Tuesday, November 23, 2010

December is almost here!


Designer sportswear sponsored by tulees.com

In the interest of time, simplicity and creating consistency, the MOVE December 2010 Challenge is taking on a new form. Posting different activities each day was overwhelming for both writers and participants during August, September, and October 2010 challenges. So much so, that we took November off to refocus, refuel, and re-engage.

Voted #1 personal trainer in the "2010 Best of Western WA" contest, my friend Marisa Mancke, of Happy Hour by Marisa, creates "monthly challenges" for her clients. These daily exercises stay relatively the same but may increase in duration or intensity levels. Marisa shouts outs during her Cardio Striptease classes, "It's your body. It's your workout!" Straight from Miss M's nurturing yet motivating lips. What does Marisa mean by her phraseology? During her fitness classes, it's a verbal cue or reminder to listen to your own body, how you feel, and recognize that your fitness level may not be the same as others participating in the challenge or gal (or dude) next to you in her class.

During Marisa's "century challenge", she elicits her most fit clients to drop down for 100 push-ups, sit through 100 crunches, go lower for 100 squats, each day. Yes, I repeat, each day! One hundred ("century") of each exercise broken-up throughout the day in bite sized chunks are the way most participant get theirs done. For triathletes all in one session. Yaah, that's a lot for most people! I get that. But her followers...well, followed. Along with the rest of her "fans" on Facebook, we were all posting comments to let her know that we completed that day's challenge. This accountability "M.O." has worked for many, and has worked for yours truly for almost two years.

Courtesy of HappyHourByMarisa.com

Your focus throughout each month for the next 12 months of MOVE Challenges, is to create simple, sustainable lifestyle habits. One such habit is scheduling the time to "fit" in your 3-12 minute activity. Squeezing in additional time to walk from your car to and from your office building, kid's school, grocery store, dry-cleaner, salon/barber, or Subway. If you're ready for jump rope, crunches and front lunges; scheduling the 3-12 minutes isn't a big deal if you make it a fun, family-time event, and in community with other health-seekers like you.

You won't need a gym membership, or personal trainer for each session. Your body doesn't remember what it didn't do. Come on! From just 3-12 minutes each day, give your body something healthy to remember!

~MODERATE TO HIGH INTENSITY/IMPACT~

WEEK 1
1 minute of jump rope
1 minute of crunches
1 minute of front lunges

WEEK 2
2 minutes of jump rope
2 minutes of crunches
2 minutes of front lunges

WEEK 3
3 minutes of jump rope
3 minutes of crunches
3 minutes of front lunges

WEEK 4
4 minutes each of jump rope
4 minutes of crunches
4 minutes of front lunges

Trainer's Tip: Joint-challenged? Do burpees, mountain climbers, or hula-hoop instead of jump rope.

You get the idea, right? Okay then! Here we go...Follow along on this blog, Facebook MOVE Event or request MOVE tweets to notify to your cell phone. Required minimum for each day in December, along with whatever you've already got planned or your personal trainer has your doing.

~LOW TO MODERATE INTENSITY/IMPACT~
For the joint-challenged or sedentarians (beginners):
Park in the furthest parking spot from the front door of your destination (office, grocery/shopping, school, gym, etc.)

~HEALTHY HABITS~
Drink more water all day long in small amounts.

~SELF-TALK. SHOUT IT OUT!~
Move it or lose it! (muscle tone and joint mobility)
To get lean, get mean! (mentally disciplined as in)
Mind over muscle! (power through)

What's your favorite motivational phrase?

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

hCG vs Paleo

In the last six to seven weeks, the topic of certain hormone diet "drops" has become front row center in my visual field. My friends and new clients have asked for my viewpoint about this popular method of weight loss. After reading the same articles for the third time, and closely analyzing online data from several reliable non-biased, science-based resources; the part about urine from pregnant women being the source of the stuff grosses me out.

PaleoDiet.com says, "Paleo is a simple dietary lifestyle that is based on foods being either in or out. In are the Paleolithic Era foods that we ate prior to agriculture and animal husbandry (meat, fish, shellfish, eggs, tree nuts, vegetables, roots, fruit, berries, mushrooms, etc.). Out are Neolithic Era foods that result from agriculture or animal husbandry (grains, dairy, beans/legumes, potatoes, sugar and fake foods).

Optimal Foraging Theory says our ancestors mostly ate foods that were easiest to hunt or gather at that specific locale. As nomads we would have adapted to various mixes of foods. Under the paleo concept the quantities consumed of each 'in' food is up to the individual. You can make it meat heavy if you want, or more fruit and veggies if you prefer, as long as the foods you eat are paleo. Fruits in the Paleolithic would have been tart and smaller, and you may want to limit modern fruit because of this."

You decide if you think it's a sustainable, "healthy" choice. Do the same thing I did and use keywords "hCG diet" and let me know what you gather from a quick search. Pubmed.org is a resource for clinical double blind studies, when a manufacturer will actually invest resources to test their products' effectiveness.

PubMed is an excellent starting point for locating peer reviewed medical sources. It offers a free search engine for accessing the MEDLINEdatabase of biomedical research articles offered by the National Library of Medicine at the U.S. National Institutes of HealthHere's the link specifically related to the aforementioned hormone, human chorionic gonadotrophin as it relates to treatment for obesity: Click here (PubMed).


I wanted to compare the claims that are being thrown around about how much and how fast weight loss is going on, to this guy's story about a more simple, sustainable "diet" that I adopted almost two years ago. The blog post below is one of many testimonies you'll find online demonstrating gradual, natural approaches to healthy eating and lifestyle choices for the long-term.

