Estrogen levels in men are a hot topic in the news right now.

Men with high estrogen levels are more likely to store their fat in their chest and lower abs.  Plus it leads to some nasty health issues and chronic diseases.

Testosterone levels in men are 15 to 50% lower compared to 50 years ago.  (This probably leads to the saying “You’re half the man your grandfather was!”)

I’ve put together a short list of estrogen-lowering tips for men, check ‘em out:

1.  Eat organic, local, pesticide-free produce.

Preferably grown yourself or from a farmer’s market.

Pesticides and herbicides have been shown to increase estrogen levels.

2.  Eat organic, local, hormone-free meats.

Most commercially raised livestock is pumped full of hormones and antibiotics.

These hormones and antibiotics will raise your estrogen levels, damage your body, and lead to heart disease and cancer.

To really maximize the health benefits of the meat you eat, get grass-fed beef.

3. Avoid commercial protein powders for the reasons in #2

If the animal has been pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, it stands to reason that the milk from the animal will be full of hormones and antibiotics.

If you drink whey protein from an animal full of chemicals, your estrogen levels will rise.

4.  Avoid eating and drinking out of plastic

Plastic has been linked to increased estrogen levels.  Keep your food in glass containers and drink out of stainless steel bottles.

The worst plastic for you is type #7 (it has a little 7 on the bottom).  Avoid this plastic at all costs, don’t even use shampoo from type 7 bottles.

5.  Don’t eat “modern foods”

Almost everything that comes from a box, bag, or bottle is bad for you.

Follow the paleo nutrition rule: only eat what a caveman would eat.

All the chemicals and preservatives in modern manufactured foods will raise estrogen levels, make you fat, and lead to health problems.

6.  Eat tons of cruciferous vegetables

Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower have been shown to reduce estrogen levels.  A side bonus is that they are effective cancer fighters.

Tired of broccoli?  Here’s a list of other cruciferous vegetables:

• horseradish
• land cress
• ethiopian mustard
• kale
• collard greens
• Chinese broccoli
• cabbage
• brussels sprout
• kohlrabi
• broccoli
• broccoflower
• broccoli romanesco
• cauliflower
• wild broccoli
• bok choy
• komatsuna
• mizuna Brassica
• Rapini (broccoli rabe)
• flowering cabbage
• chinese cabbage
• napa cabbage
• turnip root
• turnip greens
• rutabaga
• siberian kale
• canola/rapeseed
• wrapped heart mustard cabbage
• mustard greens
• tatsoi
• arugula
• garden cress
• watercress
• radish
• daikon
• wasabi

7.  Avoid alcohol

Alcohol is highly estrogenic.  A drink a night or a few drinks on the weekend will boost your estrogen levels and keep fat on your body.  Which leads to…

8.  Lose excess body fat

Most people forget that fat has an impact on hormone levels.

It is essential for men to get their bodyfat below 15% for health and to combat estrogen levels.

No booze, no junk food, cut the carbs, and do metabolism boosting workouts at least 3 times a week.

9.  Drink purified water

Water quality is getting worse and worse as it is recycled and chemicals are added.

Get a high quality water filter and use it for all of your drinking water, coffee, tea, and ice cubes.

For bonus estrogen fighting points, get a filter for your shower head as well.

10.  Get more sleep

Lack of sleep will cause your estrogen levels to rise.  Make a deal with yourself that you’ll be in bed early enough to get a full night’s sleep.

Darken your bedroom, avoid TV or computer an hour before bed, and don’t drink caffeine late in the day.

That’s it, 10 simple ways for you to lower your estrogen levels.

With low estrogen levels, not only will you be healthier and leaner, it will be easier for you to add muscle, recover from injuries, and have a great body.

Eating healthy at fast food restaurants can be tricky.

Today at bootcamp someone asked me what I think of the Low Carb Six Dollar Burger From Carl’s Jr.

I think it’s an ok decision when you’re stuck out on the town and everyone you’re with wants to grab a burger.

