• Search

• Fitness Links

Today’s reader question comes to us from Minnesota.

I heard there are foods which count for negative calories. Things that actually work off calories if I eat them. The one I keep hearing about is celery. Is this true? Can I have a meal and then eat celery to work off the calories?

Well, yes and no.

What Are Negative Calories Foods?

These foods are ones where the calorie content is so low that our bodies actually spend more calories digesting the food than they get out of it. Our bodies actually have to spend energy digesting food. There is energy spent on digesting and even more energy used for moving the food around internally. All of this energy means calories spent. So if these calories spent are higher than the calories we get out of our food, the food adds up to negative net calories. Another example might be a cold drink with very few calories. The calories our bodies would spend to heat up the liquid as it enters our body might be more than the calories our digestion can extract from that liquid leading to a net calories loss.

The Mythical Celery

Celery is mentioned most often when we talk about negative calorie foods because it’s become an urban myth of sorts. There were even some fad diets based on negative energy foods that used celery as a prime ingredient. Yes, celery does cost more energy to digest than it provides. On average, a stalk of celery has 6 to 8 calories in it. Because it mainly fiber, our bodies use up slightly more than that to digest it. So on average, our bodies might lose 2 or 3 calories per stalk of celery that we eat. So yes, it is a negative calorie food, but before you rush out and begin your celery only diet, let’s think things through.

Simple Math

You’ll lose around 2 to 3 calories per stalk of celery. So let’s see, in order to lose the four hundred calories you just gained from that chocolate bar, you’re going to need to eat 200 stalks of celery. In order to work off the 1000 calories you just ate in that pizza, you’re going to need to eat 500 stalks of celery. Alternatively, you could work off about 100 calories with a 30 minute walk. Which one would you rather do, walk for 30 minutes or eat 50 stalks of celery? I prefer the walking.

Diet Staple

That said, low calorie but high fiber foods like celery should definitely be a part of your diet. They’re full of essential vitamins and minerals and they fill you up without a lot of calories. However, don’t assume that they’re some sort of magic bullet. Eating nothing but celery and cold water is NOT a healthy diet.

Summary

So yes, negative calorie foods do exist, but they’re not the magic bullet solution to weight loss. Eating healthy and getting some physical activity is the key to that.

Some more facts about celery, courtesy of Snopes.com

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

There have been several studies lately that have examined the impact of social ties on physical health.  The results were interesting.  If you have friends that are out of shape and overweight, you are 20% to 50% more likely to be overweight and out of shape yourself.  Think about that for a moment.  If you have friends that are unhealthy, you have a significantly higher chance to be unhealthy yourself.  That brings up two follow up questions.  First, why does this relationship exist, and second, what can you do about it?

Why Do Fat People Have Fat Friends?

First, why is it that people who are overweight tend to have friends who are overweight?  The studies suggest two possible reasons:

Activity and eating Habits are shared in a social circle - This means that a group of friends is likely to have the same habits, and that includes eating and exercise.  If your friends enjoy going out to fast food every day, you’re likely to do the same because you like spending time with them.  If your friends enjoy playing soccer every day, you’re likely to do the same.  In other words, you spend time with your friends because you enjoy doing so.  The more time you spend with them, the more likely you are to eat the same things and have the same level of physical activity.

Perception of health issues - This one is a bit more complex.  The studies showed that if you have friends who are overweight and out of shape, you are more likely to see this as normal and less likely to view it as something that needs fixing.  That is, if I spend all my time with people who are overweight, then I will tend to see overweight people as normal.  I will therefore be unlikely to think of losing weight as a necessary goal.

How Do We Fix This?

Communication - First of all, communicate with your friends.  If you do have some health goals in mind, make sure they’re aware of them.  You don’t need to be offensive about it and rub it in their faces that you’re doing something about your health while they’re not, that’s a good way to lose friends.  Just make sure they know your preferences.  Tell them when you go to the gym so they don’t plan activities around those times.  Tell them about the restaurants you don’t want to go to.  I’ve personally found my friends to be extremely reasonable about this.  Even though my health and eating habits are now very different from theirs, they’ve never had an issue with it and are always willing to find a restaurant we will all enjoy.

