Kristina | Kits Energy Training

what to wear for spring riding

Riding in Vancouver, we plan for the worst and hope for the best.

The most difficult part of spring riding is dressing appropriately. Every day it’s a bit of a gamble. Will you wear too much and have to carry it? Or will you not bring enough and feel chilled all the way to Steveston? Even when you do dress well and appropriately for the weather, it can change quickly, even within one ride.

If you are new to riding or new to riding in Vancouver, please take a moment to watch this short 4 minute video, outlining the clothing and layering you need to stay warm. In this scenario, the temperature is 6 degrees celsius or warmer, and as usual, we expect it to be wet.

With the exception of a waterproof jacket, the Kits Energy store has all of the items you need to stay warm this spring. Please watch your inbox as the store will open the first week of April, with discounts from April 3rd to April 15th. Kits Energy clothing can only be ordered online.

Base Layer

long dry-fit or merino wool socks
dry-fit undershirt – tank top, tee shirt, or long sleeve
padded cycling shorts or padded long bib pants

Second Layer

long tights over padded shorts if not wearing padded long pants
short sleeve or long sleeve jersey or dry-fit shirt

Outer Layer

waterproof rain jacket (if not raining, carry it with you)
long finger light gloves
small beanie or headband to keep your ears warm
helmet
glasses with clear or light coloured lenses (or dark if sunny)
Gortex booties over shoes

streak challenges can be a recipe for injury

Blog, Cycling, General

I understand the allure of joining a streak challenge as simple as doing one activity every day for one month, several months, or even years. And I’m all for any gimmick or trick we can use to entice ourselves to exercise more.

However, some of these challenges are not always healthy and often lead to injury.

The most dangerous streaks involve a repetitive activity or sport done every day for a total number of repetitions, distance, or time. Such as completing X number of pushups or running a certain distance or time daily.

Pushing yourself to participate in an activity every day, no matter how tired, injured, or ill you may feel, goes against all training advice. Many athletes ignore the body’s signals telling them they need a day or two off, and even more so when they have committed to a streak challenge. The constant repetition often leads to burnout, overtraining, and repetitive strain injuries. Common injuries suffered from athletes participating in a daily running streak challenge are achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, or worse yet, a stress fracture in the leg or foot.

But, not all streaks are bad.

Healthy or “good” streaks are those that allow for flexibility and encourage rest days. These challenges usually require you to complete a total distance within a specific time frame. Even better are streaks that include a variety of activities or allow you to choose for yourself, as in the case of a yoga or weight training challenge; the classes are different every day, and vary in intensity and volume.

If you are choosing a streak to help motivate you to exercise, try to pick one that allows for flexibility in how often you need to do it, and ideally some flexibility in what activities you are doing. Not only will you be healthier overall, but it will also make you faster in your preferred sport and help prevent injury.

If you want to use the challenge to get you riding more, the Strava streaks sampled in this article are good examples. However, it will still require some planning to make sure you give yourself enough recovery days throughout. As well, the challenge you chose needs to be appropriately placed within your overall yearly training program. Don’t get coerced into signing up for a challenge just because your friends are.

Take an Epson salt bath for recovery

Blog, Cycling, Fitness and Training, General, Health and Nutrition

The more you train, the more you need to recover.

Many athletes get so caught up closing activity rings, counting steps, competing in Strava challenges, or reaching a distance goal, that they forget to make recovery a priority.

One form of recovery, that often gets overlooked is an Epson Salt Bath.

Especially in the cold winter months, a hot sudsy bath does sound pretty inviting. But, besides being relaxing, how else does it help you recover?

We don’t have many concrete scientific studies that support how an Epson Salt Bath helps recovery, but we do know that it works. On the most basic level, taking a warm bath helps calm the nervous system which has a ripple affect, allowing your body to direct it’s energy into repair mode.

If you want to take it a step further, if the athlete also uses this time to focus on breathing, or follows another form of relaxation technique such as listening to music or reading a novel, your brain has time to shut off and recharge. Think of your body like your iphone; it has a long battery life, but the more you use it, the longer you need to stop to recharge.

So what is it about the Epson Salts?

