It was right behind the curtain…

Seriously…I had no idea.  I am addicted to the white stuff…no not cocaine (so 1990’s)…sugar silly (The new Drug of Choice…DOC). And I think it’s been killing me softly for a looooooong time.   I always thought it was kind of funny that I loved ice cream so much.  Maybe in my head I could justify eating a whole point of Ben & Jerry’s is OK (and believe me…there have been more than enough times in my life when it was OK…)…you know how it goes: you are eating along and you hit a huge pocket of goodness..it’s a bit farther than the place you told yourself you were going to stop…but what the hell…it’s only one more bite…and before you know it you are rationalizing the whole pint gone…”I just need to level this spot off…and then I’ll stop.”  And it’s no secret to the whole FREAKIN world that there are 4 servings in a pint.  Who’s got next pint?  So this has never happened to you huh?  Yeah…me neither.  Welllllll…it has happened a lot.

I always thought it was kinda wierd that my wife could stop after just one bite or stop going back to the cookie jar after just one cookie.  Feminine willpower?  How about chocolate chips?  If there is a bag open in the house…it won’t be in the house long….trust me.  Cookies?  Gone.  Ice Cream…you read the first paragraph…gone.

I am 40…and over the last holiday season this all came down for me.  Like the last two weeks…and no this is not a resolution phase.  I am a bit freaked out.  I was reading along on Facebook when a man I respect posted an article about being sugar-free and living longer.  One of his comments was about “listening to what your body needed for food” and I had no clue about what he meant.  This was foreign to me.  For someone who had trained in athletics, in bodywork, in physiology…this was foreign territory…and what was weird was  I knew it.  So I posted back and asked for a reference.  He suggested “Potatoes Not Prozac” so I called the library…not in…but on order.  I googled it and found a few resources till the book came in.  One source that struck me hard was  a free E-Book on sugar addiction.  It’s free…what the hell?  So I read it.  It’s funny the words that the author was saying jolted me a bit…like everything she was saying happened to me…except the eating disorders…I just over ate and kept it all down.

After reading the book I was standing at the sink looking out our back window and started thinking about sugar…the part about my wife being able to stop eating ice cream or candy…friends stopping whenever they wanted..it all seemed like they had magical will power…and I was possessed by something else….my own rationalizations (it’s no big deal…it’s just chocolate)…my own procrastinations (I’ll be good tomorrow…).  About a year ago I was at a conference talking with a friend at a food table.  I had a piece of chocolate cake in my mouth and she asked if it “tasted good?”  I said “No…it didn’t” and she took it from me and asked why I was eating it…I didn’t have an answer.  That was a year ago.  so now fast forward to my kitchen window…as I was standing there I took a huge bite of chocolate and the weirdest thing happened…it felt like every cell in my body vibrated at the smell of the chocolate…and then when it hit my lips and into my mouth my whole body sighed and then smiled.  Like a whole body smile.  I had never felt that before…never noticed that sensation.  I was always shoving food in my mouth so fast that it never registered…never occurred, never made it to my brain.  I have never been addicted to drugs but that’s what I imagine a hit feels like when you haven’t had it in a while…and it grossed me out (totally…for sure).

So where do we go from here?  I dunno.  Gonna keep reading the e-book (again) look at some more articles on the website and dive into Potatoes Not Prozac.  Just from the short bit I have read so far it seems to encompass why I:

1. Liked to drink so much in college
2. Continued to overeat
3. Have been battling a bit of depression for a long time (since high school)
4. Why my joints hurt and feel swollen after eating some foods
5. Move from food to food (if not bread then tortilla chips) to continue to feed that sugar craving.
6. Why I recovered slower than my fellow athletes
7. Why my body felt “inflammed” and tight with Plastic Wrap
8. I am sure there are other sensations as well…..

What blows me away is what sugar is in…it’s in everything by the way…everything you may buy at a store…check the label it might be killing you too

There is a lot of …pauses…in this post, but tell me what you think anyway…Charlie (Charlie@4seasonfitness.com)

BTW:  I am not trying to be “Holier than thou” with this…it’s just information that has tripped me out a bit, but might be a one of the pieces of the puzzle that helps round out my life with a bit more enjoyment.  No judgement on my part…seriously…I will love you just the same.

