My new personal hero is 70 year old MMA fighter John Williams who in his pro fighting debut tapped out his 20  year younger opponent in the second round. If you are not familiar with MMA (mixed martial arts) it is an extreme form of professional fighting that combines boxing, kick boxing, real (not fake acting) wrestling, judo, and ju-jitsu. It requires extreme fitness, flexibility, and mental toughness.  His quote below speaks for all of us who are determined to keep our mojo alive as we grow older.

“The point of life is living it. And I tell you, I got in that cage and I felt alive. I felt human again. You get that thing over your head, people think you’re 70 and you don’t know shit. They don’t bother to get to know you. I like Eminem. I like rap music. …Mentally, I feel the same as I did when I was 30. I like the same kind of cars and the same kinds of women. Nothing’s changed for me, but there’s this stereotype. You don’t change, but they try and make you fit a mold and be something you don’t want to be, which is an old person. Not me. I’ve been a fighter all my life.”

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Prevention.com has come up with 10 Metabolism Killers, the inverse of which are 10 Ways to Increase your Metabolism. Click on the link for the details, but here is the summary:

1) Make sure you are eating enought calories

2) Don’t be afraid of caffeine

3) Avoid white carbs

4) Drink ice cold water

5) Eat organic

6)  Eat protein in every meal

7) Lift weights

Take a multi-vitamin

9) Avoid alcohol

10) Eat dairy

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Dr. Oz, who always (ok mostly anyway) gives sound health advice, came up with these keys to longevity once you get past 50……seems like exercise and diet………..oooh where have we heard that before.

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Southwest Air adopted a  ”customer of size policy” 25 years ago that requires passengers that cannot fit safely and comfortably in one seat to purchase an additional seat while traveling.  If anyone has had to give up a portion of their seat on an airplane to a person whose fat hangs over into their seat on a long flight, they can appreciate the courage of Southwest to have such a policy in today’s politically correct world.

Director Kevin Smith was recently a victim of this policy and has “vowed never to fly Southwest again”.  Now if only we could get all the other airlines to adopt this policy we could ground Kevin forever.

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This from Dr. Oz, “If a 50-something man could have sex 700 times a year, the exercise and stress reduction would make him look and feel years younger. I wouldn’t recommend quitting your day job in order to hit that number—but what’s the harm in trying? The next time your loved one says she has a headache, tell her she’s literally killing you. It works for me.”

Dr. Oz has even developed an 8 times a week sex schedule to help you figure out how to work it in. 

To eamil this post to your significant other, click on the title and cut and paste the web address into your email…………. or email the author dennis@healthjag.com

A new study by a distinguished group of Australian health professionals found that people who spent more than four hours a day sitting in front of the TV were 80 per cent more likely to die from a cardiovascular related disease than those who watched less than two hours. Tracking the lifestyle habits of 8,800 adults over the past seven years, researchers also found they were also moderately more at risk of dying from cancer. And the study accounted for other factors such as smoking, so the association appears to be that the sedentary act of sitting in front of the TV for long periods of time is life threatening. The researchers didn’t test whether excessive tv watching had a similar effect on brain cells.

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I am the poster boy for super-sizing. I grew up in the 1960’s when McDonald’s corporate plan was to put a store on every block. Yes, I am picking on McDonald’s,  but only because this was the fast food that I grew up with and the only fast food I really knew until I was an adult.  I remember the first McDonald’s in my neighborhood.  With its golden arches, glass enclosed lobby, and gleaming stainless steel counters, we thought an alien space ship had landed that served burgers, fries, sodas, and shakes. And actually that was ALL that McDonald’s served when it first opened; small, portion controlled hamburgers, small portion controlled fries and small sodas. McDonald’s celebrated their grand opening by putting a coupon in the local paper for a free milkshake. In those days everyone subscribed to the local daily paper, so my friend and I went door to door the next day and collected the previous days papers from our neighbors. We each downed a dozen free milkshakes and suffered an evening of severe stomach cramps. But in our minds unlimited milkshakes was worth the pain.

I was reflecting on this when I recently analyzed the McDonald’s menu for the drive-thru diet posts on this blog. In those days, a meal of a McDonald’s hamburger, small fry, and small coke ran 685 calories. Hardly a healthy meal, but manageable. Fast forward to 2009. Hardly anyone orders a McDonald’s hamburger  or a small fry anymore. That sandwich is considered so small that it is relegated to the children’s Happy Meal. And McDonald’s recently ran a promotion where the 32 ounce drink was 99 cents, which was actually less than the small size. In 2009 ,the typical average adult meal at McDonald’s consists of a Big Mac, large fry, and large coke, and comes in at a whopping 1,370 calories, exactly double my satisfying fast food treat from 1963. And although I am using McDonald’s as an example, it is only the prototypical example of all corporate fast food and sit down restaurants. The bottle of Coca-cola that I grew up with was 6.5 ounces. The average bottle that you purchase in a convenience store is between 20 and 32 ounces, a four fold increase.

