I love reading, learning and ingesting anything I can about fitness and the latest science to support my work.  It helps me to become a better trainer and fitness provider to my clients, classes and colleagues plus encourages me to try new things (my favorite) and implement ongoing progressions and current research into my job. 

This info can be a bit dry to the consumer, especially if you don’t have exercise/fitness background, but I’ve been impressed with a few of the consumer magazines and want to pass this along to all of you.  A few of my favorite things include:

Fitness Magazine- mostly factual information on fitness, wellness and nutrition- plus great tips this month on exactly what to eat when.  One caution- the exercise advice is generally great, but they tend to use sound bytes of information to capture the reader and don’t go into detail about other factors such as diet, genetic factors, exercise history and commitment level when it comes to their exercise advice.  Over all, I would recommend it to anyone looking for general advice on fitness and bits of information on the current research that validates a healthy lifestyle.

Health Magazine- I really like this magazine a lot, especially for the consumer. They attack food, exercise, mind/body and other little things that the traditional magazines don’t address.  This month I appreciated how they addresed how sleep can effect weight, and how they listed out the top healthiest juices in order of their levels of disease fighting antioxidants: pomegranate juice, red wine, concord grape juice, blueberry juice, black cherry juice, acai juice, cranberry juice, orange juice, tea and apple juice. 

Eating Well- this is my baby right now when it comes to eating.  I would recommend all my clients and readers get a subsription to it.  They support organic, seasonal and whole food eating, plus have the most amazing recipes.  Recipes include different foods, ingredients and low fat/healthy cooking variations.  My favorite thing about Eating Well is the recipe index at the front of the magazine that lists out all the recipes highlighted for the month.  You can see the calories, fat, carbs, sodium and fiber content of each recipe.  This month has some fantastic pizza recipes 

Grab the latest copy on the newstand and use it along with my wellness information to improve your health and well-being!

Amy 

The July 2008 issue of Fitness Magazine just gave Healthy Gatherings home wellness parties a huge marketing boost!  I’m happy to report that the media is finally getting wind of what we’ve been doing and taking notice of the home-based fitness parties which can include but aren’t limited to mini seminars on total health, nutrition, yoga, small group workouts and just an opportunity to bring the good word of fitness to those who don’t belong to the gym. 

The Healthy Gatherings party is a “free” party, unlike many of the fitness parties offered out there, and brings all the current health and wellness information to the consumer on topics like cardiovascular training, muscle conidtioning, flexbility training, nutritional wellness plus mind-body coping tactics.  Our certified pros come into your home and bring everything to you, handouts, sample products and their knowledge and skill as a fitness pro.  Special products, promotions and personal training are available for purchase during the party, too.

Interested?  Go to www.healthygatherings.com and contact us for further info either on hosting a party, or becoming a HG consultant. 

Thank you Fitness Magazine for giving us a boost :-) 

Just a little note to let all of you know that Hollywood Hardbodies are more than just the exercise regimines that their “trainer to the stars” put together for them.  As a matter of fact, if I had a dollar for every bogus, lame and pin-headed routine that I’ve seen and/or read a movie star’s trainer create for them I would be a very rich woman.  Outside of these workouts that are supposed to be the reason for their killer bods, there is the untold story of diets, lifestyle habits and of course I can’t forget the personal assistant who can arrage for anything they need at a moment’s notice.  Do you have any of these?

Hollywood personalities have chefs prepare their meals for them, people run their errands like grocery shopping for them, nanny’s to care for their children while they are off at the gym working out for 3 hours straight to prepare for a movie role, plus access to various methods of non-invasive plastic surgery.  It is their job to look the way the do, it comes with the territory.  They have the money and the methods to look like a hard body even if they didn’t exercise.  Do you?

I hate to break it to everyone, but just doing Madonna’s amazing arm workout won’t give you Madonna’s arms.  She has different genetics, plus access to all the above mentioned.  Her current trainer has been featured in several magazines and is being profiled as some sort of fitness guru because she works with famous people.  Truth be told she needs a serious lesson in strength exercise selection and choosing effective exercises that target the right muscle groups.  I would have made at least $100.00 bucks off of her if I could collect on her pin-headed advice.

Follow my free fitness advice, embrace your genetics and find your hard body!

Amy

Listen up all you people who use feeling fatigued after a workout as an excuse not to exercise.  The recent issue of Health magazine’s News Watch section reported some promising results from using Coenzyme Q10 post workout.  A small japanese study found that ingesting 300 mg of Coenzyme Q10 daily for eight days helped participants pedal a bike longer and feel less fatigued.  Coenzyme  Q10 is a natural body chemical that helps cells produce energy, but it starts to disappear as you age.  Therefore, supplementing approximately 300 mg a day may make up for the deficit and leave you feeling less exhausted and ready for more of the free fitness advice.

