Yes, it’s true that the average American gains 7 pounds during the holiday season, with most people unconsciously munching and “busy-ing” their way through the last two months of the year.

 But celebrating the season doesn’t mean you have to neglect yourself… or turn off your good sense. The holidays should be a time of joy for all, rather than a cycle of self-sacrifice, followed by self-indulgence, followed by self-loathing.

 Here are some tips to keep you lean, happy, and connected through the end of 2011.

•  Don’t neglect your workout. Yes, you’re busy socializing, shopping, decorating, planning, or whatever. We all are. But the most grounded, peaceful people are those that keep their routines regardless of what’s going on around them. It’s about being in control of your life, regardless of the season, rather than letting your surroundings control you. Exercise is critical to keeping you on your healthy path, keeping your metabolism revved and calories burned, producing those feel-good endorphins, and keeping your energy up.
• Stop killing people with kindness… in the form of sugary, Diabetes-inducing baked goods. Having a plate of Christmas cookies sitting around your house “for your grandchildren” does nothing but make you fat. And your neighbor, hairdresser, teacher, or pastor doesn’t really need (or want) another loaf of banana bread to add to his/her collection… or waist line. Sugar has become a toxic substance in our culture because of its overabundance.  Express your love or admiration for someone in some way that doesn’t leave them feeling fat and guilty.
• When thoughful people give you sugary goodies, accept them with the love with which they were given, take one bite, then throw it away. Just because someone made it, doesn’t mean you have to ingest it and wear it around your hips for the next year. Honor the intention, not the calories.
• Schedule an extra-long walk, before or after every big meal. Not only will you burn some of the extra calories you took in, you’ll benefit from some vitamin D and what I call some blue sky alone time. Nothing helps clear the mind and induce feelings of wonder and gratitude like a long walk in the crisp air.
• Just say no. If accepting an invitation to a social event puts you in position contrary to your health goals, or just doesn’t feel like something you authentically want to do, graciously decline.

The key is to take control. It’s your life and you’re entitled to spend it according to your priorities. The holiday season doesn’t have to be a time of sabotage and regret, unless you choose it to be. Personally, I think health and happiness are more congruent with the Christmas spirit.

Escape the Sickosphere by eating right, exercising, and losing weight

Take a stroll through your neighborhood Walmart and this is most likely what you see… People standing in a line 10 deep waiting to get their prescriptions filled. People fighting for a riding scooter-cart so they can get their sick or fat bodies through the store (which has apparently become impossible without motorized help). People filling their baskets with cheap, processed foods, fizzy beverages, Slimfast shakes and beer.

Welcome to the Sickosphere. No, I’m not talking about Walmart (although this is an easy place to see the ongoing parade of the down-and-outs and diseased).

The Sickosphere is the drugged up, inflamed, swollen, can’t walk, can’t breathe, can’t sleep, can’t get it up, no energy, diseased, donuts-for-breakfast-and-energy-drinks-in-the-afternoon, blood sugar rollercoaster, belly over the belt, bankrupting-our-country-through-health-care-costs realm in which many Americans choose to live.

Consider the statistics of the Sickosphere:

• 27 million Americans (double the number from 10 years ago) are taking anti-depressants
• 2.4 billion drugs are prescribed to Americans every year
• 34% of Americans are overweight; another 34% are obese; another 5.7% are extremely obese. That means only 26.3% of Americans are at a healthy weight.
• The average American eats out 4.5 times a week
• Americans spend more than 8 hours a day nearly motionless in front of a computer, TV, or phone screen.
• 70% of Americans don’t get enough sleep

 The Sickosphere is an ugly existence. Numbing ourselves with sugary food, alcohol, drugs, or mindless entertainment is far preferable to living fully in our uncomfortable bodies. And so the cycle continues.

We can break free, however. We can live in the body nature had intended – free of pain and disease. We can use our bodies as the blessed vehicles that carry us through an adventurous and satisfying life. Health is our birthright. And keeping our bodies healthy is the primary way we can offer gratitude for this amazing life.

