For me, that was my health.

As a young man, I was actually happy to be putting on weight. I was working out like mad, and attributed the gains to be my workout, working. I was ecstatic when I finally broke 200!

There was that beer gut that developed in the process… But when an older (probably in his 30’s at the time), male bartender told me, “A wise man builds a shed for his tools,” I accepted the gut as a normal part of manhood and pressed on.

It didn’t stop though. I increased the intensity of my workouts, and I got fairly strong, for a nerdy kid who weighed 135 throughout high school. Yet the gut kept growing.

Then it began to spread. Now it wasn’t just my gut that was expanding, fat was spreading into my face. My cheeks and neck began to swell. It got to the point where I felt like I didn’t really have “my” face anymore. There was now more of a generally round, “fat guy” face where mine used to be.

The legs and arms began to fill as well. It didn’t matter how much I worked out. I was still getting stronger, the muscles were still getting bigger; but, there were no “cuts,” no definition to anything. People started telling me, “you look like you used to work out.”

Ouch. No one who works out wants to hear that they look like they used to look good.

I decided that I had done enough bulking, it was time to cut.

So, how do I lose a bunch of fat, really fast? At the time, Dr. Atkins was all the rage, so I jumped on board. Zero-carb, high fat, all protein, all day. I made it about two weeks, but hey, I dropped 15 pounds!

And then 20 pounds crept back on throughout the rest of the year.

I kept thinking, “if only I could keep this up for longer…” so the next year I pushed harder, with about the same results.

I tried again the following year, same thing happened. Diet tech improvements came along. Now they have a powder that “gets you back into ketosis when you fall out of it.”

For the uninitiated, “ketosis” is the target state of the Atkins approach. This means that there will be “ketone bodies” present in the urine that can be detected by peeing on a special test strip. These ketone bodies only show up in the urine under special circumstances.

One of those situations is kidney failure, which we definitely want to avoid.

The other, is when we’ve exhausted our supply of available glucose for fuel to trick our body into thinking we’re starving so it switches to burning off our fat reserves.

If you’ve never done Atkins before, it takes a good 3 days for you to burn off your existing glucose stores before your body reluctantly switches into ketosis (fat-burning mode via simulated starvation). Once you’re in ketosis, your body is constantly burning up your fat reserves. But, any amount of carbs you ingest will throw you out of it, leaving you waiting for your body to burn those carbs off to get back into ketosis.

Ah! But now we have this Miracle Powder that will get you right back into ketosis! Of course I tried it. I don’t really know if it didn’t work, or if I used it as a means to sneak carbs in here and there, but the net result was that it was less effective than Atkins alone.

This is where the “low-carb” craze came from. The idea is that if you can just eat very low carbs, your body will choose to burn off fat. Except that, the body doesn’t work like that. If it has glucose to burn as fuel, it’s going to burn that glucose as fuel. And when it has an excess of glucose, it will store the balance as fat for later use.

Long story short: Atkins doesn’t work! Or rather, it is an effective tool at removing fat very quickly, for a short period of time. Which is exactly what Dr. Atkins intended! He pioneered this method as a means to reduce enough fat in people to allow them to safely undergo surgery.

Atkins was never meant to be used as a long-term approach to overall health.

Great 😧 now what? Looking for a more modern approach, I tried Intermittent Fasting.

Typically, this involves squeezing all of your eating for the day into a narrow window. For example, maybe only eating between the hours of 4 pm to 8 pm. If you’ve never tried this before, you’ll probably be cranky and hungry up until that four o’clock mark, then bloated as you try to compress 3000 calories into one reasonably healthy meal, after which you’ll probably go to bed hungry.

Now, I’m not saying Intermittent Fasting doesn’t work. There are many people who swear by it. And in fact, I found it an excellent means by which to maintain my body composition levels (meaning my lean mass to fat mass ratio.) It wasn’t very effective, for me though, at reducing my existing fat levels.

There are, of course, variations on this theme. I’ve described what many people call the OMAD method, or One Meal A Day. My mother uses this method effectively to maintain her health in her mid-70’s now.

You could also use a larger window and eat two meals a day. This is a great way to go for people who don’t feel hungry in the morning when they wake up. No problem! Skip breakfast and start with lunch.

