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. :-)
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
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.
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
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
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
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.
- 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.
- 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.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
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-) :
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:
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
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.
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:
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.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
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".
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Language of training, nutrition and life hygiene. Part 2
Now its time to clear out the nutrition terminology. Unfortunately, nowadays there are so many sources where the person can receive information on nutrition and so many conflicting messages out there that average person with no specific education will not be able to separate right information from wrong one. So before we move actual nutritional advice, lets discuss main issues that anyone who start thinking about healthier lifestyle is doomed to bump into:
1. Simplicity and Complexity.
That's right, simplicity is an issue. Nutritional information right now is either overly simplified or overly complicated, balance is very rarely there. Example of overly simplified nutrition advice is Oprah's, Dr. Phill's, or any other TV host's advice to eat cereal or oatmeal in the morning. Listen, just because they say so, does that mean its a correct information? So that means that anything we here on TV is true, right? Even when they advertise McDonald's Big Mac combo? Exactly. Its way too simple to be true.
However, example of over-complicated approach in nutrition is when person with no previous nutritional knowledge except the one picked in the childhood decides to start new life and goes simultaneously on a diet, quits all bad habits, changes grocery to organic, goes gluten-free, lactose-free, fat-free, low-carb, blood-type specific etc, etc. Issue with this approach is too much too soon. Some of that advice is perfectly healthy. However to try to apply it before you settle certain life habits is sorta like trying to comprehend information of fourth year of university before you graduate high school. Too complicated too soon. Make sure you do all the basics first.
2. Conflicting messages.
Fat-free or low-carbs? High protein or low protein? Three meals a day or five-six smaller meals? To eat breakfast or not to eat breakfast? How about late night eating - good or bad? To eat meat or to go vegetarian? Or vegan? Organic or non-organic? Atkins or Beverly Hills diet? Or Weight Watchers? Or Herbal Magic? Or Paleo diet? Or Slimfast? Or.....???
The flow of information is never-ending, every day, constant and very aggressive. Yet we can draw few conclusions out of this fact.
First - if there are so many conflicting, self-assuring and reciprocally denying messages out there, it means that the single and simple solution to the issue doesn't exist. Simply put, different approaches can work for different people. There are, however, flat-out wrong theories that are proven to be harmful for any population. Guess what? Huge Fat-Free Theory, that started back in 80-s is one of them. Once again - constant and regular consuming of fat-free products is bad for ya. Need to know why? Hang around, we will cover it later. Or do your own research.
3. Regulation.
In any field that you can pick there are few authorities that proven to be the most influential in the industry. Very often they also teach what they know. However, once in a while the aforementioned authorities go out of there way and try to deliver messages to non-related areas. Usually its taken with a huge grain of salt by most of us. When a movie star shows up on the Food Network show, we all smile and don't take culinary talent of theirs very seriously.
But the advice on nutrition, for some unknown reason, is a different story. Despite their obvious success in TV industry, who gave people like Oprah to give nutritional advice?
Most likely its done with good intentions, but isn't it obvious that their own advice didn't work all that well on them? Success multiplies success, failure multiplies failure. But success in business will not necessarily bring success in health. And vice versa of course. Nothing against anyone who wants to share their ideas about nutrition, but if you ever decide to take advice from TV host or celebrity about the nutrition, think about if this person qualified to give such an advice? And should you take advice from, for example you veterinary doctor about your real estate? Wouldn't it make any sense?
Phew! That totally seemed like a rant. B-)
Okay, rant is over, lets move on to what you should and shouldn't do with food to get the body of your dreams.
1. Simplicity and Complexity.
That's right, simplicity is an issue. Nutritional information right now is either overly simplified or overly complicated, balance is very rarely there. Example of overly simplified nutrition advice is Oprah's, Dr. Phill's, or any other TV host's advice to eat cereal or oatmeal in the morning. Listen, just because they say so, does that mean its a correct information? So that means that anything we here on TV is true, right? Even when they advertise McDonald's Big Mac combo? Exactly. Its way too simple to be true.
