Podcast Episode 006 - Q&A: how do I make sense of all the conflicting advice?

there are so many people and companies out there telling you to do something to lose weight - and plenty of others insisting you never do that. eat meat. don't eat any meat. drink lots of water. don't drink anything. live on fruit. don't eat fruit. we help you figure out how to process all this conflicting advice to find a path forward for you to enlighten.your.body.

If you enjoyed this video, subscribe on YouTube or get the podcast on iTunes and spread the word. It's one more tool I'm giving you to help you enlighten.your.body.

Podcast Episode 003 - I get bored at the gym, what should I do?

building from episode 2 on motivation, we dig into finding exercises you actually enjoy so you don't find yourself bored when working out or procrastinating to avoid something you don't enjoy.

this episode is tied to a blog post I did called "Q: how do I stick with it? (Part II)".

If you enjoyed this video, subscribe on YouTube or get the podcast on iTunes and spread the word. It's one more tool I'm giving you to help you enlighten.your.body.

Podcast Episode 002 - Q&A: How Do I Stay Motived

what motivates you to be healthy or to workout? is it something external to you that's fleeting, like trying to lose weight for a school reunion, wedding or beach season? this episodes talks about finding a lasting and profoundly personal motivation within you that endures to drive you to be healthier.

this is the video that ties to a blog post I did called "Q: How do I stick with it? How do I do what I know I should, but just don't do? (Part I)".

If you enjoyed this video, subscribe on YouTube or get the podcast on iTunes and spread the word. It's one more tool I'm giving you to help you enlighten.your.body.

Q: How do I stick with it (Part II)

Q: How do I stick with doing what I know I should? I am pretty good about exercise, but I eat things I know I shouldn't. I just have to make myself do it, right?

A: I talked about motivation in the first part of my response to this question. You should read that post, but the essence is about finding a driver within you so that you aren't making yourself do anything, but wanting to do something for your health (eating right, exercising, etc).

In this part, I want to address the 'something'. Let's look at exercise first. Some people have this idea that you have to go to a gym, feel awkward, get super sweating, wear cheap flip flops in the shower, and rush off to work late and sweating all over again. You have to sit (literally or figuratively) on a machine, staring at a wall, mirror, magazine or small TV screen.  You have to do it for at least 60 minutes or you won't lose any weight.

Does this sound enticing to you?  No, I'm sure it sounds more demoralizing to you than enticing.  As a work out addict, that doesn't appeal to me at all.  If it doesn't appeal, you will dread it.  If you dread it, you will have to make yourself do it, and that's exactly what we're trying to avoid.

So how do you do it? You need to find what you enjoy doing, and do that.

I had to stop during a CUYOP run to get
this photo of the great scenery I get to run in

OK, that's too simple, right?  Well, not really.  For me, I learned that I prefer outdoor exercise, so I took up cycling and running. I use machines in doors when weather really keeps me off the roads, but I combined those two things with my commute to balance my time (check out my post on CUYOP, and the Twitter hashtag #cuyop), get some varied scenery (I have a few routes I can take, including a nice riverfront section), and found that when I have an actual goal, I enjoy it more (i.e. getting to my office vs. just running a loop around my home).  So I found exercises I generally enjoy more than others, and found modalities for doing those exercises that I prefer.

I also have gym exercises I prefer, so I try to do those more than those I don't prefer or care for (I'll run on a treadmill, but find it really mind-numbing, same for upright bikes though oddly not for recumbent bikes).  Then the question is how do you do them and for how long. I recently had a long discussion with a client who couldn't get past the idea that she needed to do at least 60 minutes of cardio to make it worth anything. That's just not so. The key is not to do things at a constant pace.  Use intervals on a machine where every so often, it makes you go faster or deal with more resistance.  Pick an undulating hill course (on a machine or in real life).  Use intervals out on the road by going faster for a minute, and then slower for a minute in a pattern throughout your run/walk/ride/rollerskate/XC skiing/etc.  The run/walk approach is a great way to get into running and build your cardio-respiratory ability while not over-taxing your system. You can use a stop watch set to signal each minute, or better yet, download any of the great, free interval apps for your smart phone (I use Seconds for iOS).

Scientifically, intervals work better than constant work as the up and down in effort sparks a fat burning response that can last for hours after your workout.  As a result, you don't need to do it as long for the same result as if you did a constant effort workout.  The key is to not just choose an interval workout, but actually do it.  By that I mean when the interval hits, move faster. It's pretty easy to get lost in your reading or a show and ignore the machine telling you to pump it (or miss the point where you were supposed to start running again if you're out on the road).

Unscientifically, the variation keeps it interesting, and keeps you engaged (since you have to pay attention to when the interval hits, and you'll want to pay attention to when its done so you can slow down).  I started using a second interval program on my elliptical to spice things up, so I split my workout between the base interval program and a Speed Work program I found that really kicks my butt and is super fun.

I was recently participating in a month-long competition that included doing 100 burpees a day. Burpees are a mix of a squat thrust and a jump (unless you do the cross fit version, which substitutes the squat thrust with laying down on the floor).  They're great, and terrible, too.  I found that I really dreaded them, and would procrastinate starting, which just ate into the rest of my workout time. Due to an injury, I had to stop doing them before the competition ended, but I also realized I should have dropped them from my routine because of how I felt about doing them and the cost that feeling was having on my workout overall.

