You’ve cleaned up your nutrition, turned down everything from chocolate cake to mac n’cheese, eaten salad after salad (without dressing even!), taken more steps on the treadmill than you’d care to add up, sweat through class after class, lifted weight after weight and shed pound after pound.  You’re feeling great about how far you’ve come but you’ve got ten pounds to go before you hit your goal and it refuses to budge.  What’s the deal?  More importantly, what do you do to get rid of it?

The reason the last 10 pounds seems so obstinate is the simple fact that the less you weigh, the less calories you burn getting through your daily activities. First off, you need to understand that everything we do burns calories.  The “simple” task of being alive burns calories.  Your heart is a muscle, therefore the fact that it is working to pump blood throughout your body means you are burning calories.  Likewise, breathing burns calories also.  Additionally, every time we use our muscles to work, it burns calories.  That being said, obviously the more strenuous the activity, the more calories are burned.  For example, you’ll burn more calories lifting a 20 pound dumbbell than you will lifting a 5 pound dumbbell.  Similarly, a person who weighs 300 pounds and has much more body mass than that of a person who weighs 180 pounds will burn more calories doing the exact same thing as the lighter individual.  It’s like built in dumbbells 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; constant resistance.  That fact, in addition to the law of gravity in action,  means that the heavier a person is, the harder everything is to do and the more exertion is required.  Make sense?

The truth is, the harder you work, the more fit you become and the more success you have in achieving your goals the harder you have to work to continue to succeed.  When you started out, whether that was 20, 40 or 150 pounds ago, you had your own version of built in dumbbells, so you burned more calories doing everything from sleeping to working out.  For every pound you lose, your metabolism slows by as much as 20 calories per day.  When you do the math, it adds up in a big way.  If you’ve lost 30 pounds, you’re burning up to 600 calories less a day than when you began.  That’s a big deal!!   Once you understand that by ditching the built in dumbbells (which didn’t look all that hot in your jeans anyway, so no worries it was a good call) you’re burning less calories per day there’s only one thing to do!  You’ve gotta crank your workouts up a notch, or two, to continue challenging your body the way you did in the beginning.  :)

So how do you crank it up?  Interval training!  According to Jason Talanian, PhD and researcher at the University of Guelph in Ontario, “Interval training can trigger a boost in metabolism so you burn more fat during low- and moderate-intensity activity, and even at rest”.   I don’t know about you, but that works for me!  Personally, I’m a fan of H.I.I.T simply because cardio is not my favorite way to spend time in the gym and H.I.I.T. let’s me get it over with faster.  If you’re not sure what H.I.I.T. is or how to go about incorporating it into your routine,you can read my previous post about it by clicking here.  Remember too that there is more than one way to increase intensity.  Most people, especially in reference to cardio, only think about going faster. Another way to make it harder is by increasing your incline, you might not think that it would make a difference, let alone a big one, but trust me it does!!

Another tip that can help you oust the last few pounds is to wear a pedometer.  You’d be surprised how many steps you take in a day, and unfortunately, probably not in a good way.  Most people are shocked to find that they get in half (or fewer) of  the number of steps that they thought they did each day.  The recommended goal is 10,000 steps per day.  If you find that you are significantly below that, gradually increase your steps by 2,000 per day until you reach 10,000.  But don’t stop there!  Nobody said that that you couldn’t get in more than 10,000 steps a day!  My highest step count for one day is well over 25,000!  Granted, my job keeps me hopping all day, but I’m active when I’m not at the gym too (it’s true what they say about a Mother’s job never being done, lol)!

I’ve said  it before, I’m saying it again:  LIFT WEIGHTS!!  Did you know that you can burn 30% more calories by lifting weights?  If that’s not enough to convince you, how about this; you can burn a third more calories by doing your weight lifting and cardio in one session.  It’s true!  What in the world are you waiting for?  You get the immediate benefit of cardio of burning up calories on the spot and the benefits of an increased metabolism from weight lifting (which is going to help you torch more calories overall each and every day)!  It’s even better than a BOGO offer in my opinion, and that’s saying something!  ;)  To find out about even more benefits of strength training, click here.

What you eat in your time outside the gym is even more important than what you do when you’re inside the gym.  A great way to help you keep track of  that is a food log.  There are several different websites that offer this free tool to help you stay accountable, if only to yourself, about what you’re eating.  You can burn anywhere from 400-1200+ calories in your time spent in the gym, but you can easily undo that with one trip through the drive through window, one trip to the donut shop or even one specialty coffee drink.  Make sure you’re keeping a food log, it is critical to your success and to rid yourself of those last few pain in the ass pounds.   For more tips on how to keep a food log, click here.

Water, water, water, water, water!!  Do you drink enough?  Most people don’t (yes, I’m getting up on my soap box at the moment, prepare to be preached to).  Every single metabolic process in our body uses water, every single one.  Let’s compare it to a swimming pool.  Would a swimming pool be it’s most efficient if it is only half full of water?  Would you get the most rewarding and fulfilling swimming experience possible in a pool that was only half full?  Would you jump, head first, into our half filled swimming pool?  No, that would be stupid!  Well, you can’t expect your body to operate to it’s full capacity if you’ve only got it half full (or in most cases, less than half full) either!  A gallon a day people, you need to be drinking a gallon a day.  I strongly suggest that you keep track of how much water you’re drinking each day on your food log as well.  Water is critical, read more about why by clicking here.