However, example of over-complicated approach in nutrition is when person with no previous nutritional knowledge except the one picked in the childhood decides to start new life and goes simultaneously on a diet, quits all bad habits, changes grocery to organic, goes gluten-free, lactose-free, fat-free, low-carb, blood-type specific etc, etc. Issue with this approach is too much too soon. Some of that advice is perfectly healthy. However to try to apply it before you settle certain life habits is sorta like trying to comprehend information of fourth year of university before you graduate high school. Too complicated too soon. Make sure you do all the basics first.
2. Conflicting messages.
Fat-free or low-carbs? High protein or low protein? Three meals a day or five-six smaller meals? To eat breakfast or not to eat breakfast? How about late night eating - good or bad? To eat meat or to go vegetarian? Or vegan? Organic or non-organic? Atkins or Beverly Hills diet? Or Weight Watchers? Or Herbal Magic? Or Paleo diet? Or Slimfast? Or.....???
The flow of information is never-ending, every day, constant and very aggressive. Yet we can draw few conclusions out of this fact.
First - if there are so many conflicting, self-assuring and reciprocally denying messages out there, it means that the single and simple solution to the issue doesn't exist. Simply put, different approaches can work for different people. There are, however, flat-out wrong theories that are proven to be harmful for any population. Guess what? Huge Fat-Free Theory, that started back in 80-s is one of them. Once again - constant and regular consuming of fat-free products is bad for ya. Need to know why? Hang around, we will cover it later. Or do your own research.
3. Regulation.
In any field that you can pick there are few authorities that proven to be the most influential in the industry. Very often they also teach what they know. However, once in a while the aforementioned authorities go out of there way and try to deliver messages to non-related areas. Usually its taken with a huge grain of salt by most of us. When a movie star shows up on the Food Network show, we all smile and don't take culinary talent of theirs very seriously.
But the advice on nutrition, for some unknown reason, is a different story. Despite their obvious success in TV industry, who gave people like Oprah to give nutritional advice?
What does she keep saying? Eat cereal in the morning? Hmmm...
Most likely its done with good intentions, but isn't it obvious that their own advice didn't work all that well on them? Success multiplies success, failure multiplies failure. But success in business will not necessarily bring success in health. And vice versa of course. Nothing against anyone who wants to share their ideas about nutrition, but if you ever decide to take advice from TV host or celebrity about the nutrition, think about if this person qualified to give such an advice? And should you take advice from, for example you veterinary doctor about your real estate? Wouldn't it make any sense?
Phew! That totally seemed like a rant. B-)
Okay, rant is over, lets move on to what you should and shouldn't do with food to get the body of your dreams.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Language of training, nutrition, and life hygiene. Part 1
We meet a lot of people daily. In the bus or subway, at work, in the club, while walking the dog, during sports events, while shopping or staying in line (especially Walmart before Christmas), and the list goes on. Relatives, neighbors, friends, loved ones, hate ones... With many of these people we start conversation. Or they start first. Topics vary, and more often than not we find that we can speak about the topic and understand each other pretty well.
However, once in a while we bump into conversation where we seem to talk about the same topic yet our understanding of an issue is nothing like that other person's. Fitness, nutrition and healthy lifestyle is quite good example for it. Let me explain how.
Just recently I was talking to one of the clients who attended my class, and her question, of course, was "Alex, what exercise I need to do to get rid of my love handles? I already do 300 situps a day". For quite some time my reaction to this question was something like this:
Well, this is exactly where we start speaking different languages. You see, I don't consider cereal or oatmeal in the morning a healthy breakfast. And in terms of exercising, I don't consider 300 situps a day very healthy strategy either.
So now its time to lay out some beginning principles which I'll be referring to in future to make sure we speak the same language.
