Black Friday

Friday, November 22, 2012

Regular classes resume today with limited hours in the morning.  Make sure to check the schedule!

Warmup/Mobility:
Row 500m
The Classic CrossFit Warm up:
-2-3 Rounds of 10-15 reps of:
-Sampson Stretch
-Overhead Squats
-GHD Sit-Ups
-Hip Extension
-Pull Ups
-Dips

Strength:
Banded Deadlift at 60% of 1RM, 1 rep every 15 seconds for 5 minutes (21 reps)

Banded Deadlifts

Today is Black Friday!  I hope you are enjoying the holiday weekend and taking advantage of any shopping deals.

I absolutely love Thanksgiving and had an amazing day yesterday.

 Not only is everyone relaxed from being off work, but people are in such a good mood because they are busy practicing gratitude all day long.

 Add a ton of food, and you have a great day!  Thanksgiving always makes me think of a quick conversation I had with a family friend, a woman in her 60’s, a couple of years ago about the connection between sugar and diabetes.  We were at an all you can eat buffet for brunch, and the conversation started when I came back with only fruit for dessert:

Friend: “Why didn’t you get any dessert?”
Me: “I’m only going to eat fruit for dessert.  I don’t want to have any sugar.”
Friend: “Why can’t you have any sugar? Do you have diabetes?”
Me: “No, I just don’t want to eat any sugar.”
Friend: “I have diabetes.  I can’t have any dessert.”

Silently in my head I’m thinking that’s exactly why I don’t want to have any dessert!  I don’t want to have diabetes in the future!  But in her mind there was no causation or connection between eating desserts now and having chronically high levels of blood sugar later.

  In her mind, you are allowed to eat dessert your entire life until one day as you age and break down and gain weight your doctor informs you that you have been diagnosed with a disease known as Type 2 Diabetes.  At that point you must suffer with insulin resistance for the rest of your life and are punished by not being able to eat desserts ever again, along with other painful lifestyle changes like eating leafy greens and exercising three times a week.  But this thinking is so backwards from reality!  It’s just like when people say they have to lose weight to get healthy.  The truth is they have have to get healthy first to lose weight later.  The difference between those two statements is the direction of cause and effect.  Similarly, someone is not unhealthy because they are overweight, they are overweight because they are unhealthy.  Again, this changes the direction of cause and effect, and places more responsibility on the individual by switching from a reactive to a preventative frame of mind.

After that little rant I’ll be honest and admit I had desserts this year.  They were delicious, and I enjoyed them very much.  I surely had a blood sugar and insulin spike, as well as an increased amount of dopamine in my brain (much like the affects of cocaine or heroin), which would explain why I felt a sense of pleasure and excitement.  This sugar high was short lived, and I felt pretty awful soon after, both physically and emotionally.  But even if you had some pie yesterday like me, it’s not the end of the world!  As Diso always says, one meal alone will not make the difference in your long term health.  It’s the daily food and lifestyle choices we make that have a lasting impact.  With that being said, I hope you enjoyed yourself yesterday and were thankful for friends, family, and your health!