September 2016 - Blogging by Beth

Are Caffeine and I Breaking Up?

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Over the years I’ve heard a lot of pros and cons of coffee. Some people believe that caffeine is helpful to overall health and wellness. Other people think it can severely hinder efforts to lose weight and get healthy from the inside out.

I did some research on the topic to see if I could convince myself one way or the other about whether or not to cut caffeine from my daily routine. But guess what—I’m still just as confused as ever! Instead of making an argument for either side, I’m just going to share some pros and cons with you and so you can decide if caffeine has a place in your life.

P.S. I’m totally drinking a soy latte right now…so take that as you will.

Why You Should Drink Caffeine

There seem to be a lot of medical and weight loss articles boasting about the positive effects of caffeine on the body. In an article on Authority Nutrition, Aline Petre, MS, RD wrote that caffeine can improve brain function and blocks signals to molecules like adenosine, which can negatively affect the way you feel. Some people even say that caffeine helps them think clearly and stay focused throughout the day.

In this same article, Petre also argues that caffeine can help increase a person’s metabolism, which helps the body burn more calories in a day. It can also prevent quick muscle fatigue so you can go harder in the gym. This is why most pre-workout supplements contain caffeine.

As far as health benefits, many experts agree that a certain amount of caffeine can improve body function while lowering the risk for certain diseases. Sara Altshul of The Huffington Post points out that some studies have shown that caffeine could lower the risk for skin cancer, stroke, and heart conditions.

Why You Should Think About that Next Cup of Joe

Before you head on a rampage to your local coffee shop and order the biggest, most sugar-filled drink on the menu, take note that too much caffeine can have really adverse effects on your whole body.

First of all, adding a lot of sugar and creamer to a drink will throw your blood sugar for a loop. Ideally, your blood sugar is supposed to stay pretty neutral throughout the day. If you go too long without eating, your blood sugar takes a dive. If you eat too many carbs or too much sugar, it soars. These drastic changes are not good for your body, which is designed to survive in an environment that does not have grocery stores and fast food joints standing on every corner. Once your blood sugar is out of whack, your body devotes a lot of time and energy to stabilizing it, which can throw off other parts of your system. A grande caramel macchiato has 33 grams of sugar in it. Men are supposed to have 37.5 grams of sugar and women are supposed to have 25 grams in an entire day! I know this is not directly related to caffeine, but most people I know choose a flavored coffee drink over a cup of straight black java.

Alisa Vitti is a functional nutritionist and women’s hormone expert who cured her PCOS naturally with food. She believes that caffeine in any form is detrimental to women, especially those who already have hormonal issues. Men can metabolize caffeine faster than women and their bodies get rid of fluids faster than ours do. Since the female body is designed to grow another human being, we have some safety measures that affect other parts of our lives. We hold onto fluids longer and do not metabolize them quickly. This gives caffeine the chance to affect our sleep cycles, wreak havoc on our adrenal system, and really mess with our hormones. Vitti does not think women should have caffeine in any form, but women with PCOS should definitely stay away from it.

Too much caffeine also increases the risk for insomnia and irritability. It might upset your stomach or noticeably increase your heart rate. It might also interact badly with certain medications. Let your doctor know if you are a big coffee drinker before taking any prescriptions.

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The Choice is Yours

Some people metabolize caffeine better than others and do not experience any negative effects from it. Other people (like me) can’t have more than one cup a day without feeling jittery. If you do not feel like you can live without your daily caffeine fix, I’m definitely not telling you to ditch your morning brew. If you do drink caffeine, though, the Mayo Clinic recommends that you have no more than 400 milligrams (4 cups of brewed coffee) per day.

I personally have never been a big coffee drinker and I can easily go a day without it. Since it seems to have such a big impact on me, I might try to switch to herbal tea for a few weeks to see what happens. I’ll keep you guys posted!

Lick-the-Plate-Clean Lettuce Wraps

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I’ve recently discovered that I have a bit of a knack for cooking. Once I gave myself the opportunity to get comfortable in the kitchen, I started to get creative by combining interesting ingredients to make meals with lots of flavor.

The other night I decided to make some lettuce wraps…and I quickly realized that was the right decision.

Lettuce wraps are great because they give you the opportunity to pack a lot of veggies together with protein to create a satisfying and healthy meal. Keep reading to find out how I made these lettuce wraps (and will make them again in the future. Seriously—they are delicious!)

