I’ve got a very interesting article to share with you today. It’s from my good friends and fat loss cooking experts Dave and Karine from Metabolic Cooking.
In this article, you will learn:
1. Why most “healthy” cookbooks use ingredients that actually make you fat.
2. How to ensure your meals are optimized for fat loss.
3. What to do so your meal plan doesn’t hit a fat loss plateau.
I’m telling you, this is pretty awesome
Is your food making you FAT or burn MORE fat? (article)
By Karine Losier & Dave Ruel
If you’ve tried fat loss diets before and have used a variety of weight loss cookbooks to try to lose body fat, then you very likely know by now that those fat loss diets and the “healthy” cookbooks that go with them don’t work.
What is it about them that makes successful weight loss so difficult to achieve?
Well for starters, most “healthy” cookbooks are NOT designed with high Metabolic Thermo Charge ingredients. They are not using the metabolic powers that certain foods have to make your body burn more body fat. Instead, they use ingredients with very low thermogenic effect.
Why does this matter? Because the Metabolic Thermo Charge of food stands for how many calories your body will burn just by breaking down the nutrients each time you consume a certain food.
Most people have absolutely no idea of the power some of these foods have over the fat burning processes that go on inside the body, and so they never really think twice about them. BIG MISTAKE.
For example, simply consuming high-quality protein with most meals will naturally burn off more calories and move you closer to your target weight. Lean protein has a very high “Metabolic Thermo Charge”. Spices also have a strong thermogenic effect on your body. Combining certain foods together, such as chicken and turmeric, with help you burn more fat after you eat it.
Interesting, right?
But that’s not all. Another thing to consider is whether or not your so-called “healthy” cookbook has a real structure. Too often, cookbooks are just a bunch of recipes thrown together at random – you pick and choose what you feel like eating at that point in the day. That is NOT going to make you burn fat faster!
Having a structure is mandatory if you want to rid yourself of stubborn fat. That’s why we developed a quick and easy “Metabolic Nutri-Profile” system for all our recipes, so you can see precisely what nutrients you’re taking in, which ensures that each meal makes the most of your metabolic rate.
Don’t make the mistake of venturing into the food jungle without your compass!
So we’ve talked about the food and the structure of your eating plan. Sounds like we’ve got it covered, right? Not yet!
Ever followed a diet to a T and all of a sudden noticed that you stopped losing fat?
This is called the Metabolic Adaptation Phenomenon. It occurs at that point in your diet when your body knows precisely what it’s getting in terms of food and has fully adapted to it. When it reaches this state, your metabolism slows down and fat loss screeches to a halt.
In order to avoid the Metabolic Adaptation Phenomenon, you have to vary your nutrient intake regularly, shocking your body as time goes on. This keeps it guessing and ensures your metabolism stays on high at all times. Having a wide range of fat loss recipes at your fingertips makes avoiding this frustrating condition a breeze!
Now you know the REAL score when it comes to fat loss and dieting! Be sure to watch out for these three sneaky saboteurs next time you make the decision to lose fat!
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I told you this was great info, right?
Dave and Karine know everything it takes to be successful when it comes to burning fat faster. And in Metabolic Cooking, they provide you with a huge collection of awesome fat torching recipes that will:
1. Help you burn fat faster with the help of specific Metabolic Thermo Charged ingredients
2. Efficiently structure your meal plan with their simple and effective “Metabolic Nutri-Profile”
3. Fight the Metabolic Adaptation Phenomenon.
If you struggle with food or nutrition, Metabolic Cooking is your knight in shining armour.
Like many people, you probably suffer from regional fat storage issues. That is, while you store fat over your entire body, it’s probably most noticeable in certain areas, and it’s from these areas in which we struggle most to lose fat. You know–the problem areas.
These problem areas are influenced heavily by your hormonal environment, and where you store that last bit of fat is determined by which of your hormones are most out of whack (and yes, sometimes it’s quite a few of them).
Today I’m going to talk to you about belly fat specifically.
One of the things that has been talked about quite a bit in fitness media lately is the relationship between belly fat and a hormone called “cortisol.” To put it simply, the higher your cortisol levels, the more belly fat you’re likely to have.
