Your Brain On Optimism

Do you remember that commercial, “This is your brain” and they showed an egg and then, “This is your brain on drugs” and, if I remember correctly, it was an egg cracked open and hitting a frying pan? Well, I wonder what the portrayal would be of a brain on optimism?

It seems like we are being constantly bombarded with bad news and negativity these days and I personally find it draining emotionally. People going into foreclosure with their homes, the jobless rate going up, a war dragging on and so many young lives being lost or their bodies and souls being scarred for life. With money being in such short supply in this country and around the world, I found this headline, “US Plan Sees Shiny Future For Green Zone”, particularly untimely. The article goes on to say, “Forget the rocket attacks, concrete blast walls and lack of a sewer system. Now try to imagine luxury hotels, a shopping center and even condos in the heart of Baghdad. That’s all part of a five-year development “dream list” — or what some dub an improbable fantasy — to transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone from a walled fortress into a centerpiece for Baghdad’s future. But the $5 billion plan has the backing of the Pentagon and apparently the interest of some deep pockets in the world of international hotels and development, the lead military liaison for the project told The Associated Press.”

I guess, however, that we can’t worry about the things that we can’t control and can’t dwell on the tragedies that are unfolding around us, because if we do all of our lives will be miserable and I for one, would be totally unproductive and add to the problem.

Instead I seek out things to be optimistic about. Last night, for instance, Howtobefit.com met MeetUps.com and I had the first of my Sunday evening meetings to help people overcome their weight management and fitness challenges. It was among the most most rewarding 90:00 that I have ever spent, talking about what I do, sharing it with other people and knowing in my heart that I am directly making a difference in changing people’s lives and, if fact, giving them optimism.

Helping other people helped me to recharge my optimism and I hope that you can find a way to recharge your optimism, too. It makes facing the day’s challenges so much easier…

Starting Tomorrow

Those words might precede words like, “…garbage pick up will be __________” or “… all winter coats will be ____% off”. But sadly, you hear “starting tomorrow” more often in terms of lifestyle changes. I am going to quit smoking tomorrow, I am going to quit drinking tomorrow, I am going to go on a diet tomorrow or I am going to start working out tomorrow.

For many people that means that they will never change and they are stuck in today all over again every day. Much like Phil Connors (Bill Murray) in the movie Ground Hog Day. The mistakes that we make today, like Phil Connors forecasting a blizzard wrong, come back to haunt us. Whereas he was forced to go back to his hated weather assignment in Punxsutawney, PA covering the real Ground Hog Day celebration again, you may be faced with a life threatening, life shortening or life limiting lifestyle choice that instead of waiting until tomorrow, you could start changing today.

Phil Connors realizes his situation and uses it as an opportunity to live life recklessly, knowing that he will wake up the next day at 6:00 am to the sound of Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” on his clock radio. Phil knows what he got away with and was given a second chance (and third and forth, etc.) but to the inhabitants of Punxsutawney, it is February 2nd and the meteorologist Phil Connors will be covering that day’s celebration.

We don’t live life like a movie and most of us don’t get second chances (let alone third or forth) and our choices and failures today will follow us into tomorrow and the next day and the next.

Do you need to make a change in your life today that will have life changing benefits? If so, don’t wait until tomorrow, because you may end up trapped in your own Ground Hog Day, living life recklessly and not making the changes that you need to make. Start eating healthy today. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Start exercising today. Don’t wait until tomorrow.

Phil Connors realized his arrogance and began to examine his life and his priorities. You are not trapped in time, but rather trapped in your inability to make changes. Examine your life and your priorities and start making changes today.

Goal Setting

One of my childhood memories is collecting the little paper tags from the Lipton tea bags. They had sayings on them and I kept them in a little clear plastic box. Every time my Mom got a new box of tea bags, I would pull off all of the tags with new sayings and add them to my collection.

Two that I remember clearly are, “When the going gets tough, the tough quit” and “If at first you don’t succeed, quit, quit, quit”. Oh, sorry, I guess that I was thinking about themes in today’s world and not what the tea bag tags actually said, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” and “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”.

If those were among our mantras 40 or 50 years ago and beyond, why are so many people struggling with success now? Perhaps it is a lack of goal setting. As you read this, good friends of mine and fellow coaches, along with many thousands of others, are running the Boston Marathon. In order to accomplish this, all of those people who work hard, have families and have, I am sure, many other responsibilities and commitments, took a significant amount of time out of their busy lives and trained to run a marathon. They created an admirable goal, did the training required to finish a marathon, made the arrangements to be in Boston this weekend and lined up with all of the other people who had made running Boston their goal and they are doing it.

