Feeling Guilty, BBQ and Memorial Day

So I got this email the other day but didn't get a chance to open it till last night and that is too bad.  It  could have been the center of a great Memorial Day Message. 
Sadly the email was not a reminder to honor the people who gave their lives in defense of this country.  Nor was it a request for donations from a local veterens group.

(This is my buddy Linda Cherry Patry's Grandpop. He fought in World War Two.  He lived to grow old.  Four Hundred and Sixteen Thousand and Eight Hundred of his comrades never got that chance. Please do not honor their memory by leaving a slice of cheese off of your hamburger)


It was a list of recipies for a "Guilt Free"  memorial day BBQ.  Yeah, it turns out that Memorial Day is no longer about the troops.  In certain swaths of our population it has officially become "Kick off to the Summer BBQ Season" day. 


That really chaps my ass. 

You alreadly know how I feel about guilt and eating.  What you may not know is how I feel about guilt, eating and Memorial Day.


So take this for what it is worth.  There are two things you need to remember when it comes to feeling guilty about what you ate this Memorial Day Weekend. 


Number One:


Don't. 


It's a freaking holiday weekend.  You seriously want to worry about a couple hot dogs with relish?  Spend your time worrying about the other three hundred and fifty days of the year that aren't a holiday weekend.  Maybe then you will see some real results from your diet and exercise program.  At the minimum you will less annoying to those of us who are trying to eat our ribs and chicken in peace while you quote calorie and fat content to us.


Number Two:


If you are dead set on feeling guilty this Memorial Day Weekend please don't do so over some coleslaw.  Personally I don't feel guilty at all that I never served in war.  In fact I feel pretty damn lucky.  The only emotion that crosses my pasty white Scotch/Irish butt on Memorial Day is one of gratitude and thanks to those who had given their lives to defend my freedom. 

(This is my buddy Tracy Orlick's dad.  He put his life on the line for his country in Vietnam.  He made it home.  A lot of his friends didn't.   Please don't honor their service by getting your underwear in a bunch over whether or not to put real butter on your corn on the cob.) 


If you want to do something constructive this weekend understand that it will have nothing to do with searching for low calorie recipie for egg salad. 

I have attached a link here for The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. 

http://www.fallenheroesfund.org/

The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund is an organization dedicated to providing for the families of soliders who have died in combat.  They also recently completed the Center for the Intrepid.  It is "A $55 million world-class state-of-the-art physical rehabilitation center at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. The Center serves military personnel who have been catastrophically disabled in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and veterans severely injured in other operations and in the normal performance of their duties. The 60,000 square foot Center provides ample space and facilities for the rehabilitation needs of the patients and their caregivers. It includes modern physical rehabilitation equipment and extensive indoor and outdoor facilities". 

Please donate today. 

Normally I end these blogs with my "Shank Disclaimer" that says what the hell do I know.  Problem is that doesn't really apply here because I definitely know this is the right thing to do.

Yours in Chocolate Chip Cookies,

Mike Cruickshank

Pilates, Managed Expectations and a little lady from Guatemala

Hey Shank,

My whole life I have looked like a teapot, you know, short and stout.  The other day I was at the gym and I was approached by this trainer who told me that if I signed up for her Pilates class I could have the long and lean body of a dancer.  I have always wanted to look like dancer.

My question is, is this true? Can Pilates make me look like a Dancer?

Signed Sincerely,

Mrs. Potts

Dear Mrs. Potts,

The other day I was in the international aisle at my local Shop Rite picking up some Thai Chili Sauce.  This stuff is fantastic!  I put it on my steamed chicken and rice which gives it a little bit of that General Tso's flavor minus about one thousand calories. 

              (I love this guy's chicken but if I eat it too often my butt start's to jiggle)


So anyway, as I was heading towards the Asian section I ran into this tiny little lady, she couldn't have been more than a couple inches shy of four and a half feet.  She was shopping in the Goya section which is right next to the source of my spicy goodness.  Per my usual I got to talking to her and it turns out she is from Guatemala.  She told me she loves our Shop Rite because it has a wide selection of products that typically she can only find in South and Central American specialty shops.  Awesome for her!

