Tip #1: Pack for the Plane

So, the airlines say to arrive two hours ahead of time for your flight. Although, I always end up with about an hour and a half time to kill; like my mother always says, it’s better to be safe than sorry. There aren’t many options of things to do while waiting for your flight or while in the air, which leaves many of us reading, listening to music, or people watching to pass the time.  It seems like, as I look around, everyone is also eating, myself included! While the airport has come a long way with variety and options, let’s face it…everything is overpriced and the truly healthy options are limited. You may not be able to get your liquids through security, however, feel free to pack as many snacks as you like. For my ten hours in the air from Philly to Hawaii, I was sure to pack a good number of mini meals/snacks in order to avoid eating somewhere like Sbarro or committing the ultimate sin…PLANE FOOD! Try some of these awesome ideas to keep you satisfied

1. Emerald 100 calorie pack almonds: With varieties like dry roasted, cinnamon and sugar, dark chocolate cocoa, these snack packs are already portion controlled and portable.  Each pack is an excellent source of Vitamin E, sodium-free and contains fiber and protein to help keep you satisfied.

2. Just add water- protein powder and instant oatmeal: If you want a quick mini meal without a mess, just ask the flight attendant or the nearest Starbucks for a cup of either hot or cold water.  Stir one scoop of protein powder in with cold water or shake into a bottle of spring water to help satisfy you and strengthen your willpower for other high calorie snacks.  To warm your bones on a cool flight, add one cup of hot water to instant oatmeal for a low-calorie nosh in a variety of flavors.  The thought of putting on my bikini in January was enough to help me grab for my oatmeal while they were passing out the warm chocolate chip cookies on my flight! Try this mental image travel tip when you get a craving!

3. Apple: Your mother might say “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” but my motto is “an apple a day keeps your hunger at bay.” Enough said,  keep a few apples in your carry one to fight off hunger.  They contain a ton of nutrients, fiber, and are one of the easiest fruits to travel with since they aren’t messy, don’t bruise easily, and keep well.

Bring Your Gear

Most hotels these days have pretty decent fitness facilities, but if you don’t pack your sneakers, how are you going to break a sweat!?  Make packing your gear a priority and don’t forget about your other gym essentials.  Mine include my ipod and hair ties, but maybe yours is a knee brace or Under Armour.  Whatever it is, don’t give yourself an excuse not be active, or most likely, you’ll use it!

If your hotel or the place you are staying doesn’t provide access to a gym, think ahead.  Easily portable workout equipment include resistance bands or a workout DVD.  Take advantage of the great outdoors and take a walk, jog, or swim.   Utilize the website walkjogrun.net to create a mapped out route no matter what part of the country you’re in.

Start the Day with a Good Breakfast

Watching your intake 100% is hard for anyone, and frankly, I don’t recommend it.  Not giving yourself a little leeway, can often set you up for an all or nothing mentality  Practice moderation and make sure you are active.  Starting the day with a good, healthy, and satisfying breakfast can help you stay on track with good choices and moderation throughout the day.  Packing extra protein powder, fruit and instant oatmeal is a good idea for easy foods you can make in your room, but another good option could actually be the hotel continental breakfast.  Loading up on muffins and danishes isn’t your best bet, but opting for hard-boiled eggs/egg whites, a whole-grain cereal mixed with low-fat yogurt or fruit with cottage cheese can help you stay energized and satisfied throughout the morning and are all fairly common continental breakfast choices.

Find a Grocery Store

Whenever possible, when I reach my location I like to find a grocery store and stock up on some healthy foods for my hotel room.  Some of the items you could find in my mini-fridge/drawers right now include apples, bananas, low-fat Greek yogurt, green pepper slices, Kashi Banana Chocolate Chip Soft n’ Chewy bars (you MUST try these, so good! And contain 1/2 serving fruit & 1/2 serving vegetable each!), and Bumble-bee Lemon & Pepper tuna medley with crackers. Like I said earlier, I’m not a saint when it comes to avoiding all sweet and sinful foods, but at least being prepared with healthy and tasty snacks help me find a happy median.

Use these tips next time you travel and have a happy and healthy vacation!

The one-month period is a critical measuring stick to assess your progress, alter your goals, or consider revamping your resolution entirely. According to a 2010 study in the journal “Sports Health,” most New Year’s resolutions last just two months. It may provide some solace to know that you’re not the only one struggling with your goals at this point, but having this knowledge also allows you to take some precautionary measures to keep you motivated and avoid dropping your program.

Here are some tips, both for those who are struggling and those who are well on their way, to making 2012 the best fitness year of your life.

