Your fitness may not be for everyone

I had a really great conversation today with my buddy Scott, who is also a fitness fanatic.  We have a lot in common, but what we do on a regular basis for workouts is not one of them.  Scott is a Crossfitter, and I'm a Beachbody guy.   There is nothing wrong with either, as a matter of fact I'll go so far as to say both a great.   I say that because Crossfit works for Scott; he's passionate about it, loves talking it up, loves doing it, and it's gotten him incredible results.   Beachbody has taken me down that same path.

The sad thing in the fitness world, and probably the world in general, is that people tend to think what they are doing is the best, and everything else sucks.   There are a LOT of fitness snobs in the world.   That's sad, because the truth is we can all come together and help each other.

Another aspect of that "My way is the best," syndrome is that we tend to ram that down our friends and families' throats.  We get fired up about it, and won't back off from it, and that can do more harm than good.  We can actually drive people away from getting healthier altogether because what we love, they may not have the slightest interest in.  The more we talk about it, the less interest they have in it, and eventually the less interest they have in us.

So here's what I say: I say have an open mind about introducing people to fitness.  As Scott said earlier today, take a softer approach and see if you can't actually help them.  If you can help them find something they enjoy, whether it be Crossfit, P90X, Zumba, running, whatever it is, even if it's not your thing, it's probably more than they were doing before.  That's a big improvement, and we all know that small improvements compound over time into great changes.

So if you are talking to someone about what workouts you do, and they seem like they are looking to make a change themselves, don't beat what you do over their head.  Tell your story, and if what you do is too extreme for them, or isn't something they'd dig, ask them what might be, or better yet, let them know you know some people that might be able to help them find the right workout and nutrition plan for them.   Maybe that's us as Team Beachbody Coaches, or Scott introducing them to Crossfit, or a Personal Trainer at a local gym.  

People always ask me, "What's the best program?"  The best one is the one that interests you enough to keep you coming back day after day, 5-6 days per week.  It's the one you think is fun, so that when the end comes, you feel good about yourself.  It's the one that you look forward to doing.   Which one is that?   Send us a message and we'll figure it out together.

My daily accountability: 25 minutes on the Lifecycle, followed by P90X Legs & Back.  I forgot how hard I can push on that one.  80 pull ups mixed in with hammering the legs left me gassed!

Daily accountability

I think we all need someone, or something, to hold us accountable.  For some of us, with the right personality type, we can do it for ourselves.  I personally know I'm going to get my workout in, and will beat myself up about it if I don't.  Same for my nutrition.  Others, however, are not put together the same as I am.  Some people need a kick in the pants every now and then, some people need some encouragement here and there.

There are a lot of ways to get that accountability:  You can join an Accountability or Challenge Group.  We've had a couple of great ones, the last was our Focus T25 group that had incredible energy.   You can put it out to your friends, and ask them to keep you on track.   Writing down your goals and putting that where you can see it every day is another technique that works.

Whatever works for you, do it.  Take an honest look at yourself, and ask, "What do I need to do that will keep me on track?"   Then commit to doing that, even if it is outside of your comfort zone.

For my daily accountability, we did Insanity Core Cardio & Balance today, after I warmed up on my Lifecycle for 25 minutes.  Good workout, a lot of sweat.  Tomorrow is the dreaded Leg Day.

Tips for eating right while on the road, or at home

All of us who travel for a living are faced with the situation of finding food away from home on a regular basis, but this is true of most people when they go to their day job.  It's become all too regular for people to eat at a restaurant every day for at least one meal, and often 2 meals if they don't feel like cooking when they get home.

The sad part of this situation is that most restaurants deliver very little in the way of healthy nutrition, don't support portion control of any kind, and can blow your hard work in the gym out of the water in a matter of minutes.  Look at some prime examples like the Bloomin' Onion, from Outback Steakhouse, which tops 2000 calories (the RDA of calories for the average person)!

Here is what I do while traveling to avoid the gut-bombs that most restaurants offer:

1) Plan ahead.  If you know where you will be at your meal times, you can figure out if there will be a microwave there for you to heat up something you've brought with you.  If there won't be, you can also plan ahead for something like sandwiches that don't need to be heated up.

2) Pack your own snacks.  Putting a lunch bag together with nuts, fruits, vegetables, maybe a protein bar, can save you from diving into the candy machine at the office, or snacks available in airports like donuts, pastries, etc.

3) Stick to water, or unsweetened coffee or tea (which allows YOU to control how much, and what kind, of sweetener is used).  By drinking low, or no, calories per day, you can save hundreds of calories compared to sugary soft drinks, or calorie dense lattes, Frappuccinos, or "healthy" fruit smoothies that may contain as many as 800 or more calories.