However, once in a while we bump into conversation where we seem to talk about the same topic yet our understanding of an issue is nothing like that other person's. Fitness, nutrition and healthy lifestyle is quite good example for it. Let me explain how.
Just recently I was talking to one of the clients who attended my class, and her question, of course, was "Alex, what exercise I need to do to get rid of my love handles? I already do 300 situps a day". For quite some time my reaction to this question was something like this:
OH, NO!!! NO MORE OF THAT!!!
Eventually I realized that this way I offend people and its no surprise they no longer want to talk to me. B-) So the strategy changed. Now I take a minute to explain them the value of good nutrition in combination with sound exercise routine and healthy lifestyle and hygiene habits... But in the situation with a client above, as many times before that, the immediate answer was "But I eat really well! My nutrition is great! I start my day with a bowl of healthy low-fat cereal!".Well, this is exactly where we start speaking different languages. You see, I don't consider cereal or oatmeal in the morning a healthy breakfast. And in terms of exercising, I don't consider 300 situps a day very healthy strategy either.
So now its time to lay out some beginning principles which I'll be referring to in future to make sure we speak the same language.
Language of Training:
Not everything you do in the gym is very healthy for you. When you hear advice on the radio or on TV or read in the newspaper about "working out for good health is as simple as doing 30 minutes of cardiovascular activity daily and up to 3 times a week exercising your main muscles with machines or free weights" it is great advice. However, with no previous experience and knowledge it is very easy to do something wrong with this routine. Lets talk about various ways where things can be misinterpreted:
- Start doing cardiovascular conditioning first, then finish with resistance training. It is popular way, but in terms of achieving results its less effective than if you warm-up, do resistance training, and THEN finish with some form of conditioning. There is very big evidence-based data for it, so I will cover this topic in future
- Hoping for spot reduction. It doesn't exist. Example of spot reduction - when you do 300 crunches a day, you DO NOT make your fat burn in the stomach area. Its just not happening, regardless of how much it burns. If you want to know more about the issue, hang around for some time, in nearest future I will be covering this topic
- Picking training routine of a world champions instead of assessing what YOU need to do to achieve best health possible
- Picking exercises randomly, with no specific order, without understanding why you chose certain exercise is a sure way to get yourself in trouble. Easiest way of trouble - no results. Hardest way - injury. Enough said
- Going too light, so your body never needs to adapt. No adaptation - no results
- Going to heavy to stroke the ego. Chances of injury are increasing immediately
- Doing the exercise by copying someone who is doing it wrong. Even if you spying on the experienced trainer, maybe there is a trick that needs to be explained to you, such as breathing properly, or keeping posture in a certain way. If you don't know that, chances are that you are doing this exercise wrong
- Again, as I said numerous times - even if you learnt everything you know in life by yourself, somebody still taught you alphabet. So don't reinvent the wheel and ask the trainer in your gym to explain and show you what you need
- Now, one time quickly about this topic, because I will be back to it later, but, trust me, this one is huge - what makes you feel good is not necessarily what brings results.
- Not a single routine will be consistently bringing results if it performed repeatedly and consistently for a period of time longer than two months. None. Don't tell me it does for you, if you keep doing your routine for over 2 years. Its not. It only does so in your imagination
Well, this is very briefly ideas that are important to keep in mind when we speak about training, mostly resistance training. Next topic is cardiovascular training
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Battle the Cravings Monster
Today I had a conversation with a client of the studio. Its started as one of the questions I get every day: "Alex, I have a sweet tooth, what should I do?"
