The Sins of the Fathers (and Mothers)

In the Bible, a number of times, it is stated that the sins of the father will be felt for three generations. I intend to not let that happen. I never met my grandfather and my Dad went through life pretty sinless. As was the custom in England when they were born, however, both my father and my mother had all of their teeth removed when they turned 21 and they were replaced with dentures. Because of that, they were perhaps not as tuned in as they should have been to the importance of going to the dentist and regular dental care and as a child, I sure wasn’t going to say, “Hey, let’s go to the dentist”.

Hence, my history of bad dental experience stories, the most recent of which was Christmas Eve morning. This story actually began at Thanksgiving when for some unknown reason, I had a really bad toothache in one of my front teeth, continued on my birthday on December 8th when one of my teeth cracked while eating dinner and culminated by having a root surgically removed from that tooth which by this time had broken off completely.

So as I sat in the dentist’s office with my 3 year old Grace watching because she wanted to go to take care of me, I kept thinking, this will never happen to her. In addition, the $320.00 bill was a huge blow to our budget and I felt very remorseful that I had to spend that money on me because I hadn’t pursued regular dental care.

How does this relate to you? Are you overweight? Are you sedentary? Are you unhealthy or have lifestyle pursuits that will either impact your health or shorten your lifespan? Are these “sins” that will impact your children? Will your health care expenses impact their quality of life? Will your physical condition impact how you can interact with your children in terms of playing with them or doing activities or sports with them? Will you die at an earlier age because you smoke or drink or from an obesity related health problem?

The sin of my father was not insisting that I get good dental care and it was a matter of ignorance and certainly not intentional. Although I exercise regularly, eat organically and have no lifestyle “sins”, my dental problems are directly impacting my children and that “sin” ended on Christmas Eve when I saw the deeply concerned look on my daughter’s face.

The sins of this father will not afflict my children to even one generation and I hope that you begin thinking of your children, too, by focusing on your own health and your fitness. Start an exercise program today, eat to fuel your body’s activities and bring your body to an ideal weight. If you drink, drink in moderation. If you smoke, quit today. If you don’t get regular medical check ups and dental check ups, start making them a priority your life. Preventive medicine and a healthy lifestyle will clear your conscience and assure that your “sins” of the body will not afflict you or your children.

Too Lazy to Walk to “Safety”?

I know a Hungarian man in his fifties who fled Communist Hungary on foot. He believes, among other things, that poor people are poor because they are lazy. I would strongly disagree on many levels, but also because in terms of material wealth, I am poor, and I am a workaholic. He sells carpet and does exceptionally well financially. I promote fitness and health and just make ends meet (although in terms of having touched many people’s lives in a positive way, I feel very wealthy). Apparently, people would rather buy new carpet than invest in better quality of life.

The reason that I mention this person, whom I will call “Andy” is because of a conversation that I will always remember having with him. It was just after Katrina and I was lamenting the fate of all of the people who could not leave before the hurricane arrived. Andy’s response was, and relating it to his departure from Hungary under the threat of Communism, “Ve valked to escape” and he adamantly and honestly believed that people would have survived if they simply had walked out of New Orleans.

So what is the point of this blog? People could not have simply walked out of New Orleans to safety for many, many reasons, so I strongly disagree with Andy. He felt that they were just too lazy (since a disproportionate number of poor people lost their lives) to walk. The way that I do agree with Andy, however, is if that more people invested in their health and fitness, they would have better quality of life and a significantly greater ability to confront and overcome challenges in their lives. Whether it was walking up a flight of stairs, around the block, playing outside with their kids or having the energy and positive attitude to find a better job or advance in their present job.

At a time of year that has lost its meaning and instead is all about shopping and buying gifts, aren’t you worth enough to invest in your own health and wellbeing? It would be an investment that would pay off a hundred fold and you and everyone around you would benefit. And God forbid, if a Katrina like challenge came into your life, you would be able to walk, or run, to safety.

