Summer 2010 - 20 Ways

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20 WAYS TO BOOST YOUR RESULTS
Try these simple training and nutrition tips to help you reach your goals faster.

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Some days it’s easier than others. We’re talking about getting to the gym and sticking to a healthy eating plan. Even the best-intentioned of us can get tripped up on the way to the Body Beautiful.

To help you reach your goals with a minimum of setbacks, we’ve put together a list of 20 tips to help you stay on track and get the most out of your training and nutrition efforts. Try one, try them all, but always take stock of your program to make sure you’re getting the most out of your hard work.

1) Eat Five or Six Meals Per Day. This may seem counterintuitive, but a huge mistake that many dieters make is reducing the number of meals they consume each day. Eating five or six meals per day can actually help you with one of the most crucial elements of weight loss: portion control. The more often you snack (healthfully!) between meals, the more likely you won’t overeat at your larger meals, and the more stable your blood sugar levels (less highs and lows) throughout the day. It may also help speed up your metabolism. Of course, it depends what you eat, but ingest some type of meal or snack every 2-3 hours. A good rule of thumb is to consume one or two calories per pound of bodyweight for each snack, and three to five calories per pound for each meal, for a total of 14 to 20 calories per pound throughout the day.

2) Change Your Workout at Least Every Eight Weeks. Your body adapts quickly. Without new challenges to pique the interest of your muscles and neurons, progress can slow down considerably. Training plateaus are inevitable. The good news is that you don’t need a complete workout makeover. Instead, consider adding or switching exercises or trying a new exercise machine — anything that delivers a different stimulus. Even changing the time of day of your usual workout can have an impact. Join a fun exercise class or go for a swim. Just make sure you switch it up.

3) Invest in Quality Training Shoes. This is more important than many people realize. Lousy sneakers can disrupt your entire biomechanics and create a host of structural defects. We’re all different when it comes to our degree of pronation and arch, and need a shoe that accommodates our idiosyncrasies while providing adequate stability, cushioning and motion control. Appropriate footwear not only prevents injury, but also allows you to increase intensity and endurance while training. Take your unique biomechanics into consideration, do your homework, and consult a podiatrist or a knowledgeable shoe-store employee to help you choose wisely.

4) Cut Back on Liquid Calories. Many people take in a shocking number of calories in the form of liquids. If you’re not paying attention, you can easily guzzle as many as 1,000 liquid calories a day! Emphasize non- and very low-caloric drinks, with water the obvious best choice. Beyond water, other good drinks include coffee, tea and juices — but make sure it’s real juice and not the sugary kind. Also, keep in mind that lattes and cappuccinos can contain loads of calories. A Starbucks Grande Caffe Americano has only 15 calories, but a Starbucks Grande Caffe Mocha prepared with whole milk has about 400 calories. Yikes!

5) Drink at Least Two Liters of Water per Day. Regardless of the type of exercise you perform, keep yourself hydrated at all times, and, as noted above, water is the best way to do that. You can also fight fatigue with training with consistent breaks to rehydrate with water. The more you weigh, the hotter and more humid the weather, and the more you sweat, the more you need to drink. Also, you’ll eat less by drinking plenty of H2O, which is why you should drink 8 oz of water before a meal.

6) Try Interval Training. Interval training alternates between high- and low-intensity work. The high-intensity phase of the interval is very intense and can be performed for only a short time, followed by a low-intensity phase before the next high-intensity phase begins. Here’s an example of interval training on a treadmill: After a short warm-up, start off at a moderate walk for about five to 10 minutes, then kick it up into a moderate-to-fast jog for about one to two minutes, drop it back down to a walk for two minutes, then kick it back up to a jog again for one minute and then finish it with a walk for two minutes.

7) Leave Your Cell Phone in the Locker. File this under the category, “eliminate distractions”! While watching television or listening to music while you train is one thing, sitting on an ab cruncher and yakking on the phone won’t help improve your fitness levels and will annoy your fellow gymgoers. When you exercise, you want to keep your mind on your workout. Studies prove that visualization is a powerful motivator, and maintaining an image of your dream physique will make you more optimistic, motivated and focused on reaching your goals.

8) Hire a Personal Trainer (even if just temporarily). This is money well-spent, especially if you’re not a health-club veteran. Personal trainers can make a huge difference in mastering a variety of training techniques, and a good trainer can help you develop good work-out habits that last a lifetime. Ask your health club about available personal trainers on premises, or get a referral from a friend. Many trainers will work with you on rates if that’s a concern, but even if you can afford only a couple of sessions, it’s well worth the investment to receive expert help in fine-tuning your program to more effective ends.

9) Keep a Training and Nutrition Log. This is less work than you think, and it can make a huge difference in your ability to reach your goals. Keeping a journal will also help you troubleshoot when you find yourself stuck in a rut. Keeping track of what you eat is particularly important, and it’s one of the hallmarks of systems like Weight Watchers, which uses points to tally calories ingested. Some people find it a revelatory experience when they see on paper what they’ve been eating every day. Now, with so many mobile devices, it’s easier than ever to keep a log. So, put your iPhone to work, and keep a journal.

10) Eat a Big Breakfast. It’s the old saying: Eat breakfast like a king, lunch a like a prince and dinner like a pauper. Some researchers suggest eating a big breakfast loaded with carbs and protein, then eat progressively smaller meals with less carbs as the day goes on. In one study, “big breakfast” dieters lost an additional 16.5 lb than the low-carb dieters they were compared against. But whatever you do, don’t gorge late at night before bed. Your body won’t be able to burn off the extra calories.