By the same token, if you have a good deal of belly fat, it’s reasonable to assume that you have high cortisol.
Having high cortisol is detrimental for other reasons, but for our purposes, let’s focus on the fact that cortisol is keeping you not-so-little in the middle.
Rather than just suffer through this, the obvious solution is to try to lower cortisol levels and resultantly lower belly fat. And I’ll tell you, lowering cortisol is a LOT trickier than you might think.
I’m sure you’ve seen the late night TV ads trying to sell you anti-cortisol pills. Even if they worked (they don’t), it’s a hormone like cortisol can’t be fooled by a little pill.
Besides, wouldn’t it be much more effective to find a solution without taking expensive pills? Something that is also going to help you burn fat overall?
Well, that’s actually possible.
You see, I’m big on using certain hormones to tame other hormones. Essentially, you CAN actually fight hormones WITH hormones. Clever, I know. It’s just a matter of finding which hormones work well against one another. When it comes to cortisol (and belly fat), you need look no further than Growth Hormone.
Also known as Human Growth Hormone or simply GH, growth hormones is produced in the pituitary gland and is responsible for growth (obviously) among other things. More specific to this writing, growth hormones is actually one of the most effective things in the world to offset cortisol.
Put simply, if you want less cortisol, just make more growth hormone.
Just tell your body to do it. Make a few calls.
Okay okay, it’s not that simple…but I have some really good news.
Did you know that there are certain types of training that are actually exceedingly effective at producing growth hormone?
It’s true–indirectly.
You see, growth hormone is normally produced and released in response to something, and in the case of training, GH is released as a response to the production of something called lactic acid. Lactic acid is a waste byproduct of some of the chemical and metabolic processes that happen during exercise.
So, if you do exercise in a specific way, you can produce MORE lactic acid, which will then produce tremendous amounts of growth hormone as a result. That growth hormone surge will also help to work against your high cortisol levels. And as we’ve established, that will absolutely assist you in getting rid of your stubborn belly fat.
Of course, you’re wondering: how to I do it!? It’s easy. While lactic acid is produced in most forms of intense exercise, there is an unusual style of exercise that can actually produce even MORE lactic acid than is generally possible with other types of exericse. Appropriately (and not-so-cleverly) called “lactic acid training,” this type of training uses slow lifting speeds and fast lowering speeds.
The reason for the structure is that lactic acid is primarily produced during the “concentric” or positive/lifting phase of an exercise, and not so much during the “eccentric” or negative/lowering phase. To take advantage of this and produce more lactic acid, we simply–with apologies to Bing Crosby–accentuate the positive and (almost but not quite) eliminate the negative of each rep on all of our exercises.
To quantify it a bit, for each rep, you’d lift it over a period of about 4 seconds, and lower the weight extremely quickly, but safely.
If you were squatting, you’d drop down to the bottom position relatively quickly, and push slowly back to the top. In an overhead press, you’d lower the dumbbells quickly but safely, and press them back over your head over a period of 4-6 seconds.
Performing exercises with these extended concentric movements is going to create a tremendous amount of lactic acid, which in turn is going to prompt your body to produce fantastic amounts of growth hormone. And that growth hormone is going to help you manage cortisol and fight belly fat.
And if all THAT wasn’t enough, lactic acid training is also just a great fat loss training methods, so you’ll lose fat overall.
If you want to fight your cortisol issues, you need growth hormone. And for that you need lactic acid training. Utilizing this method, you’re one step closer to fighting off your belly fat for good.
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If you want John’s full course for losing stubborn belly fat, you can check it out at ->
Pterostilbene is a chemical related to reservatol that is found in blueberries and grapes.
Reservatol is being heralded in the media as a magic health potion – that’s one of the reasons that red wine is good for you.
But is there something better than reservatol when it comes to preventing cancer?
A study from the National Kaohsiung Marine University in Taiwain says there is…
Researchers compared reservatol and pterostilbene’s effects on antioxidant signalling pathways for the purposes of cancer prevention.
Both chemicals “significantly enhanced expression of antioxidant enzymes.”
Both chemicals block cellular inflammation and and oxidative stress. (By the way, cellular inflammation and oxidation may be the cause of most modern diseases such as cancer, alzheimers, and obesity)
But pterostilbene is more effective than reservatol in reducing the formation of aberrant crypt foci, lymphoid nodules, and tumors, making it a pterostilbene your best choice for helping to prevent cancer.
