These well-intentioned efforts to help us make wiser choices make sense, right? Unfortunately, research in behavioral economics shows that these measures often have the opposite intended effects. Paradoxically, people will eat less healthily, when they know what they’re eating. Ignorance seems to be bliss when it comes to indulging our taste buds as we step into a restaurant, whether it’s a local McDonald’s or New York’s posh Oyster Bar.

George Loewenstein, Professor of Economics and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, has pioneered important and fascinating behavioral economics research on diet and health choices, including a NY Times Op-Ed. You can learn more about his work including a webcast and paper available online in which he discusses factors contributing to obesity, including the posting of calorie charts (these are lengthy but well worth your time if you want to explore the topic further).

Conventional economics assumes that our choices are made on the basis of rational consideration of alternatives. In behavioral economics, the foibles of human decision-making are brought to light. For example, we are easily led to buy products because they cost more, not less. Luxury marketers are already aware of this fact in practice, which is why some stores, even in hard economic times, never reduce their products (try finding Louis Vuitton purses on sale, for instance!).

The principles of behavioral economics are no more evident than when we are faced with menu choices in restaurants, causing us to throw rational decision-making to the winds. One of the big problems is that (surprise, surprise) when you go to a restaurant, you’re hungry. Your hypothalamus issues the demand “FEED ME!” Your hypothalamus is the part of the lower brain regions, structures not noted for their ability to perform complex mathematical calculations. All the hypothalamus cares about is getting nutrients of any kind into the bloodstream, and now.

So, there’s that lovely calorie chart posted on the wall, but our hypothalamus pays no attention. What about the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that does make wise decisions? Although some customers will give voice to their upper brain regions, these tend to be the people already motivated to watch their weight. If the calorie chart wasn’t posted, they would bring along one of their own, perhaps even one they downloaded ahead of time online (now that is the prefrontal cortex at work!).

Sometimes the prefrontal cortex thinks it is making a good decision through that wonderful defense mechanism of rationalization. “Hey,” it says, “that Big Mac has 704 calories, but the Caesar salad with dressing has 510.” Rationalization leads you to decide that it’s not even a 200 calorie difference, so what’s the big deal? Behavioral economists talk about the fact that these small decisions on one occasion don’t seem “that bad” (especially when your hypothalamus is jumping up and down screaming for sustenance). Over time, of course, these little 200 calorie decisions do add up. But at the moment, you’re not into the business of projecting far into the future. As Freud would say, the id trumps the super-ego.

Of course all this is based on the premise that people actually read calorie charts, and as we know, they don’t. You can bring a hungry person to a restaurant but you can’t make that person read past the menu. Now, here’s where there is some potential to change behavior.

Behavioral economics tells us that people will often revert to whatever the default choice is when given options. Big Macs automatically come with cheese and a mayo-based sauce. What if those calorie boosting add-ons required you to make an additional request? Going with the default principle would mean that your 704 calorie indulgence now has closer to what that Caesar salad would offer. In fact, what Loewenstein and like-minded behavioral economists are suggesting is a policy whose name might scare some people: paternalistically assymetry. Or, if you prefer, choices of convenience. Make the default option the healthy one, in other words.

There are many factors contributing to the obesity epidemic in the United States, but fast food meals with their low price tags and ubiquitous presence in the highways and byways of the land, loom large in the list of causes. We’ve learned recently from a University of Buffalo study that living near convenience stores and restaurants rather than grocery stores may also contribute to weight gain in women. We have to be careful here in that, as I’ve pointed out in previous blogs, correlation doesn’t equal causation. Your street address doesn’t cause your weight gain. Instead, a third factor, most likely economic status of the neighborhood, is the big culprit here. There are more convenience stores and fast-food restaurants in poorer neighborhoods. If people don’t have cars to drive out to the suburbs where the large supermarkets with healthier alternatives, hypothalamus or not, they’ll eat what’s close by. And many of these healthier food stores aren’t cheap.  Whole Foods isn’t nicknamed “Whole Wallet” for nothing.

Turns out that even these healthy-sounding bills of fare are not such great news for our bodies. When you stop to read the small print, you’ll wonder if “whole food” might not mean “whole lot of bad stuff.” Let’s say you’re going to browse around for a nutricious breakfast or morning snack. What could be better than the “Morning Glory Muffin”? You see visions of lovely little blue flowers as you wander around the meadow, pouring wonderful nutrients into your health-food craving prefrontal cortex. Clouds loom overhead once you read the fine print about what is actually in that mere 99g innocent-sounding delight: 310 calories (160 from fat), 18g total fat, 1.5g saturated fat, 0g trans fat, 4g protein, 36g total carbohydrate (1g dietary fiber, 13g sugar), 70mg cholesterol, 310mg sodium. Sure this stacks up better than some McDonald’s breakfast offerings, but it’s not much of an improvement over some options including a warm cinnamon bun (mmm…).

The principle of convenience or least effort in decision-making applies to many other health-related areas. Consider the default shoe options now being offered by retailers from Jimmy Choo to Target.  Teeteringly high platforms and stilettos are now the rule of the rack. The healthy (and fashionable) alternatives with their humdrum names (“Naturalizer” to name one), are either not advertised or available (or cheap, for that matter). Similarly, the elevators in many buildings gleam brightly and temptingly at front entrances with their polished steel and glass surfaces. Staircases are hidden behind imposing doors that appear to lead only to emergency exits (and could sound an alarm). Stairwells are ugly, dirty, and poorly lit.  In restaurants and bars throughout the world (less and less in developed countries), we have to ask to be seated in a non-smoking section. The list goes on and on.Consumers are constantly being tempted to slide into unhealthy default options that over time cause our health to deteriorate.

How can you avoid the trap of the easy but unhealthy default option? Here are five suggestions:

1. Make the commitment to engage your prefrontal cortex. No matter what sorts of unrealistic demands your hypothalamus makes for quick and easy decisions get started on effortful processing. Think about what you’re doing, project your decisions into the future, and imagine the outcomes.

2. Be a non-conformist. You’re out with your friends for a good time and those cheese-covered nachos that they order are sounding awfully good. Don’t be afraid to get a veggie plate instead (and I don’t mean a deep-friend veggie plate). Go ahead and have ONE or two nachos to go along with the gang. Chances are, though, that once you buck the nachos trend, your friends may also be mooching off your platter.

3. Read the fine print. It’s annoying how small the “nutrition facts” charts are on packaged foods. Never mind- read them and be sure to read the serving sizes as well. If you’re afraid of looking uncool because you need to whip out your reading glasses, so what? No one will care (revert to principle #2, above).

4. Support paternalistic assymetry. Start a campaign at work to beautify the stairwells. Suggest that retailers make healthy alternatives more prominent. When you cook meals for your family, don’t add the salt or butter ahead of time to those green beans but make them ask first. You can adopt the Bloomberg principle and gradually reduce the additives such as sugar so that over time they’re not missed as much.

5. Question what’s in a name. We are all so easily duped by euphemistic names that we rarely question what’s being offered to us. Make sure that the so-called healthy alternative you’ve selected isn’t loaded with sugar, sodium, and unhealthy fat substitutes. Here’s where healthy skepticism can really be “healthy.”

It’s not easy to resist the trends of society, our friends, and even our brains when it comes to making good lifestyle choices. But with some effort and a few simple steps, you can make that all important start toward healthy self-fulfillment.