Do too few people have goals these days? I don’t know. Are too many people saying, “it’s too hard” when it comes to losing weight or getting in shape or giving up some bad lifestyle habits and working toward a healthier life? I don’t know.

If I had to lose 100 pounds, as I visualize it, that would be a big challenge. My body would already be stressed from carrying around the extra weight. My eating habits would have to be poor because that is how I put on the weight. I most likely would have some health issues from being obese and psychologically, I probably would be far from the top of my game and perhaps a little depressed over my physical problems and limitations.

But I would set a goal. As Lao-tzu didn’t say, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” and instead the correct translation from the original Chinese would be, “‘The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet’. Rather than emphasizing the first step, Lao Tzu regarded action as something that arises naturally from stillness. Another potential phrasing would be ‘Even the longest journey must begin where you stand’.”

The point is, there are extraordinary stories of people who couldn’t run around the block and went on to run marathons or do Ironman distance triathlons. These days, losing 100 pounds is a success story that is told over and over and is almost commonplace. What all accomplishments have in common is setting a goal and “starting where you stand.” Let’s all set our sights on our goals and never, never quit!

Are We Living Too Abundantly?

Writing as much as I do, I don’t know if I mentioned in a blog or newsletter that I lived in Guatemala for almost five years in the late seventies. The experience was life changing for the better, even though my woodworking business failed because of the political turmoil in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. I returned penniless, but would return in a heart beat to be able to live like a Guatemalan again, or for that matter in most Latin American countries. It is a simple life with basic needs being satisfied and little more, but a wonderfully rich life appreciating the simplest of life’s gifts.

Hopefully many of you were able to watch “The Human Footprint” on the National Geographic Channel last night. The amounts that we consume of everything and the numbers on how much we throw away are staggering - 246 million tons of trash this year alone - but the set ups that were done so that we could visualize in ways better than just numbers, was perhaps the most amazing part. For instance, we throw away almost 18 billion disposable diapers each year. We throw away 100 million aluminum and steel cans every day - enough to build a roof over all of New York City - and most of those are soda cans.

So what’s the point? We live in a land of abundance and we consume abundantly and our bodies are starting to look “abundant”. But let’s just look at the two examples above. Diapers are a necessity and in the case of single use diapers, burning them in waste-to-energy plants seems to make for far less of a societal impact than dumping them in landfills. As for soda cans, I don’t throw any away or recycle any because our family drinks no soda whatsoever because it has no nutritional value. That makes our human footprint just a tiny bit smaller. Much of what we eat is fruits and vegetables, which I compost and put back into our soil, our meats are wrapped in butcher paper, which I believe will breakdown in landfills as will the packaging for all or most of the whole grain foods that we eat. Our bodies, in return have not become abundant looking, but rather look perhaps the way that they were intended to look.

Let me close with a story from the Message Boards that really states beautifully what the impact of living too abundantly can mean in just one real life experience and how that experience was this person’s incentive to embark on a program to become fit and reverse the damage caused by living abundantly.

“I’m 41 years old, married to a great wife, and step-dad to three kids. I work a full time job that is, unfortunately, a desk job and that is where my story starts… I have had a long history of sports, martial arts, and being fit. Unfortunately, that went to the wayside with the family and my full time job. Honestly, for about three years, I got lazy. On top of that, the office where I work is full of snacks, sweets, and processed crap. I fell into that trap and found myself, a few weeks ago, in a situation that made me wake up.

One late winter morning we had a sneaky coating of ice on the roads that had come from literally nowhere and was only in certain areas. We live in the country and after my first slide, I realized the roads were treacherous. Driving my kids to school with my wife during the morning rush hour, I drove up on an auto accident. Two cars had bumped each other and there was, luckily, an off-duty state trooper on the scene. As I slowed down and came up on the scene, three more cars came down the hill and when seeing the wreck, hit their brakes, and started floating on the ice like boats. One car, upon hitting solid road again, flipped on its nose and rolled over the side of the road. The other two tangled into each other briefly but got under control and slid to a safe stop.

I hurried out of the car with three other people to check on the flipped car when two more cars came sliding down the hill. Dodging out the of way, I realized that somebody had to get up on that hill to slow down oncoming traffic! That somebody needed to be me! After the cars slid past, I took off at a dead run up the ice covered hill while others, including the state trooper, attended to the person who had rolled off the road.