Here is the study citation (for my fellow science geeks):
J Agric Food Chem. 2011 Mar 23;59(6):2725-33. Epub 2011 Feb 28. Pterostilbene is more potent than resveratrol in preventing azoxymethane (AOM)-induced colon tumorigenesis via activation of the NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)-mediated antioxidant signaling pathway.
Chiou YS, Tsai ML, Nagabhushanam K, Wang YJ, Wu CH, Ho CT, Pan MH.
Department of Seafood Science, National Kaohsiung Marine University, Kaohsiung 811, Taiwan.
I make sure to eat plenty of berries over the course of a week to make sure I’m getting some pterostilbene, but I really take my health-protection and cancer-prevention plan to the next level by taking a mega supplement. The one I take is Genesis by Prograde Nutrition.
I have this greens drink every morning at 4:30am right after I have a mug of green tea. Click the link below for more info:
If you’re working out hard, eating right, and STILL not losing any freaking fat, this post is for you.
Have you heard that hormones can affect your fat loss?
It’s true!
The first thing you need to know is what hormones are. Here’s the definition: “A hormone is a chemical released by a cell or a gland in one part of the body that sends out messages that affect cells in other parts of the organism. Only a small amount of hormone is required to alter cell metabolism. In essence, it is a chemical messenger that transports a signal from one cell to another.”
This means that a hormone just a little bit out of whack can derail all of your fat loss efforts!
It also means that slight adjustments of your hormones can have a profound POSITIVE effect on your body.
A really cool thing about hormones is that you can actually use the shape of your body to figure out which hormones are out of balance.
Once you know what the hormonal culprits are, I can help you figure out a plan to get back on track.
Love handles? Insulin is messing with you.
Arm fat? Testosterone is low.
Belly fat? Too much cortisol.
Thigh and butt fat? Estrogen levels are high.
Before I dig deep and expose these hormones for you, I want you to understand something important: If you’re not exercising right and you eat like crap, don’t blame hormones. These are the “final piece” of the fat loss puzzle. Eat right and do metabolism boosting workouts before you start blaming hormones.
Rant over. Now some specifics…
Hormone: Testosterone.
Too much? Almost never an issue.
Too little? Increased body fat, decreased lean muscle.
All right, pretty much everyone needs more testosterone. (Don’t worry ladies, you won’t grow a mustache unless you take steroids!!)
To let you know how to increase testosterone, I want you to know how college kids “fake out” hormone tests to get prescription steroids. See, if you get low test results, the doc can prescribe steroids and you don’t have to worry about legal issues.
So when a football player wants to artificially lower his testosterone levels, he will do four things: cut out protein, cut out fat, cut out sleep, start doing aerobics.
To NATURALLY increase your testosterone, just do the opposite: eat lots of protein, eat lots of fat, get more sleep, stop the aerobics and start lifting weights!
Hormone: Thyroid
Too much? Hard to put on muscle, weakness, fatigue
Too little? Fatigue, slow metabolism, increased body fat
If you want to fix your thyroid hormones, you first have to fix another hormone: Leptin.
Leptin’s primary purpose is to restore fat reserves when you eat. This is to help prevent starvation during times of famine. After checking fat reserves, leptin decides how much energy your body needs and where to send it.
When leptin drops, your brain gets a signal that it’s time to eat (this signal comes from the hormone ghrelin). As you eat, leptin levels rise and your brain gets the signal to stop.
Not eating enough (or, more precisely, not getting enough NUTRITION from the food you eat) gets leptin to signal the thyroid to slow your metabolism in order to conserve energy.
Step one of optimizing your thyroid hormones: Eat enough food. Starving yourself will just shut down your metabolism and make you gain fat.
Now, if leptin levels are too high, you can decrease leptin sensitivity and “fullness” signals won’t reach your brain and tell you to stop eating. Overweight people actually have very high leptin levels, the problem is their hormonal receivers don’t recognize it any more. (Like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, the receptors just stop listening)
All of this extra eating without feeling full leads to too many calories being consumed and then stored as fat.
