Counterpoint:

How to Achieve Exercise Success

Even if you think you have “Exercise Resistance”

I know a few people who claim to be experts on health, nutrition, physical exercise, and disease prevention, among other topics, but who really don’t integrate much of that information into their lives. Perhaps they read a book once and know this stuff intellectually, yet don’t practice what they preach. We humans often find it easy to agree on the principles of any given subject, but difficult to actually take the steps needed to make those principles a reality in our own lives. I would like to share some tips with you on how to start moving in the right direction toward reaching your personal health potential.

First off, I think a lot of people secretly harbor the belief that medical technology will come along some day and take care of their health challenges without requiring any effort on their part. There are at least two of you reading this right now, and you know who you are. I also know, as a general statement, that most people deny that is what they’re waiting for, but internally a lot of people are holding out for that.

I once knew a high school graduate who chose not to go to college because he was holding out for the promise that Bill Clinton made before he was elected to make college tuition free of charge. Today, as a result, he has no college education and works at a very low-paying grunt job. A lot of people grab onto the same irrational hope with their health. They want to hold out until there’s some magic pill that will take over for them and reverse all of the poor lifestyle decisions they’ve been making over the last several years. Let me help you set this aside by saying there will never be a magic bullet solution to good health that doesn’t require your participation! There will never be a new surgical procedure, a new chemical (pill), or a new discovery from the natural world (the magic cure-all weed) that will replace you taking action, starting right now. If you want to be healthy, it must begin with action on your part.

Baby Steps (thanks to What About Bob?): Although I’m a firm believer in taking action, I’m also a huge proponent of taking really small steps as a way to achieve lasting change. I believe that if you want to get results, the best way to do it is to make small incremental improvements. These improvements can be very tiny. For example, if you’re trying to lose a large amount of weight, never plan for more than one pound per week. Those who go for 30 pounds in one month always get it back (plus some). But think about this: one pound per week is 52 pounds per year; that’s 104 pounds in two years. It took you decades to put all that weight on, so why do you think you should take it all off in time for the new Paris fashions? Now let’s divorce diet from exercise for a few minutes.

Physical exercise seems to be one of the most challenging things for people to take on in an effective way. Here’s why most people fail at trying to begin a physical exercise program: They typically try out a few exercises for a few days, but they begin to feel bad, so they give it up. By “feel bad” I mean that their joints hurt or their muscles ache, or even that the very first 10 minutes of engaging in exercise seems painful to them. (It did for me, but you all know how stubborn I can be.)

In this way, they’re actually following a natural system of de-motivation, whereby the things that hurt in life are routinely avoided. So there’s nothing unnatural about avoiding exercise if it hurts. The trick, though, is to stop being dominated by the short-term pains of exercise, and instead allow future factors to be your positive motivation. In other words, if you’re going to engage in regular exercise, the positive feelings that you get from engaging in exercise must be greater than the negative feelings produced by the exercise itself.

The only way those positive feelings can be increased is if you manage to associate exercise with things that are very positive in your mind. Because, let’s face it, sweating it out in the gym (or working the back 40 acres) is not going to produce positive results that very instant – unless those results are only in your head. I believe that the people who are successful with regular physical exercise programs, whether it’s cardiovascular training, strength training, swimming, or other forms of exercise, are able to make these associations and keep them strong. They are able to visualize their bodies as healthier and stronger; they are able to visualize feelings of high energy and fantastic health and hold those visualizations so firmly in their minds that they outweigh the short-term pain of engaging in physical exercise. I’m one of those people, but I didn’t use to be. I used to avoid physical exertion whenever possible, unless my girlfriend was watching (in which case, I usually hurt myself overdoing it). So I can tell you this is a strategy you can learn. You’ve read my statistics, so you know it works.

Here’s a tip that definitely worked for me in the early stages of this process. I used to be concerned about how people perceived me. I knew they thought I was intelligent, but that wasn’t enough for me anymore. I became concerned how they saw me on an outside, physical level. What did they think about me when I was on the dance floor? This was, of course, because I was overweight. You probably know, if you’ve been (or are) overweight, that you can be very sensitive to people’s perceptions of you. So, I set a calendar date about six months in advance for an event where I would see some people that I hadn’t seen in a long time. Then I decided I would have a whole new body by the time I showed up at that event in six months. Now that event can be a class reunion, a family reunion, or a perceived date with Mr. Right (Ms Right in my case), but set a target date and be determined to look better by then.

