Personal Trainer

Your Body – Your Mind

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Keep It Simply Simple

How do you lose weight through your diet? The problem is that the answer varies just so much depending on who you ask. Some people will tell you that the best way to lose weight is to start eating less. Count your calories and then make sure that you consume fewer calories than you burn. This way, you can maintain a deficit and be forced to burn fat stores.

Makes sense. But another blog will tell you something different. It might point out that counting calories is difficult to the point of being nearly impossible. And not only that, but it’s also boring and sure to put you off after a while. Worse, it says nothing of nutrition or appetite. If you just eat fewer calories, then technically you can lose weight by eating only donuts.

Which would also destroy your health and leave you hungry and malnourished. So, what do you do instead? According to this crowd, it’s more useful to focus on keeping your carbohydrate intake down. This will help you to prevent blood sugar spikes and will avoid ‘empty calories’ (if you avoid the processed, simple carbs). That way, you are getting only filling, nutritious and whole foods.

Great! Then there are the intermittent fasters and the low-fat crowd. No wonder you never managed to lose weight! The other issue is that all these diets are complex, they are hard to follow, and they are unsociable. They often involve spending large amounts of time in the kitchen cooking and they can get expensive. What is the most important part of any diet?

Simple: that you stick with it. There is no point in starting a diet unless you can sustain it indefinitely. If you start a diet and give up in two months, then you will put the weight back on! Okay, so let’s simplify. None of these diets is wrong. They all have good points. The problem is they go too extreme in one direction. As is so often the case, the ‘middle way’ is best.

In the next post we will delve into “the middle way and what it means”

Few hints –

Trying to eat fewer processed, simple carbs.

Avoid the obviously bad foods such as crisps, chocolate bars, ice cream and swap them for healthier things.

Wonderfully Fit Personal Training offers virtual training as well as in-person training and nutritional counseling.  Training can be scheduled by visiting our website at Top Fitness Trainer, Program Training And Nutritionist In Long Beach CA | Wonderfully Fit or contacting us at the number below.
Ready for a change – visit our website or contact us at 562-896-7629; email: terrine@wonderfullyfit.com.

 

Tips to keep in Mind when Selecting a Fitness Studio

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Studies have shown that more people join gyms in January in comparison to any other month of the year. Most of it is to be blamed on some half-hearted New Year resolutions that people tend to make at the beginning of every New Year. And by the time February comes around, they forget all about it. While most of it is to do with their will-power, some can be blamed on the wrong choices they tend to make when selecting the right gym for themselves.

There are several gyms in every neighborhood these days, which makes the selection process harder than ever. The right gym for you must be fitting to your own unique personality, so that you would not have any distraction or problem while doing your Exercise in Long Beach, CA. But before you finalize anything, it is necessary to know what exactly you are looking for in a gym. Don’t worry; the following is a list of certain things to keep in mind so that you pick the right gym or fitness studio for yourself.

Cost:

One of the most important factors that you need to consider is the monthly fees of the gym. A majority of the people can’t afford to go to high-priced gyms but there is always a way to lower the fees. Most of the gyms tend to have better and affordable deals during peak times of the year such as around New Year’s and during September. To ensure that you enjoy doing your exercise in Long Beach, CA, you would not want to feel that you are paying any extra money.

Location and open hours:

Another important thing to keep in mind is that the gym you select must be easily accessible, which is near your home or maybe your workplace. Decide a convenient time for you to work out and make sure that the gym stays open during that hour.

Atmosphere:

Believe it or not but the ambiance and atmosphere of the gym play a vital role in keeping you motivated and making you come back. So, it is important to pay different fitness studios a visit and see certain things that matter to you such as the décor, the kind of music that gets played, placement of the equipment, and if there’s enough roaming space.

Equipment:

This might be the most important factor to keep in mind when it comes to finding the right fitness studio. Pay different gyms a visit and check to see if there are sufficient numbers of important equipment present there. Make sure that there is not any out-of-order machine as even the lack of a single machine can hinder your overall progress.

