Christmas struggles - Your Holiday Plan to Stay in Shape

     Holiday season is the time when everyone easily gets in shape... NOT. Frequent parties, family dinners, endless cookies at work and other delicious issues are blocking that abs flatness. In addition to that, winter is the season when people tend to hibernate slightly, so there is more comfort food daily, more calories daily, and less movement daily.
     Even though it sounds like a bad situation, not everything is really that bad. I mean, if you are really consistent with your nutrition habits and your workouts, then you fine and don't need to read any further. However if you are on the other side of spectrum and this is your 1956732194th promise to start New Years resolution with losing fat and getting active, then we have to talk. Seriously, lets discuss this issue.
     First - if its been few years in a row when you promised yourself to start fresh in New Year, then you should realistically know by now - a promise stays a promise, but it never turns into action. Whoever acts, doesn't promise, but develops a plan and follows it. And the plan has to have built-in way to check the compliance.
     Second - make sure that you get rid of all of the emotional garbage that sidelines you. Remember, it is a foundation of all sales techniques - people don't buy based on information, but based on emotions. So go through a very serious screening what kind of emotions will sideline you and won't let you follow the plan. Examples:

• You went shopping for a new dress for Christmas party, and, even knowing that you are out of shape, you became very upset and depressed about your body. Don't do it. Be sober and realistic about this - if you don't control your food, your movement and your sleep, your body will look accordingly. Becoming more depressed about it will not make it any better, but often it will lead to opposite - it will make you go home and kill a box of chocolates "just because chocolates makes me feel better". Don't lie to yourself, tomorrow you will look in the mirror and feel even more emotional about it. Learn to accept yourself the way you are, ,good AND bad. And gradually improve imperfections. 
• Same situation - shopping revealed unwanted inches, or company's team picture showed that you don't look like a fitness model... but your reaction can be exact opposite from above. As soon as you realize that you are out of shape, you tell this sacred promise "Starting tomorrow (Monday, next week, next month, next year, next decade... you get it) I will hit the gym, will never put another piece of cake in my mouth and will go to bed at 8 pm sharp". Now... Stop for a second and listen to your body reaction. I bet this determination makes you feel good, because you are about to do something that will make you happy. BUT!!! Beware of that reaction. It is the same emotional garbage reaction as in the previous situation, except its not negative, its positive. Listen, 10 times out of 10 people give that kind of promise, it makes them feel so good, as if they already made some steps towards the goal... and they move on with their life without changing a single damn thing. I repeat - its exactly the situation where you sell yourself on an idea instead of actually performing actions towards the goal. 
• One more example - you started very well, cooked your food for two days, performed two workouts and went to bed at 10 pm. But then you had a early January meeting and stayed late at work until 8 pm... Guess what? Food is out of control, you missed the workout and after that meeting you couldn't fall asleep until 1 am. I bet it happened to you before. And again, way too often emotional garbage reaction overrides true situation. What does that mean? It means that after one disastrous day you are certain that you will fail and you realize that you have no desire to continue. Remember - its not a reality, its what your emotional garbage tells you to do. 

     Third - there are some principles that need to be followed and only if you follow them you have a chance to succeed. Earlier this year I started Precision Nutrition program for myself and one of the most fascinating principles my coach insists on and the one that gets your results no matter what - clean the slate every time something goes wrong. Not a single program will be followed to the T without any issues. Never. Trust me on this one, I've seen hundreds of people trying. Something always goes sour. However, start the next day with the clean slate and don't let imperfections bother you. In the long run it will lead to one thing that is more important than any fancy piece of equipment or diet - it will lead to CONSISTENCY. Next principle - don't forget WHAT is it you are trying to get. SMART principle:
- Specific - just saying "get in shape" doesn't cut it. In fact, it actually gets me angry. Do you know that getting in shape is as variable as there are people? Define the goal, for goodness sake! "I want to lose 10 pounds". See? Face that fear, record it and move on!
- Measurable - 10 pounds. Or 3 inches off  the stomach. Or get into your skinny jeans. Or be able to squat your bodyweight. Or do a three perfect chin-ups. Doesn't matter what it is, but make sure you can measure it consistently. Otherwise you don't know if you are getting closer to you goal or further from it. "If you are not assessing, you are guessing" - I've heard Bill Hartman saying it once and I stay by it. Amazing approach
- Attainable - plan your step to achieve your goal wisely. Plan to succeed by breaking down one big goal into series of smaller ones
- Realistic - If it is 10 pounds you need to lose, then there is no need to lose 30. It will not make you any better. And chances are, it impossible to do healthy. So be sober and frank about your goals
- Timely - "Lose 10 pounds by 25 of June 2013" - that is he goal that is specific, realistic (perhaps, I don't know what exactly your issue is), attainable, measurable and timely. Without the pressure of a deadline, you will procrastinate. Deadline will bump this goal up in a priority.
     Fourth - what are components of a plan for getting in better shape? Answer - a) fix the food intake; b) manage sleep and stress; c) fix the exercise part. And in this exact order.
So next post is about fixing your food.