What was awesome for me is standing next to this woman I felt like a giant!  And this got me to thinking about how cool it would be to be really tall.  How awesome it would feel to be able to literally look down on everybody without neccessarliy having to think less of them. 

But then reality set in.  On a good day I am five foot ten.  Now while this certainly doesn't make me Herve Villechaize it doesn't make me Wilt Chamberlin either. 

                        (These guys formed one badassed duo!  R.I.P. both of them)


The bottom line is my body is what my body is and that includes my warts (I mean that figuratively), blemishes, vertical challenges and all.  I can change that no more than anybody can change the sun and the moon and the stars. 

And so is the rub with body types.  Just because professional dancers tend to have long and lean bodies  doesn't mean that by dancing you will have one too.  And just because professional dancers use Pilates to strengthen and protect their core from a variety of high level dance induced injuries doesn't mean you will be shopping in the young misses section any time soon either.  Don't feel bad though.  Do you know how many tall people comment on my emerging bald spot everyday?

Think of it this way.  Could you imagine if a basketball coach approached me and said that by teaching me how to play his sport I could be taller  because guys in the N.B.A. happen to be tall?  Of course not, that is insane.  The typical player in the N.B.A. is tall because those are the body types that tend to excel at that sport.  The same thing goes for professional dancers.  That body type, the long and lean one, is the type that excels at that given profession.  It is only honed, not created, through decades of training which includes things like Pilates. 

(Think of me more like the guy on the right versus the guy on the left. Minus the seventy two tons of steroids of course)


Now don't get me wrong. I think Pilates is wonderful.  I include a lot of Pilates based mat exercises in both my own routine as well as that of my clients.  They are great for core strength, breath and body control and nothing beats them for pelvic floor strengthening (ask any woman who has had a baby and also jumped on a trampoline about the importance of that last one).   

Just as your height is fixed at a certain age so is your body type.  Some people tend to be short and thick and some people tend to be long and lean.  When people ask me what I do for a living I say that a big part of being a personal trainer is giving people good, safe and  honest advice on how to make their bodies stronger so that they can live more fulfilling lives.  I also tell them that a big part of my job is also about teaching people how to learn to manage expectations. 

(One of these, or some combination thereof, is your body type.  You were given these cards a long time ago.  You can either learn to enjoy what you have and play the game or you can read'em and weep.  It is up to you.)

No trainer, pilates coach or anybody for that matter minus Merlin the magician will ever be able to give you the skinny body of a dancer if that is not the way you are built.  They may promise it to you but that is because they are either uninformed or they are an unethical piece of poop.  My advice would be to eat right, exercise and learn to love the body you have, not the one you wish you did. 

But then again, what the hell do I know.

Yours in Chocolate Chip Cookies,

Mike Cruickshank

Personal Problems, Rachel Ray and Cleaning People

"Our greatest weaknesses are always extensions of our greatest strengths"

Me

(Yes, I believe that I am the one who came up with that.  I did a quick google search and couldn't find anybody else who said it.  Pretty cool.)

I have a personal problem.

 I tend to ramble on a bit.

 I know this sounds a little paranoid but I could swear they were talking about me when I went to a play last week and a character referred to the issue in these terms:

 "His conversations read like a novel". 

As if censure from Off Broadway wasn't enough, my buddy, soon to be Dr. Jerry Novack (a.k.a. Dr. Vesuvius) has told me that in his clinical opinion it is a classic case of diahrea of the mouth. 

Nice. 

( Here's a good idea - have a POINT. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener!)

So in an effort to improve myself as well as save the time and prevent the mental exhaustion of my readers I have decided to make this blog post a quick one. 

