I was 40 before I ever worked with a trainer and he opened my eyes to a very disturbing reality. He said when you’re under forty, weight loss has more to do with exercise than with dieting. Once past forty, exercise is important but diet is everything. I wondered why I was working out like crazy and never losing any weight. I wasn’t drinking anywhere near enough water, and protein in my diet was almost non existent. I was told that a guy my size needs at least 200 grams of protein daily, and even more if exercising on a daily basis. I always knew lean proteins such as chicken and fish were great protein sources and would help build muscle, but I was concerned how I was going to get 200 grams of protein daily from food alone. That’s when I turned to Designer Whey protein powders to get me where I needed to be.

And then, there is my true Achilles’ heel, my weakness. The crystalline liquid that takes me so far away most every evening. My wine. I love big, heavy red wine. Sniffing, swirling, sipping, into heavenly bliss. But it’s gotta go. At least down to an occasional glass. Sad, but true.

There is no truth to the rumor that the last time I went to the beach a couple of marine biologists tried to push me back in the water, but I was about 15-20 pounds overweight. But one person did ask me if I actually knew where my gym was. So with boating season  just weeks away it’s time to get serious. With the help of Designer Whey products, and a really wonderful friend who has offered to help me, I plan to shed some pounds, get in shape, and feel better about myself.

There are many tips out there about how to stay fit if you have to travel. Many hotels have side deals with local gyms for discounted daily rates. That gets you out of the usually under-equipped, overcrowded hotel fitness center. It also helps me to stay in my own time zone and avoid the west coast late night hunger binge. That really means you’re feeding your body well after 8pm, only the clock says 5pm. And if you’re forced to eat out, and out of your normal time zone, almost any restaurant will let you order a slab of grilled chicken on a bed of greens. Just make sure the dressing is fat free.

So as we sit today, I’m 44 but feel like 55, 245, but feel like 255. Stay tuned and we’ll shed this baggage together!

Posted in John Roberts | 4 Comments

I’m here today to talk about giving up on your goals.  It’s almost mid-February, which probably means that most of us have hit that point when our New Year’s Resolutions have hit quite close to home in how hard they are to obtain. Yeah, I want to lose 100 pounds this year.  Almost impossible unless you sit in the gym for 5 hours a day, every day, AND take a bunch of fat-burning pills AND go on a ridiculous diet.  Granted, some goals that we have have set in our champagne-induced deliriums may seem out of reach.  I’m not here to debate that.  I am here to tell you that the mind-frame you were in on the wee hours of Dec 31/Jan 1 were not necessarily impossible.  Just because you promised to change your entire lifestyle and didn’t follow through, that doesn’t mean your healthy new lifestyle doesn’t have to go to the wayside and wither and die.  Now is the time to re-affirm your decisions for a healthier and more pro-active lifestyle!  Think about it.  It’s almost Valentine’s Day, meaning that ONLY 6 weeks of the 52 have passed.  That’s still a very long time to turn your New Year’s Resolution into Fact.  Just because you’ve hit the after-New Year’s hump, as I call it, doesn’t mean that you have to quit working out and eating better.

KEEP AT IT!

I almost guarantee that you feel a little worn out from the more healthy diet and lots of exercise that you’ve been working on and have started to let go of.  Well, now is the perfect time to double your efforts! What better time than the holiday lull to start working out with your partner? Invite him or her to join you for a jog around the block (or hopefully 3 blocks by this time).  You might surprise yourself with their stamina, either strong or weak.  Invite them to a challenge of bench-pressing abilities, or to make it more exciting, a dinner date for the winner of a circuit challenge of lifting abilities of every muscle your gym has to offer.  Use EVERY machine in your gym for the purpose it serves, and see who lifts the most OVERALL weight, the total of the individual pounds lifted by each person.  The loser buys the winner a health-conscious dinner out, and maybe a movie, now that Awards season has hit us.  I hear both Applebee’s and Chili’s offer calorie & cost-conscious persons a decent menu.  A little competition never hurt anyone, and you might be shocked by what your partner is able to do after working out for 6 weeks.  So add a little competition to your diet and set some romantic stakes on the proverbial grill to spice up both your romantic and health lives.  Because although your weight loss should be mostly for you and your health, you loved one benefits just as much as you do. Let’s make the world a better place, with a little more love and a lot more healthy.

