Keys to an Effective Fitness Program (Part 5 of 5): Nutrition

The fifth key component to an effective fitness program is:

YOUR NUTRITION

For some people, nutrition is the most challenging part of the fitness equation (the equation being: good nutrition + effective workouts = fit & healthy!)

You've probably heard the quote "You can't out-train a bad diet". Well, it's true. You can be doing all of the other components religiously, but if you're eating crap, you're wasting a lot of your time. You need to get a handle on what you're putting into your body.

I listed nutrition as the fifth key component, but in order of importance, it's #1. Food can be fuel or poison to your body. General guidelines for good nutrition are:

• Don't eat processed, fried or sugary foods. 
• Do eat lean meats, fruits, vegetables and nuts. 
• Drink LOTS of water.

I'm not saying you should never indulge in dessert or a "cheat meal", but ask yourself how what you're about to eat or drink is going to make you feel. If the answer is overly-full, bloated, lethargic, or regretful, it's not worth the brief enjoyment you'll have while you're chewing or drinking it. Instead, choose something that will make you feel energetic, healthy, invigorated! 

Follow these 5 keys and you'll be on your way to achieving a better level of fitness :)

As always, let me know if you need help with any of this.
-Claire

Keys to an Effective Fitness Program (Part 4 of 5): Challenge Yourself

The fourth key component to an effective fitness program is:

MAKE SURE YOU ARE CHALLENGING YOURSELF

Another quote up in my gym is "If it doesn't challenge you, it won't change you".

It's not what most of us want to hear, but if an exercise / weight is easy for you, it's not doing much for you, and you need to make it harder. Then, after a while, it will become easy for you again, and you'll need to make it harder again. And again. And again. You need to continue to find new ways to challenge yourself.

This may sound like bad news. It's not! It means that you keep getting stronger / faster / more powerful / more agile / more flexible / more stable. Awesome!

Don't cheat yourself. If you can do 50 reps of something, stop! You're wasting your time. Make it more challenging: add weight, do it with 1 arm or 1 leg, do it on an unstable surface, step higher, squat lower, do it on an incline/decline.

There are always ways to progress what you're doing. Just make sure you make safety & form top priorities when you increase the challenge. (If you need help with this, ask me.)

Check back tomorrow for the 5th key component to achieving a better level of fitness :)

Keys to an Effective Fitness Program (Part 3 of 5): Lifting Weights

The third key component to an effective fitness program is:

LIFTING WEIGHTS

Who wants something that works for you while you're not doing anything? I'm assuming everyone does, which means everyone wants muscle! Besides making your body toned, helping you do everyday things more easily and allowing you to do new things with your added strength, muscle burns fat while you aren't even working out.

Ladies: don't worry about bulking up! That just won't happen. You'd have to be lifting lots of low reps of seriously heavy weights, eating tons of protein, or using some "supplements" you shouldn't be.

Weight lifting should be a part of everyone's fitness program.

It increases your metabolism.

It makes you perform better in other activities i.e.. legs with more muscle have more power and run faster.

It increases bone density, which is very important as we age.

It makes you strong. This may not be one of your goals, but it should be. You should be able to lift your groceries, laundry, children, etc without struggle and injury.

It makes you look good. Who doesn't want a toned body?

And, all of these things make you feel better and more confident. So...get lifting!

Check back tomorrow for the 4th key component to achieving a better level of fitness :)

Keys to an Effective Fitness Program (Part 2 of 5): Mixing It Up

The second key component to an effective fitness program is:

MIXING IT UP!
The majority of the time, when people are working out on their own, they wind up doing the same thing—over and over—for weeks, months & even years. I was guilty of this in my 20's. For years, I ran the same course, every day. I got to a point where my body stopped changing and I wasn't getting any faster. I just assumed I had gotten as thin, fit & fast as I ever would. (Wrong.)

Then, when the running took its toll on my knees, I started taking spin classes—5 days a week. My body changed. And, the cardio was different from the steady-state cardio I had been doing, so it was challenging. But after months of doing the same thing, once again, I stopped progressing (and now my thighs were bigger from spinning so much). But, I continued to spin—day after day, week after week—thinking I was getting a great workout and I had just reached my peak.