It is really hard to overeat on “clean foods” so most extra calories come from junk foods: pop, candy, cookies, muffins, anything made with sugar, wheat, or soy.
Step Two of optimizing thyroid function is to only eat good foods (my rule is “only foods a caveman would have eaten)
Hormone: Insulin
Too much? Increased body fat, increased body weight, increased blood pressure, insulin resistance
Too little? Type-1 diabetes
Insulin is a Big Deal. Look at health reporting in any major news network and you’ll hear about insulin again and again.
While insulin is necessary to keep you alive, insulin surges have a devastating impact on your body, including making fat loss almost impossible.
The number one way to get insulin under control is to CUT DOWN ON CARBOHYDRATES.
Your goal isn’t to get insulin down to zero, you need it to move nutrients around in your body. Instead, you want to prevent the insulin surges that come with a rush from sugars or dairy proteins.
Just start replacing carb calories in your diet with vegetables, proteins, and fats, and you’ll get your insulin levels where they need to be for a great looking, healthy body.
Hormone: Estrogen
Too much? Increased body fat, increased body weight
Too little? Joint pain, health issues, slowed muscle building
When talking about estrogen, there is no simple 101 course. Overly simplistic doctors just provide hormone pills that cause as much (or more) harm as good.
But for fat loss, there are 3 keys to taking control of estrogen. They are:
1) Blood sugar management
2) Adrenal glands
3) The gastrointestinal system (including gallbladder and liver)
For blood sugar management, just follow the guidelines in the insulin section above.
The adrenal glands get messed up from constant stress – I think we all have that! Simple things you can do to reduce adrenal fatigue are: get more sleep, take less stimulants, take time to relax, exercise (but not aerobics!!), and to eat fewer carbohydrates.
If your adrenal glands are overactive, you might have these symptoms:
Difficulty falling asleep
Allergies
Excessive sweat
Gastric ulcers
Fatigue after meals
Sweets Cravings
Excessive urination
If your adrenals are underactive, you might notice these:
Difficulty staying asleep
Dizziness when standing quickly
Blurred vision
Shakiness or lightheadedness between meals
Eating relieves tiredness
Salt cravings
Symptoms aside, getting a Salivary Adrenal Test is the best way to pinpoint what you need to fix. (I could give blanket supplement recommendations, but you don’t mess around with adrenals. Get the test done and I’ll help you )
And the third key for taking control of your estrogen levels is managing gastrointestinal health.
High fiber isn’t the cure-all here. In fact, high fiber diets based on bran and grains may make your digestive system WORSE. Ugh.
The best way to fix your bod is to eat organic vegetables and wild, grassfed meats. The chemical changes that take place in chemically fertilized plants and corn- or grain-fed animals absolutely DESTROYS your gut health.
Take home message for estrogen: Cut out carbs, get adrenal levels tested, eat wild foods.
Hormone: Cortisol
Too much? Slowed metabolism, increased body fat, decrease in lean muscle
Too little? Almost never an issue
Mastering your cortisol is about mastering your stress.
Not just lifestyle stress, but also dietary and exercise stress. Don’t worry, you’re not the only one stressed out. Check out the Top Ten most prescribed drugs from 2008:
1. Lipitor – Cholesterol lowering medication. Cholesterol is often increased during times of stress. 2. Acetaminophen – Pain medication. Stress causes inflammation, which drives pain. 3. Acetaminophen – Pain medication. 4. Levothyroxine – Thyroid medication. Stress responses directly causes defects in thyroid hormone physiology. 5. Amoxicillin – Antiboitic. Stress negatively impacts our immune system, making us more prone to infection. 6. Lisinopril – High blood pressure medication. Stress is well known for causing or contributing to high blood pressure. 7. Nexium – GERD medication. Stress is a well known contributor to symptoms of “heartburn”, or gastroesophageal reflux. 8. Synthroid – Thyroid medication. Stress responses negatively impacts defects in thyroid hormone physiology. 9. Lexapro – Depression and anxiety. Stress obviously contributes to both depression and anxiety. 10. Singular – Asthma medication. Stress can induce asthma and makes the condition worse if someone already has it.
Yikes!
