Month: August 2020

Gaining weight is becoming a new normal that most expect throughout the course of their lives. Two-thirds of the U.S are considered overweight For many, they see the signs: clothes not fitting, daily movements becoming sluggish, and a vicious scale displaying a forever increasing number over the course weeks, years, and decades. Here’s a secret. You can reverse some if not all of the weight gain by understanding some of the reasons it happens. To fix an issue, you must identify the primary root cause. The biggest reason many gain weight? Consuming more than what the body needs.

Calorie control is about balancing what goes in and out. You consume calories and your body burns calories. If what goes in is more than what goes out, you will gain weight. If you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. If it balances, you will maintain weight. Simple math, right? While there are other factors, it is the primary component of weight management. There are many diets that boast to be the most effective at quickly shedding the pounds. There is the low-carb diet, the high-protein diet, and even the high-fat diet. There is some effectiveness in those diets especially in the short-term. The recommended diet is a calorie-controlled, well-balanced diet. Why? The body’s preferred source of energy is carbohydrate so the low-carb diet in the long run would not be beneficial and it does cause some sluggishness for some . A high-fat diet causes health issues to the heart. Additionally, fat has twice as many calories than carbohydrates per gram. You run the risk of gaining weight. The primary focus in a weight loss journey should be directed toward the cause of weight gain over the weeks, years, and decades of many people’s lives. That is excessing consumption of calories.

Dieting. Is it the worst health related term during a weight loss journey? Does it bring images of drinking plain, no-calorie water and eating celery sticks all day long? What if I told you that it is possible to lose weight and still eat? No…you really can eat and lose weight. This is not a myth among dieters. In the following, I will share some dieting tips to help reach weight loss goals while also having opportunities to eat real food.

Eat More. Yes. Eat more food. By more food, I am referring to more fruits, more vegetables, more baked and more boiled. Most in the U.S. are overweight primarily due to high-caloric diet. This poor habit consists of processed food with little to no nutritional value. The idea of eating more would focus on the foods that are concentrated with nutrients but have far less calories. For example, an apple can have anywhere from 50-70 calories depending on size and type of apple. However, a delicious slice of chocolate cake can have anywhere from 200-600 calories. One apple has far fewer calories than one chocolate cake, more nutrients to fuel the body and more importantly, can help in your effort to lose weight. If the focus is on healthier options which includes fruits, vegetables, wheat bread, wheat pasta, brown rice and many more, most of us would be able to eat without feeling like we are starving ourselves during our weight loss journey.

Exercise. It is so cliche as we have all heard some variation of the more you move, the more you will lose. You want to continue to eat? Let’s apply this concept. How about joining the gym and sign up for aerobic classes where you can easily burn 300-500 calories each visit. Don’t enjoy the gym? How about going to a park and riding a bicycle to help get the heart pumping and breaking a sweat for an hour. Select an exercise/routine that will work for you. How will the working out allow you to continue to eat? For some who are overweight, their daily caloric intake barely exceeds what they naturally burn. These individuals will not have to make a change to their diet as the calories burned through the workout would be sufficient to help lose weight over the long run.

Scheduled Eating. How will scheduling meals help with weight loss? Most of us live busy lives and don’t have a lot of time to commit to counting all the calories we eat. We also may not have the time to go to a gym for some exercise. What if your dieting strategy could be as simple as the time and frequency you’re eating? Schedule the time which you eat your meals. Why? Eating breakfast will kickstart your metabolism. After sleeping for eight hours, our metabolism is slowed. Having breakfast is the jump it needs to get started again. Another reason for scheduling your meals is that our eyes oftentimes get bigger than our stomachs after going too long without eating. This results in ordering too much food. This also will not help in the effort to lose weight. The scheduled eating will help eliminate those bad habits while helping you reach your dieting goal.

Eating and losing weight should not feel like they fit like water and oil. If fully understood, they can work well for all who want to lose a few inches. Some don’t enjoy the traditional route of fasting or dramatically depleting caloric intake. For those who prefer using food without the aggressive restrictions, one of these previous three strategies can help you not only get back on track to meet your weight loss goal, but also provide healthy options to sustain a healthy and ideal weight while still enjoying foods.

