Great news, Craig just released his first book "Just Say No to Cardio"! Craig's taken the proven concepts of his Turbulence Training program and put it in a book.

I'll be getting a copy soon and putting up a review, but in the mean time I thought I'd let everyone know about this great new release. 

"Just Say No to Cardio" is available for pre-order on Amazon and is quickly making it up to the top of the Exercise and Fitness charts.

• What to do about cardio
• What you must do with your workouts to burn fat

There was a lot of noise on the net the other day about a new study that concluded that food does not satisfy obese people. I'm not making any excuses for how I demolish a box of Little Debbies, but I can completely understand this.

Based on the findings, which appeared in the Oct. 17 issue of the journal Science, researchers concluded that overweight or obese people don’t get more satisfaction from food than slim people do. It is the reduced level of pleasure they get from eating that makes them overindulge. And while trying to compensate for the reward deficit, they opt for more high-calorie food.

I would add that, just like with drugs, your body builds up a resistance so that you need more to satisfy you the more junk food you eat (in my unprofessional opinion).

They mention people's predisposition to being obese based on the genetics in the study. While I believe genetics do play a role in your body composition, I firmly believe that it is personal responsibility that plays a larger role. I could be lazy and say I (possibly) have this Taq1A1 gene and just live with the consequences. Instead, I chose to work at living a healthy lifestyle and not pointing the finger at anything (or anyone) but me.

Welcome to the Fitness Roller Coaster Ride, please enter the ride quickly, secure all lose articles and carry ons and fasten your seat belt tightly. During the ride you will experience ups and downs and a few dreaded plateaus along the way.

And so it goes with weight loss and fitness. There will be days when you hit a personal best and you feel like a million bucks. There will also be days when you just don't feel like going to the gym or the scale goes up and you feel like all the hard work you've put in has been for naught.

Today, I just experienced one of those down moments after my weekly weigh-in. Despite having what I thought was a good week, I didn't lose any weight. I stepped on and off the scale at least 6 times, hoping to see at least 1 pound come off but each time the scale stopped, it still read 194.

Stepping off the scale for the last time I felt dejected and wasn't looking forward to my morning workout at all, what was the point? But even as I wallowed in my self-pity, I knew that going to the gym was exactly what I needed to do. The scale may not show the progress I was expecting, but I know I'm getting back into shape and can feel the tone of my muscles getting firm again.

This is the part of the roller coaster ride where it's almost too easy to get off, when you don't see the progress you expect. But, with a little mental toughness, this is also the point of the ride where you can cinch your seatbelt a little tighter and say to yourself "I'm going to make it through this." And when you do get through it, you'll experience the exhilaration of reaching a new personal best or weight loss goal and the ride will be fun again.

I tightened my seat belt and made it to the gym. The workout wasn't my best, I still was thinking of my weigh-in. But, I still made it to the gym and that's the important thing. I didn't give up and I've re-focused my energies on working hard and eating right. I know that this ride isn't automatic, I have to do my part to pull out of the lows in order to reach new highs.

So this week, my personal roller coaster is starting a new climb. When I weigh-in next week I plan on being higher up that hill than when I started. Between my personal motivation, and that of my family and friends in the Turbulence Training community I have all the support and encouragement I need to reach my next peak.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services just put out new physical activity guidelines. I haven't had a chance to look over the actual guidelines, but the biggest area they are stressing is that adults get 2 1/2 hours of moderate activity in a week, or 1 1/4 hour of vigorous activity a week. Do you think Turbulence Training would qualify as vigorous??? They do also recommend some type of strength training 2 times a week.

There's no doubt about it, Turbulence Training gives you the best "bang for your buck" when it comes to getting results from short, vigorous, activities.

These physical activity guidelines offer recommendations on how much activity and what types of activity different groups of people should be getting. The separate it out between children (should get 1 hour of activity in per day), adults (2 1/2 hours per week) and older adults (same 2 1/2 hours as adults).

You can read the press release from HHS here.

I'll be reading over the guidelines this week and will post any thoughts or comments I have later.

Prad Pilon, the author of Eat-Stop-Eat, has a fantastic blog post about ideal weight goals versus ideal look goals.

Brad makes a lot of sense (as he normally does) and I've now figured out what my ideal look should be, a 31" waist with 51" shoulders.