Living Healthy On A Healthy Planet

Two bumper stickers caught my eye today. One was “All One Planet” and the other was, “Well, he’s winning the war on the environment”. Howtobefit.com, the driving force behind this blog, is a green company and I am very proud to be able to say that and will continue to do whatever I can and need to do to be very “green”. What is the point of being a passionate proponent of being healthy and fit if we live on an unhealthy planet that is dying because of its unhealthy “lifestyle”.

I am also very proud to say that Product Partners, the parent company of Million Dollar Body, is going green and I would like to present the details of the “health plan” for the company from Carl Daikeler.

Call Us Gang Green

“Go Green” is the motto at Beachbody and Million Dollar Body parent, Product Partners. This year we decided that we would focus on making sure that our activity as a company and as individuals does not “take” from our host (Planet Earth), but instead contributes to it’s ability to sustain life.It’s a pretty incredible thing, when you think about it… that this planet has everything we need to live. Our job as guests is to make sure we don’t kill it in the process. But in general, mankind has managed to expand and use up resources at such a rate and in such a way that we’re actually making it LESS inhabitable.

Well, just like Product Partners creates products and services that help people achieve their goals to lead a healthy fulfilling life, now we’re making sure that our activity as such supports that in every way. We have hired a great guy named Rob Kramer to work with us to help transform the company into an eco-conscious, sustainable (meaning - all our efforts contribute to the planet’s livability, rather than undermine it), “green” company that collectively reduces its impact on our environment and our health.Jon Congdon and my desire for making Product Products green is significant and personal. We like to do stuff outside, in the actual sun. We like to enjoy the water. We like to breathe. We like to drink water and eat food that doesn’t poison us. We like animals. We like toys without lead in them. We like the way the “unknowable genius” behind the ecosystem works. Together, we will take the Core Values of Product Partners and apply them to creating sustainable practices, purchases, products, packages and resources throughout the company.Whether it’s converting all paper products to 100% recycled materials, reducing energy consumption through new systems, materials or procedures, or transforming product packaging into the first environmentally-sustainable DVD products in the health and fitness market, we have an enormous opportunity and responsibility to TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW. The investment will be real, and real significant.To that end, I appreciate your willingness and support in working with Rob and the rest of the Product Partners staff to turn the company into THE most sustainable, eco-conscious company in our industry, if not ALL industry. (Step away from the copy machine!)One of the ways we started was to improve our recycling habits. Another way was to replace the holiday card mailing with an eCard. And to everyone who sends us the traditional bottle of holiday wine as a gift, we have asked that in lieu of gifts that they dedicate a tree or a grove of trees to the spirit of the holidays at Tree People.

Even my seven year old daughter Ava got into the act. When I described to her what we were doing, and how important it is for us to conserve energy and reduce pollution, she came up with the idea of asking Santa not to waste paper wrapping our gifts, and instead to use gift bags that we would leave next to the cookies. (I apologize if Santa is late to your house, since he’ll need to stop to stuff gifts into bags ant my house… but hey - it’s for the environment!)

You can do a lot too. From time to time I’ll be posting Rob’s suggestion’s on this blog, including these tips he published to our company this week:

Tip 1: Buy LED Holiday Lights. These use 90% less energy, have a 50,000-hour bulb life that’s 40 times longer than regular bulbs.

Tip 2: Use Biodegradable Bags for your trash, such as biobags. Purchase at Eco-Products.

Tip 3: Use Compostable Plates/Utensils for your holiday party. Purchase at Eco-Products.

Tip 4: Use Soy or Beeswax-based Candles for your celebration, rather than paraffin wax candles, which require fossil fuels in their production and often have lead in the wick. (Plus - when you burn paraffin candles, it’s like a Mac truck is running it’s fumes throughout your home… “deck the halls with CO2 emissions!” Purchase at FindSoyCandles.

Tip 5: Wrap Gifts in eco-friendly ways such as using reusable fabric, using recycled wrapping paper, or reusing magazines, paper, and bags to make your own wrapping.

Tip 6: Give Eco-Friendly Gifts and fair trade handicrafts that support good cause. Purchase at Eco Friendly Gifts or The Y Catalog.