Ok, after that top ten list, here are Luke’s Top Three Ways To Reduce Cortisol:
1. Cut out carbohydrates! (notice a trend yet?)
2. Get more sleep!
3. Stop doing aerobics, they are totally overstressing your body! (use metabolic resistance training instead!)
All right! This post was a lot more technical than usual, but I’ll be back with some crazy new exercises – and a BIG announcement! – in a few days.
As doctor’s fees rise, I see more and more people turning to do-it-yourself medical tests you can order through the mail. Some work, some don’t. Here’s what I’ve found about some of the most common tests:
Home Test: Cholesterol
Cost: $18
What It Does: The machine scans a drop of blood from your finger and a small monitor shows you your total cholesterol
Does It Work?: Not well enough.
These machines aren’t as reliable as real lab tests. Plus total cholesterol is a poor gauge of heart health.
If you’re interested, have your doctor order a test that will show your HDL (good cholesterol), LDL (bad cholesterol), and triglyceride levels.
Home Test: PSA
Cost: $40
What It Does: A finger-prick analysis looks for prostate-specific antigen, a protein that may signal prostate cancer. Smear your blood on the collection card, send it to the lab, and get results in about a week.
Does It Work?: Occasionally.
If your results are lower than 1 nanogram per milliliter, take the test every 3 years.
If your results are over 1 nanogram per milliliter, take the test every year.
If your results are over 2 nanograms per milliliter, go to see a urologist.
A high prostate-specific antigen count doesn’t always mean you have prostate cancer, but a doctor will need to take a biopsy sample to make sure either way.
Home Test: Male Fertility
Cost: $50
What It Does: A color-coded test gauges your sperm sample concentration
Does It Work?: Sorta.
The test is a pretty crude way to check sperm count and isn’t nearly as accurate as results from a fertility clinic.
Plus, sperm count is only one possible cause for the inability to conceive. You need to see a specialist if you’re worried about your fertility.
Home Test: Colon Cancer Screening
Cost: $50
What It Does: The collection paper changes color if there’s blood in your stool. Blood can mean cancerous colon polyps.
Does It Work?: No.
This test reports blood, not cancer. All sorts of things can cause blood in your stool (I’ve written about poop before: Quick Notes On Poo), not just cancer.
And precancerous polyps won’t cause blood.
At best, this test can notify you of less than half of precancerous polyps.
As your doctor for an endoscopic colonoscopy – it’s the most accurate test.
(If you’re worried about cancer, memorize the 7 cancer warning signs here: Cancer C.A.U.T.I.O.N)
Home Test: HIV-1
Cost: $65
What It Does: You mail a blood sample to a lab to be tested for the antibodies to HIV
Does It Work?: Yes.
There is only one FDA-approved home test on the market: The Home Access HIV-1 Test System.
It’s a useful and anonymous form of at-home HIV testing. But if you think you’ve contracted the virus in the last 6 weeks, you need the more sensitive tests available with a doctor. The home test isn’t sensitive enough to catch HIV in the early stages.
Cleansing your body does not require fancy pills or supplements nor does it take some extensive amount of time. By implementing simple dietary changes you can help your body release the chemicals, toxins and fat that has built up in your tissue over time. If you suffer from acne, fatigue, irritability or fogginess then your body may be telling you its time to be detoxified. There are simple changes you can make in your daily diet to cleanse and keep clean your body. Following a 14 day cleanse diet is a perfect way to jump start the cleansing process.
Many people tend to skip breakfast. Coffee is not breakfast. A doughnut is not breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. People who eat breakfast have been able to fight off hunger longer into the afternoon and also are more common to have success loosing weight. To detox your body, eat only fruits until noon each day.
Blueberries, raspberries, cranberries and strawberries are packed with antioxidants which fight off free radicals that are in your body. Free radicals are wreaking havoc on your insides and corroding your arteries and other body tissues. Fruits also have natural sugars that curb your sweet cravings without subjecting your body to sugar highs and lows. The fiber in fruits will fight off hunger as well. Eating fruit also promote healthy energy. In order to get the best effect with the 14 day cleanse diet you also need to eliminate caffeine. Instead, reach for an all natural herbal coffee or tea that is caffeine free. Remember how energy was unlimited as a child? That was before we started bogging our bodies down with the junk we eat and drink. Herbal beverages will give you the natural energy boost you desire and help your body rebuild its natural energy source.
