Ever since childhood, I’ve lived by a simple code: if you want to be successful, do the opposite of what everyone else does (This simple premise isn’t accurate across the board by the way…actually it only works about 98 percent of the time. Oh well…)

Up until this very moment however, chances are that you’ve never even heard of Escalating Density Training, or “EDT” for short. That’s because, for various reasons, I’ve never tried to promote it to women in any type of orchestrated way. Why? Well, it’s mostly because I’m a ….well, a guy. And my thinking has been that women listen to other women a lot more than they’ll listen to a guy. And who can blame you? After all, us guys are a brutish lot.

In fact, my wife still can’t understand why there’s nothing but a toothbrush in my medicine cabinet (OK, I gotta ask- what is it with all these products you girls use? Between my wife and daughter, our house is like a cross between a Bed Bath & Beyond and the pharmacy section of Albertsons!)

But I digress. Over the past several months, I’ve become increasingly aware that EDT may in fact be the world’s most perfect form of training for females- especially females looking to tighten up in a serious way.

I’ll make just one more observation before acquainting you with my life’s work:

You’re gonna really like EDT. Promise.

Imagine a training system where each workout has a time-limit and a concise objective. A system where each workout is a competition with yourself, a game that fires up your competitive juices (even if you didn’t know you had any!) A system that produces measurable improvements every time you go to the gym. A system that finds and exploits the “sweet spot” between cardio and weight training.

With it’s roots in time-management principles, EDT’s simplicity is disarming: there are no pre-determined number of reps, sets, or rest periods. Instead, your goal is to amass as many total repetitions as possible in each 15-minute “PR Zone” (”PR” standing for “personal record.”). If I’ve got your attention, please continue with me as I explain the nuts and bolts of the EDT system. I’ll also provide an introductory program that drops bodyfat so rapidly, it’ll make your plastic surgeon nervous!

Meet Your New Best Friend…

Here’s a quick and painless guide to the nuts and bolts of the EDT system. It’s super-simple, but you’ll need to set aside of your preconceived notions about weight training in order to grasp the concept. Ready? OK, let’s get started…

I don’t use the word “workout.” Instead, we use the term “training session.” Working out implies dull, meaningless activity for the sole purpose of burning calories. “Training” on the other hand, implies you’ve got a purpose, a plan. And you do! So don’t sell yourself short, you’re now in training girl! Leave the workouts to the Tuesday Night Book Club bimbos!

OK, now when you’re “on” EDT, each training session is composed of between 1 and 3 15-minute time periods that we call “PR Zones.” What’s PR Mean? Any takers? Anyone…anyone? OK, it stands for “personal record.” Which is what you’ll be striving to break on each and every PR Zone. Let’s continue…

What Are PR Zones For?

They’re for setting and breaking your PR’s. Your PR’s are like your own personal World records. They represent the best performances you’ve ever done. Ever time you break a PR, you’ve got definitive proof that you’re at your all-time best- numbers don’t lie (unlike your scale and your boyfriend!)

During each PR Zone, you’ll try to rack up as many total repetitions as possible using 2 “antagonistic” or opposing exercises. For example, bicep curls and tricep pushdowns. Or bench presses and rows. There are lots of possible configurations as you might imagine. Don’t get caught up in the details though- just focus on the overriding idea. I’ll provide the specifics in just a bit.

How Much Weight? How Many Reps? How….?

Real women DO challenge their muscles.....just ask my dream girl Jessica Biel (she doesn't look all bulked up does she?)

OK: let’s say you’re doing a PR Zone for arms…a very simple example that nearly everyone can relate to. Your two exercises are standing dumbbell curls and lying EZ-curl tricep extensions. Before you start your stopwatch and begin your PR Zone, you’ll need to determine (or estimate) your “10RM” weight for both exercises. That means a weight that you can do a set of 10 with before reaching failure.

So start light and do 2-3 sets on both exercises- alternating back and forth between the curls and the extensions. Do sets of maybe 5-6 reps until you hit a weight that’s heavy enough to give you a sense of what your 10RM would be (NOTE: This process of finding your 10RM weight only happens once.

The next time you repeat that same PR Zone, you’ll already know what weights to use). The main thing is that the weights you’ve chosen for both exercises are equally difficult for whatever reps you’ve used during your warm-ups. Got it?

Good. With your weights selected, start your timer. Start by performing your first set of curls. How many reps? 10? No, no, no! We’re seeking maximum performance, not maximum perspiration. Just trust me here. You’ll be in plenty of time by the time the PR Zone ends, believe me!

So you’ve done 5 reps on the curls, so next, do 5 reps on the extensions.

How long should you rest? Get ready….ready?

I…….DON’T….CARE!

I really don’t. Rest as long or as little as you like. One less thing to worry about. Now, the clock’s ticking, and you’re going back and forth between curls and extensions, doing sets of 5 resting maybe 15-20 seconds or so between each set. But as time goes on you’ll become fatigued. No- you really will. So when his happens, you’re gonna do two things to optimize your performance: First, you’ll drop your reps. Although you’ll start the PR Zone by doing sets of 5, over the course of 15 minutes, you’ll gradually drop down to sets of 4, then sets of 3, and so on.

Toward the very end of the PR Zone, you may even be doing sets of 1! Don’t worry- by this time, the weight that was a 10RM 15 minutes ago is now more like a 3RM!

The second thing you’ll do- and it’ll happen instinctively…no need to think about it- is you’ll gradually increase your rest between sets.

Your 15 Minutes Of Fame Is Now Over

Allrighty then. You finished the PR Zone. Hopefully you performed “X” number of reps for both exercises. Let’s say you got 64 reps for each exercise. That’s called your Baseline PR. It’ll become your training target for the next repeat of this PR Zone

Now Here’s The REALLY Cool Thing About EDT…

Depending on the program you’re on, in maybe 4-6 days later you’re going to repeat this PR Zone. And when you do, a couple of really neat things happen. First, when you start the PR Zone, you know you’ll be finished in 15 minutes…no matter what happens. It’s not like “OK Susan, here’s your program, enjoy!” and you’re lookin’ at that sucker and your thought bubble is like “Holy frig…how long is that gonna take?” Nope. Not when you’re training with me.

The second thing that you’ll enjoy here is that you know exactly what you need to accomplish…in this case, you need to get 65 reps or better. How much better? Again…

I…….DON’T….CARE

Are ya feelin’ the love? OK look…my point is that we’re all different… some of us are more aggressive than others. Then main thing is to ensure that you’re making progress. And honestly, small margins or progression that you can sustain long term are worth a whole hell of a lot more than big jumps that you can’t maintain.

When Do I Add Weight?

Ah…now you’re thinkin’ like a lifter! OK, here’s how it works: As soon as you can increase the total number of reps in any given PR Zone by 20 percent or more, start the next workout with 5 pounds or 5 percent more weight (whichever is less) and start over. Similarly, if you manage to improve upon your last performance (for the same workout) by 40 percent, then you’ll increase your weights by 10 pound or 10 percent (whichever is less) on the next PR Zone.

Note from Editor: I would like to thank Charles Staley (Staley Training Systems) for his article and for detailing his Escalating Density Training (EDT) programming. It’s so simple and so effective, that it may actually be the best way for most of us to make fitness fun and time efficient!

FREE BodyWeight Workouts!

In fact….I love this approach so much over the years that I have incorporated it (along with other strategies) into the FREE weekly workouts you will find in the weekly ongoing BodyWeight Challenge at ProjectFit. No more worries about programming your own workouts as you will get new Bodyweight workouts that will challenge any level sent to you 3x a week via email or RSS (like your own personal trainer online). No more excuses….as you can still get a workout in as little as 15 minutes whether you are at home, on the road, in the park or anywhere else. So join the bodyweight challenge community and get signed up today….and did I mention it is FREE? (just click on the link below or here)

I love eggs. Scrambled, hard-boiled, over easy, deviled (check out Richard Nikoley’s deviled egg recipe)…it doesn’t matter. I’ll eat eggs pretty much any way you want to give them to me. Amongst the fitness crowd, they’re pretty much a staple because they are such cheap, delicious nutrition.

So today, let’s look at this little package of protein.

