Fitness & Wellness

I get a lot of questions from clients in Houston, TX about the potential of grains affecting their digestive health. Grains are extremely difficult to digest. It’s easy to understand why grains are difficult and could be troublesome to digestion. They are seeds and seeds have hard outer casings. Many seeds were created that way to encourage spreading the plant to different areas. The casing doesn’t digest, protecting the seed through the process to be eliminated elsewhere, conveniently in it’s own supply of fertilizer. That hard shell is what helps the plant survive, but also can cause digestive problems.

Survival is the ultimate goal of all living things.

Grains contain phytic acid, which may be part of that ultimate plan for self-survival or just an unhappy coincidence. It affects how the body absorb minerals. Phytic acid blocks the absorption of important nutrients in the small intestines and potentially lead to bone loss. The modern way of processing grain can increase the potential for damage to digestion.

Complex proteins are hard to digest.

Grains contain complex proteins, which are hard to digest. One of those proteins is gluten. Recently, there’s been an awareness of how it can affect the body negatively and create health issues that range from digestive to neurological. One reason people have become more aware of the problem is that people seem to be more affected by it. It might be because the amount of gluten in wheat has increased. In the 1960s it was hybridization to create a variety with bigger grain, improving the yield. Since then, it’s become the prominent and almost exclusive variety grown. It contains higher amount of gluten. It’s hard for the body to break down that protein, so it wreaks havoc on the digestive system. The disaccharides in grain are equally difficult to process, creating another digestive problem.

Grain may interfere with the digestive enzymes.

Your body needs enzymes to digest food and seeds use enzyme inhibitors to help prevent sprouting when conditions aren’t right. Those two facts go together to create a problem in the digestive system. Grain enzyme inhibitors don’t just block the seed enzymes, they block the digestive enzymes, too. In order to get rid of the inhibitor, you have to prepare grains properly. That can mean soaking, sprouting or fermenting them. Modern grain products don’t use those methods.

Digestion requires an enzyme to act as a catalyst.

All digestive actions start with enzymes. Since grains are seeds, they contain an enzyme inhibitor to help prevent the seed from sprouting if conditions are good for growing. These inhibitors may help the seeds to grow in the right conditions, but they certainly don’t help your digestion. By ingesting grains that aren’t prepared properly, we’re passing on these inhibitors to the digestive system, slowing or halting the process of digestion.

• Leaky gut, a newer complex of conditions, is thought to be related to the more prevalent appearance of grains in the modern diet. The symptoms of leaky gut often include somewhat unrelated symptoms.
• There are some examples of grain products on the market that use older techniques to rid the grain of enzymes, sour dough bread and sprouted bread are two. Since legumes contain the same substance, it’s always important to soak dried beans before preparing them.
• Giving up grain entirely can help you find out if your digestive troubles come from it. If your symptoms disappear, you might consider re-adding them using more ancient alternatives, such as amaranth, sorghum, millet and kamut.
• Not only does the preparation techniques of soaking, fermenting and sprouting help eliminate the phytic acid in grains, it also makes the disaccharides grains contain easier to digest.

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.

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%.

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.

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.