Superfoods Smoothies: Getting the Most Nutritional Bang For Your Buck

The Superfoods type of smoothie I recommend is in a whole different class than the traditional smoothie. Completely devoid of refined sugar and animal products, a Superfoods Smoothie will typically involve fruit and a liquid base of water, juice and/or soy milk, and be centered around something with a high chlorophyll content like spirulina, barley greens or even wheatgrass powder. It would also include a variety of other diverse, quality, plant-based ingredients with the concept being that, in one delicious serving, you’re loading up on a wide variety of highly-potent nutrients. This makes Superfoods Smoothies one of the most efficient and important concepts of Rock-Solid Nutrition.

Blending all of these various plant-based ingredients together in a smoothie allows for up to 95% of these precious nutrients to actually be absorbed into the blood stream. Why? Because the cell walls of plant cells have to be broken open for all of the nutrients to be released, and this is tough to thoroughly accomplish just from chewing whole food. (In fact, it is estimated that we only absorb 15 to 25% of the nutrients from chewing.) Fortunately, the pulverizing aspect of the blending process does a lot of this work for you, allowing you to enjoy maximum assimilation of the ingredients. And by the way, blending whole foods in a blender is better than juicing them because you’re getting the whole food – skin, fiber and juice – rather than just the juice by itself.

Go here for more info preparing your Superfoods Smoothie:

http://www.rocksolidfitness.net/smoothies.html

The How and Why of Fiber

Fiber can be broken down into two categories; soluble and insoluble. Both types are usually present in most plant-based foods, with one typically more prevalent than the other.

For example, soluble fiber forms a gel-like substance once it dissolves in water and is plentiful in foods like oats, legumes, flax seeds, barley, apples, oranges and carrots. Its primary function is to bind with fatty acids and help simple sugars to be absorbed more slowly.

Meanwhile, insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water and can be found in bulkier foods, including dark leafy greens, the skin of fruit and root veggies, nuts, seeds, green beans, and whole grains like wheat. It has more of a “Roto-Rooter” effect as it promotes regular bowel movement, gets toxins through the colon quickly, and helps to maintain an optimal pH level in the intestines so various microbes can’t produce cancerous substances.

However, there’s no need to stress out about how much of each type of fiber you’re getting. Just eat a fair amount of the supercharged plant-based foods that we talk about here and you’ll be more than set.

One other interesting aside: Animal products contain ZERO fiber. This means that the natural mechanism that assists food in getting through your system does not exist in these foods…which means that many of the toxins inherent to meat, fish, milk, eggs and cheese tend to stick around your digestive tract and cause problems.

More food for thought…

Fruit as the Ultimate Snack

One of the hallmarks of the Rock-Solid Nutrition regimen is the concept of eating a series of smaller meals or snacks throughout the day, as opposed to loading up on the traditional “three squares.” A huge part of following this philosophy is enjoying two to three snacks per day. And while there are a number of Rock-Solid snacks available, fresh fruit is at the top of the list as a priority choice.

Fruit is a nutrient-dense, high fiber snack that can be enjoyed anytime. Plus, there are so many delicious varieties available, any of which you probably haven’t had in way too long. Just with apples alone, you can usually find at least a half-dozen different kinds at most any grocery store. And this is to say nothing of the various kinds of berries, pears, grapes, melons and tropical fruits out there.

Try to buy your fruit from the local farmer’s market. You will freak out at how much better produce tastes from these places. Otherwise, most health food markets and every grocery store will have fruit. Go organic on everything when possible.

A Few Hot Tips

1. Always have a bowl of ripe, colorful fruit accessible and out in the open in your home as a constant reminder of its availability.
2. Always take a piece of “portable” fruit with you if you’re leaving the house for a while. Apples, pears, apricots, peaches, bananas and plums are all examples of fruit that travels well.
3. Try cutting up a variety of your favorite fruits and creating your own fruit salad. Have it in a big bowl in the refrigerator for a quick snack anytime. For a special dessert, throw a scoop or two of vanilla soy ice cream in a bowl, then top with this fruit salad. (This works especially well with berry blends.)

All Hail the Rock-Solid Triceps!

Although it’s usually the biceps that get all the glory, the triceps round out the middle and entire back half of your upper arm and actually comprise the most bulk. In fact, you can always tell when someone has spent some quality time lifting by their overall triceps development. There’s a certain finished look that well-developed triceps offer aesthetically, especially when you view someone’s arms from behind. And, of course, the triceps play a crucial role in any kind of pushing or pressing movement.

Some of the most popular weighted movements include:

• Triceps pushdowns – Cable
• Overhead triceps extensions – Cable
• Triceps extension machine – Machine
• Lying triceps extensions – Barbell (or EZ-bar)
• Close-grip bench press – Barbell
• Reverse presses – Cable
• French presses – Barbell (or EZ-bar)
• Dumbbell kickback – Dumbbell, cable

And when weights aren’t available, you can do close-grip push-ups off the floor and get a decent pump, as well.

How is your Horseshoe?

Always strive for balanced triceps development, which will invariably mean prioritizing your training to feature the often-neglected rear-tri movements like overhead triceps extensions or even dumbbell kick-backs. When you straighten out your arm and flex your triceps, they should take on the shape of a horseshoe if they’re well-developed. Most people only have half a horseshoe because the primary heads (in the front and middle of the arm) are developed, but the rear head is not.

So c’mon, people…let’s get some Rock-Solid tri’s!

