Why I Don't Eat Wheat

Let's get one thing straight: Carbs are not inherently bad for you.

Looks like, understandably after my posts about the Keto Diet and my Whole30 adventure, I've mistakenly given off the falsehood that carbohydrates are the devil and everyone everywhere, regardless of their age, sex, weight, or lifestyle, should stay far, far away from these water-hoarding macronutrients like the bubonic plague has resurfaced.

Woops. My bad.

Lawlz.

The fact is that carbohydrates, though not as necessary for athletic or daily energy as previously thought (Ben Greenfield has a fantastic article on all of this. Check it out.), are pretty awesome for active people for a variety of reasons.

1. Though burning glucose stores and your own fat is great for water weight/fat loss, you will run out of your glucose (fast-burning energy) stores in about 2 weeks. After that, you're running strictly on your own fat storage for energy, which doesn't work as quickly as glucose or carbohydrates. So your high-intensity sessions and heavy weight-training isn't going to be as enthusiastic or effective.

2. Using up your muscle glycogen stores for energy can literally cause muscle catabolism, or a loss in muscle mass, the thing you're trying so hard to gain.

3. Vegetables and fruits have carbohydrates. They also have fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fill you up. Plus they're super duper delicious.

So if you have more than 10 pounds of fat to lose and you aren't doing much in terms of exercise, and you don't have any serious medical conditions, try a low-carb diet.

But if you want to improve your athletic performance and gain muscle, though it is possible to do so on a keto diet, it is much easier to eat some carbs along the way.

Carbohydrate sources I enjoy: White potatoes, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, beans, vegetables, berries, dried fruit, rice.

Sweet potatoes are my YAM. Haha, get it?

Carbohydrate sources I purposely avoid: Sugar and wheat.

I've already discussed in my very first entry why sugar is super duper bad for you please don't eat a lot of sugar seriously sugar is the reason there's so much diabetes disease and death in this world and oh my goodness yes drinking sugar counts as eating sugar and no it doesn't really matter what the source is that corn syrup commercial was totally right sugar is sugar but that doesn't make it okay okay?

Phew!

Okay, on to wheat. DUN DUN DUNN.

What's lurking in your bread?

Oh, hey, a disclaimer: As you've noticed, the title of this is "Why I Don't Eat Wheat," not "Why No One Ever Should Eat Wheat or Even Smell It." Though there are nutritional generalities we can pretty much all agree on (Yay vegetables! Boo chugging a bottle of Smirnoff), nutrition is very individual as well. For example, I can't eat kiwi. You know why? Because I would die of asphyxiation. You probably won't, though. See? Science.

Reasons I do not include wheat (including, but not limited to, baked goods, crackers, pasta, bread, breading, bagels, muffins, bread crumbs, tortillas, thickened sauces) in my daily diet:

1. Most wheat these days is genetically modified. A recent report found a link between GMOs and gluten sensitivity because the chemicals used as pesticides actually cause holes to form in the gut of insects and humans.  Here's an article I wrote on the report in WholeFoods Magazine. Plus, the wheat of today isn't even close to what is used to be.

2. Wheat contains phytic acid, which blocks the absorption of certain nutrients like zinc and magnesium. Spouting your grains will destroy this phytic acid; flour is not sprouted. 

3. Wheat, yes, even whole grain wheat, raises your blood sugar levels. 

4. Just take a look at the list of things that contain wheat. It's just sorta common sense that cookies, cake, and boxes of processed crackers and cheesits aren't exactly the ultimate good-for-you food. 

Maybe my reasons aren't valid for you. But they're my reasons and honestly I feel better not eating wheat. Find out what works for you and stick with it. 

Questions? Concerns? Comment below!

Lift. Eat. Love. Sleep.

Healthy Snacks For Work

Have you seen Weight Watchers’ new commercial? Take a look:

(If the video isn't loading, click here.)

