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Alcohol Is Just Empty Calories

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When it comes to effective weight loss strategies there are many factors to look at. Being a San Diego fitness trainer it is my job to not only address all those factors but give you the solutions and tools to have effective weight loss results. Many of us understand that strength training, cardio, and a sound nutrition plan are crucial to weight loss but what many people fail to realize is that consuming alcohol is really counter intuitive to their fitness goals.

It has become a social norm and almost an expectation that in social situations alcohol consumption should take place. Most holidays, nights out, dinners, and parties all offer many ways to consume alcohol. It can be challenging and almost chastising to refuse drinks. There is a stipulation in society that in order to relax and socialize one must consume alcohol. However, not only is alcohol harmful to the body for many reasons in which I will not get into, it also is counter intuitive to weight loss.

Look at it this way. Alcohol is 7 calories per gram compared to protein and carbohydrates at 4, and fat at 9.In a glass of wine there are about 90 calories, beer 150 calories, and mixed drinks can be anywhere from 150-350 calories. These are empty calories; imagine if you consumed a glass of wine a day with dinner that’s 700 extra calories a week! If you just stopped drinking you could essentially loose a little over a pound a month without changing anything else.

What makes alcohol different from fat, carbs, and protein is that it cannot be utilized as fuel by the body. It has no beneficial nutrients to provide to the body. Also, alcohol can also slow the process by which your body burns fat. The alcohol calories you consume aren’t stored. Instead, they’re converted to acetate, a type of fuel that the body burns quickly. As a result, you burn off your alcohol calories before you burn the fat you are trying to eliminate by increasing your exercise and cutting back on your food intake.

Alcohol also has been proven to not only stimulate your appetite allowing you to consume larger quantities of food it also loosens your inhibitions.  This change in mind set can lead to a lack of willpower and undermine adherence to your program.

In conclusion, alcohol should be one of the first items to eliminate or at least cut back if you’re looking to loose weight successfully. For more San Diego weight loss tips follow my blog.

San Diego Weight Loss Tips

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Living in San Diego we are fortunate to have great weather year round. It provides us with the opportunity to participate in many physical activities in beautiful surroundings. Outdoor exercise not only gives our bodies much needed vitamin D it has also been proven to reduce stress and depression in individuals who participate in outdoor recreation regularly.

So with that in mind I have compiled a list of fun San Diego weight loss activities that anyone can participate in.
1. Buy a beach cruiser to run errands and cruise up and down the coast and around the neighborhood.
2. Go on a hike. There are hundreds of open space parks to go take a leisurely stroll, or really get your heart pumping by climbing a mountain with quick elevation gain and a great panoramic view of San Diego at the top.
3. Get a group of friends or colleagues together and sign up for group fitness training.
4. Take dance classes through a local community college, VAVI, a dance studio, even the San Diego Civic Dance Assoc.
5. Join a San Diego weight loss support group or create your own through Meetup.
6. Train for a local competitive event, you can find hundreds of San Diego events by going to active.com
7. A San Diego personal trainer is easy to find with hundreds of fitness professionals and fitness facilities around.  Find a San Diego personal trainer that is close to you to help you stay active.
8. Join a local sports league through either park and recreation, VAVI Sport and Social Club, Meetup, or even find one on craigslist.
9. Take up a new hobby such as rock climbing, scuba diving, kayaking, or surfing. Most often times you can pick up cheap lessons or excursions through discount offers through companies like Spreesy, Groupon, and Living Social.
10. Go for a run on the beach, or strap on your roller blades and skate through the local park

How to Alleviate Lower Back Pain

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As a San Diego personal trainer I come across many individuals that suffer from lower back pain and discomfort. Now there can be many reasons and causes of low back pain: a previous injury; misaligned spine; gastrointestinal distress; repetitive movements; weak muscles; tight muscles; and poor posture to name a few. The majority of Americans that do suffer from low back pain it is most often caused by poor posture, and minimal physical activity. There are ways to improve and even eliminate lower back pain through proper flexibility, nutrition, and strength training activities.

