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You’re either going uphill, or downhill.  Most of us are taking the wrong road. 

Which road are you on

A. Good nutrition – exercise – positive thinking

B. Bad diet – no exercise – negative thoughts

More advise from the master.

Most health and fitness questions all boil down to three basics.  That’s it.  The big secret is that simple, that basic.  All the questions are answered with the following.

1. Train hard

2. Eat well

3. Rest hard

That’s it.  That answers probably 90-95% of the inquiries anyone could have.  “how do I lose my gut? What is the best way to increase my energy?”  The trick is to stop asking this kind of question and start asking – how do I train harder, eat better and get more rest.  Once you start asking these questions, you’ll start finding what your looking for.

Beware - the answers to these questions are scary to most people because they involve effort on your part.

Burpees for the week

Monday – 36

Tuesday – 37

Wednesday – 38

Thursday – 39

Friday - 40

Saturday -41

Sunday – 42  

I haven’t heard much from the folks who are doing the 100 day challenge. 

Who is in, who is out, how are things going?  Post to comments.

In Asian medicine, green is related to the liver, emotional stability and creativity.  This makes greens great for internal detoxification.  A simple way to help detoxify your body is to add one or two salads to your diet for a week.  Have a big salad for lunch and another for dinner.  The greens will help to detoxify your system and all that fiber will get any internal back up moving along!

Make sure that your salad is comprised of dark, leafy greens as the primary ingredient.  Add other vegetables as you like and stick to a simple, basic dressing. 

Tip - try making your own, with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, oregano, black pepper and a small amount of fresh, grated parmasean cheese.

Nutritionally, greens are very high in calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, phosphorous, zinc, and vitamins A, C, E and K. They are crammed with fiber, folic acid, chlorophyll and many other micronutrients and phyto-chemicals.

Some of the benefits from eating dark leafy greens are:

* Blood purification

* Cancer prevention

* Improved circulation

* Strengthened immune system

* Promotion of healthy intestinal flora

* Improved liver, gall bladder and kidney function

* Clears congestion, by reducing mucus
     

Greens like Arugula, endive, chicory, lettuce, mesclun and wild greens are generally eaten raw, but can be consumed in any creative way you enjoy.

Spinach, Swiss chard and beet greens are best eaten in moderation because they are high in oxalic acid, which depletes calcium from bones and teeth, and may lead to osteoporosis. Cook these vegetables with something rich like tofu, seeds, nuts, beans, butter, animal products or oil. This will balance the effect of the oxalic acid.

In order for calcium to be absorbed, your body needs magnesium.  Dairy itself has very little magnesium, whereas dark leafy veggies contain both in perfect ratio for proper absorption.

The end of summer and early fall is a great time to plant greens in your garden.  Most greens are hardy and will give you fresh leaves for your salad into early winter.  Right now in our garden, we have arugala, romaine and collards as our fall crop.

How can I get more greens in my diet, you ask?

Jack Lalanne just turned 94, yes, ninety four.  He is still healthy and still has his wits about him.  I don’t know about you, but if you are looking for a good role model for a lifetime of health and fitness, I don’t know of a better example.

Some words of wisdom and food for thought.

Everything you do in life, I don’t care, good or bad–don’t blame God, don’t blame the devil, don’t blame me, blame you. You control everything! The thoughts you think, the words you utter, the foods you eat, the exercise you do. Everything is controlled by you.

Twelve to seventeen minutes is plenty on the treadmill–if it’s done fast. That’s all you need for cardiovascular benefit. You don’t need to spend that extra time unless you are over weight and you need to burn off extra calories. Do it vigorously, like somebody is chasing you. You’ve got to do it hard. Otherwise, if you just take it easy and do it longer, you are spending all that time when you don’t need it. Use that extra time with your weights instead.

I don’t care how old I live; I just want to be LIVING while I am living! I have friends of mine that are in their 80’s and now they are in wheelchairs or they’re getting Alzheimer’s. Who wants that? It’s terrible. I want to be able to do things; I want to look good; I don’t want to be a drudge on my wife and my kids. And I want to get my message out to the people. I might live forever or it may seem like that. I tell people I can’t afford to die; it will wreck my image!

In fact, if you’ve got a big gut and you start doing sit-ups, you are going to get bigger because you build up the muscle. You’ve got to get rid of that fat! How do you get rid of fat? By changing your diet. You can’t get rid of it with exercise alone. You can do the most vigorous exercise and only burn up 300 calories in an hour. If you’ve got fat on your body, the exercise firms and tones the muscles. But when you use that tape measure, what makes it bigger? It’s the fat!

and

Too many people make excuses like I am too old, or I don’t have the time, or it costs money. Then when they get sick they go to the doctor and want a shot in the backside to make them healthy. Many so-called spiritual people, they overeat, drink too much, they smoke and don’t exercise. But they do go to church every week and pray “Please help my arthritis. Please help me bring up my strength, make me young again.” But tell me, can God go to the gym to work out for you? God helps those that help themselves. You have to do it!”

Jack is still an animal.

Here is Jack’s 10 point plan for health and happiness

Now get going with your burpees!

