Strength By Fitness
How do you spend your gym free rest days?
Welcome to another fact-based article from Strength by Fitness.
OUr mountainous hike on our gym free saturday, but how do you spend your rest days?
Saturday is one of our weekly gym-free recovery days. This means that we prioritise ‘us’ time, chilling, relaxing, recovering, eating healthy high-protein foods supplanted with plenty of whole plant-based foods and doing nonexhaustive activities that are done for adventure, fun, family, relationship, calm, rejuvenating and quality of life time.
This doesn’t translate to not doing any physical activities at all, however.
This past Saturday was another non-exhaustive and tranquil and beautiful rest day, as we spent roughly 3 hours hiking through a serene mountain area lush with vibrant forest and nature. This is not a surprise being us, we spend our gym free weekends doing wonderful little adventures like this. It´s our non-exhaustive, enjoyable and health promoting way to recover fully from gym and work.
Nature all by itself provides healthy benefits for us humans. Nature-rich areas expose you to far less traffic-related air pollution for instance. Which makes the health impact of physical activities better than doing it in areas with heavy traffic.
Spending time in nature provides ample health benefits in body and mind.
Something that has been demonstrated in studies even inside the same city, such as London.
Run near a road, or do it in a bigger green city park and the difference in health impact is easily measurable.
But that’s not all.
Most people ( not all, but most ) feel a lot less stressed in nature. Calmer and more at ease. Which all by itself provides health benefits in a day and time where far too many are relentlessly battered by stress.
Hava explained high-protein & satiety in such a good way in the above video. so give it a look because this is how i will explain it to you too.
Nature’s beauty provides other benefits for the body and soul too. Humans enjoy natural beauty. It makes us happier, and happiness provides benefits for our wellbeing and quality of life.
Add to that the small act of continuous walking and climbing up and down rock, stone and forestry obstacles, creeks, valleys, fallen trees and flowing water and you have easy health wins for body and mind.
What’s exhaustion?
That’s relative to your fitness level and capacity for recovery.
So on your recovery days, you do what is non-exhaustive and enjoyable for you while still eating enough healthy high-protein foods that are nutritionally complete so your body, muscles, brain and biological processes all can recover in full, adapt and progress.
the apps that inhabit our health & fitness lives.
Samsung Health, which is my step tracking app choice, is a free health app and a decent step counter.
So both me and my wife use it to track our steps and for how long we walked in time and distance. But that’s all it does good enough.
Its estimate of total calories is not accurate. Samsung has no idea what you do as far as other activities go. Neither does my phone know how tall I am, or even my body weight, not to mention my lean muscle mass, and even if I bothered to provide that information it’s still a non-complete estimate thats never going to be perfectly accurate.
And yes, you can logg your foods too.
But for me it’s a rough step tracker and nothing more.
The important takeaway when it comes down to apps, however, is to view whatever data your apps give you as just that, a rough trajectory metric for a relative sense of some of your metrics and trajectories, no matter if you track your food, steps, speed, sleep, zone levels or whatever.
Most importantly, however, is to remember that there are no apps that provide a complete picture of your progress, wellbeing, health, and fitness level, capacity and performance.
So, if we use sleep tracking apps, as a short example. Good enough quality sleep is a powerful metric for our health, fitness, body composition, and ageing process, across our entire health-span. But it is not about hitting a magical, all-time high 7 hour sleep score in your sleep tracking app.
All available science, and hundreds of millions of truly healthy fit humans progress and outcomes all make it clear that healthy quality sleep happens inside of a sleep window of 6 to 8 hours. So, if that is you, it does not matter if your app isnt perfectly happy with your sleep. Neither will stressing out about your sleep tracking data improve your sleep at all.
Use the apps that actually improve life, health, and wellbeing and disconnect from the rest. Health, wellness, and lifelong fitness is built with the big pillar foundation. Focus on that and the miniscule details will all sort themselves out over time.
What do you do for your health, wellbeing and recovery on your exercise free recovery days?
This article is also available over at our paywalled Medium publication.
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Strength By Fitness smashed BBQ potatoes served with creamy beans, vegan mince, and a plethora of veggies, and thin slices of fruit and mushroom make this an outstanding meal for both weekdays and weekends.
This meal once again delivers on our trademark of higher-SPC, & high-protein, fiber, and rich in micronutrient meals. All while keeping to a lower energy intake per unit of nutrient.
70g of protein, 700 – 800 calories, with a very high SPC score in the range of 66 to 80. If you skip the mayo and olive oil, you might even push this meal into the highest of SPC categories.
Roasted edamame beans with berries & whole fruit.
Strength By Fitness roasted edamame beans with berries & whole fruit. delivers higher-SPC, & a high-protein, fiber, and micronutrient intake for a lower energy per unit of nutrient ratio. This is a great, quick meal at home that’s easy to make or a perfect meal to grab with you for that adventurous hike or outdoor date. 71g of protein, 700 – 800 calories, and a SPC range of 66 to 80.
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bar with this easy-to-make higher-SPC recipe.
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High-protein and endurance athletes.
THE HIGH-PROTEIN FOOD APPROACH THAT STRENGTH BY FITNESS HAS BEEN CHAMPIONING AND COACHING FOR THE PAST DECADE.
Our nutritionally rich high-protein, higher-SPC coaching is not just for the elderly, or the obese, and perpetually overweight who need better habits that are possible to adhere to long-term. Neither is it just for the many strength, muscle, and power-focused fitness-loving people, and athletes that regularly show up all year round in the gym no matter their age.
No, on the contrary, the nutritionally rich high-protein approach you see Strength By Fitness talk about, and coach is just as beneficial for endurance-loving athletes and enthusiasts too.
STYRKA Books, Strength By Fitness Fact-based Book Series.
In STYRKA VOLUME ONE, the first of Strength By Fitness fact-based series of books we are inviting you to a realm of healthy food plans and recipes, fitness facts, health science, sleep, recovery, endurance, strength, habits, and more.
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Coach Mike further explains the ins and outs of a nutritionally complete high-protein, higher-SPC food approach, no matter diet tribe preference.,
You will also touch base with our fact-based big pillar coaching ideas across fitness, recovery, health, habits, sleep, and nutrition, and many cited studies to back it all up.
In short, STYRKA Volume One provides you with all the tools you need to create vastly better health and fitness progression, food and lifestyle habits, and the body composition and athletic capacity that you strive to achieve.
Comparing SPC, UPF & Protein Levels, Fact-based Outcomes.
IN THIS ARTICLE, COACH MIKE EXAMINES TWO CONTRASTING HIGH-PROTEIN INTAKE STUDIES, ONE FROM 2005 AND ANOTHER FROM 2025. DEMONSTRATING HOW THEY RELATE TO AND ULTIMATELY VALIDATE YOUR HIGH-PROTEIN, HIGHER-SPC LIFESTYLE.
I’ll begin by introducing SPC (satiety per calorie), a modern food metric, and explain its relevance to a study conducted two decades ago. We will after that delve into the impact of ultra-processed foods (UPF) on overall food consumption and compare outcomes between a high-protein UPF intake and a lower-protein UPF intake under ad libitum feeding conditions. This comparison will illuminate how these findings fit into the broader fact-based SPC food approach.
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