10 Tips To Get Back In The Workout Groove
By · CommentsSometimes you hit a rough patch. Life gets busy, the kids get sick, your husband travels nonstop or something else happens and you lose motivation to workout.
At first it’s not a big deal because you’ve only skipped a few days, maybe even a week. You know when everything calms down you will get back into the groove. Or will you? What happens when one week turns into two weeks and the trend continues. Before you know it, you’ve missed your workout for one month, two months or more.
Has your inner couch potato taken over?
You started feeling cranky and crabby long ago, but it’s been so long you forgot that your nasty ‘tude might just be stemming from your lack of exercise. Maybe your muscles have started to atrophy and your jeans are starting to get tight. Perhaps your anxiety is heightened and you’ve become resentful because you haven’t been taking care of your own needs. Now, you can’t stop eating the junk food, you feel bloated and weak and your motivation to lift heavy weights or do interval style training (workouts you know get you the fastest results) is down – I mean waaay down.
You’ve skipped so many workouts by now that the thought of grocery shopping with three screaming kids is more manageable than doing 30 lunges.
What should you do when your motivation is so low, and yet, you really miss the way you felt when you were working out on a regular, consistent basis?
Top 10 Tips To Get Back Into Your Workout Groove
Get a mental grasp on the real picture. Don’t expect to start where you left off in terms of intensity, strength or endurance. Give yourself a break and know that you don’t have to do it all today.
Strike while the iron is hot! If you have time and a sudden burst of motivation right now, do something – right now! It might be 10 jumping jacks, a 20 second plank hold or 30 squats at your bathroom sink. Like Nike says “Just Do It.”
Start slow and easy. And I mean, really easy. They say the turtle wins the race and I believe it’s true when it comes to fitness. You have your whole life ahead of you to reach your past level of conditioning or to bust through and way beyond an old plateau. Go for a walk instead of a run, workout once per week instead of six times, lift 8 pounds instead of 20 pounds, go for 5-10 minutes instead of 30 minutes. It’s okay. I like to say, “Meet your body where it’s at now!”
Be kind and forgiving to yourself. Be proud that you are recommitting to your workouts and forget the past. It doesn’t do you any good to harp on your past failures.
Make a list of all the benefits of exercise and how you felt (or anticipate feeling) when you were exercising. Put the list by your night stand and read it every single night. Seriously, this helps. Don’t miss this one!
Get support. A friend, colleague, hire someone…it doesn’t matter as long as the person is one of your biggest fans and will always say, “You Can Do It!” (Don’t pick someone who will forget to ask you how it’s going or someone who try’s to bring you down to their nonexistent level of exercise or poor eating habits.)
Lay your clothes out the night before, pack your gym bag complete with a post workout drink (try Prograde Workout FREE, just pay shipping http://personalbest.getprograde.com/workout-free-trial.html )
Start eating healthy. Sometimes when you work one part of the equation (exercise + eating healthy = fat loss and health), the other half naturally kicks into gear.
Set a timer on your phone so you stop work and start exercising.
Get outside. Nothing beats going outside for exercise. The sun and fresh air are rejuvenating.
Sleep well after a cold shower
By · CommentsSleep is a key factor in losing weight/fat. Make your bedroom pitch black, get the electronics out of the bedroom and take a COLD shower just before bed. Yep, not the usual advice of a warm bath.
Has your fitness or fat loss has plateaued
By · CommentsIf you can’t lose weight, there is a reason for this and you have more control over than you think.
You’re not strength training. This is an absolute must. More lean muscle tissue raises your metabolic rate during rest. If you have the choice between “cardio” and weight lifting and you have a goal of fat loss, do the weights in circuit style.
You’re not exercising in a way that forces the body to adapt. Your body needs to be challenged. Specific Adaption To Imposed Demands, called the SAID principal, explains that a certain type of training will produce an adaptation to a specific energy system, muscles used, neuromuscular activity. For example, an ice skater who practices her skill becomes more adept to ice skating. Someone who does 45 minutes of treadmill jogging at 6.0 mph becomes very adept at treadmill jogging! The body sees this as status quo and it won’t change – it will become very efficient at jogging at 6.0 mph and with efficiency comes a weight loss plateau.
If you’ve been strength training and the weight hasn’t been coming off, it’s because you’re not doing much more than merely going through the motions.
There’s the story of a woman who was doing lat pull-downs with 70 pounds. A trainer came over, knelt beside her, said ”Hi” with a smile, then moved the machine’s pin to the 100 pound mark.
The woman’s mouth fell open, but the trainer said, “You’re going to do 100 pounds for your next set, and eight times.”
“I can’t do 100 pounds!”
“Oh, yes you can. Trust me. You’re going to complete eight reps.”