Cleanliness:

It is also important to ensure that the equipment, changing room, toilets, etc. are well-maintained and clean. Make sure that all the items are acceptable to use by your standards. Also, ensure that the place is regularly cleaned.

These are some of the tips that you need to keep in mind in order to choose the right gym for you and start working out.

 

Workout Routines

Finding The Right Workout For Your Lifestyle

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Everyone knows exercise is important. But like most people, you may always have a reason why this is not possible. The most common alibi is you don’t have time. Or you really don’t like working out in a gym. Today, there are so many ways to get active.

Whether you have no gym budget or just easily get bored with your routine. There is a fitness routine that suits you.

exercise

Some people really hate going to the gym. As long as you get moving, you can still reap the fitness benefits of a gym membership. There’s lots of activities you can do outdoors. Hiking, biking and walking are some examples. You can also bring your workout regimen to the park. You can use your body weight for weight training exercises. Squats, lunges, push ups and crunches can be performed anywhere.

For others, working out is a time to socialize. If you’re one of them, dancing is for you. Spinning can be too intense. You can try Zumba, swing, hip hop or ballroom dancing. If you don’t like dancing, you can join a biking or a running club.

No time for the gym? No problem. You can do your workouts right at your desk. You can do triceps dips on your chair during lunch break. Invest in some resistance bands and do bicep curls and triceps extensions. You can even do some push ups if you can find some space. Doing combination moves like squats and bicep curls can save more time.

If you can’t afford a gym membership, don’t fret. Exercises can be easily performed at home. Buy resistance bands, dumbbells, maybe a stability ball. Browse the internet for instructions on how to execute exercise moves properly.

If you need a challenge, sign up for a marathon event or a bodybuilding show if you’re into weight training. Set big goals for yourself. Then break it down into smaller ones. Getting bored with your workout is a common complaint.

Try varying your workouts every 6 to 8 weeks. Or try the elliptical, the treadmill and circuit training for 15 minutes each. Join a group workout next. The possibilities are endless. The point is to get moving.

Exercise need not be confined to the four walls of the gym. Get exercise out of the gym and take it to a hiking trail. Or take it for a whirl on the dance floor. You can take it home with you or even bring it with you to the office. There are so many choices as long as you make exercise a priority.

Workout Routines

Find the Right Muscle Building Workout For You

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So you’ve decided you want to bulk up and gain some serious muscle mass but are unsure what exactly you need to be doing on a daily basis to achieve your goals. Unfortunately, finding the best workout for muscle mass is often the hardest part, and the place where most folks tend to slip up.

You see, everybody is different, and if you don’t find the right workout for you and your own situation, then you will struggle to reach your muscle building potential, and thereby make life more difficult and frustrating for yourself… and that just plain sucks, right?

muscle

In this article I’d like to give some tips on the kind of questions you should be asking yourself when looking for the best workout for muscle mass. Use them as kind of a checklist and they’ll help you to find the right muscle building workout.

What Is Your Body Type?

This is one of the most important aspects and often overlooked by many folks searching for the best workout for muscle mass. Broadly speaking, there are 3 major body types – ectomorphs (naturally skinny, struggle to gain weight and muscle), mesomorphs (easily gain weight and muscle, naturally muscular), and endomorphs (gains weight easily, usually higher body fat levels).

The training routines for each of these body types will be notably different both in terms of exercises and nutrition. Find out what your body type and you’ll understand a lot more about what is the best workout for muscle mass.

What Level Are You At?

Are you a beginner who has never set foot in a gym, or are you a fitness fanatic that is looking to gain weight and pack on some muscle? Understanding your current fitness and muscular development level will help you find the workout and avoid pushing your body too much too quickly, or holding you back and preventing you from reaching your potential.

What Are Your Goals?

Are you a skinny guy or girl looking to add some serious slabs of muscle and gain weight, or are you somebody who is looking to gain some muscle while losing a lot of body fat in the process

Understanding what you want to achieve from your workouts is critical in finding the best workout for muscle mass, since you will need to adapt your training and nutrition requirements depending on your situation.

