I know you have been listening to me rattle on for weeks now about how I think nutrition is the key to your weight loss. I wouldn't just say it if I didn't know it to be true. Here are three preliminary cases of clients who are changing their nutrition and seeing the benefits. I'm still holding off on all the details until I can provide a thorough success story for you, but all of them have done our nutrition program and the early results are great.
Joyce started off the first three months of our program only losing 6 pounds and out of those 6 pounds 3 were from fat and 3 lean muscle. Not the ratio we want to see. So all signs of the erratic weight loss pointed to nutrition. At the time she was working with a registered dietician, so I didn't approach the nutrition topic, but something wasn't working. So at the three month mark, we looked at the meal plan our software provided (which was created by registered dieticians). It provided the right amount of calories she needs per day. We discussed how to get her meals in and make it work for her schedule. The next 3.5 months she loses a total of 20 pounds of fat and gains 6 pounds of muscle, a net loss of 14 pounds. This is excellent and exactly what we want to see.
Kelly is a female athlete and wanted to shed some fat before she reported back to school. We put her on the program and found the right amount of calories she needed to give her energy for her grueling workouts and shed some fat. The early numbers are: 4 weeks doing the meal plan, 4 pounds lost. Actually, she has lost 6 pounds of fat and gained 2 pounds of lean muscle. Perfect!
Lisa wanted to get back in shape and started our program a month and a half ago. She has dropped a dress size and went to a wedding where her friends were commenting admiringly about how good she looked. A man started asking her questions about her transformation, which she repeated a lot of the knowledge I had told her about nutrition and weight loss. Finally, the man said that she was spot on with everything she said. He was just finishing up his residency in general medicine and encouraged her to keep doing what she is doing because she is on the right path.
Those are the success stories I love to hear about. Those are the stories I want to hear more of. What is stopping you from getting that physique you desire? Or getting into the optimal health you richly deserve? I don't know what is stopping you, but hopefully, YOU can be our next awesome success story.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Odd Fitness Facts That Won't Help You At All
Taking a break from the usual health topics that I discuss, I decided to put together a bunch of interesting health and fitness facts that you probably weren't aware of. They won't make you any healthier, but they might make you the life of the party. Repeat some of these and have the people eating out of your hand or get kicked out of the party. Try it and let me know what happens.
• Left handed people live slightly shorter lives than right handed people.
• Toxic houseplants poison more children than household chemicals.
• Wearing headphones for an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
• The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
• Apples, not CAFFEINE, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
• A sneeze travels out of your mouth at over 100 mph.
• You cannot sneeze with your eyes open.
• Seaweed is used to thicken ice cream.
• The average person eats 8 spiders in their sleep in their entire lifetime.
• Every time you lick a stamp you are consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
• Americans eat 18 acres of pizza daily.
• Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
• 85% of men who die of heartattacks during intercourse, are found to have been cheating on their wives.
• The largest muscle in your body is located in your rear end.
• The human neck has the same number of vertebrae as a giraffe's neck.
• Your nose makes about a cup of snot each day.
• Women blink twice as much as men.
• Not a spinach lover? Eat honey - it has similar levels of heart healthy antioxidants.
• Strawberries contain more Vitamin C than oranges.
• Per ounce, Chicken McNuggets contain twice as much fat as hamburgers.
• Blueberries fight the bacteria that cause diarrhea.
• Honey speeds the healing process to wounds.
• The surface area of a human lung is equal to a tennis court.
• On average, a pound of potato chips cost 200 times more than a pound of potatoes.
• Carrots really can help you see in the dark.
• You burn more calories sleeping than watching TV.
If you enjoyed them, click here and post your favorite one on my facebook fan page.
• Left handed people live slightly shorter lives than right handed people.
• Toxic houseplants poison more children than household chemicals.
• Wearing headphones for an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
• The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
• Apples, not CAFFEINE, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
• A sneeze travels out of your mouth at over 100 mph.
• You cannot sneeze with your eyes open.
• Seaweed is used to thicken ice cream.
• The average person eats 8 spiders in their sleep in their entire lifetime.
• Every time you lick a stamp you are consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
• Americans eat 18 acres of pizza daily.
• Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
• 85% of men who die of heartattacks during intercourse, are found to have been cheating on their wives.
• The largest muscle in your body is located in your rear end.
• The human neck has the same number of vertebrae as a giraffe's neck.
• Your nose makes about a cup of snot each day.
• Women blink twice as much as men.
• Not a spinach lover? Eat honey - it has similar levels of heart healthy antioxidants.
• Strawberries contain more Vitamin C than oranges.
• Per ounce, Chicken McNuggets contain twice as much fat as hamburgers.
• Blueberries fight the bacteria that cause diarrhea.
• Honey speeds the healing process to wounds.
• The surface area of a human lung is equal to a tennis court.
• On average, a pound of potato chips cost 200 times more than a pound of potatoes.
• Carrots really can help you see in the dark.
• You burn more calories sleeping than watching TV.
If you enjoyed them, click here and post your favorite one on my facebook fan page.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Calorie Counters Could Be Misleading And Sabatoging Your Workout
I get people that tell me all the time about how many calories they burned during their workout.
"Dude, I had a killer workout. I burned over 500 calories on the stairmaster."
I don't mean to ruin your workout entirely, but some of the calorie counters on these machines could be misleading. They could be giving you a number that is higher or lower than what you are actually burning. I don't have my clients focus so much on counting calories, especially how much you are burning during workouts, but in case you do focus on that, read on.
First of all, those numbers that the calorie counter are spewing out should be used more as a guideline rather than gospel. You need a lot more sophisticated equipment to measure calories than just gripping the handle bars of this cardio machine.
A lot that determines how many calories you burn depends on your own fitness level. The more in shape you are, the fewer calories you could burn. For example, if you are a beginner at level 1, you will start off shedding more calories than a fitness stud at level 1. The fitness stud would have to crank up the intensity to burn the same amount of calories.
To get a better feel for how many calories you are burning, you should probably invest in a heart rate monitor. The machines heart rate sensor shouldn't be the one you solely rely on, so having another heart rate monitor, can help take out a lot of guesswork. Polar's Fitness F4 Training Computer is recommended by Men's Fitness and this could probably work for you. Being able to see where your heart rate is will help determine your intensity level, thus give you a truer indicator about burning the right amount of calories.
According to Men's Fitness, here is what you should expect to burn per minute based on activity:
• Low Intensity Training (softball, golf) 4-6 calories if you're fit, 6-8 calories if you aren't
• Moderate Intensity Training (jogging, rowing) 8-10 calories if you're fit, 10-12 if you aren't
• High Intensity Training (running, boxing) 12-15 calories if you're fit, 15-20 if you aren't
"Dude, I had a killer workout. I burned over 500 calories on the stairmaster."
I don't mean to ruin your workout entirely, but some of the calorie counters on these machines could be misleading. They could be giving you a number that is higher or lower than what you are actually burning. I don't have my clients focus so much on counting calories, especially how much you are burning during workouts, but in case you do focus on that, read on.
First of all, those numbers that the calorie counter are spewing out should be used more as a guideline rather than gospel. You need a lot more sophisticated equipment to measure calories than just gripping the handle bars of this cardio machine.
A lot that determines how many calories you burn depends on your own fitness level. The more in shape you are, the fewer calories you could burn. For example, if you are a beginner at level 1, you will start off shedding more calories than a fitness stud at level 1. The fitness stud would have to crank up the intensity to burn the same amount of calories.
To get a better feel for how many calories you are burning, you should probably invest in a heart rate monitor. The machines heart rate sensor shouldn't be the one you solely rely on, so having another heart rate monitor, can help take out a lot of guesswork. Polar's Fitness F4 Training Computer is recommended by Men's Fitness and this could probably work for you. Being able to see where your heart rate is will help determine your intensity level, thus give you a truer indicator about burning the right amount of calories.
According to Men's Fitness, here is what you should expect to burn per minute based on activity:
• Low Intensity Training (softball, golf) 4-6 calories if you're fit, 6-8 calories if you aren't
• Moderate Intensity Training (jogging, rowing) 8-10 calories if you're fit, 10-12 if you aren't
• High Intensity Training (running, boxing) 12-15 calories if you're fit, 15-20 if you aren't
Friday, June 04, 2010
What Is The Big Deal About Supplements?
