“I’m not going to do that. I’m fine and that’s just not going to happen”.

OK.  That’s your choice, but you’re going to have to accept the reality that it will take longer to reach your goals.  My old boss used to say, “you get what you measure”.  If you don’t have a way to measure your progress, you’ll never know when or how long it will take to get where you’re going.  You’re just guessing.

I had this picture in my mind every day while training for the climb

Information gives you a realistic picture of how much weight you can expect to lose and how long it will take to accomplish the goal.  Here are four ways you can stay on track toward your goals.

1. Be clear. Before you begin tracking the progress toward your goal, you’ve got to have a good goal.  Your goal must be crystal clear. You should be able to create a picture of what your goal looks like. A goal like “lose weight” is junk. It’s meaningless.  Think differently. How will your life be different when you’ve lost 10, 20, or whatever number of pounds you want to lose? What will you do with your life that you aren’t able to do today? If you really want it, find a picture of your goal and post it on your bathroom mirror. Each day when you brush your teeth you’ll see your goal.

2. Know how much you need to eat and keep track of what you eat. Everything, no exceptions. Yes, it’s boring and a pain in the butt. But you’ll have a much better idea of what you eat, when you eat, and why you eat.  These are important things to know. Without this info, everything else is just a guess. You’ll probably be surprised at the number of calories you’re taking in, as long as you’re being truthful with yourself. You’ll also find that you eat certain foods in certain situations. If you’re a data geek like me, you can use a device like a BodyMedia FIT to take control and achieve your weight loss goals by knowing how much you burn.  If you’re a member of LifeStyles Fitness Center, you have access to a great tool called DotFIT that can help you with this part of the process.

3. Get a heart rate monitor. This little device will tell you if you’re really working or if you’re just kidding yourself.  I use mine religiously.  There are times when I might think I’m working hard and I’ll check my monitor, only to realize that I’ve got a long ways to go.  Here’s an article I wrote about how to select a heart rate monitor.

4. Have someone you’re accountable to.  That’s where a good trainer can help you.  We’ll ask questions, observe, develop plans, and push you to try things you might not do on your own.  Ultimately, our goal is to help you reach your goal.

Put these four things in place and you’ll be on your way to reaching your own goals.

If you’re on a weight loss journey, it’s probably your most feared enemy, next to chocolate cake. It’s probably the first thing you consult when you wake up, even before brushing your teeth.  It’s probably driving you crazy.

You’ve probably heard someone say that muscle is heavier than fat too. So, which is heaver, 5 lbs. of muscle or 5 lbs. of fat?  Which would you rather have.

I can hear your argument.

“John, muscle is more dense, so given the same volume, muscle will weigh more”.

You got me. You’re right. But if you’re trying to get smaller, don’t you want to occupy less space?  Swap 5 lbs. of fat for 5 lbs. of muscle and that muscle will take up less space.

That’s a good thing.  Not only will you be a smaller you, but you’ll be a healthier you, a more functional you, your body will burn more calories at work and at rest, and you’ll look better.  Clothes will fit better too.

Are you more concerned with the number on the scale or are you really trying to change how you look in the mirror and how you feel?

Isn’t that the true measure of health and fitness?

Throw out your scale.

Move more.

Eat better.

If you’d like more ideas to help eliminate those holiday pounds and get yourself back on the right track, I’ll be presenting ” Three Things You Must Do To Lose That Extra Weight ” at the Fountaindale Library on Tuesday, January 10, at 7pm.  I hope you’ll be able to join me.

I’m not going to try to get into all the details of how each additive in these drinks and potions you find at the checkout line of every grocery store, convenience store, gas station, etc. affects your body in negative ways.  I’ll let the professional researchers tell you about the safety issues associated with consumption of commercially available energy drinks.    We’ve all heard the news stories of high school and college students mixing this stuff with alcohol and dying.  In this case, they didn’t even need the alcohol.  Here’s a study supporting the pattern of energy drink consumption explaining the enhanced risk of both caffeine and alcohol toxicity in youths.  If you’ve ever read the label on a can of this stuff, you’ll find that you can’t pronounce half of the ingredients.  Do you really want all those chemicals inside you?  Are you still waiting for the reasons we SHOULD be drinking this stuff?  Yea, me too.

