Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison showed that taking pictures of meals was even more effective than keeping a written log. Researchers had 43 study participants keep both a written and photographic record of everything they ate for one week.  At the conclusion of the study, participants indicated that the photo diary was the more effective tool in getting them to change their eating habits to more healthful ones.

My personal experience tells me that keeping a log of food consumed is great, because we really will think a bit longer before binging or even making a tiny “off plan” choice is we know we are going to have to write it down.

I love the idea of a photographic food record, because:

- It’s so quick and easy.  If you have a cell phone camera, snapping a quick pic of what you’re about to eat is a breeze.  So no excuse that we “don’t have time” to journal our food.  It literally takes a second to record what you are about to eat

- Pictures are powerful visual cues.  They have a very strong impact on our psyche, even more so than words in most cases.

So far, I have gotten two clients, who had previously resisted writing down everything they eat, to agree to keeping a digital food journal.  Early reports from both of them are that knowing they will have to take pictures of everything they eat is already having a rather dramatic impact on some of their choices.

If you think you might benefit from being more accountable regarding your daily food intake, give this simple tip a try.

Food Inc.

Recently I had the opportunity to watch the movie Food Inc. and after watching it I wanted to climb the soapbox, shout from the highest mountain, evangelize what I’d learned!! I was completely moved and motivated by this movie to make changes but the more that I contemplated it and when it comes right down to it all I can ask others to do is get the movie, watch it and then make your own personal choices about how you shop and eat.

After watching the movie I was determined to make some changes to how I eat and in order to do that I did a lot of research into my local farming community to determine  what’s available locally and how as a consumer I could go about connecting with the local farm community. Well believe it or not I came across one website that requires nothing more than your zip code to provide you with local information for co-ops, farmers markets and local farms that can sell produce as well as beef, chicken and eggs directly to you.

So, if your wanting to make a change to the way you eat then reach out into your community and support your local farmers.

The best dietary sources of omega threes are cold water fish.  But many of us do not eat enough of these, so supplementation becomes a very good idea.

Let’s take a look at exactly what these substances are, and why they are important to good health.

Omega-3 is what is known as an essential fat, meaning the human body can’t make it, so we have to obtain it from an external source (food or supplementation). There are two types of omega-3s:

-  a plant-based oil from flax seed, walnuts or canola that yields ALA (alpha linolenic acid), which converts to EPA (Eicosapentaenoic Acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic Acid);

-  fish-based oils that consist primarily of EPA and DHA and require no conversion.

So what do EPA and EHA do that is so critical?  Well, both are required for optimal functional at the cellular level.  To be more specific, they are needed to:

1. Ensure proper immune system response

2. Lower inflammation

3. Strengthen the heart, reducing risk of heart disease and stroke and lowering blood pressure

4.  Manage blood chemistry, such as cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugar

5.  Support healthy skin

6.  Maintain eye health, including better vision, reducing the risk of macular degeneration, and improving hand-eye coordination

7. Strengthen bones and joints

8. Support brain health, including possibly assisting with mood elevation and increasing sustained attention

9. Reduce allergy symptoms

10. Increase energy levels.

So how much omega three should you take?  Estimates range from one to four grams daily, with some recommending even more.  My thought is that the stuff is not terribly expensive, and given all its purported benefits, more is better.  I tend to take at least four grams daily, and up to six grams a day when I’m feeling low in energy or if I’m having any joint issues at all.  I split my doses up throughout the day.

It just seems that given the huge amount of research that points to the wide-ranging benefits of omega 3s, it’s a simple thing that we all can do to improve our well-being.

Not to mention that we all have a friend or six who can tell us exactly what we “should do” because it worked so well for them (a subject for another blog — one size absolutely does not fit all when it comes to wellness — in particular when it comes to how best to eat for health and leanness).

So how is a person who has a real life supposed to have the time or energy to sift through all the information out there and figure out what to do to be leaner, fitter, and generally healthier?  Unfortunately, what often happens – I know, because it happened to me for a while — is it all becomes so overwhelming that it can create even greater feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, and we just give up.  Decide to stay on the couch, and keep eating what we like, because at least that’s comfortable, in its own way.

