Athlekinetix Blog

Cereal used to be just something you ate for breakfast because it was quick, tasty, and better for your thighs than a donut. Lately, cereal has had an identity crisis. Wheaties started the trend to become something more than flakes in a bowl of milk by self-proclaiming themselves as the breakfast of champions. I guess advertisers thought if you have to eat anyway, it might as well make you a champion in the process. Then, Special K decided to do for weight loss what Jared did for Subway. Eating Special K all of a sudden became a challenge. Take the Special K challenge, which consists of eating only Special K for breakfast and lunch and followed by a sensible dinner, and you were promised to lose weight. Duh. Eat that few a calories a day of anything and you’ll lose weight, too.

Frosted Mini Wheats couldn’t be left out. Being a skinny champion apparently wasn’t enough. Kellogg’s just recently went through a media debacle by claiming that kids with ADHD that ate Frosted Mini-Wheats improved their attentiveness by nearly 20%. Well, that didn’t go over well for a myriad of reasons, the main one being insufficient scientific data. Suffice it to say, Frosted Mini Wheats went back to being just a cereal.

Cheerios must have missed all the brouhaha with Frosted Mini Wheats and decided to tip its own hat into the wonder cereal arena. Cheerios has always claimed to be heart healthy, but new marketing has taken Cheerios to new heights. It now states loud and clear on every box that it can lower your cholesterol by 4%.  Drug companies like Lipitor almost had a heart attack themselves with this new campaign. As no surprise to anyone, except for the makers of Cheerios, the FDA has now put the kabosh on this pseudo science claim. “In order for Cheerios to be clinically proven to lower cholesterol, the product would have to be approved like it were a drug.” Call it me, but I’m not sure being classified as a drug would be the image Cheerios is after.

The spokesperson for Cheerios said this is all a matter of semantics and that Cheerios when eaten in conjunction with a healthy diet and exercise program will lower your cholesterol. Needless to say, Cheerios is going to be joining Frosted Mini Wheats back on the grocery shelves as simply a cereal again, too. This all makes me miss Mikey of Life cereal. How about we eat cereal again because ‘we like it, we really, really like it!’ Even if it won’t make us a thinner, more focused, heart-healthy champion.

I would be rich if I made a dollar for every time someone has asked me why they are fat even though they eat healthy and exercise daily. It is one of the great mysteries in the world. Just the other day, a stranger came up to me when he heard I was in the fitness industry and said, “I only eat chicken and vegetables. Why am I so fat?” Hmm. Kentucky Fried Chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy and corn on the cob with butter are chicken and vegetables too!

Well, some genius beat me to the punch (and to the bank) with an answer to the age-old question “Why Am I Still Fat?” THISISWHYYOUREFAT.COM might be one of the funniest albeit disgusting things I’ve seen in a long time. Check it out immediately. Blown up, full color pictures of actual food found on menus throughout the country, replete with descriptions are the sole content of this outrageous site.

Some of my favorites were the steak sandwich with wet-cured ham, linguica, and sausage covered with melted cheese in a hot thick tomato and beer sauce. The bacon crusted pizza topped with extra cheese and bacon was also special. It’s one thing to hear about food like this, but to visually see it takes on a whole new meaning.

The tag line of this site is ‘where dreams become heart attacks.’ This site would be hilarious, and I’d be lying to you if I wasn’t laughing when I saw it, if it weren’t true. One of my favorite things I heard from an expert in weight loss years ago was about the glycemic index. Carrots have become a sinful food because they are rated high on the glycemic index because of their sugar content. This expert said go eat carrots by the bagful for all he cares. Nobody has ever gotten fat because they eat too many carrots.  Ain’t that the truth.

I’m not saying that people are overweight because they eat gallons of ice cream and cookies all day. But, I am saying that they aren’t only eating egg whites and broccoli. The bottom line is that losing weight is not a mystery. If you are truly eating healthfully and exercising daily, you would not be asking me “Why am I still fat?” Take your own pictures of what you are really eating and you will see for yourself the answer to your question.

Fad diets are not only unhealthy, unsuccessful weight loss tools; but they are potentially deadly as well.
The problem with these kinds of diets specifically is that they are recommended by celebrities to drop pounds quickly and are not regulated by the FDA. Anyone can say anything about weight loss diets and consumers are given no warnings by the medical community or the government that these weight loss diets can be hazardous to your health.