Above all else, don’t allow yourself to become so discouraged that you give up.  An alarming 95% of people who are successful in their weight loss attempts end up getting discouraged at some point and giving up.  When they do, not only do they gain back the weight they’ve lost, but they gain an additional 10-20 pounds as well.  So what’s with the extra 10-20 pounds?  That’s your body’s way of trying to make sure you don’t die should you encounter another situation (your body assumes it was a famine) that causes weight loss.  See, from your body’s viewpoint, if it happens again, next time you’ve got an extra 10-20 pounds to help keep you from starvation and ultimately, death.  It’s a bitter-sweet thing if ya ask me.  ;)   For more tips on keeping the weight off, click here and if you’re searching for a little motivation, click here.

As with all things in life, you’re only capable of completing this goal if you believe that you can.  So, believe in yourself, train hard, lift weights, eat clean and keep track of everything that goes into your body as fuel, drink (and track) your water and get your steps in each day.  Don’t forget to give yourself due credit for how far you’ve already come too!  There is something to be said for appreciating the distance already traveled other than focusing solely on the distance that remains.

The post The Last 10 Pounds: Bye Bye For Good appeared first on Transformation Trainer.

One of the toughest parts of weight loss, especially for those individuals that need to lose more than 50 pounds, is what to expect to see in the mirror when you’re “done”, what is realistic?  How do you go about managing your expectations for what you’ll look like when all is said and done?  I’ve been asked these questions more times than I can count.  They’re tough to answer as there are so many factors that effect what your own unique “reality” is.  It’s not realistic to say you want the arms of Jennifer Aniston, the legs of Angelina Jolie and the body of Halle Berry for one simple and irrefutable truth.  You don’t have their parents; you didn’t get that genetic makeup.

On top of that fact, depending on your age and how much weight you have to lose, you will have a certain amount of excess skin.  Again, depending on how much weight you have to lose, your skin elasticity and where your body stores it’s excess fat, you could have said excess skin in three or four areas, it could be limited to one or two areas or it could be more evenly distributed throughout your entire body.

Another factor to consider is how you lose the excess fat (whether you stick to diet only, diet and cardio only or incorporate lifting weights as well), how you eat while shedding the unwanted pounds (keep in mind that your skin is your largest organ, it needs nutrients, water, vitamins and minerals in order to be as healthy as possible-not to mention to retain as much elasticity as possible), and your body composition (ratio of fat to your lean muscle mass; another good reason to lift weights ).

Think about it this way, if you drape a tablecloth over an easel, there’s a lot of tablecloth left with nothing to do other than just hang there.  However, if you drape the same tablecloth over a chair, the table cloth has more surface to cover and doesn’t hang, but rather, takes the shape of the chair.  The only difference is the frame that you put the tablecloth over, make sense?  The more muscle you put on your frame the less your skin will hang.  Now, that’s not to be misunderstood as me saying that if you lift weights you won’t deal with loose skin, because realistically, you will.  However, lifting weights can help improve your self confidence and self esteem as you near your goal by giving your skin a better frame to cover.

So, realistically, what can you expect to see in the mirror when you reach your goal?

While I can’t guarantee you a certain pant size, dress size or likeness to any given actor, actress or whomever it is you secretly desire to look like, I can guarantee you that the mirror will reflect a much healthier, much happier and much more fit reflection of you.  I can tell you that you will be thinner, that you will will feel more attractive and more confident than you did before you began.  I can tell you that there will be milestones along the way that will make you feel like jumping up and down, like shouting to the entire world, all of which will indeed be a cause for celebration.  I can tell you that you will not regret, for a single second, your decision, commitment or dedication to making the journey and I can tell you without any hesitation what so ever, you will wish you had done it sooner.

The post Managing Expectations appeared first on Transformation Trainer.

First of all let’s start off with an explanation of what hormones are. Basically, hormones are your body’s chemical messengers. They travel in your bloodstream from and to tissues and organs. They work slowly for the most part and affect many different processes.  Some of these are:

• Growth and development
• Metabolism – how your body gets energy from the foods you eat
• Sexual function
• Reproduction
• Mood

Endocrine glands, which are special groups of cells, are where hormones are made. The major endocrine glands are the pituitary, pineal, thymus, thyroid, adrenal glands and pancreas. In addition to those I already listed, men produce hormones in their testes and women produce them in their ovaries.

Hormones pack a punch!! It only takes a teeny tiny amount to cause BIG changes in your cells or for that matter, even in your whole body. That is why not enough or even too much of any certain hormone can be serious, not to mention cause you (and everyone around you) A LOT of grief. Lab tests can measure the hormone levels in your blood, urine or saliva.

Hormones are produced using the good fats and cholesterol found in the foods we eat.  A lack of these important dietary factors can cause you pretty major hormone problems simply put, because your body doesn’t have the building blocks it needs in order to make them. Toxins containing chemicals that mimic these building blocks or that mimic the hormones themselves are also problematic because the body gets psyched out, if you will, and will attempt to create hormones using the wrong building blocks…uhmm, that’s NO GOOD!

So, what to do if your hormones ARE out of whack?  You came to the right place to find out!

1. Avoid High Omega 6 Polyunsaturated Fats (vegetable, peanut, soybean, canola oils, margarine and shortening).  These oils have man made Omega 6′s in them and as such are unstable not to mention they oxidize easily.  No bueno.  The oxidized fats cause all kinds of problems, namely inflammation and mutations of the cells.  These mutations can cause things such as clogged arteries and skin cancer.  Nope, I’m not kidding.

