Helping each other

In the past week, I've managed to talk to 2 very nice and special ladies. They are both very interesting in their own ways. They each have unique problems that I am very certain I can help them with. To make it even more interesting, in talking to them, they have given me reason to ramp up my own exercises. Also speaking with a good friend, she has some clients that she wants me to take over training for a weekend. In helping her by training her clients for the weekend, I will hopefully be able to get some of my own.

     This just goes to show, if you give yourself to help others, then you will receive help yourself. I really did not expect to be inspired by the ladies I am helping on line, and I sure didn't expect to actually get a chance to train a couple of clients in real life. Not right now anyways.

     Back to the 2 ladies I have started working with on line. I am greatly impressed that the first lady, in only 1 week of following my advice, has already lost 3 pounds. The second lady, just starting this week, is very enthusiastic about her program already. Neither of these ladies right now are really doing any exercise. Our main focus has been a better and healthier eating habit. I can't wait to do a follow up with them and see how things turn out. I look forward to sharing their success with all of you.

It has been a while

It has been a while since I posted anything. Life gets busy at times. Between my kids, my wife and helping friends, its been crazy. I finally found the time to post something. What I have decided on posting about is diets.

     Lately I have seen a lot of people posting about some new diet they are trying, and how great its working. I'm not saying I'm not happy about your progress. I think it's great that you managed to accomplish something. Now my question is, have you really thought about your long term plan? Are you going to keep up with the diet? Or go back to eating what you normally do? Did you even think to ask yourself these questions? Most people don't. That's ok. We can fix that.

     Diets are good if you want to lose weight fast. What most people don't realize is in the process, they are starving their bodies. Our bodies are marvelous things, and very creative. Sure you can starve your body and lose weight quick, but what happens when you go off your diet? Your body makes up for what it was missing. And it makes up for it with a vengeance. Everything your body wanted, but you stripped away, your body will now gladly consume, and now store it. Just in case you decide to hold back and go on another diet. Which you most likely will.

     In the long run, diets are not good for you or your body. My definition of a diet, is eating 6 healthy meals a day. Yes they are small in portion, but I'm also not hungry between meals. My goal is to keep the fire in my body burning consistently all day. To do that, it needs fuel. My instructor explained this to me in a very easy way, which I will now share with you.

     Lets pretend your body is a wood stove, and your food is the wood. First lets start off with a 3 meal plan.

Breakfast: You wake up from a good night sleep, and your body is low on fuel. So you eat a hearty breakfast. What just happened? Well you just threw a huge log on the fire. Should last you a couple hours. So as your body starts to digest the food, your blood sugar level will spike. Your body will also store the excess food in fat.

Lunch: Your breakfast burned off over an hour ago, your feeling hungry, and now its lunch time. So lets throw another large log on the fire. Again blood sugar levels spikes. Although your body has used some of the stored fat from breakfast for energy, it hasn't used it all. Now you've had a good lunch, you feel full again, and again, your body stores more fat.

Supper: Lunch has burned off a while ago, and your body is letting you know it is hungry again. So you eat a large supper to get you through the night. Once again your blood sugar levels spike, your body stores more fat than it burned off.

     Over night, your body has a chance to burn off the fat that it stored during the day. It never burns off as much as it has stored by the time you wake up though. The cycle starts all over again.

     Now lets look at 6 smaller meals a day. This will be quick since its so simple.

Breakfast: You wake up after a good night sleep, and eat a smaller breakfast. Your blood sugar level rises to a comfortable level, but doesn't really spike.

Mid-Morning Snack: Grab a nice healthy snack, like carrot sticks, celery, or an apple and banana. By this time your body is just using up the last of its energy from breakfast, and has nothing left to store. Blood sugar level remains constant.

Lunch: Again you have a small meal for lunch. Again your blood sugar level stays the same, your body just used up the last of the mid-morning snack.

Mid-Afternoon Snack: Light snack, same as mid-morning. Everything remains the same.

Supper: Same as lunch. Everything stays the same.

Mid-Evening: Same as the rest of the day.

     So by eating 6 smaller meals a day, this is what happens.
1) Your body has time to use up all the fuel you supply it with.
2) Nothing left over to be stored as fat.
3) Your body grows accustomed to being fueled often, so it see's no sense in storing energy.
4) Your body will become healthier, and your blood sugar levels will remain a constant, rather than spiking up and down all day.

     It does take up to 6 weeks for your body to get use to the idea of eating so often. In the long run its well worth it. No after diet weight gains, no starving your body of what it wants. Think about it!