Stretching

Take yourself through a series of stretches to determine for yourself if you are tight in these areas:

1) Abdominal Wall: Is it difficult to lay on your stomach and push yourself up so that you have full extension in the arms while keeping your hips in contact with the floor?

2) Hamstrings- Can you lay on your back and fully straighten your leg while hip is at 90 degrees?

3) Low Back- Can you touch your toes when you bend over and legs are straight?

4) Hip Flexors- Facing the floor, can you bend your front knee to 90 degrees with foot flat on the floor, back leg straight behind, and set your hands on the ground on each side of the lead leg while hips are squared to the front?

If you can’t successfully complete these stretches as described then you are tight in that muscle group.

Strengthening– I take my clients through a serious of postural and movement assessments so I can determine by how they stand and the way their body moves what muscles are weakened.  The common culprits for weakened muscles that cause lower back pain are:

1) Inner and Outer Abdominal Stabilizers

2) Gluteal Muscles

3) Erectar Spinae Muscles

Quit Smoking

Research shows that smokers have more frequent episodes of back pain than nonsmokers, and the more people smoke, the higher the risk of such episodes.

Scientists believe that the nicotine in cigarettes contributes to low back pain in two ways. First, nicotine hampers the flow of blood to the vertebrae and disks. This impairs their function and may trigger a bout of back pain. Second, smokers tend to lose bone faster than nonsmokers, putting them at greater risk for osteoporosis, another common cause of back pain.

Develop Better Nutritional Habits

Lower back pain can be caused by gastrointestinal stress. In short if you are eating foods that your stomach has a hard time digesting you most likely will feel pain in the low back because the stomach is connected to the nervous system receptors in the lower back. So the pain you are feeling in the low back could be your bodies way of saying you aren’t eating the proper foods. To learn more about what foods are right for you read about Metabolic Testing.

Practice Better Posture

Make sure that your work desk is at the appropriate level as well as your computer desk. You should be able to sit in your chair, rest your feet on the floor while still keeping your knees slightly higher than your hips. Also while sitting up tall in your chair, your hands should not be higher than your elbows when typing.

While standing, keep shoulders back and down, hips slightly pushed forward and toes straight ahead with feet hip width apart.

Lack of Sleep Can Undermine Weight Loss

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Many of us struggle to get 6-8 hours of quality sleep a night. Whether it be due to stress, time, work, or children we all find it difficult to get an adequate amount of sleep every night. Well, what if I told you that sleep deprivation can actually effect weight loss and overall fitness goals? That not only is the lack of sleep affecting your energy throughout the day it is also working against you when it comes to achieving your own fitness goals.

We need sleep for a variety of reasons including recharging energy, our muscles recover and rebuild during sleep, and it allows the brain time to store experiences as memories. There are three major reasons why lack of sleep will lead to weight gain.

1. Sleep patterns affect our hormones. When we get less sleep often this results in an increase in cortisol levels. A increase in cortisol contributes to an increase in food intake and abdominal fat storage. Sleep deprivation is also associated with a decrease in Leptin from fat cells. As Leptin decreases the hypothalamus interprets this as the fat cells need more food for energy, which makes you feel hungry. When Leptin levels decrease there will be an increase in Ghrelin, which stimulates hunger. So in summary, a lack of sleep leads to an increase in appetite.

2. It disrupts glucose metabolism. Researchers are finding a high link between sleep deprivation and diabetes. It is hypothesized that less sleep will lower levels of insulin secretion and impair glucose utilization.

3. Affects energy levels and choices. When people are sleep deprived they lack energy. This results in a decreased interest in exercising and they are much  more likely to choose higher calorie and caffeinated snacks and beverages to get through the day.

