Making healthy food choices
Workout apps are all the rage and cover every type of workout. Enjoy strength training, yoga and/or barre workouts? There is an app for those. Here is a sampling of 5 free fitness apps for 2020.
JEFIT: This app is for resistance training workouts (no cardio or yoga). This app provides exercise training as well as tracking. Choose from hundreds of exercises by selecting your target muscle from a body map. Track your progress with photos.
NIKE Training Club: A great app that acts as a substitute for an instructor-led fitness routine. This app offers dozens of workouts led by Nike’s professionals, celebrity trainers and pro athletes. Choose your best workout by narrowing your choices based on specified criteria.
FitOn: An app that allows you to select from a variety of select workouts. Choose a workout by length, intensity, category or emphasis area. Because there is no membership or long-term commitment, you can use it as you like. FitOn offers a variety of workouts, such as HIIT, pilates or dance.
Seven: This app is based on the popular “seven minute workout” concept. This app is great for those that are short on time, dislike exercise and/or have little exercise equipment. Calisthenic-based exercises include body weight squats, step-ups and wall sits, for example. These are quick, straight-forward workouts.
Freeletics: You can effectively strength train without workout equipment. Body weight exercises for resistance training continue to be a hot trend. You can even choose a workout by the amount of space you have available. Freeletics covers all muscle groups and fitness levels, with step by step instructions for each exercise.
The Warrior I yoga pose, also known as Virabhadrasana I, is the first of three foundational poses known as the ‘Warrior poses’ (along with II and III). Warrior poses are common in yoga practice. Warrior I builds strength and focus. It may look easy but takes balance, coordination and concentration. The Warrior I yoga pose increases flexibility in your hip flexors (psoas) and lengthens the spine. Holding this pose strengthens the muscles of your legs and glutes. You’ll feel your ankles and feet work to keep you balanced. This pose is all about alignment of the hips, knees and feet. Warrior I prepares your body for backbends and other yoga poses.
Parsley is one of the most popular herbs in the world. Easy to grow, you can also find this biennial plant in most supermarkets year round. While perhaps not the most glamorous of herbs, parsley is versatile, nutritious and offers many health benefits. If you think parsley is just a decorative garnish, you’re missing out!
Herbs and spices add flavor to foods but are powerful disease fighters, rich in nutrients. Parsley is high in vitamins K and C and is a good source of vitamins A and folate (per 1/2 cup, fresh). Parsley contains two health promoting compounds: volatile oils and flavonoids. Some of the benefits of parsley’s compounds include reducing inflammation, promoting heart health, a strong immune system, healthy bones and more.
Fresh is best. Look for vibrant green leaves, absent of dry, wilted yellow patches. Keep fresh parsley in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.
Sprinkle chopped parsley on everything including meats, poultry and fish. Add parsley to salads, salad dressings, soups and sauces. Chop the stems for a crunchy topping to pasta and potato salads. Add a handful to your favorite green smoothie recipe. Make a delicious pesto with fresh basil, spinach, parsley, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, lemon juice and fresh parmesan.
Have you heard of it? Tempo training, once popular in the weight lifting circuit, took a back seat for a while and now is back in serious strength-training and coaching circles. Tempo training is not a new concept. It’s basically controlling and varying the speed and rhythm of each repetition of a set of strength training exercises.
There are two essential ‘main phases’ to strength training exercises and, of course, to tempo training, the eccentric and concentric phases. The eccentric phase involves lowering a weight whereas the concentric phase involves lifting the weight (contracting the target muscle). If you use momentum to ‘hoist’ up your weight and then rapidly drop it, you are minimizing benefits, wasting time and risking injury. Two other components of tempo training are isometric ‘holds’ or short pauses that should be included when the weight is down/stretched and when the weight is ‘up’ or the muscle is contracted.
With tempo training, you are purposefully using different speeds or ‘counts’ for each main phase depending upon your fitness goals how you wish to effectively target your muscles. Generally speaking, it’s best to work with a certified personal trainer to develop a basic routine, customized for you while perfecting your form. Mix and match cadences (tempos) to create multiple lifting variations.
