A serendipitous event: a week or so prior to Valid’s Vitality week I had the pleasure to follow a lecture by Ekaterina Griga. Ekaterina is among other things a therapist and teacher in “Healing Food”. She discussed the Big 5 of healthy living. The bottom-line is: being healthy is a holistic endeavour. These Big 5 summarise what can do to remain vital: Breath, Hydrate, Eat,  Exercise, Rest. These Big 5 resonated in my mind during the whole Valid’s Vitality week.

Below follow some tips based on each of the Big 5. 

Breath!

Obviously the biggest of the 5 is ensuring that you keep breathing! In our modern life we are surrounded by a lot of stressors: all sorts of alerts from our smartphones – instant messages, social media messages, e-mails, breaking news… – loud urban noises, a never-ending list of things to do, etc.

Stress and breathing are very strongly interconnected. As your brain sends stress signals to your body, your heart starts pounding and your breathing becomes more superficial. This in turns triggers the production of hormones that prepare your body for a flight of fight situation. We are not usually involved in life-threatening situations, so stress-induced shallow breathing takes energy away from more important processes like digesting.

An interesting concept in relation to breathing is cardiac coherence: you can control your heart rate variability by controlling your breathing. Here is a simple article about this: “What is Heart Coherence, and Why is it so Powerful?”.  This piece contains more scientific explanations: “Cardiac coherence, self-regulation, autonomic stability, and psychosocial well-being”.

Hydrate your Body

What your body mostly need next to oxygen is water. Hence, make sure you drink enough of it! As your body needs to remain PH-neutral (see the topic acidic-alkaline balance under “Eat”), stick to water, fresh herb infusions and smoothies of fruit or vegetables. Basically, everything else is acidic. Do not worry too much about how much you drink. Drink when you are thirsty … or feel hungry! I learned that a light hunger feeling in fact is a cry for water. You are truly hungry when your stomach rumbles.

Eat Healthily

Most of my blogs are about this topic. Suffice to say here that the essence of healthy eating is about balancing the alkalinity in your food: you body needs 80% alkaline (veggies and fruit) and 20% acidic (protein-rich) foods. The older you get the more important it is to respect this basic (pun intended) premise.  See here for more information on this topic. As we explained during Valid’s vitality week, one can combine eating AND drinking healthily thanks to smoothies: there is a lot of water in fruit and vegetables so don’t hesitate to make a smoothie to get enough greens.

Exercise Brain and Heart

This is straightforward: as a species we are made to move. Our whole body needs exercise to stay in shape. Ideally, you should be active for 30 minutes every day. Walking is particularly recommended. Split those 30 minutes in 3 times 10-15 minutes if that suits you better, early in the morning, at lunch and after dinner for instance. During Valid’s week we introduced the “Ommetjes” (take a stroll) app which added a competitive incentive. Any kind of nudge helps adopting a new behaviour. That’s why we also introduced BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits concept during Valid’s vitality week.

Rest – At Least Sleep

When we rest, sleep at least, our body resets itself. Rest is vital for better mental health, increased concentration and memory, a healthier immune system, reduced stress, improved mood and even a better metabolism. Intermittent fasting is one of the ways to give your body a rest. Here’s a nice article about “The Benefits Of Resting And How To Unplug In A Busy World”. Here’s a good article – especially for students – about “The importance of rest for academic success” which explains the difference kinds of rest that you need. Do at least one thing every day to remain healthy: leave your smartphone or computer alone one hour before going to bed and get enough sleep.

Remain healthy? As easy as one through five.

This week I underwent a sports medical examination. The reason: I picked running as a hobby just three years ago and, well in my fifties, can I push my body further, continue to run marathons or more? The doctor uncovered no health risks and declared me good to go. She also gave me a good tip to improve my form: do like the tortoise.

Heart Rate Training

She pointed me to a TED Talk by Stephen Seiler, “How “normal people” can train like the world’s best endurance athletes”. Seiler, an exercise physiologist, professor and former consultant of the Norwegian Olympic Federation, debunks the “no pain, no gain” myth. His bottom-line: the most effective way to train is to do so at a low intensity heart rate. He calls it “polarized training”.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of training on heart rates, it works as follows: you use a heart rate monitor, a breast band or a sport watch, for instance by Fitbit, Garmin or Polar. You can easily program these devices and the manufacturer (Garmin at least) offers standard training plans based on heart rate which you upload to your device or smartphone. While exercising you follow the feedback given by the device. Maintain the pace, go slower or faster, depending on the heart rate measured.

