WORKOUTS AND EATING RIGHT IS OK….BUT

This may be really odd coming from a lifestyle fitness coach, but there is much more to life than health. Yes it’s very important to take care of your body; it is the only one you get. And the only way we can do that is to stay in shape and eat right. But I caution you, if your priority in life is centered around health and fitness you may be making a terrible mistake.
I’m a believer that everything we have is a blessing from God and that includes having the ability to get what we have. It’s also important to take care of anything that He has given us. But if you get up in the morning and go to bed at night thinking about your next workout then your priorities are out of order. I would venture to guess that if this is you, work is probably an equal priority, which means you are probably missing what is really important in life.
If you can’t have an occasional glass of wine with friends or a milkshake with your kids without stressing – unless you’re in competition prep – your priorities are wrong. If you can’t miss a day or two of working out because of illness or a business trip without stressing; again there is too much focus on your fitness.
It’s very important to maintain a regular workout schedule and nutrition program but not at the sacrifice of relationships, fun events or added stress when you have to miss a workout.
Remember your health and fitness must be in balance with the rest of your life, not the priority of your life.

Complete your workouts – Give.

We live in the greatest country on earth. We have been blessed with generations of hard-working, inventive and passionate individuals that have made this a country of plenty, if you can’t get it in the U.S. it probably doesn’t exist.  But unfortunately over the years it has become a country of anxiety, depression and loss of clear goals for the future.

We have replaced the traditional way of feeding our spirit with stuff, mostly technology and using our precious time working to get those things and leaving our spirits hungry, weak and wanting. We are a country that has become addicted to things, things that give us tiny short moments of happiness but leaving us empty of  long-lasting  joy.

What does this all have to do with fitness? Lots! We workout to become healthier, relieve stress, compete and live longer, but why, just so we can gather more stuff before we die? If that’s all there is then why waste our time, in fact I would say its a selfish waste of time, doing no one any good but ourselves.

Each one of us have a talent, something we are good at or just enjoy doing, use it, use it to help others.  Working out helps the mind and body but does little for the spirit.  Yes you my feel good about yourself, your accomplishments, but there is that “self” again. You want to complete your workout, feed that innermost, wanting, hungry spirit.  Give of yourself.  I don’t mean money, although that is a good thing, but give something more precious – time.  Volunteer to read to kids at your  local preschool, daycare centers, churches. Maybe teaching someone your talent, piano, sports, dance, etc. If your self-employed give some of your time free to someone who could use your service but can’t afford it. You get the idea, we all have something to give. 

If we would replace stuff with helping the less fortunate, “Paying it forward” so to speak, it would complete our workouts, feed our spirits and relieve much of our anxieties and depressions by giving outside of ourselves. Try it, complete your workouts – give!

Pushing Through

Sometimes you wake up and just don’t want to move.  Maybe it’s because of a restless sleep, hard work week or just plain not feeling it. This  is where the true athlete in you should come out.  You already know when you get to the gym chances are your workout isn’t going to be up to its normal standard, you may even have to cut it short.  But you do it anyway, you crawl out of bed, go through all your pre-workout routines, maybe add a Rockstar or a Starbucks on your way to the gym. Well if that is you, you rock.  You just separated yourself from the common gym rat and joined the real athletes.  You did it anyway, even when you didn’t feel like it, even knowing it maybe a substandard workout, but you got there and give it your all.  I bet you felt a whole lot better for working out instead of skipping the day. 

I want to be sure you understand that working out when your just not into it, tired or sore is completely different then showing up sick, DON”T EVER WORKOUT SICK, it’s just not fair to anyone else around you at the gym.  Just stay home and rest and get better.  But for the rest of the time, working out many times is all mental and that can be the biggest challenge and biggest accomplishment in your fitness program and is what makes you a real athlete.

Stinkin Thinkin

I was listening to an evangelist talk about the workout her personal trainer was putting her through. It was five cycles in a circuit of exercises for 30 minutes, no breaks.  She told him right of the bat that she didn’t think she could do this, “I am 50+” she proclaimed, but that didn’t stop him and they pushed on.  At the end of the fourth of the five circuits she proclaimed she was done and couldn’t possibly do the last circuit.  Her trainer’s reply was something like that’s fine if you want to quite now.  Quite!!! She didn’t like that word much and she stubbornly finished the last circuit. She was shaky, sweaty and tired and felt wonderful for finishing what she started. Do you know how many people are unsatisfied in life because they never finished what they started, stopping short just because of a set-back, money, illness, etc… and just gave up.  Don’t give up, stopping just short of your goal or your dream, keep going, fight on and enjoy your victory.