2. Avoid caffeine…all of it!  No pop, no coffee, no tea.  None.  Zero. Zilch. Nada. Got it?

3. SLEEP…eight hours a night, no less.  Period.

4. Avoid Toxins.  Plastics, pesticides and household chemicals all cause big problems for those with a hormone imbalance.  Make sure to wash ALL of your fruits and veggies before eating them as well as avoiding plastic water bottles.  Likewise, wear a facial mask when using household cleaners.

5. Exercise, but do it lightly.  Extended intense exercise actually makes the problem worse in the beginning so take it easy while your hormones are readjusting.  Remember that the right amount of REST is just as important as the right amount of work.

6. Lift heavy weights (you know that right now I’m smiling bigger than a kid at Christmas time, right?).  Long extended, boring and mindless cardio sessions are harmful (Hell yes, finally a reason to avoid them!!!) in the beginning.  On the other hand, short bursts of heavy lifting can be beneficial.  Why?  Because  they trigger a cascade of beneficial hormone reactions.  YAY!!!  :)

7. Use Coconut Oil.  This stuff is amazing!!  It provides the necessary building blocks for hormone production, can assist weight loss, reduce inflammation, and even has antimicrobial and antibacterial properties.  That’s a win-win in my book!

8. Supplement wisely.  What does that mean?  It means talk to a RD (registered dietitian) or your doctor to decide which supplements are right for you (usually based off of a blood or saliva test).  Having the right amount of each mineral in your system can make a world of difference!

So there ya have it.  The low down on hormones.  Are they important…yeah just a little bit.  Oh wait, A LOT!!!

The post Are Your Hormones Out of Whack? appeared first on Transformation Trainer.

Last week we talked about personality types and how each of the four colors have their own strengths and weaknesses.  This week, I want to break it down a little more, dissect it, if you will.  On the shoe above, all four colors are included.  Similarly, all four color types need to be able to feel included in the gym experience.  Let’s talk about how each color type can help themselves have a more rewarding and successful experience with working out.

First, we talked about the expressive/gold group.  These are they who are gregarious and people-pleasing.  Often, they look at exercise as a way of meeting other people. Although they may not always have their facts straight, expressive people are fun to be with. If you have a workout partner who is expressive, there will be some time spent exercising but, be aware that you may actually spend more time talking or “hanging out” rather than actually exercising.  Next time you’re at the gym, look around.  You’ll see a lot of expressive people in the gym simply because they love being around people.  If you yourself are gold, you are going to have to “reel yourself in”, so to speak, when at the gym and exercising turns into socializing.  Make a deal with yourself that after x amount of hard core focused work out time you get y amount  of talk time with your friends.  Finding a work out buddy that is NOT a fellow expressive/gold is extremely important for you as well.  Golds tend to achieve better results when they have someone to whom they feel accountable (i.e., a workout partner, spouse, personal trainer, etc.).  Likewise, they need a little help staying on track with a good nutrition plan as well.  They don’t feel near as much guilt letting themselves down as they do someone else.  Keeping this in mind, a food log can help immensely, even if you are only showing it to your friend, spouse, workout buddy, etc. it still provides a sense of accountability which will help you stick to it and, in the end, get better results.

Specific Needs: Gold’s need specific steps, numbers (reps and sets), and a full workout plan.  Typically, you’ll do best following someone else’s plan and not implementing/creating one of your own routines.  Reader’s Digest version? Use a program and keep track of your results as you progress.

Next, we talked about the folks who fall into the driver/orange group.   You can tell when you meet an orange because they always want to get to the bottom line. Oranges are good leaders, but they need to be aware that they can trample over other people if they are not careful.  When in the gym, you can tell the orange/driver personalities by their focus.  When they workout, they are intensely focused and very direct. Efficiency is extremely important to them.  Because they are direct, assertive and competitive oranges do not have a hard time creating or focusing on hitting goals.  What they do lack is flexibility.  I don’t mean the touch your toes kind of flexibility either.  Oranges are so focused on achieving the end goal, that the workout is viewed as the pathway to said goal.  If anything messes with the workout, including you, you have messed with an orange and they don’t take it nicely with a smile.   If your workout partner is a n orange, be prepared to kick some ass.  They never walk into the gym and take it lightly.  There will be little talk time, little socializing as oranges are focused on the workout more than anything else.

Specific Needs:  Somewhere to work out, it doesn’t really matter where, just somewhere with adequate space. They typically use minimal equipment and adapt their workout to their environment.  Definitely vary the equipment and methods you use, include TRX, kettlebells, dumbbells, machines, working out outside, and varying workouts each week. Oranges tend to get in a “rut” with their workouts, make sure you avoid this as it causes the body to adapt and puts the kibosh on progress.  Results will be seen as long as the stimulus varies.

Third we discussed the analytical/blue group.  They will analyze physical fitness and exercise. It is very common for them to create a pros and cons list for various exercise programs before they decide and embark on any certain exercise routine. Although they may get analysis paralysis in the beginning, once they make a decision on improving their physical fitness they usually stick to it longer than most people. That’s because they feel they have done their “due process” and analysis and now simply have to carry out and execute the plan accordingly.  Because blues are so dependent upon a workout partner themselves, they make great workout partners for other blues.  Two blue workout partners will most likely see their goals reached, though their progress may be slow and sure, it will be there none the less as they encourage each other across the proverbial finish line.