Exercise on a regular schedule - This is a key point.  Set aside time for your exercise, put it on your schedule and stick to it.  If your friends know they you’re always unavailable on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 5 and 6pm, they’re going to be fine.  Everyone has schedules that they stick to and good friends understand that.  However, if you don’t have a regular schedule which your friends know about, they’re going to ask you to go to various events that might prevent you from working out.  That means temptation.  Do you really want to go to the gym or do you want to go out to that movie with your friends?  Either way you’ve lost because you’re either disappointing your friends or you’re missing out on your workout.  So make your exercise schedule, let your friends know about it and then stick to it.  Your social life will thank you.

Stick to your plan - So you’re at the restaurant and your friends have all ordered the milk shakes and those things really look tasty.  Are you going to stick to your healthy sandwich and water?  It’s a bit hard to do when everyone around you sure does seem to be enjoying themselves.  It’s hard, but you’re going to need to stick to your plan.  You know why you’re doing this and you know being healthy is an important goal.  Remind yourself of that and stick to your sandwich and water.  After all, having fun with your friends means spending time with them, it doesn’t mean eating the same things they’re eating.

Recruit them - You know the old saying, “if you can’t beat them, have them join you.”  Well, I guess that’s not quite the old saying but I like this version better.  How about asking some of your friends if they want to work out with you?  How about taking an active role in picking out restaurants to dine at and selecting something healthy?  How about picking an activity that’s not sitting around watching the game on TV and involves a bit more physical activity?  You don’t have to ask your friends to run a marathon with you, it could be something as simple as going to the park and tossing the ball around.

Summary

Your friends influence your life, no question about that.  Make sure they don’t influence you into something unhealthy or even better, use that influence as support in your quest for better health.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I’m usually a big supporter of personal responsibility. I believe that we are responsible for ourselves and our decisions. That means I have no one to blame for who I am and where I am in my life. I got here through my own decisions. I hold to that standard when it comes to physical fitness and health. I gained weight through my own bad choices and I lost it through my own good choices. This is why I take issue with people who say “it’s not my fault I’m out of shape and overweight.” With the very rare exception of those with genuine medical conditions, it is in fact your fault that you’re overweight and out of shape.

I’m also a firm believer in less government regulation. I don’t like all this talk of an obesity epidemic and what the government should do about it. I think the government should stay out of peoples’ lives and let them make their own decisions. Again, people should be responsible for themselves and not ask the government to be responsible for them. However, I have to admit that I’ve been questioning both of these views over the past few weeks, due to a number of news and blog articles I’ve read.

Here’s an example from Chew On That. It’s an article that discusses fast food restaurants and their variety of bad food. Here’s another one from Mark’s Daily Apple that discusses the maker of fried foods. Note the comments on this one. Here’s an older article from the Diet Blog which discusses the lawsuit versus a fast food place restaurant by a patron who claimed they made her fat. There have also been recent news paper stories about laws in New York that would force restaurants to post calorie numbers on their menus and how the restaurants are fighting these laws.

It seems like a lot of people are looking for others to blame. We want to hold the fried food maker responsible for coming up with worse and worse foods. We want to hold the fast food place responsible for selling crappy burgers. We even want to hold restaurants responsible for not telling us the calorie count in their foods. Shouldn’t we hold ourselves responsible for all this? No one forced us to eat the burger, no one forced us to eat the deep fried latte and no one held our hands and pushed us into those restaurants that don’t offer nutritional information. We chose to do all this, even though we knew we had other, healthier choices.

Or did we?

