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Why not eating much can be worse than eating too much

“I want to lose weight.  How do I do that?  I know!  I just won’t eat, or maybe I’ll just eat 500 calories a day?  That’s gotta work!”  Maybe you’ve found yourself thinking this from time to time?  Well let me save you the disappointment and frustration; it doesn’t work.
 
Now I know there are some of you out there that are convinced you’re on a restricted-calorie diet that’s safe and effective.  Let me put it this way, in all my years of working with weight loss clients, I’ve never worked with one that had permanent success with this type of eating plan.  Sure, no results are permanent, but you know what I mean.  When someone drops 10 lbs. in 2 weeks, and then puts it right back on, plus 5 more lbs. on top of that, that’s not really considered permanent; that’s considered yo-yoing.

I admit, it’s hard to understand how eating very few calories can cause you to put on more weight.  After all, we’re constantly having it drilled into our heads that if you want to lose weight, you have to be more active and eat smaller portions.  The problem is, eating too small of portions can send our bodies into starvation mode.

Picture this: You’re in the middle of the Sahara Desert, and you haven’t had anything to eat in 2 days.  Are you dead yet?  Well, hopefully not, as long as you can stay hydrated.  Our bodies are amazing creations because they will do whatever it takes to maintain our survival.  To keep us alive in a desert, with no food, our bodies will start drawing energy from the protein and fat in our bodies.  Our bodies will break down our muscles in order to get the necessary energy (glucose) for our bodies to keep running, and if absolutely necessary, our bodies will break down fat for energy.  Like I said, though, this is when it’s absolutely necessary.  Without carbohydrates in the body, our body fat can’t be broken down to safely supply energy to the brain. ¹ This is a whole other topic, but if you remember, I go into more detail about it in the section about carbohydrates.

Alright, back to the part about our bodies breaking down muscle for energy.  As I’ve said before, our muscles are our calorie burners.  Without muscle, our body’s ability to burn calories is useless.  So doesn’t it make sense that if we burn off muscle, we lose the ability to burn off fat?  Well, that’s exactly what happens.  When trying to lose weight, you want to lose body fat, not muscle.  Burning off muscle means you’ll decrease the amount of fat that you’re burning off, and on top of that, your body covets its muscle.  When you lose muscle (and the water with it), your body is looking to put it back on as soon as possible.  Hence, the yo-yo effect that can happen with weight loss.  You may lose 10 lbs. in 2 weeks, but most likely you’ll gain those 10 lbs. back in no time.  Have you ever lost weight but months later ended up weighing more than you did when you first started your weight loss efforts?  Well, now you know why.

Okay, so that’s the first part to starvation mode: muscle breakdown.     

Here’s the second part to starvation mode and why eating less can actually be worse than eating more.

Back to the desert we go.  We already know that if we don’t feed our body, it’ll break down muscle for energy, but another thing that happens is fat storage.  If we’re in the desert and haven’t eaten for a few days, our body will wise up and realize that it needs to store any food that it does get.  As a result, our body slows down its metabolism to conserve energy (partially because our muscles are deteriorating). ¹ With a slower metabolism comes more fat storage.  The same can be said when deciding to go on a low-calorie or no-calorie diet.  By not eating every 2-3 hours (5 meals per day), our body will start to store more of the food we eat as fat because it has to conserve the little energy that it is getting.  Instead of losing “healthy” body fat weight, we’re actually losing water and muscle and putting on more fat.  In some cases, you can actually see the scale jump up!

Has this ever happened to you?  Have you ever tried to lose weight by cutting down to an abnormally small amount of calories only to find that the scale won’t budge or actually climbs?  Well, that low-calorie eating plan is most likely the reason for the disappointment.  Even if you do lose weight, you’ll most likely put it back on because it was water and muscle that you lost, not body fat.

So the next time you’re thinking about cutting your calories way back, think again.  You stand a better chance of losing body fat and keeping it off by developing an active lifestyle that follows a moderately restricted-calorie eating plan consisting of balanced, healthy food choices every 2-3 hours.

References:

¹ Sizer, F., & Whitney, E. (2003). Nutrition concepts and controversies, (9^th ed). Belmont, Ca.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.

I need your help!  I'm in the process of publishing my first book, and I want to hear from you.  If you were to buy my book, what would you want in it?  What areas of health and fitness would you want me to talk about?  How many pages would you want the book to be?  Any feedback you could give in the comments section would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks, and have a great day!

