Hasta La Gadget!

After a tough exercise class, many people find themselves crawling toward the nearest source of food and hoovering up anything in sight.

But imagine doing that exhausting exercise class two, three or four more times in one day. That’s what your favorite teachers and trainers do to help keep you motivated. Not only do they have to show you proper moves, but they also sweat (and even suffer) alongside you to inspire you to give it everything you’ve got, just like they do.

Of course, it takes a lot of food to fuel all of that activity. HuffPost Lifestyle asked master trainers from five major gyms and boutique exercise studios what they eat to make sure they’re bringing their A-game to work.

There were a lot of similarities among all six of the trainers, including an emphasis on whole foods, protein and healthy fats from nuts, fish and olive oil. And while they mostly eat a nutrient-dense diet, they’re also very comfortable treating themselves to alcohol, chocolate and (gasp!) baked goods and sweet treats.

Adam Friedman 

Fitness Institute Expert at Gold’s Gym, Los Angeles

On a typical day, Friedman trains six clients for sessions of 60 to 90 minutes at a time. After his workday is over, he launches into his own 90-minute exercise program that includes kettlebell swing snatches, Bulgarian split squats and other tough, exotic-sounding exercises that few people have heard of, but should probably Google later. 

It’s a jam-packed, highly active workday, which is why Friedman stops to eat no fewer than seven meals. All are 100 percent organic and include high-quality proteins like grass-finished meat, wild-caught fish and lots of fat to help stabilize his blood sugar.

Breakfast: Friedman wakes up at 5:45 a.m. to meditate and sip hot water with organic lemon juice and matcha green tea for its antioxidant properties. Then for breakfast, it’s two whole eggs and six egg whites cooked in grass-fed butter, along with two cups of spinach and one medium yam. His nutritional supplements include fish oils, a multivitamin, zinc, CoQ10 and a probiotic.

Morning snacks: One apple with one teaspoon of organic sunflower seed butter. A few hours later, Friedman eats a second morning snack of organic coconut yogurt mixed with one scoop of grass-fed whey protein powder, some sprouted walnuts and two teaspoons of organic cacao nibs.

Lunch: Homemade turkey meatloaf, a half-cup of roasted vegetables and one medium yam.

Afternoon snack: Like the morning, this snack is broken up in two: The first is one cup of homemade chia seed pudding, and the second is another serving of his organic coconut yogurt mixture from earlier in the day.

Dinner: Wild-caught salmon with romaine lettuce and two teaspoons of sprouted hummus.  

Charlee Atkins 

Senior Instructor at SoulCycle, New York City

This body was brought to you by chocolate chip muffins. No, seriously. While Atkins eats a lot of good-for-you whole foods like oatmeal, fish, quinoa and yogurt, a chocolate chip muffin from Whole Foods is also a vital part of her pre-class routine. Coffee also helps pump up her energy, and after it’s all over she goes out to eat at a restaurant in New York City’s NoLiTa neighborhood, where she might get a little “wastey-face” and then come home wanting snacks (trainers, they’re just like us!). 

Can we hang with you after class, please?

Breakfast: To start her day, Atkins loads up on carbs like old-fashioned oatmeal, into which she throws things like cinnamons, raisins, granola, agave and almond milk. She also makes sure to drink two to three glasses of water and one cup of yerba matte.

Morning Snacks: One iced coffee about 45 minutes before her first class. Then this is where the chocolate chip muffin comes in: Atkins will eat half of it about 30 minutes before class so that the sugar rush peaks right as the session starts. To recover, it’s SmartWater for the electrolytes.

Then she’ll eat a second morning snack before her second class of the day: another iced coffee for energy, then either about half a Quest protein bar or Greek yogurt (Fage, 2 percent), two hard boiled eggs or watermelon and cantaloupe. Then it’s time for the second half of that chocolate chip muffin from earlier in the day.

Lunch: For lunch, Atkins has two go-to moves: an egg sandwich or avocado toast with a fried egg on top. She buys either from The Elk on Charles Street. The protein part of the lunch is crucial for recovery, she says.

Afternoon snack: Either fresh fruit, yogurt and granola or some cashews.

Dinner: Atkins isn’t a fan of cooking and loves going out to eat. A typical dinner for her is rice or quinoa, fish or beans and potatoes or yams. She also loves sweet treats, but only takes a few bites of dessert.

Evening Snack: She can explain it best: “If I choose to go out for drinks with friends and get a little wastey-face (but not too wastey-face) and come home and want snacky-poos, I’ll opt for more fruit or yogurt.”

Akin Akman

Senior Instructor at SoulCycle, New York City

Not only had Akman taught five SoulCycle classes (four of those back-to-back!) on the day we caught up with him, but the superman also completed a bootcamp class and a boxing session for his own fitness. We don’t know how he does it all, but his diet, which is high in protein and fat, gives us a clue.