Within twenty yards, I was exhausted. I started coughing and my legs turned to lead. The hill was a long one and at least once, I had to jump into the tree’s and off the road to avoid another sliding car. Halfway up the hill, I was in utter Hell and started coughing. I could not believe how out of shape I was!!!

All in all, I slowed down more cars then I can remember. But, I was coughing and out of breath. I was sore for about two days afterwards. Wonderfully enough, no one was seriously hurt in the accident(s). My wife picked me up at the top of the hill, gave me the thanks of the state trooper and a smooch, and we proceeded on our day.

But, I cursed at myself for days afterwards about how crappy my physical condition had been. To me, it was unacceptable. I looked down at my spare tire and my flimsy arms and decided enough was enough.”

Are you ready yet to decide that enough is enough and commit to an exercise and diet plan that will truly allow you to live abundantly and enjoy to the fullest what life really has to offer us?

Digging In and Digging Out

Early Friday morning, I took my Toyota in for its 30,000 mile service and as I always do, ran home (no big deal, it’s only 3 1/4 miles). On top of the $604.81 bill at Toyota, that same day I got a taste of the new $3.29 a gallon gasoline, and frankly, don’t see any difference from the $2.29 a gallon or the $1.29 gallon gas.

If I were so inclined, I would be writing a newsletter about being fit and green, but I will leave that for some expert on the subject. I can just give a few examples and observations of things that help. In my case, I didn’t require another vehicle to drive me home (the Courtesy Shuttle) or get a ride (another vehicle making two trips to Toyota), so I did a little bit. I coordinated my return trip to Toyota with a trip to the Doggie Park nearby, in effect, carpooling. Instead of filling up my tank, which I do about once a month, I got half a tank of gas and that will help some more because I also intend to try to cut my driving in half. In Albuquerque, buses all have bike racks on the front and that same morning, I saw a guy with his mountain bike waiting at the bus stop and I presumed that he was taking the bus to work and then riding home (that way, you don’t have to deal with the sweat obstacle) and he was doing his part.

With the economy ailing and in serious but stable (hopefully) condition, personally I think that we need to dig in and dig ourselves out of this mess. Gas and food are two really big expenses and the former rising in price is driving up the cost of the latter. We need to eat enough to survive, so I am not suggesting eating less, but maybe we could do a little “spring cleaning” with our driving habits. Can we put them on a “diet” and cut out some unnecessary gas using? I coordinate trips and don’t leave the house unless I can do a number of things in the same part of town. I did my new business cards all by email and I am doing my new T-shirts all by email, too. Is there any chance that one of these is an option for you - telecommuting, e-commuting, e-work, telework, working at home (WAH), or working from home (WFH)? My job allows me to work from home and that is why I only have to buy gas once a month and hopefully you can ask for and be granted that same opportunity by your employer.

Digging in can take lots of forms and digging us out of this mess is something that we can all help in doing. Part of the problem is definitely the energy crisis, but if in our efforts to ease the money crunch created by high fuel costs we get creative, spend more time outdoors for recreation, walk, bike or run a little more, then our ingenuity will actually end up benefiting us. We have the opportunity to make the laws of supply and demand kick in and the cost of crude oil to come down. But instead of going back to our old habits, maybe we’ll just keep being creative and conserving fuel while at the same time seeking out alternatives. Fast Company empowers innovators to challenge convention and here are some of their “Alternative Green Machines“. Maybe one of them will “empower” you, too!

Is Drug Company Marketing Money Well Spent?

Two stories on World News Tonight Saturday evening grabbed my attention. One was about the collapsed economy in Zimbabwe under the Presidency, since 1980, of Robert Mugabe. The other story was about how much money drug companies spend on marketing and how much of that money is directed to doctors.

In Zimbabwe, the life expectancy is 43 years. In a country that was once considered the breadbasket of Africa, poverty is now rampant and people can’t feed themselves. Because the currency is virtually worthless, with inflation running at 100,000 percent, a bunch of carrots costs $35,000 Zimbabwean dollars, a bundle of 50 rolls of toilet paper costs $5,175,000 Zimbabwean dollars and a loaf of bread costs the equivalent of a weeks salary.

In this country, drug companies spend $11.4 billion on marketing their products, and of that, $7.2 billion is spent marketing these products to doctors to “educate them”, for the most part, on the newest and most expensive drugs.