How else can we get the energy we need to keep going?

You guessed it. 

Proper nutrition, with real food. 

Food is fuel and provides energy.  Many people lack energy because they’re eating crap.  Rolling through the drive-through for a greasy burger and fries doesn’t count as quality food.  Grabbing lunch from a vending machine will kill you over time.  I was in a drug store the other day and noticed that the bag of licorice has “A Fat Free Food” printed on the package.  Wow, really! That must mean it’s good for you right? Wrong.

A fire requires wood and oxygen to burn, right?  There’s the fuel.  Stop adding fuel and the fire dies out.  Add wet fuel or choke off the oxygen and the fire can’t get going.  Your body and your metabolism work the same way.  Add quality food and your metabolism burns hot. 

Get lean.

Notice that I didn’t say get thin.  There’s a difference.  Thin simply means weigh less.  Do supermodels look healthy? That’s thin. A diet might make you thin, but it won’t make you healthy and won’t give you energy.  Most diets result in less food, which means less fuel, which means less energy.  

I’m talking about adding more lean muscle to your frame.  You don’t have to have the freaky huge muscle that makes you look like 200 pounds of marbles in a 100 pound bag.  Think Olympic sprinter or gymnast lean and muscular instead.  Muscle is active and helps you move more efficiently.  A stronger body with less “baggage” will move better and require less energy to perform basic efforts. 

Stop spending $2 per can and you’ll have more than enough for a fitness membership at LifeStyles Fitness Center and still have almost $40 at the end of the month!

It’s really simple.  I don’t know how to make it more complicated, so here’s the answer to getting more energy, and not from a can:

1. Eat smart
2. Move more
3. Develop a stronger and more efficient you

Need help?  Here’s a way to get a great start on Your Fitness Journey!

You won't find your six pack abs here

In search of your own six pack, you spend time on the floor doing endless reps and sets of sit ups and crunches from every direction. You may have even purchased the Ab Roller, Ab Doer, Ab Rocket, Ab Lounge, or some other ab contraption. How’s that working for you?

Let me tell you a secret. We all have six pack abs. They’re just harder to find on some people. Read on because I’m about to help you find yours. Here’s another secret. The answer doesn’t lie in all those contraptions. Even the pieces of abdominal equipment alone at the gym won’t bring out the six pack.

One of the biggest myths in fitness is that of spot reduction. To be blunt, the idea that you can work a specific area of the body with a specific exercise and melt the body fat in that area isn’t true. Now that it’s out in the open, how do you bring out the washboard in you?

First, abs are made in the kitchen. Eat better, move more. Notice I didn’t just say to eat less, although for many people that’s really important too. Instead, you need to eat enough of the right stuff to keep your body fueled, but not so little that your body thinks it’s starving.

The mistake many people on a weight loss journey make is to rely solely on diet and slash their calorie intake to the point your body begins storing energy as fat instead of using it to perform daily functions. When that happens, your metabolism slows, you lose energy, and eventually run out of gas. If you give your car less fuel than it needs what happens? If you give your car cheap low octane gas, what happens. Right, sluggish performance. Your body runs the same way.

Fuel your body with enough quality proteins for muscle growth and rebuilding, carbohydrate for energy, and fats for vitamin transport and hormone production, and you’ll be heading in the right direction.

Next, get the big muscles moving to burn more calories. Let’s go back to the car example. Which uses more fuel: Hummer or a Honda Civic? It takes more fuel to move the big car, so use the same principle with your exercise program. Bicep curls or squats? One exercise uses the little tiny muscles in your arm a nd the other uese the calorie-hogging muscles like the glutes and hamstrings. Those big muscles will bun more calories during the exercise and they have to work harder to recover after the exercise to rebuild. More work equals more calories used.

