Blog : InForm Fitness

“Muscle: The Fountain of Youth”

Muscle: The Fountain of Youth

The true, universal value of exercise boils down to only one thing – your quality of life. Our functional ability and stamina depend on our physical strength – the more we have, the more we can do, and the better we will age (and the more fun we will have doing it). Put simply, use it or lose it.

As modern professionals, we do it all these days: career, family, interests, social networks, higher personal development, etc. But if meaningful exercise isn’t carved out, do know that your quality of life takes the hit. Whether that hit presents in your real-time, day-to-day living or in the ultimate cultivation of a possibly-avoidable, better managed, or even reversible genetic pre-dispositions. You will pay the opportunity cost somehow, at some time.

While we continue to be a visually oriented society, having long exercised predominately to “lose weight,” the presumption is often still that if we look good, we feel good, and as a corollary, are fit and healthy. That presumption is dead wrong, so even if just for a moment, ditch the notion of exercise having anything to do with what’s attractive, and focus on your health.

More skeletal muscle, in conjunction with a balanced diet will ensure that your insulin levels remain steady and suppressed. Alternatively, high insulin triggers your stress hormones, adrenaline, and epinephrine to activate a process to store large amounts of fat. Insulin blocks fat metabolism and directs sugar to be stored as fat, and the resulting body composition will put you at greater risk for developing diabetes, heart disease, obesity and sarcopenia.

If you’re one of the millions of women suffering from osteoporosis (or at risk), building muscle directly increases bone density by putting increased stress on the bones, making them stronger, healthier, and less prone to fractures and breaks. Not only does increased bone density slow the devastating bone loss associated with getting older, it also helps to counteract any future loss by building additional bone matter. Your new muscle mass will also serve to protect your bones, guarding them against injury and cushioning the blow in case of a fall.

Aesthetically, well-developed back and shoulder muscles will improve posture, toned arm and leg muscles, calves too, improves appearance (and helps prevent the formation of varicose veins), pectoral muscles enhance the lift of the bust, etc. If you are after a younger looking, more vibrant feminine body, you want more muscle. And, added muscle improves our appearance with definition and helps to fight gravity, holding up our desirable body fat in the right places.

Building muscle is the best way to proactively combat the myriad problems associated with ageing. Indeed, osteoporosis, diabetes, diminished cardiac function, weight gain, glucose insensitivity, joint pain, loss of balance and injury, can be traced back to perpetual muscle loss. Logically then, one of the best things you can do to protect your overall health is to build muscle. Remember that our skeletal muscles serve as the engine, chassis, and shock absorbers of our bodies.

Exercise can only do three things: stimulate our body’s growth hormone mechanism (build muscle), prevent the physical improvements we seek (overtraining), or produce injury (getting hurt). So how do we build muscle?

The simplicity of the InForm Fitness is genius – slow-motion strength training requires that our Clients perform weight-bearing exercise as intensely as they can, with as much control and focus as they can, both briefly and infrequently. In exchange for an albeit challenging and highly focused 20 minutes once or twice a week, you can avoid spending hours each week in the gym and instead enjoy your free time to live the life you want. Science based and evidence backed, this workout produces amazing results.

InForm Fitness is not an athletic gym, or the typical personal exercise Studio. All sessions are private, one-on-one with a Strength Training Instructor and scheduled by appointment only. InForm Fitness offers revolutionary program for people with demanding schedules, who want optimal results in minimum time.

Are you Clean about your KETO or just talking Dirty?

Dirty vs Clean Keto

The Ketogenic Diet is a strategic macro-nutrient distribution of daily food intake designed to switch the body’s metabolic state from Glycolysis, whereby glucose from carbohydrate intake fuels the body’s energy needs, to Ketosis, whereby fat is burned for fuel in the absence of the carbohydrates. Once your body no longer relies on glucose as a primary energy source, your liver starts to convert fat into ketones to fuel both body and brain. The macro-nutrient distribution is roughly 70% fat, 20% protein and 10% carbohydrates. Easier said than done and deceptively dangerous!

Keto approached in either one of two ways will produce aggressive fat loss yet yield drastically opposing impacts on body and brain. Knowing the difference is not as simple as differentiating between “clean” versus “dirty” approaches, but rather appreciating that the foods our macros come from matter! From the potentially lethal to life-changing health benefits, ketosis can serve up either.