“I believe in consuming everything in moderation with the exception of no fried foods,” said Akman. And as for all the other exercises classes he takes in addition to teaching his own, Akman says he does it all for us, the students.

“Although I teach so many classes a day, I like to train outside of my classes by taking Barry’s Bootcamp classes, working out with my friend and trainer Andy Speer at Soho Strength Lab, and mixing it up with other types of workouts,” he said. “I like to stay at the top of my game so that I can push my students to become stronger, faster athletes themselves.”

Breakfast: After his 6:30 a.m. bootcamp class, Akman goes for a bacon, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich. 

Morning Snack: After his first set of SoulCycle classes, he drinks coconut water for its potassium and low natural sugar content.

Lunch: After his third SoulCycle class, Akman eats a grilled chicken sandwich and a side salad.

Afternoon snack: Then it’s time for boxing with his friend and trainer Eric Rakofsky. Afterward, he eats an acai bowl with almond butter and bananas. Akman calls this his “favorite snack” and eats it almost daily.

Dinner: After his final set of SoulCycle classes at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m., he goes all out with Japanese food: salmon teriyaki, rice, miso soup and sushi.   

Caroline Ficksman

DavidBartonGym Century City Training Manager, Los Angeles

Ficksman was on her day off when she caught up with us, which means the LA-based trainer hadn’t taught any classes or done any one-on-one training. Instead, she focused on her own fitness: working on her shoulders with high rep, low-weight resistance exercise. Here’s what she ate: 

Breakfast: Three hard boiled egg whites, one yolk and a quarter of an avocado. 

Morning snack: A banana almond butter macro bar. She loves them because they’re vegan, have no soy and use brown rice syrup and coconut sugar for sweeteners. She also eats three dates right before her shoulder workout to give her a little bit more energy to “kill” her lift. To recover, she drinks a protein shake. 

Lunch: Ficksman eats a salad with either a Sweet Earth veggie burger or chicken on top. 

Snack: Raw almonds. 

Dinner: Baked salmon with salsa, grilled asparagus and some baked sweet potato. 

Joey Gonzalez

CEO of Barry’s Bootcamp, West Hollywood

Like Ficksman, Gonzalez was also having an “off-day,” explaining that he simply took a Barry’s Bootcamp class as a student but modified it by skipping the treadmill portion and spending the entire hour-long class on the floor doing resistance exercises with weights. Uhh… sounds like an on-day to mere mortals, sir, but you do you. 

Gonzalez started his day at 5:30 a.m. with Francesca, his four-month old daughter. His job in the wee hours of the morning is solely to play with her. Then he left for a full day of meetings, the bootcamp class and on-site visits to see a new studio expansion in West Hollywood and his own under-construction home. Gonzalez fully admits that if it weren’t for his husband Jonathan Rollo, founder and chef of a healthy salad chain, he wouldn’t eat as well as he normally does.

“Today was an ill-planned day and I ate purely out of convenience,” says Gonzalez. “Having a husband who brings home healthy meals from his restaurant, Greenleaf Gourmet Chopshop, is my saving grace.”

Breakfast: Coffee, water and an egg white and turkey bacon sandwich on an English muffin from Greenleaf.

Lunch: Salad with quinoa, almonds, chicken, arugula and kale.

Afternoon Snack: A Simply PB Protein shake from Barry’s Fuel Bar

Dinner: Salad with chicken, tomatoes, carrots, peppers and onions.

Holly Rilinger

Master Flywheel Instructor, New York City

The day Rilinger provided HuffPost Lifestyle with her food diary, she taught two Flywheel spin classes back to back and a high-intensity interval training class (that’s HIIT to you) and then took another HIIT class as a student. 

The full day of activity leaves her feeling “invigorated but exhausted” by the end. To help fuel her fire, Rilinger focuses mostly on unprocessed, natural foods that help keep her strong and powerful. 

Breakfast: Coffee with almond milk and blackberries — emphasis on the coffee. 

“I don’t like eating too much before my spin classes and NEED my coffee,” she wrote. 

Morning snack: A green smoothie with hemp protein, almond butter and almond milk mixed in. Then a small chicken salad from The Juice Shop in New York City for “quick and easy” fuel after teaching those first two classes.

Lunch: A big piece of grilled chicken with broccoli, chickpeas, cabbage and sweet potato. At this point, she’s also taught her HIIT class and she’s famished. 

Afternoon snack: Grilled vegetables and another protein shake. 

Dinner: Grilled skirt steak, spinach, brussels sprouts and two tequilas with soda. “Tequila is just about all I drink,” Rilinger says. 

