Workout Of The Week June 24th, 2013

 

 

W.O.W.

This weeks workout is simple and you need very little equipment.

You will need a couple sets of dumbbells and a stability ball, although you can do it without a ball too.

Warm up with walking lunges, air squats and jumping jacks for about five minutes.

With dumbbells perform 20 of each of the following exercises (plank row will be ten on each side but alternate right and left):

Curl and press

DB squat thrust

Alt plank row

Squat Arnold press

Skier

Tricep kickback

On ball:

Chest press

Pullover

Stretch abs

Repeat two more times through. If you page back through my posts you can find photos for all these exercises.  Have fun!

Nutrition For February 25th, 2011

A lot of women ask me how to control bloat. Our weight can fluctuate 5 lbs either way, on a daily basis. It is discouraging to weigh yourself and see that you are up 3 lbs when you have been working out like crazy and eating a healthy diet.

The way to control bloat is to watch your refined carbs. One gram of starchy carbs holds four grams of water, which is one of the reasons I adhere to a lower carb diet. I mainly stay between 50-100 grams of carbs a day and I stay far away from anything starchy (rice, bread of any kind, potatoes, etc. Oh yeah and SUGAR!). I do eat Fiber One every morning but the amount of fiber in that cereal lowers the the amount of carbs that you count toward your daily total. I'm sure you have heard the phrase 'impact carbs'. The amount of impact carbs in any given food is grams of total carbs - grams of fiber. For example a serving on Fiber One is 1/2 cup. It contains 25 grams of carbs and 14 grams of fiber. 25 - 14 = 11 grams of impact carbs.

Here is my nutrition intake for 2/25/11:

On this particular day I took my kids out for lunch so it shows what you can do if you do the same thing.


Breakfast
Muscle Milk Protein Bar
Snack
100 calorie pack of almonds
2 ounces of cheddar cheese

Lunch
Triple stack hamburger
3 pieces of American cheese
1/2 a hamburger bun

Snack
2 chicken thighs (just the meat from a teriyaki place that I had left over from the day before)

Dinner
2 fried chicken wings
1/4 cup rice
1 Bourbon and soda

Total calories: 2,277
Total carbs : 57 grms
Total Protein: 176

I am not suggesting that you eat the way that I do. A couple people commented on the fact that I eat no fruit and almost no vegetables. That's true. I do try to get more leafy greens in my diet on a daily basis. I manage to do that about three times a week in the form of spinach, broccoli and lettuce. Yes, you should eat vegetables but I do suggest that you are careful with how much fruit you eat. Research shows that the body still recognizes fruit as sugar.

Happy New Year!

I'm back from the holidays, well almost. As you all know this is the time everyone floods the gym with their New Year's fitness goals fresh in their minds. Sad truth is that in about 90 days most of those resolute individuals will have dropped out of their fitness programs.

There are a couple of reasons why this happens but the main reason is lack of results. If they hired a trainer, even if it's just for a couple of sessions, they would be more likely to stick with their program.

My suggestion is to spend the money to meet with a trainer once a week for a couple of months and you will have given yourself accountability, motivation and a clear program to follow. Get that trainer to take your measurements, body fat and weight. You have to know where you are to know where you are going. 'I just want to lose some weight' is an ambiguous goal. Be clear. 'I want to lost 10 pounds of body fat' is a much clearer goal. Set a time to reach that goal. Be specific. If you read my blog regularly you know that I prefer non-aesthetic goals. Instead of setting a goal to lose 10 pounds how about setting a goal to run 3 miles, 3 times a week in 2 months? Your aesthetic goals will be a fantastic benefit of your fitness goal. Break down your larger goal into smaller goals. Using the goal to run 3 miles, 3 times a week decide that during the first week you will run three times a week. Jog for 10-15 minutes. Jog/walk a familiar route. Slowly build the length of time you spend jogging until you are jogging 3 times a week for about 30 minutes. There you go....but be specific with your weekly goals so you feel successful each time you meet one.

Success breeds success and no one was ever successful at reaching a goal by giving up.

Goal Setting For Results

Do one thing today to bring you closer to your goal.

Research shows that people tend to give up their goal if they focus on the end result. Let's say that you would like to lose 40 pounds. You set a realistic goal of losing the weight in 6 months. After one month you have lost 5 pounds and you think 'If I only lose 5 pounds a month I will never reach my goal!' You get discouraged and give up. A fat loss of 5 pounds per month is great, but it doesn't seem like enough and your goal seems further and further away.

6 months can seems pretty far off for some people. The end result is a loss of 40 pounds but what can you do everyday to help you reach your goal? Ask yourself that question right now. 'What can I do today to help me reach my goal?' Start with picking one thing. Maybe it's that today you are going to eat a healthy breakfast. Even if you do that one thing you will feel successful, I guarantee it! It is also helpful to set a weekly goal so you can include in your schedule fitness, grocery store runs for fresh produce and some time you can take out of your daily schedule to focus on stress release (a big one that can contribute to weight gain).

Since fat loss is an emotional issue, especially with woman, research also shows that changing your goal from weight loss to fitness, achieves better results. Maybe your goal could be to run a 5K in three months, and then pick a race and train for that event. It could be to anchor the swim-leg of a triathlon - why not split the race up to accommodate every one's strengths? If racing isn't your thing what about setting a goal to ride your bike for 25 miles continuously - it doesn't have to have anything at all to do with racing. Another goal maybe to participate in three dance classes per week - Zumba, hip hop, ballet, cardio striptease -whatever excites you. Maybe schedule a yoga class during your week. Whatever seems doable to you. Forget what other people say and focus on what you want to do that is fitness, not fat loss, related.

Making a goal that is NOT weight related might feel less emotional and empower you to accomplish something other then fat loss. The end result will be what you wanted all along - a feeling of success and an appreciation for your body.