Summary: Amy has a conversation with Core Tri Fitness owner and trainer Melissa Wagmann about ADHD, Exercise, and Nutrition.
Resources:
https://www.coretrifitness.com/
http://www.facebook.com/coretrifitness/
https://www.instagram.com/coretrifitness/
https://www.lumen.me/
Protein Calculations: Approximately 2grams/per kilogram for building mass
Maximum Heart Rate Formula 206.9 – (0.67 x age)
(Here is an example of how to use the formula to calculate a maximum heart rate for someone who is 45 years old: (206.9) – (0.67 x 45) = 176 beats per minute )
Transcript:
Amy Voros [00:00:02] Good morning. This is Amy with Creative Catapult Coaching., and today I am talking with Melissa [00:00:08]of CoreTri Fitness. [1.1s] And today I’m venturing out on my own without my co-host, Lindsay, So we’ll see how this goes! Melissa,can you tell us a little bit about who you are and why you’re doing what you’re doing?
Melissa Wagman [00:00:22] Yeah. Thank you. Thank you Amy for having me here. It’s kind of fun. I feel really honored to be part of this. My name is Melissa Wagman, I’m from Brazil. I’ve been living here in the US since 2016. I’m a personal trainer, also on nutritional coach. And I have been in love with sports and fitness all my life. At the same time, I struggle a lot with my my my body compistion and my fitness goals, so I love to help people with this because it’s something that I feel myself. I love to to help others to find their balance as well. So thank you for having me here. I’ve been coaching.
Amy Voros [00:01:05] That’s true. Melissa and I have been working together for, what, about six months now? Mostly with [00:01:11]Lumen [0.0s] on and trying to figure out what kind of foods that I can eat to help sort of regulate my body and brain function. I don’t know if you want to say just a couple words about that and then we can switch gears and talk about exercise and ADHD, which is what I was really kind of planning for us to have a little bit of a conversation around.
Melissa Wagman [00:01:35] Just a little bit about the Lumen. Lumen is a device that can measure my metabolism real time and an Amy. She’s been using for the last six months or eight months, more or less. And that the deal is to understand how your body, your body specifically, that these uniquely processes the energy. So the idea is to learn and to become more efficient and efficient in the process of like carbs and fats and make your body understand or teach your body how should deal with these different sources of energy? This is the deal. It’s just a little bit of both moment and both what I’ve been doing lately. Let’s talk about exercises.
Amy Voros [00:02:21] And although I’m gonna take one second and loop back around and can we talk about how protein fits into that? Because there’s a lot of. Research…people…knowledge….
Amy Voros [00:02:38] My words are not working as well as I’d like. But the protein is really important for people with ADHD. So how does protein fit in with the fat and the carbs and the metabolism?
Melissa Wagman [00:02:49] OK, OK. This is something I love to talk about it. I love to talk about all this because people are I mean, in general, people are eating less protein than they should and the protein is the blocks is the foundation of our body. So you use protein to build bones, muscles, tissues, but also neurotransmitters, hormones and use protein for the brain. So it is vital that you regulate the amount of protein you have intaking daily. And there is a lot of controversy among these studies, how much we should eat daily. So, there is I study or we go for to the safe bet. We would say .85 grams grams per kilo per day. Sorry, I’m Brazilian. I would talk about kilos not pounds. But this is my brain working. But I recommend to my clients two grams; is more than double than the safe…I mean, when you say .85, we are saying not to die, to keep alive: but it’s not ideal is a minimum. So when you go for me, for my clients, the safe level would be two grams per kilo per day. And this is a lot. So I always recommend to my clients, mostly women, to supplement with a good whey protine or a good source of protein that it can have easily in your day. This is something that will help you building neurotransmitters, that you will help to regulate your ADD or ADHD, and it will also regulate your hormones levels. And you’ll be able to keep your fitness level easier because you’re regulate your muscle mass, your balance of your body. So protein is the key. I’ve been talking about this a lot lately. And when you talk about the two other macro nutrients, that’s carbs and fats. There is one rule: Carbs, and fat, doesn’t match, doesn’t it? So they don’t match. So if you have a high carb day, it’s a low fat day. Why? And because when we have a high carb day, we create the peak of insulin, for example. And you call you have something to call adipogenisis. So we have this fat immediately in our storage of fat tissue. So we don’t want this. We don’t want to balance better these two sources of energy. So high carb, low fat, high fat, low carb. And this is the balance between these micronutrients and protein keeps high all the time. So not less than two grams per kilo per day. I will saying that. I mean that in other and other countries, pounds, because I know that we’re talking here. I’m sorry about this.
