Minneapolis Personal Trainer Helps You Use Your Fitness Christmas Present

 

2009 UPDATE!!!

Before you read this blog, there are two important updates to share:

1) Join us for the 2009 Total Body Makeover Virtual Boot Camp, starting January 15th. Go to www.keepyourbetterhalf.com for more details, and send email to adam@keepyourbetterhalf .com to learn how to do the boot camp for free!

2) If you would like the free report "The 27 Factors Affecting Fat Loss and Weight Loss", send me an email and I'll get the report to you!

Now, back to the blog...

It's the day after Christmas and everyone who got a piece of exercise equipment is trying to figure out how to use it.  This is why I am a personal trainer!  I help people maximize their use of their new equipment.  So, if you have a certain piece of equipment you would like me to blog about, send an email to adam@keepyourbetterhalf.com and I will gladly expound on your new piece of hardware.

Without knowing which fitness equipment you received for Christmas, I will provide a few pieces of uncommon knowledge that will help you right away in your quest for advancing your health and fitness.

New Exercise Equipment Tip #1: Always Warm Up, Then Stretch, Then Workout!

Most people do not give the warm up and cool down their due.  Warming up is extremely important!  As a Minneapolis resident, I have to warm up my car every time I want to drive somewhere in the winter.  It is crucial for my brakes, engine, and belts to warm up before asking my car to get me around town in the winter.  Our bodies need to warm up as well, regardless of season.

A 3-5 minute warm up on a treadmill (or even walking up and down the stairs at home) is a crucial starting point.  Then stretch each muscle group you intend to work, then pursue warm up sets for your workout.  The more thoroughly you warm up, the better you will perform and the less likely your chances of getting injured.

New Exercise Equipment Tip #2: Focus on Your Breathing!

Breathing is a big deal.  There are three main benfits to breathing correctly during exercise: our performance improves, our blood pressure is lower (than if we breathed at the wrong times), and our recovery is improved.  Here is the basic idea on breathing during weight/resistance training: exhale when you are doing the most work. 

When we are performing a bicep curl, it is more work to curl the dumbbell or resistance band up than it is to lower it.  Therefore, exhale as you curl the weight up.  When performing a squat, it is more work to raise up to a standing position....so exhale on the way up.  If you exhale when you are doing the most work and inhale when you are doing the easiest work, you will trigger the benefits mentioned above.

New Exercise Equipment Tip #3: Focus On Holds, Not Just Reps

The best way to maximize any piece of equipment is to ask your body to hold still in a position that  is challenging to hold.  For example, if you are performing squats, holding in a low squat position for 10 seconds is a killer.  Or holding a bicep curl with your elbow bent at a 90 degree angle is very tough. 

I ask my clients to perform a 10-second hold on the 5th, 10th, and 15th rep of every set.  It is very challenging!  Try it during your next workout!

Adam Erwin is an in-home personal trainer who travels the world to work with people who are ready to put excuses aside and work hard to change their body.  Visit www.keepyourbetterhalf.com to learn more about what Adam does, who he works with, and how you can have him come and work with you!  A Minneapolis resident, Adam will work close to home (Eden Prairie, Wayzata, Minnetonka, Edina) or will travel to your location (San Diego, Miami, Phoenx, Sydney Australia) to work with you.

Weight-Loss Goal, Exercise Plan, Fat-Loss Focus Transform Woman From Self-Conscious to Sexy

Most people want to lose weight. Brandy HAD to lose weight. Her reasons, which were very privately hers, instilled her with a determination that was bound for success. All she needed was the right game plan, the right answers, and the right person to help her uncover the beautiful woman she knew that she was. I was that person for her.

Weight Loss with the Right Personal Trainer

Unlike most personal trainers, I help my clients attack what is truly getting in the way of their success.  Most people talk about portion control being a big problem with their foods.  The portions aren't the problem, the food choices are (going nuts on chocolate cake is bad news...going gangbusters on celery is not a problem).  Often times it is not infrequent gym visits, its the lack of fat loss/weight loss gameplan for the workouts (why not burn more calories on a treamill in 10 minutes than you can in 40?).  Usually the problem isn't a lack of progress, it's a lack of understanding about what progress looks like in the beginning, middle, and end of a body change and weight loss program.

