Boosting Energy: the Dangers of the Quick Fix

Breakfast for Elliot is a bowl of frosted corn flakes with skim milk and a cup of black coffee. Zinging he hits the highway for work. By 10am he’s been to the break room twice for coffee and nibbles from the birthday cake left in the staff fridge. 12:30 lunch meeting where he eats a store-bought roast beef sandwich that is more bread than beef. Now it’s 3pm. Thinking is getting hard. Elliot is dragging and looking at the clock every 5 minutes wishing he could speed up time... He reaches for a cola/latte/mocha/chocolate bar to accelerate himself through to quitting time... Blood sugar surges, heart rate increases, insulin jets through the bloodstream trying to manage glucose...

Ok, let’s rewind all the way back to breakfast and see if we can’t help Elliot set himself up for a productive and energetic day...

Breakfast really is one of the most important meals of the day. It sets the stage for the rest of his day. Will he have enough fuel to keep his brain functioning on high when he needs it? If he breaks the fast he endured between 7am and dinner the night before with a balance of nutrients from each major food category he will stand a good chance. Good breakfast choices include low-glycemic carbohydrates like old fashioned oatmeal or 9-grain cereal, or low-sugar granola without dried fruit. Add to that a source of protein to give the body base materials for cell signally, nutrient transport and tissue repair such as eggs, nuts, or plain whole milk yogurt. Don’t leave out the healthy fats! Dietary fats act as the oak log on the bonfire that burns in the hours after the carbohydrate fuel has burnt off. Healthy fats include butter and whole milk fat from organic grass-fed cows, the oils found in nuts that can be put on oatmeal or in granola, and the fat found in whole coconut milk.

Coffee or tea can be beneficial, but it is advisable to be careful about adding sugar and avoid using sugar substitutes if you want to keep your brain healthy and your body trim. Caffeine and sugar together can help the brain be efficient and may be a good combination in small quantities prior to a strenuous thinking task such as taking and exam. But, in slightly larger quantities and frequencies, the sugar that comes in with the caffeine is more prone to become body fat than be used as fuel for speedy thought processes. Remember to keep drinking water though because caffeine will dehydrate the body and brain. Water is essential to efficient conduction of the electrical impulses that make up thoughts and nerve function.

Having access to healthy snacks at work or school is essential to keeping the brain happy and functioning without getting fuzzy. It is important to keep fuel coming in and not go more than about 3-4 hours without eating anything for brain performance and metabolism to stay high. Good choices to take along include trail mix (without candy), fresh fruit and a small pack of nuts or nut butter, hard boiled egg and crackers, or humus and sliced veggies.

Lunch should consist primarily of vegetables and protein with a sauce or dressing that includes a healthy fat. Examples might be a big salad with grilled salmon and hollandaise sauce, vegetable stir fry with chicken (skip the rice), or black bean and veggie soup or chili. By taking out the “white” food group of highly processed grains (bread, white rice, potatoes, pasta) you remove the culprit for the 3pm slump and the 5pm need to eat the couch before dinner.

Dinners for most of us need to be rearranged. This should not be our largest meal of the day after which we then slump mentally exhausted onto the couch and channel surf for 3 hours before bed. Dinners should be more like the “suppers” of old -- a lighter meal than lunch with more veggies than starches and a keen attention to lean healthy proteins for the body to use throughout the night as it moves into rest and repair mode. Loading up on high glycemic carbohydrates and grains is the wrong move for most people. These are the faster burning fuels that are better used during the day when we are vertical and exerting ourselves (hopefully!) physically. It is the proteins and vitamins and minerals and enzymes that are most useful to our bodies at night.

These are very general suggestions! For more details on how your own particular body utilizes foods and which sort of eating plan would work best for you, please consult with a nutritionist who understands that you are your own personal Universe. If there was a single “diet book” that worked for everyone, we wouldn’t have shelves full of different options. A qualified professional can help create meal plans and menus that will work for your whole family and not turn you into a short-order cook for each member of the household. It doesn’t have to be hard.

Get curious. Get informed. Get REAL.

