Ask Amanda: An Apple A Day

So upon the consistent urging of my dear boyfriend, I finally got the Apple Watch Series 3 (you know, the one that has cellular).

I’ll pause for applause (*cough*).  Eh….ok.

I say “finally” because honestly, I’ve been an Apple addict for a long time now – I switched over to a Macbook from a s*tty PC like four laptops ago, I’ve had every iteration of the iPhone since 3.0, and I generally welcome our Apple, Google, and Amazon overlords in most of my day-to-day habits and choices.

JUST PUT IT STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS BRO

That said, I was a holdout on the Watch.  BUT WHY?

I think part of the issue was a weird attachment to my phone – my glorious, massive, brick of an iPhone 7 Plus.  I carry it EVERYWHERE with me – it actually has a ghetto-fabulous credit card pocket glued onto the back of the case so I have my transit card, credit card, and IC with me wherever I go, purse or no purse.

I was also carrying my phone everywhere to get steps, because ever since the demise of my FitBit somewhere around 2015, it’s the only thing I have tracking my movement, which is stupid and cumbersome when I’m just trying to run out for a quick coffee but saddled down with my 3-pound phone.

So I bit the bullet, saved up my salary, and got myself a glorious Apple Watch (series 3 GPS Cellular with 42mm face and Pink Sand Sport Band):

#humblebrag on the low RHR no big deal

The photo above displays one of my favourite and most-used features: the heart rate monitor.  Yep, not only do I like to track my resting HR (a helpful indicator of your overall cardiovascular fitness), I also like to see how hard I’m working during my workouts – because truth be told, even trainers need to be pushed to reach their anaerobic (about 84% MHR and above) threshold from time to time.

The workout features of the Watch also include tracking calorie burn as well as average and peak HR during exercise – and I’ve compared it to my power meter output on a Spin bike and my Orangetheory results during class and both time it was spot-on accurate.

Besides “workout-y” workouts, perhaps my number one feature on the Watch is the activity tracker, which are the three rings featured on the main watch face below:

The end of a particularly active (exhausting) day.

The red ring is your overall calories burned (this is considered ON TOP OF your basal metabolic rate, which is how many calories you’d burn anyway just being alive, which for most of us STILL makes up the bulk of our daily burn).  The bright green ring is your daily exercise minutes, which is calculated by a combination of heart rate elevation and overall movement.  And the third blue ring is your stand minutes, which gives you a point for each hour you got up and moved for at least one minute (so literally, how many hours in the day during which you AT LEAST stood up for 60 seconds – not too tough).

You actually get little vibrating FIREWORKS when you close all your rings! HURRAH FOR ME!

As a trainer, I am constantly trying to encourage my clients to track their movements and eating habits and consider their larger patterns in the pursuit of their individual goals.  For examples, a lot of clients come to me telling me they’re “pretty active,” when in reality they do about one hour of moderate exercise per day (if that!) and sit most of their other waking hours, at work and leisure.

The Apple Watch doesn’t let you get away with that definition of active – between the daily burn goal (which you set), the exercise minutes (a minimum 30 per day), and the standing, the Activity app encourages more consistent movement patterns throughout the day – as well as gives you some great heart rate feedback on the exercise you are doing, in real time.

But what about those of us who don’t really care about our activity levels (breaking my trainer heart, but I know you’re out there)?

You can customise your “honeycomb” of apps on your phone and it shows up organised on your watch.  Boom.

The Watch also has a lot of compatible apps for sleep quality tracking (another crucial component of overall wellness, and something few of us pay close attention to), a “quick add” feature that syncs to the MyFitnessPal diet tracking app, a notification-enabled period and ovulation tracking app called Flo (sorry, fellas, this one’s not for you – but ladies, if you’re not tracking your cycle and how it relates to your body and moods, you’re doing your physical AND mental health a disservice), and convenient for workouts AND cooking (ha!), a one-touch timer and stopwatch/lap app at a glance.

There’s also compatible apps for calculator, Twitter, weather, language translators, and hey Dad – even your beloved Nest (a remote-control home thermostat) is on here!

Not convinced yet?  I haven’t even gotten to the cellular/phone-ish features.

The Apple Watch Series 3 is completely independent of the iPhone for most things (a notable exception: Watchify, the Spotify-playing app for Watch, which drives me NUTS because I can’t have access to my favourite non-iTunes playlists while running unless I take my phone), which means you can get your WhatApp notifications, take phone calls (yes, you  heard me right – you can ANSWER and SPEAK TO phone calls via your watch even without your phone, which is Inspector-Gadget style space age biz), and get news, FB, and Instagram updates on the run – no tethering to your phone required.

I still plan on taking an Apple Watch class from one of those geniuses at the Apple Store when I have time, but in the meantime, here are another 40 (!) tips and tricks to make your watch work for you.

And finally – because I know you’re all wondering – how much is this kit n’ kaboodle, anyway?  Here in Singapore I bought the watch for $648 SGD ($493 USD), added $88 for the AppleCare coverage (because I don’t do well with nice things), and pay $6.90/month for the cellular tethering on my mobile carrier.  Not too shabby considering that I absolutely love it, will use it until it is irrelevant, and find it wildly convenient and useful to my active, on-the-move, data-obsessed daily lifestyle.

Would you ever get an Apple Watch – or do you have one already?  What do you think?

Ask Amanda: Health at MANY Size(s)

So I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately, mostly because I have been taking on a lot of new, diverse clients with new, diverse needs.

For example, I have a woman trying to get pregnant but can’t kick the junk food habit and lose the body fat she needs to get there.  I have a fellow who has never lifted weights and is struggling to develop even the basic muscle mass to support his (bigger) frame.  I have another gal who second-guesses every bite of food she puts in her mouth…and ends up skipping meals because she feels so unsure about what healthy choices look like.