ONE FOOD YOU SHOULD NEVER EAT  IF...

you are trying to lose weight.  I have no proof for this.  In fact you might find my logic a little strange.  All the evidence I do have is anecdotal at best.   But given the fact they have sent people to the electric chair in Texas with less I guess that is o.k. I do it just this once.


Here it is:

Here is my logic:
1.  I am lean despite the fact that I am not really designed that way.  My natural body type is somewhere between a middle linebacker and  a snowman.  Also, I know and hang out with a lot of lean people, a majority of whom are in the same boat as me give or take a strange body image reference or two. None of us eat stuff like this.  I would find it easy to argue that during our normal daily diets we eat very little food that comes out of a box.

I always find it funny that when I go to the grocery store I always see the overweight people with stuff like this in their cart.  They also tend to have ample supplies of "Skinny Cow" desert treats, the calorie portioned boxes of cookies like 100 calories snack packs or oreo's, and without a speed bump in the highway of dietary confusion they always have several boxes of some kind of lean cuisine nonsense.

Funny thing is the calories in any of the above mentioned items tend to be very "low" but yet, in my experience, they are always being eaten by overweight people or people who are constantly struggling with their weight.

My coach Scott Abel likes to say that success leaves clues.  He is a positive guy.  I am not.  I like to say that absolute miserable failure leaves clues too.  Just like Colonel Mustard in the Billard Room with the candlestick holder, this is one of them.

2.  This product actually scares me.  Not because I have a chicken phobia although I did meet some actual chickens last Thanksgiving and they are quite strange creatures.  Anyway, my biggest beef with this chicken based product is this:

When you make chicken parm the cheese is supposed to be on the outside of the breading dammit!  What kind of un holy creation is this where the cheese in on the inside?  Why would you do that?  Seriously. As if that slap to the face of the law of relativity wasn't enough, if you look closely you will also see that the chicken on the inside has the same texture as the breading on the outside. 

What the heck is that all about? 

(That is what chicken parm should look like!  On Cor chicken parm should just pack up it's bags and go to naples)**Authors note:  If you don't know what it means to go to naples, ask an Italian friend of yours. 

A Special Shout out to Rachel Ray

The only reason why I know of this products existence is  because I saw it in an ad in the new issue of Everyday with Rachel Ray (I know, I know, don't even say it.  I read everyday with Rachel Ray.  As stated before I have problems but Rachel Ray loves pitbulls so I love Rachel Ray). 

                              (She loves her dog.  That is important to me)

Normally that wouldn't push me to write a blog about it but within a ten minute period afterward I saw my buddy Chris Ward almost regurgitate his chicken and rice upon seeing the add (he was actually the one who noticed the cheese on the inside insanity) and upon walking downstairs I saw the cleaning lady at my gym heating this product up in our microwave. 

Just to make note that while our cleaning lady is a wonderful human being, she doesn't exactly live the lean lifestyle.  That is fine but it just went on to compound my point. 

By now I have already blown my earlier promise not to ramble on, sorry about that.  I guess when it comes to changing our lives their are just certain aspects about ourselves we just have to learn to accept.

Then again, what the hell to I know.

Yours in chocolate chip cookies,

Mike Cruickshank

Nort Jersey, Seal Team Six, and Fat Loss Pills (Part 3)

"I said – War! Huh Good God y’all, What is it good for?  Absolutely nothing.  Say it again"

Edwin Starr


"Just when I thought you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this...and totally redeem yourself"

Jeff Daniels from the movie Dumb and Dumber

I like movies a lot.  Hopefully if you are a loyal reader of this blog you have picked up on that.  I remember one of my favorite scenes in movie history is at the end of Animal House.  Right after the members of Delta House find out they have been expelled from school and kicked off campus, the following speech is made by Eric "Otter" Stratton (Played by Tim Matheson):

"Bluto's right. Psychotic... but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part!"

(If only the supplement industry was as much fun as these guys, maybe we would have something to laugh about.)

