The following is an excerpt of an article I wrote that originally ran on t-nation.com, titled Dieting Disasters. To Read the entire article, click here:

Ditch the Calorie Containing Beverages!!!

This is usually the very first thing I tend to “tweak” when I start with a new client. Unless someone is actually trying to put on weight, I’d much rather someone EAT their calories than drink them; especially when dieting. I once worked with a woman who would drink two of those fully-loaded lattes from Starbucks every… ..single… ..day. She was easily ingesting 500+ calories per day from those alone. At first I limited her to one per day and eventually we took them out all together. She made fantastic progress.

If you’re one of those people who’s always had a difficult time losing weight/ fat, try getting rid of all calorie containing beverages from your diet. This includes, soda (diet soda is acceptable in moderation), fruit juice (nothing but concentrated sugar, deficient in the good stuff… fiber), lattes (heavy cream, sugar, etc), and GASP… alcohol.

I actually had a really great conversation with a colleague of mine about the effects of alcohol on fat oxidation (body’s ability to burn off fat) not too long ago. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any significant studies dealing with the topic, but my educated guess is that alcohol slows it down significantly.

Alcohol is basically a poison to the body and when you pound down six drinks (if not more for some people), the liver has to work diligently to process and excrete the alcohol from the body. And since alcohol has to go through the liver to be metabolized, it’s impossible for the body to burn fat during this time. So for those who have a tendency to drink a few times per week, you’re really shooting yourself in the foot in the long run. Not to mention you can only use the “beer goggle” excuse for so long.

I know many of you are thinking to yourself, “what about all those people who claim that drinking a glass or two of wine per night actually improves health?” A person who drinks a glass of wine or beer with dinner normally sits down and drinks it over 30 minutes or so. They relax and unwind. Rarely does someone POUND a glass of wine. So is it the wine consumption that makes them healthier, or the fact that they actually sit down and RELAX and enjoy it every night?

The same could be said for dark beer. Dark beer tends to be similar to wine in the sense that people generally don’t “chug” it. Also, it’s been shown that the flavonoids found in dark beer have the same characteristics as red wine in that it’s very high in antioxidants and helps to reduce the risk of blood clots. Again, is it the dark beer that offers the benefits, or the fact that people sit down to relax and enjoy it?

If I had to choose, I would prefer that people limit themselves to a drink (maybe two) a few nights per week rather than binging on the weekends during $1 beer nights at Hooters. And I would also prefer that people drink more water and green tea.

It’s been said that up to 80% of Americans will experience lower back pain at some point in their lifetime (ouch). As a trainer, I am asked all the time what are the best movements in the gym one can do to strengthen their lower back. How’s this for a paradox: Dr. Stuart McGill (author of such fantastic books as Low Back Disorders and Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance) has stated on several occasions that lower back health is HIGHLY correlated with endurance, while those with stronger and more powerful lower backs are more commonly injured. So while you may think that those back extensions are helping you……..think again. Strengthening the lower back may not be such a good idea.

And on a further note: It’s rather asanine that the American Medical Association still uses loss of spinal range of motion as the classification scheme of lower back dysfunction. There isn’t a single study out there that shows that lumbar spine (lower back) range of motion is correlated with having a healthy back; in fact, the opposite is true! Again those with better STABILITY (super stiffness, as Dr. McGill calls it) and optimal hip MOBILITY are much better off. So, for all those physicians or personal trainers who tell you that all you need to do is “stretch out your lower back,” don’t listen to them. They’re giving archaic and outdated advice.

What can you do?

1. MOVE! We’re a very sedentary society, and as such, predispose ourselves to lower back injuries because we’re so locked up in our hips and thoracic spine (mid-back). These two areas typically need to be more mobile and when they’re not (because you’re sitting all day in front of the computer playing solitaire when you should be working), our lower back suffers, because it’s forced to compensate and use more range of motion. Range of motion it’s not necessarily designed to have. In short…get up and move around periodically.

2. A great exercise that really challenges your “core” and helps promote stability/endurance, is the plank. Get down on the floor with nothing but your elbows/forearms and toes touching the ground. You should position your body in a straight line, squeeze your glutes and try to keep a neutral spine. There should be no movement. Hold this position for 30 seconds and repeat for a total of 3-4 sets. Try to increase your time each week.