The same exact story applies to healthy eating. Kale is the greatest food in the world and the only thing you should eat according to some fanatics. What if you absolutely hate it? Well, then, forcing yourself to just eat kale will be a recipe for not sticking with healthy eating. Find healthy things you love (and I'm not talking about packaged foods that advertise low fat or low sodium, but actual food that was alive at some point (whether veggie or animal or both is up to you). If you hate chicken but want to avoid red meat, experiment with turkey, seafood or veggie-based meat alternatives to keep your protein up. If you don't like leafy greens, try baby broccoli, which is a hybrid of kale and broccoli.  Try some foreign veggies like baby bok choi (aka youcsai) or daikon. Open up those spices you haven't been using to give your dishes a kick. Check out some of my recipes for inspiration, or look at Twitter for healthy cooking ideas - it's LOADED with them.

So, find your true motivation, and then find the things you enjoy doing. Just find how to transform your life into one you choose to really live healthily and fully. That's how you enlighten.your.body.

Q: How do I stick with it? How do I do what I know I should, but just don't do? (Part I)

Q: How do I stick with doing what I know I should? I am pretty good about exercise, but I eat things I know I shouldn't. I just have to make myself do it, right?

A: It isn't about making yourself do anything, or it won't last. You have to find a way to do it without having to force yourself with tools like discipline and will power. Forcing yourself means you view it as a chore. If you view it as a chore, it won't last.  The key is finding your real motivation.

Discipline and will power mean you have to make yourself do it. I'm talking about finding something bigger that drives you so you aren't forcing yourself, but rather you want to do it and enjoy doing it. 'Enjoying' and 'wanting' may sound foreign in the context of eating right and exercising, but that's the point.

For me, it was a culmination of things that hit a couple of years ago when my wife got sick and I realized I had put on much of the weight I had lost when I was younger and basically felt miserable physically and about myself. Our young son was watching all of this. That isn't what a child should see as health role models. It literally flipped a switch in my head and drove me in a way I hadn't been driven before, not even when I lost 65 pounds when I was 17.

Now I do it because I genuinely love it and don't like not doing it. I don't have to push myself. I see myself in a totally different way, and fitness isn't something I have to do, but something I want to do and is intrinsically tied to who I am. Before, the best way to describe it was a chore.

No one wants to do chores.

The same goes for eating right, which is where many people would benefit from focusing. While there are probably a few key things you can change in your diet that will have dramatic effects, if you don't find that thing that makes you want to do it, you'll fall off the wagon when temptation arises.

What will motivate you to come at it differently? That's a question you can only answer for yourself. I can help you do that, but ultimately, it has to come from you to really shift things. Figure it out, and you will enlighten.your.body.

Q: What is newbodi.es About? A: Whole Fitness.

Q: What is newbodi.es about? Are you about personal training? Life coaching? Diet ideas? Energy bars? What?

A: Simple, we're about whole fitness.

OK, maybe it's not quite that simple, or maybe that doesn't actually explain things.  By 'whole fitness', I mean that we are about being healthy in every way, shape and form.  newbodi.es aim is to help people transform their complete life into a higher level of health. This means focusing on the body (exercise and dietary habits), but going beyond that into the mind and how we live our lives.

So, yes, we are about personal training. We are about life coaching. We do give diet advice and guidance, and do offer 'energy' bars (if you can call them that - they're really nutrition bars). But the key is what we do to offer these things in an intertwined, holistic manner.

You can be physically fit, and still overall 'unhealthy' because you are overwhelmed by stress, pessimism and anxiety. That is not living healthily. That is living under a cloud (at best). The flip side of this is that you can be mentally very healthy and happy, but your body isn't at the same place, so you live a limited life (either by what your body can't do, how hard it is to do what you want, or quite literally that your life is limited in how long it is due to health factors). That physical health cannot just come from exercise or food choices alone, but rather the combination of the two. Improve the machine while giving it the right fuel for its needs and eliminating the poisons that work against it.

Focusing on any one aspect of health will only provide a local maxima. This is like being in a valley between two hills, and seeing those hills as the highest points around. You can pick which of the two is tallest, and think that's the highest point you can achieve. But if you change your perspective, get out of the valley and see all the peaks around you, then you can find the global maxima. Only then can you achieve it.  Fitness is a valley.  Diet is a valley. Working on your mind is a valley.  Rise above and see across all of them to find the true summit. Climbing that summit is how you enlighten.your.body.

Q: I'm running a lot, but not getting major results or being very structured. Is that ok?

Q: I've been running quite a bit, and have kept it up for a good while now. But I don't feel like I'm doing it in a structured way, and I'm not being as committed otherwise, so I'm not seeing the results in my body that I want to. I'm not doing well enough, am I?

A: This is a tough but common situation. The issue stems from having a long term goal and then universally judging yourself based on missing some sub-goals and throwing the long-term goals away. This exposes a really crucial aspect of proper goal setting, tracking, expectations and the spiral of negative generalizations.

When we set an overall goal, like completing five 5K races or losing 10 pounds and keeping it off, we must set sub-goals so that we can both track our progress and recognized incremental wins.  It's also OK to miss some of these incremental steps as missing any particular one doesn't mean the overall goal is in question.  This is the expectation you need to manage, and the place where a sub-goal being missed should not be allowed to turn into universal failure (or feelings of it).

Let's look at the five 5K goal.  This was my goal for year two of my fitness journey (from July 1, 2012 to June 30th, 2013).  Each race can be seen as a sub-goal.  I didn't quite make it, but I did have wins along the way, and did come close plus picked up a good alternate challenge along the way.  I did one 5K, a 3.5 miler (just over 5K, so that counts), a 10K (that counts as two, right?), and a three day/three mountain charity hike (my bonus challenge that was far more than 5K, but not technically a race - though I did run down some of the way on two mountains).

