Labels

The other day I received a gel (New one I guess) and when I look the label said ALL NATURAL! Since I did not know the brand (not gonna say the brand name either) decide to look the ingredients.... so Ingredients were:
Isolate Whey Protein (Sorry not Natural, it is processed)
Maltodextrin (Not natural, it is processed and one of the worst things to the body)
And a few others, but my question is: HOW CAN A PRODUCT CLAME THAT IS NATURAL WHEN THE FIRST 2 INGREDIENTS ARE PROCESSED!!!!!
Also there is a recovery drink in the market (well known) that says that is all natural and the first 2 ingredients are the same! It is Crazy!

My suggestion it is always read the ingredients, even if the box says all natural, or whatever they try to catch your attention with! You want to see ingredients from whole foods like bananas, raw almonds, flax seed etc...

Lately my diet has been a lot of fruits and very little in fat because training it is a lot more intense since my first Ironman is in 20 days. The more fruits I eat the stronger I feel on my workouts. On Saturday I had a great workouts (5 hours) and I notice that I ate around 20 bananas LOL.

Todays Diet:

2 bananas in the AM
Lunch at Hippocrates Health Institute
Orange Juice about 3 cups (I was craving for)
5 bananas at Night
1 cup of Garden Of Life Raw Protein

Feel Good and GO RAW!
RW

Holistic

Today I started to look at some old papers at home and I found my old Ayurveda diet from my second year of triathlon (2006) and I was shocked! All the notes and foods that I have from Ayurveda match the irisdology that I did and I am following now! Also the guy who made the diet for me, did my own Mantra for meditation, and gave me a list of food combination that I was doing already but when I read I was shocked!!!
It is funny to look now, because I notice a few things:
1- Modern Medicine have pretty much no idea on what they are doing (LOL) they just give pills and do not fix the real problem!
2- How everything start to make perfect sense now (Yoga, Irisdology, Ayuerveda, etc)
3- How all those holistic methods have being knocking on my door for a long time! But I guess I am just now ready to accept and put all together! I love it!

On another note, I know I have not written here enough, training has been pretty good. Last weekend I did the Florida Challenge (half iron distance) and my aero bars broke on mile 23 I still try to keep going but I took a wrong turn and end up biking 70 miles....after that I decide not to run. What a crazy day! At least I had a great swim and a good hilly 70 mile ride :)

I decide to race Ironman Texas because of the heat (instead of Utah), so today is 1 month to the race. I am very confident and exited to my first Ironman of 2012!

Feel Good and go RAW!
RW

Clean Body=Better athlete

This week I had the most impressive results from my diet change, detox, etc etc... Let me explain, January I did my 20 min TT on the bike just to see where I was like I usually do, I did the cleanse after the test. Basically my real training started in February when I finish my cleanse. Yesterday April 12, 3 months later, I decide to do a test just for fun. I didn't rest for the test like I did in January, I treated the test like another workout, not a real test. I was just curious.
So lets talk about numbers, I will not take speed in consideration just heart rate (body effort).
January I did 20 min TT on the bike my average HR was 164, on that time I was on a raw diet already and I was rested to the test, but I haven't done my cleanse yet. Maybe later I can find more info when I had a cooked diet to compare.
Yesterday I did 20 min TT in the same place I did in January. So the result was: I did an average speed almost 1 mph faster than in January but my average HR was 142! That is 22 points less and going faster, not rested and not going fully all out. It is amazing how easier is the body to function when is Clean!!!!
This is making me rethink a lot of stuff I learned about fitness, because this shows me that we can raise our fitness level with food and getting the body clean. It is the same of having a clean or a dirty machine :)

Feel Good and Go Raw!!!
RW

Green smoothie day

Since I have been training like crazy yesterday I decided to do a green smoothie day, I had 4 green smoothies as meal during the day! Green Juices and smoothies help to make blood sugar stable. The result was amazing like always LOL. I had a lot of energy during the day, and in late afternoon I had the best long run of my life! It was really good! I must say, this idea was from Jennifer Thompson from the healthybliss.net after we did the Iris exam.
So here is what I did:
Morning
hand full of spinach
Grapefruit juice (2)
1 Banana
1 scoop of the Garden of Life Perfect Raw Meal

Lunch:
Green grapes (hand full)
Hand full of spinach
Hand full of collard greens
1/2 of small papaya
1 scoop of Garden of Life Perfect raw meal

Snack:
1 cucumber (Juice)
3 celery juice
1 apple
mixed with one hand full of spinach

Dinner after run:
5 celery juice
2 apples

Feel Good and Go RAW!
RW

Breathe

My first sponsor ever in my life as an athlete was a Yoga place and I am really grateful for that because I learned a lot from them, yet a lot of stuff that I learned on that time I am only able to put together now that I feel that I am in complete (or close to) harmony.

Today during my run today I had a click in my brain! Lately I have been studying new things like the power of positive energy and body mind relationship. For example, on the movie Thrive they talk a lot about free energy and the energy around us. I also watched for again What the Bleep do We Know and that is opening my mind. One experience I had that helped me with this click was the water machine at HHI, this machine captures the atmosphere water, so basically we can have free water from the atmosphere, pretty amazing machine.

