Author: steve

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Some amazing results from The Ultimate Reset

You may know that I am a Beachbody Coach, a Tony Horton fanboy, and a Shaun T insaniac. But I am not a blind follower. I learned the dangers of that type of faith when I was quite young, so I am wary of it … always.

I believe nothing.

In fact, I once had a college professor tell a friend of mine that, “If god came down from heaven and told Steve that 2 + 2 = 4, Steve would argue with him about it.”

I believe that to be an overstatement, but it does speak to the fact that I take no authority figure at face value. You have to prove yourself to me.

So it was with no small amount of skepticism that I entered into The Ultimate Reset. I’d seen the testimonials about losing weight & inches, lowering cholesterol, but, of course, Beachbody would only put the good results out to the public, right?

Nevertheless, I enjoy a challenge, and what could be more challenging to a carnivorous workout fanatic than 21 days of near-veganism with no strenuous exercise allowed?

You can read about my Ultimate Results results here, but what I wanted to share in this article are some results from other people, others I’ve been discussing Reset with on Facebook.

From DJ, a diabetic:
“Monday was Day 21 of the Ultimate Reset. I have learned so much about cooking, spices and vegetables new and old on how to properly prepare them. I hope to do the Reset once a year. My numbers: 8lb weight loss, 11.5 inches in total (5.75 of that is the Ab area) BP 109/69, BMI 33.1 down 1.3, Blood Sugar this morning 115! WhooHoo. I feel great…more focused, energetic, feel good all around.”

From CC:
“I did The Ultimate Reset with, and mostly for, my wife, but wow … I’m a believer foooshoooo!

  • Weight: Pre – 167 Post – 158 = 9 lb loss
  • Waist: Pre – 36.5 Post – 35 = 1.5” loss
  • Total cholesterol: Pre – 197 Post – 157 = 40pt loss”

From KMK:
“Ultimate Reset complete! Results: 15 lbs. lost, 7 inches gone, sugar addiction kicked, after dinner snacking no more, and tons of new healthy habits gained!! SO WORTH IT. Feeling great!”

From IG:
I finally had my doctor appointment to get my test results from after the Reset. Before the reset my total cholesterol was 202, my LDL was 103, and my triglycerides were 274. After….total cholesterol was 155, LDL is 87, and my triglycerides are 139! My doctor literally asked me “What the hell did you do to get amazing results like this?” She said she has never seen anything like that in a three week period. So….I told her ALL ABOUT THE RESET! Sooo amazing how that little bit of information literally made my month 😉

From CB:
“Yay!!! I did it!

What I’m leaving behind:

  • 12.2 lb weight loss
  • 6 inches overall loss
  • Artificial Sweetener
  • Minimizing processed foods
  • Soda
  • (I’m not leaving coffee behind, but will be drinking black, Dandy Blend or sweetened with Stevia or Agave) 🙂

What I am gaining:

  • A completely new appreciation for whole foods
  • Amazing recipes
  • A healthier family
  • A healthier me”

From TNC:
“I went to my doctor yesterday to get my blood work done. He was clicking away on his laptop, asking routine questions, when he suddenly stopped typing, looked up, stared when I told him my results so far. He was blown away and wanted more information on what plan I had used. He said that my results were what they hoped people could sustainably achieve in a year. My total cholesterol went from 238 to 165 and my LDLs were down from 143 to 77!!!!”

From SZ:
“Lost 10.2 pounds and 5.5 inches. Cholesterol was 156 now 123.”

From DS, about his Parents:
“My parents finished and Mom lost 12 1/2 lbs, 13 1/4 total inches, Dad lost 18 1/2 lbs, 14 1/2 total inches. Dad’s total cholesterol is down from 240 to 160. WOW. Mom’s went from 202 to 171.”

From DV:
“Officially endend Ultimate Reset Sunday. I am down 13.5 lbs and 10.5 total inches! This is the most I have lost in a year. For some odd reason my body did not lose weight despite everything I did. I am feeling great, energized, relaxed and have tons of energy. I noticed in week two of the reset that my hair was not falling as much as it used to. My favorite part of the Reset was that I let go of alot of mental emotional baggage. I feel like a whole new person.”

From SM:
“Official results after Reset: Cholesterol 164 – down from 233. Triglycerides 99 – down from 274. LDL 101 – down from 133. What is also awesome is my A1C is now 5.3!! Huge improvement.”

From HLS, about her husband:
“Ultimate Reset numbers are in! My husband’s cholesterol is down to 143 from 181. His LDL (bad cholesterol) is down from 110 to 85. HDL (good cholesterol) is up 1 to 32. His Triglycerides were 199 and are now down 68 pts to 130!”

From RS:
“Took my final weight and measurements. I’m down 18 lbs and a total of 14 inches!!!”

From RMN:
“So after 21 days of the Ultimate Rest my labs are back. My cholesterol dropped from 298 to 187 and I lost 16 pounds…. Clean eating is the way to go!! It is the first time in 5 years that I have had normal labs! NO medication necessary any longer! WWHOOO HOO! Still have a ways to go but I am on track.”

