In Fitness and in Health

Use Exercise To Break Out of the Low Activity/Fatigue Rut and Feel Good

2008-08-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

Little or no activity combine to form a vicious cycle that works something like this:

You find yourself not feeling good for some reason (or for no particular reason), so you don't feel up to doing pretty much anything at all.

So you mope around.

It's gotten so bad that activities you used to do and enjoy don't even interest you anymore. You end up watching a lot of TV.

Then, to make matters worse, as you continue to sit around the house, you start to eat more. And your choices of foods has gone out the window - you're eating more junk.

Instead of taking (and making) the time to prepare your food, you grab some convenience food from the freezer and throw it in the microwave.

Your body becomes sluggish and your thoughts self-defeating.

During this period (which can last from a few days to several months, even YEARS), your body's needs are grossly exceeded by what you take in; you're putting more fuel into your body than it can use.

Result: excess weight and fat.

And the more fat you lay down, the more sedentary you become, and the lazier you get. Whatever little bit of energy you had before this happened is now gone. Now you're trapped by escalating fatigue.

This vicious cycle keeps your metabolism at a snail's pace. Low metabolism, low energy. Low everything.

Now, if you're caught in this black hole of inactivity and fatigue, you can dig your way out. YOU ARE NOT A PRISONER OF INACTIVITY AND LACK OF ENERGY.

Just start an exercise program. Move that body. You're not going to be given energy on a silver platter, IF YOU WANT ENERGY, YOU'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING TO PRODUCE IT. And that means getting off your butt.

Start slowly and build yourself up gradually, over the course of a few weeks. What you're doing here is forcing your body to increase its energy expenditure. As you start to burn some fat and tighten some muscle, your mood WILL improve. And that will help motivate you to keep at it.

Exercise increases the level of positive, "feel-good" hormones, known as endorphins. That helps you to sustain a good feeling throughout the day. Feeling good improves perceptions and personality, which allows you to make better and more positive choices. Studies show time and again that people who work out are more optimistic, and better able to handle stress.

I've had many people tell me, "Oh, I KNOW when I exercise I feel great afterwards. I loved that feeling! Well, that is, when I DID exercise."

THEN WHY AREN'T YOU STILL DOING IT?

27 Stress Reducers and Energy Boosters

2008-08-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

Stress can take a toll on both your physical health and mental well-being. It can lower your immunity to colds, flu, and even more serious illnesses. It can affect your sleep patterns, interfere with job performance, and leave you irritable. Stress can also trigger all sorts of skin disorders, including psoriasis, eczema, acne, rosacea, and hives. Fortunately, there are ways to get a handle on stress and up your energy:

Peace of Mind

1. Set aside "private time."
Something as simple as soaking in the tub can renew your mind and body. For added relaxation, turn down the lights and play some soft music.

2. Learn relaxation techniques.
Read a book about it, or take a meditation or yoga class. Here's one you can try at home. Find 15 minutes where you will not be disturbed to meditate, visualize, etc. Sit in a comfortable chair, feet on the floor, arms at your sides. Breathe in deeply, through your nose. Then slowly release the air through your mouth and repeat an affirmation, like "Relax... Relax... Relax," or "I'm confident... I'm confident..."

Continue breathing in and out, focusing on your word or phrase for the 15 minutes. Visualize the person you want to be, already in possession of your goals. If a worrisome thought pops up, acknowledge it, then re-focus on your breathing.

3. Schedule "worry sessions."
Set aside a specific 15 minutes each day when you'll concentrate on everything that's bothering you. When worries pop up during the day, save them for these 15 minutes. Then picture yourself conquering a particular challenge. It's not easy, but it's simple. And it works.

4. Keep a journal.
New studies suggest that people who are able to write about their innermost feelings may enjoy better mental and physical health. Writing is also a powerful tool that helps you organize your thoughts and make life a little bit easier.

5. Pep up with a scent.
When you need an energy boost, take a whiff of muguet or peppermint oil. Preliminary studies suggest these scents can promote alertness. Try!

6. Power naps.
15-20 minutes can be very energizing and rejuvenating. Careful – more than 20 minutes and you'll wake up more tired than you were to begin with.

7. Delegate.
On your weekly calendar, eliminate the least important tasks and activities. Delegate household chores. Have your spouse/significant other to the grocery shopping. Even if things aren't done the way you want them done, it's important for everyone to pitch in so you don't feel like the Lone Ranger.

8. Reward yourself.
Every day engage in a just-for-you activity, PROVIDED you accomplished something you set out to do for that day. Rent a movie, read, gardening, etc. You'll not only boost your self-esteem, you'll also enjoy the well-deserved feelings of relaxation.

9. Laugh.
Laughter really is good medicine. Laughing raises your heart rate, stimulates circulation, exercises your diaphragm, abs, and other muscles, and increases production of certain hormones that serve as your body's natural painkillers. Watch a sitcom, read humorous books, get Reader's Digest.

10. Cry.
Feel better after a good cry? Studies show that the tears you produce when you’re anxious, upset, sad, or angry contain stress-relieving hormones.

11. Get a body massage.
Various massage techniques reduce stress, loosen tight muscles, and rev up your energy. Massage also helps release endorphins ("feel good" chemicals released by the brain), triggering relaxation.

Stress-Reducing, Energy-Boosting Nutrition

12. DO NOT skip meals.
Spreading your calories out over 4-6 balanced meals a day gives you the carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals required to keep your energy high by keeping your blood sugar levels stable.

13. Eat a "good mood" breakfast.
Combine a high-protein food, such as cottage cheese, with a fiber-rich carb, like strawberries. Protein not only boosts your brain's production of dopamine and norepinephrine - chemicals that keep you alert - it also controls levels of relaxation-inducing serotonin. The carbs help you feel calm and focused on whatever you're doing.

14. Have a midmorning muffin.
USE THIS ONLY IF ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Instead of heading for the vending machine, bring a low-fat, whole grain muffin topped with a teaspoon of jam. Carbs combined with a LIMITED amount of sugar can restore mental energy.

15. Quick, low-fat lunch.
Broiled fish, skinless chicken, tuna, deli turkey or chicken with a teaspoon of low-fat mayo on whole-grain bread can give you energy for the afternoon.

16. Beat the mid-afternoon lag.
If you're droopy by 3 pm, have a cup of coffee to get back on track. (I don't suggest doing this very often, either. It's quite possible you need to catch up with some Z's.)

17. Make dinner your lightest meal.
If you've eaten a balanced, substantial lunch, you'll feel surprisingly satisfied with a light dinner. Instead of a regular dinner plate, use a smaller plate and fill it up (not mounding!) with your protein and carbs.

18. Watch the caffeine.
A little caffeine is okay for a little boost. Too much and you're making your adrenal glands work overtime. You'll need more caffeine for the desired effect, and the crash when it wears off gets worse. Plus you get restless and irritable.

19. Cut back on sugar and starches.
You all know about the "sugar high." When you drop, you feel cranky, weak, and unable to concentrate. Stick with balanced snacks and meals to keep your blood sugars level.

20. NO alcohol.
Some of you will yell at me for saying this; too bad. Sure, it may help in keeping your heart healthy, BUT SO DOES EATING RIGHT AND EXERCISING REGULARLY. Like sugar, alcohol gives you a high, and then you crash. Also leaves you feeling lethargic.

Get Physical

21. Aerobic exercise daily.
Along with cardiovascular health, aerobic exercise boosts production of endorphins. 25-30 minutes can significantly reduce stress and increase energy.

22. Deep breathing.
Need a 1-minute regenerator? Sit in a quiet place, feet flat on the floor, arms at your sides. Breathe in deeply through your nose, filling your diaphragm (your stomach should protrude if you're doing it right). Breathe out slowly through your mouth. Do this for just 60 seconds.

23. Shrug off tight shoulders.
Whenever you notice you're tense around your neck area and shoulders, shrug your shoulders ten times.

24. Take a break to stretch.
Alternating arms, reach upward, stretching toward the ceiling. Five times each side.

25. Stretch neck tension away.
Touch your chin to your chest and hold for 2 seconds. Try to touch your left ear to your left shoulder (keep it relaxed - no reaching up!) and hold for 2 seconds. Repeat for the right ear/shoulder for 2 seconds. Repeat entire cycle if necessary.

26. Stand up.
If you spend most of the day sitting at a desk, stand up once every hour for 20 minutes, and do any of the exercises mentioned above to relax and stimulate circulation.

27. Take out your frustrations on the iron.
Pumping iron, that is. You've got all those stress hormones flowing around your body and they're not getting used up. Aerobic exercise may calm them down some, but new studies are showing lifting weights help you burn off those stress hormones more effectively.

Beat The Energy Crisis

2008-08-19T21:35:00.000-07:00

It's hard to squeeze working out into a busy schedule. So when you are in the gym, you want to avoid the impulse to curl up on the weight bench and take a nap.

By practicing smart nutrition, you can feel positively explosive for your next workout and even better for the one after that. To that end, we've addressed some of your most frequent workout complaints and provided surefire nutrition solutions.

Problem: I don't like to eat before my morning run, or right before a long bike ride, but then I gas out halfway through.
Solution: Eat on your feet.

"You need some type of energy replacement when exercising," says exercise physiologist Eric Sternlicht, PhD. "Since it's not recommended that you eat (a full meal) two or three hours before you work out, the best thing to do is eat something while you exercise."

The best choices are small, easily assimilated foods that are nutritionally dense, such as sports drinks or bananas. Liquids are absorbed faster than solids, but if you want an energy bar, a few sips of water will aid digestion.

Problem: I don't recover from a tough cardio session as quickly as my training partners.
Solution: RUN to the fridge.

After a long ride or run, when you eat is as important as what you eat. "There is a window of opportunity one or two hours after exercise," says Sternlicht. "If you eat during this period, you'll achieve faster muscle-glycogen resynthesis." The best ratio of nutrients for recovery is 60 percent carbohydrates and 40 percent protein, adds Sternlicht.

Problem: I cramp during my workouts.
Solution: Go bananas (or go cantaloupes, oranges or baked potatoes).

Cramping is usually caused by a mineral imbalance. "The most important thing you can do to prevent muscle cramps is get more potassium in your diet," says exercise physiologist Timothy Moore, PhD.

"Eating more bananas--and fruits and vegetables in general--is the best way of controlling the problem," adds Moore. "Sports drinks can also help you replenish what you sweat out."

If you are working out longer than 60 minutes, a sports drink works well in replenishing lost fluids and electrolytes. They supply some carbohydrates necessary to reduce fatigue. Anything under 60 minutes: water is the answer. And don't forget to drink lots of water AFTER your workout; 2 cups of water for every pound lost.

Problem: My muscles are constantly sore from weight training.
Solution: EAT YOUR PROTEIN.

Delayed-onset muscle soreness is an inevitable part of weight training, but if you experience excessive or consistent pain after every workout, you need to shake things up. "In dealing with DOMS, balanced nutrition is very important," says Sternlicht. "You need to get adequate protein to repair the damage that's been caused to your muscles." Other nutrients you can get through your diet, such as ginger and turmeric, can also help prevent DOMS.

Problem: I don't have the mental focus to get through my workout.
Solution: Put protein on your plate.

Try eating protein at lunch and cutting back on starchy carbs, such as pasta and rice. Protein contains the amino acid tyrosine, which boosts levels of dopamine and norepinephrine (cousins of adrenaline). It also blocks the absorption of carbohydrate-induced tryptophan, which can make you groggy. "If you find yourself mentally lagging, try some tuna, cottage cheese or chicken an hour before to harness mental ability," suggests MIT researcher Judith Wurtman, PhD.

Note: can you see just how important adequate protein is to your diet?)

Problem: I'm too wired from exercising to sleep at night.
Solution: Drink some warm you-know-what.

"It sounds hokey, but warm milk does the trick," says Moore. "The tryptophan in milk will shut you down." Tryptophan is an amino acid and precursor to serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate sleep. Carbs boost serotonin, so add pasta, rice or potatoes to your post-training meals. You might also consider kava, an herbal relaxant.

Do You Think Energy is Going To Be Handed To You On A Silver Platter?

2008-08-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

To get more energy, you have to produce it.

Stop complaining that you have no energy to workout, to eat right, to pack a lunch, etc.!

How do you expect to HAVE energy, when you continue to do LITTLE or NOTHING about it?

You're just throwing gas on the fire if you plop yourself on the chair when you get home from work, put the kids to bed, whatever. You want more energy? Go make some.

Your body LOVES to do nothing. Then it doesn't have to work as hard. That means you don't burn as many calories. That means you have a harder time losing weight. That means you increase your body fat. That means loss of lean muscle. That means you get out of shape real fast.

That means NO ENERGY. NADA. ZIP.

FORCE your body out of that "comfort zone." Yes, if you're particularly low on energy, it is CRITICAL for you to get off your duff and get moving. Yes, there is the initial stage of effort, even to just go for a 5, 10, or 20-minute walk.

But, IT GETS EASIER. You must know that. Even after a few workouts, you'll easily notice an increase in your energy levels.

Strength training makes you stronger, so you can do more vigorous tasks without undue muscular fatigue. Aerobic exercise conditions your heart and lungs, delivering nutrient-rich blood to working muscles and organs. Ultimately doesn't have to work as hard just to pump blood.

And don't forget sound nutrition. The right balance of nutrients, at the right times, in the right amounts gives you the fuel you need to function at your absolute best every day.

But high energy won't be handed to you on a silver platter. Go make it happen!

Fitness Infomercials: Weight Loss Dream or Budget-Buster?

2008-08-19T21:33:00.001-07:00

Those gizmos and products that promise a thinner, fitter you "in just four minutes a day" might be more effective at trimming your wallet than your body. Here are some tips for safe buying off the TV:

• Don't compare yourself with the bouncing, buff bodies on the infomercial. They're most likely in their early 20's, blessed with killer genes, work out 3 hours a day, and are still paying off that last liposuction.

• Shy away from any product that boast you can burn 'up to' a certain number of calories. A person might be able to burn that many calories IF you had an overactive thyroid and belonged to the World Wrestling Federation, but you'll likely burn just a fraction of the number of calories mentioned.

• Many of the products touted on infomercials can also be found in stores. But often the models on the infomercials are inferior makes of familiar merchandise, says Larry Weindruch, director of communications for the National Sporting Goods Association. Because the "fit" of a piece of fitness equipment is critical, you should never buy anything without trying it first.

• Think in small bites. Instead of resolving to morph yourself into Pamela Anderson or Arnold Schwarzenegger, decide each day to accomplish a specific activity: work out right after waking up, walking to work, take elevator instead of stairs.

• Know thyself. You're more likely to keep up with activities you enjoy. Find something you like to do, and stick with it. Don't buy equipment you don't like.

Ten Commandments of Buying Infomercial Fitness Gadgets

2008-08-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

An astounding plethora of gadgets out there thanks to the infomercials claim to transform your pudgy abs into washboard abs with "virtually no effort on your part." (Spare me.) Unfortunately, the only thing that they're likely to do is reduce your bank account. Let's face it; everything looks better on TV, but you have no way of judging the quality of a machine or gadget.

When you watch exercise equipment ads on TV, keep in mind the following tips:

1. If the advertisement claims that you can tone up while lying in bed watching the tube, save your money for the Miracle Mop. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "THE NO SWEAT WORKOUT THAT WORKS."

2. Beware of the phrase "guaranteed or your money back." READ THE FINE PRINT. The manufacturers may promise that you'll lose 4 inches in one month - IF you stick to THEIR recommendations of a low-fat diet and a more vigorous exercise program.

3. Don't be impressed by expert endorsements. Don't think for one second that some 3-time Mr./Ms. Universe built his/her biceps with some plastic contraption that looks like something from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

4. Don't whip out your credit card just because a product is not sold in stores. Matter of fact, most of these gizmos ARE sold in stores – or they will be in 1-2 months. The product is most generally cheaper in the store, and you can test the product first to see if you like it.

5. Beware of phrases like "three easy payments." One gadget claims to cost "Not $60! Not $50!" but "just 2 easy payments of $19.95." Add the shipping & handling, and it costs $46.85.

6. Don't be impressed that a product was "awarded a U.S. Patent." You could patent a nose-hair clipper for mice if you wanted to. To get a patent, all you need is an ORIGINAL idea, not necessarily a GOOD one.

7. Don't believe that a gadget will enable you to build strength and lose fat simultaneously. Consider the Thigh Master commercials: a drop-dead gorgeous model zips up her pants and says, "Thank you, Thigh Master. I never thought I'd fit into these jeans again."

8. Don't be persuaded by scientific mumbo jumbo. Product manufacturers love to throw around big words. Many of these terms, such as omnikinetics, are not even accepted by the medical community.

9. Don't believe that some new contraption is better than free weights or machines. One manufacturer claims that "with free weights or machines, getting the right form is impossible," but with its gizmo, "there's no way to use the gadget improperly.”

10. HIDE YOUR CREDIT CARD between 12 am - 4 am. At that hour, everything looks good. Just go to bed.

10 Shocking Facts About So-Called “Trustworthy” Fitness Solution Sellers

2008-08-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

So why should you believe ME? Why believe everything you’re reading in this book? There are literally thousands of other people and organizations offering you "solutions" to achieve the body of your dreams. I’m just another “one of the crowd,” right?

Well, let's take a look at some interesting facts and use a little common sense. Then you'll see there's something wrong with the picture in each case.

1. There are more fat-free/low fat foods, health clubs, diet centers, exercise equipment options, and "miracle drugs" than ever.

With all of these wonderful options to choose from, you'd think that obesity would be all but obliterated as an epidemic problem. Why is it, then, with the continually increasing fitness options, obesity is at an all time high, and going HIGHER??? More gyms, diet centers, equipment, diets, etc., and we're getting FATTER???

2. Millions of dollars are spent on research to isolate the "fat gene" without any significant outcome.

Oh, the studies use clever language such as "seems to suggest," "might indicate," and "may contribute." Which gives us as much valuable information as the hunt for Bigfoot.

Brilliant scientists are trying to find a fail-proof way for us to biochemically alter our bodies to melt off fat without exercise or eating well, while it seems as though they're forgetting that Americans are consuming over 150 lb. of sugar PER PERSON per year!

While the search for the fat gene continues, Americans are causing their bodies to hold on to their fat stores. This is due to the hormonal changes that sugar brings about, namely insulin.

Each one of us has the ability to improve our fat-burning abilities IF WE JUST GET A GRIP ON OUR INEFFECTIVE NUTRITIONAL HABITS AND START FEEDING OUR BODIES IN A SUPPORTIVE WAY.

What's going on here? To me, there seems to be a connection between the sugar industry and obesity research. And the connection is… MONEY.

3. Some "sugar-free" foods are, in fact, loaded with sugar.

Now that you know that one of the major nutritional errors in trying to get leaner - too much sugar. Does this sound familiar: "This cookie is sweetened with fructose." This means, "This cookie is really sweetened with sugar. We're banking on you not even bothering to read this label, and the fact that you don't know how many different names "sugar" goes by. (Hint: they end in -ose.) But you have to figure out the rest."

4. Not enough emphasis on bone-building, metabolism-boosting, body shaping, lean muscle mass.
In their 20's - 30's, American women lose somewhere between 5-10 lb. of muscle. Plus, the average woman's fat accumulation ranges between 15-30 lb. As a man enters the senior years, he often has less than 70% of the muscle he had at 25.

Despite OVERWHELMING evidence to support that weight training (at ANY age) can stop and even reverse this deterioration, most Americans who begin an exercise program choose more aerobic activity and neglect the muscle-saving, metabolism-boosting, fatigue-fighting strength training. Excessive aerobic exercise can actually waste away muscle, making you a skinny-fat person.

5. Over-promising and under-delivering.

Many of the claims made on these cleverly calculated fitness gadget infomercials are not only misleading, but they are often not even possible with the equipment being marketed.

C'mon, 4 minutes a day to the body you want??? And then there's the new piece with Suzanne Somers pitching the miracle equipment as giving her her best body ever (yeah, right. She ALWAYS had a knockout body).

Two exceptions to this rule are the Bowflex and Chuck Norris/Christie Brinkley's Total Gym. THESE are good pieces of equipment - IF USED THE WAY THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO.

6. Chromium Picolinate.

Wow. One of the wonder supplements of the decade. Look, if chromium picolinate were a miracle fat-burner, wouldn't a diet rich in whole grains and shellfish (good sources of chromium) melt fat away? Of course not. It's just a valuable mineral to include in our diet. THAT'S ALL.

7. The FDA.

The Food & Drug Administration is SUPPOSED to look after our best interests when it comes to food and drugs, and monitoring their safety.

Interesting, though, when you take a look at 1996, when the media jumped all over the FDA's approval of Olestra, a fat substitute. It's odd, that the consumer reaching media was able in a single day, to make us aware of this issue. But they completely ignored the fact that for YEARS the FDA has been allowing the food companies to mislead, even blatantly lie on their labels. Some foods labeled "97% Fat Free" are really 60% fat and more, some foods "70% Less Fat" get all of their calories FROM fat, and some calories labeled "Fat Free" get ALL of their calories from fat. Maybe the awareness of this deceit might lead to more honest, clearer, and understandable food labeling.

8. If something is sold in a health food store, shouldn't it be healthy?

Some over-the-counter "fat burners" are actually addictive drugs that, if misused and abused, can lead to seizures, stroke, and death. Aspartame, a sugar substitute, is also causing the "health" community to be up in arms. Funny, while health food stores condemn aspartame, they don't mind that they're selling these potentially dangerous "fat burners" that are marketed and labeled fraudulently.

9. Lack of integrity.

Many athletes, bodybuilders, fitness contestant participants, and the like who are on the "just say no" bandwagon are precisely the people who are using performance-enhancing and/or anabolic drugs.

Oh, no, you won't see anything like, "this product, along with continued injections of anabolic steroids, is the secret to the body I have now.” This would end up with no sales, and the endorser sent to prison.

They just say, "Take this product for the body of your dreams." Too, bodybuilders are supposed to be the picture of perfect health, when in fact they engage in unhealthy practices to win a contest, like taking cocaine or diuretics.

Consumers wanting to be like their heroes will drop mucho dinero into supplements that promise the world…

…And then they wonder why they don't work.

10. Some programs still advocate dramatically restricting calories.

Consistently reducing calories to an intake below the body's basal metabolic rate can slow the metabolism and bring about chemical changes that lead to additional storage of fat.

Training the body to process food frequently is a factor in speeding the metabolism. Americans, by cutting back on calories, are sabotaging their potential for ever becoming lean. You'll be amazed at how much you really can eat, and still get lean - permanently.

Common Sleep Disorders

2008-08-18T01:01:00.000-07:00

A number of sleep disorders can disrupt your sleep quality and leave you with excessive daytime sleepiness, even if enough time was spent in bed to be well rested. More than 70 sleep disorders affect at least 40 million Americans and account for an estimated $16 billion in medical costs each year, not counting costs due to lost work time and other factors. The four most common sleep disorders are insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea (sleep-disordered breathing), restless legs syndrome (RLS), and narcolepsy. Additional sleep problems include sleep walking, sleep paralysis, night terrors, and other “parasomnias” that cause abnormal arousals.

Insomnia

Insomnia is defined as having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, or as having unrefreshing sleep despite having ample opportunity to sleep. Life is filled with events that occasionally cause insomnia for a short time. Such temporary insomnia is common and is often brought on by stressful situations such as work, family pressures, or a traumatic event. A National Sleep Foundation poll of adults in the United States found that close to half of the respondents reported temporary insomnia in the nights immediately after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Chronic insomnia is defined as having symptoms at least 3 nights per week for more than 1 month. Most cases of chronic insomnia are secondary, which means they are due to another disorder or medications. Primary chronic insomnia is a distinct sleep disorder; its cause is not yet well understood. About 30–40 percent of adults say they have some symptoms of insomnia within any given year, and about 10–15 percent of adults say they have chronic insomnia. Chronic insomnia becomes more prevalent with age, and women are more likely than men to report having insomnia.

Insomnia often causes problems during the day, such as excessive sleepiness, fatigue, a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, depressed mood, and irritability. Due to all of these potential consequences, untreated insomnia can impair quality of life as much as, or more than, other chronic medical problems.

Chronic insomnia is often caused by one or more of the following:

Another disease or mood disorder. The most common causes of insomnia are depression and/or anxiety disorders.Neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease can also have insomnia as a symptom. Chronic insomnia can result from arthritis, asthma, or other medical conditions in which symptoms become more troublesome at night, making it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep.

Various prescribed and over-the-counter medications that can disrupt sleep, such as decongestants, certain pain relievers, and steroids.

Sleep-disrupting behavior such as drinking alcohol, exercising shortly before bedtime, ingesting caffeine late in the day, watching TV or reading while in bed, or irregular sleep
schedules due to shift work or other causes.

Another sleep disorder, such as sleep apnea or restless legs syndrome.

Some people, however, have primary chronic insomnia. This condition is linked to a tendency toward being more “revved up” than normal (hyperarousal). These people may have heightened secretion of certain hormones, higher body temperatures, faster heart rates, and a different pattern of brain waves while they sleep.

Doctors diagnose insomnia based mainly on sleep history, often by reviewing a sleep diary. An overnight sleep recording may be required if another sleep disorder is suspected. Doctors also will try to diagnose and treat any other underlying medical or psychological problems as well as identify behaviors that might be causing the insomnia.

Often, people who have insomnia enter into a vicious cycle—because of having trouble sleeping in previous nights, they become anxious at the slightest sign that they may not be falling asleep right away. That anxiety can make it more difficult for them to fall asleep. The more time they spend in bed not sleeping, and watching the clock, the more their anxiety—and sleeplessness—increases.

To break that cycle of anxiety and negative conditioning, experts recommend going to bed only when you’re sleepy. If you can’t fall asleep (or fall back to sleep) within 20 minutes, get out of bed and go into another room where you can pursue a relaxing activity until you feel sleepy again. Then return to bed. This reconditioning therapy has been shown to be an effective way to treat insomnia.

Another effective behavioral strategy for some people is relaxation therapy. For example, progressively tense and then relax each of the muscle groups in your body before sleep. Another method is to focus on breathing deeply. Relaxation therapy can provide a needed slowing down period so that you are indeed sleepy when the desired bedtime arrives.

Sleep restriction therapy also works for some people who have insomnia. First, limit
your night’s sleep to 4 or 5 hours, then gradually add more sleep time each night until you achieve a more normal night’s sleep. Daytime naps should be avoided during this sleep restriction therapy because napping may prolong insomnia by making it harder to fall asleep at night. In addition, during sleep restriction therapy, avoid driving a car or operating dangerous machinery until you have obtained adequate nighttime sleep.

All these changes in behavior are part of what is called “cognitive behavioral therapy.” Cognitive behavioral therapy also can be used to replace negative thinking related to sleep, such as “I’ll never fall asleep without sleeping pills,” with more realistic positive thinking. Cognitive behavioral therapy is effective in most people who have chronic insomnia.

Some people who have chronic insomnia that is not corrected by behavioral therapy or treatment of an underlying condition may need a prescription medication. You should talk to a doctor before trying to treat insomnia with alcohol, over-the-counter or prescribed short-acting sedatives, or sedating antihistamines that induce drowsiness. The benefits of these treatments are limited, and they have risks. Some may help you fall asleep but leave you feeling unrefreshed in the morning. Others have longer-lasting effects and leave you feeling still tired and groggy in the morning. Some also may lose their effectiveness over time. Doctors may prescribe sedating antidepressants for insomnia, but the effectiveness of these medicines in people who do not have depression is not established, and there are significant side effects.

To treat their insomnia, some people pursue “natural” remedies, such as melatonin supplements or valerian teas or extracts. These remedies are available over the counter. There is little evidence that melatonin can help relieve insomnia. Studies with valerian have also been inconclusive, and the actual dose and purity of various supplements, extracts, or teas that contain valerian may vary from product to product. In addition, because melatonin, valerian, and other natural remedies are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, their safety is not scrutinized.

Sleep Apnea

In people who have sleep apnea (also referred to as sleep-disordered breathing), breathing briefly stops or becomes very shallow during sleep. This change is caused by intermittent blocking of the upper airway, usually when the soft tissue in the rear of the throat collapses and partially or completely closes the airway. Each breathing stop typically lasts 10–20 seconds or more and may occur 20–30 times or more each sleeping hour.

If you have sleep apnea, not enough air can flow into your lungs through the mouth and nose during sleep, even though breathing efforts continue. When this happens, the amount of oxygen in your blood decreases. Your brain responds by awakening you enough to tighten the upper airway muscles and open your windpipe. Normal breaths then start again, often with a loud snort or choking sound. Although people who have sleep apnea typically snore loudly and frequently, not everyone who snores has sleep apnea.

Because people who have sleep apnea frequently arouse from deeper sleep stages to lighter sleep during the night, they rarely spend enough time in deep, restorative stages of sleep. They are therefore often excessively sleepy during the day. Such sleepiness is thought to lead to mood and behavior problems, including depression, and such sleepiness more than triples the risk of being in a traffic or work-related accident.

The many brief drops in blood-oxygen levels can be associated with morning headaches and decreased ability to concentrate, think properly, learn, and remember. In sleep apnea, the combination of the intermittent oxygen drops and reduced sleep quality triggers the release of stress hormones. These hormones in turn raise your blood pressure and heart rate and boost the risk of heart attack, stroke, irregular heart beats, and congestive heart failure. In addition, untreated sleep apnea can lead to altered energy metabolism that increases the risk for developing obesity and diabetes.

Anyone can have sleep apnea. It is estimated that at least 12–18 million American adults have sleep apnea, making it as common as asthma. More than one-half of the people who have sleep apnea are overweight. Sleep apnea is more common in men. More than 1 in 25 middle-aged men and 1 in 50 middle-aged women have sleep apnea along with excessive daytime sleepiness. About 3 percent of children and 10 percent or more of people over age 65 have sleep apnea. This condition occurs more frequently in African Americans, Asians, Native Americans, and Hispanics than in Caucasians.

