Soup and Cracker Shortcut for the Sick

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In an ideal world, we would all have some homemade chicken stock in the freezer that we can bust out at any given time.  Heck, maybe we are even lucky enough to have some soup made with that stock in the freezer!  When you feel yourself getting a little under the weather, the first thing you want to do is consume something warm that helps your immune system; however, the last thing you feel like doing is taking time to make homemade broth, make soup and gluten-free crackers.  It is totally within your capability, but totally outside your realm of desire at that moment.
Chicken soup has been linked to what people give you when your sick because the gelatin in broth is so healing!  However, storebought broth doesn’t contain that healing element.  So, here is the best shortcut you can do if your caught in the predicament of needing healing food but have no time or energy. It’s much healthier than Cambell’s and saltines!
Cheater Soup and Crackers
carton of organic, gluten free soup (any kind)
unflavored gelatin
store-bought crackers such as Simple Mills
Directions:
Heat up your soup and add 1 Tbsp of gelatin.  Consume with grain-free or sprouted crackers.
*In addition to your soup, make sure you are getting adequate Vitamin D, probiotics, garlic in everything, and an immune support supplement to manage symptoms if needed.

Smoothie: Green Goodness

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When you don’t have a lot of time in the morning and you need a quick, filling, drink on-the-go, this is it.  I have been experimenting with smoothie recipes and I just keep making this one over and over.
Green Goodness
Ingredients:
2 handfuls greens (spinach or kale)
1 heaping spoonful of nut butter
1 frozen banana
1/2 of an avocado
1 tsp maca (optional)
1 Tbsp gelatin (optional protein)
Almond milk until desired consistency
Directions:
Blend and drink!

Sleep Disturbance: How Melatonin Plays a Part

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Melatonin is a hormone.  This hormone plays an enormous role in your immune system and has dramatic effects on sleep.  Our bodies have evolved based on the exposure of natural light.  You wake as the sun rises, and you fall sleepy when it goes down.  When the sun goes down, your melatonin production goes up.  Melatonin has an inverse relationship with cortisol, which we discuss a lot when talking about adrenal fatigue.  Basically, it means that as cortisol rises first thing in the morning, melatonin is low and you feel awake.  At night, your cortisol should be at it’s lowest and melatonin at its highest making you sleepy.  When this relationship is faulty you may feel sleepy in the middle of the day or wide awake in the middle of the night.  Considering how important sleep is for hormone production, cellular repair, and inflammation regulation, this can be a HUGE issue!

As many of you know, I just got back from a trip to Peru, and there was a similarity to my time spent in Africa: light.  In Africa, I had no electricity.  That meant when the sun went down, the only light available was by fire or candlelight.  As you return to The States, you have unlimited availability to light via electricity.  This means that after returning home from work we watch TV, get on our computers, play on our phones, and so on.  We do this without even noticing it!  I left for Peru and over my time there, I realized my day was dictated by the sun.  You go home for bed when it gets dark, and when you get home, a fire is your source of light.  I slept great, woke up to the sunrise, and I never felt miserable waking up to an alarm when I wanted to keep sleeping.  I was in the same time zone as in the US, so that wasn’t an issue, but if I experienced jet lag, I would look to melatonin to reset these circadian rhythms.

When I test patients with hormone issues, fatigue, and issues sleeping, I often test their melatonin levels.  This tells me if they are producing enough at night when it should be high and they should be sleepy.  If it is low, I often have them supplement with melatonin for a short time while making the following lifestyle changes:

  • No TV an hour before bed
  • No reading in bed
  • Dim lights an hour before bed
  • No computer work after dark
  • Do not use your phone an hour before bed
  • Turn your phone on airplane mode if used as an alarm
  • No TV in the bedroom

If someone is working on their overall lifestyle changes, melatonin is not needed as a crutch after a short period.  Since it is a hormone, I do not advise supplementing with it long-term because you need your body to have signals appropriate to create melatonin on its own.  If you continually supplement, then you will still likely have poor cortisol patterns and still won’t have a natural production of enough melatonin.

Uses for melatonin:

  • jet lag
  • sleep disturbance
  • adrenal fatigue

I typically recommend somewhere around 1g at night.  If you take too much, sometimes people will experience nightmares or wake up very groggy.  Kids can also benefit from melatonin, but their dosage should be between 300-500mg depending on weight.  Like I said, this should be SHORT TERM.  If you find it is helping sleep patterns but they come right back when you discontinue supplementing, that is a clear indication that you haven’t corrected the underlying issues causing abnormal hormone production.