Specific Needs: Blues NEED  to work out with someone, especially if they are of a different fitness level. They are much more comfortable to have someone there to guide them.  That being said, it doesn’t necessarily  have to be a trainer or coach but having someone to encourage and keep them on track is crucial for blues.  Working out with a partner, or a trainer, is the best way to ensure success for blues.  (Keep in mind, similar fitness levels are not a must, you just need someone who can motivate and inspire you).

Specific Needs: Greens like to know the “how and why” of the routine.  Typically, they will research different methods and equipment, ask questions then wait to start a program before they feel confident in the approach chosen.  Workouts must be research-proven and science-backed. Greens should not be afraid to ask questions about the methods or principles behind the program they are participating in whether that be a group exercise class or working with a trainer, questions are very important for greens.

If you’re like me, and I guarantee you are, you are most likely a combination of several of these social styles. That’s okay!  It is important that we know when we display our analytical, amiable, expressive, or driver sides and how we can ensure that we do not limit ourselves and stop our own progression.  Is one social style better than the other? Of course not!  Like I said earlier, we all have our own strengths and weaknesses and likewise, so do these personality groups. It is my opinion however, that because physical fitness is an important part of our lives, we should know ourselves, our personality, how we approach and how we can benefit most from physical fitness. I hope you have learned something about yourself and how you can better approach fitness to secure your own success.  :)

The post Orange, Gold, Blue and Green In The Gym appeared first on Transformation Trainer.

If you grew up around the same time frame as I did (nice try, I’m not telling you how old I am), you already know who the two figures above are…or at least, you should!  I remember sitting down to watch He Man and She Ra (The Princess of Power) every day with my younger brother.  It seemed that just when the situation would seem dire and impossible, somehow He Man, She Ra or a combination of the two, would save the day.  When my cousins would come over to play, there was never any question as to which game we were going to play, just the question of who was who this time around.  We turned sticks into swords, and before ya knew it, by the power of Grayskull, we had the power!  In our minds, we WERE INDEED transformed into our cartoon heroes.  And we would play like that for hours.

I look back on those times now and it brings a smile to my face.  Those times are without a doubt fond memories that I will cherish for years to come.  However, even more than that, I look back on those times and wonder if I realized the message that our games embedded in our minds.  I strongly doubt that, as a 7 year old girl, I fully comprehended the ideals and mentalities I was sending myself.  When the situation is dire, when all hope seems lost, simply hold your stick (which I swear to you always looked like She Ra’s sword in my mind’s eye) and call on the power of Grayskull.  Lol.  Okay, okay, maybe not Grayskull now that I’m all grown up.  Maybe you believe in God, maybe you believe in a higher power of another kind.  Maybe you only believe in being the best you possible.  Regardless of what you believe in, we all call on the power of…something deep inside us when we feel we are at the road’s end.  By doing so, we are able to “save the day” so to speak, to come through unbelievable and excruciatingly hard circumstances holding our head’s high and having a deep sense of accomplishment.

Life throws obstacles at us all the time.  Sometimes it’s a plateau, sometimes it’s an issue with a loved one, it could be a work related stress or even something as simple as needing a change in the weather.  Everything we experience has an impact on our daily life, which in turn has an impact on our fitness goals (and whether or not we reach them).  The one thing we all get to choose, no matter what, is how we react.  Choose wisely, taking a detour around the obstacles thrown in our path always takes more time than dealing with it head on.

Seriously though, think about it.  When life deals you situations that feel as if all hope is lost, call on the power of…well, you fill in the blank here, and then go make it happen.

The post By The Power of…. appeared first on Transformation Trainer.

Being a trainer, like most jobs, takes some skill and finesse.  And every now and then, not to get all cliche and such but, it requires some tough love. Most of the time, I am very patient with my clients.  I am understanding of the fact that life happens and it’s not always (in fact it is never) orchestrated beautifully and conveniently.  I am more than happy to help people work through the obstacles that they feel are keeping them from obtaining their goals…but every now and then, I get fed up.  I get sick and tired of hearing excuses.  I get frustrated with all the BS stories I am expected to believe, as if I had the word stupid tattooed on my forehead, in reverse no less, therefore making it possible to read it when I look in the mirror.  Well, guess what?  I don’t.

As I was trying to decide what to talk about in this post, I kept thinking of the conversation I had with one of my past clients about a year ago.  One of the reasons she hired me as her trainer in the first place was because she felt that she needed some accountability, which is not uncommon in the least for any of my clients.  I asked her a question regarding the things I had asked her to do over the weekend, had she completed them or not?  She let off with a string of excuses longer than the Mississippi River.  One by one I shot them all down with a solution as to how she could have avoided that particular thing from becoming an issue and keeping her from fulfilling her “homework”.  No sooner had I done that when here came another excuse.  After the tenth excuse in a row I was beginning to get irritated.  Really Irritated.  But of course, being a professional, you can’t just start getting upset with your clients.  you can however, give them a dose of tough love.  So guess what I did?  Yep…

I looked her straight in the eyes and said, “I can shoot down every single excuse you throw at me my dear.  Care to throw any more out there to test my claim?”  I smiled warmly at her, letting her know that I was kidding but that I also meant what I said.  Then I said to her in a softer tone, “I can do that simply because I used to be in your shoes and was the one throwing out the excuses when the bottom line was this: I was not fully committed to change yet.  If that is the issue as I fully suspect it is, then let’s address the problem rather than throwing out excuses to cover that fact up, shall we?”

