Month November 2016
Cards Against Humanity
If you haven’t played Cards Against Humanity, and you are relatively resilient when to extremely un-politically correct, bawdy humor, then you really should check out this game! Here’s the description of the game from their website:
Cards Against Humanity is a party game for horrible people. Unlike most of the party games you’ve played before, Cards Against Humanity is as despicable and awkward as you and your friends.
The game is simple. Each round, one player asks a question from a black card, and everyone else answers with their funniest white card.
I am sharing some of the cleaner cards here so you can see examples of the silliness which always ensues when this game is played.
You can purchase Cards Against Humanity either directly through them (https://store.cardsagainsthumanity.com/) or through Amazon.
WARNING: If you can’t poke fun at yourself and others, and you take everything personally, Cards Against Humanity is NOT for you.
Orphan Thanksgiving…My Tradition
For many years I have hosted what I refer to as Orphan Thanksgiving, and it has become a tradition in my home. I realize the nomenclature has a lonely connotation, but it is a wonderful event and I enjoy it thoroughly, as do the people who share in this wonderful celebration. I invite friends who don’t have a place to go for the holiday, usually because their relatives live far away.
Though there is a considerable amount of food prep involved, I get a kick out of making each dish and roasting and carving the turkey. You might think that this desire to cook huge holiday meals and have people over is something that was handed down to me from my mother, but my mom never entertained guests in our home, and she never considered herself a cook. My mother’s idea of cooking was to heat up Stouffer’s entrees or throw a piece of meat on the broiler, and when the holidays arrived, she made restaurant reservations instead of spending time in the kitchen. Somehow I had a natural affinity for cooking and baking, and I also quickly discovered how much I enjoyed hosting events. I am certain that my desire to host parties evolved from my tendency to nurture others.
This year I will continue the Orphan Thanksgiving tradition and make my secret recipe for stuffing, throw a turkey and a spiral ham in the oven, make mashed potatoes, and tempt my guests with homemade fudge, pumpkin pie and other tasty treats. Some selections are relatively clean, while others are fully decadent and challenge any fitness-minded meal plan. Since I fully believe in enjoying “normal” foods during the holidays, provided they are enjoyed in moderation, I have no problem featuring a few “forbidden” foods on the holiday table.
This year I am throwing something new into the mix. I recently had a networking mixer/barbecue, and one of my guests brought Cards Against Humanity, which quickly turned the party into a rollicking good time. We all had a blast allowing ourselves to indulge in the game, which utterly and completely flies in the face of political correctness. I enjoyed the game so much that I bought ALL the expansion sets, along with the original game set, for Thanksgiving and beyond.
It is incredibly satisfying to know that my good friends will be in my home, celebrating life and enjoying good food.
Don’t Bust Your Diet This Holiday Season!
Here is a repost of an article I wrote last November. It’s that time of the year again for holiday foods, so beware!
It seems that I will continue to uphold my yearly tradition of making my incredible (and incredibly UNclean) fudge for the holidays, as well as my signature turkey stuffing. Since the holidays come only once a year, it seems reasonable to indulge a bit, right? Well, if you’re a fitness fanatic and you have competitions coming up like several of my friends do, you can’t exactly throw caution to the wind and consume whatever you want. However, you CAN still indulge in small amounts of rich foods which are not considered clean as long as your other foods are healthy and clean. This means that your abs don’t have to hibernate during the holidays!
There are a few tricks to minimize the amount of bad foods which you may be tempted to devour. You can consume a small amount of lean protein right before you have a carb cheat. This will slow down digestion so that the carbs aren’t stored as readily. Another trick is to drink at least eight ounces of water before you indulge in a decadent treat. This will help to fill you up so you consume less food afterward. When you are aware that you will be at a function in which tempting foods will be around, make sure your meals beforehand are kept clean and that you you eat every 2-1/2 to 3 hours to ensure that you won’t be ravenous come party time.
A newer tactic which can often work wonders for some people is to practice an intermittent fast the day before in which you consume a small number of calories, say 400-500, then go to town on turkey day, consuming your maintenance calories then. This seems to work better if you ramp up the week before with a series of intermittent fasts in which you consume your food (maintenance calories +10-20% on training days, then drop to -20% of maintenance on rest days) within a 4 to 8 hour window, then fasting the rest of the time. If you do this, crank up your protein intake so that it is at least 1 gram per pound of body weight. I personally love this diet approach and my body responds well to it, plus I can enjoy all the goodies on Thanksgiving without remorse.