Ingredients

1 package Romaine Lettuce

16 ounces boneless chicken breasts

1 tablespoon coconut oil

½ teaspoon fresh ginger

½ carrot

1 piece of celery

2 mini bell peppers

Green onions (to taste)

1 handful of almond slivers

1 tablespoon Bragg Liquid Aminos

½ tablespoon chia seeds

Chop the chicken into small pieces and warm up the coconut oil in a pan. Once the oil has saturated the pan, start to cook the chicken.

In between periodically stirring the chicken to make sure it is cooking evenly, you can start to chop up your produce. Make sure to really chop up the ginger. It has a very strong flavor and it is important to distribute it evenly across the pan. I like to cut the carrots and the celery so they’re in small pieces that still give you a little bit of crunch when you bite into them. peppers-1325906-640x480

Once the chicken is mostly cooked, lower the heat a little bit and add your chopped produce into the pan. Mix everything up to give the vegetables a chance to flavor the chicken naturally.

Pour the tablespoon of the Bragg Liquid Aminos evenly across the pan. Try not to put any more of this sauce onto your meal until you taste it. Liquid aminos have a really strong flavor and a little bit really does go a long way.

Turn off the heat, sprinkle the chia seeds and almonds onto your creation, and start scooping it into pieces of the romaine lettuce. You will be left with a delicious and nutritious meal.

This recipe should make enough to feed four people, but you can always increase the ingredients if you want to serve more!

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Woopers (Workout Bloopers)

Working out has been a part of my daily (okay, okay…weekly) routine on and off for the past 18 years. Understandably during that time there have been some situations that did not turn out exactly according to plan. And now, dear reader, I will share them with you for your own entertainment:

What’s Your Density?

The University of Arizona campus recreation center is full of state-of-the-art cardio and weight lifting equipment that draws in all kinds of students to show off in front of one another…I mean to work toward their health and fitness goals and avoid the dreaded Freshman 15. During my own freshman year, my friend invited me to go to the gym with her one night.

Up until that point, my workouts usually consisted of Tae Bo or running around the track at my old middle school. I’m pretty sure that night was the first time I had ever set foot in a weight room. Anyway, my friend showed me how to use some of the intimidating machines and my discomfort about looking stupid faded away a little more with each rep.

We were about to finish up our workout when a good-looking guy with big muscles and dark skin walked across the weight room and right up to us.

“Hey. I’m Karl with a K,” he said extending his hand. At that point in my life, my experience with guys was about as extensive as my experience with weights, so it took me a second to realize he was waiting for me to shake his hand.

“I’m Beth,” I finally replied.

“Cool. Cool. I noticed you from across the gym. What’s your density?” he asked. I stared at him blankly for a few seconds trying to figure out if that was some kind of weight lifting term of which I was not yet aware.

“What?” I said after an extremely long pause and a lot of blinking.

“What’s your density?” he asked again. I looked at my friend to see if she understood and she shook her head.

“Sorry, I don’t know,” I said, quickly feeling like I was losing IQ points by the second.

“Are you Spanish?” he asked and I suddenly realized he was asking for my ethnicity. And that was the last time I worked out in the weight room at the University of Arizona campus recreation center.

Runner’s Delight

Later that same year, another friend and I decided to try some workout classes together. After sampling a few, we decided that our favorite class was kickboxing, which was led by Jason. Only he had a lisp, so he pronounced it “Jathon.”

We felt really good and strong after class one day. “Do you want to maybe go and run?” Micala asked as we walked out of the multipurpose room.

“Sure!” I said and we made our way up to the indoor track. Every track I had ever run on operated the same way: four laps equals one mile. Without any reason to believe this one was different, Micala and I stretched a little and started on our way.

We finished two laps and felt so great that we were able to have an entire conversation as we ran. Man! We are getting into great shape, I thought as we rounded the bend of the third lap. We finished lap four and decided to walk a couple of laps to cool down for the day. running-track-2-1528273-639x426

As we were reaching the very end of the second cool down lap, I noticed a sign on the wall that said, “Eleven laps equals one mile.” Eleven laps. And we had done four. That means we had completed about 36 percent of a mile. No wonder we felt like it was such an easy run.

Workout fail.

MacGyver Mat

Some workouts are really hard on your body. When I do home workouts in a place that does not have carpet, I tend to use a thick yoga mat to try to break up some of the force of jumping on a hard surface. Usually the yoga mat is all I need.

Enter Insanity Max 30. This workout is pretty much a jump fest for the full thirty minutes from the warm up to the cool down. And guess what. A yoga mat does nothing to help.