*You can find high grade melatonin in the online store, Fullscript.  However, I recommend getting a cortisol/hormone panel done prior to self diagnosing.  These tests are done at home and run around $200.

Supplementation: Probiotics

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Probiotics are one of the essential supplements that everyone should be taking.  Most people do not realize that they have 10 times more bacteria in their body than they do cells!  There’s about 1kg of probiotic bacteria in the intestines alone, and about 90% of your immune function is dictated by bacteria levels.  Most people have come across a yogurt label that says L. acidophilus.  That is just one strain of healthy probiotic that lives in our body.  In addition to the healthy bacteria, there are also infectious bacteria strains living in our bodies.  Everyone reading this post right now has Strep. in their throat and E. coli in their stool.  However, most of you probably do not have Strep throat or explosive diarrhea!  What’s the difference between those that have an infection and those that simply have the bacteria but NOT the infection?  It comes down to the balance of bacteria levels.  If the levels of the good bacteria outweigh the levels of bad bacteria, then sickness stays at bay.

If bacteria levels have so much influence on our immune function, what can we do to ensure we have enough?  Every time you put something in your mouth, you are deciding whether to feed the good bacteria or the bad bacteria.  Guess what the good bacteria like to eat?  Fruits and vegetables!  Guess what the bad bacteria like to eat?  Sugar!  So, every time you choose a donut, cookie, pasta or sandwich over a salad, apple, or guacamole (had to throw in my favorite snack), you are choosing to HELP THE BAD BACTERIA REPLICATE!  If anyone has ever been in a biology lab, they know that the best way to grow infectious bacteria quickly is to put it on a petri dish full of agar (aka sugar).  Think of your gut as a petri dish, and the environment within it decides which bacteria will grow. Plain, unsweetened Greek yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, and kombucha all have very high levels of probiotics in them.  Fermented foods are great sources of good bacteria; however, most people do not consume significant amounts of these foods on a daily basis.  In addition, if you take an antibiotic, drink alcohol, consume medications or have high levels of stress, you are negatively affecting good bacteria levels in your gut.  As a result, I find most people benefit from supplementing with a probiotic.

I encourage people to take a multi-strain probiotic.  That means that when you look at the label, it has at least 5 weird names on the back.  I also advise patients to take 1 capsule a day for maintenance.  Our capsules contain 22 billion live, active cultures.  Often times, patients will bring me the probiotic that they purchased at a convenience store, and I quickly point out that they would have to be taking 10 pills in order to get the amount of organisms needed.  What seemed like a cost-effective alternative has now cost more in the long run.  Also, probiotics that you find at doctor’s offices are highly regulated in terms of temperature regulation at the production facility, refrigeration during storage, and cooling mechanisms during the shipping process.  Once the probiotics are in a temperature controlled facility, their bacteria levels are guaranteed until the expiration date on the label.  Bacteria quickly die when exposed to excessive heat.  If you purchase a bottle of bacteria from a store that has not ensured its temperature regulation, you may be wasting your money on dead probiotics!  I also encourage patients to take them away from meals in order to ensure the least amount of digestive activity; this allows more active cultures to make it to the intestinal tract.

If you are someone who has digestive issues, an autoimmune disease, ear infections, autism, or chronic infections, you need probiotics the most!  I hope this clears up some confusion about what probiotics are and why they are important, but I encourage you to leave me questions! Once again, the “store” tab on the blog has suggestions for my favorite brands that I use with patients including Orthobiotic, PrescriptAssist, and Biokult.  I have different reasons for choosing different brands with people, but they are all generally good.  It’s also a good idea to rotate your probiotics to increase strain exposure.  If you have been taking one kind for months, try switching to a new kind this month.

