The #1 Secret To Life Long Physical Excellence

Do you remember when you first learned how to drive a car?

The mere act of getting behind the wheel totally consumed you. Driving required so much of your attention and energy that you couldn’t even have the radio on.

But as time went on something magical happened.  Not only were you able to  drive with the radio on but you’ve now added talking on the phone and text messaging to the mix.

What was the variable in having the confidence and faith to safely and effectively navigate a 2 ton machine towards your chosen destination?

It was the Acquisition Of Skill.

When you gained the required skills of driving your car, the energy demand to perform the task was much less than when you first started.

The acquisition of skill  allowed you to divert your energy towards other tasks. It allowed you to drive with less effort. Gaining the skill gave you the confidence and the faith to know that you can succeed at will.

If you have achieved any level of physical excellence (i.e. weight loss, strength, endurance, etc) and are struggling to maintain your gains, then it is time to explore the concept of skill acquisition.

Real physical excellence, once achieved is a non struggle. It will still take effort but your efforts will be more effective because you are doing it with skill. If you have lost weight, acquiring the skill of weight management will help you keep it off. If you have truly acquired the skill of strength, then your training will be ever evolving. Elite physical excellence students rarely hit training “plateaus” because they understand that adjusting their nutrition and training by listening to their body is a skill that helps them continue to make progress despite changes in their energy levels and environment.

The mindset for achieving permanent physical excellence is to turn your goals into a quest for skill.

If you focus on mastering the skill the final result will be all but guaranteed…forever.

Much Chi..

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How The Body Thinks Part 2: Exercise The New Addiction

Let’s take a trip down memory lane..

It all started way back with the first Mr. Olympia Eugene Sandow. He was considered the world’s most perfectly build man of his time. He was lean, symmetrical, muscular and strong. Eugene was truly the total package. He not only had the “show” muscles but he had the “go” as well. His feats of strength was his original claim to fame but is audiences soon became more enamored with his bulging muscles than what he could lift. From this point on the era of Bodybuilding began.

The concept of bodybuilding has evolved quite a bit since Sandow’s day. During the early days of physical culture, there was a pride and focus on not only looking good on the outside but living a healthy lifestyle and feeling good on the inside.

Within the last 5 to 10 years, there has been a shift from physical culture to the era of extreme fitness. High-tech gyms and super-charged supplements have created the great divide between form, health and function.

Extreme exercise has literally become the new addiction.  At least in the 70-80’s you had somewhat of a clear boundary between physical culture and the party crowd.

Now people are replacing their hard drugs with hard exercise.They are replacing the high of narcotics  with the train till you puke mindset. Think about it. If you’ve ever exercised until you threw up, didn’t it feel the same as a hangover?

At it’s core they are one and the same.  People are trading narcotics for stimulants and extreme exercise in the name of health. It is a step up the evolutionary ladder but I feel that we can and must keep moving up.

Just because an exercise is possible does not mean it is to be done. Not all exercise is for everyone and until we understand this, we are going to have millions of people brainwashed into thinking that they have to kill themselves to get in shape. This is not a good thing if we are trying to inspire millions of overweight and out of shape people to exercise.

These extreme workouts is not training. They are events. It is the equivalent to  running the full 26 miles at every session if you are training for a marathon.

Elite Strength Coaches,(I’m talking about the Real Elite Coaches) know that the extreme fitness programs are just fads.

The definition of a training program is being able to duplicate an executed session.

If you cannot duplicate the session without injury or burnout, then it was not a training session, it was a maximal event.

If I did a maximal event 3 times a week, I’d need a Red Bull or Red line or Nitro something to get by as well. Here’s a novel concept..

Train to tolerance and then rest.  Gradually and systematically  progress your way to higher levels of intensity. This way your results “stick” and you build long lasting results.

Give it a shot..

Much Chi##

How The Body Thinks Part 1: Death By Gym

What you are about to learn could save your life.

To truly understand how exercise affects the body, there must be an understanding of human biology, physiology, and psychology.

All of these factors are affected by an exercise program.

Stay with me please…This is going to get a little deep.

Evolutionary biology tells us that ANY threat to the organism will create a stress response in the body.

Let’s define what threat means in a bit more detail.

A threat is anything that compromises human survival. ANYTHING..

We are hardwired to detect any and all stressors that can kill us. This  can be at the conscious level (i.e. what we are aware of) or at the subconscious level (i.e. what we are not aware of.)

