January 2002 Newsletter

Happy New Year 2002!!! Hope you had a great Christmas and New Year celebrations... Did you make some nice resolutions for yourself for the 2002???  I never do any, but this time I created a few ones. It's almost not like resolutions, it's something I've been thinking about all year, so now I just wrote it down so I can see it more often and get myself reminded. And just stay disciplined so I do them every day.

I think I had to be really good this year, because Santa brought me a nice gift (hey, I had to tip him and help him out with a few hundreds, but I really wanted the gift  :-)  ). I got an MP3 recorder, a gorgeous one - Archos Jukebox, and I got 30 GB of memory. That's what my computer have, the technology these days is amazing, isn't it? The first week I was just recording and recording, I have over 900 songs on it now and still 8 times more space on it. This thing is really cool! Now I am ready to do my cardio to the new music, and nicely get ready for my competitions, after a year of not competing. For the New Year's Eve,  I was shaking my booty at the house party with my rollerskating friends. That was a lot of fun!

This issue was supposed to come out before the holidays so you can make yourself some rum egg nog for the Christmas (the recipe follows), but everything got delayed in the busy holiday season. But you can make yourself the egg nog any time... All winter is good, you can warm it microwave oven and have fun in cold winter evening. We had a gorgeous weather here in Venice Beach, all December. A few rainy days, but otherwise the temperatures up to 70s and I was running around in shorts and a little t-shirt. Viva Venice Beach! It still didn't stop me from tasting my egg nog.

Back in November, I started to do a fitness TV show. It's for Pars TV network (you have to have a satellite to be able to see it). It's on every Saturday at 8 AM Pacific time, it's live and internationally aired. I and my partner who speaks Farsi (yes, the show is in both languages) talk about nutrition, training and health in general. We show some exercises and people from all over the world are calling the TV station and ask questions and we answer them. It's pretty cool. Now, it looks like the show is very popular in Iran, so we are planning to produce some exercise videos for folks over there.

Talking about the video, I and my 6 foot girlfriend are planning to make some fun stuff together. She's really strong and really big, so we are going to have fun with it. And my video "The Lioness" is available to purchase. Check it out if you haven't yet.

My training has been really good, I never have problems with that. The winter months though "messed up" my diet a little bit, I've been craving and eating these nuts, so I put a little extra weight on me, you know, I have to get ready for the winter hibernation, right?

One of my "booty-pictures" got published it Planet Muscle's "Best Glutes" contest, so look for it in the next issue. When I was submitting the pictures, I did not really know which one to choose and send so I was asking for opinions and votes from my friends. My friend and client Lisa chose the picture that eventually won, with words "This is the best booty, trust me. A lesbian knows a good butt!". I had to laugh then, but now I have to say that she was right.

Also, there's web site who features female muscled bodies, I just got an own page there, so go and visit www.andysmusclegoddesses.de and click on my name. The site is really nice with a lot of gorgeous athletic women. 

So these were a few  quick news and now lets go to some "serious" stuff. Enjoy the reading and have fun in 2002!!! Thanks for coming back to visit my site, to read the newsletter and write me all these nice emails. I have a little video clip that I will try to put on next time...

Holiday recipes for somehow healthy treats...

RUM EGG NOG

5 egg yolks
Stevia (instead of 150 g sugar)
1 can condensed milk, choose fat free
vanilla extract
0.75l Rum (or more or less, depends on your taste buds)

In the blender blend yolks, vanilla and Stevia, until it gets kind of fluffy. Add the condensed milk and  alcohol and blend it more.  Put in bottles or drink it straight from like blender as I did  :-)

RUM COCOA BALLS

250 g vanilla waflers
Stevia (instead of 100 g sugar) or nothing , the wafles are sweet enough.
120 g butter
30 g cocoa
coconut, walnuts, hazelnuts
0.5 dl Rum (or more  :-)  )

