The Sunday Ciclovia Tradition in Bogota

Although there is a lot I might miss in New York City, there are some activities in Bogota that I will miss when I leave. There is such a huge focus on physical activity. This is evidenced by a weekly activity they have had for almost 40 years (since 1976) called the Ciclovia.

What is this Ciclovia, you ask? Well, basically, Ciclovia means "bike path" in English. Every Sunday and every public holiday, Bogota closes down about 120km of the streets from cars so that cyclists and runners have free access to perform their physical activity. There are also free yoga, Pilates, and other exercise classes offered in the city's largest park (Parque Simon Bolivar). Isn't that pretty great?

Falling off the Bandwagon

It is a shame that most of the African teams in this World cup always seem to start a match out well, and then let the other team carry the match halfway through. Unlike the African football teams we’ve seen, we don’t have to give up all hope when we fall out of our exercise and nutrition routine and back into our old habits. There’s always the option to dust yourself off and try again.

Most people that are on a strict diet program tend to demonize food, and so when they backslide for a moment and eat that slice of birthday cake, it’s like they’ve sold their soul to the enemy. They get affected psychologically and start to think “I’ve already made a mistake, so I can go ahead and eat the whole cake and it won’t matter.” And then that one mistake leads to binge eating.

My opinion is that in order to stay healthy and fit, we need to change our relationship with food. If we treat cake as a complete no-no when we know we do love cake, do you know what happens? Our minds would constantly remain on cake. Thinking about cake 24/7 will inevitably lead to stuffing our faces with cake at some point because we feel so starved of something we enjoy. I was reading an article in SELF magazine the other day, where the True Blood actress Anna Paquin was interviewed. My love for her immediately grew when she said (and this is paraphrased), “I won’t feed you the lie most actresses do. I have to watch what I eat to stay fit. But I also believe that one dessert a week won’t kill me.” If we can have this type of relationship with food, we’d avoid the yo-yo effect caused by demonizing food and then bingeing on it.

This relationship is not only true of food. We also do the same thing with our exercise program. If we can’t make it to the gym one day, we think “I’ll make up for it tomorrow.” When we are too tired to go the next day, and the next day, we start to feel really guilty. Knowing we cannot make up for a few lost days, we turn our guilt into nonchalance and just stop going. Or as one of my readers felt this week, we may feel intense pain when we start working out, and that could drive us to wait a few days or weeks before going back to the gym. Our exercise routine could get so spaced out that our bodies don’t get used to exercising and we feel pain every time we work out. What happens then? We say “To hell with it!” and just quit.

Therefore, we also need to change our relationship with exercise. Exercise comes with pain, no doubt. But let’s not rest in the ‘now’, but the future. It will hurt for a few days or weeks, but as our bodies strengthen, we’ll see an increase in our endurance for pain, and a decrease in the pain itself. With these compounded, and as we see the effects of exercise on our bodies, we’ll be driven to do even more.

Now, let’s back up a little. We’ve talked about changing our relationship with food and exercise. But we also need to be a little softer on ourselves sometimes. Recognize that we may backslide just because that’s the way the human mind is wired. If we do backslide, how should we deal with it? We deal with it by realizing that a small mistake does not change our whole lives. So you missed one workout session? Jump back on the horse tomorrow and don’t dwell on today. You ate 5,000 calories in one meal? Oops! There’s always tomorrow. Continue controlling your portions then.

If you have a ‘falling off the bandwagon’ story, or have any questions, please leave a comment.

I’d also like to point out two things:

• The Nigerian Blog Awards group B nominations end today (May 27th). Please go and nominate Eights & Weights today before it’s over! Click on this link to nominate: Group B nominations.
• Starting next month, the Eights and Weights page will have a segment called ‘What I Want to Know Is…’ Please click here to send me a message about a question you have or a topic you’re concerned about, and it may make it to next month’s pool of questions!

Again, thanks for your support! Cheers!

                                 

Summer Series: Abs Like Whoa!