The Grapefruit Diet is a perfect example of this. If you are trying to lose weight, it is commonsense knowledge that the best way to do this is to eat more fruits and vegetables in your diet and less processed foods. Therefore, when you hear about a diet where the cornerstone ingredient is grapefruit, it doesn’t automatically send alarm bells. Grapefruit is a hydrating, vitamin C rich food, low in calories and fat free. On paper, it sounds like everybody should eat it as part of a healthy diet. Grapefruit is healthy and delicious, but it is not safe for everybody and it is certainly not safe in large quantities.

One of the biggest dangers of fad diets, in general, is when there is an imbalance of food required in order to adhere to the plan. No diet is healthy if entire food groups are banned. Yes, Atkins, I am referring to you! No meat, no dairy, no carbohydrates, no ‘anything’ is not a good idea for lasting weight loss or lasting health. The same principle applies to diets that are so “inclusive” that only one type of food is allowed. The infamous Grapefruit Diet fits in this category. It’s one thing if I said the Grapefruit Diet is bunk, which it is. You may lose weight initially, but will gain it all back and more. But, it is another thing entirely to share the sad truth that the Grapefruit Diet can be dangerous and even fatal to your health. Grapefruit is a complicated fruit. It is healthy on the one hand, but interacts negatively with many prescription drugs taken by millions of people in this country.

Drugs that lower cholesterol, treat heart arrhythmias, anxiety, and seizure disorders have been found to dangerously interact with a compound found in grapefruit. This compound also slows the absorption of estrogen hormones to the body, lowers contraceptive effectiveness, and makes you more susceptible to blood clots if on estrogen replacement therapy.

It is interesting, yet frightening at the same time, how grapefruit at the grocery store doesn’t come with any of these warning labels attached. Now these contraindications with drugs occur just by consuming any amount of grapefruit. Imagine for a moment, someone wanting to lose weight and unknowingly eating obscene amounts of grapefruit on the Grapefruit Diet.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened to a 42 year old woman in Washington. She was on birth control pills and strictly adhered to the Grapefruit Diet for 3 days. To make a long story short, the estrogen combined with the juice of the grapefruit produced a toxic effect in her body. She suffered a severe blood clot in her leg, almost had to have her leg amputated, and could have died.

The best way to lose weight is to eat a healthy, balanced diet and to exercise regularly. No fad diet is worth these adverse risks to your health and to your life.

What is Easter without the Easter Basket? Sure, the Easter Bunny can bring stickers and markers, but that is like getting toothbrushes on Halloween while trick or treating. Easter is one of those holidays right up there with Thanksgiving and Christmas where it is ok to cheat a little. In the grand scheme of things, enjoying some Easter candy isn’t going to permanently change your waistline for the worse. In fact, there are many tasty Easter treats that are under 100 calories. Here are just a sample:

• 4 Brach’s Chocolate Covered Rabbits with Marshmallow Centers  (85 calories) 
• 2 Peeps Bunnies (65 calories)
• 1 Spring Oreo with Yellow Cream (54 calories)
• 25 Pink and Lavender Jelly Belly Beans (100 calories)
• 4 Pastel Hershey Kisses (88 calories)
• 2 Easter Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups (84 calories)
• 2 Jolly Rancher Easter Pops (90 calories)
• 4 Robin’s Eggs –big pastel whoppers (88 calories)
• 1 Lindt Milk Chocolate Mini Lamb (50 calories)
• 3 Mini Springtime 3 Musketeer Bars (78 calories)      

These treats make it easy to celebrate the holiday without guilt.  A Jewish friend of mine pointed out that a piece of matzoh for Passover is 110 calories.  As she said, “There’s something wrong when you you can eat chocolate for less calories than a piece of matzoh!” It doesn’t suck if I say so myself!  Enjoy and have a Happy Easter.

In her newly released book, Naturally Thin, Bethenny Frankel uses the Italian expression ‘Mangia poco ma bene’ to illustrate one of her approaches to healthy eating. Literally translated, it means “Eat little, but well.” This same principle should be applied to exercise as well.

The other day in the gym, a woman in her early forties was limping because her knee was bothering her. She didn’t know what she did to aggravate it, but the day before she said she “exercised a little bit.” Come to find out her definition of a little bit of exercise was 2 hours of spinning, an hour of boot camp, and a 6 mile walk. This was not over the span of a week, but in the course of one day.

You are probably thinking some knee discomfort might be worth it to be as thin as this woman obviously is with all of this exercising. Guess what, she is in moderately decent shape, but she is in fact frustrated that her body has hit a plateau. Maybe this woman and all of us should listen to the Italians. They may be on to something.

