Start with a Plan!

Reducing what you eat takes a little planning! These are my recommended first steps!

Firstly work out a pattern of meals that suits. 

Some find that a big healthy breakfast reduces big meals later in the day. Most people find three balanced meals, two smaller ones and one main meal is usually enough. Decide what works best for you, you may be very close to a routine that will work already.

Reduce your calorie intake by reducing fats and alcohol. Both are energy dense (high in calories) and they simply fail to keep hunger away for long. Choose complex carbohydrates particularly fiber like beans, peas, lentils, starchy vegetables and fruits, instead of simple carbohydrates like refined sugars in soft drinks, candy, baked goods, jams, jelly, and especially fast food.

Reduce your portion size by choosing a smaller plate, it tends to give you the impression that you are eating more. Start by always adding your fresh foods first like, fruits vegetables, lean protein, nuts and seeds before grabbing any grains, breads, cereals, pastas and baked goods. By doing this you assure your body has a nutrient dense meal and will help in any spike in insulin you may get from the man made carbohydrates that taste so good.


Eating 5 helpings of fruit and veggies a day really does help to keep your weight under control and healthy. They hold most of the vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals that our bodies need to fight off disease so remember to provide enough of them to eat. I like keeping fruits for my snacks throughout the day and having my vegetables with my meals, it assures my body the nutrition it needs while taking care of my sweet tooth (yes, I am a sucker for sweets too).

Don't think that you can’t eat out or have celebration meals. In Fact I encourage them! They keep you sane and allow you to celebrate a goal that’s been accomplished.  Just plan ahead to allow for some calorie indulgence. When you’re there carefully select your meal and eat small portions, it’ll help to avoid any problems of guilt.  Always remember, food chains give bigger and bigger servings now a days, and are packed with calories, so you can always have half of your meal boxed and save it for later.

Any changes aren’t for just days or weeks but for life, a longer and healthier life.

Eating healthier and changing your lifestyle.

Start thinking about the whole picture, don't just say 'I should do something!' ACT NOW and do something small today! Planning.

Majority of dietitians and fitness experts all agree that planning is VITAL to success!

• You should plan in advance how changes can be achieved, think about the structure of your life and your preferred lifestyle.
• If it is not compatible with a realistic lifestyle, experience shows us that you simply won’t sustain the changes.
• It’s usually possible to find a solution that’ll work well for you with pre-planning. We’re all creatures of habit, make sure the habits are good ones! 

Keep a regular monthly check on your weight. By adjusting exercise and eating levels you can maintain your weight within the 3-5 lb range. 


Increasing your energy output

• Experience tells us that regular exercise is a vital component of any healthy lifestyle. Very few of us manage to keep to our lower weight unless we take part in regular exercise. 
  Exercise helps the energy balance, improves heart and lung function, and reduces self-pity, boredom and snacking time. 
• The higher the exercise level the better, but when it comes to starting out even walking or cycling rather than using cars or motorbikes, and using the stairs instead of lifts helps. I believe any adjustment is better than none.

 How to keep to a healthier diet

The first thing we need is to think about is that the change is not for just days or weeks but for life, a longer healthier life. Making small positive changes over time will help you achieve a much healthier life, it'll also be easier to maintain a good weight and keep fit and active.

Step 1: have a plan 
Plan in advance how it can be achieved within the framework of the preferred lifestyle. 
If it is not compatible with a realistic lifestyle, experience shows it will not be sustained. It is usually possible to find a compatible solution with pre-planning. We are all creatures of habit, right? So, evaluate yours and then hold onto your good habits and throw out the bad ones. Be realistic and never be too hard on yourself, stress is the leading free radical builder in your body and that will only make your job harder.

Tomorrow we will talk about making a Blue Print that will be Personalized to your life that can be used as soon as that day.

Keep Your Body Guessing!

Ever find yourself in the same old rut when it comes to your workouts? Doing the same workout over and over is not only boring—it also slows down your results by not giving your muscles a chance to recover.

Alternate your exercise routine, for example take a Pilates class on Monday and then lift weights on Wednesday.

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

Health is wealth as the saying goes, but staying healthy is so much more. When you keep your body healthy, you adopt a positive way of life.

Obesity, hypertension, Diabetes, and Cardiac problems are major diseases that have caused permanent damage and deaths to many. The best way to prevent these diseases and save your life is rather simple.

Staying fit allows your body to repel many types of illness particularly those that are caused by high cholesterol and fats. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle involves, eating the right kind of food, exercising regularly, and having a positive state of mind.

When you have all these three it will be easier to live the healthy life that you desire. Being healthy is not just an individual goal, but it has to be the goal of the entire family as well, the greatest reward that health can give is the chance to see your family happy and disease free.

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Women and Weight Loss

Wanting to Loose those extra pounds can be an exhausting endeavor, there are a lot of women who have been struggling to loose weight but failed to succeed.

