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The beginning of this series of articles was a list of the worst mistakes people make when they start working on improving their health. Now I’d like to cover each one of those items in detail, starting with #1, fad diets.

Fad diet is a term I use for a wide variety of eating plans. These include a wide variety of things, from Atkins to North Beach, from fruitarian to fasting. In fact, the diet blog recently ran a good article about the signs of a fad diet which can be found here. However, the real question is, what makes these diets really bad? What is it that makes them more than simply useless and turns them into a true mistake?

First, fad diets do nothing to educate people about eating habits. For the most part, fad diets simply tell you what to do instead of why you should be doing it. To me, this is one of the worst mistakes you can make. I greatly value education and knowledge so when I see a diet that simply lays down some rules rather than telling you why those rules exist, I see a mistake. You’re not going to learn how to eat healthy following this diet. You’re not going to learn about nutrition or the value of different kinds of food. You’re just going to learn the rules of this one specific diet. Now what happens if you are unable to follow that diet for a day? Maybe you’re out with family or perhaps you’re eating dinner with a customer. What do you do? If you actually learned about nutrition and health, you can almost always find a healthy meal, but if all you did was blindly follow a fad diet, then you know nothing and can’t really decide for yourself what is healthy and what isn’t.

Second, fad diets are by nature temporary. In fact, most fad diets will actually have a time limit as part of the diet. They’ll say things like “go on this diet for just 8 weeks” or “follow our eating plan for 12 weeks to see amazing results.” Yah, ok, and then what? What happens when the fad diet is done and you’re back to eating normally? All that weight comes right back on. True weight loss isn’t temporary and it’s not a result of temporary diets. True weight loss and good health come from permanent changes to your life. Unless you’re going to follow that fad diet for the rest of your life, you might as well not even start it.

Third, fad diets make you believe they’re the only thing you need. What I mean by this is that fad diets make the dieter believe that exercise, active lifestyle and all the other components of a healthy life are unnecessary. They do this by focusing on weightloss and little else. Unfortunately, weight loss is not the same thing as being healthy. Yep, you heard that right, losing weight is not the same thing as being healthy. Sure, for most people losing some weight will probably result in a health improvement. However, pure weight loss is not always healthy. For example, an athlete can lose weight by losing muscle mass. Is this healthy? Absolutely not, but a fad diet will make you think that all you need to do is follow the diet, lose some weight and your life will be perfect.

Finally, most fad diets will follow some odd eating habit that actually causes the dieter to eat in an unhealthy and unenjoyable manner. They will focus on only specific types of food or on a specific way of preparing the food. They will have you fasting, detoxifying, pureeing and eating nothing but frozen kidney beans. In other words, they will destroy any semblance you have of a healthy diet you can enjoy. To me, food is something to be celebrated and enjoyed. Healthy food can be wonderful, and even the occasional unhealthy snack (kept to a reasonable level) is a part of a life I love to live. I’d much slowly lose weight on a healthy, well rounded diet I can enjoy than eat a crazy diet of nothing but Asai berry smoothies in order to lose twenty lbs over the next three weeks.

Personal Experience

All that said, I actually tried a few of these diets when I first started to get healthy. I tried Atkins but stopped when I learned that some carbs are good and some proteins are not, something Atkins didn’t try to educate me on. I tried some of the meal replacement shakes, but stopped when meal time became a chore rather than a pleasure. I even tried a strict low fat diet, which seemed to work, but the weight came right back as soon as I stopped. I never once found a diet that was possible to follow long term, healthy and provided good results.

So I started reading about nutrition. I talked to my doctor about exercise and eating plans. I researched and learned and then researched some more. In fact, I’m still researching and I’m still learning and I hope to never run out of new things to learn. Eventually, I started understanding what I ate. I knew when something was bad or what meals were healthy and I was able to decide on my own what to eat and when. These days I don’t have a strict eating plan of what I can or cannot eat. I simply choose healthy, tasty food every meal and enjoy my life. That’s the diet I’m still on and plan to remain on for the rest of my days. Maybe I should name it something catchy like “Galometrics Diet” and write a book.

