Is soda really that bad? I daresay yes!

This is an article that I got from the beachbody website that I think everyone should read and consider. ESPECIALLY the diet soda drinkers because they are the ones that get sneak attacked...




There are countless reasons to stop drinking soda, immediately. Soda consumption has been linked to a host of diseases, including a dramatic increase in the risk for developing cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. The phosphoric acid that gives soda it's "refreshing" zing, is caustic enough to remove rust from the hulls of ships and dissolve acid build-up from car batteries. Tooth enamel and bones suffer that same erosion. Yet, people continue to guzzle the stuff in massive quantities. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, Americans drink more than 50 gallons per capita of carbonated soft drinks each year, the most in the world.

To add insult to injury, people who drink one or more soft drinks a day have a 31 percent greater risk of becoming obese. In his article about the Top 10 Reasons to Give Up Soda, our Fitness and Nutrition Expert, Steve Edwards says, "If you're looking for a scapegoat in the obesity epidemic, look no further than soda. It's the single greatest caloric source in the world, accounting for somewhere between 11 and 19 percent of all the calories consumed worldwide. It's cheap, addictive, and readily available, which generally means that it will take some willpower to avoid."

Diet soda is just as bad. Research shows that overweight people who choose diet beverages eat about the same number of total calories as those who choose sugar sweetened sodas. Their drinks may be calorie-free, but they make up for that by eating 88-194 more calories per day! What's more, when they snack, diet soda drinkers get more of their calories from sweets, which suggests that artificial sweeteners do something to cause an even stronger sweet tooth.

We know that eliminating soda from your diet is easier said than done. If you have to, ease into it. If you drink two sodas (or two liters of soda) cut that amount by half, and replace it with something from the list below:

1. Water. Learn to love it.
2. Need flavor? Add crushed berries, cucumber, lemon, or mint to water. Try these recipes.
3. Like it fizzy? Carbonated water is your friend.
4. Skip flavored syrups&madsh;try flavored bitters instead.
5. Crave caffeine? Try unsweetened iced tea or green tea.

Follow our 60 Days 'Til Summer Countdown and we'll help get you swimsuit ready with mini-workouts, healthy eating tips, fitness tips, and more! Each morning we'll post a new tip, so check our homepage or this post to find out what it is. And, make sure to follow the hashtag #SummerCountdown on Twitter for more motivation and to tell us how your #SummerCountdown is going!

Do you drink soda? Which of these tactics will you use to help you quit?

20 Secrets of Very Fit People

Here is an article I read from the free membership anyone can get on my beachbody website at www.beachbodycoach.com/mikestanger    This has a lot of good information in it!


Chalene Johnson

Here are a few Turbofied tips. Read these tips, then print and post them so you have them as a daily reminder. Look at exercise as a pleasure and a privilege, not a burden or chore. Think positively about the changes regular exercise will produce. Rather than obsessing about your next meal, get excited about your next workout! Focus on short-term fitness goals with an emphasis on completing daily exercise. Work to take your exercise to new levels of intensity. Make it your goal to do some form of exercise 6 or 7 days a week. If some days you exercise once in the morning and once in the evening, even better! If you're eating right, exercise will fuel your energy level! Create an exercise schedule the day before instead of leaving it to chance or waiting to "find" the time. If the last three Presidents of the United States can make time to work out every day, you can make time too! Enjoy contributing to the health of others by having a partner or friends to exercise with, as well as recruiting others who want to feel better and have more energy. Have a neighbor who's sitting on the porch every morning when you walk by? Ask him or her to join you on your walk! Avoid monotony by taking up new forms of exercising, or using things that keep you motivated and inspired, like new shoes or great music. Invest in the right tools—good shoes, a portable MP3 player or iPod®, fitness equipment, a new series of tapes, etc. Subscribe to fitness magazines to keep focused on health as an overall way of life. Eat well-balanced meals and remember that excess calories, even if they're from food that's fat free and high in protein, will turn to excess weight. No matter what the latest fad diet says, extra calories equal extra weight! Limit caffeine and exposure to even secondhand smoke. Keep a water bottle with you at all times and drink from it often. Water should always be your drink of choice. To kick things up every once in a while, try adding lemon, lime, cucumber, or a few berries to liven up the flavor without adding significant calories. Stick with eating plans you can maintain indefinitely. Remember that no matter how hard you're working out, if you're consuming too many calories, you'll never see the muscles that lie beneath layers of fatty tissue. Keep a daily log of what you're actually eating. This includes every time you grab a handful of chips here or eat the crust of your kid's sandwich there, and ALL of your snacking. Enjoy an occasional (once a week) "unhealthy" treat, but never an unhealthy week or unhealthy vacation. If your diet is unbalanced, take daily vitamin and mineral supplements for total health. Don't compare your body to others'. Instead, work to be your personal best. Move beyond the boundaries of weight loss and into total fitness. Measure success by the way your clothes fit, not some number on a scale. Get adequate amounts of sleep, but remember that people who exercise regularly fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly. Limit alcohol intake to special occasions.