Supplementation: Whole Food Multivitamin

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When it comes to supplements, most people fall on one end of the spectrum: poor quality and not enough, or high quality but WAY too many!  There is so much confusion about what to take, how much to take, etc.  Like I said before, supplements are to be used to enhance a healthy, well-rounded diet and not in place of nutrients.  However, there are some supplements that everyone should be taking because getting adequate amounts through foods is unrealistic or impossible.  I’m going to start with your “multivitamin.”  When I ask patients what they are taking in terms of supplements, this is the most common answer.  Lots of people use this type of supplement as their safety net for inadequate amounts of fruits and vegetables in their diet.  Wrong way to look at it!  Everyone should be shooting for a minimum of 4 servings of vegetables and 3 servings of fruit daily…MINIMUM! Lets say someone is very successful in getting these servings in every single day, do they need to use a multivitamin?  My answer is: Yes, possibly. The reason they may still need to take a multivitamin is because unless they are getting all of their fruits and vegetables from local, organic sources, the produce does not contain the amount of nutrients that it once did.  Due to our agricultural methods, many of us eat produce from places that are quite far away.  If you have ever grown your own strawberries (or any other fruit of veggie), you know that if you pick it when it’s ripe, it will not be long before it begins to decay.  If farmers in California picked produce when it was ripe and tried to ship it to New York, it would not be in very good shape by the time it arrived.  It would probably be inedible.  Therefore, they pick their produce before it is ripe in order to ensure an edible product.  This is a good thing in terms of getting produce that you can eat but a bad thing in terms of its nutrient content.  A tree only drops its fruit when there are enough nutrients in the flesh around the seed that it could grow another plant.  So, when the fruit is at its peak ripeness, it is at its most nutritious levels.  Most of us do not eat everything local and vine-ripened, so we eat lots of produce that has fewer vitamins and nutrients.  Therefore, a minimum of 7 servings does not even have enough nutrients to call it 7 servings worth.  If you buy a juicer, you can get around this by taking your daily dose of vitamins through juicing vegetables.  It is easy to get in 3-4 servings in one glass!  If you don’t juice everyday or eat all local, vine-ripened produce, then you should be supplementing with a multivitamin.

The most common type that most people are taking are a synthetic one-a-day version.  Let me begin with why I do not think this is the best choice.  When you isolate vitamins from their whole food, you are losing the synergistic effects of the other vitamins, enzymes, bioflavanoids, phytonutrients, etc.  This means that when you eat an orange for vitamin C, your body also gets a healthy dose of other vitamins and nutrients that help your body absorb the vitamin C and use it appropriately.  In addition, you are getting tons of fiber and water content when you eat whole produce.  Isolating that vitamin C drastically changes what occurs in the body.  Also, many multivitamins with contain levels that meet the recommended daily values; however, that does not mean you will be getting the same ratios as if you got it all from food sources.  Therefore, you have to worry about how much of “this” you are getting in order to absorb “that.”  Nature has taken care of those ratios for you and packaged them into delicious, bright-colored packages. ;)  Another thing about one-a-day  versions is that most of the content is water soluable.  This means that you wake up, take your vitamins for the day, your body uses what it needs……and pees the rest out.   When things are water soluble, they follow water.  Therefore, you took in your recommended daily amounts but didn’t use over half!  It would be like saying you should get 30 minutes of exercise everyday and doing 6 hours of workout on Monday in order to meet your weekly requirement.  Doesn’t work like that.

Many are probably wondering what you SHOULD be taking if a typical multivitamin is not ideal.  I am a huge supporter of whole food supplements.  These supplements are like multivitamins in the sense that they contain extra nutrients to supplement the produce you are getting in your diet, but they are from those food sources directly.  So, on the label you will see names of produce such as wheat grass, apples, algae, broccoli, etc. instead of names of vitamins.  This ensures you are getting the ratios of nutrients just like the ones you are eating from nature, and they are not isolated from the other components of the produce that help your body in utilization.  Also, you will take them spread throughout the day to ensure that you are not letting all those water-soluble vitamins go down the drain.  Some heat has be to added in order to process them, but the temperatures in good ones will stay low enough that some of the important enzymes from the produce are also kept intact.  Overall, its the closest thing you can get to eating the actual produce or juicing it.  The “store” tab on the blog as links to my preferred brands.  You can find those brands at doctor’s offices, but Amazon is not allowed to sell brands anymore due to the inability to regulate potency and product getting to the patient. “Deeper Greens” is what I prefer if I am traveling and not juicing.

Supplementation: Fish Oil

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Back to my talk about supplements….if you were paying attention, I said that everyone should be taking 4 supplements regardless of their health status.  Supplements should only be in addition to a healthy diet.  If you aren’t eating the right foods, then you are merely trying to use a pill in place of food; that idea NEVER works.  That is why they are called SUPPLEMENTS; they SUPPLEMENT a healthy diet.  Therefore, the ONLY supplements that ANYONE should be taking are those that you can’t get adequately from foods.  The three I have previously mentioned are VitaminD, Probiotics, and a whole food supplement.  The fourth one I am about to cover is by far the most important supplement anyone can take, and I try and encourage everyone to integrate it into their healthy lifestyle.  What is it?  Omega 3 fatty acids aka Fish Oil. 

