GMA just did a segment on the best juice. Guess what the best juice is for you and your family? NO JUICE!

It’s poison. It makes no sense. It’s bad for their weight, health, energy levels, inflammation, you name it. Boycott it at all costs!

There is actually a funny commercial with a little girl watching her mother steal bites from her mac and cheese.

It’s funny and so TRUE.

Do NOT touch your kids food. I mean it, no bites of fries, finishing nuggets, popping in the crust from the pizza…..

All those bites add up, and you do it out of routine, not out of hunger.

If you have kids, totally stop the picking and finishing off the food when clearing plates. It’s not helping world hunger and is only making you fat!

Interesting article in today’s New York Times regarding the fact that much of the anti-smoking money is not going toward obesity.

1 of 5 Americans smoke, but 1 of 3 is obese 2 of 3 are overweight. Therefore, simply by the numbers, obesity wins out.

What a shame that we have to spend $s when personal responsibility is all that is required. You can’t be THAT naive that pizza and chips are good for you and fruits and vegetables are not. It’s not brain surgery. It’s just common sense.

And at the VERY least, if you are going to eat pizza and chips, which, to be clear, is not my recommendation, then at least eat less of them.

Jim

Good Morning America just did a segment on how you can get food poisoning from stadium food.

FYI – You can also get really, really fat.

I know, I know, part of going to a ball game is eating the crap, but please, at least minimize the crap and do the same for your kids.

If you are eating junk for lunch, then dinner should be lean protein and veggies and fruit for everyone to balance things out.

See, that’s the problem. Most parents will do stadium crap for lunch, then fast food for dinner, since they didn’t take the time to plan in advance and have to do something quick.

You end up decimating your child’s health with this repeated behavior.

And notice i said “repeated.” Every once and a while, it’s fine, so don’t think I am that rigid. I’m not.

Jim

I just finished her column. I LOVE Martha as she is smart, funny and deeply insightful.

She talks about spending money and how you should categorize what you LOVE and what you NEED. I immediately thought about body image and body weight.

I know i said this recently, but why go through a WHOLE LIFE with a body you don’t like, don’t respect and don’t admire. It’s YOURS. You should want to nourish it, take care of it and NOT abuse it.

Why then, do we let the wrong food creep into our diet at every meal?

Why do we elect not to exercise, or to perform deeply damaging cardio?

Why do we deprive our body’s of much needed sleep and water?

I don’t know. You tell me.

Jim

The excuse, “I’m Big Boned” just doesn’t fly with me.

Sure, some people are wider or narrower, but when it comes to your actual bones, the issue is body fat, not the size of your bones.

True story. Years ago, I worked with a woman who was about 5′5″ and 175 pounds. She looked, what you would traditionally call, big boned.

Her 19-year-old daughter was home from school during winter break, and came in wearing this great looking, very small, overcoat. She asks her mom “Who’s is this? I love it!

Her mother, my 175 pound client says, “Oh honey, that was mine before you were born.”

The daughter, FY!, was also 5′5″ and about 120 pounds. The coat it her perfectly AND had fit her mother perfectly 50+ pounds ago.

The mother was not big boned. She was overweight.

I had the same thing happen with a former student when I taught class years ago. She totally looked, what you would call “athletic” like some of the female gymnasts (who i happen to think are overweight and pounding their bodies) of today.

About two years later, I see her in the strength training room, NOT the cardio room, and she has this lean, ballet dancer like body. I go up to her and say, “sorry to bother you, but do you remember me from class? you look amazing.”

She told me people used to tell her she was big boned or athletic or some other PC word for overweight. Her wrists were tiny. This was a small woman. She was just carrying around too much weight.

Hope this makes that issue clear.

Jim

Article in this week’s “Crain’s Chicago Business” writes, dropouts, over 10,000 of the 45,000 who have signed up for the marathon, “generally blame injuries or the demands of the training.”

Of course you are getting injured. The human body was not meant to run 26.2 miles, on a pounding surface, in a straight line. It truly is nuts.

But, people RAVE about it, like it’s a badge of honor. “I ran a marathon” and “I smoked crack last night” sound like the same thing to me. Not smart.

And people in the article turn their family’s lives upside down just so they can train and run and injure their body and age themselves.

How about a little strength training and proper eating. That makes the most sense to me.

Jim

I have been on a real kick lately. I say to people, whether they are struggling with the last 5 or 50 or 100 pounds of extra weight, “Do you really want to live your life this way?”

I ask you that same question. Why wait? Why continue to kill yourself with the wrong food and possibly the wrong exercise? Haven’t we learned that we need to take personal responsibility for our actions.

So, I challenge all of you to take action. Send me your goal for the next week, or month or for the end of the year? What’s makes sense and is possible in your schedule. Be realistic.

Don’t forget the statistic that participants in Weight Watchers lose approximately 1/4 pound a week, but they keep losing every week. That’s what you should focus on.

Jim

There was a picture in a recent “People” magazine of Princess Beatrice before and after running a marathon.

In the before picture, she is a doughy, pear shaped young woman.

In the after picture, she is a slightly smaller, doughy, pear shaped young woman.

Just one more BLARING example that if cardio did manage to get a few pound off of you, then you still have the same imbalanced shape, if that is where you started. Only strength training will enhance your body composition. Why would anyone waste their time on something that offered such a small return?

I was just flipping through HBO and came across a program where overweight women were picketing a health club and screaming things such as “I Love My Fat Ass,” etc.

Look, I have no problem with people electing to be overweight, I just don’t appreciate having to pay for:

1. Their increased health care costs. There is not a study that does not conclusively prove that more weight = more cost.

2. The cost to the environment. While I applaud Al Gore for his work on the environment, he should know that those who are overweight eat more food, which causes more damage to most of the environment, use more fuel, as is costs more to transport those that are heavier, etc.

Really think long and hard if being overweight is something you would “elect” to do. There is a lot that you can do to prevent that from happening.

Jim