Those are pretty lofty numbers to be shooting for, but I know that when I reach them, I will be in great shape and have a killer body.

During yesterday's strength training session, I tweaked my knee during dumbbell squats. It just felt like a light pinch over my right knee cap, nothing major but I need to watch it and not over train. Since I tweaked my knee I wanted to try and minimize any impact on it for an interval session today. The obvious choice was to hit the pool and do my intervals in the water.

I really enjoy swimming. Growing up in Miami/Ft.Lauderdale, everyone had a pool in their back yard as well as the gorgeous beaches. Living in Cleveland, I'm right off of Lake Erie so I've been in and around water all my life but it had been quite awhile since I'd spent any time in the water.

It's a humbling experience when you first get back in a pool and try to do laps. When I was younger, I could literally swim all day long but time and inactivity caught up to me. Training for the SEAL Challenge helped me find my swimming grove again and by the time I took the SEAL Challenge, I was back into good swimming condition though I still hadn't reached my ultimate goal of swimming a mile.

Well, it seems swimming is no different from running or weight lifting, if you don't do it for a while you lose that conditioning (was this really unexpected? no, not really) and have to start over.

Even though the swim was harder than I had hoped, I still did decent intervals. I warmed up by swimming freestyle for 3 minutes. That was an achievement itself. I was questioning my ability to do sprints after that light warm up.

After warming up I swam 25M (one length) as fast as I could freestyle and then I'd slowly breast stroke back and rest for a minute or two. I did 6 sets of this routine and WOW was my heart pumping after each sprint.

I may switch to swimming for all my intervals, not only do I feel like I got a great cardio workout, my entire body feels like it got a great, low-impact workout too.

Who knows, by next summer maybe I'll be sporting a Michael Phelps like body from swimming so much!

Cartoon courtesy of Mike Adams at Natural News

This is the start of my third week on the road to recovery. During the past two weeks, I've had to fight myself to keep from slipping up and relapsing into my old habits. There are plenty of opportunities throughout the course of a day where I could easily give in to impulses that could put me right back where I started. For me, most (if not all) of those choices have to do with food and I've come to realize that I am a junk food addict.

I'm not saying that to be funny, plenty of people make that comment and laugh it off. For me, when I look back at my behavior over the past four months, I see classic signs of addiction. And realizing that I am a true junk food addict, I have to be constantly aware of the choices I make. Now I haven't started a 12-step program, but I have at least taken the first step and that's admitting I have a problem.

How bad of a problem? Well, let's call it 3-4 boxes of Little Debbies a week problem. Each box of six Boston Cream Rolls equaled 1620 calories, 72 g of fat (27 saturated) and 156 g of sugars. That's on top of my regular meals and at least 3 regular sodas a day. I'd say that's pretty bad in anyone's book.

The biggest sign of my addiction is that I hide all this eating. I buy the junk on the way to or from work or as I run my errands and keep any leftovers in the car. Or I'd hit the pantry at night after everyone else has gone to sleep so they wont catch me polishing off a chocolate chip granola bar so I can get one last taste of chocolate before going to bed.

The worst part about this is that I knew what I was doing to myself and was even embarrassed for myself as I would stand in line holding that box of snack cakes. I knew I was sabotaging everything I'd worked so hard for but I just kept telling myself "One more box, then I'll be done". That "One more box" lasted for four months and packed 20 pounds of fat back onto me. That's an average of 5 pounds gained, or an extra 17,500 calories per month! During a month, I took in the equivalent of almost 40 days of calories in just 30!

I have no idea how this addiction came about. Maybe I should go see a shrink to find out what the root cause of this need for sugar is. I'm all for taking personal responsibility, but when something like food holds this much sway over me I'd tend to think it goes deeper than the quick sugar rush I get and the instant gratification the taste brings.

In the end any addiction can be beat and I'll beat this one. For now, recognizing it and understanding it is my best defense. So...

"Hi, my name is Steve and I'm a sugar addict"

Today was one of those days where I really didn't feel like working out. I went to bed a bit late last night (got wrapped up in getting nomorefatdad.com back up and running) and then my dog decided to go crazy this morning, must have been some animal running by the window, at 6 AM. Then there was a melt down at the breakfast table from one of the kids. It was just one of those mornings.

