Are you responsible?

Later this week I’m heading down south for my honeymoon, I wanted to go on a few different supplements to decrease my chances of picking up any critters while I’m down there (a very frequent occurrence for people traveling).   One of the supplements I went on was a pro-biotic. I had some left over from about a year and a half back when I went to a nutritionist to get his help with a few different issues I was having. 

After being on the pro-biotic for a few days I developed a canker sore (typically I only get these when I come into contact with anything with gluten or wheat).   Thanks to my very intelligent wife’s suggestion I read the ingredients list and it had both wheat and soy in it.  After going off the supplement for 4 days the canker is almost gone. 

What does any of this have to do with responsibility?  Well the nutritionist had done food intolerance testing on me and knew I was VERY intolerant to wheat and soy, yet he sold me a supplement that contained both.   I’m a saying he was a bad at his job, no, defiantly not, he made a mistake.  But the important lesson to learn from this is to always be responsible for what you’re putting into your body.  I should have been reading the label of everything I put into my body, even if some other professional was saying it was safe for me I should have made sure that is was.  In reality this was a much bigger mistake on my part than his. 

We have so much information at our finger tips it’s very easy to do research yourself and get the information you need to make your own decisions about our health.  Don’t just follow the latest diet, take the latest shake or supplement, or start taking a medication without educating yourself first.  Actually research and see if what someone is saying actually makes sense and if it is right for you. 

Most of the stuff that health professionals are selling is complete garbage, so you have to be careful to protect your own health and not waste your hard earned cash on products that aren’t going to improve your health.  Always take responsibility for your own health and don’t take anyone’s word as the gospel truth.   For more free information check out our websites free resource section at  http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/resources.html. 

Do nothing to help lose weight??

                Do you take time for yourself?  Actually stop and think about it.  How many times in an average week do you stop and take time to be alone with yourself? First I want to explain what I mean when I say time to yourself.  I mean sitting, lying, or standing and doing nothing, I mean literally nothing.

                Almost everyone these days is over stressed, I would say there is a good chance that you thought to yourself in the last paragraph “I don’t have time to do nothing.” That is a very common response I usually hear.  And I promise you if you don’t have time to do nothing, than you defiantly need to make some time to do nothing.  A lot of clients who come to see me have too much going on in their lives and it leads to them failing to reach their fat loss goals.  Right now are you failing to reach your goals?

I want you to take just 5 minutes every day for the next 2 weeks and spend it doing nothing.  I mean literally nothing, sit and try to clear your mind.  You are almost guaranteed to find this incredibly challenging at first.  You will find your mind wandering and wanting to think about a million things.  And that’s okay, just relax and bring your attention back to feeling air come in and out of your body.

                Here are a few things you can do to try to make it easier to be present and do nothing in the moment.  One technique is to focus on your breathing, really pay attention to all of the sensations as the air enters in through your nose and leaves out through your nose.  When the mind wanders bring it back to the breath.  Another technique is to focus on breathing, but hum out loud as you breathe out.  If your mind wanders bring it back to the vibration you feel as you hum during your exhalation. 

                It will take a little while to improve.  Don’t be too hard on yourself, it will come with practice.  I can relate to having a very busy schedule, running my own business and having a 18 month old son to think about.  But take at least 5 minutes every day to start and you will notice your stress levels begging to decrease if you keep up with it.  Slowly try to increase it to 20-30 minutes every day if you can.  It will be well worth cutting out Grey’s Anatomy or CIS from your nightly schedule to get some “you” time. 

Have you accomplished your New Years resolution yet?

The end of the year is fast approaching.  We are almost done November, so I want you to take a second and think about the goals that you had set for yourself this year.  Can you even remember your New Years resolutions?  If you do remember them have you accomplished all of them or you’re on pace to accomplish them by the end of the year?  If you’ve forgotten them you’re not alone, most people do.  If you’re not on pace to accomplish your goal actually take a second and think about why you haven’t been putting in the work to accomplish your goals.  Do you have your goal written down and do you read it at least twice every day?

