"Walking Before You Run" Insanity: Day 13 of 60

I am known to be a pretty fearless person.  There is nothing that I think I cannot do.  The things that I will not try can probably be counted on one hand and are pretty much in the life and death category…like bungee jumping.  When it comes to a “Challenge” (like P90X or Insanity), all you need to do is say the word and I am there. 

“Am I as good as I think I am?” 

“Am I better than the kids?” 

“Can I make it through this?”  

I have an internal mechanism that makes me say "yes" when I hear "challenge."  Call it confidence, call it uber-optimism…hell, call it lunacy…it’s just there.  Growing up, I heard all the time that I was lazy.  I never believed it.  But that challenge looms in the back of my mind all the time and drives me.  It’s weird sometimes that the thing I hated hearing the most is probably the most responsible for my successes in life.

I am self-aware enough to know that fact about myself.  I am also aware that others know that about me.  As a friend once said, “You reek of confidence.”  That’s me.  That’s not the rest of the world.  I have to accept that because it’s reality.

When it comes to these intense Beachbody workouts like P90X or Insanity, there are many who believe they cannot do it.  I can point to my own success with the programs but, while I am very credible, my known personality works against me.  Many think there is something about my personality that they do not have…and they think that will sabotage their success with the same program.

Then there are the infomercials on TV.  I love them.  I love them because they challenge me.  Inside, I look at the people on the infomercial and say, “I can do that.  I can probably do it better.”  But, and this is a big "but", they are intimidating.  They are meant to challenge people, and they do that.  Many people, however, will not accept the challenge.  In fact, more than most will forgo the challenge.  Many look at those commercials and say, “I think I need something easier,” or “I could never do that.”  Could they do it?  Yes, they could.  But, is it hard?  Yes, it’s hard.  But, you know, it’s not that hard.  What’s hard is doing it daily and making sure your schedule can accommodate the plan.

Here is the big secret…

It’s not the program that gets you to lose weight and be fit.  It’s your dedication to the program.  Any program.

To me, knowing that one secret is the key to overcoming the real barrier to entry for health and fitness.  Everyone thinks there is a magic formula.  If Dick St.Jacques is fit, it must be the P90X.  It must be the Insanity.  He must be special.  That’s not true at all.  It’s the dedication to deciding to exercise six days a week for at least 40 minutes.  It’s making the right choices when I eat.  That’s the secret.

The program is important, don’t get me wrong.  The program you pick is important for only two reasons.   The first big one is that the program is motivating enough that you WANT to do it.  The instructors have to be fun and engaging.  The workouts have to be energizing.  The second is that the program has to be designed in such a way as to actually be achievable six days per week and it has to have that discipline of executing the exercises.  There is a reason that the programs from Beachbody come with a calendar to plan the workouts for you.  You don’t have to think, the discipline is built in.  The achievability factor is also a part of the programs.  They have been designed so the parts of you that you work on Day One are not hampering the Day Two workout.  Your body has time, within the calendar, to rest and heal.

The most important thing to getting anyone to embrace a health and fitness mindset is to encourage that first step.  Walk before you run.  Most of the people who will reject a challenge on P90X or Insanity, would maybe try Slim In 6, TurboJam or Hip-Hop-Abs.  They may try other programs as well.  You have to know the person you are talking to.  The most important thing is to do anything you can to encourage that first step.  The first step is the discipline of execution.

I love the Beachbody products.  Every single one I have tried has helped me succeed.  My ultimate goal, however, is to be an example to my peers on how modifying to a more healthy lifestyle of exercise and eating properly can improve their health, increase their longevity, and sustain the best quality of life possible.

What is the best exercise program?  The one that the person you are talking to will do every day.  Even if it is just walking daily at a brisk pace for 40 minutes…that might be the best program.  If they like the program, they will be motivated to "push play."  The discipline will be right behind the motivation after a couple weeks.  Once the discipline is there, the results will follow.  After results, you get confidence.  Big results follow the consistent execution which accelerates motivation and then, yes then, you have someone making a permanent change.

