Success is sweet but comes only with a commitment to change and hard work!

Yo Max,

I’ve tried every diet that was ever invented – including Atkins, Nutri-System, Weight Watchers, South Beach, Slim Fast, and diet pills. I’m turning 40 in a month and weigh more now than I ever have in my life. I’m 5’4” and was horrified to have my doctor tell me I might want to consider gastric by-pass surgery because I’m now over 300 lbs. She said my health risks are now greater than the risks of surgery! Do you think I should do it? Do you know people who have had the surgery and been successful?

Helpless, Norristown

Yo Helpless,

As you’ve had to learn through painful trial and error, the problem with diets is that they don’t work long term - so people just jump from one to the next only to wind up right back where they started.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that in twenty years of working to help people lose weight I’ve never know one who was successful with dieting alone. Not one. The whole concept is flawed and set up to fail. Unless you change your lifestyle you wont change your body.

I’ve written about this topic many times and often get my readers upset when I share my ‘tough love’ perspective, but I can only tell you what I’ve seen work and what I know will fail based on experience.

Let me share with you the true story of two people who work out at my gym and who, also, have struggled for most of their lives to lose weight and keep it off.

Many people do little more than putter around at the gym – 15-20 minutes on the treadmill or elliptical trainer, lightweights for another 10 minutes, and then maybe stretch for 5 more. Pat was different. Every time I saw him he’d be working hard and sweating – a lot. And, most importantly, he was at the gym every day. He was obviously inspired but also losing weight - rapidly. I asked him how he maintained such commitment and drive and he was nice enough to share his story.

Pat has always been overweight and, like you, tried many diets. He’s lost and gained weight more times than he can remember. In his late teens he got into drugs and alcohol, soon found him self in the grips of a full blown addiction, and wound up being arrested for retail theft. After three months in jail, he was transferred to a court ordered rehabilitation center where he managed to stay clean but ballooned to a record high 327 lbs. He was winning his battle with drugs but losing to another addiction – food and over eating.

In rehab, Pat learned about the ‘twelve steps’ of recovery, as outlined in Alcoholics Anonymous, and became familiar with a common phrase,  ‘sick and tired of being sick and tired’“That’s how it was for me”, Pat explained, “I’d been fed up so many times before but something finally clicked and I knew I’d had enough. I’d been clean for 5 or 6 months but was still disgusted with myself. I hit my AA meetings every day and also started hitting the gym”.

He began with an hour a day – 30 minutes of cardio and 30 of strength training. Then, he radically changed his diet by cutting out all refined sugar, cheese, bread and meat. He ate lean proteins, (Eggs, Chicken, and fish) lots of fresh vegetables, nuts, a small amount of whole fruit, and drank at least one gallon of water per day. 

“In four months I lost 60 lbs. But I also noticed that I was feeling much better and had way more energy”.

These powerful results motivated Pat to step up his efforts. He continued with his strict diet but increased his workouts to two and then three hours per day. In a year he’d lost a staggering 107 lbs. At his current weight of 220, he looks fit, trim, and says he feels like a completely different person.

Pat and Tony, at The Conshohocken Health and Fitness Club. Between them they’ve lost 180lbs. and counting.

“It’s hard to believe I was ever that big and that unhealthy. I’m 28 years old and I bet I would have been dead by 40 if I hadn’t changed my life. This is my life now. I go to work, stay clean and sober, hit the gym, and eat healthy. That’s what I’m about. It might sound boring or too hard but I’ve never been healthier or happier and I’m never going back to the old me”.

Tony is the owner of The Conshohocken Health and Fitness Club, a good friend, and also my client. Some twenty years ago, he was also an elite marathoner. In 1991 he ran a 2:40 personal best in NY and weighed 138 lbs. This past June 2010, he got on the scale and it read, 292. Just like Pat, Tony says, “Something clicked inside me and I knew it was time to get myself back in shape. I’d had enough of feeling lousy and being fat. I was ready to change. I knew it was gonna be a long, hard road but the decision was just that simple”. He was ‘sick and tired of being sick and tired’.

