The Body Sculpting Bible for Women (6 page)

Another eating disorder, bulimia (characterized by bingeing and purging) is somewhat of a difficult subject for me (James) to write about because I personally battled with it for a period of time in my life. When I was young, my physique was the last thing on my mind. I did not care about how I looked or what I ate. Being served seconds for lunch and dinner was not enticing for me; it was more like thirds and fourths that got my attention. My mother, who is a registered nurse and an amazing one at that, was not aware of the health implications and effects that too much food would cause to my body. As a matter of fact, most health practitioners, including medical doctors, are not always aware even today, of some of the implications food can have on a person’s body. As I grew older and larger I was forced into realization of my obesity. One day, while in Junior High School, a gym teacher pulled me aside and made me step onto the scale. I weighed about 200 pounds at age 12/13. He thought that his way of revealing my weight problem to me was a productive one. He was wrong! The only thing he did was embarrass and anger me.

From that point on, I began to gain more and more weight until finally I was at my all time high of 255 pounds. I was fat and depressed and had no idea what to do about my problem. I resorted to weight loss pills and liquid diets, which only frustrated me more. My sister, who was also quite heavy, began suddenly to lose weight. I was shocked at how she shed pounds of weight, yet didn’t diet or exercise. It was odd, but I started to notice that her once beautiful olive complexion began turning pale. In addition, I would constantly see her falling into a deep depression accompanied by anxiety. I, like most people with eating disorders, paid no attention to the terrible things that she was going through. I just wanted to know how the heck she was losing that weight. Well I found out!

Staying up late and having good ears made it obvious. I could hear her throwing up in the bathroom and knew that this was the way she was losing weight. While initially I was afraid to try such a harsh thing, I went ahead and tried it. At first, I hurt the back of my throat by gagging. I then tried other ways to purge myself, all of which were ways of causing a gag reflex. That was when my terrible eating disorder began. In the beginning I lost some weight and actually felt good because I could eat junk food while getting the results I wanted. That was until I noticed some odd behavior in myself, such as an obsessive need to exercise and ongoing bouts of low self-esteem. I felt like my self-worth required that I be skinny. I continued until one day, while living with my parents, I heard my sister scream from the bathroom. I ran upstairs and tried to open the door, but it was locked! I screamed for my sister to unlock the door, but she didn’t. I had to break open the door and found my sister on the floor naked, lying in a pool of water. She
had fallen out of the shower due to her body becoming weakened by the abuse of bulimia. She was purple and looked as if she was having a seizure. I screamed to my mother and she immediately called the police. It was discovered that she had developed seven bleeding ulcers, among many other problems that were all the side effects of bulimia. I was never so scared in my life as when I saw what my sister had done to herself and realized that I was on the same exact path.

Since that time, my sister and I have both stopped abusing our bodies and have educated ourselves about eating disorders. With strong will and persistence, we conquered this eating disorder and I must say that my sister has become a beautifully strong and confident woman. We discovered through reading and from our personal dealings, that even though a person with any eating disorder may look happy and cheerful, that person is often depressed, lonely, ashamed and empty inside. Friends of bulimics may describe them as people who are competent and fun to be with. But underneath all of that, where they hide their guilty secrets, they are actually hurting real badly. They may feel unworthy and have great difficulty talking about their feelings. These feelings are often accompanied with anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and deeply buried anger.

So you see, bulimia is a very dangerous eating disorder that will never meet your expectations of acquiring a great looking physique. Bulimia is a disease and one that needs to be taken care of with the help of someone knowledgeable. Please remember that bingeing and purging is not the way to get in or stay in shape.
If you feel that you may have this terrible disease, please seek professional counseling
.

LOW CARB/HIGH PROTEIN/HIGH FAT DIETS

Low carb (less than 50 or even 30 grams a day), high protein, high fat diets might at first work. The reason? After the initial adaptation period of two weeks, in the absence of carbohydrates, the body has no choice but to go into a state of ketosis (carbohydrate deprivation) and start burning fats for fuel. This is assuming that more than 50% of your calories are coming from good essential fatty acids like olive oil and flaxseed oil. Basically, your body shifts its carbohydrate metabolism into an exclusively fat burning metabolism. Now, like any diet, the same basic principles apply. Even though you will be burning fats exclusively this does not mean that you will be able to eat everything and anything without getting fat. Remember if you take in more calories than you burn, you will get fat.

We have tried such diets for as long as a year at a time. The following are the drawbacks:

• If you are only allowed 30-50 grams of carbohydrates a day, your life will not be very tasty. You will only be limited to a small selection of foods.

• Even though at the beginning you lose incredible amounts of weight, it is mostly water weight. We also did not find a big difference between losing fat on a low carb diet and losing fat on a moderate carbohydrate diet. Both diets provide similar benefits.

• While on a low carbohydrate diet, the muscles feel flat (shrink in size) due to the fact that the glycogen (the carbohydrates that are stored inside the muscle cell and make the muscles look firm) gets depleted. On a moderate carbohydrate diet, your muscles always feel firm and tight.

• We experienced joint pains after the ninth month on the diet. We were drinking 2 gallons of water a day so lack of fluids was not the problem. We wonder if it was the lack of carbs that caused the fluid in the joints to diminish but this is mere speculation. Once we switched back to a moderate carb diet, the joint pains disappeared.

• You have to pay close attention to your cholesterol levels and to nutritional deficiencies caused by the lack of variety in the diet.

In order to get all the good fats in the diet, we had to take them in liquid form; not very tasty.