Regaining optimal health is really very simple. Eat foods that look like they came from the earth and exercise daily. Just those two simple things would not only upright our tipped and gorged health care system by making most doctor visits and prescription drugs unnecessary, they would also skyrocket the quality of life of most Americans.

Eating right and exercising drastically reduces incidents of cancer, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer’s, depression, insomnia, obesity and a host of other common debilitating conditions facing our culture.

Healthy food is like medicine, actually fixing problems caused by crappy food. Every time you eat a fibrous veggie, bright fruit, nuts and seeds, or lean protein, you’re putting really good stuff in your body. You’re moving beyond just the macronutrtients of protein, carbohydrate, and fat and adding the supercharged micronutrients that can radically affect the quality of your body.

And exercise is like a fountain of youth, helping you regain lean muscle mass (improving metabolism), energy, joint range of motion, improved circulation, and mobility.

Living is the Sickosphere is an unfortunate choice that far too many people make. They sacrifice their bodies, their minds, and ultimately their lives. It is my mission to pull as many out as possible. I hope you will join me.

Let’s say you want to change a specific behavior, like choosing crappy foods to eat. You’re tired of feeling tired all the time, and disgusted with the spare tire you’ve carried for too long now, and you’ve decided it’s time to make a change.

First, look at the thoughts that precede the recurring bad behavior. If every time you nose dive into a plate of nachos, you may see that your thought pattern is something like, “Well, just this once. I deserve this right now. I’ve had a stressful day and this little indulgence is just what I need. I’ll start being good tomorrow.”

If those thoughts are all-too-common, that’s a sign there is a deeper belief supporting them. Dig down further and you may find a belief, supporting your poor me thoughts, that goes something like, “The only way I can survive tough times is to eat.” Even more excavation into beliefs might reveal that your parents helped create/reinforce this belief by giving you a treat every time something disappointing, sad, or stressful happened in your childhood.

Great… so now you know the thoughts and the belief that are causing the behavior. How do you change a belief?

You change your behavior – regardless of what thoughts and beliefs are fueling them. You’ve become conscious to your motivations and actions, and you choose change, right then and there.

Because the cycle of Belief – Thought – Behavior is a never-ending circle, you can break the loop at anywhere and interrupt the cycle. Each step reinforces the next. So when you begin to change your thoughts or behaviors, regardless of what preceded them, you change what follows, reinforcing new beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors.

For instance, you skip the plate of nachos and opt for a walk instead. Your thoughts may still be saying, “But it was a hard day and you deserve the nachos!” and your belief might still be that you need food to survive stressful situations, but your behavior suddenly proves differently.

After you go on a walk, the endorphins are pumping, and lo and behold, you actually do feel better. You didn’t need the nachos. You proved your thoughts and belief wrong.

Because life isn’t a fairy tale, those sabotaging thoughts and beliefs don’t magically disappear in that moment. They will rear their ugly heads again. But you took the first step to slaying that dragon, weakening it just a bit by proving it wrong.

Your behavior chipped away at the belief that you can only survive tough situations with food. You proved it wrong, because without the food, you lived to see the next day. And because the belief begins to change, the thoughts begin to change too.

The next time nachos lustily whisper your name, rather than instantly rationalizing why you deserve them, you may have second thoughts. You will remember how you didn’t need them last time, and congruent with your slightly changing beliefs, it becomes that much easier to choose something that feeds your body well. You feel better and further chip away at the original belief.

And around and around the wheel of change rolls…

If we’re talking weight loss, it looks like this: Be disciplined. Do the behaviors of making healthy food choices and exercising every day. Have the results of a thin person – i.e. a bathroom scale that reads way less than it used to, more energy, vitality for life, feelings of self-esteem, etc.

The problem is that most people today would like things to work just the opposite. We want to have the goodies first, then we’ll do the behaviors to earn them, and then we’ll be that person who deserves them.

