I've been diligently attending my karate classes 3 times a week.  I'm up for belt testing and promotion this week.  I've got to perform 15 upper-body basics (punches and block-punch combinations), 9 kicks, 5 pre-arranged fighting sequences called kata, and proper falling/rolling technique.  Each of the basics require 3 repetitions on each side, so while 15 basics might not sound like much, doing 6 of each one tends to be a little tiring.  Each of the kicks will be done the same way, so instead of just 9 kicks, I'll be doing 54.  After all of the basic stuff and kata, there will be 10-15 minutes of kumite, or sparring.

Kumite is one of those things that you just don't realize is difficult until you've been at it for about 2 or 3 minutes.  I would put the kumite experience on par with running on the treadmill at 7.5 with a 8 degree incline for about 10-15 minutes.  It's OK at first, but after a little while just breathing becomes an issue.  Worse yet is putting all of that fighting after 20 minutes of basics and kicks.

My time is currently spent practicing kata or helping others learn the same.  I'm at the dojo (training school) 3 nights a week for 2-4 hours and volunteering to help on occasion.

Not that I'm trying to neglect wo40.com.  I'm making a conscious effort to write blogs more often and pull together some additional articles for the site.  I'm still trying to figure out how to get video on the site and a few other things - podcasts, speaking engagements and the like.

Thanks to THB for recently reminding me that I've been remiss in my attention to wo40.com.  I appreciate everyone who stops by to read.  Be well!

In this age of political correctness, it seems that we are concerned with peoples’ emotional states more than we are concerned with their physical states.  Here’s a way to observe this idea in action: walk up to the next hefty person you see in town – preferably a perfect stranger – and tell them, “You’re fat and need to exercise.”  Chances are you’ll see some degree of indignation – the individual will either punch your lights out, cry, or reply with some insult of their own.

Point of the matter is that you actually told the person the truth, so why the touchy emotional response?  Don’t we teach our children to tell the truth?  Isn't truth valued over falsehood?  Well, yes and no.

Like I said, there is an unwritten rule in our society that says we should be concerned for the emotional welfare of our fellow travelers on this planet.  We’ve adopted a whole long list of “politically correct” terms that are designed to protect people from otherwise unpleasant truths.  People are “between jobs” instead of “jobless.”  Some immigrants are “undocumented” rather than “illegal.”  Teachers have to tell students that they “deferred success” in a class rather than telling the truth: “you failed.”  We are teaching our children to lie to themselves, and they carry the skill into adulthood.

 Let’s cut through the crap, shall we?  If you’re reading this and you can’t look at yourself naked in the mirror without feeling nauseous, you’re not chunky, hefty, husky, overweight, or stout.  There’s not “more of you to love.”

You’re fat.  The degree to which you are fat is irrelevant – you might be fat, obese, or clinical – just understand that you’re fat, and you need to do something about it.

Hopefully hearing me say you’re fat is uncomfortable that makes you want to slap me.  That’s fine with me (especially since I’m sitting safely in my home) as long as it makes you think about your current condition and the importance of changing it.

I wish someone would have told me what I’m telling you now.  In this age of political correctness no one was willing to look at me, put their hand on my shoulder, and tell me as a true friend that I was fat.  I had to wake up one morning, look in the mirror and tell come to terms with my condition. After years of lying to myself, I had a moment of epiphany on the morning of my 39th birthday.  I looked in the mirror, looked myself in the eyes and said, "You look terrible, Keith."  It's not as if this was new information, but in that moment I saw through the lies I had been telling myself.

I dare you to tell yourself the truth.  Look at yourself in the mirror and say out loud, “You’re fat.”  It’s true, isn’t it?

After all, if you walk around telling yourself lies all the time, you’ll never compel yourself to change.  Do you tell yourself that the extra weight is “muscle”?  Do you tell yourself that getting fatter is a natural part of getting older?  Have you convinced yourself that “fat” is the new “fit”?

Those are lies.  Shadows and illusions in which you hide to protect yourself from the painful truth that you are far from being the healthy individual you know you should be.

Remember the old adage that “the truth will set you free”?  It’s no less true when it comes to your health and fitness.  I can tell you the truth, but it’s far more important that YOU tell YOURSELF the truth.  There’s no time like the present to get busy being honest with yourself – and begin to make changes for the better.

I invite your comments.  If you want to tell me I’m wrong (or if you think I’m right) then leave a comment by clicking below or send me a personal message.

Be well!

