The early stages of ageing seem to require less effort but building good habits and sticking to a skin maintenance routine-based on your skin type is key to maintaining a younger look.

Take this simple advise to age well from your 20's to your 40's.

The 20's are fighting acne and preventing sun damage in the later years.  To do this, use a daily cleanser in the morning and in the evening.  An exfoliating cleanser with glycolic acids does the job.  To help prevent sun damage it is best to apply a moisturizer with SPF 15 in the morning to prevent dryness and shield ultraviolet rays.  Also, where sunglasses to protect your eyes from sun damage and squinting.  This will help prevent wrinkles too.

The 30's are the start of wrinkles.  To help ward off wrinkles start your day with an eye cream that stimulates cell growth and collagen production to bolster the thin skin around your eyes.  Mid day or evening depending on how oily your skin is use an exfoliating pad to swipe your face.  Especially before bed.  By exfoliating you are gently clearing off old skin cells to reveal fresh skin.

The 40's the wrinkle battle continues and you want to avoid them deepening as your skin loses elasticity with age.  Antioxidants become important so you should begin to use a cream with vitamin C to help protect against damaging free radicals generated by the sun.  An overnight serum used with a cream or alone can help your skin cells reproduce as you sleep. Of course sunscreen is still important for daytime protection.

...as you get older cut back on dehydrating intake such as sodium and alcohol and for healthy looking skin and teeth...no cigarettes.

by James Nelson II

There’s no easy way to live through a bad haircut: that’s just the cruel truth about it. Aside from the obvious-avoiding a bad haircut situation in the first place-surviving a nasty ‘lowering of the ears’ gone wrong is more about what you choose to do next and how you deal with it.

So the cut went wrong. One can’t very well walk around with obvious dints and dents in their mane of glory…consider the re-cut. Yeah it may be yards shorter than you ever feared in your worst nightmares, but it’s all about how you set your mind about it. Make it a choice: tell people you shaved it for a charity…better yet, actually donate to one and brag about it to friends and co-workers. Transform your dismayed ego into an act of social grace. In fact, dare your buddies to join you. What started as a heinous chop will become a merit badge in your personal history. One day you’ll even be able to laugh about it.

Once you make the determination to go all the way with a new ‘do’, however temporary you wish to make this style choice, you have to decide who’s going to do it for you. Did your barber or stylist make an innocent mistake? Were they trying something new that went wacko on your head? Have they been pretty on the spot for you for a long while, and this just represents an unfortunate event? Or did you make that fatal decision to just pop into a new place cause it was convenient, while you were on the run? We really wouldn’t advise you to begin home-barbering in the bathroom if your hand/eye coordination isn’t aerospace accurate! Make sure you find an experienced operator that you trust to pull the phoenix from the fire rescue routine on your man-mane!

By now, it should be clear that surviving this situation is 99% mental…only time will allow your locks to return to former glory.  In the meantime, don’t walk around looking like you have the mange. You never know, you might even like the new look that results. Bottom line: make lemonade out of lemons.

The biggest reason for disliking any hair product is never being taught how to use it!  Too often, products are handed off by stylists, to their guests, with nary a word of proper advise.  Consequently, the magic goo, that worked so well in their hands, becomes the nightmare gunk your perplexed with at home.

Here’s the deal:  you need to ask for direction if it’s not provided.  Don’t turn this into an, I don’t need the map, I know the shortcut: moment in the car situation.  You are not going save time or face, and you will be lost.  That’s the first step.

Second, master a very simple, generic method of emulsifying most products (from gels to pomades).  A small amount of product gets rubbed between the palms of the hands and fingers.  Then, using fingers only, begin working product into the thickest and heaviest sections of your hair working from the back, moving forward, is often best.  Reload product onto your fingers, from the remainder on your palms, working a judicious amount of product into each successive section of your mop.  After applying, punch, mold and command your fro into your preferred architectural likeness.

Different products require individual finessing to determine the right amount to use, but this general method of application will cut down on wasted product and deliver a more consistent result to your look.  And all those jars of failed product living under your sink; they just might have a new purpose in your trained hands!

As discussed in previous blogs, testosterone decline is not a happy event. It happens to all men as they age, but it is possible to fight it naturally, with foods and exercises a guy can follow that stop and even reverse the decline.

