Workout from home: Save Money & Time!

Here's a great Turbo Jam/Beachbody success story. These workouts work--if YOU do. Let me help you get started!

Lisa Lohman's story:
"They always say the hardest part of working out is making it to the gym. Now, if you want to go to the gym before work, you have to wake up early, get dressed to work out, drive to the gym, check in, find an available machine, get your workout in and drive home to take your shower before heading to work. Of course getting to the gym is the hardest part. With so much to dread, no wonder motivation is out the window.

What if you could eliminate all that and still attain an incredible workout? How does this sound? Wake up, get dressed, Push Play and start your workout! No fancy gym membership fees, no one else's sweat slathered all over the equipment you are using, no more worrying about how you look while you are grunting and sweating away inches, no more tedious drives or searching for parking spaces It's just you! One on one with your favorite exercise program. Why waste precious time getting ready to workout when you can just do it?

I, like many, used to be addicted to the gym. In my early twenties, I found myself at the gym for several hours a day. My guilty pleasure? Kickboxing! I loved the empowerment I felt during a class kicking the heavy bags with all my might. I felt like ChunLi in the Street Fighter video Game. Okay, enough about my crazy kickboxing addiction. Needless to say, life changes as you get older. Getting Married and having a child led to my inability to spend all those hours in the gym. With my metabolism, I required the high intensity workouts to shed the pounds.

Six years and 75 extra pounds later is when I watched an Infomercial on the Turbo Jam program. At this point, I had gained so much weight that I was embarrassed to set foot in the gym as I did not want to feel like "the fat girl" that everyone watched and judged. What I loved about Turbo Jam is that it encompassed all that I love about Kickboxing minus the heavy bags. You are still bobbing and weaving and throwing punches and kicks. Chalene Johnson, the creator, is very attentive to proper form so you stay true to sport. I will admit that I miss the heavy bags but my joints do not. I got tendinitis along with a lot of other injuries in the kickboxing gyms. I stay injury free with this program and I get results. In one months time, I lost TWENTY pounds. As they say, results are not typical UNLESS you go all in. No workout will work if YOU don't work!

There are all types of home workouts and something that is right for you. I was lucky enough to find out what worked best for me with ease. The only thing that is keeping you from attaining the physical fitness goals that you want is yourself. Find what interests you. There are TONS of home fitness workouts to include yoga, weight training, pilates, hip hop dancing; there is something for everyone. Cut out the middle man and workout from home. With the 40 minutes it to you took drive to and from the gym and all that other time that was sucked into "getting ready" to workout, imagine what else you could have accomplished that day?

A friend sent me a lovely quote the other day which embodied so much of what I have felt over the past few years. "Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change". I spent a lot of time feeling helpless and sorry for myself because I was so saddened by my weight gain. I finally took charge, found my inner strength and motivation, and here I am fifty pounds thinner and still going. Thank goodness for home workouts! It would never be possible otherwise."


Remember, there is ALWAYS time to workout. Even if you start out small, it is never too late to get results and feel good about yourself. You can do it to. Commit to be Fit!

"Body Fat Solution"

Body Fat Solution: Interview with Tom Venuto by J. Foster

Tom Venuto is the author of the new book: The Body Fat Solution. This post is part of an exclusive interview with Venuto.

Editor: “Every new year a plethora of diet books hit the shelves - many simply re-hashing the same old information. What is different about the Body Fat Solution?”

Tom Venuto: “Mainly, it’s not a diet book at all. It’s not a bunch of recipes and menus. My new book was designed more to help you stick with whatever nutrition and training programs you choose and make them an effortless part of your daily lifestyle.

Most of your readers already know they should eat more fruits and vegetables, eat lean protein, get enough fiber and eat healthy fats. Simple stuff. The question is, do you easily stay motivated to follow healthy eating habits with enough compliance to get the results you want, or do you find yourself blowing it on weekends, giving in to cravings, falling off the schedule when traveling, eating when stressed, or doing anything else that sabotages an already good nutrition plan?

That is what separates The Body Fat Solution from other books on the shelves. You learn about the emotional, psychological and even social (how people influence you) aspects of “staying on the wagon.”

To make this a total lifestyle program, I did include one concise chapter on nutrition and extensive food lists in the appendix so you know what to eat and how to categorize the foods. I also included a strength training and cardio program. But in this book, I teach “Principles” not fancy or advanced diet tactics or strict calorie-counting and number crunching. It’s very different from the by-the-numbers approach of my first book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle and for a much broader audience.