One thing that leads to the failure of many is the feeling of discouragement and the lack of resistance to unhealthy food. If you want to loose weight, the most important factor is the planning phase, where you set a goal for yourself and think about the outcome that you want to have. Listing down your reasons why you want to loose weight is an effective tool for motivation.

Diet also plays a big part in this challenge, as food intake is the major contributor to weight gain. Diet does not mean food deprivation, but it means eating the right kind of food and choosing those that has less calories and more nutritive value.

Fruits and vegetable are all time favorites of health conscious individuals; it is wiser to follow their example. How one thinks or a person’s state of mind is the key to achieving success. When you think of your goal, you have to make a way to achieve it.

The Perfect Golf Swing

I've talked with a lot of my clients who absolutely love golfing. I came across this gem of a video on the Perfect Swing. Who doesn't want a perfect swing right?? :)

Atkins Diet?

There is argumentation about the Atkins diet, which focuses on the developers of the diet and to people that are on the diet. Many arguments on the internet also exist, which state that the Atkins diet is a viable diet and should be allowed to be tried by more people in order for them to receive the benefits of this great fat burning diet. A present study shows the difference of the Atkins diet fat burning effectivity for those who use it.

But, not everything in these debates are true and they need more studies. Despite this, the truth remains that Atkins has proffered forth few important services within the diet that makes the user lose weight. To the average person, losing weight would be a boon that he or she could not pass up, and with this diet, nothing is different.

With the Atkins diet, this is one of the best things about this diet – it replaces the bad things that go into your body and makes your body burn fat cells for fuel. There are constantly new diet fads that are going up all of the time, trying to take the place of more experienced diets that are showing themselves to work well for those who try them. For the debate of Atkins diet, this is always the issue, as it always has to battle against different diets who want to replace it and from those people who does not consider its effectiveness.

The Atkins diet can also save individuals money as it lessens the amounts and types of food you need to get, thus reducing cost and increasing accessibility. Saving money in an economy in recession like ours is a must. And, with prices continuing to rise, it's easy to eat junk foods because of changes in price. However, the diet will provide a limited selection of foods to choose from (typically focusing on meat) which will minimize the amount of food needing to be purchased and consumed. This is also right for people who want to use some of their money for other expenses for the house.

Many individuals are not aware of how to best care for their health and make a number of mistakes, which result in problems in the long run. This unfortunate form of ignorance can easily damage a situation or a person’s health. Following the Atkins diet allows each person to start setting goals for his or her health while using the guidelines of the diet.

However, while there are more debate for the Atkins diet, every person will decide if they want to try it and then decide the outcome for his or herself. It can be a great plan when used properly with supplements and a healthy exercise program. While the diet may not for everybody, there are still more controversy for using the Atkins diet.

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Turning 40 and Your Health

Many People at age 40 experiences several health problems, some like to say that 40 is the new 30 for women of today, and that age is just a number. This is actually very evident to most of us, and women will often describe age and only being as old as you feel. But, even after all the affirmations, it is obvious for women or men to feel young, health, and actually BE healthy, they must get a handle on their overall wellness. One of the common health problem of women is osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is a term that explains a degenerative disease of the joints. This is the number one kind of arthritis in the U.S. It affects over 20 million adults and over 50% of all people over the age of 65 have some evidence of osteoarthritis. Some global fact about this disease include that it is less of a problem in East Indians, South African's and Southern Chinese, but highly common in the Japanese populations.

Men at age 40 experiences Andropause. This is when a man's hormones naturally begins to decline, often starting in their late forties or early fifties. In continues to decline well into the eighties. Controversy surrounds the disease as many believe the belief of male menopause is more fiction than truth. The Andropause is a gradual process and not exactly the same as menopause. However, like women undergoing menopause, the decrease in hormones in men result in them suffering from symptoms of the Andropause. However, like menopause, symptoms of andropause can vary from person to person. Turning 40 is one of the key psychological milestones in a person’s life when they evaluate who they are and where they want to be going.

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Don't Stress...Might Kill ya

Stress is unavoidable. However we conduct our lives we're going to run into stress on a daily basis. And dealing with stress actually causes chemical changes in our brains which can of course affect our health. And it doesn't just end there.

Some types of stress are fleeting, and very short-lived. Usually with minor things like feeling like you always choose the slowest line at the store This sort of annoyance happens to all of us. The issue is how you handle it. Most people will simply decide to look at the magazine rack, which is conveniently located near the register, or just daydream for a few minutes. But some people will let the tension build. You can almost see the frusturation building with every second they have to wait in that line.

Obviously we want to be like the prior, and take this moment as an opportunity to catch up on our gossip. The first may read something interesting on the cover of a magazine and the second may escape from the chaos of the day with her daydream. But the person that is literally stressing out over the wait is doing more harm to himself than he realizes.
Stress can affect us on many levels. This person is not likely to have a smile on his face as he heads out of the market. I'm sure it will take a person like this quite some time to cool down. And it is very likely that this is behavior that is routine for this person - in other words, this person does not have very good coping skills.

