Ruining your diet before 8 a.m.

Mom always told you that you needed to start your day with a good breakfast. Well, so did Kellogg's, but I think your Mom had more of your best interests in mind. As usual, Mom was right. Research has shown that eating breakfast gets those glucose stores in your brain working, so you can have a productive day at work. Breakfast also tends to have a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals since people usually eat simple, natural foods (oatmeal, cereal, eggs, toast, etc.) and not things out of a bag or a box. In addition, your body is famished. If you ate dinner at 7 p.m. the night before, you have gone 12-14 hours with no fuel by the time you get to work!

However, you can ruin your diet for the whole day by eating the wrong things for breakfast. For example, did you know that eating an order of large hash browns from Burger King is the equivalent of gorging yourself on 12 chicken wings? It is about 20-25% of your calories for the day that you have wiped out in about 6 bites.

Men's Health magazine compiled a list of the worst breakfast fast foods. Take a look at it and see if you spot some common items in your weekly intake.

Now that you are sufficiently freaked out (as I was), visit the Breakfast Research Institute's web site to see what you should be eating. Start your day on a positive note by following their guidelines instead of trying to figure out how the heck you are going to burn off all those calories later.

Does smart equal fat?

Well, the title of this posting should get your attention. I have not lost my mind, but a new study by Laval University found that your mind engaging in deep thought might be responsible for a few of those extra pounds.

It seems that being at the office for 12 hours day AND engaging in heavy duty intellectual work is a double whammy against that bikini body you want. In the study, students who were offered all the food they wanted after difficult academic tests ate almost 30% more calories than those sitting on the couch. There was even a marked difference between students taking easy tests versus hard ones.

The research showed that blood glucose levels were actually lower after periods of deep thought, and the body demands glucose be replenished. The brain cannot produce its own glucose, and brain cells requires twice as much as other cells.

So, what does this mean for you if you have a job that requires you to be mentally sharp every day? As always, you need to have a strategy to compensate for it:

• Realize that after a long day of thinking for a living, you are going to be starving. Do not chow down an entire Thanksgiving dinner 10 minutes after you get home. Eat slow and eat healthy.
• Keep snacks in your desk drawer and eat a little something every couple of hours. One of those little sleeves of peanuts you get at the convenience store or a piece of fruit should do the trick. Don't let your brain glucose tank get too low.
• If you think a lot, you are going to eat a lot. That means you need to exercise a lot. Pretty simple concept. So, do it.

Lawyers, bankers, executives, doctors all think for a living. But, being deep in thought all day can be dangerous to your health, so use that mental powerhouse of yours to make a plan to deal with the reality of being so profound.

You have the time to workout (part 2)

I am not trying to drive this concept into the ground, but if a presidential candidate can it the gym, so can you. What I liked about this article is the description of how Senator Obama breaks his workouts into several sessions throughout the day. Obama is a little bit on the ambitious side, so his dedication should not be a surprise. You can argue with his ideas and political policies, but you can't argue with his seemingly limitless vigor and capacity to handle the most arduous of schedules.

Coincidence? I doubt it.

"Make a Man of You"

Some of you may remember Charles Atlas, the original strongman who helped 97-pound weaklings stop getting sand kicked in their faces. Atlas began marketing his regimen back in 1922, and it is amazing how many of the principles are no different than they are today. Now, a few of these principles are really "out there". But, take a look at this article by a reporter who decided to resurrect this ancient fitness gospel.

My point of all this is to show that you do not need to be looking for a new "silver bullet" diet plan or exercise machine to improve your fitness. The principles that WORK have been around for a long time. If your program does not include the basic tenets of proven routines, you may want to rethink your approach.

12 Minutes

I know you are busy. Your colleagues are watching. Your clients are demanding, and you demand the best from yourself. I understand that it is hard to find time to exercise and invest in your own fitness. For many people, it is lucky to make it into the Top 10 of your daily "to do" list.

All I ask is that you dedicate a few minutes a day to your own health. Less then 10 is not worth the bother. Fifteen or more feels like too much time. So, give me 12 minutes. Try one of the following when you feel like you just can't fit a workout in:

• Run on a treadmill for 12 minutes. Warm up for two minutes and then start a moderate pace on a zero incline. Raise the incline every minute by one-half of a degree until you hit 12 minutes and try to maintain the same pace.
• Pick one exercise for the following body parts (in this order): quadriceps, hamstrings, chest, back, triceps, biceps, abs. Now, perform 10 repetitions for each exercise, one right after each other, with no more than 15 seconds rest. Repeat one time.
• Take your jump rope and complete the following circuit: 50 jumps, 10 pushups, 50 jumps, 10 crunches, 50 jumps, 10 lunges. Repeat this until the 12 minutes is up.

You are not going to win the Tour de France or give Michael Phelps a run for his money with these 12 minute routines. However, they will help you maintain your gains on busy days. Get creative and devise your own mix of exercises. All it takes 12 minutes, high intensity and the discipline to be consistent about it.

Hunting down a gym

If you are a road warrior for work like me, you know how hard it is to try and find a decent gym when you are away from home. The recreation center I belong to at home is not Muscle Beach in Venice, CA, but it is where I feel most comfortable.

Use this simple tool to locate a facility that will cater to your location and needs when you are out of your comfort zone. I know from personal experience that having to use a crappy hotel gym, with equipment that looks like it is from the 1970's, is a big excuse for skipping a daily workout.

Once you find a place on the road you enjoy, make sure you book a hotel close to it from now on. You can always take a cab to your meetings in the morning. Most people won't take a cab across town to their workout.

Time for another plate (part 2)

In my last post, I discussed how to know when to increase the resistance on a particular exercise. In short, when it becomes easy, move up. So, how does this concept translate into helping your career?

Most people have heard the phrase in business that "if you are not growing, you are dying." I have two corollaries to this common sense axiom:

1. If you are not learning, you are getting dumber. There is a reason that many professions require continuing education credits. The world changes. If you do not keep up to date on the latest changes, you cease to become a technical expert. You become a history expert. The same principle applies to knowing the latest scoop on your clients, competition and the market. If you are not constantly in front of the players, you are working with outdated information. In effect, you know less and less every single day.
2. If you are not generating new business, you are losing business. Companies merge, clients are fickle and bad luck happens. Nothing is guaranteed in sales except the fact that you constantly need to prepare to replace clients. You will need to be able to adapt and adjust to remain effective against your competitors and other viable alternatives to your services.

In both corollaries, there is a common theme: when it gets easy, it is time to move up. The passage of time is the tyrant that demands your constant vigilance. With a fitness program, you can reach a desired state and try to maintain it. In your career, you can't because others are trying to take your gains away from you.

So, when you know the most you ever have and have more clients than you ever dreamed, it is too easy. Add another plate.