For instance, it isn’t hard to find people in our culture who want to have the rewards of hard work first. Then, they’ll go ahead and do the work. And then, maybe then, they’ll internalize the changes and be the kind of person who would actually make good things happen.

These folks, for example, want to have all the luxuries of the rich, then do the work that rich folks do, then maybe, if it’s convenient, develop the work ethic that it usually takes to become rich.

Rather than BE, DO, HAVE… many people want HAVE, DO, BE.

In the health and fitness industry, this desire is prevalent as well.  To lose weight, many people would rather take a short cut, like pills or surgery, so that they could first have the results, then they promise themselves they’ll do the work of eating right and exercising to keep the weight off, and then they may develop the discipline of becoming a fit and healthy person for life.

I only see these folks once the short cut has failed. And then it is my job to introduce them to long-term success.

Every client I’ve worked with, from those who’ve lost more than 100 lbs. to those who dropped that last, nagging 10 lbs., has heard me repeat (yes, sometimes ad nauseum) “When the behaviors are there, the results will come.”

 That one statement puts things back in the right order.

 You must believe, then behave, and then enjoy your results/reward.  Or, restated: you must be, then do, then have. It is an unalterable truth that works every time!

Eating healthy doesn’t have to be time consuming, expensive… or even pre-planned. Here’s my proof – I made dinner last night without a plan and with only items I had in my pantry and refrigerator. And what I came up with was delish!!

I call it Chicken Spaghetti, but it had all sorts of fiber-filled, nutrition packed ingredients. Best of all, I made it on the fly… just to prove to you that you can do the same. You don’t need tons of recipe books or specific meal plans to make a healthy, quick dinner at home. Sometimes just looking through your fridge lends inspiration enough!

 Here’s a rough guide of what I used just in case you want to duplicate it. Chances are, you too already have most of these ingredients in your home. If you don’t, substitute and see what yummy mixture of individual flavors you can come up with!

 Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Italian Chicken

 1 red bell pepper

½ 13.25 oz. box of whole wheat thin spaghetti

3 Italian-style chicken breasts (they were pre-marinated in Italian spices)

1 can dark red kidney beans (rinsed in a colander to reduce sodium)

2 handfuls of fresh spinach

½ cup fresh mozzarella

Tomato and Basil pasta sauce

Olive oil

Thin stemmed asparagus as the side dish

1. Make the spaghetti according to directions. Drain and set aside
2. Cube the chicken breasts, sauté in a splash of olive oil until nearly brown, add diced red bell pepper, kidney beans, and spinach
3. Pour pasta sauce into chicken mixture, simmer for a few minutes
4. Blanche the asparagus in a skillet with ½ inch boiling water for about 3 minutes. Asparagus should be bright green and still crisp. Drain
5. Serve spaghetti with chicken mixture over top, sprinkled with cubes of fresh mozzarella.

Yep, only two things. Here they are: 

Crowd Every Meal with Fruit and Veggies. I know… there’s that “plant food” thing again. But seriously folks, the more plant food you eat, the leaner and healthier you’ll get.

 And I’m not saying you have to gag down raw broccoli every meal. I am saying use lots of veggies in your cooking. Make casseroles that are full of veggies. Make wraps packed with veggies. Make a soup that is full of veggies. Or, have two veggie side dishes – like grilled squash and asparagus spears – with every serving of lean protein. Rather than thinking you need a grain (like rice, pasta, or bread) with your dinner, think of what veggies or beans you can put on your plate.

 As far as fruit goes, keep cut-up fruit or a fresh fruit salad in your fridge that you can add as a side dish or add it to your oatmeal, cereal, or yogurt in the morning.  When fruit and veggies make up most of your meal, you’ll not only lose weight, you’ll poop often and look about 10 years younger. Yes, you can quote me on that. J

 When You Don’t Make a Good Food Choice, Limit Portion Size. This seems like a big “duh” but you’d be surprised how many people fail to do this. Probably because “less than optimal” food choices often taste really, frickin’ good and our taste buds (not necessarily our bodies) scream “More, more, more!”