1. Make Your Resolution Specific and Measurable

We all want to lose weight, gain weight, build muscle, or become healthier. But these are simply dreams, not goals. For a resolution to become an actual goal, it needs to be specific. Research has demonstrated that the more specific and detailed you can make your resolution, the more motivated you will be to achieve it and the more likely you will be to achieve it. Make your resolution as specific and measurable as possible. Don’t just lose weight in 2012. Lose 20 lbs. Don’t just build muscle. Bench 200 lbs.

2. Set a Timeline

As with the specificity of your goals, you may also not have set a timeline for accomplishing this goal other than “sometime in 2012.” You need to take it a step further than that. Have a specific date at which point you’d like to get that goal over and done with, so you can move onto the next one. If you feel that this goal will take the entire year, set several intermediate target dates so you can measure your progress. I suggest one per month.

3. Alter Your Goals

It’s okay, you’re not ditching your program if you need to make your goals a little easier. Just by getting out and exercising more than in 2011, you’re heading in the right direction. But if you’re finding it more difficult to keep your exercise or nutrition program going, make it easier. It’s much better to accomplish an easy goal and feel successful than to feel like a failure for not accomplishing something that you didn’t have at least a moderately reasonable chance of achieving anyways. It always baffles me, but this is the concept that many people don’t seem to get. Goals are just tools and they’re not concrete. You need to use them to your advantage. If your goals are defeating you, it’s okay to pull back on the reigns a little bit. As a rule, a goal should be about 10 to 15 percent harder than your previous level of performance. For example, if you can run a mile in nine minutes, a realistic goal is to run it in eight minutes and ten seconds by your next time point.

4. Reward Yourself

If you’re like me, you berate yourself when you don’t accomplish something but fail to compliment yourself when you’ve done something well. This “never-good-enough” attitude is dangerous when it comes to goal-setting. It’s okay to be hard on yourself from time to time, but ultimately this will wear you down and lead to what sport psychologists call a failure-based goal-setting style. We set goals to avoid failure, not to achieve success. This attitude will never allow you to perform your best, only enough to avoid feeling like what you construe as a failure. Reward yourself when you achieve your goals, but avoid punishing yourself when you don’t. How you reward yourself is up to you, but make sure to acknowledge your own success and efforts.

5. Add Some Social Support

If you’re struggling on your own, involve a friend or family member in your exercise or nutrition plan. Friends and family members can hold you accountable for your program and you can also do the same for them. Sport psychology research has shown that exercising in a social or team environment leads to markedly improved performance and motivation compared with going it solo.

6. Shake it Up

New Year’s resolutions are fun because they inspire us to improve in some way and they make us feel as if we’re stepping into a new “us.” This rejuvenating feeling, however, will fade after awhile and causes many people to rid themselves of their programs or jump to new ones. Don’t completely ditch your program. Simply find ways to mix it up so that your resolution constantly feels fresh and new. If you always exercise in the gym, go hit the mountain or run on the beach. If you’re sick of your nutrition plan and eat the same things everyday, go to a new grocery store or find a bunch of new recipes. Because of practical issues, you probably have to adhere to some sort of routine. But at least once a week, exercise or eat in a way that you never have before. This can even be your reward.

7. Remember Your Purpose

Your purpose for your resolution will keep you motivated when times get tough. Remember why you chose to set a New Year’s resolution. This isn’t your goal itself, but it’s the reason you decided to set the goal in the first place. Maybe you set a goal of losing 20 lbs. because you were generally feeling lousy about yourself. Or maybe you wanted to eat more servings of fruit to avoid getting cancer or to live longer in order to see your grandkids. Your purpose is the one thing that shouldn’t change during your resolution and it will be the one thing that should always provide a sense of motivation. If you don’t know, or don’t remember, what your purpose for changing was, really think on this and try to find one. With a strong sense of purpose, achieving your resolution itself will be almost secondary.

1. Keep it Simple

When if comes to lifting weights, you don’t need to overcomplicate matters — at least, not at first. Once you become an advanced lifter, you can focus on more difficult lifts and rep/set schemes, but for now, simplicity is your goal. Focus on lifts that target your major muscle groups first, such as your chest, back, and legs. You can then narrow your program down to smaller, stabilizer muscles. Here are some easy lifts for each major area of the body:

Chest: Bench press, incline press, decline press, pushups

Back: Seated row, bench pull, cable row, lat pulldowns

Legs: Leg press, squats, knee extensions, hamstring curls, calf raises

Arms: Biceps curls, triceps pushdowns, shoulder raises, dips

Abs/Core: situps, weighted crunches, Russian twists, back extensions

2. Aim for Balance

Hit each of these areas of the body every time you go to the gym to promote balance. When you get some experience, you’ll want to focus on one are of the body during one session and then allow one to two days of rest while your focus on other areas. But for now, pick one or two exercises for each major area each session. If you focus only on your chest muscles, for example, it’s easy to develop a hunched posture that places excessive pressure on the thoracic spine.