Well somebody over at MRI (another supplement company) must have been channeling the spirit of the Delta House when they came out with their product W.A.R.  It is an acronym which stands for Workout, Anabolic, Recovery.  Supposedly their product can "Target all three phases of muscular growth" and supposedly it can do this ..FAST!  

                                    (Seriously, this really does exist)


Now outside of eating lots of nutrient dense calories and working out really hard with weights for many YEARS, I can not think of any other way that you can target muscle growth.  Personally I can think of no more futile or stupid gesture on anybody's part than to say they have a product that would do such thing FAST.  Unless the makers of this supplement can go back to your birth and turn you into a genetic freak, there really is no way to build large amounts of muscle quickly, regardless of what you try to do. 

THESE GUY'S MAKE PROGRADE LOOK DOWNRIGHT SUBTLE

Now you already know what I think of the actions of a company like Prograde and their claims with their fat loss and longevity supplements.  If you don't please go back now and read my last blog post. 

What gets me is that there is a company out there that is so ridiculous in it's claims that it makes the people over at Prograde actually look downright subtle. 

In the initial promotion of their product the people over at MRI claim that with their product "You can finally get the optimal response to your workouts - and wage WAR on Recovery!"

And this is my first problem with the whole thing.  First off, and this goes to all supplement companies and meatheads out there, don't name your product or refer to your workouts as "War" or "A War". 

A bodybuilder dressed up in cut off shorts or wearing spandex and a tank top while doing his Legs workout is not at a state of War.

                (As scary as this is, it is certainly not the true face of War)

To imply otherwise, especially in an effort to feel cool about yourself or to sell supplements is downright insulting, insensitive and stupid.  What is next for these people? A diet product called "Famine".  I mean what other hellish aspect of human existence is not on the table for these guys?

Now listen, I understand it is just "Marketing" but personally I consider myself lucky before the eyes of God to have never had to have been permantly scarred by the reality of combat. Somebody might want to clue in the people over at MRI about that one.

(To the meatheads of the world and to the executives of MRI...this is what War really looks like. Take a good look)

Now the name is just a start.  I am sure you could defend the people over at MRI and say their intention was never to dishonor or minimize the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform by comparing them to a bunch of inert powder in cool looking box.  And you know what, I would be fine with that.  A little sad about it but something I could definitely live with if not just ignore. 

Problem is that they don't just leave it at that.  They just had to "pimp" their product.  As we have already seen, when it comes to supplement industry "pimping" their products, nothing is off the table.  This is the content under the products "Science" section.  Their comments are in black, mine in red. 

"Introducing New Schisandrin-B Heat Shock Protein Activator"

More font, more yelling.  This guys have to cut back on their caffine and sugar consumption.  Either that or at least write in language people can understand.  I mean what the heck is Schisandrin-B Heat Shock Protein Activator?"

For decades, research scientists have sought to target the elusive Heat Shock Proteins (HSP). Why?

Because Cancer and Aids research just wasn't important enough?

HSPs “jolt” cells into hyper responsive mode. Cells suddenly react to stimuli at lightening velocity.

Lightening velocity?  Certainly that cannot mean that the 1.21 gigawatts of power produced by a bolt of lightening is contained in every serving of W.A.R !  Great Scott!

Cellular “activity” is thrust into warp speed.

Warp Speed!  Somebody call James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise!  Or at least get in contact with world renouned Cosmologist Stephen Hawking.  He has been wasting his life telling us that traveling at the speed of light is impossible.  Shows how smart he is.  The people at MRI have figured out not only how to bend the laws of physics but to develop bigger arms while doing so!

What does that mean for recovery? Everything!

More important than getting lots of sleep, eating lots of good food and managing stress?

With Schisandrin-B, HSPs “zap” the transcription factors (TF) that control protein synthesis into rapid acceleration.*

I have no idea what this means.

It's like going from 0 to 240 mph in five seconds - then maintaining that speed for 90 minutes. And that's just for starters.

