Showing posts with label sport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sport. Show all posts

Monday, 9 March 2015

Dear food lovers,

Today I am writing about a sport bar that might be of interest to many of you: PRIMAL Nutrition.

Who are they?
When two belgian sport fanatics, get a break from their daily crossfit session, something good happens. Here is their vision: without proper nutrition you cannot even get close to your maximal performance. Eating healthy should be a way of living and the way to respect your body. Hence their attempt to engineer sport bars, such that it would be easy to carry and provide the correct amount of carbs, proteins and fat for your workout. Being healthy should be that easy!

What is PRIMAL Nutrition?
The bars that I am talking about are capable of satisfying your body with the primal nutrition needs that are required before and after workout, or just for your own reasons to stay healthy.
They are made 100% of natural ingredients such as the honey, grass-fed whey, dry prunes and dark chocolate. There is science in each of those, namely the Paleo and Zone diet, famous within the world of Crossfit. 
The Paleo Diet consists in eating just like we used to, back in the past... way back in the past. If a caveman could not eat it, why should you?
With this, I mean anything that could be hunted or found in the nature. Sorry, pasta, cereal, and candy are not included. 
The Zone diet is basically about learning how to put together perfectly balanced meals that promote maximum health, wellness, and performance. As a CrossFitter you should look at Zone as how much you eat. When following the zone diet every meal you eat is 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 30% fat. You also eat a certain number of “blocks” based on how much lean body mass (muscle) you have.
Back to the bars, there are two sizes and one flavor. One as a energy bar (± 150 kcal) the other one as a full power bar or meal (±300 kcal).

The verdict
I chose the medium bars as a snack between breakfast and lunch. This kept me away from snacking around and gave me the energy I needed. I chose the larger bars as my lunch, even thought I have to admit that I needed some time to get used to it in substitution of my regular pasta or salad.
No worries, though. Getting used to it, is easier than you think.
The taste is really good, for those who have a sweet tooth. I could feel the difference with industrial bars which are usually smaller and contain less nutritional values.
The packaging, is simple, as healthy food should be. The fact that you can always see the bar from the package is reassuring. For those following the Zone diet, it is possible to read how many blocks of each nutrient (carbs, protein, fat) are there in the bar.
Overall it is a sport bar that can be used by everyone.
The large bar costs 5 euro while the medium one costs 3 euro.
Want to get some? Order PRIMAL Nutrition at their website
I wish those gentlemen lots of success, believing that passion for healthy food leads to great and tasty things.



Love,
Caroline

Wednesday, 28 January 2015



It has been a while, I know. We've been quite detached from the mainstream, from the blog, email, news, twitter... Even away from people. But we did it for a good cause.
We are familiar with awkward mixes with our training schedules, food and beverage.
Mixing our skills, however, has gone even further, providing us with fresh ideas that only needed to be realised.

When a man loves a woman, says a famous song, can't keep his mind on nothing else.
That is so true and it also applies to us. When an engineer, who is used to run the long distance meets a sport addict and nutrition expert, who is used to coach people and spend hours at the gym, the mix is even more powerful and awkward. And amazing!!

Dear friends, it's with extreme pleasure that I hereby introduce you our sister website iamsofit.com. I know you will think that it's just another website.
Nothing more wrong than that.

iamsofit.com is a project we are finalising, to provide sport and nutrition in a new flavor, with new tools, concepts, strategies and schedules. All of this in a personalised way!
Are you familiar of those gyms in which you get the same plan of your overweight cousin who barely knows what a kettlebell is? Forget about it.

Don't let me say more.

Get a free subscription and stay in touch. It is free!

Click iamsofit.com/subscribe to get news from us very soon.

Just the time to warm up the engine and get a test drive.
Then we are ready to run.
Fast.

Stay fit!

Tuesday, 7 October 2014

Dear future mums,
your little dear one is waiting to pop out and fulfil your world with love, happiness and laughter you've never experienced? If you love sport and want to stay healthy in your condition, keep reading, this post might be of interest.
If already mums, c
ongrats! I wish you a long life to your sporty and healthy family. Still, keep reading :)

Maintaining regular exercise routine throughout your pregnancy can help you stay healthy and feeling at your best. It can also improve your posture and decrease some common discomforts like back aches and fatigue, among other things. There is scientific evidence that it may prevent gestational diabetes, relieve stress, and build more stamina needed for labor and delivery.

If you were already physically active before your pregnancy period, you should be able to continue your activity with moderate pace. Of course, do not try to exercise at your former level. Do what's more comfortable for you at the moment, instead. 
As a general rule, low-impact aerobics are to be preferred to high-impact. Do not let your heart pump more than 140 times per minute. The athlete who is pregnant and does competitions would better be followed by a doctor (possibly one of those who knows what sport is).

If you have never exercised before, at least on a regular basis, you can safely start an exercise program during your pregnancy after consulting your health care provider. Please, do not try a strenuous activity you've never tried before.


