Is Your Coffee Causing Cardiovascular Disease?!

This article is about information and habit change nutritional changes. It’s all about how you can change your life by taking small steps and having the knowledge to make better decisions. If this style of learning and nutritional education interests you, please reach out to us, info@enlightenedathlete.com We would love to set up a free consult to see if you’re a good fit for our nutrition coaching program.

Let’s talk about coffee. It’s one of the best things about modern civilization in my opinion. You can stroll to almost any street corner and get a wonderful cup of warm, hand crafted, cup of caffeinated gold. If you couldn’t tell, I’m an eternal fan of coffee.

There was once a time in my life where I viewed coffee as a drink for the weak. If you needed it you needed to sleep more and eat better. Holy cow, the ignorance of youth on display at its finest am I right? Little did I know the powers that coffee contained. It is a productivity power house. My brain feels like it runs at higher RPM’s after a solid cup. The aroma, the taste of a GOOD cup of coffee is amazing.

So we’re all in agreeance that coffee is great. Unfortunately though, our beloved liquid life saver has been hijacked by an all too common fiend. Coffee’s innocence and benefits have been transformed into an insulin raising monster. SUGAR.

Sugar has infiltrated our supply of coffee at every possible vendor. Some may say it’s due to our addiction to sugar that companies have started dumping sugar into all of the pre-made coffee, and specialty coffee drinks at all major chains. Our desire for it justifies doing this and keeps the products on the market. I don’t agree with this statement as some of you may know. I believe it is an education issue.

You know the drinks I'm talking about. In bottles and perfectly colored to look like caramel, or huge cups of sweetened liquid with a hug dollop of whip cream and sprinkles on top. That's not coffee. That's blasphemy. 

Diabetes in a cup. :)

Most of the people I have talked to don’t even realize that the coffee they’re drinking is a fucking liquid candy bar. It’s not an innate desire, the cause is sneaky tactics by corporations and sugar lobbyists to get you hooked to their drinks and stay hooked to the SUGAR.

If you think this sounds like conspiracy, read the book, “The Case Against Sugar” by Gary Taubes. This sneaky adding and justification of sugar has been going on since the industrialization of sugar cane.

Just take a look for yourself at the sugar content of some well-known candy bars, and then at the content of specialty coffee drinks which many of you probably currently consume.

Ranking of Candy Bars by Sugar Content

Okay, even if you didn’t read that great article the smallest amount of sugar out of the 17 bars listed was 19 grams. THE LOWEST. In one bar! Whew, my pancreas is sweating reading that. Here comes the alarming part, some of these common “coffee” drinks make those candy bars look like a health food.

20 Coffee Drinks With More Sugar Than A Can of Coke

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Seriously, my mind is blown. Almost all of those drinks have at least 40 grams of sugar, with one reaching over 90 grams of sugar. That is just completely insane. You are literally drinking multiple candy bars in a single drink.

For reference, a moderate amount of sugar for DAILY consumption according to the American Heart Association, is 20-36 grams of sugar. Which is still to high honestly for most sedentary people. That’s for an entire day. One of your morning drinks may contain up to 2 days’ worth of sugar. So no wonder you’re having trouble losing weight. You’re filling your body with hidden sugar.

So let’s go over human physiology just a little bit. What happens to your body when you consume this sugar with absolutely no fiber attached to it?

The sugar enters your body, it raises your blood sugar very rapidly and overwhelms the body. The sugar has to then be turned into fat by the liver for storage (this is how you accumulate body fat directly from sugar intake). Chronic over-consumption of liquid sugar leads to accumulation of visceral fat, fat around your internal organs.

It will make you fatigued, sleepy, sick, and lower your immune response drastically. This also leads to things like Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and cardiovascular disease. Pretty shitty huh?

That’s why I want to bring up the fact that you are consuming sugar without even knowing it, it’s hidden from you and you are unconsciously consuming it.

I want to show everybody that nutrition doesn’t have to be so complicated. Small changes like avoiding sugar laden drinks as a first step will undoubtedly move you towards the direction of health. You do not have to overhaul your entire life in order to get healthier.

Being cognizant of foods that are stealing your health and having the knowledge to make better choices (even something as simple as switching your coffee choice) can lead to drastic changes in your health.

If this information and habit based style of nutrition education piqued your interest, please reach out to us at info@enlightendathlete.com We would love to set up a free consult for you to see if you’re a good fit for our nutrition coaching program. We help a lot of clients make better decisions that lead them to a life of health and vitality. We would love to have the chance to work with you.

Avoid Douchebag Shoulders, Lift More & Move Better. [WORKOUT]

I've noticed an alarming trend in athletes & gym goers.

I have noticed a bit of a trend when it comes to new trainees and even veterans in the world of training and lifting. It begins when a young man or woman enters the gym and decides to put together their own program with no knowledge of strength & conditioning principles.

They develop less than optimal workout structure, avoid necessary corrective exercises, avoid things they're bad at, and do the EXACT same routine everyday. They don't understand the importance of having a balanced and functional body. They are only concerned with aesthetics.

The funny thing is, if you have a balanced and functional body, you will have an aesthetically pleasing physique! (I’ve got a workout at the bottom of this post to help solve this issue)

They go into the gym and try to do things they’ve seen in a magazine or on tv once. They have no idea what they are doing, how to do it, or if what they are doing even works. They are plagued by a lack of guidance in their early gym days.

They lack guidance on exercise selection, proper workout routine structure, how to balance their bodies, or how to truly get results.

This can be overwhelming at times and if this isn’t enough to cause the athlete to drop their new fitness habit like a hot potato, they continue on with less than optimal routines, exercises, lack of corrective exercises and results. Eventually developing injuries, pain, and a progression towards the loss of health.

The issue described above leads to a trend of too much pressing or pushing, (bench, military press, chest flies, incline bench, push ups) and almost no pulling! If you are doing a ton of pressing in the gym, you need to counteract those effects with pulling movements.

The lack of pulling causes an issue affectionately known as DSS or Douchebag Shoulder Syndrome. We all know someone that has the gorilla-esque shoulders pulled forward and internally rotated. They can barely get their arms overhead and have never attempted anything in the gym other than you guessed it, BENCH BRO!! Cause GAINZ right?

Nobody wants to have DSS. It leads to poor posture, pain manifesting in multiple different places in the body(shoulders, neck, low back, knees) and last but not least, INJURY. So just going to the gym and doing whatever you feel like is not the way to go.

In honor of this I’m rolling a new option for those unable to come train personally with me at the Enlightened Athlete HQ gym. This is an online option delivering elite programming directly to your inbox for less than most people spend on coffee every month!

Let somebody who has put the time in, experimented and tested multiple methodologies, and led many clients to success do the work for you.

All you have to do is SHOW UP!

There’s limited spots so DO NOT SLEEP ON THIS! Shoot me an e-mail today at Info@enlightenedathlete.com to learn more or get signed up ASAP.

I want to provide you with a workout to combat all the chronic pressing I see in gyms today. To do this I created a workout aptly named “Pull Your Face Off”. So without any further delay ladies and gentleman I present to you the Pull Your Face Off workout!

Hit this workout and let me know what you think!