Dissolving epson salts in water releases magnesium and sulfate ions, which can be absorbed through the skin. Magnesium plays many crucial roles in the body and is required in more than 300 essential metabolic reactions in the body. Some of the most important roles for an athlete are:

regulates energy production aka improves performance

regulates muscle and nerve function

regulates blood sugar levels

regulates blood pressure

reduces inflammation

strengthens bones

reduces depression

improves digestion

helps release melatonin which helps you sleep

So, instead of thinking of your bath as a guilty pleasure, you can add it to your arsenal of recovery tools to make you faster, stronger, fitter, and healthier overall.

In the summer, we will talk about ice baths and contrast baths, which also have amazing benefits in aiding recovery, but much harder to convince when it is already cold outside.

10 tips to break sugar addiction

Blog, Fitness and Training, Health and Nutrition

scroll to bottom for cookie recipe

After several weeks of indulging over Christmas, it can be challenging to return to our usual, healthy way of eating. This is not just due to a lack of willpower. Physiologically, your body and brain are now programmed to want more sugar, making the cravings almost impossible to ignore.

The brain demands sugar

Sugar fuels every cell in the brain. Your brain also sees sugar as a reward, making you want more of it. You reinforce that reward system every time you eat sugar, making it a tough habit to break.

And the body wants it’s share as well

As if that wasn’t enough, now your body also demands that you give it another hit. As insulin moves glucose out of the bloodstream and into your cells for energy, this rapid drop in blood sugar leaves you feeling wiped out and shaky, searching for more sweets to regain that sugar “high.”

Starch equals sugar

Think you don’t have a sweet tooth, but crave bagels, chips, crackers, or french fries? Highly refined starches are complex carbs that the body breaks down into simple sugars. When eaten without protein, fat, or fibre, starches can make blood sugar levels surge and crash, similar to a simple sugar bonk.

So how do we break this cycle?

Start Slow

January is notorious for making massive commitments to change our lives and diet, only to fail by February and give up.

Instead of going cold turkey on quitting sugar, do it gradually. Try cutting out one sweet food from your diet each week. For example, pass on dessert after dinner or eat one cookie instead of two.

2. Retrain your taste buds

Over time, you can train your taste buds to enjoy things that aren’t as sweet. Start by putting less sugar in your coffee, oatmeal, and baked goods. Over time your taste buds will change, and you will experience the same pleasure or “high” with less.

3. Change up your sugar choices

Include more fruits and vegetables containing natural sugars, fibre, antioxidants, and essential vitamins.

4. Educate yourself

Check food labels. Watch out for items that list any form of sugar in the first few ingredients, or have more than 4 total grams of sugar per serving.

The word “sugar” sometimes goes by another name, like these:

Agave nectar
Brown rice syrup
High-fructose corn syrup
Dextrose
Evaporated cane juice
Glucose
Lactose
Malt syrup
Molasses
Sucrose
Honey

5. Add more protein and fibre

High-protein and fibre foods digest more slowly, keeping you feeling full for longer. They also don’t make your blood sugar spike the way refined carbs and sugars do. Good protein sources are chicken, yogurt, eggs, nuts, or beans. Good fibre sources are soaked chia seeds, oats, beans, lentils, berries.

Food combining (eating a high protein or fibre along with a high sugar food) will slow the release of insulin and help prevent a sugar crash. But the brain will remain in the same “sugar = reward” feedback loop.

6. Do NOT substitute with artificial sweeteners

Some studies suggest artificial sweeteners may leave you craving more sugar, which doesn’t help break your taste for sweets. Pay attention to your body. Are sweeteners making you crave even more sugar?

7. Get enough sleep and rest

Many times we crave sugar because we are tired and looking for energy. In addition, if we are well rested, we can make better decisions and, therefore, better food choices.

8. Snack on exercise

It is usually around 2 or 3pm when our blood sugar drops and we start to crave something sweet. Instead of reaching for a cookie, get up and complete a short but vigorous form of exercise. Run up and down the stairs or whip off 10 fast push-ups or do burpees in your office. The quick adrenaline rush will boost your energy levels and curb the craving.

9. When baking, cut the sugar by half

Unless the recipe was designed for weight loss or a low-sugar diet, EVERY recipe I have found uses way too much sugar. As a general rule, I cut the sugar by half. If it is just for myself and my husband, I will continue to cut the sugar until I find how low I can go before he notices.

