Our Ladies looking awesome!!!

Team Intrafitt Tears up the competiton again!!!

Another great weekend for the team. Everything we set out to achieve was accomplished!! Lots of hardware and smiling faces. I'm happy for all the ladies and they all looked amazing!

The break down of the show was 2 First place trophies and 3 second place trophies and a 5th place. I will post a few clips for everyone to watch how amazing our ladies look.

Carol Lama 1st Figure Medium tall class Level 2 and 2nd in Masters class.
Sharon Philbrick 2nd Figure tall and 5th bikini Model
Meni Moskowski 2nd Medium tall Level 1 and 1st in Masters class.

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small people who find it easier to live the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing."

What is Supportive Nutrition?

You hear a lot of big words or phrases thrown at you in the health and nutrition world without really knowing what they really mean. Well I’m going to throw another phrase at you but I’m going to explain it so you know what the heck I’m talking about when I use the term supportive eating.

Supportive eating very simply is eating a lean protein and a fibrous carbohydrate with every meal. The lean protein and fibrous carbohydrate must be healthy choices and when you think about it if you follow the rule of LEAN protein and FIBROUS Carbohydrate, your choices are limited to only healthy options.

So what exactly are lean proteins and fibrous carbohydrates. Well I’ve compiled a list of lean proteins and fibrous carbohydrates that isn’t a comprehensive list but it will give you a good idea of what I’m talking about.

Lean Proteins

Chicken breast

Turkey breast

Fish

Egg whites

Low fat or fat free cottage cheese

Seafood

Extra Lean Beef

Protein Powder

Fibrous Carbohydrates

Leafy Greens

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Spinach

Green Beans

Squash

Tomato

Cucumber

Celery

Onion

Green Peppers

Black Beans

Red Kidney Beans

Soy Beans

Blueberries

Strawberries

Apples

That should give you a start on what I’m talking about. Like I said there are others that I didn’t include on this list and if you have a question about a particular food please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Essentially what we are looking for with supportive nutrition is balance between highly nutrient dense foods but also shaving away the calories not necessary to maintain or achieve a lean fit physique. Lean proteins help build and repair lean muscle and fibrous carbohydrates supply the energy to the body without causing a spike in blood sugar or excessive energy to be stored in the body.

What happens when your nutrition plan adapts to this, is when you exercise your body will turn to the depleted energy stores which will be burned quickly and the transition from carbohydrate calorie burn to fat burn will be much quicker. Think of fat as your secondary fuel source. You have to burn through all of your carbohydrate storage before going on to the fat. The less carbohydrates (esp starches) you eat, the lower your storage levels will be.

So simply put, supportive nutrition supports your health and your fat loss goals simultaneously. Eating lean proteins as well as fibrous carbohydrates with each meal and snack as much as possible will ensure the body you desire as well as the health you also desire.

Another big weekend with Team Intrafitt!!!

This weekend was big for the team as we all went to the Idfa (International Drug Free Athletics) competition at the Jane Mallet auditorium here in Toronto.

Lots of hardware was won again, and I'm very proud of everyone that competed. This show was very well organized and judged with pretty good accuracy and only a few questionable calls but, when your losing to your own teamates it's not really losing... this contest was a excellent stepping stone for all the ladies some trial and error and new systems was implemented (meal plan preparation, training styles) for a few of the ladies with really good success.
This show we had 5 ladies competing for Team Intrafitt:
Sharon Philbrick
Meni Moskowski
Carol Lama
Crystal Kenny (first time competitor)
Vera (my wife)

For each competitor I will give small insight on how the day went so some of you can understand the sport and how the body can visibly change from hour to hour. It's amazing how a few carbs, or fats too little or too much can make or break you... To be honest I don't even know how I developed the eye for it. But, I did... Anyways here's how the day went.

Sharon Philbrick- Sharon looked the best she ever has!! this show was more of a test run for our new food plan and how it will pan out for us on big day OPA Level 2 on November 21. She looked awesome we just need to work on bringing her in a little leaner and fuller keeping her off carbs totally except for contest day. Cutting her water out a little earlier to put her on in the top 3 finalists on november 21.

Carol Lama- Ms. Consistent!! Carol came out for prejuding and looked awesome but, was holding a little water around her waist and her abs were not fully in yet... We needed to decrease her carbs and add a bit more natural sugar to make her look more pumped. But, still looked to place top 3 even not at her best... Which gave a few other competitors hope to win. hahahaha... I don't think so.... Ms. Consistent came back in the evening show and put sad faces on many of the women who thought they had a chance!! She dropped the last bit of water she was holding onto and looked her best to date. Carol placed 2nd in figure open division which was one of the only questionable calls of the night... She also, placed 5th in the fitness model category. This show was also just a test run for her new plan as well OPA level 2 November 21 is the contest we have to win!!

