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1. 

   Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 1:12 pm

   I was in the middle of eating breakfast when you said to do the pushups…I also had a headache from a long day at work yesterday. I did those pushups anyway and felt really strong afterward! That was cool! 🙂

2. 

   Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 1:40 pm
   michigan, usa

   This was a great video! Very motivational and made me feel a bit normal 😜 I went 3 days with no workout this week because of a really bad cold and busy schedule and I feel so weird because of it. Like you said, it’s like I haven’t taken a shower! So off. So thank you for clarifying I’m not bonkers. Doing those push ups with you helped motivate me to go do my workout. Thanks! 🙃

3. 

   Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 4:27 pm

   Hi Z!

   Thank you for your post on motivation-I needed a little extra oomph today as I’m finishing my bullet-proof coffee and looking at today’s workout 🙂

   I have some questions regarding outdoor activity. I’m enrolled in a Backpacking class in my hometown San Luis Obispo, and we’re training ourselves by doing these type of workouts plus going on as many hikes as possible before our trip in a couple weeks. My first question is, what kind of cardio from your categories would you recommend be a good fit to get ready for long endurance hikes? Mostly your cardio workouts stay in one place between your Shreds, JR, etc. and recently I went on a run for 2 miles around a school track and it nearly killed me! I’m great with your strength workouts, but I need extra help with cardio. Any suggestions?

   Last question is, when I’m going on my trip, I’m researching foods that would be good to take with me that would last me for the trip, and unfortunately fresh veggies/fruits and meat don’t last long. We are going to be gone from the 14th-17th this month, and I would like to know if there’s anything on here you recommend I take so I’m not loaded up on too much sugar or simple carbs. Any suggestions on this, too? Thanks in advance! I’m really looking forward to this trip, and always grateful for your zgym getting me stronger every day.

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     Private Member  |  July 3, 2016 @ 5:24 pm

     Hi Katherine! I’m a pretty avid backpacker and wanted to chime in. I think the best thing you can do to prepare for long hikes with a heavy pack on is simply doing workouts that keep your heart rate elevated for longer periods. It doesn’t need to be super high-intensity. But you might want to pick some of the longer ZGym workouts. 🙂 Her 12-15 workouts are amazing for strength and burning calories but I find they’re not necessarily a substitute for exercise that is lower intensity but lasts much longer. The other key is to have strong legs – which if you’re a ZGym member you’ve already got! And in general just spend as much time on your feet as you can. Walk everywhere, stand up at work, etc.

     A note on the food: You’re going to be burning a ton of calories hiking many miles a day up and down hills with a pack on. (My rule of thumb is 100 calories a mile.) You need to properly fuel yourself. This is exactly when you DO want carbs! That’s not to say you should eat a bunch of junk. But foods that give you energy to keep going and recover each night are really important – please don’t try to stick to your regular calorie count while backpacking. Actually, high-calorie foods are your friend, since you want to minimize weight in your pack! Some of the things I usually bring on trips:

     – Packets of tuna fish and crackers (I like the ones with tons of seeds)
     – String cheese
     – Lara bars (awesome source of energy, and grain free if that is important to you)
     – Peanut butter or almond butter (Justin’s makes little single-serve packets)
     – Tortillas to make wraps with dinner leftovers, peanut butter and couscous, etc.
     – Whole wheat couscous or instant rice (way faster to prep for dinner than regular rice or quinoa)
     – Instant oatmeal for breakfast (I prep individual portions with powered milk, cinnamon, nus, dried fruit, coconut flakes, etc)
     – Dark chocolate
     – These are a little heavier, but the ‘instant’ Tasty Bites meals or similar (usually in the health food aisle at most grocery stores) are kind of great. You just have to submerge the pack in boiling water for two minutes and it’s ready. I like the spinach dal or paneer – good way to get your veggies on the trail! You can also look at your grocery store for dehydrated vegetables (like these: https://www.amazon.com/Just-Tomatoes-Veggies-8-Ounces-Large/dp/B001IZICTC). They’re a little expensive but great to toss into dinner
     – If you have to have fresh produce, I’ve found carrots and bell peppers will last the longest in your pack
     – Powdered vitamin C packets
     – Sesame sticks (I always crave salt, not sweets when hiking, and these have pretty good calorie:weight ratio)
     – Herbal tea for after dinner/breakfast is a nice treat. Or instant hot chocolate (but you’d better bring enough to share or you might get tackled by fellow campers)

     Other ideas: I don’t really buy the pre-made freeze dried meals since they’re so expensive and usually full of sodium and other junk. I also don’t eat beans because I don’t digest them well, but if you do, you can make a yummy ‘just-add-water’ chili from dehydrated beans, textured vegetable protein, dehydrated vegetables, and some spices. Summer sausage is also a mainstay but not my favorite.

