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How To Lose Body Fat By Changing What You Eat

How To Lose Body Fat By Changing What You Eat

I promote exercising, since it helps you burn calories, has loads of health benefits and gives you that fit, sexy look that everyone wants. However, for the best weight loss results you’ll lose body fat by changing what you eat. It can start by simply cutting out sugar, but for the best results, revamping your entire diet to eliminate processed foods and focusing on healthy options will get you to your goal faster. Healthy foods are normally lower in calories, but even more important, they’re filled with nutrients that can help improve your metabolism and get you to your goal faster.

Increase your protein intake to boost your fat burning.

Protein laden foods are thermogenic. That means they take a lot of calories to digest. In fact, protein takes approximately one third of its calories for digestion. Protein also fills you up and leaves you feeling full longer. Some protein foods, such as pumpkin seeds, free-range eggs, dairy and meat products from grass-fed cows and cashews contain L-arginine. L-arginine is an amino acid—the building blocks of protein—that helps boost fat metabolism, increases HGH, burns belly fat and boosts your energy level.

Grab a banana for your weight loss journey.

Bananas are super rich in potassium. If you know anyone with heart problems, you probably recognize the mineral. It’s often recommended for people with impaired heart functioning. It helps eliminate sodium from the system, so it is a natural diuretic, but also aids in muscle recovery after a workout. Besides bananas, leafy greens and avocados contain potassium. One study shows that about 95 percent of Americans have a potassium shortage.

Make sure you have magnesium in your diet.

Magnesium can be a powerful weight loss tool when you get it from healthy eating. It is necessary for a number of functions in your body. For weight loss and exercise, it helps with muscle contractions, while lowering both fasting glucose levels and insulin levels. That helps keep your fat burning furnaces going strong. It also helps reduce the amount of fat your store. Dark leafy vegetables, like spinach, cashews and almonds are three sources of magnesium.

  • Hydrate frequently and make it water. Dehydration can leave you tired and slow your metabolism. Sugary drinks like cola add to your caloric intake. Drinking plenty of water not only hydrates you, it fills you up without filling you out.
  • Make sure you have adequate healthy fat in your diet. Healthy fat is not the enemy. In fact, you need it for muscle recovery after a tough workout. It keeps you feeling fuller longer, is heart healthy and helps stabilize blood sugar levels.
  • Increase your B-vitamins, including choline. Not only do foods with choline and other B vitamins leave you feeling fuller, they also help stop fat storage by shutting down the gene that does it.
  • Make a healthy potato salad with peas in it. Chilled potatoes and peas both contain resistant starch. It boosts the healthy bacteria, which aid digestion, burns fat and makes you feel full.

How To Gain Lean Muscle Mass

How To Gain Lean Muscle Mass

One thing many people in Houston, both men and women, is to gain lean muscle mass. Lean muscle mass gives you those wash board abs and that sculpted look everyone strives to achieve. Achieving it means losing weight and building muscles. That takes a special program that’s more than just a workout or a healthy diet, it’s both. No one will be able to see the results of all the work you’ve done if it’s covered in a layer of fat. Not only will building more muscle tissue make you look toned and fabulous, it also helps you keep weight off permanently.

Lean muscle mass starts with what you eat.

One of the fitness greats once said that building muscle mass starts in the kitchen not in the gym. He was absolutely right. You have to eat healthy and focus on specific foods to build the muscles you want. If you’re building more muscles, it’s a fine balance between eating enough to ensure you’ll have all the nutrients and energy to do the workout and build muscle tissue and not overeating, so you put on fat not muscle. Protein is a top priority when you’re building. It should be about 15 to 33 percent of your diet. Salmon, chicken breast, lean beef and Greek yogurt are good sources. Approximately 20 percent should be healthy fat that’s necessary for building muscle and the rest made up of carbs for energy.

Get the most from your workout with compound exercises.

Strength-building exercises definitely builds muscle tissue and burns massive amounts of calories at the same time. The best type of strength-building workouts are those with compound exercises. Compound exercises use several muscle groups and joints at one time, so they’re also more efficient. Barbell deadlifts, bench step-ups and barbell squats are a few compound exercises that help.

