Teaching you how to achieve superior health, leanness and performance.
August 30th, 2010 Milan
There is a lot of fuss out there about how to prevent heart attack.
Heart failure kills the most people in the world.
I would say this: Don’t worry about details just remember this:
If you are exercising everyday regularly and intensively and you are eating healthy diet free of processed foods, rich in fruits and vegetables, you will not have heart attack.
If you don’t, you will have a heart attack at some point.
It’s as simple as that.
End of the story.
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August 23rd, 2010 Milan
When Anna Kournikova, a 17 year old tennis player with flowing blond hair, reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 1997, the women tennis craze started in Russia.
It was one of the most watched television events of the year in Russia, partly because of her looks, her age and mainly the exceptional performance.
She became a hero.
The girls in Russia watched the success of young Anna in masses.
They were stunned by her triumph (as was most of the world) and Russian euphoria happened.
At the time when Anna Kournikova was winning, lots of young girls picked up tennis and wanted to be like her.
They got hugely motivated. And that motivation didn’t seem to go away.
Years after, more and more Russian women were ranked in top 100 WTA.
Russian Women tennis players in top 100 WTA:
1998 – 3 – Anna Kournikova included
2001 – 8
2002 – 10
2005 – 15
2006 – 16
The motivation in these case worked exceptionally well. Why?
The need to belong, to associate, is among the most important human motives.
And that’s exactly what worked for Young Russian girls, who wanted to be like Anna. Fit like Anna. Hero like Anna. Pretty like Anna. And they started working hard to achieve that.
Are you lacking motivation to get fitter? To get healthier? To loose weight? Is it hard to keep going because you are loosing motivation?
Look around yourself. Are the people around you fit, lean, strong and active? If they are, you are probably fit too.
You want to belong, to associate with them. You want to be like them.
Are people around you lazy, fat and couch potatoes?
If they are, that could be a reason, that you are not motivated to get fit.
Is there a woman in your gym, work or book club, that is about your age and she looks great, she is lean and she is fit?
So you tell yourself, I am similar to this woman, she is very fit, she looks great. I want to be like her. I want to achieve those things too.
And that’s how motivation happens.
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August 16th, 2010 Milan
Do you already know what to do to get your body fit?
Do you already know what to eat to loose weight and feel good?
Did you already read 11 articles in your local paper about right eating, exercising and how to achieve great health?
Did you already read 2 books about how to loose weight?
Did you go to a few seminars, to learn how to do it?
If you did all of that already, you surely already know at least 80% of what to do.
But, you continue taking more seminars, reading more books and talking to more trainers, thinking, that more knowledge will help you overcome fear of actually doing what’s in the books.
If you do, you are a seminar junkie.
All the fit people I know are working their asses off in the gyms and running tracks, while you are reading that other book about how to loose weight sitting comfortably in your living room.
My advice for you?
You don’t really need my advice. Just close that book, turn off that computer, cancel that seminar and get out and do some real physical exercise.
You already know which one it is.
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August 9th, 2010 Milan
My grandfather was already by nature very relaxed person.
And he was great at not listening if he didn’t want to. My grandmother was always complaining about it. How he does not care at all about anything beside his rum and Spartas (very strong kind of Slovakian made cigarettes).
And he really did not care much about anything. He had his interesting world of his own, where only his grand kids could enter.
Stress free work.
My grandfather got to work at 8 A.M. and he worked until 4 P.M. Never longer.
There were no deadlines at work, you just had to be doing something.
That’s how work looked like in communism.
Institutions, even if they didn’t need any workers, they still hired a bunch of them.
So there were times when my grandfather came to work and was told bury the same hole he dogged out the day before.
That actually reminds me boot camps where people pay a lot of money to get some exercise.
At 4 P.M. my grandfather just put the shovel down and left home. No homework, no stress, no deadline to catch up with.
After work, nobody was really thinking about the work anymore and my grandfather wasn’t an exception.
Now, people are over-worked, over-booked, over-committed, over-stressed, they can not sleep, they have anxieties from all that stress and all that mental pressure.
This kind of pressure did not exist in eastern Europe when my grandfather was in workforce.
Cool hobbies.
My grandfather had many passions in his life.
He grew all kinds weird flowers, even those that eat flies and other insect.
He collected pins from world war 2, he was always inventing weird gadgets in his garage and he also loved European futbal.
He couldn’t wait to get home and feed his plants, or get to the garage, or trade some pins. And of course to have a drink and cigarette.
Lesson learned.
Mental stress is a killer. There is so much of it around these days.
People are loosing perspective of what is actually important in their life’s.
Keeping an eye on your own well being, getting regular exercise, eating healthy diet free of processed foods and having time for your passions and relax is the most important thing you can do.
Why?
Because all this applyes to your health. Don’t do it and your health suffers. And than everything else suffers with it. Which doesn’t really make sense to me at all, why would you allow that.
Life is too short to waist it on stressing about work, meeting deadlines and neglecting our bodies by not exercising, not sleeping enough and not having time to eat balanced nutritional diet.
