Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Best Time To Start An Exercise Program

 The best time to start a weight loss program was last year; the second best time is right now.
When is the perfect time to start your exercise or weight loss program? When you have more time, when you have finished some project at work, when the stars have alined.  There will always be a reason why you should wait to start your exercise program.  My advice is to start with a very small step that will not overwhelm you.  For example, let say you don't exercise at all and you would really like to start .  I would begin with 3 aerobic workouts per week of 5 minutes each.  Yes, I did say 5 minutes each! If 5 minutes is too long, do only 1 minute.  The reaction I usually get when I tell people to do only 5 minutes is, that 5 minutes will not do anything.  Besides, don't all the fitness experts advise that 20 minutes is the minimum aerobics you should do 3 to 5 times per week?  Well, they are actually wrong!  If somebody does not do any aerobics, 1 minute of aerobics is better than no minutes.
So, start today with one minute of aerobics and go from there.  As you getting into the habit of exercise make the aerobics longer but I would never exceed 40 minutes per aerobic workout. 
Of course for a workout to be complete you must do some form of resistance training.  Again start small.  I would personally start with 5 basic exercises.  One for the chest, like push ups, one for the back, like bent over rows, one for the legs, like squats, one for the abs, like ball crunches and one for the lower back, like hyperextensions on the ball.  The whole thing should not take you more than 10 minutes.  Later on you can add more exercises as you getting more comfortable with exercising.
Remember, first you must develop the exercise habit and once you have developed it, push to get results.  This way you have a much smaller chance of burning out. 
 Starting an exercise program is easier than you might think.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Few Things You Should Know About Losing Weight

Most of the weight loss programs I see advertised tell you how fast you can lose weight with their system.  The question I have for those weight loss programs is this:  What is the point of losing weight fast, if you are going to regain all the weight back and in many cases with interest?  I guess it is good for business because their customers will have to come back again and again each year to lose the same weight over again.
Here are some facts you need to know about losing weight and keeping it off.
Fact #1: Your current eating and activity habits are responsible for the shape you are in today.  The only way you can lose weight and get in shape permanently is to change the habits that got you there in the first place.
Fact #2:  In order to lose weight fast, you must change all your bad habits at once.  The problem with changing all your bad habits at once is that you will overwhelm yourself and burnout and regain all the weight back, no matter how great the results are.  I have heard many people claim that once you see results you will be motivated to maintain them.  That’s not true, and don’t even take my word for it.  Just think about it.  How many people do you know who lose weight only to gain it back?  If results alone where enough to motivate them to maintain those results, than how come the vast majority of people who lose weight, gain it back?
The only way to lose weight, if you want to keep the weight off after you lose it, is to lose the weight by making all the necessary changes in your eating and activity habits slowly over time, not all at once.  Yes, it may take you few extra weeks or months to lose weight, but at least you won’t have to lose the same weight again next year.  Again, what is the point of losing the weight fast, only to regain it all back and in many cases with interest?

Friday, May 11, 2012

You can eat whatever you want if you learn to eat only when hungry.

I just learned that today is the National Eat What You Want Day.  Well, if you learn to listen to your body, everyday can be Eat What You Want Day.  As I have said in my book "Eat It All By Eating Right" it's not just about the food you or don't eat, but also about why you eat and how you eat, something that the diet industry is still not getting.  The most important thing we can do for our weight and health is to first learn the difference between true hunger and cravings and second try to eat only when we are hungry at least most of the time.  Following this rule will do you more good than eating any healthy food without being hungry.

Friday, May 4, 2012

My latest book "Eat It All By Eating Right" has been published

Although I have published 3 book before this one, Eat It All By Eating Right is the first book I published that I strongly feel it contains all the information you need to achieve permanent weight loss.  In my past books I always felt that there was something missing and that is what drove me to keep writing.   For information on my new book go to my website www.liveyourwaythin.com and on amazon.com

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Your Attitude Will Determine Your Weight Loss Success