Now, back to the washboard stomach. With the elimination of the myth of spot reduction we know that sit-ups and crunches aren’t going to do the job. The key is to get rid of the body fat to see that six pack hidden in all of us and the best way to do that is to use more calories. To get you started, here’s a short video showing a four exercise full body complex. If you need more help, I know a good trainer for you.

It's time to stop

Overtraining can strike anyone, but is more often found in endurance athletes and formerly sedentary individuals who’ve lost significant weight and are afraid they’ll slip back to their old ways, and their old weight. Overtraining can carry the following symptoms:

• You have a higher than normal resting heart rate
• You’re irritable and have trouble sleeping
• You’re unable to complete normal workouts
• You’re chronically fatigued
• There’s a lack of progression in athletic performance
• You can’t bust through a weight loss plateau
• Your body fat percentage is increasing despite continued workouts
• You become sick more frequently
• Your training log indicates that you’re going hard all the time

If you’re experiencing more than one of these symptoms, you might be a victim of Overtraining Syndrome.  Prevention of overtraining is the best medicine.  To prevent overtraining, here are a few recommendations:

• Keep a training log to track what you’re doing and the progress you’re making toward your goal. 
• Follow a training plan that incorporates a variety of exercise and rest days.
• Place your rest days after your higher intensity days (and before long endurance workouts if fat loss is a goal)
• Balance volume and intensity.  You can’t have both.  As intensity increase, volume must decrease.
• Fuel up appropriately.  This means eating enough food to support your body and muscle growth as well as eating quality food.
• Get more sleep.  The quality of your workout and your performance is directly related to the amount of rest you give your body. 

If you’re already overtrained and past the point of prevention, the remedy is to back off and rest.  You’re not getting stronger while you’re working out.  Instead, you get stronger when you rest.  If you never give your body time to rest and you’re always going at the highest intensity, you’ll crash sooner than later. 

By rest, I’m not referring to just switching exercises.  For example, an overtrained cyclist cannot simply reduce their bike mileage and swap that for running. 

You need to back off and get some rest.  Your body needs to recover and rebuild.  Learn to take the time off and you’ll come back even stronger.

According to IRS Publication 502:

“You can include in medical expenses amounts you pay to lose weight if it is a treatment for a specific disease diagnosed by a physician (such as obesity, hypertension, or heart disease). This includes fees you pay for membership in a weight reduction group as well as fees for attendance at periodic meetings. You cannot include membership dues in a gym, health club, or spa as medical expenses, but you can include separate fees charged there for weight loss activities.”

The rules specifically exclude gym membership fees, but they do include additional fees for weight loss activities.  To me, that says if you sign up for a specific program at your gym to assist in your medically-required weight loss program, such as personal training, classes, etc, you can include those expenses.

I am not a tax advisor and am not providing tax advice.  If you think you may qualify for this deduction, contact a qualified tax professional for advice.

Check it out.  What do you have to lose?

Back away from the chocolate!

While there are a fair number of people that believe they can crank away for an hour on the elliptical machine and that somehow will cancel out the mammoth hot fudge sundae they’ll eat on the way home. I believe that there are as many or more people who stick to their guns and eat better because they don’t want to cancel out the benefits of their workout.

Without evidence to back it up, I’d guess at the following possible reasons:

1. The obvious reason would suggest that those who are at the gym more often are just naturally more interested in their health. They’ve built exercise into their lifestyles and better eating goes hand in hand.

2. You’re probably less likely to spend time at the gym only to go and undo all that effort with junk food.

3. They have a clear and attainable goal in mind and a solid plan to reach that goal. This is one that a lot of people miss. People often have fuzzy goals, unrealistic goals that set them up for failure, or no plan to really reach their goal and they go about their exercise haphazardly.