Go easy on the cardio.

When you do cardio workouts, you’ll definitely burn calories, but unfortunately, they come from both fat and muscle tissue being used as fuel. That can set back your muscle building program quickly. Another error is to workout too often or too long. After about 75 minutes, maximum muscle growth is reached and more can only make you move backward. Working more than four times a week can also be detrimental. It doesn’t give your body time to heal those micro fractures and develop the scar tissue that creates larger muscles.

  • When you’re building lean muscle mass, eat carbs earlier in the day. It not only boosts your energy throughout the day, there’s less chance it will be stored as fat that can occur if you eat it before bedtime.
  • You’ll boost your recovery time if you have adequate healthy fat in your diet. Make sure you include avocados, nuts, olive oil and flaxseed, for example, to help you workout harder. People often fail to build muscle tissue because they burn the candle at both ends. You need adequate sleep to boost your muscle growth. Sleep is necessary for the body to heal the microtears that become bigger muscles.
  • Go bigger and push yourself. While working out more often is counterproductive, lifting heavier weights and challenging yourself actually boosts your muscle development.

Look Good Naked

Look Good Naked

I’m always amazed at some of the new clothing products available, such as Spanx that help you look far slimmer and fit when you’re dressed. While they are made of newer materials, the concept is the same as corsets and girdles, but less confining. Those undergarments may make your clothing fit better, but do you look good naked? Rather than spending money on clothing to conceal being out of shape or overweight, it’s better to take the time to workout and eat healthy, so you’ll feel confident and look fabulous at the beach.

You’ll get huge benefits from working out and eating healthy.

Working out regularly and eating healthy gives you the freedom to look fabulous at any time, any place. That’s a huge benefit. It can make you feel confident anywhere—even in the bedroom. Exercise and healthy eating gives you more energy, so you’ll get more done quicker. It helps you think faster, for those of you that sit in front of a computer as part of your job. You’ll have energy to spare to enjoy your free time and have fun with the family.

Looking good naked will boost your love life tremendously.

If you have a life partner, not only will he or she be more receptive to your new look, you’ll feel sexier and more confident. For those that don’t, this new look could be the confidence builder you need to start a relationship. For men, working out boosts testosterone levels, while women get improved circulation and that can improve sex organ functioning. Eating healthy doesn’t leave you feeling bloated, which is a real mood killer.

Not only will you get a great body and more energy, you’ll get confidence and more.

Studies show that people have an improved self-image just by starting a program of exercise. You can imagine how much better they feel about themselves when changes start to come. Not only will you improve your mood and confidence, you’ll think faster. Cutting out sugar can reduce inflammation to the brain and exercise can lower the risk of depression, even reversing it. It’s good for your spirit and mind.

  • Exercise improves memory and cognitive functioning. It boosts circulation delivering oxygen and nutrient laden blood to all parts of the body, including the brain.
  • Exercise improves your posture. Even if you initially don’t have all the confidence you need, you’ll look like you do with good posture. The more confident you look, the more confident you’ll become.
  • Stress can play havoc with your mood and body. Exercise burns off the hormones of stress and replaces them with ones that make you feel more at ease and happy. Happy is sexy.
  • While those undergarments can make you look thinner, they can’t make you look younger. Eating healthy and exercise can. Whether you’re naked or clothed, that’s a huge plus.

Surprising Fat Loss Facts

Surprising Fat Loss Facts

I often tell clients in Houston, Tx that the more they know about getting and staying fit, the better chance they have of being fit. That’s why I love to do these blogs, to provide that information. Here are some fat loss facts that can help you in your effort to shed weight. You may already know some of them, but others might be contrary to what you heard or knew. Use this information to arm yourself on the road to fitness and weight loss.

In order to lose body fat, you need to eat protein, carbs AND fat.

