Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Weight Loss: Exercise University

One of the most common excuses I get about exercise is the lost time during the day that an hour of exercise, plus the time getting there and back, and the time to clean up, takes out of the day. Well my exercise time is some of my most productive time of the day, and not simply what the exercise accomplishes to improve your life(more about that in a later post). In a year of exercising five days a week you could complete eight full college courses or the equivalent of a full year of college.

Several weeks ago I went to a motivational seminar and Zig Zigler was one of the speakers. He talked about many years ago proposing something he called Auto University. What he meant by this is that the average person in the US spends over an hour a day in their car. Most people either listen to music or in Zig's words 'even worse they listened to talk radio.' He told people instead of listening to the radio they should listen to college courses on tape. Ones which I have listened to for the last fifteen years have been the courses from the Learning Company. I have bought and listened to over 90 courses over the twelve years from 1995 to 2007. On average listening to eight or nine complete college courses each year. These were courses on every subject imaginable including: History, Philosophy; Astronomy; Literature; Bible studies, biology; Law, Economics and many others.

The point Zig made and that I have lived for many years is that you can turn almost wasted moment into valuable learning that can have long term benefit. Now while you exercise your mind can be occupied similarly to what Zig recommends and I have done while driving.So my suggestion is turn your exercise time into learning time, Exercise University, so to speak. The tools are available now to do it very inexpensively if not free. All you need is a computer, Internet access and a MP3 player of choice(I use an I-pod).

To start with from your Internet browser go to apple,com (whether you have an Apple computer, an I-pod or not). From this page click on the I-Pod button along the top row. On the new page you go to on the right hand side there is a button to click to download I=Tunes. Go ahead and download it. It will ask for your e-mail, however, you do not need to give it, it still lets you get the software. Go ahead and install I-tunes on your computer. Here is the best part the two areas you will download from are completely free. Literally millions of hours of downloads that are completely free. Every Podcast and every course in I-Tunes University are absolutely free. Let me explain what podcasts and I-Tunes University are and how they got started.

Podcasting began in 2002 but really took off in 2006. Think about the typical NPR radio show and that will give you a little of the feel of a podcast. They can be any length from one minute to several hours. Most of them are under one hour and even many under ten minutes. Initially in the early age of podcasts they were produced by people sitting in there home and on almost any subject that the producer was interested in. I use to challenge people to give me any topic and I have never been stumped of not being able to find a podcast on that subject. Since the early age of podcasts two other common forms have come along. One is radio and TV shows will podcast the audio portion of the show as a podcast. So you can listen to the show at your convenience. Now almost all radio shows are podcast, usually within a day of the original broadcast. Many TV shows also, for example the three main News Cable Networks podcast the audio of a;ll there shows, Comedy Central podcast the audio of both the Daily Show and Colbert Report and many more. Many organizations that have internal lecture series, like the Long Now Foundation, will podcast the audio of those lectures and sometime the video also as a separate podcast.

A podcast is a series of shows and there will be many episodes. In I-tunes you would subscribe to a podcast and then whenever another episode is released it will appear in your podcast section of I-Tunes. I subscribe to around 200 podcasts ( will post these in a Note on my Facebook page). Some are released daily, some weekly and some less often.

Prior to two years ago a few universities would release the audio from college courses and I began listening, in 2006, to whole college courses that were released for free. The Learning Company lost me as a customer at that point. Then in 2008 I-tunes began a separate section in there store (but all free) I-Tunes University. They started with courses from about a dozen universities, they now have over one hundred. Some universities , such as Harvard as an example, record and podcast through I-tunes University nearly every course taught on campus. Using Harvard as an example, they have a webpage for each course. On this webpage the Professor will be listed with his e-mail, All the course handouts will be linked. The reading list will be given. I have gotten the books for many of these courses and have e-mailed the professor with questions and I have never not received and answer and always in less then a week and most of the time in a few days I listen to a complete course on average one per month, plus catching up on my podcasts. Lets say you are a busy exec, you could have your subordinates prepare their reports as dictations that you could listen to. So don't use the 'I don't have enough time' excuse, do what I'm doing. Now I am not getting college credit, I don't need it. But I am getting the knowledge and experience. Also I'm making my exercise time doubly productive.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Weight Loss and Healthy living: Good Food MOST of the Time

Dr Eduardo Sanchez Vice President of Blue Cross/Blue Sheild of Texas and chair of many national and international commities on preventive health, gave rousing opening remarks to start the 'Commodity to Community' conference, the 13th annual Community Food Security Coalition Conference. He definitely set the tone of what looks like a wonderful conference. For this Blog he made two points. The first is that you should "eat good food MOST of the time." The second, "always chose water over soda."

"Eat good food Most of the time", is a great message. When I present my six rules for calorie reduction and later when I present my rules for sustainable weight and health, this is an important message to remember.

We cannot always be angels. There is occasionally that little devil sitting on your shoulder when you see some special food. This will be especially true in 6 weeks when Thanksgiving comes around. The important thing to remember is that if you eat well most of the time an occasional treat and not so healthy selection will be O.K. You just have to ensure that the eating well is most of the time and doesn't slip to being some of the time.

So consider yourself, as Dr Sanchez said, in training for the next six weeks for thanksgiving. Then go back into training for the holidays coming 4 weeks later.