The basic premise of the diet is simple - we shouldeat like our very ancient ancestors ate before the agricultural revolution came along.  Paleo eating consists of pre-agricultural foods such as eggs, wild game, fish, tree nuts, leafy green veggies, fruits, berries, members of the squash family (any squash, zucchini, and cucumbers), and mushrooms.  By eating the 'approved' foods, we eliminate things like processed grains, sugar, all dairy products, tubers (potatoes), and a whole bunch of refined junk.

Now, let me go on record before the fact as saying that I'm not calling my father in law a prehistoric man, but he's a great example of what a pseudo-paleo diet follower looks like.  For a guy in his mid-sixties, he's in pretty good physical shape despite a long-enduring ankle injury that prevents him from doing any sort of cardiovascular exercise.  His protein intake consists primarily of forest-killed deer (in season, of course) and fresh-caught fish.  He grows his own vegetables every spring and has a bumper crop every year.  His paleo diet 'failings' are in that he eats fast food on occasion and loves the daylights out of soda.  Those little items add a little soft tissue around the underlying muscle, but for a guy with some years under his belt he's doing fairly well.  I'd have to credit his physical shape to the percentage of wild game and fish that he consumes.

The benefits of the paleolithic diet are many fold and are based on anthropological studies of early human remains.  It appears that our great-great-great (many greats) grand-cestors lived a fairly long life, assuming of course they stayed out of the way of charging mammoths and stampeding buffalo herds (OK, getting through infancy and/or infection was important too.  Being fair here).  Dread diseases like cancer and diabetes were basically unknown to our prehistoric forebears.  Even today, people living in tribal cultures with diets consisting of hunter/gatherer type foods experience very low (statistically marginal) occurrences of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and depression.

The real trick in all of this is, of course, making the switch in our own eating and sticking with the change long enough to experience any meaningful physiological changes.  Too many people give something like the paleolithic diet (or any 'healthy' eating regimen) a brief trial run before abandoning it for what's simple, comfortable, or convenient.  As with anything, the ability to stick to the program over the long term is paramount to success.

So, all of this came back to mind yesterday as I was butchering the deer my wife shot last week.  The food I was preparing at that moment is exactly the kind of food our forebears consumed - the kind of food that kept them practically disease free.  My wife has a few more hunting trips planned in the next couple of weeks, so there's a possibility that there will be more deer in our future.  In the spring, we'll have to make it a priority to do a bit more fishing than was done last spring - I'm SURE my children won't argue with that!  Perhaps I'm a bit too much of a modern guy to go all-out paleo - I do like my Monster Milk shakes, after all - but I can see the benefit of removing refined grains and sugars from my diet.  Maybe I'll even try to cut back on the skim milk.  A journey of a thousand miles, after all.

Be well!

For more information on eating well, check out my Eating for Fat Reduction article.
For more information on the Paleolithic Diet, take a look at Dr. Ben Balzer's site.

For all you fine people out there, be on the lookout in the next few days as we post a new giveaway for the month of December.

Be well!

Today is Thanksgiving, a day when people abandon any semblance of self-control and eat themselves sick just because the food is available.  This holiday, however, is little more than an excuse to binge.  As if the words on a calendar somehow give tacit approval to ignore the body's dietary necessities.

FWIW, my holiday meal consisted of a portion of turkey breast, a portion of potatoes, and a few ‘naughty’ indulgences - a portion of broccoli casserole, some stuffing, and a dinner roll.  I did eat a small piece of pecan pie for dessert.  It wasn’t the most upstanding dietary accomplishment in my life, but I didn’t walk away from the table 2000 calories heavier either.

As you are aware, the nationwide binge eating will repeat itself at Christmas.

Nevertheless, we are here to talk about excuses - the lies we tell ourselves to justify our inactivity, inadequacy, or temporary inability to do what truly needs to be done. Personally, excuses disgust me.  Take a few seconds to recall someone who offered up an excuse instead of results.  For example, did you think to yourself, “Oh, OK. I understand” when you heard the excuse for why the report you expected at work didn’t end up on your desk?  I doubt it.

If you have kids, you hear excuses every day – I know my four children are LOADED with them.  However, I expect excuses from children – they are adults-in-training after all.  Hearing excuses from adults, however, is pretty sad.

Banishing Your Excuses

Adults who make excuses, especially with regard to their health, are pitiful.  It’s time for us to be totally honest with ourselves and understand that point.  Making excuses is sad.

If you’re one of those people that has made excuses in the past but is ready for a change, there’s good news: you can get started right now. 

