Always Do Your Best

…but acknowledge that your best changes based on your situation. When you realize that when you are sick, your best will not look like it does when you are healthy. Or tired versus well-rested. Or frustrated versus being in a good space emotionally. It acknowledges what you can do, based on current circumstances, is a fluid, ever-changing thing. You’re traveling, you haven’t eaten all day, and now you find yourself in an airport food court where the choices are…well let’s just say that they are less than ideal. McDonald’s is the BEST option? Seriously?!? Well, there’s enough grease on the pizza to keep the engines of an entire FLEET of airplanes running…nope. Chinese food from a place you don’t know is ALWAYS scary, especially in an airport...so that’s out. (I’ve made that choice before and regretted it for the next 6 hours and I have a cast iron stomach with a mutant immune system!!!) The $9 “freshly made” sorry, tiny little excuse for a sandwich looks a few days past due…thanks, I’ll pass. So that leaves…Ronald McDonald and company. Yay. Most days I wouldn’t slap a hog in the face with this crap, much less eat it. (I first heard that expression from my wife and laughed so hard I almost cried. It cracks me up! I guess it’s the visual. Thanks, honey!) Well, if this is the best I can do, then so be it. Grilled chicken sandwich, no fries, and no Coke. And no smile, but we’ll talk about the service another time. This was me this past week. I got to go home to visit the family and spent practically 2 whole days traveling. I eat every 2.5 hours…uh, not THAT day. I only eat healthy food while maintaining a proper balance of protein: carbs: fat…sorry that one’s out the window, too. I drink plenty of water to stay well hydrated…what?!? I can’t bring more than 3 ozs on board? That’ll last me 13 minutes, then what?!?!? Are you starting to see my point? I have a pretty long list of things I do that are healthy and very important to me. And pretty much NONE of them can be accomplished with the new rules and regulations of air travel. Unless you want to pay through the nose and sacrifice your carry on item for a cooler, which can’t have any liquids over a swallow and a half anyway! So, my choices are get really upset and frustrated by an industry that used to be known for “flying the friendly skies” (I remember the good ol’ days when they GAVE you a meal, the stewardesses were smiling, and the passengers were happy because flying sure beat taking the bus. But I digress…), or I can realize that the best I can do is the best I can do and move forward without guilt, or beating myself up over my choices, or lack thereof. I will admit this is a pretty extreme case, but it shows the power of this mindset. I eat before I leave, make the best choices available to me, and remain content that I have done my best. That’s a pretty big departure for someone who plans out most of his food choices in advance and preps them ahead of time. In this case health is not a physical aspect, it’s a mental and emotional one. I’ve had clients beat themselves up over far less and I know some of you can hold yourselves to pretty ridiculous standards from time to time. Hopefully, as you adopt this mindset and begin applying it you’ll start to be less hard on yourself and be more forgiving. I read something once that suggested that if we were as hard on our friends as we are on ourselves then we would be all alone. Interesting. Try giving some of the grace you would use on your friends to yourself and see what happens. I’m offering this up to try and balance out the guilt and destructive feelings of failure for not being “perfect.” But don’t go too far in the other direction either. Sitting on the couch, watching soap operas, eating bon bons, and calling it your best is delusional and just a unhealthy as rampaging perfectionism. Being healthy is about balance, and that is the best goal you can have.

Priscilda had asked me what are some examples of healthy habits. Some healthy habits that I recommend are: eating 5-6 times a day, eating in a predetermined ratio of protein: carbs: fat, drinking plenty of water, zigzagging your calories consumed, using supplements, getting your protein from low fat sources, consuming more good fat than bad fat, utilizing the glycemic index to select your carbs, never eating carbs by themselves, eating based on your blood type, eating more alkalizing foods and less acidifying ones, using resistance training to build muscle, doing cardio to improve your heart and lung conditioning, getting plenty of sleep at night (at least 8 hours), stop eating 2 hours before you go to bed, eat based on the clock, not when you are hungry, finding healthy ways to manage stress in your life, taking time to be grateful for all of the blessings in your life, and laughing frequently. If you don’t do any of these, start small and incorporate a few (1 or 2) of these ideas into your life. If you already do a few, great, add some more. Some times it will be easier than others to do the things on the list. And this is by no means a complete list. Like all new habits, you must consistently do these things for at least 21 days until they become established. Then you can add more. The more of these habits that you adopt, the healthier you will be and the faster you will see results. The benefit of living a healthy lifestyle is that losing fat and improving your metabolism are by products. Plus you feel really good. I hope you found this helpful. Have a great week, everyone!

