Active Concept Training

This time of year brings about two things we all could do without--the thought that because we have been bad all year, we can be good for a few weeks and some overweight man is going to give us all that we want...and...SUGAR!!

Don't forget about sugar and how it sneaks up on us.  Is there sugar in that sauce you are having on your steak, chicken, or veggies?  Maybe.  Is there sugar in that "healthy" low fat salad dressing?  Probably.

This is just a friendly reminder to make every calorie count.  Do you really want to indulge in that cheesecake your lovelly wife makes?  If so, cut out all other sugar until then.  Have it, and don't feel bad about it either, because you have made great choices to be able to tell her how great she is!!!  (which goes a long way, right?)

Have fun during the Holidays...and look up into the night sky.  Things are happening that we will never see again in our lifetime!

The Mayans may not be right about the world ending, but they knew their astronomy!

Everyone thinks you have to exercise to lose weight.  I have seen this to be true, yes.  However, does this always have to be the rule?

The answer is no.  In my years being a trainer, I have seen many ways to skin the cat.  I have seen folks exercise consistantly for a year, and lose nothing.  I have seen folks who didn't exercise at all, and lose  lots of weight.  So, what is the common denominator?  Food and drink...nutrition!

Here we talked about "the formula" before of how calories in = calories out just doesn't work most of the time.  Does sleep matter?  You bet!  Does gaining strength/muscle matter?  Yes it does!  There are other factors, but one doesn't have to cling to exercise as your ONLY way to weight loss.

I say this because I see folks with injuries, folks who are having a hard time at work or with a family issue and they are worried that by not being able to exercise they will gain weight.  This doesn't have to be the case!  Now indirectly, can it matter?  Does exercise help the brain keep it's neurotransmitters online, or help you sleep at night?  Sure.  So exercise helps y ou feel good and recover at night...would not being able to do this lead to weight gain?  Maybe so, but it's not the calorie loss that is the factor here, right?

Would this stress lead to overeating, or not choosing the proper nutrition?  Sure could, but this has nothing to do with exercise per se, right?  In other words, don't get your panties in a bunch if you can't exercise for a few days, or a month.  Your weight doesn't have to change because your inactivity does...your brain might, however!

I have a client who was at 350, now is at 275.  How, you ask?  Concentration, dedication, and lots-o-time.

With no job, no wife, no kids, this person can concentrate fully on what the goal is.  This person can dedicate everything to accomplishing this goal.  This person has lots of time.  Period.

When I meet a prospective new client, they always ask, "how long will it take me to lose ____ pounds?"  I tell them the truth..."I don't know."  Lots of factors are involved.  Can you really dedicate MOST of your "free time" to this endeavor, and an endeavor it is.  I tell everyone it goes a lot quicker if you can quit your job and your family for 2 months.  On the biggest loser, this is how it's done.  AND, will they do what I ask them to do?  Again, this is how they do it on biggest loser, and programs like the Rice Diet Center over at Duke...they have no choice.

Which brings to mind a post I did a while back on CHOICE.  Borrowing from Dan John's idea on free will, there is only so much to go around.  Here, I wrote about my conversations with someone with very little free will.  You want to lose weight, or accomplish a goal quickly, keep your free will, or in other words, don't put yourself into positions where you have to make decisions.

How do you do that?  I don't know of many adults that can!  You grab time where you can.  Time to shop for fresh food, time to workout a little, time to play a litte...it's all there, we just have to carve it out.  We don't have to workout for an hour at time, all we need is 15 minutes, here and there, to remain healthy...a little more to be fit for what YOU want to do!  Carve out some time...let me know if ou need help!

GO!

Where else in your daily life do you hear the word "fit?"  Besides the use of the word in fitness, where?

I was driving down the road, and happen to see an obese woman chase after a 3 year old who was running away from her on a playground.  She couldn't catch up.  What I thought was how dangerous this was.  The inability to be able to watch your child, or niece, or grandchild because of her lack of ability to run faster than a 3 year old...

It hit me!  That woman was UNFIT to be watching this child.  How dangerous, and what a use of the word "fit!"  Honestly, I think it's a better use of the word.  I would rather be "fit" enough to take care of my child, than be "fit."  Whenever someone asks me "how long does it take to be fit?"  I ask, fit for what?  What is your task you want to achieve?

I hope the woman eventually asked for help, or else the kid is still running...

Self reliance.  Make sure you can!

GO!

It is post Thanksgiving week.  Is the feast of excess calorie (energy) input behind us?  Not by a long shot!  Since weight management and exercise go hand in hand, I thought I'd give you two numbers to think about.

1.  225,000.  That number, is the number of crunches one would have to do to lose ONE pound of fat!  Are crunches the best bang for your buck exercise you can do to lose weight, or get closer to the proverbial "6 pack"??  Uh, no.  If you want to know how to lose weight, ask me to send you a recent article I put together for my clients.

2.  Thirty-five.  That number, is the number of pounds of MUSCLE lost between the ages of 30 and 60.  Now THAT is staggering.  You want to know the exercises to do to keep your muscle, in turn burning excess calories (energy)??  Ask me to send you the recent article I put together for my clients!

Strength training, in the end, is more important than "cardio."  I am not saying that steady state exercise is not good for you, it can be.  Just know that to keep you furnace burning efficiently, you gotta strength train, no question about it.  The idea that the two, cardio and strength, should be separate is also a myth.  Ask me why!!  Please!!

Now, cut out the sugar, the excess helpings, and lift a weight or two.

GO!!

Four...so far, who have decided to send me their food diary via Lose it or Myfitnesspal. Guess how many people have begun to lose weight? FOUR! It's not that hard...or is it. That is a big question.