Make a Decision

On New Year’s Eve (about 5 weeks from now), a bunch of people are going to make a “decision” to “lose weight”.  With admirable vigor, they will begin the process of dieting and going to the gym in an all-out attempt to cut the fat.  Despite the initial activity surge, about 98% of them will quit whatever program they start by the time Valentine’s Day arrives.  Most won’t make it past MLK Jr.’s birthday – just 2 weeks into January.

A decision isn’t a decision until you’ve followed through with it over the long term.  A wedding engagement is a good example of true decision making.  From engagement to wedding, there’s a lot of opportunity to abandon everything, especially when disagreements about wedding details and other planning stresses come into play.  The reasons we stay committed to following through on the decision are varied but probably include an amount of external pressure (from family & friends) and keeping the focus on the end result – marriage.  When the going gets tough, the tough remember that the goal is worth the effort.

Making a decision for your health requires the same commitment and the same external pressures.  External pressure (a training partner, for instance) and a focus on the end result (a healthy, able body that responds to the demands you place upon it) are mandatory to your success. 

Maybe you don’t know what the end result feels like, which makes it hard to focus on the ultimate goal.  That would be another excuse – one that prevents you from ever getting started.  You can banish it by reading the stories of people who HAVE transformed their bodies through exercise and proper nutrition.  I transformed my physique, so you can use my story as a starting point.  A simple online search will provide you with literally thousands of other stories of people that made a decision for their health and followed through with it.  Read people’s stories with the understanding that your biology isn’t so different from theirs, so you too have the ability to create a transformed body.

Put Yourself First

Far too often I hear of people who decided to abandon their quest for better health as a means of pleasing someone else.  A weak decision coupled with a weak commitment made this the perfect excuse for some to quit what they begin.

Back in February, I had the perfect opportunity to quit my training program in order to focus my attention on someone else.  My marriage was on the rocks and my wife had come to me with the news that she was filing for divorce.  Ironically, she informed me of her plan as we were getting dressed to go to the gym.  After the initial shock wore off (which took about a week), I decided that the only thing I could do was to keep training.  I had to improve myself – to be stronger, healthier, and more confident – in order to be a better husband to Alice and father to my children.

At first, it occurred to me that I should stop training in order to spend more time with Alice.  This belief was quickly abandoned, however, since much of my marital strife was the result of a lack of self-confidence and dislike for my physical appearance.  In other words, I knew I was fat, and that knowledge manifested negatively in my relationships.  Only by sticking to my exercise and nutrition plans could I change my body AND my mind for the better and thus become a better, more confident husband to my wife.  I put myself first and everyone was better off for it.

You might face opposition from your spouse, co-workers, and friends.  Often these are people who feel threatened by your newfound vigor and potential for success.  Nobody likes to have their excuses stripped away, and fat people are notorious for dragging people back into physical complacency.  Overweight members of my family and former coworkers have openly stated to my face (“jokingly”, of course) that they “hate” my wife for being fit.  Their words belie the unspoken assumption that my wife was intentionally going to the gym and improving her health as a personal mission of embarrassment to them.  Like Alice seriously thinks, “In your FACE, Liz!” as she does bench presses.  Please. 

Alice and I go to the gym for ourselves.  What others think about out motivation is irrelevant.  We put ourselves first, and we enjoy a happy, healthy lifestyle as a result.  Training together actually helped bring us back together as a couple, and our relationship grows stronger with every workout.

Face Your Fear

Fear can be a great limiter or a great motivator.  It’s all in how you use fear to your own advantage.  Stepping into a gym in an overweight body is a scary thing to do, but it’s far less frightening than hearing the news that you have diabetes, heart disease, or cancer.  You honestly have to decide which fear you’re willing to live with – a temporary fear that is based on nothing more than what you believe others might think about you or the very real fear of living long-term with a dread disease that might put you in an early grave.

I remember the first time I ever put on a pair of sweats and stepped into a gym.  I was petrified.  I thought that everybody in the gym was going to be a super-fit hyper-motivated go-getter that would look at me as a pitiful waste of air.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  Most of the people in the gym were helpful to an extreme, giving advice and sharing knowledge to help me along the way.  Trainers gave me tips on improving the effectiveness of my exercises and other gym members were a great source of motivation as they acknowledged changes over time.  My fears of the gym, I discovered, were completely unfounded in reality.

