Drink the Kool-Aid

World class fitness in 100 words.

“Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.”

Our warm-up is your work out.

The super-fit walk among us

Crossfit HQ

Free lecture

Spring Clean Your Life

It’s that time of year. At the end of March, beginning of April, you wake up one day and feel different. You are ready for spring and ready to shed all the winter blues, weight and stress that have accumulated over the winter months. Spring is the time for renewal and this is a program to spring clean your life.

Learn ways to cleanse your diet, body and mind to provide you with increased energy, vitality and vibrancy just in time for spring.

When: April 9, 2008 @ 7:00 p.m.Where: Enright Chiropractic, 907 Grand Central Ave. Lavalette, NJ

Contact Enright Chiropractic to sign up, 732-830-8400.  Space is limited.

Sign up for my group detox.  Program starts April 27, 2008.

Be your own hero

 

I have been thinking about Roger Clemens and Brittany Spears lately.  I have two young kids and as a parent I can’t help but be bothered by the people that so many young kids are choosing to look up to as role models.  I remember when Sir Charles Barkley was asked about being a role model.  He was quick to state the obvious, he was a basketball player, not a role model.  He was right.  Face it, we are a society that is obsessed with our celebrities and everything they do.  We are more interested in what is happening in Brittany Spears’ life than most anything that is going on in our own lives. 

As parents, we are our childrens role models and heroes, not Roger and Brittany.

At least that’s how it should be.  The problem is, a lot of us parents are asleep at the wheel here.   What are we supposed to tell our kids when World Series Champions and Cy Young winners are accused of taking drugs?   It’s hard enough to get your kid to eat a balanced meal today.  There is so much crap that they are shoving down their pie-holes,  soda, chips, “chicken Nuggets”, Happy Meals and my all time favorite – lunch-ables.  It’s a challenge just to get them to eat right, never mind find them heroes and good role models.

I look at my son and daughter and consider what my job is as a parent.  I understand that my wife and I are the most important role models that they have in their lives.  They look up to us and watch what we do and how we act.  (BINGO – How we act.)  What I eat, what I drink, how I treat other people, and handle stressfull situations.  They know I love m&m’s, drink coffee and beer and they call me out on it all the time.  They are getting life lessons every day from watching the reality show that is our life. 

How I choose to live my life is setting the example that they will follow in their own lives.  So, being a hero for my kids is actually very simple.  I’m not talking aboutbeing a major league pitcher, or running a 3:30 marathon.  All of that doesn’t matter.  I still have the power to change the world.  I can do this by the example I set for my kids and all of the other people in my life. 

I can choose to be 100% accountable for myself and my actions.  What I eat and how I treat my body, and the way I treat other peopl all sets an example for my children.  These choices that I make every day will give them a foundation to build on as they grow and start making their own choices.  As a parent, I can only hope that my children are healthy and happy and have lives that they enjoy.  The only chance I have to teach them anything about this, is by the example I set in the life that I lead day in and day out.

Being 100% accountable for yourself can be a scary thing.  It’s scary because it takes responsibility, commitment, discipline, character and the ability to face a lot of things in your life that you really would rather ignore.   It’s funny, but all of those things seem to be the kind of traits in a person that I would want my kids to look up to as a hero.

photo link

The humble push-up

As a symbol of health, nothing surpasses the humble push-up.

An enduring measure of fitness: The simple Push Up.

A link to see how many push-ups you SHOULD be able to do.

Workout: “21″

Do 21 push-ups and 1 sit up

Do 20 push-ups and 2 sit-ups

Do 19 push-ups and 3 sit-ups

Do 18 Push-ups and 4 sit-ups

Continue until you get to 1 push-up and 21 sit-ups

Have fun!

Those Damn Girl Scouts

They did it to me again!

Everyone loves Girl Scout Cookies, I have kids and I want to help support the Girl Scouts in general. Last year there was a big to do about the fact that the cookies had hydrogenated oils in them.  The word was that they were going to change bakers and solve the problem for this 2008.   Wait a minute you say, this guy is supposed to be a health counselor and here he is talking about eating Girl Scout Cookies…. Yes, I have been know to eat some things that are bad for me from time to time.  At least I’m not a hypocrite.