Man Parts

Why is it that the topic of “men’s health” always seems to be a synonym for prostate health or erectile dysfunction? Yes, the prostate gland is important, but there is a whole MAN attached to it and his overall health is vital to the health of all his parts. Let’s look at a few things that are important to consider in whole-body health trajectories that don’t get much attention.

Building blocks: We all played with them as kids. You learned about how a wobbly foundation meant that your castle would fall over more easily than a well built one. You learned about how certain blocks fit together better than others. And you learned that using the bigger blocks on the bottom gave your castle more stability.

Translation: There are a few big pieces to focus on for overall health at the foundation level that will make all the difference in the stability and maintainability of health in the long run. The really cool thing is that all of these are under personal control, not the purview of the pharmaceutical companies or the medical community. In most cases, the biggest contributor to health or dis-ease is what we do (or don’t do) every day.

What to Eat? Start with less... Over-consumption of food and the development of obesity is one of the leading causes of all chronic dis-eases in the US and is directly implicated in the development of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction (ED), heart dis-ease, diabetes and more.

One of the greatest disservices perpetuated on the American public has been the idea that a low- or no-fat diet is somehow healthy. The key is the type of fat and where it comes from. You actually need some saturated fats along with essential fatty acids, but fake, damaged or contaminated fats are deadly. Low/non-fat conventional dairy products have been linked to prostate cancer, and high intakes of unprotected omega 3 fatty acids (i.e. not enough antioxidants) are linked to the development of BPH.

The same holds true for proteins, especially animal derived proteins. There are vast differences in health consequences between consuming organic, grass-fed, “happy” beef/dairy and commercial, feed-lot, grain (and “other”) fed beef/dairy. Our biggest problem, however, is likely to be highly processed carbohydrates including products made with refined sugars and flours, refined white rice, and starchy veggies that have been subjected to high heat. High-glycemic index carbohydrates (highly processed carbs and sugars) have been linked to prostate cancer and BPH. If I could make a one sentence recommendation for your overall health it would be this: Eat foods that were grown the way they were meant to live (organically) with the least amount of processing possible and prepared with care. If we all did this I would be willing to bet that 80% of our chronic health issues would magically disappear.

What to Drink: Simple, water. Those studies claiming that red wine is beneficial for heart dis-ease? Yeah, those have been found to be mostly false. Sorry. And beer is one of the worst things to indulge in daily, even more so than sodas which are looking worse and worse as the studies roll in. Coffee? Good news! One coffee drink per day is good for the liver and helps to prevent diabetes. The trick is to eliminate the sugar and only use organic grass-fed hormone-free whole milk or half and half. Soy milk? Let’s just say “don’t go there” and leave that for another discussion. Water. Clean, pure, non-distilled water.

What to Do: Another simple answer, move. If there were a medication that could provide all the benefits of exercise, MDs would be sued for malpractice if they didn’t prescribe it for everyone! Basically there are only benefits, even the side effects are beneficial! It’s no wonder because moving is what we were built to do. This modern age has seen a new ill health syndrome develop called SED or sedentary death syndrome. The less you move the greater your chances of early death or a long, drawn out, dis-ease riddled old age. And is it related to BPH, prostate cancer and ED? You bet. No surprise there. The research all shows that the better shape you’re in, the better ALL your man parts work! (And yes, the sex is better too...)

Get the gunk out. Get moving. Get serious about your health. Get REAL.

Re - Solutions

OK. You made it though the holidaze. Congratulations. Now what? Now comes that nagging feeling that you've overindulged and have to repent. This usually centers on creating some sort of austere diet and exercise plan that your "Super Self" will coerce your "Evil Twin" into following for "your own good".  Aahh... and here is where it all goes down the drain before you even get started.

DIET is a Four Letter Word. Back when I was a kid, a "four letter word" was a "bad word". The word "diet" has all the negative connotations that are associated with punishment and deprivation. It is based on willpower and internal motivational strength. It is a period of time that is book-ended and taken out of a person's "normal" life during which they force themselves into a very tight small box of behaviors and usually without any internal or external support. Put simply: IF YOU DIET YOU ARE DESTINED TO FAIL unless you happen to have the will of an automaton, the emotional range of a barbell, and live in a bunker with no temptations to stray from the tight-rope thin path to your goal weight.

