My Daily Wellness Tip

Study: Sedentary Behaviour and Obesity

2009-11-11T07:57:04-05:00

A new study finds a positive association between the number of hours spent watching television and the likelihood of being obese.
The study, "Sedentary behaviour and obesity," is based on data released from the 2007 Canadian Community Health Survey.
The study, which used data from 42,600 men and women aged 20 to 64, found strong evidence of a positive association between the time spent watching television and obesity among both sexes. It is one of the first studies based on a nationally representative data set to examine associations between sedentary behaviours and obesity among Canadian adults.
The study also found an association between computer use and obesity for both sexes. But a third sedentary activity, reading, was not associated with obesity for either sex.
When factors such as age, marital status, education, household income, immigrant status and urban-rural residence were taken into account, the odds of obesity among men and women who reported watching television 21 or more hours a week were almost twice the odds for men and women who averaged 5 hours or fewer in front of the tube.
The associations persisted when infrequent leisure-time physical activity and low consumption of fruit and vegetables were taken into account. This reinforces findings of other studies that found television viewing to be related to obesity, independent of physical activity and dietary intake.
As well, leisure-time computer use was significantly associated with obesity among men and women. When age and other socio-demographic characteristics were taken into account, those who used computers for at least six hours a week had increased odds of being obese, compared with those who averaged no more than five hours.

Baked Blueberry Pecan Oatmeal Bars

2009-11-10T17:22:33-05:00

I made this on Rogers Daytime TV today - this breakfast dish is full of antioxidants!

Ingredients;

2 cups oats

1/2 cup applesauce unsweetened

1/2 cup vanilla unsweetened almond milk
1 cup blueberries

1 egg

1/3 cup pecan peices

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon

stevia to taste

Mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients and then mix together. Bake for 40mins at 375 in an 8 x 8 pan.

Makes 8 servings - 133 calories, 5.4g fat, 18.4g carbs (2.7g fiber), 3.86g protein

Featured most unique fitness concept in Canada!

2009-11-09T14:12:58-05:00

Canada's No. 1 fitness magazine, "Inside Fitness" has put Ottawa on the map by featuring Free Form Fitness, as the most unique fitness concept in Canada and promoting Ottawa as the Country's leader in fitness programs.To learn more, pick up a copy of "Inside Fitness" which is on the stands today.

Congratulations Everyone!

2009-11-09T14:04:38-05:00

10 women who competed in the Figure Division, many of which were first time entrants and range in age from 20 to 39, and one male who competed in the men's Bodybuilding divisions, into the 2009 Ottawa & Eastern Ontario Physique Championships held on Saturday, November 7^th, 2009.

Team Free Form won the Team Trophy for overall medals at this competition. Everyone did amazing!

Water - drink more to hold less in your body

2009-11-06T07:59:12-05:00

It seems that most people have water consumption confused. They think that if you are holding too much water in your body you need to drink less.

But the opposite is true in fact. If you aren't drinking enough water your body is smart and will hold onto any it can. To flush excess water out of your body you need to drink more water.

Not drinking enough water is not the only reason you can hold water weight though. Too much sodium/salt in your diet as well as too many carbs can do the same.

Key is moderation!

5 exercises that can cause injury easily

2009-11-05T15:42:54-05:00

1) Upright row with your head looking down

Performing an upright row with your head looking
down places your spine in a flexed position leaving yourself vulnerable to pulling a multifidus muscle in the neck. When it comes to any joint getting hurt the neck seems to be the worst and seems to affect more muscle groups because of all the nerves passing by the neck. So be sure to keep your head straight.

2) Extremely wide grip pull-ups
Many perform there pull-ups with a very wide grip to emphasis the Latisimus dorsi (the wings). What happens is that they usually develop little tares in there branchioradialis and get tennis elbow.

3)Heavy dumbbell flys
Flys are ok if done lighter. Done heavy they can
cause damage on the shoulders and especially the
rotator cuff. If you are a small boned person, chances are you have a type 1 acromion joint and will be prone to rotator cuff injuries.

4)Decline sit ups
Decline sit ups can be devastating if you have lower back pain what happens is, in a decline sit up, your hip flexor (psoass) attaches from your thigh bone to your lower back and when starting to pull yourself up at the bottom of the sit up, your hip flexor is pulling on
your lower back into an anterior tilt which makes your spine hard to flex. If you don't have a bad back I would still be very careful with this, and don't add weight.

