Minneapolis Personal Trainer Tells How to Succeed with New Year's Resolution of Weight Loss

Happy New Year!  I'll bet that you found this blog because you are looking to lose weight in 2009.  Most people do not succeed with their weight loss resolutions, but if your search for answersand ideas brought you here, you most be serious about looking and feeling your best in 2009!  I'm here to help!

Reading today's blog provides you with three specific benefits: 1) get 3 ideas that will help you with your weight loss resolution, 2) learn how to get my $100 virtual boot camp for free, 3) learn how to get "The 27 Factors Affecting Fat Loss and Weight Loss" for free!

If you are serious about losing weight in 2009, here are the three most important things I can tell you about successfully losing weight...

New Year's Resolution Weight Loss Tip #1: Don't Lose Weight

Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, LA Weight Loss, and most other programs try to convince you that weight loss is the ticket.  If weight loss is the ticket, how come the weight keeps coming back?  Because weight loss is not the ticket.  When people focus on weight loss, they end up burning up their body's ability to burn calories and kill their metabolism as a result! 

Fat loss is the answer.  By focusing on losing fat (which is what I help all my clients to do, and can help you to do for $100 or free.....email me at adam@keepyourbetterhalf.com to find out how to do it for free!), I help clients lose fat weight instead of muscle weight, help them increase their metabolism instead of slow it down, and help them keep their new body instead of watching it slip away.

It is not about how much we weigh, it's about how much fat weight we have.  Don't lose weight in 2009, lose fat weight!

New Year's Resolution Weight Loss Tip #2: Start it the Right Way!

Are you tired and sluggish as you go through your day?  Are you stressed out and irritable?  Are you locked into cravings that help make you fat?  If so, you are like most of us in the United States!

Most of us have a severely damaged body.  We are filled with fat cells that don't burn calories!  We are filled with toxins and organisms that make progress more difficult for our body.  We have stressed our organ, digestive, and nervous systems so much that they are worn down and not functioning the way they were designed to function.

The first step for anyone wanting to lose weight is to clean the body out and get it ready to live again.  Doing a cleanse helps the body function correctly, makes fat loss (and weight loss!) progress happen more quickly, and helps us to have abundant energy!  If you want to lose weight and do it the right way, the first step is to do a cleanse.  And there are thousands of cleanses you could do by yourself, or....

Join me for the 2009 Total Body Makeover Virtual Boot Camp (www.keepyourbetterhalf.com).  We start January 15th.  We walk you through a gentle and body-changing cleanse.  You can join me as I help you and others around the world for $100 or do it for free (again, send an email to adam@keepyourbetterhalf.com to find out how to do it for free!)

New Year's Resolution Weight Loss Tip #3: Focus Some on Exercise, Focus Mostly on Foods and Life Changes!

For most people, exercise makes up less that 5% of our day.  Mastering exercise is a nice step for fat loss and weight loss, but taking care of the other 95% of our day is going to impact weight loss a lot more than the 5% of our day spent on exercising.  Mastering our daily intake of food is more important than anything else we can do to change your body.  Eating the right foods at the right times will do more for us than exercise ever could (exercise is tremendously important, don't get me wrong, but it's just 5% of our day).

For this reason, the 2009 Total Body Makeover Virutal Boot Camp (www.keepyourbetterhalf.com) has a food focus.  In fact, for 28 days you will know exactly what you need to eat.  No guessing, just a concrete plan full of foods you probably already enjoy...just put in the right order and in the right amounts!

To learn more about how to position your body for fat loss and weight loss, send me an email (adam@keepyourbetterhalf.com) and ask for a free copy of "The 27 Factors Affecting Fat Loss and Weight Loss!" 

Lose Weight in 2009 Successfully: Make Your Resolution a Reality!

Don't leave your weight loss to chance in 2009!  Join the 2009 Total Body Makeover Virtual Boot Camp experience or find out how to hire me personally (www.keepyourbetterhalf.com).  Make your resolution a guarantee today!

Adam Erwin is a personal trainer and the founder of Rapid Results Fitness.  He creates body changing and life-changing boot camp experiences for his clients that address weight loss and major health issues (high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.).  Adam resides in Minneapolis, spending much of his personal training time in Eden Prairie, Edina, Wayzata, Minnetonka, Excelsior, Chanhassen, and Medina.  He also enjoys bringing his boot camp experience cities such as San Diego, Miami, Phoenix, and Sydney, Australia!  To learn more about how to bring body change to your life, visit www.keepyourbetterhalf.com!

