What would you recommend for weight loss…..I know I need to start watching what I eat, but work-out wise what is the best thing? Should I look into P90X or TRX systems? I am 5’11 235lbs and need to get in shape…..where would you start?

Here is what I replied in answer:

I tend to break things down as simply as possible, plan the work and then work the plan.

To me, you need three things to be healthy, in shape and feel good. Removing the romance from living healthy, we are organic machines.

A) You have to eat right. This is the biggest factor by far… like it or not. Food = fuel for your machine. In order to offset and correct whatever you’ve done to your body over the last decade or more, you must over correct in the short term and then find a balance once you’ve ‘leveled out’. Use www.dailyplate.com (it is free) and really instead of just focusing at first on what you should be eating, really break down what you are currently eating. That’s a step most people skip and IMHO, you cannot do so.

B) You have to ‘rev’ your machine back up. If you have gotten older, you’ve noticed your machine isn’t running like it used to – your metabolism slows down. What’s your metabolism anyway? It’s how efficiently you break down food – both in speed and in function. If you are getting back into trying to live a more healthy lifestyle, then you need to talk to a doctor first. You need to look at where you are at, and what you enjoy (or used to enjoy) doing. Hiking? Running? Sports? Working out just to work out is grinding, boring work. Don’t force that on yourself. Use something like performing at a sport you enjoy(ed) to motivate and focus your workouts on. I approach workouts as a tripod – you need a) strength training; b) cardio training; and c) flexibility/balance training. A personal trainer or looking at professional athlete’s training regimes in disciplines you enjoy(ed) can give clues on approaches.

C) Rest and recovery. We are not factory machines that run at 100% all the time (and even factory machines that do run 100% all the time break down). We need proper rest and recovery. Get enough sleep consistently. Drink enough water – plain old water – consistently. Vary the intensity of your workouts methodically. Do not expect to push at 110% every workout for the rest of your natural born life. Have two medium weeks at 80-95% intensity, then ROCK it at 110% one week a month, and then take a week to cross train at 60-75% doing different activities. That’s a rough template, if you want to crush it for 2-3 weeks and then take a week to rest and recover… do it. The key is to vary both the activities and the intensity.

That might not directly answer your question, but it should give you a template in order to find your own balance point and get you on the road to finding a lifestyle that you both enjoy and have fun doing.

Workouts

Here’s my workout on weeks I have games (which is most weeks):

Monday: full warmup, play game.
Tuesday: TRX based full body circuit training workout (:30 minutes)
Wednesday: TRX based core workout (based off Drew Brees Core Workout) :15 minutes; run Windsprints* (in field behind my house) :15 minutes . *Details below
Thursday: TRX based full body circuit training workout (:30 minutes)
Friday: TRX based core workout (based off Drew Brees Core Workout) :15 minutes; run Windsprints (or do interval work on sliding board)*
Saturday: TRX based full body circuit training workout (:30 minutes)
Sunday: Rest

* For my windsprints, I put on my soccer cleats with a stop watch in one hand and my interval trainer timer in the other. http://www.gymboss.com/ (I LOVE LOVE LOVE this little thing). I warm up by jogging for 5 minutes at a moderate pace. I then shoot for 8 total intervals of 100% effort sprinting for 20 seconds; then rest or jog in place for 10 seconds. I then jog at a moderate pace until I hit the 15 minute mark. The field behind my house is shaped like a bowl, so there is a slight incline at both ends; one full 20 second sprint gets me from one side to the other about perfectly. It’s conveniently almost the length of a soccer field.

For a change, or if the weather is bad, I also use a recumbent exercise bike in my basement (rarely); or do intervals on my sliding board: http://www.goaler1.com/G1_10__Slideboard.html

It’s something hockey players use; I discovered it rehabbing a torn groin and it’s a ton of fun. I go for 2 sets of 8 intervals: 50 seconds full bore go and 10 seconds of rest.

I also do interval training doing burpees with and without the TRX.

- Now ‘inside all this’ I change everything up. So the TRX workouts are constantly changing; I bring in different moves, I mix up the way I do them. Sometimes I just do straight up P90X or weight workouts. I mix up the interval work as noted above. I’m not a big fan of the bike anymore; but I’ve spent many hours over the years on that damn thing whilst rehabbing injuries… so I tend to associate working out on it with injuries. Mental thing.