The woman said her goal was to lose weight, but nothing was happening despite regular workouts. She began pulling down the bar, and it wasn’t easy. She had to fight her way to the eighth rep, but she completed eight full repetitions.
The trainer said, “Now that’s the way every set should feel. Apply this effort level to all of your sets for every exercise. You won’t lose weight if you keep doing something your body is efficient at. You must do something that forces you to struggle. ”
A month later the woman reported having dropped an entire dress size!
Moral of this true story: Exercises that require struggling will burn fat and cause weight loss, especially when coupled with sensible eating.
You eat mindlessly. Every little sample and nugget counts. One tablespoon of gravy is 100 calories. A “little bit here and there” adds up. Avoid eating due to cues not related to sustenance, such as watching TV.
You drink diet sodas. Artificial sweeteners often trigger hunger.
Too many processed foods. These trigger hunger, and too much white sugar and high fructose corn syrup will get stored as fat.
You skip breakfast. Breakfast tends to tame later-day appetite. Skipping it can make you feel entitled to overeat later on. Missing breakfast also causes an increase in the stress hormone, cortisol, which can lead to belly fat.
You hold onto the treadmill. This has got to be one of the most weight-loss-sabotaging habits out there. The body has absolutely no reason to burn more fat in response to make-believe walking.
You don’t do HIIT: high intensity interval training. This form of cardio intervals blasts fat!
Inconsistent exercise habits. Weight loss won’t go hard and deep if your workouts are not consistent. Even if you’re doing everything right in the gym, consistency is still very important.
Poor sleeping habits. Research shows that under six hours of sleep and over nine are strongly linked to excess body fat. Also, going to bed too late is linked to weight loss resistance.
Hummus Recipe
By · Comments
Ingredients
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 (19 ounce) can garbanzo beans, half the liquid reserved
- 4 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons tahini
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 1 teaspoon salt
- black pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Directions
- In a blender, chop the garlic. Pour garbanzo beans into blender, reserving about a tablespoon for garnish. Place lemon juice, tahini, chopped garlic and salt in blender. Blend until creamy and well mixed.
- Transfer the mixture to a medium serving bowl. Sprinkle with pepper and pour olive oil over the top. Garnish with reserved garbanzo beans.
Nutritional Information 
Amount Per Serving Calories: 54 | Total Fat: 2.5g | Cholesterol: 0mg
from allrecipes.com
Correct form is a must. I love this part of my “job”!Your willpower isn’t enough
By · CommentsDoes this sound familiar “I know what I’m suppose to do, but just don’t do it. I know that I should exercise and eat more vegetables.” Do you find yourself getting mad or upset when you don’t have the willpower to say no to dessert that just got placed in the center of the table?
Your willpower is NOT stronger than your environment!
I hear this from my clients all of the time! You’re not alone! I used to think the same thing…”What’s wrong with me! I can’t even control what foods I’m eating!” It was so frustrating. I felt guilty, stupid…you name it, I felt poorly about myself and my inability to stop eating tasty desserts and sweet treats.
Now, many years later, I can look back and see how far I’ve come with my overall health, particularly my eating habits. I still love sweets and junk, but don’t indulge in them nearly as often and I DON’T FEEL GUILTY when I do have them.
One thing I’ve learned is to not put myself in a situation of temptation!
I’ve got good news! If you are someone who can’t seem to get your eating under control, it might not be that hard to take control after all! Studies show that our environment plays a very big role in what we eat and how much of it. That is good because we can start adjusting our environment! We do have control!!
We are influenced by so many things – the size of a serving bowl, the shape of a glass, the name of a restaurant, where a product is made – all of these and more, influence our decision to eat more or less food, which means more or less calories.
Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating-Why We Eat More Than We Think, has done many studies showing how people will eat and eat more if it’s placed in front of them. Here’s an example of how our environment and ques dictates how much eat: Movie goers who ate dinner 20 minutes prior where given stale popcorn in a medium bag and a large bag. People at 34% more stale popcorn from the larger bag. When the popcorn was fresh, they ate 45% more. Remember, these people just finished dinner! They weren’t hungry and they still ate and ate more if the bag was larger!
Some other interesting finds:
- Those who drank wine from California ate more food and enjoyed their dining experience more than those who drank wine made in North Dakota (The wine was exactly the same!)
- Men eat 29% more food if you put the serving dish on the table instead of the counter. Women eat 10% more when the food is on the table.
- If you eat with an obese person eating unhealthy foods, you will eat more.
- If your fellow dinners eat quickly, so will you! And you’ll eat more food.
You might be tempted to think that you’re smart enough and know all of these and it won’t effect you. Wansink’s studies prove otherwise. Mindful eating is important, but it’s not enough for 95% of the population. Just because you know what you’re suppose to do and what cues to look for and you still will eat more food and more calories if the situation is right!
There’s Hope!
So, what’s a girl (or guy) to do?