More than one-half of all people who have sleep apnea are not diagnosed. People who have sleep apnea generally are not aware that their breathing stops in the night. They just notice that they don’t feel well rested when they wake up and are sleepy throughout the day. Their bed partners are likely to notice, however, that they snore loudly and frequently and that they often stop breathing briefly while sleeping. Doctors suspect sleep apnea if these symptoms are present, but the diagnosis must be confirmed with overnight sleep monitoring. This monitoring will reveal pauses in breathing, frequent sleep arousals, and intermittent drops in levels of oxygen in the blood.

Like adults who have sleep apnea, children who have this disorder usually snore loudly, snort or gasp, and have brief stops in breathing while sleeping. Small children often have enlarged tonsils and adenoids that increase their risk for sleep apnea. But doctors may not suspect sleep apnea in children because, instead of showing the typical signs of sleepiness during the day, these children often become agitated and may be considered hyperactive. The effects of sleep apnea in children may include diminished school performance and difficult,aggressive behavior.

A number of factors can make a person susceptible to sleep apnea. These factors include:

Throat muscles and tongue that relax more than normal while asleep
Enlarged tonsils and adenoids
Being overweight—the excess fat tissue around your neck makes it harder to keep the throat area open
Head and neck shape that creates a somewhat smaller airway size in the mouth and throat area
Congestion, due to allergies, that can also narrow the airway
Family history of sleep apnea

If your doctor suspects that you have sleep apnea, you may be referred to a sleep specialist. Some of the ways to help diagnose sleep apnea include:

A medical history that includes asking you and your family questions about how you sleep and how you function during the day.
Checking your mouth, nose, and throat for extra or large tissues—for example tonsils, uvula (the tissue that hangs from the middle of the back of the mouth), and soft palate (roof of your mouth in the back of your throat).
An overnight recording of what happens with your breathing during sleep (polysomnogram, or PSG).

A Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT), usually done in a sleep center, is used to see how quickly you fall asleep at times when you would normally be awake. Falling asleep in only a few minutes usually means that you are very sleepy during the day. Being very sleepy during the day can be a sign of sleep apnea.

Once all the tests are completed, the sleep medicine specialist will review the results and work with you and your family to develop a treatment plan. Changes in daily activities or habits may help reduce your symptoms:

Sleep on your side instead of on your back. Sleeping on your side will help reduce the amount of upper airway collapse during sleep.

Avoid alcohol, smoking, sleeping pills, herbal supplements, and any other medications that make you sleepy. They make it harder for your airway to stay open while you sleep, and sedatives can make the breathing pauses longer and more severe. Tobacco smoke irritates the airways and can help trigger the intermittent collapse of the upper airway.

Lose weight if you are overweight. Even a little weight loss can sometimes improve symptoms.

These changes may be all that are needed to treat mild sleep apnea. However, if you have moderate or severe sleep apnea, you will need additional, more direct treatment approaches.

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) is the most effective treatment for sleep apnea in adults. CPAP delivers air into your air-way through a specially designed nasal mask attached to a machine that acts as a pump. The mask does not breathe for you; the flow of air creates enough increased pressure to keep the airways in your nose and mouth more open while you sleep. The air pressure is adjusted so that it is just enough to stop your airways from briefly becoming too small during sleep. The pressure is constant and continuous. Sleep apnea will return if CPAP is stopped or if it is used incorrectly.

People who have severe sleep apnea symptoms generally feel much better once they begin treatment with CPAP. CPAP treatment can cause side effects in some people. Possible side effects include dry or stuffy nose, irritation of the skin on the face, bloating of the stomach, sore eyes, or headaches. If you have trouble with CPAP side effects, work with your sleep medicine specialist and support staff. Together, you can do things to reduce or eliminate these problems.

Currently, no medications cure sleep apnea. However, the prescription drug modafinil may help relieve the excessive sleepiness that sometimes persists even with CPAP treatment of sleep apnea.

Another treatment approach that may help some people is the use of a mouthpiece (oral or dental appliance). If you have mild sleep apnea or do not have sleep apnea but snore very loudly, your doctor or dentist may also recommend this. A custom-fitted plastic mouth-piece will be made by a dentist or an orthodontist—a specialist in correcting teeth or jaw problems. The mouthpiece will adjust your lower jaw and tongue to help keep the airway in your throat more open while you are sleeping. Air can then flow more easily into your lungs because there is less resistance to breathing. Following up with the dentist or orthodontist is important to correct any side effects and to be sure that your mouthpiece continues to fit properly.

Some people who have sleep apnea, depending on the findings of the evaluation by the sleep medicine specialist, may benefit from surgery. Removing tonsils and adenoids that are blocking the airway is done frequently, especially in children. Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) is a surgery for adults that removes the tonsils, uvula (the tissue that hangs from the middle of the back of the roof of the mouth), and part of the soft palate (roof of the mouth in the back of the throat). Tracheostomy is a surgery used rarely and only in severe sleep apnea when no other treatments have been successful. A small hole is made in the windpipe, and a tube is inserted. Air will flow through the tube and into the lungs, bypassing the obstruction in the upper airway.

Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS)

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) causes an unpleasant prickling or tingling in the legs, especially in the calves, that is relieved by moving or massaging them. This sensation creates a need to stretch or move the legs to get rid of these uncomfortable or painful feelings. As a result, a person may have difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep. One or both legs may be affected. In some people, the sensations are also felt in the arms. These sensations can also occur with lying down or sitting for prolonged periods of time, such as while at a desk, riding in a car, or watching a movie.

Many people who have RLS also have brief limb movements during sleep, often with abrupt onset, occurring every 5–90 seconds. This condition, known as periodic limb movements in sleep (PLMS), can repeatedly awaken people who have RLS and reduce their total sleep time. Some people have PLMS but have no abnormal sensations in their legs while awake.

RLS affects 5–15 percent of Americans, and its prevalence increases with age. RLS occurs more often in women than men. One study found that RLS accounted for one-third of the insomnia seen in patients older than age 60. Children also can have RLS. This condition can be difficult to diagnose in children, and it often is confused with hyperactivity or “growing pains.”

RLS is often inherited. Pregnancy, kidney failure, and anemia related to iron or vitamin deficiency can trigger or worsen RLS symptoms. Researchers suspect that these conditions cause insufficient iron that results in a lack of dopamine. The brain uses dopamine to control limb movements. Doctors usually can diagnose RLS by patients’ symptoms and a telltale worsening of symptoms at night or while at rest. Some doctors may order a blood test for iron, although many people who have RLS have normal levels of iron in their blood but abnormal levels in the fluid that bathes their brain. Doctors may also ask people who have RLS to spend a night in a sleep lab where they are monitored to rule out other sleep disorders and to document the excessive limb movements.

RLS is a treatable but not curable condition. Dramatic improvements are seen quickly when patients are given dopamine-like drugs. Alternatively, people who have milder cases may be treated successfully with sedatives or by behavioral strategies. These strategies include stretching, taking a hot bath, or massaging the legs before bedtime. Avoiding caffeinated beverages can also help reduce symptoms. If iron or vitamin deficiency underlies RLS, symptoms may improve with prescribed iron, vitamin B12, or folate supplements. Some people may require anticonvulsant medications to stem the creeping and crawling sensations in their limbs. Others who have severe symptoms may need to be treated with pain relievers, such as codeine or morphine, or a combination of drug treatments.

Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy’s main symptom is excessive and overwhelming daytime sleepiness, even after adequate nighttime sleep. In addition, night-time sleep may be fragmented by frequent awakenings. People who have narcolepsy often fall asleep at inappropriate times and places. Although television sitcoms occasionally feature these individuals to generate a few laughs, narcolepsy is no laughing matter. People who have narcolepsy experience daytime “sleep attacks” that last from seconds to more than one-half hour, can occur without warning, and may cause injury. These embarrassing sleep spells can also make it difficult to work and to maintain normal personal or social relationships.

With narcolepsy, the usually sharp distinctions between being asleep and awake are blurred. Also, people who have narcolepsy tend to fall directly into dream-filled REM sleep, rather than enter REM sleep gradually after passing through the non-REM sleep stages first. In addition to overwhelming daytime sleepiness, narcolepsy has three other commonly associated symptoms, but these may not occur in all people:

Sudden muscle weakness (cataplexy). This weakness is similar to the paralysis that normally occurs during REM sleep, but it lasts a few seconds to minutes while an individual is awake. Cataplexy tends to be triggered by sudden emotional reactions, such as anger, surprise, fear, or laughter. The weakness may show up as limpness at the neck, buckling of the knees, or sagging facial muscles affecting speech, or it may cause a complete body collapse.

Sleep paralysis. People who have narcolepsy may experience a temporary inability to talk or move when falling asleep or waking up, as if they were glued to their beds.

Vivid (hypnogogic) dreams. These dreams tend to surface when people who have narcolepsy first fall asleep. The dreams are so lifelike that they can be confused with reality.

Experts estimate that as many as 350,000 Americans have narcolepsy, but fewer than 50,000 are diagnosed. The disorder is as widespread as Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis, and more prevalent than cystic fibrosis, but it is less well known. Narcolepsy is often mistaken for depression, epilepsy, or the side effects of medicines.

Narcolepsy can be difficult to diagnose in people who have only the symptom of excessive daytime sleepiness. It is usually diagnosed with the aid of an overnight sleep recording (PSG) and the MSLT. Both tests reveal signs of narcolepsy—the tendency to fall asleep rapidly and enter REM sleep early, even during brief naps.Narcolepsy can develop at any age, but the symptoms tend to appear first during adolescence or early adulthood. About 1 of every 10 people who have narcolepsy has a close family member who has the disorder, suggesting that one can inherit a tendency to develop narcolepsy. Studies suggest that a neurotransmitter called hypocretin plays a key role in narcolepsy. Most people who have narcolepsy lack hypocretin, which promotes wakefulness. Scientists believe that an autoimmune reaction, perhaps triggered by disease or brain injury, specifically destroys the hypocretin-generating cells in the brains of people who have narcolepsy.

Eventually, researchers may develop a treatment for narcolepsy that restores hypocretin to normal levels. In the meantime, most people who have narcolepsy find some to all of their symptoms relieved by various drug treatments. For example, central nervous system stimulants can reduce daytime sleepiness. Antidepressants and other drugs that suppress REM sleep can prevent muscle weakness, sleep paralysis, and vivid dreaming. Doctors also usually recommend that people who have narcolepsy take short naps (10–15 minutes) two or three times a day, if possible, to help control excessive daytime sleepiness.

Parasomnias (Abnormal Arousals)

In some people, the walking, talking, and other body functions normally suppressed during sleep emerge during certain sleep stages. Alternatively, the paralysis or vivid images usually experienced during dreaming may persist after awakening. These arousal malfunctions are collectively known as parasomnias and include confusional arousals, sleep talking, sleep walking, night terrors, sleep paralysis, and REM sleep behavior disorder (acting out dreams). Most of these disorders—such as confusional arousals, sleep walking, and night terrors—are more common in children, who tend to outgrow them once they become adults. People who are sleep-deprived also may experience some of these disorders, including sleep walking and sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis also commonly occurs in people who have narcolepsy. Certain medications or neurological disorders appear to lead to other parasomnias, such as REM sleep behavior disorder, and these parasomnias tend to occur more in elderly people. If you or a family member has persistent episodes of sleep paralysis, sleep walking, or acting out of dreams, talk with your doctor.

Common Signs of a Sleep Disorder

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Look over this list of common signs of a sleep disorders, and talk to your doctor if you have any of them:

It takes you more than 30 minutes to fall asleep at night.

You awaken frequently in the night and then have trouble falling back to sleep again.

You awaken too early in the morning.

You frequently don’t feel well rested despite spending 7–8 hours or more asleep at night.

You feel sleepy during the day and fall asleep within 5 minutes if you have an opportunity to nap, or you fall asleep at inappropriate times during the day.

Your bed partner claims you snore loudly, snort, gasp, or make choking sounds while you sleep, or your partner notices your breathing stops for short periods.

You have creeping, tingling, or crawling feelings in your legs that are relieved by moving or massaging them, especially in the evening and when you try to fall asleep.

You have vivid, dreamlike experiences while falling asleep or dozing.

You have episodes of sudden muscle weakness when you are angry, fearful, or when you laugh.

You feel as though you cannot move when you first wake up.

Your bed partner notes that your legs or arms jerk often during sleep.

You regularly need to use stimulants to stay awake during the day.

Also keep in mind that, although children can show some of these same signs of a sleep disorder, they often do not show signs of excessive daytime sleepiness. Instead, they may seem overactive and have difficulty focusing and concentrating. They also may not do their best in school.

Is Snoring a Problem?

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Long the material for jokes, snoring is generally accepted as common and annoying in adults but as nothing to worry about. However, snoring is no laughing matter. Frequent, loud snoring is often a sign of sleep apnea and may increase your risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as lead to daytime sleepiness and impaired performance.

Snoring is caused by a narrowing or partial blockage of your airways at the back of the mouth and upper throat. This obstruction results in increased air turbulence when breathing in, causing the soft tissues in your throat to vibrate. The end result is a noisy snore that can disrupt the sleep of your bed partner. This narrowing of the airways is typically caused by the soft palate, tongue, and throat relaxing while you sleep, but allergies or sinus problems can also contribute to a narrowing of the airways, as can being overweight and having extra soft tissue around your upper airways.

The larger the tissues in your soft palate, the more likely you are to snore while sleeping. Alcohol or sedatives taken shortly before sleep also promote snoring. These drugs cause greater relaxation of the tissues in your throat and mouth. Surveys reveal that about one-half of all adults snore, and 50 percent of these adults do so loudly and frequently. African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics are more likely to snore loudly and frequently compared to Caucasians, and snoring problems increase with age.

Not everyone who snores has sleep apnea, but people who have sleep apnea typically do snore loudly and frequently. Sleep apnea is a serious sleep disorder, and its hallmark is loud, frequent snoring linked to intermittent brief pauses in breathing while sleeping. Even if you don’t experience these breathing pauses, snoring can still be a problem for you as well as for your bed partner. The increased breathing effort associated with snoring can impair your sleep quality and lead to many of the same health consequences as sleep apnea.

One study found that older adults who did not have sleep apnea, but who snored 6–7 nights a week, were more than twice as likely to report being excessively sleepy during the day than those who never snored. The more people snored, the more daytime fatigue they reported. That sleepiness may help explain why snorers are more likely to be in car crashes than people who do not snore. Loud snoring can also disrupt the sleep of bed partners and strain marital relations, especially if snoring causes the spouses to sleep in separate bedrooms. Snoring also increases the risk of developing diabetes and heart disease. One study found that women who snored regularly were twice as likely as those who did not snore to develop diabetes, even if they were not overweight—another risk factor for diabetes. Other studies suggest persistent snoring may raise the lifetime risk of developing high blood pressure, heart failure, and stroke.

About one-third of all pregnant women begin snoring for the first time during their second trimester. If you are snoring while pregnant, let your doctor know. Snoring in pregnancy can be associated with high blood pressure and can have a negative effect on your baby’s growth and development. Your doctor will routinely keep a close eye on your blood pressure throughout your pregnancy and can let you know if any additional evaluations for the snoring might be useful. In most cases, the snoring and any related high blood pressure will subside shortly after delivery.

Snoring can also be a problem in children. As many as 10–15 percent of young children, who typically have enlarged adenoids and tonsils, snore on a regular basis. Several studies show that children who snore (with or without sleep apnea) are more likely than those who do not snore to score lower on tests that measure intelligence, memory, and ability to maintain attention. These children also have more problematic behavior, including hyperactivity. The end result is that children who snore do not perform in school as well as those who do not snore. Strikingly, snoring was linked to a greater drop in IQ than that seen in children who had elevated levels of lead in their blood. Although the behavior of children improves after they stop snoring, studies suggest they may continue to get poorer grades in school, perhaps because of lasting effects on the brain linked to the snoring. You should have your child evaluated by your doctor if the child snores loudly and frequently—three to four times a week— especially if brief pauses in breathing while asleep are noted and if there are signs of hyperactivity or daytime sleepiness, inadequate school achievement, or slower than expected development.

Surgery to remove the adenoids and tonsils of children often can cure their snoring and any associated sleep apnea. Such surgery has been linked to a reduction in hyperactivity and improved ability to pay attention, even in children who showed no signs of sleep apnea before surgery.

Snoring in older children and adults may be relieved by less invasive measures, however. These measures include losing weight, refraining from tobacco, sleeping on the side rather than on the back, or elevating the head while sleeping. Treating chronic congestion and refraining from alcohol or sedatives before sleeping can also stop snoring. In some adults, snoring can be relieved by dental appliances that reposition the soft tissues in the mouth. Although numerous over-the-counter nasal strips and sprays claim to relieve snoring, no scientific evidence supports those claims.

Tips for Getting a Good Night’s Sleep

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Stick to a sleep schedule.

Go to bed and wake up the same time each day. As creatures of habit, people have a
hard time adjusting to altered sleep patterns. Sleeping later on weekends won’t fully make up for the lack of sleep during the week and will make it harder to wake up early on Monday morning.

Exercise is great but not too late in the day.

Try to exercise at least 30 minutes on most days but not later than 5 or 6 hours before your bedtime.

Avoid caffeine and nicotine.

Coffee, colas, certain teas, and chocolate contain the stimulant caffeine, and its effects can take as long as 8 hours to wear off fully. Therefore, a cup of coffee in the late afternoon can make it hard for you to fall asleep at night. Nicotine is also a stimulant, often causing smokers to sleep only very lightly. In addition, smokers often wake up too early in the morning because of nicotine withdrawal.

Avoid alcoholic drinks before bed.

You may think having an alcoholic “nightcap” will help you sleep, but alcohol robs you of deep sleep and REM sleep, keeping you in the lighter stages of sleep. You also tend to wake up in the middle of the night when the effects of the alcohol have worn off.

Avoid large meals and beverages late at night.

A light snack is okay, but a large meal can cause indigestion that interferes with sleep. Drinking too many fluids at night can cause frequent awakenings to urinate.

If possible, avoid medicines that delay or disrupt your sleep.

Some commonly prescribed heart, blood pressure, or asthma medications, as well as some over-the-counter and herbal remedies for coughs, colds, or allergies, can disrupt sleep patterns. If you have trouble sleeping, talk to yourdoctor or pharmacist to see if any drugs you’re taking might be contributing to your insomnia.

Don’t take naps after 3 p.m.

Naps can help make up for lost sleep, but late afternoon naps can make it harder to fall asleep at night.

Relax before bed.

Don’t overschedule your day so that no time is left for unwinding. A relaxing activity, such as reading or listening to music, should be part of your bedtime ritual.

Take a hot bath before bed.

The drop in body temperature after getting out of the bath may help you feel sleepy, and the bath can help you relax and slow down so you’re more ready to sleep.

Have a good sleeping environment.

Get rid of anything that might distract you from sleep, such as noises, bright lights, an uncomfortable bed, or warm temperatures. You sleep better if the temperature in your bedroom is kept on the cool side. A TV or computer in the bedroom can be a distraction and deprive you of needed sleep.Having a comfortable mattress and pillow can help promote a good night’s sleep.

Have the right sunlight exposure.

Daylight is key to regulating daily sleep patterns. Try to get outside in natural
sunlight for at least 30 minutes each day. If possible, wake up with the sun or use very bright lights in the morning. Sleep experts recommend that, if you have problems falling asleep, you should get an hour of exposure to morning sunlight.

Don’t lie in bed awake.

If you find yourself still awake after staying in bed for more than 20 minutes, get up and do some relaxing activity until you feel sleepy. The anxiety of not being able to sleep can make it harder to fall asleep.

See a doctor if you continue to have trouble sleeping.

If you consistently find yourself feeling tired or not well rested during the day despite spending enough time in bed at night, you may have a sleep disorder. Your family doctor or a sleep specialist should be able to help you.

What Disrupts Sleep?

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Many factors can prevent a good night’s sleep. These factors range from well-known stimulants, such as coffee, to certain pain relievers decongestants, and other culprits. Many people depend on the caffeine in coffee, soft drinks (for example, colas), or tea to wake them up in the morning or to keep them awake. Caffeine is though to block the cell receptors that adenosine uses to trigger its sleep-inducing signals. In this way, caffeine fools the body into thinking it isn’t tired. It can take as long as 6–8 hours for the effects of caffeine to wear off completely. Drinking a cup of coffee in the late afternoon consequently may prevent your falling asleep at night.

Nicotine is another stimulant that can keep you awake. Nicotine also leads to lighter than normal sleep. Heavy smokers also tend to wake up too early because of nicotine withdrawal. Although alcohol is a sedative that makes it easier to fall asleep, it prevents deep sleep and REM sleep, allowing only the lighter stages of sleep. People who drink alcohol also tend to wake up in the middle of the night when the effects of an alcoholic “nightcap” wear off.

Certain commonly used prescription and over-the-counter medicines contain ingredients that can keep you awake. These ingredients include decongestants and steroids. Many pain relievers taken by headache sufferers contain caffeine. Heart and blood pressure medications known as “beta blockers” can cause difficulty falling asleep and increase the number of awakenings during the night. People who have chronic asthma or bronchitis also have more problems falling asleep and staying asleep than healthy people, either because of their breathing difficulties or because of the medicines they take. Other chronic painful or uncomfortable conditions—such as arthritis, congestive heart failure, and sickle cell anemia—can disrupt sleep, too.

A number of psychological disorders—including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders—are well known for disrupting sleep. Depression often leads to insomnia, and insomnia can cause depression. Some of these psychological disorders are more likely to disrupt REM sleep. Psychological stress also takes its toll on sleep, making it more difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep. People who feel stressed also tend to spend less time in deep sleep and REM sleep. Many people report having difficulties sleeping if, for example, they have recently lost a loved one, are undergoing a divorce, or are under stress at work.

Menstrual cycle hormones can affect how well women sleep. Progesterone is known to induce sleep and circulates in greater concentrations in the second half of the menstrual cycle. For this reason, women may sleep better during this phase of their menstrual cycle, but many women report trouble sleeping the night before their menstrual bleeding starts. This sleep disruption is probably related to the abrupt drop in progesterone levels in their bodies just before they begin to bleed. Women in their late forties and early fifties, however, report more difficulties sleeping (insomnia) than younger women. These difficulties may be because, as they near or enter menopause, they have lower concentrations of progesterone. Hot flashes in women of this age also may cause sleep
disruption and difficulties.

Certain lifestyle factors may also deprive a person of needed sleep. Large meals or exercise just before bedtime can make it harder to fall asleep. Studies show that exercise in the evening delays the extra release of melatonin at night that helps the body fall asleep. Exercise in the daytime, on the other hand, is linked to improved nighttime sleep.

If you aren’t getting enough sleep or aren’t falling asleep early enough, you may be overscheduling activities that can prevent you from getting the quiet relaxation time you need to prepare for sleep. Most people report that it’s easier to fall asleep if they have time to wind down into a less active state before sleeping. Relaxing in a hot bath before bedtime may help. In addition, your body temperature drops after a hot bath in a way that mimics, in part, what happens as you fall asleep. Probably for both these reasons, many people report that they fall asleep more easily after a hot bath.

Sleeping environment also can affect your sleep. Clear your bedroom of any potential sleep distractions, such as noises, bright lights, a television, or computer. Having a comfortable mattress and pillow can help promote a good night’s sleep. You also sleep better if the temperature in your bedroom is kept on the cool side.

Top 10 Sleep Myths

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Myth 1: Sleep is a time when your body and brain shutdown for rest and relaxation.

No evidence shows that any major organ (including the brain) or regulatory system in the body shuts down during sleep. Some physiological processes actually become more active while you sleep. For example, secretion of certain hormones is boosted, and activity of the pathways in the brain needed for learning and memory is heightened.

Myth 2: Getting just 1 hour less sleep per night than needed will not have any effect on your daytime functioning.

This lack of sleep may not make you noticeably sleepy during the day. But even slightly less sleep can affect your ability to think properly and respond quickly, and it can compromise your cardiovascular health and energy balance as well as the ability to fight infections, particularly if lack of sleep continues. If you consistently do not get enough sleep, eventually a sleep debt builds up that will make you excessively tired during the day.

Myth 3: Your body adjusts quickly to different sleep schedules.

Your biological clock makes you most alert during the daytime and most drowsy at night. Thus, even if you work the night shift, you will naturally feel sleepy when nighttime comes. Most people can reset their biological clock, but only by appropriately timed cues—and even then, by 1–2 hours per day at best. Consequently, it can take more than a week to adjust to a dramatically altered sleep/wake cycle, such as you encounter when traveling across several time zones or switching from working the day shift to the night shift.

Myth 4: People need less sleep as they get older.

Older people don’t need less sleep, but they often get less sleep or find their sleep less refreshing. That’s because as people age, they spend less time in the deep, restful stages of sleep and are more easily awakened. Older people are also more likely to have insomnia or other medical conditions that disrupt their sleep.

Myth 5: Extra sleep at night can cure you of problems with excessive daytime fatigue.

Not only is the quantity of sleep important but also the quality of sleep. Some people sleep 8 or 9 hours a night but don’t feel well rested when they wake up because the quality of their sleep is poor. A number of sleep disorders and other medical conditions affect the quality of sleep. Sleeping more won’t alleviate the daytime sleepiness these disorders or conditions cause. However, many of these disorders or conditions can be treated effectively with changes in behavior or with medical therapies.

Myth 6: You can make up for lost sleep during the week by sleeping more on the weekends.

Although this sleeping pattern will help relieve part of a sleep debt, it will not completely make up for the lack of sleep. This pattern also will not make up for impaired performance during the week because of not sleeping enough. Furthermore, sleeping later on the weekends can affect your biological clock so that it is much harder to go to sleep at the right time on Sunday nights and get up early on Monday mornings.

Myth 7: Naps are a waste of time.

Although naps do not substitute for a good night’s sleep, they can be restorative and help counter some of the impaired performance that results from not getting enough sleep at night. Naps can actually help you learn how to do certain tasks quicker. But avoid taking naps later than 3 p.m., as late naps can interfere with your ability to fall asleep at night. Also, limit your naps to no longer than 1 hour because longer naps will make it harder to wake up and get back in the swing of things. If you take frequent naps during the day, you may have a sleep disorder that should be treated.

Myth 8: Snoring is a normal part of sleep.

Snoring during sleep is common, particularly as a person gets older. Evidence is growing that snoring on a regular basis can make you sleepy during the day and more susceptible to diabetes and heart disease. In addition, some studies link frequent snoring to problem behavior and poorer school achievement in children. Loud, frequent snoring can also be a sign of sleep apnea, a serious sleep disorder that should be treated.

Myth 9: Children who don’t get enough sleep at night will show signs of sleepiness during the day.

Unlike adults, children who don’t get enough sleep at night typically become more active than normal during the day. They also show difficulty paying attention and behaving properly. Consequently, they may be misdiagnosed as having attention-deficit hyperactivity.

Myth 10: The main cause of insomnia is worry.

Although worry or stress can cause a short bout of insomnia, a persistent inability to fall asleep or stay asleep at night can be caused by a number of other factors. Certain medications and sleep disorders can keep you up at night. Other common causes of insomnia are depression, anxiety disorders, and asthma, arthritis, or other medical conditions with symptoms that become more troublesome at night. Some people who have chronic insomnia also appear to be more revved up than normal, so it is harder for them to fall asleep.

How Much Sleep Is Enough?

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Animal studies suggest that sleep is as vital as food for survival.Rats, for example, normally live 2–3 years, but they live only 5 weeks if they are deprived of REM sleep and only 2–3 weeks if they are deprived of all sleep stages—a timeframe similar to death due to starvation. But how much sleep do humans need? To help answer that question, scientists look at how much people sleep when unrestricted, the average amount of sleep among various age groups, and the amount of sleep that studies reveal is necessary to function at your best.

When healthy adults are given unlimited opportunity to sleep, they sleep on average between 8 and 8.5 hours a night. But sleep needs vary from person to person. Some people appear to need only about 7 hours to avoid problem sleepiness whereas others need 9 or more hours of sleep. Sleep needs also change throughout the lifecycle. Newborns sleep between 16 and 18 hours a day, and children in preschool sleep between 10 and 12 hours a day. School-aged children and adolescents need at least 9 hours of sleep a night.

The hormonal influences of puberty tend to shift adolescents’ biological clocks. As a result, teenagers are more likely to go to bed later than younger children and adults, and they tend to want to sleep later in the morning. This sleep–wake rhythm is contrary to the early-morning start times of many high schools and helps explain why most teenagers get an average of only 7–7.5 hours of sleep a night.

As people get older, the pattern of sleep also changes—especially the amount of time spent in the deep sleep stages. Children spend more time than adults in these sleep stages. This explains why children can sleep through loud noises and why they might not wake up when they are moved from the car to their beds. During adolescence, a big drop occurs in the amount of time spent in deep sleep, which is replaced by lighter, stage 2 sleep. Between young adulthood and midlife, the percentage of deep sleep falls again— from less than 20 percent to less than 5 percent, one study suggests— and is replaced with lighter sleep (stages 1 and 2). From midlife through late life, people’s sleep has more interruptions by wakefulness during the night. This disruption causes older persons to lose more and more of stages 1 and 2 non-REM sleep as well as REM sleep.

Many older people complain of difficulty falling asleep, early morning awakenings, frequent and long awakenings during the night, daytime sleepiness, and a lack of refreshing sleep. Many sleep problems, however, are not a natural aspect of sleep in the elderly.Because older people are more likely to have many illnesses that can disrupt sleep, their sleep complaints often may be due, in part, to illnesses or the medications used to treat them. In fact, one study found that the prevalence of sleep problems is very low in healthy older adults. Other causes of some of older adults’ sleep complaints are sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, and other sleep disorders that become more common with age. Also, older people are more likely to have their sleep disrupted by the need to urinate during the night.

