Month: December 2013

I don’t know how, but my daughter found the Freaky Eaters TV show this weekend on Netflix. I had never heard about this TV show before but it is a classic shocking TLC TV show.

Freaky Eaters TV Show Setup

Freaky Eaters is a 30 minute show that starts with a strange eating problem. The idea is that a freaky eater is someone that eats only one food almost exclusively and do not eat anything else. Some of the episodes we have seen include people that only eat French Fries, Coca Cola, pizza, cheeseburgers (and hid it from his wife), and even not eating any solid food.

The show has two hosts, a psychologist, and a dietician. Dr Mike Dow works on the inner problems that the person deals with and JJ Virgin counsels on what nutrition the person needs to eat to be healthy. They are a great team and have their own people skills that compliment each other so that each can have a great influence on who they are working with.

How an Episode of Freaky Eaters Works

JJ Virgin – Nutritionist

The show starts with a family member describing the persons problem. In the case of the person addicted to eating french fries (I just watched it so it is fresh in my mind), the guy eats nothing but french fries and his wife is nervous about it, kids think that he is allergic to all other foods so it does not seem strange to them.

Next Dr Dow and JJ Virgin use “shock therapy” by showing in a warehouse just how much fries and how much fat and oil he was eating in a month or a year. Although the guy was shocked and grossed out about the grease and oil but seeing bags of frozen french fries just made him hungry and thinking about lunch.

The french fry guy has a blog about french fries and wasn’t overweight and skateboarded a lot so when they did some medical tests he was shocked to find out that he had mild heart disease and was more than willing to give up his french fries if that would help.

The team of two goes into action, why don’t you eat other foods? What would you like to eat? Why do you eat this way? In the end they were able to find that he was oversensitive to food tastes and because of this he had a lot of trouble with various foods. By trying little bits of different foods and by experimenting every day the french fry guy was able to kick his single food habit.

A lot to cover in a 30 minute show, isn’t it?

What we get to learn from Freaky Eaters

Dr Mike Dow – Psychologist

Although the plot of the show is the same every time, problem, shock therapy, confrontation, experimentation, fix! It does not ever go the same way. In the first place almost all the people that have a problem are able to explain it away or do not want to change as they see no problem, by the time they see what they have put in their body they are usually less resistant to change but not always, and usually the medical tests are enough to push people over the edge. In only one case did we see someone not want to change. The thing is though that there is always an underlying issue causing the freaky eating.

One of the things that I have really been able to take away from this show is the idea that people do not want to change but once they have a very good reason they are willing to push through. Support is critical, most of the people have a husband or wife, kids, or other family member that is really hopeful and supportive. Support is so critical and is so often missed by all of us.

Also I like the shock therapy. I have mentioned before that for years I drank a coke and just quit one day when I realized it was bad, this is not normal though, I still eat a chocolate bar every day and if I saw a real visual image of how much crap I put into my body in a year I could quit pretty easily, but now, day to day, I don’t see any good reason to quit chocolate.

Finally is self identity. Most of the people with a problem with a food just look at themselves as a person that is tightly defined by that food. You have probably seen this all over around you, the coffee guy always drinking coffee, the donut eater, the pizza guy, even the water people (not bad but the ones drinking lots and lots of water every day). People need to define themselves so that they know where they stand in the world and to show their individuality, the foods that we eat can easily define us.

I am not sure how I feel about Freaky Eaters. The show itself is interesting and shocking and fun to watch but in the end after a few episodes I think I have seen enough. I am so glad to see that their are people like JJ Virgin and Dr Mike Dow around to help people change their lives for the better.

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on Fitness

New Years Resolutions are a great idea that seldom work. The reason that most peoples new years resolutions fail is that people will get a good idea and not flesh it out, decide what to do and how. The best way to be successful is to plan your outcomes and to decide what are the most important things for you. When you do this you have a much better chance at succeeding because when you need to make changes you will do it knowing why you are making a change and exactly what changes need to be made.

Starting to Plan New Years Resolutions

The way I start each year is by looking back, looking at where I am today and finally looking at where I want to be tomorrow and then creating a plan to make a better tomorrow happen.

With traditional goal setting most people just look at what they want and then create a plan to get there. My method of setting real New Years Resolutions is much better as it does not just look at myself as a superman and allow me to collapse as soon as any problem gets in the way of my goal.

Tools for successful New Years Resolutions

To start you must have a notebook and realize that this notebook will be your companion for the next year. Give yourself an hour to get started and know that you will likely be sitting down a few times over the next few days, if New Years Day comes and goes while you are in the midst of this process do not worry. Even though we always look at new years day as the switch that begins a new year remember that you are creating a map and a route that is much more important and long lasting than the flip of a calendar, the end of a day, or a fuzzy idea in the middle of the night whose idea of importance is reflected only by the thoughts and actions of a very few minutes.

