Sunday, May 24, 2009

Motivational Quote

Obsessed is just a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.

Unknown

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

10 Nutrition Rules for Fat

Nutrition Rule #1:

The first step to making a change is deciding to do so. Not only in your mind but also on paper. Write down very specifically what your goals are. Map out your long term and short term goals. Getting in better shape or becoming fit isn’t good enough. They are good goals, but will they hold any weight when you are tempted at a barbecue to have the beer everyone else is having or when you are at a family gathering with sweets are the main course? What are the specific reasons that you are here. Ask yourself the tough questions and spend a lot of extra time on this. Those who do not overlook this step are those who succeed

Nutrition Rule #2

Eat five to six small meals throughout the day. This comes to eating every three to three and a half hours. This will spike your metabolism and keep you burning an elevated amount of calories all day. Eating too few meals during the course of the day will cause your body to hold onto excess body fat causing frustrating weight gain.

Nutrition Rule #3

In today’s world, taking a multivitamin is essential in order to maintain good overall health. Multivitamins are your back up plan for not getting the needed nutrients in your daily nutrition plan. Multivitamins plug up the deficient holes allowing your body to run at a high fat burning level, and you avoid nutrient deficiencies. Choose a multivitamin that is made from whole food sources rather than the pharmacy brand options. They will absorb better and will be used more readily. Quality multivitamins can be found at most nutritional stores.

Nutrition Rule #4

Water intake is vital to attaining a lean look. Your muscles are mostly made up of muscle, and water carries nutrients throughout the body in order for it to perform functions. Lack of water causes the body to slowly shut down; muscles don’t work well, metabolism slows down, and the body goes into a shell in order to preserve energy. Look to drink at least half your body weight in ounces per day. More if you are exercising.

Nutrition Rule #5

Create Supportive Menus to optimize fat loss. Creating a supportive menu is vital to maintaining long term fat loss. A supportive menu is eating a lean protein and a fibrous carb with every meal. Fibrous carbs are most of your fruits and veggies (minus the high carbohydrate choices). Eating a lean protein and fibrous carb with every meal will allow you to eat enough protein and get plenty of fruits and vegetables in over the course of the day. Two more very important components to a successful fat loss plan.

Nutrition Rule #6

Consistency, Preparation, and Planning. Planning your exercise and meals ahead of time will determine whether you can be successful consistently or not. Choose two hours out of the week and preplan your meals for the week. It is best to do this event around grocery shopping. Plan your meals, go grocery shopping to get the foods you need, then come home and before putting them away prepare them for the week.

Nutrition Rule #7

Use 90% compliance when trying to lose body fat. 90% compliance means if you eat 35 meals in a week (and you should be if you are following this program- 5 meals a day for 7 days), you can either miss a meal or have an unsupportive choice 3 times in a week. That’s right, a missed meal is an unsupportive food choice. Don’t miss your meals

Nutrition Rule #8

Avoid as many foods as possible that have nutrition labels on them. The more foods that don’t need labels, the better. Foods like fruits and vegetables and lean meats don’t have nutrition labels (or most don’t), that means it is what it is. A few food items is fine but don’t catch yourself spending hours in the grocery store reading food labels, as you are taking too much time looking at unsupportive food choices.

Nutrition Rule #9

Pre and Post Workout Meals get the most out of your workout and recovery. Pre workout meals prepare your body and give you needed energy to put full effort into your workout. With a higher effort comes an increased amount of calories burned. The post workout meal aides in recovery from the workout and provides the body the necessary tools to accelerate recovery and maximize recovery benefits. Your preworkout meal should be an hour to an hour and a half before your workout and should be more carbs than protein and in small amounts (an example would be a piece of fruit and a shot of protein powder OR protein powder with good amount of carbs). Your post workout meal should be eaten within an hour after your workout and should be mostly protein with some carbs to help with transport to the muscles.

Nutrition Rule #10

Late night eating will not increase the amount of fat on your body provided it is the right choices. Make your evening snack mostly protein with a tiny amount of fat or fibrous carbs. Do not have starchy carbs before bed. A good example would be a scoop of protein powder, or some cottage cheese with berries. Having a later night snack will decrease the fast you will experience overnight when you are sleeping.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Finally the proof I needed!!! Stability balls are crap!!

(from the Journal of Strength, Conditioning Research)
Stability balls less effective than power lifts for building core strength.
Go to almost any gym in North America and you'll find a wide variety of exercise balls, balance discs and wobble boards, bosu balls that are used to build core stability. The core muscle act like a corset around the spine to provide stability for lower and upper-body movements. For example squatting on Bosu balls(ball with flat surface on the bottom ) requires activation of the core so that you can maintain balance and preform the exercise.

Unfortunatley, training on unstable surfaces decreases the capacity to lift heavier weight. Consequently, stability training decreases the capacity to strengthen major muscle groups.
James Nuzzo and collegues from Appalachian State University in North Carolina found that common stability ball exercise were less effective than deadlifts or squats for activating core muscles such as rectus abdominus, obliques, and back extensors. They concluded that stability ball training do not provide sufficient overload to increase stength and hypertrophy, and questioned their value in a exercise program.

a couple of last weeks workouts!