4) For meals that travel well, cook some 4-6 oz chicken breast cutlets, or chicken sausages, or other lean meat, and add that to 1/2 cup of cooked quinoa, and 1/2 cup of cooked frozen corn in a small sealable container.  You can heat those up and have a 350-450 calorie meal that is balanced and healthy.

5) If you are staying in a hotel that doesn't have a fridge in your room, ask for one, or ask the front desk to put your stuff in one for you.  They normally have one available because some guests have medication that must be kept cold, and they are required to have the ability to do so.

6) If you are in a situation where you will eat from a restaurant, stick to lean meats with little or no sauces.  Order salads without cheese, or croutons, and dressing on the side.  Avoid fatty dressings like ranch, thousand island, or Caesar.  Balsamic Vinaigrette is usually a safe choice, but still use it sparingly.  Ask for what you want..usually a restaurant will work with you and their menu to get something healthy.

7) Track your nutrition.  When you're outside of your home, it helps to regulate what you are eating if you track it, because your subconscious will be aware of where you are with your limitations, and remind you that if you eat it, you have to add it to your list.  I personally use the Calorie Count app by Fatsecret in my smartphone.

Make a plan and stick to it.  Hold yourself in check, don't try to sneak anything past yourself.  Getting into a daily routine for this is what will help get you in shape, and keep you there for years to come.

Reboot for the blog site

I tend to do this from time to time; I move from one forum to another seeing what works best for me.  I always tend to return here, to my blogspot site, because it's a simple layout.  So I'll be moving my posts back from our Facebook group to here.  You can still catch us on Facebook at FlightCrewFitness with motivational quotes, pictures, etc. and our website, www.flightcrewfitness.net as well.

So what's the topic to return here?  How about one for the flyers out there:  The FAA has recently announced that during a pilot or controllers' medical certificate exam, they will now be testing those they suspect of having a high BMI, or excessively large neck.  In other words, they are searching out those who appear to be drastically overweight.   The metrics of it are not as important to me as the fac that they are using this as a way to root out sleep apnea.   Sleep apnea is not confined strictly to those who are morbidly obese, but it is pretty much certain that nearly all morbidly obese people suffer from it.

Why is this significant?  For a couple of reasons.  I'll start with the new fatigue management rules in FAR 117, which begin to take effect next year.  Sleep apnea is yet another piece in this puzzle.  What I personally believe is more on target are the other less easy to pinpoint health concerns that come from excessive weight, things like fatty liver disease, kidney problems, knee/ankle/joint problems, unreported or undiagnosed diabetes, and a slew of others.   I'm not a Doctor, and I have no medical training, so please don't take this as me saying anything about diagnosing or finding those issues; my point is that as pilots our medical examiners are almost never our primary care physicians.  Therefore, any problem that may interfere with our ability to maintain our flight medical certificate may not necessarily be reported to the FAA.  Yes, there is a form for it, but what's to keep someone who knows they have sleep apnea, or any other issue that is treatable and preventable, from not reporting it? 

What this really means, though, is that many many pilots will have to start to change their habits and lifestyle.  We need to get the majority of us away from the airplane galley and the garbage that is stocked in there; out of the fast food restaurants that proliferate in airports, and following some simple guidelines to eat better, and workout more consistently.    Is that a sacrifice in many ways?  Yes, but our livelihood depends on it, so isn't it worth it for at least that reason? 

There are a lot of options we can choose to get healthier, and to maintain better health, even on the road.  Beachbody has a number of programs that can be done in a very small space, with no equipment.   There are better options at nearly all restaurants, and if you plan ahead, you can carry most, or all, of your own food with you on a trip.  Again, it can be work, and a hassle, but this is our future we're talking about.

Considering the possible ramifications of losing your medical for something as preventable as being overweight, isn't it worth the effort it takes to get there?  Isn't all of the time, money, and experience we've invested in our careers worth putting forth the effort to eat right and stay in shape?  We have enough stress in our lives, why not do something to alleviate some of that, make you feel better, look better, and live longer?

BTW, this was my gym on more than one occasion.  If I can get a workout done in the small space in our crew lounge's briefing room, it can be done anywhere.

Pushing to your limits

"Most people stop way before they should," Tony Horton says in one of the P90X videos.  That's a lesson I took to heart from the very day I started P90X, and one of the reasons I believe my transformation was incredible.

We all have those voices in our head that say "this hurts too much," or "I can't keep going," when in fact you can.  They say it's the last 2 reps past where you think you should quit that give all of the results.  I believe that.  Similar to the saying that all of the rewards are 2 steps beyond what you think yout limits are.

When you push hard, right up the the point where your body is ready to give out, you make minute improvements over time, so that your limits expand.  This doesn't mean push to the point where your form gets bad, that can lead to injury.  What it means is push to the point where you are huffing, puffing, and your mind is screaming at you to stop, but your form is still ok.  If your form is still good, you can keep going.  If your form sucks, you have to stop.

