5 Ways to Guarantee New Year's Resolution Success

Now that the New Year is here, there is a good chance that your New Year's Resolution is weight loss. If you want to lose weight, here are 5 tips that will guarantee Katy residents' success in their weight loss goals.

1. Decide on a goal - Take the time to write out your personal goals. Write out how much weight you want to lose and how long you expect it to take you. Don't skip this step.
2. Devise a plan - Your plan should be specific. Without a specific plan, you are just randomly trying things hoping something works. It doesn't just happen that way. You have to write out your weekly and monthly requirements to achieve your goal. Your plan will include components of the next 3 steps.
3. Nutrition - Most people hate to hear this, but nutrition is the most important step if you plan to lose weight this year. Follow a specific nutrition plan that you can stick with for longer than 3 months. You want a lifestyle adjustment, not a quick weight loss plan.
4. Cardiovascular - You have to include cardiovascular training into your program. The program should include some aspects of an interval based program that will help you burn fat fast and reduce the amount of time you spend doing it.
5. Strength Training - If you plan on losing fat fast, strength training must be included. By building muscle, you will increase metabolism, therefore resulting in faster weight loss.
   

If your weight loss plan is missing any of these components, contact me so I can help you get all of the steps in place to lose your belly fat this year. As a personal trainer for almost 12 years now, I have helped hundreds of people lose weight. If you are determined to see weight loss results, contact me. I will take the guess work out of your program and ensure that this year is the year you lose weight, once and for all.

The Advanced Aging of Our Children

This is the very reason we are seeing heart attacks happening at an earlier and earlier age.

Obesity is aging our children before their time.

The Association Press reported that studies presented last week at an American Heart Association conference found about a third of American children are overweight, and one-fifth are obese.

In a sense, that’s old news.

But what made one study depressingly newsworthy was the conclusion by researchers at Children’s Hospital in Kansas City that obese children as young as 10 had the arteries of 45-year-olds.Want more depressing news?

Another study by researchers at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Australia tied childhood obesity to abnormal enlargement of the left atrium, one of the chambers of the heart. The AP reported enlargement is a known risk factor for heart disease, stroke and heart rhythm problems. One researcher said he saw a clear link between rising weight and size of the left atrium.

Still not convinced about the danger of obesity?

A study by the Australian National University in Canberra found impairment in the heart’s ability to relax between beats in children who were overweight or obese.

Earlier research found more rigid arteries in such children — a possible sign of plaque deposits starting to form.

This isn’t just a matter of personal health. It’s a public health issue, too. Overweight adults are more prone to Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. The cost to society to treat these conditions is staggering, and it’s only going to grow as the number of obese Americans increases.Some people can’t help it. They have weight problems and other health issues because of their genes. They are not what they eat; they are what they’ve had passed down to them from their ancestors.

However, many children are overweight and obese because, like far too many adults, they are eating too much — and too much of the wrong kind of food — and exercising too little.

It’s not a matter of growing out of baby fat. When it comes to obesity, child is father to the man. The news service reported research increasingly shows that fat children become fat adults, and with that come higher risks for many health problems.

For these children, it’s about eating the right kind of food and exercising. And it wouldn’t hurt if their parents joined the regimen, either.

Overweight and obese children and adults must take this condition seriously. For them, it really is a matter of life and death.

Source: TimesOnline.com

Red Wine Weight Loss Results....in a Pill?

Here's an interesting story I found at the daily mail that talks about the benefits of red wine, in a pill. They fed the ingredient to mice and found that fatty food did not cause weight gain. I don't know what kind of health side effects it had, but the weight gain didn't occur.

For dedicated couch potatoes, it sounds almost too good to be true. A drug inspired by red wine could allow them to eat as much junk food as they like without putting on a pound.

It could also provide the benefits of exercise without moving a muscle. And if that were not enough, the pill - which mimics the action of resveratrol, the 'wonder ingredient' in red wine - may also prevent diabetes.