3. Warm Up and Cool Down

Always start your workout with at least 10 minutes of cardio before you lift to get your heart rate and body temperature up. Mix up the cardio as well. Jog one day, bike another, and row on the third. I can’t tell you how many people I see in the gym who don’t warm up before working out, only to complain of nagging tweaks and aches in their bodies later on. You know you’re sufficiently warmed up if there is sweat dripping down your forehead.

Also, cool down following a lifting session by stretching. This helps initiate the recovery process and can improve the elasticity of your muscles. Perform about two to three separate static (holding the position in one place) stretches for each major body area. Hold stretches for a minimum of 10 seconds and repeat.

4. Use Machines

I never recommend machines to anyone except absolute beginners, but for safety and learning purposes, start out only using these helpful pieces of equipment. Machines typically have pictures of the muscle groups they target, making exercise selection fairly simple, and they come with a significantly lower risk of injury. If you want serious results, you’ll have to forget about machines later on, however.

5. Progress Slowly

There’s no need to rush it. Focus on the quality of your lifts versus how much you are lifting or how fast you are progressing. Start out by performing two, nonconsecutive weightlifting sessions each week. For the first month, focus on very light weights and don’t worry about increasing the load. Just perform each lift slowly and with an even tempo, making sure to use a full range of motion.

First Week Program

Here’s a sample program to get you started for your first week:

Session 1

10 minute jog on treadmill

5 minutes of dynamic stretching (arm circles, leg swings, windmills, toe touches, torso rotations)

3 sets of 10 reps of: bench press, lat pulldowns, leg press, dips

10 minutes of static stretching

Notes: allow 2 minutes of rest between sets, 3-5 minutes between exercises. Use about 50-60 percent of your maximal load for each lift.

Session 2

15 minute elliptical

5 minutes of dynamic stretching

3 X 10: Incline press, seated row, squats, decline press, calf raises, weighted crunches

10 minutes of static stretching

Notes: allow 2 minutes of rest between sets, 3-5 minutes between exercises. Use about 50-60 percent of your maximal load for each lift.

There is no magic weight-loss pill… no substitute for hard work, physical activity and a balanced, healthy diet within your calorie-range. However, the most important part of all of this is that you make it a lifestyle, meaning that physical activity and diet are a consistent and harmonious part of each and every week of the year. It’s not too late to change last year’s bad habits of dieting, slacking off, and then playing catch up. Use some of the tips below to help you stay motivated all year ’round:

Schedule in Work-outs

In the beginning of each week, take a look at your calender and jot in work outs that realistically fit into your schedule.  I find that fitting in workouts in the mornings help me stay consistent, because by the latter part of the day, other things like a shopping trip or happy hour may stray me away from my commitment.  On the flip side, some of my clients who have problems with late-night eating find that an evening workout helps them fight eating out of boredom during the 7-10pm hours.   If you get an hour lunch break, consider a forty minute mid-day session with a quick protein shake or bar for lunch.  Find out what time of day will work for you, and put it on your calendar.  Towards the end of the week, set aside a time for a “make-up” workout, in case life throws you a curve-ball.

Join a class or running group

Including other people into your work out will help hold you accountable.  Look into if your gym or community center offers group exercise classes like spinning, Zumba, or Pilates.  A lot of areas are beginning running clubs like  http://www.westchesterrunningclub.com/. Not only will this help you regularize your weekly schedule for work outs, but it will also make working out a social part of your day.  Becoming a “regular” in a class or running club will have others asking you where you were if you decide to skip out on a workout.

Reward Yourself for a Job Well Done

Nothing motivates people more than rewards!! Sure, you may say that your fresh-n-fly hot body is the best reward you could ask for…but realistically,in this day and age people like instant gratification.  Since we already know that it takes consistency for weight loss, I want you to alter your instant gratification mindset into a short-term/long-term reward mindset.  Set yourself one to three weekly short-term goals that will help you on your way to your long-term goal.  Good examples of some starter weekly goals could be including four hours of exercise, logging a food journal daily, or packing lunch for work instead of eating out.  If you comply to your weekly goals, reward yourself!! The key to good rewards is making them something that will motivate you to continue with your good habits for the next week.  For example, if you made it to the gym for four hours, buy yourself a few new songs on i-tunes or a magazine that you can only listen to/read while working out.  Maybe you will treat yourself to buying new spices/herbs to encourage more in-home cooking,  Long-term goal rewards should be larger, but with the same general concept.  Maybe one full month of on-track work outs could mean a new pair of running shoes or buying a wok to make new home-made cuisine.

