Apollo Program blog

BREAKING SPORTS NEWS!

We interrupt this program to bring you some breaking news just in from our sports desk.

Sports stars don't care about you.

They just don't. Sorry.

So I don't see why we should care about them either. And I certainly don't see why we should spend our time watching them when we could be using that time to do something for ourselves instead.

When I was growing up, I was infamous for having never been to watch a sports match, or even having watched one on TV.  My friends used to have a running joke that if the phone rang during "The Game," it would either be a woman or Nick. Not much has changed, because I still haven't ever watched a match of any kind.

Does this mean I'm anti-sports? Not really. After all, I wouldn't be writing these blogs if I weren't a believer in an active, healthy lifestyle. But I've just never seen the appeal in watching other people being fit and having a good time, and even paying for the "privilege." What's it going to get me?

You'd think that people would have started wondering why more and more of us are out of shape and unhealthy than ever before even though the "sports industry" has never been bigger. You'd also think people might have realised that buying tickets and wearing expensive "official T-shirts" with team logos on them wasn't really going to turn them into healthy athletes. But they haven't.

Something else that always makes me laugh is when I hear fans bragging about how, "We won the match!" or about how, "My team are the champions!"  

Um, I hate to break it to you, but "we" didn't win anything. A small, elite group of people won the match, and like I said at the start, they don't care about you! And I'm sorry to be the bearer of even more bad news, but there is no "my team" either. Unless you happen to be a billionaire, you don't have a sports team.

Of course, you're free to disagree with me here. But if you think I'm wrong, please conduct the following experiment. I'd like you to: a) Try getting onto the field to shake the hands of your idols, b) Try joining the players in the locker room after a successful game, or c) Attempt to get into one of the celebratory parties at their mansions. Just explain to security that you're there because "we" won the championship and you've come to celebrate with "my team" and it should all be fine.

What I find funniest of all is the way fans get into violent street fights over the teams they support so proudly. They never stop to think that the players themselves don't quite share that allegiance these days, do they? They switch teams and loyalties as frequently as many politicians change their stories. What's even more amusing is that off the field, the rival players are probably all great friends, mixing in the same circles, going to the same parties aboard the same yachts – all the while laughing at the idiots who are willing to end up in jail, or dead, for the honour of being their "supporters."

Still, I guess I shouldn't complain too much about this. After all, it does have its advantages. Every now and then, the health club I go to will be packed with members sitting in the club bar watching "The Game" on a big plasma-screen TV. I love when that happens, because it means the gym itself will be empty, and all the equipment will be free for me to use. But I still can't help wondering WTF those people have come there for. Do they really join a gym so they can sit there watching a match on TV while they shove beer and chips down their throats? (Could that be, I wonder, part of the reason why they never see any results even though they've been members for years, and even have personal trainers who they pay a fortune for "motivation?")

Like I said earlier, this post doesn't mean I'm against the idea of sports at all. Sports are great and all that, but they're great for people who actually play them.

And I'm also not against the idea of being a fanatic. This may be surprising because, as you may have heard, the word fan is allegedly derived from the word fanatic. I'm certainly fanatical about what I do, and I think you need to be if you want to get anywhere. But please, if you're going to be a fanatic, for God's sake, be a fanatic about something that you do. Not about something that you watch other people doing. Especially not when they don't care about you.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Conspiracy Theories

I don't believe that the CIA killed John F. Kennedy. Don't believe that the Israelis were behind September 11th. And as much as I'd like to, I don't believe that aliens landed at Roswell in 1947 either.

That doesn't mean, however, that I reject all conspiracy theories. In fact, I'm about to share a couple here.

In Robert Kiyosaki's excellent 1992 book, If You Want to be Rich and Happy Don't Go to School?, he makes a very interesting point, which is that that essential financial skills like investing, reading financial statements, and credit management don't seem to be taught in schools. He suggests that this is deliberate, probably because it makes it easier for the masses to be taken advantage of all their working life.

Yes, I'm aware that Kiyosaki has become a somewhat controversial figure since he got into the spotlight with his later "Rich Dad" series of books. I don't care about that though. I think this first book of his is excellent, and can't help but agree with him when he says that the way most of us are encouraged to rely on banks and similar institutions for financial "advice" is kind of like lambs being led to slaughter. Actually, that's being generous: given the shape of the world economy today, I'd say a better metaphor would be the blind leading the blind.

Anyway, why am I bringing this up? Well, as I was writing my new diet book, Starving Sucks!, I found myself asking the same kinds of questions about nutritional education, or the lack thereof. I couldn't help wondering why we were never taught about energy balances and calorie requirements at school; why we never learned how to combine foods properly; why no-one taught us to read and understand nutritional labels on food packaging, and so on. 