Monday 29 (435 total)

Tuesday 30 (465 total)

Wednesday 31 (496 total)

Thursday 32 (528 total)

Friday 33 (561 total)

Saturday 34 (595 total)

Sunday 35 (630 total)

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Do you know where your meat and milk come from? The United States government announced this week that food and milk from the offspring of cloned animals may have entered the food supply. Even though the Food and Drug Administration announced that eating meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats and their offspring are as safe as products from traditional animals, it is impossible to know the difference. 

Animals are cloned by taking the nuclei of cells from adults and fusing them into egg cells that are implanted into a surrogate mother. Cloning is a way to create more disease-resistant animals that produce more milk and better meat. Even though the FDA reassures consumers that it is 100 percent safe, consumers are not on board for ethical and health reasons.

Twenty food producers and retailers including Kraft Foods, General Mills and Tyson Foods vowed not to use ingredients from cloned animals because research shows that consumers are currently not receptive to ingredients from cloned animals.

Cloning raises a lot of ethical issues. What do you think about it?

 Sweeping lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can raise the body’s levels of an enzyme closely involved in controlling the aging process. 

Six food mistakes parents make

We live in a medicated Nation

and, some tips for really simple goal setting

File this one under “so you think I’m an idiot”

The Corn Refiners Association has spent $30M on this ad campaign to boost the reputation of High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Of course, you recognize that these ads are an outrage. Based on that commercial, we should all be drinking other corn-based products, such as ethanol.

The average American is deeply misguided about their food choices. They don’t know that HFCS may be linked with: Diabetes, Obesity,• Liver Disease.

According to Will Smith, the 2 keys to life are running and reading.

How is this whole Burpee thing going?  post your comments.

Burpee Challenge

Monday - 22 burpees (253 total)

Tuesday - 23 burpees (276 total)

Wednesday - 24 burpees (300 total)

Thursday - 25 burpees (325 total)

Friday – 26 burpees (351 total)

Saturday - 27 burpees (378 total)

Sunday - 28 burpees (406 total)

Week four “buy in”  406 burpees

I have been seeing billboards on the NJ Turnpike for Ginger ale with green tea extract.  It has been making me wonder what the two of them together are going to do for my health?  Apparently, orange juice manufactures are putting anchovies in your orange juice too.  We already have Coke Plus, loaded with vitamins and minerals. 

What happened to all the food?  Are we getting close to a world where our food functions as a nutrient delivery system, made possible by microencapsulation and fine-spray coating?  And what in the world will this mean for food and our nutrition.  Why do we think that drinking orange juice that has been fortified with anchoivies (omega -3’s) is better than buying and cooking a nice piece of wild salmon, or eating some anchovies? 

“People just aren’t eating salmon or sardines twice a day,” said Ellie Halevy, director for marketing of Tropicana, which is owned by PepsiCo. “But they will drink two glasses of orange juice, if it has no fishy taste and all the benefits.”

A recent study showed that supplementation of vitamin E had no benefit whatsoever on cardiovascular health.  is this because vitamin E doesn’t help our cardiovascular health, like previously thought, or because we are getting our vitamin E from a laboratory and not in the foods we eat?

Kraft, Dannon, General Mills and many other companies are adding nutraceuticals to existing foods: “fat-burning waffles” made from a newly developed corn flour, cheese that kills intestinal parasites, even ketchup that regulates digestion, are on the shelves or in the works.

How about this for an off the wall idea.

If everyone ate more plant-based and more whole foods and unprocessed foods, that would be major, but that would mean people going back to cooking, and what we’ve lost is people’s ability and knowledge of how to cook.

Instead of dieting, start to enjoy eating.

The relationships we have with food are a lot like the relationships we have with some people.  You may have those people in your life that do not make you feel good about yourself or cause unnessessary stress, but you can’t get rid of them because they have been around so long.

The same goes with food.  There are foods that taste good and have been a part of your diet for a long time, but you know that they aren’t good for you.  Getting rid of these foods is like taking heroin away from an addict.  It isn’t easy to say goodbye.

Good news!  You don’t need to get rid of these foods completely, but rather just start bringing in more of the good.  This idea is called “crowding out”.  It becomes hard to binge on ice cream if you have already eaten five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.  If you start to fill your body with healthy-nutrient dense foods, it’s only natural that your cravings for unhealthy foods will begin to diminish.  This change will not happen overnight, but in time you will notice that you are able to crowd out foods that do not provide nutritional value for you.

By the way – 17 Burpees today.

Did you ever think about……..

If one trains at the limits of ability, never trying to push the pace beyond current capacity and never exposing the body to an overwhelming stimulus, improvement does not occur.  Even worse, ability slowly travels in the other direction, gathering speed on the gradual slope of suckdom.

Manage your way out of suckdom.

P.S. – if your’e fat, you can’t blame it on your genes anymore

Week Three Burpee Challenge

Monday – 15 (120 total)

Tuesday – 16 (136 total)

Wednesday - 17 (153 total)

Thursday – 18 (171 total)

Friday – 19 (190 total)

Saturday – 20 (210 total)

Sunday – 21 (231 total)

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