Cheat Days and Why They May Not Work

I am not a big fan of planned cheat meals or cheat days and I will tell you why.  First of all, the word “cheat” implies you are doing something wrong.  Our foods choices are just that - choices.  There is no right or wrong per se; it is about what is best for us individually.  For me, I do not eat meat, so do I go and eat meat on cheat days????  In my case - never!  However, if I choose to eat a piece of cake on my birthday is that cheating?  For me the answer is “no,” because I am not cheating. I am choosing to eat something I normally wouldn't eat every day because it is a special occasion.

I think it is much better to focus on high quality foods every day and limit or move away from foods we decide are not in our best interest.  When we live for cheat days then we are saying these foods are ok to eat once a week.  We then begin to look forward to cheat days vs. focusing on what is best for us on a regular basis. 

How do we define a cheat day?  Do we eat a full day of food that is total garbage and then spend the next three days regretting it and waiting 2-3 days for the food to be eliminated from our bodies?  By then we are only days away from the next cheat day (if we set them up as once a week).

I think the intention of a cheat day is honorable, but I just don’t know how effective they really are at changing our long term view of food.  My goal is to only eat the best foods for my body and as I continue on this journey my diet has got cleaner and cleaner.  One day there will not be any cheat foods.  Food I once wanted will no longer appeal to me.  Sugary sweets and other unhealthy food will be totally replaced by healthy alternatives so there will be no need to cheat. 

I understand it is a journey and we all need our tricks, but please be careful with this one.  The best option may be one that gives you the opportunity to enjoy the unhealthy meal or occasional sweet on special occasions and avoid making it too complicated or timing days filled with foods that do not support our long term health.

Training in the heat and what to do

As we approach the heat of the summer I wanted to share my thoughts on training in the heat.

First of all the biggest challenge you will face is taking the time to adapt!  Spring in Texas has been fairly mild so it seems for 2014 we went from mild temps to HOT!  Adaptation takes a few weeks to occur, and this will only happen if you are training at least 2-3 days a week outside.  Keep in mind your workouts should be about “effort” and not “pace.”  If your normally run a 9 min per mile pace in 50 degree weather or less, your pace may drop to 10 ½ minutes or more if it is 95 degrees!  It doesn’t mean your overall pace is dropping or your running will suffer, it just means the same effort will produce a slower pace. 

What is the best way to measure effort?  A heart rate monitor is the best tool.  If you train in zone 2 for example (180-age, plus 5 if you are very active, minus 5 if you are not active at all) then you can track your progress over the summer.  You will be amazed at how much you can still improve your performance once the cooler temperatures return in the fall.

Over training in the heat can be very detrimental.  If you train at your regular pace in the heat, it would be equivalent to doing speed work during every work out.  This will result in fatigue and possible injury.  Remember that even if it is just warm, the humidity will make it tougher for the body to cool itself, so even if it is 80 degree early in the am, if it is also humid then it will be just as tough as running in hot weather.

Things to make the heat more bearable: first, try to run or work out in the shade, this will help keep you cooler (it is all relative right).  Second, be sure to drink plenty of fluids, not just during your workout, but before and after.  

Finally, make sure you replace lost electrolytes in your body.  If you train for more than an hour, it is a good idea to take in products like “salt sticks” or “s-caps”.  While Gatorade and similar products tout electrolyte replacement, they also come with excess products like sugar (or worse, fake sugar) and other chemicals which will hamper your performance.

Keep it clean, stay focused and enjoy the experience.  All your workouts in the “dog days” of summer will pay off once the cooler temps return.

Letting Your Workout Ruin You Eating Habits

I hear this all the time – “I just ran five miles so I earned this donut!”  Well, if we constantly live this way - then we will derail any efforts put forth to become healthier, leaner, faster and stronger.  This mentality may also result in weight gain!  While we do need to eat more food as we work out or run, it needs to be high quality food.  We cannot view our workouts as calorie in/calorie out (I have discussed this in previous blog posts). 

