Category Archives: Uhm?
Exercise Morals
So I’ve now been witness to my first pyramid scheme.
I’ve been applying to jobs in Cali and I applied to a “Wellness Coach” position.
It sounded legitimate so I submitted my resume.
A day later I get an email about attending an informational meeting about the position. I emailed the woman right back saying that I couldn’t attend then because I wasn’t yet in Cali, but could I possibly attend one at a future date.
She then told me that I could watch the streaming video of the session.
I started watching the video and about two slides in realized what I had gotten myself into. About four slides in I saw visual evidence that what I had applied to was indeed a pyramid scheme.
At least I didn’t fall for it like Michael! I love The Office!
What got me thinking wasn’t so much the fact that I accidentally applied to a pyramid scheme, but that people actually roped people into SELLING junk like this.
When the woman who set me up with the video called after it was finished, she asked me if I had the three qualities to be successful.
I told her I did have those qualities. I then promptly told her thank you for the opportunity, but no thank you. I told her that my nutritional views are VERY different from what she is promoting.
Pyramid scheme or not, there was no way I could sell a product that I didn’t BELIEVE in!
For me health and fitness isn’t merely a job. It isn’t merely a way to make money.
It is a passion.
I want to EDUCATE. I want to EMPOWER. I want to help people GROW.
I don’t want to trick them into buying some junk just so I can make a few bucks!
Schemes like that are what dilute the health and fitness market and serve to confuse people about what is healthy.
Don’t fall for them. Don’t help promote them.
Don’t fall for the gimmicks.
Eat whole natural foods. Lift heavy weights. Sprint often.
Have you encountered gimmicks like that in your line of work? Would you sacrifice your beliefs to make money?
The good, the bad and the simply stupid
The Good
- I love the Olympics. I love the Olympic trials. They make me want to go and workout and be really really good at something!
- Ross the boss has been providing me with all sort of great inspirational photos recently. (Ross the boss is also known as Monkey Knuckles haha). She more than anyone should be proud of where she is today! Right before we went paddleboarding her father told her, “Remember you aren’t a jock like those other people.” Uhm sorry Ross the boss’ pops…BUT SHE IS! She’s a heavy lifting, paddleboarding, sprinting, rowing, rock climbing!?! JOCK! AND best of all…She’s lovin’ it!
- I LIKE IT! Active at 85!
- Great deadlift workout with some of my favorite lifting ladies! Both ladies set new lifting PRs! AMAZING!
Oh yea sweat and biceps! Beautiful! 🙂
- Also, I think I’ve mentioned this at least once before…I LOVE SUMMER! Fresh, local, delicious fruit!
The Bad
- I think is potentially my diet nightmare – “The Starch Solution.” I love how low-carb diets are called “fad diets” while this diet by Dr. McDougall’s isn’t considered a fad diet because it has helped thousands of people. Well, low carb diets have helped thousands of people too. And if you do the research, low-carb diets have been around for a lot longer AND helping people for a lot longer. So how are we defining fad diet here? Also this kind of sounds like a “fad diet” claim : “The Starch Solution is a groundbreaking program that will help you shed pounds, improve your health, save money, and change your life.” I am curious though what research studies this book is based on….I looked at the site but I didn’t find many studies. I found news articles, which seemed more promotional than informative. I also did find an article called “Posthumous Interview with Tim Russert.” Uhmmm….this is not PROOF that your diet is right!!!
The Simply Stupid
- OH MY GOSH! Did I really just see this!?! Diet tips from the Jersey Shore girls!?!
This isn’t really a good, bad or simply stupid thing. It is just an interesting article and the doctor cited in it was a member of the gym I work(ed) at. I especially like it because it isn’t against fat and it bashes the low-fat diet. Of course it isn’t flattering about low-carb diets either but I don’t think a Primal diet full of fruits, veggies and some non-gluten carbs would fall under what they define as a low-carb diet. Actually I wonder what their definition of “low-fat” and “low-carb” truly is…
Another random thought, do you ever see an infomercial for something and think, “That is super cool” and then right after think, “That can’t be healthy?” I saw a commercial for Slushy Magic and thought about just how amazing a slushy drink would taste during the warm summer months (or year around in sunny California!). I then thought, “But how can something that turns any liquid into slush in one minute be good for you?” I seriously wonder what is in those cubes that can turn any drink (or even yogurt) into slush in under a minute.
Cali here we come!?!
So on July 18th, Ryan and I will be making a cross-country move from Boston to sunny Southern California.
It’s a big risk – Â a big change.
And there have been lots of sad good-byes.
I’m a Midwest girl who came out to Boston for college and stayed. I’ve been out here for seven years and I’ve been at this gym for two of those years.
I have a solid life here. One that is hard to leave behind. One full of clients who I’ve helped become stronger, more empowered individuals and who’ve helped me grow as well.