The one thing that will have the biggest effect on whether or not you achieve your weight loss goal is your attitude.  You must have a winning attitude.  Many people, although they would like to lose weight and get in shape, deep down don’t truly believe they can do it.  One of the reasons they think that is because they have failed so many times before. They have trained themselves to expect failure.  As the saying goes, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.”
     So, what is a winning attitude?  Whether you realize it or not, we all talk to ourselves.  Sometimes the talk is negative and sometimes it’s positive.  People who don’t have a winning attitude talk to themselves like this:  I can’t control myself. If I see a piece of chocolate, I must have it. What’s the point of losing weight; I’m only going to gain it all back.  I can’t lose weight, I’m genetically programmed to be overweight. I’m fine compared to everybody else. I don’t have time to exercise. I can’t stop eating. I can’t do this.
    You see, the focus is on why we can’t do what we need to do and why we shouldn’t even bother.  A person who truly believes any of those statements will never be able to lose weight, and here is why:  Your brain is like a search engine.  You put your question in, it comes up with answers.  The problem is, that it will not reject any questions or statements that are not true, it will simply come up with answers.  If you say to yourself, “I can’t lose weight,” you brain finds reasons to support that statement.
     This does not help you, so what can you do about it?  Ask a better question, or make a better statement.  The best questions to ask are “How” questions.  Instead of saying , “I can’t lose weight” change that to, “How can I lose weight?,” or “What can I do today to move closer to my weight loss goal?” These are much better questions because now your brain will start searching for things you can do today to help you move closer to your goal.
     Having a winning attitude will help tremendously to keep you positive as you go through the process of eliminating bad habits and adopting new ones.  As you might already know, there will be times when you will fall off your weight loss plan, and that’s normal.  Having a winning attitude will help you get back on the plan.  All my successful clients fell off the plan at some point, but they got right back on it.  The difference between people who succeed and people who do not is that, people who succeed learn from any setbacks, shrug it off and move on.  People who are not successful dwell on setbacks, justify their failure, and quit.  Let me tell you ahead of time, you will have setbacks as you are trying to lose weight; they’re part of the learning curve.  Just learn from your setbacks and move on.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Learn to control yourself not your enviroment

When people try to lose weight, many nutritionist advise their clients to eliminate from their house all the foods they are not supposed to eat.  I think that is a big mistake and here is the reason: What happens when you go to work and a coworker bring a food in the office that you are not supposed to eat? 

I believe, if you want to lose weight and keep it off you must learn to control yourself not your environment and there is a way to do that with a little will power.  Your "will" is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it get.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

There is a price to pay either way

You can pay the price of discipline or you can pay the price of regret, your choice. So you see, either way there is a price to pay. The price of regret is a lot greater than the price of discipline, so why don't you make up your mind right now to pay the price of discipline (with your exercise program and/or better eating habits) so you can enjoy all the benefits in the near future. It well worth the price!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Is Not Just About The Weight You Lost!

Is Not Just About the weight you lost, but it's also about the weight you did not gain.
Many people measure their fitness success by looking at how much weight they lost over the weeks and months. If they lost weight they feel successful, but if they did not, they feel like failures. Here is another way to look at things. There is a person who is 40 lbs overweight and their weight goes up at a rate of 1lb per month. They decide to start an exercise program and work on their diet in order to lose weight.   Due to their busy schedule and high stress job, they have not been able to be very consistent with their exercise program and their healthier eating habits. Nonetheless, they managed to lose 4 lbs in 4 months. Most people, seeing that they lost only 4 lbs in 4 months, would view this as failure. They forget the fact that their weight, before the program, was going up at a rate of 1 lb per month. This means that if they had not started the weight loss program they would have been not 4 lbs heavier, but 8 lbs heavier.   When it comes to weight loss and health, something is better than nothing. So, if you are too busy to start a full fledge exercise program, start by walking for 5 minutes 3 times per week and go from there.