After much of disturbance with work and other issues, Alex Hoplyakov Training Systems is back to life and there will be more useful and entertaining content. THank you very much for waiting patiently, lol. :-)

Annual periodization

   ... aaaaand we are back on track. B-)
   If you are exercising yourself, or you are in the fitness and health industry, you must have heard waaaay more than once from other people that exercising gets boring and when motivation is gone, they have extremely hard time staying on track with their plan. And when it happens more than once, then frustration builds up, and each consecutive attempt of "New Year resolution" or "Beach Season preparation" becomes harder and harder to finish, because you already start the phase with "I've done it so many times and failed" mindset.
It is hard. However it is still possible to be in love with active lifestyle and exercising for many years without feeling like you are forcing yourself to do it. Lets try to find out how is it possible:
   Do not try to stick for short-term goals for a long time. Have an end date in mind when you start
   Young guys are in constant quest for the best way to get buff and muscular, as well as gain weight. Young girls are in constant quest to become thinner, smaller, skinnier, leaner, you get the point. When boys become older, sedentary, quit sports, gain fat and start drinking beer to relax, they start talking about "being fit", or "getting in shape", or "lose few inches". Women, when growing older, don't give up their goal of losing weight, and then losing some more weight, and some more.... and then few inches here and there... and few more pounds down... and to flatten the stomach... and maybe one or two pounds less and it will be perfect. When everyone gets older, it doesn't matter whether you a man or a woman, but the goal becomes more and more common - older people want to be able to move, to be able to do various stuff and enjoy life - independent, pain-free and active.
   Here is a lesson that we can learn from it - when you have a short-term goal, such as muscle gain or fat loss, do not try to stick to this goal for a long time, because it will drain your energy and demotivate you. Weight management goals are short-term, they are demand high level of dedication and discipline, as well as certain outcome in the end. If you, however, decide to lose few pounds of weight, and start weight loss- program with no knowledge when its going to end, you are almost inevitably falling into the rut of following this program for too long. Why? Because not a single training protocol in the world works forever. Your body adapts and learns how to save energy, how NOT to burn that extra energy, how NOT to lose few more inches or few more pounds. Therefore, the longer you stick to this program, the less results you see. It is quite obvious. However in my everyday practice I see people doing the same routine for years, and still hoping to lose that stubborn 3 pounds of fat, or to gain that stubborn 3 pounds of muscle.
   Long term mindset
   Exercising is one of those odd areas of our lives where amount of superstitions, rumors, beliefs, and guesses is overflowing compared to actual information. One of those beliefs is that when you achieve your goal of losing or gaining few pounds, all you need to do is to "maintain". Imagine yourself in the first grade, when you had to learn the alphabet: A, B, C... Then once you done with it, you tell yourself - I've done the task, from now on I will maintain this knowledge and there is no need for anything else. It doesn't make sense, does it? The amount of knowledge and skills you have to acquire to graduate from school is thousands of times bigger than simple alphabet. And, you guessed it right, same thing with your own body - when you reach you initial goal, there is always so much more stuff ahead of you. In the end, you do want to live long, happy, healthy, independent, fun, active life, don't you? Compared to the goal like that 3 pounds of excessive weight are like alphabet for a first grader - you may start with it, but you will never finish with it.
   At this point I often receive an objection - Alex, but what if my goal is REALLY only weight loss/gain? What if I ACTUALLY don't want to do anything else? All I can say, again, is to think long term. Will it be the same goal in 10 years? Or 20? Or 30 years from now? I mean, seriously, if you want to lose 5 pounds of fat, for over 30 years, then there is something seriously wrong with it. 5 pounds of fat are normal to lose in 5 weeks stress free. If you don't know how, ask for a trainer and a nutritionist. But if all you are worried is these silly 5 lbs, then you are missing on the opportunity to enjoy things in life while you are living this life.
   Plan ahead and plan in cycles
   So whats the plan now? The plan is to practice the way that you enjoy your exercising, not stress out about it. I learnt from Dan John quite some time ago about his yearly cycle - 1) in the fall he is playing football, 2) in the winter he is lifting weights, preparing himself for upcoming athletic season and goes through fat loss phase; 3) in the spring he starts getting more and more outdoors work, since he is in the middle of track season; 4) and during summer months he is enjoying outdoors sports and activities.
   Now, here is the key to healthy relationship with your exercise and nutrition routine - start planning when you are going through weight loss or weight gain phase, but also plan to relax and unwind a little afterwards. Again, you can't go year-long on the weight loss routine. If you can, you are either a superhuman or you already hate your training.
   We are cyclic creatures, so why don't we plan these cycles in our fitness lives? Here is one of my suggestions on how you can keep your motivation high while getting results and enjoying life:



- Summer is time when you should have fun. Make sure you still cover strength part of your training, but you can either shorten it, or be creative and come up with things you can do outdoors, such as TRX training, bodyweight drills, or just have a kettlebell in the trunk of your car and have a quick 15 minutes workout whenever you have a chance. When it comes to conditioning part - you have all the freedom, run, sprint, cycle, swim, hike, canoe, kayak, dragon boat racing, trampoline, rollerblading, horse back riding, badminton, paintball, wall climbing, beach volleyball, mountain biking... You can also sign up yourself for a run, or dragon boat race or a CN Tower climb - have fun with it, don't overly stress about sticking to long grueling gym workout when you can have both good time and reap health benefits by being outdoors.

- Fall is time for shorter outdoor activities and transferring to gym. I personally like doing hill sprints, or sled dragging or farmers carries during fall time, its not insanely hot, so you can survive intensity of these exercises, and at the same time push really hard. Its also good time of the year to go through muscle building routine, and concentrate on building muscular lean body.

- Winter is time for hard strength training in the gym. No frills type of training. Keep the muscle, burn the fat. You still can come up with some fun stuff like skiing, cross-country skiing, or snowboarding, but other than that most of interesting activities are done indoors, such as indoor rock climbing, bouldering, trampolines, etc... It is also psychologically good time to go through intense fat-loss phase, after all the holidays overeating. However, physiologically its a little more challenging, since our metabolism is slower during winter.

- Spring is the best time to start complex preparation in terms of both strength and conditioning. Lifting weights is productive, but you don't have to spend too much time in the gym. Once it gets warmer you also start doing more outdoor activities, anything from gardening and yard work to hiking and cycling.
   If you are an athlete, then, of course, your season and competition schedule will dictate your training regime, so modifications will be made.
To summarize:
- Be aware that healthy lifestyle actually requires to stick with it for a lifetime, not just few months.
- Be aware that it can become boring
- Don't get stuck with your short-term goals for a long period of time. If you failed to reach short-term goal, step back, refocus, spend time doing something else, and then come back and reach that goal
- Be proactive and smart about your long-term goals
- Look for fun while taking care of your health
- Weights and cardio is not everything in fitness. There is so much more to it
- If you feel that your motivation is going down and you don't know how to boost it up - hire a professional coach, or join organized sport. It will help

Change. What does it have to do with training?

Every time when someone shows up in the gym with determination to get oneself in shape, there are stages of thought that precede this appearance. Basically, every decision making process can be described by this simple diagram:

Precontemplation. First, there is no thought or awareness that problem exist - its a stage of precontemplation.

Contemplation.Then the person realizes that the problem exist and starts thinking of ways how to solve it. For instance, the guy realizes that he works a lot of hours and he no longer can keep up with his friends during weekend soccer game. So he realizes that he is out of shape. Time to change, therefore he gives himself a promise to join the gym and start exercising two-three times a week in addition to his weekend soccer.

Preparation. At this stage the person sees himself/herself as exercising one. So he or she starts collecting data to make a smart decision, as well as preparing to make a first move.

Action. This is the moment when data is collected, and our guy convinced himself that he can't wait any longer to choose the gym, so he shows up at the door of a health center, purchases membership and starts a training routine.

Maintenance. The guy shows up regularly, trains hard, sees results, improving himself, and increases his level of awesomeness. His game improves and his look improves.

Now, I today I want to say few words not about this classic model of decision making, but about a loopholes that many of us get into. 

Trap 1. 

The first tricky area is when  person gets stuck in the contemplation or preparation phase. Classic example of it - the girl realized that she is out of shape, and her intention is to join the gym to start exercising. Every time she passes by any fitness facility, she tells herself "I need to start exercising". Now, here is the problem - she does it every time for three months in a row, and physically does nothing about it. 