BTW2:  I have always had an interest in nutrition…just never considered myself a “nutritionist” so this will be a bit of exploration on my part in strategy. Oh yeah and how do I set my kids up for success knowing this about myself…

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Tired of being fat…

Tired

“We change when the pain to change is less than the pain to remain as we are.” (Ed Foreman)

There were a few events that led to my realization that I had really blown it…and have blown it for a long time…over and over and over…

Realizations:

1. Denial of Self:  I had been doing a training with Anat Baniel and throughout the training program I was continuing to run and workout hard…thereby not reaping the benefits of the program.  It was fine in the beginning…but I really wasn’t getting all that I could.  So in my head there was no way to mesh the Anat Baniel Method with heavy activity…at least no one I knew had done it…so I had no role model.  I am smarter than that now…because I know that this is not the case and will fill you in soon, but for the most part I just dropped all activity off the radar and denied who I was.  I also dropped some desires I had to continue to race and enjoy the outdoors in a way that not many can or are willing to.  I quit exercising the way I enjoyed…I was no longer myself.
2. I also started to read some of the signs around me…literally:

• Loved this sign: “You cannot get on this trampoline if you are over 190 pounds.”
• I had great flexibility but my belly held me back from folding forward or touching my eye to my knee.
• I was tired walking up my stairs…one flight in my house.  What pissed me off the most was that I had been able to race 100 miles with over 36,000 feet of vertical change…and I was winded walking up my 14 stairs…F&%$ that.
• My feet hurt…mainly my left one…but oh well.
• My knees were sore…it felt like my joints were swollen all the time.
• I had back pain…mainly on my right SI joint….
• I was winded trying to run after my kids…..welllll Max is pretty fast…
• I was not comfortable in my own skin…it’s the gift and the curse of an Anat Baniel Method Practitioner and a Feldenkrais Practioner…you get to feel sooooooo much, sometimes it can drive you crazy.
• The folds on my side rippled….enough said…
• I had to buy a pair of 36 pants with my parents because my other pants did not fit well….yeah stoked on that…
• I saw myself on video and in pictures and was totally bummed by what I saw…not just bummed…shocked
• At a physical with my doctor I had high blood pressure…it was borderline, but still.
• I am sure there were a few others, but I was tired of all this…especially the denial of who I am.

And then that was pretty much it.  I decided I need a kick start and through a friend I was introduced to the Velocity Diet and gave it a shot.  It worked realllllly well for me and I was able to drop over 37 and get on the horse and back on track to feeling healthier and more comfortable.  But then I stayed on a low cal/high workout plan for too long and wrecked my metabolism…I got tired, sick, more hurt, yuck…and recently over the holidays I started to feel reallt crummy.  I had gotten sick in September, Max started kindergarten, our schedules shifted pretty dramatically, I changed my work schedule, I got lazy…and some weight came back on.  Not much this time, but enough to make me take notice again…there was something that was missing…and I didnt even realize it till I read a post from a coach of mine on Facebook…I was an addict.  Can you guess from what?  Tell you tomorrow…I have to go pick up my kids.

Peace, love and light, tell me your thoughts, Charlie (charlie@4seasonfitness.com)

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Back Pain and Stopping the Pain [Part 1]

At least they are honest....

First of all it’s not your fault…pain is never anyone fault.  One way to look at pain is that it is purely feedback…something is wrong and needs attention.  Don’t kill the messenger?  Don’t suppress the pain.  Now this is relative and if you are like me, we can rationalize anything into the ground…I don’t mean that you should not take medication or anti-inflammatory…there is a time and a place for medication…just don’t over use or abuse them and you will be OK.

So what are the steps for correcting movements?  Just because you have pain doesn’t mean you should stop moving, you actually have to move more than before, just in many more variations and possibilities than you were previously moving.  Using all of these new deviations will be important to help correct your progress.  don’t suppress these movements and variations, don’t force them, don’t strain, the ease of movement will become a bit more of a process building exercise for you to navigate through the challenges into the clear.

Move More?

You are crazy…my back is killing me!  Well I hate to tell you but the first premise is that you have to move more.  Your nervous system’s is soooo involved with movement..not only involved but occupied…like ADD occupied.  Movement is the main language of the brain (your bran) and you will need to utilize this piece of information to your benefit.  All of our sensations are based around movement.  It’s a miracle that we even stand!  But all of the elaborate actions that our brain negotiates and initiates holds us together and upright and in control of our limbs.

Quality of Movement

It is pretty easy for us to distinguish the quality of movement.  Many of us from an early age know how our parents look and feel.  A child can spot their parent from across the room and just from how that parent moves or interacts with other people the child’s parent can be confirmed.  Have you ever spotted somebody from the back and thought it was a friend and then suddenly it struck you…”it’s not them.” and you freeze in your tracks and go back to what you were doing?  you know how a person moves and how well they move just based on their limbs, how they swing, how they hold themselves, and their own unique movements.  the movement you will need to get you out of pain is soft, gentle, easy and comfortable.  At first fast will be out of the question, but as you progress and move forward speed will become part of who you are again.