Some evidence shows that the biological clock shifts in older people, so they are more apt to go to sleep earlier at night and wake up earlier in the morning. No evidence indicates that older people can get by with less sleep than younger people. Poor sleep in older people is linked to excessive daytime sleepiness, attention and memory problems, depressed mood, and overuse of sleeping pills.

Despite variations in sleep quantity and quality, both related to age and between individuals, studies suggest that the optimal amount of sleep needed to perform adequately, avoid a sleep debt, and not have problem sleepiness during the day is about 7–8 hours for adults and 9 or more hours for school-aged children and adolescents. Similar amounts seem to be necessary to avoid further increasing the risk of developing obesity, diabetes, or cardiovascular disorders.

Quality of sleep is as important as quantity. People whose sleep is frequently interrupted or cut short may not get enough of both non-REM sleep and REM sleep. Both types of sleep appear to be crucial for learning and memory—and perhaps for all the other restorative benefits of healthy sleep, including the growth and repair of cells.

Many people try to make up for lost sleep during the week by sleeping more on the weekends. But if you have lost too much sleep, sleeping in on the weekend does not completely erase your sleep debt. Certainly, sleeping more at the end of the week does not make up for the hampered performance you most likely had at the beginning of or during that week. Just 1 night of inadequate sleep can adversely affect your functioning and mood during at least the next day.

Daytime naps are another strategy some people use to make up for lost sleep during the night. Some evidence shows that short naps (up to an hour) can make up, at least partially, for the sleep missed on the previous night and improve alertness, mood, and work performance. But naps don’t substitute for a good night’s sleep. One study found that a daytime nap after a lack of sleep at night did not fully restore levels of blood sugar to the pattern seen with adequate nighttime sleep. If a nap lasts longer than 1 hour, you may have a hard time waking up fully. In addition, late afternoon naps can make falling asleep at night more difficult.

What Does Sleep Do for You?

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A number of tasks vital to health and quality of life are linked to sleep, and these tasks are impaired when you are sleep deprived.

Learning, Memory, and Mood

Students who have trouble grasping new information or learning new skills are often advised to “sleep on it,” and that advice seems well founded. Recent studies reveal that people can learn a task better if they are well rested. They also can remember better what they learned if they get a good night’s sleep after learning the task than if they are sleep deprived. Volunteers had to sleep at least 6 hours to show improvement in learning, and the amount of improvement was directly tied to how much time they slept. In other words, volunteers who slept 8 hours outperformed those who slept only 6 or 7 hours. Other studies suggest that all the benefits of training for mentally challenging tasks are maximized after a good night’s sleep,rather than immediately following the training or after sleeping for a short period overnight.

Many well-known artists and scientists claim to have had creative insights while they slept. Mary Shelley, for example, said the idea for her novel Frankenstein came to her in a dream. Although it has not been shown that dreaming is the driving force behind innovation, one study suggests that sleep is needed for creative problem solving. In that study, volunteers were asked to perform a memory task and then were tested 8 hours later. Those who were allowed to sleep for 8 hours immediately after receiving the task and before being tested were much more likely to find a creative way of simplifying the task and improving their performance compared to those who were awake the entire 8 hours before being tested.

Exactly what happens during sleep to improve our learning, memory, and insight isn’t known. Experts suspect, however, that while people sleep, they form or reinforce the pathways of brain cells needed to perform these tasks. This process may explain why sleep is needed for proper brain development in infants.

Not only is a good night’s sleep required to form new learning and memory pathways in the brain, but sleep is also necessary for those pathways to work up to speed. Several studies show that lack of sleep causes thinking processes to slow down. Lack of sleep also makes it harder to focus and pay attention. Lack of sleep can make you more easily confused. Studies also find a lack of sleep leads to faulty decision making and more risk taking. A lack of sleep slows down your reaction time, which is particularly significant to driving and other tasks that require quick response. When people who lack sleep are tested by using a driving simulator, they perform just as poorly as people who are drunk. The bottom line is: not getting a good night’s sleep can be dangerous!

Even if you don’t have a mentally or physically challenging day ahead of you, you should still get enough sleep to put yourself in a good mood. Most people report being irritable, if not downright unhappy, when they lack sleep. People who chronically suffer from a lack of sleep, either because they do not spend enough time in bed or because they have an untreated sleep disorder, are at greater risk of developing depression. One group of people who usually don’t get enough sleep is mothers of newborns. Some experts think depression after childbirth (postpartum blues) is caused, in part, by a lack of sleep.

Your Heart

Sleep gives your heart and vascular system a much-needed rest. During non-REM sleep, your heart rate and blood pressure progressively slow as you enter deeper sleep. During REM sleep, your heart rate and blood pressure have boosted spikes of activity. Overall, however, sleep reduces your heart rate and blood pressure by about 10 percent.

If you don’t get enough sleep, this nightly dip in blood pressure, which appears to be important for good cardiovascular health, may not occur. According to several studies, if your blood pressure does not dip during sleep, you are more likely to experience strokes, chest pain known as angina, an irregular heartbeat, and heart attacks. You are also more likely to develop congestive heart failure, a condition in which fluid builds up in the body because the heart is not pumping sufficiently. Failure to experience the normal dip in blood pressure during sleep can be related to insufficient sleep time, an untreated sleep disorder, or other factors. African Americans, for example, tend not to have as much of a dip in blood pressure during sleep. This difference may help to explain why they are more likely than Caucasians to have serious cardiovascular disease.

A lack of sleep also puts your body under stress and may trigger the release of more adrenaline, cortisol, and other stress hormones during the day. These hormones contribute to your blood pressure not dipping during sleep, thereby increasing the risk for heart disease. Inadequate sleep may also negatively affect your heart and vascular system by the increased production of certain proteins thought to play a role in heart disease. For example, some studies find that people who chronically do not get enough sleep have higher blood levels of C-reactive protein. Higher levels of this protein may suggest a greater risk of developing hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis).

Your Hormones

When you were young, your mother may have told you that you need to get enough sleep to grow strong and tall. She may have been right! Deep sleep triggers more release of growth hormone, which fuels growth in children and boosts muscle mass and the repair of cells and tissues in children and adults. Sleep’s effect on the release of sex hormones also encourages puberty and fertility.

Consequently, women who work at night and tend to lack sleep are, therefore, more likely to have trouble conceiving or to miscarry.

Your mother also probably was right if she told you that getting a good night’s sleep on a regular basis would help keep you from getting sick and help you get better if you do get sick. During sleep, your body creates more cytokines—cellular hormones that help the immune system fight various infections. Lack of sleep can reduce the ability to fight off common infections. Research also reveals that a lack of sleep can reduce the body’s response to the flu vaccine. For example, sleep-deprived volunteers given the flu vaccine produced less than half as many flu antibodies as those who were well rested and given the same vaccine.

Although lack of exercise and other factors are important contributors, the current epidemic of diabetes and obesity appears to be related, at least in part, to chronically getting inadequate sleep. Evidence is growing that sleep is a powerful regulator of appetite, energy use, and weight control. During sleep, the body’s production of the appetite suppressor leptin increases, and the appetite stimulant grehlin decreases. Studies find that the less people sleep, the more likely they are to be overweight or obese and prefer eating foods that are higher in calories and carbohydrates. People who report an average total sleep time of 5 hours a night, for example, are much more likely to become obese compared to people who sleep 7–8 hours a night.

A number of hormones released during sleep also control the body’s use of energy. A distinct rise and fall of blood sugar levels during sleep appears to be linked to sleep stage. Not getting enough sleep overall or enough of each stage of sleep disrupts this pattern. One study found that, when healthy young men slept only 4 hours a night for 6 nights in a row, their insulin and blood sugar levels mimicked those seen in people who were developing diabetes. Another study found that women who slept less than 7 hours a night were more likely to develop diabetes over time than those who slept between 7 and 8 hours a night.

Dealing With Jet Lag

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Eastward travel generally causes more severe jet lag than westward travel because traveling east requires you to shorten the day, and your biological clock is better able to adjust to a longer day than a shorter day. Fortunately for globetrotters, a few preventive measures and treatments seem to help some people relieve jet lag:

Adjust your biological clock. Several days before traveling to a new time zone, gradually shift your sleeping and eating times to coincide with those at your destination. You can also adjust your clock by using light therapy. This involves being exposed to special lights, many times brighter than ordinary household light, for several hours near the time you want to wake up. Alternatively, after arrival, spend a lot of time outdoors to make sure your body gets the light cues it needs to adjust to the new time zone.

Avoid alcohol and caffeine. Although it may be tempting to drink alcohol to relieve the stress of travel and make it easier to fall asleep, you’re more likely to sleep lighter and wake up in the middle of the night when the effects of the alcohol wear off. Caffeine can help keep you awake longer, but caffeine can also make it harder for you to fall asleep if its effects haven’t worn off by the time you are ready to go to bed.

What about melatonin? Your body produces this hormone that makes you drowsy. Melatonin builds up in your body as the night progresses and decreases when daylight arrives. Melatonin is available as an over-the-counter supplement. Because melatonin is considered safe when used over a period of days or weeks and seems to contribute to feeling sleepy, it has been suggested as a treatment for jet lag. But melatonin’s effectiveness is controversial, and its safety when used over a prolonged period is unclear. Some studies find that taking melatonin supplements before bedtime for several days after arrival in a new time zone can make it easier to fall asleep at the proper time. Other studies find that melatonin does not help to relieve jet lag.

Be aware that adjusting to a new time zone may take several days. If you are going to be away for just a few days, it may be better to stick to your original sleep and wake times as much as possible, rather than adjusting your biological clock too many times in rapid succession.

Tips on Sleeping when Working the Night Shift

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Try to limit night shift work, if that is possible. If you must work the night shift, the following tips may help you:

Increase your total amount of sleep by adding naps and lengthening the amount of time you allot for sleep.

Use bright lights in your workplace.

Minimize your shift changes so that your body’s biological clock can adjust to a nighttime work schedule.

Get rid of sound and light distractions in your bedroom during your daytime sleep.

Use caffeine only during the first part of your shift to promote alertness at night.

If you are unable to fall asleep during the day, and all else fails, talk with your doctor to see if it would be wise for you to use prescribed, short-acting sleeping pills to help you sleep during the day.

What Makes You Sleep?

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Although you may put off going to sleep in order to squeeze more activities into your day, eventually your need for sleep becomes overwhelming and you are forced to get some sleep. This daily drive for sleep appears to be due, in part, to a compound known as adenosine. This natural chemical builds up in your blood as time awake increases. While you sleep, your body breaks down the adenosine. Thus, this molecule may be what your body uses to
keep track of lost sleep and to trigger sleep when needed. An accumulation of adenosine and other factors might explain why, after several nights of less than optimal amounts of sleep, you build up a sleep debt that you must make up by sleeping longer than normal. Because of such built-in molecular feedback, you can’t adapt to getting less sleep than your body needs. Eventually, a lack of sleep catches up with you.

The time of day when you feel sleepy and go to sleep is also governed by your internal “biological clock” and environmental cues—the most important being light and darkness. Your biological clock is actually a tiny bundle of cells in your brain that responds to light signals received through your eyes. When darkness falls, the biological clock triggers the production of the hormone melatonin. This hormone makes you feel drowsy as it continues to increase during the night. Because of your biological clock, you naturally feel the most sleepy between midnight and 7 a.m. You may also feel a second and milder daily “low” in the midafternoon between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. At that time, another rise occurs in melatonin production and might make you feel sleepy.

Your biological clock makes you the most alert during daylight hours and the most drowsy in the early morning hours. Consequently, most people do their best work during the day. Our 24/7 society, however, demands that some people work at night. Nearly one-quarter of all workers work shifts that are not during the daytime, and more than two-thirds of these workers have problem sleepiness and/or difficulty sleeping. Because their work schedules are at odds with powerful sleep-regulating cues like sunlight, night shift workers often find themselves drowsy at work, and they have difficulty falling or staying asleep during the daylight hours when their work schedules require them to sleep.

The fatigue experienced by night shift workers can be dangerous. Major industrial accidents—such as the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear power plant accidents and the Exxon Valdez oil spill—have been caused, in part, by mistakes made by overly tired workers on the night shift or an extended shift.

Night shift workers also are at greater risk of being in car crashes when they drive home from work. One study found that one-fifth of night shift workers had a car crash or a near miss in the preceding year because of sleepiness on the drive home from work. Night shift workers are also more likely to have physical problems, such as heart disease, digestive disturbances, and infertility, as well as emotional problems. All of these problems may be related, at least in part, to the workers’ chronic sleepiness.

Other factors can also influence your need for sleep, including your immune system’s production of cellular hormones called cytokines. These compounds are made in large quantities in response to certain infectious diseases or chronic inflammation and may prompt you to sleep more than usual. The extra sleep may help you conserve the resources needed to fight the infection. Recent studies confirm that being well rested improves the body’s responses to infection.

People are creatures of habit, and one of the hardest habits to break is the natural wake and sleep cycle. A number of physiological factors conspire to help you sleep and wake up at the same times each day. Consequently, you may have a hard time adjusting when you travel across time zones. The light cues outside and the clocks in your new location may tell you it is 8 a.m. and you should be active, but your body is telling you it is more like 4 a.m. and you should sleep. The end result is jet lag—sleepiness during the day, difficulty falling or staying asleep at night, poor concentration, confusion, nausea, and general malaise and irritability.

Types of Sleep

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1. Non-REM Sleep

Stage 1: Light sleep; easily awakened; muscle activity; eye movements slow down.

Stage 2: Eye movements stop; slower brain waves, with occasional bursts of rapid brain waves.

Stage 3: Considered deep sleep; difficult to awaken; brain waves slow down more, but still have occasional rapid waves.

Stage 4: Considered deep sleep; difficult to awaken; extremely slow brain waves.

2. REM Sleep

Usually first occurs about 90 minutes after you fall asleep; cycles along with the non-REM stages throughout the night. Eyes move rapidly, with eyelids closed. Breathing is more rapid, irregular, and shallow. Heart rate and blood pressure increase. Dreaming occurs. Arm and leg muscles are temporarily paralyzed.

What Is Sleep?

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Sleep was long considered just a uniform block of time when you are not awake. Thanks to sleep studies done over the past several decades, it is now known that sleep has distinct stages that cycle throughout the night in predictable patterns. How well rested you are
and how well you function depend not just on your total sleep time but on how much of the various stages of sleep you get each night.

Your brain stays active throughout sleep, and each stage of sleep is linked to a distinctive pattern of electrical activity known as brain waves.

Sleep is divided into two basic types: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep (with four different stages). (See “Types of Sleep” on page 5.) Typically, sleep begins with non-REM sleep. In stage 1 non-REM sleep, you sleep lightly and can be awakened
easily by noises or other disturbances. During this first stage of sleep, your eyes move slowly, and your muscle activity slows. You then enter stage 2 non-REM sleep, when your eye movements stop.Your brain shows a distinctive pattern of slower brain waves with occasional bursts of rapid waves.

When you progress into stage 3 non-REM sleep, your brain waves become even slower, although they are still punctuated by smaller, faster waves. By stage 4 non-REM sleep, the brain produces extremely slow waves almost exclusively. Stages 3 and 4 are considered deep sleep, during which it is very difficult to be awakened. Children who wet the bed or sleep walk tend to do so during stages 3 or 4 of non-REM sleep. Deep sleep is considered the “restorative” part of sleep that is necessary for feeling well rested and energetic
during the day.

During REM sleep, your eyes move rapidly in various directions,even though your eyelids remain closed. Your breathing also becomes more rapid, irregular, and shallow, and your heart rate and blood pressure increase. Dreaming typically occurs during REM sleep. During this type of sleep, your arm and leg muscles are temporarily paralyzed so that you cannot “act out” any dreams that you may be having.

The first period of REM sleep you experience usually occurs about an hour to an hour and a half after falling asleep. After that, the sleep stages repeat themselves continuously while you sleep. As the night progresses, REM sleep time becomes longer, while time spent
in non-REM sleep stages 3 and 4 becomes shorter. By morning, nearly all your sleep time is spent in stages 1 and 2 of non-REM sleep and in REM sleep. If REM sleep is disrupted during one night, REM sleep time is typically longer than normal in subsequent nights until you catch up. Overall, almost one-half your total sleep time is spent in stages 1 and 2 non-REM sleep and about one-fifth each in deep sleep (stages 3 and 4 of non-REM sleep) and REM sleep. In contrast, infants spend half or more of their total sleep time in REM sleep. Gradually, as they mature, the percentage of total sleep time they spend in REM progressively decreases to reach the one-fifth level typical of later childhood and adulthood.

Why people dream and why REM sleep is so important are not well understood. It is known that REM sleep stimulates the brain regions used in learning and the laying down of memories. Animal studies suggest that dreams may reflect the brain’s sorting and selectively storing important new information acquired during wake time. While this information is processed, the brain might revisit scenes from the day while pulling up older memories. This process may explain why childhood memories can be interspersed with more recent events during dreams. Studies show, however, that other stages of sleep besides REM are also needed to form the pathways in the brain that enable us to learn and
remember.

12 More Great Reasons to Meditate

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1. To awaken to the present moment

When you rush breathlessly from one moment to the next, anticipating another problem or hungering for another pleasure, you miss the beauty and immediacy of the present, which is constantly unfolding before your eyes.Meditation teaches you to slow down and take each moment as it comes — the sounds of traffic, the smell of new clothes, the laughter of children, the worried look on an old woman’s face, the coming and going of your breath. In fact, as the meditative traditions remind us, only the present moment exists anyway — the past is just a memory and the future a fantasy, projected on the movie screen of the mind right now.

2. To make friends with yourself

When you’re constantly struggling to live up to images and expectations (your own or someone else’s) or racing to reinvent yourself to survive in a competitive environment, you rarely have the opportunity or the motivation to get to know yourself just the way you are. Self-doubt and self-hatred may appear to fuel the fires of self-improvement, but they’re painful — and besides, they contribute to other negative mind-states, such as fear, anger, depression, and alienation, and prevent you from living up to your full potential. When you meditate, you learn to welcome every experience and facet of your being without judgment or denial. In the process, you begin to treat yourself as you would a close friend, accepting (and even loving) the whole package, the apparent weaknesses and shortcomings as well as the positive qualities and strengths.

3. To connect more deeply with others

As you awaken to the present moment and open your heart and mind to your own experience, you naturally extend this quality of awareness and presenceto your relationships with family and friends. If you’re like the rest of us, you tend to project your own desires and expectations onto the people close to you, which acts as a barrier to real communication. But when you start to accept others the way they are — a skill you can cultivate through the practice of meditation — you open up the channels for a deeper love and intimacy to flow between you.

4. To relax the body and calm the mind

As contemporary health researchers have discovered — and traditional texts agree — mind and body are inseparable, and an agitated mind inevitably produces a stressed-out body. As the mind settles, relaxes, and opens during meditation, so does the body — and the longer you meditate (measured both in minutes logged each day and in days and weeks of regular practice), the more this peace and relaxation ripples out to every area of your life, including your health.

5. To lighten up

Perhaps you’ve noticed that nonstop thinking and worrying generate a kind of inner claustrophobia — fears feed on one another, problems get magnified exponentially, and the next thing you know, you’re feeling overwhelmed and panicked. Meditation encourages an inner mental spaciousness in which difficulties and concerns no longer seem so threatening and constructive solutions can naturally arise — as well as a certain detachment that allows for greater objectivity, perspective, and, yes, humor. That mysterious word enlightenment actually refers to the supreme “lightening up”!

6. To enjoy more happiness

Research reveals that the daily practice of meditation for just a few months actually makes people happier, as measured not only by their subjective reports, but also by brain-mapping technology. In fact, meditation is apparently the only thing that can permanently change your emotional set point — your basic level of relative happiness that scientists say stays the same throughout your life, no matter what you experience. If you want lasting happiness, leading-edge science and spiritual wisdom have the same advice to offer: Forget about winning the lottery or landing the perfect job — and begin meditating instead!

7. To experience focus and flow

When you’re so fully involved in an activity that all sense of self-consciousness, separation, and distraction dissolves, you’ve entered what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls a state of flow. For human beings, this total immersion constitutes the ultimate enjoyment — and provides the ultimate antidote to the fragmentation and alienation of postmodern life. No doubt you’ve experienced moments like these — creating a work of art, playing a sport, working in the garden, making love. Athletes call it “the zone.” Through meditation, you can discover how to give the same focused attention to — and derive the same enjoyment from — every activity.

8. To feel more centered, grounded, and balanced

To counter the escalating insecurity of life in rapidly changing times, meditation offers an inner groundedness and balance that external circumstances can’t destroy. When you practice coming home again and again — to your body, your breath, your sensations, your feelings — you eventually grow to realize that you’re always home, no matter where you go. And when you make friends with yourself — embracing the dark and the light, the weak and the strong — you no longer get thrown off-center by the “slings and arrows” of life.

9. To enhance your performance at work and at play

Studies have shown that basic meditation practice alone can enhance perceptual clarity, creativity, self-actualization, and many of the other factors that contribute to superior performance. In addition, specific meditations have been devised to enhance performance in a variety of activities, from sports to schoolwork.

10. To increase appreciation, gratitude, and love

As you begin to open to your experience without judgment or aversion, your heart gradually opens as well — to yourself and others. You can practice specific meditations for cultivating appreciation, gratitude, and love. Or you may find, as so many meditators have before you, that these qualities arise naturally when you can gaze at the world with fresh eyes, free from the usual projections and expectations.

11. To align with a deeper sense of purpose

When you practice making the shift from doing and thinking to being, you discover how to align yourself with a deeper current of meaning and belonging. You may get in touch with personal feelings and aspirations that have long remained hidden from your conscious awareness. Or you may connect with a more universal source of purpose and direction — what some people call the higher self or inner guidance.

12. To awaken to a spiritual dimension of being

As your meditation gradually opens you to the subtlety and richness of each fleeting but irreplaceable moment, you may naturally begin to see through the veil of appearances to the sacred reality at the heart of things — and you eventually may come to realize (and this one could take lifetimes!) that the very same sacred reality is actually who you are in your own heart of hearts. This deep insight — what the sages and masters call “waking up from the illusion of separation” — cuts through and ultimately eliminates loneliness and alienation and opens you to the beauty of the human condition.

Tuning in to your body

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Like Mr. Duffy in James Joyce’s novel Ulysses,most of us “live a short distance” from our bodies. The following meditation, which has counterparts in yoga and Buddhism,helps reestablish contact with the body by drawing attention gently from one part to another. Because it cultivates awareness and also relaxes the muscles and internal organs, it makes a great preamble to more formal meditation practice. Allow at least 20 minutes to complete.

1. Lie on your back on a comfortable surface — but not too comfortable unless you plan to fall asleep.

2. Take a few moments to feel your body as a whole, including the places where it contacts the surface of the bed or floor.

3. Bring your attention to your toes.

Allow yourself to feel any and all sensations in this area. If you don’t feel anything, just feel “not feeling anything.” As you breathe, imagine that you’re breathing into and out of your toes. (If this feels weird or uncomfortable, just breathe in your usual way.)

4. When you’re done with your toes, move on to your soles, heels, the tops of your feet, and your ankles in turn, feeling each part in the same way that you felt your toes.

Take your time. The point of this exercise is not to achieve anything, not even relaxation, but to be as fully present as possible wherever you are.

5. Gradually move up your body, staying at least three or four breaths with each part.

Follow this approximate order: lower legs, knees, thighs, hips, pelvis, lower abdomen,lower back, solar plexus, upper back, chest, shoulders. Now focus on the fingers, hands,and arms on both sides, and then on the neck and throat, chin, jaws, face, back of the head, and top of the head.

By the time you reach the top of your head, you may feel as though the boundaries between you and the rest of the world have become more fluid — or have melted away entirely. At the same time, you may feel silent and still — free of your usual restlessness or agitation.

6. Rest there for a few moments; then gradually bring your attention back to your body as a whole.

7. Wiggle your toes, move your fingers, open your eyes, rock from side to side, and gently sit up.

8. Take a few moments to stretch and reacquaint yourself with the world around you before standing up and going about your day.

Meditation: It’s easier than you think

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Meditation is simply the practice of focusing your attention on a particular object — generally something simple, like a word or phrase, a candle flame or geometrical figure, or the coming and going of your breath. In everyday life, your mind is constantly processing a barrage of sensations, visual impressions, emotions, and thoughts. When you meditate, you narrow your focus, limit the stimuli bombarding your nervous system — and calm your mind in the process.

1. Find a quiet place and sit comfortably with your back relatively straight.

If you tend to disappear into your favorite chair, find something a bit more supportive.

2. Take a few deep breaths, close your eyes,and relax your body as much as you can.

3. Choose a word or phrase that has special personal or spiritual meaning for you.

Here are some examples: “There’s only love,” “Don’t worry, be happy,” “Trust in God.”

4. Begin to breathe through your nose (if you can), and as you breathe, repeat the word or phrase quietly to yourself.

You can whisper the word or phrase, subvocalize it (that is, move your tongue as
though saying it, but not aloud), or just repeat it in your mind. If you get distracted, come back to the repetition of the word or phrase.

As an alternative, you can follow your breath as it comes and goes through your nostrils, returning to your breathing when you get distracted.

5. Keep the meditation going for five minutes or more; then slowly get up and go about your day.

How did you feel? Did it seem weird to say the ame thing or follow your breath over and over? Did you find it difficult to stay focused? Did you keep changing the phrase? If so, don’t worry. With regular practice, you’ll gradually get the knack.

Of course, you could easily spend many fruitful and enjoyable years mastering the subtleties and complexities of meditation. But the good news is, the basic practice is actually quite simple, and you don’t have to be an expert to do it — or to enjoy its extraordinary benefits.

Other Journeys That Masquerade as Meditation

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Thinking:

In the West, the term meditation has frequently been used to refer to a kind of focused reflection on a particular theme, as when you say, “I’m going to meditate on this problem for a while.” Although higher-order contemplation or inquiry plays a part in some meditation techniques, it bears little resemblance to the often tortured, conflicted process that usually passes for thinking. Besides, thinking tires you out, whereas meditation refreshes you and perks you up.

Daydreaming:

Daydreaming and fantasy offer their own unique pleasures and rewards, including occasional problem-solving and a momentary escape from difficult or tedious circumstances. But rather than leaving you feeling more spacious and more connected with being, as meditation does, daydreaming often embroils you more actively in the drama of your life.

Spacing out:

Sometimes spacing out involves a momentary gap in the unbroken stream of thoughts and feelings that flood your awareness, a kind of empty space in which nothing seems to be happening except being itself. Such genuine “spacing out” lies at the heart of meditation and can be deliberately cultivated and extended. Alas, most spacing out is just another form of daydreaming!

Repeating affirmations:

This common new-age practice — a contemporary version of what used to be called positive thinking — purports to provide an antidote to your negative beliefs by replacing them with positive alternatives. Generally, however, the negativity is so deeply rooted that the affirmations merely skim the surface like froth on the ocean and never really penetrate to the depths, where your core beliefs reside.

Self-hypnosis:

By progressively relaxing your body and imagining a safe, protected place, you can lull yourself into an open, suggestible state known as a light trance. Here you can rehearse upcoming performances, rerun past events to get a more positive outcome, and reprogram your brain using affirmations. Although self-hypnosis differs from mindfulness meditation, emphasizing ongoing attention to the present moment — it’s actually quite similar to the healing and performance enhancement techniques.

Praying:

Ordinary or petitionary prayer, which calls on God for help or asks for something, can be performed meditatively but has little in common with meditation as I’ve been describing it. However, contemplative prayer, also known as orison (the yearning of the soul for union with the Divine) is actually a form of concentrated contemplation whose focus is God.

Sleeping:

Refreshing though it may be, sleep is not meditation — unless you happen to be an expert yogi who meditates in your sleep. Research shows that the brain waves generated during sleep are significantly different from those generated during meditation. Of course, meditators often find themselves falling asleep — and then, as one of my teachers used to say, sleep well!

Promoting the Benefits of Meditation

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Although Western researchers have been studying the benefits of meditation for more than 50 years, three people in particular have helped popularize the practice by demonstrating how it can cause measurable improvement in a broad range of health concerns.

Herbert Benson and the Relaxation Response:

A cardiologist and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Benson pioneered the field of mind-body medicine with the publication of his best-seller The Relaxation Response in 1975. Based on his study of TM practitioners, the book identifies a natural reflex mechanism that can be triggered by 20 minutes of daily meditation practice involving a quiet environment, repetition of a sound or phrase, a receptive attitude, and a comfortable sitting position — a kind of generic TM! Once initiated, this reflex apparently induces relaxation, reduces stress, and counteracts the fight-or-flight response. In subsequent studies, Benson found that the Relaxation Response had a beneficial effect on hypertension, headaches, heart disease, alcohol consumption, anxiety, and PMS.

Jon Kabat-Zinn and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction:

Since 1979, when he established the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues have trained thousands of patients with a variety of health problems in the fundamentals of Buddhist mindfulness meditation and mindful hatha yoga. Outcome studies indicate that the eight-week program, which involves formal classes, home-study, and a one-day meditation workshop, helps participants reduce the stress that contributes to their illness and teaches them how to extend the benefits of mindfulness into every area of their lives. Featured in the PBS series Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers, Kabat-Zinn’s program has been duplicated in clinics,schools, and workplaces across the country.

Dean Ornish and the Opening Your Heart Program:

In a landmark study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Ornish, who is a physician and the director of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute, showed that patients can actually reverse their heart disease through fundamental lifestyle changes, without the use of surgery or cholesterol-lowering drugs. Although his program also emphasizes the health benefits of a low-fat diet, exercise, and hatha yoga, Ornish teaches that the key to healing the heart lies in opening the heart — and that meditation is a crucial component in this process because it helps to free us from our habitual patterns of stress and emotional reactivity.