As human beings, we are quite unique creatures, because we can think in abstract categories, we can picture something that is not right in front of us. Thinking about joining the gym, picturing yourself stepping first steps on the treadmill, or lifting first dumbbell can be a very realistic feeling. However, do not get caught in it!!! Promising yourself to start exercising, picturing yourself exercising is NOT exercising itself. It does very little to actually change your physique. 

Solution. 

1. Assess your behavior. Calculate how many times you promised yourself to do the change (join the gym, clean the cupboards at home from various junk food, switch to a new training routine, ask a personal trainer for help, etc. etc.). If it happened more than three times - chances are, you are falling in this trap. The longer you procrastinate, the harder it will become to actually approach this change.
2. Put this plan on paper with your handwriting. Once its written, it stops being the dream and starts being the project. This phrase hit me recently, as I read a very inspiring blog of one of the The Buried Life crew members, that was posted on Tim Ferris blog here. 

Trap 2.

The second tricky area is when person starts a preparation stage. I remember very vivid example that my mentor, John Berardi, world-renowned nutrition expert gave us during one of his lectures. He wanted to learn how to play guitar, and started shopping around, browsing catalogs, and internet forums trying to pick the best one. He was determined to buy a best guitar and he actually was shopping for one... until he realized that he knows about guitars almost everything... except how to play it. Once he realized it, he immediately went to the nearest guitar store and bought the cheapest one, just to start. And started playing 5 minutes a day. 

Now, here is another trap - we often start researching the subject and we can get preoccupied by the research rather than subject itself. If you are looking to get in shape, and you already started shopping around your area for a decent gym, do not get caught into constant daily shopping around. Figure out what is it you want to do. 

Don't get caught in it

   a) If you are looking to lift weights (which is what you SHOULD be looking, regardless of what your goal is) - then make sure the fitness facility has a rack of dumbbells, a squat rack or a power cage and a barbell with few plates. 

   b) If you are an endurance athlete, or you think you need to do running to get in shape - look for tradmills, ellipticals, stairclimbers, bikes and rowers. 

   c) If you want to join classes - make sure you get the class schedule and figure out if it suits you or not.

   d) If you want to swim to get in shape - join the pool.

Now - do not look for a perfect facility that has all these things at once. While you are looking, and comparing, and searching, and hesitating, and "thinking about it" - time runs out. It is better to start today in a warehouse or garage gym than in three months in a perfect Mega-Gym. Chances are, you will not use even a third of the equipment and services offered, so don't try to grab everything today. Start slow.

Trap 3.

Trap 3 - is getting stuck in maintenance phase. When somebody religiously goes to the gym, performs exercises regularly, but makes no changes ever - then its next problem. And very often gym rats are completely oblivious about it. Every day in the gyms I see how guys and girls are stuck in their training routine, that became a complete comfort zone for them and see no results. It is already a precontemplation phase of a next problem, that has to be solved, once they realized that the routine they are on doesn't provide any results. Again, the simplest way to figure out if you are in this phase or not - keep constantly assessing your progress. 

Well, there you have it. Three common sticking points for someone who wants to make a change in their life. Specifically, a change of improved health, athleticism, well-being and longevity. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know if this article helped you.

Life Hygiene 101. Part 2 - TOXICITY

   Toxicity. In my mind the word strongly associates with a scene from Robocop movie, where one of the bad guys in the end of the movie falls into the pond full of something signed "Toxic!" and then has a whole bunch of unpleasant things happening to him, from skin peeling to truck hitting. I know, everyone has their own weird memories...
   Back to our topic of the day. What are toxins and what is toxicity? Toxins are various agents that are foreign to our chemical and hormonal balance and can create different disorders in our homeostasis. Toxicity is excess of toxins in the body that can disrupt healthy metabolism.

   Many toxins are chemicals that our body was never exposed to, therefore has no mechanism developed to neutralize and remove them. Among our regular mechanisms of chemical removal are
   a) blood chemical filtration in the liver;
   b) blood physical filtration in the kidneys;
   c) sweating;
   d) breathing
   e) digestive system.
   Sometimes these mechanisms are not enough, and we have to come up with new, more strategic approach.
Step 1 - not letting toxins into the body
Step 2 - remove existing toxins out of the body by improving and intensifying our natural cleaning systems.