“Dirty keto” evolved with our modern eating habits to indiscriminately favor convenient, cheap and processed fat, with blind regard for the source. Butter, bacon, and excessive amounts of oils are ketogenic, yes, but absolutely reckless. Indiscriminate sourcing also lacks micro-nutrients vital to overall health and is laden with highly processed foods – “hello” cravings, bloating, and feelings of withdrawal, a.k.a. “keto flu.”

“Clean” emphasizes quality, unprocessed, healthy fats, via cold-pressed oils. nuts and seeds. Your proteins are lean, wild, and pastured while carbohydrates must be restricted to the non-starchy, high-fiber variety and include a diverse range of colorful vegetables. Keto-adaptation is the goal and when you start to experience the physiological benefits of enhanced mental acuity, sustained energy, less discomfort, optimal recovery, feeling satiated not hungry, and less blood sugar volatility. When keto-adapted, blood markers improve, lowered triglycerides and higher HDLs is one example of improved insulin resistance. Include reduced inflammation and improved metabolic health, you have a real chance at living disease free!

Intermittent Fasting on Keto

Combining fasting with keto should be practiced for convenience, which facilitates sustainability and ultimately your results. While fat loss is usually both the most obvious and coveted result, fasting and keto will serve to accelerate all the other wonderful physiological benefits beyond the aesthetic.

It’s as simple as skipping breakfast, literally. Ask which fasting approach works for keto (rather than you) and here’s your answer: split each 24-hour period into an eating or fasting window. Start with a 16/8 split of 16 fasted hours to 8 eating hours. Strive to narrow down to a 14/10 split over time. If you have your first bite of food at 11am, your window is closed at 7pm, and nothing is consumed until 11am again the next day. Water, tea, and coffee being the only exceptions. The narrower the eating window, the more rapid the results, irrespective of the caloric intake consumed in aggregate.

Remaining in “clean” keto adaptation requires precision, both sourcing and allocating your macro-nutrients. Such precision requires effort and is significantly less taxing and more sustainable the less time it consumes. Once or twice a day is less consuming than an effort to be on point three to five times, over a fluid 12 to 16-hour period. Add life, with several moving parts and melodramas, and that’s a losing game! Intermittent fasting simply has proven critical to success on convenience alone.

Final note – serious contraindications preclude many from safe keto. You must check with your Dr.

What’s changed since Power of 10?

Adam’s Serendipitous Career in Exercise

“I’ve made the mistake of not thinking for myself in a way, just following a strict protocol. Now, I still believe in the principles of lifting weights slowly and safely and there has to be a certain level of intensity, but that’s where the rules end.” Adam Zickerman, owner of Inform Fitness and author of Power of 10, speaks to HITuni about his story and how his perspective on exercise has changed over the years.

Adam has been a successful gym owner since the late 1990’s. In fact, 2018 marks his 21st year in the business of teaching the principles of sound strength training, but how did it all begin for him?

He had always been athletic as a kid and teen playing baseball, swimming, cycling and even pushing himself through triathlons. It was this athletic nature that initially led him into the world of strength training, seeking improved performance in his sporting endeavors.

As a motivated young man, Adam stuck with his physical regime even after entering the working world. At this point, he was exercising 5 days a week and could often be heard espousing the benefits of exercise to his more sedentary work colleagues. It was whilst looking to motivate his boss into starting exercise that Adam had a wake-up call of sorts. Obviously not a man to mince his words, Adam’s boss retorted with words to the effect “For all the exercise you do, you look like shit and as far as I can see your workouts are doing you more harm than good!” READ MORE

Read HitUni.com’s blog post in a series featuring outstanding individuals from the HIT community who we spent some time with on our trip to the US earlier this year. In this post, we feature Adam Zickerman, owner of Inform Fitness and author of Power of Ten 10.

Exercise To Live The Life You Want

Controlling Your Quality Of Life

The true, universal value of exercise boils down to only one thing – your quality of life. Despite tragedies out of our control, genetic dispositions both physical and metabolic, and our society’s shared struggle to prioritize exercise above the myriad seemingly more pressing responsibilities, heedlessly trust that deprioritizing concentrated physical exertion is tantamount to forfeiting the opportunity to live your longest and most enjoyable life possible. Our functional ability and stamina depend on our physical strength – the more we have, the more we can do, and the better we will age (and the more fun we will have doing it). Put simply, use it or lose it.