For lunch and dinner you need to start eating smarter. You can still enjoy all the foods you love, but changing what you eat will help detoxify your body. While eating steak and potatoes is a normal part of many families meal plan, it also leaves you feeling weighed down. The reason for this is that two separate enzymes are needed to break down carbohydrates and starches. During digestion the two enzymes partially neutralize each other making digestion less effective. It is far more ideal to eat salad with a steak.
Dark leafy greens release nutrients that help flush your system of waste that is built up. During this 14-day cleanse diet it is also vital to drink lots of water. Non-flavored, filtered, all natural tap water. Although it may not seem appealing, water is the purest substance to put in your body to help it detoxify. By following these two easy steps you can detoxify your body in as little as two weeks. Keeping these healthy dietary changes as part of your lifestyle will result in an increase in energy, weight loss, improvements in skin, hair and nails and increased mental clarity.
I know first-hand how much. I was rear-ended a few years ago and it messed me up big time.
When your back hurts, it’s hard to be happy or think of anything else. It wears on you constantly. My friends tell me that car accident aged me ten years.
So I want to share a few simple strategies that can help you with your back pain. These have helped me.
1. Loosen up your hips.
If your hips are tight, your back has to take on the work that you should be doing with your legs and butt. Here’s a post with videos of my top three favorite hip loosening and strengthening exercises: http://woldfitness.com/2010/08/fixing-knee-pain-with-hip-exercises/
2. Train with kettlebells.
I know, I know. The personal trainer at your gym has been telling you that machines are the safest way to exercise. But the truth is, when you exercise on a machine it can actually INJURE your back!
Machine-based training forces you to follow the path of the machine, even if you’re built too tall, too short, or too wide. And when you’re all braced into a machine, you’ll do whatever it takes to lift the handle or push the platform, which can wreak all sorts of havok on your joints. And…. your back is an incredibly complex series of joints and muscle levers, so machines will jack you up right quick!
“Real world” exercises like moving your own bodyweight, barbells, dumbells, and odd objects like kettlebells teach you to support and use your whole body, not just one isolated part.
My chiropractor told me that as long as people are doing crunches, he’ll have job security.
Yes, a strong core is essential for getting rid of back pain, but the old Jane Fonda-standard crunch is exactly the wrong exercise.
The way your back bends during crunches puts enormous stress on the disks in your low back. And studies have found that after doing crunches your back is actually able to handle LESS stress!
Reverse crunches, planks, and rotational core exercises are all going to strengthen your stomach muscles without damaging your back (provided you find a trainer who teaches you correctly and then watches your form). Check out tip number 11 below.
5. Learn the Cook Hip Lift.
This drill will help you fire up your butt muscles, so they can take on the load you’ve been putting on your back.
6. Fix your sleeping position.
Just think, if your sleeping posture is bad, you’re spending 6-9 hours tweaking your back!
If you sleep on your back, put a pillow under your knees.
If you sleep on your side, put a pillow between your knees.
If you sleep on your stomach, STOP!
7. Get in line.
If you’re trying to exercise and your back is jacked up, you’re likely to make it worse – even if you’re doing the exercises correctly!
See, sitting, postural problems, and bad exercise habits have mis-aligned your spine, and until it’s in place, you’re just training it to stay misaligned. The pain won’t get worse, but it won’t feel much better, either.
I get regular chiropractic adjustments to make sure my spine stays in line. Here in Carson City is the best chiropractor I’ve ever been treated by: Dr. Brian Russell.
The big mistake people make with chiropractic is only going in when their back hurts. That’s like exercising only when you get fat, it doesn’t work!
You need to see your chiro regularly, to stop back pain before it starts! We get constant small misalignments in daily life, they add up over time. Regular chiropractic treatments keep your back healthy and happy.
8. Learn the Shin Box Switch.
The guy who taught this to me said to use it with clients who are becoming “chair shaped.”
It’s a great drill that I do at regular intervals whenever I’ve been sitting for a long time (like when I’m writing awesome health and fitness posts and bootcamp workouts!)