But that doesn’t mean it’s a “fluffy” book. It’s scientific and was meticulously researched, even the behavioral, psychological and sociological aspects.”

Editor: “You are a respected natural bodybuilder - known for having incredible motivation and discipline. Do you think you can truly identify with the average man or woman who struggles in this area?”

Tom Venuto: “I already do. And they identify with me as soon as they get to know me and my personal background. One of the responses I’ve heard over and over again from my readers, customers and members is that when they heard I was actually a lot like them, not only could they identify with me, but that’s what motivated them to read my book, start my program and change their lives.

Today I’m a successful fitness professional, author of two books and natural bodybuilder with 28 competitions under my belt. I keep my bodyfat under 10% all year round and drop as low as 3.5-5% for competitions. But it wasn’t always that way. When I was a freshman in high school, I was on the chubby side and was embarrassed to take my shirt off for swimming class. So I took up weight training and put on about 25 pounds of muscle and lost most of the fat during high school.

Then I went to college and discovered beer… and pizza, and cheese fries and subs… and I got fat again. Only it was worse than before because by then I was a self-proclaimed weight lifter and amateur bodybuilder, so my college buddies made fun of me. They called me “fat boy” or “beer belly” or “Bob’s Big Boy” (home of the famous big boy sandwich). I just laughed at myself right along with them, but the truth is, I was silently humiliated.

It all changed when my other group of friends – my buddies from the gym – encouraged me to compete in a bodybuilding competition. That’s when I learned the type of nutrition and training it took to reach low single digit body fat for the first time. It was not easy because I felt that I had the “endomorph” body type where anything I did wrong, I paid the price for it and gained fat overnight. But I did it. I competed at age 20 while I was still in college and things were never the same after I became a competitive bodybuilder.

So, I’ve never been seriously overweight, but I can relate to what it’s like to hate your body, what it’s like to have trouble losing fat and even what it’s like to be in shape and then get fat again.”

Editor: “You have an expanded section on emotional eating. Could you briefly outline some of the key points for us?”

Tom Venuto: “Emotional eating is eating for the wrong reasons, and the danger is you usually don’t even know its happening. It’s unconscious behavior.

The right reason to eat most of the time is for physiological needs such as providing nutrients, delivering cellular and muscular building material and for fuel. But most people eat for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with physical hunger or physical needs. They eat because they’re bored, tired, depressed, lonely, and especially when they’re stressed.

People also eat for social reasons, to celebrate, as a reward, and sometimes for no reason at all – you eat mindlessly like in front of the TV or wander to the refrigerator late at night just because it became a habit .

The solution to emotional eating is to understand the right reasons for eating and ingrain them into your belief systems and into your mind subconsciously. The big reason to eat is for FUEL. Food is fuel. Food is for energy. Another reason for eating is building material. You are what you eat. No matter how cliched’ that statement has become, you can’t say it enough times. You are what you eat, literally. Food is also for nourishment – it gives you every nutrient you need. Food is the best medicine. Food is a cure. Imagine if you thought about food this way and you ate for those reasons instead of the reasons most people eat. You would have an amazing body and spectacular health wouldn’t you? You’d also never have to worry about disordered eating because you’d realize that food is not something to fear; food is not the problem; high quality food is actually the solution.

The starting point of fixing this is to increase your awareness. You have to pay attention, be a conscious eater, or to borrow a concept from Zen, practice mindfulness. . This way you can catch yourself and that gives you time to pause and think before you act. I elaborate on this more with a 5-part formula for beating emotional eating in chapter four of The Body Fat Solution”

Editor: “In your previous downloadable book Burn the Fat - you espoused a program of frequent eating (5-6) meals a day, and high amounts of cardio training (along with a regular strength training program). Is this something you still advocate - or is there a different approach for the Body Fat Solution?”

Tom Venuto: “I absolutely advocate the 5-6 meal per day, carefully calculated macronutrients and calories, strength training and cardio training approach. Basically that philosophy is: eat more, burn more; Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. It’s the bodybuilding - fitness - figure method of improving body composition. It’s how I achieved the condition I reached in 28 competitions and it’s how thousand of my success story clients reached their goals. It works so well that I would never change a thing in my own personal approach.