I give talks all the time to community groups and I say all the time: "I feel like I practice a form of child abuse by letting my kids drink soda all the time." It took almost 2 years to break my kids of that habit. All three of them drink almost exclusively tap water. This leads to about 400-600 empty calories per day they were downing. Dr Sanchez's message is the same, you should always drink water instead of soda (or pop for you mid-westerners),

His third recommendation was to check out a report from the National Institute of Medicine, that he Chaired. http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2009/ChildhoodObesityPreventionLocalGovernments/local%20govts%20obesity%20report%20brief%20FINAL%20for%20web.ashx


So take his suggestion to heart and live a healthier happier life.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Weight Loss: Exercise - Care of our Feet

When I started exercising, which consisted of walking and stair climbing. I realized how important good foot care was. I developed blisters on the bottoms of my feet and sores on the ends of my second toe (more about that later). So I felt it is important to talk about this so you are not incapacitated by foot problems and fall behind in your exercise.

When I started I quickly realized that it is easy to have problems with your feet. I had an old pair of walking shoes and it had some wear spots. I first tried one of those gel sole inserts. I was still having some sore areas on my feet after walking. So, I got a new pair of shoes, New Balance Walking Shoes. I have a history of plantar fasciitis so I need a high arch and the insert that came with the shoe was not giving me enough support. So I got

an insert that gave me good arch support. As you can see from the pictures, you take out the insert that comes with the shoe and place the new one in. If you have plantar fasciitis you should get and use an insert with a large arch. This will cure many cases of plantar fasciitis.


Now many people
have the problem that I have of your second toe being longer then your great toe. Once I started stair climbing I developed sores on both of my second toes. As a matter of fact, I developed a subungual (blood clot
under the nail) hematoma on my right second toe
and actually lost the nail (it has
grown back). In the foot care section of your local pharmacy you can find these foam tubes, like in the photo. You can cut this down to the size you need. I have not had any problems with my long second toes since wearing them.

I can not emphasize enough the importance of good socks. I discovered that old socks because of wear have slight variation in thickness and in shear stress that they apply to your foot. This uneven shear stress can also lead to blistering and sore spots on your feet. I developed blisters on both of my feet (how I treated them below). I realized that it may be from my socks so I bought very thick white socks and have not had the problem since then.

As I mentioned above I developed blisters on both feet. However, I didn't want this to stop me from walking. So I got a product called Moleskin. This is available in the foot care section of your pharmacy. I would cut it so it covered the sore area with a wide margin. Were I could hardly walk at a regular pace without the moleskin on. Once I placed it over the blister or any sore area I could not only walk, I could both power walk and stair climb (including jogging up the stairs).

So take good care of your feet when you do rapid walking, jogging or stair climbing. They are the only feet you'll ever have and I should know unfortunately I have to occasionally amputate the leg of a diabetic with gangrene. With the precautions I presented here you should be able to do any type of exercise. These are also great suggestions just for routine foot care.


Saturday, October 3, 2009

Weight Loss: The Second of Six Rules for Calorie Reduction.

No condiments or cream sauces except Vinegar, Mustard, Lemon Juice and oil free salsa. This rule is mostly directed at oil and mayonnaise based products and dairy/fat based pasta sauce/gravies or sauces/gravies for meat. These dressings and sauces can double or more the calories of a portion of food and not add anything toward making you feel full. There is actually evidence that high fat food can make you more hungry. I can tell you that since I have been reducing my calories to 1200 per day with eliminating all these condiments I have actually been less hungry then I was.

For salads I have converted to vinegar. There are so many gourmet vinegars out there. I particularly like balsamic vinegar but the various wine vinegars are also good. To take this as an example a large dinner salad (the type you would get at Applebees, without meat) may have 100-400 calories (mostly from croutons, eggs and cheese) before you add the dressing. The typical dressings will have 40-80 calories per tablespoon if not reduced fat and 20-40 per tablespoon (go to this sight and search 'salad dressings' or what ever you would like calorie count of). Typically 4-6 ounces will be used on a large salad so 320-720 calories for non reduced fat dressings and even 160-480 calories for the reduces fat dressings. Balsamic vinegar will add essentially zero calories. The funny thing is almost all the taste of a dressing is the vinegar and spices and very little is from the fat. I have been doing, while eating a salad almost everyday, and have not missed the fat based dressings at all.

Tuna fish and egg salad is many a carrier for mayonnaise. A typical sandwich will have 1/2 cup of tuna (120-150 cal) and 2-3 tablespoons of mayonnaise (200-300 cal) so 2/3 of you calories will be from the mayonnaise. Going to low-fat mayo (60-100 cal) you can be much more reasonable. Most tuna fish made in commercial locations use real Mayo or equivalent, so ask before you order a tuna, chicken, egg salad or any thing with mayo when you are out.

When ordering a sandwich you are faced with what to add as a condiment or cheese. Typically 2-3 tablespoons are placed on a sandwich again adding 2-300 calories to a 300 calorie sandwich doubling the calories and then adding cheese will add another 100-200 calories. So adding cheese and mayo to a turkey sandwich will make a 300 calorie sandwich 600-700 calories. Instead add veggies, lettuce, tomatoes, and others. For condiment add mustard or sprinkle on some vinegar or if you have to add a thin smear of low-fat low-cal mayo (1Tbsp = 30 calories).

All of those cream sauces and heavy gravies do make your food taste better. Have them occasionally (once a week at most). However, for the period of your diet try to avoid them. They cam double or triple the calorie count and again not make you feel less hungry but more hungry. Have a spoon full to get the taste if you want but instead use a tomato based sauce or gravy.

So think about the hidden calories that we forget to count when we try to figure how many calories we are eating. My recommendation is that for the period of your diet just avoid them.

Next Rule Three.