Is It The New Year Yet?

Every year after the December holidays, most people resolve to take control of their lives and start exercising and/or dieting. We want to get past the overindulgence of the holidays leading up to the new year. We start with extra candy at Halloween, a little extra stuffing or mac and cheese at Thanksgiving and then a few extra cookies at work or desserts at holiday parties during Christmas. There are so many resolutions that are made in January and then fall apart very quickly.

How do you resolve the pitfalls and why not start now? If you go into the next three months with a mindset to start now, you may avoid putting on extra pounds (on top of current weight) that you will have to lose starting in January. Here are some tips:

Set realistic goals
When deciding to make a change, the first step is to set realistic goals. Making unrealistic or inflexible goals is one of the reasons so many people abandon their plan before it starts. If you want to lose 50 pounds, you have to start with the first 5 in a realistic time frame. Get past that hurdle and move on.
Create a step by step plan
Setting your goal is your starting point. Breaking the goal into smaller manageable steps is one key to success. Focus on day to day behaviors that will help you achieve your long term goal. Choose simple activities that you can track each day or week. For example, if you want to start exercising decide which days in the week your are going to add that time in. Schedule it and stick to it.
Share your goals with friends or family
Avoid keeping this goal to yourself, especially if you have struggled with it in the past. Enlist support from your friends or family. It is much easier to keep on track with your workout or dietary changes if you have a buddy. Sharing can help you feel more accountable for your behavior and therefore more motivated to achieve your goal.
Stay flexible
Flexibility is another key to success. Expect that your plan will change. When there are occasional setbacks, be willing to make adjustments as needed to get back on track.

Let your New Year's resolution start now and avoid all of the extras!

Protein Demystified

So, you think you need to consume protein for various reasons the media has implanted in your head. Could it be that you need it for energy or an increased amount to lose weight ascribing to the Atkins or South Beach diets? Let's chat.

Protein is one of the nutrients the body needs in its diet to provide the raw material to make all the various types of proteins the body needs. These body proteins provide important structural and regulatory functions. In some cases, protein is used for energy, but it is the last resort as the body will access carbohydrates first.

Protein needs vary with life stages. Growth during childhood and pregnancy increases protein requirements. When a person is healthy in other stages of life, the requirements are standard. If you look at the nutrition label on food items, the amount of protein is always listed in grams. The amount of protein a person needs is based on their weight. In general, the average person needs about 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight. To calculate, convert your weight in pounds to kilograms to be relative to grams. Divide your weight by 2.2 and then multiply by 0.8 to calculate how many grams of protein you need per day. For example, someone that weighs 165 pounds will need no more than 60 grams of protein. Take (165/2.2)*0.8=60. When you are an athlete or exercise and strength train frequently in a week, the requirement increases.

Unfortunately, as Americans we tend to over consume protein. Adequate protein intake is essential, however, protein excess may be a concern. This concern arises especially when the protein source is an animal. The saturated fat and cholesterol content will be higher, which can have negative health implications. Try to consume more vegetables with reduced sources of animal protein.

To give you an idea the protein content of food, here is a sample list:
1/2 cup vanilla soy milk 3 grams
3.5 oz chicken breast 29 grams
1/2 cup kidney beans 9 grams
1 slice American cheese 4 grams
1/2 cup pasta 7 grams
1 hard boiled egg 6 grams

The protein grams add up quickly, so be cognizant to consume what you need for a healthy you!

So, What Do I Eat?

I often get the question, "So, what do you eat?" This stems from conversation as I thread nutrition and diet into the whole fitness picture for my clients. Strength training is necessary, however, if anyone wants to change the composition of their body, changing how you eat must be a part of the process. One will not be successful without the other.
I truly practice what I preach by keeping with whole grains, lots of fruits, vegetables, fish, fowl with minimal dairy and fats.
The key is trying to keep the menu varied to refrain from getting bored. I eat every 3 hours and depending on my schedule, I eat a minimum 4-5 times a day.
My typical day will start with breakfast EVERYDAY which comes after waking up at the same time. These are important points with getting your body into a rhythm for consistency.

Breakfast choices: Kashi Cinnamon Harvest cereal (high fiber shredded wheat) with soy or rice milk. I also like Kashi Go Lean Crunch. There are many low-fat/high-fiber cereal choices in the market. On another day I may have egg whites, turkey bacon and whole wheat toast, or oatmeal with fruit. Water or OJ as my drink choice.