Point is this: I work with, and like to think that I help, a lot of different people with a lot of different needs, so I like to stay informed about what’s new and current in the world of fitness and nutrition – and expert podcasts are a great way to do that.

Some of the ones I listen to are as follows (and guys – PLEASE comment if you have a fitness/wellness/nutrition podcast that you absolutely love so I can subscribe!):

• Love, Food – a podcast addressing common psychological issues surrounding food
• Nutrition Diva – a science-focused podcast with short bites of nutritional research
• Don’t Salt My Game – a body-image and nutrition podcast by an anti-diet dietitian

It was on the latter that I discovered a particular – but strong and prevalent – bias I have regarding my entire nutrition practice and how I approach diet and exercise and it is this:

I don’t believe in – and will not entertain as a tenet of professional practice – the HAES (Health At Every Size) movement.

Lots of HAES activism out there!

I don’t agree with what it stands for, I don’t believe what it implies, and I think that what it does to the social perception and critical understandings of health, fitness, wellness, and nutrition is more detrimental than helpful.

Ok, whoa.  Even as I wrote that, it sounds harsh.  But allow me to extrapolate.

Starting with the source – the main “hub” for the HAES movements, the HAES Community page, who suggest that:

“The war on obesity has taken its toll. Extensive “collateral damage” has resulted: food and body preoccupation, self-hatred, eating disorders, discrimination, poor health, etc. Few of us are at peace with our bodies, whether because we’re fat or because we fear becoming fat.  Health at Every Size is the new peace movement.”

Sounds ok so far, right?  I mean, I am obviously in support of a pro-health, pro-acceptance community that values wellness and balance over self-hate and illness. 

So let’s keep digging, shall we?

Wikipedia further defines the HAES movement (my underlined emphasis added) as:

“…a pseudoscientific theory advanced by certain sectors of the fat acceptance movement.  Its main tenet involves rejection of overwhelming evidence and the scientific consensus regarding the link between excessive calorie intake, a sedentary lifestyle, and lack of physical exercise, improper nutrition, and greater body weight – and its effects on a person’s health.”

RationalWiki (did everyone else already know this exists – and that it’s glorious?) takes an even deeper jab and defines the HAES movement as (my underlined emphasis added):

“…a pseudo-scientific concept peddled by certain fat activists which asserts — in complete opposition to current medical knowledge — that no kind of obesity is linked to poor health or unhealthiness…this leads to the assertion that if obesity is always a natural state of being then it’s perfectly fine and not at all unhealthy.”

Now we’re getting to the stuff I take issue with, readers: the science.

The reality is this: health at every size is a myth.  A seminal 1979 study on the topic found that obesity (a BMI of more than 30, which for a 5’4″ person is over 155 pounds/79KG) and for a 6’0″ person is over 200 pounds/100KG) is not only related to the more obvious health risks of diabetes, gout, heart disease, bone/joint and gallbladder problems, but also correlated with:

• psychosocial disability
• greater risk during surgery/anaesthesia, especially when aged
• more frequent absenteeism from work and school

Another crucial study found that overweight and obese persons tend to die sooner than average-weight persons with the same habits – and that the younger you are when you first become overweight, the stronger the mortality risk throughout your life – but what’s also important to point out is that the “ideal longevity BMI” (the BMI correlated with the longest recorded lifespans) is 20-24.9 (for our 5’4″ person, thats 115-140 pounds/52-63KG, for our 6’0″ person, that’s 145-180/65-81KG).

And guys, it’s outside of the scope of this piece – but don’t even start me on the costs of treating obesity worldwide, particularly when compared to the potential costs of preventing it.

So how to reconcile HAES with this actual, data-backed science?

Here are my two cents.  Every day, (primarily) women walk into my gym with complaints about their bodies – about how they function, sometimes, but mostly about how they look.

Almost always the former can be addressed with some strength work, flexibility improvements and moderate fat loss (if overweight); the latter is the one that I think HAES is trying to “free” us from – but with all the wrong messages.

The message that medically at-risk bodies are healthy is wrong.  The message that you are mentally and physically thriving at a 30 (obese) or 40 (morbidly obese) BMI is misleading.  The message that staying/being/becoming fat is a preferred way to address size-based discrimination and eating disorders is horrific.  I don’t like any of it, and I think that promoting this kind of thinking, especially among young women just starting to know their bodies and how they exist in the world, sets up a lifetime of struggle.

Where the HAES and other body-positivity movements have it right is this: encouraging self-respect, intuitive eating, the joy of movement, and compassionate self-care should be a priority for all fitness and wellness professionals.

When we participate in a culture that promotes body-shaming, negative-reinforcement training methods, overly restrictive or unsafe diet practices, or overtraining (over-exercise, under-sleeping, under-eating, over-stressing), we are part of the problem. 

When we make a commitment to separating value and character judgments from human bodies, employing positive-motivational coaching, helping clients with intuitive and mindful eating habits, and monitoring our clients for all markers of overall wellness (not just their weight and fat), we become part of the solution.

Thus, #fitfam, I suggest and stand for the revised term of Health at MANY Sizes, rather than HAES.  There is no one body type that means healthy, just like there is no one body type that means beautiful, or that means worthy.  My best self might not resemble yours, and what’s healthy for me might not be ideal for you.  That’s ok.

But if we are painfully honest with ourselves about what we look and feel like when we’re thriving – I know I used that word before, but I really do love it – I bet a healthy weight is right in there, alongside the glowing skin, high energy, stamina, and resilience that is characteristic of true wellness and health.

What’s your opinion of HAES?  When do you feel like you’re truly thriving?

Ask Amanda: (Don’t) Fall Into the Gap

In honour of today being Valentine’s Day, I figured I’d do a little piece on self-love, with a side of ranting (because come on, that’s what I do best).

I was on a Skype call recently with a remote client that I train online (you can do that with me, by the way, should you not be local to Singapore), and I was trying to demonstrate something – so I stood on a chair so she could clearly see my legs.