Happy Friday!  It’s my ‘off’ day again.  You know what that means.  I did AbRipperX this morning.

Enjoy your day!    

"Shouting into the Noise" Insanity, Day 12 of 60

Has there ever been a time in our culture when Health and Nutrition guidance needed so desperately to be listened to?  If you look at the statistics on overweight and obesity, you would have to say, “No.”  As a nation, 60% of us are overweight while 30% of the total is classified as obese.  Child obesity statistics are mortifying.  We are eating more manufactured “food” than ever before.  Nutrient deficient foods, refined sugar, and toxic sweeteners/additives are in 85% of what you see in a grocery store.  Our daily lives, over the age of eighteen, are sedentary with fewer and fewer jobs requiring physical effort to perform.  Medical costs to the “over forty” group of adults are skyrocketing due to chronic illnesses caused by these extremely poor eating and exercise choices.  Heart conditions, cancer, blood issues, edema, acid reflux, sleep apnea…the list is endless.  All of these conditions are avoidable with the right life choices.  That’s a fact.

So if you walked into an Emergency Room in a hospital loaded with these people…the overweight, the chronically ill, the overmedicated…how many do you think would hear you when you said, “If you make a few changes, eat right and exercise, I can show you how to avoid all of this.  I even have a few items that are proven to help you, and I can show you how to use them.”  How many?  Few?  I bet a couple would listen.  How many would listen if you said it in a medical office?  Fewer.  How many if you said it at a grocery store or mall?  None?

Why is that?  How could it be that a horse dying of thirst, when a bucket of water is put under them, would refuse to drink?  The main way is that the horse doesn’t know it’s dying.

With people, it’s a little bit different.  People are a lot more complex.  They refuse to drink because they are hoping that the lifestyle they have been living, the one they are very used to and think is bringing them pleasure, can somehow continue without consequence.  It’s maddening…believe me, I know it.

It’s strange how even the medical issues these people are facing or enduring are not enough to make them decide to change.  The not so funny part is that I get it.  I took two ambulance rides that were caused by my physical condition and job stress.  The job stress was bad but the real condition was that I was so physically broken that my body couldn’t handle the effects of that stress.  Many think that stress is psychological but in reality, the physical effects of stress are far worse.  The over stimulation of cortisol and the other metabolic changes that happen in the body due to stress can kill you.  I know that.  But that’s not what made me change.

For me, it was an ‘aha’ moment when I was simply turning a screw on a July day and I was sweating a puddle under my face.  I am dead serious.  That snapped me.  That’s the day I decided I was changing and not going back.

So here we stand with all this information and we wonder why there is so much resistance to the message.

I have spent the last ten years selling bank products on the internet.  Getting someone to open a checking or savings account online is very difficult.  To be successful, you have to be patient and understand why people decide to buy things.  “Buy” means that they decide they want to invest time and/or money in a product or service.

The first three things you need to be successful are you need to have expertise, honesty, and likability.  Expertise has to be complemented with credibility.  People have to believe that you actually believe the message.  You can’t fake that.  Honesty and likeability are things we all have come to appreciate and try to aspire to, but you also need to complement those two things with sincerity.  Absent sincerity, looking honest and likeable is hollow and sniffed out very quickly.

You would think that once you get over this hurdle that your job is done.  Oh no.  Not at all.  That just takes care of your side of the selling equation.  Selling any concept, service or product requires the other person to do something too.  The next question is, “What would this product have to do for them to inspire them to change?”  That’s really the issue here.  Change.  We live today in a culture where we have so much that there are very few products that are needed that we don’t already own.  So the trick is getting people with too much and very busy lives to see your product as so essential that they need to have it.

So, if your product is health and fitness, what would trigger someone to decide to embrace the message?