Does Your Muscle Mass Workout Combine Good Nutrition and Exercise Routines?

When you see a workout for muscle mass that you like, take a look to see if there is sufficient emphasis and guidance on the right approach to nutrition…if there isn’t, keep searching. Your diet and what you eat is absolutely critical if you want to see serious muscle mass gains. Any workout that doesn’t provide you with solid advice on what to eat and when to eat it, is not worth the time in my opinion.

How Flexible Is The Routine?

Does the workout allow you the ability to substitute certain exercises for others, as you may need to if working out at home or using an ill-equipped gym? Does the workout rotate training cycles which keep you changing your workout every few weeks? This is important as your body needs the constant stimulation and adaptation in order to continue building muscle.

How Often Are You Going To Be Working Out?

Does the workout allow you any off days or is it 6 days a week? In my experience, it is best to workout 3 – 4 times per week with rest days in between. This allows the optimum rest for your body to recover and develop muscle. Any more than this and you can stunt your muscular development by preventing your body’s natural recovery process. The best workout for muscle mass is one that will allow you to fit it into your current schedule and have the flexibility to move workout days around to suit.

Workout Routines

Finding the Right Fat Loss Workout For You

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Do you sometimes wonder how people can be so lucky as to be able to eat all they want and yet not gain a pound, as compared with you who have to sometimes starve yourself and labor for hours in the gym just to lose every extra pound?

We’ve heard it before that a fat loss workout is all you need to get into a good shape. However, for some people, finding the right workout that fits their routine can be a real challenge.

fat loss

There are so many fat loss workout guides available that you would think it’s easy for just about anybody to get into a routine that guarantees weight loss. Yet since we all have different body requirements and metabolism rates, one fat loss workout program may work for one person, and may not for another.

Generally speaking, exercise for fat loss is the key to dropping those unwanted pounds and keeping them off for good. Choose a program that suits your daily routine and is easy to follow. Most of the time, it’s the consistency of the workout that produces the results that we aim for. It may take some time to try various fat loss workout plans, but once you find one that works for you, do your best to stick to it before even considering another one.

What If Nothing Works?

If after trying several diet and exercise programs and you still don’t see those pounds disappearing, it may be because you have not consistently followed the program you chose. It takes time before any diet or workout plan can produce results, but sometimes people can get impatient and can get frustrated easily. When this happens, it’s easy enough to blame the fat loss workout plan, rather than checking one’s attitude towards diet and exercise.

However, there are instances when losing weight still becomes a struggle despite consistently following a fat loss workout plan. In such cases, it is best to consult your doctor and run tests to find out if there are some factors, such as hormone deficiency or a thyroid problem that may be causing you not to lose those stubborn pounds.

Your doctor may recommend a diet and exercise plan that suit your body type and medical condition, if any. Still, the key there is being committed to the plan to achieve your weight loss goals.

Workout Routines

5 Tips for Finding the Right Fitness and Weight Loss Program

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Finding the right workout program for you is tough. You see ads on TV, on the internet, hear about them on the radio and see them in magazines. You see articles all over the place telling you their weight loss program is the best program to use.

Or maybe you go to the gym and play around on the exercise machines coming up with your own workout program only to find you’re not losing weight like you want, hitting a plateau, get frustrated with lack of progress or just get fed up with the gym routine all together because you don’t have time.

program

So what do you do? How do you choose?

Make a Commitment to Yourself

First you have to make a commitment to lose the weight and fat you want to lose. You have to set a goal and you have to commit to that goal. It’s all about the mindset that you take on. Make the goal realistic. If you set the goal too high you’ll get frustrated with the lack of progress. In a very short time you’ll be coming up with excuses as to why you can’t go to the gym or workout at home. So be realistic.