Crush the waflers, blend everything in a yummy dough. You can put some nuts in it (I did) if you like nuts. Make balls, with a hazel nut in the middle. Roll it in the coconut powder. Freeze it so it gets stiff. If you make balls of the size of a tennis ball, you don't need to feel bad, because you just eat "one cookie"  :-)
 

A study on Thermogenics

What do you think, "Is it possible, for the average person to get lean, defined abdominals?" A tricky question, isn't it? The answer is... "yes". And "no". What's up with that? Simply, some people  don't have the discipline to watch what they eat or they don't work out consistently or some others might be just too lazy. But, I believe that if you follow the proper exercise and diet programs, you can have the kind of abs that make the opposite sex to whistle... even the same sex will  :-). And even though you may not be able to get easy down to 4% body fat, there are fat burning supplements known as thermogenics which can help you get that tight midsection. Thermogenics have been discussed a lot lately. They work, but are they safe? People have died using ephedrine (a part of thermogenic supplements). On other hand you can read that they are fairly safe. What is true? Can you use them? I truly believe that if you look at your body and your health in the big picture, over many years, they are not safe. Anything that you use that somehow stimulates your body out of its natural balance, it is not really good. Then you have to think about "a little bit bad" and "very bad". You have a choice to make a wise  decision: do you want to stay healthy, or screw up your body just a little bit, hopefully only for a short period time, but nobody knows that... you cannot predict how your body will respond when it is pushed over the edge. Or do you want to mess it up big time, maybe for ever? I don't have the answer, only you know how much respect and love you want to give your body and YourSelf. But here, I will explain how the thermogenics work and what they do to your body, so you have the knowledge to decide what you want to do.

The word thermogenesis literally means, "heat production". In the context of nutrition, it refers to the creation of heat by the body. A thermogenic is a substance, such as a supplement, that increases the rate at which your body burns calories, especially from body fat. The main advantage of using a thermogenic supplement is that it can increase your body‚s metabolic rate and thereby can increase the number of calories you burn from body fat each day--even without exercise.(1) (Exercise is mandatory if you want to get lean, but thermogenics allow you to burn extra calories even when you aren't in the gym exercising.)

The most common ingredients used in thermogenics are ephedra and caffeine. Ephedra, as the thermogenic herb Ephedra sinica is commonly known, has been around for thousands of years. Ephedra increases thermogenesis by stimulating the release of norepinephrine and epinephrine˜a class of hormones known as catecholamines.

Catecholamines stimulate cell receptors called alpha and beta receptors. Each alpha or beta receptor elicits a unique response from different body organs, when stimulated by catecholamines.(2) For example, the following receptors elicit the corresponding responses when stimulated:

Alpha-1 & Alpha-2: raise blood pressure by constricting arteries and blood vessels.
Beta-1 & Beta-2: affect cardiac function by dilating blood vessels in the heart.
Beta-3: increase lipolysis˜the rate at which body fat is released for burning; increase thermogenesis.

The stimulation of these receptors, especially the beta-3, can ultimately lead to an increased metabolic rate.(3) And with a revved up metabolism, you will burn more calories and fat per day.

With continual use, the body can build up a tolerance to ephedra, which will eventually inhibit the release of the catecholamines required for increased thermogenesis.

Caffeine has been found to prolong the body‚s response to ephedra by inhibiting phosphodiesterase and adenosine˜chemicals produced naturally in the body that can hinder thermogenesis. Ephedra and caffeine each have metabolism-boosting properties, but when combined, they form a potent combination which can double thermogenesis.(4) This combo also spares lean muscle tissue from being broken down.

One 8-week double-blind study found that by combining 20mg of ephedrine and 200mg of caffeine, subjects were able to lose 10 lbs. of body fat ˆsignifying a 100% greater fat loss than the placebo group.(5) What‚s more, the subjects who lost the body fat also lost 72% less muscle than the placebo group.

