A Little = A Lot

"In the 1 hour before work, a person can use more than 50 labor devices. At work, between logging-on to logging-off, a person can remain nearly continuously in their chair. At the end of the work-day, if the home is the castle, the chair is its throne. From their throne, a person can order food, purchase a car, find a new life-partner, and play war; all this—and more—without ever getting up. With creativity, a person can eat, work, reproduce, play, shop, and sleep without taking a step." Dr. James Levin, Health Chair Reform - Your Chair: Comfortable But Deadly.

Of course you know the health benefits of exercise, but we've somehow come to believe that fitness can only be attained through intentional exercise, which can only be done in a gym and in order to be effective, it must take 60 minutes...once you're there. (and being strapped to a chair with a seat belt while staring blankly at a tv screen and considering the thought of a chest press for 10 minutes counts as exercise!) Tack on 30 minutes before and 30 after and boom - 2 hours down the drain - who has that kind of time? Pretty much no one, which is why gym usage is low (only 17% of Americans have a membership and they go less than once a week) and obesity and its related diseases are high. But now, Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis studies are telling us that just a little bit of movement can have a BIG impact.

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis or NEAT for short is essentially plain old everyday movement - going to the mailbox, emptying the dishwasher, fidgeting, talking on the phone, holding a child - not structured exercise. The researchers recruited 20 healthy but self-described “couch potatoes” for this pilot study—10 who were lean (BMI∼23) and 10 who were mildly obese (BMI∼33). Sleep and diet were similar. Each was outfitted with movement sensors and data-logging technology. They were instructed to go about their normal routine. Movements were monitored every half-second during the 10-day study period. The study discovered that overall, the obese subjects sat an average of 164 minutes more during the day than their lean counterparts.

The lean group is simply standing 2.5 hours longer throughout the course of a day than their obese counterparts. Just 352 calories/day may be the difference between being lean and being obese. A little bit of movement, has a significant impact!

So consider an action plan to increase the amount of time you spend on your feet. Here are a few simple interventions you can do at work and at home to get on your feet more and on your butt less. If you are interested in going into more detail, contact me to get your own Metabolic Profile Assessment.

At the Office:

- Every 30 minutes, get up and walk around

- Stand up when drinking water

- Go to the farthest bathroom in your office

- Park as far away as you safely can

- Coffee break = walk break

- Walk and talk when you are on the phone

At Home:

- Stand during commercials and opening segments

- Walk and talk when you are on the phone

- Get up every 4, 6 or 8 pages when reading

- When getting home from the grocery store, take in one bag at a time!

Remember, its standing - you dont even need to go anywhere, just get up!! For more helpful ideas, visit SmallStep.org

Abstract

Project 365 - A Weight Loss Intervention

Just after the New Year, I sent out a status update looking for candidates for a weight loss intervention program I was kicking off. I was looking to work with one single candidate who had a BMI of 40+ and was ready to make a BIG change in 2011. I would work with them for free in exchange for an unwavering commitment. I received dozens of applications and as I read through them looking for the perfect candidate, this one stood out head and shoulders above the rest.......

"I have struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember. Even as a kid I can remember going to a nutritionist so that I could learn to eat properly and lose weight. Yet here I am at 30 still struggling with my weight. The lowest weight I have ever been in my adult life was when I entered college. I was 180 pounds – still 30 pounds higher than what the national ‘standards’ say I should be. Even at that weight, I looked in the mirror and saw myself as fat and undesirable and a failure at mastering my weight. Today, as I sit at 335 pounds, I look back at pictures of my 180 pound self and think of how crazy I was to hate myself when I was that size – and even how crazy I am to hate myself now.

I have tried every diet under the sun. I’ve done Weight Watchers, South Beach, Atkins, Cabbage Soup, etc. The crazy thing is they all worked!! My body responded every time I tried to take it down a path of healthier living. The problem is I always saw these diets as quick fixes and never wrapped my mind around the fact that it has to be a total lifestyle change. So slowly I would revert back to my old ways…and the pounds would once again pile up…and I would end up gaining back all that I had lost and more. The next time I start a weight loss program, I won’t make that same mistake again.