Meni Moskowski- This was Meni's day! She was the dark horse no one seen coming! Meni hasn't competed since June and was taking the time to make improvements to her physique and it all paid off... Meni came in flawless and ripped up the competition!! There was no stopping her. Her posing was beautiful and precise, we never had to make any last minute changes to her diet just stuck to the game plan we set up. And the day went perfect Meni placed 1st in fitness Model and 2nd in figure novice division.

Crystal Kenny-Crystal looked beautiful and muscular! this was Crystals first competition and you could see the nerves were working overtime. At prejudging Crystals muscle looked a bit flat and she looked about 5-7lbs lighter then she really is. Also, her posing needed to be a bit more softer as well. the only change we made during the day was to increase her carbs to fill out her muscle. Since it was her first competition I had no idea how her body was going to respond to dehydration and eating that day. On her downtime she watched ladies bodybuilding I think she found her calling she loved it!!! Now it's back to the drawing board and put on some more muscle. Intrafitt has never had a female bodybuilder so now were looking to dominate in all categories.

Vera Grayer- I gotta pick my words here carefully or else I'll be sleeping outside... Vera did a great job preparing for this show and she did it all by herself! But, like Crystal the nerves got to her and it affected her posing and she made a few mistakes... Otherwise she looked terrific! We could heave added some more carbs and natural sugar to her afternoon meal to make her look a bit more fuller and muscular but since she is so short I have no idea how it would affect her final appearence... For Vera it's back to drawing board and add more size to bring her up the ranks. Look for her to finish in the top 5 at the next show.

Wednesday's Action

Orthorexia and The New Rules of Clean Eating - Part 1

Definition- Orthorexia, or orthorexia nervosa is a term coined by Steven Bratman, a Colorado MD, to denote an eating disorder characterized by excessive focus on eating healthy foods. In rare cases, this focus may turn into a fixation so extreme that it can lead to severe malnutrition or even death.

Clean eating has no official definition, but it’s usually described as avoiding processed foods, chemicals, preservatives and artificial ingredients. Instead, clean eaters choose natural foods, the way they came out of the ground or as close to their natural form as possible. Vegetables, fruits, legumes, 100% whole grains, egg whites, fish, and chicken breast are clean eating staples. Clean eating appears to be a desirable, sensible, even noble goal. Eating clean is what we should all strive to do to achieve optimum health and body composition isn’t it? Arguably the answer is mostly yes, but more and more people today are asking, “is it possible to take clean eating too far?”

Physician Steven Bratman thinks so. In 1997, Bratman was the first to put a name to an obsession with healthy eating, calling it orthorexia nervosa. In his book, Health Food Junkies, Bratman said that whether they are trying to lose weight or not, orthorexics are preoccupied with eating healthy food and avoiding anything artificial or “toxic.”

Orthorexics are not only fanatical about eating the purest, healthiest, most nutritious (aka “clean”) foods available, says Bratman, they often feel a sense of righteousness in doing so.

Whether orthorexia should be officially classified as an eating disorder is controversial. The term appears in pub med indexed scientific journals, but it’s not listed in the DSM-IV as are anorexia and bulimia. Opponents wonder, “Since when did choosing a lifestyle that eliminates junk food become a disease?”

Media coverage and internet discussions about orthorexia have increased in the past year. John Stossel did a segment on 20-20 (ABC) last year and websites such as the Mayo Clinic, the Huffington Post and the UK-based Guardian added their editorials into the mix in recent months, alongside dozens of individual bloggers.

In most cases, mainstream media discussions of orthorexia have focused on far extremes of health food practices such as raw foodism, detox dieting or 100% pure organic eating, where some folks would rather starve to death than eat a cooked or pesticide-exposed vegetable. In fact, some people do, as seen in the 20-20 video clip below.

But closer to my home, what about the bodybuilding, fitness, figure and physique crowd? Should we be included in this discussion?

In their quest for adding muscle mass and burning fat, many fitness and physique enthusiasts become obsessed with eating only the “cleanest” foods possible. Like the natural health enthusiasts, physique athletes usually avoid all processed foods and put entire food groups on the “forbidden” list. Oddly, that sometimes includes rules such as precontest diets because “fruit is high in sugar” or “fructose turns to fat”.

