Proper nutrition for beginners

Hello Everyone!  I hope you had a great weekend.  I also hope you ate lots of dessert and had a few drinks, because I'm about to show you how to change your diet to be the healthiest you possible.  The other day I had a teacher from my daughter's preschool ask me for some diet help, and what I told her seemed to be a great idea for a post.  So here I am.  The easiest way to change up your eating habits permanently is to take baby steps and start with simple ideas.  I have 5 that I started all my clients out with.  1.  Don't drink alcohol or drink as little as possible.  Alcohol is the simplest of sugars and is the easiest way to consume what I call 'dumb' calories.  Alcohol is a total waste of calorie consumption, so unless, like me, you're a mother and just have to catch that tiny buzz so you don't lose your mind before the kids go to bed,  :)   try some tea, seltzer, or a personal time-out so you have a moment to yourself to just breathe.  2.  Cook ALL your food yourself or do that as much as possible.  I don't know about you, but if I owned a restaurant, I would care the LEAST about calories and fat and the MOST about taste and people coming back.  I still remember when I had a dinner party one time and I made a lasagna.... everyone loved it, and I sat there thinking... man, if they only knew what was in that thing!  3.  Avoid sugar as much as you possibly can.  This does not mean fruits, people!  It means hershey's bars, ju-ju-bees, candy corn, (you all know you just had some of those sitting around!) and stuff like that.  Sugary foods like that are again, a total waste of calories.  If you want some sugary stuff, make a cake from scratch, at least it has real ingredients in it and not yucky trans fat.  4.  Eat REAL FOOD.  Do hot dogs grow on trees?  Do chicken mcnuggets?  Last I checked the answer is no, so avoid those things as much as possible and your body will thank you.  Did you know that processed chicken is the same color and consistency as pink soft serve ice cream?  It's true!  Companies change the color and texture to 'mold' it into the finished product.  Pretty gross, huh?  Make your own chicken mcnuggets out of chicken meat, not cut up eyeballs mixed with blood.  (pardon the graphic stuff, but this site is called THE TRUTH!)  5.  Don't eat anything with a shelf life of forever.  I also remember clearly going to my friend's house who was having a food demonstration done one time and the girl giving the presentation had a 3 year old happy meal there.  Folks, I'm telling you, it looked like it was purchased THAT DAY.  If something is so processed that it will never mold, then it really is bad for you.  Your body doesn't metabolize these things as much as it 'reacts' to them, so please, leave the twinkies at the gas station and grab a coffee till you get home to your fridge.   Ok, so keeping with the theme of THE TRUTH I will tell you this:  My daughter loves hot dogs, much to my dismay, and I had a beer Saturday night with my husband out on our patio.  I'm not going to be the food police and never enjoy a piece of chocolate.... life is too darn short!  I do cook almost all my own foods, and do my best to avoid stealing my daughter's Halloween candy.  hee hee!  The best thing to do is to look at your diet just like you would your workout program, choose moderation and do your best.    Life without champagne toasts and chocolate fondue would be so boring!

FREE PERSONAL TRAINING FOR ONE YEAR!

So I’m in the gym yesterday doing my spin class my mind started wandering….  (nothing out of the ordinary there!)  I saw in the mirror behind me yet another client with the most popular personal trainer in the gym doing her ‘thing’ with him and looking like she’s in writhing pain.  I started thinking, why on Earth does this guy have so many clients?  He does the SAME type of workout with EVERY client.  Some chest exercise here, a little squat there, and some jumping and what-not in the middle.  SAME STUFF, EVERY TIME.  If you went to a restaurant and there was only one thing on the menu, why would you ever go back?  If I were his client you know what I would do?  I’d train a free session with him, (you get this when you join the gym as a perk) write down all the exercises that he did with me and POOF!  I’d magically have $5000.00 more in my bank account at the end of the year.  So here’s the deal, ladies and gentlemen:  If you want ‘personal trainer results’ without the crazy fees, watch the trainers while you’re in the gym, and bring an itty bitty notebook and write down what they’re doing with their clients.  Take 5 exercises that they’re doing, alternate an upper body move with a lower body move, then stick 3 minutes of cardio in between.  It looks like this:  Chest press, ball squat, seated row, hamstring curl, ball crunches, 3 minutes on the stationary bike.  Do that series 4-5 times thru and you have a nice hour long workout, same as Mr. Popular’s clients are getting day in and day out!  Oh, and don’t forget to slip a check in the mail for my $5000.00 if you’re consistent for a year.  THANKS!  just kidding!