But whatever you do, please don’t take this advice with a grain of salt!

You can access free interactive resources, personality quizzes, and articles at: www.searchforfulfillment.comSusan is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the author of 21 books including her most recent book, “The Search for Fulfillment.”

Published on Psychology Today (http://www.psychologytoday.com)

Created Jul 20 2010 – 10:11am

Links:
[1] http://www.consumerfedofca.org/article.php?id=977
[2] http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3420655&page=1
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/31/nyregion/2010criticb-chart.html
[4] http://sds.hss.cmu.edu/src/faculty/loewenstein.php
[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/opinion/15loewenstein.html
[6] https://admin.acrobat.com/_a934360949/p22312150/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal
[7] http://sds.hss.cmu.edu/media/pdfs/loewenstein/PromotingHealthierChoices.pdf
[8] http://www.answers.com/topic/hypothalamus
[9] http://neuro.psyc.memphis.edu/neuropsyc/np-l2-pref.htm
[10] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100702152403.htm
[11] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201003/the-sole-fulfillment-keeping-the-bounce-in-your-walk
[12] https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/personality
[13] http://www.searchforfulfillment.com/
[14] http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/teaser/2010/07/calorie.jpg



What would it mean to you if you could automatically just eat the right foods and automatically carry out your workouts every day, without straining… without even having to think about it?

How would your body and your health change if you just automatically did the right thing everyday… as effortlessly as you shower, brush your teeth or get dressed?

Would you agree that the most challenging part of losing weight and getting in shape is taking the right actions every day? (Not “talking”… but “DOING”?)

• It’s easy to say, “Eat smaller, more frequent meals.”
• It’s easy to say, “Eat natural foods, avoid refined food and sugar.”
• It’s easy to say, “Eat ample amounts of healthy, essential fats.”
• It’s easy to say, “Eat a lean protein with each of your meals.”
• It’s easy to say, “Get at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day”
• It’s easy to say, “Get at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day”

Yes, easy to say… easy to talk about… not always so easy to do.

Why is it such a challenge to DO the things that you know you must do every day to get results? Why do we say one thing, and then do another?

The answer lies in your subconscious mind and in the awesome force known as HABIT, which has enormous power to pull you in a certain direction… positive or negative.

Your subconscious manages and carries out autonomic functions of your body, including digestion, circulation and respiration, so you don’t have to think about them. If you’ve ever studied human anatomy and physiology, then you can appreciate the importance of this. The complexity and number of human bodily functions is staggering.

Can you imagine if you had to consciously think about or “will” your body to digest food, release hormones, beat your heart, circulate blood and all the other countless functions that are going on in your body at the same time?

It would be impossible. And that’s where your subconscious mind comes in. It handles all this stuff for you on an un-conscious level so you don’t have to be overwhelmed.

In the same way, your subconscious handles many ordinary behaviors every day so you don’t have to be overwhelmed.

A habit is simply an automatic behavior. The behavior has become automatic because it has been repeated frequently and thereby, turned over to subconscious control.

A habit, then, could be described as a behavior pattern fixed in your subconscious mind as a result of repetition.

Habits are a result of behaviors repeated… but they begin with a single act.

Orison Swett Marden, founder of Success magazine, once wrote,

“The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably.”

I often advise my clients to become very aware of the behaviors they repeat on a regular basis and never to do things daily that they don’t want to become habits.

Take the habit of drinking for example…

You often hear the advice that drinking in moderation is okay, and that moderation is defined as “one or two drinks a day.”

I’ve had many clients say that they enjoy one or two drinks every night. They defend their behavior by arguing that “research says it’s good for you” (especially red wine), and that they’re even getting good results from their workouts.

I tell them that this may be true, but I warn them to consider the long term consequences because any behavior you repeat every day is HABIT-FORMING.

We are all forming and reinforcing habits every day of our lives. Some are positive habits that move us towards our goals and some are negative habits that move us away from them. Some behaviors which appear relatively harmless as a single act are extremely negative in their cumulative effects, eventually causing much pain and anguish. Their opposites, if identified and cultivated, would bring us health, happiness and all else that is good.

Your subconscious mind is a machine. It functions exactly like a computer. In fact, your subconscious mind is the most magnificent and powerful computer ever created.

“Behold I set before you both a blessing and a curse” is not just a famous quote from the bible, it is a perfect description of the law that governs the function of your “subconscious computer.”

Your subconscious does not care what instructions you program into it or what habits you choose to develop. The subconscious is completely impartial and will carry out your “commands” – whether intentional or by default – to the letter, without question, 100% of the time.

Whatever thoughts you impress upon your subconscious repeatedly will eventually express themselves in your body or through your behaviors, and whatever behaviors you perform repeatedly, will eventually become habits.

Once a habit is established, it will require no conscious thought or effort to repeat in the future, and in fact, will take enormous strength to break… very much like swimming upstream against the current.

Knowing that your subconscious is your unquestioning servant, wouldn’t it be easier to harness the power of habit in your favor and be swept towards your goals by the current of positive habit?

I started working out at a very young age, and I’ve now been training non stop for over 20 years.

How have I become so consistent in my training? Pure habit force! There is never a “discussion” in my head about whether I should go to the gym… I just put on my gym clothes and go… automatically.

It’s HARD to miss a workout!

I guess you could say that me skipping a workout is like a drug addict skipping his fix. Odd analogy, perhaps, but isn’t it true that people become “addicted” to exercise?

What are you addicted to through force of habit? Are your habits positive or negative? Did you ever consider that you can harness the power of positive habits?

You can!

The question, of course, is HOW?

It seems so hard to form new positive habits, and maybe even harder to break bad ones.

Well, it takes a method… you need a strategy. People have written entire books on this, but let me offer you 4 quick and simple tips you can use right away to harness the power of positive habits in your life:

1. Cultivate Awareness

Ignorance is not bliss. Awareness is bliss. You are on auto pilot and probably don’t even realize it. 99% of the actions you take every day are habits. Some are positive, some are negative. All are carried out automatically without conscious thought required. You don’t have to think about how to tie your shoelaces anymore.

That “skill” has long since been filed away in your subconscious mind. You don’t have to think about how to drive your car… that function too, has long since been filed away in your subconscious (but do you remember the first time you tried to drive… especially if it was a stick shift?)

And so it is with dozens of other behaviors you carry out every day. And thank God that they’re automated… can you imagine if you had to think about them? (your brain would explode!)

The question is, do you have yourself programmed on auto pilot with negative habits or positive ones? If you don’t know the answer, you’d better take an inventory of your habits, and identify any limiting habits that you weren’t even conscious of until just now. As the old self help maxim says, “You can’t fix a problem if you don’t know you have one.”

2. Begin with your mind, and your body will follow

U.S. Anderson once wrote, “Success isn’t the result of hard work, it is the result of right thinking.”

At first, this may not appear to make sense, because obviously you must take action (work hard) in order to succeed. However, by examining this statement on a deeper level, you realize it is 100% accurate because actions are a result of our thinking and our mental programming. Therefore, the logical place to begin when you want success, is in your mind, by changing your thoughts and changing the programming that causes your habitual actions. Success begins in your own mind.

