Fitness Safari

Today we're going to discuss various types of exercise and where each type fits into Intermittent Fasting. What you're about to read is pretty much my own opinion based on about eight years of experience with Leangains-style IF. When I first stumbled upon Leangains and began the training, it felt like I wasn't doing enough. Three to four movements each workout, sets of 5-7 reps, a whole lotta rest time...how could this possibly work? To my surprise, I found that I became freakishly strong and was smaller and lighter than I had ever been in my adult life. I think when I started IF in 2011, I weighed 128 lbs at 5'2" tall. This was not muscle, in case you were wondering, and you can go back to my early blog posts to see the photos here  and a year in pictures here . I don't have any current pics, however, because I tumbled off the wagon after life threw a heap of shit at me. It's 2019 and I'm back on the Berkhan bandwagon again. My left knee is he...

This post is a continuation of Fasting and Food, Part 1 which you can read here . CALCULATING CALORIES AND MACROS You use energy no matter what you're doing, even when sleeping. The BMR Calculator will calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR); the number of calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day. You may have noticed that every year of your life it becomes harder to eat whatever you want and stay slim. You've also learned that your BMR decreases as you age. Likewise, depriving yourself of food in hopes of losing weight may also decrease your BMR, a foil to your intentions. However, a regular routine of cardiovascular and strength exercises can increase your BMR, improving your health and fitness when your body's ability to burn energy gradually slows down. Find your BMR here: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ Unless you are sick or just get too busy on occasion, NEVER eat below your BMR. Now, once you know your BMR, you can calculate y...

"Hi, thanks for adding me to the group. I started 16:8 fasting. Does this look like a good eating plan? This is what I'm eating: 1200 pm - protein shake 12:30 pm - gigantic salad with chicken or fish 3:00 pm - light snack of Greek yogurt 6:00 pm - dinner, another gigantic salad with chicken or fish I see some form of this post in the Facebook group (Fierce Fit Fearless 2.0) just about once a week. There is no cut-and-dry answer to this. Without knowing some key pieces of information, there is no way to answer this question. How old are you? How tall are you? How much do you currently weigh? What do you think is a realistic goal weight for you? What are your goals - Fat loss? Muscle gain? body re-composition? Other? What is your BMR? TDEE ? Tell me about your fitness program - do you lift? What do you do, how much of it do you do and how often do you do it? Answer these questions and then, and only then, can we can get started with your meal plan. The fir...

How long should I fast? This is probably the most common question I see among women new to Intermittent Fasting. Unfortunately there is no hard-and-fast definitive answer to this question. We all react to stress differently. Yes, I said stress. Fasting is a stressor to the body - especially the female body. Like money worries, relationship drama, and exercise, fasting will cause the body various levels of stress which can, and often will, result in negative consequences regarding our health. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing most of you have jobs and financial responsibilities, relationships, some of you have children or are care takers of family members. You probably rarely get eight hours of sleep and, let's face it, who has time to meditate daily when living in the real world? All of these things are life's stressors. Now, add lack of sleep, job and family/relationship stress to a boiling pot of intense daily e...

Hi everyone! I'm back. It's been way too long. I didn't realize how much I missed writing to you all here. Life, as it seems to do, has been throwing me curve after curve and finding the time to THINK let alone write just doesn't happen often. My old laptop was basically dead and I hate blogging from my phone, so I just pushed off keeping up with this old girl here. Good news! I recently bought a shiny new laptop and have no more excuses. If I can sit on my ass on the couch, I have time to share some thoughts here. So, what have you all been up to? I've been super busy at work, keeping up with my teenager, and spending time with the hubs. He had a setback earlier this year when his cancer returned, so his surgery and recovery really took over our lives for most of this year.  I'm not bringing that up for sympathy. Everyone has shit in their lives they're dealing with - and he's a fighter. He's doing ok now. I'm bringing this up because, while...

Exhibit A It's one month until Christmas and my friend Whitney has more to celebrate than usual. See Exhibit A above - a small mountain of clothes that are now so big and loose that she's finally letting them go. She's now four months into her training and happier than ever. Don't believe me? Read her testimonial below and get it straight from the source. Whitney : There are some things I can do now that I felt I couldn't before I started training with Jenn. One was to simply go into a gym and feel comfortable. I've also found that I have much more stamina and confidence going into my workouts. For example, when we started, I struggled to just get through the 10-minute dynamic warm-ups.  Now I I can get through it without feeling out of breath and having the overwhelming desire to give up before I even start.  On the physical side, I have been able to lift more weight, complete more reps and have seen the length of time I can train without rest in...

The idea for today's topic came to me after an interesting situation presented itself to me this morning. First, a brief history - I am a strength and conditioning coach at All Star Sports Academy in Toms River, NJ. We do a lot of youth athlete training at our facility and this includes team training where an entire hockey team or basketball team will come in to train with us one night a week. A few weeks ago, while I was coaching a group of young teen male hockey players, one of the owners of the gym was observing. The players were about as bad as my 14-year old daughter with their gossip and slacking off when they were supposed to be pushing through a conditioning session. The owner said to them at one point, "Somewhere there is a team getting their work done. You'll know them when you meet them." I printed a couple of flyers, featuring last year's local high school hockey regional champions with the words "Are You All In", and left them on his...

