South beach Edge.

More Stress=Less Sex

2009-09-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

to read the rest of my articles visit Keizer's Clinic Site at http://www.keizerclinic.com/Wire_Articles/Wire_Articles.html

In the last column, I gave you several tips on how to help your body optimize your body’s natural production of testosterone and we will finish that discussion this week. However, as sometimes happens, I need to inform you of a product recall that effects many of you. The popular “cold-prevention” zinc supplement Zicam has been recalled. Zicam is zinc in a gel form which is applied to the inside of your nostril to boost immune support. While much research exists linking zinc to proper immune function, it appears that application in this way was actually causing people to lose COMPLETE sense of smell! No joke, over 130 reports of complete, seemingly permanent, loss of smell due using Zicam as little as one time.

So, assuming you stop using Zicam, you may actually still have the ability to literally “Stop and smell the roses”, which leads us into the second part of our testosterone discussion: the importance of limiting stress. At the mention of stress reduction, most people listen in a very particular way…they glaze over and mentally check out. So, let me interest you in the subject once more with this statement: “Your stress may be screwing up your sex life.” Ok, got your attention? Good.

I’m going to try to explain a lot of biochemistry in a short space without putting you into a coma so forgive the simplicity. I hope it helps you to understand this very important subject for yourself.

I consider a client’s natural sex drive to be the “canary in the coal mine.” Generally it is the FIRST thing to suffer if lifestyle is out of whack and stress is building. You have to understand that a functional hormonal system (endocrine system) produces whatever your body needs most in order to survive. In good times, your body is healthy, fed and stress-free and your body can focus on things like procreation…sex. This means you have plenty of “raw material” to produce your testosterone and you should be frisky and having a lot of fun with all this extra sex hormone. However, when life get complicated and you start continually producing stress hormones in response to what your body deems to be fight or flight scenarios (which may actually be as benign as money, job or relationship issues), your body doesn’t have the luxury of worrying about sex. In short, if your body thinks that you are constantly running from an imaginary tiger because you are stressed all the time, it doesn’t really care if you have what it takes have fun in the sack.

This trade-off comes from the way our bodies produce testosterone and the stress hormone cortisol. Your adrenal cortex and pituitary gland perform a complex series of conversions utilizing cholesterols to produce androgens and stress hormones. Long story short, you use some of the same building blocks to produce both hormones. If your body needs to choose between producing stress hormones and sex hormones, it will always produce the stress hormones deemed immediately necessary for survival.

The real problem is that this cycle builds so quickly. You may start off working a little too much which causes stress which makes you less open sexually to your partner which creates relationship stress which makes you a bit depressed and further suppresses your hormones ensuring even less sex, more stress and lower testosterone. Before you know it, you have a ton of stress, mild depression and not enough testosterone to maintain decent energy. So, you seek a therapist and hormone replacement.

While seeking the medical help you may need, start taking care of your stress. Take a vacation, set aside time for what is important in your life. People, friends, love, helping others. This is, in my opinion, where the juice in life lies. Find a way to have everything you want in life without sacrificing your health, libido and the people who matter to you. Really, how much fun is having everyTHING when you don’t have anyONE to share with? And how much money do you really need to make it OK that you have to pop a dozen different medications to hold your body together from the years of abuse you inflicted while accumulating your wealth? You can have it ALL; just don’t forget that your body and health IS part of having it all. And remember that lagging testosterone and libido will be one of the first warnings that you are starting to drop the ball.
to read the rest of my articles visit Keizer's Clinic Site at http://www.keizerclinic.com/Wire_Articles/Wire_Articles.html

Banking On Fitness

2009-09-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

Banking on Fitness

To view the rest of my articles visit keizer's clinic site at :http://www.keizerclinic.com /Wire_Articles/Archive.html

By Jim Keizer

The good people at the Wire have generously given me the opportunity to do my own fitness column and you are probably wondering why. So here is where I tell you about my impressive credentials and build my credibility. It is true that I own my own exercise and nutrition clinic here in south beach. Yes, I have advanced certification in personal training, corrective exercise, post-rehabilitation, exercise coaching, advanced supplementation protocols and holistic lifestyle coaching. It is also true that the programs my business partner and I design yield measurable, consistent and permanent results for our clients.

However, the reason I love what I do and am jumping at the opportunity to write this column is that the more I learn, the more awestruck I am by the perfection that is the human body. The number of systems, chemical processes, and functions that must be coordinated every given second to just have me sitting here writing this column is mind-boggling. When I see someone who is down on his body because of weight gain, low energy or illness, I also see a body that has done a remarkable job of damage control for years before getting to that point. I hope that each time you read my column, you are left with a new appreciation for your body, while learning to cooperate with it to cultivate your health.

My actual degree is not in fitness but in Economics. When I began my fitness career nearly 9 years ago, I feared that this would always hinder my practice. To my surprise, I found that there really are more similarities than differences between the industries.

Like the financial industry, we have brilliant and ethical people in the fitness world to help you chart your fitness path and, like Bernie Madoff, we have our share of conmen. Unfortunately, you are caught in the middle and likely skeptical and more than a little resigned about ever unraveling the mystery of getting (and keeping) the health and physique you want. You may turn to reading the fitness magazines, getting tips from friends, and buying contraptions from pony-tailed pitchmen in the infomercials. For most people, this just adds to the frustration and the perception that nothing “works.”

Finding what works just isn’t that difficult if you can learn HOW to filter the information. Most of my clients know a lot about health and exercise before our first meeting. My job is to help them sort through fact and fiction and put it all together in a framework that they can follow for the rest of their lives.

I believe that the natural state of a healthy body is lean, strong, and attractive. You can get these results, temporarily, with steroids, fad diets, and a million other gimmicks but the results are always temporary and come at a cost to some other system in your body, eventually leaving you more aged and essentially less healthy.

It helps to think about your fitness as an asset, just like you’re the balance of money in your bank account. So if it is an asset, the trick is to accumulate more health and spend it wisely. The more you have saved, the better you look and feel. Just like making and spending money, there are so many ways of making and spending health. You may exercise every day (making a deposit toward your healthy and attractive body), meditate, practice yoga, or play with the kids. Then there are the things that drain your fitness savings: drinking a little too much, staying out all night dancing, working 60 hours per week and sleeping 5 hours per night. These are all drains on your health reserve.