Tip 7: Make Plenty (HEALTHY) of Food and fill up your freezer with the leftovers, as a full freezer requires less energy than a partially full freezer.

Tip 8: Use Eco-Friendly Green Cleaning Products after your party. Purchase at Eco-Products.

Tip 9: Serve Organic fair trade coffee to your guests.

Tip 10: Carpool to events and parties.

Tip 11: Recycle. The Product Partners recycling bins have arrived. Please get in the habit of using them to recycle paper, glass, cans, ink cartridges, etc.

Tip 12: Buy Organic Meat for your holiday cooking (OR) Eat Lower on the Food Chain and Cook Vegetarian. A vegetarian and organic diet requires thousands of gallons of less water, and no harmful pesticides and chemicals in the soil.

Tip 13: Shop at the Local Farmer’s Market for your holiday cooking needs, and bring your own bags. The less far a product travels to get to you, the less fuel was consumed to satisfy that demand.

Tip 14: For Cards, Invitations, etc., choose alternatives to virgin tree fiber paper such as recycled paper or hemp paper. Purchase at Green Field Paper. Of course, the best invite is an Email Invite or Evite.

Tip 15: Use Recycled Objects to make crafts and ornaments with your children.

Tip 16: Ask for Eco-Gifts that will help you lead a more healthy and eco-friendly life.

Tip 17: Choose Less Consumption and more giving this holiday season. Do a Community Service Project.

Please note that these are just suggested options and stores—we are not in any way affiliated with or officially endorsing any of these options.

Posted by Carl Daikeler on December 19, 2007

Sick Like Me

I am not overweight (see Fat Like Me below) and I am a Caucasian male, so I am not black (as in the book, Black Like Me), but I am sick most of the time. An odd thing for a fitness coach to confess, but, because of one of those unforeseen happenings in life, I have been sick for the last 22 years. You can read the long version of why in “About” (above) or I can just tell you that on a Friday night in May 1985, I hit a van broadside and my health was irrevocably ruined. I have some good stretches, but my health changes quickly and I never know how long the good periods are going to last. I went from being a super fit competitive runner to making excuses for why I couldn’t run or didn’t have the vitality that I had before.

So how can I give you advice on fitness and health? Because next to my family, my health and fitness are the most important things in the world to me and I do whatever it takes to have the best quality of life that I can. I relentlessly pursue the best nutrition plans to nourish my body, including eating all organic, have no lifestyle issues like smoking, drinking or drugs and consume an array of vitamins and supplements that should, together, make me the healthiest person on the planet.

Yet stress and poor sleep combine to wreak havoc with my health and now, for instance, my white blood cell count is so low that I have been quite ill for over six weeks. My work ethic and running two online businesses don’t allow for time off and I simply continue on in an act of my will against my ill and so far I am winning.

I am beginning to realize the foolishnesses of being so driven to succeed, however, and I am making small concessions to being human. Today, for instance, I cut the number of blogs that I have in half and virtually all of my readers are being directed to this one blog. With Christmas day falling on a Tuesday, it also means that orders will slow down now and I can focus much more on enjoying the season. Combined with having seen a master herbologist yesterday and some adjustments to what I am taking to keep this now old body going, by next week I may be able to embark on another period of reasonable health.

You as my readers will always benefit from the knowledge that I gain in my life’s journey and I am always anxious to pass it on to you for the purpose of enriching your life.

Fat Like Me

In 1961, journalist John Howard Griffin wrote the book, “Black Like Me“, from the diary he kept while posing as a black man travelling in racially segrated Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. I started to write an article, which will follow, about the risks of being overweight and obese, but those physical consequences pale in comparison to the emotional pain that the individuals in this story experienced. I wrote, “So much is written about being overweight and the risks of being overweight and everyone has a solution. But is it really a health problem? If you are overweight, only you really know how you feel. Doctors can tell you what the consequences are and list things such as hypertension, high total cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and having some forms of cancer.

