Making an Inspiration Board

Hey everyone :)

I've been contacted by Michelle Pino who works in a spa called Skana in a small town in Upstate NY. She has proposed to write a guest post on how to make a Fitspiration Board, a DIY project to keep you motivated with your fitness goals. 

Personally, I'm in need of some motivation right now so having a personal board like this on your wall or on your desktop would be an excellent idea. The beauty is that, it doesn't have to be about fitness but can be about any aspect of your life.

Without further-ado, here's Michelle's post :D

Finding your Fitness Inspiration

Do you want to live a healthier life but find yourself struggling to begin? It can be quite overwhelming! Maybe all you need is a little inspiration of fitness-fitspiration. A Fitspiration Board will help you find your fitness inspiration!

A Fitspiration Board is a college of items that inspire you in your fitness activities. This is a great way to strategize your health and fitness goals and plan out the details. It helps you stay focused so that you are more likely to accomplish your goals. Fitspiration Boards are a lot of fun to make because that can be anything you want! With a poster board (or any large board) and glue, you can create your Fitspiration Board in three easy steps!

Start by finding things that inspire you to be healthy. This can be anything-a favorite recipe or a meaningful phrase or even a professional athlete that you admire. (Hint-magazines are a great place for pictures.)

Next, look through your images to find a common theme.  What links them together?  What do they have in common?

Finally, design your layout. How do you want your Fitspiration Board to look?  Do not start gluing until you figure out the design. First, choose the image that you want to be the anchor-the center of attention. Arrange the other images around the anchor. Sit with it for a while and make any changes that you feel are necessary until you come up with a layout that you like. Once you decide on your final layout, you are ready to start gluing.

Keep in mind that you may not use all of your items on your first Fitspiration Board. After you decide on your anchor, eliminate anything that does not connect with your current theme. You may want to use them in the future, since the Fitspiration Board is a dynamic tool that changes over time.

One of the most important decisions you need to make about your Fitspiration Board is where to put it!  This wonderful tool you created is going to help you stay connected to your health and fitness goals so you want to put in a place where you can always see it.

Good Luck!



Photos:



1.) I’ve started to golf as a way to spend more time outdoors.  The resort near my work is a great option because I go with a big group, half of us can do 9 holes and then go grab a bite at one of restaurants of the resort, and the rest of the group can golf the full 18 holes.  (Source: NY golf resort)

2.) I’m really inspired by yoga for a number of reasons.  Yoga focuses the mind and body, teaching ourselves to find a spiritual balance.  I also love that yoga can be done anywhere, even the beach! The beach is so relaxing, a great place for yoga or walking. (Source: Beach Yoga)

3.) Since I am not very athletic, simple activities like bike riding are a fun way to stay active without doing anything too strenuous on the body.  I love beach bikes with the big baskets!  (Source: Bike )

4.) Last spring I started learning more about gardening.  I enjoy the being in the garden and watching blooms take life as the warmer weather approached. Lilacs are one of my favorite flowers, plus the smell wonderful! (Source: Lilac Flowers)

5.) What better way to boost motivation than to treat yourself to some fabulous workout gear or a fresh pair of new kicks?  Bright colored apparel, like these Asics from Zappos, is very popular for the warm weather and motivation!  (Source: Sneakers)

With May being the National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, there is no better time than the present to start thinking about how you can begin living a well rounded, happier and healthier life. 

Personally, I think that this is a cool idea and I'll make myself one of these tomorrow. Give it a try if you want :D

Falls, Struggles, and Zebrafish!

Thanx for all the kind and supportive comments guys! <3 <3 <3

This whole week has been a b****. First I got rejected from medicine and then I've understood that I've made a huge mistake. Over the past 2-3 months I have interviewed quite a few profs for graduate positions but I've told them that I won't be able to make a decision until May. Well, they've already managed to take on students :S One of them was like "Oh, I thought you've moved on so I took another student". Grr! I guess they have their own salaries to worry about too :(

There was a professor I've spoken to and he told me that I shouldn't have problems finding a lab and that I'll be one of those who'd have difficulty choosing which lab to go to. Ughh! Well, there I was with no professor secured for my grad position.

And... I had a total breakdown... I just lay in my bed Friday night and cried. It really felt like all the doors have closed on me, like there was nothing left for me. Eventually I cooled off and followed my grandma's advice to contact more professors ASAP. So Saturday morning I've emailed a bunch of professors and landed an interview! Woot!

Yeah... Zebrafish! I got to see hundreds of them today :D



I just think Zebrafish are uber cool and useful for vascularization studies. One of many things that the prof I've interviewed today studies. He has a bit of a broad research topic with looking at the formation of arteries through a developmental biology perspective and epigenetics. Only the uber cool stuff I've learned about in my stem cells course! Like omg! Epigenetics is such a cool topic!

