The Super Secret Secrets to Losing Weight

That's right ladies and gentlemen, I am willing to risk being taken out to a field and beaten by groups of rogue dieticians and scientists to give you the secret formula to six-pack abs.  Why, might you ask would I do this?  Well, unlike all the other health and wellness professionals in the world who are worried only about large wads of money, I actually care about you, the individual reading my blog, who I have never met.  So are you ready?  Here goes!

The secret to losing weight is: MOVE MORE.  Look, there is no super-weight-loss food, or supplement or system.  By way of example let's look at the Ancient Romans.  To put this in historical context the Romans predate organic vegetables, personal trainers, insanely expensive workout DVD's and even Jane Fonda by a couple years.  In ancient Rome you had basically three types of people:  The mega wealthy, the soldiers, and the slaves/ gladiators.  The mega wealthy spent most of their time sitting around eating, making laws, ordering executions and generally telling other people what to do.  They, SURPRISE, tended to be overweight.

The soldiers spent most of their time running around Europe occupying villages and terrorizing the locals.  I'm not sure if you realize it but Europe is a big place!  Just walking from Rome to say, France can be a pretty good workout.  And if you have to stop a few times along the way to pillage or fight a major military conflict with swords and axes we are talking about full scale workouts! As you can see, soldiering took a tremendous amount of energy and thus these people tended to look remarkably like Russell Crowe.

The slaves and gladiators did, well,  pretty much everything else.  They looked like slightly more aggressive versions of Russell Crowe.

The point here is, historically and, believe it or not it still holds true, people who move more tend to have less body fat.  Now I am not endorsing conquering Europe as a plan for weight loss.  What I am  suggesting is, if you wish to lose weight, MOVE!  And because most Roman Centurion Commanders have gone in to retirement, this is where a personal trainer might come in handy.   He or she will give you ways to move which fit your lifestyle.  If wielding a battle axe is not your style, maybe a program to start jogging or hiking is more your speed.

For more information on getting started on a fitness program that fits you, please visit www.canyonptandf.com or email info@canyonptandf.com.  We can design a program that fits your lifestyle, goals and abilities.  Hope to see you soon and "Strength and Honor!"

Why My Dog is the World's Best Personal Trainer

There is, SURPRISE, a new fitness trend.  Honestly is seems like every time I turn around there is a new fitness trend.  One week it is workout with light weight, the next week it is heavy weight, then no weight and loud music, then no weight and no music but the room temperature must approximate hell, then heavy weight, thrown at your friend, who must catch it , throw it back, do 7 Burpies, complete a reverse back handspring, cut off an ear and recite the first 5 lines of the Communist Manifesto in Latin before again catching it, or as most people call it, CrossFit.

But this new fitness trend may be the most revolutionary idea yet.  It is guaranteed to work for people of all ages and ability levels.  It may just be the perfect form of working out.  Are you ready for this?  Are you sure?  Okay, introducing: Walking the Dog!  "Wait," you say.  "That is not new nor revolutionary!"  How wrong you are.   According to BostInno, K-9 Fit Club offers a revolutionary new class where "both you and Fido can improve your health."

Okay, so there is nothing new about exercising with a dog.  As with most "New and Exciting Fitness Trends" the only thing new is the name or the snappy television commercial.  As I was about to dismiss this "fitness trend" as more of the same it occurred to me that not only is this not a new idea, dogs are very possibly the original, and world's best, personal trainer.  Let's use my research assistant Matilda as an example.

She is a Great Motivator: From the moment she wakes up to the moment she falls asleep Matilda encourages me to work out.  She stands by the door, stares at her leash, headbuts my hands, bounces around making a sound that sounds distinctly like "Can we PLEEEEEEEEEEASE go for a run?"  and brings me ropes or balls or other objects until I either have to kill her or go exercise.   And since killing your research assistant is frowned upon in the Lower 48, exercise it is!

