— Leave a Comment

Ellison Fitness to BURN Excess Weight and Get Ripped for ’20-TEN!

New Years Resolutions raise a certain feeling.

There was a lot of food during the holidays. I felt like I could hold myself back, but once the warm freshly baked smell penetrated my senses… there was no going back. Let’s face it, when the food is even more plentiful than the eating team, feasting becomes festive.

STEP 1) Create realistic goals

I don’t care if you want to lose 30 pounds, it’s not going to happen until you get real with yourself.

My Realistic Goal: Eat very clean for the next 26 out of 30 days (1 relax day per week), enjoy a plethora of healthy home cooked meals, and BURN OFF PURE FAT STORES.

STEP 2) It isn’t about what you can’t eat, but that which you CAN eat.

Too many people focus on what they shouldn’t eat instead of  viking raiding the river of what you CAN eat. There are a lot of good foods out there!

My Eating Plan: Consume the following foods within a 30 day time period:

  • Seven apples
  • Two giant servings of Kale
  • Broccoli for three days
  • One salmon, prepared for a king.
  • Raw Sauerkraut OR Kim Chi for 15 out of 30 days
  • Fresh Kefir probiotic drink for 15 out of 30 days
  • Whey Protein after workouts
  • Leverage the power of spices to create my own lentil soup recipe
  • Two grapefruits
  • Quinoa 7 out of 30 days.
  • Seven cucumbers
  • Walnuts or almonds on 15 out of 30 days.
  • Be flexible, quality produce goes on sale regularly

STEP 3) Get Movin’

Even if exercise didn’t burn fat, and even if exercise didn’t boost metabolism, I would still do it for the mental health benefits. Exercise has been proven to help your body adapt to stress, reduce risk of depression, and keep you motivated to eat healthy.

Now we just have to get up and out.

My Workout:

Fitness Regime.

  1. Monday: Warm up with 10 minute treadmill, then Full Body Workout
  2. Thursday: Warm up with 10 minute dynamic drills, then Lower body workout, and flexibility
  3. Friday: Warm up with 10 minute treadmill, then Upper body workout, and flexibility

Wildcard: Add an additional FOUR days of cardio workouts, anytime in the next 30 days.

STEP 4) Track Progress, Adapt and Move Forward

Damn, I just ate a bucket of wild gooseberries with coconut ice cream and a bottle of gin. Can I forgive myself?

YES!

Recognize that we can’t be perfect. However, the ways in which we respond to “failures” can bring us closer to our goals than ever before.

Then, continue to hold yourself accountable by tracking progress.

My Method of Tracking Progress:

  • Take full body pictures in two week intervals in order to track progress.
  • Weigh myself at same time as pictures.

Assess: How much weigh did I lose? More importantly, am I preserving muscle and how much pure fat did I burn?

STEP 5) Mission Accomplished

I learn a new lesson every time I work on goals like this. More importantly, I create healthy habits that are valuable — so valuable that people pay me for my time.

Health is all about Lifestyle

Even though revenue can be generated from fitness expertise, my motivation is purely intrinsic. That is, I am driven from the inside. This is an indispensable trait that can be cultivated through mind-body connection and whole foods.

Prepare yourselves for the after-pictures. There will be abdominals.

Blog & Personality Physical Fitness by Dre Power of the Mind Weightloss Now
— Leave a Comment

Omega-3 Fatty Acids: Relationship between Fish, the Human Brain, and Survival

How did humans get so smart in the first place?

Being labeled a fat-head may actually be a compliment. Our brains are primarily composed of fatty tissues responsible for cognitive function. Without healthy fats from our diet, our brains are unable to run at capacity — this may be the reason for ADHD, alzheimers, schizophrenia, or other brain-nervous system disorders.

Humans evolved superior intelligence by dominating the food chain. The nutrition available to people at the top of a food chain is vast — choosing to eat both plants and animals expands nutrient uptake. Both the abundance and wide variety of nutrients fueled the evolution of the human brain, and therefore our intelligence.

1. The bottom of the omega-3 ladder:

Algae, plankton, and other microorganisms

From the sea bottom, algae absorbs nutrients from the water and energy directly from the sun. These small organisms produce high quality nutrients, especially the Omega-3 fatty acid known as α-linolenic acid. Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) is known as the “vegetarian” source of Omega-3s because many plants can synthesize this particular type of fat.