Well, I can tell you what I did and I can tell you what my clients do every week, and it works.  Start small.  Sometimes really, really small.

Sure, you want to go ahead and create your Vision for where you want to ultimately end up, and once you’ve created it, visit it often in your mind.  But, the route to get there, for most of us, is good ol’ baby steps.

I remember when I was at my heaviest and most despondent about my state of well-being, there came a day when I asked myself, “what one thing can I do that will make me healthier and probably feel better?” For me, the answer was to start drinking at least 64 ounces of water every day.  That was it.  I didn’t ask myself to do anything else in that moment.

Once I started drinking the water, a very short time later, as in a few days, I really did feel better and noticed I wasn’t as hungry.  So next, I told myself I didn’t have to change what I ate, I would just eat more modest quantities.  Once again, after maybe a week of that, I had dropped a few pounds and really did feel better.  So I told myself I’d eat more vegetables and fewer processed foods.  And on and on.  I’ll save the rest of my story for another time, but the important point is that making relatively small changes, especially in the beginning, is what started me down the path of reclaiming my health.

The thing is, small changes are better tolerated and are much more sustainable by the vast majority of us. And, as the saying goes, “success breeds success.”  These small changes really do start us on the road to better health, the little victories add up, and each day our confidence increases that we really can do this!  Pretty soon we feel and look so much better that we can’t imagine anything other than continuing to move forward in our quest for better health, a great physique, and ultimately, a better life.

For example, maybe you desire to create a strong, lean, healthy body through consistent good eating and exercise habits.  But what you really expect of yourself is that you will continue to make choices that prevent you from achieving what you truly desire.  The truth is, the only way you will ever get what you truly desire is when you change what you expect from yourself.  Then and only then will your mind create the thoughts that will lead to the behaviors that will result in your having what you really want.

Why not stop right now and think about one thing in your life that you really want to be different.  Write it down.  Now, decide on at least one thing that you can do differently, today, to behave like a person who has the thing you want.  Write that down, too. Make the decision to do the things that will get you what you want.  Hold yourself to a higher standard.    Put it somewhere that you can look at it many times a day.

In many cases, we already have the information we need to behave differently, we just don’t do it.  But if you do need help in figuring out what to do differently in order to have what you want, seek out information through books, the internet, a friend, a support group, or a coach.

There is no need to spend another day believing that you are unworthy or incapable of having something that is within your control to change!

The study appears in the March 2010 issue of The Journal of Physiology.

“What we’ve been able to show is that interval training does not have to be ‘all out’ in order to be effective and time-efficient,” says Martin Gibala, professor and chair of the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University. “While still a very demanding form of training, the exercise might be more achievable by the general public—not just elite athletes—and it certainly doesn’t require the use of specialized laboratory equipment.”

Since Gibala’s first study on interval training was published five years ago, a growing body of research has zeroed in on this particular style of exercise in which you train hard but for less time.

Previous research by the McMaster group involved 30 seconds of maximal pedaling on a special bike followed by four minutes of recovery, and repeated 4-6 times. The new study involves eight to 12 one-minute bouts of exercise on a standard stationary bicycle at a relatively lower intensity with rest intervals of 75 seconds, for a total of 20-25 minutes per session. The workload was still above most people’s comfort zone —about 95% of maximal heart rate — but only about half of what can be achieved when people sprint at an all-out pace.

“That is the trade-off for the relatively lower intensity,” says Gibala. “There is no free lunch; duration must increase as intensity decreases.”

While the total amount of exercise performed was higher than in Gibala’s previous interval training studies, the overall time commitment was still lower than what is typically recommended by public health agencies.

Subjects used in the study performed six training sessions over 14 days. After the two week training period, the subjects showed the same benefits that Gibala’s team has previously observed after traditional, long-duration endurance training:  improved exercise performance as well as muscular adaptations.