On average, Tony ran six miles per day seven days per week (with an occasional day off if he was too sore) and now, just three months later weighs in at 218 - having lost 74 lbs.! His nutritional changes were not as drastic as Franks. Tony simply stopped skipping meals and eating large dinners.

So, what does all this mean? What is my point? Well, I’m not suggesting you follow such intense routines as just described. What is best for you depends entirely on your physical abilities, what you’re cleared for medically (consult your doctor), schedule, determination, etc. But I am suggesting that before considering major surgery you try the following.

1. Commit to a complete lifestyle change. An absolute must!
2. Join a gym.
3. Invest in a personal fitness trainer and get yourself set up with a cardiovascular and strength training routine.
4. If your trainer is not qualified to give you professional nutritional guidance, hire a nutritional coach. Check out Jennifer Fugo at www.EvolvingWell.com She’s outstanding, and will help clean out your cupboards, food shop appropriately, provide general nutritional education, and even teach you to cook light, healthy meals in a jiffy.

It’s not easy. In fact, it may turn out to be the toughest thing you’ve ever done. But considering your options – what have you got to lose besides an appointment with the surgeon and a lot of weight?

Please visit, www.YoMaxFitness.com, ‘Your How To Exercise Video and Fitness Information Source’, and email your fitness/health/nutrition question from the ‘Ask Max’ page.

With Supervision, Children Can Greatly Benefit From Strength Training

Yo Max,

Recently my 10-year-old daughter was watching me lift weights and asked if she could join in.  I thought, why not, and started introducing her to several exercises using lightweight dumbbells.  But I've started to wonder if this is ok?  What can a young, growing body handle?  What is potentially risky or unhealthy?

Michael, Blue Bell

Yo Michael,

There was a time when the ‘experts’ were opposed to kids doing strength training, listing joint and muscle damage, even stunted growth as possible side effects. This is a silly, totally unfounded theory and, except in certain extreme cases, absurd.

A small, undeveloped, child could, conceivably, be at some risk because they might not be able to control their body’s movement and compensate for the momentum involved with resistance training. But, a coordinated and healthy kid, who has firm muscle control and understands that strength training is not a game and that free weights are not toys to be tossed around will certainly benefit.

That being said, kids do require supervision, and there is no real need for them to go heavy, (light to moderate resistance will do the job). The key is to teach her solid technique and to help her build a strong foundation with core and standard movements - squats, crunches, pushups, pull-ups, curls, etc. Most of a kid’s muscular development occurs naturally though play and athletic pursuits.

I currently am working with a young girl who also happens to be 10 years old. Amelia lifts weights, uses complex machines, and even develops her athletic skills with the aid of an agility ladder, and medicine, Bosu, and Physio balls. She’s mastered many challenging movements, and has made significant progress since we began. I can see the positive results in her strength increases and in how much better she plays both soccer and basketball.

My advice? Teach your daughter, make sure she learns proper form, and let her lift weights to her hearts content.

Please visit, www.YoMaxFitness.com, ‘Your Exercise Video and Fitness Information Source’, and email your fitness/health/nutrition question from the ‘Ask Max’ page.



Balance Your Exercise Routine to Reduce Chronic Pain and Injuries

Yo Max,

I'm about to turn 50 and becoming increasingly frustrated with the aches and pains associated with exercise. I seem to have at least two recurring pains at any given time these days, tendinitis in one elbow, soreness in my lower back, pain in one knee, etc.  These pains prevent me from working out regularly and then I fall behind.  What to do?

Wynn, Wayland, MA

Yo Wynn,

This scenario is a problem for many people, myself included. Occasionally, these ‘pains’ are indications of serious problems and I think it wise to consult your doctor and get regular health check-ups but the vast majority are the result of tendinitis, strained muscles or ligaments, minor nerve damage, and poor flexibility or muscle tightness. Many of these conditions fall under the category of what I generally refer to as O.U.I’s, Over Use Injuries. So, indeed, what do we do?

Since I don’t know the details of your case, I can’t be specific to your single, best course of action so I’ll list a few strategies and hope that if you consider it all you can at least reduce this problem to a minor annoyance.