Posted in Nathanael Mulder | COMMENT ON THIS BLOG

Phase Nineteen of “appropriate behavior at the gym: the do’s and don’ts, according to a guy with an opinion about anything and everything.”

Piggy backing on the last entry I am going to write about one more personal inquiry that I felt needed to be thrown out there and established. Once again this isn’t a do or don’t and it does not really effect anyone else, for the most part. This week I am going to bring up the “the man in the mirror.”

There is a very fine line when discussing “the man/woman in the mirror” when talking about the subject in conjunction with the gym. The “man in the mirror” refers to someone who is stuck in a constant state of checking themselves out in the mirror. The gym itself is a fortress of reflective obsession in that everywhere you look there are mirrors. But the mirrors in the gym most definitely serve their purpose. They are put in place to allow you to watch yourself workout so that you can make sure your form is correct, and they are also there for a little vanity from time to time (who doesn’t want to see the way their body is progressing). But my issue doesn’t lie with looking into the mirror to check your form or catching that occasional glance at yourself every now and then. No, instead, my issue circles around the people that spend more time looking into the mirror than actually working out at the gym. At first I noticed a couple of people checking themselves out a little to intensely (I’m talking like 3 inches away from the mirror and doing little turns and moving limbs and flexing), and I thought to myself, “that is a little bit too much” but whatever. Then I noticed that these same people were habitually doing this – about once after every other set. On top of that, I began to notice that it wasn’t just a couple of people; it was a whole group of them! At any given time in the gym I came across about 5-8 people who completed this act on the reg. Which in reality accounts for about 8-15% per gym area.

Check ME out!

Now, I am not knocking them for being a little vein and trying to check out what their bodies are becoming. I am knocking them because of their compulsion and flagrant demeanor in a public setting. I will be the first to admit that after a good work out I go right to the mirror in the bathroom (but that mirror is in my home not in the middle of a public watering hole), it only occurs once and it only lasts for a couple of seconds. I just think it is funny that people so blatantly gawk and ogle at themselves in front of complete strangers for elongated and continuous time frames. This occurrence at the gym really doesn’t bother me at all but it makes me kind of laugh because it is something that I just wouldn’t do. Your muscle mass isn’t going to drastically change from one set to another in its appearance, so what is the point in checking and looking every 5 min? It is one thing to look at yourself for a few seconds before you start your workout and then maybe once in the middle and then at the end. But doing this as frequent as I see some people doing it, seems a little bit on the ridiculous side. Then again, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I don’t quite fully understand the complete spectrum of the gym culture. I know that in many ways the gym culture stems from a level of vanity in the sense that many people go to the gym to keep up appearances or change them for the better, but this seems like it is taking that concept to a whole new level. I tend to think that most people might agree with this because like I said I only see about 8-15% doing this in any one given area at the gym. But as always I am really curious to see what everyone else thinks about this. Is it ok to do this at an irregularly increased volume because the setting is the gym or is it just common social knowledge to not be this obsessive about your looks in public? What do you think? Once again this is simply my opinion, take it or leave it.

Posted in Lucas Hart | 2 Comments

Hey Friends,

I know you are as happy as I am that the kiddies are back in school! Oh the last few weeks I was ready for them to go back to school. The kids were sick of each other and I was on my last nerve. I love my kids with my whole heart but sometimes us moms just need a break.

Hey, next week is all of our favorite inspirational show! Yep, that is right September 15th is coming up soon. I am excited to watch and see my favorite Designer Whey drinks help people just like me, people who could afford to lose a few or 2 or 3 pounds…lol. Hope you watch The Biggest Loser along with me!

