This is Part III of a six-part video-based series on getting functionally fit fast. Functional fitness means being able to lift, pull and move your body through space over time efficiently and injury-free. If you’d like to get strong, muscular, more flexible and improve your cardio, begin with Part I and work your way here.

Think dead lifts are just for guys?

Part III focuses on the back, glutes and calves. We began with an introduction and “10 Workout Guidelines” in Part 1, and presented warm-up mobility/core exercises in Part II.

Note: This is article 2, part 4 to my FREE four-part series about how to build a strong and youthful body.

IF YOU’RE following along per plan, you’ve looked at a few of the mobility exercises presented in Part I.  Once your body is warm, particularly the joints and core, it’s time to play with some resistance.  There’s plenty of that here…

3. Dead Lift/ Stair Lift/ Pull-up 3X Workout

3.1 Dead Lift

Warning: Do not perform the dead lift if you have back problems. Do not perform the Dead Lift if there is no instructor at your gym to show you proper form and observe that you’re doing it correctly.

Remember, for the first month or two of consistent exercise, try for 15 reps for lower body exercises and 12 for upper body during your workout. One reason for this is that it will force you to use a lower weight, which is appropriate as your body gets accustomed to the challenge. The Dead Lift is designated a lower body exercise.

I’ve found several versions of the Dead Lift posted on YouTube; pick the one that’s best suited for you. Select a lower weight than you think you can lift.

Begin with the single leg dead lift, with dumbbells (as shown below) or a light barbell, or unweighted.

As you develop strength and balance, try dumbbells.

Finally, move on to the barbell.

Once one of the three dead lifts are completed, move quickly to…

3.2 Stair Lift

In the example below, the woman is stepping up onto a high platform. Begin with a lower one. Choose a weight, dumbbell or kettle bell (as shown), appropriate for your fitness level, or just use your body weight.

Move quickly to…

3.3 Pull-up

Begin with palms facing away from you for the first set, then palms facing you and finally for the third set, thumbs facing you if your apparatus allows for that position; otherwise do the first two sets with palms away and the last with palms facing you.

Most people can not perform more than a couple of pull-ups/chin-ups, so use assistance. If none is available, step up on something that lifts your chin to the bar and lower yourself down no faster than five seconds. Eventually, you’ll be able to pull yourself up.

Here’s an example of a band assisted pull-up workout. Note that her hands are positioned with thumbs facing her, which is the option for your third set:

You can also use machine assistance:

3.4 Calf Raisers

This is your rest period. Yes, you’re working your calves, but you’ll be able to catch your breath while doing so.

There are three muscles in the calf, and you work each of them by pronating your toes in, parallel and out. So, start if toes in and do the reps relative to the weight you’re using, but not less than five, then immediately go to the parallel position for five, and finally the toe-out position for the last five.

in the example below, the woman is on a weighted calf raise machine, but you can do the same exercise without weights, on one leg at a time, or holding a dumb bell. She does not turn her toes in, parallel and out, but you can.

OK, that’s the first Compound Set completed in this workout. Do up to three circuits (meaning, repeat it as many as three times). Rest for no more than three minutes between circuits.

When that’s done, and begin the Compound Set in Part IV.

If you liked this article and want to read the rest of the series, go here!

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This is Part IV of a six-part video-based workout series on getting functionally fit fast.

Note: This is article 4, part 4 to my FREE four-part series about how to build a strong and youthful body.

Part IV focuses on the shoulder press, squat and bench press. We began the series with Part 1, an introduction and “10 Workout Guidelines”, presented warm-up mobility/core exercises in Part II, followed by dead lifts and pull-ups in Part III.

4. Press/ Squat/ Bench 3X Workout

4.1 Press

This part of your workout begins with a shoulder press.

If you don’t have a barbell, use dumbbells, or one at a time as our innovator par excellence, Ben Bruno, demonstrates:

Yeah, a nutty way to press a dumbbell, but this technique introduces instability which will require strength and balance to overcome.

Move directly to…

4.2 Squat

There’s a near infinite number of ways to do a squat, but if you haven’t done them much, begin with a “free squat”, which means without weights. Then progress to squatting with dumbbells before you move on to the barbell.

Once you can do more than 40 reps, add weight. But not much. Form is critical. Have an exercise instructor assist you.

Or

Or

You’re huffing and puffing by the time you done with squats, but move quickly to…

4.3 Bench Press

If you don’t have weight, do push-ups. There’s something for everyone here:

Have a bench and barbell? Well, try this:

Dumbbell version:

Right after you’ve done one of the three above chest exercises, go do the calf raises…

4.4 Calf Raises

As discussed in Part III where calf raises were introduced, this is your rest period. Yes, you’re working your calves, but you’ll be able to catch your breath while doing so.

There are three muscles in the calf, and you work each of them by pronating your toes in, parallel and out. So, start if toes in and do the reps relative to the weight you’re using, but not less than five, then immediately go to the parallel position for five, and finally the toe-out position for the last five.

in the example below, the woman is on a weighted calf raise machine, but you can do the same exercise without weights, on one leg at a time, or holding a dumb bell. She does not turn her toes in, parallel and out, but you can.

After completing the calf raises, rest for three minutes or less before you move on to the fourth sequence of compound exercises for this workout.

Ready for Part V?

If you liked this article and want to read the rest of the series, go here!

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Like that dead lifting gal in Part 2, women can get strong.

This is Part V of a six-part video-based workout series on getting functionally fit fast.

Part V focuses on the shoulder press, squat and bench press. We began the series with Part I with an introduction and “10 Workout Guidelines”, presented warm-up mobility/core exercises in Part II,  followed by dead lifts and pull-ups in Part III, and with the shoulder press, squat and bench press in Part IV.

 Note: This is article 5, part 4 to my FREE four-part series about how to build a strong and youthful body.

5. Dips/ Curl/ Triceps Extension 3X Workout

5.1 Dips

Whether you include them now or in some later workout incarnation, the Dips must be apart of your resistance training. Like the Dead Lift, Dips are a true compound exercise — it works the chest, shoulders and triceps simultaneously.

Or

If you can do more than 15 reps with your body weight, and you have the jones to add weight, Scott Hermann demonstrates how to do it.

Or

If you don’t have a Dip apparatus, use any stable corner, like your kitchen counter.

Or

Can’t do Dips? Hopefully, your gym as a Dip Machine which provides assistance that effectively reduces your body weight by any amount you choose.

Next up are the Bicep Curl and Triceps Extensions. Rotating the biceps and triceps within a Compound Set is a great way to make them stronger and bigger, which is typical of doing antagonist exercises back to back: The bicep contracts, the triceps lengthen, and visa versa.

5.2 Curl

If your core isn’t very strong yet, begin with a seated curl:

Or

Or

5.3 Triceps

The first option is a good place for the novice:

Or

Here’s Mighty Ben Bruno demonstrating a triceps dumbbell pullover:

Or

5.4 Calf Raises

As discussed in Part III where calf raises were introduced, this is your rest period. Yes, you’re working your calves, but you’ll be able to catch your breath while doing so.

There are three muscles in the calf, and you work each of them by pronating your toes in, parallel and out. So, start if toes in and do the reps relative to the weight you’re using, but not less than five, then immediately go to the parallel position for five, and finally the toe-out position for the last five.

in the example below, the woman is on a weighted calf raise machine, but you can do the same exercise without weights, on one leg at a time, or holding a dumb bell. She does not turn her toes in, parallel and out, but you can.

Now, move on to Part VI.

If you liked this article and want to read the rest of the series, go here!

The post The Functionally Fit Fast Workout — Strong, Enduring, Mobility (Part V) appeared first on Garma On Health.

This is the sixth and final part of a six-part video-based workout series on getting functionally fit fast.

Part VI focuses on post-weight lifting stretches. We began the series with Part I with an introduction and “10 Workout Guidelines”, presented warm-up mobility/core exercises in Part II,  followed by dead lifts and pull-ups in Part III, with the shoulder press, squat and bench press in Part IV, and finally with the shoulder press, squat and bench press in Part V.

Note: This is article 6, part 4 to my FREE four-part series about how to build a strong and youthful body.

6. Stretch Post Workout

At first blush, it might appear that mobility exercises such as those show in Part II are basically the same as stretching exercises.  There are similarities.  As I reckon it, the main difference is that mobility exercises are typically “dynamic” and stretching is “static”.

Dynamic means that you might be pulsing or moving during any particular mobility exercise, and often the exercise simulates a specific weight-bearing exercise, or part of one — this being another differentiation between a mobility exercise and stretching.

By referring to stretching as static means that you put yourself into a position of tension (muscles and tendons are stretched) and hold it, or incrementally move deeper into the position as the soft tissue lengthens.

As we’ve seen in these six pages of exercises, it’s best to begin a workout routine with mobility drills and finish with stretches. Stretching after your workout will improve the rate of recovery and soreness.

I searched through YouTube to find you a good overall post-weight lifting stretching routine, but came up isolated muscle-specific stretches, or routines that only a yogini or ballerina could do.  So, you’re gonna get my stretch routine…

(You’ll notice that this appears like it’s at the end of a workout, and it is.  You may see the rest of what I called the “Homestead Workout” here, but I warn you that it’s goofy.)

Well, that’s it.

Do you have any questions or suggestions? If so, put em in the Comments section below.

Yep.

If you liked this article and want to read the rest of the series, go here!

The post The Functionally Fit Fast Workout — Strong, Enduring, Mobility (Part VI) appeared first on Garma On Health.

What’s in the mirror? Hopefully, you see a beautiful you, but if you’re like most of us, there’s more pounds on that frame than is healthy. More than half us are overweight. Time to measure your Basil Metabolic Rate, and target a lower body weight goal. Here’s how to do it… (check out the three infographics)…

EVER NOTICE how nearly all the people in old movies are far leaner than in current movies? Yes, it’s obvious that over the last 40+ years, the people of the industrialist world are getting progressively heavier.

Time for a reset.

This post is about:

1. Getting some clarity about the damage that those extra pounds can do to your health and well being;

2. Resetting your caloric target based on your Basil Metabolic Rate and activity level; and

3. Taking some physical action with a most simple and effective exercise.

Let’s go!

Below are three infographics that tell the tale:

• One clearly depicts America’s over weight/obesity problem (mirrored by much of the industrialized world, by the way);

• One indicates how calories in and out must be understood to help solve the eating part of the problem; and

• One offers a simple activity to help solve the sitting part of the problem.

First up is “Infographic #1: Obesity”, and it peppers us with the daunting statistics about obesity, as well as average, run of mill overweightyness.

(Yes, I made up the word and I like it.)

Obesity

The Obesity infographic below states that:

• Nearly 55% of Americans are overweight, and
• About 25% of Americans are obese.

If you suspect these numbers appear too low, a trip to the mall might confirm your suspicions.  As you scan the bevy of shoppers, your perceptions may suggest that 25% obese and 55% overweight might be a tad on the light side.

Indeed, the reliable U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) puts America’s adult obesity rate at 36%, 11 percentage points higher than what’s shown in the Obesity Infographic., and the percent overweight (including obesity) at about 65%; again, 11 percentage points higher.

Here’s the CDC graph depicting these numbers:

If these statistics don’t alarm you, perhaps because you just sat your skinny self down to read this after a 15 mile run, consider that obesity combined with diabetes (Dr. Hyman’s so-called “diabesity“) is becoming a national health catastrophe that will affect everyone via a crippled American health care system.

So, listen up.

Back in 2009, I wrote in a post called, The Seriously Serious Problems of Obesity, which cited a New York Times’ projection that 43% of Americans will be obese by 2018.

When you add that number to total overweight, will anyone be able to do more than waddle from building to car come 2018?

Thus, this first infographic sounds the alarm bells.  Check it out, and then scroll down to  “Infographic #2: Calories”.

Unless readers of this blog are exclusively health nuts, odds are that the Obesity Infographic hit a nerve.

Perhaps, then, there’s appetite for Infographic #2: Calories.

Calories

Calories measure the energy we get from consuming, digesting and using food. 

These days, there’s much debate about the quality of calories, meaning that food source of the calories determines the extent to which the body produces energy (or fat).

For instance, 200 calories of candy will affect your body differently than 200 calories of avocado.

Due to the sugar content, the candy will cause a fast spike in your blood glucose level.  At this point – all other things being equal – if you don’t use this extra energy, some portion of the associated calories will be parked as fat.

“Yes”, the body is saying, “we’ll just store this excess energy as fat until you need it later, like during the winter when food is scarce”.

Now, this Calorie Infographic takes the bold step of declaring an ideal proportion of macronutrient mix.  Given the wide range presented: 10-25% Protein, 20-35% Fats, 45-65% Carbs, some ratio within this mix should be adequate for most people.

Serious weightlifters might want more protein.  Long distance aerobic types might want more carbs.  And there are unusual individuals who live on either side of the bell curve, and thereby simply have to find their individualized macronutrient mix.

Just make sure that, more times than not:

1. The carbs are complex (low glycemic), unless ingested prior to a one hour plus exercise routine when simple carbs will be used to fuel rigorous activity;
2. The fats are mostly omega-3 fatty acids; and
3. The protein is from lean, grass fed meat, no-mercury fish or preferably organic vegetable sources.

OK, here’s a primer on calories…

How to Determine Your “Stable” Daily Calorie Intake

Here, we’re going to dive into determining the amount of calories necessary to sustain you at your current activity and weight level, and then at the weight objective (aka “target”) you may desire.

First, calculate your Basil Metabolic Rate (“BMR”)

The BMR is the daily amount of energy your body expends at “rest”, as measured in calories. (source)

Note that “rest” doesn’t mean sleeping or lounging on the couch, but refers to normal daily activities. It does not include any vigorous activities, whether it be a long walk, weightlifting or mountain bike ride.

It might be a bit hard to read the equation part in Calorie Infographic found under the header, “How to Determine Your Daily Calorie Intake”, so I’ll type it out.

The Basil Metabolic Rate formula looks like this:

Females: 655 + (4.35 x weight in lbs.) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)

Males: 66 + (6.23 x weight in lbs.) + (12.7 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years)

According to Answers.com, in the USA the:

• Average female’s height is 63.75 inches (5’3.75”) at 152 pounds.
• Average male’s height is 69 inches (5’9”) at 180 pounds.

It’s taking me too long to find a reliable average age for men and women in the U.S., so for purposes of this example, I’m going to use 45 for both genders.

Plugging these numbers in the above formulas:

Average Female: 655 + (661) + (300) – (212) = BMR of 1,404

Average Male: 66 + (1,121) + (876) – (306) = BMR of 1,757

Second, determine your activity level

The next part of determining your daily caloric target is to adjust your BMR number by your activity level.  The Calorie Infographic presents various multipliers for that starting at 1.2 for the sedentary life style to 1.9 for “extra active”.

Read the descriptions related to each multiplier and choose the one that best fits what you actually do, not what you wish you were doing.

If our very average man or woman in the above example were smack in the middle of the high to low activity level, his/her multiplier would be 1.55.

Third, calculate your “stable” daily caloric intake

The daily caloric intake (consumption) target is the BMR multiplied by the activity level multiplier.  For our average candidates, that would be:

Our Average Female’s Caloric Intake: 1,404 (BMR) x 1.55 (Activity Level) = 2,176

Our Average Male’s Caloric Intake: 1,757 (BMR) x 1.55 (Activity Level) = 2,723

At this point, there are three comments I’d like to make about this BMR/calorie stuff:

1. It’s highly unlikely that your numbers are the same as these examples, so don’t think that these results fit you.  Plug in your own particulars into the appropriate equation given your gender.

2. If you have a lot of muscle, it will affect the BMR formula results.  Muscle weighs more than fat, so a 5’8” male body builder could weigh 195 pounds and have no excess fat at all.  Also, muscle burns more calories at rest than fat.  The result is that these formulas may not be relevant for muscled people.

3. Realize that the daily caloric intake numbers here calculated so far are the calories required to maintain the current body weight of these average people profiles.  That’s why I used the word “stable”, referring to keeping the current weight stable.

Fourth, calculate your daily caloric intake target

If you want to lose weight, there’s another – lower – caloric intake number, and we’ll call it the “daily caloric target”

So, if our average male said, “I’d be a hell of a lot better off if I weighed 160 pounds instead of my portly 180” (hmm, does anybody really refer to themselves as “portly”?), then he could pop “160” into the BMR formula, adjust his activity multiplier if he was going to increase his activity, and then calculate his caloric intake target.

Given the lower weight inputted into the formula, unless the activity level multiplier offsets the new weight input, the caloric intake number will be lower.

In other words, our pal will have to consume fewer calories to drop the weight.  Makes sense, yes?

Walk

Last up is “Infographic #3: Walk”.

Indeed, for many people, walking is the first step (ha!) toward integrating sufficient activity into their lives to help lose weight and get fit.  Everyone knows how to do it, and no special equipment is required.

Check out all the benefits attributable to walking in the Walk Infographic:

That’s a heck of a long list of good things. Surely, walking does a body good.

Now, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever be able to bench press your body weight, run a marathon or fold yourself into a pretzel simply by walking a lot.  But if the only thing you’ve been exercising of late it your TV’s remote control, walking is a good way to begin getting active.

Three Conclusions

1. Yes, you are phenomenal, but you may also be a bit overweight.  Unless you’re packing a lot more muscle than average, use the BMR and caloric formulas above to determine the calorie target to get to your ideal weight.

2. If you’re more than a wee bit overweight, stare hard at the Obesity Infographic and consider what actions you may be willing to take.  Then do #1 above. And #3 below.

3. Unaccustomed to exercise?  Well, try walking.  Start by noting all the associated health benefits derived by walking, recruit a buddy or two, and get marching.

Over and out.

Don’t forget to share this with someone who might be interested, and comments are always welcome (scroll down for that).

Yep.

P.S.  Many thanks to L.A. Bariatrics, Greatist and Everybody Walk for their wonderfully illustrative infographics!

The post How To Measure Your Basal Metabolic Rate and Why It’s Important That You Do appeared first on Garma On Health.

Few things are as confusing as diet and health information.  Here, I attempt provide some clarity as I dive into the myths and truths of eight common diet strategies.

Yahoo recently posted an article written by Janice Graham entitled, The Surprising Truth About 8 Common Diet Strategies, and me thinks it’s largely spot on.

Except for a few things, some pretty important.

And it’s these few things I’d like to dive into and expound upon so that you, dear reader, are left with the clarity of Buddhist chimes.

Well, at least as pertains to these eight “strategies” about diet.

The “8 Common Diet Strategies” cited by Ms. Graham (along with my quick comments in parenthesis) are:

1. To lose a pound, you must cut 3,500 calories.
(Correctly deemed “FALSE” but there’s more to it.)

2. Three squares a day works as well as a “many mini meals” plan.
(Typically “TRUE” as stated with an important caveat.)

3. A history of yo-yo dieting wrecks your chances of future weight-loss success.
(Yes, “FALSE” as stated, and I have pretty much nothing to add to Graham’s assessment.)

4. Exercise does not burn off pounds. 
(No, no this is not “TRUE” as claimed for specific reasons I’ll cite.)

5. It’s best to set challenging weight-loss goals.
(I’m OK with “TRUE” but there is an important footnote.)

6. Milk drinkers lose more weight.
(Yeah, “FALSE” is right on and there’s an even better alternative to the suggested yogurt.)

7. Tracking carbs is the best way to keep pounds off.
(The “FALSE” claim on this one is confusing, but I’ll yak about it anyway.)

8. You have to watch what you eat – forever.
(This is marked as “TRUE” and it is for most of us.)

OK, now that the stage is set, let’s get into the details presented in The Surprising Truth About 8 Common Diet Strategies, and then launch into my twist on things.

From time to time, it may be handy to refer to Janice Graham’s article, which is right here.

The Truth (and My Truth) About 8 Common Diet Strategies

1. To lose a pound, you must cut 3,500 calories. (“FALSE”)

The reason this is marked “FALSE” is that while in the lab 3.500 calories equals a pound of fat, this doesn’t necessarily hold up in the real world with real human bodies.