What exactly are Omega 3 fatty acids?

Omega 3 fatty acids are nothing more than fat!  They are fat compounds found in marine life, algae, and some plant oils.  They are ESSENTIAL fats.  “Essential” is term that refers to things that your body needs to function but can’t produce on its own.  Therefore, Omega3’s are essential for our health, our bodies can’t produce them, and therefore we must consume foods that contain them.  Simple!

What does our body do with them?

Omega 3’s are super important in the structure and function of every single cell in your body and the function of your cell is in direct relation to your health.  Your cells contribute to immune function, blood pressure, digestion, mood, and the list goes on forever.  Omega 3’s are part of every cell membrane and are REQUIRED to maintain proper shape and flexibility in addition to letting nutrients in and out of the cell.  You remember those vitamins you are taking, you need Omega3’s present for all of them to get to the right places!

How does deficiency happen?

Most people eat diets that are rich in grains, processed meats, fried foods, etc. and all of these things are extremely high in Omega 6 fatty acids.  You need BOTH types of omegas; however, you need the balance to be such that you have MORE omega 3’s or inflammation is a huge problem.  Having too many Omega 6’s and not enough Omega 3’s creates a pro-inflammatory state in the body.  Inflammation is at the heart of so many chronic illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, depression, arthritis, Crohn’s, IBS, Psoriasis, Fibromyalgia, MS, and once again, the list goes on.

*For you Paleo folk saying “I don’t eat ANY of that stuff you listed!”  Wait just a second;  you are probably not eating all your meat from organic, grassfed sources, you may not eat salmon regularly, you probably eat your fair share of nuts, you are probably eating MORE eggs than the general population, and even avocado has omega 6 fatty acids in it.  Like I said, you need both kinds of omega’s but you need to end up with more omega 3’s than 6’s at the end of the day.

What if you don’t have any of those illnesses?

It is so important to supplement Omega3’s  BEFORE an illness develops!  Trying to recover from a full blown deficiency is much harder than getting enough early on.  Trust me; my patients that suffer from omega 3 deficiencies would much rather have taken their fish oil in their childhood, teens, and 20s as opposed to seeing every doctor known to man, take a million medications, and go through the hassle of trying to fix it in their 50s.

Can’t I get them from fish?

Yes!  I want you to ask yourself a few questions though:  Do you eat fish daily?  Is the fish wild caught?

If you aren’t eating fish daily, then you aren’t getting enough Omega3’s, period.  Let’s say you were eating fish daily, you may then have issues with heavy metal toxicity due to polluted waters.  I know…..there’s always something.

Where did our ancestors get Omega 3’s if they didn’t live by water?

Wild game!  When animals run around and eat green leafy things and grass, guess what?, their meat has tons of Omega 3 fatty acids in it!  However, when they eat grains, their meat is full of Omega 6’s.  This is another reason choosing grassfed animals is important!

What to look for in a Fish Oil supplement….

This is key people.  Most brands at the store aren’t doing your dollar any justice!  If you look at the back of your fish oil bottle and add the EPA and DHA numbers together, THAT IS THE NUMBER YOU ARE GETTING IN EACH CAPSULE.  It may say “1000mg” on the front, but when you add those numbers together, you may actually only be getting 300mg.  Now you would have to take more than 3 of those pills to get the dosage you believed you were taking. Also, you want 3:2, EPA to DHA; make sure you have these ratios in your pill!  Form is another issue.  Companies are not required to tell you whether or not the fish oil is in a triglyceride form or an ethyl ester form.  The triglyceride form is how you would encounter it in nature, and that’s absolutely the form I recommend.  The EE form is a manmade version.  Quality is usually the other big kicker.  I have no idea how the fish oil is processed, how much it was heated, if it’s already rancid when you buy it, etc without truly knowing the company processing standard. Therefore, I take Orthomega Fish Oil that you can find at many healthcare professional offices because I know the company standards, have researched their potency, spoken directly with the company representatives, etc. There are very few that I would recommend outside of a practitioner’s office.  You can get a brand at Healthy by Nature on Bristol St. I believe called Innate Choice.  That is an awesome product; other than that, I’d stay away from readily available brands.

How much do I take?

Depends (as always).  If you are healthy and just want to add it to your healthy lifestyle, I would say that 720mg a day is adequate.  If you are battling health issues that are linked to inflammation, brain health, or are pregnant/nursing, I would say closer to 3,000mg a day minimum.