But after many years of working with a wider range and larger number of clients, with different personalities, who were not bodybuilders, I realized that all they needed was a handful of daily behavior changes and a shift in mindset. I could create the most scientific, sophisticated and effective nutrition program in the world, but if someone can’t follow it, because it doesn’t suit their lifestyle or personal disposition, that’s not very helpful.

So instead of just recognizing the physiological type of individuality from person to person, I looked at the differences in lifestyle and created this new program to accommodate people with every day challenges like high stress, lack of time, emotional eating and sporadic motivation. I used the 80-20 principle which says that 20% of your actions will give you 80% of your results. The rest is minutia. So for the average person, let’s just get those fundamentals in place first and not worry about the small stuff. That’s enough to get you 80% of the way there. You want to be in the top 5%? Then you’ll have to join me with a more regimented program

But with the new approach I took in The Body Fat Solution, it’s one of the most flexible programs that you will ever find on bookstore shelves. No dogma. Or, as one reviewer said, “It’s not a program that looks like it came out of the third Reich!” Anyone can do it. It really is a lifestyle.”
(originally posted on www.diet-blog.com)

Conquering Emotional Eating: Lessons from Monica Seles

Conquering Emotional Eating: Lessons from Monica Seles
by Mike Howard

Monica Seles is without a doubt one of the best female tennis players of all time. Known for her relentless power and loud, multi-syllable grunts, Seles vaulted to the top ranked spot in women's tennis at the tender age of 17.

Even the casual sports fan knows how this story unfolds. A bizarre stabbing attack by a deranged fan would indelibly de-rail Seles' playing career and worse still, her emotional stability. The stabbing incident - compounded by the death of her father to cancer would spark an addiction to food.

Here are some quotes from Monica's story in an ESPN interview on how she kicked emotional eating. Seles has written a book on her experiences called "Getting a Grip".

I think for me, food was a way for me to deal with emotional trouble. As a top player, you have to keep your emotions in check. You think you can control everything. I was playing all these great players. If you asked me who was my most difficult opponent, I can tell you, it wasn't any of those players; it was my own battle with food because it was going on in my head while I would go out to play in front of 20,000 people.
My foot was in a cast, and I knew I did not want to gain another pound. I also knew whatever I was doing was not working and I needed a change. That was the "wow" moment, when I said, "Forget Monica the tennis player, the champion, the person that got stabbed, the youngest to win this or that; do this for Monica the person."
(The weight came off) once I stopped all the diets. The second half of my career, I was always put on a diet. Twelve hundred calories, measured exactly. I read every single diet book. I still have them. The Atkins, the food combination, the gluten-free ...
I definitely had an addiction to food. No question...It took me a year and a half to lose my 37 pounds, and I did it all by walking. No gym. So the irony is amazing from an athlete's point of view.
You have to figure out what's eating you emotionally. I love to eat. If I didn't, I never would have been as big as I was. But I don't eat the quantity that I used to because my emotions are in check. For women, the emotional connection with food is a very powerful one.

Interesting Sidebar take on today's Female Tennis Player
If you look at tennis, the girls have become much more attractive; they wear makeup. In my generation, you were a tennis player. It wasn't like you had to look a certain way. When the agents look at you, it's not just, "She is a great tennis player," it's, "Oh my gosh, she looks fantastic and she's a good tennis player." They realize it has to be the whole package.
Now 35, Seles says she always will live with some regret about what could have been but that she's at peace and, more importantly, at the helm of her life. Seles will be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame this summer.

Source: ESPN.com.

Eat for a Faster Metabolism

Tanya Zuckerbrot, founder of Skinny and the City and author of The F-Factor Diet, writes, "If you're one of the many people in the battle to fight the bulge, you'll be pleased to learn that there are foods that boost your metabolism and may help you burn fat. Some of the calories in the food you eat are burned off just to digest them, so the net amount of calories is less than the amount contained in the food. This process is called dietary-induced thermogenesis. The foods on the following list speed up the rate at which your body burns calories in different ways. So eat and enjoy!

Spicy peppers (jalapenos, habaneros, chili peppers)
Studies show that the chemical compound capsaicin, found in peppers, speeds up your heart rate and metabolism. Eating a very spicy meal can actually speed up the metabolism by about 25 percent for up to three hours. Keep crushed red pepper on the table to spice up everything from scrambled eggs to soup to pasta.

