Nuts for...

Walnuts!  I like to enjoy the occasional walnut, especially during the holiday season.  I recently came across some interesting information about these nuts so I thought I would pass it along.

Per 1 ounce serving, walnuts have 18 grams of fat of which only 2 grams is saturated, 0 grams from trans fat, 3 grams of monounsaturated fat and a whopping 13 grams from polyunsaturated fat.  Of the polyunsaturated fat, it contains 2.6 grams of omega-3 fat (alpha linolenic acid).  If you read my earlier post about inflammation, this is a highly beneficial fat.  No cholesterol,  1 milligram of sodium, 125 milligrams of potassium, 4 grams of carbohydrate, 2 grams of fiber and 4 grams of protein make up the rest of this great nut.

Walnuts are also a decent source of copper, magnesium, phosphorus and a lesser amounts of iron and calcium.

How to include walnuts during the holiday season?  Glad you asked!  Here are some easy ways:

-Crush and sprinkle on top of hot or cold cereals

-Throw a few into a yogurt parfait

-Place them in muffin or pancake batter

-Make walnut hummus (I'll try and post a recipe later!) and make a sandwich

-Add a few into your favorite holiday salad

-Chop finely and sprinkle on top of fish or chicken

-Sprinkle on top of pizza or add them to the dough if you make your crust

-Place on top of ice cream (yummy!)

-Throw into any grain side dish such as quinoa, couscous or rice

-Of course, you can just eat them plain also.  They go nicely on the holiday veggie platter!

Enjoy the holidays and remember...you do have a choice in the quantity that you eat!

;-)

Coach Bob

coachbob@fuel4mance.com

Shout

A huge shout out to Fuel4mance athlete Lorie Armstrong for qualifying for the 2009 Ironman World Championships at Ironman Arizona this past weekend.  Great job Lorie!  I am very proud of you!

Coach Bob

coachbob@fuel4mance.com

Here fishy, fishy...

I was asked to speak this past weekend at a one-day nutrition conference at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. While I spoke about nutrition periodization for athletes, the main focus was centered on inflammation so I knew I was in for an educational treat since I have really emphasized the inflammatory response mechanism with my athletes.

Some quick (non-scientific) and brief background about inflammation. From a cardiovascular standpoint, it is thought that the inflammatory process begins the endothelial cell wall damage that can eventually lead to blockages in the arteries. There is quite a bit of crossover with this concept and athletic performance. When you fewthink of the endothelial lining of the arteries, the less area there is (in case of inflammation) the less blood flow is delivered to and from muscles and organs. This could hamper the body’s ability to receive oxygen and nutrient rich blood before, during and after exercise and waste products away from the muscles. Inflammation is not merely a topic of heart health any longer.

In the past few years, I have been following this aspect of cardiovascular health and have applied it to the athletic population. My goal has been to find foods that could decrease the inflammatory response since any type of excessive exercise can produce this unfavorable response.

Fast forward to the conference where I heard a great talk by a surgeon who just happened to have done his PhD in nutrition 25 years ago. He was a very engaging speaker and the data he provided, while mostly targeted to critical care patients, supported the benefits of omega-3 fish oil supplementation. There have not been any studies in athletic individuals to my knowledge yet but cardiovascular health affects athletic performance because of the heart being central to oxygen delivery to the working muscles. Therefore, this further validates the use of omega-3 supplementation in athletes.

Which athletes you ask? Is it for me and how much? Well, I would argue that any athlete (ie-person who engages in exercise) would benefit from this since the inflammatory response can also be initiated by stressors and other foods. Yes, foods can have a pro-inflammatory response. While there is not a comprehensive, research supported list, there is great speculation about saturated fats, some allergen producing foods, and certain spices that contribute to this inflammation.

Stay tuned for future blogs about this topic as I look more into the research, especially on a fairly new “diet” appropriately termed the anti-inflammation diet. Until then, I would highly recommend thinking about taking an omega-3 supplement that contains EPA and DHA for a total of at least 1-2 grams for health and more if you are extremely active.

