How I arrived at where I was….

By the end of 2007, I’d been overweight, nice word for fat, for the last 7 or 8 years of my life. I’d think back to when I was 37 or 38 and I was sporting a much leaner version of myself than I’d been carrying for quite a few years and I’d think how great I used to feel. Every day I’d look in the mirror and wonder where that person had gone and who was this guy peering back at me with the round face, pot belly and a set of man boobs that some women would envy.  I peaked at just a tad over 230 pounds.  I was wearing untucked XL shirts and squeezing into 36” jeans, but my weightlifting was going great — I was strong!   But, who was I kidding, I was fat and it was starting to takes its toll on me physically with my blood pressure and cholesterol going through the roof,  and in general I felt worn out, depressed,  run down and much older than I was.

With a newfound sense of determination,  I started doing some cardio and I actually started dieting. I dropped some weight but then I’d put some of it back on over time. I was able to yo-yo my way down to 210-215 and stay there for a long time. Yup, just stayed there, stuck in a rut doing the same thing day in day out and not making any progress. I reevaluated my eating and training plan,  and I was able to knock a little more off.  By  early December of 2007 I’d worked my way down to 200 pounds but then found myself stalling again, with fat loss coming to a grinding halt.

My oldest son was home from college for the holidays, and we met a friend for lunch at a great BBQ  place.  I thought,  “What the heck I’m going to go for that ‘All You Can Eat’” lunch. So began my downward spiral.  Seven days later I stepped on the scale and I’d gained 11 pounds.  All the hard work that I’d been putting in was gone in a week of uncontrolled gluttony. To compound that,  I continued on with another week of terrible eating , and by year-end I topped out at a very — feeling guilty and depressed  216 pounds.

Time to make a change…

I was disgusted with myself and my lack of self control and knew that I had to do something, I had to get this under control and take some positive steps to get the weight off. During my life I’ve gone through some pretty heavy stuff with drug and alcohol addictions and I was able to make it through those issues so I knew that deep down inside I did have the willpower to actually effect some lasting change in my life and physique.

I work in the computer business, so I’m a “data gatherer” which means I collect information and file it away for future reference. I’ve amassed close to 500mb of stuff over the years related to training and diet so I believed that buried in there somewhere were the “golden nuggets” of the perfect workout and the perfect diet. I hunkered down and dug in and sifted through all of it, looking for that nugget that I could use to get through this and to make some radical changes in my life.  Eventually, I found what I believe to contain the solution that was right for me at this time in my life.   It was something called the “Velocity Diet” authored by a guy named Chris Shugart who writes for Testosterone Nation. The more I read, the more this rather drastic approach spoke to me.  I became fascinated with the idea of taking on what would clearly be an extreme mental and physical challenge, in order to once and for all conquer my battle with excess body fat and yo yo dieting.  So the  journey began.

In part 2 I’ll take you through the experience known as the Velocity Diet.

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.

This year at my house we’ve started eating Weight Watcher’s meals and since I do the majority of the cooking in the house I needed some of the Weight Watcher’s cookbooks to get me started. Since I ended up getting three of the books I thought I’d write a review of the three of them giving some pros and cons along with the most important thing — do the meals taste good?

First though let me give a short overview of the Weight Watcher’s Momentum program and how it works. Weight Watchers uses a points system that assigns some number of points to a portion of food. Foods high in fiber and low in fat and calories have low point values and vice a versa. The dieter is assigned points based on their weight as well as extra points for exercise. This is how Weight Watchers is able to provide the dieter with portion control. The second component of Weight Watchers that is valuable to the dieter is their weekly group meeting and weigh-in coupled with teaching people how to eat.

The goal of Weight Watchers is three fold:

1. Provide the dieter with accountability and support
2. Provide the dieter with a diet that controls portion size
3. Provide the dieter with the skills to be successful

If you face weight challenges in your life or need a diet change I’d suggest taking a look at the weight watchers program, they have a long history of success and are highly recognized as a very successful program.

Now on to the reviews:

“Weight Watchers New Complete”

This is by far my favorite of the three. The meals are in sections that cover everything from appetizers to deserts with some very good main course meals. What I like most about these recipes is that they provide me with a broad range of choices for main entrees that are far beyond my previous dieting adventures filled with chicken and broccoli dinners which become quite boring after a couple of days. These recipes are filled with fresh vegetables and ingredients, including herbs and spices, many of which I’d never cooked with before, so they provide a nice change of pace for the pallet. I highly recommend this book.

Some of my favorite recipes:

• Chicken Fried Rice
• Spicy Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry
  
• Cheddar-Stuffed Buffalo Burgers
  
• and many many others

One of the drawbacks of this book is that for somebody new to cooking, not having preparation and cook time estimates you could quickly become frustrated with how long it may take to make some of these meals. For experienced cooks a quick read through of the ingredients and recipes will give you a pretty good indicator of the level of effort. Casting this drawback in a positive light chopping, cutting, boiling and preparing a meal may take a while but keep in mind that while your undertaking that effort your burning calories as part of the process.