As modern professional women, we do it all these days: career, family, interests, social networks, higher personal development, etc. But if meaningful exercise isn’t carved out, do know that your quality of life takes the hit. Whether that hit presents in your real-time, day-to-day living or in the ultimate cultivation of a possibly-avoidable, better managed, or even reversible genetic pre-dispositions. You will pay the opportunity cost somehow, at some time.

More skeletal muscle, in conjunction with a balanced diet will ensure that your insulin levels remain steady and suppressed. Alternatively, high insulin triggers your stress hormones, adrenaline, and epinephrine to activate a process to metabolize large amounts of fat. Your insulin will block fat metabolism and will instead direct that sugar to be stored as fat, and the resulting body composition will put you in metabolic danger of diabetes, heart disease, obesity and sarcopenia.

Helping Women Fight Osteoporosis

Or, if you’re one of the millions of women suffering from osteoporosis (or at risk), building muscle directly increases bone density by putting increased stress on the bones, making them stronger, healthier, and less prone to fractures and breaks. Not only does increased bone density slow the devastating bone loss associated with getting older, it also helps to counteract any future loss by building additional bone matter. Your new muscle mass will also serve to protect your bones, guarding them against injury and cushioning the blow in case of a fall.

Fight Ageing With Muscle

Building muscle is the best way to proactively combat the myriad problems associated with ageing, supercharge the metabolism and increase cardiovascular endurance. Indeed, osteoporosis, diabetes, impaired cardiac function, weight gain due to decreasing metabolism and loss of glucose sensitivity, joint pain, loss of balance and injury, etc., can all be traced back to the fact that we lose vital muscle as we age. Logically then, one of the best things you can do to enhance your overall health and fitness now is to build muscle, whilst arresting the natural course of muscle loss that occurs as we age. Remember that our skeletal muscles serve as the engine, chassis, and shock absorbers of our bodies.

Five Simple Steps To Better Health

For many people, eating right and getting healthy seems like such an elusive task. I’ve heard all the excuses: it’s too difficult, nothing works for me, I don’t know which diet to follow… the list goes on. But I’ll let you in on a little secret — getting healthy doesn’t have to be hard! It simply requires a willingness to make some basic lifestyle changes that will set you up for success.

Here are my top five tips for getting, and staying, healthy:

Drink More Water. Yes, I know, this sounds too good to be true, but in fact, most of us are chronically dehydrated without even realizing it. Drinking plenty of clean, preferably filtered, water daily is essential for the functioning of a healthy metabolism and the flushing of waste products and other toxins from our systems. On average, our bodies are comprised of over 60 percent water. We need to continually replace that water so we can effectively transport nutrients to our cells, regulate our body temperature, and keep our organs functioning properly. Staying adequately hydrated also contributes to a feeling of fullness, which naturally results in us eating less. How much water, you ask? Recommendations vary, even among experts. My customizable advice is to halve your body weight in pounds and drink that numerical result in ounces daily — no metric conversion needed.

Eliminate The Junk. When it comes to toxic substances in our food supply, one need look no further than the aisles of the supermarket. All those colorful boxes and bags of pre-packaged foods and food-like products are among the most lethal substances out there for sabotaging our health. Processed foods, sugary cereals, and snack foods are generally loaded with chemicals, preservatives, artificial dyes and flavorings, and refined carbohydrates devoid of nutritional value. They also tend to be full of added sugar, sodium, and unhealthy saturated fats, all of which work to thwart our efforts at maintaining healthy weight and metabolic balance. But forewarned is forearmed. I’m here to tell you that probably the single most beneficial change you can make for your health is to “just say no” to processed food.