Choose Filing Calories First:

The first thing you need to do is eat a small, portion controlled serving of something that is less then one-hundred calories and does not contain a lot of sugar.  Good examples include a medium apple, a small handful of almonds, low-fat string cheese, or a vanilla low-fat Greek yogurt.  Any of these snacks should do it to kill your hunger pangs… but studies show that the brain takes approximately twenty minutes to register feelings of satiety from the stomach.  Try some of these twenty-minute activities to keep your hands busy and your mind off of snacking until your brain catches up with your tummy.

Whitening Strips:

Applying a set of Crest Whitening strips will not only help you avoid snacking for 20-30 minutes, but you’ll also have a nice, bright smile to go along with the gained confidence you’ll feel by not giving into temptation.  And have you ever heard that you need to do something for 21 days to make it a habit?? With whitening strips coming in packs of twenty, you might be able to kick your overeating night time habit for good in a few short weeks.

Be Productive:

Been meaning to organize your closet?  Keep putting off cleaning your oven or writing thank-you cards from your birthday a month ago?  Make a list of all the things you’ve been meaning to do, but just haven’t gotten around to.  Use twenty minutes an evening to be productive and start checking things off you list instead of adding crumbs to your sofa.  At the end of the week, you’ll be sure to feel better about your decision to get things done and getting moving will help add a few more calories to your daily burn.

For the Ladies-Paint Your Nails:

Give yourself a fresh coat of paint, your nails that is!  Applying nail polish and a top coat takes at least twenty-minutes to dry and you’ll be forced to keep your hands out of the cookie jar to keep your nails looking fresh and smudge free.  Aside from looking fabulous, your perfectly polished hands will work as a mental reminder to help you from overeating for the next few days.

Yoga or Meditation:

Our lives can get busy, stressful and can cause us to forget about the goals that we started out with in the beginning of the day.  Take twenty minutes in the evening to relax by practicing deep breathing exercises, doing a short yoga DVD or find an on-demand yoga video on-demand.  Chances are the relaxation techniques will help you sleep better and let you reflect on your goals to help you not be as tempted to eat something you otherwise would have chowed down impulsively.

References:

Andrade, Ana. “Eating Slowly Led to Decreases in Energy Intake Within Meals in Healthy Women.” Eatright.org. American Dietetic Association, July 2008. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. <http://www.adajournal.org/article/S0002-8223%2808%2900518-X/abstract>.

I’ve written about some of these diets in other posts, but I want to reiterate that weight-loss is not a secret. Any diet program that claims that losing weight involves the consumption of some “magic bullet” nutrient or avoiding other key macronutrients is likely a gimmick. Not only are they gimmicky, but they are costly. Personally, I find it funny that losing weight — which should actually lower your grocery bill because you are consuming less — ends up costing people thousands of extra dollars each year.

Luckily, you don’t need these costly programs to lose weight. These programs offer nothing you cannot replicate yourself. I will admit that most people I know who go on some of these diet programs do end up losing weight. In fact, some of them shed amazing amounts of weight very quickly. But when I look closely at their diet programs, I quickly realize one of two things. Either the program is physically dangerous, or it is no different than the tried-and-true weight loss strategies that dietitians have know for years. Here’s a closer look at what expensive commercial weight loss programs offer, and how you can replicate similar, or better, diet strategies at home for free.

Motivation

Perhaps the biggest advantage commercial diet programs offer is the psychological benefit. They require you to set goals, monitor your food intake and exercise performance, and many even have counselors and support groups in which you can motivate each other and share stories. They require you to cut calories, exercise more, and stick to your program.

This will be the most difficult part of losing weight yourself, but you can do it. You have to start by setting a goal, and I recommend that your goal have nothing to do with the amount of weight you lose. There are no guarantees that you will lose a certain amount of weight with any program, and this should not be the key determinant of your program’s success. Instead, set  a goal of achieving 30 minutes of aerobic exercise each day. Set another goal of cutting 250 to 500 calories from your diet each day. If you do these things, weight loss will take care of itself.

Monitoring

Most online weight loss programs allow you to record what you eat, enter it into a diary, and some even provide elaborate graphs and charts of your food intake. This simple goal measuring strategy is one of the key reasons commercial diet programs are so effective. They provide a visual representation of your progress, they allow you to see how well you are actually following your program, and they allow you to set new goals.

You can easily keep track of your own food intake. I suggest WebMd or the Mayo Clinic websites, which each have similar tracking systems. You can also simply graph your food intake and exercise patterns in an excel sheet or home diary.

Specific Diet Strategies

Here’s where commercial diet programs begin to veer in many different directions. Low-carb diets are popular because of the misconception that carbohydrates cause weight-gain. Protein-based diets help because protein requires more energy to digest, thus burning more calories. However, the small effect these programs have on your metabolism pales in comparison to the effects of simply cutting calories and increasing activity level.

