What Are You Grateful for Today?

There's quirky vegan restaurant around the corner from where I lived in San Francisco. It's called Cafe Gratitude and is located on 20th & Harrison in the Mission. Quirky is hardly a good word for it: Cafe Gratitude received accolades in the New York Times for its vegan fare and they have, I think, three locations. I've never had a better, fresher salad in my entire life. When taking your order, the service staff, instead of asking, "What can I get for you" or "May I take your order", asks,"What are you grateful for today"?

What are you grateful for today? We're on the other side of a bountiful holiday that most people got to enjoy. We ate to our heart's and belly's content (about 2400 calories in that meal) and enjoyed the company of family and friends. I wasn't able to be at a Thanksgiving celebration and ended up at Carl's Jr. for a 6 Dollar Burger. There was a homeless person there, too, but he was asleep. As I enjoyed my 6 Dollar Burger (finally, somebody put some crunchy veggies on a burger, the pickles were a little sweet, but...) I thought about what I was most grateful for that day. For yesterday, today, and tomorrow, it will always be my health.

So much of what ails us these days is preventable. High cholesterol is mostly diet-related. High blood pressure is mostly diet-related. Obesity (and its cascade of health issues) is diet-related. Type II diabetes is mostly diet-related. I had a 70 year old male client who refused to get a colonoscopy because he perceived it to be unsafe (colon cancer is preventable with regular screenings). And least we not forget cigarettes: A government-sanctioned, highly profitable, highly taxed, nicotine delivery device responsible for thousands of preventable deaths.

Mortals that we are, we will all eventually die. Why hasten the process and erode our quality of life (what's left of it)? I used to care for a friends dog and her instructions were: Food, water, and plenty of exercise. I think this is a fitting prescription for all of us.

Fitness Paradise: San Diego!

A year ago I arrived in Palm Springs and now it's time to leave. So soon, you ask? Palm Springs has been a little strange for me. Okay, it's been weird. I realize everyplace has it's "weirdness", especially having lived in a city like San Francisco, but Palm Springs has been weird times 10.

I've decided that Palm Springs is not part of California. Its glitzy-esque, nostalgic glamor lends it as more of an outlier of Las Vegas. It's a patchwork of vacant lots, shuddered businesses and nude resorts. Walking-types beware (there aren't many here): You'll find that sidewalks, if any, suddenly narrow, end, disappear altogether, or are squarely blocked by a palm tree.

Having escaped the fitness craze is another reason for my decision that Palm Springs is not part of California. For all the great weather and sunshine, you won't find too many people enjoying it. As I observed, there aren't many people that walk or bicycle. It's a place where cars rule and folks like to drive...fast! Except for a small area downtown, it is not pedestrian friendly. And as for a good cup of coffee or a decent loaf of bread? Forget it.

For all of Palm Springs shortcomings and weirdness, the one saving grace is its natural beauty. This is the desert, and regardless of the colorful, exotic, over-watered landscaping, those majestic, weathered hills loom as a reminder that this city is contrived and is nothing without precious water. You'll find a lot of great people here and even more characters, too. Palm Springs has a "let it all hang out" attitude and some like to let it hang to the ground.

San Diego, my quintessential California. Growing up in the parched desert of Eastern Utah, it's no wonder it was the dream spot of my youth. My Aunt Aggie, a goddess of a woman living in Chula Vista not far from the beaches, would collect and mail sea shells that smelled and tasted of brine. Whether or not they really came from those beaches was irrelevant to three young boys living in a coal mining town. The dreams they inspired, and continue to inspire, were richer than the gift itself: The ocean, year-round sunshine, young-minded people, forward thinkers, new ideas, people with purpose, and lots of good vibrations.

San Diego is definitely part of California with it's gentle temperatures and moist breezes from the ocean. It's a hotbed for fitness buffs and you'll find all varieties in the water, on the streets, up in the mountains, and all in between. It's a personal trainer's paradise with an abundance of health-conscious folks seeking guidance and motivation. If there's an empty patch of grass, you can bet a boot camp will pop-up there sooner than later. Fitness is relatively new in our national, social consciousness and cities like San Diego are setting the pace. Come and visit!

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Outsourcing Fitness and Health: It's a Small Price to Pay

Outsourcing has a negative connotation these days. Corporations send jobs to foreign shores, manufacturers assemble products instead of making them, and private companies are now doing what the government used to do. How much of your life do you outsource? More than you think. It's true that some things are better left to experts, like your doctor or mechanic, but does someone else clean your house, wash your car, or prepare most of your meals? We live in a busy world and that's price we pay to have someone else perform tasks that we otherwise might do ourselves, or choose not to do.

How about your workouts? I have clients who get a 90 minute lunch break with 60 minutes of that time alloted to training. That's one of the great values of having a personal trainer: getting the most out of a workout in a short period of time. Other clients come to me with specific fintess goals, either their own or doctor ordered, seeking guidance and motivation. Whether it's loosing weight, gaining weight, improving "numbers," or sport-specific, a personal trainer is a great value. When considering health care costs and prevention the the U.S., the price of maintaing and improving health is vastly more cost-effective than the alternatives. Obesity alone, with aliments ranging from high blood pressure, diabetes, and joint problems - including higher insurance premiums and lost wages - added $190 billion to the national healthcare price tag.

Corporations outsource to improve their bottom line. You may want to consider outsourcing your health and fitness goals to improve your mumbers as well.

When a Lifestyle Becomes a Passion: 32 Years of Lifting.

