Lean and Hard

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We've all heard of "the wall." It's a physiological and emotional barrier faced by marathon runners, typically at about the 20-mile mark of the race. Scientifically, it has to do with glycogen depletion. Here's an excellent description from HowStuffWorks:

Hitting the wall, at its core, could just as aptly be called glycogen depletion onset. It's less graphic, but more scientifically accurate. Glycogen is a variety of glucose that the body stores to produce energy. Think of it as the fuel for your body's engine. Your muscles need it, and your brain thrives on it. Unfortunately, there is a limited supply of glycogen that your muscles and liver can stockpile -- about 2,000 calories to be exact. [sources: Latta, Galloway]

The average runner burns approximately 100 calories per mile. It's no coincidence that many endurance athletes describe hitting the wall at the 20-mile mark of the marathon. That's the point at which 2,000 calories of glycogen fuel have been exhausted, resulting in an overwhelming feeling of heaviness in the legs, a lack of concentration and even feelings of outright despair.

There's a similar experience I face often. Maybe you do too. Some days, at around 4 PM, I start having discouraging thoughts about my planned workout at 6. I start thinking, "What's the point? Why am I doing this? Why not just go straight home and pig out? Who cares? I can make up for it later." Etc., etc., etc.

Perhaps it has to do with my blood-sugar levels, in which case a small snack can renew my determination to stay fit. At other times the cause is less clear cut and the solution more elusive than consuming an energy bar. Sometimes I just have to push through it. Or more in line with the metaphor, climb over it.

What I know in the rational part of my mind is that the feelings of futility are not justified by my reality. And better, I know that they are temporary. I know that once I change into my workout clothes and step up to the elliptical, with good workout music coming through my headset, I'll feel better.

So climb the wall, friends, and see how beautiful it is on the other side!

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I've long held the conviction that people being critical of my unhealthy weight did not help me in the least. Family, friends, doctors, anyone who just felt compelled to confront me on the fact that I was fat and ate too much, utterly failed to motivate me to change. Why? Because my problem was never one of motivation. And I believe this is true for most people who struggle with weight issues. The article below makes the point and will be a great one for you and people you know to read and understand.

NPR - 7.26.13 by DEBORAH FRANKLIN

Overweight people who said they'd experienced discrimination based on weight were more than twice as likely to be obese four years later than people who didn't mention such discrimination.

Don't try to pretend your gibes and judgments of the overweight people in your life are for their own good. Florida researchers have evidence that discriminating against fat people only makes them fatter.

"People often rationalize that it's OK to discriminate based on weight because it will motivate the victim to lose pounds," Angelina Sutin, a psychologist at the Florida State College of Medicine in Tallahassee, tells Shots. "But our findings suggest the opposite."

Sutin and a colleague checked survey data from more than 6,000 American men and women age 50 and older who were asked how often in their daily lives they experienced different types of discrimination. Examples ranged from discourtesy or refusal of restaurant service to not getting a job or promotion.

Read more>>

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No one has time to get exercise, right? So if we're going to get it done we have to be efficient about it. That means working out in such a way as to get the most bang for our buck, or the most results for the time and energy we put in.

To accomplish this, we need solid advice and a high level of motivation. Wasting time and energy on workout routines that produce next to nothing in terms of our fitness goals just isn't an option. Neither is the kind of motivation that only lasts a week or two. (I always say that it's easy to decide to eat less right after a big meal. But it's what you do when your belly isn't full that counts.)

This app is designed to help, both with advice and motivation. The developer says,

"Up your motivation, improve your fitness, and stay on track with Gymprovise - a powerful, versatile, and flexible workout tracker for the Gym and outdoors, which gives you everything you need to plan, track, and review all your fitness activity. Gymprovise is THE Workout, Fitness & Bodybuilding app for gym junkies, fitness enthusiasts, bodybuilders & anyone serious about getting fitter and stronger. This is the free, ads-supported version, with core functionality. Get the paid version for no ads and TONS of additional features! Gymprovise makes it easy to plan & track all your fitness activity, in the gym & outdoors. We have many features to suit everyone from beginners to advanced,"

Check out the screenshots:



Get it by clicking below!


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We can debate the reasons for this all day long, but studies have repeatedly confirmed that, when it comes to fitness, example matters.


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Being overweight, not to mention morbidly obese, created a multitude of inconveniences and lifestyle restrictions for me, as it does for millions of Americans. One of these restrictions was the hassle of air travel.