Whenever I talk about supplements, there seems to be some confusion out there. For most people, supplements is a general term that includes everything from multi-vitamins, holistic foods, protein drinks, steroids, HGH, and the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, what is associated with the word "supplements" is all the negative press to really only a few of these items in regards to health issues.
I think you have to make a distinction between supplements and performance enhancing drugs (we will call them PED'sfor short).
PED's are in the news a lot. They are used by athletes to help them become bigger, faster, and stronger. Some of these, if taken under a doctor's supervision, can be beneficial for an individual. Most are questionable at best, not so much about what they can do, but what negative affects they will have on your body down the road. Sometimes these PED's are taken for recreational use and this is where it gets a little crazy. If a little is good, more must be better, and these rec-users take them in crazy doses.
These PED's are not what my clients would be taking if they were looking to achieve their health goals. So, when you hear the word "supplements" immediately discount the PED's because these aren't sold at any store.
So, out of the remaining items in the term "supplements," you hear a lot of strange words being used nowadays - hoodia, ginko bilobo, ephedra, phen-phen. A lot of these words are associated with fat burners. Some have caused negative repercussions and others don't do anything except burn a hole in your wallet. Eliminate these "fat burners" from our supplements term. There is no such thing as a pill or powder that burns fat. It doesn't exist.
What remains for the most part are the products I lump into the discussion of supplements and explain to my clients how they might help. First, of all, they have to be eating healthy for most of their meals. If you continue to eat like crap, then no supplement in the world is going to help. Then, if you are like most of my clients, you have a busy schedule and little time to prepare many meals. That is when my version of the word supplements come into play. I feel using a meal replacement shake or bar to help get you between meals is fine. These products are man made, but they are consistent with healthy choices and can fulfill your nutritional needs until you get to your next whole meal. I also discuss using a quality vitamin strip. There are nutritional gaps in a person's diet no matter how perfect they eat. These help fill those gaps.
So when I think of supplements, that is what I think of. No fat burners, no shots to your stomach, nothing hard core. Just something to aid in the getting of healthy calories so that your body can become a natural fat burner and get rid of fat safely. Nutrition is the key to accomplishing your health goals and the supplements I suggest can be a good complement towards achieving that goal.
I think you have to make a distinction between supplements and performance enhancing drugs (we will call them PED'sfor short).
PED's are in the news a lot. They are used by athletes to help them become bigger, faster, and stronger. Some of these, if taken under a doctor's supervision, can be beneficial for an individual. Most are questionable at best, not so much about what they can do, but what negative affects they will have on your body down the road. Sometimes these PED's are taken for recreational use and this is where it gets a little crazy. If a little is good, more must be better, and these rec-users take them in crazy doses.
These PED's are not what my clients would be taking if they were looking to achieve their health goals. So, when you hear the word "supplements" immediately discount the PED's because these aren't sold at any store.
So, out of the remaining items in the term "supplements," you hear a lot of strange words being used nowadays - hoodia, ginko bilobo, ephedra, phen-phen. A lot of these words are associated with fat burners. Some have caused negative repercussions and others don't do anything except burn a hole in your wallet. Eliminate these "fat burners" from our supplements term. There is no such thing as a pill or powder that burns fat. It doesn't exist.
What remains for the most part are the products I lump into the discussion of supplements and explain to my clients how they might help. First, of all, they have to be eating healthy for most of their meals. If you continue to eat like crap, then no supplement in the world is going to help. Then, if you are like most of my clients, you have a busy schedule and little time to prepare many meals. That is when my version of the word supplements come into play. I feel using a meal replacement shake or bar to help get you between meals is fine. These products are man made, but they are consistent with healthy choices and can fulfill your nutritional needs until you get to your next whole meal. I also discuss using a quality vitamin strip. There are nutritional gaps in a person's diet no matter how perfect they eat. These help fill those gaps.
So when I think of supplements, that is what I think of. No fat burners, no shots to your stomach, nothing hard core. Just something to aid in the getting of healthy calories so that your body can become a natural fat burner and get rid of fat safely. Nutrition is the key to accomplishing your health goals and the supplements I suggest can be a good complement towards achieving that goal.
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