Hey everyone, I wanted to pop in and give you all a brief update on how Whitney's doing. While we haven't weighed in again, she reported that when shopping in Maine with a friend a couple of weeks ago, she was able to buy shirts a couple of sizes smaller than she had been wearing. I can attest to this because one of her (former) favorite workout t-shirts was hanging on her like a moo-moo. She's doing amazing! While on the same trip, she was also able to bike for miles on end through the New Hampshire hills on a BEACH CRUISER no less. She was able to hike and keep up with her friend who she had been visiting who is some kind of nutsy outdoor adventure type. Her workouts are increasing in intensity every week. She's up to five 3-minute rounds hitting the heavy bag while carrying on a broken conversation - and that's at the end of our workouts! Additionally, she's looking forward to attending her college reunion next month and playing in the alumni soccer gam...

Is your youth athlete at risk? I'm going to take some time to discuss something that I had been peripherally aware of up until I watched the documentary titled "Head Games" (available now on Netflix) about athletes and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is a progressive, degenerative brain disease that you and your child cannot afford to ignore. Previously known as Dementia Puglistica (DP), the disease was originally diagnosed in those involved in boxing and is caused by repeated blows to the head. This includes concussive and sub-concussive events. Meaning, whether or not you or your child has ever been diagnosed with a concussion, you may be at risk for CTE. Have your or your child ever been involved in a collision and reported seeing stars? Have you or your child ever been hit in the head and blacked out? Have you ever said things got "fuzzy" after a collision? If so, you have suffered a concussive or sub-concussive event. Depending on t...

We're three weeks in now and some amazing things are beginning to happen for Whitney. "In the past week, no fewer than three people have asked me if I'm getting taller," she said. "I'm 27, I know I'm not still growing." I think she's looking taller because she's already losing weight around her face and neck. We haven't weighed in again, but there's no need. Her body is already changing. She's also noticed that some of the people around her are suddenly becoming more active. After buying some boxing gloves and target mitts to practice with, her father has pitched in and is happy to help her spar on her "off" days. And one of her friends has begun walking a couple of days a week with her at the local reservoir - a 1.6 mile loop. In case that doesn't sound like a lot of exercise, try strapping a couple hundred pounds to your body and then taking the same stroll. Enough of my comments and observations. Below is Wh...

Today I wanted to tell you all about one of my newest, and most determined clients. Her name is Whitney. I met Whitney at a Kid Rock concert we were attending with mutual friends. We got to talking about working out and weight lifting and hit it off from the start. I found out she used to train heavily in college - we're both former soccer goalies - high school for me, college for Whit. But she admits she let some bad habits fill a void after she graduated. Without going into too much detail, let me just say this. Whitney is one of the strongest women I've met in a very long time. She may not "look" like it from the outside, but I see it as clear as day. At the age of 26, she is 5'7" and 353 lbs (when we started). She is in danger of life long health problems and, like most people in her position, she knew she needed to do something. But she just didn't know where to begin. Then we met about a month ago. Me, a personal trainer looking to grow my b...

Join me on facebook @ NJ Women's Powerlifting Club Those of you who have been following me know how I've been struggling to lose the weight that mysteriously crept on as a result of some sort of metabolic meltdown. Regardless of the reasons for my crash, I wanted to report that things are FINALLY on the upswing. I've been on a testosterone, progesterone/estradiol regimen to reverse an estrogen-dominance issue. Additionally, my Cytomel dose is finally close to perfect and my doc added Armour Thyroid as well. I've lost 10 of the 15 lbs. I gained, since I started this regimen about three months ago. I don't count calories or do much cardio. Other than an occasional metabolic type of training class to keep up my endurance and work on stability, core and balance, I've returned to powerlifting to work on adding some lean mass now that I may be hormonally better able to. I stay active by seeking out opportunities to play whenever and wherever possible and eat...

It's the journey that counts; not the destination. Promises, promises. I know, I said I'd be writing more often. I don't know how it happens, but time just soars by sometimes. The last time I wrote, I was telling you about my RT3 problem and how I'm not sure, but I think IF may have been related to the T4-RT3 conversion issue. I still have not found proof of this, so take what I write with a grain of salt as it's all circumstantial. (If anyone reading this has had a similar experience, please let me know!) Despite HOW it happened, my body has undergone a complete metabolic meltdown over the past 6 months to a year - maybe longer. As of my last post, all I knew was that my body was converting too much of my Synthroid (T4) into reverse T3, resulting in a hypoactive state despite 'normal' T3 levels in my blood. Well, about six weeks ago, my latest labs showed my DHEA was falling, my testosterone level of 17 was on the very low, low, LOW end of where a wo...

A handful of you who have been following me since the beginning may recall the article I wrote called " Surprising but welcome news from my doctor " about how, after only a few short months of IF, my thyroid medication needed to be reduced. Well, that's what we thought anyway. In the article I mentioned my severely depressed TSH and rising T4 and antibodies. According to my former endocrinologist, I was becoming clinically hyperactive and my meds needed to be reduced. Thinking that less medicine is always better, I saw this as good news. Boy was I wrong! After this visit, my doses were reduced two more times over the next 18 months after finding my TSH still hovering near zero and my T4 and antibodies were increasing. There was never a discussion on what could be causing this. My doctor knew I was practicing daily intermittent fasting (no food for 14-16 hours a day) as I asked him on multiple occasions whether that could be causing this - for better or for worse. He ...