The 570 Calorie Low Carb burger has a 100% black angus beef patty, two slices of cheese, tomato, red onions and dill pickles wrapped in a romaine lettuce leaf.

If you order it without mayo, mustard, or ketchup, and just one slice of cheese, you can get it down to just under 400 Calories.

If you’ve got to eat out, grab the Low Carb Six Dollar Burger!

A chiropractor friend of mine told me that SITTING is the most damaging thing we do all day:

You probably don’t need a better chair, you just need to see how to sit correctly.  Check out this video:

For more tips and tricks for getting rid of back pain, check out this post on Wold Fitness:

17 Ways To Fix Back Pain

Do you ever hear things like this?

“Comfort food”

“Special treats”

“Reward meals”

What exactly is “comfort food”?

According to Wikipedia: “food consumed to improve emotional status, whether to relieve negative psychological affect or to increase positive feeling.”

Comfort foods “improve emotional status” by turning on the reward centers of your brain.  You feel more like a winner after you eat your comfort food.

And, as Charlie Sheen will tell you, winning is addictive.

But the problem with comfort foods is that they lead to comfort bodies:

What if there was a way to turn OFF the food reward centers of your brain?

A way to turn down the need for the emotional lift that comfort foods can bring?

Turns out you can turn down your “neural response to visual food stimuli”:

Obesity (Silver Spring). 2011 May 5. [Epub ahead of print]
Neural Responses to Visual Food Stimuli After a Normal vs. Higher Protein Breakfast in Breakfast-Skipping Teens: A Pilot fMRI Study.
Leidy HJ, Lepping RJ, Savage CR, Harris CT.

This study used brain imaging scans to see if breakfast would alter brain activity in overweight girls and to see if additional protein would produce more alterations.

It did.

The group that ate a higher protein breakfast (50 grams of protein) had a much reduced food motivation and reward response.

What does this mean for you?

Eating a higher protein breakfast will help you stop viewing food as a reward.

Now, fifty grams of protein may seem like a huge amount (especially if you’ve been skipping breakfast)…

So I want to give you a simple plan that WORKS: It’s called 30/30/300.

• Eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking up
• Eat at least 30 grams of protein in your breakfast
• Eat at least 300 Calories at breakfast

Simple

Following the 30/30/300 plan will raise your metabolism, help you lose weight, and cut down on comfort food cravings.

For more info on food cravings and brain chemistry, check out these other articles from Wold Fitness:

Sugar Cravings Taking Over Your Brain

Are You An Emotional Eater? (Quiz)

End Emotional Eating

A Carson City Bootcamp Exercise Post by Lucas Wold

Gymnastics rings are a phenomenal training tool.  You can build strength, flexibility, and balance on one simple training tool

Most people don’t realize that two of the most popular training tools in the world right now, the TRX and the Total Gym are take offs of traditional gymnastic ring training.

The TRX is a set of rings with flat flat handles, foot stirrups, and a single point of attachment:

And the Total Gym is a take-off of an old Russian gymnastics training tool that allowed athletes to practice rings moves with a smaller percentage of their body weight

And rings aren’t just good for training gymnastics tricks.  You can use a set of rings to exercise every muscle in your body and get a great metabolism boosting workout.

To that end, here are 10 simple rings training exercises for you to try:

Gymnastic Ring Triceps Extension

This is a great exercise for the triceps muscles on the back of your arms.

Gymnastic Ring Body Row

In this video I have my feet on a Swiss Balance Ball, but a simpler variation is to put your feet on the floor. This exercise will strengthen your back and arms, and do wonders for your posture.

If there was a single exercise I’d recommend for everyone, the body row would be it.

Gymnastic Ring Pistol Squat

Pistol squats are a phenomenal exercise, but they are very difficult. Using the gymnastic rings allows you to train the pistol without losing your balance, plus the rings take some of the load off your working leg, allowing you to build up to a full pistol squat.