How much do they cost?

The product that I mentioned, is $75.00 for 180 count.  If you are a healthy individual, you can take one a day.  That turns out to be 42 cents a day for a product that plays a major role in your health (which is my most prized possession for those of you that have heard my health talk ;)) The children’s version is $21.00 for 120 count.  Not bad if it can keep you from paying for ADD medication, ensure proper development, and protect your children from development of asthma, allergies, and eczema! Visit the link to fullscript under my “store” tab to find the brands I prefer.  This product is actually one of the products that required me to create the store.  This company specifically is shutting down amazon sellers because of the inability to regulate the product potency upon arrival, etc.  If you have a doctor that carries this line, then you could most certainly buy it there, as well!

Supplementation: The Good, The Bad, and My Opinions

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Okay, so I could go on and on about supplements, and if you have ever attended one of my nutrition courses, you probably know that first-hand!  I felt compelled to address the issue of supplementation.  As I am preparing for my next nutrition course,  I am going through topics that I want to cover, questions everybody wants answers to, etc.  What I find every single time is that people want to know what supplements they should be taking.  My answer is always the same: “The only supplements you should take are the nutrients you can’t get sufficiently from foods.”

Supplementation and nutraceuticals have taken over the alternative health industry, and I am never surprised anymore when someone brings me a bag of supplements they are taking (on top of their medications).  I want to say loud and clear “No supplement will make up for poor lifestyle choices!”  There will NEVER be a pill of any sort that makes it good for your body to have fast food.  There will NEVER be a pill of any sort that makes up for not eating vegetables.  There is a huge misconception when it comes to vitamins, minerals, and herbal remedies that they will help cure your disease processes.  NOT TRUE!  The body only functions properly, free of disease if it is fed the right building blocks in sufficient amounts, given adequate exercise, relieved of stress, and had all toxins removed from its environment.  You should ONLY supplement things that you cannot get from your food, not in place of food.

So, there is someone out there saying “But what about my osteoporosis?  I need Calcium! ”  Another one I hear quite often is “I get my nutrients from my One-A-Day multivitamin.”  I could go on and on with statements I hear from patients regarding why they need their supplements.  Without going into detail about why this is simply not the case, I want everyone to ask themselves, “if we need supplements to keep us from having osteoporosis, then how did people stay clear of it when there was no such supplement?” Studies have shown skeletal remains of hunter gatherer societies with more the sufficient bone density at old ages.  “If we need a multivitamin for vitamins, what did healthy populations do before us in order to get their RDAs?” The answer to almost any question like that is “They did not need them because when you exercise adequately and eat raw, whole foods for nutrients, you simply don’t have to take a pill!”  Taking a pill for your nails, one for your heartburn, one for your immune system, one for your bone density, etc. is the exact same concept as taking 10 prescription drugs to cover up the symptoms that your body is not functioning properly because it lacks essential changes to your lifestyle.

I will say that there are 4 supplements that I believe every individual should consider taking due to modern farming techniques and agriculture today.  The 4 essentials are fish oil, probiotics, whole foods, and vitamin D (if you live an area where adequate sunlight is deficient).   I will elaborate on these supplements and the reason for the need to supplement with them in upcoming posts.  For now, I just want every person to ask themselves how many supplements they are taking, where they can find them in nature, and choose to get those nutrients from food instead.  Nature has created us everything we need for sufficiency, I promise.

Side note: I do use supplements like medication in acute care situations, but they are not lifelong pills someone takes forever.  They are used sort of like an antibiotic for infection.  You take the pill until the patient is better, and then you STOP taking it.  For sake of ease, these supplement posts on based on supplementing nutrients you should be getting from food.

Supplementation: Vitamin D

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As I mention in all of my supplementation posts, you should only be supplementing with those nutrients that you can’t get from reasonable dietary changes.  Vitamin D3 happens to be one of those essential nutrients that us Northern Indiana folk don’t get enough of when it comes to the winter months.  Often times, we are going to work when it’s dark and coming home when it’s dark.  Therefore, we will go days without adequate sun exposure. Another amazing source of Vitamin D is organ meats!  If you don’t consume them on a regular basis, then that’s another reason supplementation may be necessary.

Our body is programmed to produce vitamin D naturally on its own.  However, the process is triggered by sunlight exposure.  Those that lay in the sun all summer do not need to supplement with vitamin D during those months because 15 minutes of full sun exposure without sunscreen will give you an adequate daily dose.  I typically recommend everybody getting 5,000 IU’s of vitamin D3 daily.