She Encourages Me to Eat Better: When I am eating something delicious, or by definition, unhealthy, Matilda stares daggers at me until I am overcome by guilt and give the remainder to her.  By contrast, if I am eating something healthy such as fruit, vegetables, baked meat or NOT delicious items, she is nowhere to be found and I end up eating the whole thing.

She Lives the Lifestyle: Matilda eats many small meals a day, eats essentially the same higher protein diet for every meal, exercises, well, all the time, drinks plenty of water, avoids caffeine, soda, and alcohol and takes two or three naps every day.  Although we would be, as a society, massively non-productive, if we all lived this lifestyle I suspect we would all be incredibly healthy!

She Loves Her Work: Matilda is one of the fortunate few who loves her job.  She comes to work at Canyon every day with, literally, unbridled enthusiasm.  She greets every member at the door like they were long lost friends, helps clients get through workouts, has giant ears for listening to member concerns and entertains guest dogs when they come to visit.

So if you are looking for a fun, new, fitness "trend," look no farther than Matilda at Canyon Personal Training and Fitness.  Or you can always visit her Facebook page at www.facebook.com/matilda.dueber.  And if you have a personal training story like Matilda's please share it with me here or at canyonptandf.com.  Okay gotta go!  According to the cold nose on my leg it is time for my run!

Jillian Michaels might be stalking me.

Fitness personality Jillian Michaels is extremely concerned about my workout pants.  And according to an article in "Racked" she "knows I am paying too much" for them.  You can imagine my surprise.  Before today I did not realize Jillian even knew I existed, and to discover she is taking an active interest in my wardrobe actually concerns me.  How did Jillian come by this information?  How are my pants any of her business?  Does this meet the legal definition for stalking?

This does bring up an interesting point about workout attire, though.  There are clearly two competing views about workout attire:

View 1: Workout clothing is something guaranteed to get sweaty and dirty because I... workout in it.  There is almost no scenario where my workout shirts will not have large circles of sweat in the armpit region.  Even on a light day there will be the tell-tale "Triangle of Perspiration" on the back of my shorts.  I therefore, knowing I will sweat, wear primarily old t-shirts and shorts I find on the sale rack at a major retailer.  I wear this clothing almost exclusively to the gym, while riding a bicycle or while running around the neighborhood.  I am sweaty and gross.  If I get close enough to another human for them to notice my wardrobe they are almost always distracted by the "odor of success" emanating from every pore of my body.  They are not evaluating my clothing choices they distancing themselves from me as quickly as possible!  I feel View 1 has a certain amount of logic.

View2: Workout clothing is something for which I pay obscene amounts of money and wear everywhere except the gym so people can see how firm my butt looks while I shop for Hamburger Helper.  An alarming number of people have started to adopting View 2.  I will be at Safeway trying to determine if produce is organic or inorganic when a seemingly normal, slightly overweight lady in her 50's will walk by wearing black skin-tight stretchy pants, a tank top and her hair tied up in a "pony."  She appears as though at any moment she will grab a bag of bulk rice and perform 3 sets of 12 power cleans.  She appears this way until you realize she spent approximately 4 hours perfecting her make-up application.  Not only did she not just come from a workout, there is absolutely no danger she will workout in the near future.  I fail to see any logic with this view.

Here is where view two backfires. If you are prone to spontaneously performing acts of exercise and fitness throughout the day regardless of how appropriate the setting, your body should reflect this habit.  You should have rock-hard abs, definition in every part of your arms, 4 obvious muscles making up your quadriceps, and calves for which Marilyn Monroe would kill her neighbor.  Unfortunately this only occurs when you actually workout all the time, not just because you wear workout clothing all the time.  You instead tend to be betrayed by irregular shapes in your lower extremities, semi-tubular arms and a soft, protective coating around your abs.