Why do we do what we do?

There's a saying that I've heard before but for some reason today it meant more. "Your attitude determines your altitude". It got me thinking a lot.
I am quite an extremist in just about anything I've ever been interested in. I'll give you some examples. When I was into soccer, I literally did almost nothing in my spare time but play soccer. I got to the point that I was playing for the Olympic development team and then my interest started changing to bmx bikes. Then I quit playing soccer and I spent every possible minute on my bike. I rode like my life depended on it. I got pretty good and started getting sponsors and started getting offers to get paid for it. By that point I was partying (although in my teens I was super straightedge and despised drugs and alcohol) a lot but I started talking to Mormon missionaries and decided to change my life. So I gave up my dream of professional bmx in order to follow what I thought God wanted me to do and I got baptized. Up to that point I had been extremely anti Mormon. In fact, I had acquired a lot of information and started writing notes about how I was going to write a book to prove that the Mormon church was false. Anyways, instead of that, I got baptized and changed my life entirely. After a year I went on a mission and did my best to spread the news that the church is true. I considered myself to be a good missionary because my heart was into the work as much as I've ever experienced. In other words, I've been on both ends of many different extremes and I've learned an awful lot by doing so.
It would seem that I've gone off on a large tangent but the truth is, there is a point to all of that. In every example that I just wrote about, my heart was into whatever I was pursuing. My attitude in whatever I did made me successful in said activity/mentality. If my heart isn't into something, then it has never amounted to anything. There is only one time that I tried to do something that I didn't feel passionate about but that isn't something to write about here. That is for another blog post. Suffice it to say that I've never been successful at something that I didn't care about. So the saying that "your attitude determines your altitude" couldn't apply more.
What is your motivation to do what you do? Why are you in the career you chose? Is it just for money? Is there some deeper reason? I daresay that it's impossible to be happy in a career if there isn't some deeper reason than just making money. Also, you limit yourself in your level of success if you aren't happy doing whatever you're doing. There are exceptions to that, I know, but for the most part I think it applies to most people. Your attitude determines your altitude. If your heart isn't in it, you aren't going to be as good at it as you would be at something you love.
Why do so many of us settle for careers that we hate? I don't get it. You spend an average of 1/3 of your life at work. Why do we voluntarily make ourselves miserable for a minimum of 1/3 of our life? It makes no sense. Not to mention that it has lasting effects on the other 2/3 of your life. So long as your able to sleep like a normal person, then you spend another 1/3 of your life asleep. That only leaves 33% of your life to try and be happy! I don't know about you but I want to be happy as much as possible and 33% of my life doesn't sound like what I grew up planning on.
Maybe this whole blog post is only applicable to myself but I realized today that I'll never be a success at anything unless I have a deeper reason to do it than just money. I can't have a good attitude about something that I hate doing. I need to either enjoy the work, or feel like I'm providing an invaluable service or product to someone, or change peoples lives, or something else that makes a difference in the world, in order to really excel.

My health transformation

I was always very fit growing up until about the age of 23. I spent most of my free time on my bmx bike until then and when I stopped spending so much time on my bike, my gut started getting bigger. I ended up gaining about 25 pounds and then started complaining about how I was old and fat. I did that for 7 years. I always complained but I never had quite enough motivation to do anything about it. I always intended to do it but I just never did. Then my 25 year old healthy wife started having a lot of health issues and within 6 months she had gone from being super fit (she did p90x and ran almost every single day) and active to being in an electric wheelchair. We have 2 young daughters and so all the responsibilities that we used to share started to gradually fall on my shoulders alone. As her condition progressed, my responsibilities grew. It got to the point where I was raising my 1 year old and 3 year old almost by myself all while becoming the caregiver of my handicapped wife and also trying to juggle all my other responsibilities as a husband and father. I simply didn't have the endurance to get through each day without bonking. I decided that I needed to get in shape so that I could care for my wife, work, take care of the house, and still have energy to entertain a 1 year old and 3 year old. I started running regularly and eating a mostly vegan diet and I lost about 7 pounds and felt a little better but I still didn't have enough energy. One night I couldn't sleep and I watched a paid program about Focus T25. I told my wife about it the next day because I wanted to get it. She made fun of me at first but then I told her that it was Shaun T and she realized that it was legit, so I ordered it. Within 2 weeks of following the diet (with some adjustments because I'm not eating meat and very little dairy) and the exercises, my energy levels started increasing. Every day my strength is increasing and my energy levels are increasing and life is now not seeming quite so impossible to live. As of this coming weekend I will be 50% of the way through the program. I can't even begin to describe how much of a change it has made in my life. Not only do I have more energy to fulfill my responsibilities but I feel better, I am happier, I look better, and I feel like I have gone back to my early twenties body...all in about 1/2 hour per day for only one month!  Starting t25 was one of the best decisions I've ever made. It's made such a difference in my life that I became a beachbody coach to try and spread some of this wonderful feeling to everyone that is interested! I want my friends and family and everyone else to feel what I'm feeling. Most people probably don't realize how much it can change their life. I know I didn't. I didn't have enough motivation to do anything about my health until I pretty much had no other options and now I feel like I wasted the last 7 years by being unmotivated and unhealthy by choice.

