Jungle Fitness Miami
In lieu of your regular morning coffee try powering up with this concoction. Enjoy!
1tbsp instant coffee
1 scoop tsn %100 Whey protein
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 cup of ice
Mix coffee in 1/8 cup of hot water add to blender with the remaining ingredient and blend away!
-Jann
Gluten-free is hot these days. There are books and websites, restaurants with gluten free menus, and grocery stores with hundreds of new gluten-free food products on the shelf. Is this a fad, or a reflection of response to a real problem?
Yes, gluten is a real problem. But the problem is not just gluten. In fact, there are three major hidden reasons that wheat products, not just gluten (along with sugar in all its forms) is a major contributor to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, depression and so many other modern ills.
This is why there are now 30 percent more obese than undernourished in the world, and why chronic lifestyle and dietary driven disease kills more than twice as many people as infectious disease globally. These non-communicable, chronic diseases will cost our global economy $47 trillion over the next 20 years.
Sadly, this tsunami of chronic illness is increasingly caused by eating our beloved diet staple, bread, the staff of life, and all the wheat products hidden in everything from soups to vodka to lipstick to envelope adhesive.
The biggest problem is wheat, the major source of gluten in our diet. But wheat weaves its misery through many mechanisms, not just the gluten! The history of wheat parallels the history of chronic disease and obesity across the world. Supermarkets today contain walls of wheat and corn disguised in literally hundreds of thousands of different food-like products, or FrankenFoods. Each American now consumes about 55 pounds of wheat flour every year.
It is not just the amount but also the hidden components of wheat that drive weight gain and disease. This is not the wheat your great-grandmother used to bake her bread. It is FrankenWheat — a scientifically engineered food product developed in the last 50 years.
How Wheat — and Gluten — Trigger Weight Gain, Prediabetes, Diabetes and More
This new modern wheat may look like wheat, but it is different in three important ways that all drive obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia and more.
It contains a Super Starch — amylopectin A that is super fattening.
It contains a form of Super Gluten that is super-inflammatory.
It contains forms of a Super Drug that is super-addictive and makes you crave and eat more.
The Super Starch
The Bible says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Eating bread is nearly a religious commandment. But the Einkorn, heirloom, Biblical wheat of our ancestors is something modern humans never eat.
Instead, we eat dwarf wheat, the product of genetic manipulation and hybridization that created short, stubby, hardy, high-yielding wheat plants with much higher amounts of starch and gluten and many more chromosomes coding for all sorts of new odd proteins. The man who engineered this modern wheat won the Nobel Prize — it promised to feed millions of starving around the world. Well, it has, and it has made them fat and sick.
The first major difference of this dwarf wheat is that it contains very high levels of a super starch called amylopectin A. This is how we get big fluffy Wonder Bread and Cinnabons.
Here’s the downside. Two slices of whole wheat bread now raise your blood sugar more than two tablespoons of table sugar.
There is no difference between whole wheat and white flour here. The biggest scam perpetrated on the unsuspecting public is the inclusion of “whole grains” in many processed foods full of sugar and wheat, giving the food a virtuous glow. The best way to avoid foods that are bad for you is to stay away from foods with health claims on the labels. They are usually hiding something bad.
In people with diabetes, both white and whole grain bread raises blood sugar levels 70 to 120 mg/dl over starting levels. We know that foods with a high glycemic index make people store belly fat, trigger hidden fires of inflammation in the body and give you a fatty liver, leading the whole cascade of obesity, pre-diabetes and diabetes. This problem now affects every other American and is the major driver of nearly all chronic disease and most our health care costs. Diabetes now sucks up one in three Medicare dollars.
The Super Gluten
Not only does this dwarf, FrankenWheat, contain the super starch, but it also contains super gluten which is much more likely to create inflammation in the body. And in addition to a host of inflammatory and chronic diseases caused by gluten, it causes obesity and diabetes.
Gluten is that sticky protein in wheat that holds bread together and makes it rise. The old fourteen-chromosome-containing Einkorn wheat codes for the small number of gluten proteins, and those that it does produce are the least likely to trigger celiac disease and inflammation. The new dwarf wheat contains twenty-eight or twice as many chromosomes and produces a large variety of gluten proteins, including the ones most likely to cause celiac disease.
Five Ways Gluten Makes You Sick and Fat
Gluten can trigger inflammation, obesity and chronic disease in five major ways.
Full-blown celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that triggers body-wide inflammation triggering insulin resistance, which causes weight gain and diabetes, as well as over 55 conditions including autoimmune diseases, irritable bowel, reflux, cancer, depression, osteoporosis and more.
Low-level inflammation reactions to gluten trigger the same problems even if you don’t have full-blown celiac disease but just have elevated antibodies (7 percent of the population, or 21 million Americans).
There is also striking new research showing that adverse immune reactions to gluten may result from problems in very different parts of the immune system than those implicated in celiac disease. Most doctors dismiss gluten sensitivity if you don’t have a diagnosis of celiac disease, but this new research proves them wrong. Celiac disease results when the body creates antibodies against the wheat (adaptive immunity), but another kind of gluten sensitivity results from a generalized activated immune system (innate immunity). This means that people can be gluten-sensitive without having celiac disease or gluten antibodies and still have inflammation and many other symptoms.