I struggled through the workouts for a few weeks and had to opt for the modifier version of more moves than I wanted. Each morning I woke up and my bones literally hurt. I guess that’s what happens when you do jumping jacks and burpees and tuck jumps on ceramic tile. I managed to complete the workouts, but I knew I wasn’t getting as much of a burn as I could be getting and that was making me mad.

Refusing to let a ceramic floor get the best of me, I started on a quest to find a solution. I tried to buy a thicker workout mat. It didn’t help.

“I know!” I said defiantly under my breath as I walked the aisles in Target…as soon as I made sure no one was within earshot “I’ll get an area rug!” With an I’m-so-smart smirk, I started toward the home décor section of the store. An area rug had to work just like carpet, right? This plan was definitely fool proof.

As I got to the rug aisle and my eyes excitedly passed over cute pattern over cute pattern, I got more excited about this idea. But then I looked at the price tags. Seventy dollars for an area rug that I would abuse with my sneakers and sweaty body? No thank you.

Sigh. Okay, back to the drawing board. I returned to the exercise aisle and looked more closely at the sport rubber tiles I initially decided against. Each package contained four tiles that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. I decided to try my luck.

After working out one time, I could tell that this was not my perfect solution, but I was getting closer! The rubber definitely helped to lesson the impact of the jumping, but the squares came apart and slid on the floor, which made me feel like a baby giraffe learning to walk…across rubber tiles that slid around the floor.

The next day I channeled my inner MacGuyver and decided that I was going to best this floor once and for all. I returned to the décor section of the store, ready to begrudgingly throw down more than I wanted to spend to get an area rug. Just as I was reaching for the cheapest rug I could find, I saw something magical out of the corner of my eye.

There, sitting nonchalantly on the shelf was an anti-slip pad that you place UNDERNEATH area rugs. As soon as I picked one up, I knew I found a winner. Not only would these stay in place on the ceramic tile, but they would also provide even more impact resistance. Huzzah!

I returned to the workout section one last time to pick up another set of the rubber tiles. When I got home, I taped the underside of the tiles together so they would not break apart and placed them on top of the no slip pad. My MacGuyver mat helped me complete the best Insanity workout to date. Victory!

But I’m not going to lie, I was way more proud of myself for figuring out the mat situation than completing such a hard workout.

I should…Shouldn’t I?

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“Stop using the word should!” My friend said as we sat talking on her couch. I had just gotten off work and my dislike for my job had me feeling defeated, deflated, and depleted. It was only my second week there, but I already found myself dreading the fact that I had to return.

“You can’t do things just because you feel like you should do them,” she said.

I stayed at her house for a few hours so we could have one of our long in-depth conversations that always made both of us feel better about life.

The “should” part of the conversation really stuck with me, though. I started thinking about how much that stupid word dictates my life.

Any time I feel bad about myself, it is because I start thinking about what I “should” be doing. But what scale am I using to measure this? Whose standards am I using to judge myself?

The truth of the matter is that I use that word too. Damn. Much. I constantly have internal battles with myself because I feel like I’m not measuring up in some area of my life.

I should look a certain way. I should be at a certain place in my life. I should be making a certain amount of money. I should be married with kids at my age.

There’s definitely a small part of me that rebels against this word—otherwise I probably would be settled down with a house and kids. I am 32, after all.

But the rebellious side of me somehow managed to overtake these toxic thoughts. That’s how I was able to go to Italy with a friend after watching Under the Tuscan Sun when I was 19. That’s how I took a trip to Israel at 23 without knowing anyone else in my group. That’s how I moved to Scotland by myself for a year and to Boston for two years after that.

I think my intuition helps me bypass the “should” speed bump in a lot of ways. But it also makes me question myself when I do not have an immediate answer. When I am really ready to do something, I feel like it’s right in my gut and I just do it (i.e. move across the world to a country I had never even visited).

When I am unsure of my next move, though, the “should” train comes blazing down the tracks. It’s almost like I start thinking about what I should have done throughout every phase of my life…even the times when I felt so sure about my decision. And let me tell you, questioning decisions you have already made is a good way to add more grey hairs to your head without accomplishing much else.

I’m not expecting this to change overnight, but now that I realize I spend so much time agonizing over what other people think, I can hopefully start to care more about what I think and live my life accordingly.

Because being a prisoner to the word “should” is no way to live. This stupid word has made me judge myself and my decisions for too long. It has also taken a lot of the joy out of my day-to-day experiences. But life is too short and I am too tired of second-guessing myself to keep feeling down when I can just live the life I want to live and smile like I mean it.