by IcennaEmach | Jan 10, 2011 | Uncategorized
Stop the nonsense! Today’s top health coaches believe the smart person’s way to fitness and weight loss is all about making meaningful connections. It appears the days are short lived for the “Do this – don’t do that kind of mentality.”
Healthy living, fitness, and weight loss are about bringing meaning to our lives. We are, I am happy to report, stopping the vicious cycle of nonsensical diets and exercise regimens that are so pervasive in our TV dominated culture.
Keyed to today’s consumer’s new attitude, this weekly six week series will get you feeling good, looking good, and losing weight. Created to put you in charge, this non-gimmicky approach is for those savvy readers who are weary of the tidbit dieting approach and are ready for a more authentic method called lifestyle change!. Here’s how we start.
Read the rest of today’s article to get an overview of the new attitude practices you’ll be using. Then for the entire week put no pressure on yourself other than reading the recommendations daily and allowing them to seep into your consciousness. Osmosis dieting? No! However, we have to set the stage for you to get your head on straight and thinking clearly. If you really feel compelled, make a few lifestyle changes but set no strict guidelines today.
Use movement as inspiration. The act of moving our bodies makes us feel better about ourselves. Movement has the capacity to inspire a vision of how we want to live. Movement makes us feel better in general. It sparks a desire to do better at whatever we do. This is the power of movement. Why not use it rather than some weight loss shake offered by promoters who know if they divert our attention long enough, they’ll make some sizable cash.
Think progress not perfection. Coach Kate Larsen said it best when she titled her book Progress Not Perfection: Your Journey Matters. Often seeking perfection in attaining weight loss sets us up for failure. Perfectionism should never be used as an excuse to stop trying. Do what is attainable and reachable realizing the goal is not to be perfect but to be persevering. After all, isn’t perfectionism just another word for quitter?.
Focus on what really matters in weight loss. Don’t be sidetracked about whether you should eat celery or carrots, more protein or vegetables. Don’t get hung up on dieting details. Here’s the only detail you need to know: You will lose weight if you eat three quarters to half of what you normally eat during most meals of the day. That’s it. Don’t clutter your minds with information that will not significantly cause weight reduction.
Weigh yourself again and again. It’s OK. A daily “weigh in” compels us to be aware. You will hear different opinions on this, but those who weigh themselves daily, lose weight. And the reason they do is that it forces them to be aware and make the necessary lifestyle changes. Weigh daily. Don’t be an afraidy cat.
Live joyfully while losing weight and getting fit. Sounds a little hokey but it’s true. Do not discount the impact positive living and attitude has on one’s ability to change. Make your life beautiful. Have a good time with family and friends! Cultivate a positive attitude. Your happiness will be your reward. Your positive attitude will ensure success
Next week I’ll expand on movement as inspiration. For this entire week make, lifestyle changes only if you feel compelled. Don’t worry about specifics. Just get going! And don’t get all-anxious. Fake it until you make it. We’ll take it one week at a time. I am confident you will be feeling good, looking good and performing great in much less time than it may have taken you in the past to lose weight – gain it back – then lose it again. You’ll look better too!
Until next week…
Our Wealth is in Our Health,
Kim
www.bodysmartinc.com
by IcennaEmach | Jan 22, 2010 | Uncategorized
A question generated by a previous article, “How You Train Determines How You Look”, is from a reader who exercises regularly, but still has concerns regarding the approach to training and disappointing visible results.
Question: I am 57 years old and have been exercising regularly for the last 9 years. I do cardio classes at the YMCA two times a week, yoga one day a week, and additionally I am in a weight training class two days a week. I eat healthy, feel good, and am at a good weight, although I’d like to lose about 6 pounds. I have a lot of energy too, but with all this exercise, I still don’t look like I work out. My arms are flabby, I have no waist, and my posture is semi-poor. I don’t understand your last letter on recruiting muscle fibers with weight training for a leaner look! Don’t I do that in my weight training classes?
Your concern is understandable and also very typical for many people who exercise regularly. You are putting much energy into working out, but you just cannot get the look you desire.
Here’s What You Need to Know:
What is Cardiovascular Exercise Good For? What is it Not so Good For?
