Soda - Bad

Are you a soda junkie? Can’t get through the morning without at least one 20-ounce bottle of your favorite soda?

Well, I’m here to tell ya, that soda can really pack on the pounds.

First, some background on calories.

In order to lose a pound of body fat, you need to burn 3500 calories under your maintenance calorie level. The same goes for gaining a pound of fat too. Take in 3500 calories more than what your body needs to maintain your weight, and you’ll put on a pound of fat.

So let’s look at how soda affects this.

Take regular Coca-Cola Classic. There are 242.5 calories in one 20-ounce bottle.

Let’s say that you only drink one bottle a day. What that means is that if you were to stop drinking it, and didn’t make any other changes to your lifestyle, in the course of 26 weeks (6 months), you would be taking in 44135 less calories than if you kept drinking that one coca-cola a day. That means you would lose roughly 12 ½ pounds during that time period. And that’s only if you’re drinking one a day!

Addicted to Mountain Dew? Mountain Dew has 275 calories in one 20-ounce bottle. If you were just drinking one a day and decided to stop drinking it cold turkey and no other changes to your lifestyle, within 6 months you would lose over 14 pounds.

So if you’re addicted to regular soda, start pulling yourself off of it and the weight WILL start to come off.

But what do you drink in place of soda? Simple. Water. No calories, no added sodium, no man-made ingredients. And your body will love you for it.

Test Time

Take a look at this article with a calorie test. I'm not sure if getting them right or wrong is good or bad.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

Fat Loss Challenge

Take a look at this website.

It's a great idea and I tip my hat to the governor of Indiana for coming out and recognizing the seriousness of the obesity epidemic and coming up with a program to slowly get people active as well as eating healthy.

Sign up for the newsletter. You can never receive to much information.

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A Lot of Food Part II

I mentioned in this post the difference that needs to be made between eating a lot and eating often and how sometimes when you see someone eating something and don't think they are eating "a lot," what that person might be eating is loaded with calories to truly make it eating "a lot."

Well, take a look at this article. You'll be shocked at the calorie counts in those foods. Just another example of how people completely underestimate their daily caloric intake.

You've been warned. Again.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

As I Was Saying

I mention in this post that the cost of health care is growing at super speed rates and that if this continues, people are going to be forced to start paying a lot more for it out of their pockets than a free (or close to free) ride that we've been getting thus far.

This article talks about changes that employers are making to their health insurance options.

The article states that according to a recent poll of employers:

The poll found that 5 percent of companies offered only a high-deductible plan in 2007, and that figure will rise to 9 percent in 2008.

A high-deductible plan works pretty much like this:

Depending on whether you have a single person plan or a family plan, the participant involved in the plan has a high annual deductible (over $1000). Whenever you go to the doctor, you've have to pay for the services out of pocket. Once you reach that deductible amount, then your insurance covers it from that point on.

But, there are tax advantages to this. What you are allowed to do is take money and put it in a health savings account (HSA) pre-tax (works similar to your 401k) and after you go to the doctor and pay the bill, you send a copy of the bill to the HSA provider and they then take money out of your account and cut you a reimbursement check. So you essentially paid for the medical services pre-tax.

One last thing about those accounts. You can also take a portion of the money in that account and place it into a separate account that is moved in and out of markets like what you have with your 401k.

There's a limit a the amount you can put in an HSA every year. And until you reach a certain age, you can only take money out of that account for "qualified medical expenses." But, after you reach a certain age, you can start taking that money out for any reason you want.

The good news is that it gives you another pre-tax shelter for your earnings. The bad news is, it's a pretty high deductible to meet before your insurance kicks in.

But, the reality from what the article says is that it's starting to gain traction among employers because it can substantially decrease their monthly health insurance premium that they pay for their employees. I don't think it's going to take long for more and more employers to change to only making this type of policy available to employees.

If this trend continues, I think you know what it means. Those that are healthy and just don't have the need to go to the doctor much are going to be able to take advantage of the tax shelter to save for retirement. For those that are not healthy, well, it's going to end up costing you.