Before I could get into the explanation of the thing itself, she stopped and said – “your thighs – they don’t touch!”

I’d heard of the so-called “thigh gap” before, of course – but it caught me by surprise that it was worthy of being called out over Skype.

Thigh gap vs. no gap.  Scintillating stuff, I know.

For those of you who aren’t in the know (and believe me, when it comes to this trend, consider yourself lucky to be out of the loop), the “thigh gap” for many women is the ultimate expression of thinness, fitness, desirability, physical perfection – it’s like the six-pack for men, but perhaps more unattainable (and stupid, IMO).

But what bothers me most about the thigh gap, more so than its association with the above ideas, is its association with being FEMININE and FRAGILE, or as Wikipedia says:

“…the thigh gap had become an aspect of physical attractiveness in the Western world and has been associated with fragility and femininity, although it is also seen as desirable by some men as a sign of fitness.”

A sign of fragility (um…not so great for hip-breakin’ in your elder years?).  A sign of femininity (let me hike up my 1950s hoop skirt and see…)? And a sign of FITNESS?!?  ABSOLUTELY untrue.

Having a thigh gap is a sign of one of three things: you have very thin (often NOT fit) legs, you are bowlegged or have a wide-set pelvic structure, or you stand a certain way to “roll back” your legs into a thigh gap a la Instagram models.

Many athletic-bodied women actually have NARROW hips, meaning fit women may be LESS likely to have a thigh gap.

My point in all this is that ALL a “thigh gap” is telling you is whether or not you can feel the cool breeze between your upper legs – and not a thing more.

Just like the “thighbrow” (don’t fall down this rabbit hole, guys, unless you really want to) or what my pre-social media generation used to call “gratuitous cleavage,” the thigh gap is nothing more than positioning parts of your body in such as a way as to be perceived more attractive or desirable to the (small; IMO irrelevant) component of the population who actually notices and/or values that load of sh*t.

Which brings me to my actual point.

I train and work with women (and men) every day, and what I notice most about how women (versus men) self-talk in the gym, it’s this: they’re we’re almost always commenting on the way their bodies look (rather than how they feel or function). 

If we lift something heavy, we want to make sure it’ll “pay off” in visible leanness.  If we run, we might notice certain areas “bouncing around” and we assume they shouldn’t be.  If we stretch, we turn away from the mirror so we don’t have to see our (perfectly normal) skin folded over our waistbands as we bend.

It’s a whole can of worms, folks.  And the GD “thigh gap” is just one symptom of it.

As women, we have to call ourselves on the default habit of bringing everything back to our physical bodies – particularly while we’re doing something healthy for those fabulous bodies (like exercising, or getting a massage, or dancing with friends).

If your thighs touch when you stand up, it’s not a sign of poor fitness.  If your belly flops over a bit when you BEND OVER, that’s a completely normal effect of human movement.  If you notice that your butt bounces a few moments behind you when you’re running on the treadmill, it’s probably because you have some nice muscles back there flexing to help you stride – not because you have too much “junk the trunk.”

I challenge my clients to focus on the intrinsic benefits of exercise and clean eating, even if it doesn’t seem natural at first.  Instead of obsessing over getting into a certain dress or wearing a bikini at whatever vacation or seeing a magical number pop up on the scale, why not consider:

• how much better you sleep when you’re being consistently active
• how much more energy you have when you’re not eating crapola
• how much better sex is when you’re in good physical shape (cough, er ah, just sayin’)
• how much your kids appreciate when you have energy/ability to keep up with them
• how great it feels to accomplish a solid, write-it-down-in-numbers fitness goal (like running your first full mile, or lifting a new PR on the weights floor)
• how much less stress you have when you drop the body loathing and celebrate the body doing

Especially as a fitness professional, where my body IS part of my business no matter how much I’d pretend or hope it wouldn’t be, I know I can work harder to change the body focus for myself – and encourage that among the women that I train.

We can all take a few moments to appreciate the things our bodies can do, the humans our bodies have produced, the memories our bodies have walked us through, and the adventures our bodies have yet to experience – without saying a single bad word about ’em.

Right?

So let’s.  And this Valentine’s (or GALentine’s, as I’ve noticed the cool kids are starting to celebrate) Day, I hope you can incorporate some beautiful self-love rituals that do not have a damn thing to do with the way your body looks (my plan? holding hands with my adorable man all night, eating a fine meat-filled dinner, and getting a little buzz off some overpriced craft beer).

What’s your favourite way to celebrate Valentine’s Day – or celebrate your healthy bod?

Ask Amanda: The Myth of Discipline

Settle in, folks.  Maybe grab a green tea.  This here’s a long one.

When I started my Precision Nutrition coaching course, I never expected it to teach me so many life lessons in addition to the nitty-gritty nutritional information.

Furthermore, the folks at PN have a really clever way of putting into useful mantras/slogans the habits that I find myself coaching clients about on the regs – helpful tidbits like “eat to 80% full,” “aim for a little more, a little better,” and my personal fave, “don’t bother mowing the lawn if the house is on fire” (referring to, for example, those folks that INSIST on getting a Diet Coke alongside their 1000-calorie fast food McDonald’s meal).

Spoiler alert: it’s not a huge deal.

Today’s lesson made the shocking assertion that discipline is a myth – and furthermore, that health-industry keywords like willpower, motivation, and inspiration are all pretty much myths, too.  The basic idea is this: it’s not some holy-grail epic opening of the heavens that drives us to make healthy changes in our lives, it’s simply the repetitive act of small habits and better choices that add up to great things.

It reminded me of an article I’ve brought up time and again since first being exposed to it in graduate school in 2007 called The Mundanity of Excellence.  To summarise Dr. Daniel Chambliss:

“Excellence is mundane.  Excellence is accomplished through the doing of actions, ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, habitualized, compounded together, added up over time.  The action, in itself, is nothing special; the care and consistency with which it is made is.”