Remember: a “calorie” is the approximate amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. (Source)

Which makes me wonder if scientists figured out that it takes 3,500 calories to make a pound of fat by heating up water hot enough to burn a pound of the unsightly jiggly, and then measured how much energy was needed to make the heat.

(Just kidding.)

Anyway, the point Yahoo makes from citing the work of Kevin Hail, Ph.D. is that as you lose weight your metabolism slows down, and thus as you get thinner and thinner, each extra pound of fat takes more caloric energy (calories) to burn off.

The example provided in Ms. Graham’s article is a 46-year-old woman who weighs 170 pounds and thinks that she needs to cut 500 calories per day to drop a pound per week, losing 26 pounds over six months, but will actually only lose 19.5 pounds according to Dr. Hall.

Dr. Hall has created a “body weight simulator”, which is how he did the math expressed above for our 46-year-old, which looks like this:

And can be watched in action here.

There’s one more thing relevant to this topic – and that’s about the equality of calories.

Are all calories created equal? 

I –and those who actually study this stuff for a living — assert that they’re not; Ryan Andrews over at Precision Nutrition, for example.

The idea here is that different foods will affect insulin sensitivity, metabolism and fat storage differently.  Manufactured food – the stuff that lives in cans and boxes and resembles nothing like that which is grown on farms – are “non-foods”.

As Ryan Andrews puts it in his post, All About Dietary Displacement:

“Non-food” calories are more likely to be stored as fat, degrade health, lead to further hunger, lead to further food preoccupation, and low energy levels.”

The moral of the story is to eat a variety of lean protein (grass fed meat and low-mercury fish), complex carbs (low glycemic brown rather than while), healthy fats and as little manufactured food and drink (soda, fruit drink) that you can manage.

More about calories:

• Metabolism’s Role in Burning Body Fat
• More Than 50 Ways to Cut Fat Calories
• How to Measure Your Basil Metabolic Rate (BMR)
• Want Longevity? 5 Alternatives to a Calorie Restricted Diet
• This Holiday, Overeat and Gain No Weight!

2. Three squares a day works as well as a “many mini meals” plan. (“TRUE”, somewhat)

In the Yahoo article, this one is marked “TRUE”, but then correctly makes an important caveat, which is: three meals per day is as good as several frequent meals throughout the day only if you’re good at portion control.

If you’re going to eat three modest meals and two healthy snacks each day, the key is not to actually wind up eating five modest meals.

Frequent eating requires good food quantity control. If you aren’t adept at that, then stick with the traditional three squares per day.

More about meal frequency:

• How Many Meals Per Day Do You Think Is Optimum?
• Get Thin With These 5 Foods

3. A history of yo-yo dieting wrecks your chances of future weight-loss success (“FALSE”)

Over the years, it’s been an oft-cited mantra that yo-yo dieters are damned to eternal fatness. But now the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle says something like, “not so, yo-yo”.

Their research asserts that even women who lost 20 or more pounds on three or more occasions were still able to follow yet another new diet and exercise program just as ably and successfully as those who don’t yo-yo.

(Yes, their focus was women because, apparently, they are overwhelmingly representative of yo-yo dieters.)

This is good news and I hope it get propagated throughout the land till everyone who is dejected and dizzy from yo-yoing realizes that they can still get trim.

4. Exercise does not burn off pounds. (“True”, they say; “Not, say I.)

Janice Graham, the writer of the Yahoo article under review here, begins this part with:

“It’s hard to believe, but in a study of 411 women, those who worked out for one, two, or three hours a week for six months didn’t lose significantly more than those who’d devoted themselves to Suoku or other sedentary purists.”

She goes on to say: “You’d think this finding was a fluke…” and then mentions 15 studies that conclude the same.

The reason touted for this surprising, “fluke”-like result is explained by how the body adapts to weight loss by lowering resting metabolic rate, thereby burning less calories – a similar situation as described in #1 above.

If, like me, you’re thinking that these outcomes don’t pass the smell test, Diana M. Thomas, Ph.D., of Montclair State University in New Jersey, provides us a clue about what may be actually going on here.  She says that although the exercisers didn’t lose weight, the exercise:

“… helps reduce your waist and gives you a firmer, leaner-looking shape overall.”

So, I’m thinking that two things are going on here that unwittingly contributed to the assertion that “exercise does not burn off pounds:

a)    Total pounds may not have gone down but the fat component decreased, as the muscle component increased, thus resulting in Ms. Thomas’s description about improved “shape overall”; and

b)   The women’s exercise intensity and type were subpar to burn fat.

Listen up and listen good:

It’s true that, generally speaking (that is – for most of us), diet is more important than exercise from a strict fat loss point of view. But as the economists like to say: this is a necessary but insufficient condition.  (Irrelevant fact: I studied economics in grad school.)

To the extent that your exercise builds muscle, that muscle – although weighing some 40% more than the fat it replaces will increase your basil metabolic rate (burn more calories at rest) and slow down the ravages of aging.

Not to mention, make you look better.

Nuff said.

Learn more about fat-burning exercise:

• Five Diet and Exercise Myths that Need to Die
• The Anti-aging Effects of Exercise
• Boost Your Human Growth Hormone in 20 Minutes!
• 90% of Sustained Weight Loss Includes Exercise and Diet
• How to Measure Your Metabolic Rate and Why It’s Important

5. It’s best to set challenging weight-loss goals. (“TRUE” with a twist.)

A Dutch study is cited showing that:

“… the more weight loss the participants strived for, the more effort they made – and the more weight they reported losing after two months.”

The conjecture is that ambitious goals are more “energizing” and pumps up “your commitment and drive.”

I have no complaint with this assessment, but my twist is that although you can make your goals ambitious, they should then be parsed into smaller, more easily achieved sub goals that as achieved they step by step enable you to complete the bigger ambitious goal.

As I wrote in Why Your Goals Should Be Small:

“Make goals that are small, but in the direction you want to go.”

The point is to make them achievable, because there’s nothing like one success that catalyzes another.

The example I use in Why Your Goals Should Be Small is a person who is 50 pounds overweight.  My presumption is that someone in this situation got there over the course of many years, and through “an assortment of activities, propensities, emotionally charged stuff and habits.”

And that it’s precisely because of these big, entrenched reasons that losing 50 pounds is too big of a goal psychologically for most people.

It probably took years to gain that weight through an assortment of activities, propensities, emotionally charged stuff and habits.  And it’s precisely these big entrenched reasons that make losing 50 pounds too big of a goal.

I think it would be better to break down the process of achieving the loss of 50 pounds into specific, achievable sub goals, each leading to the rapturous one.

What do you think?

More on this:

• Why Your Goals Should Be Small
• Practice Your Fears With Tim Ferriss
• Six Tools To Make Your Resolutions Come True

6. Milk drinkers lose more weight. (“FALSE”, yep.)

Researchers from Harvard examined 29 studies about this and found that over the long run, milk does give you a white mustache to help your friends take their eyes off your increasing girth.

Do you like diary?  Eat yoghurt, or better yet, kefir.

Kefir?

Yep, the probiotics contained in kefir far exceed those in yoghurt in both quality and quantity.  You can get it at many grocers and all health food stores.

Why should you bother?

Well, in addition to substituting a fat-producing diary drink (milk) with a lower calorie, healthier alternative (kefir, or yoghurt), you will also be taking a large step toward gastrointestinal health.

You might have read that our bodies have more organisms that are “not us” than are “us”.

Trillions of them.

Some are beneficial and others are not.  Simply put, probiotics feeds the good guys and that’s really good for us.

Read more about probiotics:

• All About Probiotics
• End Sluggish Digestion
• Eating for a Long Life: WebMD’s 13 Tips

7. Tracking carbs is the best way to keep pounds off. (“FALSE”…)

As mentioned, the Yahoo write-up on this confuses me.  Basically, the assertion is that counting grams of carbs or fat ingested doesn’t make for a successful weight loss technique as compared to a balanced plan:

“A balanced plan topped the usual technique of counting carbohydrates or fat grams in a study of adults who had recently lost a significant amount of weight.” (Source)

I don’t get if the point is that counting any macronutrient (such as fats or carbs) is futile for weight loss, or if it’s the actual amount of each respective macronutrient that is being, uh, weighed?

If you have a moment, go here and scroll down to #7, read it and tell us what you think.

The conclusion presented about the need to make your carbs be “low glycemic”, along with a balance mix of healthy fats and proteins is one I can readily get behind:

“The study’s balanced plan included lots of whole grains, fresh vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, healthy fats like olive oil, and lean fish and meats; it excluded heavily processed foods like white bread and instant rice.” (Source)

 The skinny on carbohydrates:

• What’s Making Us Fat and Sick?
• Pump Up Your Metabolism: Eat Protein, Not Wheat
• Why Dr. Weil’s Anti-Inflammatory Food Pyramid May Be The Best Diet
• How Sugary Is Your Blood?

8. You have to watch what you eat – forever (“TRUE”, typically)

Yes, indeed, we all know someone who can eat anything and still stay trim.  That’s not me, and, likely, that’s not you either.

We need to pay attention to what we eat and how much of it.  This is particularly true in this age of manufactured food, where most of what you can buy in a supermarket is adulterated food; meaning, processed.

Manufactured foods possess the “Holy Trinity” of salt/sugar/fat, and it’s designed to make you want as much as you can stuff in as often as you can.

As weight-loss researcher Fiona Johnson, Ph.D., of University College London puts it in the Yahoo article I’m here referencing:

“… the constant bombardment of food temptations has led to a situation where self-control is essential.”

Psychologists suggest that rather than live a life completely denying yourself the guilty pleasures of the Holy Trinity, do occasionally indulge.

“Occasionally” is the operative word.

Here, a scale is useful.  As in, use it.

Weigh yourself regularly and when you see that an extra pound has appeared out of nowhere, remember what “occasionally” is supposed to mean.

As long as you take swift action in reaction to thoaw uninvited pounds, they won’t sneak up on you year by year till one day you look in the mirror and wonder where you went, and where that other person staring back at you came from.

Good stuff to know about diets, et al:

• Diet 101
• Food, Diet and Nutrition
• Lose Weight Without Dieting
• 5 Simple Things to Live Longer, Better
• 10 Unusual Tips About Losing Weight
• Are You Addicted to the Holy Trinity of Salt, Sugar and Fat?

Conclusions

1. Calories are confusing critters.  The way they affect your body is largely determined by the food/drink source of the calories and what’s happening to you metabolically as your lose weight.  Eat high quality fats, particularly omega-3 fatty acids, low glycemic, so-called complex carbohydrates, and lean protein (grass fed meat, low-mercury fish, organic diary). To help with gastrointestinal health, consume probiotics.

2. When it comes to the number of meals you eat per day, know yourself.  If you’re good with portion control and can really eat two small, healthy meals intermixed with three modest sized ones, try it.  Otherwise, stick to three.  Whichever you do, consider consuming 30 grams of protein within the first half hour after arising, as this might set you on the right path the whole day, given the satiety that the protein will provide.  (Read Like Time Ferriss, I Try to Overeat Without Gaining Weight.)

3. While it’s true that – if you had to chose just one — diet is more important than exercise for losing weight… for true health you must move the body and eat right.

4. Make your goals manageable.  “Reach for the stars and you may get the moon” is an apt analogy, because you know the stars are unreachable from the outset given from where you’re starting.  So, if the stars are really the dream, make the first goal a star ship, next the moon, and go from there.

5. Remove “diet” from your mindset and replace it with “lifestyle”.  The point here is to make a lifestyle change that incorporates a new and different way of eating for the long haul, as opposed to some restrictive diet that you have to suffer through for some defined time frame.

OK, so that’s it for this post.

Please feel free to dive into the Comments below.  You may agree with me, or tell me I’m nuts.

Yep.

The post 8 Common Diet Strategies: Myths and Truths appeared first on Garma On Health.

Yes, stress is a super ager, but it’s manageable and the benefits of doing so are huge. Watch SciShow’s Hank Green present some details, and Physicist Michio Kaku dive into how stress messes with genetics.

MY OPEN secret is that I’m very focused on life extension, as in mine — and thru many of the topics here explored on this site, yours.

Over the years, the stuff I’ve been doing seems to be working, and this has not gone unnoticed.

Now, when I do a detox cleanse, my buds clamor to jump aboard. When people are visiting and they see me reach for the supplement box, they want to know about my latest protocol. And, they wonder, why a once-committed gym rat now rarely enters one; or why I now stress mobility rather than heavy weightlifting exercises.

(I have nothing against gyms, just wanted to test what’s possible without one.)

Another open secret is that I intend to finally focus this blog on health matters related to living a long and strong life.

After all, that’s what I’m doing, day in, day out… step by step, I’m tweaking that which will – hopefully – add up to some fine, long, strong unencumbered living.

One tweak that is essential, and so really is not a “tweak” at all, but a “major rehab” is the topic of this post: “why stress is the biggest super ager of them all.”

We “Age” Based On How We Live

Let’s begin with the two ways you can measure aging.

In our normal parlance, the way we measure “age” is by math: Today’s date minus date of birth. The other way age may be measured is determined by genetics and behavior. Often this measure is called “bioage”, or “real age”, as Dr. Oz and his associates like to put it.

There’s nothing you can do about chronology – the math that measures your years on this planet, but there’s a ton that you can do about your biology, or bioage.

I follow a fellow named Doug who writes a blog called Health Habits. Recently, he tweeted a link to his Pinterest page that shows “385 of the most inspirational fitness pics you will ever see.” One is particularly relevant to us at present.

This is a picture of Ernestine Shephard, a 74-year old body builder who never stepped into a gym till she was 56!

How old do you think you’re body’s going to be when you’re 74? Certainly, Ernestine proves that chronology does not equal biology – her biological age is far younger than her actual age.

And, not to leave the other gender out of play, consider the famous example of Dr. Jeffry Life, the medical doctor who in the process of working away his obesity committed himself to youthful hormone balancing, healthy eating and lots of weight lifting.

This is Dr. Jeffrey Life at 72:

I present some details about him and his work here.

Now that you’ve had a glimpse of what’s possible, let’s turn to what may be the biggest thing in your life that could prevent you from living a long and healthy life.

It’s not a lack of exercise — though that does contribute to premature aging — nor is it sitting all day, overeating or binge drinking – all significant factors as well.

But the single biggest premature ager of them all is stress.

Chronic stress!

Chronic stress is not the type that enables you to instantly spring into action to avoid being tiger food, but the type that hold’s onto you all day, and all restless nightlong.

Hank Green now enters our stress story with a fun introduction to the biochemistry of stress in his SciShow video, “anxiety”. (Yeah, anxiety is stress.)

The Cortisol/Telomere Dance

We need to drill down into cortisol and telomeres, because when they join hands they can bring you down to your old, achy knees.

Cortisol is the major reason that I suggest you moderate your consumption of coffee.

Yes, it’s true that some recent research suggests it can be healthful, given that those with poor diets may get most of their antioxidants from coffee. But, using coffee as your primary source for antioxidants may be a high price to pay:

–> Drinking one cup drunk at 8:00 AM and your cortisol levels will be elevated till about 10:00 PM.

Cortisol has earned its nickname, “The Death Hormone.” Elevated cortisol has long been known to do various nasty things to you, such as altering immune system responses and suppressing the digestive system, the reproductive system and growth processes.

But cortisol does something else that’s far more pernicious, which has only recently been proven, and was significant enough to win Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn a Nobel Prize in 2009.

Before I tell you what she discovered, you need to know about telomeres.

Telomeres are nucleotides found at the end of chromosomes that keep them (the chromosomes) from deterioration subsequent to each cell division. Telomeres are commonly compared to the plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces; without them, the shoelace would fray and eventually become useless.

As telomeres shorten, we age. In fact, scientists can accurately determine lifespan by measuring the length of your telomeres.

Back to Dr. Blackburn…

What Dr. Blackburn discovered was that the enzyme that keeps telomeres intact – called telomerase – is compromised by the elevated cortisol existing in a particular population, that of long-term care givers.

Turns out, this was the ideal group in which to measure consistently high cortisol levels. Long-term caregivers, such as those with both elderly parents and children to care for – and let’s add in a job – are under constant, if low level, stress.

Their adrenals are not making them sprint up a hillside to avoid the tiger, which would be fine (assuming the getaway was successful), because the cortisol pumping into the body would be temporary in this situation. Instead, the issue at hand here is the chronically elevated cortisol, which leads to reduced telomerase activity, and premature telomere shortening.

Next up, Physicist Michio Kaku talks telomeres and the one proven (and unpleasurable) way to extend lifespan:

Reduce Stress This Way

Have you heard the proposition that stress exists only inside your own head?

The idea here is that we each have a conscious choice about how to react to any external event that may intrude upon us.

The typical example is how two people could react completely differently to the same traffic jam. Person A leans on his horn, sticks his head out the window to hurl invectives, sweats and cusses. Lotsa cortisol pumping for Mr. A. Whereas, Ms. B is rocking to the music on her radio. She notices the pretty day, and gets a kick from watching Mr. A turn red, a really pretty shade of red, she thinks.

Our goal is to be B.

Integrating the right attitude into our consciousness is the first thing to do. (Remember, your thoughts and emotions constitute your attitude).

Other stress management activities include:

• Eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise and plenty of sleep
• Practicing relaxation techniques
• Fostering healthy friendships
• Having a sense of humor
• Seeking professional counseling when needed

The payoff for reducing stress is pretty darn big. Beyond peace of mind, we’re talking a longer, healthier life.

UPDATE: Dr. Mercola just posted a good review of the damage stress does and his video reviewing some stress-busting ideas right here.

What’s Your BioAge?

As long as we’re on the topic, know that Dr. Oz, Dr. Rosen, and others have put together a questionnaire that measures your BioAge, or “real age” as they term it.

They also say that stress is the biggest ager of them all.

I recently watched a Dr. Oz show, which I think was called, “Drop A Decade”, where he shared some aging stats.

Here are some activities and the amount of “real age” reduction they enable, according to Drs Oz and Rosen:

- Meditation, 1.7 years
- Social Interaction, 8.5 years
- Daily Walk of 30 Minutes, 12 years
- Vitamin D, 1,000 IU/day, 2.6 years
- Daily Flossing, 6 years

I suggest that you don’t regard these numbers as set in stone, but estimates; still they give an idea of the relative merits of each activity.

If you’re curious about all this, you can go to the RealAge site, answer a comprehensive set of questions, and get an estimate for your real age.

Also, you may wish to read one or more of these posts pertinent to the subject at hand that live right here on this very site:

The Anti-aging Effects of Exercise

5 Common Injuries of 4 Aging Athletes

Here’s Why Exercise Slows the Aging Process

Boost Your Testosterone Naturally

Fellas, How Sturdy Is Your Morning Wood?

Ray Kurzweil’s 100+ Pills per Day Age Defying Fight

How To Live To 100 – Watch

Boost Your Human Growth Hormone In 20 Minutes!

Nine Reasons To Drink Tea and Limit Coffee

Why Coffee May Be Good and Bad For You

The Surprising Reasons Your Kids Should Care About Your Genetics

What A 50-Year Old Volkswagen Can Tell You About Your Lifespan

Yeah, that’s quite a list, but I assure you that there are some pearls in each of the above linked posts. If you have no time now, come back.

And with that, I bid you adieu.

Yep.

The post Why Chronic Stress Is The Biggest Super Ager Of Them All appeared first on Garma On Health.

When you age, a whole cavalcade of biologically and behavioral based things happen that can make you stubbornly hold on to fat. If you want to be svelte, you need to tackle fat with some smart and consistent actions, which I outline in this post, “Baby Boomer’s Guide to Trimming Body Fat”.

(Click to Enlarge)

Note: This is article 4, part 3 to my FREE four-part series about how to build a strong and youthful body.