None of these skills are particularly complicated, and my book will empower a reader with them in a couple of hours. So why did no-one teach them to us when we were at school? Why have we instead been encouraged to rely on directives from pasty-looking, out-of-shape "health experts" - and the honesty of food manufacturers - to tell us what's good for us?

Well, I can't say for sure, but I must confess I wonder about a few things. Could it be, for example, that unfit and unhealthy people are actually required to provide many businesses with a perpetual stream of customers? Might it be because they tend to be more docile, making them ideal employees and citizens, less likely to rock the boat? Is it because they can be distracted from real issues with food, the way you might placate a child?

Now, I don't have the answers, so I'll leave you to decide if I'm just another crackpot suffering from paranoid delusions. But at least consider that there might indeed be people whose interests would not be served if you were to become too healthy or in shape.

Oh, in case you were wondering about my views on the NASA moon landings being faked, this is one other conspiracy theory which I don't believe. After all, how could anything called The Apollo Program have been a hoax?

(For details on the Starving Sucks! book, please click here.)

Starving Sucks!

 

Trying to get a lean, toned body without being hungry all the time?

 

Looking for a diet system that's sustainable, and that actually works?

 

Want a plan that's low maintenance and easy to stick to?

If you said yes to any of the above, then my new book, Starving Sucks! is for you. Now available at a special introductory price of only $19.99.

It comes with a 100% money-back guarantee, and has helped people around the world transform their bodies and their whole lives.

Starving Sucks! is for both men and women, and like the name suggests, this system does not involve depriving yourself of food. In fact, many people who follow it comment that they eat more than they did before!

The other great thing about it is that it will work whether you do any exercise or not! So if you can't train, or just don't want to, that's okay. You'll still get results. Of course, it's designed to work together with exercise too: Pilates, yoga, weights, martial arts, aerobics, swimming – whatever! You've probably seen people who do a lot of exercise, but never seem to develop an impressive body. I'll bet that what they're missing is the information in this book.

"This is the first time in 10 years my weight has been so low! It's great to have such a well-balanced diet program. You have empowered me with all the knowledge I need for a healthy way of life.
Thank you!" Ori Saban, Architect, South Africa

Download Starving Sucks! now for just US$29.99 US$19.99 and you will:

• Find out what kinds of foods people in ancient Greece ate to stay healthy and get their classically perfect bodies.

• Understand why your body stores fat, how to stop it, and why going on a typical "diet" is the wrong approach.

• Learn about your metabolism and how you can keep it going strong and burning fat no matter what your age.

• Discover my method for quickly creating meals that are perfectly sized for you at home or at work.

• Find out what foods you should combine together, and what sequence you should eat them in to stay lean and toned. (The wrong combination or sequence could be one of the things that are keeping you fat.)

• Learn to keep it all convenient by minimizing the hassles of shopping, cooking, washing up and all that other stuff. (Remember, once you start getting annoyed by a diet, it's all over!)

• Understand how to help your digestive system from the inside, reducing bloating and abdominal discomfort.

• Discover the dirty tricks that food manufacturers use to get you to buy junk food. With the knowledge you'll gain here, you'll never be fooled by crafty advertising again.

• Find out the truth about supplements, including which sports or health food shops to avoid.

• Be able to track your results accurately, and nip any problems in the bud.

And much more!

3-month money-back guarantee:

Try Starving Sucks!, and if it doesn't help you, you can have a full refund. Simply email me, letting me know what happened and I'll refund your money there and then. You can even keep the book as a thank you gift for having tried it out.

56 pages. Supplied as a PDF for instant download! To view, you may need to install the free Adobe reader, available from www.adobe.com.

For more information on The Apollo Program, please visit: http://www.Apollo-Program.com.

Disclaimer: Not intended to replace medical advice. Any questions relating to your individual health, specific or general, should be referred to your physician. Consult your doctor before making any changes to your diet or exercise regimen.

"When you reach my age..."

If you've been involved in a healthy lifestyle for some time, you'll almost certainly have had people older than you try to burst your bubble. You can recognise them by the way they start sentences with the words, "When you reach my age…" They'll then launch into a speech where they try to convince you that once you reach some magic milestone, it will all disappear because: a) "Your muscles will turn to fat," b) "The body will lose its elasticity," c) "The metabolism slows down" or d) Some other nonsense.

 

Now that I'm in my 30s, I often hear this kind of stuff from people in their 40s. Funny thing, however, is that when I was in my 20s, I would hear exactly the same from people in their 30s! The truth is that no matter what their age, these people like to use it as an excuse for letting themselves go – and they try and make you believe that it will inevitably happen to you too.

 

These people are dangerous because they often speak with such conviction that it's easy to become convinced by them. Listening to them, they make it sound like they were Mr. Universe until they reached a certain birthday, and then it all disappeared overnight.  Of course, they always conveniently forget to mention that they haven't exercised in years (if ever) and have been eating crap for even longer. In their minds, that has nothing to do with it though – only their age is to blame.