The interesting thing is that where women have a defined and distinct “change of life” in menopause, men’s change, sometimes referred to as andropause, is more a gradual process. In fact, sexual potency is possible much later in life for some men. What is their secret? For the most part, it’s being healthy.

The corollary of that is how unhealthy habits can make your T levels drop. Like a stone, actually. These habits fall into three categories:

Inactivity

Sedentary lifestyles, devoid of not just exercise but of just staying at home and not engaging with the world, can impact T levels in several ways. First, without movement muscles atrophy and lower muscle mass leads to lower testosterone. If you’re inside and not outside, you miss out on Vitamin D that is produced when your skin is exposed to sunlight. Low levels of Vitamin D contribute to depression, which in turn causes a drop in T.

It is possible to supplement with Vitamin D pills, but sun exposure in relatively light amounts (15 minutes on face and hands, three times a week) are what researchers recommend. In our car culture (i.e., very little time spent outdoors), 41 percent of American men are thought to be deficient in Vitamin D.

Excess

Too much alcohol, fatty food and cigarettes are not your friend, sorry to say.

Let’s start with the booze. A double-blind study of healthy men found that with 16 drinks daily over four weeks, testosterone levels declined in just five days. Other studies show that over time, this can lead to feminization in men. Not good.

Research has shown that obese men have about 25 percent lower testosterone levels than men of healthy body weight, all other factors being equal. Being overweight – particularly when fat is around the abdominal region – tends to raise estrogen levels. The presence of female hormones in men (we all have some, just as women also have testosterone) tends to cancel out the effects of natural T. But note that some saturated fat in the diet is essential for the production of T in the first place – such as the yolk in eggs, in good balance with the protein in the egg white.

Cigarette smoking does not have a direct effect on T levels, according to a Brazilian study reported in the Journal of Sexual Medicine (Halmenschlager, et al. 2009). But because cigarettes tend to correlate with inactivity and poor cardiovascular health, cigarette smokers tend to have lower activity levels, which lead to a T decline in the end.

Stress

The famous “flight or fight” response that is hardwired into humans facing a hostile world once worked well for us, such as when we had to run away from wild animals, invading tribes and such. Adrenaline and cortisol levels would rise at the expense of other hormonal functions because mere physical survival took precedence. The stresses of the 21^st century are more financial and emotional, yet our bodies respond as if it were 10,000 B.C. T levels and other functions are impaired when we carry the stress of an impending layoff, relationship dissolution or mortgage foreclosure for months on end.

Other stressors can negatively affect our hormonal, testosterone-producing health.  Inadequate sleep or insomnia can lead to a variety of physical problems. Improper and unbalanced diets – sometimes embarked upon as means to lose weight – might signal your body that it is in starvation mode, once again telling certain functions to shut down while other vital portions of your body muster energy to perform life-preserving tasks. Even over-exercising (e.g., marathon running) can reduce testosterone production – in contrast to intense weight training, which will increase T production.

If factors of libido, energy and muscularity are not your goals, you might think of testosterone levels as a predictor of health. The Endocrine Society, an international medical professional organization, conducted an 18-year study that found that men with low testosterone die younger, even after you factor out such things as diabetes, smoking, alcohol intake and physical activity.

In other words, boosting your T through preventive efforts might make you a frisky old man someday – which sure beats the alternative.

By Russ Klettke

If you’ve paid attention to the hubbub around women and hormone replacement therapy (HRT, estrogen), you have to be concerned about how men are getting prescriptions for their own HRT in testosterone. It’s tempting, because testosterone (T) therapy pretty clearly is able to help guys lose fat, gain muscle (when combined with exercise), improve mood and increase libido. But T therapy has several known side effects – gynecomastia (“bitch tits”) and increased prostate size – with the latter of these suspected to contribute to existing cases of prostate cancer. There are no long-term studies of synthetic testosterone supplementation’s effects.

The facts are, meddling with biological systems very often leads to unintended consequences. So why take a chance if there is a natural approach? 

Exercise can cause the body to increase its natural production of T. But not just any exercise. In fact, long distance running, biking or swimming might detract from it (and I don’t make this observation lightly, as I am a veteran triathlete). Studies out of Brazil and the UK found a halving of serum cholesterol in men who’ve just completed a marathon.

