Something fishy

Hallo,

This weekend I ran the 10Km Oasis Zoo run again after being on a two year hiatus from such events due to injury (an accident, not burnout this time) and then travel. It was great to be back at it and if you enjoy running and haven't done so in a registered race, I highly recommend it. As massochistic as it seems to get up at 6am or earlier on a Saturday, that's quickly forgotten in light of the abundance of positive energy at these runs.

When you do these runs you get a race kit with something from the sponsors. I believe this is known as a "swag bag" in non-athletic events. Race kits are weird for me...they're exciting in the sense that it's interesting to see what samples are included this time, but on the other hand the t-shirt is all I care about because the samples always prove to be disappointing. This year it included information about future runs, a bag of pasta sauce (gave it away), rice chips (coworker took those), and juice. It was when I saw the juice that my attention was piqued(because I'm sure at this point you're wondering why I'm talking about a race kit to begin with).

See if you spot it too:



If you didn't that's fine, there's no judgement :) The sample we got was the same as the middle bottle in that picture. As mentioned in an earlier post, the media and food companies are great at generating buzz words. In this case Omega-3's are in the spotlight.
Putting aside all debates about whether producing fish oil is sustainable, they are well recognized as having significant health benefits (that's a story for another day). Those who have done any research on supplementing with fish oil may have found they should be ingesting anywhere from 0.5g to 1.0g for every 10lbs of body weight based on how healthy they are. Most fish oil products advise roughly 12-14grams/day for the average adult. Given that, I was really surprised that juice might contain Omega-3s and curious to know how the taste was affected: it only takes one day of burping up fish oil taken in the morning to know it's best taken at night when you first introduce your system to it.

You're probably wondering where my point is in all this. So far we know that the juice is advertising containing fatty acids, you need a minimum of 12grams/day, and fish oil doesn't taste good. It all sounds like good news until you realize that we're still talking about juice.

Juice: synonym for a LOT of sugar.

True, that definition didn't come from a dictionary but from a nutritional perspective that's all you really need to know. Runners love carbohydrates (sorry but it's true), and understandably we do need them but not in juice form. Around the time that pop was getting targeted, juice was under the microscope for it's high GI rating and the negative implications associated with that. My cousin used to ask us when we were little "would you eat six apples? no? then no, you can't have apple juice"...she had a valid point. However, just as anything else that's been hit economically, a re-invention happens. This is juice's re-invention and I have a problem with it.

The label looks fantastic: antioxidants, omega-3s, energy, sold! The nutritional information, however, looks terrible. Each 300ml serving contains the following:



For every 30 grams of sugar you can get...wait for it....0.1grams of omega-3s!!!! Out of your daily dose of (for example) 14grams! Woo, you're well on your way :) You're also well on your way to putting yourself in a diabetic coma if you do try to achieve your EPA/DHA requirements:

14 grams of Omega-3s through Oasis Omega-3 juice would put you at 4200 grams of sugar. That's a lot of juice!

I do realize that no one in their right mind would really try to do this but my point is simply that juice still isn't good for you. Eating some salmon or a can of sardines is a far better option. I don't believe Oasis juice proves itself to be a significant source of Omega fatty acids and don't understand how it is allowed to be advertised as such. Consumers put a lot of trust in the front label and maybe there ought to be tighter restrictions on what is allowed to be printed.

To quote Robb Wolf: "I have serious issues with entities that prey on peoples fears and ignorance to make a buck."

Don't drink the juice!
xoxo,
F

P.S I should note that juice does serve a purpose in a few circumstances: low blood sugar that did or is about to result in fainting and for long continuous exercise (eg:a marathon, full length triathlon, etc) where eating solid food is not an option.

The Front Lines of Health

Hallo!

I apologize that it's been ages since I've had time to update this but with my schedule being a little more manageable these days I'm going to do so on a regular basis. Promise.

This post is more of a confession than anything about my last few months of relative unhealthyness (wait for it)...along with the subsequent eye opening realization that being invincible was getting even farther from reality than before (because I'm well aware of my mortality but always fancy being as invincible as possible)!

So here it begins and I will try to keep it as short and sweet as possible.
Generally speaking, we're a society of excess. If we have something, we usually want more of it; and I do mean that in the broadest sense possible. Along with the heaps of things we want, there is much that we DO to excess as a byproduct of habit, our environment, etc. Here is my confession: I tend to work too much. Not big news to people who know me; my record was five jobs at once and my record of hours/week at my current (and only) job is shamefully high.



It may not seem like a big deal because we all know a lot of workaholics so it's certainly not unusual, but I don't feel that it makes it right. Thankfully, I'm one of the ones that also happens to LIKE their job and as a result it takes a while to register that I'm potentially overworking. Having said that, whether you like your job or not, everyone needs a balance. Our body is always working hard to maintain an equilibrium of hormones, hydration, heat, minerals, and so on and as such it makes sense that we should find that in life too. Easier said than done.

To make a long story short, I haven't taken a proper holiday in exactly a year. A flashback to May had me laughing about how I never get sick and setting PR's in workouts...fast forward a month, two months, three months, and I'm catching nearly every bug out there to varying degrees. I started to notice that I didn't have the usual energy in my workouts anymore, had a harder time waking up at 5am, and more alarmingly was that I had new and re-occuring injuries (which used to happen even less than the rate at which I would get sick). There's something ironic about a sick and injured personal trainer.

Stubborness can sometimes make us blind and I blame my viking and british background for that (does "buck up" ring a bell?). Once I got over that blind stubborn phase I started noticing and taking stock of the sickness and injury rate. It was a little alarming. I looked at five main factors of life because I knew it wasn't just about work, that was simply the first domino in the stack:

1. Work: hours and stress (not stress due to hours)
2. Nutrition: intake and quality
3. Sleep: hours vs sleep debt
4. Social life: was it existent?
5. Down time: solo non-work/non-social/conscious hours

Well, I knew my hours were too high (consistently over 50 every week is not good in my books). I knew I wouldn't pass that part but the stress at work wasn't too bad.

The nutrition component was interesting. I kept a four day food diary and although I was eating healthy (read:paleo) foods, the timing and frequency was off as a result of #1 taking priority.

Sleep...well that was laughable. Sleep is as important as nutrition!! Everyone has slightly different sleep requirements. I happen to function very well on 7. If you don't get your required sleep, you accumulate sleep debt that you need to make up. For example: If you get four hours of sleep monday night and you personally require 8 then you have started your week off with four hours of sleep debt that you need to get back throughout the rest of the week. About a third of my needed sleep hours were in debt every week...that makes for a lot of sleep debt over the course of a few months. I'm thinking a short coma is in order to make up for it all.

The reason I list social life as a major factor is because it is important and something a lot of workaholics sacrifice a bit. We're social creatures and need human interaction- humans whose company we enjoy of course :)

#5 is important too. Everyone needs some time to themselves that has nothing to do with work, friends, or family. It's time to be selfish. Given that I was putting in too much #1, failing a bit at #2, sacrificing #3, and trying to squeeze in #4, there was no such thing as down time.

All in all I'd not done a fantastic job at keeping all the major factors of healthy living in balance. What does it all mean now? Well I believe in living and learning, as I'm sure most of us do, so I'm now making a conscious effort to find that balance again and notice a bit sooner next time if it gets out of line :)

I hope this finds everyone taking care of themselves!!
Cheers,
F