Wow.  Just wow.  Go ahead, read it again.  I’ll be here.

I admit that I am a “doer” almost to a fault; I am a big fan of favouring the “done” rather than the “perfect,” which sometimes results in less-than-ideal outcomes – but more often results in people getting what they need at the time in which they need it, which is a cornerstone of success in my business.

That said, taking action is the most important first step to the idea we formerly knew as “motivation,” and taking that action consistently becomes the pattern we used to talk about as “discipline.” 

The early-morning slog to the gym in your dirty old sneakers; the game-time decision to order the salad instead of the sandwich at the local deli; the choice to shut off the Netflix at 10pm so you can get a full night’s sleep – these are the actions, these are the patterns, these are the little things that make big changes to your life.

Cheat sheet – print it out and rock on!

And so I turn it back to Precision for some little nuggets that can help you move from the ideal world of myths and grandeur to the real-life world of actions and habits (all their words, not mine, by the way):

• There is no such thing as discipline.  Rather, ask yourself: What do you really love? Because you are the result of what you love most.  You either love and cherish six-pack abs more than potato chips, or you love potato chips more than washboard abs.  It’s as simple as that. Don’t beat yourself up – you’re allowed to love what you love.
• Make truly self-loving choices that lead to increased strength of body and mind. When people comment on your results and say things like, “Wow you have a lot of discipline”, answer, “No, I just make the best choices for myself.”
• The best defence is a good offence.  Nutrition is something within your control and you should take responsibility for this.  Every day you wake up and decide what it’s going to be: a day of struggling or a day of rising to the occasion.
• Be motivated by the knowledge that you will never regret doing the right thing, even if it hurts to do it. But you will regret doing nothing. Keep a “daily wins” log. Over time, you have “real evidence” that you are progressing… and more importantly, have the capacity to progress further.
• Understand that sh*t will happen. There will be “down” days. On those days, become a minimalist. Find the smallest thing you can do and do it. If all you ended up doing was your “smallest” thing, then you still can take solace that you did something. If you did more, bonus.
• Change your focus, change your environment, change your attitude. If you’ve been physique focused, find a performance or health goal. Find something that inspires you and put your attention to that. Introduce something new and fun to your “plan”. Decide what you really want and decide if you’re willing to do what it takes to get there.
• Motivation is crap. Exercise and eating well is ambivalent. Some days you feel like doing it, so you do; other days you don’t feel like doing it, so you don’t.  Eventually you must learn to dissociate feelings from actions. You must go to the gym, or eat your vegetables, even if you’re downright screaming “AW HELL NO!!”  Regardless of how you initially feel about it, starting the right action makes it easy to finish it. And once you overrule your “hell no”, it gets easier to do it the next time.

This year, I’m not really setting resolutions; I don’t really have different goals from this time last year.  But I am determined to stay committed, act with dedication and consistency, and stay focused on my long-term plans for my life – and I hope you will, too.

Do you have big goals for 2018?  What are your plans to take it to the next level?

Ask Amanda: Hatching Healthy Habits

There’s two types of people in this world: people who feel excited and hopeful about the coming of a new year, and people who feel overwhelmed and defeated by it.  As is my general glass-half-full attitude about most things in life, I am of the former camp.

Last year I wrote a bit about setting purposeful health-oriented New Year’s resolutions, and I stand by that advice – which was, by the way, to be mindful, realistic, and consistent in whatever you set out to change about your overall well-being.

Two years back I was talking about the things I WON’T be doing in the new year, which is sort of hilarious and eye-opening to look back upon (let’s just say I’ve gotten over SYTTD and 36-ounce jars of peanut butter sort of naturally, if not willingly, haha) – and I even did a little post about what to call your goal-setting list if not “resolutions.”

This year, an old friend of mine posted a fantastic article about habits – little, everyday things that really do add up to complete life changes – that really hit home.  See, this is exactly the kind of thing I encourage my clients to do at DISCREET, and small incremental changes really are the only way I find that people can hold on to healthy behaviours for more than a few weeks. at a time.

Should you be clickbait-averse (the full list is linked above), allow me to summarise the ones I love most below:

1.  Drink a glass of water every morning when you wake up.  Guys, the ONE thing that each and every one of my clients gets on their meal programs is the admonition to drink 3 liters (100 ounces) of water per day.  It matters.
2. Eat raw fruit or vegetables with every meal.  With nutrition, think about adding more produce and protein before you think about taking things away.  It works.
3. Sit in silence for a few minutes every day.  I downloaded Buddhify this year and haven’t looked back – almost every day, I make time for a 5-20 minute meditation session it reenergises and focuses me as much as a nap or a coffee might otherwise have done (though truth be told, I still love my naps and coffees).

1. Respond to all invitations and opportunities with, “I’ll check my calendar.”  Too many times my default response is “sure!” simply because I want to come off agreeable and helpful – only to find that I’ve painted myself into a corner in terms of my schedule.  On the other hand, there are certain things I always say “no” to (like my friend’s African dance class that she’s invited me to a thousand times) that I could probably give more time to consider and maybe even (gasp) attend!
2. Write a thank-you note every week.  I am decent about writing handwritten notes for gifts, but not so good about writing them for abstract gratitude (of which I have plenty!).  Step one is buying cute cards you’re proud to give; step two is leaving them directly in your line of sight so you have no choice but to pen ’em up.
3. Keep your bike out where you can see it.  I used to own a bike but it wasn’t really a “commuting” type bike (think triathlon geometry).  Now, all over Singapore they have these bike-sharing programs where you can literally just pick up a bike off the street, scan it with your phone, and pay a nominal fee (like .50-$1 per half hour) to ride it where you need to go.  Ashamedly, I haven’t tried this yet – which is why it’s DEFINITELY on my to-do list for 2018!

I’ll try and do a longer resolutions post next week as I have a lot of major plans for 2018 (turning 35, potentially considering childbirth, moving, revamping my business) but I wanted to throw out these little nuggets of inspiration to get the ball rolling now.

