June Weight Loss Quotes

June in Toronto. The weather is amazing, the idiot mayor is away at rehab, you have vacation time coming up... this is a very good time to be exercising.

So don't delay, get motivated and go outside and exercise. Rain and snow isn't really an excuse this time of year. The weather is beautiful and calling out to you!

So grab your running shoes, your bicycle, your tennis racket, your golf clubs, your archery equipment, your swimming trunks and go!

Mark Twain: Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
 
Julius Erving: If you don't do what's best for your body, you're the one who comes up on the short end.
 
Jim Eason: If you want to look young and thin, hang around old fat people.
 
Unknown Author: Instead of giving myself reasons why I can't, I give myself reasons why I can.
Vince Lombardi: It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up.
 
Milton Garland: My advice is to go into something and stay with it until you like it. You can't like it until you obtain expertise in that work. And once you are an expert, it's a pleasure.
 
Winston Churchill: Never, never, never, never give up.
 
Eleanor Roosevelt: No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: Not to have control over the senses is like sailing in a rudderless ship, bound to break to pieces on coming in contact with the very first rock.
 
Horace: Rule your mind or it will rule you.
 
Ellen Degeneres: You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she is.
 
Benjamin Franklin: You may delay, but time will not.
 
David Viscott: You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want to be.
 
Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
 
George Bernard Shaw: You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
 
Ralph Marston: Your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality.
 
George S. Patton: You're never beaten until you admit it.
 
Lee Iacocca: You've got to say, I think that if I keep working at this and want it badly enough I can have it. It's called perseverance.
 
Unknown Author: You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.
 
Unknown Author: You don't realize how strong a person really is until you see them at their weakest moment.
 
Goethe: Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.
 
Jim Rohn: Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live.
 
Thomas Fuller: That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.
 
Samuel Johnson: The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
 
Marvin Phillips: The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!
 
Plato: The first and the best victory is to conquer self.
 
Vincent Lombardi: The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It's your mind you have to convince.
 
Leigh Hunt: The groundwork of all happiness is health.
 
Anthony Robbins: The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results.
 
Roger Bannister: The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
 
Author unknown: The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places.
 
Thomas Jefferson: The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.
 
Carl Sandburg: The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.
 
Harold Wilkins: The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist.
 
Heraclitus: There is nothing permanent except change.
 
Swedish Proverb: Those who wish to sing, always find a song.
 
Elie Wiesel: Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
 
Martin Luther King, Jr.: We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.
 
Harriet Beecher Stowe: When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
 
Quintus Horatius Flaccus Horace: Who has courage to say no again and again to desires, to despise the objects of ambition, who is a whole in himself, smoothed and rounded.

12 Tips for being Happier, Healthier and Living Longer

#1. Eat your veggies - especially your favourite veggies - regularly.

#2. Enjoy sports that get you outside. They're fun and they're good for you.

#3. Stop worrying about what other people think about your choice of exercises. Just do them and have fun exercising.

#4. Try new things that get you outside and enjoying life in the sun.

#5. A little sunlight won't kill you.

#6. Enjoy your desserts, but don't drown yourself in them.

#7. The best parties are the ones where you drive home sober and extremely happy. (The worst are when you are too drunk and don't remember how you got there...)

#8. Being selfish and greedy with bacon will only make you lonely and fat. Sharing the bacon and keeping some in the fridge as leftovers, that is learning moderation.

#9. Golf was a sport invented by drunk Scots. Love it or hate it.

#10. Yoga will bring you more peace of mind and wellness of body. Don't diss it until you've tried it.

#11. Too much stress is never good for you. Learn to relax and unwind doing things that keep you active and alert.

#12. Spending time with family in the great outdoors is the best exercise a person can ask for.

Fast Vs Slow Twitch Muscle Fibers

Fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers are used for different things.

A martial artist who wants to be superfast, a sprinter who wants to be able to run 100 meters in under 10 seconds, or even a professional boxer would want to utilize their fast twitch muscle fibres.