So again, here's your choice. Start exercising and eating healthy, and in the long run, it's going to save you money. Don't start exercising and continue to eat unhealthy and take on other unhealthy activities in your life, and well, I think you can figure out what happens.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

Eating A Lot vs. Eating Often

A lot of time when people see me throughout the day, I get asked "why are you not the size of whale?" I give them a puzzled look and ask "why do you ask that?" The response is "Because you eat soooooo much!!!"

Well, that's not necessarily true. I eat OFTEN, not a lot.

When you eat 6-7 meals a day, yes, it may seem to the outsider that you're eating "a lot" because you've got something in your mouth every 3-4 hours. But look at the amount you're consuming during that "meal." It's really not that much.

But, take a look at someone who eats unhealthy. The may not eat breakfast. And then at lunch, they go out and get some kind of fast food. Just looking at the fast food though still might not look like the person is eating "a lot." But, take a look at the number of calories in that fast food, the person's first meal of the day. Now take a look at what I would have eaten up to that point of the day (3 meals) and i guarantee that the number of calories that i consumed in those 3 meals, is STILL less than what that unhealthy eater had in one meal.

So don't always think that eating often is eating "a lot." As long as you pick the correct foods to eat (whole grains, fruits, vegetables, dairy, lean meats, etc) and stay away from the crap (fast food, and 75% of the stuff you find in a grocery store), then you just can't go wrong on your path to better health and fitness.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

I Hate to Keep Beating This

Again, no, not that.

Here's an article by Gabrielle Reece stating what I've been trying to pound into your heads...start eating....

Here's the way she puts it:

People, especially you girls, you need to eat if you want to lose. If you don't eat enough, you are starving yourself. So guess what? The body says to itself, "Oh, OK, since I'm not sure about this food flow, I'm going to hold onto every last calorie that enters my mouth." Isn't that great? So instead of working with yourself by blowing off breakfast and having "salad" for lunch and a glass of wine for dinner to stay or get thin, you're actually shutting down the show and making that eating hill even steeper.

Bottom line, stop looking at food as something to be avoided if trying to lose weight. You need to change your attitude and not feel guilty when you put food in your mouth. Food is fuel, it's not Satan's way of selling your soul to him.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

Get Healthy = Keep Your Job

Anyone who lives in Michigan knows one thing about our current job market: it's blows.

One of the issues that I don't think has gotten as much attention as it should as one of the causes of this is the cost of health care. The cost of health care in this nation has consistently increased in near double digit percentages over the last several years.

One way we can help change this is by getting healthier. Think about it. You stop smoking, start eating healthy, and start exercising. What do you notice? You don't get sick as often, your cholesterol, blood glucose, and blood pressure are normal, which in turn means you don't need to go to see a doctor as often, which then turns into a decrease in health care cost.

We can't continue to have these huge increases in health care costs. I would guess that most people pay a percentage of their health insurance premium through their employer, but the vast majority of the overall premium is paid by the employer. Ladies and gentlemen, if these health care costs keep increasing at the rate they are currently, you can kiss that free ride goodbye.

And what happens then? What happens when you retire and all of a sudden you have to pay nearly the entire health insurance premium yourself, or have only insurance that covers hospital emergencies and you have to pay all your other medical expenses out of pocket?

If you start now, you could essentially be saving yourself thousands of dollars in out of pocket medical expenses simply by getting into a healthy lifestyle. Which would you rather have money for? To pay for nice gifts for your grandchildren, or be strapped financially because of those medical expenses that could have been avoided? It's your call but, I would think the answer is obvious.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

Shocker: BMI not a reliable measure

Well, this article doesn't really come as a surprise.

BMI is your body mass index. If you have a BMI of 25 or higher, you're considered overweight and 30 or above is obese. The article describes how it's calculated:

BMI is determined by this equation: A person’s weight divided by his or her height squared. Generally a BMI of 25 or above indicates a person is overweight; 30 or above indicates obesity. A person with a higher BMI is thought to be at a greater risk of heart disease, diabetes and other weight-related problems.