I get that a lot. Sweet tooth for girls, beer tooth for boys, pizza tooth at night for both... Originally my first response was something like this:
Unfortunately, the issue is more difficult than that. Just stopping the habit is not easy. Without the strategy you are most likely to come back to it, even if your initial determination is high. Some strategies proven to work better, some worse, but its a complex approach that works best. So, in regards to Battling the Cravings Monster here what the plan is:
1. To fight temptation successfully, stay away from temptation to begin with.
In other words, how can you fight sweets or junk food if your house is filled with it? Sweets in the vase in the living room, chips in the cupboards, cookies in the kitchen, lollipops in the bedroom, cake in the fridge? Sure, go ahead, try not to have a sweet tooth. So get rid of it all to begin with. Have you ever seen "The Last 10 pounds Bootcamp" show? That is exactly what Tony Europe does first for clients - shows up at their house and accurately puts to garbage bag everything that is considered "food garbage". No exceptions.
2. Start with one habit at a time to be able to maintain the compliance level.
Examples of these "one habit at a time approaches":
- Turn off TV at night. Or record the show and fast forward all the commercials. Did you realize how much food commercials are there, especially at night, when people have issues resisting the urge to munch on something? Out of curiosity, make a quick peak - its insane. In 15 minutes of a "Two and a Half Men" there were 4 commercial breaks with 9 different food products that are completely unhealthy. How long you think your brain will be able to say "no" to this bombarding?
- Drink water. I know, you've heard it, its good for you to drink water during the day to avoid dehydration, blah blah blah... Guess what. Here is another perspective on the issue. If your body's toxicity level is off the chart, you WILL be craving bad foods. Toxicity level of your body will disrupt normal stomach flora, less good bacteria are dealing with food, and more parasites, bad bacteria and fungi are requiring.... bingo. All the junk there is. First step to fix it - water. Why? Brilliant phrase of Paul Chek: "The quickest solution to pollution is dilution". Dilute toxins in your body. Create enough environment for good microflora to grow, and healthy person never feels like dying for a piece of chocolate.
- Start taking fish oil or omega-3 supplement, if you don't do already. It reduces inflammation in the body. Very big deal. Less inflammation - less stress for tissues - more health - longer and happier life.
- Have a safe substitute handy all the time. Carrots, almonds, apples, broccoli. Usually when the craving onset happens and you don't have any food around you, you will make a bad choice. Very high chance of it. But if there is food around, there is fairly high chance that you will have no willpower to look elsewhere for cakes and chocolates.
3. Failing to plan is planning to fail. However good on paper, it is still very difficult once the craving hits all of a sudden. But what if you plan to have a time when you are allowed to have a treat? First of all, you'll feel like a winner, because you are controlling your body, not vice versa. Secondly, it is MUCH easier to resist the temptation. You just know that in a day or two you can have whatever you want. Even though there is no difference in calories consumed, whether that piece of cake is eaten now or on Sunday, but there is huge psychological factor that binds you to guilt feeling. Guilt feeling will lead to the cycle of abstaining from bad foods - overflowing with cravings - going loose again - feeling guilty - starting over. So harnessing that feeling is huge.
4. And lastly for today - it is a long-term process that WILL BE WON BY YOU. As in every battle there are wins and loses, but it all comes down WHO wins the war. So don't get frustrated easily. Persist and stick to your guns. You didn't forget that it wasn't always A+ at school, did you? Life is the same way - not always straight A+.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Tooth Brushing and Exercising. Part 2
Okay, so today I'm talking about the points to take about organizing your training process this way so it will not steal away from your daily energy, won't frustrate you, won't depress you etc. Developing "no negative emotions" mindset towards exercising. Regardless of how busy you are. B-)
1. Prepare for bumps on the road. Do not plan for failure though! Plain and simple, success of any manager is being determined not just of how successfully he/she manages/organizes any business, but of how he/she is dealing with something gone wrong. As one of my former bosses said "I don't care how good you are, but I definitely want to see how you are dealing with the situation when something is screwed up". Very true with working out as well. Be mentally prepare that not everything will go smooth according to the plan. In the past 9 years of training that I keep training log, there wasn't a single training cycle when everything went smooth. At least once you will have to tweak things. So be prepared for it, don't let it stop you from training altogether.
