SMALL GROUP TRAINING...THE WAY TO GO!

Pros of small group personal training

Cost: if one-one-one or partner personal training packages are just a little much for your budget right now, small group personal training provides an attractive alternative.

At approximately $30 a session, they’re about half the cost of a one-on-one personal training session.

Accountability and Adherence: just like with one-on-one and partner personal training you have the added benefit of accountability from your trainer. It’s easy to make excuses to yourself and not stay consistent with an exercise program on your own.

The added benefit of small group personal training is you also have accountability to others in your group. This is not to be taken lightly as it’s very effective in helping you stick with a fitness program.

Motivation and Camaraderie: there’s just something to be said about working out with a group of people just like you. When everyone is working hard doing their best and having fun, there’s an abundance of positive energy.

Bottom line is you’ll be more inspired and find yourself looking forward to the workouts instead of dreaded them.

Support: you get built in support when you’re part of a small group personal training program. Once again the benefit of this should not be taken lightly. Support is an integral component for success in seeing results with a fitness or weight loss program.

It’s great if you have support from your family and friends but with a small group personal training program you have support built in from the other participants.

Take a look at shows like The Biggest Loser and Celebrity Fit Club. Even when the competitors are in direct contention, they still band together and cheer each other on. Shane Doll

What is High Fructose Corn Syrup?

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a manmade sweetener that’s found in a wide range of processed foods, from ketchup and cereals to crackers and salad dressings. It also sweetens just about all of the (regular) soda Americans drink. HFCS used in foods is between 50 to 55 percent fructose—so chemically, it’s virtually identical to table sugar (sucrose), which is 50 percent fructose. Metabolic studies suggest our bodies break down and use HFCS and sucrose the same way.

Yet, after HFCS began to be widely introduced into the food supply 30-odd years ago, obesity rates skyrocketed. And because the sweetener is so ubiquitous, many blame HFCS for playing a major role in our national obesity epidemic. As a result, some shoppers equate HFCS with “toxic waste” when they see it on a food label. But when it comes right down to it, a sugar is a sugar is a sugar. A can of soda contains around nine teaspoons of sugar in the form of HFCS—but, from a biochemical standpoint, drinking that soda is no worse for you than sipping home-brewed iced tea that you’ve doctored with nine teaspoons of table sugar or an equivalent amount of honey.

Even Barry Popkin, Ph.D., a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who previously suggested, in an influential 2004 paper, a possible HFCS-obesity link, stresses that the real obesity problem doesn’t lie just with HFCS. Rather, it’s the fact that sugars from all sources have become so prevalent in our food supply, especially in our beverages. He scoffs at the “natural” sweeteners sometimes added to upscale processed foods like organic crackers and salad dressings. “They all have the same caloric effects as sugar,” he explains. “I don’t care whether something contains concentrated fruit juice, brown sugar, honey or HFCS. The only better sweetener option is ‘none of the above.’”

At EatingWell, it’s our philosophy to keep any sweeteners we use in our recipes to a minimum—and likewise, to limit processed foods with added sugars of any type, including HFCS. We recommend you do the same.

Did you know?
The corn syrup found on supermarket shelves is only a distant cousin to the high-fructose corn syrup used commercially. Both start by processing corn starch with enzymes and/or acids, but the HFCS process is much more complex and results in a different chemical structure. By Joyce Hendley, September/October 2007

This Is The Beginning of a New Day

This is the beginning of a new day,
God has given me this day to use as I will.
I can waste it or use it for good,
but what I do today is important
because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever,
leaving in its place something that I have traded for it.
I want it to be gain and not loss; good and not evil;
success and not failure; in order that I shall not
regret the price I have paid for it.

'Unknown'

Golf Fitness.....Prepare Your Body, Stay Injury Free, Play Better Golf!

Is your golf game struggling? Is it the clubs? Or is it limitations in your body which restrict movement and cause less efficient swings?

As a Certified Golf Fitness Instructor by the Titleist Performance Institute, I can help you.

Factors like strength, flexibility, balance, endurance, stability, power and posture all influence the body's mechanics. Utilizing a 12 exercise movement screen, we measure your ability to generate and transfer power throughout your body. We will isolate any physical limitations, correlate these findings to your swing technique and prescribe a custom-conditioning program.

Through the movement screen we will be able to isolate weak links throughout your body. These weak links could potentially cause faulty swing mechanics which lead to your slice or any other consistent problem area in your game. As a Certified Golf Fitness Instructor, I will be able to form a relationship with your golf pro in order to work together as a team to improve your golf game as fast and efficient as possible.

Contact me at rob.licata@yahoo.com for more information or visit www.thebodyologist.com

Home Gym Essentials

If you struggle getting to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, here is a list of equipment that is perfect for your house. With these tools, full body workouts could be completely with many varieties and modifications. There is no reason not to get a quick 30 minute workout done when you could bring the gym to you!

1. TRX Suspension System

2. Iron GymPull up Bar

3. Adjustable Dumbbells(for most women weights of 5, 10, 12,15,20, 25 lbs should be sufficient)

4. Jump Rope

If you would like more information on any of these pieces of equipment please email me at rob@thebodyologist.com

What is Metabolism????

Everyone always talks about raising their metabolism. What exactly is your metabolism?By definition Metabolism is all the chemical reactions that take place in your body which include all reactions of your brain, liver, digestive tract, muscles, heart, lungs, and every other tissue and organ.

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) The number of calories the body uses just to exist, sleeping and breathing. (Estimated to be around 800 calories)

Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) Assuming that you don’t sleep and breathe all day long, we could add an additional 100-200 calories for additional movements such as reading a book, fidget around, or thinking.

So this brings use to about 1000 calories a day without exercise.

Now lets add in:

Daily Activities, (100-200 calories) going to the store, cleaning the house, walking around the office

· Digestion (100 calories) As your liver, pancreas, stomach and intestines produce digestive enzymes, calories are being burned. Think about how you may feel hot or even sweat after eating a large meal. So if you think dieting will work, the less you eat, the less your digestive system will work, and the lower your metabolism will get.

· Exercise (approximately 300-500/ hour if done at the proper intensity)

· Post Exercise: Glycogen needs to be restored in the muscle, triglycerides needs to be replenished in fat cells. The harder and more prolonged the exercise, the greater demand for replenishment. If you work hard enough, your body could continue to burn calories for up too 36 hours post workout. (50-100, depending on exercise duration and intensity)

So this brings us to about 1500-1800 calories per day.

So as you could see your metabolism is made up of all these little processes. If you feel that your metabolism is slowing, analyze the list above and see what might be missing. Chances are if your relatively healthy, your BMR is the same as it always was. If you feel your lacking in a category(EXERCISE!), that could be the reason why your not losing the fat that you want to lose.

Implementing an exercise program can increase all of these metabolic processes!

Bailey, Covert. (1994) "Smart Exercise"