The problem is that it doesn't take into consideration how much muscle a person might have, age, or other factors.

The article gives an example that using this formula, 60% of NFL football players would be considered obese. But really, I think that can even be expanded to show this formula is inaccurate for just about anyone that has a regular workout routine.

Now, don't take this to mean that we as a society are NOT getting fatter. The BMI might not be the greatest measure but, spend a half hour at any public place and you'll notice that 2 out of 3 people are overweight/obese.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

Myths unlocked about Squats and Lunges

There's always been a few myths out there about squats and lunges that I think would be a good idea to go over.

Myth Number 1: Squats and Lunges are bad for the knees

Assuming you have healthy knees (meaning, the doc hasn't told you not to do squats or lunges), they aren't bad for your knees. In fact, they could actually help build up the bone mineral density of the bone in the knee and surrounding leg bones to make them stronger and thus, decrease your chances of osteoporosis as you age.

Myth Number 2: In a squat, you shouldn't let your upper leg go below the point of being parallel to the ground.

One word: babies. Meaning, take a look at babies after they start to walk. They stand there, stick an object in their mouth, throw it on the ground, and squat down to pick it up. Look at how they squat. Their butt in that diaper is nearly grazing the ground. They then pick the object up, stick it back in their mouth, throw it back on the ground, squat down again, and the cycle continues for 3-4 hours.

Babies are natural squatters and if squatting below parallel was harmful, we'd have millions of kids growing up in knee braces.

Another point to make on this myth is that if you go below parallel, you're actually going to be recruiting more from your glutes (butt muscles). So if you're hoping to shape that butt, keep doing squats.

Myth Number 3: You shouldn't let your knees go past the front of your toes while squatting or when doing a lunge.

First, again, go back to the babies. watch their knees and you'll see that they naturally go forward and past the front of your toes.

The biggest problem I see with this myth is that if you are watching where your knees are going, you could be causing bigger problems in other areas: your lower back.

In a squat, your lower back should be in a neutral and flat position. You should keep your eyes looking straight ahead in order to keep it in that position. You don't want your lower back to round. If you're paying attention to your knees, meaning, you're looking down at your knees, your lower back immediately goes into a rounding position. Not good.

In a lunge, you want your upper body to be straight up and down. Don't lean forward. And I'll give you one guess as to what happens when you look down to see where your knees are in comparison to your toes.....Yup, the upper body leans forward.

Bottom line, don't worry where your knees are compared to your toes, just keep your eyes looking straight ahead and your back flat on a squat, and upper body straight on a lunge.

Strength without Size

Short blog today but, this video will keep you busy for a little bit.

Some more evidence for you ladies out there that lifting heavy weights is NOT going to turn you into the Hulk. Check out the video.

She's 115 pounds. He's a UFC fighter. In a strength to mass ratio contest, she wins hands down.

So please, get it out of your head ladies that you're going to get big and bulk lifting heavy weights. It's just not going to happen.

And as for you guys out there, let this also be a lesson, just because you see a small petite woman walking down the street, watch your back because she very well could kick your ass.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

I Hate to Say I Told You So

But, I told you so.

Another great article by Tom Venuto talks about metabolism and why starvation and crash diets are horribly harmful to firing up your metabolism and burn off that unwanted fat.

When you starve yourself, your body doesn't just immediately go into burning all the fat that you have. It actually starts eating away at muscle and other tissue in order to make it so that you don't need as many calories to maintain your system. You'll lose some weight (fat and muscle) but, at some point your body is going to come back into balance and you'll hit a weight loss plateau. But now, lets say that instead of your body needing 1000 calories to maintain what it needs to do throughout the day, it only needs 750 calories (i'm just using random numbers here. there's nothing special about 1000 and 750).

So you reach the plateau, get frustrated, and say screw it and grab a doughnut. The problem now is that your metabolism has been decreased your daily calorie needs from 1000 to 750 to maintain it's processes. That means, if you go back to eating the way you were before the crash diet, you are not only going to put the weight back on but also put on additional weight.