4. 

   Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 4:58 pm
   toluca, state of mexico, mexico

   Hi dear Zuzka!

   Seriously… You have also changed my life 😀

   love you exist!!!!

   Haha :S I want to tell you, I´ve got a problem with the payment to your page. How can I contact you?

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     Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 8:54 pm
     lake tahoe, nv, usa

     Hi, Please contact support@zuzkalight.com

5. 

   Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 5:07 pm
   tx, usa

   Thank you for showing a bit about your upcoming online store! So exciting!

   I also did the pushups. I am at work, but luckily today is jean day at the office so it wasn’t that difficult. On that note, I have to agree that it’s easier to start randomly working out if you are wearing comfortablet clothes.

   Thank you so much for this video! You are indeed a great motivation! I hope you have a full recovery soon so you can eat real food and feel better!

   Looking forward to the upcoming video discussing your Victoria bikinis. You have convinced me that it’s time to shop for bikinis at Victoria secret 😉

6. 

   Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 10:03 pm

   I’ve been working out regularly with you since 2012. I’ve gotten to the point where if I miss a day of working out I feel guilty about it. I have an excel spreadsheet that I mark off everyday that I work out. It helps to see the stars next to each day. See how long you can keep the streak going for is kind of cool. You’ve definitely changed my life and I’m fitter now than I ever was in my 20s. I’m 35. =) Thank you!

7. 

   Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 1:10 am

   Thanks for the video! My pup, Jury, was very excited when he heard your pups (everyone is his best friend, as far as he’s concerned. hahaha…)

8. 

   Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 1:45 am
   santa cruz, ca

   This was very entertaining to watch. I thought that the sound of your pups howling was Jesse for several seconds, until I realized….. hahaha

   I appreciate your message about creating habits. This, honestly, applies to most self-improvement and self-healing. I have several issues I would like to heal in myself, physically and emotionally. I am grateful for your reminder about how to do this most effectively. It makes these challenging tasks so much less daunting. I know that if I “make myself” stay consistent with something for a few days to a few weeks, depending on what it is, and focus on how good it makes me feel, it will become habit.

   Thank you so much. I’m struggling with a few long term issues right now, and this video reminded me of how I can navigate them and get back on track in a balanced way. I tend to oscillate between being a perfectionist and being only valuing myself when I am being a perfect perfectionist, then giving up when I burn out and fail. I know I need to be more gentle with myself and continue maintaining my self-love/care habits no matter regardless of how perfectly I do this.

9. 

   Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 1:49 am
   santa cruz, ca

   And I wish you a swift recovery, and plenty of probiotics!

   Also, I find that when my body has a reaction to the toxicity of something (antibiotics kill……everything and really inflame people) I up the sulfur intake. I also use sulfur cream (for acne) on my face. My body also responds with those deep, painful pimples when I consume a pharmaceutical (I usually avoid at all costs) or am extremely stressed, etc. It really helps reduce the inflammation under the pimple. You need sulfur for the second phase of liver detoxification to take place properly. And when one takes a strong substance like an antibiotic, often the liver cannot keep up, and more toxins are not excreted properly, and enter the bloodstream. And so many people see this come up in their skin.

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     Private Member  |  July 2, 2016 @ 5:28 pm

     I really identify with your comments about perfectionism, I too set things up to be just so with my lists and schedules and often times I burn myself out trying to keep up with all of my expectations and then go through a low where I give up and need to recuperate. I try to remind myself to allow for forgiveness, that oftentimes it is better to do a little than nothing at all. I have found meditation helpful in smoothing out the inner perfectionist and for taking a moment to reset.

     I was actually really curious to read your comments after watching this video, as you’ve mentioned a background in TCM, and I thought you might have some insights into the reactions from the antibiotics. I too recently went through a disturbance to my microbiome and dealt with some acne and eczema flaring up on my face. Increasing my kefir consumption and masks with non-pasteurized honey helped a great deal, as did drinking a liver tonic tea (dandelion, burdock, yellow dock, eleuthero, milk thistle). That and sweating out a lot of the excess by working out everyday. Helpful to read your comments on this, thank you !

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       Private Member  |  July 2, 2016 @ 9:13 pm
       santa cruz, ca

       It sounds like you are very conscious of your body and also knowledgeable of how to care for yourself in a way that supports your body rather than “bombing the pathogen.” Haha. Just like in politics, bombing and killing the bad guy tends to leave the environment pretty shattered and in need of reparations….even in our bodies.