According to the Mayo Clinic, most commercial diet programs are effective because they emphasize restricting caloric intake and monitoring your food intake. As mentioned above, you can easily do this yourself. Start by following the 3,500-calorie rule — you need to burn 3,500 calories beyond what your take in through food to lose 1 lb. of body fat. This rule may vary slightly from one person to the next, but it’s a great start. If you cut 500 calories from your diet each day, you’ll lose about 1 lb. each week. Burn more calories through exercise, and you’ll lose more.

Quick Weight Loss

Any diet program that advocates losing weight quickly is ill-advised, and places you at risk of nutrient deficiencies and dehydration. For example, much of the weight lost in protein-based diets is from dehydration, not fat. Low-carb diets should actually focus on avoiding simple sugars and foods high in the glycemic index, but not carbohydrates in general. Consuming less than a certain number of carbohydrates each day can limit your intake of certain vitamins and minerals.

Quick weight loss programs are dangerous and you don’t want them. Not only are they dangerous, but they typically do not provide lasting results. Once the weight is gone, many people resort back to their old eating habits. Losing weight slowly allows your body to shed fat rather than water weight or protein stores, and also forces you to engage in healthy physical activities which you can enjoy for the rest of your life. Avoid attempting to lose more than about 1 to 2 lbs. each week if you really care about your body.

Weight loss does not have to be complicated.

While women and men tend to differ in body size and composition, as well as hormonal characteristics, they do not differ in measures of relative strength, nor do they differ in their responses to exercise. The same weight loss principles, therefore, apply to both sexes.

Is There a “Best Weight Loss Program?”

Much debate exists regarding the best weight loss programs. Advocates of Atkins, Paleo, Ideal Protein, and other low-carb diets attest that carbohydrates are the main dietary culprits in weight-gain, and you need to keep these nutrients to a minimum if you want to reduce body fat and total weight. More traditional dietary programs advocate reducing fat, particularly saturated and trans fat, to cut total body fat and weight.

Whatever the current dietary trend, in almost all cases you can find research that both supports its principles as well as research that contradicts them. For example, you’ve probably heard, and may even know, people who have lost weight as a result of engaging in one of these diets. However, the Mayo Clinic asserts that these diet fads are generally successful simply because they cause people to pay more attention to what they eat, they become more physically active, and they naturally reduce the amount of food they consume.

Any dietary program that places an unusual emphasis on any one particular nutrient, whether it be carbs, protein, fat or a vitamin or mineral, has the potential to harm your body. In reality, regardless of your current weight and health status, your body needs a balance of macronutrients and micronutrients to operate efficiently and to meet its variety of metabolic needs.

So what constitutes an effective diet? The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) explains that there are two tried-and-true principles for losing weight in the majority of individuals, and you’ve heard them before.

1. Be More Active

If you want to lose weight, stop focusing on what you eat so much and go get physical. My diet almost never changes. I eat a lot, all the time. Yet my weight consistently fluctuates throughout the year according to how much exercise I get. During the summer, when I’m kayaking a lot and leading several practice sessions throughout the day, I tend to lose a lot of weight. During the winter, when the season is over and I’m focused on writing and designing training programs, I naturally gain weight. I’m sure most people have similar reasons for gaining or losing weight at certain times.

Much of the reason adults put on weight as they grow older is not because of the natural process of aging, but because their metabolism slows down due to less and less physical activity over time. Adults lose muscle as they age, not because of time, but because they simply are not out running around all day jumping over things, playing sports, and swinging on monkey bars like they did when they were kids.

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends achieving a minimum of 30 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity each day to maintain cardiovascular fitness and a healthy weight. Recent research actually suggests that people need closer to an hour of aerobic exercise each day. How many of us really achieve this much? Moderate exercise for 30 minutes can burn 250 to 500 calories, about as much as an entire meal.

2. Restrict Calories

While becoming more active will help you lose weight over time, you’ll lose weight more quickly if you cut calories. The caloric-deficit rule of cutting 3,500 calories to lose 1 lb. of body fat, while perhaps overly-simplistic, is correct. Each 1 lb. of body fat contains 3,500 calories, and you need to ultimately need to achieve this negative energy balance to lose weight.

Cut about 500 calories from your diet each day, and you’ll lose 1 lb. each week through diet alone. But, you do not need to place particular emphasis on restricting any one nutrient. While a variety of factors influence your weight and metabolism, no rule is as important as obtaining this caloric deficit (NSCA, 2008). You need to obtain about 50 percent of your calories from carbohydrates, 30 percent from fat, and 20 percent from protein. You can calculate these percentages regardless of what your total caloric consumption is.

