R5D52/3 – Heavy Day and Coffee… And Other Rambling Tangents…

Sunday I did heavy day, including more with the 70lb KB. I took Monday off since it was the Mock Meet for my gymnasts and I was short on time. This week I have to try to stick to the schedule, adding an extra day off is messing me up. I am a little torn however since I seem to be sore and tired alll the time at the moment and I am wondering if I have been slightly overtraining. It’s hard to say if I have or if I am being lazy, there seems to be a fine line there!

What about coffee? There is some chatter on the Paleo landscape about if caffeine is permitted or not. I don’t really care if it is or not, to be honest, I enjoy a cup of tea or coffee but I don’t have it after about 1 in the afternoon. The reason is not because of the caffeine, but rather the stress it creates in your body. It’s fine in the morning, although I don’t think I need it since I have sworn off caffeine for a year on 2 separate occasions, but towards the end of the day you are bound to interrupt your sleeping patterns and that is a cardinal sin. You see there are right and wrong ways to think about health and what is important. For example when I used to spend 2 hours in the gym in the morning and then scarf down 2 bagels with cream cheese and load up on pasta each day I would have prioritized the major factors like this:

Exercise
Diet
Rest Days
Sleep

Since then, I have come to realize that exercise is a small component of health and fitness and my outlook appears more like this:

Sleep
Stress
Diet
Exercise

So why stress? Well, studies show that our performance is directly related to stressors, both physical and mental. So the more stress you place on your systems, the less healthy you will be. The folks over at Catalyst Valley have created just the graph to illustrate the new world order:

So try and reduce your stress, and I know there are a thousand sites and methods but the ones I find are simple but effective go like this:

– De-stress in the car on the way home. Most people, myself included, hate to commute but my 30 minutes in the car have become a time to unwind, laugh at a podcast or two, sing along to some 80’s pop or simply plan my next workout. Whatever you choose, don’t let your drive home add to your stress, it is the perfect time to relax and decompress.

– Use one workout a week to do some relaxation, stretching or yoga. Don’t add it to your schedule, replace an existing workout with it. You would be amazed what a couple of weeks of quiet yoga will do for your workout ethic.

– Be early. Most people are rushing because they are disorganized. If you are early, you will always have a few minutes to yourself to relax before you start whatever you are doing. A few minutes or quiet reflection in a day while basking in your organizational nirvana is pretty amazing. Do you remember the last time you were early somewhere?

..and what about dairy? I have my own take, I am phasing it out just because I don’t seem to miss it, but as usual, Fitbomb has done a stellar job of working through the issue here.

And don’t think that these Paleo people are only south of the border, the Canadian Physicians are starting to notice that we are resembling Tim Horton’s Donuts not just eating them… Diseases of Affluence he calls it…

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