According to Bratman’s criteria, one could argue that almost every competitive bodybuilder or physique athlete is automatically orthorexic, and they might add obsessive-compulsive and neurotic for good measure.

As you can imagine, (being a bodybuilder), I have mixed feelings about that.

If I choose to set a rule for myself that I’ll limit my junk food to only 10% of my meals, does that make me orthorexic or is that a prudent health decision?

If I plan my menus on a spreadsheet, am I a macronutrient micromanager or am I detail-oriented?

If I make my meals in advance for the day ahead, does that mean I’m obsessive compulsive, or am I prepared?

If I make one of my high protein vanilla pancakes (one of my favorite portable clean food recipes) and take it with me on a flight because I don’t want to eat airline food, am I neurotic? Or am I perhaps, the smartest guy on the plane?

Some folks are probably shaking their heads and saying, “you bodybuilders are definitely OCD.” I prefer to call it dedicated, thank you, but perhaps we are obsessive, at least a wee bit before competitions. But aren’t all competitive athletes, to some degree, at the upper levels of most sports?

Athletes of all kinds – not just bodybuilders - take their nutrition and training regimens far beyond what the “average Joe” or “average soccer mom” would require to stay healthy and fit.

What if you don’t want to be average – what if you want to be world class? What then? Is putting hours of practice a day into developing a skill or discipline an obsessive-compulsive disorder too?

Okay, now that I’ve defended the strict lifestyle habits of the muscle-head brother and sisterhood, let me address the flipside: being too strict.

Where does the average health and bodyweight-concerned fitness enthusiast draw the line? How clean should you eat? Do you need lots of structure and planning in your eating habits, or as Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher said, does making too many rules only create more rule-breakers?

Debates have started flaring up over these questions and as inconceivable as it seems, there has actually been somewhat of a backlash against “clean eating.” Why would THAT possibly happen? Eating “clean” is eating healthy, right? Eating clean is a good thing, right?

Well, almost everyone agrees that it’s ok to have a “cheat meal” occasionally, but some experts - after watching how many people are becoming neurotic about food - are now clamoring to point out that it’s not necessary to be so strict.

The diet pendulum has apparently swung from:

“Eat a balanced diet with a wide variety of foods you enjoy.”

To

“You MUST eat clean!”

To

“Go ahead and eat as much junk as you want, as long as you watch your calories and get your essential nutrients like protein, essential fats, vitamins and minerals.”

Talk about confusion! Now we’ve got people who gain great pride and a sense of dedication and accomplishment for taking up a healthy, clean-eating lifestyle and we’ve got people who thumb their nose at clean eating and say, “Chill out bro! Live a little!”

The current debate about how clean you should eat (or how much you should “cheat”) reminds me of the recent arguments over training methods such as steady state versus HIIT cardio. Whatever the debate of the day, most people seem to have a really difficult time acknowledging that there’s a middle ground.

Most dieters, when they don’t like a certain philosophy, reject it entirely and flip to its polar opposite. Most dieters are dichotomous thinkers, always viewing their endeavors as all or nothing. Most dieters are also joiners, plugging into one of the various diet tribes and gaining their sense of identity by belonging.

In some cases, I think these tribes are more like cults, as people follow guru-like leaders who pass down health and nutrition commandments that are followed with religious conviction. Seriously. The parallels of diet groups to religious groups can be downright scary sometimes.

Whether the goal is to optimize health, to build muscle or to burn fat, there’s little doubt that many individuals with all kinds of different motivations sometimes take their dietary restrictions to extremes. Obviously, an overly restrictive diet can lead to nutrient deficiencies and can adversely affect health, energy and performance.

In some cases, I can also see how swinging to any extreme, even a “healthy obsession” with pure food could lead to distorted views and behaviors that border on eating disorders. If you don’t believe it’s a real clinical psychological problem, then at the very least, you might agree that nutritional extremes could mean restricting social activities, creating inconvenience or making lifestyle sacrifices that are just not necessary.

I believe there’s a middle ground - a place where we can balance health and physique with a lifestyle and food plan we love and enjoy. Even more important, I believe that your middle ground may not be the same as mine. We all must find our own balance.

I believe that going back to BALANCE, but this time with a better definition of what balance means, is the approach of the future.

I also believe that some new rules would help us find that balance.

What do you think? Can you eat “too clean?” If so, is that a disorder if you’re physically fit and healthy? Share your thoughts on what you just read in part one and I’ll be back to post my list of new clean eating rules in part two.

25,50,75 with 3km!!