Elite Fitness Solutions

America…as a whole, we are one of the wealthiest nations in the world.

Even when times are tough, I think it’s safe to say we still have more than some of the poverty stricken nations in the world.

Yet among the world, North Americans are some of the fattest, unhealthiest, malnutritioned people.

That may sound harsh, but it is the truth.

Why? Not because we have a lack of resources provided to us. I believe it’s a lack of information, and an over-indulgant addiction to quick, easy and convenient.

Put the next two facts together and you gain a lot of perspective on why we are where we are at as a nation.

#1: One out of every two dollars spent on food in the US is spent in a restaurant.

#2: If you eat out two or more times a week, your chances of obesity increase by 50%.

Number two can be attributed to the fact that there are billion dollar companies like Panda Express that pre-fry all their food, then refry it on site. Can you say increased pant size and heart disease???

Or ordering an “innocent” chicken salad at a restaurant when that “healthy” choice you made has the following nutritional profile:

Calories: 1070

Fat: 77

Sodium: 4380 g (over 2 x’s the RDA…in one sitting!)

Note: This is an actual nutritional profile for a chicken salad at a popular restaurant.

Our bodies simply are not made to process the fake food found in many convenient food sources! The closer you can get your nutrition to its original state found in nature, the better off you will be when it comes to both your health and physique.

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A new study reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by Swedish scientists concludes that the “FTO gene” (which has been linked to weight gain in previous studies) will only increase your chance for obesity if your lifestyle is a sedentary one.

Sorry folks, but your parents can no longer be used as an excuse! Get active, clean up your nutrition and enjoy looking better and feeling great!

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There is always a lot of talk about how to get more out of your workout, but recently a new concept has been introduced to us by Alwyn and Rachel Cosgrove of Results Fitness Gym in California.

That concept is releasing the perverbial brakes that are holding you back from outstanding results when it comes to working out.

Think of it like this. When you’re driving your car with the Emergency brake on, you can floor the gas and you won’t get going too quickly.

The same goes for your body when working out. Here are a few brakes you can release to fast-forward your success.

-Working out on an empty stomach. You can do more reps or add in another round of intervals, but if you’re famished and your energy reserves are on empty, you’re only making a bad situation worse.

Making sure that you have a good source of protein and simple carbs pre and post workout will make you ready to work out and push yourself to levels needed to see results.

- Warming up properly. So many people dismiss the importance of warming up. You think “I can just skim over this” and get to the workout. Well, if you’re tight from a long day, or night (whatever the case may be), skimming over your warm up will again make a bad situation worse when you go to workout. You’re piling weight and reps on top of bad movement, which will only lead to injuries.

- Getting enough sleep. I can’t stress the importance of getting enough sleep. I have difficulty with this one. By the time I get Shilo in bed and watch a little TV, it’s way past my bed time! I’ve been making an effort to get in bed and read for 10-15 minutes instead of watching an hour long show on tv. When well rested, your body functions much better, allowing you to get more out of your workout.

Not to mention you will fight off colds and disease better when you allow your body the necessary time to rest at night. Times differ from person to person, but a good standard is 8 hours of sleep!

Let’s re-cap. Fuel your body for your workout, get your body ready for the workout, and make sure you’re allowing your body the rest it needs to recover from and energize for your workouts!

Releasing these Three “brakes” will allow you to work harder, feel better, and look better as well!

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In case you missed the privious post titled “K-I-S-S Your Workout”, you can view it here.

This post will pertain to Keeping Your Nutrition Simple, “Sweety”…

I can’t tell you how overcomplicated this subject can get! And not only with your everyday person, but with professionals as well. There’s always a study to disprove another study, or a theory that is the end all to your nutrition worries…

The only tried and true thing that has stuck thorough marketing scheme after trendy pill scam is getting back to the basics of whole foods.

Guess what? There’s an erie coincidence in timing between mass production of foods, and the increase in obesity and disease in America.

So, what did (or didn’t) generations prior to the obesity epidemic have? Packaged and processed foods galore!