Amy Voros [00:05:45] I thought you were very, very rough. Translation, a kilo, one kilo is 2.2 pounds. So you could basically just say, not 100% accurate, but basically, you know, one gram of protein per pound of weight. It won’t be quite as exact. But for some really fast math, that would probably be a good place to start.
Melissa Wagman [00:06:10] [00:06:10]Yeah, I have. I have a translation. [1.0s] Yeah. And of course, I do have the micronutrients as well. Not only to they meet the micronutrent needs as well, not only the macros that protein, fats and carbs yout have the vitamins, you have the minerals that are kind of mandatory if you have the ADHD or ADD, you need to pay attention to this daily nutrition because it part of how your brain will answer to the medication and your brain function is the key to balance your body. This is just true. So let me talk about it. I don’t have it here either.
Amy Voros [00:06:49] Well, because it maybe we can plan to talk about that in a couple of weeks. I do want to make sure we actually get a chance to talk about exercise. And I’d love to chat with you specifically about nutrition when we can have a little bit more time around it.
Melissa Wagman [00:07:08] My pleasure. My pleasure to talk about nutrition, it’s a passion of mine also also exercise. So let’s go to the main story.
Amy Voros [00:07:16] Let’s go to exercise. So we talked about that I do have ADHD and so that’s part of why I’m interested in using exercise and nutrition in part of my own, doing my best to keep myself balanced. So out of your opinion, is there our best kind of exercise for ADHD or does it all kind of work?
Melissa Wagman [00:07:43] OK. I will just say something then to probably shock everyone, but the best type of exercise is the type you like it! Point. Period. Why? Because if its the kind of exercise you like it, you keep you doing it, you’re keeping Into this there’s activity more than a type that always is just good for in the ADHD, but I don’t like it. Like, let’s say fight or martial arts sports activities are awesome because you work your concentration, you work discipline and a lot of techniques that make your mind be more focused. But if you don’t like this kind of activity is not the kind of activty I would recommend for a person with this disorder. So the kind that type of activity you should choose if you have any any type of disorder, or if you need to have this exercise routine as a manditory in your life to improve your well-being is an activity you like. Only factor that I would mention try to choose something that keep your heart rate or intensity in a moderate level. So let’s say 80 percent, 75 percent plus of your max heart.
Melissa Wagman [00:09:10] How you do this? [00:09:10]Math Simple count 220 less your age is a simple math to calculate your max heart rate. So this [12.4s] is a bit kind of rule of thumb calculation, of course, and everyone is different. But this is a way that you can use to simplify this. This mathematics part of the exercise. So let’s keep 75 to 85 percent of your max heartrate would be a good actvity for you. So example, a power walking, running, cycling, swimming, yoga. But with a little bit more intensity. What else I would say in gymnastics. Anything that is a little bit more aerobic. It’s good for you. This is the first rule. And should try to find something that you like it. Then you keep doing it right.
Amy Voros [00:10:16] Agreed, and I know that you’ve had me doing some high intensity intervals or HITT training. How does that impact your neurotransmitters?
Melissa Wagman [00:10:27] So the HIIT training then? The HITT training is something that we are oscillating between low heart rate exercises, strength exercises, and cardio. Really, really intense in a short period of time to keep your your heart rate really, really high. Around 85, 95 percent of your max for a heart rate. When you do this kind of activity, you do a stimulation in two important neurotransmitter that is dopamine. And then Norepinephrin. Nor…nor..no.