Given these facts, it is actually amazing that only 1/3 of Americans are classified as obese and only 2/3 are overweight. It is popular for us to blame our obesity on stress eating, depression, or unhappiness. From my point of view our obesity is caused by our evolutionary craving for food that drove our hunter-gatherer ancestors to spend their entire existence looking for food, combined with our scientific ability to engineer artificial foods that satisfy our most basic cravings without the satiation that comes with nutrients. Add to that cocktail the unbelievable ability of humans to market to each other, and the unlimited (relatively speaking) ability of the average American to afford to purchase calories, and it’s actually amazing that obesity isn’t closer to 100%.

Although hunting for food with a gun is still practiced in parts of our country, the most common weapon for hunting now is the automobile.  We cruise the suburban savannah in our SUV’s, spotting our food sources grazing on the edges of the boulevard.  Our prey aren’t camoflaged by their surroundings, they invite us to hunt them with signs that brag about the billions and billions of their kind that have been downed before.  And there are no limits to the amount of our prey that we can take home. Our limits are our pocketbooks, and as obesity statistics show, money is not a limiting factor for calorie consumption.

So the question is, what human motivation is stronger than our evolutionary need to binge on food, stronger than the easy accessibility of calories, stronger than multi-billion dollar advertsiing budgets?  What motivates people to engage in a  healthy lifestyle in the face of all that is stacked against us? Are most of us doomed by our DNA controlled  propensity for instant gratification? Maybe not. The obesity rate in Japan is about 3.5% compared to over 30% in the U.S. The average citizen of Japan consumes over 200 caloires less per day than the average American. It seems to me that we have created a culture of unhealthy eating in our country. Over the last year, we have focused the debate in this country on our health care delivery system and costs. But the number one health care problem in this country is obesity. Obesity by itself is the source of the majority of our country’s health care costs. And this problem has gotten little attention from the government.  A few years ago, we declared a government sponsored “war on drugs”.  And although this war has not been successful, we have been fairly successful in indoctrinating our children in the dangers of drugs through the DARE school drug education programs.

Until we recognize that obesity is a severe national problem, as severe as cigarette smoking and drugs, we cannot begin the cultural change that is required for us to slim down.  For example, I have noticed that it is not politically correct to criticize people who are obese. In the 1960’s smoking was part of our culture. It was promoted through advertising and protected by the government. It would have been unthinkable to outlaw smoking in public places. Has the time finally come for us to treat obesity like cigarettes? It is a choice that turns into an addiction. It causes severe health problems, costs our country billions of dollars that we cannot afford, and if we don’t prevent our children from getting hooked, then they all become unhealthy obese adults.

I came to realize over a period of time that being fat made me less attractive, less able to do the active things I wanted to do, and was going to become more and more of a problem as I grew older.  But we are all fighting an uphill battle living in a culture that promotes obesity and doesn’t treat it for what it is. Until we can turn our culture around, each of us are fighting the battle as an army of one.

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Weight Watchers International has sued its rival Jenny Craig, charging that it lied in an advertising campaign that said its weight-loss program was superior to Weight Watchers.

A television advertisement featured a spokeswoman, Valerie Bertinelli, in a lab coat saying that ”a major clinical trial” had shown that ”Jenny Craig clients lost, on average, over twice as much weight as those on the largest weight-loss program”, which referred to Weight Watchers, a complaint filed in federal court in New York on Tuesday said.

”The Jenny Craig advertisements are false,” Weight Watchers said. ”Jenny Craig did not conduct ‘a major clinical trial’ comparing its product with the Weight Watchers program.”

Weight Watchers, which is based in New York, asked the court to stop Jenny Craig, a unit of the Swiss company Nestle, from using advertisements claiming that its weight-loss program was superior. It also seeks damages.

Weight Watchers said the start of the year was ”a critical time for weight-loss companies” because people sought to stick to their New Year’s resolutions to lose weight.

Couldn’t we just settle this with a wrestling match between spokespersons Valerie Bertinelli and Jenny McCarthy?

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In a study published in the Journal of Nutrition , over 100 overweight adults who consumed the equivalent of 4 cups of green tea per day lost more overall weight and abdominal fat than a control group of non-green tea drinkers.  All members of the study participated in an exercise program. Many other health benefits of green tea have been well documented. Green tea’s antioxidants, called , scavenge for free radicals that can damage DNA and contribute to cancer, blood clots, and atherosclerosis.  If you prefer iced tea, HealthJag previously reviewed reviewed a great diet green iced tea made by Lipton.