Reflecting on Your Life

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The great spiritual teachers and meditation masters have always reminded us of the brevity of life. The medieval Christian mystics kept a skull on their desks to remind them of their own mortality. And Buddhist monks and nuns in some Asian countries still meditate in cemeteries to deepen their awareness of impermanence. Whether tomorrow, next year, or many years from now, you and I will eventually die. Remembering this from time to time can help us to clarify life’s priorities — and remind us of our reasons for meditating.

Of course, if you find it too depressing to think about dying, by all means feel free to skip this exercise. But you may discover that your initial aversion fades as you open your heart to the preciousness of life. Take ten minutes or more to do this guided meditation (which is adapted from the book A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield):

1. Sit quietly, close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths, relaxing a little with each exhalation.

2. Imagine that you’re at the end of your life and death is quickly approaching.

Be aware of the tentativeness of life — you could die at any moment.

3. Reflect on your life as you watch it replay before your eyes like a video.

4. As you reflect, choose two things you’ve done that you feel good about now.

They may not be important or life-changing; in fact, they may be simple,seemingly insignificant events.

5. Look deeply at what makes these moments memorable — at the qualities of mind and heart you brought to them.

6. Notice how these memories affect you — what feelings and other memories they stir up.

7. In light of these memories, consider how you might live differently if you had your life to live again.

What activities would you give more time to than you do now? What qualities of being would you choose to emphasize? Which people would you give more (or less) of your attention to?

8. As you end this exercise and go about your day, notice whether your attitude toward your life has changed in any way.

The Mind-Body Benefits of Meditation

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Physiological benefits:

1. Decreased heart rate during quiet meditation

2. Lower blood pressure in normal and moderately hypertensive individuals

3. Quicker recovery from stress

4. Increase in alpha rhythms (slow, high-amplitude brain waves that correlate with relaxation)

5. Enhanced synchronization (that is, simultaneous operation) of the right and left hemispheres of the brain (which positively correlates with creativity)

6. Reduced cholesterol levels

7. Decreased consumption of energy and need for oxygen

8. Deeper, slower breathing

9. Muscle relaxation

10. Reduction in the intensity of pain

11. More happiness and peace of mind

12. Less emotional reactivity; fewer intense negative emotions and dramatic mood swings

12. Increased empathy

13. Enhanced creativity and self-actualization

14. Heightened perceptual clarity and sensitivity

15. Reductions in both acute and chronic anxiety

16. Complement to psychotherapy and other approaches in the treatment of addiction

10 Basic Guidelines for Living in Harmony with the Spirit of Meditation

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1. Be mindful of cause and effect.

Notice how your actions — and the feelings and thoughts that accompany them — influence others and your own state of mind. When you flare up in anger or lash out in fear,observe how the ripples can be felt for hours or even days — in the responses of others, in your own body, and in your meditation. Do the same with actions that express kindness or compassion. As the Bible says, “As you sow, so shall you reap.”

2. Reflect on impermanence and the preciousness of life.

Death is real, say the Tibetans; it can come without warning, and this body, too, will one day be food for worms and other earthly creatures. By reflecting on how rare it is to be a human being at a time when physical comforts are relatively plentiful and the practice of meditation and other methods for reducing stress and relieving suffering are so readily available, you may feel more motivated to take advantage of the opportunities you have.

3. Realize the limitations of worldly success.

Check out the people you know who have achieved the worldly success you aspire to. Are they really any happier than you are? Do they have more love in their lives or more peace of mind? Through meditation, you can achieve a level of inner success that’s based on joy and tranquility rather than material gain.

4. Practice non-attachment.

This classic Buddhist counsel may seem on first blush like an impossible task. But the point here is not to be indifferent or to disengage from the world, but to notice how attachment to the outcome of your actions affects your meditations — and your peace of mind. What would it be like to act wholeheartedly, with the best of intentions, and then let go of your struggle to get things to be a certain way?

5. Cultivate patience and perseverance.

If nothing else, the practice of meditation requires the willingness to keep on keeping on — call it discipline, diligence, perseverance, or just plain stick-to-itiveness, you’ll reap the greatest benefits if you do it regularly, day after day. Besides, the qualities of patience and perseverance translate nicely to every area of life.

6. Simplify your life.

The busier and more complicated your life, the more agitated your mind will be when you meditate — and the greater your stress level. Pay particular attention to all those extra activities you tack on to an already crammed schedule (perhaps to avoid taking a deep breath, hearing your heartbeat, facing your fears, and dealing with other unpleasant feelings like loneliness, emptiness, grief, or inadequacy). If you stop running and listen closely, you may hear the voice of your own inner wisdom.

7. Live with honesty and integrity:

When you lie, manipulate, and compromise your core values, you may be able to hide from yourself for a time — until you reach your meditation cushion. Then the proverbial you-know-what hits the fan, and every peccadillo comes back to haunt you. Meditation mirrors you back to you, and what you see may motivate you to actualize more of your positive potential.

8. Face situations with the courage of a warrior.

Unlike their battlefield counterparts, “meditation warriors” cultivate the courage to drop their aggression and defensiveness, face their fears, and open their hearts — to themselves and others. Easier said than done, you may say, but meditation will teach you how — and then you need to be willing to follow through in real-life situations. Ultimately, every moment becomes an opportunity to practice.

9. Trust the technology of meditation — and yourself.

It helps to remember that people have been meditating successfully for thousands of
years — far longer than they’ve been using, say, laptop computers or the Internet. Besides, we’re talking low-tech technology here, something anyone can do — like breathing and paying attention. Just trust the technology, follow the instructions — and let go of the results.

10. Dedicate your practice to the benefit of others.

As I mention earlier, the Tibetans call this dedication bodhichitta (“awakened heart”) and regard it as essential for meditation that is life-changing, rather than merely cosmetic. Studies of the impact of prayer on healing, cited in Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine by Larry Dossey, MD, have shown that prayers that request specific results are not nearly as effective as those that ask for the best for all concerned. In other words, the love you take is equal to the love you make!

The Negative Side Effects of Life in the Postmodern Age

2008-07-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

Anxiety and stress:

When the ground starts shifting beneath your feet,your first reaction as you attempt to regain your stability may be anxiety or fear. This gut-level response has been programmed into our genes by millions of years of living on the edge. These days, unfortunately, the tremors never stop, and small fears accumulate and congeal into ongoing tension and stress. Your body may feel perpetually braced against the next onslaught of difficulties and responsibilities — which makes it virtually impossible to relax and enjoy life fully. By relaxing your body and reducing stress, meditation can provide a much-needed antidote.

Fragmentation:

Most Americans once lived, shopped, worked, raised their kids, and spent their leisure time in the same community. They encountered the same faces every day, worked the same job for a lifetime, stayed married to the same person, and watched their children raise their own children just down the block. Now we often shuttle our kids off to school or daycare and commute long distances to work, while checking our messages on the cellphone. On the way home, we may stop by the mall, and we may spend our evenings surfing the Net. We change jobs and partners more frequently than ever, and when our children grow up, they often move to another state — or another country! Although we may not be able to stay the tide of fragmentation, we can use meditation to connect us with a deeper wholeness that external circumstances can’t disturb.

Alienation:

When our lives appear to be made up of disconnected puzzle pieces that don’t fit together, no wonder we wind up feeling completely stressed out. Despite the statistics that herald prosperous times, many people work at marginal jobs that pay the bills but fail to connect them to a deeper sense of value or purpose. According to an article in American Demographics magazine, more people are flocking to small towns in an attempt to recapture a sense of community, and fewer and fewer are voting in each election, apparently because they believe that they have little power to change things. Never before, it seems, have human beings felt so alienated, not only from their work and their government, but also from others, themselves, and their own essential being — and most of us don’t have the skills or the know-how to reconnect! By bridging the chasm that separates us from ourselves, meditation can help to heal our alienation from others and the world at large.

Loneliness and isolation:

With people moving from place to place more frequently and families fragmenting and scattering across the globe, you’re less and less likely to have regular contact with the people you know and love — and even if you do, you may be too busy to relate in a mutually fulfilling way. Recently, I heard a radio ad arguing that since family dinners are clearly a thing of the past, why not purchase Family Net — a separate cellphone for mom, dad, and the kids — so that the family can keep in touch! Again, you may not be able to stem the forces that keep us apart. But you can use meditation to turn every moment together into “quality time.”

Depression:

When people feel lonely, alienated, stressed out, and disconnected from a deeper source of meaning and purpose, it’s no wonder that some end up feeling depressed. In a nation where Prozac is a household word, millions of people take mood-altering chemicals each day to keep from feeling the pain of postmodern life. Meditation can connect you with your own inner source of contentment and joy that naturally dispels the clouds of depression.

Stress-related illness:

From tension headaches and acid indigestion to heart disease and cancer, the steady rise in stress-related illness reflects our collective inability to cope with the instability and fragmentation of our times — and fuels a billion-dollar healthcare industry that at times only masks the deeper problems of fear, stress, and disorientation. As numerous scientific studies have shown, the regular practice of meditation can actually reverse the onslaught of many stress-related ailments.

Fat Loss Lie #12

2008-07-12T04:47:00.000-07:00

You Can Lose weight in just minutes each day (or week!)

3 MINUTE ABS

8 MINUTES IN THE MORNING!

THE ONE WORKOUT A WEEK FITNESS REVOLUTION!

CHANGE YOUR BODY IN 30 MINUTES A WEEK

I'd like to caution you about the mindset of trying to get more results in less time. You should always, (of course), look for ways get the most benefit from every minute you spend in the gym and improve the efficiency of your workouts. What I’m referring to when I speak of the “more for less” mindset is the error of looking for better results in the form of a “secret” training program, short cut, miracle pill, or easy, “overnight” cure without putting in any effort.

There’s a fine line between training enough to stimulate growth and overtraining. We are warned continually not to over train or we’ll hold back our strength and muscle gains. We are also cautioned not to do too much aerobics or we’ll lose the muscle we already have.

It’s true that many people are overtraining – maybe even most people. But just as there’s fine a line between optimal training and overtraining, there’s also a fine line between optimal training and under training.

The minimalist “less is more” approach is highly appealing because it represents the ultimate “lazy man (or woman's)” approach. (And it SELLS!)

The promoters are basically saying, "Hey pal, you're spending too much time in the gym and it's holding back your gains. Buy my secret miracle training program from Bulgaria, and you only have to train once or twice a week for a few minutes and you'll double your results."

If you believe that, then I have some swampland in Florida and a Bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. Call 1-800-YOU’VE-BEEN-HAD for details.

Briefer and less frequent workouts are only good to the extent to which they prevent you from overtraining and they optimize hormonal response to training. Minimalism as a marketing appeal is a completely different story. Make sure you recognize the difference between the two.

I thought 8 minutes in the morning was ridiculous (but brilliant from a marketing perspective), now someone just wrote a book called 3-minute abs. What's next? 30-second abs? Massive muscles in five minutes? The one rep muscle revolution? Gimme a break! Just get your butt in the gym and train for forty-five minutes to an hour three to five days a week – or however much it takes for you to get the results you desire.

Your body is begging for exercise – it’s an amazing machine that was designed to be used – often and vigorously.

When the promoters of a program tell you that “ten minutes a day” or “once or twice a week” will get you a body like a bodybuilder or a fitness model, and you believe that, and you end up disappointed with your meager results, then I have no sympathy for you and the money you wasted. That's just plain naïve.

You can get health benefits from very small amounts of exercise. Even walking to work or class, or raking the leaves in your yard can have health benefits. But you get even greater health benefits from larger amounts of exercise. Training for basic health benefits and training for maximum fat loss and muscle growth are not the same thing. To get maximum changes in body composition, you need a much higher frequency, duration and intensity.

You can get a "training effect” (muscle growth and strength increase) in as little as two thirty-minute workouts per week - that is true - but to become super lean and extremely muscular - forget it! If that were the case, then all champion bodybuilders would be doing it. Here’s what it all boils down to: The rewards you take out will always come in direct proportion to the work you put in.

“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
- Vince Lombardi.

Fat Loss Lie #11:

2008-07-12T04:44:00.000-07:00

“If all else fails, then steroids, growth hormone, weight loss drugs or surgery will help me lose this stubborn fat for good and regain my youthful look”

To many people who are frustrated with little or no results, despite their best intentions, physique-enhancing drugs or hormones appear to be a panacea or “miracle cure.”

Steroids have been around for a long time. So have obesity drugs. Lately, there’s been a huge push – especially on the Internet - for the use of Human Growth Hormone or estosterone under the harmless sounding auspices of “anti-aging medicine” and “Hormone replacement therapy.” This sales pitch is being made mostly to the baby boomers, who desperately want to regain their youthful looks and vitality.

Dramatic short-term results in body composition can be achieved from use of weight loss drugs, steroids, thermogenics, thyroid drugs, growth hormone and other chemicals.

However, appearances can be deceiving. The road of drug use can be a wild ride in the beginning, but in the long run, it doesn’t lead you anywhere – it’s a dead end street.

Regardless of whether we’re talking about illegal steroids and performance enhancers, prescription obesity drugs, hormone replacement therapy, or even over the counter “fat burning” drugs like ephedrine, these are all really one in the same:

(1) Billion dollar money makers, and
(2) Feeble short-term attempts at treating effects, not causes.

Lets take weight loss drugs, for example:

What would happen if the pharmaceutical companies finally came out with a “safe and effective” obesity drug and brought it to the marketplace on a massive scale?

Here’s exactly what would happen:

THE OBESITY PROBLEM WOULD CONTINUE, AND THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES WOULD GET RICHER!

Think about it: Did Xenical cure obesity? How about Phentermine? Meridia? Adipex? Bontril? Didrex? Tenuate? What about Ephedrine? Did that solve the obesity problem? How about gastric bypasses? 60,000 were performed last year. Did that solve the obesity problem?

In a few extreme cases where someone’s health is at stake, and when time is of the essence, the benefits of drugs clearly outweigh the risks. However, even in these cases, you have to concede that it’s a short-term treatment. Here’s the problem with thinking that any drugs will be a long-term solution:

We live in an orderly universe where everything happens for a reason (by “law”). For every effect, there is a cause. There are no accidents.

A lean body never happens by accident. An overweight body never happens by accident.
A lean body and an overweight body are effects. Both of these effects have causes. If you’re overweight, you can create lasting changes 100% of the time if you find the cause of the overweight condition and remove it.

The cause of body fat in most cases is inactivity, poor nutrition and often a negative self-image. Taking drugs is only treating the effect (the fat). Even if the fat (the effect) is temporarily removed, it will always come back if the cause is still there.

You can’t merely take pills or drugs that only treat symptoms/effects and expect a permanent change.

The idea that some people were born to be fat is ridiculous and terribly disempowering. Equally disastrous is the belief that any pill will ever be a long-term solution to the obesity epidemic.

Depending on your genetics, you may never look like Mr. or Miss Olympia, but you always have the power to improve your body and your health above and beyond where you are today.

How? By accepting 100% total responsibility for your situation and then taking positive action every day for the rest of your life to improve it. You simply have to change your lifestyle!

Try to fight the law or shirk hard work by looking for short cuts if you want, but in the end, you’ll always lose. Try to ignore the law if you want, but ignorance of the law does not excuse you from its operation.

"Whatever it is you seek in the form of rewards, you must first earn. All attempts to sidestep this law will end in failure, frustration and, if maintained long enough, ultimate demoralization. All over the world there are millions of people who are being hurt, confused, frightened, and whose lives are turned upside down because they don’t understand the principle law on which everything in the universe operates - the law of cause and effect."
- Earl Nightingale

Lifelong health, fitness and a perfect body weight do not come out of a bottle or needle and NEVER will - no matter what new concoction they cook up in the lab. Those who think otherwise may gain temporary relief from health woes or enjoy some short-term benefits, but unless they change their lifestyles, they’ll have some hard lessons to learn in the long run.

I envision a day when both the medical and fitness communities will join together to help stop this monumental error in thinking, and begin to teach people how to improve their lifestyles and alter their mental attitudes instead of writing prescriptions and selling “magic” pills.

Dr. Joseph Mercola said it well:

"It is my vision to transform the existing medical paradigm from one addicted to pharmaceuticals, surgeries and other methods that only conceal or remove specific symptoms - with morbid results to our health and economy -- to one focused on treating and preventing the underlying causes."

Taking ANY kind of drugs to lose weight is never more than a desperate, fear-driven, short-term solution to a problem with deeply rooted and often unseen causes.

To permanently become lean, you must identify the causes of excess fat, which can include poor nutrition, inactivity, unhealthy lifestyle, and negative self-image, and treat those. Only when the source of your problem is removed, will the unwanted effects disappear for good.

Fat Loss Lie #10

2008-07-12T04:40:00.000-07:00

You can lose 30 pounds of fat in 30 days

LOSE 30 POUNDS IN 30 DAYS... GUARANTEED!!!

LOSE 10 POUNDS THIS WEEKEND!!!

You see ads like these all the time, and they sure are enticing, aren't they? But is it really possible? Can you really lose weight that quickly?

The answer is YES. It's quite possible to lose 30 pounds in 30 days or 10 pounds over the weekend. But that's the wrong question; the question YOU should ask is,
“How can I lose 30 pounds of FAT healthfully and permanently?”

Don't confuse WEIGHT loss with FAT loss!

Your body is 70% water, so it's easy to lose weight quickly. Any diet that dehydrates you will create quick, dramatic weight loss. Want to lose 10 pounds over the weekend? That’s easy! Just stop drinking water! Of course that would be pretty dumb and pretty dangerous too, but that's exactly what you're doing when you lose weight that quickly (you're simply dehydrating yourself - or even worse - you're losing lean body weight too!)

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), one of the largest and most respected health, medical and exercise organizations in the world, has established guidelines for healthy rates of weight loss.

In their position statement on "Proper and improper weight loss programs," the ACSM recommends losing weight at a rate of no more than two pounds per week.

This two pounds per week guideline has become recognized as the standard rate for safe weight (fat) loss. Time after time I see people get impatient and they attempt to violate this rule, only to lose muscle, slow their metabolisms and eventually gain all the fat back…and then some! Weight loss is not something to be rushed.

You can lose 30 pounds of weight in 30 days, but you'll NEVER lose 30 pounds of fat in 30 days.

There are virtually no limits to what you can achieve in the long run. You will absolutely STUN yourself at how much you can achieve in one, two, three years if you get on a supportive, healthy, long term nutrition and training program.

You can reach virtually any fat loss or fitness goal that you’re truly committed to. However, you must be patient; there are definite limits to how quickly you can safely achieve fat loss.

"In the long run, you hit only what you aim at, so aim high."

- Thoreau

Fat Loss Lie #9

2008-07-12T04:38:00.000-07:00

If you eat the right foods, you can lose fat permanently without exercise.

A full-page ad in a recent issue of the National Enquirer featured this headline:

"Lose Up To 2 Pounds Daily... Without Exercise."

Yeah right! And you'll make a million dollars a day too...without working! That's a whopper of a lie if I've ever heard one.

Trying to lose fat without exercise is like trying to sit on a chair without four legs. If one leg is missing, your chair is going to fall over.

An effective fat burning program must have four crucial components:

1. Aerobic exercise
2. Weight training
3. A nutrient dense diet of natural foods with a mild calorie deficit
4. Goal setting, motivation and a positive self image

Except for those genetically gifted, fast-metabolism types (that we all love to hate), it‘s extremely difficult (if not impossible) for most people to lose fat permanently without exercise. It’s always better to BURN THE FAT than it is to try to starve the fat (refer back to Fat Loss Lie #2 for the reasons why).

To lose fat, there must be a calorie deficit. Such are the laws of thermo-dynamics and energy balance. However, there’s more than one way to create a calorie deficit. One way is to decrease your calorie intake (eat less). The other is to increase the amount of calories you burn though exercise.

Of the two ways to create a calorie deficit, burning the calories is the superior method. This is because large, prolonged calorie deficits cause muscle loss and trigger the “starvation response.” Ironically, most people do the opposite: They slash their calories to starvation levels and exercise too little or not at all.

Paradoxical as it seems, the most effective approach to fat loss is to eat more (keep the calorie reduction small) and let the exercise burn the fat. In fact, I wrote an entire full-length book on this subject, titled “Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle.” You don’t have to starve yourself – you just have to choose the right foods and make exercise a part of your lifestyle.

Why would anyone resort to starvation diets when they can burn fat more efficiently through exercise? Perhaps they believe that eating more food and working out at the same time will “cancel each other out. Maybe they shy away from the hard work involved in exercise. There’s also a trend these days towards avoiding too much aerobic exercise because of the notion that it will make you lose muscle. Quite to the contrary, aerobic exercise –combined with weight training - is the only method of fat loss that allows you to create a calorie deficit and burn fat without slowing down the metabolism.

Here are the reasons why exercise - not dieting - is the superior method of losing body fat:

1. Exercise – aerobic and weight training - raises your metabolic rate. Dieting decreases your metabolic rate.

2. Exercise creates a caloric deficit without triggering the starvation response.

3. Exercise is good for your health. Dieting is harmful to your health.

4. Exercise, especially weight training, signals your body to keep your
muscle and not burn it for energy. Dieting without exercise can result in up to 50% of the weight loss to come from lean body mass.

5. Exercise increases fat-burning enzymes and hormones. Dieting decreases fat burning hormones and increases fat storing hormones.

6. Exercise increases the cells sensitivity to insulin so that carbohydrates are burned for energy and stored as glycogen rather then being stored as fat.

If anyone ever tries to sell you a program for losing weight and it doesn’t include exercise (it’s just a “diet”), hold on to your wallet and run for cover. Even if you could get lean without exercise, you should be working out for your health anyway, not just for cosmetic reasons.

Fat loss Lie #8

2008-07-12T04:35:00.000-07:00

Zero carbohydrate or very low carbohydrate diets are the best way to lose body fat permanently.

No diet issue has created more confusion and controversy than the low carbohydrate vs. high carbohydrate debate.

Contrary to what certain diet "guru's" tell you, carbohydrates are not fattening.

It’s a flat out LIE to say, "carbohydrates are fattening." What's fattening is eating more calories than your body can use at one time.

However, it's true that some people lose weight more quickly on a low carbohydrate diet (that's not the same thing as saying carbohydrates are fattening.) It's also true that almost every bodybuilder or fitness competitor uses some variation of the low carb diet to prepare for competitions.

Despite these facts, very low carb diets are not the ultimate answer to permanent weight loss. At worst they are unhealthy. At best they’re a temporary tool that should be used only for short periods to achieve specific fat loss goals (preparing for bodybuilding competition, for example).

Even for carb-sensitive, insulin-resistant, hypoglycemic people who respond well to less carbs and more protein/fat, there are still many drawbacks:

1) Very low carb diets are difficult to stick to. If you remove most of your carbohydrates from your diet for a long period of time, you’re setting yourself up for a relapse. The more you cut back the carbs, the bigger the rebound will be when you put carbs back in. That's why 95% of people gain back all the weight they lose on a very low carb diet.

2) Very low carb diets are often unbalanced and missing many nutrients. It’s still up for debate whether low carb programs like the Atkins diet are unhealthy, but few people would debate the fact that the optimal diet for long term maintenance is one that has balance between protein, carbs and fats and includes a wide variety of foods, not an overemphasis on one food or food group.

3) Very low carb diets may be unhealthy. Many low carb diets allow large amounts of saturated and processed fats. (No toast or pancakes are allowed, but bacon, sausage, butter and whole eggs for breakfast are just fine). In the absence of carbohydrates, you can eat fat with protein and you’ll still lose weight (fat doesn’t necessarily make you fat). But it's probably not wise to eat large amounts of saturated fat and it’s never wise to eat processed fats or trans fats. Although the effects of low carb, high fat/protein diets on various health markers is still up for debate, most people would be best to opt for a diet that is low in fat (below 30% of total calories) and moderate in carbs and protein.

4) Very low carb diets cause your energy levels to plummet. Not only will you feel tired and irritable without carbs, but your training will also suffer: Low carbs = low energy. Low energy = poor workouts. Poor workouts = poor results.

5) The weight loss on a very low carb diet can be deceiving. You will definitely lose weight if you don't eat carbs, but much of the initial weight loss will be muscle and water. Suppose you lose 5 lbs in one week on a low carb diet: That sounds impressive, but if one pound is fat, two pounds are water and two pounds are muscle, what did you accomplish? Your goal should never be weight loss. Your goal should be fat loss.

Most people will lose fat simply by adding a regular exercise routine to their schedule and by "cleaning up" their diets. By "cleaning up" your diet, I mean that you’ve mastered all the nutritional basics like eating small frequent meals, controlling portion sizes, cutting down on unhealthy fats, avoiding sugar and refined foods, etc.

Low carb diets can accelerate fat loss. But if you choose the low carb approach to dieting, the best method for most people is to decrease your carbohydrates moderately and add in some of the “good fats.”

Cutting out carbs completely is not necessary, it's probably not healthy, it's hard to stick to, and it's no fun! It's usually not wise to go to extremes in anything and that’s as true for nutrition as anything else in life: moderation is the key.

Fat Loss Lie #7

2008-07-12T04:32:00.000-07:00

Some people will never be able to lose weight and they should just give up and accept their genetics for what they are.

It's true; your heredity will, to a certain degree, dictate your athletic ability and the ease and speed with which you can lose fat. However, it's a lie to say that some people can't lose weight because they've inherited a "slow metabolism."

Let's be honest; not everyone is going to become an Olympic Gold medalist, a Mr. Universe or a Miss Fitness America. However, you should never just "accept your genetics" and give up. Everybody can lose fat. It just takes a little longer for some than for others.

Some people have inherited a metabolism and body type that tends to favor fat storage. This body type is called an "endomorph." Endomorphs may have a slower metabolism, they’re often carbohydrate sensitive, they gain fat quickly when they eat poorly; they gain fat quickly if they don't exercise, and they may hold onto stored fat, even on a clean, low fat diet.

Weight loss is easier for some than for others and that doesn't seem fair. But that's the way life is. This simply means you're going to have to adjust your diet and training to fit your body type and metabolism.

You may have to work harder than other people. You may have to be more persistent than other people. You might need a stricter diet than other people. You might need to train more intensely than other people. You might have less margin for error (fewer cheat days).

The question is: Are you willing to do what it takes for you?

I write and speak about the role of genetics in fitness a lot and the reason is because I'm sick and tired of hearing people using their "bad genetics" as an excuse for why they can't get in shape.
It's amazing what a human being can achieve when they have a crystal clear goal and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. Need proof?

Marla Runyan is a world champion middle distance runner. At the 2000 Olympic trials in Sacramento, Runyan captured third in the 1500 meters, finishing in 4:06.44; a time good enough to gain her a berth on the 2000 US Olympic team.

At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Runyan was eighth crossing the finish line in 4:08.30.

Is this disappointing? Not when you consider that Runyan has been legally blind since her 9th birthday. Marla suffers from a genetically inherited disease of the retina, called Stargardt's. She is considered legally blind because her condition cannot be corrected. Her vision is limited to the peripheral - she can only see shapes in front of her, and can't even make out the face of her coach ten feet away. Despite this so-called handicap, Marla Runyan is the eighth best runner in the world in the 1500 meters.

The first U.S. paralympian to reach the Olympics, Runyan says she doesn't even look at her lack of sight as an obstacle; "I think my vision is just a circumstance that happened and I don't look at it as a barrier. I never said I want to be the first legally blind runner to make the Olympics. I just wanted to be an Olympian."

"I have been legally blind for 20 years. I am very used to my eyes and how the world appears to me. In fact, I am so used to it that I often forget I see things differently from everyone else. The track looks the same to me as it did 15 years ago. Therefore, I do not consider my vision impairment a "handicap" when it comes to running. It is not a factor or an excuse for a bad race."

And then there's Carl Joseph. Carl Joseph was captain of his football team. He could dunk a basketball. He high jumped 5 feet 10 inches. He threw shot and discus. He was also born with only one leg.

Like Runyan, the difference between Carl and others with genetically inherited disabilities is nothing more than his attitude. Carl Joseph didn't make excuses:

"A lot of people go through life wishing they could change this or
that. God gave me one leg, and I'm just as happy and thankful to
be healthy and to have done as much as I have. Ever since I was
a kid I could do anything I wanted to. One leg or two, it didn't
make any difference to me. It's all in the mind. My mind always
told me I could do things, so I just went out and did them."

- Carl Joseph

When I first wrote about these two athletes as examples of what genetically disadvantaged people can achieve, I received an e-mail from an angry reader (who was very overweight and convinced that his genetics were to blame and there was nothing he could do about it). He wrote; “Tom, those are terrible examples. – Will a positive attitude restore Marla’s sight? Will positive thinking re-grow Carl’s leg?”

I felt sorry for this poor fellow because he entirely missed the point, and because of his own “vision problem” he has limited his own development. The answer to his questions of course, are no; the chances of positive mental attitude growing back a leg or restoring one’s sight are mighty slim.

But that doesn’t matter; the difference between people like Marla and Carl and the man who wrote to me is that Marla and Carl didn’t use their genetic disabilities as justification for their own failure and mediocrity or as an excuse for not even trying.

Marla and Carl did the best they could with what they had. It was much harder for them; and even with all the effort, they still couldn’t reach the level of those without such disabilities. But being better than others was not the goal. What they did was to become the best they could be. They became champions in their own right. They got out there and played the game.

“Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they’re yours.”

- Richard Bach, Author of “Illusions”

Fat Loss Lie #6

2008-07-12T04:30:00.000-07:00

Losing fat can be accomplished without hard work.

If someone is eating poorly and not exercising, then they can often begin losing fat very quickly and easily, relative to their previous disappointing results. All they have to do is improve their nutrition and exercise habits and a quantum leap can often be made.

