There is no try

Yesterday, one of my clients reminded me of a quote that I used to use when I coached baseball. The quote comes from Yoda and states "do or do not. There is no try." This quote is very true regarding body transformations. With body transformations you either have an excuse or a result. You either improved your body or you didn't. There will always be a reason to eat poorly or skip a workout and if you wait for the right time to make changes, the right time will never come. There will always be a reason to put things off. There will always be a party, friends coming into town, a birthday, a holiday, or a vacation right around the corner. If you try to find 12 weeks with no events coming up then you will never find those 12 weeks.

If you really want to change your body then you must commit yourself to following your plan no matter what. Your nutrition and your training must be non-negotiable. So if you are at a birthday party or social event and there is bad food being served then you may have to skip out on the food this one time. Will anybody really care? Probably not. Some people may give you a hard time because nobody likes to see others doing better than them but it will be worth it in the long run.

When you are trying to lose weight sticking to your nutrition is vital as well as showing up and performing your workouts. Losing weight is really not that hard it just requires consistently sticking to a good plan. The thing that most people lack is consistency. I think that for most people tracking what you are doing is very important because it allows you to see if you are making progress. There is a saying that those who keep records break records.

Spices can create variety

When most people try to get leaner they eat the same foods over and over with no variety. I think one of the reasons for this is that when people eat a certain way and lose weight they tend to stick to those foods. The problem with this is that many people get tired of eating the same foods over and over again. This is one reason why it is good to rotate your foods and eat a wide variety of meats, veggies, nuts, seeds, and some fruit. Another great way to keep from getting bored with your nutrition is to add spices to your food. Herbs and spices are a great way to add variety to your nutrition. They also add a lot of flavor and keep your nutrition rewarding.

On top of this there are also a number of other benefits to herbs and spices. Many herbs and spices have medicinal properties that are very beneficial to the body and can even help you lose body fat faster. For instance, cinnamon improves insulin sensitivity, which will help you lose body fat and speed up the metabolism. There are a number of other herbs and spices that have beneficial properties. So instead of eating that plain chicken breast consider adding things like garlic, ginger, basil, oregano, tumeric, rosemary, thyme, and sage.

What is normal?

I often talk about the importance of changing your habits for making a long term body transformation. What I am really talking about is changing what is normal for you. If waking up and eating the right breakfast is what you automatically do then that is normal for you and you are in the habit of eating a good breakfast. If you wake up and want to eat sugary cereal then that is normal for you and that is what you are going to want. Anything that varies from what you normally do is not going to feel or taste right.

Changing your habits takes a conscious effort at first but when you are able to sustain those changes without thinking about them then you have created a new normal or habit. It is only by changing your habits that you are going to make a body transformation that lasts.

So if you are a person who has to have something sweet every meal or every night I would say that you need to make a conscious effort to change that habit until it becomes normal to not have the sweets everyday. If your normal is to drink soda through the day then you need to make the conscious effort to replace that soda with water until water is really what you want. You will find that as you change your habits, especially with nutrition, that the foods that you get into the habit of eating are the ones that you will crave. Most people only eat 10-15 foods and they eat those same foods over and over. If you can improve the quality of those foods one by one you will improve your body and your health.

Eat Real Unprocessed Food

One of the most basic rules in nutrition that everyone should adhere to is to eat real unprocessed food. Remember that the quality of the food you eat is what matters the most. By eating real unprocessed food you will be eating vegetables, meats, nuts, oils, and some fruit. If you stick to these foods and avoid all of the other stuff you will be doing better than most.

I can hear the questions now. What about fiber one bars or pasta? The answer is simple, these foods are processed so you would do better by avoiding them. If you look at the consequences of eating these foods then you would probably realize that you would be better off eating real food.

Many people have been tricked by clever marketing to think that processed foods are healthy. They are not. We are made to eat real food and fiber one bar or kashi cereal are not real food.

Push Yourself

The worst program done with intensity is better than a great program done with no intensity. Intensity is one of the keys to changing your physique and your health. In order to up the intensity of your workouts you can increase the weight, decrease your rest period, or do more reps. One thing that I have noticed is that the clients we have who push themselves to their limits always get better results than the clients who stop when things get a little challenging. The ability to keep going when things get hard is something that many people need. The easy thing to do is to quit when things get hard but if you can dig deep and push just a little bit more the results will often be worth the effort.

So why does intensity matter? Intensity is what drives hormones, and hormones send the signals to your body to burn fat and build muscle or to store fat and eat away muscle. By working out with intensity you will send better signals to your body which will create better results.

A Different Perspective

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a guy who was able to put the way we think about food and exercise into persepective. He stated that most people are conditioned to think of things as either good or bad. He said that a good way to think of things rather than as good or bad is by what the consequences are, for example eating a certain food. For example, yesterday I stated that one of the common questions I get regarding nutrition is whethere or not a food is good or bad. The example I used yesterday was juice. Rather than thinking of juice as good or bad it may be better to think of the consqequences that result from drinking juice and then deciding if those consequences match your goals.

So what are the consequences of drinking juice? Juice is going to elevate your levels of blood sugar and insulin. Since juice is mostly fructose the majority of that fructose is going to be processed in the liver. Since the liver can only handle so much fructose the quantity of the juice becomes an important factor. Anything more that the liver can hold will be repackaged as triglycerides and cholesterol leading to an accumulation of body fat in the midsection. This response will also be stressful and elevate the stress hormones which will lead to more accumulation of body fat in the midsection. A large part of these consequences have to do with your response to the hormone insulin, which often times is determined by how lean you are. If you are very lean then insulin is the hormone that is responsible for putting things in the muscles.

