Lower Abs Strengthening and Gaining Better Posture

Lower Abs Strengthening and Gaining Better Posture

Published by on January 21, 2022 | Leave a response

You got questions. Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A. I’m gonna go over how to strengthen your lower abs and achieve better posture. All right. Let’s get right into it. So a question was asked directly to me and said, “Sam, how do I strengthen my lower abs and better my posture?” So I’m gonna dive into this two part question. We’ll go segment by segment.

First, we’re gonna start with lower abs. So something that is a common myth is we can isolate certain segments of our abs. The abdominal muscles, the way they work. They actually… It’s all or nothing. They all contract, or they don’t. So this kind of spotting of the upper and lower abs, is not really a thing. So how do you strengthen your lower abs? The same way that you’re gonna strengthen your upper abs.  Best way to do that is to start with some basic stability exercises. 

Lower Abs Strengthening and Gaining Better Posture

So those would consist of things like bird dogs, or isometric planks, or hollow core holds. You kinda wanna isometrically contract your abs so you can actually feel them. You want to draw that connection. I’ve made some other videos about how do we feel our abs, a quick recap would be to make yourself cough, and that kind of brace out with that.

Lower Abs Strengthening and Gaining Better Posture

You can strengthen your abs by simply bracing your abs while doing strength training exercises. So full compound movements like squats, overhead presses, deadlifts. Those are all gonna really strengthen your core. Nice and strong now to see the abdominals, which most people will confuse with strengthening the abdominals. Our body fat is gonna have to be at a certain percentage for most men, you have to be well under 15% body fat. And for most women you’re gonna need to be below 22% body fat to start seeing them. 

Lower Abs Strengthening and Gaining Better Posture

Those numbers can vary widely within those ranges. For some men, they have to get all the way down to like 7% body fat to see their abdominals. But some men can see it as high as almost double at 14%. So there is really a wide range based on your body style, kind of aesthetically how you are put together. So that kind of covers the abs. Main moral of the story is they’re all gonna contract. If you want to see them, it’s going to be more based off nutrition. A good way to start to strengthen them. If you’re a beginner would be through some isometric core, exercises like bird dogs, or hollow core holds or planks, more kind of really like intense, building exercises would be like a Roman chair situp or a leg raise, or really good ones to strengthen the entire abs to actually give them that brick look appearance. 

So that covers up for the abs. Now let’s talk about the posture. So when you strengthen your core, you’re automatically going to get better posture because we go from, weak core kind of hunch down here, stronger core up tall chest. A good way to get posture is to practice it all the time, because we are unfortunately at a disadvantage where we’re on our cellphones all day, or we’re at our computer, or we’re driving at work and we’re stuck forward like this.

Lower Abs Strengthening and Gaining Better Posture

So to really strengthen that posture, you’re gonna really want to combat that exercises like the prone cobra or bruegger’s. I made a video on that a while ago, are really going to strengthen posture because most people have the common posture deviation of forward shoulder, which is tight pecs here, rounded shoulder here, and then weak, mid back muscles there. So that’s what causes this. 

So we wanna strengthen the back muscles, stretch out the chest, and that will automatically get you out of that forward shoulder positioning. Good things for posture would simply be to think top of the head to the tailbone, staying straight, lifting our chest, letting our heart be open. There’s a variety of different exercises you could do for that, but they’re mostly gonna consist of stretching out the chest, strengthening the back muscles. So that is how you can fix your posture, strengthen your core. That covers it. There is a lot more I can get into with posture specific. I really only covered the upper body posture in this video. I can make another one and cover lower body posture at another time. But for today, that is all hope you found value in this video. If you did give me a thumbs up for like, if you loved it, give me a heart. Drop any other questions you have in the comments below and as always, please, please, please stay strong.

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Cravings: Let’s Talk About It | Food and Nutrition

Cravings: Let’s Talk About It | Food and Nutrition

Published by on January 20, 2022 | Leave a response

Let’s Talk About Cravings

Hey EarthFIT Fam! You have questions? Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A, I’m gonna talk about food cravings. So the question was asked, “What can we do when we’re really craving certain types of foods like pizza or chinese food?”. We’re gonna address that in this video, let’s get right into it. So food cravings, like I said, question was asked specifically about Chinese food and pizza. What do we do when we’re craving those types of foods? So let’s backtrack and dive into why may we be experiencing these cravings? There’s several reasons:

(1) First one, maybe we’ve cut this out of our nutritional lifestyle for a long time. Our diet, it’s otherwise known as for a long time. And we’re just really craving that food. That could be one reason why we’re having cravings.