                If your answer is no to either of these this is a great first step.  Write down what your fitness or health goal is for the rest of 2010.  You only have one month left so it doesn’t have to be a huge goal, it can be something simple that will lead into a larger goal in 2011.  Put your goal somewhere you will read it every day, ie. On your fridge or on your night stand.  Personally I put my goals on my nightstand and on my desk at work.  I read them every morning and every night before bed.  This will help to keep it in the front of your mind which is a big step in starting to actually accomplish your goals.  For more free information to help you on your way to accomplishing your goals check out other free resources on our website http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/resources.html. 

Do you have enough support?

                Have you ever stopped to look at your support system you have surrounded yourself with?  Most people haven’t.  It can be a very important factor in accomplishing your goals.  Look at the 5 people you spend the most time with (friends, coworkers, spouse, children, family).  Actually think about the 5 people closest to you in your life.  Are these the type of people who are supporting you and helping you move towards your goal or are they putting barriers in your way?  Most people say “yes, it’s great” without actually stopping and thinking about this question.  Make sure to actually stop and think about your support system.

                I’ll give an example to help illustrate what I’m trying to say.  I have a client who’s trying to lose weight and her partner loves eating food at the local sports bar.  When she’s trying to eat healthy and suggests they make something his response often times is along the lines of “come on, let’s go have some pizza or some wings, I really want to go to the bar, let’s go.”  Now compare that to another client of mine she was telling me a story the other day about how she really wanted to eat something that would be taking her a step away from her goal, and her husband’s response was lets go for a walk instead, we wanted to get outside tonight anyways.   By the time she got back to the house her desire to have that food had passed.   

                Think about being in these two situations it would be much harder in the first scenario to stick to healthy eating habits if you have someone putting this type of influence on you all the time compared to the second scenario.  When you actually look at the support system around you and the five people closet what does it look like? 

If you find you have 1 or more people within your life that are not helping you head in the right direction I would strongly encourage you to have a conversation with them and talk to them about what you’re trying to accomplish, why it’s important to you to accomplish that goal and finally how much their help would mean to you.  Usually the people in our support system don’t mean to be holding you back, they don’t realize what it is they’re doing and how much it means to you to reach your goal.  If you’re struggling to lose weight download a free copy of “P.E.A.K. Fat Loss” a 6 month guide that walks you through step by step how to make a total transformation. 

http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/freefatlossmanual.html

Are exercise classes doing you more harm than good?

                Many people are doing large group exercise classes;  a lot of these classes are focused on lifting weights or other high impact exercise.  I have had a number of clients come to me who do “body pump” or similar classes and they have resulted in very serious injuries.  I’ve even had instructors come to me over the years because they’ve hurt themselves from teaching these types of classes.  Yes that’s right the people who are suppose to be teaching you proper technique often do get hurt from doing the routines they’re teaching......think about that for a second.  Are you having back, knee, or shoulder pain or you just don’t feel great after completing these classes?

                When I used to work in a large chain fitness club I would watch people who participated in these classes and I would see them using horrible technique, without being corrected.  Seeing them exercise like this would actually make me cringe because the chance of injury was almost inevitable.  Even a lot of the instructors were using the same bad technique while instructing the participants. 

                Another problem with these classes is that many participants feel the need to exercise at an intensity that they’re not ready for because they feel uncomfortable in that setting and don’t want to look out of shape.  This feeling of social pressure can cause many to push themselves beyond their bodies capacity, which can lead to injury or to be sore for a days or even a week.  Have you ever felt sore for days after a class? This is actually a really bad sign.

                And you could actually be creating a hormonal response that is stopping you from losing weight.  A person should only do intense exercise for shorter bouts of time, I’m talking 10-40 minutes.  Most people will respond best in my experience to intense exercise in the 10-30 minute range unless they have a high level of conditioning.  Most of these classes last an hour, and have people going all out as hard as they can for almost the entire class.  What happens is once you have exercise for too prolonged a period of time for what your body is ready to handle it causes you to release glucocorticoid hormones, yeah big words make me feel really smart ;).  All you need to know is that these hormones actually signal your body to store fat.......yes that’s right when you exercise at too high of intensity for too long a period of time you actually wind up storing fat.  This is why so many people who participate in these classes see little to no change in their body’s shape.