I tend to do 3 weeks ‘go for it’ and then take a week ‘easy’ where I just lower the intensity much. Also if I just am dragging, didn’t get proper rest or just am not feeling it… I take a day off. I am not as fanatical as it might appear.

Diet

I got this sent to me today, so asked if I could post it (anonymously) and then reply in the thread; he said go for it:

Hey there Scott: I enjoyed reading this thread, and wanted to ask what information you followed in creating your meal plans. I’m real interested in trying out your meal plan, but have some of my own “trials” to tend too…What do you substitute for protein? It appears you have most other parts of the food groups covered. Have you shopped around for your Vibrams? Is there a “best” place to purchase them? Drop me a line, and thanks!

I have always believed in doing a balanced diet. I used www.thedailyplate.com or www.sparkpeople.com to plan my eating, though I just free form it now (though I STILL plan it out).

The key to eating is simple – plan it out. Do NOT eat on impulse when hungry, you will make bad decisions and you will eat too much. That’s it.

I no longer believe in supplements or pills or vitamins. Eat food. Depending on your beliefs – not going there – human beings were created or evolved to eat food, not take pills, powders and potions. Skip it all. Just cut it out.

I need protein? I drink a glass of skim milk. Or I have a sweet tooth? I get protein, essential fats and fiber by making a toasted peanut butter (organic, no sugar added) on whole wheat bread (no HFCS). For fruits and veggies I make up smoothies, detailed on my blog and in here on the Pub. I eat a lot of plain old oatmeal – I found an organic one that is great; or plain old oats will do (I have a cup of it for breakfast and then a cup later in the afternoon as a snack… with some fruit/veggie smoothie to go with it). I drink (lots of) water, (lots of) green tea and… that’s pretty much it other than a glass of organic skim milk every day. It’s a lot easier than it all sounds. For protein I eat a lot of chicken or lean beef. I’m not a big seafood guy, though I wish I was.

I can cook from recipes – I am good following directions, though I really can’t cook. No instincts or talent for it; but there are thousands of recipes out there. I plan out what I want to eat (well, what my family eats) with my wife on Sunday and then I grocery shop for it all. It’s not hard to eat well if you PLAN it. You cannot get to 6pm and be dying of hunger and then think… hmmm, what should we eat?

Now all that said, I have two kids and a wife. They are not all on this fitness bandwagon with me – though they are not trying to sabotage it either. We just eat better because we do. We get pizza on Fridays – I just eat some oatmeal before it comes and stick to eating two pieces of pizza. Then, I’m good. I LOVE hot wings; but try to stick to getting them only once a month. I have serious control issues with chocolate, so I buy dark chocolate and have two pieces of it a day as my ‘treat’ if I don’t go off the rails with my workouts or eating; so all I’m doing is planning it and practicing portion control.

In social circles, I practice portion control and eat everything every one else does. It’s easy to gorge on stuff in those situations; so I just pay attention and make up my mind beforehand what I will be having and stick to it. I don’t pound beers anymore, I have a drink or two or the equivalent beer or two. Then I just stop. And I try to keep that to once a month or so, I don’t miss it really. I can hang out, have a great time and not drink even if everyone else is.

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On the Vibram Five Fingers – I have the KSO’s and love them. As time has gone on, I find I hate having to take them off; because I love wearing them. They just feel ‘right’. I feel that working out in them has increased my balance and strength in my ankles and feet. It’s amazing how you use your toes for balance, though in shoes you would never realize that. Doing Yoga barefoot opened my eyes to that; doing that sort of thing now (and all this working out) in them REALLY makes a difference. I don’t run in them, and there’s a WHOLE movement of folks into that; but that’s not my deal. I toss them in the washer once every 2 weeks and they are just fantastic for traction. I bought them direct from Vibram; cost me the same as REI or anywhere else, and I know they are not counterfeit that way. Total thumbs up on these ninja booties.

Click here!

Great guys – and hopefully I’ll be rejoining them for another edition of their show before too long!

My part of the discussion was adding commentary to their thoughts on their “article of the day” segment and then talking about my approach to fitness, how I arrived here to do this site, my take on P90X and the TRX. We also got into diet and motivation to exercise. I look forward to sharing it with you here too!