So how, exactly, do we stop this?  I say we start a movement!  We ask all retailers, restaurants, or other places of public gathering to implement the "Fitness Alarm!"  At regular intervals the "Fitness Alarm" would sound.  Trained "Fitness Officials" would lunge out of the shadows and compel anyone wearing fitness attire to perform an actual act of fitness!  People would be standing in the baked goods isle, wearing their spandex, when the alarm sounds!  From out of nowhere large, stern officials insist people begin "FIFTEEN BURPIES!"  Startled "View Twoers" would immediately launch into fits of exercise.  The rest of us, of course, will enjoy a hardy laugh and take all the good donuts.

So Jillian, if you are listening (and somehow I suspect you are) we need your help.  We need your pseudo-celebrity status to get alarms set up everywhere.  We need you to get the word out for our movement.  We need you to focus on something other than my pants!  For more great ideas for spontaneous and other fitness tips visit www.canyonptandf.com today!

From Football Player to Football (Soccer) Coach, Naturally.

Good news!  I am officially an assistant high school soccer coach!  Well good news until you find out the sum total of my soccer knowledge can fit into a crayon box.  And I do not mean the awesome 128 color box coveted by 2nd graders worldwide.  No, I mean the free kind you get at a mid-level family restaurant as part of the child distraction package.  Here is what I know about soccer:

• Kick the ball in to the other team's goal.
• Keep the other team from putting the ball in your goal.
• You do not want to be offsides but no-one actually knows what that means.
• The referee randomly blows the whistle, holds up his hand, and gives the ball to the player with the best hairstyle, causing the opposing coach to shout "Sir!  Sir!  What was the call Sir!" no less than 15 times.
• The clock runs the wrong way.

What I do know, is football.  American football.  The kind with predetermined commercial breaks.  And I also know these two sports have almost NOTHING in common.  But it would appear I am not the first person to actually make the transition from football to... football.  There are apparently so many people making the switch, in fact, the good folks at NBC Sports have crafted an instructional video to make the move as easy as possible.  Many of you have seen this video so you know I am not making it up.  For those of you who have not, here is the actual link:

Transition from football to football

A great example where the video clarified a finer point of the sport:  I was extremely confused when people kept yelling "Good Tackle!" during practice.  Now I know a player is not allowed (unfortunately)  to violently throw another player to the ground during a soccer game.  But CLEARLY something or someone was being tackled.  Imagine my surprise when, while watching the video, I found out a tackle is simply kicking the ball away from another player.  So the next day at practice I asked one of my players, "Wait, so a tackle is stealing the ball?"

Rolling his eyes, "Yes Coach"

"Why don't they call it a steal!?  Or a Turnover?"

"I don't know coach."

This is typically how our conversations go during practice.  I ask a seemingly intelligent question, "Who determines when and where the goalie can use his hands?" and any number of players roll their eyes and answer,

"I don't know coach."

So if you want to have a hardy laugh at my expense and see a very talented and hard working group of young men I encourage you to come out and support the Longmont High School Boys Soccer Program.  The schedule is at www.trojanathletics.org.  And please check out www.canyonptandf.com because I put a bunch of really cool photos up on our "Member Stories" page.  Go Trojans!

It's Easy to Lose Weight Doncha Know?

Finally!  From the nutrition experts who bring you large meatballs, lingonberries, open-faced hard boiled egg sandwiches covered with, you betcha, cod roe caviar from a TUBE and crowd favorite Lutefisk, let me present the NORDIC DIET!

That's right, Scandinavia is no longer just a place from which impossible to assemble mid-range furniture comes.  According to an article written by Gina Flaxman in the world renowned publication news.com.au, it is also home to a revolutionary new diet guaranteed to help you lose weight, have more energy and start speaking with a hilarious accent.  I, know what you are thinking.  You are thinking, "Tom, to whom do I send large wads of cash so I start eating like our insanely fit neighbors to the north?"

The answer is, "No one!"  Because I plan share the secrets of the Nordic Diet right here on the internet.    Soon you too can have that "Just sat in a fishing boat all day" physique.  So grab something to write with and prepare yourself for the revolution:

Eat Less Red Meat and More Fish.  Let's be honest.  I have never heard anyone outside the Red Meat industry actually endorse eating red meat.  In fact, most publications would have us believe that if our options were direct exposure to nuclear fallout or eat a hamburger once a month, it would be infinitely better for us to glow in the dark.