What are your go-to healthy habits?  What do you do every day to stay well?

Ask Amanda: Mommy Tummy

Let it be known: I have zero kids.  I am 34 years old, in good-to-excellent shape, with great genes, and I love exercising,  Believe me, I take none of those traits for granted – and I know that once I do become a mother, some of those things will matter more than others in how my body responds to pregnancy.

That said, I train a ton of mommies currently, and I’ve trained lots of women from before they were pregnant, throughout their pregnancies, and afterward.  I see how their bodies change (not everyone in the same way, by a long shot) and I see what problem areas recur again and again after giving birth (hello, pelvic floor – don’t skip those Kegels!).

The most common postpartum body complaint?  Mommy tummy.

Even if you’re not personally familiar with this area, “mommy tummy” can be summed up in a single, profound image:

Mommy.  Tummy.

I want to make one thing abundantly clear: I am in no way body shaming or judging the above image.  If you earned this by growing and producing a life, you should walk around bearing your belly like a baws anytime you see fit.  However, most of the moms I know aren’t super happy with the stretch marks, loose skin, and extra fluff that tends to hang around the midsection after having a (or two, or three) kiddo.

Depending on your prenatal moisturising routine, your genetics, your age, your weight, and the natural elasticity of your skin, you will have wildly different responses to the necessary expansion of a pregnant belly – and there are a lot of different treatments (including radiofrequency, which I offer at my personal training studio) available to help return your midsection to its former glory.  I’m not going to take time addressing those options here, but rest assured that in certain cases, no amount of exercise is going to fully reverse more severe skin issues related to pregnancy, and you may need to seek some cosmetic work if that’s your prerogative.

Furthermore, if you have diastatis recti (abdominal separation) postpartum, you will also need to make some more significant considerations on what you can and cannot do to help tone and tighten your tummy post-baby.

Anyhoo, let’s assume you’ve got the run-of-the-mill mommy tummy and let’s assume you’re healthy enough to get your workout on to address it.  That’s my specialty.

First off, you want to focus on a couple specific kinds of exercises: twisting (to narrow the waist, which can widen with each pregnancy) and TVA contracting (the deep “pulling” of the transverse abdominus that helps lean out and lengthen the appearance of your entire stomach).

Get familiar with the muscles you’re workin’ with.

You may be wondering at this point: “but what about my lower abs?  That’s where my little ‘pooch’ seems to settle!”  And believe me, mommies, I hear ya.  But the reality is this: your lower abs tend to be the weakest after pregnancy, particularly soon after delivery, so targeting them with more aggressive contractions may cause pain and in many cases won’t deliver the results you’re thinking (Britney Spears circa 2001).

I prefer to help my clients strengthen their waist and deeper abdominal muscles (the aforementioned TVA) to help pull the muscles “up” and again, lengthen and lean out the appearance of the entire stomach (including that persistent little pooch).

Without further ado, here are the exercises I recommend to actually do that:

• Russian twists – with or without weight, these help trim and tighten the oblique muscles that support the waist (more advanced: windshield wipers)
  

  Add weight if you’re feeling like a baws mama

• Knee-to-elbow – activates the TVA and gives you a twist through the core as you reach the knee to the opposite elbow (more advanced: add a downward dog
  

  Really aim for the triceps, not just the elbow

• Heel taps – incorporates TVA, rectus abdominus, and unilateral core engagement yet is safe for all levels and is a great “kickstarter” to return to your abs workouts after baby (more advanced: reverse crunches)
  

  Move slowly and tap the heel lightly on the floor

   

• Double crunch – as the name suggests, this movement requires a deep contraction from both the upper and lower abs at the same time (more advanced: V-ups)
  

  Make sure to raise upper and lower half simultaneously, and keep feet together

• Plank twists – more challenging when done from the elbows, this exercise combines both dynamic and isometric contraction to strengthen, lengthen, and lean out the midsection while redefining the sides of the waist as well (more advanced: rotating side plank)

If you can’t make it all the way to “tap” the floor, that’s OK!  Do your best.

As always, check with your doc before doing any of these exercises to make sure they’re safe for you – but if you’re cleared for exercise, complete each of the above five movements for 10 reps each, three times around.  If you want a harder workout, complete the BASIC version of the set followed by the ADVANCED version of the set (so, 20 reps per exercise) three times.  Feel the burn!

A quick note on both genetics and nutrition – they will both affect, to an even greater extent than exercise, the way your body looks after baby.  If you have stretch marks, you can’t just exercise them out.  If you have loose skin from a large pregnancy or multiples, crunches might not be the (sole) solution to a tighter tummy.

Similarly, if you eat junk off your toddler’s plate and/or order in pizza more nights than you cook and/or drink more wine than you do water, you probably won’t see visible results – or at least they won’t be anywhere near what clean eating, regular cardio, and solid sleep will get you (easier said than done, I do understand).  Consider that your abs are just one little indicator of an entire lifestyle of fitness – and make the changes you can, incremental as they may feel, to your food, sleep, exercise, and stress levels (self-care counts too!) instead of focusing on one area on your beautiful, life-giving bod.

Do you struggle with your midsection – and what are your fave exercises for that area?

Ask Amanda: Fake Food

My lovely cousin (who is undergoing his very own wellness transformation as we speak) asked me about nootropics, a nutrition term that I’d heard but admittedly had to look up to completely understand.

Nootropics (also called smart drugs or cognitive enhancers) are drugs, supplements, or other substances that improve cognitive function in otherwise healthy individuals.  These can range from the completely innocent (caffeine) to the very controversial and in some cases illegal (amphetamines, like the commonly-prescribed Adderall which is outlawed here in Singapore even for those prescribed it in other countries).