There are 30,000 genes in your body and vitamin D influences over 2,000 of them!  It has protective effects against cancer, infections, Parkinson’s, depression, and so many more.  It is an inexpensive supplement that is necessary in EVERYONE that isn’t getting sun exposure or quality organ meats.  When you think about the people that need this nutrient the most, it is ironic that they are also the one’s often in nursing homes and hospitals where they may not get sun exposure even in the summer months!

Vitamin D is a fat soluble nutrient and therefore it will store quantities within the body.  While overdosing on vitamin D would be difficult, it is something to be aware of.  Everyone should take 5,000 units daily when they are not in the sunlight.  The beauty of getting vitamin D from natural sunlight lies in the feedback loops that our body has in place to make sure we never accumulate too much.  Once again, the version nature intended is superior to any pill you can take.😉 You can check out my “store” tab for idea of brands I like.; however, most vitamin D is pretty standard.  Quality can be a huge issue in other kinds of supplements.  If you want to know your vitamin D levels to decide how much to supplement, I recommend an at-home Vitamin D test, that costs about $58, and is easy, convenient, and quick!  Visit https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/ to order a kit like the one shown in this post!

Cilantro Pesto

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When summer hands you so many herbs that you can’t keep up, you make tons of pesto and freeze it in ice cube trays for later use.  You can make pesto out of any herb, and it’s an awesome way to add flavor, nutrients, and uncooked olive oil to your life.  It can also act as a marinade!
I don’t follow rules or measurements so I apologize in advance.  However, I think it’s good to point out that delicious food can come from mistakes, random stuff thrown together, or a fluke craving.  Follow your heart.  It never stears you wrong!
Cilantro Pesto
Ingredients:
2 cups of cilantro leaves
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup walnuts
salt and pepper
juice from half a lemon
EVOO
Directions:
In a food processor, pulse the cilantro, garlic, nuts, salt and pepper, and lemon juice until broken down.  Slowly drizzle in the EVOO until the mixture becomes the consistency of a soft spread.  You can then use it, put in the fridge to eat in the next week or two, or freeze it in ice cube trays to use later.
Place this on grilled meat, add to tacos, marinade shrimp, ANYTHING that you want a punch of flavor!

My First Night at the Barre

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During the winter, I often go into hibernation. I don’t work out as much, when I do I want it to be hot, and I decrease my workout intensity. I decided to not do Crossfit for a couple months out of convenience. There is a pilates studio right by me, and figured why not? I’m always up for new things. I have all kinds of classes to choose from including barre, yoga and pilates. The first class I showed up for was a barre class. My preconceived notion of how it was going to work was:
We will stand at the ballerina bar and do poses.
That wasn’t exactly what happened. I happened to start at the end of a plank challenge for the ladies and they all gave me a smirk when the instructor announced it was my first day. We would be doing a 2 min. 45 sec plank. It’s not my first rodeo, so I was up for it. I made it the entire plank duration, and to be honest, everything I hate about planks was rampant in barre class. It’s lot of small movements without rests that make your muscles sort of quiver and your brain starts playing games with you. I’ve always been one for powerful bursts of speed or strength, the occasional bit of body weight endurance, and full of competition.
Competition is not a word at barre class. It’s you against your own brain here, ladies. No one else cares what you are doing and you certainly won’t be keeping score.
Despite some of the work being fatiguing to muscle groups, I did not come close to sweating during class. The instructor pointed out the section that counts for cardio, but I’m not sure I would consider it cardio compared to other types of exercise.
I will say that despite having prior strength on my side, my shoulder muscles were sore for 3 days after! So, just because it’s lower intensity, doesn’t mean you won’t feel the burn (for possibly days after!)
I am not the most coordinated person when it comes to classes, and I had no trouble following along. That was a positive. You do follow along, but it wasn’t anything overly complicated where you wish you were in the back of the room hiding from everyone because you are messing everything up.
All the women were very welcoming and my guess is that they are regulars every week at that time. ;) That’s part of what I love about Crossfit, so I’m sure they feel the same about their gym family.
Would I do it again? Sure. Did I love it as my main source of exercise? Not so much. I think it’s something that can be a great addition to Crossfit, if you are someone who loves crossfit like myself. It would help with core stability, mental toughness, and the isometric stabilization of the body.
Bottom line: I’ll do it again, but I probably won’t keep it as my main source of movement for longer than a couple months.