Bike to Work Week

This week in Vancouver it is bike to work week ! This is a perfect opportunity for me to talk about the awesome world of biking and how amazing it can be, as well as all the resources available to bikers in Vancouver.

Vancouver is a fantastic city to bike in. The enormous network of bike routes give bikers many options that can take them from point A to point B, whatever these points may be. Not only is biking sometimes faster than taking public transit, but it also really allows you to appreciate how beautiful the city really is, especially when you reach the top of a hill and you can look down on the harbor or the varied skyline of downtown. Marvelous. Not only does biking let you take in the scenic panorama of this beautiful city, it can be beneficial to your health, the environment, and your wallet!

Biking to work everyday keeps your mind and body in good shape, cuts down on greenhouse gas emissions, and saves you money on car insurance or fuel. It just makes sense! Check out this website for the deal.

I know that there are downsides to biking, mainly, “how do I carry all my stuff to work on a bike?”, “Half the time it’s raining when I am going to bike” or the statement I hear most often: “I am scared of the traffic!” With a little bit of planning you can get all your equipment and clothing to work in a safe and pleasant manner. Both transporting your belongings and biking in the rain require a small investment in some good biking gear. There are all sorts of packs, bags, and panniers that are made specifically for biking and can be purchased at most outdoor or cycling stores for a reasonable price. Rain gear is also essential and keeps you comfortable, instead of feeling like a wet dog, on those flash flood days. Finally, staying safe can be achieved by being aware of the road rules and routes, always wearing a proper fitting bike helmet, and making sure that you are always visible by wearing bright or reflective clothing and using lights on your bike.

Gaining the confidence and ability to rely on yourself to get to wherever you need to is remarkably rewarding and great for everything and everyone involved. Try it today!

On the subject of biking, June is bike month and at Momentum we hope that you will join us in our “Bike Month Challenge”  where we hope to accumulate enough biking kilometers between all who take part to go from the Pacific to the Atlantic! Stay tuned, and get excited!

Here are some resources for the biker in you.

• Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition
• Vancouver Bike Route News   
• A picture of a funny bike

Pregnancy can be quite the change to a woman’s body, especially if this is your first time. There may be some days where getting out of bed seems extremely hard, so exercise may feel completely out of the question. However, staying active throughout your pregnancy has many benefits both leading up birth, birth, and after birth. This website has a lot of good tips for exercising during pregnancy.

Here are some general guidelines you should ensure to follow:

• Never exercise to the point of exhaustion or breathlessness. This is a sign that your baby and your body cannot get the oxygen supply they need.

• Wear comfortable exercise footwear that gives strong ankle and arch support.

• Take frequent breaks, and drink plenty of fluids during exercise.

• Avoid exercise in extremely hot weather.

• Avoid rocky terrain or unstable ground when running or cycling. Your joints are more lax in pregnancy, and ankle sprains and other injuries may occur.

• Contact sports should be avoided during pregnancy.

• Weight training should emphasize improving tone, especially in the upper body and abdominal area. Avoid lifting weights above your head and using weights that strain the lower back muscles.

• During the second and third trimesters, avoid exercise that involves lying flat on your back as this decreases blood flow to your womb.

• Include relaxation and stretching before and after your exercise program.

• Eat a healthy diet that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables and complex carbohydrates.

Women who do a moderate amount of exercise during pregnancy generally feel better throughout the pregnancy, have more stamina during labor and may even recover more quickly after childbirth.

Another benfit is it will help keep you active and healthy throughout your childs development, especially if you carry on the active attitudes after pregnancy. My mother started taking aerobics during her pregnancy with me, after birth she started teaching the classes. So now, years later, I find myself with a Bachelor in Human Kinetics writing these articles for you. And quite possibly because my mother adopted the attitudes towards fitness.

So always stay fit, healthy and keep those positive attitudes!!

As I sit here typing on my keyboard my left knee starts to ache diligently reminding me that today is my exercise day. Recovering from an ACL reconstruction it is imperative that I adhere to an exercise routine, and contrary to popular belief being a personal trainer doesn’t make it any easier.