One full of friends and comfortable places.
One really without much “risk.”
Stability.
How often do we sacrifice our dreams for stability?
Too often.
But I refuse to do that. And I think this change, this move, will force me to really take a risk and pursue my dreams.
Despite how hard it is to leave the stability, to leave all of my WONDERFUL/EXTRAORDINARY/BEAUTIFUL clients, I know this is a change that I need to help me grow as an individual – to allow me to further pursue my passion for health and fitness.
This change will be good…but I’m freaking nervous as hell. (Sorry for the curse word but well it’s true!)
I’m a planner.
And at this point…I really have no clear plan.
For probably the first time in my life, I have no clear direction. Just a passion that I’m planning to follow.
Could this turn out badly?
Yup.
But heck…at least I tried!
Sometimes I hate the grocery store
So Ryan and I pretty much only go to Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods or The Meat House. We will soon be going to more farmer’s market, but that is tomorrow’s post.
There is, however, a Stop and Shop right by our house. We usually only go there when we want junk food for a cheat day or when we need more toilet paper, paper towels or some other non-food necessity.
But today we decided to stop there since we didn’t have any nitrite free bacon to cook our weekend potatoes in.
For one, the store only had one nitrite free bacon. AND it was WAY more expensive than the other bacon packages.
No wonder people think eating “healthy” is so expensive.
We then walked down a couple of other aisles.
Down one aisle were these “Honest Teas” which are supposed to have less sugar than the usual tea drinks out there. If 20g of sugar is “less” sugar per serving, I don’t want to know what the other tea drinks have!
Also, right next to these “healthy” tea drinks were 20 oz Red Bulls.
Let me just say, “OUR SOCIETY IS OVER CAFFEINATED!!!!”
A 20 oz Red Bull!?!
You shouldn’t even drink 1 oz of that crap!!!
Anyway, we then walked down the next aisle, which of course was overloaded with cereal advertising how healthy it is.
HA!
We of course then were more than ready to leave and didn’t even feel like looking around to see if there was anything else we needed.
On our way out, we ran into Smart Balance butter and marshmallows.
Conventional wisdom has you believing that these two foods are pretty good to consume. I mean marshmallows are fat-free and Smart Balance butter isn’t real butter and is infused with Omega-3s! Both are good things right!?!
AH! I looked at both of those products and just thought about how I couldn’t believe that I used to buy both on a regular basis!!!! I used to think they were both healthy enough!
AH!
With stores like Stop and Shop, where crap is everywhere and the good stuff is WAY more pricey than the bad stuff, no wonder people think eating well is expensive.
With aisles full of cereals that say they are healthy, no wonder people are so confused about what is good for them!
I mean shoot! People see fruit roll-ups in a commercial that tells them that fruit roll-ups are a fat-free food with vitamins and minerals. They then see that same claim on 100 billion products lining the shelves around them so of course believe it must be true!
No wonder people eat crap with stores like that!
Me after my Stop and Shop experience. Look my hair even went blonde it made me so crazy!
Breakfast is overrated
So in my opinion breakfast is NOT the most important meal of the day, especially as we know it.
How about you just skip the porridge?
The worst thing you could do is force down breakfast if you aren’t hungry. The worst thing you could do is start your morning with simple sugars, a ton of carbs and gluten.
Am I saying you should skip breakfast? Yea if you want.
I’m just saying breakfast isn’t the be all and end all of meals especially as we are advised to eat by conventional wisdom.
So should you skip breakfast? And if you do eat it, what should you eat?
So I skip breakfast except on the weekends. I mostly skip it because I’m not usually hungry until about lunch time. I also skip it because it feels super unnatural to force down food at 4:30 a.m. Also, I feel too lazy most of the time to prepare breakfast food for the next day.
AND I’ve also never been a big fan of breakfast food. I love the occasional pancake binge, but other than that I’ve never LOVED breakfast.
So I only eat it on the weekends. And then I make omelets or scrambles or even some almond butter protein pancakes. I eat breakfast when I can actually sit down and enjoy it.
BUT if you are a breakfast fan or just feel like you don’t function as well if you don’t eat something in the morning, you do have options (even if none of them are cereal!).
You can make hard-boiled eggs, omelets, scrambles, hashes, protein (no gluten) pancakes. You can make steak and eggs, bacon and eggs, veggies and eggs. You can have nuts, and smoothies (delicious with frozen berries, protein and kefir!).
There is so much out there you can eat so STOP FOCUSING ON THE FOODS YOU CAN’T EAT! Shoot you can even have steak and bacon and some potatoes (if you eat them) for breakfast! Breakfast doesn’t have to be traditional breakfast food! It can be anything you love!