Gymnastic Ring Straight Arm Pulldown

This exercise is a great way to develop your back and core

Gymnastic Ring Reach Out

This is one of the best exercises for training your core.

Gymnastic Ring Dip

Dips have been called the “squat of upper body training.” If you want a strong chest, strong arms, and shoulder stability, try dips.

Gymnastic Ring Low Trap Pull

Scapular depression is one of the most under-trained movements in the gym. It is also one of the most important things you can do to improve your posture and shoulder health.

Gymnastic Ring Biceps Curls

If you’re going to do curls, do them on the rings.

Gymnastic Ring Push Up

You can improve the basic push up by using the rings. It will challenge not only your “push up” muscles, but also your shoulder stability and core strength.

For beginning exercisers, you can use the rings to reduce the amount of your body weight that you are pushing, making it less difficult than a push up on the floor.

Gymnastic Ring Face Pull

One of my favorite exercises for the back of the shoulders.

Now, if you want to use rings in your training, set up your workouts to use ring exercises in a circuit. Here’s an example:

Have fun!

Just to lighten up your day – no pun intended!

Have a great day!

Salads can be so much more than iceberg lettuce and shredded carrots.  Salads should be delicious and nutritious – not boring and limp.

Today I want to share 8 greens that will boost both the taste and nutrition of your salads.

Salad Booster #1: Arugula

I’d describe arugula as “mustardy,” which helps to add flavor when you’re cutting down on salad dressing.

Arugula will also give you a good dose of calcium and magnesium.

Salad Booster #2: Watercress

Last night I had plum and chicken kabobs over a watercress salad. Delicious!

Watercress is a little peppery, and contains awesome phytochemicals that fight airborne pollutants like tobacco smoke and exhaust fumes.

Think of a watercress salad as a HEPA filter for your lungs.

(Update: One of my clients told me her grandmother used to crush watercress and feed it to her whenever she had a cold lodged in her chest.  Grandmas rule!)

Salad Booster #3: Spinach

Spinach and I get along so well I have to remind myself to branch out and eat lots of other vegggies. I cook down as many as 8 cups of spinach into my morning eggs.

Spinach is a great source of both lutein and zeaxanthin – antioxidants that protect your eyes from aging.

A study from Tufts University found that eating spinach frequently lowers your risk of age-related macular degeneration by 43 percent.

Salad Booster #4: Romaine

Romaine tastes a little bit like celery, without the bother of strings getting caught in your teeth.

It is a good source of beta carotene (more than 700 micrograms per cup).

The University of Illinois showed that high levels of beta-carotene inhibits the growth of certain cancers by 50 percent.

Salad Booster #5: Kohlrabi

I didn’t like kohlrabi the first time I had it, but now I can’t get enough! It tastes like a cross between a cabbage and a turnip (seriously).

Kohlrabi has potassium (an essential element) to help lower your blood pressure.

You also get a dose of glucosinolate, a phytochemical that has been shown to help prevent some cancers. Cool!

Salad Booster #6: Endive

Crisp, slightly bitter, and full of fiber – endive is a great addition to any salad.

A cerving of endive also has plenty of folate: an essential B vitamin. People who don’t get enough folate have a 50% greater risk of developing heart disease.

Salad Booster #7: Bok Choy

Bok choy tastes a little like cabbage… but it has A LOT more vitamins!

You can get even more cancer-fighting, age-reducing phytochemicals from eating bok choy: flavonoids, isothiocyanates, and dithiolthione.

Salad Booster #8: Mustard Greens

This is advanced salading right here. Mustard greens are spicy, crunchy, and delicious. The only caaveat I have about them is to start off with small servings if you aren’t used to eating vegetables. Otherwise your digestive system might rebel!

Mustard greens are a good source of tyrosine, an amino acid that can help with both your memory and your concentration.

There you have it! 8 delicious ways to add more flavor and nutrition to your salads. Now for a bonus tip:

BONUS SALAD TIP

Most salad dressings are packed full of sugars, vegetable oils, and gummy coloring agents. Gross.