So, if you’re focused on weight loss as a primary goal, go to the fitness center more frequently. Sure, you could do 3 sixty minute workouts per week. But, I’ll bet you get better results with 6 thirty minute workouts because you’ll be more likely to tie in better nutrition.

Try it out and let me know what happens.

The worst push ups ever!

Before the middle schools in the meet took the track, the high school team was still completing their practice. There was a group of 20 or so male athletes on the infield grass. They were going through a series of conditioning drills which included lunges, squats, reverse crunches, planks, and more. Their form was terrible and they really looked like they were just going through the motions, thinking about how fast they could get through the exercises and not focusing on quality and getting the benefit from the time they spent. Especially when the coach turned his back.

One exercise really caught my attention though. The worst push ups EVER! Bodies were flopping around, middles sagging, butts up in the air. One participant was pretty tall and from a distance looked like he had a bit of muscle on his frame and he probably had the poorest form of all. His arms were moving and his chest was coming up, but the rest of his body was staying on the ground. His waist and legs never left the ground the whole time. Imagine Gumby doing a push up, how’s that for a visual?

These are high school athletes?

A couple of lessons here:

1. Focus on quality. Don’t just blast through the workout to say you’re done. Think about your goal and how the workout is getting you a step closer. If your goal is to get it over with, blowing through the workout as quick as possible so you can get back to your cell phone and catch that all-important text message, then follow the high schoolers routine. If you really want to get stronger, do it right. It doesn’t take much longer. Everything else is just a waste of time.

2. Learn do exercise properly. Maybe they didn’t know they were doing it all wrong. Maybe nobody ever worked with them to show them how to get the most from the exercise. Maybe you’ve never had that help either. If you’re not sure if you’re getting the most from your workout program, ask for help.

If you want to know the right way to do a push up, here are a couple of examples that anyone can do!

The premise behind Strengths Finder is to determine your strengths and learn how to use them to your benefit and the benefit of your entire organization. As a team you each can then rely on one another to do what you’re strongest at and as a whole you’re better off. Great idea…in the right environment.

While this concept can be applied in business and in life, one area that this doesn’t translate to perfectly is your fitness. If you find the few things that you do best and do those things almost exclusively, you’re forgetting the rest of your body. What good is it if you can do bicep curls like nobody’s business, but you can’t make it up a flight of stairs without stopping for a breather?

When you’re dealing with your fitness, your body can’t rely on someone else to be effective at what you’re weakest at doing. (Imagine this one at home: “Hey honey, I’ll stay down here and do bicep curls all day and if I need something from upstairs you can go get it for me”). Your body has to work as a complete system and each muscle relies on the others to reach the goal. Rarely do you move only one joint of the body, so why should you focus all your training on single joint movements?

Keep developing your strengths, but pay particular attention to what you’re weak at doing and work on that too. Your body will thank you!

John Demos the TRX Suspension Trainer

Why?

Because your body works as a system, not in isolation. There’s a place for isolation exercises like bicep curls and calf raises, but when it comes down to it, are you trying to develop ripped calves or are you trying to develop an explosive jump. Most people work out because they want to do something with their bodies, like out-jump, out-run, or out-last the competition. If you’re trying to develop your body to work effectively as a system, functional training is the answer. Even if your goal isn’t athletic performance and you just want to move more effectively, functional training is important.

My hands down favorite tool for functional training is the TRX Suspension Trainer. You can use it for literaly hundreds of different exercises and get an amazing workout using just your own bodyweight. With every exercise, you’re training your core to stabilize your body as well as working the prime mover muscles to perform the exercise. As an added bonus, you can get that workout done in a shorter time because you don’t have to wander all over the gym switching weight plates, machines, etc.

I use it with grandmothers and I use it with athletes. Just a few small adjustments with your body position and each both the grandmother and the athlete get an equally effective workout.

Click here to get your TRX today!

Here’s a video with just a few examples of exercises you can do with the TRX Suspension Trainer.

Click this video to see the TRX Suspension Trainer in action!