Hooked on Endorphins

Hi friends!! Are we all looking forward to the weekend? You know my feelings on weekends. But this is my last week doing a full weekend of 5am shifts. I switched days off with a co-worker, so I have next Sunday off. So now next Saturday (Dec 5) is my last day at the radio station!

On the other job front, I know I yammered away about not being able to exercise in my last post, but I do fully expect to take extra rest days now that I’ll be working on my feet 40 hours a week. Exercise, to me, isn’t fully about being fit and staying thin though. In perfect honesty, it’s my love. It’s always my favourite part of the day, and the thing I look forward to most. I’m a total endorphin junkie. The thought of not being able to exercise makes me very sad. I also plan on paying special attention to my body, as I expect my appetite will increase with a more active job.

However, I got a reeeeally good endorphin fix this morning in spin class. Man! It was good! I slept awful last night, maybe five hours? I blame it on the coffee tasting I did at Starbucks (Christmas Blend is pretty good this year).

Anyways, I told myself that if I felt like crap when my alarm went off, I’d just skip the class and go back to sleep. Sleep trumps everything for me, even exercise. But come 5:30 I was ready to go! I hopped out of bed and proceeded to push probably the hardest I ever have in spin class. It wasn’t on purpose, I was just really feeling the resistance today. My legs are especially sore right now, and I feel good knowing I got out of my comfort zone :)

I refuelled with a PB&J oatmeal sandwich bowl when I came home.

• 3/4 cup rolled oats
• 2 1/4 cups water
• 1/2 scoop vanilla whey powder
• cinnamon
• peanut butter
• blackberry jam

Action shot of the “sandwiching.” I let these oats simmer on the stove for about 20 minutes while I primped this morning. Oh gosh. They were so mushy and creamy. I like my oats over-cooked, and these were perfection!

[insert work here]

And then I came home and made supper! An old favourite: bowl o’ protein.

• curry powder, ground cumin, chili powder
• 1/2 block firm tofu, crumbled
• red pepper
• zucchini
• mushrooms
• red onion
• tomato
• spinach
• jalapeño
• salsa
• laughing cow cheese
• scrambled egg
• pepper

Basically, I just scrambled this in a pan, but I did the egg separately, otherwise it gets lost in the mess. Yum!! I love eating food from a bowl :) It’s a comfort thing.

 

Okay, so I know there’s been a lot of weight lifting talk lately, but I just have to share some of this info! I get a Men’s Health newsletter everyday that is actually quite informative most days (Men’s Health is one of my favourite fitness mags). Today was no different! They shared 7 Muscle-Building Mistakes to Avoid. Here are the highlights:

Skipping Basics

Plenty of lifters believe that doing isolation exercises like chest flies and leg extensions is the only way to make their muscles grow. But basic moves such as bench presses and squats force several muscle groups to work together, imposing more stress on your body for bigger gains.

“Your body reacts to all that stress by having the anterior pituitary gland issue more growth hormone to compensate for the extra effort,” says Allen Hedrick, C.S.C.S., head strength-and-conditioning coach at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Of course you need variation, but don’t abandon basic moves in favor of intermediate isolation exercises.

Fix it: Write down the exercises in your routine to see what percentage of them are compound moves. “If it’s not in the range of at least 40 to 50 percent, then you’re doing too many isolation exercises,” says Bell.

Starvation

You need to eat after your workout. Right after a session, your body is hustling to convert glucose into glycogen so your muscles can repair themselves and grow. “If you don’t eat after exercise, your body breaks down muscle into amino acids to convert into glucose,” says John Ivy, Ph.D., chairman of kinesiology at the University of Texas.

Fix it: After you work out, eat a high-carbohydrate meal—and don’t forget the protein. A study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that a four-to-one carbohydrate-to-protein ratio can provide 128 percent greater muscle-glycogen storage than a high-carbohydrate drink alone. (They used Endurox R Recovery Drink in the study.) For even greater results, have a sports drink before and during exercise.

 

First, I love the tip about doing 50 percent compound moves. Second, I like the 4:1 carb-protein ratio for post-workout meals. I’ve heard this before, but am still constantly berated with advice to suck back the protein after. Good stuff! Although, I have opposing thoughts about the sports drink while weight lifting, but my goals are different. You can see the rest of the list here.

Alrighty folks, time to wrap up my traditional early Friday night post. These are soon going to be a thing of the past once I’m done at the reporting job. Maybe I’ll start going out on Friday nights like a regular person! :P

Question of the Day: What do you think are some common exercise mistakes? One that immediately comes to mind is people who stretch before a workout. Most research shows that stretching cold muscles can do more harm than good, and that if you must-stretch it should be after your warm-up when you’re more flexible. Personally, I just like doing really long warm-ups.