Coach Ben “Moose” Moselle talks about his nutrition philosophy in this month’s Core Corner

Core Wellness (CW) 

We at SoCal know you’re a workout fanatic Coach Moose, but tell us a little about your diet and nutrition philosophy.

Coach Moose 

Thanks for the opportunity. I should mention that I’m no dietitian (that’s actually more Coach Audrey’s area of interest, as she’s pursuing a master’s degree in dietetics). But I’ve always been pretty health-conscious. Even before taking my first nutrition class in 7^th grade, I gave up eating Cap’n Crunch cereal because it was made with “artery clogging” coconut oil. We now know that coconut oil is safe, and sugar is a much more dangerous dietary foe. So I’m still off the Cap’n Crunch.

CW

Your background is in fitness, you’re ACSM-certified as a Personal Trainer and hold an AAHF “Jr.Fit” Youth Fitness Specialty Certification. Since you are so active, do you feel you get some leeway when it comes to your diet?

Coach Moose 

The short answer is yes — and I’m lucky from a genetic standpoint too. Every person is unique, but in general the human body has amazing healing and weight maintenance capabilities. Exercise can certainly improve health and help maintain healthy body composition, but ultimately it’s our eating habits that put on the unwanted pounds. We should sometimes ask ourselves why we’re eating what we’re eating. Is it because we’re bored, stressed, tired or tempted? Those habits will catch up to your waistline in the long run, regardless of how active you are.

 CW

Do you have a go-to pre-workout snack?

Coach Moose

For a while it was a bowl of cheerios with 1% milk, but I noticed that would sometimes leave me feeling lazy or tired. It has evolved to a toasted open-face peanut or almond butter and jelly on whole wheat sourdough bread. That ratio of carbohydrate, protein, and fat works better for me.

CW

What’s your take on dietary supplements and vitamins?

Coach Moose

Supplements play an important role in certain populations’ diets — such as vegetarians or senior citizens. I try to cover my nutritional bases with real food rather than vitamin supplements. Food is more than just the sum of its vitamin and mineral components. It’s more satisfying and tastes better than vitamin capsules too. I do take a liquid fish oil supplement, however, because I just can’t seem to get into the habit of buying and preparing fish often enough.

CW

Energy drinks are currently popular among athletes.  What is your take on caffeine?

Coach Moose

I consider coffee and tea to be health beverages and legitimate pre-workout pick-me-ups – as long as they don’t interfere with your sleep cycles. I like to drink a small cup of coffee before morning or afternoon workouts. I don’t have much experience with Red Bull, Monster and those types of “energy” drinks. They’re full of sugar or artificial sweeteners, so I avoid them. The same goes for sports drinks like Gatorade. Only athletes who’ve been sweating profusely or exercising for hours really need that electrolyte and glucose replacement. Most of us should just stick with water.

CW

Other than following your instincts, are there any diet/nutrition resources you recommend for someone looking to improve their eating habits?

Coach Moose

Absolutely. Mindless Eating (Brian Wansink) and Food Rules (Michael Pollan) are quick reads that offer plenty of food for thought in terms of weight management — forming good eating habits and avoiding bad ones. Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and Wendell Berry’s Bringing It to the Table offer compelling insight about the origins of food and how our food choices may affect the environment. Mark Sisson’s “Primal/Paleo” principles in 21 Day Total Body Transformation and Dr. Terry Wahls’ Minding Your Mitochondria TED Talk changed the way I eat.

I’d also encourage SoCal members to come visit or email us with their questions about diet and nutrition. If there’s demand for it, we’d love to set up a nutrition workshop for SoCal players and parents.

Are you a SoCal Athletics Member? Strength trainers and volleyball All-Americans Ben and Audrey are offering you free fitness classes!

The Agility Class is about functional fitness, injury prevention, power and balance. Class routines deliver a total body workout designed to tone, stretch, and strengthen the body.  This class is suitable for all levels of fitness.

Classes are available to the first 8 SoCal players to sign up online.

