Archives 2014

I believe the right balance of exercise and nutrition is the secret weapon to a happier life. It’s that simple. Once a healthy equilibrium of these two elements exist in your life, you will quickly see other areas of your life improve as well.

As I have worked with clients over the years, and when I made the decision myself over 20 years ago to get physically fit and improve my nutrition habits, areas of improvement encompassed better mental clarity; more energy; improvements in hair, skin and nails; decreased headache and digestive issues, improved sleep, boost in immunity and overall health, better mood, increased motivation, and decreased cravings for junk food – just to name a few.

Chances are you’ve heard some of the following five tips for improving your eating habits, but have you TRIED them? The key is going from ‘knowing’ to ‘doing’. OK, so maybe doing all these things today might be asking a lot. Just start with one for a week, adding a new habit each week, and, I promise, you will be surprised at the transformation.

1)    Eat breakfast! The sooner you eat each day, the sooner you jump start your metabolism, which equates to burning more calories more efficiently throughout the day. Select a combination of protein, complex carbs and healthy fats. This combination will help keep you satiated until lunch, help with mental focus, and provide the necessary energy for the first part of your day.

2)    Choose sugar free or low sugar products over low fat or fat free foods. Sugar free foods are generally lower in calories. Less sugar in the diet also helps eliminate the ‘crave and crash’ cycle of being hungry, eating a sugary snack, which provides a quick boost of energy, then crashing low blood sugar which makes you feel hungry again.

3) Not all salads are created equal. Green doesn’t always mean ‘lean’. The term ‘dressed to kill’ really comes into play here. A typical Caesar salad has more and calories than a Big Mac because of the dressing, croutons and cheese. When ordering or making a salad select low fat and low sugar dressings, preferably vinaigrettes; dark greens like romaine, spinach and kale versus iceberg lettuce; and vegetables versus fruits or croutons. Try adding some lean protein to your salad like grilled salmon or chicken to make it a stand-alone meal.

4)    Eat four to six small meals a day, instead of the traditional three big meals. Smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day speeds up your metabolism and shrinks the stomach so you get full quicker. This way of eating, sometimes called grazing, also provides necessary energy throughout the day, and helps avoid the 2:00 slump or crash that many people experience after lunch during a typical workday.

5)    Shop on the outskirts or perimeter of the grocery store; produce, lean meats and dairy. Processed and high sugar foods located in the middle aisles are much lower in nutritional value, and will not keep you satiated as long.(spinach)

Combining good nutrition is a great start to getting healthy. Combined with regular exercise and a fitness routine that works with your schedule will have you on the path to health in no time.

You may have heard about TRX (total body resistance exercise) lately, or seen the strappy apparatus and wondered how it works. TRX suspension training straps look rather ordinary upon first glance, but the power of their potential to help you create strength is great. Developed by a Navy Seal, TRX suspension training routines leverage gravity, and the mass of your own body weight to sculpt and build your muscles – all within a minimum amount of space and small amount of time, as necessitated by a Navy Seal’s life. Although designed to meet the training demands of a Navy Seal, you need not be intimidated, TRX training is fun and suitable for all fitness levels, and getting started is easy. The apparatus works your body across multiple movement planes, utilizing a wide variety of muscles and joints. A simple routine, followed on a regular basis, will yield significant results.

In fact, a study published in the December of 2013 Journal of Fitness Research by researchers from the University of Wisconsin concluded that “TRX training improves muscular fitness in both younger and middle-aged adults [and is useful to] gain both core endurance and muscular strength simultaneously.” The study showed greater relative strength improvements in the TRX participants in the young adult group (aged 19 – 25) and middle-aged adult group (aged 44-64) for abdominal muscle endurance, and back muscle endurance (versus traditional resistance training.)  Significant improvements in flexibility and balance were also gained. You can read the full study here. The study compared TRX training to regular resistance training using weight machines. While the biggest gains in improvement were in the core, participants also expressed their preference to TRX training over traditional methods because of its fun nature, and change from their regular routine.

I have trained a wide range of clients using TRX; male and female; beginners and advanced athletes; and all age groups. The response has been uniformly positive. Some were a little hesitant at first, thinking they couldn’t do it, but these same people were doing some very challenging balance and strength moves in no time. TRX can be an integral part of a personalized fitness program, or taken in a group setting. I offer group classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and they are a fun way to try out this new fitness advancement. All classes are $10 through the end of January. Click here to sign up for a class or to schedule an appointment for a personalized fitness session.

Nutrition and Fitness Go Together

Congratulations!  You’ve just decided to get started on a fitness regime.  You’ve taken an important step toward improving your health and quality of life. But there is another step that is equally important – proper nutrition! 

Like an automobile, you must take care of the ‘whole package’ for maximum performance and functioning.  Even if a car’s motor is tuned up, it’s not going anywhere without the right gas in the tank.  Can you imagine putting dirty water from your dishes in your car’s gas tank?  Of course not!  It’s not the right fuel, and in fact would be destructive.  It’s the same with our bodies. We can do sit ups all day, but a steady diet of cheeseburgers won’t get you very far. Proper fuel promotes peak performance.

When I begin to work with a new client, they are often afraid of the ‘diet’ portion of the program. They fear what they will have to give up, or must live without – ‘forever’ (in their mind.) It’s just not that way. Proper nutrition is not a ‘diet’ in the way most Americans think about it; i.e. low carb diets, no-sugar diets, South Beach diet, etc. Proper nutrition is feeding our bodies the essential elements it needs for proper functioning. Good nutrition is like a health insurance policy, and guess what – it tastes really good!

Once you enter the fun and challenge of a personal fitness regime, you begin to invest time and energy into one of your greatest gifts and assets – your body. It’s uniquely yours, and it’s yours forever, so it only makes sense to take the absolute best care of it possible. A customized fitness program demands expending a lot of energy, which will naturally put your focus on the best way to ‘get’ energy. The answer lies in good food with the proper vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

Foods high in sugar, fat and sodium provide a short-term fix of immediate gratification, but often leave us wanting more, which is a difficult cycle to break. In the words of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a physician specializing in nutrition-based treatments for obesity and chronic disease, “most Americans don’t even know what true hunger feels like.” Instead of living to eat, the focus should be on eating to live a fun, happy and pleasurable life. Foods with proper nutrition give us the energy we need, and feed us fuel to accomplish the tasks of life, and best of all to feel good!

At Full Spectrum Fitness, I can help you develop a specific plan tailored for your goals.  My plans focus on making sure you have the energy you need in the form of complex carbs prior to exercise to maintain stamina during a challenging workout, and protein afterward to help rebuild strained muscle tissue. Once you start, you will be surprised at how easy and naturally the rest will follow.

Please schedule time with me to develop your nutrition plan today!