Amy Voros [00:11:06] Norepineipherin.
Melissa Wagman [00:11:07] Norepinepherin. And this is when you have this exercise happening. Dopamine is almost immediately and as a medicine, it last a period of time. It’s not forever. Oh, I exercise in the morning. So I feel this feeling of the neurotransmitters all day long? No, this is not true. And it takes a kind of it lasts a short period of time, around nine minutes, 60 to 90 minutes after the activity. So we have this benefit of the activity and the stimulation of the neurotransmitters after that exercise. This is important because this probably will put something in your routine different than your thinking. Best way to exercise in the morning before you take your medicine, right. And you send me a lot of paper or materials like this.
Amy Voros [00:12:06] It does. And yet, for me personally, I’m usually on my sharpest in the morning. So I find doing it in the, you know, mid afternoon or even evening has impacted my sleep positively. You know, as long as I’m doing it several hours before bed. I am finding I sleep better, but I’m already kind of on in the mornings. So the thought of being coordinated and tried to exercise in the morning has never appealed to me very much.
Melissa Wagman [00:12:32] Well, I be honest with you, this is not a rule. I mean, it’s not mandatory, but it would be better for you to align your exercise with your meds in the morning. It’s not mandatory if you. The important thing for the well-being and for the balance of your body and interests, you start to stimulate it now with transmitters is to exercise, is to work out. If you is better for you to recall during the night. Again, the same rule which exercise exercises better is better do or make the exercise instead of not doing anything. So what I would recommend for a person that’s not able to wake up with this disposition or I don’t want to work out in the morning, I don’t feel good, I don’t feel energized, it’s. After lunch, is a good option as well.
Melissa Wagman [00:13:30] And before go to sleep , but before go to sleep, there are some people that do need to test themselves because there are some people they feel really, really simulated about the endorphines. And the dopamine is like a stimulation, a lot that they can’t sleep. So this is something to pay attention, because if this day activity strengthens before we go to bed, they probably need more time to relax.
Melissa Wagman [00:13:57] So would I reccomend relaxation or meditation, after exercise to calm a little bit the body before or go to sleep because there are some people there that can sleep. My husband is one is one case. He’s every time he goes really intense before go to bed he can he is too excited because the endorphines are too much for him so he can sleep well. And my advice for you and for everybody that’s listen or look in this video is: test. And pay attention to your feelings. So. Okay. I work on the night and I didn’t feel super well my my night was my sleep quality was poor. Change your routine, go to the morning, do a little bit more effort to work out in the morning. Oh, the morning, it is not working for me. Try after the lunch hour before lunch. Find your balance. This is everybody is unique. I can’t say this is the rule because of this this and this factor. Of course there’s some perfect optimal scenario, but it’s not works for everyone.
Amy Voros [00:15:05] Yeah. No. And I’ve learned that if I don’t start, I usually go to bed between 10 and 11. And so if I do it, if I’ve started by eight, I might be OK, but I might do less, especially if it’s the high intensity. Walking doesn’t seem to have an impact. But if I’m doing some of the HITT exercises, I know well, like last night I was talking on the phone and had every intention of doing it and pretty soon it was 10 o’clock. And I knew that if I tried to do it, then that I, I wouldn’t sleep. So I chose to skip instead of staying awake all night because sleep is really important in my world.
Melissa Wagman [00:15:46] Exactly. And during the sleep, we are restoring a lot of system. We are building the blocks. We are building the blocks in this. So the people I mean, the majority of people think that is a is a is a kind of general rule to follow to be healthy, to feel good. This is not true. Everyone has some particular tips and you need to pay attention to your body, we are talking about this before this interview began. Amy, you are super aware about your feelings and emotions. And I think not only people with ADD OR ADHD, should be aware of all this, but everyone should be aware of this. I have a chatoic life. You have a crazy life, a lot of stimulus and a lot of things going on at the same time; you have the cell phone, and the computer, and the iPad. Everything is going on the same time and everybody’s overwhelmed. So you need to start to internalize and pay attention. I today I eat more protein: how I’m feeling? How I feel on the day after? Today I worket out in the morning: how I’m feeling? how these workouts in the morning to affect my body, my mind, my soul, my balance? So the secret here for everyone, it is to pay attention and internalize your feelings and read. Learn how to read your body, learn how to read. How did the food affect me. How the exercise is impacting, how your routine is changing your your focus or attention? This is key to have a balanced life.