Good news, too if your looking for a quality Coenzyme Q10 supplement that is organic, free of synthetics and 100% animal cruelty free- we have it on www.healthygatherings.com  Try it for 8 days and see if you notice the results; be sure to check with your physician before adding any supplement or herb to your current list of medications or homeopathic methods.

Flexibility is one of the most neglected areas in an exercise program, and is the last of the three essentials to proper fitness training. The general goal of stretching is to increase or maintain the range of motion around a particular joint.  Maintaining or increasing this range of motion can have many benefits to your activities of daily living as well as potentially decreasing or eliminating certain chronic tight areas that can increase the risk of developing orthopedic issues.  Hello- lower back pain; this is usually caused by hamstring, lower back and hip flexor tightness. 

Additionally, stretching and flexibility training assists in cooling down the body after a heavy workout and has shown to be a fabulous technique for stress relief.  Yoga anyone?  Current research supports the best time to stretch your muscles is after your workouts when you no longer need to produce large forces within the joints or after a 5-10 minute warm up.  The bottom line is the muscles need to be warm to stretch.  Cold muscle is like a piece of taffy from the freezer, loosen it up so the joints are supple, have lubrication and are ready for elongation and mild tension.  Use our guidelines below to set up your flexibility training and don’t forget to put it into your weekly workout program.

• Mode- static (non-moving) stretches, passive and active stretches
• Frequency- 2-3 days per week minimum, 5-7 optimal especially for tighter areas
• Intensity- stretch to tightness at the end of range of motion but not pain; mild discomfort
• Time- hold stretches 15-30 seconds
• Repetitions- 2-4 per stretch per side
• Stretch all major muscle groups as well as those involved in your exercise routine and your tighter areas.  Most common: hamstrings, hip flexors, inner/outer thigh, calves, lateral  trunk, upper back, lateral neck, anterior chest and shoulder area

I will be posting my fab 5 stretches next week.  The 5 moves are an easy way to stretch all the tight areas in your body in a minimal amount of time, and meet all the guidelines for flexibility training.

-Amy

By now hopefully everyone has eliminated all sources of trans fats from their diets and are making  active efforts to read food labels for ingredients that list hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils and putting them back onto the shelves where they belong.  It may also interest you to know that there is a new substitue ingredient in town that is just as bad for you.  GASP!  Look at your labels and if you see something called interesterified oildon’t buy it.  It has the same negative effects of a trans fat, which can lower your HDL (good cholesterol) and raise your blood sugar.  Neither contribute to good health. 

Heed the warning and tell everyone you know to watch out for this dirty little food substitute.

Resistance Training

Muscle conditioning, often referred to as resistance training, is the second of the three keys to building your optimal physique.  By resistance training you are building muscle tissue (part of lean weight), and improving body composition.  More lean weight, less fat weight, it’s a good thing (pardon the Martha Stewart reference). Increasing muscle mass improves your physical capacity to do daily activities, improves balance and strength of skeletal muscle, improves posture, decreases lower back pain, improves bone density, improves overall muscle strength and endurance and my absolute favorite reason, it contributes to increases in basal metabolic rate (BMR).  With a higher BMR, your body burns more calories at rest and has the ability to stave off those extra pounds because muscle tissue is so active in comparison to its slug friend the fat tissue.

Simply put, more muscle gives you better physical function, improved ability to burn those calories off and the aesthetic beauty of a shapely limbs, torsos, butts, backs and the list goes on.  Use these simple guidelines to put together your muscle conditioning workout.

·         Mode- bodyweight, resistance equipment, dumbbells, body bars, bands, stability balls, medicine balls, or tubing

·         Intensity- high; to the point of momentary muscle failure or 2-3 reps before it (should feel muscle working hard, then feeling total exhaustion and unable to do more at end of set)

·         Repetitions- start with 8-12, but understand protocols ranging from 3-20 are common

·         Sets- 1-3 per exercise, rest 30-60 second between sets

·         Frequency- 2-3 sessions per week, on non-consecutive days (M/W/ F or T/Th/S)

·         Number of Exercises- select 8-10, choose an exercise for each major muscle group in the body; a different exercise should be performed for a specific muscle group every 2-3 sessions

A few additional notes of importance when it comes to resistance training: to optimally benefit from muscle conditioning you must warm the muscles up with lower intensity movements before increasing to a more significant resistance; in other words doing your cardio first or a few sets with significantly lighter weight will do the trick.  Muscles do have a memory and workout programs need to be updated with changes to the Frequency, Intensity, and Mode every 4-6 weeks.  Additionally, I always recommend that if possible, a Certified Personal Trainer be retained, at least for a couple of sessions, to perform assessment (very important), teach proper technique, and to set you up with a program geared to your own needs.