Ok.. let’s now define both conscious and unconscious stressors.

First the conscious..

* being trapped in a burning car.
* falling off a motorcycle
*getting mauled by a hungry grizzly bear.
*being diagnosed with a terminal illness
etc…

Now here are some of the possible subconscious stressors

* poor breathing pattern; if your breathing is compromised in any way.. your body thinks you are going to die.. And there are 8 ways to Sunday that breathing can be disrupted, so this threat is real and quite prevalent.

*poor posture: if your physical frame is out of alignment, your body thinks it will not be able to effectively run from predators or hunt effectively and therefore thinks it will die. Consider that 90+% of society has some type of postural disorder.

*suboptimal food choices: if you are eating a food that your DNA sees as incompatible with life… your body thinks it will die. In other words any time you eat a meal that is not according to your metabolic type, your body thinks it a poison and goes into a state of stress.

I don’t think I need to give you a statistic for this one. Just look around.. Has anyone close to you to been diagnosed with cancer? How about heart dis-ease? diabetes? anybody obese? how about just a little overweight? How about can get pregnant? Etc….

It is the subconscious forms of stress that eventually produce conscious forms of stress (i.e. sickness and dis-ease).

Finally here lies the lesson..

Many people have a desire to improve their health, fitness and body image.

They are willing to put in the time and effort to exercise and “diet”.

A fundamental principle of Physical Excellence is that any exercise program will serve to do three things:

1. Improve the structure of the body: This goes beyond biceps, triceps and abs and emphasizes the development of the physical qualities needed to develop, restore and maintain a healthy, functional and vital human frame. If this happens, the fitness, fat loss and the aesthetic results will be all but guaranteed.

2. Improve movement skills. Your exercise program will promote the ideal expression of human movement. In other words, your body will move and function the way it was designed to.

The best way to describe this principle is with the following analogy:

What if you took your car to a mechanic to get a full service on it (i.e. brakes, tire rotation, alignment, tune up etc.). And the mechanic also threw in a free car wash and wax.

Now imagine as you drove the car home that it drove and performed worse than it did before you took it in to get fixed? Would you focus on the fact that your car is shinny or would you have a problem with the fact that the car is running like crap?

Yet I have consulted with THOUSANDS of people over the last 20 years that have been “working out” and they come to me with poor posture, dysfunctional movement patterns, and are “fit but sick”.

This phenomenon was unheard of 30 years ago.

It is only since the advent of diet pills, cheap garbage supplements that we now have people with six pack abs like a world class athlete and toxic livers and polluted intestines.  I digress for a moment but I think you get the point.

In summary: If your exercise and nutrition program is not in line with your specific needs, and are not accomplishing the above, then your body thinks it will die and produce a stress response.

Prolonged stress responses are detrimental to your health and that is not Physical Excellence.

Listen.. with the new changes in “health care (i.e. disease management)” in the United States, more of the onus will be on us to take personal responsibility for our health and well being, as it ought to be in my opinion.

We have more people getting terminal illnesses at younger ages than ever.

We as a society must approach our health and vitality from a different perspective.

A perspective that will serve to promote Physical Excellence to the next generation.

Will you help me do it?

Your tip for today,

Much.. Chi..

The Pleasant Paradox

Here’s a thought…

I call it the “Pleasant Paradox”
If you think you have no energy to properly care for yourself, where will you find it? Take a wild Guess…
By taking care of your self..

Think about it..
Much Chi..

Terrence

Pulling vs Pushing

I was listening to NPR the other day and the discussion was about weight loss.

One of the speakers was discussing how much weight they were trying to lose and how difficult it was to stay away from all of the bad foods. Then the other commentator chimed in and agreed that weight loss is definitely a test of will power.

With that said, here lies my point.

Consider the notion that “How you do anything is how you do everything”.

Also consider that everything has a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual connection to it. In other words it’s all connected to the same “energy” source.

Now ask yourself is it easier to push away or resist temptation than it is to reach for or “pull” towards your goals?

Think about any time you have ever achieved anything in your life. Were you pulling or pushing?

Instead of pushing away from bad food, reach for the food that will help you reach your goal.

We all have applied this strategy to get what we want in other areas of our lives. Now let’s apply it to achieving Physical Excellence.

Food for Thought.

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Motivation-Inspiration

If this don’t light your fire then your wood is wet.

