Why Focus on Food, when we have 4 (or 5) Other Senses?

Call me a humanist, but I consider the most driving forces in a human being's life to be the pursuit of happiness, and pleasure.  When we do something that brings us pleasure, it sets off a reaction in the brain, flooding our senses with dopamine and serotonin and rewarding us for a certain activity.  This is a good thing, it causes us to do things that are good for our bodies and for the continuance of the human race.  Unfortunately, our bodies' reward systems cannot discern certain destructive behaviors from good ones.

This dopamine rush is addictive.  It occurs when we nourish our bodies with good food, it occurs when we get our heart pumping during a good cardio workout.  It also occurs when we do certain illegal drugs, and levels can skyrocket when we eat sugary foods.  These are not good things.

So why is it that we always seek that dopamine response when we're having a bad day?  We want to make ourselves feel better.  And the problem is, the easiest way to do this, is to reach for that delicious "reward" food, the higher in calories, the better!  This leads to a snowball effect.  Now every time we are sad, or don't feel that great, or have a bad day, we self-medicate with our favorite "bad" foods, and we don't use any other method of reward.

Why has our society neglected all the other senses?  We have 5 (some say 6) senses... let's use them!

Instead of relying on taste and food to raise your mood, let's take a look at some ways we can get the rush of happiness with the other 4 (or 5) senses.

Touch:


The obvious second choice to taste, there are many ways to gain pleasure from the sensation of touch.  Here are a few examples:

- Petting your Pet.  Many scientific studies back the benefits to connecting with an animal through petting and snuggling them.  This creates a rush of endorphins, allows you to become emotionally connected with your pet, and also fulfills a social need within most people.

- Hugging.  Family, friends, remember to respect other's boundaries, but hugging, and touch in general can do a lot to connect you to someone.

- Crafts.  If you can find something you can actually do with your hands, sculpting soap, knitting, crochet, sewing, art, these things are multi-sense stimulators.

- Sports.  Rock climbing is one of the most touch-stimulating activities, and it also give you that awesome rush of adrenaline!  Playing a sport not only gives you tactile stimulation, but also gives you social interaction, something we don't always get enough of.

- Dance!

Sight


Walking outside on a sunny day can bring your mood up instantly.  Looking at beautiful art, or seeing a movie that excites your emotions can also be effective in reversing a bad day.  Here are some examples:

- See an art show at a museum.  Not only will you expand your cultural horizons, you will excite your visual senses, a sense we often take for granted and ignore.

- Go for a walk in a beautiful natural environment or botanical garden.  Enjoy the beauty we were meant to be experiencing.  Whether you're religious or not, we are a part of this world, we should engage in it.

- Look around, appreciate the craftsmanship of the furniture, the architecture of buildings, enjoy what sites you have around you.

Smell


Smell is part of taste.  Learn to appreciate smells that are not food smells.  These can also bring pleasure.

- Smell the Roses, the flowers, learn to discern the difference between different flowers.

- Go to a perfume shop and try to find a new perfume or cologne.

- Coffee is something I love the smell of.  It can actually erase a headache, just the smell of it!  Find out what your favorite smells are, and find a way to incorporate those smells in your home, or take the time to seek them out and enjoy them.

Hearing


Auditory sensations can be some of the most rewarding.  How could you laugh, if you were unable to hear the joke?  Even visual humor is not as enjoyable without hearing the sounds that accompany it.

- Go to a comedy show, and enjoy the sounds and sites of a funny comedian.

- Listen to music that makes you happy.  If music affects your mood like it does to me, make sure to keep the sad music out when you're in a bad mood, and try to keep your music happy and rewarding.  Nothing gets me out of a bad mood quicker than putting on some music I can sing and dance to.

- Really listen to music.  When I was a kid, my step-dad used to sit me down and make me listen to his Braveheart music and other varieties of beautifully composed music.  He would point out where the music ebbed and flowed, how cool it was when certain instruments joined it, what it did to force your emotions to change with the tempo.  Enjoying music in this way was very enjoyable to me.

- Play an instrument.  Were you ever in band?  Play the piano?  If not, take up an instrument!  If so, get back into playing it.  Why rush home to eat a cookie, when you can rush home and play out a beautiful song?

Combine the Senses:


Dance to the music, sing to the music, and let yourself have some childlike fun.

See a play, dress up for a ballet, get out there and do something!