Ongoing Case Study

     A few months ago, I had the honor of making a new friend. She's a married 27 year old mother of  2. After a while of talking, she found out about my training to be a Professional Fitness Consultant. So she asked me for some advice. She weighed 197 pounds and stands 5'2. She had an ongoing issue with her knee giving out after walking for a period of time. She wanted to know what she could do to lose some weight, and strengthen her knee.
     Of course the first thing I made a point of telling her was, that even though I can offer advice, there was no way I could help her unless she devoted herself to it. She informed me that she was very devoted to being healthier.
     For weight control, I explained to her how important it was to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks a day. Also to keep an eye on portion size, and eating healthier foods. I also explained the importance of drinking water. As for exercising, I had her start with seated light lifting. I wanted her to do the light lifting while seated, so as not to put any strain on her knee. For her knee, I had her doing easy body weight exercises, and a lot of dynamic stretching.
     For just over a month now, she has been following my directions. She eats 3 meals and 3 snacks a day. She is no longer getting that hungry feeling through out the day, and she is also not getting that overly full feeling. She has increased her water consumption as well. She is very pleased to tell me that in just over a month, she has lost 9 pounds and can now walk up a hill by her house with no problems from her knee. She is averaging around 2 pounds a week weight lose, and feeling a lot better about herself.
     She is going to continue with this strategy. Once her weight lose slows down, we will change up the exercises and see what happens. For now, we are both very happy with the progress. I look forward to sharing the final results with everyone, once we reach her goals. Whatever they may be.

     Stay tuned...

Another Tough Challenge

     Well here we are, just over half way through our in class Trainer/Client relations. My client has been a very big challenge. It is not because she has a hard time getting active. It is because she has no time to relax. Between school, running her own gym, work, sports that her children play, renovations to her house, and building workout routines for me and her other clients, she really doesn't have enough time. I've decided to show a little snip of her schedule. Just to show how busy her life really is. (See Below)

     Just think, that was actually from a period not so busy for her. Although I think we might not be able to hit her goals right on, I am very confident in the time we have remaining that we can do it. Her busy life schedule is starting to be uncluttered. The sports are over, renovations are almost completed, and hopefully in the next few months she will have someone to help relieve her of some gym duties. I will update this post as results show, or at the end of our client/trainer session. Check back often to see how we do.

Exercise of the week. Cable Supine Curl

Sit on the floor with your feet against a pulley machine. Grab low pulley cable bar with shoulder width underhand grip, then lie back on the floor with arms at your sides. Now with keeping your elbows at your sides, lift the bar so your elbows are flexed, then lower until elbows are straight. Repeat.

     When elbows are fully flexed, they can travel upward slightly allowing forearms to be no more than horizontal, in this lying posture. This additional movement allows for relative release of tension in muscles between repetitions

Exercise of the week! Monday November 11th 2011

Seated shoulder barbell press.
As in the name, this exercise focuses primarily on the shoulders (anterior deltoid). Although there are more muscles involved. here's the list:

Muscles

Target

• Deltoid, Anterior

Synergists

• Deltoid, Lateral
• Supraspinatus
• Triceps Brachii
• Trapezius, Middle
• Trapezius, Lower
• Serratus Anterior, Inferior Digitations

Dynamic Stabilizers

• Triceps, Long Head

Stabilizers

• Trapezius, Upper
• Levator Scapulae

     While seated, grab the barbell slightly wider than shoulder width overhand grip from the rack. Position bar near the upper part of your chest. To execute, Press bar upwards until arms are extended overhead. Then return the bar to the upper part of your chest, and repeat.

Exercise of the week!

OK well here goes everything. I've decided to try to post once a week on an exercise. I'll try to cover exercises for every body part. Although I do realize i will eventually run out of exercises, I still find it very important for people to learn the proper way to execute an exercise. Most, if not all exercises can be found on www.exrx.net

     This weeks exercise is a "Plyometric" exercise called the "Medicine Ball Split Jump".
Preparation: Stand with one foot slightly in front of the other, knees slightly bent. Hold medicine ball close to your chest. Slightly dip your body.

Execution: Jump up while extending ball upward. Quickly reposition legs, and land with feet in opposite positions. Immediately pull ball back to chest whole dipping body down by bending legs just short of rear knee making contact with floor. Keep torso upright and hip of rear leg straight. Repeat sequence with opposite leg movement. Continue jumps by while alternating leg positions.

     This exercise brings a lot of muscle groups into play. Also affects a large amount of different body parts for extension and flexion.

Dynamic

• Hip
  • Extension
  • Flexion
• Knee
  • Extension
• Ankle
  • Plantar Flexion
• Shoulder
  • Abduction
  • Flexion
• Scapula & Clavicle
  • Upward Rotation
• Elbow
  • Extension