1.Work around pain. People often stop exercising all together because of a problem in one or more areas when they could have found a way to continue if only they had a greater variety of training options and more knowledge of anatomy. If your knee, elbow, and back are all bothering you at the same time this could prove difficult but you may still find that swimming, crunches, and careful stretching, for example, are tolerable and actually help relieve the pain. By avoiding movements that cause direct pain to the area(s) affected, you can continue to train and likely will speed your recovery because of increased circulation throughout the body. Exercise can cause pain but it also has a profound healing effect on what ever ails us.

2. Balance your training routine(s). Many clients come to me with O.U.I’s like you’ve described and what I find is that they’re over training in one area and not doing enough in another. For example, they run every day but don’t take the time to stretch afterwards and do no strength training to compensate for the stress that running puts on the body. This causes imbalance and imbalance leads to injury. As we age, this need for a multi-facetted plan increases. Take a good look at your daily and weekly routines and make sure that cardiovascular, strength, and flexibility training are all being accounted for.

3. Accept certain chronic pain(s) and move on. This might sound insensitive but I think a simple truth if you expect to stay active and healthy throughout your life. Bodies can hurt and much of the time the pains we experience can’t be explained and don’t seem to make any sense. Right now I have a muscle spasm in my eye, neck pain, a problem in the ball of my right foot, an occasional stabbing pain in my groin, where I recently had a hernia repaired, and a recurring rotator cuff problem in my right shoulder. One way or the other I find a way to train everyday but I can’t always do what I want – often I have to modify my first choice or go with my second or third. And I accept the fact that although I feel great most of the time, I also have some pain and discomfort.

Combining Daily Exercise With Diet Gives Far Better Results For Lasting Weight Control...

This weeks question comes all the way from Kazakhstan, via the blog, www.YoMaxFitness.com.

Yo Max,

When you turned 40, did you find your metabolism slowing at all?  Was there a certain point when you began to gain weight and realized the need for different kinds of food? I find as I approach 40, I need to work out two times a day just to keep the weight gain in check.  I see the proverbial paunch developing on my friends and wonder how to avoid this, seeming, inevitability… Help!

John, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Yo John

For most American men the ‘proverbial paunch’, as you put it, actually starts to develop at about thirty years old. Typically, beginning around that time, a guy will gain about 2 pounds per year and at forty find himself 20 pounds overweight - and it’s all ‘front loaded’ in the form of a big, round belly. Many will continue at this pace, and in another ten years have a gut big enough to rest their beer on and make simple tasks like lacing up sneakers or picking their kids toy off the floor seem challenging.

Why does this happen? Simple really. They’re eating too much and exercising too little.

When you were a kid and you had to get somewhere, what was your mode of transportation? You walked, ran, or road your bike, right? In fact, you probably ran around for a lot of the day – at school, in gym and at recess, to and from bus stops, up and down the stairs, 30 or 40 times, and although you might have also ate a ton of high calorie, junk food, you were active enough that you could afford such an excessive eating pattern because you were in ‘caloric balance’ – meaning you burned about the same amount of calories as you consumed.

Then we start to grow up - the bike turns into a car, recess gets replaced by a power lunch, and you get smart enough to slow down and think before heading up and down staircases, cutting your trips in half.

But, are you eating less to compensate for your new, less active, or even sedentary lifestyle? Not likely - in fact, probably more because eating is a big deal for us grownups. We love to cook, we love the social gathering of big meals, to try new things, eat at restaurants, combine our newfound culinary delights with alcohol, and we LOVE TO EAT! Kids like it too, sure, but they don’t typically take the time to make it a long, drawn out, and complex project – they jam something into their mouths and go, go, go…

It is entirely possible to lose weight, (body fat) with diet alone, but the problem with this approach is two fold. First, by not combining your restricted calorie consumption with exercise you’ll be losing fat AND muscle. This presents a big problem because maintaining or even increasing your ‘lean mass’ is critical to long-term success and is exactly why diet tragedies alone fail, statistically, a staggering 90% of the time. They work at first, but eventually people gain all the weight back and more because they did not understand this critical principal. Muscle is very active tissue and helps to keep your metabolism fired up, thus burning more calories both during the day and even while sleeping. So, the goal is to lose fat, not muscle, and to do this you must exercise, ideally, with the use of strength training. Second, you can’t always eat properly. By having daily exercise as part of your routine you’ll have a second system in place to offset the occasional slip up.

