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What would Batman eat?

Jul 20, 2012

The Dark Knight Rises comes out today and in honour of this event, my husband suggested that I should do a blog post on it.πŸ™‚This one’s for you, Andrew!

The rules for a healthy diet are the same for everyone , Batman included. The only difference is that, for athletes, a few adjustments need to be made to compensate for specific needs.

For example, an endurance athlete (eg. marathon runner) would, in the days before a big race, be required to taper off training to give his body a chance to build up his glycogen stores (generally known as carbohydrate-loading). This athlete would eat differently on training days versus off days, and in the pre-event days, a more carbohydrate-rich diet would be consumed. Does this fit Batman’s profile? Let’s think this through…Batman is very strong and agile, and is required to use these skills for short periods of time on a regular basis. So no, he’s not an endurance athlete.

Batman is essentially a high-performance athlete who needs to train for hours each day in order to keep up his skills; and he can’t afford to have a state of low energy because he needs to be able to pick up and go on short notice. In his case, proper nutrition at all times of the day is crucial. I’m afraid sugary desserts and concentrated sweets are out…they would have him on a high for a short while, then crashing an hour later.

Any individual undergoing regular training is going to have to be very careful about what he or she eats, and when. A highly muscular body is going to be going through calories fast and furious; regular meals and snacks are going to be essential in order to keep the energy up. No skipping meals allowed.

Breakfast always has been the most important meal of the day, but for an athlete, it will be even more so. While sleeping for several hours, the body has been utilizing its stores of energy; liver glycogen (glucose) stores have been depleted, and blood sugar is as low as it will be all day. This is the time to refuel and get a jumpstart for the day.

A balanced breakfast including complex carbohydrates, protein, and fruit would be ideal. A high-fibre cereal with milk and berries? Some whole grain toast with eggs and a banana? These would provide the sugar needed to replace those tapped out stores while providing sustained energy throughout the morning. I’ll assume Batman trains right after breakfast. Before a training session, it is even more important to make sure he’s consuming easily digested, complex carbohydrate; this will keep him from flagging during his workout.

After the workout, a recovery drink should be consumed within about 20 minutes in order to trigger the replenishment of glycogen stores and the building of muscle. It is recommended that the snack contain about 4g carb to 1g protein. Chocolate milk is a new favourite among athletes as it naturally hits this optimal ratio.

After this, a proper mid-morning snack would be needed. Again, some carbohydrate and protein would be ideal to keep blood sugars optimal. Crackers and cheddar? Fruit and yogurt parfait? Enough to keep him going until lunch.

A balanced lunch with starch, protein and vegetables would be perfect. Some pasta with meatballs and a hearty salad would keep his energy levels up. Or a turkey sandwich with cheese and grilled vegetables on the side. Maybe a chicken stir-fry on quinoa. There are lots of possibilities. The key is still to have several food groups represented, including lots of vegetables to provide all the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants he needs to stay strong and healthy.

Another snack with carbs and protein should follow a few hours later, and then a dinner similar to the lunch meal.

I haven’t listed portion sizes or calories. It is quite possible that Batman, with his intense training schedule, could be consuming up to 6000 calories a day. Portion sizes would have to be quite large at meals and snacks to accommodate, and his food would likely need to be prepared with a fair amount of heart-healthy fats, such as olive & canola oils, or nuts and seeds to make up the difference. And with that number of calories, he is sure to get all the protein he needs if he keeps his meals balanced properly, and including some protein at each meal and snack.

Depending on when Batman is called to duty, he should be stocked up with snacks on the go. I can imagine a stash of protein bars in the glove box of the Batmobile.πŸ™‚He’ll need to be alert to battle the next evil villain. Can’t do that well with low blood sugar.

And don’t forget proper hydration! Batman should be drinking lots of water throughout the day. Even very slight dehydration leads to impaired athletic performance.

For the rest of us mere mortals, the pattern still holds true. Just scale it down for the number of calories you need for the day. If you’re planning to live the life of Batman, now you know what to do!

