July 14th, 2010
It’s funny how looking back on things I used to think and believe always makes me laugh. Especially when I reflect on how one of my biggest desires was to be like the CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) featured in Fortune and Forbes magazines.
In the articles, they always make it appear as if being the big shot CEO of a prominent company allows them to live an incredible lifestyle filled with financial prosperity, excitement and success—which I’m sure holds true for a small percentage.
In reality, however, most of them have lives that are full of headaches, ulcers, sleepless nights, loads of stress and long hours away from their families—all of which negatively impact their health, well-being, happiness and inevitably lead to weight gain.
Although I didn’t quite make it to the Fortune 500 with my Silicon Valley based trucking company, I discovered through my own experience exactly what the majority of those CEOs go through. And after many years of enduring the breakneck pace of a same-day delivery company, I finally made the decision to switch the focus of my company to overnight services to make life easier.
My purpose? To reduce my stress levels, keep myself from having a nervous breakdown and to get my body back into balance.
It wasn’t easy, of course, and it took some time to make the necessary adjustments, but it was the best decision I ever made because it changed my life for the better. After the transition was complete, I had a lot less stress; I slept better at night; my mind was fresh and clear on a daily basis; and, I had the energy to work out at night—which allowed me to start dropping all the extra weight I had accumulated over the years.
The take-home message of this personal story is not that you shouldn’t pursue your desires or reach for high levels of success, because personal achievement is what keeps us feeling alive. Only that it’s best to live and strive for the accomplishments you want in a way that keeps stress, anxiety or other unhealthy issues to a minimum.
Although this may be easier for some of us than others, it is still a real possibility if you take the time to sit down and think about how it can be done. The easiest way to do this is to first identify what kind of stress you’re experiencing.
Is it the result of a temporary event or situation that will change or pass at some point in time? Or, is the excess stress due to something that is not necessarily temporary, such as a relationship or a job?
Since most temporary situations will likely change at some point, the simplest thing to do is to find ways to vent or reduce the short-term stress you’re experiencing. Some easy ways of doing this are:
- Exercising or working out
- Communicating or talking it out with others around you
- Visiting natural settings such as a lake or a park
- Using relaxation techniques such as breathing or meditation (you can also checkout my LeanQuick™ guided imagery CD here)
For other types of stress that aren’t so short-term and won’t resolve so easily, you’re going to have to make some decisions and take some action to improve your situation. This may include:
- Ending a relationship that isn’t working or getting some space to think
- Avoiding certain people who make you feel stressed out
- Delegating tasks to others if you’re overwhelmed
- Changing jobs if your current one is impacting your health
- Finding a new approach to achieve the result(s) you desire
However you choose to do it, your best bet is to start reducing the amount of stress in your life as soon as possible. This will not only give you a boost in your mental clarity, which will help you to make the best decisions possible, but it will also benefit your body by allowing it to create the optimal internal environment for weight loss.
Categories: Get Back on Track, Weight Loss
Tags: Thinking Thin, weight loss psychology, wellness
May 31st, 2010
I have to admit to a guilty pleasure; I love watching infomercials—especially the ones that sell weight loss products because I get to analyze them and pick them apart. Not only that, but I also get a good laugh because I find it hilarious how almost all of them (including Sensa) use the same ridiculous marketing ploy to create buying impulses:
- You don’t have to make any changes to your current lifestyle!
- You don’t have to exercise to get a beach-ready body!
- You can eat whatever you want—no dieting necessary!
All you have to do is (insert their B.S. claim here) and the pounds will magically melt away right before your eyes!
I have two words for them: If only! (I bet you thought they were two different words—maybe they should be!)
After almost two decades of researching and trying just about everything known to man to lose weight and carve out a six-pack, these statements still give me mixed feelings. On one hand they make me laugh because they’re so ridiculous, but on the other hand, they make me mad because I know they’re tricking people into thinking they can lose weight and keep it off with a bottle of lies—or in this case, a little package of sprinkles.
If you’re not familiar with the product, Sensa was developed by a doctor named Alan Hirsch and is actually very different from most others. Unlike most diet pills that claim to melt fat or speed up our metabolism, this one boasts the ability to decrease our appetite by getting our hypothalamus to release hormones that suppress hunger.
In most instances, a doctor creating a weight loss product would give it greater credibility because we always want to assume that doctors have our best interest at heart. In this case, however, it does more harm than good because they display—and even encourage people—to continue eating all the unhealthy foods that created their problem in the first place.