More from my TT Members' forum TT Transformation Challenge thread, posted Sept 29th, all caught up now...

Finally! I made it through the first week of TT, the soreness is mostly gone and I can train harder! I've been chomping at the bit waiting for this week to get started so I could go through 3 entire circuits of the workouts instead of just one.

Well, like the title says, be careful what you wish for. Wow, that was a tough (good) workout. I completed 3 circuits of B5fFL Workout A this morning. I had to take a breather during some sets and I damn near fell off the bench after my very last SB jackknives, but I finished. Right now, an hour after finishing, my body still feels spent.

The biggest disappointment was seeing my gut sticking out with each DB squat I did. I know I let myself go this summer, but seeing that Buddha belly each time I squatted down really highlighted just how bad it was. The good thing about seeing Fat Bastard looking back at me in the mirror was that it strengthened my resolve to never quit at staying in shape so I never see him again.

I weighed myself this morning, right after waking up and I knocked 2 pounds off last week. I know I could have done better, but I'm still working at getting my diet really clean again. That, and I'm sure the camp out food didn't help. While I ate pretty good at this camp out (better than I have in the past few years), I still had some beer a donut, some candy, pancakes w/maple syrup, caramel dip for some apples. Like I said, not great, but better than before.

We did do a lot of hiking, according to my GPS I did 3 miles on Saturday, over rolling terrain. Add in some canoeing, climbing a rock wall and our traditional father's football game and I got a pretty good workout.

So, back to today's workout, here's what I completed in 25 minutes;

Body weight warm up

Circuit warm up

B5fFL Workout A - x3
Squats - 35lbs
Push ups
Inverted row
DB Reverse Lunges - 35lbs
SB Jackknives

More from my TT Members' forum TT Transformation Challenge thread, posted on Sept. 26th

Completed 1 set of the B5fFL Workout C using the barbell complex. I liked this workout a lot. I didn't use the 45 pound barbell, I grabbed one that was about 6 inches shorter (not sure what the difference is besides weight).

This morning when I woke up, I was feeling really good. The soreness from starting over is almost gone. But, I knew I had to check my ego and reign in my eagerness and not push it. I'm still on my 1st week after a long hiatus so I know I need to work into harder routines. As much as macho me wanted to grab the 45 lb barbell, the reasonable me (who doesn't win very often) knew I should start lighter.

I'm glad I did! I flew through the first few sets, but when it came time for lunges, I hit a concrete wall. I ended up having to stop every 2-3 lunges to give my legs a break. If I'd had the 45 lb barbell I don't think I would have finished.

The mountain climbers also gave me a bit of a tough time. The effects of SB roll-outs from workout B are lingering so my abs are still a bit sore.

After the 1 set of the workout, I jumped on the stationary bike and pumped out a 6+ mile ride in 20 minutes. Kept the heart rate up around 156-160 BPM on an 18+ MPH pace at level 10-11 on the bike.

When I got off the bike, it felt like my legs were concrete filled lead pipes. I'm used to them feeling like rubber, but this time it felt like they were super glued to the ground. I'm not sure if that means I pushed harder or my legs are just spent after this first week, but I'm sure I looked funny walking to the locker room.

So here's the workout;

Big 5 for Fat Loss - Workout C - Barbell Complex

Body weight warm ups (x2)
Barbell complex - using a barbell with no load (no rest between sets)
High intensity cardio session
20 min @ 91-95 RPM, ~156-160 HR BPM, ~18 MPH pace

Hit the showers.

Now that the soreness is almost gone, I'm feeling great. My energy levels are back up (I can't sleep past 6 AM anymore, I just wake up ready to go) and I'm ready for the camp out. Of course, this will test my will when it comes to eating clean. The stuff we cook out or get at the galley isn't known for being healthy. I did skip picking up a few bags of chips for the kids. I'll be heading to the store to grab some fruit or jerkey or something that isn't going to sabotage me. I'll get plenty of "fun time" exercise from hiking all weekend, playing football with the kids and the dads, canoeing and more so if anything this weekend should be a wash.

Next week I'm looking forward to being able to do all 3 reps of each workout set. It's been hard to hold back but I know it was for the best.