there is no finish line...enjoy the ride...

Simple Formula for Success - Do you know it?

The purpose of my blog is to increase the quality of life of others through information that drives positive lifestyle choices.  Well this week, Dr Les wrote an interesting post about a common process to success, regardless of what you define as success that's he's used for years. 

To some, success may be to stop smoking, or to lose some weight, or cut down on alcohol consumption.  Improving the quality of life doesn’t always have to be health related.  It may be something good for your mind. 

For example, I have recently made the commitment to learn French.  Believe me, given how poor my French language skills are, this is a lofty goal.  It’s been something on my bucket list for decades, but I've always had an excuse why I couldn’t do it.  My wife and I are considering that we may retire to the South of France, so now I have BIG purpose and learning French has a whole new meaning. 

The steps to success are simple but not often followed.  So I've applied Dr Les' methodology to my French learning experience and it works.  And I can see how it will work for any goal I set for myself.  He's my French example.

1. Clearly define my base line: that’s easy…. my French is terrible
2. Define my goal:  Speak fluent French in 9 years
3. What resources are required: Well, I’m using Rosetta Stone, which is great and compliments my learning style.
4. What strategies and tactics: In addition to Rosetta Stone, I have now begun reading all the French labels, prior to reading the English counterpart, I listen to any French public announcement, and I try to speak French to anyone that I know can speak French.

So even though your goal, or objective may be different to my French learning example, the process that Dr Les describes below is the same.  Use this simple, but effective tool to achieve whatever goal you set out for yourself, and I hope you realize yours, like I know I will achieve mine.

Profiter de la Balade (Enjoy the Ride) …. Rob 

The Success Formula:

The recipe for health and success: “If you don’t know where you’re going any path will take you there!”

I was just heading out of the locker room when I caught up with a patient who had just finished his training run. We started chatting about workout strategies. Since we are both analytical types, the conversation was interesting. He was elaborating on the merits of long, slow, base-building runs. I was referencing that I had done numerous lactate measurements to establish and monitor heart-rate training zones for mountain biking.

While standing next to Wilf, our differences were obvious. He is 6’2” and I am 5’6” and we likely have close to the same body weight. In the dog world this means that he is a greyhound and I am... a terrier. Wilf is training for the 42km Eugene Marathon and all I want is to be able to run a fast 5km race and do some mountain biking. It was fun to swap stories but there would be little value in applying each other’s training recipe to achieve success in our different endeavors.

Our conversation made me think about my practice where patients often come in wanting a quick fix or a recipe for pain relief or good health. The reality is that it is not that simple. Certainly there are common principles and guiding concepts but to achieve the best outcome, treatment and home therapy needs to be individualized and paced according to each person’s starting point and objectives.

However, there is a useful model that can be implemented to get the correct recipe for success in any endeavour – whether it is health, fitness or even business ventures. I learned this model from the late Bernie Novokowsky, founder of the Higher Order Thought (H.O.T.) program. I attended Bernie’s funeral service recently. Bernie was a high-school dropout who went on to earn his doctorate in Human and Organizational Systems. His dissertation Personal Power: The Realization of Doing and Being is now available in a compilation book.  Bernie knew a lot about achieving goals. He called his success model the “Performance Diamond” and outlined the 4 key points necessary for success. These points are to be followed sequentially in order to be effective. It was his experience and mine that most people jump right into Step 4 – Recipe, or the solution without adequate consideration of all preparation Steps. “Follow the Four” steps to design an effective strategy!

                                                                   

 So yes, there is a recipe for pain relief, health, fitness and anything else you define as success!

Just remember, even though the steps in the process are the same for all of us, because we’re all different, ie.  Different goals, age, genetics, sex, health, fitness, resources, etc - the recipe will be different by definition.

Adding life to your Years …. Dr Les

Drinking: How Alcohol Affects Athletic Performance?

I’ve often commented within this blog about the negative affects associated with the consumption of alcohol, in addition to the social stigma associated with people that abstain from drinking.  It seems drinking has become an accepted and integral part of our social fabric.  That said, as long as it’s restricted to 1-2 drinks a day (1 for women, 2 for men), alcohol can actually have positive heart health benefits.  The problem I see, is that most individuals drink far more than what is considered healthy.

But, how much alcohol can you drink before it negatively impacts athletic performance?  The answer is ZERO. Any alcohol in your system is detrimental to any kind of fitness activity, (well maybe except for recreational dancing).  Here are just four examples how booze wreaks havoc on the athletic body.

Slower Recovery

Hard workouts drain the glycogen stores (carbohydrates stored in the liver and muscles) and leave your muscle tissue in need of repair. "Pouring alcohol into your system as soon as you finish stalls the recovery process," says Tavis Piattoly, R.D. High levels of alcohol displace the carbohydrates, leaving your stores still 50 percent lower than normal even eight hours later. Sip or snack on a combo of muscle-repairing protein and carbohydrates before thinking that a cold beer as a good recovery drink.

Packed-On Fat

When booze is on board, your body, besides having to deal with the surplus of calories, prioritizes metabolizing the alcohol over burning fat and carbohydrates. Alcohol also breaks down amino acids and stores them as fat. "For some reason this process is most pronounced in the thighs and glutes," says Piattoly. "Excessive alcohol consumption really chews up muscle in those areas." It also increases levels of cortisol (a stress hormone), which further encourages fat storage, particularly in your midsection.