So, going off of that simple logic, wouldn’t you think about getting your nutrition as God or Nature intended it? Why not bypass all the pretty packaging manufacturers provide, and enjoy the pretty packaging these items come in naturally? Take for instance the apple. It’s packed with vitamins and minerals, all in a handy on the go friendly package. Yet, people opt for dried apples instead, or apple flavored breakfast bars. Looking at this from a logical standpoint, what are you gaining from this? You’re probably spending more money, and gaining more pounds because of it.

So, here are my quick nutrition tips. Outside of this, everything else is details to be worried about later.

1. Eat every 2-4 hours. Our “hunter-gatherer” days aren’t too far behind us in the grand scheme of time. So, when you go hours without nutrition, our system kicks into preservation mode. This slows our metabolism, making it very difficult to burn any fat at all. In order to feel great and look great, you need to get that metabolism revved up and running smoothly!

2. Ditch the simple sugars and simple carbs. Truly, these are generally void of nutrition, and not only make losing fat extremely difficult, they also are often times incredibly unhealthy as well! I don’t care how pretty the packaging is, or how convenient it is. If your goal is fat loss, getting these out of your diet will make a huge difference! Now, I’m talking about simple sugars and simple carbs, including but not limited to chips, pasta, cake, muffins, bagels, sodas, juices, bars, etc. This doesn’t mean you need to ditch the carbs entirely! Carbs are necessary to provide your body with energy. Just stick to complex carbs, including whole grains like quinoa and bulgar wheat, fruits and veggies, and you’ll have great, sustainable energy. Not the sugar high, followed by a shaky energy crash within a half hour of consuming your 100 calorie pack of simple carb diet disaster!

3. Include a good, lean source of protein with each small meal. Protein is the second most abundant thing in your body, next to water. So, including this staple throughout the day will keep you satisfied, and provide your body with the building blocks to maintain your lean mass. Things like cottage cheese, turkey, chicken, and lean cuts of beef are ideal. Nuts and seeds are better than nothing, but have minimal protein per serving. If you’re really strapped for time and ideas, use a good quality protein powder to supplement your nutrition.

There you have it. 3 simple guidelines to follow. Truly the ABC’s of nutrition. Not only will you start to lose fat and inches, you should also notice you feel better. Cutting out the sugars and simple carbs will nip energy highs and lows in the bud. Including whole grains and protein regularly throughout the day will increase your vitamin and mineral intake, making you healthier overall, and give you sustainable nutrition!

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“Core training” has become such a buzz word in the fitness industry. But what does it mean? I believe the term is relative to who you speak to.

Some people think core training and immediately cringe as visuals of sit ups and crunches bombard their heads.

Others view it as a way to create stability and strength in an area often overlooked by many programs.

The latter would be our view. When someone comes into our training facility for the first time, they will typically look around and notice the lack of equipment. We have a lot of open space, and this comes as a shock to most people.

People are used to seeing machines taking up just about every square inch of the gym, with little room left to move.

Why the lack of machines? Well, I guess I could go on about that one, but for the purpose of this post, because they completely take your body’s need to stabilize and use its core out of exercise. Think about it, when you’re doing leg presses on a leg press machine, what are you doing? Laying down, with your body supported against the machine. Yes, you’re able to isolate your quads and focus on that exercise, but when in the course of your regular day would you possibly perform movement like that? Never! When you need to lift something off the ground, all your heavy leg presses will serve you no good as you lack the core strength to properly pick that weight up. Not only that, but you’ve built strength, essentially by isolating the body from itself.

I have had clients come in that have worked for years in the gym, and when I ask them to do something like an elevated push up, they simply can not perform the movement and will complain that it hurts their back. That right there is a huge red flag that they have spent years working on machines, getting different body parts strong, but completely ignoring the core and therefore putting unnecessary strain on the low back as it tries to assist in making up for the lack of core strength.

“But” they say “I did tons of sit-ups!”

That’s great, but you were just reinforcing that instability! All sit ups and crunches do are teach your core how to become mobile, something we aren’t looking for when creating healthy symmetry between our joints. The core craves stability and without it, the lower back and oftentimes the knees suffer for it.

Alright, with that out of the way, what is a good way to strengthen and stabilize the core?

1. Start doing full body movements when working out. Things like squats, lunges, step ups, push ups, chin ups, etc.

2. Stay away from the machines. There are so many exercises out there that will effectively train your different muscle groups while keeping your body working as a whole and working the core as well. You get more “bang for your buck” so to speak.