These plans are based on five training zones. Seiler’s research finds a three-zone model to be more effective. Below Zone 1 your efforts, for instance walking, are too low to make an impact. In Zone 1, the green “Very Easy” low intensity zone, you feel like you’re exercising too easily, it’s almost boring. The yellow Zone 2 is “Somewhat Hard” but it feels like you could go forever at this rate. Zone 3 is the “Hard to Very Hard” one, you feel the burn! Beware going above zone 3 as you are then exhausting your system.

The five zones are well explained in this article. I mention them because your device will probably be based on those.

Train Like A Champ

The good news: you can train endurance like an Olympian or world champion and this method is also effective for you – that is if you’re an amateur, like me. The efficiency of training is higher when training in different training zones, possibly because by doing so you use and thus train all energy systems (fat, carbohydrate and anaerobic combustion).

The 80/20 rule of polarized training is: spend 80% of your training time just below the aerobic threshold and 20% above the anaerobic threshold. Roughly speaking, for every hour of training you should train 6-12 minutes above the anaerobic threshold. This is depicted below:

In Practice

By the way, the other good news is that this method burns fat. You can easily train in the low-intensity zone on an empty stomach it fits well with an intermittent fasting diet. When you do fitness exercises you’ll probably stay in this zone.

When you train in the high-intensity zone you need glucose as you are burning carbohydrates. I have experienced training in high intensity when fasted and, while the training went well, I was exhausted afterwards. Don’t make this mistake, this is not effective!

I tried today to combine both the low and high zones in a one-hour training. That did not work well. See the picture below.

You need some time to get into the high heart rate zone. My experience is that if you start with a long low-intensity period, it’s difficult to reach and maintain the high-intensity zone. As a result you’re stuck in the yellow, “no-pain, no-gain” zone. You then need to be like the hare: go fast! The better method is to alternate long low-intensity sessions with short high-intensity sessions, e.g. interval trainings.

In summary, if you want to improve your condition, want to burn fat or train for endurance: measure your heart rate and follow the 80/20 rule of polarized training. Go for a long bike ride, a quick walk or a slow run. Treat this like a medidation exercise… and don’t be afraid to look like a tortoise.

How it Works

As far as I’m concerned intermittent fasting is a way of life, an eating pattern, not a diet. Intermittent fasting (I.F.) means that you take all your meals within a relatively short period of time, or you eat one day and not the next. There are quite a few models to implement I.F.; this article describes five different methods, with a good analysis of their pros and cons.

My Own Experience

My I.F. pattern is similar to the “Leangains” or 16:8 method: fasting during sixteen hours and taking meals within an eight-hour period. I stick to this pretty strictly every weekday and follow a somewhat looser pattern in the week-ends.

A personal trainer, Marc Raats, introduced me to I.F. about three years ago. I wondered about how to go about eating in combination with exercising. I hated to go for a run with a stomach full with my breakfast (first meal in the morning, hence “break fast”). Marc told me he did not eat before exercising and he mentioned I.F. which I researched and ended up adopting.

My daily pattern looked something like this:

• Sport – Start the day with running or fitness, without eating anything until lunch
• Eat – Enjoy a big lunch at noon, snack with a fruit or vegetable snack around 3pm, have dinner around 6 or 7 pm.
• Fast – until the following day.

It took me about a week to become comfortable with this pattern. For sure, not having breakfast was hard at first. Warm beverages like tea and coffee helped me cope during the first few days.

For a variety of reasons I shifted the timeline and these days I eat a small breakfast around 8am, a large lunch and a light afternoon meal. I love to run in the morning, for up to two hours, on an empty gut. Ending my eight-hour eating cycle around 4pm means I digested well when I go to bed.

Weight Loss Benefits

When you are not eating you give your body time to lower insulin levels and your fat cells can then release their stored sugar, to be used as energy. You lose weight because your body burns fat if you let insulin levels go down.

During the past three years I noticed that whenever my weight goes up, for instance during holiday periods, I find it easy to bring it back to my desired level within a couple of weeks. To be completely transparent: my weight has remained steadily between 76 and 80 kilos.