I’ve done this before myself too, but not to effectively drop fat pounds.

Then there’s the complete opposite approach: Eating numerous, albeit small, meals throughout the day. I’ve done this one as well. The concept here is to not allow yourself to get hungry, keeping your body processing food all day long, and burning up the energy as you go so it won’t get stored as fat.

For me, this was eating small meals every three hours or so. When I say small, I mean a can of tuna fish and some crackers, or a pair of hard-boiled eggs and half a slice of bread. Just enough food to keep you going to your next eating window, spaced about three hours apart.

Basically, you’re eating all day long, maybe as much as seven times a day, depending on when you wake and sleep. It’s a LOT of eating. And if you work in an office, your coworkers may get annoyed with you and your stinky tuna cans. How effective was it? Well, I definitely bulked up, but still had a hard time cutting the fat.

And then I tried the “stupid” diets. You know the ones I mean. Where they sound way too stupid to actually work. Things like, “the all-cabbage diet,” or “the carnivore diet,” or even, the “paleo diet.” Did they work? Meh, they’re basically all variations of the Atkins theme. So yes, they worked in the short term, but were too hard to maintain to make a meaningful difference.

There I was, after literal decades of trying and failing every diet I could think of. My insurmountable task proving itself to be a formidable foe. What do you do when you’ve tried everything you can think of, and NOTHING has worked?

You get help.

In 2020, that’s exactly what I did. I decided to get to the bottom of what the heck I was doing wrong to my health. I paid money to learn how to get healthy.

And you know what? I found out it wasn’t a single really big mistake I was making. There were dozens of little ones. In fact, when I sat down and thought about all of the things that I’m doing now, that I wasn’t doing then, there were over 100 differences!

Now I’ve made it my mission to help as many people as possible to make these little changes in their lives, because it adds up to big results!

No more dieting! I have no need to go on a diet now, because I’m already at my ideal weight. All I need to do is eat and move, and my body composition takes care of itself.

Want to know if I can help you, too? Hit the link below and let’s find out!

Visit: https://www.eclecticwellbeing.com/Mark1-2-1

The post How do I get to Where I Want to Be? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve managed to do since the start of the pandemic.

In the beginning – panic eating

Don’t get me wrong – in the very beginning I was panic-eating just like the rest of us. Kathi and I were eating ice cream sundaes every night! Hot Fudge and Carmel Sauce were our go to favorites! Comfort food like mashed potatoes sounded awesome! Just like many of you, we used food to satisfy our need for certainty and comfort during those first few weeks of complete uncertainty.

After the first month I had ballooned up to around 225! Kathi didn’t want to step on the scale, but when her leggings felt tight, we both knew our panic-eating had to stop.

In April the textbooks for the nutrition certification course in which I had recently enrolled in had arrived.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the lockdown gave me a lot more free-time and it was the perfect opportunity to begin studying something I have always been interested in, nutrition and eating healthy.

I had tried numerous programs or “diets” in the past.

I’d done Atkins before, then Keto for a while. Tried Paleo, South Beach, and Mediterranean. I tried a packaged food program that I now can’t believe I ate those processed foods. They had no taste! Kathi hated it since it left her fending for herself since she wanted no part of pre-made meals!

Heck, one April I decided to try eating vegan. This was a number of years ago when Kathi still worked in the city. I was the chef in the house and I didn’t bother to tell her what I was doing. (See, whatever new diet regimen I decide to try, she was stuck having to try too 😉) However, she noticed after about a week of tofu and imitation meat products. She wasn’t thrilled with the vegan plan – mostly it was the cheese she missed.  Lucky for her, that attempt did not even last a whole month.

Looking for Health in all the wrong places.

So after all those different diets or eating plans I was still looking to be healthier. And this time was different. There was a realization of getting older and I didn’t want any short term fixes. I wanted lasting change.  For my food to fuel my body. To continue living an active life. I also wanted to change my family history. My dad died at only 62 years of age, and a few months later his older brother, my Uncle Bill, died at just 64. I don’t want that to be me. I see myself living to well over 100, and I want to live that long life being able to do the things I love, like hiking, scuba diving, exploring.