The reality is that we humans are complicated, have stressful lives that overlap and interact with other complicated and stressful lives. We are continuously bombarded with advertisements for weight loss miracle pills/shakes/frozen meals/supplements/medications/surgeries at the same time we are assaulted with advertising for the "return of the McRib", "I-dare-you-to-eat-just-one" chips, 2-for-1 large so-there's-no-need-to-share pizzas, and super-sized fries for the same price as regular. Mixed messages? Yup. One set appeals to your inner parent and the other to the inner child. You are being set up. Who benefits? The pharmaceutical industry, the food industry and the diet industry. You read that right. The Diet Industry. There are huge amounts of money to be made on you. This industry is there to help your wallet lose weight, not you.

Don't count calories. Count blessings. Get REAL. Take back your power and live your life with the passion, verve and vitality you were meant to have! How, you ask? Simple really. Focus on these five things with gentleness towards yourself and gratitude:
1 - Eat REAL foods. Give up processed foods, anything that you only have to microwave and serve, excess sugars (not all sugars!), damaged fats and poisoned proteins. Eat a rainbow of veggies, fruits, healthy meats/fish/poultry (if you aren't vegetarian of course), organic whole dairy products, whole grains and healthy fats. YES FATS. Fats are what triggers the sense of satiety and tells your body you can stop eating. Without fat in your meal you will be hungry again very quickly. And yes, the occasional dessert! But eat it right up next to your meal. And by the way, occasional means just that, not after (or instead of) every meal as we've been told by the marketing agencies we can do...
2 - Move. It's what you were built to do. You weren't built to run marathons weekly or to swim the English Channel. You were built to trudge. You were built to move all day every day. You were not built to sit. Move your body through space under your own power for at least 60 minutes per day at a pace that suggests you might have just been hung up on AGAIN by AT&T after being on hold for 45 minutes. Grrr!
3 - Drink water. Just water. Clean water. Cool, not iced, water. Drink one ounce for every half-pound of you. If you weigh 200 pounds, your daily intake should be 100 ounces. If you must, have herbal tea or a squeeze of lemon in your water. If you have caffeine or alcohol, remember it sets you back and you have to drink that much more to get back to square one.
4 - Eliminate as much added sugar as possible. Naturally occurring sweetness in fruits and veggies are fine. Artificial sweeteners offer you nothing but health problems and a continuing addiction to extreme sweetness. Cut it back. Use sugar if you must but do so knowing that's what you're using and be sensible. No agave is not the answer. This is another case of "natural" does not equal "healthy".
5 - Breathe. Yup, you read that right. Breathe. We forget that one of THE most important things we can do is change the air. Clear your head. Oxygenate your brain. Wake up your muscles. Crank up your metabolism. Expel toxins that are released in the breath. Consciously taking a few breaths reduces your stress levels instantly. Try it. It's something you can literally do any time. Important times to implement taking a few conscious breaths are: before beginning a meal, before a potentially stressful meeting, while sitting in traffic, before going to bed at night, and before engaging in your day in the morning.

You can do these things! If you focus on these 5 things rather than trying to make unsustainable and doomed resolutions, you can change the course of your history from this day forward. I dare you to try it. Take pictures, take measurements, then put the scale in the garage, keep a journal and let me know how you feel this time next year. Thumb your nose at the expensive diet plans and gym memberships. Laugh at the ridiculous advertising that makes no rational sense. Take your power and money back from Big Pharma and Big Agra. Get Sensible. Get Healthy. Get REAL.

Storage Units: The Pathologies of Packing and Packing It On

It occurs to me that in this country we have parallel pathologies on the same trajectory to ill health. Have you noticed that nearly every community, no matter how small, has an extra “roll” around the edges of self-storage units? They are sprouting up everywhere. As a culture and a people we can’t seem to let go of “stuff”. We are on a path to collect stuff. We pass on our stuff to our kids and grandkids. We build whole new houses to put more and more stuff in. We forgo investing in businesses to help humanity in favor of the sure bet of building more storage units. We can’t seem to take responsibility for getting rid of the stuff that accumulates. Instead, we make excuses for the amount of stuff we have and stuff that stuff into bigger “clothes”. At the same time, as a people we are stuffing ourselves. We buy more and more low quality foods because we are lead to believe we can afford more of the cheap options. We eat more and more highly processed foods that put our bodies into storage mode. We trick our metabolism into wanting more and more calories so the body can create more storage units and we can buy bigger clothes. We then store the smaller sizes in the storage unit in the event that sometime in the future we will lose weight. The closer I look the more connected I believe these two pathologies are. 

