Fitzy Bitzy: Fitness Blog - Weight Loss Blog - Trainer Blog

So how was it?

So did you have a good Thanksgiving?  Mine was wonderful;  the food was unbelievable.  I always joke with my family about how we look forward to the Thanksgiving food for the entire year, in fact, I can't wait for next year, and it takes the entire day for the food to be prepared, but in about a 20 minute window, we're completely stuffed, and that's that.  So we wait the entire year with the big, build-up to the meal, and then it's over before we know it!  How funny.

Anyway...Thanksgiving was great!  Our family get-together was kinda small this year though, but it was still great!  I did get out and run a 7-miler the morning of Thanksgiving Day, as well as a hill workout later on that weekend.  Thank goodness for that because if I hadn't, who knows how much weight I would've put on.  I actually weighed myself before and after THE MEAL; I put on 3 lbs. in 20 minutes!  How crazy is that!  That's why it's so crucial to balance the meal out with exercise during the weekend.  Next up...Christmas!  If you didn't get active this weekend, try it for Christmas.  It's a necessity for those of you trying to lose or maintain your weight. 

By the way...I'm not much of a shopper, but I decided to give "Black Friday" a shot, and man am I glad I did!  As a result, my wife and I are completely done with Christmas shopping.  Brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, everybody...all done!  What a great feeling, and what great deals!

Nutrition is the secret ingredient

As a follow-up to my last post, I said that one day won't make or break your weight loss program, but eating bad for an entire week will.  Nutrition really is the make or break it part of someone's program.  Though resistance training and cardio are important, if my client isn't keeping up on proper nutrition, then they aren't going to be successful.  This can be said for any type of program, and I mean ANY.  If you're not eating enough calories for a weight gaining program, then you're not going to put on muscle.  If you're eating too many calories for a weight loss program, then you're not going to lose weight.  If you're not eating at a calorie level that's equal to what you burn off, then you're not going to maintain your weight.  If an athlete eats horrible before competition, then chances are, their performance will suffer. 

As I said, proper nutrition's absolutely vital to achieve the results you want!  Keep this in mind as you enter the rest of this week and into the New Year.  If you haven't already, make sure you check out my article, "Want to lose weight? - Make nutrition work for you".  It goes into a lot more detail of how to structure a proper nutrition program to help your achieve the results you want.  I publish a new article each week for ColumbusSports.com.  All my articles can be found under the "Articles" link to the left in the "About Fitzy Bitzy" section.

Thanksgiving week eating

Ah yes...it's that time of year.  It's Thanksgiving week with Christmas and New Year's right around the corner.  This is the time of year when New Year's resolutions are be thought out, Christmas lists are being checked, and families are coming together for some great eatin'. 

For some, this is the greatest time of the year because of all the happy memories.  For others, it can be a killer.  I'm talking about those with weight loss/management goals.  The extra calories that come with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie can spell disaster to these calorie counters. 

Don't get me wrong.  Even though I'm not trying to lose weight, I'm still trying to maintain it.  When it comes to Thanksgiving though, I see this as a special DAY with family.  Thanksgiving only happens once a year, and one day of stuffing ourselves isn't going to make or break a weight loss or maintenance program.

For my weight loss clients, this is one time when I'm very loose on their food choices.  After months of strict food logs and inspired workouts, they deserve one day to enjoy some delicious food with family.  Same for you.  Thanksgiving's about spending quality time with family; enjoy it!  If you've been busting your tail these past few months with exercise and proper eating, Thanksgiving is the perfect reward.

So I give my clients the green light to enjoy Thanksgiving food, but I stress the importance of the DAY, not the week.  Thanksgiving is named Thanksgiving Day for a reason...it's a day, not a week.  This is where I feel so many people mess up with eating through this season.  They treat Thanksgiving, as well as Christmas and New Year's, as a week of eating, and not a day.  While a day of stuffing ourselves isn't going to put a huge damper in a weight loss program, a week of stuffing ourselves with leftovers definitely will.  We can make up for a day's eating by doing extra or harder exercise, but trying to make up for a week's eating habits is very hard.  For some, it's no big deal because they're not really serious with achieving their fitness goals.  For those who are committed though, it's very frustrating because they want to enjoy this time with family, but they're scared to.  Don't be scared, just be disciplined.  While the family continues to eat throughout the week like there's no tomorrow, portion out the leftovers for yourself.  Enjoy a leftover turkey sandwich and a half a cup of stuffing and mashed potatoes; just don't continue to eat plate after plate of leftovers and pie.