It’s very different from what it previously had been relying on to get their message across: celebrity endorsements. Though endorsements are rather convincing for most brands, and had been with WW in the past, the general public is becoming more and more skeptical of weight-loss results they see on TV. These celebrities can dedicate themselves to their weight loss 24/7, usually with a personal trainer and nutritionist by their side. My guess is that you can’t.

What you can do, however, is relate to their new commercial. “If you’re happy and you know it, eat a snack....If you’re sad and you know it....If you’re bored...—Help with the hard part.” 

And that is the hard part, right? Eating out of boredom, sadness, anger; eating out of anything but hunger.

Even if you have conquered your inner emotional demons that craved food at all times, snacks are probably still a big part of your daily routine. It’s hard for me to split up my calories for the day into three meals, especially now that I eat so much. I need snacks in between to fill in the gaps. Plus, they make me happy. Food, though it is fuel, is still allowed to be an enjoyable part of your life!

But if you’re on the road to a lifestyle change, typical snacks are off the table. No chips, no cookies, no candy. If you’re on certain diets, other “healthy” things like plain yogurt might even no longer be an option. Plus, if you’re often on-the-go or stuck at a desk, complicated mini-meals aren’t exactly going to work.

Here are some ideas for healthy snacks you can bring with you anywhere. 

Please remember that what you can and cannot eat is dependent upon many factors, such as your body composition goals, your own diet plan (Keto? Paleo? Vegetarian?), allergies, and your own personal tastes.

1. Quest bars. I don’t remember how I learned about Quest bars, but they’ve been a staple in my diet ever since. 160-210 calories and 21g of protein each, but only 5-8 net carbs (thanks to the magic of fiber) and no added sugar, Quest bars are a godsend. They come in so many delicious flavors like Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Brownie, PB&J, White Chocolate Raspberry and Banana Nut Muffin, and are shelf-stable. *There has been some controversy considering the carbohydrate count, so do your research before eating these on a keto or super low-carb diet. I haven’t encountered any issues, personally.

2. Nuts. Pecans, macadamia nuts, cashews and almonds are my favorites. They’re a great source of fat and just an ounce (160-200 calories) will keep you full for a couple hours. If you’re going to have nuts, however, I would recommend also keeping some measuring cups in your desk drawer, or pre-weighing and portioning them.

3. Nut butters. Almond, cashew or peanut. When I was doing the Whole30, I literally just ate almond butter out of the jar at my desk. Sure, people thought I was weird, but that’s just because they don’t know the fatty, nutty deliciousness that is a spoon of crushed up almonds. Again, a measuring tablespoon will come in handy here. 

4. Oats. You’ll need access to a microwave for this one, but most offices have them. ½ cup + enough water to just cover it = 150 calories of filling fiber and carbohydrates to help pump up those muscles. I normally eat my oats with Greek yogurt mixed in, but that’s only useful if you have a refrigerator.

5. Beef jerky. Yes, I’m serious. A bunch of protein in a chewy, salty packet? Yes, please. Look for jerky made without sugar. Steve’s Paleo Goods has some: Paleo Goods. Plus, here’s this super convenient list from a fellow blogger: Beef Jerky Diet

6. Fruit. Just because fruit isn’t a big part of my own diet (expensive compared to veggies, high sugar content) doesn’t mean it can’t be part of yours. If you’re bringing it from home day-of, they don’t need to be kept cold. So bring an apple, pear, kiwi, clementine, or whatever else suits your fancy to work so you’ll have something with vitamins to snack on when your sugar craving hits.

7. Dried fruit. Same deal, except it definitely does not need to be cold. Make sure whatever you pick up has no added sugar. Apricots tend to be safe; cranberries, on the other hand, are always sweetened.

8. Tomatoes. Okay, yes, technically they’re also a fruit, but for the purposes of this list, they are vegetables. Fun fact: refrigerating tomatoes makes them lose their flavor. Keep them in your desk for flavorful munching. You can cut them if you want, but I eat mine like an apple. Again, I get stares, but whatever.

9. Rice cakes. If the only ingredient is puffed rice, you’re good to go. Spread some almond butter on it. Yum!

10. Packaged salmon or tuna. A bunch of protein, very low in fat, and conveniently not in a can, I always keep some in my desk for protein emergencies.