There are food choices which are cleaner than others during the holidays. Though common holiday foods are rather calorie dense, here are a few food items which are lower in calories and fat:
- Roast turkey breast
- Green beans without butter
- Mashed potatoes made with whipped butter and Greek yogurt instead of milk and regular butter
- Pumpkin Pie
I know some of you are assuming that my cats join in with holiday feasts, but I always put them in my bedroom and lock the door. There are several reasons why I keep my felines away from the holiday table:
1. People food can often be hazardous for animals
2. My cats will run underfoot and probably trip people
3. My cats will suddenly forget the rule about not jumping onto tables and will create an unsanitary environment for guests
4. My cats will turn into pesky little beggars
Some of you may also be wondering what I am planning on cooking and eating, so here is my Thanksgiving menu:
- 16-18 pound turkey
- my secret stuffing recipe which has lots of goodies in it, but is relatively low in fat and calories compared to other exotic stuffing recipes
- mashed potatoes made with light butter and sour cream
- green bean casserole
- my homemade fudge
- whole cranberry sauce
- turkey gravy
- wine
- store-bought pumpkin pie
Obviously there are some items on my menu that fall outside of my “clean food guidelines”, but since the holidays only come once a year, I have no qualms about it. This is the time during which we should count our blessings and spend quality time with the people we love without getting anxious about what we are eating. However, this does not mean you have free license to go nuts on bad foods for the next month! If you end up indulging in other foods, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, enjoy the feast and resume healthy eating the next day.
Happy holidays!
Halo Top Ice Cream Flavors Review
Please watch my YouTube video review of Halo Top Ice Cream! I kind of went overboard and got eleven different flavors to try out, and I sampled all of them in one videotaping segment. YUM YUM!
Go to http://www.halotop.com for more information on this fantastic company! They have a store locator so you can find out where to purchase this all natural, high protein, low sugar frozen treat!
Yes I AM a Doctor!
It appears to be a lifelong curse for me to have to deal with people who never seem to take the fact that I am a bona fide medical doctor seriously. Most recently, I was challenged by a hater who didn’t bother to check facts and find out WHY I had “board-certified physician” on my main Instagram profile. All she saw was B.A. in Exercise Science and stupidly assumed that I had no other credentials. I purposely left out all my medical certifications and titles because I had to include my fitness background, writing and modeling descriptions in a limited number of characters.
She attacked me by posting a challenging comment on MY Instagram post, so I wrote to her clarifying my background and then blocked her because her comment was rather scathing. She returned through a different IG profile and BLASTED me, hurling profanity at me via another public comment. So I threw all her filthy words back to her and blocked her again. I REFUSE to be bullied by haters, especially those who don’t bother to do some research before hurling false accusations and insults against people they don’t even know.
Even those who know me through social circles will exclaim, “Oh wow, you mean you’re a DOCTOR doctor? That’s amazing!”, as if my medical training and career are somehow not supposed to be taken seriously by those near and dear to me. I want to yell, “YES, I am a doctor! Why didn’t you believe me the first time I told you? Why do I have to somehow prove it to you?” What irks me is that I don’t see these people doubting the abilities of their friends who work in any other industry, be it certified public accounting, law enforcement, or any other respected profession. I honestly resent the insinuation that my credentials somehow don’t count because I don’t wear a white coat all the time (by the way, I can’t STAND wearing those polyester nightmares) or flaunt my professional title like a badge.
For those of you who question what my credentials are, I will be very clear. Several years after I obtained my Bachelor’s degree, I completed four years of medical school which culminated in a medical diploma. After that, I completed my internship year (which was also my first year of family practice residency training) and became licensed as a physician. Two more years of residency training in family practice followed, then I sat for my specialty boards and became board-certified in family practice. Eight years later I had to sit for board recertification, and that process will repeat itself every eight years until I retire from medicine.
I am not a nurse or a physician’s assistant (though those professions are highly respectable, and attract some of the smartest and most compassionate people on the planet). What I AM is:
Degreed.
Licensed.
Board-certified.
Physician…ahem, a.k.a. Medical Doctor.
Yessir.
I may not be conservative or conventional, but I expect the same amount of respect as a physician who chooses to fit the mold and wear conservative attire and a white coat. My patients refer to me as Dr. Naito, not as Dr. Stacey or Stacey. I have worked VERY hard to become a physician, and I also recognize how hard my colleagues work as well. That is why when I am around other physicians, I err on the side of caution and refer to them as DOCTOR and not by their first names unless they specifically ask me to refer to them on a first name basis.
Click Coffee and Protein Review
Please check out my review of Click’s All-In-One Coffee and Protein Drink Mix review! I’m not kidding when I say this product is DELICIOUS! It also mixes well, and provides 16 grams of protein in a mere 120 calories.
This all-in-one coffee and protein drink mix is a delicious beverage!
IMPORTANT NOTE: I mixed the cold version in a blender bottle with a wire mixing ball. If you decide to microwave such a container, it is CRITICAL that you REMOVE the metal ball and vent or take the top off!!!
A better option is to pour the mixed cold beverage into a microwave-safe container and then heat it up.
BRAVO!
STACEY NAITO – IFBB Bikini Superstar (Strength Addicts Interview)
I thought it would be fun to repost this interview with Strength Addicts from last December. This interview covers my competition history, philosophy on competing, and much more.
I hope you enjoy it!
The Origins Of Daylight Savings Time
Now that most of the nation is taking a break from Daylight Savings Time (Arizona and Hawaii are exempt from the twice yearly clock shift) and is also recovering from the Presidential Election, I thought it might be fun to review the history of Daylight Savings Time.