Does the service fulfill a basic need?  Health and fitness?  Oh , yes…it does.  Do THEY think it’s needed?  Maybe not.  They may think they are healthy enough and have moved on to satisfying other needs in their life.

Does the service offer a benefit of convenience?  Nothing is more appreciated than a solution to something that is fast and effective.  Ever wonder why more diet pills are sold than exercise DVD’s?  Perceived convenience.

There are many other reasons that people buy things…scarcity, replacing something they already have that either broke or requires a significant upgrade, low price, great value, fills an emotional void.  But with Health and Fitness…it is obvious.  THEY NEED IT.

So what need is it fulfilling?  Is it a basic need?  Maybe they have had a health crisis.  Maybe they have been warned that things are so bad that a health crisis is imminent.  So maybe it would fulfill a basic safety need.  Is their health affecting their relationships?  Better health could improve their need for love and affinity.  Do they want desperately to be held in regard by others (an esteem need) ?  The closer the need is to the basic needs, the more they are likely to be receptive.

Regardless, I have been pushing a pro-health message for four years now.  I have been living it, so I have some credibility.  After that, people will only move on becoming more fit when THEY are ready.  Don’t get frustrated and just keep pushing the message.  It is desperately needed.

THE WORKOUT:

Last night’s workout was great.  I finally figured out why my thighs were getting ripped up in the routines.  I was not squatting properly.  My knees were out over my toes and, when I dropped my butt into the squat, I was bending my knees at an angle less than 90 degrees, which is really tight.  My poor form was actually killing my legs.  I made and adjustment last night and it was great.

Same result for tonight’s workout.  Better form and all went really well.  I am still sweating like crazy but my endurance is building.  One observation though…and this is how I know that I am in week two…some observations on the other participants.

I am jogging my butt off in the Pure Cardio.  WHAT are some of the people in the back doing?  Their feet aren’t even leaving the floor!!  They are ‘flashdancing’ as the legs barely move and the arms pump. It’s all I can do to not hum ‘Maniac.’  Also, there is a guy that gets caught huffing and puffing with a painful look on his face and when the camera cuts to him, he turns on the gas.  The surprise look makes me laugh every time.

Okay, signing off.  AbRipper X in the AM.  KEEP IT GOING!!  

"The Diet That Changed Me" Insanity: Day 11 of 60

I am reading a book on nutrition called “Eat to Live” by Joel Fuhrman, M.D.  As I read it, it occurred to me how the diet of food that I eat today is so radically different than four years ago and how similar it is to what is being prescribed in the book.  The strange part is that, after you make a change, and after you literally ‘make it you’, you forget what you used to have as a routine.  When I begin to tweak my memory and note it, the contrast literally spells out how my physical appearance and overall health has seen its dramatic change.

I have been very open about needing to do a liquid diet called Optifast to originally lose the weight.  LOSING the weight is not the challenge we all face.  In fact, the Optifast diet has an 80% recidivism rate (they gain the weight back.)  The real diet is the one that has kept the weight off for almost four years now!

Breakfast

THEN: My breakfast over four years ago used to be that I would grab coffee in the morning and make myself toast with peanut butter and jelly on most mornings.  When I got to work, if I hadn’t stopped to grab a donut on the way in to work, I would hit the cafeteria around 10AM to get more coffee and a muffin. 

NOW: Oatmeal with all natural applesauce and cinnamon.  Coffee.  My mid-morning snack is usually a piece of fruit or nothing.

Lunch

THEN: At lunch, I would generally eat a sandwich wrap of some type, but if there was a hot meal (like ziti and meatballs or fried chicken or steak) I would have that.  Around 3PM, I would be hungry again and might grab a pack of pop-tarts from the vending machine.

NOW: Salad in healthy portions with lots of vegetables in it.  3-4 oz of lean chicken or fish.  At about 3PM, my mid-day snack is usually a protein bar.