The thought always gives birth to the action. Too many people focus on “forcing” behaviors, but force negates and willpower fails you in the long term. The real power lies in your thoughts which create the habitual behaviors. To change the behavior, you DON’T USE WILLPOWER alone, you simply trace the behavior back to the thought patterns that created it and change the thoughts.

3. Replace negative habits with positive ones

Nature abhors a vacuum. If you manage to simply remove a negative habit, it leaves a vacuum begging to be filled. Often the bad habit returns to re-occupy its old space or another bad habit simply takes it’s place.

The way to get rid of a bad habit forever is to replace it with a positive one. This is especially easy and effective when it comes to food choices. If there is a particular food you habitually eat and know you shouldn’t, don’t just try to eliminate it. Instead find a better choice to replace it with. Each time you feel the urge for the old food, reach for the new one instead. It’s a simple process of substitution.

4. Never repeat a negative behavior if you don’t want it to become a habit; repeat, reinforce and reward positive behaviors you DO want to become habits

Suppose you’ve managed to haul your butt to the gym a few times a week, but you hate training legs. So you gleefully finish your upper body, then say to yourself, “Ah, I don’t need to do my legs today… I’ll do them next time.” Sure enough, next time rolls around and the same urge pops into your mind… “My legs are fine… It’s my chest and arms I really care about most.” So you blow off legs again.

Right there in the moment, you must become aware of what’s about to happen, and catch yourself. What’s “about to happen?”  A negative habit is about to begin forming.

Forming a brand new positive habit is not all that difficult – all it takes is about 21 days of conscious effort for the behavior to be turned over to subconscious control.

Getting rid of negative habits is more difficult, so the best way to avoid falling under their influence is to stop them from forming in the first place. If you do something once… no problem. But if you’re tempted to do it twice… kill it, before it grows roots.

By Paige Waehner, About.com Guide

You already know how to lose weight…At it’s simplest, you need to burn more calories than you eat, right? And exercising and eating healthy is the healthiest way to do that, right? But, successful weight loss doesn’t start with your body–it starts with your mind.

As we’ve all discovered, the mind is a powerful thing–it can take you to success or failure, depending on your attitude. What you think about yourself can make the difference between reaching your goals and quitting before you even get close. So how do you get your mind right to make exercise and healthy eating a part of your life? Below are some key ingredients you can rely on to reach your goals.

Commitment

You already know you have to commit to being healthy, but what does that actually involve? It’s more than just shouting from the roof tops “I’M COMMITTED TO BEING HEALTHY!” Being committed means you have to wake up every day and decide you’re going to make healthy choices. Being committed is a choice and something you have to reinforce each day. So how do you do that? Use these tips to help you commit to your goals:

• Plan and Prepare. The night before, plan your workout for the next day and get all your stuff (gym bag, clothes, etc.) ready to go. Decide what and when you’ll eat and get your meals ready. Make it as easy as possible to follow through with your plans.
• Motivate Yourself. Remind yourself throughout the day of your workout plans–send yourself a reminder or have a friend call and ask about your workout, so it’s always in the front of your mind.
• Hold Yourself Accountable. What will happen if you skip that workout? You need to have consequences so that missing your workout isn’t an option–maybe you can’t watch your favorite TV show until you exercise. On the other side, you can also reward yourself for working out–just make sure you don’t reward yourself with food.
• Remember Your Goals. As you’re getting ready for the day, remember what your goals are. Weight loss? More energy? Whatever it is, that workout is an important step in reaching it. Remind yourself of the big picture–what you do today counts!

Discipline

Such an ugly word, I know, but discipline is a part of successful weight loss and just another way of saying self-control. Think of how you practice self-control in the other parts of your life. Each day you fulfill your obligations to work and family, even when you’d rather just lie in bed and sleep late. That takes discipline. The same can be true of exercise. Of course, it’s easy to make yourself go to work because there are consequences if you don’t–you won’t make as much money or you could lose your job. But if you don’t workout, the consequences aren’t as immediate, are they? Try these ideas to get more disciplined with exercise:

• Make Exercise a Habit. Part of being disciplined is creating a habit. You may not want to brush your teeth every night, but you do it anyway because you always do it right before bed…it’s a habit. You can do the same thing with exercise by keeping your workouts on specific days and times each week (if you can). Knowing that every Monday at 6 a.m. will find you at the gym will make it that much easier to show up for your workouts.
• Know the Consequences. You already know what happens if you don’t brush your teeth–cavities, gum disease, painful dental experiences, etc. But what are the consequences of not exercising? Make a list of all the things that could happen to your body and mind without exercise such as weight gain, increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer, to name a few.
• Get Some Help. One sure way to show up for your workout is to have someone waiting for you. One option is a personal trainer–someone who will hold you accountable for your workouts while educating you all at the same time. Another option is to get a workout buddy and have consquences if you don’t show up. Having that support will make exercise more enjoyable AND keep you on track.
• Make a Deal With Yourself. Don’t feel like working out? Promise yourself you’ll just do a warm up. If after 10 minutes you still don’t want to workout, you can quit and go home. The majority of the time, you’ll keep going…trust me.

Honesty

Being honest with yourself about what you’ll really do is a tough one. Many people fail at weight loss because they set their sights too high, planning so many workouts and diet changes, it’s impossible to follow. This is where a little self-awareness comes in and what that means is figuring out what you’ll really do to reach your goals. Take some time to ask yourself some crucial questions before embarking on another failed journey. Ask yourself:

• How much time will you really spend exercising? Forget the guidelines and decide what you’ll actually do…then plan your workouts accordingly. If you’re not going to spend an hour doing cardio, don’t set that as a goal–set a goal you can reach!
• Are you willing to do what it takes to reach your goals? If you want to lose weight, are you willing to change your eating habits? What if that means spending more time cooking and shopping? Preparing your meals in advance? Saying no those daily lunches out with co-workers? What if it means you have to keep track of what you’re eating and work on your bad habits? Decide if you’re really willing to commit to doing that every single day.
• Can you accept failure? A big part of weight loss is falling off the wagon…and it WILL happen. It happens to all of us! What happens if you flub up one day and give into those pizza cravings? What if you eat that extra piece of pie? Are you willing to accept your slip-up and get back on track or will you just quit at the first mistake? Be honest with yourself about this one because willingness to persevere in these circumstances can mean the difference between success and failure.

Flexibility

Maybe this has happened to you: You start an exercise program–you’re working out, eathing healthy and feeling great. Then, Something Happens–an injury, an illness, a mean boss heaping more work on you. Whatever it is, it throws you off and before you know it, you’ve completely stopped working out.

It’s important to realize that these kinds of things will happen on a regular basis. Your job is to be prepared and, to do that, you have to be more flexible. You need to be willing to…:

• Change your workouts when necessary. If you suddenly have to work late, decide you’re still going to exercise…just in a different way. This might mean squeezing in some stair walking or short, brisk walks whenever you can. Decide you’ll do something, even if it’s just a quick walk.
• Do shorter workouts. Many people quit exercise when they don’t have time to do a full workout. Remember this: Something is always better than nothing. If you only have 10 minutes, use it! It might mean getting up early and lifting weights for 10 minutes before work. Stay committed, but give yourself permission to do what you have time for until things calm down. Try these 10-minute cardio ideas and don’t forget strength training too.
• Be creative. Yes, there are guidelines for exercise, but when time is short, stop worrying about the rules and do what you can. This might mean combining cardio and strength workouts, spreading out your workouts throughout the day or making your household chores a workout, if that’s all you have time for. I have one client who runs around the ball field while she watches her son play baseball–now that’s creative!

