BodProg

If you are honest with yourself about your fitness goals and you truly want to accomplish them, it is critical that you hold yourself accountable. One way that I hold myself accountable is I have a folder on my desktop entitled "BodProg". Having a folder in which I keep track of my progress easily accessible on my desktop keeps me extremely motivated to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Don't worry about weight anymore, focus on the visible results, since that is primarily what your goals are, to look better, right? When you stop focusing on the scale and start focusing on your appearance you are forced to face your insecurities head on. It's easy to quit when you're looking at a number on a scale that you can easily detach yourself from. But what you see in the mirror is nearly impossible to detach from. This is why it is such a powerful motivator. Body insecurities carry many emotions with them. When you force yourself to face them on a daily basis, you are more likely to stick to the plan and continue making serious healthy changes in your lifestyle.

I take a picture of my physique on a weekly basis. It's not because I'm obsessed with myself, it's because I'm obsessed with progress. Taking weekly pictures holds me accountable to a lifestyle that I am committed to maintaining, a lifestyle that results in low body fat and chiseled obliques.

We all have an image in our heads of what we want our body to look like. The problem for many is that the gap from where we're at to where we want to be is seemingly too large and will take too long. In the long process of struggle, we lose our motivation. In order to bridge that gap, we must become obsessed about what we want, all day everyday, not just during our workouts but while making food choices throughout the day.

Here's what I recommend to stay on track and reach your goals.

1. Take a picture of yourself on a weekly basis saving the picture as the current date. For example, the picture above was taken today and saved as 071211 (July 12, 2011).

2. Create a folder on your desktop entitled BodProg, or whatever works for you. Save all your pictures to the folder.

3. Before every meal, and every workout, take a look at your most recent picture and make a decision right there whether you are going to force progress or learn to love yourself the way you are (which is good too if you can honestly do so, but if you can't, FORCE PROGRESS).

4. Once you have decided to force progress, visualize your goal, and proceed with passion and consciousness. Make conscious decisions about everything that goes in your mouth. Ask yourself "Is this doughnut in alignment with what I want my body to look like?"

5. Love yourself by feeding your body large amounts of vital living foods that are full of minerals, vitamins, enzymes, anti-oxidants, and water.

6. Hate yourself by pushing yourself through a punishing workout that is guaranteed to inspire change in your body. (NOTE: don't really hate yourself, but use your insecurities and desire for change as a deep motivator to push through your limits)

No Space for Furniture, Plenty for Fitness

I currently live in a studio apartment with no furniture. I've had a lot of friends and family offer me a big screen tv, leather sofa, dresser, etc, and I politely had to turn them down. Truth is, I love my open floor space, my apartment is my laboratory. When watching television on my laptop, I push myself through tabata intervals on my airdyne and enjoy the nice cool breeze of the fan wheel, then I'll get into a steady row on my rower and finish with some rebounding on my mini trampoline. This workout followed by a cold shower is a daily routine for me to get my day started.

I've always loved home workout equipment and have been buying it since I was 13 years old. It all started with a couple pairs of dumbbells and quickly progressed to the Total Gym 2000. I enjoyed many long workouts on the Total Gym as a kid and even used it occasionally later in my career as a personal trainer. After watching the infomercials I had to buy one. I mean if Chuck Norris uses the total gym... I heard when Chuck Norris does push-ups, he doesn't move, the earth does... the Total Gym had to be the real deal.

Home exercise equipment has a bad reputation because most home exercise equipment lasts average people only a couple months before it begins to collect dust or ends up being sold to me on consignment from Play it Again Sports. To me, home exercise equipment is a solid investment that pays you back in health dividends as long as you are dedicated to use it. Home exercise equipment is great because when left out in plain sight, it will taunt you if you are being lazy. There is no excuse to not bounce on a mini trampoline or ride a stationary bike for a few 30 minute sessions every day when it is conveniently located by the television. This is especially true if you are like me and don't have any furniture.

If you are on a budget and can not buy a bowflex, or an airdyne, you can still have very effective and fun workouts at home with a couple peices of cheap exercise equipment found at any Walmart. Clear a little space in your living room and create an environment that is more functional for fitness. Here's what I suggest to get the most burn for your buck:


Mini Trampoline...$35

-Rebounding on a mini trampoline stimulates the lymphatic system into more efficiently clearing out the bodies wastes

-Easy on the joints. Rebounding puts about 1.5 times your bodyweight on your joints in a smooth bouncing motion while running causes about 8 times your bodyweight of joint jarring impact. This impact combined with dysfunctional postural alignment will undoubtedly cause injury.

-NASA uses rebounding to rehabilitate astronauts after being in space. Two weeks in space without gravity causes a loss of about 15% bone mass in astronauts. Rebounding is thought by NASA to be one of the best ways to quickly rebuild bone mass. This is excellent news for not only astronauts but people with osteoporosis.