References

1. Daly, P., et al. „Ephedrine, Caffeine and Aspirin: Safety and Efficacy for Treatment of Human Obesity.‰ Int J Obes Metab Disord,17: s73-78; 1993.

2. Germano, Carl. Advantra Z·: A Unique Citrus aurantium Formula, 39-46; 1998.

3. Shier. D., Butler, J., Lewis R., Hole‚s Human Anatomy and Physiology, 7th Edition, 513; 1996.

4. Dullo, A.G., et. al. "Potentiation of the Thermogenic Antiobesity Effects of Ephedrine by Dietary Methylxanthines: Adenosine Antagonism or Phosphodiesterase Inhibition." Metabolism: Clinical and Experimental, 41; 11:1233-1241;1992.

5. Astrup, A. et. al. "The Effect of Ephedrine/Caffeine Mixture on Energy Expenditure and Body Composition in Obese Women." Metabolism: Clinical and Experimental, 41; 7:686-688; 1992.

6. van Loon LJ, et. al. „Effects of Acute (-)Hydroxycitrate Supplementation on Substrate Metabolism at Rest and During Exercise in Humans.‰ Am J Clin Nutr, 72 (6): 1445-50; Dec 2000.

7. Speroni E, Minghetti A. „Neuropharmacological activity of extracts from Passiflora incarnata.‰ Planta Med 54(6):488-91, 1988.

8. Oga S, et al. „Pharmacological trials of crude extract of Passiflora alata.‰ Planta Med 50(4):303-6, 1984.
 
 

Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR) and fat burning.

This is the holiday season. Thanksgiving is behind us, Christmas is knocking on the door. We are so into eating and feeding our bodies like we are getting ready for hibernation. And maybe we are? We all deal differently with seasons, and many of us feel the winter season, wanting to eat heavier foods, and put on some fat for the tough winter time. Here in Venice, California, the winter is not that cold, but I can see myself that my body is changing and responding differently to foods. The lack of the sunshine, cold mornings and night, many more dark hours. The body clock tells us to slow down and go to sleep. Feed yourself and hibernate for a few months.

Well, as great as it sounds, we still want to feel light and energized and have that small muscular waistline, don't we? So here, during the holiday season, we need to be more disciplined in our eating and training, so we don't get that big bloated stomach and booty... To achieve that small muscular waist takes more than just a simple (or hard!) exercise. Lets talk about calories and training, in this nice cold winter day.

Lets first mention a few methods how to loose weight. Some are better, some are worth. You probably have heard of all of them and maybe even tried them all, or at least know somebody who did. I would just recommend the first method, the calorie manipulations. The rest (2-4) can be even dangerous.

1. Energy loss through calorie control - this is the basic of all weight loss via thermodynamics (heat production) and or physical activity.

2. Pills/chemicals that help to extra fat burning through producing heat.

3. Pills/chemicals that work on endocrine system gland functioning and/or appetite control centers.

4. Liposuction (surgical removal of fat or adipose cells permanently).

So now lets talk about how to get the slim waist line, the healthy way - by manipulating the calories. Basal metabolism rate is the amount of energy/calories that your body needs to stay alive - to maintain all the basic body functions without regard for physical exercise or other daily activities. You determine your BMR:

Take your body weight in lbs and divide it by 2.2 (you get the weight in kilograms). That's your basal metabolism per hour. How many calories your body needs to keep the body functioning. So for me, for example, I need 185/2.2= 84 calories per hour. Over the whole day, I need 2018 calories, just to function properly without any exercise.

So now lets go to your slim waist line... Lets first talk about the nutritional part. A pound of fat is 3500 calories. If you want to lose some body fat, you need to reduce calories - the expenditure must be more than the intake... You can "safely" reduce your calories to the level above your BMR (2018 calories in my case). Going below that level may require medical guidance. Now when you start losing your body fat and your weight goes down, your BMR is going to change also. So you will need to readjust once in a while.