I’VE NEVER been very overweight, but from time to time, I’ve been softer than I’d like, perhaps 15 pounds or so away from a decently muscular and trim visage.

Many of my peers are quite stout, or skinnyfat (thin, but still having a high percent body fat). They consider me fit. Part of the reason for that is that I got immersed in health stuff early in life, and did not do some of the typical things that can add stress and absorb time, such as get married, have kids and work for 30 years without a break.

You know, the usual stuff.

If you’re married and have children, you know that I’ve missed out on some amazing experiences and feelings, but the silver lining is that I’ve had more time to devote to self-experimentation than most.

The upside is that now well into my fifth decade, my body has transcended its age – at least at the moment.

What I mean is that my biology does not = my chronology.

Part of the reason is diet: food, drink and supplements that all help with trimming body fat.

I could wax and wane till you’re bored silly about diet stuff, but instead I’d like to drill down to something both tangible and implementable. (Yes, it’s a word, even if an awkward one.)

This post delves into the weekly rhythms of my fat-loss focused dietary life, with the aim of giving you some ideas to carry out yourself.

As you’ll see, I don’t enumerate much about specific foods, but rather underscore specific principles.

After they’re laid out, I’ll turn to how these principles are applied in my weekly dietary regimen, and then offer a quick summary.

So, this post is organized thus:

· The Seven Principles for Trimming Body Fat
· My Weekly Dietary Regimen
· Summary

This is a long post, so I’ll be kind and suggest to those of you with little interest in this, or little time to devote to it, scroll down to the bottom Summary. If that tweaks your interest, you can always read more.

MY SEVEN PRINCIPLES FOR TRIMMING BODY FAT

I’ve chosen these seven principles because they are fairly hot topics on the Web and blogosphere, sometimes fiercely debated. So, here I’m adding my two cents, as well as what my experience suggests is worth exploring.

#1. Carbs Are Bad

Carbohydrates from grains, particularly high glycemic carbs, impair the appropriate insulin/blood sugar/leptin response and thereby have a tendency to make you fat unless you exercise a lot, such as doing long bouts of cardio.

I underscore “cardio” (exercises that tax your cardiovascular system) because you need to ingest carbs to fuel you for, say, an hour of cardio exertion, but you typically don’t for anaerobic exercises.

If you have any doubt about this, check out my post, What’s Making Us Fat and Sick, which starts out like this:

(The above link will also bring you to a discourse on high glycemic carbs and how insulin resistance begins the malevolent cycle of turning high glycemic carbs into body fat.)

Perhaps you’ve heard of “slow carbs“, a term that self-experimenter, Tim Ferriss popularized, or the more commonly used term, “complex carbs”. They — as do “low glycemic carbs” — refer to carbohydrates that digest slowly and do not cause glucose and insulin levels to surge in response to eating them.

If you want to eat carbs, stick to those that are slow. A good rule of thumb is to avoid carb foods that are white (pasta, bread, rice) and live in boxes (various processed food and cereals).

Over time, a diet devoted to fast carbs will desensitize insulin, making it resistant in its response to ingested carbohydrates, which eventually can cause diabesity, a term popularized by Dr. Mark Hyman that refers to the unhappy combination of diabetes and obesity.

I primarily eat carbs after workouts, and mainly they’re of the slow variety.

#2. Fat Is OK

Eating fat is less apt to make you fat than eating carbs, assuming about the same level of calories consumed. In fact, fat has had a resurrection in popularity of late, given that recent studies challenge the long-standing assertion that one particular type of fat — saturated fat — is not the evil cardiovascular-impairing fat it once was thought to be.

That said, your aim is not to be unmindful of your consumption of saturated fat; rather to make sure that the butter or meat or coconut oil you eat were, or were derived from, no-hormone, grass-fed critters in the case of the first two, and organic/cold pressed in the case of the third.

What remains unchallenged is that trans fat (found in processed foods) is bad, and omega-3 fatty acids are good, so focus on eliminating one and increasing the other. Foods rich in omega-3 fats include avocados, sardines, salmon, fish oil, flax seeds, chia seeds, hemp seeds, walnuts, Brazil nuts and the like.

The omega-6 fats from olive oil are fine, but the balance between them and omega-3s are important. Since most of us get far more 6s than 3s, given the prevalence of olive oil over, say, fish oil, this balance is out of whack for most people. So, again, focus on ingesting more omega-3s.

#3 Coffee is OK

But there are conditions.

As Dave Asprey over there at the Bulletproof Executive will tell you as he describes his Bulletproof Coffee, it must be organic, grown at high altitude, air-dried and contain no mytoxins. (For more about this, go here and scroll down to “Dave Asprey”.)

Another condition is the amount you drink. Caffeine may be a beneficial stimulant, but it also raises cortisol levels, which has a negative cascading effect on your health.

Although cortisol is essential to enable our bodies to support stability and balance during acute periods of stress (short bouts of fear, physical trauma, physical exertion), excessive amounts of cortisol can destroy the immune system, shrink the brain and other vital organs, decrease muscle mass, increase inflammation throughout the body, and cause thinning of the skin.

As Dr. Nicholas Perricone puts it:

“In the anti-aging field, cortisol is known as the death hormone because it is associated with old age and disease” (Source)

If you drink one cup in the morning and leave it at that, the benefits of good coffee (as above described) may out weigh the benefits (read this debate), but if you ingest more than one cup, do something to mitigate its pernicious effects, such as taking systemic stress reducing adaptogens like Rhodiola Extract and Ashwagandha Root Extract.

If you sweat or feel slightly nauseous when drinking coffee, it may be a sign that you don’t digest it well. Do yourself a favor – drink tea instead.

#4. Free Range Red Meat Is OK, But Salmon Is Better

Hey, if you like meat, odds are you’re committed to it. What I’d like to do is tweak your meat-eating habit a bit by suggesting that you:

· Not eat it everyday, but mix it up with other sources of protein;
· Choose no-hormone, on-antibiotic, grass-fed meat; and
· Eat some fish, such as Alaskan salmon, Pacific herring, cod, halibut, etc.

What’s great about salmon is that it’s high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids. The protein builds muscle and the omega-3 fats help reduce stress and inflammation.

(Two posts that wade deep into the meat debate are: Is Meat Good For You? 8 Experts Chew On It, And 4 Spit It Out, and What You Need To Know About Coffee, Saturated Fat and Red Meat.)

Personally, I have to fight a tendency to consume all my protein via various powders.  They’re quick to prepare and exacting in terms of quantity of protein consumed.  The issue for me is that they’re processed, another example of manufactured food.  That said, you can find some pretty righteously made, high-quality protein powders, but I still think that other non-powdered sources are a good idea.

It’s pretty clear that eating protein with your meals and snacks will help with satiation, so you’ll eat less overall.  Not to mention muscle. Protein helps build muscle. More muscle = a higher basal metabolic rate = more fat burning.

(Read: How to Measure Your Basil Metabolic Rate, and Why It’s Important That You Do.)

#5. You Need To Disrupt Homeostasis

What I mean here is that our marvelous bodies are very smart and they know how to survive, and so if you suddenly cut your caloric intake and sustain this low-level, your body will eventually stop losing weight. It will change its basal metabolism and other systems to maintain a certain level of  fat, which evolutionarily speaking, protected us from burning too many calories during famine.

In order to keep the body from adjusting its metabolism to accommodate fewer calories while stubbornly holding on to its fat, you can try to disrupt this homeostasis mechanism by consistently being inconsistent with the amount of calories you eat, and perhaps even when you eat certain macronutrients, such as carbs.

This distills down to two things that you might try:

1. Chose one day per week as a “cheat day” where you eat whatever you want; and
2. Eat most of your carbs after you exercise.

For this to work, you have to know yourself.  You can’t say, “Oh I just ate a gallon of ice cream… I guess today will be my cheat day.” And then two days later, “Geez, well, that pizza sure went down nicely… today is a cheat day too!”

One cheat day per week is good for a person who can suspend their desire for gratification, knowing that each week, there will be a day designated for it.  If you can’t do that, forget about this homeostasis disrupting tactic.

This also applies to designating a particular time for eating carbs.  If you find that you’re eating them both before and after your workouts, obviously, this tactic is not for you.

If you don’t exercise, consider eating most of your carbs during lunch. Ayurevdic Medicine is a multiple-thousand year old Indian tradition that says that your digestion capabilities are strongest mid day and that it is then that you should eat your heaviest meal.  Non-exercisers might try that.

#6. You Need To Build Muscle

This goes for you women as well.

It has nothing to do with looking like a body builder, unless that’s your thing.

The simple fact is that without some sorta resistance training, the average person can lose as much as 3 to 5% of their muscle mass per decade after age 30. This is called Sarcopenia, and you don’t want it to happen to you.

You build/maintain muscles by using them; meaning, making them resist certain forces applied to them, such as gravity.

YouTube is stuffed with “how to” exercise videos. On this very site, I show how you can apply resistance to your body without the use of weights in what I’ve called, The Homestead Workout. (Yeah it’s goofy, but you’ll get some ideas.)

#7. You Need Reset Your Hormones

If you’re younger than 40, read this anyway, because if you’re lucky, someday you’ll want to know why you’re feeling old. When that happens, this information will be handy to know.

We live in an estrogen-producing world of food and chemicals. The result is that men often have too much of it. With women, it’s more complicated, but often after menopause, many have too little estrogen and too much testosterone.

For men, too much estrogen produces similar symptoms to too little testosterone: Belly fat, listlessness, low sex drive, muscular atrophy, etc.

Naturally, women need and thrive on more estrogen than men, but too much, sometimes called “estrogen dominance” can imitate other syndromes such as metabolic syndrome, fibromyalgia, lupus, peri-menopause and anxiety. (Source.)

There’s more to hormones than testosterone and estrogen, but suffice to say here that it’s a really good idea to know your hormone numbers via a blood (preferable) or saliva test.

When I got my blood work results back, I was much surprised. (Here’s the story on that.)

You can “reset” your hormones to youthful levels by going to a doctor and getting a prescription for the bio-identical hormones you’re deficient in, or ingest certain supplements and foods, which continues to be my course of action to increase my testosterone.

Now that we’ve covered the six “principles” for losing body fat, I’ll next share with you how I apply them during any given week.

MY WEEKLY DIETARY REGIMEN, etc

You may recall that at the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I’ve never been much overweight, but to fine tune that statement, let me state that there’s some relativity embedded in that declaration.

In my twenties and thirties, I hovered between 10 and 14% body fat. In my forties and fifties, my body fat increased to the high teens, even touching on 22%.  (Check out the body fat percent pictures above and see what your number might be.)

I still looked OK enough, because I also had a decent amount of muscle on my body, and – relative to my peers – was doing just fine.

Or so I thought.

Then one day a couple of years ago, my sister and I were visiting friends who have a house right on Stinson Beach, just north of San Francisco. The ocean was inviting. I went in and splashed around, one eye scanning for one of those White Sharks that harass the surfers once in a while.

When I emerged from the ocean, sis snapped a pic. Later, she showed it to me. And I said something like, “Holly hell, I’ve gotten fat!”

I appeared fatter in the picture than I thought I was, and I intended to do something about it.

It just took awhile to really get serious.

A few months back I began to seriously chipping away at the chub. I developed a pattern, a weekly pattern, which I share in the table below.

Joe’s Weekly Food and Exercise Cycle

The physical stuff enumerated in the box above has a better chance of happening as planned if I begin my day on the right foot, sorta speak.

Here’s how a typical day unfolds…

Gratitude

How you begin your day can influence the quality of your day.

I set myself up to have a great day while still in bed. As I break away from sleep and enter that hypnagogic state before full wakefulness, I:

· Silently utter a series of mantras, or affirmative statements, as I visualize them; and
· Review in my mind’s eye what I wish to accomplish this day.

Since I’m trying to lose body fat, a good part of this bed time reverie is focused on what I intend to do this day in support of that aim.

I then get up, patter to the kitchen, heat some purified water, squeeze a lemon in it, face the window that overlooks Richardson Bay, take in the glory of the sun rising over Angel Island, toast it all, and then slowly drink down the warm lemon water as I recount all for which I’m grateful.

Even if things kinds stink, there’s always something to be grateful for, and the more of them you find and focus on, the sweeter smelling will be your world.

Mobility

All the fluff fluff morning bed stuff done, I continue with my patter, this time to the living room where I do a series of mobility exercises that last for about 5 minutes, warm up my body, articulate the joints and get some blood flowing.

The esteemable Mike Mahler demonstrates some mobility exercise that I like, many of which I do every morning:

(Commercial Break: Maintaining/increasing mobility (aka full range of motion in your joints) is a key to enjoying your life as you age. Would you rather walk around humped over and staring at your shoes, or prance around like Madonna?)

Breakfast

I used to be in the camp that shouts, “You must eat breakfast!”, for a whole host of reasons that are still, I think, mainly true. But what I now understand is that breakfast can take many forms.

What’s true is that most of us will do better if we get some nutrition in our bodies in the morning to help fuel our day. However, there are different ways of going about this depending on your goals.

If you want to lose body fat, as I do, then one tactic is to prolong your fast.

“Who’s fasting?”, you ask.

Well, at the moment you wake up, you have – you’ve fasted from the moment you last ate the prior night till when you woke up, perhaps a total duration of 10 hour.

You can keep it going for a while if you want to adopt a particular method for losing fat.

Some call it “Intermittent Fasting”, and although there are several different ways to go about it, what it basically means is to select periods of time intervals when you don’t eat, or eat very little.

Conversely, another way to think of Intermittent Fasting is that you eat all your meals during a prescribed time range, say 1:00 PM to 9:00 PM, an eight hour period, leaving 16 hours of fasting.

In the recent past, I ate a decent sized breakfast, particularly since I wanted to get about 30 grams of protein in me within ½ hour of awakening.

If you’re consistently breaking down muscle tissue (catabolism) doing activities such as weight training, you need to be consuming protein (anabolism), on a regular basis, as this helps repair and grow the muscle.

Ingesting protein first thing in the morning feeds the body this important repair/building macronutrient, and helps control hunger throughout the day.

That said, besides wanting to feed my body what it needs to recover from the exercise I do, I’m also trying to lose body fat, right.

This Intermittent Fasting method I’m experimenting with requires that I extend the evening’s fasting period so that my body becomes better at using its fat storage for energy.

I try to strike the balance between ingesting enough nutrition, protein and fat (no carbs) to feed muscle and fight free radicals, inflammation, etc. –all components of aging – and keeping the calories low enough as to not yank me out of a fasting zone.

I’ve read that the calorie limit for maintaining the fasting state is 50, but I wind up ingesting more than that in the morning. By time I load up my morning protein/nutritional shake with various goodies, and then add the coconut butter I blend in my coffee — which I’ll get to in a moment — well, now that I do the math, I’ve probably taken myself out of the fasting zone.

Yeah, looks like all in, I’m eating just under 300 calories in the morning — less than a typical breakfast, but more than is required to keep me in a fasted state.  The good news is that Intermittent Fasting comes in many incarnations, so experiment with it.

Morning Nutritional Shake Ingredients:

- 8 oz of pure Water
- 4 oz of Aloe Vera juice (helps absorption, digestion, etc.)
- 4 oz of either organic Coconut Water or plain organic Almond Milk
- 1/2 teaspoon concentrated Trace Minerals
- 2 tbls Chlorophyll (binds to and helps purge heavy metals)
- 1 tbls of grounded organic Flax Seed (omega-3 and fiber), or Chia Seeds or grounded Hemp Seeds (omega-3 and fiber)
- 1 teaspoon Pine Bark Extract (reduces inflammation, boost kidney function, etc.)
- ¼ teaspoon of Hyaluronic Acid (helpful for joint health)
- 1/4 teaspoon of Cinnamon (regulates blood sugar, etc.)
- 1 teaspoon of Turmeric (reduces inflammation)
- 1/4 teaspoon of Black Pepper (makes the tumeric bioavailable)
- 1 heaping tbls of Spirulina powder (extremely nutritionally dense)
- Scoop of Raw Protein powder (18 grams protein)
- Scoop of Whey protein powder (9 grams of protein)

(Product links for some of this is at the bottom.)

Note: Start out with just two ounces of aloe vera juice, and 1/4 teaspoon of pine bark extract and see how it affects you.  I supplement with Curcumin concentrate in capsule form, but the Turmeric spice (which has Curcumin) is thought to be more bioavailable, says Dr. Weil.

These ingredients get some pretty powerful “superfoods” in me that are filled with antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids, protein and fiber.

I admit that if this is all I ate in the morning, I’d be hungry well before my next meal, but there’s one more thing I do which has less to do about nutrition and more to do about stoking the fat burning process of the body and sustaining energy without hunger till the afternoon.

I’m referring to coffee with coconut oil blended with it, a simplified, and not fully conforming version of already-mentioned Dave Asprey’s Bulletproof coffee.

Dave’s BP coffee has the righteous coffee described above + MCT oil (a concentrated form of coconut oil) plus grass-fed butter, blended into a froth of delicious smelling stuff.

Why drink your coffee this way?

The idea is that the MCT or coconut oil and butter in the coffee will keep you alert and energized well into the afternoon, particularly if you have more than one cup, which I would be careful about, as mentioned, due to how it raises cortisol.

I amend the BP coffee formula by skipping the butter and using coconut oil rather than MCT oil that, by the way, stands for “Medium Chain Triglyceride”, which is what coconut oil is, even though it’s a saturated fat, and saturated fats typically contain long chain fatty acids.

Armed with my Morning Shake and my version of BP coffee, I keep my overnight fast going, more or less, until about 1:00 when I have my first meal.

Before we head to lunch, one more point about a liquid breakfast:

If I wasn’t on a program to lose body fat, I might still opt to skip the typical breakfast in favor of liquids, but rather than the shake described, I’d add two handfuls or kale and/or spinach, and a cup of blue and/or blackberries, and blend it all up. I’d also add more than one of the three omega-3 seeds mentioned (flax, hemp, chia) and eat a few Brazil nuts.

Yes, this added stuff would bump up the calorie count, but in this case, I wouldn’t be trying to maintain a fasting state, which we just learned above that I’m probably not doing anyway, given those nearly 300 morning calories that find their way down my gullet.

Lunch

Lunch can be anything as long is the ingredients are high quality, there’s at least 20 grams of protein in it, and the carbs are from vegetable sources.

On exercise days, as well as freshly made veggie juice, or a salad, I’ll allow a piece of high fiber fruit, such as an apple, as the fiber slows down the blood glucose uptake.

(Watch: Juicing so Simple, A Child Could Do it. And Does.)

The fat sources for lunch come typically from organic, cold press olive oil, nuts or half of an avocado.

The protein can consist of any number of protein powders (hemp, raw sprout, pea or whey), left-overs (chicken, fish, or lentils) or eggs.

So, for instance, when at home, lunch is often two whole eggs, two egg whites, zucchini, red onion, perhaps sliced mushrooms too. No bread, unless except it’s a workout day, and then it’s one slice of densely seeded whole grain bread, like Trader Joe’s European Bread.

When out and about, I have to be discerning. Yesterday, I was in San Francisco during lunchtime. The options for food where overwhelming, most of them containing way too many carbs in the form of grains or grain byproducts.

I found a place that offered the option to mix three different salads together, and I choose the lentil salad + the homemade cole slaw salad + the vegetable salad. Although lentils are a great source of vegetable protein, this meal was a bit protein-light. If I had been better prepared, I could have brought along a thermos of whey, or raw sprout protein powder mixed with water, or almond milk.

Snack

If I snack between lunch and dinner, I want the quality high, so I’ll refrain from food-in-the-box crap, and go for any assortment of odd stuff, such as:

- A cup of organic yoghurt mixed with a scoop of whey protein powder
- A few celery stalks laden with almond butter
- A couple mouthfuls of sunflower seeds
- An apple, sliced, again with almond butter
- A high quality food bar, like Raw Organics
- A cup of left-over lentils and a few tbls of Greek Yogurt

You get the snack idea: protein + something else, not carbs from grains.