She smiled.  A tear slowly ran down her cheek as she said, “Yeah.  You got me.  My heart isn’t in it all the way.  I want it, I want to reach my goals, I do, but, it is so hard to do the things I know I should rather than the things I want to do.   The things I know I should do hurt and don’t taste as good as the things I want.  So when I’m in the moment where the choice has to be made, I’m weak.  I choose what I want instead of what I should.  I’m sorry, you must be so disappointed in me.”   I surprised her by saying, “Actually, I couldn’t be more proud of you.  You have finally admitted to yourself that your heart isn’t in this.  Now, that being said, there are ways to go about making sure it is, but not until you’ve admitted to it first.  So, what do ya say we focus on solving the problem rather than continuing to mask it?”

From that point on, she did amazing.  She went on to be successful in reaching every single one of her fitness goals.  A little bit of tough love can go a long way.  How many of you are being real with yourselves?  Get tough with yourself and see what happens, you don’t have anything to lose…except the weight you’re trying to lose anyway.  :)

The post A Little Bit of Tough Love appeared first on Transformation Trainer.

One of my clients and I were having a conversation last week.  The topic, though fitness related throughout, jumped from one area to another for the entire hour session.  I love sessions like these where I get someone who genuinely wants to know about all the crazy cool things our body will do for us if given the proper stimuli and nutrition.  Amazing.  Love it.

Anyway, she had one question that was rather in depth.  I explained to her what was happening physiologically on the molecular level and then gave her an analogy to help her understand it better.  She seemed to understand what I had explained and overall, satisfied with the answer.  She asked me a few more questions, which I happily answered, and then hit me with the original question again.

I sat there trying to quickly think of another way to explain the answer to her since I had obviously not been as effective as I thought I had with my first answer.  You know how when you’re in a situation like this it feels like the entire world is sitting there waiting, while drumming their fingers, for your answer when in all reality, barely a few seconds have gone by?  Yeah…that’s what it felt like that day.  My mind was racing trying to figure out how to tell her what I had already told her without making her feel stupid for asking again (because in all reality, only stupid DON’T ask questions when they don’t understand something).  In a split second, the words fell out of my mouth, “Well, to put it simply, you’ve GOT to have your head in the game rather than the sand.”

Or, in other words, you have to pay attention to what it is you’re doing rather than going blindly about your business.  It is so simple that most anyone who reads this will roll their eyes at the computer screen and either think to themselves or say out loud, “Well duh Laura.  Of course you do!”  HOWEVER…how many of you have been driving down the road, realized where you are and thought to yourself  ’I don’t remember driving this direction’?  How many of you have walked through the aisles in a grocery store and walked right past what you were there for in the first place, had to turn around and go back down that aisle to put it in your cart?  Aha!  That’s what I thought…so don’t you roll your eyes at me!  Lol.  :)

The weight room is no different.  In order to get the most benefit out of the time you spend in it, you must stay focused on why you are there, what you are there to work on and how you work on it.

A prime example of this is the Ab Crunch machine.  Most people who “use” this machine do not have correct form and as a result, get a great tricep workout. Confused by what I’m saying?  Let me explain.   Most people sit down on the seat (which is of course haphazardly positioned where the last person who used it happened to leave it rather than making sure it is adjusted properly for them specifically), put their arms on top of the padded armrest and press it down to their lap using their arms, like I said; a great tricep workout, but not so effective at isolating the abs (okay, to be honest with you, now I’m rolling my eyes…ugh).

The proper way to use this machine is to sit on the seat (which should be low enough that the padded armrest is at the same height as your chin), place both arms atop the armrest and use your abdominals to bring the armrest down to your lap, imitating the same movement as a crunch, and then controlling the weight by slowly bringing the armrest up to about an inch or two below starting position.  Doesn’t seem so hard, right?  WRONG.  Try doing it using the same amount of weight you usually use but also using correct form.  Most people have to drop the weight to do it right.

Just like using the Ab Crunch machine correctly requires having your head in the game rather than the sand, hitting your fitness goals does too.  In order to create change in your body, you must stay focused.  It comes back to the three things I mentioned before.

Why are you there?

Well, why are you?  Why do you go to the gym?  Is it to get or stay healthy?  Is it to tone?  Lose weight?  Gain strength?  WHY are you there? Keeping your goals forefront in your mind, focusing on them and knowing why you are there for each and every workout is critical to your success and ultimately leads you to the next question…how convenient!  :)

What are you there to work on?

When you walk through the gym doors, do you know what muscle groups you are there to work on?  Do you have a plan?  Do you have a workout routine outlined in any way, shape or form?  If not, what are you doing there?  Whether you are doing cardio or weights, you should walk into the gym knowing exactly why you there (which goals you’re trying to reach) and what you are doing today to make progress towards those goals.

How are you working on it?

Whether your goal is weight loss, toning or gaining strength you must work out a specific way in order to achieve the results you desire.  If you wanted to go the the mall, why would you drive in the opposite direction?  Same thing applies here.  If you’re unsure of how to workout to meet your goals, do some research online, check out a book at the library or talk with a trainer at your local gym to find out what you need to be doing and how you should be doing it, which means are you using proper form?  If not, you are either wasting your time by not getting the maximum benefit out of the exercise or you are going to get hurt.  Either way you go on that, there are no good outcomes.  Form matters.  Immensely.