For majority of my 39 years of living, fitness has been a part of my life. When I hear friends or associates discuss how they can’t understand the reason for joining a gym or can’t understand what value joining the gym brings, it confounds me. I am more committed now more than ever to share with friends, family or whoever will listen to me the benefits that joining a gym can bring to their lives. This has led me to recommending three reasons (pick one) why signing up for gym will help (even if it’s temporarily) you reach your health & fitness goals.

Reason #1: Increased motivation toward health and fitness. You ever seen someone sign up for a membership at a gym and then all of sudden come up with all these fitness (and sometimes unrealistic) goals? There’s the lose-thirty-pounds-in-thirty-days goal. There’s the six-pack-in-a-few-months goal. The best one? The looking-just-like-a-celebrity goal. This increase in enthusiasm is brought on by the fact it is something new that can possibly result in something great. While this excitement doesn’t last for many, and many more quit within the first month, it is the possibility that you could actually transform your body and your health with a first step of joining a gym.

Reason #2: “Misery loves company”. We have all heard this phrase before. For many, it simply means some variation of “it is much easier to suffer when you’re suffering with others”. For gym goers, this applies. You are more likely to work out at the gym and suffer through the workouts surrounded by many strangers than you are to workout in the convenience of your home. If your hopes is to finally “take this workout thing” seriously, let this be a reason to join the gym.

Reason #3: You are paying for a service. Another reason why joining a gym can help you reach your fitness goal is due to having to pay for a service. This will not work for all. For those who are economically conscious, signing up for a gym is an incentive to actually use the facility since the alternative would mean a waste of money every single month. For those of you who hate losing money, go ahead and sign up. You might start working out.

There you have it! You can always find value in anything, right? Even in something like joining a gym. A long as you care for it, you’ll easily identify the benefits. If you can’t identify the benefits in joining the gym, you can always lean on friends (HangwithG) to help provide some motivation.

So you have signed up for a gym membership for the first time in your life.  You couldn’t wait til January like the rest of the world.  You want significant improvement in your fitness and health. What are the next steps? Here are three tips/recommendations I would advise all who are new to working out to improve on the typical experience of many gym newbies.

Sign up for the complimentary (or discounted) personal training session! When you first sign up for a gym membership, typically, it comes with a complimentary personal training session and sometimes with an initial discounted package that would also include training sessions.  This is something you should take advantage of! Will the personal trainer attempt to get you to sign up for more sessions? Yes.  However, as a new gym goer, it is extremely important to experience a workout with the guidance of a health professional. Why? This complimentary session typically includes a tour, questionnaire to help determine risk, fitness assessment, measurements, weigh-ins, and most importantly, you go through a workout while being guided on how to perform the exercises correctly.  Yes, more than likely, you will be exhausted and yes you will probably forget all the tips on correctly performing the exercises and number of reps and the length of the rests and number of sets and which muscles to work out but…you would have experienced what it is like to have a health professional guide you while also having a better understand of the value of a good workout.

Trick Convince a friend to join a gym with you. Why bring a friend along this journey?  Because the saying “misery loves company” applies here as well. If you’re not going to sign up for a trainer, it is much easier to suffer through the trials of performing exercises backwards, sideways and all types of wrong ways when a friend goes alone for the ride.  What is critical is to bring a friend with similar goals.  Through watching other gym goers, utube videos, and weeks (may months or years) of practice, you will improve in the art of working out.

Set goals and follow through. There is a reason you joined the gym.  Yes, you have met one goal of actually becoming a gym member.  However, once the initial excitement has waned, there needs to be a reason to continue to keep coming back.  So create realistic goals like losing 5lbs in a month or attending three aerobic classes per week or something small like a mile walk on the treadmill five days a week.  What to do after accomplishing those goals?  How about creating and achieving new and more challenging goals.

As a new gym member, it can be intimidating not knowing where to start in journey to a healthier you.  All the information related to health and fitness can be confusing.  However, sticking to a few tips/recommendations such as taking advantage of a complimentary workout session, identifying a workout partner and setting goals will help you off on a good start…until you adopt other tips and recommendations that will work well for you.