Insane in the brain

Some common nootropics on the market include gingko biloba, fish oil, vitamin B12 shots, none of which have any truly convincing medical evidence for their efficacy.  But what I think my cousin, and most of you fine and fit readers out there were really asking about was this:

What supplements, if any, are actually safe and useful for losing weight / gettin’ swole / enhancing sports performance?

Ah, now here’s something I get asked about all the time.  I have some clients that take so many pills and powders their grocery list looks like a homeopath’s prescription pad, while I have others that wouldn’t touch a protein powder if I told them it was laced with gold.  I have certain trainer friends that rely on a steady diet of bars, supplements and drinks to maintain their physiques while I have others that swear by clean eating and water.

The swole juice

The short answer is this: can supplements help?  Yes.  Are they essential?  No.

Let’s start with the basics.  If you are trying to lean out, get stronger, or perform better in sports, you’ll need to take in adequate protein – and doing so from whole food is not always easy.  Protein in the form of meat, fish and eggs is sometimes hard to eat and prepare, and if you’re vegetarian or vegan, it may not even be an option for you.  There is a great deal of scientific evidence supporting the centrality of protein for everything from muscle repair to sports recovery to body fat loss, and it’s one of the first nutritional changes I work on with many (primarily female, but also males looking to build mass) of my clients who currently overeat carbs and undereat protein and fat.

All that being said, my first honest recommendation is to supplement a whole-foods diet with a high-quality protein powder.  I am a big fan of IsoPure Zero Carb Creamy Vanilla, not because I think it’s the greatest thing ever to hit the market; more because I like the taste, it has no sugar, and it’s easily found all over my lovely island.  If you need a non-whey or a complete vegan or an organic protein powder, I highly recommend checking out this list.  And on a quick summary note – here’s an easy chart to help you figure out your protein needs:

Moving on from the obvious, let’s get a bit more niche.  If you work out hard, or are starting to work out harder than you ever have in the past, or if you are determined to put on a heckuva lot more muscle, or if you are training for an ultra endurance event, or if you are looking to get significantly leaner than you are now – these are all good reasons to consider taking 10 grams or more of BCAA each and every day.  You can take your pick of how you down your dose (and please note that if you do choose a BCAA powder, it tastes and smells like fresh hell, and you will need SOMETHING to mix it down) and as always, check with your doc first – but I’ve seen a lot of clients get great results from just adding this one simple supplement.

Speaking of results – the types of nootropics you choose to take can vary greatly depending on your goals (gain muscle? lose fat? age better? move without pain?), how you prefer to feel during exercise (supercharged? zen? powerful?  in the zone?), and what the rest of your diet looks like (short in salad?  grab a green powder.  no beef?  yes iron.). I am not a huge supplements pusher myself, so for more details on a few of these, you’ll need a more detailed article than what I’m covering here, but one of the most natural supplements that I use and recommend is good ol’ fashioned coffee – the most scientifically-backed way to enhance performance and endurance for most sports.

Me after my first cup

A final note on any supplements, vitamins, and/or enhancers – be smart and scientific whenever you’re choosing to put a synthetic product into your body.  Look at the consumer reports for both the supplement AND its active ingredients, and if it’s something well-covered in scientific literature (such as creatine), weigh the pros and cons accordingly, and consider the difference between short and long-term use.

At the end of the day, there is no supplement that works as well, as safely, and as consistently as regular resistance and cardio training combined with a diverse whole foods plant-and-protein-based diet.  End of story.

Ask Amanda: It Ain’t Over ‘Til…

I train a lot of clients from all different backgrounds, body types, and ability levels.  One day, a client of mine saw another (extremely lean, extremely fit) client and commented:

“Why is she still doing personal training?  She already looks amazing!”

A few weeks later, I mentioned to a different client that I had started training a trainer – meaning one of my personal training clients is also a reputable and successful personal trainer in her own right.  She was astonished, asking:

“Why would someone like that even need a trainer?”

This is not the ONLY reason people hire trainers.

These two questions are representative of two of my main pet-peeve misunderstandings about health and fitness in general, which are:

• (1) that once you “look” fit (or in most cases, skinny) enough, you’re done
• (2) that people who already “look” fit (or again, sigh, skinny) don’t need training

Most of the health and fitness professionals I interact with accepted long ago the idea that wellness (and weight loss, and endurance event training, and dietary changes, and whatever other process of self-betterment we specialise in helping people with) is a journey, not a destination.  

So why do so many clients get hung up on the latter?

Wellness as a journey.

When it comes to taking care of your health, there is no “done.”  You don’t get fit by sitting on your hump, so why would it  make sense that to stay fit you’d get to do that?

The dirty little not-so-secret is this – not only do you never get to be done; some things actually get harder.  More muscle is harder to maintain than less.  Faster runners have to push harder to elevate their heart rates than slower ones.  Getting smaller means you burn fewer calories and thus have to eat less.   Womp womp (cue the sad violin).

Furthermore, the idea that the fitter you are, the less you need a trainer is just infuriating.  Why do Olympic athletes have coaches?  Why do Hollywood celebrities hire an entire team of nutritionists, trainers, and wellness coaches to keep them tip-top and red-carpet ready?  In fact, the fittest, strongest, and healthiest people in the world have one thing in common: they all have coaches (or at least had a coach at the crucial tipping/development point of their personal fitness journeys).

This phenomenal athlete STILL needs this amazing coach to be her best.

So why in the fresh hell would you think the average Joe/Jane doesn’t “need” some help?

Granted, we all feel very passionate about the necessity of our own professions, and I’m sure there are tailors out there who would be shocked to know I always buy off the rack or hairdressers that would die to know I haven’t cut my hair in over a year.  That said, I’m not talking about clothes or haircuts – I am legitimately talking about the one thing that can make or break every single day of your life, from how you feel when you wake up to how you function throughout your day to how well you sleep – your health.

And what could possibly be more priceless than taking care of THAT?

