Exercise: Be Consistent

Create a consistent exercise routine.  Be realistic. Set small, achievable goals at first.  If you are new to exercise, plan to work out three times a week.  Then move to every other day.  As you progress you may build up to a 5-day weekly routine.

Have a specific plan before you start. You’ll want to build in a variety of workouts to keep things fresh (for example, strength one day, cardio the next) but the trick is planning ahead. Every Sunday night, map out your week of workouts and stick with it like it is a doctor’s prescription.  Your plan can be as simple as a walk on Monday, strength training on Wednesday at the gym, and push-ups on Friday. 

Find someone to keep you accountable.  This can be a workout buddy or a personal trainer.  Either way, pair up with someone who is inspiring and reliable.

Set goals and keep track of your progress.  Maybe your goal is to lose weight or run a 5K.  It can also be as simple as “exercise every other day for a month.”  Seeing progress will keep you motivated and consistent.

Find inspiration or distraction.  If exercise goals don’t engage you, pick a favorite diversion and build that into your exercise routine.  Listen to music, watch TV or read a magazine while you exercise.

Michael Kasprenski, Personal Trainer at Steel Fitness in Bethlehem, PA (a FACTS Fitness facililty)

The Secret To Lasting Fitness Success

With new year's just around the corner and resolutions in the air, people constantly ask me about what they should do to effectively lose weight and get in shape once and for all starting January. Most of the time, their question centers around what kind of foods are ok to eat, what exercises are best, what kind of cardio burns the most calories, and other similar questions. My reply, however, is often not what they are expecting:

The right plan is the one that you can stick to for the long term!

The truth about fitness and nutrition is that there is no special secret or magic recipe for success. There are tons of different ways of achieving a given goal and its likely that you could use multiple methods to reach the same outcome. However, the method that will give you the longest term results, guaranteed, is the one to which you adhere the longest!

So the take away point is pick plan that you can stick with! Fad diets might help you lose weight quickly but you cannot do them long term. The same is true with extreme exercise regimens. Pick something that fits your personality and that you like, and then do it relentlessly. That's the way success is made.

Written by: Yudi Kerbel, FACTS Fitness Personal Trainer

Health and Fitness Expert Kimberly Garrison Joins FACTS Fitness

FACTS Fitness is proud to announce that health and wellness expert Kimberly Garrison, is joining our team as Director of Fitness and Wellness.

Kimberly is one of the nation's most sought-after fitness, health, and wellness experts. She has over 20 years expertise in the fitness, health and wellness industry and is the owner of One on One Ultimate Fitness, LLC. She is a Certified Personal Trainer, a health and wellness columnist, and a spokes model for national brands. As Director of Fitness and Wellness for Motivation Fitness, Kimberly will be focusing on the growth of our wellness coaching and corporate fitness services.

Kimberly is the legendary fitness columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, hosted the “Girlfriends’ Locker Room” web site, and hosted the Philly Fitness & Health pod cast. She can be seen regularly on NBC's 10! Show, Fox 29, CN8's Your Morning, CBS 3 News, 48 Update, WYBE’s Shades of Opinion. Her articles have also appeared in Philadelphia Metro Newspaper, Global Fit Magazine, Club Life Magazine, Premier Brides, PhillyFit Magazine, Real Health Magazine and she is quoted often in Black America Web, Philly Style Magazine, PhillyFit Magazine, Cosmo Girl, Pink Magazine, and Heart & Soul Magazine. “I am delighted to join Motivation Fitness with its outstanding reputation for excellence, vision, and exciting brand innovation. I look forward to working closely with Tom Fenstermacher, Ian Savitz and the entire Facts Fitness team and to continue the company’s tradition of innovation and excellence, said Kimberly.”

Getting Your Employess to Engage in a Wellness Program

The first step in creating a successful wellness program is the support of management. Once you have strong management support for the corporate wellness program, you will have to plan how to engage employees in the program. As you plan your wellness program, it is important to keep in mind that you need a variety of options to offer the workforce. Below are a few suggestions to encourage employee engagement. You may also come up with an original idea that will speak specifically to your workforce:
Education: By educating your employees, especially the sedentary or non-wellness population, you can draw them into the program. This is a vital part of any successful health and wellness program. The sedentary population of your workforce needs to know and understand the many benefits of living a healthy lifestyle and how to make those changes. This will be the most challenging group to reach, but once you do it will be the most rewarding.
Incentives: Depending upon the culture of your company this can be a fundamental method to engage your employees in a wellness program, especially when the incentive is monetary. But keep in mind that this can also provide a temporary motivation when the goal is to create long term positive behavioral changes.
On-site fitness professional: Whether you have a fitness center within your company or not, you can hire someone to perform fitness assessments, personal training or to teach classes. This shows each employee that you are serious about the wellness programming. Having a fitness professional on-site also gives your employees a resource for health and fitness information, support and motivation.

Once an employee engages in wellness and fitness programming, he or she will feel better about life and work. The employee will exhibit a more positive outlook regarding work product and the work environment. There is a two-way benefit for the employee and the company. A win-win, if you will.

Training for Life: Functional Fitness

What’s your “it?” Being a parent? Performing well in a job that requires physical labor? Participating in a sport? Feeling a little spring in your step when you do your daily errands? Regardless of what your “it” is, functional fitness training is the answer for improving your performance, energy, and aptitude to accomplish daily tasks in an enjoyable manner.