I have studied under many different teachers, many different philosophies and have found what works best for me as a coach. It goes something like this: “You can be a neurotic saver your entire life, do everything right, pinch every penny, avoid most costs, and live to be a 100. BUT you can’t take it with you!” I have studied with people who live avoiding every unhealthy influence and, frankly, it’s not for me. I respect their decision to live in such a restricted fashion but I LIKE to spend. I also know that because I like to spend, I have to work hard in other places to bank enough in my account to keep looking and feeling the way I want.

By eliminating moral judgments around fitness and giving you the facts about what helps you bank fitness and what drains your account, you can make the choices that best fit your life. Twice a month, I will add a piece to the puzzle, covering new research, current events, and your questions about food, supplementation, and exercise. Your questions will shape this column.

Nothing kills the long-term effectiveness of a fitness program as quickly as being told what you “have to do.” I have learned through my years of coaching that the solution to your fitness goals is as individual as you are and must be chosen by YOU. I look forward to being your source of information about food, exercise, and supplementation, so that you too can find the solution that is right for you and your lifestyle.

To view the rest of my articles visit keizer's clinic site at :http://www.keizerclinic.com /Wire_Articles/Archive.html

Jim Keizer

That Tooth Pain May NOT be a cavity!

2007-09-17T20:06:00.001-07:00

I have recently become a little stressed out. Yes, Even a lifestyle coach who KNOWS how to take care of stress can sometimes get a little "over-worked." Heck, when I am up to something BIG in life, a little stress and excitement are not only unavoidable but one of the measures that I am really LIVING life.

The stress showed up for me as sleeping restlessly and clenching my jaw. I used to clench my jaw a lot when I was younger and suffered from canker sores on my tongue and cheeks from the pressure. On top of the teeth-clenching, I began to get that deep throbbing pain in my back molars signaling a tooth abscess.

Being no newbie to root canals with 3 other molars completely replaced, I have felt this pain before. This time, I booked an appointment with the dentist but had a funny feeling that I was doing the wrong thing. I poured through articles and certification that I have studied trying to find out more about my teeth until I found a book I read about 2 years ago called Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual by Doctors Janet Travell and David Simons.

This book had helped me numerous times with clients with muscle knots and pain related to these trigger points. Astonishingly, I found a passage about trigger points actually CAUSING tooth pain and heat/cold sensitivity! The book explained that certain trigger points above the ear and in the jaw muscles will actually sends pain to the teeth sometimes causing unnecessary extractions.

So, I started to massage my trigger points and, yup--you guessed it...the pain went away. I have been working giant knots in my jaws daily and the pain in my teeth is almost gone...including the heath and cold sensitivity that accompanied that side of my mouth for the past 2 years.

I wonder if the over $3000 of dental bills for my other teeth was even necessary. Perhaps I did have abscesses but the teeth I had pulled on the right side of my mouth are the EXACT teeth that were killing me just days ago. I guess I will never know...but now YOU CAN KNOW before you go under the drill.

Check out the book excerpt with pictures of the trigger points here

Sugar Shock - Part 2 (note: Video May Load SLOWLY)

2007-08-16T17:14:00.001-07:00

Well folks...want to see just how much sugar you consume in a day? This lady takes the time to show us in this video. Does anyone really wonder why we are having so many health problems?

Rest It or Work It: 6 tips for back pain

2007-08-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

Back pain can be debilitating--or irritating--but rarely can it be ignored. So, one of the frequent questions we get from clients who come in with pain is: "Do I rest it or do I work it to get rid of the pain?"
It seems obvious to some that when something hurts, you need to stay off of it...and, in many cases this is where people can get into trouble. Many times, back pain is caused by postural deviations and imbalances which place stress on vertebrae or on the sacro-iliac joint at the junction of the pelvis and spine. Muscles will begin to spasm and compensate around that joint to stabilize and prevent further injury through movement. Many times doctors will simply suggest that a back-pain sufferer stay off their feet and avoid lifting anything--and sometimes this is exactly what needs to happen. However, after the point that acute pain has subsided, too much rest can cause the muscles to further weaken and worsen the postural deviation that started the pain in the first place. In my opinion, and that of many respected practitioners, the key to regaining a healthy spine is through correcting the imbalance, strengthening muscles and retraining the body proper movement patterns for bending, lifting and rotating.

So, how do you know when to rest and when to work? Here are my tips:

1) If the pain is acute or has an electrical, shooting quality, get cleared by a doctor prior to working out...there is nothing gained by herniating a disc or creating nerve damage.

2) Hire a corrective exercise specialist...a trainer who is specifically trained to assess and correct postural deviations and who is willing to work with you, your doctor and your chiropractor if necessary.

3) If you have dull, aching, aching pain which often presents itself after bending, sitting, or lifting, you are likely in the beginning stages of pain caused by postural or movement imballances stressing your spine and SI joint. You may want to seek assistance from an exercise coach to help you correct and strengthen.

4) If you have had a traumatic injury which is causing shooting pain, a high level of pain, you will likely need to work with a physical therapist and chiropractor to get you to a base level of strength.

5) If you have joint pain following or during a work out---STOP AND GET THE HELP OF A QUALIFIED EXERCISE SPECIALIST. It is so easy to correct things BEFORE damage is done!

6) Finally, NEVER let anyone convince you that you can not function and that you need to just wait around and take pills. There are amazing practitioners all over the world, from CHEK trainers to Physicians and Chiropractors, who can help you--you just need to find someone who believes in your body and health as much as you do!