15 miles a day, 7 days a week for 15 years!

Have you ever seen the show called ‘Obsessed?’  Well, one time there was a mother of 5 who was compulsively exercising and anorexic.  I was so moved by her story.  She had been walking on her treadmill 12-15 miles a day, 7 days a week for 15 YEARS.  That’s right.  15 years.  The only days off she took were the days she GAVE BIRTH to her kids.  For those moms out there, imagine walking 15 miles the day after giving birth.  WOW.  She also only ate once a day at 2:30am.  Many of her kids had NEVER seen her eat.  EVER.  Isn’t that so sad?  Anyway, I’m posting her story because I think there are some hard truths that need to be shared.  1.  This poor woman was sort of thin, but not to the point where you would say, Oh my, she’s anorexic!  There are thousands of people out there that have eating disorders that are ignored because they just don’t look sick enough on the outside.  I think that’s terrible.  Eating disorders are a serious disease and are very hard to overcome.  These people need our support and compassion.  2.  Her whole family suffered from her compulsion to be on her treadmill most of the day.  I can’t imagine my daughter playing outside with her father while I am so compelled by my workout program that I have to stay inside just to knock out some mileage.  3.  She was probably so close to having a heart attack from her poor nutrition habits.  Not only is there a mental strain on someone who has compulsion issues, there is a very serious physical threat as well.  4.  She was obviously very depressed.  Even though she was SO DEDICATED to her fitness and diet regimen, she was one of the saddest people I had ever seen.  Folks, please.... Let’s all agree to exercise for GOOD HEALTH first.  Shouldn’t that be the number one driving force to get active?  As for diet, I have one word for you:  MODERATION.  Have some dessert now and again, or enjoy happy hour with your friends.  Exercise for the rush of feeling your heart beating fast, or the wind in your hair as you run outside, or dancing your booty off in a zumba class.  I know we all want to look our best, but a life of balance brings the best results of all.

I almost died today!

I have a confession to make.  I quit the gym for about 9 months.  Rather than go into the reasons why I did, I'll tell you what happened when I came back.  I saw the same old people wearing the same old outfits and doing the same old exercises that they were doing last year.  Talk about boring!  Shouldn't someone tell these folks that their body had adapted to their routine about a year or more ago and that they were quite overdue for mixing it up?  Well I'm not one to pry, so I just work around all that stuff when I train.  So since I now have a blog and have to practice what I preach, hee hee, I decided that since I weight trained for a month, then did a weight/cardio circuit for a month it was time to change it up.  (In case you didn't figure it out yet, it takes your body about 4 weeks to adapt to any routine.  Adaptation = Decreased results)  I decided that since the weather is so beautiful here in sunny Florida, I'd go for a run in my neighborhood.  It was REALLY HARD!!  My goal was to do 3 miles, and while I did accomplish that I have to admit I had to walk about half of it.  So why is that?  The other day I squatted a 95 pound bar for 5 sets of 20 and alternated it with walking lunges with 15 pound dumbells in each hand... and today I can barely squeak out a jog around the block???  Well, ever since I have embarked on this lifetime fitness journey of mine I have discovered some interesting facts.  You're always going to have some weakness in your overall fitness... and that's OK!  If you go to yoga 5 days a week, I guarantee you're more flexible than I am, and if you're like the new cyclist friend I just made at the gym on Wednesday, you probably won't see me knocking out an 18 mile run while 3 months pregnant like she did.  Now I'm pretty strong so I may lift more than many of you ladies out there, because lifting weights has been my primary focus the last 10 years.  So the moral of my silly story is this:  Change it up!  If you've been doing crunches for a year to get that six pack, try holding yourself in a plank instead.  If you're addicted to your spin class, get a copy of your teacher's song list and do a weight circuit.  And if you're like me, and hitting it at the dumbell rack most of the time, take it outside and challenge yourself.  The more you change it up, the more results you'll see and feel.