Life is short.  Let's stop making Date night about a dinner out and a movie.  Go do things, play games with your spouse or significant other, be a part of the world, do not just watch it go by.


If you can start getting out there... you're focus will shift from food, to enjoying life and all the activities and opportunities it has to offer you.

And for those that believe in a 6th sense..

Intuition


- Allow yourself to tune in to your environment, and your own body.  Listen to it.  It will not lead you astray.

- Find something that speaks to you, it doesn't necessarily have to be "spiritual" but you need to nourish your mind and your intellect, and if you believe in souls, you need to nourish that too.  Don't neglect yourself.

- Take an honest look at yourself from time to time.  Find out what your lacking, and go get it!


If you take anything away from this post, I hope it is this: food is a means to nourish the body, but it is not the only sense we have.  Enjoy your food, enjoy taste, but remember to also enjoy the rest of your senses as well.  If you keep a well balanced mind and body, and you use all the tools you've been given, food will no longer be your captor, but will assist you in keeping good health.  If you can look at it in this way, you can make smart and nutritious choices, stop focusing on food all the time, and get on with your life!


Love to all of you!  Your favorite Round Rock Trainer,

Caitlin

Healthy, Fullfilling Lunch Recipe

Looking for a healthy and delicious recipe? Try mine! I adapted a vegan friend's recipe to fit my own carnivorous needs, and came up with something I like to call Crack! Be careful... it's addictive! This is perfect for those watching their carbs and starches! Leave out the sweet potatoes if you are...

Ingredients:

All veggies possibly going bad soon and/or:

yellow pepper

red pepper

orange pepper (organic if possible)

1 package of organic turkey dogs

1 package of organic beef hot dogs

basil leaves (I grow my own)

2 giant mushroom caps (portabello)

1 white sweet potato (small)

garlic (minced or powdered)

1 small knife full of butter

**This is a lot of food feel free to make less, I just cook it all up in a GIANT skillet and save leftovers for the week.

Instructions

1.) dice the peppers (I keep them largish)

2.) dice the sweet potato

3.) cut the mushroom caps into bite-size pieces

4.) slice the turkey and hot dogs into bite size pieces

5.) get a giant skillet, put it over your biggest burner, and crank it up to high. Melt the butter and throw in the minced or powdered garlic.

6.) Start with the hot dogs, brown both sides of the slices. Toss in some basil leaves ( I don't even bother shredding them)

7.) Add the sweet potato, it takes longer to soften

8.) Add the mushrooms

9.) Add the peppers

10.) Add anything that hasn't been added yet (extra veggies perhaps)

11.) stir around a lot, leave the lid on and let it all soften.

12.) Eat when the sweet potatoes are done!

Why Weight Loss is So Difficult

It's so common I can almost predict what I'm going to hear every time I meet with a new client. Usually it's some form of "I'm fat, and I cannot seem to lose weight on my own," or "the weight keeps creeping on no matter what I do!" And I tend to give them lots of words of encouragement, "Don't worry," I say, "I will help you take it back off again, you just have to do exactly as I say."

Unfortunately, no one does exactly as I say. I had to ask myself why that is. I think the easiest explanation, is that I am asking for a lot. In order to put on weight, we have to eat an excess of calories, not exercise enough to make up for the extra, and slowly but surely our waistlines will begin to grow larger. It is usually a slow process, one that kind of sneaks up on us while we avoid the scale. We start noticing our pants are getting a little tight, or some stay in denial and just wear skirts or dresses to avoid having to try on those jeans they once wore with ease. Eventually, we wake up and realize just how far we have let ourselves go.

Believe me, I know. My weight cycled as a child, I went from a healthy weight, to underweight with my tonsillectomy, and back to overweight when we moved away from my home town and I sat around all summer eating Jelly Belly's. It went back down when I realized that if I skipped meals, I could lose weight (my ignorant middle school friends gave me this idea). I didn't realize I was hurting myself until one day I almost passed out in a pizza place from a panic attack/low blood sugar. So I started eating normal again right as puberty set in, and sure enough I chubbed back out. I didn't realize that what I had done was mess up my metabolism, which is what many women do because of the diet cycling they do.

What I promote now is a slow, gradual lifestyle change that WILL work, but it's just as slow, if not slower than packing on the weight took in the first place. And it is not nearly as enjoyable. In fact, it kind of sucks.