Now lets look at the training. Exercise helps to adjust the total daily calorie expenditure vs. intake. You burn calories when you exercise and now you would like to know how much, approximately. A pretty simple way is to look at your heart rate (actually, even simpler way is to read the numbers from the cardio machine :-) But as you noticed, they don't really show so exact numbers all the time). Lets look at the math instead.

It's pretty simple: the faster your heart beats the more calories you burn...above the BMR. It is these calories that help you lose weight if you do not replace them with food also known
as a calorie restricted diet.

Pulse rate:
100= 4 calories per minute
110= 6
120= 8
130= 10
140= 12
150= 14
160= 16

For your safety, your maximum pulse rate for is determined by subtracting your age from 220. This number varies from an individual to another but it's pretty safe "guess" according to all fitness and medical experts. So lets trust them :-)

It recommends that for fat burning you would stay in a range about 60% of your maximal heart rate. For an athlete with a strong cardiovascular system, it can go as high as 80% of max heart rate, for a prolonged time. Don't forget to slowly warm up to it and slowly cool down from it.

Now, the calorie expenditure depends on your body weight. The heavier you are the more you burn. The numbers above are a base for a 150 lbs person. You can get your precise numbers with these calculations: for every 15 lbs over 150 lbs, add 10% to the total approximate calories used or released as energy. Look again at my example. Say I exercise 60 minutes on the stair master and my pulse is 150 bpm. The 150 lbs person spends 14 calories per minute, but I am 35 lbs heavier (it is about 23% more, 10% for each 15 lbs extra) so I spend about 17.22 calories per minute. In an hour it's 1033 calories... (WOW! It's almost 6 oz of nuts!!! I would do anything for nuts, I would even kill myself on that cardio equipment!)

So now when the holidays are coming and you start worrying about your waist line and the booty, here you got some tools that will help you to create an awareness of how much you'll need to work if you stuff yourself too much behind the holiday table... (I am already sorry for my nut feasts for the last few weeks!). Stay focused and stay healthy and light during this holiday season.
 

Five Quick Ways To Lose Weight And Feel Great

New Year resolutions are coming, and often they are somehow connected to our health, body weight, fatness or muscularity... isn't that interesting? Every year, the same story... Here I have a few tips for a quick start into better shape. Just remember, quick start doesn't mean quick result, or quick finish... stay persistent and PATIENT. It's like the water dropping on the rock beneath it. One drop does nothing, but many drops over time create a hole in the rock. Such is power of patience.

1. Cardiovascular exercise. You spend at least 30 minutes per night flipping through the dial with the channel changer. Instead, put your feet on the street for the half-hour of running, walking, or biking, 3-4 days per week.

2. Drink water and lots of it. Water will help drain your system of unwanted toxins that will keep the sag and flab in your body. Consume 8-12 glasses of water per day as if your body depended on it.

3. Snack frequently. If you make a big deal out of a big meal, try instead to prepare smaller meals, say six a day, while keeping from becoming too hungry or too full. This should shoot your metabolism into overdrive.

4. Fit the fiber into your diet. Fiber is an excellent component to losing weight in that it fills you up, but now, recent studies conclude that it keeps your body from absorbing calories.

5. Lift weights. It is a proven fact that muscle burns up about 20 times the amount of calories that fat does.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? A good New Year 2002 resolution!!!
 
 

Can you be fit and fat?

