Is your fast food addiction fueled by Fast Advertising? I had a chuckle when I stumbled across this fast food exposé in Death and Taxes Magazine!
May help with your addiction….
Fast Food Lies: They’re Supersized
7 Dec
Supersized Fast Food Lies
12 Nov
Flake Weight, Fake Weight…. I mean Shake Weight
So I’m a hater (don’t be a hater, mate), yes I’m a fake hater. And the Shake Weight is just one of those flakey baits that grate me. The health industries is riddled with flakey fat burning fakes that rake in cash by the crate. I’m picking on this one cause it’s creative, still on the market and quite fun to rhyme with. I’ll review any others you want me to.
Lets start by introducing this revolution with an short infomercial…
CLAIMS MADE
- “It’s going to kick your butt in just 6 minutes guaranteed” – ok so what does that even mean. What is the assessment criteria by which we judge whether a butt kicking has occurred. And then, is that what I wanted? I think it is. Sounds pretty freckin’ awesome anyway! Kick my butt Shake Weight so I rate nake!
- “Ordinary weights isolate just one muscle in one direction… (cue backward shot of hot man completing single arm press with dumbell) – That one repetition of that one exercise has activated all of the muscles used to flex the shoulder, extend and stabilise the elbow, laterally rotate the scapular, stabilise the shoulder joint, stabilise the trunk, oh and grip the weight. Thats Trapezius, Triceps, Aconeus, The four muscles of the Rotator Cuff, Detoid, Serratus Anterior, Brachialis, Biceps, Brachioradialis, Obliques, Transverse Abdominis, Erector Spinae, The many flexor and extensors of the forearm, to name a few.
- “Harnesses the power of Dynamic Inertia to totally redifine strength training” – Google Dynamic Inertia. It’s been written into the Urban Dictionary since the introduction of the Shake Weight.
- “Build Definition, Size and Strength in less time” – Less time that what? And just for the record, definition is simply the product of muscles exposed when the fat is stripped away. Size is a function of strength and strength is a function of overload…. I will address this in one moment.
- “A Leading Biomechanics Research Centre proved that 6 minutes with the shake weight burns as much muscle energy at 42 with a standard dumbell” – This one will take some time to explain. Note the fine print said “similar weight dumbell performing dumbell exercises”. This Shake Weight is only 5 pounds. Now my 2 and a half year old might build muscle lifting dumbells for 42 minutes, but lets forget the build muscle for a moment, because this leading biomechanic research centre made no claim about building muscle, definition, size or strength.
The claim was “burns as much muscle energy”. Now muscles primary energy source is glycogen. This is stored in the muscles or brought to the muscle via the blood. When the body is not getting enough oxygen to meet it’s energy demands, the breakdown of glycogen creates a byproduct called lactic acid. This usually happens after about a minute if there is not enough oxygen in the blood. And I have no doubt this piece of equipment will utelise more musculature per minute with the stabilising required, therefore burn more glucose than aerobically fuelled 5lb dumbell exercises. This explains the “fire” in the muscles. If you rate ache, then buy the Shake Weight.
But lactic acid does not produce definition, size, strength or sex appeal. It simply hurts and makes you stop. Muscle hypertrophy (growth) occurs through overload by way of heavy weights, therefore requiring maximum recruitment of motor units. Not by burning energy or contracting frequently, even if it is 240 times in one minute. In short, lift heavy, get big – lift lots or long, get good at lifting lots or long.
- “The Ironclad Kick Butt Guarantee – If your arms, chest and shoulders aren’t on fire in just 6 minutes, return it for a 100% money back guarantee and we’ll even pay return shipping”. I too personally guarantee you experience lactic acidosis (just a flash term for “on fire”). I don’t, however guarantee you will get ripped, look like the bodybuilder in the clip or pull chicks. Neither did they.
So getting a little more serious, How about a less emotive evaluation of some key prinicples by asking 4 important questions:
EFFECTIVENESS AND SAFETY
- Is it safe? There are three recommended positions and none are particularly safe.
The first position holds the weight away from the trunk in front of the abdomin and encourages you to hold this static position while shaking the weight. This position would require significant transverse abdominus innervation to ensure lower back stability. If the person is not familiar with how to activate the muscles of the core, or if (when) they begin to get fatiqued, they will compromise the safety of their intervertebral discs of the lumar spine. Notice the perfect form demonstrated in the video also requires the shoulders to be pulled back and down, scapular retracted to prevent rounding of the shoulders. Should this not be performed correctly, a person also risks ongoing upper back and neck pains too.The second position holds the weight behind the head with both hands. Again this position is impossible to achieve without taking the head out of its natural alignment into a forward head posture leading to back and neck pain. This is the main reason Barbell Presses behind the head have been dumped by the profession in recent decades.