Am I sitting here feeling like a failure because I didn't get that final 5K race (if you could the 10K as two)? Definitely not.  Instead, I basked in the glow of each race and my performance against goals I set for that particular race.  I could have done another 5K, actually, but didn't have access to one that fit with my work and home schedules.  Still, I should be riding the high of success on those sub-goals rather than throwing it all away because of the failure of one of the sub-goals.

Another great example is the person on a diet (which I'm not a fan of - let's eat healthily all the time rather than weirdly and extremely for a short period only go back to uneducated eating and re-gaining when we're done).  The person 'is doing great' all day, but then goes out with friends to a bar, has a couple of beers and some nachos, and then goes home feeling terrible about how they just threw it all away and cracks open a pint of ice cream and whipped cream.  They then order a pizza, and house the whole thing because it's all ruined.

The reality is that the beer and nachos weren't great, but certainly didn't throw away all the progress they had made on their diet thus far.  Because they felt like they had totally - not partially, but totally - failed, they threw all progress out and went overboard.

What about looking at the success thus far and taking pride in that.  And what about the restraint they showed at the bar by only having a couple of beers and some nachos rather than four or five beers and a whole order of nachos?  They exercised some restraint.

Ultimately, this is what we're talking about - don't throw the whole goal away because some aspects of it might be off.  Don't allow yourself to go down a path of negativity or depression because you fail to see the good or allow that positivity to resonate, reverberate, and drive you forward overall.

My specific advice to my friend with the question was to stop arguing about the failure in his running and overall progress.  Stop and let the positive of the run soak in.  He's running, and has been consistently for a while (and he's doing good distances - we're not talking little five minute jogs here, but 30-60 minute runs).  He hasn't quit. These are all massively better than what most people can say, and certainly better than he could say just a few months ago (he's been at it consistently since May).

So he wants to look better and feel better than he does at the moment. I'm sure he looks and feels better than if he wasn't running.  There are surely other ways he can spark better results, but it's important not to look at the seven other things to be mindful of and get so overwhelmed that he quits. By the same token, you can get extreme and do it all right away, and surely get those desired results fast. But what are the chances the behaviors would endure? Would he be likely to burn out due to the major changes needed all at once? Would he burn out from doing too much too fast?  What good are results if they can't be maintained?  Not very, I'd say.

Take the win of running, be proud, uplift yourself. Then choose one more thing to work on at a time in succession until your life is going the way you want with the results you crave in a consistent, manageable fashion. This is how you enlighten.your.body.

Q: Isn't It Good to be Pessimistic?

Q: I see all this happiness stuff you're talking about, but isn't pessimism ultimately better so you're never surprised or let down?

A: Not exactly.  Don't confuse pessimism for preparedness or scenario planning.

I'm part of the global operations leadership team at my company.  We have several all-day meetings a year, and at the last one, we spent some time on leadership skill building.  I took the opportunity to weave Shawn Achor's The Happiness Advantage into the discussion at several points in the day.  One of the senior people in the room countered me by asking, "I see all this happiness stuff you're talking about, but isn't pessimism ultimately better so you're never surprised or let down?"

I see her point.  She's suggesting that pessimism means you will think about the bad outcomes so you're neither let down when they occur nor caught off guard.  Fair point, but she's confusing the issue a bit, and I think it's a common and easy misstep, so I wanted to share my thinking with you.

Pessimism is having the negative view of a situation.  That's it.  It doesn't mean you do anything to stop that negative from playing out, or to turn it around into a win.  If you were a pessimist, you wouldn't be able to do that since you'd be stuck looking at things negatively, so you'd miss the win.  And you wouldn't appreciate not being let down since you'd look at it all negatively anyway.  The pessimist would expect to lose when playing the lottery, but would still feel miserable when they lost because they'd focus on losing.  Actually, let's be honest, they wouldn't play in the first place.

What I think she meant is really that we must not be so over-focused on only the good side of things that we miss the potential pitfalls or bad outcomes, and wind up in a bad place as a result.  A fantastic example from my recent experiences is with Winter Storm Nemo.  My staff and I decided that we needed to prepare for the storm as if it ended up as bad or worse than the media was making it out to be.  In doing this, we ensured that we'd keep the operation up and running even if we lost power and people were stuck at home.  Best case scenario, our staff would be prepped for a future event thanks to having a good re-education on what to do in such situations - like a fire drill that people actually take seriously.

Were were running around like mad about the impending white doom?  No.  Were we hopeful that it would be fine and we wouldn't have any issues?  Of course.  But we were also ready for it not being that way.  The result - we had lots of snow, the staff left early, and we were shut down for a while.  But what didn't happen is that we didn't get behind on our work, and we kept the parts of the country that weren't snowed in functioning.  That's directly a result of our looking at the storm and finding ways to keep it all 'happy' in the end.  We did it.  It wasn't pessimism.  It was realism and control.

Achor talks a lot about happiness coming from perceived control of situations.  I think this is a key to our success.  We took a negative situation and decided that there is a lot we can control about it beyond the inches that fall.  We used that control to our advantage, and it really amazed me how smoothly things went.

We had a similar situation with Hurricane Sandy, though we didn't go about it the same way.  The result was not complete chaos, but a markedly worse outcome than here.  I think we learned a lot with Sandy on how we can and should respond, and it really boiled down to control.  Control in our attitude, control in our plans, and control of the things that we directly - well - control.

The pessimist would just think we'd get 10 feet of snow, and we'd be unable to do any work, and everything would fall apart.  Try to plan for a solution, and the pessimist would see it failing.  How are you supposed to execute and impress your customers when you're too busy making mountains out of molehills (of snow)?

You can apply this to all sorts of situations tied to your healthy, fitness and well being.  Feel a cold coming on?  Not getting enough sleep?  The list goes on.