You can either take the risk and find out if the researchers, statisticians and doctors are right or not or you can do something about it. Russian roulette is a game of risk with potentially lethal consequences. Being overweight or obese is also a game of risk that can have potentially lethal consequences from heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer. Who really knows why the loser in Russion roulette chose to play the game (since they are dead and you can’t ask them) and who really knows why someone would choose to be overweight if they had a means to lose weight that was both fun and rewarding.

But who am I to attempt to explain why you shouldn’t be overweight or obese. At the end of the day, John Howard Griffith could blend back into the white south. I will never know if the challenges and risks of obesity are real because I will never experience them. Only you, if you are overweight or obese, know the joys and sorrows. But reading from the story, “Incredible Shrinking Couple Loses 580 Pounds“, I gained some insight -

“Obesity took an emotional and physical toll on the couple.

Andy says people constantly teased him about his weight and he eventually withdrew. He battled depression and took anti-depressants for seven years.

Maggie, on the other hand, tried to conceal her misery by making other people laugh.

‘I was so depressed and so miserable. I was always the funny fat girl, but on the inside I was miserable,” recalls Maggie. “It held me back in many ways and I started to accept it as being genetic and felt this was just the way I was going to be.’”

Life is about choices and Maggie and Andy decided to make a change. If your life is anything like their’s was and you want it to change, I hope that you make the decision sooner rather than later.

Visualize Your Perfect Day

My perfect day starts at 4:00 am (literally) and waking up rested and refreshed (almost never with a 3 year old and a 1 year old). I get a big glass of water, a cup of coffee, do some work on the computer and then do my P90X workout. I come home, shower dress have breakfast with my family and spend the rest of the day helping others to become more fit and healthy with Polar heart rate monitors and workout and healthy lifestyle guidance from Million Dollar Body. At 4:00 pm, I ship my orders and then do my run.  From sunrise to sunset, I am involved with fitness, helping others to achieve their fitness and health goals and making a living and supporting my family. My perfect day is also a perfect life.

Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul Series, suggests that you, too, can not only visualize a perfect, but also have a perfect life. “Every person on the earth has the same number of hours in the day to work with. I have 24 hours, Bill Gates has 24 hours and so do you. It is up to each individual to decide how to occupy every minute. We can waste our days sleeping late, watching television, hating our jobs and wishing for a better life. Or we can spend most of the time we have been given creating that better life – a world devoted to improving ourselves and the lives of others. How do you want to spend your days? You have the power to live each day exactly the way you want to live it. Think about that - the resources to create the life you desire lie within your mind.”

“The truth of the matter is, you are either living your life the way you envision it, or you’re living your life the way someone else is envisioning it. Don’t you think it’s time for you to take control and begin fulfilling your own dreams?”

You’re probably saying, ‘Yes! Of course I want to live my dream life, Mark. But I don’t know where to begin.’ Well, you begin at the beginning.

First, you have to realize that the power to having everything you’ve ever wanted exists within you. There is no other person on the planet who can do it for you. Heck, I’d love to be able to give you what you want simply by blinking my eyes, but I can’t. Only you have that ability. I can show you the door to living your dreams, but you have to walk through it.

Second, you have to have a clear vision of what your perfect life looks like. That entails you visualizing and writing down exactly what you want on a daily basis.

And third, you must believe that your perfect life will manifest itself and become your reality. Remember, whether you believe something is possible or not, you’re right.

‘Set your goals – What do I want ideally? – add your ‘why’ – Why must I have it? – and your subconscious mind mystically supplies the ‘how.’

Results Based Motivation To Succeed

I’m Carl Daikeler, CEO of Product Partners, a marketing company which has specialized in developing fitness and weight loss products under the Beachbody brand since 1998.  My CEO motivation was to become a “walking billboard” for the business, and it occurred to us that my CEO-motivation to succeed could be replicated by other customers if we created a “business opportunity” model making customers the CEO of their own fitness and weight loss store. The result is The Million Dollar Body Network - where customers become coaches, with their own storefront, a steady flow of prospects, and the best pricing on the most visible fitness systems on television.