15 Pounds in 24 Days...and Falling!

Click here for link to blog. (Photo courtesy of blog.)
Not only is my blood sugar coming down, but, so is my weight. As of this morning (11-17-07), I have lost 15 pounds in the 24 days since beginning the Paleo Diet, and the first three days were my transition period, when I was still eating some of the "bad" stuff.
So, from merely cutting grains and dairy and processed foods from my diet, plus walking a little, I am down from 233 pounds (as weighed by my nutritionist - now former nutritionist) on October 25th to 218 pounds, as of today. Proof positive that the Paleo Diet is great for weight reduction.

What is happening is that my body has accumulated a lot of fat over the last ten years or so and now, in order to maintain itself, it requires the same amount of calories per day that I was taking in. But, the difference is that now it's not finding those extra calories, because I'm no longer supplying them. If there aren't sufficient calories to maintain all that fat, then it gets burned off as my body goes into "starvation" mode (actually, a state of ketosis) and begins burning fat for energy. Since I have way more fat on me than there are calories to maintain it, it's being burned at a fairly high rate: about .6 pounds of it per day, by my calculations.

Ketosis is a stage in metabolism which occurs when the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies which can be used by the body for energy. Aside from rapid loss of body fat, you can tell you're in a state of ketosis by the smell of your urine. It has a kind of "funky" odor to it that is quite unusual.

Any successful weight (fat) loss program should produce ketosis, otherwise, you're just losing water and, worse yet, perhaps muscle tissue. The big difference in the Paleo Diet is that you're gaining muscle mass, just by the way you're eating. In your former typical American diet, you had very little protein to supply the body with the building blocks for lean muscle tissue. But, on the Paleo Diet, which is rich in high quality protein, you're supplying your body with all the protein it needs to build new muscle. This means that, when there are fewer calories in your diet than there used to be (because you're not pumping yourself full of sugar and starch anymore), your body has to find fuel elsewhere and it starts using your fat reserves as fuel. In other words, your body goes into a ketonic state, in which your liver is processing fat into fatty acids and ketones. It's the ketone waste you smell in your urine. Since the Paleo Diet ensures you'll be gaining muscle mass - not losing it, you're protected from the ill effects of other diets, which only cause you to shed water and muscle tissue.

If my calculations are correct and I'm losing weight at the rate of about .6 pounds per day, assuming that remains constant, I'll be down to about 190 pounds in another 46 days or so. Now, you may ask, what's to prevent this from becoming a "runaway" weight loss? Well, your body's natural tendency is toward equilibrium. In other words, you could never continue losing body weight as long as you're eating food, once you get to a certain weight. We each have an ideal weight at which our body will naturally reset itself to, given the right conditions; i.e., the right diet and exercise level. It's been many years since I've been at that ideal weight and I have gained muscle mass, via strength training in the 1990s, so I don't really know what my ideal weight is, yet. My body will tell me when it gets there. I would guesstimate, though, that it's somewhere between 190 and 200 or so. I say this because, when I began putting on muscle in my early forties, I started out at a weight of around 190 or so. But, I may not have been as lean then as I thought I was, and part of that weight may have consisted of some excess fat. I guess I'll know for sure when my weight loss stabilizes and I'm at equilibrium again. Man, that's gonna feel good! (Link to this blog.)

Wikipedia | PaleoDiet.com

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

euphoria

After reading this article below, the writing style impressed me as much as the content. Physical activity, consistent, and moderate to challenging exercise, is a great way to achieve a natural state of euphoria. "During exercise, there is a release of endorphins in the body that are capable of producing feelings of euphoria and a general state of well being. The feelings produced can be so powerful that they can actually mask pain." says Mens-Total-Fitness.com.

Euphoria:


The French novelist, Michel Tournier, believed that euphoria carried within its etymology the key to a fundamental transformation in the Western conception of the self. The word, which is now interpreted as little more than a feeling of light-headedness or a general sensation of well-being, originally occupied a much more moral position. Its Greek root of eu, meaning goodness, happiness, or contentment, and phoria, signifying the act of carrying, reveal a more effort-bound situation in which the individual supports happiness or bears themself with joy. The etymology suggests that contentment and joy are states demanding a persistent and active engagement. Tournier draws a parallel with the coterminous etymology of Christopher, from the martyred giant who achieved his sainthood by carrying Christ.

This idea of euphoria as a state achieved through effort and activity has now largely disappeared. With the advent of Christianity and the rise of Calvinism, in particular, a more passive view of the self and its emotions has emerged. Euphoria is now regarded as a state which overwhelms the personality. In medical terms euphoria is defined as a form of mood elevation inappropriate to circumstances, brought on by diseases of the nervous system such as syphilis or multiple sclerosis. In religious terms it connotes the epiphanies and awakenings of passive soul. The American psychologist, William James, described the state as one ‘in which the will to assert ourselves and hold our own has been displaced by a willingness to hold our mouths and be as nothing in the floods and waterspouts of God.’ James offered his own explanation for this connection between euphoria and passivity, arguing that the emotion emerged only when the self gave up its struggle with the world and instead surrendered to the uprushes of the subconscious life.

In recent years, a middle way has emerged between the active and passive models of euphoria. The growing use of euphoriant drugs such as MDMA (‘ecstasy’) and MDEA (‘eve’) has encouraged a new perspective in which the emotional life is seen as the passive product of the brain's biochemistry whilst the self maintains the familiar control and discrimination of the modern consumer.

In medical terms, as well as its association with such drugs, euphoria, defined as mood elevation inappropriate to the circumstances, may accompany mental illness and diseases affecting the nervous system, such as syphilis and multiple sclerosis.
— Rhodri Hayward