Find The Right Program

This is probably the hardest thing you’ll have to do. Finding the program that fits your needs, your abilities and your goals can be tough. There are a lot of weight loss and exercise programs out there for you to choose from. Of all the programs I’ve looked at and things

Nutritional Changes

The biggest part of losing weight is the nutritional aspect. You have to change your mindset about food and portion sizes. Cut out or cut down on the carbohydrates, increase the amount of protein you take in and reduce the amount of fat you take it. Sounds daunting doesn’t it? Makes you think you need to hire a nutritionist? Not really.

What Can You Expect

Losing weight is not easy. It goes on much easier than it comes off. From experience of going through the P90X program it’s well worth the work that you have to put into it. The first few weeks of any exercise program is the toughest. You’re going to be sore and tired. Your body isn’t used to that kind of workout. But trust me it’s worth it. You’ll feel more alive and full of energy and you’ll be seeing less of you.

Make a Choice

So make a choice for yourself. Do you want to live a happier and healthier life or do you just want to be a couch potato? Being healthy is a choice. Losing weight is a choice. Finding a program is a choice you have to make.

Workout Routines

Finding The Right Workout Routines To Build Muscle

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There are 3 golden rules to building muscle. Eat right, sleep right and exercise right. And most focus in the body building world is on the exercise rule. Finding the right workout routines to build muscle consumes so much time of amateur muscle builders’.

The truth is that equal focus must be put on your diet and rest, but that discussion can be left for a different article. This article will stay true to its title and help you find the right workout routines to build muscle.

muscle

If you’re eating right and sleeping right, almost any exercise routine should show results and help you put on considerable amounts of muscle. However, there are certain prerequisites that all work out routines must satisfy before you can put on muscle and get the maximum out of your gym time. Most important is the intensity with which you train which is affected by your rep and set number, your work out speed, your break length, and the weights you lift. For workout routines to build muscle, ensure that these following criteria are satisfied.

There are all sorts of myths out there like, high reps and low weight is for burning while high weight and low reps is for gaining, and work out longer and you will gain more muscle and so many more. One article isn’t enough for me to give you all the information you need to know about these myths and why they are nonsense, however, I will tell you how to go about doing things.

First of all make sure that the routine you’re doing isn’t overworking your muscles. Your muscles need a lot of time and energy to heal and grow, and working out for too long will drain them and cause muscle fatigue which is not what you want. So keep your work outs short and frequent with sufficient breaks in between.

To get the most out of these short gym sessions, keep your rest periods at a minimum and push beyond your limits. You can vary your rep and set range but for maximum muscle gains it has been found that a rep range of 8-12 is best.

When it comes to the weight go as heavy as you can, and try to find yourself a gym partner to help you with this. Also work out routines to build muscle come in all forms. Some maybe full body work outs while other’s are split body. Don’t focus on just one of these. Keep switching every few weeks so that your body doesn’t reach a plateau.

Keep your work outs intense, push heavy weight, take fewer breaks and switch your routines to keep your body guessing. Do all this along with the right type of diet and rest and your workout routines to build muscle will work better than they ever have before.

How to Tell If You Are Working Out Too Hard

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We are constantly told that we must exercise at least three times per week to get ourselves fit and healthy. That’s fine, but if you haven’t been exercising for a while now when you start out on your new exercise regime be sure that you take care and ease yourself into your program. Be sure that you don’t overdue things.

There are certain tell-tale signs that you are working out too hard. You just have to look for them and then adjust your training routine, before they take their toll. You are probably over-training if you suffer any of the following symptoms:

working out

Sore joints

If you do a new routine that works muscles that you are not used to being worked, then you expect to be a little sore the next day. No pain, no gain right? However if you have such soreness that it interferes with your normal daily routine, then you might have tried to do too much too soon. For example if you were working your biceps and the next day you have pain in your elbow, you either tried to lift too much weight or were lifting it wrong.

Pain while training

If you are pushing past pain to do a particular exercise, then you probably should not be doing it. Instead try to find an exercise that doesn’t cause pain and then go to your doctor to find out why you are having pain when exercising that particular muscle or muscle group. It could be the root of something more serious.