Understanding Egg Marketing Labels

“Free Range,” “Cage Free,” “Organic”…what does it all mean? Marketing labels are perhaps the most confusing part of this whole “eating healthy” game. So what do the various terms you see on the packages mean?

• Conventional (i.e., no special label) - Typically less than half a square foot of space per hen, giving not even enough room to spread their wings.
• Cage Free - As it says, the hens are able to move about inside a barn without being confined to cages. A better life, but not optimal as parts of beaks are often burned to prevent pecking at themselves and others (a sign of distress, by the way).
• Free Range - Implies chickens on lush green pastures. Actually is not a regulated term for eggs so this can be used by absolutely anyone. Really all that’s needed is a door to the outside that gives the chickens “access” to an outdoor area, whether they actually use it or not. This is a meaningless term.
• Organic - This means the hens were fed organic feed, whatever that feed consists of. I think it also means no animal by-products in the feed.
• Vegetarian - The hen is fed a vegetarian feed. I only mention this to point out that chickens are omnivores, not vegetarians, and will naturally eat bugs, grubs, etc. This term is used to imply “healthier” in our anti-meat culture.

As you can see, few of the terms on the egg carton actually mean a whole lot. Other than “organic” and “vegetarian,” it’s pretty useless. But there’s one more term that actually means what you want it to mean. “Pastured” means the chickens were raised on pasture, with access to the sun, grass, bugs, and possibly supplemented with grains and other feed.

So Which Eggs Are The Healthiest?

The USDA will tell you that all eggs are created equal, just as all vegetables, whether organic or not, are equal. Somehow the output from a chicken doesn’t depend on the inputs in the USDA’s world, which is frankly a ridiculous assumption. It’s like a chicken is a little computer program that always puts out the perfect solution, regardless of how much garbage you fed into the program. Too bad it’s not reality.

I was passed two articles from Mother Earth News regarding the nutrition of truly pastured eggs versus the eggs the USDA uses for its tests. Care to see what the results were?

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene
• 4 to 6 times as much vitamin D

But how exactly did they get these results?

These amazing results come from 14 flocks around the country that range freely on pasture or are housed in moveable pens that are rotated frequently to maximize access to fresh pasture and protect the birds from predators. We had six eggs from each of the 14 pastured flocks tested by an accredited laboratory in Portland, Ore.

So we have an egg that is altogether more nutritious when the animal is raised in a more natural environment and allowed to eat its natural diet. Imagine that! Too bad the USDA and the Egg Board are unwilling to admit it.

Mike and I talk a lot about reframing our mindset and I think this is another key time for that. I pointed out before that it’s not that a diet based on real foods prevents disease, rather it doesn’t cause disease like the diet of most people. A pastured egg from a chicken eating something very close to the primal version of a chicken diet is our baseline, not the conventional egg. It’s not that pastured eggs are packed with more vitamins. It’s that conventional eggs have less nutrition. It’s all about context.

If you’d like to read more about these studies, check out these articles:
Meet Real Free-Range Eggs
Eggciting News!

How Dangerous Are Raw Eggs?

The genesis for this article was a question I received about eating raw eggs and if it was dangerous. While I can’t decide for you if the risk is worth the reward, here is some information to help you make your decision on whether to cook your eggs or eat them raw.

Salmonella
According to most media reports, eating your eggs anything short of completely dried out and charred is tantamount to committing suicide. The little bug known as Salmonella might just take your life if you don’t thoroughly cook every bite of egg you take. This over-hyping from the media has ruined everything from Caesar dressing to the Whiskey Sour.

The reality is that there is a 1-in-20,000 to 1-in-30,000 chance that any given conventional egg will be contaminated with Salmonella. You have a 1-in-1,000 chance of dying of accidental drowning and a 1-in-6500 chance of dying from a slip and fall. And since few cases of Salmonella actually involve death, I think this is a pretty unimportant concern. Unfortunately, we don’t have statistics on pastured or organic eggs, but I’m betting it’s lower since healthy chickens and healthy conditions are less likely to harbor the Salmonella bacteria.

Avidin
Raw egg whites contain an enzyme called avidin that acts as an anti-nutrient to bind biotin in the yolk. Also known as vitamin B7, biotin is instrumental in cell growth and the metabolism of fatty acids and amino acids, as well as blood sugar maintenance. Just like with most vitamins, it’s a bad idea to reduce their availability to the body.

If you’re going to eat your eggs raw, I’d advise eating the yolk without the white. The yolk contains all of the nutrition anyway, while the white contains the avidin. In fact, Chris Masterjohn questions whether it’s advisable to consume any egg whites at all. As he points out, some avidin remains even after cooking.

My Take On Raw Eggs
So while I’m not advising you one way or the other, I will say that, while I don’t include raw eggs in my diet, I think the risks are overstated, though I’m not sure that the benefits are all that great either. Oxidation of the fats and cholesterol in the yolk seems to me to be the focus of most raw advocates, so I opt instead for cooking most of my eggs without exposing the yolk to the air. Over-easy and hardboiled are how 90% of my eggs are eaten. While there is heat exposure, there is no light or air exposure to begin the process of oxidation. I do occasionally throw together an omelet though, cooked over low-medium heat in healthy saturated fats that are protective against oxidation.

Finding The Incredible, Edible Egg

So knowing that pastured eggs are markedly more nutritious than conventional eggs, along with being more flavorful and safer, you have another reason to support your local farmers. Pastured eggs are more expensive, but they are also more nutritious. Check out your local farmer’s markets and buying clubs.

Of course, you could eat more conventional eggs to ensure that you get enough vitamins, but then you’re also changing the number of calories and macronutrient composition of your diet. The bottom line is to just focus on eating foods as nature intended them rather than using the sub-par foods that the USDA deems as the baseline. Your health will thank you.

Finally, here are some other egg posts looking at things not discussed in this post:

• Eggs vs. Egg Beaters
• Are Eggs Nature’s Statin?
• Wasting Good Egg Yolks

How many eggs do you eat each week and what’s your favorite way to eat them? Do you eat them raw? Why or why not?

This is NOT going to be another boring list of how to pick healthy foods at a BBQ/party, lose weight while dieting, blah..blah..blah……we all know that stuff….so here’s a guide on how you can use those BBQs/parties to your advantage and get leaner in the process. Like a bodybuilder getting ready for a show, they plan ahead and know what to do to peak on stage. Now you can still have a life with friends and family and not be that person sitting in the corner munching on celery sticks.

Step 1: Ramp down your carbs the days before a planned event/party. This means taking them down as low as you can while still having enough energy to function.

Step 2: No strength training the days before….we will get to the workout later

Step 3: Use those pre-party days to do more “cardio” like lifestyle activity….walking, hiking, biking…..fun stuff. For those wanting more fat loss you can split it up into AM and PM sessions.

Step 4: Eat plenty of fish containing higher Omega 3s (salmon, sardines, herring) on the days before (burn some extra fat and help retain muscle in the process too)

Step 5: Do a “glycogen draining” workout ideally the morning of (or the evening before at latest). By glycogen draining I mean your goal is not muscle breakdown or strength, but sapping every bit of glycogen out of your muscles. This is best done with a full body circuit picking a compound exercise for your chest, back, legs (quads, hams), shoulders and even arms. This can be a bodyweight circuit or one in the gym. Each set for an exercise should be about 40sec in duration (which will turn out to be 10-15 reps of a challenging weight without reaching 100% failure). Repeat the full circuit 2-3x.

Sample Bodyweight/Band Circuit (adjusting resistances as needed, keeping tempo under control with 2-3 seconds on the negative part and 1 sec on the positive):

• 10-15 reps pushups
• 10-15 reps squats
• 10-15 reps pullups (or body rows with straps/rings)
• 10-15 reps walking lunges (each leg)
• 10-15 reps overhead band press
• 10-15 reps band curls
• 30-40 sec plank

Or you could also hit the gym and do:

• 10-15 reps bench press
• 10-15 reps squats/leg press
• 10-15 reps pullups/pulldowns
• 10-15 reps straight legged DLs
• 10-15 reps overhead press
• 10-15 reps curls
• 30-40 sec plank

Step 6: Go to the party ready to eat!

