Repsol Push Program - 8 Station Circuit Training (BOSU, BANDS, RESISTANCE, BATTLEROPES, MEDICINE BALLS, SLIDERS, TRX)

During convention, I had the opportunity to participate in the Repsol Sports Center Push Program. It culminated with an 8 station circuit where we performed each exercise for one minute and then rotated through. The circuit is carried through for two rounds.

Banded Squats

Medicine Ball Slams

TRX Rows

Battle Ropes (single arm)

BOSU Lateral Jumps

Exercise Ball Hamstring Lifts

Incline Push Ups

Abdominal Sliders (army crawl dragging your feet)

Practical Guide to Eating Healthy - Darebee.com

Practical Guide to Eating Healthy

A reasonable guide to eating just a little bit healthier by changing our eating habits and not going broke in the process. That’s all we all want. When it comes to eating we just need to know what kind of food we can find in a local supermarket, that’s tasty and affordable but healthy at the same time.

Have a high protein breakfast. What you want at the beginning of the day is high protein food. Proteins are complex molecules that break down slowly during cell respiration (the ‘burning fuel’ process that helps keep you alive) keeping you full longer and give you energy while keeping your blood sugar low. When you eat sweet baked goods, like waffles, pancakes or cereals for example, you get a quick energy boost and a sugar rush, but the effects very soon wear off and you end up feeling hungry again much sooner and in some cases you may also start feeling psychologically down (the so-called sugar rush mood swing cycle). If you combine protein rich food with some complex carbohydrates you can set yourself up for the day. The slower conversion process of proteins and carbohydrates into sugars the body can use for energy make you feel energized and able to go about your day, longer.

Breakfast ideas: oatmeal with nuts, spinach and banana smoothie, homemade protein bars, eggs, low fat (not fat free!) Greek yogurt with honey

Pre-make your lunches and plan ahead. We only eat junk because it’s accessible; it’s an easy just-reach-for-it solution. If you make healthier lunches just as accessible you will eat a lot healthier, naturally. If you pre-make your lunches and take them to work with you and have easy-to-reach-for snacks on hand you are less likely to want to go and buy doughnuts or low quality ready-meals from a fast food joint.

If you have a fridge at work you can make lunches and take them with you in a tupperware. Sandwiches aren’t evil either, especially if you make them yourself and put some fresh vegetables in them like lettuce and tomatoes. You don’t need to spend a lot of time and money to put it together, especially if you do it beforehand and just grab it & go in the morning.

Lunch ideas: turkey or chicken + vegetable wraps, pasta with vegetables, light no-mayo Caesar salad, tuna or smoked salmon sandwiches, sweet potato with cottage cheese and broccoli, a variety of vegetables with ham

Make healthy dinners by basing them on vegetables. We slow down in the evening and so does our metabolism so we don’t need the extra calories after the sun goes down. Unfortunately, we often end up going through the entire day either feeling hungry or being too busy and simply forget to eat and when the evening comes we either overeat and/or we pick the kind of food that is fast and comforting, like pizza or several burgers and a beer. These would not be so bad as an exception but on a daily basis they will not help you stay healthy and fit. So, if it comes to it and you end up feeling really hungry in the evening do have a big meal, just make it 60-70% vegetables. Make a big salad and stick to lean protein as a main course, in the evening carbs are no longer your friends. Protein is broken down into amino acids that go into making other proteins (i.e. muscle) with excess amino acids deaminated and converted into glucose, ready to enter glycolysis which burns them up for fuel. The point is it takes a lot of meat to create that kind of scenario and when you mix protein with vegetables you are unlikely to overeat.

Most basic vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, green beans and lettuce – are easy to find and they are not expensive, especially if you buy them locally at a farmers’ market or/and buy seasonal fruit and vegetables – they are always cheaper.

Dinner ideas: large lettuce salad with grilled chicken, baked eggplant with tomatoes, pork steak with sliced tomatoes, pork meatballs with mushrooms and green beans, peppers stuffed with pork mince, crustless quiche in the oven, baked fish with broccoli.