Why Calorie Counting Doesn't Work

2007-08-15T06:24:00.000-07:00

We are all aware of the fact that portion sizes are going up...resteraunts are serving more food on a plate and sodas have gone from 6oz to 60oz in a decade. Nutritionists rightly harp on the danger of over-consuming calories and do battle daily with clients, teaching them to count calories, measure portions and have more will-power. We are inundated with articles such as this one (How much is too much? The bigger the portion, the more we overeat) from my very own Miami Herald. I used to marvel at how difficult it was to keep my clients to reasonable portion sizes. I wondered why it was so hard to just quit eating when you know you should. Some labeled it as an addiction and I watched people struggle. Some would do well for a while until their will-power buckled under the stress.
I now know that calorie-counting, in my own never-humble opinion, is crap. Yes, it is important to not consume more calories than you need...however we have been looking largely at the behavior and ignoring the cause. We have been telling people that it is mental...and just takes more will-power and education to start eating less... BULL $%!*.
I came to the realization that most of my clients were starved for the nutrients their body craved and that is why they are over-consuming foods. NOT just micro nutrients, but most of my clients were depriving their bodies of the proper MACROnutrients for their metabolic types. Many teach their bodies to turn to sugar and caffeine for energy. However, As soon after they begin eating metabolically, nearly EVERYONE decreases or eliminates thier sugar cravings. When they consume the proper ratio of carb/protein/fat for their type, they AUTOMATICALLY begin to feel full at the proper portion sizes...their bodies to not crave more food because it is getting exactly what it needs in that meal.
There are other factors which also help to balance hormonal systems and blood sugar (ie: eating organically and ridding yourself of any intestinal fungal blooms) but a vast majority of my clients begin seeing a huge difference in energy, body composition, cravings, and mood stability simply by eating metabolically.
Is metabolic eating a panacea? I believe that it needs to be worked in a way to make it easier to teach and more accessible to the general public but the science is sound and the results are amazing. It certainly has more long-term plausibility for my clientele than gems like: "Share your plate with a friend." or "Drink lots of water before you eat so you can feel full." It is my job as a coach to provide REAL solutions and provide my clients ways to get back in touch with their bodies...not tricks to ignore what their body is trying to tell them. Metabolic Eating is one such tool.
To learn more, I recommend "The Metabolic Typing Diet" by William Wolcott.

Smoking Teeth = Poison Gas

2007-08-13T07:04:00.001-07:00

I am continually surprised by how few people actually aware of the true dangers of mercury in your mouth. This is largely because many dentists refuse to admit it or to inform their clients or the dental associations refuse to inform the dentists of the dangers.

Nay-sayers have a huge vested interest in denying this--largely because they have told people for decades that there is ABSOLUTELY NO DANGER in mercury filling. Imagine the class-action lawsuit if we all found that this junk is poisoning us. So, while everyone is busy avoiding tuna because of trace mercury (which I recommend you limit but not cut out completely), many of us are getting hundreds of times more exposure from our dental work.

Watch the full video...it is worth the time. Even if you don't believe everything in this video, pretend that it is just half-true...wouldn't even that be worth the extra effort to get these metals out of your mouth to avoid potential Alzheimer's and other neurological and physiological damage to your body?

Diet Foods Making You Fat?

2007-08-09T06:09:00.000-07:00

It looks like people really are starting to catch on to fact that we can't fool our bodies into optimal health and body weight.In this week's Time Magazine, they feature an article Do Diet Foods Lead to Weight Gain?

This article explores a couple of studies which link low-calorie sweeteners to something they are coining "metabolic syndrome. Basically, the body gets conditioned to crave sweet things, knows that the sweet things it gets don't have any energy, so it begins to condition the body to over-consume all sweet things.
According to the article "Two years ago, scientists at the University of Texas reported in an eight-year study that for every can of diet soda that a person drank, he raised his risk of being overweight by 41%, compared to a 30% increase in drinkers of regular, sugared drinks.

Someone posted a comment on Digg about my previous Diet Coke post saying something to the effect of "isn't this already commonly-known information...why post this?" Well, my friends, if it was commonly known, we wouldn't have such a problem nationally. If it were known, my new clients wouldn't gasp when I suggest to them that, if they MUST consume soda, that they consume the regular soda.

The official response to these studies from food companies is predictable: "This study simply defies common sense," wrote Dr. Richard Adamson, scientific consultant to the American Beverage Association, in a prepared statement responding to the study. "To suggest that foods and beverages with zero calories contribute to weight gain contradicts the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that supports that they can help you reduce calories and maintain a healthy weight."

In my opinion, further studies are going to show that it goes WAY beyond conditioning. There are millions of complex chemical reactions that occur each second in our bodies to maintain our metabolism and life. What defies common sense, in my book, is to assume that we can arbitrarily put these chemicals into our food supply and presume to even GUESS the long-term effect they will have on those reactions and our metabolic system. It smacks of arrogance to me. It also seems completely inauthentic to defend said chemicals when they are clearly being linked to problems simply because your company has financial stake in it...just my opinion.

If you want a healthy, lean body, start giving your body foods it had evolved to digest and metabolize. Clean fruits, veggies, and meats. Our world is full of delicious natural foods that are there for the eating if we can start challenging the line of junk we have been fed about diet foods.

Diet Coke Nation.

2007-08-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

So, we all know that companies are put together to make money right... but do we really really understand how far some will take it to continue to make money? I am always teaching my clients to analyze what they hear and research things that they put into their body...question everything--even what I tell them. Why? Because our food supply really is messed up and the food companies are out of control. They are, in my opinion, slowly poisoning us, making a lot of money doing so and just denying the hell out of all of it. I see it every day...and so do you if you learn to look for it. So why don't we do something about it? Because we are being fed a line of marking crap EVERY SINGLE DAY making us complacent...urging us to just trust those nice folks at the food and drug companies.

Here is why we can't trust, why we have to wake up:
Most people, but particularly holistic practitioners have realized the dangers of Diet soda for years and years.

The artificial sweetener hikes food cravings and poisons the neurological system and kills your metabolism. The carbonation and acidity threaten bone density, and the "no-calorie" appeal makes it one of the most over-consumed junk foods in history.

Finally, even the main-stream news shows are unable to ignore the threat of this "food".