Yes, you can! Especially after the rum egg nog and rum balls...  Well, sometimes we think that we exercise a lot, so we can eat anything we want, because we "burn it off". It is not the case, really. Imagine one regular week, it is 168 hours. If you exercise every day 1 hour (and lot of us don't do even that), you still have another 161 hours to mess up your results from the gym. Don't take me wrong, you get all the benefits from exercising, you'll feel better, have more energy and you become healthier... But it still doesn't mean that you will look good. Looking good (whatever you think it is - muscular, lean, or both, or skinny...) is connected more than 70% to your diet and nutrition. That's kind of scary, isn't it? Does it mean that you cannot eat that muffin with chocolate chips and drink mocha with cream to it? Yes, that's what it means. Because 70% is just to big a percentage to simply ignore and hope that exercise alone will give you the look. And you may be shocked at what little changes you could make in your current diet that would net you a huge aesthetic change. For example, would you ever consider putting 10 teaspoons of sugar in your coffee? So think about it every time you drink a can of cola, that‚s what you‚re drinking 10 teaspoons of sugar in carbonated water. Cola*often referred to, as liquid sugar is one of the greatest contributors to obesity. It has been noted that if you regularly drink cola, by simply switching to diet cola, you could lose 10 pounds of body fat in just one year. So next time when you want to swallow the muffin, just think how many hours you have to walk on a treadmill to "burn the thing off". Then you lose the appetite for that muffin. To be fit and not fat, combine exercise with a good nutrition.

(by the way, the picture is from the 2001 Olympia contest in Las Vegas at the end of October. At the expo, they had a biceps curl contest so I had to try it. In the following picture, the gorgeous pro-fitness Lena Johanessen is measuring my tired biceps. It was 14.5 inches)

A word on vegetables.

We all love them, don't we??? We've all heard the phrase "eat your vegetables" from mom, dad, grandma, or other caretaker. The reasons for eating them ranged from weird (it makes your hair curly!) to practical (if you don' eat your vegetables, you won't get dessert, your rum balls). But in the end, they were right...this simple phrase, "eat your vegetables" is probably the best dietary advice ever.

A good nutrition plan includes plenty of vegetables, at least 3-4 servings a day. But in reality, it can be quite a challenge to reach this goal on a daily basis because of the lack of variety and limited availability of vegetables in the current diet of western cultures. Just think about traditional choices for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks and it‚s easy to see why we don't eat enough vegetables. What do people usually eat for breakfast? Toast, cereal, milk, eggs, yogurt, pastries, fruit or juice, bagels or other breads. Not much room for a vegetable here! How about lunch? Typical choices include meat sandwiches, burgers, various soups, and sometimes salads (usually just iceberg lettuce) with few other vegetables included. Now, think about the snack aisles in the supermarket, what are the options? Chips, crackers, cookies, pretzels, doughnuts. Not a vegetable in sight! Last, there‚s dinner. Now here‚s where the nutritionally conscious make up for lost time and have a vegetable as part of a balanced diet. But it doesn't really make up for the rest of the day.

First, pay attention to the frequency and type of vegetables you eat over a week‚s time. Even if you are not keeping a food diary of everything you eat, just keeping a tally of the number of times and types of vegetables you choose will give you a wealth of information about the quality of your diet. When you start keeping track, you may be surprised at how infrequently the goal of 3-4 vegetables per day is actually met. The other thing you are likely to notice is that you probably eat the same 4-5 vegetables and don't vary the type much at all. This is very typical, but the result of this routine is that you may be missing some important vitamins and minerals that are present in specific vegetables that you‚re not eating. Here are some ideas on how to change this pattern to "rev" up your diet with vegetables.

1. Vegetables are not typical fare for breakfast, still there are ways to include them. One way is to make a low fat omelet using egg substitute or egg whites with only one egg yolk and add sauteed vegetables for filling. How about sliced tomatoes and low fat cottage cheese for breakfast, or tomato juice? Although soup is not a routine breakfast choice, there is no reason why one couldn't have vegetable soup for breakfast!

2. At lunch, make or order a sandwich with extra vegetables as filling. Important note: be careful about ordering a "veggie" sandwich in a restaurant. It is typically made with cream cheese, avocado, and other types of whole milk cheese, so it is a very high fat meal choice. Instead, you might choose a turkey sandwich and ask for extra vegetables and less turkey, or request that nonfat or low fat cheeses be used in the veggie sandwich.

