Fitness & Wellness

Some people fail in their attempt to lose weight because they aren’t sure what to do or how to start it. If you’re building a house, you need a blueprint first. The same is true when you’re trying to reach your goal of weight loss, you need a guide or a blueprint to follow. That’s what I provide for clients in both Houston, Tx and those online. It’s a step-by-step program designed specifically with you in mind.

Start with your ultimate goal and break it down to smaller more achievable goals.

Maybe you want to lose 50 pounds or chisel your waist down from 32 inches to 24 inches. It doesn’t happen overnight and the time it takes can often discourage people. That’s why breaking your goal down to smaller more quickly achievable goals. It helps you track your progress, so you can make changes if necessary and get that boost of encouragement from achieving the goal.

Learn how to eat healthier and have the information at the tip of your fingers.

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be a mystery, especially when you’re using my plan. We have a nutrition package that you can customize to match your goals. Whether you want to use the helpful Flexible Meal Planning app provides great meal options or create your own delicious healthy meal with the help of the guidelines provided, this tool is necessary to help you reach your goal.

There’s no need to leave the house to workout when you have the help with online training.

If you’re confused about where to start, don’t worry. We provide all the tools and help you with a program based on your needs and goals. It’s available to you 24/7, unlike gyms and personal trainers. For those working unusual hours, it’s not a problem. Schedule your workout when it’s most convenient.

• I not only provide the workout program, our team tracks you and keeps you accountable. That’s very important for success. It provides the motivation to stick with the plan, even though it can be tough or you’ve experienced a set-back.
• It’s great to see success and even better when you get to share it. It also provides inspiration for others. That’s why we want you to upload pictures to help provide a documentation of your progress.
• You’ll have all the information you need to reach your fitness goal when you join the RC Fitness family, no matter whether it’s a total transformation or just building more muscle tone.
• Try the 90 day challenge and see how well you do. You’ll be amazed at the difference just a mere 90 days make. Start today and you’ll look back and be glad you made the decision to do it.

Want to Learn More About How to Reach Your Goal?

If you’re ready to reach your fitness goal, contact me here today.

One of the best things about summer workouts is that you can take them outside and enjoy the sun. Of course, you have to make sure you follow certain protocols to ensure your safety and good healthy. Wearing sunscreen is a must if you’re outside in the sun for long. It protects your skin and prevents burning that can age you and ultimately may cause skin cancer. There are also other rules to follow to prevent sun damage.

Workout when it’s not as hot and the sun isn’t as high in the sky.

Taking your training outdoors, do it when the sun’s rays aren’t the strongest. The time between 10 a.m. and 3 to 4 p.m. should be avoided to help prevent sunburn and heat exhaustion. Exercise early in the morning or later in the day, especially if you’re concerned your sunscreen will drip off your body with all the sweat. Earlier in the morning is normally the coolest time.

Apply your sunscreen liberally before you put on exercise gear.

Use a sunscreen that covers a broad spectrum with protection for both UVA and UVB rays. Make sure it has a high SPF—sun protective factor—protection. It should be as much about 50, but can be as low as 30. Applying it before you put on your workout clothes ensures you’ll get your entire body and won’t miss an area where you sleeve rises a bit as you workout, or where the sun hits your back when you bend.

Apply the sunscreen liberally, especially on areas where you’re more likely to get sunburned, like your nose.

Use lotion, which is easier to ensure it covers the area and doesn’t have fumes that may affect your health like spray on lotion. Use a liberal amount before you leave the house. A dopple the size of a golf ball should work. Be aware that if you use products with retinol—including sunscreen with retinol, it may actually intensify the sun rays and boost your potential for sunburn. Carry the sunscreen with you and if you’re sweating profusely, reapply it at least once every hour and a half.