3. When looking to do “core specific” work, stick to exercises that reinforce stabilization, such as planks and bridges.

4. Remember that some of the best exercises to strengthen your core are not “traditional” core exercises. Things like the deadlift, chin up and push up are all exercises that when done properly will give you strong, sexy abs without a single “core specific” thought!

There you have it! Getting off the machines and working with free weights (dumb bells and other weights) will not only give you a sexy mid section faster than machines, but will also save your back and other joints in the long run!

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“The eating habits of the human and the hog are so similar they could well be embarrassing to the hog.”

~Dr. Broda barnes in his 1976 book “Hypo-thyroidism- The Unsuspected Illness”

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This acronym has been a recurring theme in my life lately.

Why do we tend to do things the hard way anyways? By the way for those of you that haven’t heard of this, it stands for

Keep – It – Simple – Stupid; Sweety; Sugar; etc.

When pertaining to health and fitness, I find that many of us over complicate the matter. 

Today I’ll talk about your workout, and sometime next week, we’ll get to nutrition.

If I could simplify the matter of working out for fat loss, it’d look something like this…

- You need to do resistance training 2-3 days a week to build lean muscle mass (this boosts your metabolism 24 hours a day, burning more calories 24 hours a day) 

- Ditch the long, monotinous aerobic workouts and start doing anaerobic conditiong, also known as intervals 2-4 days a week.

- Get outside of your comfort zone on a regular basis. Going through the motions with your workout is a great way to ensure you see minimal results.

- You’re either in or you’re out! If you go into anything in life with the notion in your head that it isn’t going to work, guess what, you’re darn lucky if it does!

In Robert Kiyosaki’s book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, he mentions that when you say you can’t, your brain stops trying to find a way to make it happen. Sort of depressing, isn’t it? Know that you CAN, and you’ll find a way to make anything happen!

There you have it. Everything else is just details that can be sorted out once you’ve got your basics covered.

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As a mom of a four year old, a wife and business owner, the “what to do for dinner?” question was starting to become more of a stressful, last minute, “well this is better than McDonald’s” situation.

It was getting so bad that I was starting to have feelings of guilt when I sat down with my family for dinner, knowing that the meal we were eating was sub-par and would promise myself that this weekend would be the weekend I finally sat down and created my meal plan for the week…ok, next weekend…ok, I’m never going to be able to do it!

Does that sound familiar?

 As frustrating as this situation can be, planning and preparation are key to a successful body transformation, and most importantly consistency to a certain plan. There have been many recipe books, services and products bought over time in an attempt to simplify this daily conundrum. All of them eventually leaving me right where I had started…confused, and frustrated.

However, I think I have found a solution! It’s called e-mealz. For just $15 every 3 months, you get a weekly menu (that includes side dishes such as salads), as well as a shopping list so that you can make just one trip a week to the store and have everything you need for your dinners.

I decided to try this out for a few weeks, that way I could actually see whether or not the meals were even worth sharing. To my pleasant suprise (and my family’s) the meals have been nutritious, delicious and the best part is I now have a variety of easy to prepare meals. James is loving it, as he commented “I have to tell you how nice it is to not eat chicken so often”…

Anyways, they have a variety of options as far as types of meal plans to choose from. I suggest if your goal is fat loss that you opt for the low-carb meal plan. That’s the one I chose, and the meals have been as I said tasty, nutritious and satisfying. They for the most part fall right in line with what we suggest with our clients.

You can check out the e-mealz website by clicking here:

E-MEALZ Easy Meals for Busy and Frugal Families

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This story on how “science” has shown that exercise does not boost your metabolism like previously thought came out a while back, and has caused some “buzz” in the fitness world.

This is a great example of why you should be very careful about what “science” tells us.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30826120

There are a few deceiving things in the article, especially if you don’t read the whole thing.

First, the “training” they had people doing was far from intense and involved no strength training or post workout nutrition plan. This workout plan in no way represents the cutting edge of fat loss training.

Second, the main guy conducting the study seems to have an agenda that he is trying to “prove”. He wants to show us that exercise does not replace nutrition and while his intentions may be good, his conclusions are a stretch at best. His study was an attempt to show us that this fuss over increasing your metabolism is overblown.