With Brandy, I trained her in Medina once-to-twice a week, created workouts for her every day she exercised, and worked with her to create a food plan that she could execute every day.  With a few emails, text messages, and phone calls to check in and provide encouragement and accountability, I worked hard to provide the services and be the right personal trainer for her weight loss transformation.

Weight-Loss Success Story

So what does a 61-pound weight loss story look like?  And how does a 43 year-old mother of three go from a size 18 to a size 6 (which also hapens to be her smallest size as an adult!!!)?

Brandy was focused from the beginning and lost 25 pounds in her first six weeks.  With a weight-training-based program and cardio program concentrated on fat loss, paired with a food plan focused on nutrients over quantities, Brandy saw success quite quickly.  She started at 206 and was down to 181 pretty quickly.  We continued to chip away...some weeks no pounds lost, some weeks five pounds lost.  She didn't eat perfectly, but she consistenlty hit her nutritional marks.

We worked around Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years, and a surgery (almost every great weight loss story has major obstacles with time frame, peer/family pressure at celebration gatherings, etc.).  When all was said and done, Brandy had lost 61 pounds...and it was virtually all fat.  I cannot express to you her joy, when buying her first ever pair of size six pants, she figured out that she weighed a few pounds more than her previous adult low, but was a few sizes smaller than she could remember being.  That is a body composition triumph my friends!

Weight Loss You Can't See

(punctuation note: perhaps no one cares but me, but I will say that I am using/not using hyphens correctly in my headings...not sure if anyone even noticed but me...my copy editor for my upcoming book is a junkie on hyphens!  I digress...)

What makes Brandy's story remarkable is not necessarily her weight loss, not necessarily her fat loss, and not even her very obvious body composition change and related reduction in pant size.  What makes her story great is that, in the first ten days she lost zero pounds.  The scale, which is just an indicator of progress but not THE indicator of progress per se, didn't tip early in the journey.

I told Brandy to expect that, though.  She did lose weight in her first 10 day...she lost fat.  However, her fat loss coincided with some muscle gain.  The net result was zero change on the scale, but the fat loss/muscle gain switch was four pounds.  She was kicking butt those first ten days and didn't even know it...which is why it is important to include fat loss measurements in any significant weight loss program!

Why Most People Fail at Weight Loss: The Scale

Brandy is a scale monger.  She steps on the confidence-killer every single day...almost as if she was a stock to be traded on Wall Street or something.  Weight loss is not day trading, people!

Most people, when they start an exercise program in accordance with a nutrition plan, actually kick butt during the first couple weeks.  However, that progress doesn't show up on the scale.  It might be a tiny bit noticeable in how clothes fit (looser, perhaps) and the mirror might tease with signs of progress, but the scale says "No change here!" a lot during the first seven-to-ten days. 

For people who are trying to lose weight, I encourage you to take heart during the beginning process of your journey.  Your body is likely to burn some fat and build some muscle (especially if you are working with a good personal trainer!) in the early going, but not show that progress on the scale.  Keep at it, don't lose heart, and the visible and scale-based progress will come!

Adam Erwin is a personal trainer who travels the world working with people who want to experience fat loss and weight loss in record-time. He currently resides in Minneapolis, MN and loves to train the great folks in the Eden Prairie area. Visit www.keepyourbetterhalf.com to learn more about his work.

A Personal Trainer's Secrets to Increase Metabolism, Lose Weight, and Lose Fat

Most of the people I work with have weight plateaus they cannot crack and stubborn fat they cannot lose. My job is to help them break the plateau and get a restraining order for the pesky fat that stalks them. Both of these tasks point toward one common foe: slow metabolism. Here are some of the metabolism secrets I use when helping a client look and feel their best.

Personal Trainer Metabolism Secret #1: Stop Robbing the Body of Nutrients

Everybody knows they should take a multivitamin (my doctor says....) but few people do consistently. I'm a firm believer (as in I really believe in it, and also my body is firm).

