The really great thing about diets is that you can find one that will fit whatever types of food you want. Like to eat bacon? There's a diet that will let you gorge on bacon, sausage, steak, and all manner of fatty animal flesh. Want to be a vegan? You can find diets that extol the virtues of eating nothing but organic raw fruits and vegetables grown by monks in Tibet. Hell....there are even diets that have you eating pop tarts and dumping butter in your coffee.
In the diet world it's a matter of build it and they will come....or rather....they will buy. These diets are designed to make money by appealing to an audience that desperately want a cure-all food program that they can stick to and works. Thing is; though all the diets work since it doesn't matter what you eat as long as you are taking in fewer calories than your are expending, it's damn hard to stick with a diet for the long term. There are a couple of reasons for that.
One is...you get tired of eating certain foods. You may love bacon but, after eating bacon day after day and little else, the sight of it will start to make you ill and a piece of toast begins to look really tasty. You may be all gung-ho about eating nothing but raw fruits and vegetables but, after a couple of weeks, you will crave a burger from McSlop like an addict for crack If you are on a diet high in protein...you will start craving carbs. If you are on a diet high in carbs...you will start having strong desires for protein. It's the body's way of wanting a balance of both types of foods. I don't buy the bullshit that we should be vegetarian or paleo. Humans have evolved as omnivores. Our bodies are designed to utilize a wide variety of plants and animals. To restrict your food choices, especially in this country of plenty, is stupid.
Another reason is that, unless you are fabulously wealthy and can afford a personal chef to follow you around all day, diets are not very practical. I mean...you got stuff to do. You have a job, kids, appointments, friends.....planning and executing a rigid diet takes a lot of planning and preparation. Who has time for that week and week, month after month?
So what are you suppose to eat?
Whatever you want.
Really....simple as that.
The way to lose weight is to simply eat fewer calories and exercise more. You need to exercise to that you are losing the right type of weight (fat instead of muscle) and you need to eat a balanced diet to feed and build that body you are exercising. It's not rocket science, though many try to make it seem as such in order to have you pay them for advice and direction.
You need meat. You need the protein from animal products. Don't go overboard but don't deny yourself.
You need carbs. Complex carbs are much better. Sugar is crap, stay away from sweet shit.
You need fats. Not much...but it is an essential nutrient. There are good fats such as olive, fish, avocado.
You need veggies. Green things are the best. Eat lots of them. Do not drink your veggies and fruits. Juicing is a load of horseshit that will get you fatter than just about anything else you try.
And most important......MONITOR PORTION SIZES. I honestly fee that the primary cause of obesity in this country is that most people have no concept of proper food portions. Your hand is a good way to measure. Your palm is about the serving size of a protein as well as a carbohydrate. Eat all the veggies you want. Eat till satisfied not until full...that's a skill that takes a bit of time to develop.
And have yourself a treat every now and then. Just don't go hog wild and don't eat it all the time.
And don't overthink the process.
Exercise more.
Eat less.
Do both wisely.
...and quit giving diet hucksters your money....
I had planned to so something along the lines of the technical aspects of weight training. Like; what exercises to do, which ones are helpful and which are not, how much to actually lift, and a bunch of other stuff that may be helpful to somebody just starting out at a gym.
But I'm running across friends who, though very passionate about their goals of losing weight and getting fit, are (I think) going about it in the wrong way. They may in fact be sabotaging their efforts, causing them to become discouraged and give up. I've seen it happen all the time.
One thing that really irks me is the tendency to look at obesity as a disease and overeating as an addiction.
Neither of those are either of them.
First look at this idea that obesity is a disease. Obesity CAUSES disease. Carrying around a lot of adipose tissue (fat), especially around the organs (the belly) has a direct correlation to heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, some forms of cancer, and a host of physical ailments that can drastically reduce the quality and span of a life. Obesity has pulled way ahead of smoking as the number one cause of preventable death in this country.
It's not a disease though. A disease has a carrier agent...like a bacterium or virus. You don't catch fat, you develop it through years and years of bad eating habits and low activity levels. Calling obesity a disease gives the false impression that it can be treated like a disease and can be medicated. This gives rise to all the quack diet pills and bullshit gimmicks that have flooded the market in the last few decades. Millions of people desperate for somebody or something to "fix" their overweight problem gravitate to hucksters who are more than willing to cure their imagined illness for a hefty price.
Also....thinking of being fat as an illness can give rise to the notion that overeating, or eating junk foods, is an addiction.
I hear this all the time.
"I have to lose weight but it's so hard for me because I'm a food addict" or "I can't stick to a diet because I'm addicted to soda pop", sugar, burgers, or whatever. "I have to treat food like a dangerous drug".
