make a commitment

Make a commitment...health is not something you can achieve overnight...and it should last a lifetime! Focus on how each good change makes you feel. Healthy habits are just as addictive as bad habits. Stay strong and you will be strong!

 

What will make or break your fat loss?

What will make or break your fat loss?

In my years of training, I've learned that there are factors that are absolutely critical when it comes to fat loss. And I've also learned there are many factors that would SEEM to be critical but actually AREN'T!

The critical factors for fat loss are actually pretty simple - you probably know them already. It's the things that WON'T break your fat loss routine that can throw people off!

In this article, I’m going to give a quick rundown on BOTH.

What will make your fat loss;

1.Eating less - duh. You've got to eat less than your maintenance level of calories to see fat loss. If you don’t eat less than your maintenance than your body doesn’t really have a reason to burn fat.
 

2.WHAT you eat - if you eat crap foods, it'll be harder to lose fat. All calories are NOT created equal. If you eat junk food but still stay below your maintenance levels, your body won't give up its fat as easily. 1,500 calories worth of greasy pizza isn’t really the same nutritionally as 1,500 calories worth of lean, wholesome, natural foods. Eating less is important but eating quality is important, too.
 

3.Training properly - continue to train hard with heavy weights. Add in interval training for cardio (not the long, slow stuff - it's gotta be challenging). Your body needs heavy weight while training for fat loss. Think about it this way…what do you think is going to burn more calories and boost your metabolism more strongly…lifting a light, easy weight or lifting a heavy weight that’s a challenge to your body. Not only is the heavier weight going to burn more calories, it’s also going to tell your body it needs to hold onto muscle mass to deal with the heavy loads being placed on it!

What will break your fat loss;

1.Eating too many calories - this is a simple one. If you eat too much, you're not going to lose fat.
 

2.Not eating ENOUGH calories - your metabolism needs fuel. Simple as that. If you don't eat enough calories, your body will desperately hang onto whatever fat it's got and start burning up muscle tissue.
 

3.But here's the kicker - you CAN go VERY low calorie for short periods of time and get really good results. I'm talking 800 to 1000 calories per day. It'll be tough to do and it's hard to train hard at that level but it CAN give your fat loss a kick in the pants. Just be sure not to stay at this level for too long - a few days at the most, then bring your caloric intake back up.
 

4.Training wrong - using nothing but light weights, high reps and slow cardio. There are exceptions to the rule, but overall, you have to train hard and heavy. This is the one thing with fat loss that really seems to throw a lot of people off. Granted, you CAN results by training this way…just not very GOOD results.

What doesn’t really matter;

1.Doing cardio first thing in the morning - honestly, you can do your cardio any time! You may see a bit more fat loss if you do it first thing in the morning but here's my take...if you're doing interval training (like you should for losing fat) and you can't drum up a lot of intensity first thing in the morning (I know I can't), it's not going to do much good to train first thing in the morning. Personally, I get more out of it doing cardio later in the day. I'm more awake and train harder. If you can train hard first thing, totally fine! That'll work too. Bottom line - it doesn't matter when you do your cardio as long as you actually do it and do it hard!
 

2.Eating 6 meals a day - it's nice if you can do it. It'll certainly help somewhat with your fat loss. But if you can't eat 6 times a day, it's not going to break your fat loss results. Just make sure you’re eating quality food and keeping the caloric deficit going.

3.Letting yourself get hungry - oh, the horror! Hungry...while on a diet!! Think of it this way, hunger is a sign from your body that it doesn't have food in the stomach and it has to work on STORED FUEL to function. That sounds like fat to me. Certainly muscle may be broken down a little as well, but it's not a big a problem as some people make it out to be. When you train with weights, it's a HUGE stimulus for your body to hang onto that muscle. Eat enough protein during the day, train hard, and you won't lose muscle. Honestly, I like to let myself get hungry while dieting, especially before training. If you train on an empty stomach, your GH response to training increased (which helps burn fat and build muscle). You'll get better results. If you're on a muscle-building program, you don't want to go hungry. You WANT your body to have a constant supply of nutrients so that it think it can start storing everything. When you're losing fat, you're using up stored nutrients.

