The Fitness Guru

Two big studies came out last week, one from the good folks at Yale and the other from equally as noble folks at Columbia, in partnership with the Children’s Hospital of Boston.

Both studies took a look at the importance of infancy on obesity in adults. As I have mentioned, and as I am sure you know, the obesity epidemic continues to climb, with the new numbers released last week showing that over 30% of the residents in nine states are obesity– much higher figures than just ten years ago. Doctors, scientists and fitness gurus are all trying to figure out what can be done to stem the tide of unhealthy weight gain.

According to the Yale University study, an individual’s weight is set in the brain before birth. In other words, our size is being wired into our brains in utero. For many people, portions of the brain that would trigger satiety are just not firing properly, causing those individuals to eat more.

“It appears that this base wiring of the brain is a determinant of one’s vulnerability to develop obesity,” said Tamas Horvath, chair and professor of comparative medicine and professor of neurobiology and obstetrics & gynecology at Yale School of Medicine, who is also co-director of the Yale Program in Integrative Cell Signaling and Neurobiology of Metabolism. “These observations add to the argument that it is less about personal will that makes a difference in becoming obese, and, it is more related to the connections that emerge in our brain during development.”

Horvath also mentions that this cerebral wiring leads to other problems. “Those who are vulnerable to diet-induced obesity also develop a brain inflammation, while those who are resistant, do not,” he said. “This emerging inflammatory response in the brain may also explain why those who once developed obesity have a harder time losing weight.”

Meanwhile, over at Columbia, researchers studying births over a period of 14 years (and over a half a million births) found that babies who were heavier at birth were much more likely to become obese adults. The researchers worked with the premise that a healthy weight increase while pregnant was about 18-22 pounds. As the expectant mothers would put on more weight, so too grew the chances that the baby would be large, with the likelihood one and a half times with a gain of 40 pounds and more than doubled with a gain of 52 pounds.

“These are the most important nine months of life from the standpoint of development,” said Dr. David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston. “Our cells, tissues, even brain structures are being formed and fine-tuned so that having too high blood sugar and other abnormal metabolic influences can affect that infant not just at the moment but potentially throughout life.

“For an adult to gain an extra 10 pounds and then maybe lose it doesn’t cause permanent changes in that individual’s biology,” Ludwig said. “But, for a fetus to gain too much weight during key [moments] may permanently alter the brain circuits that affect appetite and metabolism, fat tissues or other parts of the body that have a permanent role in body weight regulation.”

A tip of the hat goes to Ena Mallett is the first woman to get a 7th dan black belt in Spirit Combat International jiu-jitsu.

The 77 year old grandmother teaches classes in the local community hall and twice a day she turns out to help kiddies cross the road outside the village school in South Walsham, Norfolk, England.

She has only used her skills once, helping to apprehend a 14-year old shop lifter. Apparently, the adolescent was so shocked being nabbed by the grandmother he dropped the candy he was stealing and Ena let him run away.

Ena began her studies in 1979, studying karate as a means to stay fit. She moved to jiu-jitsu, a Japanese art that focuses on pins, joint locks and throws, in 1987.

Says Ena: “Spirit Combat is all about using self control – but you have to be prepared for violence to defend yourself. I love teaching it and I certainly have no plans to give it up. I don’t see why I should put my feet up.”

Rock on, Ena!!

Up until about 24 hours ago, I didn’t even think such wonders were possible. Then I happened upon an article in the New York Times: apparently, a money manager, Mr. Travis L. Wright, has been accused of taking clients cash, which he had said he was going to invest in real estate and deliver 24% returns, and investing in a company that dreams of canning sandwiches. Called Candwich. Get it?

……not sure where to begin on this one…….

To Mr. Wright: of all the colossally boneheaded money manager stories about the misappropriation of funds and shear lack of integrity in your industry over the past couple of years, this one takes the canned cake. If it all proves true, I hope the punishment fits the crime: years of hard labor with nothing to eat but aluminum-wrapped Monte Cristos (prepackaged with a maple-syrup-like substance). Though I am very impressed that you were able to squeeze……deep breath…….$145 MILLION DOLLARS from investors, this thinking takes shallow to a whole new level.

To Mark Kirkland, the developer behind the Candwich idea: really?!? Pepperoni Pizza Pocket in a can?!? Really?!? This is keeping you up at night?!? If I were reading the Onion, I might get a good laugh, but this just makes me queasy. Is the dream to have a can of PB & J in the lunch box of every school child? This idea is to health and well being what the Snuggy is to formal wear. Please: drop it. Drop the idea before it is too late. Personally, beyond the thought of other humans eating such things, the thought that this might be part of our legacy as a people is a little overwhelming. Suddenly KFC and their bread-less chicken sandwich looks amazingly health conscious.

