Don’t Let Ninjas Sabotage Your Health

I am a child of the 80’s: Michael Jackson, the Breakfast Club, parachute pants, and Ninjas! Ah, the good old days. As a martial artist, I always was intrigued by the Ninja – depicted by the movies as warrior heroes with their roots in ancient Japan. The truth however, is that back in feudal times, the ninja were not heroes – instead they were assassins, specializing in stealth, espionage, and sabotage. The real heroes of the time were the Samurai – bound by honor and discipline.

We deal with Ninjas in modern times as well, specifically in the health world. Everyone has to deal with these “health ninjas,” stealthily trying to sabotage our efforts to eat right and exercise. It is important that we, like the samurai, maintain patience, strength, and discipline at all times. Let’s go over some of the common saboteurs:

1) “Health food”

This includes things like salads, “fat free” food, convenience foods like microwave meals and canned foods, sports drinks and juices and anything that you do not know its source. The specific enemies in these foods are sodium, sugars, unhealthy fat, and chemicals. Salads can be a healthy source of nutrients, but not when loaded with useless iceberg lettuce, fat/sugar/salt or chemically ridden dressings, processed cheese, salty croutons, bacon bits, etc.

The same is true for foods that would be healthy but are not because of how they were cooked. Soaking vegetables and lean meat in unhealthy oils usually takes away from their health benefits. Fat-free food that is supposed to have fat (like cheese, meat, etc.) is fake – filled with salt, sugar, and chemicals that alter the way nature intended it to be.

Convenience often means cheap, quick, and easy. As Tom Hanks said in the movie A League of Their Own, “If it was easy, everyone would do it” – wait a second, everyone does do it, that’s why our country is getting fatter and less healthy.

Sports drinks and juices do have a place in our nutritional world, however, these drinks are generally taken in excess of what would be beneficial. The vats of sugar that people are essentially drinking are not doing bodies any good. You can claim that ignorance is bliss when you don’t know where the food you are eating came from, but that bliss won’t shrink your waistline or improve your health.

I’m not telling everyone to go out and start buying organic, especially since that term gets used often when it shouldn’t (another ninja), but a common problem with meat and seafood is where it comes from. Animals raised in an environment that is not natural and fed food that is not what nature intended does not bode well for our bodies when we eat them.

2) Alcohol

Light/low-carb beer healthier? Are you serious? Give me a break! Alcohol is about seven calories per gram of alcohol. The problem is that those calories are empty, which means useless for your body, hence the “beer belly.” When calories have no purpose they have to accumulate somewhere. I can speak from experience when I tell you that alcohol can be a metabolism killer (Health and Leisure, November 2008, Politically Incorrect Weight Loss) – just ask any college freshman suffering the “freshman 15” if alcohol played a role in that. While some types of alcohol do have a health benefit, drinking red wine by the truckload is generally a bad idea.

3) Media

People need to find humor in what the media presents as “healthy,” because if taken too seriously, you are only being set up for failure. The “liposuctioned, anorexic, roid-raged, plastic people” (we’ll call them LARP’s) that you see in magazines, movies, and TV have gotten that way either by what I just described them as, or by some means other than what they are trying to sell you! This is the reason why women are afraid to lift weights – for fear of becoming “too bulky.” Guess what ladies, don’t take steroids and you probably don’t have to worry. Also, there is no magic pill, drink, equipment, or method (other than visiting a plastic surgeon) that will allow anyone to lose weight while laying in bed, eating pizza, drinking beer, etc. Sorry, but you can keep using that Thighmaster.

4) Friends/Family/Coworkers

It’s nice to be loved, but sometimes the loving can really screw you up! Who has heard these words from the ones who are supposedly looking out for your best interests:

“You don’t need to exercise/diet – you look fine.”

“Spend time with me, don’t go workout.”

“Have a drink/dessert with me.”

“I made this meal especially for you.”

“Just have one bite.”

“It’s a special occasion/holiday.”

“But the program says you can have a cheat day once a week.”

This list goes on.

The basic truth is that while these people may love you, if they don’t do the program with you, they just don’t get it. These people don’t have the same goals as you, so will naturally want you to go down with their ship. Rather than supporting you to do whatever you need to maintain your program and not cheat – even a little bit – they will do you the favor of finding every possible loophole for you. Misery does love company, so try not to even let the possibility of their sabotage be an option.