In general, extreme and extended periods of exercise, particularly at low levels of intensity, have a tendency to reduce testosterone levels. But so does a sedentary lifestyle and obesity. So where’s the middle ground?

There are smart ways to exercise that can actually increase your T levels. It can happen with intermittent bursts of intensity in both cardiovascular activities (running, swimming, biking) as well as fairly strenuous resistance training.  Here are ways to accomplish that:

Running: Run the same distance you typically do, but throw in intermittent stretches of sprinting (runners sometimes refer to this as fartlek training). It can improve your endurance, and you should expect to have sore muscles as a result (a good thing).

Biking: As with running, tossing in some fast hill work or higher resistance on a stationery bike for 10-60 seconds several times within a workout will tax the muscles just enough to stimulate more T production.

Swimming: Competitive swimmers know that sense of absolute exhaustion – and a tingle that accompanies it – when they swim at maximum speed for several lengths of the pool. T levels are higher then.

Weight training: Work the largest muscles to fatigue, the point at which your body cannot complete one more rep, and where you are breathing heavily and perspiring when finished. The extra T will promote muscle size increases.

Plyometrics: These are bursts of energy output, where you start out squatting, then thrust up and off the floor, hands reaching upward before landing and returning to the squat position (repeat ten or more times, to failure). This is an exercise you can work into any other workout, alternating with other exercises. You can also create plyometric-like bursts with other parts of your body, such as with a push up where you clap your hands on the “up” part of the exercise.

The general feel you should have is that of strong exertion. It takes you out of a comfort zone, but in fact expands your exercise range the more often you do it. After a couple weeks of this training – sometimes sooner – you might notice a markedly improved mood and a libido boost. Long term, greater fat loss and muscle size gains result.

By Russ Klettke

All that talk about eating right that you’ve heard since second grade misses a Very Important Point. Eat the right foods (and exercise, and don’t drink too much) and you’ll be more of a man. We’re talking about testosterone, which when in decline can negatively affect muscle and bone mass, mood, energy and libido.

Time is inevitable. But there’s no need to help it along.

Eating right to support your man stuff is truly possible. Certain healthy foods with specific nutritional characteristics can stem the natural decline in testosterone levels that come with age. The peak of your testosterone levels is generally thought to occur in the early to mid-20s. But time isn’t an absolute determinant: you can stem the loss with smart nutrition and other lifestyle choices.

A little background: One battle affecting testosterone in a man’s body is estrogen – yup, we all have some of the female hormone in us; women have testosterone too, just in different proportions. Elderly men basically are overcome with estrogen, because in the end that hormone wins out. There’s a metaphor here but it does no good to dwell on it.

Testosterone production is assisted by ingesting a few things, as follows: zinc, cholesterol (yeah, some cholesterol converts to testosterone), fats, indole-3-carbinole and diallyldisulfide (a major volatile sulfur-containing compound in garlic). These testosterone-boosting nutrients are concentrated in certain foods:

Zinc: Oysters, enriched cereals, club soda, table salt, veal, escarole soup, crab, beans, lobster, beef, clams, lamb, endive, game meat (buffalo, deer), chicken heart, pork, bamboo shoots, Italian or Crimini mushrooms.

Cholesterol: Eggs WITH the yolk, cheese, red meat, soybean oil. One or two eggs a day is optimal.

Fats: Monounsaturated, from plant and fish sources, are important to balance against saturated fats, which are abundant in typical Western diets. So every time you have a beef burger, think about having nuts, seeds, olive oil and fish to balance it out elsewhere in the same day.

Indole-3- carbinole: This is a compound in cruciferous vegetables, a family which includes broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, bok choi and kale. Yes, cabbage.

Diallyldisulfide: This is in garlic and onions, the less cooked the better. The Journal of Nutrition reported a study (Yuriko Oi, et al., 2001) that backs this up. This research involved a cohort of rats that were fed beef alone while others received beef with garlic powder. The rats given garlic registered higher testosterone levels. One assumes they were less popular nonetheless because rats are not known to use mouthwash.

But note that too much of these foods, giving you a net-excess of calories beyond what you burn off, deposits fat on the body. Body fat itself produces estrogen, the enemy of cholesterol, and therefore would diminish your gains.  Balance, variety and moderation rule once again.