Consistency

Consistency is what comes from all that discipline, commitment, honesty and flexibility we’ve been talking about. Why? Because being consistent with your eating and exercise is the only way to reach your goals. Exercising heavily for 3 weeks and then quitting for a month isn’t going to work. Your assignment?

• Find a program that you can live with for the rest of your life. Do something you enjoy and that fits into your daily schedule.
• Create, through trial and error, a workout routine that fits with your life, your goals and your needs.
• Find a way of healthy eating that you can live with for the rest of your life. You already know that diets don’t work–at least for the long-term.
• Give yourself a little leeway to make mistakes and, above all, don’t expect perfection. Be ready to screw up from time to time, acknowledge it and then use it to do better.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment. Try different workout activities and times. Try different ways of eating and preparing your food. Find what works for you!

In the end, losing weight requires you to draw on all of your strengths while acknowledging your weaknesses–not an easy thing to do. The good news is, you have many resources to rely on, most of them readily available right there in your own mind. And it helps to have some outside motivation as well. Don’t forget to reward yourself for your successes and don’t be afraid to count on yourself…you know what to do.

Use these little-known trainer tips to bust plateaus and make instant progress.

This article is all about strategy—the best methods for busting plateaus and making new size and strength gains. Tripple Sets: ”The key to building big muscles is to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible,” says Chad Waterbury, a strength and conditioning coach in Los Angeles (visit him at chadwaterbury.com). “However, your largest, strongest muscle fibers fatigue very quickly,” which is evidenced by a decrease in your rep speed toward the end of your set. You can get more out of those fibers by using triple sets.

How it Works: Choose a weight that lets you get 10-14 reps. Perform each rep as fast as possible, but keep perfect form. As soon as you feel your speed beginning to slow, end the set—do not go to failure. Rest 30 seconds and repeat. Then rest 30 seconds and repeat once more. Now rest 180 seconds and repeat the entire triple sequence. Terminating your sets when you begin to lose speed allows you to focus on the muscle fibers that have the greatest potential for growth. Once they’re fatigued, continuing to perform the set is almost moot. By stopping to rest until those big fibers are recovered, you’ll reap the most growth stimulus the set can offer.

1 1/2 Reps: You already know that compound exercises are the best muscle builders. “The problem is, they don’t always emphasize the muscles that you’re trying to build,” says Waterbury. For example, the chinup works the biceps hard, but since it’s mainly a back exercise, your back muscles can overpower the movement. Rather than doing curls to isolate the biceps, use the 1 1/2-rep method. “This allows you to build up the smaller muscles you want to focus on,” says Waterbury, “while also deriving all the strength-building benefits of compound movements.”

How it Works: Perform half of a full repetition for a particular exercise. Then return to the starting position and perform a complete rep through the entire range of motion. The half rep and full rep together count as one full rep. For example, on the chinup, start from the full hang position and pull yourself up halfway. (In this portion of the range of motion, the biceps are working at their max.) Lower yourself back down, and then do a full chinup (in which the lats are the prime movers). On the squat, you would lower yourself into the bottom position, come up halfway, and then go back down and up again to the start position. Perform five sets of 4-6 reps like this twice each week and you’ll shatter strength plateaus while stimulating a ton of new growth.

Heavy and Fast Sets: “There are two indisputable ways to build big, strong muscles,” says Waterbury—”by lifting heavy and by lifting fast.” Trouble is, muscles can’t move really heavy loads fast (it takes milliseconds longer to coordinate a muscle action under high tension), and while they can move light loads quickly, light weights aren’t stressful enough on muscles to elicit growth. How do you lift heavy and fast in the same set to reap maximum benefits?

How it Works: Choose a compound exercise for what- ever muscle group you’re training. For example, if it’s a chest workout, you could use the bench press (as opposed to the dumbbell fly). Perform a set with a weight that al- lows you to get five reps (do not go to failure), rest 10 seconds, and then hit the floor and do as many plyo pushups as you can (explosively push up so that your body rises off the floor and you can clap in midair. Rest 180 seconds, and then repeat the sequence twice more. The set of five reps allows you to lift heavy weights, providing plenty of muscular tension. The explosive plyo pushups recruit your biggest and strongest muscle fibers. This combination provides a one-two punch for lightning- fast muscle gains. If you’re training legs, do squats followed by body-weight jump squats. “This method also works really well for biceps development,” says Waterbury. Perform one set of weighted chinups for five reps, rest 10 seconds, and then do a set of barbell curls as fast as possible with a load you could lift 10-12 times.


Post-Exhaustion Training: You’ve probably tried the pre-exhaustion method before, which involves performing a set of an isolation exercise followed immediately by a compound movement. The goal here is to work one target muscle group in an area of the body first and then tax it some more with a compound movement in which the other muscles in that area can assist you in getting more reps. For instance, you could do a set of biceps curls prior to chinups. The challenge, however, is that isolation lifts don’t permit heavy loading (you can chinup with a lot more weight than you can curl), so you’re cheating your- self out of the chance to lift big, muscle-building weights when you’re fresh. Post-exhaustion training is just the opposite.

How it Works: “Work the muscles with a compound lift first, and then follow it with an isolation exercise that involves the prime movers,” says Smith. That means you can do chin-ups paired with curls, close-grip bench presses with triceps extensions, and shoulder presses with lateral raises. Now you can thoroughly stimulate your target muscles with a heavy weight first and then finish off with a move that provides a more direct hit afterward.

Diminished-Rest Intervals: You can break a plateau in a matter of seconds. In fact, you don’t even have to lift more weight or adjust your sets and reps. “By gradually reducing the time you take between sets,” says Rachel Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., a performance-enhancement coach in Santa Clarita, Calif., “you can force your muscles to recover more quickly, and that leads to faster growth.”

How it Works: Reduce the amount of time you rest between sets by 5-10 seconds every week—but make sure you don’t have to decrease the weight you’re using to allow for it. In other words, if you’re currently resting 60 seconds between sets, try going for 55 or 50 seconds next week, and 50 or 45 seconds the week after. Continue in this manner for four weeks. At that point, you’ll be recovering in approximately half the time you used to, and you’ll need to use heavier weights to return to your old rest periods again.

Back-Off Sets: Your body is capable of lifting some badass weights—you just don’t always have the confidence to try. One great way of reducing your inhibitions toward heaving big loads is to use back-off sets, which allow you to use heavier weights than normal for a higher-rep set.

How it Works: Choose a weight that allows you to get about six reps, and perform two sets with it. Now reduce the weight by 40%, and do as many reps as possible—however many you complete, it’s sure to be more than you could have gotten if you’d just done a normal warm-up and then tried to rep out with that load. “Your nervous system is already excited from your heavy sets,” says Cosgrove (rachelcosgrove.com), “so when you do the back-off set, it’s primed to make your muscles do more work than usual.”

by Sean Hyson, C.S.C.S. ]]> http://thefitnessfactory.biz/2009/07/29/muscle-tricks/feed/ 0 http://thefitnessfactory.biz/2009/07/27/5-reasons-why-women-should-lift-weights/ http://thefitnessfactory.biz/2009/07/27/5-reasons-why-women-should-lift-weights/#comments Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:49:00 +0000 admin http://thefitnessfactory.biz/?p=176 Women who lift weights will be stronger and more capable in their everyday lives.