11) Use a Heart Rate Monitor. When you do cardio exercise on a regular basis, your heart becomes more efficient, which enables you to exercise at a higher intensity. As your intensity increases, so do the number of calories you burn each minute you’re on that treadmill or elliptical trainer. That’s where a heart-rate monitor comes in. The more information you have about how hard you’re working, the easier it is to reach your goal. Many heart-rate monitors can show the calories you’re burning as well as your heartbeat. Also, many machines in your health club are calibrated to link up to your heart rate monitor, making it that much more convenient. (Figure out your appropriate heart-rate zone by taking the number 220 and subtracting your age. Eighty-five percent of that number is your maximum heart rate.)

12) Ignore the Scale. This is a tough one, especially for women, but unless you’re getting ready to make weight for that boxing match, weighing yourself can become an obsession that can discourage you instead of helping you reach your goals. If you’re becoming leaner, your new, dense muscle tissue may not reduce the scale number even while your body looks better. Body-fat percentage is a better gauge of progress. In the end, it’s about how your clothes fit and how you look in the mirror more than numbers on a scale.

13) Replace Saturated Fats with Polyunsaturated Fats. Research has discovered that for every 5 percent increase in polyunsaturated fat consumption — found in most vegetable oils — coronary heart disease risk was reduced by 10 percent. Try to use extra virgin olive oil — no butter, lard, or other vegetable oils, and confine your condiments and dressings to recipes that contain lemon, vinegar, spices, hot sauce, salsa, and/or extra virgin olive oil. Also, go through your cupboards and replace all processed snack foods with raw nuts, seeds, organic nut butters and dried fruit. Despite their being calorically dense, nuts do not appear to cause fat gain.

14) Get a Workout Buddy. Nothing makes you more accountable than a friend who will be disappointed when you skip a workout. If there’s somebody who has a similar schedule than yours and attends the same gym, make a commitment to him or her and you’ll have a lot more fun and make progress. And try to match up with somebody who is near the same fitness level as you. Just don’t turn it into a conspiracy of slacking, which can happen. May we suggest having a friendly wager on reaching a weight-loss goal? Find what motivates your partnership and stick to it.

15) Don’t Cheat on Your Diet Just Because You Worked Out. Krispy Kreme is not the appropriate reward for spending 30 minutes at the health club. Sorry. Your reward is feeling better, becoming healthier, and getting closer to reaching your goal. Yet many people make the mistake of believing that a workout is a license to gorge. The fact is, you can’t make substantial changes to your body composition by neglecting exercise or healthy eating. It can’t be one or the other — dieting without exercise won’t get the job done either. Sometimes you can do more harm than good. Research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that dieting without exercise can reduce bone density and increase your chances of fractures and osteoporosis. So have a plan for both.

16) Use Weights You Can Handle. This is more of a problem for men, who don’t like to look like weaklings in the gym. Listen, fellas: Nobody’s watching, especially the opposite sex. They don’t care if the number on your dumbbell is 10 or 50. Poundage aside, women also need to keep in mind exercise form and range of motion. Invest in an exercise book or ask for help from a gym veteran. Also, don’t use an exercise machine you’re unfamiliar with until you see it demonstrated properly. Ask a trainer in your health club for assistance when you’re unsure.

17) Try Cardio in the Morning. After the eight-hour fasting state of sleep (and it should be eight hours), your body is primed for fat burning. When you perform cardio on an empty stomach or a nearly empty stomach shortly after waking, you have lower amounts of glucose in your blood, and lower glycogen levels in your muscles and liver so your body must turn more quickly to stored fat for energy. And many people find doing their training in the morning makes their day more satisfying and increases energy for work. So, if it’s practical, give it a try.

18) Eat Foods with Low Energy Density. The energy density of food means calories per gram. Fat has nine calories per grams, and is the highest-density nutrient (protein and carbs each have four calories per gram). Low energy-density foods include fruits, vegetables, soups and low-fat dairy products. That’s why eating a bowl of soup before a meal works so well in cutting down calories. It’s fewer calories but more bulk. If you cut down that plate of pasta in half but double your portion of broccoli, you’ll be full but with far fewer calories consumed. Just keep it simple and avoid overly complex diets. A new study shows that the more complicated the eating plan, the less likely you’ll stick to it.

19) Don’t Overdo It. While exercising is one of the best things you can do to combat stress, you can overtrain and create an energy deficit. It’s okay to take a day off to recharge. And always make sure to refuel after working out. Also, when it comes to your nutrition plan, don’t starve yourself or make your eating plan so restrictive that you’re always hungry. An occasional lapse shouldn’t lead to a surrender to your commitment to a healthy lifestyle. Take it in stride and remind yourself that you’re only human.

20) Don’t Stop Exercising! This may seem obvious, but some people actually believe that as you get older, it’s not age-appropriate to be seen in a health club. Nonsense! Exercise should be a lifetime commitment because it delivers a lifetime of benefits to your physical and mental health. And the corollary to “don’t stop” is true too: It’s never too late to start. If you’re still breathing, you should be exercising, even if you’ve never done it before. Exercising regularly is the best decision you can make for yourself and those who love you.