Snacks (minimum 2 times per day): If I am on the road, I carry my snacks with me at all times. I carry raw almonds, applesauce cups (no sugar added), yogurt, Nature Valley trail mix bars, mini-bagels, edamames, popcorn or dried fruit.

Lunch choices: Spinach salad with vegetables, tuna (in the pouch or packed in water) or legumes (such as black, pink, white or red beans). I may also eat a whole wheat wrap with fresh deli meat or preferably chicken or turkey breast.
A strawberry and banana smoothie made in my blender is a treat.

Dinner choices: Brown, basmati or wild rice or whole wheat couscous. Baked yams are a great source of fiber. Any type of vegetable. I am a fan of broccoli, carrots and asparagus. My protein is either grilled chicken breast, turkey breast, salmon or tilapia. When it gets cold outside, I will add a Healthy Choice soup.

There you go! This is just a sampling, but I make sure I have all of my food groups included in each meal with lots of water! Eating every 3 hours is important to maintain blood sugar levels to keep your energy level up and to aid in your body's rhythm of staying fit!

The Little Voice Within

Today is Saturday and my day to exercise. When I teach classes or personal train with a client, that is not my workout, it is my clients' or participants workout, so I have to find time for me. I usually take a boxing class because it is different and outside of my comfort level. It is very new to me and something I would not do on my own. (can you relate?) A little voice crept up in me today and tried to keep me home because I was feeling a little lazy. (sound familiar?) Then I had another voice tell me to go, get out and have fun with it. I even had a telephone call right before I left from a cousin that loves to chat. He could have kept me on the phone for another 30 minutes, but I cut the conversation short and told him I had to take my boxing class. When I was finished with my workout, I was glad I did because I had fun and felt energized. My point is, we all have those inner voices that will challenge you to keep you on the couch and from not moving forward. Ultimately, listen to the positive voice within, keep moving toward your fitness goals and a healthier you!

Good Carbs, Bad Carbs?

I have conversations about nutrition with my clients on a regular basis. The initial thoughts when it comes to carbohydrate intake is that, "I need to stay away from carbs". This arises from the thought that carbs are only bread, rice and potatoes. This is only partially true because fruits and vegetables are also carbohydrates. The total amount of carbohydrate intake for someone that is sedentary is about 45-65% of the total calories you consume in a day. Ok, lets just put it at 50% When you start adding consistent exercise, that number increases to 55-60%. If you view this on a per meal basis, your plate should consist of 1/2 carbohydrates. Now, if you originally thought carbs were only bread, rice and potatoes - I can understand the alarm. Take a look at www.mypyramid.gov and click on Inside the Pyramid. This is the governments assistance on proper nutrition where you can get a better understanding of the food groups and assess your food intake and physical activity. In MyPyramid Menu Planner, input your height, weight, age and level of physical activity to find how many calories you need to consume in a day. It will also provide suggestions on the amounts of each food group you should consume and the portions. Final thought, if you are not eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, one should increase the amounts but maintain a consumption of whole grains, as well. Carbohydrates are the primary source of energy, so they must be consumed . . but in a smart way.

How Many Calories Do You Need?

Finding how many calories you should eat each day is not as hard as many of us make it out to be. Most people who spend time trying to find the exact amount of calories they should eat either go on food binges which throws water on their metabolism fire, or chronically undereat because they never believe they can truly eat that much and lose weight.

Before I explain how to come up with a good calorie range for you to lose fat, I want you to stop and do a couple of things:

1. Get out your food journal. Yes, you need to log what you eat if you have not done so. Give yourself 3 days to really pay attention to what you are eating, how many times in the day you are eating, the time of day and the approximate amount. This can be hard because we sometimes underestimate our serving amounts. Be honest with yourself. Purchase a journal or just write it in a notebook so that you can have a good vision for what you are actually putting in your mouth. Many people will look back after those few days and say "Wow! I ate that?"

2. Accept the fact that to lose fat and not just weight you have to eat. I don’t want a single person trying to lose fat by starving or undereating and feeling miserable.