It’s still summer! Yes, we can’t all have packs that you can literally count, but we can work to get some abs to show off our bellies on the beach this summer. Mostly, when we speak about abdominal exercises, we envision the regular crunches or sit-ups. But in my experience, these can get boring pretty fast, and can also put a lot of strain on your lower back and neck. So I thought it would be fun to talk about some of the non-traditional crunches that don’t necessarily involve our fingers entwined at the back of our heads or our elbows taped to the sides of our ears. There are so many abs exercises, so it was pretty hard to narrow it down to a few of the best ones.


Abdominal hip lifts or raises: This exercise is great because it works both the front and sides of your abdominal when done right. It’s pretty easy just as the name implies, but it’s also easy to make some mistakes with the posture here. So how does it go?

• Lie flat with your back on the floor and your eyes looking up to the ceiling. I specify the part about the eyes because when you have your eyes to the ceiling, you probably won’t unconsciously lift your head off the floor.
• Lift your legs up while keeping your butt on the floor. Your legs should be straight up to the ceiling so the bottom of your foot is facing the ceiling.
• Put your palms on the floor on either side of your body for balance.
• While keeping your knees and ankles together, lift your hips off the floor (only your hips; not your head, and not your palms). Make sure you are using your stomach muscles here so don’t bend your legs towards your body because that works your lower back more than your abs. Again, try to lift only your hips off the floor while keeping your legs in their original position.
• Bring your hips back down to the floor and repeat. I found this great picture of how it looks at the Alaska Stars website.

Plank: The plank is also as simple an exercise as any, but here, posture also matters very much. So pay special attention to holding your butt and stomach muscles tight. It does not involve motion so it can be pretty hard to focus and maintain this position for an extended period. Here’s how it works:

• Assume the upper push-up position, with only your palms and toes on the floor.
• Transitioning one arm at a time, move your body to rest on your forearms (part of the arm from your elbows to your wrist). Most people prefer to clench their fists in this position.
• Try to keep your body as parallel to the ground as possible. This is where you need to tighten your stomach and butt muscles to prevent your butt sticking out or an extra curve in your lower back.
• Look down to the ground. This helps to maintain the position because if you look up, you could wreck your posture.
• Just hold this position for as long as you can. I like to do about 20 second holds. Hold for a while, break, and then repeat. Another good picture showing this exercise can be found at the Abs Like Stone website.

Belly Blaster: This is a variation of the plank. Here, rather than maintain the plank position, we turn it into a motion exercise.

• Assume plank position.
• Tighten your stomach muscles, and lift your butt up. As you lift up your butt, don’t let your stomach sag forward.
• Come back down to the plank.
• Repeat as many times as you can. Here is a picture showing a great belly blaster from Fit Yummy Mummy. I know, the name of the website was what got me too.

Side plank: This one is best done in front of a mirror because it’s a little difficult to feel if your body is straight or not.

• Assume the plank position above.
• Using only one of your arms, lift your other arm and your body off the floor, and let your body face the opposite side of the room resting only on one of your forearms, and the side of one of your feet. For example, if you are resting on your right forearm, your body should be facing the left side of the room. Only your right forearm and the right side of your right foot should be on the floor.
• Make sure your body is in a straight line from your head to your feet.
• You can put your other palm on your waist so it doesn’t get in the way.
• Release the fist of the forearm on the ground so the palms are facing the floor. Turn the forearm on the ground so that the fingertips are facing the same direction as your body (which would be the left side in our example).
• Repeat on the other arm.
• Make sure your body does not sag in this exercise so that you get the most out of it. Your hips should not be heading towards the ground, and your stomach and butt muscles should be tight. Looking forward also helps to maintain this position. Click the website name below for a picture showing a good side plank from the Abs Like Stone website.

V sit: This position is also relatively easy to describe, but it is something you have to build on because most people don’t have the necessary core strength to hold this position for long periods when just beginning an exercise program. However, it is a great strength exercise for the stomach muscles.