Be a controlled, planning optimist.  That's how you enlighten.your.body.

Q: When Were You in the Best Shape of Your LIfe?

Q: When you were in the best shape of your life?

A: Interesting question, and one that I almost answered before the truth behind it all struck me.  I just had a birthday (yesterday, actually), which is when this question came up.  That's because the past year (when I was 33) was when I launched newbodi.es, started running and dropped to just over 6% body fat (at least for a month before my hernia surgery), so it would seem like that year would take the prize.

The same year also saw me get double hernia surgery, re-herniate a disc in my back, tear my lateral meniscus in my left knee while re-tearing the medial meniscus in the same knee.  So, it would also seem that this would not be a podium-finishing-year.

But that's not what struck me.  What struck me is how answering that question with a finite year from the past resigns me to view the rest of my life as downhill.  That isn't right at all.  See, if you are on the path of health and fitness, and are enlightening your mind and body, then each year should be successively healthier than the year before, and you get into better and better shape.  Obviously, there will be a point where age overtakes lifestyle, but surely I am not there yet if you look at people like Dean Karnazes (if you don't know his story, you MUST Google him - super inspiring and amazing) and Harold Shaw.

So, if I had to pick a year from my past, it would be my 33rd.  I am in the midst of dealing with the tears in my left knee, so I'm not at my peak right now.  But I will get through this, just like I did with my double hernias, my herniated disc (both times), and every other adversity that could lead me to sit on the couch and eat Oreos (the basic theme of my childhood).  I have a feeling 34 will be a rebuilding year where I take more time than I did after my hernia surgery to make sure I don't get reinjured while building my running mileage back up, and then it will be a nice curve upward from 35 onward.

I was talking to my wife about this on my birthday, and how I want to do a half marathon before I'm 40.  If the fittest year of my life has already happened, and I couldn't do a half marathon then, then surely I can't do it in the next six years.  But I can.  And I will.

When was I in the best shape of my life? I don't know, it hasn't happened yet.

enlighten.your.body.

Q: Do You Do Life Coaching?

Q: Do you do life coaching in addition to the fitness and health coaching you do?

A: That's a great question that really deserves a deeper response than a simple 'yes' or 'no'.

The coaching I do isn't the same as the coaching you'd get in high school or college if you played a sport, or if you hired a running or cycling coach to train you for a race.  Instead, it's coaching to help you achieve your bigger goals in terms of a health and fitness transformation.

To separate that profound of a shift in your life from 'life coaching' doesn't make sense to me.  This is for a simple reason - for it to really work, your mind will change.  You will view yourself in a different, better light.  That will change your life outside of the fitness and health aspects.

Life coaching is about making you better in your own life - being more present, powerful, positive and successful (in a broader sense than just success at work).  Health coaching must move your position in your life if it is to work and its results to persist.

So, yes, I do life coaching simply because it's inherently part of being and staying healthier.  After all, you can't enlighten.your.body if your life isn't coming along for the ride, too.

Q: Why do I feel miserable all the time (Hint: I eat junk)?

Q: Why am I always tired; fall asleep really early, but wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall back asleep; feel run down and achy all the time? I can't start working out and stuff if I feel this way.

A: This is something I hear quite a bit of. It's not that the person is trying to make excuses for not getting on top of their fitness, they genuinely feel miserable most of the time and have very odd sleep issues.  While there may be a genuine medical issue going on (so be sure to talk to your doctor before starting a fitness program), a quick look at your lifestyle may hold all the answers you need.

For the person who asked me this, I had the privilege of seeing their diet on a regular basis.  It consisted of basically all take out, and the take out consisted of really poor choices - everything was fried, sitting in a heavy, sweet sauce, dessert was often included and many times the only thing that actually got eaten.  Veggies?  No, not really.  Regular meal times?  Not so much.  Candy and other junk food?  Yes.  Soda?  Uh huh.  Coffee?  Yup.  More coffee?  Yessir.  Chips, crackers, etc?  By the bag full.  Processed sugar and carbs?  Tons of them.

See, this is where my spidey sense started tingling.  OK, I don't have spidey sense, but if I did, it would tingle.  They are eating horribly.  Horribly.  Their body is getting a sugar rush several times a day and slammed with all sorts of chemicals and preservatives.  So their body keeps going through these ups and downs, and never gets what it needs in terms of vitamins or 'good' fuel.  Protein comes in small doses that don't suffice, and never come very cleanly as those doses include sugar and carbs and other junk.

How could you expect to feel marginally ok with a diet like this?  How could you expect to sleep well when your body is constantly going through these sugar ups and downs, and left empty of what it needs (so you wake up hungry and uncomfortable)?

While I could preach at this person until I'm blue in the face, for it to really work, they need to come to their own realization. They could make slight changes to start feeling better.  That progress would beget more changes and progress.

More than anything, I know they want to be feeling better.  The desire is there.  The path is fairly obvious (or at least these things need to change whether there's a bigger medical issue or not, and you can't really figure that out before you clean up the 'garbage in' approach that's leading to a 'garbage out' feeling).

How about you?  What's your diet like?  How do you feel every day?  Could you do better?  Do you want to feel better?  We could all pretty much answer yes to those last two questions, so let's enlighten our bodies.

Q: What is the Minimum Effective Dose for Exercise X?

Q: What is the Minimum Effective Dose (MED) for any given exercise, or my whole workout?


A: Good question, as this isn't necessarily clear in The Four Hour Body. The answer is that there is no explicit answer or formula to come up with the answer for any given situation.