Dinner

Dinner is any high quality protein source, mostly fish or vegetable based, like high-protein lentils + a bunch of steamed and raw veggies and/or steamed or baked sweet potatoes + avocado, feta cheese or nuts as typical fat sources.

Except for workout days.

On workout days, I allow myself some carbs with dinner, although they’re usually high quality, low glycemic carbs.

I rarely eat pasta, but if I did, it would be after a workout and it would be whole wheat pasta, not white.

The idea behind eating most of the carbs on workout days after the workout is that carbs, in effect, transport protein to the muscle, a concept called “carb backloading” and honed into a fine science by a guy named Kiefer. (Check out his site.)

Workout Nutrition

I typically workout in the late afternoon before dinner. Before and after the workout, I have a shake, the ingredients of which are determined by the workout.

Aerobic workouts

If it’s going to be over an hour and include a lot of aerobic activity, it’s useful to ingest carbs so that my muscles have enough glycogen in them so as not to bonk mid way through the exercise session.

In this case, an hour before the exercise I may eat a cup of oatmeal with 10 grams of protein alongside, or mixed in it. Or, if ill prepared, I may eat half a banana and/or a couple of dates just prior to the workout.

After an aerobic workout, I’ll drink a lot of water and wait for dinner to get my post-exercise nutrition, which, as mentioned will include carbs, which are minimized, if eaten at all, in non-workout dinner days.

Anaerobic workouts

These are either resistance training with body weight or weights (dumb bells, barbells, kettle bells) and/or high intensity interval training.

Because I put much more intensity into my anaerobic workouts than the aerobic ones, and given that they also break down muscle tissue far more substantially, I’m more careful about how I prepare and recover from them.

Typically, I prepare a shake and drink half of it about ½ to one hour before anaerobic exercising, consisting of:

- 16 oz pure Water
- 5 grams of BCCA powder (Branch Chain Amino Acids)

I drink the rest of it during the workout.

I haven’t done so lately, but adding Creatine to the mix is a good idea. It’s about the most studied muscle-building supplement and has a good reputation. The reasons include improving workout intensity, recovery and methylation. (Source.)

After an anaerobic workout, the muscles need feeding. Even if dinner is just an hour away, with a half hour after the exercise I’ll be drinking a post-exercise drink, which then has the added beneficial effect of reducing my appetite for dinner.

Post-Anaerobic Exercise Blended Smoothie

- 12 oz pure Water
- 4 oz Almond or Coconut milk
- 4 oz of Promegrande or Cherry juice
- 2 tbls of Fish Oil (omega-3 fatty acids helpful for stress and inflammation)
- 2 tbls of some combo of organic Flax Seed (omega-3 and fiber), Chia Seeds or grounded Hemp Seeds (omega-3 and fiber)
- 1 teaspoon Pine Bark Extract (reduces inflammation, boost kidney function, etc.)
- ½ teaspoon of Cinnamon (regulates blood sugar, etc.)
- 1 teaspoon of Turmeric (reduces inflammation)
- 1/2 teaspoon of Tribulus Terrestris extract powder (potential testosterone builder)
- 1/4 teaspoon of Black Pepper (makes the tumeric bioavailable)
- ½ frozen Banana, (potassium and carbs)
- 1 cup of Blue or Black berries (phytonutrients and carbs)
- 3 scoops of Whey protein powder (27 grams of protein)

None of these quantities are sacrosanct – you may want more or less depending on your size, the intensity of your exercise and your thirst for experimentation.

By time dinner rolls around on an exercise day, I’ll let myself be more liberal than usual about what I eat, particularly with respect to carbs. But the good thing is that after the post-exercise drink, I’m not very hungry, so I’ve already curbed any likely damage from potential excess feeding.

One Day of Pigging Out

This concept has already been addressed in “Principle #5. You Need To Disrupt Homeostasis”.

One day put aside from the normal routine where you can eat to your heart’s content, as well as one day put aside for a juice cleanse (addressed next) should do the job of keeping your body from maintaining homeostasis, whereby it adjusts your metabolic rate down in response to fewer calories.

Although on this one day, I’m free to eat what and when I want, out of habit, I maintain the low calories, consuming just the morning drink till 1:00, or so, but then I’m off the meter. I eat whatever and how much of whatever I want.

It’s a good idea to schedule your “pig out” day on a strong exercise day. That way, these extra calories have somewhere to go; meaning, at least some of them will be rebuilding muscle etc. after being battered by the exercise.

One Day of Juice Cleansing

As already mentioned in this post, Intermittent Fasting is a concept, not a precise formula that embraces just one specific period of eat/no eat time periods.

I’ve already shared how I’m applying my version of Intermittent Fasting to five of the days in the week, where I typically subsist on a Nutritional Shake taken in the morning until about 1:00, which – given that I stop eating at 9:00 PM the previous night — puts me in a fasted, or very reduced caloric state, for 16 hours during each of these five days.

To this we add two days that disrupt the other five days of consistent caloric input. One was described as “pig out day”, and one is devoted to juice cleansing. Thus, I have two days each week devoted to confusing the homeostasis setting mechanisms of my body.

To help me deal with hunger pangs, I try to stay on a pretty set schedule of ingesting stuff.

Juice Cleanse Day Schedule

· Shake: cut fish oil and hemp/chia; the flaxseed is enough fat for Juice Cleanse Day
· + 1 hour: Psyllium shake (described below)
· + 1 hour: Hemp, Pea, Raw Sprout or Whey Protein + 8+ ounces of water
· + 1 hour: Veggie juice (see how I do it)
· + 1 hours: Psyllium shake
· + 1 hour: Veggie juice
· + 1 hour: Hemp, Pea, Raw Sprout or Whey Protein + 8+ ounces of water
· + 1 hour: Veggie juice
· Before bed, Detox Bath (see below)

There’s noting magical in this sequence, per se, and I repeat the sequence as desired. The idea is that you rotate protein, veggie juice and a psyllium shake throughout the day and night till bed.

The psyllium shake helps reduce hunger. The bentonite in it absorbs toxins that are then passed from the body. The juice nourishes. The protein helps ensure that I’m still feeding the muscles I catabolized the day earlier.

The Psyllium Shake Recipe:

· Pure or distilled water, psyllium husk powder (fiber), bentonite (a liquid clay) and lemon juice (one or two lemons). This absorbs toxins and helps with elimination.

· Wait a bit and down eight or more ounces of water.

Drink the Psyllium Shake no sooner than one hour before or after your juice and protein ingestion so they are not absorbed by the shake.

Before bed I take a detox bath. This is very powerful. You need hot water in a tub, drinking water with lemon, baking soda, ginger powder, sea salt and a loofah. The instructions are at the bottom of this post called, Detoxifying Your Way to Nirvana.

SUMMARY

To summarize yet another overlong post…

· I’m using seven principles to put me on the right course for trimming body fat.
· The ingestion of most of any day’s calories is concentrated after workouts.
· The ingestion of any day’s carbs is concentrated after workouts.
· Principles of Intermittent Fasting are used to confuse homeostasis by reducing calories consumed.
· Principles of overeating are used to confuse homeostasis by increasing calories consumed.
· One day each week is a juice cleanse.
· One day each week is carte blanche.
· Protein and resistance training are consistently used to promote muscle and cut fat.

So far I’ve lost 10 pounds with this regimen over a period of about eight weeks.  Yeah, I get that this is not a blistering pace, but there’s two things to keep in mind:

1. I’ve tweaked this over the weeks, and have only being doing this enhanced version you here for about three weeks; and

2. The closer you get to your ideal weight, the slower it goes. For me, losing these last five pounds will be hard-earned.

If you’ve done something like this, or wind up trying it, or want questions answered, etc., drop us a line in the Comments section below.

Thanks for reading!

Yep.

If you liked this article and want to read the rest of the series, go here!

Product Links

These are affiliate links for the specific products I use. I experiment with different manufactures for the other products mentioned in this post.

Aloe Vera Juice

Fish Oil

Raw Protein Powder

Whey Protein Powder

Rhodiola Extract

Ashwagandha Root Extract

Organic Food Bar

The post The Baby Boomer’s Guide To Trimming Body Fat appeared first on Garma On Health.

The “No Meat Athlete” runs on plants, 100 miles at a time. Matt Frazier’s just a regular guy who has learned to do extraordinary things. Along with nutritionist Sid Garza-Hillman, he tells you how.

EVER SINCE I began this blog sometime back in 2009, I pondered what it should be about.

Given that there are 389 posts here, being unclear what this blog is about is startling.

But it’s true. Just amble about… I’ve blogged about nearly everything within the “health” rubric, and that’s a wide assortment of topics, from health policy to telomeres.

And that’s a mistake!

It’s a mistake from the perspective of providing readers with an immediately definable brand or, in effect, a value proposition clearly discernible upon landing on the site.

Visitors may come to a site via some Google search result, and read the corresponding post of interest, but if they don’t effortlessly ascertain what the rest of the site is about, and its relevance/usefulness to them (the “value proposition”), then off they go, quickly.

Which brings me to a fella with a site that gets it right, not only from this branding aspect, but also in terms of value offered his readers.

He’s currently traveling the country promoting his new book.  Last night, he spoke to a group of avid fans in San Francisco.  I skipped over the Golden Gate Bridge to listen. I wanted to buy his book and meet the man.

Meet the “No Meat Athlete”, and Sid

Vegan Ultramarathoner Matt Frazier is the guy.  His blog, as well as the name of his book, is the No Meat Athlete.

Think about that for a beat or two – “No Meat Athlete”.

I happened upon the site soon after beginning my own.  I immediately grokked the difference between our blogs.

Matt’s was laser focused and powerfully branded.

Mine was diffuse and meandering.

“Garma On Health” is fine if the “Garma” part is some well-known person and readers want to know what his views are regarding health.  But that’s not the case, and since it’s not the case, what’s smart is to have your site branded so when people come to your site they say:

“This is me.”

The reaction, “this is me”, is more powerful than:

“This is for me”.

For instance, again, consider “No Meat Athlete”.  In those three words, Matt Frazier has branded his site for two strong self-identifiers.

People who do not eat meat are not equivalent to people who eat soup.

When you practice vegetarianism or veganism, your self-concept identifies with it: You are a vegetarian; you are a vegan.  Soup eaters, however, do not self-identify with eating soup, and do not refer to themselves as “soupeatarians”.

People who exercise intently, committed to a schedule,  for a specific event or sport are not equivalent to people who exercise here and there.

The first group consider themselves athletes and they will say, “I am an athlete”.  The second group will say, “I exercise”… there’s no “I am” in this self-expression.

So, do you now see the beauty of the blog name, “No Meat Athlete”?

If you’re a vegetarian/vegan, this site’s for you.

If you’re an athlete, this site’s for you.

If you’re both, this site is you.  You park there. You join the tribe, cause these are your people.  And Matt Frazier becomes a guiding light.

Now, although I eat mostly like they do, I’m not a vegetarian or vegan, and am no longer an athlete.  Nonetheless, I am a fan because there’s value in those pages – lessons, ideas, protocols and stories useful for anyone with a pulse.

Including you, presumably.

Here’s what was said at last night’s San Francisco gathering… listen up…

Pearls of Wisdom from Matt Frazier and Sid Garza-Hillman

Sid addressed us first.

That’s Sid over there on the right.

Sid Garza-Hillman is Certified Nutritionist and Weight Management Coach, and the Program Director at the Mendocino Center for Living Well.  You can find him online at Transition to Health, where he serves up podcasts and blog posts about transformative practices to achieve and maintain health.

Here’s the kernel of what Sid shared with us, as interpreted and reconstructed by my imperfect memory:

• Assess where you are and what you’re reasonably willing to do most of the time to improve your health.
• If you love meat and bread, the first step is to eat grass fed meat and whole wheat bread.
• After you have firmly implanted a new behavior, then acquire the next one that brings you closer to your goal.  Just keep moving along the continuum: good, better, best.
• The best food is the most nutritionally dense and easiest to digest.  That would be plants.
• Maintaining healthy habits 80% of the time is sufficient.

I was impressed with Sid and purchased his book, Approaching the Natural: A Health Manifesto, to which he inexplicably was able to get Twitter Founder Biz Stone to write the Foreword.  I’ll let you know what I think of it once it’s read.

Sid handed the baton over to Matt.  Matt’s over there on the right under Sid.

Here’s the kernel of what Matt shared with us, as interpreted and reconstructed by my imperfect memory:

• Right-size your goals. They can be big, but you must believe they’re achievable, and you must put a plan in place to get there, step by step.
• Run slowly most of the time.  Less injury, faster recovery and more energy for those all out efforts a couple times per week.
• When it comes to running, a three-step per second cadence is the most efficient and injury-free pace.
• When it comes to exercise recovery and sustainable energy, eat plants.
• Vegans do need to supplement with B12, but everything else is in the plants, including sufficient protein.

I guess it comes to no surprise to tell you that I was impressed with Matt and bought his book, No Meat Athlete: Run on Plants and Discover Your Fittest, Fastest, Happiest Self, even though Matt did not get Biz Stone to write its Forward. That honor, however, was given to the esteemed Ironman stand-out, Brendan Brazier.

Once I’ve read Matt’s book, I’ll let you know what I think of it.

So now I guess Sid will soon be heading north to Mendocino and Matt will drop down to southern California before he works his way back east to eventually return to his home in North Carolina.

If, perchance, you’d like to hear about how this self-described average guy can run 100 miles, fueled by  plants, check out his schedule and see if he’ll be heading your way.

Over and out.

P.S.  Oh, would make sense to circle back to how I began this post… the subject of branding.  Suffice to say that I’ve learned quite a bit on this topic from Matt’s No Meat Athlete blog, and am actively whittling away at ideas on how to make Garma On Health more focused and relevant to its readers. That would be you!

The post Vegan Ultramarathoner, Matt Frazier, Step by Step appeared first on Garma On Health.

So, there’s no gym, you’re not home and you must do manual labor all day. Never fear, just do the “All Day Workout. (Approved by Moms everywhere!)

MY Mother is kicking my butt.  This is not new.

She lives on an unruly, rural five acres near Olympia, Washington, and a few times a year her dutiful son (that would be me) flies here from California and is instantly transformed from a café bon vivant part-time blogger and business consultant to a dirt-and-grime laborer.

Soon after I settle in, I’m typically presented a long “to do” list. To be fair, Mom keeps me well fed, and sometimes works beside me during the hours of toil, despite her 81 years.

Nonetheless, it can be a grind.  But that’s not the problem.

The Problem

This time around, I’m here for two weeks.  Two weeks is ample time to dent my well-established diet and exercise routines. It’s always a challenge to keep up these when you’re not in your “crib”, as the hipsters say.

If past is prologue, I will not be able to “maintain” my diet and exercise routine. Trying to do that in an environment where I neither control the type of food available, nor my energy reserves necessary for workouts would be an exercise of futility and frustration.

(This I know from experience.  Last time here I gained five pounds.)

The aim, then, is to shape what’s here. What’s here is a combination of what I brought along with me, and what’s already here.

I brought along:

• Exercise equipment,
• Whey protein powder (ImmunPlex)
• Supplements (these)

On the way here from the airport, I got some ingredients for my morning smoothie:

• Kale
• Spinach
• Ginger root
• Cinnamon

Ma already had the other ingredients:

• MET-Rx Protein Plus Powder
• MSM Powder (sulphur)
• Kefir (home-made)
• Frozen organic bananas, strawberries and blackberries…

… Not to mention one awesome VitaMix blender that could make a smoothie out of sandstone and water, or it seems.

So, at this point I have the basics for good nutrition (the morning smoothies and supplements) and exercise (the equipment I brought along).

The challenge is to find any spark of energy for exercise after a long, tough workday shoveling dirt, pushing heavy wheel barrels of dirt up a hill, prepping garden beds, planting seeds, cleaning attics (we have two), moving rock, etc.

Call me a wimp, but typically after a long day of hard labor, I’m unable (or unwilling) to cultivate another bout of energy to apply to exercise.

But I have a solution – The “All Day Workout”.

The Solution

My solution is to integrate the exercise into my day’s work. Let’s call it the “All Day Workout”.

By this I don’t mean, say, push the wheel barrel faster up the hill, making it some anaerobic/resistance training exercise (although I have done that and it is effective).

Rather, what I mean is to intersperse some bona fide exercises into my day’s work.

I walk along a deck many times a day that takes me from the backyard to the front yard. On that deck, I set up a workout station, and at certain intervals when I walk along it, I stop to do an exercise circuit.  Over the course of the day, this will add up to some real exercise.

The deck at the homestead

I first learned about this as a teenager who poured through every muscle magazine I could find. This was the 1970s and Arnold Schwarzenegger was often the muscle guy profiled.

I remember reading that he said he’d sometimes devote an entire day to doing just one exercise. If memory serves, he used the squat as his example.

On the squat rack is some heavily weighted barbell.  Every hour, Arnold would bend under the bar, settle the load along his rear deltoids and trapezoid muscles, step back away from the rack and begin squatting.

One big, wipe out set.

Then Arnold would go about his business until the next hour when he’d do another set.  The next hour, another set. This he’d repeat eight to 12 times throughout the day.

Arnold said that this was a technique to build the size and strength of a muscle group that might need some extra stimulation.

My goal is to use this idea simply to get some resistance training and a bit of aerobics into my day, cause I’m too gassed to do a proper workout out after toiling on the property all day.

Therefore, I set up the exercise equipment to accommodate a sequence of exercises that are done in a fast circuit during the workday; aka, the All Day Workout.

I asked ole Ma snap some pics so you can get a sense of what I’m rambling about.

I mentioned that I brought along some exercise equipment. This is it:

• Jungle Gym XT by Lifeline, and
• Power Jump Rope by Lifeline

Both easily fit into my carry-on luggage.

The Jungle Gym XT is one of the most versatile pieces of transportable exercise equipment imaginable.  From the Lifeline website:

“Suitable for everyone-from beginners to professional athletes-Jungle Gym allows you to use your own body weight for an amazing set of exercises that work you from head to toe. Challenge your upper body with push-ups, tricep layouts, chest flys, dips and chin-ups. Push the limits of your lower body with hip extensions, leg curls, squats and lunges. And get a rock hard core with incline planes, knees-to-elbows and roll-outs.” (Source)

I agree.

Above the outside deck there’s a beam. Around the beam, I encircled my Jungle Gym XT:

Jungle Gym XT affixed to beam

Jungle Gym XT set up on the deck beam and ready to go.

Now, all I need do is place the jump rope at one end of the wood deck next to a cement patio suitable for jumping, and figure out a circuit consisting of various upper and lower body exercises to be done at regular intervals when walking from the back of the house to the front along the deck.

The All Day Workout

I’ve chosen to combine some resistance training along with aerobic conditioning, about 6 minutes per circuit, one circuit done when I pass along the deck, but not more than once per half-hour.

I tried this out yesterday and wound up doing the circuit 10 times.

Here’s the routine, moving from one exercise immediately to the other:

• One leg stair lift – 10 per side, 4-second eccentric, explosive concentric.
• Dips – As many as possible, 2-second round trip.
• Pull ups — As many as possible, 2-second round trip.
• Push ups – As many as possible, 4-second eccentric, explosive concentric.
• Jump rope – One minute.

Workout Details

One leg stair lift.  This is about control. You lower your body down slowly and then explode up once your down foot touches the ground.  Try to use a step that’s high enough to make your thigh perpendicular to the ground when one foot is on the ground and the other on the step.  If you find yourself dropping too quickly, then use a lower step or simply abandon the 4-second eccentric cadence (the time it takes to lower yourself) until you get stronger; meaning, just do it faster.  The reason I just do 10 reps rather as many as possible is that it would simply take too long.

