Sunday Story...10 Great Excuses to Eat Bad Food (part 2)

Food plays a central part in everyone’s life. Although we don’t have to forage and hunt for our daily meal we do have very tough choices and a huge amount of conflicting information about what we should and shouldn’t eat. Here are some of my favorite excuses for poor (processed, sugary, bad fat) food choices. With a slightly incredulous tone of course!

I can’t eat (fill in the blank ---vegetables, broccoli, fish), I don’t like the way it tastes
Two choices…1. You are a grown up, get over it. 2. You are a grown up, figure out a way to get the same thing without opening a box or a can of crap. I do not like split pea soup, never have. Won’t cook it for myself but if I go to your house I will eat it without a word (but I will decline a second bowl, thank you!)

Diets never work for me and I have tried them all
I agree with this one. Stop dieting. Stop counting calories, measuring portions, drinking a shake in the morning and one at night, buying pre-packaged diet food designed to separate more of your money from your wallet than fat from your body. Don’t diet…EAT REAL FOOD. Food that came out of the ground somehow. Food that did not come from a box or a can or a vacuum packed envelope.

That’s the way my parents ate and look at them!
The food your parents ate and the food you are eating are not the same and it is even more obvious when we look at our grandparents. The current generation of children (the ones born after the year 2000) are projected to be the first generation that does not outlive their parents. 16% of children today are already obese and 35% of adults…that is obese, not just overweight. And it is getting worse. By the year 2030 it is predicted that, at the current rate of increase, 42% of adults will be obese and in some states it will be 60%. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/health-obesity-us-idUSL1E8KHGGJ20120918 ) Maybe eating at Mom’s isn’t such a great idea (not my Mom’s of course!)

Michael Phelps eats a ton of fast food and he is an Olympic champion
And the last time you swam 20,000 yards was when? I mean do you really want to compare yourself to an 18 year old multiple Olympic Gold medal winner? The question is this…how good could he have been if his training table was filled with nutritious healthy food? You and I do not need to eat 12,000 calories a day to maintain our training regimen. We need to eat food designed to promote health and fitness.

I don’t like boring food
Here are the 5 recent recipes on www.thefoodee.com:
Bacon butternut squash soup
Bacon-chanterelle Lamb Roast
Roast Beef with mushroom-brandy sauce
Grilled chicken with Greek sweet potatoes
Paleo Cranberry sauce
Boring? I think not. The soup takes 15 min to prepare and an hour to cook. Anyone could do it. But then you would have to start tasting what real food taste like again.

The Bottom Line
It doesn’t have to be expensive (stop replacing cheap crap food with expensive crap food…just because it says gluten free or lactose free doesn’t mean it is any better for you). It doesn’t have to be time consuming or hard unless you want to make that way. It won’t be boring if you open your mind to something besides boiled chicken and steamed broccoli. “They” make more money form you being sick and tired than “They” will ever make from you being fit and healthy. Don’t diet, eat real food prepared in a real kitchen by a real person (Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines are long gone and beside they never really put that crap in the box anyway) with real care and love. You will eat less, you will feel better, you will perform better, and you will be healthier.

Call me…I can help.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...10 Great Excuses to eat Bad Food (part 1)

Food plays a central part in everyone’s life. Although we don’t have to forage and hunt for our daily meal we do have very tough choices and a huge amount of conflicting information about what we should and shouldn’t eat. Here are some of my favorite excuses for poor (processed, sugary, bad fat) food choices. With a slightly incredulous tone of course!

It’s too expensive to eat real food
Have you ever bothered to do the math? What does a bag of carrots cost? Or a whole pot full of broccoli? Have you compared that box of Hamburger Helper with the cost required to make it yourself? And all I am asking about is the real monetary cost not the secondary costs of poor health and diseases caused by poor nutrition.