The MED for you will be dependent on what you're trying to achieve, where you're starting from, and what you're doing. For example, Tim Ferriss talks about doing a weight lifting routine where he works his muscles to exhaustion, and that's his whole workout - a few exercises done to the point of failure. He does go over how many sets and reps to do if this is your approach, and shares his specific workout, but the amount of weight used, which exercises done, and your own muscle endurance will mean that your MED for this exact workout may not be the same as his.

Instead of sweating the mathematics of determining your MED for a given workout, focus on the concept of the MED, which means following Principle 5 - "be smart about it". A good example I often use is in cardio workouts. I see so many people set the equipment to manual mode, dial in a set resistance level, open a magazine or put a show on the TV, put on their earphones, and turn into a workout robot for the next 30 minutes. Instead of that 30 minute workout, they would probably get the same from a 15 minute interval workout with the magazine closed, shows off, and their mind focused on really pushing themselves during the sprint or high intensity periods.

The same goes for weights. Doing 20 reps of low weight across 5 sets takes much longer than doing a pyramid (10-12 at 50-60% of your max, then 6-8 at 65-80%, and then 2-4 at 85-95% of your max).

This is what the MED is all about - using the biology and chemistry in your body to your advantage. The body will actually keep burning calories for quite a while after working out, and this 'while' is significantly longer when you train with intervals than with a constant resistance and output. So you don't need to go as long since the magic of biology will keep you burning calories from your workout more than long enough to offset the shorter duration of your workout.


This is all part of what I mean by "enlighten.your.body" - get smart about what you're doing by using your mind to change your body.

Q: Why Did You Create The trackbodi.es iOS App?

Q: Why did you create the trackbodi.es app for the iPhone? Aren't there already lots of great workout apps?


A: Great question, and one I've been meaning to write about for a while.  The basis of trackbodi.es is about the first principle of my 10 Principles - "track it". 'It" can be anything, which is the whole point. trackbodi.es is meant to be a way to track performance in any situation - both for working out and for your body. That's where its name came from. It's not just a tie into newbodi.es, but all about tracking your body - whatever it is about your body you want to record and track.


There are apps that are single-minded that are great that I recommend to lots of people - RunKeeper, Nike+ Running, etc. They are meant to track one thing (in their cases, running), and do it well with lots of tools (GPS w/ mapping, pedometer, calorie counter, real time feedback on performance) and a whole ecosystem around them. But if you want to do a different exercise, they either don't work at all (like for weight lifting) or are sort of half-baked (like for biking - it works, but it calls it a run, the whole lingo is off and it may miss some key metrics while recording others that are irrelevant). They also don't do anything with or for your body metrics - like tracking weight loss, body fat percentage changes, blood pressure, heart beat rate, changes in skin caliper readings, circumference of key spots on your body, etc. If your goal is physical fitness and health, you should track both what you're doing and what it's doing for you in moving you toward your goals.


There are apps that are meant to be all things to all people. I've looked at quite a few, and spoken to some of their developers about working together. When I say, "all things," what I have really seen is, "many things." I don't see any that cross workouts and body stats beyond maybe a place to put in your weight.  Weight is good to track in some cases, but it's irrelevant in others. I watch mine, but my goal has nothing to do with it, and I could just as easily throw it out. I need something that records body fat, circumference (of five locations) and skin caliper pinches (three different spots). As for what's out there, they are just not clean or easy to use, in my opinion. User interfaces are confusing, look and feel is very much overdone (lots of beveling and bling to the look, which just doesn't feel at home on iOS, and only adds to the clutter and confusion). I have tried to use several and, after investing a lot of time building a workout, I couldn't find how to get back to the point where I enter performance or use the workout I just spent a ton of time building. And after all of that, they still lacked the body metric component.


So, I wanted something that could be applied to any situation for workouts and for tracking your body. I wanted something clean and simple looking and as easy to use as possible. Is it as good at X as a dedicated app? No. Is it as feature rich as some of the generalist apps? No. I don't want it to be.

The only way I could get what I was looking for, was to build it myself.  I hope everyone will at least try the free version of trackbodi.es, and it will help them watch what's important as they go for a new goal. Tracking your progress toward health is the single most important step as you enlighten.your.body.

Success Needs No Apologies

Q: I didn't totally follow your advice exactly.  I did lose X lbs this week, but I guess I messed up.

A: You have it all wrong.  You didn't mess up.  You succeeded.  You may not have followed exactly what I suggested, but you don't have to.  There are a few lessons in this question.

1. You should not apologize to anyone else for what you're doing or what you achieved - there is only one person you are doing this for and to whom you answer - you.
2. Advice is just that - a set of suggestions from someone who (hopefully) cares and (hopefully) knows what they're talking about, but ultimately isn't you, and isn't living your exact situation.
3. Focus on the right things - you made forward progress toward your goal.

Let's look at each of these points in turn.

First, if you made progress toward your goal - whether a lot or a little - don't ever feel bad.  If you moved backward, yet know why, what you will do going forward, and are still committed, don't feel bad.  If you totally failed and don't care or want to try again or harder, only feel bad if you wish it were otherwise.

You can tell me that you thought you might get closer to your goal, but that you made progress.  I will then cheer you on and commend the great work you did while helping you figure out how to keep moving forward.  If you didn't make progress or moved backward, we can talk about why (it may even be a good thing - maybe you started lifting weights, so your weight went up, but your body fat went down, so why be upset about that?), and then talk about the next move to get to your goal.

In the end, you don't have to apologize.  All you have to do is keep going at it.  Remember Principle #3 - Don't Question It.  If you're apologizing, you're questioning.

You owe me nothing.  You owe you everything.  Don't live by other people's expectations, demands or rules.  You're an adult who has committed to your health, and are doing it with tools and support, but you are doing it.  No one else.