3. Your goal to lose weight is to create a daily 500 calorie deficit by combining calorie reduction with daily activity. If you cut 3500 calories in 7 days, you will lose 1 pound naturally and effectively.

Determine Your Daily Caloric Intake

We will estimate your daily calorie needs to maintain your current weight.

• Take your present weight and multiply by 11. That number covers your metabolic needs for the day if you are presently sedentary. If you are a recreational athlete or weekend warrior, multiply your weight by 12. If you weigh 140 pounds, you need about 1540 calories per day if you are sedentary. If you are an inactive 200 pounds, you need 2200 calories per day of NUTRIENT DENSE foods. Did I say nutrient dense? What does that mean? Foods that provide have a higher nutritional value and content such as your fruits, vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, low fat dairy with minimal added fat intake. Good fats from sources such as olive oil, RAW nuts or salmon is where your fat intake should come from.
• To create your calorie deficit, subtract 500 calories from your maintenance number on non-workout days and 200 calories from your number on workout days.

Your goal is to create the bulk of your deficit through your activity and not through reducing the energy you put into your body. For calculations above, I factored in you will burn on average about 300 calories per workout. That could be 30 minutes or running or 45 minutes of walking. You have to include strength training to build lean muscle, as well. This will help burn calories at rest.

Dieting Truths

Low calorie dieting slows your metabolism, making it progressively more difficult to lose weight and keep it off. The failure rate of most diets is very high, yet people continue to try one after another, always hoping that each new scheme will provide the solution. If you’re a veteran of the diet selections (Atkins, South Beach, cabbage), the answer to your dilemma is muscle. Let’s examine why diets fail and how strength training and a healthy appetite can increase your metabolism.

Dieting fails due to a combination of hormonal changes, muscle loss, and frustration. When your body consumes fewer calories than it should, the natural response is to conserve fat. This may have been important for your distant ancestors trying to survive a famine, but the "starvation response" and its associated hormonal changes make life challenging for many dieters.

If dieters consume fewer calories than they should for a long period of time, the body begins to break down muscle tissue for fuel. When protein is broken down, it releases nitrogen. Your body will quickly wash away the nitrogen by releasing water from tissue cells, causing an immediate reduction in water weight and a noticeable drop on the scale. Sound familiar? However, water and muscle loss is nothing to sing about. The water weight will be quickly return as soon as you consume fluids, and the missing muscle can wreak havoc on your metabolism for a long time.

Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. It requires a certain number of calories each day to maintain itself. Therefore, the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn even when you’re just sitting around. As your muscle mass drops, so does your daily calorie requirement. For example, a dieter loses 5 pounds of muscle (along with 10 lbs. of fat) on a strict diet. Suppose each pound of muscle had been burning 50 calories a day during inactivity. Those 5 pounds of muscle had been burning 250 calories a day. With this muscle tissue gone, the dieter must now consume 250 fewer calories a day in order to maintain that weight-loss.

However, most dieters won’t maintain the starvation routine for long. They’ll eventually return to their old eating habits. When this happens, the weight eventually returns. The problem is that while they lost both muscle and fat during the diet, they will gain back mainly fat when not exercising. So, even though they may weigh the same as they did when they started, they now have a lot more fat and a lot less muscle than they did before the diet. This means the metabolism is slower and the calorie requirements is lower.

The solution to this dilemma is an active lifestyle that includes aerobic exercise, a weight-training program, and a healthy diet. What is a healthy diet? A healthy diet is based around whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and lean protein. A healthy diet keeps your metabolism in high gear with 4 to 6 small meals a day. No food is off-limits, but consumption of sweets and high fat junk food should be reduced. A healthy diet is realistic and permanent; not something you endure for a short 3 month period and them go back to eating "normal". It is truly a LIFESTYLE instead of a "diet".

During strength training it is possible to get smaller and not lose much weight or even slightly gain at the same time. Muscle is a much denser tissue than fat. A pound of muscle is very solid, while a pound of fat is like a big fluffy bunch of feathers. The fat takes up more space on your body. You are losing inches at this point instead of pounds and your clothes will start to feel different. Rely on how your feel and look. The scale can be misleading and discourage you when you are doing a great job.

The final note is that you want to make healthy and positive changes rather than punishing your body and your spirit with low calorie consumption. Your goal is the healthy body of a naturally lean person who can enjoy what they eat.