Amy Voros [00:17:27] So I question for you is you talk about measuring or paying attention. What kinds of things should somebody look for? Or if you were to give one piece of advice about understanding how to pay attention, what should somebody be looking for? Or what do you suggest to your clients to help them figure out how to learn to pay attention to these things?
Melissa Wagman [00:17:54] OK. First, we have some quality factors in the easy, easy to measure sleep quality. Did you sleep well or not? So I didn’t have a good night. Why? I, I didn’t… I didn’t have a sleep routine or I eat late or I exercise late or I have stress. I exchanged stressful message with my boss. What affected yours.
Melissa Wagman [00:18:26] Is this easy, though?
Amy Voros [00:18:27] Yes. So do you recommend that people write this down or keep? How do you tell?
Melissa Wagman [00:18:33] Well, we got this right to market. OK. Regarding the nutrition, there is a really simple way to track down. Take a picture of your plate. Take a picture everything you are eating during the day. Along the day. Take a picture and sent yourself, create a..or send your buddy, or send your sister, or your father, or coach saying, send this pictures for anyone or everyone that you want and start to create this in this kind of picture information. And then you remember. Okay. I’m feeling kind of I don’t feel well or I’m losing weight or I’m feeling more in the driver’s seat. Let me see what I’ve been eating the last two days. This is a good way to do it because I can recommend a lot of different food logs to have a lot of apps. This supercool with takes time to eat and then go to the app and start to find it food and figure out how. How was the weight of the food you ate Its not so simple. We did some time. But with the the Picture? It’s easy. Its tehre in your photo log. And you can easily. And there’s some apps, actually that you can use to photo log your food. Amazing. I really recommend we have this exercise in the beginning. Remember Amy?
Amy Voros [00:19:46] Yes,I’ve got no idea. I do remember.
Melissa Wagman [00:19:49] Well example what I remember the other day you said, Oh, I eat a lot of popcorn in the night. I woke up in the low level of burning fat. I said, what do you do really well with corn. Remember at the beginning you sent me a lot of pictures with some plates with corn. And I remember your processing really well. So its actually learning. OK. It’s a carb. But exactly that type of carbs good for your body. Probably the other one other. For Examle, for me. Rice doesn’t work. Rice doesn’t work for me, but I process really well, wheat. So we need to learn in a picture, help you to remember what you’re doing. Regarding exercises, you can have a lot of smartwatches. I love my mind’s like super small one! , but I use in my bike. And also here I have my log. I have my Garmin, And I have my log here in my cell phone. And I can remember. Oh, how was my pace? How was my heart rate? Because this affects a lot. So I remember when my daughter was two years old, she was a sleeping kind of horrible. So I had I having at the time, I was having sleep deprivation and my performance was terrible.I burnt out, I was a Triathletes and I were not. But now I know why, because I didn’t have enough recovery from my sleep hours.
Melissa Wagman [00:21:16] And now I know and this is simple, but we are so overwhelmed with everything else that we do, we forget to pay attention of these details. Why my work is not functioning properly? Or with the full capacity that would be function?
Amy Voros [00:21:32] And the book does say no, that makes a lot of sense. So it just again, it’s interesting, especially for many of us with ADHD, creating not only the habit of doing exercise or tracking is really hard. And so it’s interesting to hear some of the ways to do it with very little executive function required or very little remembering to help build the habit. So it’s almost like you can eliminate the first level of thinking and get to the analysis part instead of first, having to spend the energy to track it and then spending the energy to look at that. So it sounds like some of these tools can help eliminate that first challenge of having to remember to do it, to gather the data so you can look at the data.