A NON-gluten glycoprotein or lectin (combination of sugar and protein) in wheat called wheat germ agglutinin (WGA)[1] found in highest concentrations in whole wheat increases whole body inflammation as well. This is not an autoimmune reaction, but can be just as dangerous and cause heart attacks.[2]
Eating too much gluten-free food (what I call gluten-free junk food) like gluten-free cookies, cakes and processed food. Processed food has a high glycemic load. Just because it is gluten-free, doesn’t mean it is healthy. Gluten-free cakes and cookies are still cakes and cookies! Vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and seeds and lean animal protein are all gluten free — stick with those.
Let’s look at this a little more closely. Gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, spelt and oats, can cause celiac disease, which triggers severe inflammation throughout the body and has been linked to autoimmune diseases, mood disorders, autism, schizophrenia, dementia, digestive disorders, nutritional deficiencies, diabetes, cancer and more.
Celiac Disease: The First Problem
Celiac disease and gluten-related problems have been increasing, and now affect at least 21 million Americans and perhaps many millions more. And 99 percent of people who have problems with gluten or wheat are NOT currently diagnosed.
Ninety-eight percent of people with celiac have a genetic predisposition known as HLA DQ2 or DQ8, which occurs in 30 percent of the population. But even though our genes haven’t changed, we have seen a dramatic increase in celiac disease in the last 50 years because of some environmental trigger.
In a recent study that compared blood samples taken 50 years ago from 10,000 young Air Force recruits to samples taken recently from 10,000 people, researchers found something quite remarkable. There has been a real 400 percent increase in celiac disease over the last 50 years.[3] And that’s just the full-blown disease affecting about one in 100 people, or about three million Americans. We used to think that this only was diagnosed in children with bloated bellies, weight loss and nutritional deficiencies. But now we know it can be triggered (based on a genetic susceptibility) at any age and without ANY digestive symptoms. The inflammation triggered by celiac disease can drive insulin resistance, weight gain and diabetes, just like any inflammatory trigger — and I have seen this over and over in my patients.
Gluten and Gut Inflammation: The Second Problem
But there are two ways other than celiac disease in which wheat appears to be a problem.
The second way that gluten causes inflammation is through a low-grade autoimmune reaction to gluten. Your immune system creates low-level antibodies to gluten, but doesn’t create full-blown celiac disease. In fact, 7 percent of the population, 21 million, have these anti-gliadin antibodies. These antibodies were also found in 18 percent of people with autism and 20 percent of those with schizophrenia.
A major study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that hidden gluten sensitivity (elevated antibodies without full-blown celiac disease) was shown to increase risk of death by 35 to 75 percent, mostly by causing heart disease and cancer.[4] Just by this mechanism alone, over 20 million Americans are at risk for heart attack, obesity, cancer and death.
How does eating gluten cause inflammation, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and cancer?
Most of the increased risk occurs when gluten triggers inflammation that spreads like a fire throughout your whole body. It damages the gut lining. Then all the bugs and partially-digested food particles inside your intestine get across the gut barrier and are exposed your immune system, 60 percent of which lies right under the surface of the one cell thick layer of cells lining your gut or small intestine. If you spread out the lining of your gut, it would equal the surface area of a tennis court. Your immune system starts attacking these foreign proteins, leading to systemic inflammation that then causes heart disease, dementia, cancer, diabetes and more.
Jungle Fitness Miami
Leaving your footprints along a wet sandy beach is one of the purest pleasures of the summer. It also happens to be one of the best workouts. Even just a few beach runs strengthens your ankles, arches, and all other below-the-knee muscles more than running on harder surfaces. It’s so good for you that coaching legend Bob Sevene encourages his Big Sur Distance Project elite runners to run, walk, and even do “hill” repeats on sand several times a week. “Running on sand develops power throughout your lower body,” says Sevene. “It requires you to generate more force and work through a fuller range of motion, from your ankles to your hip flexors and arms.”
That extra effort pays off: Several studies have found that running on sand consumes more energy than running on asphalt–burning 1.6 times more calories per mile. There’s also much less impact force when you run on sand. The dry, soft stuff is the kindest to the legs. But it’s also much harder to run in, making 10-minute miles feel like speedwork. Because of the added difficulty, your first beach runs of the summer should be done in running shoes in the hard, wet sand next to the water.
On that harder-packed surface, the rules of road-running form apply–keep your head up and your back comfortably straight, and land midfoot. But the poor traction of soft sand forces you to run more on the balls of your feet, lean your body farther forward, and drive your knees and arms higher.
The Bare Facts
Yet, for many of us, the experience of running on the beach isn’t complete unless we lose the shoes entirely. Ken Bob Saxton, famous for running marathons sans shoes, leads barefoot group runs on Southern California’s Sunset Beach. Saxton admits there are pitfalls to running shoeless on the beach. “I’ve cut myself stepping on bamboo and also on a stingray,” he says. But running barefoot on the sand allows your feet to move through their natural range of motion–without the restrictions imposed by running shoes–which helps strengthen your feet and ankles even more.