If you enjoy the occasional sweet thing, you are a kindred spirit of mine. Unfortunately, most people who enjoy the "occasional" sweet thing (or fried thing, or salty thing, insert your guilty pleasure foods here), enjoy it a lot more often than they realize. Those who think they have a relatively healthy diet, may not be fully cognizant of the little tidbits here and there that are sabotaging their success.

The hard cold reality is, when it's weight you want to lose, you have to be perfect. There is the caloric deficit you have to create, but there's a lot more to it. Insulin, Insulin resistance, and how our bodies deal with the different types of calories we put into it have a HUGE impact on weight loss. Why are low-carb dieters so successful? Because SUGAR (the byproduct of carbs) is what really makes us fat. I promote whole-grain carbs because the fiber does protect us from some of that, but really, the lower the carb count, the faster the weight will fall off.

You can read any female body competitor's blog, and she's most likely eating a low-fat, low-carb diet to lower her body fat. These women are hard core, they are drastic, and they see results. It's time for you, my clients, and my fellow weight cyclers, to get hard core. I am not saying eat like a body builder, but it's time to really take an honest look at your diet, just like you have finally looked at your body with brutal honesty and realized you need to change.

YES, you need to work out with me. Building muscle, and therefore raising your metabolism will most definitely help you see results. However, it's not enough alone. It will never be enough by itself. You have to fix the diet.

So here's my plan for you:

START A DIET JOURNAL TODAY!!! Not tomorrow... right this moment. Go out, buy yourself a cute little spiral notebook, and get to it. I want you to write down what you ate, how much you ate of it, how you felt (physically or emotionally) after you ate it, and what time you ate each thing.

I want you to start looking at the trends in your diet. I want you to start noticing all the tiny bites your taking of cheat foods, and where it's adding up. Hold yourselves accountable. This is the only way you will truly succeed. Believe me... I know.

Once you start the diet journal, I want you to start limiting your carbs at night, and make dinner your smallest meal.

Enjoy a delicious salad with lean chicken at night, and give yourself 1 cheat day/week where you can enjoy those things you have to avoid the rest of the week.

Get at least 30 minutes/day 5x/week of cardio OR 2-3 days of HIIT for at least 20 mins.

Get in 2-4 days of weight training (preferably with yours truly :p)

Start substituting your carbs with vegetables.

Make sure you have a nice lean protein with every meal, and get in your good fats like avocado, and olive oil.


This weight battle is one you can win. I know it. I have lived it. I have seen the diligent clients succeed. Stop making excuses and DO IT.

For a Diet Journal Template please send me an email at caitlinharttraining@gmail.com, and I will forward one to you. I also review diet journals for all clients free of charge.

Running Barefoot, Tips to Avoid Injury

Barefoot Running is the newest craze. Look around Austin, TX, and you'll see Vibram's 5-Finger shoes everywhere... especially if you shop at Whole Foods.

Last week at the ACSM Fitness Summit, barefoot running was a Hot Topic. Unfortunately, because this is a recent (dare I say?) fad, there just isn't enough science to back up whether barefoot running is better or worse than running with running shoes.

What I can say, is that if you are planning on running on anything but a surface you are 100% positive is free of debris and has a nice soft cushion, please don't let your feet go completely naked. This is just asking for horrific injuries such as the following:

I think the perfect surface for fully bare foot running would be a golfing green, or perhaps a beach with great sand.


Now there is a huge difference between running with shoes on and running in 5-finger shoes. First of all, we've been trained to wear shoes most of our lives. We are not used to walking or running barefoot for long periods of time. Naturally we are going to toe or mid-foot strike when we are barefoot, but with shoes, we learn to heel strike. This is important.


When you start wearing barefoot shoes, you're foot is in for a rude awakening. All those muscles that have just been hanging out, relaxing in your shoes, are now going to have to work. For this reason, if you decide you need to be at one with nature, and go barefoot running, make sure you ease your way into it. Otherwise, you will have some pretty bad foot pain, possible over-use injuries, and no fun.


When you go to REI or wherever you may find these 5 finger shoes, be sure to ask the salesman what 5-Finger or Vibram recommends for breaking them in. So far, I've heard the best way is to only wear them 30 minutes at a time, slowly ease your way into an hour, and keep doubling the time over several weeks. Do not attempt running in your 5 finger shoes until you have mastered walking around in them on a daily basis.

