One of the Most Important Habits for Making Progress

You HAVE to track your metrics!

What gets measured gets managed. A successful coach in my industry once told me this and I adopted it.  I've always been a note taker/writer so jotting things down comes naturally to me. Other people?  Well, getting them to write anything down in detail is like asking them to spend their weekend cleaning out the garage…every weekend.  

If there was a way to impress upon my clients the importance of logging/recording/journaling, I would do it. Unfortunately, I only have my words. I'm not the drill sergeant type and I’m not your mommy so getting you to write things down by calling you a maggot, or nagging you until you move out, aren’t going to happen.  

Back in 2011, Craig Ballantyne, trainer and fitness expert of Turbulence Training fame included journaling as one of his

Reduce AGEing with these 5 Strategies

Sugar is AGEing

It all started when the presenter poured maple syrup on protein molecules.

No, I wasn’t at IHOP. I was attending a grueling nutrition conference where, after sitting through a day’s worth of lectures, my brain felt fried. Feeling like an introvert with a low tolerance for hype or networking, I simply wanted to hang out in my hotel room and regroup before our evening social gathering.

Yet my coworker remained adamant about this late-afternoon seminar titled “How AGE-ing Destroys Your Life.” 

I reluctantly attended, where I watched as this doctor demonstrated how, in a maze-like structure, oyster-looking proteins slithered around in your body.

Turns out when you pour sticky sugar on proteins, they slow down and get sticky. “That’s what happens when you eat too much

The #1 Strategy to Maintain Vibrant Brain Health

Guess what helps minimize Alzheimer's risk?

As if you needed another reason to exercise: Three new studies found people with mild memory impairment who engage in vigorous workouts – we’re talking 45 minutes to an hour, three or four times a week – improve quality of life. 

“Physical activity improved mood, memory and ability to think for participants in all three studies,” researchers noted.

While participants were older (50s to 90s), these and numerous other studies clearly suggest you can never become proactive too early, and that regular, consistent exercise might be the best strategy to maintain brain health as you age.

"These findings [strongly suggest] exercise can impact Alzheimer's-related changes in the brain," said Laura Baker, lead author in one of the studies and a cognitive neuroscientist at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. "No currently approved medication

The Ultimate Exercise Dilemma

Time for a nappy nap

As I sheepishly ordered a large organic French roast, fatigue overtook me and I wondered whether even this gargantuan caffeinated goodness could work its invigorating magic.

Whether you’re a distance runner, heavy lifter, or even yoga devotee, you’ve confronted this existential dilemma I faced that afternoon: Workout or nap?

The latter seemed too path-of-least-resistance easy: Shut my office door and curl up on the sofa. Or swim upstream and sluggishly push through my workout.

Had a client expressed such a dilemma, I would become

The #1 Secret to Stay on Course

What gets measured gets managed.

A recent Associated Press (AP) story, appropriately entitled “Like gym memberships, enthusiasm for fitness trackers drops,” noted momentum popular tracking devices provide eventually drops significantly.

“Although sales of Fitbit and other fitness trackers are strong, many of their owners lose enthusiasm for them once the novelty of knowing how many steps they've taken wears off,” writes Anick Jesdanun.

I wrote about tracking devices about two years ago. Clients had long enquired about the latest technology to measure, track, improve, or otherwise monitor their workout, so I evaluated then-popular tracking devices.

“Today’s gadgets, I wrote, “monitor everything from sleep to recovery to hormones released when you work out… Do you really need these cool, sleek gadgets to measure, track, and record every rep, spoonful, and hour slumbering? Not really.” 

Today, we have Apple Watch and a zillion other fitness tracking devices. The question remains:

Sweat Smartly with these Strategies

The sweatier, the better

Confession: I secretly love those hovering-on-triple-digit, sweat-inducing heat waves that sometimes engulf Los Angeles during summer.

Sweat has a bad reputation. Talk about sweat at your next dinner party and someone will probably quickly change the topic.

You’ve heard someone say, “Don’t sweat it,” you remember like yesterday breaking into a miserable sweat before that make-or-break high school chemistry final, and excessive perspiration probably became an undesirable part of a first date or job interview.

Sweat serves a practical purpose. When something like exercise increases your body’s core temperature, fluid rises to your skin’s surface and then evaporates. If you didn’t sweat, even a comfortable-temperature workout room would quickly become unbearable.

Interestingly, fit people sweat

5 Ways to Fit Fitness into Your Overloaded Schedule

No time? Make time?

I recently read a dismal study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that found on average, only about half of American adults got sufficient aerobic exercise and 29 percent performed sufficient muscle-strengthening activity.

National Exercise Guidelines were admittedly less than stringent: just two and a half hours of moderate intensity exercise or 75 minutes of higher-intensity exercise weekly. In other words, a 20-minute daily stroll or 15 minutes of more vigorous exercise five times a week.

Regardless of these minimal federal recommendations, the study found