So, O2 is our primary source of energy, to realize that is simple we can spend days with out water, right? we can spend days with out food, right? But how long can you spend without O2? A few minutes at the most....

During exercise we usually are not aware that we are breathing we are to concentrated in the music, pace, what time I need the gel etc etc... and we usually forget to breath, or hold our breath too long without even noticing!

When we are a newborn we use a complete breathing cycle and with time our breathing becomes shorter using only the top part of our lungs. In yoga I learned that we can separate the breathing cycle in three: Top (10% of the capability), medium (30% of capability) and lower (60% of capability). Often during exercise we only use the top part because we are not aware.

Today when my run started to get harder, my first thought was breath! I started to do deeper breaths and the result was amazing! I started to run faster with a lower heart rate. Of course I did not have music on, this way is easier to be aware of what you are doing and it is easier to concentrate.

Usually the first thing I say when I coach (specially swim) is breath! Most people get anxious and shorter their breath, specially in the water! So next time you exercise focus on your breathing!!!

Feel Good and Go RAW!!!

RW 

Fat

Fat is what it makes us fat! Everybody try to blame on the carbs, but I can honestly say that I am with 5% body fat eating a 80% carbs diet, 10% protein and 10% fat. Those % are from calories, that means a 2000 calorie day 1600 from carbs but carbs from FRUITS AND VEGGIES (not pizza and pasta). Have you ever notice how hard is to wash a plate after you eat a meal with a lot of fat? Is the same in the body! Also if you eat a meal with a lot of fat you feel really lazy because your body is working harder to clean, just like the way you do to clean up the dishes :)
Now if you look at 10% of the calories from fat is gonna be very little, for example 1/4 of almonds have about 140 calories from fat.... If you look at any label of processed food the calories from fat is usually 50% or more! Did you know that the 2% milk is actually 20% of total calories from fat? That is right 2% milk, if you look at  fat from calories it is going to be 20% of calories from fat!

Now, excluding the idea of been vegetarian/ vegan or not, if you look at meat even the best cuts have a lot of fat. So taking all this information.... how much fat do you think we are eating? I would think is around 50 to 70% of total calories from fat! That is why we have so many people overweight!

Your diet should be 80/10/10, but remember carbs from veggies and fruits, not bread, pizza, pasta etc neither processed foods. Next time you go shopping look at the label, but instead of total fat in grams look at calories from fat and calculate how much is that % from total calories... you will be impress on how much fat you are eating!

Today was a hard day at the office, swam in the morning, TRX in the afternoon and a 60 mile hard interval bike ride:
Food intake:
Green smoothie
5 dry figs
Salad with kale, spinach and carrots (dressing was very little Nutiva Hemp oil, Braggs amino, Lime juice, and mustard seeds)
2 bananas
During the ride I only had 1 banana and water
After the ride orange juice with a banana and Garden of life Raw protein
6 figs and almost 1 litter of coconut water

Feel Good and GO RAW!!!
RW

We do have super powers

so I am convinced that we have super powers and we just limit ourselves with what we eat, think and do.... I can honestly say that I had one life before the detox and after the detox! I think after the detox my body is rebuilding and getting stronger every day, and that with raw foods is a powerful thing!
The reason I say that, is because today I had an extraordinary day today, with a great amount of energy! I woke up at 5 am, meditate and got ready to do my bike ride. Went out 7 am met 3 of my athletes and we went. I did 65 miles with them, and I had only 20 oz of apple and celery juice plus water. At mile 65 I stopped at whole foods and got more water, 2 bananas and 6 dry figs. I ate the figs, and went to finish the ride. The last 35 miles I was pushing a little bit more the pace. I had only one banana on mile 85 and finish the juice.
I got home and I felt that was nothing! I mean I used to finish a workout like that tired, this time was different, I was ready for another 100 LOL...
Went to have lunch at HHI them my wife and I watched I movie. Having to much energy I went for an easy run, and that easy run became an interval workout (mile repeats) at 5k pace. Felt really good! I have never felt this way after a long ride! It is incredible!
After today I am really convinced if you detox from all the garbage that we eat and start eating raw foods you will feel limitless!!! You can feel limitless physically, mentally, spiritually and with all those three things together life will be pretty amazing! I am still learning but the more I learn how to get all those three in harmony the more powerful I feel!

Food intake today:
green smoothie
during ride: 1 banana, 20oz of celery and apple juice, 6 dry figs.
After the ride 2 oranges
Lunch at HHI (few sprouts, greens and some raw crackers)
Banana Ice cream ( just froze the bananas and blend in the food processor) (chocolate cream: 1 tea spoon of cocoa and 3 tea spoons of raw agave and mix well) This was my threat
After the run: green smoothie
Felt great!!!! Very little fat and LOTS of energy!!!

Feel Good, and GO RAW!!!
RW