How To Eat Whatever You Want On Thanksgiving Without Getting Fat

I’m aware that I sound like I am selling a magic diet pill or something, but I’m not. I’m not selling anything but common sense. However, rarely, if ever, is common sense common practice.

Think about it, no one ever got fat on one day. It’s a really poor lifestyle that makes people fat. Its eating junk and sitting on your ass (or doing aerobics) all year long that makes people fat. If you are on point and live a great lifestyle 361 days out of the year, you can take off Thanksgiving, your birthday, X-mass (or Chanukah), and New Year’s and be fine.

Conversely if you try to be “good” on those holidays, but you suck the rest of the year the only thing you will accomplish is:

#1. Being a pain in the ass to your family: Don’t be the person at Thanksgiving who makes mom cook broiled white fish and steamed spinach when she is up to her elbows in turkey giblets.

#2. Being miserable: Eating your “health” food while everyone else has stuffing with gravy is not likely to put you in the best of spirits.

#3. Remain fat: Holidays “on” and the rest of the year “off” is bass-akwards. That’s spelled right:-).

#4. Reinforce the completely ERRONEOUS notion that “being fit is miserable”: People are just big versions of Pavlov’s dogs. Giving yourself pain for trying to do the right things does not reinforce the right behavior and will undermine your progress over the long haul.

The whole key is: Enjoy The Holidays On the Actual Holiday, then get back to a normal and healthy lifestyle. (Or, if you are in the process of losing body fat, take the holiday off and get back on your plan the next day.)

Don’t be one of those people who thinks they can use this blog post to try and “get over” on nature. You know, the people who will be thinking, “well, Josef said I can eat whatever I want on Thanksgiving and I won’t get fat. So, its OK for me to cheat when ever I want.”

No, no, no. You can fool yourself with such thinking, but at the end of the year you cannot fool nature. Thermodynamics and biochemistry determine what your body will look and feel like. You will be pudgy and tired if you do the wrong things, regardless of the rationalizations you make up in your head.

Keys To Success:

#1. Only Take Home Turkey: Don’t take home leftovers. Or, send away or give away all of your leftovers. Taking home half a pie is the same as inserting that pie into your fat cells manually. You had your pie on Thanksgiving and that is that. If you take it home it will end up in your mouth.

I know some of you think this is tantamount to wasting food. If you can’t give it away to someone else, then maybe it is. But, don’t you think that your body has better things to do than be a junk food trashcan?

It all depends on your values – is saving $3 worth of pie more important than having a million bucks worth of health, fitness, energy and sexiness? If you go with the $3, then I really can’t help you because you won’t even do the bare minimum to help yourself.

#2. Enjoy Thanksgiving ON Thanksgiving: I just want to reiterate the main point of this post.

• Wednesday the 26th – eat right.
• Thursday the 27th – do whatever you want (but do notice how lousy you feel afterwards as this will help reinforce why you WANT to eat right and be healthy the rest of the time).
• Friday the 28th – get back on point and notice how crappy you feel when you wake up, and how much your energy improves when you take great care of yourself.

Have a warm, wonderful and loving holiday.

And thank you so much to all the wonderful people who donated to the DC Basket Brigade. We raise 90% MORE money than last year. What recession?

“The media has correctly predicted 10 out of the last 2 recessions.”
-Zig Zigglar

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and a Washington, DC based nominee for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine. Click here to find out more.

Where Is Washington, DC’s Cutest Personal Trainer?

A lot of people were shocked by the fact that I was able to to get my sister’s pet pug certified as a personal trainer in this post about getting ripped off by the first personal trainer I hired in DC. A lot of people also think that Calhoun J. Pigglesworth III is adorable and want to know what he’s up to.

Sadly, my sister moved to Pennsylvania (and took the pug), so Cal is no longer in DC:-(.

That was probably the least informative blog post I’ve done, but next week I’ve got a good one for you – How To Eat Whatever You Want on Thanksgiving Without Getting Fat. Yes, I really mean whatever the hell you want.