Hobbies and passions are great stress fighters. When you engage in yours, you loose track of time and you relax in the process.
Also read:
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August 2nd, 2010 Milan
My Grandfather Julius lived long and healthy life. He worked hard, smoked hard and drunk hard.
Since my grandfather spent all his money on cigarettes and alcohol, he didn’t have any left for the “good stuff” – like – restaurant food, expensive snacks and drinks and packaged foods from the western countries you could buy in a specialty stores.
He wasn’t going to give up his cigarettes. And alcohol? Not bloody likely!
So without any spare money, he was left only with foods from his garden and stuff my grandma cooked for him.
My grandpa Julius hated it. And he always complained what he had to eat.
But to survive, he had to eat what he had – what my grandma cooked for him, and the stuff from his garden, complaining constantly how disgusting this stuff was.
My grandpa didn’t even realize it, but he was consuming the best and healthiest diet he could provide for his body.
His diet was very simple – natural, home cooked food with lots of greens, fruits and vegetables.
Example of my grandfathers eating:
My grandparents had chickens at home, so for breakfast after my grandpa smoked at least 5 cigarettes right after he woke up, he had few hard boiled eggs with some fresh tomatoes or peppers, onions and garlic.
Beside lots of alcohol, he ussually drinked black strong Russian tea without sugar all day. Sugar was in short supply.
I still remember when my grandma cooked huge pot of cabbage, second huge pot of beans and third huge pot of barley or oats or some other kind of grain.
Than after she cooked it, she and my grandpa were eating it the entire week with him complaining about it everyday.
Even I got to eat it when I came to visit. My grandma loaded big plate to me. I still remember it being pretty tasty.
And of course my grandpa eat this for dinner too, probably saying to himself: Hey “I still have my rum and cigarettes, so life is not that bad!”
There was no desert after lunch or dinner, but I remember there was always a huge basket of fruits on the table – apples, pears, apricots, peaches, or plums in it.
Couple of times per month my grandma cooked chicken she caught in the garden or rabit or fish my uncle caught in a nearby river, or she cooked a rhubarb which was everywhere in their garden, putting just a little bit of sugar in it for desert.
Lessons learned from my grandfathers diet:
When you are walking along the isles in the store, imagine that you just spent all your money on alcohol and cigarettes and there is very little left.
So if you don’t want to be hungry the rest of the week you will have to get a lot of really nutritious foods like beans, grains, fresh vegetables like cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower some apples and pears and some eggs, chicken, and maybe few cans of sardines.
And you will have to cook something from it at home by yourself.
Other healthy eating lessons:
Don’t drink anything sweet! Drink only water and unsweetened tea and coffee.
Limit restaurant food!
Don’t buy any packaged food! Get only the ones, that have only 2 and less items on ingredients list like: Jar of Peanut butter will say that it has only roasted peanuts. Or sardines will say: sardines, salt and water.
Cook at home!
Eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables!
If you want to bring your diet few steps further than read these diet articles and apply what you learned:
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July 26th, 2010 Milan
My grandfather smoked and drunk heavily, exposed his body to the sun often, getting his skin extremely burned in the process. But he also managed to live long and healthy life.
No, my grandfather Julius wasn’t a bodybuilder and he wasn’t a fitness buff.
And I am sure he didn’t even care to have big muscles or athletic body.
He worked on a farm and all he cared about was to finish that digging, to finish moving those heavy rocks, to finish carrying those heavy pots, so he could run to the nearest pub and have a drink or ten.
But that heavy, hard, long physical work kept him healthy, strong and young in spite of all that smoking and drinking, without him even realizing it.
He probably even hated his job, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had to work.
Unemployment in communism wasn’t an option. Either you were working or you were in jail.
And Julius didn’t have a car. He had to walk about 5 miles each way to get to his work. He loved that, because there were many pubs on his way home and he could enjoy lots of cigarettes while he walked.
There is a message from my grandfathers long hard working days outside:
Hard, long physical work especially outdoors is great for our healthy body and clear relaxed mind.
It is healing, making our bodies stronger and tougher. Forcing us to push the limits to the exhaustion, to hunt that wild animal so we could survive, making us healthy and fit in the process.
We were ment by nature to move constantly, to hunt, fight for our life’s, walk long distances, run from the dangerous tigers and protect our tribe.
Nobody has to do any of that these days. Life got much easier, comfortable, the challenge disappeared, and our bodies deteriorated in the process.
We have to realize, that it is necessary for our health and well being to bring this physical challenge back to our life’s.
Are you giving your body enough physical work?
I am not going to tell you to quit your job so you can work hard on the farm and reap the health benefits from hard work.
Times are different now, but the principles are the same.
If you work manually, great! You are probably getting lots of hard physical labor there. But you still can and should add more of it.
If you are working in the office, sitting on your butt all day, you have to find a way to do hard physical labor somewhere else.
You have a lot of options to do that.
Buy a few free heavy weights and build a simple workout station in you garden, or basement, or a spare bedroom, or join the gym.