With that distinction made, let me state unequivocally that permanent fat loss is never really “easy.” There is always effort and discipline involved, as there is with any worthwhile achievement. Endlessly searching for an easier way, a magic bullet, miracle cure, a holy grail, is a misguided quest.

Losing fat is very simple, but for most people it is not easy. There's a big difference between simple and easy:

"Simple" means there is nothing complicated about the process - it's like algebra; just plug in the numbers where the X's and Y's are, and the formula always produces the correct result.

"Easy" implies that something can be done with little or no effort. Anyone who tells you they've discovered an “easy” way to lose fat is lying.

Getting a lean and muscular body requires two things:

1) You must be willing to work hard
2) You must be patient

The problem with many people is that they shy away from anything that appears to be hard work. They’re always looking for short cuts. As soon as they see something that promises results "quickly," "easily," "effortlessly," "while they sleep," "without exercise," and so on, they whip out their wallets and take the bait, hook, line and sinker.

Shortcuts always fail! Take a shortcut and you're going to get lost, fall into a deep hole, or smack into a brick wall!

Everything worth having in life has a price attached to it - EVERYTHING! (Study Emerson’s essay on Compensation). If you want a lean and muscular body, you must be willing to pay the price for a lean and muscular body. STOP looking for easy ways. Just pay the price and it’s yours – and it’s yours for life, because you didn’t depend on the crutch of a short-term gimmick.

Make no mistake; people with great bodies, especially bodybuilders and fitness models, have worked very hard for a very long time to get where they are. Many of the best natural bodybuilders in the world are in their late 30's or early 40’s and have been training for 10, 15, even 20 years.

It's an absolutely unbreakable law of the universe that you can't get something for nothing. Your results will come in direct proportion to the amount of effort you put in. You can only reap what you sow.

Fat Loss Lie #5

2008-07-12T04:23:00.000-07:00

Thermogenic "fat burners" that contain ephedrine and caffeine are highly effective for permanent fat loss

Xenadrine, Hydroxycut, Metabolife, Thermadrol, Diet Fuel, Stacker and Ripped Fuel. Ever heard of any of these? If not, you must have been living in a cave somewhere for the past ten years because "thermogenic" fat burning pills made with the herbal stimulant ephedra have become the hottest weight loss craze in the history of the industry.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on these products every year and there's no end in sight to this fat burning pill feeding-frenzy. Even if Ephedra is banned for over the counter sale because of FDA pressure, it’s likely that ephedra-free stimulant products will take their place in short order, even if they’re weaker versions of the original products. The strength of the brand names seems to be carrying them forward.

But are these thermogenic products all they're made out to be? Let me set the record straight once and for all.

Open up any bodybuilding or fitness magazine these days and you'll see multi-page advertisements boasting of “amazing”, “clinically proven,” “university-tested” results, with dramatic photos of physiques allegedly transformed overnight by using these products.

One headline says "Proven to increase fat loss 1700%." Another says "Burn up to 613% more fat!" Still another says, "34 times more fat lost than control group."

Frankly, the hype surrounding these products borders on being ridiculous. Where did these numbers come from? 1700% or 613% or 34 times greater THAN WHAT? Obviously, some “apples” are being compared to “oranges.”

It's easy for supplement companies to cleverly take statistics out of context - just one of many sneaky tricks they have up their advertising sleeves. (Did you know there’s an infamous book called “How to Lie With Statistics,” written on this very topic? If you don’t believe me, go to Amazon.com and see for yourself.)

If any supplement really did burn 1700% more body fat, there wouldn't be any overweight people left! But there are: There are more overweight people today than ever before in history!

Don't believe the hype! It’s not that these products don’t work at all – the problem is more in the deceptive marketing and advertising than the products themselves. The claims are simply outrageous.

Thermogenic fat burners do work, but they don't work miracles and they’re not a substitute for proper nutrition and training. Because the primary ingredients ephedrine and caffeine are strong central nervous system stimulants, they also have many potential side effects and contraindications. Use caution if you use thermogenic products at all and never use them if you are sensitive to stimulants and/or have a history of heart disease, high blood pressure, thyroid disorders or any other medical problems.

If you’re not sure if ephedra products are safe for you, check with your doctor first.

Most of your results will come from hard training and a good diet. There are no magic pills. Why is it that people just don't seem to get this? It's human nature, I suppose. We all want instant gratification, so it's awfully easy to be swayed by the glossy four-page magazine spreads with those mind blowing (doctored?) before and after photos.

Certain supplement companies are partly to blame for our obsession with fast results. Instead of teaching and educating the public about healthy, sensible, slow and steady permanent fat loss, they tease and tempt with very shrewd marketing campaigns. Testimonials, endorsements, scientific studies and before/after photos are incredibly persuasive because they appeal to your emotions. “Take this pill… go to bed…wake up skinny – it’s magic!”

Even the names of the products were carefully chosen: Do you think it's a coincidence that the #1 selling herbal weight loss supplement Xenadrine sounds a lot like the prescription drug Xenical? Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t ask me about the ”drug” Xenadrine (Xenadrine is a brand name for an over-the-counter, ephedra product; Xenical is a prescription drug).

If you want to lose body fat, get your diet and training program in order FIRST. Once you're eating nutritiously, moderately restricting your calories, doing cardio and working out with weights, then and only then - and only if you have a clean bill of health - should you even consider a thermogenic herbal product if you need an “extra boost.”

Note: Personally, I’ve used ephedrine and ephedra products in the past and noticed a very strong stimulant effect which “boosted” my workouts, but I gave them up (for many reasons), and have not used them for years. I still reach 3-4% body fat every time I compete - with no thermogenic or “fat burning” supplements whatsoever.

Fat Loss Lie #4

2008-07-12T04:21:00.000-07:00

Meal replacement products, powders and diet shakes help you "burn" fat.

Supplement companies would like you to believe that meal replacement products (MRP's), powdered mixes and shakes have some sort of "magical" fat-reducing or muscle-building properties. The truth is that they’re nothing more than "powdered food" (or “liquid food”).

The primary benefit of these products is convenience.

It's a challenge to eat frequently and to get enough high quality protein from whole foods, so quality MRP's are great when you're in a hurry and you don't have time to eat food, but they’re not better than food, no matter what any supplement "guru" says.

Owners of supplement companies will say that MRP's are the greatest thing since electricity. That shouldn't come as any surprise; sales of these products run in the tens of millions of dollars each year.

With the one possible exception of post-workout nutrition during mass-building programs, eating real food is better than drinking shakes. The human gastrointestinal system has evolved to efficiently digest whole food, not powders or pills. The process of digesting solid food every three hours actually increases your metabolic rate. This is known as the "thermic effect of food." Powders fail to take advantage of this metabolic boost.

I suggest you follow Mr. Parillo's advice: Whenever you have a choice, and whenever time permits, you should always choose whole foods over powders and drinks.

“Food is the cornerstone of nutrition. If you don’t eat the proper foods - lean proteins, starchy carbs, and fibrous carbs - nothing else matters. No supplement can ever provide you with all the benefits that food supplies. We were built to process foods - proteins, carbohydrates and fats - not powdered or liquid supplements alone. If you want to make the best possible progress with your physique, I suggest that you forget the hype surrounding all supplement diets or meal replacement programs and get back to basics. And that means food."

- John Parillo, Author of High Performance Bodybuilding

Fat Loss Lie #3

2008-07-12T04:18:00.000-07:00

You can believe everything you read in the magazines.

Most magazine publishers own supplement companies and use their magazines as the primary means for promoting their products. Certain well-known magazines have been doing this for decades. One day, it dawned on the rest of them that more money could be made selling supplements than selling advertising or subscriptions. Before long, every publisher jumped on the bandwagon and started supplement companies.

You see, magazines have mega-credibility. After all, they can’t print a lie right there on paper, can they? If it’s in print, it must be true, right? They’d get in some kind of trouble with an “alphabet agency” otherwise, wouldn’t they? Maybe. Maybe not.

Editorials are more believable than advertising (that’s why they try to make ads look so much like articles these days). Most people will believe almost anything if it’s printed in a "reputable" medium such as a nationally circulated magazine. That's why magazines are the perfect vehicles for promoting supplements.

Did you ever notice how many magazine articles are about the latest, greatest "breakthroughs" in supplements? These "articles" aren't really articles at all; they’re nothing more than advertisements in disguise! (With an 800 number for easy ordering at the end… how convenient!)

Even if a magazine doesn't have a vested interest in a supplement line, you still can't count on them to reveal the whole truth to you because they don't want to offend the deep-pocketed companies that are spending big money to advertise.

A full-page ad in a high circulation national magazine can cost tens of thousands of dollars. With this kind of money at stake, do you think any magazine will print an article saying “supplements don't work” and on the next page, run an ad for the same supplements they are criticizing? Not likely is it?

It’s in the magazine’s best interest to promote supplements like crazy, regardless of whether they work or not, because the more supplements that are sold, the more the supplement companies will advertise. The more they advertise, the more supplements they sell, and on and on the cycle goes.

This is the same reason you often get better investing advice from the smaller, lesser-known financial newsletters than you do from the major financial magazines and newspapers; because the major publishers don't want to write editorials that will upset the advertisers.

Don't believe everything you read. Question everything. Use your head. Use common sense and your own good judgment. Beware of hidden motives. Just because it's right there in black and white doesn't mean it's the truth. If it sounds too good to be true…it probably is.

Fat Loss Lie #2

2008-07-10T04:09:00.000-07:00

The only way to get really lean is to "starve" yourself

Most commercial diet programs are very low in calories. Many border on starvation: 1200 calories, 1000 calories, even 800 calories or less!

Ironically, the more you slash your calories, the more your metabolism slows down. In fact, very low calorie diets can actually make you fatter! It’s physiologically impossible to achieve permanent fat loss by starving yourself.

When you eat less, your body burns less. When you eat more, your body burns more. It’s the ultimate paradox.

Very low calorie diets not only slow your metabolism so you burn fewer calories, they can also cause muscle loss. Eventually, they shut down your metabolism completely. When this happens, the weight loss stops and any increase in calories that follows will cause immediate fat gain. This “rebound effect” is inevitable, because no one can stay on low calories forever.
Carefully scrutinize the calorie recommendations of any diet program before you start it. You'll probably discover that 95% of them have you slash your calories to “starvation” levels.

Any diet program that’s extremely low in calories will cause weight loss in the beginning – but it will never work for long.

You see, the human body is very “smart” - it always strives to maintain a magnificent state of equilibrium: Metabolism, body temperature, blood sugar, hormone levels, acid-alkaline balance and every other system in the body, are all regulated within a narrow range that your body finds safe and comfortable.

When you subject yourself to drastic measures in an attempt to create sudden changes such as rapid weight loss, your metabolism cybernetically adjusts itself to maintain equilibrium in energy balance, much the same way as a thermostat maintains the temperature of your home within a desirable range. As soon as you’re in danger of starving, your body will quickly adjust your metabolic rate downward like a thermostat, so you burn fewer calories. This is often referred to as “the starvation response.”

The only way to lose fat and keep it off permanently is to reduce your calories slightly and increase your activity greatly. It’s always better to burn the fat than try to starve the fat.

“Dieting is not effective in controlling weight. You can get a temporary weight loss with a diet, but each scheme ultimately gives way to weight gain, and subsequent losses become increasingly difficult. Worst of all, you get progressively fatter on less food. Dieting actually makes you fatter!

- Dr. Lawrence Lamb, Author of The Weighting Game

Fat Loss Lie #1

2008-07-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

You need supplements to lose fat.

Exercise, nutrition and the proper mental attitude (positive self-image) are the only things you need to lose fat permanently. Supplements are not a requirement. Some basic supplements are helpful for “nutritional insurance,” and some supplements can help speed up the fat loss process a little, but not nearly as much as the advertising leads you to believe.

Even supplements that have been proven effective are only responsible for a small fraction of the results you achieve. Based on 20 years of experience in bodybuilding and fitness, I believe that at least 97% of your results will come from good training and good nutrition.

If most of your results come from nutrition and training, then why would you chase after that last 3% “edge” if you haven’t even maximized the first 97%? Isn’t that approach completely backwards?

FOCUS ON YOUR DIET AND TRAINING PROGRAMS FIRST!

Believe it or not, advanced trainees, competitive bodybuilders or athletes will probably benefit more from using supplements than beginners. High level athletes are more likely to have "maxed-out” their training and nutrition programs. Their diets are impeccable. Their training is intense. Their discipline is unwavering.

Once you've reached a high level of development from intelligent, intense, methodical training and quality nutrition, and the closer you get to your ultimate genetic potential, the slower your progress will become. Progress can and will continue indefinitely, but as you reach higher levels of achievement, this is when supplements and other “minor” details make the most difference.

In world-class athletics, competitions can be won or lost by hundredths of a second, a tenth of a point, a fraction of a pound, or a single judge’s opinion. The extra 3% that supplements might provide could be the difference between winning and losing.
Now look at the average beginner or intermediate: They're still eating junk foods and skipping meals. They're not even working out consistently. And what do they do FIRST? You guessed it; they immediately run out searching for a "shortcut" in the form of a pill or powder.

It's a shame that so many people look for easy ways instead of making the effort to learn how to eat and train better.

It makes no sense to dive into heavy supplementation first in hopes of finding an easier way. Get your nutrition and training in order and maximize the first 97%. Once your training and nutrition is on point, THEN, by all means, start nit-picking and sweating the small stuff: Take advantage of every legal, natural and ethical edge possible to help you fulfill 100% of your potential and gain a competitive advantage.

Respected exercise physiologist Dr. Tim Ziegenfuss of Kent State said, “Supplements should be the icing on the cake.” That’s a good way of looking at it. If anyone tries to convince you that supplements are essential and that you can’t reach your goals without them, beware; they are probably just trying to sell you something.

“Superior people never wish it were easier, they wish they were better!”
- Brian Tracy, Author of “Maximum Achievement”

(source: tom venuto newsletter burn the fat)

Foods That Burn Fat

2008-07-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

This recommended list of “fat-burning foods,” also known in the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (BFFM) program as “the terrific twelve,” might be the most valuable resource you’ve ever laid your hands on. Although the possible variety is your food choices is nearly infinite, these twelve are the staple foods that should make up the foundation of your program. Variety is important, but these are the foods you can’t go wrong with and the ones you’ll keep coming back to time after time.

1. Oatmeal

If I could only choose one source of complex, starchy carbohydrates for a fat loss program, this would be it! Oatmeal is the one carbohydrate food that virtually 100% of all bodybuilders and fitness models eat on a daily basis. What makes it so great? Well, although it’s a starchy carbohydrate, oatmeal has a nice balance between carbs, protein and good fat. A half a cup contains 3 grams of fat, 27 grams of carbs and 5 grams of protein. The low glycemic index, combined with the presence of protein and fat makes oatmeal a very slowly released carb – exactly what you’re looking for when you want to get lean.

Make sure you choose the all-natural oats; either old-fashioned oats (such as Quaker) or the quick oats. Stay away from the sweetened and or flavored oatmeal packets. Oatmeal is delicious with natural (sugar free) applesauce and cinnamon. Or, try some crushed walnuts or flaxseeds in your morning oats, which will give your “porridge” a nice crunchy texture while adding those desirable “good fats” we all need. For a complete meal, try a couple scoops of Vanilla Praline flavored protein powder in your oatmeal. If you get tired of oatmeal, there are plenty of other cooked whole grain cereals in the “oatmeal family.” Look in your local health food store (or a gourmet supermarket) for barley, wheat, triticale, rye, oat bran and flax cereals (or a multi grain combination of the above).

2. Yams (and sweet potatoes)

Right behind oatmeal, yams (and sweet potatoes) are probably my second favorite starchy carbohydrate. Flavorful, all-natural, low in calories, and packed with nutrients and antioxidants like beta-carotene, it’s no wonder yams are a favorite carbohydrate among bodybuilders, fitness competitors and health-seekers alike. According to Brian Rowley, science editor for FLEX magazine, “Bodybuilders use yams when cutting body fat because they are low on the glycemic index. Waxy white potatoes (boilers) are high on the glycemic index, so they make an excellent post workout meal, but nothing compares with a yam the rest of the time.”

Although the glycemic index is a secondary factor when making carb choices on the BFFM program, if you’re carb sensitive or if you’re on a very strict diet (like a contest diet), then the glycemic index should be given more weight in your choices. Yams are one of the best. Sweet potatoes are not exactly the same thing as yams (they’re slightly higher on the glycemic index), but they’re otherwise similar, which also makes them good choices for fat burning diets. You can identify a yam by its darker orange color, pointier ends and unusual sizes/shapes. Combine a yam with a green veggie, a chicken breast, lean red meat or fish, and you’ve got yourself a perfect fat-burning, muscle building, metabolism boosting meal.

3. Potatoes (white or red)

Potatoes have earned an undeserved reputation as a food to avoid on a fat loss program. But think about it; Potatoes meet every criteria of a great carbohydrate: potatoes are a complex carb. They are all-natural. They contain fiber, vitamins and minerals. They are filling. They are low in calories. So why do people avoid them? One reason is because they confuse a dry potato with a loaded potato. Smother a potato with butter, sour cream and bacon bits and then you’ve got yourself a fattening, calorie-dense ensemble. Eat it dry or top it with Butter sprinkles, salsa or your favorite low fat, low calorie topping and you can’t go wrong.

Another reason people might avoid the potato is because they are using the glycemic index as their primary gauge for choosing carbohydrates. Potatoes are high on the glycemic index, which means they are absorbed as blood sugar very rapidly. What most people don’t realize however is that when you eat your potato as a whole meal with your favorite lean protein, the glycemic index of the entire meal is much lower. Most people also don’t realize that some white potatoes are higher in the GI than others. Baking potatoes are higher in amylose, a slow releasing starch, so the glycemic index is lower. Russet potatoes are also moderate on the GI. Waxy potatoes or boilers are high GI foods. If you’re extremely carb sensitive or hypoglycemic, then you might want to eat more yams than white potatoes, but generally speaking, white potatoes make a superb addition to almost any fat burning diet. I personally eat white potatoes right up until the day of a bodybuilding contest and I have no difficulty reaching 3-4% body fat.

4. Brown Rice

Brown rice is another staple food of bodybuilders and you often see the “muscled ones” chowing down platefuls of rice, both in season and out of season (in smaller quantities during the “cutting-up” season). Prior to contests, bodybuilders sometimes reduce the amount of rice (starchy carbs) and add in more green veggies (fibrous carbs), but rice is a solid year round staple, as long as you keep your calories in check. Obviously, this means avoiding fried rice or other rice dishes that have added fat and calories. Steamed or boiled rice is the way to go.

Of the many types of rice, slow-cooked brown rice or basmati rice are your number one choices. Instant (pre-cooked) rice is fine when you’re in a crunch for time, but the instant rice digests much more quickly and is processed in the body more like a simple carbohydrate. The same goes for white rice, especially the sweet variety that’s usually served in Chinese and Asian restaurants (including sushi rolls). White rice is the processed version of brown rice. Although it’s still technically a starchy complex carbohydrate, the white rice burns faster and has been stripped of much of its nutritional value. When you’re on a very strict fat loss diet, stick with the slow-cooking brown rice for best results.

5. 100% whole wheat and whole grain products

The “baseline diet” can and should contain a wide variety of bread products with one condition: They must be made from 100% whole grains (and the label must say, “100% whole wheat” or “100% whole grain” as the first ingredient). White bread and anything made out of white flour is not allowed in any quantity on this program (except the occasional planned “cheat meal”). If you’re particularly carb-sensitive, then bread – even the whole wheat variety – is one of the first things to go.

A small handful of people – usually one in 200, depending on what source you listen to – have sensitivity to the gluten in the wheat. Gluten is a protein found in wheat products and, much like lactose intolerance from dairy products, gluten intolerance can cause digestive difficulties and bloating in certain individuals. Most competitive bodybuilders drop out all the pasta and bread products for the 12-16 week dieting period before a contest, then usually put them back in for off-season maintenance. On very strict fat loss diets, wheat and bread products are usually eliminated completely. Generally speaking, however, 100% whole wheat and other whole grains are perfectly acceptable additions to a healthy diet for long term body composition control, it just depends on how “strict” you want or need to be with your nutrition.

6. Green fibrous vegetables (broccoli, green beans, asparagus, lettuce, etc)

Fibrous carbs are your number one choice for fat burning carbohydrates. Green vegetables, also known as fibrous carbs, hardly contain any calories (they have a low calorie density). It’s virtually impossible to over eat green vegetables. Eat them liberally and eat more of them late in the day. A diet of green vegetables combined with lean proteins is one of the best methods of getting lean as quickly as possible.

7. Fresh Fruit

Whole fruits are a fantastic, healthy food suitable for nearly any fat loss program. Although there are some “guru’s” in the bodybuilding industry who claim, “fruit is fattening,” this statement is somewhat misleading. It’s true that a diet of mostly complex carbohydrate will give you better results than a diet of mostly simple carbohydrates, but that’s not the same thing as saying “fruit is fattening.” Although fruits are simple carbohydrates, they are natural simple carbohydrates. Most fruits are low in calories, low in carbohydrate grams (compared to starches) and high in fiber.

Some fruits such as raisins are extremely calorie dense and best avoided when you’re on a strict fat loss program and your calorie allotment is small. Fruits like apples, peaches, grapefruits, and oranges, at only 60-80 calories apiece (or less), are a great addition to almost any nutritional plan. Just make sure the majority of your carbohydrates are of the complex type. An all-fruit or mostly fruit diet won’t be as effective for fat loss as one that is mostly green fibrous carbohydrates with lean protein.

8. Skim milk & nonfat dairy products
“Dairy products” cover an entire category of foods including milk, cheese, yogurt, sugar free frozen yogurt, and cottage cheese. To make it on the BFFM “approved” list, a dairy product must be labeled “fat-free,” “skim,” or 1% low fat. Whole milk dairy products are not allowed, as they are high in fat. Even 2% low fat milk is still 37.5% fat by calories.

Dairy products are a “combination food” – they contain carbohydrates and proteins. Because the protein found in dairy products is high quality, complete protein, a high protein dairy product can count as an exchange for a protein food. For example, you could have non-fat cottage cheese as a protein instead of a serving of lean meat. Non-fat cheese can also boost the protein content of a meal. Yogurt tends to have less protein than cottage cheese, so a single container of yogurt wouldn’t count as a full protein serving. In fact, yogurt would count more as a simple carbohydrate exchange than a protein (although, you could mix in a scoop of protein powder into your yogurt to make it “high-protein yogurt).

9. Chicken Breast (and Turkey Breast)

Chicken and turkey are probably the number one most popular protein sources among bodybuilders and fat loss seekers. Remove the skin and get the light meat found in the breasts. The thighs are higher in fat and calories. Naturally, your poultry should be broiled, grilled, or roasted and not fried.

Also, we’re talking about the real bird here, not the sliced lunch meat you find at deli’s or pre-packed in supermarkets. Lunch meats are processed proteins. Some nutritionists call them “fabricated foods” because they are made from a mix and poured into a mold before being cooked and wrapped. While these are acceptable occasionally, don’t make them a staple in your regular daily diet. Lunch meats are loaded with sodium, preservatives, binders, fillers and other nasty chemicals that you don’t want floating around in your body!

10. Egg whites

The name of the game in fat-burning, muscle-building nutrition is to eat a lean protein with every meal. With zero fat, egg whites are as lean as lean proteins get. Egg whites are right up there with chicken breasts as one of the top three lean proteins of choice for losing fat and gaining muscle. Eggs are a super-high quality protein. The problem with whole eggs is the high fat and calorie content. Fortunately, 100% of the fat is in the yolk, while the protein is split evenly between the yolk and the white. This doesn’t mean you have to throw out all your yolks, but it does mean you should limit your yolks. I’d recommend one yolk for every six whites you eat. Just crack them open, and separate the yolk from the white using the edge of the shell. Or, even easier, simply use “Egg Beaters” or another packaged egg white product. There must be hundreds of ways to make eggs, so use your imagination: Omelets, frittatas, scrambled, fried (in nonstick spray), over easy, sunny side up, hard-boiled or any other way you like them, use egg whites liberally!

11. Fish and shellfish

Many people complain about the lack of variety in a bodybuilding-style fat-burning diet, which typically has you eating egg whites, tuna and chicken day in, day out. What most people don’t eat enough of is fish and seafood. By using different types of fish and shellfish as protein sources, you can add an incredible amount of variety a well as getting those valuable good fats. Here is just a partial list of fish to consider: salmon, tuna, haddock, flounder, mackerel, trout, snapper, sea bass, swordfish, mahi mahi, perch, orange roughy, sole, Halibut, herring cod and catfish.

As with other meats, eat your fish baked, grilled or broiled and avoid fatty, high calorie sauces and butter. Most fish are very low in fat and high in protein. Some fish, such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, herring and trout, are high in fat. However, because fish is so high in Omega 3 fatty acids, these fish can and should be used liberally. Shellfish have many of the benefits that fish have and it can add some variety to your diet if you’re getting bored of egg whites and chicken. This category includes shrimp, crab, lobster, mussels, etc. By the way, when you’re eating in restaurants, fish is a great choice, as long as you make sure there are no hidden bad fats or extra calories.

12. Lean red meat

Bodybuilders are quite famous for loving their red meat. Many bodybuilders believe that red meat helps muscle growth, and there may be much truth in that statement. Red meat is high in protein, B-12, iron and creatine. The problem with most cuts of red meat is the high fat content. However, not all cuts of red meat are the same. It’s a mistake to label the entire red meat category as a no-no because of high fat content. If you carefully choose the leanest cuts possible and keep your portion sizes small, red meat can be a great addition to a fat burning program. For example, a 6 oz serving of lean, trimmed top round steak has only 9 grams of fat, while a 6 oz of untrimmed porterhouse has 37 grams of fat (and the 18 oz porterhouse you’re often served in a steak house has over 100 grams of fat!)

(source: Tom Venuto’s Foods That Burn Fat, Foods That Turn to Fat )

Foods That Turn To Fat

2008-07-09T05:25:00.000-07:00

Part one of this special report listed the twelve foods that “burn fat.” This second installment in the series will teach you which foods “turn to fat.” One of the best ways to learn what you should eat is to learn what you shouldn’t eat. Then, by a process of elimination, you’ll be much more likely to eat the foods that will give you the best results.

In this report, you’ll discover that the foods that “turn to fat” all tend to have certain things in common:

• High total calories
• High calorie density per unit of volume
• High total fat
• High in unhealthy saturated and trans fats
• High in refined sugar.
• Low in nutritional value (low nutrient density)
• Flavor enhancers, fillers and other chemicals
• Artificial colors and flavors
• High sodium

It only gets worse. Many of these fat and sugar filled “junk foods” have negative nutritional value. They subtract from the good you’re doing when you pick the right foods. For example, anything high in white sugar is going to leach minerals from your body. None of the foods on this list should ever be eaten as a part of your regular daily diet. It’s wise to allow yourself one or two cheat meals per week, but save the “junk foods” on this list for the very occasional cheat day. If and when you do eat them, make sure you continue to obey the law of calorie balance (too much of anything gets stored as fat and small amounts of bad foods usually won’t get stored as fat)

1. Ice Cream
I’m sure a lot of people will be mad at me when they see their beloved ice cream as number one on the hit list of the foods that turn to fat, but here goes: Ice cream is Bad news with a capital B! Ice cream is loaded with fat, sugar and way more calories than you need; an evil fat-storing triad. Not to mention, the artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, emusifiers and stabilizers.

Now let’s talk about the fat. One cup (that’s a pretty small serving you know), contains approximately 350 calories and 20 grams of fat – mostly saturated. And that’s just regular premium vanilla ice cream. A cup of Haagen Dasz Belgian Chocolate has 660 calories and 36 grams of fat. But that’s nuthin! Ben & Jerrys has them all beat! A cup of wavy gravy ice cream has 660 calories and …. Gulp…. 48 grams of fat – 20 of them saturated!

There are so many delicious alternatives to ice cream like fruit sorbet or even sugar free, low fat frozen yogurt, it boggles the mind that more fitness conscious people don’t make the switch. Are you a Ben & Jerry’s freak? Skip the wavy gravy or chunky monkey and have the Cherry Garcia Yogurt instead (if you must)… it’s only 340 calories and six grams of fat. Healthy Choice makes a Low fat chocolate mint chip ice cream with only 200 calories per cup and just four grams of fat. Best of all, Kemp’s makes a sugar free non fat frozen yogurt that contains only 240 calories and zero grams of fat. It’s made with skim milk and is sugar free.

You can have your ice cream and eat it too, you just have to watch your portion sizes, read labels, choose your brand carefully, and go with a reduced fat or even a fat free version. Usually I hear, “but it just doesn’t taste the same.” Maybe true, but if regular ice cream is a regular item in your weekly or daily menu, you can rest assured that a lot of those calories will be turning to fat.

2. Fried Foods
All fried foods are really BAD NEWS! (with all capitals!) Fried foods are harmful in more ways than one. First of all, they are high in calories and mostly fat. Take a McDonald’s super size fries, for example. Polish off the whole batch and you’ve got yourself 610 calories and 29 grams of fat, 10 of them saturated. Large Burger King hash browns – 390 calories and 25 grams of fat, 15 of them saturated. KFC fried chicken breast (extra tasty crispy) – one serving alone sets you back 470 calories and 25 grams of fat.

Second, the type of fat is highly saturated and/or trans fat. Frying destroys essential fatty acids (EFA’s) by twisting their molecules from the cis-configuration in which they’re normally found to the unnatural trans shape. To make matters worse, shortening and margarines have replaced the lard that was traditionally used for frying. These contain large amounts of chemically altered trans fatty acids to begin with, so you get a double whammy of artery clogging, health destroying “funny fats.” According to Udo Erasmus, the world’s foremost expert on fats, there is no such thing as safe frying. “Safe frying is a contradiction in terms,” says Erasmus. “When foods turn brown, they have been burned. The nutrients in burned material have been destroyed. Proteins turn into carcinogenic acrolein. Starches and sugars are browned through molecular destruction. Fats and oils are turned to smoke by destruction of fatty acids and glycerol.”