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A weight loss study conducted by Jeff Volek, Ph.D, an exercise researcher and nutritionist at the University of Connecticut, is cited in the current issue of Men’s Health magazine.  Dr. Volek conducted a three group study with participants following a reduced-calorie diet.  One of the groups followed no exercise program, one group followed an aerobic exercise program and one group followed an exercise regimen of both aerobic and weight training. All of the groups in the study averaged the same amount of weight loss, 21 pounds after 12 weeks. However, the participants who followed weight training lost 5 more pounds of fat than the other groups. In the other groups, 25% of the weight lost was muscle. In the group that did weight training, virtually all of the lost weight was fat.  This illustrates why dieting can be harmful to your health. If you are not careful, you will destroy the very parts of your body that are responsible for your strength and your vitality (you don’t really want to lose strength from your heart muscle , do you).  If you are going to diet, the only way to conserve muscle is to do weight training.

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Wouldn’t it be great to get paid to lose weight? An innovative new website has created a system to do just that. Healthywage.com  has created a system which gets corporate sponsors to give a cash reward to obese users who during a specified time period move from an unhealthy to a healthy body mass index (BMI). (This typically translates into a weight loss of between 30 and 80 lb.) Members can either sign up for free – according to a company rep, the final deadline to enter the next 12-month challenge is Jan. 20 – and win $100 or “super-size” their weight-loss incentives by ”betting” some of their own money.  The website also has a plethora of weight loss tools to help its members reach their goals.

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Most health tips require you to deprive yourself of something you really enjoy or to get out there and work up a sweat. However, there is a way that all of us can improve our health without depriving ourselves of anything. Getting enough sleep is one of the most important things you can do to improve your health.  Most experts recommend 7-9 hours of sleep at night. Lack of sufficient sleep has been linked to lower immune systems, weight gain and even to higher incidences of cancer and cardiovascular disease. HealthJag is adding a regular feature on how to improve your sleep, or as I like to call it, the lazy man’s health tips.

Today’s tip is to make sure you sleep in a very dark room. Light is one of the body’s most powerful time cues. Any light while you are trying to sleep can cue your body that it is time to stop sleeping. A dark room is the most conducive for sleep – day or night. Even a night light or light from the bathroom can disrupt your normal sleep cycle. Darkness is also required for your body to maximize its production of melatonin, which protects your immune system. So make sure that your room is completely dark.  It’s okay if your room lets in natural light as the sun rises as this will let you awake naturally, but you want to eliminate as much light as possible during your normal sleep cycle.

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Perennial Pro-Bowler and future Hall of Famer,  NFL tight end Tony Gonzalez is one of the strongest, fastest and most agile tight ends in NFL history. But the average NFL athlete attains muscle mass through a diet high in protein and animal fat, and many of them pay the price of cardiovascular disease upon retirement.  Concerned about his long term  health outlook, Tony decided to embark on an unheard of plan in the world of the NFL.  He decided to go Vegan. However, he found that a truly vegan diet could not sustain the weight and muscle mass required to perform in the  NFL.  He has now modified his vegan diet  with the help of nutritionist Mitzi Dulan, to add healthy animal proteins along with plant proteins in sufficient amounts to sustain the huge muscle power required in his profession, and still maintain a low level of fat in his diet. His new book, The All-Pro Diet,Gonzalez explains the program that can give you the body of a Mr. Universe with the cholesteral level of a vegetarian monk. His secrets are things we have heard before:  limit animal and trans fats, processed food, and simple carbohydrates. Make sure you are eating complex carbs, healthy fats, and healthy proteins.  And of course an NFL workout to build those muscles. It is definitely a great diet for someone who wants both a sculpted body and good health. Sort of like having your cake and eating it too………..as long as the cake is high protein, multi-grain, and sugar free.

A  new study has concluded that exercise is not of much value when trying to lose weight, because most people compensate for the calorie burning activities  by eating more. PLoS ONE, the nonprofit Public Library of Science, published a Study that was run by Dr. Timothy Church, Professor of Health at LSU.  This study followed 464 overweight women who were trying to lose weight, some were involved in an exercise program, while others were not.  The study concluded that the women who worked out did not lose significantly more weight than the ones that did not,  and Dr. Church concluded that the reason for this was that the exercising women consumed more calories than the ones that did not. However, the headlines that this study has made on the internet kind of miss two really important points. The real point of exercise is fitness and health, weight loss may or may not be a side effect. What you eat and how much of it determines how much weight you lose. So while diet and exercise are important to your health, weight is only one component of this puzzle. The other important point is that exercise may allow you to consume those guilty pleasures that your enjoy so much WITHOUT gaining weight, and in that way add a dimension to the quality of your life. Kind of like having your cake and eating it too!