Push ups are a great example.  People pick a number and go to it, and quite often underestimate themselves.  When Tony says, "Go until you can't go any more," that's what he means.  You should not be able to push yourself back up to the top of a plank while keeping your back in alignment.  If you can, do more reps.

By doing this, and pushing yourself to that limit, you'll see the numbers you can do go up well beyond what you think is possible.  My first day of P90X I didn't break a total of 100 push ups.  Now if I work at it, I can clear 400 push ups in Chest & Back.  My record is 460.   I never ever would have thought that possible, but I worked harder to get one more here, one more there, and eventually they added up.

This applies to your fitness, your business, your life.  Do all you can, then do some more.  When you've finally hit the limit, really hit your limit, you'll know it.

The positives and negatives of lifting weights

There are a  lot of benefits to lifting weights, or any strength training.  Your muscles get stronger, and are able to do more.  It keeps you fit as you get older, and helps prevent muscle atrophy that occurs without it.  It increases your metabolism for up to 36 hours after your workout, and overall in general because increased muscles mass increases your base metabolic rate.  Muscle actively burns calories, more so than fat, or other parts of your body.

The real question is how do you get the maximum benefit from lifting weights?  That all depends on your goals.  There are programs out there like Les Mills Pump, that focus on low weight, high rep, and high calorie burn for an extended time.   That's great for getting lean and toned.   In these workouts you focus mostly on the concentric phase, or "positive" phase of the lift; that portion of the move where the muscle is actively moving the weight against gravity.   The tempo tends to be constant in say bench presses, with a 1 up, 1 down movement, though it does vary throughout the workouts, as do the range of motion.

Classic weight training or bodybuilding, such as in Body Beast, uses high weight and controlled reps.  Where a lot of people don't gain maximum results from this style of lifting is that they concentrate nearly entirely on the positive phase of the lift, and only barely control the weight on the way down.   That's old school, classic lifting.  It allows you to get more weight up, but it takes away from the time your muscle is actually being used.  That "Time under tension" has been shown to have a much more profound impact on muscle hypertrophy, or size increase, than the old school way of lifting.

So if you're looking to maximize your muscle growth, when you lift a weight, make sure the negative portion, or eccentric phase, lasts around twice as long as the concentric phase.   In other words, 1 count to squeeze the weight up (not push, sling, swing, throw, the weight up; squeeze it in a controlled movement), then a 2 count on the way down.   This drastically increases the time the muscle is under tension and thus the impact on the muscle.   It also has the added bonus of actually lowering the weight you're using to get greater benefits, which allows your form to stay more solid and helps avoid injury.   Men injure themselves in the gym all the time trying to lift heavier than they can with good form.  They sacrifice form to get the weight up and that's where injuries can occur.

So lift smart.  Good form  Concentrate on the squeeze up, and slow negative movement.  You'll see marked improvements over time.

Not all workouts are a stellar explosion of awesomeness

Yep, you read that right, not all workouts are the most amazing, upbeat, "boy do I feel better now!" experiences.   Sometimes, they're a struggle just to get started, or get through.  Sometimes you're tired, hungry, and mentally not in the game.

Tonight I had one of those experiences.  I probably let my blood sugar get a little low (I get grouchy), so starting the workout as late as I did was off on a bad foot.   Then I hit a move that more than frustrated me, it physically was damaging me.  Not so much as I was injuring myself, but it was a jumprope sequence that I simply could not get, and ended up whipping my legs, back, and even head, with the rope many many times.  Every time increased the frustration, and the rope sailed across the room 4 or 5 times.   I'm also the type of person who hates to be defeated by something, so I was determined that I would get it at all costs.

That last bit was the mistake, and it's a mindset that can lead to injury, or pushing the frustration level beyond your limits to the point where you quit.   I almost did that.  Fortunately my mind got ahead of my emotions, and told me to step back, modify the move to something I could do, and press on.  In the end I had a good workout, not my best mentally or physically, but good enough to put a positive check mark in the to-do list for the day.

So what did I learn from that?  I learned that we all have limitations, we all get frustrated with things from time to time, but there is a possibility of catching that and puttting it in its place.  You can control your state of mind, as Tony Robbins says, and change your mood almost instantly.   That is easier said than done, but when you catch yourself in a bad state, and recognize it, you can turn it around and have a positive outcome.

This applies to more that just fitness, it's life in general.  Bad days come and go.  Issues pop up we have to deal with at the worst possible time, but we still deal with them, keep our eyes on the goal, and move forward.

So the next time you're feeling that overwhelming frustration with everything, like you're going to quit, take a step back, change what you're focusing on, and make a modification to the action so you can keep the forward progress going.