So, lets break it down a little:
Preventing toxins from entering the body
   Air
Human can survive without food for as long as 20 days, without water - up to 6. Without air - maximum 4 minutes, then clinical death. It is crucially important for us to breathe. However, nowadays there is no control over what quality of air we are breathing. Two hundred years ago control like that wouldn't be necessary, since heavy industry was not developed yet. Today, however, if you think that what you are breathing is clean and will not affect your health, think again, and think seriously. Various industries throw out tons of chemicals in the air, even if there are filters, there is still air pollution happening, and there is statistics for it - frequency of lung diseases, such as COPD and asthma are increasing yearly. Add second hand smoking to it, as well as various household chemicals, such as air fresheners, cleaners, scents, etc... We do have a problem as a civilization, and the only solution out of it - accept the problem and start performing actions to solve it, one person at a time. So, here are my suggestions regarding air pollution and how to clean your body from toxins that are entering through airways. From easiest to most ridiculous B-) :

•  Once a week go to forest or outside of city for an hour or two. Breathing clean air for an hour will improve your longevity and health, even if it is not permanent
• Install air humidifier in your house. Humidifier will help chemical particles that are suspended in the air to settle down
• Quit smoking and become smoke and second-hand smoke intolerant. Dan John, one of the very prominent minds in strength and conditioning area once mentioned that people tend to overlook the most obvious things, such as they try to go on a new crazy diet or exercise regime, and never buckle seat belt or floss. Exactly the same concept with smoking - yes, there are awful things happening in the world, such as wars and epidemics, where thousands of people die every day. But guess what? Thousands of people die every day from a cigarette. Slow death remains death. Be mature and responsible. Fix it
• Carpool whenever possible. Less pollution from cars - cleaner air. 
• Adopt breathing techniques of Yoga, Tai Chi, Karate, or Wushu. Or you can search for "breathing gymnastics of Strel'nikova" if you want to have some Russian flavor of that. 
• Stop using air fresheners and commercial household cleaners - those things are carcinogenous, and cancer is a real threat to everyone's health these days.
•  On the more ridiculous note - if possible, replace your car to hybrid or to electrocar. I know, we don't have many of them yet, but technology develops, and as soon as they appear on the market, look up for them. 
• If possible, look up for alternative sources of energy for the house as well. Natural gas or oil for fuel is NOT a good idea. Solar energy, energy of wind and water - absolutely is.

Water

Water is what our body mostly consist of. However, it is way more then simple H2O formula. Water has structure that is very dynamic and can be influenced by many factors, both good and bad. It is the easiest substance to dilute chemicals. As Paul Chek mentions "The easiest solution to pollution is dilution", meaning whenever there are chemicals entering our body, the easiest way to dissipate their effect is to dilute them with water. 

But... What if the water that we are trying to dilute things is poisoned already? Then we have a problem. And as human beings that were evolving because of our ability to think logically, make conclusions and solve problems, this problem can be solved as well. Again, from simple and cheap to complicated and expensive:

• Filter the water that enters your body. Make sure you do your research about various filters and apply the best filters to remove bad chemicals out of drinking water
• Do NOT use tap water - it is not water, it is chemical liquid that doesn't allow organisms to live in it. And guess what? Your organism won't live either if you drink it
• Filter the water that you wash yourself with - install filters that capture chlorine particles. Chlorine in warm water goes through chemical reaction and turns into formaldehyde - poison that can penetrate the skin. Don't poison your body
• Learn if there are any springs in the area where you live, and try to get water from there. Spring water is naturally best filtered water
• AGAIN, don't use household chemistry - it pollutes water
• Be pro-active about water pollution - learn what we can do to minimize amount of chemicals entering to lakes and rivers, as well as what kind of testing is performed by government to keep control over it

Food

The most amount of chemicals we receive through food, there is no doubt. Meats, vegetables, fruits, grains and dairy are all filled up with hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, rodenticides, steroids, artificial flavors, sweeteners, and so on. That's foods. But there are also food products - things that we perceive as food, but its not. Candy, chips, breads, soft drinks are not foods, there is no nutrients in them, they cannot improve your feeling of satiety, and you can't live on these products. However, we have a long-term habit that is fortified by mass media informational hurricane that forces us to think that it is fine to eat white bread or candy instead of fruit and vegetables. One curious fact - would you drink from a pump at a gas station? Of course not. Well, majority of soft drinks and candy products are either made of or have additives of oil derivatives. Appetizing? Very much.

Think its a joke?

Points of how to prevent toxins from entering your body with food:

• Eat wild, raw and organic as much as possible
• Meats should be chosen wisely, and healthier choices, such as beef or rabbit versus pork
• Fruit and vegetables should be picked organic, and washed thoroughly. Some berries, such as strawberry, are among highest sprayed in the world, so even organic needs to be cleaned
• Pre-soak almonds, if they are staple of your daily nutrient intake
• When buying grocery, work only with list that you design beforehand, such as have meats, fruit, vegetables, nuts, berries, leafy greens, fish, eggs (if not allergic) and some dairy (again, if not allergic or intolerant) in your list. And thats it, no more travels to the aisles where your brain can say "hey, perhaps this bag of chips is not so bad"
• Seek for advice of professional nutritionist
• Do the research. You have one health, and down the road you will never be able to figure out what exactly could cause some nasty things, such as arthritis, Alzheimer's, or ulcer. But very often it is years of letting chemicals into your body with food. 