Imagine biceps curls. You start with straight arms. Consider curling up on a count of two, pausing for one second, lowering on a count of four and pausing for another second. As you lower the weight, you are engaging both target and ‘helper’ muscles, maximizing results. That’s tempo training! Always avoid using momentum or ‘swinging’ to help you hoist up the weights. If you can’t lift in a controlled manner, try using lighter weights.
There are two categories of muscle fibers: type I and type II. The speed or tempo you adopt when performing strength training exercises determines which type of muscle fibers are most engaged. Type I or slow-twitch fibers are working during low-intensity, sustained activities whereas type II or fast-twitch fibers are engaged during short, high-intensity bursts of activity.
Lift a weight in a slow and controlled manner during the concentric phase and you’ll target mainly type I muscle fibers. Fast, powerful concentric phases, like a quick push (pushing weight away from your body) stimulates (and grows) type II muscle fibers.
In general, super-fast concentric phases aren’t appropriate for most strength-training exercises. Increasing the speed increases the likelihood that you’ll use proper form, taking the work emphasis off of the target muscle and potentially placing undue stress on tendons and ligaments. Think of going from slow and to faster…but always very controlled.
You’ll want to switch up your cadence, or tempo, depending upon your training goals, desired results; even the exercises you choose. In an upcoming post, I’ll delve further into the three main ‘cadences’ in tempo training: slow, normal and fast and list specific exercises appropriate for each category.
Whether you have an Apple or an Android phone … it’s hard to do without ‘apps.’ A mobile application, (mobile app) is a software application designed to run on mobile or portable devices such as smart phones, tablet computers, etc. They are usually operated by the owner of the mobile operating system, such as Apple, Google, Windows (think Apple App store, Google Play and Windows Phone store). There are free apps and those that must be purchased. After downloading the software, you can use the ‘app.’ Initially designed to increase general productivity and enhance information retrieval, apps now cover games, music, banking, etc.
There are dozens of food, nutrition, weight loss and fitness/exercise apps designed to help you live a healthier life. Before downloading anything that looks interesting consider that doing so means info overload. Interested in knowing which are the best according to registered dietitians (RDs)? Check these picks out for October and look for regular bi-monthly updates for new options:
SparkRecipes: Easy-to-use, offers thousands of healthy recipes that you can categorize and organize according to various criteria, such as cuisine, occasion, dietary needs…you can save favorite recipes and convert common cooking measures. Cons: nutrition facts for recipes are user-generated and may not be correct/reliable. Platform: Apple, Android & Blackberry
iCookbook Diabetic: Summary: from the editors of Diabetic Cooking (and the original iCookbook app), contains over 500 recipes sorted by category (30-minute meals, vegetarian, slow-cooker, low-carb, etc). Offers a tool to scale ingredients to change recipe yield (portions), also offers nutrition analysis and dietary exchanges for each recipe. Platform: Apple
Fooducate Nutrition Scanner: Summary: Perhaps not a stand-alone app for overall better nutrition but a nifty tool nonetheless and a great companion to a nutrition plan. Fooducate allows you to scan a food’s UPC and it will tell you the nutrition facts (and more…such as if the sodium level is dangerous, for instance). It ‘grades’ the food relative to its alternatives and even helps you to pick a healthier selection (say, for a protein bar). Overall, you can improve your food choices. Platform: Apple, Android
Calorie Counter MyNetDiary: Summary: Weight loss/management involves tracking what you take in calorie-wise. Apps are useful tools for taking some of the work out of calorie-counting. This app is a useful nutrition aid as it tracks your calorie intake, AND your exercise to help take the guesswork out of your calorie balance for better weight management. Charts and graphs provide feedback on your progress. Like Fooducate, you can scan the bar code of packaged food OR type the first few letters of the name of a specific dish to search from over 420,000 foods contained in the database. Platform: Apple, Android
Food Tripping: Summary: A great food finder for your vicinity….locates everything from small business food artisans to national food and market chains. Customizable search results based on categories such as farmers markets, coffee/tea, juice joints, microbreweries and vegan/vegetarian options. Businesses are searchable by name, location and category. Platform: Apple, Android
