PJ's Fitness Blog

A blog about a fitter you. Come find out what is on the cutting edge of fitness science and be a part of the ongoing conversation.

7 Great Reasons to Buy Coke

Coke totally rocks! I buy Coke regularly and have found that it really improves my quality of life. Here are my favorite 7 ways to use Coke. I hope these tips enrich your life as much as they have mine.

1.) Toilet bowl cleaner. Pour a can into your toilet bowl and let it sit for an hour. It will clean that nasty ring around the bowl quite nicely and even deep clean stains off the porcelain!

2.) Windshield cleaner. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to get that “road haze” off your windshield? Even your toxic windshield soap won’t usually cut through it, but a little Coke will to the job in a snap.

3.) Stubborn stain solution. Got nasty greasy stains? Well, if you pre treat those stains with Coke and then pour the rest of the can in with your regular detergent, you can cut through even the wost greasy mess.

4.) Engine cleaner. If it gets grease out of clothes, it must be good for cleaning your engine for the next car show, right? Try it out – it’s a much cheaper solution than hiring a detail shop to steam-clean it.

5.) Corrosion buster. Pour some Coke on your car battery terminals to clean them up nice and shiny. No wonder Coke is the most common vending machine in car parts and repair centers. Oh, the myriad of automotive uses!

6.) Rust remover. Just put some Coke on the trouble spot, let it sit for a few minutes and then scrub with some crumpled up aluminum foil and that rust will surrender with very little fight.

7.) Insect repellant. Simply pour it all over your body to ward off those nasty bugs. Diet Coke is the best choice for this however, because it won’t leave you as sticky after it dries. Even flies are repelled like a charm! They are happy to land and hang out on any fresh pile of poop, but they wont go anywhere near your Coke-soaked body.

I’m not one to procure sympathy from others, but I know people who play the “victim” role and love to feed off people feeling sorry for them, so if you are one of those types, here are 4 bonus reasons for Coke (and these are actual reasons to drink the stuff).

  • Bone fractures on demand. Coke leaches calcium out of your bones like no other, so drinking the stuff will drastically raise your frequency of bone fractures. With a little effort, you could even snap a bone on demand! And this is with adults, so imagine the effect it has on children. Just ask childrens orthopedic doctors about how coke effects children’s bones and their tendencies to get a fracture. Imagine being at a pity party for someone else, but you’d rather steal the show. Merely step off a stair sideways with a slightly funky angle and your hip and/or leg/ankle/foot should give way with a loud “snap” for all to hear, as well as an obvious and visual fracture (compound with arterial spray if you’re lucky), showing everyone at the party that you now deserve all the pity redirected immediately to you!
  • Increase that stubborn fat. Need to claim bad genetics as an excuse for your weight, but you know it’s not true? Want to sabotage a diet so you can show your spouse that you are a hopeless case so they will stop nagging you to eat right? Are you losing weight and starting to feel uncomfortable about people hitting on you now? Coke is the perfect solution. It will dehydrate you, making it almost impossible to burn fat off your body. It is also loaded with high fructose corn syrup which is clinically proven to turn you into a fat storing machine. It will also turn off your hunger satiety mechanism, forcing you to gorge on food like there is no tomorrow. Diet Coke is just as effective, because the artificial sweeteners do the same thing, but will further add to the toxins to your fat cells, making them even more stubborn.
  • How about chronic inflammation, arthritis, gout, cancer, and diabetes to increase that sympathy vote? Just drink Coke and all your dreams will come true. For maximal suffering and sympathy before you die early, MS and Parkinson’s are drastically accelerated due to the fact that artificial ingredients (especially artificial sweeteners) are excitotoxins which kill your nerve cells (especially brain cells) at a rate that would (and literally does) blow your mind.
  • Feed your addictive personality. Yep, Coke is loaded with chemicals that make you physically and mentally addicted to it, so if you would like to give up gambling or swap with another addiction, Coke might help. It won’t help with other food or beverage addictions though. It will make those worse.

If on the other hand, you’d rather get off the stuff, then try filtered water. If that doesn’t cut it, try green tea. Still not havin’ it? Give Zevia brand cola a shot or make your own favorite pop with a SodaStream machine using natural flavoring options. Still can’t do it? Check yourself into a rehab clinic and get cleaned up. It’ll be worth it.

 

Party Like a Fit Star

It’s party season! ‘Tis the season for holiday gatherings, family get-togethers, office parties, Halloween candy (you’ve probably already started that, right?), etc. Now combine that with the sugar craving tooth turning on between gatherings because of those gatherings and we end up with a belly, butt and hips about 10 pounds heavier than they were in the summer.

So how do you combat this yearly cycle? It’s easy with the right strategy and it’s all about the brain training. Here is your 5 step routine for partying like a fit person:

1.) Eat before you go to your party. Fill up on the good food: Water first, veggies second, good fat third (i.e. butter from grassfed cows, coconut oil, organic olive oil, etc.), and then protein.

2.) Start drinking water as soon as you get there ( at least 10 oz.).