A recent ABC news report tells of some of the dangers of diet soda. You can watch the clip at:http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/237/popup/index.php?cl=3577574
The report tells us that companies sell over $21 billion/year on Diet Sodas! Yes, Billion!
When asked to comment on recent studies pointing to the danger of over-consuming diet sodas (now, mind you, I would rather my clients drink regular soda than ANY diet soda so the newscast is cutting a break by adding the term "over-consumption" to the question), Coca Cola sent an official respose:

"Great taste. No Calories.
Wholesome Ingredients.
How could you drink too much."
Diana Garza
Communications Director
Coca-Cola North America

I'm sorry, I just threw up a little in my mouth. Are you kidding me? Wholesome ingredients?
So, I figure that I will post list of all of those wholesome ingredients:
High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sucrose, Water, Caramel Color, Phosphoric Acid, Natural Flavors, Caffeine.
Yummmy...if only we could have a little more wholesome High-Fructose corn syrup in our America diets. What??? You say that HFCS is the NUMBER ONE ADDED INGREDIENT IN PROCESSED AMERICAN FOODS???!!! Thank god! Im feeling more wholesome already...although I certainly can see how these wholesome food ingredients might explain the ridiculous spike in adult onset diabetes amongst 6-year-olds. Perhaps we should come out with a wholesome Diet Coke baby formula...get us off to a great start from infancy!
Ok, I'm going to get off of it now and leave you with just one simple request: LEARN ABOUT YOUR BODY AND ABOUT WHAT YOU PUT INTO IT. Unfortunately, we just can't trust the companies or government to be straight with us on it...they have billions riding on us continuing to buy into their garbage.
Even after EVERYONE knows that cigarrettes kill people, are the companies even admitting to it? NO NO NO. How much proof will we have to have to make food companies admit that the things we are doing to our food is causing chronic fatigue, diabetes and cancer? Who cares? You don't need them to admit to it, you just need to know the truth and buy accordingly...then you don't have to worry about buying a load of crap because you, your family and friends will be living great, healthy lives without their processed trash.

Breaking Through The Things that Stop Us...

2007-08-03T16:02:00.001-07:00

I have recently become aware of blocks in my own life...things that stop me from being WHO I want to be. At times they are just shadowy "blind-spots" that I keep running into like procrastination, getting bogged down or a general loss of power. At other times, I recognize that the issue is very clear: avoidance of certain things, meeting with certain people or making certain goals.

As I began looking at these blocks, I became more aware that the same blocks kept popping up throughout my life!! Not only did I have a loss of power around, say, pushy people in my personal life but also in my professional life, with friends, family, clients and business associates. Humm...interesting right? It became very clear that my loss of power and my unwillingness to deal with certain people and certain situations had NOTHING to do with the individual or situation and EVERYTHING to do with who I was being.

Let me share a quick example from my own life:

I used to feel a complete loss of power when clients would not take my advice or follow a program that I had created for them. This resulted in frustration and , at times, conflict between myself and the person whom I professed to HELP! I NEEDED them to do the program so I could fix them! WOW...let's break that one down to illustrate where I was lying to myself, who I was being, and how I have come to a different way of dealing with it:

1) The lie:
OK, there are a couple of lies that are hidden in this one.
The first is that I know what is best for people better than they do! I pretend that people NEED the work I do. In reality, each human being is able to choose his or her own course in life. If people just really love food and aren't worried about the health repercussions, then who am I to make them wrong for that? The truth of that situation is that I provide a very valuable service to those out there who really do want to transform their lives and health but I am NOT here to make that choice for them or make them WRONG for not choosing what I would choose. NOBODY, my friends, needs fixing...we are all perfect and complete. From there we can CHOOSE to completely transform our lives because we want to ....not because we HAVE TO FIX things.

Second lie (This one is a BIG one): I was pretending that the program was for them when in reality I was so attached to the outcome. It was important for them to succeed so that I could feel good about myself. In that place, I NEEDED something from my clients for my self. I wasn't able to be there completely for them, without judgement and in a place of giving because I was being selfish. By taking my own need, and ego, out of the picture and just making myself present, I realized that I can always bring power and clarity to the situation. I can now be there fully for my client and really listen to what is going on rather than making everything mean something about me. In this space, my clients and I work through some amazing obstacles. I am now COMMITTED to helping my clients and not ATTACHED to how that happens.

So, you want to know the amazing thing? This pattern did not at all end with how I approached my clients. I soon realized that I became that needy, judging person when ANYONE didn't want to take my advice or when I really wanted someone to do something. It was affecting my relationship with my phenomenal boyfriend, my family, and my friends. I was actually being so selfish that I would distance myself from people rather than come to terms with who I was being. Once I saw that I was being selfish, and needy, I simply let it go and created a new way of being. I decided that I was going to be a powerful leader instead. Now each time I am faced with the situation, I automatically see it for what it is and can choose to remain a powerful leader instead of defaulting to a selfish and needy martyr.

To be fair, this is a sticky business. I didn't realize that I was actually doing it until I was given the tools to do so. So, now I pass those tools on to you.
1) Look for places in your life where you have a loss of power...a place you just can't seem to get through: Perhaps it is your health.
2) Look to see where you are lying to yourself. There is a fib in there somewhere and the more diligently you search for it, the more power you will get back for yourself.
3) Decide WHO you want to be in that situation.
4) Be that person and keep looking for the little lies.

I work through this process frequently with my clients. For instance:
"I didn't have time to write down my food or do the exercises" There is lie in this which is SO dis empowering. The lie is that the client doesn't have enough power to even schedule his time. That he is just a helpless victim of his schedule. I have no judgement here: NONE. I don't need them to fill out their journal or complete their program...but I am committed to empowering them. So, what there is to do is just acknowledge the fib: "I don't have control over my schedule or life." and do one of two things: Either recommit to making it a priority and set structures in place to make sure that you follow through in the future. OR you can acknowledge to yourself that you are not willing to take this step toward securing a healthier body. There is no right or wrong here...no judgement just complete honesty.

In a place of honesty with yourself and with others, there really isn't anything standing in the way of what you want...there may be some confusion about what you want to create but the game-playing is over. I occasionally get clients who swear up and down that they want great health and a body they can be proud of but will never follow through when the opportunity presents itself. Just as I had to dig deep into my loss of power, they must dig deep to see where they are deceiving themselves. Either they really don't want what they say they want, or they don't want to do what is necessary to obtain it.

