Giving the Gift of Health with OMW

One of the best things you can do for those you care about (and yourself!) is to help them become and stay healthier. Whether they are family members or friends, their health will have an impact on your life. Your support and encouragement can make a big difference on theirs. Even better, exercising together can help keep both of you on track, leading to greater and longer-lasting results!

Due to popular demand, we've been busy working on making this easier. You can now buy OMW account upgrades as gifts for anyone with an email address. Just head over to www.oneminworkout.com/gift and fill out the form. Complete your gift purchase and we'll electronically send your gift to the recipient's email.

Trying to Lose Weight? Avoid the #1 Mistake Dieters Make

“I’m going on a diet!” That’s the first thing most people say when they want to lose fat or weight. But if that’s the first step you take, you’re already doing the wrong thing and setting yourself up for failure. Let me explain why.

Losing weight is as much a mental game of desires and discipline as it is a physical game of calories eaten and burned. Your body weight and composition reflects your inputs and outputs over time. If you change any of these for long enough, your weight will change accordingly. So, with enough time, any sort of change in diet will change your weight. But once you go back to your previous way of eating, your weight will return to that weight.

For example, you may lose a few pounds by starving yourself for a day or two. But when you stop fasting and go back to eating like you used to, you will return to your pre-starvation weight a few days later. All of that suffering will have been for nothing.

Fortunately, the same thing happens if you eat too much for a day or two. While your weight may go up for a few days, you can return to your pre-feast weight just by going back to your previous eating habits. So don’t freak out and punish yourself for indulging once in a while!

Now, how does this relate to going on a diet? When most people say “I’m going on a diet”, they are implying making a temporary change to their eating habits. Since they think it’s only going to be temporary, they’ll try almost anything to reach that arbitrary target number. Once they reach their target weight, they go back to their pre-diet eating habits. And to their dismay, their body goes back to the pre-diet weight. This is the #1 mistake people make when attempting to lose weight: trying to make a permanent change in their body by making temporary changes in their actions.

So, if dieting doesn’t work, what can you do? Rather than “going on a diet,” use the following mindset: “I’m going to change my diet!” This implies making permanent changes which will yield lasting results. In the end, this is what we really want for our looks and for our health.

With that in mind, choose methods that you can sustain indefinitely right from the beginning. In my book, The One Minute Workout, you’ll find a whole chapter called “What Should I Eat?”on making sustainable changes to your eating habits. One of the simplest techniques from that chapter that you can use right away is to only make small changes at a time. Doing so will enable your mind and body to adjust to the changes and allow them to become part of your eating habit. This is a lot easier than “going on a diet” where you do will-busting things like starving or depriving yourself of your favorite foods!

The #1 Problem with Fitness Resolutions and How to Beat It

Did you promise yourself to get in better shape or lose weight this year? If you’re like most people around now, you're really motivated and might even have a workout plan in mind. But will you be able to stick with it and reach your goal? More importantly, once you get there, can you maintain your results indefinitely?

This is the biggest problem with fitness resolutions and many workout programs. We all want to be healthier (and look better!) but we often don’t plan for the long term. What really matters is your current state of fitness and how long you can stay in shape. You could have been the fittest person on earth a couple of years ago but if you’re overweight and out-of-shape now, then your health is still at risk.

Long-term success is the result of consistency and a fail-proof way to be consistent is to turn productive actions into habits. When something becomes a habit, it becomes second-nature and requires much less, if any will power to do it. It takes priority in your mind over other obligations that compete for your time and attention. This is why people with good workout habits always seem to find time to exercise while others can never find the time and make excuses.

When you decide to get in shape, you may be tempted to jump right into one of the many intense workout programs out there. And that’s fine if you can do them consistently. Just make sure you don’t go overboard and end up injuring yourself as that’s the fastest way to sabotage your resolution.

Keep in mind that the novelty of the workout and your enthusiasm is inevitably going to wear off. The boot camp or workout program you saw on TV is going to seem a lot less fun and become a chore, especially as other obligations pop up and consume your valuable time. If you haven't established a workout habit, then there is a very high chance that you’ll stop doing it sooner or later. When that happens, any benefits you may have gained start going out the window, as though you never worked out.

A better idea is to ease into working out so it’s easier to establish a workout habit. Start with a regimen that is easy to fit into your schedule. This way, it’s not a Herculean task to regularly carve out time for your workout. 

Don’t choose exercises which are too easy since you’ll be discouraged by the lack of noticeable results. Also, don’t pick excessively intense workouts, unless you like frequent next-day soreness.

Instead, do exercises that push your limits just a bit. This will give you more positive results and less negative effects. As you get in better shape, increase the intensity of the exercise but NOT the time spent working out. This keeps the results coming without growing your workout into an unmanageable time-sucking chore. In other words, work out smarter, not longer.

