Four Nutritional Challenges for 2010

Hey, Tony here I brought you another great guest post. This is written by Nutritioninst Angelique Marquez. I hope you enjoy it.


As published in the first "Connect to Fitness" of 2010, over the coming year, I will propose four nutritional challenges, goals if you will. If you accept each challenge as it is proposed, one at a time, it will compliment any other health or wellness goal you make this year and you won’t ever have to ‘diet’ again. By focusing on one challenge at a time, you are unlikely to become overwhelmed and give up.


Most Americans, health professionals included, do not eat nearly enough fruits and vegetables everyday. There would be no market for expensive health products with magical vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants if our diet came mostly from whole foods and less from processed foods. There is no one special ingredient, no vitamin, mineral, antioxidant, or other phytochemical that cures all. And guess what, if you eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes, you will have everything and more that any of those special juices, pills, or elixirs can offer.

Challenge #1
Your first challenge this year, should you dare to take it, is to eat five big handfuls of fruits and vegetables everyday.

There is no need to complicate this by trying to calculate calories, carbohydrates, etc., or by getting the measuring cups and scales out. Vegetables should be mostly non-starchy, which means potato, corn and peas do not count. Try to make it usually 2 fruits and 3 vegetables, but if you happen to eat 3 fruits and 2 vegetables, that’s okay. The point is to get 5 heaping handfuls into your diet every day. And you don’t have to stop at 5—you can always have more! Five is just the lower limit. Keep this challenge simple!

Start with the fruits and vegetables that you enjoy already and then slowly add in some new ones. Eat a variety of colors and be creative, make it fun! Use fresh or dried herbs, like parsley, cilantro, thyme, oregano, basil, dill, rosemary and other healthy flavoring ingredients like spices, chilies, garlic, onion, ginger, and lemon or lime. Eat them raw or cooked, whole or sliced, fresh or frozen. Have vegetables in salads, soups, sauces or stir-fries. Use fruit in smoothies, on yogurt, salad, or as dessert.

Tips for attacking this challenge:

· Plan ahead. What will you have for breakfast, lunch and dinner this week?
· Shop and chop. Have vegetables washed and chopped, ready to grab and go, or ready to use when preparing dinner after a long day.
· Eat a fruit and/or vegetable every time you eat. If you go all day long without any fruits or vegetables and then expect to get 5 handfuls in when you get home, it is never gonna happen! So, with every meal or snack, ask yourself, “Where is my fruit or vegetable?” If one or the other or even both are not there, then something is wrong with that meal.
· Make them the first thing you eat with your meal, so you can’t forget or get full on something else.
· Ask for extra veggies. Instead of the noodle, rice, or potato that comes with your meal at a restaurant, ask for an extra serving of vegetables.

· Ideas. Visit websites like http://www.vegetariantimes.com/, http://www.webmd.com/, http://www.healthcastle.com/. And don’t forget to visit my website at http://www.simplyhealthywellness.com/ as I will be posting recipes and tips to keep you going.

Start the New Year Right
Start with Challenge #1, eat five handfuls of fruits and vegetables everyday and watch for the other three challenges in upcoming editions of this magazine. Challenge your clients to do the same and we will all be healthier by the end of this year!

About Angelique Marquez
Angelique holds a bachelor's degree in Nutrition Science from University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is a Registered Dietitian (R.D.) and cerified fitness trainer/instructor. She believes in a multi-facet approach to wellness. She is dedicated to improving the lives of many Las Vegas residents through wellness and disease prevention with proper nutrition.

As a mother of two, Angelique understands the challenges of staying healthy in a demanding fast paced society. Weighing over 200 pounds herself after giving birth to her second child, she also knows how hard it can be to lose weight and keep it off. Angelique has a passion for helping people feel better and be Simply Healthy!

Visit Her homepage at http://www.simplyhealthywellness.com/ and if you like this article check out her blog at http://simplyhealthywellness.blogspot.com/

My Goals for 2010

As I promised last week I'd post some of my goals for this year. While I have a lot of goals; some financial, some personal growth, others fitness related here's three I wanted the share with you.