Summary

Fad diets are just that, fads. They’re things that are here today and gone tomorrow. Some of them might last longer, like Atkins, but that doesn’t make them any better. Do yourself a favor, educate yourself about nutrition and healthy eating habits. You’ll come up with a healthier and more enjoyable lifestyle than any of these plans.

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60 in 3’s last series of articles dealt with the most effective things people can do when they first try to lose weight and get healthy. Now, I’d like to cover the opposite topic. What are some of the least effective steps people take when they try to turn their life around? What are some of the things that seem helpful but may actually be harmful to your health and to your efforts to improve it? Just as with the last list, this one will consist of an initial post with the topics and some general information about each, and then follow up posts with more information on each item. So without further ado, here’s the list of things not to do when you’re trying to lose weight, get in shape and be healthy.

1. Fad Diets - You’ve heard of them, you might have even tried them. The diet with nothing but fruit, the diet with nothing but bacon, the Atkins diet, the North Beach diet, the diet with nothing but shrimp or even the diet where you fast for three days to detoxify. All of these are fad diets. They might show some initial weightloss but are difficult to maintain and, in some cases, bad for your health. You’re much better off living a better lifestyle with healthy eating habits than you are trying one of these fad diets.

2. Do no exercise - This is particularly bad among women. The belief here is that weightloss and health is something that is directly related to eating habits and nothing else. Exercise and physical activity is seen as unnecessary, which is why you often see women engaging in some diet but seeing little in the way of results. Yes, physical activity is absolutely necessary if you want to be healthy and lose weight.

3. Do no research - And before the men get too cocky, here’s the common failing of most men. Rather than do research, they simply do what they think is right, what their friend Bob the mechanic thinks is right, what they remember from that show they saw on the Discovery Channel two years ago and what they think that girl they dated two years ago did to lose weight. Many men will do absolutely no research before engaging in life changing projects.

4. Cardio too soon - While cardio is a vital part of any healthy life, try it too soon, when you’re still overweight and out of shape, and you’ll find yourself out of breath, demoralized and discouraged. Even worse, you could actually damage your health by pushing cardio too fast and too hard before you’re ready for it. Take it easy. It took you years to get your body into the doughy shape it’s in now and it will take some time to fix that damage. So start out slow and work your way up.

5. Weight training too hard - This is another one for the guys. We tend to work out too hard when we first get to the gym, especially when it comes to weights. It’s as though we think the whole world is judging us and laughing at the fact that we can’t bench press more than 50lbs. So we try too hard and we lift too much and two days later we’re in the most intense pain of our lives. And sometimes, this makes us never come back to the gym. Start out slow and with a low weight, then work your way up.

6. Treat little setback as complete failures - This one is common to both men and women and it’s one I wrestled with when I first started recovering from my health meltdown. It’s the tendency to blow up any little setback into a major failure and then self destruct. You wake up in the morning and the scale tells you something you don’t want to hear, so you get frustrated and spend the whole day binging on chocolate. You try to walk up two flights of stairs but are out of breath by the second one, so you get demoralized and stop walking altogether. You give in to temptation and eat a donut in the morning and then you beat yourself up and binge on steak and cheesecake in the evening. We tend to think that one small failure means all our efforts mean nothing. Even worse, we use that one small setback as an excuse to leap headlong into failure. After all, if we already had one little failure, then the rest of the day’s worth of major failures doesn’t count, right? Wrong. It all counts. Stop using your little failures as justifications for bigger ones. So you made a mistake, so what? It’s not the end of the world.

