Blog

By: Michael Beiter

Grief. It is a mother fucker. A client of mine lost a close friend a couple months ago and we talked about how that affected his eating and exercise. 

"I just didn't have the energy. Or focus. Nothing sounded enjoyable or motivating" he said. 

I agreed and shared my experience with losing my father a few years ago. 

It was hard. I would randomly burst into tears after an hard set of exercise. Apetite was all over the board and sleep was...

By: Michael Beiter

A client came to me with this initial thought: "I feel like a failure this month because I didn't hit my numbers."

We identified three thought distortions at play here. One is labeling - an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. 

The second is personalization - you see yourself as the cause of...

By: Michael Beiter

Time has been my favorite common denominator for awhile now. I make decisions based on how much time and effort something is going to take me. 

For years I've been saying it takes way more time to get and stay fit than my peers. They chastise me for saying people need anything more than an hour per day to get healthy. "They do not! Stop being an elitist. People don't need to be obsessed to get results," they would say. 

I don't argue anymore. Just provide the...

By: Michael Beiter

I get asked whether or not meal planning is necessary often.

The simple answer is no. Here's my take on this myth of nutrition. 

Meal planning the way it's communicated to the lay person is not good. Photos on social media of dozens of Tupperware containers filled with tightly managed portions of carbs, vegetables, and protein make for a good picture, but they are a far cry from reality. Especially if that reality includes kids or spouses. 

Preparation like...

By: Michael Beiter

Q: I hurt my back the other day. What should I do?

A: The name of the game whenever injury or illness comes around is regression. Your goal is to regress your exercise as much as necessary until you can do it without upsetting your injury. In this case maybe deadlifts and squats are too much but hamstring curls and lunges are fine. The person should do those with the same set and rep scheme he was supposed to do squats and deadlifts with until he can comfortably get back to...

Carmen has been a client for nearly 5 years. Today we met and talked about her struggles with fuck it dieting. We dove into issues with the modern food environment and what to do about it. 

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By Michael Beiter

Q: Can I eat out? 

A: Yes

Q: How?
A: Scout ahead for where you're going and look at their menu. Most restaurants post their menu online with nutrition information. If you can't find the calorie and macro information you need on the business' website head over to Google and look it up. If you can't find it there check the database in My Fitness Pal. Between the two virtually every food has been databased with accurate nutrition information somewhere. 

You...

By: Michael Beiter

One variable 

You don't know what lever is doing what if you pull all of them at the same time. 

An engineer client of mine said this and the parallel to food and fitness is obvious. 

I teach people how to use the scientific method to figure out how they should eat and exercise.

A big part of that method is that after you've formed a hypothesis you set up a test to determine if you are right or wrong. In that test you usually manipulate something.

In...

By: Michael Beiter

In this interview I chat with Mollie Yazzie (43) a client of two years who recently reached the lightest body weight she has seen in her adult life. She has been dieting for 20 years and the last time she was this light she was starved, angry, and eating out of tupperware. This corporate leader is a fine example. 

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By: Daniel Klein

From: Travels with Epicurus

Islanders like to tell a joke about a prosperous Greek American who views one of the islands on vacation. Out on a walk, the affluent Greek American comes upon an old Greek man sitting on a rock, sipping a glass our ouzo, and lazily staring at the sun setting into the sea. The American notices there are olive trees growing on the hills behind the old Greek but that they are untended, with olives just dropping here and there onto the ground....