For example, if your body requires 2,000 calories to maintain its current weight, and you want to lose 1 lb. each week, you need to achieve a daily caloric deficit of 500 calories. You can do this by limiting your caloric intake to 1,500 calories a day, exercising more, or both. Pretend you get 30 minutes of exercise each day, which burns 250 calories. You need to cut 250 more calories from your diet each day to lose 1 lb. a week. If your diet now calls for 1,750 calories, you need to consume 875 from carbs, 525 from fat, and 350 from protein.

Final Words (of Wisdom)

The best weight loss program for men and women is a program that you can adapt permanently into your lifestyle. Don’t listen to all the marketing hype of a new revolutionary finding that will let you use 10 lbs of fat in a week. If it does work, it can’t be healthy. You didn’t gain all that weight in week so don’t expect to lose all that weight in a week either.

The three main types of fat are saturated, monounsaturated, and trans fats:

Saturated Fats

Saturated fats can be defined as a saturated fatty acid that has only one single bond between carbons in its chemical structure.  Saturated fats are primarily found in animals and animal byproducts such as high-fat cuts of meat, full-fat cheese, and milks.  They also pop up on the food labels of processed foods such as snack bars, crackers, and cookies.  Since a diet high in saturated fat can contribute to high levels of LDL, AKA “bad cholesterol”, The American Dietetic Association recommends keeping saturated fat intake to <7% of your total daily calories.

Monounsaturated Fats

A monounsaturated fatty acid (or MUFA) can be defined chemically as a fatty-acid with one carbon-carbon double bond.  Unlike saturated fats, monounsaturated fats have a positive effect on serum lipid levels making them a protective agent against cardiovascular disease and should be a healthy part of your every day diet, without worry.  However, since all fats still contain nine calories per gram, The American Dietetic Association recommends about 20% of your total daily calories come from monounsaturated fat food sources.  Good options for including MUFA in your diet are cold-water fish and fish-oil, flax seeds, olive oil, nuts and nut butters, and avocado.

Trans Fats

Although trans fats have been banned from use in many areas, including my current home and the city of brotherly love Philadelphia, they are still used in various foods that you may be consuming unknowingly.  Trans fatty acids were originally created as a “healthier” alternative to saturated fats and increased shelf-life of food products, and are created by introducing a hydrogen bond (hydrogenation) to fatty acids to create a solid fat.  Although trans fats were originally thought to be a better alternative to saturated fats, research has proven that they are ultimately the worst fat to be consumed.  Trans fats not only have a negative affect by increasing LDL cholesterol, but they can also lower HDL (AKA good cholesterol) levels. Research also indicates that increased amounts of trans fats in the diet is associated with increased risk of myocardial infarction and increased levels of inflammation, which is why The American Dietetic Association recommends keeping trans fats at <1% of total daily calories.Trans fats are most commonly found in margarine, shortening, pastries, and fried foods.

Although including a diet with >7% saturated fat and >1% trans fat can reek havoc on your body, including 20% monounsaturated fats is one of the most important parts of a healthy weight loss or maintenance diet.  One of the main culprits of weight gain is overeating.  According to research published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, eating a meal containing  monounsaturated fatty-acids can help reduce hunger and elicit signals of satiety, more so then a meal containing the same amount of saturated fatty-acids.  With increased feelings of satiety, keeping a calorie-controlled diet is much easier.

How much should I eat??

1200 calories

• <1.3g trans fat
• <10g saturated fat
• 27g monounsaturated fat

1500 calories

• <1.6g trans fat
• <12g saturated fat
• 33g monounsaturated

2,000 calories

• <2g trans fat
• <16g saturated fat
• 45g monounsaturated fat

How much bad fat is in these common foods?

• 1 tbsp butter, 7g saturated fat
• 1 oz cheddar cheese, 6g saturated fat
• McDonald’s 1/4 lb with cheeseburger, 12g saturated fat, 1.5g trans fat
• 1 C whole milk, 5 g saturated fat
• 1 C cookie dough ice cream, 10g saturated fat
• Supreme Protein Peanut Butter Crunch Bar, 9g saturated fat
• Chocolate Coconut Donut, 25g saturated fat (so sad to find this out! My childhood favorite..what a bummer!)
• Taco Bell Chicken Quesadilla, 10g saturated fat, 0.5g trans fat
• 3oz filet mignon, 3.5g saturated fat
• Olive Garden Chicken Ceasar salad, 13g saturated fat

How much healthy fat are in these foods?