September of 1980. I'd already lost 65 pounds by the end of my senior year in 1979 and was maintaining my weight at about 165 - 170 pounds, although my aunt Mary was convinced I was too skinny. I was living with my cousin Steve in Provo, Utah (yes, Provo) while I was going to school. He had a set of weights and a bench in the basement of his townhouse. You know the kind: cheap, cement-filled plastic discs that had to be bolted onto shoddy bars resting on a bench that could capsize without warning.

In the beginning, the only thing that I could do was to grasp 2, 5 pound weights and lay back on that shaky bench and do pec flys. In no time I graduated from that basement gym to a local community center with real barbells, dumbbells, and cables. I watched others do their workouts and got some basic ideas. I watched a guy, much smaller than me, do the bench press. After he was finished I ponied-up to the bench and loaded the bar with 2, 45 pound plates - the same amount he was using - and promptly dropped it on my chest. I squirmed for a few seconds when the guy, much smaller than me, hurried over and pulled the damn thing off of me.

There were setbacks: Illnesses; aches and pains; minor and major injuries (back surgery required), fitness-anemic schools and people. I look back over 30 years and can't remember any goals that I'd set for myself along the way but I do know I was in love, and continue to be in love with the journey. Lifting is how I learned to become my own healer, a place where I was both student and teacher, a lifestyle that turned into a lifelong passion. This line from my favorite song, that still brings tears to my eyes, sums it up: "Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own."

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Is it Real Strength or are you Slave to a Machine?

Promising I'd revisit this topic from an older post, I'm back to open this can of worms.

Occasionally, a new client will ask me to show him/her how to use the machines in the gym. It's a legitimate request coming from someone unfamiliar with the equipment having the desire to get a good workout when they come to the gym themselves. The presence of the machines do seem to offer a shortcut to a better workout. However, the only shortcut you'll be getting from a machine is a shortchange on real strength and quality muscle.

I overheard another trainer explaining to a new client that on most machines there were only two adjustments to be made: The seat height and the amount of weight to be used. Sit down, push or pull, that's it. And that is it. Your biceps, triceps, or lats will get a nice workout but you'll use few stabilizer muscles, if any. That's fine if you wanna look pretty, but don't complain when you hurt your back picking-up a bag of groceries. Or, in other words, that muscle is of little use off of that machine.

Muscles don't work in isolation and you shouldn't be thinking they can be trained that way (muscle isolation is not possible on garden-variety gym equipment). Most muscles work in pairs: agonists and antagonists. When you raise your arm towards your shoulder the biceps muscle (the agonist), contracts. When you lower your arm the triceps muscle (the antagonist) contracts. This action is also a stabilizing force for joints.

If you're content with the results of your machine-based workout, that's great. If not, then arm yourself with a great weight lifting or bodybuilding guide or hire a personal trainer who will show you how to use free weights and cables to grow quality muscle.

Putting the Function in Functional

This is Tommi. He lives in Reykjavík, Iceland and is 21 years old. And yes, that's him in the picture jumping from rooftop to rooftop minus the safety net. Tommi participates in a sport called Parkour: "...the main purpose of the discipline is to teach participants how to move through their environment by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing, and leaping. Parkour practitioners are known as '"traceurs"', with their female counterpart referred to as '"traceuses"." (Wikipedia). Take a look.

To me, the amazing thing about his sport is that it exemplifies the ability of the body's capacity of absorb and distribute impact. The skeleton alone isn't capable of handling these forces. The surrounding tissues, the myofascia, gets involved to spread this impact safely across an area to diminish the force of the impact.

I am not suggesting that you go out and leap over cars or picnic tables. What I am advocating is that you become aware of how your body moves through its environment. Take walking for example: All of us do it but are you aware of your posture and balance when you're doing it? Are you leading with your shoulders, is your jaw forward, are you looking like our genetic cousins from the ice age? A teacher of movement once tole me, "Walking is like a dance: sometimes you're in step, sometimes you're not" In other words, you need to practice this movement and be aware of how you move through your environment. More about this later.

As for Tommi and the others who practice his sport, watching that dance is pure joy.

Time to Cool Off

Those of you that know me personally, know that I'm passionate about food - cooking, eating, and sharing. Even after being in gyms for nearly 32 years and witnessing one "health" fad after another, I still find myself seeking pleasure from the food on my plate. Being a CIA grad makes that easy to accomplish.

We're in the dog-days of summer here in the desert. Temperatures will routinely hover well above 105 F soaring 10 or even 15 degrees higher! On days like this I reach for fresh fruit: Cool, fresh, ready-to-eat fruit that makes me happy in the mouth. Last week strawberries and pineapples were on sale and I decided to stock up: One-half flat (about 6 lbs) of strawberries for $4 bucks and the pineapples were $2.49. Such a deal! The berries needed to be washed and cleaned but the pineapple needed a few more days to sweeten-up. In a nutshell, a few days later the pineapple was very ripe and the berries didn't look so happy but I'll be damned if anything in my kitchen is going to go to waste.

Out comes the food processor (a blender would work but you'd have to process the fruit in batches). The very ripe berries and very ripe pineapple are placed in the processor bowl and pulsed for 30 seconds. A splash (I said splash) of fruity triple sec and Cassis (black currant liquer) are added the puree is poured into ice cube trays (a little vegetable spray helps later) and frozen. The separated, frozen cubes were placed in a freezer bag for a refreshing, ready-to-eat treat. Of course, you can do this with any fruit or combination and you can substitute the triple sec and Cassis with a squeeze of lemon and/or lime. Yummy!

Confession: No, 6 lbs of berries and a pineapple won't go into two ice cube trays. Lets just say there was a little snacking before the Cuisinart got involved.