By Renu Arora 24 Jan, 2024
This is a short one... A client came in for her first session with me, and as I typically do for an intro session, we planned to find and heal a life event for her. This generally starts off with us needing to find out a belief that the client is hanging onto as a result of the experience. I got my clues, but none of it meant anything to my client. I checked into see if we were being blocked, and I didn't see any issues, but still no spark of insight came to her. Worse yet, nothing was coming to me either. I usually get an intuitive hit to guide the conversation but this time, nada. Then it occurred to me to ask if she and I were still connected. I got a "no." No?? I tried again to connect and found, in a nutshell, that her spirit guides had booted me out! It sometimes happens that I can't connect initially, but I don't generally get kicked out mid-session like that. So I asked what her guides needed to allow us to move forward and it turns out that they needed an apology from me! I can only guess that I ticked them off in a past life. πŸ˜• I apologized. Thankfully they accepted. And I quickly found that the information that I had received earlier had been completely false and we had to start from scratch. Happily, they didn't interfere again and my client and I went on to have a great session. πŸ˜ƒ Today's tip: if you are doing your own healing work and you find your intuition shut down, verify that you are actually connected! And don't be surprised if somebody's grudge from a past life comes up to be resolved. :) If you are interested in learning more about whether ART is right for you, either to learn for yourself, or to experience as a client, book a discovery call with me and let's chat!
By Renu Arora 31 Dec, 2023
Before the year ends, I've got one last story to share for 2023. Today's client reached out to do a session with me because she felt that something was amiss and her intuition told her that I could help. She was finding herself unusually angry with her husband. She's not by nature an angry person so this unnatural rage bubbling up whenever she would see or even think about him was especially disconcerting. Connected to her anger, she also had this strange feeling that he himself was feeling distant and resentful towards her. To be honest, it was a confusing session. I didn't really know where we were going with it, but I always maintain trust in the subconscious and that it knows more than I do - and that everything would make sense by the end. I was not disappointed! My client and I reasoned that since she was feeling his resentment, it made sense that he was the one needing the healing. So, I tapped into his energy and immediately found a huge cluster of trapped emotions and beliefs - disgust, a lack of control, a belief that he couldn't be happy, that his happiness was dependent on others, not being good enough, and more. We cleared all of that after which she sensed an improvement in the resentment, but not yet to the feeling of him being distant. Add to that, she was also now feeling a lack of love, and not being wanted. Even more new, unusual emotions for her. So we kept going. With a little more digging, all of the pieces started falling into place. It turns out that she and her husband have a beautiful daughter whom they adore, but needed medical intervention to conceive. My client knew she was destined to have another child - she had heard this child communicate with her before, during previous sessions with me and at other times, too. Recently she had broached the subject with her husband about starting the process again for this second child and he had not shown any interest. That's when it all clicked. NONE of the emotions my client had been experiencing were her own. The anger, resentment, disconnect, lack of love or anything else...those all belonged to not-yet-even-conceived Baby #2! All the emotions and beliefs we had healed...those belonged to the baby as well! It made so much sense! This baby was aching to join the family, but dad's lack of interest led to feelings of rejection, anger, and sadness. Wow! No wonder my client was so confused as to what to do. The emotions were so foreign to her, not at all how she usually responds to disappointment, and now we understood why! Shortly after that, a wave of sleepiness hit my client, always signal of a message from someone trying to come through: very clearly, she heard the words "Bring me home now" in her head. Baby #2 was no longer angry or hurt, just insistent that it was their time to make an appearance. And with that, my client felt totally better - back to her old self once again. We could both see a visible change in her face - she was smiling from ear to ear. And ready to pass along the message to her husband. πŸ˜€ Do you feel like you are behaving out of character? Sometimes your emotions are not your own! Whether they are yours or not, they can be healed so you can feel back to normal once again. Book a session with me and I can help! Happy New Year! See you in 2024!
By Renu Arora 22 Dec, 2023