Here are 10 tips to help you get to sleep easier at night:

1. Cut down on caffeine consumption in the late afternoon and evenings.
2. Do not smoke or use any other products with nicotine before bed. (More importantly just quit smoking)
3. Create a noise free sleeping environment.
4. Create a sleep-friendly bedroom by using comfortable linens and pillows, put up darker shades, replace worn out mattresses, and keep the bed cool during sleep hours.
5. Drink fewer fluids after dinner.
6. Attempt to deal with stressful issues during the day and put them away at night. (seek professional consultation if necessary)
7. Set a regular time to go to bed and a consistent time to wake up. Stick to this every day.
8. Avoid bringing work projects and personal paperwork to bed.
9. Avoid bringing food to bed.
10. Limit naps to a maximum of 30 minutes and try to take the naps earlier in the day.

I hope all these tips help! For more San Diego weight loss tips or if you have any other questions feel free to contact me.

Training for a Race

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This weekend I am participating in Race for the Cure. A fun easy 5k through Balboa Park with tons of runners, joggers, and walkers participating. It got me thinking about the hundreds of people who decide to participate in these runs without properly training for the event. Now a 5k is just over three miles so the chances of someone who is not very conditioned getting hurt is not as likely. However, there are plenty of people who decide to participate in even further distances that can be very taxing on the body like 1/2 marathons and even full marathons.

Participation in such events has increased over the past decade as people begin to realize the benefits from physical activity and healthy competition. Some people find it a great motivation to help them lose weight. Unfortunately, many people go about training for these events, without a great understanding of how much to train, and when to begin the program in order to successfully prepare their body for the race.

Somethings to keep in mind:

1) You need more than a week to prepare, for all those procrastinators a good rule of thumb is 3 months for a 1/2 marathon and 6 months for a full marathon.

2) Over-training is a bad idea as well. Running at most four times a week, and combining that with 1 day of strength training. Giving your body two full days of rest for recovery.

3) Adequate fuel. Since you will be training harder than your body is used to you need to increase calorie intake. Make sure that you are eating whole foods, plenty of protein and fat for post-training and mainly carbs with some proten pre-training.

4) Be sure to properly warm up by starting with a light jog and incorporating post stretching afterwards giving attention to the shoulders, back, hamstrings, glutes, quads, and calves.

For more great training tips visit Runner’s World.

Boost your Metabolism All Day!!!

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I am sure you have heard the importance of metabolism and it’s impact on weight loss goals. What you may not know, is what methods are the most effective for naturally keeping your metabolic rate high throughout the day. Many people turn to unnatural and unhealthy means for increasing their heart rate like caffeine and diet pills known as thermogenics. That not only increase the heart rate but the internal body temperature as well, maybe giving you an extra burn of 100-300 calories a day.

But what if I told you the following tips and strategies could get you burning up to roughly 650 calories a day? You would be much more likely to follow those, than taking those silly fat burning pills, right?

1. Eat Breakfast. I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Your metabolism slows down as you sleep at night and needs immediate fuel upon waking to crank up the internal furnace and supply your body with the needed energy to attack your day. If you neglect to eat, your metabolism will continue to run at a very slow rate as if you were still asleep! To read more about this you can read my blog Why Breakfast is the Most Important Meal.

2. Interval Cardio Workouts. By including intensive bouts of 30-90 seconds at high intensity with a 2-3 minute moderate recovery for anywhere from 20-30 minutes you will increase the calories you burn during the workout . Plus, you increase your metabolism as your body works to recover and rebuild from an intense workout session. You can read more about the benefits of interval training in my post The Myth Behind The Fat Burning Zone.

3. Eat every 2-4 hours. Don’t let your body think food is not readily available. By eating ever few hours you keep your metabolism up, and prohibit it from going into starvation mode. To learn more about how restricting calories can slow down your metabolism read my post Fad Diets Have Short-Lived Results.

4. Weight training. Weight training not only helps you burn calories during the workout, but also will boost your metabolism for the next 72 hours. Keep in mind this is hard training where you are utilizing compound exercises that get you to fatigue by 12 repititions. Hard weight training is the MOST effective way to not only build muscle but increase your metabolic furnace for the next few days. For every pound of muscle you build you burn an extra 50 calories a day which over the span of a week is an extra 350 calories without you having to do a thing!  And that doesn’t include the calories required to rebuild after you weight training workout. You MUST include weight training in your workout program because cardio and nutrition cannot only do so much.