9. Get a ten dollar massage!
Go to amazon.com and order a full-round foam roller. There are lots to choose from. Then do this series of self-massaging exercises every day:
Every day you build up little bundles of scar tissue in your muscles. This scar tissue binds up and pulls you out of alignment. The best way to break up this scar tissue and prevent it from re-forming is a daily massage over the most common trouble spots.
A foam roller lets you massage yourself effectively without having to visit a spa every day. (And they are fun to hit people with!)
But a lot of people experience back pain because they are dehydrated. Sometimes people will come into my bootcamp gym and point to where their back hurts.
It’s actually their kidneys! Kidney pain can radiate through the back, and a lot of kidney pain is caused by not drinking enough water.
I recommend working up to drinking an ounce of water per pound of bodyweight every day. Since this seems SUPER HIGH to most people, set a bare minimum of half an ounce per pound of bodyweight. (If you weigh 200 pounds drink a MINIMUM of 100 ounces of water a day)
Or you can follow the “pee rule” I learned as an athlete: Look at your urine, if it’s brown stop what you’re doing and drink a lot of water. If it’s yellow, drink more water. If it’s clear, drink more water anyway!
11. Strengthen your core!
Your stomach, side, and back muscles all make up what is called your “core.”
(Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and dazzle you by talking about muscles with names like multifidus, transverse abdominus, and quadratus lumborum )
Here are a few posts I’ve done with videos of REAL core exercises that will strengthen your middle and help get rid of back pain:
(All of the exercises above are advanced, talk to your trainer to see which are right for you)
12. Build low back endurance.
Dr. Stuart McGill, the MAN when it comes to back health, says that lower back endurance is more important for preventing pain and injury than is low back strength.
It makes perfect sense if you think about it, no matter how strong you are, if your back is tired you’ll have bad posture and when you try to use your strength, you injure your back.
I like to use the Bird Dog exercise for building back endurance:
Two big mistakes most people make with this exercise are:
a) Looking up or forward. Keep your neck neutral and look at the floor.
b) Sagging or twisting the low back or hips. Envision a cafeteria tray on your back, and keep all four corners of the tray even.
13. Dehydrate your spine.
When you sleep, your spinal column fills with fluid. If you start exercising or stretching or even bend over wrong to pick up your slippers, you can herniate your low back.
Before you do any bending, lifting, or twisting, stand or walk for at least ten minutes to let the fluid in your spinal column dissipate.
I walk around my condo complex first thing every morning while my kettle heats up for making tea. All you need to do is stand up tall before you start any activities.
14. Quit eating soy.
Like tip number 3 above, soy is a food that causes all sorts of damage inside your body.
The more your cells are under chemical attack from your food, the less your body will be able to focus on healing and strengthening your back.
15. Double down on hip flexor and piriformis stretches.
Tight hip flexors and piriformis muscles cause your pelvis to tilt forward and pull your spine out of alignment. To help fix that, do a LOT of these two stretches (several times a day, not just before workouts):
When you gain weight, it pulls your hips out of alignment. Then when you exercise to lose weight, the weight might go, but the muscle imbalances remain!
So losing weight is the FIRST step, then second is to work with someone who understands muscle imbalances and how to fix them.
I was going to make a video about this, but my bro Kevin beat me to it! Check it out:
All right!
I have another 33 tips for getting rid of back pain already written down, so make sure to subscribe to my newsletter and enter your email in the box at the top right of this page
When I’m not writing kick-butt boot camp workouts and nutrition programs, I try to answer as many questions as I can. I want to share some from this week. (The answers are my actual replies, so please forgive all the grammar errors!)
Q: Quinoa, grain? I just read it is in the same family as spinach.
A: Yeah mang, it’s related to Spinach and Chard. Even though it’s not a grain, it’s still very carb-intensive and has proteins in it that act a lot like gluten.
I use it two ways:
a) As a fuel source for paleo-minded endurance athletes. Having… a tupperware of quinoa in your panniers isn’t as stylish as a power bar, but it’s a whole hell of a lot better for you.
b) As a “bridge food” for people adjusting to paleo-style eating. See, most people who want to cut out grains and processed foods severely under-eat. They don’t increase their meat and veggie intake enough to replace the calories from grains and dairy. So when they’ve cut out a thousand Calories they get hungry and tired and fall off the paleo wagon.