Taken from the abstract of Robison & Rogers Adherence to exercise programs. Recommendations from the Department of Physical Education and Exercise Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing.

“Approximately 50% of individuals who start an aerobic exercise program will stop within the first 6 months, even though it is well known that to obtain the health benefits associated with physical activity, participation must be maintained. Programs involving the use of behaviour management techniques appear to increase short term adherence to exercise. Recently, an adherence rate of greater than 95% over 6 months was achieved in a large group of university employees who participated in aerobic training using a ‘behavioural treatment packages’ approach.”

So why has it got to be so damn tough?

This website outlines some of the various factors affecting exercise adherance. Being able to recognize the factors which may deter you from sticking to your program is important in adherance. Remember our exercise programs are often to facilitate the activities we enjoy, to lose weight or for general health. If you do not fall into the first two catergories then by default I place you in the 3rd – general health. This is an end goal that should never be quite done. Unless you prefer to have a decreased quality of life, potentially increased medical bills and a steady decline towards not being able to see your own toes.

I will openly admit that I am just as guilty as anyone about struggling with adherance to exercise…so I’m going to watch this video and get to it!

• Bally
• Everlast
• Valeo
• Sportline

If you have one of these balls you need to pay special attention to the inflation instructions.

Please check them out at the EB website.

Currently there are 47 cases of people being injuried by ball failure so please take a few minutes to ensure that your ball is properly inflated before you start your next workout!

Stability balls are a great tool for exerciing at home and at the gym and by no means should you use this as a reason to avoid the stability ball. Ask your trainer for advice on how to maximize results using a stability ball at home in between your training sessions. Here is one exercise that will make you realize how much you LOVE the stability ball. So take charge, check your ball and start using it!

If you are interested in picking up a new ball to replace one of these please talk to reception as we do carry a limited stock and can help you choose the correct size for your frame.

Eating locally doesn’t necessarily mean cutting out everything that hasn’t been grown in your postal code, like a few families attempted to do while following the “100-mile diet”. Eating locally can be as simple as following the seasons and picking your meals around what is available at the local farmers markets. April is great for cabbages, cucumbers, spinach, rhubarb, honey, and much, much more! As we get even deeper into the warm and beautiful months of summer the list of available fruit and vegetables will just keep getting bigger and bigger!

Not only is this food delicious, but buying from local producers is quite beneficial all around. It is good for our communities, the environment, the economy, and most importantly for ourselves. Although a lot of the farmers markets aren’t quite open for the season, let me prepare you with a list of great places to find some quality in-season produce:

• UBC Farm: Visit and support the UBC Farm by choosing over 200 varieties of produce, as well as some delicious eggs. Open from June to October.

• Vancouver’s Farmers Markets: Starting in June there are farmers markets all over Vancouver every weekend that bring fresh produce from local farms for us to enjoy in the big city!

• If you can’t wait until June to get some freshness in your fridge, “Eat Local BC” has a great list of grocery stores that carry some amazing in-seasons foods right NOW!

I can already taste those Rainier cherries, on the beach with the sun beaming down, writing another blog for Momentum… sigh. Soon enough.

Shin Splints

Shin splints are often a weakness in your tibialis anterior muscles so exercises which strengthen these muscles and stretch the opposing muscles are crucial.

 Tennis Elbow

Tennis elbow is brought on by weakness in your wrist extensors, so again strengthening these muscles and stretching the opposing muscles is vital to recovery.

So before you plunge into the sun which we all hope is just around the corner, remember that your body needs adequate adaptation. Make sure you let your trainer know what activities you hope to get back into as the weather warms up and we will make sure that you are prepared for an injury free summer! If you haven’t worked with a trainer before even doing just a couple of sessions to get a program designed for you can really help take your fitness to the next level. Treat yourself like an athlete and get ready for an awesome summer in good health!

For a fun article written to students to motivate them for a new season check out this pdf file.