Most people think that just giving up fat will help them lose fat, but that’s not true. Your body needs fat, but only the healthy kind. Fat comes from other sources besides the marbling of a steak. Avocados, fatty fish like salmon, nuts and even butter made from milk from grassfed cows. Fat is important for your body’s health. In fact, the brain is 60% fat! Your body needs fat to make some vitamins available. It also uses fat for protection for organs, helping protein by acting as messengers, aiding in building muscles and starting the chemical actions in the body to run the immune system, the reproductive system, brain health, cell growth and basic metabolism.

No matter how many ab exercises you do, unless you lose weight, you won’t get a six pack.

Focusing on spot exercises will definitely build your abs, but nobody will see them if there’s a layer of fat covering them. Unfortunately, many people think that doing spot exercises, such as leg lifts, will burn the fat off the abs. That’s not true. In order to show off those beautiful abs you’ve been working on so hard, you have to shed body weight and there’s no way to make it come off just one spot on your body, it comes off the whole body. A healthy diet and exercise can help you get the abs you want.

Once fat cells form, the cells never go away, just shrink.

When you workout, you don’t turn fat cells into muscle tissue. You simply shrink the fat cells and build more muscle tissue. Sadly, studies show that fat cells are created quickly, but never go away, just shrink. It’s why people often have the problem of regaining the weight they lost. The regaining of weight is caused by the fat cells expanding to store excess calories consumed. Even though they’re always there, you can keep them from growing with exercise. Exercise builds muscle tissue, which requires more calories, so it won’t be stored in the waiting fat cells. That’s why making lifestyle changes is so important.

  • People often think that running or other cardio is all they need to burn fat. The body doesn’t differentiate where the calories come from, so lean muscle mass is also burned. Strength building exercise build muscle tissue while burning fat. The more muscles you have, the more calories you burn.
  • If you’re trying to lose fat, don’t choose low-fat/fat-free alternatives of whole foods. These foods can actually cause you to become fatter by stimulating insulin production.
  • After strength training, the body burns more calories for up to 24 hours and the biggest percentage of those calories come from fat.
  • HIIT—high intensity interval training—also burns high amounts of calories and continues to burn them after the exercise ends, just like strength training. However, that afterburn increases fat burning up to 24%.

Start With Small Changes

Start With Small Changes

Don’t get overwhelmed by trying to do everything at once. It’s one of the major problems I see in the clients in Houston. Fitness can start with small changes and have just as much of an impact as jumping into a program that changes several aspects of your life. The concept of fitness is a broad category with each person requiring a different focus. For the twenty year old, being able to run ten miles might be his or her idea of being fit, but for the senior, it’s probably something totally different. That’s one reason working with a personal trainer is important, just as identifying areas of your life that need improvement. There’s no right or wrong approach. It’s all about what’s right for you and it can begin with small changes at first.

Be clear about what you want to achieve.

Don’t let yourself feel overwhelmed by all that you need to change. Take one step at a time. Make a list of areas where you feel you need improvement. Do you feel dragged out and tired all the time? Are you overweight? Do you want to tone your muscles? Do you want to learn to eat healthier? Pick one goal to begin your journey to fitness and then identify what it takes to get there. If you want more energy, you may need to exercise and eat healthier. That doesn’t mean you have to do both at once.

If you have a goal that requires several changes, pick one of those and begin working on it.

Now that you’ve chosen your goal, break it down to steps. Fitness isn’t an all or nothing proposition. Sure it would be nice to do it all at once, but for some people, it’s not an option. Those people overwhelm themselves with change. For that goal to feel better, start a program of exercise and add healthy eating and other factors later. Some, like adequate sleep and good hydration often occur at the same time, because exercise helps you sleep better and you’ll drink more water when you workout. Make working out a habit. Give it twelve weeks and then consider adding more to your fitness platter.

Is weight loss a goal?

If you have more than a couple of pounds to shed, don’t try to do it all at once. Break that big goal down to mini goals. Breaking it down to two or three pounds a week makes it manageable. Start with a healthy eating program first, since you can’t out-exercise a bad diet and add exercise as you progress. Make small changes in your eating habits, like cutting out junk food or switching out sugary treats for healthy snacks, will get you on the road to healthy eating. Increase your activity level if you’re not ready for a regular workout. Take the stairs, walk to lunch or park further from the store and walk.

