Biggest Loser Group

Like many people, I struggle with my body weight.  I obviously treat health and wellness for a living, and I know what I need to do, but I need a support structure to help keep me accountable.

One tool that has helped me immensely is MyFitnessPal (www.myfitnesspal.com), which I will discuss in another post.

The most helpful intervention I've ever had, though, is a Biggest Loser Group started by one of my high school friends, Dan Stewart.

Our group, Dan's Friends are Losers, is a Facebook group started by Dan, and has been incredibly successful in creating a positive atmosphere that has kept us accountable.

This is a picture of Dan and I from April.  It's a bit cloudy- we took it right after Dan and I did two hours of mixed martial arts training at his gym in New Jersey.  Dan was training for his first MMA competition (which he won!  I think by a 1st round Kimura), and I visited his gym on my cross-country drive moving to the Pacific Northwest.

Dan has many great attributes a coach and motivator, and these are things I try to bring into my medical practice when I coach and motivate patients, the most important being positive energy and focusing on what I can do to help patients get better.

One thing that I've learned is that people can be in one of two modes, and you can't be in both simultaneously:
Mode 1: "What can I do to improve and get better" mode
Mode 2: "How do I make excuses for why I can't get better" mode

Dan is great at making sure we stay in Mode 1, keep our eyes on the prize, and focus on continuously improving.  Dan asks no less from me, and I owe it to my patients to try and be a positive motivator like Dan.

This is Kate.  She was my "summer buddy" - I life guarded at the pool in her home town of Roosevelt, NJ back in 1989, and she taught me everything I know about 1970s rock music, and kept me in good spirits while I hung out at the pool.  Kate is one of those great friends you lose track with over time, and we've reconnected through our Loser's group.

Kate's lost an enormous amount of weight - I think it's well over 100 bs, and is again a source of positive inspiration.  Whenever I think of Kate, she reminds how important weight loss really needs to be through a lifestyle change, and not just a periodic deprivation.

Scott and I went to high school together, but did not know each other then.  Scott's a great example of how you can make friends through the support group.  He won one of the rounds, and has managed to keep losing weight even after he "won."

More importantly, through our Loser group, I've developed a friendship with Scott.  I find him a thoughtful, philosophical colleague who constantly broadens the way I think about things.

This is Mike and I.  Mike and I first met as 9 year olds playing soccer, and what I've realized from getting to know Mike again while we are middle-aged guys in our early 40s is that you don't really know people when you are 9 years old.  Before Mike and I became friends again as adults, the most I could tell you about Mike was that he had a great cross pass for a 9 year old.  It's been enjoyable getting to know Mike the adult.

Ok, enough reminiscing.  What are some of the best tactics for weight loss I've learned a Loser?

Some tactical tips:
1. Go to bed early.  Sleep is necessary for proper healing.  Also, it's really hard to eat when you are asleep
2. Don't eat after dinner.  Most of my weight gain happens from night eating
3. Keep yourself accountable
4. Buy cheap jeans at Costco.  One of my favorite tricks is to buy a pair of jeans one size too small from Costco, and wear those when walking the dog in the morning.  Powerful incentive to stay on task
5. Keep tempting foods out of your sight-line.  Whenever people bring in "gifts" of chocolate or pastry, I immediately give it to my medical assistant to hide from me.  Even if I don't eat it, I think about it all day and then make bad food decisions.
6. Create opportunities for incidental exercise.  I have a Jungle Gym XT and Pull up bar set up both at the office and at home, which allows me to bang out a few quick reps .... BAM!- just did 5 pull ups before writing point #7
7. Focus on the positive.  I constantly repeat the mantra of "I want to be the best possible version of myself everyday" to remind myself of my goals
8. Focus on being better, not perfect. Better is obtainable, perfect isn't
9. Focus on what I can do, not on what I can't do
10. Express gratitude to the people in my life who have helped me get where I am today.  That starts with my girlfriend and my dog, extends to my partner Garrett and the rest of my practice, and most definitely includes my patients and my Loser group who inspire me every day

As Dan would say, "I'm a Loser, and that makes me a Winner!"