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If nothing else, get a pedometer

I'm all for people being as active as they possibly can, but sometimes, it can be hard to go from not being active at all to exercising everyday.  Well, guess what?  Walking is a great start to changing your lifestyle habits.  The 10,000 steps program is a walking program that is gaining popularity everyday.  Corporations, schools, gyms, all sorts off organizations are realizing the benefits of encouraging their employees and members to increase their daily walking.  You know how they're doing it?  By supplying pedometers to participants.

A study in the November 21, 2007 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association took on the task of figuring out if pedometers really are effective at increasing user's activity.  Guess what they found out?  They found that pedometer users had an average increase of more than 2,100 steps per day!  They also saw a resulting decrease in BMI and systolic blood pressure (the top number) as a result of this little device having a subconscious effect on users being more active.

So if you're having trouble getting motivated to develop an active lifestyle, start out with buying yourself a pedometer, aim for walking 10,000 steps per day, and let your brain get you moving.  Make it a game; set a daily steps goal for yourself, and see what activities will get you to your goal the fastest.  Maybe taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or maybe parking farther away in the parking lot will be more effective?  See what little quirky things you can do to increase you steps per day, but most importantly, have fun with it!  Changing your lifestyle will take some time, but by taking little steps like using a pedometer, you'll slowly start to move towards a healthier you!

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Morning exercise vs. evening exercise

This is a question that so many of my clients have asked before.  Some have heard exercising in the morning is best because if you exercise before you eat breakfast, you won't have all those carbs in your body, and you'll burn off a lot more fat as a result.

To set the record straight, this is completely false.  Exercising on an empty stomach is about the worst thing you can do because without energy from food, your body will start pulling energy from the stored protein in your body.  You know what stored protein is?  Muscle.  You body will break down your muscle in order to get the energy it needs, and when it comes to burning off fat, muscle is your friend.  It's your calorie burner, so if you're allowing it to be eaten away, your fat loss potential is going away with it.

So what about evening exercise?  Though exercise does help with achieving better sleep, exercising right before going to bed can actually cause you to have a hard time falling asleep.  The body gets so revved up during exercise that trying to calm it down quickly, in order to go to bed, can sometime be very hard to do.

The truth is, exercise when you like to exercise.  If you're a morning person, exercise in the morning; just make sure you allow yourself some time to eat something before working out.  If you're and evening person, it's probably going to be a lot easier for you to stay consistent to an evening routine compared to a morning routine; just don't exercise too late.

The key is consistency.  Success comes from consistency, not time of day, so make sure you choose a time that you like.  Now with that being said, if your goal is to see a great strength or muscle mass improvement, working out in the late afternoon or early evening will be most beneficial because your muscles will be warmest then, and muscles perform better when they're warm.

For any other goal, the time of day doesn't matter.  If you do work out in the morning, make sure you allow your body to "wake up".  This should be done for any workout, but when talking about morning workouts, you have that extra task of getting out of bed and jump-starting the nerves and muscles even more.

As far as doing cardio or weights first, again, if your goal is to increase strength or mass, perform your lifting first because if you do cardio first, you'll actually drain some energy out of your muscles and they won't be able to perform at peak potential like they would if cardio were done after lifting.  Also, for building mass, you don't want to get in the habit of doing too much cardio because cardio burns off a slight amount of muscle with the fat, and that's definitely counterproductive for building mass.

For any other goal, the order in which you perform your cardio and resistance training is up to you.  Whatever you enjoy more is the order that you should do it in.  Remember, consistency is more important than order.

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Does your multivitamin work?

I have to admit, until recently, I knew that multivitamins weren’t all the same.  I knew that some were better than others because they were more effective and were manufactured with better practices, but what I didn’t know was what a difference there really can be!  The fact is, a lot of multivitamins are no more effective than swallowing a piece of dirt.  We might as well eat our money instead of buying some of the supplements/multivitamins that are out there.

