Eating Habits 101
What fill you up more: a one pound brick with no calories or one pound of potato chips containing 5000 calories?
Answer: The BRICK!
It is food density that curbs your appetite NOT caloric value. Pick foods high in density and low calories and you will find that you will eat less.
High Density Low Calorie Foods
1. Water, H20, Agua
2. Lean Meats
3. High Fiber Foods
4. Fruits/Vegetables
5. Unprocessed Starches
FAT IS NOT THE ENEMY! Fat in moderation is high in density and good for you as well!
Eat slowly…..Your stomach has a lag time to the brain of about 15 minutes. Many of us overeat due to not allowing the stomach enough time to communicate with the brain to say “I’m FULL”.
Know what a serving size is and what your daily servings are per food group. Knowing one without the other is useless. For example, it is OK to have a serving of pasta at a restaurant, but realize that you just had 5 of your 8 servings of starch for the day! It is far easier to count servings than to count calories.
Do not become consumed with counting servings either. Simply think about where your servings are when you are about three quarters of the way through your day, and eat accordingly from there.
Exercise is an important component of a healthy lifestyle. Watch for our next post about incorporating exercise for healthy weight loss.
Written by Tom Fenstermacher, Owner and President of FACTS Fitness.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Common Sense Weight Loss
The following post was written by Tom Fenstermacher, Owner and President of FACTS Fitness. Watch for the follow up post: Eating Habits 101
Common sense tells you that to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume. This means you will change your daily patterns by increasing physical activity while decreasing food consumption.
A person can exist in the following 3 states of energy balance:
1. Neutral Energy Balance – You burn what you consume and will stay the same as you are today.
2. Positive Energy Balance – You consume more than you burn and will gain weight. If you require 2000 calories and consume 2,100 per day, even if the extra 100 calories is a banana you stand to be 700 calories per week in positive energy balance. This will eventually result in 36,400 excess calories per year divided by 3,600 calories per pound of fat is over 10 pounds of weight gain per year.
3. Negative Energy Balance - You consume less than you burn and will lose weight. Reverse the scenario above and you can see over 10 pounds of weight loss per year from that same banana!
Diets DO NOT WORK! – Wouldn’t you rather be in negative energy balance due to an exercise regimen that burns excess calories and increase 24 hour a day metabolism and will ultimately help you live longer and reduce your risk factors and improve quality of life?
CRASH DIETS ARE ESPECIALLY BAD!! Consider this: You go on a crash diet and begin to deprive your body of its essential needs. Your body doesn’t know you are trying to lose weight, it assumes there is a food shortage in nature and goes into survival mode.
What is survival mode?
It is conservation of energy stores.
What are energy stores?
FAT!
Your body will burn anything it can EXCEPT fat. So, when you lose your 20 pounds on your crash diet and 10 pounds of that loss was in lean muscle that your body consumed what do you think happens?
For starters, it is important to understand that your lean muscle is the key to your METABOLIC RATE or your daily caloric requirement and the more lean muscle you have, the more calories you will burn.
It’s a fact that 98% of people on crash diets gain the weight back. Consider the information above: when you gain your 20 pounds back, the muscle will not return so the net gain is all fat. So all that your CRASH Diet helped you do is become fatter! The problem is that now you have less muscle to burn calories on a 24 hour basis, so you will be predisposed to gaining even more weight.
When attempting to loss weight, check with your doctor first. The next step is to combine common sense food choices and start with an exercise program that will fit your lifestyle. Start slow and work your way into moderate levels of exercise.
Common sense tells you that to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume. This means you will change your daily patterns by increasing physical activity while decreasing food consumption.
A person can exist in the following 3 states of energy balance:
1. Neutral Energy Balance – You burn what you consume and will stay the same as you are today.
2. Positive Energy Balance – You consume more than you burn and will gain weight. If you require 2000 calories and consume 2,100 per day, even if the extra 100 calories is a banana you stand to be 700 calories per week in positive energy balance. This will eventually result in 36,400 excess calories per year divided by 3,600 calories per pound of fat is over 10 pounds of weight gain per year.
3. Negative Energy Balance - You consume less than you burn and will lose weight. Reverse the scenario above and you can see over 10 pounds of weight loss per year from that same banana!
Diets DO NOT WORK! – Wouldn’t you rather be in negative energy balance due to an exercise regimen that burns excess calories and increase 24 hour a day metabolism and will ultimately help you live longer and reduce your risk factors and improve quality of life?
CRASH DIETS ARE ESPECIALLY BAD!! Consider this: You go on a crash diet and begin to deprive your body of its essential needs. Your body doesn’t know you are trying to lose weight, it assumes there is a food shortage in nature and goes into survival mode.
What is survival mode?
It is conservation of energy stores.
What are energy stores?
FAT!
Your body will burn anything it can EXCEPT fat. So, when you lose your 20 pounds on your crash diet and 10 pounds of that loss was in lean muscle that your body consumed what do you think happens?
For starters, it is important to understand that your lean muscle is the key to your METABOLIC RATE or your daily caloric requirement and the more lean muscle you have, the more calories you will burn.
It’s a fact that 98% of people on crash diets gain the weight back. Consider the information above: when you gain your 20 pounds back, the muscle will not return so the net gain is all fat. So all that your CRASH Diet helped you do is become fatter! The problem is that now you have less muscle to burn calories on a 24 hour basis, so you will be predisposed to gaining even more weight.
When attempting to loss weight, check with your doctor first. The next step is to combine common sense food choices and start with an exercise program that will fit your lifestyle. Start slow and work your way into moderate levels of exercise.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Exercises You Can Do at Your Desk
Instead of sitting at work all day with no movement why not perform a few simple exercises. You can try having some kind of movement will help your blood pump through your body which helps spread nutrients throughout your body and helps reduce the chance of developing blood clots in your legs.