The man-made drug, which is known only as SRT1720, fools the body into thinking food is scarce and it has to burn off fat to survive. The brainchild of scientists at US firm Sirtris, the drug exploits the healthy qualities of resveratrol, a chemical found in grape skins. Previous studies have endowed resveratrol with the ability to ward off a host of ills, from old age to heart disease, cancer, obesity and Alzheimer's disease.

Sirtris has already developed a concentrated form of resveratrol in a pill. However, the new drug could be even more powerful and have fewer side-effects.

David Sinclair, co-founder of Sirtris, which is now owned by Glaxo-SmithKline, said recently: 'The excitement here is that we are not talking about red wine any more. We are talking about real drugs.' In experiments, mice given SRT1720 didn't gain an ounce, despite being fed fatty foods. Blood tests suggested they were also protected
against diabetes. The treated animals also had more stamina and were able to run twice as far. However, they had to be forced to exercise.

Left to their own devices, they would move around less than normal, the journal Cell Metabolism reports. The drug is made up of chemicals that affect the body in a similar way to resveratrol. Both resveratrol and the new drug trigger a protein called SIRT1 that plays a key role in regulating the body's supply of energy. The result is that the body burns off its fat stores, even when food is plentiful. Researcher Professor Johan Auwerx, of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in
Switzerland, said: 'These results show that new synthetic SIRT1 activators can
reproduce the positive metabolic effects that were previously demonstrated using resveratrol.

'But unlike resveratrol, these new chemical entities target only the SIRT1 pathway, making them more selective and potent for achieving these metabolic benefits.'
He added that the drug, which is around seven years from the market, is likely to be used to treat obesity and diabetes. Prof Ian Broom, an obesity expert from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, said any drug that burnt off fat while protecting against diabetes would be welcomed. But he cautioned that much more research - including studies into side-effects - would be needed before SRT1720 became accepted as a treatment for obesity.

The Mental Aspects of Weight Loss

Are you "blocked" from losing weight?

Dallas Morning News published an article that showed that those who had the hardest time losing weight had more "mental roadblocks".

"Overall, the overweight and obese women told of more perceived obstacles than their slimmer counterparts. They were more likely to feel self-conscious about how they looked while exercising, felt they lacked self-discipline, hated to fail so didn't try, had minor aches and pains and felt too overweight to exercise."

The Key to Long Term Weight Loss

The USA Today did a story on what the differences are between those who lose weight permanently and those who never seem to reach their goals. The key habits among successful dieters:

• Are physically active for about an hour a day, burning about 2,600 calories a week with exercise.
• Do high-intensity activity, such as jogging, aerobics, biking, for about 70 minutes a week.
• Are highly restrained eaters who are always aware of calories.
• Are less likely to binge or overeat for emotional or environmental reasons than obese people.
• Have fewer TVs than heavier people.

Apple Cider Vinegar

The Key to Losing Weight and Keep it Off

Exercise Holds Key to Keeping Weight Off

Ramp Up Your Workouts to Shed Pounds, Keep Them Off, Study Shows

By Kelley ColihanWebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Article Highlights:
1. The Key to Long Term Weight Loss is working out 55 minutes a day, 5 days a week
2. Women who did this kept 10% of their weight off or more
3. Women who made their leisure activity, more active, kept the weight off more