7. Do it yourself, with no support - Human beings are social creatures. What we do and how we act depends in large part on the people around us. Our eating habits and physical activities are reflections of our upbringing, family, social circle and professional life. A change of health and fitness involves changing all of these things. Therefore, it’s much easier to do if you don’t try to do it alone. Get your family engaged in your project, get your friends involved. At the very least, keep people informed so they know what you’re trying to do and why. You’ll find that your family and friends can be very supportive of your efforts to live a healthier life and you’ll find that your health can greatly benefit from their support.

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This weekend roundup is being written at 4am. This is the result of a medication I’m taking to combat poison oak. I managed to get poison oak on my calves last weekend during a hike. For those of you unaware of what poison oak is, take a look here. Now I usually prefer not to take medication for simple issues like this that will go away on their own, but I was traveling business all of this week and heading into day long meeting with uncontrollable itching on your legs is not a good idea. So I took this medication called Prednizone. On the plus side, it has made the itching go down. On the downside, I’m so hyper that I’ve been sleeping less than 2 hours a day. Can’t say I’m enjoying this but it’s not going to keep me from going back on the hiking trail next weekend. That said, here are this week’s articles I thought you might enjoy:

Since we’re talking about drugs and their interesting side effects, I thought this article from Mark’s Daily Apple was interesting. It’s all about the 10 dumbest drugs ever made. You’ll notice some weight control medication at the top of the list. I happen to agree with Mark on these. While I believe modern medicine is a wonderful thing, I also think we tend to overprescribe medication for conditions that can be resolved naturally.
@Mark’s Daily Apple

I thought this article from Back in Skinny Jeans was interesting. It discusses the merits of frozen versus fresh vegetables. It’s true the less fresh vegetables are, the less nutritious they become, but they’re still good for you. They’re just less good. Still, this one is good reading.
@Back In Skinny Jeans

And from the Diet Blog, we have this very useful guide to calorie based portions. It will really make you rethink that chocolate bar you were about to eat. When you read this article, remember that people tend to eat the same volume and weight of food per day, regardless of calories. So if you eat foods that pack less calories per volume, you’re going to end up with a better diet.
@The Diet Blog

And now, I’m off to see if I can finally get some sleep.  Have a great weekend and see you tomorrow when we discuss common mistakes people make when they first try to lose weight and get healthy.

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This was a comment I received from a reader by the name of Andrew a few days ago. He had read my series on the 4 day workout and responded with this:

Was wondering if you can give me a specific routine for working out. i want to be cut, want a 6-pac (nice abs), nice arms and triceps, back. Any suggestions on what to do at the gym instead of just what I should work on?

First of all, Andrew does something well here that most people ignore. Rather than just setting some nebulous goals, Andrew has some specifics in mind. I would recommend that anyone thinking of working on their health come up with these kind of goals. You should know exactly what you’re looking to achieve and hopefully a time frame to go with that goal. This is because all workouts are not created equal. Some promote muscle bulk, others promote tone, still others promote cardio endurance with little emphasis to muscles. This means that you need to know what you want to achieve and then plan the right workout.

Andrew’s specifics

Andrew here has done that. He’s looking for a “cut” look, which typically means more definition and tone than simple bulk. That also means a lower body fat percentage. Also, Andrew has specifically stated that he wants a gym workout, rather than a simple home workout. That’s another good thing to know in advance since it impacts the type of exercises open to you. With that in mind, what should Andrew do?

My recommendation is based on a 4 day workout. Assuming Andrew has less or more time than that, he could easily modify this workout to fit his schedule. All the resistance workouts are meant to be done with 3 sets of 15 reps each. The high number of reps will help focus on tone rather than bulk. The weight used should be something Andrew can barely do on the 15th rep. If necessary, the weight can be lowered slightly each set.

Day 1 - Core, abs and lower back.

