Posts

The “Spill Over” Effect of Exercise in Your Life

/in /by

When most of us think about the many benefits of regular exercise in our life we usually think of losing weight, getting stronger, or having better stamina, but they are typically some type of physical benefits.

Achieving these types of outcomes feels great. It changes how you look, how you feel and how you perform, and with that comes a huge increase in your confidence.

This confidence “spills over” into other areas of your life, into your work and your relationships. We hear it all of the time. Things like how losing weight gave them the confidence to get back into a dress they used to wear when they were in college, or getting stronger made them feel more confident in themselves to take a trip of a lifetime mountain climbing, or that they are a better husband, wife, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother because they are happier with themselves.

These kinds of benefits are priceless. This is what we mean when we say we want to help members achieve a superior quality of life. We are not only thinking of the physical benefits, but all of the other benefits that spill over into your everyday life as well.

Another example is how regular exercise creates discipline. Taking care of yourself, eating healthier, going to the gym, that all takes discipline. Again, becoming more disciplined will carry over and positively impact other areas in your life.

Whether you know it or not, building regular exercise into your life is helping you in more ways then is normally thought about. It not only has the power to change your physical appearance and abilities, but also who you are and how you live your life.

What Makes A Diet Work? 4 Principles For Success!

/in /by

A couple weeks ago I wrote an article called “What is the best diet?”. It talked about how all diets work and that what was most important was choosing one that you personally will be able to stick to for the long term and make part of your lifestyle.

Continuing off that topic I now want to talk about some of the common denominators in these diets and realizing what they are so that you can apply them to your life no matter if you are on a diet or not.

How can it be that we know people lose weight from high fat, low carb diets such as the ketogenic diet, but yet we also know people who lose weight from low fat, high carb diets such as the vegan diet? Both of the diets will work for weight loss but yet they are completely different. So, what gives? How is this possible?

One reason that was already discussed in the previous article is that all diets are a form of calorie restriction, and eating less will cause weight loss. That is one of the biggest components to weight loss, portion control.

Another habit that diets tend to cause us to form is just eating cleaner, better quality foods. They almost all restrict highly processed, high sugar, low nutrient foods. No matter if you declare yourself on a diet or not this is a great habit to have when it comes to nutrition.

Also, while on a diet you are going to cook your own meals much more often, and to do that chances are you are taking some time to sit and plan meals ahead of time and maybe even cook some meals ahead of time so that you are not scrambling to find food when you are hungry. We know that leads to poor choices most of the time. It’s much easier to stay the course when you don’t have to think about the meals in the moment and all you have to do is just take out what you already cooked or cook what you already planned.

These are the small changes you can make do your eating no matter if you declare yourself on a diet or not. They are the real reason behind what makes a diet work.

  1. Portion control
  2. Clean eating. Choose good quality foods
  3. Cook your own meals as much as possible
  4. Plan meals ahead of time

That is why when we recommend members read Gino’s book, we say that it is not a diet, it is just the way you should be eating as part of your lifestyle. Eat Smart, Eat Often, Eat Small. You can get the book free by clicking here. There is no magic diet, never has been, never will be. Just apply these principles and you will have success!

We Can All Only Agree On One Thing and One Thing Only

/in /by

So I was sitting in my living room flipping through the channels on my TV once again, trying to convince myself that I should just get rid of the TV altogether. I think its coming. But lo and behold, I came across a community channel that hosts lecturers and researchers and the like, as educational programming to persuade the viewers to donate to the channel, similar to the PBS channel.

It just so happened that the speaker was a famous cardiologist turned researcher and advocate of health. He apparently went from doing heart surgery to teaching people how to avoid heart surgery. Nothing like putting yourself out of business!

That’s what prompted me to watch. Not only did I watch, but I bought his book, The Longevity Paradox.

Although I haven’t finished reading his book in its entirety, I’m writing this article based on what I learned from his presentation on the “boob tube”.

His entire talk was about nutrition. What we should eat and why and what we shouldn’t eat and why. I’ll be honest, there were several of his findings that not only did I not agree with, but findings that can be easily contradicted by other research. That’s the thing about research, its findings and discoveries largely contradict each other, so I try to take it all in with an open mind and evaluate it for myself using good old fashion common sense.

Anyway, despite some of the contradictions that I’ve learned about in the past, most of what he presented was extremely enlightening and worthy of consideration. So as not to get too much into the meat and potatoes of his presentation, I’ll just get into why I chose to tell you about it here.

As mentioned in the title of this article, I watched and waited for something that we could all agree on and is today accepted by all, not some, but all health professionals and researchers as the one thing that we should all do regularly to promote good health and longevity. I sat there for almost an hour, and nothing. What to eat, what not to eat and why for almost an hour. The program was almost over, the last set of commercials was over and he had but a few more minutes before the end of the program, and then, there it came: the one thing that was undisputed in my mind and in every other researcher’s mind in regards to health and longevity.

He went on to say, “there is one more thing that I haven’t touched on today that if you don’t want to change what you eat or are finding it difficult to change your eating habits, there is one thing that we can all do to promote better health and a longer life, and a lot of you won’t like what I’m about to suggest, but it’s…………..wait for it…………..wait for it……. It’s EXERCISE!

Enough said. See you at the gym.

Happy New Year!

Gino