The Richness of Movement

We all have a huge capacity for movement…and we have a lot of experience with movement as well.  it can always get better.  Feldenkrais would say that we have more capacity for movement than for feeling or thought.  Many people suppress their thoughts (“I am not good enough”), some suppress their feelings (“she will be mad at me if I say something”) all because we want to avoid unwanted situations…but movement…we all move and it’s important to keep it going!

Sow what do we do with these three pieces of information:

1. Move More? Move more but move small.  Try as many variations as you can think of with one movement.  Can you do the movement sitting in a chair, lying on your stomach, on your side, your other side, on your head?  Get creative…just follow the next piece of advice…
2. Quality of Movement. Move gentle.  Move soft.  Move in ways without strain.  Move in ways that you can only imagine.  Make sure the effort is there in your mind but not in your physical movement.
3. The Richness of Movement. Each movement will have a given range of motion to it…why use the whole thing? You need not move large or big or fast in order to have a significant impact on your nervous system.  If you are lifting your arm for example, you can move very slow and feel a tremendous amount of information going to your brain from your limbs, how it relates to gravity, the weight of your arm…the sheer amount of information is staggering if you pay attention to as many factors as you can think of…the whole “range”  is filled with endless amounts of feedback you can learn from and appreciate…

So what?

Try this:  Lie on your back with your arms at your side.  Bend your knees and have your feet flat on the floor.  Begin with an inhale and gently (without strain or effort) press the tip of your tailbone down into the floor.  Just the tip of your tailbone.  Each time you inhale and press your tailbone down make the movement slightly larger so that eventually your back will arch.  Notice that it can take you a long time to appreciate the slight range slowly becoming larger…and how much information you gain from small gentle and soft movements.  Repeat this 20 times and each time think of how the variations of effort and softness change, the quality of movement is enhanced, and that the richness is endless only to be determined by your curiosity and patience!

Tell me what you know and what you have found out…charlie@4seasonfitness.com

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Back Pain and Change…do you like it?

Today is gonna be short….there is a great article I read on “change.”  How much do you like to change?  My guess is not much…change is scary, hard, difficult…and involves a huge emotional component to it all.  What I have noticed in working with people is that if you make the change too significant…it will not stick.  It will be unattainable.  It will falter.  Success will not happen.  Change needs to be gradual and above all attainable to work.  it cannot be too far of a reach from where you currently stand…otherwise you could slip and fall off that wagon.

Check it out: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/94/open_change-or-die.htmlBack

Now that’s a lot of cash-ola!

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Back Pain and Self Image [Part 5] Self Talk

What do you say to yourself?

A good friend of mine (Kristi Dowler) sent me a short note in regards to my last article on the use of language with those around you and she very nicely pointed out that we also need to choose the language of how we talk with ourselves wisely!  She is sooooo right because who is our strongest critic?  The one that resides between our ears and sees what we see in the mirror.

Before we go any farther…if you are into fitness and health for yourself and are female or know of anyone female in the San Francisco Bay Area that is into health and fitness you need to see my friend Kristi.  She and her company, Vayar, will help you take it to the next level.  Seriously…check it out.

So how do we generate self talk that is positive and constructive?  First let’s find out what is important for you.  We all have different needs, values, expectations, and desires, but when it comes down to it, most can be distilled into 5-8 areas.  Sit down and reeeeeallly think of the areas of your life that are important…for example, here are the important areas of my life: home and work, physical well-being, relationships, community, and finances.  Once you know the important areas (whether you are successful in them or not) you can build Positive Personal Statements around them to help reinforce your desires or beliefs.

Forming Beliefs and Shifting the Critic

Lets take the priorities in my life as an example and form some positive statements:

1. Priority: Home and work.  I use the image and statement of: “I am living the life of my dreams.”
2. Priority: Physical well-being.  I use the image and statement of: ” I am in optimal health.”
3. Priority: Relationships.  I use the image and statement of: “I am in love with my life and my family.”
4. Priority: Community.  I use the image and statement of: ” I am a valued member of my church”
5. Priority: Finances.  I use the image and statement of: “Money comes freely easily and often.”

These Positive Personal Statements need to connect to who you are, positive, and have an ability to shift your emotional state.  What areas of your life are the most important to you?

