More companies are investing in new wellness programs or expanding their current wellness initiatives, according to the 2011 Willis Health and Productivity Survey.

In the survey of 1,598 employers, 60 percent of organizations said they currently offer a wellness program and 58 percent of companies said they plan to expand their wellness initiatives with added programs or resources. The most common types of wellness programs being offered are physical activity programs (53%), tobacco cessation programs (49%), and weight management programs (45%).

“The most efficient way for any organization to reduce healthcare costs is through wellness programming,” says John Golden, president of Core Performance. “It’s encouraging to see that more and more companies realize the proven ROI wellness initiatives provide and the sustainable impact these programs have on a company’s bottom line.”

Read The Full Survey Here >

Arturo Espitia Certified Personal Trainer Everett, WA

This week, focus on optimizing your workout with proper nutrition. Two of your most important meals, or snacks, of the day are just before and after your workout. Eating a snack before and after you exercise boosts energy levels to help you push harder at

the gym and recover faster afterwards. Eat a snack 30 minutes before and within 30 minutes after your workout.

Certified Personal Trainer Everett, WA Arturo Espitia

Source:CP  Nutrition Training Health & Fitness

This is a great article for the upcoming season.  Some things to remember when participating in your events.

It’s hard to break bad fueling habits if you don’t even know they’re problematic. That’s why people repeat the same mistakes. “A lot of cyclists form bad habits because they don’t think about food,” says Suzanne Girard Eberle, a sports dietitian and author of Endurance Sports Nutrition. By recognizing your downfalls you can forge a routine that ensures optimum energy on every ride. Here are six common pitfalls and how to change them.

Skipping Breakfast

Some people aren’t hungry in the morning. Others, says Eberle, pass on breakfast to trim calories. Neither is a good strategy, because undereating in the morning usually leads to increased calorie consumption later. Plus, eating breakfast replenishes your liver glycogen stores, which typically dip while you sleep. An ample supply of liver glycogen will stabilize your blood sugar as you ride to help keep your levels from spiking and prevent you from bonking.

Change it: If time is your problem, stock up on just-add-water breakfasts such as instant oatmeal. If solid foods seem unappealing in the morning, whip up a fruit-and-yogurt smoothie.

Experimenting at the Wrong Time

During a race, trying new foods and drinks usually spells disaster, but during training it’s a great way to discover what fuels you best. “Training rides are prime opportunities to practice race-time eating and drinking strategies,” says Eberle. Once you discover a winning formula, you’ll approach your next big race or century ride with a fail-proof plan.

Change it: Test new foods on shorter rides before eating them on epics. Designate one day a week as “new foods day.” You’ll never discover your ideal fuel combos until you mix things up a bit.

Underfueling During Long Rides

Eating on the roll can be tricky. And drafting behind other riders can fool you into thinking you don’t need to refuel. Eberle says cyclists often fail to take in enough energy to realize their potential during tough workouts or long rides.

Change it: Fill your bottle with a sports beverage rather than water and set your watch alarm to remind you to sip every 15 minutes. Make a game out of eating all the snacks you’ve stashed in your jersey: End the ride with uneaten food, and you lose.

Missing the Recovery Window Eat within 30 to 60 minutes of ending your workout, and your body fast-tracks those nutrients to muscle repair and glycogen replacement. After that, you’ll still benefit, says Eberle–just not as much. Put off eating, and you’re more likely to feel tired from the effort, not stronger for the next one. That’s a crucial difference when you’re stacking big rides back to back.

Change it: Prep your recovery

foods beforehand so they’re ready for you to eat. Far from home? Pack a cooler with a sandwich and a salad.

Not Drinking after Rides Too often, cyclists stop drinking when the ride stops. But because it’s almost impossible to take in enough fluids while riding to fully replace what you’ve lost, cyclists end workouts dehydrated, which compromises recovery.

Change it: Refill your bottle after your ride and down the contents within an hour.

Ignoring Seasonal Changes
Come winter, fewer hours of sunlight and snowy streets can curtail your time on the bike. If you don’t trim calories accordingly, you’ll gain weight by spring. “Eat according to your activity level,” says Eberle.

Change it: Look at the duration and intensity of your winter workouts: If you’re cranking hard as ever, eat like it’s July. If not, pass on seconds.

