healthy and beautiful

My daughter's 1st grade teacher let me know she would always be a leader and not a follower and this still holds true 24-years later.  I have also remained great friends with the awesome lady providing this advice, and I think about it often and how it applies to health and fitness. We all need to be leaders and not followers when it comes to our nutrition , exercise, sleep and everything related to improving the quality of our health. I am a  skeptic when it comes to the "too good to be true" fitness miracles regardless of who is sharing the information.  I refuse to follow into the beliefs of others just because they heard it was the next best thing to sliced bread and how they have lost 20lbs in 5 days, or some crazy thing like that.  I feel the same way about exercise programs and will not trend in with the crowd because it has been advertised as the coolest "big hit" workout ever.  What does impress me is solid research and leading myself with what works ...

Life does not promise easy, fair, fun, happiness, or even health.  In fact, life is hard and guess what, work is required and never an option.  It is up to each one of us to create the lifestyle that we live and this is not going to be found in a jar, pill, powder, or shake.  If popping a “fit pill” was the answer to all things magical and provided the body of our dreams inside and out, then I definitely would not need to write this blog.  The facts are in and they have been for decades that the way to obtain a fit physique is through consistent healthy food intake, regular exercise, plenty of rest, water, and balance of life.  The “want it now” society tries every side-step method to achieve what can only be done through sweat producing work.  There is not a pill or shake that is going to teach a person how to shop and select healthy foods for life and they will surely not sprout legs and exercise so that we consume the activity benefits.  What usuall...

In this world of comparison and getting pissed off at her or him for seeming to accomplish everything, and then spewing “what’s your excuse” in our faces, it’s no wonder women and men alike are throwing up their arms in frustration and happily giving a bird salute attitude at achieving fitness goals.   Put on the brakes here and look at what has happened.  Letting others control what is best for our health and fitness is out right wrong, and does nothing for us.  That being said, why are we allowing people or media so much control over our decision making to create a healthy, happy life when they have little to no concern or care for us?  Why so pissed about it?  What it comes down to is that no one but you can make health happen.  You know that saying that goes, “whether you do or you do not, you are right.”  Well, that is true and the choice to get healthy lies squarely on your shoulders.  There is no amount of jealousy, blaming others, or putti...

When my 10 year old asked what happened in Grammy’s and what he missed I said, “Sam Smith won pretty much everything and it was a pretty boring show.” It was also a night of unmemorable, rote acceptance speeches until Sam Smith’s second time up (for record of the year or best new artist, I forget): “Before I made this record I was doing everything to try and get my music heard,” Smith said. “I tried to lose weight and I was making awful music. It was only until I started to be myself that the music started to flow and people started to listen.” This was honest and interesting and of course got me googling. Ironically, it seems Sam Smith had slimmed down for the Grammy’s. According to this   it’s due to juices spiked with cayenne. We’ll save the cayenne conversation for another day. Accepting yourself and “being yourself” doesn’t mean you have to stay heavy. This photo shows a stockier Sam Smith or at least we see more of him. Howard Stern (oh Howard) called Smith “fat and ugl...

We have a questionnaire new clients complete before coming in. We ask all the basic, annoying questions name, address, height and age. Buried in the list is my favorite question, “on a scale of 1 to 10 how content are you with your physique?” The answer to this question has little to do with what you weigh (something we don’t ask) but it says a lot. It’s important to revisit that question as sessions progress because that number, despite progress, can be stubborn. Last week, I had a client in my office. She’s incorporated all sorts of healthy foods into her day, her energy and mood swings are better but she told me about something that happened recently that concerned me. She saw some friends she hadn’t seen in a while. This is a somewhat competitive group of friends as she described them. Despite her improvements and weight loss she felt insecure in their company. In that moment on a scale of 1-10 she’d be lucky to give herself a 5. For years with clients I’ve call these modes we have...

I stopped counting calories years ago, and simply made my focus on eating healthy quality “real” food each day.  I like that motivational poster that says “no one has ever gotten fat eating too much kale” and this is really true and can be applied to most of the healthy food choices out there.  I do not feel the need to keep track of ingredients I know are providing health benefits and awesome nutrients that keep my body looking and feeling the way it does.  I keep my refrigerator, pantry and counters stocked with plenty of organic vegetables, greens, fruits, yogurts, raw nuts, lean meats, and my list goes on and believe me, I am stuffing my face every three hours or less with a nutrient dense fiber rich food. Maintaining a healthy body is about living a quality life and that means being concerned about the quality of food that I eat.  There is a big difference in consuming a McDonald’s Big Mac and fries compared to an organic chicken breast with a sweet potato and m...

Exercise does not have to be extreme to be effective.  When it comes to our health and fitness, it is not a competition, but a lifetime maintenance body program.  There may be those who have certain goals and need to perform above the maintenance requirement, but in general creating a healthy ROCKIN body can be accomplished by moving it for 30 minutes at least five days per week.  Most of us want to feel and look good in and out of clothes with a simple exercise routine that does not require leaping over tall buildings in single bounds and lifting hundreds of pounds of weight.  I am not knocking those doing the leaping, heavy lifting, or extreme sports with this Blog, but addressing the norm demographic of everyday people who just want to get healthy and look healthy. Studies have shown that 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity such as brisk walking is sufficient to maintain a healthy body, and spread over time throughout the week.  It would be reduced to 75...

The dreaded food journal can be your best friend and accountability partner when it comes to implementing a healthy nutrition program.   I have heard it all when it comes to fitness and food journals and the love/hate relationship that keeping track of food intake can cause. The problem is really not the food journal, but it is the issue of not being honest with ourselves.   When life is going great and our program is on track, we gladly write down every healthy morsel placed in our face with a smile and will even share the exciting events that are producing the positive results.   On the other side of that coin is the need to hide or even toss our journals to the curb as temptations to go “off plan” creep into the program.  It is almost as if we convince ourselves that being unhealthy is not happening if it is not written down in the journal.  Believe me, you can run but your body will not hide the consequences of unhealthy choices.  The fact is the food j...