Have you asked yourself these three questions?  If not, what are you waiting for?  Time will continue to pass whether or not we reach out and embrace the change we desire to see in the future.  A year from now you could be more healthy, more energetic and more fit…or you could just be another year older.  You get to choose.

Where is your focus?  Is it in the game or is it in the sand?

The post Is Your Head In the Game or the Sand? appeared first on Transformation Trainer.

Everybody knows who I’m talking about.  The folks who go to the gym day after day, and have done so for years, yet they look the same as the very first day they walked through the doors.  Hmmmm, why do you think that is?  After all, they go to the gym everyday.  You’ve seen them spend countless hours on the cardio equipment and they hit the weights as well.  So, what gives?  What are they missing?

There’s usually two things they are missing actually.  One is variation and the other is the overload principle.  It must be applied if there is to be any change esxpected of our bodies.  In some way, they body must experience a greater amount of “discomfort” than it did the day before in order to be overloaded and therefore create change.  Makes sense, right?   So, what happens if the body does not experience the overload principle?  Adaptation.  Our bodies adapt to everything.  They adapt to the environment, the food we eat, the work we do, our climate, the amount of water we drink on a daily basis and of course, our exercise routine.

You may or may not have noticed that the folks who look the same as they did the first day they walked through the doors do the same routine day, after day, after day…you get the idea.  They do the same things over, and over, and over yet they expect a different result.  Isn’t that the definition of insanity?  If  it didn’t work yesterday, last week or last year then guess what?!  It isn’t going to work today, next week or next year either!  Change it up!!!  It really doesn’t take much change to create something just a little bit different that your body won’t recognize.  If you’re currently doing a tricep press for your tri’s, do an overhead extension instead.  If you’re doing lat pulls switch it up to a straight arm press on the cables.  Bench presses are awesome, but change it up a bit and use dumbbells instead, or incline/decline the bench a bit.  You don’t have to drastically change things in order to see results from it.  Sweet, huh?

Overload is something that 90% of people who use a weight room completely ignore.  Why?  Because it’s uncomfortable and sometimes, it down right hurts.  There’s no getting away from the fact that, if you truly want change, it has to hurt a little (okay, sometimes a lot)!  Keep in mind however, that the “hurt” I’m talking about is different thatn true pain.  Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is not right and that it is in danger of inflicting an injury.  Muscle burn (the hurt I’m speaking of) is totally different and is necessary to acheive the desired results, whether they be weight loss, building lean muscle mass or gaining strength.  It’s GOT to burn!!

Just remember…

The post Adaptation appeared first on Transformation Trainer.

I have had several clients lately ask my opinion on all the different types of diets.  Do they work?  Would a person benefit from trying one, two or twelve of them?  Hmmm, let me think…  NO!   

If you’ve ever tried losing weight before, you know just how many ”diets” are out there (way too many for my liking).  There’s everything from the food specific diets such as the banana diet, the grapefruit diet and the cabbage soup diet to diets named after places such as South Beach, Mediterranean and Sonoma.  Don’t forget the diets that are named after the people who created them like Atkins and the diets that are named after the theories behind them like the Blood Type, Body Type and the ADHD diet.  There’s dangerous diets like extreme calorie restriction diets, extreme detox diets and the hCG diet.  Then, as if that’s not enough, you have the diets that you know the very second you hear the name of them that they are a hoax…like the party girl diet and the cookie diet (don’t EVEN get me started on those two)!  Where do they all come from?  I’ll tell you.

The weight loss industry is reported as being a $55 billion dollar industry and Americans alone spend $40 million of the total.  Still have questions on where all these diets come from?  Greed.  Now I’m not saying that all of them are garbage or that every person who has come up with and published a “diet” book is greedy.  I am saying that there are people out there in the world who are greedy and know that you, I and the neighbor next door as well as the neighbor down the street want to lose weight and they are more than willing to be the one to take our money.  They figure that if you’ve tried one diet, you’ll try another…and another…and another.  Unfortunately, we are the ones who make them right time and time again.  There are so many people looking for a magic pill, silver bullet and/or an easy way out that they just keep giving us another option to look over and take a whack at it with.     

Now obviously, I have not read every diet book out there, and I’m not claiming that I have.  Obviously I cannot even begin to say that I know and understand the components and claims of each diet plan out there and how they each act/react with the human body…especially when you start to factor in genetic disorders, thyroid issues, hormone imbalances, cancer and diseases of every shape and kind.  What I am claiming is this:

If a nutrition plan, diet, food/menu plan or dietary program is not something that you can honestly see yourself doing for the rest of your life, it won’t work for you in the long run.  Sure, you may lose 10, 20 or even 50 pounds on any given plan in the beginning but the minute your body adapts to it or you go off of it and return to your “normal” dietary intake, you’ll put it all back on and then some.  Wanna know why?

The Human Body and Calorie Restriction

Your body has one goal each and every day and that is to keep you alive.  There is a multitude of checks and balances that our bodies go through each and every day in order to assure that the goal is met.  When you restrict your caloric intake, your body compensates by reducing your metabolic rate.  Simply put, you burn less calories and therefore less stored fat as well.  As if that’s not enough bad news, studies have shown that lipoprotein lipase (a fat storing enzyme) levels increase dramaticallywhen calories are restricted.  While lipoprotein lipase levels are rising, your T3 (a thyroid hormone) levels plummet.  Why is that a bad thing?  Low levels of T3 slow metabolism which, you guessed it,  aids in preserving stored body fat. 