1. Read 30 books this year.

Believe it or not I hated reading in school; seriously all the way up through college. It wasn't until I was done with school that I actually found out what type of books I like. I don't read mysteries or adventures - I have movies for that. I mostly read books on personal growth and of course always health and fitness stuff. Most people stop learning once they're out of school but for me I've learned way more since I finished school and I'm going to continue...

Two of my favorites from last year were - How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie and the Slight Edge by Jeff Olsen.

This year I'm looking forward to reading The power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership by John C. Maxwell
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

While I've never read more than 20 books in a year I wanted to challenge myself.

ACTION PLAN: I've broken this goal down to reading 2-3 books a month and even further to reading 25 pages per day. I think it's important to break down your long-term goal into daily actions like this so you don't find yourself way behind and then giving up all together.

2. Handstand for 20 seconds.

Nothing special here just something I always thought was cool and wanted to do. Somehow it always got put on the back burner. I just started practicing for this and can only hold it for a few seconds at best.

ACTION PLAN: practice for a minimum of 10 minutes twice per week.

3. Improve my flexibility.

I love strength training and the challenge I get from high intensity cardio work, but for some reason I never liked to stretch. I can tell I'm not as flexible as I was 10 years ago and don't want it to get worse. I've been talking about this one for years and finally decided to do something about it.

One of the specific flexibility goals I have is to improve the flexibility in my hips. If you are familiar with yoga there's a pose called pigeon, and I can't do it very well, my goal is to be able to do this pose with proper alignment and be able to breathe deeply while in it. This may not seem like a challenge to you but as tight as my hips are it is a big challenge for me.

ACTION PLAN: take at least one yoga class per week and stretch on my own for 20 minutes twice a week. Once I get past 60 days I'm going to bump up the yoga to twice a week. I just need to make it a habit first. No need to set myself up for failure from the get go.

Well there it is. My goals and action plans to accomplish those goals. I hope this helps you think about your goals for this year and how you going to break them down to daily actions. If you have no action plan then you're just hoping and wishing you'll get there. Make sure to get your plan of action in place.

Leave me a comment below on your thoughts or your personal goals for 2010. If you can do a handstand please share your tips with me, I need them :)

Tony

3 Easy Ways to Boost Your Metabolism

If you're like most people you don't have a lot of time to workout. Maybe you're looking to lose a few inches or pounds and what you're doing doesn't seem to be working. It's time to stop trading hours in the gym for a poor result. Let me explain how you can get a better return on your time investment in the gym.

If you want to burn more fat you need to work smarter not harder. Here's what I mean, the more you get your metabolism elevated, the more fat you'll end up burning. Here's three easy ways to boost your metabolism and burn more fat.


1. Increase the intensity of your workout

Don't worry too much about how many calories you burn during the exercise. After all what's more important is how many calories you burn overall, this also includes after the workout is done. Several studies have shown that shorter high intensity workouts keeps your metabolism fired up for hours after the workout is over, something you don't get with long slow cardio workouts.







As strength coach Alywn Cosgrove puts it, "Caring about how much fat is burned during exercise is equivalent to worrying about how much muscle is built during exercise."


During weight training you don't build any muscle, you actually break it down. The recovery process afterwords is where muscle is built. The workout only stimulates what happens after, which is what we are interested in. I just want the end result, which is the fastest way to fat loss.



2. Do Strength Training

Another study showed how strength training keeps the metabolism elevated way after the workout is over. The group did circuit training for 31 minutes using compound movements (exercises that work multiple muscles - not one at a time) and free weight exercises. The findings showed that for 38 hours after the workout was over they were still burning fat! Imagine that, if you worked out at 9 am on Monday you'd still be burning fat at 11pm on Tuesday night from that workout!



3. Eating more frequent meals

A Japanese research team looked at the effects of meal frequency on body composition over a two week period. They took two groups and gave them the same amount of total calories. The first group ate these calories split between two larger meals and the second split their calories into six smaller meals. They found the group who ate only twice per day lost significantly more lean body mass than the group who ate six meals per day.




Losing lean body mass slows your metabolism, so to keep it revved up try to eat something every 3 hours while keeping your total calories in check.

So to recap...
stop doing long slow cardio (unless you're an endurance athelete) and add high intensity work in it's place, do circuit style strength training with free weights, and eat something every three hours to burn more fat.

