Fear and Loathing...

Let's face it: women are naturally judgmental. We size up our neighbors, our co-workers, our family members, and virtually anyone else who comes in our path. It takes about 0.2 seconds and we hardly even notice that we're doing it. It's ingrained.

"Bless her heart," a southern lady might think to herself. "She has really gained some weight in the last few months."

"Oh no. That hair is NOT working."

"Does she think she's 16? Why is she wearing pants that tight? / a skirt that short? / a top that does not cover up those giant (fake) boobs?"

We are hard on people! Unforgiving. Ruthless. Catty.

But I've noticed something else lately. As hard as we are on other people, women are even harder on themselves. Brutal, even. When it comes to looks, weight, and bodies, I know some women who would be hard-pressed to find anything good to say about themselves.

Maybe we feel okay about ourselves in our 20s. Then we get married, have a baby, and put ourselves on the back burner while we care for a newborn, a toddler, a pre-schooler. Then it's back to work and the schedule gets even crazier. Drive thrus become a food group. And all the while the negative voices are getting louder and louder.

"I cannot believe I gained 10 pounds this year."

"Look at that belly. It's disgusting."

"Why did I eat that cake? It's only going to make me fatter than I already am."

Then it gets personal.

"Why would anyone even want to be with me?"

"I will never be able to change the way I look."

"I am just gross."

We belittle ourselves so much and so often that it becomes our own personal truth. It's a merry-go-round of self-loathing, fear, and lies that keeps us from taking charge and making change.

It has to STOP.

We are more than our body. We are more than the way we look.

Our body is a miracle. It brought forth children and it's the place where we live for as long as we're on earth. We have to stop punishing ourselves for the past and start acknowledging that we are in control of our own future.

We can change our habits. We can start thinking about food as fuel, and giving our bodies the type of fuel needed to operate at peak performance. We can make movement and exercise an enjoyable part of our daily routine. We CAN.

Our brain, like any other muscle, can be trained out of a negative thought cycle. Just like any other exercise,  though, it's hard work and takes time. You have to start by recognizing the fact that you're having negative thoughts, checking yourself, and then reframing that negative thought into a positive one.

If it takes wearing a rubber band on your wrist and snapping yourself every time you have a negative thought, then do it.

Don't make perfect the enemy of good. Celebrate and acknowledge the small steps. Don't be attached to the outcome. Enjoy the journey. Be nice to yourself. Get your swagger back.

Can you do that?

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Workout of the Day

P90X Yoga

The least surprising news article of the year

So, the FDA and FTC have awakened from their slumber and sent warning letters (ooh, scary!) to the manufacturers of the HCG hormone, which is used in the popular HCG diet.

You know the one...where you either inject or ingest the same hormone produced by the placenta during pregnancy (human chorionic gonadotropin) and consume 500 calories a day for some amazing weight loss.

You think? It's called starvation. Look it up!

How do people come up with this crap? According to the Fooducate blog, it came from a study by a scientist in India about 50 years ago.

"Around 50 years ago Albert Simeons, a British scientist, in India studied the pregnancy of poor women in India who were living on very low calorie diets. Despite this, they were able to reach term and have their baby. Simeons, an endocrinologist, concluded that the HCG hormone was instructing the body to burn FAT from the mother’s body in order to save the baby.

Since then, the HCG method has been used in various settings and tested in various studies. The conclusion – no evidence that the HCG diet actually works. Obviously, consuming 500 calories a day causes weight loss at first. But it may cause severe health problems due to a prolonged period of malnutrition."

And do you think people are able to keep that weight off once they stop injecting pregnancy hormones and eat a regular diet? No. No, they are not. People on the HCG diet are also at a greater risk for gallstones, irregular heartbeat, clots in the lungs, depression, cardiac arrest, and death.

How about we quit looking for a quick fix and instead cook a vegetable and go for a walk. You'll feel better mentally and physically, AND you get the added benefit of not keeling over prematurely.

Such a deal!

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Workout of the Day

P90X Core Synergistics

After three years of doing this workout, today I was FINALLY able to stay up on my toes during the Plank to Chaturanga Iso move in the bonus round. It's the one where you hold in a plank for 1 minute total, and every 10 seconds you switch from regular plank (with arms straight) down to chaturanga (arms bent, close at your sides). I'm still making progress, even after all this time! That's why I love this program.