Going back to your body’s primary focus of keeping you alive every day, the whole metabolic slowing process makes a lot of sense.  The slower your metabolism, the less calories you burn.  The less calories you burn, the longer your stored energy (fat) will keep you alive.  The longer you’re alive, the greater your odds that the famine will end, the crisis will be be averted, the circumstances surrounding your current unfortunate situation will change and food will be found therefore avoiding death.  Chalk one up for your body for being smarter than you, huh?

The picture above depicts what happens to the average American when they decide to go on a diet.  You start out and all seems well, but unbeknown to you, your metabolism slows down so that after the initial weight loss in the beginning you don’t notice much change.  You hit a plateau, because your body has slowed your metabolism to the point that it needs to in order to keep you alive on the amount of calories you’re giving it, and you get frustrated.  You start thinking that if all this sacrifice isn’t getting you any results anyway, why should you continue?  You finally decide that the diet plan has become unbearable and you cave in to your ”normal” eating habits.  Inside your body, your lipoprotein lipase levels remain elevated and your metabolic rate stays suppressed.  This causes that ten pounds you lost to find it’s way back home in a hurry, and not only does the ten pounds find it’s way back into the pockets of your jeans, it brings a few friends home to play too!  Your body looks at it like a life insurance policy in case another famine or crisis comes your way.  In other words, the rate of fat storage is increased after a period of calorie restriction (a.k.a. dieting) and it stays that way until your pre-diet level of body fat is re-established.  

In addition to that basket of roses, you lose lean muscle mass while your calories are restricted as well.  Loss of lean muscle mass further supresses your metabolism and negatively affects the shape, tone, and functionality of your body.  Muscle loss resulting from restrictive dieting can be as high as 40-50% of the total amount of weight lost.  With this muscle to fat loss ratio, body composition only improves slightly (if at all) while on any given calorie restrictive diet and when said diet ends and the fat returns but the muscle doesn’t, your body composition is actually worse.  In this vicious calorie restricting, dieting cycle you go from being unhappy with yourself because you feel you are fat and flabby, to being less fat but more flabby due to loss of muscle mass and then you march onward to being fatter and flabbier than you were to begin with.  Awesome huh?  Not.

The Real Answer (According to Me)

If you want to lose weight (and keep it off for good), you’ll need some discipline, period.  Discipline is a common theme, whether you’re talking about following a diet plan or initiating a healthy lifestyle.  The difference is in how you choose to apply it.  When you’re dieting, there is almost always a “Foods That Can Be Eaten” and a ”Foods That Can’t be Eaten” list, meaning you must completely give up certain foods and eating habits.  Instead of developing a lifetime sustaining and moderate approach to food, you must learn to exercise absolute discipline in regards to certain foods, cutting them out completely.  When you are forbidden to eat something, what is it that you crave?  To be completely honest with you, if this approach actually worked for most people, there wouldn’t be an obesity epidemic across America.

Sure, most anyone can lose weight in the short term, but very few people keep the weight off for even a year, let alone permanently. For this reason alone, a healthy lifestyle is much more beneficial, in the short term as well as the long run, than any diet ever will be.  It is important for you to understand that most diet plans, if you follow them to the letter, will result in weight loss (especially in the beginning phases of the plan).  In fact, eating almost anything drastically different from what you normally eat over the course of a few weeks to a month or so will result in temporary weight loss. Unfortunately, like we talked about earlier, your body adapts to the new diet with a slower metabolism and, as I explained above, it’s all downhill from there.  No good.

It must therefore be realized that diet plans in general are erronius attempts at a “quick fix” to a problem that, simply put, has none.  It is a key step in learning how to stay healthy.  Being healthy isn’t about being able to discipline ourselves toward or away from certain foods for a certain space of time in order to see a certain number on the scale or the tag in your pants.  It is about being disciplined enough to take on a long-term strategy for living healthy for the rest of our lives.  In other words, to get and stay healthy, to get the long term changes to your waistline you desire, you must make long term changes to the way you live.

The post Why All Fad Diets Turn Into The Yo-Yo Diet appeared first on Transformation Trainer.

Have you ever tried on a shirt with a tag that claims “One Size Fits All’?  I have, several times actually.  I’ve been on both ends of the scale too.  I’ve been the person who can’t even get both arms into the (blankety-blanking) shirt to even try pulling it over my head and I’ve been the person standing there laughing as it hangs off of one shoulder because the neck hole is so big I can’t keep it on both shoulders at the same time!  Shirts and shoes, like weight loss, are NOT one size fits all.  That’s why what works for one person, doesn’t necessarily work for another person.  Why is that? 

I have to chuckle to myself when I have someone approach me, usually with a newsstand celebrity spotlight magazine in hand, inquiring which of the exercises sited in the oh-so-resourceful guide in their hands do they really need to do in order to achieve their goal of looking like the spotlighted celebrity in the magazine.  There’s more to it than exercise, period.  There are actually a handful of variables that have an effect on how you look and feel, though I’m only going to cover four of them in this post; genetics, nutrition, body type and body shape. 

First and foremost is genetics.  You can only rearrange, rebuild and improve upon what good old Mom and Dad gave you in the first place.  In order to look like a certain celebrity, you’d have to have that person’s parents…and really, if you think about it, not even siblings in a family look identical.  So to say that your goal is to look exactly like a certain person seems silly.  It is not an attainable goal…unless you have the time and money for surgery, well actually more than one surgery.  We’re talking surgeries. 