To say that his one study done on 65 people utilizing a program that in no way resembles what the best fat loss experts in the country use can in some way “conclude” that exercise does not increase your metabolism is pretty funny. However, this is what you get out of the exercise science people a lot of times-poorly designed studies that started out with an agenda. Reader beware…

I may even go as far as to say that this study in fact solidifies what James and I try to educate our clients about. Using primarily aerobic work (even “intense” aerobic work) for fat loss pales in comparison to advanced energy systems training.

The more you find yourself just “going through the paces”, the less you will see in return. The more you play that “edge” and push yourself to step outside of your comfort zone, the more you will see in return in the way of results!

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We all have someone we look to that keeps us motivated. Who and why they are “your person” may be a mystery to others and even you.

My “person” where fitness is concerned is a figure model named Jamie Eason. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because she’s vertically challenged like me

Anyways, I was looking at her site, and came across a great post. I get questions regarding calories all the time from clients. Now, the bottom line is: to lose fat, you have to burn more than you consume, but what if you cut back your calories, and they’re “empty calories”? Is that really better?

I think Jamie did an excellent job of answering this question!

Dear Jamie,

…My question to you is about diet and nutrition. I have asked people time and time again whether I should be concerned with counting calories or just making sure that I am getting the appropriate macronutrients in every meal.

I wanted to get a final answer on this, so any help or advice on this would be appreciated. Currently I am 136 pounds and about 25% body fat which is still high. I would like to see that number come down to about 17, so I know I have my work cut out for me. I just wanted to say keep up the good work with inspiring others like me and looking phenomenal! YOU ROCK GIRL!

Thanks,
Shannon

Dear Shannon,

By now you probably know that it takes a deficit of 3500 calories to lose one pound of body fat. It is certainly not an exact science but one rule of thumb that I follow is to multiply my ideal weight (allowing for muscle growth, which weighs more than fat) by 10 to get the number of calories my body needs just to survive on a daily basis.

So, for me, at 5′2″, I feel that my ideal weight is around 110. This puts me at 1100 calories. Next you have to figure in the amount of calories needed to fuel your daily activities.

If you have a sedentary lifestyle, sitting at a desk all day, no exercise, you would likely add about 300 calories to come up with your daily total. This would put me at 1400 to keep me from gaining weight with such little activity in my life.

If you are moderately to very active, add between 500 – 800 calories. This would put my daily total between 1600 – 1900 calories. You may need to play with these numbers over time to find your true caloric needs, because all of our metabolisms are different, some slow, some moderate and some quick.

Once you’ve established your caloric needs, divide that number by 5 or 6, depending on the number of meals you have throughout the day. Smaller, more frequent meals will boost your metabolism and give you quicker results than the usual 3 meals a day that we are all accustomed to.

Right now I am lifting heavier and harder than usual. I have decided to follow a meal plan for 1800 calories, which divided by 6 meals, puts me at 300 calories per meal. I then keep the ratio of macronutrients to about 50% protein, 30% carbohydrates and 20% fat.

I am not typically concerned with keeping this exact. I just try to keep my protein at enough grams to promote muscle growth, so about 1 – 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight, so 110 – 160.

I keep my carbs just below those numbers and only incorporate good fats into my diet, remembering that too much fat, good or bad, will ultimately make you fat. However, some fat is necessary to maintain hormones and keep our metabolism running. I typically cut out carbs other than vegetables for my last meal of the day.

This is the formula I follow throughout the year. As competitions and photo shoots approach I might change my diet using the “taper down” approach or by carb cycling. Those techniques should only be used for short periods of time because they could eventually make your metabolism sluggish.

It is all about finding a balance. Too many calories and you will likely gain fat. Too few calories and your metabolism will slow down, kick into preservation mode and once again, likely gain fat. Your body will store anything you eat to protect its organs and keep from starving.

Find a balance by paying attention to the numbers if you really want to make a difference in your physique. It is amazing how much eating and/or starving ourselves we tend to do, without even realizing it.

*Take note of how tiny Jamie is, and she’s consuming roughly 1800 calories to properly fuel her body when she’s working out. Also note the ratio of protein, carbs (likely not simple) and fat to make sure that her calories are packed full with nutrients!

You can check out Jamie’s site at www.jamieeason.com

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