Gibala is currently taking his research a step further by studying the effects of interval training on middle-aged and elderly participants who are non-traditional exercisers.

The irony loving or smart aleck part of me wants to ask if they are drumming up future business?  But in all seriousness, shouldn’t health care facilities (and schools, for that matter) be leading the way in offering healthy, balanced food choices to staff and visitors?

In truth, what I saw was not new to me as I was already aware of the shockingly bad food available in hospital cafeterias, having spent quite a bit of time in them in recent years visiting ill loved ones.  Still, even though I have seen it before, it always takes me aback and gets me thinking.

Here’s what I’ve also noticed:  It isn’t just the visitors buying these unhealthy foods.  The hospital employees do as well, which always makes me realize that making the right food choices can be difficult for all of us, even folks who are educated in the health sciences and who make their living helping other people who often have illnesses that are based in part on poor dietary choices.

The thing is, many if not most of us have a pretty good idea, if not a really good idea, of what we “should” be eating.  And yet we often choose foods that are not in our highest and best interests. Why?  Well, DOH! you may be thinking… because they taste good!

I suppose I must reluctantly acknowledge that hospitals offer these foods because it’s what many people will buy and because the profit margins tend to be high on junk food.  But, shouldn’t there at least be healthy alternatives?  I sincerely believe that at least some percentage of people would make a healthier choice were it there, and furthermore, I will loftily assert that an organization that is in the business of getting people well has a societal obligation to role model better eating choices.  After all, how we fuel our bodies is the very foundation of our well-being.  I will go so far as to say that I believe that selling these foods in hospitals sends an unconscious message that it’s “okay” to consume them.  And that’s just wrong.  Why not go ahead and sell cigarettes in the gift shop, too?

According to nutrition and fitness author Jon Benson, it comes down to one word: “Love.”

“Love is the key to staying on a diet, a workout plan… anything that requires a change of lifestyle. It may seem obvious, but unless you actually ‘love’ the diet you are on, there is little chance of you staying on it for very long,” says Benson. “All diets require a change in how you look at food, how you consume food, and even how you think about food. The problem is most diets make too many demands of the dieter right off the bat. They tell you not to eat certain foods, sometimes making that a permanent restriction, while allowing perhaps a day per week to ‘overeat’ your favorite foods. This is a disaster waiting to happen… and there is a much more balanced, healthy and effective way to diet than this,” states Benson.

Ten years ago Benson was a somewhat typical American male: Overworked, over-stressed, and overweight. Benson’s weight put him officially into the “obese” category and brought with it all the associated disease states such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides (a type of blood fat) and of course massive amounts of “stress fat” around the belly and chest region. When Benson decided enough was enough, he, like so many others who are truly ready to change their body and their life, went a bit overboard. “Oh sure, I ate the typical dry chicken, oatmeal with nothing on it, bland rice, and tried to never eat anything I actually enjoyed. Lucky for me I actually love chicken, but most of my diet was composed of what I call my “hate foods”, not my love foods — foods I truly enjoyed eating. But my thinking was just like that of the typical dieter: ‘If I eat (fill-in-the-blank favorite food) I’ll get fatter and never lose weight!’ How wrong I was… and after I started and stopped my diet at least ten times during a course of three years I finally got the message.”

Benson decided to use his nutritional knowledge and his background in body shaping to his advantage. “I started thinking, ‘Why not focus on progress rather than perfection?’ Again, this seems like common sense, but most dieters are focused on being perfect all the time. So I began applying some old body shaping tricks to my dietary plan. For example, I started cycling my calories. I would eat more on one day, less on another. This kept my metabolism guessing and never allowed my body to hit that dreaded ‘no more weight loss’ plateau.” “Then I decided to push the envelope. I started experimenting with including my favorite foods — pizza, pasta, and even desserts, all in reasonable quantities — on my higher-calorie food days. At first it didn’t work out too well. But then I used what I now call my “Caveman Principle” which involves strategically eating protein at specific times with a bit less food volume (and this allowed me to stop counting calories too!) and then including my favorite foods on specific days and, most important, specific times. Timing in this case is everything.”