Given that autumn is nearly here now, set a date now for an outing next summer where you might wear a swimsuit and your body will be right out there for everyone to see. It doesn’t really matter what the event is; just use some sort of external occasion. Now remember, this is just a short-term strategy. Long term, this should all be based on internal motivations. But I’m saying that in the short term, if you can’t connect with that internal motivation, you can use the threat, so to speak, of the opinions of all your family and friends to help motivate you.

So, for the next six months, your goal becomes to basically impress people (or perhaps to avoid embarrassment) six months down the road on that certain calendar date. So you have both positive and negative motivation at work here. You want to avoid embarrassment by not showing up looking 100 lbs overweight. You want to show up with a slimmer, trimmer body that you feel good about and that looks good to others. Again, I’m not saying this is the long-term strategy, because it is a very bad idea to base your ultimate self-image on other people’s perceptions of you. I’m saying that if you need a real boost to get this motivation going, you can use the threat of public embarrassment in your own mind to sort of kick you in the pants and get you moving. Or, you can use the potential reward of feeling great around other people as your motivation. Either way, you set a fixed calendar date and you start working toward that goal. That will get you into the routine of talking long walks, or sweating off the pounds while engaging in strength training, and it will help you overcome the short-term pain of things like exertion and muscle soreness.

So you can use this gimmick to get you motivated. But that’s not the only place you’re going to really transform your body. You’ll have much greater results if you get a lot of sunshine, eat properly, and take regular nutritional supplements. There’s no question that you will see much faster results if you have outstanding nutrition. In fact, you will be able to perform considerably better in every physical way with the help of good nutrition. Modifying your diet to maximize healthy nutrition is a commendable thing to take on in preparation for this.

If you do this for six months, you will find yourself undergoing a radically positive transformation. At the end of the six months, when you’ve gone to your public event and people have complimented you on your brand new body and you’ve felt great about it, you will discover something else: You will come to realize that their opinion of you is not nearly as important as your opinion of yourself. And, at that point, you will switch to an internal motivation. You’ll want to be healthy and keep yourself in great shape just for the rewards you experience personally, even if no one else ever saw your body or you never interacted with any other people.

Now you’ll really be on a roll, because the snowball effect kicks in and you become an unstoppable exercise machine. Now each and every workout will be internally rewarding. The pain and the muscle soreness will have faded away, because your body has adapted to regular physical exercise. This is called a self-reinforcing motivation system.

You’ll start to notice that you feel good every time you workout. This will all result from making a positive and powerful association that is not based on external events. This is the best kind of association you can shoot for. Now you’ll even start to miss your workouts if you don’t get them on a regular basis. From here it’s just a matter of how much time and effort you want to invest, and how much time your schedule allows, because you can really explore some fantastic health results by pursuing this internal positive association motivation strategy.

But remember, it takes time to get there. I don’t expect anyone to just wake up one day, hop out of bed and say, “Gee, I want to make exercise really rewarding right now!” That’s not realistic. You might have to use gimmicks to get yourself into that situation, and it might take literally months of regular exercise before it becomes internally rewarding for you. But that’s fine. The long-term rewards are tremendous, and I can assure you it’s worth every iota of effort you want to put into it.

Lastly, I want to affirm that those first couple of months working out or walking around outside in order to get in shape and/or lose weight can be very, very challenging. Those are the most difficult months of all. I can tell you that exercise is a heck of a lot easier when you’re fit than when you’re unhealthy. So remember, as you begin, and as you’re working through the first 30 days or the first 60 days: It does get easier. In fact, it gets a lot easier – it becomes so incredibly rewarding that in time you’ll find yourself looking forward to pumping out a few minutes of exercise just because it feels so good.

That can be your outcome if you so choose. Remember, use all the motivators you can, even if they sound gimmicky. Aim for small, incremental improvements in every area of your life. That’s the way to achieve continued success in nutrition, physical training, exercise, and any other transformation you want to make in your life. You don’t need to try for an overnight success. Instead, aim for steady, achievable success that grows one day at a time.