Sweat Myths

YOU BURN MORE CALORIES DURING A HOT WEATHER WORKOUT:                

YES - But not because of sweating but because your heart needs to work harder to both keep your muscles well oxygenated during cardio and to send extra blood to the surface of your skin to keep your body temperature safe. But don’t to get to excited about the calories burned because the difference is pretty small.  

YOU HAVE TO SWEAT TO GET A GOOD WORKOUT:

NO – Sweating is just a way for your body to cool down. You can burn just as many calories without extra sweating. 

SWEATING HELPS YOU LOSE WEIGHT:

Well sort of – Some trainers will say their workouts will take two pounds in an hour off you. Although they aren’t lying they aren’t being totally upfront.  If you sweat enough you can lose one or two pounds in an hour.  But within a couple of hours after the workout you will put it all back on from drinking water and other fluids so it’s not a true weight loss. 

DON’T DRINK WATER DURING YOUR WORKOUT IT WILL  HELP BURN MORE CALORIES:

No, no and no – Drink away people not doing so could be harmful and dangerous. Anytime you are thirsty, before, during and after a workout.  The body is 60 to 70 percent water not keeping yourself hydrated is like running your car without enough oil. Every organ in the body needs water, clear and fresh water, up to gallon a day.   

Bad Use of Ankle Weights

I remember back in high school my basketball coach would have us run laps and jump up to touch the backboard with ankle weights on as part of our practice.  He even encouraged us to wear them throughout the day during school.  The idea was to strengthen our legs to help us jump higher and run faster.  It was all the rage back then, even college and pro athletics were all doing it.  But unfortunately, as great as my coach and all the others coaches were they did not know what damage as being done to the knees.  Many athletics of that era still suffer effects of improper ankle weight usage. Let me explain the problem.  Take two pens that have a clicker on the end.  Face them clicker end to clicker end and put one rubber band in both clips of the pens and tape and heavy object like a metal nut to the writing end of one pen and stand the completed object in a vertical position, nut on the desk.  Now imagine the pen on top is your upper leg, the clickers in the middle is the knee-joint, the other pen is the lower leg the nut being the ankle weight. Now grab the upper leg and lift the whole object up like it was jumping and notice how the pens separate at the “knee-joint”.  There lies the problem, when you jump or run with ankle weights it’s the knees that take the punishment.  The ankle weight acts much like an anchor causing a lot of stress on the ligaments around the knee-joint and potentially causing damage.

So why bring all of this up? Because I still see trainers at gyms and studio using the same damaging exercises.  I watch them take overweight individuals that are already stressing their knees, adding ankle weights and making them run and jump. Whether your over weight or not the damage being done verse extra calories burned are not at all equal.  If you’re a trainer stop it and if you’re a client refuse it.

Ankles weights should never be worn when running and jumping.  They are great for leg lifts, steps ups, abs and a list of other safe and non-damaging exercises you can Google.  I idea is to get the most from your body with the least amount of pain or damage.  So unless your into punishing your body like an ultimate fighter or MMA athlete, please use the ankle weights correctly, your knees will thank you.

My Surgery

I recently had a large softball size non cancerous cyst taken off my lower back, no big deal; at least I didn’t really think so.  But the day of the surgery the doctor saw me in pre-op and told me that he blocked off two hours in the OR and an overnight stay. This news didn’t really set to well because I was hoping to just get it done with and get back home.

Long story short, I was in the OR at 12:30pm, around 12:45 I was put under and the doc was talking to my wife at 1:40, nice.  By 3:00 or 4:00 I was eating a turkey sandwich and drinking my water and by 5:00 out the door and on my way home with 18 staples, internal stitches and a drain.  I haven’t had to take any pain killers what-so-ever; it has been an almost painless recovery.  I saw my doctor six days later and he removed the staples.  I asked why I didn’t have to spend the night and if it was normal to recover so easily.  His answer pleased me. He said “no” especially because of the size of the cyst.  He attributed it to my good eating, overall health and fitness.  He wished everyone would take care of themselves like I do.  It could save them a lot pain and recovery time and even money because of shorter hospital stays.

Eventually just about every one of you will end up having some kind of surgery in your life.  So ask yourself what kind of recovery do I want? Do I want to safe money? Are you one the way to high blood pressure or diabetes due to diet and weight or is it just time to get ready for the summer.  In any case, no action means any change.