Cleaning the body from toxins:

Very often by preventing toxins from entering the body and providing plenty of fresh clean water can create significant changes in someone's well-being. However, more often than not our bodies are so clogged up that it takes quite specific approach to cleanse the systems to allow the body to function.
Key points:

• Always, always, always, when trying new health approach or method, consult with the specialist. Nutritionists, holistic nutritionists, dietitians, CHEK holistic practitioners, Biosignature certified coaches are few of many options available. Improving your health is everyone's responsibility, but experimenting with health can be very dangerous path. Don't do it alone.
• Learn how to cleanse your digestive system - colonics, liver and gallbladder cleanse, and basic parasites. Also assess and if possible, remove metal filings or implants in your mouth, since there is always high mercury content of these things. And, while we are speaking about mouth - don't use the toothpaste with fluoride. At some point it was a believe that fluoride strengthens the teeth enamel. Later research showed opposite plus more nasty side effects. Stay away

• Learn how to cleanse your excretory system - kidneys are your natural filter, and you only have one filter per lifetime, so treat it right and clean it regularly. Part of your excretory system is your skin, so make yourself sweat daily. 
• Speaking about the skin and underneath layers, learn what fat drainage and lymph drainage is and do it regularly. Even if separate systems are in better shape, but the connection between them isn't, you still have a problem
• Regular fasting is recommended by many specialists to mobilize reserves of the body and direct them towards healing and cleansing
• Muscles and supporting systems are easy to clean from toxins and daily metabolites by being active daily. Sports, activities, walking, cycling, swimming, dancing, yoga, lifting weights, tossing the football - options are endless, and for the purpose of making your muscles to move there is no right or wrong approach. If you have a specific goal, however, then your activities and training have to be specific as well. But we'll talk about it later
• Learn and start cleaning your body from candida, various fungi and parasites leave their life products in us. Disgusting? Absolutely. Fix it.
• Again, remember, seeing the specialist is a must. No joking. You wouldn't jump with parachute without some instructions, right? So what gave you confidence that manipulating your health is any less dangerous?

What is it that doctors refer as healthy person? Person with no distinctive disease that impairs him/her. It makes sense, but at the same time its very limiting - many people are chronically sleep deprived, with poor stomach micro flora, bad posture, weak digestive system and muscular system, as well as clogged up lymph and liver. But, as soon as blood analysis is good, the doctor will say "you're fine". However, person like that will NOT be healthy by any means. But, since this situation is outside of traditional medical scope of practice, lets take responsibility for our own health.

Well, in a very brief key point system I tried to cover this very interesting and very important area. There is not much official research about it, but if you are interested and serious about your health, then you can find the info. To create this piece I was using materials of my friend and training partner, Olga Kidanova. Olga is registered holistic nutritionist and holistic practitioner who was very kind to provide plenty of information on my request.

Next area that I am going to touch in my future post will be about psychology of change, and how adopting or rejecting new habits can affect your quest for better body and better health.

Life Hygiene 101. Part 1 - STRESS

Ah. Now its time to go into quite grey area for many people. Do you now how may times I had conversation like this:
Client: Alex, I do everything right, but see no results. I eat well, I exercise well, but nothing happens.
Me: Well, if you don't see results, it means you don't do everything right. Or maybe you don't do certain things that are crucial for you to see results.
Client: What do you mean? I exercise every day by doing this and that, I eat so well, I never touch McDonald's ever-ever-forever. What else do you want me to do?
Me: Where do I start...

Today I decided to cover some of the areas, so I will be spending a little less of my energy next time I have this conversation. So less facepalm moments will happen.

See, what's obvious for some people, such as fitness and lifestyle professionals, may not be so obvious for others, who don't deal with human body as their major object of work. However, it doesn't excuse anyone from not taking proper care of themselves. Even if you are not a health specialist, you still want to live long, happy and healthy life, right? So learn how to take care of it. 

Famous healthy lifestyle propagandists Charles Poliquin and Paul Chek say that reasons for any disease that can occur in the body are 

- malnutrition

- stress

- toxicity

I talked a little about the importance of a sound nutrition approach in previous blogs here and here, so in today's post I'll cover other two components.