Today, with me weighing in on the home scale and 196 pounds, having lost fat via eating nutritious foods, but retaining and expanding muscle mass from regular exercise, feeling less pain when I move, and not looking like a hunched over ancient troll who was waiting to fall down for the last time, I can stand proudly next to my tall gorgeous wife and know that we look good together. It did not happen overnight. It took a couple years. And most of you know what my attitude toward exercise used to be. This method can and does work. Just be willing to make the commitment to yourself, take baby steps, and you can change your world.

More on Headaches

In issue 35, I put in an article about managing headaches. A few of you asked how you know which one of those types of headaches you have. I assumed (bad dawg – never assume) that everyone knows what kind of headache he or she has, but that obviously isn’t true. Here goes

Cluster headaches are characterized by piercing, burning pain, usually on one side of the head and almost always in the same place. The big difference between this and a migraine is that only your head hurts without the abdominal issues frequently felt with migraines. But when I say the head hurts, it can really hurt! The cause is unknown at the moment.

Tension headaches are usually a dull, oppressive pain occurring in the temples. They usually start at the back of the head and neck, or even in the forehead, then spread throughout the head. The cause is muscular tension (get a back/neck massage or change jobs) or simply bad posture (get a better office chair).

Simple headaches often give you the feeling of a hammering, buzzing, or pulsing feeling in your head. There are a zillion causes, ranging from stress (see Tension headache) to sensitivity to weather changes in atmospheric pressure (flying in a plane or driving up Pike’s Peak will also do it to some people), high blood pressure, fever, or simple lack of oxygen (yawn some more).

Migraine headaches usually have the pain on one side of the head only. This pain is often accompanied by nausea, vision problems, and even upset stomach (or vomiting). There is a whole pamphlet on this type of headache that your doctor will gladly give you. The cause is likely circulatory disturbances in the brain. Take this type of headache seriously because it might indicate potentially deeper problems. Talk to your doctor about it during your next visit.

Combination headaches are dull oppressive pain that usually begins in the morning and reoccurs between migraine attacks. The cause is unknown.

One way that I have found to relieve a headache, besides pills, is to drop a hammer on my foot. J Seriously, a change in attention or focus often clears these things, but if you can’t swing your mind in another direction, use a cold compress on the back of your neck (moist cloth with a couple drops of peppermint), or a potato- or horseradish-poultice (if you don’t know how to make those, I can explain later). These things work because they stimulate the skin, which encourages blood flow and that helps extinguish headache pain (or some other body aches too).

I have also found that I can eliminate a simple or tension headache in minutes by placing one finger in the hollow at the base of the skull (top of your neck), and gentle pressing in and up while breathing deeply (at least 20 seconds in and 15 out). The Orientals call this acupressure, but I learned it from an Egyptian and it still works. J

The Latest Research on Oxidative Damage and the Brain

Scientists have theorized that the formation of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain during the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease accelerates oxidative damage in the brain. However, in a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania provided evidence that oxidative damage precedes the formation of these plaques. By measuring a byproduct of oxidative damage called isoprostane, they found that oxidative damage in mice engineered to produce excessive beta-amyloid was significantly higher beginning at only eight months of age. This increase in oxidative damage occurred months before beta-amyloid plaques began forming in the brains of the mutant mice.

These scientists have applied this research to development of a possible Alzheimer’s disease test in humans. Collecting samples from patients with Alzheimer’s disease and a precursor condition called “mild cognitive decline,” the researchers found that such patients have significantly higher levels of isoprostane in their urine than healthy controls. They hope to use this information to develop a urine test that could predict which patients with mild cognitive impairment are at a high risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Other scientists are hard at work determining which genes and mechanisms in the brain protect organisms from oxidative damage. To date, scientists have identified transcription factors, Sp1 and Sp3, activated by oxidative stress that seems to protect neurons from dying. A transcription factor assists in the process of translating instructions from a gene into messenger RNA, which results in the synthesis of proteins. Another group has identified a protein called AIF that seems to clear up free radicals in neurons, and shown that oxidative stress can cause cells to make failed attempts to duplicate themselves, after which they die. This finding represents one of the first explanations for how oxidative stress can contribute to neuro-degeneration.

Hmmm… Isoprostane is a prostaglandin isomer that is formed in vivo by free radical-catalyzed peroxidation of arachidonic acid. Free radical? Oxidation? Can antioxidants (which are also antifungals) help in the area of oxidative brain damage? Do we need to go into DNA or RNA processes to protect our neurons? Stay tuned…