Personally, my fitness goals have changed over the years. Whereas once upon a time, my “it” was getting strong for baseball and feeling confident lifting weights in the gym, my focus has now shifted. I want to feel great going about my daily routine. Since my daily schedule and tasks vary greatly, and since I like to be spontaneous with regards to my physical activity (contrary to some popular advice, I do not plan out my workouts from day to day and week to week), I say that I train for life; and in my life, that means a variety of things from chasing my toddler around, to going through an intense training session, to playing a sport (not particularly well at this point in time), to helping move around 1000 pound pieces of equipment at one of our facilities.

Imagine going about your daily activities feeling winded, experiencing back pain, and in essence, be unable to “keep up.” Kind of scary, don’t you think? I train so that I can go about these daily activities with energy, stamina, and without pain or exhaustion. And as a competitive person, I also strive to not only “keep up,” but get out ahead of the “pack.” I call it life specific training. Life specific, or functional training, isn’t executing a barbell bicep curl with as much weight as possible. Last time I checked, curling up heavy weight on a barbell by flexing my elbow joint wasn’t required in most of my daily tasks. Instead, I am a bigger and bigger advocate or incorporating training that utilizes body weight resistance, stability, quick movements, and balance, while increasing your heart rate (thus training the most important muscle in the body). Functional circuit training can include the utilization of not only your own body weight, but stability balls, medicine balls, BOSU balance trainers, TRX systems, agility ladders, cones, plyometric boxes, jump rope, and a pair boxing gloves and a heavy bag or focus mitts (if you are training with a partner).

I can’t speak highly enough for the value of shifting your attention to this style of training. The difference in how you will feel and perform becomes apparent very quickly, and the physical results will come with time. While weights and machines have their place in fitness training, exercise is trending more and more to the functional, life specific realm. Not only is it extremely advantageous in terms of doing your “it” better, but you can bring this style of training anywhere you go, and the equipment is inexpensive and not bulky. Just be sure to consult with a trainer, or increase your involvement in group fitness (many classes are now tailored toward this style of training) before making functional training the centerpiece of your program. As is the case in all modalities of training, there is margin for error, and without proper instruction and execution, you will not achieve optimal results, and could place yourself at risk of injury. Make a pledge to yourself, and train for life, and whatever you encounter in your daily life.

Written by Ian Savitz, Vice President of Operations for FACTS Fitness

CFITS: Corporate Wellness IT Solutions

A cutting edge way to engage employees in a corporate wellness program is through technology. This concept will transform corporate wellness programming. By combining social media and fitness you will open up numerous avenues for employees to engage and participate in your company wellness program as well with coworkers. This will bridge the gap between the physical fitness facility and your employees.

With the blend of social media and fitness, your employees can communicate with each other online which will create team building, bonding and even healthy competition. Each participating employee will have access to online nutrition, health and fitness tools. This electronic tool includes educational health and fitness blogs, networking with colleagues, forums, and a comprehensive calendar of healthy events within the company community. This type of platform will tie together the entire corporate wellness program through open communication between coworkers, education, rewards and incentives.

Your corporate wellness program will become a desired commodity within the company which will encourage the engagement and participation necessary to drive results and eventually the ROI the company is looking for from the investment. For additional information, call 610-355-3236 or email info@factsfitness.com.

The Keys to Weight Loss

Many of us made a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight but aren’t sure how to accomplish our goals. A proper combination of good nutrition, exercise, and a little patience will help you reach and maintain your goal weight.

The solution is simple; you need to burn more calories than you take in. The body can live in three different energy states. Neutral energy state is where the amount of energy (food) going in equals the energy going out through activity. Positive energy balance is where more is being taken in that being expended. Negative balance is what one needs if the body wants to see change.

To begin, you need to move more each day. Through increased energy expenditures during the day such as parking further from the storefront, using the restroom on another floor of their office building, or walking the stairs on their coffee break instead of drinking coffee will be helpful. Add in at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise daily.

There are three components of a proper exercise program. First is aerobic exercise such as dancing, walking, or biking. This helps to increase energy expenditure. Second is strength training as simple as push-ups, wall sits, and leg lifts, and crunches are also key. This increases muscle mass, which will raise the number ofs calories the body burns even at a resting state. The third component is stretching which will maintain the body’s flexibility; reduce stress and scar tissue from injuries.

The next step is to begin a food journal. Studies show that keeping records of what you eat, everything you eat in a given day, will give a much higher success rate. Adding an extra 100 calories per day can add 10lbs in one year! That is one fun sized candy bar, 4 Hershey kisses, or the taste testing while preparing meals. Record keeping is not only for accountability but also to see what drives the body towards certain behaviors. By listening to the stomach, not the clock or mind telling one to eat, people can use their nutrition for a proper fuel source rather than comfort.

Lastly, diets do not work. If they did, people would not still be spending over 40 million dollars in the industry. It insinuates a beginning and an end. The key to effective and permanent weight loss is behavior modification. It can be done with proper knowledge, consistency and discipline.. The turning point to success is to learn behavior modification in both energy expenditure and proper nutrition to have lifelong results.

Article written by Nona Kleinberg, Personal Trainer and Nutritional Counselor