-NASA has also found rebounding to be 68% more oxygen efficient than other forms of exercise. What that means is that you can exercise vigorously on a trampoline without feeling out of breath, but still gain the same benefits you would from jogging on pavement.

-Helps to strengthen your core (abdominals and lower back) when you bounce with good upright posture. Because of the fact that you must maintain good posture while rebounding, it is a great way to strengthen your overall posture. The gentle bounce along with some conscious effort to hold the shoulders and head back while maintaining neutral hips and straight feet, will help strengthen the muscles that are required to reinforce a better alignment.

-Improves balance and coordination due to the unstable surface and dynamic nature of the bouncing. Incorporates a greater percentage of the deep stabilizing muscles that are so important in injury prevention.

-Just like any other mode of exercise, rebounding will effectively improve your metabolism.

-Best of all, rebounding is fun, who doesn't like jumping on a trampoline?


You don't have to jump on the trampoline to get a good workout. Rebounding is as simple as maintaining good posture while gently bouncing up and down on your toes. Maintain a gentle bounce for 30 minutes and you will quickly realize how efficient the mini trampoline is as a fun mode of exercise. Advanced rebounders can run in place and jump more agressively, alternating single leg jumps as if skipping rope.



Exercise Ball...$15

Everybody knows what an exercise ball is and what it's for. Exercise balls are great for strengthening your core and have tons of great exercise possibilities. Here's a sample core workout of mine:


Full-Lever Sit Ups......25 reps
(full extension sit ups, let the back round around the ball all the way back and all the way up to sitting. No crunches!)

Back Hyperextensions....25 reps
(lay on ball, with fingertips by your ears, extend your back and lift your torso as high as you can, then lower and wrap around the ball)

Jackknifes.....10 reps
(hands on ground, top of foot on ball, drive hips straight up in the air while keeping your legs straight and rolling up onto your toes, then extend back down to the plank with feet on ball)

Knee Tucks.....20 reps
(hands on ground, top of foot on ball, tuck knees into your chest, then extend back to the plank with feet on ball)

Crunched Rotations.....50 reps
(hold the crunch position and slowly rotate side to side with hands together in front of your chest, can hold a medicine ball or dumbbell but not necessary.)

Reverse Plank.....Until form is compromised
(head and shoulders on ground, heels on ball, hold hips up and body straight)

Plank.....Until form is compromised
(feet on ground, hands on ball, keep hips up and body straight)

Circuit through core workout with minimal rest between each exercise, resting a couple minutes between each circuit. Adjust the exercise reps to your ability level and set a goal number of times to complete the circuit.

The addition of bodyweight exercises such as push-ups, squats, dips, pull-ups will make a well rounded full body workout that can be done in the convenience of your bedroom, in your underwear (personal preference), while watching your favorite television show or bumping your favorite music.

My 5 Go-To Herbal Teas

I am a naturopath and believe in the healing and preventative powers of natural herbs. The synergistic effect of a variety of herbal teas will have a huge positive impact on your health and vitality. Tea is possibly the most inexpensive yet effective medicine known to man so drink up! The easiest way to help maintain your good health in addition to a proper clean diet is to implement herbal teas into your lifestyle. These are my 5 go-to herbal teas:



Green Tea will always be my number 1 tea. I love the taste and green teas overall health properties can't be matched. I drink many cups of green tea every day and also supplement with the green tea extract EGCG.

-Helps prevent Artherosclerosis by lowering triglyceride levels

-Lowers total cholesterol and improves HDL

-Antioxidant content help protect against cancer

-May help reduce inflammation associated with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, the two types of IBD (irritable bowel disorders).

-Helps manage diabetes by helping to regulate blood sugar levels

-Helps protect the liver against harmful substances like alcohol. Helps to prevent liver disease.

-Helps boost the metabolism and burn fat helping in weight loss

-May benefit arthritis by slowing cartilage breakdown and reducing inflammation

-Helps prevent tooth decay


Yerba Matte

Refer to my blog titled "Yerba Matte, Green Tea on Steroids"


Chamomile

-Anti estrogenic, especially helpful when under an environmental onslaught of xenoestrogens that wreck havoc on your health.

-Has a relaxing effect on the body and mind, helping you manage stress levels during the day and calm you down at night helping you sleep.

-Soothes stomach aches, eases the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, promotes elimination, and assists in overall digestion

-Helps women with mentral cramps. Increases levels of glycine which help ease muscle spasms.

-In poultice form, chamomile increases the rate of the healing of wounds.

-Has antibacterial properties which helps preventing and fighting off colds.