Faced with the difficulties for an overweight person of walking through miles of airport corridors, as well as the discomfort of too-small airline seats, many simply give up on air travel altogether. It had been almost a decade since I last traveled by air. The thought of the challenges I would face was simply too overwhelming.

Now that I'm back to a healthy weight and level of fitness, I recently rejoined the air-traveling public, and the experience was a tremendous boost to my motivation to stay healthy and fit.

Walking through the airports was easy and comfortable. I fit comfortably in the economy-class seats. The seat belts had lots of extra length to cinch tight. And I wasn't embarrassed to be seen by the people at the other end.

You have to find motivation wherever you can, and for me, being able to travel comfortably is a biggie!

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Let's face facts: Gym music generally sucks.


I find myself wondering, when subjected to the indignity of having to hear what's coming over the hidden speakers, where do they find this music? There was one gym I worked out at years ago that had romantic soul music playing in the background. Talk about de-motivating. I felt like superman in the presence of a metric ton of kryptonite.

This is why you have to bring your own music to the gym. Good music takes my workouts to the highest levels and pushes my pace and intensity. I don't understand the neuroscience behind this phenomenon. but it's totally real.

So here's a new entry into the smartphone market that's specifically designed to motivate you: FIT Radio.

Check out the video to see it in action:




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Motivation to exercise is sometimes hard to find, I know. That's why we need to store up in our minds and hearts all the great reasons to get out and just do it (sorry, Nike). Here's one that might get you over the hump on those kinds of days...

It helps to know that, when you exercise regularly, some pretty awesome changes take place in your body on a cellular level, and these changes can have profoundly desirable consequences. As it happens, one of the reasons we age and our bodies deteriorate is that our cells have a limited number of times they can effectively replicate themselves. After a certain number of duplications, the DNA bits that cap the end of our cells' chromosomes, called telomeres, run out and our cells die.

Exercise, it has been found, actually prevents the shortening or the telomeres, thus putting off the death of our cells. Hence, a longer, healthier life! This from an excellent Live Science article found here:

The researchers measured the length of telomeres in blood samples from two groups of professional athletes and two groups who were healthy nonsmokers, but not regular exercisers.

"The most significant finding of this study is that physical exercise of the professional athletes leads to activation of the important enzyme telomerase and stabilizes the telomere," said Ulrich Laufs, the study's lead author and professor of clinical and experimental medicine at Saarland University in Homburg, Germany.

"This is direct evidence of an anti-aging effect of physical exercise," Laufs said. "Physical exercise could prevent the aging of the cardiovascular system, reflecting this molecular principle."

This means younger skin, younger organs, a younger body. Thinking about this has gotten me to the gym more than once.

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The Atlantic - 3.13.13 by Emily Esfahani Smith

Far from being delusional or faith-based, having a positive outlook in difficult circumstances is not only an important predictor of resilience -- how quickly people recover from adversity -- but it is the most important predictor of it.

One of the most memorable scenes of the Oscar-nominated film Silver Linings Playbook revolves around Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, a novel that does not end well, to put it mildly.

Patrizio Solitano Jr. (Bradley Cooper) has come home after an eight-month stint being treated for bipolar disorder at a psychiatric hospital, where he was sentenced to go after he nearly beat his wife's lover to death. Home from the hospital, living under his parents' charge, Pat has lost his wife, his job, and his house. But he tries to put the pieces of his life back together. He exercises, maintains an upbeat lifestyle, and tries to better his mind by reading through the novels that his estranged wife Nikki, a high school English teacher, assigns her students.

Pat takes up a personal motto, excelsior -- Latin for "ever upward." He tells his state-appointed therapist, "I hate my illness and I want to control it. This is what I believe to be true: You have to do everything you can and if you stay positive you have a shot at a silver lining."



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They say you should "Know thine enemy." The better to defeat him, right? This is true about the temptation to eat more than you need to maintain good health and an attractive, strong body. The more you know about the circumstances and conditions that make it difficult to eat right, the better you will be empowered to counter and successfully resist. Hence, this interesting article:

NPR - February 1. 2013 by SHANKAR VEDANTAM

Has the recession made you fat?

To the long and growing list of risk factors known to increase the risk of obesity, scientists recently added a new one: scarcity.

People given subtle cues that they may have to confront harsh conditions in the near future choose to eat higher-calorie food than they might do otherwise, a response that researchers believe is shaped by the long hand of evolution.