Smoothie Recipe

Here’s a newer one that I happened into and it’s a good smoothie! It’s pretty simple and follows my ‘easy’ formula… 1 part greens/2 parts fruit; cover with water…. hit blend.

The green here is 2 cups of baby spinach. The fruits are the frozen ‘Mixed Fruit’ from the frozen section of the local Kroger Grocery store. Peaches, Mangos, Grapes, Strawberries and Blueberries. I also add a banana. Dash of Stevia for just the right sweetness. Cover with filtered cold water. Hit blend. I have big cups of it with lunch, then as a snack and then one after/during dinner.

Before:

After:

And man… it’s good stuff!!

- 2 cups baby spinach
- 2 cups blueberries (frozen)
- 1 cup pineapples (frozen)
- 1 banana
- 3 cups water

You don’t even taste the spinach; you’d not even know it’s in there. If you need more ‘sweet’ adding some stevia or pineapple juice.

The ‘key’ to them, I have found, is to double the fruits to the veggies and add enough water to cover the frozen stuff (or else it gets too thick).

Other veggies the ‘raw’ or ‘green smoothie’ folks recommend is Kale and Celery. Use any fruits you want too. I like the frozen ones because then it is like a shake and I dig that.

Another good mix:

- Kale (2-3 leaves)
- 2 oranges (peeled)
- 2 cups strawberries
- 1 banana
- 3 cups water

Another favorite is using a ‘Berry Medley” found in the frozen section of my local Kroger (where I buy all this stuff, no need to go to any specialty stores) that has:

- 2 cups baby spinach
- 2 cups blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries (frozen)
- 1 cup pineapples (frozen)
- 1 banana
- 3 cups water

I also do your standard issue frozen yogurt, strawberries and banana smoothies as a dessert – my kids and I LOVE these.

- 2 cups frozen vanilla yogurt
- 2 cups frozen strawberries
- 2 bananas
- 3 cups skim milk (organic)

I’m also working on how to do a chocolate shake, but haven’t got that ‘down’ yet. Basically I am working from the strawberry/banana recipe and adding straight cocoa (dark chocolate) with some stevia for sweetness… but have not yet nailed a killer recipe/balance/proportion. Yet…

It’s fun!

This summer, my workouts have progressed with the TRX Suspension Trainer. I am doing circuit training on it now (for the last 2 weeks as I type this) and am back to running sprints (Tabata Protocal – 8 cycles of 20 seconds full 100% intensity sprint, 10 seconds rest) since my toe has healed (soccer injury… what else?). I am also doing Interval training (modified Tabata Protocal, 10-14 cycles of 50 seconds 100% intensity, 10 seconds rest) with my Goaler-One sliding board (dryland hockey training).

I’ve also gotten myself some Vibram Fivefingers KSO shoes, my ‘Ninja Booties’ I call them, and have found that they are absolutely ideal for working out. I still run in my soccer shoes – which seems logical to me given my goals – but these goofy shoes from Vibram are indeed REALLY cool. You get serious work using your foot as it was designed (or evolved depending on your beliefs!) and I’ve found that my balance, form and spatial awareness is improving in MUCH the same way barefoot Yoga taught me the same thing. These shoes have incredible grip, something that is often overlooked in the reviews and videos the barefoot runners all ignore. In my opinion – these are the best thing to happen to working out. They are recommended by almost all the Kettlebell and Crossfit guys you can talk to. I am loving them. I’ll post more about them after a few more weeks of using them.

The biggest change though past all that has been to finally – for the first time in my entire life – eat right. 100% no excuses right. My Achilles heel has always been a lack of vegetables and fruits in my daily diet. Forever. Now, I found my solution – I stepped up last month and bought a Blendtec blender. This thing is a rocket ship of a blender – something on the order of almost 1600watts. I am making green smoothies daily, laying off the carbs and having almost 8-10 cups daily of fruits and veggies. Add that to sensible, sane eating – yes I still have pizza once a week and such – but the vast majority of the time, I am eating really quality lean meats and smaller portions of it. Lots of plain oatmeal – which I’ve come to love; lots of water, these green smoothies, ice tea and lean proteins. No sugar, no white flour, no corn, no corn based products, no high fructose corn syrup. And if any ‘slips in’ then it’s in moderate levels. No binging.

