Pressing Topic: What You Don't Know About Fat Loss

POP QUIZ...Where does fat escape the body when you lose weight? Fat, or adipose tissue has mass, right? You can visually see it or feel it when you put on clothes.If you guessed into the toilet you are wrong!  So when you lose weight, where is that mass going? How does it leave?

A Breathetarian Barbie. Either that or all her food get stored in her chest

The answer surprised me. You breathe fat out. Fat becomes carbon dioxide and you breath it out. Did you just take a deep breath as you read that? 84% of your fat is breathed out through you lungs in the form of carbon dioxide and the rest of it becomes water.

This is fab news for us exercising fitness fanatics. We're burning calories, and breathing out fat while we do it. No wonder I have a hard time leaving the gym!



Want another mind blowing tid bit to add to your RAnDom arsenal for amusing small talk? There are people called breatharians. Ever heard of them? Breatharians are real people who think they can live on breath and the sun alone with no food or water. This is real folks.  You can only hope they become a breatharian when they are in their late 90's. Can't imagine they live too long.

Anywho, more news on breathing. This weekend I did my first yoga-hike with a fabulous yoga instructor. She taught us the proper way to breath for maximal effect. Maybe even for quicker weight loss? Who knows. You decide.

Breathing Like You Mean It

1. Breathe in through you nose (let your nose filter all the yuck stuff out)
2. Count the amount of time it takes to breath in (4-5 seconds is average)
3. Count to double that number on the way out (breath out through your mouth or nose) and use your tummy to push with force

My way of doing it is to breath in for 5 seconds and out for 10 seconds. On the exhale, you should feel it in your gut. I love finding out ways to do things better.

Shallow Breathing, the Chunky Truth

So, here's a shocker! I found shallow breathing can cause: BLOATING. It causes you to inhale too many small sips of air. Who would have guessed? That's reason enough to do your deep breathing. Then there's digestive issues, heartburn, fatigue, chest pain, heart palpitations which result from shallow breathing. This is because the body uses the lungs to expel toxins from the body and without completely removing them, your body holds onto them instead. That's not nice.

Breath deep and exhale deep my friends. Your lungs will thank you.

Question #2 of your Pop Quiz, What does one pound of fat look like? Oh Lord. It looks like this inside the body. Or has the mass the size of a baseball. Neither is pretty. No wonder I feel so good when I lose a few pounds.

Fat Loss Tip #2

Leptin is a hormone responsible for letting you know you ate and you can stop. This is how your body can signal you to put the fork down and to pick it up when you need energy. When this hormone is not regulated properly, you will continue to be hungry after a meal and want to eat late at night. It's an ugly thing to do to someone especially if that person is trying to drop a dress size. It also interferes with insulin and we all know if you have too much insulin you will not be getting off the scale with a smile anytime soon! Here's some more info from Wellness Mama:

Lifestyle Factors to Improve Leptin Response:

• Avoiding grains, sugar and fruits (OK maybe one fruit a day)
• Eat (or take) more Omega-3s (fish, grassfed meats, chia seeds) 
• For breakfast, consuming veggies (a green smoothie?) followed by a small amount of protein and healthy fats within an hour of waking 
• Hit the sack early, between 9-10pm - Early to bed, early to rise - makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise!
• No snacking - when you are constantly eating, it overworks your liver & can destroy your hormones. Eat regularly, every 3-4 hours, while sitting down
• When you do exercise, do it for a short time with high intensity, drop the long and slow sessions of cardio 
• Remove toxins from your life as these are a stress on your body. Get rid of processed foods, nasty cleaning products and personal care products filled with toxins

References:
http://www.examiner.com/article/human-barbie-s-breatharian-diet-consists-of-cosmic-micro-food
http://liveboldandbloom.com/10/health/breathe-deeply-live-longer
http://wellnessmama.com/5356/fix-your-leptin/

Emotional Eating, Learning to Concur Over the Kitchen

If there's anything I've learned about people in the recent few years, it's that we all battle our own demons. Some people fight with them more publicly than others. Some demons are more sneaky than others. Thus, they are easier to judge. Some people who look like they have it all together might be the same ones who go crawl into bed at night and cry themselves to sleep. I saw on the news that Bill Cosby is not who we thought he was, and I am so saddened by the loss of what I thought was so pure. We all have struggles. I just decided if I put mine out there for everybody then maybe I can concur them for good. And in the mean time I can help others too.