Commonalities in development:

• Abdication of personal responsibility in favor of the “expert opinion” or “just take a pill”.
• The credit culture has eliminated anticipation and saving or working towards a desired goal. Waiting until you can actually afford something is seen as silly now. But because we can have whatever we want “now”, the thrill of the chase is eliminated, we grow weary of our new acquisition quickly, and fixate on the next “must have” item. Whether that is a Big Mac, a 65” TV or a Hummer.
• Dedication to the TV as evidenced by the ever expanding channels and the ever dumbing down of content (we now watch “reality TV” to see what life is like in the outside world).
• Reduction in interest in the physical environment and dissociation of humans from the environment to the point where children can’t recognize a vegetable or understand that chicken doesn’t just materialize in styrofoam and plastic wrap.
• Diminution of actual bodily movement -- the most used appendage seems to have become the thumb and some people manage to move little else. 
• Withdrawal from real human connection in favor of mass media entertainment and virtual worlds.
• Growing inability to communicate effectively which goes hand in hand with the last item.
• Oblivious disregard for personal impact on the environment. With no relationship there is no responsibility for one’s actions.
• Definition of success as accumulation and chronic overabundance, and the denial of the growing problem of excess. Belief that endless expansion is sustainable, but uncontrolled growth is abnormal growth. In cellular terms, this is cancer.
• Inability to find a starting point to make personal changes.
• Lack of tools to create and sustain lasting change.

Re-Style Your Lifestyle:

It's Spring Cleaning Time! Cleaning up and cleaning out your physical storage units has positive impact on many levels not the least of which is you may discover you don't really need most of what you've been storing. You can make money selling it off, or take a tax break for donating your "stuff" to charity. Hey, you may even discover you don't need to be paying rent on that storage unit at all! Now, with that extra money available, you can actually afford to invest in yourSelf. Now you can more easily get to work on your cellular storage units. Now you can afford to join the gym, sign up for Boot Camp, take a nutrition class, and/or upgrade your grocery choices...

More on this as the metaphor manifests... Get A Grip. Get Organized. Get REAL.

REAL Cool iPhone Apps

So, a wise friend and colleague thought a good follow-up to the last post on helpful web links would be iPhone applications that I find useful since so many of us are iPhone junkies... (yes, myself included). I tend to be most interested in the ones that are free or very inexpensive because they are easy to recommend to people who want to try something new. Here are a few that I use myself that you may want to check out.

Medically Related Applications:
Epocrates = solid information on drugs, interactions and research updates
Medical Calc = a grouping of calculators used in medical settings
MedRef = lists of normal lab values and references
PubSearch = the iPhone app version of PubMed Search referencing hundreds of medical journals

Fitness Related Applications:
TrailGuru = tracks your hike, walk or bike via GPS; you can upload the info including photos taken on your outing to their website; gives you distance traveled, elevation gain and loss, and a map of your journey
StepTrakLite = step counting program which gives you input on levels of exercise not just steps counted
iWalk = gives you step counting, total distance, speed, and calories burned
LoseIt! = very comprehensive food journaling app that also allows you to enter exercise, goals for weight and nutrients, logging with groups of friends, setting up motivating daily emails, and more. This is a favorite although I wish it worked more with serving size and less with calories.
GymGoalLite = a good exercise workout tracker complete with instructional videos of various exercises, set programs to try, and the ability to create your own workout with goals and tracking

Food Related Applications:
Dirty Dozen = the complete list of pesticides in produce from the Environmental Working Group, handy to have when you're doing your shopping
SeafoodWatch = a good fish list from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, also handy while shopping
Epicurious = recipes and menu ideas, searchable by ingredient, meal type, season, and ease of preparation; also creates shopping lists for you from recipes; lets you save favorites in your own file
AllRecipes DinnerSpinner = a fun way to change up your meals and try something new

Strictly Geeky Photo Fun:
Hipstamatic = photography with a retro twist to create really fun effects and photos
CameraBag = like Hipstamatic but you can import photos and tweak them within the program as well
PS Express = Photoshop mini version for the iPhone; import or take photos and then play with them
Autostitch = create panoramic photos from a series of shots

There you have it! Get Connected. Get Hip. Get REAL!