After watching all of the Oprah shows about weight, watching the Biggest Loser (I’ve even applied/auditioned in the past to be a contestant), Dr. Oz, etc. I am inclined to believe that I am an emotional eater. I wish I could say that I recognize when I am eating emotionally and when I am eating because I truly am hungry. I guess if I could figure that out I would have lost the weight by now. I can say that I know that I eat to fill some void that I feel in my life. At a young age it was the void of growing up without my father. Now I eat to quiet that voice that tells me that I am a failure because I’m not where I want to be in life right now. The cycle is vicious. I eat to quiet that voice and the more weight I gain, the more that voice tells me that I am a failure and that I will never take control of my weight and my health. It hurts. I know people look at me differently. I find myself not wanting to go out much because I don’t want people to see me and comment on how much weight I’ve gained – even if they do it behind my back. My husband tells me everyday that I am beautiful – but because I don’t feel it within myself his words fall on deaf ears. I want to feel beautiful!

A few months ago I went to the doctor because I wasn’t feeling well. I found out that day that I am a diabetic. I cried. I still cry to this day when I think about it. The doctor told me not to cry because it was reversible and I can do something about it. I hold on to that sentence – I can do something about it. Both my mom and dad have diabetes – but they were much, much older when they were diagnosed. I am now setting a new record in my family as the youngest with diabetes – it’s a title that I don’t want to hold. I need help. I want to start having children one day, but I am afraid that I will pass my bad habits, my diabetes trait, my weight issues on to them. I am afraid to start having children because my 5’5” frame can barely carry the weight that it currently holds, let alone bear the additional weight of 9 months of pregnancy.

I immediately responded when I saw that Grant was asking for people who wanted to change their life and no longer be morbidly obese. Everyday I read about the marathons and the trainings and the workouts that Grant offers and pray that I could become more physically fit. One of my goals is to one day run and finish the Marine Corps marathon. I am tired of being held down (literally and figuratively) by my weight. I deserve to be healthy and happy. I owe it to God and to myself and to my family to be the best me that I can be. I can’t do all that God would have me to do in this life if I am constantly bogged down by failing health and a failing spirit or if I leave this earth too soon because my body gives out. I would like the opportunity to take control of my weight and take control of my life. I want to lose the weight and keep it off! I ask that you strongly consider me for entrance into your weight loss program. I will not fail."

With those final four words, she made it a very easy decision - Her heart, her urgency, passion, and desire to change and thrive jumped off the page. Success is more often attained with the support of family, not to mention the wonderful bonding and psychological benefits of working out and cooking with your partner, so I decided to work with both her and her husband - They want to start a family and they want to raise their family right by being examples - and they want to be healthy so they can live a long, enjoyable, robust life. The only thing they lack, and what many of us lack, is simply awareness.

As a nation, we are gravely confused about what to eat. Processed food has turned a simple, biological, life sustaining instinct into a tangled, complex mess that kills millions each year and leaves us clueless. We try to attribute the causes of "Western Diseases" to so called villains such as saturated fat (which promotes efficient fat metabolism, weight control and stable energy levels and has little or no association with heart disease risk - Source: Framingham and Nurses Health studies) or cholesterol (an essential metabolic nutrient with little or no relevance to heart disease risk - Source: Framingham and Nurses Health studies) and turns a blind eye to the poisons that lurk in processed foods. As we have become more “health conscious” we’ve become fatter than ever as a nation to the point that obesity is now OUT.OF.CONTROL. A Johns Hopkins University study estimates that by 2030, 86% of Americans will be overweight or obese. (Right now we are at 65%) NIH reports that based on current trends, ALL Americans will be overweight or obese by 2230!

