Fab Fit Squad

Admit we all look down at our tummy’s and wish they are a little flatter, more

define or hell just wasn’t a muffin top! Here a four ways to lose that muffin top.

1. Add protein to every meal. I always ask my clients to write their food journals and the one element that is missing from most meals is protein. This is help you repair your muscles after working out and helps you to feel full longer.
2. Log your meals. This helps you really visualize what your are putting in your mouth. I mean you log EVERYTHING the Peppermint Patty  you grabbed from the receptionist desk. Want me to review? Just send 3 days and I’ll give you feedback.
3. Avoid artificial sweeteners.Because they are “artificial” it’s sometimes hard for our bodies to process them. When your body can’t process it causes inflammation. Unfortunately you typically can’t control where the inflammation occurs, most times it will occur in your tummy. So its best to avoid foods high in sodium, carbonated beverages, and gum.
4. Fill up on veggies.  Veggies are low in calories and high in fiber. This combination helps you feel full longer. Be careful with broccoli it does cause a little bloating.

Here is a bonus — interval training — instead of just hoping on a piece of equipment and doing the same pace, try mixing it up with intervals.  Try this one.  Go hard for 30 sec and then rest for 30 sec try this for 30 minutes. After you try it leave me a comment about how you did.

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

These past few weeks, we may have been eating more than we typically do during the rest of the year. Come January 1st, many of will list losing weight as your primary New Year’s Resolution. So what do you do? You head to the gym and hit the cardio machines, take a few group exercise classes and maybe lift a few weights. The question that remains is what are you eating? Jack Lalanne is the godfather of fitness and his famous quote is~ Exercise is King, nutrition is Queen, put them together and you’ve got a kingdom. Most people forget to think about the food.  Once you get your nutrition in alignment you will find that workouts come a little easier and you fit into those skinny jeans just a little faster.

Over the next 5 weeks I going to give a number of challenges to help you kick off the new year with a bang!

This week I challenge you to keep a food journal! This food journal doesn’t have to be anything fancy. I use Fitday to track my food. They have a free online version as well as a paid version. You can also just write it down on a piece of paper. Why do you need to write down what you eat? When you write down what you eat, you get an up close and personal view what you are putting into your body. This exercise will be very eye opening. Care to share your journal with me? I’ll do FREE 15 min nutrition review.

PS — Feel like you need a little more help and want to do a cleanse to detox the holidays? Let me know my client Kjerstan did and lost 7  pounds in one week! Shoot me an email for me details.

Why is that during the holidays we make all sorts of excuses not to follow our diets and keep up with our workouts. I say — Why put off till tomorrow what you can do today!!!  Did you know that it takes 3500 extra calories to add one 1 pound? So.. during the holidays the average person gains 3-5 pounds because they are eating an extra calories and not moving enough.  How do you stop it? Here are 10 ways to stop the holiday bulge.

1. Watch your portion size. During this time of year it seems as though there is always food and drink around. We all seem to use this time of year as an excuse to eat and drink what we want! But all those little treats add up especially you aren’t exercising. Fill your plate with 50% veggies and lean cuts of protein. Before you attend a party have something to eat, don’t go on an empty stomach. (more…)

The average American will consume up to 3,000 calories during the Thanksgiving weekend. You don’t need to be a statistic. Here are a few weeks to beat the Thanksgiving weight gain. Here are few tips to help you stay on track.

• Instead of using the ladle to put gravy on your plate, using a soup spoon instead
• Hold the stuffing and you’ll save over 200 calories.
• Watch your sugar intake this means baked goods,  both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks
• If someone asks you to bring something how about you bring some nice healthy veggies — sauteed green beans
• Slow down and eat! Eating too fast doesn’t give your brain a chance to register that you are eating.
• Fulling full? Take dessert to go or have it late night — give yourself time to digest.

Don’t let this or any holiday be your “exception”. I’m not saying don’t enjoy yourself, but make sure you keeping your eye on your long term goal weight loss.  Having a big meal can easily derail your hard fought progress.

Need some more tips — check out my posts from the last few years.