Imagine, for a moment, working for a week to buy a loaf of bread and having a life expectancy of just 43 years in a country where agriculture was once the leading export producing sector.

Then imagine for a moment, $7.2 billion being spent just to promote drugs to doctors in a country that in 2007 spent $2.3 trillion on health care or $7,600.00 per person. Health care spending is expected to reach $3 trillion by 2011.

If I were a researcher, I would have spent a lot of time finding more examples of money “well” spent. I instead just found two more examples of spending, one outdated but still mind boggling and the other a sad example of misplaced priorities. According to an FDA consumer reprint from a 1995 Institute of Medicine report, Americans spent $33 billion on “weight reduction products, such as diet foods and drinks”. I can only imagine how much we are spending 13 years later when we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic. Sadly, in 2006, Americans spent just $3.54 billion on fitness equipment in a country with a total population of over 303,741,000 people.

Zimbabwe is suffering under the rule of its current government and has become one of the poorest countries in the world. We are the richest country in the world, but I can’t help but think that we are squandering some or much of that wealth. Focusing only on drug company marketing budgets and health care spending, the numbers are staggering and it does make me question whether it is money “well” spent.

Health and Fitness for the Real World

My life has revolved around sports and fitness for over 45 years. In many ways, that has put blinders on me in the ways that I experience the world. I am narrow minded in terms of what I eat and in terms of how I take care of my body, but that, it turns out, seems rather unrealistic in today’s world.

Sunday evening, I had to go to the local Walgreens for batteries for Grace’s new potty (yes, these days they have to sing songs and do a myriad of other things). On the flashing sign outside of the Walgreens, it said, “Happy Easter” and then the words in bright red words changed to “Bud Light 30 pack $22.99″. Is beer a hot seller now on Easter Sunday or was that just a poor choice of sequence in their advertising?

Next door at the McDonald’s there was no line at the drive up, but only because it was closed. Maybe McDonald’s closes on Easter because more people drink Bud Light than eat Big Macs. If I didn’t have such a narrow focus on health and fitness, then I would probably know these things, but I don’t. I don’t drink, I don’t eat fast food and actually, just before I went to Walgreen’s, I had done Yoga X, making me even more weird.

So what’s my point? I have been creating a theme each week for my blog and newsletter with health and fitness themes that I could think of that were important to me, but now I realize that with my tunnel vision, I was missing a lot of topics that people are really thinking about. So instead of themes like positive thinking or motivation or time management, I need to direct my readers to the topics and themes that are on the minds of most people.

Now my blog will not just have ideas gleaned solely from resources in my “tunnel”, but instead, I will now direct you to the health and fitness news headlines that are impacting your everyday lives. By doing so, I believe that I will enhance your knowledge so much more - and mine too.

What’s This World Coming To?

The older I get, the more that things bother me and the more opinionated I am about the things that bother me.

Since Friday, when I found out that one of the biggest youth running clubs in Albuquerque had “downsized”, it has bothered me (and will continue to bother me). The reason that the club went from 230 kids last spring to far, far fewer this year because it is by invitation only is that the head coach works two jobs and the other coaches couldn’t continue to help out because they were working two jobs or both spouses were working and they needed to spend more time with their families, etc. You know the reasons because we are all experiencing the same downsizing in our lives.

Not downsizing in terms of material things necessarily, since they seem to be the drug of choice to keep us happy these days, but more in terms of the little quality of life things which to me, matter so much more. For instance, I can’t step up and activate my running club again and fill in the void in youth running clubs because I am honestly functioning at 110% as far as output and just barely making ends meet. So many other people who would be volunteering in their child’s sports activities can’t either for the same reasons. Here’s another example. I am making a huge leap of faith that the economy will turn around and the mood of this country will improve as I continue to feed my family with high quality organic food. The future health and wellbeing of my children is at stake and I am not going to compromise their chance of leading healthy, productive lives. But there exists the lure for many people of cheaper choices and processed foods and even cheaper fast food, all of which have ramifications including weight gain and diminished energy production. Yet another example is a greater reliance on indoor activities to entertain our kids and ourselves. Our world was at one time the great outdoors and we would spend the bulk of our time working outdoors and engaged in outdoor activities and homes were shelters and a place to eat and sleep. As we created and moved to the cities and then the suburbs, planners provided parks and play areas and they were focal points in the community. We tamed wildernesses and made them accessible to accommodate our need to be outdoors. But times changed and parks became dangerous places and hiking presented greater risks from other humans than from wildlife. And so, we downsized our “range” and began limiting ourselves to activities within the security of our own homes.