• Don’t forget to wear a hat to protect the top of your head from the sun. It also provides more shade for your face.
• Even if the sky is overcast, you’ll still be exposed to the rays of the sun. Sunscreen is just as important on those days as they are on the super sunny ones.
• Check into workout clothes that offer sun protection. The UV protective clothing is lightweight and designed for outside workouts.
• Stay safe when you workout. Don’t forget about staying hydrated and if it’s really hot, either take your workout to a shady area or cut it short outside and take it inside.

I always make sure everyone has strength building exercises in their workout, which in many cases includes weight lifting. There are a number of reasons to lift weights, here are five of my favorite ones and often the top reasons people include weight lifting in their workout. Lifting weights isn’t just for men. It’s perfect for women, too. Contrary to what some women think, it won’t make you bulk up like the Incredible Hulk. Women don’t bulk up like men because of hormone difference. Even for men it takes a lot of work and focused training.

If you want to burn fat, grab weights and start exercising.

One reasons strength training, weight lifting in particular, is so important in a workout program is that it torches calories, while building muscle tissue. You may think that cardio workouts are the best at burning calories, but you’d be wrong. Yes, they do require a high calorie expenditure, but those calories come from both fat and lean muscle tissue. Lifting weights actually builds muscle tissue while it burns calories from fat. After weeks of training, you’ll have more muscle tissue and less fat tissue when you lift weights. That’s good, because muscle tissue needs more calories for maintenance, so the more you have the more calories you’ll burn 24/7.

Reason number two for weight lifting, strong muscles and bones.

As people age, they begin to lose muscle tissue. That loss of muscle tissue is called sarcopenia. It often starts in the second half of the thirties and continues each year. Losing muscle tissue can have a huge effect on a senior’s ability to function on their own. Lifting stops and reverses the loss of muscle mass. Losing muscle tissue also affects bone loss. When you lose muscle mass, loss of bone mass also occurs. Studies show weight bearing exercises can slow that process of osteoporosis as well as some medications and maybe even reverse it.

You’ll reduce the risk of serious conditions when you workout with weights.

Besides osteoporosis and sarcopenia, working out with weights can help reverse insulin resistance, the precursor to type 2 diabetes. When you do resistance training, it activates four separate signaling pathways that boost the production of APP1, a protein helps your body use insulin and regulates the absorption of glucose. That lets your muscles use glucose more effectively. It also helps deal with chronic conditions and the pain of arthritis. Strength training is as effective as medication for pain reduction.

• Reason number four to do strength training is that it lowers blood pressure. It can help prevent heart disease. It’s far easier on the heart than aerobic training, too.
• A fifth reason weight training is beneficial is for improved energy. At first, you’ll be ready to shower and go to bed immediately after lifting weights, but after a few months, you’ll notice you have more energy than you had in years.
• As a bonus, you’ll burn off the hormones of stress when you workout with weights. It also stimulates the production of hormones that make you feel good.
• Not only does strength training give you the curves you want, it makes you more coordinated and helps improve your balance. You’ll not only get a great body, you’ll carry yourself with confidence and reduce the risk of falls.

Any time you do lower body workouts, don’t forget to warm up and cool down. Warming up helps you get more from your workout, while preventing injury and cooling down helps prevent aches and pains. Start any workout with warm up exercises like marching, swinging your arms like a windmill, jumping rope, squats or lunges. Cool down with stretches, such as quad stretches, stretching the hamstrings by lying on the back and lifting one leg straight up or other types of stretches.

Body weight exercises are the key to exercising anywhere.

When you’re at the gym, you can add weights to these exercises, but at home or when you’re first starting, do them with only body weight. Start with squats. With your feet shoulder-width apart, keeping the majority of your weight on your heels, bend your knees and squat making your thighs parallel to the ground. Stand back up and squeeze the muscles in your butt as you do. Follow it with a set of reverse lunges. With feet at shoulder-width, step backward with one leg, putting the ball of the foot on the ground, bend your knees with one knee tapping the ground and the other at a 90 degree angle. Raise your self up, lifting the back foot bending the knee until your thigh touches your chest.

The inner thigh will benefit from a plié.

