Monday, July 20th, would be my Dad’s 70th birthday, but a little over 2 years ago he got sick, was diagnosed with cancer, and he passed away last September.

Surprisingly, our family doctor said my dad had colon cancer for about 10 years or ever 12 years, but he just didn’t know it.

It’s a long, long story with a lot of lessons.

Click here to listen to the story on this week’s TT Podcast

You see, my Dad made 3 big mistakes.

But I don’t want you to make the same ones.

1) My Dad drank too much.

This was by far the biggest factor in him getting sick. And I don’t mean 1 drink per day. He unfortunately drank himself to an early death. This never had to happen.

2) My Dad didn’t go to the doctor once in the last 25 years of his life.

Obviously, this is NOT a good idea. For anyone from my father’s generation who is listening, stop being “too proud” to go to the doctor and get your butt in there every year. Take the tests they want you to take.

3) My Dad didn’t eat enough fruits and vegetables.

His diet was not so good. Believe it or not, my Dad lived on coffee, toast, an egg, maybe a ham sandwich for lunch, too many beers, a glass of milk, and a lot of candy for the last 20-30 years of his life.

But he did a lot of things right, too.

• He was always busy with projects and stayed mentally active.
• He was physically active everyday, often doing hard manual labor.
• He was never overweight.
• He had good social support.

Those four things helped him survive as long as he did.

So my dad taught us all a lot of powerful lessons, indirectly, on what to do and what NOT to do.

1) If you drink, do a mirror check. Are you drinking too much? Is it affecting your life? Your work? Your family? Look at your kids. Don’t you want to see them grow up and have kids of their own?

2) Are you active? Are you busy with projects and constantly learning or do you just watch TV?

3) Have you been to the doctor this year? Why not? Have you noticed something that just doesn’t feel right and should be checked out? Don’t be scared! Just go. Despite all the hard times that people give the medical industry, technology and medicine is catching cancer early and treating many of them well.

So…

Don’t be a stubborn old fool!

Go to the doctor!

Better you lose a little pride and gain a lot of years.

So there you go…now let’s get you transforming…

Monday – July 20th

Transformation Tip: Do not stop!

A Turbulence Training member emailed me this morning and apologized for falling off the wagon…I told him not to worry, sometimes it takes a couple of cracks at this to get it right.

So don’t quit just because you stumbled once.   This goes for anything in life including giving up booze and cigarettes too.

Over on my facebook page, we recently had a chat about how to give up cigarettes. Almost every single person said they quit cold turkey, but most of them said it required a few tries.

But they didn’t give up trying.

So no matter what you want to do, never give up. Fight fight fight. And get social support from friends and family. And that’s what we are here at TT, friends who become like family to you.

Join me on facebook at www.facebookcraig.com or join us in the members forum at www.ttmembers.com.

We’ll be looking out for you, I promise.

Now let’s train hard!

6-Month Bodyweight Manual – Phase 5: Advanced Upper Body Strength & Lower Body Circuit Conditioning

Workout A

1A) T-Squat (15 reps)
1B) Feet on Ball Pushup (12 reps)
2A) Chin-up (Max-1)
2B) Hands on Bench, Feet on Ball Pushup (15 reps)
3A) Pushups with Hands on Ball  (15 reps)
3B) 1-Leg Deadlift (12 reps)
4A) Inverted Row – Feet on Ball (12 reps)
4B) Spiderman Pushup (8 reps)
5A) Side Plank Leg Lift (10 reps)
5B) Split Squat with Front Foot Elevated (12 reps)
5C) Spiderman Climb (12 reps)
5D) Stability Ball Rollout (10 reps)
5E) Plank with Arms on Ball (30 seconds)
Interval Workout A

Tuesday
Time for your 30 minutes of fun activity…

Well its been a heavy update so far, hasn’t it…so let’s lighten things up.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for your 30 minutes of off-day activity?

My old man used to wrestle my friends in his underwear. Man, you think your dad was embarrassing…so beat that.

But if you aren’t going to wrestle people in your underwear, what else can you do that’s fun and different?

Bedroom activities don’t count.

Do people still skinny dip anymore?

We should all be doing more of that…man its been years…I bet over 10 years since my last skinny dip with some girls. Man, I gotta do something about that…

If you got a pool why don’t you make skinny dipping your 30 minutes of activity of fun activity this week.

Or if your neighbor has a pool, see if you can’t sneak in during off hours! Might be too intense if you get caught and have to sprint out!

Wednesday

Workout B
1A) Prisoner Squat (10 reps)
1B) Prisoner Lunge (8 reps)
1C) Inverted Row (10 reps)
2A) Pull-up (Max-1)
2B) Elbow-to-Instep Lunge (8 reps)
3A) Hands on Ball, Feet on Bench Pushup (15 reps)
3B) 1-Leg RDL (10 reps)
4A) Shoulder Press Pushup (15 reps)
4B) Stability Ball 1-Leg Curl (10 reps)
5A) Jumping Jacks (60 reps)
5B) Chop (15 reps)
5C) Stability Ball Rollout (10 reps)
5D) Chin-up (6 reps)
Interval Workout B

Thursday
30 minutes of fun activity…

And so I bought this blender and now I’m hooked on blender drinks.