Step 7: Start off with Watermellon….for an extra “pump” and increased nutrient delivery:

The red flesh and especially the white rind are high in the amino acid citrulline. Citrulline is an amino acid that gets converted to arginine to produce nitric oxide (NO), which can help increase blood flow to your muscles, delivering nutrients, hormones and oxygen to them, as well as a bigger pump. The red flesh is a great source (even higher than tomatoes) of lycopene, the heart-healthy antioxidant that also fends off many types of cancers. If you want to live bigger for longer, then add watermelon to your diet.

Source: “14 natural anabolics: power foods that act like supplements”; Flex Magazine, May, 2004 by Jim Stoppani (Yes I did just quote something useful from Flex magazine….)

Step 8: Eat carbs, some protein and avoid the high fat stuff (mayo loaded dishes). Eat small and often as you like. Use the steady intake of carbs to now replenish those muscles screaming for more glycogen and also boost your “fat burning” hormone leptin levels (which are only increased with intakes of carbohydrates, not fat). Fat at this point and time just gets in the way of muscle glycogen replenishment (and when your muscles get fuller, you will start to look more defined)

CHO OF (Carbohydrate Overfeeding) increased plasma leptin concentrations by 28%, and 24 h EE by 7%. Basal metabolic rate and the energy expended during physical activity were not affected. FAT OF did not significantly change plasma leptin concentrations or energy expenditure.

Source: Effects of short-term carbohydrate or fat overfeeding on energy expenditure and plasma leptin concentrations in healthy female subjects

Step 9: Enjoy!…..Eating, socializing and feeling like you are burning fat, pumping up those muscles and all while still being able to enjoy the day at the party/BBQ.

Step 10: IF for the day after. Feeling bloated? Then you can help reset your eating and attitude with a good short IF day (intermittent fasting). Let your digestive system recover and then continue on with your week.

There’s a quick way to “prep” yourself….as you can enjoy good foods and company if you think ahead. Remember the body doesn’t always think in terms of meal to meal, but looks at the overall picture over days……plan ahead and anything is possible. So go enjoy life…while being smart on how to do it!

If you have any tricks to add about how to “hack the BBQ”….please share them in the comments below.

The Raw Diet

Boy, there some serious claims out there about the health benefits of an all-raw diet. The proponents of a raw diet basically state that cooking denatures or destroys essential enzymes in the food, that all food has a kind of “life force” that is killed off by cooking. Supposedly, the enzymes in foods are necessary for proper digestion and that by destroying them in cooking, we’re making it very difficult for proper digestion to occur. Of course, I’d counter that claim with the question, “if foods are made to digest themselves, why do we have such complicated digestive machinery?”

Unfortunately for proponents of this “life force,” there is absolutely no way to verify that this exists. Of course, there’s also no way to disprove it, so it comes down to essentially a religious faith in the “life force” of your vegetation. Now with enzymes, it is supposed that cooking food kills off the enzymes and forces the body to use some of its own finite “enzyme potential”. Of course, no one has proven that this “enzyme potential” actually exists either. So there’s strike one and strike two.

To go ahead and put this horse out of its misery, humans have had control of fire for somewhere on the order of 500,000 to 1.5 million years. Yes, that’s a big spread and I’m being intentionally generous with the low end to nix the argument of first control of fire (currently accepted earliest evidence is 1.42 million years). It’s pretty easy to assume that early man figured out that cooking certain foods made them easier to digest, considering that we’ve evolved into the Earth’s dominant species.

Three tomatoes are walking down the street: papa tomato, mama tomato, and little baby tomato. Baby starts lagging behind. Papa gets angry, goes over to the baby, and squishes him…and says, ‘Ketchup’.

Does Cooking Destroy Nutrients?

The reality is that humans started cooking food because it makes food more easily digestible, rather than making it more difficult to digest. There are some exceptions, but for the most part, this is true. And the only measure of how nutritious a food is is how well the body can digest it.

For instance, cooking a starchy food increases digestibility markedly, on the order of 2-12 times, depending on the preparation method. For vegetarians, this is particularly important. Protein digestibility of legumes, grains, and seeds are all enhanced by sprouting and cooking.

Garlic is another example. It contains two compounds of relevance here, one called allicin and the other known as diallyl sulfides. While allicin content is decreased by cooking, diallyl sulfides survive or are possibly enhanced by cooking and are responsible for garlic’s blood pressure lowering capabilities.

We can also look at the tomato. Noted for its lycopene content, which is purported to decrease prostate cancer risk, people gobble up tomatoes by the truckload. Unfortunately, more lycopene is released from the tomato (or conversely, is more easily absorbed in the body) when it is cooked.

Some nutrients become more available and some are decreased or destroyed by heat. Vitamin C, for example, is highly unstable, easily leaching into cooking water or being broken down by heat, light, and air. Other water soluble vitamins, while easily leaching into water, are relatively stable under heat.

We could continue all day with examples to prove that food should be cooked or food should be raw. Either viewpoint can be proven with carefully selected data points to fit one’s bias. But as you can see, there is no cut-and-dried rule. In many cases, cooked food is easier to digest and assimilate than raw food.

Are Anti-nutrients Destroyed By Cooking?

Most vegetables contain anti-nutrients of some sort. They are the plant’s evolved defensive mechanism to keep animals from eating the parts the plant doesn’t want eaten. For example, an apple tree doesn’t want you to eat the seeds in the apple, so the seeds contain anti-nutrients, in this case, cyanide. This serves to deter predators from chowing down on the seeds, preserving the symbiotic relationship of “you eat my apple and ‘deposit’ the seeds elsewhere”.

Grains and soybeans in particular are loaded with antinutrients. Eating soy in general (other than fermented types) and improperly prepared grains are both a bad idea, so to try eating either raw is a VERY bad idea.

Cooking helps eliminate some, but not all anti-nutrients. In the soy bean, the goitrogens, phytoestrogens, and phytates are all heat stable. On the other hand, trypsin inhibitors and lectins in some foods (taro, for example) are neutralized by cooking.

Again, there’s no hard and fast rule here. The best way to manage your anti-nutrient load is to eat a wide variety of foods, which will guarantee a spectrum of vitamins and minerals, while reducing the anti-nutrient load that can come from relying on a single dietary staple.

How To Cook Your Vegetables

Depending on the cooking method and the particular food, cooking can either enhance or destroy the nutrient availability in food. High temperature cooking is likely to drastically reduce availability of most water-soluble vitamins. Boiling in particular will leach out lots of vitamins from your vegetables. On the other hand, fat-soluble vitamins do just fine with boiling.

I usually lightly steam my vegetables, about 10 minutes max, such that they are still crisp, but warm and obviously no longer raw. Sometimes with greens, I’ll do a quick boil, bringing water to a boil, then dropping kale or mustard greens in for a minute, then draining. Obviously this isn’t an optimal method for vitamin retention, so I might rethink this practice a bit, opting instead for steaming.

Now, with soups and stews, you get vitamins and minerals leaching out into the stock, but then you eat the stock. It’s a win-win of improving the digestibility of the vegetables while also getting the nutrients, with the exception of those broken down by the heat of cooking.

Fermented Vegetables

An often neglected category of vegetables is the fermented ones, such as sauerkraut and kimchi. These foods harness the power of nature to begin the digestive process. At it’s heart, fermentation allows bacteria to eat the sugars available in a food and produce acid that creates a nice sour flavor as a by-product. When it comes down to it, you’re eating bacteria farts. Then again, you drink bacterial excrement every time you enjoy red wine, whiskey, beer, or any other alcohol; it’s all part of the fermentation process.

What results is a highly nutritious, probiotic-filled product with a nice salty tang and a bit of crunch. Fermented foods are eaten the world over, being prized additions to many cuisines.

Note that the sauerkraut you find in stores is typically pasteurized, which kind of defeats the purpose since you kill off all of the bacteria, including the good ones.

I love asparagus with Hollandaise. Lemon-flavored butter…does it get better?

How I Eat My Vegetables

Since there are no real hard and fast rules about whether raw is better or cooked is better, I make sure that I get a mix of raw, cooked, and fermented vegetables in my diet. On a percentage basis, I’m probably around 40% raw, 40% cooked, and 20% fermented. I need to get more fermented vegetables into my diet as I feel that about 1/3 from each category is probably a good ratio. I have no scientific basis for that, but I think all three ways of eating vegetables have benefits.

