How To Control Your Appetite With Concentrated Nutrition

Food quality is the single most important variable in achieving permanent weight loss. You are what you eat. If you are going to make your body out of coffee, muffins and salads made of iceberg lettuce, your body will be in a constant state of “hungry”. There is a little mechanism in your brain that controls your appetite called the appestat. The purpose of the appestat is to determine if all of your nutritional requirements are being met. Unfortunately the prevalence of processed foods deprived of nutrition has sent most of our appestats into complete chaos. This is why obesity has become an epidemic in America today. Ironically, those who suffer from obesity are probably the most under nourished. This is because their appestat tells them to keep eating because the food in their diet lacks nutritional value. Therefore too many calories are consumed in an effort to get the proper daily nutrients.

The best way to control your appetite is to EAT ORGANIC WHOLE FOOD. Organic food has the highest concentration of nutrients per calorie. Make sure that you are eating a variety of organic produce i.e. fruits and vegetables.

How to Lose Fat

How To Stay Fat Forever

Fat Forever Formula: 
1. Rely on willpower
2. Starve yourself
3. Use your stomach as a garbage can
4. Follow the wrong leader
5. Don’t exercise or the wrong exercise
6. Believe in snake oil (quick weight loss)
7. Live like an idiot: don’t learn to take care of yourself
8. Get stuck in your ways
9. Write checks your ass can’t cash
10. Get down on yourself & stay there

Create your Metabolism

What is the ideal metabolism?

Is it being able to eat anything you want and not gain weight? Well not exactly.
For weight loss and health purposes, an ideal metabolism is where we can
effectively digest and utilize food without excessive conversion of calories to body fat. A healthy metabolism should also allow us to draw upon our body fat reserves when needed. The typical American diet has robbed us of the ability to use our own body fat for energy because of the excessive amounts of poor quality carbohydrates available to us. We are relying so heavily on sugar and sugar substitutes that our bodies see no need to use our own body fat for energy. It is this phenomenon called Syndrome X or Metabolic Syndrome that is causing a large number of health epidemics today, such as heart disease and Type II diabetes.

There are certain genetic factors that affect the way we process food. But there are many lifestyle factors that are within our control and they are;
1. Total Calorie intake
2. Meal Frequency
3. Macronutrient ratio i.e. Protein: Carbohydrate: Fat ratios.
4. Exercise

It is important to understand that all of the above factors are intimately connected to each other in regards to creating a healthy metabolism. We can control one or all of these variables to help create a metabolism that works for us instead of against us. #weightloss #physicalexcellence #yoyodieting

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Breathing and Core Strength: Make the Connection

 

Core stabilization and respiration during high performance activity requires that the respiratory mechanism, inner unit and outer unit function properly and in sequence with each other. The activation of the outer unit is inversely related to the action of respiration and diaphragmatic excursion. Therefore the more the outer unit is contracted the less efficient breathing becomes. Therefore to insure efficient ventilation during high performance activity, there must be sufficient strength in the inner unit to allow for use of respiratory mechanics.

In plain English, what the above statement means is this; If your inner core is weak, the body will compensate by using the outer core to stabilize the spine. When this happens breathing is compromised, which causes a stress response in the body. Because breathing will always override stabilization, a tug-of-war between breathing and stabilizing occurs. This causes the body to waste energy and ultimately lose performance and in most cases get injured.

Therefore to maximize both breathing and performance, both systems need to be functional separately and also when working together. #breathingandcoreareone

 

PE F.A.D Buster|Open Chain Exercises and Glute Development

 

“Trying to build a butt with fire hydrant kicks is like trying to sculpt marble with an emory board.”

Terrence Thomas

The gluteus maximus muscles is designed for power and large movements such as squatting, running, jumping, and lunging. Therefore to develop the glutes, these movements must be performed. Whose butt would you rather have? A marathoner’s or a sprinter’s like Flo-Jo’s?  One of the major differences in the two “runners” is the intensity and muscle fiber recruitment that each of them performs. The marathoner moves in a slow and steady pace utilizing slow twitch muscle fibers. On the other hand sprinting activates the fast twitch fibers, which the glutes are predominantly composed of. This puts the butt in a perfect position to respond favorably. The squat and lunge patterns are the best for developing and shaping the butt. All squatting and lunging is done in a closed chain pattern (i.e. the feet are on the earth and the leg is moving the body away form the earth). This allows the glutes to be used in the exact way in which they are designed. Closed chain exercises for the lower body also promote optimal neural drive in the muscle. to learn more about neural drive, refer to my neural drive article in RxMuscle that explains it all. #neuraldriveincreasemuscletone #closedchainexercise

 

Corrective Exercise|Back Pain: Straighten Out or Stiffen Up!

