Stop Cleaning Your Plate

We all know our mothers told us to clean our plate because of all the unfortunate starving kids but stuffing your face even though you're not hungry anymore can set you up for nutritional failure. Today bigger and more seems better, and typical portion sizes have doubled in the past 15 years... and so have waist sizes.The first step in curbing overeating is to control your portion sizes. Just because a burrito now comes as big as a large shoe, that doesn't mean you have to eat it all. Ask for less rice and less beans. Even though the burrito make take on a smaller size, the porportion of rice/beans/meat is more balanced and you'll actually learn to eat less. I mean how many times have you finished 3/4 of your burrito and told yourself you're already full but continue to eat the remaining 1/4 and only because it's there staring you in the face?

Those who have successfully managed to win the battle of the dreaded pooch and back fat have learned to control their portion sizes, ensuring that they don't overeat and drown themselves in excess calories that they don't even want. Food portion control is the primary way for avoiding those excess pounds you find in the mid-section of most guys (girls get it in the arse). Once you listen to your inner-self and realize how much you can eat and when to say you're full, it becomes easier for you to control your calorie intake.

When To Say When

You know when you get so hungry that you inhale your meal then find yourself so stuffed that it's difficult to breathe? Racing through any meal is one of the easiest ways to throw your nutrition goals off track. The mind actually has a mechanism that is triggered upon satiety but it just takes time for that mechanism to relay messages of fullness to the brain, i.e. when you eat at a slower pace. So essentually the best way to avoid overeating is to take your time with your meal and pay attention to what’s happening within your body. That way you give your body enough time to let you know that you have achieved maximum capacity.

Eat More Often, Less Portions

Athletes find another way to avoid unhealthy eating habits and snack binges is to eat smaller meals more frequently throughout the day. When you go for an extended period of time without fuel, your body begins to crave snack foods that are high in sugars and fat and low in nutrition content. If you eat six small meals per day you will be less likely to crave unhealthy foods and won’t feel obligated to eat everything in front of you come dinner time.

Move Around

Most people that attempt to diet are on some type of exercise regime. Successful dieting has shown that those who kept off the weight also included a daily hour-long walk into their weekly routine. If you’re crunched for time you can spread physical activity over the course of a day; park father away from your office, walk during your lunch break, use stairs instead of elevators or escalators, etc.

Keep Notes

Keep a food log monitoring your daily intake, it may be tedious but when you pay attention to what you're eating during the course of the day, you start to realize more what's actually going in your body and hence you're more likely to eat healthy foods. Set daily food goals just like when you go to the gym. Challenge yourself to eat one more piece of fruit than usual each day. That challenge may develop into a habit, and you’ll be ready to take on another one. And don’t worry if you fail to achieve your food goal each day; it takes time to change eating patterns. Just recognize that your goal was particularly challenging for that day and set the intention of achieving it the next. There's no such thing as failure as long as you keep trying.

Ditch Fad Diets

It seems that nearly everyone suffers from some sort of chronic pain, even young guys. Most of the time the cause for these aches and pains is bad posture and have nothing to do with getting older? Even carpal tunnel syndrome to ear aches to depression, researchers are starting to realize it's a guys posture that may be the cause for all these aches and researchers have started to focus more on a person’s structural alignment to help reduce painful chronic injuries.

It is estimated that 80 percent of Americans have – or will have – some form of lower back pain in their lifetime starting in adolescence. And although the pathology of lower back pain is difficult to pinpoint, scientists have discovered a relationship between persons with lower back pain and inadequate function of the stabilizers of the spine (abs, ass, etc.). Conclusion: those with weak abs and butt muscles are more likely to experience lower back pain.

So what really is good posture?

We all recognize it when we see, a guy with perfect posture, usually a gymnast or dancer but not necessarily a gym rat. Often times you see those same gym rats with rolled shoulders from too much upper body lifting. Not sexy. Researchers have described perfect posture as the positioning of the body such that stresses experienced throughout the body are minimized (huh?). I think what they're saying is if you maintain good posture all your aches and pains will disappear. The same researchers say that perfect posture is attainable at any body position, whether sitting, lying in bed or working out at the gym. To check if you have good posture start with your feet (which should be parallel to one another), you should be able to draw a line from the mid ankle, through the center of the side of the knee, through the middle of the side of the hip, through the center of the shoulder and finally through to the piece of flesh directly in front of your ear hole. This perfect posture is difficult to obtain and maintain but just like every exercise routine, regular practice and constant awareness of your posture can lead to significant improvements.