11. Protein powder. Mix with water. Bam: instant protein shake.

All I want for Christmas is this woman's abs. 

Options if you have a refrigerator handy:

1.  Greek yogurt. Full-fat and plain is best. Please don’t buy Dannon pie-flavored sugar that parades around as “yogurt” and act like you’re eating healthy. You’re not. That’s dessert on a cheat day.

2. Berries. Lower in sugar than stone fruits, berries are a great source of antioxidants, too.

 My skin is literally slightly orange because I eat so many carrots.

3. Veggies. Baby carrots, sliced zucchini, cucumbers, bell peppers. Just make a big bag of them in the beginning of the week and bring them to work, then snack on a cup each day. Less sugar than fruits, but still crunchy and satisfying.

4.  Hard-boiled eggs. Super easy to make and store.

A Few Notes

When considering a snack, shoot for high fat, high protein, high fiber, and super duper low sugar. Added sugar in general is a big no-no, and it will just make you hungry again in half an hour.

As always, have your water bottle on hand all day to keep yourself hydrated. People often mistake dehydration for hunger.

Got suggestions for more healthy snacks? Let us know by commenting below!

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Lift.Eat.Love.Sleep.

Top 5 Health and Fitness Apps

Starting a healthy diet and fitness routine is hard. 

Maintaining that routine for weeks, months, and hopefully a lifetime can be even harder. While finding a support group of family and friends is extremely helpful and ideal, they can’t be with you every second of every day to make sure you’re staying on track.

Luckily, technology can be (and probably already is) by your side 24/7, and there are a bunch of great apps that can help you with every aspect of your health journey. 

Here’s a list of the top five health and fitness apps you can use to keep you on track and dedicated to your diet, exercise, and even sleep routines.

1. MyFitnessPal: iOS, Android, Windows – Price: Free

 

The MyFitnessPal app is the mobile version of MyFitnessPal.com, a comprehensive diet- and exercise-tracking site where you can connect with a large community of people who are also dedicated to their health. 

After creating an account, you can easily set custom or recommended goals for calories, macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fats), micronutrients (such as vitamin and fiber intake), and more based on your height, weight, and fitness level. MyFitnessPal has an enormous database of nutritional information for almost any food you can think of, verified by the users of the site. 

You can also track your workouts and weight, so it’s easy to look back after all your hard work and see how far you’ve come!

2. Zombies, Run!: iOS, Android – Price: $3.99

Who says running can’t be fun? For all intents and purposes, Zombies, Run! is a game. 

It is a compilation of audio recordings, including radio announcements, that you listen to on a run, all explaining how the zombie apocalypse is happening RIGHT NOW, and you are the only one who can save the world. In more than 35 missions, not only are you running to get away from the zombies, but to collect supplies for the survivors back home. The further and faster you run, the more people you can save. 

The app also allows you to listen to your own music playlists in between announcements, and tracks the time and distance of your runs.

3. Full Fitness: Exercise Workout Trainer: iOS – Price: $1.99

This app is a must-have for anyone who is serious about lifting. Full Fitness provides explanations for hundreds of exercises, including video instruction, a logging feature so you can keep track of your sets, reps, and weight for each exercise (great for keeping you motivated!), and even a stopwatch timer for timing your rest in between sets. 

Not sure what routine to follow? Full Fitness has 30 pre-made routines according to certain fitness goals, like weight loss, strength, or even achieving definition of certain muscle groups.

4. Lift–Your Daily Coach: iOS, Android – Price: Free

Lift isn’t specifically a health app, but it can be immensely useful when trying to create a new habit. It is a community of coaches and people with the same goals as you, all focused on working together to achieve those goals. Besides being able to ask advice of any of the users, for an additional $14.99, you can turn on in-app coaching to get 1-on-1 advice from an expert in the field. 

Daily notifications keep you focused on your goal, as do tracking your little (and big!) accomplishments. Use Lift to lose weight, get fit, eat healthy, or even just become a happier, more productive person.