My demons live in the kitchen. The demon I fight is with food and emotional eating.  I've waged war with my self worth regarding food more times than I can even count, ever since I was a teen. Sometimes I feel like I'm suffocating from my own "weakness" and I just want to come up for breath again. And when I get stuck in the game of eating for comfort, it's a daily, hourly, even minute by minute misery. There are times in my life where I have felt like I'm winning the game, and food doesn't have this control over me. And then there are the other dark times when I feel out of control. Those are the times when life gets really hard. I feel lost and out of control and it feels like it effects every part of my waking life. It even follows me into my dreams. Even as I write this, my emotions are strong and I feel strongly that I need to address them head on if I want to win this game.

First (baby) Steps...

The first step to avoiding this is to look at the situation with loving, accepting eyes. The kind of eyes your best friend or your Mom has for you. The eyes that see no wrong doing. Hate, anger and fear will not do us any good at this point because they are exactly what has led us here. It's love and kindness that can get you out. When I adore my body, and when I honor myself and my emotions, then I don't have problems with overeating. Here's what I've learned so far.

"I FEEL OUT OF CONTROL WITH MY EATING" I told my hubby one day, crying.

He simplified the problem by asking where in my life I felt out of control. I don't even know if he knew I had this "problem" with food, but he seemed to know the solution without a second thought. 

Your life and your relationship with food are projections of your lifestyle/habits/thoughts. Your thoughts will always manifest physically.

The answer hit me hard, like an obvious bonk to the head. Where did I feel out of control? I felt out of control in my life everywhere. It felt like my kids were growing up too fast and I wasn't giving them a good enough childhood. It felt like my relationship was ending, and I was moving towards divorce. I felt like I was diving deep into fitness but wasn't ready to make the next big jump into the big leagues. And what did I do with all this pent up stress? I overate. It soothed me initially and then it gave me a gigantic slap in the face. And over time it gave me a body I don't feel pride in. And if you have ever been overweight, one of the worst parts is not feeling comfortable in your own skin. This is what hurts the most. The insecurity of not feeling pride in yourself.

What should we be doing instead of eating our stress? Taking action.

Stress is caused by not taking action on a stressor. Thus, I needed to stop worrying that I wasn't giving my kids enough attention and just schedule out 30 minutes a day of straight play time. I needed to talk to my hubby about our relationship and seek a counselor or a lawyer instead of just stewing in the unknown. I needed to start doing the things that bring me joy and schedule them out to make them real. So when something stresses you out: You have to change your mind about it (and accept that you can't change other people's minds) or you have to physically do something to change your situation.

To reiterate: 

STRESS leads to 2 options: 

1) Change the situation

2) Change the way you look at the situation

As for the physical overeating piece, I listened to an awesome Podcast ( I think it was I Simply Am Podcast) where the guy gave a protocol of questions to ask yourself before you begin eating.

1. Recognize any emotion you are feeling. 

What is the one word that describes it?
Example: loneliness, boredom, rejection, shame, fear

2. Where are you feeling it?

 Example: In my whole body, in my belly, in my heart

2. Say hello to the feeling. Give it a name, don't hide from it

call it out! It needs to be heard

Hello lonely. Hello shame, hello fear

3. Decide to eat anyways

This allows you to still eat and after you have acknowledged the emotion, But I advise to eat slowly,  enjoy every bite, don't do it in shame. The next time around you feel that way and want to overeat, you can look at the situation from an experienced eye. You have already eaten "lonely" and now you want to try something else. Because eating our emotions never quite cuts it.