So, why can't we just cut down on the carbs and sugar, eat plants and animals, drink mostly water, and so be it? In the end, is it will power? Addiction?

I saw an email response to someone who gave a lecture on why we all should be gluten free vegans. Huh? The same reason why we can be gluten free omnivores I guess...because wheat causes lots of problems. In the amounts that we eat them especially!

Does it not make sense that the common denominator here is wheat?  Let's see, in both a gluten free vegan diet, and a gluten free paleo diet, what do they leave out?  Now, am I saying that you can't have ANY wheat at all?  Well, that depends on your tolerance to it.  If you believe that today's wheat is not the same as yesteryear's, then we don't tolerate it to well anyway, so keep it to a minimum, whole wheat or not.   http://www.trackyourplaque.com/blog/2011/08/wheat-belly-explodes-on-the-scene.html

We welcome the cool air to North Carolina!  Get out and move...GO!!!!!

Ok.  it's HOT here in NC, and everywhere else in the US right now.  Let's take a minute and think about how that affects our eating habits.

I will first start with a personal story about my grandparents.  My father's parents, didn't have air conditioning in the house.  My memories of going to see them in the summers were of sitting outside, under a shade tree or carport shelter or both.  Sometimes stringing beans, peeling potatoes, shucking corn, or doing something in the heat, albeit slowly!

Knowing that meals, of any kind, would be served in such sweltering conditions, do you think we over ate?  Hell no!  We ate just enough to call it a meal, and then it was cold dishes of some kind.  Fruit, fruit salads, lukewarm veggies, and maybe a meat that had been allowed to cool down.  This went on until I was a bit older.  Then came the AC window unit.

We would stay inside a little bit more.  As the unit was in the living room, it cooled down part of the house so staying inside to eat wasn't such a cookfest; yes a pun.  I don't remember how many units they eventually had in the house before...THEN came central air conditioning!!  What did we do?  We stayed inside, out of the heat!!   What did we eat?  EVERYTHING!  And a lot of it.

So does A/C and the light bulb have something to do with our eating patterns over the last 100 years?  You betcha!  Think about your own experiences growing up, or think about turning the A/C off for a day or two when it's in the high 80's, and see what you feel like eating.  I bet it would change?  Do you?  Give it a try...though maybe not this week!!

GO!

I can give you something more potentially harmful, and addictive than that.  Sugar.  They knew it long ago.

A dentist in 1912 claimed, "sugar has brought about entirely new diseases.  The sugar of commerce is nothing else but concentrated cystallized acid.  If, in former times sugar was so costly (more on this later) that only the wealthy could afford it, it was of no consequence.  But today, when because of its low cost, sugar has caused a degeneration of people, it is time to insist on a general enlightenment.  The loss of energy through the consumption of sugar in the last century has left its mark on the race.  Alcohol has been used for thousands of years and has never caused the degeneration of a whole race.  Alcohol does not contain destructive acids.  What has been destroyed by sugar is lost and cannot be recoverd."

http://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Blues-William-Dufty/dp/0446343129/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302604499&sr=1-1    Look it up for the history of sugar and what it has caused over time.

The cost of this drug?  It actually has mirrored morphine in cost through the years.  At its introduction in Britian, it cost $25 per pound, a man's yearly salary.  In the 1600's the price was cut in half.  In 1662 Britian imported 16 million pounds per year.  By 1800 it was 160 million.  By 1900, Britons were spending as much on sugar as they spent for bread!  The cost of sugar and morphine have dropped considerably over the centuries.

Opium and sugar became the staples of commerce in America.  By 1858, morphine, the refinement of opium, became a cure for everything, including this brand new disease called sugar diabetes...go figure.

(the drug)

Once you learn the death that is associated with sugar, maybe you will not be as inclined to partake.

Change your family's diet...GO!

• Get rid of all sugared liquids--drink water and milk only.
• Eat your carbos with fiber.
• Wait 20 minutes for a second portion.
• Buy your tv/cp time minute by minute with physical activity.

Taken from UCSF WATCH Clinic.  Dr. Robert Lustig.

If you do nothing else, at least implement these strategies.  They can at least give you a head start into making some life changes in the right direction.  ESPECIALLY for your kids!

Make sure you eat some real food today!

GO!

"So the whole wheat sandwiches you've been eating increase blood sugar and insulin, leading to visceral fat. (And, yes, whole wheat bread increases blood sugar higher than Milky Way bars and Snickers bars.) The more visceral fat grows, the more resistant to the effects of insulin you become, further escalating blood sugar. Estrogen increases, testosterone drops, mammary gland tissue grows, normal male breasts grow to B- or C-cup size.

Yet again, an entire industry is growing from the unintended consequence of conventional advice. In this instance, the advice to "eat more healthy whole grains" leads to this booming industry of male breast reduction efforts from surgery to medications to clothing. The REAL solution: Eliminate the foods that start the process in the first place."

You can read more at Dr. William Davis' blog at...

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/bosom-buddies.html

(above is visceral fatty liver)

So here is my question--if this knowledge is there for anyone to see, why is it taking so long for those in 'authority' to say "yes, we were wrong."?????  Are we a society of such narcisitic standings that we can't say we were wrong?  Or is it just the government and those in power?  Aha!  I know...they are afraid of being sued if they admit the information they were spouting was incorrect.

Ok.  So what if we as a nation sign a letter stateing that we will not sue the government for any past transgressions as it pertains to what they've told us to eat.  Would that work?  Well, write your congress man/woman...your grandkid's life is at stake.

GO!