What Can I Do For You?

I hope you're doing great and that 2010 is off to a great start for you!

This post is a little different.It's a new year. You probably have some health and fitness goals set for yourself.

I want to help you achieve those goals.

So what I want to know from YOU is; what can I do for you?

What do you need more clarification on? What topics should I cover in the next few blog posts?

In the comment box below let me know what you need help with, and what I can
do for you to help you reach your goals for 2010.

Tony

What everybody Ought to Know About Weight Loss

Weight Loss isn't just about dieting and working out. It's also about your support system.

Do you have people in your life that seem to suck the life right out of your dreams? They may be your friends, family members, or co-workers who are supposed to be supportive of you, but whenever you tell them you’re going to do something they get all negative about it.


You’ll hear them say things like, “You can’t do that” or “I tried that and it doesn’t work”.

Sometimes they’ll pressure you to eat doughnuts someone brought into the office when they know you’re trying to eat clean, “Come on, one doughnut won’t hurt”. I call these people energy vampires.





You need to stay away from them and get around positive people who will support you. It’s hard enough to stay disciplined to exercise and eat healthy as it is, you don’t need other people tearing you down to make it even harder. Their negative words can be poisonous to your success. Avoid them when you can.


You need people in your life that will tell you, “Yes, you can do it” and “great job for sticking with it”. They also understand when you pass on the junk food.



Ask yourself who is in your close group of friends? Are they supporters or vampires – sucking the life out of your dreams? You don’t have to stop being friends with vampires just spend less time around them. Often they do this not because they want to see you fail, but because your success makes them feel worse about themselves because they’re doing nothing to better their situation.



Leave me a comment down below about your experience with the vampires or supporters in your life.

Here's a Method that Helps People Achieve Their Fitness Goals

“The only time you fail is when you quit. If you keep trying you will reach success.” - unknown

January is always a fun time to start exercising. People love setting New Year’s Resolutions to lose the fat and get in shape. Keep in mind if you’re looking for a quick fix, you might as well switch your resolution right now. Quick fixes either don’t work or are temporary and even harmful to your body. Understand to be successful you need to be in it for the long haul. Dedicate a minimum of six months, but preferably one year to this goal and don’t give up until you reach it. If you reach it before one year, great…. Then it’s time for maintenance. Besides, what’s the benefit of getting in shape if only to lose it once you get there? Use the New Year’s resolution to kick start your healthy new lifestyle.

Keep in mind obstacles will arise. The key is to ready for them and to overcome them. Don’t abandon ship just because you got sick, your kid’s activities take up too much of your time, or your work schedule changed. Successful people know obstacles will arise and they work around them.

My wife was training for her first marathon last year and was following a six-month training schedule to build up from not running to be able to run 26 miles. Do you think the road was nice and smooth? Heck no, there were days she was sore, but ran anyway; there were days when our daughters soccer schedule got in the way but she made the time to do it anyway. Then she got the flu and missed three weeks of training a month before the run. Did she give up? No, she rested, recovered and continued her training and ran the marathon and finished.

Never let a setback derail you from reaching your goal. Stay focused on what you want and why you want it. Read your goals daily and stay hungry for the prize at the end of the journey. You’ll be so glad you made it through to the end, I promise.

Healthy Sustainable Fat Loss

Hey, I got another guest post from my good friend Carisse Crossland, CSCS whose a Personal Trainer and group fitness instructor in Las Vegas. She's listed some of her favorite tips to help you reach your lose weight and keep it off.


Hold yourself accountable.
Keep a daily journal of food, calories, and activity. People can offer vitamins, recipes, ergonenic aids (caffeine, etc.) but it all comes down to calories in and calories out.

For detailed information - www.mypyramid.gov





Choosing to eat healthy is exactly that, its a choice.
No one is forcing you to eat the cheeseburger. No one is forcing you to NOT make food for the day. We either decide to be healthy or not. Surround yourself with individuals living the way you want to live. Adapt small changes! These small changes will result in long term gains and snowball into a HEALTHIER lifestyle.


For more tips from Carisse sign up for her Motivational Monday e-mail by sending her an e-mail to CarisseCrossland@hotmail.com.


If you like this check out 9 Tips for Successful Weight Loss