So enjoy that turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie.  Enjoy the laughs, and enjoy the stories.  Just keep the full plates of eating to one day and one day alone.  Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a small world after all...or is that fat world?

According to the LA Times, Disneyland is having to shut down the beloved "It's a Small World," because the boats are getting stuck.  Disneyland blames this on years of patching the canal floor making the floor higher, but we all know, it's the fat people in the boats causing the boats to sink in the water more that are making the boats get stuck.    

Guess what Disneyland does for those they have to kick off the boats?  They give them a voucher for free food at one of their eleventy billion concession stands strategically placed throughout the park.  The good news...Disneyland plans to lower the canal floor, so it should only be closed from January 2008 to October 2008.

If this isn't proof enough that America has an epidemic of obesity spreading like wildfire, I don't know what is.  For those of you who fall into this category and are taking the steps to change, I can't be prouder of you!  Keep up the awesome work!  You deserve the results because as you know, losing weight isn't a walk in the park...in Disneyland that is!  For those of you who haven't started toward a healthier weight, I can't think of a better time to start than now!  Before Thanksgiving and Christmas eating sneaks up on us, make an effort to develop a healthier lifestyle to get you through this season and propel you into the New Year.

Be S.M.A.R.T. about it

Having trouble sticking to your exercise goals?  Why is it so many people give up on their goals?  What about all that wasted money on gym memberships?  The majority of gyms make their money from those that don't even work out.  You have those people that pay $50/month for a membership and go to the gym 3 times per week, which means they pay about $4.17 per visit.  Then you have those who go to the gym once a month, which means their visit costs them $50. 

Here's what I feel the reason is that so many people drop off.  You ready?  I think it's because we set too high of expectations.  We go to the gym and expect to see results in the first week.  Well guess what?  It doesn't work that way!  Patience really is key to success with an exercise program.

Be S.M.A.R.T. when setting goals.  "What does that mean?" you may ask.

S - Specific: When setting goals, make sure they're specific.  For example, "I want to lost 10 lbs. in 2 months," is a specific goal.  "I want to lose weight," isn't.

M - Measurable: "I want to lose 5% body fat.," is correct.  "I want to look better in my jeans," isn't.  Make sure you're able to know if you're reaching your goals by using a number or some other unit of measurement.

A - Attainable: Make sure your goals are realistic.  For example, "I want to lose 20 lbs. by next summer," is realistic.  "I want to lose 20 lbs. by Christmas," isn't realistic.  When setting attainable goals, you want to make sure they'll push you, but you don't want them to be such lofty goals that you easily give up on them.

R - Relevant: Your goals should be something that are important to you.  If you could care less whether you reach your goal or not, then don't set it.  If you want to gain muscle because you want to fit into your shirts better, then set a goal to push you to gain muscle.  If you could care less how you look in your shirts, then setting a muscle gaining goal might not be something that'll really push you.

T - Time-bound: Set a deadline to reach your goals.  You need to have a starting point, an ending point, and measurement days.  Set a realistic deadline to reach your goal, set a starting date to make yourself...start, and map out specific days when you'll take measurements, such as weight, body fat, circumference measurements, etc., to push yourself and keep yourself accountable to your goals.

S.M.A.R.T. goals really work as long as you have the patience to stick with them.  Try it.  Set a S.M.A.R.T. goal and see how much easier it is to stay committed to yourself and see yourself through to the results you want! 

Better chance of becoming PHIT...support the bill

There may be good news coming to the fitness world very soon.  A bill called the Personal Health Investment Today (PHIT) Bill has been introduced to Congress to allow for individuals to be able to pay for things such as health club memberships, personal training, and exercise equipment using pre-tax accounts such as flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs).  These types of accounts are already being used by people to pay for things such as visits to the doctor, medicines, Band-Aids, etc.  My wife and I have an HSA account, instead of regular health insurance.  The thing we like most about it is instead of having that feeling of "throwing money away" by paying a monthly premium to an insurance company, we essentially pay ourselves because we can put money into the HSA account each month and use that for medical expenses when we need it.  It's a really neat concept.