4.Taking fat burner supplements - contrary to all the ads in the magazines, fat burners don't give you THAT much in the way of results. Your own metabolism and training (and nutrition) do a FAR better job of it. Some of those pills can help (not many are any good at all) but only by about 5% or so. You can't just take pills and get shredded. Doesn't work that way. You've gotta work for it. If you think about it, your Basal Metabolic Rate is up in the thousands of calories per day. Fat loss pills can’t burn THAT many calories! So fine-tuning your eating and training is definitely the way to go.
 

5.Eating some junk food once in awhile - it's what you eat 90% of the time that gets you the results. It's tough to be absolutely perfect all the time when dieting and trying to be perfect is a surefire way to disappoint yourself when you DO break it. So why not accept that and PLAN it into your diet? It's not going to throw off your entire program if you eat some pizza one day. Or somebody gives you a piece of birthday cake. Digest it and move on! You can be strict again on your next meal. It's only when you cheat CONSTANTLY that it'll affect your results. Heck, I find the occasional cheat to be quite helpful by giving my body a shock! A quick trick to make it think it's not on a diet anymore :)

6.Waiting an hour after training to eat - if anything, this will actually HURT your progress. That "afterburn" that some people talk about - when they refer to the body continuing to burn fat after a workout, goes on REGARDLESS of what you eat. Even if you eat carbs, which you would think would stop fat burning in its tracks, your body will continue to burn fat post-workout. Why? The post-workout recovery process is FUELED BY FAT. It doesn't matter what you eat (naturally, don't eat crap), fat will be burned. So why not take advantage of this primetime for recovery by eating protein and carbs to help your body out! It'll help keep your metabolism from shutting down sooner.

Conclusion;

Many of these things I talked about are pretty straightforward, especially what’ll make or break your fat loss. I hope it opened up your eyes about what WON’T make or break you, though! As long as you’re doing the big things right, the small things like training on an empty stomach first thing in the morning won’t be a big deal.

Man of the Year

You make a living by what you get.

You make a life by what you give.
Winston Churchill

Dear Family and Friends,

I am truly honored to have been nominated as a candidate for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) 2012 Man of The Year Award. Make no mistake; this award is not about personal gain.  It is about those battling a debilitating illness.  With your support we can move closer to curing these terrible blood diseases.

Cancer does not discriminate.  Every four minutes, someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer and every ten minutes it claims another victim.  Blood cancers are the #3 cause of death in the United States and the #1 cause of death among those under twenty years old.  The LLS is the world’s largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, education, and patients’ services.  With your help they can improve the quality of life of blood cancer patients and their families.

The cause to find a cure is extra important to me, since a close family member has been battling with Lymphoma for more than 10 years. While research has progressed and new treatments and drugs are available to patients, there are incredible costs associated with EVERY step forward.  This is where YOU come in!  With your help, the LLS will continue to fund ground breaking research and provide needed services to help those afflicted with blood cancer.

My campaign to become Man of the Year is all about dollars raised.  Every dollar YOU donate is a vote for me and a step closer to curing cancer.  I am certain you will consider making a donation to this worthy cause. 

All donations should be made before May 18^th!!

To visit my personal website address and for donations: http://wch.mwoy.llsevent.org/mervyntugendhaft

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.- Chinese proverb

closer day by day

Getting closer, day by day.

never quit

Never quit. If you stumble, get back up. What happened yesterday no longer matters. Today’s another day, so get back on track on move closer to your dreams and goals. You can do it!

perfection is a myth

Perfection is a myth, and if someone appears “perfect,” chances are they are not challenging themselves and are simply staying in the safe zone to be able to control everything around them.

progress

Progress is a journey and your path will ebb and flow. It's important to be cognizant of that ebb and flow--to expect it, to embrace it, and to use it to keep improving.

support the Leukemia Lymphoma fundrasier at SMC

Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back!

·         Anthony Robbins

Please help me by supporting my cause to establish a research program in honor of my friend’s mother in law, Joan Richman, who passed away in December 2010 of Lymphoma (CLL).