What Restaurants Hope You Don't Do Before Your Next Meal

I am working with a couple on my 30-Day Boot Camp program (view the program at www.keepyourbetterhalf.com), which means we kick their butt twice a day and carefully manage every morsel that goes into their body.  Last week my client couple wanted to go out on a date night.  With two youngs kids at home, a short time at the corner sit-down restaurant chain (Applebees, TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, Houlihans, etc.) was the best that could be arranged for the night.

Before sending them off to the restaurant, we went online to check out the nutritional data from their menu...

Chicken Caesar Salad: 1020 calories, 98g fat, 786mg sodium

Lettuce Wraps: 586 calories, 71g carbs, 1865mg sodium

Prime 5 oz Sirloin Steak (with green beans and baked potato): 1054 calories,  53g fat, 93g carbs, 2516mg sodium

And so it went for everything on the menu.  Lots of calories, too much fat, terrible amounts of sodium.  If one person ordered an appetizer and entree or entree and dessert, it would be easy to clear 2000 calories...and all after 7pm.  Yikes!

Here are the weight loss reality checks that restaurants are hoping you don't make before dine with them.

Weight Loss Reality Check #1: Check the Nutritional Data for Your Intended Meal Beforehand

Don't be a casualty of the calorie.  Many restaurant foods will kill you in at least one category (calories, fat, carbs, sodium, cholesterol), if not more!  Go online and find the nutritional information for the restaurant's menu.  Deciding what to eat and how much of it is easy when you are looking at their awful nutritional data!

Weight Loss Reality Check #2: Budget Calorie Consumption by the Clock

In America, we tend to eat the most calories when our body is least equipped to handle them: dinner! Talk about a recipe for a weight gain!  If you want to give your body a fighting chance to handle your out-to-eat calories, be sure to eat lighter the later you eat.  If your out-to-eat meal is a 12pm lunch, you can go a little heavier than if your out-to-eat meal is an 8pm dinner.  In America, we would all be better off if we swapped lunch and dinner.  It is crucial to eat lighter at a restaurant, and very light if it's late.

Weight Loss Reality Check #3: Be Wary of Sodium the Day Before and Day After Eating Out

Most restaurants douse their foods in sodium.   They are shameless in their use of sodium.  With this in mind, prep your body the day before eating out by having a super low sodium day.  Also, give your body a light sodium day the day after eating out to allow it to recover!  In the US the RDA for sodium is 2400mg per day (which is a ton compared to the UK's 1600mg).  If you are interesting in keeping off of blood pressure medication, pay attention to sodium!

Wrapping It Up

Getting fit and losing weight are tough things to do on a restaurant diet, and almost impossible to do on an unorganized restaurant diet.  To increase your odds of fat loss and weight loss, check restaurant information online before you order, budget your caloric intake based on the clock, and go easy on the sodium before and after a restaurant visit.

Adam Erwin is a personal trainer (with a nutrition background) 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 works closely in the Eden Prairie, Wayzata, Excelsior, Minnetonka, and Edina communities.  Visit www.keepyourbetterhalf.com to learn more about his work.

Part II: Top Ten Foods to Help You Lose Fat and Lose Weight

I just finished up with a six-week project with a client.  As we closed up our program today, he told me what a difference the food selections had made for him.  Rob had seen some specialists about his hypoglycemic tendencies and none of them provide him with solutions that made a difference.  We were able to pinpoint some ideas for him that proved to be difference makers.

Here are the top five best weight loss and fat loss foods (by food I mean consummable goods...not necessarily solids).

Fifth Best Weight Loss Food: Lamb

Like I said before, protein helps the stomach to achieve a sense of fullness.  4 oz of lamb is low in calories (107), moderately low in fat (3.5g), and acceptably high in protein (19g).  Like fish, it has mild anti-inflammatory properties about it, which means it won't wreak havoc in the body like chicken or beef can.  Lamb is also high in vitamin B12, which means it can give you a nice little shot of energy (but probably not like the B12 injections Roger Clemens apparently received). If you'd like to know more about how to maximize lamb, email me at adam@rapidresultsfitnessmn.com to learn more about "The Little E-Book on Fat Loss and Weight Loss."