• 1 tbsp olive oil, 10g MUFA
• 5oz sockeye salmon, 5g MUFA
• 1/2 C guacamole, 4g MUFA
• 2tbp natural peanut butter, 8g MUFA
• 2 tbsp flax seed, 1g MUFA
• Emerald 100-calorie pack Almonds, 5g MUFA

So go ahead and eat and drink those healthy fats, and be fit, healthy, & happy

Resources:

“Effect of Fat Saturation on Satiety, Hormone Release, and Food Intake.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Web. 07 Nov. 2011. <http://www.ajcn.org/content/89/4/1019.full>.

Nelms, Marcia Nahikian. Nutrition Therapy and Pathophysiology. Belmont: Thomson / Wadsworth, 2007. Print.

Calorie Counter | Free Online Diet Program | Nutrition Data. Web. 07 Nov. 2011. <http://caloriecount.about.com/>.

Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The goal of building muscle in weight lifting is known as hypertrophy. Different than simply increasing strength or power, hypertrophy is an increase in the size of the muscle’s contractile area as a result of greater contractile proteins and a greater number and size of myofibrils in each fiber. Unlike maximal strength training, hypertrophy is best-achieved with just moderate loads. Therefore, to build the most muscle, you don’t always need to lift more. Here are the basic components of a hypertrophy program for beginners:

Exercises

Because you are not taxing your muscles too much with each workout, you can perform a greater number of exercises than you would with a maximal strength or power training program. Choose about six exercises each weight lifting session, targeting all areas of the body. Because your goal is to increase size, focus on larger muscle groups such as the lats, pecs, gluts and quads.

Load

Research has demonstrated that maximal hypertrophy occurs with moderate loads, at about the 65 to 82% of 1RM range. If you don’t know your 1RM for a given exercise, use the NSCA’s calculator.

Sets and Reps

Once again, sets and reps don’t need to be high to achieve maximum hypertrophy. Perform two to three sets of six to 12 repetitions of each exercise.

Rest

The amount of time you rest in between sets plays an important role in the way your muscles will adapt. Minimal rest between sets will improve muscular endurance, while maximal rest will improve strength and power. With hypertrophy, think moderation. About two to three minutes between sets is sufficient.

Increasing Load

For continued muscle growth over time, you’ll need to increase the amount of weight you lift. You can increase the amount of weight you lift for each exercise by about 5 to 10 percent when you can perform two additional repetitions beyond your target number for two consecutive sets (known as the 2-for-2 rule). For example, if you are performing the bench press with 150 lbs., and your goal is three sets of 10 reps, you can increase the load by about 8 to 15 lbs. when you can perform 12 repetitions twice in a row.

Volume

Absolute beginners should only perform two resistance training sessions per week to allow the muscles time to recover and grow. It’s during the rest periods that muscles grow, not while lifting. More advanced lifters can perform three sessions, and elite lifters can perform four or more.

Tempo

The tempo you perform each lift is also important. For example, to improve muscular power, you need to perform lifts fast and explosively because power is a result of force, distance and time. Maximal strength, however, is best achieved when performing lifts slowly. Hypertrophy is highest when lifts are performed at a moderate tempo. However, research has demonstrated that the eccentric phase (sometimes called negatives) promotes greater hypertrophy than the concentric. The eccentric phase of a lift is the one in which the muscle lengthens, while in the concentric phase the muscle shortens.

For most lifts, the concentric phase is considered the lifting phase, while the eccentric phase returns the weight to its starting position. With the bench press, for example, pressing the bar to the sky is the concentric phase and lowering it back to the chest is eccentric. Perform lifts at a time ratio of 1:2 for the concentric vs. eccentric phase to promote maximal hypertrophy (i.e., a count of 1 on the way up, a count of 2 on the way down).

Sample Beginner’s Program

It doesn’t have to be super complicated when you’re just starting out. Think simple, moderate weight, and hit the major muscle groups. Make sure to warm up with 10 to 15 minutes of cardio and dynamic stretching before lifting weights.

Day 1

Bench press 3 x 10 @ 65%

Back squats 3 x 10 @ 65%

Bench pull 3 x 10 @ 65%

Leg press 3 x 10 @ 65%

Incline press 3 x 10 @ 65%

Leg extensions 3 x 10 @65%

Day 2

Chest flies 3 x 10 @ 65%

Overhead squats 3 x 10 @ 65%

Seated row 3 x 10 @ 65%

Straight-leg deadlifts 3 x 10 @65%

Decline press 3 x 10 @ 65%

Lat pulldowns 3 x 10 @65%

Week 2 Days 1 and 2

Same routine, but change to 3 sets of 8 at 70%

All positions in football require strength, but football strength training workouts vary significantly depending on the position. An offensive lineman, for example, needs much greater absolute strength that a wide receiver, while a receiver needs much greater speed (a function of strength and power). Nevertheless, a well-designed strength training program in football should be periodized — that is, it should vary in volume and intensity throughout the year to allow athletes to rest and recover for important competitions. The renowned exercise scientist, Dr. Tudor Bompa, originally coined the term periodization, and his training philosophy is easily the most widely-used in sports today. As a rule, a periodized football program should begin in the off-season, with high amounts of volume and raw strength building. As competition draws near, the program should cut down on volume and focus on more high-intensity speed and power workouts.