It’s “No carbs!” today, its “All the carbs you want, but no fat!” tomorrow. No sugar, no sodium, no cholesterol, no saturated fats. It's based on this study (paid for by whom?) only to be countered by that study (paid for by whom??). It’s the semi regular demonization of one macro ingredient combined with the next scientific breakthrough that your body cant possibly get enough of - OMEGA 3’S!! ANTIOXIDANTS!! - This constant misleading and manipulation allows food processors to create millions of “food like substances” (to borrow a term used by Michael Pollan) each year, designed not for your health but for high profits, efficient transportation, long shelf lives and on-the-go convenience. These substances are mostly comprised of corn derivatives, enriched flour, added sugars and trans fats along with a host of other preservatives and laboratory marvels - all of which have no nutritional value, are products of modern industrialization and are foreign substances to our bodies that have evolved over millions of years to subsist and thrive on whole foods.

As we attempt to navigate our way through this mess, we are often (and no not always) led astray by media looking for a trendy story or the latest celebrity diet (“GRAPEFRUITS ONLY!!”) If there was no confusion, there would be no need for the media to explain things to us - who by the way stays in business by selling ad space in part to food processors - where do you get most of your nutrition advice? We’ve become a nation that is overfed, yet malnourished.

It may come as a surprise that weight loss is a secondary goal in my intervention with this couple. The goal of Project 365 and my commitment to them, so long as they stay committed to change, is to provide them with the educational tools and guidance so that they may develop a healthy lifestyle. I can't hold their hand forever, so I won't do it now. It's up to them to read the material I provide for them and its up to them to follow the workouts. If they become more aware of their body’s requirements, more aware of the debilitating impact processed foods has on their body and the environment and the life enriching impact of REAL FOOD and fitness, their lives will be forever changed. Train the mind and the body will follow.

You can follow our journey right here with regular updates in their own words. Be inspired by them. Be an inspiration to them. Start your own Project 365 and transform your life one day at a time.

5 Highlights from "In Defense of Food"

I recently read Michael Pollan's 2nd work on the subject of food, titled "In Defense of Food." Pollan is not a nutritionist or dietician - he is a journalist that set out to discover everything possible about food, how we eat and why Americans are so fat, even tho we obsess over food more than any other culture. He argues that food has been replaced by nutrients and common sense has been replaced by confusion. Most of what we eat today is not the product of nature, but the product of food science, resulting in what he calls "The American Paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become." Pollan goes on to issue three simple guidelines for what we should eat: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Pollan's works have completely transformed the way I look at food and have laid the groundwork for the "common sense" nutrition principals I evangelize to my clients. Food should be a pleasurable experience, not a paranoid one and if we concentrate on these three principals, become more educated and aware of what we put in our mouth, there is no need to count calories, stress about ingredients or pack on pounds. Below are a few highlights from the book that i found to be most provocative. Read these golden nuggets and buy In Defense of Food, Omnivore's Dilemma and Food Rules if you want to win your body back from food science and industry.... ps, my favorite quotes are the last 3.

"...as was already understood by the 1930's, the processing of foods typically robs them of their nutrients, vitamins especially. Store food is food designed to be stored and transported over long distances, and the surest way to make food more stable and less vulnerable to pests is to remove the nutrients from it. In general, calories are much easier to transport - in the form of refined grain or sugar - than nutrients, which are liable to deteriorate or attract the attention of bacteria, insects, and rodents, all keenly interested in nutrients. (More so, apparently, than we are.) Price concluded that modern civilization had sacrificed much of the quality of its food in the interest of quantity and shelf life."

"In the natural world, fructose is a rare and precious thing, typically encountered seasonally in ripe fruit, when it comes packaged in a whole food full of fiber (which slows its absorption) and valuable micronutrients. It's no wonder we've been hardwired by natural selection to prize sweet foods: Sugar as it is ordinarily found in nature - in fruits and some vegetables - gives us a slow-release form of energy accompanies by minerals and all sorts of crucial micronutrients we can get nowhere else. One of the most momentous changes in the american diet since 1909 has been the increase in the percentage of calories coming from sugars, from 13% to 20%. Add to that the percentage of calories coming from carbohydrates (roughly 40%, or ten servings, nine of which are refined) and Americans are consuming a diet that is at least half sugars in one form or another - calories providing virtually nothing by energy. The energy density of these refined carbohydrates contributes to obesity in two ways. First, we consume many more calories per unit of food; the fiber that's been removed from these foods is precisely what would have made us feel full and stop eating. Also, the flash flood of glucose causes insulin levels to spike and then, once the cells have taken all that glucose out of circulation, drop precipitously, making us think we need to eat again."