“Weight Watchers Momentum”

This is the book that too date I have cooked from the least but it has a section “No-Fuss Suppers” that I think will appeal to many that need to cook quick meals to meet the demands of a busy schedule. A benefit of this one is that it does provide preparation and cook times so a new cook can have a feel for how long meals will take. As with the other WW cookbooks these recipes call for fresh ingredients that make them that much more enjoyable.

Some of my favorite recipes:

• Tropical Turkey Salad
• Baked Stuffed Potatoes with Ham and Cheese
  
• California Fish Tacos
• Firecracker Turkey Chile

I don’t have any negatives to report on this book other than an occasional editorial issue.

“Weight Watchers Now and Later”

The concept in this book is to make two meals with one set of core ingredients. The first meal will have you set aside some of the prepared ingredients for use with other items for a second day’s meal. The advantage to this is greatly reducing your preparation and cook time for the second meal, definitely a win if you have a busy schedule. These recipes does include preparation and cook times so you’ll have an indication of how long it will take for each of the meals.

Some of my favorite recipes:

• Baked Pasta and Meatballs – Sicilian Meatball Soup
• Chicken Mac ‘n’ Cheese – Mac ‘n’ Cheese Cakes with Greens and Ham
• Tex-Mex Chili Pasta – Spicy Taco Soup

Overall this is a good book even though it also suffers from poor editing in spots. From a meal perspective however there are times that I almost feel as though I’m eating leftovers of the day before when I’m actually not. For people who thrive on variety this could be an issue.

Now to answer the question “do the meals taste good?” I’ll answer that with a resounding yes.

]]> http://mentabolism.com/2010/03/06/weight-watchers-cookbook/feed/ 0 http://mentabolism.com/2010/02/24/weightlifting-exercise-hand-care/ http://mentabolism.com/2010/02/24/weightlifting-exercise-hand-care/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:03:23 +0000 John http://mentabolism.com/?p=313 More >]]>

(John is my good friend and fellow fitness enthusiast, who is a competitive Olympic weight lifter. He has been and continues to be invaluable to me as a fellow traveler on the journey to being a weller being.  It is my hope to cajole him into being a regular blog poster here. –kim)

When I run across pictures like this one of shredded hands with torn callouses,  I cringe and wonder what was somebody thinking to take things so far that their hands end up raw and torn. I realize that weightlifting  and exercise can take their toll on our hands,  and all of us will build up and even tear callouses on occasion.  It comes with the territory. But what I see here is beyond acceptable and would end up leaving most of us unable to grip a bar for a week or more.

Most of us are into fitness and training to reap the benefits in our day to day lives, so taking care of our hands so, and downtime.  For me it comes down to taking care of my hands during my workout as well as after workout.  Daily hand care, both during and after the workout,  will minimize callous tears and keep me doing what I love to do.

Hand Care During the Workout

It is best to provide some protection to your hands while you’re working out, rather that relying exclusively on post-workout care. The gyms that I lift in allow chalk and a wise man once told me “You can never use too much chalk.” So if your gym allows chalk, by all means use it.

Chalk up between sets so when you start your next rep you’re ready to go. If your gym doesn’t provide a chalk bowl, ask the management if they’ll allow you to bring in your own.  If they say yes, then pickup a rock climber’s chalk ball and keep it with you during your workout.

If you train in a gym that does not allow chalk, then I’d recommend that you pickup a pair of weightlifting gloves and use them during your workout.  I know a few folks out there who don’t chalk and who lift heavy, and they don’t have issues with their hands; however, most of these lifters have been in the game for years and their callouses are well formed.  Put your time in and you could be one of them.

I’d recommend that you keep a small pair of cuticle clippers in your gym bag, in the event that you do tear a callous during a workout.  If you’ve only ripped the top off, a quick snip and you can trim it back so it won’t interfere with the rest of your workout. I’ve found this and band aids to be invaluable during a workout.

Day to Day Hand Care -

This is where it all really happens, taking care of your hands on a daily basis so when you do hit the gym you’re ready to go.  Here’s how I do it.

• Sand calluses with an emery board or pumice stone
• Apply Shea butter directly to the palms

Pretty simple isn’t it? Make this a nightly habit, you’ll be glad you did.

By the way, this applies not only to trainees who spend a lot of time under the barbell.  If you train with kettlebells, do a lot of pullups, or any other time of training that is prone to creating callouses, these same habits will serve you well.

]]> http://mentabolism.com/2010/02/24/weightlifting-exercise-hand-care/feed/ 0 http://mentabolism.com/2010/02/23/surprises/ http://mentabolism.com/2010/02/23/surprises/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:05:40 +0000 Kim http://mentabolism.com/?p=437 More >]]> During a visit to a local hospital this morning, I could not resist snapping and now sharing this picture of the breakfast offerings at the hospital cafe.  Notice that what we have here is primarily refined carbs and sugar.  While tasty, not exactly the breakfast of champions, or of the individual seeking sustenance to properly fuel the brain and body.

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?