• Lie flat on the floor on your back with your arms at your sides.
• Lift up your legs so they are around a 45 degree angle to the floor.
• Slowly lift your shoulders and extend your arms so your body is in a ‘V’ shape with your arms extended forward parallel to the floor.
• If you cannot keep your legs straight in this position, you can bend your knees, but make sure your feet stay off the ground.
• Hold the position and repeat like we did with the plank.
• Here’s an example of the position from Vibra Body, and here’s a variation with bent knees from Hamilton Spectator.

Well, there you go. If you didn’t know you could get abs without crunches, I hope that has helped to provide you with some useful information. But as I always say, remember that you cannot lose fat in your stomach with strength training alone. You need the three steps: cardio, weight training, and stretching. And you also need to maintain a healthy diet.

Disclaimer: I have to mention though that any exercise advice given here is just that: Advice. I am not a personal trainer or trained fitness instructor, and so I simply give suggestions from my experience. If you are uncomfortable with any advice given here, please seek a second opinion.

Summer Series: Tone Your Behind

Summer is here. Yay! Well, when the rain ends. And it’s about time to start working on those beach bodies. Over the next month, we will be talking about toning up for the sun.

Do you plan to rock those short shorts this summer? I know you bought them in the winter and thought “I’ll tone up. I have six months.” And then, here you are six months later. That’s okay. We’ll talk about a few of the best exercises you can do to tone up your bum.

The Squat: This is the quintessential butt exercise because you can really do it anywhere. If done properly, the squat really works out your body, especially your butt area. So how do you do a proper squat? There are so many different kinds of squats, but the most common is the chair squat. Here is the basis of the exercise:

• Push your bum back like your aiming for a seat
• Keep your feet planted on the floor either about hip width apart or slightly wider
• Keep your knees right above your feet, while making sure they don’t go forward beyond your feet. In other words, don’t over-squat where you can’t see your toes when you look down. Your knees should be right above your toes so that if you look down, you see your knees, then your toes.
• Keep your head straight
• Squat and then come up, squat and then come up. The repetitions expand and contract your muscles.

Lifting dumbbells on both sides of your body can help to intensify the squat a little bit. Here's a great picture that shows proper squat technique at girlwithnoname.com. Do several repetitions until you feel it in your butt. The amount you do depends on your body.

The Lunge: I love lunges because they work your bum and your inner thighs. You may need some space to do lunges to get the most out of the exercise. Again, there are many ways to do this, but the basis is:

• Step one of your feet back, and stay on the ball of that foot.
• Make sure your front foot is planted on the ground.
• Just like the squat, you should be able to look down and see your knee, then your toes. So don’t over-extend your knee.
• Keep your body straight.

The lunge is really about switching from one foot to the other, so you need balance to be able to get the most out of this exercise. Check out teamsugar.com for the basic lunge. Again, holding weights on either side of your body intensifies the lunge to get even more out of the workout.

Glute Kickbacks: This is one exercise that focuses entirely on the butt area.

• Go on your knees with your elbows on the floor. Your knees should be at around a 90 degree angle
• Make sure your spine is straight. We tend to curve our lower backs in this position.
• Extend one of your knees back and up so your foot is towards the ceiling, Make sure you extend with your knee so your leg retains its 90 degree position. Don’t move your leg or foot around.
• Bring your knee back down to the floor

This exercise is also about switching from one side to the other, but it is very important to keep your leg position as you raise and drop your knee. A good example of the kickback in the upward position is here: bp.blogspot.com. The downward position just has both knees on the floor.

There are so many other butt exercises, but I thought I’d stick to the most popular ones today. Please remember my three steps as you work out: cardio, strength training, and stretching. These exercises serve as strength training, but you should still incorporate cardio and stretching to get the most out of your workout, and to prevent injury.

Disclaimer: I have to mention though that any exercise advice given here is just that: Advice. I am not a personal trainer or trained fitness instructor, and so I simply give suggestions from my experience. If you are uncomfortable with any advice given here, please seek a second opinion.

