Blitz Your Body

Beans, beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat them… Wow, I am past the first week of vegetarianism and am definitely feeling the effects of all this fiber!

The interesting thing about the diet switch is that I do feel different, despite the fact that I only did Paleo for a month. It was surprising how my energy soared while on the Paleo diet. This week, eating vegetarian…not so much. Despite the fact that I’m eating some seriously healthy grub, I feel tired and run down. Remember how I bragged in my last post about eliminating afternoon coffee breaks from my routine?

I admit that I’ve been very tempted to have that afternoon caffeine fix this week.

BUT I DIDN’T! 

I’m not worried though. In the book, Eat to Live, Joel Fuhrman explains that much like detoxing from alcohol or nicotine, our bodies experience withdrawal symptoms when we remove meat, aka “toxins” from our diet. Dr. Fuhrman says that it can take up to two weeks for my body to resolve this, so I will wait patiently for my old mojo to come back into my life.

One last gripe and this one goes out to restaurants: you are making it very hard to eat clean and eat vegetarian at the same time! Unless I plan on going to a special place, the veg options are always pasta, cheese quesadillas, pizza or just plain old salad. Eating out was easier and healthier on the paleo plan. Of course I know that a little pasta once in a while won’t kill me, but I really want to eat as clean as possible.

I prefer to eat at home anyway so I can make yummy things like this:

A portabella mushroom burger on an Ezekial English muffin topped with a little Gruyere and avocado.

It’s the first time I made something like this and I was stunned by how delicious it came out. Oh, and those things on the side are parsnip “fries”. This meal pretty much rocked my face off.

Pro Tip: marinate your portabella caps in a couple TB of balsamic vinegar, a little olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper before grilling. 

This week I  was a guest blogger for Ideal Shape (http://www.idealshape.com/paleo-diet-experiment/ ) where I talk about the first phase of this three month diet trial. Check it out!

What kind of advice do you have for someone who is looking to develop their push up proficiency? I can currently do 5 push-ups from my knees. —Jamie Lynn

Go Jamie Lynn! There’s a reason  you always see trainers making their clients do push-ups. Personally, I do push-ups almost every time I strength train my upper body. They are the perfect exercise for beginners and gym rats alike. A push-up is a compound exercise that strengthens and tones the chest, shoulders, back, and abdominal muscles, as well as stabilizing the shoulder girdle.

They are also very challenging. Since you are only able to do five push-ups from your knees, the best thing to do is actually regress the movement, and do your push-ups in the incline position from a bench.  Start by doing a plank on any surface that will put you at an incline, then slowly lower yourself down.

Don’t leave your butt in the air! Tuck your pelvis, and as you lower yourself towards the bench, make sure you keep your hips in line with your body. 

Every time you strength train at the gym you should do three sets of ten bench push-ups at the beginning of the workout, preferably before your cardio. Once you can do this, it’s time to move to knee modified push ups from the floor.

Again, work your way to three sets of ten reps. At this point, you should start adding real, from the toes push-ups into your sets. Each week, try to add at least one or two”real” push-ups. Eventually, you will be able to do full sets of manly-man push-ups, I promise!

Besides the actual exercise, you can also strengthen your push-up power by working the same muscles with dumbbell presses, bench presses (just start with the bar if you’re new to this) and the smith machine. Make sure you lower the bar slowly all the ways down to your chest so you get full range of motion. Since push-ups also use the triceps, finish up your work-out with triceps kickbacks, rope extensions or skull crushers.

Vegetarian Life

I’m reading Eat To Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman to get me psyched up for my months of vegetarianism and veganism.

Fuhrman’s book states that a vegan or near vegan diet is the cure for chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. And if that sounds familiar, then you must be remembering my first post about the paleo diet, which claims the exact same thing! The one thing the two books seem to agree on is that wheat and dairy should be avoided. There goes my pizza party!

It’s not even my first week of vegetarian, so I’ll update my blog again soon.

I just really like this picture.