When do you use these statements? The best time is when you are feeling down, feeling low, feeling “below the line.”  Use your own words and emotionally charged statements to bring you up and back into a state where you can feel and be effective.  I would start by saying them in the morning and in the evening…and then through the day as you need to remain upbeat and effective!

Replace Negative Statements: A good way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with something better. Once you’re aware of your internal dialogue, here are some ways to change it:

• Milder Wording: Have you ever been to a hospital and noticed how the nurses talk about ‘discomfort’ instead of ‘pain’? This is generally done because ‘pain’ is a much more powerful word, and discussing your ‘pain’ level can actually make your experience of it more intense than if you’re discussing your ‘discomfort’ level. You can try this strategy in your daily life. In your self-talk, turning more powerful negative words to more neutral ones can actually help neutralize your experience. Instead of using words like ‘hate’ and ‘angry’ (as in, “I hate traffic! It makes me so angry!”), you can use words like ‘don’t like’ and ‘annoyed’ (“I don’t like traffic; it makes me annoyed,” sounds much milder, doesn’t it?)
• Change Negative to Neutral or Positive: As you find yourself mentally complaining about something, rethink your assumptions. Are you assuming something is a negative event when it isn’t, necessarily? (For example, having your plans cancelled at the last minute can be seen as a negative, but what you do with your newly-freed schedule can be what you make of it.) The next time you find yourself stressing about something or deciding you’re not up to a challenge, stop and rethink, and see if you can come up with a neutral or positive replacement.
• Change Self-Limiting Statements to Questions: Self-limiting statements like “I can’t handle this!” or “This is impossible!” are particularly damaging because they increase your stress in a given situation and they stop you from searching for solutions. The next time you find yourself thinking something that limits the possibilities of a given situation, turn it into a question. Doesn’t “How can I handle this?” or “How is this possible?” sound more hopeful and open up your imagination to new possibilities?

Go on…get out there…be nice to yourself!  Charlie@4seasonfitness.com

PS:  Isn’t it a bit scary how much I look like Dave Attell in my self-portrait?

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Happiness is TOTALLY Contagious!!!

Does being happy mean you will have less pain?  Maybe…an what if others can help you get out of pain just from a smile and a mood change?

Scientists reported that happiness is contagious, and that you may have complete strangers to thank for the smile on your face.  Just go to a kids park and try it out…kids will have you smiling and laughing in an instant!

In a paper published Friday in the BMJ formerly known as the British Medical Journal, American researchers tracked more than 4,700 people in Framingham, Massachussetts, as part of a heart study from 1983 to 2003.

When they analyzed the data looking for happiness trends, the scientists found that happy people passed on their cheer to people they didn’t personally know – and this transferred happiness lasted for up to a year.

“Happiness is like a stampede,” said Nicholas Christakis, a professor in Harvard University’s sociology department, one of the study’s authors. “Whether you’re happy depends not just on your own actions and behaviors and thoughts, but on those of people you don’t even know.”

Christakis and James Fowler, an associate professor of political science at the University of California in San Diego, previously found that obesity and smoking habits spread socially as well.

For this study, they examined questionnaires that asked people to measure their happiness and found distinct happy and unhappy clusters that were significantly bigger than would be expected by chance alone.

Happiness lasted for up to three cycles: to the friends of friends of friends.

Happy people tended to be at the center of social networks and had many friends who were also happy. Having friends or siblings live nearby increased peoples’ chances of being upbeat.

Happy spouses helped too, but not as much as happy friends of the same gender. No effects were seen with coworkers.

Christakis and Fowler estimate that each happy friend boosts your own happiness chances by 9 percent. Having grumpy friends decreases it by about 7 percent.

Being happy also brings other benefits.

“Happiness has a protective effect on your immune system and you produce fewer stress hormones,” said Andrew Steptoe, a professor of psychology at University College London who was not linked to the study.

Other experts said people shouldn’t assume they can make themselves happy just by making the right friends.

Happiness is like a stampede.

Nicholas Christakis, study author

“The psychological health of your friends is a predictor of your own mental health, but to say you can manipulate who your friends are to make yourself happier would be going too far,” said Stanley Wasserman, an Indiana University statistician who studies social networks.

Because the study was done in a single community, further research is needed to confirm its findings. The study was also conducted before the rise of online social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

“This type of technology enhances your contact with friends, so it should support the kind of emotional contagion we observed,” Christakis said, though he couldn’t say if being on Facebook would make you happier.

Fowler said the study was the first tentative evidence of karma.

“The fact that happiness spreads from person to person to person suggests that these waves of happiness we radiate could eventually wash up on our own shores,” he said.

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