Adam the In-Home Personal Trainer is Tired of Soda Killing Metabolism, Making People Fat, and De-railing Body Composition Progress

2009 UPDATE!!!Before you read this blog, there are two things you need to know:1) Open enrollment has begun for the Virtual Boot Camp: Total Body Makeover!   Get 28 days of perfect nutrition and exercise (complete with a grocery list, access to videos, and more!) for only $100 (NOTE: This is the very package I charge thousands for...the only thing you are missing is my physical presence!).  Enrollment ends on January 10th, so click to http://keepyourbetterhalf.com/virtualbootcamp.html now!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...

Minneapolis is not the place to be right now if you are a soda drinker.  Adam the in-home personal trainer is going to war with weight-conscious folks who are drinking soda.  Here is another run-through and what soda does to you and why we must cut it out of the game plan when weight loss and fat loss are the goal!

Two quick things before we get to the main course:

1)  If you like today’s blog, pass it on to your weight-loss minded friend, family member, or colleague.

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2) If you like today’s blog, email Adam (adam@keepyourbetterhalf.com) and ask about his “Little Ebook on Fat Loss and Weight Loss” that will hit cyberspace next week.

Stop Drinking Soda Now! Reason #1: Diet Soda Kills Your Metabolism

I've blogged on this before, but it is worth restating: the artificial sweeteners in diet soda confuse your metabolic response to real sugars.  Artificial sweeteners teach your body to not respond metabolically to sweet tastes (be it artificial or real sugar).  So when you consume real sugar, your body learns to simply store it as fat instead of burning it off like it is originally trained to do.  If you can't metabolize sugar effectively, it is virtualy impossible to lose fat and lose weight for the long haul.

Stop Drinking Soda Now! Reason #2: The Amount of Sugars in Non-Diet Soda Is Fat in Waiting

Have you ever drank a 12 oz. can of lard before?  Soda is very close to that.  Pepsi, Coke, and others have 39 grams of sugar per can or more.  It is like putting 9 full tablespoons of sugar into a can of soda.  Yikes!  Your body cannot possibly burn off all that sugar when you consume it, so it gets stored as fat.  You are drinking lard!

Stop Drinking Soda Now! Reason #3: Soda Dehydrates, and Fat Cells Need Hydration

Dehydrated fat cells do not burn well.  Well-hydrated fat cells burn much more effectively!  Anytime you drink coffee or soda or something with caffeine in it, you are doing two things worth re-considering:  1) wasting a chance to hydrate yourself and provide nutrients your body needs.  2) dehyrating your body and robbing fat cells from water they need to effectively be burned off.

Stop Drinking Soda Now! Reason #4: The Toxins in Soda Attack Your Body

We all know that artificial sweeteners attack the nervous system.  What about all the coloring, flavoring, and carbonation in a soda?  Those ingredients attack your body as well.  Your blood stream turns more acidic by drinking soda (and don't get me started on that!), carbonation eats away at lung capacity, and the extra toxins like coloring have no good use in your body.  Every single time we consume soda, we are placing our body under extreme attack!!!  Let the madness cease!

Stop Drinking Soda Now! Summary

We are 70% water, and drinking soda instead of water is like stealing mass amounts of water out of a lake instead of putting water in.  There are few things that are worse to drink than soda (maybe alchohol).  Every single time we consume a beverage, we have an opportunity to improve or deteriorate our health.  Soda has no nutritional value at all, and plays a significant role in worsening our health.  One of the best things we can do to improve our fat loss and weight loss potential is to eliminate soda from the mix!

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, Sidney Australia) to work with you.

Why the Zero Calorie Drink Should Scare You...

2009 UPDATE!!!

Before you read this blog, there are two things you need to know:

1) Open enrollment has begun for the Virtual Boot Camp: Total Body Makeover!   Get 28 days of perfect nutrition and exercise (complete with a grocery list, access to videos, and more!) for only $100 (NOTE: This is the very package I charge thousands for...the only thing you are missing is my physical presence!).  Enrollment ends on January 10th, so click to http://keepyourbetterhalf.com/virtualbootcamp.html now!

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...

I was training at a Minneapolis-based gym today, working with a client who is preparing to shock his family at their upcoming reunion.  Right in the middle of our session a lady approached me and asked me to look at her calorie-free-fruity-tasting-vitamin-filled-sugar-free-water-drink.  Sigh.