So once I’ve told clients they don’t HAVE to eat breakfast. And once I’ve told them all the good things they can eat that AREN’T carb-laden, they usually come back with, “But nothing is as easy to grab and go as cereal!”
Yes cereal is easy to grab and go, BUT if you make hard-boiled eggs (aka stick eggs in a pot of water for about 10ish minutes) on Sunday, you have breakfast for a few days! You can also make individual egg scrambles in the oven using a muffin tin (they can have veggies and bacon or anything else you want!). Or you can make the protein pancakes and store them in the refrigerator for breakfast or snack all week! Shoot you can even grab some macadamia nuts, fruits and some leftover meat that you made for another meal if you want! That is definitely an easy grab and go meal!
Yes most of these things do take some prep time, but they are easy to take with you once they are made and you can make enough for the entire week. PLUS THEY ARE GOOD FOR YOU!
Do you eat breakfast? And if so, what is your favorite dish!?!
The good, the bad and the simply stupid
First off, a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a tenacious young woman, Fern! Happy Birthday!
Now onto the good, the bad and the simply stupid!
The Good
I LIKE IT!
- I like this quote from Michelle Obama,”You wouldn’t think of watering a plant with soda.” No you definitely wouldn’t.
- Interesting research about dietary fat and cholesterol absorption.
- I’ve discovered that I love designing workouts that ask you to do as many rounds as possible in under a certain time limit (usually 20 or 30 minutes). If you push hard for 20-30, you will probably get more out of the workout than steady-state cardio for an hour. Actually I GUARANTEE you’ll get more out of it!
As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes:
5 Dips
10 Inverted Rows
15 Burpees
20 Front squats with weight
Your quads definitely burn a bit between the burpees and using a challenging weight on front squats!
The Bad
- Ryan and I watched a Restaurant Impossible, in which Robert helps upgrade a community center. While they do create a garden and make the place super nice, the thing that bothered me the most was the prepackaged food the kids were being served. IT WAS ALL CARBS AND IT WAS BEING PASSED OFF AS HEALTHY! When seriously will the low-fat diet fad pass!?!
- If only they ate Primally, they wouldn’t have to suffer. They could bulk up or slim down easily and healthily! Celebrities and stupid diets…BLEH! Of course I do understand that some roles demand extremes but still…I mean especially Anne Hathaway! You want a catwoman body!?! Eat Primally!
The Simply Stupid
- Silk Pure Almond milk – According to their commercial people preferred the taste over regular milk. Of course the flavor they show in the commercial isn’t the Original, which has very little sugar – they instead show chocolate and vanilla! Of course people prefer them! They have more sugar and more CRAP in them!
- Yesterday while at the gym, there was a guy who walks in and starts doing bicep curls. He definitely looked like one of those guys who follow the Muscle and Fitness Bodybuilder workouts. He was definitely one of those guys that thought he was “big” because he had lots of muscle. He was definitely one of those guys that annoys me. BUT the best part of this story is what Ryan told me when we left, “So you know that guy who was doing all the bicep curls? I thought he was reading a Muscle and Fitness since it seemed like that is where he was drawing his workout from, but no…he wasn’t. He was reading a People magazine.”..For some reason this made me laugh…
Don’t say “I can’t” unless you’ve tried!
So today when I went to start my workout, I brought out the weight vest for one of the exercises.
Brian then goes to me, “Why don’t you wear the weight vest for the entire thing?”
I looked at him like he had two heads.
Uhm wear the weight vests for all those exercises that are already ridiculously hard without any extra weight?!?!
UHM was he crazy!?!
I just looked at him. And I said, “I can’t.”
And he gave me a look like “if you don’t do this you’re a wimp.”
So I did it. I did the entire freaking workout with a weight vest and I’ve never wanted to die more.
Actually I think it was the fact that I uttered the words “I can’t” more than his look that got me to do it and made me push all the way through.
I can’t believe I uttered those words! I’d never attempted most of those exercises with a weight vest before so how did I know I couldn’t do them!?!
I didn’t know!!!!
And that is why I hate those words!
If you haven’t tried something, you don’t KNOW if you can or can’t do it!
So don’t EVER say you can’t do something before you’ve tried it!
And the worst part about all of this is…Most of the time when you say “I can’t,” you actually CAN!
Go figure…Conventional wisdom I hate
Ok so the phrase/sentiment I hate below isn’t really conventional wisdom BUT it is uttered all too frequently!
Don’t be fooled by this picture. It doesn’t have that much to do with the post. I just like it.
So yesterday I hopped on the treadmill at the end of my workout to jog a mile. I’ve been trying to casually run occasionally because I want to be good at it even if I don’t enjoy it. (Also, I think I’m hoping I’ll learn to love it…not working yet…)
While I was jogging on the treadmill, and drenched in sweat from my workout, one of the trainers at my gym said to me,”Feeling guilty about the weekend, huh?” He then smiled and laughed.