If you choose to continue running in your shoes, make sure you have good shoes. I cannot tell you how many people I have trained who have injuries that could have been avoided if they'd been wearing better shoes. Go somewhere and get a gait analysis, make sure you are put in the proper footwear for your particular gait. If you have knee pain, or shin splints, you are probably in the wrong shoes. I know it's expensive, but it is worth the money you are going to save on surgery down the road.

(Don't worry.. you don't actually have to do a gait analysis in your underwear)

If you have any questions or want advice on this topic, please feel free to email me at caitlinharttraining@gmail.com.

ACSM Fitness Summit Top Ten Important Facts

I went to the ACSM Fitness Summit last week, and I really enjoyed it. Not only was it amazing to visit California (I'd never been there before), it was awesome to get some of the knowledge I already had reinforced, and learn some new things. Going to these conferences seems to recenter me, and it's also nice to see the studies and statistics that back up the methods I'm using, and teach me about new ways I can help my clients get the results they need.

I decided that since it's late, and I have been really busy trying to catch up on all the work I missed while I was gone, I wanted to sum up the top 10 things I got from the conference, that I want to make sure I share with you guys. Each one I may post more detail on in the next week or two, but while it's still relatively fresh in my mind, here they are:

#1) STOP DRINKING YOUR CALORIES

#2) We are an incredibly sedentary society, and all the sitting has detrimental effects on not only our weight, but also our health, I'm going to teach you new strategies to break up the sitting.

#3) High Intensity Interval Training is one of the most effective ways to boost your metabolism, shrink your waist line, and improve your athletic performance.

#4) STOP INGESTING ASPARTAME

#5) Barefoot Running is something you need to ease into, and is not yet proven to be safe or unsafe... if you are one of my runners who is considering switching to barefoot running, please talk to me and I will give you strategies to ease into barefoot, or five finger toe shoes safely.

#6) There is some really COOL technology coming out to help all of us on our path to health and wellness, I'll do a post giving you some good links for all kinds of technological goodies!

#7) BOSU balls do NOT activate your core any more than doing the same exercise on solid ground. Just something to think about...

#8) Exercise, and full range movement actually stimulates the brain, and helps create more dendrites in the brain. It improves short term memory first, and the longer you exercise, the more this neural development spreads to the rest of the brain, making you smarter and smarter! The more ways you move the better you activate your brain.

#9) Breakfast really is important, as is getting the right amount of PROTEIN, CARBS and FATS. We need balanced nutrition. If you eat too little you will slow your metabolism and make your weight problem worse.

#10) Resistance exercise actually does burn calories, boost your metabolism, is incredibly important, and creates an after burn for several hours post-exercise. Basically it's just as good as High Intensity Interval Training, but you need both. Yay! Such good stuff. Feel free to email me with any questions.

Ohh.. and lastly... avoid large quantities of sugar...

Going To Extremes, and Why It's a BAD Idea...

Most of the people who know me, know that I am a bit of an extremist. I like to sky dive, I like to take flying trapeze classes, and when I commit to something, I tend to take it to extremes.

That being said, in my time as a Personal Trainer, and also through my own weight loss journey before I was a Personal Trainer, I have experimented on myself with many extreme diets.

I want to tell you a little secret. They all sucked.

Whether it's the cabbage soup diet, the adderall diet, the raw food diet, the vegan movement, the HCG diet, the Paleolithic Diet, the Skinny Bitch Diet, Atkins, or whatever other diet movement you have recently become attached to, I want you to remember something very important. Listen to your body. Listen.

My body got mad. It is tired of me experimenting on myself all the time, and I have to say, my days of test driving fad diets are over. I'm not going to be stupid about it anymore. After trying hundreds of diets, and seeing that none of them are the magic bullet, and trying tons of supplements, and realizing most of them are wasting your money, and some are actually quite harmful (the most recent one was a REAL doosie), I have decided enough is enough.

My body hated some of those diets, and even worse, some of those diets hated my body and sent me into some real situations. There is so much conflicting information out there, but ultimately, here is what I believe.

We are meant to eat whole, unprocessed foods, like veggies, fruits, small animals, and nuts and seeds. We are not meant to eat weird, chemically altered foods, like cheese-its, snickerdoodles, reeses peanut butter cups, or any of those foods that live longer than we do.

We are not meant to take weird supplements, even if it is the sap from the guggle tree, the bark of a white willow tree, or whatever else. Would you ever go suck on a guggle tree? I don't think so... it's in India, good luck finding it. So don't take the supplement. If it isn't a natural source of caffeine, don't drink it or take it in pill form (I'm talking diet pills).

