myfitnesshut

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen it: people “goofing off” during their warmup before the workout. What do I mean by this? Well, let me think:

1) Terrible running mechanics: little or no arm swing, lazy feet and terrible body position. Those bad habits carryover into the workout.

2) Inadequate duration of the warmup. One to 2 minutes for a warmup is not enough to get your body ready for the workout.

3) If you only do static stretches for your warmup, that is not enough. It is better to warmup your body with a dynamic exercise such as running or jumping rope to warm your muscles and get the blood flowing. Do your static stretches after the workout to bring your muscles back to normal length.

4) Talking with your friends for 5-10 minutes is not a warmup! Don’t laugh because I have seen this happen.

5) I saved the best one for last: Your 5 minute warmup is not your workout! Again, don’t laugh because I have seen this happen too!

Here is a good warmup tip: use the warmup to burn calories. I use my 10 minute warmup to burn 125 calories. I do this by using a low-level interval routine (about 65% effort). If my goal is to burn 600 calories during my workout, then I have already accomplished about 20% of my goal. This type of warmup also insures that my body is ready for the tough 50 minute workout to follow. Have a nice warmup and workout today!

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Enjoy your cookouts, barbeques and tailgates tomorrow and this weekend! I know I will! And, that includes eating good food! But, I won’t skip my workouts! The workouts keep everything in check! Here are some tips to help you navigate through the holiday food minefield:

1) Don’t stop or slack off on your exercise program this July 4th weekend! And, if you aren’t exercising, then this would be a great time to start. I have a goal of at least trying to maintain my pre-holiday weight during the long weekend (1 week vacation for some).

2) Go easy on BBQ sauce and other sauces. They are loaded with calories.

3) Stick to your normal nutrition plan as much as possible during the holiday. Go back to your normal nutrition on Monday!

4) This rule always applies to any day—if its fried, let it slide!

5) Alcohol has calories too—7 calories per gram to be exact. Don’t tank it too much!

6) You don’t have to eat until you are stuffed! Just eat enough to satisfy yourself.

7) Don’t spend all of your time eating during the holiday. Walk around the mall for a couple of hours, walk the pets everyday, play pick-up games, cut the lawn, etc.

Drink lots of water and you will eat less.

9) Allow yourself one dessert a day (or a sample of a few) It’s okay since you are going to exercise tomorrow—-right?

10) Here’s something that also works for the July 4th holiday: start your day with a workout and toward the end of your day take a long walk in the park or at the lake.

Happy 4th! Be careful out there!

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Have you looked at your beginning-of-year fitness goals to see how you are progressing? Did you fall “off track” months ago? Have you given up? The good news is this: you can get started again on your exercise program today! If you are “on track” to meet your fitness goals, that is great! Keep up the hard work! Reassess your fitness goals. You may have underestimated what you are capable of achieving with health and fitness.

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There is a flood of products that supposedly help you burn fat and lose weight. At best, these products are temporary solutions to your fat and weight problem! A general rule for you to follow with regards to fat loss/weight loss is this: Don’t waste your money if the program offers a quick solution to your weight problem! Why? You need a permanent solution to your weight problem. A permanent solution takes hard, smart work and sacrifice on your part. Human nature always seeks the path of least resistance.

Some of these products are: Hoodia, green tea, numerous fat burn products, fat loss pills, patches, creams……you fill in the blank! If you are significantly depending on these products to fix your problem, you will be disappointed with a lighter wallet to boot! And, some of these products are potentially harmful (remember ephedra)! If you’re wondering about the safety of any supplement, check out the “Generally Regarded As Safe” (GRAS) list published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Doctors, dieticians, and fitness experts agree that the best way to lose fat and weight is to eat higher quality calories and increase your physical activity. Weight training (including body weight training) and interval cardio exercise will tone your body and provide the heart health you need. Just make the commitment and work hard! Your body will thank you!

