Diets do nothing!!!! 21 Day’s To a Better Looking You

It New Year’s time again and all you see and hear about is diets and gym memberships.  I would like to focus on the diet aspect.  Lose weight quick diet’s accomplish nothing for a person in the long term aspect.  Sure they sound great, inspire, and some even achieve what they said they would, but after the diet is over the bad habits continue and the weight slowly begins to creep back up.  This failure is due to the fact that diets result in too many changes at once for a person and doesn’t allow them to pin point their nutrition problem areas. 

What I suggest to my clients is you attack one aspect of your diet that they know is a bad habit.  Research has shown that it takes 21 days to adapt a new habit, so, I always require that my clients focus for one month on substituting or eliminating one negative aspect in their everyday diet.   This allows them to focus on one thing at a time and not be overwhelmed with cravings.  If you follow this routine for one year that’s 12 dietary improvements which is more than what most people accomplish in a lifetime. 

Some examples of dietary mistakes to get you started are:

·         Too much cheese

·         Soda and Sugar Drinks

·         Too many carb’s

·         Creamy Dressing’s

Keeping Fit during the Holiday’s

Holiday season means cold weather, parties with sweets and bad food, and most of all alcohol!  This is a perfect time to ramp up your workout with lighter weight, more reps, and less rest between exercises.  Interval strength training with short rest breaks will allow the body to maintain an elevated heart rate and stay in a fat burning zone.  You can also apply this to cardio as well if you hate doing distance on a treadmill.  Do short bursts of speed with short rests to mix it up and break up the monotony.  Intervals on the treadmill or elliptical will shock the body and keep it from settling into a steady state where calorie burn is minimal.  The key to interval training is you have to push yourself and work hard.  A great way to stay motivated and work hard is by training with a partner or in a group, so be sociable.  

Example Intervals for strength training:

30sec work – 15sec rest, 4 exercises, total body, rotate through the 4 exercises 3 times.

Example Interval for cardio:

2 min uphill walk (at least 12% incline) – 1min flat jog, continue for at least 30 min.