Eat small portions, eat lots of fiber to keep yourself full, and stop stressing out. I promise, if you start preparing all your meals at home (perhaps pre-cook some of them for convenience), maintaining a good caloric intake for your goals, you will start seeing your body transform. Stop eating boxed foods, cereals, triscuits, chips, etc, and your will not only feel better, you're body will start shaping itself, and you will be healthier. Add exercise on top of it, and you get one sexy body, no fad diets required.

You may feel deprived taking Oreos out of your diet, but it doesn't mean you have to get all crazy and start trying some fad diet where you can only eat 3 heads of cabbage, and only if it's 6 hours before you go to sleep (see, I can make fun fad diets, too!). Be reasonable, give yourself a break, and if you accidentally (or not accidentally) eat a little cheesecake at a party, enjoy it, and then get right back on track. The point of healthy living and eating is that it should be a lifelong thing. You should be able to keep up good habits forever. Which is why indulging every once in a while is good. It is important for you to be OK with allowing a few mistakes, so that you don't just give up and give in to an unhealthy lifestyle.

Enjoy your health. Think of your food as fuel for getting you through the day, and your workouts, and eat accordingly. Remember, I am just a Personal Trainer, not a Nutritionist, and this is all pure advice, nothing more. I just want you all to be happy, and successful, and I want to make sure you aren't out there giving yourself a hard time when you should be enjoying the journey.

The Importance of Mental Health in Physical Health

The majority of the people I train are people who want to lose weight. The majority of those people are females, and most of them do, indeed, need to lose weight. This said, it becomes a lot easier for me to recognize a female who has body dysmorphic disorder, or a potential underlying eating disorder, if she comes to me, already thin, and is desperate to lose large amounts of weight. It is harder for me to detect those things in someone who really needs help losing weight, but it doesn't mean they don't exist.

So what makes the difference between having an eating disorder (of which I believe are beyond just anorexia and bulimia) and having a healthy desire to be at a healthy weight?

Obsessing over one's weight is a big sign. When a person is so obsessed about what they weigh, that they let it affect their lives 24/7 and their happiness, that's when it becomes a problem. Weighing yourself compulsively, and then "punishing" yourself if you don't have the number you wanted is unhealthy. When counting calories turns obsessive, and you cannot turn your thoughts away from the scale and the food you're ingesting, things aren't looking good for your mental well-being.

Ever notice how some people just lose weight on accident? Usually it's men. Usually it's men who cut out one thing, like cookies, or maybe they got busy and forgot to eat lunch for a week. Whatever it is, they were never stressing over making their 5 lb/week weight goal, they simply cut back on calories.

When we start to obsess, and get stressed out over things we cannot control, the levels of adrenaline and cortisol rise in our body, creating a flight or fight response. That's great if your life is in danger, or you've got a lot of time to use that adrenaline up in an intense fitness routine. However, for most of us, if we are stressed all day, that energy becomes detrimental to weight loss. It causes us to store belly fat, and our body to hold on to all of it's resources for dear life.

The same thing happens when we lower our caloric intake under 1200 calories. That creates a starvation response, and the body, again, hold on to every calorie because it thinks things are gonna be sparse for a while. Our bodies can work against us if we let them, so why not work WITH our bodies?

Ever hear Pregnant women talk about how they tried and tried to get pregnant, and when they finally gave up, they got pregnant? Or how someone finally found their soul mate when they gave up looking for him/her?

It happens all the time! You stress over pregnancy, your body thinks something big is going on around you because you're worried and full of adrenaline ALL DAY. You will never get pregnant because your body doesn't work correctly under stress. The minute you relax, your body sees a calm environment, one that is safer for mom to have a baby in, and boom! You got your wish.

Same thing with weight loss. When you learn to relax, and follow a Personal Trainer's simple guidelines to weight loss, your weight WILL come off. If you learn to meditate, refocus on weight loss as a long journey, not a rat race, I promise results will be yours. The more you stress, the closer you come to creating a MONSTER of problems. Learn to love the journey, love exercise and how good it makes you feel, learn to love healthy foods, take my advice, use my recipes, and you will reach your goals.

If you are at your wits end, let me take your weight loss into my hands, off your shoulders, and help you achieve victory without losing your mind.

Call me or visit my website at
Round Rock Personal Trainer.