Evolutionary biologists have long speculated that in prehistoric times, when the blueprint of modern human behavior was created as our ancestors struggled for survival, gluttony may have been a useful response to scarcity: If you knew — or feared — a famine was coming, it made sense to tuck away as many calories as possible to prepare for it.


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I'm always fascinated by pictures from the Depression era. You know, that time in the 1930s when the economy crashed and people had very little? If that sounds like today, think again. There was no safety net provided by the government then, and people literally went hungry. That's why in pictures from that time people look so thin. They didn't have enough to eat. And they didn't have cars and machines to do everything for them. They actually had to expend energy!

Fast forward to today, when you can easily afford far more calories than you need, and you can make a living and live your life almost without moving at all.

It's no wonder that we have an enormous problem with obesity and its many related diseases.


When I started my fitness lifestyle, I started thinking about calories and money. Let's say I have a limited supply of money so that I can only afford to eat 2000 calories a day. And let's say I'm smart, and want to get the most bang for my buck by making sure those limited calories have as much nutrient content as possible. What would I be eating? And how much would it cost?

I realized that all the excess food I ate over the years was still with me, stored as fat. I had thousands of dollars of calories saved up! I could spend less now by eating fewer calories than I was burning, and make use of all that stored energy! So that's what I did and my excess fat lasted about a year. Since then I've increased my intake, but it's still limited, and I'm still saving money.

The idea that I need to spend more to lose weight seems wrong to me. Why should I pay someone to give me less food? I can eat less food and spend less money all by myself.

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If you've followed my weight loss, my efforts to get and stay lean and hard (I won't call it a "journey;" nothing should be called a "journey" that isn't a literal "journey," OK?) and haven't just arrived at today's entry, you'll know that I started out at 303 and am trying to maintain 173, for a loss of 130 pounds. It took about a year, and now I'm learning how to keep my weight where I've decided it should be. So, what have I learned so far about maintaining?

First, I've learned that I am in control of my weight. I can weigh whatever I decide is right for me. Ever since I found out about switching to complex carbs, I've been able to control my eating and find the energy to exercise. I've been able to be in the driver's seat again. This is important for me to keep as a first principle in life. I've proven to myself that I'm not at the mercy of circumstances or other people. My weight is up to me.

Second, I've learned that I can't stay at an exact weight on a daily basis. It would be virtually impossible to wake up each morning and weigh exactly 173 pounds. Instead of attempting the impossible, I have to allow myself to fluctuate above and below that weight by a margin of a few pounds. It's sort of like the vibrato a vocalist uses to maintain pitch, or a violinist uses to convey emotion from his instrument. There are times when I'll eat a bit more than I need to maintain my weight, and times when, in order to get back where I need to be, eat a bit less. The key is that I'll average the right number of calories over time, keeping an eye on my weight regularly in order to stay on top of it.

Third, I've learned that food and exercise aren't my life's ultimate focus in and of themselves. They are only the means to a much more important and fulfilling end, that being to be my best in order to love and serve others in caring relationships and productive work.

Do these lessons resonate? If so feel free to add your thoughts by commenting!

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As anyone who has pursued a challenging goal can tell you, getting through to the end is sometimes the most difficult part. Maybe more than sometimes. Maybe always. They say every journey begins with a single step. I guess every journey must also end with a single step. It seems like that one would be so easy, but it's not.

I've struggled to make that last step, I confess. First, there's been the difficulty of deciding whether it's necessary or not. After all, I'm interested in what's best for my health and appearance, not attaining an arbitrary number. The charts can tell you only what your ideal weight is as a range, and even that's based on averages. So, is it 175? Or is it 170? Or is it even lower?

What about my appearance? I started out with the goal of being able to wear pants with 32-inch waists. As I've come close to that, though, I realize I really want my pants to be a bit loose, not snug, in the waist. I want to feel that I have just a bit of room for the occasional indulgence, that gaining a couple of pounds over a weekend of eating anything I want won't mean I can't fit into my clothes on Monday morning. Then there's another appearance issue: I don't want to look anorexic or starved. That's why I've been working out so hard. How thin is too thin? I'm not sure.

Finally, there's the fact that I'm getting tired of being hungry all the time. It's been just over a year, and 130 pounds. Can you blame me? I've been having more frequent lapses and dreams of pizza.

I am determined to get to my goal, but it seems I first need to need to get a better handle about what that is.



