Food is Your Fuel. What To Eat Before And After Exercise.

|Blog, Exercise, Nutrition, Q & A|

This is one of the number one questions I get asked by both my personal training AND nutrition clients. Since there are several factors to take into account with regards to eating around exercise, allow me to shed some light on the topic..
The first thing to establish is what kind of exercise you are doing. Your requirements will be very different if you’re lifting weights for 45 minutes versus going on an hour run in the heat for example. The former will require you to eat a good combination of carbs and protein to power and repair your muscles.  The latter will demand more quick digesting carbs as well as a lot of water for the high calorie and sweat expenditure.
Pre-Workout
The goal of pre-workout nutrition is to:

supply necessary energy to maximize performance during your workout.
help prevent a crash in blood sugar which can lead to hitting the proverbial “wall”, where you’ve just got nothing left yet you know you should be able to keep on going. You workout peeps know exactly what I am talking about! This can even lead to fainting. So in other words, properly fueling before your workout – very important!

In general I would suggest eating no closer than 1-2 hours before your workout. The more time you allow between eating and exercise, the larger the quantity of food you’ll be able to eat and still have time to digest. If you workout first thing in the morning you may be able to fuel off your food you are still digesting from the night before. But this does not work for everyone so make sure you figure out what works for you!

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How To Make Positive, Lasting Changes This Year… and why we should scratch the word “resolution”

|Blog, Featured, Inspiration, Q & A|

The New Year is now officially upon us. Do you have a New Year’s Resolution? Well, if you’re like most, you have at least one resolution. And, if you are like the majority of these promise-makers, your resolution is probably related to health and fitness….somewhere in the realm of eating healthier, exercising more, and losing weight.

While resolutions are well intentioned, unfortunately most people fail at keeping them. With all the hype surrounding these promises, it’s easy to get caught up in them without really taking them seriously.

As a fitness/nutrition professional I see clients who have the best intentions of achieving these goals, and they will start out roaring like a lion out of the gate. Completely changing all their habits (which I think is the first problem), but then get discouraged after a few weeks as they do not see immediate results, only to eventually give in the towel feeling defeated. Something gets lost between great intention, initial action and sustained behavior.

So what is the secret to successful resolutions?  What makes that small percentage of people (studies show under 20%) achieve and stick to their desired change? After all, we have all heard stories of people making some pretty extraordinary changes to their lives which started from a New Year’s resolution. Which is why I have reached out to good friend and amazing Life Coach Melissa Penton to help fill in the important gaps on making and sustaining huge life changes.. She offers some great, useful advice below…
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Q & A: What is circuit training and how can it benefit my fitness goals?

|Blog, Exercise, Q & A, Workouts|

In essence, with circuit training, the benefits are twofold. First off, you can be way more creative with your workouts, since circuit training is all about mixing and matching various exercises that target all […]

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Q & A – What’s More Important For Reaching My Weight Loss Goals: Cardio or Strength Training?

|Blog, Exercise, Featured, Q & A, Workouts|

My answer in short, is BOTH. But lets delve into WHY!

First off let me start by addressing this very common mentality people still have of needing to separate cardio exercise from weight training. This way of thinking is out-dated and just plain false. Many of us are still influenced by this old-school mindset which falsely labels and separates 2 “types” of exercising at extreme ends of the spectrum- Either you weight lift to bulk up like a bodybuilder OR you do an hour of steady state aerobic exercise to lean out like a marathon runner.
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Organic Food 101

|Blog, Featured, Nutrition, Q & A|

In our last nutrition instalment we went over the basics of the raw food diet. Today we cover another common, very controversial nutrition topic: organic food- “certified organic” of course. What does this all mean and how important is it for us and our precious bodies?! Well, read on, for the 411.. or the 101.. or whichever you prefer;) as well as a fun and simple infogram which will help clear things up even further.

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Raw Food 101

|Blog, Nutrition, Q & A, Recipes|

Many of you have asked me about the raw food diet so I thought I’d take a little time to explain this healthy lifestyle choice. While there are many variations on Raw Foodism, the most common approach is to eat 80% raw, plant-based food that has not been heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit.  Leafy greens, nuts, seeds, fruit and a world of vegetables are the basis of this very earth-friendly eating style. The emphasis on plants and whole foods makes this lifestyle an extremely healthy one, although some may find it too restrictive.  By simply eliminating processed foods, you are putting yourself so far ahead of the game. If you think this way of eating might be for you, a good place to start is making one raw meal a day, whether that be a salad, raw soup or something more complicated like a dehydrated pizza or Cashew “Cheese” Beet Raw-viloli. For those of us in Toronto, we are very lucky our city is home to a number of great raw food restaurants like LIVE Organic Food Bar, Rawlicious and our own East End Belmonte Raw.

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Q & A – Eccentrics or Hot Yoga for my body type? (from a longtime hockey player)

|Blog, Exercise, Q & A|

A girlfriend of mine, who I played hockey with and who went on to play at almost every level below the National team, sent me an email with this question. I thought it would be a worthy one to share with all of you especially since I am big on individualized training, and with there being so many different fitness trends and classes out there.
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