Disrupted Sleep

Boozing also blows your muscle recovery and performance by sapping your sleep. In a study of 93 men and women, researchers found that alcohol decreased sleep duration and increased wakefulness (particularly in the second half of the night), especially in women, whose sleep time was decreased by more than 30 minutes over the night. "Disrupting the sleep cycle can reduce your human growth hormone output—which builds muscle—by as much as 70 percent," says Piattoly.

Depleted Water and Nutrients

Alcohol irritates the stomach lining, which can reduce your capacity to absorb nutrients (the reason you have an upset stomach after a few too many), says Brian R. Christie, Ph.D.—not to mention that alcohol makes you pee. For every gram of ethanol you suck down, you pump out 10 milliliters of urine (that's about 9.5 ounces for two beers). As little as 2% dehydration will significantly hurt your athletic performance. And by the way, you can't rehydrate with a dehydrating drink (e.g., beer).

So regardless if you're training for the Tour de France, or the next local 5km fun ran, the next time you reach for something to drink after your workout, make it something that both you and your body will appreciate.  Cheers.

Enjoy the Ride ....Rob

Are you suffering from "Nature Deficit Disorder"?

Can you feel it? I certainly can. I finally got out for my first bike ride of the year after hibernating and training indoors on my bike trainer. The weather conditions weren’t great, as I saw cool temperatures, a little snow, a little rain and for a very brief moment, a little sunshine. But who cares, I was back outside breathing fresh air and being reacquainted with my old friend, "Mother Nature".  My step brother who lives in the South of France has been rubbing my nose in his even earlier re-introduction with the French version of Mother Nature since February.  Regardless, I'm talking about Springtime….and even though the French enjoy it two months before those of us that live in Alberta, it's just around the corner and I can hardly wait to get out of my basement gym and into the great outdoors on a regular basis.

That said, not everyone thinks this way. In fact the majority of North Americans continue to turn inward, even though the outdoors is calling them. Something is certainly wrong with this picture, as over 60% of all North Americans are either overweight or obese and the thought of being active is considered by many as an unnatural act. When I was travelling through France last year, and trying my best to learn little bits of their language, I found out the French don’t even have a word for “fat people”. Or as Paul Rudnick commented in a mock-Parisian tone in The New Yorker last week. “If a woman is obese in France,” he wrote, “we simply call her American.”

Of course, North America’s national branding of size comes with a host of deadly degenerative diseases like: Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, many different kinds of cancer and all the medical costs that come with them, and you and I pay dearly for those that are obese due to inactivity and poor eating habits.

Spring is also Tax Season in Canada and let me remind all my Canadian readers that our healthcare system isn’t free, as many argue when comparing it to the US system. If you pay $50,000 in taxes, you are paying approximately $22,500 in healthcare fees through your taxes, and this is on top of your provincial health insurance premiums (except for Alberta). And let’s not forget that North Americans also voluntarily spend $55 billion on diet related products or services, which inevitably fail.

The sad part is; the solution is sitting right outside the door….and it’s free! For the last couple million years of human evolution, we have been a species that chased things to eat, or ran away from being eaten, or did physical labor necessary to grow our food. As a result we ate what was only needed, we took in Vitamin D from the sun (the best know antioxidant) and exercise was built into our lives (just like the French Paradox I wrote about last year). There were no gym clubs to belong to, we were simply active. And in less than one generation’s time, hundreds of millions of people have completely decoupled themselves from Mother Nature and all her health benefits.

There’s a new term for the consequences of this divorce between human and habitat — Nature Deficit Disorder,coined by the writer Richard Louv in a 2005 book, “Last Child in the Woods.” It sounds trendy, a bit of sociological shorthand, but give the man and his point a good listen. Louv argued that certain behavioral problems are caused by the sharp decline in how little time children spend outdoors, a trend updated in the latest Recreation Participation Report. For example, the number of boys aged 6 to 12 who engage in some kind of regular outdoor activity continues to slide. I wrote a blog last year about my observation that children no longer play outside in the numbers we used to see. Growing up, I remember my mother kicking me out the door in the morning and telling me she didn’t want to see me again until noon for lunch and again for dinner, and finally again when the street lights came on.  And all mothers did this.  Today, Social Services would be called in for this kind of parent behavior.

You can blame technology all you want, but behind every computer screen-dominant upbringing is an overly cautious parent that thinks there’s a “bogey-man” around every corner waiting to snatch their children. Understandably, we want to protect our kids from “out there” variables. But the fact remains that these over protective parents are setting their children down a lifestyle path that ends up in a long slow death.

Kids who do play outside are less likely to get sick, be stressed, or become aggressive, and are more adaptable to life’s unpredictable turns, and Louv said, since his book came out, things have gotten worse. “The average young American now spends practically every minute — except for the time in school – using smartphones, computers, televisions or electronic devices.”

It's time to change this trend and make this year, the year that you and your family shut off the electronics and rediscover the great outdoors. Your body will thank you.

Enjoy the Ride….Rob