(2) Another reason we’re having cravings, maybe it’s a micronutrient deficiency. So we have macronutrients which are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. We have micronutrients, the micronutrients are all those little vitamins. Sometimes if they’re thrown way out of balance, you can really have certain cravings because you’re actually craving that micronutrient. In the case of pizza and chinese food that aren’t very micronutrient or nutrient dense, probably not the case. We probably rule that one out in this one.

(3) Third thing, maybe you were a little bit dehydrated. Those are the three common things that I see when people are really craving food. To recap, that is maybe we’ve cut that out of our diet for a long time. And we, we just can’t take it anymore. Maybe it’s micronutrient deficiency, or maybe it is water.

(4) Another one would be, really high stress levels, lack of sleep. Those are, those also really can contribute to food cravings because it’ll actually mess with your hunger hormones in your brain. 

So let’s address each of these, how do we get around them… So, first one, what do we do when we’ve cut something out? And that’s the reason we’re craving it? Well, simply you could add it back in, in smaller quantities or an even better approach would be to make your pizza and chinese food in this case.

So try to make your own at first and if you just can’t get it down right. What I would recommend is ordering a very small portion of whatever that is that you are craving. If you allow it a little bit here and there in your diet, the chances are, you’re not gonna have these huge binges later on because you’ve cut it out for three months. So instead of eating, you know, one serving, we eat three months worth. So just add it back in little by little second, one micronutrient deficiency that can be solved with a good multivitamin, in most cases a healthy serving of fruits, vegetables. Make sure we’re getting all of those in, to really maximize our micronutrient intake.

Third one dehydration, I’ve spoken at length on this, make sure you, if you took your body weight and times it by 0.75, that’s how many fluid ounces of water you want to be drinking. So again, you take your body weight and you times that by 0.75, that would make sure you’re properly hydrated. That should eliminate any cravings. And then the last one, like I spoke on, was stress and sleep. You have to dial those in with a sleep routine, stress management techniques, and do healthy activities to lower that stress. Those can all kind of help you fight off some of those cravings. And I know coach Andrew also just did an excellent video on this topic. So I would also recommend checking out what he has. He has a little framework to walk through what to do when you have a craving. So just to recap, really focus on the things that lead to the craving. So if you’re cutting it out, try to add it back in either by making your own or allowing smaller portions into your life. Micronutrients, if you don’t adequately get enough greens, vegetables, things like that, make sure that you’re adding those in, a multivitamin can really help. Hydration, makes sure we’re drinking 0.75 ounces of water per pound of bodyweight.

And then the fourth and final one, make sure we’re managing our stress and our sleep. If we take care of all those things, the chances that we’re going to have extreme cravings that lead to these binges are very minimal.

So that’s all hope you guys found value in this video. If you guys have any questions for me, feel free to drop them in the comments below, or shoot me a direct message on Facebook. I would love to help you guys out with any of your health or fitness goals. You probably don’t wanna to ask me much about anything else. That is all I have for today. If you’d love this video, give me a heart. If you only liked it, give me a thumbs up though, and as always stay strong.

-EarthFIT Coach Sam

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How To Manage Stress | Beaufort Health and Fitness

How To Manage Stress | Beaufort Health and Fitness

Published by on January 13, 2022 | Leave a response

How To Manage Stress

You got questions? Hopefully I have the answer. One of your questions today, maybe why is he sitting in a bean bag chair? We’ll get to that later, but for now we’re gonna talk about stress. That’s right! In today’s video, I’m gonna cover one of the most commonly asked questions I get. And that is ‘how do we manage stress?’ Today I’m gonna talk about that… chronic stress, the stress that we’re experiencing, not from a traumatic incident, just the day to day kind of rigor that can build up on us and really stress us out. Let’s get right into it. So first I always get asked the question, ‘Sam, how did you remain so calm? Even though you have business, you have a bunch of kids like aren’t you under a lot of stress. Yes. To answer that question? Yes. I do experience a lot of stress, but I use simple frameworks just to manage that stress, and accept it and move past it. 

How To Manage Stress | Beaufort Health and Fitness

So the first step to managing your stress is (1) acknowledge that you are going to experience it. No one’s gonna live a stress free life, especially the way the modern society is set up. We’re very, very hypersensitive to stress. Just being on our phones all the time, being on the internet all the time, comparing ourselves to others, things like that automatically start to really ramp up our stress. So acknowledge that you’re probably going to come across it, daily.

How To Manage Stress | Beaufort Health and Fitness

So after we acknowledge that, we wanna (2) identify when we’re feeling stressed. And what does that feel like to you? This is obviously gonna be individualized. Some people get headaches, some people feel anxiety. Some people feel nauseous, even, really identify. What is that feeling you get when you’re super stressed out? For me, it’s a headache.