Why should I care about good posture?

Besides looking hot and feeling healthy, there are many beneficial side effects of good posture. When your body is out of alignment, the soft and hard tissue structures that hold up your skeleton are faced with excessive friction and irregular movement patterns and ranges of motion, which can irritate and initiate premature degeneration of those structures. Ever see those older guys at the gym that have been lifting the same heavy weight for decades but never thought once about cardio, abs, or stretching? See how their bodies seem off-balance and nothing like a college athletes? Bam! They didn't give any thought to posture or maintaining good posture (i.e. yoga).

Essentially the joints wear down and can cause arthritis and osteoporosis (not fun); tendons and ligaments become stretched and develop micro tears (slow painful agony); you lose muscle strength (your workout easily plateaus); you become constantly fatigued because the body has to work harder to move through what was easy body movement (shortness of breath, dizziness); and worst case scenario; compression of the internal organs happens (total meltdown). BUT... attention to your posture and contantly maintaining it can help reduce the incidence of many of these problems.

Reasons for bad posture.

Most bad posture occurs as a result of daily living activities like working and sitting in front of a computer for eight hours or sleeping in the fetal position at night. A decent understanding of posture will help you learn to reduce your posture deviations through intelligent exercise and attention to everyday movement patterns. Here are a few of the most common violations and what you can do to eliminate them:

Lumbar lordosis - Excessive lower back arch. The majority of the population experiences this problem and it results from poor ab and ass strength and the result is lower back pain. You can tell if you might have lumbar lordosis if you perform the following exercise: Stand with your back flat against a wall. Your ass, shoulders and head should be against the wall and your feet should be a few inches in front of it. Reach an arm behind you and slide your hand between the lower back and the wall. If your hand goes farther than the second set of knuckles, you may have excessive lumbar lordosis. A simple way to correct this position is to close that space by contracting the glutes and abs at the same time. Do this position for periodically during the day until it becomes more natural (maybe not so much when that hot guy you don't know asks you a question for the first time at the gym). We promise you this can help alleviate painful syndromes and will also help with your workout at the gym.

Forward head - The average noggin weighs about eight pounds in a neutral position, when you extend the head forward three inches the muscles now support an extra three pounds of pressure. Guys who spend a lot of time gabbing on myspace or gaming in front of the computer, or watching the FUEL channel most likely have a forward head which can cause neck and jaw pain, tooth aches, headaches and even migraines. To train your noggin and neck to achieve better alignment, take your forefinger and index finger and push your chin in toward your neck. You should feel a slight stretch in the back of the neck. Do this movement several times throughout the day and you'll alleviate the dreaded forward head syndrome.

Rounded shoulders

Myspace and gaming addicts, bench press monkeys's and tall guys usually have rounded shoulders. Usually caused by overly relaxed upper- and mid-back muscles and overused chest and shoulder muscles (you know those guys, they enter the gym and BAM! they first thing the attack is the bench, and they're usually there all night long). To figure out if you have rounded shoulders, stand in your natural posture in front of the mirror. If you can see a great deal of the backs of your hands, then you have rounded shoulders. You can eliminate RS if you focus on exercises such as reverse flyes and low rows. Always make sure to keep your shoulders back and away from your ears.

Of course the male body is a highly complex system (physically and mentally!) and there aren’t any quick fixes for bad posture and pain. But just like changing up your workout from just strength gains to endurance, flexiblity, and maintaining a proper weight ratio, obtaining better posture takes time and effort, but athletically fit body is hot and good posture should be part of your goals. The old school way of thinking that pain and dysfunction is a natural part of working out is just a myth. You might not think you care now but paying attention to your posture now can help you live an active, highly functional life well into those daddy years.