On the plus side: according to the Times, Mr. Kirkland believes the Candwich has a remarkable shelf like. Kinda like Soylent Green.

Calling out to the pregnant folk out there– though mostly this for the ladies…..

Here’s a video that was shot with our friends at Duck Duck Green. Their mission? That the childcare products we use should be safe- for both our babies and the environment- and that it’s just better to be surrounded by cool looking stuff. Check out their web site.

Lawson has some great stretches you can do to ease the tension and stress that come with pregnancy….and just feel a dang bit better!

Check it out……..

It doesn’t matter where you were Wednesday, by now you have heard about, if not actually seen, the “shot heard round the world”: Landon Donovan’s late game goal to beat Algeria in the World Cup. No, we didn’t win the whole enchilada. But the Americans late game tenacity proved that these boys are more than ready and dedicated for international play.

Meanwhile, across the pond, in England, the epic sports battle of the century was taking place. John Isner and Nicholas Mahut battled for over 11 hours to determine the winner of their match, setting a record for perseverance, determination and shear will that will probably stand for all time. When I saw the score was 59-59 at the end of the second day, I thought that was points. It took a friend in the know to point out “no, genius, that’s games!” ( I’m thankful because, not only did I learn these two players names and histories– I’m not a big follower of tennis– but I also learned Wimbledon doesn’t allow tie breakers for the match. Go figure.)

This morning, the day after the deluge, I was met with the sad anecdote of a 53-year old lawyer who dropped dead of a heart attack at a business luncheon. The teller of the story was Ed, a 50-year old lawyer for whom the story was obviously charged. Ed came to the Studio two years ago at his wife’s urging (insistence?). He was a man like I often see: having dedicated himself to work and business for the past so-many years, here he stood in middle age, overweight, weakened and not feeling to good about his general state of being. He threw himself head first into training and literally changed his life: he is healthier, more powerful, and, dare I say, happier than he has been in years.

So my message to him: keep doing what your doing. You never know when you’re going to go but you can certainly work the odds. It doesn’t matter if your 18 or 80, if 20, 30, 40 pounds overweight. It’s never too late to change things, to make them better.

I always tell people who start with me that you never know where it will take you. You may reach your goals and then surpass them. You may find along the way that those weren’t your goals at all. But what you will find is a better, happier quality of life.

No one could promise Landon Donovan that goal. But, dammit, he was going to take it.

Your goal is sitting there. Take it.

Rock on!

The United States isn’t necessarily a land of subtlety……we just seem to like our stuff big. Sometimes that’s pretty spectacular and fun. Sometimes it’s just spectacular. And sometimes….well, sometimes it’s just big.

Here’s a fascinating little lunch time nugget for you. Perhaps it’s not the worst burger in America (certainly there are some interesting entries on This Is Why You’re Fat), but in a fast-food-replicated-across-our-great-country kinda way, this one takes the cake.

It’s the Smokin’ Q Four Pack from our buddies at Denny’s: it’s four burgers in one little meal, “sliders” style, topped with fried onions and bacon. And the statistics? Here we go: 2,020 calories, 110 grams of fat and 3,570 mg of sodium (not a typo). The breakdown: a full day’s worth of calories, 50% more than the DAILY recommended intake of sodium and twice as much fat as you should be chowing daily.

Wow. You go Denny’s. Way to have our backs.

If your goal is to lose weight and improve your health, what’s going to be better for you, walking or running? Like most fitness-related questions, this one takes me back to a joke I heard in third grade:

What weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks.

Just as you may be tempted to shout “bricks” (as I would often do right up through eighth grade, when the subtleties of this riddle and “no soap radio” were finally explained to me), you may be tempted to assume that running is the greater “burn” of the two exercises. And, like all questions in fitness, I remind you that nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

Let’s break it down.

Calorie burn is based on energy consumption over a period of time, and the best way to gauge that energy consumption is by monitoring your heart rate as you exercise. But heart rate itself is based on oxygen consumption. In other words, as your body increases its need for oxygen due to exertion, the heart has to pump more oxygen rich blood to the extremities and the heart rate goes up. One of the main reasons that the heart rate is elevated in running is that, ever time your foot hits the ground, that little bit of impact puts pressure on the diaphram, the main muscle that controls respiration, making it slightly harder to take a full breath. So as your foot strike knocks a little bit of wind out of you, the heart is trying to play catch-up and pumps harder to get the oxygen to the muscles that need it. Plus, depending on your running style, that repeated impact can lead to injuries down the road.

Walking is, by nature, low impact: there is significantly less impact as the foot hits the ground and, consequently, the lungs have a greater opportunity to provide the much-needed oxygen. Therefore, the heart rate does not get as high with walking.