Great Analogy...

I have been just chomping at the bit to get home and get pictures of something in my parent's house that I grew up looking at. It is spectacular example of what I teach. And here it is...


So you're probably wondering what this is and why I'm so excited about it. Well, it's an original piece of the Golden Gate Bridge. A suspension cable, to be exact. And while it's a really cool piece of American history, that's not why I love it so much.


It's a marvelous design. Hundreds of these cables support the weight of the bridge, and from a distance, they appear solid. The cable is about 2.5 inches in diameter, but it is actually made up of 7 smaller cables. If you look closely at it, you'll see that those 7 smaller cables are actually made of about 30 much smaller wires.


Those smaller wires by themselves, would never be able to support much of anything, especially not a bridge. But when combined together, they form a much stronger cable. And when joined with other cables, they form a big, powerful cable that can hold up many, many tons. Imagine that your ideal health and fitness looks like that big cable; it's made up of smaller cables which are made up of little wires. Many people are looking for a magic bullet, or one thing that they can do to lose the weight, get fit, and become healthy, and that's just not the way it works. Changing or adding one little wire isn't going to make a huge difference immediately. But combining lots of little habits and larger principles will help you to get where you want to go. Imagine if you continually replaced one little habit a week. After a few weeks, you would be adding momentum to your positive changes. Swap out some larger principles and things will start to happen faster. By making these lifestyle changes it becomes easy to lose weight and keep it off because you actually ENJOY the process. It's not about crazy calorie restriction for a short period of time, feeling horrible, and then going back to "normal" when you get where you want to go. It's about redefining normal and making it healthy for you. Marinda(Where Desire Meets Discipline) summed it up really well in a post she had a few weeks ago. Before she had her boys she just worked out everyday. She didn't dread it; it was just part of her daily routine. And I'll bet that she probably enjoyed it. Regardless, it was a HABIT. And a good one at that. Jamie Clarke is a motivational speaker who has climbed Mt. Everest several times. I've seen him speak a few times and he said something that really stuck with me. He said, "You take the same steps on the valley floor that you do at the top of the mountain." He was speaking about consistency and persistence. In other words, creating habits.
Here's a challenge for you. Make a new healthy habit every week for the rest of this month, put it into practice everyday, and see what happens. What if taking care of our health and fitness became as automatic as brushing our teeth? What kind of example would that be for our families? Let's rock this one! Make this a great week everyone!!!

I'm So Excited!

The exercise bands that I use to train people in their homes proved to not be enough resistance for me when I switched my program to build muscle. I thought that I was going to have to pay mega bucks for a custom band that would be enough resistance for me, but guess what?!?!? They make a few more levels of resistance above the one I was using before the crazy expensive customized ones. It also turns out the customized bands are not really crazy expensive, I was just misinformed. But I was able to get a heavier band for a great price and I’m looking forward to being even more sore this coming week! Also, the switching back and forth between eating up and down has been really interesting. I’m liking the results, even if the scale is showing an increase. That’s ok, because I would rather look and feel amazing, than be focused on the number on the scale. And becoming harder means I am losing fat and either maintaining or gaining muscle…all good things.

Now, on to the fun stuff…
I was given an interesting suggestion over the weekend. A section I could add to my posts called “Fact or Fad?” where I discuss different things you’ve heard and either validate or dismiss them. So I will be taking your submissions for this section, as well as any questions you have, at SuccessLifestyle@gmail.com. Here’s one I love:

Fact or Fad? Will working out (specifically cardio) on an empty stomach help me to lose more weight? Fascinating question, but one that must be clarified before I can answer it. This is where I invite you all to be more specific. We all talk about gaining and losing weight, but that’s not as accurate as it can be. If you packed on 5, 10, or 15 pounds of muscle, you wouldn’t be upset because you’d look awesome! The same goes for losing 5, 10, or 15 pounds of fat; but what happens when you switch them? You don’t look so good anymore. Losing muscle and gaining fat makes you look worse because you begin to lose shape and tone. Think of muscle as the scaffolding that holds up your fat and gives it shape. We want to specifically focus on gaining muscle and losing fat. So back to the original question, now reworded: Will doing cardio on an empty stomach help me to lose fat? Nope, not even a little. It actually does the opposite. For several reasons: First, your body actually needs carbs in order to break down fat so it can be used as energy. Carbs are your body’s main source of energy and they fuel many reactions and functions in your body in addition to exercise. When they are used up, there are only two things left to burn: protein and fat. And protein is much easier to break down than fat. Which brings us to the next reason: when your body starts breaking down muscle (or internal organs for that matter) for protein to be used as energy, it is in a catabolic state. Another term for this is “starvation mode.” In this state, your body begins to lower your metabolism so that you need less calories to function, burns protein for energy, and fires up all the enzymes and pathways for fat storage because fat is long-term energy for your body and you must need some MORE long term energy (fat) if you’re in this state. This is what these signals do to your body! Not good. The answer to the original question is yes, you will lose weight, but it won’t be fat. You’ll lose muscle, gain fat, and slow your metabolism. Not things that will help you get healthier, lose fat, and keep it off. This whole concept became popularized by people who didn’t make the distinction between weight loss and fat loss. They went running on an empty stomach, saw a drop on the scale, got excited, and told everyone how well it was working. The problem is when they yo-yo back up to their original weight, they now have less muscle, a lower metabolism, and look worse because they have a higher body fat percentage, but they don’t attribute that to exercising on an empty stomach because 1) it worked so well for them, and more importantly 2) they don’t measure their body fat percentage so they don’t see what’s happening to their bodies beyond their scale weight. So not only is this a bad idea, it’s also a FAD.

Moving Forward

Well, here we are at the beginning of August. We’re one month into the competition and I’m very happy with my results so far. I’m down 15.4 pounds and there’s a noticeable difference in my photos. That back shot is really revealing, isn’t it? It’s not an angle I get to see of myself very often. Yikes! But it’s looking much better now. I wanted to show what was possible with hard work, proper nutrition, and sound science. I worked out 22 times this past month (once for each weekday), ate according to my nutrition plan, and got the proper amount of rest. In short, I made sure that I sent all the correct signals to my body. Our bodies respond perfectly to the signals we send to it, not to our wishes or desires. Once you understand what to tell your body, it will respond accordingly.

My goal was to lose a bunch of fat in the first month to show what was possible with focused intensity. There are actually 2 ways to decrease body fat percentage: the first is to decrease fat mass, the second is to increase muscle mass. Example 1: a 180 pound woman has 30% body fat. That means she has 126 pounds of lean body weight and 54 pounds of fat. If she loses 12 pounds of fat and maintains her lean tissue, she still has 126 pounds of LBW, but now has 42 pounds of fat, making her new body fat percentage 25%. Example 2: the same woman gains 8 pounds of muscle for a total LBW of 134 pounds, but doesn’t lose any of the 54 pounds of fat, she still lowers her body fat percentage to 28.72%. Here’s the interesting part, let’s say she does both. She loses 12 pounds of fat and gains 8 pounds of muscle. Her net loss is only 4 pounds, but look at her new numbers: She weighs a total of 176 pounds, with 134 pounds of lean body weight and 42 pounds of fat, which gives her a body fat percentage of 23.86%. Wow! That’s a loss in body fat of 6.14% with only a 4 pound scale weight loss. And she looks fantastic; she has more shape to her, is leaner, and looks so much more fit. Clearly combining the 2 strategies is the best way to lower your body fat percentage and improve your appearance. This will be my plan this month.