Outdoors places are the best. Additionally exposing your body to cold and heat that makes it even tougher and healthier.
You should do your whole body strength training workout regularly 2 times per week. It should be done on 2 nonconsecutive days per week.
Add cardiovascular exercise other 4 times per week for at least 45 minutes, preferably outside.
Add some intervals to your cardiovascular exercise.
Activities like running, swimming, rowing, cross country skiing, walking, bicycling outside are the best.
You can apply some of my workout routines:
Gym workout plans:
Workout plan #1 – simple, effective and safe all-body-machine-resistance workout
Workout plan #2 – more extensive intermediate all-body-workout with combination of machines and free weights
Outdoor workout plans:
Workout plan #3 – Outdoor – beach circuit workout with Marta
Workout plan #4 – Outdoor – beach circuit workout with Milan
Increase your upper body strength, and your metabolism and get leaner with these intense chin ups workout
Interval workout on tennis court- tennis workout
Highly functional workout – somewhere just behind your house
Home workout plans:
Home workout plan for elderly people and beginners
Resistance band strength workout for Zlatka
Stretching and warm up:
Stretch before workout, after warm up!
Stretch at work, office
Office workout:
Office workout – beginner # 1
Office workout – beginner # 2
Office workout – intermediate # 1
Office workout – intermediate # 2
Office workout – advanced # 1
Office workout – advanced # 2
Office workout guidelines
Strength training guidelines:
Breath correctly during the resistance exercise
Warm up before workout
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July 19th, 2010 Milan
What is the secret to a healthy, long life? What really matters?
I might have an answer for you.
The answer comes from 82 years of my grandfathers lifestyle.
My grandfather Julius broke first 3 major rules of healthy long life. And he broke them big time.
He was a heavy smoker.
Honestly, I have never met anybody in my life who smoked more. He was sm0king nonstop like a locomotive that never stops.
To tell you the true, I have never seen him without a cigarette. He smoked outside in the garden, he smoked inside when he came to visit us. My parents didn’t mind, since they were heavy smokers too.
I think he even lit a cigarette in public transportation few times, because he couldn’t wait to have a smoke.
I tried to count the amount of cigarettes he smoked and I came to this:
He smoked a cigarette for about 10 minutes starting right away when he woke up. That’s about 6 cigarettes per hour. If I count 8 hours for sleep for him, that makes him 16 waking hours.
Lets say, 3 hours throughout the day he couldn’t smoke for some reason, which is pretty conservative estimate. That makes 13 hours of smoking 6 cigarettes per hour – 13 X 6 = 78 cigarettes per day. That’s almost 4 packs per day.
He was a heavy drinker.
This was kind of a cultural thing of my grandfathers generation.
You were actually considered a little off if you didn’t drink regularly at some traditional old stinky beer pub after work.
Of course, they didn’t serve only beer, they had other goodies like the cheapest and the strongest kinds of vodkas, rums and gins. The stronger the better. Most of the time, beer was just a back up for the hard stuff.
Wine was very uncommon for a guys like my grandfather. It was considered weak. It would take forever to get some buzz from it, since guy like Julius had huge resistance to alcohol, built over time of drinking.
And my grandfather loved hanging out at old beer pub at railroad tracks and drinking heavily everyday.
And of course, he also drunk when he was home and my grandma wasn’t around, or secretly pulling his bottle from under the bed.
Interestingly, in spite of all that heavy drinking, I always saw my grandfather straight on his feet and never tipsy. That was probably that resistance or trained body for alcohol consumption if you wish, that I mentioned before.
He worked outside on the sun all day and he never used sunscreen.
My grandfather Julius spend all day outside on the strong sun, working on the nearby communist farm.
He never used sunscreen, because, quite frankly, they were not available.
His skin got burned every year several times, since he also never wore a t-shirt.
So what do you thing?
Plain terrible. You would think and me too, that person living lifestyle like this would dye at 43, if he is lucky.
Yet my grandfather Julius lived all the way to 82, dying after he tripped somewhere on the street and fell on his head.
If he didn’t have this injury, I am pretty sure, he would be still sitting with me somewhere in his garden, enjoying his cigarette and drink, dark from the sun burned unprotected skin in his nineties, telling me the war stories we used to love to listen.
Don’t get me wrong.
I don’t want you to start smoking, drinking and not using the sunscreen to live long healthy life.
All this things are very, very bad for you.
What I am trying to say is, that there may be some more important stuff to do in our lives, that make our bodies healthier and longer lasting.
And I strongly believe, that there are more important things for our health to do than not smoking, drinking and not using sunscreen.
There are 3 grandfathers Julius lifestyle secrets I observed, that in spite of heavy abusing of smoking, drinking and sunburning helped my grandfather live long and healthy life.
I am going to write about them in my next 3 posts.
You probably already know about them.
Let me just tell you and remind you, that they are critical and very, very important for healthy body and long life.
My grandfather probably didn’t consciously think and know about them, but luckily for him, they came as consequences of his lifestyle, that was so typical for his generation and the place he lived.
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