Banking On Fitness

Banking on Fitness

To view the rest of my articles visit keizer's clinic site at :http://www.keizerclinic.com/Wire_Articles/Archive.html

By Jim Keizer

The good people at the Wire have generously given me the opportunity to do my own fitness column and you are probably wondering why. So here is where I tell you about my impressive credentials and build my credibility. It is true that I own my own exercise and nutrition clinic here in south beach. Yes, I have advanced certification in personal training, corrective exercise, post-rehabilitation, exercise coaching, advanced supplementation protocols and holistic lifestyle coaching. It is also true that the programs my business partner and I design yield measurable, consistent and permanent results for our clients.

However, the reason I love what I do and am jumping at the opportunity to write this column is that the more I learn, the more awestruck I am by the perfection that is the human body. The number of systems, chemical processes, and functions that must be coordinated every given second to just have me sitting here writing this column is mind-boggling. When I see someone who is down on his body because of weight gain, low energy or illness, I also see a body that has done a remarkable job of damage control for years before getting to that point. I hope that each time you read my column, you are left with a new appreciation for your body, while learning to cooperate with it to cultivate your health.

My actual degree is not in fitness but in Economics. When I began my fitness career nearly 9 years ago, I feared that this would always hinder my practice. To my surprise, I found that there really are more similarities than differences between the industries.

Like the financial industry, we have brilliant and ethical people in the fitness world to help you chart your fitness path and, like Bernie Madoff, we have our share of conmen. Unfortunately, you are caught in the middle and likely skeptical and more than a little resigned about ever unraveling the mystery of getting (and keeping) the health and physique you want. You may turn to reading the fitness magazines, getting tips from friends, and buying contraptions from pony-tailed pitchmen in the infomercials. For most people, this just adds to the frustration and the perception that nothing “works.”

Finding what works just isn’t that difficult if you can learn HOW to filter the information. Most of my clients know a lot about health and exercise before our first meeting. My job is to help them sort through fact and fiction and put it all together in a framework that they can follow for the rest of their lives.

I believe that the natural state of a healthy body is lean, strong, and attractive. You can get these results, temporarily, with steroids, fad diets, and a million other gimmicks but the results are always temporary and come at a cost to some other system in your body, eventually leaving you more aged and essentially less healthy.

It helps to think about your fitness as an asset, just like you’re the balance of money in your bank account. So if it is an asset, the trick is to accumulate more health and spend it wisely. The more you have saved, the better you look and feel. Just like making and spending money, there are so many ways of making and spending health. You may exercise every day (making a deposit toward your healthy and attractive body), meditate, practice yoga, or play with the kids. Then there are the things that drain your fitness savings: drinking a little too much, staying out all night dancing, working 60 hours per week and sleeping 5 hours per night. These are all drains on your health reserve.

I have studied under many different teachers, many different philosophies and have found what works best for me as a coach. It goes something like this: “You can be a neurotic saver your entire life, do everything right, pinch every penny, avoid most costs, and live to be a 100. BUT you can’t take it with you!” I have studied with people who live avoiding every unhealthy influence and, frankly, it’s not for me. I respect their decision to live in such a restricted fashion but I LIKE to spend. I also know that because I like to spend, I have to work hard in other places to bank enough in my account to keep looking and feeling the way I want.

By eliminating moral judgments around fitness and giving you the facts about what helps you bank fitness and what drains your account, you can make the choices that best fit your life. Twice a month, I will add a piece to the puzzle, covering new research, current events, and your questions about food, supplementation, and exercise. Your questions will shape this column.

Nothing kills the long-term effectiveness of a fitness program as quickly as being told what you “have to do.” I have learned through my years of coaching that the solution to your fitness goals is as individual as you are and must be chosen by YOU. I look forward to being your source of information about food, exercise, and supplementation, so that you too can find the solution that is right for you and your lifestyle.

To view the rest of my articles visit keizer's clinic site at :http://www.keizerclinic.com/Wire_Articles/Archive.html

Jim Keizer

Bad Habits You don't Know that You have!