Fatigue even after recovery

If you feel constantly fatigued, even after your one day per week recovery period, you could be pushing yourself past the limits of your body. Try backing off another day of training per week so that you have two days off per week and see if it helps you feel less fatigued. Also most fitness experts agree that serious fitness buffs should take a week off about every 6 to 8 weeks so their body has an extended period to heal, rebuild and repair.

Frequent injury

If you seem to suffer more than your share of injuries while training, you may be going at it too hard or trying to lift too much weight. If you are strength training, try reducing the amount of weight you are lifting, or the number of reps/sets. If doing cardio, shortening up your routine or reducing the intensity. Also avoid exercising the injured area until it is healed.These four signs where your body is telling you that it is being pushed harder than it should. Listen to it, make adjustments and find a happy medium where you feel you are making progress, but still at a level your body can support.

Low Intensity Workout Tips

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Every workout routine on the market isn’t right for every person. When you begin a workout after a long hiatus or if you’ve never exercised in your life, you shouldn’t go all out on your first day of training.

The best approach is to participate in a low intensity workout for at least 40 minutes. This is to ensure that you don’t overwork your muscles and become a victim of mental burnout.

low intensity

Low intensity doesn’t mean that you should coast through your workouts. Your heart rate should reach 40% – 60% of the maximum rate. If your heart rate is lower than 40%, you are not getting the most out of your workout. If your heart rate is more than 60% you are doing too much too soon, and your body will feel it.

That’s one of the reasons people quit working out early on in their training. They are so gung-ho about the process that they put in more effort than their body is ready for. In turn, the body reacts negatively and before you know it, their back to the couch with a salty bag of chips. Don’t let this happen to you.

There are several low intensity workout routines you can participate in, including walking, cycling or jogging. These old standbys never go out of style, probably because the exercises are easy to do. To get the most out of your routines, make sure to walk, cycle, or run at least four days a week.

Also make sure to vary your routines. If you’re on equipment, increase the intensity from time to time. Or if you exercise outdoors, search for a place that is hilly. Monitor your heart rate to ensure you are within your zone.

Essential Oblique Exercise Advice

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If you don’t do any exercise at all, you are never going to get great abs! And I know you’re looking to get great oblique abs! If you didn’t click to look at this oblique workout article, then you will never know whether you can achieve fantastic abs or not.

Find out what you have to do – stick to these 3 simple rules – and you will soon be on your way to getting great abs. Stay focused, stay determined and persevere. You can do it! This is a means to an end. You want something out of this, but you have to put the work in to get it.

exercise

The suggested rules for your oblique workout to work, are:

1. Exercise

There is no avoiding it – exercise is part of the oblique workout – and it has to be done. Try to include some obiques exercises at least 2 or 3 times a week into your workout routine. Choose some exercises that include the use of weights, and this will help to strengthen your muscles fast. It will build them too which is great because bigger muscles use more calories, which means they help to burn excess body fat.

Examples of exercises in a highly effective oblique workout, would be: medicine ball twists, side raises on an exercise ball or some dumbbell side dips.

2. Nutrition

Eat a well-balanced, healthy diet of lean protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats eg fish oils / olive oil. At all costs avoid trans fats and try to avoid refined sugar too. Drink lots of water to help re-hydrate your muscles as you train.

3. Burn the Fat

Now that you are including an oblique workout in your exercise routine, your muscles will be developing, and growing strong with the help of the protein in your diet. But you will need to do one last thing to help burn more fat off to reveal those great oblique abs.

Intense cardio sessions are the answer to this. High intensity interval training sessions to be precise. These involve a short blast of intense cardiovascular training output, followed by a shorter less intense output session, and then alternated high intensity and lower intensity for a maximum of 20 minutes. For example, you could sprint for 20 seconds and then jog or walk for 10 seconds, then sprint, then jog or walk, etc.

You can start with 2 minute sessions if you are a total beginner, work up to 5 minute sessions, and intersperse these 5 minute sessions throughout your oblique workout routine for maximum effect. You will get the results you are after, if you stick to this complete oblique workout and remain focused and determined.