Cold water

Eat that sugary snack cake that you picked up in the checkout line at the gas station and you will have wasted 500 calories. There’s nothing in there that will do you any good. No muscle building proteins. No complex carbs to keep you fueled. No healthy fats keep testosterone levels up. Just simple sugars that will spike your insulin levels and shut off the body’s ability to burn fat as fuel.

The same holds true for what we drink. One huge source of empty calories that many people have a hard time giving up is soda. Most people who think they’ve given up soda do so by switching to the “healthier” diet soda. As if a diet soda has fewer chemicals.

I ran across a University of Texas study recently about diet soda’s impact on weight loss. The study followed 1,177 diet soda drinkers who were either normal or just overweight, but not obese. “On average, for each diet soft drink our participants drank per day, they were 65 percent more likely to become overweight during the next seven to eight years, and 41 percent more likely to become obese,” said Sharon Fowler, M.P.H., faculty associate in the division of clinical epidemiology in the Health Science Center’s department of medicine.

Those aren’t very good odds, as far as I’m concerned.

If that’s not enough, the study goes on to present an additional finding. The more diet soda that a participant drank, the higher their incidence of weight gain. Those who drank the most soda gained the most weight. A direct correlation between drinking soda and gaining weight.

There are many theories on why this is the case. A couple of the most common include:

• By drinking diet soda you’re tricking yourself into believing that this is a healthier option and that you deserve to eat more of other foods to balance things out. How many times have you heard or seen someone order a salad and drown it in dressing? When you’ve loaded it down with high-octane creamy dressing, it ceases to be a healthy choice. That one calorie diet drink suddenly turned into a few hundred wasted calories. Good job!
• The diet soda tricks the mind into thinking it’s getting the sugar it desires and you create a negative hormone response. The body becomes confused and shuts off the fat burning mechanisms and increases cravings for sweets.

So, what should you do instead?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, and again, and again. WATER.

Not flavored water.
Not sports drink.
Not coffee (after all it’s water based, right? Sorry, it doesn’t count)

Plain old cold water. That’s right, its boring. But would you rather be a little boring or a lot heavier?

Mom was right. Drink your milk!

In the study, they recruited 56 males aged 18-30 and put them through a 5 day a week weighlifting program. Following the workout sessions, they gave the participants one of three drinks:

• Two cups of skim milk
• A soy beverage
• A carbohydrate beverage

The group that drank milk lost almost twice as much fat as the group drinking the carb beverage. They also gained 40 percent more lean mass than the soy drinkers and 63 percent more than the carb drinkers.

Need more evidence? A study published in Medicine in Sports and Science, the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, studied a group of competitive soccer players and determined that post-exercise consumption of chocolate milk had equal or better benefits than a commercial workout recovery drink after intensified training.

Mom was right. Drink your milk! Make mine chocolate please!

Results can happen.  They just need to know how to do it and I can help.

Get the report now below.  The answer might surprise you.

Carbohydrate is also needed to burn fat for energy. Without carbs, the body looks to break down muscle to keep it fueled up, meaning that you’ll lose muscle while leaving the fat behind.

You should look to healthy options for your carbohydrate and stay away from the “bad carbs”. Good sources include fruit and vegetables. Not only will these sources provide you with carbohydrate that enters your bloodstream slower, giving you energy longer, but they are also better sources of fiber which meakes you feel fuller.

Stay away from the sugary or refined carbs, also known as high-glycemic, such as candy, most cereals, white bread, white rice, popcorn, white potatoes.

The Tri-County Business Referral Group is sponsoring a free seminar titled “Healthy Body, Full Pockets” where you’ll learn tips that you can put into action right away to improve your success. The seminar is scheduled for Thursday, August 6, at 7PM at the Bolingbrook Recreation and Aquatic Center (200 S. Lindsey Lane).

It’s free, it’s sure to be entertaining, and you’re sure to learn a few great ideas. (Best of all, I’ll be the presenter!)

I hope to see you there!

The body is a pretty amazing system. When you’re beginning your workout program, you might be able to only do 20 minutes at a moderately elevated heart rate. As health and function improves, you’ll be able to more work with the same effort. Many people hit a plateau with their cardio workout (and their resistance workout) where they’re comfortable and stay there though. I see people doing the same workout at the same pace and same intensity. At one time it might have taken their body 300 calories to perform that effort. Now that they’ve improved it might only require 250 calories.

Looking to bust through that plateau and make a difference? Try changing your intensity with interval workouts.

First, make sure you’ve built up a sufficient cardio base. After your warm up, bring your heart rate up to 65%-75% of your max for 5 minutes. Next, crank up the intensity to 85% of max for one minute. Repeat this cycle 3-5 times and then cool down. Try this once a week. If you have any heart or other medical conditions, make sure you’ve been cleared first.

Need help developing a results-driven program to meet your goals?

I can help. Ask me.

That doesn’t mean that you can just snooze your way to getting thin, you still have to do the work and burn the calories. But, getting enough sleep, typically 7 to 9 hours nightly, contributes to helping your body rebuild itself and get stronger. Research also shows links between altered levels of two hormones, Gherlin and Leptin. Gherlin creates feeling of hunger and Leptin tells you that you’re full. Lack of sleep elevates Gherlin, making you think you’re hungry, and depresses Leptin, making you think you’re not full.

So, set an earlier bedtime and you’ll be one step closer to your goal.

Many of you have told me that it’s been very helpful seeing the exercises being performed. I’m glad it’s helping and thanks for watching!

Sleep.

That’s right. Get more sleep. Exercise tears down the body, rest builds it back up. Our mindset is backwards. We often think that we need to pack more into the day and that will make us better. Sometimes, working longer isn’t working smarter.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking you to snore the day away and think you’re going to get ripped while snoozing. But, the body really does need 7-8 hours of sleep each night to recover. And, you can’t “make up” sleep. Five hours a night during the weekdays and 10 on the weekends doesn’t cut it, sorry.

Here’s a real life example. I used to work for a big bank (this one’s pretty strong and only received a minor amount of bailout money). When I left the bank in 2005 to start our business, my exercise routine didn’t change significantly, but my sleep did. Previously, I was getting 5-1/2 hours each night and had trouble falling asleep. Despite the stress of starting our own business without a safety net, I no longer had to catch a 6:10AM train and I started to get 7-8 hours each night. Not only did I start falling asleep faster, but I lost 5 pounds within two weeks and I haven’t seen those pounds since.

Goodnight.

Lunges
Squats
Military press
Upright rows
Lateral raises
Tricep kickbacks
Front raises
Bicep curls
Rows (with door or pole)
Cable rotations (with door or pole)

If you need a refresher on how to perform these exercises, check out these videos