie: higher reps, more exercises). I followed this plan for a year and lost about ten or twelve pounds while actually putting on about ten pounds of muscle.

As a powerlifter, I had to increase my carbohydrate intake because my muscles are working much differently and being asked to grow stronger much more quickly. My body goes through a lot of calories every day as a result of powerlifting training, therefore I can and need to eat more carbohydrates than I used to. Again, though, I don’t go carb-crazy. I still focus my carbs at breakfast and after a workout, and at two other meals that day. On the days I don’t workout, I eat very low-carb. (And they’re usually in the form of plain oatmeal, oat bran, sweet potatoes or CornBran cereal.)

If you are diabetic and focusing on gaining better control of your blood sugars and losing weight, aim to make the majority of your week low-carb excepf for breakfast and post-workout. Remember to check your blood sugar often as you make adjustments in your lifestyle, because changes in diet will have a large impact on your insulin needs.

Ginger Vieira is a Type 1 diabetic, 15-time record holder in drug-tested powerlifting, and writes for www.diabeteens.com and www.healthcentral.com/about/ginger-vieira/.

Nothing can be more frustrating than not getting the workout you planned.  I see this occasionally but there are some things you can do to avoid this and always have a complete and enjoyable training session.

#1. Know the room.  Know where the various pieces fo equipment are and how to use them.  If you have a question, ask a trainer.

#2. Have alternatives.  There are many ways to work the same muscles.  If you know why you use the Cybex Chest Press then you know you can work the same muscles with the bench press, flat dumbbell press, Hammerstrength wide press, or even push ups.  If you go from machine to machine without knowing what you are doing, you are limiting your workout choices and setting yourself up for frustration.

#3. Know when the room is busy.  Most of the time the room isn’t busy or crowded and you don’t have to wait or make equipment substitutions.  There are times when the population is greater.  The busiest times of the week are Monday and Wednesday around 9am and 6pm.  Of course, the busiest time of the year is January.  If you enjoy the social aspects and are not in any rush the busy times can be right for you.

#4 Be observant.  Just like playing pool you should plan ahead.  Usually a person will use a machine, dumbells or bench for a set then rest.  Ask if you may work in (just like you let others work in with you).  Also, plan your workout to mesh with the availability.

#5. Be nice.  I don’t have to explain this.

#6. Sign ups for cardio equipment.  I see it almost everyday.  Someone jumps on a cardio machine without signing up and the person who did sign up for that machine has to ask the non-compliant person for the machine.  This is awkward and uncomfortable for the person following the rules.

Try these tips amd make your training times fun and productive.

-Written by Brian Rich – master trainer

Starting next week, our indoor courts at Eastwood Drive are getting a makeover.

Hinding Tennis, who is an exclusive USTA New England Partner, will be installing a surface similar to what they play on at the Davis Cup.

We can’t wait!

For more info on Hinding Tennis: http://www.hindingtennis.com/

Thanks for visiting our new SF Edge website.  We’ve added new features to better serve our members including an attractive easy to use user interface, links to social media, better scheduling features based on a solid Google Calendars integration, more information on programs within each member category, (this blog), a site search, and many other handy features.

Please take a few minutes to let us know what you think and if you have any thoughts or suggestions on how we can make your web browsing and club experiences the best they can be.