The prof himself seemed very much into his research and he reminded me so much of Brendan Brazier. He just had that same sincerity in his voice and manner of speech... He's also very young for a prof which has its pros and cons, but speaking with his students they all seem to really like him. He does come off as being a very easy to talk to and as an approachable person. All in all, he seems not just as a good lab supervisor but a mentor.

We'll see how things go in that sense... I've also recently found out that I have another interview tomorrow, so we shall see how that goes.

I really just want to settle down...

Let's talk body shapes and structures. Last July upon going to Niagara Falls, my grandma and mom kept on watching and commenting how I have a similar body shape as my dad. Why can't they just keep their mouth shut sometimes about this stuff... My grandma and my mom are pear shaped. It's funny because you can kind of see my mom's ribs but then she's got a big tush and thighs.

I'm not quite sure what's my body type is because people have listed every body type possible. That doesn't help... All I know is that it's where my soul resides and it gets me through whatever I need to do.

Anyways, what annoys me are all those "beauty campaigns". The Victoria Secret one offers tall tiny framed toned blondish girls with a lot of make-up. On the other hand, the Dove campaign offers in my opinion "plumper" women who are probably the average BMI 25-30 American women. No duh! That's the audience they're targeting and it's not necessarily healthy.

Yet, riding the subway today I've seen women of every size and body shape. Beauty is just a matter of perception and really the Dove beauty campaign skews the idea of beauty just as much as the Victoria Secret one.

So you're showing us women who are underweight and those that are overweight. What happened to everyone in between...
Source

Where do I go from here...

I'll start with good news. In this case it was the stationary bike not my legs. I got my bike out of the storage shed and took it out for a spin after maintenance stuff. Well, everything felt fine :) I guess I'm not as horrible in biking as I thought!

Now the bad news! The last few days have been quite horrible for me because I got my rejection letter from University of Toronto Medical School. Bummers :S

I'm a big believer that things happen for a reason, so maybe the universe is telling me something. It's not like I wasn't a competitive applicant. I have great marks, extra curriculars, and I'd like to think a good personality... Maybe the universe has other plans for me or maybe it's just not the right time. At least I'd like to think so...

When one door closes another door opens. Sometimes you don't know which one is better...

Maybe it's the universe's way to tell me that I like science more then medicine. Perhaps that's why I had to apply for MD PhD; I couldn't stand the idea of letting go of research. 

Once again there's even more uncertainty brought into my life. I have no clue how I will pick my lab. At the moment I can either do direct entry PhD at University of Toronto for Laboratory Medicine and Pathology (AKA medical sciences), MSc at University of Toronto for Nutritional Sciences, or go back to McMaster for Biochemistry. I've interviewed a bunch of profs but each lab has something positive to offer.

Source

Really just trying to stay optimistic and I'll keep you guys updated on my future plans ;)

I'm not sure how I never came around this one. I'm quite proud to say that as a teenager I didn't really go through that "oh I hate my body" stage. There was one thing that I've always been ashamed of was being small chested. I actually didn't start wearing a bra until I came to university because I just didn't need one. I guess I have more fat (hopefully in the good places) now then when I was 15 now. My mom is all like "omg, you actually have some boobs now! Thank goodness, you used to be so flat chested!" Gee, thanx mom! Anyways, I prefer having a smaller chest because it's easier when it comes to exercise. It must shake all the time when you run lol! I won't mention skipping rope :P If anything though, there's always Victoria's Secret!

To plan the future, one must know the past

Ok! Triathlon training plan!

Before I start I wanted to give you my background in each of the sports.

Swimming

I grew up beside the Black Sea so I started "swimming" at an early age during which I've had 2 near drowning experiences. 

When I came to Canada, I got free swimming lessons from the government so my parents signed me up. Within 2-3 summers I finished all the levels and did competitive swimming for another 2 summers. I then did all of my lifeguard training and did another season of competitive swimming as part of my school's swim team. I was not exactly a fast swimmer so my time were about 45 sec for front crawl 50m, and about 50 sec for breast stroke 50m (at the age of 16). That's pretty slow but then again I didn't train a lot and I'm horrible at sprints. Then in university I joined my university's synchronized swimming team for two seasons :D 

Swimming something like 2km isn't a big deal for me, but the catch is that I've always been a breast stroker. Now I have to convert more to front crawl because it will beneficial long term as it is a much faster stroke.

Biking

I've done quite a bit of biking when I was younger, but for the sake of commuting. Growing up without a car meant that I got everywhere by bike. Literally, everywhere... 

On that note I've never biked more then 30km in one day and my daily biking distances would be about 10km. When I did bike 30km, I remember my knees hurting like h***. A friend pointed out that it's probably because my seat was too low so my leg was always bent at the knee. I will need to test that out...