Abs

• Crunches
• Leg Raises
• Trunk Twist

For the back

• Dead Lift
• Good Mornings
• Back Extension

Day 2 - Chest and upper back

For the chest

• Bench Press
• Pec Dec (always loved that name)
• Dumbbell Pullover

For the upper back

• Shrugs
• Upright Row
• TBar Row

Day 3 - Legs

• Barbell Squat
• Barbell Lunge
• Leg Curl
• Machine Calf Raise
• followed by more squats and lunges

Day 4 - Upper arms

• Hammer Curls
• Concentration Curls
• Palm Down Preacher Curl
• Skull Crusher (another great name)
• Standing Extensions
• Cable Extension

Cardio

Yes, you still need to do cardio because it will keep the body fat low and therefore emphasize the muscles more. Do two days on the treadmill and two days on the elliptical, preferably one with arm movement and not just leg movement. Go for 30 minutes at a time with a moderate pace.

Rest Day

Make sure you get at least two complete rest days each week. That means no weight or cardio training on those days. The fifth day is up to you. You can use it for extra weight training, extra cardio, both or something else that’s physically active.

Diet

Make sure you get enough protein to keep your muscle tone while you lose some weight. That means things like fish, lean beef and chicken. No bacon wrapped steaks please. Don’t overdo it though, you should still be eating carbs from sources like vegetables, fruit and whole grains to keep your body healthy and energized.

Standard Disclaimer

As always, this isn’t intended to perceived as medical advice. If you have some kind of medical condition or experience any health problems, please consult with a doctor.

Summary

I hope this was beneficial to you Andrew. Let me know if you have any questions and please stop by again and tell us how you’re doing.

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A bit of a late post today. I just arrived at an airport hotel near JFK in NYC after a long day of work. Should be back to normal posting schedule tomorrow.

As for today, I wanted to spend a bit of time to an email a reader sent me following yesterday’s post. I won’t quote the entire email here but it was essentially asking me my opinion of the Atkins diet. This was in response to yesterday’s post in which I recommended that people cut down on meat consumption. This reader understood the post to mean that I disagree with the Atkins diet. This is both true and untrue.

What the Atkins diet does right

The Atkins diet gets one thing very right. It encourage people to eat less junk carbs. These junk carbs can be found in almost every food we eat these days. The white bread in your sandwich, the chips you ate with your burrito, the chocolate bar you snacked on and the soda you drank with your dinner all contain a large amount of calories from junk carbs. I call these junk carbs because they contain very little nutritional value for the amount of calories they pack. In fact, the only thing your body uses them for is energy, but since they’re so energy dense, you can eat a lot of them before you feel full. So you eat more and more until you overeat and gain weight. So if the Atkins diet does one thing right, it is this, it gets you to eat less of these junk carbs.

What the Atkins diet does wrong

First, most people on the Atkins diet assume that all carbs are the same. This is not true. Carbs from fruits and vegetables are healthy and very low on energy density. This means that they pack quite the nutritional punch. They’re full of vitamins, minerals and fiber, which your body needs to remain healthy. And they do this while being relatively low in calories due to their high water content. unfortunately, many people on the Atkins diet do not distinguish between good carbs and bad carbs. They simply eliminate all carbs.

Second, the Atkins diet emphasizes protein and fat but does not emphasize healthy sources for these items. I often see people on the Atkins diet boast about the amount of bacon, sausage and hamburger they’re eating. Well guess what, you’re still being unhealthy. These foods are packed with fats and protein that will increase your risk of heart disease and your blood pressure. If you want to focus on increasing your protein and fat intake, do it with healthy sources such as fish, turkey, lean beef and alternative meats like venison. Oh, and stay away from fast foods, there is nothing healthy about a Wendy’s burger, even if it is mostly protein and fat.

Finally and for some reason I still fail to understand, people on the Atkins diet often seem to believe that cutting out carbs is the only thing they need to do. They fail to pay attention to their caloric intake and they fail to add physical activity to their routine. They seem to believe that eating 5lbs of steak everyday and nothing else, will keep them healthy and slim. Guess what, the basic laws of biology still apply to you regardless of the diet you’re on. If you eat more calories than you spend you will still gain weight.