My client, thankful for the interruption, begged me to indulge the woman so he could go and find his lungs.  I relented.  Upon analyzing the label, I asked the woman a few questions about her super-holy-water.  Here are three questions everyone needs to ask themselves before going crazy for calorie-free and calorie-depleted foods and beverages.

Does This Taste Like It Should Have Calories?

If it tastes like it should have calories and doesn't (or tastes like it should have more calories...Diet Coke/Diet Pepsi/Coke Zero), then it is going to have a negative impact on your body.  That negative impact might not be called calories, but the impact will still be there.  In the case of drinks filled with artificial sweeteners, the impact is that the metabolism is fooled by the taste of sweet without the raise in blood sugar.  Therefore, artificial sweeteners teach the body not to have a metabolic respond to sweet tastes, which is a killer when we consume real sugar (read my blog about diet soda to get the full story on this).

Water, unlike diet soda or vitamin water, doesn't taste like it should have calories.  It is free of color, free or taste, and usually free of smell (water in Terre Haute, IN never meets this criteria....proving there are always exceptions to the rule!).  I've never heard anybody say, "This water tastes SO GOOD, I can't believe it doesn't have any calories."  Water is a very simple drink.  It doesn't taste like it should have calories.  The same could be said for lettuce and celery.  Not a lot of taste there...doesn't taste like it should have calories.

Use common sense when thinking about purchasing a food/drink that is advertised as calorie free of "just 5 calories".  If it tastes like it should have more calories, and therefore has lots of artificial sweetener in it, avoid it.  Those foods/beverages will have a negative impact on your body.

Is This Fuel My Body Can Really Use?

A few years ago I decided to stretch my dollar a little farther by fueling up my car with E85 instead of regular unleaded.  Problem was, my car made to process E85.  Two tanks of E85 later, my car was towed away and donated to Cars for Courage.  The lesson I learned over my lost Mazda Millenia: never give an engine something it wasn't built to process!

Would you agree that we are hard on our bodies?  When we add up the things we eat and drink (snacks that expire in 2030, drinks with bubbles and poisions, i.e. alcohol), inhale (cigarette smoke, Al Gore's private jet fuel, ingredients in cleaners and detergents, deordorants and colognes/perfumes), and absorb through our skin (chlorine, ingredients in lotions, SPF)....we subject our body to things EVERY SINGLE DAY that it was not built to process. 

I know my body was designed to respond to fats, natural sugars, proteins, water, and oxygen.  It has adapted to virtually everything else.  How much of what we consume is treating our body like E85 was treating my Mazda?  The point is this: a lot of products are marketed as healthy choices when in reality they are not what our body was designed to process.  If it is artificial, do not embrace it as natural.  Learn from my E85 experience.

What types of artificial sweeteners should I avoid?

The way most people eat, it's virtually impossible to avoid artificial sweeteners because it would require a complete food/drink makeover.  As a rule of thumb, I would say it would be wise to avoid sweeteners that replace a significant amount of sugar.  Diet soda, for example, is a killer.  In a can of regular cola (Pepsi/Coke) there is about 40g of sugar.  Since the diet colas do not have sugar, that is 40g of sugar to replace.  Yikes! 

If a product would normally have 10g of sugar and offers a sugar-free version (which is replacing 10g of sugar wtih artificial sweeteners), that might be the product worth using IF you are bent on having artificial sweeteners.  What we don't want to do is fill our pantries and refridgerators with "sugar-free" products that are replacing a large amount of sugar with artificial sweeteners.  Diet sodas are out, people, as are any product that is replacing 20g of sugar or more.

With the advent of artificial sweeteners, weight loss is getting tougher and tougher.  We are constantly putting foods into our body that confuse our metabolism and are poor sources of fuel.  Virtually every single study on artificial sweeteners has grave consequences attached to it: weight gain instead of weight loss, slowing a metabolism instead of speeding up metabolism, gaining fat instead of losing fat. 

Believe the studies, use common sense, and avoid artificial sweeteners.  They will only make you fat!

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 with people whose health does not match their lifestyle. Adam plans on visiting Delray Beach, FL this fall to help a client or two get their body back.  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.