Cardiovascular exercise is great for burning calories and for making the heart strong. However, it does little for shaping the muscles of the upper body or even the legs. It’s true, sometimes you’ll see runners or other people who only do lots of cardiovascular exercise like biking and the elliptical trainer and they have nice looking legs. However, this is rare and seen mainly in those individuals with very little body fat. You’ll notice they look good, even though their muscle mass is minimum. For the other 99% of us, we must use full range of motion weight training techniques to fully sculpt not only the muscles of the legs and gluteus maximus ( rear) but the muscles of the upper body as well, especially the tricep muscles ( back of upper arms). As an additional note, if you are not exercising with good form and through a full range of motion, you are encouraging bad habits and increasing the likelihood of furthering poor posture.
What Can Yoga and Pilates Do For Us?
Yoga, pilates, and well designed stretching routines are great for increasing flexibility, general strength, and core strength. They aid our appearance by helping us move more fluidly as in our younger days. Some people who are very lithe and slender can attain a lean look solely by faithfully implementing these forms of exercise. This advantage lays in their super low body fat percentage visually magnifying what little muscle mass they may have. For those of us who are not so thin and lissome, or want a more fit look, developing muscle through properly tailored weight training routines are critical to achieving a visually appealing body frame.
Fortunately, many of today’s yoga and pilates instructors are well aware of the benefits of specialized weight training for a more desirably aesthetic look. These savvy instructors smartly refer and encourage their clients to engage in uniquely designed weight programs that are not being implemented in their yoga , pilates, or general weight training classes.
How Specialized Weight Training Can Change the Look of Your Body
Weight training is different than cardiovascular training flexibility. Of all the forms of activity, it is weight training that is crucial to shaping our muscles!
Think about this, but don’t get the wrong idea. Body builders sculpt and shape their muscles through the lifting of weights. It is not through hours on the treadmill, hours in the yoga studio, or hours spent on the pilates machine that muscles are densely defined. Now, before your image of the body builder is taken to the extreme form, know that their training is highly rigorous, highly intensive and highly systematic. That’s ok for them, but for those of us that want just a small amount of defined muscle that looks good and gives us that chiseled smooth look, we need not follow their program intensity or duration, but only their highly specialized weight room system for building muscle.
The progressive overload technique as well as various forms of what is called pyramid training done properly and implemented correctly are two of the quickest ways to achieve muscle tone that has been lacking for years. And yes, even in the hard to define areas of our bodies such as back of the arms, abdominals, rear end, hips and shoulders. What you need to know is that regardless of age, you are capable of gaining muscle, gaining strength, and gaining the confidence that you can not only feel better, but look better. For this to occur, specialized weight training is crucial, but the results are remarkable! You can do it! I will help. Bodysmart gives you the flexibilty to train online, on the telephone, or in person. For questions or inquiries on training with kim go to [email protected].
by IcennaEmach | Jan 3, 2010 | Uncategorized
”The main reason diets fail, and health, fitness, and wellness goals are not achieved, is that our mental discipline weakens in an attempt to lose weight and become fit in a small span of time. Ironically, we consider ourselves weak willed and undisciplined when our dieting and exercise goals fail.” K. Miller
As a Health/Fitness coach and trainer in the St. Augustine, Florida area for over 10 years, I’ve seen many health trends come and go. Until a year or two ago, I received many exercise and health related questions from people seeking to obtain the “single” best approach to health. For example, “What is the best exercise?” “What is the best food?” “What is the best abdominal exercise?” And Etc. To most of us today, even novice exercisers, these questions appear narrow in scope and too basic for real health change to occur.
With the New Year here, this is a good time to summarize health observations. Specifically, I’ve noticed an ever increasing number of people gaining a better sense of what it means to be healthy and fit. They, it appears, are taking a broader and less superficial view than in previous years of what it means to be healthy and well.
There are many health observations that I could write about, but the three featured below were chosen because they represent an awareness that transcends superficial fitness practices and provide a hopefulness that I believe is necessary for real health change to occur.
Observations
1. We Use a Multi Tiered Approach to Health. People are savvy in what they require from a competent trainer. Years ago, a trainer needed only to be competent in putting a client through a vigorous routine without getting him or her injured. Today, this approach is fast disappearing. Trainers today must have an awareness and appreciation for engaging their clients in a more holistic approach to health, wellness, and fitness in order to keep up with the increased needs of their client base.