I think the first emotion that registered across my face was shock. And then I got defensive.
Yes, I did go to New York this past week. And yes, I did eat all of the delicious foods that I know are bad for me.
But, did I feel guilty about it?
HARDLY.
I had throughly enjoyed myself. Why would I feel guilty?
After I got defensive, I got angry.
WHAT THE HECK KIND OF COMMENT WAS THAT?!?
I’ve never understood that attitude – the attitude of “if I eat badly I’ll just go on the treadmill and sweat it off and then I’ll be skinny again.”
Do people actually really think that works?
Unfortunately they do…
But it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just eat whatever you want and then just go and work it off. That doesn’t make you healthy!!!
I honestly believe it is actually the worst mentality to have.
It places all the importance on calories in vs. calories. Also, maintaining a healthy weight doesn’t mean you are healthy!
And most importantly you can’t exercise off a bad meal!!!
If you really want to “make up” for a bad meal or weekend, eat well for the next few weeks!!!
Have you ever been guilty of thinking a workout will make up for poor eating choices? If so, WHY!?!
P.S. Is anyone else amused by this article?!
Diet books – BLEH!
Don’t waste your money on diet books. Go buy some grass-fed beef!
So yesterday I went to Barnes and Noble to get a Paleo/Primal diet book for one of my clients to read. After seeing the Crossfit games, and my long lectures, she finally decided to give the whole “caveman eating thing” a shot.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
But when I got to the store I was overwhelmed by a whole lot of crap. All of the “advertised” books were fad, low-fat diets!
The book that I wanted, that they CLAIMED to have in stock was nowhere to be found.
I was overwhelmed by all of the conventional wisdom/fad diets lining the shelves.
I had the desire to run through the diet aisles knocking every book off the shelves and then sprint out of the store.
Or I wanted to grab an armful of the stupid books and throw them in the trash.
Either one would have felt really satisfying.
Of course I probably would have gotten arrested or something, but still….It would have felt good!
I didn’t do it though. Instead I managed to focus enough to find one of the HEALTHY DIET books I was looking for.
With that huge load of diet crap out there though, no wonder Americans are confused about what the right diet is!
Actually it is almost kind of depressing that we turn to brightly colored books with neon words stating “Lose 15 lbs in 2 day!” instead of just eating the foods that come naturally from the earth!
I mean honestly it is simple. Just do an experiment. Eat all the crap they recommend for 30 days and then go eat all of the natural foods that I recommend for 30 days.
Which makes you feel better? Which do you think you can maintain for longer than the 30 days?
I think I know the answer….
Actually I’ve lived the answer. Heck I used to buy diet books and read every article in all of the women’s health magazines looking for some secret new trick.
BUT IT DOESN’T EXIST!
Anyway, don’t take my word for it. Try an experiment yourself. You’ll see.
Oh and just a random side note…
While I complain about all of the crap diet books there were lining the shelves, there definitely were more Paleo/Primal/Caveman books out there than ever before.
I could make a very cynical comment about how there are now books being published about this healthy diet because there is now a market to make money off of….but I’ll keep my mouth shut.
What is next though? A Caveman Lifestyles magazine? Or maybe even a Caveman Vogue?
Hey I’m not saying I don’t get it. But I just think everyone needs to realize that everyone out there who is pushing something has an agenda.
Even me.
I obviously want you to believe that eating my way and lifting heavy weights is the BEST way.
And of course it is….  🙂
The good, the bad and the simply stupid
So I want to start out by saying…I’m not sure if this article/interview about Paleo belongs under the good or the simply stupid.
Am I happy that the Paleo diet is getting more positive mainstream attention? Yes.
But really? Paleoista? Bleh!
The Good
So I mentioned the other day that I had Buffalo Flank Steak from The Meat House. The Meat House gets its supply from Wild Idea Buffalo Co. AMAZING! Grass-fed, free roaming buffalo! It was delicious, tender, juicy and HEALTHY! Plus the animal was raised in a natural way that actually helps keep the Great Plains healthy and thriving!
Here is a great article courtesy of Man Biceper Heather. If you haven’t already, make sure to check it out! This guy is spot on!
This post by Fit and Feminist also made me smile. Have I mentioned before that I hate Barbie weights?
What exercise is she even doing!?!
The Bad
So while I agree that how you “fuel” is very important to your performance (and health for that matter), eating a stupid, processed “chew” isn’t any better than all the crap shown all over the ground. Sorry Gatorade.
The Simply Stupid
Wearing skinny jeans that are too tight can cause health problems. My question is: How can you possibly get those jeans that are “too tight” on? Sometimes I have a hard enough time getting my non-skinny jeans on over my quads and butt!
Ok…those jeans are a bit too tight…
Man Bicep 