  • Once the small change becoming a habit, make another small change. Cut out sugary treats and opt for fruit, nuts or vegetables as snacks. When it’s a habit, increase the amount of vegetables you eat each day.
  • If you aren’t satisfied with the results, nothing says you can’t make more changes. Maybe you’re ready for to convert to total healthy eating and an exercise program.
  • One of the biggest problems many people face is lack of sleep. It actually affects your ability to lose weight! Try to make getting a good night’s rest one of your priorities.
  • When you make small changes a habit, you slide into fitness and build the determination to keep going. It’s better to change on small aspect successfully, than try to do it all and fail.

Be Realistic But Focused

Be Realistic But Focused

If you’ve tried to lose weight before and failed, you know it’s extremely depressing. Now, you’ve added one more reason to the list of reasons why you’ll never be fit. Maybe you weren’t realistic or maybe, your goal wasn’t focused on specifics. You need both to successfully reach any goal, whether it’s fitness or not. Consider people that go to college to attain a degree. Most of them start with a specific program that suits their interest and understanding. They follow a program with specific classes necessary as the core. If you are a genius in science, but have no musical background, getting a degree in music isn’t realistic. Neither is getting that degree in two months. However, switching to a major based in science provides a realistic goal and each individual class is one step toward it, bringing you focus.

Losing weight is a goal, but it needs to be more specific.

If you want to lose fifty pounds that’s your goal, but you also need a time frame. If it’s a month, that’s not realistic. The best way to handle a larger goal is to give yourself rewards along the way with mini goals you can accomplish. Breaking the goal down to achievable smaller goals is important. That fifty pounds could be broken down to two or three pounds a week. It’s short enough to keep you focused, yet leads to your ultimate goal and is achievable.

Keep your eye on the prize, while you follow your path to fitness.

Working hard to achieve each mini goal is important. That’s why a planned method of achieving it is necessary. It doesn’t just fall off because you decided it would or you’d never have a problem with weight! Your plan should be specific and include healthy eating and regular exercise. Whether you follow specific menus we provide on the app or choose to create your own, making changes in what you eat is top priority. Adding exercise speeds up the process and gets you looking fabulous.

Focusing on your program helps you achieve it.

Don’t jump on the scales every ten minutes. Instead, focus on the things you can easily control, like whether you worked out that day or ate a healthy snack instead of a sugary one. Have faith that you’re accomplishing what you set out to do by following your plan and maintaining focus. Things like water weight can take away the prize for one week, but not several weeks in a row. Never get discouraged. Just maintain focus and do it.

  • Learn tricks and tips, like drinking an eight ounce glass of cold water about 20 minutes before a meal. It hydrates you, fills you up and has no caloric value.
  • Get plenty of sleep. I can’t emphasize this enough. It changes your outlook and affects your success at losing weight.
  • Identify a bad eating habit often and modify it. If you’re snacking on high calorie foods, take a healthy snack with you. If you constantly do carryout, cook the week’s food ahead so all you have to do is warm it up.
  • It’s not all about what you eat, what you drink makes a difference. If you have two cans of soft drinks a day, you’re drinking enough calories to gain a pound every 12 days! Diet cola adds inches to your middle, so it’s not an option either.

Is It Better To Workout On An Empty Stomach

Is It Better To Workout On An Empty Stomach

There’s a lot of discussion about whether you should workout on an empty stomach or eat a light meal or snack before you workout. One thing is certain, if you’re going to have a full meal that contains a high amount of protein, fat and carbohydrates, you’re better off eating it at least two to three hours before the workout. If eating at that time is not possible, as you get closer to the workout, make the meal lighter and simple carbs with some protein. Otherwise, you might find that you’ll have some stomach problems at the gym. Your stomach needs some of the blood for digestion, so both your workout and stomach suffer in the process.

There’s a case for no food before you workout.

Some people workout the first thing in the morning. Some of those people don’t eat, but get right to work on their exercise program. Unless they’re sleep eaters, which do exist, they probably have used a vast amount of the glycogen stores. That’s the energy source for the body. The logic for this type of food/exercising program is that because the store of glycogen is low or absent, the body will use fat as its source of food.