What is this stuff made out of?  This sounds like somebody going on a cocaine bender. 

HSPs actually help convert more amino acids into real muscle fiber. In combination with its proprietary “muscle perfect” amino ratio, WAR helps create the ideal condition for muscle growth.

Now this is really where things get out of control.  How do you prove this?  And yet again how to do prove that WAR was the mitigating factor?  Scott Abel always talks about effects of training as if they are either influential or incidental  .  To his point most people start an exercise and diet regime while taking these supplements and then give the credit for their gains to the supplement itself when it really was just incidental to the outcome.  The workouts and the diet were what actually made the difference, they were what was influential.  Once again, will these guys say anything to make a buck?

In Conclusion

In conclusion, the whole point behind this three part blog was to bring to your attention the importance of professionalism and the high standards to which we hold those people we consider professionals.  I also wanted to show you how the supplement industry falls way short of those high standards.

The lesson to be taken out of this isn't that you should never supplement your diet.  As I quoted before from Scott Abel "The best workout and diet programs are those that make the workout and diet fit the individual, not the individual fit the workout and the diet".  So maybe, just maybe there might be somebody out there who could have some use for these products.  My feeling is that the number would be so small that all these companies would go out of business overnight.  My feeling also is that there are so many other more important mitigating factors as to why you are not reaching your fitness goals, that to take these supplements only distracts you from putting your energy and resources towards those means. 

What I take out of this as a fitness professional and a guy who lives a lean lifestyle is just one thing:

Compassion. 

Everyday I am confronted with well meaning but very misinformed people who want to know "What's the best product to take".  Then I look at their diet and exercise routine and I am stunned at why they don't get it. 

Also everyday I am confronted with overweight, beaten down and broken people who just can't face one more failed diet.  They say they have tried everything from those bull crap low calorie diet foods/snacks to some of the very supplements I listed in this blog. 

And you know what?  Sometimes I get really angry about it.  Not angry at the people who come to me because I can understand where they are coming from.  For them I have compassion.

Why?

Because when you turn to a professional you think you are getting the right advice for you.  Just like when you go to the doctor or the pharmacist and you don't think twice sometimes to confront what they say or even check the prescription label.  Granted there is a lesson in that one too but the point is this.   The fitness and supplement industry is filled with these unethical, ridiculous people who take the title professional and step all over it like the cast from the Broadway Show "Stomp!".

(Just imagine these guys are from your favorite late night fitness infomercial.  Now imagine that instead of the stage floor, underneath their feet are all your hopes, dreams and money)

They only difference between the fitness people and the cast from Broadway is the exercise people wear  poop covered boots while doing it just in the effort to make a buck.  No wonder people are so confused and fail so many times. 

So my final plea to everyone out there is this:

First, learn to love the body you already have. Not the one you wished you had or the one you will never be.   Exercise and a healthy diet are great.  They will make you feel better physically and mentally. But they do have limits, especially when you start them later in life.

Secondly, you are who you are, especially when it comes to your body type.  Now don't take that as an excuse if you are already overweight to go and demolish the McDonalds Dollar Menu.  The point is that based on your genetics some of you are more easily big while some of you are more easily skinny.  Very few of you are natural athletes, and most of the rest of us are somewhere in between.

The last thing I would hope that you would do is put your trust in some of these "Professionals" in the Fitness and Supplement industry.  They are only going to burn you with promises they can't keep.

But then again, what the hell do I know.

Yours in chocolate chip cookies.

Mike Cruickshank

Nort Jersey, Seal Team Six, and Fat Loss Pills (Part 2)

The best laid schemes of mice and men…Go oft awry.

John Steinbeck

When I originally wrote part two of this post it was going to be about a guy.

The ProGrade Guy.

A dude named Jayson Hunter.

Now let me qualify this by saying I have never met Jayson Hunter. I really don’t know anything about him, at least as a person that is.

