Factors That Effect Energy Intake and Body Weight…

chfintess5No matter what you’ve read or been told about your body weight the truth is, your body weight will always be determined for the most part by…”energy in versus energy out.”

Although certain factors can influence the type of weight gained, bottom line is your calorie intake and expenditure dictates the direction the weight scale goes.

However, and this is important, you are not just after reducing that scale weight what you are really after is loss of fat. Losing fat means you are moving in the right direction…losing muscle mass means you are not. [Read more…]

Workouts and Rest are Equally Important

CHFitnessMore is not better. Balance is better.

Over-training while getting little rest in between is a bad situation.

Everyone knows about the “active” part of the equation when getting fit. However, there is also another side that is equally important to getting fit and keeping weight off and that’s rest.

Without a doubt, most of the focus, energy and instruction falls into the “doing” part of fitness and very little is mentioned about the “passive” part.

But they are both equally important and if you are not allowing your body to get enough rest in between your workouts you and your weight will suffer.

Rest is vital to success…but it’s the one element that’s often overlooked as people go about performing their workouts. [Read more…]

Intensity reigns supreme in strength training…

intensityBecoming leaner and stronger is not just about what exercises you do…it is how you do them that matters. It’s about your form, your focus and your intensity level.

Intensity may be the most important factor in any efficient strength training program. It is your best friend when you exercise and the key factor behind creating the body you want without spending hours and hours at the gym.

It is important to find the right balance between being careful when you are exercising to prevent injury and continually progressing to increasing strength but for the most part, the higher the intensity the better the strength gain. [Read more…]

Accountability is Key to Success in Health and Fitness

accountabilityHow many times have you attempted to diet or stick to a workout routine or achieve a fitness goal and failed? You are not alone. It’s a rare person who has not tried and failed at one of these if not all.

Maybe it’s time to do a bit of personal “inner reflection” and discover why success seems to allude you. It likely something as basic as accountability.

Personal accountability is the key to success in any endeavor. Diet and fitness included. [Read more…]

Exercise Releases the “Happy Hormone”…

endorphinsPerforming tasks, eating better, being physically active and even being a better parent, friend and partner all profit when we are feeling good and suffer when we aren’t.

Hormones are primary players dictating everything from how good we feel to when we need to stop eating or even begin eating. They control much of how our mind and our body functions day to day.

They also have the power to lift our spirits and our moods and keep us emotionally and mentally stable. Such is the role of the mighty endorphin.   [Read more…]

Switch Your Metabolic Motor Back On With Strength Training

challeng_changeIf it doesn’t challenge you it won’t change you.

Simple but powerful words.

Permanent weight loss is not about restricting foods…it is about boosting up your metabolism…your body’s engine.

Your metabolism burns the food you eat into the energy so you can burn it up rather than having it pile onto your body in unhealthy and unappealing places like your stomach, your hips and your thighs.

Unfortunately most people have a fairly good job of killing their healthy metabolism through years of sedentary lifestyles and poor eating habits. [Read more…]

Is Your Body on Toxic Overload?

feature_lovehandleToday, 80,000 plus chemicals are in active production and our exposure to these poisonous chemicals is greater than at any other time.

We are consistently subjected to very poor air quality, pesticides, heavy metals paint fumes and household cleaners and contamination in our food and water supplies as more than 10,000 chemicals in the form of solvents, emulsifiers and preservatives find their way into food processing and storage and 3,000 plus chemicals are added to our food supply.

When these poisonous chemicals find their way into our bodies they remain there causing damage that alters our metabolism (the body’s engine). This creates hormonal imbalances and increases our risk of chronic disease as it lowers our resistance. [Read more…]

5 Principles that Help Cure Weight-Loss Resistance

metabolic rateLong term success at anything requires you first have the right approach and it’s no different when managing your weight. If you are having trouble keeping weight off after you’ve worked diligently to take it off then most likely you are not adhering to the basic principles that help you to shed fat and keep it off forever.

There are 5 basic principles that work with you to keep you in shape and stop you from gaining your weight back and these principles are:

Metabolism – You need to be aware that your metabolic rate shifts and changes…it is not cast in stone. Just by taking the appropriate actions you can elevate your metabolism and increase the rate at which you burn fat. [Read more…]

You Can’t Out-Exercise a Bad Diet

How-To-Eat-With-AbandonThe study of how nutrients interact with our human genes is called Nutrigenonmics and is a blossoming new field. It studies the genes associated with health and disease as well as obesity. We already know that certain foods contain information and instructions for cells and hormones along with nutrients and calories. The are not trying to find out how this information can turn on or off the expression of certain genes.

One of the side effects of this is that it turns up the dial on your hunger thermostat which reprograms you level of hunger upwards. You’ll also experience increased cravings as well as increased hunger. [Read more…]

Exercise Helps Diminish Cellulite

celluliteOur bodies consist of primarily water, fat, muscle and bone. When we alter the amount of muscle and fat in our bodies we can alter its shape and appearance.

Fat loves to accumulate in the hip/butt/thigh area on females due to the physiology and anatomy of the female body and the biology of pregnancy and childbirth that nature plans for. It seems nature was not too into vanity when creating us but rather was more focused on safety, comfort and function. [Read more…]