Guess what the weight loss fairy delivered to my house??? My protein water! I will rate according to my tastes. In 4th place is the Orange Mango… I thought too intense orange taste. Maybe like the taste of baby aspirin or very strong tang.  Which I am not so fond of. But for you, you may love it. Probably those of us over 40 can not handle such intense flavor. To me, it was OK but not my favorite flavor of the protein water. In 3rd place is the Cranapple…the only reason it’s not my favorite is I am not an apple juice person. I do enjoy cranberry so for me it was tolerable. In 2nd place is the Pomegranate flavored Protein Water…I very much enjoyed the light fruitful flavor. Camille’s #1 pick is the Blue Raspberry… to me it is perfect! Light, yet flavorful, not too sweet and is very refreshing. My only problem is my 16 year old daughter DRANK all of my Blue Raspberry and Pomegranate Protein Water! UGH! I went to take a bottle with me to work and ALL GONE! Luckily, I found some at our local grocery store.

I have to apologize to all my friends reading this blog. Anyone who reads this blog is my friend! I promise to blog more often, summer is hectic with kids home and watching my friends’ children as well, plus my cleaning jobs. By the time I sat down I was spent. But now that school is back in session and The Biggest Loser Show will be on, I can get back into routine. When you are trying to lose weight routine is essential. I share that with you so I can share things I am doing to get back in the flow of losing weight.

One thing I do now is to always keep a 2-quart pitcher filled with my favorite Biggest Loser Protein Powder both the Red Raspberry and the Blue Blueberry. They only have 40 calories, great flavor and fiber to take the edge off when you are looking for something sweet to have. I put 6 scoops in a 2-quart pitcher and keep in the fridge, ready when I need it. Sometimes, I mix the two flavors for a different twist. Enjoy a cup before dinner and you will eat less, try it! I also

The Biggest Loser Protein Powder Vanilla Bean

LOVE the Biggest Loser Vanilla Bean Flavored Powder. I like to make a creamy shake when the ice cream man is trying to stop by! The chocolate is a great treat, as well, and makes a great meal supplement.  I enjoy adding the vanilla bean to cold coffee; add ice and you have a great low calorie, delicious, ice coffee! Some of those ice coffees can have 400 calories or more! Compared to 50 calories with the Biggest Loser Powders there is no comparison and they are YUMMY! Don’t forget to put a case of bottled water in your car (please recycle or refill) along with a bunch of 2GO packets, they really take the edge off when you are temped to stop by a drive thru, when you know you should not eat fast food.

You can enjoy any of Designer Whey’s Protein Powders. Whether you are trying to lose weight, maintain a healthy weight or building muscle, it’s all good! It works too! I lost 30 pounds in a year. Not a huge change like the Biggest Loser Show but progress; and we need to accept any progress as good! Make your kids a healthy shake after school instead of cookies and milk! I know my kids act a lot better after a Designer Whey Protein shake instead of climbing the walls after cookies. Calmer kids equal calmer parents; and that my friend is a happier home. How about starting their day with a shake at breakfast! They will think you flipped making them a shake for breakfast! But studies show good protein in the morning gets their brain ready for thinking. Kids who have a good breakfast do better in school!

Alright Friends,

I think about you and hope you are healthier today then you were the day before. Drink you whey every day!

Your friend,

Camille

Posted in Camille, Real People | COMMENT ON THIS BLOG

The Ultimate Protein Shake

   Ok if anyone does follow actually follow my blog on a weekly, my apologies for breaking up the gym etiquette segment, but I feel like I need to share a few new things that I have discovered coming from none other than our favorite protein company Designer Whey and a couple of creative minds. The gym etiquette segment is not finished, believe me there are plethora of things left to gawk about. But I figured I would throw a few positive things in the mix so that I don’t seem like such an elitist negative Nancy. I wanted to share with all of you this week, the ultimate health protein shake that will kill that hunger craving and will help build muscle through quicker recovery.

   To start you are going to need a blender – yes this is going to take a little more effort than just a spoon and a cup. Once you find the blender make sure you wash out all of the margarita residue from last weekend: the point of this shake is the amazing taste. Grab a cup of Ice to start and dump it in the blender. Then pour in about ¾ of a cup of water (you can use Milk but it just fills you up that much more) on to the ice. Now for the next part go out and get yourself Designer Whey’s chocolate and chocolate caramel protein powders . When adding the protein powder, add to your liking. Meaning, if you are using protein shakes as a form of dieting or to speed up your metabolism only use about 1 to 2 scoops but if you are trying to gain mass and build muscle use 3 to 5 scoops. What I do is I take two scoops of the chocolate powder and two scoops of the chocolate caramel powder (or if I feel like mixing it up two scoops of chocolate and two scoops of vanilla) and put it on top of the ice and water mixture. Then I take a scoop of cookies and cream light frozen yogurt and drop it in there with a spoon full of peanut butter.