 

The antidote to this kind of thinking is to observe those people who, no matter what their age, refuse to go quietly into the night. People like this are my role models. One example is Sylvester Stallone, both off screen and as his alter-ego Rocky Balboa (anyone who thinks the last Rocky movie was just a boxing film needs to watch it again). Another is Ron Van Clief, a.k.a. "The Black Dragon."

 

Ron Van Clief, from New York, is a living legend in the world of the martial arts, and was indirectly responsible for launching me on the road to a life of health and fitness (more on this in a moment). His martial arts accomplishments are too numerous to list here, but they include a 10th dan ranking, fighting in over 900 tournaments, becoming world champion five times, all-American champion 15 times, founding his own style of Chinese Goju, writing books and acting in movies. He was also the trainer of Taimak, star of the 1980s cult classic, The Last Dragon, as well as the fight choreographer for the movie. He's pretty much done it all. To me, however, what's even more inspiring is the way he continues to swim against the tide of ageing.

 

Let me rewind a few decades. I first learned of Ron Van Clief in the mid-1980s, when I was a weak, bullied teenager growing up in South Africa. I happened upon his White Belt Guidebook in my local library, and was immediately transfixed by the obvious strength and power of the man on the cover. I knew that I wanted to be that man.

 

The book that started it all for me back in the 80s: Ron van Clief's White Belt Guidebook 

I borrowed that book from the library over and over again until they stopped allowing me to renew it, and so I managed to buy a second-hand copy. It became my bible. Even today, I can still see myself, a skinny and unfit kid in my bedroom, working through the exercises in the book. I followed his instructions religiously, battling though a regimen of kicks, punches, push-ups, sit-ups, leg exercises and stretching, every evening trying to do a bit better than the night before.

 

Eventually I joined a full-time martial arts school, but his White Belt Guidebook is still in my bedroom, and I have very fond memories of those early days. If it hadn't been for my finding that book, I might still be weak and unfit as an adult, and there's a good chance you wouldn't be reading my blog.

 

The next time I saw Ron Van Clief was in 1994, competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) at the age of 51.

 

The Black Dragon at age 51, ready for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. (Photo used with permission of Ron Van Clief)

 

To this day, he is the oldest person to have fought in the UFC, an achievement that is even more impressive when you remember that in those days, the UFC was much more brutal than it is today, with virtually no rules, no weight classes, and no protective equipment used. And even though the rest of the competitors were decades younger, The Black Dragon's physique put them all to shame. The organisers of the tournament were so impressed that they asked him to become the Commissioner of the UFC after that.

 

Today, at the age of 67, Ron Van Clief still inspires thousands of people, myself included. I recently found him on Facebook, his profile picture displaying a body that would make men half his age jealous.

 

Ron van Clief at 67. "It is the state of my mind that determines the shape of my body."  (Photo used with permission of Ron Van Clief)

 

Although he retired from tournaments at 60, he continues to train daily, to teach his many students, and to work on movies. In an email to me on Facebook, he revealed his secret: "It is my state of mind that determines the shape of my body." Amen to that.

 

So, to readers of this blog, no matter what your age, please ignore the defeatist influences of people around you. You do not have a "sell-by" date – unless you choose to create one for yourself. Role models like Ron Van Clief are all around us, we only have to look for them. And to The Black Dragon, thank you for helping me get started on the path. Sorry it's taken over 20 years to say thanks, but better late than never!

 

(For more information on Ron Van Clief, his website is: http://www.ronvanclief.com/)

"Contains Real fruit!!!"

One thing that really annoys me is when some food manufacturer tries to make a big deal that his product has got fruit in it. Please don't fall for this. And also, don't be impressed just because something is supposedly contributing to your "five a day!" Are we expected to believe that this little bit of fruit has some magic power to counteract all the other junk it's probably mixed with? 

I find it condescending and insulting to my intelligence when I see statements like "Made with real fruit!” or "Contains real fruit juice!" on packaging. The same goes for products with pictures of fruit on the wrapper. I feel that people who do this are treating you like a child.

And can someone tell me why they have to emphasise that it’s real fruit? Is it so that people looking for fake fruit, or imaginary fruit, don’t buy their product by mistake?

"A body like a Greek god": what it means

I am often asked if my Apollo Program is a bodybuilding program, and the answer is no. Even though my system uses weights, many of the exercises are totally different to a bodybuilding approach.

This is because the type of body my system aims for is not a bodybuilding champion's physique. So there's no need to worry that you'll turn into Arnold Schwarzenegger or The Incredible Hulk. I wrote an article for my website called "What is the Apollo Body?" which explains exactly what the proverbial body like a Greek god looks like. 

