Giving Kale a Second Chance

I have been on a veggie bender of late and went to the Organic Food Markets in Brisbane with Nicole and Shelley on the weekend and bought two bunches of kale and some Swiss Chard. I made a stir fry out of the kale and added mirin at the end to apparently break down the stalks somewhat. I also made up a batch of quinoa. It is amazing how far half a cup of quinoa will take you.

Anyway had this yesterday with some poached chicken breast which was quite nice but today's serving just tasted terrible, so bitter and twisted that I was seriously eyeing off the sausage rolls in the freezer at Coles on the way home and stroking the bottles of Diet Coke in the fridge near the checkouts (they must be there for a reason!) , thinking that the whole organic lifestyle thing just sucks! But on further reading, it seems that once kale is picked you have to eat it fairly quickly, otherwise it will go bitter. I'm going to try another recipe tonight that's designed for kids (I figure if kids will eat it, then it should be a cinch for adults) - Crispy Kale - I will report back on that one. The quinoa wasn't much better tasting either - it's not bad, but it's not as tasty as a serve of brown rice! It's probably all in the cooking!

The upside of all of this better eating and drinking is that I'm drinking a lot more water than I was. I even have special stainless steel bottle (1L) and my goal is to get through three of these a day.

Training with Mrs Biologica was awesome today - improved in the bench press doing 4 x 4 of 45kg with good technique which is wonderful for a little whippersnapper like me as well as some pretty nasty pronated grip rows, trap raises and then 4 cycles of vomit worthy HIIT cardio on the elliptical. I hate the elliptical at the best of times and here was Mrs B telling me not to be a pussy and to bring it (thank you BTW!). Then it was my turn..."c'mon you little piss ant!" (it's the only fun I can have telling someone that deadlifts 120kg without batting an eyelid..). Had a great post workout meal and chat and then it was back home to shoulder the chains of learning Step choreo.

Vera decided to complain again about the kale ("surely those Anzac biscuits in the freezer look good") but I've told her to take a hike by slapping her down with a spear of organic asparagus..thwack!!!

Question and Answers

I received an email from a reader asking me about high intensity interval training (HIIT) and its effectiveness in fat loss.

"The question I would like to ask is why you feel HIIT or interval training is more effective than steady training as you are probably burning more calories in say 50 mins of steady running opposed to 30 mins of the previous running?"

Here is my reply:
"To answer your question, it depends on what your goals are. If it is loss of body fat, you are best approaching it like this:

1) build an aerobic base to prepare your muscles for the demands of heavier training
2) As well as some base training, incorporate some high intensity interval training into your workouts. As well as using nearly the same amount of calories, it is what happens AFTER these workouts that is more important. There is a phenomenon called EPOC (Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption) that occurs which keeps our metabolisms running higher for a few hours afterwards depending on the intensity. Also interval training raises anaerobic threshold, the point where the body stops relying on the aerobic energy system (which uses oxygen) and starts relying on the anaerobic energy system. Put simply, go too much past this point and you simply run out of gas.
Raising anaerobic threshold does two things - gives you a greater heart rate range in which you can work out hard (and thus use more calories) and b) causes changes in our muscles at a metabolic level which encourages our bodies to utilize fat (converted into carbohydrate) during rest and whilst exercising. An unfit individual simply doesn't do this.

I hope this doesn't sound too simplistic, but it is really what happens when we are recovering with both strength training and aerobic exercise that makes a difference.

Hope that sheds some light on the subject."

To sum up, especially in endurance sports (my correspondent is a keen runner), both forms of training have their place in the "big" picture.