The Easy Way To Give Up Sugar Or Salt Cravings

I just learned something that is so cool and amazing that it prompted me to immediately jump up and post this and Boris' painting, Kiss My Hand, is the perfect illustration for it!

Here it is: You know how when you are trying to clean up your diet and eat foods with less salt, sugar, etc. that you might experience the cleaner food as too tasteless? Well, help is on the way. It turns out that "your tastebuds are made up of 50 to 150 receptor cells that live for only 1 to 2 weeks and then are replaced by new receptors. So after eating a cleaner diet for 2 weeks, you'll not only begin to taste and enjoy more subtle (cleaner and more natural!) flavors, you'll also have less of a craving for salt" and sugar. (Adapted from "The Salt Solution" by Heather K. Jones, RD)

This has always been my experience with my post-holiday splurging adjustments, but now I know why. It helps to know that there is a very definite scientific reason why after a week or so I finally give up my cravings for the sugar or salt that I've become addicted to. Two weeks is nothing!

The best cardio-training method!

About 6 weeks ago, Boris and I decided to adopt a beautiful little doggie from a Humane Society shelter. Her name is Izze and she's about 2 years old, American Eskimo mixed with Shetland Sheepdog. She runs SUPER FAST and loves to go everywhere with us. I haven't had a dog since I was a kid and I hadn't realized how really healthy it is to have one. All the daily walking outside is such a great exercise and stress reliever.

Pyramid Power!

Aztec Serpent, copyright Boris Vallejo, 1983


Recently, someone asked me what is the best and fastest way to build muscle. During the late 80's when I was competing in lots of bodybuilding contests, this was my primary fitness goal and I made it my business to find out everything I could about it. Of course, since that time, there has been a ton of updated information to check out, but, based on my own experimentation with my own body, I still think the basic premise that I worked with in the 80's remains true--lift heavy weights, use basic exercises, and get enough volume of repetitions and sets to get your muscles as pumped up as they can get. One way that I accomplished this at the time was through the use of pyramid sets. I brought up this subject back in a February post, but here's a more thorough explanation.

Most often, I worked the Pyramid principle with 5 sets. You can do it with more sets (sometimes I would do 10 sets in my pyramid) or with less (maybe 3), but working with 5 demonstrates the concept best. Let's say you're doing
one of my favorite exercises, the basic bench press.

Set 1: Start with a very light weight, maybe even just the bar, and do 15 repetitions (reps).

Set 2: Add a little more weight and still do 15 reps.

Set 3: Add more weight and do 10 reps.

Set 4: Add your heaviest weight and do 6 to 8 reps.

Set 5: Go back to the weights you used in set 2 and do 20 reps.

I don't like to rest too long between sets so that my heart keeps going and I get a better overall conditioning effect, but if you rest a minute or more, you'll be able to handle heavier weights (assuming that's your goal).

If you're working out with the intention of really building strength and size of muscle isn't so important, you can even go heavier and do 2 to 4 reps in your heaviest set. I never recommend going so heavy that you can only lift the weight one time because if you do this regularly, seriously, it's only a matter of time before something you value (like your joints and tendons) give out!
The idea is to work up in poundage to close to your maximum weight and lift very few reps, then immediately decrease the weight and crank out a bunch of reps to flood the muscle with lots of blood.

At this point, I'm just about to turn 52 years old and my goal is no longer to build muscle with bodybuilding competition in mind. Instead, it's to be strong, flexible, and healthy for the rest of my life. I'm so glad that I built all the good quality, natural muscle (no steroids or growth enhancement craziness) that I did when I was younger. It's pretty easy to maintain naturally built muscle once you've put it on, and the more active muscle tissue you have, the better your metabolism and blood sugar regulation works. It's never too late at any age to add some muscle, so pick up something heavy and go for it!

Tri-Stretch Device

I got this stretching device from Perform Better and, even though it's just a chunk of red plastic, I'm finding it to be very useful. For one thing, just owning it and seeing it sitting on the floor looking at me reminds me to actually do the stretches that I need so badly. It's easy to just feel like stretching is "extra" and put it off until later, then forget all about it. But the truth is that since I've had this great little chunk of red plastic, my back, knees, and hips have felt better than they have in years! Also, it's made to rock a little from side to side while you stretch, so you end up stretching muscles that usually don't get any action. It's true that you could just as well do these stretches using a block of wood or a rock or curb of the street, but the red plastic is just so appealing, right? Seriously, it actually is more effective with the Tri-Stretch.