The problem with supplements is they aren’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.  Nobody really knows what goes into some of the supplements out there, and when asked whether a certain brand is better than another, it’s hard to give a good answer because of lack of knowledge.  When I worked for a gym, we pushed a certain supplement company to our members because our company partnered with their company.  Upper management always told us that these supplements were great because they were effective and manufactured under pharmaceutical practices.  The only problem was, when I went to research the company myself, that information wasn’t explained on their company website; everything was so vague, just like so many other supplement’s websites are.  Well, guess what?  I come to find out that yes, those supplements are definitely better than many of the common brands on grocery store shelves, but in the grand scheme of things, they really weren’t that much better for the price.  This just goes to show, just because a gym staff member or a high school kid at a GNC (no offense to GNC employees) tells you a certain supplement is good, doesn’t mean that it actually is.

My problem with pushing those supplements at the gym was that it was all about being a money-making technique for us and the company.  Yeah, they were a little better than the average multivitamin, but I would’ve liked to have known more about the multivitamins and other supplements I was recommending to gym members instead of being pressured to sell them by upper management.  And you know what, a lot of times I really didn’t push the supplements for this fact.  I didn’t really know much about them and why they were supposed to be so much better than others, and since I didn’t know, then why try and convince my clients and other members that they were so special? 

You’re probably saying to yourself, “Well if you don’t know what’s good and what’s not, then how am I supposed to know!”  Like I said, I used to not know, but recently I did some research and found some amazing study results.  A study was done by biochemist Lyle MacWilliam and seven other nutritional experts, and in this study they tested over 1000+ types of supplements and came up with a ranking system to compare one supplement to another.  The results of this study brought to light some pretty shocking answers.

By now, you’re probably wondering why you should even take a supplement if many aren’t very good.  The fact is, we don’t eat enough of what we should, and the quality of the foods we eat has decreased so much that we really need to be taking a multivitamin in order to achieve optimal health levels. ² A study done by Dr. Linus Pauling (Nobel Prize recipient) and two other scientists looked at the comparison of death rates among elderly Californians.  They found that male supplement users had a 22% lower risk of death, and female supplement users had a 46% lower risk of death compared to non-multivitamin users! ¹ That in itself should show just how essential taking a multivitamin is.

So here’s the problem, we know we need to be taking a multivitamin, but which one should we take?  Part of that answer really depends on the individual.  For example, a male and a female shouldn’t take the same one.  A woman in child-bearing years shouldn’t be taking the same one as a woman in her 80’s.  What I can tell you is that certain brands are better than others.  Lyle MacWilliam’s study took into consideration a lot of key points:

1.    Does the multivitamin/supplement contain all the nutrients necessary for optimal health?
2.    Do the nutrients exist in levels that promote optimal health?
3.    Does the supplement contain the most effective minerals that help it digest and absorb into the body to its greatest potential? (Some companies use less expensive mineral salts to carry out this process, but it appears they aren’t as effective.)
4.    Does the multivitamin contain the natural form of Vitamin E, or the synthetic form? (Natural is better.)
5.    Does the multivitamin contain the nutrients necessary to promote cardiac health, as well as at the proper levels to promote cardiac health?
6.    Does the supplement contain the proper nutrients and proper levels of those nutrients to help prevent cardiovascular disease?
7.    Does the supplement contain the proper nutrients and proper levels of those nutrients to promote optimal bone health?
8.    Does the supplement contain antioxidants and their proper levels?
9.    Does the multivitamin contain the nutrients and their proper levels for promoting cellular health through fighting off free radicals, etc.?
10. Does the multivitamin contain the nutrients and their proper levels for promoting an efficient metabolism?
11. Does the multivitamin contain the nutrients and their proper levels for helping reduce the risk of cancer, fighting off allergies, fighting off viruses, etc.?
12. Does the multivitamin contain nutrients at levels that have been associated with reducing the occurrence of coronary heart disease?
13. Does the multivitamin contain nutrients and their proper levels for promoting a healthy liver? (The majority of cancers are believed to stem from unhealthy livers. ¹)
14. Does the multivitamin contain potential toxic levels of vitamin A and iron? (Birth defects, diabetes, cancer, etc. can result from these toxic levels.)