Coach Bob
coachbob@fuel4mance.com

Wildlife in Colorado

It is fairly common for us to have a few deer walking around our neighborhood on a daily basis or some rabbits buzzing around from house to house but two quite awkward and somewhat exciting wildlife "run-ins" happened to my wife and I in the past three days.

My wife was taking our now 5 month old dog, Koda, outside for his last bathroom break of the evening on a particularly cold night.  It was 27 degrees and my wife is very adverse to cold weather (read: she doesn't like it too much) so she had the swim parka that I received from USA Triathlon and Speedo from the Olympics on and ventured outside our front door the few feet to let Koda do his thing.  A few minutes later she came back in with a rosy red nose from the cold wind and a confused look on her face.  I asked her what was wrong and she told me that during her very short transition outside, there was a fox trying to get friendly with our dog (Koda was on a leash, don't worry) and was circling them and even came very close to our front door as he was making his rounds and scoping out our dog.  Koda, she said, was in a very playful mood, of course, when the fox was present.  I am sure if we had let him off the leash, he would of thought it was an opportunity to play with someone different from our family.  I don't know too much about foxes but my gut instinct tells me that the fox would not want to play with our dog but possibly offer him a cozy hotel in his den for the evening and Koda would possibly be on the continental breakfast menu the next morning.

Strange scenario number two actually happened last night to me.  I was working downstairs at about 9:30pm and was sitting about 10 feet from my front door when I heard a very loud, almost banging noise outside the door.  My heart immediately began to race as I thought it was someone trying to manipulate their way into my home.  I sprang up off of my chair and quietly approached the door.  As I looked out the peephole, I could not believe my eyes.  There was a deer at my front door.  I'm not talking in the front yard...right at my door!  I was a bit shocked and when I finally controlled my excitement and nervousness, I opened the door and gave it a bit of a yell to scare it away.  I don't know if I was thinking clearly.  I mean, what if I opened the door and he rushed me?  Turns out he was just eating some plants that we have right outside the door and luckily for me, I was scary enough for him to dash across the street.

Wow...gotta love living in Colorado.  I've have some great run-ins with wildlife but the funny thing is is that they have only been in the past few years.  Remember, I grew up in the mountains of Colorado and did not have this many wildlife encounters even with many camping and fishing trips in remote locations.

Gotta love it!  I'm never moving!!!

Coach Bob

coachbob@fuel4mance.com

Nutrition and Injury

I know we never like to talk about injury but it is ski season in Colorado and while I do not wish any athlete to get injured, it does happen to the best of us.

Here's a link to a nutrition story in Rocky Mountain Sports that has some good info in it...

http://www.rockymountainsports.com/nutrition/nutrition-for-healing.html

Enjoy the read but I hope you never need to implement these nutrition recommendations!

Coach Bob

coachbob@fuel4mance.com

Hummus that kids like?

Well, I don't profess to be a hummus guru but I can make a mean cilantro lime hummus.  I went to the store the other day and loaded up on garbanzo beans and per my typical kitchen experience, I armed myself with a creative mind to find a way to improve upon my normal hummus creation.  The only trick was that it had to be kid friendly.

By the feedback I received from my kiddos (second, third and an even a fourth) serving, I believe I have knocked another creation out of the park.  Here are the ingredients so you can experiment in your own kitchen.

-Garbanzo beans

-Black olives

-Olive oil (I was out of my normal hemp oil)

-Minced garlic

-Lime juice

-Dried cilantro

-Black pepper

-Sea salt

-My newest addition: toasted sesame oil (don't use too much though!)

Put it all in a food processor and whip it up!  Enjoy with celery, carrots or a good brand of organic blue corn/flax tortilla chips!

Enjoy!

Coach Bob

coachbob@fuel4mance.com