So is juice good for you? This depends on the situation. If you are overweight and trying to lose body fat then no juice would not be a good choice. If you are very lean and looking to gain muscle then juice in the post workout period will help. I think we often get caught up in whether or not something is good or bad and then jump to conclusion. I think a better way of thinking is to have an understanding of how things effect you and whether or not those consequences match your goals.

Juice

One of the most common questions I get regarding nutrition is about juice. If you are trying to lose fat then I would say that juice would not be my first choice. I would much rather someone eat a piece of fruit rather than drink juice. When you drink juice you are just drinking sugar, and high amounts of fructose.

High levels of fructose can accelerate the aging process as well as increase levels of triglycerides and cholesterol. If you eat the fruit rather than drink the juice you will get some fiber which will slow down the absorption of the sugar. With my clients who are trying to lose weight I usually make sure that they are not eating too much fruit anyway.

So is juice good for you? If you are trying to lose fat and get healthy then no. The only time I would have someone drink juice is if they were extremely lean and needed to add some muscle. Even then they would only consume the juice in the post workout period when they can best utilize the sugars.

Add Some Spice

One of the easiest ways to increase metabolism and yang energy is to add some spice to your foods. Things such as garlic, cinnamon, ginger, and pepper all are considered to be hot foods in Chinese medicine. Hot foods increase yang energy, which will increase metabolism. Yang energy is responsible for increasing energy and metabolism, so adding some simple spices to your dishes can be a simple way to increase energy and motivation to workout early in the day.

Cinnamon is a great spice that can definitely help with weight loss. By adding cinnamon to your foods you will increase metabolism and improve insulin sensitivity. By improving insulin sensitivity you will make it easier to lose fat and gain muscle, as well as improving your health. One of the easiest ways to include cinnamon into your day is to add some into your coffee or tea in the morning.

Another Reason to Eat Your Veggies

One of the biggest problems that I see on a daily basis is elevated cortisol levels. One of the side effects of elevated cortisol is acidity. Having high levels cortisol makes your body acidic. Your body tries to always maintain its ph balance and cortisol shifts that balance to the acidic side. Your blood ph is always maintained in a tight range so when the blood is too acidic the body will pull alkaline materials such as calcium from the bone.

When your body is in an alkaline state it is less likely to get sick and it becomes much easier to build muscle, burn fat, and lower your cortisol. The best way to make sure that your body is in an alkaline state is to eat your veggies. All foods have an impact on the acidity of your body. For the most part the only foods that are alkaline are fruits and veggies. So if you are eating your meats(which are acidic) it is important to eat your veggies in order to balance your ph. If you have problems with stress and sleep it is very important to eat enough veggies.

How many veggies should you eat? If you look at books on Paleolithic nutrition you will find that most scholars state that Paleolithic people ate around 100 grams of fiber/day from fruits, veggies, and root vegetables. 100 grams of fiber/day is a lot considering that the RDA for fiber today is around 25 grams/day. I would recommend that you shoot for 6-12 servings of veggies/day and make sure to rotate the sources of veggies so that you are eating a wide variety of foods.

Keep a Journal

One of the easiest ways to change your body is to keep a journal. There is a saying that "those who keep records break records." A journal can help you keep track of your progress and show you where you are doing well and where you are lacking.

So what should be in your journal? You should keep track of all your workouts, food and liquid intake, supplement intake, sleep, stress levels, and any thing else that you can think of. The more detailed you can get the better. One of the things that I like to keep track of is my food and how it affected my focus and drive during my workouts. The other thing that I like to track is the food and supplements that I take and how they affect my sleep.

As you begin to compile several weeks of journal entries you will begin to see patterns that emerge, and these patterns will give you clues about how your body works. For example, if you find that eating a certain meal always gives you a better workout or makes you sleep better then that may be a change that you want to make. Everyone has their own unique formula for changing their body and keeping a journal can help you hone in on what will work best for you. Here is a list of things to keep in mind when you look at your journal

How was my energy throughout the day?
How was my ability to focus and get work done?
How was my focus and motivation during my workout?
Am I getting leaner or fatter?
Was I able to recover quickly from my workout?
Did I make progress in my workout?
How did what I ate affect my mood?
Are there any foods that don't make me feel well?
Are my bowel movements regular?
How did I sleep?

Help Your Kids Get Better Grades

One of the easiest ways to help your kids do well in school is to feed them quality proteins at breakfast. Most kids that I meet with either eat no breakfast because they are in a hurry or they eat a breakfast full of sugar and fast carbohydrates. This is not the way to start the day especially for someone who is trying to learn all day. Yesterday, I talked about the important role that nutrition plays in your brain chemistry.

If you can feed your kids quality protein in the morning you will set the stage for them to do much better in school. If your child is struggling with school then you may also consider adding some fish oil with breakfast. The DHA is necessary for brain development. If your child is below 6 years of age then make sure to give them pure DHA because they will not be able to metabolize regular fish oil.

If you are not a kid and you are having trouble learning new things then you may also benefit from adding some protein with breakfast and taking fish oil. This combination is a very easy change that can make a huge difference for many people.