Stress
   There are various sources of stress that we experience daily, both internally and externally. External stress is mostly linked to chemical and electromagnetic sources - radiation, sunlight, sound, and chemicals. Internal stress is mostly how our nervous system reacts. When someone is stressed, it is  primarily activation of sympathetic nervous system and hormonal response -irritations, anxieties, nervousness, and depression due to our relationships, friendships, financial issues, traffic and commute issues, work tensions, etc., etc. Our body doesn't differentiate much between various stresses - whether your boss had a bad day and yelled at you, or you got stuck in traffic on the way home, or your teenager talked too much on the phone and bill was huge, or you dropped the dumbbell on your foot in the gym - it is the same stress for body. Good news about stress - we, as human beings are adaptable to stress. We learn that in order to get further away from stressor we need to move, and change. Now, bad news about stress - when its too much of it, we break down.
   To keep things simple and relevant to the topic of life hygiene, here are few scenarios that are the most typical:

• The person is exercising regularly and maintains reasonably healthy diet in order to lose fat and build strength. However, after some initial success he/she hits the plateau. Changing exercising and/or adjusting and cleaning the diet may be the first solution that can work. Changing the stimulus can lead to new results. As I said above, under positive pressure, especially when its a new pressure, we tend to change. New positive stress equals new results. Its "working out". 
• Same scenario - person is exercising, clean food, and then boom, everything stops. Even new training and nutrition plan don't work. In this case it makes sense to look outside of just fitness and nutrition related areas and into lifestyle. It may be that the stress is excessive and it becomes negative. 12 hour work day? Little baby that is teething and crying in the middle of the night? Parents have issues and you're trying to help? Here is the key thought - when life becomes too stressful, don't add to this stress by pushing yourself too hard in the gym. Results won't come because you are trying to run the engine of your body on an empty tank of your energy. Instead of "working out" learn how to "work in", distract from stressors, build energy, and rejuvenate. Things like light workouts, yoga, tai chi, gigong are just for the case like that. Trying to burn a 1000 calories in under an hour doesn't belong here.
• Another scenario - person is dying working hard in the gym, but no results or results are extremely slow. When assessed, outside stress is manageable, the person has normal life. Diet is overall not bad either... So what can be the issue? Comfort zone with food. We all have our little treats that are so delicious but so bad for you. Have you ever noticed that when you just start exercising after a break, or for the first time, you immediately start feeling craving for those guilty treats? Your body is trying to even out the stressors - more stress while working out, therefore your body will look for comfort food to decrease that stress more frequently. Again, once you are aware of that trick that your body can play on you, you can progress more successfully. And, as it was mentioned many times before -  you cannot out-exercise a bad diet, so having extra mile run on the treadmill doesn't give you any permission for that extra slice of pizza. So put it down. Now. B-)

Toxicity

Another factor for our bodies to break down and experience all kinds of disorders and diseases, leave alone stagnation in the gym is excessive exposure to various chemicals that human body never had to deal before with. Water that we drink or bath in. Food that we buy or cook. Air that we breath. Household cleaners. Shampoos and soaps. Toothpastes and body lotions. Lawn fertilizers. Clothes. Gas in the cars. Air fresheners. Medications and pain-killers. Plastic containers, bags and boxes...

The list goes on and on and on. Can be scary, I know. But it is a game of tradeoffs - whether you are comfortable having your body slowly collecting toxins in it and eventually manifesting it with obesity, Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease or something else along the lines, OR you keep working on cleaning your life and life of people around you. As for me, I choose second way. 

Harsh? Maybe. But its something that we owe to ourselves to learn. Its our responsibility as human beings to learn how make our life worth living. One of the ways is to make your body healthier. Toxicity is such a huge topic, that I will discuss it in greater details in my next blog. 

