Why the Weekend Warrior Isn't Enough

Fitness has officially escaped the confines of gym walls.  Gym Rats are evolving into Weekend Warriors, leaving their towels and benches behind for mountain bikes and surf boards.  People are escaping their day-to-day lives by seeking adventure and new stories to share.  But there is a downside to being only a Weekend Warrior.  When you push away your desk chair for a kayak, and bypass the gym, you might find yourself losing a few battles.

A Sedentary Week Isn't The Best Companion 

to an Athletic Weekend.  

You can't expect yourself to move from a chair at work to a mountain bike and not have a lack in performance.  Outside of underperforming you are also putting yourself at risk for injury.  Too many people are finding themselves coming back to work with crutches because their bodies are under conditioned.

A more balanced approach for training during the week needs to be established to compliment a safer, more enjoyable weekend.  Once a compromise is found the Weekend Warrior can hit it hard every weekend, and come back to work with a smile and a bucket of stories to share.

Look at Exercise as The Foundation to All Activity.  

Training can establish a strong base of strength, endurance, agility, power, and coordination.  These skills are like fingers to a hand; they add dexterity and precision to perform at a higher level.  With the proper foundation of skill development Weekend Warriors can continue to challenge themselves to new activities every weekend.

Don't Go From 0 to 100 Too Quickly!

Another error of the Weekend Warrior is jumping into an intense activity too quickly.  The body needs time for proper warmup.  Again when you move from a motionless, seated position to a 60mph downhill biking scenario there is a huge gap in function.  If the body isn't warm and primed for an activity you run a major risk for injury.  This is where training comes in during the week.  You practice a routine for warming up, the body adapts, and when you apply it outside you are ready to go!

Progression is Key.

We must always adopt an attitude of training progressively.  Progression is a directional line that connects "where we are" (skill wise) to "where we want to be".  Not all of use need to take 99 progressive steps to get to 100.  Some of us start at 50 and some of us skip 5 steps at a time.  But no matter who you are, we all follow the same path to progress forward.

Our Ultimate Goal is Effortlessness and Total Enjoyment.

Take time out for yourself during the week to train so that you can have a safer, more exciting weekend.  You don't have to be a Gym Rat but you do have to be active during the week.  Your fitness level needs to match your living level.  

Excel with Your Fitness So You Can 

Excel in Your Life and All of its Adventures.  

The Value of Fitness Information

Working in the fitness industry inspires me daily.  Most of my inspiration comes from the experiences I have with my clients.  Breakthroughs and success fill me with confidence and push my passions forward.  I must admit, though, that I am not always excited about how the fitness industry expresses itself.

Earlier today I wrote on my Pearman Fitness Facebook Page:

"Information isn't Education until you apply it."

So what did I mean?

This morning I asked myself, "Why do you become so cranky at times with Fitness?" Instantly, two words popped up: Information and Education.  But why?  I began thinking about the differences of the two words in the Fitness Industry and BINGO! Education inspires me and Information, at times, bores me.  

Now lets not dog Information, totally.  Information can also be a great step forward in learning and growing.  The problem lies in the value of the information.  It can be priceless or worthless.  And the value of the information is only truly known when we cash it in.  This is what I meant when I said that Information isn't Education until you apply it.

There is a constant NOISE that inundates our senses daily.  And we can't simply turn it off.  Our best chance is to grab what we like, wrangle it in, apply it to our lives, and decide on our own it's true value.  Move information through the filter of your life and become educated.  

My First Time Floating Weightlessly

My body gets used and abused daily.  One key to my success with staying healthy is the time I take out for myself to decompress and do body work.  I nap.  Do Yoga. Read. Stretch.  Foam roll.  Get a massage.  But something always felt like it was missing.

There are many ways to rejuvenate the body.  There is a trinity to speak of with self-care; we must address our physical self, our mind, and our spirit.  Recently, I addressed all there in a dark, lightless, soundless box.  Where I floated, weightlessly, for one hour completely sensory deprived.  This was both a challenge for myself and a moment of discovery.