Please Donate!

your destiny

·         It's not what's happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. Rather, it's your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you're going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny.”

·         Anthony Robbins

 

cardio vs aerobic training

Some people are still under the misapprehension that the only exercise modality that can be categorized as cardiovascular is aerobic style training such as medium to long distance running or cycling.  Nothing could be further from the truth and let me explain why;
There is a world of difference between exercising for aerobic capacity, which is what you get from aerobic training,  and cardiovascular fitness.  Let that sink in for a few seconds.
Now lets define a few concepts, because there is so much BS talked about what is necessary to be “fit” (what does that mean anyway – it should mean “fit for purpose”, and every purpose is different so there can be no real meaning to the term “fit”!):
Aerobic Training
Cardio training programs are often perceived as being within the exclusive remit of “aerobic exercise”.  Aerobic (“with oxygen”) training is typified by low to moderate levels of exertion, typically over a duration of 20 minutes up to many hours.  As a % of energy used to fuel the body, fat metabolism is higher than carbohydrate / glycogen metabolism (glycolysis), however fewer calories per unit of time are burned than with more intense forms of training (anaerobic – “without oxygen”) and overall metabolic elevation stays higher the more intense the training session is, i.e. the greater the anaerobic capacity so long as exercise duration is of sufficient length, as 2 seconds of anaerobic exercise will burn minimal calories, but repeated bursts of 30-90 second anaerobic training will boost your metabolism like wild fire.
Aerobic Capacity
Specific aerobic training improves aerobic fitness / aerobic capacity.  Aerobic capacity is the functional capacity of the cardiorespiratory system, which is measured by testing VO2 max, a term that means an individual’s aerobic capacity / peak oxygen uptake / maximal oxygen consumption.  VO2 max is crucially important for endurance athletes, of minimal importance to more explosive athletes (there is in fact a proven inverse correlation between VO2 max and an individual’s ability to “accelerate” and “explode” as measured by a vertical jump), and there is no direct link between VO2 max and cardiovascular health. This isn’t to say that the VO2 max is useless, or that an improved cardiorespiratory capacity is not a good thing for many people, but it is clearly not the only or even the best way to exercise the heart.
Cardiovascular Health
The cardiovascular system is one of the most important aspects of our own health, and we should pay it constant attention.  It is the heart, the veins, and the blood vessels, and it takes in pulmonary, systemic and coronary circulation.  It has nothing to do with aerobic capacity, which should make you wonder why aerobic training is so commonly conceived as being the only way to exercise for a healthy heart!
Cardiorespiratory Fitness
Cardiorespiratory fitness is the ability of both the respiratory and the circulatory systems to supply oxygen to skeletal muscles during physical activity.  This isn’t just an asset for an exercise regime, but also for living a vigorous and fulfilling life.  A large number of people seem to believe that cardiorespiratory fitness can only be achieved by aerobic training.  Indulge me for a second and let us wonder if there are any other exercise modalities that might vigorously pump blood to skeletal muscles and “train” the heart…
What it all means:
Hopefully the definitions above will have got you thinking a little and enable you to appreciate that the first problem we have to address in this cardio / aerobic debate is that we are pretty much all guilty of using the term “cardio training” when we really mean “aerobic training”.  Think about what we mean when we discuss a cardio training program: this refers to exercise that is stimulating for our overall cardiovascular system, predominantly the heart.  So it therefore stands to reason that anything that maximally exercises the heart and vascular system can count as a cardiovascular training program.  If you are one of those who associate cardiovascular training as solely belonging to the world of the treadmill / stationary bike, stop for a second and ask yourself whether you are being slightly myopic, and if there may be occasions when other forms of exercise aside from traditional aerobic training might also stimulate the heart.
The naysayers of resistance training will tell you that aerobic training is a must for cardiovascular health, regardless of whether an individual weight trains or not.  The number of times I have heard trained personal training clients come out with this line of BS is quite staggering.  The solution to such ignorance is to teach via experience, and one introductory session into the delights of weight training for fat loss and body composition purposes soon sees them reverse that opinion.  In such circumstances it isn’t absolutely necessary to have them gasping for breath, heart beating so hard that our receptionist at the front desk can hear it, vomiting in the sick bucket, and collapsing in a corner of the gym for 50 minutes, but it does give a certain satisfaction as a lesson well learned!
What I love about resistance training is that it is the most malleable training tool available to us.  We can pretty much literally train for anything we want.  So if you are gearing up for a powerlifting world record with long slow sessions of triples and a work to rest ratio of 10 seconds to 7 minutes then yes, you would certainly benefit health wise from some form of cardio training, although this should not be traditional aerobic work but rather some brief modified strongman sessions on the super yoke, farmers walk, and prowler.  On the other hand, the type of training that most people want, the type that adds a sculpted look to the body, very often involves minimal rest periods and a constantly elevated heart rate. If someone comes to me wanting to improve their “fitness” for almost any sport, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that their stamina and short term recovery ability can be improved often in as little as a few days with brutally tough workouts that emphasize big compound movements, restricted recovery between sets, and a little bit of time spent pulling a sled!  If anyone doubts me on this, I’ll let you train someone the traditional way of doing shuttle runs across a football pitch and other forms of outdated “conditioning work”, and I’ll train them my way in my gym, and after ten days we can see whose performance will have improved the most.  I’ll be willing to wager anything you like on this one if someone wants to take me up on it!
What this means for YOU!
It means that there are innumerable exercise options open to you if you want to build cardiovascular health.  A bit of (hard) aerobic training can be good, and so can some (hard) weight training.  Coasting on a stationary bike will have negligible effect, as will weight training the way most people seem to do it in a commercial gym.  Sitting yourself down in some fancy machine and lifting a weight for 12 reps that you could actually lift for 100 reps, and then resting five minutes whilst you text your friends and stare into space simply does not cut it.  It isn’t all that complicated, you just have to work hard!
Some of you reading this may be skeptical of my enthusiasm as after all, a cursory glance will tell you that I have a personal preference towards weight training over aerobic exercise.  Just for once I’ll quote a tiny bit of science and state that there are countless studies proving that left ventricular function of the heart is one of the key predictors of cardiovascular health, and guess what sort of person these studies say have the best ejection fraction and diastolic function?  Yes, individuals who regularly practice vigorous resistance training!  

