It’s Q & A Thursday’s and our question is in from Julie, who asks: Are carbohydrates good for you? The short answer to this question is it really depends on the circumstance and what type of carbohydrate we’re talking about, hold on tight while we go on this sticky and curly carbohydrate journey together.
So you’ve been listening to this show for a few months, we’re 141 episodes in after all and you’ve been implementing all these new strategies for your life. Hopefully it’s safe to say you’re exercising 3 or 4 times a week, but you might be asking yourself, now what? Today we’re going to cover what you can do to take your training to the next level once you’ve built the habit of being consistent.
If you’re new to the show it might not be a good place to start, most of our other shows are a lot more tactical and about fitness and nutrition, but I feel like this is an episode that needs to be done and it could be one of the most important shows we’ve done so far.
Today is a must read episode and we’re covering one of the most honest and to the point fat loss and exercise books I’ve ever read, Fat Loss Happens on Monday by Josh Hillis with Dan John.
Fitness For Freedom's Online Personal Training
Today’s a quick one so you can get an early start on your beautiful weekend with the 3 reasons your workout should be under 20 minutes.
It’s Q & A Thursday’s and our question is in from Kay, before going forward I want to let you our listener know this is a different Kay than last and since we have two confirmed listeners named Kay we have to differentiate between the two so this will be New Kay, who asks: Does it matter what time I eat? The short answer to this question is probably not, but let’s dive in and take a look at it from a couple of different angles to figure out what works for you.
As most of our regular listeners know we have a team of trainers, that work with a whole host of people for a variety of reasons, but for the most part it’s people that want to be a little more active and lose a bit of weight in the process. Like anything in life this is never a smooth process and it can be incredibly frustrating when you’re not making the progress you want and you feel like you’re putting in so much effort, but still not seeing the results or everything feels like it’s happening so slowly. Today we’re going to talk about how you can deal with your frustrations and hopefully take a few speed bumps off the road of your journey.
Last week we had the pleasure of doing the ‘Senior Celebration Show’ here in Ottawa, where we had a booth set up and I had the opportunity to meet many older people. It was really interesting to hear their stories, about how they exercise, what kind of injuries and medical conditions they had and like always there were a few ‘crotchety’s’ that didn’t exercise at all and they were not shy telling me all about it. I don’t want you to become old and crotchety.
Last week’s Q & A Thursday’s episode we talked a lot about how I personally eat and we got a lot of questions about my list of foods and why some foods were on my unlimited list when they may be viewed as ‘less healthy’ by many people and why some foods were in my moderate or never eat list when they may be viewed as healthy by lot’s of people. We’re going to explain this a little bit today and hopefully it will help you make decisions about your own lists and choices.
It can be really challenging to eat in a healthy way and to stay at a good body weight at the best of times, but what happens when you’re allergic to certain foods that force you to eat a certain way? Today you’re going to learn how to make good food substitutions when you have dietary restrictions whether it’s allergies or availability, this applies to anyone that needs or wants to make a dietary change.
Fitness For Freedom Show Notes
It’s Q&A Thursday’s and our question is in from Triple Threat Kay who asks: Jonathan, what kind of food do you eat? This is an interesting question because I'm alway’s evaluating how I eat, how I can eat better, and why I eat the way I do, it if that makes any sense at all. This is very personal to me, but hopefully you can find some strategies and tactics that will work for you as well.
We are 131 Episodes deep and over 100,000 downloads strong, which I need to thank you all for listening, learning and supporting us, making us your chosen resource for your fitness and health information. Posting all these episodes has given me the opportunity to see some really interesting patterns that have emerged with respect to what you the listener and active audience member are most interested in, ironically the episodes that have the most downloads are the one’s about when you can and/or should stop exercising, which I find really interesting since this is a show about fitting exercise into you’re daily life.
Today we’re not talking about stopping exercise, because exercise is so important you should always do it at some level. We’re covering our second most downloaded topic, losing weight. Even if you are a ‘healthy’ bodyweight, you still probably wish you had a little more definition in the backs of your arms or to have a slightly firmer and more shapely behind or hey wouldn’t it be nice to see even a slight outline of your abs which are definitely there, just slightly hidden. If these are things you want, you really you need to start with exercise first not how you’re eating, even though changing how you eat plays a far greater role in losing weight, that’s what we’re covering today!
A few years ago I started working with a client that was a little bit over-weight, maybe 20 pounds. Most people would not consider her over-weight at all because although she was 20 lbs. overweight, she still weighed less than the average 50 year old. Over the course of our few years together she lost about 5 pounds and more importantly she started exercising 3 or 4 times a week on her own...
Spring is in full swing and if you're like most people you’re getting out to enjoy the weather! Maybe you’re gardening, playing a little tennis or doing some spring cleaning, moving out all that junk that’s piled up in your garage and attic. Of course this requires moving a lot of stuff upstairs, downstairs, off of shelves and out of garages. Regardless of how you’re activity changes with the weather, there’s a good chance you ended up moving and lifting a lot more than you normally would through the winter. What you probably didn't realize is that all these activities are functional strength training at their best. When you do activities like this, you're actually doing exercise, which is a really interesting concept for a lot of people.
