A recent article from Jillian Michaels pointed out that when we have a very stressful situation we go into "Fight or flight" and the hormones released stop us from feeling hungry (which makes sense) but the problem is this happens even when we are not being chased by a bear. According to her article, "The trouble is, it occurs in response to all stressors, including the deadlines pummeling you at work and the traffic that drives you crazy. When stress is always present, your body can't get rid of the excess cortisol built up in the blood. That cortisol just hangs around, causing lots of trouble: It turns young fat cells into mature fat cells that stick with you forever, and increases your cravings for high-fat, high-carb foods."

So the stress of the holidays compounded by mountains of cookies is not a good thing. 

We have to learn to deal with stress. Not only during the holidays but every day. 

I have a friend of mine who is planning on having weight loss surgery. It doesn't matter what kind, but in the end it is probably not going to work. 

Why? Because her weight is not the problem. It is a symptom. Numerous people have had surgery and found ways around the shrunken stomachs to eat themselves fat. Why? Because their weight was a symptom. A symptom of a problem. What problem? I don't know, but THAT is what they need surgery on. They should be in therapy for that, not under a knife to remove half their stomach. 

I think my friend is under estimating the discomfort of vomiting. She explain that if she eats to much she will vomit. I don't know about you, but if I can do ANYTHING to avoid vomiting I will. Don't forget the extra expense of the bills for paying for the surgery. Don't forget that in some cases you end up with a body that can't process nutrients anymore. See the story from NBC. 

My friend says she can't eat "Crap anymore." So let's do that. Don't eat crap. Try vegetables and fruits for snacks. Don't eat pizza and if you do limit it to one piece. Track your calories RELIGIOUSLY, and if you DO go over, find something that is REALLY PHYSICALLY UNCOMFORTABLE to do (for me it might be eating liver). Do something you don't want to do. Why? Because after your surgery and your body is telling you "You better get to a bathroom RIGHT NOW," I'm pretty sure you're not going to want to do that either. 

There are so many things that cause us to go for the refrigerator. There is stress, emotional issues, job, family ,friends, etc. All of these are typical. These are the problem. We USE FOOD to dull the problem. We USE FOOD to dull the pain. If you're are not hungry FOOD IS NOT THE SOLUTION. 

It's simple, but its not easy. In fact, its very , very, hard. 

My friend pointed out that doing a podcast about weight loss hasn't helped me. I admitted I know what to do, but I don't do it. So now I'm motivated to do the right thing to help her see if you do the right stuff you CAN Lose weight. 

FULL STORY ON NBC

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. -Budda

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. - Jim Rohn

Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they're making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that's the difference. Lou Holtz

I value self-discipline, but creating systems that make it next to impossible to misbehave is more reliable than self-control. Tim Ferriss

Success isn't measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. Mike Ditka

1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5.
3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.”
4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank.
5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13.
6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14.
7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15.
8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil.
9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19.
10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961.
11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936.
12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23
13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24
14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record
15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity
16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France 
17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28
18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world
19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter
20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind
22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest
23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream."
24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics 
25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight
26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions.
27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon.
28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas
30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger
31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States
32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out.
33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games"
34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out.
35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa.
36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president.
37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels.
38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat".
40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived
41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise
42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out
43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US
44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats

Apple products are known for their ease of use. That was before the Health app from apple. I spent a lot of time just trying to input my age, sex, weight, etc. The other thing that seems really stupid is you input different ingrediants and minerals, etc individually. So have fun when you eat a salad figuring out how much of each mineral is in your food. This seems really stupid. You can only assume that there is more to his product that I am unaware of. This just seems so NOT an Apple product.

Need some motivation? How about the sound of zombies coming up from behind? The sound on this is great. They really use stereo imaging to make it real. The only thing is there isn't much to do. I gained a bunch of objects, but I have no idea what to do with them .There was another thing missing. Zombies. Oh during the first few missions I was eaten by zombies, but I expected them to come out to play more often. I would often walk 5-10 minutes without a zombie approaching. I did later find out thst I could turn on my music (that would stop it from being boring). You can also listen to podcasts and they will automatically lower the podcast/music so you an hear the zombies or instructions. For me this app posed another problem and that was that it takes up almost 600 megs of storage. I have a 16 gig phone, and that's a chunk. If you are struggling for room for photos, this will be a challenge. I will be the first to say I didn't really give this my all, but out of the gate the game lost my attention and when I saw where future sessions would cost I lost more interest.