5. SleepCycle: iOS, Android – Price: $0.99

One very important aspect of health and fitness that most people overlook is sleep. Without adequate amounts of quality sleep, your body and mind have difficulty fully recovering, and your performance in the gym and the office can suffer. 

SleepCycle tracks and analyzes your sleep patterns based on your movement while you’re asleep. It can then determine when you are in your lightest sleep phase, which is the best time to wake up; if you’re woken up by an alarm during deep, REM sleep, you wake up feeling groggy. SleepCycle’s alarm (which you set as a 30-minute window) will only wake you up when you’re only lightly sleeping, giving you the quality sleep you need to fully recharge. 

It also gives you a detailed report of your night’s sleep, including time asleep, percentage of quality sleep, and a chart of your sleep patterns.

Have you used any of these apps before? (You all know I am obsessed with MyFitnessPal!) What do you think of them? Let me know by emailing me at katy.hajzer@gmail.com. 

Lift. Eat. Love. Sleep. 

Stop Counting Calories

I’ve been using MyFitnessPal for at least three years now, which means I can look back at what I ate three years ago. And each time I do, I’m somewhat appalled. 

Let’s take a look at what was a typical day in the autumn of 2012.

Looks like a lot of food, right? Long list. I actually only ate 941 calories this day, which is a lot more than some other days (I found a few with under 600 calories eaten).

Consider at this time that I was also running maybe 2-3 miles a day, so my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) was around 1600 calories. So I was eating at least 600 calories beneath what I was burning on a daily basis, or 4,200 under my TWeeklyEE. So in theory, if calorie counting was all that mattered, I should have lost 1.2 lbs a week.

Insert typical weight loss picture here.

I ate this way for at least a year. (Looking back, I honestly don’t know how I dealt with it. My goals for food today are between 1700-2100 daily. My breakfast is bigger than what I ate in a day back then.)

Let’s do some math, shall we?

52 weeks in a year X an average of 1 lb loss a week = 52 pounds lost.

Which would be great if I started out at 250 lbs. But I didn’t. I began eating this way when I was only 125 pounds.

So at the end of the year, did I weigh 73 pounds? No, because I’d probably be dead. My lowest in this stage was 107 pounds, meaning I lost 18 pounds in total.

So What Gives?

Our bodies are not machines. There is no rudimentary “input/output” system. Instead, they are complicated living organisms with intricacies developed over years and years of evolution. Our bodies are much smarter than we are, and they require much more upkeep than a simple quantitative measurement of its fuel.

Quality matters, kids.

Food is not just a tasty mass of calories. Calories are units of energy, and that energy comes from different sources, called Macronutrients (“Macros”).

There are three: Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fats. Also important to your health are Micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc.), but that’s a topic for another day.

Macronutrients have calorie counts.

1g Protein = 4 calories

1g Carbohydrate = 4 calories

1g Fat = 9 calories

Macronutrients have different jobs within our bodies.

Protein is responsible for creating new tissues and repairing old ones, and it regulating body functions. Enzymes, which aid in digestion and immunity, are made of proteins, as well.

Carbohydrates are easy for the body to metabolize, making them a quick source of energy (which is why long-distance runners “carb up” before races). Fiber, an indigestible form of carbohydrate, is necessary for intestinal and digestive health.

Fats can be stored and used for energy when food is scarce or you’re just not eating. They are responsible for hormone production, including sex hormones. The brain is built with fats, and runs faster when fats are present in the diet. Fats also aid in the proper absorption of certain vitamins like vitamins A, D, E and K.

Different foods have different macro breakdowns.

A combination of these three nutrients creates a well-balanced diet able to both fuel your body and keep it running at maximum health. By counting macronutrients, you can thrive, not just survive.

Looking Back...

Look at my macro ratio in September 2012.

53% carb, 24% protein, 23% fat. I doubt my hormones were doing very well, and no wonder I didn’t have much muscle! And holy crap, take a look at that sugar intake. 52g, not even counting whatever was in those cookies (I’m guessing at least 15g).