I hope these San Diego weight loss tips help!!

Fitness Magazines are so Misleading

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As a San Diego fitness trainer I subscribe to e-newsletters and flip through the popular fitness magazines on occasion to see what’s new and trendy and what tips, advice, and lies they are telling to the common consumer and more importantly, my clients. Woman’s Health magazine has come out with a new 21 day workout plan that they are offering to consumers free with the intention of hooking them into a six week program for $40. So every few days I get another email about how I am going to become a whole new person with their super secret plan designed to make me sexy, thin without losing my curves.

Here is the exact email:

Subject line: Triple your fat loss and keep your sexy curves!

Dear Andrea,

Order Look Better Naked today!

If you want a gorgeous, flat stomach … high, lifted breasts … tight, toned arms … a round, sexy butt … and thighs so lean and so firm that they rock a miniskirt …

If you want a body that men notice, admire, and practically drool over …

If you want to unleash the power of your sexy, feminine curves … without suffering or starving …

CLICK HERE to get your hands on this amazing new book:

It’s the NEW, rapid weight loss and speed-sculpting
plan that gives you a striptease-ready body in
6 weeks!

It changes the way your body metabolizes fat, quickly reshapes your body, and melts away excess pounds. It makes you thinner, tighter, and leaner three times faster than old-fashioned exercise plans.

This breakthrough makes it EASY to have a body that looks super-hot — with or without clothes on.

Take your stomach, for example. Chances are, you might like to flatten it. And you can. Get LOOK BETTER NAKED to see how you can:

Order Look Better Naked today!
Skeptical? Of course you are. So here’s what you need to
know about the science behind LOOK BETTER NAKED:

1. You exercise LESS for FASTER results. The exercise plan takes JUST TWO HOURS A WEEK. If you spend more time than 2 hours, you’re doing it wrong.

The secret? LOOK BETTER NAKED works fast because of a revolutionary new — and simple — strength-training method called “featherweight” training. Try it now! You’ll send your metabolism soaring … get a washboard-flat stomach … and firm up your arms, butt, and legs — the easiest, fastest way possible.

2. You eat MORE DELICIOUS FOOD to WEIGH LESS. LOOK BETTER NAKED is the diet designed for EATING PLEASURE:

Order Look Better Naked today!

How is this possible? LOOK BETTER NAKED has uncovered the secret that stymies the release of hormones that help regulate appetite.

This one little secret can reduce your chances of being overweight by 84%. You eat what you want, when you want and still stay lean for life.

LOOK BETTER NAKED opens your eyes to a whole new, fast, easy way to look better in the buff:

•     Foods PROVEN to MELT BELLY FAT.

•     STOP 99% OF CRAVINGS BEFORE they start.

•     Experts say BREASTS CAN GROW UP TO 25 PERCENT BIGGER with this sexy trick.

•     TRIPLE YOUR FAT LOSS with a cutting-edge fitness breakthrough from LOOK BETTER NAKED.

LOOK BETTER NAKED is the ultimate combination of exercise, nutrition, motivation and body secrets that will make you want to run around naked with joy!

ARE THEY SERIOUS?!?!?!

Let’s give everyone a complex about how they currently look, dupe them into paying us $40 for a generalized program that isn’t specifically designed for them, with promises of helping them blast belly flat, increase breast size, lean thighs, and become a whole new person in just 6 weeks! They are setting people up to believe that they are gonna accomplish this all in a short time, so if they don’t they are going to feel like a failure, and most likely quit working out, binge, or extremely restrict calories.

Wow, thank you so much Woman’s Health for sabotaging every woman’s self-confidence and own idea of fitness changes and adaptations. So now when I get a new client whom is a reader of your magazine she is going to have this skewed idea that we can just target areas to lose weight, which is utterly impossible, and that we can just melt fat with a snap and she will be a whole new woman in just 6 weeks. Even the BEST fitness professionals can’t offer this. So what makes Woman’s Health, a staff team made up of journalists and a few “celeb trainers” have the secret to this? Can they also fly, walk on water, and read minds? Please.