Here’s the problem. We, and I mostly mean the US although this is applicable in many other countries, aren’t educated about nutrition. We grow up eating junk. Our parents give us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when we’re little. Our grandparents spoil us with chocolate and candy. Our schools serve pizza and burritos for lunch. Our TV’s constantly tell us about the latest sugary cereal, the biggest burger and the coolest beer. With all that, do we ever hear the truth? Did anyone ever have a nutrition class in school where they explained what’s good and what’s bad? I know I didn’t. Was there an educational program I missed that reviewed healthy diets and exercise habits? I don’t believe I saw one. We don’t even educate our kids on how to educate themselves. Most schools offer no classes in critical thinking, analysis or how to research problems. So how can we expect people to be responsible for themselves when we don’t give them the tools to do so?

But Isn’t It Common Knowledge?

At the same time, it’s hard for me to accept that excuse. How can you not know that eating too much will make you gain weight? How can you not know that smoking is bad for you? How can you not know that sitting on your butt watching TV is going to lead to poor health? How can you not know that the triple cheeseburger and a milk shake you had for lunch is bad for you? I never had those nutrition classes or health education programs either and I knew this. There are a thousand and one information resources out there these days. Use them! Take responsibility for educating yourself on what’s good and what’s bad.

But Why Not Have The Government Do It For Us?

I don’t know about this one. Should the government step in? Should they force people to provide healthy food? Let me ask you a question. Here in the US, we recently had a toy recall. The toys were found to have lead in them which causes cancer. Do you believe the government was right in forcing a recall? Do you think the government should set safety standards for toys? Most of us would say yes. We do have the right to be protected from unsafe products.

So how is this different from food? Shouldn’t the government protect us from unsafe food? Isn’t a triple cheeseburger at McDonald’s just as bad as a lead tainted toy? Both lead to long term health issues which can cause death or a serious decrease in quality of life. If your kids are protected from lead based paints, shouldn’t they also be protected from deep fried twinkies?

In My Ideal World

In my ideal world, the government worries about educating people and then lets them make their own choices. Information is freely available and people can choose to use it or ignore it. The only people who have some of their decisions restricted are children and those who might be incompetent to make their own decisions. That means restaurants can make as many deep fried twinkies as they want and sell them to any adult who wishes to eat one, just as long as they’re very clear about the contents.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in my ideal world. So what do we do in this less than ideal world? Do we legislate unhealthy food away as we do unsafe toys? I think that’s a mistake. I think laws of this type never accomplish what they set out to do. Legislating lead toys away is easy, no one really wants them. Legislating fast food away is much harder. I think we’d be much better off forcing these restaurants to clearly display the nutritional information in their foods and leave it at that. If you still want to eat that triple cheese burger and a milk shake knowing that they contain 3000 calories, that’s your decision. Don’t expect me to feel sympathy or pay your medical bills though.

Summary

I still believe in personal responsibility. I still believe in having the government stay out of our lives. However, I do believe that the government can help us be more responsible by arming us with information and knowledge. What you do with that knowledge is your own decision.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I get a lot of questions from readers. Most tend to fall into one of several common categories. There are questions from readers concerned about how much or how little they eat. There are questions about physical exercise and how it should be done. There are also questions about general topics like nutrition. However, the question I keep getting over and over is a variation of “I have one area of my body which is fat, how do I fix this?” The area in question varies, sometimes it’s the thighs, other times it’s the rear end. Usually though, it’s the belly.

Battle of the Bulge

For those of you who have sent in questions like these, I want you to know that I understand where you’re coming from. I remember those mornings, standing in front of the mirror and staring at my gut. I remember how disheartening it was to see a side view of my body and realize how that belly bulged out. It was a terrible and constant and very visible reminder of how overweight I was. I think that’s why reducing my pants size felt like such a victory, because it had become a personal struggle between me and my fat gut. So I want you to know that I understand and I sympathize. However, there’s no such thing as a quick guide to losing belly fat.

“Send This Cottage Cheese Directly To My Thighs!”