So here’s the bulk of how I get my vegetables. I usually have a huge salad each day consisting of whatever type of lettuce I have on hand (mixed greens, green or red leaf, endive, etc) and some combination of carrots, radishes, cucumbers, green or red onions, and fresh herbs. It’s not always the same, but that’s the basics. That covers my raw intake for the most part. Sometimes I end up with a cabbage from my CSA that I’ll turn into a cole slaw of some sort.

Then, for dinner, I usually cook vegetables of some sort. I might quick boil some kale and mix it up with a carmelized onion and some tahini-lemon sauce (1/4 c tahini, 1/4 c lemon juice, 2 cloves minced garlic, blended). Or I might steam some broccoli or asparagus. Add in some cooked starch from the sweet potatoes I eat on a regular basis to keep my carb intake up and that’s the majority of my cooked veggie intake.

And finally, I try to keep a jar of sauerkraut around to get my fermented vegetables. I usually eat a bowl of this before tucking into my salad. Unfortunately, my last attempt was a bust and I ended up with salty, soggy cabbage instead of kraut. Oh well, that’s the nature of the beast.

One Last Thing About Nutrient Availability

Don’t forget that fat helps your body absorb the vitamins and minerals in your vegetables. A dry salad or a salad dressed with something that doesn’t contain any oil is less beneficial than a salad with olive oil on it, not to mention much less tasty.

I think the bottom line is to consume a variety of vegetables as they are in season, prepared in a variety of ways. From salads to soups, cold to hot side dishes, all promote your health in various ways. In the end, nutrient loss from cooking is a bit overblown, only amounting to 10-25% of most vitamins and virtually nothing in minerals. So eat your vegetables…cooked, raw, fermented. Don’t get paralyzed by concerns over vitamins.

For a lot more reading on this issue than I could hope to cover here, check out Beyond Veg.

How do you eat most of your vegetables?

So use this guide as a way to become “aware” of what may be happening in your lifestyle quest to be lean and healthy, and then take the positive steps to make sure you don’t fall off (and get run over) the diet wagon ever again.

Reason #1: You are looking for a quick fix

Don't believe everything you read in advertising....if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is!

It’s advertised everywhere with slogans to let you know how quickly you can lose weight. People spend money on quick fix solutions year after year, and yet they never can get lasting results. Funny (in a sad way) how all these programs/ books/ supplement companies will also never tell you how many people also gain all the weight right back (as it is a high %).

Remember that ads are created by people who “specialize” in getting you to part with your money….so of course the claims will be exaggerated (or not even true in some cases) just to make a quick buck. If people stopped buying into these gimmicks…guess what would happen? People would stop writing new fad diet books and promoting quick weight loss supplements! If we want all these quick fix salespeople to go away, we just have to stop buying into them.

Reason #2: You try for perfection and/or make it too complicated

If your diet or fitness plan needs an engineering degree to figure out, then maybe it's time for something a bit more simple.

Most diets out there probably will work, but how easy are they to really follow for a “lifetime” of results?

This is the modern flaw with most all weight loss approaches out there, making them overly complicated for the real people who have jobs, kids, family and other responsibilities. You will see Hollywood celebrities promoting these diets….yet with all their free time, access to personal trainers and private chefs, look at how many of them just gain the weight right back!

The same can be said for your fitness/workout program. Is it requiring charts and 30 different exercises every workout? Is it something that you could easily do on the road traveling without access to your normal gym? It doesn’t have to be that complicated, it just needs to have the right exercises done at the right intensity (mainly full body compound movements).

The old rule of 80/20 always comes into play here, stick with the 20% of your eating/fitness and eating that yield 80% of your results and you will be in great shape for life. More is not always better, and always trying to be perfect (all or nothing) is usually the reason people abandon their weight loss efforts after a minor setback (which will happen in life).

Mark over at MDA also has the same mindset towards living a healthy lifestyle…“an overall 80% conformity with the 10 Primal Blueprint rules will yield a solidly healthy result”. So stop beating yourself up if you are not 100% all the time, strive for doing your best daily and then repeat every day.

Reason #3: You think you are being deprived of something

Pizza is something I will probably never give up....yet it is not also something I eat daily.

Here’s your list of approved foods, you can only eat these snacks, you can never have these foods…..sound familiar with any diet approach? Of course we want people to eat healthy and you really do have to avoid certain foods if you want results….but if you are constantly craving or wanting a piece of pizza (my favorite “bad” food), and your diet says to never have pizza….how long do you think it will be before you cave in and eat a large pie in front of the tv? What are the chances that after that binge you will go back to the restrictive diet plan again (not high I’ll tell you)?

So while you aim to eat the right healthy foods, you can not have a deep sense of being deprived of something…otherwise you will just drop your eating plan and binge. So have certain days where you allow yourself foods that you really enjoy. Remember that this is not about eating them every single day, but say on a weekend night you allow yourself to enjoy some foods.

As you progress in your lifestyle of healthy eating, your food tastes and desires will also change. So the desserts you used to crave, you come to terms with on your own journey and no longer want them. There is no “conflict” in taking them out of your lifestyle anymore (like with a strict diet plan) but now you just “drop” them on your own….and that is the only way to do it.

Reason #4: The dangers are not real enough for you

You wouldn't chug directly from this bottle....yet many of us may be sipping from it daily and not know it until it is too late!

You wouldn’t drink straight bleach or rat poison, right? We know it would probably make us very sick or kill us quickly. But each day we may be making choices that slowly lead us down a road of ill-health and increase our chances for most all diseases such as heart disease, cancers, and more. This is really nothing new of course, as the saying goes “if you throw a frog into a boiling pot of water it will jump right out….but put it in a cold pot and slowly boil, it will stay in and die”.

We all know that we should eat healthier, just ask anyone shoving a donut or hot dog down and they will nod in agreement and laugh about it with you. We all know the risks, yet if it is not an immediate danger no one really takes it seriously enough. Most doctors will say you should “eat better and exercise more” yet many patients will never take that into action. When do people take things seriously? How about when the danger is present and real, such as your doctor saying “if you don’t lose 20lbs you will be dead in a year”.

So it’s time to start to realize that the long term diseases are something to worry about and try and prevent. Want a reality slap, go visit people who are dealing with diabetes, cancers, or some other diseases on a daily basis. Maybe that will make it real enough for you. Until we can all see the real dangers (as most stuff will not kill us right now….but what about 5 years down the road?) of what we eat/do….we can not be serious enough to stick with a healthy lifestyle. Once you realize the long term positive benefits of what and why you eat, you will stick with it for a lifetime.

Reason #5: You use food/exercise as a way to escape real issues

Food is just a temporary escape...not a long term solution to your happiness.

Have a bad day at work? Having relationship problems? Experiencing low self esteem or self doubt? Well opening up a quart of Ben and Jerry may help you to calm down for the moment and the pain go away, but it’s not solving the root of the problem. The pain will return, the issue is still there. Using food (usually ones high in sugar that give off a endorphin rush such as ice cream and desserts) as an escape is dangerous! The same can also be said for people who workout in a gym for hours a day (just because they have nothing else going on or don’t want to go home to face issues). Don’t just kill time with a workout to avoid something else. This is also why many may turn to alcohol and drugs, to just “numb” themselves to issues they may be avoiding in life….and why people also stay addicted in order to not face the source of the pain (inside).

Take time out to actually find the root cause of your unhappiness in life. Find ways in which to go face to face and conquer your doubts or fears, don’t ignore them….as they never go away until you see them for what they are, and then overcome/detach from them.

The Solutions:

• Don’t go for quick fixes….focus on long term solutions (time will pass quickly enough…as look where you were 6 months ago)

• You don’t have to be perfect to get good results, so don’t beat yourself up for going out and eating things you know you shouldn’t have. Just focus on today and what you need to do….the past is gone, more forward (but don’t give up altogether).

• Keep your approach to eating/fitness simple and fun. Don’t look at is as a complicated task, or you will just resent and eventually give it up. Try intermittent fasting as a simple way to eat and lose weight.