As a side note here, at this point in my day I probably would have consumed about 1800-2000 calories on the old ‘meal plan.’  If there were an office birthday celebration or if someone had brought in snacks, all bets were off.  Today, at this point in the day, I am probably somewhere in the 1300 calorie range.  When it comes to dinner though, that’s where the real game changer happens.

Dinner

THEN: Whatever was cooked for the family in one big portion, sometimes two.  If it was spaghetti night, two portions easy.  If it was steak, the steak was a pretty big one.  Hamburgers?  Always two.  In the summer, many meals were complemented with macaroni salad (a starch and mayonnaise combo) and a vegetable.  At about 9PM, my stomach would be looking for something else, which three to four times a week would be ice cream from the refrigerator.  On the other nights, I would grab whatever was there.

If we ate out, I usually ate something very tasty…prime rib or some other meat portion, big seafood combo, etc.   Dessert was hard to pass up…that usually happened only if I had been such a glutton at dinner that I couldn’t physically put more in the tank.  Beer with the restaurant meals…usually two and not Coors Light…usually a hearty brown ale.

The weekends were also sprinkled with family gatherings that would bring on many more snacks, desserts and beer.

On the old “eating plan”, the calorie count from about 1800 at noontime could skyrocket easily to 3200-3500 on a weekday and probably 4000 plus on a weekend.

NOW: Shakeology at dinner with fruit blended in.  4-6 oz of nut and raisin trail mix.   At 9PM, after my recovery drink, usually another piece of fruit and one more nut and raisin trail mix serving.

If we eat out, I generally stick to chicken or salmon grilled on top of a large salad.  The same goes for family gatherings.  Grilled meat and salad is the choice 95% of the time.  Dessert is in play only when I am on vacation and even then, very infrequent.  On birthdays I will have a small piece of cake with a scoop of ice cream.  I may have a seafood menu item but it is usually some type of fish and double vegetables…never potatoes or French fries.  No alcohol…ice water and maybe a diet-coke here and there.  I am trying to completely avoid all the diet drinks these days due to the toxic sweeteners in them.

My current total calorie count probably goes to about 2000 during the week and a little more than that on the weekend.  If you are wondering how I keep the calorie count that low, the real leverage is the Shakeology meal replacement shake.  It has all the nutrients of a complete meal plus nutrients you would NEVER get in a meal.  When I blend in a banana and/or blueberries, it comes to about 220 calories and fills you for hours.  No kidding.  On the weekend, I usually don’t have a morning or afternoon snack.   

Epilogue

So the diet contrast is from about 3200-3500 per day then to about 2000 during the week and about 4000 plus to about 2200 on a weekend day.  With all these numbers, consider too that my diet now is almost completely made up of natural foods and vegetables instead of breaded items loaded with refined sugar and white flour.  The sugar content of my food has been cut by about 80% and is now limited to sugar in the form of solid fruit.

I had calculated, some time ago, that when I was eating this I was also not exercising.  I was probably burning about 2800 calories a day and consuming 3500 to 4500 calories on any given day.  I may have been burning less calories for the exceptionally sedentary life I was living, but it took some energy to push around 285 pounds of girth…so let’s say 2800.  The extra 800 to 1800 calories per day…where did that go?  3500 calories is equal to one pound of weight gain.  You can do the math or go and look at my ‘before’ pictures.

I now exercise every day and burn about 800 to 1000 calories during exercise (maybe more on the weekend).  That is on top of my 2200 calories that I expend on a daily basis just moving around.  So I am burning 3000 to 3200 calories per day and taking in about 2200.  Where is the 1000 calorie per day deficit going?  3500 calories is one pound.  Again, the math is the same!

There is no doubt that the exercise gives my diet extra leverage in terms of staying lean and in shape.  It also allows a few indiscretions here and there, like pizza for dinner on Friday night.  But, without the exercise, the weight would be stable.  My conditioning would be pathetic, but I would still be a healthy weight.