2. Be proactive. When it comes to nutrition - set the time and date and make all the grocery. Then set the time and a date to make all or most of cooking. If its more than once a week - set all these times and dates. There is no shortcuts to it. If you feel like its too hard - again, look for options, buy healthier pre-cooked meals. If budget is not an issue - there are many catering services in any city, hire a chef to cook meals and get them delivered to you.
When it comes to training:
a) put your gym bag in the place when you can't miss it or forget about it. Put all the gear in it beforehand.
b) write down a plan beforehand. Don't think about training plan for any specific workout, but plan months, if not years ahead. Then stick to it. Big planning will determine what you should do during every single workout. Its not a simple topic, so I will expand about it in future.
c) if you don't know what to do in the gym or don't know how to organize a plan - hire a trainer. I mean, how many people learnt how to play Rachmaninoff symphonies by themselves, without a teacher? How many people learnt how to drive a car without the instructor? What gives you confidence that designing comprehensive training plan for your body is any easier? Of course, not all the trainers are the same, but that is different topic. For now, remember this - if you decide to hire a trainer, you immediately remove frustrations, associated with scheduling/showing up/deciding what to do in the gym. And you will also keep your motivation at high level.
3. Have a plan B. It is closely related to the first one above. How you can tweak things to make training work?
- if somebody took or occupied your piece of equipment in the gym, have a substitute exercise in mind, so you're not wasting your time.
- if you can't make your schedule work on certain days, put another day in your daily planner, and put priority of that time high, so it cannot be changed or moved by, lets say, a meeting with an old friend, or movie night.
4. Make keeping yourself accountable easier. Make a deal with your training partner, if you have one, to carpool. That keeps you much more accountable, but takes away the frustration in case if you have a lower energy day. It needs to be done. The person is waiting. Done.
Also, surround yourself with like-minded people. Charles Poliquin said that you are representation of 5 closest people in your life. Make sure these 5 people are someone you want to be like.
5. Do the most important thing first in the workout. This way even if emergency hits and you have to leave early, or you are just super-tired, you can still count this one. The most important part of training routine is strength or resistance training. Everything else follows - mobility drills, stretching, cardiovascular conditioning, sport-specific training, whatever. Dan John has a wonderful test for figuring out whats important "If you only have 45 minutes a week to train, what would you do?" Figure it out and do it first. If you don't like strength training and rather do cardio - again, do you strength training first, get it done and then go do your favorite treadmill "alpine walk", or elliptical "fat burning".
6. Start small. This one is huge. John Berardi, the founder of Precision Nutrition totally blew my mind when he showed statistical data of this approach compared to classic approach. Start changing ONE habit at a time. Don't attack the exercising mountain with no tools. First get the tools.
- start doing something rather than nothing. BUT!!!! Be honest with yourself that this is the very first step. The baby is learning to walk. If the thought of gym makes you shiver from disguise - join Frisbee league on the weekend. If you don't like lifting weights - learn how to do bodyweight exercises and progress them. Trust me, there are no unfit people who can do 5 chin-ups and 5 single-leg squats. But then again, PROGRESS from there! Next point:
7. Avoid boredom and routine.
As Dan John, my mentor, said "Everything works. But nothing works forever". Brilliant. Very often frustration and negative emotion come from inability to make exercising fun. Turn working out into adult playground, and you'll be looking forward to next workout. Again, if you don't know how - don't reinvent the wheel and ask for help.
So here you have them, few tips. This topic is much broader than I covered, but at least you get the point - with a right approach you can control your attitude towards working out, you can build that routine into your lifestyle, regardless, how busy you are, and whats more - you can even make training enjoyable. Or at least don't have hate onset or panic attack every time you step your foot in the gym. Body is here doing stuff, but mind is busy doing something else.... like tooth brushing. B-)
1. Prepare for bumps on the road. Do not plan for failure though! Plain and simple, success of any manager is being determined not just of how successfully he/she manages/organizes any business, but of how he/she is dealing with something gone wrong. As one of my former bosses said "I don't care how good you are, but I definitely want to see how you are dealing with the situation when something is screwed up". Very true with working out as well. Be mentally prepare that not everything will go smooth according to the plan. In the past 9 years of training that I keep training log, there wasn't a single training cycle when everything went smooth. At least once you will have to tweak things. So be prepared for it, don't let it stop you from training altogether.