By Russ Klettke

After a decade of erectile dysfunction pharmaceuticals – which collectively had worldwide sales of more than $2.7 billion last year – the next frontier is testosterone replacement therapy. Why? A guy’s gotta be a guy, and when “T” levels go into decline, it can be a pretty disconcerting situation.

The fact of the matter is that testosterone in the general male population naturally declines after age 25. But what makes it worse is modern lifestyles. Alcohol, fatty food and inactivity make that decline worse. It can be described as a circular, negative loop cycle: as T levels decline, energy, mood and libido suffer. With less energy, you might work out less. No exercise means no endorphin hormones to lift your mood, so you might eat and drink more to get some kind of kicks. With weight gain, you lose your mojo and with lower testosterone your libido only goes further south. Viagra might help a bit, but if you aren’t really all that fired up an erection is like a snow shovel in Miami: you got it, you just have little interest in using it.

So will testosterone replacement therapy reverse this death spiral and get you back in the game? Yes…but. Doctors are able to prescribe it to just about anyone who reports low testosterone symptoms (appropriately confirmed with a proper blood serum test). But as with most medications, particularly those that trick the endocrine system (your hormones), there can be side effects:

• Acne
• Hair loss
• Sleep apnea
• Hemoglobin increase (polycythemia, good at a moderate level but bad when too high)
• Fluid retention
• Breast enlargement and tenderness
• Liver toxicity (bad if you have had hepatitis or take other medications that have an adverse effects on the liver)
• Enlarged prostate

Most ominously, there are no studies on the effects of testosterone therapy over time. According to Michael Werner, MD a Purchase, NY board-certified urologist who studies male sexual dysfunction, “it may promote the growth of cancerous prostate cells…the second most common cause of cancer deaths in older men.” Further, he warns that “long-term data is as yet not available” with regard to negative side effects of T therapy.

There are other ways to improve testosterone levels other than a pharmaceutical product. Yup, you guessed it: smart diet, exercise and other lifestyle choices (moderate alcohol, no tobacco and smart sleep habits). We’ll cover those in the next series of blogs.

By Russ Klettke

Applying principles of resistance training, it’s possible to build muscle with just your bodyweight and objects around the home. This may not make you a competitive bodybuilder, but it’s a very good start or a maintenance program for someone who lacks access to a traditional gym.

There are all kinds of reasons not to belong to a health club. This crappy economy is one. Maybe your work and commuting schedule don’t allow for it. Lack of a decent gym nearby is another. Perhaps you’re incarcerated in a prison that doesn’t have one (don’t laugh, prisoners are credited with some great innovations in this area). Or, you simply don’t feel comfortable in a public weight room.

Or maybe, you’re just smart enough to know a health club isn’t essential for a person to exercise. Because it isn’t. It’s quite possible to do a significant amount of exercise without rooms full of iron, cables and cardiovascular equipment.

Of course, you could purchase at-home equipment in price ranges from $20 to $20,000. If you’re going to invest the dollars and space at the upper end, let’s hope you know your own personal propensity for exercise discipline. Just buying something doesn’t make it happen.

Your investment can actually involve nothing more than dedicating a 10’ by 10’ space in your home. Your equipment is largely you, gravity, a.k.a. bodyweight exercises, and perhaps a towel. Calisthenics you learned in grade school, pushups and floor crunches are perhaps the most familiar exercises, but consider trying a few others:

Rope pulls/shoulders: You don’t even need a rope, just a twisted towel.  Grab at both ends, with hands separated between 4 inches to 3 feet. Pull with the right arm, resist with the left, then reverse it (pull to the left, resist with the right). Cycle through this ten to twenty times before resting. You can do this with straight arms or bent elbows, overhead, in front of your nose or low, around the hip levels.

Rope pulls/biceps: With the same rope or twisted towel, grab both ends and loop the towel behind one thigh. Standing (advanced) or sitting, engage the leg to resist the efforts of your arms in curling the towel up. Every ten reps switch legs.

Star bursts: Squat down on feet, arms wrapped around legs. “Explode” up and out off the floor with arms outstretched, then fold back into the squat position. Repeat until fatigued. Do three or four cycles of this per workout, periodically raising the heart rate to boost your workout.

Standing supermans: Stand on one foot. Keeping that leg rigid, slowly lower your shoulders forward and raise the free leg in the back. Take that as far as your stability skills allow, then extend the arms out straight in front of you. Either hold that position for 20 seconds, or if you can, pulse the arms and leg up and down in unison. Repeat on opposite leg.

