Category: Weight Loss Exercise

Up here in Calgary the weather has been nice although only a little cold over the last couple weeks. I have been on holidays so have not really been on my bike getting exercise and instead have been trying to get workouts in and cardio done indoors. I am sure I will be kicking myself in a couple of weeks but the change of pace has been nice.

Work for me starts up again on Tuesday and I should be able to ride my bike to and from work which I believe is the exercise that has really made the difference in my life over the last year.

Now that we are into the new year everyone’s new years resolutions will kick in today. The gyms will be busy with lots of people signing up, talk at work will be about healthy eating and exercise and the will that things have changed for good but come the end of January most of the talkers will have become silent as the excitement of health, exercise, muscle soreness, and loss will have disappeared and forgotten.

The next few weeks will be critically important for you and the basis to me for continuing after things have lost their excitement is to not lose the excitement in the first place. Do the following and see if it changes your life for the better.

Drink lots of water every day and watch yourself lose a few pounds in the next week.

I could not have put this better. I found an article that really digs into what kind of mindset you need to improve your fitness. This will make the difference between doing and not doing, between eating well or eating bad. I have to warn you that some of the things in this article go against what I have said in the past, especially as far as goal setting goes but Paul definitely has an opinion so it is good to listen to anyway. Here it is:

I met her at a networking group early one morning. Lacy (name changed for privacy reasons) was in her 40s and had a lot going for her. She was intelligent, well spoken, and confident in her ability to run her own Law Firm as an attorney. Lacy was able to enjoy many things in life that others whom believed themselves to ‘less fortunate’ did not think they could enjoy. However, there was one big issue Lacy struggles with. It is an issue that you may recognize in another person, or even in yourself. Body image and fitness.

It was no secret that Lacy was a woman of large bone structure; something genetic that she has absolutely no control over whatsoever. It was also no secret that Lacy tried just about every trick and diet in the book to lose and get into shape. In fact, Lacy was bold enough to announce to the entire networking group of over 30 people her ambitions to fit into a sexy lingerie outfit for her husband and feel like a word I better not mention in this article (but I’m sure you have a good imagination).

Being a fitness professional myself, Lacy and myself were bound to be a magical match made in fitness and diet bliss, or one may have thought. After all, my track record is very good, and over the years I have been able to guide many people into discovering how to stay fit, so helping Lacy make this discovery would come naturally right?

Actually not. I worked with Lacy for a couple of months and after that Lacy decided the low carb diet she was insistent on sticking to was not working, and she was going to go off on her own program again. Think this is uncommon? Think again, Lacy was doing what many people do when it comes to health and fitness.
As previously mentioned I have helped many people discover how they can live the fitness lifestyle. However, there is another side to the story. There have been more people that I have crossed paths with in a professional manor that have not been able to maintain the fitness lifestyle. For years I wondered how and why this happens. What causes a person to invest so much time, thought, and effort into the idea of getting into shape only to succumb to disappointment and end up exactly opposite of where they wanted to be?

I eventually discovered it’s all in the mind. Lacy was the way she was because of the way she thought about fitness and nutrition in relation to herself. In her career Lacy obviously demonstrated the characteristics of successful thinking. In her idea of diet and fitness Lacy demonstrated the opposite.

You may be wondering how does one swing the thinking pendulum from fitness failure to fitness success and make it stay to fitness success?

A study by Johns Hopkins University has shown that a regular high-carb diet that is changed to include a little more protein or healthy oils can further curb heart disease risks, say researchers who had volunteers try three variations of the same diet.

This is a validation to many athletes diets that are slightly lower in carbs and slightly higher in protein but not as extreme as either end of the scale as a vegitarian diet or an Atkins style diet.

The Testing
But the study involving 159 adults with borderline or mild high blood pressure found the best results with diets that replaced some carbohydrates with protein like nuts and dairy, or with healthy fats, like olive oil.

The findings don’t mean you should gorge on meat, or that carbs should be shunned. But the study involving 159 adults with borderline or mild high blood pressure found the best results with diets that replaced some carbohydrates with protein like nuts and dairy, or with healthy fats, like olive oil.

All three diets were low in saturated fats and required plenty of fruits and vegetables, and all improved blood pressure and cholesterol readings.

Adopting any of them would be beneficial and a big change for most Americans, said lead researcher Dr. Lawrence Appel of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

‘Most people aren’t following anything close to any of these,’ he said, adding that the bottom line is: ‘You can eat healthy in three different ways, and two of them are a bit better than the other.’

All participants tried each of the diets for six weeks, eating meals prepared in a research kitchen and taking a few weeks’ break before starting the next diet.

The Results
The volunteers’ average blood pressure was borderline high 131 over 77 before starting the study. It fell by an average of about 8 points while they were on the carb diet, 9.5 points on the protein diet and 9.3 points on the healthy fats diet.

Levels of LDL cholesterol, the bad kind, measured 129 on average at the start; 100 is considered optimal. LDL levels fell an average of almost 12 points on the carb diet, about 14 points on the protein diet, and about 13 points on the healthy fats diet.

Those reductions likely would translate into less heart disease if the diets were widely adopted, the researchers said.