Likewise people doing a sustained activity that needs endurance - like a gymnast who needs to be able to hold a pose while suspended upside down, or an archer holding their bow steady without moving while they adjust their aim, or a weight lifter who needs to be able to lift a specified weight and then hold it for so many seconds in order for it to count as a new world record.

A little background info:

Muscle is made up of bundles of individual muscle fibers called myocytes. Each myocyte contains many myofibrils, which are strands of proteins (actin and myosin) that can grab on to each other and pull. This shortens the muscle and causes muscle contraction - and it is the contraction of muscle fibres that allow us to do any number of physical activities.

A normal person has roughly 50% of each type of muscle fiber, but athletes of various kinds can train their bodies to have a radically different percentage of each muscle fiber (eg. Bruce Lee, martial artist and movie star, had a significantly higher ratio of fast twitch muscle fibers).

Muscle fiber types can be broken down into two main types:

Type I, Slow twitch muscle fibers.

The slow muscle fibers are more efficient at using oxygen to generate more fuel (known as ATP) for continuous, extended muscle contractions over a long time. They fire more slowly than fast twitch fibers and can go for a long time before they fatigue. Therefore, slow twitch fibers are great at helping athletes run marathons or bicycle for hours - and even more for activities that require just holding the same position, like gymnasts.

Type II, Fast twitch muscle fibers, which itself can be further categorized into Type IIa and Type IIb fibers.

Fast twitch fibers are much better at generating short bursts of strength or speed than slow muscles. However, they fatigue more quickly and use energy at a faster rate. Fast twitch fibers generally produce the same amount of force per contraction as slow muscle fibers, but they get their name because they are able to fire more rapidly. Having more fast twitch fibers can be an asset to anyone who primarily wants speed and isn`t worried about endurance.

Type IIa Fibers

Type IIa fast twitch muscle fibers are also known as intermediate fast-twitch fibers. They can use both aerobic and anaerobic metabolism almost equally to create energy. In this way, they are a combination of Type I and Type II muscle fibers. They are still faster than slow twitch, but not as fast as Type IIb.

Type IIb Fibers

Type IIb fast twitch fibers only use anaerobic metabolism to create energy and are the "classic fast twitch muscle fibers" that excel at producing quick, powerful bursts of speed. These muscle fibers have the highest rate of contraction (rapid firing) of all the muscle fiber types, but it also has a much faster rate of fatigue and can't last as long before it needs rest.

Fiber Type and Speed Vs Endurance Performance

We all have different amounts of fast vs slow twitch muscle fibers, and these in turn effect our athletic ability in different activities. Some of us might make really good gymnasts, but would be horribly slow when sprinting (and vice versa). Athletes typically get into sports that match their muscle makeup, but it is not genetics that is the biggest deciding factor, it is the types of previous exercises that determine which kind of muscles a person grows.

For example a person could be born to family of several generations of gymnasts, but if they practiced sprinting instead for many years the type of muscle fibers they build would be different. Your body adjusts the ratio over the longer term based on what types of muscle fibers you are using most.

How much is the ratio you might ask? Well, studies have shown that Olympic sprinters typically have approx. 80% fast twitch fibers - while people who do sports that require lots of endurance have about 80% slow twitch fibers. So the ratio of muscle fibers can vary quite wildly by up to 30% plus or minus.

Our bodies still need a ratio in order to perform every day activities. So even though 100% fast twitch would be great for sprinting, by the time the race is over the person would probably be too exhausted to even walk for a period of time. We still need both types of muscle fibers just to perform our daily routine.

Studies also have shown that different types of muscle fibers can also simply change into other types over the course of training. In theory (no evidence of this yet) Type IIa fibers might be an intermediary stage of muscle fibers that are transforming from one type into the other. Not a lot of research has been done into whether muscle fibers morph back and forth over the longer term.