So you might ask why did I choose to center an entire post on some person I don’t even know.

It all started like this.

One night I was surfing the web like Frankie Avalon on the waves in Muscle Beach Party…

           (Did you ever wonder why all that water never messed up his hair).

And I came across this advertisement telling me that if I clicked on some random link I would be sent to a free online report. But this was just not any report. It was a super report provided to us by a company called Prograde. Check this out:


Lose more weight in just 30 days
…
more weight than average
…
as Proven in clinical trials and published in professional journals!
 
At this point two questions quickly rang up in my head:

1.  Why do the dudes who write these ads always have to use font that seems like they are yelling at you?

2.  How could I even hope to resist an offer like this?

Well it turns out I should have. Prograde is a supplement company.

This is a little blurb from their site. My comments are in red, theirs are in black:

This may be the most important discovery for weight loss in the last 50 years!

You mean more important than eating less and moving more?

It is drug-free, side-effect free, inexpensive and guaranteed to work for you.

Everybody knows that the best stuff is drugs.  They have lots of side effects, are really expensive, and while guaranteed to work they are pretty much illegal everywhere except Mexico.

                                     (This is Jayson hunter, he is your friend)


Dear Friend,
Do I know you?

Are you sick and tired of:
Supplement companies lying to people? Well then the answer would be yes.


working your butt off, but not getting enough fat loss?
Yes, but that is only because I eat three deserts every night


exercise taking up so much of your valuable and limited time?
Well, that’s what it does. Exercise does take time and for about the first decade or so it winds up taking more and more time the better in shape you get. It’s called building up your work capacity.

Eating boring, unsatisfying “diet foods” too often?
Yep, that’s going to happen too, especially if your goal is to lose weight. You need to understand that every time you sit down to eat it is not going to be like experiencing the food channel. Sometimes food is about pleasure and family and experience but when it comes to losing weight, most of the time it is not. Sometimes food is just fuel.

Feeling hungry too often?
Most of the world lives in hunger on a daily basis. For a long time it was a natural part of life. It is only recently that we have been defining hunger as some type of sin. Hence why nowadays there are so many fat Americans waddling around. You can thank Scott Abel for that gem of truth with the exception of the fat waddling comment.

Now, thanks to this amazing all-natural discovery, you can STOP STRUGGLING so hard to lose weight … and get even better results!
I find the whole "natural" angle pretty funny because heroin is derived from substances natural to the earth and from what I hear it too is pretty awesome for weight loss. The bottom line is weight loss will always be a struggle for most people. Using food as a method of self-medication is just one example of why losing weight is such a struggle. There are too many facets of emotional eating alone to mention here. If you want better results you are going to have to struggle even if it is just a little bit. No pill or potion is going to “solve” that for you. It requires the hard work of genuine personal change which is never easy.

And If That Was Not Enough

Turns out Prograde also has a product called Longevity. I guess it is supposed to stack the cards in your favor of living longer? I find that very strange. I mean, how are you supposed to even prove that it works? The process of aging, especially longevity, depends upon many variables the most important being your genetics. How could you possibly even hint that a supplement would have anything more than an incidental effect?

What confuses me even more is that Prograde offers a 100% sixty day no questions asked money back guarantee. How could that possibly apply to a product called Longevity? Who is the market for this kind of thing? Maybe if you could find an audience that didn’t have very high expectations for their time on this Earth. But even then how would they take advantage of the money back guarantee? They would be dead.

               (What was that old pirate saying? Gaaaarrrr! Dead men collect no rebates!)

This is all pretty sad really and yet what you read here is pretty much indicative of the entire supplement industry. It’s just when I looked over Prograde’s site, which is no different than the dozens of other supplement companies that have come and gone over the years, something really got to me. Not sure what it was but I left the net that night convinced that I was going to make a new post about it the very next day. I mean what could be worse than fitness professionals selling this kind of stuff?