General advice: get some fish or meat (preferably lean or at least cut the visible fat off it) grill or bake it in the oven and add some vegetables on the side, as many as you want.

Choose relatively unprocessed foods when you can, if you can. Practically everything you eat is processed in some way but not all of it is processed equally. Heavily processed food is often loaded on fat, sugars and salt, but is very low on vitamins, minerals and fiber. The stuff is designed to make you feel good because, due to the high amounts of fat, sugar and salt, it tastes delicious, at least until you retrain your taste buds to recognize what real food tastes like. The simpler the item you buy and the closer it is to its original form, the better, basically. You don’t have to buy everything this way, but the more natural foods you add to your menu the more likely you are to get the most out of what you eat beyond just getting the energy required to stay alive.

Pick a Treat Day. There is nothing wrong with chocolate and ice-cream as long as a) you don’t eat too much (we’re talking pounds) b) you don’t eat too often – like every day with every meal. You will actually value these more if you make them treats instead of a standard addition to every dinner.

Denying yourself treats all together is not a great idea either, just choose them wisely, don’t add them to an already complete meal and don’t eat too much in one go. If you are watching your figure, the best way to manage sweets is to pick one day a week when you are allowed whatever sweets you want, in reasonable amounts, and that will help you not just manage your sweet tooth but also give you something to look forward to. It’s a lot easier to deny yourself something when you know exactly when you will be able to have it.

Also, if your diet is balanced and you eat plenty of protein rich foods you don’t crave sweets so much.

Stock up on healthy snacks. And keep them where you can see them in a ready to eat kind of way. If you buy healthy food it doesn’t mean you are going to eat it unless you make it easy for yourself to reach for it when you need it. If you buy fruit, wash it and put it in a bowl where you can see it and have raw nuts on hand as an easy pick-me-up or homemade nut or protein bars for a more serious snack. The same goes for quick-snack vegetable packs like peppers, baby tomatoes, carrots and cucumbers, if you slice them up for the day and keep them in the fridge at home or work it’ll be a lot easier for you to grab them. That extra step of not needing to prepare food when you are hungry can make all the difference.

Snack ideas: any kind of fruit and nuts, apple slices with peanut butter, cheese sticks, tomatoes with mozzarella, ham & cucumber rolls, Greek yogurt, deviled eggs with light cream cheese.

Tips

Aim to stay away from fast food and make your own meals as often as you can.
Try to avoid sweet sodas and energy drinks altogether. Most of them are just sugar in liquid form.
Try not to get to the point when you are so hungry you no longer care what you eat, snack mindfully throughout the day and keep your main meal portions small. Anything your body doesn’t use up goes into storage.
Pick unprocessed food or as less processed as possible when you can.
Try to eat at least one type of fruit and one type of vegetable a day. If you can’t fit them in, make a quick smoothie: 2oz spinach, 1 ripe banana, 1 medium apple blended with 2 cups of water. If you don’t want to eat meat every day, consider swapping it for a plate of giant beans in red sauce once in a while or make a large salad with lettuce, eggs and nuts in it.
If there are some vegetables like spinach or broccoli that you can’t eat in any form but you would like to, consider adding them into a smoothie with some fruit e.g. bananas and apples.
Try to include sea food in your menu at least once a week. You can buy frozen salmon that can be baked from frozen in less than 30 minutes.
If you feel hungry really late at night eat a small portion of low fat plain Greek yogurt with some cinnamon on top – it’s the perfect midnight snack that curbs hunger.

In general, it’s not so much about weight as much it is about feeling good, having more energy and potentially being in a better mood. You can lose weight while eating unhealthily if you eat in small amounts. It’s the deficit of food that makes your body optimize and drop the pounds. Healthy food is not necessarily low calorie or low fat, it’s food that is good for your body – after all it is what is used to build it.