Choose

We are all entirely free to choose whatever we want. The power is in your hands now, and you are the one who chooses how to us that power in your own life. You can choose: To have a happier life today, or put it off until tomorrow. What feels better? You choose.

 

what you do

·         Today is the opportunity to do what you should have done yesterday. Don't waste it!

 

create your future

What you are thinking now is creating your future… Because you are always thinking, you are always creating. What you think about the most or focus on the most, is what will appear as your life. Like all the laws of nature, there is utter perfection in this law… Whatever you sow, you reap! Your thoughts are seeds, and the harvest you reap will depend on the seeds you plant.

one day at the time

One day at a time--this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering.

it's not going to be easy

If it came in a bottle or a magic pill, everybody would have a great body. Patience is a must when it comes to this lifestyle we live. Many will give up due to the amount of hard work and patience the desired results require. No one said this would be easy, just know that nothing beats the feeling of accomplishment.

Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is.Vince Lombardi

5 Recovery Secrets of Athletes

 

When it comes to recovery strategies, athletes are a notoriously stubborn bunch, preferring to push forward with tough workouts day after day. While such a work ethic is admirable, it’s impossible to go all-out all the time. You won’t train as effectively and you’ll likely break down with injuries and ailments. On the other hand, if you can focus on having high-quality rest and regeneration, you’ll be able to get more return on investment from every minute of your workout.
Regeneration increases your energy, boosts your immune system, and helps you get the most out of each training session, which ultimately will improve your performance. Regeneration improves your hormone profile, decreases inflammation, and improves tissue quality, thus decreasing the number of overuse injuries you may experience. Here are five recovery secrets of endurance athletes:

1. Get More Sleep

Getting adequate sleep is the easiest way to boost endurance performance. It’s crucial to maximize deep, restorative sleep time, which happens in the first few hours of sleep each night. It’s important to make adequate sleep a regular part of your lifestyle.