In fact, there’s no such thing as a quick guide to losing fat from any specific area. It’s just not possible. Our bodies do not work that way. Think back over the last few years of overeating and low physical activity. Were you doing something specific to direct fat towards a specific area? When you were eating that cheesecake, were you specifically instructing your body to deposit the fat in your belly? Were you giving silent instructions to your digestion to take the fat from that triple cheeseburger and put it in your rear end? The answer is no.

Basic Biology

So if you didn’t do anything specific to make those areas fat, if they were just the byproduct of an unhealthy life, why do you think you can do something that will specifically address these areas now? Why do you think a thousand crunches will do anything? These areas are simply the places our bodies choose to deposit extra fat. That’s not a conscious choice you made, that’s your biology. Our bodies need somewhere to deposit fat. They will deposit some of it all over, but they will also deposit large reserves of it in specific areas. For men, that means a big belly. For women, it usually means more fat around the ass and thighs.

The Slow Guide to Losing Belly Fat

So no, there isn’t quick guide to losing fat from a specific area. You can do a thousand crunches and you still won’t burn away the fat from your belly. You might tone up your abdominal muscles but they’ll still be covered by fat. If you want to lose fat from your belly or your thighs or your ass or where ever it is you think you have too much of it, you’ll have to do it the slow way. That means living a healthy life, it means controlling your calories and it means being physically active. Do all of these things and the fat will slowly melt away. It will start disappearing from your entire body and you may not notice it, but you will notice it melting away from those problem areas. Because those are the areas you have the most of it and therefore the areas where the change will be most noticeable.

My first year of living healthy was filled with successes. I was able to hike Mission Peak again for the first time in six years. I was able to jog. I was able to climb the stairs to my bedroom without going out of breath. But the success that sticks with the most is putting on my old pair of jeans and noticing how loose they had gotten around the waist. Everything else was a success but this, this was a sign of victory.

Summary

There’s no quick and easy solution to belly fat. There’s no miracle cure like those TV commercials promise you for fat in your thighs. There’s just a lifetime filled with healthy habits. Get used to it.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Clothes, many of us pay too much attention to them and quite a few of us pay too little, but oddly enough, clothes play an important role in any health turn around. Clothes are a reason to be healthy, an indicator of progress or lack thereof and they are also an issue for many of us trying to turn our lives around.

An Indicator Of Progress

I’ve said over and over that weight alone is not a good indicator of progress when you’re trying to get healthier. You can lose weight and not be healthy. Conversely, you can gain weight and actually get healthier. The reason for this is that muscle weighs a lot. So if you gain muscle mass you might actually gain weight. This is a good thing since muscle is far healthier than fat, but it’s a bit confusing for most people who’ve learned to associate weight with health. Yes, for most people losing some weight is probably healthy, but the two are not directly related.

Even measurements like BMI (Body Mass Index) can be misleading. People with a very high or very low percentage of muscle mass can have BMI’s that are just plain wrong. This is because BMI assumes an average amount of muscle mass.  I always recommend keeping track of multiple measurements as a way of tracking your progress. You can use weight as one of those measurements, but make sure to use others as well to get a clearer picture of how you’re doing. One of those measurements is your clothes.

Clothes As Measurement

Clothes can be an excellent guide for how well you’re doing. They’re relatively standardized and measure our proportions. If I go from an XL to an L sized tshirt, I know I’ve gotten smaller. The fit of clothing can also tell me a lot about the changes in my body. For example, as I started working out, I noticed my shirts fit a very loosely around the stomach but a little tighter around the biceps. Had I just looked at weight, I might not have noticed a big change since the weight I was losing from fat was coming back as muscle.

What To Look For

• Waist Size - Most pants are measured with a waist size. I went from a 40 size waist to a 32. That tells me quite a bit more than simple weight numbers. Just be careful with this one since different style pants fit differently.
• For women, dress sizes are another obvious indicator
• Shirt size- I was actually surprised when I saw that I moved from an XL tshirt to an L and surprised yet again when I suddenly found an M sized tshirt that fit me. For some reason, I didn’t think my upper body would get “smaller”.

