I recently had someone ask me recently about proper body proportions.  I did some searching and found a couple of things that might be helpful if you are looking to find the right proportions of various bodyparts to one another.

Disclaimer: This is not for everyone.  Considering we live in a world that is obsessed with having a perfect body, some of this information might be a little too much for you.  If you can enjoy it and appreciate it for what it is, without being down on yourself because you don’t fit the “perfection” mold, read on…..

Why is this important?
That really depends on the individual.   For most people, this isn’t important at all, for others, it will be just what you are looking for.

Who is this not for?
If you just want to be healthy, this might not be important to you at all.  It’s so much more important to move than to look a particular way.  Also, if you have a tendency to go a little overboard at times with your health and fitness, don’t let this cause another obsession for you.

Who is this for?
I would say this is for those who want to look their best.  They are in great shape and want to take things to a new level.

How does this work?
It’s all based on math.  Just like pyramids or Leonarda Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man, there are proper proportions to create balance and some would say beauty.  People have applied this idealogy to bone structure, the face, and muscles. 

What are some examples?
Leonardo described the proportions in this way:

• a palm is the width of four fingers
• a foot is the width of four palms (i.e., 12 inches)
• a cubit is the width of six palms
• a pace is four cubits

• a man’s height is four cubits (and thus 24 palms)
• the length of a man’s outspread arms is equal to his height
• the distance from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of a man’s height
• the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is one-eighth of a man’s height
• the distance from the bottom of the neck to the hairline is one-sixth of a man’s height
• the maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of a man’s height
• the distance from the middle of the chest to the top of the head is a quarter of a man’s height
• the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is one-fourth of a man’s height
• the distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of a man’s height
• the length of the hand is one-tenth of a man’s height
• the distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose is one-third of the length of the head
• the distance from the hairline to the eyebrows is one-third of the length of the face
• the length of the ear is one-third of the length of the face
• the length of a man’s foot is one-sixth of his height

There is a lot of research out there based off Fibonacci, the Golden Ratio, Divine Proportion, etc…

I have seen the proper body proportions of muscles for males and females and it was based off pyramids, ratios, and a host of other things.  So if I find them, I’ll be sure to update this post.  But there are general rules for proper proportions for the human body.  One was done by the US Army in the 1970’s.  The link will take you to a calculator that will determine the proper proportions for the human body.  Bodybuilders have also come up with their own ratios for competing.

In regards to the every day, normal fitness enthusiast, the only person I know who dug deeply into this subject was Dr. Bruce Nadler.  He was a plastic surgeon that changed his career into personal training.  He wrote a book entitled The Nip Tuck Workout.  I have not read the book, so I don’t know how deep he dives into the subject in it.  I do have a DVD of a seminar of him speaking one time.  I’ll pull it out one day and see if he gets deeper into the subject.  If anyone has an interest in learning more about this subject, let me know and I will share what I find with you.

Personally, I love chinese food.  I had the opportunity to have a lot of friends from different cultures (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese), and they introduced me to a lot of different types of food.  Some of the foods I loved, and some I will never eat again.  Some of the things I ate I still don’t know what it was, and there were other times I wish I hadn’t found out what it was that I ate.  But I loved the variety and I really love the opportunity to use chopsticks.  I guess because it took so long for me to learn how to use them properly; I like to show off what I learned.  =)  I have to admit though, I rarely eat many of the foods that I love anymore.  The reason is that I won’t eat them unless I can find a way to eat them in a healthy way.  I can make my own sticky rice and stirfry, but I admittedly rarely do it.  Well, I recently ran across an article from Men’s Health on how to eat healthy Chinese food.  If you love Chinese food as much as I do, it might just be worth a look.

Personally, I think it’s imperative that people take care of their health.  But finding the time can seem impossible for business owners.  Take a look at a competition that lists that Fittest Executives and learn from them.  Many people use their business as an excuse as to why they can’t be in shape.  Other business owners use fitness to make sure they do their job to the best of their abilities.  Which one describes you?

I’ll be on the radio between 1 and 2 Central today to talk about how busy business owners can be healthy and successful.  Listen Live

Being healthy and in shape as a business owner can increase your energy, improve your attitude, decrease stress, decrease you number of sick days, and inspire your employees to live a healthy lifestyle.  You have the power to control the atmosphere of your workplace and the health of your employees.  At a time when everyone is cutting cost, how can you improve your bottom line?

Studies show that having employees who are overweight or obese, cost the company significantly over a one year period of time.

You have the power to change that though.  By setting a good example and incorporating a fitness program into your business, you will see a return on your money greater than the amount you invest into it.  The amount of return you can expect to make could be anywhere from 2:1 to 4:1, depending on the program.  So if you think fitness is a waste of time, or it’s not worth the money you put into it, you might want to reconsider.