The Anatomical Perspective of Rock-Solid Nutrition

In my upcoming book, I detail 10 different perspectives on why plant-based nutrition is superior. The premise behind this particular perspective is supremely logical. When we step back and analyze the notion of optimal nourishment from a sheer physiological point of view, the human anatomy seems clearly designed for a plant-based diet.

Consider these facts:

• Upon close examination of our digestive system, you’ll find a 29-foot intestinal tract. We share this elongated design with other herbivores so that we may enjoy a gradual absorption of our plant-based foods in the digestion process. Carnivores have a short digestive tract so that the rapidly-putrefying flesh can make a quick exit.

• The stomach acid of a carnivore, which was obviously intended to accommodate the denser materials of their diet, is 20 times stronger than ours.

• Our jaw and teeth structure, like other herbivores, is clearly designed for the grinding and chewing action required for eating fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, seeds and nuts. But a carnivore has some serious fangs (much sharper, longer, and bigger than our own “canines”) and a jaw that operates in a vertical fashion for the gnawing and tearing of hide and flesh.

• Carnivores appear to have zero predisposition for atherosclerosis, regardless of how much cholesterol or saturated fat they consume in the form of animal flesh. This implies that they have a naturally efficient way of assimilating flesh foods (due largely, it seems, to the high amount of bile their livers produce). Humans, who are obviously more like herbivores, clearly do not.

• Our hands were designed to pick things from trees and bushes or pull things from the ground, not rip and tear like the hooves and claws of carnivorous animals.

• Furthermore, our raw physical capabilities, which include our reflexes, total land speed (running in open fields or jumping and leaping through rough terrain), overall strength to attack and kill most of the animals we eat, etc., are woefully inadequate to play a predatory role.

Although we have the capacity to eat flesh foods without keeling over (immediately, at least), it would seem that this is more of a last resort, emergency survival mechanism, than an optimal directive for us to follow. And as I’ll continue to prove around here, our bodies are far more ideally designed for a plant-based diet, both in theory and practice.

Mind/Body Power, Pt. 1: Are Your Thoughts Killing You?

Many of our great scientists, doctors and metaphysicians have helped us to understand this irrefutable connection of the mind and body and, in short, how your state of mind directly affects your state of health. For example, we now know that the brain operates much like a highly-sophisticated chemistry set, releasing precision dosages of “drugs” according to our own unconscious instruction. We release toxic amounts of adrenaline when stressed or scared and invigorating dosages of interleukins when exhilarated. This just happens, whether we are aware of it or not. So part of the Rock-Solid approach to Mind/Body wellness is to cultivate simple lifestyle practices where we consciously increase the flow of the “good” chemicals and decrease the flow of the “bad.”

In fact, the “bad” chemicals that are released when we are stressed, angry, depressed, etc., have a derogatory affect on our health in six key areas:

1. General health – Stress is the most prevalent non-nutritional contributor to the dangerously high levels of acidity in the blood stream that most people walk around with. (As mentioned earlier, the high-acid internal environment remains one of the single biggest factors to most any form of ailment, sickness or disease.)

2. Heart rate – Stress or stressful emotions can elevate our heart rate and blood pressure.

3. Digestion problems – The release of these harmful chemicals and the subsequent bodily reactions that they cause impede proper digestion on a number of fronts (including the restriction of blood flow to the digestive organs).

4. Degeneration of soft tissue – They are even finding that these chemicals undermine the health of our soft tissues.

5. Age-related memory loss – Heightened amounts of cortisol are released into the bloodstream when we’re stressed, and this can have toxic effects on the good ol’ hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that processes memory.

6. Body fat – Likewise, these heightened amounts of cortisol have been linked to the storage of body fat, especially the inter-abdominal fat around the belly. (To be clear, unnatural amounts of cortisol zipping through your bloodstream doesn’t make you fat, but it can make the job of losing excess body fat more difficult.)

For these very compelling reasons, our thoughts truly can be toxic. So let’s take a deep breath and look for ways to resolve stressful situations and disempowering emotions. More on that next time.

Building Muscle

What is the science behind building muscle? Here’s the quick overview:

Our muscle tissue is actually comprised of two different types of fiber; slow-twitch and fast-twitch. Slow-twitch fiber is all about endurance, as it is dense with blood vessels and able to carry a lot of oxygen. This makes this type of muscle ideal for distance runners, cyclists and other endurance athletes. Fast-twitch fiber is all about shorter, more concentrated bursts of energy and raw power, so it’s ideal for weightlifters, sprinters and other athletes requiring explosive strength. This fast-twitch fiber is also the type that actually grows.

How does this muscular growth occur? Simple. As you engage in some form of resistance training and overload your muscles, minute tears called microtrauma occur in the muscle fiber. Then, as the body sets out to repair the “damage” during your recovery time, the muscles in question actually grow back slightly bigger and stronger due either to an increase in muscle cells, or through a process called hypertrophy, which is the growth of existing muscle cells. This process is basically your body’s way of creating more muscle so that the risk of repeat “damage” is minimized. The tangible result is bigger, stronger muscles.

With this in mind, understand that each person’s total capacity for muscularity revolves to some degree around how these two types of fiber are distributed throughout their body. This is why some folks are naturally great marathon runners, destined to be lean for life (even if they take up weight training), while others are naturally great bodybuilders or strength athletes, seemingly able to grow muscle just by looking at a squat rack. In either case, anyone can reap benefits from resistance training with the right program.