Does diet affect your happiness?

One of my favorite things in this world is to find delicious food and eat it. Ever since I can remember, I have always been on a quest for the best food I could find. In fact, my wife and I had a goal that when I retire, we'd travel the world with the sole purpose that we'd find the best food on earth.
That being said, I had quite the epiphony about food a few weeks ago (about a week or two into my first beachbody program Focus T25). I'll get into that epiphony after giving you a little more background.
I never could understand how people could be so devoted to being healthy that they'd give up the joy of so many different types of food to maintain their health. Whenever people would talk to me about it my response was always something along the lines of "no thanks, I like to enjoy life". Food being one of my biggest pleasures in life made it seem impossible to enjoy life without those foods.
Then I started Focus T25 and when I started, I decided beforehand that if I'm going to do it, then I have to do it 100%. I figured if I didn't give it 100%, including the diet part, then I wouldn't be able to blame the program for not getting results. If I follow the program perfectly then I'll either get the wanted results, or worst case scenario, I don't get results but at least I can blame it on the program. So I decided to put my love for food aside for the 10 weeks and then resume life as normal if it didn't work.
The epiphony came after giving it all a try for just a few weeks. I noticed that I was sleeping MUCH better. I felt happier on a regular basis. I had more energy for much longer periods of time. For example, I could make it through the whole day without wanting to collapse and go to sleep at 6pm. I was getting more done at work. I could think more clearly. Plus, my opinion of what qualifies as "good" food started to change. I guess my pallett adjusted or something. When all of those things dawned on me, I realized that my motto of "no thanks, I like to enjoy life" should never have been my response to living healthy. On the contrary. "No thanks. I like to enjoy life" should be my response to eating unhealthy food and being lazy so that I CAN enjoy life to it's fullest!
My eating habits were playing a major role in most of the tings that I complained about and now my eating habits are playing a major role in correcting those things that I was unhappy about. It doesn't fix everything in my life but it certainly makes it easier for me to fix everything I can when I feel good.

Why everyone should exercise daily

I read this article by Tony Horton and I just wanted to copy and paste it here because this is a fantastic article and it gives EVERYONE a great reason to excercise. Here it is:

Your Brain on Exercise

By Tony Horton

There was an astonishing article in Newsweek a few weeks back that just blew my mind/brain/cranium/noggin. Here's what I've learned from this article and further research. We all know that working out and exercising do amazing things for our body, and the benefits, other than weight loss and getting fit, are endless. Most of us also know that when our hearts, legs, and lungs get pumping, we feel much better than if we did nothing. Turns out that doing 20 minutes or more of cardiovascular and/or high-paced resistance workouts affects every aspect of our lives. The great thing about the Newsweek article is that it really laid out the scientific findings over the last few years. Here's the scope. When you're forced to pull more oxygen into the body through exercise, you break what's called "the blood-brain barrier." It happens when you climb a long flight of stairs and when you're busting through any kind of workout that gets your heart rate pumping. This oxygen-filled blood makes its way into the temporal lobe of the brain. Inside that temporal lobe is an area called the hippocampus. Inside the hippocampus lies the seahorse-shaped area known as the dentate gyrus. As you exercise, these oxygen-filled blood cells rush into this area of the brain. A chemical/protein called IGF-1 is formed and released inside the dentate gyrus, which ramps up another chemical/molecule called BDNF; both IGF-1 and BDNF are "Miracle-grow" for the brain. Studies with kids right up to seniors have proven that high-paced workouts (www.milliondollarbody.com Power 90®, Power Half Hour®, Power 90® Master Series, P90X®, Tony & the Kids!, etc.) cause the release of these chemicals into the brain. Combine this with even more "brain drugs" like dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine and you've got yourself a feel-good party in your head. Aerobic physical movement causes the release of these chemicals, and they all help you focus and give you energy when you need it. They also help you relax and rest properly. It's like a homemade chemistry set inside your skull that produces a cocktail that simulates the effects of Prozac and Ritalin. Children who play outdoors more often score better on tests than kids who don't. Regular physical activity improves memory, mood, and problem-solving abilities. Consistent exercise raises self-esteem and decreases anxiety. Study after study has proven that people who exercise 5 to 6 days a week greatly decrease their need for psychotherapeutic drugs. If your brain goes without regular bouts of exercise, the hippocampus will shrink and erode, which can lead to neurological illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease. When the dentate gyrus is stimulated, neuro-genesis or neuro-plasticity occurs. I'm not talking about just slowing the aging process, I'm telling you that the brain creates new cells through exercise—brand new cells that assist in the reversal of aging. If you're looking for the fountain of youth, you can find it inside your head every time you exercise for more than 20 minutes. TMT X 2 anyone?