Why did I just tell you all this?  Was it to bore you?  Hopefully not.  I told you all this to show you that there are a lot of components that make up a good multivitamin (in case you’re confused, I’m referring to multivitamin and supplement as the same thing.)  Some “ace” these components, but many don’t.  In fact, the sad thing is that the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for nutrients were first created to serve as levels to avoid deficiencies.  Even today, after the U.S. and Canada have revised the recommendations, they still fail to meet the proper intakes for promoting “optimal” health. ² The good news is the U.S. is making some good strides in making supplements better.  A proposed rule would require a lot more regulation of supplement companies because right now, they’re regulated as much as food (which isn’t very much).  Because they aren’t regulated like pharmaceutical drugs, companies have gotten away with claiming one thing on their labels but containing a totally different thing in their supplements. ² Whenever you can find supplement companies that are registered with the FDA as pharmaceutical manufacturers or meet or exceed U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) standards, that’s a good indicator that they’re a reliable company.  Companies can follow either food standards or pharmaceutical standards; pharmaceutical standards are obviously a lot stricter and more reliable for the consumer. ¹

Okay, so it’s time to share with you the results of the study.  The rating system for this study was on a scale of 0 to 100%.  Unbelievably, a score of 80% or above is considered great, and less than 0.8% of the 1000+ supplements met this!  The top 4 supplement companies (in order) were found to be USANA Health Sciences, Douglas Laboratories, Vitamin Research Products, and Source Naturals.  USANA’s Essentials supplement scored a 96.1%, Douglas Laboratories’ Ultra Preventive X scored a 95.4%, Vitamin Research Products’ Extend Plus scored a 93.1%, and Source Naturals’ Life Force Multiple scored a 92.8%; Source Natural also has a supplement called Élan Vitàl that scored a 91.8%. ¹

As far as some of the more common supplements, EAS’s Multi-Blend scored a 62.1%.  GNC’s Preventron scored a 9.9%.  Wal-mart’s Equate Complete scored a 4.9%.  Kroger’s Advanced Formula Complete scored a 4.9%.  Safeway Select’s Super Men’s Multivitamin scored an 18.0% (women’s was 28.2%).  The One Daily Active multivitamin from Sav-On Osco by Albertson’s scored a 4.9%.  Nature’s Made’s Essential Mega scored a 17.9%, Nutrilite’s Double X scored a 30.0%, Rite Aid’s Whole Source scored a 6.2%, TwinLab’s Daily One without Iron scored a 26.4%, Vitamin World’s Mega Vita Min for Women scored a 19.4%, and Walgreens’ Ultra Choice Premium Men scored a 21.1% (women’s was 22.1%).  Finally, and probably the most shocking of all, One A Day Active scored a 5.1% and Centrum Performance scored a 5.2%!  (Centrum Silver was 4.7% and Centrum was 3.2%!) ¹

This just goes to show that just because a supplement is well-known doesn’t mean that it’s good.  According to Lyle MacWilliam and his team of experts, here’s what to look for in a multivitamin:

1.    5000 IU of vitamin A [IU (International Unit) is a standard of measurement that accounts for differences in natural versus synthetic form effectiveness; the natural form is better, so it requires less to be put into the supplement to achieve the desired effectiveness/potency, but no matter how much of the vitamin is in the supplement, it should still contain a potency of 5000 IU.]
2.    400 IU of vitamin D
3.    180 µg (micrograms) of vitamin K
4.    250 µg of biotin
5.    600 µg of folic acid
6.    55 mg (milligrams) of vitamin B₁ (thiamin)
7.    45 mg of vitamin B₂ (riboflavin)
8.    28 mg of vitamin B₃ (niacin)
9.    60 mg of vitamin B₃ [niacinamide (vitamin B₃ is made up of both components)]
10. 75 mg of vitamin B₅ (pantothenic acid)
11. 63 mg of vitamin B₆ (pyridoxine)
12. 175 µg of vitamin B₁₂ (cobalamin)
13. 60 mg of coenzyme Q10
14. 100 mg of alpha-lipoic acid
15. 1500 mg of vitamin C
16. 600 IU of vitamin E (alpha tocopherol)
17. 200 mg of vitamin E (gamma/mixed)
18. 540 mg of bioflavonoids (mixed)
19. 100 mg of procyanidolic oligomers (PCOs)
20. 25 mg of phenolic compounds
21. 13750 IU of beta-carotene
22. 5625 IU of carotenoids (mixed)
23. 5 mg of lutein/zeaxanthin
24. 15 mg of lycopene
25. 56 mg of n-acetyl-l-cysteine
26. 500 mg of acetyl-l-carnitine
27. 500 mg of carnitine
28. 94 mg of choline
29. 125 mg of inositol
30. 350 mg of lecithin
31. 3125 mg of alpha-linolenic acid
32. 1141 mg of omega-3 fish oil (EPA/DHA)
33. 3 mg of boron
34. 800 mg of calcium
35. 238 µg of chromium
36. 2 mg of copper
37. 100 µg of iodine
38. 280 mg of magnesium
39. 7 mg of manganese
40. 65 µg of molybdenum
41. 215 mg of potassium
42. 150 µg of selenium
43. 8 mg of silicon
44. 75 µg of vanadium
45. 25 mg of zinc
46. 350 mg of trimethylglycine (TMG/betaine)
47. 1000 mg of carnosine
48. Iron isn’t recommended