Don't get me wrong, I do think spinning is a great workout, and, I do enjoy a long run. But, if you do any exercise or workout program over and over, your body becomes more & more efficient at it. Therefore, you burn less calories and will see less and less differences in your body as time goes on.

One of the quotes up in my gym is "You can't change your life without making changes". This is true for your body. When I started mixing up what I was doing (which included lifting weights), my body started to change. And, I was shocked by the changes.

I know you're comfortable in your routine. I know you love running / spinning / kick class, and the thought of stopping it and trying something new freaks you out. It freaked me out. But, if you've been doing the same thing for an extended period of time and have "plateaued", you need to at least mix it up, if not take a break from it for a while.

Try something new. Lift weights; take a boot camp class. Hopefully, you'll find new things you enjoy doing and, in the process, make changes that may shock you!

Check back tomorrow for the 3rd key component to achieving a better level of fitness :)

Keys to an Effective Fitness Program (Part 1 of 5): HIIT

Often, when people contact me about training, it's because they are not seeing results from what they've been doing on their own. I know that's very frustrating—to actually be putting in the time and effort to workout & not notice a difference in how you look & feel.

There are 5 key components to making sure your fitness program is effective. I'm going to discuss them in 5 separate posts over the next 5 days.

The first key component is: HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING

Steady-state cardio (walking, running, cycling at the same pace for the whole time) is certainly better than sitting on the couch and watching tv, but if we're ranking exercises by return-on-investment, it goes at the bottom. It's necessary if you're training for a long distance event, and some people (myself included) enjoy a long run. If you fall into either of those categories, then by all means, run like Forrest Gump :) 

But, if your goal is fat loss you'll want to do something that works harder for you. And, if you are short on time, as most of us are, you'll want to do the most efficient workout possible. The answer to both of those scenarios is high-intensity interval training.

The higher the intensity of what you're doing, the more it will benefit you—not only will it increase your cardiovascular endurance and fire up your metabolism, but it will keep your metabolism raised for hours after you've stopped working out. 

Since you won't be able to sustain a high-intensity for an extended period of time, you'll vary the intensities to give yourself time to lower your heart rate, catch your breath and feel ready to push yourself back up. For example: run 1 minute at a fast pace, then slow down to a slow jog for 2 minutes, then speed up again... You can do this with running, cycling, plyometrics, and even strength training.

Good news! These workouts won't be as long as the steady-state cardio you were doing. You can get a great cardiovascular, calorie-scorching, metabolism-raising workout in under half an hour. You just have to push yourself to those high intensities. If you haven't done this before, don't push it too hard—take time to build up your intensities. 

Give it a try and start feeling fit in a whole new way!

Check back tomorrow for the 2nd key component to achieving a better level of fitness :)

Time to Get Back on Track

For many of us, Labor Day is a lot like New Year's.

Summer, like the end of the year, is filled with family gatherings, parties, holidays and vacations. And, that means we often over-indulge and slack-off on our workouts.

Then, we look at Labor Day or New Year's as our fresh start. The time to get back on track. The time to try to undo the damage we've done over the past few months.

So, it's that time of year (or one of those times of year) again. It's time to get back on track. It's time to get back on a regular schedule. It's time to feel better. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Of course, it'd be better to stay consistent year-round - we all know that. And we will try better at doing that, right? 

In the meantime, what's good about Labor Day and New Year's, is that we are excited about being healthy. So, use that enthusiasm and take action right away—before it starts to fade!

But, be realistic. The enthusiasm that is driving you also can lead you to set unrealistic goals. Create a plan that you can stick to. Schedule what days you're going to workout. Plan your meals and meal preparation. Think about challenges you may face in keeping with your schedule and come up with ways to stick with it.

Ready? Great! Get started and you'll be feeling better in no time!

As always, I'm here to help you achieve your fitness goals, so feel free to reach out to me with questions :)