Shank, Why Did You Have To Open Your Big Mouth?

And then I got to work the next day and the bottom fell out. I was introduced to a product that made Prograde look like the Ralph Nader of consumer protection. How could that be you ask? Well let me tell you…

SOMEBODY DECLARED WAR!

(To be continued)

Nort Jersey, Seal Team Six, and Fat Loss Pills

I have this buddy; he is a school teacher up in Nort Jersey. Yes, Nort Jersey. Right now spell check is getting pretty confused as I am sure you are too so let me explain.

North Jersey comprises of the North Central and North Western Portion of the state of New Jersey. It is known for is scenic views, happy little country like hamlets, and it’s fine cuisine of homemade cheeses and good squirrel cookin.

Nort Jersey comprises of the North Eastern Part of the State. It comprises less of towns and more like “Places”. When I say places I mean like Newark, Teaneck, Hackensack, Union City, Bayonne and the always sunny North Bergen. Nort Jersey is really more an attitude and a state of mind than it is a real geographic entity. If you are still confused just watch the opening scene of the Sopranos…that is Nort Jersey.

(Welcome to Nort Jersey. Now go home you Fonzanoon.)

So anyway, my buddy has been teachin (they don’t teach up in Nort Jersey, they teachin) there for a couple of years when he gets this great offer by the school district to attend the Worlds Teacher Conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was a reward for being one of the area’s most outstanding young educators.

Pretty big honor you could say.

Now the day before my buddy, let’s call him Mikey the Fish, is about to ship off one of his fellow teachers approaches him. No big deal you might say but in the three years Mikey had been there this guy never even muttered a word to him. Not even once despite the fact that their classrooms were right next to each another.

All Mikey knew was this guy had a reputation for being strange. So strange that nobody even understood what he taught. Some people thought he taught art. Some people thought he taught music. Some people thought he taught a combination of both. Bottom line is nobody really wanted to ask.

So this guy comes up to Mikey the Fish and doesn’t say hello, how are you, or even introduce himself. All he says is, and this is seriously true:

“Don’t ever have sex with one of those Prostitutes. You will never want to have sex with a normal woman ever again”.

And with that this Art/Music teachin dude turns around, walks into his classroom and never talks to Mikey ever again.

Now anybody who knows Mikey the Fish knows he is a really good guy. A real professional. But Mikey is also very conservative, in a real way. Not Conservative like in he passes legislation to ban Gay Marriage or lower taxes only to be found hooking up with dudes in airport bathrooms and defrauding the IRS of millions. I mean conservative like he would be the last person you would ever think would be on the prowl for some “professional” help of that kind.

Still, the wacky Art/Music teachin dude had a good point. As a society and culture we expect more from our Professionals whether they are of the Athletic Arena, the Business World or the even the skin trade. We expect a high level of performance and a higher level of execution.

No better example of this can be found with the heroic actions of U.S. Navy’s Seal Team Six and their recent dispatching of Dirt bag Numero Uno, Osama Bin Laden.

(Move over G.I. Joe, here are the REAL American Heroes)

Any combat solider will tell you there is nothing really heroic about taking another human beings life. To them that is their job. They swore to protect the United States of America so that is what they do.

The true heroism in these men does not lie in the killing, that is something made up by the movie industry. The true heroism is in the teamwork, the skill level, and the relying on the man next to you to cover your back even as you walk straight through the fiery gates of hell into your next mission, operation or global hot spot de jour.

And yet despite all those incredible odds and challenging situations I must ask “Are we really surprised by any of this?” These are the Navy Seals for crying out loud. Translated from Latin Navy Seal roughly means “One bad mama Jamba”.

The reason I bring all this up is because recently a client of mine had a scare when both he and his wife were given mislabeled prescriptions from a Pharmacist. Lucky enough nobody was seriously hurt but it does bring up a pretty good point.