One of my clients came to me to address, amongst other things, migraine headaches. She would get them regularly, requiring daily medication which, when working properly, would mean she would have fewer episodes and (hopefully!) less severe ones. Until working with me, she never felt like her head was ever fully pain free. If you have never had a migraine, or known anyone who has suffered from them, then to put it simply, a migraine is an extremely intense headache, which for most sufferers, can be debilitating. In addition to throbbing pain, they may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound that can last from hours to days. Many migraine sufferers are forced to sequester themselves alone in a dark, quiet room until the symptoms subside. After a bit of work, her subconscious lead us to one key experience in her childhood. It was in grade 5, when she was newly designated as "enhanced" at school. That change meant that she was suddenly required to be taken out of her regular classes to participate in extra programming with the other enhanced kids. And she hated it! She was being pulled away from her friends and being given extra work to do, to boot! Yuck! Are you ready to play detective...what do you think the connection is? That kid was angry. The injustice of it all! Teachers, parents...the whole system seemed to be forcing her to do something she had absolutely no interest in. Deep inside her, there was an inner child screaming to the world "will everyone just leave me alone?!?" What happens when someone gets a migraine? The whole world has to leave them alone! It took giving her a lot of pain to get it, but that inner child eventually got what she was asking for. Crazy, eh? It's actually more common than you think. Once that was understood, our next task was to heal that child so it could stop being so angry and upset. And shortly after that, my client's head stopped hurting. That little bit of pain that she always felt, was gone . Her subconscious no longer had a purpose for her migraines, so it was time to let them go. If you suffer from migraines or know anyone who does, book a session with me so we can make them a thing of the past. ο»Ώ
By Renu Arora 14 Dec, 2023
If you find yourself holding yourself back on doing something, you are absolutely not alone! It is one of the most common things that I see, but it is often one of the more devastating. To know that you have a gift to share with the world, to want to do it and know that you should, but to feel this invisible resistance keeping you from your dreams...it is heartbreaking! It invariably leads to us questioning ourselves, wondering "What is wrong with me?" It's just another case of your subconscious trying to tell you that you've got something from your past that needs to be healed. That was the situation for my client in this week's story. My client in question is a fellow alternative health practitioner. She had an event coming up and was afraid that people wouldn't sign up. I could see her whole heart wasn't into it. She was doubting herself. But it was bigger than the one event. It turned out that the emotions she was feeling surrounding the event could be found in other places in her life as well. She had to admit that she wasn't 100% certain that her husband was fully on board with her work. And quite frankly, part of her doubted herself and whether her work was as effective as she thought. (A sentiment I could absolutely relate to from the early years in my practice.) We discovered that she had the phrase "Am I ridiculous?" anchored into her subconscious. It took us some work, but eventually the memory surfaced that when she wanted to go to university, her parents didn't approve of her desire to go into music therapy, and they made it very clear that they thought she ought to do something else. This made her question her own judgement, and the thought "Am I ridiculous?" anchored in. Together we shifted that belief and integrated the phrase "I do amazing things and am loved for it!" in it's place. She ended the session with a new level of confidence and self-assurance. And the event? It went great! If you are an entrepreneur and you find yourself questioning your ability to be successful, book a session with me and we'll have you ready to take on the world in no time!
By Renu Arora 08 Dec, 2023
A client was struggling with feeling like she doesn't belong anywhere. She moved to Canada from Chile when she was young, and despite living here for so long, has never felt entirely at ease. But during trips to visit Chile, she would feel like an outsider there as well. We discovered that her subconscious was holding onto the belief "Why don't I fit in?" As long as that belief was programmed into her psyche, we knew she wouldn't feel at home no matter where she was. Together we determined that what she really wanted to believe was "I am comfortable anywhere". So where did her subconscious anchor in the belief "Why don't I fit in?". As it turns out, at the airport, on the day she arrived in Canada as a little girl, she and her family encountered something they had never seen before: an escalator. My client accidentally managed to get separated from her family and onto the escalator...and they all panicked! They were terrified that she was going to reach the end and get sucked into the machinery. Of course, the escalator monster didn't end up eating her, but it left her completely puzzled, asking herself "Why don't I fit in?"! She and I got a big chuckle out of this one! Once we healed the terror and embarrassment from the experience we were then able to release the negative belief and program in her new belief "I am comfortable anywhere". That is now her new truth. If there is a moral to the story, it is this: trauma is in the eye of the beholder. Even seemingly insignificant events can have a huge impact on our lives, because what would be meaningless to an adult can be terrifying for a child. So if you've got embarrassing or uncomfortable stories from your childhood, don't ignore them - they are probably impacting you in ways you would never expect.
By Renu Arora 01 Dec, 2023