I must add that strength training has many other advantages, including increased bone density, greater tensile strength of tendons and ligaments, greater range of motion and function of your joints, reduced low-back pain, and on and on.

My work is very physical but to stay lean and fit I still find it necessary to train upwards of two hours per day - six days a week. That’s right – 12 hours of moderate to high intensity exercise every week and in the warmer seasons I add cycling and it’s more like 20. Now, you might not have the time for that but I can assure you if you’re willing to dedicate serious time and effort to daily training and commit to eating a healthy diet, you can maintain that 20-year-old physique all the way to the grave. And that grave might just come around several years later because you kept the weight off and thus reduced your risk, significantly, of disease.  

Everyone is different and I would have to know more about your lifestyle to give sound and responsible advice, but if your work involves a lot of sitting you’re going to have to find time to do at least 60 minutes of high intensity exercise, five days per week, (assuming you’re a reasonably fit and healthy person, the optimum use of that hour would be with weights in a circuit format). Make sure you’ve had a recent health check up and clearance from your doctor before you begin.

As for eliminating certain foods and adopting a healthier diet, designed to compensate for a lower caloric demand, yes, you should absolutely rethink how, when, and what you eat.

I could easily write a long series of columns about this part of your question but with my limited space I’ll try and just give you some guidelines to help you avoid the impending gut.

1. Avoid refined sugar. Sugar, excess calories, and the sedentary lifestyle just described, are the reasons for our obesity epidemic. Simply put, sugar spikes insulin production, making you store more fat and it increases your appetite for more of the same. Get off it and stay off it!

2. Drink a gallon of water per day, (or as close to it as you can). Replace all those other drinks, (soda, coffee, juice, etc.) with water.

3. Never let your self be too hungry or too full. Both extremes put your body into a storage mode. Plan your meals and snacks so that you don’t get caught without food and don’t eat large meals. Live by this rule!

4. Don’t skip meals. You want your metabolism to stay fired up so try to eat small meals frequently throughout the day.

5. Eat a diet that includes as many plants as possible. Vegetables and whole fruits – as much and as often as you possibly can!

I’m finishing up this column while flying home to Philadelphia from San Francisco. The flight attendant just came buy and offered me the following choices for purchase -minnie Oreos, Twizzlers, apple cinnamon trail mix, Pringles chips, Pepperidge farm chocolate chunk cookies, sliced salami in a bag, and a can of Blue Diamond almonds. Which of these would you chose?

The almonds are the best choice – it’s not even close. They’re high in fiber, vitamins and minerals, protein, and ‘good fats’. And, the other choices are mostly ‘hollow calories’ in the form of sugar, additives, saturated fat, high fructose corn syrup, etc.

As for my drink, having already consumed a lot of water, I went with the Tomato Juice. It contains some healthy stuff too, has only 12 grams of sugar in the whole can, and is a much better choice that soda, diet soda, or even juice.

Please visit, www.YoMaxFitness.com, ‘Your Blog For Fitness Information’, and email your fitness/health/nutrition question from the ‘Ask Max’ page.

Mountain Biking is Challenging but Well Worth The Effort...!

Yo Max,

My girlfriend is trying to get me into mountain biking. I’m in okay shape but scared that I might seriously hurt myself, or worse – look like an idiot! Should I give it a try or stick to my safe little spinning class, yoga, and rubber coated dumbbells?

Trisha, Lafayette Hill

Yo Trisha,

No guts, no glory – I always say. Mountain biking is great fun but like most sports, (and make no mistake – it is it’s own ‘sport’) it takes time to develop technical skills, build the necessary conditioning, and you’re going to need the proper equipment to get started.