Strength and Hypertrophy

Beginning in the off-season/pre-season, the strength training program should emphasize developing first hypertrophy, the increase in size and strength of the actual muscle fibers, and then raw strength, an increase in the load you can lift for a given exercise. An increase in muscle size and strength are related, but not in a linear fashion.

To build hypertrophy, perform sets of 6 to 12 repetitions of a variety of resistance training exercises, using a load of about 65 to 75 percent of your 1RM. The types of lifts don’t matter as much during this phase, as the goal is to target all major muscle groups. Perform about 6 exercises per training session, and at least two (and up to 4 for highly-trained athletes) sessions per week. While you should aim to hit all major muscle groups, opt for free weights over machines, as machines do not force smaller stabilizer muscles to do any work. The extra balance and coordination needed to maintain posture while using free weights makes for better transfer to real-life athletic performance.

After about a two to three months of hypertrophy, the football training program should shift to an emphasis on developing raw strength. The muscles should now have the size and support to withstand heavier loads. Similar to hypertrophy, the specific exercises you choose during this phase do not matter as much, as the aim is to develop general strength in the entire body. Improve raw strength beginning with sets of 5 repetitions of each exercise, using moderately-heavy loads (about 75 percent of your 1RM). Over time, increase the load of each exercise, working your way up to 95 to 105 percent of your previous 1RM, and perform only 1 repetition per set. Squats, bench press, dead lifts, shoulder presses and rows are all effective for developing general strength needed for football. Increase load when you can perform two additional repetitions beyond your target number for two sets in a row.

Power

Power is perhaps more relevant to football than raw strength. Power, a function of raw strength and movement speed, provides football players the ability to not just move heavy loads, but to move them quickly and explosively.

Focus on power during the pre-competitive season, about one to two months before competition starts. During this phase, the exercises you choose should become more specific to your position and the actual movements you’ll perform during a game. For example, a defensive lineman might work on sled-pushes to replicate driving an offensive lineman back, while a wide receiver should perform squat jumps to improve power in the legs. All football players should focus on the Olympic lifts during this phase (cleans, jerks and snatches).

Improve power using just moderate weight ( 75 to 90 percent of your 1RM) for each exercise, but perform lifts quickly and explosively. Perform sets of 1 to 2 repetitions, and focus on technique and intensity during this phase — not increasing load. In fact, some studies show that lifting heavy loads actually decreased power because of the sacrifice the lifter must make in the velocity of the lift.

Plyometrics

Plyometrics are specific power lifts that take advantage of the muscles’ stretch-shortening cycle — a phenomenon in which the muscle is lengthened and then contracts with an exponentially greater rate of force. Savvy coaches use this phenomenon to develop a level of power in certain muscle groups that regular strength and power training cannot.

Plyometrics include exercises such as box jumps, depth jumps, leaps and bounds. Plyomterics may be harmful on underdeveloped joints, tendons and ligaments, and the National Strength and Conditioning Association recommends being able to squat 1.5 times your body weight before beginning a plyometrics program. Aim for about 100 contacts per plyometric training session (e.g., 5 sets of 20 repetitions). Plyometric training is a highly-specific method for developing sport-specific power, and should be performed in the later stages of the pre-season.

Speed

Wide receivers, running backs, defensive backs, linebackers, and to a lesser extent, linemen and the quarterback, need to have maximal speed, or the ability to cover a certain distance in a minimal amount of time. Speed is a function of both strength and power. Because strength can increase maximal force production, raw strength is critical for maximizing your speed.

Speed drills in football are generally the most fun. They include ladder and cone drills, sprints, backwards sprints and a variety of other fun games. You can be creative when designing speed workouts, but make sure to time everything. Your goal should always be able to cover the required distance in as little time as possible. Speed is also highly-specific to football performance, and you should shift to primarily a speed focus during the competitive season and all the way through to the most important competitions during the year, such as the playoffs.

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Additional Notes

Don’t forget the importance of flexibility throughout the year, both to increase joint mobility and range of motion, and to boost recovery and prevent injury. Perform a dynamic warm-up before every lifting session, and static stretching after working out. Periodization is a complicated and highly-individualized training theory. For more information on specific ways to incorporate periodization into your football training program, refer to http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/football-training-program.html