• Focus on living a healthy life till you are 99 (or something like that). Diseases are not natural…and are something we can help to prevent. With that mentality make the right food choices for a long and healthy life. Then you won’t deprive yourself of any foods…as you choose the ones you want for the right reasons now (and no one else is taking them away from you).

• You can be happy right now, it’s all in your head. But it’s something you need to face head on….not avoid and cover up with foods, exercise or other distractions. Once you can master your own happiness, then it’s yours to have every day. Use these posts to help you out: How to be Happy Right Now and How to Win the Mental Battle.

• Live to enjoy life…..eat to enjoy good foods….keep things simple and repeat daily.

Lots of us on the ‘net talk about eating real foods, but sea vegetables are more often than not left hanging. I bet most people have only experienced sea vegetables as part of their sushi and then not as the main star, but only as the wrapper. And that’s very unfortunate because these little creatures (algae exists somewhere between the plant world and the animal world) contain an unbelievable amount of nutrition with no hit to your waistline.

Seriously, they are pretty much carb-free, fat-free, and calorie-free with lots of fiber. If you count anything in your diet (which I hope you don’t actually have to do), sea vegetables won’t throw it off.

When you think of sea vegetables, you probably think of Asian cuisine. But virtually every culture that lives near water has been using sea vegetables for thousands of years. It’s definitely a primal dietary addition.

The Types Of Sea Vegetables

Finding sea vegetables in a normal grocery store is likely impossible, though you might check the health foods section. But I’ve noticed several different types of sea vegetables at my local Whole Foods. These marketing terms are mainly broad categories, rather than specific species.

• Alaria - A black or dark green seaweed
• Agar-agar - Seaweed-derived gelatin
• Arame - Dark black and mild in flavor
• Dulse - A cold-water red algae common in Iceland
• Kelp - Large brown seaweeds
• Kombu - A specific class of edible kelp
• Nori - Dried sheets of red algae
• Sea Lettuce - Leafy and dark green
• Wakame - A bit stronger flavor and tougher texture than most

As you can see, there are quite a few options to get your sea vegetable fix, with each having its own particular uses. But first…

Why Should You Be Eating Sea Vegetables

Since we’re dealing with potentially thousands of different species, it’s impossible to lay out the different nutrient profiles of each. So I’m just going to go from a high level view of “sea vegetables”. Suffice it to say that all are a rich source of vitamins and minerals. In fact, they are one of the richest sources of several vitamins and minerals and one of the most complete nutritional sources in the food world.

• Iodine - Very important for proper thyroid function and one mineral that many of us healthy folk that don’t use iodized salt don’t get enough of.
• Vitamin K1 - Sea vegetables are a pretty good source of this vitamin. While vitamin K2 is the more important form, both forms of the vitamin are necessary.
• Vitamin B12 - The only known non-animal source of vitamin B12.
• Magnesium - Important for bone density and to regulate muscular relaxation.
• Fucans - These substances are sulfated polysaccharides, a class of compounds that have been shown to inhibit tumor metastatis (spreading to other parts of the body) and to be potent antivirals.
• Alginic acid - This gum severely limits the body from absorbing radioactive strontium (by 50-80%). Radioactive strontium can lead to bone diseases, including bone cancer.
• Near perfect mineral match to human blood - Seaweed contains every mineral that is found in the human body, in nearly perfect proportions to human blood.

How To Use Sea Vegetables

With so many varieties of sea vegetables to choose from, there are naturally any number of ways to use them. Here are a few that I’ve used or read about.

• Soup/stew - Add kombu or alaria near the end of cooking to increase the mineral content of the soup. A couple strips chopped is all that’s needed as it grows several times it’s size when hydrated. They do not need to be soaked.
• Salad - Add soaked and chopped wakame (10-15 minutes) to a green salad. Sea lettuce (wherever you get that) can be used in place of or in addition to regular leafy greens.
• Stir Fry - Arame works really well to add to your stir fries, especially when cooked up with something brightly colored to contrast its blackness. Carrots, green beans, red peppers…all offer a visually appealing contrast. Soak for about five minutes, then add to your dish.
• Beans - For the bean eaters, kombu helps them cook faster and improves digestibility.
• Nori Rolls - Toast a sheet of nori over a hot burner. Cut into 3″ strips, then add your favorite meat and vegetables (don’t go overboard) and roll into a cone shape for easy transportability. If you eat rice, you can wrap nori around steamed rice balls.
• Dulse - Apparently this is a great, “salty” snack right out of the bag.

And of course don’t forget that you can always use the soaking water in your cooking to retain the few minerals that soak out and to add more flavor. In my experience, sea vegetables aren’t going to ruin a dish with their taste, since what I’ve had has all been pretty mild.

The Dangers Of Sea Vegetables

As with pretty much everything that you put in your mouth, there are benefits and drawbacks. As we saw above, the benefits of sea vegetables are their incredible nutrient profile, especially their mineral content. Well, that’s also the drawback because they have the ability to absorb all kinds of heavy metals from the ocean, particularly:

• Arsenic - Hijiki is another type of sea vegetable, which is not recommended to be consumed due to a high content of arsenic. This has not been shown to be a major problem with other types of sea vegetables.
• Mercury
• Lead
• Cadmium

These dangers can be reduced or eliminated by purchasing “certified organic sea vegetables”. Most reputable companies have test results that are far below accepted safe standards. Fortunately however, there are no known allergies to sea vegetables, so pretty much everyone is safe to incorporate them into the diet.

Do you use sea vegetables and, if so, how?

I’ve been stockpiling tons of articles, studies, etc in my Google Reader and never getting a chance to write about them. So I was glancing through them today and got to thinking about how it all ties together. I mean, it’s great to know that some isolated compound in broccoli fights cancer, but how do we incorporate all of the various findings into a coherent eating plan that doesn’t consist of “eat what you’re eating now and add some broccoli”?

What Is Paleo/Primal?

I think most of us know the answer to that, but for the newcomers, I want to give a brief overview of the Paleo/Primal philosophy, or at least my particular interpretation of it. The basic rule of thumb that I use to guide my eating is, as I wrote about in my Nutrition 101 post, “Eat Real Food”. That means unprocessed fresh foods…meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, tubers, eaten raw, cooked, or fermented.

My own philosophy is basically a melding of Dr. Loren Cordain’s “The Paleo Diet” and Weston A. Price’s research. While “The Paleo Diet” shuns all dairy and grains, Dr. Weston A. Price did tons of research on traditional cultures who were not ridden with the diseases of civilization and found markedly diverse diets. Some included fresh raw milk. Some included grains, though grains were prepared far differently than modern processing techniques. And grains were definitely not the base of most healthy diets, especially prior to about 10,000 years ago.

Basically, we can take a lot of cues from our Paleolithic ancestors and mix in a bit of the food knowledge of pre-Industrial cultures and come up with a diet that protects against all kinds of diseases. Though actually, now that I write that, I have to wonder if “protects against disease” is truly the right way to describe a dietary pattern. Perhaps “doesn’t cause disease” is a more apt description since disease is not a normal human trait. From there, we could say that the Western dietary pattern causes disease, while diets based on real foods don’t.

So now let’s look at some common Paleo/Primal foods and how they can protect against disease.

Eggs Are Good For You

Eggs have been getting some good press in the past few years after spending a few decades being demonized for being high in cholesterol. But there are still far too many people throwing away the best part of the egg, the yolk. Now, look at this: Eggs may reduce blood pressure

Researchers in Canada are reporting evidence that eggs — often frowned upon for their high cholesterol content — may reduce another heart disease risk factor — high blood pressure.

Fish And Grass-Fed Meats

A Primal eating plan includes lots of fatty fish, grass-fed meats, pastured poultry and eggs. These are the foods that sustained humans throughout history. And these foods, especially fish, all contain good ratios of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids. This omega-6/omega-3 ratio is one of the most important parts of your diet, yet it’s not really something you need to be worried about if you’re eating real foods. More on that in a second…first, Omega fatty acid balance can alter immunity and gene expression

…found that many key signaling genes that promote inflammation were markedly reduced compared to a normal diet, including a signaling gene for a protein called PI3K, a critical early step in autoimmune and allergic inflammation responses.