Will our world one day be characterized by having nothing but professional sports and the athletes coming from just a few select clubs and teams? Will our “unnatural” diets leave us all overweight or obese and lethargic? Will economic hardships force so many people into crime that we will spend most of our lives indoors in the relative security of our homes and workplaces? I suppose that there are many futurists that would agree with some if not all of these scenarios, but I hope and pray that these are just the musings of a worrier because this is not the type of world that I want my children to grow up in…

Choosing To Change

My primary reason for my presence on the Internet has always been to provide information on fitness, health and nutrition and to provide access to the means to optimize your wellbeing. Over, time, my sites have grown faster than my ability to properly maintain them and now that I have a low stress occupation, I have more time to provide information to you in the organized format that you deserve. In the process of going through each of the 1,007 articles on my site to make sure that they are indexed for you to find, I began to come across articles about choosing and changing (okay, so I am going through the articles alphabetically and I have only gotten to the “C’s”) and that is really a big part of the essence of making your life what you want it to be.

You can talk to someone until you are blue in the face, but if they aren’t ready to listen or aren’t ready to change, your words and energy are being wasted. Everyone has their own timetable for change and their own reasons to make choices. For instance, you can tell someone that they won’t get the results that they want as quickly and as effectively by just dieting as they would with diet and exercise, but until they are ready to get off of the couch and start moving, you are wasting your time saying anything.

There is a story on AOL, from USA Today about Scott Spiezio. Just 17 months ago, Spiezio was on top of the baseball world as the Cardinals won the World Series. Now, he faces jail time and his friends fear for his safety. Spiezio was released from the Cardinals on Feb. 26, the same day a warrant was issued for his arrest, stemming from a DUI incident in Irvine, Calif. in which he is accused of attacking a friend.

Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Troy Percival, who played with Spiezio with the Angels from 2000 to 2003 and with the Cardinals last season, says he strongly believes his former teammate needs help. He says he tried to help Spiezio, sitting up night after night in Spiezio’s hotel room last year, trying to persuade him to seek treatment. It went nowhere, with Spiezio even threatening to hit Percival if he didn’t leave, Percival says.

Change is apparently not something that Scott Spiezio is ready for, even though he desperately needs to change. Whether you need to make little changes or big changes, those changes ultimately have to be your choice. Those around you will suggest change and their intentions are good and honorable, but we all have free will and it is us alone that can exercise that free will, whether to make good choices or bad choices….

Never, Never, Never Give Up

In between channels (that would be something on Animal Planet or Disney Channel), I saw part of the story of the evacuation of Dunkirk. In one of Winston Churchill’s speeches, he said, “Never, never, never give up” and when he asked the British people to help evacuate British and French soldiers from Dunkirk, ahead of a German onslaught, they didn’t give up and responded with all their hearts. A total of 900 ships large and small evacuated 338,226 men (including 120,000 French soldiers) over a few days in May 1940 in what came to be known as the “miracle of Dunkirk”.

Since my parents were in England during the war, I heard lots of stories of how the British people never gave up. I also know that when, in a three month period between September and December 1955, my 15 year old brother died and our house burned to the ground two days before my sixth birthday, they didn’t give up and didn’t complain about the challenges they faced. Winston Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” and perhaps his words continued to resonate in their lives. I know that my parent’s words will stay with me forever.
After the war, my parents emigrated to this country and landed at Ellis Island with the equivalent of about $100.00 and the belongings that they could bring with them on the boat. They struggled and faced as many failures as successes in their lives, but they never gave up and I don’t ever remember hearing them complain. Life was a gift to them.

We face challenges globally, regionally, nationally and in our own lives and we need to “face” them, not run from them or ignore them in hopes that they will go away or that someone else will solve them. If your challenge is weight loss, then face it and solve it. If it is a motivation challenge, then face it and solve it. If it is a financial challenge, then face it and solve it. How? Think about the challenge of evacuating a third of a million soldiers by water off of a beach. Can’t grasp that, then think of the parable of how the old mule who fell in the well overcame his challenge.

The parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer’s well. The farmer heard the mule praying or whatever mules do when they fall into wells. After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together, told them what had happened, and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery. Continued….

Whatever your challenge, step up and shake it off and don’t give up. And, when you think you can’t do it, as it says at the end of that article, “Amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.