 

 

Joel E. Goldthwait states that “The nervous system is peculiarly protected by a bony covering against trauma from without, but is unprotected against mechanical trauma from within”. To expand this thought further, the musculoskeletal system fundamentally is unprotected from within. Mechanical stress is one of the key contributors to the onset or exacerbation of osteoarthritis. In plain English, this means that the majority of pain that people have is a result of the body being in poor position. When your body is out of place so to speak, nerves and blood vessels get compressed, waste products build up in a concentrated area and creates pain. If the thought of looking better and feeling better isn’t motivation enough to focus on your posture, then consider that it will help you get out of pain. With that being said, it’s not just about making your body as straight as you can. Taking your posture to the other extreme will create the same problems. The key is finding the balance or zero resistance point within your own body##

 

Four Tips to Squash the Cold and Flu Bug Before They Bite

Four Tips to Squash the Cold and Flu Bug Before They Bite.

By Terrence Thomas, Holistic Lifestyle Coach

The holiday season is upon us, which means food, parties, and of course the winter cold and flu. Spending time with family and friends is always fun and the holidays are meant to be a time of celebration and reflection. As exciting as the Holiday season is, it does come with its inherent stressors such as late night parties, excessive alcohol consumption and the wonderful holiday desserts. This is in addition to being right in the middle of cold and flu season. It is a bit ironic that the immune system will be suppressed at the very time that it needs to be at its peak efficiency.

In addition to colds and flu, consider that a large majority of health incidents such as heart attacks and strokes occur during the holidays. Studies have shown that the cardiovascular system is under great stress after a high fat meal. The arties actually go into spasm or constrict as a result of the excessive calorie consumption. If there is a pre-existing cardiovascular condition, a mega holiday meal can mean disaster for some.

I know what you’re thinking, “I don’t care what he says, I’m stuffing my face anyway!” Well I’m right there with you. However if you are going to play the game, you may as well know the rules. There are steps that you can take to help you navigate thru the rum cake and eggnog with minimal damage. With that said here are 4 principles that will give you a fighting chance at staying healthy during the holiday season.

 

 

Sleep; The optimal resting time is between 10:30pm and 6:00 am. This is the time of physical and psychological repair based on the body’s natural sleep and wake cycles. The time of physical repair for the body is between 10pm and 2am.You will be able to predict your likelihood for getting sick by the number of days that you go to bed late. The less time the body has to repair, the greater the chances of not being able to fight off infection.  Pace yourself when it comes to staying up late. If staying up late is unavoidable, a great way to catch up on lost “zzz” is to take 20 to 30 minute naps during the day. These naps are called “adrenal naps” because they are great for helping the adrenal glands recover from stress. The adrenal glands are very sensitive to sleeping patterns and they also play a major role in maintaining a healthy immune system. The adrenal glands are the body’s Vitamin-C reservoir and we must keep them healthy and strong to keep our resistance up.

Sugar; One (1) tablespoon of sugar will suppress the immune system for 4 hours. Consider that the average American consumes about 150 pounds of sugar per year. I truly believe that this one fact is the reasons for the increasing rates of disease.

Sugar consumption is a problem for most during any time of the year but it can be a significant source of stress during the holiday season. Just like sleep, choose your sugar battles wisely. If you plan on indulging, exercise can reduce the sugar spikes. Exercise will help shunt or redirect some of extra sugar into usable glycogen or muscle fuel. If you can time your workouts so that you are eating your sweets no later than 3 hours after the workout, you may be able to take advantage of this “sugar shunting” technique.

Another tip is to eat all the major food groups before you start on your dessert. When we expose our taste buds to a variety of tastes and textures, it creates powerful sense of satiety. This will prevent you from overeating when it is time for dessert. Sample the different foods that are available. If you can get a small green salad, a cooked vegetable, a protein source and a complex carbohydrate source, this will expose the palate to all the necessary tastes and textures to satisfy the appetite center in the brain. Eating in this manner will make dessert even more enjoyable in my opinion because it then becomes the “cherry on top” rather than filling in a nutritional deficit.

Supplements; The reality is that we will all indulge during the holiday. This brings with it the increased consumption “non-foods”.  Another name for non-foods is called displacing foods, which means that the body must expend its own nutritional resources to process the non-food.  An easy way to fill in the holiday nutrition gaps is through supplementation. Supplementation should be in a natural and whole food form.  Increase your intake of antioxidants to boost immune capacity and support the processing of non-foods.

Suppression Detection; early detection of a potential bug can save you days of sick time and missing out on the holiday festivities. At the first sign of a tickle in your throat or runny nose, begin to relax before the tickle becomes a full-blown cold. Being able to detect a cold or flu is simply about self-awareness. When you wake in the morning, notice if your nose is runny or if your lymph nodes are swollen. In regards to lymph nodes, if the lurking bug is a head cold, the nodes in the neck will often swell. A lung or “chest” cold will often cause the nodes in the axilla or “armpits” to become overactive. It is not uncommon for people to experience arm or should pain just prior to an infection. The point is to mind your body or your body will do it for you.

Keep these 4 tips in mind as you enjoy this holiday and winter season. As simple as they are, they will keep you in the game with a smile on your face and eggnog in hand.

 

Terrence Thomas draws from 20 years of experience in health coaching, and exercise instruction.  The author of “Get Fit Now and Feel Great Forever, his company Hallandale based Expert Fitness Solutions gives clients control over the way they look, feel and perform by teaching the 6 foundational principles of health, fitness and vitality. For your complimentary Holistic Health Inventory contact Terrence at tt@physicalexcellence.org. 

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