New Year's resolutions - steps to success

The advice I'm about to give will be counter culture since I don't promote a "quick fix" or some fast way to show your abs.  I'm all about living long and being healthy.  Perhaps those who want to start out with some super-fast-weight-loss-fitness-program will come back to me when they have tried that and failed. (not that I wish for anyone to fail at this.)

Runners, Runners Everywhere

A co-worker joked about the number of people in his neighborhood who were going for a jog on Jan 2nd (last year).  There were people everywhere in his neighborhood.  Within 2 weeks, nobody was running.  This is absolutely the way it works for most people

Right now, some of you are thinking, "but that's not gonna be not me"!  Well, 100% of those people who started running and quit thought the same thing - otherwise they wouldn't have started!

Ground Rules:
You'll want to follow 4 ground rules as you move towards being more healthy:
(1) change your life in small steps - continuous improvement!
(2) take on healthy habits you intend to continue
(3) don't simply reach for fat loss, go for a healthy life!
(4) don't do it alone

Why #1?
The more things you change - the faster your willpower runs out.  you should target a 1 year plan, not a 1 month plan.  52 weeks until next year, change 1 thing a week - it really adds up!

Why #2?
The only people who are successful long-term are people who actually change their life habits, not simply a crash diet.

Why #3?
crash diets can take off fat, but they are dangerous and imbalanced and do not enforce lifelong changes.  Exercise is essential to health, but needs to be grown slowly

Why #4?
Your success will improve dramatically if you are simply talking to someone else about what you are trying to do.

My normal method I advice people is to work towards "targets". If you can accomplish them by sheer willpower, you are amazing.  The rest of us will need to move incrementally towards these goals.

Targets:
(1) exercise 4 sessions a week
(2) eating real food- no more processed food.  (vegetables, lean meats, healthy oils, fruits, nuts seeds, little starch and no sugar)
(3) 8 hours of sleep per night
(4) 8 glasses of water a day

I have made a very short list of things which are actually hard.  Are there MORE things you can do?  Yes, but these are the big ones. If you spent an entire year building up to success to these, you would be well on your way to a lifetime of health.

Enjoy!
Brian

Tim Ferriss' 3 min slow carb breakfast

Pretty good video by Tim Ferriss' about a fast good breakfast for you.  Spinach is one of the most nutritions things you can eat.  Add black beans or lintels to his suggestion here for a longer lasting breakfast with more fiber (for fullness and satisfaction).

Brian

What are Olympic Athletes taking?

I found a nice little study in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition which compared supplement use between the 2002 and the 2009 Olympics in Finnish elite athletes.

What was initially surprising to me was that supplement use OVERALL dropped during that period.  I figured that better and better stuff was going to come along but it seems all the major categories took a drop.  Well, real food is winning out!  (sometimes)

Power and strength events use more supplements than motor-skilled events, buy still saw a drop in usage across the different groups.  Yet, there are five categories of supplements that saw an INCREASE in usage.  These were the cream of the crop.  Several of them won't be a big surprise if you are a regular reader of TheDailyFit.  (more on that below)

In 2002, 81%of all the athletes used some kind of supplement.  In 2009, 73% used supplements.  They found that younger athletes used less supplements than older ones.  My question - when you get older, do you get smarter or more desperate?  The study didn't address this.

From 2002 - 2009
Amino Acids: 3.8% to 7.3%  (DOUBLED!)
Fatty Acids (fish oils and others) 11% - 19% (NEARLY DOUBLED)
Homeopathic 0.4 - 1.6% (QUADRUPLED)
Multivitamins 53% - 57%
Antioxidants 0.7% - 2.0% (NEARLY TRIPLED)

The categories were not directly defined.  Amino acids covers a broad range, might include protein or only specific amino acids.  Antioxidants might be VitC, Resveratrol, Pycnogenol, Vit E... who knows.  Homeopathic is extremely broad and even more difficult to nail down than antioxidants.

The point is - elite athletes - even when the economy is bad, still can afford a few things.  The things they are buying increasingly are aminos, fish oil and antioxidants.  Multi-vits still come in solid with over half of athletes using them.

Keep strong!
Brian

Eat Beans, Live Longer

I have been very interested in the Paleo diet for a while.  Indeed, the Crossfit movement is hooked on it for good reason.  When people eat Paleo, they lose fat, gain muscle and their performance improves.  This large-group experience is hard to ignore.

(My current opinion is that most people leave their bad-carb lifestyle and trade it for organic fruits and vegetables, and relatively-clean organic, grass-fed meat - this will give a huge boost in performance.)

Loren Cordain is a highly educated Anthropologist (not nutritionist) but when reading his book, I had a bone to pick with him.  Namley: his take on beans.  He says don't eat any beans!

Performance is one thing and survival is another.  When modern ethno-biologists study lifespan of humans and health, BEANS are a major component to living long.  (Google: BLUE ZONES and get some more on this.)