Finally, I also want Kathi to join me in this long healthy active life.  We share most of our meals together.  It’s important to me for us to share in this health journey! I want our meals to be tasty as well as providing the nutrition our bodies need as we age.

So after talking with a number of health coaches I know, I settled on the science and behavior based certification from Precision Nutrition. The program was supposed to take about a year to complete; I did it in roughly 3 months.

And then I put it all into practice,

and the pounds started falling off. Before I knew it, I was under 200! I stepped on the scale one morning and it read 199.4. I hadn’t been under 200 since the last millennium. Boy was I ecstatic!

But it didn’t stop there. Each week I was lighter and lighter. I’ve been consistently in the low 170’s for several months now. As of this morning I’m 172.6, and the lowest I’ve seen was 170.3, last week. I don’t know if I’ll see the 160’s. I’m not really even trying to shed any more weight.

Of course, I haven’t really been “trying” this whole time, either.

I’m not on any weird, restrictive diet. In fact, I’ve literally been eating Chocolate, Ice Cream, Pizza, Tacos, Burgers, and Pasta all along, and there have been a couple of occasions where I’ve gorged on a plate of desserts, or a really sweet and gooey Yogurtland bowl.

And still I was able to get down to my ideal body weight. The scale tells me I’m between 7.3 and 10.1% bodyfat. I think it’s being a bit generous, and I’d estimate I’m between 12 and 15%, which is right in the healthy range for a man on the cusp of his 50’s.

Although I studied this nutrition program because I wanted to get healthy and live a long life, I also did it because I want to help people. Besides teaching yoga and mindfulness, I wanted to teach people how to be healthy. To shed the pounds and negativity that’s holding them back from being their true Self. Living a full and abundant life!

Afterall that’s why Kathi and I started Eclectic Well-Being!

So, do you want to know the secret?

Join me for Well-Being 101 on Saturday, September 25^th from 10:30 – Noon, Eastern time, where I will spill it all!

✔ Learn to let go of what is truly holding you back from having the body you want, or anything else in your life that you desire by using this one simple technique.

✔ I’ll share one core principle which is the most proven effective way to make lasting change in your mindset and your body… It improves your chances of success by 95%… in anything.

✔ Discover how you can have more health, more joy, and get out of your own way without changing the core of who you are or doing things you don’t want to do.

This is a hybrid event, so you can attend in-person or via Zoom. Spots are filling up quickly, so register today 😊

https://eclectic.kartra.com/calendar/WB101Calendar

The post Eat Chocolate and Ice Cream Every Day, Pizza Weekly, Tacos, Burgers, Pasta, and Still Drop 50 Pounds? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

When we decided to become coaches, some in our family wondered what exactly does a coach do?  Who hires you?  Why do they hire you?

Let’s first discuss what coaches don’t do.  Coaches are not therapists.  We don’t try to solve your problems by analyzing your past experiences or diagnosing any cognitive, psychological or emotional disorders.  In fact, we don’t try to solve your problems for you in any way.

What we do is listen, pose questions, and offer observations.  Many like us, also incorporate teaching into our practice.  Teaching, as an invitation, not that what I teach is the only option, but as an invitation to try some practices and techniques that have been useful for others.

Why hire a coach? 
Well why do some people hire a trainer?  Because we want support, guidance, and accountability.  Same reasons you want to hire a coach, but instead of working on your physical goals, we work on life goals; whether that be your health, your mindset, your career, your finances, your relationships, and other areas of your life on which you choose to work. All coaches are trained to listen, respond with questions, offer support and be direct and honest.

Coaches help you find solutions within yourself to make the changes needed to have what you truly desire.   This could be a myriad of things.  Perhaps you want to stop having the same arguments with your spouse.  Maybe you want to figure out if the career you are in is really what you want to be doing.  Maybe you’ve noticed a change in body weight and want to figure out how to still enjoy food but not keep gaining weight as you get older.  Perhaps you are celebrating your child’s wedding and having the house back to yourselves, but now what are you going to do?

What do all these scenarios have in common?  They involve going inward, exploring options, finding clarity as to what YOU really want and then coming up with an action plan.  Our lives are habitual.  We repeat the same patterns.  In order to make changes, we need to stop doing the same things.  To paraphrase Einstein, “Insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting different results.”  That’s most of us.  We don’t realize we do the same things, but we do.  It’s the way our brain is connected.