Summary

By all means, try to reduce the carb intake in your diet. Most people consume way too much unhealthy carbs. However, you should do so in an healthy manner, by switching to healthier sources of carbs like fruit and vegetables. And yes, protein and fat are both vital parts of a healthy diet, but you should get them from healthy sources and not at your local Kentucky Fried Chicken.

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One of my readers asked for a list of 10 steps to good health. I provided it, but now I want to break each of these items down and give you more useful details. So here’s step 10, eating less meat.

Before I go into detail here, I will mention that I am a vegetarian. I did not choose this lifestyle due to moral or ethical issues, I have no problem with human beings consuming animal meat. Instead, I chose to limit my meat consumption first, due to health reasons and second, due to environmental concerns. However, I don’t recommend that people interested in just healthy lifestyle go veg. It’s actually easier in my opinion to get a healthy and complete diet with some meat in your diet than it is with no meat. So this post is not meant to an endorsement of the vegetarian lifestyle. However, I will say, and the medical community agrees with me, that people today consume too much meat, and specifically, too much highly processed beef, chicken and pork.

Meat in and of itself does not have to be unhealthy. It has many healthy nutrients that our bodies need. From protein to omega three fatty acids, meat can supply us with a variety of our daily necessities. Eaten in a healthy manner, meat can be a valuable part of a healthy diet. Eaten in an unhealthy manner, it can be a leading cause of obesity, heart disease and high blood pressure.

Carbs vs. Protein

By the way, anytime I mention meat, there’s always an Atkins diet follower who adamantly insists that protein is good. So let me just say that I agree, protein is good, in moderation and from healthy sources. You’ll note that I’ve already mentioned in this series of articles that people should cut out the junk carbs in their diet from things like sodas and bad snacks. However, I also think people should cut out the junk protein from things like fast food. So if you want to follow a high protein diet, just get that protein from healthy sources like lean meats and plants, rather than the latest creation from burger king. And yes, that also means cutting down on the steaks at dinner and the bacon at breakfast.

Again, note that this is similar to some previous advice I gave about vegetables. Eating vegetables doesn’t necessarily have to be healthy. Twinkies and mashed potatoes are vegetarian but I wouldn’t recommend you eating them on a regular basis. The reason I say all this is because as soon as anyone mentions eating less meat, you hear a lot of negative feedback from people who assume you’re taking some kind of moral or political stance. So let me be very clear, I’m not. I believe that meat can be healthy. However, just like plant matter, there is healthy meat consumption and there is unhealthy meat consumption.

So what’s healthy meat?

Chicken, turkey, lean beef and fish are all excellent meats. There are also other red meat options like buffalo and venison which are much healthier than the factory raised beef we typically eat. If you can, try to get the organic varieties of all of these. They’re much healthier than the factory raised ones. Also, the less processed the meat the better. That means a chicken breast you bought fresh and cooked yourself is much better than chicken McNuggets which are 50% chicken and 50% god knows what.

Healthy meat consumption also means eating meat in moderation. Western culture promotes meat as the central item at every single meal, or at least as an addition to things like eggs. However, meat should only be eaten once a day at most and even then in moderation. Meat contains an enormous amount of calories for its volume and eating a lot of it will quickly lead you to exceed your daily caloric requirements. Yes, that means that 32oz steak you just ate was unhealthy.

Finally, healthy meat consumption also means healthy meat preparation. Forget about deep frying, go for grilling instead. No more breading which just adds calories and junk carbs. No more soaking the meat in heavy sauces like ranch or some types of BBQ sauce. Try seasoning with various spices instead. And stop pouring on the salt, meat is salty enough as is and you’re overloading your body with the amount of salt you eat.

Summary

Meat can definitely have a place in a healthy diet. However, like anything else, it should be eaten in moderation and obtained from healthy sources.

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