Tips for Weekend Warriors

Are you a weekend warrior?  For many busy professionals, the weekend is the only real time we can get to workout.  Here are some tips to help maximize the weekend warrior experience and prevent injury.

1. Start light.  

Warm-ups in general are a bit overrated, but for the weekend warrior, they are important to help loosen the muscles up.  

I find some light jogging intermixed with a few deep squats helps loosen up the legs, and arm circles to warm up the shoulders can be helpful.

2. Pay special attention to the groin.

The groin is particularly susceptible to injury in weekend warriors.  The groin muscles (technically the adductor muscle group) are not commonly used in every day activity, but are used frequently in sports, and therefore are prone to overuse injuries if you only use them on the weekend.

The reason we don't use them much during the week is that when you walk at a normal pace, the way your bring your thigh forward is with a group of muscles called the hip flexors (muscles in the front of your thigh and pelvis, including the rectus femoris and iliopsoas).

When you run or move more quickly, you rotate your pelvis, which engages your groin muscles to bring the thigh forward.  One way to image this is to stride as far forward as you can with your left thigh, which will rotate your pelvis so that the left side is further forward than your right side.  From this position, if you want to bring your thigh forward, you would have to use your right groin muscles in addition to your hip flexors.

Some strategies to help protect your groin:

1. Some deep squats and light jogging, as noted above

2. The butterfly stretch (http://www.ehow.com/how_2312300_do-butterfly-stretch.html) after warming up

3. The upward facing dog stretch (http://www.ehow.com/how_2277775_do-upward-facing-dog-pose.html) to help stretch the abdominal muscles.  This is important because the groin muscles and your rectus abdominus muscle (the six-pack muscles) share a common insertion point on your pubic bone.  I sometimes remind patients of this by referring to their adductor longus (one of the groin muscles) as the "seven pack" to remind them that it is part of the same group as the abdominal muscles, and therefore need to be stretched together.

4. If you are doing a kicking sports (e.g., soccer), be careful on your first few kicks that you don't slam your instep into the ground instead of the ball.  This is a common mechanism where soccer player often give themselves a particularly hard-to-heal type of groin injury called a sports hernia.

3. Try to fit in one high intensity workout during the week

Try to spend at least 30 minutes during the week in which you are exerting yourself to more than 50% of your maximum capacity.  This will help stave off de conditioning during the week.

As a practical matter, you may need to do this in short spurts.  Things like sprinting up the stairs every day when you get to work, or racing your son across the backyard when you get home, are great ways to build in short bursts of high intensity contractions.

In another upcoming essay, I will be talking more about strategies for "How to be more Awesome," which I consider an important part of the Kinemedics Philosophy.  One part of this, for parents in particular, is the importance of being excellent in the presence of your children.  I can't stress enough how important this is.  So, even little things like having your child see you do 10 push ups or  2 pull ups in front of them has some important ancillary benefits beyond their obvious health impact.

So, think of this nugget about short bursts of high intensity exercise as a variation of finding time to put more Awesome into your day.

4. Prime yourself for the weekend

One key way to make sure your weekend workouts go well is to make sure you don't go into the workouts tired.  The most important thing you can do to optimize your Saturday workout is to be healthy Friday night, and the same applies for Sunday morning and Saturday night.  

Some strategies:

1. Don't drink too much- 2 drinks is a reasonable number for most people

2. Get enough sleep.  Don't stay out more than 2 hours past your normal bedtime, and try to stay close to your normal bedtime

I realize this is tough for some people, as they prize their social time, may be in a new relationship that requires more effort, etc.  What I say is that optimizing your health is about embracing a healthy lifestyle.  As we learned recently, not even Dennis Hopper can continue to live the Dennis Hopper lifestyle forever (it may even catch up to Jack Nicholson eventually).  So if you are a partier and carouser, you will have to change some time.  That time is now.

Have a fantastic weekend!