PLASTIC SURGERY IS YOUR ONLY OPTION!

My training studio was located in a pretty wealthy neighborhood, so I used to get some real interesting characters stopping in with questions.  I still remember the day when an woman about age 65 came in and held up her arm, wiggling it at me while she said, 'What can I do for THIS?'  I had a moment where I silently  challenged my integrity and said to myself:  Should I lie and make money off her, or just tell the truth?  I decided to tell the truth.  I told her that the only thing she could do to get rid of her 'wobbly wing' was to have it removed by her local plastic surgeon.  Her answer was, "WHAT?!  You're a FITNESS PROFESSIONAL and that's what you're telling me??!!"  Oh boy.  So I asked her to sit down with me in my office so that I could explain.  I figured that after walking a bit with me she may just cool down.  Then I told her this:  Ma'am, I could easily tell you that if you sign up for 100 sessions for $5200.00 I can train you with some tricep push downs, some lovely dips, and some fabulous cardiovascular work to decrease the size of the backs of your arms...  but I would be lying.  As you age, your skin elasticity decreases, and that's why your arm looks like that.  There is no amount of exercise that can tighten your skin, so the only way to get rid of it is to cut it off.  If any other so-called fitness professional tells you that they can give you the arms of a 20 year old, they are not at all being professional, but rather, they are being a thief.  She was shocked that I would not try to sell her some sessions and trust me, I needed the money, but being truthful was more important to me than taking her money and giving empty promises.  Besides, a big mouth like that is better off singing your praises rather than walking around telling her friends that after hours and hours of exercise, she still has her wobbly wings.

Where are all my girls?

Now I've always considered myself 'one of the guys' because I'm pretty tomboy-ish, but I'm pretty bummed when I'm at the gym hitting the weights among ALL MEN.  Where are you, ladies???  Let me cover some fitness truths to you gals, so that you aren't afraid to join us at the dumbell racks.  1.  Lifting weights will NOT make you big.  You're not going to go from squishy to jacked just by lifting weights.  When I was training for competition I was lifting as much as the big boys in the gym and wearing KIDS CLOTHES I was so small.  2.  Muscle atrophies (fancy word for 'get's smaller') as you age and as you sit around, so increasing the amount of muscle you have will increase your metabolism.  3.  Muscle weighs more than fat, so you may gain some weight but you STILL will not get BIG.  Example:  Before I trained for competition I was a size 8 and weighed 140.  At competition, I weighed 140 still but was wearing a little girl's size 14 pants!  So I gained muscle weight and got smaller, got it?  4.  Lifting weights can help with bone density.  I could go on and on about calcium, bone loss, etc, but will save that for another day.  Just take my word for it, some weight training is much better for you than your calcium pill!  5.  This is the best one of all, I think.  Working out with weights makes your body burn food more efficiently.  I eat as much or more than my husband who weighs 175.  (I weigh 140 still)  I never gain weight, even though I'm stuffing my face all day!  (With the right foods, most of the time.)  So ladies.... If you need help with instruction, email me!  I'll give you a weight lifting program to start, FOR FREE.  If you need help understanding the machines and how they work, ask a trainer at your gym.  Don't be shy, and pretty soon, you'll be stronger, leaner, and also 'one of the guys.'