                If you’re struggling to lose weight check out our free resource section of our website http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/resources.html to learn all about what you need to do to start getting serious fat loss results or download a free copy of our manual “P.E.A.K. Fat Loss” at http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/freefatlossmanual.html. 

Are your goals possible or are they realistic?

I have people come to me all the time with very un-realistic goals.  When you’re setting a goal do you look at what’s the most weight loss I can possibly lose in the next 6 months or year?  And you set this as your goal?  It is important to differentiate between what is possible and what is realistic for you. 

The other day I had a client who wanted to lose 30 pounds in 6 months and she was about 60 pounds overweight.  This is defiantly possible; I have had clients reach similar goals.  However when you look at how willing she was to change her current lifestyle and nutrition her goal wasn’t realistic for her.  When I started discussing taking out all processed food, getting to bed by 10:30 and several other changes she would have to make, she said “I don’t know if I can do all that.”  She wasn’t ready to make the sacrifices and changes necessary to accomplish her goal of losing 30 pounds.  People often set goals that are possible but not realistic given their readiness to change....it’s a serious problem that prevents people from permanent weight loss.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for setting challenging goals, but it is important that you actually look into the “how” behind accomplishing your goal.  Talk to professionals and ask them what you would have to do to accomplish your goals.  Then actually take a second and look at everything you have to do and ask yourself am I ready to actually make all of these changes?  Do I really feel confident that I can make all of these changes?  If you start to think things “well it’s possible” or “I might be able to do that.”  Stop and ask yourself if you’ve gone through this exact same situation before.  I bet you have. 

You’re not alone most people that set fat loss goals, do the exact same thing over and over again.  They come up with these incredibly difficult goals, but don’t plan out everything they have to do and come up with plan that they can implement into their lifestyle long term.  This usually leads to one of two possible scenarios.  They set out, lose a bit of weight and get discouraged and stop their “diet.”  OR they hit their very difficult goal, but they’ve been feeling so deprived they start to eat all the food they’ve been missing out on and gain all the weight back. 

What would make more logical sense to you, coming up with a goal of losing 10-20 pounds over the next 6 months and not feeling deprived, knowing you’re going to keep that weight off long term and being on track to continue to lose weight after you hit that goal?  Or making a lot of difficult changes very quickly, counting calories, depriving yourself and losing 30-40 pounds over the next 6 months and gaining it all back again in the next year?  All the people that I have come into contact with over the years that have been successful at maintaining their weight loss make slow, steady, consistent changes to their lifestyle instead of a complete overhaul.

You can be very successful with your weight loss goals, you just have to make sure that they match your willingness to change.  If you need help losing weight download a free copy of “P.E.A.K. Fat  Loss: A 6 month guide to transforming your life, health and body.”  It will walk you through every single change you have to make on your weight loss journey and it will give you the tools for you to be able to not only reach your fat loss goal, but learn how to keep it off.  And it’s free.....not catch......no sales pitch.  A free resource that will get you success if you follow all the steps. 

http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/freefatlossmanual.html

What toxins are sneaking into your body?

I talk about reading labels of all the food you eat.  And hopefully you’re doing that.  But are you reading the labels of all your skin products?  Anything you’re putting onto your skin gets absorbed into your body within seconds.  This is one place where a lot of people are getting a large amount of toxins in their body.  If you’re finding yourself feeling tired frequently, irritable, problems with bowel movements, digestion, frequently sick or having headaches than you are probably having too many toxins coming into your body.  These can be signs that your body is not properly detoxifying.  You want to start limiting your toxin exposure.  Start reading the labels of your different soaps, shampoos, hair products, make up, etc.