Benson says this timing includes both time of day as well as eating higher-calorie, higher-fat, higher-carbohydrate foods only after exercise. “Specific exercise, done for short periods of time, can set the body up to receive additional calories and carbohydrates more effectively without storing them as body fat. You just have to have to know when to do it. Do it right and it works like a charm.” “The end result was a loss of over 70 pounds of fat, and I never gave up eating my favorite foods… not once, but at least three times a week.”

A study conducted at the University of Phoenix could shed some light on why this approach to dieting may work better than traditional “calorie-counting” and overly-restrictive foods plans. People given the option of eating more frequently versus three meals a day ended up eating smaller servings of both healthy foods and, on some days, “junk foods” yet still lost more weight than the three-meals-per-day group. The evidence pointed toward the elevation of the metabolic rate through frequent eating and the psychological ease of being less restrictive regarding foods consumed.

“I believe food should be enjoyed, and in my opinion life is way too short to worry about eating perfect all the time,” says Benson. “When I crafted this approach into what is now known as “The Every Other Day Diet”, it became an overnight smash, and for good reason… it gave people a chance to have a life while they are losing weight. Let’s face it: Anyone can diet for a day or two, and that’s basically what The Every Other Day Diet asks of its users. Of course you cannot go hog wild on your Feed Days (the higher-calories favorite food meals) but just knowing your favorite foods are always just around the corner keeps you on the weight loss track.”

“The end result is a diet that just about everyone can fall in love with. Loving your diet is the key to dietary success, as I said. And I do happen to love me some pizza! I just use that pizza now to actually help me lose weight rather than gain it, all while staying in good health.”

Today, Jon Benson’s online best-seller, The Every Other Day Diet, can be purchased along with nine additional dieters bonuses, including the first 30 days of private email diet coaching free of charge, for only $39.97, and the program is guaranteed for a full 60 days. If you are not satisfied in any way, the company, Jon Benson Fitness LLC, will refund your money without questions or hassles.

Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training promises fast fat loss results for men and women who don’t have a lot of time for exercise. This is a bold promise, and the workouts promise maximum results in only three workouts per week.

I bought Craig’s program several years ago, and have also had several of my clients use it.  In every case, the program has delivered real results in a surprisingly short amount of time.

Before we get to the program, let’s take a look at the expert behind the workouts. Before purchasing his program to give it a try, I had come across Craig Ballantyne’s name many times in popular fitness magazines such as Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness, Oxygen and Shape magazines, and had always found his philosophies and program recommendations to be sound and to make sense for “real people with real lives” who don’t want to or don’t have the time to make exercise a full-time pursuit.

Craig’s experience includes a top-tier personal trainer certification plus experience training thousands of clients, as well as a fair bit of lab research experience. He’s actually led research trials on sport supplements, strength training, and cardiovascular training.  What this all says to me is that Craig has firsthand experience transforming the bodies of real people, and his recommendations re solidly grounded in exercise and nutritional science.

In fact, Craig’s articles are always pretty dismissive of traditional aerobic cardio workouts. So if you’re looking for new ways to spend 30 or 60-minutes doing cardio, then this program is not for you. But if you only have 45 minutes to workout, a couple of times per week, and you have access to only a bench, dumbells, and an exercise ball, then you’ll like what Craig has for you here.

Now one of the biggest questions about the program is simply, “What is Turbulence Training?” Well according to Craig, its the combination of resistance training and interval training used to boost your metabolism so that your body burns calories and fat between workouts. He says, “Cardio doesn’t boost your metabolism after exercise. Only strength training and interval training do that – while you work, sleep, and eat – your body will be shedding fat.”

Fortunately, Craig’s unique system of bodyweight exercises, dumbell exercises, and interval training can all be done at home, with minimal equipment (if you are really strong, it might help to have a chinup bar). So again, if you are one of those people who loves machines, or cardio equipment, or marathon workouts, then this program is not for you.