Second, I'm only sharing advice based on what you tell me going in and what I know and have observed. You are a human - your body is different from every other body out there, and the exact food you eat at the exact times you eat it relative to the exact motions you use to expend it are particular to you and only you. Advice isn't perfect or omniscient. It will lead to results tending toward what it is aiming for in most cases, but it won't be exact, and it won't always win. Sometimes we need a little trial and error to figure out the biology and what your life will accommodate. The closer you stick to the advice, the easier it will be to fine tune, but you are smart and motivated and might know what's best for you and your situation better than I do or than I could given how you explained it to me. Tweak, interpret and go for it.

One thing I keep telling people I work with is that they have to make this sustainable. I don't advocate the short term diet or exercise approach. I don't like the idea of getting fit for some event (e.g., wedding, high school reunion, etc). I only advocate being healthy for life.  If you have some medical condition that means you need to get X in your diet, and my advice suggests omitting X, then we best keep X in. Even Tim Ferriss talks about how he has a glass of wine each night despite knowing he'd be better off without the sugar.  He is a wine lover, and has decided that the trade off is worth it for him. From my experience, grain-based carbs (bread, pasta, pastries, cakes) are the most detrimental to success for me. Would a slice of multi-grain bread with lunch ruin everything? Probably not. Would it slow down results more than if you skipped it? Most likely. If that's all you have access to for lunch, should you skip it? No.

See, you need to figure out what is sustainable relative to the advice you get. While I can help you fine tune the advice to be sustainable, only you can ultimately judge what you can really keep up with.

Lastly, what are you apologizing for when you make progress? This is very simple - don't apologize. Ever.  Understand why you didn't get where you wanted to get, and then get there next time thanks to your learnings. But to be sorry for moving ahead only works against the reinforcing energy of success.

So, don't apologize. Appreciate. Understand. Move ahead.

Enlighten.your.body.

Q: I see you hit your goal, how much bigger will the next goal be?

Q: Wow, you hit your goal weight. How much lower will your new goal weight be?

A: This particular question could have been generalized to any goal - losing weight, lifting some amount of weight, running a mile in a certain amount of time - you name it.  I'll answer the weight loss question, but the principle applies more broadly.  It all boils down to the power of proper goal setting in the short and long term, as I discuss in my 10 Principles.

That principle is simple - goals are only useful to the point where they're motivational and sources of positivity in your life.  If you set them so that you end up obsessing, they aren't goals - they're problems.  See the difference?  It's not as simple as word choice.  The word goal carries with it positive connotations.  Problem carries with it nothing but negative connotations.

Want to argue against me that a problem can be good because it causes you to rise to the occasion and overcome it?  No, that's a challenge.  A challenge gets you to rise up and do better than you would otherwise do so you can overcome it.  It's something tough to do.  A problem is something that's wrong.

So, this all started as I've been posting about my weight loss journey over the past year.  My goal was to go from 222 on July 1st, 2011 to 180 by July 1st, 2012.  I did it, but it was more like November of 2011, so well ahead of schedule.  I set a new goal for the remaining time of 10% body fat or below (I was at about 13% when I hit 180).

I've kept posting my weight and weight loss whenever I reached new personal records, but also noted when I didn't find this to be a good thing.  For instance, on July 12th, 2012, I hit 169.8 lbs, for a total weight loss of 52.2 lbs.  That is lower than I want to be, and it's not good for two reasons:

1. I don't think that's the optimal weight for my build, age and activity level
2. It was largely achieved vs the 175 steady-state I've been at due to atrophy after having double hernia surgery.  Hitting a weight loss target by 'letting yourself go', as it were, is not something to cheer about.  I can assure you, I'd much rather be 185 and toned and fit than 170 and not reaching my potential.

So, an old college friend keeps posting "Go for 150!" on Facebook when I post my personal records.  It always irks me (that may be his intent) because this a) sends the wrong message to people about smart goals, and b) totally plays into the inane social construct that thinner is inherently better.  If I were to hit 150, I would likely need medical attention, or at least to be plugged into an IV several hours a day!

No, no, my 'new' goal has nothing to do with any body metric at all.  And this is my point.  Set a real challenging goal that you will have to work to achieve.  But once you get there, maintaining it and building off what hitting that goal does for you is a far nobler and wiser goal than just doing 10% better or something.

I took my own advice to heart and have set my new goal as doing five 5K races by the end of next summer.  It's caveated on my back being able to handle it since I had back surgery and re-injured my back just before going out for my hernia surgery.  This goal is about using what I achieved with my body in hitting my goal for the past year to do something.  That's powerful, inspiring and positive.  If instead I said "Get to 160lbs and <7.5% body fat," then what do I achieve other than concerning my wife that I am not obsessing about my weight?  What does that get me?  Nothing.

Goals are achievements.  If hitting a goal gets you nothing, or gets you worse, it's not a goal.

Q: I can't run minimalist/barefoot because I run 'heavy', right?

Q: I run 'heavy', so I can't run minimalist style or barefoot style, right?  I mean, that just won't work since I need a good cushion under my feet when I come down hard.

A: No, not right.  This is kinda the whole point, actually.  The way pretty much everyone runs when you run with 'traditional' running shoes is going to be heavy on your body.  Even if you aren't coming down hard, the impact you're putting on your joints and basically entire skeleton is massive because your legs are rigid and doing nothing to lessen the blow.  Run 'heavy' or run 'light' with a heel strike, and the impact is great.

Running with minimalist (low or zero drop - meaning there is little to no difference in the thickness of padding under your heel as under your forefoot, and neither has a ton under it) or barefoot shoes (or just plain barefoot) with a good midfoot or forefoot strike will turn you into a spring.  Your leg joints will have several joints and points where they are bent, and each one will reduce the impact as it moves up your body.