5) Squats on a bosu ball

The Bosu ball is round. The knee is a hinge joint meaning it moves in one direction like the hinge on a door. When performing a squat on a round surface your knees are placed in a position where the ligaments on the sides on the knee are taking the resistance, not a good Idea.

Canada Looks at Vitamin D for Swine Flu Protection

2009-11-04T09:26:27-05:00

(taken from Mercola.com)

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has confirmed that it will be investigating the role of vitamin D in protection against swine flu.

The agency started a study last year on the role of vitamin D in severe seasonal influenza, which it said it will now adapt to the H1N1 swine flu virus.

Part of the researchers’ goal is to understand whether vitamin D levels are in any way responsible for the fact that most people with seasonal influenza develop a mild illness, but a small minority go on to develop severe symptoms.

According to PHAC, results from its study will indicate the extent and nature of the role of vitamin D in severe seasonal influenza.

Sources:
NutraIngredients August 10, 2009

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

Canada appears to be one of the first countries to literally “see the light.”

Over the course of at least three flu seasons, Canada’s public health agency plans to analyze the impact vitamin D levels have on flu severity and, if they find a correlation between severe flu cases and vitamin D levels, will then decide whether vitamin D can be used to lessen serious cases of seasonal flu. While the study started out focused on seasonal flu, the agency is now adapting the study to the swine flu virus.

This is exactly the type of research that stands to make a real difference in public health, with the unfortunate aspect being that it may take years to bear out.

I highly suggest you don’t wait for their results to come in, as there is already overflowing evidence showing that your vitamin D levels play a role in your likelihood of getting the flu.

How many of your calories come from FATS?

2009-11-03T07:59:38-05:00

Fats are an important part of your diet. The old school diets often say you should be eating low fat but that is so wrong.

You need a minimum of 20% of your calories to come from healthy fats. I would recommend at least 30%, and even up to 40% for some people.

And your fats need be divided about equally from unsaturated, polysaturated and saturated fats. Yes I said saturated fats - they ARE in fact good for you and you need them. They are found in solid form - so butter, meat, coconut oil to name a couple sources.

It's the evil TRANS FATS that you need to avoid. These are man made fats and are very unhealthy for you.

Here are some healthy fats;

Nuts (especially almonds and walnuts, preferably organic), extra virgin olive oil (not to be used for high heats), coconut oil, organic butter (non-organic butter is full of toxins), fish oil, GLA, organic free-range eggs (see earlier post about why eggs should be organic and free range), meats, fish, avocado, organic nut butters (non-organic nuts butters and full of pesticides). Of course there are more but if you are looking to add fats into your diet here is a good start.

Remember fats are much higher calorie so if you add fats into your diet make sure you know how much carbs and/or protein to take out to balance your calories. Or make changes and just watch what happens and adjust as needed if you don't want to count calories.

Why Your Scale Says You’re Getting Fatter

2009-11-02T14:36:00-05:00

If you used to be more muscular in your teenage years and perhaps you have been inactive for a while, you will be one of those people that respond well to putting on muscle when you first hit the gym. Even though your calories are low enough for you to lose body fat you will gain weight in muscle mass simply because of the change in hormones that come with lifting weights. That’s what we called muscle memory. So you may just be one of those lucky people that are able to lose body fat and gain muscle at the same time.

What this means is that the scale may not be the best measuring tool for you at the beginning because muscle weighs more than fat does. How much more?

Well, we don’t normally measure muscle and fat based on litres but I figured it would give you a better indication if I show you like this: One litre of muscle weighs 2.3lbs and one litter of fat weighs 1.9lbs. In other words, muscle is about 18% denser than fat. So just to give you an idea: A 150lb person with 20L of fat on their body would weigh 188lbs. And the person with 20L of muscle on their body would weigh 196lbs.

So as you can see it’s a pretty significant difference when we ramp up the numbers. Now in contrast, after that initial 6 weeks of working out the scale becomes a great tool. Because the rate at which you can lose body fat is much faster than the rate at which you can gain muscle. So over time the muscle gain will slow down while the fat loss keeps going.

So don’t get too caught up with the scale numbers at the beginning. Look in the mirror and be proud that you took the first step in getting back in shape.

5 Ways To Boost Your Immune System

2009-10-30T11:45:30-04:00

1. Drop All Refined Sugars

Every time I ever got sick in my life has been after I binged the day before on sugars.

