» 2009 » February

Don’t you just love all the supermodels who say they never work out but still manage to eat whatever they want and look fabulous?

It seems like the perfect lifestyle; a diet of sugar, caffeine, nicotine and deep-fried cheeseburgers. Would it surprise you to know that these models actually have a high body fat percentage?

They may unknowingly be laying the groundwork for many chronic diseases associated with aging. There is a difference between being thin and being healthy & it lies in the body composition.

Body Composition: a measure of the lean tissue and of the fatty tissue that makes up your body weight.

Many gym-goers completely neglect the weight training part because they don’t want to get “bulky.” But without a proper weight-resistance training program they may drop some weight but will end up getting skinny fat. Cellulite will never go away as long as there is no weight training program.

• Adopt An Exercise Plan That Has Cardio & Weight Training. Don’t overdo the cardio-it can damage the muscle fibers we are working so hard to build. Do your weight training before your cardio if you are doing them both on the same day. This will ensure your strength is at maximum for lifting & you will continue to burn fat with cardio.
• Eat Protein with Every Meal & Skip the Sugar. Protein is the building block of muscle and it’s essential for repair after workouts. Also take low-glycemic carbohydrates with your workouts.
• Keep Your Stress Under Control. Higher stress levels can have a negative effect on the body composition by increasing the breakdown of muscle mass & increasing the deposition of fat around the abdomen.

Simple, tastes good, & effective. Press play to see the video below.

How to NOT Gain Weight on Valentine’s Day

With Valentine’s Day coming up just around the corner I wanted to spare everyone from gaining the extra pounds of fat the usually come with it.  If you’re in a relationship it’s time to celebrate it, but that doesn’t mean you have to lose all your hard work too.  There are a few simple things you can do that will drastically improve your chances of NOT gaining 5 pounds of fat.

Valentine’s Day is another holiday that is surrounded by food and treats.  There are usually an abundance of high calorie meals and sugary treats.  The extra cakes and candy can spell diet disaster. On top of this, Valentine’s Day like all holidays can become stressful and raise the cortisol levels in women making them more likely to overindulge.

 Don’t forget that Valentine’s Day comes in February which is smack dead in the middle of winter.  The cold weather and less daylight already makes us instinctively hungrier for carbs and other high calorie foods.  (SAD or seasonal affective disorder.)

 TOP 5 TIPS TO AVOID THE VALENTINE’S DAY WEIGHT GAIN

 Don’t get me wrong, you should definitely be looking forward to and enjoying your Day of Love with your (insert nickname here).  But with a few tips you can significantly reduce the amount of weight you can easily gain on a single holiday. 

 TIP #1  GET YOUR WORKOUT IN EARLY

Do everything you can to stay on your workout plan on Valentine’s Day.  It’s easy to want to be a little lethargic and lay around.  Exercising will get your metabolism pumped up and you’ll feel a little guiltier when you head for that chocolate cake.  If it’s hard to force your butt into the gym, try taking a fitness class to have someone else give you the motivation.

 TIP #2  DRINK WATER, LOTS OF WATER! 

When you’re feeling that sugar fix on Valentine’s Day be sure to drink a full glass of cold water 5 minutes before you eat something sugary.  The water will make you feel that sugar craving a little less.  Drinking cold water early and throughout the day will keep your metabolism moving.

 TIP #3  PLAN YOUR TREATS

Everybody deserves a little treat now and again, especially on Valentine’s Day.  Instead of pounding away a full box of chocolates or a bag of candy decide early how much you’ll allow yourself to eat.  Setting limits will help you regulate your intake and keep you from scarfing down those treats.

 TIP #4  WALK FOR EVERYTHING

Do your best to walk everywhere instead of taking the easier way out by driving.  Park a little farther away or walk to the store, trust me every little bit is going to help on Valentine’s Day.  After you finish dinner, go for a walk to burn off some of those extra calories you just packed in.

 TIP #5  NO EMOTIONAL EATING

Let’s face it not all of us are going to have a Valentine this holiday.  It’s easy to get a little depressed about this and to start eating food to help ease the emotional pain.  When you’re feeling the craving for comfort foods instead try chewing on some gum, drinking hot tea or some other low calorie beverage.  You’re going to be way better off having a drink that’s a few hundred calories than hoarking down 1,000 calories in chocolate candy.

 OOPS!  YOU SAID SCREW IT & GAINED 5 POUNDS, NOW WHAT?

First, don’t beat yourself up too much it can happen to the best of us.  Step one is to get rid of all those tempting left over treats and get back into eating right and working out.  Try to lose the extra weight the right way with a couple pounds a week, which means no extreme grapefruit fasting diet.  Lack motivation? Get a workout buddy to help hold you accountable until you get back on track.

Most of us (80% that is) will experience some degree of back pain in their life and anybody who has it can tell you they’d do anything to get out of it.  Back pain was once thought of almost as a mystery as to why it happened to some and not to others.  It was largely blamed on tight hamstrings, poor lifting mechanics or just bad luck.  But now I, and most fitness professionals can take one look at someone and tell if they’re prone for a back injury.

This ONE exercise could save thousands from hurting their lower backs, but most will NEVER EVEN hear of it.