From DA:
“Total losses for The Ultimate Reset: 15.2 pounds, 3 inches at the bellybutton, and 2 inches at the waist. I’d say that qualifies as a success! The bigger news is that I’m actually sleeping without meds. I haven’t used Lunesta since starting The Reset. Now, don’t misunderstand — I’m not sleeping like a normal person by any means. I still wake up 3-4 times per night — mostly to pee, because of all the damned water I’ve been drinking — but I do actually fall asleep when I go to bed, and spend more of the night sleeping than thrashing around chasing sleep, as I was before. Steve, I can’t stress enough how HUGE this is! I feel better about myself and my health than I have in years. I have an appreciation for healthy, clean food that I all but lost as a busy adult in a processed food world. I owe you a debt of gratitude. Thanks for turning me on to The Reset!”

These are real results from real people. What are you waiting for? Give The Ultimate Reset a try.

END OF ARTICLE, START OF ME TRYING TO GET YOU TO HELP YOURSELF BY LETTING ME COACH YOU THROUGH THIS THING, BECAUSE I’VE BEEN THERE.

If you are not already a Beachbody customer and you purchase The Ultimate Reset through links on this website, I will be your Coach through the program and beyond that.

Remember, I am no gym rat! I am just a regular guy who was 5’10″/235 and is now 5’10″/160, so I understand the struggles of trying to lose weight.

In fact, it’s taken me 5 years to lose that 75 pounds, and I believe I can help you do it faster, because I took some wrong turns in there that I can help you avoid.

Btw, if you are already a Beachbody customer, but you don’t even know who your Coach is, because they’ve never contacted you to see how your are doing or to offer advice, you can switch over to me as your coach. Just ask Beachbody Customer Service to switch you over to Coach #51742.

Take control of your fitness. Get started on The Ultimate Reset today.

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RECIPE: World’s Best Oatmeal – slow cooked

If you’ve been following along, you may know that I’ve recently gone to a mostly plant-based diet. I still allow myself eggs, whey protein, and fish, but not much of those.

Why have I done this?

Well, after I completed a 21-day detoxification process, which involved my learning more about plant-based nutrition (and during which I lost 2 inches off my waist along with 10+ pounds), I felt so good that I decided to see if it was sustainable by staying mostly vegan. I enjoy the food quite a lot, so I am looking forward to the next year or so of this near-vegan experiment.

In the course of my post-detox diet, then, I adapted this recipe for oatmeal from one that was posted in a Facebook group.

It involves slow-cooking, which may or may not be necessary, but I think it’s gotta help blend the flavors, right?

INGREDIENTS

  • 2/3 cup steel-cut oats
  • 1/4 cup ground flaxseed
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp Himalayan salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 Tbs coconut oil
  • 4 cups water
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened dried apricots, chopped
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup cup toasted pumpkin seeds
  • Sweetener like raw honey, stevia, or agave nectar to taste (if necessary — I don’t use any)

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Add all ingredients except sweetener and pumpkin seeds to small slow cooker. Stir to combine. Cook on low for 2 to 6 hours (those small slow cookers vary temperature-wise), until liquid is gone.
  2. Mix in sweetener (if desired) and spoon into serving bowls.
  3. Sprinkle top with pumpkin seeds.

Makes 2 large servings.

You can use whatever fruit and nuts you like. I think a green apple and some walnuts would be tasty. Or maybe some raisins and pecans. Up to you. Enjoy!

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Are you addicted to food?

I hear excuses from people all the time about how they would like to eat cleaner, but they just don’t feel they can do it. I have one word for those people: ADDICTION.

They are addicted to foods. Either to sugar, or grains, or dairy, or whatever.

Someone recently posted on Facebook that she felt so much better after giving up dairy, but she was unsure whether she could stay off it. There is but one word for that: ADDICTION.

That person is addicted to dairy.

Well, we rationalize, if we even admit that we have an addiction. “At least it’s food I’m addicted to, not some kind of drug.”

And you know what? According to Miriam-Webster online, you’d be right, because a drug is defined as “a substance other than food intended to affect the structure or function of the body.”

The key there, though, is the phrase “other than food”. I would argue that if you are addicted to it, sugar is not really a food. If you are addicted to it, dairy is not really a food. For those of us who are addicted to those substances, they are not foods. They are drugs.

Even if you don’t buy that concept, let’s explore the word “addiction”, which is defined by that same dictionary as “persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be physically, psychologically, or socially harmful”. Hmmmmm….

So you know sugar is harming you physically, by making you fat and generally wreaking havoc on your body, but you continue to consume it? ADDICTION.

You are aware that you feel a lot better without dairy in your system, but you continue to consume it? ADDICTION.

I am not picking on sugar and dairy here. They are just two common examples. Maybe your poison is gluten or alcohol or … you name it.

Many times people feel they cannot give up certain “foods”, so they continue to struggle with their fitness goals. Then they have a heart attack or some other brush with death, and, suddenly, they wake up to the wisdom of a cleaner diet, those “foods” are no longer so important.