I know when I go to the Pharmacy I don’t even give a second thought to what it is I am being given. Why? Because Pharmacists, Doctors and other members of the medical field are some of the best trained and highest esteemed professionals in the world. We expect more from them and rightly so since often times they hold the balance of life and death within their hands.

Granted this is just one isolated incident out of the millions and millions of interactions that take place in the medical community each day but could you imagine if this was the norm. Could you imagine an industry where the very essence of Professionalism is thrown out the window only to go splat on the sidewalk like a hefty bag filled with Lipton Onion soup dropped off the top of the Empire State Building?

Well let me introduce you ladies and gentlemen to the Supplement Industry. They bring a new meaning to the word professionalism and it isn’t a good one.

(To be continued)

Whole Grains, Weight Loss, and Health

Hey Shank,

I understand your anti Lucky Charms position but isn't it true that whole grains are superior for weight loss and health?

Signed,
Mr. Slimbody

Hi Mr. Slimbody,

Given your colorful name I might assume that you "get it" when it comes to knowing how to live a lifetime of leanness. Either that or somebody is playing a cruel joke on you like when they call stupid people genius. Or like my shop teacher in school whose nickname was lefty even though he had lost 3 fingers on his left hand in a tragic belt sander incident.

But so I digress.

When it comes to whole grains I don't really give them much thought, especially when it comes to weight loss and health. In fact, when it comes to weight loss and health I don’t give them much thought either. Both are outcomes where as I tend to focus more on behaviors.

I find focusing on behaviors versus outcomes works much better. I do this given my experience that the biggest fallacy in this life is the idea that we are in control. I know some people believe we should be able to direct the people, places and events surrounding our lives but we don't. To add insult to the control freaks injury my experience is that we never can. When it comes to weight loss and especially health you will find there is no greater area where we lack control more.

Now understand I didn't mean to get all Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on you. I am just trying to drive home the point that buzz concepts like eating whole grains to spark fat loss make about as much sense as pre moistened diapers.

(He is supposedly a heck of nice guy but not exactly a Gillette man I would say)

My approach to whole grains is such. When I am out on the streets getting my business done I sometimes find myself without a cooler stocked with low calorie, nutrient dense foods. Now instead of freaking out like the Cookie Monster on a date with Mrs. Fields I simply go to my default meal, turkey with lettuce and tomato with lots of spicy mustard on whole wheat. I tend to like the ones from Panera Bread the best but you can pretty much pick one of these up anywhere. I do this not because I believe the bread I put on my sandwich is going to make me live longer or develop six pack abs. Both of those processes revolving around weight loss and health are dependent upon so many other bigger and more important variables. The reality is I eat my sandwich this way because that is how I like it. If I am worried about fiber I tend to default to the three or more cups of vegetables and three servings of fruit that I eat each day.

When it comes to things like whole wheat pasta and brown rice I have already gone on the record how much I hate the taste of those things. I just don't see the point in eating foods you don't like because of some long term payoff that could easily be accomplished some other way.

I have been eating white rice and white pasta for years and you could iron a shirt on my stomach (gratuitous Water Boy reference). So when it comes to how "fattening" those foods are you have me at a loss. Portion size seems to be more important than anything, especially when concerning weight loss. Maybe that is why if you know someone who switched to whole wheat pasta they lost weight initially because it tastes so bad they can't really eat much of it.

If you want to really focus on weightloss and health than my advice would be to get more consistent with the behaviors that have a proven track record of working. First is to pray to God, Darwin or whomever else it is your worship that you were dealt the right cards at birth. Then focus on behaviors like consistently eating less than you burn off through portion control and a lifetime of consistent and challenging exercise. If there is one chink in the armor of the no control mentality it would be the ability to exert behavioral change in ourselves (albeit as challenging as that might be). For me whole grains just don’t seem to make a very loud blip on the Mr. Radar of life.

(Now that I have my coffee I am ready to watch Radar.)

But then again what the hell do I know.

Yours in chocolate chip cookies,

Mike Cruickshank