Okinawan old ladies: Written about in the “The Blue Zones” by Dan Buettner, among the longest-lived people on earth are Okinawans. The author visited the homes of female centenarians in Okinawa, and noticed they largely sit on floors and are frequently required to get up with no assistance. Try doing that ten, 15 or 20 times, simply starting on a floor and rising up to a standing position. You will probably roll off one hip; try alternating hips as you do. This works the legs, core and shoulder muscles – and might help you live to be 100.

The possibilities are endless. For visual ideas on bodyweight exercises, search online videos such as YouTube. This home fitness training video is terrific and is just a start.

By Russ Klettke

Do you think spending more time at the gym is going to get you better results? To a point, yes. But past that point you will experience more than the law of diminishing returns (less results per minute). If it leads to a tendency to take longer rest periods between sets, it can actually make the workout less productive.

Scientific study bears this out. Particularly with men, strenuous weight-resistance exercise produces natural hormones that the body uses to build and repair muscles. This leads to both muscle growth and strength increases. Rest-period studies (Rooney 1994; Kraemer 1997; and McCall 1999) show that shorter rest periods, between one and two minutes duration, increase the amount of hormone production (this includes natural testosterone, which aids muscle growth).

But to use your time to even greater efficiency, you might actually use that 60 to 120 second rest period to exercise other parts of your body. For example, on a day when you’re particularly focused on shoulder presses, do one set of eight to 12 repetitions, then jump onto a floor mat to do a set of crunches. Don’t really stop moving through a three-cycle set of these two exercises.

To get even greater results layer on a progression, which is an increase in difficulty in second and third sets, to both exercises. For the shoulder presses, add a few pounds with each set, or slow your repetitions down to increase intensity without adding weight. With the floor crunches, you might put a 5-pound weight in your hands, held around the chest level, then proceed to perform the same number of repetitions.

In some circles, the first exercise is called the “load,” the second the “unload.” Some people actually perform two unloads for every load. In either configuration, always think about completing the unload in about a minute and allow almost no time in between the two exercises.

Here are some combinations of load/unload exercises to try in the gym over your next several workouts:

Load – Unload

• Flat bench chest press – calf press
• Incline chest press – Roman chair (secured legs and hips, face down, raise torso and head)
• Tricep press – good morning (core)
• Shoulder press – forearm curls
• Lat pull – side tips (side torso stretch/press)
• Upright rows – Leg abductors
• Chin-ups (biceps) – Walking lunges (no weight)
• Leg extensions (quadriceps) – Side, light DB lifts (all shoulder with locked elbow)
• Leg curls (hamstrings) – Cable chest press (light weight)
• Leg squats – Light chest press

By Russ Klettke

For every guy who works out, there is a slightly different reason he exercises. It can range from getting in shape for a class reunion or tropical vacation to avoiding heart disease or diabetes. But there is a secret, universal motivator that few will admit to but none can deny: it’s about what you see in the mirror.

I’m not saying everyone is like mirror man. And God bless the guy who monitors his progress with a little, um, confidence. But a certain degree of male vanity is noted throughout the pages of recorded history, and that has only come full flower in the 21^st century. Heck, if it motivates a person to pursue better health, what’s the problem?

A predicament occurs when you use a single, face-on mirror. We live in a 360-degree world, so what you’re checking out is not necessarily what the guy to your right or the girl behind you is seeing. So if it’s about appearances, consider all the angles.

A second level of problems arises, physiologically, from the mirror mentality. This is where your body becomes distorted by hard work on the front half, or upper half, of your full physique. For example, it’s when a guy’s shoulders pull forward by his considerably well-developed chest because he fails to work the upper back muscles (rhomboids, traps, posterior deltoids and lats). And then there’s the Mr. Toothpick Legs Syndrome, the guy who obviously skips the lunges, squats, abductors, adductors and calf muscle exercises because he has a crazy focus on his abs, arms, chest and shoulders. He thinks he’s hot at the beach, but keeps his sweat pants on even there.