Bull - Shit
Saying you are addicted to food is akin to saying you are addicted to oxygen. To stay alive we breath. We also eat. Eating is not the problem. Even what we eat is not the problem (not the biggest one anyway). HOW MUCH we eat is the crux of the matter. Lots of overweight folks eat way more than their body needs...and most of that is in the form of simple carbs and fats. Your body loves that stuff and socks it away into storage for lean times....which in our culture comes in the form of the occasional diet that people jump on in a desperate attempt to lose pounds. Of course, since your body thinks you are starving when you go on the ridiculously restrictive diet of raw veggies and nuts, your metabolism slows to a crawl and your weight loss slows to a crawl and eventually stops. You get discouraged of being hungry all the time and not seeing results, so you shitcan the diet and gain back two or three times what little you might have lost.
Over and over......yo-yo, yo-yo
It's behavioral, guys. We don't overeat because we are hungry. We overeat because we have learned to use it as a way of coping. Coping with stress, with boredom, with anger, with happiness, with grief, with just about everything that happens around us in day to day living. To stop overeating is not a matter of just not eating....it means to think, really think, of the reasons you eat and looking for alternatives to meet the needs that food is providing.
Simple. Not easy...but doable and long lasting. Overeating is a bad habit that has been reinforced by years of practice because it works to nurture whatever need we have at the moment. The brain doesn't know the difference between a bad habit and a good one, so the trick is to develop good habits (like exercise and eating healthy foods) to take care of those same needs that fat and sugar were used for.
I'll discuss next time what and how to eat. If you are into juicing...you won't like what I have to say.
to continue.......
Okay, so it's been a while. Where was I? Oh yeah.....Navy.
The Navy is actually mostly a blur for me. I was experimenting with a vast new variety of drugs. This was California in the 70's. Pot and LSD was practically given away everywhere you went. Cocaine was pure and plentiful. And there was always a plethora of speed, ludes, and gawd knows what. I took it all....with gusto. Strangely enough, I never drank much alcohol. I considered it boring.
I'm thinking that there was hardly any day in the Navy from the time I reported on board a ship that I wasn't high. Kind of scary when I look back because I was doing some extremely dangerous things while stoned out of my mind. If getting fucked up and steering a forty thousand metric ton naval vessel through a busy port wasn't thrilling enough, I started dealing. Got to meet new and interesting people.... with guns....and they used them. Several times I was AWOL from my ship because I was caught up in a drug shipment and was unable to return to San Diego, or even the U.S. I figured the cost I would have to pay to the Navy for being AWOL was far, far less than the cost I would pay for failing to perform my other business duties. That business kept growing and really exploded when my ship sailed overseas.
In a lot of ways, that was when I kind of passed a point of no return, or at least changed from the naive small town hick that had left Texas.
I miss that guy sometimes.
Here's the question: Would you be okay with a fat personal fitness trainer?
It's a serious question that I am pondering and I'm going back and forth on my answer. On the one hand...you're paying for knowledge, not a model. It shouldn't matter what a trainer looks like as long as they have the skills to help you achieve your fitness goals. But....on the other hand....with a rather fat personal trainer, it would appear that he/she doesn't follow their own advice or that what they are telling you to do in the gym and in the kitchen isn't working for them. Most folks do not respond well to the "do as I say not as I do" method of instruction.
I am loathe to judge people based on physical appearance. Particularly people in a gym. My philosophy is EVERYBODY belongs in a gym....especially fat and out of shape people. When I see somebody who is very overweight in the gym, I want to give them a high five and celebrate their decision to make positive changes. They are in the right place doing the right things. God love em.
Yet, a fat personal trainer? I dunno. That's kind of like a doctor who chain smokes. The knowledge may be there, but you get the feeling that their heart is really not into the work they do.
The reason I bring all this up is because, at the gym I frequently go to, there is one trainer who is fat. Not overweight, not chubby, but gut way the hell out there fat. Several of his clients look to be in better shape than him...and that is a point. He does have clients. He must be getting results with people even if he can't get them for himself.
Or maybe his clients like low expectations. I mean, they can work out week after month after year without making any gains and think it normal because, after all, their trainer's body isn't changing.
I dunno. Let me know what you think. I'm really curious.
I hate going into my local supplement store. I don't want to call them out other than to say it's a major chain store that starts with a G and ends with a C.
Now...there's nothing wrong with the store as far as supplement stores go. They have all the usual shelves filled with usual stuff; protein powders, pre-workouts, post-workouts, fat burners, weight gainers, eye of newt, toe of frog, etc. All vastly overpriced and most of it complete crap. However; they do carry some things I need that are not found in any other stores in my city, and I may not feel like waiting a week to get it by mail from ordering online. So I mosey in once in a while to buy a bottle of creatine or a few protein bars.