3.) If you drink alcohol, fake sip your drink most of the time to give the appearance that you are drinking with everyone else and your drink will last all night. Remember that at least 1/2 of the alcohol you drink turns to fat, thanks to the way you liver processes it, so minimize that as much as possible. Personally, I don’t have a problem with alcohol (heck, Jesus was a wine maker in His first recorded miracle), but I just don’t like the taste, so when I’m offered a drink, I just let them know that I never acquired the taste. That way no one feels judged and I have an easy out.

4.) If you have more than 1 drink, be sure to chug at least 2 glasses of water between drinks. Dehydration is another reason alcohol is so fattening, so drinking twice the amount in water helps prevent that (and reduces the severity of hangover symptoms later).

5.) If they have food at the party, go for the veggie tray first, then more water, then protein (meat, cheese, etc.), then more water, then nuts (except cashews), then more water, then the bathroom because you’ll need it a few times that night if you are really drinking enough water as I suggest here and then if you still want some junky stuff, implement the 7 minute rule (click here to see what that is).

That’s your plan! Easy as that!

Now if you still succumbed to eating garbage at the gathering or drank too much, try the tapping technique the next day. Click here to see what that’s all about.

My 7 Best Fruit Picks

People ask me all the time if fruit can be a part of an aggressive fat-burning nutrition plan. My answer is yes, but within certain parameters.

I talked with one client who was “doing everything right” as far as nutrition, but was gaining fat. Upon further questioning, he disclosed that he was eating about a flat of fruit per day (15+ pieces), thinking that since it was “healthy food” and not “fast carbs” like pasta, sugar, bread or starches, it couldn’t possibly interfere with fat loss, let along cause him to gain any.

Well, not so fast there tiger. Fruit has fructose and half of it is converted directly into fat by the liver within hours after eating. So the lower fructose fruits should be the best to eat, right? Yes, but those fruits don’t taste very good. If you are OK with eating lemons, limes, unsweetened fresh cranberries and passion fruit, then knock yourself out. Otherwise, you have to be choosy.

Fruit also has a glycemic index, which can raise your blood sugar. It has a glycemic load too, so portion size matters with blood sugar levels too. The reason blood sugar levels are so important, is because when you blood sugar spikes, your insulin elevates and when that happens, you go into a fat storing mode instead of a fat burning mode and the fat burning mode is where you want to stay if you are trying to get leaner.

So are there any fruits that taste good, but can still be part of a fat burning plan? I think so. To figure that out, I took some yummy fruits and did an analysis in them.

In the left column below, those fruits are sorted by glycemic load (GL). That represents the effect they have on your blood sugar according to the portion size listed.

The middle column represents their glycemicc index (GI), which has less importance, but it’s still significant enough to be a factor.

The third (right) column is the sum of both the GL and the GI, to calculate my top 7 favorite fruits on a fat burning plan. I also highlighted them in green. The fruits in yellow are a caution/moderation fruit to eat on rare occasions in small amounts and the red fruits are the ones to stay away from completely on a fat burning plan. I also used fructose and nutritional benefit as a factor in determining the yellow and red fruits.

I should also mention that I have never met a fat raw vegan (those who are honest, strict, 100% raw vegans with no exceptions or “cheat” foods), so with that lifestyle, the fruit won’t stick to you, even if you eat red fruits all day. The minute you combine these fruits with fats and other carbs however, is when you will start to balloon up and pop out of your pants faster than you can believe.

Personally, I like my animal products and with them comes fat that will stick to me if I eat certain fruits, so for the time being, I’ll stick to my green fruits below, but still keeping them to 3 pieces or less per day.

Are You Pro-Choice When it Comes to Your Food?

I signed a petition to Michelle Obama today on the topic of genetically modified organisms, (GMO food) which says:

“Michelle, tell President Obama to honor his campaign promise to require GMO labeling and ask him to endorse California’s Proposition 37, a citizens’ ballot initiative to label GMOs.”

     Why am I sending this to Michelle? Well, I’ve already tried to get the message straight to Barack, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears. Besides, my friend Chief Sonne Reyna believes this next decade will be influenced mostly by our nation’s alpha females and I have a gut feeling that he’s right…
     Will you sign this petition with me? Click here to check it out: http://signon.org/sign/michelle-obama-tell-presiden?source=s.icn.em.mt&r_by=2246339.
     Please pass this on to others as well. If there is enough pressure from the masses (and his wife), Obama (and his bosses) might cave in to our pressure, or at least realize how many of us oppose GMO foods and the fact that we want to know and choose what we are buying!
     Most countries have outlawed GMO foods completely because of their proven dangers to health and environment, but our country allows these toxic foods to end up on our grocery store shelves without any indication whether they are GMO or not. The GMO producers don’t want the labeling because they know that most people will choose to avoid buying them if they know, so they would rather keep us in the dark so we don’t have a choice.
     This isn’t a petition to ban GMO foods. That’s next. This would simply give us the right to choose. We are obviously not alone (http://www.rodale.com/gmo-labeling). Will you join us too?
     This is serious. It’s for the sake of our health, our fitness and for our legacy to future generations and to the earth.