A study was done several years ago that I really like that hits this point home.  Put simply, the more beans you eat the less chance you have of dying.  (Obviously, there is an upper limit to this and the study did not attempt to answer this question.)

The short version: in a study of  785 people over a 3 year period, for every additional 20 grams of legumes a day was associated with an 8% drop in risk of death.  This was consistent even when other lifestyle factors and ethnicity was taken into account.

To quote the researchers:
"The significance of legumes persisted even after controlling for age at enrolment, gender, and smoking. Legumes have been associated with long-lived food cultures such as the Japanese (soy, tofu, natto, miso), the Swedes (brown beans, peas), and the Mediterranean people (lentils, chickpeas, white beans)".


Enjoy,
Brian, TheDailyFit

Build lean muscle. The Slow Rep = the Grow Rep

not an example of light weight

When researchers were trying to tackle the issue of building muscle for an older population (age 50-70), they had a few problems: This population can be prone to high blood pressure, sometimes risk of stroke, they face natural muscle wasting (Sarcopenia), and sore joints that can't handle heavy weights.  Since lifting heavy is known to increase blood pressure during the workout, this demographic really has the deck staked against them.

What they learned can help us all, especially those who don't have access to a lot of equipment.

How do you build muscle without lifting heavy weights? 

It is well recommended that to gain significant muscle tissue, one needs to lift in the 80%+ range of their one-rep maximum (1RM).  Example: if you can bench press 200 pounds, 1 time and one time only, then your 1RM is 200#.  If you want to gain peak strength you need to perform sets with 160# or more in order to really stimulate those muscles for growth.  Of course peak strength is not the only thing to develop there is also endurance and power, but we'll stick with strength for now.

Japanese researchers discovered muscle mass could be built using 50% of the one rep max if the proper technique was observed.  This allowed them to build muscle without spiking blood pressure.  The key to this technique is not only moving slowly, but also to make sure your muscles don't get to "take a breath".  I'll explain.

Many people like to rest in the "locked position".  With a squat, this is standing fully upright; with the pushup, this is arms locked out or paused with your chest on the ground.  In either case, your muscles are getting a break and that break is allowing more blood to flow in.  This gives the muscle more oxygen and makes you feel better.

With the Slow Rep (or Temp Rep, as I've seen it called by others), you take 3 seconds to go from the top position to the bottom position, you pause at the bottom for one second (with the pushup - this is NOT resting your chest on the ground), then take 3 seconds to return to the top position.  Don't rest at the top at all! Continue to the next rep: 3 seconds down, 1 second pause at the bottom and 3 seconds up.

It is the starving of your muscle for oxygen that results in physical growth and strength increase (technically, the lack of oxygen stimulates intra-muscular enzymes that promote growth).

Finally, the researchers took nearly every set to failure.

Some ideas:

Try mixing up your interval training.  Instead of doing all your reps as fast as you can, try them all using the Slow-Rep or Tempo-Rep tecnique.

Another thing you can try is 5 Slow-reps immediately followed by 10 normal ones.  This brings a great burn!

BTW, that is a real picture.

A magic number to tell how young you are

All that beauty makes smart researchers

Norwegian researchers studied 9,000 people and have determined a rating system to show you how fit/healthy you actually are.

Below you will find (1) the calculator for that fitness/health level and (2) the workout they recommend for people who currently don't exercise but want to improve their heart health.  This can be done with as little as one-17 minute exercise session a week.

(1) Use the calculator the researchers invented. - this gave me a rating (VO2MAX) of 57.  It said my fitness age is younger than a 20 year old, nice.  (for the calculator you will need to convert your waist measurement to centimeters.

(2) Here is the workout they outlined.

10 minute warmup
4 minutes where your heart rate is 90 VO2Max.
3 minute cool down.

This could be done on a stationary bike or treadmill.  Effectively, you need to be working out at 90% of your max heart rate. This can be calculated by: 220-your age.

More on the research here.

Enjoy,
Brian

Top 7 habits of those who lose weight and keep it off

already using the home gym

American College of Sports Medicine has reported on the top 7 habits people used to keep weight off and I wanted to share.  They are listed by what % of people did them.

92% exercise at home

78% eat breakfast every day

75% Weigh themselves at least once per week

63% watch less than 10 hours of TV a week

54% Burn more than 2,000 calories a week through exercise

40% Exercise with a friend

29% include strength training

so...

(1) removes your biggest excuse - the workout is right there in your home

(2) kick starts your metabolism and, when done right, reduces your hunger for the day

(3) keeps you on track - measuring your results

(4) TV makes you stupid - what else can I say?  Stick to the inspiration and educational - ditch "junk food" tv

(5) this means 5 sessions of 400 cals each - that is a serious commitment to exercise.

(6) accountability - ring, ring, "you training today?"

(7) builds lean muscle tissue to drive metabolic burn all day

Enjoy,

Brian