I have also been – since June/July – totally off all supplements. All of them. No protein powders, no pre-workout, post-workout, ‘recovery’ or ‘sports’ drinks. No pills.

My goal? I want to get my bodyfat down to single digits. I started this summer at 13-14% body fat based on my Accu-Measure caliper. That is here (from June 2010):

Now up to getting past vacations and dialing in the diet more, just before starting circuit training, at about 11-12% (middle September 2010):

And finally today – 2 weeks really clean eating, circuit training hard, feeling really good and strong at about 11% (end September 2010):

So… getting there.

Soccer starts again for me at the end of October and by then I want to be in the single digits. Now that this is on the web… I gotta get it done!

My daily mantra: Earn it!

I got tipped to this today, and felt compelled to post it here. It’s 1 hour and 30 minutes long; and has some deep bio-chemistry – but it’s necessary to understand what he’s saying. How does it boil down? Fructose is evil. All sugar needs to be looked at; and how much of it is in everything we eat and drink needs to be looked at. Sugar minus fiber is what lies at fault; removing fiber from sugar causes all sorts of evil mayhem in our bodies.

There’s a LOT here to digest (groan worthy pun) but it’s worth anyone’s time and effort to watch this. I was mesmerized.

I’m not a doctor, not a scientist – but this is much too important to not learn from and start thinking/talking about.

Original article here: Click here

I’m reposting this here because it’s brilliant and on point. The humor can be crude, but the message is on-point. Scott

Diet Products

It’s very simple: if a weight loss pill, plan or exercise machine claims to make weight loss “effortless,” it is a scam. Let’s have science explain:

Diet Products

Due to the cruel laws of physics, losing weight requires two things:

1. Pain

2. Hunger

This is due to a few fairly simple facts about your body. Your body wants to store fat, because through most of human history, food was scarce and in times of plenty it wants to store up for when supplies are short.

This is a process your body invented to keep you alive, over centuries of living in a world that did not have fast food or Hostess snack cakes. Any time you try to stop or undo that process, your body will send unpleasant sensations to your brain, because it thinks you’re setting youself up to starve to death.

To lose weight, you must endure those unpleasant sensations. There is no shortcut.

For instance, you can exercise to the point that your body will run out of the ready fuel in your system, at which point it will reluctantly dip into its fat reserves and burn them. You will experience fatigue and pain when this happens. This is your body punishing you for using the fat it has stored up. It doesn’t want to use it. Your body was saving it for an emergency.

You can also restrict the amount of food coming into your system so that your body is forced to go through that same fat-burning process, but this time your body will punish you by making you feel hunger, or cravings for fattier foods that will let it replenish those fat reserves on your thighs and belly and everywhere else.

Any pill or cream that claims it can “burn fat” while you sit on the sofa, or exercise machine that claims to make exercise “easy” or “effortless” is a scam to steal your money.

There have also been numerous products put on the market intended to suppress hunger. But turning off one of the fundamental processes that keeps you alive (ie your brain alerting you that you need to eat) is not an easy thing, and time and time again those pills turn out to be dangerous or even deadly (see the popular diet drug Fen-Phen, pulled from the market due to potentially fatal side effects, only to be replaced by Ephedrine, which was also promptly banned in weight-loss products for being just as dangerous).

Now, most of the weight loss supplements you see at your grocer store now are just mild appetite suppressants, usually just packed full of caffeine or another stimulant, since the nervous, jittery, mildly sick feeling they induce does tend to kill your hunger. Just note that it is only replacing one unpleasant sensation with another (the body does not give up easily). Occasionally they will package these supplements with “all natural” ingredients on the label (such as “Hoodia” or “Green Tea Extract”).

The most recent and terrifying addition is Alli, the brand name of Orlistat, which lets you eat fat, but simply prevents it from being absorbed in the stomach. If this sounds like a perfect get-out-of-fat free card, keep in mind that (once again) you are short-circuiting one of the body’s natural processes. The result is that you will have uncontrollable greasy diarrhea, pooping out an orange substance like the stuff you see sitting on top of a pizza. The fat your stomach couldn’t absorb has to go somewhere.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Just because pain/hunger is required in order to lose weight, you should not assume from this that if you are feeling pain and hunger you are therefore losing weight. Many weight loss plans will give you all of the unpleasant feelings of a real diet plan, only without the weight loss.

