This post is a bit of a rant. I love everyone that emails me and reads this blog but sometimes I am too easy on the changes that people need to make. So I will rant a bit today for you.

I know the title may be a little tongue in cheek but I worry that so many people are waiting for another day to start what they need to start today.

There is a great quote that I always have loved

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift

The reason that this means so much is that people dream about tomorrow and they dwell on the past and forget that today is the only day that you really have control of.

But just looking at this short term means that people fail to act. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks for visiting. To get started why not subscribe to the 21 day fitness plan at the top of this page. Look in the red box, it is right there.. Thanks Bill

Yesterday I wrote a post about the 15 or so lifestyle changes that you need to make to lose 20 pounds in 1 month and coincidentally I believe Scott the Fit Bastard has written a post about how the lifestyle approach to fat loss is a bunch of crap.

I agree with a lot of what the Fit Bastard has to say but at the same time I think that he may be wrong as well.

The argument that Scott makes is that if you are making lifestyle changes it is a very weak way and a cop out to the intense training that he does to make changes in a short period of time, training that forces big changes.

Well Scott is already in great shape as you can see from the pics of him on his site.

The point that I made yesterday still stands. If you look forward to the fall TV season so that you can sit on the couch. If you crave drive thru. If you think that it was too hot out today so maybe you will exercise tomorrow, then you are not in need of a hardcore routine like Scott put himself through you need to dig to the core of your lifestyle and make those changes first. Read the rest of this entry »

I got a comment on the Fat Loss for Idiots review from a fellow that had cheated the night before on his diet. Here is part of how I responded

The best thing to do is to jump right on the diet this evening and tomorrow. There is no way that you can undo what you did in your eating but remember that it is only day 2 and you are just getting used to the diet, these things can and will happen but it is youor reaction to them that is important.

Now that you know that dinner is your tough time it is probably a good thing to look at your successes over the first two days and figure out what you will od about dinner. Most of us are used to having a big dinner and if you can convince yourself (lying to yourself is fine) that dinner is just another meal and a weak one at that since it is so close to sleep then maybe you can have a better plan for how to tackle dinner tomorrow.

What do you do now?

Often we try hard on a diet or exercise program and in just a moment we lose our concentration or our willpower and then we feel we have failed and need to start over. Read the rest of this entry »

The first thing you must understand is that pregnancy is not the time to be counting calories. If you are on a diet that involves severely restricting your caloric intake get off it. Right now. For the next nine months you have permission to not suffer for beauty. Not only is restricting calories not going to result in weight loss (you’re going to gain some as the baby grows whether you like it or not) it could potentially harm your baby.

Not getting enough calories during pregnancy can lead to the baby not having what it needs to develop properly. Low birth weight is a common complication, as is poor fetal development. The baby may have any number of deficiency-associated birth defects. In short, it is vitally important that when you are pregnant you get enough to eat. You can burn it all off after the baby is born, although to be honest if you have time to worry about your weight you will be handling new motherhood much better than most!

The first thing you want to do is calculate your pre-pregnancy Recommended Daily Caloric Intake. If you are a health buff or have been living on a terminal diet you may already know this number. If you do not you can visit one of the following sites to figure it out, or consult with your physician. Read the rest of this entry »

I just found about about this show called I Can Make You Thin starting in a couple of weeks on TLC. My wife was watching LA Ink and saw a commercial. She is intrigued and I always like getting fitness tips from TV, it is nice and quick and easy to understand. I have heard of Paul McKenna before actually he is a self help guy that is popular in England and Australia but not so much in America. This show is starting on March 7 and is based on the book to the left here called I Can Make You Thin.

Maybe I should turn this blog into a TV show, or at least do some podcasting. *Note to self*, get a better video camera

Watch this show and you will lose weight - the world’s most extraordinary interactive TV show. Through the TV set, British self-help expert Paul McKenna, PhD will help viewers program their minds to lose weight. It’s not a diet, there is no will power required, no belief necessary - as you watch you will transform your relationship with food and see others do the same. This show has already been a smash hit the UK and McKenna’s system has changed the way millions of people lose weight in Europe. Now he’s coming to America!

I will let you know when I find out more.

As I have mentioned a few times before and offered bonuses upon, there are three diet, weight loss, or health improving plans that I have reviewed. The plans are really very different from each other and I often get questions about which is the best based on a persons attitude and often which is the best of the three for me. These plans are:

Burn The Fat

Fat Loss for Idiots

Turbulence Training

I have a lot of questions coming at me about which of these is the best and I wanted to make sure that I answered these questions before I move on to writing about any other plans and programs in the future.

Any weight loss program to me has two components, exercise and diet. Here is where the above diets sit in those categories. Read the rest of this entry »

I was so excited this year about new years resolutions that I decided to create minor ones to support my big ones for the year for February.