We (in the U.S.) have sugar consumption more than 170 pounds per person per year! Did you know that average American gets more than 400 calories a day only from sugar?!

I found a great article online about how to read labels and find hidden sugar in your food.  If you are interested in finding ways to reduce the amount of sugar in your food, you should read it.

What does the overindulgence of sugar from soft drinks do for you?

1. It weakens the immune system by producing hormones
2. It can change mineral balance in bodily fluids
3. It can effect anxiety, hyperactivity, depression, and thinking abilities.
4. It can increase the number of triglycerides in the blood.
5. Cause Drowsiness and Fatigue
6. Reduces good HDL cholesterol and increases LDL cholesterol (Bad)
7. It can cause hypoglycemia (low blood sugar)
8. Increase the risk of bacterial infection (i.e. diarrhea)
9. It has bad effects on the kidneys
10. Increases risk of cancer, especially pancreatic cancer
11. Can vastly increase the risk of Coronary Heart Disease
12. Lead to several vitamin deficiency
13. Can increase fasting glucose (aka increase risk of diabetes)
14. Promote Dental Problems.
15. Can cause Acidic Stomach
16. Increase the Adrenaline in blood (the stress hormone)
17. Can speed up aging
18. Increase total cholesterol
19. Majorly contributes to obesity
20. Can increase the risk of ulcers disease such as Crohn and Ulcerate Colitis
21. Contributes to Osteoporosis
22. Causes decrease in the production of insulin
23. Can cause cardiovascular disease
24. Increase systolic blood pressure
25. Increase food allergies
26. Can increase the amounts of radicals in the bloodstream
27. Cause Toxemia
28. Over stresses the pancreas resulting in problems resulting the pancreas
29. The build-up of plaque in the arteries
30. Increase the size of the liver
31. Increase the amount of fat in liver
32. Can cause hormonal imbalances
33. Can cause hypertension (high blood pressure)
34. Causes headaches
35. Increase the risk of blood clots and strokes
36. Bacterial infections in the colon

Source

It’s not as easy as it use to be.  Baby boomers longing to get away with what they did a couple of decades ago are disappointed to find that they find that the fat stays with them.  It’s not fair, but here are some quick facts about why you put on weight so much easier than you did years ago.

1. Activity Level Drops – You may think your lifestyle isn’t much different than it was years ago, but if you really think about it, your habits have changed.  Long walks, bike rides, playing racquetball in your spare time have all disappeared from your schedule.  A decrease in activity level = less calories being burned.  Less calories being burned means you can’t get away with eating as many.
2. Food intake – Let’s face it, life is busy.  Your eating habits are not what they use to be.  Instead of snacking throughout the day, suddenly your eating breakfast walking out the door, eating drive-through at lunch, and eating all of your calories.  And most of the people who are reading this, skips at least one of those meals.  Because of this, your metabolism is crashing and you are gaining more and more weight every year.
3. Less Intensity – Even if you have kept your exercise routine, the intensity just isn’t there anymore.  If you played racquetball years ago, you really played.  If you played a pick-up game of basketball, you played for hours.  The intensity was fierce and the calories burned were amazing.  Now, going for a run around the block is a huge workout.  Less intensity means a lot less calories are now burned.
4. Hormone Changes – This is inevitable.  Testosterone levels drop, menopause occurs, growth hormone levels decrease and hormones change over time.
5. Old Injuries – It happens to most people.  That shoulder just isn’t what it use to be, or maybe it’s the knee that bothers you when you try to go for a run.  The back only flairs up occasionally, but hopefully working the core will help it.  Old injuries can hold you back from working out as hard as you need to lose your weight.

Don’t give up yet though.  Subscribe to my newsletter and learn how to keep age from getting in the way of accomplishing your goals.

The FDA has issued a warning about the following weight loss supplements:

They contain active, undeclared pharmaceutical ingredients. For a full list of the drugs listed and the dangers associated with each of the supplements, you can view the full article on the FDA website.

I saw this story and want to read more about it as it progresses.  It turns out they are saying there is a fat virus.  I really didn’t see this coming.  I know there are a lot of things that people talk about causing weight gain, but a virus is a whole new concept.  It turns out the virus is spread around when people are young and causes the body to increase the number of fat cells.  Yes we do have an increase in the amount of obesity, but I believe it has more to do with the decrease in physical activity and increase in food intake.  In regards to the fat virus:

But Dr Tam Fry, chair of the Child Growth Foundation, said: “I’m sceptical because this theory has been around for 10 years and no-one has come up with a comparable study to back this up.