ROOTS OF DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME
The concept of Daylight Savings Time (DST) originated in ancient civilizations as our ancestors referenced the daylight hours and adjusted their daily schedules accordingly. However, the practice of conserving daylight hours over the centuries was sporadic. The idea resurfaced in the 18th century when American politician and inventor Benjamin Franklin wrote an essay in 1784 called “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light” which he submitted to the editor of The Journal of Paris. Franklin suggested that candle usage could be minimized by adjusting clocks to get people out of bed earlier in the morning in an effort to use natural sunlight instead.
More than a century later, a New Zealand scientist by the name of George Vernon Hudson proposed a two-hour shift in time forward in October with a corresponding two-hour shift backward in March, but the idea never took off. Ten years later, a more dizzying concept of adjusting clocks was suggested by a Brit by the name of William Willett. Willett came up with the idea of setting clocks ahead 20 minutes on each Sunday in April, then switching them back on each Sunday in September. His idea was then introduced to the House of Commons in 1908, with the first Daylight Saving Bill drafted the following year and presented to Parliament. The United Kingdom did not put DST into effect until 1916, a year after Willett died.
More recently, Germany developed DST and introduced it on April 30, 1916 by turning the clocks forward by one hour. This was done in an effort to conserve fuel normally used for artificial lighting so that it would be used for the war effort during World War I.
The United States followed suit two years later by instilling the Standard Time Act, which ran from March through the summer. President Woodrow Wilson signed DST, also known as “Fast Time”, into law to support the war effort during WWI. However, it was not a popular idea and was revoked by the end of WWI. Other countries, like France and the United Kingdom, had also embraced the concept of DST but also abandoned it after WWI.
By World War II, however, President Franklin D Roosevelt implemented year-round DST, also called “War Time”, from February 9th, 1942, until September 30th, 1945 throughout the United States and Canada. The different time zones throughout the United States were referred to as “Pacific War Time”, “Central War Time”, “Mountain War Time”, and “Eastern War Time”. The time zones were renamed “Peace Time” in August of 1945 after Japan’s surrender.
The United Kingdom took a slightly different approach, employing the use of “Double Summer Time” during WWII which meant setting clocks two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) during the summer, and one hour ahead of GMT during the winter.
AMERICANS PLAYING WITH DAYLIGHT – 20TH CENTURY AND BEYOND
After WWI and WWII, the United States dropped the federal mandate on DST, leaving it up to individual states and cities to decide if they wanted to practice DST, and how to implement it. In 1954, only two states, California and Nevada, had statewide laws regarding DST. By 1966, there were 100 million Americans who observed DST based on their local laws, but a federal law was still lacking. Congress decided to end the confusion by establishing a pattern which applied throughout the country. The Uniform Time Act was signed into law in April of 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson, thus creating the modern version of Daylight Saving Time. It specified the beginning as the last Sunday of April and the end as the last Sunday of October. The law was not mandated, so any state which wanted to be exempt from DST could do so by passing a state law.
Congress revised the Uniform Time Act in 1972 to enable a state which was in two or more time zones to exempt one portion of the state in one time zone while observing DST in another part of the state. When the oil embargo of 1973 hit, Congress decided to extend DST to a period of ten months in 1974, then eight months in 1975, in an effort to save energy. Federal law was again revised in 1986 to change the beginning of DST to the first Sunday in April.
The current United States DST schedule, which was adopted in 2007, followed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which extended the period of DST by about one month. The current DST guidelines are as follows:
Begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March
Ends at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of November
There are over 70 countries worldwide which use Daylight Savings Time, with many variations on beginning and end dates. However, the European Union (EU) implemented a standardized EU-wide DST schedule in 1996 which begins the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday in October.
Proper Breathing Mechanics During Weight Training (Repost)
Now that I have been weight training for over 25 years, I have an intuitive sense of proper breathing mechanics when I lift weights, as many seasoned gym beasts can also attest to. However, those of you who are not as experienced or comfortable around a weight room might not know how to breathe properly.
The basic concept is that you will EXHALE on the exertion phase and INHALE on the relaxation phase of the exercise.
Let’s use the wide grip lat pulldown exercise as an example (which incidentally should be performed so that you bring the bar to your upper chest and NOT behind your back). You will exhale as you pull the bar down, then inhale when you return the bar to the starting position.
Most exercises can be performed using this basic technique, but if you are lifting very heavy weights, or even lifting heavy boxes, you can employ a breathing technique called the Valsalva Maneuver, in which you inhale deeply, then hold your breath while lifting the weight. This increases intra-abdominal pressure and thug confers support to the back. However, if you have high blood pressure, this movement can cause your blood pressure to skyrocket. Other relatively common symptoms which can occur during the Valsalva Maneuver are dizziness and fainting. As an alternative, you can simply contract your abdominals, keeping them tight, and continue to breathe normally during the movement.
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