Now let's say for a minute that you're more sore or more sore than you think you should be, doing all this new found exercise. Even if you regularly follow a structured exercise program you're probably a bit sore and that's because functional exercise is functional and you move your body in different ways than your used to! Now wouldn’t it be nice to not be sore after a weekend of gardening or to not have to take several breaks moving your old fridge out of the basement? Today we're going to talk about what functional training is and how you can effectively do it in very little time. I know you don't want to be sore next Monday.
Today’s an important episode about your shifting landscape and how exercise will change as you age, sometimes this means you used to be a competitive athlete and now you’re just trying to be healthier, it could mean that at some point you followed a bodybuilding style program, but now you have kids, a career and not nearly as much time or it could mean you’re getting older and you officially no longer care about having a ‘6 pack’ and just want to be strong and mobile enough that you can outdrive your friends on the golf course. As you get older and your abilities and goals change you’re exercise program needs to change as well and we’re going to get introspective about your exercise program so you can ask yourself the right questions to make sure you’re doing the right types of exercise routines.
It’s Q&A Thursday’s and our question is in from Bryce who asks: Jonathan, what kind of exercise do you do and why? We’re going to get a little bit personal on this one, because I want you to understand why I train the way I do and why I think it’s the best way for the vast majority of people to train as well.
This episode was inspired by a client that said these exact words to me ‘I really don’t feel like exercising today, can we sit, visit and drink coffee instead?’ to which I responded ‘Sure, but let’s sneak in a quick workout first’ so she begrudgingly did her exercise program, but by the end to her surprise said she felt great. We can’t show up at all of your houses, so we’re going to talk about what you can do when there’s no one to nudge you along but yourself.
Today’s show is about the good, the bad and the ugly of fitness challenges. Fitness challenges are all the rage, usually they take some form of single exercise or circuit of exercises and you do them over a pre-determined course of time documenting your improvement and sharing it with the world. The most common example I can think of is the plank challenge that circulated a few years ago where you would plank everyday for a month and try to go from 30 seconds to 3 minutes over the course of that time.
There are many things to consider when deciding whether or not you should do a fitness challenge and today we’re going to cover all of those things.
Today is a must read episode and we’re covering one of my favourite fitness books of all time, Intervention by Dan John. He takes a simple and straight forward approach to health and fitness. If we all took a page out of this book we would all be a lot healthier for it. Get out your thinking cap, because we’re going to reshape how you think about health and fitness.
If you're trying to eat less, eat healthier and/or trying to lose weight and you don't have enough time to cook or you think it’s too hard you should listen to this episode. We're going to give you the silver bullet to help you with all of these things.
These are some really common comments that we hear from clients, eating healthy takes a long time because it takes so long to prepare the food, I get really hungry through the day and sometimes I just don’t know what to snack on so I eat cheese and crackers or trail mix, because what else can you really snack on, right? These are valid concerns, but there is one thing you can do that is the silver bullet to all of these problems...
Today’s question is in from Debbie: How can I make exercise fun?
This might be our most passionate episode yet.
Here’s the deal, you want a stronger core. How do I know this, because every time I ask someone if they want a stronger core they say ‘yes’. In fact, I’ve never heard any one say, ‘No, my core is strong enough I don’t need to strengthen it anymore.’ All that to be said most people only target their Rectus Abdominis which is their ‘6 pack’ muscle. I know a ‘6 pack’ is important to many of you, but if you’re really interested in a ‘6 pack’ go back and listen to any of our episodes that have to do with nutrition and weight loss, because that’s where the ‘6 pack’ magic happens. But if you want a strong core, one that keeps your back stable and gives you power to do the things you love, like pick your kids up and down off the ground, swing a golf club or carry heavy boxes from your car to the garage you need to listen to this episode because you’re going to learn something new about training your core.
There's this type of martial arts training called Iron Vest Training. Iron Vest Training is this training where you get beaten with a small stick or piece of wicker until your body starts to become bruised and bloodied. Then you let your body heal and once you’re healed you get beaten with a slightly larger stick until you become bruised and bloody. Then you let your body heal again and you go back and you get beaten with an even bigger stick until your bruised and bloody. You keep doing this over and over again until your body starts to adapt and eventually the smaller sticks no longer leave you bruised and bloodied, but you continue to get hit with bigger and bigger sticks. Over time you build up such a big tolerance that even the big sticks no longer leave bruises or make you bloodied and it is at this point you obtain iron vest status where your body can actually withstand huge amounts of pressure and force without becoming injured and hardly feeling pain. The purpose of exercise is to do the exact same thing to your body, to break it down a little bit and let it heal back up and then break it down little bit more and then let it heal back up and then eventually your body becomes a machine that is incredibly difficult to break down, where you can now do workouts that used to make you vomit, without much effort at all, this is an episode about the exact opposite of that.
Today’s episode is a short one about the powerful and underrated benefits of walking and how one of my client’s is noticing the impact of not doing it anymore, but she doesn’t realize it. The lead character in this story is Roberta and of course this isn’t her real name.
Everyone wants to be one of the cool kids, a sexy protein that gets all of the attention, an energetic carbohydrate that bounces of the walls and the once shunned kid fat is finally coming into his own, now that he’s better understood. But what about fiber? Fiber is that nerd at the high school party no one pays attention to, but ends up making millions of dollars after they graduate. So you should listen to him, when fiber grows up you want him on your side, because at the end of the day he’s writing some pretty big cheques.