Do yourself a favor and don’t buy into these magazines. It’s only going to mislead you and get you more confused. Read articles from actual health and fitness professionals that have degrees, and years of experience and qualifications to back up what they claim. Better yet, follow my blogs.

Eggs are Healthy for You

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It’s been long debated whether or not eating eggs is in fact good for you. Nutrition experts have gone back and forth with whether eggs high cholesterol content has an impact on consumers own cholesterol levels. It had been hypothesized for some time that eating eggs could increase cholesterol levels which could eventually lead to heart disease.

However, more recently in 2000 a research study was conducted to identify if there is in fact a correlation between egg consumption and higher cholesterol levels. The results were published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition: Eggs make important nutritional contributions to the American diet and their consumption is not associated with high cholesterol levels. More importantly, the study showed that egg consumers had a higher intake of important nutrients like vitamins B12, A, E, and C than non-egg eaters, and that people who reported eating four or more eggs per week actually had significantly lower average cholesterol levels than those who reported eating zero to one eggs per week.

So why should you include eggs in your current diet?

1. Eggs are an inexpensive excellent source of high-quality protein.
One egg provides 6 grams of complete protein(all nine essential amino acids) plus it’s only 75 calories.

2. Eating eggs is helpful for losing weight.
Because of the high amount of quality protein in eggs, they make a very satisfying breakfast, which is especially useful for those trying to lose weight. In one study published in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (2007), subjects following low-fat, calorie-restricted diets were randomly assigned to one of two breakfasts: a bagel or two eggs. After eight weeks, the egg eaters experienced 65% greater weight loss, 83% greater decrease in waist circumference, and a greater improvement in energy levels compared to the bagel-eating group. Researchers hypothesized that egg eaters had increased levels of satiety throughout the morning and into lunch enabling them to consume less calories and still feel satisfied.

3. Eggs protect your eyesight especially as you get older.
Egg yolks contain a highly absorbable form of vision-protective carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin, which help to prevent age-related macular degeneration and cataracts.

So how many is safe to consume?

On a weekly basis, a healthy adult could consume an egg a day and not see any raise in cholesterol levels. The only people who should keep it under six a week are diabetics and those with heart disease.

Fad Diets Have Short Lived Results

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Here’s the scenario: You have a big event coming up, your pants are getting tight, or bikini season is around the corner. You decide that you must drop 10 pounds and rather quickly. So for the next month you skip meals, eat very little in the hopes of losing weight. Like magic you lose 10 pounds! However, somehow despite your best efforts to maintain this leaner version of yourself the weight starts to creep back. Oddly enough, you end up gaining the exact same weight you lost from the crash diet. So what happened?

This phenomenon goes back to primitive times when people were hunters and gatherers and at times they would go days without food. So as a way to conserve body fat during times of scarcity the body’s metabolism would drop to protect the body. Unfortunately, because of this defensive mechanism crash dieting is ineffective. Because even though at the beginning you lose the weight it will eventually come back to you.

Solutions:
1. Avoid low-calorie diets. The best way to lose weight is to eat according to your own metabolic type. When you begin to eat whole foods, and fuel your body with foods that are in line with your own bodies needs it becomes much easier to lose weight. You no longer get consumed in measuring and counting calories, you live your life fully, and with plenty of energy. Want to learn more about a metabolic diet plan?

2. A proper exercise program incorporating cardio workouts and strength training is essential. Strength training builds muscle and increases your metabolic rate, while cardiovascular exercise not only improves your health but also burns calories as well. Take a look at my post on the importance of incorporating a strength training workout plan.