2. Be proactive. When it comes to nutrition - set the time and date and make all the grocery. Then set the time and a date to make all or most of cooking. If its more than once a week - set all these times and dates. There is no shortcuts to it. If you feel like its too hard - again, look for options, buy healthier pre-cooked meals. If budget is not an issue - there are many catering services in any city, hire a chef to cook meals and get them delivered to you.
When it comes to training:
a) put your gym bag in the place when you can't miss it or forget about it. Put all the gear in it beforehand.
b) write down a plan beforehand. Don't think about training plan for any specific workout, but plan months, if not years ahead. Then stick to it. Big planning will determine what you should do during every single workout. Its not a simple topic, so I will expand about it in future.
c) if you don't know what to do in the gym or don't know how to organize a plan - hire a trainer. I mean, how many people learnt how to play Rachmaninoff symphonies by themselves, without a teacher? How many people learnt how to drive a car without the instructor? What gives you confidence that designing comprehensive training plan for your body is any easier? Of course, not all the trainers are the same, but that is different topic. For now, remember this - if you decide to hire a trainer, you immediately remove frustrations, associated with scheduling/showing up/deciding what to do in the gym. And you will also keep your motivation at high level.
3. Have a plan B. It is closely related to the first one above. How you can tweak things to make training work?
- if somebody took or occupied your piece of equipment in the gym, have a substitute exercise in mind, so you're not wasting your time.
- if you can't make your schedule work on certain days, put another day in your daily planner, and put priority of that time high, so it cannot be changed or moved by, lets say, a meeting with an old friend, or movie night.
4. Make keeping yourself accountable easier. Make a deal with your training partner, if you have one, to carpool. That keeps you much more accountable, but takes away the frustration in case if you have a lower energy day. It needs to be done. The person is waiting. Done.
Also, surround yourself with like-minded people. Charles Poliquin said that you are representation of 5 closest people in your life. Make sure these 5 people are someone you want to be like.
5. Do the most important thing first in the workout. This way even if emergency hits and you have to leave early, or you are just super-tired, you can still count this one. The most important part of training routine is strength or resistance training. Everything else follows - mobility drills, stretching, cardiovascular conditioning, sport-specific training, whatever. Dan John has a wonderful test for figuring out whats important "If you only have 45 minutes a week to train, what would you do?" Figure it out and do it first. If you don't like strength training and rather do cardio - again, do you strength training first, get it done and then go do your favorite treadmill "alpine walk", or elliptical "fat burning".
6. Start small. This one is huge. John Berardi, the founder of Precision Nutrition totally blew my mind when he showed statistical data of this approach compared to classic approach. Start changing ONE habit at a time. Don't attack the exercising mountain with no tools. First get the tools.
- start doing something rather than nothing. BUT!!!! Be honest with yourself that this is the very first step. The baby is learning to walk. If the thought of gym makes you shiver from disguise - join Frisbee league on the weekend. If you don't like lifting weights - learn how to do bodyweight exercises and progress them. Trust me, there are no unfit people who can do 5 chin-ups and 5 single-leg squats. But then again, PROGRESS from there! Next point:
7. Avoid boredom and routine.
As Dan John, my mentor, said "Everything works. But nothing works forever". Brilliant. Very often frustration and negative emotion come from inability to make exercising fun. Turn working out into adult playground, and you'll be looking forward to next workout. Again, if you don't know how - don't reinvent the wheel and ask for help.