If you’re looking for a sustainable workout that grows with you, take a look at The One Minute Workout. This time-efficient workout system (just 60 seconds a day) grows with you as you progress and is a great way to establish a workout habit that you can maintain indefinitely. If you end up using another workout program, remember to choose wisely and think about the long-term. Be consistent and don't let exercise consume your life. Time-limited programs such as the 30-, 60-, or 90-day challenges can be good but you'll need to keep working out even after the program is over. If you can't keep up with your workout, use something simpler like The One Minute Workout to maintain your gains.

Building Strength - The First Step to Staying Active and Healthy

Here's an article I wrote for the November 22, 2014 issue of The Sounds, a local Chicago newspaper.

In my last article, I mentioned several different aspects of fitness. While they are all important, some are more essential than others these days. As a doctor, the most common fitness deficiency I have observed is inadequate and/or unbalanced strength. I see this across the board in people of all ages. Younger people commonly develop chronic back and joint pain from poor posture or injuries. Many older people live a lower quality of life due to their inability to move around safely and independently. Unfortunately, many end up in the hospital after falling and sustaining life-threatening injuries.

Why is strength so important? Strength is the foundation of all movement, and movement is essential to health. The less strength you have, the harder it is to move around, which makes you less inclined to be active. As a result, your muscles become even weaker. This vicious cycle continues and before you know it, you are out-of-shape and suffering from various pains and health conditions.

Being strong isn’t about being bigger, looking ripped, or being able to lift heavy weights. It’s about making activities easier for yourself so that you don’t strain your body as much. This includes your heart and muscles as well as joints, ligaments and tendons. Strong, balanced muscles can help improve body posture, decrease the risk of injury, and reduce or even eliminate certain kinds of back and joint pain.

Fortunately, strength can be the easiest and least time-consuming aspect of fitness to build. Contrary to common belief, building strength doesn’t require going to the gym and lifting weights for hours. When your muscles are exposed to loads greater than they are accustomed to, even for short periods of time, they respond by growing stronger. This response occurs whether the load is from gym weights, heavy bags of groceries, or just your own body weight. In fact, you can build significant strength by training appropriately in as little as one minute a day, without any special equipment.

Try the following exercise from my One Minute Workout. Using a stable chair, hold the “Tuck Sit Press” position shown below for as long as you can. Do your best to lift your feet off the ground. If you can’t, then let your feet touch the ground lightly but minimize the amount of weight placed on them. This is called a “Rising Chair Press”.

Count or use a clock to time yourself. Stop when you get tired or when 60 seconds is up, whichever comes first. You should feel the muscles in your arms, chest, upper back, abs, and hip flexors strongly engaged during this exercise.

Tuck Sit Press

Tip: If you have a chair with solid armrests, it may be easier to use those as supports. You can also use two chairs placed shoulder-width apart, putting one hand on each chair seat.

Whether you finished a whole minute or not, chances are your abs started burning or your arms started shaking while doing the above exercise. That’s proof that your muscles were getting an intense workout. In just those few seconds, you blasted your chest, shoulders, arms, back, abs and hip flexors simultaneously. That’s almost your whole body! This is an example of how you can build significant strength without spending much time.

To maximize results, finish your One Minute Workout for the day by repeating this exercise throughout the day until you accumulate a total of 60 seconds. Do this exercise daily, push yourself a little longer each time, and you’ll grow stronger and feel better.

The Real Reason to Exercise

Before I go into the specific topics about health, nutrition, and exercise, I would like to share one of my philosophies with you. If you keep this in mind, you’ll always be able to figure out whether what you are doing (or not doing!) is right for you.

You may have several reasons for wanting to exercise. Perhaps you want to look better. Or maybe you want to be healthier. Or, you might even have a specific goal like bench pressing a certain amount or running faster than a certain time. While these are reasonable and even commendable goals, I think the best and most fundamental reason to exercise is the following:

Exercise so that you are enabled to do the things you need and want to do in life.

This basic reason is essential to our survival as living beings. If we aren’t able to perform when we need to, we’ll wither or die. It’s that simple. So, whatever your other reasons are for working out, if what you are or aren’t doing is threatening your well-being in the short- and long-terms, then you should reconsider your exercise regimen.

If you are the active type, consider whether you are over-exercising, especially if you have an injury. Is that extra set of reps going to be more effective than giving your body more time to rest and recover? Is training or playing through an injury worth the risk of it evolving into a debilitating chronic injury? You don’t want to make myopic decisions which disable you from staying active and performing optimally in the long-term.

Similarly, if you are the sedentary type, consider the degenerating quality of life you will face if you keep neglecting your body and putting off exercise. When your health goes down the drain, you won’t be able to focus on work or the activities you currently enjoy. So ask yourself, “Is watching an extra few minutes of TV each day instead of getting up out of your chair worth a lifetime of suffering?”

Once you look at your choices from this viewpoint, it becomes a lot easier to figure out which course of action is in your best interest. As we become busier and busier, remember to take a step back periodically and review your routine through this lens. This will help you stay on course toward your goals, and most importantly, give you the best chance of staying healthy.