Month: November 2017

Last September, I began running. I began very slowly at first, and I never did push myself for fast gains. I allowed myself to get faster naturally, and to run longer distances as I felt able to. If I was up for a long run, I’d run farther. If, during a run, I felt more tired or worn out than usual, I’d cut it short. I also only ran every other day, and took two-days off on the weekends. The result: I run sub-9 minute miles consistently for over 3.1 miles/5km every time I set out.

Something I learned on some of my earliest runs is that, even though I am listening to music while I run, my mind wanders, and I’m able to think about things and those things eventually get worked out and it clears my mind. Coupled with the physical activity and being unable to do anything else other than think while running, it’s allowed me to have some really amazing post-run meditations on my front porch.

I smoke a pipe. Many find this to be surprising for someone who is into health and fitness as I am, but I am a firm believer that the meditative qualities of smoking a pipe in the evenings has been instrumental to my success in my diet, improved health, and fitness plans. I know that tobacco is known to cause cancer. I know it’s not the healthiest thing I could be doing. But I also know that my risk is much lower than that of someone who smokes a cigarette or who smokes a pipe or cigar all day long. Heck, there’s even a study that came out of England recently which found the same as a Surgeon General’s report that pipe smokers had a lower risk of death from cancer than non-smokers.

The following is a quote from the US Surgeon General report “Smoking and Health” (No. 1103, page 92) “Among the pipe smokers…The U.S. mortality ratios are 0.8 for non-inhalers and 1.0 for inhalers;”. So what does that mean, their study was using a mortality ratio of 1.0 as the mortality ratio for a non-smoker, and what they found is that pipe smokers that don’t inhale have a slightly lower mortality ratio which means that they live slightly longer.  That needs repeating…Pipe smokers that don’t inhale live longer that non-smokers according to that study.

Source

Weird, right? I thought so, too. But, I accept the risks for any actions I undertake including eating red meat daily, eating coconut oil, and not eating grains: all things my doctors have told me may be bad for me.

One thing I am certain of, however: meditation is good for the mind, body, and soul, and I enjoy being able to do so while running and also when not running, sitting on my porch with my pipe in hand and my dog at my side.

“No one has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for anyone to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which their body is capable.”

— Socrates

(Is it just me, or does anyone else read it “So-Crates” in Keanu Reeves’ voice from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure?)

I was in pretty good shape as a teenager. I was a swimmer, and I kept pretty active. As a young Marine, I was in great shape as well, but as the years passed, I allowed my body to get soft and I relied on youth to get me through my physical fitness tests more than on any fitness regimen. I stayed in decent enough shape while I was on active duty, but I can’t say I allowed my body to really reach its full potential of beauty and strength. It took me until I was 48 years old before I would work at it.

I’m not into body building or anything like that. My sister is, and she looks amazing, but that’s not for me. I am more into running and just being fit and trim. I would be happy if I could lose a last 10 lbs, but honestly, I’m pretty pleased with where my body is at right now: in the 160’s. As long as I don’t go past 170 lbs, I am happy. That keeps all my clothes fitting properly, and it keeps me looking the way I want to look.

It’s amazing seeing the muscles I’ve developed in the past year since I began running last September. My legs look strong, and my abs are actually showing. If I didn’t have the spare skin from when I was obese, I’d have the most amazing torso. My arms also look great, even though I haven’t been able to do push ups in months due to an elbow injury.

It was true thousands of years ago, and it’s true today. It’s a shame to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which their body is capable. Thanks, Socrates.

Motivation is an area most people ask me about in regards to losing weight. Often, the first or second question I’m asked when someone finds out that I’ve lost 150 lbs is, “How did you stay motivated?” or “How do you stay motivated?” It’s easy: I hate how I felt and I never want to feel that way again.

While I was losing weight, I immediately began feeling better. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Within a week of starting my Whole30, I began feeling increased energy. I slept better, and I woke up feeling more energized. I no longer had cravings for sugar, so I no longer had the ups and downs: no more sugar highs and sugar crashes. As I lost weight, my knees felt better, and my joints began to feel the reduced load. These little successes fueled my motivation and left me wanting more.

From there, it snow-balled. The more I lost, the better I felt, which in turn motivated me more which led to more success which led to more motivation, etc. In short, I got addicted to the successes.