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and a Washington, DC based nominee for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine. Click here to find out more.

What Does That Tattoo Mean? or What if you couldn’t have Thanksgiving?

I love tattoos. I’ve got 5 of them to date. I’d love to get a few more, but my fiancé laid down the law and said “no more!” As a man who knows what’s good for him, I listened:-).

The most meaningful one that I have is on my right shoulder of the initials “A N G.” That stands for Ashambei Nimmey-Roots Griffith. He was (is) my best friend, and sadly he was killed while riding his bike on the way to school 7 years ago.

The reason I bring up Ashambei is because I always think about him in November as we approach Thanksgiving because of what he helped me do the year before he passed away.

Back when I was 19 I first found out about a charity called The Basket Brigade. The Basket Brigade collects/assembles Thanksgiving baskets and delivers them to families that otherwise would not have a Thanksgiving. I like to think of it as shining a ray of hope into someone’s life who may be going through a really rough time right now.

So at 19 when I found out about the Brigade I was really excited and said, “sign me up! I’d love to create and deliver a basket.” The Basket Brigade folks put me in touch with the DC Coordinator and I found out the he had just quit – there was no DC Basket Brigade. “Crap!” I said.

“Don’t worry,” the Basket Brigade people said, “ all you have to do is become the coordinator. Its really not that hard. We’ll send you all the paper work and instructions today.”

I thought this was a really great idea and I told them and everyone else I knew, including the principle of a DC Public School who found the families for me, that I would commit to feeding 25 families with my first Brigade. I was gung-ho!

Then reality hit – I had 8 days, and at 19 you and all your friends are broke! So I went on an asking rampage – I asked everyone I knew. That got me maybe 3 baskets. So I took off of work and school and stayed up for 72 hours straight, spent every dime I had and then some, and asked every single stranger that I could for help with Thanksgiving baskets. That got me to about 12 baskets on the day that the baskets were due, with about 3 hours to go when I had committed to 25!

Then Ashambei and his mother pulled up in their van that was packed wit 800 POUNDS of food. That was it. That over-filled each and every one of the 25 baskets with food to spare that we donated to other people’s Thanksgiving efforts. Ashambei really made the first Brigade possible.

That was DC Basket Brigade #1. This year is #9 (8 in memory of my friend). Please join me this year in honoring him and in giving thanks by giving back.

Email me right now (josef@thebodyyouwant.com) and let me know if I can count on you for a basket or a check for $40 so that we can buy a basket with on your behalf.

If you have any questions, here is a flyer with all the details:
-Who to make the check out to
-Where to send the check
-What goes into the basket
-When and where to bring the basket for the Brigade

Click on the link below to download the flier as a PDF.

dcbb-9-flyer-ol2

Lastly, if you are interested, I was interviewed by Bob Calvert from TalkingWithHeros.com (I’m very flattered to be on a web site with that name) on Saturday about the Basket Brigade. Click play to listen if you have the time.

Thank you in advance for your contribution. Have an amazing week.

Josef

P.S.  The DC Basket Brigade now has a web-site! at www.dcbasketbrigade.org

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and a Washington, DC based nominee for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine. Click here to find out more.

Straight Talk on Supplements: BS or A Body To Impress?

You know those before and after photos in supplement ads that you always thought were BS? Well, now you have proof. Here’s what Rick Schaff (a photographer who does many of those photo shoots) has to say about HIS own involvement with them:

“Some of the before and after photos can be taken on the same day… I have taken some of them on the same day.”

- Rick Schaff (Photographer in the fitness industry)

Watch him saying those words, AND doing a fake before and after in this interview from the movie Bigger, Faster, Stronger.

If you thought that was cool, then click here to read the rest of the article (FREE) at Primer Magazine. There is:

-Another video

-40 references

Please leave a comment on the article.

Josef is also the author of The Body You Want, and a Washington, DC based nominee for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine. Click here to find out more.