But that’s the linear thinking I hate.

I love watching runners, real runners, because they make it look so effortless. Even sprinters try to relax their bodies as much as possible so that they may put the effort where it will best suit them and not energy is wasted through worthless tension. Running mid- to long-distance is, ideally, an opportunity to use gravity and and momentum to your advantage. It takes time and practice to get used to, but once you understand the effortless form, running becomes relaxingly meditative.

Walking can be a wonderfully leisurely pass time. Go for a stroll in the park, pause, watch the birds, pause, stroll some more. Certainly the calories burn is there, and, if you have been inactive it is a GREAT way to get started in an active lifestyle. But the burn is not as significant as running for the same period of time.

But let’s take a look at race walking. There is nothing low key about race walking and trying to maintain a rapid pace over a period of time and/or distance. Quite the opposite: the body has to work extra hard because, instinctively, we tell ourselves to break into a jog or a run when moving that quickly. The muscles of the legs, the glutes, the (gulp– help me) core, as well as the chest, arms, shoulders and back all have to work to create the momentum to move at such a speed. Increase the incline that you’re walking on and you will increase the exertion level. Increase the amount your work your arms, and again, the level of exertion, and consequently your heart rate and calorie burn go up as well.

A few of important things to keep in mind:

• Always warm up before you start race walking for exercise. You might think “walking….what’s the big deal?”. But it is a big deal and you should warm up to get the blood flowing.
• When you walk, think about standing as tall as possible, lifting the base of the skull to the sky and not the chin. Your chest should be lifted and your jaw should be nice and relaxed.
• As you walk, take small quick steps. Let the heel of each step fall just in front of the toe of the previous step. This will give you a much smaller, faster stride.
• Use a heart monitor to gauge your exertion level. If you want to increase your heart rate, try an incline, faster steps, or greater arm movement, even working to take the arms over head as you walk.
• If you are just starting out, be conservative. Try the small step, quick pace idea but move a little slower than you might like. You’re going to feel a whole bunch of muscles you never knew you had and you don’t want to shoot yourself out of a cannon.

Questions about all of this? Shoot me an email: michael@fitnessgurunyc.com

Rock on!!

Feeling a little down? Not sure if ya got it in ya?

If this doesn’t inspire you……

This Kyle Maynard, author of No Excuses: The True Story of a Congenital Amputee Who Became a Champion in Wrestling and in Life, and this is his story…….

Kyle Maynard’s Introduction Video from NoExcusesMotivation on Vimeo.

In a new study released in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, doctors have found that TV commercials are playing with our decision making process when it comes time to eat. Though that may not come as much of a surprise, just how much we are being toyed with might blow your mind.

Doctors took a look at 84 hours of prime-time programming and 12 hours of Saturday-morning cartoons broadcast over the major U.S. networks during one month in 2004. They then created a meal planned based on a 2,000 calorie-per-day base line. People eating the advertised foods were consuming 20 times the government’s RDA of fat and 25 times the amount of sugar. Let me repeat that: if you eat what you see on TV, you will eat an entire month’s worth of sugar in one day. ONE DAY! That basically turns the recommended food pyramid upside down, creating the largest portion of daily calories to come from fats and sugars. Oops!

The TV diet also provided less than half the RDA of fruits, vegetables, and dairy.

The 775 foods advertised on TV contained inadequate amounts of 12 essential nutrients, such as calcium, potassium, fiber, vitamins D and E, and magnesium. But the foods are not completely lacking: they do provide an abundance of saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, which can lead to an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and stroke.

One of the study’s leaders, Michael Mink at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Ga, believes that if TV advertising can lead viewers down a path to unhealthy choices, perhaps the same advertising can lead to healthier choices if they are about fruits and vegetables. However, studies have shown that past education campaigns that were designed to inform the public about the heart risks associated with diets high in cholesterol and fat and encourage consumers to choose low-fat versions of foods were not successful in getting people to change their eating habits.

Tobacco companies can’t advertise on TV. How is that foods that are as long term detrimental for one’s health may be splattered across the screen morning, noon and night?

Didja know?? Getting angry may be good for you– in a study published in the journal Hormones and Behavior, scientists found that venting emotions helped stimulate the left hemisphere of the brain, associated with feelings of happiness, even though heart rates and blood pressures were elevated.

The test subjects were given a list of statements to read quietly to themselves– things like “today is no different than any other day” all the way to “I am consumed with hatred”– and then recall situations when they felt that way. Scientists noted increases in left hemisphere activity as well as increases in heart rate, blood pressure and the hormones testosterone and cortisol. And though cortisol levels dropped, testosterone levels remained high.

So go ahead– roll down the car window and yell at the jerk who cut you off!! It’ll do ya good! Namaste.