Wow!  There’s a long list.  Of course, there are special cases where your doctor may have told you to avoid a certain vitamin or mineral, so before taking any supplement, check with your doctor or pharmacist to be safe. 

Remember, there’s so much controversy going on in the world of supplements right now, so it’s always good to do your own research before choosing a multivitamin or other type of supplement; call the company or email them.  If they’re unwilling to release their nutritional information and manufacturing practices, it’s probably a good idea to stay away from them.  Until supplement companies become regulated like pharmaceutical companies, the burden of determining which supplement is legitimate and effective rests on us.   

References:

¹ MacWilliam, L. (2003). Comparative guide to nutritional supplements: a compendium of products available in the United States and Canada, (3^rd ed). Vernon, British Columbia, Canada: Northern Dimensions Publishing.

² MacWilliam, L. (2007). Nutrisearch comparative guide to nutritional supplements: a compendium of products available in the United States and Canada, (4^th ed). Vernon, British Columbia, Canada: Northern Dimensions Publishing.

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Relief for headache sufferers

For those of you that suffer from headaches, I found a cool video at FOXNews.com.  It features a registered dietitian who gives some suggestions on what foods to include in your eating plan to help prevent headaches.  She also tells you what foods to avoid because certain foods can actually trigger headaches.  One food that she really didn't talk about was candy (if you can call it food).  Have you ever eaten a whole package of Starbursts or Skittles?  Well, what happens?  At least for me, when I do that, I always end up getting a headache that lasts for hours.  All that sugar sends my body into craziness.  So I would say, another reason to avoid eating a lot of candy is because you feel like a pile of mush with a headache after eating it.

I was talking with someone at a health fair yesterday about their booth; they had a booth that sold fruits and veggies in pill form.  I found it interesting because the man I was talking with had just lost 40 pounds and was working on losing 60 more.  He was telling me that he used to eat all kinds of junk, and he knew of a friend who started taking these fruit and veggie supplements.  He said once the friend starting taking the supplements, she stopped craving the junk she used to eat.  This made him decide to try the supplements too, and you know what?  He said now his cravings are no longer junk food-oriented, but instead, he craves broccoli and some other veggie.  He credits his weight loss to this simple shift in his cravings, and it got me thinking.  When someone first starts a weight loss program, it can be very overwhelming to hear they need to get off their cravings of junk food like the candy I was talking about.  The ironic thing is, the body gets used to what you put in it.  If you put junk food in it, it's going to crave junk food.  If you start to make the switch toward healthier options, it's going to start craving them instead.  It might seem like an impossible task to start eating healthier, but for those that really want to, and I mean really want to, not because your trainer told you to or because your family thinks you need to, but because YOU want to, you can succeed in training your body to want healthier food instead.  It's a process, and you have to go into it with that mindset.  Don't expect to change overnight.  Expect to change over the course of weeks, and maybe even months.

Anyway, back to this headache video.  One area she talks about is eating 5 times a day.  I always hammer this into my clients' heads because of the whole weight management/weight loss side to it, but I've also experienced the headache side to it.  There have been days when my schedule is unbelievably crazy; I haven't eaten for awhile, and I don't have anything with me to snack on.  I hate those days because it's almost guaranteed that a headache will pester me all day long until I eat again.  I would say out of all her advice, that's the biggest one for me. 

Hope you find the video helpful like I did.

Cool video at FOXNews.com.

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You're stuck with your fat cells

Scientists have found that during our adolescent years, our body determine how many fat cells we'll have for the rest of our life.  As we start to put on more fat, these cells start to get bigger, but the number of fat cells in our body stays the same. 