My experience is limited so rather than give you inaccurate or incomplete information I figured I better consult an expert.

Carolyn Popovic got her first real bike as a gift from her dad so that she could tool around Penn States vast campus unencumbered and not be late for class. It was a Cannondale, and today, 8 years later, Cannondale sponsors her as a professional mountain bike racer and she rides for team PAValleys.com. There are few professional road cyclists who make a good living on the back of a bike. The Lance Armstrong’s of the world are very rare and this won’t change any time soon. Sadly, mountain biking has it even tougher with most pro’s barely getting their equipment and expenses covered. ‘Don’t quit your day job!’ Carolyn teaches German at Ridley High. Her part time schedule gives her the freedom she needs for hours of training every day and to get to races on weekends. We spoke at length about what it’s like to be a woman in a male dominated sport, how a person might get started, equipment, and safety concerns.

“The biggest difference between mountain biking and road biking,” Carolyn explained, “is that you’re in the woods, on or off the trail, climbing mountains, crossing streams, and navigating several different kinds of obstacles. If you like being outdoors and especially if you have a passion for the wilderness, mountain biking is the sport for you.”

“But don’t you have to be physically strong and experienced to deal with the challenges you’ll face - even in local places like Valley Green or Belmont?” I asked.

“To excel in the sport or compete at a higher level, yes, but there are plenty of easier paths and trails available to the beginner and as your skills increase you can begin tackling tougher terrain.”

“What does it require in terms of athletic ability and aerobic conditioning?”

“For the beginner, basic bike handling skills and decent conditioning should be sufficient but as you improve and get comfortable you’ll need a high level of aerobic fitness, agility, core and upper-body strength, definitely a good sense of balance, and what I call, visual judgment, so that you can pick the right line to track your movement down the trail and over or around obstacles.”

As for equipment, Carolyn recommends that you borrow or rent a bike first to see if you like the sport enough to invest your money because it’s not cheap to properly equip yourself. With mountain bikes, you get what you pay for and if you buy a bike in the 500 dollar range it will likely break down and could even be unsafe to take on anything more than rolling hills. Cannondale offers two ‘SL Trail’ models, at $869 and $1059 respectively that she says are definitely trail worthy. Then you have shoes and pedals that allow you to clip in (not required but recommended), gloves (strongly recommended), and a helmet (a must). Beyond these items it’s really up to you – if you’re serious about the sport and or have a bigger budget, you can spend a great deal more on fancy and useful gear. She also recommends that you attend a mountain biking clinic and find a group to ride with as this will further help you to feel competent and comfortable on the trails.

“Ease into the sport,” she says. “It takes time to get past the natural fear you’ll have for riding in the woods over rough terrain. When you’re dealing with nature there are no straight lines.”

As for getting injured - over the past eight years of serious riding and climbing her way through the ranks of beginner, sport, expert, semi pro, and pro (now the ranking system has changed to mimic the men’s - categories 4 through 1 and then pro) Carolyn has never been badly hurt. “Just your typical bumps and bruises – a little trail rash is all, but make no mistake,” she said, grinning, “you will fall…often, if you really push your limits as a beginner. I say take it easy and let your skills catch up with your desire to go faster.”

I summer in the Adirondacks and as kids we learned to water ski. It took a few years to get good – first you learned to get up on two skis, then to drop one and slalom, then you could take on tricks or jumping, etc. Nowadays, I see kids getting dragged around on rafts while eating ice cream cones. Why has water skiing dropped off and raft pulling soared? Because Water skiing is hard. It takes time, patience, and practice to learn the skill. But once you’ve mastered the basics it can give you years of thrills and pleasure. And as for the raft dragging - it gets old pretty quick. Understand that learning to be good enough to really enjoy this sport will take some time. Like most things in life worth doing, however, I think the journey is a big part of the reward.

(Photo above wearing #120) Carolyn Popovic at a team relay of the Mid-Atlantic Super Series on April 3rd 2010                                         

Please visit, www.YoMaxFitness.com, ‘Your Blog For Fitness Information’, and email your fitness/health/nutrition question from the ‘Ask Max’ page.