Looking back over the last year

To do this new years resolution planning correctly you must begin by looking back at the last year. Sit down and ask yourself the following questions.

What did I plan to do this year? Write this list by writing down one at a time with a couple lines between them. Look back and see all of the things that seemed important for a short or long time and write them down in a big list. Did you include health and exercise, spiritual goals, financial and career goals, holiday plans, leisure plans?

What happened to these ideas and plans? Did you complete one or more of these things on the list? With the one that were completed, great. For the ones that you didn’t complete, great as well. This exercise will allow you to see from a bit of distance what was important and what was not important apparently.

Now for each of the items in the list that you completed look at the obstacles that you had and how you over came them. You will probably find that for your accomplishments you were in one way or another motivated to really complete and not just ‘wishing’ to finish. Also go to the things that did not work out. What was the level of priority and what kind of obstacles stopped you? Are these long term plans that can’t be finished? Were you just hoping to get these to work? Write out some detail on each of these things on the list and reflect on how you felt about the idea of each of these one year ago today.

Now you have a nice basis for building on what you have now and what will be the highest priority plans for next year. You are going to find a few common threads from the last year. Maybe you procrastinate. Perhaps you are unrealistic with your time and resources. Likely you wanted certain things that were not that important to you at this time in your life. For the things that you did accomplish you are going to see that you needed to complete them either for your job, your ego or for people that rely on you. You may know now how I will have you look at the next year.

Creating Your New Years Resolutions

Create New Years resolutions for what is really important and do not just put lofty goals that are not critically important to you. The real reason that most people fail with their new years resolutions is that they are not important enough for them and they are really just goals that sound good at the time. You probably see from your accomplishments over the last year that the things that you did right were not planned on new years eve but instead in March or June or even November, so if you want to succeed then you will need to find those things that would make enough of a difference in your life that you will not let any of the obstacles that get in your way to stop you.

Now for planning for next year!

Look at you list of things that you did not accomplish this year. Are any of them really important? Are there any that you can accomplish right now for a quick win to start the year with? More importantly get the ones that you did not complete and are not important enough and just put a line through them in your list. Many of us hold on to goals that we are not going to ever complete as they may be lofty but are never really that important to us and just take some of our waking time. Some scientists say that almost all of our thoughts today are just thoughts recycled from yesterday, if these thoughts are not going to do us any good then dump them so that you can free up some space in your head for more things that are really important instead. After you have gone through your list look at the following list and see if there are anymore things that fall into what should and will be done.

Spiritual Goals
Health and Fitness Goals
Monetary Goals
Career Goals
Family Goals
Entertainment and Leisure Goals

I find that most people that try to make goals or that come up with systems tend to be very narrow focused. What would be wrong with goals to eat the food from 10 different countries? If you need a little help to really see the big picture I have found a site called www.43things.com this site has list of what people would like to do from all walks of life and many of the ideas are sure to surprise you.

Now that you have a list do not worry about how big it is, I have heard people say no more than three goals should ever be on your list and another that says that you should have 101 goals. Your list is yours and you now have to go to your list and figure out the following.

How long will it take to complete this goal/outcome?
How important is this goal to me to complete?
What will happen if I do not achieve this goal?
What are the roadblocks that I can expect to have crop up because of my weaknesses in the past?
What will I get if I complete this, what is the reward?
Are there any goals that I should achieve first to get this one done?

These are big questions and are the questions that never get asked when we just jump at making a new years resolution. Answer these questions for each of your goals and don’t really belabor the questions or you will never get them done.

How Should My New Years Resolutions look?

Let’s say now that you have 10 things that you want to complete by the end of January, 30 things that you want to complete by the end of the year and another 10 for the end of next year. Now you have to have some kind of action plan to get it all completed. Most of getting a goal completed is to get your head aligned with what you want to get, to do this make sure that you have a roadmap to completing each of your items and then your mind can really believe these things possible. After you have done this pull out your daytimer or at least some kind of sheet of paper and list down each goal and when a certain part of it is due so that all of those things in life that get in the way won’t stop you for these.

Celebrate your accomplishments, share your dreams, and always make this day the day that will make tomorrow even better. But First build better new years resolutions.

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on Fitness

I always love hearing the myths and fitness lies and thinking about where they came from. Here is a list of lies, or at least partial lies and why. Changing your mindset to reflect reality is one of the best things that you can do to make better eating and exercise decisions.

Sometimes the things that you think are true and that you rely on as a base for your diet, exercise, weight loss, or muscle gain plans are wrong and your are making false assumptions. Here are a few that you may be thinking are true that are in fact false

10 Fitness Lies And The Truth Instead

A lot of cardio is the most efficient way to lose body fat. FALSE!

This is the most popular of fitness lies. Excessive cardio will strip muscle mass and body fat. This is definitely not the most efficient method for losing body fat. Once you begin stripping muscle mass, your body becomes less efficient at burning body fat. Muscle is metabolically active, which simply means it stimulates the metabolism.