This can help explain why it's so hard for some to lose weight and keep it off because those pesky fat cells stay with you your whole life. 

Even though it can be hard to keep the weight off, it can also help put into perspective how our lifestyle habits as adults are a lot of times worse than when we were adolescents.  For some, during adolescent years, it wasn't as hard to keep the weight off, but as we age, it gets harder because we start eating more and moving less.  On top of that, it just goes to show that just because you lose weight doesn't mean you're home free.  You can't lose the body fat and then go back to your old lifestyle habits.  Maintaining a healthy weight is a lifelong achievement, and it can only be done by developing a lifestyle that consists of healthy habits for the rest of your life because just as scientists have found, you can't hide from growing fat cells, you can only fight them off.

Six movements you must use in your workouts

Have you ever walked into a gym and said to yourself, “Okay, now what?”  Well guess what my friends; here are the top movements you need to incorporate into your exercise program to get the most out of your workouts.

They’re called primal patterns or prime movements.  These movements are what make up the basic movements of the body, and because of this, they incorporate multiple muscles and multiple joints when performing each exercise.  In order to get the most success out of your program, it’s a must to work as many muscles as you can with each exercise.  Since muscles are connected to joints, the more muscles you work, the more joints you also work.  These are called compound exercises, exercises that incorporate multiple muscle and 2 or more joints.

It doesn’t matter what your goal is, the more muscles you can work with each exercise, the faster the results.  From a weight loss standpoint, since muscle burns off calories, the more muscles used in an exercise, the more calories burned off, and the faster you’ll lose weight.  The more muscles incorporated into a muscle-building exercise, the faster the body will gain extra muscle.  In order to run fast, you don’t tiptoe along; you incorporate your arms, your core, all kinds of muscles in order to run faster.  Every successful program relates to these six prime movements.

So here they are.

1.    Push – Movements such as pushups and chest presses are great exercises that incorporate multiple muscle groups.
2.    Pull – Movements such as rows are another great multiple-muscle exercise.
3.    Squat – The granddaddy of them all.  Every exercise program has to incorporate squats into it because it works so many muscles.
4.    Lunge – Another great multiple-muscle movement, and just like the squat, it works the legs, the biggest muscles in your body.  By working the biggest muscles in your body, you’ll increase the rate of achieving results such as burning off more calories for fat loss and releasing more growth hormones for putting on muscle (assuming that you’re taking the necessary steps to try to put on muscle).
5.    Bend – Exercises that utilize bending at the hips are great for strengthening muscles such as the hamstrings and low back.
6.    Twist – These movements cover the widest range of motion for your body, and because of this, they’re essential for improving balance, stability, core strength, etc.  Twisting exercises are the most effective exercises for the core, so when you’re talking about developing a “six-pack”, twisting movements are a “must have” in your exercise program.

Now granted, there’s definitely a level of progression for each one of these movements; that’s why it’s good to consult with a fitness professional.  For example, if you’re unable to do a squat with proper form, then it’s not smart for you to progress to attempting a single-leg squat.  Consulting with a qualified fitness professional will help you determine how to progress with each one of these movements.

Instead of going through a workout that is filled with simple exercise that isolate one muscle in the body, for example, biceps curls and crunches, make it a point to structure your workout with these prime movements.  By creating a program around these key movements, not only will it be more interesting, you’ll also be more efficient with your workouts and achieve your results in a lot less time.

We're in the news!

This is some pretty exciting stuff! I had the chance to sit down with 10TV, Columbus, Ohio's CBS affiliate, and share with them how Your Live Trainers helps you achieve your fitness goals.  The interview went pretty well, but I was plenty nervous before it started.  Once it started, though, it wasn't too bad; it was just like talking to the camera during a live training session.  I really felt that this interview gave  me the opportunity to explain how our whole concept works.  I hope you like watching it.

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High gas prices are great!

Call me crazy, but the high prices projected for this summer may have a positive twist to them.  Yeah, it definitely is a bummer that we have to empty our wallets every time we go to fill up, but guess what, we don't have to fill up as much if we don't want to.

While there are many negatives to high gas prices, I actually see a positive to them.  I think the prices will force our country to become more active and healthier; it actually is already starting to happen.  Instead of driving everywhere, people are starting to ride their bikes more and walk and even run more.  On top of that, restaurants are starting to lose customers due to people not wanting to drive to a place to eat and spend extra money on pricey meals.  As a result, less people are consuming the enormous amount of calories that come with eating out.  Put it to the test.  I bet if you go into a restaurant right now, there will be less people in it compared to what there normally is. 