Berries
Berries are high in fiber -- and fiber is the magic bullet of weight loss. It keeps you full and satisfied all day on virtually no calories. One cup of raspberries contains eight grams of fiber and only 60 calories! Strawberries, blackberries and blueberries are all high-fiber berries. Fiber also acts like a sponge and absorbs and moves fat through our digestive system faster so that less of it is absorbed.

Citrus fruits (oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes)
Foods that contain vitamin C help metabolize fat faster and make losing weight less difficult. You only need 60 milligrams of vitamin C per day to meet your body's basic needs, but raising your daily intake to 500 milligrams could boost your fat-burning potential during exercise by 39 percent. Researchers at the Scripps Clinic found that participants who ate half a grapefruit with each meal in a 12-week period lost an average of 3.6 pounds. The study indicates that the unique chemical properties in this vitamin C-packed citrus fruit reduce insulin levels, promoting weight loss. If you are taking medication, check with your doctor about any potentially adverse interactions with grapefruit.

Fish (salmon, tuna, sardines)
Salmon, tuna and sardines all contain large amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, which, besides being incredibly healthy, seem to affect metabolism. Omega-3s alter levels of leptin, a hormone in the body that directly influences metabolism and determines whether you burn calories or store them as fat. Fish that contain omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) increase the levels of fat-burning enzymes and decrease the levels of fat-storage enzymes. They've been shown to boost metabolism by as much as 400 calories per day. Fish like mackerel, salmon and trout are great sources of omega-3s.

Soup
Eat less and burn fat faster by having a bowl of soup as an appetizer or a snack. According to a Penn State University study, soup is a super appetite suppressant because it's made up of a hunger-satisfying combination of liquids and solids. In the study, women chose one of three 270-calorie snacks before lunch. Women who had chicken-and-rice soup as a snack consumed an average of 100 fewer calories than those in the study who opted for a chicken-and-rice casserole or the casserole and a glass of water. Just make sure to avoid soups made with cream or loaded with pasta or potatoes. Aim for broth-based soups filled with vegetables for a low-calorie and filling meal or appetizer. Miso soup, vegetable soup and bean soups are all great options.


Tanya Zuckerbrot is the founder of Skinny and the City and author of The F-Factor Diet.

Healthy Breakfast: Spinach & Turkey Bacon Omelet

Here's a great recipe to get you fueled up for the day!

SPINACH & BACON OMELET

INGREDIENTS:
1 egg
2 egg whites
2 slices cooked turkey bacon, crumbled
1 cup baby spinach
1 slice whole-grain toast
1 teaspoon butter
cooking spray

DIRECTIONS:
Whisk together eggs, bacon and spinach.
Coat a skillet with cooking spray; cook egg mixture and serve with toast and butter.

Nutrition facts per serving:

Servings Per Recipe 1 serving
Calories 308
Total Fat (g) 16
Saturated Fat (g) 5
Carbohydrate (g) 16
Fiber (g) 2
Protein (g) 24

Women have it all WRONG!

Got this in my e-mail today and wanted to pass it along. Rachel Cosgrove is the wife of Alwyn Cosgrove, an uber-elite strength and conditioning coach. It's a bit of a rant but I totally agree with everything's she's saying. Metabolically challenging workouts.

Everything she is describing about what women SHOULD do is exactly what ChaLEAN Extreme is about!



Women have it all wrong!

By Rachel Cosgrove

Women have it all wrong when it comes to weight loss. The average woman when she joins a gym looks at how many treadmills there are and the aerobics schedule to see if there are classes that fit in her schedule. When women want to lose weight they torture themselves with repetitive movement for hours on end spinning their wheels or running to nowhere like a hamster in a habitrail! If you take a look at all of the women walking on the treadmills you'll notice none of them have the body most women want.

The problem is that most personal trainers haven't figured it out yet either. They get a female client who hires them to change their body and they think, "Oh man...another one of those stupid toning programs in the ladies only section with the pink dumbbells doing lots of reps..." Most trainers don't realize that they need to challenge women to get their bodies to change and to stop being afraid of pushing her to gain muscle to boost her metabolism to change the way her body looks, permanently.

Weight Loss Program the average woman does:

Endless hours of cardio or aerobics classes
Avoids strength training because she doesn't want to get "big and bulky" or maybe she uses some rinky dink pink dumbbells to "tone" for lots of reps
Cuts back her diet to practically starve herself
Focuses on the scale weight and a number she wants it to say

What works about this plan: NOTHING!

What is wrong with this plan: EVERYTHING!