Is it really going to make that much of a difference?  I’ll use an anecdotal story to illustrate how toxic some of these products can be.  I had acne on my scalp under my hair for years and figure it was just something I was destined to have.  When I switched from a typical hair gel product to an all natural product I had the acne disappear within a week.  Start looking at everything you put on your skin and see all the ingredients you don’t recognize. 

Trust your instincts

I sat down the other day with a woman who was interested in personal training.  She was already seeing a personal trainer, but was looking for something different.  She was telling me how she was always sore for prolonged periods of time after workouts and often didn’t feel ready for her next workout.  She also mentioned how her trainer would make her do 10 more reps after she could no longer perform any more reps on her own. 

 She asked me “this is right is it? I shouldn’t be feeling like this should I?”  The thing is she already knew the answer she just wanted confirmation from me.  In case you’re in a similar situation, if you are working with any kind of professional doesn’t matter what type and your gut is telling you something is off and it doesn’t feel quite right.....it’s probably not.  Trust your gut! 

For more free information check out our "Free Resource" section on our website http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/resources.html. 

What type of labels do you have?

Do you actually read the label on every single food or beverage you put into your body?  A lot of people out there don’t.   If you’re not doing this, start doing it right now, start today!  Grab something out of a box you have in your lunch or in your cupboards if you’re at home.  Actually take a second and go grab a couple items.  Read the ingredients label and see how many of the ingredients you don’t even recognize.  This is a major problem with our society right now, most of the food we eat isn’t real food.  It’s highly processed. 

Even a lot of food that is “health” food, is highly processed.  Most of the bread they tell you is great for you, or cereal that is a must have for health, or even the dairy you “have” to eat is highly processed.  If you’re eating food that has ingredients you don’t recognize you will want to ask yourself the following questions: 

·         Am I overweight?

·         Am I feeling tired most of the time?

·         Can I not picture getting through my day without having caffeine?

·         Do I have large fluctuations in energy?

·         Do I get a cold or flu more than once a year?

·         Do I suffer from a hormone imbalance?

·         Do I have problems losing weight around my stomach and hips?

·         Do I have dark circles under my eyes 3 or more times every week?

If you’re eating processed food frequently it can cause a lot of these problems.  Start reading every label of all the foods you eat and see how many contain ingredients you don’t recognize. If you start eliminating all these foods and replacing them with real food (that don’t have ingredients lists) you’ll be amazed after a 3-6 weeks how much better you will look and feel.  Give it a try!

Action....not just a movie genre

A big key to whether you’re going to reach a goal you set or not is action.  Are you ready to actually take action and move towards your goal every single day until you reach your goal?  Most people if they set a goal will talk about how they really want it, and then they begin on the road to trying to accomplish their goal.  After a few days, weeks or months go by, they forget all about their new goal.  A classic example of this is people making a New Year’s resolutions.  Most people make them, but don’t actually accomplish their resolution for the year.  The reason why most fail is that they don’t take immediate action and continue to take action on their goals daily. Even if it is a small action that helps you move towards your goal take action every single day.

The first step is to come up with a plan of everything you will have to do to accomplish your goals.  Write all of these down.  Now come up with a plan of when and how you will implement all of these different steps.  Then continue to take action on your plan every single day.  Read your plan every morning and every night.  This will help to keep you on track, and keep you taking action towards your goals.  A lot of people will read this and think “hmmm” interesting, and won’t actually do this exercise.  These will be the same people that will fail to reach their goal.  You don’t want to be one of those people so take action and actually do this exercise.  Remember they don’t have to be large actions they can be very small and simple.  The important thing is to keep momentum. 

Is your cardio training getting you little or no weight loss?

I can’t tell you how many potential clients come and tell me they “I don’t know where I’m going wrong, but I can’t seem to lose weight.”  They say they are barely losing any weight and that they are doing cardio 4-6 times per week, some even 7 days per week!  And they don’t understand why they can’t hit their fat loss goals.  Does this sound just like you?