There is such great power available in distinguishing these lies because they allow us to live in reality...they allow us to see what is real and work with power to create something else. Without this honesty, people all too often fall into playing the victim or hopeless martyr. I have yet to see a "victim" achieve any lasting fitness goal. Success rises from empowered people not those who so easily diminish themselves with self-deception.For more information on learning to do this type of self-work, I recommend visiting Landmark Education. It has completely changed my life for the better and has also been a positive influence for several clients and family members

Sleep Problems? Circaidian Rhythem

2007-08-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

Did You Know:

Your bodies' Circadian Rhythms (sleep cycles) is set at birth?

This means that sleep will always be most natural in your time zone of birth. If there is a big time difference between where you live and where you were born, you may need to take very specific steps to ensure proper sleep.

You body enters a physical repair cycle between 10:30pm and 2:30am and a neurological repair (mental repair) between 2:30 and 6:30am?

If you are getting to bed consistently late or waking up consistently early, you are losing out on critical hours or repair which CAN NOT be made up by sleep in because the hormone production is not supporting the repair outside of those time windows.

Bad Habits You don't Know that You have!

2007-08-03T06:30:00.000-07:00

Things you probably think are helping you but are ensuring you stay fat.

1) Choosing only low fat, reduced fat and lean foods.GASP! EAT fat??? NO WAY!!!

If you are one of the people who are constantly searching out the lowest fat foods, you are likely depriving your body of the necessary dietary body fat essential to running a healthy hormonal and detoxification systems. High-fat foods got a bad rap when many of the highly-processed and fast foods we consumed were pumping the American diet full of fat. Unfortunately, the backlash came in the form of the fat-free craze which had every food company latching on to a new way to market crappy food to the public...LOW FAT OREOS..Yeah!

In fact, many people I see are consuming so little fat that they are depriving their bodies of the essential dietary fat necessary for hormone production and fat-soluble vitamin absorption. What does this mean? Well, it means that a large majority of people are running around hormonally deplete and without enough vitamins to run their detoxification systems. Humm... hormone imbalance and increasing toxicity...I wonder why they don't feel so great?

2) Choosing only low-carb foods

OK, carbs don't make you fat either...just junk does.

Don't go low-carb, just cut out the sugars, processed flours, and over-processed garbage.

Your body needs carbohydrates to function, and depending on your metabolic type, needs them to be anywhere from 30-50% of your total caloric intake.

In order to cut out the sugars and crap that are stressing out your adrenals and causing you to be on a vicious cycle of energy highs and lows, you must start looking at your food.

Did you know that high-fructose corn syrup is the number one ingredient in foods consumed in the US...yup, that nasty, sugary substance is so incredibly cheap that the food companies love to use it to give the rest of the sawdust they produce a little taste.

Start cutting this garbage out and limiting your processed foods altogether. One of the easiest ways to do this is to do what I call the "outside-isle" Shopping trip. Walk in the grocery store, hit the outside produce isle and pick up lots of great fresh produce and nuts, round the corner to pick up fresh eggs and dairy (if not allergic) and end at the butchers counter for some fresh meats. You can always augment your carbs with whole wheat pastas or breads if you do not have gluten intolerance.

3) Doing too much Cardio.

It seems that everyone is cardio-crazy...everyone thinks that this is the way to get that great body. So, you can look around next time you are at the gym and wonder why most of the people you see on the treadmill day in and day out are still chunky.

High-Cardio activity create a high-adrenal and cortisol response. Most of us are already adrenally challenged from stressful lives and too much caffeine. All of that extra cortisol puts us into a catabolic (breakdown) state which causes breakdown of muscle tissue (the same muscle that helps support your metabolism). If we stay catabolic for long enough, our body begins to go into a stress mode where it holds fat and drops your metabolic rate.

The solution? The goal is to create an exercise program with a "net-anabolic effect." These carefully structured programs usually include more resistance training and concentrate on creating a greater repair reaction in your body to counter-act the catabolic breakdown.

4) Dieting

The path to hell is paved with good intentions and the path to a beer belly and saggy thighs is paved with fad diet books. Just stop starving yourself already!!!

I have a problem with most diets because:

a. Calorie deficits don't work long-term...want to argue this with me? I can give you loads of research proving it or you can just call your friends and relatives to see how well it has worked for them. Consider for a moment that it isn't that we are just eating too many calories but that the foods we are consuming are so poor nutritionally that we are actually starving ourselves to death and causing excessive hunger.

b. Most diet foods are so processed, chemically altered, and enzymatically dead, that you would be better off eating the box they are packaged in...at least then, you won't get all of the preservative.

c. I am a big OPPONENT of working against your body. If you are having cravings, it is likely from a hormonal or blood sugar imbalance. If you simply "gut" you way through on sheer will-power, you aren't addressing the underlying cause of the imbalance. Ultimately, the cravings win and you gain the weight back.

Start listening to your body. Do you ever wonder why fitness has to be such a huge struggle? Do you really think that our bodies have evolved through the millennia to become so high-maintenance and fussy? The truth is that the human body is amazing, strong, and self-sufficient as long as we quit getting in the way with bizarre behaviors that we think are going to help us stay "sexy".

Latest Scientific Research Links "Secret Key to Weight Loss"

2007-06-28T06:10:00.000-07:00

This amazing article. "Finally Science Confirms the Secret Key to Weight Loss" on the mercola website highlights the newest scientific discovery regarding weight gain.
For years, we have blamed our genes for our insulin levels but most of us in the health and fitness industry have known better. This study proves it.

Low levels of exercise and highly processed foods make us "super secretors" of insulin and inevitably makes us fat. We become fat producing machines. Children as young as 6 are now getting adult onset diabetes...it used to take people 40 or 50 years to screw their bodies up enough to develop diabetes...now we are doing it to our kids in under a decade! People, it is time to wake up and make changes now!

The key to avoiding this is what we have been talking about on this blog for months...avoid sugars, highly-processed foods and eat metabolically to minimize your insulin responses.

Your body is comprised of the foods you eat..each cell is replaced on the cycle of seven years. Ask yourself if you want to be made up of the things you eat...do you really want to be made of Big Macs, Double Lattes and Some Packaged Crap from your Newest fad Diet?

Just Something to Thing About.

Our Path to Break Down

2007-06-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

Most of us are very good at making trade-offs in our lives. You exercise more so that you can eat junk food. You squeeze in a few more hours for work or family by sleeping less. Stress reduction takes a back seat to almost everything.