Folks, stay the heck away from anything fried! (By the way, did you know that “sauté” is the French word for “fry?”)

3. Donuts and pastries
Like ice cream, doughnuts are one of the all time no-no’s when body fat reduction and good health are your goals. Doughnuts contain that king of fat storing combinations: refined sugar and saturated fats.

A small plain or powdered donut contains about 170 calories and 10 grams of fat (by the way, that’s over 50% fat by calories). Your larger donuts contain anywhere from 200 to 420 calories and up to 22 grams of fat – much of it saturated.

The flour in donuts, of course is white flour – stripped of any nutritional value with no trace of the original whole grain left intact. And heaps and heaps of sugar are added on top to add insult to injury.

Donuts also contain chemical agents designed to keep them soft, mono and diglycerides, propylene and glycol mono and diesters, coloring agents including FD & C yellow, number 5 and preservatives such as BHT and BHA.

If you want a chemical cocktail loaded with fat, sugar and calories, donuts fit the bill nicely. By the way, did you know they deep-fry those things? And one more thing; did you know a Cinnabon has 670 calories and 34 grams of fat? Stay away from Cinnabons, pastries, éclairs and anything else in the “donut family.”

4. White sugar, Candy, Chocolate and sweets
One of the biggest misconceptions in weight loss is that carbohydrates make you fat. This is an incorrect statement. A correct statement would be; refined carbohydrates make you fat… and that means white sugar, candy and sweets. Of course, calories are the bottom line… it’s not necessarily sugar that makes you fat, it’s too many calories that make you fat. But guess what? Refined carbs are incredibly calorie dense, making it extremely easy for you to eat too many calories.

Even if you could “get away with” eating sugar because your calories were below maintenance, you wouldn’t want to. You see, sugar is “empty calories.” No vitamins, no minerals, no fiber, no nothing… just calories.

Refined sugars wreak havoc with your blood sugar levels and they increase insulin levels, which can also increase fat storage and prevent stored fat from being released.

It only gets worse. Nancy Appleton, author of “Lick the sugar habit,” has compiled a list of over 100 reasons that sugar is disastrous to your health and fitness endeavors. Here’s a shortened version:

1) Refined sugar can be a contributing factor to gaining body fat
2) Refined sugar can increase the bad LDL cholesterol
3) Refined sugar can decrease the good LDL cholesterol
4) Refined sugar can increase triglycerides
5) Refined sugar can suppress your immune system
6) Refined sugar can deplete your body of important minerals
7) Refined sugar can contribute to the development of numerous types of cancer
8) Refined sugar can cause hypoglycemia
9) Refined sugar can decrease growth hormone
10) Refined sugar can contribute to diabetes
11) Refined sugar can cause food allergies
12) Refined sugar can increase serum insulin

If you made only one change to your nutritional habits today… that is, to reduce your sugar intake… the difference in your health, energy levels and body composition would absolutely blow your mind. Get the sugar out!

5. Soda
It was 1767 when British Scientist Joseph Priestly discovered how to carbonate water. Quite simply, pressurized carbon dioxide gas is pumped through the liquid and that’s what creates the bubbly fizz so many people have come to love. Since then, soft drinks have become a multi-billion dollar industry all around the world. In fact, Coca Cola is one of the most valuable and recognized brands in the world. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, the total consumption of carbonated beverages in 2001 was 10.3 billion cases. The average person consumes... get a load of this… 55.7 gallons of the fizzy stuff every year. But what’s good for the cola companies definitely isn’t good for what ails you.

Soft drinks are mostly water, but the amount of sucrose and high fructose corn syrup used to sweeten regular soda is more than enough to do its share of damage.

We’ve already talked about the ills of sugar, but liquid sugar is even more insidious when it comes to throwing a wrench in your fat burning machinery. Several studies have shown that when you consume liquid calories, you tend not to compensate by cutting back on the food you eat. The result is that you drink excess calories in addition to all the food you normally eat.

Liquid calories of all types are best avoided on fat burning diets.

6. Fruit “drinks” and other sugar sweetened beverages
Ditto (same as for soda)… don’t drink your calories, especially if they’re full of sugar! And don’t be fooled by the labels that say, “Contains real fruit juice.” Do your homework and read the ingredients list. If you see sugar, sucrose, corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup on the label, STAY AWAY!

7. Bacon, Sausage
Bacon has almost become a standard feature in the typical American breakfast. Too bad! The Center for Science in the Public Interest says that Bacon and Sausage are one of the worst foods you could possibly eat. One strip of regular pork bacon has 130 calories and 13 grams of fat, five of them saturated. By the way, that’s 93% fat by calories – Yikes!

Even if you choose turkey bacon, or a reduced fat bacon, you’d better check the label carefully. “Reduced fat” doesn’t mean much. If the fat is reduced from 90% fat to 70% fat or even 50% fat, that’s not much improvement.

Suppose you find a really, honestly lean bacon or bacon substitute. Still not a good choice. Why? Because it’s a processed food. The same warning that goes for processed fats and processed carbohydrates go for processed meats. You’re not eating pure, real pork my friend! You’re eating a “meat product” that contains some pork in a mix of fillers, sodium, sugar and nitrites that are used to cure the meats. Stay away from all fatty meats and all processed meats and stick with lean proteins like chicken breast, turkey, fish and egg whites. Your body will thank you.

8. White bread
The average American eats 54 pounds of bread each year. Most people think bread is fattening. This is largely due to the popularity of low carb diets. The problem is they’re eating the wrong kind of bread. White bread is treated in the body the same way as white sugar. White bread is a refined carbohydrate with no nutritional value. Whole grain breads (100% wheat, rye, etc) are another story.

Some breads are made from 100% whole grains with all the vitamins, minerals and fiber left intact. Other breads are all or mostly refined white flour. These breads have been stripped of most of their nutrients. The milling and grinding of the whole grain reduces the particle size while increasing the calorie density and turns the whole grain (a complex carb) into a simple carb that’s no better than pure sugar.

When proponents of low carb programs “flame” dieters for eating “too many carbohydrates,” what they often fail to mention is that the problem is not carbohydrates per se; the problem is refined carbohydrates. What most people miss is the fact that refined carbohydrates include not only white sugar and its derivatives (like corn syrup), but also white flour as well.

That’s right! This means that anything and everything made from white or enriched flour is a food that will more readily turn to fat! That includes, cereals, pretzels, bagels, breads, pitas, crackers and anything else made from white flour. If you’re not sure whether a food is whole grain or not, simply read the ingredients list on the label. If the food is whole grain, then the first ingredient will say something like “100% whole wheat.”

If you want to burn fat, give up the white flour completely and go with the grain – whole grain that is.

9. Potato Chips, Nachos, Corn Chips
In Robert Kennedy’s book “Rock Hard, Super nutrition for bodybuilders,” he wrote, “far too high sodium content makes potato chips almost lethal, especially if you are predisposed to high blood pressure. One popular brand contains 680 milligrams of salt, compared to the 4 milligrams of sodium one finds in an average baked potato.”

Sodium’s not the only thing chips have against them. Let’s see... we’ve got lots of calories, tons of fat, flavor additives and the refined oils that are used to fry/cook these buggers. The potato chip is not even close to the nutritional value of the raw potato, sodium and fat notwithstanding. The nutritional value that was in the raw potato has literally been “fried right out.” What’s left is mostly calories from fat from the refined oil used in the cooking process.

Oh, by the way, Nachos and Dorito-type chips are on the out list too (sorry).

These days you can find fat free potato chips at a health food store, which are definitely an improvement, but keep one thing in mind: packaged and manmade foods are NEVER as good as foods eaten the way they’re found in nature. Pretzels are better because you’re losing the fat, but since they’re made from white flour, pretzels are NOT as big of an improvement over potato chips as many people think they are.

10. Hot dogs, fast food burgers
Hamburgers and hot dogs are as American as Chevrolet, baseball and apple pie. Unfortunately, America’s love for fast food has turned it into one of the most obese and unhealthy countries in the world.

Out of the two, hamburgers are the lesser of the evils (but they’re still pretty evil). Hot dogs are not pure meat – they are a “meat product” consisting of some meat, mashed up with fillers, stabilizers, sodium, preservatives, artificial colors and artificial flavors. They’re a veritable mish-mash of chemicals and additives... a “fake food” so to speak. A three-ounce regular hot dog has 16 grams of fat – seven of them saturated.

If you simply must have a hot dog, these days, you can find low fat hot dogs or turkey dogs by companies such as Healthy Choice. However, keep in mind that all hot dogs – low fat or not – are processed meats. The same rule that applies to carbohydrates applies to proteins as well; that is: Natural foods are always better than refined foods. Stick with natural lean proteins like chicken breast and egg whites and avoid the refined and processed meats as much as possible. Hamburgers, while they may be made from real meat, are made from some of the fattiest meat available. There’s no such thing as “lean ground beef.” Even the leanest beef is still relatively high in fat. Read the labels and do the math for yourself.

Oh, one last thing…The nitrites used to cure the hot dogs have been linked to cancer.

11. Cookies, cakes, pies

Cookies, cakes and pies fall into the same categories as donuts – fat and sugar joined at the hip (and they’ll end up on your hips too, if you’re not careful!) Just because they’re baked and not fried doesn’t mean they’re any better.

Fat and sugar is the worst of all food combinations and they’re both found in abundance in cookies, cakes and pies. They also harbor untold amounts of dangerous trans fatty acids.

Save the cake for once a year on your birthday (okay, maybe a slice of pumpkin pie for thanksgiving). The rest of the year, avoid these like the plague.

12. Sugary breakfast cereals
According to the book “Cerealizing America,” by Scott Bruce and Bill Crawford, The cereal industry uses 816 million pounds of sugar per year. Americans buy 2.7 billion packages of breakfast cereal each year. If laid end to end, the empty cereal boxes from one year's consumption would stretch to the moon and back. 1.3 million advertisements for cereal aired on American television every year, or more than twenty-five hours of cereal advertising per day, at a cost of $762 million for air time. Only automobile manufacturers spend more money on television advertising than the makers of breakfast cereal.

Most of the boxed cereals found in supermarkets contain large amounts of sugar and some contain more than 50% sugar (sugar smacks have 53% sugar). Cereal manufacturers are very clever in their marketing, making many cereals appear much more healthy than they appear by “fortifying” them with vitamins and minerals. Oh, lovely – you now have vitamin-fortified sugar!

Before you eat any cereal, read the ingredients list and see how high sugar appears on the ingredient list. Then check the “Nutrition facts” panel.

There are actually only a small handful of national commercially branded cereals that are made from whole grains and are sugar free. Shredded Wheat is one. If you shop at a health food store instead of in your local supermarket, you are much more likely to find a healthy, whole grain, sugar free (or very low sugar) cereal. But watch out – some of the health food store boxed cereals are sweetened with fruit juice or fructose. Although this may be an improvement over refined white sugar, this can really skyrocket the calories.

Although there are some good boxed cereals available, you may find it interesting that bodybuilders and fitness models – among the leanest athletes in the world – almost never eat boxed cereal – even the better brands. Instead, they opt for unsweetened old fashioned oatmeal (not the flavored, sweetened packets). This might surprise you, but most commercial breakfasts cereals, with their hidden sugars and clever marketing, are foods that turn to fat. Leave em on the shelf!

(source: tom venuto article)

Eating While On The Road

2008-05-14T03:27:00.000-07:00

Whether it is business lunches or quick stops at fast food restaurants with the kids, knowing how to make the best decisions to forgo sabotaging the diet is important. This is also crucial for athletes who are regularly traveling and need to be fueled with “high octane” foods. Use these handy rules to help make the best decisions at various restaurants.

General Tips

Order off the menu and focus in on these 4 words when ordering:

Steamed
Broiled
Baked
Grilled

Never go to the restaurant hungry!

Eat a piece of fruit
Try a yogurt
Eat a granola bar
Have some cottage cheese and fruit

Ask for what you want; as a paying customer, restaurants will cater to your needs (within reason).

Do not cook foods in butter
Limit the amount of oil used in cooking. Replace refined carbohydrate, high fat foods (fries, potato salad, etc) with an extra order of steamed vegetables.

Call ahead to find out what foods are offered so you can plan ahead.Figure out calories and fat grams of foods you may eat and know what foods fit the bill for health options.

Avoid pre-dinner cocktails and bar snacks!

Fast Food Restaurant Tips

Fast food restaurants permeate nearly every corner of the road; from Italian to Chinese, burgers to subs, there is no limit on what you can find. Here are some general tips when trying to make the best decisions if faced with a “fast food dilemma.”

Chinese Food

Order steamed options (or ask for your favorite item steamed). Most Chinese restaurants now offer brown rice too, rather than the more traditional white rice.
Avoid the fried noodles they often put on the table before the meal.

“Hamburger” Restaurant: McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, etc)

Most now offer grilled chicken salads. Choose this vs. a triple artery clogging bacon cheeseburger. If craving a hamburger, order a plain burger or cheeseburger; leave the hefty burgers for the next person in line. Try a grilled chicken sandwich sans mayonnaise or “special” sauce.Leave the fries behind.

Italian Food

Split your meal with someone; portions here are at least double what they need to be.Try grilled or broiled fish. Avoid creamy sauces on pasta dishes; instead opt for marinara, which is much lower in fat and calories.Limit consumption of bread on the table that’s commonly doused with olive oil or covered in butter and opt for a healthy tossed salad, with olive and balsamic vinegar on the side.

Steak Restaurants (Outback Steakhouse, Ruby Tuesday, etc)

Avoid the “prime” cuts of beef (e.g., prime rib) and opt for the loin or the round (sirloin, top round, eye round, etc). Ideally order grilled or broiled seafood.

Sub Shops (Subway, Quiznos, Blimpie, etc)
Order the grilled chicken or turkey breast options. If possible, choose the whole grain breads. Leave off the bacon, cheese sauce, and mayonnaise; instead try mustard, vinegar.

8 Traits Of Emotional Eaters

2008-05-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

A lot of people ask, "How do I know if I am overeating for emotional reasons?"

Luckily, figuring this out is one of the easiest things to do. There are very specific symptoms and signs that you can look for. If any of the following statements sound like they could apply to you, then it's likely you are struggling with emotional eating.

1. My hunger comes on suddenly.
Physical hunger comes on slowly. Hunger from emotional eating often comes on quickly and suddenly.

2. I crave specific foods — generally not carrot sticks or steamed broccoli. Cravings for specific, usually unhealthy foods is a sign of emotional eating. Often people like the rush they get from satisfying their cravings. That rush is fulfilling emotional hunger.

3. My hunger feels urgent — I need a particular food right away and I'm willing to walk out of my way, or get in your car late at night, or raid my kid's Halloween candy to get it. Physical hunger, unless you haven't eaten for a very long time, is usually pretty patient. It will wait for food. Emotional hunger demands to be satisfied immediately.

4. My hunger is often paired with an upsetting emotion — if I backtrack a few hours or a few days I'll usually find an upsetting event and feeling that triggered the urge. Hunger that's connected to an upsetting emotion or situation is definitely emotional hunger. Physical hunger is not typically triggered by emotions.

5. My eating habits involve unconscious eating — all of a sudden I'm eating ice-cream and I find the whole container is gone. When you're eating for physical reasons, you are usually mindful of what you're doing. If you catch yourself eating "just because," then it's likely you're eating for emotional reasons.

6. I don't stop eating in response to being full — I keep wanting more of the taste of the food.
Physical hunger doesn't need to be stuffed in order to be satisfied. Emotional hunger on the other hand often demands more and more food to feel satisfied.

7. My hunger isn't located in belly — I crave the taste of a certain food in my mouth or I can't stop thinking of a certain food. Feeling hungry in this way is usually a sign of emotional hunger. Physical hunger is happy to get what it can, while emotional hunger usually focuses on specific tastes and textures.

8. After I satisfy my hunger, I am often filled with a sense of regret or guilt. Feeding your body what it needs is not something to feel guilty about. If you feel guilty after you eat, it's likely because part of you knows you're not eating just to satisfy physical hunger.

If you don't experience any of the preceding statements, it's likely that you're struggling with simple biological hunger. But if you do, then you may need a little professional help.

How to maximize your metabolism.

2008-05-13T18:54:00.000-07:00

You cut calories and you exercise. You do exactly what the articles say - Your calories out are greater than your calories in. You should be losing fat. But if you aren't, perhaps you're still not paying attention to an often forgotten factor of fat loss - your metabolism.

Your metabolism is a measure of how many calories you are burning each day. But did you know that the food, exercise, and lifestyle choices you make every day have a significant impact on your metabolism? For example, if you starve yourself (instead of following a sensible fat-loss eating plan) your metabolism will slow down. If your metabolism slows down, it means your calories out will be less. And that means no more fat loss, and possibly even continued fat gain.

So for every day that you continue to slow your metabolism with unhealthy lifestyle choices, you get further and further away from fat loss. To help, I've put together a list of the top 10 ways to maximize your metabolism, so that you'll burn as many calories as possible each day so that you can finally lose the fat.

1. Don't starve yourself! Cutting calories too much is one of the worst things you can do to your body. Starving yourself actually causes you to lose much more water weight and muscle than fat. Use fitday.com to find out your daily calorie intake.

2. Eat 6-8 small meals per day with an emphasis on lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables. You have to have a nutrition plan, so spend a couple hours on a day off preparing as much food as you can for the upcoming week.

3. Eat breakfast. You have to make this meal part of your daily metabolism-boosting plan. At the very least, eat a lean protein, drink some Green Tea, and consume a fiber-rich fruit to get your fat loss day started right.

4. Eat healthy fats. Sources of healthy fats included nuts, fish, olive oil, and flax oil. I consume 10 grams of fish oil per day. Replace all processed carbohydrates in your diet with almonds. For example, if you currently eat a small bag of pretzels as a mid-afternoon snack, eat almonds instead (eating the same number of total calories).

5. Eat high quality foods that will help you control your blood sugar levels, insulin levels, and energy levels. Insulin management will help you lose fat and prevent you form gaining fat. Controlling your hormone levels is the #1 neglected factor in fat loss programs.

6. Eat 1.14g of protein per pound of lean body mass. If you don't know your lean body mass, then simply eat 1g of protein per pound of body weight. But if possible, stick to the lean body mass recommendation, as that eliminates excess fat mass when calculating protein needs.

7. Don't drink alcohol. Alcohol intake can quickly add hundreds of calories and alcohol prevents fat burning. Alcohol intake can also reduce testosterone levels, a big no-no for men looking to get lean.

8. Drink Green Tea and water. While I don't believe that either of these will increase your metabolism, I do believe that they help prevent decreases in metabolism. Not too mention, these are your 2 healthiest beverage options.

9. Stick to a consistent sleep schedule. Don't stay up all night, and if possible, avoid working afternoon and overnight shifts. If you must work shiftwork, stick to the rest of these principles as strongly as possible.

10. Use the strength training with moderately heavy weights (that allow you to complete 8 perfect reps per set) and interval training for the most efficient and effective metabolism boosting workout.

If your metabolism has slowed down due to improper dieting or lifestyle, then follow these tips to help you get back on track to lose fat and gain muscle. Once you correct your metabolism, you will be on the road to losing the fat for good. Just in time for summer.

Weight Loss Tips After the Birth Of Your Baby

2008-03-08T08:55:00.001-08:00

The tips listed below will help you to get back to you ideal weight after the birth of your child.

1) Remember that the best approach to weight loss combines healthy eating and regular exercise. It is important you stay focussed on both these areas.

2) Eat slowly and chew your food well. Put your cutlery down between bites and don't pick them up until you have finished chewing.

3) Instead of putting the food on the table and letting everyone help themselves, serve the food on the plate. Allocate the appropriate amount for each food group.

4) If you feel like snacking, try going for a walk instead. Before you go, have a good drink of water. Hunger is often disguising thirst.

5) If you have a problem with junk food and can't resist the temptation at home, stop the problem at the source. Don't buy any junk food! Or at least limit the amount you buy to one item per week.

6) Eat smaller meals, but more often. A healthy meal will be a lot more satisfying than a packet of chips or a drink.

7) Drink fresh juices instead of soft drinks. This will cut down on your sugar intake, and is a far better alternative than the artificial sweeteners in those diet soft drinks.

8) Set yourself a weight goal and stick to it. Chart your progress and stick it on the fridge. It will be a helpful reminder every time you go in the kitchen.

9) If you do have to go for junk food, try the healthiest option. For example try to get the burger with the most salad on it, or get some salads to accompany the meal.

10) Increase your motivation levels, and stay on track. If your motivation drops, you will find it hard to focus on your goal weight.

Weight Loss Tips and Tricks

2008-03-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

You hear so many tips and trick about weight loss that it may leave you wondering which tips are the best and which tricks are really tricks?

You hear so many tips and trick about weight loss that it may leave you wondering which tips are the best and which tricks are really tricks? Let's look at how food and exercise affect metabolism and weight loss to help us understand why some of these tips and tricks work or don't work.

Lately you may have heard a lot about low carbohydrate diets and claims that they are working and that people are getting healthier without paying attention to the amount of fat they are eating. You may have even heard that the USDA is looking at changing the food pyramid.

There is a major flaw in the low fat diet plan and scientist are finally having to admit to it. Very little of your bodies Cholesterol comes from diet. Your body manufactures most of your Cholesterol from Carbohydrates. The culprit of turning these carbohydrates into fat is Insulin.

Insulin is vital to life because it regulates blood sugar, controls the storage of fat, regulates the liver’s production of cholesterol, functions as a growth hormone, is important in appetite control, drives the kidneys to retain fluid and much more. It is absolutely essential to life, but too much of a good thing can sometimes cause problems. Too much insulin can cause fat storage, cholesterol production and is caustic to the blood vessels. Insulin, by activating or inhibiting various metabolic pathways, can make us sleepy, hungry, satisfied, dizzy, lightheaded or bloated.

As you age your insulin receptors become less sensitive to insulin so your body overproduces insulin to meet what it thinks is it’s need. By carefully monitoring the types and amount of carbohydrates we eat we can clean up our insulin receptors. Decreased insulin receptor site sensitivity is frequently the problem that Type II Diabetics (Adult Onset Diabetics) have.

Not mixing certain food types is a dietary concept out there now that actually makes some sense. For example it is a fact that if you eat only a fat and a protein together the fat goes right through you. Dietary fat by itself is not the culprit but when you add a carbohydrate to the mix the body will turn the dietary fat into body fat. If you eat a little protein and carbohydrate (Low Fat Diet) together your body will make fat to either store or use for energy depending on your activity level at the time. But why? You didn't eat any fat?!

As an example: After that fat free ice cream cone, your body produced more insulin than it needed because of your plugged insulin receptors. The insulin does what it is supposed to; it lowers your blood sugar level but then there is extra insulin circulating around so it goes to work and turns some fat into cholesterol and stores some fat somewhere else incase you decide to skip supper tonight.

By decreasing your intake of concentrated sweets, like sugar sweetened food and not overeating starches like breads, pasta and potatoes you may keep your body from the overproduction of insulin. Carbohydrates actually have a metabolic affect that make any fat you eat worse for you. Carbohydrates affect the hormone balance in your body to add to depression, lack of energy and mood swings.

Exercise really is the key for healthy weight loss. By increasing the strength and mass of your muscles you are better able to burn calories. Exercise makes the rest of your everyday activities easier therefore burning up more calories not only from the exercise but from having more energy to complete your daily activities. Having that energy is more likely to keep you busy so you think about eating less often.

Not eating 3 hours before bedtime is something you may have heard that will help you loose weight. There is much truth in this too, for more than one reason. We know that if you go to bed shortly after a big meal you don't sleep as well and you also don't have a chance to “work off” your meal but their is also another big factor.

Human Growth Hormone (hgh) is produced at night to help our body build and repair muscle. If you eat a carbohydrate within 2 to 3 hours of sleep time your body will not produce near as much of this hormone.

Exercise first thing in the morning now makes some sense too. If you have not eaten after your evening meal your body in the morning is fasting. If you exercise before breakfast it forces your body to burn fat. It looks like if you followed that exercise with a protein breakfast it would keep you in the “fat burning” (glycogen dominant) phase a little longer.

Quality protein sources like that found in meat, eggs, fish, and nuts is the best and quickest way to build lean body mass when you are part of an exercise program. Lean body mass (muscle) will help you burn calories. Because carbohydrates are what turns dietary fat into body fat it is healthier to avoid the carbohydrates than to avoid the fat because frequently by avoiding naturally occurring fats you also avoiding good quality protein sources.

Protein requirements are figured based on lean body mass so it is difficult to state the requirements. An average sized adult female (about 140 lbs) requirements are 50 grams protein a day but may need to be as high as 75 grams when very active during an exercise program. For an average adult male (about 175-180lbs) is 65 grams and could be as high as 90 grams a day during an exercise program.

Tip on foods to eat and foods to avoid:

Avoid:

All sugar sweetened foods if you are serious about a weight loss program.

As often as possible foods that are all or almost all starch content like potatoes, white bread, and pasta.

Processed foods often have unhealthy fat sources and chemical additives that drag your system down.

Eat:

All vegetables especially green vegetables raw vegetables and salads.

Meat, eggs, nuts, fish, tofu and beans. Whole grain cereals, pasta and breads.

The carbohydrates you do eat make them from whole foods in their natural state fresh fruit with the skins because the extra fiber will help with the carbohydrate digestion.

Fresh fruits to get your vitamins needed to make you feel good while exercising and taking care of your health.

The looks like it would be a great tool to count the grams of protein and carbohydrates eaten each day.

With this we have come back to the basics again. Eating whole foods in their natural state is always your best bet. Now we can see why our grandparents could eat bacon and eggs for breakfast and still be in great health. By eating certain foods at certain times and with some moderation in what we eat we can eat well and feel great doing it. We can improve our health and emotional well-being while improving our physical body.

Weight Loss Tips

2008-03-08T08:51:00.002-08:00

Here are 10 simple tips you can use for weight loss and fitness

1. Two quick and easy ways to cut extra calories from your diet yet still satisfy your sweet tooth: Drink Diet soda or Crytal Light and eat Sugar-Free Jello gelatin. These are two small changes you can make that will reduce calories but will not make you feel deprived.

2. To quote John Beecher, "Strength is a matter of the made-up mind." Is your mind made up that you are going to start and stick with a weight loss plan or is this going to be like other attempts where you give up at the first sign of failure?

3. Make changes in your diet gradually. The body doesn't like quick, shocking changes in anything. It's like going from a freezing room to a very hot room. We need time to gradually acclimate.

The same is true with changing our eating habits. First, if you eat junk food all the time, try to reduce it to a couple days, then to just one day. Gradual reductions are more long lasting.

4. One reason people overeat is because they are overstressed. Getting rid of tension in a positive way will help keep you from eating because of increased tension and stress.

Take a walk, participate in a yoga class, hit the punching bag, lift some weights. Find a way to relieve some tension and you may find you also relieve your appetite.

5. Stay away from products or services that sound too good to be true. The health and fitness industry is a 40 billion dollar a year industry and many companies that are selling bogus products are thriving.

They target people's emotions by luring them into believe that by taking their products, there will be magical results. Just think, if something was truly that good, wouldn't everyone already know about it and be taking it?

6. You must have the desire to change your body from where it is now. Without desire, you are setting yourself up for failure. You must want your goal bad enough that you are willing to endure some short-term pain to receive these goals.

Link pleasure to working out and pain to missing workouts. You must condition your mind. Stop talking yourself out of going to the gym and start talking yourself into it.

7. During the first couple weeks of an exercise program, you will notice that your scale weight either doesn't change or it may go up a bit. Throw the scale out the window, it doesn't distinguish between fat and muscle, so when you initially gain a bit of muscle at the start, the scale weight will go up. That's a good thing. Over time the scale weight WILL go down.

8. Most people do not like to calorie count, me included. But in order to properly lose body fat, you need to determine your daily energy expenditure or caloric maintenance level.

You then need to reduce your energy consumption to be below your energy output. It's difficult to place a number on how much below your consumption you should go, because everyone is different. A good place to start would be 150-200 calories below your maintenance levels.

Then continue to observe the effects in the mirror to determine if this number needs to be changed.

If you continue to see no results, try reducing your energy consumption to 300 calories below your energy output.

9. Alcoholic beverages are high in calories and low in nutrients. Alcohol increases the body's need for Vitamin B, which is used to metabolize it. At the same time, it impairs the body's ability to use these and other nutrients.

One or two standard-size drinks once in a while will cause no harm in normal, healthy, non-pregnant adults. However, those looking for ways to cut out additional calories to help in their weight loss efforts will be better off reducing their alcohol intake even further.

10. Whatever challenges you face, focus on the future rather than on the past. Instead of worrying about what you failed to accomplish last year, focus on where you want to be and what you want to do. Get a clear mental image of your ideal successful future, and then take whatever action you can to begin moving in that direction. Get your mind, your thoughts, and your mental images on the future.

Will Your Plan Lead To Permanent Weight Loss? How To Tell

2008-03-08T08:51:00.001-08:00

This article summarizes what a plan must have to be able to result in long-term weight loss. If a plan fails in any one of these, any weight loss will be short-term and the individual will experience "yo-yo dieting".

Several years ago, a colleague who had tried several weight loss plans, asked me to help her figure out why she wasn’t able to achieve permanent weight loss. After extensive research on how the body regulates weight and studying individuals who had succeeded in attaining long-term weigh loss, I concluded that there are four characteristics that a plan must have to result in long-term weight loss. If a plan fails in any one, it might create short-term weight loss but the pounds will come back and you will find yourself trying something else. At first glance, these factors might look straightforward and simple but I will present the science behind them and why they must be taken into account for you to succeed.