She will lose weight but it will be a mixture of muscle, water and maybe some fat so she'll end up looking like a smaller version of her same self but in the process she will have dropped her metabolism so there will be no way she can keep the weight off and will gain it back guaranteed. This is the cycle most women have been through many times throughout their lifetime. Yet, when they want to lose weight they do the same thing again. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.

Weight Loss Program the average Women SHOULD do:

Metabolically demanding full body strength training program lifting challenging weights. This should be their priority workouts 2-4 days a week.
Boost their intensity and drop the duration on their cardio sessions performing interval style workouts for no more than 30 minutes at a time.
Fuel their body with healthy food every couple hours getting their metabolism revving.
Focus on how her clothes fit and how she looks and feels and not on a number on the scale. Focus in Fat Loss, not Weight Loss.

What works about this plan: It will boost her metabolism, it will change her body, it will make her feel confident about herself, she can eat and she will be able to maintain her new body!

What is wrong with this plan: NOTHING!

To really change their bodies permanently women need to start checking out the strength training floor. They need to get out of their comfort zone and push their bodies beyond what it is used to. No more walking to nowhere on the treadmill! I am not talking about bodybuilding routines where you split up each body part and bomb and blitz the pecs or pump up the biceps. It is not necessary for a woman to isolate any muscle group to get the defined look she wants.

Instead a woman should do a full body, metabolically demanding program in which she alternates between an upper body compound movement such as a push up or chin up with a lower body compound movement such as a squat or lunge. Keep the rest periods short and use a weight that is challenging. Use 3-4 pairs of exercises working out for no more than an hour at a time.

The woman with toned arms and defined legs looks that way because she has the very thing most women are terrified of, muscle. They are so afraid to lift weights in fear of bulking up that they never get their bodies to look the way they want them to. They have it deeply seeded in their subconscious that as soon as they touch anything over 10 pounds, they will sprout humungous muscles! Even if they do use weights, they probably still aren't lifting heavy enough and pushing themselves hard enough to get the look they want. Most women don't know what their bodies are capable of and tend to not push themselves hard enough. There was actually a research study done on this where they showed that women when left to train on their own, lifted loads below what they were capable of.


Maybe it is because women have been conditioned our whole lives to exercise from the point of view of what we "can't" do, rather than what we can do. Women grew up doing "girl" push ups, because we were told we "can't" do actual push ups or hanging from the bar instead of a chin up because girls "can't" do chin ups. The first woman to run the marathon had to sneak in dressed as a man because women "can't" run a marathon, and that was only in the 70's, not that long ago. Women "can't" lift too heavy, they will hurt themselves. We still subconsciously hold ourselves back when it comes to training whether we realize it or not.

We need to start training from the standpoint of- What CAN you do? How much CAN you lift? How strong CAN you get? And stop letting "can't" enter our vocabulary. As women start to push themselves in the gym, lifting weights and building lean muscle tissue, their metabolisms will be revving and they will be the toned, defined body they have always wanted.

So how do you get your body to change? You have to lift enough weight to build muscle to increase your metabolism, fuel your body with healthy food and turn your body into a fat burning machine. Stop pounding your body with hours of cardio and stop starving yourself!

If you are a gym owner or work in a gym start looking around at what the women in your gym are doing to lose weight and change their bodies. Do you have members who have been walking on your treadmills for the last three years and still look exactly the same? Educating your trainers and your female members you can help them to make permanent changes that will last a lifetime which also means their memberships will last a lifetime.

Your gym will be packed with toned, strong women doing squats, chin ups and push ups showing off their new found six pack or their defined delts, feeling confident and good about themselves and I don't think the men in your gym will complain...

P90X Gets Results!

P90X is a revolutionary system of 12 sweat-inducing, muscle-pumping workouts, designed to transform your body from regular to ripped in just 90 days. Ask me how you can get yours and save 10-25%! (www.beachbodycoach.com/michellene)

ChaLEAN Extreme -- Muscle Burns Fat!

It's time to get EXTREME! Chalene Johnson's brand-new workout system will ignite your metabolism, build lean muscle, and turn your body into a fat-burning machine!

Choose your Workout--Change Your Life!

With over 120 workouts, Beachbody has what YOU need to take charge of your own health & fitness. Let me help you get started on the path to a healthier, happier you! (available at www.beachbodycoach.com/michellene) Ask me how you can save 10-25%