Sunday, May 17, 2009

Hey bootcamper,

At tomorrows workout feel free to bring spouses for a workout. Humbertown Park 9:15

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Happy Mother's Day to all Intrafitt Bootcamp MOMS!!!!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Fat Loss Versus Every Other Exercise and Nutrition Program

Most people are not participating in a fat loss program. They think they are but are unfortunately misled. What most peopl are doing is wasting very valuable time and not getting the most out of their nutrition or exercise program.

Kind of like sheep many follow the herd in hopes of getting great results, only to be sadly disappointed in the end. I’ve been around active people for a long time and I always see the same trend. Only the select few get what it takes to see results, and they account for about 5% of the total number of people exercising every day. The other 95% are not participating in a fat loss program, rather doing some workout they got from a magazine or the same exercises they have been doing for years just haven’t ‘gotten around’ to changing their program. It has become more of a social event or a mirror pose off after every set (you know the types I’m talking about).

Why are ther not more people following a fat loss program when that is their main goal? Well I think there are two main reasons:

1. They are misinformed- there is too much conflicting information that someone wanting to lose fat gets dizzy from reading this philosophy and that workout, that they try the workouts for a little while but give up because they hear of something ‘new’ and ‘improved’ that will work better.

or

2. They know what it takes but are unwilling to do it, because it is too hard and takes too much discipline. So they settle with how things are and accept that this will be the way they look.

Listen, to cover number one, there is only one way to lose fat, and that is from hard work. There are no short cuts there are no magic pills, and there are no special devices you can buy that will get the fat off you faster than getting your hands dirty kind of work. That means preparing and planning your food choices, and being disciplined with them, no acceptions. And being loyal to your workouts and treat them as moments where you have an opportunity to better yourself, not as a time to catch up with others who want to bring you down with them.

You have a job to do, do it, and don’t let John Doe at the chest fly machine get you off track. He doesn’t care how much fat you want to lose, only you do. So be relentless with your time to workout. You will spend half the time exercising and will feel exhausted but fantastic afterward. Plus you will be amazed how much difference in your results it will make.

And to cover number 2, it is no doubt hard work and there will be times you will want to quit before you reach your goal. Too bad, suck it up and do it. The price to pay now is much more bearable than the price to pay when you are older and have to have a heart attack with your children and grandchildren at your side with tears in their eyes because they don’t know if you are going to make it.

This is no joke, are you going to rely on a magazine workout that was thrown together by someone so hyped up on drugs or has the genetics of a superhuman? Do you really think they do these workouts? Let’s get back to reality here, and understand that the only way ANYONE is going to get real results is if they work their ass off (literally). It is very hard to lose fat, which is one reason you won’t see a large group of people doing bodyweight exercises and full body movements in the gym. It is our nature to choose the path of least resistance, so we have to stare it in the face until it gives in.

The body hates to lose fat, a series of events have to happen in order for fat loss to take place. And they all take a lot of work, which isn’t what the body likes to do. It likes normalcy, and comfort. Neither of which will work in a fat loss program. Are there programs that will keep you healthy that are comfortable? Sure, absolutely, but fat loss is VERY different than a typical exercise program.

Here is a short comparison to a typical exercise program to keep you in ’shape’, and a fat loss program:

‘In Shape’ Program


5 minute warm up on treadmill if you have time

3 sets of 10-15 repetitions of each exercise, performing all sets before moving onto the next exercise.

There is at least 30 seconds to two minute rest in between each set

Save the Abs for last

20-30 minute cardio workout at the end going at a steady comfortable pace

Maybe stretch

Now a Fat Loss Workout:

General warm up using body weight like jumping jacks or jump rope or a jog

Main Workout stations of 30 seconds to 1 minute of each exercise, and rotate to the next exercise with minimal or no rest. A balance of movements are throughout the workout. Three to four rounds of each exercise are performed in an alternating fashion minimizing rest.

Interval Training Cardio Workout-alternating high intensity work with low intensity rest periods. Perform for max of 20 minutes

If we compare the two time periods the ‘in shape’ workout will take 1.5 hours or more but the Fat Loss Workout will take 45-50 minutes.

It is a shorter amount of time but you are getting a ton more quality work done, and the fat loss comes after the workout is done while the body is recovering.

If you commit yourself to losing fat and don’t fall into the ‘quick fix’ trap or the ‘comfort’ trap, you can succeed. But you have to know what you are getting into. It just plain isn’t easy, for if it was, we would be a country full of bating suit models.

Monday, May 4, 2009

The next session

Bootcampers,

Please, don't forget payment ($500) for this session is now due. This session lasts from May 4 to june 26 (8 weeks). Thanks to all that have paid already.

The first day of new session....






Sorry 10am camper accidentally deleted your video footage.