The second factor is actually two separate factors but they go hand in hand.  Nutrition and exercise.  Nutrition and exercise, like genetics, are key.  In order to have something good as your end result, you have to put good things into the equation to begin with.

• Nutrition  You can’t (or at least 90% of us can’t) eat garbage and look good (and the 10% who can, won’t be able to forever.  It will catch up with them eventually).  The age old adage that claims “You are what you eat” is absolutely right.  If you eat crap, you’ll feel like crap.  If you eat healthy foods, you’ll feel healthy.  Each time I think of this concept, a scene in Toy Story 3 comes to my mind and I find myself smiling!  In the scene, Mr. Potato Head has had to use a cucumber instead of his normal potato self to put his assorted parts into.  When he is reunited with Mrs. Potato Head, she asks him how he feels to which he replies, “I feel fresh!  Healthy!  It’s terrible!”  (Honestly, I’m not sure which I laughed more at, Mr. Tortilla Head or Mr. Cucumber Head!  That and Spanish Buzz were all that kept me awake during the movie).
• Exercise  Just like putting healthy food into your body is important, so is requiring your body to work, it’s what we were made to do.  We no longer live in the day of the cavemen when food had to be hunted, killed and prepared.  All of our ancestors had to work in order to maintain life.  Most of us (with some exceptions of course) don’t have to do the kind of work they had to do such as tilling the land, planting crops or taking care of the animals each and every day.  We don’t have to build our own houses, dig ditches or (thank heavens) churn butter either.  We have automatic washers and dryers instead of a wash board and seemingly endless miles of clothes lines, we have automatic dishwashers instead of tubs full of dirty dishes to wash by hand, refrigerators to keep food cold right in our kitchen instead of ice houses to trek to in the back 40 and electric stove tops to cook on instead of a fire to be built in the fireplace.  We are lucky to have these things, but as convenient as they make life, they take the work out of it as well.  Rather than turn into a couch potato, hit the gym and put the work back into your life!     

The third factor is body type.  There are three groups or classifications of body types.  While some people fall into one of these three main groups specifically, most people are a combination of two of the groups.  The three main groups are endomorphs, mesomorphs and ectomorphs, with common combinations being ecto-mesomorph and endo-mesomorph.

• Endomorphs  Endomorphs tend to have bigger bones that the other body types.  Endomorphs usually have round faces, larger thighs and hips as well.  They usually have arms and legs that appear short and tapering, which gives them a somewhat stocky appearance.  Most endomorphs have comparatively small hands and feet accompanied by a high waist.  Endomorphs have higher levels of body fat than the other body types, making weight loss much more difficult for them than others outside this body type.  However, they can build lean muscle mass much easier than any other body type.   
• Mesomorphs  Mesomorphs have an athletic build.  They are often an hourglass or ruler shape and gain muscle mass easily.  Most mesomorphs have broad shoulders and a narrow waist along with a fast metabolism.  Mesomorphs lose weight more easily than endomorphs.
• Ectomorphs  Ectomorphs have a thin, linear appearance. Most ectomorphs look like rulers, having narrow waists, hips, and shoulders. Ectomorphs can lose weight easily and tend to have low to very low levels of body fat.  Though being overweight is not usually an issue for ectomorphs, they have a much harder time gaining lean muscle mass than the other body types. 

The fourth factor is body shape.  Whether you realize it or not, you have heard of this.  Most people fall into one of two groups, though there are three groups in all.  Apples, pears and proportioned (ruler or hourglass). 

• The apple shape. People in this group store fat in their upper bodies so are generally bigger on the top half of their bodies than on the bottom half.  They often have thin hips and a large chest and stomach.  Apples tend to gain weight above the waist or along the backside.  The apple shape evolved to adapt to long periods of famine.  While not perishing in a famine is definitely a plus, fat stored in the upper body can lead to heart disease, so it is extremely important for people in this group to be very health conscious.
• The pear shape. People in this group have larger lower bodies and smaller upper bodies because they store the majority of their fat in the lower body; hips, buttocks and (every girls’ favorite) saddlebags.  Pears find that their hips are slightly wider than their shoulders and that when weight is gained it is usually below the waist. Pears usually have small chests, flat stomachs and are women.  This shape evolved because fat stored in these specific areas aids in increased fertility and breast-feeding.  While this type of fat is not as much of a health risk as the abdominal fat apples store, it is definitely harder to lose.  (Great, huh?) 
• The proportioned shape. This group of people have fat cells distributed equally throughout their entire body.  When they gain weight, they gain it everywhere and when they lose weight, it comes off evenly as well.  People who fall into this category are usually termed either rulers or hourglass.  
  • Rulers have no large differences between the size of their hips, waists, and shoulders. Rulers tend to put on weight in their stomach and backside, while maintaining slender arms and legs. 
  • Hourglass shaped women have well-proportioned upper and lower bodies, with a distinctive waist. Those who are an hourglass gain weight all over their body, particularly in the hips and chest area. 

 You may find yourself wondering how body type and body shape combine.  Let me shed some light on the subject. 

• Most rulers are ectomorphs.  
• Most hourglasses tend to be endomorphs or mesomorphs.
• Most pears are mesomorphs.
• Most apples are mesomorphs or endomorphs.

So there you have it.  In order to look like Jennifer or Angelina, you’ve got to have genetics, proper nutrition and exercise, body type and body shape on your side…well, either that or a million bucks. 

The post One Size Fits All? Are Ya Kidding Me? appeared first on Transformation Trainer.