Cheers!

Spot Reduction

A major question asked by most people starting an exercise program is “Can I just work on my problem area?” Spot reduction is really the notion that we can focus on that one problem spot in our bodies, and reduce the fat in that region only. Well, I am afraid to burst your bubble, but spot reduction does not work. You can reduce fat all over and tone certain areas, but you cannot necessarily control where you lose fat (well, unless you visit a plastic surgeon).

So what should you do? Focus on burning fat all over your body by doing cardiovascular exercises and controlling your diet. To further concentrate on those problem areas, do some strength training that heavily involves those parts of your body. If your stomach is your problem area, there are so many toning exercises for the stomach that you can add to your workout, but it is also important to improve your posture while doing other exercises like push-ups. When we get our posture right, we also work our core muscles with most exercises.

Understanding spot reduction is simple. Muscles are separate from fat. Fat appears where it wants to on the body, and this cannot really be controlled. Women generally gain fat more easily around the thighs and butt, while men generally gain fat more easily around the stomach. However, though this is usual, it is not true for all people. Even where an area may be the first to gain fat in the body, it does not mean that it would be the first area where fat would be lost. Fat is burned throughout the body by physical activity. You can work on your muscles, but if there’s a layer of fat covering it, you need to burn off the fat. And weight training does not burn a lot of fat. To lose the fat, you need cardio exercises.

As you structure and follow your fitness program, I encourage you not to be convinced by late-night infomercials or commercials on websites where they claim they know the recipe to lose stomach fat or thigh fat or whatever specific area it is. Stick to your exercise plan of cardio and strength training to lose fat all over and tone specific areas.

If you recently started a diet or exercise program, I would love an update on your progress. Feel free to let us know how you’ve been doing!

Also, please check out my columns at 360nobs and Style House.

Cheers!

Understanding the concept of calories

Calories can be difficult to understand because you hear so many different things from different sources. But here is the basic idea: your body needs a certain amount of energy per day to function properly .i.e. to digest food, walk, talk, exercise, etc. The amount of energy your body needs depends on your weight, age, gender, and how active you are. We get calories from food, and through metabolism, these calories are converted into energy. So the amount of energy your body needs is directly proportionate to how many calories you need.

If you consume more calories than your body needs, your body stores the excess as fat. When you work out, you burn the excess calories; which means you are essentially burning off the fat. This is how you maintain your body fat ratio. This is why it’s important to understand that there's no magical way to lose weight. It comes down to two things: exercise and diet.

To lose weight, you have to burn more calories than you take in every day. Visit https://www.caloriecount.com/cc/calories-burned.php for a tool to help estimate how many calories you burn per day based on your age, weight, gender, and level of activity. Note: it’s just an estimate. The amount of time it’ll take you to lose weight just depends on how many calories you eat minus how many calories you burn daily. When this value - i.e. amount you take in minus amount you burn - gets to about 3,500 calories, you have effectively lost about 1 pound or 0.45 kilograms (since 3,500 calories equals about 1 pound of fat).

Different levels of physical activity burn different number of calories depending on intensity. Please visit http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise/SM00109 for a summary of about how many calories are burned with different types of exercises.

If you have more questions, please leave a comment or start a discussion on the Eights and Weights Facebook page here. Also, if there are individual fitness topics you'd like to hear more about, please leave a note on the Facebook page.

Cheers!

My motto for the week: To truly live better, strive to understand what your body needs.

The Key to Exercise is: "Start Doing Something"

Well, here we are! This one is difficult especially if you live in a city with limited access to gyms, or you work really late. It’s hard to exercise, but exercise is an important part of our overall health so we should find a way to fit it into our daily lives. Here are a few things we can do to push ourselves:

Get excited: First, get excited about it! Working out can be fun if you make it so. Get excited about possibly meeting your goals!