It’s too much work
Well it isn’t as brainless as add water and microwave that is true. But then you are a grown-up, not 6 year old trying to feed yourself. How hard is it to put some chicken on a baking dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper and turn the oven on for 30 or 40 minutes? Or break 2 or 3 eggs in a pan of hot butter and stir until they are cooked? This is not rocket science; it is a really simple and easy skill to develop with just a little bit of effort and a decent cookbook.

“They” (the government/scientists/experts) said I should eat this way
“They” rarely have your best interests at heart. A very good example is the food pyramid…when it was first developed by a solid scientist it was just about upside down from what it is today. But after the government and the business interests got through with it we are told to eat tons of grains (the cereal companies), dairy (the milk lobby), and breads and pastas (industrial food companies). The vegetables didn’t have a lobby; neither did the seeds or nuts. The question we should be asking ourselves is this: If this was such a great way to eat, why, after 40 years of a low fat, high carb diet, are we fatter and sicker than ever before? We are the most well fed and worst nourished people in the history of the world.

I could never give up my (fill in the blank again --- Ice Cream/Soda/Pie/Cake)
What if the choices were stop eating it or die? Then what would you do? Because in many ways that stuff is killing you…slowly but it is killing you in ways you won’t even know about for years to come.

I’m too busy to plan/cook/shop
How busy will you be when you are making all those trips to the Doctor’s office, the labs for teats and the pharmacies for all the pills your Dr. is going to need you to take? You get the same 168 hours in the week I get. At the Foodee site (www.thefoodee.com ) they will even make a shopping list for you for crying out loud. It really isn’t difficult but you do have to want to do it. You have to want to make the shift.

The Bottom Line
It doesn’t have to be expensive (stop replacing cheap crap food with expensive crap food…just because it says gluten free or lactose free doesn’t mean it is any better for you). It doesn’t have to be time consuming or hard unless you want to make that way. It won’t be boring if you open your mind to something besides boiled chicken and steamed broccoli. “They” make more money form you being sick and tired than “They” will ever make from you being fit and healthy. Don’t diet, eat real food prepared in a real kitchen by a real person (Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines are long gone and beside they never really put that crap in the box anyway) with real care and love. You will eat less, you will feel better, you will perform better, and you will be healthier.

Call me…I can help.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

Follow me at:
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Sunday Story...10 Reasons NOT to CrossFit

It's hard, really hard

Well not really but that is what you will tell yourself in order to not do it or to stop doing it or to discourage your friends from doing it. Anyone can do it if they want to…after all it is only movement you already doing…or would be doing if you got off the couch long enough.

You will get injured.

As if sitting on your big ole behind isn’t injuring your heart, lungs, and joints already. It isn’t safe to drive your car 200mph down a crowded street either…and that is why you don’t do it. Use your brain, get your ego out of the way and learn to do something right before you go hard and heavy.

You don’t want to bulk up.

Which is different than bulking up that spare tire you’ve been working on, right? If anything you will lean out, your muscles will lengthen and you will look more like Tarzan than Conan (the barbarian not the late night guy)

It’s a cult.

And Fox news isn’t? And blindly following diet advice that hasn’t worked for the last 40 years isn’t? And Richard Simmons, and Jane Fonda, and Jim Fixx, and Zumba, and Spinning, and P90x, and Insanity are all what? Are we CrossFitters a rabid bunch? Only because we see the transformation but really if you don’t join us it’s OK, there are only so many barbells to go around anyway.

There aren’t any cool machines or slick salesmen or valet parking.

And those contribute to your fitness how? Enough said.


CrossFitters eat weird food.

Yep…all those real vegetables and meat are nowhere near as normal and natural as that big bag of white protein powder and pre-digested Franken food from some laboratory in China. We all make fun of MREs (meals ready to eat) and then join some group that makes us buy their packaged laboratory produced processed food that in no way resembles real food. Learn where your kitchen is and start figuring out how to use those strange appliances that live in there.

The clothes are strange looking.

What? Really? Clothes? If they keep you warm or cool and cover the bits you don’t want the world to ogle what difference does it make?