Kely Bastone

There is no such thing as “perfect” running form. But there are certain characteristics of
a good distance runner that are necessary for optimum efficiency and economy. In the
heat of a tough run or race, however, most of us are unlikely to think about “reducing
the moment arm of our swing leg to increase centrifugal motion and spare muscle
glycogen”. Instead, it helps to think about form in terms of simple analogies and very
quick ways to jog the brain, no pun intended.

Quinoa is an ancient “grain” that’s not really a grain at all.

It’s a seed that looks like a cereal. The ancient Incas ate Quinoa for thousands of years, and it’s a rare gem among plants because it offers the complete set of essential amino acids–meaning it’s just as good a protein source as meat. This makes it ideal not only for GF baking but for vegans and vegetarians as well.

But it doesn’t stop there: quinoa is also an incredibly good source of fiber, and of important and sometimes hard-to come by minerals like phosphorus, magnesium and copper.

If you want to try baking with quinoa, it shouldn’t be too difficult to locate some quinoa flour at either a chain grocery or a specialty health food store, depending on where you live. Some recipes will also call for some plain quinoa cereal cooked up like a grain. Quinoa flakes are another great baking ingredient, perfect for replacing rolled oats in a baking recipe if you have an oat allergy.

How To Bake With Quinoa

Unfortunately, gluten actually does serve a purpose is baking: it helps doughs and batters stretch and provides them with their “give” and viscosity. When you bake with gluten-free flours like quinoa, you’ll need to use xantham gum or gaur gum to mimic the binding and thickening effects of gluten. Xantham and guar gum are available at most higher-end grocery chains, or you can check your local health food specialty store or even order online.

To get the best texture and flavor, try mixing quinoa flour with other gluten-free flours, and mix in some potato starch or tapioca starch as well. (Quinoa baked goods aren’t naturally starchy like wheat baked goods.) A blend of 2 parts quinoa flour, 2 parts sorghum flour and 1 part tapioca starch is a versatile all-purpose gluten free baking blend you can make at home. Many gluten-free flour blends also offer pre-mixed all-purpose GF flours.

Quinoa baked goods can get a little dry, so look for recipes that include applesauce, yogurt, fruit or sour cream–these will lend moisture to the finished product. Using honey or blue agave nectar (a healthy all-natural sweetener) in the place of sugar will also create moister, more tender baked goods because both of these ingredients act as natural humectants, meaning they pull in moisture from the air.

Quinoa flour has a more distinctive flavor than wheat. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re converting a conventional recipe to a GF recipe and using quinoa flour, consider upping the proportions of spices, vanilla or other baking flavors.

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Zumba. TRX. P90X. Pump. Spinning. Yogalates. Beach Body Insanity. The list goes on and on! With so many choices, how can you pick an exercise or workout that will burn the most fat, the fastest? In today’s article, you’re going to learn exactly how to make your own fat-burning workout to ensure that you burn fat as fast as possible.

What Are the Different Types of Fat-Burning Workouts?

The majority of workouts that advertise themselves as high calorie-burning events can be broken down into three different categories: cardio, resistance training, and cardio plus resistance training.

Cardio: An example of a cardio class would be spinning, a class in which you ride a stationary bike with varying levels of resistance and pedaling speeds, typically to a choreographed series of songs and movements such as standing, hovering, and jumping. Dance workouts like Zumba or Hip-Hop would also fall into the cardio category.

Resistance training: A resistance training workout would include activities like power yoga, which consists of body weight resistance exercises combined with stretching; Pilates, which is primarily focused on abdominal and lower back resistance training; TRX, which involves pulling and pushing the body with a special type of band; and pump, which uses dumbbells, barbells, and step benches for resistance.

Cardio plus resistance training: As you may have guessed, cardio plus resistance training combines the elements discussed above. P90X and Beach Body Insanity are two popular examples of activities that have you lifting weights one moment, then performing jumping jacks or step-ups just a few moments later. Another term for this type of sequential exercise is “concurrent training.”

Which Workout Burns the Most Fat?

Now that you know the different workout categories, the ultimate question remains: which workout burns the most fat?

A 2008 study at the University of California asked this very question, and had one group do cardio, another group do resistance training, and a final group do a concurrent training workout in which they ran for 30-60 seconds after completing each weight lifting set.

Even though each group did the same amount of work, the combination group experienced the following:

• a 35% greater improvement in lower body strength,

• a 53% greater improvement in lower body endurance,

• a 28% greater improvement in lower body flexibility,

• a 144 % greater improvement in upper body flexibility,

• an 82% greater improvement in muscle gains, and

• a 991 % greater loss in fat mass!