Language of training, nutrition and life hygiene. Part 3

   Nutrition concepts
While there are as many various diets and opinions as drops in the rain, the good and worthy ones are far and few in between. And whats most important to us, they all share few common concepts. Lets take a look at them:
1. Good nutrition properly controls energy intake and energy output
2. Good nutrition provides nutrient density
3. Good nutrition achieves health, body composition, and performance goals
4. Good nutrition is honest and outcome-based*
   *Nutrition: Complete Guide. John Berardi
For average person to be able to differentiate whether certain diet approach fits all the above will require at least a certification course. If you don't feel like educating yourself in that area, then that is where you can reach out to a specialist - at least for information on how to pick the right approach in this endless ocean of new and old diets, tricks, and advice.
I want to give a quick overview of these components followed by some guidelines for each of the meals of the day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
   Energy intake and output - proper nutritional approach keeps in mind that in order to lose weight, you must eat less than you burn. Whichever diet you pick, check if they mention it. Oh, and obviously, if you want to gain weight, you must eat more than you burn. But in both cases exercising is important component, that cannot be omitted.
   Nutrient density - There is a wonderful book, really worth reading, that is called Food, Inc. The movie was good too, but the message in the book was just brilliant: "Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants" While "mostly plants" can be questioned by many, including me, the first part of the statement is undoubtedly great - eat real food. Not the food products. However, when you pay close attention to shelves in any supermarket, all you see is food products. Dairy products replaced milk, deli and processed meats replaced steak and pork, potato chips replaced potatoes, fruit juices replaced fruit. On top of this all, almost every food is fat free right now, but because fat is essential component of food quality, including taste, these products are enriched with sweeteners, artificial flavors, taste modifiers, added calcium, vitamins C and D, etc. etc. The end product is not food. Its a replacement for food, so the government and large food companies can feed larger amount of people for significantly less amount of money.
   Notice -  health is not mentioned nowhere in this statement. Pure conspiracy? No, just prioritizing. Big companies are concerned with their income and delivering to maximum amount of customers. There is no evil plan, just pure business.

However, if you are concerned about your health, then you should take pro-active steps and not to wait for your health to be destroyed. Therefore the food you put on your table has to be nutrient dense food - it has to contain enough proteins, fats, carbohydrates, water, minerals and vitamins. Ideally non of these has to come in a form of a pill, tablet, or capsule. Best if you can find balance with real foods. If thats impossible, then supplements can be applied, but carefully and with proper knowledge. Being armed with this knowledge your grocery shopping can become more automatic and less stressful. Out of all the options, look for the most real and natural. They will be the most nutrient dense as well.
Body composition and performance goals:
You are what you eat. If you put crappy fuel in your body, don't expect your body to function like a race car. Depends on what your activity or sport is, or what your goal - decrease body fat, increase muscle, improve sprint, jump, throw, or simply being able to tie your shoes and pick up grocery bag - proper food helps to achieve all of these goals. Just be patient with choices. And remember - our body wasn't originally designed to drink colorful fluids and foods that cannot become rotten. It is very important to remember - build enough patience to stay with your choices, and always, always, always remind yourself why you stick to these choices. Majority of us do things because we want to feel good. Or we don't want to feel bad. Here is the strategy though - whenever you crave something that you know is not going to help your body to become better, there is a reason for that - the reason is IT FEELS GOOD to eat that bad food. As a human beings, we are responsible for controlling the next step though - if you know the food is bad for you, and you want to eat eat, because it feels good at the moment, IT WILL BE BAD LATER. We have brain and logical ability to predict it, right? Now lets use our energy to override or to channel these emotions that throw you into bag of chips or candies.
Honest and outcome based:
Another point to what good nutrition is and how it can change us is:
      - Change is not happening very fast.
Get used to the idea that changing your body cannot be done in, how they say in infomercials, "in three fifteen minute long workouts a week. And you can eat whatever you want".

You think the gadget that was invented one year ago could build a physique of a professional model? Hmmm. Okay. Tooth fairy will be waiting for you at home

That's a lie that we often believe, because its easier to believe the lie than to brace yourself for a long journey of gradual improving of yourself. It takes longer than one week of adding breakfast and skipping late night binge eating to see results. It usually takes more than one try to figure out what foods your body digests and what doesn't. It makes a huge difference where the food comes from and what quality it it. Does anybody want to try plants and mushrooms that grow about 50 km away from Chernobyl'? Meanwhile in Ukraine, where I am from, these products were repeatedly spotted on the shelves. How do you know where meat or vegetables at your No Frills came from?
So, in a very quick summary - honest approach to nutrition accounts all these and much more details to achieve best possible results. Is it easy? Absolutely not. I mean, just finding the dietitian or nutritionist who will account all of that will be hard, leave alone the idea of analyzing all of that data yourself. I recently had a conversation with one of my clients, and she admitted that being exposed to all of that nutritional and exercising information details is very depressing and discouraging to her. I can understand her point, but giving up is to shorten your life, become sick or ill, rob your kids or relatives of happiness of having you around longer, not being a burden to your loved ones when you age... Its huge to me. That's why I think we don't have a choice. We must stick with healthiest options possible.
And, by the way, in the next article, about life hygiene, I will be talking exactly about it - what it is to be a healthy individual, and what consequences you will face when you choose this path.