Eat More Vegetables. Yes, it’s true! Adding a couple of vegetable servings to every meal is an incredibly powerful way to transform your health. Just as most Americans are chronically dehydrated, so too are we undernourished. But so many of the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that our bodies need to be healthy are found right in our own back yards – or at least, at the local Farmer’s Market or produce section of our supermarkets. Fruits and vegetables are among Nature’s most perfect foods, and our bodies are biologically programmed to thrive when we include a variety of colorful plant foods in our daily diet. The phytonutrients they contain are essential for healthy immune function, blood sugar balance, heart and brain health, bone integrity, and warding off age-related degenerative diseases. What’s more, when you fill up on veggies, you leave less room for the junk. Please do yourself a favor and eat more vegetables. Your body will thank you for it.

Build Strength. We all know that exercise is important, but with our busy lives, it’s not always easy to fit that in. So, in the spirit of keeping things simple, my suggestion would be to focus on the most efficient way to achieve maximum benefit with minimal time investment: strength training. Believe it or not, just 20-30 minutes of slow motion, high intensity weight training once or twice a week is all you need to build lean muscle, which can reap tremendous benefits in terms of your metabolic health. Not only does it rev your metabolism for more efficient calorie burning, but it also strengthens your bones, boosts your immunity, and elevates your mood. Of course, adding a variety of other physical activities to your weekly lineup is helpful as well, to include some form of cardiovascular exercise as well as practices like yoga that improve balance and flexibility. But if you must narrow it down to just one thing, I say go for the strength.

Sleep. If you’re looking to improve your overall health, one of the best things you can do is catch some zzzzz’s. Sleep plays such a vital role in our physical health and wellbeing, yet more than one third of Americans is chronically sleep-deprived. Sadly, in today’s fast-paced world, sleep has become a precious commodity. It’s no wonder we’re seeing rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease skyrocket, since sleep deficiency increases the risk of all these health problems, and more. Studies have shown that people who sleep less also produce increased amounts of the appetite stimulating hormone ghrelin, meaning they usually end up eating more than they normally would during the day. Making sleep a priority can truly be a game-changer then, for your health as well as your waistline.

If doing all these things at once seems daunting, try implementing just one change at a time and see how it goes. Your body works hard for you every day. Isn’t it time that you showed it some love?

Get Stronger for Your Sport in Record Time

In our latest Podcast, Adam Zickerman and Mike Rogers welcome Laura Crump Anderson, InForm’s Equestrian Fitness Specialist, to discuss the importance of being your strongest and fittest for your athletic sport. Whatever your sport may be, all athletes need to train smart if they want to stay in the game!

Specific to this Podcast, however, Laura’s shameless obsession is clear – the Equestrian Athlete. Laura unwaveringly asserts that your horse is not the only athlete and excellence takes two to Tango. If you are an Equestrian, your horse depends on you being in your best physical shape, period. Regretfully, many overlook this critical fact. If you consider yourself, and not just the horse, to be the competitive athletes you both truly are, the hard message is this: Equestrians need to build muscle to their optimal capacity! Most obviously, muscle protects the Rider’s body from the beating the sport takes on themselves, but equally because a stronger Rider serves the HORSE exponentially! Ironically, the Equestrian will fully appreciate the distinction – if not for yourself, strive to be your strongest if only for the horses you LOVE! Equestrians are so admirably dedicated to their horses, but often at the expense of themselves in a multitude of ways. Every Rider, from Coast to Coast, possesses a sincere love for their horses. In Virginia – give Laura 20 twenty minutes just once a week and she will give you AND your horse the essential competitive edge you seek, not to mention a better life with less injury.

No one serves the (human) athlete better than we do at InForm Fitness. Obsessions aside, whatever your athletic sport may be, InForm Fitness can custom design a program for anyone looking to take their athletic edge to the next level, whether that be from your sedentary desk job to being in the best shape of your life, OR for the elite athlete inside you screaming to get out!

Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen For a FREE 20-Minute strength training full-body workout and to find an Inform Fitness location nearest you, please visit: http://bit.ly/Podcast_FreeWorkout

Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen

For a FREE 20-Minute strength training full-body workout and to find an Inform Fitness location nearest you, please visit: http://bit.ly/Podcast_FreeWorkout