Ok so poor lifting mechanics are a huge factor when it comes to lower back pain.  But why do people lift poorly in the first place? It’s rare to see children experience a lower back injury like adults do for one big reason.  They are still using their primitive mechanics and haven’t been sitting on their backside for years.  When a baby learns to stand they do it from a squatting position, and most adults can’t even get down to this squatting position,  a baby therefore can already squat better than most adults can.

If you try to watch a most grown people try to squat their bodies stay absolutely straight as they bring their knees forward to squat down.  We were even squatting to relieve ourselves from poop for thousands of years, but we traded that as well when they invented the toilet bowl.  To get back into your body’s natural anatomical position for pooping, place a small stepper underneath your feet so your knees rise up next time you “eliminate your waste.”

When you think about it our bodies were meant to move and to move efficiently.  Over the past century we’ve slowly become more and more sedentary.  We’re sit when we’re driving our car, we sit while we’re working and we sit while we’re watching TV or playing on the computer.  Years of all this sitting has cause the glute muscles (your butt muscles) to slowly degrade and become inactive.  But I’m about to teach you the single most important exercise to activate your glute muscles so they fire and you’ll be less likely to experience a back injury.

The exercise I’m talking about is called the Hip Bridge.  The hip bridge is a fantastic exercise to fire the muscles of the gluteus and get them back into action.  Having these muscles strong and ready to fire will effectively aid in relieving you of back pain and will help give you correct lifting mechanics.

• Lay on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.
• Raise your toes up towards the sky keeping your heels on the ground.
• Lift your hips off the ground and squeeze your butt cheeks together really hard.
• Hold the position once your body has become perfectly straight from your knees to your shoulders. (use a mirror to help)

Start this exercise by doing holds for 20-30 seconds for 2-3 sets.  Eventually graduating to moving your hips slowly up and down for 12-15 repetitions for 2-3 sets with a 1-2 second pause at the top.  I would strongly recommend incorporating this exercise into your warm-up when you workout, every 2-3 hours after sitting, or if you are in back pain and would like some relief.  And do your best to walk for a few minutes after sitting for an hour or so, you’ll feel better and be on your way to living healthy and pain-free.

Finally, I am starting to feel better from being sick the past few days with flu like symptoms. But it’s not my fault, right? Viruses and bacteria are swarming the earth doing everything in their power to invade and replicate in my body. Then shouldn’t my body be prepared to handle these little guys? And guess what, we all have the power to increase our own immune system by the foods we eat and the way we live our lives.

Since the flu bug is going around I thought I’d share my secret tips to boosting your immune system so it becomes an impenetrable fortress. And the best part is that the whole thing will be done naturally and will also make you feel healthier and more energetic than ever before. If you do happen to get sick, having your body prepared will significantly speed up the recover process too.

1. Reduce Stress: Do everything you can to eliminate stresses in your life. Stresses cause cytokines to be released into the body not only making more susceptible to illness but also anxiety and depression. Try going to sleep early and get your full 8 hours. Next time someone cuts you off while driving, take 2 big deep breaths and then react to it…it won’t feel so bad.

2. Eat Organic Whole Foods: When we put processed foods into our bodies with all kinds of garbage in them, our bodies get real busy trying to digest them and sort out their mess. Doing this keeps our immune system busy and can deplete it before it has a chance to fight off foreign substances, viruses & bacteria.

• Mushrooms: Have beta-D-glucans, all mushrooms will be beneficial for you.
• Onions & Garlic: Help fight infections with naturally powerful antibacterials allicin, ajoene & thiosulfinate.
• Nuts (almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, Brazil nuts)
• Orange Vegetables (carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins): contain beta carotene which in turn helps the skin. The skin is our first line of defense against foreign substances & is also the body’s largest organ.

4.  Water: This is really the key to keeping your body healthy and ready to take on viruses. Even when our bodies’ get 2% dehydrated we already will suffer in performance. Water also helps the kidneys & liver get rid of waste and it helps keep the mucous membranes moist so they can battle the viruses.

5. Green Tea: Another thing you should be taking in daily. Green Tea contains alkylamines that will boost your immunity by increasing your immune system linebackers, the gamma delta T-cells. If you not a fan of drinking green tea, then I highly recommend taking in an extract, such as the one by Pure Inventions.

6. Supplements: Let’s face it. We’re not getting all the necessary vitamins & minerals our bodies need by our daily nutrition. And even if we were, sometimes our bodies need a little more help with these guys.

• Iron & Zinc (oysters, lean red meat, and poultry): Found effective to promote cell synthesis and can be difficult to get your full requirements by diet, especially if you’re vegetarian. Don’t take with breads or grains as they will interfere with the absorption.
• Vitamin D: The sunshine vitamin does everything from increasing our moods and preserving muscle strength to regulating cell growth, immunity and energy metabolism. Most people’s daily intake don’t get near the recommended levels of Vitamin D, so take a supplement and get lots of sunshine.

7. Exercise: Last but not least, if you want to boost your immune system the natural way then I always recommend good old fashioned exercise. Exercise rids your lungs of bacteria and will increase the rate of White Blood Cells and antibodies traveling through your body. Try to break a sweat everyday and exercise for no less than 20 minutes.

There you go, the best ways to enhance your immunity to viruses and bacteria year round. Even if you’re not in the flu season, you’re still going to want a strong and healthy body. You never know when you’ll eat some bad chicken and end up with food poisoning. If you’re looking to boost your immune system naturally then start taking small steps towards the tips I gave you today, and eventually you’ll find yourself living a disease-free and energetic life.