You heard right we are clearing out the 2011 weight, we need to make room for the 2012 healthy life. We need to make room for the healthy person that is inside of us that we have been waiting to meet!

The time is now we only have a few weeks to make it happen. If this was the year you were going to loose weight, fit into those skinny jeans or look hot for the holidays in the little black dress. Your time is NOW. Join me in my year-end fat clearance. My client Kjerstan did this and loss 7 pounds in the first week!!!

I am doing a 30 day cleanse.  I’d love for you to join me. My goals for this cleanse are really simple jump start my 2012 fitness goals.

This isn’t your traditional starve yourself or drink a crazy combination of maple syrup and cayenne pepper. We aren’t going to dance around our backyards with a chicken and rabbit’s foot during a full moon. We are going to infuse our bodies with quality nutrients that ensure optimum health leading to safe weight loss.  During this cleanse we are going to get our bodies back into balance while releasing toxins and impurities that have accumulated in each of our bodies over time.

Why you should join me on this year end clearance? You’ll:

• jump start your 2012 resolutions and actually meet them
• increase your energy levels
• experience reduced cravings
• accelerate healthy weight loss
• improved digestion
• sleep better

I will be with you every step of the way going through the cleanse with you. When you join me on the year end fat clearance you will receive:

• step by step instructions
• daily motivational emails
• a grocery list
• unlimited support via email

Let’s get our weight loss goals off to a fast start. Join me for the year-end fat clearance. To join me on this challenge just shoot me an email and I’ll give you all the details.

The path to success is to take massive, determined action — Tony Robbins

So many people say the WANT to _______, you fill in the blank. Lose weight, build muscle, fit into their skinny jeans or the little black dress. And then you hit the wall of LACK! You know what I’m talking about, you can’t hit your goals, because you lack this, that and any other excuse you can drum. Below you will find 5 Lacks that you can turn around to make your weight loss/fitness goals a reality.

1. Motivation — you have a goal, but it doesn’t inspire you. It doesn’t cause you to take action.  Turn it around. What will inspire you to take action — is it telling someone? Is posting your goals all around the house? Is it taking your jeans up on your wall so you can see them each and every day? Whatever it is, needs to motivate you to take ACTION!!!
2. Accountability — you’ve set the goal, but you haven’t told anybody what it is, so if you don’t do it guess what it doesn’t matter because no one knows. Turn it around — TELL SOMEONE! You have no one to tell. Tell me — shoot me an email and I’ll hold you accountable. This accountability person is the person who holds your feet to fire and encourages when you get down or gives you the swift kick in the tush when you need it as well.
3. “Life” (you get busy) — these days are all “busy” running a million miles away, here is how you turn it around! Planning, planning and more planning.   Here’s how it works. Every week sit down and decide what you are going to do this week and put it in your calendar. I mean EVERYTHING — when will you prep your meals for the week, when will you workout.
4. Support — everyone around isn’t living a healthy lifestyle or will test your willpower. You can have just one can’t you? Well don’t let those crabs get you down. Turn it around by spending time with like minded folk. I know its hard to pull away from people, but its all about toward something versus remaining stagnat. To be successful at living a healthy life you need the support.
5. Results – you’ve gone down this path before and your results didn’t come as quickly as you would have hoped for. So.. you gave up, it wasn’t going to work any way, right. Wrong — most people give up right before they reach the tipping point the point at which change is about reach its boiling point.  I also want you to remember that change takes MASSIVE ACTION for MASSIVE RESULTS to be acheived. Are you ready to turn it around and take that MASSIVE ACTION.

I know that this is a total mind shift. You need to get your head moving from a place of what you lack into a place of what you don’t lack and how you can use those tools to push you toward your goals. One of the biggest ways I’ve been able to reach my goal is through the support of people, both online and offline. If you would like to brainstorm ways to turn aournd your fitness goals, shoot me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

PS — please join me for a pre-thanksgiving fast. I will be starting my 9 day cleanse on Tuesday, November 15 and breaking my fast on Thursday, November 24th Thanksgiving day. If you’d like to join me, please shoot me an email. My goal is to release 5 pounds from my body.