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Feed Your Gut

FEED YOUR GUT

We’ve heard a lot about gut health lately, and with good reason. Good gut health translates to a strong immune system, a balanced metabolism, the effective breakdown and assimilation of our food, and, according to recent studies, good brain health as well. But good gut health is wholly dependent on the maintenance of a strong and healthy microbiome, that colony of “good” or friendly bacteria that lives in our gastrointestinal tract, comprising some 300-500 different bacterial species. Keeping that population healthy and viable is the key to making it all work. And in this world of highly processed food, refined carbohydrates, heavy antibiotic use, and environmental toxins, keeping our microbiomes healthy is no easy feat. Now, I know what you’re thinking — you’ve heard all this before and you know what to do. Just make sure to stock up on yogurt, pop a daily probiotic supplement, and you’re good to go, right? Well, not so fast…

It’s true that we need to consume a regular supply of probiotic and fermented foods to keep our gut microbiome well populated with friendly bacteria, especially since our lifestyle and eating habits often work to their detriment. Eating a variety of probiotic-rich foods daily should therefore be part of a healthy diet. Good examples of such foods include: yogurt, kefir, miso, tempeh, kombucha, kimchi, sauerkraut, raw pickles, and raw vinegars. And just for good measure, taking a high quality probiotic supplement is often recommended as well. But we need to continually nourish that good gut bacteria if they are to survive and thrive. Just as with any living organism, our good bacteria will die off if they are not properly fed. That is where prebiotics come in.

PREBIOTICS

Prebiotics are a category of foods that actually feed our good gut bacteria. They are non-digestible, high fiber compounds that are found in certain fruits and vegetables, as well as other plant-based sources. These prebiotic starches, while non-digestible to humans, are highly digestible to our beneficial bacteria, and are essential to maintaining their health. An added plus is that they are resistant to our gastric acid, which allows them to pass through to the intestinal tract intact, where they are then fermented and readily consumed by our hungry microbial population.

The regular consumption of prebiotic foods is important for us all, but particularly so for individuals who suffer from conditions of the digestive tract, such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, colitis, and Crohn’s disease. But studies have shown that prebiotics offer other health benefits as well. They help to reduce our risk for cardiovascular disease and Type II diabetes by lowering cholesterol levels and regulating our blood sugar; they promote satiety, thereby keeping our weight at a healthy level; and they help to prevent certain types of cancers, most notably colon cancer. They are a fundamental component of a healthy diet.

WHAT FOODS ARE CONSIDERED PREBIOTIC?

Prebiotic-rich foods include:

Leeks
Onions
Garlic
Chicory Root
Asparagus
Jerusalem Artichokes (Sunchokes)
Soybeans
Legumes
Eggplant
Dandelion Greens
Burdock Root
Jicama
Chinese Chives
Wheat Bran
Oats
Rye
Bananas
Honey

SO, HOW MUCH SHOULD I EAT?

It is recommended that we consume at least 5 grams of prebiotic fiber a day to maintain optimal gut health. Much of that should be in raw form, to the extent possible, since cooking any fruit or vegetable acts to break down its fibers. But a combination of raw salads and lightly sautéed or steamed prebiotic vegetables should be more than adequate to meet our daily needs.

In terms of “bang for the buck”, chicory root delivers the highest percentage of prebiotic fiber by weight, at nearly 65 percent, while bananas deliver the lowest, with only 1 percent of fiber by weight. The rest of the foods listed above fall somewhere in between those ranges. It doesn’t take much to reach the desired 5-gram goal, but as with any dietary regime, variety is the spice of life. Experiment with including a wide assortment of prebiotic foods in your daily recipes, and you should be well covered.

So, the next time you’re at the Farmer’s Market, be sure to pick up some leeks, asparagus, garlic, and onions, thinking of the prebiotic benefits that will ensue! And while you’re at it, you just might want to throw in some dandelion greens as well. Your gut will thank you for it.

Revise Resolutions Into Goals

Crowding Out in 2018

We’ve all made those grandiose New Year’s promises, even knowing their fateful doom from the outset. Notwithstanding, most of us start the year off with genuine sincerity and an intent for better bodies, minds, and careers in the year ahead. How then do we so quickly lose motivation to maintain our “resolutions” and then settle back into old routines?

We know the pattern well: gym crowds surge in January, only to start waning thin again mid-February. Whatever the resolution be, either the sense of urgency goes away or its magnitude overwhelms, and the behavioral change we once sought gets shelved either indefinitely, or until next January. The Winter Season is especially tough, when many of us struggle most to maintain any resolve, no less get out of bed.