So why do you not need to worry about it? Because the key is the ratio, not the absolute intake. It’s been suggested that a 2:1 omega-6:omega-3 ratio is optimal. But if you’re not eating too many omega-6 fats, from sources like vegetable oils and grains, you won’t need to take mega-doses of omega-3s to balance it out. If you’re interested, there are literally dozens of modern day disorders that omega-3s (in the form of fish oil supplements in most studies) fight against. Here’s a good start.

Another recent study showed that eating fish may prevent memory loss and stroke in old age:

The study found that people who ate broiled or baked tuna and other fish high in omega-3 fatty acids (called DHA and EPA) three times or more per week had a nearly 26 percent lower risk of having the silent brain lesions that can cause dementia and stroke compared to people who did not eat fish regularly. Eating just one serving of this type of fish per week led to a 13 percent lower risk. The study also found people who regularly ate these types of fish had fewer changes in the white matter in their brains.

Fewer Carbs Means Fewer Health Problems

Diets built around real foods like meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and tubers tend to be significantly lower in carbs than what the average person is eating. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way, it’s just how things tend to work out when dealing with carb sources that are quite bulky compared to sugar and grains. Between the protein and fat (and their hormonal effects on appetite) and the bulk of the carbohydrates, low-carb diets are exceptionally satiating.

One thing that’s been proven time and again is that a low-carb diet helps ward off Type II Diabetes, which is good news because diabetes and Alzheimer’s go hand-in-hand:

Diabetics have a significantly greater risk of dementia, both Alzheimer’s disease — the most common form of dementia — and other dementia, reveals important new data from an ongoing study of twins. The risk of dementia is especially strong if the onset of diabetes occurs in middle age, according to the study.

Obesity brings with it insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, and often a symptom known as Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), which is an excellent marker for all kinds of metabolic issues and diseases. To bring it full circle, obese low-carb dieters burn more liver fat than people simply on a low-calorie diet.

The low-carbohydrate dieters, however, got only 20 percent of their glucose from glycogen. Instead of dipping into their reserve of glycogen, these subjects burned liver fat for energy.

Reducing Sugar Intake

As you know, I’m not a fan of much in the way of sugar intake. Too many sweets, including artificial sweeteners, are definitely not a good idea. That said, I do think some honey is alright here and there.

Here’s the key to a Real Foods way of eating. You are avoiding processed foods, which means, your overall sugar intake, and your fructose intake will be lower. No high-fructose corn syrup sweetened sodas or cakes. No sugary cookies. Fructose in particular may be problematic for losing weight.

Fructose, glucose and sucrose, which is a mixture of fructose and glucose, are all forms of sugar but are metabolized differently. “All three can be made into triglycerides, a form of body fat; however, once you start the process of fat synthesis from fructose, it’s hard to slow it down,” she said.

It Protects Your Brain

Would you believe that sugar and processed carbs can actually destroy your ability to regulate how much you eat? Appetite regulating cells are actually destroyed by too much sugar in the blood.

Dr Andrews found that appetite-suppressing cells are attacked by free radicals after eating and said the degeneration is more significant following meals rich in carbohydrates and sugars. “The more carbs and sugars you eat, the more your appetite-control cells are damaged, and potentially you consume more,” Dr Andrews said. Dr Andrews said the attack on appetite suppressing cells creates a cellular imbalance between our need to eat and the message to the brain to stop eating.

Odds And Ends Vitamins And Minerals

Finally, here are a few other articles I’ve come across that all support giving up the processed foods in favor of a Primal way of life.
Broccoli Compound Targets Key Enzyme In Late-stage Cancer:

An anti-cancer compound found in broccoli and cabbage works by lowering the activity of an enzyme associated with rapidly advancing breast cancer,

Vitamin B12 May Protect The Brain In Old Age:

The study found that people who had higher vitamin B12 levels were six times less likely to experience brain shrinkage compared with those who had lower levels of the vitamin in their blood. None of the people in the study had vitamin B12 deficiency.

And where is B12 found? “Vitamin B12, a nutrient found in meat, fish and milk…” Interesting that the foods the body is meant to consume are also the same ones that keep us healthy. Who would’ve thought that it would work out as such?

The End Result…

So what’s the real takeaway from all of this? Frankly it’s that if you’re eating real foods, the foods that form the basis of the Paleolithic/WAPF/Primal dietary patterns, you don’t have much need to worry yourself over individual vitamins or really even sit down and count out your grams of carbs, fat, and protein. These things just tend to work themselves out.

I find that when I stick to real food, I tend to normalize at 20-25% carbs, about 20% protein, and the rest fat. I know about what I need to fuel my workouts and might steer towards more fruit and sweet potatoes depending on what I’ve been doing. But I don’t count anything. I don’t worry about RDAs of vitamin B, C, D, E, and K (or any of the others that I didn’t name). I eat when I’m hungry and what I’m hungry for, until I’m full. Then I stop.

It always makes me laugh when science discovers the newest “superfood”. I get asked questions like “Do you eat blueberries for their antioxidants?” Well, I do eat blueberries, but not really specifically for the antioxidants. I eat them because they taste quite amazing coated in coconut milk. That they carry with them a load of nutrition is a benefit.

Frankly where modern nutritional “wisdom” went off the rails is when it turned to focusing on nutrients instead of foods. The prehistoric you didn’t know or care about zinc, vitamin A, or iron. All s/he knew was, “When I eat this, I feel good. When I eat that, I feel bad.” While I find it interesting to know that specific foods have specific qualities, I kind of figure that if I’m eating a diet that keeps my blood sugar and insulin levels in check, I’m 98% of the way there. When I walk through the market, I don’t think “Oh, I should get some asparagus for this benefit and some cabbage for that benefit.”

In the end, we all just need to go back to the basics. Eat Real Food! Do that and you can forget worrying about the cardiovascular protection of omega-3s or how many egg yolks you should eat to lower your blood pressure.

There you go…a bit of science and a bit of logic, all in one day. Thoughts?

• If your doctor (or anyone you are getting advice from) is overweight, why do you take his advice on what to eat?

• If you can tell me about what happened last night on “Survivor”, then you have no excuses of why you have no time to go exercise.

• If it did not exist 100…1000….10000 years ago, you probably shouldn’t be eating it. If it will still be around in another 1000 years “as-is on a shelf” (preserved), you definitely don’t want to eat it.

• Stop focusing on “how many calories did I burn” with exercise. Focus on “what hormonal response am I giving my body for the next 24-48 hours?” (to burn fat, or waste muscle?)

• Food made by nature is good. Food made by man is bad. Man’s downfall in health could be thinking he could outsmart what nature had intended for us to eat in the first place.

• 2 shorter but more intense workouts divided up in a day is more effective for releasing fat (GH pulses) than just one big long workout.

• Putting sugar into your body is saying to yourself “I don’t feel like burning fat for the next 3 hours” (with the insulin response and shutdown of fat releasing hormones)

• Getting fit/lean isn’t rocket science (as some people with the best physiques are not always the sharpest knife in the drawer), just many don’t stick with it or keep motivated. Stop thinking you need something complicated, the biggest thing you need is just simple consistency.

• The greatest mental flaw for modern society is not realizing people are overweight and sick because of their deviation from eating and living in a more natural way (as our bodies were designed for).

• Diets don’t work, only lifestyle changes. So learn how to break free from diet books and eat for life!

• There is no real failure…there is no real success….only actions and results. Stop judging yourself and just do what you know you need to do. As the worst action, is taking none at all.

• Buy a set of good resistance bands to have with you if you travel or are busy at home. There is always time to use those for a full body workout. (plus pushups can be done with no equipment needed!)

• Muscles seem to grow the most in 24-48 hrs after a workout, so stop thinking you need expensive post workout drinks to build muscle (and focus on eating right on the other days as well!).

• Lead by example with your food and lifestyle choices, others will follow (no need to preach to or force them).

• It’s more important than ever to teach younger people the truth about how (and why) to eat and move, otherwise our kids will keep getting fatter and sicker by the generations (and then old age in a couple generations may be someone living past 40!).

• Challenge yourself to live life fuller…get out of comfort routines….unplug your TV for a month (I just put mine in the closet)….see what happens.

• Don’t have a vision of you 30lbs lighter in 30 days, have a vision of you healthy and lean in 1, 10, 25 years…that will keep you on track for life (as I can’t tell you how many people are always trying repeatedly to lose the same 15+ lbs they seem to lose/regain year after year).