This is similar to how crumple zones work in a car - multiple points are made to bend up or crumple to 'shed' force before it hits the passenger cell.  This is also how animals run - look at their feet.  What we call 'feet' on a dog is actually toes, and it's heel is up it's leg a bit - they walk (and run) on their tip toes.

Look at runners with prosthetic legs.  They are big springs (not the curly kind, but a bent, springy piece of material - I don't know if it's metal or carbon fiber or what) with small contact points.  These running limbs are mimicking what you'd be doing with a proper barefoot style run.

If you've ever seen Christopher McDougal, author of the running cult classic Born to Run (which you MUST read) run, he's not a twiggy little guy.  He's big.  Really big.  Very tall, large build.  And yet he runs quick, long and light.  Why?  Form.

So, no, you can't swear off minimalist style running because you come down heavy on your feet in traditional shoes.  You need to adapt your gait and style to take advantage of it, and then you will be light and springy. You need to take your time and adjust while you learn to do it, but you will learn, you will love it, and you won't go back to your old, heavy, injury-causing style.  Have some faith, and go for a (springy) leap.

Q: What's a good diet or fitness plan to jump start things?

Q: What's a good diet if I want to jump start my weight loss? Same for fitness - what about these 3 week, hard core programs? I hear they really work.

A: Yes, they do 'work', but I wouldn't call them 'good'.  Heck, I'm not sure I'd even really say they work without having some seriously powerful air quote action going on. I've been getting questions like these this week quite a bit.  They're really good questions, but they show how Americans are basically brain washed into looking for the quick fix rather than the sustainable, results-delivering path that will work today, tomorrow, and 5 years from now.

On the diet side, I hear people who are all set to commit to the Slow Carb approach (either 100% or pretty close to it), but they think they need a boost for the first couple of weeks to really shed some weight.  Let me just tell you right now, if you eat like most Americans, you won't need any boost or jump start.  I've seen a few folks I coach drop 5, 6 and 7 pounds in the first week.  If you choose to go with some shake diet, weird starvation thing, etc, all you're doing is stressing your body, and delaying the time when you will start to adjust to the SCD and make it your normal everyday diet.  The sooner you get on board with it, the sooner your results will follow, and, more importantly, endure.  And it's healthy, unlike these jump start fads, so you're doing right by your body on top of getting the fat off your frame.

On the exercise front, there's a popular program out there that starts with numbers and ends with an X.  There are others that list a place you would want to go if you were in great shape and then the word "Body".  You know what I'm talking about.  They do work in the sense that they seem to deliver results while you follow them.  But they don't work in the sense that they aren't typically long-term followable.  (What's that? Followable's not a word? Sure it is. Well, it is now, at least. You know what I mean.)  The key to finding a fitness rhythm that will endure is finding one that works for your life.   Long workouts on a regular basis are no more sustainable than shake or starvation (or any other fad) diets.  It goes back to the minimum effective dose (MED). It's not about working out for a long time, it's about working out smart.  No, instead, find something you can do that fits into your life, and make it part of your ongoing plan.  As you get better at it, add resistance, or cut back on it and add something else.  For me, it was the elliptical.  I have been doing it forever.  I did 45 minutes at a high resistance level before starting to follow the program I advise people on.  Now I do 30 minutes of intervals (including warm up and cool down).  I have since added some running, recumbent biking or other things in 10-20 minute blocks when I can to keep things interesting.  But I do it when I can make it fit my life, not because I have some deadline or someone on a DVD is yelling at me.

So, the message here is simple.  There's no quick fixes needed, and the quick fixes you might want to start with to get 'real results fast' are probably going to work against you.  Just get with the program - the sustainable program.  There's nothing quick or short term about it.  Remember, we're talking about changing your future, not just today.  That's what it means to enlighten.your.body.

Q: What's the deal with your logo? Is that a dude doing a crunch?

Q: So, what's the deal with your logo?  Is that the handicapped logo?  A guy doing a crunch?  The AOL Instant Messenger guy?

A: HA!  Good question. The logo for newbodi.es is a symbol I've been using for a while, and actually came up with nearly 20 years ago. It's called a Perplexion Mark, and it's based on a question mark.  If you block out the triangular part, you'll see what I mean.  See, it's like a question that keeps going - thus it's perplexing.  It's all about curiosity and challenge, and I think that makes it really appropriate for newbodi.es.

I actually have it tattooed on my left shoulder - something I got done about 10 years ago, so long before newbodi.es was a glimmer in my eye.  It ultimately sums up a big piece of what drives me.  I want to know more and understand more about how things are and how they work.  I want to question and challenge more and not simply accept what I'm told or the status quo.  If we aren't curious, we don't push ourselves or the general knowledge of those around us. If we don't challenge people get lazy, rest on their laurels, and new and better ways of doing things are developed.

For newbodi.es, it was a natural choice for the logo because a) it is a symbol that is very personal to me, and newbodi.es is my creation, and b) newbodi.es is about challenging yourself and your situation so you can do and be better.

Now, I don't see the AOL IM guy, but I do sort of see the crunch, and that isn't so bad in this context.

Q: Why do you weigh yourself daily? Isn't it 'bad' to weigh every day?

Q:  Every program I've seen always talks about weekly weigh ins rather than the daily ones you seem to do.  Are daily weigh ins ok?  Better?  Worse?  Why do you do them?