Overall, Sensa sounds like a great concept if it works as well as they claim, which I highly doubt. But even then, there are still a number of issues this product creates:
1) Since you’re not altering the underlying habits that caused the weight gain in the first place, you have to continue using the sprinkles (assuming they actually work) to maintain your results. Can you say “dependency”?
2) Eating poor quality foods—like the ones displayed in the infomercial—leaves you feeling tired, fatigued and gives you short bursts of energy that cause you to eventually crash. That means eating less would make you feel even worse!
3) Most people who eat “the foods they love” lack the correct amounts of vitamins, minerals and life-giving nutrients their bodies need to function properly. That means eating less would leave them even more undernourished!
4) In spite of the amount we eat, certain foods inhibit our body’s natural ability to use fat as energy because they stimulate so much insulin—sugar-laden and processed foods specifically. (Like the pancakes, pizza and burger with fries in the infomercial!)
5) Becoming dependent on products to provide us with a result puts us in the mindset of looking for shortcuts and miracle cures instead of actually resolving our issues.
6) Products that are marketed like Sensa convince us that we’ve been working too hard and are putting forth too much effort to lose weight. This approach mentally weakens us and conditions us to give up when we’re faced with challenges.
7) Short-term solutions = short-term results instead of permanent ones!
Categories: Get Back on Track, Weight Loss
Tags: Deceptive Marketing, Diet Products, diet tips
May 17th, 2010
If you’ve been reading my articles for any length of time, you know how important it is to change your approach to getting lean and losing weight regularly. For me, the time has come to switch my focus completely (at least for the next six weeks), from bringing out my two bottom abs to building more muscle.
The reason for this sudden change is that I’ve noticed I’m starting to burn more muscle tissue than anything–which, overall, is not good for my body or my metabolism.
Although it might sound like I’m taking a step backwards and putting a halt to my progress, ultimately, a nice break will catapult my long-term success for three reasons:
1. Taking a break from a calorie deficit will allow me to get my body back in balance, which will give my body a much needed break.
2. Building more muscle will greatly increase the speed of my metabolism, which will boost the number of calories (and amount of fat) I burn on a daily basis.
3. Eating enough food to meet my daily energy requirements (a.k.a. going back to my baseline food / calorie intake) will increase the likelihood that my body will burn a greater amount of fat for energy once I return to creating a calorie deficit.
Since my primary aim is to put on more muscle without adding fat, my plan is to increase the number of calories I eat by 250 daily and drop all the cardio for now. Then, once late June comes around, I’ll return to a calorie deficit and pursuing my two bottom abs.
Does that mean I’ll be going off of my eating program and having whatever I want?
Of course not, because consuming processed and sugary foods will only put my body into fat storage mode. Instead, I’ll be sticking to the same natural and low-glycemic foods I always recommend to everyone with one slight difference–I’ll be eating enough calories to create a neutral energy balance, which basically means that my body will be burning everything I take in.
Even though it may seem counterintuitive, one of the greatest (and hardest) lessons I’ve learned about getting lean is that you shouldn’t be afraid to take a short break when you stop making progress. It might feel like you’re slacking off in the beginning of course, but ultimately, your body will thank you for it and reward you with better results later.
The number one caution with taking a break is that you have to realize that that’s what it is, a break, and not an opportunity to give up or go on a see-food diet. The other thing to keep in mind is that you have to be committed to returning to your efforts once you’ve had your rest and your body is back on track.
If you do this periodically without losing sight of what your main focus is–which is getting leaner or losing weight–you’ll find that your results will come much faster and be beyond excellent once you go back to your deficit.
Categories: Get Back on Track, Weight Loss
Tags: diet tips, eating tips, exercise, nutrition, working out
May 3rd, 2010
Throughout the years food manufacturers have attempted to make low fat, low sugar and low calorie products as substitutes for many of the forbidden foods, snacks and condiments that are on grocery store shelves. The biggest challenge most of them usually face while whipping up these new products, is finding palatable and safe substitutes for all the fat and sugar the original products contain.
In their quest to provide us with the same taste and texture we’re used to (instead of thinking about food quality and nutrition), they often turn to alternative additives that are considered GRAS (Generally Recognized AS Safe) or are FDA approved.
Although it may sound like they have our best interest in mind by including these additives, many times they don’t. Instead, their main concern is developing a profitable product to put into the market place that the public will accept (or in their terms: will sell like hell).