How To Manage Stress | Beaufort Health and Fitness

So after we identify that feeling, we wanna know, okay, (3) what is the cause of the stress? Where’s the stress actually stemming from? You wanna identify the problem? Is it a family problem? Is it a financial problem? Is it a health problem whatever that is? We want to actually identify the problem. So I’ll use the example in this, for work. Let’s say that I’m feeling stressed out because of work. I don’t want to just stop and say it was because of work. I need to get into the real reasons behind what’s happening at work. So maybe it’s a coworker that I’m upset with, or somebody’s not doing their or not pleased with my role. I need to explicitly think about that. A lot of times people will push away their fears or what’s stressing them out. And they won’t think about it all. They’ll hold their breath and it actually makes it worse. So what I’m challenging you guys to do is next time you’re stressed out.  

You identify what’s causing that stress. Think about it and breathe consciously. You could sit down in a beanbag chair, sit down wherever. And this sounds, I know it sounds very basic, but just (4) breathe. Take four seconds in through your nose, hold it for four seconds. Blow four seconds out through your mouth. Do that a few times. You’re gonna automatically start to feel better. One thing we don’t want to hold our breath or really contract into that fear or something I always talk about is we want to expand into love, right? So after we think about that, we breathe on it. We want to think about, okay, what can you do right now to control, to change your outlook, to change what’s going on? You want to (5) expand your love. In other words, I know that sounds kind of cheesy and corny, but that’s, that’s the way I look at it. We want to think about how we can bring more happiness and light, from that moment forward. 

So think about an activity you love to do. You just really, you, all you’re doing is breaking up that cycle. You’re giving yourself a little time to decompress by breathing, and then you’re moving on to something that’s gonna move you forward. So go for a walk, take your dog out, talk to your spouse, journal, write… This only needs to be 10 minutes long, and then you can move past it. If you follow those simple steps, you will feel much less stress, feel a lot more calm, and relaxed. 

So again, first we want to identify the physical symptom, whether it’s a headache, it’s nausea, whatever it is we want to identify what specific stress is causing that that day. We want to create a little barrier, a disconnect. So sit down, breathe, and actually think about what was causing you stress that day. Try not to let it stress you out more, continue to breathe into it and then think about, okay, I’ve thought about this stress. 

I’ve thought about the negativity now, what am I gonna do today to expand into love? What am I gonna do to move past this? Find an activity that you enjoy, short activity. It only needs to be 5, 10 minutes. It can be longer to it doesn’t need to be anything major, practice that. And I promise you, you will start to feel less stress in your life. That’s all I have for you today. Hope you guys found value in this video. If you loved it, give me a heart. If you liked it, give me a thumbs up and as always, stay strong.

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Carbs: Simple VS Complex and Blood Sugar

Carbs: Simple VS Complex and Blood Sugar

Published by on January 10, 2022 | Leave a response

“What’s up EarthFIT fam? It’s Eli here talking more nutritional tips and tricks today. We’re talking about another exciting topic. We are talking about carbohydrates, what to consume and what not to consume. Carbs can be very scary. A lot of people like to stay away from ’em. Some people are all about ’em. They can’t avoid ’em. Today we’re just gonna kind of differentiate between the carbs that you need, the carbs that you may want and the carbs that are just gonna be best for you to reach your goals. So to break down the word, carbohydrate stands for sugar. Okay. Sugar in general. So I want you guys to think about your blood sugar in terms of this, there are two types of carbohydrates that are simple and there are complex. A simple carbohydrate is going to be sugar in its purest form, which is glucose. 

Carbs: Simple VS Complex and Blood Sugar

Okay. So when we consume simple carbohydrates, our blood sugar spikes, right? What that looks like on a graph here is when we consume where a low blood sugar area we spike our blood sugar by eating something simple rises up. And then what happens with a spike? There’s a crash. Okay. We don’t want these blood sugar crashes. What happens is we get hungry quick, we get tired, quick, we lose energy. So what we want to do is consume complex carbohydrates.

Carbs: Simple VS Complex and Blood Sugar

Complex carbohydrates – before we get into it are made of more than one type of sugar. So what happens is when we consume them, our body actually has to really put forth some effort in order to break them down to their simplest form. So what that means is it takes longer to break down. It takes longer to absorb in our body. 

So what this looks like on a graph here for a complex carbohydrate, when we consume it, when our blood sugar is low, there is a slow and controlled rise. And you’ll notice that it lasts a lot longer. It’s not a quick spike. It is slow and controlled, lasts longer, and then slows back on the way down. It’s very important to consume these complex carbohydrates, poor blood sugar control, that way we’re not experiencing these highs and lows throughout the day, well, I’ve got a lot of energy and now I don’t. So what does complex carbohydrate look like?