Dandelion:

-Helps to stimulate bile production which improves digestion of dietary fats and assists in detoxification.

-Is a great diuretic which helps flush your kidneys of toxins and shed excess water weight that makes you look and feel bloated and puffy. A well hydrated body has no need to hold onto extra water, water retention is a sign of chronic dehydration.

-Dandelion root tea is effective in fighting major infections like pneumonia, bronchitis and even boils on the skin

-Mannitol, an active substance in dandelion, helps to lower blood pressure.

-Can help manage blood sugar levels, helpful with diabetes.

-Improves and maintains optimum liver, kidney, pancreas, spleen, stomach, and gall bladder functions.

-Helps stimulate weight loss, by it's powerful detoxification effect. Toxins are stored in fat, get rid of toxins=shrink fat cells.


Milk Thistle:

-Helps lower fatty deposits in liver and increases the flow of bile. Bile is used in the stomach to breakdown dietary fat.

-silymarin (the active substance in milk thistle) is thought to stop cancer cells from dividing and reproducing, and shorten their lifespan.

-Helps increase efficiency of the liver helping to lower cholesterol

-Helps manage diabetes by improving insulin resistance and decreasing blood sugar levels

Energize and Revitalize with Cold Water Therapy

I was going to re-write a previous blog of mine that I had deleted on hydrotherapy (cold showers and ice baths) but I came across a really good blog on the subject that covers everything I want to write. Here's a short summary of some of the benefits of ice baths, some strategies to maintain a dedicated practice, and a link to a well written detailed blog on the subject. For further information about the history and cultural practices of hydrotherapy click on the link at the end of this blog.

















Health Benefits of Ice Baths

-Improves circulation: Speedy recovery from exercise or injury, moves blood deep to the core of the body helping to heal and revitalize your organs

-Relieves Depression: Stimulates the brain to produce noradrenaline which helps mitigate depression by elevating your mood.

-Keeps Skin and Hair Healthy: Cold water can make your hair look shinier and your skin look healthier by closing up your cuticles and pores.

-Strengthens Immune System: The metabolic rate is increased due to the body trying to warm itself up. This activates the immune system resulting in the creation of more white blood cells.

-Boosts Testosterone: Enough said! Boosted testosterone means boosted performance without the asterisk.

-Increases Fertility: While heating the testes decreases sperm count, icing them will keep your navymen swimming and can increase quantity and potency.

-Increases Energy and Well Being: Energizes and revitalizes. You feel like a new man when you step out of the ice bath or cold shower. An image that often comes to mind is one of my idols Rickson Gracie yelling "REBORN" after getting out of an icy river a couple days before Abu Dhabi.

-Improve Sleep: Ice baths can help you have deeper sleep if taken 30-60 minutes before bed. Drink a hot mug of chammomile tea while in the ice bath to keep you warm and help induce a deep sleep afterwards.


I find that taking cold showers and ice baths is a very challenging thing to do, especially in the winter. It is both mentally and physically difficult to hold yourself under freezing cold water for even a minute let alone a full 10-15. It takes serious dedication and discipline to regularly subject yourself to cold waters.


Strategies to help you practice cold water therapy regularly:


-Read a book while laying submerged in an ice bath, helps distract your mind.

-When standing under a cold shower, close your eyes and visualize that you're standing under the most beautiful cold waterfall on a sunny spring morning after a snowy winter up in the mountains.

-Wear a beanie. A lot of heat is lost from the head. A beanie will hold in as much heat as possible while in an ice bath.

-Focus on the health benefits of what you're putting yourself through. Decide whether or not 10 minutes of slight discomfort is worth the forementioned benefits. If you are an athlete, this should be the easiest strategy.

-Drink hot tea. Drink green tea if the ice bath is in the morning, and chammomile tea at night.

-Take ice baths and cold showers right after exercise to reduce inflammation and lactic acid accumulation. Being hot and sweaty from a hard workout makes a cold shower a lot more appealing than when already cold and shivering.

-Gradually decrease the temperature of your cold shower or ice bath over the course of a year. Every couple weeks, decrease your temperature slightly until you eventually reach 40-50 degrees.


Excerpt from "The James Bond Shower":
Okay. If you’re healthy enough for a James Bond Shower, here’s how it’s done.

1. Start off with the hot water.

2. Wash your hair with some Pinaud Elixir shampoo, just like 007.

3. When you’re ready to rinse, just turn it down to cold. Bond would spend a few minutes under the cold water, meditating about a lost love or on how awesome his job is.

4. As you walk out the shower, kill the hitman that’s been hiding in the closet using nothing but a towel and a Scotch tumbler.

5. Say a pithy one liner; proceed to put on tux.



The James Bond Shower: A Shot of Cold Water for Health and Vitality by Brett and Kate Mckay