Things you probably think are helping you but are ensuring you stay fat.

1) Choosing only low fat, reduced fat and lean foods.GASP! EAT fat??? NO WAY!!!

If you are one of the people who are constantly searching out the lowest fat foods, you are likely depriving your body of the necessary dietary body fat essential to running a healthy hormonal and detoxification systems. High-fat foods got a bad rap when many of the highly-processed and fast foods we consumed were pumping the American diet full of fat. Unfortunately, the backlash came in the form of the fat-free craze which had every food company latching on to a new way to market crappy food to the public...LOW FAT OREOS..Yeah!

In fact, many people I see are consuming so little fat that they are depriving their bodies of the essential dietary fat necessary for hormone production and fat-soluble vitamin absorption. What does this mean? Well, it means that a large majority of people are running around hormonally deplete and without enough vitamins to run their detoxification systems. Humm... hormone imbalance and increasing toxicity...I wonder why they don't feel so great?

2) Choosing only low-carb foods

OK, carbs don't make you fat either...just junk does.

Don't go low-carb, just cut out the sugars, processed flours, and over-processed garbage.

Your body needs carbohydrates to function, and depending on your metabolic type, needs them to be anywhere from 30-50% of your total caloric intake.

In order to cut out the sugars and crap that are stressing out your adrenals and causing you to be on a vicious cycle of energy highs and lows, you must start looking at your food.

Did you know that high-fructose corn syrup is the number one ingredient in foods consumed in the US...yup, that nasty, sugary substance is so incredibly cheap that the food companies love to use it to give the rest of the sawdust they produce a little taste.

Start cutting this garbage out and limiting your processed foods altogether. One of the easiest ways to do this is to do what I call the "outside-isle" Shopping trip. Walk in the grocery store, hit the outside produce isle and pick up lots of great fresh produce and nuts, round the corner to pick up fresh eggs and dairy (if not allergic) and end at the butchers counter for some fresh meats. You can always augment your carbs with whole wheat pastas or breads if you do not have gluten intolerance.

3) Doing too much Cardio.

It seems that everyone is cardio-crazy...everyone thinks that this is the way to get that great body. So, you can look around next time you are at the gym and wonder why most of the people you see on the treadmill day in and day out are still chunky.

High-Cardio activity create a high-adrenal and cortisol response. Most of us are already adrenally challenged from stressful lives and too much caffeine. All of that extra cortisol puts us into a catabolic (breakdown) state which causes breakdown of muscle tissue (the same muscle that helps support your metabolism). If we stay catabolic for long enough, our body begins to go into a stress mode where it holds fat and drops your metabolic rate.

The solution? The goal is to create an exercise program with a "net-anabolic effect." These carefully structured programs usually include more resistance training and concentrate on creating a greater repair reaction in your body to counter-act the catabolic breakdown.

4) Dieting

The path to hell is paved with good intentions and the path to a beer belly and saggy thighs is paved with fad diet books. Just stop starving yourself already!!!

I have a problem with most diets because:

a. Calorie deficits don't work long-term...want to argue this with me? I can give you loads of research proving it or you can just call your friends and relatives to see how well it has worked for them. Consider for a moment that it isn't that we are just eating too many calories but that the foods we are consuming are so poor nutritionally that we are actually starving ourselves to death and causing excessive hunger.

b. Most diet foods are so processed, chemically altered, and enzymatically dead, that you would be better off eating the box they are packaged in...at least then, you won't get all of the preservative.

c. I am a big OPPONENT of working against your body. If you are having cravings, it is likely from a hormonal or blood sugar imbalance. If you simply "gut" you way through on sheer will-power, you aren't addressing the underlying cause of the imbalance. Ultimately, the cravings win and you gain the weight back.


Start listening to your body. Do you ever wonder why fitness has to be such a huge struggle? Do you really think that our bodies have evolved through the millennia to become so high-maintenance and fussy? The truth is that the human body is amazing, strong, and self-sufficient as long as we quit getting in the way with bizarre behaviors that we think are going to help us stay "sexy".