Evening snack: For something sweet to end her day, Rilinger indulges in dark chocolate and chamomile tea or coconut ice cream. 

The lesson from these elite exercise instructors? Food plays an important role in both fueling you and helping you recover after a workout. Don’t skip meals on days you work out, and make sure you have a healthy snack to nosh on, like eggs or nuts, after you’re done sweating it out. 

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The following is a guest post from my colleague, Tracy Dell’Angela, a former Chicago Tribune journalist who has worked for a variety of education policy and research organizations. She also describes herself as the “proud but broke” mother of two daughters in college. She blogs at Education Post and at Head in the Sand, a blog focused on improving all public schools, not just those in urban areas.

When you can’t kill the message, then kill the messenger.

That seems to be the tack taken by education bloggers Mark Weber and Alan Singer, who were both frothing recently about the high-profile attention The New York Times editorial writers gave to a research report about the prevalence of college remediation, especially among middle- and higher-income college students.

They cling desperately to the idea that the status quo is working just peachy in American schools–despite all the evidence to the contrary–then they look for an easy scapegoat to explain away inconvenient truths. And if that truth can’t easily be dismissed as a product of poverty or poor parenting, then they just throw in references to “hedge fund managers,” “high-stakes testing,” and the “campaign to privatize public education”–even though the report in question had zero to do with testing, choice or the whims of one-percenters.

So let’s break this down.

Singer’s piece largely boiled down to a rambling and random attack on the board of directors (“vulture capitalists”) for the organization that released the report, Education Reform Now. Then he went after the authors–one was criticized for getting her master’s in “policy” (suggesting, what, that policy is a fake degree?) instead of teaching (so now you have to be a classroom teacher to do legitimate education research?).

He also took a few random shots at the analysis–why didn’t the report explore regional income differences among the kid taking remedial education? (The survey data was national, not regional.) What about all those affluent kids with learning disabilities going to college? (The survey was about postsecondary experiences, not special education designations.)

Weber took a similar scattershot approach.

He recoiled at Times’ description of Education Reform Now as a “nonprofit think tank.”

Now, I’m not one to discount a piece of research solely on the basis of who funds it. But if this were a report funded by, say, a teachers union, there is absolutely no way the Times would simply say it came from a “think tank.” It’s absurd for the Times to pretend this report was not prepared in the service of a particular agenda.

Here’s the “particular agenda” that Education Reform Now and Education Post (which sponsored this report) supports: High schools and high school students are underperforming–not just in big, dysfunctional urban districts, but in suburban and rural schools across the country.

You don’t want to believe that, but it’s backed up by the national higher education data analyzed in this remediation report and the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress results, which found that only a fourth of students are proficient in math (and less than 40 percent in reading).

Weber cleverly describes college remediation as the “5-iron club” pulled out of the bag first to beat up on suburban schools–maybe because he knows suburban parents might be roused from their complacency when they start paying college prices for the content their kids should have learned in their well-funded public high schools.

When did we decide that the K-12 system was solely responsible for our current college remediation rates? Don’t the colleges themselves have some culpability here? Why are they accepting so many students if those students aren’t up to their standards?

In any case: how is any of this the fault of the K-12 public school system? Are affluent suburban schools supposed to be preparing all of their students for admission into elite private colleges? Doesn’t that directly contradict the notion of a true meritocracy? Or is everyone supposed to be above average?

In addition: don’t students themselves have some degree of responsibility for whether or not they are prepared for college?

No one ever decided or even implied that K-12 schools are solely responsible for college remediation. They are (or should be) responsible for helping high school students (not just some, the goal is all) master the content and skills they need to successfully pursue a career or college.

A high school diploma must mean much more than four years of seat time and credit accumulation.

Colleges–not just the elite ones–absolutely have culpability if they enroll underprepared students and take their money but don’t provide them the proper supports to succeed. Those supports, however, shouldn’t come as a financial penalty to students they have accepted.

Without a doubt, students have personal responsibility, which is why the report was intentional in calling out poorly-performing high schools and high school student achievement. Those words are in the title.

Weber doesn’t want schools to share in any of the culpability, so he too finds a subgroup that must be dragging down the numbers. Singer blamed the kids with learning disabilities. Weber is pointing to English-language learners, whose college remediation rates are 7 percentage points higher than the first-years who just speak English at home. That translates to 28 versus 21 percent, but still unacceptably high.

And what’s he implying here? That our national diversity is a bad thing? Or that maybe high schools shouldn’t be held responsible for teaching those kids, the ones not speaking English at home?

His final shot across the bow is against Common Core:

Oh, please. How do we know that implementing the Common Core leads to better college preparation? Show me any empirical evidence this is the case. Anything. I dare you. You can’t.