The four characteristics are:

1. The plan must avoid cravings 2. The plan must avoid hunger 3. The plan must call for increasing your activity level 4. It must be a plan you can live with for a long time

What are cravings? A craving is when your body pushes you to want a particular food ingredient. This can occur even when you are not hungry. When you finally give in and get the food, you almost always binge, that is, eat more than you would have if you did not have cravings for it.

What causes cravings? Your body needs 6 essential food ingredients to function properly. They are carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, vitamins and water. If you deprive your body of any of this, it will create the sensation that will drive you to get it. The most easily identified example is when you deprive your body of water. You develop thirst. Thirst is the body craving for water.

Weight loss plans that tell you to cut out particular foods will always lead to cravings. It is this battle in your body to give it what it needs that creates conditions of discomfort and lead to most individuals ending the programs. There is an area of the brain that controls what and how much you eat and is responsible for creating cravings as a way for you to provide the body what it needs.

So, how do you avoid cravings? By eating all the required food ingredients. The key is that in all the food groups, there are “good” types and “not so good” types. You need to know the good types and eat only those. For example, with carbohydrates, the good types are the ones with low glycemic index (GI). GI is a measure of how fast a food increases the production of insulin. Insulin causes fat buildup. Simple sugars, potatoes and white bread are examples of high GI foods, while whole grains and vegetables have low GIs and therefore good for weight loss.

By understanding the concept of eating all the essential foods and dividing them into “good” and “not so good” foods, you will avoid cravings and overeating.

Next time we will discuss hunger and how successful plans avoid hunger.

Your Weight Loss Problem: How-To Cure It By Watching Movies

2008-03-08T08:49:00.002-08:00

Is it possible that you could actually lose weight while watching your favorite shows or reading your favorite books? YES, it is! Read this article to find out how...

I don’t know anything about you but if you’re anything like me then you struggle with a weight loss problem. Your weight loss problem consists of you struggling to keep your weight down, or struggling to make your weight go down.

Most people who see me wouldn’t believe that I have a weight loss problem, but I do. I’ve battled bulimia and constant gains and losses in weight, of ten pounds each time. Thats what I call a big weight loss problem.

A lot of women and men with the same or a similar weight loss problem would sympathize with me I’m sure. I want to look good (who doesn’t?) so that always motivates me to go on a diet.

But after sticking to a diet for a week and dropping the unwanted weight my love for good tasting food overpowers my need to feel attractive and the weight piles back on pound by pound.

There is always exercise to help with a weight loss problem, I remind myself as I lie lazily on the couch chomping down on one of my non-diet treats. “Sure!” I groan “I don’t feel like wearing my butt out without seeing any results for weeks at a time.”

Whenever I start a workout regimen I only stick to it for a few weeks (usually less) and then I get bored and drop it. So my weight loss problem continues.

How many other women I wondered (or men, for that matter) get bored while exercising? I thought about that for awhile then I set about to find a solution to help all those poor people (and myself too, of course) with this weight loss problem.

First I asked myself: What did I like to do? What did I find Interesting?
“Hmmmm, well” I thought “I like dancing, but long periods of it are exhausting. I like to read, to listen to music, and I really dislike being on my feet for over long periods of time.

What could possibly combine all or most of these to make my exercising interesting and help solve my weight loss problem?

The solution to my weight loss problem was amazingly simple!

I own an old stationary bike, and I do mean OLD, but the important thing is that it operates. You can do this with any form of stationary bike, whether it’s a twenty year old model or an up to date model.

It doesn’t matter whether you own the stationary bike or use a gym’s or your local YMCA’s or YWCA’s facilities.

My weight loss problem solution is this:

Find something engrossing to read. It could be a novel or your favorite magazine. Or listen to music that you enjoy, you could even use audio books or any different CD’s or things you could listen to.

I suppose if your bike was somewhere around a television or computer with a DVD player, you could even watch your favorite movie.

The next step is to mount your stationary bide and start biking while reading or doing any of the above listed activities, and not to get off for at least 45 to 60 minutes, except for an occasional rest every quarter of an hour.

I usually just keep biking away the whole time and sometimes I bike longer because I’m so engrossed in what I’m reading, and I won’t allow myself to read it once I’m off the stationary bike.

After a week of this, without change in my eating habits, or any dieting, I’m maintaining a healthy weight. Best of all I’m not putting on any new pounds, and my legs look visibly slimmer.

So I've kissed my weight loss problem goodbye, and I'm saying hello to slim jeans and size 6 dresses, and you can too.

For the first time in a long while I actually look forward to putting on a bikini.

Your Simple Plan for Weight Loss

2008-03-08T08:49:00.001-08:00

The math is pretty simple. One pound of fat equals 3500 calories. Want to lose a pound a week? Then you need to consume 3500 calories less per week than you use. That's about 500 calories a day. By cutting out 500 calories a day from your normal daily diet, while keeping your activity level the same, you can lose approximately one pound a week.

All right - that doesn't sound like much, especially if you're more than 25 pounds overweight. Study after study has shown, though, that those people who lose weight gradually - at a rate of 1-2 pounds per week -are far more likely to keep the weight off and maintain a normal weight for a lifetime.

So how much exactly IS 500 calories? If you're going to reduce your daily intake by 500 calories, it helps to know what you need to cut out, right? Here's how easy it is to lose 500 calories a day:

Use milk instead of cream in your coffee. Savings? 50 calories per cup.

Skip the butter on your baked potato. Savings? 100 calories

Drink fruit-flavored water instead of a 16 ounce soda. Savings? 200 calories

Skip the Big Mac and have a salad instead. A Big Mac weighs in at a whopping 460 calories. A fresh salad with a light dressing? Less than 100! Savings? 360 calories

Pass by the bag of potato chips. An average snack size bag of chips has over 300 calories. Savings? 300 calories

Eat your corn on the ear. A 1 cup serving of canned corn has 165 calories. An ear of corn has 85. Savings? 80 calories.

Switch to low-fat cream cheese on your bagel. Savings? 90 calories per ounce.

Love those fries and can't give them up? Swap the skinny fries out for thick steak-cut ones. Thin French fries absorb more oil than the thicker, meatier ones. Savings? 50 calories per 4 ounce serving

If you'd rather look at losing weight from an exercise perspective, you can also lose one pound a week by upping your activity level by 500 calories a day. How easy is that to do? Take a look:

Take a half-hour walk around the park. Aim for a pace that's a little faster than a stroll, but not fast enough to be breathless. Burn: 160 calories.

Get out your bike and take a ride. Tackle a few moderate hills and aim for about five miles total. Burn: 250 calories

Go dancing - and really DANCE. The longer you're out on the floor instead of at the table drinking up high-calorie drinks, the more you'll get out of it. Dancing that makes you breathless and warms up your body will net you a nice calorie savings. Burn: 400 calories for one hour

Swimming is great for you, and a lot of fun, too. The water resistance means you burn more calories, and you avoid the stress impact on joints from aerobics, dancing or walking. Do a few laps at a slow crawl - if you can get up to an hour you'll be doing great! Burn: 510 calories

Get out into your garden. An hour of gardening tasks that includes bending and stretching can burn up to as many calories as a brisk walk. Burn: 250 calories.

Play a game of tennis. Hook up with a friend for a weekly tennis game and you'll be amazed at the difference. One hour of vigorous tennis is one of the best calorie burners around. Burn: 800 calories

It’s important to keep in mind that all exercise/calorie numbers are based on a woman weighing 130 pounds. If you weigh more, you'll burn more. Want an added bonus to burning calories through exercise? When you exercise, you build muscle by converting it from fat. Three guesses which kind of body tissue burns more calories - even when you're not exercising. You got it - your body uses more energy to maintain and feed muscle than it does fat.

For best results, mix and match food savings with exercises that burn calories. Do keep in mind that eating less than 1000 calories a day for more than a few days will convince your body that it's starving and slow your metabolism. Keep calorie ranges reasonable, and consult a doctor if you want a quicker, more drastic weight loss.

You're Being Lied to About Weight Loss

2008-03-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the blatant weight loss lies being thrown at unsuspecting consumers.
Well, here it is, late night TV and I'm flipping through the channels trying to find something good to watch.

As I'm surfing the tube, I notice a huge amount of weight loss infomercials.

And you know what, most of them literally make me sick to my stomach.

Not because I despise TV, but because I can't stand it when companies blatantly lie to unsuspecting consumers and make MILLIONS in the process doing it.

But as I continue to promote the truth about weight loss with my personal training business and my fitness website, the truth is muddled in the sea of confusion that's created by companies throwing weight loss solutions at consumers 24/7.

The companies pushing these bogus products will continue to make millions as I continue to fight an uphill battle, trying to shed some light for people as to what it really takes to lose weight and get in shape.

Am I bitter that these companies are making millions?

Nope.

Am I bitter that they're doing it at the expense of people who really are unsure of the best way to go about losing weight and getting their health back?

Absolutely.

I know firsthand what it really takes to lose a lot of weight and get in great shape.

And not once was it from an "Ab Stimulator Belt" you wear at work or from a "Fat-Loss Patch" you place on your arm.

Nor was it from a "Magic Juice Drink" you sip for 2 days straight while not eating another morsel of food.

And now that I think about it, it also wasn't from Coral Calcium or Metabo-Super-Fat-Burning-and-Crime-Fighting Pills.

It sure wasn't from an "Ab-Crunch-Whatever-You-Call-It", you know, the torture machine you use for 3 minutes while watching TV and are supposed to lose 20 pounds in a week.

But as I continue to watch these commercials like a deer caught in the headlights, I almost fall for the best marketing money can buy--the "pictures-never-lie" testimonials.

You know, the old "before and after" photos (as hard as I looked, I couldn't see the airbrushing).

Hey, if it's in a picture, its gotta be true!

And right before I catch myself reaching for the phone to order (chuckle, chuckle) I ask myself "Why is it these types of commercials clutter the TV mostly at night or on Saturday morning?"

Is that when the most gullible tend to watch a lot of these blatant lies and scam products being peddled to them?

Who knows, but Letterman is on and I need to change the channel before I get any sicker to my stomach.

The Subconscious Influence on Your Diet and Permanent Weight Loss

2008-01-02T00:37:00.001-08:00

What determines human behavior and in particular your eating behavior? I have yet to come across a psychiatrist, psychologist or physician who can answer this question, yet this is the most fundamental question if you wish to initiate lasting permanent behavior change. If you can not answer this question, how could you possibly expect to help someone make a change in there diet or insure permanent weight loss? How can you move forward if you do not definitively know what is moving you forward. What determines human behavior and in particular your eating behavior is simply information. Can you do anything in your life without talking to yourself or seeing a picture of what you need to do? Of course not! It would be a little bit like trying to read from a blank page. No information = no action!

The next question is: What are the components of this information? The components of the information that determines your emotional state and behavior are words and pictures. The next logical question then is how do you Recognize, Access and Change the information that is driving a behavior that simply does not work? This is where over 20 years of research and development come in with a program process now known as Burris MIND/FITNESS. MIND/FITNESS answers the last question with great precision and accuracy by virtue of starting out with the first two questions. In the resolution of any problem it is always about the question. Never has this been more relevant. Imagine if for the last 60 years psychologists asked, “How can I fix it?” instead of “Why is it broken?!”

Why You Absolutely Must Take Control of Your Subconscious

To give you an idea of the power of the subconscious, you can speak at a rate of about two to three hundred words per minute. Your subconscious runs at a rate of about one thousand to twelve hundred words per minute which is about four times faster than you can speak. This is why you can talk on the phone and perform other tasks like typing on the computer or driving a car because the subconscious is already programmed to do the other tasks. You can look at the conscious mind and the subconscious mind like a tug of war with a vat of mud in the middle for whom ever loses. The conscious mind is one-person on one side against the subconscious, which are four people on the other side. If the conscious decides to move in a different direction like changing your diet, losing weight, increasing your fitness program, quitting smoking or any number of other things, it is usually a losing proposition because you are simply out numbered with information. This is why it is so difficult to attain spontaneous change. Burris MIND/FITNESS will to make sure you have the most people on your side in the tug of war.

Burris MIND/FITNESS is based on the reality that all behavior is emotionally driven or in other words your emotional state = your behavior. How you feel about things you do will always determine whether you move toward them or not. You will always move toward perceived pleasure and away from pain. The key component of any behavioral change program must include how to get control of your emotional state. So what is the biggest difference between MIND/FITNESS and any other behavioral change program? The question MIND/FITNESS asks is: “How can I fix it?” as opposed to “Why is it broken?”
Example: If you get a flat tire on your car, do you want to walk back down the road to find out why you got the flat or do you want to know how to fix it so that you can keep moving forward?
It is certainly not necessary to spend the last 40 years of your life analyzing the first 40 years of your life.

It is imperative that you understand how to take control of the subconscious because the mind is like a car without an off switch and an unknown driver, if you do not predetermine the destination. If you decide not drive it, it is going to drive itself or someone else may get in the seat and drive it for you. Someone else driving might be ok if you agree to where they are going but what if you do not like where they are going?

For the first eighteen years of your life someone else drove the car. This was usually with little or no consideration to the younger passengers. Almost every decision was made for you. You were told what to do, what to eat and learned how to react to any given situation. All of this information is stored in the subconscious and will arise randomly to determine your life’s path.

There are also a tremendous number of variables that can occur in your initial programming that may have little to do with your parents. The bottom line still remains. Do you, at some point, want to drive or do you want to continue letting someone or something else drive?

Weight Loss and Fitness - Facts not Fiction

2008-01-02T00:31:00.000-08:00

The world of weight loss and fitness is certainly vast, and the American consumer can absolutely get lost in the thousands of easy effortless and ostly useless ads if not careful. With my books and research I want to clear the air about the various myths and false statements regarding our health and fitness that have clearly muddied the waters for many Americans.

What I want to stress in particular is that there is no magic answer, potion, or diet pill that is going to make everything better. The ad on TV where the pretty lady says "it's easy. you'll love it", is appealing to our need for instant gratification with no effort. We don't want to hear the facts so we continue to look for the instant solution. If there was a magic diet pill, or diet plan, over 60% of Americans wouldn't be overweight, in spite of spending over $35 billion annually on diet products.

Achieving weight loss and fitness requires a commitment on your part to strive for a healthier you. What you will get in return for all of your hard work and dedication is a fit body, a renewed clarity of mind, better quality sleep, and perhaps even a pronounced increase in your libido. I have found that through the positive changes I have made in my own life regarding weight loss and fitness, all areas of my life are exponentially better. I wake up energized, I feel excited about my day and my interactions with people, my body feels strong and capable, and my entire outlook on life has improved significantly.

The Weight Loss and Fitness Commitment show that claims that teach you shortcuts on how to drop 30 pounds in 30 days are improbable at best and unhelathy at worst.

That claim is water loss pure and simple. You do the math: 1 pound of fat = about 3500 calories 30 pounds of fat = 105,000 calories. To lose 30 pounds of fat in 30 days you would need to reduce caloric intake by about 105,000 calories or about 3500 per day. If you are eating 3,000 calories a day now, that might be tough. OK you say I'll exercise it off. 1 hour on a stationary bicycle running at an average over 20 miles an hour burns about 400 calories. Meaning to burn 3,500 calories a day on the bike, you'd need to ride it for about 9 hours.

If you are looking for a quick fix, you will continue to be frustrated about health and fitness.

However, if you are tired of feeling fatigued and know for sure that you are ready to make a solid commitment to your own health and mind, Living to Be Younger can act as a guide. It is my hope that you will read each page with an open mind and a willingness to make some changes that will enable you to break out of your rut.

First, lose the idea that there is a magic diet pill or supplement that will transform your body to a svelte shape. Losing weight requires that you expend more calories than you ingest—plain and simple. This means that you must get up and moving at least three to five days per week, for at least 30 minutes each session. If you were considerably overweight, it would be ideal to aim for at least five workout sessions per week. Always consult with your physician before embarking on any new exercise plan. Second, take a good look at what you are putting in your mouth on a daily basis. Aim for natural foods that are high in vitamins and minerals, fiber, protein, and complex carbohydrates. Limit your intake of foods high in saturated fats, sodium, refined sugars, and preservatives. When you take the Living to Be Younger Challenge, you will find that your zest for life isn't gone—it's just been hiding. Congratulations on taking this first step towards a healthier
you.

What Are The 3 Critical Exercise Routine Success Factors?

2008-01-02T00:26:00.000-08:00

The 'Rule Of 3' Meets Pareto's '80/20'--And You Get Fit Faster As A Result!

Everybody likes simple lists.

Everybody likes Rules Of Thumb.

And as far as I can tell, everyone wants tighter abs and more energy.

So, naturally, we all look for the “best” diets and the “best” training routines to bring us closer to that six-pack...ideally, in the least amount of time possible…

...Oh yeah--and we don’t want to think too hard either!

The Old Way:

Counting calories? Fuh-ged-a-bow-dit!

Getting a bodyfat measurement each week? No way!

Calculating our new “estimated 1-rep max” for 27 different exercises? Puh-leeze.

So what’s the solution?

Well, if you don’t mind limiting our example to exercise for the moment, I think I have a few things that can help you in your endless search for the most efficient use of your fitness time…

(which is like, what? about 45 minutes a day 3-4 times a week if you’re lucky?) ...It’s OK--you’re human! I do this stuff for a living, and I don’t spend much more time than that myself.

Introducing: “The Rule Of 3-80/20 (Principle)"

Any activity of importance (like exercise) can be broken down into three, and only three Critical Success Factors. Furthermore, one of these critical success factors should account for 80% of your efforts. And the other two, on average, just 10% of your time, energy, and effort (that is, of course, if you actually want to get anything done).

Thus sayeth The Fitness Sage (that’s me).

And you should listen to me when it comes to getting things done, because I have a Masters Degree *and* ADD! (attention deficit disorder). Without principles like the above, I would be hocking blackmarket Pi-Tae-Boga-Lates tapes to out-of-work actors in LA...

Yeah, so I’m ripping off the Pareto Principle and the Rule Of 3--but you’ll forgive me real quick when you see how this applies to your exercise routine.

Now that I’ve circumnavigated my point a few times, here it is real simple, in 3 (surprise, surprise) easy steps:

The Three Critical Exercise Routine Success Factors

1. Consistent Progression: Needs 80% of your time and attention.
2. Sufficient Intensity: Needs 15% of your time and attention.
3. Intelligent Evolution: Needs 5% of your time and attention.

Simple huh?

But maybe you need some clarification, so here goes…

Consistent Progression Explained:

There are really just 3-4 workout parameters that even matter to the average Jane or Joe who wants a good body and excellent health: Rest Period, Load, Reps-Per-Set, and Total # Of Sets.

So your job is to simply pick one of these, hold all the rest constant, and improve your chosen workout parameter from week-to-week, workout-to-workout until you can no longer do so (just remember to hold everything else constant! especially total workout duration).

When you can’t improve on your chosen parameter, pick a different one and repeat.

That’s it. It really is that simple. Tools needed: 1 pocket-sized notebook and a stopwatch.

Of course, you might want some proven, superior methods to “improve on your chosen parameter.” At the bottom of this article, you'll get your wish! But first...

Sufficient Intensity Explained:

Make sure you’re doing resistance training folks. Not aerobics. Not LSD (long slow distance cardio). Or any other fitness fad that makes your lungs burn more than your muscles. If you’re consistently getting 20+ reps on all your exercises, then you need to choose more difficult exercises. Period.

Cardio and aerobics have health benefits no doubt, but if you’re really looking for “bang-for-your-fitness-buck”, and you’re short on time, then stick with resistance training. It’s the only kind of exercise that builds muscle and boosts your metabolism permanently--not just during your workout.

Shoot for exercises that are so difficult, you can only perform between 1 and 15 reps. This could be weightlifting (if you lack the creativity and sophistication of a "Tao Of Functional Fitness" devotee who relies solely on portable exercise equipment--like Fitness Bands--and their own bodyweight), but it doesn’t have to be. If you know how to manipulate leverage, even bodyweight only exercises can be made difficult enough.

Why just 15% of your time worrying about this? Because all you have to do is make sure most of your exercise (excluding a proper warmup of course) falls within this rep range. Not exactly rocket-science. Nuff said.

Intelligent Evolution:

This is just another term for “periodization” or “cyclic training.” Basically it means that you need a strategy for changing your exercise routine over the long haul as you get stronger and closer to realizing your goals. Most of the time the Consistent Progression rule takes care of this, hence the paltry 5% of your noggin that’s required to intelligently evolve.

But over the long haul, you sometimes need to dramatically change your workout protocol. There’s not space here to explore all the ins-and-outs of doing this, but a simplified recommendation would be to cycle between phases where you focus on increasing the Average Load you handle during your workouts, and phases where you’re more concerned with the Amount Of Work Per Unit Time you perform (i.e. “Strength” vs. “Density").

Conclusion

Consistent Progression (80%) + Sufficient Intensity (15%) + Intelligent Evolution (5%).

Find an exercise routine that gives you that, and you’re on to something!

7 Must Know Facts to Build Your Strength Training Routine

2007-12-17T02:46:00.000-08:00

Building a strength training routine can be one of the trickiest parts of a fitness program. Ask 10 personal trainers what the best strength training routine is and you will get 10 different answers. Below are 7 must-know guidelines to use when building a strength training program. Each guideline provides the basic foundation that all strength training programs abide by. Learning the proper way to use free weights will greatly improve your strength, fitness, and health levels.

1) We cannot strength train a muscle today and tomorrow. We have to allow at least 24-36 hours of rest. Lifting on consecutive days leads to overtraining, muscle fatigue, and possible injury. All of our strength gains are made during the rest time!

2) We cannot spot reduce. This means if we want to lose weight in our stomach, doing 100 crunches a day will not make our stomach flab disappear. To reduce stomach fat, we need an overall reduction in body fat. Reducing overall body fat results from eating well, regular exercise, and proper rest.

3) We can spot tone. If we want bigger biceps, we can strength train for hypertrophy (fancy word for muscle growth). It is possible for us to focus on one specific muscle group. This is sometimes called targeted training. Studies have shown that machines isolate a muscle better than free weights.

4) Our strength training routines must be regular and consistent for results to take place. It took us years to put on the weight. We shouldn't expect it to all fall off in three weeks. The best outcome from your fitness and strength training program should be a lifestyle change. Replace bad habits with healthy ones and reap the rewards.

5) Realize that our strength training routine must be changed every 4-6 weeks. This will prevent our body from hitting a plateau and it will keep things interesting. We can change our method, our exercise or our intensity level. Not changing our routine on a regular basis will eventually stop producing results. We will continually grow stronger as we progress with our fitness program. Be sure your body is challenged on every workout.

6) Our strength training routines must be built according to our specific goals. Specific goals may be: fat loss, hypertrophy, maintaining weight or adding bulk. Each goal will have a different method that is best suited for optimal results. Someone who is interested in losing body fat will strength train differently than someone looking to increase muscle bulk. Knowing what your specific goals are will aid in creating the best strength training program possible.

7) Our strength training routines must work all of the major muscle groups in our body 1-3 times per week. This includes our biceps, triceps, shoulders, chest, back, abs, quads, glutes, hamstrings and calves. Leaving out muscle groups will create an imbalance.

By using these 7 guidelines, anyone should be able to build a decent and effective program. The idea is to develop a safe strength training routine that provides us with major health and fitness benefits. Strength training has certainly increased in popularity over the past few years. Knowing how to build a strength training routine for our specific goals will move us one step closer to a fit body.

6 Keys To Getting Maximum Results In Minimum Time With Your Home Exercise Equipment

2007-12-17T02:42:00.000-08:00

I used to love going to the gym. The sounds, the smells, the grunts, the groans. Nothing seemed more inspiring. Then life got in the way. I got busy. Very busy.

Working with my fitness clients and athletes took up a lot of time, and frankly, I wasn’t too thrilled about taking the time to drive to the gym anymore. I do have a life, you know. Then there was the fight for parking not to mention the fact that I had to wait to use the equipment while someone else finished up his or her workout. I didn’t really like the music they played so loud I had to shout over it so my training partner could hear me, and the sales staff was constantly hounding me for referrals.

But I have to tell you about my new favorite place in the world to workout. My home studio. In fact, I like it so much that I recommend that everyone train at home if a gym membership isn’t up your alley. It’s got everything in it that I want, and everything that I need to successfully train. AND get this it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg.

Training at home has been so successful for me and some of my clients, I’ve set up an online facility that will allow me to personal train anyone in their home. You can give it a look at www.thebodymatrix.com. The greatest part about it is you don’t even need equipment if you don’t have any. Bodyweight workouts are phenomenal for conditioning and weight loss. Obviously, if your goals are more specialized, some equipment may be necessary.

Consider this. How much do you have to spend each year for a health club or gym membership? Now add up all the years you’ve gone to the gym and all the years you will go to the gym for the rest of your life. That’s a big chunk of change! When you think about it, it makes total sense to buy your own equipment and do it at home.

There’s no drive to the gym. No waiting. No annoying sales people. You can listen to the music that you want to (or put a TV in the gym for cardio training). Oh, and the best part is that it’s always open. Want to get in a good workout on Christmas day. You can.

Here’s the tricky part. You can’t just go out and buy whatever equipment seems popular on TV or in magazines. Do that and you’ll be unhappy in less than a month. You need a plan to determine what you need in the way of equipment to successfully achieve your fitness goals.

The following 6 points are MUSTS if you want to save time, money, and maximize your success in a minimum of time.

1. Define your personal fitness goals as specifically as you can. For any fitness-related goal there are a number of methods you can use to be successful, but first you have to know where you’re going. Do you want to get stronger? Do you want to build muscles? Lose weight or reduce your body fat? Increase endurance? Reduce stress? Are you preparing for a sport? All the above? Without knowing that you could end up spending more money than you need to on equipment that you’ll never fully utilize. Not to mention you may fail in your attempts to achieve your goals.

2. How much space are you willing to devote to your home gym? If you’ve only got a 5 x 5 space at home, you’re really going to have to be efficient. Don’t expect to fit large pieces of fitness equipment into such a small space. Be realistic. Maybe it’s time to clear out the room you’re using for storage or that corner of the garage that is just wasted space. Maybe you’ve got some space, but you’ll need to make your gym a little more portable so you can store it away when it’s not in use.

3. Familiarize yourself with your options on types and brands of exercise equipment. Find out what you’ll be comfortable with. Would you invest in a house or car without looking at several options or a test drive? Remember, this is an investment in you. There are all types of equipment from treadmills and crosstrainers, to selectorized weight equipment, to barbells and dumbbells. Check out equipment on the Internet or in catalogues. Stop by the exercise equipment retailers and actually see it and even try it out before you even consider buying. Believe me this is time well spent. When the time comes to discuss equipment with the appropriate person, be it a salesperson or a fitness professional, you won’t be completely in the dark when it comes to determining your wants and needs and end up buying something you hate or won’t use.

4. Consult with a fitness professional. Take advantage of a professionals “in the trenches experience” and educational background when it comes to matching your fitness-related goals with selecting the appropriate equipment for you. Again, this saves you time and money by preventing you from wasting money on useless or poorly designed equipment. You may also find that your fitness professional may have relationships with fitness equipment retailers which will allow you to buy your equipment at a discount.

5. Always buy top quality equipment from a reputable retailer. Yes, it costs more money, but as the saying goes, “You get what you pay for”. This is so true when it comes to exercise equipment. Avoid the temptation of trying to save a couple dollars by buying equipment that may not be up to your required standards. Buying top quality equipment will last you a lifetime. If you have any doubt, compare how much you have or could have spent on gym memberships over your lifetime with the cost of your new fitness equipment. I have no doubt that you will always spend less money on your home gym than you ever would by purchasing a lifetime of gym memberships.

6. Utilize local retailers as much as you can. While it may seem logical to save money by purchasing equipment online or via a catalogue, shipping charges on fitness equipment can be outrageous. You end up spending more than if you shopped at your neighborhood retailer. There is also an issue of maintenance. Even the best equipment can experience the occasional breakdown. Try getting a mail-order company to service your equipment. It’s not easy. Your local retailer can usually resolve your problems in no time at all.

There you have it. These recommendations will help you tremendously. Please keep in mind that it’s just not as easy as it seems, but it is worth the extra time especially when you’re making such a serious investment in yourself. That’s why I encourage you to seek the help of a fitness professional.

6 Fun Fitness Activities...

2007-12-17T02:36:00.002-08:00

Exercising and staying fit doesn't have to mean hard work. Simply being active will help you get or stay in good shape. So with that said, here are some enjoyable activities that can help with your fitness goals too.

Bicycling
When you ask many adults when the last time they rode a bike is, they cannot answer. Although bicycling is a favorite pastime, many adults do not take advantage of this great option for exercise. Not only does bike riding exercise the body and build a stronger cardiovascular system, it allows you to get out and enjoy nature, fresh air, and see new sites.

Jogging or Walking
Both jogging and walking are GREAT ways to get fit. Not only do they tone the muscles, relieve stress, create a healthier heart, and improve lung capability, they make you look wonderful, which in turns helps you get excited about doing other exercise for fitness activities.

Swimming
Swimming is an excellent way to get into and stay in shape. If you do not own a pool, many high schools have aquatic centers, or there is always the YWCA or YMCA, or your local gym. Many offer water aerobic classes that will help you tighten your body, lose weight, and get a good overall workout.

Tennis Anyone?
Tennis is not only a fun sport, but also a great way to exercise. You do not have to be a Venice Williams to play; in fact, you do not even have to be good. Just running after the ball alone will help get you into shape. This is a great way to strengthen your cardiovascular system and lose weight. You can find tennis courts in just about every city and if you would like to play but have no idea how, lessons are reasonable.

Tip: Raquetball is sort of a "one person tennis". If you don't have someone to play tennis with, or you aren't feeling sociable, try raquetball instead.