Are you looking for ways to shape your lower body because your program isn’t quite working?! After all, summer is just around the corner! I have a solution for you! Add some excitement and intensity to your leg workouts!

If you have been doing your squats, lunges and step-ups that’s great. Keep doing them. But, you need to mix it up a little with some jump training. Jump training has many benefits which include: burning body fat, strengthening bones and increasing power.

Jump training is high intensity training, placing great stress on the bones, joints, and connective tissue. Jump training places you at greater risk of injury than less intense training exercises. It is important to perform the exercises correctly before implementation of full-speed exercises. Jumping and landing techniques should be mastered. Exercises should be performed on safe surfaces such as rubber mats, sprung floors, grass or sand. Concrete or other similar hard surfaces expose you to injury. And, you should have good core and lower body strength to reduce chances of injury.

So you ask, where do I start? A good place to start is with an exercise you learned in kindergarden: jumping rope! There are many variations of jumping rope: two legs, one leg, alternating legs, shuffles, slalom, etc. You can progress to eventually jumping rope at full speed. Jumping rope is one of the best exercises for burning calories, burning fat, increasing bone density and improving coordination/balance.

Another good jump exercise is jump squats. Learn proper jumping and landing techniques before progressing to full speed execution of this exercise.

Jump your way to the body you want!

Remember, metabolism is basically the rate at which your body burns calories. Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the number of calories you’d burn if you did nothing all day (or the amount of calories your body needs to maintain itself).

The starting point for determining your daily caloric needs starts with your BMR. It is critical for you to know your BMR if you are attempting to burn fat and lose weight. If you maintain a caloric surplus (consuming more calories than you burn), you will gain weight and fat no matter how fast your metabolism hums.

Follow this example:

Your BMR is 1800 and you use another 800 calories through exercise and daily activity (a total of 2600 calories). If you consume 2200 calories during the day, you would have a caloric deficit of 400. This will cause you to lose weight for the day. If you continue this pattern, you will lose weight every day. It is important not to starve your body or you will get the opposite effect of what you want. Starvation will cause your body to conserve energy and store fat. For instance, if you consumed 1700 calories, you would not even meet your BMR needs. This amount (900 deficit) is unhealthy and will cause fat storage and a host of other health problems if continued. This type of deprivation can also lead to loss of lean muscle mass.

The type of nutrition you consume and timing of nutrition is also very important for your metabolism. Your body needs adequate amounts of the macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, fats) to function properly.

There is tons of information out there about metabolism and fat loss. In this article series, I will guide you through the tricky waters of metabolism facts and fiction. Metabolism is basically the rate at which your body burns calories. Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the number of calories you’d burn if you did nothing all day (or the amount of calories your body needs to maintain itself).

The starting point for determining your daily caloric needs starts with your BMR. It is critical for you to know your BMR if you are attempting to burn fat and lose weight. If you maintain a caloric surplus (consuming more calories than you burn), you will gain weight and fat no matter how fast your metabolism hums . For example, my BMR is about 2000 calories, so I would need to consume at least this amount of calories just to maintain my weight. I will talk more about BMR and the energy equation in part 2 of this series.

Here are a few facts about metabolism:

Fact #1 A slow or sluggish metabolism is not the major cause of weight gain.

A caloric imbalance is the cause of weight gain (consuming more calories than you burn in a day). If you have a slow or sluggish metabolism? A brisk 30 minute walk each day would get you started in the right direction to speed it up.

Fact #2 Lifting weights (or other resistance exercises) and cardio exercise will give you a higher metabolic rate.

Specifically, a combination of circuit weight training and high intensity interval cardio will get your metabolism “revved up.”

Fact #3 Sweating is not a gauge of how many calories you are burning.

This may be bad news for sauna and steam room lovers! Weight loss or gain is a product of calories consumed or burned. If you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight and vice-versa.

Fact #4 The best time to exercise is whenever you have the most energy.

Working out at any time of the day will increase metabolism for several hours, depending on intensity.