Carbs: Simple VS Complex and Blood Sugar

It looks like vegetables, fruits, and vegetables, whole foods, that food list that we give you, everything that we give you on there, we give it to you for a reason. And so I refer you to that food list to find out more about complex carbohydrates and what types to be consuming. 

I got a recent question recently that I really want to answer. I got the question of why there is a portion on the food list of the vegetables that we are not supposed to eat. This goes right into the complex and simple conversation because those vegetables that are on that far side that say, do not consume, are simple carbohydrates at their best. So you’re gonna experience these blood sugar spikes with them. So we just try to stay away from ’em a little bit. That doesn’t mean you absolutely cannot, never have them, but just know that they need to be consumed most likely with a little bit of extra fiber, put some fiber in the meal that you’re gonna be consuming those with. And you’ll be just fine with those. Those are also starchy vegetables, very starchy vegetables are going to have you experiencing this high, this increase in quick spike in blood sugar.

Carbs: Simple VS Complex and Blood Sugar

So more complex carbohydrates, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, looking for something that is complex. If you have more questions about examples of complex carbohydrates, simple carbohydrates, I can create some more content on that. I can pump a list out for you if that’s what you would like. Again, just ask more questions. Thank you guys so much for tuning in today. That is our carbohydrate conversation this afternoon. Hope you guys have a great rest of your day.”

-EarthFIT Coach Eli

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Navigating Comfort Eating | Beaufort Fitness

Navigating Comfort Eating | Beaufort Fitness

Published by on January 6, 2022 | Leave a response

Navigating Comfort Eating | Beaufort Fitness

You got questions? Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A, I’m going to go over a very serious topic. One that impacts many clients and that is… how do you break up the cycle of emotional eating?

Navigating Comfort Eating | Beaufort Fitness

So we’re going to get right into that. So the question was posted to me through a client. I’m just going to kind of paraphrase her question. It was, “Hey, Hey Sam, I have a question. Whenever I’m thinking about emotional eating, I think really it has a lot to do with my childhood. There’s little triggers based on a reward system, or when I did something good, I got rewarded through food. Or even now as an adult, when I’m sad, I feel myself turning towards those comfort foods. So how do we break up with those comfort foods when we’re experiencing either negative emotions or sometimes even happy emotions? 

So this is a complex answer. I’m going to kind of lay it out as best as I can for you guys and in an easily digestible manner. So first we have to shine the spotlight of awareness on the problem, which would be they’ll comfort foods, us going towards those comfort foods. First thing you want to take check of okay. And you can write this down, you can journal it, whatever works best for you. Take check of what comfort food am I going to? Is it a craving or am I actually hungry? So a craving I’ve made a video on this previously, but just reminder a craving is going to be specific food. So it’s going to be, “Hey, I want that Reese’s bar” or,

Navigating Comfort Eating | Beaufort Fitness

“Hey, I want this type of pizza”, “Hey, I want this specific sweet treat” whatever it is. It’s not going to be, “Hey, I’m just generally hungry.”

So ask yourself, you can run a little self test, think of some type of bland food that you would still eat if you were really hungry. So can I just eat six chicken breasts right now? Could I do that? Am I hungry enough to do that? If the answer is no, I just want this thing. That’s a clear indication that what you’re having is a craving. So after we shine the spotlight of awareness there, we want to ask what emotions we are having around this craving? Am I feeling sad? Am I feeling happy? Did something awesome just happen? Did something bad just happen to me? Kind of monitor those emotions, write them down. And then the best thing you could do in that moment is we want to create some distance from that negative food, or I shouldn’t say negative food, I should say the junk food or the comfort food that we’re craving. 

Navigating Comfort Eating | Beaufort Fitness

We want to create distance. So separate yourself. Don’t tell yourself you absolutely can’t have it set a timer for about 10 minutes. Okay. 10 minutes. And in that 10 minutes, I want you to do something that occupies your time and also releases endorphins. Great one, go out and walk, go have a conversation with a loved one, take your dog out, play with your dog, do something that you actually enjoy doing so we can get the endorphins going.

Navigating Comfort Eating | Beaufort Fitness

Hack, you can even do like a short, like a bout of pushups and squats, things like that. That’s actually what I do when I’m really feeling, I get my blood moving and get my brain off of it. And the chances are in that 10 minutes, I’m not going to go back to that. And if that plan doesn’t work for you, if you still want that after 10 minutes, go ahead and allow yourself to have a little bit and then wait more before you’re having more. That way. We’re not just going into an all out binge.