Enjoy…

Be Not Afraid To Die on A Treadmill…

How I missed this when it was first aired is beyond me but I’m glad to have found it now.

If you have ever desired to achieve anything, this video will put it all in perspective.

See Will Smith tell it like it is…

You may need this after watching the video..

Much Chi…

Release Your Fear

“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.”

Mary Manin Morrissey.

A Novel Solution to the US Healthcare Crisis

Imagine yourself walking down the street and you see a crowd of people, let’s say 100 or so in an all out mele battle royal. Fists are flying, blood squirting and no one is having a good time. Many are not making it out alive. You see someone walking about 20 paces ahead of you trying to peek in to take a look and then innocently get sucked into the chaos.

Now at this point, you have a choice. You can let curiosity get the best of you or you can take a complete detour from the entire mess or keep a safe distance at best.

This story is a summary of what’s going on between the government, insurance agencies and the drug companies. They are all fighting to keep their share of the pie and do what they can to maintain the “status quo”. The quo is to deny people the right to decent medical care. Notice I did not say “health” care because there’s nothing healthy about it.

Despite the scare tactics on both sides to convince us one way of the other, there is one viable solution that we all can be apart of. That is the wellness revolution.

What if our senior citizens were not so dependent on prescription drugs because they are healthy and vital enough to be without. What if our children were fed a proper diet so they would not be given ADD meds to “cure” it? What if the six foundational principles of Thoughts, Breathing, Hydration, Food, Exercise and Sleep were mandatory subjects in schools?

What if we starting talking with our hard earned dollars so that junk food companies and big pharma will listen since the language of the mighty greenback is the only thing that they understand. If we don’t buy.. they will listen.

“You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one”.. (I couldn’t resist) but if we simply pay attention to the huge elephant in the room and stop dealing in BS, we can have the “healthcare” problem solved in 5 years with the above strategy.

Just some food for thought…

please share your thoughts and feelings about this..

Much Chi….

10 Rules Of Permanent Weight Loss

Over the last 20 years, I have had the pleasure of working with a wide variety of people with many of them wanting to lose weight.  With all of the weight loss clients that I have worked with, one or more of the 10 Rules for Permanent Weight Loss were implemented to achieve long lasting results. If you can implement just one of the 10 strategies that you will learn in this report, you will greatly improve your chances of maintaining a healthy and ideal body weight.

10. Establish your principles:
It is important to approach weight loss with the correct mindset. Your mindset will help create your personal principles for achieving your goals. Your principles create the standard that governs your actions.  It determines the line that you can approach but will not cross. It will be your law. You will not go to jail if you break your personal law but it may take you a bit longer to achieve your weight loss goals. This can be just as brutal as going to jail for some as self imprisonment is often times the most difficult to escape.
Principles create confidence and peace of mind. It keeps you centered in your own universe and protects you against outside influences that try to throw you off balance. Once this standard is set, maintain integrity by staying within your standard.
So how do you set your standard? It’s very simple. To create a personal standard, simply make an agreement with yourself and then honor it. For example: I will eat breakfast 5 of 7 days a week. Or I will only have alcohol on the weekends. I recommend that you start small. As you become good at keeping smaller agreements you can then start to increase your personal demands.  For example: I will stay within 5 to 7 pounds of my ideal body weight.
This skill of making and honoring agreements is simply exercising Integrity. This is a very powerful activity and I encourage you to use this exercise to help you lose weight but also in others areas of your life.
Here are some examples of principles that you can use:
i. I will lose weight one pound at a time. Small and consistent steps are the key to long term success.
ii. I will follow the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of my lifestyle and nutrition efforts will be directed towards my weight loss and the remaining twenty percent will not.
iii. I will approach my weight loss goals with a long term view. There will be ups and downs but as long as I stay on the path I will achieve my goal of PERMANENT WEIGHT LOSS.

9. Prioritize your effort:
Weight loss is very multi-dimensional as there are many reasons people gain weight. The chemical, physical, and mental aspects of weight loss must be considered.

Chemical: there many prescription medications that directly and indirectly cause weight gain i.e. birth control, anti depressants, anti-inflammatory drugs.  If you are currently on any medications, consult with your doctor about how they may affect your weight loss efforts.