Why can’t you simply make these changes on your own? Well you can try. However, because science has shown that 90% of our thoughts are repetitive, (and 80% of those are negative) most people find themselves in the same thought pattern. They find it difficult to shift on their own and see the multitude of possibilities.

Example, many of us think “the problem” is our current job. So we find a new job, thinking everything will be solved. But in reality, we are repeating the same behaviors and usually we find ourselves unhappy again in a short time. A coach interrupts these habits, offers questions and ideas that will prompt your brain to think differently, and provide guidance with new ideas and potential solutions. By asking thoughtful but direct questions, coaches provide a safe environment for you to reprogram your brain, opening up new possibilities!

Eclectic Well-Being focuses on Mindset and Nutrition, two areas where many people struggle but with simple changes, get exceptional results!

The Total Mind Shift is an 8 week program centered on discovering what makes you, well, you!  Exploring your character, your personality, your hopes and dreams.  Ensuring you have complete clarity as to what life you want to live, what brings you joy and abundance!  We focus on small changes you can make to truly be the person you want to be and have the life you desire.  At the end of 8 weeks you have a set of tools you can use whenever you find yourself falling back into old patterns.  If you need further support, we also have one-to-one as-needed sessions for past clients.

Metabolic Mindfulness is a 10-week program designed for people who want to identify as healthy, fit individuals, but aren’t quite sure where to begin, or have experienced setbacks in the past. This program covers everything you need to know to live consistently at your ideal body weight and never need to “go on a diet” ever again, while still eating food that tastes good and makes you feel good. We believe there is no “one best diet” out there that will work for everyone. Our program helps you to figure out what’s going to work for you, for the rest of your life.

Curious if Coaching can help you live with more joy, health and abundance?  Schedule a Discovery Call with either of us!

The post What is Coaching? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

Why does it matter what you eat, as long as you’re eating? Aren’t the 300 calories in a Boston Crème Donut the same as the 300 calories in a Chicken Leg & Thigh quarter?

Well, from a technical standpoint, both 300 calorie objects yield the same energy equivalent if you were to burn them (because, after all, a calorie is a measure of heat); but, it’s what your body does with those food items that makes the difference.

When we eat food, that food is broken down in a process we call digestion.

You may hear people talking about “needing to get their macros in” for the day. They’re talking about macronutrients, otherwise known as proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.

During digestion, those macronutrients are processed into smaller and smaller pieces, until we’re left with molecules.

Molecules are groups of atoms that are bound together into small atomic chains. Some of those chains may be only a few atoms long, some may be quite longer (as is the case with our DNA which would be about 6 feet long if unraveled.)

Once our food reaches molecule-size, those molecules are distributed throughout the body where our cells use them to make replacement parts.

Our bodies have about 30 trillion cells. That’s 30 thousand billion! If cells were dollars, we’d all be richer than Jeff Bezos!

Those 30 trillion cells work together to keep us alive. Inside each of those cells are teeny-tiny little organic factories we call organelles.

It is within these organelles that those molecules of food that you ate are pulled apart and recombined to make new structures, like hormones, enzymes, and even parts that become new cells.

Everything that gets digested is repurposed by the body.

In other words, when your mother told you, “you are what you eat” when you were a kid, she wasn’t kidding! It’s literally true!

This is why eating healthy food is important.

Sure, that Boston Crème Donut is OK to eat, occasionally, as a treat. But when our entire food intake is comprised of high-calorie, low-nutrient choices, it causes problems in the body.

Our bodies need to make repairs, constantly. Those cells need a regular supply of building materials, and they’re going to use what you give them.

That means, if you give them low-quality parts to work with, you’re going to have a low-quality body as a result. (Have you ever heard the expression, “garbage in, garbage out?”)

So, the bottom line here, is that you can’t fake good nutrition. If you want to be healthy, it starts with what you put into your mouth.

If you’d like some help in figuring out what to eat to maximize your health, set up a Discovery Call with me. That’s why I’m here 😊

The post Isn’t a calorie, just a calorie? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.