Free Form Fitness Blog

I often hear this:

Should I take a fat burner?
Should I take a weight gainer?
Should I take this vitamin or this mineral?

Taking rarely gets you anywhere.
Avoiding, (though much harder) is much more powerful.

Rather than thinking about what you should take, start to
think about all the things you could avoid, like these:

Avoid eating fake foods
Avoid eating too many carbohydrates
Avoid skipping meals like breakfast
Avoid eating trans fats and other fake foods
Avoid alcohol, nicotine or any other bad habit
Avoid artificial sweeteners
Avoid staying up late watching mindless TV when you should go to bed
Avoid sitting down all day without getting any exercise
Avoid stress by making sure you incorporate recovery into your life
Avoid stress by removing all toxins around your life
Avoid regular vegetables and switch to organic
Avoid buying vegetables and start growing your own (Bonus points for the planet)
Avoid buying factory farmed meat and switch to grass fed local beef

Love is at the core of all creation. Without love, we wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything because with love comes the ability to overcome obstacles and anything worth pursuing will have its obstacles.

The Wright brothers for example had to love airplanes and the dream of flying in order to get an airplane to fly. Steve Jobs had to love art and design to create Apple. In fact Jobs loved art and design so much he even had his engineers redesign the circuit boards inside the computer. When the engineers said “no one will even see the inside” Jobs replied, “It’s not the point. You don’t build a house and throw all the garbage in the walls, do you?” Jobs loved design inside and out.

As personal trainers we have to love helping others. The more a personal trainer cares, the better the personal trainer. Think about it, the more they care;

The more they will go out of their way to help you.
The more they will want to know about your history, lifestyle and obstacles to better serve you.
The more they will “practice what preach” to show you it’s possible.
The more they will create a unique solution for you and not some cookie cutter program.
The more they will try to understand your mindset and figure out the best ways of motivate you.
The more they will keep learning to stay ahead of the industry and provide you with the best solutions.
The more they will want to hold you accountable because they sincerely want to help you.
The more they will look at your goals as it relates to your overall health and lifestyle.

From the words of Leo Tolstoy:
“Everything I understand, I understand only because I love.”

Happy Valentine’s day

There are naturally occurring trans fats in nature that are actually very good for you like CLA (Conjugated linoleic acid), but this is not the type of trans fat I’m referring to in this post. The trans fat I’m referring to is the chemically altered version that has been shown to increase the chances of cardiovascular disease, cancer, mental disorders, liver dysfunction and infertility.

So here is a quick lesson on how it became mainstream:

William proctor and his brother in law James Gamble were in the soap and candle industry. In the early 1900’s electricity was affecting the purchase of candles and oil so they needed to find an alternative to oil. At the same time meat regulation had just taken place and prices of meat and lard was on a rise. Which led to the idea that “if people aren’t going to burn it, why not get them to eat it?”

In 1907 Proctor & Gamble had already acquired a new food processing technology from Germany called hydrogenation and made their way into the cottonseed business. Hydrogenation is a process of taking hydrogen gas under high pressure and high heat along with a metal catalyst in order to convert or stiffen liquid. Basically it converts a liquid oil into a waxy hardened substance. The big idea was to stiffen liquid unsaturated oils into solids, saturated fats – replacing lard.

Then in 1911 came the new finished product “Crisco” (crystallized cottonseed oil) a white waxy like substance that resembles lard followed by a marketing campaign to convince the public that Crisco was superior to lard in all aspects of cooking. The hydrogenation process gave birth to a mutated and dangerous fatty acid that we now find in so many products with the name trans fats.

Green tea has been studied and well know for it’s numerous
health benefits for a long time – from a powerful antioxidant to a fat
fighting agent but did you know it also has a dirty little secret?

Green tea or black tea leaves (especially older leaves or brick tea)
contains fluoride and aluminum.

Fluoride is found to effect bone density through a disease called skeletal fluorosis
where in that the bones (just like your teeth) become hardened on the outside
but become weaker on the inside and more brittle and easily fractured. With
osteoporosis on a rise, this is not a good thing. It’s also shown to
damage the thyroid hormone (metabolism).

Aluminum on the other hand, has been linked to mental diseases like
Alzeimer disease.

But will tea really make that much of a difference?

Well first off, It’s not so much the tea that’s the problem it’s that we also consume fluoride in other
area’s like our water system. My city here in Ottawa spends $300 000 on putting fluoride in our water system
in order to prevent cavities. Yet people reading this should know what causes cavities …poor nutrition.

You will hear many experts talk about fluoride toxicity at low dosages being safe. But they base this on seeing physicle
side effects. Like ingesting fluoride can produce gastrointestinal discomfort 0.2–0.3 mg/kg. What about
what we don’t see? What about nicotine that doesn’t show effects until years later.

My take on it, is that if it’s not good in larger doses it’s not good in smaller doses either and I would rather avoid
it and kick it off the super food list.