-THE DAY OF THE FLOAT-

After a quick shower I wrapped my naked body in a robe, slid on my flip-flops, and walked toward my float tank.  Pulling the curtains for privacy, I hung my robe and opened the door to the tank.  The walls were painted black and a salty, humid warmth reached out to envelop me.  I stepped forward, raising my knee, and slid my foot into the darkness.

The water was a warm 94 degrees and it's saline grittiness crackled beneath my feet.  Hunching over, I crawled forward and shut the door.  Lowering my butt, extending my arms and legs, I relaxed and tilted my head back.  An elliptical ring of water circled my face and stopped at the edges of my eyes. I was floating.  It was dark upon dark.  So it began.

My first thought was time.  1 hour.  No stimulation.  No sound.  No light. This was going to be tough.  With my eyes closed I felt myself touch the edges of the tank.  At first, a hand then a foot.  With the easiest of efforts I would slightly extend a finger or toe to glide back to neutral.  I immediately thought of an astronaut in space doing the same thing.  Gravity had lost it's embrace on me.  Once I was centered then I allowed myself to relax and move my awareness onto other matters.

The sensation of spinning overwhelmed me.  I felt as though I were afloat at night in the sea, stuck in a spin between currents.  I spun counterclockwise endlessly.

Gaining control, the spinning subsided, leaving my focus on my breath.  Breathing through my nose I listened to the air entering my lungs.  My chest and body would lift ever-so-slightly higher, and sink as I exhaled.  The rhythm was hypnotic and of the only sensation available.

My heartbeat stepped in next.  Reminded of being back in my mother's belly, I was embraced in warm amniotic fluid, where there was no separation between me and my environment   This was my first introduction to music through the rhythm of my heart.   Boom.  Boom.  Boom.

Each beat extended itself out into the water and I felt my heart's true, subtle power.  My boundaries were extending.  I was becoming more than a body.

Words, phrases, and images randomly flooded my consciousness.  The phrase "Catch Jack" was followed by the word "Dutch".  Then an image of the Broadway Tunnel moved through me.  By now my brain was stimulating itself.  I began to dream whilst being awake.  No control of my mind but aware of it's happenings.

Death, an awaiting reality full of mystery, came to my thoughts.  Being in a soundless, lightless, void over time tends to do that.  Nonetheless, I couldn't escape deaths resemblance to my situation.

I thought of deep space.
Pass the stars, pass the galaxies, pass the galatic clouds, pass it all.
There I was extended into infinity, alone.

Acceptance kept hitting me.  Accept.  Embrace.  Don't fight.  Relax.  Let go.  This was challenging. The greatest challenge of all: losing complete control.

My breath empowered me, as I became more and more still.  I let go; one muscle at a time, one memory, one judgement, one truth.  Finally, I became silent.

Knock.  Knock.  Knock.

It was over.

Will the Real Vitamin C Please Stand Up

Recently, I saw a disturbing commercial while riding in a taxi.  Bright, colorful words flashed across the screen: Healthy Works.  A smiling woman began speaking, "Here is a grape soda it has 160 calories and here is a grape juice it has 154 calories.  But the grape juice also has 120% of your daily requirement of Vitamin C.  Make the healthy choice with grape juice."  The screen fades to black and opens with Jeopardy; I immediately grumble loudly, "Ascorbic Acid doesn't make it healthy!"

Later that day I began to postulate the validity of the smiling woman's claim.  When I Googled Ascorbic Acid I saw it in parenthesis behind Vitamin C.  Ascorbic Acid and Vitamin C are completely interchangeable and describe the same thing.  But are they?

Big questions formed in mind.  Is there a difference nutritionally between getting your Vitamin C from a powder added to a sugary drink and getting it from eating an orange?  Am I wrong in assuming that adding Ascorbic Acid to food and drinks doesn't make it healthier?  