Eat Whole Grains.  No longer should you eat partial grains.  If you are not sure which foods contain whole or partial grains here is an easy test: Is my food soft AND delicious, then it is made up of partial grains.  If it appears as though it would be soft and delicious but is actually neither, it is probably a whole grain.  Example: A donut is both soft and delicious.  It is a partial grain.  A Twinkie is a partial grain.  By contrast a Rice Cake is neither soft, nor delicious.  Whole grain.

Snack on Red and Purple Berries.  This actually surprised me.  I always thought the healthy food test was "If my dog won't eat it when it falls on the floor, it must healthy."  I have dropped blueberries, blackberries, and all sorts of other berries on the floor and Matilda usually reacts as though I am trying to poison her, regardless of the color.  For the record I am not familiar with the purple berry family but I doubt Matilda would touch them.

Eat more root veggies.  I can see no argument against this.  It is similar to saying when driving a car, pay attention to traffic, or if mowing the lawn do not put your hand under the lawn mower and if you are going to taunt a lion you are a moron.  I feel like this did not need its own line item but okay got it, vegitable are good.

And finally, use oils low in saturated fat: This can be a very confusing subject.  In the 80's, it was determined by "top men" fat of any kind was bad.  So along came catchy alternatives such as "I cannot believe it is not butter until I taste it and realize is the same favor as paper glue."  Then at some point someone decided butter substitute was BAD so back to butter because it was less bad.  Then out with the butter again in favor of vegetable oils.  Wait!  Are you cooking those at too high a temperature?  That is BAD!  Then the butter tried to sneak back on the scene but was overwhelmed by specialty oils formerly believed to be good only for slathering on your body in th NO!  Don't do that!  You might get skin cancer!

There you have it!  Why did we not think of this North America?!  This is THE latest formula for getting fit.  Until next week when we will have the South Central African diet, the Iowa Pork diet and my personal favorite the Lunar Orbit Diet.  Or if you are not willing to wait that long check out www.canyonptandf.com and talk to our Registered Dietitian Katie Kissane and get ahead of the game!

Get Out Your Pumps and Pump Some Iron

A few years back a very clever group of people (I assume old men) convinced another group of perhaps not so clever people (young, attractive women) that pole dancing was not just a way for old men to pay young women to do highly inappropriate things with a brass pole while in various states of undress.  The women, not the pole.  The poles remained fully clothed.   "Oh no!" They insisted, "Pole Dancing is perfectly appropriate in a family setting and is the absolute BEST way to make your butt firm and your legs look amazing."

Women who would not normally do anything more risque than wear a v-neck sweater were suddenly hanging upside down with their legs wrapped around a pole the very health-conscious men in their lives installed in the basement, livingroom, fitness studio with large windows opening up to a major state highway or other appropriate location.  From this position these women would be performing moves normally reserved for, well, strippers.

As the Pole Dancing Fitness craze starts to die down we have to ask ourselves, "What did we learn from this trend?"  The answer is, of course, some women will do anything if they think it will positively affect their butts and legs.  Let's say I have a muscular person stand next to a public toilet last cleaned during the Bush administration.  I then announce she is a "FITNESS EXPERT AS SEEN ON TV."  This fitness expert starts jumping up and down and announces, with unbridled enthusiasm, the newest way to tighten your butt and have perfect legs: "TOILET BOWL SCRUBBING!!"  I would show image after image of incredibly fit women scrubbing toilets with high energy music blasting in the background.  Their butts and legs would, of course look amazing!  You KNOW the world would suddenly have cleaner bathrooms!