"A diet based on quantity, rather than quality has ushered a new creature onto the world stage: the human being who manages to be both overfed and undernourished, two characteristics seldom found in the same body in the long natural history of our species. In most traditional diets, when calories are adequate, nutrient intake will usually be adequate as well. Indeed, many traditional diets are nutrient rich and, at least compared to ours, calorie poor. The Western diet has turned that relationship upside down. At a health clinic in Oakland, California, doctors report seeing overweight children suffering from old-time deficiency diseases such as rickets, long thought to have been consigned to history's dustheap in the developed world. But when children subsist on fast food rather than fresh fruits and vegetables and drink more soda than milk, the old deficiency diseases return - now even in the obese."

"Bruce Ames, the renowned Berkley biochemist, works with kids like this at Children's' Hospital in Oakland. He's convinced that our high-calorie, low-nutrient diet is responsible for many chronic diseases, including cancer. Ames has found that even subtle micronutrient deficiencies - far below the levels needed to produce acute deficiency diseases - can cause damage to DNA that may lead to cancer. Studying cultured human cells, he's found that "deficiency of vitamins C, E, B12, B6, niacin, folic acid, iron or zinc appears to mimic radiation by causing single - and double-strand DNA breaks, oxidative lesions, or both" - precursors to cancer."

"...a body starved of critical nutrients will keep eating in the hope of obtaining them. the absence of these nutrients from the diet may "counteract the normal feeling of satiety after sufficient calories are eaten" and that such an unrelenting hunger "may be a biological strategy for obtaining missing nutrients." ...A food system organized around quantity rather than quality has a destructive feedback loop built into it, such that the more low-quality food one eats, the more one wants to eat, in a futile - but highly profitable - quest for the absent nutrient."

Pepsi Max - Learn the Truth About "Zero"

PepsiCo spends a TON of money on advertising, trying to convince consumers like you that Pepsi Max is a more health conscious soda. After all, its nutritional content label looks strikingly similar to water - zero calories, zero carbs, zero sugar, zero fat, almost zero sodium. Harmless then, right? Not so much. The trouble with these types of drinks is the "stuff" thats in them and how the body metabolizes those strange marvels of food science. Surprise, surprise, most of it gets metabolized as fat.

The best zero calorie soda is, well, zero soda - and Americans are already chronically dehydrated. As an alternative to soda, the obvious answer is to drink water, but why be so boring? I like to make my OWN soda and pass on all of that junk food scientists have concocted. Simply take club soda (keep it in the fridge at work) and add green tea extract or a fruit extract like pomegranate (keep it in your desk drawer at work), or fresh lemon or lime. You can even do this when you're eating out. Most soda fountains will have soda water out of the Sprite/Sierra Mist dispenser - then add lemon or lime if they have it out (most places do) and you have your very own homemade bubbly, tangy goodness that is REALLY zero!

Find out more about the various ingredients that magically account for nothing in this article and then for further reading, learn more about those artificial sweeteners and this on chronic dehydration.

Strong + Flexible Muscles = Happy Joints

"My cardio has gotten way better now that i've combined my cardio with resistance training... but i find that i'm only limited by some discomfort in my knees. are there any exercise that i can do to strengthen my knees that will help lengthening my cardio routine?"

As a NASM Corrective Exercise Specialist, my training enables me to observe the way a person moves and reverse engineer any movement compensations. The body is intelligently designed to move in a very specific way - with all of the muscles, joints, tendons, etc working together to move efficiently. Biomechanically, the body is wired to expend the least amount of calories possible, because back in the day, energy (ie calories) was precious - food was not readily available and our bodies had to squeeze each morsel of energy out of each and every calorie - after all, it could be days until the next calorie dense kill. thats why unless your life is on the line (hunting food or running for your life) going for a run or a workout takes some convincing.