Alpha-linolenic acid (Omega-3) is very useful, but it is only the first and most basic form of Omega-3, so it must be converted into a more usable form…

2. Small fish act as factories and healthy fat processors.

Oily fish like sardines and menhaden consume the plankton or algae, which typically provide all of the nutrients required for life — essentially a superfood for small fish. But these fish take it one step further…

Small fish like sardines and menhaden continue the brilliant cycle of life by converting Alpha-linolenic acid (Omega-3) into the next forms of Omega-3, EPA and DHA (Omega-3).

Beginning with Alpha-linolenic acid (Omega-3, ALA), fish utilize a process to transform more fat into eicosapentaenoic acid (Omega-3, EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (Omega-3, DHA).

Unlike humans, these fish are very efficient at converting Omega-3 from the ALA form into the higher EPA and further on to DHA. But not all fish are good at converting ALA into EPA. In fact, larger fish like Cod rely on eating smaller fish in order to provide them with the readily available Omega-3 in both EPA and DHA forms.

Humans cannot easily convert ALA from plant sources (such as flaxseed) into EPA or DHA. This is why eating fish and using fish oil supplements is generally regarded as superior to flaxseed for Omega-3’s.

3. Coastal communities equal successful diets for brain growth

Millions of people still rely on seafood for the majority of their diet, a trend that has continued over hundreds of thousands of years. Why? Seafood is one key to a healthy brain, nervous system, and skeletal-muscular system.

The theory of evolution argues that humans developed such powerful brains because our ancestors established reliable food sources for brain power — primarily fish.

While you may picture humans living in the African savanna, most populations settled near rivers and coasts in order to consume large amounts of fish. Aside from the protein, fish provide higher amounts of Omega-3 EPA and DHA than any other animal in the human diet.

As a result of heavy fish consumption, our ancestors had an excess of nutrients — vast nutrients to evolve more complexities to our brains.

Why EPA and DHA (Omega-3) Matter SO Much

Clogged, not enough Omega-3's

The major disease of our time, such as heart disease and arthritis, are diseases of inflammation. Due to diet and poor lifestyle habits, chronic inflammation degrades the arteries, joints, and tissues in the body. This ultimately results in pain and disease.

EPA (Omega-3) is known as the anti-inflammatory oil. The natural compounds in EPA (Omega-3) protect arteries by smoothing the lining, provide anti-inflammatory relief for the joints, and maintain healthy tissue in the body.

From a brain standpoint, the other fatty acid, DHA (Omega-3) fulfills vital functions in the cells. In fact, 90% of the omega-3’s in your brain are DHA — just imagine how much brain power you lose if you don’t get enough DHA from your diet. Moreover, DHA (omega-3) provides essential lubrication and protection for the cells in your retina (the eyeball is an extension of your brain), so if you value your vision, you will eat your fish.

We have lost touch with our natural humanity

Even though society has innovated technology to produce food for billions of people, we are more undernourished than ever. We need to get in touch with the successful diet of our ancestors — we must move forward to a time where diabetes and heart disease no longer threaten the soul of a nation.

Real health comes from the inside out, and you truly are what you eat. While it may seem funny to consider the health of each individual cell in your body, it is true that the healthier your cells, the healthier the YOU. EPA and DHA (Omega-3’s) are utilized by your body in millions of individual cells, in the arteries of your body, and in the membranes of your very being.

To regain what our ancestors worked so hard to evolve, we can consume a simple fish oil supplement.

Healthy cells make for a healthy person.

Recommended Fish Oil Dose:

Typically we pass on health professional’s recommendation of 1,000 mg combined EPA/DHA per day. This is usually two to four capsules depending on the concentration.

Personally, I consume up to 6 grams combined EPA/DHA per day, but I also drink Cod Liver Oil from the bottle.

We here at Ellison Fitness wish you the best for quality of life, and truly believe in the vital importance of EPA and DHA (Omega-3) in every healthy diet. Unless you consume oily fish two times per week, we urge you to supplement with Fish Oil.

Now excuse me for a moment, my friends, I’ve got a fish cocktail waiting for me…

Nutrition, Immunity, and Digestion Power of the Mind
— Leave a Comment

I’m not fat — I just have big bones: Self Deception and Weight Loss

Are you really being real with yourself and your weight?

At a training event for weight loss, when the topic of Body Mass Index came up, one associate made a startling announcement.

She exclaimed, “I don’t think the body mass index is correct, because at my height it says I’m obese, and that’s just not right.”

As we looked on, the entire room became silent — her blind spot was very evident to everyone around her.

Why do we underestimate our body size?

The mind is a tricky instrument. There are professional bodybuilders who look in the mirror and still see that skinny kid they used to be from high school. Similarly, there are obese people who feel that as long as they are healthy, their weight is acceptable.