Your feet should be spread wider than your shoulder-width, turning your toes out and with hands in front of you. Now squat, making your thighs parallel with the floor. It’s time for the tough part, it’s time to go up on toe. Lift your heels off the ground in that position and hold. Lower your heels back down and repeat. Jumping helps build leg muscles and there’s no better way to do it than jumping on one foot as you lift the other to tap the chair and put it on the ground. Then jumping on the that foot and tapping with the other.

Side lunges are simple, but effective.

Stand straight with your feet hip width apart, lift your left leg and place it far to the left. Bend your knee, pushing your bottom back at the same time. Bring the foot back to the start position and repeat. Then do the other side. Do a curtsy lunge with the starting position the same as a side lunge. Place your left leg at a diagonal behind the right leg, bending the knees to lower yourself to a lunge, making it look like a curtsy. Push back up to starting position and repeat. Then do it on the other side.

• Side leg raises help shape the legs. Laying on your side, lift your body up to rest on your forearm. Lift the upper leg in the air and return to start position.
• To tighten that inner thigh, start the same way as a side leg raise, but instead bring the foot of the upper leg in front of the lower knee and lift the bottom leg upward.
• An easy one you can do anywhere is a calf raise. With your feet hip-width apart, lift one leg until the knee is at hip level, pointing your toes with your hands on your hips. Now go on tiptoe with the foot that’s still on the ground. It really helps your balance, too. Do the other side.
• Simple things like walking, marching with your knees lifted high and riding a bike can help make your lower body shapelier.

If you want to eat like a caveman, then you’re ready for the paleo diet. Paleo stands for paleolithic, which was the early age of the stone age, when caveman walked the earth. The Paleo diet has fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, eggs and nuts, but no grain. Many people feel it’s closer to the way caveman ate and can help you to lose weight and become healthier. It’s a pre-agriculture society. There was no artificial or processed food available. In other words, cavemen never had a coke or quickie burger.

A Paleo diet is a whole food diet.

The Paleo diet is all about eating whole foods without much processing. After all, that would be how the caveman ate. There is one difference between a Paleo diet and healthy eating guidelines is that when you eat healthy, you can include grains with your meals. Some of the foods the Paleo diet eliminates are actually healthy. It eliminates all grains, legumes such as peanuts, beans and soy. Dairy is eliminated, so milk, cheese and other products like yogurt disappear with it. You won’t be eating starchy vegetables on a paleo diet, such as potatoes and corn.

You might have problems finding food you like on a strict Paleo diet.

A strict Paleo diet makes it far more difficult to eat in public restaurants or even visit others for a dinner together. If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, it makes it almost impossible to have a well balanced diet. Vegan’s primary source of protein comes from beans and legumes, which aren’t allowed on a Paleo diet. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, just a lot tougher. Vegans have to depend on nuts and seeds for protein. That can mean eating a whole lot of nut butter! A Paleo diet also makes it harder to get carbs for energy, so if you’re an athlete who does tough workouts, you’ll have to work harder to get the energy you need before working out hard.

There are good things about the Paleo diet.

One of the best things about a Paleo diet is weight loss. Eating like a caveman is also easier in some ways. It’s far easier to identify the foods that you can eat. The rules are simple and not very complicated. There are limited foods from which to select. There’s no label reading, since processed foods are totally out of the picture. When you consider that most fresh fruits and vegetables are anti-inflammatory, you’ll be improving your health, too.

• Using a modified form of the Paleo diet that includes dairy and grain, while eliminating processed foods is my favorite diet. It opens up more choices and provides certain nutrients easier.
• While cavemen were forced into more rigid eating patterns, they would have eaten a piece of cake if they had it available and you can too when you eat healthy. Unlike a Paleo diet, which doesn’t allow an occasional treat, eating healthy does.
• Another drawback of a Paleo diet is cost. Many of the foods cost more than foods in the traditional American diet.
• If you want to eat like a caveman, don’t forget to get all the exercise a caveman got. You should make sure you exercise regularly. While you don’t have to walk EVERYWHERE, walking more is a place to start.