Wait just a second

I noticed today on my travels that it is easy to make the wrong choices about eating without even thinking about it. I had to fly from San Diego at 6:30 a.m., and my first stop after airport security ripped my bags apart was Starbuck’s.

I always get a basic coffee, but food choices are a bit challenging at Starbucks. There just aren’t a lot of good choices. I LOVE the blueberry muffins, but take a look at what is in them. It is like having Mom whip me up this great, old fashioned breakfast in terms of calories. However, I wolf it down in 90 seconds and get almost no enjoyment out of it.

Frequently, I might order it for no other reason than I am in a hurry. It is a simple choice that I am comfortable with making. But, if I take a step back and let one person go ahead of me in line, it gives me a moment to rethink it. I usually get a banana or their new oatmeal (big fan).

Five extra seconds could make the difference of needing to spend an extra hour on the bike today. I think it is a good use of my time to stop and think.

The fat smoker

David Maister, a world class consultant to the legal industry, has published a book with one of the more brilliant titles I have ever seen: Strategy and the Fat Smoker. In short, it talks about how to manage people who know what they should do for long term success, but they still just don’t cut out the bad habits or start the good ones to get them there. According to Maister, doing what is obvious is not easy. What a wonderfully simple and brilliantly true statement.

Need a challenge?

Some people need a goal to get moving. There is a nationwide initiative called The 50 Million Pound Challenge that is encouraging people to join together to lose the weight they want to take off. Whether you have 10 or 100 pounds to lose, experts agree that having a support network is a great tactic to help you stick with your program.

Some of the facts about the seriousness of the obesity problem in the United States are breathtaking:

• Two out of every three adults are considered to be overweight or obese
• 17% of all children in the U.S. are overweight
• Certain groups, such as African Americans, are suffering even more (80% of adult women and 67% of adult men are overweight)

This program is free and provides materials to help you design diet plans, track your progress and keep the weight off. It is sponsored by State Farm Insurance, and I think this validates the program even more. Who has more to gain from your weight loss than a company that provides health and life insurance???

Actually, you do.

Wisdom at the gym

Henoch ("Henry") Frydman just celebrated his 100th birthday in November by hitting his local gym. He has not missed a workout there since 1977, and I don’t think he plans on disrupting his six day per week regimen any time soon. He is an inspiration to those around him, and he certainly is to me.

Henry is not seeking glory, trophies or attention. He just wants to continue to live an active and healthy life despite what the calendar tells him. I think if more people were like him, there would be a whole lot less people in this country who are stuck on their porches wistfully thinking about the vigor of their youth.

You can read more about him here. The lesson is that fitness is a state of mind as well as a sense of commitment. What have you done today that would inspire Henry?

My diet beats your treadmill

I am glad that many of you have joined health clubs or restarted your exercise routine after the New Year. You can almost smell the turkey and cookies melting away in the cardio center of my place. However, if you have not made significant changes to your diet, it might be a wonderful exercise in futility. A recent Loyola study found that despite all of your hard work, you can’t compensate enough for the pounds you pack on from a bad diet. I thought this passage was particularly simple to understand and to the point:

“…researchers from Loyola University Health System and other centers compared African American women in metropolitan Chicago with women in rural Nigeria. On average, the Chicago women weighed 184 pounds and the Nigerian women weighed 127 pounds.

Researchers had expected to find that the slimmer Nigerian women would be more physically active. To their surprise, they found no significant difference…People burn more calories when they exercise. Thing is, they compensate by eating more…

"We would love to say that physical activity has a positive effect on weight control, but that does not appear to be the case," Cooper said.

Diet is a more likely explanation than physical activity expenditure for why Chicago women weigh more than Nigerian women, Luke said. She noted the Nigerian diet is high in fiber and carbohydrates and low in fat and animal protein. By contrast, the Chicago diet is 40 percent to 45 percent fat and high in processed foods…”

The reason is simple math. Let’s assume that you have decided to “get into shape” for good this year. You weigh 160 pounds, and you are going to jog for one hour per day on a treadmill, five days a week. Congratulations! You will burn 2920 calories. However, any ONE of the following combinations will quickly negate your efforts:

One beer per day (7 x 142 = 994) and one Chipotle burrito (1179) in one week.

One order of cheese fries from Outback Steakhouse (2900)

A Grande, White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks every other day (4 x 720 = 2880)

The point is that you cannot ignore your diet. I admire your tenacity at the gym. Keeping up with five days a week on the treadmill, or any other activity, is a noble effort. You will get quickly frustrated from a lack of results from the hurricane level damage that you can do in just a few minutes with a fork in your hand or straw in your mouth.

What should you do?

1. Know what you are eating. I provided the links to the foods I used in the examples above.
2. Make a plan to compensate for days where eating badly cannot be avoided. I do not expect you to miss every Super Bowl party or cocktail event at work, but you need to compensate for it throughout the day by eating lighter and making good choices.
3. Come to grips with reality. There is a limit to how much exercise you can do. There is almost no limit to how much, or how badly, you can eat. If you think your bullheaded will power at the gym will make up for that “love of wine and cheese” issue that you have, think again.

The minefield in the supermarket

A number of people make great resolutions to eat healthier at the start of a new year. One of the ways they do so is to swear off eating out in restaurants and cook more meals at home.

However, you need to realize that the same tricks that restaurants use to make dishes more appealing are used my food manufacturers.

1. Pretty packaging attracts us to one food item over another. However, the most important part of a package is the Nutritional Guidelines box on the back. Ever wonder why it is so plain and standardized on EVERY food item? It is just objective information for your protection.
2. Deceptive “healthy” or “all natural” labels are all the rage. You will see foods labeled as “No Cholesterol!” and think that means healthy. Well, sugar cubes (since they have no animal products in them) are cholesterol free as well, but I do not think you should eat them all day. Likewise, “100% natural” and “organic” labels do not mean a great choice. Take a look at the calories in a large packet of granola the next time you are at a store…
3. Hidden serving sizes are a new way to hide the ugly truth. I picked up a small container of Kung Pao chicken the other day because the label said it was only 380 calories per serving. Too bad there were 5 servings in this tiny package.

Don’t feel duped. Get informed. There is always a healthier, viable choice to most meals. Check out this article from the Today show about the worst supermarket choices. Each has a substitution that may not be as good as the original, but it is better than running an extra 5 miles a day on the treadmill to compensate for 5 minutes worth of pleasure.

Stretch much?

Be honest. The answer is probably no. Stretching is the red-headed stepchild of the workout family, and it does not get much of a tan since it rarely sees the light of day. When people are short on time, it always seems to be the part of the routine that gets skipped or put in the to the “I’ll do it later at home” pile.

Your coaches in high school were probably the first people to introduce you to the benefits of stretching, but like my old coaches, they learned most of what they knew about fitness back in the 1950’s. Like everything else in exercise science, we have come a long way since then. I hope you are not using a stretching routine that is as old as you are!

Read this article on the modern way to stretch. It helps serve as a proper warm up for your daily routine and has some new twists (pun intended) you may not recognize:

• Be careful performing static stretching before you work out or play sports.
• Stretch twice a day, every day, to maintain your gains.
• Do just one stretch for each tight muscle. After that, the results greatly diminish.
• Dynamic stretching can help increase blood flow, strength and power production.

If any of this sounds new to you, it is time to learn what may be holding you back.