July 28, 2008 -- How much do you have to work out in order to lose weight and keep it off? The answer is hotly debated among people who study weight loss.
A new study says that obese and overweight women need to cut calories and exercise 275 minutes a week more than their baseline physical activity -- or at least 55 minutes a day, five days a week to lose weight and keep it off.
The research was led by John M. Jakicic, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues.
They tracked 201 overweight and obese women over a two-year period; 170 women completed the study.
At the start, all of the participants were sedentary. They were randomly assigned to one of four groups based on how much and how intensely they exercised and how many calories they burned.
The participants were told to eat or drink no more than 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day. Researchers tracked them by talking to them on the phone and having face-to-face talks.
Participants were encouraged to spread the exercise out over five days during a week, done in at least 10-minute chunks. The women were given treadmills to use at home and taught to monitor their own heart rates.
At the end of the two-year study, women who had lost 10% or more of their initial body weight reported that they had done more physical activity compared with those who did not lose as much weight.
After six months, women in all four groups had lost an average of 8% to 10% of their initial body weight. But the hard part was keeping that weight off. Most of them regained the weight.
Biggest Losers
Nearly 25% of the participants managed to keep 10% or more of their original body weight off over the two years.
Those women exercised about 275 minutes a week more over their baseline activity levels.
They also got the most support, completing the most telephone calls from researchers, and said they participated in more eating behaviors recommended for weight control than those who gained the weight back.
Those who lost and kept off the weight also increased their leisure time physical activity, doing things like taking the stairs and moving about more at home and work.
A couple of limitations the study authors note are that diet alone was not included as one of the options and that the participants themselves reported what physical activity they did and how well they did it.
The study authors conclude that a relatively high level of physical activity is needed to lose weight and keep it off.
These results are likely to add fuel to the debate over how much is needed to lose pounds and keep them from creeping back.
General recommendations are for 30 minutes a day, or 150 minutes a week, of moderately intense activity most days of the week. But the debate rages on over a magic formula for sustaining weight loss.
The findings are published in the July 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Source: http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20080728/exercise-holds-key-to-keeping-weight-off

My thoughts.....if you seek to do the minimum, expect minimum results. If you truly desire to make a lifestyle change and see long lasting results, you will change your life's style. Desire to achieve more. Find a personal trainer or nutrition coach that will help you. If that doesn't work, find an accountability partner that is more disciplined and better shape than you are in that can hold you accountable. If you find someone who is struggling with the same things you are, it will be hard to hold each other accountable. Make up your mind to change your life and don't look back. If you want it bad enough, you will achieve it.

Fat Loss Secrets - Revealed - Newsletter from June 15th

Those of you who know me real well, know that I don't sit still very long. I've been working hard, and I have some things I really want to share with you. I've been really struggling for a while with the fact that people can be active and just not lose weight very easily. On March 14th of last year I wrote on my blog that I was determined to find what it will take for more people to lose weight. Well, I've been researching, and I've stumbled upon something that I never expected. Many of things that we talk about in the fitness industry is wrong. At least that's the way it appears right now. I really don't know how to say it any other way. There is research that completely contradicts some of the beliefs we hold dear to. Let me give you some examples:

• Low Carbohydrate vs. Low Fat diets. Which one really works the best?
• Aerobic Exercise. If you do aerobic cardio 5 days a week for 6 months, how many pounds can you really expect to lose?
• Calories in, Calories out. If 2 people consume the same number of calories and burn off the same number of calories, could they expect to see the same results?
• Either lose fat or gain muscle. Can you lose fat and gain muscle at the same time?
• Spot Reducing. Is it possible to lost bodyfat in just one part of the body?
• Fishy Results. Can eating more fish show a significant change in your waistline?
• Supplements. Are they a big waste of time, or do certain supplements really give you better results?
• "Fat Burning" Zone. This one will probably get me in trouble, so let me present it with the research to back it up.
• Strength Training vs. Aerobics. Which one will help you lose weight the fastest?
• EPOC. Don't know what it is? It could have a major role in your results.
  

I realize that some of the things I am going to say in the upcoming e-mails may contradict things that I have told people in the past. However, I am willing to open my eyes to new research results as long as they are credible studies. That's why each e-mail will only cover one topic, explained in full, and have sources to back up everything I am saying. So I apologize that I'm not giving you the answers to all of the topics above, but I have to do this the right way.
In the meantime, have a great week, and watch for my next e-mail.

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