So here you have them, few tips. This topic is much broader than I covered, but at least you get the point - with a right approach you can control your attitude towards working out, you can build that routine into your lifestyle, regardless, how busy you are, and whats more - you can even make training enjoyable. Or at least don't have hate onset or panic attack every time you step your foot in the gym. Body is here doing stuff, but mind is busy doing something else.... like tooth brushing. B-)
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Tooth brushing and exercising. Part 1
Imagine your regular morning. You went to bed at okay time, woke up with decent mood, its time to make your morning coffee. And while its waiting for you, you're heading to brush your teeth. You are brushing you teeth and thinking about the coffee... or about the commute to work... or about work... or about the joke that somebody told you yesterday and it was so funny, but you forgot it already.... Okay, stop right here. What do you feel?
Every time I test my clients this simple test, they don't know what exactly I am asking. "Alex, what are you talking about? What am I supposed to feel? I'm just brushing my teeth!"
Lets go to second part of the test. Lets plan your training strategy for next month.
First, you have to figure out your goals. You have to define them why they are important to you, so every time life gets in the way, you will remind yourself and push it through.
Second, you have to figure out what kind of training regime suits your goal the best. Is it cardio? Or strength training? Or both? Or classes? Or yoga? Should you hire a personal trainer or just try to figure it out yourself? And, whats most important, what if that regime that you picked DOESN'T WORK? Do you have a plan B?
Third, now you have to find out the time in your busy life to actually put this plan to work. Morning before work or evening right after work? Or, perhaps, few hours after work? How far the gym is? How you get there? Remind yourself not to forget workout clothes... towel... water... shoes...put everything in the gym bag... not to forget the gym bag...
Okay. Stop right now. What do you feel at this point?
Exactly. At this point lots of people get it. It is very overwhelming. For beginners it is also very uncomfortable and outside of their comfort zone to go through all this thought process and preparation. And very often it becomes very frustrating. So frustrating that some of us hesitate to even start.
Now lets compare these two mindsets that are different - tooth brushing in the morning and getting organized with a new lifestyle. Emotional state is totally different here. Why? The answer is THE HABIT. When you have a habit developed, you have no feelings or emotions about it. Its just there. Brushing you teeth? You usually don't even remember if you did it or not, although you always do. You don't get frustrated to start it, and you don't feel relieved to finish it. Its just there. Strong habit doesn't steal from your mental energy pool.
How is it possible to combine such a great lifestyle change as exercising with such a mellow mindset when you brush your teeth in the morning? Tomorrow comes part 2, where I will go through practical steps of it.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
New Year Resolution Trouble? No, New Year Resolution Solution!
How many times did you promise yourself to start new year with a new fitness plan, new nutrition plan, new good habits and to get rid of old bad habits? And, let me ask you, how many times you've succeeded with that? Exactly. I know. I'm the same.
Recently I was listening to a lecture of John Berardi, the mastermind behind world-recognized Precision Nutrition System, and its famous branch, the most successful Lean Eating program. It is claimed to be number one body transformation system in the world and I can clearly see why it can claim such a place. There is a very pro-active and smart system in place. System that works. Its nothing magical, but if you apply that change to your new year's resolution plan, you have a real chance of achieving it this year. And, whats even more important, achieve results and successes in other areas.
In a nutshell, the system requires your honest self-assessment and all the steps that you perform from there need to be synchronized based on this self-assessment.
And key words here will be: ONE STEP AT A TIME, after you make sure that this step you will GUARANTEED perform. On the scale 1 to 10 you have to be either 9 or 10 that whatever step you have to perform you can do. And don't proceed to the next one until the previous step is habitual and doesn't create emotional turmoil and difficulty.
So, this is where we start. My resolution at the moment - spend 10 minutes a day putting useful information about all the things fitness, strength, athleticism, nutrition and healthy lifestyle. Just 10 minutes a day. Its a 10 out of 10 on my scale, I even want to do more. But its going to be one step at a time.
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