Four seconds down, explode up

Dips.  Do this before the push-ups because it’s harder and you need to be fresh. Dips on the Jungle Gym XT are harder than on a ridged, stable dip platform because here you must exert force to maintain stability, which is also true for the Jungle Gym push-up.  I’m not strong enough to do 4-second eccentric cadence if I want to do more than a few dips, so I keep it at 2 seconds each way (“round trip”).

Dip away

Pull-ups.  Reach up and grab whatever can serve as a pull up bar, in this case a wooden beam.  I insert this pulling movement in between the two pushing movements of the dips and pull-ups so I can give the pushing muscles (chest, front delts and triceps) some rest.

A handy beam for pull ups

Push-ups.  Drop down, readjust the Jungle Gym strap length (lower them) to push-up position and go to it. Unlike with dips and pull-ups, I have enough strength to do more than 10 reps while also maintaining a 4-second eccentric cadence.

Grunting through some Jungle Gym XT push ups

Jump Rope.  I began at one side of the deck with the one leg stair lift, moved to the center to do the Jungle Gym exercises, and now quickly move to the other end of the deck and onto a cement patio to jump rope for one minute.  Then, breathless, I move on to continue my chores before returning to this circuit anywhere from ½ to one hour later.

The blur of a Lifeline Power Jump Rope

Note: Naturally, if you have the time, inclination and energy to put aside a half-hour or more, this routine can be done with whatever number of circuits you can muster, with between two to five minutes of rest in between.

Your Takeaway

It would be great if this post on the All Day Workout inspires some ideas about how you might create innovative workout routines when not at home, or the gym, or wherever you typically do them.

With just a bit of planning, you can make sure you keep up your nutrition and fitness when on the road, or at Mom’s house, even if she gives you one long, butt-kicking list.

Amen.

P.S.  Watch more workouts, get some ideas, pile on the motivation… right… here!

The post The All Day Workout (in the woods, no less) appeared first on Garma On Health.

The older you get, or the more intensely you exercise, the more important your recovery period becomes. We build muscle and exercise capacity during the rest periods — not while exercising — so rest well and smart.  Here’s my “six rules” for exercising injury free, and what happened to me when I ignored them.  (Video at the end of the post.)

I’VE WRITTEN before about fitness + aging = be more careful.  Whether you’re a stud or exercise neophyte, the hard reality is the same:

The same attention must be paid to when you are exercising as when you’re not, or you’ll soon be injured.

To consistently exercise vigorously, particularly as you age, requires the discipline of these six rules for injury free fitness:

1. Get plenty of recovery time,
2. Activate muscles before and stretch after every workout,
3. Increase mobility,
4. Ingest proper nutrition,
5. Cycle between intense and gentle exercise regimes, and
6. Listen to your body.

And you know what?  If you do these six things, you probably still will not sail throughout your long, fit, vigorous life without injury.

Don’t wish to put any ju ju on you, but the stats are the stats.  Certainly, I’m a data point.

Through my many years of pounding weights, riding bikes, running and yoga, I’ve been served more than my fair share of injuries.  I won’t bore you with them all here, but suffice to say that the latest injury is my right leg Achilles tendon.

It’s sore, makes me limp, is (I think) related to hip joint soreness, keeps me from sprinting the stairs for my high intensity interval training, and pisses me off!

How I severed my Achilles tendon on my left leg

About twenty years ago, I popped the left leg’s Achilles tendon while playing basketball.  “Pop” is the right word for it, cause that’s exactly the sound it made, like a bat slamming a fast-pitched hardball.

I had the basketball, took a fast step to the right, intending to drive to the basket, and heard the “pop”.  I had no idea what happened, but immediately stopped, dropped the ball, and actually twirled around to face the nearby baseball field with my arms up and fists clenched.

Yes, in that instant I actually thought that someone had hit my lower leg with a baseball bat.  Actually, it wasn’t a thought, but a reaction.  Of course, no one was there.

For three days, I flopped around trying to convince myself that this was another of my awful ankle twists that playing competitive basketball so generously provided.  Finally, common sense prevailed and I went to an orthopedic surgeon who showed me the simple test for discovering if your Achilles tendon is still working.

If you have a friend handy, lie on your stomach and bend the offending leg. Your friend places his hand around your lower legs so the thumb is against the tendon, an inch or two below where the calf seems to begin.  Squeeze.  If your foot moves, your Achilles tendon is intact, although it could be partially severed or otherwise compromised.

If you don’t have a friend handy, kneel on a sofa with your feet dangling off it behind you.  Reach back and do as described above.

Now, the right Achilles tendon is acting up

I’m thinking that maybe I have some congenital Achilles tendon defect.

Looking back to assess how I got this long lingering (three weeks now) sore Achilles tendon, it becomes clear that I violated two of my “six rules”; namely, numbers five and six:

#5  Cycle between intense and gentle exercise regimes, and

#6  Listen to your body.

I was so intoxicated about how much I was improving with my stair sprinting that I did not cycle in and out of this intense routine, nor did I stop when I got my first twinge that something was wrong.  I slowed down, but did not stop.

So the tendon got worse and now I’m not even walking up stairs much, just hobbling along like an old man. (Although I am working on healing the thing, as I show you in the video below.)

With that overlong prelude, let’s now dive into each of the “six rules”.

Six Rules for Injury Free Fitness

1. Recovery time must relate to exercise intensity.

The more intense an exercise session, the longer and more thoughtful must be the recovery period before you can duplicate the effort again.

The length of recovery is dependent on conditioning and age.  Generally, the more fit and better conditioned you are, the less recovery you need; however, as you age you need more recovery time, even if very fit.

When I say “thoughtful” I refer to what you’re doing during the recovery phase.  Athletes who work out intensively must actively recover.  By “actively” recovering, I mean applying rules number two, three and four during the recovery period:

#2 Activate muscles before and stretch after every workout,
#3 Increase mobility, and
#4 Ingest proper nutrition.

Consider what NBA players do in order to quickly recover between games.  They stretch, get stretched, massaged and fed proper nutrition.

2. Activate muscles before and stretch after workouts.

Prior to exercising, it’s very helpful to move all the major muscles in the body, paying particular attention and time to those muscles you’re about to exercise.  At this point – before exercising – you’re not stretching per se, where you hold a static stretch for a minute or more.  No, before exercise, rather than stretch, you articulate the joints.

By “articulate the joints”, I mean to slowly move each body part that hinges to a joint. Rotate the ankles, knees, hips, shoulders and neck.  After this, you can put some body weight “load” on the joints as you continue to rotate them.

For some muscle activation routines, see the videos in “Section 1” of Get Strong, Muscular and Mobile (Fast).

Another good muscle warm up is to use a foam roller, as I demonstrate in the video below.

After exercising, you get static.  At this point your muscles are very warm, which is the ideal time to go into deep stretches that you hold.  Here’s where you gain new ground – a deeper stretch.

Although it’s a bit of a goofy video, I suggest you view a video of me doing my after-workout stretches in “Section 6” of Get Strong, Muscular and Mobile (Fast).

3. Increase your mobility.

When you’re doing your pre-exercise joint articulation, you’re increasing your mobility in preparation for the work your body’s about to perform.  But with Rule #3 (“Increase mobility”), you’re spending more time at it, doing more complicated movements, going deeper and increasing the range of motion around your joints… in effect, increasing your mobility.

And if you think you’re doing just fine with your mobility, I suggest you watch a child romping around. My niece is nine years old. During any ten-minute time slot, she’s sitting in the lotus position, or sitting on with her butt on the floor, both legs alongside.

If you can still do this as effortlessly, I salute you. For most of us, this type of mobility wanes year by year till we become forward slumping, shuffling immobile oldsters.

All of us have particular problem areas: Stiff shoulders, tight hip flexors, immobile ankles that compromise the quality of our workouts. Now is the time to heel this stuff. If not addressed, these become the weak “Achilles heel” that takes you down.

I have another perfect example that points to the mobility-challenged.

Have you ever tried to do the Olympic lift called the “Snatch”?  If so, you get a real quick insight about immobility.

Check out the picture below.  In order to be able to even hold a broomstick over your head while in a full squat with your buttocks nearly on your heels requires a combination of wrist, shoulder, hip and ankle mobility that few of us have. (Including me.) Imagine what it takes to do what the fella below is doing.

(Watch how the Snatch is performed here.)

Naturally, I’d like you to read the rest of this post, but once you’re satiated with this site, check out Kelly Starrett over at www.MobilityWod.com and get educated about mobility.  Search for what ails you, and do what Kelly suggests.  (I do.)

4. Get proper nutrition.

The more muscle tissue you break down during your exercise (the “catabolic” phase), the more of the proper nutrition you must ingest to build the muscle back up, plus a small increment more that results in larger and stronger muscles (the “anabolic” phase).

The proper nutrition depends on a host of factors, such as the type of exercise, the intensity level performed, and your body type.  Suffice to say that if you’re exercising to build muscle and strength, you need plenty of protein, and if you’re training to run a marathon you need plenty of high quality carbs.

Protein supplement quality is very important.  A favorite kind among weight lifters and nutritionists is whey protein.  The whey should be “denatured” and cold processed. Among the few brands that fit the bill are Dr. Mercola’s Miracle Whey Protein Powder, and Prohealth’s ImmunPlex Undenatured Whey Protein. I use and like both.

If your a vegetarian, good protein supplement selections include pea, hemp and various sprouted grains that usually come in a combination of grain, legume and bean sprouts. There are many choices. The one I like and use is Garden of Life Garden of Life Raw Organic Protein

Carbs should generally be low glycemic, meaning that they’re slowly absorbed into your blood stream.  Low glycemic candidates are vegetables, beans, legumes, and sweet potatoes.  High glycemic foods are white grains, white rice, potatoes, most packaged food and most fruit.

High glycemic foods are OK to eat right before a workout, but the amount and digestibility is key.

For instance, before an intense one-hour workout, eating something like dates is good because it provides immediately usable energy in the form of simple (aka: high glycemic) carbs without making you full.  For longer, less intense aerobic exercise, you would be better off eating something with more complex (aka: low glycemic) carbs in it because they will feed your body longer.

When Is Protein Necessary?

Unless you’re a big-time weight lifter, you typically need not worry about a pre-work out ingestion of protein.  I think that highly regarded strength coach Charles Poliquin (link below) would dispute this assertion, but keep in mind that he primarily trains weight lifters and athletes who train to be strong and explosive (I think), not lithe and enduring.

The reason that most exercise does not require protein loading prior to the work out is that exercise requires fuel, and protein is a poor fuel source.  Carbs are a good fuel source.

Soon after a work out, however, protein should be ingested, along with high quality fats (omega-3 fatty acids like flax seed and fish oil) and carbs.  How much of each macronutrient you eat depends on the intensity, length of and type of exercise you did.

The more your exercise breaks down muscle tissue, the more protein should be consumed relative to your norm. In this case you might want to take up to 40 grams of protein, along with some fruit and fish oil or flax seed oil subsequent to an exercise session that is designed to tax muscle with the objective of gaining size and strength.  The carbs (fruit) will help transport the protein to the cells via the blood glucose uptake response to them, and the fat will help quell inflammation and the inevitable cell oxidation that occurs during and after exercise.

If the exercise was long (+1 hour) and of moderate or light intensity, the mix of macronutrient in your post-exercise meal or drink should favor carbs rather than protein, along with the omega-3 type fats mentioned above.  In this case, the carbs should be of the low glycemic variety, given that you’re not looking to fuel your body for exercise, but to feed and restore it post exercise.

For an insightful post about pre and post workout nutrition, I highly recommend that you read Charles Poliquin’s blog.  You can find summaries of posts about exercise nutrition on his blog here.

5. Cycle between intense and gentle exercise regimes.

Few people can consistently workout intensely day after day without overstressing their bodies and eventually getting burned out and/or injured.

Professional athletes get all the guidance, recuperative potions and assistance that money can buy, and yet those who play intense, tightly scheduled sports such as basketball often tweak, rupture, break or bend something that forces them to stop and repair.

As I’ve written in Boost Your Human Growth Hormone in 20 Minutes, there’s much value in performing high intensity interval training (“HIIT”). By doing HIIT, you can increase the body’s own production of human growth hormone, stimulate fast muscle growth, increase both anaerobic and aerobic capacity, quickly reduce body fat, and get a fast workout.

But as just mentioned, there is a downside to HIIT given the higher probability of injury or plain old fatigue.  So, be smart about intense exercise sessions by making sure that in between them you do “gentle” exercise sessions.

By “gentle” I don’t mean the way you carry a baby.  What I do mean is that you stimulate rather than tax the muscles that you previously worked intensely.  This will bring blood into them and help them repair.

There’s one important thing to know about exercise that must be underscored here, and that is:

You build muscle after the workout out, not during it, and therefore how you recover is essential to how well your training will progress.

(See #4 “Get proper nutrition” above.)

Thus, if you do not give your body adequate time and nutrition to recover from intense workouts, you’re progress will be anemic and an injury will be lurking around the corner.

In practice, then, the day after a sprint workout you could choose to jog and at a slow pace, or do yoga.  Or the day after heavy squats and dead lifts, you could walk some stairs, or do yoga.

(Yes, I’m a proponent of yoga.)

6. Listen to your body.

There’s that old adage, “No Pain, No Gain”.  We remember it because it rhymes and resonates, and who hasn’t exercised hard without feeling pain from time to time?

Pain is memorable.

But what should be obvious is that when it comes to exercise, there’s “good” pain and “bad” pain.  The good pain emanates from the muscular and cardiovascular systems. The bad pain emanates from nearly everything else, such as overstressed tendons, cartilage, joints and bone.

You need to discern the difference, as you can learn to handle the good pain, but must stop what you’re doing when the bad pain happens.

Bad Pain = No Gain + Injury.

This is a lesson that I had to relearn once again. 

My HIIT is often stair sprinting which is easier on my body than sprinting on flat ground.  Nonetheless, as mentioned, about three weeks ago my Achilles tendon started to protest.

I eased up some, but kept at it, which for me meant doing this HIIT workout twice a week, with gentler exercise workouts in between as described in #5 above.

Not good enough: My Achilles “protest” became a jail sentence that I’m still serving three weeks later.

If I had stopped sprinting after the first twinge, and walked the rest of my stair circuits and then took some time off, I might have been able to return to this exercise full throttle.  Because I didn’t, I’m still limping – and certainly not sprinting stairs.

You can imagine what’s happened to my fitness relative to stair sprinting these last three weeks.  I’d guess that I’m nearly back to where I began when I first took up this exercise.

So what did I gain by not listening to my body?

Nada.

In the video below, I show you how I’m treating my Achilles tendon issue.  As you’ll see, my assumption is that my issue resides not only in the tendon itself, but also along the whole leg and hip.

Yes, links in a chain, all connected.

Take a look…

Am happy to report that I’ll soon be on the stairs again.

Yep.

The post Six Rules For Injury Free Fitness appeared first on Garma On Health.

Our human growth hormone speedily decreases after adolescence, and with it goes the lean body mass, energy and healing capacities of our youth. You can supplement with HGH, but by far the best way to get your HGH boost is by high intensity interval training. In this post, I’ll tell you why this is so.

WHILE DOING some research for an “age-proof course” I’m developing, I wanted to get the skinny on whether Human Growth Hormone (“HGH”) supplementation actually works.

I knew that some people with hefty wallets can afford the cost of monthly injections, but was there some other way that the rest of us could benefit from augmenting our HGH?

“Why bother”, you ask?

Let’s start with a picture:

If you’re younger than 20, please return to this post in a few years. The rest of you, read on…

OK, so HGH declines precipitously soon after puberty, and then slows down by age 40, at which point we have less than a third of the HGH production of our youth.

Should we care?

It depends on what kind of life you wish to experience. HGH is rejuvenating. If you want to feel youthful longer, then your HGH production will be important to you.

The rejuvenating powers of HGH are no secret to those affluent enough to afford the more than $1,000 per month tab, and willing to get injected up to twice a day.

The specific reasons they would take the time and spend the money for HGH injections is to experience a handful or more of this:

• Fat loss
• Higher energy levels and enhanced sexual performance
• Regrowth of heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, and other organs that shrink with age
• Greater heart output and lowered blood pressure
• Improved cholesterol profile, with higher HDL (“good”) cholesterol and lower LDL (“bad”) 
cholesterol
• Superior immune function
• Increased exercise performance
• Better kidney function
• Stronger bones
• Faster wound healing
• Younger, tighter skin
• Hair regrowth

I’m going to tell you how HGH can do all this, but first I need to mention that there are now alternatives to expensive injections. One is easy to do, relatively inexpensive and controversial; the other is hard to do, costs basically nothing and is indisputable.

The easy, but controversial way to get your HGH boost is to supplement with homeopathic remedies.

The hard, but indisputable way to get your HGH boost is by HIIT – “High Intensity Interval Training”.

How HGH Works

Remember that bullet-list of magic results above? How does HGH make all that happen?

Let’s begin by presenting a basic description of what hormones are and how they work, and for that I’m going to rely on Jon Barron’s excellent ebook, Lessons from the Miracle Doctors (pages 78 and 79).

Hormones are the body’s chemical messenger system that tell the body what to do and when. As the name suggests, HGH is a hormone. It’s produced in the pituitary gland and released in a series of microscopic “pulses”, mostly in the evening, but throughout the day as well.

These HGH pulses are basically signals that instigate a number of body functions relative to aging and the production of other hormones, such as DHEA and melatonin, and various parts of the endocrine system, including the hypothalamus (considered to be the “master gland”).

HGH’s most important function is telling the liver to produce insulin-like growth factor 1 (“IGF- 1″), the main key to anti-aging. Specifically, the benefits of HGH can be measured in terms of how much it increases the body’s production of IGF-1.

Any number above a 20% increase in IGF-1 is significant as it relates to anti-aging.

What about prostrate cancer?

Well, there were some in vitro studies that showed IGF-1 stimulated tumor cell growth, and a Harvard School of Public Health  study that equated high levels of IGF-1 with an increased risk of prostate cancer. In addition, we’ve all read with amazement stories about people nearly eight feet tall that die of cancer due to an overactive IGF-1 that stimulated both height and tumor cell growth.

On the other hand are numerous studies involving thousands of patients receiving growth hormone over many years with no observed increases in prostate cancer. This makes sense, because both HGH and IGF-1 levels decline as we age – as that graph up there prominently shows — yet the incidence of prostate cancer increases as these levels decline—the exact opposite of the expressed concern.

What about mad cow disease?

Yeah, well, that concern did put the brakes on using HGH harvested from human cadavers.

Thirty years ago, the only source of HGH was human cadavers. As mentioned, injecting this was expensive, but that paled in comparison to the fact that this method occasionally caused the human equivalent of mad cow disease.

Not to be deterred from such madness, scientists learned how to alter the DNA of a single-cell from yeast so that it would produce large amounts of growth hormone –molecularly identical to real HGH — safely and inexpensively. Because this growth hormone is identical to HGH, people often use the terms growth hormone and human growth hormone interchangeably, but it should be referred to as a “plant-based growth hormone.”

OK, so now you have this good, inexpensive source of growth hormone, but another problem remained: the growth hormone molecule contains 191 amino acids, which it too large to be absorbed when taken orally. That meant it could only be administered by injection, which required a doctor and, as already pointed out, is very expensive.

Scientists and marketers went to work and developed three alternatives to HGH injections.

Homeopathic, Secretagogues and Sprayable HGH

If wallet-emptying injections are not for you, there are three alternatives to consider, hopefully with your doctor in the jump seat to help ensure that you don’t harm yourself.

The three HGH alternatives are not as powerful as growth hormone injections, but some medical types (see below) insist that these formulas are effective (provided your pituitary is functioning well) without the downside of injections.

The three HGH supplements are:

1. HGH secretagogues, amino acid–based formulas typically containing ingredients such as glutamine, tyrosine, GABA, arginine, and lysine;
2. Homeopathic HGH, which makes use of real plant-based HGH diluted down to homeopathic levels; and
3. A new form of real plant-based HGH that could be sprayed into the mouth and absorbed orally.