Fourth Best Weight Loss Food: Goat Whey

For reasons we may never understand, goat milk is as close as it gets to human milk.  Therefore, it is easy for us to digest and we absorb it well.  A serving of goat whey (check out Oryx Goat Whey by Vyotech) is packed with protein (30g), low in cholesterol, fat, and carbs (20 mg, 1g, 2g), and is loaded with leucine (a branch-chain amino acid) so it helps your body recover well after a workout.  For the absorption and easy digestion, goat whey is a great source of protein.  As we all know, good sources of protein feed muscle and encourage the body to preserve muscle (and therefore burn fat!). If you'd like to know more about how to maximize goat whey, email me at adam@rapidresultsfitnessmn.com to learn more about "The Little E-Book on Fat Loss and Weight Loss."

Third Best Weight Loss Food: Cucumber

Where do I begin? Cucumbers (raw, this is not code for a pickle!) have almost zero calories, zero carbs, zero cholesterol, zero fat, and zero protein.  They are water rich, highly alkaline, and therefore a very high energy food.  If you are ever tired (mentally, physically), eat half a cucumber (or an entire one) and become alive again in energy!  If you ate a cucumber everyday, for a snack for example, you would be unstoppable! If you'd like to know more about how to maximize cucumber, email me at adam@rapidresultsfitnessmn.com to learn more about "The Little E-Book on Fat Loss and Weight Loss."

Second Best Weight Loss Food: Wheatgrass

Truly a super food, wheatgrass is an amazingly abundant source of energy.  It helps activate the thyroid, alkalizes the body, cleanses the blood, lowers blood pressure.  Wheatgrass (juice form) will help your body function optimally.  If you body functions optimally, you can burn calories more effectively, have mor abundant energy, and on and on and on and on.  If you'd like to know more about how to maximize wheatgrass, email me at adam@rapidresultsfitnessmn.com to learn more about "The Little E-Book on Fat Loss and Weight Loss."

Best Weight Loss Food: ???

I've already given you nine great tips.  Did you think I was going to give away the farm?  If you want to get the whole enchilada (and no, the top food is not an enchilada), you will have to get a copy of the "Little Ebook on Fat Loss and Weight Loss".  If you'd like to know more about how to maximize the #1 best weight loss food, email me at adam@rapidresultsfitnessmn.com to learn more about "The Little E-Book on Fat Loss and Weight Loss."

Adam Erwin is a personal trainer (with a nutrition background) 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 works closely in the Eden Prairie, Wayzata, Excelsior, Minnetonka, and Edina communities.  Visit www.keepyourbetterhalf.com to learn more about his work.

Top Ten Foods to Help You Lose Fat and Lose Weight

I just finished up with a six-week project with a client.  As we closed up our program today, he told me what a difference the food selections had made for him.  Rob had seen some specialists about his hypoglycemic tendencies and none of them provide him with solutions that made a difference.  We were able to pinpoint some ideas for him that proved to be difference makers.

Here are some of the best weight loss and fat loss foods(by food I mean consummable goods...not necessarily solids). 

Tenth Best Weight Loss Food: Whey Isolate Protein Powder

Protein can help conquer hunger.  Whey isolate protein powder (made into a shake) can really help the body reach a sense of fullness.  It can also feed muscle (which helps with fat burning), and is low in calories, carbs, and cholesterol.

Ninth Best Weight Loss Food: Pears

Pears are very nutrient dense, very filling, and are low in calories.   A great morning or afternoon snack!

Eighth Best Weight Loss Food: Chick Peas

Chick peas are a great item to put alongside a chicken or fish main course.  They are filling, have a good raiot of carbs/fats/proteins.  The only down side is they pack a little bit of sodium.

Seventh Best Weight loss Food: Lemons

Not only are they great to add to water (they have an alkalizing effect to water, which seems counter intuitive), lemons are very filling, are midly anti-inflammatory in nature, and contain a little bit of fiber. Add a lemon to your water, or add it to your chicken breast for flavoring and nutrition.

Sixth Best Weight Loss Food:Buffalo (top round steak)

The biggest thing about a source of protein is the cholesterol associated with it.  While buffalo has some cholesterol (82mg per 100 g of steak), it is also rich in protein (33g) and low in calories (146). It is typically leaner than venison and chicken, amongst others.

Adam Erwin is a personal trainer (with a nutrition background) 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 works closely in the Eden Prairie, Wayzata, Excelsior, Minnetonka, and Edina communities.  Visit www.keepyourbetterhalf.com to learn more about his work.