I LOVE my fitbit. It motivates me all the time. When you have friends that motivates me as well. Now they have added more motivational tools in the form of challenges. You can invite your firneds to a daily challenge, a weekend challenge, or a weekday challenge (winners win bragging rights). It's nice to see that other people are finding the time to move, and for me that is motivational. The best thing about the fitbit is they can be as low as $59. I use tie Fitbit one and it goes for around $99. Check out fitbits at fitbit.com

Today I share some insights into the movie Fed Up from the people of an unconventional truth and has Katie Couric. It is a straight shooting video that points out that we are just being lied to through the media as the food industries continues to feed us information through the media that is just a bunch of lies. You find out that a calorie is not a calorie. There is a great example of 160 calories almonds and 160 calories from a soft drink. You see where the drink just gets burned through the liver and turned into fat.

When I look at a box of Raisin bran, I see the daily percentages for fiber, salt, etc, but not for sugar. That's weird. When I look at a 12 ounce can of Mountain Dew there are 46 grams of sugar. There is no clue what percentage of my daily intake it is. Well according to the World Health Organization, that's because that one can of Mountain Dew (or insert your own sot drink of choice) may have close to DOUBLE the amount of sugar you need PER DAY. That ONE CAN is DOUBLE. They recommend 25 grams (ok, so almost double). The movie explains that sugar in these MAMMOTH amounts is toxic. Our liver can't handle it and we end up turning it into fat. Another cool part of the movie is where they show the tobacco heads telling congress that there is no link to cigarettes and lung cancer. Then the next clip is someone from the soft drink world telling congress that (according to a study that THEY PAID FOR) there is no link to soft drinks and diabetes. Really?

Because industry doesn't want it known. We ran tobacco right out of the country (almost), and they don't want to be next. When the mayor of new york tried to ban 64 ounce drinks everyone said he was trying to put in a police state. They get lots of publicity about how the government is trying to put in place a "Nanny state". They don't want it know that 80% of schools take money from Coke & Pepsi. They don't want it know than Pizza is now considered a vegetable (seriously?). How does this happen? Because the company that owns 80% of the pizza marketing in schools makes billions of dollars every year.

You have to see this for yourself. It's a riveting 90 minutes that shows you just how bad we have become.

You Can Download it in iTunes You Can Purchase the DVD

Here is a report from CNN

One of the doctors featured in the movie has now come out with a book called Fat Chance You can get the fat chance book as an audio book for free Help Support the Show

Today I'm wrapping up some of my thoughts on the book IMPOSSIBLE: How I Lost Nearly 400 Pounds Without Surgery I really like a segment on the 7 habits of healthy people . These inlcude:

Today I talk about a challenge that if you are watching TV you need to be moving!. Also I talk about spoiled athletes who never have to own their actions. 

I went to a conference and one of the keynote speakers mentioned that we should schedule our lives to be run at 40%. Why? Because life happens, and that gets moved up to 80%. The problem is we schedule ourselves to be run at 100% (I know I did the last few weeks and a 3 lb increase was the result). Look at anything that is mechanical (car, copy machine, hard drive) if they run 100% of the time they will eventually burn up and die.  So when we book ourselves solid, we are almost ensuring too much stress, too much pressure (because we have no wiggle room - we are sitting ducks if our life throws us a curve ball).

If you need help setting priorities, THE book you MUST read is called First Thing First by Steven Covery. It's a great book In it he point out some obvious stuff. We often jump on things that are urgent, but not important (we change our schedule so we can be home on time for "housewives"). The image below shows what to focus on: Important and urgent: The homework for your class is due Friday and its a big chunk of your grade. Urgent and not important: The phone rings during dinner. It seems urgent. When was the last time you took a life threatening phone call? Important but not Urgent: Your car needs an oil change, in 3,0000 miles. Not Urgent and Not Important: Anything on your Roku, or Apple TV.