I want to tell you a quick story about a nutrition issue I had. And at the end of this story, I’m going to make an iron-clad promise to you. So here we go:

Five years ago, I was addicted to Diet Dr. Pepper.

Straight out of college I worked a short stint as a surgical salesman, marketing hips and knee replacement parts to local orthopedic physicians, then standing and watching during surgery as people had their new hips and knees placed into their bodies.

It was a tiring job, so I wanted a caffeine kick. But the Diet Dr. Pepper wasn’t just giving me caffeine. I didn’t know it at the time, but my two to three soda serving a day diet was also injecting me with heavy doses of addicting, excitoxic artificial sweeteners, seeping acidity into my body, dying my teeth brown with artificial colors, and a exposing my gut to a host of other chemicals that were wreaking havoc on my metabolism.

And I’m sure the extra Cherry-Vanilla flavoring wasn’t exactly helping.

Although my eyes were eventually opened to the damage that the diet soda was causing to my health and performance, I still had a serious issue – I was chemically addicted to the Diet. Dr Pepper. Several times, I tried to quit drinking it, but found myself pulling over to the gas station and grabbing an icy cold, fizzy can or bottle of brown nectar whenever I had a craving. This was a big problem.

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In this March 10th free audio episode: The top 3 errors made by swimmers, too much fiber, how to decrease your sex drive, probiotics, binge eating in athletes, motivating yourself to workout in the morning, running for cyclists, energy drinks during workouts, late night exercise and sleep, triathlon training during busy weeks, and should you wear flip flops in the locker room?

Remember, if you have any trouble listening, downloading, or transferring to your .mp3 player just e-mail ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com. And don’t forget to leave the podcast a ranking in iTunes – it only takes 2 minutes of your time and helps grow our healthy community! Just click here to go to our iTunes page and leave feedback.

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Why Swim?

Swimming is fantastic for quickly improving your fitness, swimming is perfect for decimating calories without stressing your joints (it actually burns more calories than almost any other form of exercise), and, of course, swimming is absolutely essential if you’re a triathlete or a swimmer.

But swimming is all about technique. Consider this shocking fact: any small twelve year old girl with good swimming form can easily swim significantly faster than the fittest man on the planet. Trust me – I look like I could be a super fast swimmer, but I’ve been absolutely destroyed by little children swimming beside me during their swim team practice in the pool.

This is because water is thicker than air, and therefore swimming is about moving fluidly and beautifully and efficiently through the water, and not about just flailing to get faster.

How To Use A Video Camera to Record Yourself Swimming

Tired of flailing in the water?

Then pay attention, because here is one of the most important facts you are going to read in this article: using a video camera to have a friend record you swimming, and then watching the video (preferably with somebody who knows how to swim properly) is the single most powerful method I have ever found for becoming a better swimmer.

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In this March 3rd free audio episode: An interview with a Chinese herbologist, food labels, how much fat should you be eating, exercise-induced nausea and more on glycerol.

Remember, if you have any trouble listening, downloading, or transferring to your .mp3 player just e-mail ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com. And don’t forget to leave the podcast a ranking in iTunes – it only takes 2 minutes of your time and helps grow our healthy community! Just click here to go to our iTunes page and leave feedback.

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Featured Topic:

This Wednesday, I will be releasing an interview with the author of this post, Roger Drummer. Do you have questions or comments for Roger? Leave them here, and if I get a chance, I’ll ask them during our interview!

If you have a child of any age now is the time to start them on the road to good heart health.  It’s pretty simple and there’s probably not a better thing to focus on than this if you’re concerned at all about your children’s health.

A report was just released showing 20% of teenagers between 12 and 19 had abnormal levels of fat in their blood.

High cholesterol and triglycerides topped the list, along with abnormal blood lipid profiles.  In other words, too much bad cholesterol, not enough good.  The percentages go up with obesity and I don’t have to tell you what a problem that is with kids today.

1 in 5 Teens at Risk

I’ve included a link (WashingtonPost Article – 1 of 5 Tees at Risk) so you can get all the facts but the main thing you have to realize is that having abnormal blood profiles at this age is an indicator a huge portion of these kids are headed for the chronic diseases of high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and heart disease.  Not to mention the type of diet that causes it is a great one for preparing the body for cancer.

Have you ever experienced that frustrating problem of how to count laps while you swim? Whether you’re preparing for a triathlon, training for swim team, or just swimming laps for fitness, it can be confusing when you’re halfway through a swim set and you lose track of how many laps you’ve completed.

Let’s face it – not everybody has a swim lap counter standing at the edge of the pool telling you how many lengths you’ve finished. Not only does not being able to count laps throw off your calculation of how fast you’re swimming, but it also affects your ability to focus and to gauge swim pace and intensity.

So here’s a good way to count laps while you’re swimming: a new company called “Swimovate” has developed a special kind of wrist-watch style computer called a  “The Pool-Mate”. This watch is a completely automatic lap and stroke counter for swimmers that works in any size of pool, allowing the swimmer to concentrate on just…swimming!

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In this February 24th free audio episode: The Latest Research from The Journal of Strength & Conditioning,  Double Chins, Heart Rate Monitors, Testosterone, Soreness, Pre-Race Jitters and Protein!

Remember, if you have any trouble listening, downloading, or transferring to your .mp3 player just e-mail ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com. And don’t forget to leave the podcast a ranking in iTunes – it only takes 2 minutes of your time and helps grow our healthy community! Just click here to go to our iTunes page and leave feedback.

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Special Announcements

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Folks, I would highly recommend that you play the video below to meet one of the nation’s top personal trainers: Mr. Darin Steen. This fat loss expert and family man has such good ideas, that I actually decided to release a special mid-week audio update containing my fat loss interview with him.

As the creator of the 300 page guide to fat loss, entitled “Fat Loss Lifestyle Manual”, the designer of the entire “Cardio Intervals DVD Series” and your personal guide in his brand new “Fat Loss Lifestyle Exercise Video Library”, Darin agreed to be interviewed by me and reveal some of his top fat loss tricks and tips, including some of the very same techniques he uses as personal fitness adviser to Dr. Mercola.

During our discussion, (which you can listen to for free by downloading my fat loss interview with him here or using the player at the bottom of this post), Darin reveals:

-An easy system to determine which days to eat carbs and which days to avoid carbs…

This guest post by Darin Steen (who I’ll be interviewing for Podcast #83) teaches you exactly what to do at the gym if you have limited time to workout…

The phrase “I don’t have enough time” is a common excuse that many people use. Let’s stop lying to ourselves.  The average person watches over four hours and 15 min. of TV per day.  We have enough time.  But the question is where are your priorities?  With the promise of all the latest technology simplifying and perfecting our life, I just don’t see it.  With computers, high speed internet, e-mail, Blackberries, Palm Pilots, microwaves, meal replacements, and all the latest and greatest innovations, we seem to be more stressed; less fit, and have less time than ever.

The playing field is precisely even for everyone, we all have 1,440 minutes in a day.  Whether you are black, white, yellow, rich, poor, healthy or sick, it’s the same for every-one.  What is not the same is our perception of time, which everyone has a different view or focus on.  How much time you perceive that you have is dependent on what you focus on.