Fortunately, your body phenomenal at dealing with stress. However, when these stresses become habits, and are constantly present, your body begins to break down. Your energy and focus begin to wane, you become ill, irritable and lethargic.

Then, you turn to white flour, sugar, nicotine or caffeine to prop up your energy. These substances wear out your adrenal glands over time . Low energy becomes chronic but not before elevated cortisol levels start packing on the body fat.

So, suddenly you are a little fatter, a whole lot more tired, and understanding that something is wrong with your body. If you decide to do something about it, you probably hit the gym. Unfortunately, if you are like most people, you do a high-cardio, high-intensity workout program that further depletes the adrenals and throws your hormones further out of balance. Workouts become more difficult, the fat loss stops and you dig yourself even further into exhaustion.

With the weight not budging, you decide to try a fad diet or calorie deficit. Not only does this starve your body of the nutrients it needs to repair all of the damage your exercise is doing, but it also sends your cortisol levels skyward and lowers your metabolic rate.

This vicious cycle rages on with years of broken diets, yo-yo weight loss and loss of energy. Completing workouts or even just dealing with your life gets more difficult. The hole gets deeper and you are unsure what to do as you trainers, diets, and supplements prove ineffective.

The problem with this cycle is that once your vitality gets low, you become symptomatic. You begin to experience increased blood pressure, cholesterol, chronic fatigue, or drop in libido. You can take prescriptions for all of these but rarely do they address the underlying cause of over all imbalance and decreased vitality. If your lifestyle does not change to promote better nervous system and hormonal balance, your body will eventually become susceptible to disease. At the lowest level of vitality, you can even die as your body becomes overwhelmed with stressors and can no longer maintain equilibrium.

Holistic Lifestyle Coach

2007-06-15T00:11:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone! I apologize for the delay in posting. I have been in the most phenomenal Holistic Lifestyle Coaching certification by the CHEK Institute and can not wait to bring you the amazing information just as soon as I get home from Los Angeles. Until then, be healthy and happy!

Acceptance vs Resignation and Justification

2007-06-03T06:58:00.000-07:00

I am a huge believer in accepting and loving oneself. There is absolutely nothing WRONG with any of us. This may sound like a strange comment coming from a coach who helps people to change their bodies but there is a very fine distinction between choosing change and thinking you HAVE to change.

Simply put, every client I see is perfect and complete the minute they step through the door. It is only from this spot that we can create their new body. If a client is always in the space of hating their body NOW or in a sense of not being at peace with themselves, I can almost guarantee mediocre results.

Our minds are very powerful machines. With a program running over and over again telling you that you hate your body, the only thing that machine has energy to do is hate your body and give you more of the same. If we can take that program off of disliking your body, we have all of this energy left over to create something new...to input a new program that says something like "I'm healthy, vibrant and an happy." With this program, you have amazing possibilities and the energy to full fill them.

The golden key to everything you want in your fitness life lies in truly accepting yourself, freeing up that energy and using it to create something new of your choosing.

I sometimes see this message distorted and used as justification. Some people with obvious health problems, will tell everyone that they accept themselves, are complete with their bodies and see no reason to do anything about it. I think that this is great so long as they own up to EXACTLY what they are accepting. Everyone has the right and responsibility to create their lives and if someone wants to eat unhealthy, drink a lot, and smoke, I have no problem with it as long as they are consciously CHOOSING it.

People understand that their behavior dictates the length of their life and the quality of their health. If these things are more important to them than their health or longevity, I have no right to tell them otherwise. The only problem I have is when people choose unhealthy lifestyles and then blame someone or something else for the disease or breakdown of their bodies--because without taking that responsibility, we have NO opportunity to bring them back on the path of health and healing.

It is YOUR life, this is YOUR dream--live it to it's fullest. Appreciate your body now and take responsibility for CONSCIOUSLY create the life and body you want

Hit by a Mac Truck

2007-05-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

Do you have days when you feel--and look-- like you've been hit by a Mac truck?
Lets face it, we all get older...but we don't have to feel or look older.

Biological age was a term coined to describe how old your lifestyle makes you in terms of being closer or further from death. Happy thought right?

In fact, as this blog discusses over and over again, what we do and eat makes a profound difference in our quality of life, our health, and how quickly we age in appearance. There are assessments found all over the web that claim to calculate a biological age. The main flaw I have found in most of them is that they weight certain food intake behaviors against a person regardless of their metabolic type. In fact, some foods considered good for everyone in these surveys can be not so good for certain metabolic types.

That said, the surveys can be a fun way to raise the general awareness of how our habits and lifestyle truly dictate how quickly we age and lose vitality...or, conversely, stay young and vibrant.

So, click over to one of the best surveys I have found and have fun discovering your biological age...it may just inspire you to take that next step toward a healthier and younger you!

Grow Youthful Biological Age Survey

A New life--Want to Play?

2007-05-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

Stop and think just for a moment about where you are in your life and in your fitness program. Where you are is so much more important than where you have been or where you are going and yet most of us spend so much time living in the past or the worrying about the future that we never experience “Now.”

Consider for a minute that right now is a culmination of everything you have created in your life. If you are broke, you created that. If you are over weight, you created that too. Other conditions become more difficult and “woo-woo” to talk about creating but many people (myself included) believe that most of our degenerative disease is self-created as well.

How could I be so senseless and cruel as to say something like that? Nobody wants cancer, nobody wants their bodies to rebel against them! Right?

There is a lot of amazing research being done around quantum physics and how our frontal lobe actually enables us as humans to create the reality in which we live. It is not so important that you believe this…in fact, you can even scoff and call this sheer foolishness. I am not arguing with anyone about quantum physics but lets suppose, just pretend, that it IS true. If we imagine that we DO manifest the good and bad in our lives and we can just sit in the now and evaluate what we have created for ourselves. IMAGINE THE POWER WE HAVE TO CHANGE?

If we are merely puppets at the hands of fate and can only react to whatever the universe throws at us, then what a sad life we all must truly live…unless we are just lucky. However, imagine playing a game in which our words and thoughts and beliefs are responsible for forming our very lives…and bodies. What if, just by changing what we are creating, we can heal ourselves and create a greater existence for ourselves? Wouldn’t that be an amazing life to live?