I am pretty proud of myself because even if I didn’t make it every day I was way more aware and even tried some new veggies. The big winner of the month was green beans! Who would ever have thought that I would be saying this but I actually like them. Here is my new favourite recipe.

Spicy Green Beans:

• Boil some water to steam the green beans, you only want to steam them for 3 or so minutes so that they are still crunchy
• While the water is boiling get out a big fry pan and sauté:
• 1 TBL sesame oil
• 1-2 TBL garlic
• 1-2 TBL ginger
• While that is cooking in a small mixing bowl add:
• 2 TBL soy sauce
• 1 TBL rice vinegar
• 2 tsp sugar
• hot chili flakes to taste
• Add the liquid to the fry pan and then add the beans and sauté together for 1-2 minutes – serve and enjoy!

I hope that you are able to try a new veggie before the end of the month and remember to try and include enough throughout your day.

On another note here was an interesting article on the unhealthiest restaurants in America (we have lots of the same) and how to make better choices in them.

Eat well and stay fit!

What is aspartame? Aspartame is a protein derivative.  It is made up of two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine, linked to methanol and is digested as a protein in the body into these three building blocks.  Need a visual? Look at the structure of aspartame here.

Why is it used? Aspartame is a low-calorie sweetener used in foods.  Aspartame degrades at high temperatures and produces a bitter taste, so it is usually found in foods that do not need to be heated.  Although aspartame yields the same amount of Calories per gram as table sugar, it is 180-220 times sweeter than regular table sugar and only a tiny amount relative to table sugar is needed to achieve the same sweetness in foods, decreasing the Calorie content within that food.  Aspartame also does not increase blood glucose or insulin levels within the body and it does not promote tooth decay.

Why all the controversy? Although the health aspects of aspartame must be thoroughly investigated and evaluated during the food additive approval process, some studies still show adverse effects, like headache, heart palpitations, and nausea, caused by consumption of aspartame in certain individuals.  Going even further, some experiments show life-threatening effects linked to aspartame in lab animals, like brain-tumours and lymphoma.  These more threatening results have been analyzed and in review many of the experiments have been said to have experimental errors that cause these cases, and the experiments cannot be duplicated.  Read the full review of these experiments complete with all the scientific jargon here. 

So, aspartame is bad? Not necessarily.  Aspartame has been highly studied, and through these hundreds of experiments, most find aspartame consumption safe. Aspartame becomes more of a problem for people who consume over the daily recommended value of 40 mg/kg of body weight (equivalent to about 5L of diet cola a day) or for people who suffer from a rare genetic metabolic disorder known as phenylketonuria (PKU) and cannot break down the phenylalanine present in aspartame.  If you are below the recommended intake and don’t suffer from PKU, you are generally safe from the adverse symptoms that some feel after drinking a bottle of diet cola.  

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/securit/addit/sweeten-edulcor/aspartame-eng.php

Remember!  If aspartame affects you in strange ways, the best resource is your doctor.

For clarification, food additives are any substance that is used to affect the characteristics of the food that it has been added to.  For example, aspartame is a food additive added to soft drinks to increase the sweetness.  It may interest you to know that in Canada many of the things we add to food are not considered food additives, including spices, seasonings, vitamins, and components that increase nutritional content in the food.  In other words, MSG and added omega-3 fatty acids are not considered food additives in Canada. 

Every food additive in Canada has to go through a lengthy approval process where every possible aspect of the additive is analyzed from safety to purpose.  Some food additives never make it through this process because it hasn’t been proven that it will be a benefit to society.  Olestra is a fat substitute found in many American foods, including potato chips.  This food additive has not been approved in Canada although it has been submitted and analyzed repeatedly by Health Canada.  

As I said before, food additives must have a purpose in the food or they would not be in the food.  Food additives in food must present an advantage to the consumer by maintaining the nutrition, quality, and quantity of the food.  For a list of every food additive approved in Canada and their purpose, visit the Health Canada Food Additive Dictionary or stay tuned to the blog next week when I discuss one of the most controversial food additives, aspartame.

For more information of Food Additives, the best resource is Health Canada.