That means the combination group not only burned fat and built muscle at the same time, but the amount of fat they burned was a ten-fold increase over the amount burned by the groups that did cardio or resistance training only.

So without a doubt, combining cardio and resistance training will burn the fastest.

Quick and Dirty Tip: If you decide you simply don’t want to do your cardio and resistance training at the same time, you may be interested to know that additional research shows a greater total amount of calories burned when cardio is done first, followed by weight lifting. For example, you could go to the gym, run for 20 minutes on the treadmill, and then do 30 minutes of weightlifting.

How to Make Your Own Fat-Burning Workout

So if you’re ready to do a fat-burning workout, but don’t feel like going to the gym and signing up for a class, there is a way you can do combined cardio and resistance training at home. Try this workout:

• Do 10 push-ups or knee push-ups,

• Then stand and do 15-20 jumping jacks.

• Next to 10 squats or lunges,

• Then do 15-20 more jumping jacks.

• Next, move on to 10 crunches, again followed by 15-20 jumping jacks.

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• Finally, pick a set of dumbbells off the floor and lift them overhead up and down a total of ten times, and

• Then finish with a final series of 15-20 jumping jacks.

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Rest and recovery must occur! While for those of us with busy lives, this may mean that your rest week takes place during
the visit to the in-laws at the end of one month, and happens during your long week of deskwork in the middle of another
month, your must decrease training intensity and volume at regular periods throughout the training year. Some training
programs might include every 4 weeks and some every 3 weeks, but all programs must allow your body to stop, then soak
up like a sponge all the benefits of your hard work. Otherwise, you’re just chipping away at yourself until sickness or
overtraining forces you to stop.

Always Consult Your doctor before taking on a fitness routine.

But unfortunately, a shadow of suspicion lingers on that healthy hamburger: could that grilled hamburger cause cancer?

According to Dr. Ted Gansler, director of medical content at the American Cancer Society, 56% of respondents polled did not believe that regularly eating foods cooked on a charcoal grill can actually cause cancer. The truth: grilled meats can increase your risks of cancer— to a degree.

Simply put, animal meat has muscle proteins in it. When meat is grilled at very high temperatures, those proteins break down into chemicals called heterocyclic amines. Heterocyclic amines are a carcinogen—meaning they’re a substance known to cause cancer. Consumption of heterocyclic amines is linked in particular to cancers of the stomach and colon. In addition, as fats drip from the meat and burn up on the coals beneath, other potentially harmful chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which may rise back up in the smoke and permeate the meat.

Does this mean that chowing down on hamburgers is dangerous? Well, you probably don’t need to kick the grill to the curb just yet. Eating grilled foods on occasion isn’t likely to harm you—it’s “regular” consumption that might be more worrisome, although what exactly constitutes “regular” has yet to be clearly agreed upon.

As a mindful grillmaster, you can take a few steps to help lower the amount of carcinogens you end up consuming along with that tasty burger:

·         Don’t over-grill your burgers: there is such a thing as too well-done.

·         Pop meats in the microwave or oven for just a few minutes before transferring them to the grill, to reduce the amount of time they spend grilling.

·         For the same reason, use thinner cuts of meat.

·         Flip the meats frequently, about once per minute.

·         Marinate your meats: studies have suggested that marinating seems to somehow reduce production of heterocyclic amines by over 90%.

·         Raise the grilling surface a bit higher from the heat source, to reduce the formation of highly carcinogenic char on your burger.

·         Don’t eat any blackened or burnt bits of burger.

Many of the potentially dangerous chemicals created by grilling meats are a non-issue when it comes to grilling fruits and vegetables, so add a few of these to your grilling repertoire: you can still enjoy that smoky flavor without worrying about the health effects. Onions, corn, peppers, potatoes, peaches and pineapple all taste fantastic when served freshly grilled.

Whatever you do, avoid grilling processed luncheon meats or hot dogs. These products contain carcinogens called nitrates, and don’t even need the help of a grill to up cancer risks.

Do remember to keep things in perspective, though. The sun is a known cancer-causer— but you don’t hide out in your dark basement, do you? There’s probably as many carcinogens in the air you breathe as in the burger you’re about to bite into. So if you want a nice grilled dinner once and awhile, just follow the tips and don’t worry too much.

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