Greetings healthy people,
Welcome back! And what a productive two months it’s been. It was a bit weird not writing a newsletter at the end of 2009, but with the extra time saved, I have opened up a wee office / studio at 3 Balfour Street just downstairs from my flat. From the outside it’s not much to look at (it’s currently underneath extensive scaffolding) but inside there’s enough room for three people to have a very energetic workout. The space is also available for hire from Fridays – Sundays, please contact me directly for more information..
Griffen Fitness has also invested in a fancy (and accurate) bio-electrical impedance monitor to calculate body fat percentage. It works by running an imperceptibly small electrical current through your body and measuring the resistance. The more fat, the more resistance. So let me know if you’d like me to wire you up to it! What fun!
WeightShed Boot Camp is running again in Edinburgh at Stewart’s Melville College from Monday 15th February to Friday 19th February. As it’s non residential, you get to go home in the evenings and practise your new found skills (and recover for the next day!). See www.weightshedbootcamp.com for more information or email me directly. Mention this newsletter and receive a £50 discount.
Want to eat healthily in 2010? Don’t know where to start? Come to a healthy eating evening at Broughton Street Real Foods on Wednesday March 31st. Tickets are only £5 and you will get a guided tour of my favourite health foods shop with lots of tasters and recipe ideas. You can get your £5 back if you spend over £30 on groceries on the night…There will also be some organic wines on tasting. Ooh la la!
What’s in Season for February
It’s good to eat seasonal fruit and vegetables, so here’s a list of what’s in season locally:
Beetroot, brussel sprouts, cabbage (white and red), carrots, cauliflower, chicory, celeriac, celery, chard, Jerusalem artichoke, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, mushrooms, onions, parsnips, potatoes, purple sprouting broccoli, salsify, spinach, squashes, swede and turnips.
Easy Recipe: Real Foods Nut Loaf
Through working with Real Foods, I’ve discovered a wealth of vegetarian recipes on their website. The nut roast recipe is a cracker and made a tasty Christmas lunch. Serve with a simple home made tomato sauce.
Resisting Temptation: Eat Cake for Breakfast
Do you like chocolate? Most people eat sweet treats in the evening. If you’d like to enjoy a wee sweet something, have it early in the day. You’re likely to burn it off as you are more active during the day. Any wee treats you snack on late at night, you might as well imagine patting onto your thighs and sleeping with. Nice.
Fad or Fab: Powerball
Powerball is a gyroscopic arm trainer. “What on earth is that?” I hear you ask. It’s a plastic ball that fits in the palm of your hand. It has a gyro inside it (like a spinning top) that you set off spinning by pulling a cord. To keep it spinning, you need to move it in a circular motion with your wrist, forearm, and if you’ve really got it going, upper arm. The faster it spins, the more force it produces and consequently the more difficult it is to manipulate. Fascinating science experiment, but is it any use?
We’ve got one in the house, and whilst I can’t get the thing to work, my significant other is significantly more adept at it. It’s meant to improve grip strength, good for racket sports and guitar playing etc, and also works the whole arm. I have heard reports that it does indeed give a good arm workout, however the trick is to actually use the thing (like with many inspired fitness products on the market). Whilst it certainly looks fun – you can get glow in the dark versions – whether or not it gets used is another issue altogether. More a toy than a workout…
Websites of the month: Cycle Streets and WolframAlpha
Two websites this newsletter, as winter is a good time for internet browsing:
It’s great to see more and more cyclists on the streets of Edinburgh, and Edinburgh based community group Spokes do a lot to promote cycling. If you’re looking for cycle routes around the UK (or even in Edinburgh if you don’t have your own Spokes map), check out http://www.cyclestreets.net.
The next website is very, very smart and describes itself as thus,
“Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.”
A practical application for the average Joe is that you can calculate calories burnt doing pretty much anything. Go on, give it a go… http://www.wolframalpha.com
Article of the Month:
Boost your immune system the natural way
Ever felt over winter that you can’t be bothered exercising? Perhaps it’s the weather, perhaps you feel a big sluggish, or maybe even you can’t stand exercising in the dark.
Whatever your reason, it’s heartening to remember that regular exercise can substantially boost your immune system in the long-term. Whilst you are exercising immune cells circulate through your body more quickly and therefore are better able to kill viruses and bacteria. If you imagine your rate of blood flow increasing as your heart rate goes up, it explains why the immune cells are able to ‘cover more ground’. After exercise, this drops back to normal. Exercising also temporarily boosts the production of macrophages, the cells that attack bacteria. So, it’s good all round.
An excellent article on the About.com website can be read here and states,
“According to professor David Nieman, Dr. PH., of Appalachian State University, when moderate exercise is repeated on a near-daily basis there is a cumulative effect that leads to a long-term immune response. His research showed that those who walk at 70 – 75% of their VO2 Max for 40 minutes per day had half as many sick days due to colds or sore throats as those who don’t exercise.”
Quite often I train a client who is feeling under the weather. We will generally do some gentle strength work to some groovy music and then finish with a really good stretch. I know that a gentle workout may actually help the individual feel better. My general rule of thumb about exercising when unwell is to only do what you feel, and be wary of pulse-raising exercise, as your heart rate is already elevated as your body tries to fight the infection.
It is worth noting that intense exercise is not necessarily better. This is because extended high intensity exercise can put the body under undue oxidative stress. In other words, if you are training hard, then you are already putting your body under extra stress, so it may not fight an infection so effectively. In fact, it can have the reverse effect and make you more vulnerable to illness.
Of course good nutrition is crucial…And on a final note, remember that rest is as important as activity, so be sure to get a good night’s sleep to keep your immune system in tip top shape.
And Finally…. A daggy bicycle song
Having abandoned the word for over a decade, I have decided to reclaim the Australianism ‘daggy’. So have these guys by the look of it. Check out this YouTube clip of some musical dags. Wearing a bike helmet and high viz gear in a pop video is a definite anti-fashion statement (especially if you have a beard and specs). I have specs, a helmet and high viz gear, but no beard. That would be weird.
Hoping you enjoy your February,
It’s an exciting time in Edinburgh. The days are getting longer, the days (a bit) milder and exciting food is coming into season. It’s the time of year that many of us start to think about getting out and about and getting in shape. A good exercise programme (calories out) requires the intake of good quality fuel (calories in). The quality of fuel / food consumed can seriously influence an individuals fitness and energy output. An example of this is the Glycaemic Index, or how quickly food is burnt. The less processed the food, the more the body needs to process it, so consequently the steadier the energy release into bloodstream. This is why wholegrains are better than highly processed white fodder.