They emphasize quality over quantity. The only thing achieved by ‘more must be better’ thinking when it comes to exercise is potential for injury and plateaus caused by overtraining. It is not only harmful to your body to exercise for hours at a time, but in these economic times, it is unrealistic for people to devote this kind of time to exercise.

The name of the game for the greatest results when it comes to exercise is intensity and efficiency. If you can do class after class in succession, you are not pushing yourself to the point of fatigue. If you are resistance training and you did not feel thankful that the set was over for the muscle group you were targeting, then you better use heavier weights next time or do more repetitions. Exercise, if done properly, is not meant to be done for hours at a time. You are not just wasting your valuable time and energy, but you are breaking down muscle and depleting your body of essential nutrients when you punish it in this manner.

If at the end of a class or exercise session, you have successfully incorporated cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance, flexibility, balance, and engagement of your core and stabilizer muscles throughout the entire session, you have accomplished everything your body needs from exercise in one challenging hour.

You are an exercise rockstar, not if you exercise a thousand hours a day, but rather if you put forth every ounce of effort your body is capable of into one action packed, compact hour. The words that will guaranteed be music to your ears is “I’m done.” Who wants to hear one hour done, four to go? An hour, if done properly, is efficient, effective, and healthy for your mind and body.

Realtors have been saying for years, “location, location, location.” Of course, this is usually in response to selecting a home in a desirable neighborhood. Factors like proximity to good schools, hospitals, and parks are taken into consideration when buying a home. But, who thinks about McDonald’s?

A new study by researchers out of UC Berkeley says maybe we should start thinking about the proximity of fast food when buying a home. Now it is not enough to be near a good school, but is the school close to fast food restaurants as well? Out of 3 million 9th graders in California, 5.2% were more likely to be obese, the closer their schools were to fast food restaurants.

Of course, you are not going to put up a ‘for sale’ sign or transfer your child to a different school based on this information, but it is interesting to take into account some of the lessons this research provides. Children are a target demographic when it comes to fast food advertising. Studies have shown toddlers recognize the golden arches of McDonald’s even before they are verbal.

In addition, children are for the most part a captive audience for fast food providers. They don’t drive and if they do, most don’t drive their own car to school. If fast food is within walking distance to schools, teenagers can frequent these establishments daily on their own, without parental assistance. Furthermore, even younger children are at a disadvantage with fast food being so readily available because the temptation for parents to go through the drive-thru on the way home from school or to extra-curricular activities is very inviting.

Childhood obesity rates according to this UC Berkeley study have more than tripled since the 1970’s and the number of fast food restaurants has increased over 50% in the same amount of years. The proximity of fast food restaurants to schools is similar to the notion of  bingeing on junk food at home because it’s readily accessible at a moment’s notice.

The movie Field of Dreams had the premise ‘if you build it, they will come’ when talking about building a baseball field in the middle of a corn field. Unfortunately, the same principle applies to the location of fast food restaurants and schools. If children can access fast food easily and quickly, they will eat it often.

It is no surprise that in these tough economic times, the revenues of McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants are up. The convenience, relatively low cost, and location of fast food makes it a no-brainer for America’s kids. Maybe adults should be smarter.

New studies released by the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research found that the combination of healthy diet, regular exercise, and proper stress management are not only important for a healthy lifestyle, but have been found to actually lower your risks of developing cancer.

In an interesting related study from the National Cancer Institute, researchers found that exercise may prevent cancer but only if combined with proper amounts of sleep. Regular exercisers who exercised at least one hour a day but slept less than the recommended 7 hours of sleep were found to be 47% more likely to develop cancer than regular exercisers who slept 7 hours or more.

What these findings illustrate is that it is not enough to just eat right or exercise more, or get enough sleep or manage your stress. If you are not incorporating all of these components into your lifestyle, you are possibly shortchanging yourself when it comes to your health.

This makes sense when you think about it closely. For example, how many times have you exercised intensely, binged on junk food afterwards, and wondered why you haven’t lost weight? Or, if you are constantly sleep deprived and feel like a pressure cooker about to erupt inside, do you think that diet and exercise alone are the answers to your problems?

Our bodies are built like machines and nothing is effective done in isolation. Everything complements and feeds off of one another to yield the best results. If you feel like a rockstar because you eat right, but everything else you do sabotages the benefits that might be gained by your healthy diet, then you are missing the big picture of what makes for a healthy lifestyle.

Healthy diet, regular exercise, proper sleep and stress management are all necessary in order to live a long life. If you compromise one area of your health at the expense of the other, you are negating the benefits of what could be gained in the long run.