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Losing weight doesn't have to be about enduring tasteless foods. Frankly, the thought of having a carrot or celery stick as a snack leaves me shuddering in revulsion. What's the point? I might as well try to fill up on cardboard. No, I eat a limited number of calories, but I enjoy what I eat. I find healthy recipes that taste great and satisfy me, and I keep getting new ideas for meals I've never tried.

Here's an excellent article that shares how to add great taste to your meals without unwanted calories as part of the deal.

5 Ways To Get More Taste And Fewer Calories From Your Food

Enjoy!

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It isn't always fun to learn that something you've heard over and over and accepted as true is actually false. On the other hand, it can be liberating. True information is usually helpful, and so we shouldn't be afraid to have our cherished health and fitness beliefs challenged. Here is a commonly held idea that turns out to be untrue:

Thin people are thin because they have a faster metabolism.

You know how it goes. I know how it goes, because I believed it too. I'd look at someone who was thin and wish I had their amazing, bird-like metabolism. They can eat whatever they want and stay thin as a spike. Along the same lines is the idea that you have a fast metabolism when you're young, but it slows down as you age.

The truth is, people who are thinner will have slower metabolisms than people who are heavier. Not faster. Slower. Why is that? Because it takes more energy, more work, hence more calories to move a heavy body around than a lighter body. Try it yourself with any object. That's why heavier vehicles, other things being equal, get worse gas mileage than lighter vehicles do.So how do thin people stay thin? Only three possible explanations exist: They burn more, consume less, or both. Thinner people find physical activity to be more comfortable. Moving around is easier, so they tend to do it more. The opposite happens when we get older and eat more. We gain weight, move around less, gain even more weight, and on and on it goes.

And why do young people get to eat more without gaining weight? Some of the energy they take in, in the form of calories, will go into growth, yes, but they are usually far more active than older folks and pay more attention to their appearance, and so probably eat less, not more, than older people do. When the older ones get married, there's less reason to care about diet and exercise, since they've already satisfied the evolutionary imperative to find a mate and pass on their genes. When we were young there were also probably some restraints put on our eating. When we get to be adults, the only people who can stop us from having that pie are the ones staring back at us in the mirror. The physical demands of our jobs also tend to become less energy-intensive as we age.

But all these reasons have to do with the same factors: Calories in, and calories out.

Is that discouraging? It shouldn't be! Because it means that you are not subject to the immutable dictates of a mysterious entity called your metabolism. You have the power to change, to transform your body using two tools. Diet, and exercise. And that's great news.

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File this under motivation. Here's a list of ten things it's so much easier to do when you're thin:

1. Walk around
2. Fit in seats. Airline seats, movie seats, restaurant seats, classroom seats, all kinds of seats.
3. Dance
4. Run
5. Take the stairs
6. Sleep
7. Make love
8. Wear nice clothes
9. Cross your legs
10. Stand for long periods

Got any to add?

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Here's an interesting question you might ask yourself: What percentage of people my age are physically fit? (I'm defining "fit" as being lean and hard from regular exercise and healthy eating.)

If you're in your 20s, you might think that number would be quite high. You might then be surprised to learn that:

Approximately one-third of boys and girls age 12 to 19 in the United States do not meet standards for physical fitness. (according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine)

But still, 66% is not bad. So if you're fit in your teens or early 20s, you would be among the 66%.

What about older people? Check this out:

During a 2006 study the National Center for Disease Control determined that the percentage of adult’s age 20 years and over who are overweight or obese was an astounding 67 percent.

 It would be intuitive to guess that the percentage drops off as the age range gets higher, but counting everyone over 20, we're talking about a complete reversal. Now you're among the 33%. And your cohort gets smaller and smaller the older you get. Are you over 50? You're in a very small club.

While not scientific, you only have to consider the people you know and see as you go through your life. Very few, if any, are physically fit at 50 and over.

So it's very inspirational (assuming you want to be fit over fifty) to read about women like Ruby Carter-Pikes, who recently placed second in a women''s body-building competition.

The 64-year-old Palmdale resident, known as “Miss Ruby” recently bested her 20-something competitors by scoring second place for Women’s Figure, a category judged by shoulders, lats, abs and quads, at the FitSciences Championships in Atlanta. Carter-Pikes was also a top finisher in the Fit Mom Class.

Women and men like this show us that we can be fit over 50, and that's a message we can afford to hear over and over again!

Have a great fitness story? Share it in the comments and inspire our readers!

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Is it ever advisable to take a break from my regular workout routine? Will I lose all my gains if I miss a day? How do I know if I need a break? And how long should a break be?