Fast forward to mid February.  Three little neighborhood girls come knocking on the door and ask me to pretty please buy some cookies.  The order form says “Trans Fat Free”, so I happily shell out my $$$ and buy some Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties.  

Well, I got my delivery yesterday and guess what the 3rd ingredient in both is?? Partially Hydrogenated F*&$%ng Oil.  The label is quick to point out, No Trans Fats, per serving.  But if I choose to eat more than 4 cookies at any given sitting, (Try 1/2 the sleeve), then I get my RDA dose of Partially Hydrogenated Oil.

Honestly, I expect this sneaky marketing from Kraft and P&G and the big guys, I don’t expect it from a group like the Girl Scouts of America.  So, until the little angels stop putting ANY hydrogenated oils in their products, I will not be buying them.

How much Trans Fats are acceptable to consume by you and me? 

This is from a 2005, Washington Post Article.

“The Food and Drug Administration has declared that the only acceptable amount of trans FAs in our diets is zero.Manufacturers don’t “add trans fats” to foods, as I have seen stated. What they do is use partially hydrogenated fats for their desirable properties, and trans FAs are an inevitable result. When you see “partially hydrogenated” on a food label, you can bet that trans FA villains are in there. “

Here is the sneaky trick that most people do not know -  

“But if the product contains less than half a gram of trans FAs per serving, the FDA permits the label to say “No trans fats.” “

What exactly are Hydrogenated Oils?

HYDROGENATIONis a high- temperature, high-pressure process that changes kinky, unsaturated FAs into straight-chain saturated FAs, by forcing a pair of hydrogen atoms into each kink as a splint would support a broken bone.

The straightened-out FA molecules can now pack together more compactly, like a bundle of twigs that have had all their crooked twiglets trimmed off. Fats containing these compacted FAs therefore become harder and less fluid. If your soybean- or sunflower-oil margarine hadn’t been hydrogenated, you would be pouring it, rather than spreading it, on your toast. Manufacturers use hydrogenated oils in virtually every cake, cookie or cracker in your supermarket to make it smooth, rather than oily.

Partial hydrogenation straightens out only some of the kinks in the unsaturated FA molecules. The rest are left in their bent, unsaturated shapes. Complete hydrogenation straightens out all the kinks in the FA molecules, making the fats completely saturated, and that’s not good.

TRANS FATTY ACID A trans FA is an unsaturated FA that has been subjected to hydrogenation, but was able to evade the hydrogen atoms and remain defiantly kinky and unsaturated. However — and this is the crucial distinction — in the fiery cauldron of hydrogenation, its kink has been twisted into an angle different from that of a normal unsaturated FA. Chemists call this shape of FA a “trans” fatty acid.

Trans FAs are rarely found in nature; they are unnatural. When we eat a trans FA, our metabolism is baffled by its alien kinkiness and doesn’t know what to do with it. So it vents its frustration not only by raising our LDL (“bad”) cholesterol level, as saturated FAs do, but also by lowering our HDL (“good”) cholesterol level. That double whammy is just about the worst thing a fat can do to us.

Anyone want 3 boxes of Thin Mints & Peanut Butter Patties?

Why be healthy?

I was at the gym the other morning doing my usual routine on the rowing machine and while I was taking a break I started talking to the guy next to me about working out.  He was saying that the hard part about working out was getting out of bed in the morning and getting the gym.  It was 5:30 a.m. and we had both been at it since around 5:15.  He told me about how he needed to keep moving and stay active in order to have a good quality of life.  He said that a lot of people he knows are looking for a quick fix, but there was no quick fix, it was all about putting in the hard work.  What made me so interested in the conversation was that this guy was in his 70’s.

Why do we want to be healthy? 

I don’t think most of us really want to.  I mean we all want to look better and lose a few pounds, some of us want a six pack, or to look better in that two piece on the beach this summer.  But, most of us don’t have “being healthy” as a primary goal.We need to look at our health as something more than being able to say we aren’t on some sort of medication. 