There were times when I had plateaus in weight, but while the scale didn’t reward me, my pants and shirt sizes continued to get smaller, and I continued to feel great. I continued to have more energy than I had felt in the previous 20 years, and I had grown accustomed to feeling this way. I decided I didn’t ever want to jeopardize feeling so good again. That makes it easy for me to turn down sweets and non-Paleo foods when I’m offered or tempted. It also drives me to run on the days I may not really be feeling super-motivated. The alternative is untenable to me now.

Motivation comes in many forms and from different places for different people. Find your motivation, grab on to it, and use it. It may be the same as my experience, or it may be completely different. Whatever it is, find it.

First and foremost, I want to say that if you do Crossfit, that’s cool and I have nothing but respect for you! I respect the program for its ability to motivate, push, and allow people to set and reach goals they thought they could never reach. It’s a great extreme fitness program! But… it’s not a weight loss program. Most of you Crossfit people know that, but sadly, there are a lot who don’t. They think it will somehow make them lose weight while allowing them to keep eating the food they ate prior to taking on Crossfit.

Crossfit will not transform you magically. It will not make you thin, skinny, or otherwise lean. Exercise will make you stronger, and cardio exercise will improve your heart health, but it will not make you lose weight unless you CHANGE YOUR DIET AND EAT HEALTHIER FOOD WITH FEWER NET CALORIES AND LESS SUGAR.

In case that wasn’t clear enough, instead of me restating it, go back and read that last part in all caps and bold again. Is it confusing? Read it again. Repeat as much as necessary until you get it.

If I had a dollar for every friend on Facebook who is doing Crossfit to lose weight and not losing weight, then I could buy a new car. It’s really making me sad and upset. Sad for them that they’ve bought into Crossfit as a way to lose weight, and upset that Crossfit takes advantage of these people and giving them hope that “If you work hard enough, you will use more calories than you eat and you’ll lose weight.” Sure. First law of thermodynamics. Physics. Sounds solid, right? Well, the problem is that the QUALITY of the food you eat is nearly as important as the quantity. 100 calories of sugar is not nearly as good for you as 100 calories of chicken or pork. The way they affect your body is completely different, too.

Please, for the love of anything you hold dear, stop eating high-carb foods. Stop eating cake, cookies, brownies, protein shakes, rice and beans, oatmeal, pasta, pizza, bread, and anything else with lots of sugar or easily soluble carbs in it. Try meat and vegetables. Stop eating as many fruits as you want (because it’s natural, right?). Too much fruit is the same as eating candy. Just because it comes off a tree or vine doesn’t make the sugar less harmful in large amounts.

Crossfit is great to make you stronger and to strengthen your heart. You will gain a lot of muscle and endurance, but you won’t necessarily lose weight unless you change your diet and lifestyle. You will end up wasting a lot of time and money trying to reach a goal you just won’t get to.

Think about this. If you were able to control your food and calorie intake and eat only healthy foods, wouldn’t you have been doing it already? If you’re overweight and unhealthy, do you think that thinking about your food options or merely reducing the quantity would have kept you healthier and thinner? Do you think that it’s necessary to eat food from “Each of the four food groups?” Is whole grain good for you? Fruit juices? Oatmeal? Rice and beans?

If you said yes to any of those above, you’ve been fed (sorry/not sorry for the pun) a bunch of bad info. Moderation is a myth because it’s so hard to do, and nobody is really able to do it successfully. Of a group of people in a study who practiced moderation, the majority of them were unable to properly estimate the appropriate amount of food to eat and ended up over-eating the vast majority of the time. Most people really don’t know what portion sizes of different foods should really look like, and they misjudge and over eat more often than not.

Eating the same food that you eat now will get you the same results. Eating less of it will leave you with cravings, hunger, and with willpower that will erode over time culminating in failure, falling off the wagon, and returning to your former eating habits. To truly make a difference and improve your chances of losing weight for the long-term, you need to adopt a healthier lifestyle eating better foods.

There are no food groups. That was made up by a marketing group for the US Government in the 70’s as part of an initiative to get people to eat more grain. The US was (and still is) heavily subsidizing wheat and corn, and needed the demand for these products to rise so that the government could stop subsidies, or at least reduce them. The result was great success for what and corn farmers but ultimately a loss for the average American: 68% of whom are now considered obese.