A third problem from imbalanced exercise contributes to the first two. It’s based in how muscular development in men is assisted by testosterone. This is nature’s own Catch 22: The more muscle you work, and the more strenuously you work it, the more testosterone that is naturally produced. Nature having a sense of humor – or is it cruelty? – the biggest muscles are in the back and legs. So as it turns out, the non-mirror muscles are most crucial to creating testosterone to help you build muscles everywhere else. Bottom line: if you want to build bigger arms, work on your legs.

Working hard by looking back

Maybe it’s time to rethink your own workout. Here are fundamental exercises that every guy should incorporate into his routine to round out his body and kick up his testosterone levels in the process (all at the introductory levels, just to get started).

Legs and glutes

• Bodyweight squats (no weight to start, just get the form right and go slow)
• Walking lunges
• Abductors and adductors (here’s an abductor routine that doesn’t require a machine)

Back muscles

• Rhomboids
• Traps
• Lats

So how do you gauge your progress if you can’t see it? Get one of those tri-fold affairs like they have in a men’s suit department store – or ask the girl walking behind you.

The most common mistake made by guys who workout is to think maximum weights bring maximum results. If your goal is to increase muscle size – technically known in fitness and bodybuilding circles as “hypertrophy” – the most important rule is to use proper exercise form.

Of course, knowing that and doing it are two different things. In a way, it’s complicated because precise form on all exercises can only be achieved through academic study, high-tech analysis and coaching from a qualified fitness trainer. But for most guys (women too), following some simple rules can help you accomplish all your goals at the beginning and intermediate levels of fitness.

Just as important, understanding and adhering to proper exercise form will help prevent injury. Because if there’s one thing that stands in the way of exercise gains, it’s having a bad case of tendonitis, torn muscles or a sprained back. Here are three key points to follow:

1. Know the human body (especially yours)

Study a human anatomy chart – Think about the musculoskeletal system (your bones, tendons and muscles) as a chain of interdependent rubber bands and sticks. The muscles are the softest and most pliable, the tendons are thicker yet flexible, and bones are most rigid. Weight lifting stresses each of these, and done correctly that stress makes them stronger and thicker. Overstress them too quickly, or at unusual angles that strain them, and you invite injury.

This musculature anatomy chart is obviously focused on a bodybuilder’s physique (muscles only, less of tendons), while this anatomy chart provides a better sense of the gradations between muscles and tendons. Study both in general terms to see the contiguous nature of the body, then think about the mechanics of lifting weights. Proper form can be more intuitive with this study.

Think “balance” – It makes no sense to try to get large biceps if you’re not working the adjoining muscles. In fact, weak forearm, wrist or shoulder muscles will always hold you back if you don’t develop those in concert with the biceps. As you study your anatomy and apply this rule, you’ll begin to see the advantages of working the entire body – all parts are related and need to support each other.

2. Start easy

Warm up and stretch – Yeah, you’ve heard this before. But it really matters, and here’s why: the muscles, tendons and bones need blood, oxygen and other nutrients to work at peak efficiency. Just as you walk slowly the first minute or two after waking up in the morning, the body needs to ease into exercise. Stretching early in a workout (after a few minutes of something light, like an easy run) enables your body to move in a larger range of motion. For a full understanding of this, take a dozen yoga classes.

Trace through the movement with lighter weights – Before you launch in earnest into an exercise, reduce the target weight level by half. Then slowly work through the exercise, just to see how it feels in the muscles. Squeeze out the muscles at the top of the exercise, then slowly return the weight to the starting position. Pay attention to how it feels before you move up to a weight that is more challenging.

3. Feel the pump – but not pain

How does it feel?  When you’re done with a set of ten (more or less) reps, where do you feel it?  If you did a tricep press, is the “pump” in the back of your arm – or your shoulder or lats? Note that all three work on that exercise, but you’ve nailed it when the tricep area feels most pumped.

Just as important, is the sensation that of a muscle that’s been worked or a tendon that’s strained? If it’s the latter, revisit the path of motion and reduce the amount of weight lifted. Proper form is a matter of nuance.

Despite what’s promised in television infomercials and on bodybuilding supplement websites, muscular development does not come easy or fast. You have to be consistent, balanced, focused and smart about what you’re doing.

by Russ Klettke

Modern man is a creature of habit. He has predictable ways of grooming, getting dressed in the morning, commuting to work, working out and, of course, eating and drinking.