2. Recover with Nutrition

Nutrition is one of the key part of recovery. Be sure to take advantage of that 30-minute post workout recovery period when your body is craving nutrients to replenish itself. It’s ideal to consume a shake, energy bar, piece of fruit, and/or sports drink immediately following a workout. Do this before anything else. The food or supplement you choose should provide about 0.8 gram of carbs per kilogram of body weight and 0.4 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight.

3. Re-Hydrate

It’s impossible to hydrate with water following a workout, and you should drink two cups for every pound lost during exercise. But you can jumpstart your recovery and optimize performance by staying hydrated throughout the day. Keep a water bottle with you all day. Drink ½ to 1 ounce of water per pound of body weight per day to stay hydrated. Keep an eye on your urine color. It should be clear. If not, drink more water.

4. Get a Massage

Ideally, we’d get professional massages immediately after a tough training session. Since that’s not usually practical or affordable, do some self-massage with a foam roll.

5. Stretch it Out

Active isolated stretching is a great way to recover post-workout. You can perform a series of moves that will reprogram your muscles to contract and relax through new ranges of motion.

Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor, upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right.
Aldous Huxley

perfect time

People are always looking for the perfect time to make changes. There is no perfect time! Yesterday I said today and today I say tomorrow! Life is now, it’s time to press play and never look back unless you are planning to go that way!

excuses

When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.

obstacles

·         You can sit there forever, lamenting about how bad you've been, feeling guilty until you die, and not one tiny slice of that guilt will do anything to change a single thing in the past. Forgive yourself, then move on.

 

things you control

·         Start concentrating on the things you can control.
You can’t change everything, but you can always change something. Wasting your time, talent and emotional energy on things that are beyond your control is a recipe for frustration, misery and stagnation. Invest your energy in the things you can control, and act on them now.

 

negative thinking

Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself. You may be surprised at how easily this happens. Your doubts are not as powerful as your desires, unless you make them so.

Marcia Wieder

Half-Empty or Half-Full

Half-Empty or Half-Full

What's your worldview? Are you an optimist or a pessimist by nature? Do you always expect good things to happen or are you waiting for the other shoe to drop? Our mental attitude affects how we interact with others and how we respond to events and the comings and goings in our daily lives. Remarkably, our mental attitude also affects our health and well-being. How we feel, not only mentally but also physically, is significantly impacted by what has been termed our "internal guidance mechanism".

Back in the 1960s a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz wrote Psycho-Cybernetics, a groundbreaking book that has been continuously in print for almost 50 years. Psycho-Cybernetics, one of the original self-help books, popularized the idea that the subconscious part of our mind is a goal-seeking mechanism. Maltz famously compared the subconscious to a guided missile, stating that the subconscious would do exactly what it is programmed to do. If you want to achieve a goal, Maltz proposed, visualize its successful completion. Visualize yourself driving that red sports car. Visualize the fun you and your family are having on your trip to Hawaii or Italy. Visualize living in your beautiful home. Provided that the instructions are clear, your subconscious will go to work to cause your goal to manifest in your life.

This wasn't mumbo-jumbo. Maltz was a scientist and made a very strong case for his theory, backed up by decades of interaction with his patients. Since then, of course, hundreds if not thousands of self-help gurus have sprung up, publishing books, giving seminars, and being interviewed in broadcast media. Maltz, Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, Emmet Fox, and Ernest Holmes were the originals, the pioneers who promulgated the concepts and precepts of taking charge of your own life.

In terms of health, for example, attitude is critically important. How do you respond, internally, if a nearby co-worker coughs or sneezes throughout the day? Have you noticed that if you think that you, too, are going to get sick, that in fact you do? But others, exposed to the same environment, do not. Is it possible that these others paid no attention to the ill co-worker, that they did not internalize the notion that they were being exposed to contagion? Such a scenario is not necessarily true, but it is possible. The conclusion could be that our thoughts matter. As Earl Nightingale, one of the pioneers of the personal development field, famously stated, "You become what you think about".