Self-deception is a powerful tool for protection

I remember reading a book in college called Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconcious Mind, which argued that there exists both synergistic and competing compartments within the brain.

Consider this: we are bombarded by billions of bytes of information per second, yet our reality is clear and comprehensible. How? Behind the scenes, our brains filter the information that it deems “important” and sends that information to our conscious mind.

Your conscious mind contains only the reality that you are currently aware of. You know your name, your birthday, whether or not you are hungry or thirsty — this is easy information. Yet, we all have blind spots — information that we don’t even realize is missing from our reality.

This may be explained as a self-defense mechanism because sometimes, the truth does hurt. Cold, hard realities can destroy an already sensitive self esteem.

Does it make sense to free ourselves from this?

Awareness of Yourself will help you become a high achiever

How many epiphanies does it take to realize that a particular lifestyle is unhealthy and needs to change?

Self-Awareness is the ultimate personal power. It is a matter of relationships. Understanding your own needs and desires helps you relate to others in positive ways, but more importantly helps your own relationship to yourself.

When it comes to fitness, we all have to negotiate with ourselves. Do you really want that pizza?

The difference between people who fail and those who succeed are the ones who can successfully negotiate with their inner self and consistently win.

Self-awareness is a bountiful resource, it is a life power, and it is so richly and so organically you.

No one can take your self awareness away from you, they can only contribute if you choose to let them.

So choose to accept this gift

At Ellison Fitness, we believe emotional intelligence is the key revolution in leadership. As a Personal Trainer, I do not wish to develop a following, but instead to cultivate and empower each person’s inner leadership.

The self-awareness, the negotiating power, and the success comes not from external sources, but from the most important being to ever exist: You.

Power of the Mind
— 1 Comment

Does the Perfect Body REALLY bring you Confidence?

You may have seen my body in many different manifestations.

I went from being chubby in high school, to the skinny long distance runner as a Freshman in college, into a bulky fellow, and finally into the lean guy with nice legs who you know and love.

The human body is never the same as it was yesterday — we are constantly in flux.

A perfect physique is finite and can only exist for a period of time. A muscular body can be taken away from you at any time — whether illness or accident.

Therefore, if confidence is directly linked to your physical body, then self worth becomes as fragile as thin ice.

Take responsibility for your own success

At 20 years old, I was a skinny kid who drank way too much beer and just started lifting weights with no success.

But, by learning from mistakes, researching exercise physiology, and dedication to my goals, I gained twenty pounds of solid muscle. Not a small feat — ask any skinny guy you know.

The result of my work was visible to all man, woman, and child who placed their gaze upon my muscular physique.

Where does the confidence really come from?

The real power of fitness is that it can change your entire life.

  • Setting goals, and achieving them
  • Self awareness and self control
  • Progressively attaining personalized strength and fitness
  • Mind-body connection

The lessons you learn from the weight room, or cross country running, or playing sports will cross over into other areas of your life. Success breeds success.

Because of dedication, we realize that we can achieve anything we put our minds to.

THAT, my friends, is real confidence. Even if I lose all of my muscle tomorrow, I will still have the invaluable experiences that make me the person I am today. Those experiences — in which I applied my energy towards a goal — give me confidence in every other aspect of my life: personal and professional.

My physical attractiveness will eventually wear off as I age. But I will still be a happy person because I bring confidence to relationships and hold an ambition for mastery in my deepest of passions (fitness is one).

Nothing is insurmountable. If you really want those six pack abs, set a small goal TODAY. Consume one more type vegetable or purchase an Omega-3 supplement.

An investment in your body is equally an investment in your soul.

Enrich your life.

Stay tuned for more…

Blog & Personality Power of the Mind
— Leave a Comment

Pause, Harmonize, and Deal with stress

Your healthy response to stress is fundamental for health and happiness.

Enjoy the scents, sensations

Perhaps you recognize the rose as a symbol for love and romance, and rightly so. The rose is a natural stress reliever, yet so much more — an uplifter engaging in emotional paradise.

The rejuvenating qualities of rose can be found in the form of essential oils, through the practice of aromatherapy.

Aromatherapy

The art and science of utilizing naturally extracted aromatic essences from plants to balance, harmonize and promote the health of body, mind and spirit.

Essential oils can be found in your local health store.

So take a moment for yourself — a gift from the world of holistic health — to uplift your spirits through the power of sensation.

Pause, and relax to discover the harmony of scent, through the balance of emotion. Bathe yourself in nature’s refreshing offer to realize the spirit of passion and uplifting. Breathe in… and notice stress dissolve… forward into the rhythm of life.

Power of the Mind