Break free from your scale!

The scale is driving me crazy!

I naïvely thought we could get away from the scales when we got rid of them in the clubs, but I guess it was a pipe dream.

The scale is a horrible tool! It is discouraging and totally misleading.

When we talk about losing weight we really mean losing body fat. The scale is totally inaccurate at measuring body fat.

Okay, you may be asking, then how do you measure body fat loss?

Most guys tend to accumulate fat around their waist first. When they drop a hole on their belt they are losing body fat. Women most often add fat to their hips first, so as their hips go down in size they are losing body fat.

A scale measures total body weight, which you can decrease a number of ways without losing any body fat! Sweating off water in the sauna, taking a diuretic, or going on a diet that can cause severe dehydration (like the Atkins diet) reduces weight without reducing an ounce of body fat.

This method of weight loss has nothing to do with fat loss. It’s strictly a reduction in water, which will go back on with the next drink of water you have.

If you’re concerned about reducing body fat, measure your waistline or your hips and watch that number. Don’t refer to a scale!

Throw the scale away and you’ll have a better chance of achieving your goals.


To your health! Mike

The secret of aging

Work to be younger than your age.

As a famous hair coloring company said, “aging…I’m going to fight it every step of the way.”

In the magnificent best-seller “Younger Next Year,” Dr. Henry Lodge presents a cutting-edge concept of aging, claiming that we really don’t know what healthy aging is!

Prior to this generation, 60 years old was considered ‘ancient.’ The common belief at the time was that we should ‘slow down’ to live longer. Now with the availability of healthier diets and better methods of exercise, many of the things considered part of aging have been disproven.

I had the good fortune of taking a ski trip out West with some good friends a few weeks back. Everyone in the group was an excellent skier and we all love to ski black diamond bumps. We spent six days, seven hours a day, skiing bumps. If you told even me 30 years ago at the age of 60 I would be skiing black diamond bumps for six days straight with a group all over 50, I would’ve told you that you were crazy.

I’ll let you in on a little secret - the key to these changes is a change in attitude. There are now many examples of people in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and even 90’s performing amazing physical feats.

For those of us who are optimists this changes what we believe we can do. So we stop thinking, “I’m getting old” and start thinking, “I’m as strong as I was when I was thirty why shouldn’t I be able to do the things I did then?”  Scientists on the forefront of aging believe we’re just scratching the surface. With the advantages of better diet and better forms of exercise they have no idea how high or how long people can perform as they age.

At Mike Arteaga’s, we don’t get “older,” we just get ‘better’ because we know the secret to aging successfully.

To your health! Mike