10. Make it easy

Have tasty snacks and food available and easy to access, for when your next sugar craving hits. Some snack ideas are: celery sticks with peanut butter, yogurt and blueberries, hummus and any vegetable, apple and almond butter, raisins and almonds. Eat foods that you enjoy so you don’t feel deprived.

Here is my favourite healthy cookie recipe courtesy of Dr. Leslie Wicholas. Leslie is a psychiatrist and an avid cyclist who rides with Kits Energy. She also designed the food as Medicine program to treat depressive mood disorders and fibromyalgia at the Mood Disorders Association of BC. I love these cookies so much that I double the recipe, so I always have a few in my freezer.

Chocolate Spice Cookies (gluten and dairy free)

by Leslie Wicholas, MD

2/3 cup baked cooked garnet yam. Remove the skin from the yam before using. (You can bake yams ahead of time and freeze them to use later)

1 egg

4 Tbsp mild flavoured olive oil

3 Tbsp dark maple syrup

1/3 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup oat flour

3 Tbsp cocoa powder

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

3 Tbsp dark chocolate chips

Bake yam at 400 degrees for 1 hour or until really soft. Fully cool in refrigerator before using.

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees
Mix the wet ingredients well.
Combine dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients. Mix well. Batter will be sticky with a cake like batter consistency. It will firm up after baking.
Grease cookie sheet with coconut oil. Scoop a spoon full of batter onto the sheet. Gently shape into cookies
Bake for 20 minutes. Cookies should be firm, with a little “spring” when you touch it.

Makes 15 cookies

Keeps well in fridge for 3-4 days. Freezes well.

soak your oats

Health and Nutrition

We all love our yogurt and granola, and nothing says comfort food better than a steaming bowl of oatmeal before a long ski day. But when was the last time you tried soaking your oats?

Without using heat, soaking overnight slowly cooks the oats, while preserving much of the goodness. Adding an apple, yogurt, or a dash of apple cider or lemon juice ferments the oats which promotes the growth of beneficial gut bacteria in the digestive tract.

Whichever way you eat them, oats and oatmeal are among the most nutrient dense foods that you can eat.

Why are they so great?

Oats are rich in antioxidants and both soluble and non-soluble fibre that may help lower blood pressure levels, reduce blood sugar levels, lower cholesterol, boost heart health, reduce constipation, and aid in weight loss.

1/2 cup of dry oats contains 151 calories, 25 grams of carbs, 6.5 grams of protein, 2.5 grams of fat, 4 grams of fibre, and are packed with the following vitamins and minerals:

Manganese: 63.91% of the daily value (DV)
Phosphorus: 13.3% of the DV
Magnesium: 13.3% of the DV
Copper: 17.6% of the DV
Iron: 9.4% of the DV
Zinc: 13.4% of the DV
Folate: 3.24% of the DV
Vitamin B1 (thiamin): 15.5% of the DV
Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid): 9.07% of the DV
smaller amounts of calcium, potassium, vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), and vitamin B3 (niacin)

There are so many recipes you can choose from to keep your oats interesting, however, be careful that you aren’t adding too much extra sugar, to what should be a very healthy breakfast choice.

Here is my personal favourite recipe. Feel free to adapt based on your taste buds. As you can see there are lots of different ways you can adjust the recipe. You can add almost any combination of fruits, nuts, and seeds, even peanut butter! Just remember to keep the ratio of milk to dry ingredients 1:1 at a minimum.

Apple Cinnamon Soaked Oats

Makes 2 servings

1 cup whole rolled oats

1/4 – 1/3 cup coarsely chopped raw almonds, walnuts, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, hemp hearts, or a combination of a few of them (the more variety the better)

1 apple grated (skin on)

1 tbsp unsweetened coconut

1 tsp cinnamon (I use more because I love cinnamon and its anti-inflammatory properties)

1/8 tsp nutmeg (optional – can also use pumpkin spice)

dash of sea salt

1-2 tbsp raisins

1 1/2 – 2 cups milk or milk substitute of your choice (or half milk and half cold water)

Place everything in a bowl, together with the milk. Place in fridge overnight or for 10 – 24hrs.

Whole oats work the best but steel cut oats work as well, especially if you like a chewier recipe. Quick oats are not recommended.

If you have kids or a sweet tooth, you have to check out these super quick tasty recipes.

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