After October 2011

This past weekend I competed in my third Women’s Tri Fitness. This was a long term goal of mine and when I did it for the first time I got hooked! This weekend I went to Tampa and competed with my husband. It was so my fun to complete a goal with him, plus he is all fired up to do it again! I really get excited when I turn people on to fitness and they achieve their goals.

I tell you this, not to brag, but inspire you to take action. It’s been about 1 year since I had something that I had a goal that I was really jazzed about. When my husband asked if we could do it together, it was just the kick in the pants I needed.

Back in August I put on my game face and signed up.  For me one of the most challenging parts is the bench press. You need to bench press 60% of your bodyweight for 50 reps. So.. you must decide what you want to lift and how much weight you can reasonably lose.  I wanted to weigh 15 pounds lighter.

Before -- July 2011

So.. I had 8 weeks to drop 15 pounds! I had to work cut out for me and LITERALLY had to work my butt off!  No matter what happened at the show if I dropped those 15 pounds I WON! Guess what — on October 20th it happened I stepped on the scale and saw that I dropped 15 pounds I was so PSYCHED!! Plus I only had to lift 75 pounds!

I’m telling you my story because I want you know that I practice what I preach! I typically give myself 5-7 pounds over my goal weight, but this year I got a little off track and used this goal to bring me back.

If you are ready to serious about your weight loss, let me know!

I have 2 programs that I will be running to help you to Hold The Stuffing through the holidays.

•  Hold The Stuffing Fat Blaster
• 6 weeks
• 2 strength training programs
• 6 weekly emails
• (3) 15 min private phone calls
• 30 day Athlete’s pack
• Meal plan
• Grocery List
• For more information, shoot me an email.  This program is for the committed! If you are ready to end 2011 with a little less weight the time is now!

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan is arguably the one of the best basketball players in the world.  So you may ask yourself, what kind of problems could this guy have! Deciding who the pass the ball to, or just drive the ball to the basket himself.

If Michael Jordan had a challenge and stared them down, what are you doing about challenges.  Do you find a way around them, or do you just throw your hands up and decide that it wasn’t meant to be?

When of my favorite expressions I like to say whenever someone tells me they have a fitness challenge I say “It’s not like you’re climbing Mt. Everest in a bikini.” Most people laugh and really think their fitness challenge isn’t that huge.

Whenever I’m faced with a fitness challenge, here are a few things I do to help turn the mountain into a mole hill.

• Workout — this is my favorite, I come up with some of my best ideas this way.
• Talk it out with a friend — sometimes when you say it out loud your challenge(s) doesn’t seem that the bad.
• Break problems into smaller chunks — when you look at the problem as a whole it may seem like Mt. Everest, (sorry I have a thing about Everest) but then you sit down and break it down it, again it doesn’t seem that bad.

Tell me your fitness challenge. I’d love to help you solve it.

For years we’ve heard that we need to add GOOD fat into our diets, but do you really know what that means? Did you even know that there were different variety’s of good fats? Well let me break it down for you.

• Omega 3 — we get them mainly from cold water fishes — salmon, blue fish, sardines, herring. You get the picture. Yes supplementation can help, but you really need to get it from the source.  When consuming these fish be sure that you are eating the wild version of these fishes vs. farm raised.  Farm raised tend to have less Omega 3 and less protein.  Go figure. For my vegetarian friends you can find good sources in flax and walnuts.  Sadly the average American isn’t getting nearly enough of this good fat. Why do we need omega 3s? They help reduce inflammation in the body, assist with mental health as well as heart health.  Omega 3s are also used to produce hormones in the body. For a complete listing of food that contains Omega 3.
• Omega 6 — can be found very easily in the typical American diet.  The average American consumes 10x the recommended amount of this essential fatty acid. You can find omega 6s in soybean oil, nuts and seeds. These types of oils are found in 20% of all processed foods. Omega 6s are used to make hormones as well, but these types of fats tend to cause inflammation if not taken in the correct balance with omega 3. To help balance out your omega 6s & omega 3s aim to reduce your dependence on processed foods including margarine, bottled salad dressings and mayonnaise. Sorry ladies this DOES include olive oil.  For a complete listing of foods that contain Omega 6.
• Omega 9 — plays a smaller role than 3 and 6 and small quantities of this acid can be produced by the body. Because our bodies can produce this, when we are deficient in either omega 3 or omega 6 our body will produce extra Omega 9 to compensate.  Omega 9 does have it place, but its not as powerful as omega 3 or omega 6.  Omega 9 does play a role in reducing cholesterol in the body as well as improve our immune systems.  For those of you with small children, you’ll do what ever you can do improve your immune system.  For a list of food that contain Omega 9.