Merry Christmas Happy Holidays

However you say it, this is the season of hope, remembering past and present loved ones and the regeneration of our beliefs. The Christmas season is so powerful it causes almost everyone to search for spiritual answers, ways to change and improve their lives in some deep and long lasting way.  Its odd to me, the Christmas season brings people to church that haven’t been all year, the homeless get more meals than any other time of the year, it causes people to wish seasons greetings to strangers and even enemies. It’s gives cookies to mailmen and women, phone calls around the world, forgiveness, sharing, hugs and kisses.  For a short season the whole world actually does becomes a better world. Than bang, the season is over, and it’s like the world went to church, did a few hail-marys and went back to its old self. The mail delivers are just that, neighbors are silent and God and soul searching drops to the back burner, if on the stove at all. Why is that? Why is such a powerful holiday that brings so much good forgotten so quickly?  I think people want to keep it going but just don’t know just how.  So I have come up with an idea. You know how the stores and malls started setting out Christmas decorations right around Halloween time? Well Christmas should end the same way.  Of course we should start small, keep the season going maybe thru Jan into Feb.  I don’t mean keep the tree and lights up, but the feeling, the attitude and the caring.  Then next year do the repeat same thing, but maybe until March or April and so on and so on, and soon the power of Christmas would last all year long.  All it would take is a little focus and change in habits. The more we focus on the good, the less we notice the bad and the more kindness and caring we give and the more we would receive.  It’s just a thought, who knows it just might work.

What is the right workout?

I have been asked this question in general conversation, and have read a lot of blogs, some with way too many opinions and not much common sense.  So I’m going to add my two cents now.  First I will tell you what I say to people who ask me this question during general conversation.  The first component of the “right” workout is for it to be a SAFE workout.  There are basic safety techniques that should be part of every workout. Next, the right workout is a long term program set up to help you meet YOUR goals, not the goals of anyone else, like your trainer. There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of different programs out there with just as many opinions about which is right for you. So called professionals saying squats are bad, cardio is best, chest presses cause man boobs, light weight lifting with high reps, heaving weights with low reps, blah blah blah … you get the idea.  So whats really the answer? There isn’t one right program for everyone.  A good program is a living program, one that changes as your needs change and as you development. You can’t just continue with the same routine day after day and expect to continually lose weight or put on muscle. 

There is, however, one constant in all programs, and that is nutrition.  Nutrition is at least 70 percent of any goal, whether its losing weight, putting on muscle, or anything between. You can’t lose weight if you’re eating bad, and you can’t add muscle if you’re not eating enough or the right foods.

So the bottom line, if you’re unable to put a good, living workout program together with a healthy nutrition program on your own, then seek help from a qualified professional, one who will listen to your needs and goals and work with you to achieve them one step at a time.

Paying It Forward

Any of you that know me personally or through my newsletters already know I talk  a lot about changing the world around you. Also how there is no need to change the world at large, but just making a difference in your small but very important world.  So in a rare moment for me, I am about to not only share something not many know about me but also how someone totally changed my world through a very simple act of kindness.

I have a weird eye issue, one that allows my eyes to shift to the left like a typewriter every time I blink when I read.  If that is not enough, as I read I start to see double and the only way to correct the double vision is to blink and that starts the cycle all over again.  This has pretty much left me unable to read. I can only last a page at most before my eyes are worn out and I won’t even know what I read. Doctors never could correct it.  Experimental surgery was suggested, yeah that will happen.  Again anyone who knows me knows it would take a large growth growing on my back before I get any surgery. As you might expect, high school and college was quite the challenge for me. It even affected my Air Force career because it was so hard to keep up. In fact this issue was a large factor in me deciding to leave the military after ten years.

Now that I, in a rare moment of mental illness, have just divulged a little more of myself than I like , I will now share the rest of this story.  I was chatting with one of my clients about the eye issue and how I thought maybe a Kindle electronic reader may help because of the gray background and the ability to change font size or use the audio options for books that are downloaded.  Not long after our chat she came in with an almost new Kindle that she bought from a friend for $50(About $180 new).  The deal was I would buy it from her for $50. But she tells me to try it out, if it helps my issue it’s mine and if it doesn’t help I was to give it back to her and she would use it.  This act of kindness totally changed my life.  The Kindle has worked better than I could have imagined and  I have read more books in the last two months that I have in years.  It has opened a world to me that many people take for granted.

I cannot tell you how huge this is for me. In a small way it’s like being able to see after being blind all my life.  What my friend did wasn’t a huge sacrifice. I don’t want to take anything away from what she did, but it wasnt a kidney.  But her kindness made a huge difference but not only in my life but in the life of a student of another client who is a college professor with a PhD who I shared this story with. She had the student try out a Kindle that the college had and again it helped this student who suffered from a completely different reading issue that I think was a more serious than mine.  This simple act of kindness will undoubtedly end up changing the lives of many kids and adults with reading or eye problems.

So, if you ever have wondered how important you are in this world ,or how you fit in, just remember that a simple act, whether it’s dropping clothes off at Goodwill, working a soup kitchen  or just saying good morning to someone, can change the world around you and many times in a much bigger way than you could imagined.  So go out and share a little kindness and change the world, you do make a huge difference.