Let's use a real life example using 1000 and 750 calories. It took your body 1000 calories to maintain all it has to do through the day before the diet. Let's say you only got that many calories in for the day (and by the way, I would never recommend someone eat only 1000 calories a day). so you were maintaining your weight. Then you went on the starvation diet and after a few weeks, your body only needs 750 calories to maintain. You get frustrated and go back to eating the way you did before the crash diet (1000 calories a day). But, your body only needs 750 calories a day to maintain itself, and that means the extra 250 calories that you're consuming are turning into fat. Which means, that within a couple of weeks, you will not only have gained the weight back that you lost, but you'll start to put on more weight. Not good.

But, the article explains that to get out of this cycle

It may take a little longer if you have really messed things up with severe
starvation dieting in the past, especially if you've lost a lot of lean body
mass, but it is never hopeless. Anyone can increase their metabolism.

He then goes into some great tips on how to get your metabolism fired up again. NOTE to current and former clients of my Lean Body Fat Loss Plan. Any of these sound familiar?

• Meal frequency: eat 5-6 small meals per day
• Meal timing: eat approximately every 3 hours, with a substantial breakfast and a substantial post workout meal.
• Sufficient Caloric Intake: maintain a small calorie deficit and avoid starvation-level diets (suggested safe levels for fat loss: 2100-2500 calories per day for men, 1400-1800 calories per day for women; adjust as needed)
• Food choices: Select natural, unprocessed foods with high thermic effect (lean proteins like chicken, turkey, egg whites and fish are highly thermic, as are all green vegetables, salad vegetables and other fibrous carbs)
• Cardio training: Push up the intensity a bit if you really want to get a metabolic boost. Walking and low intensity cardio is fine, but higher intensity is more metabolism-stimulating
• Weight training: The basic exercises that include the largest muscle groups or even call into play the entire body as a unit (squats, front squats, split squats, deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, overhead presses, all kinds of rows and core-activation exercises) will have a much greater metabolism stimulating effect than isolation exercises (concentration curls, calf raises, etc)

Hmmmmm. Sounds pretty close to what I try to drill into the people that do my plan. So take that under advisement, I'm not just pulling your leg.

Finally, he states:

Consistency is the key.
Nothing will undermine the "re-building" of
your metabolism like inconsistency. If you stop and start, or skip meals and
workouts often, you will not even get off the ground.

And that pretty much sums it up. Don't kid yourself into thinking that you can fool your body by eating junk food and skipping workouts or eating great on the weekdays and then completely blowing it on the weekends. Stop making excuses.

You can lie to yourself all you want that "it's okay" but, your body isn't going to fall for it. It's your body, and it can be whatever it is that you want to make of it.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

Weekend Advice: The Party's Over

Leading a life of healthy eating and efficient exercise is moving past how you have lived your life up until now.

Most people think that they can lose weight, have healthy blood work, all while continuing to have unhealthy habits such as smoking, frequent binge drinking, and consuming fast food.

The reality is, you can't. If you're serious about changing the direction of your health, then there are some habits that have to be cut out completely, and others that need to be severely minimized.

Smoking. Non-negotiable. You have to quit ENTIRELY.

Drinking. If you're someone that may not drink during the week but then goes out on the weekends and drinks into oblivion, you've gotta stop. I know that may be hard for you to swallow but, alcohol and fat loss do not mix. And I'm talking about drinking in excess. If you go out on the weekend night, have a glass of wine or maybe a couple of beers, that's not going to end in horrible results. But, if you're use to going overboard, then unfortunately, you have to make a choice between how serious you really are about losing weight versus being the life of the party.

Weight loss is more than just about exercising and eating healthier. It's about a complete attitude change that you must make. Sure, maybe people won't recognize you if you're standing straight up at a party instead of laying on the floor with your mouth open at the end of the keg tapper. But, if you're serious about fat loss, then people REALLY won't recognize you because of your new slim down waist.

The choice is yours and only YOU are responsible for which path you choose to follow.

www.leanbodyfitness.com