Whole grain, fruit juice, oatmeal, rice, and beans are all full of carbs. These foods are very high in carbohydrates for their volume. Carbs, in and of themselves, are not bad for you, and are actually necessary. However, those foods have exceedingly high amounts of easily-soluble carbs which allows the sugar to go directly into the bloodstream with very little effort on your digestive tract. That means your body is bombarded with sugar and forces the liver and pancreas to work to store all that excess energy that the body is unable to use at the time. The result: fat.

You do not get fat from eating fried or fatty foods. You can eat bacon and eggs for every meal, day in and day out, and you will not get fat unless  you eat too much of it. When you eat too much fat, you typically get the runs because the body expels the extra fat. What many people don’t know  is that fat is a result of increased sugar intake. Someone who eats oatmeal can be fatter than a person who eats bacon and eggs because of the sugar in the oats.

With a little bit of searching, you can find the truth behind common food myths, and find yourself a healthier and happier lifestyle. Being healthy doesn’t magically make you happy, but it can help remove stresses that keep you from being your happiest.

I drink coffee, hot tea, iced tea, and water. I don’t ever drink sodas, fruit juices, or anything with sweeteners in it anymore. Sometimes, after a run, I will have some coconut water, but that’s pretty rare.

The area in which I’ve taken the biggest hit in terms of satisfaction has been drinks. I really enjoyed a good iced tea with lemon and sweetener. Mind you, I was never a sweet tea fan as I always found it to be too sweet even when I was drinking sodas. But I did like the taste of iced tea with sweetener in it. Now, I drink my iced tea with lemon and nothing else. It’s good, and I enjoy it, but it doesn’t seem to satisfy as much as iced tea with lemon and sweetener. I find that iced tea made with mango tea seems to be pretty darned good, but again, I miss the sweet aspect.

With hot teas, I seem to accept them being unsweet with more ease just as I do with coffee. Don’t get me wrong: I was the epitome of, “He likes his sugar with coffee and cream.” Now, I’ve gotten used to coffee black, and I can now taste the subtle differences in beans and roast. With that said, as much as I like coffee now, I used to love it more when I could sweeten it. Oddly, I preferred sugar in my coffee and hot tea while I preferred sweetener in my iced tea.

Why not fruit juice? From a caloric level, and when you consider the sugar and carbs in fruit juice as compared to a soda, they are almost analogous. The only difference is the soda is typically sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup instead of more naturally occurring sugars, but the bottom line to the body is it’s still sugar and still very high in easily soluble calories. It’s a shock to the system, and the body quickly converts this extra sugar into fat. Apple juice, orange juice, pineapple juice, and yes, even grapefruit juice are all full of sugar (even non-sugar added varieties). I avoid these like the plague.

I drink lots of coffee every day, and the longer I’m drinking it black, the more I’m getting used to it and learning to enjoy it. I don’t know if I’ll ever enjoy it as much as I used to enjoy my mochas and cappuccinos, but it’s coming pretty close. Very close.

Something that’s happened to Sherry and I is that we’ve turned our lifestyle into hobbies. Well, I can’t speak for her on fitness being a hobby like it is for me, but I know that the cooking and food aspects of Paleo has definitely struck both of us as not only something of a necessity as part of our healthier lifestyle, but it’s crossed over into being a hobby as well.

We went from being knowledgeable about the Paleo Diet to going to Paleo|fx not just once, but twice (and likely next year, too! Or maybe Colorado for the Paleo Magazine convention?). We enjoy finding new products, companies, and restaurants that have Paleo offerings, and we enjoy sampling products and foods that are Paleo compliant. Heck, even my tooth powder and deodorant are healthier now as a result of us adopting the Paleo lifestyle.

For me, running has become something I enjoy, and something I try to learn more about all the time. While I don’t have crazy amounts of workout or running gear, I do own two pairs of good shoes, a bunch of shorts and shirts, and I track every run carefully. I analyze my runs, and compare them to previous runs. I try to utilize different techniques I learn when I read about running, and I am constantly trying to make improvements in pace or distance. I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed but I’m definitely more than casually interested; I’m a hobbyist.