It’s crazy. Two a day! Here are some tips to increase the nutritional value.

• Add spinach
• Add 4-5 pieces of fruit (one frozen)
• Add cacao nibs, nuts, seeds, goji berries

Good times!

Friday

Workout C

1A) Y-Squat (10 reps)
1B) Elevated Pushup (12 reps)
2A) Diagonal Lunge (10 reps)
2B) Step-out (8 reps)
3A) 1-Leg Bench Squat (10 reps)
3B) Chin-up (Max-1)
4A) Waiters Bow (12 reps)  video
4B) Spiderman Pushup (10 reps) ==>
5A) Siff Squat (20 reps)
5B) Stability Ball 1-Leg Curl (8 reps)
5C) Stability Ball Jacknife (12 reps)
5D) Pushup (Max-1)
5E) Side Plank (30 seconds)
High-Intensity Cardio

Social Support Saturday!
Have fun with 30 minutes of activity.

And remember, you can never have enough good friends…

• So check in with a few today.
• Hit up some on facebook – and me too
• Go back to your hometown and see an old high school friend

Sunday – Plan, Shop & Prepare
Another 30 minutes of activity.

Plan, shop, & prepare and when you shop, check your labels.

Watch out for added sodium. After all, we only should be getting 1500mg of sodium per day. The worst offenders are:

• Pizza
• Hot dogs and hamburgers
• Processed foods
• Dairy
• Canned soups, beans, and chili

Be careful with those!

Whew, that’s it for this week. Heck of an update, wasn’t it?

Next week!

• Phase 6 of 6 month BW manual – can you believe its over!
• Veggie Meal Plans – July 27th premiere -You can’t miss this…big news. You’ll love these, including my “Lazy Man’s Guide to Vegetarian Eating”

Have a great week,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

“Are you on a vegetarian diet?”

“What do you eat everyday?”

“What supplements do you use?”

The answers are:

“No, I’m not a vegetarian. I still eat meat 1-2 times per week, and more when I travel.”

“For supplements, I use Vitamin C, Fish oil, creatine (sometimes), and a Greens-Plus drink”.

And what do I eat everday? Well, “A wide variety of food”. (That’s my first diet secret right there…stolen from Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat, who says one of the keys to eating for fat loss and health is eating a wide variety of foods. Don’t get too dependent on eating the same food over and over again.)

So let’s take a look at every single meal I eat on a regular day – plus, how things change when I travel or when I take Bally the Dog to visit his “Grandma” out on the farm.

6am - Each day I get up around 6am (give or take 30 minutes), drink a cup of water and swallow a 1000mg vitamin C pill, and head out on a 60-90 minute dog walk with Bally the Dog.

I started taking 2-3 grams of vitamin C per day back in October, and I didn’t get any colds this winter. Usually I get one per year, but nothing so far since August, 2007. I use the Vitamin C for insurance, I guess.

When we get back from the walk (and his “swim” in the river in Toronto’s High Park), I write Turbulence Training workouts for 30 minutes, and by then I’m ready for my unique version of breakfast.

Here’s the recipe…

So you want to live a long life, lose fat, and eat healthy…but man, even I get confused some times by all the propaganda out there from “paleo diet experts”, “vegans”, and yes, sadly, even “supplement companies”.

What’s the truth and who can you trust?

Well, the good news is that nutrition is a lot simpler than you think…or at least that’s what my friend Brad Pilon argues in this interview.

What started out as one simple email question from me turned into this extensive Q’n'A of how we can live longer and eat healthy.

Q: Do you have any fat loss programs for men and women in their 50’s?

Answer:

Yes, the same workouts I use with every age group.

A workout doesn’t need to be changed based on the age of the person. It needs to be changed based on the individual needs of the person.

For example, I’ve trained some folks who at 51 were fitter than 75% of people I knew under 25. On the other hand, I’ve trained 19 year old guys who had more body fat and health problems than the average 45 year old man.

Look at how fit Martiene is in the photo above…and she’s 74 years young, and still getting fit everyday.

And check out Kerry, getting abs at age 51!

So there really isn’t any difference in what I recommend to people age 50 plus. Of course, the Turbulence Training workouts are flexible, and can be easily modified for every strength and fitness level. Heck, we’ve had folks from 18-81 use Turbulence Training. The same exact programs.

After all, I developed the Turbulence Training system while working hands on during thousands of training hours with everyone from 18 year old “stud” rugby players up to 77 year old cardiac rehabilitation patients.

I’ve also trained 18 year old high school girls and 65 year old women who had never exercised a day in their life. On the internet, one woman used Turbulence Training at 81 years young!

Let’s take a look at the Turbulence Training workouts to see why they can be used at every age group. First, bodyweight exercises are important for everyone. You need to be able to control your bodyweight getting in and out of bed, up and down from the floor, and on one leg at a time.