These are all great questions. I've actually taken short breaks by necessity rather than by choice, and I've found that they can actually be advantageous. But what do the experts say?

While exercising consistently is important for building endurance, conditioning your body and losing weight, you may reach a point where you're tired, bored and desperately need a break. Taking a break may be just what you need to rest, recover and rejuvenate, but how long before you start losing your fitness?

You may be surprised to learn that taking a few days or a full week off from training won't necessarily hurt the gains you've made. In fact, many serious exercisers and athletes regularly schedule a week off every 8-12.

So if you're serious about fitness you can be certain that breaks are not only not a bad thing, they're actually important for your long-term fitness goals.

Today's awesome workout song...



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Photo credit: The Holy Grail

The answer is a definite YES!

As long as you are on a weight reduction plan, you are going to face the temptation to cheat. The reason is simple: To lose weight you have to burn more calories than you're taking in, and this means you will sometimes feel deprived.

I've lost 115 pounds so far, and I've been losing weight since about September of last year, so you can believe that I've strayed from the strictures of my regime a few times along the way. Once in a while I've faces temptations that, for me, at the time, were irresistible. Here's how I've managed these diversions from the path...

1. I've tried to limit the damage. OK, so I simply have to have pizza. Nothing I can do about it when the desire is so strong and so persistent. I go ahead and have some, but I eat it slowly and stop when I'm satisfied (which, since my stomach has shrunk from eating less food, happens much sooner than it used to!). Then I throw away the rest and my splurge is over.

2. I've gotten right back on the horse. Guilt and discouragement are the enemy when you've broken faith with your plan. Put your straying behind you and come right back to the righteous path. Here's how WebMD puts in in this article:

Don't let a little slip become a backslide.  It is almost impossible to be an "A" student when it comes to dieting. "Everyone slips up, and that is fine as long as you don't let one slip turn into a backslide," says Wansink. Whenever you slip up, take note of it, try to learn from it so you can anticipate it in the future, and get right back into your diet plan to avoid the temptation to throw in the towel.

If you have a lot of weight to lose, it's going to take some time, and you are going to cheat. But cheating cannot stop you if you limit the damage and stick with your plan.

Please comment below if you found this helpful or have additional tips to share!

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How old are you? It's a simple question, right? Not really.

It's not as simple as you might think to answer this question. Most of us just count the number of years that have passed since the date on our birth certificates. By that measure I am 52. But there are other ways to measure age. Sometimes people say you're only as old as you feel. But what about your biological age?

Here's an interesting definition of biological age:

Your BIOLOGICAL AGE is the age that most normal people would be when they have a body and mind similar to yours.

Your chronological age can't be manipulated, but your biological age can be. You can, in fact, turn back the clock. You can even accomplish this at a genetic level. Consider the results of this study:

The researchers identified 596 differentially expressed genes (meaning atypical to other genes being analyzed). Of these, after 26 weeks of resistance training the researchers identified 179 genes associated with age and exercise showing a reversal of their gene expression. This means quite literally that the resistance training was not only slowing, but also reversing the aging process at the gene level. The gene expressions of the resistance trained older subjects demonstrated characteristics similar to those of the younger group. The researchers also noted that mitochondrial impairment, normally seen with inactivity, was reversing with the 6 months of resistance training.

What does all this mean? As mind-blowing as it is, it means you can actually reverse the aging process and increase your lifespan!

A related term that's more useful than "lifespan" is "healthspan." Healthspan is defined as:

...the period of a person's life during which they are generally healthy and free from serious or chronic illness.

I'm not as interested in increasing the length of time I would be considered clinically "alive" as much as the length of time I am healthy and able to enjoy living. And this I can definitely affect by the way I live right now.

Are you ready to get started with your age reversal?

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I don't know yet. I've lost 111 pounds as of yesterday. I weighed 192.2 when I stepped on the scale in the AM. When should I stop losing and start maintaining? I do have an idea about that but I'm not yet certain, simply because I'm not going by a government chart. I'll know when I've landed at my ideal weight (it's really a range, isn't it?) when I look the way I want to look. Which is: Lean and hard.

I think my ideal range will end up somewhere between 160 and 175. I'd like to have a 32" waist and look great shirtless. There's still a good bit of extra fat that needs to be burned before the muscles show through and I look cut, ripped, etc. So it's onward and downward until then. And then it will be about staying lean and hard.

Today's workout song:



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