I suppose my point in all of this (as I realise I am about to go full soapbox on this entry) would be to advise all the folks working hard out there in the #fitfam to reevaluate the way you think, speak, and judge about fitness.

Refrain from entertaining the idea that fitness goals have a specific beginning and ending, and refrain even more from thinking that the only way to get between these two arbitrary points is X (whether X is Paleo, marathon running, Keto, barre method, or whatever flavour of the day is popular right now).

Try not to compliment fellow fit friends on their bodies as much as their accomplishments, and try to encourage each other to keep reaching goals (rather than saying things like, “Wow, you did a marathon – time to hit the couch for a while, huh?”).

Every.  Single.  Time.

And finally – for the sake of my profession, my clients’ investments, and the health and fitness industry at large – consider that anyone and everyone can benefit from the counsel, guidance, and programming that a licensed and certified professional can offer.

Think you eat “pretty well”?  Have your food log reviewed by a registered dietitian.  Got a decent workout routine but not seeing the results you want?  Book a few sessions with a personal trainer to see where you can spice up your program.  Been stuck in a career rut for a while but can’t figure out your next steps?  A sit-down with a wellness coach may be just what you need.  Seeking out help and building a network of wellness professionals is not an admission of weakness; rather, it is a commitment to building strength in the areas of your life that matter the most to your long-term success.

Mic drop.

Ask Amanda: How Healthy is TOO Healthy?

In the course of my Precision Nutrition coaching homework, I’ve read a lot about overcoming the “introductory” type of of challenges you get when coaching folks that are new to health and fitness (things like, “I don’t like vegetables” or “do I really have to eat protein with every meal?” or “why are five Diet Cokes a day a problem if they have zero calories?”).

However, it’s not the newbie clients that are the most challenging.  Not by a long shot.

My clients are too savvy for me to sneak this by them 😉

I am currently reading the chapter about “special scenarios” in nutrition, and it is here that we delve deep into the many, MANY types of disordered eating (DE).  Mind you, this is not the psychiatric/clinical type of “eating disorder” we associate with diagnosed anorexia or bulimia (although those are definitely disordered).  DE habits can include:

• constantly obsessing over food / eating / not eating
• eating behaviors that both cause and are trying to relieve distress simultaneously
• eating in a way that doesn’t match physiological need (i.e., eating way more or less than you actually need for optimal health)
• eating behaviors that harm yourself or others
• orthorexia

One lonely tomato does not make a healthy meal…for anyone

If you haven’t heard of that last one, you might want to read up on it, as orthorexia is one of the fastest growing DE tendencies around the world.  It means an obsession with “clean eating” – not just healthy eating to lose weight, but an all-consuming focus on the relationship between food choices and health (alongside an increasing inabilty to enjoy food socially, or feel satisfied by food that isn’t stringently prepared/”approved”).

But is that such a bad thing, you might ask?  Don’t all us high-falutin’ nutrition folks wish the world were more like us, with our macros and our tracking apps and proper portions and our real-food-focused organic gluten-free sugar-free dairy-free spelt grains?

Sort of…well, actually probably no.

Mmm, salad.

Here’s the thing I always try to hit home with my clients: human nutrition is, and will always be, a balancing act.  You have to balance the food you want to eat (fries!) with the body you want to have (abs!) with a lifestyle you truly enjoy (fun!) and the best possible health you can achieve (fit!).  Examples:

• If you have the fries sometimes, you will probably have the fun, you likely won’t have all six of the abs, but you just as likely won’t probably do any long-term damage to your health.
• If you never have the fries, you probably have no fun (though perhaps also no guilt?), you might just find your abs, and your general health can still go either way.
• If you have all the fries all the time, it probably gets less and less fun, you can forget about the abs, and you are probably not living in your healthiest body.

You see how this works?  There are mandatory tradeoffs between lifestyle and nutrition, and they’re not all either damning or rewarding – they just are (one of my favorite-ever infographics about this very topic can be found here).

Why is time always wayyyyy in the other direction?

As a trainer, I feel a dutiful responsibility to demonstrate a strong, fit body, balanced nutrition, and a healthy life-work balance to my clients – but I have long given up on the pursuit of perfection.  As a wellness and health coach, I make my own tradeoffs too, and those of you know who me know that I will always choose an ice cold beer over uncovering those 3rd-6th abs (I’m ok with a two-pack at age 34, aight?).

So how do you know if you have a disordered relationship with food?  A wise man once said, check yourself before you wreck yourself:

• Are you terrified of becoming overweight (especially if you have never been overweight)?
• Do you feel guilt after eating?
• Do you avoid eating, even when you are physically hungry?
• Have others expressed concern over how much you eat, whether too little or too much?
• Do you exercise with the sole purpose of burning the caloric content of your food?
• Do you feel controlled by the food that you choose to eat (or not eat)?
• Do you feel like others pressure you to eat more/less?
• Do you claim to feel better when your stomach is empty?
• Are you constantly preoccupied with thoughts about being fat or being thin?
• Do you avoid trying new foods, going to social events with food present, or celebrating with food because you are afraid of eating “bad” food?

There’s no “grade” for the above test, but it is loosely based on the Eating Attitudes Test from Psychcentral.com, a screening tool used to pre-diagnose common disordered eating patterns before they become full-blown disorders – and I find it helpful to start some necessary – if often uncomfortable – discussions with clients that I sense may be heading down the DE path (or recovering from former DE patterns).

If you think you might have some of the warning signs of DE, definitely get an appointment with a nutritionist or dietitian to get your habits back on track and make sure you’re eating a balanced, satisfying, and nutritionally sound diet for your body. Healthy eating is a major part of a wellness lifestyle, but it’s not the only part – and when eating (or not eating) takes away the joy from other parts of your life, you know it’s time to reevaluate.

What tradeoffs do you make in balancing your body, health, diet – and sanity?

