"Can" The Diet Soda?

This is an exciting time of new research and information in nutrition neurology coming out, seemingly, daily.  And it's even more exciting for us when new research involving both come out!  This newsletter from Lumosity cites a new study from UC San Diego showing that the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas may be playing havoc on our brain chemistry as well as our metabolism.  Here's the article:

Diet Sodas: Changing Your Brain And Your Waistline      Diet sodas may not be helping you lose weight-in fact, these and other artificially sweetened foods may sabotage your diet by confusing and rewiring your brain's reward centers. This study from the journal Physiology & Behavior is yet another example of how lifestyle choices can alter your brain-negatively or positively.    Scanning diet soda drinkers' brains The University of San Diego study followed 24 young adults: half the group drank at least one serving of diet soda every day, while the other half avoided the artificially sweetened drinks. These adults were then hooked up to brain scanning equipmentwhile scientists fed them water alternately flavored by natural and artificial sweeteners-then the researchers sat back and watched what unfolded in the brain. The results, according to University of California San Diego researchers Green and Murphy, were pronounced: "[Diet soda drinkers] who consumed a greater number of diet sodas had reduced caudate head activation. These findings may provide some insight into the link between diet soda consumption and obesity."    Artificial sweeteners confuse reward A little bit of background: the caudate head is a part of the brain involved in signaling reward and controlling food intake-and its decreased activity in the brains of diet soda drinkers has substantial implications. Researchers posit that consumption of diet soda had confused the reward loops normally processed by the caudate head: because sweetness was no longer a reliable indicator of incoming calories, the brain had trained itself to respond less in the face of sweet flavors. Unreliable sweet tastes threw off normal predictions about calories and energy in the changed brains of diet soda drinkers-making it more likely that these people would consume additional calories later in the day. Small choices can affect your brain This newest study is pretty preliminary; it's difficult to say how drastically diet sodas can affect bigger questions of lifestyle and health based on such short-term brain activation patterns. Still, this recent investigation provides an interesting reflection on how choices and actions made in everyday life can powerfully influence the way your brain is wired-in other words, the concept of neuroplasticity.

 

Based on the results of this study and their discovered brain reactions, it looks like all artificial or non-caloric sweeteners may not be ideal.  The brain, and our metabolism, actually respond to sucrose (white sugar) and fructose (from fruits) better than the substitutes..... in the right amounts, of course!

If you'd like to read more about this, here's an interesting article from Science News: click here 

Click here for the abstract of the study.

A Quick, Easy, and Tasty Dinner Idea

One of the biggest challenges is finding the time to cook a healthy, flavorful meal when we have such busy lives.  Here's a quick and easy recipe for fish that's full of flavor, protein, and good healthy fats.  

Baked White Fish

Ingredients:

4-6 oz. fillet of White fish (Cod and Dover Sole workgreat!)

Salt

Pepper

1tsp. Butter per fillet

1 small clove garlic (to taste)

Parchment paper cut into approx. 15x15 inch squares (1 per fillet)

Stapler

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 deg.  Place each fish fillet on top of a parchment paper square.  Salt and Pepper to taste.  Add a tsp. of butter on top of the fish.  Garlic is optional- either mince into small pieces and sprinkle on fish or cut into bigger slices and place along side the fish in the paper.  The melted butter and juices will simmer the garlic and add a more mild garlic flavor.  

Fold the edges of the paper together, creating a "pouch"around the fillet. Fold the edges down and staple together to keep the juices and flavors in while cooking.

Place on a baking sheet, and in the oven for 15-17 minutes. 

Remove and place the pouches on the plate.  Cut a slit to open, add any other garnish you'd like (like some diced tomatoes pictured above), squeeze some lemon juice over the fish if desired, and enjoy!  

A More Evolved Fitness Program..

This a great topic that has come up a few times this past week, and comes up often.  "How do I know what and how much I should do today- especially when I've missed the past week of workouts due to work/life/stress?"  

Our first inclination is "I'm behind and need to catch up.  I've missed the past week/month/year and need to make it up."  This typically evolves into some sort of "fitness seizure" that usually leaves us in worse condition than before.  This may or may not work, but it's usually a guess and hoping we've guessed right.

While the mainstream, traditional fitness culture is currently touting the "Go Hard or Go Home" and "No Pain No Gain" approach to fitness, we propose a more intelligent,Evolved, approach that will minimize the guessing and allow for sustainability and long term health.  (You can only beat yourself up so many times before your brain says "enough!" and you quit exercising all together!)

Knowing what we now know about the brain, it's aversion to stress/threat, and how it improves or inhibits performance accordingly; we can use one simple tool to get a relative idea of how much we should be exercising and how hard we should go that day.  Remember, the key to life-long health and athleticism is to get better each day, not just do some stuff that we're "supposed to do" and hope it helps.  

A simple tool that anyone can use to gauge how their workout should go is one we use every day in our gym:  A range of motion assessment (toe-touch, rotation, shoulder raise) and/or peripheral vision.  Because our brain is in charge of our performance and, as mentioned above, will improve or inhibit our performance based on the amount ofperceived stress/threat  the body is under- physically, mentally, chemically, etc.  

If your starting range of motion is less than usual, and it takes a longer than usual amount of time in your warm up to get to your normal, your brain's most likely close to its threshold of stress for today and putting on the brakes.  Mobility and some light activity are most likely what will give you the best result that day.

If you warm up quickly and feel good, go for it!  Continue to re-assess your range of motion after each set.  As long as you continue to improve (not just stay the same!) you can continue your workout for as long as you have time and energy for.  

It's not a matter of toughness, discipline, or any other catch phrase out there!  You just may need to go hard today because you haven't for a while.  But, if you don't assess it first to have a better idea, you may end up over-stressing your body and increase your risk of injury, sickness, excessive fatigue, or even more pain.  

Evolve your thinking and take a more educated and practical approach to your fitness.  Your brain will always adapt to as much stress as it can handle, but not more.  Take this approach with you to each session and watch your results soar!  

A More Complete Fitness Program...

There are many approaches to fitness, and many components to a complete fitness program.  At Fitness Evolved, we're constantly working to improve our programming and offering our members the best and most complete fitness program possible.  

Those with a Customized Membership have seen the benefits of focusing on corrective work, visual skills and coordination, and strength and hypertrophy in their individual sessions, complemented by fast-paced metabolic conditioning classes.  The two work hand-in-hand to make a more complete program.  

Through some experimentation and brain-storming (the hamster wheels were turning!) we've come up with a way to evolve our classes to bring more of these benefits to all of our members- Custom and Basic alike.  

Starting in October, we'll be adding new "Total Body" classes to the mix.  These classes will be designed to take you through a total body training session.  They'll include a neural warm up, visual and vestibular skill training, corrective and core training, elastic/athletic training, strength and hypertrophy, and a metabolic finisher.  These workouts will look very similar to the workouts our Custom Membership members go through, and will be progressed similarly.  This will allow our Basic members to get a more complete fitness program, and continue to give you the best tools available to help you evolve into the body you want. 

Class times will remain the same (for now) but the types of classes will change.