You probably see this type of training on TV shows, and that’s what the mass media keeps telling you people do this to lose weight.  Well unfortunately long and slow cardio workouts are not ideal for fat loss, and often times in my experience have even caused clients to lose ZERO weight!  If you’re not getting results and you’re working outing out often this could be happening to you.
One of the main reasons longer-slower cardio in the fat burning zone doesn’t help you lose weight is that it actually make your body more efficient at burning and storing fat.  Believe it or not, it’s true.  The main energy source you use during long cardio sessions in the “fat burning zone” is not surprisingly fat......which is why most people think it’s good for burning fat.  However, after the first few weeks your body adapts to this and actually becomes very efficient at storing and burning fat. 

In a 2007 study it was shown that a group who performed on average 6 hours of long slow cardio per week for an entire year lost an average of only 3.5 pounds for the entire year! That’s less than 1/3 of a pound per month.  For a total of 312 hours of cardio training through the entire year they only lost 3.5 pounds on average.  That’s a whole lot of work for almost no fat loss if you ask me.

At this point you’re probably wondering what type of cardio you should be doing to lose fat ideally.  I have a great article on this on my website to learn how to burn the most fat possible from your cardio workouts check it out at http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/articlecardio2.html. 

Are you eating right for YOUR metabolism?

The last two posts I talked about what I consider carb foods and what I consider protein-fat foods.  You might be wondering how you actually put these together and know how much of each to eat.  Well every single person is different, we all have different metabolisms.  What works for your best friend or your mom isn’t going to necessarily work for you. 

How can you figure out how much to eat? You listen to the signals your body is sending you.  If you have a plate of food pay attention to how much of the plate is covered with food that falls into our protein-fat category compared to carb category of foods.  About an hour and a half after you’ve finished eating pay attention to how you feel.   There are some typical reactions that are associated with eating too much carb foods compared to protein-fat food and vice-versa. 

Signals typically associated with too much carb foods compared to protein-fat foods about an hour and half after eating

·         Quick energy drop in energy 1-2 hours after eating

·         Tired but wired feeling

·         Headache

·         Don’t feel satisfied, hungry again quickly

Signals typically associated with too many protein-fat foods compared to carb foods about an hour and half after eating

·         Lethargic or sleepy

·         Heavy gut

·         Feel full, but still hungry

I want to stress that everyone has different reactions.  These are just more typical reactions.  Your next step if you get a reaction is at your next meal to change the ratio of carb to protein-fat foods on your plate.  And again pay attention to your reaction an hour and a half after you eat.  There are three options your reactions get: better, worse or the same.

 If your reactions get better you’re heading in the right direction continue to make changes until you have great reactions an hour and half after you eat. 

If your reactions get worse, you went in the wrong direction.  Go in the opposite direction and see how you react.

If the reaction stays the same make a larger adjustment in the ratio and see how you react.

If you can’t seem to get good reactions after you eat no matter what you do with the ratio of carb to protein-fat food it could be a digestion issues which must be addressed.  Hope that helps, if you have any questions please email me at info@peak-personaltraining.com.

Proteins and fats made simple

I watch television shows from time to time that talk about nutrition and diets.  And I’m sure you must be confused about what to eat and what to avoid.  Everyone is telling you something different.  Well I like to keep things simple......probably because I’m a pretty simple guy.  I like to break food down into three categories: processed food, carb food, or protein/fat food.  In the last post I put up I defined what three types of food fell into the carb food category.  Today I’ll go through and you’ll understand which foods fall under the protein/fat food category.

It’s pretty simple, the following foods are protein/fat foods:

• Animal foods (meat, fish, dairy, eggs, butter)
• Nuts/seed
• Oils (olive oil, coconut oil, etc)
• Legumes

Not too hard to remember right.  Take a look at what you eat and see how often do you consume a protein/fat food?  Over the next couple days actually take note of all the times you eat, how many times does a meal contain a protein/fat food?  On the next post I will go through and explain to you how to combine carb foods with protein/fat foods to help you feel satisfied after you eat.