The two downsides to the three HGH supplements are that they might not work and there’s little quality control.

The controversy surrounding all three can be more or less distilled down to the arguments against the effectiveness of homeopathic medicine.

Homeopathy is a branch of science whereby minute quantities of organic material are introduced into the body to stimulate its natural healing response.

My sister has used a whole medicine cabinet of various homeopathic remedies to heal her daughter of the typical avalanche of illnesses that beset children before their immune functions are fully developed. So, she’s a believer, and she has some good, if not sparse, company among the medical establishment.

Consider two medical doctors, Leon Cass Terry and Edmund Chein, who ran a study on homeopathy that produced
affirmative results. After being injected with small doses of high-frequency HGH for six months, participants showed measurable improvement in levels of strength, healing, flexibility, energy and vitality. (Source)

In his book Feeling Younger with Homeopathic HGH, Dr. H. A. Davis states,

When growth hormone is combined with homeopathic preparation, the results are truly on the leading edge of anti-aging benefits. People taking the homeopathic growth hormone have noticed the same effects as the molecular (injectable) HGH.

But, as mentioned, there are plenty of naysayers, particularly among those in mainstream medicine. On his popular site, Quackwatch, Dr. Stephen Barrett eviscerates homeopathic medicine, and concludes his post on Growth Hormone Schemes and Scams saying:

So called “growth-hormone releasers,” oral “growth hormone,” and “homeopathic HGH” products are fakes.

The bottom line here is: buyer beware.

High Intensity Interval Training

Most supplement formulas will increase IGF-1 levels by a minimum of 20%, with some even approaching 100%, if two things are true: Drs. Terry and Chein are right/Dr. Barrett is wrong; and the supplement you use maintains consistent quality batch after batch.

I have no direct experience with HGH supplementation, and therefore can not share anything personally about it. But when it comes to high intensity interval training (“HIIT”), I can breathlessly gasp that I pummel myself sprinting stairs twice a week, and it might be one contributing factor to why I seem to be aging more slowly than most.

The science backs up my gasp.

HIIT promotes longevity in at least two ways:

1. It activates the enzyme telomerase which in turn keeps telomeres long (more on telomeres here); and
2. It boosts HGH and IGF-1 which reduce or reverse age-related degenerative processes. (Source.)

And get this… with HIIT we’re not talking an increase in IGF-1 increase of 20 or even 100%, but over 700% during the workout and for some hours afterwards.

Yes, it’s harder than spraying potions in your mouth, but with HIIT you’re assured that your HGH is increasing, and you’re getting fit to boot.

Here’s what to do for your HIIT sessions:

• Choose an activity that you can get completely breathless, bent over heaving, after 30 seconds of full-out effort.
• Perform up to eight sets of that activity, 30 seconds “on” and 90 seconds “off” with active rest, like walking.
• Do it twice a week, unless you’re a well-conditioned athlete, as you’ll need time to recover.

I do my HIIT by sprinting stairs. I find that it’s easier on my Achilles tendons than sprinting on flat ground.  Drs. Mercola and Campbell use either a recumbent stationary bike or standing elliptical machine. (Watch the videos here.)

Sprinting up stairs boosts HGH production

Start slowly, even if you exercise regularly.  Do the first two or three at half speed.  I didn’t heed my own advice and wound up bruising an Achilles tendon which then sidelined me from HIIT for several months, so what did I achieve by pushing myself before my body was ready?

Don’t make this mistake.

Your Takeaway

Remember the following points:

• Human Growth Hormone is what keeps us youthful.
• It naturally declines real fast after puberty.
• You can boost it by supplements and HIIT.
• HITT works better and improves many other psychological conditions as well.

If you want to supplement, read what Web MD has to say about it, and then get a high-five from your doctor.

P.S. This post was distilled from Hack #11: HIIT It Hard for Your HGH Blast, one of 12 hacks in my forthcoming free course on how to become age-proof.  If you’re interested, get on the list.

The post HIIT It Hard for Your HGH Boost appeared first on Garma On Health.

Six body weight exercises you can do anywhere that will make you functionally fit forever. (Or at least a very long time!)

This article is adapted from "BioHack #12" in the 12 Ageproof BioHacks course. When it's finished, I'll send it to you FREE. Please put your email address in that blue box to the right.

[Video Below]

IF SOMEONE were to ask you, “Do you exercise?”, what image would appear in your mind?

Exercise looks like different things to different people, but at its essence, it’s simply movement. You move your body. If you’re very unfit, just walking slowly may be all the exercise you can do, and that’s where you start.

If you’re four-time CrossFit Champion, Rich Froning, you hoist an elephant on on shoulder and squat jump for a mile. If you’re me, you mix it up — high intensity interval training twice a week, yoga, throw some dumb bells around, and — the focus of this blog post — do body weight exercises.

I’ll get into that in a minute, but first let’s exercise some general concepts about exercise.

Many people don’t exercise because it seems overwhelming.  They see someone like (well, not quite like) Usain Bolt flashing by and mutter to themselves, “I could never do that”, as if that’s the only exercise worthy of their caloric expenditure.

It’s true that right now you can’t sprint like Mr. Bolt, and are unlikely to ever do so, but such considerations are worthless, because they have nothing to do with you.

What has to do with you is what you can do now.  Wait!  That’s not right… it’s not even what you can do now, but what YOU’RE WILLING TO DO NOW!

I have a friend, let’s call him “Mike”, who used to be a nationally ranked athlete in college.  His current exercise regime is sitting in a chair typing away on his computer. (Sound familiar?)  Over the years, he’s packed on 40 pounds of blubber.  Despite this, the guy’s a beast, and on any given day, could arise from his weathered leather chair, hoist me over one shoulder and climb Mt. Tamalpais. But he’s not willing to do so; and, in fact, this exertion would do more harm than good to an unconditioned body.

Another portly friend, “Jim”, was never an athlete, but he’s way better off than the college jock.  That’s because Jim is willing to get his arse out of his chair most every day and walk a mile.   Along the way, he stops at predesignated places and squats and does push-ups.  He can do that, he’s wiling to do that, and he does just that.

When he started, Jim couldn’t walk a mile speedily, so he shuffled a mile.  He couldn’t do a push-up off the floor, so he put his hands chest-width apart on the wall, stepped back and pressed his chest off the wall.  He could do a squat, but it was feeble, as he couldn’t get down much further than parallel to the floor.

What Jim also could do was something life changing. He had a powerfully enabling conversation with himself that instigated action.  It went something like this:

I can’t hoist an elephant on my back and squat jump for a mile like Rich Froning.  I can’t run 100 meters in 9.6 seconds like Usain Bolt.  My name is Jim Smith, and what I can do is shuffle for a mile, push myself away from a wall and do half-assed squats, and that’s how I’ll begin!

You have to start where you are, and be yourself.  The only other alternative is to do nothing.

Be Consistent and the Progression Will Take Care of Itself

Jim’s walking most every day now.  That’s the consistency.  As he does so, he feels more inclined to push his capacity, and does so.  That’s the progression.  His shuffle became a fast walk, including up hills.  His wall push-up became push-ups off the floor.  His tentative half-squats became leaping squats emanating from a deep squat, butt nearly touching his heels.

It doesn’t matter where you start, what condition you’re in.  What matters is that you do start, be consistent and keep improving toward your goal of becoming functionally fit, which by the way, refers to being able to use your body as designed, even under load (resistance).

You’re designed to lift your body, push your body, pull your body, move over distance, up and down.  Bend forward, backward, sideways. Leap across, jump up, twist and turn.  Ideally, your functionally fit exercise routine encompasses all of that.

Depending on your motivation and goals, your exercise can:

• Become more intense
• Become more complex
• Have more resistance
• Last longer

Intensity refers to how much energy, or physical power, is expended performing the exercise movement, expressed as a percentage of the maximal oxygen consumption your body uses when doing it.

Intensity is measured by “Metabolic Equivalent of Task”, or “MET”, a standardized point of reference, which is the amount of oxygen while sitting at rest.  Specifically, MET is 3.5 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight multiplied by the number of minutes.

Here’s a chart to give you an idea of how various common physical activities rate on on the MET scale (courtesy of Wikipedia):

No surprises here: most of us have experienced that jumping rope is more intense than walking.  That said, jumping rope for two jumps would be less intense than walking for an hour up a hill.  Length of time, repetitions and sets all factor into intensity, as we’ll discuss later.

Complexity refers to the degree of difficulty to execute the exercise movement because it requires learning, skill, balance and/or flexibility. The complexity of an exercise or movement is magnified by resistance, such as a heavy weight. The most illustrative example I can think of is the Olympic snatch:

You can quickly get a sense of the degree of difficulty of the Olympic snatch. Go find a broom and try to squat so that your glutes are on your heels, and the broom is held straight up above but slightly behind your head.  Hold that for a bit without wobbling or falling over. Now imagine that the broom weighs 176 kg (388 lbs.).

(Yeah, I can’t imagine it either.)

Complexity is also increased by time — the longer you attempt the complex movement, especially with resistance, the more difficult it will be do accomplish as your body become weary and unresponsive.

Resistance is that 176 kg lifted overhead, or a steep hill you’re running up, or your own body weight applying resistance against your chest, frontal deltoids and triceps as you do a push-up.  The greater the resistance of a particular movement, the less of it can be done.

When you face resistance in an exercise movement, the basic questions are:

•    How much resistance (say, weight)?
•    How many repetitions or time?
•    How many sets?
•    How much rest between sets?

The resistance, repetitions and sets can, together, be referred to as “volume”. Thus, you can increase the volume of a particular exercise movement by using light resistance, few sets and high repetitions (the resistance is light enough for many reps), or by using heavy resistance, many sets and low repetitions (the resistance is too much for many reps but you do many sets).

Length of time refers to how long an exercise movement is to be performed. Generally, the greater the intensity, the shorter the time interval over which a movement can be performed.  Aerobic activities are performed with less intensity but longer than anaerobic activities — jogging vs sprinting.

Six Functionally Fit Body Weight Exercises

A body weight exercise is one that exercises your body using your body weight. (Yes, I came to that conclusion using my own concentrated powers of observation.)  Running fits that description, but here we’ll be focusing on calisthenics-type exercises that make your muscle strong, enduring and preps your body for anaerobic work, such as sprinting and plyometrics.

If a picture is worth one thousand words, video is worth a million, so we’ll refer to select videos courtesy of YouTube to demonstrate these six body weight exercises.  If you need further inspiration or want to observe other techniques, go to YouTube and have at it.

Think Conceptually

You’ll quickly see that these are not just six specific exercises, but exercise concepts (or categories).  What I mean by this is that a “push-up” might convey an image of pushing yourself off the floor using your arms, but this concept can be applied to many different movements done in different ways.  The commonality of all push-up exercises is the use of your arms to engage your chest, frontal deltoids and triceps to push your body away from some immovable object, be it floor, or wall.

When you look at it this way — as exercise concepts — you quickly get creative, and that creatively gives space for using different techniques to progressively make yourself stronger, no matter how weak at the start.  Progressing from pushing yourself away from a wall to doing explosive plyometric push-ups off the floor is a good example.

Exercise Pairing and Sequence

The exercises are presented in the order I’d recommend doing them in an exercise routine.  The idea is to alternative upper and lower body exercises, doing each as a “superset” that is repeated after a rest period for whatever number of sets you prescribe.  After that combination is finished, you move to the next, and so forth.

Example: One set of squats immediately followed by one set of push-ups.  Rest till you catch your breath and repeat. If you’re new to this type of exercise, begin with just one superset of each exercise combination.

Like this:

First Superset: Push-ups/Squats, number of sets and rest between supersets determined by your ability.

Second Superset: Pull-ups/Glute-Hamstring combo.

Third Superset: Handstand Push-ups/Core combo.

A note to long, heavy people (and this includes me): We are not as well designed to lift and pull our bodies as are smaller, lighter people.  You’re unlikely to ever see a 6’4″ 210 pound Olympic gymnast.  If you’re big, long or both, be patient.  The good news is that people like us can build more muscle with body weight exercises without needing to get to creative with them, simply because the exercises are harder for us.  Work = Force x Distance, so every push-up a long-armed heavy person does takes more work than his smaller brethren.

One more point — warm up!  You’ll perform better and reduce the chance for injury if you warm up before jumping into the exercises. In “Warm Up and Mobility” I present several warm up sequences, but if you’re inclined to ignore this advice, just do some jumping jacks before you begin.  For extra credit, you can also do some post-exercise stretching.  “Post Exercise Stretching” will guide you.

Let’s go!

#1. Push-ups

Remember, we’re talking push-up concepts here, so anything that involves using your arms to push your body away from something that has more mass than you (like a wall) qualifies.  You will progressively increase the intensity of the exercises by the angle of your body relative to your arms, how fast you do the exercise (note: super slow is tough because of time under resistance), the time period between sets and the number of sets.

Beginner:

Advanced:

#2. Squats

There are plenty of examples of “free squats” (squats using only body weight) on YouTube, so I wanted to find a really good progression for one-legged squats you can learn.  Once you can do 40+ free squats you might want more resistance than your own body weight. Squatting on one leg will do the trick.

Beginner (No video, just follow the instructions): 

Extend your arms out in front of you parallel to the floor, place your feet about a foot outside the width of your hips, angle your feet outward slightly, make sure your knee tacks (stays in line with) your feet, thrust your butt out and back, and sit down as far as you can go without falling back.  Pause. Stand up.  Repeat

Beginner to advanced Pistol Squat progression:

#3. Pull-ups

At this point, we’ve worked the pushing muscles of the upper body — chest, deltoids and triceps, as well as various supportive muscles (trapezius, rhomboids, and even latissimus dorsi for stability) — now let’s get to the pulling muscles.

These exercises will exercise your latissimus dorsi, scapula and biceps (the primary pulling muscles of the upper body), as well as rhomboids and rear deltoids.  Know that a “pull-up” is when your knuckles are facing you (less emphasis on the biceps), and a “chin up” is when your palms are facing you (more emphasis on the biceps).

Beginner to Advance Progression:

#4. Glute/hamstring Combos

There are exercises that will isolate your butt from your leg biceps, but since they are made to work together, why bother?  We’re not trying to be bodybuilders.

Beginner:

Advanced:

#5. Handstand Push-ups

Yes, I know that a handstand push-up is out of reach for all but the most rabid fitness buff. Thankfully, there are several almost-handstand-push-ups that are very effective at building upper body strength.

This could be in the push-up category, but since the angle is much more vertical than horizontal, and works more of your shoulder than chest, it gets it’s very own category.

Beginner to Advance Progression:

#6. Core combos

These days, you can’t read anything about exercise without getting the importance of a strong and flexible core pounded into your head. Everyone has piled onto this bandwagon, and for good reason.  Nothing on your body is of much use without a fit core.  It’s the centerpiece of a strong, mobile body.  It includes the lower back, abs and obliques.  Work your core!

Beginner:

Advanced:

Your Takeaway

1. Contrary to what the commercials exhort, be like Jim, not Mike — accept where you are and begin from there.
2. Don’t be overly ambitious and burn yourself out before you get traction; rather start with an exercise routine you can and are willing to be consistent with, and then progress naturally, inevitably.
3. Multiple-joint/muscle body weight exercises can progress to the level of advanced practitioner.  You can do this without equipment. If you have a body and some willpower, you have what you need.  No willpower?  Grab a friend and whip each other into a competitive frenzy. That should work.

Over and out.

P.S.  Need help with habit making?  Check out A More Youthful Body Thru Progression, Tiny Habits and A Buddy.

P.P.S.  Wanna age better? Read The Anti-aging Effects of Exercise.

The post Get Functionally Fit Forever With These Six Bodyweight Exercises appeared first on Garma On Health.

Any day is a good day to trim body fat, including right now this very day. Our focus will be specific muscle-making, fat busting foods and exercise.

ANYBODY PUT on a few pounds over the Holiday and thinks it’s time to trim body fat?

Well, you’ve come to the right place to learn how to get going.  The “8 sure-fire ways to trim body fat” is the blueprint.  Your resolve and discipline builds the engine.

To aide us in constructing this blueprint, we’re going to use two articles (1,2) from Charles Poliquin, one of the eminent strength and conditioning coaches in America.

I’m going to slice, dice and connect the dots between these two articles and deliver to your eager eyes and idling engine one fairly comprehensive missive on how to whittle away the fat.  Naturally, I’ll add my own spin, particularly in Part 2, which I’ll post next week.

{UPDATE: Here’s Part 2.}

There has to be a “Part 2″ to modify “#2 Eat the best protein” (see below).  What’s written there does reflect conventional wisdom, but there are caveats of sufficient scope to warrant a separate article, which will be Part 2.  So, please continue reading with that in mind.

#1 Prioritize healthy macronutrients

Protein, fat and carbohydrates are referred to as “macronutrients”:

Macronutrients are nutrients that provide calories or energy. Nutrients are substances needed for growth, metabolism, and for other body functions. Since “macro” means large, macronutrients are nutrients needed in large amounts. There are three macronutrients: Carbhyodrate, Protein, Fat.  Source

Protein and carbs each provide four calories per gram. Fat provides nine calories per gram.

In the early 1970s, the mantra that infused nearly every food selection shouted: “Eat low and non-fat foods!”  It made sense. Fat has more than twice the calories per weight as do either protein or carbohydrates.  Carbs are what we need for energy.  Ergo, eat lots of carbs, not fat.  Protein?  Who cares!

As I’ll touch on below in #3, turns out that eating too many of the wrong kind of carbs does more to put on fat than does eating dietary fat itself due to quirky insulin.

Suffice to say here is that when it comes to the mix of macronutrients consumed, you need to prioritize:

• Lean protein from multiple sources
• Dietary fat from organic, cold pressed olive oil, fish oil, flax and chia seeds
• Carbohydrates from colorful vegetables, whole fruits, lentils and beans

Let’s explore each of these further…

#2 Eat the best protein

One of the Poliquin articles I’m using as source material for this article lists these five good sources of protein: eggs, whey, grass-fed beef, salmon (and cold-water fish) and pasture-raised chicken (and poultry).

I wish it was this easy. Each of these five has a potential downside, as I’ll enumerate next week in Part 2.  Suffice to say here, if you’re going to get your protein primarily from animal sources, focus on these five for the following reasons:

Eggs have the second highest concentration of leucine after milk, which is the most important amino acid for building muscle. They also contain choline used by the body to make a critical neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which improves brain function, is beneficial for motivation, helps the liver to detoxify and avoid accumulating fat.

(Spoiler Alert: there are downsides to leucine and choline, which I’ll address in Part 2.)

Eggs are high in two important fat soluble vitamins, D and K, which results in eggs being highly bioavailable for maximal absorption. Both vitamins are necessary for bone building, and vitamin D is involved in metabolic processes, and development of muscle quality and strength.

(click to learn more)

Whey Protein is among my favorite protein powders because it stimulates protein synthesis more than other protein source, and has performed well in long-term muscle and strength building studies.  This means that drinking 20 to 30 grams of a good quality whey protein after strength and muscle-building exercise is a good way to repair the micro-tears that the exercise caused in the muscles and, literally, feed their growth.

Here are some additional benefits from regularly consuming whey protein:

•    More than other protein powders, it stimulates fat burning and has a greater thermic effect; meaning that when you eat it, you burn more calories.

•    Taking it regularly can improve blood sugar tolerance and insulin sensitivity, and may result in fat loss in overweight people, even in the absence of exercise.

•    It can reduce cravings for high-fat, high-carb foods. Interestingly, consuming whey before eating pizza tends to influence less pizza wolfed down. Compared to a control group, a 40-gram dose of whey resulted in subjects eating 100 calories less even when the extra whey calories were added into the caloric total.

(Spoiler Alert: Not all whey protein powders are created equal, which I’ll address in Part 2.)