I hope you found this helpful. I’d love to hear what you think. Please leave me some comments below.

I’m really fortunate that the people who read my site have two things in common:

• a passion to lead a healthy lifestyle
• goal(s) that they are striving to achieve

One of things I hope that I can provide to my readers as well as my clients is prescriptive guidance to help them achieve their goals. One of their main question is cardio?

I live in Boston right next to the Charles River as soon as the snow melts the runners, joggers and walkers come out in droves.  Do you know why they run — I mean at least 85% of them, come on you the answer, think about it!! That’s right its to LOSE WEIGHT!

Running is cardio right, running is hard for me so it must be good for me, running will help me lose weight, right.  Well…. Long distance running is the worst thing for weight loss.

SAY WHAT!!!

Most of you run because you’ve seen pictures of elite runners who are lean and mean and want to get the physique or you have a friend who has the physique that you want and you ask hey what are you doing and then they say or I just run x number of miles a day. You think to yourself — running that’s easy I’ll lace up and get moving.

I’m here to tell you unless you competing in an endurance event, running will not give you that lean toned physique. I’m sorry to report that continuous long slow steady state cardio just doesn’t get the metabolism fired up the way a strength training session coupled with interval training does.  Did know that interval training is 9xs more effective than steady state cardio? Getting your metabolism fired up is EXACTLY what is needed to get that lean and toned physique. Intervals keep your body guessing and stops it from going on autopilot.

Long slow steady state cardio does just that, it puts the body on autopilot. Your body knows exactly what to expect, how much effort to give you and therefore only gives you what you need. I’m not saying these workouts won’t be hard, but your body doesn’t have to give you as much. What’s even worse as you build up your mileage you begin to burn more fat, but guess what your body adapts to help you become more efficient at running so it begins to “store more fat”!  Yup — you heard that right.  Don’t believe me take a look at any finish line of any race; you’ll see far more average Joe physiques than you’ll see Kara Goucher physiques. They’ll be a few Kara Goucher’s, but I’ll let you in on little secret they looked like that before they started running.

You can’t run to get fit; you need to be fit to run.” – Diane Lee, Canadian Physical Therapist

When you are training for a long distance endurance race your body is recruiting different muscles to make sure that you are efficient at running.  When you are training to change your body composition you are looking to make your body’s efficient at strength training. Training for both throws your body into tug of war.  As you get more efficient at running you may experience that your fat stores tend overtake your muscle stores. Most people experience loss of muscularity in their quads and then in their tushies. Now depending on where you hold your weight, you may also experience fat gains around your mid-section.

I don’t say this to discourage your fitness goals. I tell you this so that you can make informed choices.

Need more proof – here are a few studies.

• J Clin Endocrinol Metab. Jan 2
  Effect of calorie restriction with or without exercise on body composition and fat distribution.
  This is a six month study. Aerobic training group performed 50 minutes of aerobics 5 times a week for the entire duration. Results:  No additional effects of aerobic exercise on weight or body fat levels.
• Obesity 2007 June – 15:1496-1512.
  Exercise Effect on Weight and Body Fat in Men and Women.
• McTiernan et al
  For 1 year they had a test group do six hours of steady state cardio for 60 min, six days per week. In one year, the group lost 3 lbs.
• According to a British study, levels of Human Growth Hormone, which assists in building muscle and burning fat, skyrocketed 530% in subjects after just thirty seconds of sprinting as fast as they could on a stationary bike.

I would love to hear your thoughts leave me some comments below.