Weight lifting helps women to burn fat efficiently. The more lean muscle a female has, the higher your
resting metabolic rate will be. Someone with a fast metabolism will burn more calories than someone
with a slow metabolism doing the same amount of work.

1. When combined with cardio, weight lifting optimizes the body’s defenses against heart disease. It helps
   decrease LDL cholesterol, increase HDL cholesterol, and lower blood pressure. It also helps the body
   process glucose more efficiently, lowering the risk of diabetes.
2. Weight lifting fortifies connective tissue and improves joint stability, which helps strength trainers to
   allay pain and lower their risk of injury. Certain people lift weights just so they’ll have fewer muscle
   aches. Strength trainers also have increased bone density, lowering the risk of osteoporosis.
3. Weight lifting contributes to better sleep, helps people to blow off steam, and is one of the best ways
   to look and feel better about oneself. Who wouldn’t like more confidence, especially when it comes with
   an enhanced capacity to burn calories?

Strength is the foundation of nearly all physique and performance goals. When you’re strong, you more easily gain muscle size, lose fat, run faster, hit harder, play longer, and move more living room furniture for your wife. We’ve rounded up 10 no-questions-asked tips to help you make everything in your life feel just a little bit lighter.

Own the “big four.”

The squat, deadlift, bench press, and shoulder press are the best strength-building exercises, period. The chinup and row are great moves too, but don’t make them the focus of your workout — they can be assistance lifts to complement the bench and shoulder press, keeping your pulling muscles in balance with the pressing ones.

Use barbells first.

Forget all the fad equipment. The barbell is king, the dumbbell is queen, and everything else is a court jester — it may have its place, but it’s not essential. Start your workouts with barbell exercises, such as the “big four,” as described above. Barbells let you load a lot of weight, and lifting heavy is the first step toward getting stronger. Once your heaviest strength exercises are out of the way, you can move on to dumbbell and body-weight training.

Keep it simple.

Some trainers make their clients lift with a certain rep speed, like three seconds up, one second down. But know this: There’s no need to count anything but reps during a set. Simply focus on raising and lowering your weights in a controlled manner, pausing for a one-second count at the top of the lift. Using an arbitrary tempo can lessen tension on your muscles or force you to use varying amounts of weight, slowing your progress. The only way to be sure you’re getting stronger is if your loads consistently increase.

Maintain a log.

Write down your exercises, sets, reps, and the fate of each workout. Keep track of your best lifts and the most reps you’ve done with a certain weight on an exercise. Constantly strive to improve those numbers.

Don’t overdo it.

Try to stick to three or four lifts per workout. Keeping your workouts short helps you take advantage of hormonal surges. When you do too many exercises in a session, at least some of them get done half-assed. All you need is one main lift per workout (one of the big four), one or two assistance lifts (for keeping the body in balance and further strengthening the muscles that perform the main lift), and then core or specialty work at the end (ab exercises or some forearm or calf moves, depending on your goals). Doing any more lessens your results.

Think five.

You should rotate many different rep ranges in your workouts, but sets of five seem to offer the best blend of muscle size and strength gains. If you’re pushing through one of the big four moves, you’ll find that your form often breaks down after five anyway.

Add weights slowly.

The main reason people plateau and stop gaining strength is that they go too heavy for too long. Abandon your ego and do your main lifts using 10% less than the most weight you can lift for the given rep range. Increase the weight each session — but by no more than 10 pounds — and stick with the same lifts. You’ll rarely plateau again.

Take to the hills.

Cardio is a must if you want to be lean and healthy, but long-distance running or cycling increases levels of hormones that break down muscle tissue. To get stronger while getting leaner, do cardio in short, intense bursts. Go to a moderately steep hill and sprint to the top, then walk back down. When you’re ready, sprint again. In your first workout, do only half as many sprints as you think you could. In your next workout, do two more sprints than you did the first time. Continue adding two sprints to your workouts until you can’t improve anymore. Then do sets of sprints.

Balance your training.

Whatever you do for one side of the body, you must do for the other side. Follow that rule in your workouts and you should be able to avoid injury and muscle imbalances. If you’re doing squats (mainly a quad exercise), also do Romanian deadlifts (which hit the hamstrings hard). Your chest exercises should be balanced with back-training lifts. You don’t necessarily have to do your balance work in the same session, but it should be done in the same week. In general, follow a ratio of two-to-one between your pulling-and-pushing movements. So if you bench-press on Monday (and most of the world seems to), you can do chinups on Tuesday and bent-over lateral raises on Thursday, for example. Every other pressing exercise you do should follow this formula.

Do it right. Form is key.

You may think you know how to perform the big four, but you could probably get more out of them. Here are some quick pointers for each one.

Squat: Begin the squat by pushing your hips back as far as you can. Keep your lower back arched and you should feel a stretch in your hamstrings. When your hips are bent, begin bending your knees and squatting low. This is what you need to squat maximal weight.

Deadlift: Use the same stance you would to perform a jump — your legs should be narrowly placed. When you bend down to grab the bar, keep your hips down and your back straight, with your shoulders directly over your knees.

Bench Press: Start with your head off the bench. Keeping your feet steady, grab the bar and pull your body up off the bench and forward, so that when your butt comes down on the bench your lower back is very arched. Squeeze your shoulder blades together. Your range of motion should be significantly shorter for stronger pressing.

Shoulder press: Flare your lats when the bar is at shoulder level. It will allow you to use more weight.

By Jim Wendler

Shorten Rest Periods.

Progressively shaving seconds off your rest period can help to raise your metabolism. Just don’t go too low. You need a minimum of 30 seconds’ rest or you risk burning out. The one exception: circuit training, which requires no rest between sets.

Train the Whole Body.

If you’ve been following a split routine — upper-body exercises one day, lower body the next — condense both into one day. Your growth hormone levels will spike, and that burns fat.

Alternate Sets.

Do a set of a lower-body exercise followed by an upper-body one, such as a squat and then a row. This way, one muscle group has time to recover while you train another one.

Increase Lifting Speed.

You can more calories by doing explosive exercises like plyo pushups (where you push yourself into the air) and box jumps, or by using lighter weights and lifting them more explosively on the upward phase of the movement.

Decrease Reps.

Most guys’ workouts are based around the idea of 10 reps per set. But you’ll get a much bigger spike in metabolism by reducing your reps and tacking on an additional set. Try sets of six to eight reps.

The world of fitness abounds with fables, from no pain, no gain, to drinking water before exercising can give you cramps, and falling for one could have you spinning your wheels and getting nowhere instead of shaping up. Experts set the record straight and take the mystery out of these and other muscular myths for WebMD so you can make the most of your exercise routine.

No Pain, No Gain. “No pain, no gain is bad,” says Jeffrey Berg, an orthopedic surgeon and team physician for the Washington Redskins. “When people start to exercise, there may be some muscle aches and pains, which are normal. But there are other aches and pains, such as joint pain, bone pain, muscle strains, and ligament or tendon strains, which are bad, and you should back off of because they’ll get worse if you ignore them.”

So start slow, explains Berg.

“Always ease into an exercise plan to avoid injury,” says Berg. “The recommendation is if you’re healthy and you know it, you can start exercising, but err on the side of being too slow than too fast to avoid injury.”