We dont hunt and gather our own food anymore, but our body is still engineered the same way. Now, we tend to sit a lot and food is overly abundant. So what is our body's response? If a muscle isnt being used, shut it off to conserve those calories. But the body is a kinetic chain - so when a muscle is not doing its job, another has to pick up the slack. When another muscle tries to do too much, it becomes tight and when it becomes tight, it cant do its job! See how this is one big train wreck?

You've heard it a million times - "I have bad knees" or "I have a bad back." But the joint is rarely to blame - underactive and overactive muscles lead to joint breakdown. the pain site is the symptom, not the cause. You can generally look right above the joint or right below the joint for the real culprit and its usually a combination of some muscles being tight and others being weak. So in getting to the question above, if you are experiencing knee pain, you need to strengthen and stretch the muscles that support the knee. This would involve stretching + myofascial release (foam roller) and strengthening. You want your large muscles working together as a team - quads, hamstrings, glutes, hip flexors and calf complex too. My favorite exercises to do this are various types of lunges - forward, backwards, side to side - and incorporating various elements of instability such as a TRX or Bosu to incorporate those oft neglected stabilizers. Because we sit so much, most peoples hip flexors are very, very tight. The lunge will open them up, but stretch, stretch, stretch those hips! Because we tend to be concerned with working the muscles we see, the hamstrings and other muscles on the back of our body tend to get forgotten. I loves me some TRX hamstring curls and hip bridges to engage the hamstrings and glutes. High repetitions will build the muscular endurance that will transfer over to longer, faster runs - Go get it!

Ideal Weight?

Via Facebook - "I've been learning a lot about nutrition since I started getting into triathlons a year ago. One thing I can't figure out is what is my ideal/ target weight? I had a reg dietician tell me I could get down to 125 (I'm 5'8" and now approx 145, 135-140 in tri season) but that seems like a hard weight to maintain in the off-season. Is there a way to tell what my ideal weight is without having to feel like I need to constantly diet to maintain it?"

Use a BMI calculator to see if you are in the "normal" weight range. 145 is smack dab in the middle of the normal range, so you are at an ideal weight. There is a very wide weight variance for what is considered "normal." 120-165 lbs is all considered normal at your height. This is a discrepancy of about 33% of your total weight. The dietitian in theory is right that you *could* get to 125 but its at the very, very low end of the "normal" range in the BMI and remember, BMI only takes into consideration height and weight, not muscle mass, of which im sure you have some. Losing another 25 lbs would be both tough, unnecessary and counterproductive to your tri goals. In summary, you're good! Focus on your cardiovascular endurance, speed, muscular endurance, core strength and flexibility.

Ratio of Cardio to Resistance Training?

Here's a question that someone sent my way via Facebook - "What is the best ratio of cardio to resistance training in a week?"

My recommendation is 50/50. I believe we should be well balanced in everything we do. Mind, body, spirit, and interpersonally. Cardio is the Yin to Strengths Yang. When things are off balance in life, it inevitably leads to a breakdown and since our body is a kinetic chain where everything is linked, this means injury or at the least, lackluster results. I see it in runners all the time. Often times, runners will ONLY run and neglect strength training altogether (not to mention flexibility). When the muscles are not strong enough to support the joints, movement compensations develop and the joints break down. Likewise, if you only lift weights, you'll get stronger, but you may not get that lean and mean physique.

In my private sessions with clients, I like to mix in cardio with strength, instead of isolating them and doing one then the other. I will generally run my clients through a series of circuits with four exercises in each circuit - 1. Upper Body, 2. Lower Body, 3. Core and 4. Cardio - repeating each circuit 2x. Not only is it a total body workout in as little as 30 minutes, but metabolically its very efficient with a high caloric burn because we never stop moving. While one part of the body is working, the other is recovering. How long your workout takes depends on how many circuits you do. I usually get through 3 circuits in an hour session.

So if you want to be lean and mean, balance your workouts evenly between strength and cardio and remember that intensity is the key to results. Keep your questions coming!