It isn’t enough that we have sugar to sweeten our coffee, tea and treats because clearly sugar has one huge drawback; it leads to weight gain.  If you suffer from diabetes, sugar is potentially lethal. These negative health consequences led to the creation of saccharine, remember Tab? Still use the pink stuff?  Blech, if you are like me, I want the no calorie benefit but not at the expense of my taste buds.

Enter NutraSweet, made from aspartame.  Now diet sodas along with many diet treats are made with this sweetener.  Unfortunately, like all things that seem to good to be true, this one is.  Aspartame brings with it health concerns such as migraines, seizures, and may lead to an increase in the risk of cancer.  

In the world of commerce, if one product is selling well, rest assured another is on it’s way to trump it.  Enter Sucralose, brand name Splenda. This magical sweetener is excellent for anyone interested in weight loss and is safe for diabetics (say the experts). Again, unfortunately, Splenda is actually closely related to a pesticide and actually retains some of its properties.  Clearly, this brings a series of health concerns with it. Studies have concluded there are some toxicity issues related to the sugar substitute but the product has not been in general population long enough to have been extensively studied. 

Again, industry prevails and there is another no cal sweetener on the market and touts itself as healthy. Stevia is an herbal sweetener which some believe is the safe and natural alternative to sugar.  Found in South America, this substance has its origins in the form of a perennial shrub of the aster family. Stevia is actually not new as far as being considered a natural sweetener, as far back as the 1900’s there have been reports of a leaf from Brazil that was as sweet as sugar. Stevia produces glycosides that taste sweet, but do not have calories.   Stevis is packaged under a few different names – all have Stevia somewhere in the name and is commonly used as a sugar substitute in Japan and Korea, and has been used in Latin America for years. 

The FDA has not recognized Stevia as a sweetener, but they have allowed to be sold as a dietary supplement. What you chose to do with the product in your home is your business.   

This information is in no way deemed to be scientific nor the basis for anyone to go out and buy any of the products named.  Consult a doctor before ingesting anything!

Today during a training session, I was given an excellent topic for research, “Why do we crave sweets after every meal?”  I didn’t have a great answer aside from, “ummm, cause it tastes good,” so I decided to find out if there was more to it than just the habitual desire to eat sweets.

Apparently, there is research that has supported the idea that many of us do desire a sugar and fat laden treat after we eat.  Unfortunately, we are not only psychologically conditioned but physically, our physical bodies come to crave the desserts as well making it even harder to control the behavior.

Larry Krug wrote of a condition termed “sensory-specific satiety” which means we are not really satisfied with a meal unless all our food needs are met. 

We crave sweets for two main reasons:  habit and physiology.

Habitual desires are obviously cravings we seek to fulfill simply because we are accustomed to having them.  This is not easy to break the cycle of but if you can stay away from a habit for 90 days, it is believed you have broken yourself of the pattern.

Physiological issues arise when you are not satisfying your body’s nutritional requirements for carbohydrates, proteins and fats.  If you dine on a menu of fish and vegetables, it is possible that your body will still seek out the fats it is missing.

Add to the nutritional deficit the fact that when you eat fats your body releases the hormone cholecystokinin into the stomach which then relays a message to your pituitary gland to sense satisfaction. Your body knows that to be satisfied it needs fat.

In other words, after you eat a meal low in fats, it may not be the sweetness of the desserts you crave, but rather the fats they contain.

Like anyone, I would love to be thinner and it would be great if I could do it while eating pizza, Chips Ahoy and ice cream - incidentally, that was last night’s dinner!  Sadly, I have tried many of the “latest, greatest” pills that promise I won’t be hungry, will burn fat while I watch TV and will pep me up.. if you know me, I am not short on pep. 

The mayo clinic released a report on the effectiveness of Hoodia, which by the way I have purchased. As I already learned, there is no proof  hoodia is effective at suppressing your appetite. It doesn’t even seem to help with long-term weight loss.. booo.

Hoodia’s claim to fame is that natives in the Kalahari Desert in Africa eat it to stave off hunger during hunting. Somehow, that was enough to convince people here in the US that we too should ingest Hoodia. Is it me or does that seem a little crazy?  Seriously, don’t they eat lots of things during those hunts that we would never consider placing in our mouth? I’m thinking bugs, wild berries, unfiltered water…

For those of you who believe that Hoodia is still the wonderful diet aid they claim it to be, here is some vaildation fo you.. One small study found that hoodia may (don’t you love the word “may”) affect the part of the brain that controls hunger.