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends starting an exercise program slowly and listening to your body and to your doctor.

There Is One Best Way to Exercise. “This is not true,” says Berg. “In fact, not only is there not one best way for everyone to exercise, but there’s not one best way for each person.”

His recipe for success? Vary your routine.

“You have to incorporate different exercises and routines into your fitness strategy to reach your goals, which should be individualized for you,” says Berg. “The exercises you choose should be tailored to what you like to do and then optimized for fitness and to avoid injury.”

More Sweat, Less Fat. “This is false,” says Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise. “The amount you sweat is indicative of your body’s ability to maintain its normal body temperature. You sweat when your body starts to store heat so you can experience cooling via evaporation of that sweat. So it doesn’t correlate to how much energy, or calories, is being expended.”

Drinking Water Causes Cramps. “Cramps are actually a symptom of dehydration, so this is an old wives tale,” says Bryant. “Basically, drinking water will help ensure you are properly hydrated, which will ultimately reduce your risk of sustaining or experience cramps.”

Lifting Weights Can Make You Look Bulky. “This is a myth that deters a lot of women from strength training, when in fact, what determines the amount of muscle bulk a person has is largely dependent on genetic factors,” says Bryant.

So for the typical woman, and the typical man, the chances of looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger are slim.

“To keep things in perspective, less than 1% of women, and less than 10% of males, have the genetic predisposition to naturally develop muscle bulk in response to strength training,” says Bryant.

Weight training is also an important part of any exercise plan, according to the American Heart Association web site. While aerobic activities help your heart and lungs and stretching improves your flexibility, weight training will improve your strength and endurance, and a combination of all three makes for an optimal exercise plan.

Exercising Is a Sure-Fire Way to Lose Weight. While it may seem obvious that exercise will result in weight loss, that’s not necessarily the case.

“What can happen is an individual may gain weight because she is changing her body composition,” says Bryant. “She’s losing fat tissue, but gaining lean tissue, which is a good thing. So while you may gain, you’ll start to notice that your clothes will fit better because lean tissue takes up less space than fat tissue because it’s more dense.”

And, of course, you need to take your diet into consideration.

“If you have a person who has a poor diet and she’s inactive, and then she starts to exercise but continues the poor diet, she may lose weight, but it’s only a modest loss,” says Bryant. “The best method for achieving a change in body composition is to combine exercise with a sound eating plan.”

You Can Target One Area of Your Body for Weight Loss. “This is a myth, pure and simple,” Bryant tells WebMD. “No matter how much exercise you do for a specific region of the body, it’s physiologically impossible to lose body fat in a targeted area.”

Worse yet, the areas of your body that gain fat the fastest are the last to see it go.

“Fat is lost or gained throughout the entire the body,” says Bryant. “But the last area where people tend to lose it from is the areas where they gain it first. So for most men, the abdominal region is the most difficult area to trim, while in women, the hips, buttocks, and thighs are the trouble spots.”

By Heather Hatfield
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD

Sometimes, living with diabetes can seem like a full-time job — trying to keep up with everything you need to do for proper diabetes care.

“Diabetes is a very time-consuming disease to manage well,” says Karmeen Kulkarni, MS, RD, CDE, and former president of health care and education for the American Diabetes Association. “The medication, the food, the physical activity — you add life in general to that whole picture and it ends up being quite challenging.”

Time-Saving Diabetes Care Tips

Kulkarni and other experts shared these tips with WebMD to help you get organized and manage your time while keeping up with all your diabetes care duties.

• Use a datebook, Palm Pilot, or other scheduling system to write in times for important diabetes care tasks, such as checking your blood sugar, taking medications, exercising, and doctor’s appointments.
• Reinforce your diabetes care schedule by putting up sticky notes or other messages as reminders. “The more reminders around the home or office, the better,” Kulkarni says.
• Keep all your medications, needles, test strips and other supplies in one place in your home. That way, you won’t waste time looking for things. And you’ll see at a glance which supplies are running low. Don’t wait until the last minute to get new supplies.
• Take a diabetes care “travel kit” whenever you leave the house, not just when you’re on vacation. Pack the kit with all of your medical supplies, snacks, and water. Don’t forget to include glucose tablets or hard candy in case you have low blood sugar. “Whenever you leave home, you could be caught in a situation where your blood sugar drops, and you’re in an emergency situation,” says Pamela J. Kelly, a Chicago consultant who has counseled people with diabetes on managing their time.

If you’re struggling to manage your diabetes, find a care partner, such as a spouse or friend. “People with diabetes a lot of times will get very sad or depressed. Either they’re not managing their diabetes at all, or they’re having a tough time because it’s a constant struggle,” Kelly says. A care partner can help. “They’ll understand your situation, your medication, any other diseases you have,” Kelly says. “They’ll understand what to look for and how to help you.”

Doctors’ Visits

These days, doctors’ visits can be quick, 15-minute sessions. The key to getting the most from your appointment: plan ahead.

• Write a list of questions and concerns before your visit so you don’t forget anything important. Do you have any new symptoms? Have you had trouble with low blood sugar? Do you have questions about foods or medications? Be your own advocate. “You shouldn’t take for granted that your provider’s going to cover anything,” says Andrea Zaldivar, MS, C-ANP, CDE, clinical director at North General Diagnostic and Treatment Center.
• Bring all of your medications in a bag for your doctor to review. Include your diabetes drugs and those for other health conditions.
• When you talk with your doctor, mention your top concerns first. Don’t save them for last, or you may not have time to address them adequately.
• Write down what your doctor says so that you can remember the instructions. Or bring a friend or relative to help take notes.

Meal Planning

With today’s busy schedules, it’s hard for everybody — not just those with diabetes — to find enough time to prepare healthy meals and snacks. Some pointers:

• Keep the right foods on hand. “Most of us, research shows, eat about the same 100 foods most of the time,” Kulkarni says. “Be familiar with those foods, and have a balance in terms of nutrition.” For example, keep whole-grain breads, cereal, milk, vegetables and fruit well-stocked in your home.
• Find easy, diabetes-friendly recipes that take less than 30 minutes to prepare. Diabetes cookbooks can help.
• Buy bagged broccoli, bagged lettuce, baby carrots, and cherry tomatoes to cut down on chopping and preparation time.
• Stock your pantry with commonly used ingredients, such as low-sodium broth, whole-grain pastas, and lentils. “If you’ve got basic ingredients, you can always throw something together,” Kulkarni says.
• Consult with a registered dietitian about your diet. Ask him or her to teach you how to read food labels so that you can evaluate convenience foods to make sure they’re not too high in carbohydrates, salt, or fat.

Exercise

Many a diabetes educator who talks to clients about exercise hears this refrain: “I just don’t have the time.” Yet exercise is crucial for improving blood glucose control and controlling weight. Some ways to fit exercise in:

• Look closely for opportunities to exercise in your daily schedule. “Try to find pockets of time. Do you have 15 minutes here or 10 minutes there?” Kulkarni says. Go for a walk or climb stairs at work during those short snatches of time. “It doesn’t have to be a whole hour block in one day. Nobody seems to have that kind of time.”
• Use the buddy system. If you plan to meet three or four times a week with someone to exercise, “there’s some accountability there,” Kulkarni says.
• Work with a personal trainer. The appointment is scheduled, and because you’re paying for the session, you’re less likely to skip out of exercising.