Of course I am a little off pace after January for my new years resolutions but I can almost expect this. I always seem to aim too high and then when real life gets in the way I have to ratchet back my goals a bit. I have done this before and I will do it again and I expect it.

So I have made some nice smaller goals that are all about consistency. I have decided that there are certain things in my life that have not been gelling together and nothing will fix this faster then consistent effort and small results.

My fitness took a bit of a fall in January when I hurt my back and now my back is better so I am again looking at cardio every day and then taking out cardio days for weight days as I go through February.

Last week I was again reading the 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris and it reminded me of a couple of things that I am doing terribly wrong in my life. First email, I check email constantly during the day so now I have decided as a way to save time I will only be checking mail a few times, maybe 3 or 4 times a day and either dealing with or deleting what I do not need. My email mailboxes are sitting at 3000 or 4000 messages across a few accounts and most of it is just junk and spam. I am not much better with reading RSS feeds and right now I follow about 300 different blogs, I will be cutting back on that too.

Another thing that I am looking at now is that I have made really great changes with my eating and not snacking at night. I am proud of these changes but now I am looking back on my new years resolutions and realize that the next step is cutting back on my pop and chocolate. This change in diet will not be as big as the other changes that I have made but I always like to make sure that I am moving in a more healthy lifestyle and going in the right direction at all times is more important then making those big changes that we always seem to strive for.

So now that I have shared all of that what are you going to be doing? As we all know most new years resolutions have failed already for most so it is my guess that now that we are into February you can make some better decisions and easier to attain goals that are all about you and not what you want to tell everyone else.

Share them or keep them private, but I really do believe that this is the best time to make better  goals and resolutions that will stick.

Anyone that does not see scams in the weight loss industry has to be looking the other way all of the time. There are commercials, ads, radio spots and lots of internet based companies selling a dream that can not be possible. I see these everyday and just saw a very complete and well thought out article that exposes Lipozene, a product that makes huge promises and of course only delivers on the TV commercial.

ABC News has an expose type article about how they tested some popular diet pills by themselves to see if they would help people lose weight.

The test was done with a product called Lipozene that costs $81 per month. Lipozene is popular and expensive and according to the commercials it is a miracle that works even when you do not change your diet or get any exercise. This sounds like crap to me already. If this is really true then why wouldn’t somone have found it years ago?

The article is really worth reading, read it now and just skim even through the three pages and see what you think.

The real fact is that no matter what you do to lose weight whether it is diet or exercise or a combination of both the byproduct is that you will become more healthy as a result, if a pill could even lose you the weight it would not make you any healthier which would defeat the purpose of getting in shape in the first place.

OK one more thing. There have been a lot of products in the 90’s and even earlier that would crank up your metabolism and help you lose weight. These products did in fact work but just like in the way that Anabolic steroids will help a bodybuilder gain muscles, a ephedrine based pill will create a substute in your body and in the end will weaken your body by forcing. In the case of Anabolic steroids you pump up the testosterone in your system which will cause your body to stop creating it on it’s own and in the case of Ephedrine it will stop your body from naturally raising it’s own metabolism and also raises the chances of a heart attack.

Stay away from the scam of diet pills

Big title but there are always times when we have failed and it is out head that blows it out of proportion. When we have a long term goal we need to expect some slipups and deal with them before we move on.

If we go back to a goal that is to lose 20 pounds by April 1st. The first thing to remember that life goes on and not all of our friends and family are always going to be as supportive as we need. You may be fine for the first few weeks of the new year when after a bit of time at home you decide to go out for dinner with friends from work. While out for dinner you sneak a bit of appetizers, dinner, some desert, a drink and go home depressed for having completely failed.

Well failure is only going to be temporary. We always try to make good decisions and occasionally we will not do exactly what we should. Read the rest of this entry »

Kids often eat badly. I have gotten a lot of emails from families that say that the biggest challenge that they have with their kids is eating well. I am very fortunate in some ways that my kids do eat a lot of healthy food and don’t get the joke about kids not liking brocolli. But at the same time my son is horrible for never wanting to eat dinner and then snacking in the evening. Jaiden may be eating grapes and apples (cut up of course, dad has to do some work) in bed but the fact that my son is often missing out on all the goodness of a proper dinner does bother me some.

So as a fitness guy and as a father interested in getting the kids to eat everything and not just some things I thought that I would research around and see what i could find out about getting kids to eat better and here are a bunch of ideas

Your responsibility in your childrens eating

Changing the family’s diet begins with two realizations. The first is that teaching your children about good nutrition is as important as making sure they learn good manners, get good grades in school, get to bed on time, etc. Poorly fed children are sick more often, have increased risk of developing degenerative diseases at earlier ages, and tend to have weight problems sooner or later. Many children find it difficult to concentrate and learn as a result of poor nutrient status, too. I don’t know a responsible parent that wants any of these things to happen, but the reality is that ignoring the importance of good nutrition will almost guarantee that one of these outcomes will occur sooner or later. Read the rest of this entry »