So really the main takeaway from today’s video. What I want you to do is when you’re having those cravings or those feelings, “Hey, this happened to me in my childhood.” Yes, those things are all bad and they will lead to some disordered eating, but that does not define who you are. So define what’s going on, shine the spotlight of awareness on it, and then create a little breakup, create some space in between there and see how that does for you. So those are my recommendations for today. As always though, I should make a caveat. If you do have a severe eating disorder, please seek out professional help. If you don’t know who to reach out to, reach out to me, and I can point you in the right direction, because that is a very serious issue for some, so we want to take it seriously as well. 

So just to recap, identify what the food is, what the trigger is, what emotion you’re having. When you’re eating these foods, jot that down, try to create some space in there, go out, do something you’d like for about 10 minutes and then come back to it. After that, just create a good time delay and release some endorphins otherwise, and that should help you out with those food cravings for those comfort foods. That’s all I have today. Hope you found value in this video. If you liked to give me a thumbs up, if you loved it give me a heart and as always stay strong.

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Improve Your Posture in One Minute or Less

Improve Your Posture in One Minute or Less

Published by on December 29, 2021 | Leave a response

Improve Your Posture in One Minute or Less

Hey EarthFIT fam! I wanted to make a video since many of you guys are working professionals and one thing you could do each day to better improve your mobility, decrease your aches and pains specifically in that lower body. So let’s get right into it. So let’s say you’re sitting at the office all day. You’re sitting down a lot. You probably notice a lot of tightness in your hips. This one simple thing you could do. If you do it frequently throughout the day it will change your lower body posture, make you feel tons better… that simple thing is sit in a squat.

So simply you just get off the chair and you sit in a squat just like this. (please see the video) You wanna work on keeping your back up, chest up. You want to be able to sit like this, start to time yourself, make it a little bit of a game, 30 seconds or so to start will be adequate for most people. You wanna work your way up. See if you could sit there for two minutes, three minutes, doesn’t take a lot of time. And if you do that with a lot of frequency, you’re gonna really improve the mobility and your hips, ankles, everything. That’s gonna just feel more comfortable. Let’s say you can’t get in the squat or you have some forward shoulder from sitting at a desk all day. That is okay. What I would recommend you do is just grab the chair just like this, and then work on really keeping your chest up as you sit in that squat and you shouldn’t even out tight right here in my hip flexors, and I can start to feel this. So just work, kind of play with that squat position to make it a game over time. Like I said, you want to be able to sit in that comfortably for about two to three minutes. 

Improve Your Posture in One Minute or Less

Now I know you may be thinking “What? That’s crazy!”, but think about other cultures that don’t have chairs, right? Their natural position is a squat. So just a simple little tip. Something that I do to stay loose in the hips, helps me not only with my lower body posture, but also cognitively moving helps my brain move a little bit better as well. So I hope you found value in this video, in this little tip I gave you, if you liked it, gimme a thumbs up. If you loved it, gimme a heart and as always stay strong.

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How Many Times A Week Should I Train?

How Many Times A Week Should I Train?

Published by on December 27, 2021 | Leave a response

How Many Times A Week Should I Train?

You got questions? Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A I’m gonna go over ‘How many days a week should you workout?’ Let’s get right into it. So the question was asked to me specifically, “Sam, how much should I workout? Should I work out three days a week? Or should I workout five days a week?” That was the question that was asked so I’m gonna kind of divulge between those two, three and five days a week, if you’re considering going that high and we’ll break it down by goals. Okay. First things first though, this answer is going to be another, it depends. It really depends on what your goals are. I’ll give you the breakdown of how much we could be working out for muscle building and then how much to really maximize our cardiovascular benefits. Okay. 

First for muscle building in general, this is general okay. I’m not gonna get into a nuanced conversation or you would be watching this video for 30 minutes. General, 3 days a week is perfect. Especially if you’re doing full body training. If you’re doing head to toe training, working all those muscle groups three days a week, you do not need to do more than three days a week. Okay? The reason being is science will show sets per body part. So how much you are working a body part for the week is best done between 9 and 20 sets. Anything over that, not gonna give you more benefit. It’ll actually hurt you. Anything under that is not to give you the results that you desire in terms of building muscles. So three days a week, full body, best practice for strength training.

Now let’s talk about aerobic conditioning. That is a little bit different, cause it’s not as taxing on the nervous system. It’s gonna depend on what style of aerobic conditioning you are doing and what other kind of training you’re doing. Let’s say you are just doing aerobic conditioning. You’re not doing any strength training that you can actually scale up the frequency over time to more like five days a week. Now, starting out though, don’t start out five days a week. And the aerobic conditioning is not going to look the same every single day. We do not want to hammer ourselves into the ground. We’re not pushing max intensity, seeing how fast we can spur a mile every single day, because that would over time really damage us. So what I would suggest is if you’re really looking to boost up your cardio, how many days a week for that, you can go one kind of longer to moderate day followed by a shorter rest day and then kind of alternate in there.  