The other side of this equation is the overweight runner.  Many people tell me that I am thin because I run.  This is not true – I lost the weight BEFORE I started running long distances.  Poor food choices will cause weight gain even if you are running or working out every day.  How many overweight marathoners do we all know?  These people put in a ton of miles and many of them do not lose a lot of weight.  I am not calling any one out here, I am just saying running or daily exercise doesn’t make you thin by itself.  Weight loss is found in the kitchen, not on the trail!

My view is this:  The training should remind us that we need to eat clean so we can do more, have less injury, and achieve our goals!  In 14 months I ran five marathons and a 50K Ultra. I was able to do this because my diet supported this level of training.  When you eat high quality foods, your body will reward you because you can do more!

It can be a slippery slope to run to eat.  We should view food as “eating to live!”  I am not saying we should never have a treat, but the daily thought pattern of rewarding yourself with bad food because you worked out is not sustainable.

Change your thinking and change your life!

Top foods and ingredients to avoid:

Hydrogenated Oil / Trans Fats: This oil is very difficult for the body to digest and raises LDL (the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL (the good cholesterol).  They are also active agents of heart disease, diabetes, nutritional deficiencies and cellular deterioration. 

·        Common foods include: vegetable shortening, crackers, cookies, baked goods, salad dressings, breads and chips

Red Dye #40 & 3, Yellow Dye #5&#6: these have all shown significant links to cancer and thyroid issues.

·        Common foods include: candy, cereals, and frosting

Margarine – there is nothing healthy about margarine, it is made from highly refined oils and even hydrogenated oils.  You best bet is real butter or alternatives such as almond butter.

Hot Dogs and any other meats high in nitrates – these foods are highly processed and when these nitrates are broken down in the stomach they can have a very adverse effect on the body such as headaches, nausea and vomiting.

Artificial sweetener & HFC (high fructose corn syrup) – Splenda (sucralose), Sweet ’N Low (saccharin), Equal (Aspartame), Sweet One (Acesulfame) are all linked to increases in cancer and they still have the same effect on the body as sugar by raising the insulin levels in the blood stream.  HFC is a highly processed form of corn syrup and most commonly made from GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) which also have strong links to cancer.  If you want something sweet, stick with sugar, it is the least evil of all of these.  In the end, you will still gain weight using these sweeteners.

Microwave popcorn – this product is very popular however the chemicals used to make microwave popcorn are very dangerous to our health.

MSG (monosodium glutamate) – this chemical has been shown to be a neurotoxin and has very negative effects on the body, including migraines, cancers, type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

Sodium Benzoate And Potassium Benzoate – commonly found it bread, it is an endocrine disruptor and has been shown to increase rates of cancer.

Olestra – a fat substitute that is a a synthesized chemical most commonly used in fat free ships.

Other resources:

http://undergroundhealthreporter.com/the-10-worst-food-ingredients/#axzz32wIc6Sw5

http://www.everydayhealth.com/health-report/jillian-michaels-healthier-life/processed-foods-pitfalls.aspx

http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/avoid-these-9-worst-food-ingredients

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/11/26/most-unhealthy-ingredients_n_2177450.html

http://eatthis.menshealth.com/slide/scary-ingredient-1-olestra?slideshow=186430#sharetagsfocus

Smoking & Cancer, Chronic Illness & Medicine

Our view of Healthcare today is so skewed that I really struggle when people can’t make the connection between food and chronic illness.  I love the analogy given by Dr. Joel Fuhrman – today’s healthcare could be compared to trying to find a cure for smoking vs telling people to quit smoking. 

When we continue to seek medication and surgeries to fix our problems then we will never know what it means to be healthy.  Our lives will be filled with pain, illness and medical bills. 

I know it was not that long ago that I did not care much about what I ate and it showed, but at the same time I was not sick (yet).  You would think sick people would be very interested in this advice but they really aren't.  I have tired many times to make small recommendations to those who are ill and they say everything I suggest is not what their Doctors tell them.  Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it is obvious they do not know either.