So what should we do? Think happy thoughts all day long? Not really. But it is important to remember that attitude counts. If we are more frequently seeing the glass as half-full rather than half-empty, it is possible that we are going to have a more productive, more successful, more fulfilled day. And, unbeknownst to us, our subconscious mind will build on those successes and help to bring us more success, personal growth, happiness, and well-being.

ALL THE GREAT ACHIEVERS OF THE PAST HAVE BEEN VISIONARY FIGURES; THEY WERE MEN AND WOMEN WHO PROJECTED INTO THE FUTURE. THEY THOUGHT OF WHAT COULD BE, RATHER THAN WHAT ALREADY WAS, AND THEN THEY MOVED THEMSELVES INTO ACTION, TO BRING THESE INTO FRUITION.

Bob Proctor

I will

·         There are times in which you say I wish, I wish I would have, I wish that would happen. Today is the day to say I will. I will do those things that I know will make things great. I will have the courage to take the leap. I will not accept the present and choose to create the future. I will the life that I deserve. I will live life to its fullest and squeeze every second out of the day. Do the things now, life awaits.

 

stay focussed

The road is long and it can be challenging. There are times in which it seems we are getting further from our goals and aspirations. Never let setbacks be an excuse to not keep trying. Never let negative people influence you or direct what you do. Stay focused on what you want to accomplish. Never let go of the passions that inspire you, guide you , and drive you. These passions will lead you to reach your fullest potential. Never forget why you were so inspired in the first place. It makes what you are reaching for worth it.

be your awesome self

Whenever somebody discredits you, and tells you that you can’t do something, keep in mind that they are speaking from within the boundaries of their own limitations. Ignore them. Don’t give in. In this crazy world that’s trying to make you like everyone else, find the courage to keep being your awesome self. And when they laugh at you for being different, laugh back at them for being the same.

treat yourself

There are 6,852,472,823 people in the world.

Why are you letting ONE of them bring you down?

believe in yourself

Desire, Belief and Expectation —- these are the 3 forces of power than you must learn to harness to allow the Law of Attraction to work for you.
Get in the habit of thinking big and desiring wonderful things for yourself and for your fellow man.

alcohol

Alcohol in your system is detrimental to any kind of fitness activity (except maybe on the dance floor). Here's how booze wreaks havoc on your regimen.

1. Slower Recovery
Hard workouts drain the glycogen stores (carbs stored in the liver and muscles) and leave your muscle tissue in need of repair. "Pouring alcohol into your system as soon as you finish stalls the recovery process," says Tavis Piattoly, R.D. High levels of alcohol displace the carbs, leaving your stores still 50 percent lower than normal even eight hours later, according to one study. Sip or snack on a combo of muscle-repairing protein and carbs (think low-fat chocolate milk or peanut butter on whole-wheat crackers) before tipping back.

2. Packed-On Fat
When booze is on board, your body, besides having to deal with the surplus of calories, prioritizes metabolizing the alcohol over burning fat and carbs. Alcohol also breaks down amino acids and stores them as fat. "For some reason this process is most pronounced in the thighs and glutes," says Piattoly. "Excessive alcohol consumption really chews up muscle in those areas." It also increases levels of cortisol (a stress hormone), which further encourages fat storage, particularly in your midsection.

3. Disrupted Sleep
Boozing also blows your muscle recovery and performance by sapping your sleep. In a study of 93 men and women, researchers found that alcohol decreased sleep duration and increased wakefulness (particularly in the second half of the night), especially in women, whose sleep time was decreased by more than 30 minutes over the night. Disrupting the sleep cycle can reduce your human growth hormone output—which builds muscle—by as much as 70 percent.

4. Depleted Water and Nutrients
Alcohol irritates the stomach lining, which can reduce your capacity to absorb nutrients (the reason you have an upset stomach after a few too many), says Brian R. Christie, Ph.D.—not to mention that alcohol makes you pee. For every gram of ethanol you suck down, you pump out 10 milliliters of urine (that's about 9.5 ounces for two beers). As little as 2 percent dehydration hurts endurance performance. And by the way, you can't rehydrate with a dehydrating drink (e.g., beer).

friends

Ask yourself whether each of your relationships drags you down or lifts you up. Surrounding yourself with positive, loving people is half the battle of living a happy, successful life.