So in the beginner Turbulence Training program, we start everyone down on the ground and I shock them with how hard a “lying down” workout can be. It doesn’t matter if you are 15 or 50, if you are overweight you are going to be challenged by the planks, 1-leg hip extensions, side planks, ball leg curls, and kneeling push-ups.

Here’s just one of the Introductory workouts from Turbulence Training. What would you possibly make different for someone who overweight at 50 vs. someone is overweight at 35?

But what about the injuries we get as we get older, you might ask? Well, anyone can be injured. You can have knee problems at 13 or 35, and so we adjust the program and work together as a team with physical therapists and chiropractors to make sure you get the best personal care to overcome your injuries.

It’s not age related. It’s individual specific.

I also believe that strength training is the most important aspect of any structured workout program. And I also believe, and this is controversial but I don’t care, that strength is more important for long-term quality of life than cardiovascular endurance.

I think over the years too much emphasis has been placed on cardiovascular endurance as a being a predictor of long term health.

As a result, not enough focus has been on getting men and women (but particularly women) strong. And when you are old and weak, you fall down and break your bones. And for most folks, that is a path they never recover from.

Of course, both are important, but you don’t need to be able to run a marathon to live a long life. (Of course, you don’t need to be able to squat 400 pounds to live a long life either, but in general, strength training needs more emphasis in fitness programs).

Okay, back to fat loss programs for folks over 50.

I can’t let a blog post finish without me repeating myself and saying, “Diet is more important than exercise for fat loss”. 

Hopefully you are getting that by now.

After that, folks over 50 need to focus on strength and burning a few more calories. A total body resistance training program, just like that for any other age group, will work best. If individual modifications are necessary, then we’ll make them, but the population of 50+ folks is so diverse, I can’t say that certain exercises are specific to that age group.

On the flexibility and mobility front, that might be a different story, but again, I’d still be telling you to use the same exercises I give someone at age 25 (stick-ups, etc.).

Frankly, the only “real” difference, in general, between a fat loss workout for someone under 30 and someone over 50 would be the music they listen to while training.

Agree or disagree? Let me know below!

And did I mention, diet is the most important aspect in a successful fat loss program?

Train hard but safe,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

Click here to get started with Turbulence Training

Back in my hometown of Stratford, there are a lot of factories. I worked at one for 3 summers, and got to meet a lot of good folks who unfortunately depend on coffee and cigarettes to get them through the day. They also had an odd little habit of calling their smokes, “cancer sticks”. Nice visual.

And you’re not going to like this, but I’ve borrowed their phrase and now refer to french fries as “edible cancer sticks”. After all, they deserve a similar distinction. Here’s why…

In a recent study done by Polish researchers, they put 14 subjects through every pothead’s dream study and made them eat potato chips every day for 4 weeks. (The potato chip is very close cousin to the french fry, of course.)

Am J Clin Nutr 89: 773-777, 2009. Chronic intake of potato chips in humans increases the production of reactive oxygen radicals by leukocytes and increases plasma C-reactive protein: a pilot study.

Both chips and fries contain relatively high concentrations of acrylamide, which is a potentially carcinogenic compound found in starchy foods that have been heated.

So in this study, which probably wasn’t hard to fill with volunteers, each subject ate 160 grams of chips each day (about 3/4 of a LARGE bag) for 4 weeks (containing 157mg of acrylamide).

At the end of 4 weeks, all subjects had increased levels of oxidized LDL and C-reactive protein (a measure of inflammation). There was also a significant increase in free radicals and a massive immune system response. It was as if the body was being attacked by the chips, or more specifically, the acrylamide (and probably all the other good stuff in the potato chips).

The researchers also did a follow-up test of the subjects four weeks after they stopped eating the edibile cancer sticks, and all that bad stuff was starting to come back to normal, but hadn’t fully returned to healthy levels.

Nasty stuff.

If you eat fries or chips everyday, you are killing yourself softly. Get rid of the junk, eliminate the food from a bag or a box, and get healthy again!

This study shows that not only are you consuming a potentially carcinogenic substance, but you are also increasing your risk of heart disease. Now that’s a two-for-one special you should pass on.

<=== Other chips to avoid!

Of course, you don’t need me to tell you that it will also be killing your fat loss. If you need help improving your diet, just focus on making baby steps. Every day you should try and be a little better than you were yesterday.

Cut back on the junk.

Add a new fruit or vegetable.

Switch to fewer foods from a bag or a box, and add more whole, natural foods to your diet.

You’ll be shocked at the improvements in your mental energy and performance from these nutrition changes. I can’t imagine how bad these folks after a few days of stuffing themselves with chips.

Sure a snack once per month is okay, heck, I even had some pringles at Christmas time…but you need to start passing on the fries a lot more than you should be adding those to your order.

Baby step your way to better eating, faster fat loss, and a healthier life,

Craig Ballantyne

PS – Here’s the diet I recommend…

www.ProvenFatLossDiet.com