Even if we accept the notion that college remediation rates are too high, the idea that simply implementing the Common Core and administering aligned standardized tests will solve the “problem” is not supported by the slightest shred of evidence.

We’ll take that dare.

A recently released report found that students who score at the “college-ready” level on the PARCC exam are well-positioned to earn good grades in colleges, providing early evidence that the assessment does what it was designed to do: measure college readiness. (Mathematica Policy Research did that report; perhaps you can find some hedge fund managers on their board or researchers with “policy” degrees to discredit the findings.)

There’s nothing simple about it. Rigorous high school academic preparation is the No. 1 pre-college indicator of college completion–it has a larger impact than race, family income, or parental education. Common Core and its associated assessments are the most expansive effort to achieve that goal, but it is hardly the only solution.

Like Weber, we are “sick and tired” of this debate. We too are tired of having our work cynically dismissed as a product of propaganda. We want the same thing good teachers want: for our kids to succeed, not to stagnate.

This post originally appeared on Education Post.

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On Audre Lorde and writing oneself into existence
By Lavelle Porter

Dear Audre,

Two years, ago your name came up in one of the most improbable places. A few weeks before the St. Louis Rams drafted Michael Sam, making him the first openly gay player in NFL history, a white male sportscaster in Texas named Dale Hansen gave a passionate response to Sam’s critics: “Civil rights activist Audre Lorde said, ‘It is not our differences that divide us, it is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.'” I never thought I’d see the day that a silver-haired, Southern white sportscaster with a Texas accent would publicly quote you, a black lesbian feminist socialist poet, and would do so in defense of a black gay professional football player, but here we are. Hansen’s full statement was powerful and drew attention. But the moment also made me wary. I thought about how this story of a gay athlete coming out in a major male sport was indicative of an assimilationist moment in queer politics. I wondered about your being reduced to an innocuous “civil rights activist” and not the militant poet who criticized the US invasion of your ancestral homeland Grenada, who spent time in the Soviet Union, and who might be critical of the macho, brutal sport that the young man plays or the billion-dollar corporation that runs it.

The lines that Hansen quoted are widely attributed to you on the web, but I can’t find the original source. Some references cite the 1986 poetry collection Our Dead Behind Us, but it’s not there. Certainly, the quote sounds like yours, and this idea of “difference” is one you expressed so well in your poetry and essays.

Read the full essay on the Poetry Foundation website.

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Originally published at OpEdNews

It’s happening. Now that Donald Trump has the nomination he is shifting his image, softening and moderating it with the help of the best consultants in the world. Paul Manafort, who has made a career of re-framing tyrants into gentle heroes who the US gives millions or billions, is one of a team of PR geniuses who will succeed in re-framing Trump. That will drop his negatives to below the record high negatives Hillary has, and THAT, is already changing the polls. One recent Rasmussen poll has Trump defeating Hillary and another shows them in a statistical tie.

Additional Considerations:

Several readers of this article on OpEdNews have pointed out that the DNC and superdelegates may be more interested in tending to where their bread is buttered– their corporate leash-holders– than in securing a winning candidate. They’ll screw women and minorities and stay with Hillary.

Polls have been really off this election season, a Hillary supporter scoffs. That’s true, but almost every poll that was off predicted that Hillary would do better than she actually did. That means that when a poll suggests that Hillary is up a few points over Trump, or even five or six, based on past performance of almost all the polls, she’ll actually do far worse than that. This further supports my analysis.

Follow me on twitter @RobKall

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By Bronwyn Lea

Once asked what poets can do for Australia, A.D. Hope replied: “They can justify its existence.” Such has been the charge of Australian poets, from Hope himself to Kenneth Slessor, Judith Wright to Les Murray, Anthony Lawrence to Judith Beveridge: to articulate the Australian experience so that it might live in the imagination of its people. While the presence and potency of the Australian landscape remains an abiding interest, a great deal of Australian poetry has been innovative and experimental, with poets such as Robert Adamson, Michael Dransfield, Vicki Viidikas, John Forbes, Gig Ryan,   J.S. Harry, and Jennifer Maiden leading the way. The richness, strength, and vitality of Australian poetry is marked by a prodigious diversity that makes it as exhilarating to survey as it is challenging to encapsulate.

While the most convincing justification for the existence of Australia might come from its indigenous poets, Aboriginal poetry in Australia has been particularly overlooked, both its historical traditions and the innovative work being written today. Australian Aboriginal culture is thought to date back over forty thousand years, making it the oldest continuous culture on the planet. Of the 250 indigenous languages in circulation before European settlement in 1788, fewer than 150 survived the advance of English, and the numbers are dwindling. Fortunately, linguists have managed to transcribe and translate at least some of the rich and diverse Aboriginal oral traditions before they are lost.

Read the full essay on the Poetry Foundation website.

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