 This is where you need to resist the urge to turn into a slobbering idiot just because they’re serving Italian Cream Cake at the luncheon (and it’s free and right in front of you, after all!). Allow yourself to have some of the cake… just not all of the cake on the plate. Small portions allow you to have your cake and eat it too! Which is a much better long-term strategy than all or nothing!

There you go… two ideas that if followed, will keep you lean for life. 1. Eat Lots of Fruits and Veggies and 2. Limit Portion Sizes on Bad Food Choices. Choose what’s right… or make your not-so-good choice have less impact.

Pretty cool, huh? But the lentil story gets even better. Eating just a half cup of lentils provides around a third of your daily fiber requirements! So your body absorbs the energy from lentils slowly, which helps keep blood sugar levels even – which must be why I’m so revved up writing this! Because of their soluble fiber, lentils help lower cholesterol, fight heart disease, and keep your bowels a movin’!

So I thought I’d share with you a great lentils recipe – perfect for these cooler evenings that fall is ushering in.

Barbecue Baked Lentils Serves 8 (serving size is ¾ cup)
3 cups water
2 cups dried brown lentils (available at any grocery in bulk or in a bag near the dried beans)
1 cup diced onion
2/3 cup low-carb barbecue sauce (look for a sauce without high-fructose corn syrup)
¼ cup mustard
½ teaspoon group ginger
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon group allspice
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine water and lentils in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 20 minutes. Drain lentils in a colander over a bowl, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid.
3. Combine lentils and diced onion in an 11 x 7 – inch baking dish. Combine reserved cooking liquid, barbecue sauce, and the remaining ingredients. Pour the barbecue mixture over the lentil mixture, stirring to combine. Bake for 1 hour.

Use the Barbecue Baked Lentils as a side dish to a Turkey Burger on a whole wheat bun, or grilled Sweet Italian Turkey Sausage. Or pair leftover Barbecue Baked Lentils with a spinach salad with hard-boiled eggs for a quick and easy lunch!

Both sets of people – the achievers and the stuck-ers – work hard. They’re basically responsible folks who go to work, take care of their kids, and live up to their obligations. But somewhere there is a difference, a small but critical distinction between the two types of people that creates a huge disparity in outcome and quality of life.

Take, for example, two people named Mike and Joe who really want to lose weight. Mike does whatever it takes. He’s sick and tired of carrying around the extra 60 lbs. and has decided that no amount of food prep, making good food choices, saying “no” to the second beer offered up by a buddy, or working out every morning is too much. Mike lives day after day according to his goal. Whether he feels like it or not, he makes healthy food choices and exercises daily.

Joe is also tired of being fat. He too needs to lose about 60 lbs. and has decided to make some changes in his life. In the beginning, he exercised daily, began eating lean proteins, and lots of fruits and veggies. He felt great and the weight came off. But then the planning of meals became arduous and some days he didn’t feel like exercising, so he didn’t. Also, when his buddies called and wanted to go out for beer, he was the life of the party. Joe continued to try to make good food choices and he exercised a couple times a week, but his weight bounced around like a wild day on the stock market. Eventually he lost traction… and lost interest.

Joe put in 88 percent effort to realize a 20 lb weight loss… that eventually dwindled to only 10 lbs… and then he was back to his original weight plus some.

Mike put in a full 100 percent effort to realize a 60 lb. weight loss.

That 12 percent effort is the difference. Joe put in effort only when he could muster up the motivation or when he felt like it. Mike put in effort every day.

How many people have you seen like this on the job? There are the Joes of the world, who arrive basically on time, do whatever the boss says, get enough work done not to get in trouble, show up at meetings but fly under the radar, and leave the minute the clock strikes 5:00 to go home and plop on the couch.

Then there are the Mikes of the world. He arrives at least 10 minutes early, just to make sure he’s ready for the day, does every project to the best of his ability, volunteers for additional work (whether he’s getting paid for it or not, because he wants to make himself more valuable to the company), helps co-workers, and leaves when his work is done, not necessarily just when the clock says so.