Before you ditch the shoes at the beach, however, Saxton recommends doing some trail running (in shoes) to strengthen your ankles. Then limit your first barefoot run to just 20 minutes in the firmer wet sand to build strength in your lower legs, ankles, and feet. You can add five minutes at a time as you get used to the new surface. Veteran beach runners, who’ve built up their lower-body strength, can try the soft sand for short speed workouts.
While the softness of sand reduces the risk of impact-related injuries, other injuries may be more likely. “Running in the sand can strain your Achilles tendons or calves since they’re stretched farther than when running on a hard surface,” says Marie Bovarnick, D.P.M., a podiatrist in Boca Raton, Florida. “And when barefoot, you can develop plantar fasciitis or ankle sprains because you don’t have the support of shoes. You may also suffer a puncture wound if you step on something.”
To lessen the strain on your Achilles and calves, try running near low tide when the wet sand is flatter and firmer. And you can literally sidestep other sand-running hazards by keeping an eye out for sharp objects such as rocks, seashells, pop-tops, and glass as you run and steering clear of anything that glints in the sun.
Of course, when you’re looking to accrue the many benefits of beach running, any beach will do. But author Ken McAlpine found some of the best while running on dozens of them from Florida to Maine while doing research for his book Off-Season: Discovering America on Winter’s Shore. “Cape Cod National Seashore is 40 miles of uninterrupted beach, past cliff walls and lighthouses,” he says. “But the prettiest beach on the East Coast may be on Ocracoke Island, near Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. It’s 12 miles of powdery, wind-scoured sand.” See you at the beach.
No Grain, No Gain
To build speed and power, try one of these workouts the next time you’re at the beach.
Warmup: Run 10 minutes on the wet, hard-packed sand, gradually accelerating from a slow jog to training pace.
Workout 1: (The Zigzag)
*Head to the dry, soft sand for a one-minute hard run (less than one minute if your breathing gets out of control).
*Cut back to the firm sand for one minute of slow recovery running.
*Keep this zigzag pattern going until you’ve done five to 10 one-minute spurts.
Workout 2: (Sand-Hill Ascents)
*Find a tall sand hill that’s open to runners. Run to the top, or until your breathing gets too hard to continue.
*Jog back down. Keep jogging around the hill until you’ve caught your breath.
*Do five to 15 ascents, depending on the height of the hill.
Cooldown: Run 10 minutes easy on the hard-packed sand.
For those looking for a better way to boost up their exercise routine, plyometric excercises may be the perfect thing. Plyometrics is also knows as plyos, and is a specific type of exercise that is used as a training routine. It consists of fast, powerful movements. This improves the way the nervous system works and is usually used to improve your performance in sports, although it can be used in a healthy exercise regimen also.
This type of exercise involves loading the muscles and then contracting them in rapid sequences. It uses strength, innervation and elasticity of the muscles and the tissues that surround them in order to jump higher, run faster, hit harder and throw farther, among other performance benefits. Which goal is reached depends on the way you work out and which goal you set. These goals are reached by raising the speed or force of the contractions of your muscles, which leads to explosiveness for a large array of sports activities. Some of the most popular sports that use plyometrics in their training routines are rugby, soccer, track and field, racket sports, basketball and martial arts.
There are many benefits that can be gained through plyometric exercises, including:
1. Better Performance
For those who enjoy sports like track and field, plyometric exercise can greatly benefit running speed. If running isn’t your game, perhaps you would like to punch harder or throw farther. Plyometric exercise helps you achieve any athletic goal.
2. Developing Muscle Power
Plyometric exercise gives your legs and muscles an intense exercise which guarantees an increase in muscle potential.
3. Enhancing Your Ability to Burn Calories
An increased muscular endurance and ability to burn calories would come to great use for someone hoping to build a weight loss routine.
4. Increasing Your Muscular Endurance
If you are an athlete and you have a big competition coming up, plyometric exercising will help intensify your energy and increase your stamina just in time for the main event. Since plyometric exercising builds up an explosive amount of intense energy, it could be just the thing for an athlete to have in their training routine.
5. No Extreme Exercising Equipment is Needed
Exercise equipment can be expensive, and plyometric exercising doesn’t require any. Anything that is needed could be easily found lying around the house.
6. Easily Calibrated to Suit Anyone’s Needs
Plyometric exercising can be as simple as jumping on a trampoline several times a day or even using your old jump rope from back in the day. For someone looking for a little more intense workout, perhaps jumping back and forth from a lower platform to a higher platform would suit their needs. There are many ways to increase the intensity of the exercise by simply increasing the distance or height of each jump. Plyometric exercising is simply utilizing the muscular energy that it takes to jump to your own exercising advantage.
It’s your job to not engage in this garbage. It’s not about “not” being around it. It’s awesome to be around it and fall into the trap.