Instead of driving to a friend's house around the block, why not just walk there?  Not only will you get the health benefits of being more active, you'll also get the financial benefits of using less gas.  Instead of driving to the movies, why not go outside and be active in the backyard or ride your bike in the local park?

So I say yeah to higher gas prices ... well maybe not, but you get my point. 

You know what else?  High gas prices could be good for Your Live Trainers too because instead of using gas to drive to the gym, you can keep that gas in your tank by staying at home and getting a great workout with our live and interactive, online fitness trainers. ... Just a thought.  Here's to a healthier America!

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Focus: one quality that’s a must have in your workout program

When I see people working out, sometimes I can’t believe what I see.  I have to give them a round of applause for meaning well with getting their workouts in for the day, but to be honest, sometimes their workouts really aren’t doing much.  I sometimes have to fight the urge to run up to some people and ask them why they’re doing what they’re doing.  Consider this to be my attempt at running up to them and getting them on the right path.

Focus, it’s something every successful exerciser has.  Too many times I see exercisers turn their workouts into social hours.  For some, going to the gym or exercise class is nothing more than another way to stay in touch with friends.  This is why I feel some of the gyms and exercise classes out there really aren’t all that effective.  My feeling is, why not spend the money on something else if you’re going to spend $50 a month on sitting on a machine and talking for 5 minutes about how your weekend went?

When I used to work at a local gym, sometime the other trainers and I would stand in amazement over members’ exercise routines.  We’d see a woman attempting to exercise on an elliptical while talking on the phone, or we’d see a guy perform an exercise and then walk around for 5 minutes checking himself out in the mirror.  Here’s my first bit of advice, if you’re able to talk on a cell phone while you’re “exercising”, that’s a pretty good indicator that you’re not getting much of a workout.  My second bit of advice, if you’re more worried about impressing your reflection, then you’re cheating yourself out of even better results.

Too many times, exercisers dread working out because they feel it requires hours a day to achieve the body or health they’ve always wanted.  Well here’s the secret … it doesn’t.  For some, if they’d just make their workouts more intense, they’d achieve success.  Some people need help figuring out what to do for a great workout, but some already know what it takes to have a great workout; they just don’t do the workout intensely enough.

One thing that gets on my nerves is when others come up to me during my workouts and try to start up a conversation; it’s not because I’m a very unfriendly person, it’s because when I’m in the middle of a workout, I’m a very focused person.  I like to start my workout, get everything in, and be done with it.  Plus, the less time I spend talking with others, the more intense my workout is, and the faster I’ll get results.

Ask anyone on my college track and field team, I wasn’t the greatest person to be around during track meets.  After meets, I’d laugh and goof off with the best of ‘em, but during meets, I was in a zone all meet long until my events were over.  Like I said, it wasn’t because I was a scrooge; it was because I wanted to keep my mind and body revved up to perform in my events.

If you take the time to stop and talk to others during your workout, not only are you cheating yourself out of results, you’re also creating a dangerous situation with your workout.  Taking too much time in between exercises can cause your body to cool down too much to where you’re not able to maintain the intensity that you had at the start of your workout.  On top of that, if you allow your body to cool down too much and then jump right back into an intense exercise, you can risk issues such as tearing a muscle or blacking out.

To separate yourself from the exercisers who slave away with working out and be successful with getting the results you want, make it a goal that when you start your workout, you’ll stay on task until you’re done with it.  If you can keep the intensity up for your entire workout, instead of continually taking breaks to chitchat, not only will you get better success from your workout, you’ll also be able to spend less time exercising.

Stay focused.  If you think that working out with friends is going to be a distraction, then don’t exercise with them; you’ll have plenty of other times to talk with them.  If you think you’re going to have the urge to talk on your cell phone while working out, then don’t have your cell phone with you when you exercise.  Your workout time is your time; don’t cheat yourself out of time that’s used to better yourself.

By staying focused, you can turn an hour workout into a quality, 30 to 45-minute workout.  That means faster results and less time doing something you dread.  So keep the intensity up, the talk time down, and your focus to succeed will help lead you to reaching your fitness goals.