We need to look at our health as a vehicle that enables us to support the lifestyle that we want to lead.  The healthier we are, the more energy we have to do the things we want to do with our lives, instead of just watching the years fly by and wondering how we got so old and tired.

Here we are already at March and way back in January a lot of people wanted to be healthier in 2008.  People joined gyms in mass, began training for marathons and started all sorts of diets in an effort to be healthier.  For a lot of those people, 60 plus days has made a difference in their lives and for many, those initial plans made on New Years Eve have crashed and burned.  I think that one of the main reasons most people fail at this yearly quest to get in shape is because we just want to lose 10-20-30 pounds as fast and easy as we can.  We don’t really want to work at it and we aren’t going into it with being healthy as our primary goal.  It’s all about the quick fix and that strategy does not work.

We all want results but, maybe were looking for the wrong results.  Instead of looking for the six pack 30 days into your new life of fitness, you may want to look at the fact you can climb the stairs at work without being out of breath.  Or how about that you have the energy to actually play with your kids instead of just watching them play.  Now that you exercise daily, your blood pressure is going to be lower and your clothes will start to fit better.  You may even have a more positive attitude in general because of all the exercise-induced endorphins that you have in your body.  These are all results.  They are all results that will help you be a healthier, happier human being.  These results are not usually the ones we are looking for, but all come before that six pack or the 10K PR that you are shooting for.  Take some time and look for these results.  Doing so will let you know you are heading in the right direction. 

Being healthy is a process that takes a lifetime commitment.  You can lose 20 pounds in 30 days on a diet, but your life is long, long time.  What are going to do to support that weight loss over the next 30, 40, or 50 years?  If you don’t have a plan that takes being healthy for the rest of your life into account, you are going to gain those 20 pounds back and then some before you know it.  Get some support, make small changes that support a healthier lifestyle.  Crowd out bad foods, with nutrient rich whole foods.  Find some form of fitness that works for you and do it everyday, not just 3 days a week.

Be healthy, be happy, be well.

Ask your doctor

Dustin Carter

“I don’t look at myself as different,” said Carter, who uses prosthetic legs when he is not wrestling. “I wrestle like anybody else. I go to school like anybody else. I can live on my own like anybody else. I can do anything anybody else can do. I don’t like people feeling sorry for me. Some people do.”

Meet Dustin Carter

Update: Dustin won his first round match on Thursday of Ohio’s Division II wrestling tournament at 103 lbs. He lost in the quarterfinals 5-1, but received a standing ovation from the crowd. As a senior, this was his last High School match, Dustin plans to go on and wrestle in college.

Green Lemonade

This is a green juice that I make at least 3-4 times a week.  It is a great way to detoxify your body and it tastes great.

Use organic ingredients.  Run everything thru a good juicer.

1 bunch Kale

1 cucumber

1 lemon (juice the entire lemon)

2 apples – your choice

1 head celery

Be Well Yoga & Coaching Package

Margo, at Margo’s Yoga Flow an I have put together a Be Well Package for people who are looking to jump start their health.

The package includes a 10 class package at Margo’s Yoga Flow and individual health counseling with me. The health counseling includes the following:  An initial Health Consultation. Together, we meet for one hour and review your diet, current lifestyle, level of activity, sources of stress and discuss specifically what you would like to address during this period in terms of diet and lifestyle change.  Based on this meeting, I will provide you with an individualized plan that addresses specific ways to upgrade the areas that are a concern you.  We will meet again to review this plan and talk about how to implement the changes into your daily life.  We will meet once more in two weeks to review your progress and go over any questions or concerns that you have going forward. During this time, I will also be available for questions via e-mail.

This is a great way to jump start your spring fitness routine.  It is also a great gift idea for someone you care about.

Your investment for this package is $200.00

You can purchase this Be Well Package at: Margos Yoga Flow 233 Main Street, Manasquan, NJ 732-528-0855