       Well TCM is a very ancient system based upon thousands of years of observation and testing, but is explained in a code, if I may, that is not like our modern Western physiological understanding. There are beautiful correlations, however. I have a background in Biology, mainly the plant sciences, but I have an intimate past with the scientific method. And what I am studying now predates the scientific method’s invention. So it is interesting to understand both, knowing that both have advantages and disadvantages. Though I see few disadvantages with TCM, to be honest. 🙂 In TCM, antibiotics are considered extremely Cold in nature, causing extreme stagnation in the digestive organs. The stagnation here inhibits the free flow of Qi, prevents nutrition from being extracted and assimilated from food, and over time, creates a latent Heat. The Latent Heat can upset different systems depending, usually, on what underlying excesses and deficiencies already existed in the person. In many people, the Heat enters the “blood level”, which may accumulate and cause Heat to flare in the skin. There are so many theories in TCM, which are noticing the patterns of things.

       From a functional/alternative/Western medicine point of view, we know now that antibiotics kill everything. To put it simply, the microbiome protects thelining of our intestines. When good bacteria is killed off, the villi of our gut become damaged, the tight junctions of our gut lose their integrity, the walls become more permeable. Toxicity that would normally enter the hepatic system (liver detoxification, mainly) and be excreted via the feces, urine, sweat, and breathing, instead enters the bloodstream and reaches the tissues of our body. It also causes our immune system to respond to this toxicity, often an over-response. This is what we call “inflammation.” It is the over-response of our immune system when it senses the danger of pathogens. Inflammation shows up in people’s skin often when taking antibiotics. It is the immune response to all the toxicity that is released into the bloodstream. Where and how this manifests has a lot to do with our genetics. See the parallels with TCM? I sure do. In TCM, the ancient understanding of one’s “constitution” can be understood as their genetics and epigenetic expressions. The effect of a pathogen or drug differs in each person becauseof this. But what seems to be universal is that damaging the microbiome, even for a few days, can catalyze a whole chain of reactions. People who have taken antibiotics as babies and children tend to have more allergy problems in life. People who damage their microbiome consistently will show health issues.

       Nourishing your liver and restoring your microbiome are great strategies. 🙂 If I had no choice but to take antibiotics, for example if I had Lyme’s disease, then I would be taking extremely high doses of probiotics in conjunction and supporting my liver function at detoxification, absolutely.

       Here’s a nice little article. I’m an obsessive researcher. A little type A? Haha. http://jn.nutrition.org/content/141/5/769.full

       Thank you for your insight about forgiveness. “…it is better to do a little than nothing at all.” I will reflect upon this today. I really needed to hear this, thank you!

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         Private Member  |  July 3, 2016 @ 1:50 am

         Ha ha so much of what we put into our bodies and on to our skin is like bombing our bacterial microcolonies. It’s a bit of a shift to start thinking about our body as less isolated self and more a complex system that is interconnected to many other organisms. I find a lot of truth to that quote by Dr. Justin Sonnenburg “Humans are basically elaborate vessels for the propagation of microorganisms.” I love that the microbiome has become such an area of focus in research these days, quite a pendulum swing from the antibiotics craze of the past.

         Thank you for your thoughtful description of TCM, I appreciate the way that you described the practice. It is interesting for me to hear your point of view incorporating both the analytical science background and the more intuitive application of TCM that takes a much more holistic approach. I have a background in microbiology and in the past have come at things from a very analytical viewpoint but in the last few years I have really started to appreciate the more intuitive disciplines that look at things a little less myopically 🙂 I think many of them arrive at similar conclusions, although the language is different. I really like the parallels you draw regarding epiginetics. I find the whole concept of epigenetics very hopeful as it is incredibly empowering to know that you as an individual have the ability to influence the expression of your own genes.

         Thanks for the article, that is right up my alley! I love reading about nutrition and gut health and am constantly amazed by how much influence and how many parts of what we consider “our” being are affected by encouraging a harmony of symbiosis with our fellow microbes 🙂 Counteracting inflammatory states has been my new obsession 🙂 I have been experimenting with some of the adaptogenic mushrooms as of late (chaga and reishi mainly) and have been quite impressed with their immuno modulating properties. I don’t know if those would be part of your studies, but I would imagine you are well versed in adaptogenic herbs and plants.

         Thank you for your thoughtful comments, very interesting to hear your point of view 🙂

10. 

    Private Member  |  July 1, 2016 @ 3:38 am

    Great advice! It takes discipline to develop good habits, which not only improves your health, but also your character. I can’t wear active wear to my job, but the very first thing I do when I roll out of bed in the early am is put on my workout clothes that I laid out the night before. Once I’m dressed, the workout is inevitable. After coffee, of course. 🙂