A: You know, it really doesn't matter, actually. It's just about measuring something you can put a goal around and be mindful of. newbodi.es Principle #1 is to track something. It's really crucial. Tim Ferriss, whose teachings I based much of newbodi.es on, doesn't like weighings and calorie counting, but he likes them better than nothing. He's more a fan of body fat percentage, inches lost, etc. But, again, it just doesn't matter. The calories thing is probably the least helpful, though, since it can lead to poor choices in diet that work against your progress. For example, I eat more fat than I've ever eaten, and am also leaner than I've ever been. Calorie counting wouldn't allow for this because fat grams are so dense in calories.


Tim shares the story of a guy who does nothing more than weigh himself and track it.  He doesn't try to change his life to hit any particular numbers.  Yet, almost miraculously, he loses weight.  Why?  He's now conscious of it, and he subconsciously makes different choices in such a subtle way as to not notice it impacting his life.  The same goes for 'tracking' what you eat by taking a pic of it on your phone.  As Tim puts it, you are a lot less likely to eat a one pound bag of M&Ms if you stop for a minute and focus in on what you're about to do.  In both cases, the tracking isn't the important part so much as the responsibility it imparts in you by making you aware of your choices and their consequences - be it consciously or subconsciously.

For me, tracking weight and body fat in the morning and night works. Something else might work for you, but just have something to track. And then create a long and short term goal around it (Principle #4). You want to be sure to stay mindful of the line between obsessing and tracking or being mindful. I don't actually care what my weight is because I'm well within where I wanted to be (actually, I'm nearly 10 lbs under what I was aiming for, and am starting to care that it's too low as I've been losing weight lately without much logic as to why), so if I go up to 178 or something, I really don't get phased, and I don't overreact. I wouldn't even mind if I hit 180 again, or went slightly over since I know how to bring it right back to where I want it.  t just live my life and see what the numbers say to be sure I'm doing the right thing.


This is a reason I like the Nike+ Fuel Band so much.  Nike Fuel does has a basis in science and energy expenditure, but it's totally abstract to the user.  Yet you end up really focusing on it - hitting your goals, raising your goals, etc.  This may be more than enough for most people and can keep them from developing eating disorders or something unhealthy that people fear comes about from frequent weighings.


In the end, pick something that's meaningful, trackable, and that you can set goals around.  And then track it religiously.  This is exactly why I developed trackbodi.es, my new iOS app. Unlike other fitness apps, it isn't overly structured around any particular exercise, metric, etc.  It is a template that allows you to customize whatever it is you really want to track.  No, it doesn't have a ton of features like connecting to a WiThings scale or blood pressure monitor, reading your heart rate on a Polar heart rate monitor, GPS tracking of your runs, etc.  But it allows you to see that thing you feel is important, set a goal for it (Principle #4 again), and watch how you do over time (plus share that performance with your social network for support and peer pressure - Principle #2).


If you haven't downloaded it yet, check out trackbodi.es.  We have a free (ad supported) and paid (ad free) version available now for the iPhone.

Q: I'm so hungry by the time I get home, it's been really hard

Q: I'm so hungry by the time I get home, it's been really hard to stay on the diet.

A: That is simple - you're not eating enough during your meals.  We are conditioned to believe that eating too much (or enough) is the root of all evil when trying to lose weight (or, more accurately, eating a lot along with eating fat).  This just isn't true.  It's not quantity, it's quality.  In fact, to be more precise, you need high quantity of high quality.  Drop one of those two, and you have problems.

Tim Ferriss discusses this a few times.  The way he sees it - and I totally agree - is that you aren't eating enough during your meals if you find yourself hungry or needing to snack.  He isn't a subscriber of the "3 meal + 2 snack" approach, and would recommend bigger meals instead.  Having stuck a subcutaneous glucose monitor in himself for a month or so, he saw that you don't actually need the snacks to keep metabolism going the way people say you go.  Since snacking is not valuable for stimulating metabolism, Tim sees hunger that drives snacking more as sign of your fuel intake being far too low to cover your work effort.  He reminds readers that their new diet is lower in energy than their old one, so they need to ramp up volumes - a cup of kale doesn't have the same fuel as a cup of oatmeal.

For me, I follow a 3-4 meal approach (depending on how much time and access to good food I have during the 3 meals, I'll add a fourth), but I also listen to my body if I'm hungry, and adjust my meal intake or I do have a snack that's within the rules to get me to my next meal when the previous one wasn't sufficient.  In that next meal, I'll go overboard on the good stuff to be sure I'm good and full.

It's funny, I don't recall being so full so often in my life...and certainly never being so full on tasty food where I consistently lose weight and fat.

The good stuff to load up on are mainly cruciferous veggies - broccoli, spinach, kale, baby broccoli (which is a hybrid of kale and broccoli), chard, etc.  It all sautés nicely, goes well in soups, omelets, fritadas, etc. But throwing in an egg, or a cup (or two) of lentils is a fantastic idea. Lentils are amazing.  Super rich in protein, filling, and can be very tasty (they take seasoning well when cooking them).

A suggestion I'd make is to eat your 3 squares according to the rules, but for the first week or two, try adding a mid-afternoon salad.  A big salad.  Try getting a hard boiled egg in there.  I did this for the first two weeks, and it really helped.  And sprinkle some chia seeds on it.  Then, before bed, do what Tim suggests - have a tablespoon of almond butter or something similar to get some protein and fat in you to ride you through the night. You'll sleep better, and you may just find, like me, that your weight and fat are lower on mornings after doing that than on mornings when you don't.  I was shocked.

I started to figure out good recipes I'd want to eat that were totally within the rules and actually simple to make, which helped me make bigger meals I'd eat all of, and so now I tend to eat 3 meals instead of 4.  I'll share some in the future, but you can also download The Slow Carb Cookbook from our Resources page to get started.