Running

I was pretty good at running in gym class so I decided to show up for Cross Country Running team try-outs in grade 12. They told me to run 4km and I ran it non-stop. I couldn't walk the next day but surprisingly I made the team and did a season of running. Within that time I took part of 3x 5km races and the longest I've run was 7km. 

Then I got back into running in February 2012 and have raced a 10km distance in May 2012 and now a half-marathon. I'm quite knew to running and have probably been actively running for 1 year.

So what does this all mean...

Swimming- I need to focus on converting from breast stroke to front crawl. I can breast stroke multiple kilometers but that's not the case for front crawl. Thus, I'll be dedicating 3 workouts for swimming.

1) A full training session devoted to drills along with warm up (150m) and cool down (150m). I'll devote a whole post to the drills I've been doing later.

2) Long distance swims. First I'll start with 2x 500m and bring that up.

3) 100m sprints. Start with a warm up (150m), first start with 4 sprints and then build it up, finish with a cool down (150m)

Biking- I went biking recently and I'm really out of "biking shape". That's what happens when you don't bike for 2 years! Alternatively, it could have just been the crusty bike in the exercise room... For now I'll dedicate 3 workouts for biking which will literally start from 30 min and I'll see how my legs respond.

Running- Still taking it easy from the half. Went for an easy 4km run yesterday but still felt some pain in the shins. I'll do another easy run in the end of the week but for now I'll go easy on the running. Ideally, I'm hoping to do a brick run (5-10km) and a more long run (12-16km). If I'm not exhausted from all the other training I'll add in a speed session. 

Also this will be a great time to make use of the TrainingPeaks workout log program.

Speaking body shapes, I've always thought I didn't fit in with swimming or sports in general. I wasn't broad shouldered and I was just smaller then the ideal female swimmer. In addition, my mom is a classic mesomorph with all her muscle and the ability to dominate me in any form of strength competition. So, I've always been the unathletic weakling in the family. As with running, my mom always tells me but you're not skinny as olympic marathon runners. Well mom, I technically have never run a marathon... I'd probably end up looking like one if I exercised so much! Not sure if that's necessarily health though. One day I was blabbing about triathlons to my mom and showing her pictures, that's when she pointed out that I have the body structure of female triathletes. Not sure exactly what's their body shape is but for some reason it made me feel strong, like I have an athletic bone in me... Finally!

Gasp! Invasion of the exogenous estrogen!

Oh those phytoestrogens, you cause so much controversy!!!

What are you anyways? Well phytoestrogens aka "dietary estrogen" are molecules that have structurally similar to estrogen. This allows for them to bind to the estrogen receptor and hence produce the same response that estrogen would. You can see in the picture below that 17-b-estradiol (estrogen) has that same (cholesterol) ring structure as the phytoestrogens which allows them to have an estrogen-like effects. Now don't worry, phytoestrogens have a mild estrogenic effect... In addition, phytoestrogens can actually have an anti-estrogen effect because they can downregulate estrogen production. Once again phytoestrogens have a mild effect. However, if the exposure to dietary phytoestrogens is very high then there could be a positive or a negative consequence for human health.

Now what are the dietary sources of phytoestrogens?You probably know quite a bit about soy! Soy foods contain isoflavones (type of phytoestrogen) in the quantities of 1.2-3.3mg isoflavones per g of dry weight soy. Apparently in Asia, the average daily intake of isoflavones is 25-40mg while in America it's less than 1 mg. At least that's what the study said :P

What you probably didn't know is that a lot of other foods contain phytoestrogens as well. Lignans are a type of phytoestrogen and are found in flax seeds, sesame seeds, legumes, seaweed, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. However, mainly in flax seeds. 

There're is coumestan which is derived from coumarin or coumestrol. Well this coumestrol is found in soy nuts, mung bean sprouts, white beans, flax seeds, clover sprouts, cabbage and alfalfa. 

Lastly, there's diosgenin that is derived from yams. 

Interestingly, epidemiological studies found that phytoestrogens are protective aggainst postmenopausal symptoms, cardiovascular disease, bone health, breast, prostate, and colon cancers.

There was a lot of talk about soy leading to breast cancer. Now let me explain, some types of breast cancer are estrogen dependent and literally how you treat them is by blocking estrogen. So the logic was, the more estrogen then the more of that type of breast cancer. Well... not quite... The professor I interviewed last week actually found that flax seed extracts combined with current breast cancer therapy or on their own help combat cancer in mice. Cool stuff!

Furthermore, mouse models of chemical induced breast cancer have been used to show that soy proteins containing isoflavones had dose-dependent tumor formation reduction. However, this effect was lost when the mice were given soy proteins without the isoflavones. 

Right now a hot topic for phytoestrogens is to use them for postmenopausal women. The current treatment during postmenopause is hormone replacement therapy (HRP), so literally going on the birth control pill. However, women find that sketchy especially some evidence showing that the birth control pill increases your chance of developing breast cancer. Therefore, using the "natural" phytoestrogens instead of the birth control pill could be a better option for postmenopausal women. 