2. We Understand Exercise Cannot be Used to Mitigate Poor Eating Habits. The new attitude today is, ” I worked out hard today, let’s not mess things up by eating poorly.” People have adapted this new attitude because they are looking at food not merely as calories to be burned through exercise, but nutrition to be gained through proper eating habits.
3. We Realize The Best Exercises Are The Ones We Actually Do. There are certainly best approaches to take as it relates to a well balanced fitness program. It should include various aspects of fitness from cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength and endurance, to flexibility, balance, and body composition. And, they should include the more wellness oriented aspects of health, such as stress reduction, nutritional needs, and relationships with friends and family. However, if we are not ready to tackle the full demands of what it means to be healthy and well, then pick one exercise and do it well.
It’s amazing how focusing on one activity can change the heart and mind of an individual. In my earlier days of training clients, I used this singular approach successfully by putting one through an intense, but manageable workout with the hope that their minds would become open to engaging in other aspects of health and wellness. It’s still a great approach, and can be used as the basis of jump starting any lifestyle change! Try it yourself and drop me an e-mail at [email protected] letting me know how you are doing.
by IcennaEmach | Oct 31, 2009 | Uncategorized
High intensity interval training, also called HITT, is a specific type of interval training that in the past was practiced mainly by athletes at the highest level of sports. Today, it is implemented commonly by athletes and non athletes alike who desire obtaining the most, lean, athletic, and sinewy physiques that are “possible for them.”
Emphasis on, “possible for them”, is placed because it’s important to understand that we have innate body shapes that make becoming lean more easy, or more difficult,depending on genetic factors. There are three body types:
Ectomorph
Body types are naturally lean and thin skinned. They will see quicker looking body fat results than the two other body types, mesomorphs and endomorphs.
Mesomorph
Body types are characterized by dense musculature. They will see results less quickly than ectomorphs, but have greatest lean muscle looking potential.
Endomorph
Body types are characterized by softness and fatty areas throughout body. These individuals respond to high intensity interval training less quickly than ectomorphs and mesomorphs, but results of fat loss percentages are more pronounced than the former two groups.
The Truth of the Matter
Think you are an Endomorph? Think again! Go back to your childhood, and recall what body type you were at age 10. This is what you are today, even if you feel a little soft.
EPOC to Super Charge Metabolism
When you exercise using the high intensity interval system, your body consumes considerably more oxygen. And the more oxygen you expend, the more calories you burn. However this increased oxygen during exercise is not really what fuels what we all desire- a higher metabolic rate, it’s the after-burn, or what is called EPOC, and more descriptively, excess post exercise oxygen consumption that fuels our metabolism. It works like this. The more energy your body uses during training, the higher EPOC. EPOC works in increasing metabolism by telling our body to get back to balance or what is referred to as homeostasis.
Getting back to homeostasis takes energy though, and this energy burns calories for several hours if not days afterward. That’s why hard working athletes who consume thousands of calories still find it difficult to sustain their weights. Their bodies are calorie burning machines even when they are at rest. How would you like to have even a fraction of their speedy metabolisms? You can. Next week we’ll go over specific high intensity interval training techniques to get you started on EPOC. In the meantime, think about this:
1. Training without good nutrition is nothing.
2. Over eating is not good.
3. You can do what you want to do.
4. Now is the time.
5. Control your destiny by managing your health.
by IcennaEmach | May 24, 2009 | Perspectives in Aging Well, Uncategorized
“Most people would agree that our body would rebel if we asked it to go from an eight-minute mile run one day to a six-minute mile run the next. Yet in our fervor to diet down to the perfect weight, we ask our brains to do the same by drastically changing our lifestyle habits in one day. Consider that our brains, like our body, will break down under similar demands.” Kim Miller
I only ask that you think about this. It takes more than willpower to change our habits. It takes thoughtful consideration for who we are, patience, and strategic planning for us to make lasting lifestyle changes. Consideration for small incremental lifestyle changes is an absolute must for long lasting behavior changes. Let the old way of dieting be out and the smart way to a healthier life be in! You can do it. There’s no hurry.