The Agility Class is held Mondays and Thursdays 5:00-5:30

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” ― John Wooden 

Monday, December 17th from 5:00-5:30

Agility Class members will be working with

Zoe Littlewood, Sports Psychology Consultant, M.A.

About Zoe

Mondays and Thursdays from 5:00-5:30

Work hard. Get Fit.

See you in the gym.

When: Mondays and Thursdays 5:00-5:30 <—NEW TIME!!!

Where: Core Fitness Corner @ SoCal Athletics

Class Perks:

• It’s FREE! ( Class is free ONLY to the first 8 SoCal Members to reserve a spot ONLINE) 
• Designed for those interested in being the complete athlete. Class
  will focus on strength, endurance, agility, balance, coordination and
  overall functional fitness.
• Instructors are ACSM and AAHF Junior Fit Youth Fitness certified–who believe workouts should be fun and the right amount of challenge

*Attendees must register online. Classes with no reservations two hours before start time will be cancelled.

If you’re sweating and smiling, we’ve done our job.

Swiss Ball Love

So much “Swiss Balls on Three!” was a popular water cheer with the Summer Fit Crew this past July.

Interestingly though, the level of excitement of using this exercise equipment is equally matched to the curiosity of…

“Why are they called Swiss Balls?”

After heavy research (Wikipedia), here’s the answer:

So there you go, the original “Pezzi Ball” has come a long way: Developed in Italy, therapists and doctors working in Switzerland developed the method of treatment,  and American physical therapists developed the name.

Another Gym Mystery Solved.

Whether we are in class or in the office, lunch is often eaten away from home — leaving us vulnerable to eating out, quick convenience food, or worse…not eating lunch at all!

The key is the plan ahead, and here’s something that can help…

The Laptop Lunchbox, a Bento box found at www.laptoplunches.com. The lunchboxes come in different colors and are sold individually or as part of a kit. Additional containers and accessories are available too.

This review is based on the Bento Lunchbox 2.o in “Berry Blue”

Core’s Review

Pros: In addition to being reusable, BPA Free, dishwasher safe, AND Made in the USA, here are a few of our favorite things about the Laptop Lunchbox…

1)      Organized: No Tupperware Jenga with this Bento Box design. There is a place for everything: It holds lunch and important snacks for the day (Notice the perfect little nook for that pre-workout PB&J sandwich)

2)   No phantom food smells: The top right picture shows the test for this…Bison Taco Dip (Mmm!). After Cleaning with a lil’ baking soda, soap and water the smell came right out.

3)    Holds liquids as promised: It is not shown in the pictures, but today chicken tortilla soup made it to campus with no spills!

4)   Portion Control: Mini-containers make proper food portions easy. The covered micro-container is perfectly for a yogurt snack. And the nano-container is ideal for portable salad dressing!

 

Cons: A few things we didn’t love…

1)      Not all of the mini-containers come with lids: This isn’t a huge problem because the actual box closes snugly so food never shifts around. But you won’t be able to use some of the mini containers without the larger box.

2)   The size of the larger box is a little…awkward: If you purchase the more expensive kit, there is an insulated cooler that goes along with the box. But otherwise, you’ll need a pretty big cooler to pack this in.

3)    The space for the utensils is small: laptoplunches.com does sell appropriately-sized reusable utensils, and disposable utensils do work too, but our 3-in-1 spoon+forknife doesn’t fit into the utensil space.

The Laptop Lunchbox in Action!

Overall: 4/5  The Laptop lunchbox is a winner. The system makes it fun and easy to pack and tote a healthy midday meal. We recommend this to anyone looking to spruce up their lunch options, or wants to get their child involved in preparing their own snacks. We also appreciated the recipes and videos found on the company’s website www.laptoplunches.com. 

Please check out our class schedule tab for current class calendar

“I just wanted to thank you so much for the workouts the last two months! The tools I gained with you are invaluable to my fitness success!”

-SoCal Parent & Fit Families Member

Research in biology and education has showed that working out benefits the brain in numerous ways; including attention span, memory, and learning.

Start the school year out strong mentally and physically with this workout.

Dumb Jock?

Ha–I don’t think so.