Whether you trust my advice or not, I challenge you do to this – do your own research, do not let Dr. Oz tell you every day how to live.  Discover for yourself what real food can do for you.  I challenge you to try it for 30 days and I think you will find that maybe I was right!

Change your food, change your life!

Funding Cancer and Gene Research

As I learn more about health and nutrition, and the impact it can have on our health, I’m questioning all the money spent on science and research.  I am not against finding cures and doing medical research, but I feel we are overlooking the most obvious and key component - which is “what is causing our bodies to break down?”  Food is medicine; our bodies regenerate most of our cells every 100 days.  How can we not believe that food plays a critical role in how our bodies respond to disease?

I see that a lot of money is being spent on finding the “fat” gene - really?  Come on!!  Mother Nature gave us the fat gene to help us survive.  Long before readily-available grocery stores, we went through periods of feast and famine.  Our bodies are designed to store fat to handle the times when there is a scarcity of food!  There is no need to find the fat gene, but there IS a need to educate our society.

We are too driven as Americans to have it all and not pay the consequences.  It really is not that difficult to eat real food; however our government, Big Food, health care companies, and retailers simply do not care.  They want the money!  And if they find a cure for obesity then they will cash in.  But what is the cost?  Do we keep eating the way we do and make ourselves sicker?  Do we keep spending millions and millions of dollars to figure out how to fix our ills, or would the money be better spent educating others how to eat a high-quality meal without all the side effects?

There is not enough money in the world to fix all the cancer, heart disease, and other chronic illness out there.  There truly is only one way to fix most of our health problems.  It has been proven time and time again, but this type of information is lost in the mass hysteria and our tendency not to take personal responsibility for our own actions.

I used to be the fat guy - the one looking for a quick fix.  But once I realized how simple things really are, I found that I enjoyed life a lot more.  My senses are at their peak, my energy level is high, I do not get sick, I look great, and I do not fear aging!  No amount of medicine can ever achieve that!

Live life to the fullest and take care of the one and only body God gave you!

Nutritional Science is killing us!

Now I know what you are thinking - B.J. has gone off the rails and has eaten too much fruit!  But hang on and let me explain.  Today we live in a society of counting nutrients and calories.  We want to make sure we have this many vitamins, this many calories, this type of protein, this kind of fat, etc.  On the surface these seem reasonable, but here is where we lose sight.

Nutrients, by themselves, are almost meaningless.  If nutrients were the only thing that mattered, then we could take a few pills filled with nutrients and call it a day.  However, Mother Nature does not work that way.  Real, whole foods are complex - we are just beginning to understand how they work.  When we “fortify” food, or add in nutrients, we are losing the benefit of eating the food in its natural state.  We aren’t smart enough to trick Mother Nature.  We can’t strip a food down to its single nutrient and serve it up as meeting our daily recommendations.

What about all the nutrients we do not understand or know about yet?  How can we believe that taking a product like wheat, refining it, stripping it of all its nutrients and then trying to make it healthy again by adding in nutrients is a good thing?  The best example of this is children’s cereal.  At its core, cereal is made up of highly-processed flour and sugar, and is devoid of any nutrition.  It is a box of worthless flour and sugar, with chemicals added to make it bright and colorful.  Then “Big Food” adds in some “fake nutrients” and calls it healthy because it meets all the requirements for nutrition.

Really?  Do we truly believe that this stuff is healthy?  It does not end there. Most packaged foods are created the same way.  If you eat packaged foods from the pantry or freezer - then be aware that you are not giving your body the true nutrition it needs.  When this happens, your body will continue to crave more food until it finds what it needs.

The only way to give your body what it needs is to eat real, whole foods in as natural a state as possible.  The more it is cooked, processed, and altered - the less nutritious it is.

To make sure we are eating a well-balanced diet, we must eat a variety of foods, making sure there are plenty of colors – greens, yellows, reds, etc.  If you do this, then for the most part you will be eating a healthy diet.  You won’t have to worry about all the single nutrients that most people get caught worrying about.