I'd recommend that you read that article if you still have any fears - or illusions - that merely picking up a weight will turn you into a bodybuilder. The article uses a photo of a classical statue to make its point, which is that weights are similar to a sculptor's tools. You can use them for a huge range of applications.

Check out the full article here: http://www.apollo-program.com/WhatIsApolloBody.asp

Find The Apollo Program on Facebook!

If you have been enjoying these blogs, please join up at the new Apollo Program page on Facebook. I have already uploaded some free articles and videos, and will be adding to these as time goes on. Look out for many more free tips, exercise videos and recipes. It's also a great place for discussions.

Simply click on the "Become a fan" button below. Looking forward to seeing you on Facebook!

 

The Apollo Program: Getting a Body Like a Greek Statue on Facebook

Normal sucks!

Every now and then, someone will comment about my "Before" photo in an interesting way. "I don't know why you thought you had a problem," they tell me, with a puzzled look on their face. "I mean, you didn't look bad. You just looked normal."

When that happens, I try not to get frustrated, but it's hard. Yes, maybe I did look "normal," but guess what ... normal sucks! Trust me, it really does.

Through experience with coaching people, I've found that the ones I work best with are the ones who believe (like me!) that "normal" is a swear word. That's the kind of attitude you need to have. Slap yourself if you ever find yourself using words like "normal," "decent," and especially "realistic."

Nothing about my program is normal. The kind of body it develops, the kinds of exercises you do, the approach to diet - all of it can be considered weird. But I don't care. Sure, people will look at you strangely when they see you doing crazy exercises like my Greek Long Jumps. But you just need to learn to say you don't give a damn and keep doing what you're doing.

Same goes for all the crap that "normal" people are going to start filling your head with:

“You’re wasting your time.”

“You should be taking care of your family instead of being so self absorbed.”

“That muscle is just going to turn to fat when you’re older.”

“You’re being unrealistic.”

“You’re taking this way too far.”

“Ha ha! You use moisturiser!”

 “You’re really vain.”

And so on. I've really heard it all before, and I can tell you that the best thing you can do is simply say you don't give a damn* and ignore them. Don't be afraid to be seen as abnormal. Normal sucks!

* NOTE: I believe that variation is healthy, so if you want to use another word instead of "damn" that's fine with me. All I would ask is that for the sake of consistency, you substitute a word with the same number of letters.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome: You Don't Have to Live With It

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a big problem for many people trying to get a flat stomach. You probably know that to have a great-looking flat stomach, you need to have well-developed stomach muscles and a low  level of body fat.

Although these are both important, they are not always enough, as their effect can still be ruined by a gut that is swollen from the inside by Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Exercise will help on the outside, but it's important to create a flat stomach from the inside too. Unfortunately, hardly any authors or trainers give much attention to fighting Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

It can be extremely frustrating and demotivating too. Personally I think Irritable Bowel Syndrome can cause anxiety, irritability and even depression. None of these is what you want when you're trying to achieve your dream of a flat stomach.

Sadly, modern medicine is also often ineffective in helping. All too frequently, Irritable Bowel Syndrome sufferers are told that there's nothing that can be done, and that they'll just have to "live with it."

Now, I'm not the kind of person who just accepts things, and if you're reading this blog, I imagine you're not either. I don't believe you have to "live with" weak abdominal muscles or high body fat levels, and I certainly don't believe you have to settle for a bloated stomach and Irritable Bowel Syndrome either.

Fortunately, you can fight back against it. Start by examining your diet. Do you find that you feel bloated and uncomfortable after a meal? If so, try spreading your food intake out over many smaller meals instead of eating a lot in one sitting. This is often enough to ease the symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Another often overlooked factor is stress. Many cultures believe that the bowels are the seat of the emotions and feelings. You must have heard terms like "a gut feeling" or "sick to my stomach." Taking time to relax every day can do wonders for your digestive system. Regular exercise is a well-known stress buster - yet another good reason to do more of it. Listening to relaxing music can also help relieve your Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

These are just a couple of suggestions of ways you can start to fight back against Irritable Bowel Syndrome. There are plenty of other ways, and these are covered in my new book, A Stomach Like a Greek Statue. 

You can find out more about the book at http://www.Apollo-Program.com/FlatStomachBook. The most important thing, however, is that you make the decision to fight back. Don't settle for less.

A Stomach Like a Greek Statue: E-book now available!

Some exciting news. My first e-book is now available for download.

 

Since launching my Apollo Program, I've been overwhelmed with enquiries from people all over the world interested in just one paricular part of it: getting a flat stomach! They don't want the whole program; they just want my abs secrets! I listened to what everyone was asking for, and here it is.

To see more, or to purchase the book, please visit: http://www.Apollo-Program.com/FlatStomachBook