The type of sport you practice will definitely determine your possibility of doing it during your pregnancy. Here are some general rules, I strongly recommend: 

  • Non-contact sport: within this category there are all those sports that do not involve any contact with another player or competitor, such as swimming, walking and jogging. In most cases, it is safer for pregnant women to practice non-contact sports during their entire pregnancy (again, as long as they get their doctor's approval) 
  • Minimal contact sports: here are the sports that involve minimal contact, such as racket sports and netball. These sports are considered safe during the first three months with the possibility of continuing into the second trimester depending on the circumstances, such as the level,  the fitness of the mother and the state of her pregnancy.
  • Contact and collision sports, such as soccer and basketball, are considered safe only in the first trimester.
  • Lifting and high-intense effort: exercises that involve such types of intensity, such as lifting heavy weights or sprinting are also potentially dangerous, in particular in the later stages of pregnancy. They are therefore not recommended.
That's it for now. Good luck with your (I guess) wonderful new phase of family life.
Love,


Caroline

Friday, 3 October 2014

Dear ladies (and gentlemen),
we all know how hard the battle of losing weight is and our attempts to shape the body to what we consider ideal. Big thighs, flappy bellies, hanging arms... all things we don't like and we wish to change by means of exercises specifically designed to destroy that garbage (and us), sometimes in concert with a well-balanced diet. 
To begin with, we claim to target a certain body shape. Bad news is that genetics will dictate the uncontrollable. Good news is that we do have the power to change a few things that might actually contribute to our overall satisfaction. 
Today I want to be more specific and show you different types of bodies that we usually have to deal with. I'm sure you already heard about hourglass shape, apple shape and so on. 


But what you want is probably some technicality. And there you are the categories (somatotypes) into which we are most likely:

Endomorphs – “fat retainers”
Mesomorphs – “athletic”
Ectomorphs – “skinny”





Actually i have some kind of bad news. One thing we cannot do is choosing where we want to loose weight. Detect and target a specific spot to be reduced. Just fiction.
Remember how the layers of an onion are? For most people, fat acts exactly like that. It doesn’t just disappear from a specific place, but rather it comes off layer by layer from the whole bodyHowever, some people have localised areas where fat loss (and of course gain) is more pronounced, and while fat is still shed from all over the body, the loss is proportionately different in different areas. 

What I experienced was a mix of both the conditions. When I am losing weight, that occurs everywhere with more emphasis on thighs and breast. Exactly! My breast!! 
A nightmare for every woman. 
Why does that happen? Well, during the initial stages of weight loss, women tend to lose fat in their breast, which is mainly fat tissue, indeed. Those with the shape of a pear tend to carry excessive body fat in their buttocks, hips and thighs as well. 
So, what can we do to prevent this terrifying situation? 
Not so many people know that the most important thing for those women to do is to keep their cardiovascular (cardio) activity to a minimum. Specifically to a level that reaps health benefits without excessive loss of fat, while emphasising resistance (weight) training in the effort to increase the size of the muscles that lie underneath the breasts.
While it is not guaranteed to keep the fat of the breast, your breast can very well be perked up by strengthening the main muscle group of the chest supporting them. Think of the pectoralis major and minor.
What I personally suggest is phrased in a kind of motto "eating clean, training dirty", especially those area's you don't really like of yourself. Then try to accept the body you have. I know it's not easy but, at the end everyone is unique and beautiful in his/her own way.
My body changed when i started to eat clean.  But let me be honest here: we live only once so have that piece of chocolate staring at you, on the desk, begging you to bite it, once in a while. 
After all, that will cost you 3-4 times/week of cardio and strengthening exercises.



Love,
Caroline






Wednesday, 6 August 2014

Here is my review of these wonderful shoes I bought during my holiday in Southern Italy. I found a great deal, last number, last color, last everything and got a super discount, which was the perfect reason to buy running shoes for half the price.

Adidas Supernova Glide Boost presented themselves as really soft shoes since the very moment in which I took them in my hands. Quite a lot of marketing around the Boost technology was indeed attractive and worth trying. Yes, I had to wear and run like an idiot around the shop to prove that the cushioning was indeed comfortable.
At the beginning it seemed to be very soft. Probably too much. But I gave these shoes the amount of kilometers they needed to express themselves and decided to get an opinion only after 100 km.
The springy feeling of the Boost technology is not really nice for a runner like me who is used to run in the trail and wants to stay in contact with the ground. But things are different on the road. As a New Balance 890 v3 heavy user I must say that Adidas did a good job with the Boost. The springy feeling, too accentuated just outside the shop, literally disappeared after 100 km leaving only the good part of it.

As a result they provide a soft cushioning that is discrete on the heel and present on the forefoot. I am mainly a forefoot runner and some cushioning helps a lot there. The shoe in general is not stiff at all. It wears your foot like a sock and gives you the freedom that you need if you are a neutral runner. There are no stability features. Therefore watch out if you have been diagnosed with pronations.

One more thing: forget the trail. These shoes are made for the road and should stay on the road. Rocky tracks and dusty roads are not the perfect terrain for them. The tread is made by Continental, which also designs road tyres for cars. That should say a lot.

Happy Boosted running!