Joes put in 88 percent effort. Mikes put in 100 percent. Which group gets more out of life? Which group feels more fulfilled? Which group will succeed?

Whenever you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, getting no traction in life, ask yourself are you giving just 88 percent, enough just to maintain the status quo and stay within your comfort zone? Or are you giving 100 percent, enough to create real change for the better in your life?

That little 12 percent – its where the discomfort, the fear, the growth, the creativity, the tears, the discipline, and the epiphanies create some very satisfied, and very changed, people.

But why? We Americans like the idea of getting rid of the bad stuff that enters our bodies, of cleansing our insides squeaky clean. Like taking our car in for detailing, we believe our bodies can enter a detox stinky and full of gunk and will emerge bright, shiny, and with that awesome new car smell!

Most of us acknowledge that the food chain isn’t as pure as it used to be, and that the typical American diet of burgers, fries, and sweets doesn’t help the cause.

So it stands to reason that a “detox” would be in order. But what is a detox, really, as it applies to the everyday guy or gal? Without getting all heady… detoxification is the metabolic process by which toxins are changed into less toxic or more readily excrete-able substances.

Eeewwwww!

Just by reading the definition, it’s obvious that detoxes and diets are not the same. By severely reducing your calories – as one would in a typical diet (never a good idea!) – you are NOT altering the chemistry of toxins, nor are you making them more readily poopable. (Yes, I can make up my own words!)

You are, by dieting or detoxing, trying to remove body fat – the place in your body where toxins hang out (as if body fat wasn’t already bad enough!) However, the problem with this method is that a severe drop in calories – as with most quickie diets or “cleanses” – doesn’t eliminate a lot of body fat, but it does eliminate a whole lot of muscle.

Uh oh. Now we really have a problem. Our bodies are clinging to the fat, because they think we’re starving on this ridiculous “cleanse.” Meanwhile, our bodies are getting rid of lean, healthy, youthful muscle, because muscle takes a lot of calories to maintain, and when you aren’t taking in many calories, you don’t have any to spare on things like lean muscle. So you do lose weight, but since most of that weight comes from water and muscle, you’re really lowering your metabolism and setting yourself up for major fat gain (can you say “yo-yo dieting”?) after you’re done with your detox.

So point number one is not to confuse “weight loss” with “fat loss.” REPEAT: Weight loss and fat loss are often completely different!!!

And point number two is to really detox long-term, one must lose FAT.

How does a person effectively “detox” then? Glad you asked.

First, we have this amazing thing called a liver that cleans our blood incredibly well. And unless you have a defective liver, it is your primary source of detoxification. No shake or pill will ever work as effectively.

Second, there are only three ways our body, with the help of our liver, gets rid of toxins. Those three ways are:
• exhalation (breathing out toxic stuff like carbon dioxide),
• elimination (that’s between you and your commode!),
• and perspiration (yes, a good, old-fashion, smell-like-a-man SWEAT!).

Exercise that makes you breathe heavy and sweat (both of which are required to actually be exercising!) is probably nature’s most efficient way of detoxing your body. Exercise utilizes both exhalation and perspiration methods of detoxification, has absolutely no negative side effects, and helps you lose toxic body fat as well.

Exercise also helps you get off toxic medications by alleviating some common ailments like high blood pressure and depression. As a personal trainer, I see people reducing or quitting, with their doctor’s blessing, their medications almost daily.

But how do you keep toxins from coming back in? Simple. Here’s a handy guide.

1. Eat a diet rich in local or organic vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and lean proteins. Make sure you get plenty of fiber to help with the elimination component!
2. Stay away from sweets and processed foods.
3. Drink lots of pure water.
4. Get plenty of sleep.
5. Love life.

There it is… the ABCs of detoxification that works. Eating well, exercise, sleeping, and appreciating all that you are. Simple, but amazingly powerful…

And absolutely impossible to bottle.