The Gut-Brain Connection

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Article abstract taken from Harvard Medical Schools e-newsletter

Have you ever had a “gut-wrenching” experience? Do certain situations make you “feel nauseous”? Have you ever felt “butterflies” in your stomach? We use these expressions for a reason. The gastrointestinal tract is sensitive to emotion. Anger, anxiety, sadness, elation—all of these feelings (and others) can trigger symptoms in the gut.

The brain has a direct effect on the stomach. For example, the very thought of eating can release the stomach’s juices before food gets there. This connection goes both ways. A troubled intestine can send signals to the brain, just as a troubled brain can send signals to the gut. Therefore, a patient’s distressed gut can be as much the cause as the product of anxiety, stress, or depression. That’s because the brain and the gastrointestinal (GI) system are intimately connected — so intimately that they should be viewed as one system, rather than two.

This is especially true in cases where a person experiences gastrointestinal upset with no obvious physical cause. For such functional GI disorders, trying to heal a distressed gut without considering the impact of stress and emotion is like trying to improve an employee’s poor job performance without considering his manager and work environment.

Stress and the functional GI disorders

Given how closely the gut and brain interact, it becomes easier to understand why you might feel nauseated before giving a presentation, or feel intestinal pain during times of stress. That doesn’t mean, however, that functional gastrointestinal illnesses are imagined or “all in your head.” Psychology combines with physical factors to cause pain and other bowel symptoms. Psychosocial factors influence the actual physiology of the gut, as well as the modulation of symptoms. In other words, stress (or depression or other psychological factors) can affect movement and contractions of the GI tract, cause inflammation, or make you more susceptible to infection.

In addition, research suggests that some people with functional GI disorders perceive pain more acutely than other people do because their brains do not properly regulate pain signals from the GI tract. Stress can make the existing pain seem even worse.

These observations suggest that at least some patients with functional GI conditions might find relief with therapy to reduce stress or treat anxiety or depression. And sure enough, a review of 13 studies showed that patients who tried psychologically based approaches had greater improvement in their symptoms compared with patients who received conventional medical treatment.

Is stress causing your symptoms?

When evaluating whether your gastrointestinal symptoms — such as heartburn, abdominal cramps, or loose stools — are related to stress, watch for these other common symptoms of stress and report them to your clinician as well.

Physical symptoms

  • Stiff or tense muscles, especially in the neck and shoulders
  • Headaches
  • Sleep problems
  • Shakiness or tremors
  • Recent loss of interest in sex
  • Weight loss or gain
  • Restlessness

Behavioral symptoms

  • Procrastination
  • Grinding teeth
  • Difficulty completing work assignments
  • Changes in the amount of alcohol or food you consume
  • Taking up smoking, or smoking more than usual
  • Increased desire to be with or withdraw from others
  • Rumination (frequent talking or brooding about stressful situations)

Emotional symptoms

  • Crying
  • Overwhelming sense of tension or pressure
  • Trouble relaxing
  • Nervousness
  • Quick temper
  • Depression
  • Poor concentration
  • Trouble remembering things
  • Loss of sense of humor
  • Indecisiveness

This article supports the believe that many of us have been saying for a long time that mind and body are very much interconnected. When you are allowing yourself to become negative, anxious, overwhelmed with life’s happenings you set yourself up for a stressful reaction from your body. One of the most common side effects is stomach aches, discomfort, vomiting, and diarrhea. There is a very simple explanation for this. When your body feels it’s under stress (back when stress correlated to death related scenarios, in which we had to either fight or flight to survive). Our bodies would respond by a) getting rid of excess weight we don’t need(which is why people when frightened may loose bowel control or vomit); b) a need for food is not necessary at this point so often times hunger will be suppressed; c) the body will turn oxygen and blood away from the stomach and to the working muscles so bloating, and discomfort occur.

As a San Diego fitness trainer the best advice I give my clients is to RELAX. Allow yourself time to do nothing, read a book, watch a comedy, go for a nice long walk, and realize that you are only human, there is only so much in your life you can control and sometimes you just gotta let it go. Because over time constant stress reactions of the body can really negatively impact your health for the long term.


*****99% of all illness is stress-related****