• Tell your doctor everything you do to get healthy, let he/she see your results and maybe he/she will also start to spread the good word. If the medical system is broken, it’s up to us to help fix it from the inside out.

• This year I challenge you to learn a new sport or hobby (taking dancing lessons, rock climbing, surfing….whatever you enjoy).

• It’s a simple rule…but only buy healthy real foods you should be eating at the grocery store. That way if you are ever feeling “weak” you won’t have anything self destructive around the house within easy arm’s reach.

• Don’t spend your whole life inside a gym, you have one life to live….so go experience it. Why spin a bike and go nowhere when you could be going through the mountains?

• Want to save gas money and get fitter? Buy a push mower and a rake, sell the gas powered mower and leaf blower. Plus your neighbors may thank you for the reduction in “noise pollution”.

• Perfection is an illusion, it means there is some final destination to be achieved (and disappointment to be had if you don’t get there). Strive for living daily instead, not trying to achieve a goal that your happiness is depending on. Your happiness is now.

• Drop the word “cardio” and change it to “Lifestyle activity” (or lifestyle cardio) doing things you love to do outdoors and with others.

• While science is looking for a “cure”, the rest of us should be living with “prevention” (and not expecting for a magic pill to bail us out, it’s our responsibility to stay in good health…not your doctors).

• Throw out the scale, it’s causing more problems than it solves. You don’t know what the magic number should be anyways, so stop obsessing over it. A mirror and your clothes will tell you what is going on with your body composition.

• Not exercising for a day does not give you the right to just throw your healthy eating lifestyle out the window too.

• More damage is done by people “falling off” a diet wagon than those that never diet (rebound binge eating and negative self image).

• Eat Real Food….it can’t get an simpler than that! (and no need to count calories either)

• Do more with less and become an expert in making real foods taste great (with real spices/ingredients). Get a cookbook if you need ideas and then experiment (like The Paleo Cookbook or the  Urban Kitchen Cookbook).

• Save more money and eat out less. Still want company?  Then have nights of cooking for guests and alternate the locations (and who cooks).

• I like driving past a cemetery and saying “not there yet”…helps to keep things in life in perspective and make me realize anything is possible today…if I just go do it.

• Teach your kids the art of having fun in what they do to the best of their ability, not the lesson of winning  just for the sake of not losing.

• I won’t cry if Coke or General Mills goes out of business….sorry I just won’t. If we are to get healthier as a civilization, those types of businesses probably need to fail….and better ones (especially more smaller owned/local) need to take their place (such as farmers, real-healthy foods).

• The planet does not need any saving from us….it’s not going anywhere in the next few million years or so. We need saving from our own worst enemy, ourselves. Just enjoying living and eating is not complicated….it’s everything else we think we need to do along the way that messes it all up.

So if you have any of your own 1-2 liners…please share in the comments below.

Excuses need to go, pure and simple. Those we call “successful” don’t use them, so why do we think it is ok if we do? Sometimes it’s our outlook that is the real problem, not anything else. So in the steps to find our own inner peace and success, take these words out of your own vocabulary and then you will be able to help others do the same.

#1 - Get rid of: “It must be because I am getting old”

Do you call this a natural part of "getting old"? I certainly do not...and Jack Lalanne might agree.

Recently I had a friend of mine who was complaining about his knee pain at 40 as he popped 6 Advil and I jokingly said “Oh you are getting old”. Then I stopped myself and thought “Wait a minute, that is BS….it’s not age, it’s the fact that his body is not in balance for optimal health”. So if you find yourself saying the “aches and pains” are just a natural part of getting old, time to stop and realize that it is NOT natural. There is nothing natural about increased inflammation and joint pain. There is nothing natural about someone’s memory going as they get old. There is nothing natural about sexual impotence in your 40s. These are all signs that the body isn’t working correctly and steps need to be taken. But first we need to stop thinking that getting older means we have to experience these problems. There are many people who are still sharp as a tack, energetic and have no need for pain killers in their later years. As an old saying goes “It’s ok to get older….just don’t age in the process”.

Instead say: “My body must be out of whack, time to get it back in tune to my optimal state of health”

#2 - Get rid of: “There’s a bug going around”

This will always be around you...so better get your immune system working right, or you are the one to blame.

We’ve all heard this one in one place or another (work, school, etc). If people get sick, well it must be the virus and have nothing to do with our built in defense mechanisms otherwise known as an immune system. Guess I’ll just go get a shot or antibiotics to kill off the bad bug and get on with life. It is sad the general public thinks like that, but it does. How about instead of saying “it must be something going around” that instead we think “my immune system must be compromised, time to get it back to optimal function”. Stop blaming some virus for what may be things in your life (wrong foods, negative lifestyle habits) bringing down your natural defenses. The bugs will always be out there, and there will be new ones every year threatening us. Either you have the best defense possible or you are just going to allow yourself to be taken advantage of. Don’t blame the bug, time to blame yourself and your daily actions.

Instead say: “My immune system must be compromised, time to take steps to strengthen it”

#3 - Get rid of: “I’m this way because of my genes”

Meet idential 24yr twins Otto and Ewald. One trained for distance events, the other for power. Think genes are still to blame for putting on muscle? Stop using the "hardgainer" excuse for not doing the right things in the first place.

I would like to thank most of modern medicine for this cop out. With billions of dollars being spent and thousands of man hours invested by people with more degrees than I can count, our solution to most diseases….is….”Oh, it’s just in your genetics”. Heaven forbid we take some sort of preventive lifestyle to keep our genes from going in the wrong direction. People need to realize the power that our eating and lifestyle have on our genetic expression. If you have 2 twins, and one gets cancer…does that mean the other has to as well? No of course not, as each can be living 2 different lives with different hormonal messengers from their overall lifestyle. We all have the genetic capability for cancer, it’s just whether or not we tell our body to switch them on or not that we can control of every day.

Instead say: “I have control over my genetic expression and will take a preventative lifestyle approach”

#4 - Get rid of: “Yeah I wish things were different, but….”

Don't call other people lucky for getting to a place you want to be, as they are no more special than you other than they took steps to make it happen. No excuses, just action.

This could be with you work/job, hours spent with other commitments, how much time you spend with your kids, how you eat and where you get it, how much time to spend outdoors or exercising. I don’t care what your excuses are…they are just excuses. If you don’t like something….change it or quit whining about it. Anyone can change their job, anyone can move to a different state, anyone can stop doing so much inorder to spend more time with family, anyone can make time for simple exercise, anyone can find ways to eat healthier. Dump the excuses and just take action to make a change now. It doesn’t have to be perfect all the time, happen all overnight, or in a week…but just start making the right changes knowing where you want to be in a month, 6 months or year. Otherwise you will be in the same spot one year from now complaining about the same things and making the same excuses. If you hear someone else say this, then encourage them to do something about it today….or go find someone else to whine to. There’s a difference between encouragement and useless wasted energy. I challenge you to know what you want to do and make it happen. I know you can….but the question becomes do you know you can too? If you say “yes” then there is nothing to stop you.

Instead say: “I can and will make changes to better my life…starting right now”

#5 - Get rid of: “But my doctor says I need to….”

If your medical professional is overweight and on meds, why do you think they would be a good source of info for health? Maybe they need to change themselves first before they start telling others what to do.

As much as doctors get a lot of schooling and are very smart people when it comes to medical terminology, does that mean they always know what is best for proper lifestyle approaches to getting and staying healthy? Sadly the case may be “not quite”. Your full dependency on doctors to dictate your health is a dangerous move, especially when there are those that may be misinformed about correct eating habits and rely more on pharmaceutical solutions for everything. This is not to say all doctors are like this, but people need to stop farming out all decisions to them. I can’t tell you how many people I talk to that use that line, when I just want people to question everything he/she has to say and then get the right answer for yourself. Become a team working together, not just believing 100% of what he/she says because they have a certain piece of paper on the wall. You can partner up with your doctor, but don’t let them take over 100% control over everything you do…that is like giving random teenagers the keys to your car and hoping it comes back in one piece!