Top 10 Affordable Protein Sources from nutritionists at darebee.com

10 Top Affordable Protein Sources

Canned Tuna [40g protein per can]
Eggs [6g protein per egg]
Pork Mince [20g protein per 100g]
Chicken Breasts [31g protein per 100g]
Frozen Wild salmon [25g of protein per 100g]
Peanut butter [23g protein per 100g | 5.3 protein per serving]
Greek Yoghurt 2% [10g protein per 100g]
Milk 3% fat [8g protein per cup]
Canned giant beans [6g protein per 100g, 15g per can]
Whey Protein [1 scoop of whey is 25g in which around 20g, depending on the brand, is protein] At two scoops a day a 10lbs container will last you around ten weeks.

If you buy discounted meat with 30% off you’ll save a significant amount of money. There is nothing wrong with meat that was full price yesterday and is discounted today. The clever thing to do is to buy in bulk whenever there is special offer or a promotion and freeze the meat. Make your own burgers from pork or turkey mince and freeze them for a later date. Meat can be frozen for up to two months just make sure you separate the portions so you don’t have to defrost the entire container – once you defrost something you can’t put it back in the freezer.

When it comes to dairy, buy low fat milk and yoghurt simply because you don’t need the extra calories. If you are skinny and you need to gain weight go for full fat. If you drink a litre of full fat milk a day it’ll help you gain higher muscle mass.

Frozen wild salmon isn’t all that expensive especially if you wait for better offers at the nearest supermarket. Try to buy wild salmon and have it at least once a week with rice and steamed vegetables. You can also find it canned which will be an even better option than tuna. Also keep in mind that tuna is high in mercury so it may not be a good idea to eat more than 250g a day.
Beans may not be everyone’s food of choice but they are cheap, accessible and easy to make (re-heat in the microwave and you are done). Cans of giant beans in red sauce are the perfect quick, cheap, nutritious meal to have during the week with whole wheat tortillas. A plate of hot, giant beans + 2 tortillas will give you 25g of protein.

When it comes to protein powder bodybuilders buy, most people are skeptical. Most people do not intend to get bulky and anything that comes in powdered form, comes with its own set of question marks attached. The truth is however that there is only so much you can physically eat all day and still have time for a life. This is why we looked at protein powders.
Whey protein which is in fact a by-product of cheese production and that seemed to make more sense than some of the more medically formulated options available. There are different types and health claims (anti-inflammatory or anti-cancer properties) attributed to whey protein powders and there aren’t any actual drawbacks to speak of except of milk allergies some people might experience. It can be used as a supplement for post-workout protein blends, blended with a low fat yoghurt, fruit or berries of any kind it counts as a micro-meal. Basically, that’s just enriching an ordinary yoghurt with high amounts of protein. Ordinary whey protein is preferable here to any super mixes or engineered formulas.

For a great taste and the feeling of satisfying your hunger try low-fat Greek yoghurt. You can eat it with a little bit of cinnamon sprinkled over the top and it’s an awesome hunger-killer.
The more muscle you have the more calories you burn daily – muscle is kind of high maintenance energy wise. People who try to lose weight often overlook the importance of muscle growth that will actually aid them in burning the fat later on. If you are afraid to get bulky make sure you get enough cardio in your training. As your body optimises the muscle density is not going to increase so you stay lean. Long distance runners can’t get huge muscle because of that, for example.
Your body is smart and it optimises itself for the lifestyle you lead. If you eat carbs and sit on your arse all day long it’ll take the shape of your sofa. If you run daily and you eat protein you’ll get a lean muscled body. It’s very smart that way. If growing big muscles and gaining weight is your goal you’ll need to eat extra high protein meals during the day for higher calorie intake. The more calories you eat the more building material you’ll have.

If you need to lose weight protein diets are the best. Low calorie diets may work fast but you lose too much muscle in the process and then gain fat back a lot faster. If you keep your meals high protein and low fat you’ll not just lose weight but you’ll get to see the muscles you already have. Long-distance runners usually carry an extra few pounds for their long runs but if they need to drop them they often use protein diets to shed the weight.