Last time out I posted the following holiday survival advice:

While all true, concise and valid, I received a few requests to expand (no pun intended) on the theme.

The holidays can be a time of great joy and happiness blah blah blah, but can also be a huge pain in the ass (on several levels). For one thing, most celebrations are centered around eating.  Then there is the fact that it is generally cold and wet outside which is certainly not conducive to exercise. Add on to that the heightened levels of stress that accompany this time of year and you have a recipe for metabolic disaster.  Some health agencies report an average of 7-10 pounds gained in the holiday season alone. Fret not dear friend, you will survive.  Here are my tips in a little more depth:

Don’t Eat Too Much
Well duh.  Just because it is your holiday dinner does not give you license to gorge yourself.  You should enjoy yourself however.  Go ahead and allow yourself foods you might not normally indulge in, just don’t go nuts.  The food during the holidays is awesome (mmmm pie….), but the only thing you should be stuffing is the turkey.

Don’t Drink Too Much
Alcohol has seven calories per gram, and no nutritional value to speak of.  Add to that some eggnog and you have 400 calories worth of holiday cheer.  Keep the holiday spirits in check and you will be much better off.  Again, I am not saying avoid it completely, but moderation will insure Santa is the only one with a bowl full of jelly.  Aside from the fact that alcohol calories add up fast, no one likes the drunk idiot at the office party.  Watch the clip below- think she gets fired?

How To Get Fired From Your Job - Watch more free videos

Don’t Sit on Your Ass the Whole Time
I apologize if I have offended anyone’s delicate sensibilities, perhaps I should have said "butt"?  Whatever, my point is - no matter what - you have the time to workout.  A month of inactivity can cause your metabolic rate to take a nose dive.  You have to shop, you have to work, you have to cook, you have to decorate, you have to have to have to. Yeah, I’ve heard it all before. It all adds up to the same thing : excuses. Everyone has 30 minutes 3x week to workout.  Even just taking a walk a few times a week is better than sitting around roasting chestnuts. 

Save Me Some Pie
I think this is self explanatory. Let me know if you need my address.

The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that I don’t expect anyone to be perfect, not even me (stop laughing).  It sounds cliche but moderation over the holidays will make it so you can enjoy the season without expanding your waistline. If you have been good all year do not blow it all in a month.  If you are thinking you will just start your fitness & fat loss journey in January don’t  plow your way through December and end up gaining another 10 pounds.  Here is another cliche to help you survive the holidays: Nothing tastes as good as being fit feels.  Be good, Santa is watching and no one likes coal in their stocking.

HO HO HO.

Joshua Carter
The Body Transformation Expert
Carter Fitness
http://carterfitness.com
818-337-6175

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I got cute kids. Yes it’s true, they are in fact adorable.  There is simply no denying it. Don’t get me started talking about them because you’ll have a hard time shutting me up. I have started 2 websites and have over 200 GB of digital photos dedicated to the pair. So yeah, I kinda like them.  But even the cutest of kids can be a giant pain in the ass at times.

Gabe, my 5 year old (just turned 5 in October) started kindergarten this fall.  He is on the young side, as he was only 4 when the year started and there are some 6 year olds in the class.  My wife and I debated back and forth for a long time about whether to wait a year or go ahead and start him this year. Well we obviously went ahead with kindergarten. Sometimes when you are a parent you feel like no matter what decision you make it is the wrong one - but that’s another article.

 
He looks like he is up to something doesn’t he?

When he started there were some behavior issues, attention issues and some skill issues. The school has worked with us and Gabe has made some tremendous progress.  I am very proud of how hard he is working and how well he is doing.  Back when I was in kindergarten my day was full of coloring, napping and eating paste.  Expectations of current kindergartners is much higher as Gabe has nightly homework and I think I heard he will be starting algebra next week.

Well this last week a new problem arose: pinching.  It seems at lunch and recess Gabe has taken to pinching (not hard, but still)- and apparently one girl in particular (we’ll call her Jane).  Jane is in Gabe’s class and he just can’t seem to keep his hands to himself.  It did not take us long to figure out that Gabe has a 5 year old version of a crush on Jane.  At first we just told him to knock it off - but he didn’t.  Then after a few more detailed discussions with Gabe he indicated that he thought he could not control his actions, he was almost compelled to pinch her. He said he should just sit on the bench at recess so he wouldn’t pinch her. 

He simply felt out of control. We told him that he WAS in fact in control- HE was the boss.  He got to decide what actions he took. He did not have to pinch her, he could ask her if she wanted to play instead. This can be a tough concept for a 5 year old to grasp and as it turns out, a tough one for adults too.

Many people I work with feel they are unable to control themselves in one way or another.  Some will say they know that they just will not work out, and others simply say they will not follow the nutrition plan.   Bad nutrition is the biggest reason people fail to see results on any type of fitness program. A colleague of mine put it this way: You cannot out train bad nutrition.

Whether you eat too much, eat too little or eat junk - it all adds up to the same thing: Bad nutrition. But here is the thing that most people miss, and it is so simple : YOU ARE THE BOSS.

It has nothing to do with this I assure you

Who’s the Boss? - That’d be you.  You get to decide what you  eat, when you eat, if you should eat etc.  No one is forcing you to eat at the McDonalds drive through. No one is forcing a feed bag of Doritos around your neck at TV time.  That vat of ice cream did not get out of the freezer on its own.  You get to choose what goes in you and when.  And don’t give me that “I have no time” BS.  We all have the same 24 hours in the day, so plan accordingly.

The sooner you accept the fact that you have the ability to control your eating, your fitness and your life, the sooner you will be on the true path to health and happiness.  And be clear on this point: no one will do it for you.  You are the boss - you make the decisions.