I will be changing quite a few things. I will be working out 3 days a week instead of 5. I will be changing my routine from fat burning to muscle building. And I will be changing my nutrition plan. I was eating down 5-6 days a week and eating to maintain 1-2 days. This month I will be eating up 3 days a week to build muscle and eating down the other 4 to lose fat. This will confuse my metabolism and prevent my hitting a plateau. It will also allow me to add lean muscle and lose body fat at the same time. It really won’t move the scale very much. I realize this probably isn’t the goal of most of my fellow participants, but I hope that it helps them by providing a visual of this very process. Many of you have expressed concerns that you are eating well and working out, but not seeing results on the scale. By this point, you should see why I am a big proponent of measuring your body fat percentage. If you don’t have the ability to measure that, then the next best thing is tape measurements. Because I guarantee you that the 4 pound loss from the example lost some serious inches from her body, maybe even a dress size. And that’s waaaay more motivating than a 4 pound loss. I hope it also takes some of the focus away from the number on the scale. For instance, you can be at an “appropriate” weight for your age, height, etc., but have a higher than healthy body fat percentage, and you won't look so great. But, you can be 20-30 pounds over your “appropriate” weight with a healthy body fat percentage and look amazing. This is because those charts do not take lean tissue into account. 18-22% body fat looks great on a woman, regardless of whether she weighs 118 or 180. Since the end goal is about being fit, healthy, and feeling good, that significantly broadens the spectrum beyond just scale weight. And this is the area in which I would like to help.

I would like to open a forum for questions. If you email me at SuccessLifestyle@gmail.com, I will respond to a few questions each week. Ask me about popular ideas you’ve heard but might not understand. Ask me why something works, or doesn’t. Ask me anything health, fitness, or nutrition related. I will try to answer the ones that I feel will benefit the most number of people. Hopefully we can start to dispel some of the myths that abound in the area of fitness and nutrition. Good luck to us all this month. New month, new challenge, let’s DO IT!!!

Selfish?

Someone had made a comment on one of my posts alluding to the fact that taking care of oneself was selfish. I actually hear this a lot from my female clients, especially the ones who are wives or mothers. Everyone else gets their energy (effort, time, etc.) first, and if there is nothing left over for them, then that's ok because everyone else is taken care of. It's like that old commercial says, "If Mom is not happy, then no one is happy." It's really a mindset shift that needs to happen. First of all, it's not selfish to take care of yourself, it's self-interested; which is a very good thing. Selfish is, "I'm taking care of me and screw the rest of you!" Self-interested is more like, "I'm taking good care of myself so that I can take care of you in the best way possible." The son of one of my clients asked his mom if she had been to the gym lately. When she said no, he responded, "You should go. I like you better when you are going to the gym." When she told me this, I just about died laughing. And it was a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Here was a mom who had given her all to her family and let her health decline as a result. When she decided to focus on herself and take back her health and fitness, she found that she was a better mom to her kids. The trap that exists when we make caring for ourselves to be "selfish," is that we get to feel guilty about doing so. Then when we stop, we feel so much better about not being "selfish" anymore and we get to justify how we eat, don't workout, etc. I'm not saying it's this extreme in everyone or every situation, but it is a bit of a roller coaster ride. If you change your opinion of caring for yourself from selfish to self interested, then the guilt factor goes away...and so does the self-sabotage.

Mini-Plateau… and what to do about it

Ok, second full week into the competition and things are going great (or so I think). I’m working out (five times this week) and eating pretty close to exactly on menu (minor variations here and there, but nothing drastic), so imagine my surprise when I check my weight and see that my weight loss is slowing down. Hmmm…ok, cue analysis mode.

Well, 1 of 3 possible things is happening:
1) I screwed my nutrition up enough to slow my fat loss. Not likely. With the amount of body fat I currently have, minor deviations are not enough to slow things up to this degree (when your body fat gets low enough, your body REALLY wants to hang on to fat because you need some of it, so you have to be super exact in your nutrition, think pre-competition body builders trying to lose a pound or 2, it’s really hard).
2) I am putting on about as much muscle as I am taking off fat. I doubt it. I know how to avoid this and the type of training that I’m doing right now does not send big “grow” signals to muscles. Ok, so that leaves…
3) My body has adjusted to my new menu and reset my metabolism appropriately. BINGO! Let me explain what that means and why it happens.