There are good reasons to eat before you workout.

One reason to eat is to boost your metabolism. Starving your body is never good. It slows the metabolism. One way the body identifies that it’s starving is the rapid burning of fat for energy. In order to ensure that there’s adequate energy for the brain, heart and other vital organs, the body goes into starvation mode, slowing down the amount of calories it burns. The next time you eat, instead of burning all the calories, it stores some of them as fat. That makes it harder for you to lose weight.

If you eat before a workout, you’re less likely to overeat later.

That certainly makes sense. If you aren’t starving from lack of food and a tough exercise routine, you’ll be less likely to eat everything in sight when you’ve finished your workout. One study from the journal, Appetite, showed that people who ate before a workout actually ate less and had less desire to eat than those who didn’t. If you’re working out to lose weight, a light meal beforehand or a snack might be helpful.

  • One study shows that people who worked out on an empty stomach actually lost 20 percent more fat than those that didn’t.
  • One problem with a fasted workout—one where you didn’t eat before hand—is that sometimes it’s not only fat that’s lost, it also can be muscle tissue, which slows your metabolism, too.
  • Eating some protein before you exercise helps improve muscle recovery, strength and provides more lean body mass. You’ll perform better, too.
  • If you’re involved with a long endurance style workout, having a bit to eat before you workout can help you get through it. In most cases, whether to eat or not eat is more up to personal preference than a rule locked in stone.

Transform Your Body Anywhere/Anytime

Transform Your Body Anywhere/Anytime

Whether you live in Houston, TX or another part of the country, want to come to the gym or prefer to workout at home, you can transform your body with my help and the aid of modern technology. There’s no limit to where you can be when you use the magic of today’s technology and my helpful app. It will get you fit and swimsuit ready in no time. It’s created to help you reach your fitness goals no matter what they are.

Our team will determine where you need to start.

No two people are alike. You’re special and your fitness problems are like no other person’s. While you might not need to lose weight, toning and firming your muscles might be what you hope to achieve. Other clients may have to lose large amounts of weight or just a few pounds. Everyone’s body is different and so are their goals. That’s why we ask so many questions before you begin our program.

Like working with any personal trainer, you’ll be held accountable.

One of the reasons that people do so well with trainers is that there’s someone watching their progress, holding them accountable for doing the things they have to do to achieve their goals. It’s no different when you work with my online team. There’s one-to-one accountability. That makes you think twice when you’re tired and feel like skipping a workout or want to indulge in a quart of Ben and Jerry’s.

There’s plenty of support along the ways.

Not only do you have your own account where you have to check in with our transformation team, so they can evaluate your progress, you’ll have a place to upload your pictures that show how much progress you’ve made. Most people fail to take snapshots of how they look before and after they started a program, so we make it easier for you. It’s a great way to see just how much you’ve achieved and extremely motivating.

  • Don’t worry, you won’t be left on your own when it comes to working out. We provide not only a program, but specific details to help you achieve the most from the workout.
  • No transformation program is complete without a healthy eating plan. We make it easy with our flexible meal plans that provide meal options, so there’s no guesswork. If you need more or a change, there are continual updates.
  • Watching someone do a workout is often better because you can see each and every movement that person does, right down to a turn of the wrist or whether they breathed in or out. We provide videos to help guide you through each exercise.
  • When you work with our transformation program, there’s no excuses. You can carve out the time because it’s truly a flexible plan and designed to help you achieve your goals.

Working Out When You're Sore

Working Out When You’re Sore

If you’re reluctant about working out when you’re sore, you may have reason to worry. Then again, you may actually need to workout and get through the discomfort. The immediate thought is to take a rest, but the key to whether workout or not is just how sore you are. If it’s extremely painful to move, not only do you need to set aside your workout, you need to seek medical attention. Unbearable pain is not part of the program and may indicate a serious injury that needs care.

Watch for signs of injury.