A Revolutionary Idea

Are you one of the many thousands who make New Year's Resolutions? Do you start off with oodles of resolve and commitment only to get to the end of January and throw in the towel? The diet and fitness industries (and oh yes, we're talking huge money making industries!) count on you to fail. Yep, you read that right. They count on you to FAIL. Why? Simple math. Their marketing gurus can then guilt you into buying another diet food or signing up for another gym membership or purchasing another piece of bulky home equipment. All of these are destined to miss the mark as well. One of the things I tell my clients regularly is that the diet industry is not your friend. They are guaranteed to lighten your wallet but fail you in your well-intentioned desire for health. The biggest reason for this is every diet and exercise program is "bookended", meaning that there is a beginning and an end. Once you reach the end (or quit in frustration) you tend to return to the "real world" and all the old habits that got you in trouble in the first place. Lasting change is NOT what the diet industry wants! That would devastate their profit margin.

Reclaiming your health is nothing short of Revolutionary in this day and age. Truly. There are so many forces out there fighting against you! It takes courage and guts to claim your Self. We are lulled into oblivion by sales pitches, television, fake surgically-created celebrity bodies, quick fix promises and medications that seem to magically remove personal responsibility (until the side effects kick in). We are sold a load of garbage and told it's food. We are tricked into believing that we don't actually have to DO anything about our health, just take this new medication. Those clever marketing agents have discovered that people don't really want to hear the truth: if you want to attain and maintain health, you have to take an active role. You actually have to take responsibility and make changes that stick for a lifetime, not just until the end of January or until you make it to that high school reunion. You have to swim upstream against the marketing assaults that hit you in the gut at every turn. You have to start listening to what your body needs and break free from the hypnotic drone of the advertisements for no-calorie, no-fat triple chocolate layer cake, no-exercise, eat-all-you-want, lose-20-pounds-in-2-days, fat-flush fantasies. You have to get to that place where the proverbial line in the sand stops moving and you take the first step toward the You you know is in there buried under the cases of Slim Fast, Lean Cuisine and Vitamin Water. The REAL You. The Vibrant You. I won't pull punches, the beginning is difficult. The terrain is fraught with perilous pitfalls and dead ends. It requires moxie and stick-with-it-ness. But you know what? The challenge is worth it. YOU are worth it! I haven't worked with a single person who has made this commitment to care deeply for themselves and regretted it! I have met many people who have woken up out of their couch-glued, prime-time, high-fructose, guilt-induced-sound-bite stupors in wonder, gasping at their new-found sense of vitality. They wonder how they ever allowed themselves to slip into the rivers of snake oil. With new-found strength and determination they spring forward into the adventure called life that stretches out in front of them. Won't you join them?

Here is a radical idea: WAKE UP. TAKE CHARGE. GET REAL.

Thriving Through the Holidays

As the days darken and the air takes on a crispness, the approach of HOLIDAY SEASON can bring high levels of stress around family gatherings, office parties and the general over-abundance of bad-habit foods. Take heart! There are ways to not only survive the holidays, but have an enjoyable and rewarding experience!

Focus

Remember you have all the tools you need to stay on track with your plan to improve your overall health.

Remember you have support in family and friends that have seen you through all your changes and challenges so far.

Remember that food is just that: food. The emotions and rituals and gatherings that include food can be enjoyed with or without all the caloric trimmings (take a lesson from the Whos down in Whoville...)

Tips

Encourage family and friends to gather around activities rather than food. Try suggesting a walk in the park if the weather is nice or going bowling if it isn’t. Visiting and making that emotional connection is not dependent on food being available at every sitting. 

Get creative! There are lots of ways to update old family recipes to make them healthier and there are literally thousands of healthy recipes available that can become new traditions. Have a “bring something you’ve never made before” pot-luck or challenge participants to make a dish representing a favorite healthy aspect of the season.