That was certainly the case with a recent client. In her first session with me, my client admitted that she has been struggling a lot lately, suffering with feelings of inadequacy, and imposter syndrome, which had been triggering her to engage in avoidance behaviour, including turning to internet surfing and television watching to cope. We quickly found that she was holding onto the belief "I'm not good enough." In my head, I thought, "well that would make sense...if she doesn't feel good enough to engage with the work she is meant to do, she would be drawn to procrastinate and do other things, like TV or internet." Where did the belief "I'm not good enough" come from? We tracked it to a time when she was younger and her older brother bullied her. Despite her telling her parents that he was mistreating her, they took no action, and the torment continued. To her, "I'm not good enough" really meant "I'm not good enough for my parents to care about me...I'm all on my own". This general problem came attached to a specific memory that came to mind, though. In this one, her brother "decided" that she would no longer be allowed to watch TV for a year. He put a sheet over her head to prevent her from viewing the TV, and would interfere in other ways anytime she would try. As always, her parents did not intervene, and this behaviour went on for some time. And then it hit us. She wasn't surfing the web and watching television because she was avoiding doing other work. She was watching it because the little girl inside her wanted to watch TV and was upset with her big brother for not letting her! My client's subconscious was communicating with her. That "desire to watch a screen" was meant to remind her of an earlier experience of when she had that same desire; it was trying to direct us to heal the abuse and neglect she experienced when she was young. By the time we were done healing the experience, my client said the thought alone of spending hours in front of a screen made her nauseous - she had no desire to do it. She even wrote me later and told me that she had no craving to spend time on the internet or TV, and instead her evening was "pleasantly filled with other joyful stuff." Yay! Do you know anyone who is addicted to their screens? If they would like to get hours of their life back doing meaningful activities that would bring them more joy, let them know I can help and suggest they book a session today.
By Renu Arora 25 Apr, 2022
Everything we react to, whether it's foods, things in the environment, people...whatever...the reaction is there for a reason . Your subconscious is communicating with you. Let's take lactose for example. Some people (okay, most of them) will say that lactose intolerance exists "because the body has stopped producing the enzyme that digests lactose". (I was a registered dietitian for 12 years, so that was exactly what I believed, and didn't think twice about it.) But have they ever asked themselves why the body stopped producing lactase (that's the enzyme). Like, did the person's DNA change? And all of a sudden, this one protein is unavailable for production? Or did the production system change (and miraculously only this one single protein was affected?) I was never, ever, provided with a satisfactory reason for why the body couldn't do it's job anymore. "It just stopped" is a description, not a reason . So let's look at the symbolism of lactose. Lactose is found in only one place: milk. Milk has only once source: mothers . To the subconscious, milk (lactose) represents mothers. Let me give you a real-life example. I met with a new friend for a get-to-know-you coffee date. Without any prompting from me, he told me exactly what his subconscious had been trying to tell him for 30 years, in under 30 minutes. As we were settling in and he was adding cream to his coffee, he casually mentioned to me how until recently he used to be unable to tolerate any amount of dairy for years. He used to love milk as a kid, but sometime after university, milk stopped loving him and even the littlest bit would have him running to the bathroom. Over the last few years, however, he started to be able to tolerate more and more, so now he can have the cream in his coffee or a slice of pizza without digestive discomfort. So far, so good. Then we started talking about our families. He was pleased to let me know that his youngest of three kids had just graduated from university and admitted to a sense of relief that his mother had been able to see all of them graduate. He went on to tell me that when he himself graduated from university he didn't want to go to his convocation ceremony, so he neglected to tell his mother about it. She was devastated! She had very much wanted to see her son's graduation and so he had felt guilty about it for all these years. Now that she was able to see her three grandkids in their caps and gowns, he didn't feel quite so bad. Bingo! My friend's reaction to dairy was directly related to the level of guilt he felt towards his mother. So, if you have an issue with milk, there's an exceptionally good chance that you've either got an issue with your own mother, or a maternal figure in your life, or the concept of motherhood. I've seen it over and over. Heal the issue with mom, and you can say hello to ice cream again. :) Do you have your own allergy or intolerance you'd like to get rid of? Book a session with me and we can make that problem history!
By Renu Arora 25 Apr, 2022
Check out my recommendations and more in this recent Redfin article
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