There isn’t any scientific basis for the workouts

You are kidding right? Since when did you do any real scientific research? Last time I checked there wasn’t much research that said eating French fries, drinking beer, and watching T.V. was going to make you healthier or happier. Unless you count Homer Simpson. Besides a P.H.D. in Physical Therapy, or a Doctorate in exercise physiology, or a Masters in Sports Conditioning probably don’t really count as real education (just to name a few of the qualifications from the leaders in CrossFit).

I don’t need a coach to help me with such simple movements like pushups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and squats.

Michael Jordan had a coach his whole career. Barbra Streisand has a voice coach; Marlon Brando had an acting coach. But you know it all…that’s why you are in such great shape. A coach gets you where you want to go in the safest, fastest, most efficient way possible. Unless the only place you are going is to the bathroom during commercial breaks.

And finally…

If CrossFit was really all that there would be a celebrity endorsement and ads on T.V.

Like Mariah Carey or Jay-Z or the Kardashians know anything about real fitness. And we all know that if it isn’t on T.V. is just isn’t real. Not. We just don’t care about that stuff…we care about how well you move, when you move and what you move…little things like moving large loads over long distances quickly.

What CrossFit is:

Constantly Varied
Functional Movement
Highly Intense
Designed to create Fit Humans who are ready to perform whenever and however they choose to.

Simple.

Not Easy.

Do It.

Now.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Who's Going to be a Black Belt?

This past Saturday I spent the day in the incubator we call “Test Day.” In this case I was testing one of my younger students for his first degree black belt. This young man has been with me for over 80 months and has, over the years, been a great student, a horrible student, a great example and a bad one, someone to be proud of and someone to be ashamed of. But through it all I believed this day would come if we just worked, believed and had faith in the basic goodness of humans. He rose to the occasion in a way that surprised almost everyone. Everyone was surprised but me that is. I knew it was there…the it is that thing that spark that light that unseen energy that can arise when one is place in the crucible, when the game is on the line, when the choice is rise or fail.


At the same time it was also my test day. After 20 years I still test. And it was a milestone…the sixth (6th) degree. This achievement has always been so far off in the future that is still seems unreal to have arrived here. I have been working with the same partner for over 12 years and on this day the hours (and the pain) paid off.


Today’s story is an excerpt from the 8 page essay I wrote for my test. Enjoy.


Who’s Going to be a Black Belt?

Twenty four students are standing at ready position at the end of class. The work out is over. We have practiced punching and kicking, techniques and forms, flying and falling, victory and defeat. Sweat and smiles permeate the atmosphere. Various degrees of success have been achieved. As the head instructor I look out at eager faces waiting for that single nugget of wisdom that is going to make them into the super hero they all want to be. I have none. I have no word that is going to propel each of them into greatness. Instead all I have is a question:

Who is going to be a black belt?


This is a question I ask after every martial arts class I teach. The expected answer is, “I am Sir.” There are two reasons to ask this question. The first reason is to condition the student into the thinking that he or she is going to achieve their black belt; that they are going to stick around long enough, practice hard enough, and transform themselves from a white belt into a black belt. The second reason (and the more esoteric and important, in my opinion) is to begin the transformation from normal, mediocre thinking and attitude into a higher level of thinking and attitude…one of excellence and belief in the ability to get things done in the face of no agreement, in the face of adversity, in the face of pain and suffering, in the face of mediocrity.


For over seventeen years I have donned my Uniform and stood in front of expectant students waiting to be amazed, educated and inspired. Over those years I have succeeded in doing that. And I have failed many times, fallen short in so many ways. And after each day, the good and the bad, I got up and did it again. When I began this journey I began it as a father wanting to spend time with his just teen age step son who wanted to “give it a shot.” Then it morphed into a way to feel confident with self defense based on the environment I was working in. After a number of years I became a teacher. Then the vehicle became a way of life and personal growth and achievement. Today it has become who I am.

Who is going to be a black belt?
I am, Sir.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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