What is known however is that people who train for endurance or speed gain what they are looking for over the longer term. It really is simply a matter of regular training, good diet, and taking good care of themselves to prevent injuries (because an injury can result in a loss of muscle tone if they cannot exercise during a long period of time).

There are many factors that make a great athlete (mental preparedness, proper nutrition and hydration, getting enough rest, and having appropriate equipment and conditioning). Different types of muscle fibers is just one factor. Some sports require a combination of both fast and slow twitch fibers, so having more of one is not necessarily beneficial.

eg. A football player would want both speed and endurance. Speed for when they need to be running in a hurry, but also endurance because they will be playing for longer periods of time - so they need muscle fibers that can do both.

The Two Step Approach to Weight Loss

Two Steps...

Step One - Eat healthy.

Step Two - Exercise daily.

We all KNOW these two steps, and yet people are often looking for shortcuts and excuses to not do either one or both of these two steps. How you accomplish steps one and two are largely up to the individual. You might listen and read to the advice of others, but in the end it is the individual who decides to take action in whatever manner they see fit.

Or lack of action as is often the case.

There are many different ways to eat healthy.

Eat in moderation.
Count calories.
Low or moderate carb diets.
High protein diets.
Low fat, low sugar diets.
Avoid anything unhealthy diets.
Vegan / vegetarian diets.
Etc
Etc

And likewise there are many ways to exercise.

Walking daily.
Jogging daily.
Going to the gym daily.
Weightlifting at home daily.
Yoga daily.
Various sports, daily.
Etc
Etc

Some people won't even do them daily, they might only be exercising once, twice or three times per week and still be doing well physically because they are at least exercising regularly and they are eating healthy.

The problem I find is for people who get easily discouraged, who cannot find an activity they really like, who think they don't have the time to exercise (and yet have time to watch TV or answer messages on Facebook), and who have difficulty controlling their eating habits.

My advice is to not despair. Do not give up. Do not get discouraged. Stay focused. Keep exercising. Keep eating healthy. How you do it is not the problem, that you keep doing it is the most important factor.

If a diet / exercise plan doesn't seem to be working for you, the answer is not to stop using it. The answer is to either keep doing it until it does work, or to try a different diet and exercise plan that does work. Don't just stop altogether. Change it until it works.

And don't cheat on your diet / skip exercise sessions and expect to lose weight. Cheating on your plan and then blaming the plan is not the solution. You only have yourself to blame if you skip exercising / cheat on your diet.

And don't stop just because you cheated on your plan either. Just get right back at it, keep working at it. Giving up because you made one or two mistakes isn't going to solve your problem. You need to stay focused.

Some people like to claim that weight loss is 90% exercise and 10% diet, or 10% exercise and 90% diet, or whatever combination they say it is. They're all wrong.

What it really is is 10% diet, 10% exercise and 80% willpower.

Willpower to keep going. To never give up. To stay focused. To keep doing it even in the face of mistakes.

You cannot be awesome unless you attempt the awesome

"You cannot be awesome unless you attempt the awesome." - Charles Moffat, Toronto Personal Trainer

If you want be a more awesome and amazing person - and this applies to having an awesome and amazing body - then you need to start doing and practicing more awesome and amazing things with your body.

Examples

You need to practice jogging long distances if you want to run a marathon.

You need to practice archery regularly if you want to be able to shoot a moving target.

You need to practice yoga and stretching / flexibility exercises if you want to be amazingly flexible and have amazing posture.

You need to practice your tennis swing if you want to be an awesome tennis player.

And so on and so forth.

Basically anything amazing that you want to do is more or less achievable, but you need to practice.

Don't let weight or age or even disability stop you. During the last summer Olympics a Korean archer competed who was legally blind (he can only see blurry colours) but his disability did not stop him from competing in a sport that requires visual acuity.

So if he can do it, what is stopping you?

Lack of time? Just make the time.

Physical ability? Take the time to improve your physical ability.

Disability? You can learn to overcome disability. You may never be great, but you will still be awesome.