Your confidence will improve far more quickly than your body will once you tackle the fear of going to the gym.  There’s a certain rush of pride that stems from knowing you followed through on a decision to be better today than you were yesterday (the opposite is equally true – there’s no greater dejection than knowing that you failed yourself by giving in to fear).  By doing what’s right for yourself, you immediately gain confidence in yourself.  Repeating the action only emboldens you further to take more positive action.  Before long, you’ll be the helpful gym member teaching a new, overweight newbie how to get the treadmill going.

Banish Your Excuses

You can make a decision, or you can make excuses, but you can’t do both.  One is the opposite of the other.  There are no legitimate excuses.

Face it.  If you’re reading this and you’re overweight, you’ve been making excuses (and poor decisions) for a long time, which is why your body has its physical and aesthetic limitations.  Starting today, you can make healthy decisions that will pay dividends in the not so distant future, or you can just keep doing what you’ve always done.  Only one of those options, however, is going to lead to a happier and healthier you.

Further, if you start down the path to health and decide after a few workouts and “diet” meals that you just can’t keep going, at least be good enough to be truthful to yourself and others – admit that you quit intentionally.  Save us the lame excuses you offer as an “explanation” for giving up on yourself.  We really don’t want to hear them.

Yeah, that’s a bit blunt.  Under normal circumstances I’d apologize for stepping on some toes, but not this time.  If a little discomfort helps knock someone out of an unhealthy rut and puts them on the path to better health, then I can be happy with the results of my effort.

No excuses.  Get on with it.

According to some Spanish researchers, men may receive some heart-health benefits by drinking 4-10 alcoholic beverages per day.

Sounds like a great way to assure yourself of some heart health.  Oh, sure - our livers will probably shut down, but our hearts will be A-OK!  If this is the case, then the guys I see hanging around near the fountain downtown must surely have fantastic heart-health.  Sure they're socially not the people you would normally invite to your holiday get-together, but at least they're concerned about their heart health, right?

Hey, guys!  In all seriousnes, while drinking yourself silly might seem like a fun way to keep your ticker in good health, just keep in mind that most women would probably be attracted to a man whose belly doesn't advertise itself as a "liquid grain storage tank."  Now, don't get me wrong: I do enjoy the occasional mixed beveraged in certain social situations, but 4-10 drinks A DAY??  That's just a bit outside of what I'd be comfortable with.  After all, I do have a wife and children.  And a job.  And adult responsibilities... Those things tend to fall by the wayside when one is imbibing from sunrise to sunset.

My understanding is that 30-45 minutes of exercise a few days a week is also good for the heart - and good for the soul!  And it will keep you in good social standing with your boss, peers, and friends!

Be well!

It's one of those things about living here in the south - just about everything a person puts in their mouth around here is deep fried.  Add to that the fact that when virtually ANY southern church congregation gets together, there's likely to have a covered dish meal or roast pig involved.  We love to eat, we southerners, and when we do eat it's usually not the best food.

Another interesting fact is that New England is well represented in the top 10.  Vermont, Massachusettes, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, and Rhode Island all rank way up there, with several of those states appearing in the top lists for smoking and obesity.  Looks like those New Englanders have got healthy living down to a science!

So how does your state rate?  Take a look over at Forbes and check it out.  Then come on back and let us know!

Be well!

My current workout is for developing mass, so I'm doing a lot of low rep/high weight exercises.  Basically my workout looks like this:

• Monday - upper body mass workout, karate class (2 hrs)
• Tuesday - AM cardio (HIIT 25 min)
• Wednesday - karate class (2 hrs)
• Thursday - AM cardio (HIIT 25 min)
• Friday - lower body mass workout, karate class (2.5 hrs)
• Saturday - random workout (like the 200/100 workout mentioned above)
• Sunday - off

Post a comment and tell us about your workout - inspire others to try something new!

Nutrition isn't rocket science, nor does preparing a meal need to feel like you're conducting an experiment on nuclear fusion.  Let's simplify eating a bit, shall we?

When it comes to portions of meats like chicken, steak, pork, or any other cut meat, it's much easier to use the palm of your hand as a measurement tool.  A portion of cut meat will be approximately the size of your palm (not including your fingers).  Thicknesses of meat vary, of course, so stick to a portion that's about 1/2 inch in thickness.  If your meat is cut thinner, then you can add a little to the palm-sized portion.

Canned meats are easy as far as portion control is concerned - provided you buy single serving cans, that is.  If you prefer to buy in bulk, then you give up a bit of time by measuring out portions.  I personally buy my tuna and other canned meats in single-portion cans to make my life simple.  The few extra pennies I spend per pound is worth the time I save.