In time this person is likely to experience any or all of the following problems:

Difficulty sleeping
High blood pressure
Lack of energy
Headaches
Feelings of depression
Tension & anxiety that won't let up
Back or neck pain
Change in weight
And more

As you can see, stress can build and lead to some bad stuff. But, to be fair, some people just have more stressful lives to live than the rest of us. I'm sure we all know those that have had more hardships, trials, and tribulations than the average person. It is also important to note that some things that are perceived as good, such as having children or buying a home and moving, are also very stressful.

These issues are cause to so many health problems including heart disease, low immunity, ulcers, emotional disorders and the list goes on. We my not be able to eliminate stress, but we can learn to cope. We can work on using mature coping mechanisms when we are feeling stressed, but even more than that we can be more proactive.

To stay healthy we can eat better, drink lots of water, get plenty of sleep, and workout. Increasing our physical health is a fantasitc way to also increase our ability to cope with stress more healthfully. Be kind to yourself. Take time to smell the roses, chill out, and remember your hobbies. Every day you should budget at least 15 minutes that are just for you, that is your time to do what you need. Try not to sweat the small stuff.

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Standing Pushup

Audio to come soon!




For More Info:
Shawn Guiney
860-857-8689
www.thefitnessbuster.com

Varied Pullup Progressions (Video)

Demonstration: More to come...



For More Info:
Shawn Guiney
860-857-8689
www.thefitnessbuster.com

Pull up Progressions (Video)

Demonstration:
...more to come


For More Info:
Shawn Guiney
860-857-8689
www.thefitnessbuster.com

Core Strength Training

If you have been involved in bodybuilding for a while, you've probably heard fellow lifters discussing stabilizer muscles. There are many things out there that might sound complicated, but you're lucky, this isn't one of them.

Much like how a foundation stabilizes a house, your stabilizer muscles help to keep you balanced and upright when moving. Your stabilizer muscles are not directly involved in the lifting of the weight, but help keep your body steady, through isometric muscle contractions.

Now if you think about it, these muscles sound pretty important. If you didn't have stabilizer muscles your knees would buckle during squats and your elbows during the bench press. The good thing is that if you've been doing many full-range-of-motion, free-weight movements you've already been training them.

Free-weight movements, which includes any exercise done with a barbell, dumbbell or cable (I consider cables redirected dumbbells, as you are not lifting the weight in a guided path) require you to balance the weights yourself, as you are not lifting the weight in a pre-set path, as with machines.

Shawn Guiney
860-857-8689
www.thefitnessbuster.com

Empty Calories

How much nutritional bang are you getting for the calories you take in?

The term "empty calories" refers to calories that have no nutritional value aside from providing energy. Not that energy is anything to sneeze at -- but if you're watching your weight and making food choices based on the number of calories, you might as well get as many "bonus" nutrients as you can -- protein, vitamins, minerals, and so on -- from the foods you choose.

Easy example: compare a cup of milk to a can of (non-diet) soda or a glass of wine. They all provide about 130 calories of energy. But only the milk provides calcium, protein and other nutrients. The soda and wine have sugar or alcohol, but little else that nourishes your body.

The bottom line: eating well means you combat cravings -- that results in healthier eating habits over time.

For more info and a FREE Session contact me-

Shawn Guiney
860-857-8689
www.thefitnessbuster.com

Ideas to Improve Your Golf Swing

Have you ever dreams of a perfect golf swing like Tiger Woods or Ernie Els? Well me too! It is amazing how graceful and powerful swings they can do.

Having a good swing requires continual practice but here are three excellent tips on how to improve your golf swing very quickly.

1. Warm up.

Just like any sport, golf players will need to warm up before starting playing golf. This is the first mistake that many amateur golf players make. It is recommended to come early at the golf course and take a few minutes to stretch those muscles and warm up. This will make your muscles “recognize” that they are in for something and that they need to be ready. Taking a few swings in the driving range will also help you get tuned up and perform better. You won’t improve your golf swing without first warning up.

2. Regular Exercise.

This is really important, not necessarily only for golf. Constantly exercising your body and muscles will keep them toned and ready for any activity. This will also prevent common body aches and pains that you usually feel when playing golf.
Getting into the habit of exercising, especially tuning up your muscles will have a great impact on your swing. It will enable you have a good stance and increase total balance and control on your swings. So to improve your golf swing, remember to exercise as often as you can.

3. Do Not Swing Too Hard Yet.

It is really attractive to give your swing that extra effort. Having said that, it is certainly not a good idea, unless you already have the control of your swing. The key to a powerful and graceful swing is the balance and control that you have, add to it the proper form and stance.

Try to do these things when you play golf again. And do these regularly, and then notice the change it will make on your next golf swing.

If you really want to improve your golf swing then you have to find help. Online there are countless of course that will really help you better your golf swing easily and fast.

Contact me for more info:

Shawn Guiney
860-857-8689
www.thefitnessbuster.com