   Now I am going to throw in a warning here about the peanut butter. I love crunchy chunky peanut butter way more than creamy but it does not work so well in this shake. I say this because even with a high grade blender you will still get those little chunks of peanuts floating around and although they are delicious they make you choke and who really wants that. So my suggestion is suck it up and get creamy peanut butter, it gives you the same great flavor. I also say spend the extra dollar and fifty cents and get the lower fat peanut butter.

   Once you have the ice cream and peanut butter in the mix with the protein and ice water, you add what I like to call the non-topping toppings in. The first of these two is the banana. Cut the banana in half, peel it and then cut one of the halves into sevenths and them drop into the blender. Next throw in a couple of squirts of Hershey’s light chocolate syrup. If I could guess right now you are probably thinking to yourself, how is this shake healthy and the answer is simple. Almost all of the caloric content of this drink (with the exception of the light chocolate syrup) are “good for you” calories, meaning that they are easily burnt off and highly utilized within the body. Not to mention that 95% of the ingredients in the shake help speed up the muscle recovery – which is why it is the perfect drink for after the gym. And on top of everything sprinkle in three to four dashes of cinnamon. Cinnamon has also been proven to help speed up and better glucose metabolism which gives it a lot of value in this shake and makes it a little healthier for you. The only two things missing from this shake to make it the ultimate protein fix is a spoon full of tuna and an egg. But we won’t put those in because the idea of this shake is to gain nutrients not to expel the nutrients that you have acquired during the day, with a horrifically induced vomiting session from the taste of this thing.

   Now that everything is in there go ahead and blend to your liking. I like to get it to the consistency of a restaurant style milkshake. This shake is ideal for taking within 30 minutes of any muscle workout longer than 30 minutes in length. If you are trying to build muscle or gain mass this shake has got everything that could want. Give it a try: it’s delicious.

Posted in Lucas Hart, Real People | 2 Comments

   Recently I have been on this kick to try and find different workouts that allow me to accelerate my personal physical achievement levels while at the same time renewing my enjoyment of going to the gym on a daily basis. My main goal is to steadily increase my body and muscle mass while maintaining a solid physical appearance, which so far is going great. But I have found that if I don’t constantly mix up my routines I physically peak and the burn out rate sets in. Now you may call it something else, but everyone faces that burn out rate at some point or another. Its that pivotal moment(s) when you have come home from a ten hour day at work and still have other important things to do like studying, making time for that significant other in your life, grabbing a beer because you need one, or even catching a show that you like, and you need to decide if you want to go to the gym or not. This moment is huge, because you know you will feel like crap if you don’t go but you have no real motivation to go because it is the same old song and dance every time you go to the gym. Well, I found something as of late that has not only been a good motivator for me when this decision pops up but also an extremely effective workout tool, and that is immediate muscle compression workouts.
   One of the main reasons why this workout cycle is so appealing to me is because it gives me a break. Normally, I do heavy lifting six days a week, targeting different muscles each day. But with IMCW’s (we are moving this into an acronym) I only have to do three or four days of heavy lifting. Here is how it works. IMCW’s are simple they are just workouts that target your complementary muscles in a single more effective, more intense session. For example, normally I would work back (secondary biceps) one day and chest (secondary triceps) the very next because they are complementary muscles, and by working these muscles this way you are causing a compression on the body which slowly after time increases muscle mass. But IMCW’s are different, because you would be doing both chest and back in the same day rotating from one set of one exercise on back immediately followed by one set of one exercise on chest. You would then do this until you finished up your sets on both exercises and then move onto two more exercises, and then so one and so fourth. Then the next day you have off, to do cardio or abs or legs or just simply have it off (it is absolutely imperative that you do not work any of the muscles that you worked the day before, as you risk permanent muscle damage: work other muscles the next day or simply take the day off). I usually try to get four sets in on each exercise and about ten exercises per workout (five exercises per each of the two complementary workouts). Sometimes these workouts are referred to as blitz workouts because that is what you are doing; you are blitzing/shocking your system. Now because of this I would recommend throwing one of these cycles in a month as a break from the ordinary routine. Some people’s bodies can handle these on a constant basis, but other’s can’t so it is important to find that balance. You can do this with all the different complementary muscles in your body, like triceps and biceps, back and chest, etc. It is in fact effective and you will see results if it is done right (depending on diet and nutrition of course). Remember I am by far no expert, just an average Joe who likes to go to the gym and try new things and with anything new, I recommend that you do a little research first and make sure that this type of workout will yield the results that you are in fact looking for. Also, make sure you ease into these workouts, you will probably be at the gym for about an hour and fifteen minutes or more, and you will be working out the entire time, because there really is no rest.