Now before I start getting angry messages from all the smart, beautiful women reading this, I will point out I was exaggerating to make a point.  But according to a recent article in the highly respected publication "My Daily," I am not that far off.  I have never, not once, heard a woman say anything positive about high heeled shoes other than "Oh those are SO CUTE!"  I have never heard the phrase, "Well I forgot my workout shoes, so I will just wear my pumps today."  And yet according to the article, "The stiletto is the latest American fitness craze."

How is that possible, you ask?  High heeled shoes are an evil invention designed for the sole purpose of torturing women, you thought?  Well guess what?  According to this article and Personal Trainer (FITNESS EXPERT) Nikki Manashe, doing lunges and squats and sit-ups in high heeled shoes will, you guessed it! tighten your bottom, and tone up your thighs!  I assume this craze will last until a different fitness expert announces it is almost impossible to have a firm butt and awesome looking legs if you have two broken ankles.

For more fun and actually effective fitness programs visit www.canyonptandf.com Afterall there is a reason we have a reputation for having the cleanest public bathrooms in Colorado!

5 Must Do Steps to Becoming a Meathead

The blog is back!  I am going to take a little break from exploring the pros and cons of various fitness technology and how it affects normal people and focus more on things I find entertaining and somewhat less informative.  Today we will begin with one of my personal favorites:

I am often asked, "Tom, how do I go about alienating all of my friends, turning simple social gatherings into miserably awkward events, and appear as though I might tip over in a light breeze?"

"That's easy," I reply, "You must simply follow the 5 must do steps to becoming a Meathead."

Step 1: Purchase several tank tops with clever slogans.  Here are some actual examples: "I flexed and the sleeves fell off," Exercise until the body obeys," or simply "BEAST MODE!!"  Note the double exclamation point to demonstrate how serious you are about this particular MODE!!  You should wear one of these everywhere you go including but not limited to: the grocery store, your child's school functions, professional sporting events or church.  Step 1 clearly establishes how serious you are about fitness.

Step 2: Purchase $1000's worth of nutritional supplements.  In keeping with our theme, the supplements should have clever names such as, and I swear I am not making these up: Hot-Rox Extreme, Fahrenheit: The metabolism break-through for women, and BrainCandy.  These should be consumed only while in an appropriate public setting such as at a restaurant, coffee shop, or dinner party.  I should note there are many very useful nutritional supplements with very boring names.  Under no circumstances should you purchase or consume any of those.

Step 3: Pick out an impressive sounding gym franchise and use the name in a sentence 10 - 20 times per day.  Let me be clear.  Although you CAN join a gym, it is certainly not required.  What is important is talking about it loudly and often!  "Well I better get over to DEATH GRIP GLUTE FACTORY for my awesome abs and bis workout."

Or, "I just spent 5 hours shredding my shoulders at DEATH GRIP GLUTE FACTORY."  People will immediately respect you for your serious approach to your personal fitness.

Step 4: Discuss every meal you have ever had and how it affected your workouts.  People, especially those trying to lose weight, love to hear about your eating habits.  Try this simple formula to impress even the novice exerciser, "I just ate 6 pounds of (insert favorite dead animal), 8 bowls of cheese covered (favorite pasta) and an entire (Fruit) pie.  I LOVE THE BULKING PHASE!"  Keep in mind every phase is a bulking phase so it really does not matter what you are doing at the gym (assuming you actually step foot in one) so do not worry about specific details.

Step 5: Walk as though a large man with an extensive criminal history has inserted a pole approximately the size of a field artillery unit into your butt.  Man or woman, the walk completes the picture.  You must demonstrate to the world your massive legs and arms make it virtually impossible to move like a human.  They are, infact, so massive just moving them around is a workout.  If you move too quickly you are in danger of assaulting innocent bystanders so each movement must be a very stiff, very deliberate act.

And there you have it!  You are now officially a meathead.  You too will be one of the elite who talks about fitness more than any normal person would actually workout.  Now if you will excuse me I just took  my Turbo Blast 1000 Xtreme, so I need to head on over to The MASSIVE CALF FACTORY and shred my obliques!