Melissa Wagman [00:22:31] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So for you for for for for everybody that has any challenge like diabetes, ADD, Any kind of disorder that you need to track back. I like to recommend a heart rate monitor. This is really, really important for you. Why? Because if we want to build knowledge about how the intensity of your date, the activity and how your sleep quality, because when you’re sleeping your rest heart hate, you’ll be the lowest. Right? You’d be doing this. and the sleep time would be ending the lowest heart rate possible. Heart rate possible. So if you need to understand how you are improving these heart rate conditioning, then your body, you work well, better. And when you have this trick, simple watch can do this. And you can connect with a simple app, automatically, just hit the play button. But then it’s done. and it’s a cool tool to see how your body. We want that. And you create the fitness level for your heart rate, for your conditioning. And this is affects a lot your well-being. A lot. A lot.
Amy Voros [00:23:56] So probably one last question for you. How do you suggest, as somebody who has a hard time developing routine and hates doing the same thing over and over? How do you develop and stick with the routine? OK. Because I don’t know. And you need to do it. And doing it for those of us with ADHD are not the same thing.
Melissa Wagman [00:24:18] I can’t imagine I can tell because I don’t have what I can measure. And that’s hard because it’s hard for me to do a routine for a lot of stuff and work with this. I didn’t lie. I need to be in shape because of my profession. So and it still is hard. For example, I hate honestly, I don’t like to go to the gym. I don’t know. I feel under pressure. I don’t like it. I don’t like the environment. I don’t like the people. I do feel like everybody’s looking at me. I don’t like this feeling. I, I am an outdoor person kind of for life. I love to swim. I love to run outdoors. But this for me helps a lot. So this is something if you need to understand, if you’re building the right routine for you. So you paid the membership of the gym. But if the gym does not place where you, forget it! You’ll never be able to build this routine to go to the gym because you hate you in the gym. Oh, how you go, force yourself to go to a place that you hate? So first, you should try to find the right place and the right time and the right activity. First secret, First rule, don’t force yourself to do the routine that make you miserable. Because it’s true! And second, you can create some some good, good triggers to to help you to create a routine. For example, if you want to start to create the routine to workout in the morning before go to bed, have your tennis shoes, your workout clothes, your watch, your supplements. Everybody sit in a bag or set to go change and go to run outside. Prepare everything the night before because it’s super hard to be the alarm, hit snooze and wake up. OK, I need to find my tennis shoes. Oh, where’s my suppliments? Where’s my my water bottle. So forget it. So you create this five minutes. I just posted somethign about this on my Instagram. You need to create a five minutes easy tasks for you to be able to build the routine to build this momentum, momentum, to build the discipline, create the habits. So five minutes. Prepare everything that night before. Fine. Find a buddy to would out with. Find that coach. Find that team. Find that group. Everybody is working out now. After the pandemic, everybody’s outdoors. Everybody’s enjoying groups. And of course, it can go go to a group, but you can you can find a buddy to work out with. This is awesome. These you created this accountability and oh, there he is going. I can’t fail because he’s waiting for me or she’s waiting for me. So it’s a good strategy to create this kind of motivational factor and really find something that you like. If you don’t like it, change it. And then try again. And if you don’t like it, change again. But keeping moving. Keeping moving. From this. Until we find something. Oh, this is it. I find myself here. This is my active for life or these are active. I would do for a while. And then if your life change. If the situation change, change again.
Amy Voros [00:27:37] How often do you think people change workouts or activities?
