Summer Ready??

Are you ready for summer… and SWIM season?!! It’s just about here….with Memorial Day typically being the “official” kick-off for the summer season. The topic du jour at the gym and around the office is getting swimsuit ready! Losing weight is simple math, really. You’ve got to burn/take in 500 calories less a day in order to lose one pound a week. I think it’s easiest to do it by adding an extra 100-200 calories of activity coupled with a reduction of 250-300 calories a day. You can get there with a focus on food and fitness–two of my favorite things! (This btw, reminds me that in future blogs I am going to share a few of my favorite things! I hope you do, too.)

If the 500 calorie a day deficit seems too aggressive, losing half a pound a week is much easier–and definitely doable–especially for the ladies since our daily calorie needs are less than the guys. A 250 calorie a day decrease and/or exercise burn is easier to reach consistently.

For the fitness angle, get moving! No way around that one. For at least three workouts that include 20 minutes of resistance (minimum), 20 minutes of cardio and 5-10 minutes of stretching. (For why, look at past blogs on the importance of muscle and its calorie burning effect.) If you need some ideas for exercises, two sites I really like are Fitness Magazine where you can tailor your workout to your time, location, and equipment (if any). You do need to join the site, but it’s free and from there you can design a workout just for you, change it as often as you like, and see how to do the exercises. Another good site with exercise ideas is Runner’s World which also contains videos of the movement execution with verbal descriptions. Gotta love technology! On the food front, keep your focus on UNprocessed foods (oatmeal, eggs, lean meats, veggies and fruits and nuts—oh my!). When dieting, fiber and protein and good fats keep you feeling full longer. (DO watch your fat intake when trying to lose weight, however, since fat is calorie dense!) A great way to ensure your calories are not out of line is to keep a log. (And trust me, it keeps you honest!) If you are unsure about calorie counts, go to www.nutritiondata.com . Also, you can log your fitness and workouts on multiple free sites. My faves are www.runnersworld.com and www.fitday.com . To see ideas on the right foods for flat abs, check out Fitness Magazine Food For Flat Abs. Good luck on that bikini bod—I know you can do it!

Seriously, food manufacturers have got us pegged. They have figured out how to make sh– taste really good. And we’re suckers. We go for it. The smells in fast food joints are enticing. They elicit responses and make us want to eat it (so much for the healthy options). Then when you eat it, you feel good while you eat, you feel satisfied afterwards, like a drug. Then, you crash and guess what your body wants after you crash? More sh—.  Seriously, it’s a vicious cycle. The best way to avoid it is to NOT walk in the place. That’s A. And B - when grocery shopping, avoid boxes  whenever possible. Shop the perimeter. The more processed a food–meaning the more things done to a food once it leaves an animal, the ground, a tree or the ocean, the more processed it is. The more chemicals are added. The more fiber is stripped out. The more salt is added. MSG is awful. And the worst offender is the trans fat added to make the product hold up, like forever. Even mold avoids it!  In David Katz’s Flavor-Full Diet: Use Your Taste Buds to Lose Pounds and Inches, he shares the nitty gritty about the physical AND physiological dependence that is promoted by convenience, marketing and price.   Then, there is the Wake Forest School of Medicine which found the effect of trans fats on weight. Turns out they fed these two groups of monkeys an equal # of calories but gave one group just 8 % of their daily intake in trans fats. The trans fat group gained THREE times as much weight. So the moral of THAT story is you can’t go eat a fast food lunch and then think eating lean the rest of the day can make up for it. You might THINK so calorie wise but those trans fats do more than screw up your cardiovascular health. And oh yeah, it’s allllllllllllllllllllllllllllll belly fat!! If that isn’t enough to convince you to start eating healthy TODAY, then consider this:  Another study (CARDIA in 2005) followed 5000 healthy young adults for 20 years (that’s a GOOD sample and a good time period). Turns out, eating fast food was worse on a body than a sedentary lifestyle or alchohol consumption.

Be good to your body. Try a cleanse. I found a really great one several years ago and do it twice a year. It’s not tough and you’d be surprised at how far you’ve moved from eating healthy. I sleep like a baby and wake up before my alarm. I have tons of energy. There’s a great article you can follow at Experience Life Magazine on a fast track detox plan.  ENJOY and Happy Monday!