Of course, that is assuming they survived their brushes with death. According to AllHeartAttack.com, about 33% of people who have heart attacks in the United States do not survive. That’s 500,000 deaths each year.

Eating cleaner after a brush with death is almost like installing the burglar alarm after the burglary — still effective, but it sure would be nice to never have been burglarized in the first place, right?

One other thing: I am so tired of the “life’s too short” argument. “Life’s too short to stop eating cake.” “Life’s too short to quit eating burgers.”

Life is too short. So I’m going to do whatever I can to make it longer. I may die before you, but it won’t be because I didn’t try.

Don’t let your food addictions stand in the way of your fitness. When you find yourself saying, “I’d eat cleaner, but I just can’t give up [insert ‘food’ item here],” think about what you are saying. Are you struggling with a food addiction?

 

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How thin is too thin?

I recently visited Kohl’s to, finally, get some new new shirts.

I am a t-shirt guy. I enjoy a good t-shirt. My favorite bands have cool t-shirts. I am comfortable in a t-shirt. However, there are times when a t-shirt is not appropriate attire, or so my wife tells me, anyway.

Therefore, I own several polo shirts. You know, the kind that are cotton, have 2 or 3 buttons and a bottom that you can leave untucked, which is how I prefer to wear my shirts. The untucking is not a holdover from when I was fat and just didn’t want the outline of my gut to be so well-defined. I remember being a skinny kid in high school and not tucking in my shirt. Not sure why, but I dislike it.

Anyway, at Kohl’s I found a couple shirts I liked, and on my way to the register, I saw the Levi’s. I thought, “I could use some new jeans.” I only buy Levi’s, because I like the way they fit.

The fact is, though, that I’d just recently spent a couple hundred bucks on Levi’s, and I’m not made of money, so even though the jeans I had were a bit too big now, they fit well enough, so…. But, still, out of curiosity, I thought I’d try some on.

I grabbed a pair of skinny 31s and a pair of regular fit 30s off the shelf. I didn’t really think I could fit into the 30s, but, what the heck, let’s just see.

The skinny 31 waist jeans fit well. I almost bought them.

Then I tried on the regular fit 30s. They fit, too. Okay, to be honest, they are a little snug, but I could easily close and zip them, and I could wear them in a pinch.

Size 30 waist? Really?

When I started my quest for fitness, I was wearing 42s and looking to buy 44s.

The smallest size Levi’s I’ve ever worn was 28 waist. That was back in the 70s, when the waist rode higher on Levi’s, but, still, to actually be able to close and zip a pair of size 30s today … wow, that was huge for me.

I didn’t buy the jeans, and will keep wearing my fairly new 32s, but, it got me to thinking: How thin is too thin? I mean, people develop eating disorders because they keep looking in the mirror and perceiving themselves to be fat, when they are not fat, right?

I did a bit of introspection, and, suffice to say, I am not too thin. I can still grab fat around my waist. I cannot see all my abs, so I can remain healthy and still be thinner. Will I be comfortable much thinner? Will I be able to maintain thinner if I get there? Possibly not. But I want to get there and find out — I at least want to give it a shot.

It has taken 5 years and 75 pounds for me to get where I am, so it’s not like I’m rushing it. I don’t obsess about it. But each of us must figure out  for ourselves along the way how thin is “too thin”.

I am not sure what “too thin” is for me. I only know that I have not yet reached that point.

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I don’t trust nutrition research

I read a lot about nutrition, and one thing is very clear to me: No matter what you want to believe about nutrition, there is research available to prove you are right.

What does that mean? Are the researchers mistaken? Are the experiments flawed? Are they lying to us?

Some of the research is surely flawed. It’s just too difficult to experiment on humans, because there is only so much control you can ethically exercise over them. There are always plenty of external variables entering into the equation, so we can never get fully controlled results.

Mistakes can be made, too, even by the most conscientious researchers, but as for whether they purposefully lie to us, well, I’ll just say that some of them may be overly biased.

In reality, though, even if all the research is perfectly controlled and unbiased, it is still only reporting generalities. When you try to apply generalities to individuals, that simply doesn’t work.

Look around? Aren’t there extremely thin people, extremely fat people, and many in between? Do you really think that if you put them all on the same diet, they’d all end up with the same body type? NO! Some people are naturally thin. Some are naturally fat. Some are naturally in between.

We all know the person who went on a low-carb diet and lost a ton of weight. We also have friends who lost weight on low-fat. Calorie restriction. Carb cycling. Food grouping. All those diets work to a certain degree, but some may work better for you than others do.

And that is really the point. You need to try things out, see how they affect you. Did you read that whole milk is the thing that will put your energy over the top? Try it out and see how you feel. Are you enamored with the idea of a vegetarian diet as a weight loss regimen? Try it out and see if it works.

Remember, in any nutrition research, you will read that “75% of the subjects” had this result, or “54% of the subjects” had that result. It’s never 100%, because there is no way that the same diet will affect 100% of people the exact same way.

So, don’t put your faith in nutrition research. Continue to read and learn, but do your own research, on your own body, and figure out what is best for you.