I would not do more than three to four, really intense aerobic conditioning days for the general public. So that kind of breaks it down. How much you need to be working out. Good rule of thumb. If you just want a good rule of thumb, just stick to three days a week, that is gonna get you the best results. These other days of the week… That does not mean when I’m talking about exercise, that is something we just sit on the couch for the other days of the week, get up, move, do some stretching, do some mobility work, do some light…

You can even do some really, really light kind of movements that are gonna put blood in the muscle facility, recover and get you better results.

So that’s my recommendation. Three days a week of more intense training. And then you can go up to the other four days a week, very light recuperative type work, and that’s gonna get you great results, no need to really hammer ourselves seven days a week. All right, that’s all I have for you for today’s video. If you liked this video give me a thumbs up, if you’d love to give me a heart and as always, stay strong.

-EarthFIT Coach Sam

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Avoiding Afternoon Crash | Beaufort Health and Fitness

Avoiding Afternoon Crash | Beaufort Health and Fitness

Published by on December 24, 2021 | Leave a response

Avoiding Afternoon Crash | Beaufort Health and Fitness

You have questions? Hopefully I have the answer. And today’s Q and A. I’m gonna go over ‘How to avoid that afternoon crash?’. All right. Let’s get into it. So the afternoon crash, we all know the feeling right. Usually it happens between noon at 3:00 PM after we’ve had lunch, we’re at work or just kinda lounge around the house, whatever the case may be. And we find ourselves doing this, dropping our head, closing our eyes, looking around, hoping nobody saw us, most of the time somebody did and then we feel embarrassed after. So how do we avoid this problem? The question was asked specifically, “Hey, how do I avoid this? I don’t want to continue to have to consume more caffeine or go to more sugary foods. How can I get stable balanced energy throughout this period of the day?” So there’s three things that we’re gonna wanna look at.

(1) First, we’re gonna wanna look at our sleep from the night before (2) second, we’re gonna wanna look at what we’re eating beforehand. And then (3) the third we’re gonna look at how much caffeine or other stimulants we’ve consumed prior to this point in the day, I’m gonna break all three of these down so you guys have a good takeaway when you’re done watching this video.

First thing – sleep. So sleep is the most important. If you’re not sleeping and consistently sleeping well, you may experience this and it may even come earlier in the morning. So what to do if you’re not getting consistent sleep and what does consistent sleep look like? Let’s get into that first. So consistent sleep is that I pretty much go to bed and wake up at the same time throughout the week, five to seven days a week. Okay? Sometimes on the weekends, it’ll be a little thrown off. You throw a nap in there to catch back up, but you want to make sure that it’s at least consistent in that amount. And then we want to be getting restful good sleep at least 7-9 hours a night. So if we’re not doing those things, how can we get better at it? First and where we start, all of our clients here at EarthFIT is, develop a sleep schedule, develop a sleep routine, and actually cautiously, think about it. So a quick example would be, “Hey, I drive home from work on the way home from work. I know I’m having some magnesium to kind of cool me down. Then I’m gonna turn off my phone electronics two hours before bed. I’ll unwind in bed, reading a book, making sure that if I do have to go under any lights or TVs, I have blue blocker glasses on. 

So I’m nice and kind of mellowed out before bed, that’s just an example. Your coach can kind of help you guide you along what your individual sleep routine would be. But the point is to develop a sleep routine consciously, think about it. That will automatically help you start to improve your sleep. So that’s step number one, review the sleep from the night before or the week, you know, leading up to that…

Second is gonna be, what are we consuming beforehand? Coach Eli just did an excellent video in this group on complex and simple carbohydrates that kind of illustrates this point very well. Basically, if you’re eating a lot of carbohydrates that are fast acting, really getting a lot of sugar into your bloodstream, you’re gonna experience this roller coaster right throughout the day, going up and down, we’ll feel that crash. So if you’re consuming these a lot in the morning prior to those sugary carbohydrates in the morning prior to when you’re getting the crash, or maybe it’s from lunch before you may want to consider swapping those out for a more balanced source, you can go for protein, more protein or fat. That’s gonna give you more stable energy throughout the day or a carbohydrate that is lower on the glycemic index is also a good way to do that. You just simply look up the glycemic index, look for carbohydrates that are on the lower and anything below 50 is not going to spike you up and give you a crash afterwards. So that’s a little tip on that.