What is exciting about that is, there is no shortage of prospects. We hear a lot about the growing epidemic of obesity. 60 Million people in the US qualify as “obese”, and tens of million more as overweight. Now with your participation on this new level, by finding your inner CEO-motivation to succeed, we might have enough incentive to replace the epidemic of disease and debt with an “Epidemic of Fitness, Health and Wealth“.

The Million Dollar Body Network (MDB) is an exclusive peer-to-peer business opportunity giving coaches a commission for helping us keep new customers on track and for generating sales of Beachbody’s products. It is a bold initiative in an industry that is hypnotized by its thinking the only marketable solutions are gym memberships, equipment gimmicks, and diet fads. In this way, I hope MDB will represent a redistribution of millions of dollars of wealth from gyms and fad brokers to the people who do the REAL heavy lifting of motivation; To the customers-turned coaches who help people to keep pushing play and eating right each day!

That’s how MDB is the first network marketing business of its kind - rewarding members for getting results through the Million Dollar Body Game, and rewarding coaches for helping every individual stay with it, to stay true to their desire to get lean and healthy!

The only people that lose in this scenario are the ones who still don’t get it, who continue to chase every miracle pill or diet fad expecting to get different results. The MDB Network is about encouraging participation in what works: Fitness, proper nutrition, and peer support. That’s the combination that has lined the walls of Beachbody with incredible success stories.

Peer support works. Whether you are trying to change how you eat, get active, quit smoking or change any stubborn habit, by surrounding yourself with people who help you stay on track your odds of success are a lot better than if you try to go it alone. And MDB was borne from a desire Beachbody co-founder Jon Congdon and I share to increase the role the community plays in helping people find those like-minded people. We’ve seen over and over again that the customers who have the most dramatic transformations tend to be those that seek and provide real peer support within the message boards, WOWY, and the Million Dollar Body Club.

Imagine how the momentum of real lifestyle change could build if more people were helping each other achieve their goals, and this simple and effective model really catches on! If you see more people around losing weight, and earning a substantial paycheck each week for doing so, wouldn’t you be motivated to become a coach, keep pushing play, and become your own walking billboard too? Now you can see the epidemic I’m talking about!

The management team of MDB, led by experienced network marketer (and now Power 90 enthusiast) Chris Simonian knows the important balance between business opportunity and the legacy of non-judgmental support within our community.

Nobody wants to be out of shape or overweight. But a closet full of meal replacement powder is not the answer to long term weight loss. That’s why our solution is so marketable where people are otherwise suspicious of peer-to-peer marketing. We know our model actually works. And if you’ve done it, the proof stands undeniably right in front of you.

That’s an easy sell, and a healthy, worthwhile sell.

Exercise To Relieve Stress

The therapeutic benefits of regular exercise are well documented. Study after study has shown that it increases health and general well being. It’s been said that if exercise were a drug, it would be the most powerful medication on earth. However, it still seems difficult to get people to workout on a regular basis. When life gets hectic, it’s generally the first thing that gets crossed off the “to do” list. In reality, it should be the last. It’s an industry standard to tell people that they should consult a physician before beginning an exercise program. Based on the scientific evidence, it would be more appropriate to consult a physician before parking yourself on the Laz-E-Boy for a session with the TV. Continued…

6 Ways To Fire Up Your Metabolism

It can be discouraging when our results don’t seem to match the efforts we’re putting in. But instead of giving up on our fitness program, or worse, diving into the Twinkies (trust me, you’ll regret it!), try making just a few, easy changes to your diet and lifestyle that will fire up your metabolism. Sometimes the smallest things—like getting more protein in the morning or enough rest at night—can lead to the biggest weight loss surprises. Continued…

Five Tips For Eating Healthy At Home With Minimal Effort

There are those who can come home after a long day’s work and somehow whip up a healthy full-course meal. Then there are the rest of us who barely have enough energy to crack open a fresh tube of Pringles before parking our rear on the couch for the night. Clearly, it would do your body good to be among those who can prepare a nutritious dinner seven nights a week. Chances are, however, you’re not one of them. The fact is, most hardworking folks just don’t have the time, patience, or desire to start chopping vegetables, marinating meat, and stirring something every three minutes after dragging themselves through the front door each evening.