Our strides for personal progress succeed when we make ourselves the priority, period. Even still, no real success is gained on sheer optimism alone. A common pitfall is that we have too restrictive a focus on what we can’t have, can no longer do, or want to exclude, rather than what we can have more of, want to do and want to attract more of into our lives.

Let’s examine one of the most-common New Year’s resolutions – to lose weight. In this effort, most everyone has a long list of foods in their heads of what they are not allowed to eat. What if instead, we focused on just a list of beneficial foods to incorporate into our diets? ‘Crowding out,’ a term coined by the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, refers to the natural process that happens when you add more of the good stuff in first: the more healthy foods you add to your existing diet, the less room you’ll have for junk. Literally, we can crowd out the bad by just focusing on what we want more of, until we reach a balanced diet that is sustainable. This strategy need not only apply to what we eat.

Take this one step further and examine the life-giving foods that are not on our plates, such as healthy relationships, regular physical activity, a fulfilling career and a spiritual practice. Ask whether these ‘foods’ are in enough abundance to fill your soul and satisfy your hunger for life. Again, when we feel satiated and in balance, we supplement less, and what no longer serves us will lose ground.

It’s not too late to revise our 2018 ‘resolutions’ into personal goals to ‘crowd out’ the unwanted with more of the wanted. Rather than lofty resolutions, set goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and timely. Most importantly, as you progress towards your goals, continuallyR re-evaluate them for relevance, make adjustments when necessary, and recognize and reward the smaller successes along the way.

Ultimately, the question we need ask ourselves is whether our personal goals truly inspire us, or whether they are items best kept for a ‘to-do’ list. Long-term success of any goal depends on the formation of positive and sustainable habits that bring enjoyment and enrichment into our lives. Another key determinant of our success is how do we react when we slip up? Whatever the misstep, what matters most is how we handle it. Don’t let your own humanity derail you – accept the hiccup and get right back on track.

Chronic Inflammation And How To Tame It

Chronic Inflammation and How To Tame It

A stressful life, poor diet, and toxic people, we would all happily trade with a more balanced existence filled with nourishment, inner growth and conscious living. Sure, why not? But it’s not always so easy, when our go-go lifestyles encompass a daily barrage of toxins, infectious agents and stress, seen and unseen. The connection between diet and lifestyle, chronic inflammation and disease, is very real and our daily choices all have either a pro- or anti-inflammatory effect.

Immune System Response

Chronic inflammation arises from an immune system response that’s out of control. When inflammation as an immune response is never “shut off,” so to speak, the constant production of immune cells can do permanent damage.

What we eat, drink, and think can create a cascade of inflammation in our bodies. When our body hits an inflammatory overload, our defense system gets so overwhelmed and confused that our well-meaning immune system turns on itself, destroying healthy cells, tissue, and, well, everything else too.

Over time, chronic inflammation wears out your immune system, leading to chronic diseases and other health issues, including cancer, heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes, stroke, asthma, autoimmune diseases (i.e., Crohn’s), allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, arthritis, osteoporosis, and premature aging.

Inflammatory Agents

Causes of chronic inflammation are countless and numerous factors trigger them. But we are not helpless. Major risk to long-term health and wellbeing remains within our control.

First, we can crowd out inflammatory foods by adding a variety of plant- based whole foods to your diet. These foods will flood your body with the vitamins, minerals, cancer-fighting phytochemicals, antioxidants and fiber it needs to recover from chronic inflammation. Meanwhile, foods to avoid like the plague include: Common Vegetable Oils and Trans Fats; Refined Grains; and Refined Sugar (and other foods with high glycemic values).

Secondly, listen to your GUT! With your gut holding approximately 60- 70 percent of your immune system, it’s a great place to start reducing inflammation. The promotion of healthy gut flora with probiotics is an excellent start.

Third, as we get older, foods that never bothered us before, like dairy and wheat, may trigger chronic low-grade indigestion or other seemingly minor symptoms that put our immune system on guard — with additional inflammatory concerns to follow. Common allergens like casein and gluten (proteins found in dairy and wheat) are quick to spark the inflammatory cascade.

Rest and Recovery

Your body is hard at work repairing and restoring you on a cellular level while you sleep. If you’re exhausted, you’re cheating your immune system, which means it needs to kick into high gear — chronic inflammation.