5) Grocery Stores

Look out for sale items and the stuff at eye level. We are all looking for ways to save money these days, but do you really need to buy those cookies just because they are on sale. At the same time, some of those sale items are often the lower quality ones – watch out for getting what you pay for. Eye level items are usually reserved for the products paying the highest price for the quality space. The companies that can afford to continually buy this premium space are often the larger ones that did not make their money by providing vast amounts of health.

Money is made with low quality and unhealthy products such as corn syrup, white flour, sugars, and fat – after all, they are cheaper – more bang for their buck. Look high and low to find what you actually need when walking down the aisles. Or better yet, spend most of your time on the perimeter of the stores, where the majority of the “real foods” are – fruits, vegetables, meat, etc.

6) Fitness “Experts”

These economic times are, in many ways, a breeding ground for crappy fitness trainers. People who are losing their jobs or having hours cut are looking for new careers and/or part time work. Personal training provides the unique opportunity for anyone to become a certified “expert” in 30 minutes online without an ounce of formal education or experience. At the same time, what a perfect career to make some decent money on a part-time basis. The truth is that while bad trainers are abundant, quality training is a whole different story (see Health and Leisure, September 2007, “Putting the Personal Back in Training”). The problem is that the lay public has no idea who is the real deal vs. a hack. The hacks have impressive sounding credentials, including certified _________, and the world’s top ___________. Let me clear up a few things: 1. Only a few quality certifications are out there.

2. There is no credential for the world’s top anything in fitness, or anything resembling that. This title is completely self imposed and the only time you may see something like that which is legit, will be for a time frame (i.e., 2009 Trainer of the Year) and will have an organization attached to it that designated that title.

Beware of the famous fitness experts out there. Not to say that some of them do not have knowledge, but “the richest are often not the most famous, the most famous are usually not the best, and the best generally are not the richest or most famous.”

Presently, one of the more well known trainers in the industry has been so successful in marketing himself, that many people (including those in the fitness industry) think that he has invented many of the popular fitness tools/methods currently being used. The truth of the matter is that NONE of these tools are his own, they were all founded and/or initially popularized by others.

However, he was able to market it better and quicker than the originials and has lead people to believe that they are the results of his efforts. Not to take anything from him – good job in being a savvy marketer, it has made him lots of money – but he is not necessarily what people think he is.

I recently heard another story of a woman who worked with a “specialist” trainer for three years with the goal of being able to run. In three years this lady, with no significant disabilities or dysfunctions, has not run a single step! This is a classic case of “paralysis by analysis” with a trainer claiming to be “functional” not having a clue what that means.

7) Research

Research is critical for advancement in any field. However, research is often only as good as the question being asked and the methods being used. It is not difficult to “skew” research in your favor to make your point look better. Since most people know little to nothing about research methods, researchers can often say whatever they want without question. The other problem is that many of the people who are interested in current research don’t really read the whole study. They skip right to the conclusion and only read the first couple of sentences, thereby taking the whole study out of context. Then, as the great people they are, looking to improve the world with their knowledge of the latest research, they present their limited and incorrect knowledge as “the truth” of what is current in the field. A very nice gesture, but maybe next time, either get it right or don’t do us any favors.

You

The truth often hurts. If you always need sunshine blown up your you-know-what, you may not want to read this section. I’ll be blunt (as always): bad things happen sometimes and you just have to deal with it! Maybe you were cursed with bad genes, maybe your environment is not conducive to good health or fitness. No money, no time, no support, blah, blah, blah. Stop making excuses for your lack of health, and change – IMMEDIATELY! Most people have some clue of a few of the unhealthy choices they are making. Make change a priority and do it.

So what should you do with these “ninjas” all around you? Stop being lazy! That’s what got you in trouble in the first place! Be like the samurai. Show some discipline and do your homework. Look around for what’s best, not what is quickest or easiest. Don’t believe everything you hear. Whatever you read, hear, or are told should make sense to you. If not, then challenge whoever is saying it.

In other cases, like influence from family/friends or eating out at the mercy of the food prepared by the cook, you may need to make some difficult decisions and prepare in advance, or be ready to “just say no.”  Stop worrying about upsetting others. You need to look out for yourself if you want to be healthy in the war for fitness. As Sun Tzu writes in The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

For questions about why you should listen to anything Bob says in this article, email him at bob@functional-strength-training.com,

or visit his website at www.functional-strength-training.com