As I stated, I’ve used the program myself and recommended to many others. Why? Because most of us don’t have time for long workouts!  This workout is perfect for busy men and women. And it is ideal for burning fat without sacrificing muscle – so you end up lean, defined, chiseled and toned.

And its fun! So many workouts are boring (i.e. long cardio) or repetitive (i.e. doing the same bodybuilding workout over and over again). But Turbulence Training uses a lot of unique (but not fluffy) exercises, including some cool, killer bodyweight moves that will make you more athletic and increase your functional and core strength – again, all with minimal equipment needs.

Craig has put together a 6-week introductory program, and a 4-week intermediate program in addition to the 16-week advanced training phase (PLUS, the Turbulence Training program comes with a massive amount of bonus workouts for muscle building, bodyweight only, advanced fat loss, and even a female specific bonus).

Each workout progresses into the next. He’s used all of these workouts with hundreds of clients – so they are safe and effective. Sure, you can get other programs that leave you smashed and puking after the first workout, but Turbulence Training is not like that. Soreness doesn’t matter, only results matter!

Craig’s Turbulence Training also contains a contract — basically, your pledge to being committed to the program. It also includes an ebook on Nutrition Guidelines from expert, Dr. Chris Mohr, Ph.D., and an extensive Q&A section, a 21-Healthy Habit Building Plan, plus the complete Turbulence Training workouts for beginner, intermediate and advanced level individuals.

All users will benefit from the Turbulence Training MP3 audio where Craig goes over the program, plus you can find every single exercise explained in detail, complete with photos.

Okay, so bottom line. Turbulence Training is NOT….

• Long, slow cardio workouts
• A machine-based exercise circuit
• A bodybuilding program to gain bulk
• A workout with lots of time-wasting isolation exercises
• A restrictive eating plan

Turbulence Training provides NONE of the above. On the other hand, Turbulence Training is perfect for busy men and women who want to burn fat in the comfort of their own homes without spending a lot of money on equipment or space on exercise machines. Oh, and you’ll actually have fun and you won’t “dread” these workouts – heck, they will be over before you know it!

If you’re in the slightest bit curious, I recommend you look closely at Craig’s program.  You should also know that Turbulence Training is backed by a 8-week money back guarantee. So if you bought the program and for whatever reason decide it’s not right for you, you can get 100% of your investment back.

This is one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time.

Fitness pro Jon Benson released a bombshell last week on the fat-burning world. (I’ll be blogging about Jon in the future, and talking about his book, “Fit Over Forty” — the first e-book I ever bought and still one I consider a must-have for health and fitness enthusiasts “of a certain age.”)

Jon is giving away a book’s worth of material for free in what he is calling his  ” 7-Day Personal Fat Loss ‘Certification’ Course.”  Now, mind you, this is no official, nationally recognized certification, but it is certainly a wealth of information that you’ll be gaining — for free no less!– from one of the most knowledgeable and prolific authors in the fitness industry today!

Free… and get this:  Anyone who completes the course gets his book “The Radical Fatloss Blueprint” free as well.

So there’s nothing to buy at all… in fact you get tons of free stuff AND you can even earn bucks in the program.  If you become as convinced as we are that Jon really knows his stuff, you will likely want to share some of this information with loved ones — and you can earn commissions for doing so.

So go see it for yourself:

Free Fatloss Course and Book

Here is a short review:

The Course is for anyone who wants to become their own “personal” fatloss expert. It is complete with a quiz each day and more material than most people sell in a book… and it’s totally free.

After the course, you get his “Radical Fatloss Blueprint” free too. This is all about how he and a group of “guinea pigs” experimented with natural techniques and got up to 21 lbs of unwanted bodyfat off in just 21 days.

The average was 17.5, but some people got as much as 30 lbs off.

All with little to no muscle lost.

It then outlines the ‘exact’ workout and supplement “feeding” schedule Jon still uses to get into top shape in 21 days.

This is down to the ‘hour’… and it includes home workouts or gym workouts. Your choice.

This is his gift to my readers, and I am thrilled to share it with you.

Here you go:

Free Fatloss Course and Book

Enjoy the course!