If you want to add some moisture and some flavor to your salads, add in some fruits and nuts.

I add a few raisins, a bit of chopped apple, and some chopped walnuts to my broccoli-watercress salads. Mmmmmm…

Other good moisture/flavor additions to a salad are: cucumbers, berries, bell peppers, chopped dried fruits, and meat.

Have fun and eat some delicious salads!

My relationship with dumbbells is like Captain James T. Kirk’s relationship with tribbles: I love them and every time I turn around there are more of them in my gym

Dumbbells are so versatile and easy to use that I’m amazed more people haven’t embraced dumbbell training.

Without further ado, here are 7 reasons YOU should be using dumbbells in your fat loss and fitness training program:

Dumbbells Make Your Body Smarter

When you’re training with dumbbells (as opposed to machines) you are working in three dimensions, not locked into static pushing and pulling on padded handles.  This means your body is learning how to work in the real world at the same time you’re becoming healthy and lean.

The ability to move your body and knowing how to handle a moving weight is one of the most valuable things you can do to improve your safety and quality of life.

Icy sidewalk?  After training with dumbbells, you’ll have the strength and balance to get to your car without falling down.  Real-world abilities like this will never come from a machine that does all the balancing for you.

Dumbbells Make Your Heart Healthy

More than 100 studies have shown that strength training will lower blood pressure and strengthen your heart.

A few recent studies have shown that working out with dumbbells will lower your lipid profile (less FUNK blocking your blood vessels) and increase your oxygen uptake.

Dumbbells Give You A Better Workout

Most people only use dumbbells for training their arm muscles, but dumbbells can be used to train every part of your body:

Legs – Lunges, squats, deadlifts

Back – All sorts of rows and pulls

Chest/Shoulders – 1000′s of press variations

Core – Side bends, windmills, renegade rows

Dumbbells Make You Strong

Training with dumbbells allows you a great range of motion, building strength in ways no machine can.

Ain’t No Machine Can

Barbells and machines can restrict your motion.  For instance, in a barbell row, you can only bring the bar up to your body.  With a dumbbell row, you can pull an extra two inches, building strength through the entire movement.

Dumbbells Prevent Injuries

Weight training machines are designed to only use one muscle at a time (ex: biceps).  That’s great if you want to spend hours in the gym to hit all of your muscles, and then the only thing you do outside the gym is flex in a mirror…

For people with a real life though, it’s important to train the small muscles, tendons, and ligaments that stabilize your joints.

Machines MISS these balancing muscles and support tissues (tendons and ligaments), which means you’ll likely be injured as soon as you move in a way you haven’t pumped on a machine.

Dumbbells, however, strengthen you everywhere (including your support and balance systems) which means when you move, you’ll be safe from injury.

Dumbbells Keep Your Body In Balance

Using dumbbells forces each side of your body to do its share – train with dumbbells for the first time after using machines and you’ll definitely see how much you favor one arm and leg over the other.

From the way you drive, the way you carry packages, and the way you play sports, you will develop HUGE imbalances that will eventually lead to injury. For instance, if one leg is much stronger than the other it will pull your hips out of alignment and give you low back pain. In this case, the answer isn’t back stretches or a heating pad – the cure is balancing out your leg strength!

When you lift a barbell or use a strength machine, you can compensate for a weak left arm by pushing more with your right arm – which makes your imbalances worse.

When you lift two dumbbells each side of your body has to work on its own, so both sides get the right amount of exercise.

Dumbbells Are More Challenging And More Interesting

With dumbbells you can do thousands of exercises. With a machine you can do one.

There are so many different ways to work out that you’ll never have to get bored – which means you’ll work out harder and enjoy your workouts more. Pretty sweet deal

Does your upcoming vacation have you worried about your waistline? You should be.

The average person gains almost a pound a day while on vacation.