Sure, I lost weight eating this way. But my body composition was terrible and I was not providing my brain and other organs the materials they required to run at optimum levels.

What’s the Right Macro Ratio?

The “proper” ratio of carbs/fats/proteins is a topic very much up for debate, and the “right” ratio for you is heavily dependent upon your personal goals.

For example, right now I’m bulking, which means I’m trying to put on muscle and weight. So not only am I eating more calories than usual, but I’m eating many more carbohydrates and fewer fats.

If I were trying to cut fat from my body, I would drop my carbohydrate intake greatly and ramp up the fats to nearly 45% of my daily intake.

Because I am always trying to either build or maintain muscle, my protein intake generally stays constant at 1g/lb lean bodyweight.

You can easily calculate the right macronutient ratio for you using online calculators like http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/.

Here’s a general guide. Ratios expressed as % daily calories from Carb/Protein/Fat.

Weight loss: Fewer carbohydrates, more fats. Ratio of 20/40/40

Weight maintenance: Moderate carbs/fats. Ratio of 35/35/30

Weight gain: More carbohydrates, lower fat. Ratio of 45/35/20

How Do You Count Macros?

This way is wrong.

It’s a bit more difficult than just counting calories. You have to look at the macro counts for everything you’re eating and add them up. MyFitnessPal has the ability to set your ratio goals, so be sure to take advantage of that.

You can either plan out your food intake at the start of each day, or eat naturally for the first meal and then fill in the gaps as the day goes on. I normally plan out about 80% of my day’s food and then fill in the rest to ensure I hit my macro goal.

Questions? Shoot me an email! I’d love to hear your experiences with macro counting.

Lift. Eat. Love. Repeat.

Your New Year's Resolution is Useless

I hate the gym in January. 

What was once a place of sanctuary and open squat racks becomes an over-crowded cesspool of motivated people working hard. All the good treadmills are taken, and everyone is there trying to “improve themselves.”

The nerve of some people.

Woo! 2015!

But then February gets better. Fewer and fewer people are waiting on benches, and only every other treadmill is taken. And by March, the weight room is blissfully empty again, just like all those promises the ex-gym goers made to themselves on New Years Day.

Why don’t they stick with it?

Because New Year’s resolutions are completely and utterly useless. There, I said it. Think back: what was your New Year’s resolution three years ago? Two years ago? What did you promise to yourself that you would do or change just 12 short months ago? Did you accomplish it?

Do you even remember what it was? I don’t.

People seem to think that a new page on a calendar changes things. That changing the numbers of a date will magically cause motivation and determination. But the fact is, when that NYE ball drops and 2015 is rung in, nothing has changed. You’re still the same person you were 10 seconds ago.

The universe hasn’t adapted to the arbitrary number system we’ve assigned to days and nights in order to make things better.

It's too busy, like, expanding and stuff.

And even if you truly do decide to make a change for the better for the next year, know that motivation fades. Quickly. Especially when you think about the difficulty of keeping this up for a whole year! As time goes by, most people slip back into their old ways and old habits until they forget what they were even trying to accomplish.

The Alternative Solution

If you want to make a real change in your life, that change has to happen within yourself, and it has to happen every second of every day of every year.

Instead of New Year’s Resolutions, make a New Day’s Resolution. Decide that, if only for today, you will do your absolute best. Then tomorrow, make another New Day’s Resolution. No more waiting around for January 1^st to make a positive change. Each sunrise is a chance to get it right.

Good morning!!

My Challenge to You

Whatever it is you want to change (maybe a habit you want to break, your attitude at work, or how much time you spend with your family), change it today. Not only that, but write it down. Get a pen right now, and write your goal for the day down.

At the end of the day, go back and put a checkmark next to the goal if you accomplished it. Then email me or comment on Facebook telling me you did it.

And tomorrow, do the same thing.

Long-term goals are important, but unless you take every day as a small goal unto itself, your long-term goals will never see the light of day.

Happy New Day!

Lift. Eat. Love. Repeat.