The third position recommended takes the shoulder into an abducted and externally rotated position. This is an extremely unstable position for the shoulder and unfortunately the rotator cuff muscle group, which are usually expert at maintaining strong positioning under pressure, will become very fatigued well before then end of the recommended 2 minute timeframe – rendering them incapable of providing this suport role. What is further concerning is that this exercise is performed right at the junction where the tendon of the long head of the biceps can get impinged in the shoulder joint. - Is it functional? All positions work all muscles through a very small range of motion and are unlikely to be transferrable in any life setting. Life is dynamic and functional. Muscular strength is usually required at high intensity but only for a few seconds not for 6 or even 2 minutes in any of those positions. I will allow Ellen to ellude to it’s only functional application…
- Is there a benefit? For someone who has had very little muscular conditioning, then they may gain some very shake weight specific endurance from the strength gains pedaled in a 6 minute Shake Weight workout. But anyone who has an genuine interest in strength and size gain needs to lift heavy weights through full body compound exercises with extensive range of motion. And lets not forget that those who might benefit are those inherently suseptable to the risks mentioned above due to inexperience. It’s also not a wise choice for someone who is interested in fat burning solutions. It would require emense mental drive to maintain a 6 minute workout due to the high amount of lactic acid produced and the corresponding calorie consumption for most would be disproportionate. In other words, you’d burn more going for a good brisk, but comfortable walk.
- Is there a better choice? Yes, For muscle growth, try working out once a week (or fortnight) using safe full body exercises, heavy weights and limit your sets. Get out of the gym inside 20 minutes. For calorie deficit, drink one less full cream latte a day or replace butter with cream cheese. These guys didn’t get this big using shake weight and the lean girls would eat a balanced diet meeting only their energy requirements, no more.
(As an entertaining side point you might note the different way the Shake Weight is marketed to Women… Despite our identical musculature, the Shake Weight avoids building bulk in the female form. Sheer Genius.)
To ensure my review is balanced, here are the positives I have considered…
IS THERE ANYTHING GOOD STEPH?
- It’s small and portable so you can put it in your bag and add weight to your load, and burn more energy carrying it around
- It’s durable and well manufactured so it will last you a long time
- It doesn’t require batteries
- It comes with an instructional DVD ensuring you use it correctly and won’t get your fingers jammed
- It builds tolerance to lactic acid in that specific position, building your endurance for the one other activity that might use that combination of musculature and rhythm for a 6 minute period
Oh, and I stumbled across this nice piece, just to ensure you pack the Shake Weight back into the cake crate…
12 Oct
The Most Important Decision You Can Make To Lose Weight
The most important decision you can make to lose weight is not dieting……
…… it’s NOT dieting.
2 Oct
Rough It
A common human condition is our impatience to “get there”. Remember as we grow up, before we get the nice outdoor BBQ furniture, the matching dinner set, the crystal wine glasses we have to guts it out with mix-matched hand me down items, some looking like you cleaned out a deceased estate! But you get there in the end while roughing in on the way.
The same applies with our weight loss journey. Don’t expect to “be there” at that picture perfect end destination and make embarrassed apologies about why your body’s not there yet. When you’re on a journey, so long and you’re on a well navigated set of compass points, don’t beat yourself up for not being there yet.
Learn to live rough till you’re buff.
21 Sep
Stop when I’ve had enough?? But I’m addicted to food!
So, let’s say that you have recognised you have a dysfunctional relationship with food. And now you have begun to understand that your body has an infallible ability to tell when it’s had enough to eat.
The next step is to know how to stop when you recognise these signals. I know! It’s a tall order for anyone who is preoccupied with food. So how do you change the overeating habits of a lifetime? How can a person bear to throw out a quarter of a hamburger or wrap up a dozen cold chips in their now transparent wrapping and casually turf them like fish guts?
OK, so for a while, it’ll hurt. But I promise that it’s only dysfunctional thought patterns that brought you to this difficult enslavement. So rest assured, whatever dysfunctional thought has done in your life, can be undone with a shift in your focus.
STEP 1: PLAN.
You’re gonna hate me for suggesting this but you MUST plan your meals at least a day, preferably a week in advance. Yes, you’ve tried it, you hated it, but by God it works. It’s a 20 minute commitment of mind racking and list writing for a smoooooooth week of blissful rewarding nutrition. Do you really feel like brushing your teeth. Not really, but you do it cause you just have to. Do you really like vacuuming? Not really but you do it.
STEP 2: BE STRATEGIC.
Stay within the comfort zone (between 3 – 6) of the Hunger Scale. This way you are in the best mental space to make smart food choices. If you get hungry, eat. Think ahead about when you might get hungry next and make sure you have good food planned and available. Step 1 helps with this.
STEP 3: EAT SLOWLY.