Psychological Stress

Persistent stress takes a steady toll on your immune system, your adrenals, and your central nervous system. Stress also produces more of the hormone cortisol. Cortisol directly influences your insulin levels and metabolism, also playing a role in chronic inflammation. With inflammation, painful emotional baggage, negative thoughts and internalized feelings are as harmful as physical stress, but often overlooked. Focusing on stress reduction and safe care, whether it’s through more sleep, yoga, meditation, long walks, less technology or a much-needed vacation could save you!

Toxins

Reduce toxins in your food, home and personal care products. Cut down your exposure by eating organic foods whenever possible and choosing non-toxic personal care and cleaning products.

Bottom Line

Chronic inflammation can lead to disease, yes. But the great news is that an anti-inflammatory lifestyle can bring optimal health and well-being. Nutrition, strength training, adequate rest, can yield many benefits, including reduced symptoms of arthritis, inflammatory bowel syndrome, lupus and other autoimmune disorders, and decreased risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, depression, cancer and other diseases. Not to mention, a tremendous improvement in energy and mood.

Bone Broth: Miracle Food?

As you know, the InForm Fitness Team is certainly passionate about high-intensity strength training and helping our Clients reach their peak physical condition. Yet, we never lose sight of the critical role excellent nutrition plays – without it, achieving our goals is impossible.

But what is excellent nutrition? I can’t count the times people have asked me, “Which is better for me, broccoli or cauliflower?” Or, “Is this vegetable or that protein a cure-all?”

My answer is a resounding “NO” each time. It’s not just one thing that you eat; it’s the culmination of all the individual choices. Asparagus is great, don’t get me wrong, but eating only asparagus won’t get you to where you want to be.

Enter Bone Broth – the newest super-food on the scene, said to be the magical elixir for every and all ailments. While bone broth is a traditional food, long renowned across the globe for its curative properties, the list of its healing and restorative benefits seems to be growing lately. Indeed, reported to possess an exhaustive list of transformative properties, bone broth is said to cure everything from digestive disorders and psoriasis, as well as improve joint function and modulate the immune system.

Can it cure cancer? Will it give you six-pack abs and bring your sexy back? No, no, and sadly, no. But, as I always tell my friends and Clients alike, bone broth can be a key ingredient to a healthy life, as it’s both extremely nourishing and hydrating for the body. The vitamins, minerals and diversity of amino acids that you’ll get from bone broth make it equivalent to drinking a multivitamin. It’s not the miracle cure, but that “liquid gold” is still really good stuff!

While there seems to be some validity to the claim that bone broth supports immune function and digestion, very little science supports many of the other claims. For example, the claim that the collagen provides the amino acid building blocks to improve our connective tissue, while in truth, the body will use the amino acids wherever they are needed. Just because they come from connective tissue, doesn’t mean they’ll go to connective tissue.

Now, I should add here that I love bone broth and I love to cook! I come from a long lineage of eastern European relatives that have passed along their recipes for “Jewish Penicillin.” While homemade bone broth gives recipes that amazing umami, I also like to have a cup handy just to sip on, especially when intermittent fasting.

That said, I don’t always want a simmering stock pot on the stove. While relatively easy to make, and even with my Grandmother’s tried and tested recipe, I just don’t always want to deal with all the rigmarole. Yet, despite its recent popularity, it turns out buying good quality chicken or beef bone broth is not so simple.

So, I found a place to make it for me!

My local butcher, Center Cuts, in Roslyn, New York, where I’ve been going for years, didn’t make bone broth…but they do now! But being the loyal and charming patron that I am, they agreed to make it for me.

Now enter our very own LABEL, Bad to the Bone Broth, currently available at our New York metro area studios! Grandma would be so proud.

Bone broth has so many different iterations and potential ingredients that to list them here would include all the bones of the different animals we eat, vegetables we devour and spices that we adore. If you want to have a go at making your own brew, I’d suggest starting with a simple, nutrient-dense recipe, like the Broth for Long Life from the New York Times, as your base framework.

And, of course, if you don’t want to take the time to make it yourself, stop by one of our metro New York studios and grab some of our Bad to the Bone Broth. You’ll love it.