By Katherine Kam
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD

It’s true. You really are what you eat. And that’s why some days you end up feeling more like a cream-filled Twinkie than the lean cut of beef you aspire to.

But you probably already know that. That’s why, like all of us, you’re most likely trying to clean up your act and start eating healthy. But the truth is, that’s just not enough. Because if you’re gorging yourself on apples, bananas, and salads made with iceberg lettuce, you may be eating healthy-but you’re not eating smart.

In order to build the body you want-the thunderous arms and the rock-hard abs, the lightning-quick brain and the unquenchable libido-you need to make every bite of food you put in your mouth count. That means building your diet around the most potent, nutrient-dense, disease-fighting, muscle-growing foods around.

But where do you start? And what foods are the absolute fittest? To find out, we decided to put some of the nation’s top nutritionists to the test. First, we polled 40 of the country’s most respected food experts-registered dietitians, college nutrition professors, and authors-asking them each: What are the 10 most important foods every guy should include in his diet for maximum fitness? Then, as the results rolled in, we ranked our experts’ recommendations. The more often foods appeared in the survey results, and the higher those foods’ position on the list, the more overall points they were awarded.

Which foods made the list? How much of each should you eat on a weekly basis? How much fitter can your diet get? Read on to find out.

20) Turkey Breast

72 calories per 3-oz serving

Eat 3 servings per week

Buy it skinless and you get seven grams of muscle-building protein per ounce. Turkey is high in B vitamins, zinc (a known booster of sperm production), and the cancer fighter selenium. “It’s also got a ton of amino acids, and there are little or no saturated fats,” says Elizabeth Ward, M.S., R.D., a nutritionist in Reading, Mass. “Plus, it’s one of the most versatile cuts of meat around, so you can easily eat it throughout the week and never have the same thing twice.”

19) Olive Oil

119 calories per tbsp

Eat 2 tbsp per day

Olive oil is rich in good monounsaturated fat, making it an ideal food for heart health. In fact, studies show that replacing two tablespoons of saturated fat (found in butter and lard) with monounsaturated fat may reduce the risk of heart disease. But that’s not the only reason to eat it. A study in the journal Nature reports that olive oil also has potent anti-inflammatory properties, meaning it can help reduce pain and swelling just like a dose of ibuprofen. In addition to cooking with olive oil and using it as a dressing for your salad, you can get even more in your diet by mixing a tablespoon or two into your daily protein shake.

18) Quinoa

318 calories per half cup

Eat 2-3 servings per week

Chances are you may not be familiar with this exotic whole grain grown in the Andes mountains. But you should be. It has a light, mild flavor-making it ideal for guys who hate other whole grains. Even better, it’s higher in protein than any other grain around, and packs a hefty dose of heart-healthy. unsaturated fats. “Quinoa is also a great source of fiber and B vitamins,” says Christopher Mohr, Ph.D., R.D. a professor of nutrition at the University of Louisville.

17) Black Beans

227 calories per cup

Eat 2 servings per week

Tiny as they are, beans can help you feel energized and fuller longer than almost anything else you can eat. The reason is twofold: They’re incredibly high in fiber, which swells in your stomach and promotes a feeling of fullness. And, they’re stuffed with a highly complex form of carbohydrate that can take your body a long while to convert into energy. Like meat, they’re also packed with protein. But unlike meat, they’ve got no saturated fats. “Beans of all types are always high on most nutritionists’ lists,” says Chicago-based nutritionist Jennifer R. Bathgate, R.D. So why’d our experts pick the black variety? Easy. Ounce for ounce, they have more fiber per serving than any other member of the legume family.

16) Green Tea

2 calories per cup

drink 1-3 cups per day

From cancer prevention to weight loss to potentially slowing the development of Alzheimer’s, green tea has been shown to help fight almost every major medical ill. “Hot or cold, there’s almost nothing better you can drink,” says Mohr. Not the teabagging type? Try buying a liquid extract. Drop a bit in water and voila! Instant tea.

15) Eggs

74 calories per large egg

eat 3-7 eggs per week

“An egg a day is A-OK,” says Ward. Here’s why: Eggs contain a heavy-hitting 4 grams of pure muscle-building amino acids inside every shell, in addition to boasting some of the highest naturally available doses around of a vitamin called choline, which is thought to help enhance memory. “They’re the gold standard in terms of providing all the right nutrients for muscle growth,” says Ward.

14) Milk

118 calories per cup

get 3 servings of dairy per day

You know milk does a body good, but you may not know that skipping dairy makes your body angry, sort of. When you’re not getting enough, your body releases hormones that cause your cells to retain calcium-and fat, says Michael Zemel, Ph.D., director of The Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee. Calories still count, so you should drink your milk by the glass rather than the gallon. But just make sure you get some. “There are components in dairy that help turn on your body’s fat-burning system and slow down the storage of fat,” says Zemel. And although other forms of supplements are great, this is one case in which the real thing works the best.

13) Water

0 calories

Drink 8 8-oz glasses per day

You know you need to be drinking more water, and for good reason. Water flushes toxins from your system, regulates body temp, acts as an insulator for joints, prevents kidney stones, and supplies the body with a raft of crucial minerals, says Marietta Amatangelo, R.D., of Germantown, Md. “Without water, none of the other super-foods would matter.”

Although water helps in every way, it may be at its most powerful when it comes to weight loss. Drinking a glass or two of water a half hour or so before mealtime, for example, can help take the edge off your hunger.

Getting in all that water each day seem like a drag? Try making a half gallon of sugar-free lemonade you can sip throughout the day, or buy a pack of calorie-free flavorings to add to your water bottle at work.

12) Sweet Potatoes

100 calories per med. potato

Eat 1 per week

A four-ounce sweet potato holds more than 100% of our daily supply of beta carotene, a hefty dose of iron, and a plentiful shot of vitamins C and E. Together, these nutrients work together to protect your body against cellular damage of all types, especially in athletes who compete in extreme environments (such as altitude, heat, cold, or pollution). They’re also one of the best foods for muscle recovery after a tough workout, says California sports nutritionist Kim Mueller, R.D.

And there are more ways to eat them than just baked, boiled, or topped with marshmallows. Try stirring cooked, diced sweet potato into chili or your favorite potato-salad recipe. You can also grate them into hamburgers or meatloaf, or use them to make your own oven-baked fries.

11) Soy

300 calories per cup

Eat 2 servings per week

If tough Navy SEALs eat soybeans, you can, too. Dietitian Wendy Jo Peterson, of Virginia Beach, who’s married to a SEAL, serves him and his Navy buddies edamame. “They think they don’t like it until I make them try it, and afterward, I tell them it’s soybeans.” Peterson calls soy a “perfect food.” It has the protein of meat, the fiber of a whole grain, and the antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals of the best vegetables and fruits. If you don’t like tofu and soy milk-there are easy ways to boost your soy intake. Soy nuts and the soy protein used in some protein shakes and bars not only taste great but are very guy-friendly.