Ask Amanda: Gimme a Gimmick

I ranted on the frustration of misinformation in the fitness industry a few weeks ago, and I suppose, in a way, this post is just the continuation of that.  Every day I get questions about products, workouts, foods, and supplements that purport to be “healthy” or “quick fixes” to weight loss or “the last diet you’ll ever need.”

Trust me, if any of that stuff was true and valid (for everyone/anyone/at a reasonable price point), there would be a helluva lot more healthy, fit people walking around these days.

That is NOT to say that there are not certain things that are better than others when it comes to how you spend your health and fitness dollars, and I want to highlight a few of the most common ones I get asked about along with my convenient rating system.

Here’s the deal, folks – for each product/service, I am going to rate both the level of GIMMICK and the level of actual UTILITY.  The reason I want to separate these two things is because sometimes, the two can come together in glorious harmony, as in my beloved Orangetheory Fitness, while in other cases, they are completely in opposition, such as the over-hyped (and IMO, unsafe) SoulCycle.

Let’s get started, shall we?

GREEN (AND OTHER MAGIC) POWDERS / GIMMICK SCORE: 8/10; UTILITY SCORE 8/10

I wrote an entire entry on the “magic dusts” that are the lifeblood of L.A.’s Moon Juice Cafe; recently a reader asked me a similar question about green powders (like the one above).  The basic concept is this – you take all the good things out of vegetables, you put them into a powder, you drink the powder and BOOM – it’s like you ate the vegetables.

Sort of.

Higher-quality green powders do in fact provide some nutrient value –  much like high-quality protein powders do in fact provide dietary protein.  The key thing to remember here is that green powders are better at providing micronutrients – think things like certain vitamins (be careful not to get TOO much of certain ones, like vitamin A), and some minerals – rather than all the great things a rainbow of fruits and veggies provide, such as water content, fiber, and non-green benefits (like beta-carotene).

I will always – always! – reiterate the mantra of REAL FOOD FIRST, meaning you absolutely do not need pills, powders, or anything that didn’t grow out of the ground to stay perfectly healthy and fit.

WAIST TRAINERS / GIMMICK SCORE: 10/10; UTILITY SCORE 3/10

Or should I say “waste (of time)” trainers?  Eh?  Eh?  

Ok, seriously though.  Let’s take an honest gander at the image above and what do you see?  A medieval-era throwback to a corset, except these bad boys are rubberized (to maximise sweat-related water loss, and no I’m not kidding) and close shut with metal.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t just skip over the whole explanation and give this one a utility score of 0, get ready to be aghast – I actually used one to shrink my own waist once, and it actually sort of worked (!).

In terms of short-term squeezing and sweating your skin into a particular shape for a particular dress, it works.  In terms of trying to permanently reduce the size or change the shape of your midsection for anything longer than a couple weeks, it doesn’t.  And there’s a ton of evidence that these things are dangerous, pointless, and ineffective.

SHAPE-UPS & “FITNESS” SHOES / GIMMICK SCORE 9/10; UTILITY SCORE 1/10

Look at that shoe.  Just LOOK at it.  I don’t care if the godawful thing gave you Blake Lively legs; I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this monstrosity of a wedge with any public audience.

The concept here, for those of you who aren’t familiar, is that you walk in these “Shape Up” shoes all day and they rock your foot back and forth as you do, forcing your body to “use more energy” (the industry jargon for BURN CALORIES! LOSE WEIGHT! GET SKINNY!) and thus become fit.

If only.

Not only is there less-than-zero evidence for the “toning” effects of these rockin’ shoes, the unstable nature of the soles mean they’re not even fit for actual running or any sort of vigorous exercise, simply as a safety concern.  If a client of mine walked into my gym with these on their feet, I’d rather they work out barefoot.

AB-TONING BELTS / GIMMICK SCORE 9/10; UTILITY SCORE 2/10

My dear brother sent over an inquiry about this one after having watched a (very convincing, I must say) infomercial on the product.  Do ZERO exercise?  ZERO crunches?And STILL get abs?  LET’S ALL GET ONE!

Oh wait, no.  Because the caveat still remains: you can contract your abs a thousand times a day and STILL not have tight, visible muscles there.  Great abs don’t come from contracting the muscle (although of course, you have to do some of that, too).  They come from decreasing overall body fat to a point where it is low enough that the central muscles are visible – and this takes a very clean, lean diet and lots of (general) exercise.

The reason I gave this one a slightly lower gimmick score than the waist trainer is simply because it AT LEAST has some science behind it – there is ONE credible study of these machines that shows some moderate self-reported results.  But the fact remains: a belt like this does not deliver what it promises, and it sure won’t outweigh a bad diet.

MORINGA PILLS / GIMMICK SCORE 5/10; UTILITY SCORE 7/10

Finally, a quick note on supplements in general: I distrust them.  Even though I use a few myself (protein powder to hit my macros; BCAAs for better recovery; fish oil for Omega-3 support), I don’t recommend them to clients unless they are absolutely necessary (for example, a vegetarian anemic that might truly need an iron pill).

I want to separate “moringa” as a general supplement (which is what I assess here) from the brand-named Zija Moringa, which is a weight loss diet built on small doses of the actual supplement alongside larger doses of things like protein powder, caffeine, and a whole host of other fillers and crap to make it seem like it’s a legit thing (it’s not).

Moringa itself has some compelling scientific research backing marketers’ claims about its use as a “superfood” and “miracle cure.”  It has some proven antioxidant value and is more nutritious than kale when eaten raw (but um….maybe isn’t QUITE as tasty, to say the least).  More interestingly, there is some preliminary research suggesting it can slow or reverse the onset of Type 2 Diabetes and certain cancers (such as liver and kidney), meaning this so-called “gimmick” could actually become a valid medicine with a few more decades of well-funded study and double-blind research – I’ll sure be staying tuned.

Do you use/swear by something for your health that others consider a “gimmick” – and if so, why?  Have you ever been “underwhelmed” by a health & fitness product you tried?