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Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels

“Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”

I guess that phrase has been around for a while, but I heard it the other day for the first time — read it in my friend Amanda’s status update — and I really like it, because that about sums it up.

Maybe you’re not there yet. Maybe you think you need that cinnamon roll or that slice of birthday cake or that bowl of ice cream. Maybe those do taste better to you than skinny feels.

Maybe that is because you’ve forgotten how skinny feels.

I was skinny when I was in my 20s. I mean really skinny, like 110 pounds lighter than I was when my fatness peaked in my 40s.

But I’d forgotten how skinny feels.

As I gradually built up my fat stores over the years, I simply accepted my weight gain as an inevitable part of getting older. Thinness is a thing of youth, I thought. As we get older, we automatically gain fat. Look around? All old guys are fat, right?

That is true to some extent — I am having a helluva time trying to lose these last pounds around the middle — but the first 60 lbs sure as hell came off, and stayed off . While I am much more active now than fat Steve was, the vast majority of my success in fat loss is directly attributable to my change in dietary habits.

75% to 80% of our body composition is based upon what we put into it, so, we are, indeed, what we eat. Not literally, though. That is the mistake in logic that’s been destroying Americans for 40 years. “Accumulated body fat causes all kinds of health problems,” we are told, “so we need to stop eating fat.”

The problem with that seemingly logical statement is that it’s simply not true. The science never supported it. Officials jumped to the “dietary fat is bad” conclusion, and then, when the studies didn’t support it, they were too embarrassed to ‘fess up. So they stuck to their guns, and now the American people are overweight and diseased.

Fat consumption does not lead to higher levels of stored fat. It does not raise blood cholesterol or triglycerides.

The science has shown over and over that it’s the sugars we consume that are much more likely to be stored as fat, which, in turn, raises our blood cholesterol and triglycerides.

(Don’t take my word for it. It’s all right here in science reporter Gary Taubes’s book Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It.)

So what was the primary change I made to my diet to lose and keep 60 pounds off? I got off the sugar. If something was created to be sweet, I don’t eat it. Period. No ice cream, no cupcakes, no Cinnabons.

And now, while I am not technically “skinny”, I do know how it feels to be thin again. I no longer need those blood pressure meds I was prescribed. I no longer need that cholesterol med I was prescribed. I no longer feel aches and pains that I was pretty sure shouldn’t be there. And I never want to go back to what I was.

Did I love that ice cream, those cupcakes, those Cinnabons? Yes. Do I miss them? No.

You know why? Because nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

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A Tale of Two Yoga DVDs

I have been collecting yoga DVDs. Some are better than others. Some are great. Some are not so great.

But recently, on successive days, I tried out two DVDs that each stood out to me for very different reasons, so I thought I’d share my thoughts about them with you.

FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS:

I’ve only been doing yoga for a couple years now, and not daily, so I always do the beginner routines, and if I need to make the poses more advanced during the workout, I do that.

Power Yoga For Every Body is pretty nicely set up, because it allows you to select not only a level — Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced — but it also allows you to select how much time you have. I selected the 60-minute program for Beginners.

Okay. Wow. When they say “Beginner” during this program, they really mean “Beginner”.

If you are out of shape and have not done yoga before, this is the DVD for you! Many of the poses are demonstrated with a chair for modification, so you don’t need to bend as far. That’s a good thing, because you can hurt yourself doing yoga.

I only got halfway through this slow flow program, though, before I switched over to a Rodney Yee workout to finish up.

However, as I said, for out-of-shape people who have no idea about yoga and want to try it safely, this is the best DVD I’ve seen. Plus, it has Intermediate and Advanced programs, so you can move on up as you get more into it. I may try those out in the future.

FOR REAL POWER YOGA LOVERS:

Bob Harper introduces this workout as being like nothing we’ve ever done before, so tough we won’t believe it. Sorry, Bob. While I really like this workout, you are overstating the case for the Tony Horton yoga lovers out there. Tony Horton yoga (look for the One-on-One titles “Yoga – Fountain of Youth” and “Patience Hummingbird”) is tough.

Despite the hyperbole of this grown-up-Doogie-Howser-with-a-beard-looking dude, Yoga For The Warrior is definitely near the top of my list of yoga workouts.

It’s about 60 minutes long and includes, among all the standard yoga poses, pushups, shoulder presses, and ab work. Traditional yogis might not like adding pushups and shoulder presses into a yoga practice. Fine. They don’t need to buy this DVD. But for my money, Yoga For The Warrior does a pretty good job as a full body workout.

And, yeah, it’s tough. I had to take a break or two along the way, but that is exactly what will keep me coming back to this workout!

Other differences between Power Yoga For Every Body and Yoga For The Warrior:

  • Every Body has onscreen a single guy with a separate unseen narrator. Warrior included three attractive participants (2 women, 1 man) and Bob walking around coaching.
  • Every Body was in a pretty plain studio. I don’t recall hearing music, although it may have been there. Warrior was in a gym type setting and had a music track behind Bob.
  • Both are ranked 4+ (out of 5) stars at Amazon.

That is my tale of those two very different yoga DVDs. I recommend them both, but you should be sure to select the correct one for your fitness level and yoga goals.

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The Difference between P90X and P90X2 — by Tony Horton

In this short video, Tony Horton — the creator of P90X and P90X2 — explains the difference between the two programs.

If you don’t want to watch the video, the upshot is that P90X gets you into shape, and P90X2 focuses on making you more athletic. It’s the same as the difference between Shaun T’s Insanity and Insanity: The Asylum.

You can order the programs through the links above or email me at [mailme] if you have questions. Ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it!

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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.