Sweat it out: Start some sort of physical activity. Whether it is walking more often, jogging on the beach, or playing with your dog, start something. Do something until you sweat. But again, don't overdo it the first time. For example, if you run 10 km (or 6.2 miles) during your first few workouts, you may strain yourself and kill your drive to continue.

Do your own chores: Yes, it’s hard if you have a maid, house-help, or if you have equipment that makes it easier to clean your home without actually bending over. But doing your housework gives you a good workout. If you have a backyard, do some gardening. Scrub your floors. Clean your windows.

Sit-ups alone equals nothing: If you’ve been doing 100 sit-ups every morning, and you have fat in your abdominal region, guess what? Your muscles may have been building under that fat, but to see those abs, you need to lose the fat on top. You cannot reduce fat in only one area of our body, so you need to do cardio exercises that help to lose weight all over. Some examples of cardio include running, walking, aerobics, and skipping.

Try new things: If there’s a class at your local gym, try it out. Buy a skipping rope and skip it out. Run or play volleyball on the beach. Buy some fitness DVDs and invite your fitness-minded friends over. Buy a bicycle. Whatever you do, have fun trying out something new that makes you exert energy. Remember to have fun with it!

Play a sport: If you know how to play a sport, fabulous! Sports are a great way to work out. Every corner in every city, there’s a football field, basketball court, or some playing field. Gather your friends together, and go play a sport. You will not only work out your body, but you’ll increase your coordination as well.

Dance your ass off: Whatever type of music or dancing you’re into, dancing is a great way to lose some weight, increase flexibility, and stay active. Plus, you’re having fun while you’re shedding pounds. So the next time you’re in the club, don’t sit at the bar; migrate to the dance floor.

Routine: Try to set aside a time period for working out. If it’s part of your routine, the chances are that it’ll become a part of your life. If you don’t set a time period for it, it’s easier to procrastinate.

Get a partner: If you surround yourself with people that want to stay active and healthy, you would be inspired to do so yourself.

If you have more tips on how you fit exercise into your daily life, please share it with our readers by leaving a comment. And don't forget, you can join the Eights and Weights facebook page by clicking here. There, you'll receive fitness tips, and have the chance to start a discussion on questions or ideas you may have. Next week, we will talk about understanding calories and how calorie counting really ties into weight maintenance.

Cheers!

My motto for the week: Your body is a temple; treat it that way.

Create a Nutrition Lifestyle

Most people seem to have trouble with where to start when it comes to diet and exercise. Because we live in a world of instant gratification, we are constantly looking for quick-fixes when it comes to our bodies and our health. But we have to accept that for any process to actually last a lifetime, it will probably begin pretty slowly. Also, no matter what the commercials on the television say, it cannot possibly be so easy or everyone would be doing it.

I was meant to write about how to jump-start both your nutrition and exercise regimen, but there is so much within each category, that I will split them into two weeks. This week, we will focus on the diet portion. I have documented some steps that I believe will help to jump-start a healthy diet (and of course hopefully avoid slacking off within the first week).

1.      Eat a healthy breakfast: Your breakfast kind of sets the tone for the day, so don’t eat a load of rubbish in the morning. And try not to skip breakfast. It just makes you hungrier so you eat much more during the day.

2.      You love what you love: Don’t give up food you cannot live without or you’ll be back where you started in a matter of time. Cut down, not out. For example, if you absolutely adore bread, you should probably not be on a protein-only diet. So many people think “If I cut out all food that seems ‘bad’, I’ll be fine”. But I don’t agree. Everything should be done in moderation. Cut out things that you know you can live without. Think about it. You'd be surprised to discover how much bad food you eat that you actually don't care too much for.

3.      The ‘Fast’ diet fad: Diet programs are exactly that – ‘programs’. People forget this and believe they can drink a Slim Fast, Muscle Fast or basically anything with ‘fast’ on the end of its name, and just shrink. Understand that these are created as part of a diet program, and if you do not follow the program to the letter, stay away from it entirely. If you look at the nutrition information on a can of Slim Fast, you will see that it is actually not that fantastic on its own. But as part of the program, it’s fine. Now, the program does require that you give up a lot of meals, so we’re back to item 1.