Physical: you may not be getting enough exercise or may have a physical problem that prevents you from exercising effectively. If this is the case, I recommend that you schedule a corrective exercise consultation. The information that you’ll gain from this process will pay for itself now and in the future.
Mental: we all have a relationship with food. Our family, lifestyle and culture influence this relationship. Whatever relationship that you have with food as of now, make sure that it is in line with what you are trying to accomplish in terms of weight loss.  I am fully aware of the social pressures that are present today. The need to fit in is a powerful driving force behind our nutrition and lifestyle choices. However to accomplish your goal, you must maintain the integrity in your personal commitments (see rule #1).

Regardless of if the chemical, physical or mental aspects of your health, something has caused you not to be at your ideal weight. To achieve results the most important factors must be addresses first.  First things first! Determine which of the three facets of health and weight loss that you feel require the most attention and start there.

8. Strive for True vs. False Weight loss:
Focus on fat loss instead of weight loss. True weight loss is measured in terms of body composition. The exception is with people who are considered morbidly obese, which is being 100 pounds over what is considered ideal body weight for your height and frame. Those who are between 10 and 30 pounds heavy should focus on losing fat to achieve PERMANENT WEIGHT LOSS.
Have your body composition measured and re-checked every 6 to 8 weeks. This is to determine if you are keeping a favorable fat to muscle ratio. Your eyes will probably tell you even before the body fat caliper will. If you are losing weight and your body shape is changing you are more than likely losing body fat.  If you have lost a significant amount of weight i.e. 5 to 10% of your body weight and your shape has changed very little I would definitely look at your weight loss program a bit closer.

7. Create your Metabolism:
There are certain genetic factors that affect the way we process food. But there are many lifestyle factors that are within our control and they are;
1. Total Calorie intake
2. Meal Frequency
3. Macro-nutrient ratio i.e. Protein: Carbohydrate: Fat ratios.
4. Exercise

It is important to understand that all of the above factors are intimately connected to each other in regards to creating a healthy metabolism. We can control one or all of these variables to help create a metabolism that works for us instead of against us.
So what is the ideal metabolism? Is it being able to eat anything you want and not gain weight? Well not exactly. For weight loss and health purposes, an ideal metabolism is where we can effectively digest and utilize food without excessive conversion of calories to body fat. A healthy metabolism should also allow us to draw upon our body fat reserves when needed. The typical American diet has robbed us of the ability to use our own body fat for energy because of the excessive amounts of carbohydrates available to us. We are relying so heavily on sugar and other forms of sugar substitutes that our bodies see no need to use our own body fat for energy. It is this phenomenon called Syndrome X or Metabolic Syndrome that is causing a large number of health epidemics today, such as heart disease and Type II diabetes.
Food manufactures have spent billions of dollars to brainwash into believing their processed foods are healthy. As a result we as a society now have a misguided and unhealthy relationship with food. They have successfully made us believe that what’s in a box is good and what is not is bad. Just to give you a one cent tip worth a million dollars, avoid boxed foods as much as possible.

6. Metabolic Typing:
Metabolic Typing is one of the ways that Expert Fitness Solutions helps its clients. Dr. William Wolcott the author of the Metabolic Typing Diet said that One man’s fuel is another man’s poison. The science of nutrition is an ever-evolving topic and is still considered to be in its infancy in regards to its complete understanding. For this reason I will not promote any specific diet or nutritional strategy. We are all unique in the way we process and react to foods. The best way to achieve success with your eating plan is to become aware of how your body is reacting to the foods that you are eating. This will help you find your nutritional niche.

5. Food Allergies:
The subject of food allergies is a 10 tip report in itself. I know what you may be thinking, How can food allergies make you fat  Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this topic, allow me make a point of clarification. The type of allergic reaction that I am speaking of is not the deadly anaphylactic type but a reaction that basically makes the immune system work harder than it needs to. A better term for this is food intolerance. Due to the poor nutrition habits of many people today, food intolerances are very common and we are literally eating ourselves into allergies.
Here is one popular way that we acquire food intolerances. It involves alcohol consumption.  Alcohol is absorbed in the stomach and is also an irritant to the lining of the stomach. This causes the stomach to become inflamed and produce histamine (an immune triggered substance). We typically eat after we drink alcohol and here lies the problem. When you eat when your gut is inflamed your body starts to produce antibodies for the food that you are eating. The food that you eat will be recognized as a foreign substance so the body will make an antibody for the food that you eat after you drink alcohol.  Ok so you still may be asking how this causes weight gain. Here is how it works.
The gut irritation causes poor digestion. When this happens food gets trapped in your gut and causes further inflammation and irritation. So you are getting a double whammy. First is the gut inflammation and secondly you are not able to effectively eliminate what you are eating. If you don’t think that this is major problem, consider that antacid tables and laxatives are one of the highest selling over the counter medications today. In a nutshell, indigestion causes excessive water retention, constipation, and overall toxicity.  When there are excessive toxins in the bloodstream, the body will accumulate body fat to protect the internal organs from being poisoned. These are not signs and symptoms that are conducive for weight loss. Just know that if your liver is too busy fighting off extra toxins, it will be very hard to perform other jobs like make the proper hormones for weight loss.
4. Proper Hydration:
The human body is about 70% water.  If we took all the water out of us we’d fit in a jar. Water has many direct and indirect roles in weight loss and here are just a few.