So is the situation hopeless?

Not at all. Most people have a higher tolerance for physical suffering than they think. And it is temporary; exercise gets easier as muscles get stronger (though at the point it becomes TOO easy, it’s time to increase what you’re doing) and your system WILL adjust to getting less food.

Also, you can lessen the suffering that will come with weight loss by losing the weight slowly – your body won’t kick and scream as much about losing one pound a month as it will if you are trying to lose five pounds a week Biggest Loser-style. It’s impatience that makes most diets fail.

The even better news?

Weight loss doesn’t cost a dime.

Exercise can be done on the floor – mankind was getting exercise long before any machines had been invented for the purpose. Google around for the best techniques. Diet is just a matter of not eating the foods you already know you shouldn’t be eating. Both of these will cause you some mild suffering. Enduring that suffering is the only thing between you and being thin.

Good luck.

It’s humor, it’s not scientific, but it’s a message that needs to be told and learned.

I’ve my own story about supplements, but I’ll get into them later. Suffice to say, no more. Ever. No more protein drinks, ‘energy’ boosters, or anything else. Taking Creatine messed with my kidneys. Pre-workout drinks like NO-Xplode messed up my kidney function and digestive tract. My doctor demanded I stop them all. NO more. Four months clean of ALL of that… and I’m feeling fine. Workouts going fine. Recovery time is fine. I miss none of it.

The original article on Cracked.com is here: Link

Health: How to Stop Throwing Your Money Away on Snake Oil

Go to the drug aisle in your grocery store. In between the pills and the vitamins will be a huge shelf full of herbal supplements that promise to do everything from helping you lose weight to easing joint pain to making your brain work better.

And it’s all BS. All of it.

Worse, it’s BS that we spend $34 billion a year on, almost a third as much as we spend on prescription drugs that actually do something.

Just to be clear: Scientists have spent billions in government money carefully testing the effectiveness of this stuff. Their results? No, echinacea can’t cure your cold. Gingko doesn’t do anything for your brain, glucosamine and chondroitin won’t fix your arthritis. Hoodia gordonii won’t help you lose weight.

If it were good for you, it probably wouldn’t be covered in horrible spikes.

Don’t get us wrong; we completely realize that lots of the drugs we have now were once naturally occurring in plants and that it is therefore possible that out there, somewhere, is a leaf yet undiscovered by science that will cure your diabetes. But if so, these rip-off artists in the grocery aisle aren’t going to be the ones who find it.

They’re scam artists.

They’re so sure their supplements don’t do anything they don’t do any actual quality control to track how much of the supplement is in each pill. They just throw a little bit in there and shrug. Aren’t they worried about people accidentally overdosing? No, they’re not. They know you can’t overdose on a placebo.

All they’re doing is “curing” ailments that either naturally go away on their own (colds, joint pain) so you wind up falsely attributing the relief to the supplement, or they’re claiming to cure conditions that are hard to quantify (see supplements for “alertness” or “stress relief”). Snake oil salesmen have been getting away with that technique for thousands of generations.

Students, we’re counting on you to make sure that ours is the last.

Some Truths Include:

1. Pharmaceutical Companies Are Jerks, But at Least They Use Scientists;
2. Why Hippies Have Never Discovered a Single Disease Cure;
3. “Homeopathic” is Another Word for Voodoo BS;
4. Just Go See a Doctor You Big Baby.

Read more:  Original Article

1) Diet. Most important, yet completely tied to and intertwined with the other two legs. There are lots of formulas, approaches, thoughts, fanatical craziness about diet; it’s really simple. Think about what you eat before you eat it and don’t eat too much of any one thing or type of thing. Drink water as your main hydration, everything else should be infrequent and treated as a ‘dessert’ if you will.

2) Movement. Sitting is the culprit. If you sit a lot – in a car, at a desk, on a sofa – your body won’t work right as you age. You need to move. Workout, exercise, play sports. Do it often. If you are not moving at least as much as you sit, and walking is fine here, then you need to think about it. What you do and how you do it can be as detailed as you like as you progress up the intensity ladder, but walking is key to everybody.

3) Rest. Proper uninterrupted rest. Find your balance point, do it on a regular daily basis if necessary. If you walk around sleep deprived all the time, you cannot function properly.