This bill is continuing to gain support from members of Congress, but it's still not enough.  I really urge you to talk with your state representatives to see this into law.  Imagine the impact this could possibly have!  By allowing costs such as gym memberships to be paid through these pre-tax accounts, the hope is that even more people will make an effort to develop a healthy lifestyle.  If this bill is passed into law, what a great step America could make toward a healthier country.  What do you think...if passed, would you take advantage of it?

Why can't I be a loser like The Biggest Losers?

This is a question I sometimes get when training my clients.  Weigh-in day comes, off comes 1 or 2 lbs., but guess what, it's not enough.  Why's that?  Well, the night before, my client just watched The Biggest Loser on NBC and saw Neil or Amy lose 10 lbs. in a 1 hour show.  The Biggest Loser is a great show, talk about motivating, but it's also very misleading to the typical weight loss individual. 

What I try to explain to those who may be disappointed with their weight loss of only 2 lbs. is that The Biggest Loser contestants are not typical clients.  The first thing to realize is these contestants are extremely obese.  Your body isn't made to be this obese (it's way out of it's comfort zone), so it wants to get rid of excess fat as fast as possible.  This is part of the reason why they're able to lose an unbelievable amount of weight in the first few weeks; the body has so much excess fat, which means it's a lot easier for it to get rid of the fat.  If you keep watching the show though, you'll see that after the first few weigh-ins, the weight loss pace is much slower.  The body starts to get closer to it's ideal weight, so it's not as easy to burn excess fat off.  It's just like a slushy.  At first it's easy to drink the slushy through a straw, but after a while, the slushy is a lot harder to slurp through the straw (there's less slushy to slurp up).

The second thing I explain is for the typical weight loss person, 2 lbs. per week really is the most weight someone should lose in a week's time.  Anymore than 2 lbs. per week may result in muscle being lost, not fat; this isn't a good thing.  From a calorie standpoint, a pound of fat equals 3500 calories, so to lose 2 lbs. in a week, that means you need to burn off 7000 extra calories in a week, that's 1000 calories per day!  So for example, if you eat 2000 calories in a day, you'd need to burn off 3000!  That's very hard to do, but it can be done.

In a week's time, there are 168 hours.  You figure, the average person works out about 3 times per week for 1 hour.  That's only 3 hours out of 168 hours in a week that are devoted to exercise.  How much can you really expect to lose in that amount of time?  What you don't see on The Biggest Loser is all the behind the scenes work that goes into the 1 hour show.  The contestants on this show are subjected to a boot camp-type program that includes working out for many hours each day for each week between episodes.  The contestants are also under constant watch by professionals in areas such as fitness and nutrition.  They have their meals monitored, as well as their hours of exercise each day.  Back in the real world, most people trying to lose weight don't have these luxuries.  Even those who hire trainers only see their trainer for around an hour every other day.  Their trainer can't hold their hand outside the gym and make sure they're making smart choices with eating, exercise, and other lifestyle choices at home.  For many exercisers, there's the task of trying to balance their workouts with their job and home life, something The Biggest Loser contestants don't need to worry about.

So before you get discouraged with not keeping up with The Biggest Loser contestants, realize there's so much more to their lifestyle changes than just what is seen in the 1 hour episode.  Keep up the hard work because your 1 to 2 lb. weight loss should be something to be proud of! 

Is Running Really Good For You?

I'm just totally stunned right now...I've been a runner almost my entire life...from gym class mile champion to eighth grade cross country county champion to a track and field Ohio high school state competitor to an All-American in collegiate track and field to a current half marathon and marathon competitor.  In fact, I'm in the process of training for the Boston Marathon right now.  I've always heard/experienced stories of heat exhaustion, bad knees (I'm a perfect example), and pulled muscles.  I've even heard of those freak happenings of top notch runners dying, or how about the recent 2007 Chicago Marathon death.  You have to understand, I love running!  I thank God all the time that I've been given a gift with running.  I just love being blessed with the ability to randomly decide to go outside on a beautiful day and go on an 8 mile run. 

I sit hear today though, and you know what...I don't know what to think about running.  Ryan Shay died today during the U.S. men's Olympic marathon trials for Beijing.  We rarely hear of other athletes dying during competition, but it's all too common with running.  I've recently been seeing more and more about how running really isn't as good of an exercise as everyone thinks.  I normally just ignore it and think it's just people trying to add controversy to the world of fitness because they're just the controversial type.  After today though, it makes me wonder...is running really good for you?