Digestion and Assimilation: For every gram of carbohydrate that we eat, 3 grams of water is needed to absorb it. Protein’s water requirement is very similar. If you are dehydrated, you will not be able to properly utilize your nutrients. Why is this important? See tip #5 on gut irritation and poor digestion.

Fluid Balance: When the body is in a state of dehydration, the brain releases a hormone called ADH a.k.a. (anti-diuretic hormone). This hormone prevents the body from getting rid of water thus causing WATER RETENTION. So the act of drinking water will help the body maintain a normal fluid balance.
Here are some guidelines to help you maintain proper hydration:
a. Drink ½ of your body weight in ounces of water.
b. Drink the highest quality water possible. The water should preferably be mineral water. Dr. Royal Lee, states that if the water we drink does not have a mineral content, our body will release or expend minerals to properly utilize the water. This intern will create mineral and electrolyte imbalances. Any mineral deficiencies will cause uncontrollable food cravings.
c. Avoid drinking water contained in the opaque (smokey) water jugs as they leak toxins into the water.
d. Drink a glass or 2 of water upon awakening in the morning and/or about 15 minutes before you eat. This helps with digestion.

3. Exercise: Form follows function.
There is a universal law that is represented by the acronym S.A.I.D., which stands for Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands. The body will respond precisely to the type and magnitude of demand placed upon it, therefore exercise can be view like a drug.  Not enough medicine produces no results. Too much creates unhealthy stress on the system. The wrong drug can kill you. With that said knowing the best type of exercise for your current needs is critical. As a general rule the focus needs to be on strength exercise to achieve long-term weight loss. Why? See rule #7.

2. Planned Layoffs:

Over training can be just as counterproductive as being sedentary given the right circumstances. Exercise is a form of stress on the body. Too much stress causes abnormal chemical responses in the body such as excessive cortisol in the blood. Cortisol is the body’s stress hormone and is produced by the adrenal glands. It is counterproductive to building muscle because it causes protein break down in the body. It can cause some other undesirable effects like sugar cravings and mood swings. This definitely will not help if you are trying to lose weight or improve your health. Some other signs of over training are:

• Soreness that lasts longer than five days.
• Inability to sleep soundly
• Fatigue during the day.
• Loss of appetite

With this in mind, it is important that you do not exercise excessively in order to substitute for poor nutrition. The reality is that a one hour exercise class will not undo the effects of the nutrition that is flowing through your bloodstream 24 hours a day.  If you are not eating properly exercising may be doing you more harm than good. This same rule applies to those who do not allow adequate rest between training sessions. The body does not progress during exercise. It is only when it is allowed to fully recover from an exercise session that the body will become stronger and fit. The bottom line is to stimulate not annihilate.

1. More Food in your Food. “Concentrated Nutrition for Appetite Control
Food quality is the single most important variable in achieving permanent weight loss. You are what you eat.  If you are going to make your body out of coffee, muffins and salads made of iceberg lettuce, your body will be in a constant state of hungry. There is a little mechanism in your brain that controls your appetite called the appestat. The purpose of the appestat is to determine if all of your nutritional requirements are being met. Unfortunately the prevalence of processed foods deprived of nutrition has sent most of our appetite systems  into complete chaos. This is why obesity has become an epidemic in America today. Ironically, those who suffer from obesity are probably the most under nourished.  This is because their appestat tells them to keep eating because the food in their diet lacks nutritional value.  Therefore too many calories are consumed in an effort to get the proper daily nutrients. The best way to control your appetite is to EAT ORGANIC WHOLE FOOD. Organic food has the highest concentration of nutrients per calorie.

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