Sugar suppresses the immune system by competing with vitamin C to enter the white blood cell.

The more sugar the less vitamin C can enter and the slower the immune system is at gobbling up viruses and bacteria.

2. Stop Stressing Out

Imagine a lion attacking you (pretty stressful huh?). Well, you can imagine that your body has a job to do as a priority, run! What actually happens is first response would be an insane rush of adrenaline making your blood flow to the legs and away from the internal organs and your pupils would dilate and your immune system would rise and then crash leaving you venerable to catching a flu or a disease. The point here is that even though we don’t have lions attacking us. We do live lives that cause us a lot of mental stress that the body responds to in the same way.
I see many lawyers that catch colds almost on a regular basis yet never get them on vacation.

3. Get all Your Vitamins And Antioxidants
Make sure you take a high quality multivitamin and add an extra vitamin C to the mix. This will safe guard you from missing essential vitamins that help boost your immune system. Antioxidants help the body slow the breakdown of tissue and keeps your body strong which in turn keeps your immune system strong. Try to vary the colors of veggies, fruits, teas and spices.

4. Be Alkaline
Just like testing the water in a pool, you can buy yellow strips of paper that you place on your tongue they will tell you what your PH is. An acidic PH is bad, it means that your body is an environment that breads bacteria and that your immune system will be low. An alkaline PH is great, it means you’ve been eating a lot of veggies and your you bodies environment is in order.

5. Drink Your Water, Seriously
Water is very under rated and I find a lot of people I talk to lack the amount needed in a day. Drinking enough water eases the job of the kidneys and liver to process and eliminate toxins from the blood. It helps keep mucous membranes moist enough to beat the viruses they encounter.

6 Advanced Techniques For Building Muscle

2009-10-29T13:30:03-04:00

These techniques are used to make gains in muscle and are reserved for people with experience in training with weights, but all in all they are really fun to do. I have made up a workout for different muscle groups, try them out.

Cluster set: A cluster set consists of performing 1 rep and then resting for 20 seconds between each rep.

Try this for your shoulders: Using the seated barbell press perform 1 rep with 80-90% of your 1 rep maximum then rest 20 seconds and perform another rep till you perform 6 sets of 4-6 reps.

Tempo contrast set: The tempo contrast set consists of performing a slow exercise followed by a fast movement.

Try this for your legs: Try performing the leg press Tempo 4-1-4 (4 seconds down/1 second pause/ 4 seconds up) for 4 reps and then without rest perform jump squats for 8 reps as high as you can.

High volume low rest set: I got this one from Andre Maille a former world bodybuilding champion and an great trainer. The high volume low rest set consists of performing a high number of sets and reps with 1 minute of rest in between.

Try this for your triceps: Try performing 20 sets of 20 reps with 1 min rest with close grip bench press and use about 35% of your 1 rep maximum (so if the maximum amount of weight you can lift is 100lbs you would use 35lbs.)

Holding set: A holding set consists of holding the weight under resistance some where in the range of motion for 4 seconds.

Try this for your calves: Try this with a donkey calf raise with 4 seconds in the stretch position at the bottom and perform 5 sets of 6-8 reps.

Super sets: A super set consists of 2 exercises performed one after another with little or no rest between each exercise.

Try this for your chest and back: For example you would perform 1 set of 8 reps on the bench press and without any rest perform a set of 8 reps with bent over rows and repeat for 10 sets.

Pre-exhaustion: A pre-exhaustion set consists of exhausting a small primary mover muscle with an exercise followed by another exercise that uses that same muscle as a secondary mover.

Try this for your biceps: Try performing incline dumbbell bicep curls for 4 sets of 6 reps then after that move to 6 sets of chin ups to failure.

Low fat eating makes you fat

2009-10-28T13:44:28-04:00

http://chelseaboissonneault.tumblr.com/post/219498362/low-fat-makes-you-fat

Sodium101.ca

2009-10-28T06:26:40-04:00

This is a great website that I recently came across that explains the risks associated with overconsumption of sodium as well as good tips to help monitor and decrease our daily sodium intake.

Yummy Salsa Recipe

2009-10-22T18:00:22-04:00

Check it out here!

2009-10-21T08:31:48-04:00

A Seminar I did Last Year http://ping.fm/NqRiH