Monday, March 12, 2012

How not to lose focus of your weight loss goal

Although most people start their weight loss program with their goal in mind and how good they are going to feel once they achieve their weight loss goal, as the program progresses they lose focus of their objective and the benefits they are going to reap by sticking to the weight loss program and instead they start focusing on the discomfort of exercising, missing their favorite TV shows because they have to go to the gym and not be able to eat whatever they want.  As you know, we are a “NOW” society, everything is now, we don’t want to wait for anything.  So the immediate pleasure of eating what we want now and watching our favor TV shows or doing whatever we want, NOW, usually wins over the future benefits we will receive if we go through some minor discomfort now.  So minor pleasure now and avoiding minor discomforts now VS achieving major benefits in the future by going through some minor discomforts now, unfortunately, in most cases the first one wins. 
How to keep your focus on your goal:  You can avoid making this mistake by preparing yourself the right way before you even start any weight loss or exercise program.  When you decide you want to get in shape and/or lose weight, before you start your first workout, you want to sit down in a quite place and write down all the reasons why getting in shape and/or losing weight is important to you.  How you are going to feel once you have achieved the body you want?  How is it going to affect your life and how other people see you?  Anyway just keep writing all the benefits you are going to reap from getting in shape and/or losing weight.  Don’t be shy; write down as many benefits as you can think.  No one needs to see this list.  Once you have completed the list, start another list of the negative effects if you continue with your current lifestyle habits.  How you are going to look and feel, one year from now if you continue the way you are, and without making any lifestyle changes.  How would your body look?  How much you will be weighing? In what shape your health will be in?  How would other people seeing you?  Do the same thing for 5 years from now, 10 years from now and 20 year from now, if you think you could live another 20 years with your current lifestyle.   Don’t leave any detail out.  It would even help talking to people that did not take care of their health when they were younger and how they are suffering today because of it. 
After you write these two lists put them aside and you are ready to begin your weight loss or fitness program.  Once you get started with your program and you find yourself focusing on the current discomforts you have to go through to achieve your goals, pull out these two lists, to first remind yourself of the benefits you are working towards and also the consequences of not sticking to your program.  The choice is simple, you can choose to go through the minor discomforts now and reap the health benefits and the tremendous pleasure that goes with it in the future, or continue as you are today, and suffer some major discomforts in the future from all the diseases like diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, etc, that you will most likely develop if you continue with your current lifestyle.  It is your choice.  This might motivate you to stick to your weight loss program.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

When it Comes to Losing Weight Slower is Faster


Before you think I am crazy, let me prove my point.  I personally know quite a few people who have lost weight and then gained all the weight back at least twice in the past 2 to 3 years.  Like most people when they decided they wanted to lose weight, they wanted to lose it as fast as possible, so they did what most people do.  They started an intense workout and/or diet program that promised it would help them lose the weight they wanted the fastest possible way, and in most cases they did.  However, as in most cases, they burned out from the intense workouts and strict diet regimen.  Although they had achieved the results they wanted, they burned out and returned to the old habits and, in turn gained all the weight back, often with interest.  A few months go by, and they get inspired again, and the process is repeated with the same results.  Does this sound like anyone you know?  The undeniable fact is, to lose weight permanently, you must make permanent changes in your life.  The best way to make permanent changes in your life is to make them slowly over time.  No one can dispute this fact.  Incorporating changes, such as new eating and/or exercising habits, into your life slowly, gives your comfort zone a chance to expand to include the new eating and activity habits.  Try to make too many changes at once and you risk overwhelming yourself and burning out.  Of course, everybody has different tolerance to the discomfort created by change and how fast their comfort zone expands to include new habits.
            Now let’s take a look at a different approach to losing weight that might seem slower but in reality it is much faster.  This time instead of rushing into an intense weight loss program, you start slowly.  You use the first 4 to 8 weeks to ease yourself into the new exercise and diet regimen, thus giving your comfort zone plenty of time to expand.  Although it might take you 4 to 8 weeks to start losing weight, once you start losing weight it will be with less effort, and you will not be feeling overwhelmed.  The bottom line is, although it might take you a little bit longer to lose the weight, you will be able to keep the weight off and will not need to lose the same weight all over again next year.  This is the way I help my clients at Olympus Personal Training lose weight and keep it off.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Let's Lose Weight and Keep it off

I am very excited, this is my first blog.  I have been in the weight loss field for almost 20 years and my main focus has been permanent weight loss.  From early in my fitness career the one question I have been trying to answer has been, "why the vast majority of people can't keep the weight off after they lose it?"  I am very happy to announce I finally have the answer.  The one big problem the weight loss field has, is that is full of gimmicks and misinformation and that is one of the reasons why so many people have a hard time losing weight or if they do manage to lose weight, they can't keep it off.  In my blog I would discuss popular misinformation about weight loss, exercising and diet, and I can tell you there is plenty of misinformation out there, I will discuss the main reasons why most people can't keep the weight off after they lose it and more importantly I will give practical advice on how you can improve your health and lose weight. I will also share my opinion on the latest gimmicks and fitness trends.
I would love to hear your comments and questions and I would do my best to respond in a timely fashion.