3. In many cases, a clear broth vegetable soup is a lower calorie, more nutritious choice than a lettuce salad. This is because most dinner salads are made exclusively with iceberg lettuce, not dark green leaf lettuces, and the salad is laden with high fat dressings. Of course, choose lower fat dressings, but also review your salad choices for creative ways to add more vegetables ˆ some shaved carrot, radishes, raw broccoli or cucumber can boost the nutritional value of a salad.

4. For snacks, raw vegetables make an excellent, simple choice. But carrots and celery sticks are not the only choice out there. Try some sliced sweet peppers, or blanch some broccoli and cauliflower to munch on with low fat dips.

5. At dinner, there is more to life than corn, peas, potatoes, and green beans! Try one new vegetable each week. How about sweet potatoes, yams, or squash instead of potatoes? Try other types of salads ˆ spinach, three bean salad, salads with dark leafy greens instead of iceberg lettuce.

6. Broccoli may be the Superman of vegetables. If you add this one vegetable to your diet as a routine habit ˆ you will be getting a great source of Vitamin C, A, calcium, potassium, iron, and folic acid.

Why are vegetables important? Tomatoes, carrots, and dark orange vegetables are good sources of carotenoids, which trap free radicals. Free radicals are damaging to the cells of the body and are associated with the development of cancer and involved in the process of atherosclerosis. Tomatoes, starchy root vegetables such as carrots, yams, sweet potatoes, and potatoes, and dark green leafy vegetables like mustard greens, spinach, and dark leaf lettuces are good sources of potassium, which plays an important role in managing the body‚s blood pressure, and in conducting nerve impulses throughout the body. Dark green leafy vegetables are rich sources of folic acid, a B-vitamin which plays an important role in regulating homocysteine, an amino acid that at high levels is associated heart disease. Folic acid is critical to the healthy metabolism of cells and production of protein.

Vegetables are nutrient dense and low calorie ˆ an excellent choice for those wanting to lose body fat. They add color, texture, and flavor to the diet, and because of their high fiber and water content, make excellent fillers for a hungry stomach. Review your vegetable intake, explore some new vegetable choices, and look for ways to sneak them into meals and snacks.

A thought on affirmations

Affirmations are really anything we say or think. Our thoughts create our feelings, beliefs, and experiences. Too often they are negative. We say, "I don't want this in my life," or "I don't want to be sick anymore," or "I hate my job." If we want to change or manifest something in our lives, we must state what we do want. We must affirm that we are willing to see ourselves or our lives in a different perspective. Thus, we can change our experiences by first changing our thoughts.

You are what you think. Think it TODAY. Become it tomorrow. Nothing can HELP you or hurt you as much as the thoughts you carry in your head.
 

Who Understands Men?

1. The nice men are ugly.

2. The handsome men are not nice.

3. The handsome and nice men are gay.

4. The handsome, nice and heterosexual men are married.

5. The men who are not so handsome, but are nice men, have no money.

6. The men who are not so handsome, but are nice men with money think we are only after their money.

7. The handsome men without money are after our money.

8. The handsome men, who are not so nice and somewhat heterosexual, don't think we are beautiful enough.

9. The men who think we are beautiful, that are heterosexual, somewhat nice and have money, are cowards.

10. The men who are somewhat handsome, somewhat nice and have some money and thank God are heterosexual, are shy and NEVER MAKE THE FIRST MOVE!!!!

11. The men who never make the first move, automatically lose interest in us when we take the initiative.

NOW ....WHO IN THE HELL UNDERSTANDS MEN?

The video...

Thank you all for your purchase and wonderful comments of the video! I am glad that you are enjoying it as much as I did shooting it. And you who hasn't bought any yet and forgot what it was about, here read more about the Lioness video...

And thanks Mr. Design Guru for creating such a nice logo of Six Foot Lioness!!!