When you decrease your caloric intake (eat less food), you begin to lose weight. But the rate of weight loss doesn’t stay the same forever. Your metabolism gradually lowers until it matches your new, lower level of calories consumed. So now, you’re back to being balanced: calories consumed = calories burned = weight maintenance (i.e. no change). At this point, you have a choice. You can eat even less and lower your metabolism even further (I’ll get into why this is REALLY bad in a minute). Or you can raise your metabolism by increasing your caloric intake. I know, you’re thinking, “But I’m trying to LOSE weight. Why would I want to eat MORE food?!?!?” Because by eating more for a short period of time, you kick your metabolism back up to where it was when you started. Then, when you go back to eating less, there is a big gap between calories consumed and calories burned. And you’ll go back to losing weight again. If you keep eating less and less food in an effort to keep losing weight, your body will start to cannibalize muscle tissue to meet your energy requirements, which will slow your metabolism even more. That’s the bad news. The REALLY bad news is when you go back to eating “normally” there will be a huge gap between your calories burned (metabolism) and your calories consumed (the food you’re eating) and you will put on lots of fat. By following 5 or 6 days of eating less with 1 or 2 days of eating more, you will keep your metabolism healthy and in good shape to continue losing weight. Now “eating up” does NOT mean free for all, eat a bunch of junk food, or camp out at the all you can eat Chinese buffet (“You been here 4 hour! Why you here 4 hour?!? Go home! No come back!!!”). It means that you eat the same way you do when you are eating less: eat in your pre-determined ratio, eat high-quality, nutrient dense food, and eat on a schedule. Also, all of this needs to done while exercising. Specifically resistance training, otherwise you will lose muscle, and compromise your metabolism. A healthy metabolism means a properly functioning immune system, the ability to maintain comfortable body temperature, as well as the ability to burn fat and KEEP IT OFF. We all acknowledge that losing weight is important, but for those of us who have seen the vicious cycle, we know that keeping fat off is critical to long-term health.

So, I spent the weekend eating “up.” And man, did it work! I was eating about 800 calories more per day, eating every 2½ hours, and I was STARVING!!! Like an hour after eating, I’d be hungry again. Which I know means my metabolism is firing back up. This is good and means that this week should be back to normal. I’m excited, two full weeks to go. Let’s do this! Have a great week, everyone!

One Week Down...

OK, so I just finished my first complete week and I’m feeling really good. I put myself on a menu and have been exact about following it. I worked out 5 days this week. I combined resistance training and cardio for maximum fat burning and a whole lot of sweating.

I was reading Michelle’s blog today. In it she said that she feels like all she wants after working out is carbs. The scientist in me can not resist the temptation to comment. This desire for carbs after your workout is absolutely normal and a correct interpretation of signals your body sends and I’ll tell you why. When you workout, your muscles use something called glycogen as fuel. Glycogen is nothing more than stored glucose, or blood sugar, which is gotten from carbohydrates. After a really intense workout, you have depleted your glycogen stores, which need to be built back up. But, what you want to eat immediately after you’ve finished your workout is protein. Eating protein (like a protein shake) within 15 minutes of ending your workout will prevent your body from breaking down your muscle, or other proteins in your body (like internal organs) to rebuild itself. Once you’ve had that, then you have about 2 hours, on average, to eat a full meal (protein, carbs, and fat) to build back up the glycogen stores. This will fuel you up for your next workout. I usually have my post-workout meal about an hour after I drink my shake, which I have immediately after I finish stretching out. I'd recommend that to anyone who is working out with the intention of burning fat.

Who is Jack?

Hello everyone! Since this is my first time in a competition, I thought I'd share a little about myself. My name is Jack, I'm Mindy's (Not Just Talking Anymore) husband, and I'm joining to support her and lean out.

I'm a personal trainer who specializes in nutrition and has a degree in Biochemistry. I recently hung up my trainer’s hat in exchange for a 9-5 job with the government to support my family. You know the deal, 40 hours a week, set and steady income, benefits, retirement package, etc. It was a glorious desk job and I HATED every second of it. During this season, in addition to being bummed out about my lazy desk job, I stressed myself out, participated in all the "treat days," and found about a thousand excuses not to work out.

I am a perfect example of how knowledge is useless unless you're putting it to use. We all have moments that we let life get in the way of our health and fitness. Poor choices and inactivity, when combined with stress, are hard on the body and unavoidably increase fat storage. But I plan to be a perfect example of how making a change, taking back control of your life, and improving your choices, will lead to ultimate success.

The great thing about where I am now is that this is the most amount of lean muscle mass that I’ve ever had on my body. The more lean muscle you have, the higher your metabolism is, and the easier it is to lose fat. But on top of that muscle, I'm carrying about 38 lbs. of fat. My goal is to lose 22 lbs. of that fat while maintaining my current muscle mass. And I plan to do most of it this first month.

Thanks for letting me join in the fun. It will be great to work side by side with my wife to accomplish our weight loss/fitness goals.