And then third and final, we wanna look at what kind of stimulants or what kind of caffeine were we consuming beforehand throughout the day, similar to foods. If we are consuming high amounts of stimulants early in the morning, or before this crash happens, we’re gonna be riding a roller coaster all day, right? The more caffeine you have, the more drastic this can get. And then you’re just drinking caffeine just to feel like you could stay awake. So I would strongly recommend starting to scale back on that. If you are a heavy coffee drinker beforehand, that could be the reason for this crash. So start scaling back so we can get more stable energy throughout the day. You can look into specific supplements that include some cordyceps in there… they are great for focus, and they’re not gonna have you go up and down all over.

So that is it for how do we avoid that 1:00 PM crash, that afternoon crash that so many of us have, again, you’re gonna look at three things. We’re gonna look at the sleep. If we don’t have good sleep, we need to start developing a sleep routine right away. Second, we’re gonna look at the foods we’re consuming. Are we having high glycemic or high sugary foods that are causing us to crash? And third, we’re gonna look at the caffeine consumption. Are we bombing ourselves with 600 milligrams of caffeine in the morning? If you are, you’re probably gonna have a crash afterwards.

All right. That’s all for today’s video. I hope you guys found value in this. If you liked it, gimme a thumbs up, if you loved it, gimme a heart and as always, stay strong.

-EarthFIT Coach Sam

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Post Workout: What To Eat | Nutrition

Post Workout: What To Eat | Nutrition

Published by on December 23, 2021 | Leave a response

Post Workout: What To Eat | Nutrition

You have questions? Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A, I’m going to follow up from part one of my video on post-workout nutrition before I did pre-workout nutrition. Now we’re going to do post-workout nutrition. A reminder, the question was asked in the group that said, Sam, what should I eat in regards to carbohydrates, fats and proteins? Is there a difference between what activity I’m doing that day? Is there a certain amount that I need to be getting in? What’s the deal with workout nutrition pre and post. We already covered pre-workout just to recap of that, that is you’re gonna want to primarily stick to carbohydrates and protein pre.

Now let’s talk about the post-workout. So before I get into the post-workout, a reminder nutrition is going to be individualized to everybody. So take what I’m saying in today’s video with a grain of salt. And then the really best thing to do is consult your fitness professional on what specifically works best for you, given how your body works. Now, if you don’t have a perfect fitness professional, you can listen to me and follow this advice. It should do you solid okay. 

So post-workout what to eat? We’re going to want to stick to carbohydrates and protein again, similar to we did pre-workout and then some fats too. We want to take a nice balanced approach after we work out, before I talk about how much and, ratios and things like that, I do want to let you guys know you do not need to rush 45 minutes after your workout to eat. There was this myth long ago, promoted really by supplement companies that said, you need to eat 45 minutes after you work out. The reason they said that, is they’re trying to ritualize you taking their protein powder after you work out, you ritualize it. You’re going to do it more and you’re going to buy more protein from them. So that was a myth that was really popular. And I know the early or late 1990s, and then early two thousands, that’s not true. You don’t need to follow that advice.

Post Workout: What To Eat | Nutrition

Okay. So now that we’ve got that out of the way, what to eat? So start out with a good source of carbohydrates. Reason being is you’re going to want to replenish all that glucose and glycogen that you ate during your training session, no matter what type of training session you did. So if you just did a long run, or if you just did some short strength training or a short HIIT session, regardless, you just burned through a lot of glycogen and glucose, you’re going to want to replenish that.

So a nice steady source of carbohydrates. Again, I usually recommend fruits and white rice or sweet potato. Keep it nice and simple there, we don’t need to be eating candy bars and all those things to get it in quicker after, it really doesn’t make a difference.

After that, we’re going to look for a good source of protein. So lean protein sources, we’re looking at, you know – chicken, turkey, and then lean styles of beef. Okay. Those are gonna be your best kind of protein sources or fish. If you’re in the low country, we got excellent seafood. So you can throw some of that in post-workout.

And we’re going to want a nice balanced fat, typically I’ll recommend something after workout, like an avocado. Just start to replenish that… Now with the fat source, I wouldn’t go crazy with the fat source right after you workout. What you could do is you can load up more on the fats at nighttime, protein and fat at night time and scale back on the carbohydrates… 

Take them out completely before moving into your next kind of training session. One other thing to note, since we know now we want to get protein, carbs and fats after workout. The only time that you would really need to eat quickly after you train is if you’re going to have another training session that day, you’re going to want to make sure that you replenish everything quickly. I know before I said it doesn’t matter if you eat 45 minutes before it doesn’t, but if you have another training session coming up in two or three hours, you’re going to want to make sure that you eat quickly enough to replenish that.