Adding some quinoa, lentils, or tubers in to the mix helps keep calories in satisfaction levels while eaters learn to adjust their intake of other foods to compensate for the lack of carbs.
But I recommend minimizing quinoa and going for veggies as soon as possible.
Q: Question right now is breakfast? That is when I’ve eaten whole wheat toast …. and coffee.
A: For breakfast I recommend eggs as a starting point. They are paleolithic foods, plus have plenty of fat and protein.
Studies have found that eggs for breakfast lead to greater weight loss than eating the same calories in oatmeal. And another study found women who eat eggs for breakfast have less body fat than women who don’t, even if they eat the same calories.
Eggs are a “base” like salad, you can add anything you want! I personally use eggs to mix in a whole lot of vegetables, starting my day with veggies keeps me on track the rest of the day.
Q: right now i’m trying to work up to running 5 miles at a go, because i found a pretty good training program for runners who are at that level. any advice on how to increase my stamina?
A: I always promote the idea of diminishing rest interval training.
Basically, you set your goal time and figure out how fast you need to run to do it. Say you have a goal of 9 minutes a mile (about a 2 hour half marathon). You make all of your training runs at 9 minutes per mile or FASTER. So, 4:30 half mile, walk 2 min, 4:30 half mile, walk 2 min. Next time you do the workout, you do 4:30 half mile, walk 75 sec, 4:30 half mile, walk 75 sec, etc.
That way you are never training your body to run below your goal pace, and you don’t get the overuse injuries (knees, ankles, back) that you get when slogging along with bad form.
Also, read “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall. It made ME want to start running. Good motivation.
Q: what are your thoughts on the Paleo diet providing enough fuel for an active athlete to improve performance?
A: The problem most people have when switching to a paleo-style diet is that they dramatically cut calories because they don’t replace the grains, dairy, soy, etc with more meat, veggies and nuts.
It depends on the type of athlete what paleo diet to put them on. Strength and power do great on a straight paleo (no tubers, lentils, etc). There is an initial loss of strength and power the first 4-6 weeks, then it ramps back up to normal levels over the next month. From then on there is greater progress because they can use all of the nutrients for training and recovery, not for fighting off inflammation and allergies from the diet.
Hard-core endurance athletes are doing something that cave-dudes wouldn’t have done: going maximally for brutally long distances. So in their case I follow the paleo-diet base, with the addition of some higher carb as-much-paleo-as-possible foods: sweet potatoes, yams, some lentils, some quinoa. And a little more fruit.
Even with the extra “paleoish” carbs, there is an initial drop in endurance and speed, followed by a ramp up to normal levels, then better increases once the inflammation, allergens, extra weight, blah blah blah are removed.
The biggest thing I tell my athlete clients who switch to paleo is to make sure calories stay the same or even INCREASE, otherwise they’ll feel fatigued and start breaking down.
Q: What is your take on the Vibram 5 finger shoes…?
A: I think the Vibram 5 Fingers are just about the best thing ever!
You know my back got jacked up in a car accident, these are the only shoes that I can wear that don’t leave me crippled at the end of the day.
My clients who wear them swear by them. Cuts down on knee, back, and hip pain. (But when you first switch to them, be prepared for searing pain below the knees as your calves, shins, and feet muscles are forced to work) Actually, with all the beach volleyball you might have conditioned them already
Ok, that’s it for today! If you have any questions, the fastest and easiest way to get them answered is to post them as a comment on my facebook wall. Here’s a link:
(Warning: The email below contains profanity and tells the truth about what happens when you chow down on soy. If either of these offends you, visit this website instead: Cute Things Falling Asleep)
Here are two new quotes I ran across just this week:
“The soybean itself is a notably inauspicious staple food; it contains a whole assortment of “antinutrients” – compounds that actually block the body’s absorbtion of vitamins and minerals, interfere with the hormonal system, and prevent the body from breaking down the proteins in soy itself.” – Michael Pollan, “In Defense Of Food”
“Confidence that soy products are safe is clearly based more on belief than hard data” – FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research
The Take-Home Message for today is: Stop eating soy!!
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” by Christopher McDougall. It made ME want to start running. Good motivation.
by Lierre Keith.
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