Carbohydrate portions are equally easy.  A portion that is about the same size as your clenched fist is recommended.  Oranges, pears, peaches, most apples, and other small fruits are easy carbohydrate portions.  When it comes to dinner, a cup of cooked brown rice or fist-sized portion of a baked potato will work nicely.

© Carioca - Wikimedia CommonsWhere most people tend to fall off the portion bandwagon is when it comes to snacking.  I can't tell you the number of times I've flopped down in front of the football game with a bag of chips only to have the whole bag polished off by halftime.  That's 1000 calories worth of mindless eating right there.

The solution is simple - pre-measure a serving of whatever snack you're eating (chips, crackers, nuts, pretzels, whatever) into a bowl and put the rest of the container back in the cabinet.  Doing this one little trick can save you hundreds of calories each time.  Calories saved = pounds lost.

I'm not advocating that we eat chips and pretzels as a normal part of our dietary intake, but there are going to be times when we feel like eating those "comfort foods" that make us feel all warm and fuzzy.  Better to eat such foods with control rather than just binging on a whole bag at once.

Most people have a tendency to underestimate the number of calories they take in over the course of a day.  By using the palm-sized and fist-sized rules of measuring your portions, you'll find it much easier to control the number of calories you're eating by controlling the size of the portions you feed yourself.

Be well!

On October 23, President Obama declared a Swine Flu emergency, effectively freeing certain government agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services to quickly bypass regulatory measures in order to rapidly respond to the emergency of H1N1.

According to most information I have personally read on the H1N1 virus, it is not proving itself to be any more virulent than the typical seasonal flu that affects us every fall and winter.  What I've found interesting in my reading on the matter is that the CDC stopped testing for H1N1 flu in July 2009.  The reason for the apparent proliferation of the virus is due to the fact that since July potential cases of H1N1 have been attributed to anyone exhibiting flu-like symptoms, which might include seasonal flu, allegy-reaction illness, pneumonia or the common cold.  When information is reported to CDC from individual states, those reports include all "hospitalizations and deaths (either confirmed OR probable) resulting from all types of influenza, not just those from 2009 H1N1 flu" (Source: CDC).  So it basically works like this: the swine flu scare has been embellished by the fact that almost anyone who gets sick and is hospitalized with flu-like symptoms can be counted with the H1N1 cases.

Seasonal flu accounts for some 36,000 deaths each year.  Media outlets report that there were 13,000 deaths in the US from seasonal flu alone between January and April 2009.  To date, reports of worldwide deaths from H1N1 flu come in at under 2000.  However, given the fact that there is no longer definitive testing of patients for the specific H1N1 strain, some of the deaths linked to H1N1 might actually be a result of seasonal flu and associated complications.

In other words, H1N1 is a pussycat compared to the seasonal flu we experience every year.

Call me a bit of a skeptic, but it appears to me that there is much ado about nothing with regard to H1N1.  It would appear that we have more to be concerned about with regard to seasonal flu than the H1N1 strain, yet it is the latter that seems to garner the most attention.  That millions of people are literally lining up in huge numbers to be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flus means that there's a LOT of money being pumped into the economy.  Flu vaccines generally run between $5 and $30 depending on where the shot is being administered. 

Perhaps the H1N1 scare is being used to encourage the population to get a seasonal flu vaccine - a sort of "shot in the arm" to the economy.  Current seasonal flu vaccine numbers seem to support this idea - numbers of people being vaccinated are up over last year's numbers according to an MSNBC report.  If you are so inclined to get a vaccine for H1N1 or seasonal influenza, be sure to discuss all potential benefits and risks associated with the vaccine with your physician.

Whatever the case may be, keeping yourself flu-free this winter (H1N1 or otherwise)
isn't rocket science.  Here are some prevention suggestions from the CDC:

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub.*
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Germs spread this way.
• Try to avoid close contact with sick people.
• If you are sick with flu-like illness, CDC recommends that you stay home for at least 24 hours after your fever is gone except to get medical care or for other necessities. (Your fever should be gone without the use of a fever-reducing medicine.)
• While sick, limit contact with others as much as possible to keep from infecting them.
• Follow public health advice regarding school closures, avoiding crowds and other measures to keep our distance from each other to lessen the spread of flu.

Of course, there's a lot to be said about the immune-boosting benefits of a healthy diet and exercise routine, and that is what Wo40 is here to help you with!

Be well!