Dancing
Dancing is so much fun and whether you enjoy a slow, Ballroom dance or a nightclub packed with people all moving to heart-pumping techno, as long as you are moving, it really does not matter what type of dance or music. The whole idea is to move your body. Dancing has long been recommended as an avenue to fitness.

Tip: Belly Dancing is an excellent workout for your stomach, waist and hips ladies!

VCR
If you have a VCR or DVD, rather than just using it for your favorite comedy or action-packed movie, try sticking in some good workout tapes. Even taking 15 minutes every day to work out will get you started. Try that for two weeks and you will be surprised at the results. Once you see that 15 minutes a day makes a difference, you will be encouraged to increase the time spent.

And one of my personal favorites... Yardwork!
Whether you're pulling weeds, planting flowers, mowing the grass or chopping wood: All of these activities can help you get into better shape. Don't cheat yourself though. Using a riding mower to cut the grass won't help you use the muscles or get your blood pumping ;)

So go out and get active, have fun, and work on getting or staying fit too!

5 Ways To Stay Motivated

2007-12-17T02:36:00.000-08:00

Do you remember the day you first joined your gym? Wasn't it a great feeling, knowing that you had finally taken that first step towards living a healthier life? Making a conscious, positive decision to improve is rewarding, and hopefully we've all kept that promise to ourselves. But try as we might, it seems that there's always a handy excuse to not exercise.

While gym attendance peaks around January, it slacks off every March/April as people forget about their New Year Resolutions. Summer BBQ's and vacations tend to make people stay away from the gym, and six months later holiday parties and planning to the same thing. Finally, we can all relate to those days when we simply don't want to work out!

The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, a trade association serving the health and fitness club industry, reports that the average health club member in the United States spends only about 90 days at the gym per year.

The goal of this article is to help you STAY MOTIVATED to exercise! It's not enough to just help you with the 'how' of exercise – we want to help you with the 'why' too!

So what can you do to stay motivated? Here are five great ideas to help us all keep that inner fire burning…..

1) Find an exercise buddy! When we know that someone else is going to meet us at the gym at a certain time, we will automatically be much more likely to show up ourselves. After all, who wants to abandon their friend? Don’t have a friend at the gym? Invite one along! She will appreciate the invitation, and will be much healthier for it!

2) Get to know people in the gym! Visiting with friends and family while we're exercising makes the time go by so fast it hardly even seems like we're doing something good for us. It's great to get out of the house or office and just have some fun with other people!

3) Talk with your doctor! We all know that exercise is good for us. From helping to prevent cancer to lowering our blood pressure to helping us fit into that swimming suit, exercise is the best thing we can do for ourselves. Even with that knowledge, it's sometimes encouraging to hear about our progress from our doctor. Here's a hot motivation tip: ask your gym for a copy of your fitness records (monthly body fat analysis and measurements) and then share that information with your doctor. He or she will be so happy that you're exercising, and will encourage you to continue!

4) Chart your progress! The CEO of a Fortune 500 company once said "What gets measured gets done", and that advice is as good for us as it was for that business. Take the time to keep a food journal, an exercise log, or simply write down your fitness goals. Post it where you will see it every single day (on the 'fridge, in the car, on the mirror, etc.). Life is just so busy these days, a constant visual reminder of our goals may be just the motivational push we need.

5) Give yourself a reward! Sometimes the 'big picture' can be too intimidating. For example, if you have 80 pounds to lose it's tempting to think "It’s too much! I shouldn’t even try." That’s one of the biggest motivation-killers out there, so combat those discouraging thoughts by rewarding yourself for smaller accomplishments. Treat yourself to a manicure when you lose that first five pounds. Buy a new outfit when you've lost ten pounds. Take a mini-vacation when you're halfway to your goal. Give yourself small rewards for achieving smaller goals, and guess what.....many small steps make up a long journey! Before you know it, you'll have accomplished your overall goal!

There are many other ways to give yourself the motivation to succeed. Try some of these tips today – the only thing you have to lose is the fat!

5 Quick and Easy Fun Ways to Get in Shape

2007-12-17T02:32:00.000-08:00

Getting and staying in shape doesn’t have to be dull and boring! Try some of these fun fitness activities to make your workout time more enjoyable.

MUSICAL EXERCIES – Put on your favorite music and do some yoga! No need for slow, elevator music. Move to your favorite beat. Or pop on the headphones or earphones and grab your MP3 or cassette player or handheld PC and bike to a nearby park. Too cold or rainy? Then head to a mall or other enclosed area where you can walk. Caution: make sure you are alert while listening to music with headphones or earphones.

FUN IN THE SUN – Check out the latest tanning solutions and try fun, scented versions with funky, multi-colored sunglasses. Grab your cassette player or MP3 player and favorite tunes. And pack some flavored water, new flavored health bar that you’ve been dying to try and some frozen berries in your carryall for breaks and have a “sense”-ational time.

FITNESS CLASSES – Try out a new fitness class for fun. Enjoy a full water aerobics workout with less stress on your joints. Grab some colorful water gear and swim to the beat. Or try a dance or Jazzercise routine. No need to commit long-term, just ask about popping in for a class or two to check it out and enjoy. Meet new friends and get fit all at once.

VCR / DVD – Head to the library or local rental store and grab a fun fitness video or DVD. Crank up the sound when your favorite tunes come on and join the taped workout participants in the privacy of your own home.

GYM / FITNESS CENTER – Dig out those coupons you’ve been receiving in envelop mailers and those money saving coupon magazines. Again, no need to commit long-term. Just head on over and use the free or low-cost trial / invitational period and enjoy!

JOURNALING – Spice up your logging routine with an inexpensive new journal from a discount or dollar store nearby. Crate snazzy charts with colored markers. Add bright colored stickers for each workout. Paste or tape clipped pictures of your goals throughout the covers and inside sections. For example, paste pictures of that vacation spot you want to travel to with your new, healthy YOU wearing a new swimsuit.

So add some fun in with your fitness activities. Wake up your senses with new taste, smells, sights, touches and sounds. Forget that “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” stuff. Workouts plus play make Jack a fun, fit boy!

The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and is not intended to medically diagnose, treat or cure any disease. Consult a health care practitioner before beginning any health care program.

The Mediterranean Diet Full Flavored Foods Help You Lose Weight

2007-12-14T05:18:00.000-08:00

For everyone who’s been on a diet themselves or knows someone who’s been on a diet, you know how bland the food can be sometimes. With foods like rice cakes it’s no secret why you lose weight, if the foods taste like carboard.

For everyone who’s had this experience there is hope. You should look at the Mediterranean Diet. The Mediterranean Diet isn’t a new fad or quick loss weight scheme, in fact it’s been around for over 40 years. However it’s taken science that long to fugure out what it was and why it works. The Mediterranean is a diverse region that is made up of 16 countries along the Mediterranean Sea. Countries like France, Spain, Italy and Greece have diverse and different cultures. While the foods are different on a nutritionally level they share many similarities. They contain lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Wine is consumed in moderate amounts daily. Eggs are consumed in moderate amounts, and foods like poultry, fish and dairy are consumed on a limited basis.

However as many nutritionists and scientists are discovering one of the keys to the Mediterranean Diet is the oils. Plant based oils are extensively used throughout the region, with olive oil being the most popular. Olive oil is a monounsaturated fat, which means it’s good for the body and does things like lower your cholesterol. Do to the rich fats in the foods and those used in the cooking the foods of the region are known for the full rich textures and flavors that they have. In fact it’s these fats which give the foods a luxurious “mouth feel”. However eating foods rich in fats is not without some sacrifices, as fats have more than double the amount of calories of similarly sized portions of protein or carbohydrates. Learning to manage and control your portions is a key aspect of anybody who wants to follow the Mediterranean Diet.

Warming Up Properly

2007-12-14T05:15:00.000-08:00

When fitness experts talk about ‘doing a warm up’, they generally mean doing some kind of general activity that gradually raises the heart rate. They will happily tell us that doing so reduces the risk of injury during the following workout – but don’t often explain exactly how. In fact, a good warm-up should involve more than just this ‘general activity’. The second, less commonly described aspect is the ‘dynamic stretching’ we mentioned in last week’s article. And there are many more reasons to warm up than simple injury risk reduction

WHY WARM UP?

When you start moving in any way that raises your heart rate, certain changes start to take place in your body. Your respiratory rate increases. Bloodflow throughout your body increases, which means that the levels of oxygen and nutrients that are delivered to your cells also increase. In effect, all your body’s systems are warned you’re going to be making demands on them, and primed to meet those demands.

Once you’re at this point, you’re ready to move onto dynamic stretching. This, you’ll remember, involves slowly performing the same kinds of movements you’ll be making in your workout, and gradually increasing the speed. As specific muscles, tendons and joints follow the movement patterns they’ll be expected to complete later, they become used to the movement, and less likely to tear when the movements are made at higher speeds. This stage also works as a cue for your nervous system to ‘switch on’ the specific neuro-muscular connections it will need for those movement patterns.

Lastly, this two-stage warm-up helps you to prepare you mentally for the coming workout. Regardless of what that workout might be, you’ll do it better, and enjoy it more, if you’re able to bring your full focus into it. By taking the time to warm up before you start exercising ‘for real’, you’re giving yourself the mental space to switch your focus to where you need it to be.

HOW SHOULD I WARM UP?

The general part of the warm-up can be done in any way that gets your heart beating faster. If you have a piece of cardio equipment available– a bicycle, rowing machine, or stepper – feel free to use it; or simply walk and then jog. Whatever you use, start very gently, and gradually increase the intensity until you can feel your body getting warm, and your heart rate starting to rise. The specific intensity will depend on your current fitness level – but it should have you working at a level where you’re energised, not exhausted.

Some people continue until they feel a light sweat, but because this can be more reflective of humidity than body temperature (and because some people sweat more easily than others), it may not be the most useful measure. Experts suggest 3-5 minutes, but if your exercise environment is particularly cold, it may need to be longer.

Once you’re feeling warm, it’s time to bring in the dynamic stretching. What you do here will depend totally on what kind of exercise you’re planning. For a martial art, it might involve light sparring at ¼ speed, or simply performing some of the techniques in slow motion. For a sport, it could involve mimicking the same kinds of movements you’ll be using on the field or court, in a slow, controlled way. There are no specific time guidelines for how long this should take – but allow enough time for repeating each movement, starting slowly and gradually increasing the speed until you’re working at the level you expect during your workout

Finally, once you’re warm, stay warm. Especially if the workout that follows will be particularly vigorous, don’t stop to do a static stretching routine. This will give your body a chance to cool down again, and undo much of the good you’ve done by warming it up in the first place. If you have any questions about either kind of warm up mentioned in this article, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me on tanja@optimumlife.co.nz. Otherwise, may every day bring you closer to your Optimum Life.

Weight Loss Efficiency – 10 ways to make the most out of your gym workout!

2007-12-14T05:06:00.000-08:00

Here are ten things that will help lose weight more efficiently during each visit to the gym:

1. Treat your time in the gym as your quiet time for YOU!
2. Set a time frame each time you work out. Walk out if you are not finished!
3. Never do the same workout more than twice in a row. Maybe just change the order of a piece of equipment up.
4. Monitor your heart rate EVERY time you exercise your heart.
5. Never be afraid to ask for help.
6. Do not waste much time between exercises.
7. Focus on the benefits and how you will feel afterwards rather than the discomfort during your workout.
8. Realize you will not be at your best each and every time.
9. Learn to listen to your body more than your mind.
10. Journal, journal, and journal.

Now let me give you my magic secret to being successful in losing weight, gaining muscle, or just general fitness: consistency + variety + efficiency = results all the time!

Each day you workout out, remember; it’s about the big picture. It’s about sticking to it for the long haul. It’s about being sold out!

Why you Absolutely Must Take Control of Your Subconscious for Permanent Weight Loss

2007-12-14T05:03:00.000-08:00

From the moment of birth your first emotional experiences establish your subconscious perceptions of the world. There is not a moment of the day or night that you are not affected by your emotions. More often than not it is your programmed emotional states, not logic that control your behavior. Therefore in order to apply the process of Burris MIND/FITNESS you must first understand how your subconscious mind works.

Your subconscious mind flawlessly records everything you have ever seen, felt, smelled, heard, or tasted. Unfortunately it is not capable of interpreting the true meaning of the information it records. It simply takes the information it accumulates, and organizes it into individual programs that determine how you will respond to recurring circumstances in your daily life. Once your subconscious mind has taken certain information and formed it into a program, it will devote its considerable power to the continuation of that program behavior or habit, regardless of the consequences.

Your subconscious programming can be useful. This is what allows you to do things automatically like drive a car, type a letter, or use a computer. If the subconscious did not store this information for you in the form of a program, you would not be able to do these things automatically. The disadvantage to this is that there are some subconscious programs that simply do not work.

At some point in your life you may have been programmed to eat poorly or to respond poorly to a certain situation or to link pleasure to things like smoking, drugs or alcohol. The dilemma later in life is how to change the behaviors that do not work for you.
The bottom line is that there are two subconscious components that activate an emotional state, which in turn determines your behavior.
1) You must talk to yourself which usually begins with a question and
2) By asking yourself a question your subconscious mind will always give you an answer, which in turn produces a correlating picture.
It is from this subconscious picture that your emotional state is determined and in turn determines your behavior. A good example of this process is when a person is overweight; they constantly ask themselves negative questions like: “Why am I so fat?” or “How did I get so fat?” or “Why can’t I lose this weight???”
By asking yourself these types of negative questions, your subconscious mind will produce negative answers such as: You are fat because you overeat or you overeat because you are stressed and for each of these negative answers the subconscious mind will produce a correlating picture of you as a fat person.

The mind now interprets these subconscious pictures, as how you should look, and devotes its tremendous power toward maintaining this body image. So you see, every time you ask yourself a question there is a correlating subconscious picture, which determines your emotional response. Through the process of Burris MIND/FITNESS you will learn how to Recognize, Access and Change these two subconscious components.
Unlike your conscious mind, your subconscious mind is always active, it never sleeps. An example of this is when you ask yourself the question: What is that person’s name? For the life of you, you cannot think of their name and then maybe an hour or two later or even the next day their picture and name pop into your mind. The reason for this is your subconscious mind was continuously working on the name, even though you had consciously given up.

If the subconscious does not already have a stored answer for a question, it will search through all of its available information until it formulates one. This is why you need to ask yourself any question you think may move you toward your weight goal because the subconscious will always find an answer.

It is estimated that your subconscious mind generates over 60 thousand thoughts per day. We refer to this thought process as talking to ourselves. The reason your subconscious mind is capable of generating over 60 thousand thoughts per day is because your inner voice continuously speaks to you at a rate of one thousand to twelve hundred words per minute. You can only speak however at about two to three hundred words per minute. This means your inner voice runs at a rate of about four times faster than you can speak and produces a correlating picture for each of these thoughts. In other words if your mind was the world, your conscious mind might take up the space of LA or New York but your subconscious mind would take up the space and activity of the rest of the world.

Regardless of weather your goal is a change in diet for weight loss, an increase in your fitness program or to take control of an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. In the end the question you need to ask yourself is…Am I completely happy with the mind running itself or do I need to take control of it? If your answer is I need to take control of it, then Burris MIND/FITNESS is the answer.

Why you do not have "killer abs" or that "6 pack" Abdominal Muscles?

2007-12-14T05:01:00.000-08:00

Ask any woman what is the most attractive part of a male body and most of the time, they will tell you it's the six pack abs meaning that your abdominal muscles showing up with beautiful definition. The abs is considered by many as a sexy muscle and is a symbol of a fit and healthy man. Women are instinctively drawn towards a man brimming with health and fitness because it is a primitive indication that the man is strong enough to protect her and her brood.

A rippling six pack abs is one such indication. So is it any wonder that in every gym, you will see men of all ages doing crunches, leg raisers and sit ups religiously in the hope of obtaining the much coveted killer abs? Unfortunately, most men will never get to see their abdominal muscle in its glorious splendor. Why? The following fitness tips will show you why.

You may not like what I am going to give to you straight in the face here. But I will give it to you anyway. So here it goes. Listen up carefully. You may do a zillion crunches a day, then another another million leg raisers, but as long as there is a layer of fat covering your tummy, you will never see your abs because it is covered by the blubber of fat. In fact, your waistline will become bigger because you are adding muscles underneath the fats! So instead of having a slim waistline and showing off your rippling abdominal muscle, you will have a bigger waistline and thicker love handles. Now get this straight. There is no such thing as spot reduction! Once the fats are off, your 6 pack abs will show. That I promise you. It is just that simple to display your abs. Lose fat! That's all.

Late night TV commercials or magazines has been telling you that you can have well defined abs by using this gadget or that electronic gizmo. Do you really believe it is really that simple? If it is so, then everyone will have that rippling washboard six pack abs in no time, won't they? Then why isn't that so? Because it doesn't work that way. To lose fat effectively and permanently for your abdominal muscles to show, you must include a mildly deficit calorie restriction diet, frequent cardio workouts and strength training with weights to build muscle so as to raise your metabolism in order to lose weight and burn fat naturally. Build muscles to burn fat permanently as muscles use up more calories from your food for energy. Lifting weights will also give you a well toned body and help your abs to show. Forget about any fad diets or popping slimming pills . These may work initially but in the long run, they are bound to fail.

So if you want to build an attractive and desirable abdominal muscle, start a mildly caloric deficit diet and put on your running shoes and in no time you can strut confidently displaying your abdominal muscles proudly. You won't ever want to put on your shirt again.

You Don't Have to Strain for Cardio Fitness Gains

2007-12-14T04:57:00.000-08:00

Quantity may beat quality when it comes to exercise and heart health. Adults who engage in mild exercise -- such as walking briskly for 12 miles or exercising moderately for 125-200 minutes over the course of a week -- can improve their aerobic fitness significantly and reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease, according to a study published in Chest.

"The classic exercise regimen has a component of intensity up to 80 percent of someone's maximum for health benefits," says lead author Brian D. Duscha of Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.

"Our study demonstrates that you can exercise at an intensity much less than that and still achieve fitness benefits," he notes.

"People find exercise 'hard' and few people want to exercise at an intensity higher than they have to. Walking briskly for 12 miles a week per week is realistic and does not require anyone to incorporate a hardcore training regimen. Increasing your mileage or intensity will give you even greater health benefits," Duscha says.

Improved Oxygen Consumption

A Duke Medical Center research team examined the effects of different exercise training regimens on 133 patients aged 40 to 65 years. All were sedentary, overweight nonsmokers who had abnormal levels of fat in their blood.

The participants were divided into four exercise groups:

- high-amount/high-intensity (HAHI), the equivalent of jogging 20 miles per week at 65 to 80 percent peak Vo2 (maximum oxygen consumption);

- low-amount/high-intensity (LAHI), the equivalent of jogging/walking up an inclined treadmill approximately 12 miles per week at 65 to 80 percent peak Vo2;

- low-amount/moderate intensity (LAMI), the equivalent of walking approximately 12 miles per week at 40 to 55 percent peak Vo2; and

- a control group of nonexercising patients.

All patients underwent cardiopulmonary exercise testing twice at baseline and after seven to nine months of exercise training.

All exercise groups significantly improved their absolute and relative peak oxygen consumption and time to exhaustion (TTE) compared to baselines scores.

Increasing Intensity May Help Too

Although the HAHI group showed the greatest improvements in peak Vo2 overall, increasing exercise intensity from 40 to 55 percent to 65 to 80 percent (at a controlled amount of 12 miles/week) did not significantly improve peak oxygen consumption. However, increasing the amount of exercise did produce improvements.

An increase in exercise amount also demonstrated a graded increase in TTE between groups, although data were not statistically significant.

"Although our results did point toward amount being more important, it is very likely fitness levels can be improved by increasing either amount or intensity," says Duscha.

"This is illustrated by the tiered effect the exercise dose had on fitness improvements across our groups. We believe with more people in the study, increasing intensity would also have been significant," he explains.

Losing Weight Not Essential

Body mass index (BMI) was reduced in the LAHI and HAHI, groups but remained unchanged in the LAMI group. All exercise groups lost an average of 2.87 pounds after exercise. Baseline characteristics of age, BMI, weight, peak and relative Vo2, and TTE were not different between the groups.

"A second very important message is that subjects enjoyed fitness benefits in the absence of weight loss. Many people exercise with the purpose of losing weight. When they do not lose weight, they do not think the exercise is benefiting them and they stop exercising," notes Duscha.

"The truth is, you can improve your cardiovascular fitness and reduce your risk for heart disease by exercising without losing weight. Even if individuals do not lose weight, it is likely that they will lose body fat and increase lean muscle mass while reducing other risk factors," he points out.

12 Miles a Week

Adherence to exercise requires motivation and making exercise a priority, the researchers stress. They advise those who are beginning an exercise regimen to start slowly, choose an enjoyable activity, and make exercise a social activity. Individuals with medical problems should consult a physician before starting an exercise program.

"If you distill our results down, the public health message is: You only need to walk briskly for 12 miles per week or for approximately 125 to 200 minutes per week to improve your health. This sheds more light on the question, 'What is the minimum amount of exercise I need to do to get a health benefit?'" says Duscha.

"Regular exercise is an important part of a well-balanced lifestyle," adds Paul A. Kvale, MD, FCCP, President of the American College of Chest Physicians. "Physicians and other healthcare providers should encourage their patients to engage in regular exercise in order to obtain pulmonary and cardiovascular benefits."

Your Body Building Workout Routine Not Working For You Anymore?

2007-12-14T04:46:00.000-08:00

When you come up with your Body Building Workout Routine, you generally stick with that routine for quite some time. You'll find that, at first, your body building workout routine is great and you seem to be getting a lot out of it. Therefore progress is being made.

When it comes to bodybuilding - No. I got that wrong, when it comes to any form of fitness the progress slows down. As you increase your muscle size, fitness level or body tone, you seem to get to a stage where progress is minimal. And sometimes at a standstill.

You may think to yourself...

"This is a useless body building workout routine. I feel downhearted. Maybe it's time to pack it in"

All I can say to you is... DON'T.

The problem is that initial gains from a starting a workout routine are tremendous. But you can only go so far. You can't keep progressing at super giant leaps, as you did at the start. So whether you're body building, increasing fitness aerobically or seeking out overall body tone... don't despair. Keep at it.

Having said all that, there is a solution. Yep, there sure is. And it's pretty simple too.

You see, the body gets used to doing things. It adapts to change. So when you initially began your body building workout routine, you made significant progress for two reasons:

1. You may not have been fit in the first place. Therefore at this point, your body building workout routine would have had a major impact at first.

2. Your body adapts to your routine. It becomes used to the exercises that you perform. Therefore making them less effective.

The Solution -

Change your body building workout routine.

That's the solution. Pretty simple, huh.

See, when a new exercise is introduced to you workout routine, your body building progress increases. Why?

Because the body hasn't learned to adapt to your new exercise yet, Therefore making that new part of your workout more effective. This results in an increase in strength and size, or fitness and overall body tone, depending on your goals in the first place.

That's all there is to it. Change the exercise.

But wait --

Don't change the whole workout routine if it's not necessary. The reason is that out of the whole regime, there may still be some exercises that you feel produce the results you require. If this is the case, don't change that exercise if it's working. The only change, in that case, is to increase the challenge of that exercise. Maybe increase the weight being used.

Only change an exercise if you reckon that you're not making any progress on. Work a new exercise into your body building workout routine. Check the results and keep it there if it continues to work.

Eventually all your exercises will change, and not just once. This will be a continuous process. Months later, the exercise that didn't work back then, may work now.

Essentially, keep the initial exercises for about five to eight weeks. At that stage if your progress is good, keep on doing that routine. After a while, if you haven't already, your progress will reduce.

At that stage, change the appropriate exercises where you feel that progress is diminishing. Keep a constant eye on your body building workout routine. And keep adapting and changing, adapting and changing, regularly.

Do you want to be thinner, healthy and fit?

2007-12-13T05:26:00.001-08:00

While we offer an effective and natural fat loss product – the Jen Fe Next Fat Loss Patch and the Power Patch, we also know that without a commitment from you to bring about some lifestyle changes, you won’t reach optimal fat loss. There is no product in the world that can produce fat loss while we are eating and drinking excessively, and moving only slowly from couch to car to office chair. We need a program of sensible diet and exercise that will support the products we utilize to help our weight loss.

Here’s what to eat:

1. Lots of vegetables and fruits

2. Increase healthy protein intake. This is how you build lean muscle tissue, which in turn speeds up your metabolism. Examples are fish, lean meats, low-fat dairy products, beans, and soy products.

3. Fiber-Rich foods. They will fill up and they make they are satisfying. In this category are: peas, beans, bran cereals, potato skins, nuts and seeds, oatmeal, bulger wheat, 100% whole wheat baked goods, fruits and vegetables.

4. Minerals. Calcium and other minerals are you “secret weapons” against body fat. They are found in low-fat dairy products, small or canned fish, soy tofu, green vegetables, nuts, seeds, bran cereals, and calcium fortified orange juice, and avoid processed, salt-loaded foods.

5. Eat fish and beneficial fats. Omega-3 unsaturated fatty acid in some fish, oils and nuts is a good fat. Eat moderate amounts of salmon, herring, mackerel, sardines and other oily fish. Soybeans, nuts, pumpkin seed are also excellent sources for Omega-3.

6. Reduce harmful fats – saturated and trans fats. These are not only high in calories; they are also loaded with harmful fatty acids that cause disease.

7. Always eat an adequate breakfast for several reasons: it will speed up your metabolism earlier in the day and when you skip breakfast, it makes it harder to control your appetite later in the day.

8. Cut back or eliminate alcohol. It is high in non-filling calories. Ideal consumption is one glass of beer or wine a day.

9. Stay away from junk carbohydrates – sugar and white flour are diet killers in all but the smallest amounts.

10. Gradually reduce your calorie intake because extreme and sudden dieting causes your body to conserve, not burn calories, and it slows fat loss.

11. Snack instead of eating large meals – larger, higher calorie meals tend to be stored as fat, instead of burned for energy. Ideally, you should eat five or six smaller, nutritious snacks each day instead of large meals.

12. Move! You must exercise to build lean tissue that burns fat. As little as two to three hours per week of brisk walking at minimum, and you will notice a major impact on your weight loss.

13. Reduce stress. It produces adverse fat-producing chemistry in your body. Try warm baths, meditation, deep breathing, stretching, massage, prayer and rest.

14. Get outside into the sunshine at lest 20 minutes per day – the vitamin D you get from sunshine works with calcium for health and body fat control.

Some Great Ideas on Staying Fit

2007-12-12T23:02:00.000-08:00

Physical exercise is something that you need to do on a regular basis. If you’re looking for examples of great fitness exercises to try out, you’ll find them on our site.

A regular exercise program of either running, walking, cycling, swimming, aerobics or any other physical exercise helps to improve the efficiency of the human body in many ways. A healthy exercise regimen can help strengthen the body physically, as well as make you more confident and help you avoid some future illnesses.

Exercise keeps your bones and joints in line and strong, so the benefits aren’t purely superficial. It also acts to strengthen your cardiovascular system, to help keep your heart healthy. A few great fitness exercises used in conjunction with a healthy lifestyle and healthy diet can help you live longer and better.

A general feeling of improved well-being can be found through light exercises, so there is no need to overdo things. Light walking is probably the easiest fitness exercise there is; yet this doesn’t mean it isn’t a great fitness exercise. It helps blow the cobwebs away and can improve the heart, lower blood pressure and improve physique. All of these things help keep you healthy, active and measurably improve your lifestyle.

Great fitness exercises can include the use of weights, a fitness ball, exercise machines or just you and your muscles.

Combining physical exercise with nutritional supplements can vastly improve all of your physical and mental attributes and decrease the possibility of illness and damage, especially related to muscles, bones, blood, and even the heart. Exercising also helps release hormones throughout your body and the adrenalin that physical exertion releases can improve mental health. So you see, great fitness exercises improve your general well-being in addition to your physique.

The Fitness Principles

2007-12-12T05:27:00.000-08:00

by: donita riplez

Almost everywhere you go today, you are approached in some manner about health and physical fitness. The fact that a large percentage of Americans are considered obese has helped increase the marketing of diet, physical fitness, and health products. You’ll be reminded of health and fitness on TV, in magazines, on the radio, the news, at work, almost everywhere you go you’ll see something about physical fitness.

With all this commotion about fitness, have you joined the team and started your path to total fitness? If not here is a brief description of the standards of physical fitness and what you may do about your current fitness level.

Most experts agree there are five basic components of fitness. They are:

1)Aerobic Endurance- Your level of aerobic endurance measures your ability to do moderately strenuous activity over a period of time. It’s a measurement of how
efficiently your heart and lungs work together to supply oxygen to your body during exertion and exercise. This fitness component is also called aerobic fitness.

2) Muscular Endurance- Muscular Endurance measures your fitness level by your ability to hold a particular position for a sustained period of time or repeat a movement many times. One example might be to lift a five-pound weight 20 consecutive times.

3)Muscular Strength- The ability to exert maximum force. It is possible to have greater muscular strength in one area, than another. For example, you may have great strength in your arms, while lacking strength in your legs. One example might be lifting the heaviest weight you can possibly lift.

4)Flexibility- Flexibility fitness measures the ability to move a joint through its full range of motion or the elasticity of the muscle. This is how limber you are.

5)Body Composition- This fitness area measures the proportion of fat in your body as compared to your bone and muscle. It does not refer to your weight in pounds or your shape.

If you are weak in any area or need to begin a general overall fitness plan, there are basically three areas of exercise you should concentrate upon to make improvements. They are stretching, aerobic activity, and strength training. Each of these areas is very important to your overall fitness level. Eating a healthy diet will also contribute greatly to your overall fitness level.

Remember, it is never too late to improve your fitness level. Regardless of your physical fitness level, your age, or the length of time it has been since you last exercised regularly, it’s never too late to start and maintain a good fitness routine. Your body is designed to move. If you don’t use it, you lose it. It is just
that simple.