The problem for a lot of guys is many of those habits are bad. Particularly in what we eat, where certain foods contribute calories that are way out of proportion to their nutrients. Let’s call them food vices.

The food-vice culprits are well known: sugary sodas, salty snacks, fat-drenched main meals (burgers, extra-cheese pizza, deep-fried anything). Or, maybe it’s not so much the food itself – for example, peanut butter with its heart- and skin-healthy oils and protein – but the quantity at which we eat them (e.g., sitting in front of the television, eating one spoonful of peanut butter after another).

There’s an upside to having a vice: It can be the low-hanging fruit of weight management. Cut out that one bad thing, maybe replace it with something healthier, and you can actually drop a few pounds without a lot of effort.

It’s basic math

Say your vice is regular soda. Each can has about 150 calories. If you drank four per day, but then just switched over to diet soda, you would reduce your daily intake by 600 calories. Do that five days a week for three, six or 12 months and here’s what would happen:

• 3 months: 36,000 calories reduced = 10 pound weight loss
• 6 months: 72,000 calories reduced = 20 pound weight loss
• 12 months: 144,0000 calories reduced = 41 pound weight loss

It really is that simple. If instead you cut out a daily bowl of ice cream (400 calories), two alcoholic drinks (300 calories) or a bag of snack foods (variable by type and size; read the label), you get similar results, albeit less if it’s fewer than 600 calories (or, more if it is more).

In my book, “A Guy’s Gotta Eat, the regular guy’s guide to eating smart,” I suggest a six-step process for assessing and eliminating vices:

1. Acknowledge your sins: Keep a diary (it can be the back of an envelope) of what you eat and drink for a week.
2. Confront the enemy: Think about vending machines, local fast food joints or office donut fairies (e.g., the receptionist who wants you to be co-dependent with her on Krispy Kremes) that tempt you daily.
3. Avert: Remove a food or beverage vice from your life (i.e., have no vice foods in the house; re-route your drive away from temptation).
4. Don’t be a fanatic: If you try to never ever eat something again, that thing can turn into an obsession. Allow yourself that vice once in a while, but set limits on how often that would be.
5. Shift gears: If you can’t control your portions (e.g., a plate of cookies in a meeting), divert your taste buds to something different (eat a pickle). Sometimes it’s enough to shake a craving.
6. Dilute it: Say you figure out your worst vice is frozen hamburgers – 350 calories, 16 grams of saturated fat each – and you eat two every night. Make one only, chop it up and mix it with a pile of broccoli (frozen, steamed), lemon juice and a little parmesan cheese.

The point is to control your vice so it doesn’t control you. That’s a great habit to get into.

by Russ Klettke

Want to lose weight? If you’re a guy your first thoughts probably lean toward exercise. Your diet plays an essential role in managing weight, but a smarter, long-term approach includes working out. Here’s why: simply losing weight through diet does nothing to prevent future weight gain. Once the dieter backslides to former eating habits, the pounds come back.

By creating a more fit body – with increased muscularity and cardiovascular capacity – you increase your body’s ability to burn more calories. This is because muscle is more metabolically active than fat, burning 50 to 70 calories a day per pound, just to exist, versus a pound of fat, which needs only 3 calories per day. The more fit you are, the more calories you burn – and the less an occasional bowl of ice cream will settle in on your abdominals.

This doesn’t have to mean spending more time at the gym. Intense exercise can actually take less time. In fact, there are high intensity training programs where an entire day’s session can be completed in about 22 minutes. Such a program allows no rest between sets; instead, you make quick jumps between muscle groups – e.g., legs to core to shoulders, all three in about 90 seconds. These highly choreographed routines are usually taught in coached, small-group classes.

But it’s wholly possible do it on your own, on either a small or large scale. First, understand the fundamental science behind it.

Better at dropping fat, and it might help you to live longer

A 1995 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA; Lee, et al.) showed that vigorous exercise – competitive rowing, for example, compared to leisurely jogging – was associated with longer life. Other studies (Talanian, et al.) illustrated how intense exercise is linked to greater amounts of fat reduction and better retention of muscle mass and strength.

So how is this achieved? A series of studies by Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., who is the fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts, identified a variety of exercise techniques that he details in his book, “High Intensity Strength Training” (Healthy Learning Publishers, 2002). One is the “super slow” method, where you raise or lower a weight on a five to ten second interval (try it with a moderate weight). Another is to work a particular weight-resistance exercise to complete muscle failure, where you cannot perform another rep, then immediately reduce the weight by 10-20 percent, and attack the same exercise again, to failure, with no more than five seconds rest between the two sets.

