Author: steve

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We Have to Get Off the Sugar!

Here’s the thing about sugar. We are raised on it. We are trained as kids to love it. We use it to celebrate and to finish off a good meal.

And it’s killing us.

Up until the 1950s, low-carb diets were the accepted way to stay lean. Yes, it’s true. Low-carb is not some fad that started in the 1970s. Low-carb was the way to lose weight, until scientists discovered that excess fat in our bodies is the cause of so much distress. Heart disease, diabetes, you name it, excess body fat is quite destructive.

So, they reasoned, if excess fat is bad, then we must remove fat from our diets!

This seemed to be sensible, but the science has never upheld the conclusion that fat in our diets leads to fat on our bodies, and the great experiment that has been going on with the American population over the last 5 decades also seems to deny the validity of high-carbohydrate eating.

We have lowered our fat consumption and increased our carbs, and you know what? We are fatter and sicker than ever.

Renowned science writer Gary Taubes illustrates this well in his fully researched and documented book Good Calories, Bad Calories. That book got me almost completely off sugar a few years ago. Then I saw the YouTube video with Dr. Robert Lustig last year, and that sealed the deal for me.

Fnally, mainstream thinking is coming around. That very same Dr. Lustig was the primary expert in a story on 60 Minutes this past Sunday. The story explored the toxicity of the overconsumption of sugar.

Also, on April 1, 2012, the same day they ran the above story, CBS posted this short video interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta entitled “Sugar and Kids: The Toxic Truth“.

I have read some of the comments on the page with the Dr. Gupta video. Of course, people are defensive. Who likes to be told they have been poisoning their kids?

Sugar is found in nature, and there is a safe consumption level. In fact, our sweet taste buds are there to allow us to know if something is safe to eat. Sweet means not poison.

However, in modern society, there is so much sugar pumped into all our foods, so much sugar in soft drinks and juices, that it goes way beyond what nature intended.

And that is the point.

The truth about sugar is finally coming into the mainstream. Will you listen?

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In the Yoga Zone

I have been in the yoga zone for more than 2 months now.

How’d I get there? I hurt myself. Tweaked my back, so I thought I’d do yoga for a few days while it healed. Problem is — and this is a good problem to have — after a few days, my back felt so good, I decided to stick with only yoga for a while. Now, more than 2 months later, my back feels better than it has felt in years.

My lower back had always been pretty decent. No pain. Then — and I don’t recall this happening, but I kinda assume this happened — I strained my lower right back picking up a dumbbell. I’ve had pain there ever since. Not the kind of pain that causes me to stop working out or lifting things and it doesn’t restrict my movement, but it’s more of a dull I’m-just-here-to-remind-you-that-you-are-old kind of pain.

I really figured that pain was just going to be there always, because it had not become worse or better.

But, now, it’s almost gone.

I say “almost”. It’s gone, but I can’t believe it, so I’m going to stick with “almost”. When it’s gone for 2 months, I’ll believe it.

Yoga seems to have cured my back.

What kind of yoga am I doing? All power yoga, mostly as led by Rodney Yee and Bryan Kest.

Here’s a list of the DVDs I have been using and highly recommend:

  1. Rodney Yee: Flexibility (25 minutes)
  2. Rodney Yee: Strength (25 minutes)
  3. Rodney Yee: Energy Balance (60 minutes)
  4. Bryan Kest: Power Yoga (#1 and #2 — I haven’t tried #3 yet — 60 minutes each)

While I’m at it, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Tony Horton’s two One on One yoga DVDs. They are entitled “Yoga: Fountain of Youth” and “Patience Hummingbird”. (NOTE: Do not buy “Yoga: MC2”. Unless they’ve added more verbal instruction to it since it was first published, it’s pretty useless, as far as I’m concerned.) Tony really got me rolling in yoga, and I pull those DVDs out from time to time, because they are still a lot of fun.

I own and use other yoga DVDs, but the above are the ones I’ve really liked over the past couple months, while I’ve been trying to strengthen my lower back. As I said, it seems to be working.

If you haven’t tried yoga before, 1 & 2 above are good beginner workouts. 3 & 4 are also good for beginners, with Kest’s DVD progressing from the first workout being easiest to the last being most difficult. Regardless of your experience level and which DVD you choose, if you just focus on doing your best and not trying to overdo it, you’ll be fine.

Yoga can be a bit overwhelming for beginners, because there is a learning curve, for sure. If you are totally new to yoga, you may want to get Tony Horton’s two One on One yoga DVDs, because they are what got me started, and I never felt left behind. Tony made it pretty easy to pick up on.

Yoga. Give it a shot and join me in the zone. I am diggin’ it so much and feeling so good, I don’t see myself leaving it for a while.

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Is my doctor an idiot?

I was having a conversation the other day with a good friend of mine. We were discussing exercise, and she said that her doctor had told her to do or not do something — honestly, I forget right now what it was we were talking about.

My initial reaction was, “Doctors are idiots.”

Now, I know this is not true. Most doctors are certainly not idiots. (I say “most” because every subset of humans has got to have its share of idiots. I would guess, though, that doctors probably do have a lower than average stupid-to-intelligent ratio.)

However, I firmly believe that many, if not most, doctors only know what they’ve been taught, and because they are taught more about how to apply bandaids than to embrace a holistic approach to health, we have a high incidence of legal drug addicts in our country.

From my own experience, I can tell you that when I was severely overweight and my blood pressure and cholesterol were way too high, my doctor cursorily mentioned that I should lose weight, and then he wrote me 3 prescriptions.

Really? That was his answer?

Here I am, 65 pounds lighter with great blood pressure and cholesterol levels, but my doctor’s first fix was to give me drugs?

