Awesome question, a lot of my nutritional focus lately has actually been on sugar and the affects that it has on our bodies. When it comes down to it everything we put in our bodies gets broken into its simplest form. Most fruits and veggies are composed of a combination of fructose, sucrose (table sugar) and glucose. My point here is that the sucrose found in food such as a beet is the same as table sugar. The major difference is what else is in that beet. If you have 10g of straight table sugar, it is pretty much straight up sucrose, which will cause your blood sugar to raise dramatically. If you get 10g of sucrose from eating beets, your body will have a different reaction because of things such as fiber and protein which are found in a beet. One cup of beets has 4g of fiber and 9g of sugar. This fiber will help keep the blood sugar and insulin levels in check and slow down the digestion of the sugar in the beet. That is the major difference between the sugar in fruit and the difference in manufactured sweets such as cake.

I know that was a lot of nerdy science talk, but when it comes down to it you should not be weary of the amount of sugar in fruits or veggies. The fruits all have some fiber, which will help regulate the reaction the sugar has in the body. On top of that most fruits and veggies are still low in sugar. If you look at the beet it only has 9g of sugar for a whole cup. Compare that will a lot of other high sugar foods that aren’t fruits and vegetables and you are getting a lot more bang for your buck. Plus all of the other nutritional bonuses such as the vitamins and minerals are essential.

If you are really concerned, just back off of fruit as the evening hits. Most veggies are really low in sugar and high in fiber. Otherwise don’t worry about it, eat away.

Yoga is tricky because there are now so many different types of yoga that you can do. Some yoga is now meant to truly be a workout and make you leave feeling exhausted, while others are meant more for meditation and relaxation. Lifting four days per week and doing yoga on your days off is not a problem if you are taking the right class. I would recommend a regular beginner or intermediate Vinyasa class. This will help you stretch and the breathing techniques you focus on will help the muscles get oxygen and blood which is a major factor in recovery.

Go ahead and take a yoga class or two per week on top of your weight training and I don’t think you should see any problems. Yoga will be nothing but a benefit as long as you’re taking care of the other aspects such as hydration, good diet and sleep. Don’t get into doing any crazy yoga that is meant to be a hard workout such as power yoga. I don’t have a problem with them individually, but that combined with 4 days of lifting may be too much. Doing yoga on your days off should be a stretch and relaxation focus that leaves you feeling energized.

Love this question! Anyone who follows me on Twitter can likely tell that I am a big music fan. I actually have a workout playlist on my iPod that I listen to during workouts. My taste in music scatters all over the board so I go from indie rock, to hip-hop, to classic rock and a lot of other stuff that falls in between. The rock is usually bands such as The Black Keys, Dead Weather, Band of Skulls, Ghostland Observatory, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and Radio Moscow. I also jam to hip hop like Lupe Fiasco, J-Cole, Lil Wayne and Kid Cudi. I also like to give love to the oldies and thrown in some Hendrix, Zeppelin and The Police. As long as its up beat and has a good rhythm going on I’m happy. I never hear my music while I’m actually performing a set but it’s good to have to keep the energy going in between sets.

You might find this a little odd but my cardio sessions are now consumed with audiobooks. I never thought I would be able to listen to an audiobook during a workout but discovered lately that I can run for days when listening to them. I guess it takes my mind off the task at hand and just lets me think about what I am listening to. I am not a huge fan of cardio, so anything that takes my mind off of it makes me happy. I just finished a good audiobook about Google called “Inside Larry and Sergey’s Brain”. About to get into a giant audiobook by Ayn Rand called “Atlas Shrugged” I’m excited to get into it.

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