Grass-Fed Beef has a good essential amino acid profile, and is high in omega-3 fats that are also found in cold-water fish, carnitine (the nutrient that aids in fat for use as fuel), glutamine (known as a muscle builder and immune booster by body builders), glycine and glutathione (immune boosters), and CLA (a anti-inflammatory and immune enhancing fatty acid).

This nutrition profile makes grass-fed beef useful for building lean muscle, because it helps:

•    Curb hunger by influencing hunger hormones, and neural signals to tell the brain that you’re full.

•    Build muscle, even in the elderly, as evidenced by a study with older women who ate 160 grams of lean beef daily in conjunction with a strength training program, and gained 18% more muscle and strength (and a 16% drop in inflammation) than a those who consumed carb-dominate meals over a four month trial.

•    Obtain a greater fat loss during a caloric-deficit diet than consuming the same calories without beef.

(Spoiler Alert: As the human world population approaches eight billion, the planet can not afford a meat-dominant diet, grass-fed or otherwise, not to mention some health considerations, coming up in Part 2.)

Salmon & Other Coldwater Fish have slightly less protein than beef, but are nutrient rich, providing healthy doses of vitamin B12, niacin, selenium, potassium, and iron, in addition to being high in the omega-3 fats for which most of us are deficient.

There are also these body fat and inflammation benefits:

•    As with beef, those on a low-calorie diet with salmon or cod as the primary protein sources lost more more body fat and reduced oxidative stress markers more than those who just reduced calories by the same amount.  Interestingly, the cod group had the lowest oxidative stress markers.

•    Another study showed similar results — those eating fish lost the most body fat — but inflammation was reduced most in the salmon group.

(Spoiler Alert: Farm-raised fish and some fresh caught are not a good choice, and you must be cognizant of the mercury load, as I’ll get into in Part 2.)

Chicken has the highest protein content per gram, but it’s lower in the powerhouse muscle building Branch Chain Amino Acids (“BCAA’s”) than the other four proteins on this list. For example, 100 grams of broiled chicken had 1.8 g of leucine, whereas one serving of whey protein has two-times more.

Despite being less of a muscle builder than whey protein, chicken has an amino acid and fat profile that scientists believe contribute to a thermic effect that influences body fat loss.

A study of overweight women on a 1,250 calorie diet for 9 weeks found that those who ate chicken as their primary protein source lost the most body fat (5.6 kg or 3.3 percent) compared to groups that ate beef or carbs.

The group that ate more chicken consumed fewer calories over the course of the study than the other two groups. The difference in calorie intake between the beef and chicken group was small, but it’s possible that the greater array of amino acids in chicken or a difference in the thermic effect of the proteins influenced body composition changes.

(Spoiler Alert: What kind of chicken you choose is very important (hint: “cage-free” is irrelevant), and you must be aware of bacterial contamination, both to be addressed in Part 2.)

One last point:

Try to eat some protein with every meal, just don’t always make it from an animal source. Protein isn’t easily or effectively stored by the body like is fat, so we need to get a bit of it regularly, especially if you’re repairing/building muscle.  Also, protein is satiating, so you’ll eat fewer calories throughout the day.

#3 Get most of your carbs from veggies and fruits

(click to enlarge)

There are situations when just about any carb is good, such as after some intense exercise when you need to replenish your glycogen levels and boost insulin to carry that after-workout whey protein to your muscle cells.

Other than that, you need to be careful about your selection of carbohydrates and when you consume them for one very good (and simplistically expressed) reason:

-> High glycemic carbs quickly are converted to sugar (glucose), and if your body does not need to use this energy, it becomes body fat.

This means that regularly stuffing potato chips into your mouth while rooted to the couch watching TV for three hours a night is not going to fuel anything but fat accumulation.

So avoid high glycemic and processed carbs, such as grains and anything that comes in a box. Instead, focus on colorful vegetables like leafy greens, broccoli, asparagus, kale, bok choy, cucumbers, red bell peppers, red chard, purple eggplant, apples, berries, kiwi and pears.

You can also get your protein from veggie sources.

It’s true that more protein is packed into meat than vegetable sources, but even dyed-in-the-wool meat eaters can find something yummy in lentils and beans.  In fact, beans and rice are a near-perfect protein from an amino acid point-of-view.

Paleo-eaters will quickly tell you that lentils and beans have harmful lectins and phytic acid, but the benefits from these foods outweigh these two chemical compounds, which by the way, can nearly be eliminated if you soak and (better yet) sprout your legumes and beans slightly before cooking them.

(Read Pump Up Your Metabolism: Eat Protein, Not Wheat)

Ideally, your plate should be filled up with two fist-sized servings of veggies, one fist-sized serving of protein (or if a powder supplement, 20 to 30 grams) and half a fist-sized serving of fat, such as half an avocado, or 10 almonds or walnuts, and a similarly sized portion of fruit, if wanted. (I prefer to eat fruit by itself.)  If you feel you also need grains or starch, make them no larger than a fist-size.

#4 Track you diet and nutrition to ensure you maintain a caloric deficit

(click image for more details)

Line up everyone who has struggled with weight loss.  Ask those who have done everything right to lose weight to step forward, and then get the hell out of the way because about 500 million people are about to mow you down!

Scientists have studied this, and their conclusions are that humans are simply not very good at assessing how much they eat and drink, or how hard they exercise.

Studies consistently show that when people track consumption in food journals, they under-record what they’ve eaten by 500 calories a day. That’s a pound worth of calories in one week!. They also significantly underestimate how hard they are exercising, both when weight lifting and doing aerobic exercise.

The result is that what people think they’re doing — doing everything right — is not what’s actually happening.  This combination of “errors” is one big reason that diet and exercise programs often don’t lead to fat loss.

Like our system of government, what we need is a system of checks and balances.

Yes, do continue with your food journal, but you need to be honest and meticulous.  A check for that could be a trainer, coach or friend who knows more about nutrition and exercise than you do, and is willing to help.

#5 Be sensitive to your insulin

(click to enlarge)

Insulin is a very underrated factor in fat loss and overall body composition.

Insulin is an anabolic hormone that “carries” nutrients into muscle cells. In an insulin sensitive state, the body is more tuned to store energy as muscle glycogen—the energy source for your muscles during exercise. But in an insulin-resistant state, you will be prone to storing the carbohydrate-rich food you consume as fat.

What you want is to be insulin-sensitive, and there are three habits you can build to do just that:

• Exercise vigorously: Lift weights, lift your body weight (push-ups, pull-ups) and do high intensity interval training.  This type of exercise recruits many muscle groups simultaneously and makes your cells more responsive to insulin.
• Eat a low glycemic diet:  As earlier mentioned, a low glycemic diet of protein, healthy fats, veggies, and certain whole fruits will produce a steady state of energy from steady state blood sugar levels, as opposed to the spikes and valley produced by surging, then dropping blood sugar ignited by sugary, low carb and processed food.
• Spice up your life:  Foods such as apple cider vinegar, citrus, cinnamon, ginger and turmeric will significantly increase your cells’ sensitivity to insulin. Eating these foods when you do eat high glycemic grains and starches will modify their insulting amplifying effect.

#6 Get that gut healthy

(click to enlarge)

I’ve written a lot about gut health.

If you haven’t heard, you may want to learn that you’re are not alone.  Not ever. With you at all times are about 100 trillion other “things”.  They’re not good conversationalists, but the microbiota in your gastrointestinal tract influence not only body composition, but mood, digestion, heart health, inflammation, immunity and more!

Poorly functioning digestion is sure to inhibit fat loss by leading to an increase in cortisol and a decrease in overall neurotransmitter production. Plus, it makes you feel sluggish, lowering mood, motivation, and energy levels.

Two bad gut culprits are:

•    Harmful bacteria — Overwhelm them by eating probiotic, prebiotic foods, phytonutrients and pea protein to build the strength of the beneficial bacteria.
•    Chronic inflammation — Calm that down by avoiding foods that you’re sensitive to, and eating indigestible fiber from plants.  In his book, Your Personal Paleo Code, Chris Kresser offers a systematic way to identify foods that are harmful to you.

If you think your health problems emanate from your gut, or are just the curious sort who loves my writing, I encourage you to read the following articles on the subject:

100 Trillion Reasons You’re Fat, Sick and Depressed

The 4 Food Solution to the 100 Trillion Reasons You’re Fat, Sick and Depressed

Discover Your Microbiome With The uBiome Test

Can The Right Gut Bacteria Fight Obesity And Slay Metabolic Syndrome?

For the millions more of you who rather poke yourself in the eye with your overgrown, jagged toe nail than to read any more of my stuff, just eat more fermented foods (kiefer, sauerkraut), yoghurt, pea protein, and Jerusalem artichoke.

#7 Do high volume full-body resistance and HIIT

Yes, I’ve mentioned exercise already, but it deserves it’s very own section. 

The objective here is to make your body a fat-burning machine.  This is achieved by building muscle and creating metabolic stress, which in this case is a good kinda stress.

What you do is really simple:

-> Move against resistance!

The “resistance” manifests in two ways: Volume and Intensity.

High Volume, Full Body Weight Training means using loads that are 65 to 85 percent of your maximum single-rep lift with rest periods between sets of 60 seconds or less, eight or more reps per set, five or more sets per muscle area.

You’re not isolating muscles, like the chest or quadriceps, but are instead doing movements that employ multiple muscles.  That’s why I say “muscle area” rather than specific muscle.

Qualifying weight lifting exercises include:

Squats
Dead lifts
Olympic lifts
Standing overhead press

Bodyweight exercises include:

Pull-ups/chin-ups
Push ups
Squats

If you have a high strength-to-weight ratio, meaning that you can lift your body weight more than 20 times with the squat, 15 times with push-ups and 10 times with pull/chin-ups, then add a weight vest or put some weights in a backpack.

High Intensity Interval Training is the second “resistance” technique.  This is different than a high volume weight lifting or body weight exercise program in that it’s shorter, typically does not utilize weights, and can make you want to puke.

It also makes your body produce more human growth hormone, the elixir of the ageless.

You can choose a stationary bike, an elliptical machine, stair machine, do burpees, sprint on grass, or — my favorite — sprint up stairs.  You go all out a certain number of times with a certain rest period in between.

There are different formulations for the “on” and “off” period, and the number of sets.  Exercise physiologist Phil Campbell has tested them all and recommends eight sets, 10 seconds all out, 30 seconds active rest (say, walking down the stairs after sprinting up them.)  I use this system.

Some things to keep in mind if you want to do HIIT:

It’s almost certain you are not prepared to go all out, even one time.  You must gradually prepare for this, and that means warming up and taking it slow.

The next thing to know:

It’s almost certain you are not prepared to go all out, even one time.  You must gradually prepare for this, and that means warming up and taking it slow.

Get it?

It’s great to combine HIIT and high volume weight training (though not on the same days).  Both build muscle, raise your resting metabolic rate (you burn more calories at rest), and produce sufficient metabolic stress to burn additional calories during the 24-hour post exercise recovery period.

Which brings me to an important point:

-> The best fat-burning exercise is the one that doesn’t burn the most calories during the exercise itself, but the most calories overall.

#8 Sleep more, stress less

(click to enlarge)

They’re often inversely related: sleep more, stress less.  Or stress less by sleeping more. Better yet, do both — sleep a good, interrupted seven, eight or nine hours every night, and be nice to your adrenals by learning to avoid a fight or flight mode when faced with situations that could keep you simmering in a state of stress for long periods of time.

As I’ve said before, it’s a good idea to fight or run away from a tiger (even though in either case you’re most likely its next meal), but not go into a similar cortisol pumping body/mind state when stuck in traffic.

(Read How Depression and Stress Make Us Age Faster)

The reason a good night’s sleep is important for fat loss is because when we sleep human growth hormone is released which burns fat. Beyond that, like with stress, cortisol increases when you get insufficient sleep, which further adds to the fat accumulation because it decreases the body’s insulin sensitivity.

Other hormones are compromised as well, such as testosterone (important for body composition in both men AND women, though the fairer sex needs only about 10 percent of that appropriate for men), melatonin (needed for sleep), and leptin (regulates the brain cells that tell you how much to eat.).

Another thing to know is when chronically stressed or sleep-deprived, neurons in the brain die off they compromise the neurological connection from your brain to muscle, and thus reverse the benefits gained by exercise.

Think you may be chronically stressed?  Take these four at home tests and find out: Got Stress? Here Are Four Adrenal Fatigue Tests You Can Do At Home.

Your Takeaway

Here’s the basics of what you need to know (and do!) to trim body fat and keep it off forever:

• Eat high quality protein frequently throughout the day, preferably with each meal.
• Maximize your consumption of vegetables and minimize your consumption of grains, but when you do eat them, go for low glycemic loads.
• Consume fewer calories than you expend until your body composition meets with your approval, which typically means you have to track what you eat.
• Eat gut healing foods that build up the beneficial microbiota in your gut, such as kiefer, sauerkraut, yoghurt, pea protein, and Jerusalem artichoke.
• Vigorously exercise your muscles and cardiovascular system with multiple-muscle exercises and some sort of HIIT.
• Sleep more, stress less.

OK, you now have the blueprint, so go build your engine, build muscle and (inevitably) trim body fat!

The post 8 Sure-fire Ways to Trim Body Fat and Keep It Off Forever, Part 1 appeared first on Garma On Health.

“Sitting is the new smoking!” shouts the scientists who study such things. “Sitting will kill you!” Seems dramatic? Well, that’s bad news for all us chair-dwellers, but there’s also a two-minute solution. Read on…

(Pic from eHealthBlog.com)

DO YOU sit a  lot?

If you do, and care about your health, read on…

Here are some sobering statistics for you from the World Health Organization (“WHO”) (1,2):

• Physical inactivity is the fourth leading risk factor for death worldwide.
• Insufficient physical activity is a key risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes.
• One-in-four adults, and 80% of adolescents worldwide are not active enough.

In case you’re wondering, sitting there scrolling down your smart phone, or typing on the keyboard is insufficient physical activity, says WHO. Seems like to be sufficient, the activity needs to include bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure.

Turns out, whatever you’re doing whilst sitting (or laying down, with some exceptions) doesn’t constitute “energy expenditure”.

So far, no surprises, right? In fact, you might be sitting there thinking, “Hey, I workout… no problems here…”.  I thought that myself, sitting there in all my self-righteous glory.

But a certain little factioid came along to humble me: Those regular exercise sessions thrice or so per week, don’t help as much as you’d think.

I’ve been reading various articles for a year or two that proclaim, “Sitting is the new smoking”, and “Sitting will kill you”, which I thought were interesting and pertinent to most non-exercising knowledge-workers who mainly get their “skeletal muscles” working in two minute increments…

To Work:

Walk from chair in house to seat in car: 30 seconds

Walk from seat in car to chair in office: 2 minutes

From Work:

Walk from chair in office to seat in car: 2 minutes

Walk from seat in car to couch in home: 30 seconds

{Extra credit for those who commute by bus, train or ferry and thereby need to walk a bit to get to those modes of transport, and from them to work.}

But that’s not me (I thought), so no worries!  I typically walk two miles a day, exercise vigorously at least three times per week, and do mobility exercises every morning.  You’d think I’d have earned a big golden star!  Alas, I had to wipe that smirk off my smug face when I read a synopsis of 47 studies that conclude:

“Prolonged sedentary time was independently associated with deleterious health outcomes regardless of physical activity”

Translation:

If you don’t exercise like a professional athlete, sitting all day is going to increase the probability of you contracting diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and “all-cause mortality”.

According to eHealthBlog.com, sitting can kill you in six specific ways:

1. Lower extremity problems like poor circulation leading to deep vein thrombosis and osteroporisis;
2. A whole assortment of chronic diseases, as above noted;
3. Deteriorating mental health;
4. Chronic kidney disease, particularly for women, who when reducing their sitting time from a full eight to three hours reduced the risk by 30%. (For men it’s 15%);
5. An increased risk of metabolic syndrome by 73% (that’s a three-fisted punch!); and
6. Muscle degeneration, including nice soft saggy glutes, and weak paunchy abs.

So, what should we “knowledge workers” do, given that our work doesn’t require us to move?

The Solution To Sitting All Day

I’ve experimented with a solution that you might want to try.

Set your smart phone to chime once an hour. Like a good Pavlovian, when you hear the chime, stand up and do two minutes of exercise. It could be jumping jacks, push-ups, waking up and down stairs — whatever gets your joints moving, muscles contracting and heart beating.

This is all you need do to mitigate the deleterious health effects of sitting.  Or you could simply stand up every half hour and gaze at the wall, which was CNN’s tip (more or less) as outlined in its report, “Sitting will kill you, even if you exercise“, from which I took this screen shot:

I opt for the more vigorous once-an-hour option. The reason is that doing two minutes of fairly intense exercise each hour for eight hours or more adds up big time!  I was shocked at how exercised I felt by the end of the day, and even sore here and there the next day.

Apple Watch Will Help

Apple seems to think moving regularly is a good idea too.

You may be aware that the company has been diligently working on a new platform to support their Apple Watch, slated for release in a few months. Yes, Apple Watch can count steps, track your progress and provide exercise routines, but pertinent to our topic of disrupting our penchant for sitting, Apple Watch will vibrate against your wrist at intervals you set.

One big reason why Apple Watch will have this feature is to remind us to get off our butts and move.  What you do once you’re standing is up to you, but just do something.

Instead of sitting all day.

Ciao for now.

P.S.  Shock yourself by calculating how much time you spend every 24 hours either sitting or lying down. You may be heading for some health issues if during your typical day the only time you move is to go from sitting or lying down in your chair/couch/bed at home to the car/bus/train seat to your office chair, and back again.

So, exactly how much time are you actually moving every day?  If you don’t embarrass easily, let us know in the Comments below.

The post 6 Ways Sitting Will Kill You, Even If You Exercise: Here’s What To Do appeared first on Garma On Health.

Meet the four Masters who defy age. None were born special, but late in life they took stock and went to work to make themselves ageproof.

AS IT frequently happens when traveling along the Interwebs, as you’re looking for one thing, you’ll find another.

I was seeking studies that showed how exercise extends human healthspan; meaning how long people remain healthy. Instead, what I found were four remarkable, elderly people who share one mighty, important attribute:

They refuse to get old!

Prepare to get inspired. If you think that it’s too late to be young, to get strong and vital, these four people are going to give you some cognitive dissonance. You’ll hafta scramble for excuses to hold on to your limited thinking as you watch how they defy age.

None of them were life long exercisers. Each of them became fit quite late in life. Sonny Bright started lifting at 44. Phyllis Sues began yoga at 85. Charles Eugster began exercising at 87. Ernestine Shepard started weight lifting at 56.

They may have some extra motivation, discipline or a yearning that you don’t have. But that’s OK – if you can just muster half of it, you’re likely to quite satisfied with the results.

Let’s get introduced to each of these marvelous people, and then reset your expectation of what’s possible.

Why bother?

Well, if you love life, you’ll get more of it.

Take a look at the graph below and note the dramatic decline (20%) in mortality for those who engage in just ten minutes of “vigorous” daily activity. Amp that up to 30 minutes, and you’ve improved your odds by nearly 40%.

Source: Primal Brasil http://primalbrasil.com.br/ano-novo-exercicios-perda-de-peso-e-mais/

Is vigorous exercise too invigorating for you? Well, if you can just muster 30 minutes of “moderate” exercise, you’ll improve your odds by 15%.

Don’t care about death, mortality probabilities and such?

How about the quality of your life?

I don’t have a graph for that.

What I do have are the stories of four ordinary people who became extraordinary late in life. They epitomize and are living an amazingly high quality of life well into their golden years.

And they show us that we can too!

Sam (“Sonny”) Bright Jr., 70

The man is 70 years young. When he was 44, he was a mess, he says. Newly divorced, sky-high stress. Sonny had the good sense to go to the gym, and he never looked back:

“I don’t feel like I’ve aged since I started bodybuilding at 44”, he says.