Also one thing that’s often neglected after exercise – hydration, make sure you’re getting in lots of water. I would say a minimum for the majority of people should be 40 ounces of water after they’re done training. 

Okay. You kind of want to get that in. And just like I kind of said in the pre-workout video, if you’re not a carbohydrate fan, what do you do? If you’re on a low carb keto style diet, make sure that you’re getting in adequate salt, magnesium, and all those electrolytes, that way you can be balanced and ready to go for your next training.

So quick recap after training is not really going to matter, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re getting into your carbohydrates, your good sources of protein directly before that next training, at least two hours before that next training as long as you get that and you’ll be good to go and make sure you’re hydrating.

And that is all I have for you guys today. So if you have any other questions for me, drop in the comments, I’d love to answer them. We can get more specific on that. And if you need to, if you have any specific questions on that, you can reach out to me directly via direct messenger. That’s all I have for you guys today. If you’d like this video, give me a thumbs up. If you love it, give me a heart and as always stay strong.

-EarthFIT Coach Sam

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Pre Workout: What To Eat | Nutrition

Pre Workout: What To Eat | Nutrition

Published by on December 22, 2021 | Leave a response

Pre Workout: What To Eat | Nutrition

You got questions? Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A. I’m gonna go over what to eat – pre workout so a question was asked in the group, and I’m gonna be honest with you guys they asked Sam, I need to know what to eat pre-workout, post-workout, it doesn’t matter really based on my activity. It doesn’t matter if I’m doing HIIT training that day or I’m doing strength training, or if I’m doing aerobic training, what do I need to eat pre and post-workout in terms of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and all that stuff. I tried to make a video on that, but it ended up being about 10 minutes long and nobody wants to sit and watch a 10 minute video. So we’re gonna keep this one nice and short. I’m gonna stick to pre-workout today. And then we’ll make more videos later on covering the post-workout nutrition.

So pre-workout nutrition, based on your activity. So let’s talk about HIIT training, strength training, and endurance training. Okay. What do you want pre-workout really, for all three of those, your safest bet is to have a source of carbohydrates and a little bit of protein beforehand. Things we want to consider. How does our body digest the carbohydrates we’re eating and the protein we’re eating?, how much of that are we gonna eat? how do, does it make us feel afterwards? So you wanna think about all those things beforehand. So if you’re eating a protein source that yeah, maybe a good protein source, but you know that it gives you gas or indigestion. Probably not something you’re gonna want to eat before a workout. Same thing with carbohydrates. Now, typically you just want a simple, nice fast-acting carbohydrate. You can have like white rice, you can have some fruits, some vegetables and then a lighter source of protein is gonna be good pre-workout.

Pre Workout: What To Eat | Nutrition

When you want to eat those, you’re gonna want to eat those at least two hours beforehand to tap into that energy. Why do we eat carbohydrates? And before, before those activities… simply, it’s gonna give you more energy throughout when you start to train your body burns through glucose, that is the sugar in your blood. And we wanna just make sure there’s enough of that so you can keep on pushing throughout the workout. Really, no matter what activity it is, how do those three – HIIT, endurance or strength training, carbohydrates and a little bit of protein are gonna be the best that hands down, remember two hours beforehand. Now I’ll give you a little nuance information for all my low carb lovers out there. If you are on the low carb diet, which I don’t really recommend, if you’re really chasing performance in the gym, it’s gonna be a lot more difficult, but let’s just say you really like your low carb diet. 

What can you do pre-workout for that? You can, um, really have a decent little bit of fat source. You’re not gonna wanna really overload fat before you train, because it’s gonna make you feel a little bit fuller, kind of that bloated feeling, and a little bit of protein beforehand. And one thing you’re gonna want to do is make sure that you have adequate amounts of electrolytes in your system. So a good electrolytes supplements – LMNT, that’s a lot of sodium things like that.

That’s gonna keep you hydrated through your workout, and you’re definitely gonna want to drink a big, big glass of water. And that goes for all my low carb people and all my people that do enjoy carbohydrates. So to recap really quick to bring it all together, pre-workout about two hours before you’re gonna want to stick to a nice fast acting source of carbohydrates. 

I would recommend some fruit or maybe some white rice, and then a good source of protein, any type of lean meat, that’s easily digestible for you. And then if you’re a low carb advocate, make sure you’re drinking lots of water, get some sodium, some magnesium in you before your training. And then you can have a little bit of fat as well. All right. That covers it for today for pre-workout meals. I hope you found some value in this video. If you’d liked it, give me a thumbs up. If you’d love it, gimme a heart and as always stay strong.

-EarthFIT Coach Sam

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