Turning health and fitness into hobbies is a natural progression for people who want to continue to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. Finding new recipes, restaurants, and products that are Paleo makes our lives richer, adds enjoyment, and allows us to experience new things to keep from getting bored. I have found in the past that restrictive diets get boring which leads to people falling back into old habits. So far, after over two years on Paleo, there’s nothing I want to go back to. I honestly enjoy the Paleo lifestyle so much more!

One of the things that really motivates me to stay on the straight and narrow is being an example to others that it’s possible to lose weight, get fit, and stay healthy over 40. I’ve inspired many people to start eating healthy, and most have realized some real weight loss and have adopted healthier lifestyles. Knowing that I’m someone these people look to as a role model in health and fitness drives me through those moments I want to have a chocolate bar, or when I want to skip a run.

I don’t want to post anyone’s pictures or stories here without their permission, but I will try to get some success stories here on the blog to post. I’m super proud of these people, and even though they sometimes act like I’m the Paleo Police when they eat or drink something non-Paleo in my presence, I’m ecstatic that they have decided to consciously make healthier decisions when eating. That means they’ll be around longer for me to have fun with!

There are many ways to measure success in health and fitness. The simplest and most tangible is weight lost, but once you reach a goal, how do you keep up with success? We need goals to keep reaching toward, and once you reach a certain weight, that simplest of goals is marked accomplished.

Some measures I’ve added and work towards are changes in my body composition that can be measured in my waist size or shirt size. I still have another inch to go on my waist, but that’s more a function of my skin shrinking some more than actually losing any weight. There’s no fat between my skin and my muscles at my waist, so this is a somewhat silly goal, but I still work toward ensuring I don’t gain any fat to make the skin shrink any slower.

My health is greatly improved, and not just on the outside, but inside as well. I am no longer a Type-2 Diabetic, I no longer suffer from fatty liver disease, my vision has improved slightly (due to no longer being diabetic) and I no longer have circulation issues in my feet.

I also measure my success in health and fitness in being able to help, aid, and assist others get healthy and fit. I make myself available to help others for not other reason than I know how it felt to be overweight and feeling helpless. I remember thinking there was no way I could ever lose the weight without a lot of pain. I want to help people realize they can do this by just changing what they eat. Adding exercise when they are comfortable and ready is a great thing, but not necessary for losing weight.

One way I have been able to measure success is by doing things I couldn’t do when I weighed more and was a larger size. Fitting into the cockpit of a PT-19 WWII bi-plane trainer is something I’ve always wanted to do, but never could due to my weight and size. Earlier this year, I was able to realize that dream and fly a bi-plane. It was exhilarating, and a sweet culmination of the work it took to get to that point. I have also been zip-lining, hiking, running, been in a NASCAR race-car on a track, and most importantly, I’ve been able to go back into the military as a Staff Sergeant in the National Guard. All of these are successes that I can cling to and help to motivate me.

The final measure of my success is in staying healthy: eating right, sticking to a strict Paleo Diet in every way I can, and getting exercise three times a week. Sometimes I miss the mark in both areas, but I never give up, and I never consider quitting. I have a lifestyle I maintain now, and I am set on keeping my health and fitness at their highest levels as I can for the rest of my life.

In a word, no. Walking alone will not get you to lose weight. If you don’t change what you eat, you are not going to lose weight. You will get stronger, and your heart will benefit a bit, but it will not get you to where you want to be. The only way to do that is by changing the food you eat from whatever it is you eat now to something healthy. Period.

If I had a nickel for every person who told me that they were starting their new, healthy lifestyle by walking, I’d be retired. I always ask, “And what diet changes are you making,” to which I’ve been told without exception, “Oh, I’m eating moderately. The same food; just not as much.” I usually just nod and tell them, “Good luck!” No, I don’t do so sarcastically; I’m sincere. I really wish them good luck, because they will need it.

Weight loss is 90% what you eat and 10% exercise. Now, if you want to maximize your weight loss and increase your heart health and fitness, then yes, exercise is absolutely necessary and beneficial. However, it’s not necessary to exercise to lose weight. I lost 110 lbs in a year without a single step of exercise. I know it can be done because I did it.

If you’re going to start something, start with changing your diet. You will have much better, quicker, and long-lasting results than by walking alone. I know this from first-hand experience, too. Sadly.