This change has also resulted in my cholesterol going from close to 270 to 163.  So I have gone from a solid diagnosis of "You need Lipitor" (for the cholesterol) to, "You did all this without drugs?"  All my blood test markers were optimal for a man of fifty.  My resting blood pressure is 100/80.  I am leaner and in better shape than when I was 25 yrs old.   

So there you have it.  This is how I changed from one person to another.  I enjoy eating what I eat, I just make very deliberate healthy choices.

Which of my two eating plans are you on?  That’s a question everyone should ask themselves in private.

Have a great day!

WORKOUT:

Last night was Cardio Recovery night so I did 35 minutes of Insanity and 35 minutes of P90X Triceps, Chest and Shoulders and then did 25 minutes on the treadmill.  The recovery night is kind of bland.  On the plus side, the P90X TCS workout went real and I was able to really push it hard since I only planned to do half the workout.

Have a great day!!

Insanity: "Pharmaceutical Health" Day 10 of 60

As I did my treadmill last night (after Insanity Plyometric Circuit), I finished watching the movie I had started last week.  When I do the treadmill to stretch my legs, I do it in about 25 minute per day increments.  I can usually finish the average movie in about four to five days.  Last week, as an ode to our Utah trip last month, I took down an old favorite of mine, The Electric Horseman.  It stars Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.  Redford plays an aging rodeo star named Sonny Steele who steals (pun intended?) a prize racehorse named Rising Star from a corporate entity that had been using it for marketing, abusing the horse in the process.  All summaries aside, there is a scene at the end where Jane Fonda, a news reporter, responds to Sonny Steele calling her ‘clever.’  She says, “You say that word like it’s a bad thing.”  To which Sonny responds, “No, I don’t mind you bein’ smart.  It’s just sometimes you are too busy being clever.”

Sonny Steele is a simple man who cuts straight to the heart of all matters.  This stunning racehorse, with all the magnificent attributes that God gave it, was being pumped full of drugs and steroids to make it ‘look better,’ all in the name of selling the corporation’s breakfast cereal.  His statement is as much a commentary on the state of the nation at that point in time as it is of Jane Fonda’s character, Hallie Martin. 

As I ate my oatmeal and watched the news this morning, it became obvious to me that his criticism stands the test of time.  Sadly though, it’s not a racehorse that is being abused.  We have gotten to the point where we are now willing to abuse ourselves in the same way.  Rather than acknowledge the beauty of the machine God gave us and work with it the way it was intended, we would rather pump ourselves full of drugs and pharmaceuticals, all in the name of ‘health’ or ‘beauty.’  We have forgotten what it is like to be smart because we are too busy being clever.

In spite of the reams of knowledge we have acquired about the human body and how it functions, we still are busy trying to find ways to cheat.  We live our lives stuffing ourselves with additive laced ‘food’ and, in spite of everything we are being told about obesity and health, we will not stop.  We have allowed corporate giants to manufacture, package, distribute and market to us some of the most physically damaging substances known to man, and we are willingly putting it directly into our bodies.  Obesity studies, mortality statistics, health care costs…you would think these things would have some kind of impact on us right?  We’re one of the most advanced cultures on the planet.  Surely we are ‘smart’ enough to see the writing on the wall.  Right?

Nope.  We are ‘too busy being clever.’  We can have our cake and eat it too.  This morning there was news of another drug.  A short cut to health.  It can help you lose weight.  It can solve your depression.  It can lower you cholesterol.  I didn’t even pay close enough attention to what the drug was.  I just know this, it was fixing something that, as usual, we voluntarily broke in our bodies.  It’s not fixing a broken leg, it’s fixing some form of damage we caused to ourselves because we just can’t see beyond our own willingness to sacrifice long-term health to the immediate desires of the palate.  The real attention getter, the thing that made me look up, was the list of side effects.  It always stuns me the side effects we are willing to risk.  Not to mention the physical and metabolically altering damage that the drugs cause.