4.      Food Replacement: If you can replace something you eat for a healthier version, this is an easy way to lose some weight. Examples would be to replace white bread with whole grain, replace sugary cereal with a brand that includes whole grain or oats, replace white rice with brown, etc.

5.      Portions: We’ve heard this before. Just eat less. Don’t starve yourself, but don’t pile that jollof rice on your plate like your life depends on it. This is not boarding school; there will be more food tomorrow. And I know your mother said you must finish whatever is on your plate or in the pot, but you’re older now so you don’t have to keep doing that. Form the habit of eating till you’re satisfied, not till you’re about to blow up. This may take a few weeks to get used to, but your stomach will definitely adjust. I’ve read that it takes about 3 weeks for your body to adjust to a habit. 

      Also, sometimes, people believe because something is healthy, they should eat as much of it as they want. No. Everything has calories. Some have less, but the more you eat, the more calories you consume.

6.      Cut back on the booze: While you’re drinking that beer or martini, realize that alcohol has a lot of calories. Although you want to have a good time, you could wipe out days of working out by drinking too much. Beer and abs don't go together, no matter how much we wish they did.

7.      Water is the source of all things good: Reduce your intake of soda (Coke, Pepsi, etc.), and replace it with tons of water. Soda is a very sugary type of drink, and we all know that. On the other hand, water helps to replenish the muscles, helps with digestion, regulates body temperature, and does a ton of other great things to your body. There is a reason most of the world and most of our bodies consist of water. It is good for you. Period.

These are the main tips to jump-start your diet. Remember to go slow because if you shock yourself, you may start craving food even more and be right back where you started.

Next week, we’ll talk about jump-starting your exercise program. Sign up as a ‘Follower’ or join the Eights and Weights Facebook page here to get notifications when a new blog comes out every week. Please leave feedback, comments and questions.

Have a lovely week!

Benefits of a Good Diet and Exercise

I spent this week researching easy diet and exercise tips, and realized one thing: There are so many fads out there, but very little information on practical and easy application of how to apply this information. So I thought before we start to go into details about what to do, and how to do it, we need to understand why nutrition and exercise are important. Every individual may have a very different reason for staying healthy, but ultimately, there are a few general reasons why a healthy diet and exercise program are good for us.

Body image: Research shows that people that eat well and exercise have higher self confidence. And we are not talking about people who starve themselves. This is about people who make an effort to understand what they are putting into their bodies and how to keep themselves healthy. This is what this blog is striving to achieve; to allow people to understand the fundamentals of a good diet and exercise, and how to implement it for themselves to build a better body image. A good body image often does not depend on your weight or size.

Health Benefits: We all don't just want to live long, we also want to live well. Being African, we are prone to heart disease, diabetes, and a host of other diseases. Exercise and proper nutrition makes the heart stronger, decreases body fat, lowers blood pressure, increases bone health, and helps give the body more energy.

Relaxation and Stress Relief: It seems weird to put exercise in the same category as relaxation, but eating well and staying fit does make you happier and generally more relaxed. It could be a hormonal thing, or just because you are putting all your negative energy into something that is actually producing results. Exercise also helps us sleep better, so to all the insomniacs reading, hop on this train!

Brain Activity: I have read several research papers where the writers talk about how bad eating and lack of physical activity negatively impacts the brain. Some people just have great genes when it comes to mental activity, but most of us would benefit greatly from a good diet, exercise, and a good night's sleep. You might notice that your learning speed and memory are improving, and you are able to think better on your feet.

There is so much more you can benefit from a healthy diet and physical activity, but these were the ones I found most interesting. If you have any questions, or would like more information, please leave a comment or send me an email.

Next week, we will talk about how to easily jump-start your diet and exercise regimen, even if you do not yet know anything about diet and exercise.

Cheers!