If you aren’t starving when you start eating, this will be easier. Place the fork down between mouthfuls. Laugh. Drink wine. Notice things around you. Listen attentively to great conversation. Ask genuine questions of the people you are eating with. Notice your body’s signals. Eating slowly will increase fullness, increase satiety and reduce caloric intake.
STEP 4: SAVE IT.
If you tell a small child who has “had enough” that, “you’ll throw out the rest”, you can be sure he’ll want to eat the rest. Especially if it’s “yummy”. But if you tell him “I’ll put it on the bench and you can have it later if you want” then he’ll think that’s a great idea! Treat yourself like a small child if your relationship with food is juvenile! Put it in the fridge and tell yourself if you feel like it later, you can have more.
STEP 5: EAT IT LATER.
If you feel like it later, eat it. Better your leftovers than a cheese toastie. And even if it was a cheese toastie you had saved, at least it wasn’t the whole toastie for dinner AND one for supper! Wahoooo, there’s few cal’s already!
STEP 6: TURF IT LATER.
If it looks congealed and a little rubbery hours later, then bin it! Count the calories in the bin. And imagine your butt that many calories smaller. And if you don’t like “wasting food”, remember it would still have been waste hanging off your body too!
STEP 7: CHANGE YOUR FOCUS.
This is the toughest of all the steps. In order to stop thinking about food, you need to think about something else. Be passionate about other aspects of life. Be so excited about your life and so proud of who you are, that you just want mealtime to be over so you can get on with being fabulous! This stage takes time. But with steady deliberate progression, you can be everything you want to be with small lifestyle tweaks that AREN’T about food. More on this in a later post.
And remember habits of a lifetime, will take far less than a lifetime, but far more than a couple of weeks to alter. Be persistent yet kind to yourself. And treat yourself like you would want someone else to treat you. You can change.
16 Sep
Don’t share your goals, Get a coach.
So, Is it wise to share your number one far-reaching deep seeded goal with the world? What about your friends, and family?
Doesn’t sharing your goals make you more likely to achieve them because they will ask you about it. Well NO – really it’s just too damn easy to tell a friend that you have a reason why you haven’t achieved it. And they are obligated, under the unwritten code of friendship to accept that excuse and forgive you. WORSE STILL they will assist you in the rationalisation of your shortfalling! They’ll agree you are very busy, and then go one step further to convince you that what you have already achieved is sheer brilliance given your timetable, after all, you make them look lazy as it is!
Think about it! That’s what friends are for! Don’t expect your friend to be your coach. Don’t meet your friend once a week for a weigh in, expecting they are going to be the one you don’t want to let down. They don’t really care if you are fat anyway! They love you the way you are. And to be barbarically honest they are more interested in themselves than you!
But wait there’s more….Derek Sivers says the disclosure of a goal to your friend gives you the good feeling of being “one step closer” which will make you less likely to achieve it. Psychologists have found that the sense of satisfaction you experience when you are congratulated for your ambition, demotivates the mind to do the hard work necessary.
Now, I do share my goals, but I’m super choosy about who I share them with. I share them with my family, who are like-minded and with a couple of very close friends…. but I also cover the accountability bit by having a coach.
And you know what….?
My coach has a coach.
If you want to rock your life it’s a good idea to get serious about your goals and get a pro to mind them for you. No team of athletes would ever consider attaining performance at the highest level without a coach. Athletes know that coaches maximise their performance. So why wouldn’t we apply this principle for other areas of our life?
I’ve said this before… You weren’t placed on this planet alone. You don’t need to be to be a one-stop self-sustaining tall poppy.
15 Sep
Hunger Counts, Calories Don’t
A significant study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that we are eating more food, more often than we did 30 years ago. And we all know for damn sure that our species has not evolved so rapidly in one generation to require more grub! In fact this overeating, combined with a flux of high calorie snack food, has created an epidemic of obesity in NZ – twice as many of our people are obese now than 30 years ago.
We are now deaf to internal satiety cues and are eating for emotional and social reasons. This is called “Hedonic Eating” as opposed to “Homeostatic Eating“. Food is so seductive to us that we are ignoring our biological cues. Our hunger and satiety mechanism.
And to add insult to injury, food has been scientifically attested to be more alluring to some than to others, and this is related to biochemical changes related to overeating and a wide range of emotional issues.
All of this overeating causes us to diet. And then there is also the plethora of research that asserts that people who restrain their eating have much stronger physiological and biochemical reactions to yummy food. And not just the sight and smell, but even just when their favourite food is uttered!
Cue negative spiral.
Chronic dieters and calorie counters are putty in the hands of their favourite food. Hence the reason why “control” becomes an issue!