Some other gems from Sonny:

• It’s a misconception that age makes you old; it’s your state of mind that does that.
• When you start thinking you’re old, your subconscious mind takes a hold of that, and then your body will feel old, you’ll start acting old, feeling old. Then you’re old.
• I’ve seen a lot young guys older than me because their lifestyle is sitting around and doing nothing.

Here’s Sonny’s story:

Ernestine Shepard, 78

On June 16, 2015, Ernestine Shepard will turn 78 years young. According to Guinness, she’s the world’s oldest female competitive bodybuilder in the world. But she didn’t start exercising till she was 56!

The video below will tell the story, but first know this about Ernestine, in her own words:

• You can get fit at any age… I feel better in my 70s than my 40s.
• Not everybody wants to be a body builder, not everybody wants to be a runner, but find what you like to do… don’t forget, age is nothing but a number, and you can get fit.

Here’s her story:

Charles Eugster, 95

The irrepressible Charles Eugster began exercising at 87 because he says,

“I was very vain and I noticed that my body had deteriorated and I wanted to change my appearance”

Earlier this month, he obliterated the 95-and-over world indoor record for 200 meters at a British Masters Athletics meet in London. The Telegraph has called Eugster “the world’s fittest pensioner.” He plays all kinds of sports, lifts weights and took up competitive track in 2013.

On his website, Charles offers these general tips for winning at life:

Successful aging requires work, diet and exercise. The huge mental and physical potential of the aged remains unexplored. Bodies can now be rebuilt at any age and a new life started.

At the track meet where he won the 200 meter record, Charles was asked what he yet wants to achieve? He said:

“Well, I’d like a new girlfriend”.

Here’s Charles’ TedX video talk:

Phyllis Sues, 90

Phyllis is a renaissance woman. In a recent Huffington Post article, she said:

“I started my own fashion label at 50, became a musician and learned Italian and French in my 70s, took tango and trapeze at 80 and walked into my first yoga class at 85. So, if you think you’re old, think again!”

Life in itself is a challenge and you can either, accept it and take action, or you can sit and do nothing. My advice is there is only one winner: accept the challenge, take action and get on with your life no matter what age.”

Here’s the lady in action, showing her tango moves, tennis, trapeze flying and yoga:

Your Takeaway

These four people defy age. They are remarkable. But so are you.

Remember (and do) these three things:

1. Get it in your head that you can still accomplish a lot no matter your age or fitness level.
2. Choose one of these remarkable people to inspire you.
3. Take action.

P.S.  Here’s some more inspiration to get you going:

Get Functionally Fit Forever With These Six Bodyweight Exercises
The Anti-aging Effects of Exercise
Why It’s Critical that You Muscle Up as You Age
Here’s Why Exercise Slows the Aging Process

The post Four Masters Who Defy Age and Prove That You Can Too! appeared first on Garma On Health.

The science is clear – sitting all day makes you unfit — in fact, doing so leads to premature death. Oh, not swiftly. It takes time. But each hour sitting on your rear end brings you more swiftly to your demise. Here’s what to do about it.

ABOUT THREE months ago, I wrote about how sitting all day and night is a pretty good way to kill yourself early (to put it dramatically), but I bet that fanny is still spread across the cushion pretty non stop, so I’m going to take another crack at convincing you that it’s in your best interest to stand up.

(And I say this for my own ears as well.)

Last time, I described six ways sitting will kill you, and now I’m increasing the ante, sorta speak. Now, it’s going to be 14 ways that sitting will kill you!

Hyperbolic, you may think, but au contraire, there’s science to back the claims.

No way you can avoid lingering on the duff, you may think, but there is… you just have to get creative and consistent.

I’m very well aware that you may be a “knowledge worker”, and as such you gather and disseminate such knowledge squarely set upon your posterior, perhaps with head careening forward and shoulders covering your ears.

Such is a pretty apt description of myself with one important exception. Every hour a timer chimes, and with Pavlovian precision I get up and do something other than sit.

Sometimes I have a prescribed sequence of things to do when that timer chimes, or will wing it, but what I don’t do is continue to sit.

There are solidly researched, important reasons for this. Let’s begin with four reasons not to sit so much, or as the New York Times put it…

“This is your body on chairs”:

1. Electrical activity in the muscles drops, leading to a cascade of harmful metabolic effects.
2. Your calorie burning rate immediately plunges to about one per minute, a third of what it would be if you got up and walked.
3. Insulin effectiveness drops within a single day, and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes rises.
4. The risk of being obese goes up.

The enzymes responsible for breaking down lipids and triglycerides (in effect, vacuuming up fat out of the bloodstream) plunge, which in turn causes the levels of HDL (the “cholesterol) to fall.

How about a little entertainment on the topic? Watch AsapScience’s Are You Sitting Too Much?

In case you didn’t watch the video, know that Lifehacker adds about another nine unhappy consequences that sitting promotes, bringing our tally to a whopping 14!  I think it’s interesting that the perspective here is about what happens to your very own sitting self over various time frames (and excuse me if I repeat myself a bit).

Immediately After Sitting (5 thru 7)

Right after you sit down and are getting cozy, the electrical activity in your muscles slows down and your calorie-burning rate drops to one calorie per minute — about a third of your walking rate. If you sit for a full 24-hour period, you get to enjoy a 40 percent reduction in glucose uptake in insulin, which can eventually cause type 2 diabetes.

“What kind of nut case sits for 24 hours!?”, you ask.

Well, consider someone you may know – certainly not you – who gets up and spends about 10 minutes puttering around the house before getting in the car/bus/train to sit his/her way to work, where there’s a comfy chair awaiting a plump butt that rests nicely in it for about eight hours after which the car/bus/train seat carries our erstwhile knowledge worker home, where there’s a couch and TV, and after that, a bed.

So, how many hours of that 24 were either sitting or lying down?

After Two Weeks of Sitting for More Than Six Hours a Day (8 thru 10)

Within five days of changing to a sedentary lifestyle, you get more plasma triglycerides (fatty molecules), LDL cholesterol (aka bad cholesterol), and insulin resistance. (More is not good.) This means your muscles aren’t taking in fat and your blood sugar levels go up, putting you at risk for weight gain. After just two weeks your muscles start to atrophy and your maximum oxygen consumption drops. This makes a person a reluctant walker and stair climbing inconceivable.

Surprisingly, and damn unfair is that even if you were working out every day, the deterioration starts the second you stop moving.

After One Year of Sitting More Than Six Hours a Day  (11)

After a year, the longer-term effects of sitting can start to manifest subtly. According to a study published by Dr. Marc T. Hamilton and a few other PhD’s, you might start to experience weight gain and high cholesterol. Studies studying woman say they you can lose up to 1 percent of bone mass a year by sitting for over six hours a day.

After 10-20 Years of Sitting More Than Six Hours a Day  (12 thru 14)

Sitting for over six hours a day for a decade or two can cut away about seven quality adjusted life years (the kind you want). It increases your risk of dying of heart disease by 64% and your overall risk of prostate or breast cancer increases 30%.  (Yeah, both!)

OK, now you get the notion that I wasn’t being too hysterical when I ventured to say, “Sitting kills”. So, what to do?

First, you might get some baseline measure of where you’re at right now. I mean, just how many hours are you sitting or supine? How many steps a day do you take?

With a little observation, you can easily answer the first question, but the second requires a pedometer, or some smart wearable fitness device.

Lifehacker recommends the Omron Pedometer, or an iPhone or Android app.

Next, take action!

With that pedometer in hand, walk more. There’s always an opportunity to walk rather than drive, and to step up stairs rather than use an elevator.

And then there’s that every hour Pavlovian thing.

Here’s what you do:

When that chime chimes every hour, stand up. Now what? If you only have two minutes, do something vigorous. If you have 10 minutes, go take a fast walk around the block.

Since time seems to be a precious commodity during working hours, here are some short-on-time ideas:

• Do 10 push-ups followed by 20 squats. Can’t do a push-up? Then push yourself away from the wall or bannister. Can’t do a full squat so your bottom touches your ankles? Then squat as low as you can go. Stick your butt out and just bend those knees.
• Do 20 jumping jacks followed by 10 burpees. I know you can do the jumping jacks, even if they’re really shuffle jacks, but if the burpees are overwhelming, do the squats.
• Do 10 yoga Sun Salutations, as demonstrated by the estimable Kino MacGregor below, whose form you are unlikely to duplicate, but don’t let that stop you from doing your version of it

Here’s a video demonstrating a burpee:

Here’s Kino MacGregor displaying her usual wow factor:

Note: Kino is showing you Surya Namaskara B, but given that the point of doing it to break up your sit time and stimulate your physiology, I recommend that you do not pause (in the “down dog” position) after one repetition but just keep on going without pause. Also, you can elect to jump both feet forward rather than one leg at a time if that suits you better.

OK, I’m almost done. Before I sign off, I’d like to leave you with a pic of proper sitting posture, cause no matter what you wind up doing, sitting is still going to consume most of your day.

So, if you absolutely just have to sit all day, and nothing you read here is going to get in your way, then sit this way (green, not red):

The above image comes from one of my articles on meditation, this one called How Meditation Posture and Intention Manifest Your Goals. As long as you’re sitting, you might as well get enlightened (among other things), so go take a look right here.

Ciao for now.

P.S. Do you do anything to break up long periods of sitting?  If so, tell us about it in the Comments below.

The post 14 Reasons Sitting All Day Keeps You From Getting Fit appeared first on Garma On Health.

No more excuses! Studies show that there are many benefits of strength training for older adults. Tim Carrigan did it, and so can you.

A COUPLE of months ago I tore out an article from the Wall Street Journal written by Laura Johannes, entitled, The Benefits of Pumping Iron Later in Life. “Right up my alley”, I muttered to “Puppy”, my nickname for my niece’s cat whom I was catsitting.

Although it’s true that once we get much past 40, I recommend the weight we lift should be more our weight and less iron weight, the most important thing is that you strength train in whatever form is appealing enough for you to do consistently.

Bodyweight training is great because your body is typically nearby and available. A guy weighing 180 pounds, or a gal weighing 140 pounds has plenty of weight to lift.  If done properly, there’s less chance for injury than when you “get under the bar”.

All that said, I still like to grab the bar and hoist it here and there, and so should you if that’s your preference, as it is for Tim Carrigan, as we’ll see in a moment.

The byline of Ms. Johannes’ article is:

Intense Strength Training Helps Fend Off Age-Related Disability, Research Shows.

“That’s right”, I muttered to Puppy as she looked blankly at nothing in particular, “This is a big reason I exhibit very few of the physical attributes of a man of my chronological age”, I boasted.  (If Puppy could yawn…)

The Wall Street Journal article profiles Tim Carrigan, who when he reached 50, suffered lower back so severe that he could barely walk. Like many injuries that become more pronounced as we age, Carrigan’s happened in a childhood accident.

The pain was intermittent and the muscle tone that was lost happened slowly, but finally he realized that needed to do something.

Here’s Carrigan doing something:

Photo Credit: Bob O’Connor for The Wall Street Journal

He did strength training twice a week on a circuit of a dozen of weight machines. Two times per week of strength training is the minimum required to improve strength and body composition, and to get on track for experiencing the many benefits of strength training.

Soon, Carrigan was feeling better, stronger, and sleeping better.

This is completely unsurprising.

In The Anti-aging Effects of Exercise, I concluded:

… with exercise, you get less fat, more mobility, greater strength, and resistance to dreaded old age diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s…. Given that in the United States, only 5% of adults are meeting what might be described as minimal physical activity guidelines, and with the obesity statistics getting absurd, it’s time to join the minority and have a long, strong life.

 

You Can Do It!

Once upon a time there was some bunk circulating in the ether that said older adults were too frail to pump iron. Now the research demonstrates that strength training helps stave off age-related disability, preserve bone mass (particularly) in women and even boosts brainpower.

“It’s way more dangerous to not be active as an older adult,” says Miriam Nelson, professor of nutrition at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston. (1)

She sure is right, and so get a handle on the following six pointers and strength training benefits culled from the aforementioned Wall Street Journal article (2):

1. You can train intensely and safely at any age as long as you prepare right and exercise with good form. A healthy person at 60 can gain two to three pounds of lean muscle in as short as six months, and this is without optimizing nutrition.
2. Beyond their physical benefits, cardiovascular workouts aid in memory tasks and strength training boosts “executive function” or higher-level brain tasks.
3. Strength training can improve mobility and reduce pain in arthritic joints.
4. When strength training, older adults should ingest 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, spread throughout the day. Take two-thirds of your weight in pounds, and the resulting number is roughly your daily protein per day in grams.
5. Make sure you don’t begin your exercise regimen injured.  Although exercise can speed up the healing process, you must know what you’re doing and should be guided by a trainer, physical therapist or doctor if you’re injured or are otherwise encumbered.
6. Know the proper form.  Don’t necessarily copy what others are doing in the gym, because many people do not use proper form.  Get a trainer to show you how to exercise. It’s worth the expense.

OK, now tuck some inspiration under your belt, grab a buddy and together find someone to initiate you to the marvels of strength training.

If you still need to grease the skids a bit, start with part one of my six part series:

The Functionally Fit Fast Workout — Strong, Enduring, Mobile (Part I)

Have fun!

The post The Many Benefits of Strength Training… Even For You, Graybeard appeared first on Garma On Health.

Keeping yourself fit sure has its advantageous, like jumping on a spontaneous opportunity to hike up Mt Rainier for a few hours.  Watch!

Last week, Swiss Italian alpineer and yoga master Anatole Losa guided me a few thousand feet up Mt Rainier, a beautiful snow capped mountain, and the second highest in the contiguous 48 States of the USA after Mt. Whitney

We took our time, but were steady, or nearly so for me, as I did do some slipping once we hit the snow on the way up, and even more sliding — some on the rump — during the descent.

Over the course of the three hour ascent, we took , three quick food and drink breaks, and ruminated about the benefits of getting off the couch to combine adventure with exercise.

Speaking of exercise, I figure I maintained a pulse rate of 130 beats/minute for three hours, a fine, long aerobic effort without needing to pound my heavy body with running.

As you’ll see, I was no match for the formidable Mr. Losa, but a man’s gotta know his limitations.

May this inspire you to grab a buddy and do your own adventure.

Hope you enjoy the views!

Here’s the Pinnacle Peak excursion.

P.S.  We wound up taking much more video on the descent than the hike up, so do make sure you check that part out.  If you’re ever in Western Washington State, go hike up Mt Rainier!

The post An Aerobic Hike Up Mt Rainier appeared first on Garma On Health.

There are specific reasons that climbing a tree keeps you young, both cognitively and physically, says a recent scientific study, but if the monkey in you protests, there are other ways to help make your life longer and better.

I’M SPENDING the summer on My family’s “homestead”, a rural chunk of five woody acres near Olympia, Washington. Twenty-some years ago, we carved out some space from dense foliage and built homes for three generations.

And trees surround us all!

But that’s not how I know climbing a tree keeps you young.  No one around here climbs them. In fact, I don’t really recommend that you regularly climb trees to keep yourself young, although, strangely, doing so would help.

Happily, there are less dangerous activities that require some of the same spatial attention and effort as tree climbing that will do the youthful trick, says a new scientific study conducted by the University of North Florida (“UNF”)

The UNF study looked at how proprioceptive activities could enhance a particular feature of youthfulness that often declines with age – “working memory”.

Wikipedia defines Working Memory as:

“… the system that is responsible for the transient holding and processing of new and already stored information, an important process for reasoning, comprehension, learning and memory updating.”

Here’s what happens to that “system” over time (click pic to enlarge):

Source: https://neuroethicscanada.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/restoring_with_videogame/

Hey, no need for your eyes to glaze over as you stare at the graph. Just know that every element of memory processing and performance typically declines over time except vocabulary.

Now, before you sprint to the lowest hanging branch in your neighborhood, consider that any proprioceptively dynamic activity will help sustain your cognitive capacities, as well as physical mobility.

I used that word “proprioceptive” again.

According to Medicine.net:

Proprioception is the ability to sense stimuli arising within the body regarding position, motion, and equilibrium. Even if a person is blindfolded, he or she knows through proprioception if an arm is above the head or hanging by the side of the body. The sense of proprioception is disturbed in many neurological disorders. It can sometimes be improved through the use of sensory integration therapy, a type of specialized occupational therapy.

Forget The Trees

The aforementioned study, led by Drs. Ross Alloway, a research associate, and Tracy Alloway, an associate professor (both from “UNF”), is the first to show that proprioceptively dynamic activities, like climbing a tree, have dramatic working memory benefits, even if only done over a short period of time.

The UNF researchers recruited adults ages 18 to 59 and tested their working memory. Next, they undertook proprioceptively dynamic activities, which required proprioception and at least one other element, such as locomotion or route planning.

Thankfully, the study tested more activities than tree climbing, such as:

• Walking and crawling on a beam approximately three inches wide beam (crawling, are you kidding!),
• Moving while paying attention to posture,
• Running barefoot,
• Navigating over, under and around obstacles, and
• Lifting and carrying awkwardly weighted objects.

After two hours, participants were tested again, and researchers found that their working memory capacity had increased by 50%, a dramatic and nearly immediate improvement!

Constant Adaptation Is Required

The researchers tested two control groups:

1. Group #1 was a college class learning new information in a lecture setting to see if learning new information improved working memory.
2. Group #2 was a yoga class to see if static proprioceptive activities were cognitively beneficial.

Neither control group experienced working memory benefits.

The reason that neither control group  improved working memory is because they did not require adaptation to environmental and terrain alterations that would require the individuals to apply their working memories to adapt appropriately.

The yoga control group did engage in proprioceptive activities that required awareness of body position, but these were relatively static given that the yoga postures were performed in a small space that did not allow for locomotion or navigation.

For working memory to be enhanced, the key is combining movement with thinking.

“This research suggests that by doing activities that make us think, we can exercise our brains as well as our bodies,” said research lead, Dr. Ross Alloway. “This research has wide-ranging implications for everyone from kids to adults. By taking a break to do activities that are unpredictable and require us to consciously adapt our movements, we can boost our working memory to perform better in the classroom and the boardroom.” (Source)

Freedom Is The Other Benefit

Working memory is a critical component to living youthfully, but so is being free in your body. There’s not much benefit to maintaining some autodidact capacity for a 100 years if you’re slumped over in a wheelchair, or so stiff you can barely squat.

Having mobility in your joints is being free in your body. There’s no better feeling than that. So, why not combine proprioceptively dynamic activities with those that work to enable the full range of motion in every joint?

If you don’t move much, by the time you’re 40 years old, the body begins to stiffen and the range of motion of the joints become compromised. The Stand/Sit Test demonstrates this like no other.

Almost all children can sit down with legs crossed and then stand up without the aide of hands or anything else. Referred to as the Stand/Sit Test, you’re relative capacity for achieving this can actually predict your mortality.

(Read my article, Three Easy Ways You Can Predict Your Lifespan In 10 Minutes)

By the time we’re teenagers, many of us have trouble performing the Stand/Sit test flawlessly, and certainly by the time we’re 40 and beyond, those that can still do it deserve a standing ovation.

You may not consider begin able to get up off the floor without the aide of knee, or hand to be of much value until you recognize what this capacity means. Being able to do this generally means that you’re free in your body; that some pretty important joints in your lower body are “open” and functioning as designed.

Think about it – the one thing that distinguishes someone aging well and someone aging poorly is their respective mobility, which is a function of their functional joint flexion.

Your Takeaway

Choose one or more proprioceptively dynamic activities, such as a few of those listed above, and combine them with exercises that will improve your mobility, such as yoga, or a few of these:

Do them regularly. I spend 10 minutes every morning doing my mobility routine before the events of life distract me.

The benefits of performing these movements regularly will last a lifetime, and yours will be longer and better.

Do what keeps you young!

Nuff said.

The post Why Climbing A Tree Keeps You Young appeared first on Garma On Health.