Posted in Lucas Hart | COMMENT ON THIS BLOG

This is the “Transformation” Episode. And boy was it. But before we saw what Fashion Guru Tim Gunn did with the contestants, there of course was a challenge. They were strapped to cable wires and had to go 700 feet to the other side. Winner gets a $25,000 kitchen make over.

The teams all worked hard to keep their balance as they walked across their thin wire to the other side of the canyon. Each one tried their best to not look down the steep canyon and instead focus on trying to complete the challenge. Tara struggled when she fell off the cable, but eventually found her way back on. Filipe took a strong lead in the challenge. He didn’t keep the lead long; once Tara got her focus back, she gained back the minute she lost and shocked everybody by winning the challenge. Why people were shocked that Tara won, is a mystery to me.

Then the transformations by Tim Gunn. What can you say…they all looked fantastic!!! It is always motivating to see how people can change with EXERCISE and a change of eating habits.            

Weigh In: Everyone is so surprised that Helen lost 7 pounds and had a percentage weight loss of 4.14% which puts her in first place for the first time. Then Laura gets on the scale and due to her hip fracture has not done much of anything this week. She gains 3 pounds. Below the line are Laura and Kristen. Laura goes home.

Posted in The Biggest Loser | 1 Comment

You see the infomercials on them, and immediately you think “where’s Chuck Norris and Suzanne Summer’s endorsement on this one?” But perfect push ups actually work and they can be used as a great tool to change up your chest routines. I am always trying to find new ways to reconfigure my workouts to get the same or even better results. At the same time, I am afraid to try new exercises in fear that they may be inferior to the ones that I already have in the sense that they might not yield the same quality of results. But when my roommate ordered these things from the TV, I thought to myself “I gotta at least give em a shot.” So one day when I was being rather lazy and unmotivated, I decided that I was going to do a weightless chest workout at home – consisting only of the many variations of push-ups and dips that you can do. I started off with the perfect push-ups because I heard that they could be quite intense. After doing four sets of 35 my entire body was decimated. I was able to do the rest of my work out but only at ¾ capacity, it was as if I was maxing that day.

Because of how drained I felt and how pumped my body was after that work out, I began to incorporate push-ups into my chest routine. I have been lifting seriously for quite some time now, so I am used to seeing the plateau that many of us hit after our routines become…well, routines. After initiating the perfect push-up, the diamond push up and the weighted dip into my workout I could almost immediately see the results and I could feel them as well. It is really hard to figure out my workouts because one professional will say maxing out constantly will increase muscle max, another will say increased reps with minimal maxing will do the trick and others say that resistance training and natural workouts are the best. I am no expert by any means so please, if I am off basis here, throw my words right out the window – but I thoroughly believe that it all depends on your body and your body type. I am a taller guy with really long arms, so it is tough to truly see immediate results sometimes and when you do begin to see them, they are usually followed by that plateau period. But I have found that this period can be easily broken up by interweaving naturalistic workouts with moderate maxing and heavy weigh protein intake. Throwing in the perfect push-ups to a chest routine has done wonders for my upper pectorals and weighted dips (real ones not the machine) have done wonders for my triceps. Take it or leave it, like I said I am by no means an expert, but if you are looking for a change try throwing in some natural exercises into your routine…who knows it might work for you too.

Posted in Lucas Hart | COMMENT ON THIS BLOG