So Steph, this is not good news…. Where the heck are you going with this?!!! OK, so we know we’re not listening, and we know it’s harder than ever to listen, but, devoted weight loss junkies, we need to get back to basics. If we want to be successful at losing weight, simply forcing yourself to eat a certain number of calories or certain foods will not cut the mustard. Because it’s too mechanical and unnatural. We need to learn to listen to our internal cues. And they are speaking to us all of the time. We have simply forgotten, (OR NEVER EVEN LEARNT) how to listen. Did you know your stomach will tell you exactly when you have had enough to eat TO THE NEAREST MOUTHFUL!
One thing that constantly amazes me about my beautiful two year old daughter is her ability to know EXACTLY when she’s had enough to eat. She’ll enjoy one mouthful say “Yummy Mummy” then after the next, she’ll put her spoon down and say “I’ve had enough, Mummy”. Long may she listen to her tummy, even if she doesn’t to her Mummy.
Here’s what I suggest. Use this Hunger Scale to start rating your stomach’s message. Hell, even if you ignore it every single time, at least you are aware of it.
The next part of the battle is, once you can hear your stomach’s voice, is to silence the other garbage. The social cues and the emotional baggage. More on this later. Let’s focus on listening to begin with.
10 Sep
Power Battle with Food?
I’ve heard oh-too-many times, a yearning for “control” over eating. No doubt, if “Food” has control then you definitely have a dysfunctional relationship with “Food”. Nevertheless, despite how the words “Food” and “Your Name” are arranged around the word “control”, if you use the word “control” at all, you two probably have a relationship problem. Just like any inter-human relationship, neither party should need to take any dominant or uncomfortable place in the other’s world. The word “control” conceals an issue. A natural relationship with food needs no control.
“Food has a strong power over me”
“I am in control of my eating”
Either way, you and “Food” need to talk.
There are many models to formally evaluate your relationship with food. There is the Power of Food Scale, the Herman and Polivy Restraint Scale, the Three Factor Eating Questionairre, The Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionairre, and the The El Restraint Scale amongst others!
But let me just run a few simple statements past you. If you agree, even just somewhat to the statements below, you might need to consider a fresh and less restrained approach to your weight loss.
“I think about food even when I am not hungry.”
“I get more pleasure from eating than anything else.”
“It’s scary to think the power that food has over me.”
“Just before I taste food, I feel intense anticipation.”
Monitor Your Need for Control
It’s a good idea just to keep an eye on this control thing for a while! I have developed this FOOD AS FUEL SCALE which enables you to daily informally rate, on a scale of 1 – 9, how much “control” was in your You-Food relationship that day, which party is playing hard to get and calling the shots and which party is secretly pining!
Ideally, natural eating would consist of daily scores of between 7 to 9. A score of 6 or less indicates you had to use some level of control. A score of 3 or less indicates that your affair with Food could be dominating your life and if you do not address it, will have a significant effect on your health, self-esteem and probably other relationships in the longterm.
31 Aug
A New Way for 5 a Day
Nic Marks suggests most governments measure economics so closely that they neglect to measure wellbeing and all that which makes life worthwhile.
“Come on”, he implores, “We have enough”.
The UK Foresight Project commissioned nef to review the work of over 400 experts in the science of wellbeing to establish a set of evidence based actions a person could incorporate into their daily lives to become…. happier.
The research came up with Five Ways to Wellbeing.
Marks presented these ideas to TED in July….
Oh and by the way, tomorrow is RAK Day. A kickstart to the Five Ways.
A nice Tweak if you dare to RAK weekly!
27 Aug
Get Ready to RAK!
The trolley boy always says “hi”
He delivers a trolley to my car door when I arrive at his store
He will haul out 9 wet trolleys to serve me a dry one
He unfolds the baby seat for my daughter to sit in
He escorts me to my car and helps load my groceries in the boot
He whisks away my trolley when I’m done
And tirelessly serves it to another
He does a glamorous job of his not-so-glamorous job
Last year my trolley boy was the recipient of my RAK. There are so many people who deserve to be RAK’d. There are those who have earned it, and there are those who need it.
RAK Day is only 6 days away – 1 September 2010.
Here’s what I am doing, I challenge you to do the same:
- Perform one RAK for a worthy person who adds value to this planet
- Perform one RAK for a person who is stuck, can’t see a way out and could do with a lucky break
- Perform one RAK for a stranger because they are special to someone
- Donate $10 to RAK foundation
- Challenge someone else to do the same
Make someone’s day! Follow this link for some ideas. Download a poster for your workplace and Print off some “You’ve been RAK’d cards”.
RAKing helps us to keep things in perspective, allows us to enjoy some simple pleasures, and reminds us how dependent our happiness is on the happiness of our community.
“Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regrets, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true”. Robert Brault
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion”. Dalai Lama
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”. Plato