An issue with lack of menstruation and estrogen is that your bones get weaker as estrogen has a protective effect on bones. It was found that coumestrol from flax seeds can promote bone mineralization and osteoblastic differentiation (osteoblasts are bone forming cells).

A downside of phytoestrogens is that genistein (phytoestrogen metabolite) was found to promotes the process of blood coagulation, meaning that it increases thrombin formation. Thus, maybe it's not that great for those with atherosclerosis as it can lead to heart attacks and strokes. 

What have you heard about soy or phytoestrogens?

Spicy cucumber and black soybean stir fry ;)

Yesterday I've had another interview and this time from a professor from the Nutritional Science Department. YaY! She does research on flaxseeds and other phytoestrogen related foods like sesame seeds and soy beans. There will be a sciency post on that coming up soon. It's very exciting research :D

As for now, I reminisced back to a recipe I first tried when I was 17. It was WEIRD, it was UNIQUE, it was SPICY! Who ever thought of putting cucumbers and black soy beans together, what genius...

So black soy beans! I got them at the bulk section of my nearby Asian grocery store (love these). They have similar nutrition to the regular yellow soy beans and have a similar taste too. Maybe a bit less soy bean-like and more plain bean-like.

Spicy Cucumber and Black Soybean Stir-fry

Adapted from Star Fire, quick and simple recipes Stir-fry

Ingredients (serves 2-4)

*0.5 cups of black soy beans

*1 large English cucumber 

*4 garlic cloves, crushed

*2 tbsp soy sauce

*1 tbsp of parsley

*salt

*chili powder

*oil

 

Directions

*Soak black soy beans overnight

*Cook the black soy beans until edamame like consistency (about 45 min). Make sure to remove the scum that rises to the surface

*Peel the cucumber and cut in half. Rub salt all over and leave for 30 min. Place somewhere where water can drain off

*Remove the excess salt from the cucumbers and pat dry

*Heat up a wok to very high temperature

*Add oil and fry the garlic

*Add in the black soy beans and stir-fry for a minute

*Add in the cucumbers, soy sauce, and chili powder to taste

*Stir-fry for another minute

*Remove from heat and adjust for salt and chili

*Garnish with parsley

Thanx for all the comments about smarts and all. I really don't know what posses my grandma to preach that to me. Now the topic for today are my wrists. I'm really not a fan of people being like "omg, you have such small wrists" and try to wrap their fingers around it. They're just a little over 5 inches and the last time I've bought a watch I had to get it shortened :( My mom sometimes will grab my wrist and wiggle my hand in the air. Really woman!!! She does it as a joke of course, I probably make my family sound horrible lol. You know what there're pro's to having a small wrist. I used to be into beading so making a bracelet for myself meant less work :P Required less beads too :P

BMI- a game of statistics

Now I think back to Z's question for me whether I am good in math. Yes, I liked calculus, algebra, and functions, but couldn't stand statistics. I HATE STATS with passion! I have suffered through my epidemiology and statistics courses in university and that was enough.

One thing that I did take away from statistics is the idea of a normal distribution. Should I say the dreaded bell curve anyone? Many health related things follow the normal distribution where most values lie close to average and more extreme values are less common. Think height, IQ, school grades, race completion times, BMI- these all follow the normal distribution curve.

That's just the truth... Most of us are average and very few lie on the extremes. 

Then comes in the idea of standard deviation which is basically a measure of dispersion of data from the mean. One unit of standard deviation above and below the mean encompasses 68.2% of the data, while two standard deviations encompasses 95%.

When epidemiologists do studies they get a wide array of data but they need to set special cut off points when something is considered normal/abnormal. Hence, they set these confidence intervals which are really quite arbitrary... However, generally confidence intervals take in 95% of the data.

So why is this important?

Oftentimes you find individuals who are overweight or underweight but are still healthy (considering average muscle mass). You know, those naturally fat or skinny people. Well they just didn't fit into the X% of data. 

Statistics is a guessing game and there're errors associated with it. That's why most of the times in statistics you say that this is correlated to this with x percentage confidence level. You can never be 100% confident though :( 

By no means am I saying that being overweight or underweight is healthy for most people, but there're a few individuals that just don't fit into that normal distribution. 

Just something to think about :)

There is something that pisses me off. My family The women in my family keep on telling me not to study too much or "say smart things" especially when it comes to guys. I'm constantly told that men like to feel smarter than "their" women. Like WTF!!! Personally I wouldn't want to date a guy who's dumber then me but someone on my own level. Wouldn't it be the same the other way around! Why do women say all this BS to each other! PS: If you're a guy reading this I'd love to hear your opinion :P