It’s possible to push a cardiovascular exercise – running, swimming, bicycling, even an elliptical trainer – to intensity as well. Start out at a medium pace, then after about 45 seconds increase your speed (and incline, if on a treadmill, or running in hilly terrain) for 10, 20, 30, 45 or 60 seconds, to a point where your lungs can barely draw in oxygen fast enough. If you’re able to measure your heart rate, shoot for 85 percent of your maximum HR capacity (the formula for this is to subtract your age from 220 to get your 100 percent capacity, then calculate where 85 percent would fall: e.g., a 42 year old person’s HR maximum would be 178; 85 percent of that is about 151 beats per minute).

The challenge of intensity training includes mustering the will to push these limits. You have to be willing to endure discomfort – not only muscle fatigue, but an occasional, momentarily nauseous stomach. The queasiness should subside quickly while muscle soreness might last a few days (soreness indicates muscle growth).

Of course with this and all forms of training, you need to check with your doctor to make sure you are capable of exercising at this level. If you are new to training, it’s best to start with basic strength and cardiovascular exercises, then consistently and gradually work up to higher intensity over several months.

There are two words, and only two words, that are the secret to managing your weight: Make dinner.

Here’s why: The Center for Science in the Public Interest – an objective, if not scoldy group of people who advocate for a healthier world – studied the nutritional content found at a representative sample of restaurants, not just fast food. They then compared that data to meals people make at home. They found that meals made outside the home, on average, have 55 percent more calories than those made at home.

How? It’s easier to make tasty food with fat and salt. In fact, without fat and salt most restaurants, takeouts and frozen meal manufacturers would go out of business. Example: five crispy chicken strips with a creamy sauce, large fries and a regular soda from your nearest burger house has 1700 calories. Any guy who exercises with intensity should eat about 2500-3000 calories per day (less if he’s trying to lose weight).

Note that meals made at home are not prepared meals found in a freezer case. They mean stuff you whip together yourself.

Crazy, you say? No time and no kitchen skills, you protest? Listen up. We’re not talking Julie Child gourmet meals. This is about respecting yourself and your bodyweight enough to make a healthy meal in about 15 minutes. You can listen to music and down a cold beverage while doing it.

Following are three healthy, balanced dinners that use ingredients that store well: frozen, canned and dried goods. You can stock up a few months’ worth and eat them whenever you want. No need to run to the grocery store three times a week.

By the way, these meals are 500-800 calories and packed with quality nutrition and fiber. Substitute these for three dinners eaten out each week and you’ll lose weight within one month.

Spicy meat stew

• Canned, cooked roast beef (12-16 ounces)
• 2 cups of water (substitute with one cup of soup stock if you have any)
• Frozen vegetables (fresh is ok too)
• Gardinera (spicy pickled vegetables; they come in large jars at warehouse stores)
• Canned beans (Garbanzo, black and pinto beans all work)
• Taste options: oregano, bay leaf, basil, turmeric

Directions: Mix all ingredients in a small soup pot, use medium heat for 5-10 minutes.

Chicken, broccoli and sweet potato

• 1-2 slices frozen chicken breast (boneless, skinless)
• 1 4-portion packet of frozen broccoli
• 1 medium sized sweet potato
• Olive oil, lemon juice and a tiny bit of butter (1-2 pats)
• Salt and dry chilis to taste

Directions: In a microwavable bowl, mix a small amount of oil, lemon juice, chilis and salt with the frozen chicken. Cover and microwave, about seven minutes per breast, turning the chicken over midway through. Add frozen broccoli on top the chicken and microwave another two minutes, then leave covered for about five minutes. Wash but do not peel the sweet potato; as the chicken and broccoli are cooking, slice the potato into cubes, mix with oil and lemon and stir fry on the stove.

Bean-egg salad

• 2-3 hardboiled eggs, chopped/diced
• 1 can black beans
• 1 green apple, chopped
• 1 cup of frozen corn
• Olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, Tabasco sauce and oregano to taste

Directions: Throw everything together in a bowl and eat. OK with rice, or on bread for a great messy sandwich.