I suppose that after years of doctoring, he’s seen it all, and he knows that no one ever loses the weight. I am an exception to the norm — all I have to do is look around at the people my own age to know that. But, still, my doctor gave up on me without even giving me a chance!

Anyway, the point is that while my statement that “doctors are idiots” was almost certainly untrue and an over-reaction, the fact is that you and you alone are responsible for your own well-being. Your doctor can only do so much. He has become so accustomed to people who don’t care about their own health, that he will simply write a prescription and send you on your way.

And we are programmed to think this is normal: “I’m getting older, time for cholesterol and blood pressure drugs.”

Sure, that is normal. But it’s not desirable!

Once I took charge of my fitness, my doctor’s attitude changed. When he saw the weight coming off, when he saw me quitting the drugs he’d prescribed, he got a little excited by it. He’s still a little tsk-tsky when I tell him I am not getting a flu shot, but he let’s me be, because he knows that I am in control here. This is, after all, my body, not his.

So, no, my doctor is not an idiot, but he may be a bit hardened, because of most people’s lack of ability to get fit, and he may be more than a little bit brainwashed by the pharmaceutical companies who make billions from the prescriptions he writes.

But I can tell you this — my doctor sure seems to enjoy my visits more now than he did 5 years ago.

I know this post sounds self-congratulatory and maybe even a little boastful. Fine. I really mean it to be a simple chronicle of my own experience, posted in the hope that you will see that you, too, can overrule your doctor’s prescription orders, and take control of your own health and fitness.

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Low Carb: My great-grandmother knew

Let me begin by saying that I am not against low-fat diets! If a low-fat diet works for you long-term, fine with me, go with it. Low-fat doesn’t work for me, though, so my personal choice is to eat low-carb.

One of my few childhood memories is of sitting around a dinner table with my parents, grandparents, and us kids. My great-grandmother, whom we called “Grandma Olive”, was also there, and I was sitting near her. When the dinner rolls came around, she passed them along without taking one.

I asked her, “No bread for you, Grandma Olive?”

She replied, “Oh no, dear. I have potatoes. Can’t have two starches.”

I didn’t think about that much, until a few years ago, when I was doing some in-depth research into low-carb diets.

I discovered that low-carb was the first modern weight-loss program, formulated in the 1800s.

I discovered that low-carb was, in fact, the weight-loss program of choice, until the 1950s, when politics dictated that fat should be declared the villain.

The demonization of fat seems to make sense. I mean, we know that excess fat on our bodies and excess cholesterol in our blood leads to bad things, right? So — logically — we should not eat those things.

Problem is that the science didn’t — and doesn’t — back that up.

(NOTE: For more about this subject, including in-depth reporting and solid scientific support, please read  Good Calories, Bad Calories by renowned science writer Gary Taubes. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If you can read the first 100 pages of that book and continue to consume sugar in quantity, you have some kind of sweet tooth!)

As it turns out, when we eat low-fat meals, we tend to eat a lot more carbs, our calorie count goes way up, and our body stores the excess intake as fat. That’s why there’s an obesity epidemic in the United States.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 1994 — the first year data is available for all 50 states —  all states had an obesity rate below 20%. In 2010, all states had an obesity rate greater than 20%! (NOTE: “Obesity” is gauged as a body mass index of at least 30. BTW, the obesity rate in 1985 was below 15% in all states that were measured.) That’s how much fatter we’ve become over the past 18 (and 27) years.

The CDC also tells us that since 1980, obesity prevalence among children and adolescents has almost tripled. That’s why we had to change the name of “adult-onset” diabetes to “Type 2” diabetes, because our high-carb diets were creating diabetics at younger and younger ages.

Yup, this is where an emphasis on low-fat eating has gotten us.

I remember when I was a low-fat advocate. I used to do silly things like buy candy on road trips, instead of protein- and fat-based meals, because I thought that was nutrition, and, hey, little or no fat! Same with sugary soft drinks. Drink up! No fat!

YIKES!

Anyway, different strokes for different folks. If you are into low-fat dieting and it works for you — remember that is key, it has to work for you — get it on! Doesn’t work for me, though, and, apparently, it didn’t work for my Grandma Olive either. She knew.

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Even after years of inactivity, there is no “I CAN’T”!

I am continually frustrated by people I suggest a fitness program to, who try it once, then tell me, “I can’t do that.”

OF COURSE YOU CAN’T DO THAT, YOU’VE BEEN SITTING ON YOUR ASS FOR 20 YEARS!

Wow, I mean, what do you expect? Do you think if I tell you that yoga or Insanity is great and you will benefit so much from it, that you should be able to pop in a DVD or go to a class and knock it out like it’s nothing?

First, any workout that allows you to do that is not much of a workout at all.

Second, just like anything, you have to practice it to get better at it.

That is one of the hallmarks of programs like Shaun T’s Insanity. It’s impossible. I don’t care how good shape you are in, you cannot make it through an entire Insanity workout the first time — IF EVER!

The key to finally getting fit after years of inactivity is to push yourself without hurting yourself. If a workout lasts 30 minutes, and you  took breaks when you needed them, only working out for a total of 7 minutes, that’s perfectly fine. You will improve as you stick with it. Next time you’d get 10 minutes. Then 15. And so on.

This is true about weight loss, and it’s true about fitness, too: There are no magic elixirs. You have to put in the work.

When your exercise program challenges you, it is so much easier to tell it’s working. If you choose a program that you cannot finish, when you can finally finish it, it’s quite a thrill, and you know you are more fit. Simple.

So don’t tell me that you are not going to do something because you “can’t”. P90X creator Tony Horton suggests that instead of saying “I can’t” try saying “I currently struggle with.” Keep that mindset as you enter into a program that you “currently struggle with”, and go ahead and struggle your way to fitness!