Opt for non-alcoholic beverages and water water water. 

Stick to serving sizes: 2-4 ounces of lean meats, 1 tsp butter or oil, 1/2 cup of cooked whole grains...

Enjoy lean meats, lots of veggies, have sweet potatoes instead of white ones, and have one favorite dessert per week (remember, it’s only the first two bites that really satisfy the taste you’re looking for). Spoil yourself by choosing the very best of everything! Don’t settle for imitation or low-quality foods.

Avoid unknown dips and spreads, mashed potatoes, fatty gravies and anything made with hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup.

And please don’t forget to MOVE. It is vital that you keep up your exercise program throughout the year. Exercise helps you deal with stress, gives you a great excuse to take a break from family and festivities, and it helps you handle any extra calories that make it through. 

Get Moving!

I find it interesting that so many of my clients, friends and family end up having this conversation with me. Sometimes it comes up directly as is often the case with my clients. Other times, it's this circumspect navigation around to the topic. What it comes down to is that in this American culture of "busyness" we have conveniently convinced ourselves that there just isn't enough time to get any exercise in the day. We have to pick up and drop off kids, we have to commute to work and back, we have to do the laundry, we have to do the taxes, you name it, there's a reason. The reasons all sound like good ones. They are all things that need doing in this adult world, and not all of them fun either. Still, I challenge everyone on this point.

I think part of the issue is that we have also been convinced by marketers, researchers and magazine articles that "exercise" is something separate from your life. Something you have to take time out to do. Something that requires a whole separate wardrobe or gear or machines or memberships. What we forget is that we have these bodies 24/7 until we're 6 feet under. They move us through space, hold us upright in line at the bank, carry that laundry to the machines in the garage, and swing our children or grandchildren up for a piggy back ride. These bodies are designed to move and bend and lift and walk. Most importantly, walk. It's one of the few things that makes us special as a species, and yet as a culture we are doing our level best to avoid it at all costs. We have invented all sorts of ways to avoid walking: elevators, escalators, cars, moving sidewalks and golf carts to name a few.

Here is my challenge to you: from the standpoint of moving, act as if you live in 1810 rather than 2010 as often as you can. See where you can opt to take the stairs or leave the car at home and walk. If you must drive, see if you can park once and walk to all your errands with the car in a central location, or at least park the car as far as possible from the front door of the business you're visiting.

For the techies out there like me, invest in a pedometer and track your progress. Spend the first week just logging what you normally do. Then challenge yourself to add 100 steps each day until you get up to at least a mile. You'll be surprised at how quickly it actually happens! Most people start out thinking they'll never be able to and end up walking 5 miles or more a day just by increasing the steps they take in living life.

It doesn't take purchasing a gym membership, $100 shoes, or a $1000 bicycle. It also doesn't take blocking out 2 hours each day to get to the gym, change, get all sweaty in an hour-long workout, shower, and get back to your life. Of course those planned workouts will accelerate the process of getting and staying healthy, but THE most important thing is just to move. Move more. Eat less. Get REAL.

On Your Mark... Get Set...

In my preparations to put together a workshop series on the proper combination of nutrition and exercise, I have spoken with numerous friends and clients about what sorts of topics might interest them. In the process I have been regaled with some very funny tales of competition and training woes that were related to poor food choices pre or post exertion. One of the ones that had the biggest impact on me was about a guy who had arrived at the starting line for a bike race without properly fueling up in the pre-dawn pre-race hours and now was starving. In a last minute effort to get some sort of fuel in before the starting gun, he inhaled a hot dog with all the fixings from a nearby vendor. You can probably already guess where this story ends up... The interesting thing is this person is a semi-pro rider but never got any guidance about eating to win.