What is most misleading about ingredients or additives that are considered GRAS, is that many are not without negative side effects. Take Truvia for instance, which is one of the newest brands of “natural” zero-calorie sugar substitutes available today.
Without getting into the specifics of how it is manufactured (and unnatural), it is basically a combination of two primary ingredients: Rebiana, which is a processed form of Stevia, and Erythritol, which is a sugar alcohol. In addition to those two ingredients, it also contains what is stated as “natural flavors” on the nutrition label. (Only God knows what those are!)
Curious to see how my body would react to Truvia, before doing any research on it, I recently decided to experiment with it for myself. The first day I used (3) packets at different times of the day and I was ok. The second day when I had a few more packets, however, I started to notice my body feeling really blah.
And by blah, I mean my stomach was extremely distended and sore and I felt bloated, which are the same exact side effects I get whenever I consume Splenda or any of the other artificial sweeteners. My assumption, in the case of Truvia, is that this is the Erythritol at work because it is known to create digestive issues.
After feeling lousy that second day, I decided to search the Internet to see what other people had experienced while using Truvia. Not surprisingly, a lot of others had the exact same issues that I had-plus many others that were even worse.
Some of the side effects others experienced include:
- Bad breath
- Tiredness
- Headaches
- Dizziness
- Back, neck and shoulder pain
- Hives
- Itching
- Gas
- Diarrhea
- An increase in the desire for refined carbohydrates (sugar)
So much for Truvia’s natural claim!
Thanks to this experience and further research, I have once again realized that substituting alternatives for many of the things we shouldn’t be putting in our body in the first place isn’t the smartest practice.
Instead, it is simply best to limit the amount of products we consume that are full of sugar, fat, salt and all the other ingredients our body does not tolerate well. This is not only the best choice for weight loss reasons, but also for general and overall health reasons.
Categories: Get Back on Track, Weight Loss
Tags: diet tips, eating healthy, eating tips, food, nutrition
April 13th, 2010
One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the incredible number of people I see at the gym who work themselves to the bone on the cardio machines. They slave away for hours every week on the stair stepper, treadmill, elliptical and exercise bike hoping to shed the extra pounds. Yet, as hard as they work, day after day and month after month they continue to look the same.
Having been stuck in their situation myself for over two years, I know how frustrated they feel. After all the time I wasted, I finally figured out that the endless bouts of cardio weren’t working for me and were actually becoming unsustainable. The more cardio exercise I did, the more I had to do to continue to see meager results.
Finally, after my muscles shriveled up and my body refused to burn any more fat, I reached the point where I couldn’t work out for more than two hours a day because I was burning out. Every day I felt tired and fatigued, and I was severely lacking energy. Although I was determined to get the six-pack I’d always wanted, I finally accepted the fact that all the excessive exercise was doing me more harm than good.
After taking a week off for mental sanity, I decided to try something new. Instead of slaving away for hours on end doing more and more cardio, I would work out with weights for 40 minutes and then do 20 minutes of cardio exercise 5 days a week.
At first I felt guilty because I was working out less than half the time I had been exercising previously. But, once I started to feel better and see results a lot faster, I realized that this approach was allowing me to have the energy to push myself harder and work out for shorter periods of time.
The end result?
I was able to work out more intensely, move faster and burn more calories in far less time without wearing my body out – no more survival mode. Not only that, but I also wasn’t experiencing uncontrollable eating binges either, which had been a problem when I was working out for two hours at a time because of the massive calorie deficit I was creating with all of the excessive exercise.
Today my workouts are basically the same. I still hit the weights for 40 minutes a day 5 days a week, and then I follow it up with cardio on the elliptical machine for a medium to fast paced 20 minutes. This workout is absolutely perfect for three simple reasons:
1) Every week I can see more lines in my midsection, which is an indication that I’m getting leaner.
2) My strength is remaining constant, which is allowing me to push heavier weights and maintain my muscle.
3) I feel good every day – no more suffering or feeling like I’m falling down!
If you’ve been hesitant to lift weights, women especially, due to the fear of getting “bigger”, I can assure you that doing dumbbell workouts (like the ones in the members’ area) will not give you huge muscles. If anything, it will help you to become leaner, firmer and fitter – which are basically the things we all would like to be more of.
Categories: Get Back on Track, Weight Loss
Tags: exercise, working out