Health Benefits

Besides losing weight, you may experience improved heart and brain functions because of reduced insulin. Research suggests that intermittent fasting is beneficial for reducing inflammation and improving conditions associated with inflammation, such as Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, asthma, multiple sclerosis and even stroke. It also helps to prevent diabetes type 2.

Another benefit of fasting that is strongly suggested by research is that it induces autophagy. Your body consists of billions of cells. Over time, unwanted molecules can build up inside those cells and sometimes this can damage the cells. Autophagy is the natural process whereby your cells remove these unwanted molecules. Autophagy also seems to play an essential role in the immune system by cleaning out toxins and infectious agents.

Warnings

Skipping meals and limiting calories can be dangerous for you if you suffer from conditions such as type 1 diabetes. Beware also if you take medications for blood pressure or heart disease as you may be more prone to imbalances of minerals during periods of fasting. In short: please consult your doctor before experimenting with IF should you take medicines for a chronic disease.

If you, like me, adopt intermittent fasting, be extra mindful of what you eat. As you may eat less in quantity, the quality of your calories is of more importance than before. Feed your body with healthy food and avoid “useless”, processed foods. As always, I recommend the blue zone guidelines to help you create a balanced menu.

Blue Zones Guidelines

Interesting? Want to know more about intermittent fasting? You can find below a few links of articles I used to prepare this article. I am also keen to hear about your experience, please share your thoughts and feedback!

Links for your information:

• Does Intermittent Fasting Work?
• Intermittent fasting: Surprising update
• Time-restricted eating – a detailed intermittent fasting guide
• 4 intermittent fasting side effects to watch out for
• Intermittent fasting: A path to changing life and fighting cancer
• Autophagy: Everything you need to know

First of all: I admit I’m late. Soup is more of a winter dish. And the recipe shared below is using an ingredient that is about to become unavailable: squash. Of if you prefer: pumpkin. Mix both a butternut squash and pumpkin to produce a delicious soup.

Regardless of the season, I find soup a brilliantly healthy, versatile, filling and satisfying snack. Just ate a bowl for breakfast after my Saturday run this morning! Soup also fits perfectly my intermittent fasting habit as my last, light meal of the day. Produce a thick and spicy soup, and you can accommodate it in a variety of ways.

In this case I feature pumpkin soup but my point applies to any other kind. Potato and leek. Vegetable mix. Carrot and cauliflower… vary and experiment my friends!

Fill like a sweet and light snack? Add oat milk and honey before warming up your bowl to make a lighter desert soup. Looking for a filling meal? Eat a side of toast, or add oatmeal flakes to your bowl of soup before microwaving it.

Last thing before diving in the recipe: soup also perfectly fits in my food-prepping system. Make a couple of liters of soup and you have a reserve for the whole week. You can even deep freeze part of it for later.

So, here it comes: a delicious pumpkin / butternut squash / carrot soup in a few simple steps…

Start with the standard base: chop onions, red peper and garlic, and warm that up with your preferred mix of dry spices like curry, ginger, turmeric, cumin, coriander, paprika… whatever you fancy. I like to keep it simple and usually stick to curry and turmeric. The end product looks prettier 😉

While the spice base gently warms up, chop the vegetables in cubes: pumpkin (peel it), butternut squash (no need to peel it!) and carrots (don’t you bother peeling them). Stir ’em in the pan, raise the heat a little and warm them up for a couple of minutes. I never weigh the ingredients but roughly use two thirds squash/pumpkin and one third carrots.

You now have done the heavy duty. While the vegetables are getting some direct heat – let them stick and caramelize a little – warm up a liter or so of water in a kettle, just to speed things up. Pour the boiling water in the pan to cover the vegetables. Add more if you prefer a watery soup.

I used to add one or more stock cubes (you know, the Maggi cubes). Not anymore!

The secret finishing touch: hazelnut butter. Or cashew butter. And of course salt and pepper. For a couple of liters of soup I add a tablespoon of nut butter. Please try this. Trust me, it gives an amazing flavor to this soup.

Thanks to restaurant Mûre and their recipe book (“La cuisine des gens qui sèment”) for this tip.

Almost done! Don’t cook the vegetables too long. Make sure you they are just tender to preserve their nutritional value. Pour the vegetables in a good blender (I’m very pleased with our Magimix power blender) and blitz the soup to a smooth consistency.

So, here you: a week or more of healthy snacks ahead of you. Enjoy!