Change your environment.
- Hang around with healthy people who exercise regularly and eat well.
- Use smaller plates.
- Leave your food on the stop-top or counter instead of family style on the table.
- Eat at home for a majority of meals.
- Portion out snack foods into little single size servings – never eat from the bag, box, etc.
It’s easier to change your environment than it is to rely on your will power!
This is one reason why the 3-Week Reveal Challenge is so powerful!
Birds of a feather flock together!
Post Workout Meal
By · CommentsOne of the most important meals of the day is your post workout meal. Breakfast, of course, is the other and the second most commonly skipped meal by busy moms.
The post-workout meal is the secret weapon to fat loss that many women simply just skip and it can make or break your fat loss progress. It’s that important!
Women tend to skip this meal because they:
1. Don’t have time (or think they don’t)
2. Don’t think it’s really necessary
3. Have old school thinking – “Eat Less, Weigh Less”
Listen, you want to lose fat, not just lose weight and you want to have plenty of energy for your next workout so you can push hard, lift heavy and boost your metabolism hours after your workout without losing muscle. This means you must incorporate a post-workout meal.
If you don’t eat the proper recovery meal the average gym-goer will risk:
1. Muscle soreness and fatigue
2. Poor performance
3. Over-training
Ideally, this meal will be within 30-60 minutes after your workout. The reason for this is that there is a window of opportunity for your muscles to absorb nutrients! After the window closes (even two hours later!), your body is unable to shuttle the optimal nutrients for recovery and repair into your muscle cells.
What does your post-workout meal consist of?
1. Carbohydrates
2. Protein
Studies have proven that this combination of food, in liquid form, absorbs quickly and enables your body to recover so you can work harder at your next workout and boost your metabolism even further.
Your post-workout meal should be in a 2:1 ratio of carbs:protein.You can figure out the calories you need by first figuring out your lean body mass ( get it tested). You need about .75 grams of protein per pound of lean tissue per day. Divide that number by 4 meals and that will give you a rough estimate of the amount of protein you need in the post-workout meal. For example, a 120 pound female boot camper at 23% body fat has about 92.4 pounds of lean tissue. 92.4 pounds X .75 grams = 69.3 grams of protein per day. 69.3/4 meals per day (breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner) = 17 grams of protein per meal. Following the 2:1 ratio of carbs:protein she will need about 34 grams of carbohydrates. In each gram of protein and carbohydrate there are 4 calories each. This example would come to about 204 calories for the post-workout meal.
The Easy Way: An average woman needs about 200-300 calories post workout at a 2:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio (the carbs can be up to 4 times the amount, but you have to watch those calories or they won’t get used as muscle glycogen, but rather stored as fat and then you’re right back to where you started!)
According to John Berardi, Ph.D.,the optimal carbohydrates to consume are glucose and glucose polymers, like maltodextrin and dextrose and the protein best suited is whey (hydrolysates and isolates). It should also contain Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA). Berardi confesses that supplementation may be the best post-workout meal option, as whole foods take longer to digest. He also says this meal should be FAT FREE for the same reason.
If you’d like to read more on this topic, here are some articles from my partners at Prograde Nutrition http://personalbest.getprograde.com/Recovery-Research.html and http://personalbest.getprograde.com/what-to-never-eat-after-you-workout.html
You can even get a free sample of their Workout drink
http://personalbest.getprograde.com/workout-free-trial.html
Other options include egg white protein powder mixed with fruit. Vegan sources of protein (usually pea, rice, hemp seed) powder also mixed with fruit like raspberries or blueberries.
“Now” brand egg whites have only egg whites and no other listed ingredients. You can buy this product on-line and is another option for a dairy free meal.
**I’m sure you know by now that I’m not a fan of dairy products. I don’t think dairy is necessary for a healthy diet (or provides us the best source of calcium) and many people are sensitive or intolerant to it and don’t realize it. I provide the above reference because many people still DO consume it, want it and if you are going to consume it, get a good, quality, pharmaceutical grade product. I like the taste of Prograde protein and workout drinks, too.
Natural Sports Drinks
By · CommentsThis recipe is from WellnessMama.com
The topic of sports drinks for kids came up in class last week. I don’t like drinking big name sports drinks because of the artificial coloring and excess sugar. While you need carbohydrates when you workout intensely for more than an hour, you DON’T need them with less intense workouts or workouts less than 1 hour. Plain water will be just fine.
The easiest sports drink that is nutritionally amazing is plain coconut water with a TBSP of added lime juice. Coconut water has more potassium than sports drinks, and more natural sources of sodium. A lot of athletes swear by it these days, and I will be drinking it in labor.