The two main ways I use it are for my calf/ankle area and for my hamstring area. I'm insanely tight in these two areas and this leads to multiple problems in the knee, hip, and lower back areas. I start with the large gastrocnemius muscle in my calf by keeping my knees straight and leaning against a wall or car, whatever, with the non-stretching foot placed a little ahead of the stretching foot and pressing my heel of the stretching foot into the tri-stretch device. Turning the toes slightly in and stretching, then slightly out and stretching will hit all sides of your calf muscles in a great way.
Then I work into the soleus muscle, which includes the achilles tendon and ankle, by bending the knee of the stretching leg and continuing to press the heel into the tri-stretch device. Once again, turning the toes inward and stretching, then outward and stretching completes the stretch.

Moving on to hamstrings, just shift your stance so that the foot of the non-stretching leg is now a little behind the foot of the stretching leg. With knees unlocked but kind of straight, bend from the hips forward and stretch your hamstring. To deepen the stretch, reach down and hold the tri-stretch or your foot or ankle and let your head drop towards your knee. This opens up the back muscles and gives you a good stretch from your head all the way to your foot. As with the calf stretch, you can turn the toes inward and outward to hit many more areas of your hamstrings than you may be used to.

Stretching Your Lower Legs and Ankles

It's important to remember that stretching your lower legs involves more than just the main large calf muscle (gastrocnemius), in the back of the lower leg just under the knee. The soleus muscle, located in the lower half of your lower leg, is between the large gastrocnemius and your achilles tendon at the ankle. The only way to reach the soleus muscle is by bending your knee while you stretch your calves. When you stretch them with straight knees, you'll be primarily stretching the gastrocnemius. Keeping the soleus muscle as well as your achilles tendon strong and flexible is important if you want to keep running or even walking! Think of your lower leg and ankle as your first line of shock absorbers when you run or walk. Keeping this area healthy takes a huge load off your knees, hips, and back.

In this stretch, the standing leg has a softly bent knee, thus stretching that soleus. The extended leg is getting a little stretch action in the hamstrings as well as gastrocnemius and achilles tendon. Just pull up on your toes and push your heel forward on that extended leg while pushing down into the ground with the standing leg. The more you can keep your lower back from rounding, the more you can get a hamstring stretch out of this, too!

Triangle Pose

This classic yoga pose is great for a stretch after any kind of exercise. It stretches the huge fascia connection that runs throughout the body and usually gets constricted in the midsection.

Step your feet a little wider than shoulder width (or wider if you prefer), arms outstretched to the sides. You can start with either side, but, for the sake of blog-writing purposes, let's start with the left side. Extend your left hand and arm as far straight out over your left foot as you can while also shifting and stretching your upper body to the left BEFORE reaching down for your ankle. Once you've stretched everything from the waist up as far to the left as possible, THEN carefully reach down for your ankle, shin, foot, the ground, or wherever you can with your level of flexibility. Now stretch your right arm straight up to the sky and look up at your right hand. Push your chest forward and get as much upward rotation in your upper body as you can.
To push the stretch a little further, take the right arm over your head, keeping your arm by your right ear. Keep extending your chest upward and outward.

The explanation is a bit wordy, but the stretch is so great!

Stretching Hammies

Hammies are hamstrings and hamstrings are the long muscles in the back of your thigh, also known as leg biceps, which are really biceps femoris. So, there you go, hammies are biceps femoris.

Now that we've gotten that straight, the stretch is simple. Stand with your feet wider than shoulder width apart and turn your upper body to one side. Now, keeping your back softly straight, bend out over the leg you are facing and touch the ground. After you've gotten somewhat comfortable there, fold your arms behind your back, resting them on your butt, and push your chest forward while raising your head and straightening your back into a bit of an arch. To deepen it further, you can now lower your head towards your knee and soften the arch in your back.

Repeat on the other side. Don't forget to breathe! Always!
Still more stretches to come.