I, for one, choose to play this game and invite my clients to as we transform their lives and bodies. I’m not sure if it is “right” or “correct” or “real” but it is a game that is a hell of a lot fun to play. And a game with a hell of a pay-off…I life worth living, A body worth loving, and the ability to create anything I want in my life. Sound fun? There is always room for one more in this game and YOU are invited.

My favorite resources for this type of thinking…teaching you the rules of the game:
Personal Life Resource: Landmark Forum

Business Resource: One Coach (From John Assaraf of "The Secret")

A Holistic Medicine Approach to HIV Treatment

2007-05-21T20:22:00.001-07:00

Click below for an interesting article regarding alternative treatments which work in conjunction with traditional HIV therapies. I wonder why more information is not available about this even 2 years later?I predict that holistic approaches which support the immune system and work in conjunction with the traditional medications will be a stepping stone for the legitimization of holistic medicine. That is, until we start to truly understand the inter-relatedness of our bodies' complex chemical systems and how our modern environment and lifestyle is CAUSING a majority of these chronic diseases...just my prediction.
read more digg story

Knee Pain? Your Flat Butt is Likely the Problem

2007-05-18T21:16:00.000-07:00

So you know that your knees are bothering you but did you know that your knee pain is likely originating from your butt?
The problem all starts out with two gluteus muscles, particularly your glute medius. There are a lot of great articles out there on the function and action of these muscles but I won’t bore you with that here. In lay terms, the glutes are responsible for stabilizing your hip and legs…depending on if you are standing on that leg or not.
When we sit all day at a desk or in a car, our glutes gets turned off and your body really forgets how to turn them on effectively while you stand, walk or run. Is this a problem? Yes, a very big problem. When you Glute Medius in inactive, it can cause your knees to fold inward in a condition called “valgas knees”.

When you are standing, and draw a line from your hip to the center of your knee cap, does that line point straight down at your toes or does it point inward? If it points Inward, you likely have valgas knees and an inactive gluteal complex. The force of every step is then transferred not through your knee and down into your foot but rather through the interior portion of your knee thus causing pain and potentially damaging the tissue in your knees.
Now, things get worse if you are a runner because most of the running motion is spent suspended on one leg. The exact function of the glute medius is to stabilize on one foot so when it is inactive, you get a LOT of instability through the knee. I would venture to say that almost every running injury analysis should begin with assessment of glute medius strength.

Now look down at what else that internally rotated knee effects…yup, your foot. Valgas knees can also cause you to roll inward on your foot and big toe causing bunions over time.

So, What can you do about it? A great exercise for this muscle group is the old fashioned “Jane Fonda” leg lifts. Yup, old Jane had the right idea. Lay on your side and raise that leg toward the ceiling between 20-50 times. If it burns like heck, you know that those glutes haven’t been doing their job when you walk or run. You can also hit all three fibers efficiently be pointing you toe down, straight, and then up during the exercise. Try doing 30-40 per segment for a total of 90-120 repetitions per leg to really get those muscles activated and strong enough to correct your valgas knees. As a bonus, it will also tone up your rear.

Of course, this is just one exercise and most postural and structural problems are very complex and should be assessed by a professional corrective exercise specialist. However, this one tip has the potential to save many people the frustration of knee surgery.

3 Steps for Acheiving ANY Fitness Goal: The Ripple Effect

2007-05-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

See my 3 tips for acheiving any fitness goal. This approach is bound to help even the most jaded people. If you can help others while acheiving your goals, NOTHING will stand in your way!

Ditch Your Annoying Trainer-- 7 steps for hiring someone who will get results!

2007-05-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

There are all kinds of fluffy criteria to apply to picking a trainer. I will not be addressing those here. There are a lot of “nice,” “fun,” and “likable” personal trainers out there who can not train. In fact, many of the most likable celebrity trainers are, in my opinion not, the greatest trainers for actually affecting change in their clients. As a client, you must realize that you are purchasing a GOOD, not a SERVICE. The “good” you are purchasing is your results and it just doesn’t really matter if the guy or gal you hire is the nicest person on earth if they never deliver the goods. So, here is my advice for choosing a trainer who will make a difference in your health and in your life:

1) Of course, they must be certified.
Certifications are becoming easier to obtain than a driver’s license so you have to be careful. My personal favorites are ACSM, NASM,NSCA, ACE. Of course, for the best of the best (and yes, I am completely biased here, CHEK). A CHEK practitioner will never disappoint and is equipped to show you amazing things about your body.

2) Ask for proof of insurance.
Only true professionals will have their own insurance. The occasional trainer will not bother and it is a sign that he or she does not take their career or the safety of their clients seriously.

3) Ask them to name all of the muscles that comprise your core.
Base knowledge of anatomy is incredibly important in designing programs, if your potential trainer does not know the muscles they are working, and their function, how can they hope to correct any kind of dysfunction or design a program to train them efficiently?

4) Ask to see a program for an existing client.
A true professional writes everything down. The essence of a real program is to get measured adaptation of your body for strength, growth, or whatever you wish to obtain. If the trainer is keeping that information in their head, or do not have the skills or discipline to write a program, you will be wasting both your time and money.

5) Ask what kind of assessment they do.
If they take body fat and measurements, great but it won’t tell them anything about the strength or weakness of your muscle groups. Without this knowledge, the best exercise prescription that they can give you is something generic and non customized to your body. How would you feel about getting heart surgery without the doctor so much as pulling out a stethoscope? At the least, you should be given flexibility and strength tests as well as visual assessment for postural issues. In addition, medical history, and informed consent forms are a must.

6) Do NOT choose your trainer on price alone.
Good trainer are paid well and deliver the results they promise...that is why they can charge more. It is not necessarily the case that high price equals high quality however. Make sure that your trainer passes all of the other criteria and decide if the price works for you but remember that lower-priced trainers are generally lower priced because their services are worth what they charge. I know coaches who charge $160-$200/hr and are booked for months in advance. Can you imagine the amazing things a coach like that could do for your body? Do not fall into the trap of paying ANYTHING for NOTHING…choose a trainer who will get you results and reward him or her with an applicable fee for changing your life.