Melissa Wagman [00:27:43] Oh, I’m a triathlete. So triathletes are kind of crazy people that they kind of marriage with the sports for for a life. I actually after that burnout when I did the two Ironman, and I burnout. I, I decided to stop. I am talking about myself because it’s a really good example. I was trained from Monday to Sunday, like three years in a row. I was going to the national championships and I was doing really well and I decided, no, you know what, I will stop it. So I start to do kiteboarding. I started to do more standup paddle boarding, and I started enjoying more like family after three years in a row, nonstop doing activity. And all my friends, all my colleagues from triathlon, they keep it kept doing exactly the same thing they are doing. I have two more years again, five years in a row. Not changing anything. I, I needed the change and there is not no rule. But for my clients, for example, for workouts when I go with my clients. I like to change at least once a month. They will team because if you do the same weight routine the entire month, every day, the same thing is boring. It’s not only boring, but the your muscles, your body is is not only receiving the same stimuli, you’re not giving a different type of challenge for your body and your body will be in the comfort zone. So you’re not improving. So you need to change for the improvement happen. So I would say in our workout routine, like a weight lifting at least once a month, I need to change. But regarding back to your art or let’s say jujitsu or triathlon, if you love it, don’t need to change. You just need to to challenge yourself a little bit more. So I started with this sprint and then I went to the Ironman like these since this was I need this extra challenge to keep motivated. So to keep motivation, you need to challenge yourself. This is a good rule. This is a good a good tip. So keep it to yourself challenged. Don’t go to the comfort zone. Don’t go. Don’t be so comfortable that. Oh, no, it’s OK if I go or. Don’t you. For the same. No challenge. A little bit. A little bit. Every time. Stress is good when is well managed.
Amy Voros [00:30:13] Now, I suppose that really falls to your suggestion of, you know, if you don’t like it, change it. And so for those of us who get bored, you know, maybe I’ll spend a month roller blading and maybe next month is you know, I try stand up paddleboarding or something just because, you know, or maybe even one day a week, I’m doing skating. And then, you know, I go back to jogging because I don’t feel like skating today. And I suppose, like you said, doing it is more important, really, than how often I change, what activity I’m involved in. It’s doing it.
Melissa Wagman [00:30:49] Yeah, exactly as I like to change. I like to change because you’re offering your body a different muscle workout, different coordination that you need to learn. And especially if ADD offering a different kind of challenge for your style, for your body, your you keep your focus, you keep your attention to that. It’s really healthy for you. Is it really healthy to train your brain. how short your focus and activity and is it can keep your day. This is awesome.
Amy Voros [00:31:27] All right. Thank you. Thank you for your time and your thoughts and hopefully in a couple weeks we’ll come back and do some talk about in nutrition in more depth.
Melissa Wagman [00:31:39] OK. I promise I’ll bring pounds. No grams or kilos.
Amy Voros [00:31:46] Well, and to what I’ve been doing is I’ll try and, you know, put some resources in the post for the video so we can, you know, post out some of the information that you’ve talked about, as in case somebody doesn’t want to try and, you know, pause the video and make notes about what we’re talking about. So, yeah, we’ll figure out what we can offer and pull out from here and look forward to talking to you again in a couple of weeks.
Melissa Wagman [00:32:17] Thank you, Amy. Thank you very much for this opportunity. So far about my Portuguese English, my Brazilian.
Amy Voros [00:32:24] You know, I get lots of it is there are so many people and so many perspectives in the world. And, you know, it’s fun to be able to connect. One advantage with the pandemic as I’m connecting with people all over the US and the world because it’s harder to connect with people locally. And so it’s been really kind of fun just to have a different excuse to broaden the number and types of people I’m interacting with.
Melissa Wagman [00:32:49] Nice, Nice. Ok Thank you, thank you amy.
Amy Voros [00:32:52] You’re welcome! Take care and have a good one. And again, what does your business name and where can people find you online?
[00:32:58] [00:32:58]OK. My business name is CoreTri Fitness. You can find me online on my Instagram. Core Tri Fitness C o r e t r i fitness or coretrifitness.com. It’s my web site and also my Facebook is Core Tri Fitness[16.0s]
Amy Voros [00:33:16] All right. We’ll make sure we get those in the comments as well. And thank you to everybody and we’ll see you soon.
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