Fact #5 Your metabolism doesn’t necessarily have to slow down as you get older.

In general, your metabolism slows down at a rate of 5% per decade after age 40 (source: WebMD.com). The easiest way to keep a healthy metabolic rate for life is to engage in consistent weight training and interval cardio. This way, you will maintain important muscle mass and burn fat. So, how many daily calories are burned by one pound of muscle? And the answer is—35 to 50 calories!

So, what determines the rate at which your body burns calories? Some factors include age, heredity, gender and lean muscle mass. Men tend to have faster metabolisms than women. Thyroid problems may also cause your metabolism to slow down.

In part 2 of this series, we’ll take a glance at the energy equation as it relates to fat loss and weight loss.

You are an emotional eater if you use food to change your mood. This habit can become second nature to you and your unconscious way of dealing with problems.
If sugary foods such as candy, cookies and sodas are favorites of yours, you might find yourself loading up on more of these foods when your mood is down. And you may do this without noticing. Here are some practical ways to deal with emotional eating patterns and stay on your fat loss program:

1) Plan your meals and snacks and stick with your plan (especially if you are feeling emotionally down). Also, don’t “graze” during the day. Eat with a purpose.

2) Exercise to lift your mood. Exercise has a proven “feel good” effect after your workout. Exercise will also speed up your metabolism.

3) If you happen to binge eat on your favorite emotional foods, don’t give up. Just try the ideas listed in numbers 1 and 2 the next time you are tempted to binge eat. They will work every time.

Remember, food is just a tool to give you the energy you need during the day. And, like any other tool, you have to use it the right way to get the results you want.

All dietary fat (saturated, unsaturated, trans) has 9 calories per gram (meaning it is the most dense of the macronutrients). In contrast, carbohydrates and protein have 4 cal/g and alcohol has 7 cal/g.

If you’re trying to cut calories and burn body fat, eating more dietary fat won’t help you get there. Also, fat “burns in a carbohydrate flame.” This means that your body’s preferred source of fuel is carbohydrates during intense exercise (interval cardio or circuit weight training). Research and my personal experience as an exerciser and personal trainer proves that a combination of full-body circuit weight training (including bodyweight training) and high intensity interval cardio training is best for optimal fat-burning, muscle strength/endurance, cardio-respiratory health and bone density benefits. The body can’t use fat for fuel during high intensity exercise because there is not enough oxygen available.

Having said this, you need dietary fat in your diet (mainly the healthy fats). Fat is important for your diet because it helps you feel full and keeps skin, hair and nails healthy. You should limit your intake of saturated fats (usually solid at room temperature, such as butter, lard, poultry fat, cream, milk, cheeses, etc.) and trans fats (partially hydrogenated fats found in packaged foods and fast foods). Saturated fats and trans fats raise bad (LDL) cholesterol levels. Instead, increase your intake of unsaturated fats (they are usually liquid at room temperature, such as olive and canola oil). They also include unsaturated fat from such foods as fish, nuts, seeds and avocados.

Limit your intake of dietary fat to about 20% of daily calories. And, since fat is so calorie dense, it can help you eat less overall calories during the day.

Go blast the body fat in your next workout!

If you are a vegetarian, you are probably reaping the health benefits of a great diet. According to Susan Havala Hobbs (author of Being Vegetarian For Dummies), research has proven that vegetarians have lower rates of coronary artery disease, some forms of cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. Vegetarians are also less likely to have kidney disease and intestinal problems like diverticulosis.

Some vegetarians (lacto-ovo) don’t eat meat but will eat animal products such as egg and dairy products. Vegans, on the other hand, eat no animal products of any kind. Food choices for vegetarians have expanded at grocery stores and restaurants. Vegetarian diets are no longer considered “bland”. Like any diet, you must make sure you are getting enough nutrients. Vegans, in particular, should be sure their diets include enough calcium, vitamin B12, iron and protein.

Multivitamins, calcium supplements, etc. can also provide some of these nutrients when diets are lacking.