It should be pretty obvious that even if you didn't know about all the chemistry behind digestion and absorption, you might listen to your body when it cringes at the thought of a pre-race hot dog. The brain gets us into trouble in so many ways when it thinks it knows best and over-rides the needs of the body (hence all the various addictions to sugar and caffeine and other potential nutritional pitfalls). What you want immediately prior to a hard workout or competition sporting event is something that the body won't have to work hard to breakdown into fuel. This is why companies like Cliff Bar have developed products like "Gu" which is pretty much straight glucose and some maltodextrin which is a loosely held together starch that the body can work on while the glucose goes straight to the blood stream. That hot dog is a digestive time bomb that first starts out as a barely chewed up lump sitting in the stomach. Once that starting gun fires, the signals from the body are to forget about anything except the adrenaline pumped task at hand: RIDE FAST! A few miles into this endeavor, that hot dog has been jostling around in the stomach waiting to be digested with acid building up by the minute. The time bomb explodes into either vomiting or diarrhea because the body needs to get rid of it in order to continue to push hard in the race. Now, the rider is doubled over, exhausted, and drained of reserves because the last little bit of fuel left from dinner the night before has been used up.

Let's help this poor rider rewind and replay his morning in a way that sets him up to win. Three hours prior to competition (yes, often in the wee hours of the dark), let's be sure to give our rider a well balanced breakfast complete with easy to digest foods like pancakes with bananas and a little almond butter. Two hours prior to the race start, let's be sure our rider has 16 ounces of electrolyte replacement drink (I'll post a recipe for one you can make at home). One hour prior to race start he's warming up his muscles by jogging lightly or riding short distances pushing a little and then backing off. During this warm up, he is drinking about 8 more ounces of water. In the 15 minutes prior to start, nothing should be going into the stomach. Now when the starting gun blasts, our rider doesn't have a lump of undigested food to contend with, and his muscles are bathed in ready glucose with more on the way. The enzyme systems needed to produce this ready supply of fuel are already on line and working at near full capacity.

On your mark.... Get set....

Food Revolutions - Rant Alert

I have to admit I'm a big fan of Jamie Oliver's attempt to bring healthful food to US kids (check out http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution). But don't you think it's rather embarrassing that it takes someone from outside this country to make this shift happen? I challenge each and every one of you out there to take your power back from the companies that are draining you of your money and your sense. It's time to get a grip folks. It's not time to sit back and play another round of Grand Theft Auto while sucking down another liter of soda. What do you want your future to look like? Your PERSONAL health future? It starts now. It begins with every bite and sip you take. It starts with each extra step you take putting one foot in front of the other. If you really need to sit and watch something, watch "Food Revolution". Watch "Food Inc". Watch "King Corn". Watch "Supersize Me". If you can work some reading into your busy schedule, read "The Omnivore's Dilemma". Read "Real Food". Read "Good Calories, Bad Calories". There is a TON of information out there, it's time to put it into practice and take our power over our own health seriously. Get up, get out, get REAL!

Whew! Ok, I feel better now... Is anybody with me on this?

What's It All About Anyway?

So here I sit in my home office in Marin on a gorgeous sunny day looking for ways to help people get accurate information they can actually use in their daily lives. My goal? To get as many people as possible to take back their health from Big Pharma and Big Agra! We have given up so much of our personal responsibility to corporations and agencies that really only look out for their own bottom line, not our health. This includes those health insurance companies that are finally under scrutiny for shady practices.

One simple truth is: you have a LOT of control over your current and future health through the little decisions you make everyday about what to eat and drink, how much stress you fool yourself into believing is "normal", and whether or not you get out of your chair and move. It has been shown time and time again that a huge percentage of chronic disease can be avoided simply by eating less junk and moving more, and yet we continue to choose to believe the clever marketing by big corporations rather than what we know to be true. So I'm working on deciphering ways to motivate people to first SEE and then change their health trajectories. It can be as simple as deciding to eat breakfast instead of substituting a quad espresso drink. It can be as easy as a 10 minute walk at lunch time and taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

I recently returned from a trip to Virgina where I taught a 3 day intensive on the principles of a healthy lifestyle. The participants were all enthusiastic and energized. They had great questions and by the end of our time together, all were highly motivated to make changes for themselves and their families. What struck me was that even after being so jazzed about our discussions for 3 days, they all took the elevator down after the last class and walked to the front row of parking spaces where each of them parked. I walked passed and waved as I made my way to the opposite end of the parking lot. It takes more than just seeing what needs to change, you have to begin to make it who you are from now on. I'm working on figuring out how to help that transition more effectively.