No Carbs, No Problem

By Annie Conner

I’m back and I have some good news…

I finished my two weeks of the “no-carb” diet and I’m proud to say that I stuck to it!!!…the only exception was a basket of chicken fingers on my last day of the diet which was also my birthday dinner.

I’m not going to lie…it was TOUGH!! There were a couple of days where I felt a little light-headed and sugar-deprived but that was mainly due to the fact that I failed to eat as often as I should have that day.

My results: I lost a total of 3 lbs, my pants fit much better, and I can noticeably see muscle definition now.

I’ve been so pleased with my results that I’ve stuck with some of my no-carb principles. I only have bread with sandwiches, whereas before I’d have at least 2 pieces at dinner, etc. I also only have pasta and potatoes in very limited portions, if at all. This means I’m no longer snacking on crackers and chips (goldfish crackers are my weakness) but healthier options like peanuts and edamame (Sam’s sells awesome frozen edamame)

For snack time I’ve switched to tomatoes, cocoa-flavored almonds at Sam’s (seen here in the picture - SO DELICIOUS – they taste like Oreo’s and are much healthier) and LOTS of fruit!!!

All in all, this has greatly solved the Weekend-Binge problem I told you about in my blog from last month. Since I have been focused on eating foods that are healthy and contain little carbs, that basically knocks out ALL fast food restaurants (the source of my demise) as options for nutrition.

That’s not to say I’ll never have carbs again or visit a fast-food restaurant, but now I’m more aware of the effect it has on my body and know what I can substitute in its place.

Brown Bagged Lunches: Trims away the weight and saves you cash!

By Megan Risinger

Remember the good ol' days when your mom or dad use to pack you a lunch to take to school everyday? Well, we can bring that pattern back into the workplace (even though you may have to pack your own lunch nowadays, unfortunately). I have come across some articles that specifically focus on how brown bag lunches can save you on calories as well as money. I was intrigued because I would go out to lunch many times a week. On a website I was on a few weeks ago, it said that eating out for lunch is around $6.50 each time - and that's probably at the lower end - whereas the cost of a bagged lunch is only about $3.00! The site even broke it down to show that in 1 month you'll pack 20 bagged lunches, which will save you $70.00/month. Now that brings it into focus for me! Knowing that I can save $70/month if I just pack a lunch (or eat at home) was amazing to me.

When it comes to bagged lunches here are some helpful insights I found out:

- In general, brown bag lunches tend to be smaller in portion size and lower in calories (compared to going out to eat)
- Make extra (healthy) food for dinner the night before your workday, that way you can bring the leftovers as your next day's lunch. The best way to remember to pack your lunch, is to do this before you actually sit down to dinner - you could put it into a plastic container and stick it in the refrigerator before you even sit down to relax.
- When it comes to what to pack, here are some different options which may help to keep your lunches interesting/good:

*Buy a large bag of salad mix and pre-cooked grilled strips, and low fat dressing
*Cook a pack of chicken breasts on Sunday, so that way each day following you can make some sort of chicken meal and then you can add a different side dish each day
*Add some sort of spicy mustard, hummus, or fat free mayo that you can spice up with a bit of fresh garlic, pesto, or chipotle sauce to put on your sandwiches
*Try some exotic fruits - kiwi, papaya, lychee (have to say I'm not too familiar with this one, ha), passion fruit, or mango
*Rice cakes dipped in salsa or a small bag of mixed nuts
*Try toasting your bread for your sandwich - it can contrast what you are used to!
*Mix up what you use for bread - whole grains, pitas, and/or wraps

If anyone has any ideas to add to the list above, I'd love to hear them! I'm get stuck in my same old routine when it comes to lunches, so the more ways to keep it interesting the better!

Is Racing a Sport?

By Bethany Garrity (National Institute for Fitness and Sport)

I’m not an Indiana native and I didn’t grow up around race car driving. I’m a Buckeye – I’m all about the football. So I was recently lamenting the complete absence of any good current college football on TV. I can only watch the Big Ten Network reruns so many times and I got to thinking (OK – so I was complaining) about the other sports that are or will soon be getting play time. Let’s see - there’s baseball, hockey, golf, and racing. For me, baseball, hockey and golf are sports. Not sports I love, but I do view them as athletic pursuits; though I’ll admit, it took me a while to come around to golf as a “sport”. Racing is a different story. Unless we’re talking about racing on foot, it just doesn’t resonate with me as a sport.

I originally chalked that “it’s not a sport” mentality for race car driving up to the fact that I simply wasn’t into the hype. I don’t know anything about race car driving, and to be honest, I didn’t see the physical challenge in driving a car in circles. However, with two young boys at home, I started thinking it might behoove me to get on board with something they could potentially love, and I figured that maybe I could embrace Indiana’s racing culture if I could see it as a sport.

So I started researching the Indy Racing League (IRL) to see what I could find out about stock car racing. Let me set the scene of my racing ignorance for you – I had to research and confirm that the IRL was stock car racing, and it was only after that confirmation that I actually tied NASCAR into the whole thing.

I started seeing the term “land rocket” in my search, and I noted that the drivers sometimes maintained speeds of 200 mph for four to six hours and in high heat. My education in exercise science began to kick in and I realized that those physical demands had to have some kind of traditional exercise component, and thus, perhaps stock car racing really was an athletic pursuit. There has to be something “fitness-y” about drivers expected to produce under those conditions.

My conclusion – it turns out race car driving is a sport! I found quite a bit about training regimes both on and off “season”. But what hit home most for me was a press release from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). The ACSM is one of the top certifying and educating bodies in the field of health and exercise. In a press release for a December, 2002, article in the Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise journal, they noted that drivers reach levels of exertion similar to what athletes playing basketball might attain.

They also noted that the work level for a driver is comparable to someone running at an eight to ten minute per mile pace. Now that is something I can relate to as I’m wrapping up training for my first Indianapolis Mini Marathon with a nine minute per mile pace group. It’s hard for me to imagine maintaining that pace for four to six hours with temperatures in the high 90’s to over 100 degrees.

Go NASCAR, go IRL – race your hearts out! I can’t promise I’ll watch with enthusiasm and follow like a true fan, but my appreciation has grown. Now, if we could just get more sports fans to adopt a piece of the exercise routines from their most beloved drivers, pitchers, shooters, goalies, defenders…