Here is a healthy and tasty alternative, this versatile recipe is the next best thing…
Homemade Natural Sports Drink Ingredients:
- 1 quart of liquid (options: green tea, herbal teas, coconut water, plain water, etc)
- 1/8-1/4 tsp Himalayan Sea Salt (regular table salt will work, but it doesn’t have all the trace minerals)
- 1/4 to 1/2 tsp crushed Calcium magnesium tablets or powder (optional)
- 1/4 cup or more of juice (optional. Can use grape, apple, lemon, lime, pineapple, etc)
- 1-2 TBSP sweetener (optional)- can use honey, stevia, etc. I suggest brewing stevia leaf into the base liquid for the most natural option.
[As an example, my normal recipe includes 1 quart of tea (brewed with Red Raspberry Leaf, Alfalfa, Nettle and Stevia), 1/4 tsp sea salt, 1/4 tsp calcium magnesium powder (about 1,000 mg), and 1/4 cup grape or apple juice]
Make Natural Sports Drink:
- Brew tea if using or slightly warm base liquid
- Add sea salt and calcium magnesium (if using)
- Add juice and mix or shake well
- Cool and store in fridge until ready to use
Another easy alternative is just mixing Vitamin C powder or Emergen-C with water and a little juice!
Pre-Workout Meal
By · CommentsIs your pre-workout meal really that important and what makes a good pre-workout meal?
You may run to the gym, class or down to your basement first thing in the morning and think nothing of doing your workout on an empty stomach and you may have even read that exercise on an empty stomach burns more fat. Don’t be fooled, though, because a pre-workout meal is a great benefit to your fat loss goal. You will be able to burn more calories overall and improve your lean tissue (muscle) profile.
Eating a pre-workout meal will:
1. Provide you with energy so you feel good and can work hard. No fuel means you can’t push your workout. If you want results from your workouts you have to work hard. If you want to work hard you have to eat. A pre-workout meal will prevent muscle glycogen (your body’s energy tank) depletion.
2. Maintain lean muscle. A good pre-workout meal can prevent muscle breakdown and improve energy repair and recovery. Protect the muscle you do have.
3. Help build muscle. Eating protein during your workout meal can help slowly release amino acids into your blood stream, which can promote protein synthesis. If you are breaking down muscle and eating enough calories, muscle growth can be improved.
What should your pre-workout meal look like?
1. Slow acting/low glycemic carbohydrates. These will produce a slower increase in blood glucose and moderate rise of insulin. (Insulin spikes from eating simple sugars should be avoided)
2. Lean protein. Too much fat in your protein slows digestion so pick lean sources. A major benefit of meat is that it contains Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA), which can help increase the rate of protein synthesis and decrease protein breakdown during and after your workout.
Here are some examples of pre-workout meals:
- Steal Cut Oatmeal and a hard boiled egg
- Egg Whites, Peppers, Onions, Grapefruit/Oatmeal
- Roasted Turkey with veggies (Paleo)
- Grilled Chicken with yam and asparagus (Paleo)
- Natural applesauce with egg protein powder (Paleo)
- Natural baby food banana (only because it’s not as perishable as fresh banana!) with egg protein powder (Paleo)
- Baked yam with lean turkey (Paleo)
Timing and Amount:
Eat your pre-workout meal between 2-3 hours if possible. Early morning exercisers, eat it as early as you can within that time frame – a drink with protein and carbs may be your best option (look for a 2-4:1 ratio of carbs:protein). I’ve eating it as soon as 20 minutes prior to a workout. As with timing, the amount you eat will be individual based on goals and how you feel. Some feel best with a meal 2 hours prior and I feel best with a meal 1 hour prior. You’ll have to experiment a bit to see what works best for you.
Dairy: You may have noticed that I didn’t mention dairy. As you may already know, my opinion is that diary is NOT a health food. I’m not a nutritionist or a scientist. Do your own due diligence and decide for yourself. If you would like to read more about pre and post exercise meals here is a link to my partners at ProGrade Nutrition http://personalbest.getprograde.com/Recovery-Research.html. If you do use dairy and have no intention of giving it up, Prograde has pre and post-workout shake mixes that I have used and think they taste good – I don’t use them because they have whey protein and I’ve decided my body doesn’t work best with dairy (but the article is interesting and I do like their other products like krill oil.)
A great Ab Exercise
By · CommentsIn this exercise, you will be using a stability ball to add challenge to your standard plank. Beginners can simply hold plank on the ball, intermediate (shown) move the ball forward and back and advanced exercisers will do this exercise while holding up one leg.
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“Anti” Ab – prone on SB with shoulder flex/ext.
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1. Keep shoulders over elbows over hands to start.
2. Neck stays in line with your back.
3. Squeeze glutes.
4. Slightly squeeze your shoulder blades together.
5. Brace abdominals and think long and tall, like a string is coming out of the top of your head, your body will stay in a straight line.
6. Gently move the ball forward and back without letting your low back sink or stick up in the air.