My fridge has this hanging up on it

One of the best quotes that I heard on this podcast was "You have to FEEL to Heal" So this allows you to feel the emotion instead of trying to avoid it.

I would love to help you if you struggle with this. I have many ideas up my sleeve to help you, if you want it. Just email me. One of my personal favorite things to do is a 12-14 hour fast, where you consume water and tea only and you can do this during your nightly sleep. It prevents you from stuffing your emotions with food and allows you to face your personal issues head on, fearlessly.

Cheers to facing your demons, Much Love to all!

Electrolytes? Yes. Gatorade? No Thanks + DIY Electrolytes

Me and my princesses at Mt Princeton, the roaring river as our background

If you were to remove the sugar from Gatorate and try to drink it - it would be record-book gag-worthy. To combat it's vomit-factor, Pepsi dumped in sugar and chemicals to create a disgusting concoction of an electrolyte excuse. Electrolytes, yes. Cancer causing chemicals and diabetes on the way after you consume Gatorade? Check & check.

So just what are electrolytes? 

So first let's look at our bestie, water. Just plain water is not just plain water. Surprise! Water has minerals in it. Some water has more than others. Like in Colorado, we have hard water which is full of minerals (such as salt, calcium, sodium bicarbonate, or iron) all natural and from the earth. Different places have different amounts and different minerals. This is why people travel for hundreds of miles to sit in the hot springs and bath in the minerals of the earth.

Hot Springs in Colorado: Mount Princeton Hot Springs where I was this last weekend, has several pools that people sit in, one even has a long water slide. There's also Glenwood Springs, that has a gigantic pool of springs. Then there's Steamboat Springs where you can do hot and cold mineral water plunges based on which spring you sit in.

Steamboat Springs Strawberry Springs Hot Springs. Ah, yes!

So, that's water. Water with electrolytes has a higher concentration of minerals that your body needs to complete cell processes. Here are the electrolytes we are talking about:

Sodium

Potassium

Calcium

Chloride

Bicarbonate

Magnesium

These guys are so vital to every process in your body that you body will leech them from your bones to bring them into the blood. So many processes, such as nerve impulses and oxygenation of red blood cells are impossible without a proper electrolyte balance. If you supply electrolytes internally then you are doing your body a huge favor and making your sweet little cells very happy indeed.

Especially when you are an athlete, electrolytes are important to replenish since you are asking your muscles to fire rapidly.l And when you sweat water, you are also sweating these sweet minerals out with it.  Don't ask your body to work out without the proper fuel, in this case the fuel is electrolytes.

Electrolytes in ways you didn't think of yet, so you can give Gatorade the snuff:

1. Coconut water - try Coconut in the raw if you can find it. It's in the refridgerated section. If it's not raw, that's OK, the other stuff is pasteurized so it's heated and thus not as good for you but still high on the list and safer in the handling process.
   
2. Water infused with banana and lemon juice- just mash banana & add both to your water
   
3. Leafy greens
   
4. Smart Water
   
5. Use this DIY Electrolyte water recipe. Just learned this from my biochemistry teacher!
   
   1/4 Cup Lemon Juice
   1/2 Cup orange Juice - fresh squeezed is best -or else no sugar added
     2  Cups water
   1/8 Teas. Sea salt or Himalyan salt
     2  TBSP Honey 

Gatorade, oh hell no. Don't punish your body.

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 12 fl oz (355 mL)

Servings Per Container About 2.5

Amount Per Serving

Calories 80

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 0g0%

Sodium 160mg7%

Potassium 45mg1%

Total Carbohydrate 21g7%

Sugars 21g

Protein 0g

Not a significant source of calories from fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron.

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

WATER, SUGAR, DEXTROSE, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVOR, SALT, SODIUM CITRATE, MONOPOTASSIUM PHOSPHATE, GUM ARABIC, SUCROSE ACETATE ISOBUTYRATE, GLYCEROL ESTER OF ROSIN, YELLOW 6