Summary

Your clothes fit your body. This means they’re a great indicator of when your body changes. Pay attention to them because they’ll let you know what’s going on with your body.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I like to read up on health and fitness. It keeps me informed and educated about a topic I’m interested in. Articles I find interesting are saved and usually linked to in one of my weekend roundup posts. However, I recently saw an article that went beyond interesting reading. It was an opinion piece in the Sunday Herald, a British publication, that discussed the author’s opinion towards people who are obese. The article was provoking in and of itself, but the reader comments that followed it were unbelievable. Here’s the link to the article, the comments are at the bottom.

First, let me clarify my own opinion.  I do believe that the vast majority of people who are overweight have only themselves to blame for their condition.  Obesity is a relatively simple issue.  If calories in are higher than calories out, you’re going to gain weight.  If you want to lose weight, reduce your calories in and increase your calories out.  And yes, before anyone says it, I am aware of the rare few who have real medical conditions that cause them to be overweight.  I’m not talking about them, I’m talking about the rest of obese people who, like me, got that way because of their own choices.  However, the article goes a bit too far and the comments following it certainly do.

There’s nothing disgusting or hateful about being overweight.  It’s a physical condition like any other.  In fact, being overweight used to be a beauty standard back when food was scarce and fat was a sign of wealth and prosperity.  There’s also nothing unnatural about fat, it’s actually one of your body’s most natural functions, designed to save you in times of famine and shortages.

Yes, being overweight is a matter of choice, but many people may not even be aware that they’re making a bad choice.  It’s not like nutrition and exercise are something that’s taught in our schools.  Actually, most of what we know about nutrition comes from advertisements and TV where we learn that sugary breakfast cereals are great and bigger hamburgers are even better!

We don’t have to accept obesity.  We don’t have to tell someone who’s massively overweight that they’re just fine.  The fact is that they’re not and they know it.  However, to go as far as hatred and disgust, that’s a bit much.  Even worse, hatred and disgust won’t solve the problem.  They just drive overweight people away.   If you have a friend or family member who’s overweight, telling them you find them disgusting is certainly not going to be helpful.  Perhaps an offer to help would be better.  Maybe sharing your own experiences and struggles would work.  And yes, being overweight is not an excuse to be rude or inconsiderate towards other people.  It is your choice and your responsibility.  Don’t expect others to always accept sharing that burden.  It’s their choice to help or not help.

Everyone makes bad decisions sooner or later.  We can either hate them for it or be willing to help.  It’s not too hard to see which one of those options is more productive.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

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.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

← Previous Page — Next Page →

• Subscribe by Email

  Enter your email address:

  Delivered by FeedBurner

• RSS

  Subscribe in a reader

• Categories

  • Alternative Workouts
  • Announcement
  • Biking
  • Breakfast
  • Building Muscles
  • Cardio
  • Communication
  • Corrections
  • Diets
  • Eating Healthy
  • Editorial
  • Exercise
  • Fitness
  • Guest Post
  • Gyms
  • Health
  • Healthy Habits
  • Healthy Meal Ideas
  • Hiking
  • Illness and Injury
  • Injuries
  • Kids
  • Lunch
  • Money
  • Monthly Update
  • Motivation
  • Nutrition
  • Personal Trainers
  • Product Recommendation
  • Protein
  • Reader Q&A
  • Research
  • Review
  • Running
  • Self Improvement
  • Sleep
  • Snacks
  • Sports
  • Stress
  • Swimming
  • Time Management
  • Tools
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Walking
  • Web Site
  • Weekend Roundup
  • Weight Loss
  • Work
  • Work Out

• Blogroll

  • Back In Skinny Jeans
  • Cranky Fitness
  • Emerge Fitness
  • Mark’s Daily Apple

• Top Commentators

  • Clip Hair (2)
  • Ellie (2)
  • Acai Berry (1)
  • Acai Capsules (1)
  • emergefit (1)