“Concern over the obesity epidemic seems to be throwing up a whole load of off-the-wall ideas but the message remains the same, that sensible eating and exercise are the major components to get your weight under control.”

 

I’m glad all researchers aren’t falling for it.

Here is my latest video about interval based training.  In this example, I will walk you through the process of setting up the Life Fitness treadmill so you can have a great workout at just the touch of a button.

 

I use 3 different ratios when I talk about interval training:
3:1 = 90 seconds fast, 30 seconds slow
2:1 = 60 seconds fast, 30 seconds slow
1:1 = 30 seconds fast, 30 seconds slow

I often see couples trying lose weight together.  It never fails, 3-4 weeks into their program I see the frustration in the wife because her husband is loosing more weight without trying near as hard.  You can count on men losing weight a little faster due to having a higher metabolism, more muscle mass, and more testosterone, but there is also something else that comes into play (but we will get into that in a moment.

More muscle mass is obvious.  Most men have more muscle mass.  Muscles burn calories, even at rest.  More muscles therefore = more calories burned.   3,500 calories = 1 pound of fat.  Therefore if someone has more muscles and burn more calories, they burn more fat.  When men workout they use heavier weights which burns even more calories which means they lose weight easier.  And when they walk/run, they are usually moving more bodyweight, therefore burning more calories and losing more weight.  And since we now know they burn more calories throughout the day doing the same basic things as their wife, this explains the higher metabolism.  I’m sorry if that all sounds confusing, but basically men burn more calories a day than females, which allows them to lose weight faster.

But new research has come out that shows there is more to it than just that.  It turns out that men are better dieters than women too.  No way!  Really?  Well, according to an article on Time.com, it’s true.  They has a group of men and women fast for 17 hours.  When the time was up, they put them in front of their favorite food and wouldn’t let them eat it.  Think that’s bad?  It gets worse.  They start describing the food to them, telling them how it’s prepared, and even give you a tiny, cotton ball size taste of it!

“Now forget about it!” 
For the next 40 minutes, with their eyes open, they were told to take their mind off of the food staring in front of them.  (They measured everything by brain activity.)  Turns out men were able to take their mind off of the food much more easily than the women.  Interesting.

Now the study only involved 23 people, so a larger sample size of people would have been nice, but it sounds like an interesting study.  Anyway, if you would like to read more about it, here’s the link.

Houston is once again in the top 10….for the fattest cities in America.  At one time Houston was the fattest cities in the US, but we have now dropped to number 6.  I’m not sure if that’s encouraging or discouraging.  I really wish we could improve and get past this, but it turns out that we have a love for donuts.  According to Men’s Health, “Donuts are 132 percent more popular here than average, according to a comparison of places where they are sold. Houston has the 6th highest number of donut outlets per capita in our survey. ”
We also have a high air pollution and a low number of home gyms.  Not mentioned was the long commute time as well, but that issue has been discussed in previous years.  I’m ready to see us beat this list, but I’m just not sure how or when it will happen.

Personal trainers meet new people every January who are determined to lose weight.  And as a personal trainer in the Katy area, I have discovered that a lot of people don’t see results simple because they aren’t sure how.  Sure, they know to lose weight they should exercise and eat healthier, but beyond that, they really aren’t sure exactly what to do.  If you are one of the people who are unsure of what to do, here is a simple guide to make sure you achieve your weight loss results.