As part of our “in-home workout” series we are showing you how to stay fit when you don’t have access to a gym or gym equipment. We have already shown you the pushup,  crunches, and Dr. Oz’s yoga based workout. Here is a video from Kyle Brayer at Expert Village showing you how to do a dip at home using just one or two chairs. These are all great workouts you can do at home while you are watching tv with no special equipment.

You can buy one of those contraptions that will help you get washboard abs, but good luck trying to fit it in your suitcase if you are traveling. Instead, just lay on the floor, turn on “Dancing with the Stars”, and get that six pack while you are enjoying D list celebrities make fools of themselves. Thanks to www.fitness.scoobysworkshop.com for the cool video.

“Let’s Play Two!” was Hall of Fame Chicago Cub Ernie Banks catch phrase reflecting that he got so much joy from  playing baseball that he wanted to play a doubleheader every day. Did you know that the number one incentive given to police dogs in their training to master the tasks of sniffing out drugs or criminals is the incentvie to play ball? For dogs, the pleasure of play is a bigger motivator than food or sex.  Many of us have trouble keeping ourselves motivated to workout. Our workouts become a chore and drudgery. That’s because our workouts have ceased being part of our play. The most effective workout is the one that you can’t wait to get a chance to do again. You can make it part of the play in your life. Just find a physical activity that you really enjoy and do it regularly. Join a baseball or softball league, a bicycling group, train for a 5k or a 10k or even a marathon. Join a swim club……………….find a physical activity that you can be passionate about. You can take the work out of your workout!

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
- George Bernard Shaw

Can you really get fit with just a 7 minute morning workout? Dr. Oz, Oprah’’s Health Guru thinks so. His 7 minute morning workout regimen relies heavily on yoga poses and pushups. It looks like it would be a great workout to increase flexibility and balance, but it’s sure not going to do much to build muscle or cardio fitness. In fact it is the antithesis of the 2-3 hour Tiger Woods daily workout regimen that we profiled yesterday. What do you think?

You know those inspiring motivational posters with witty sayings  that you see in bookstores? Well, props to my motorcycle riding buddy Dan for sending me this link to a website to make your own motivational poster. It can be inspiring, or just funny, or even perverse.  Have fun with it and send me any of your creations  you make at bighugelabs.com

Thanks to ultrafirebike at advrider.com for the cool motivational poster shown here.

When I originally wrote this post back in July 2009, the entirety of Tiger’s workout regimen was not known. Now that we know his workouts were not limited to the driving range and the gym, his fitness is even more impressive. As it turns out, the Men’s Fitness magazine article cited in this post was a quid pro quo for not publishing info about his affair in a sister publication.  It is still informative, however.  His gym workout involves 2-3 hours of high intensity workouts and weight training 6 days a week.  But if you want to add 30 pounds of muscle (that’s right 30 pounds of muscle since he was a scrawny rookie on the PGA tour), that’s what you would have to do.  Men’s Fitness magazine gives the lowdown in this article excerpted at espn.com.

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If you are traveling or otherwise away from home, you can still get a really good workout without going outside and with no equipment. You can even add this workout to your evening tv viewing. Just do an “aerobic pushup”. An aerobic pushup is a regular military pushup with the addition of the side plank. With this exercise you can get your heart rate up to your target aerobic rate and keep it there for as many reps as you can do. Pushups are a great total body exercise, in fact a recent survey of personal trainers identified pushups as the one exercise most would do if they could only do one exercise. Watch the video and then try it!

Two years ago my sedentary lifestyle and poor diet left me unable to effectively fight the everyday battles that life brings.  It had sapped my physical energy levels, drained my  intellectual energy levels and affected my personal relationships. I felt that if I had totally lost control of everything in my life, and didn’t know how to regain it.  Many of the self-help books and tips that I read told me that control over your life is an illusion anyway so you have to learn to accept this reality.  But for a control freak, that is not an acceptable answer. I know that I can’t control how the economy is affecting my life, and I can’t control the choices that other people make that affect me.  But as I thought about it, I came to realize that there are a few things in my life that I can control. I CAN control the choices I make each day of what to put into my mouth, and the choices I make about my daily activities, and the choices I make about what I am thinking. And these choices have a major impact on the quality of my life, in spite of the fact that the rest of the universe seems indifferent to my existence. So I chose to end my crying jag and begin something more productive: a HealthJag. Continue reading »