Here are a few simple exercises you can do at your desk:
1)Glut Squeezes: Squeeze your butt cheeks together and hold for 5 seconds.
2)Ankle Pumps: Point your feet up and down repeatedly.
3)Abdominal Tightening: Suck in your gut and hold for 5 seconds.
4)Marching: Stand up and march in place every hour for a couple of minutes.
5)Wrist Rom: Bend your wrists up and down repeatedly.
Written by Huda Ahmed, MS, ACSM Personal Trainer at Motivation Fitness, West Conshohocken, PA
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Establish Corporate Fitness Program For Your Employees
There are some basic activities that you can start in your company that will get your employees interested in starting a healthy lifestyle:
1.) Distribute a newsletter with fitness and healthy living information to educate your employees.
2.) Have those employees who are enthusiastic about the wellness initiative encourage coworkers to join in.
3.) Reimburse or subsidize employees gym memberships, group fitness registrations, etc.
4.) Offer employees flex time options to encourage participation in fitness activities.
1.) Distribute a newsletter with fitness and healthy living information to educate your employees.
2.) Have those employees who are enthusiastic about the wellness initiative encourage coworkers to join in.
3.) Reimburse or subsidize employees gym memberships, group fitness registrations, etc.
4.) Offer employees flex time options to encourage participation in fitness activities.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Benefits of Corporate Fitness Programs
The overall objective of a Corporate Fitness/Wellness program is to create an environment within the company of fitness and healthy living. Companies who have a Corporate Fitness program will experience many benefits including:
1.) Savings on Healthcare costs
2.) Increased productivity
3.) Decreased absenteeism
4.) Fit employees have more energy and are more focused
5.) Better coping skills
6.) More positive attitudes
7.) Your company will attract new workers who are dedicated to fitness
8.) Lower incidences of chronic sicknesses
For additional information on Corporate Fitness visit www.factsfitness.com.
1.) Savings on Healthcare costs
2.) Increased productivity
3.) Decreased absenteeism
4.) Fit employees have more energy and are more focused
5.) Better coping skills
6.) More positive attitudes
7.) Your company will attract new workers who are dedicated to fitness
8.) Lower incidences of chronic sicknesses
For additional information on Corporate Fitness visit www.factsfitness.com.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Workplace Exercises Suggestions
While you shouldn't give up on your home or gym exercise routine, you can certainly supplement it with exercises done at your desk (and, on those extra-long workdays, it's much better than doing nothing.)
Here are a few aerobic tricks to try during your next break between tasks:
1.) Glance at the wall clock and rip off a minute's worth of jumping jacks. If you're a beginner, try the low-impact version (raise your right arm and tap your left toe to the side while keeping your right foot on the floor; alternate sides)
2.) Do a football-like drill of running in place for 60 seconds. Get those knees up! (Beginners, march in place.)
3.) Simulate jumping rope for a minute: Hop on alternate feet, or on both feet at once. An easier version is to simulate the arm motion of turning a rope, while alternately tapping the toes of each leg in front.
4.) While seated, pump both arms over your head for 30 seconds, then rapidly tap your feet on the floor, football-drill style, for 30 seconds. Repeat 3-5 times.
5.) If you can step into a vacant office or conference room, shadow box for a minute or two. Or just walk around the room as fast as you can. Or do walk-lunges in your office or a vacant room. (You could also amuse your co-workers by doing these in the hall; remember Monty Python's "Ministry of Silly Walks" comedy routine?). Set your PDA to beep you into action.
No conference room? Take to the stairs -- two at a time if you need a harder workout!
Do this 5-7 times a day.
Source: http://www.webmd.com/
Here are a few aerobic tricks to try during your next break between tasks:
1.) Glance at the wall clock and rip off a minute's worth of jumping jacks. If you're a beginner, try the low-impact version (raise your right arm and tap your left toe to the side while keeping your right foot on the floor; alternate sides)
2.) Do a football-like drill of running in place for 60 seconds. Get those knees up! (Beginners, march in place.)
3.) Simulate jumping rope for a minute: Hop on alternate feet, or on both feet at once. An easier version is to simulate the arm motion of turning a rope, while alternately tapping the toes of each leg in front.
4.) While seated, pump both arms over your head for 30 seconds, then rapidly tap your feet on the floor, football-drill style, for 30 seconds. Repeat 3-5 times.
5.) If you can step into a vacant office or conference room, shadow box for a minute or two. Or just walk around the room as fast as you can. Or do walk-lunges in your office or a vacant room. (You could also amuse your co-workers by doing these in the hall; remember Monty Python's "Ministry of Silly Walks" comedy routine?). Set your PDA to beep you into action.
No conference room? Take to the stairs -- two at a time if you need a harder workout!
Do this 5-7 times a day.
Source: http://www.webmd.com/
Monday, March 9, 2009
First Steps to Creating a Successful Corporate Fitness Program
A key element to creating a successful corporate fitness program is for the senior managers to promote, support and participate in the program. This is critical not only for the success of the program, but also for the health and well being of senior management. Participation and support of senior management will also help the employees to take the corporate fitness program seriously.
Another key ingredient to a successful program include forming a corporate fitness committee to organize and facilitate communication of the program. This committee would also educate employees about the various elements of the program. Remember communication and education are key elements to employee participation leading to the success of your corporate fitness program.
Another key ingredient to a successful program include forming a corporate fitness committee to organize and facilitate communication of the program. This committee would also educate employees about the various elements of the program. Remember communication and education are key elements to employee participation leading to the success of your corporate fitness program.
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