There’s a huge difference between pain and soreness. Soreness indicates discomfort and that usually decreases in two to three days. Injury requires medical attention and includes symptoms like sharp pain, swelling, constant pain with no relief, numbness, black and blue marks and tingling or numbness. It can also bring a feeling of nausea when exerting effort on the injured area. Use ice and home medication for these symptoms and don’t go back to exercise for a day or two. If the symptoms are serious, get medical treatment.

Why you may be feeling pain if there’s no major injury.

Every time you workout hard, it causes the muscle tissue to break down a little, especially if you’re working on new exercises or boosting the intensity of old ones. Those micro tears in the muscles can remind you that you worked out the day previously. It’s also how you build muscle tissue. The body responds and repairs the tears, making them even stronger against future damage.

Don’t do the same routine the next day, but use different exercises.

You won’t be doing yourself a favor by doing the same routine each day. That doesn’t give your muscle tissue time to heal. Instead, alternate your workout. If you’re sore, try stretching exercises or go for a walk. It actually can help with recovery. Active recovery, doing light strength training, stretching and low intensity cardio, like swimming, boosts circulation and can be as good as getting a massage!

  • When you’re working out, make sure you not only rest your muscles after a tough workout and work a different group, but also that you get enough protein to help rebuild any tears in the muscle tissue.
  • Delayed onset muscle soreness—DOMS—can be averted by doing workouts with resistance bands or getting a massage. Always make sure you have a warm up and cool down routine.
  • Overtraining can be dangerous and set you back. If you’re working out too much or too hard every day, it can increase the resting heart rate, change your mood, lower your resistance, cause fatigue and insomnia, lower your performance and cause overuse injuries.
  • Vary your workout and don’t work on the same muscle groups every day.

Benefits Of Green Tea

Benefits Of Green Tea

In Houston, Tx, we focus on both healthy eating and exercise. We also pay attention on what you drink, because it affects your body as much as what you eat. Of course, I highly recommend water and preach constantly to avoid sugary drinks like soft drinks. One other drink I often promote is green tea. There are benefits of green tea for both weight loss and health benefits that everyone should consider when checking for the best beverage with their meals. Some studies show that drinking green tea helps decrease body fat. It can significantly reduce not only body fat percentage and body weight, but also belly fat and waist circumference.

If heart health is a top priority, switch to green tea.

While everyone wants to look better and trimmer, there are other reasons to make green tea a drink of choice. It can help lower risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. It boosts antioxidants that help to prevent the oxidation of LDL cholesterol in the blood and then causing arterial disease. It lowers cholesterol, too. Several studies show that people who drink green tea live longer and have a lower risk of heart disease, as much as 31 percent lower.

What’s a great body without a great smile and good breath?

One little broadcast fact about green tea is the catechins in the tea not only help your body, but also help dental hygiene. It can kill bacteria and even slow viruses in their tracks. Not only does it have the potential for lowering the risk of infections, it may give you a better smile by fighting plaque and tooth decay. The biggest threat to your smile is Streptococcus mutons, a bacteria that promotes the formation of plaque and leads to tooth decay. The catechins in green tea can prevent their growth. It may be why studies show that people who drink green tea have better dental health and improved breath.

Your brain may improve your brain power.

Green tea contains caffeine, but not nearly as much as coffee that can cause side effects if you drink too much. Caffeine blocks adenosine in the brain, increasing the amount of dopamine and nor-epinephrine and the firing of neurons. That keeps you alert and can lead to improved mood, reaction time and memory. Green tea also contains L-theanine, which is one of the few substances can enter the brain from the blood stream it works in combination with caffeine to boost brain power.

  • Green tea is a real health booster. It has polyphenols, which reduce inflammation and the natural antioxidant catechins. Those two both protect the cells and boost the immune system.
  • If you want brain protection from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, boost your intake of green tea. The catechins have shown to be effective in early testing to protect the neurons.
  • Green tea can lower your risk of cancer. The antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties of green tea show promise in protecting against cancer. Data gathered showed green tea drinkers are less prone to cancer.
  • Green tea can help insulin sensitivity, the precursor for Type 2 diabetes.