But that doesn’t have to be you. Most of the time extra pounds sneak up on you when you least expect it, so decide right here and now that your vacation will leave you slimmer than when you left.

All you have to do is have a plan.

As you embark on your next vacation adventure, use these 7 tips to come home fitter than when you left.

Trick #1: Cut Your Carbs

Vacation days are notorious for carbohydrate rich meals, and it’s a well-known fact that too many carbohydrates will quickly add up to unwanted pounds. Combat this fat-trap by choosing at least one meal per day to go carb-less.

-Breakfast: This may be the most effective meal to use the carb-less trick, since breakfast often involves breads, pastries or pancakes. Skip the toast and fill up on egg whites and lean breakfast meats.

-Lunch: A great carb-less lunch is a salad with lean meat. It’s so filling and satisfying that you won’t even miss the bread.

-Dinner: Since you’re on vacation, you don’t want to feel deprived, so dinner is the hardest meal to go carb-less. But if you’ve indulged at breakfast and lunch then make it a point to cut the carbs at dinner. Stick with veggies and lean meats.

Trick #2: Be Active

If your travels keep you too busy for a workout, or if your hotel does not have an exercise room, make a conscious effort to be active everyday. Go on a brisk walk after your day’s activities. This is a great way to see a new city, and also a great way to burn off extra calories. Take the stairs instead of elevator in your hotel and any other buildings you visit. Go on a short jog in the mornings or evenings of your stay. If your hotel has a pool, swim a few laps each morning or evening.

Trick #3: Indulge with Control

Eating out is a must while on vacation. Whether you’re visiting 5 star restaurants or fast food diners, you are faced with the same problem: large portions. While the easiest thing to do with a large portioned meal is to simply eat it all – you are on vacation after all…right? – that isn’t the best for your waist.

When you order your meal ask the waiter or waitress to bring you a to-go box. Take half of your meal and place it safely into the box before you even begin to eat. This gives you no choice but to eat a healthy portion. If you would rather not carry around a to-go box then ask that your entrée be made into a smaller portion. If it is dinnertime ask for the lunch-sized entrée.

Trick #4: Don’t Eat Late

One of the easiest tricks for preventing weight loss is to simply stop eating 3 hours before you go to bed. This is especially effective while on vacation. So skip that late night indulgence and wake up looking and feeling great.

Trick #5: Snack Healthy

Have you ever noticed how travel days create the perfect opportunity for snacking? A coffee and muffin before your flight, a snack on the plane and then before you know it – it’s lunch time! Taking a road trip? This opens up even more opportunities for regrettable snacking…rest stop vending machines, gas station quickie marts and a never-ending string of fast food joints along the highway.

This summer cut unhealthy snacking off at the pass by bringing along your own healthy options. Dried or fresh fruit, unsalted nuts, beef jerky, and cut veggies  are a good start. By filling up on these healthy snacks between meals you will end up eating less when presented with a less-than-healthy meal.

Trick #6: Avoid Fried Foods

While fast food restaurants are definitely convenient, with their low prices and quick service, this convenience is not worth the additional pounds brought on by chips and fries. As you enjoy your vacation keep this in mind: avoid fried foods. While this is always good advice to follow, it is even more important to abide by while traveling.

While vacationing you will likely burn fewer calories each day than you would burn at home, and you are consuming more calories due to your schedule of eating out. You are walking a fine line, and eating fried foods would throw you right over the edge. A gram of fat contains 9 calories as compared to the 4 calories per gram that proteins and vegetables carry – so you can see that consuming fried foods will drastically increase your caloric intake.

If I still haven’t convinced you to pass on the curly fries, keep in mind that heartburn and indigestion are never fun…especially while on vacation!

Trick #7: Team up with a Pro – Yours Truly!

Well, fitness is my specialty…and since you are serious about creating a healthy and fit physique – get some serious your results by teaming up with me.

Together we will help you get promptly to your goals – something that you will appreciate while on vacation and at home.

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.

Metabolic Cooking <——- Recipes that burn fat faster!