How stupid do we have to be?  Really.  We damage our bodies because we refuse to acknowledge the limitation of putting garbage fuel into a finely tuned machine and then further risk physical damage in the name of fixing the ‘problem.’  Why take the drugs?  Because we refuse to simply use our bodies and fuel it in the way it was intended.

The morbidly funny part is that there are corporations lining up to sell us things disguised as food that will kill us…and then they sell us a ‘cure’ to something they are dedicated to causing.  And we are buying it.  We are buying their philosophy, we are buying their message, and we are buying their crap.  And we are killing ourselves in the process.

We accept this whole dynamic so willingly.  We accept it from strangers.  We accept it from people who will not look you in the face when you taste it or be there when you are being damaged by it.  Have you ever tried to talk to people who desperately need to know that there are alternatives?  Have you ever tried to show them ways to eat better and to exercise better?  Some of my new friends at Beachbody have.  I have been trying for years.  You can stand there and be a one hundred percent testament to the success of changing old habits but they will fight you tooth and nail.  You have credibility.  You have facts.  You have evidence and statistics.  You embody what you are saying!!  You may have known them for years.  But they will still buy the philosophy of the ones who put them in harms way, because they want to believe so badly that they can continue to live the way they 'want', not the way it was intended.

As I read the latest book I grabbed about nutrition, “Eat to Live”, it becomes obvious that the book is a working manual of how the body reacts to all of this pharmaceutical manipulation.  It also is a very simple primer for how to turn that around.  As I read it, many of the things it recommends are things I have changed in my diet over the past four years.

Natural foods.  Exercise.  Fruit and vegetables.  Food that is exceptionally high in nutrient density.  Exercise.  Very little meat and dairy.  Did I say exercise?

As I recalled this weekend how my diet has changed, it occurred to me that I haven’t had a cold or flu in four years.  My cholesterol (composite, HDL and LDL markers) has improved massively, with my composite cholesterol going from around 270 four years ago (when the doctor was going to put me on Lipitor) to the 163 it was measured at a few weeks ago.  I am 80 pounds lighter and my diet has allowed me to stay thin and not be in that ‘yo-yo’ diet mode.  My physical condition is optimal for my age.

Basically, I got smart and stopped being clever.

I am hoping, optimistically, that we as a culture get smarter too.  There are alternatives.  Slowly, over time, the lesson will have to be learned or the chickens will come home to roost. 

Hey, listen close, does anyone else hear that clucking sound?  Or is it just me?

Insanity: "Pushing Through" Days 7, 8, 9 of 60

Whew!!  First, this weekend blew by.  Second, I feel like I ate somewhat poorly.  Third, I think I worked out and exercised so much that I may still have run a calorie deficit.

I did the AbRipperX routine on Friday morning and had my usual Pizza Friday dinner and a small cup of ice cream...it was my Insanity 'off' day.  Saturday, I did Cardio Power Resistance, did an hour in a Kayak, and did two hours of yardwork.  Ate real well and real clean on Saturday.  Sunday, I did Pure Cardio and another two hours of yardwork.  I did, however, have pizza again for dinner and another small cup of ice cream.  Monday (today), I did AbRipperX, a little basketball in the yard, cleanup for the Memorial Day party, Plyometric Cardio Circuit and 25 minutes on the treadmill.  I ate clean as usual but had a small piece of cake with a scoop of Ice Cream again to celebrate my son's birthday.

No more ice cream for a while but I seriously burned so many calories that there were times I was feint.  I sweat through more articles of clothing than I can count.

So holidays like Memorial Day come with their own challenges.  It can really mess with your discipline.  With me, it severely breaks up my routine.  I will obviously be right back on it tomorrow but it always brings mixed feelings.

I am keeping it very short tonight...just wanted to catch up.

I hope everyone enjoyed the weekend!

Happy Memorial Day!!