Instead say: “I am going to do my own research and find out what is best for my health, and then partner up with my doctor”

So to sum up:

• There is no more “getting old”, just whether you are breaking down your body quicker than it can repair itself. Take some lessons from Jack Lalanne as he is healthier than most people half his age!

• There are no more viruses making you sick, just your immune system being compromised from your lifestyle choices. So work on strengthening your immune system the only ways we know how.

• Your genes are not in charge, as your lifestyle choices daily are what effect your genetic expression. A good start is following the #1 rule of nutrition, eating real foods.

• If you want to make a change, take the steps to do something about it now….and quit the complaining. Learn the simple secret in how to get anything you want in life and then the world is yours.

• While your doctor may be a consultant in taking care of  “Yourself Inc.”, you need to make all the educated decisions in the end. For example….does your doctor really know the truth about meat, fat and heart disease?

In round one a couple months ago, butter wholloped margarine, bacon took down turkey bacon, and eggs KOed Egg Beaters. Today, I want to look at three more foods that have been replaced by seemingly healthy industrial alternatives and are far too prevalent in our world.

Cream vs. Non-Dairy Creamer

I’m a big fan of coffee…dark roast and black as can be. I try not to drink it too often, but as a vice, I think it ranks as pretty harmless in small quantities. Lots of people don’t share my love of black coffee, however, prefering a little something to color their coffee brown (if they’d start with good coffee though, they might change their tune). And few people use cream, opting instead for “non-dairy creamer”. Let’s see how these non-dairy alternatives measure up to the real deal.

Since the use of cream is pretty much verboten in our society, I’m going to consider it the challenger. So what is cream? Simple…it’s the butterfat layer that comes with real milk. That’s it…just butterfat. It’s about 64% saturated fat (not something I have an issue with of course) and has about 6g of fat per tablespoon, an amount I’d assume is sufficient for a mug of coffee.

Now what about the leader of the pack when it comes to flavoring coffee? Let’s look at the ingredient list for Coffee Mate Original, a variety of non-dairy creamer found in many office breakrooms and more than a couple household kitchens.

“Corn syrup solids, Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (coconut, palm kernel or hydrogenated soybean), sodium caseinate (a milk derivative but not a source of lactose), Dipotassium phosphate, mono- and digycerides, artificial flavor and annatto color.”

Okay, so we start off with corn syrup solids, which is corn syrup liquid dehydrated of most of its water. Next up is our good buddy, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, aka trans fats. Here’s the part that boggles my mind though. Coconut and palm kernal oils are both highly saturated, making them already stable at room temperature. Why is there a need to hydrogenate these oils?

We then have sodium casienate, which is marked as a milk derivative. Can someone please explain how a product with a milk derivative is “non-dairy”? Regardless, it’s added to give a thicker creamier texture to the aforementioned sugar and trans fats. The dipotassium phosphate (or phosporic acid) and mono- and diglycerides basically serve to improve mouth feel, keeping ingredients that don’t want to go to together, together. The only ingredient in that list that I approve of is “annatto color”. It comes from the annatto seed, a darn tasty spice also used for its bright red color.

Essentially, when you choose to put Coffee Mate (rest assured that all of their flavors contain similar ingredients) in your coffee, you are basically pouring in sweetened trans fats. No matter what your thoughts are of saturated fats, you absolutely cannot believe that trans fat-laced corn syrup is a better alternative. If you can actually make that argument, please do so in the comments…I’d love to see this.

The funny part is that Nestle bills Coffee Mate with the tagline “Stir it up with coffee’s Perfect Mate.” Now, I know of some good pairs, such as peanut butter and jelly, pizza and beer, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. I’ve never considered “coffee and pseudo-food” to be on that list.

Your best option: Ditch the Coffee Mate and go with full-fat cream or coconut milk if you can’t stomach black coffee.

Oil and Vinegar vs. Fat-free Italian Dressing

Here’s one that really gets me in a twist. When you walk through the salad dressing aisle or through the dressing section of any salad bar, what do you see? Inevitably, there are a few fat-free dressings, usually fat-free ranch (already covered by our buddy Mark Sisson here) and fat-free Italian. As bad as fat-free ranch is, taking a cream-based dressing and somehow making it fat-free, fat-free Italian really confuses me.

Real Italian dressing is olive oil, vinegar, perhaps a few herbs, and salt and pepper. Pretty simple and definitely made of stuff that’s good for you and that you can easily envision in its natural state. We all know that olive oil is a healthy oil and the rest of the ingredients don’t have any real drawbacks. The best part is that you can tailor this dressing to your own liking.

And now, I present to you Kraft Fat-Free Italian:

water, vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, salt, contains less than 2% of parmesan cheese (part-skim milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes), garlic, onion juice, whey, phosphoric acid, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate and calcium disodium edta as preservatives, yeast extract, spice, red bell peppers, lemon juice concentrate, dried garlic, buttermilk, caramel color, sodium phosphate, enzymes, oleoresin paprika

Other than “vinegar” and “salt,” I don’t see anything remotely resembling real Italian dressing in that list. It’s basically flavored, sweetened water with a bunch of preservatives. It may be low-calorie, but it neither tastes like, nor is health-promoting like, real Italian dressing. Next time you’re at a salad bar, pick the spoon up out of the fat-free Italian dressing and notice how sludgy it is. Then put it down and grab the tiny bottle of oil and vinegar hidden somewhere in the area.

Your best option: 2 parts olive oil, 1 part vinegar (such as balsamic or red wine), a handful of fresh herbs, and a few cracks from your pepper mill.

A Grass-Fed Hamburger Vs. The Boca Burger

Finally, our top match-up, a real hamburger versus a veggie burger. Now when I make a burger in my kitchen, it’s made of grass-fed ground beef, an egg (to help hold things together), and some combination of onions, garlic, cilantro, cumin, or various other herbs and spices. I’d imagine most homemade hamburgers are similar.

Or, I could have delicious vegetarian option from Boca, makers of various meat alternatives, like Boca Burgers, Boca Breakfast Sausage, and Boca Chik’n. How about this Boca Burger on your plate?

water, soy protein concentrate, reduced fat cheddar cheese (pasteurized part-skim milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes, annatto (color), vitamin a palmitate), wheat gluten, corn oil, contains less than 2% of methylcellulose, hydrolyzed corn protein, wheat gluten and soy protein, salt, caramel color, cheese powder (cheddar cheese, [milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes], cream, salt, sodium phosphate, lactic acid), dried onions, yeast extract, natural flavor (non-meat), sesame oil, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate. browned in corn oil. contains: soy, milk, wheat, sesame.

Seriously? Do people just not care about what they eat or do they actually look at these ingredient labels and think, “Yeah, that’s better than meat”? We have soy, which isn’t the health food it’s made out to be. We have wheat gluten, destroying intestinal linings since 10,000 BC. We then have some emulsifiers, a bit of cheese powder, which is obviously nothing like real cheese, and natural flavor (*cough* MSG *cough*). And don’t forget the low-fat cheese, another highly processed food since milk is not naturally low in fat.

Okay, so here’s me being blunt about these meatless alternatives. I really have no problem with you not eating meat, if that’s what you choose. However, if you really don’t want to eat meat, stop trying to replace it with fake alternatives. If you’re not going to eat meat or if you’re going to talk about how meat is unnecessary in the human diet, trying to replicate the taste is only undermining your argument. Sure, vegetarians can definitely put together a healthy, meatless diet with a good bit of care and focus on not consuming too many grains. One thing is for sure though…a healthy vegetarian diet will never include fake foods like this one.

Your best option: Eat grass-fed meat; avoid fake alternatives no matter how pretty the packaging.

Once Again, The Winner Is Clear

Does anyone vote for the fake foods over the real foods? Now, I’m not going to say that any of the foods here are right for everyone. I don’t think cream, real oil and vinegar, or a hamburger are unhealthy; perhaps you do. So avoid those foods if they don’t agree with you. But don’t seek fake alternatives to these foods, made up of various industrial ingredients, low-quality proteins, hydrogenated fats, sugars, and flavorings.

It actually blows my mind that people can fall for the marketing that somehow makes sugary trans fats, flavored sugary water, and some strange amalgamation formed into a patty healthier than the foods they are intended to replace. Marketing is amazing!