For each pound of muscle you put on, you will burn up to 50 additional calories per day. If you strip muscle mass, all you accomplish is sabotaging your efforts to efficiently reduce body fat.

You can gain 20 pounds of muscle in a few months. FALSE!

All the claims that you read about certain routines or supplements that can help you gain “10 pounds of muscle in a month” are big fat lies. They’re marketing scams to get you to buy a product. It takes diligent weight training using sufficient overload, consistency and patience to build significant muscle mass. Except for initial muscular gains which happen quickly when one begins a weight training program, it can take up to a year to gain 5-6 pounds of muscle mass.

Calories are the only thing that counts when trying to lose fat or gain muscle. FALSE!

Ratios of protein, carbohydrate and fats are also important. The key to losing fat and gaining muscle is controlling and manipulating insulin levels. In simple terms, when we consume excessive calories or excessive amounts of high glycemic carbohydrates at one meal, the body’s blood sugar rises. When this happens, the pancreas secretes insulin to lower blood sugar levels.

One of the many drawbacks of this happening excessively is, along with putting you at risk for diabetes, the body also holds onto stored fat! A balance of protein, carbohydrate and fats works most efficiently in losing fat and gaining muscle.

A woman will get muscles as big as a guy if she lifts heavier weight (8-12 reps). FALSE!

This fitness myth never seems to die. A woman has approximately one third of the testosterone of a man. Unless she is on anabolic steroids, growth hormones or other chemicals, a woman will never achieve the muscular size of a man. However, she can get a degree of muscularity that makes her lean, hard and tight.

You can put on a lot of muscle and lose a lot of fat at the same time. FALSE!

You can put on muscle and lose some fat in minimal amounts. However, the body functions best when it has one goal at a time. If your goal is to put on a lot of muscle, then make that your number one objective. If your goal is to lose significant body fat, then your focus should be on preserving your much earned muscle mass.

In 2001, prior to starting my training for one of my bodybuilding shows, I weighed 164 pounds (I compete as a bantam or lightweight) at 15.7 percent body fat. In 2003, prior to starting to train for a show this June, my weight was 169.5 pounds at 12.6 percent body fat. As you can see, I put on some muscle and lost some fat. The change was significant but realistic. As I prepare for my show in June, I will attempt to preserve what I’ve earned as I reduce to approximately 3 percent body fat.

Lifting lighter weights will make your muscles more defined and cut. FALSE!

Muscle responds to overload. If you lift heavier weight with sufficient intensity, you will create more microscopic tears in the muscle. When the muscle recuperates, it will become bigger and stronger over time.

However, your supplemental nutrition must support your training. Reduced body fat is what creates the “cut” look, not high (15 or more) reps. Reduced body fat is a result of efficient weight training, proper amounts of cardiovascular exercise and nutrition that places you in somewhat of a calorie deficit. That’s how you get defined.

The best way to lose fat is to eat very few calories. FALSE!

Of all fitness lies this is the most dangerous because it can make you very sick. Always consider your body from the inside out. Your body’s main objective is to survive. It doesn’t care if you want to lose fat. In fact, it would prefer to increase fat in case of famine. Internally, the body has no idea that it’s the year 2003. It could still be 10,000 years ago for all it cares. Survival is its number one objective.

If you eat very little, the body perceives an emergency and will accommodate you by holding onto stored body fat. As well it should, because it has no idea when it will be fed again.

The best way to lose fat is to eat a lot of calories. FALSE!

Just as you don’t want to eat too little, you don’t want to eat too much. Duh. I know this is a ‘no brainer,’ but the big message in the nutrition and personal training world today is that most people need to eat more to stimulate the metabolism. The truth is you need the CORRECT AMOUNT of total calories to lose body fat, not simply more food!

One pound of muscle and one pound of fat are the same size. FALSE!

If I place one pound of muscle on a scale and one pound of fat on a scale, they will both weigh one pound. The difference is in total volume. One pound of muscle may appear to be the size of baseball; one pound of fat will be three times the size and look like a squiggly bowl of JELL-O.

The more protein I consume, the more muscle I will put on my body. FALSE!

The human body requires the correct amount of protein to put on muscle. The hardworking weight trainer requires a lot more protein than the sedentary person. However, the correct amount is key, not excessive amounts. In addition, the body uses protein, carbohydrate and a small amount of fat to build muscle, not simply excessive protein.

These are the most obvious fitness lies that I can think of and are backed up with lots of testing and the answers are really the truth. When we are trying to get in better shape and learn what is right and what is wrong there seems to always be conflicting information so we have to hold on to certain “Truths” and move on from there. I hope that these truths help you out and get you to a place where you are reaching all your fitness goals and not falling for fitness lies that will just slow you down.

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on Fitness