7) Pull the plug quickly if you are not getting what you are paying for.
Some facilities, especially some commercial clubs, bank on the fact that you may purchase huge training packages and then decide not to finish the training. Great deal! The club gets your money and they don’t have to pay the trainer to provide it. Paying anything for a service you do not use is simply foolish. Or worse, you choose a poor trainer and then give the guy access to your body because you have a lot of money sunk into a package. Buy a small package at first or pay from session to session until you are sure that this is the trainer you want then purchase more when you are

There are a lot of phenomenal trainers and coaches out there and you can choose to use these steps to find yourself one. If you do, you have an amazing experience ahead of you that can redefine the way you view yourself and your body. If you do not, you can always take consolation in telling yourself that nobody really gets results with a trainer.

Is Your Fad Diet Making You Age?

2007-05-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

It seems that many of us are obsessed with our weight and nobody relishes the idea of getting older. However, insight into our hormonal system is revealing that our quest for a thin waist is likely prematurely aging us.
A simple review of biology tells us that our unconscious body systems are run by the autonomic nervous system (ANS). This nervous system is equally regulated by a sympathetic (dominated by the adrenal glands) and parasympathetic branch (dominated by the thyroid). These two branches regulate the “break-down” and “repair” cycles of our body. In a balanced, healthy individual, the sympathetic system functions during the day to give us energy and stamina for metal clarity and activity throughout the day. When night falls, the parasympathetic branch kicks in delivering a cocktail of hormones to help us repair the damage done by the activity during the day and replenish brain chemicals. In other words, when we have a balanced ANS, we repair at night what we break down during the day and our systems remain healthy and vibrant with plenty of energy.
So, you may ask, what does this have to do w with dieting? The preferred route for dieters seeking a smaller pant size is the calorie deficit; cutting down calories and eating less to create a deficit in the body to burn fat. Sounds great right? If someone is clearly eating too much, then the calorie intake will clearly have to decrease to obtain an ideal weight. However, most people who are consuming too many calories are entirely malnourished. This means that they are eating the wrong kinds of foods in too great a quantity. Instead of staying satiated, their hunger increases so that it can obtain the needed nutrients in the next meal. This kicks off a vicious cycle of malnourishment with over-consumption of calories and weight-gain.
When your body is malnourished, it unbalances the autonomic nervous system. If this person decided to cut calories without improving the nutrient values in the food, then he or she is getting even LESS of the bad food and LESS of the little nutrition they were getting before. The body becomes even more malnourished and more unbalanced. This is particularly true, in my opinion, when people use the popular diet foods like Slimfast and other ultra-processed alternatives. At what point in human evolution have we ever consumed food like that and how can we justify them being “good for us” simply because it helps us lose a dress or pant size for a week? Compounding the problem is the fact that our bodies produce more cortisol through the adrenal glands when we are in a calorie deficit and under stress. Cortisol is our breakdown hormone and this level raises and remains elevated until the original weight is gained back again.
Too much cortisol results in a sympathetic over-dominance (meaning that our “break down” cycle is greater than our repair cycle.) Add the weight of smoking, drinking, lack of sleep, stress, excessive cardio exercise, and poor food quality to the load already put on the nervous system and we get severe cortisol/adrenal dominance in our ANS. This dominance of our breakdown cycle is a little like driving your car 3000 miles and then only swapping out half of the oil when you get it changed. Over time, the oil becomes very dirty and the car stops running so great. This happens to your body. It is like having an ever-increasing list of deferred maintenance issues that your body cannot hope to repair because you are always breaking down more than you are repairing.
This imbalance can manifest itself as anything from skin problems, loss of muscle tone, increased body fat, or disease. It is, in effect, a cycle of continual degeneration and rapid aging.

The key to addressing this problem lies in providing your body with the nutrition it needs and avoiding calorie deficits like the plague. When you begin to feed your body the nutrients it needs to balance itself, your body returns naturally to an ideal weight and vigor. I recommend metabolic eating and organic and hormone-free food sources to achieve this maximum balance. Perseverance and starvation is NOT the answer; play the game intelligently and maintain your youth, energy AND ideal body weight. Go for the quick fix and you are bound to pay the price of increased aging.

The Three worst Exercised for Your Lower Back

2007-05-11T09:53:00.000-07:00

If you have low-back pain...don't miss this list of common exercises sure to kill your lower back Killer Back Exercises

Please! Not Another Diet Challenge.

2007-05-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

I believe that reading an article in Reuters entitled Soup or salad before a meal helps weight loss-study will definitely help me lose weight...by making me sick.
It seems that this study puts 6 diets to the test for weight loss The big winner here : SOUP AND SALAD. Good, more veggies...I love it. Now what about the runners up? From a holistic point of view, the foods supplied by most of the commercial diets such as Slim Fast and Jenni Craig are abhorrent, over-processed, quasi-foods. Eating sawdust for 6 weeks might get you similar results but that doesn't mean that it is providing the live, nutrient-rich foods our systems need for optimal health.
Here again seems to be an example of our society missing the forest for the trees. At what point do we start to repair our love/hate relationship with food and realize that we are little eating machines put on earth biologically to eat and have sex? We really are not made to deny ourselves all of the things that make life grand. We can still eat and be healthy and weigh what we want to weigh but you aren't going to get any of that by starving yourself or eating tiny packages of pseudo-food!
I think we need to wake up and start viewing optimal health as a PREREQUISITE to optimal weight...hummm earth shattering concept right? Unfortunately we rarely look at this and weight loss together. We look instead at that scale each day and think to ourselves: "What can I possibly do to make myself happy when I look at that? Umm...I mean, what can I do that is going to be Quick and EASY?
I'm picking up the banner here...in this blog and in my practice...follow if you feel as passionately about this as I do. I am picking up that banner and marching resolutely away from the throngs of pre-processed, diet-pill pushin, crappy-food-eatin, no-neck-havin, miracle-cure-totin "GURUS" out there who want a juicy piece of that $5 billion fad diet market. I'm marching my ass up that steeper, longer and higher road called "lifestyle change" and "metabolic eating". Sure it isn't as glamorous but at some point I want to be traveling around the world in my 90s not traveling back and forth across the cold, hard linoleum of my local nursing home because I was only concerned about looking good fast