10) Beef

163 calories per 3-oz serving

Eat 3-4 servings per week

It’s not only high in muscle-building amino acids, it’s also a powerhouse of iron and zinc, which aid circulatory health. In fact, beef is so nutrient-dense that a three-ounce serving supplies more than 10% of your recommended daily intake of a number of nutrients, including protein, B6 and B12, selenium, phosphorus, niacin, and riboflavin. Worried about the fat? Don’t. According to USDA data, today’s beef is up to 20% leaner than it was a decade ago. In fact, 19 cuts of beef meet government guidelines as being a lean meat. To keep the meat you’re buying lean as well as tender and flavorful, opt for cuts with the words round or top in the name-things like eye round roast, top round, or top sirloin steak.

9) Whole-Wheat Bread

140 calories per 2 slices

Eat 6 slices per week

White flour doesn’t just rob you of fiber and protein, it also digests incredibly quickly in the body, giving you a rapid spike of energy-but one that comes crashing down just as fast. Over time, those spikes in insulin production wear on the body, damaging cells and promoting excess storage of fat. So why would you ever eat white bread?

“Even if you’re cutting carbs, there’s still a place for complex whole grains in your diet,” says Mohr. “They leave you feeling fuller longer, and they provide the longest possible supply of sustained energy.” Just watch out when you’re buying something that claims to be whole grain. It may only look brown because it’s colored with molasses. Rather than buying based on color, check the ingredient list. The only true whole-grain products are those that contain 100% whole wheat or whole grain listed as the first ingredient on the packaging.

Almonds

82 calories per 1/2-oz serving

Eat 3 servings per week

High in protein, fiber, and vitamin E, almonds are great for your heart, digestive system, and skin. Although they’re also loaded with healthy unsaturated fats, some guys avoid them because they’re so calorie-dense. But that’s a mistake. Gary Fraser, Ph.D., a professor of medicine at Loma Linda University in California, studied folks who added two ounces of almonds to their diet on a regular basis. Turns out they had no significant weight change. “Since nuts are such a hard food, it appears that a significant amount of their calories are never absorbed into the body,” he says.

To work more almonds into your diet, try keeping a bag of dry-roasted or lightly seasoned almonds in your desk drawer at work-and snack on a handful rather than hitting the vending machine. You can also blend almond butter into smoothies, or use it in place of peanut butter to make an, uh, AB&J sandwich.

7) Yogurt

154 calories per cup

Get 3 servings of dairy per day

Yogurt has all the benefits of milk, plus active cultures that boost the number of germ-fighting bacteria along your intestinal walls, says Mueller. Why does that matter? It helps keep you from getting sick. Studies show that people who eat yogurt most often are less likely to catch a cold than people who rarely eat the stuff. Like milk, yogurt contains calcium that not only boosts fat-burning but also helps you feel satiated, making it an ideal food for weight loss. “Try to buy yogurt that is less than a week old to ensure you’re getting the most benefit from the active cultures,” she says. (The later the product’s expiration date, the newer it is.) One word of caution: Most yogurt is packed with added sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.

6) Spinach

7 calories per cup

Eat 2-3 servings per week

What do button-down dietitians have in common with brawl-happy cartoon sailors? They all love their spinach! And for good reason. One serving of these leafy greens is loaded with fiber, calcium, and virtually your entire day’s recommended dosage of beta carotene, a nutrient vital for immune-system health, good vision, but not-as far as we know-huge wrist flexors.

If you can’t stand spinach plain, Katherine Tallmadge, R.D., author of Diet Simple, suggests dropping it into burritos, pasta dishes and canned soup.

5) Broccoli

31 calories per cup

Eat 2-3 half-cup servings per week

This fleshy green should be at the top of your list when it comes to vegetables. It’s rich with a healthy supply of iron, calcium, fiber, and vitamin C, meaning it’s good for the circulatory system, bones, and fighting colds. “As far as vegetables go, this is the one I try hardest to get more guys to eat,” says Niki Kubiak, R.D., a private practice nutritionist in Omaha, Neb. Brocco-phobic? Try it on the sly: Slip it into stir-fries, onto pizza, or use raw chunks as a vehicle for your favorite dip.

4) Tomatoes

83 calories per cup

Eat 4 servings per week

Yes, it’s true that tomatoes used to be called “love apples” and have a reputation as a powerful aphrodisiac. But that lore has nothing to do with why we picked the tomato as the best food for sexual health. Rather, tomatoes win their place on our chart-and their relatively high ranking overall-because of a single nutrient: lycopene.

This powerful antioxidant, which comes from the pigment that gives tomatoes their red color, may actually help fight off a number of diseases and ailments-most important for men, prostate cancer. Numerous studies show that men who have the most tomatoes and tomato-based products in their diet are less likely to develop prostate problems than men who rarely eat the stuff. And the good news for guys on the run: Tomatoes are also that rare food that’s more nutritious when cooked than when eaten raw. “Lycopene becomes more bio-available to the body after it’s been heated,” says nutritionist David Ricketts, a prostate-cancer sufferer who used his disease as the motivation for writing the cookbook Eat to Beat Prostate Cancer. “You can start off the day with a glass of tomato juice and have a tomato-based sauce a couple of times a week. However you can work it in, you’re pretty much on the way.”

3) Oatmeal

148 calories per half cup

Eat 3-4 servings per week

When it comes to eating breakfast in the morning, there’s nothing better than a bowl of oatmeal to spike your energy levels and provide you with an hours-long supply of fuel. Oatmeal is also filled with stress-fighting and immunity-boosting zinc.

If that weren’t enough to convince you to pop a bowl in the microwave, keep in mind that oatmeal can also help promote weight loss and lower your risk of heart disease. Oatmeal is filled with high levels of soluble fiber that protect your heart and arteries by trapping and expelling cholesterol, dropping levels by up to 30 points or more in some cases, says Kubiak.

The best oatmeal may not be the most convenient, however. Those flavored, single-serving packs that litter grocery-store aisles are often filled with added sugar-and therefore excess calories. Instead, stick with the big tub of instant oatmeal and add your own fruit and calorie-free sweeteners, if you need them.

2) Blueberries

41 calories per half cup

Eat 1-2 cups per week

Of all the fruit you can eat, blueberries may be the absolute best. Whether you’re getting them raw, tossed into cereal, mixed in fruit salad or a smoothie, blueberries pack more fiber, vitamins, and minerals per ounce than any other fruit in the produce aisle. Chief among those nutrients are free-radical-fighting antioxidants. Free radicals, which increase in number as you get older, travel around your body damaging cells, promoting disease, and triggering signs of premature aging. And blueberries harness the firepower to knock them out of service.

Need another reason to eat them? How about your memory? Those same antioxidants that fight disease are also effective in helping keep connections between cells in your brain and nervous system healthy, ensuring clearer, quicker thinking and the best memory possible.

1) Salmon

121 calories per 3-oz serving

Eat 3-4 servings per week

Salmon tops our list for a number of reasons, but the biggest has got to be because its so densely stuffed with omega-3′s. These fatty acids are thought to slow memory loss as you age and boost heart health by regulating heart rhythms and keeping arteries and veins supple and free of blockages. While saturated fats lead to obesity, the polyunsaturated fatty acids in fish appear to correct and prevent obesity, according to a study published in Clinical Science.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Salmon is also an excellent source of protein. A three-ounce cooked serving contains 20 grams-making it ideal for building muscle and trimming fat. Besides helping stimulate your metabolism three to four times more than carbs or fat, protein is the absolute best food for helping fill you up, so you take in fewer calories and burn more. And that’s what being a fit food is all about.

by Joe Gould

Men’s Health