I read a few articles which addressed my questions.  Some people vehemently opposed the rhetoric established in nutritional circles.  The Doctor Within wrote:

"...Ascorbic acid is not vitamin C. Alpha tocopherol is not vitamin E. Retinoic acid is not vitamin A. And so on through the other vitamins. Vast sums of money have been expended to make these myths part of Conventional Wisdom....Vitamins are not individual molecular compounds. Vitamins are biological complexes...."  

(The Doctor Within )

This was very interesting.  Instead of isolating elements as being healthy on their own, maybe we should focus more on a broader biological story.  

I began feeling light headed and dizzy.  This is one giant circle of inquiry with confused answers abroad.  I'm not getting any REAL ANSWERS.  So I moved to using logic. 

Clearly, eating natural food for your vitamins is the healthiest way to go.  The supplement industry's name says it all: SUPPLEMENT.  Supplements are fillers for people who fall below adequate dietary standards.  Malnutrition is a real threat and supplementation is an answer.  But whole food nutrients are the REAL answer to our dietary needs.  

As Americans living in a bountiful land of produce and food, we have no excuses for not eating healthy foods.  Our problem is not related to having the right food it is related to knowing and choosing wisely.

How to read Nutritional Labels.  Firstly, look below the label at the INGREDIENTS.  If you see listed Ascorbic Acid or Sodium Ascorbate you should know the Vitamin C is synthetic.  Also, if you don't know how to pronounce an ingredient look it up.  We all have smart phones and the internet.  

http://www.vitamincandmore.com/

We used to live in a calorie focused world.  Now we need to move to an ingredient focused existence.  Know what you are consuming and then worry about portions later.  Any client that I work with I tell the same.  Eliminate the processed, chemical ridden, confused diet for a elementary, simple healthy approach to food.  How can that be confusing?

Eat to Lose Weight, Don't Diet

Good food has always been good food.  Fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, and lean protein, these approaches to healthy eating will never change.  But diet fads will come and go.  After all they are "diets" and that always implies short-term changes.  We need to focus on the long haul, an entire life.  If you practice moderation and portion sensibility you can enjoy all ranges of food, during your lifetime, and still be healthy.

Don't demonize the food.  Demonize your abuse of food.

Diets are short term experiments.  Of course short-term changes only bring us short-term results.  There's the error with dieting.  People get a quick positive result that has a very high failure rate in the long-term.  

Success is related to confidence.  If you are a Yo-Yo Dieter, losing weight, gaining weight, losing weight, you will never get anywhere with your health.  And if you fail and backslide each time you succeed then you'll always have less faith with there being any real hope for the future.  Gain confidence by creating a new, healthy lifestyle of food and forget the diets.

Of course, it is important to understand how our individual chemistry responds to various nutritional stimuli.  That is why gastronomy exist.  Gastronomy is the practice or art of choosing, cooking, and eating good food; it is also the study of food and culture.  

We must learn to approach food with an adventurous spirit and open mind.  There are so many things for you to learn about yourself through eating.  Just as you can travel the world, so must you travel the world of food.

A quick glance at a typical Pearman Fitness Lunch.

I challenge you to go on a gastronomical journey.  It won't be easy, always.  There will be a few sour faces and yuck moments.  But beyond the fear of unusual taste there lies an open field of opportunity:  

Fruits and vegetables you have never heard of but will one day love.  

Herbs and spices you learn to cook with. 

Flavors undiscovered in your own kitchen and home.

As for losing the weight.  Here is your formula to success.

1 pound of fat = 3500 calories

Cut 500 calories of food a day for a week to lose 1 pound. 

Or add activity upwards of burning 250 calories a day and only cut 250 calories of your food.  

Pretty simple.  

1 pound a week for 52 weeks is 52 pounds.  Clearly, we can't continue to lose weight.  But you are setting yourself up not to gain.  That is the key.

We always say gaining weight is easier than losing weight.  That isn't true.  What is true is that we don't realize or commit to lose weight until we've already gained so much.  Of course, by then the task is much harder in that we must be patient and persistent longer.  

Enough talk.  I'm hungry :)