Gabe has figured it out, at least for now. There was no pinching today.  And he is only 5. The last thing we told him as we kissed him goodbye this morning was that he was the boss. I will happily tell you the same anytime - but don’t expect a kiss.

Joshua Carter
The Body Transformation Expert
Carter Fitness
http://carterfitness.com/
818-337-6175

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The Super Hero Family: Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Spider-Man.

You have to admit, going out in public like this takes guts.

Each year I think to myself there is no way I could possibly look any more ridiculous. Each year I find a way to prove myself wrong. The kids love it, so I really don’t mind.

Off to fight crime…

I’m Batman.

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It only seems appropriate that at this time of year I have a little discussion on cheating. The temptation is literally at the door.  As of Nov. 1st most houses (especially those with kids) and workplaces are overflowing with chocolatey nougaty goodness. There is no holiday quite like Halloween.  It is essentially authorized, organized and otherwise socially acceptable begging - but we call it trick or treating. 

We dress our kids up and say “look how cute they are - NOW GIVE US CANDY!”  By nights’ end the children can take home their bodyweight in candy. After the kids go to bed (if they go to bed) it is time for the parents to exact the “candy tax”- one for you two for me…The next morning the kids’ booty has shrunken considerably.  It’s all in the kids’ best interest of course - candy is not good for them.

Even if you don’t have kids you have to stock up on feedbags of snack sized this and that for potential beggars trick or treaters. Heaven help you if you hand out something healthy.  I know of one house that actually gave out whole walnuts (in the shell) one year.  Needless to say most of them were returned within moments of them shutting the door.

I love Halloween. It is a Reese’s filled blessing of a day.

But on to the point of it all : CHEATING.

On all the nutrition programs I design for clients cheating is as mandatory as any other aspect.  Every 7 days, I usually recommend one cheat day.  It can be a full day, or sometimes a cheat night, or just a cheat meal.  My personal cheat day is Saturday. There are two main benefits to cheating: psychological and physiological. Let’s tackle psychological first.

Psychological Benefit of Cheating:  In my opinion this is the more important reason of the two.  The psychology of training and nutrition cannot be understated.  Now let’s say you come to me and say you need to lose a decent amount of fat.  The bottom line is you do not get to eat the way you eat now, and look the way you want. The way you look now is a direct result of the way you eat now.  That should make sense: regardless of training programming, the nutrition has to change.

Let’s also assume that you love Snickers bars (you could substitute anything, sugar sodas, vats of pasta etc.) and you have one every day. Guess what- I’m going to tell you to knock it off. No more Snickers.  Well for you that just sucks. But there is light at the end of the tunnel: Your cheat day. Go ahead and have 2 Snickers that day.  The Cheat Day allows you a day when you don’t have to worry about carbs or even fat intake. You have a sanctioned day off. So during the week you can more easily forgo the crap you would normally eat because come cheat day it is all yours.  You are not depriving yourself as technically there is nothing that is not allowed. This improves nutritional compliance and keeps fat loss clients relatively sane.

The Physiological Benefit of Cheating: Your body is teaming with hormones.  Some hormones want to keep you fat, some want to make you thin. They are constantly doing battle, and guess which one is winning?  The deal is that your body is wonderful at adapting.  From an evolutionary stand point that is great - from a fat loss perspective it is a giant pain in the ass. Your body wants to keep fat on for many reasons - not the least of which is the famine that is right around the corner. Silly body - there is no famine around the corner.  Well I wish it were as easy as just telling your body that, but it isn’t. Your body’s main purpose is to ensure survival, and stored body fat ensures survival during times of restricted consumption.

When we alter the nutrition to promote fat loss, there will be a caloric deficit.  We will be eating less calorically then we did before. But your body is not stupid, it will see that the calories are dropping, and do whatever it can to slow and even halt fat loss. Again, body fat ensures survival, and your body thinks it is doing you a favor. Silly body.  The body will alter levels of key hormones that will essentially slow metabolism and blunt fat loss. This is why many traditional diets stall and ultimately fail.(Side note: intense exercise can combat the metabolic slow down, but that is a different article).

One of these key hormones is leptin. When calories are low, leptin levels fall. It is actually a very complicated system, but in a nut shell if the body’s levels of leptin fall below a certain level, fat loss will cease. High levels of leptin tell the body it is ok to give up stored body fat for fuel. That is where the cheat comes in.

When you cheat you are essentially creating a short term caloric spike.  The body responds very quickly to this spike (thankfully) and leptin output is increased.  The increased leptin levels will allow for continued fat loss on non-cheat days. You can think of it as taking a half step back to allow you to take 2 steps forward. With this approach continued fat loss is achievable.

There is a fair amount of research going on about what makes for the best cheat foods.  Currently it is believed that high carb foods work best. Yeah, I know - that is really cool.  Fat should usually be kept in check, but don’t stress over it.

Conclusion:

So now here we are, Halloween with all that candy.  Mmmmmmm….candy. This article was not meant to give you license to gorge yourself on candy corn and Butterfinger Bites, but it was meant to give you some ammunition in your war on fat.  Used strategically cheating can improve your fat loss program. Now go raid your kids’ candy sack.

Happy Halloween From Carter Fitness

Yes, this is real. I actually carved my logo into a pumpkin.

Joshua Carter
The Body Transformation Expert
Carter Fitness
http://carterfitness.com/
818-337-6175

PS: Any and all Reese’s related products including but not limited to Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (all sizes) and Reese’s Pieces as well as any peanut butter containing candies should be sent to the address below for immediate inspection and proper disposal!

Reese’s Disposal Unit
8300 Valley Circle Blvd. Unit B
West Hills, CA 91304

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