That's the part I hate.
I really kind of feel bad for the sales clerk stuck in one of these GNC's (oops). I don't think that I've ever been in one where there were any other customers. Really. I wonder how they stay in business because I never see anybody buying anything in them. It must suck puttering around in one of these stores all day, straightening the shelves of $99 tubs of protein that nobody buys, and yearning for the infrequent "ding" of the door signaling a customer. Because....as soon as I walk in.....that dude is all over me. I get the antiseptic greeting, questions about what I am looking for, offers of assistance, comments about the weather, advice about the latest gee-whiz supplement that just so happens to be on sale, and him following me around the store practically humping my leg.
I get it man. You work a shit job and most of your pay is probably from commissions off the couple of sales you may have during your shift. Sucks. We do what we can to pay the bills. I can dig that you want to sell me stuff and I am, after all, here to buy stuff.
But let me tell ya......just because you are wearing a GNC (oops) shirt and have read a few promo sheets in the stock room, this doesn't make you an expert on supplementation or fitness. In fact, looking at you, I would be willing to bet you haven't hit a gym since P.E. class in high school. I don't need your advice. I don't want your suggestions. I know exactly what I want to buy. Just because I stop and look at the label of something is NOT a signal for you to come over an spout a bunch of bullshit about how it will change my life and transform my body. Leave...me...alone.
On the bright side, my local grocery store has begun carrying the supplements I had been going to GNC (oops) for all these years.
Helluva lot cheaper too.
Okay....so I haven't been doing much here in the last few days. One reason is that I have to get a bunch of CEUs out of the way in order to keep my personal trainer certification. It is something of a pain in the ass but I agree with the premise of having people keep up to date and knowledgeable about their field. They are no easy simple courses that you can just pay money and get credits for either....the subjects are hard and I'm having to put in, frankly, more effort than I did in college. It's worth it though because I feel it will make me a better trainer.
Also, I've been spending a couple of weeks getting my heart and associated circulatory system checked out. To my relief....my heart is good and my blood work is well within normal ranges. This is quite a ways from my heart attack over three years ago and I'm pretty pleased with myself.
All that exercise and diet mumbo jumbo about improving your health?
It works. Saved my life. No shit.
It can save yours too.
The common advice with most fitness gurus these days is to not pay any attention to the scale. That if you absolutely must know what you weigh, only step on a scale once a week at the very most. The idea is that weight loss and muscle gain is a bit more complicated than what can be shown on a typical bathroom scale. You can show a loss of several pounds that could be merely the result of water loss or a really big shit. Similarly, it is absolutely probable to lose quite a bit of fat but gain enough muscle to tip the scale to a higher number. Because of this, the common wisdom is that using the scale as a measurement of weight loss and fitness is pretty much useless.
But I never did follow common wisdom. I advocate using the scale every single day...and recording it every single day. Here;s why...
Measurement is important. Without measuring stuff you really don't know squat, you're just guessing. In trying to lose weight it is very tempting to guess and go with approximations...especially concerning our weight. For years, I renewed my driver's license with the same statistics; height 5'9", hair color brown, weight 200lbs, etc. Except my hair turned totally gray about the time I passed 200 by more than sixty pounds. My height stayed the same, I guess, I dunno, I probably stoop more these days. Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that we usually tend to lie to ourselves about ourselves; especially about how much we weigh, how much we lose, and especially how much we gain. To combat that tendency there is only one thing to do to keep yourself honest....step on the scale every day.
The same time every day is preferable. I like to do mine in my underwear right after my morning dump and before I eat breakfast (hey, every bit helps). The point is to get some kind of consistent snapshot of your body since weight tends to fluctuate during the day. I enter the number into an app called MyFitnessPal. It's a really handy thing to load on your phone and I'll talk a lot more about it in the future. One of the great features is that it will track your weight on a graph. This will let you see the fluctuations of pounds over the days and weeks....and it will fluctuate....but, if you are doing everything right there will be a steady overall decline.
This is what can prove that you are making progress in the long run. Studies have shown that recording weight frequently enables more long term success than just measuring once in a great while all willy nilly. It makes sense if you think about it. A great many people get discouraged when they work their asses off and either only see a pound or two go away or the weight stays the same or it freaking goes up. Having the numbers, having the graph shows you with direct proof and feedback that you are making progress as well as giving you accountability if what you're doing is not working in the long run. It also allows you to keep your head when you see a weight gain for a day or two, because you know it is only a blip...not a setback. A word of warning though....you need to do this for a good length of time. As I said, there will be fluctuations and it will take a few weeks for a downward trend to become noticeable.
Don't fear the scale. It's just a tool and you can't build anything without tools.