1. What is your goal? – The first step is the easiest step.  You have to figure out what you want to accomplish.  There is more to it than that though.  As a personal trainer, I often ask people what their goals are, and I usually get the common response, “lose weight”.  “I want to lose weight” is not a goal.  You need to be very specific for your goals.  “I want to lose 20 pounds by April 15th,” is a good goal.  Write down your specific goal and keep it in a place you will be able to observe it so you can stay focused and lose weight.
2. What is my plan? – You have to have a solid plan if you want to lose weight.  What is your plan?  “Exercise and eat better.”  As a 12 year veteran of personal training, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this response.  That’s great, but it’s not a plan.  A plan would sounds like this, “I plan on working out 5 days a week.  I will spend two days a week doing total body strength training workouts and 3 days doing a 30 minute interval based cardiovascular workout.  My calorie intake will be approximately 1,500 calories and will be 40/30/30 split, etc……”  I know it sounds like a lot of stuff to be held accountable to, but let me ask you one question.  Of the two answers, who do you think is more likely to get results?
3. What am I going to eat? – Since we just talked about this, let’s expand on this a little more.  If you want to lose weight, you have to know what you are going to eat.  “Healthy” is not a plan.  You have to have a general idea about how many calories you are going to consume, a general idea of what you are going to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, and the mixture of carbohydrates/protein/fat intake you are going to consume.  That is a plan to lose weight.  Of course you won’t know every little detail every day, but you should have a plan in place for those times when you can control what you are eating.  Nutrition is the biggest part of weight loss.  If you don’t have this step in place, expect about a 70% decrease in the amount of results you want to achieve.
4. How much cardiovascular activity are you going to do? – Cardiovascular activity is important, but I would say that 90% of the people I meet do this step completely wrong.  And these are usually the same people that usually don’t make it past March because they get so frustrated with their lack of results that they give up.  Some will get on a treadmill and walk.  They start losing a little bit of weight, only to see the results suddenly stop.  They get bored and tired of exercising for nothing and eventually give up.  Honestly, I would give up too if I didn’t get results.  The other people are the ones whose face is so red from killing themselves on the treadmill that they look like they are going to explode.  They are going as fast as they can, and usually hanging on for dear life, simply because if they fall off, they will probably get hurt.  Unfortunately, neither of these groups of people get long lasting results.  Your goal should be focusing on interval based training that allows you to both work hard, improve recovery heart rate, and see a gradual increase in your cardiovascular capability over time.  Not only does it produce faster results (to see the research studies on this, subscribe to my newsletter), you will be able to work out for less time to see those results.
5. What does your strength training program look like? – “I don’t want to do strength training
   

   Strength Training is essential to have a tone body.

   because I don’t want to get big.”  This is one of the biggest weight loss mistakes there is.  It’s a myth that strength training will keep you from losing weight.  In fact, if done properly, strength training will make you lose weight faster than if you avoid it.  If you tried it in the past and it did not work out for you, I bet it’s because you did not do the steps listed above at the same time.  A proper strength training program will not only help you increase bone density, muscle tone, and give you more defined shoulders and triceps, but will also help you lose weight faster.  If you avoid this crucial step, not only will you cheat yourself of achieving faster results, studies have shown you will be less likely to stick with your weight loss goals for the long term.

Katy residents, this year, make sure you get results.  For 12 years I’ve watch a lot of people succeed, and even more fail.  You can be successful, but you need to make sure you follow the steps above.  If you don’t have all of the steps in place to get results, contact me with the form below.  Don’t take chances on not achieving your results.  Contact me for a free consultation to discuss your goals and I will help you devise a plan to make sure your New Year’s Resolutions are a success.

If you are thinking about joining a gym, but are intimidated with the typical gym environment, I may have the perfect solution for you.  Contact me about the small, private facility I train at that will help you get results, without worrying about other people watching you.

New Year’s Resolution Complimentary Consultation

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers Monday to avoid more than two dozen products marketed for weight loss because they contain undeclared ingredients that could pose serious health risks.

The FDA identified the weight loss products as: Fatloss Slimming, Japan Lingzhi 24 Hours Diet, 7 Day Herbal Slim, 999 Fitness Essence, Imelda Perfect Slim, Perfect Slim, ProSlim Plus, Slim Express 360, Superslim, Venom Hyperdrive 3.0, 2 Day Diet, 5x Imelda Perfect Slimming, 8 Factor Diet, Extrim Plus, Lida DaiDaihua, Perfect Slim 5x, Royal Slimming Formula, Slimtech, TripleSlim, 3x Slimming Power, 3 Day Diet, 7 Diet Day/Night Formula, GMP, Miaozi Slim Capsules, Phyto Shape, Slim 3 in 1, Somotrim, and Zhen de Shou.

Source: ABC News

If you are looking for a way to cut calories, skip the restaurants.  Both fast food and sit down type establishments typically have more calories in a meal than when you prepare your food at home.  I think a big reason for this is the amount of butter and creams that are used as a way to enhance the taste at your local establishment.  Let’s face it, if we are going to eat out somewhere, we are going to go to the place that has the best food, not the “lowest fat”.  The Department of Agriculture did this study that showed the differences between the calorie intakes in the different kinds of meals.  The bottom line is this, if you are looking to lose weight, your best option is to prepare the meal yourself.

Have you heard about this in the news yet?  I feel so bad because Oprah has her weight problem broadcast to everyone.  It’s hard enough to deal with the problem on your own, much less having the whole world talk about it.  Oprah is struggling with her weight and the world knows about it.  She’s reached 200 pounds now.  On one hand, it’s hard to imagine how she struggles with weight considering how much help she has (cooks, personal trainers, etc…) but on the other hand, I know it can be a struggle no matter how much help you have.  That’s why I’m writing my book.  I hope it will help all people get into the right mindset so they can accomplish their weight loss results.  Who knows, maybe one day I’ll get a chance to help Oprah lose weight once and for all.