How many of us track our daily intake of magnesium? I'd say about nobody...I don't know and don't care about how much magnesium is in my foods. I know it's in my multivitman. I also know that magnesium plays a role in over 300 biological reactions in the body. It's an important mineral! How about the B-vitamin family? It's in my multivitamin, so I don't really worry about it (and it's water-soluble, so I can't really overdose on B). The B vitamins help process protein, fight stress, supply energy...their job description is endless!

A strong metabolism is one that can process the foods you eat. You need the right nutrients to process food correctly. Taking a multivitamin to ensure that your body gets enough nutriets (the right ones and the right amounts) is incredibly important. If you email me and tell me a bit about your situation (age, pertinent medical conditions i.e. anemia, osteoperosis, etc.) I can suggest a multivitamin to you (adam@keepyourbetterhalf.com).  I promise I will not suggest Centrum!

Personal Trainer Metabolism Secret #2: Eat Early and Often

Again, everybody knows this...but how many of us actually do it? Breakfast skippers are insane! So are late-night-big-dinner-eaters! You people are CRAZY! So are the too-busy-at-work-to-eat employees. Your boss WILL understand if you stop and grab some nutrients to increase your productivity in the afternoon.

Here's the thing about eating: it doesn't have to be a big deal. Eat a handful of almonds. Grab a dozen grapes. Surround yourself with "It doesn't matter how many of these I eat" snacks that are good fuel (and not likely to be stored as fat...again, email me, and I'll send you a list of foods you should go after). If you pick healthy options (not watermelon by the way, email me!!!!), they will be a blessing to your system and your metabolism . Eat SOMETHING every 2-3 hours. Make it your mission!

Personal Trainer Metabolism Secret #3: Make Your Workouts Fiber-Tearing Intense

When people tear a lot of muscle fibers during their workout (which almost always requires weight training), the metabolism is forced to work harder to break down nutrients better to repair the torn tissue quicker. Therefore, make weight-training a staple of your workouts. Studys have prove that metabolisms are boosted up to 39 hours after weight training, compared to up to 24 hours after intense cardio training. Read my other blogs about weight training to get an idea of what to do (or...you guessed it, email me....or submit a comment and I'll blog an answer for you). And after your intense weight-training workout, follow it up with a whey-isolate-based protein shake.

Personal Trainer Metabolism Secret #4: Run Away From Artificial Sweeteners (like Diet Soda!)

Artificial sweeteners are metabolsim killers (read the diet soda blog to learn more!). A 12 oz. can of regular Pepsi has 41 grams of sugar in it. Guess what Diet Pepsi has to live up to: 41 grams of sugar. If my only job was to drive around the Twin Cities area (Wayzata, Eden Prairie, Woodbury, Minnetonka, Maple Grove, Minneapolis, St. Paul) and take diet soda out of the hands of people on the street and give them water instead, I'd have a full-time job (with a lot of angry, addicted diet soda drinkers chasing after me!).

Natural sugars in moderate quantities is much better than massive quantities of artificial sweeteners. Running away from artificial sweeteners will help to repair a broken metabolism.

Personal Trainer Metabolism Secret #5: Do Everything You Can to Feed Muscle-Growth

If I were to guess, I would say 90% of people pursuing weight loss go wrong by trying to lose any type of weight instead of focusing on losing fat weight. Guess what, I wrote an article on that too (keep reading the blog and you'll do just fine!). If you focus on feeding your muscle, your body will be forced to burn fat. And...the more muscle tissue you have (and it can be lean muscle tissue...I'm not talking about biceps that are so big that you can't scratch your own back!), the more calorie-burning capacity you have.

When we focus our foods and supplements on keeping, repairing, or gaining muscle, our body is forced to respond by burning fat (again, read the blog for more on this topic).

If a weight-loss-minded person took these five ideas to heart and applied the principles discussed above, their metabolism would be sure to take off...which would result in more calories burned, which would result (assuming secret #5 is being followed) in fat loss and weight loss.

AdamErwin is a personal trainer who travels the world working with people who want to experience fat loss and weight loss in record-time. He currently resides in Minneapolis, MN and loves to train the great folks in the Lake Minnetonka area. Visit www.keepyourbetterhalf.com to learn more about his work.