Feeding the Fire

I got a newsletter from Beachbody today that included an article that deserves to be reprinted. And possibly shouted from the mountaintops.

When we started our Wednesday Workouts at school, one of the first things I shared with them about nutrition is that "dieting" (a word I think should be abolished) by not eating does not work for several reasons. 1) Not eating makes you incredibly cranky and irritable. Why would you want to live that way? 2) Not eating is not sustainable. Eventually you will cave in and eat, and when you do, it's not going to be pretty. 3) When you don't eat, your metabolism slows to a snail's pace. Your body goes into starvation mode, and you WILL NOT lose weight.

If you're exercising, you need to be eating three meals and at least two healthy snacks per day. That way you are constantly feeding the fire of your metabolism, and it will make your metabolism work for you rather than against you.

Here's the article. It says it better than I ever could:

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Eat More, Lose More. (Really?)

By Justine Holberg

You work out practically every day and you're feeling good because you've lost some weight. Until a week or so passes and you can't get the scale to budge. It's like an invisible wrench has been thrown into the works. Now what?

You start second-guessing everything you're doing:

• Maybe I'm eating too much?
• Should I work out harder?
• Do I have to live on parsley and hot water?

So you restrategize. You slash calories and step up the intensity of your workouts. Unfortunately, after another week, you're still not losing. Now you want to give up altogether. But before you throw in the towel, ask yourself this:

Am I eating enough?

Contrary to popular belief, sometimes you have to eat more to lose weight. While that may sound counterintuitive, it often does the trick. Here's why:

1. Metabolism is the key to weight loss. If you don't eat enough, or often enough, your metabolism slows to a crawl and weight loss becomes more difficult, especially when you're exercising. That's why skipping meals isn't a good idea if the goal is to shed pounds. 
   
   Tip: Always eat breakfast to kick-start metabolism and try eating mini-meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism fired up.
2. To keep your metabolism up, you MUST eat. Conventional wisdom dictates that when you first start dieting, the less you eat, the better. While it's true that you often should eat less, eating too little can backfire over time. As your body composition changes, your body will think it's starving, which can make it hold on to fat. (The process actually has to do with excessive release of a hormone called cortisol, but you don't need to know the details, so we'll just call it fat.) To avoid this, most experts agree that over time, you shouldn't eat fewer than 1,200 calories per day for women, 1,500 for men. If your daily diet consists of fewer calories than that, consider eating more. 
   
   Tip: Keep a food diary to track calories.
3. You need more calories when you work out. If you're exercising while following a low-calorie eating plan, you'll need to take into account the calories you're burning. That's because it's now easier to enter starvation mode. Let's say you're burning 400 calories and only eating 1,200 to 1,300 calories per day. This means you're really only taking in 800 to 900 calories per day before you begin to calculate how your body composition is changing. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does, so as your body changes, you need to eat more to keep the weight loss coming. 
   
   Tip: Drink an after-workout recovery drink like P90X Results and Recovery Formula^®. After hard workouts, its calories are utilized so quickly by your body, some people refer to them as "free calories." They really aren't, but those calories will ensure that your muscles (and metabolism) recover quickly.

And remember this:

Figuring out to what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat isn't easy. That's why people often refer to losing weight as a journey. It takes a few different paths to get there. Sometimes you have to adjust your ratio of protein, fat, and carbs to start losing again. Or adjust your calorie level, which can include eating more to lose weight.

Tip: Use the Team Beachbody^® Meal Planner. It can make figuring out your calories much, much easier. You can personalize an eating plan that takes your workouts into consideration.

Finally, if you're still on the fence about needing to eat more to lose weight: You might be thinking, "How come I know some really skinny people who barely eat?"

The answer is this: You can eventually lose weight by not eating. It's called starving. Reduce calories enough and your body will start breaking down its muscle tissue, and this will result in weight loss. However, it makes your body increase its emergency hormonal responses, which also causes your body to be stressed and hang onto fat, making it.very easy to gain the weight back again.

So I hope you take this thought away with you today: The idea is to keep your metabolism revving and running. This will help you get healthy and stay strong. Eat the right amount of food to help your body continuously burn calories, and you're more likely to shed those unwanted pounds.