Even though this type of diet might work, we don’t believe it can be maintained for a lifetime. If you feel like trying it, then please remember to pay close attention to cholesterol levels and nutritional deficiencies. We, however, believe that to get in shape the best approach is a more balanced one.

MENOPAUSE & HORMONE REPLACEMENT

This section is based on our response to numerous questions that women have asked us about our stand on hormone replacement. After doing some research, we have come up with some answers to those questions. However, before we divulge our stance, let’s first discuss why women decide to undergo hormone replacement therapy.

At around age 40, the interaction of a woman’s hormones begins to change. Less estrogen and progesterone are produced by the ovaries, leading to erratic menstrual cycles and finally to menopause. While the reasons for this are unclear, we do know that menopause causes short-term unpleasant conditions such as hot flashes, headaches, and mood swings, as well as increased risk for osteoporosis and heart disease. Lately, many women have been undergoing hormone replacement therapy (namely synthetic estrogen and progesterone) in order to reduce their chances of heart disease and osteoporosis while at the same time reducing the unpleasant short-term side effects caused by reduced production of such hormones.

Based on the research we have reviewed, however, hormone replacement therapy does not come without risk (no such thing as a free meal). While there are numerous studies that suggest a benefit of reduced chances for osteoporosis and heart disease along with a reduction in hot flashes, mood swings, and the like, there are also studies that suggest such therapy may increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. In addition, it seems that women may suffer from a condition in which the synthetic estrogen being supplied to the body begins to overshadow the other hormones in the body thereby creating a hormonal imbalance (the same thing happens to male athletes when they take steroids and synthetic testosterone). Such a imbalance leads to side effects. According to Dr. Betty Kamen, author of
Hormone Replacement Therapy, Yes or No?
, the following are a list of side effects that may arise from estrogen replacement:

• Abdominal cramps

• Amenorrhea

• Bloating

• Breast tenderness and enlargement

• Cystitis-like syndromes

• Elevated blood pressure

• Endometrial cancer

• Gallbladder disease

• Hair loss (where you don’t want it)

• Hair growth (where you don’t want it)

• Hyperlipidemia

• Jaundice

• Loss of libido

• Mental depression

• Nausea and vomiting

• Prolonged vaginal bleeding

• Reduced carbohydrate tolerance

• Skin rashes

• Thrombophlebitis

• Undesirable weight gain

• Vaginal candidiasis

Remember, the body’s hormonal system is like a fine-tuned clock and every time that you introduce foreign hormones into it you might very well get a negative effect from doing so as you will be upsetting the body’s delicate balance. Just like steroid users, there will be people that will get no side effects from the therapy. However, you may be one of those unlucky ones that have a genetic predisposition to cancer, and hormone replacement could be the trigger that activates it. So having said that, our advice is simple: use natural alternatives to hormone replacement such as a good diet and training program (like the ones recommended in this book). Do you know that weight training has been shown to improve bone mass even in older women? In addition, weight training in conjunction with good nutrition and cardiovascular exercise (aerobics) can greatly reduce the risk of heart disease while producing a hormonal environment not conducive to depression. While diet and exercise may not eliminate the hot flashes and headaches, women who remain active have a much easier time dealing with these symptoms than those who are inactive. Provided that a woman has taken good care of herself during the years prior to menopause with proper diet and exercise, other organs in the system (such as the adrenal glands) can produce these hormones, allowing the body to make healthy adjustments in hormonal balance after menopause. In addition, foods such as soy may help in the control of hot flashes as they are rich in phytoestrogens.

In conclusion, if you are thinking about hormone replacement, consult with your doctor and weigh the positives and the negatives of your decision. We recommend a therapy composed of exercise and a good diet that includes soy based products in lieu of hormone replacement, as it appears that such therapy may provide the same benefits of hormone replacement without all of the risks.

Chapter 2

The Power of the Mind

Powerful Methods for Achieving Success

For immediate Body Sculpting Bible support & coaching directly from James & Hugo, please visit
www.BodySculptingBible.com

THINGS DON’T HAVE TO BE SO COMPLICATED; NOT WHEN YOU HAVE AN ARSENAL OF RESULTS AMMO!

What you have in your hands right now is a straightforward and logical formula that we have broken down and simplified, making the information easy to comprehend and follow. This manual gives you the most effective surefire plan to attain a better-looking body, in the shortest amount of time humanly and naturally possible.

The reason this book is called the 14-Day Body Sculpting Workout is because if you follow the guidelines we present, you will start to notice some amazing changes in your body within a couple of weeks. Please understand that this is not a magic program. We are not claiming that your body will miraculously change overnight. However, by applying these methods to your lifestyle, along with applying yourself to the program, you will achieve results and then “magic” may just be the word you’ll use to describe our program. Often, people who have seen us train ask, “How do you guys make such noticeable physique changes with such a short workout?” That’s just it! That’s the underlying formula, the key to your success! Remember more is not necessarily better and in the case of this book, definitely not. If you understand how the body works, you will be successful in the shortest time possible. We live in a fast paced world, where time is a precious asset (time is money!). We don’t have the time to spend long hours in the gym—even a short time in the gym can be a major commitment. Having extra time can greatly enhance your life, allowing you to do some of the things you’ve otherwise neglected. A basic, yet scientific approach to fitness training is what’s needed, and is exactly what you’re about to discover with the 14-Day Body Sculpting Workout!

FAQ:

You write about how important it is to make your workout short. Why is this better than longer workouts, where I can really work my body harder with the extra time?