Any Questions? Call Us: 858-877-0787

facebook
twitter
gplus
youtube
linkedin

Strength Training > Cardio (For Weight Loss)

by 1 Comment

Within my own workout routine I like to practice different types of exercise and switch up my workout program every few months to a year. It gives me a chance to be more well-rounded as a San Diego fitness trainer; let’s me see how these different exercise formats affect the body; and it helps keep exercising fun and exciting. So for the past six months I have been practicing yoga and running. My intention was to start training for a half marathon in June. However, plans changed and I got the opportunity to work with a personal trainer who specializes in getting women ready to compete in bikini physique competitions. So I am currently training three times a week with him for 10 weeks to get ready for this competition.

What I realized….that during those months of just running and practicing yoga I had a significant decrease in muscle mass and strength. I lost 3 lbs of muscle, and now struggle to lift half of what I was capable of before. In addition, as I work to put on muscle mass, I have to eat a significant amount of calories every day. I have now been working with him for 4 weeks, and have managed to put on 5 lbs.

So why do I bring this up? During my time period of running 3 times a week and doing yoga three times a week, compared to strength training 3 times a week and running once a week my caloric consumption is vastly different. I am consuming far more calories with strength training three times a week and am struggling to put on weight, however before I didn’t eat nearly the same and stayed the same weight.

So what am I getting at? Strength training is an essential component to anyone’s weight loss program. If you have just been running, and doing a few push-ups and sit-ups here and there you are not going to achieve the weight loss success you are looking for. Muscles demand a lot of calories to build and grow. By incorporating strength training into your program you are automatically increasing your metabolism fat burning furnace, not only for the rest of that day but the following day as well. I was utterly surprised with all the calories that I have been consuming that I have not gained fat, it’s all muscle.

In conclusion, strength training is a vital part of weight loss success. It burns more calories overall then cardio can do alone. Now, I am not saying to not do any cardio, because there are many health benefits from doing cardio exercise regularly. What I am saying is do not neglect making strength training a part of your routine.

If you are seeking an effective workout program that combines cardio and strength training, with nutritional advice, look into getting my weight loss program. It has proven success for many others, and can help you understand how to incorporate both cardio and strength training into a sound workout program.

Dining out = Letting it Out

by Leave a Comment

As a San Diego fitness trainer that works with a lot of clients looking to lose weight, one of the very first things I tell them is to cut back on eating out. You would be surprised at all the secret loads of calories you can find in items that may not seem like they would harbor a lot of calories. However, restaurants often use loads of butter and oils to prepare dishes, tons of cheese, salt, sugar, and processed flour. These ingredients all lead to more calories, and a bigger waistline.

So, if you are one that likes to dine out, I recommend cutting it back to one to two times a week, you will save more money and be able to watch your calories better. If you have to travel a lot for work and therefore are forced to eat out more there are some precautions you can take to minimize calorie exposure.

1. Look for items that are grilled, and ask for sauces, and dressings on the side.

2. Avoid anything that is a baked good, has cream, or tons of cheese.

3. The cleaner and more natural way that you can order food the less chance you have of getting unnecessary calories.

Here are some examples of the foods you could get dining in vs. dining out for the same amounts of calories.

For even more San Diego weight loss tips check out more of my blog.

Tips to Combat Muscle Soreness

by Leave a Comment

As we roll into a new year, most resolutioners are looking to be more active, lose weight, or perform well in an upcoming competition. Many of these go-getters haven’t really exercised consistently in quite some time, and even avid exercise enthusiasts often sacrifice some of their hours at the gym to go to holiday parties and visit with family. When we haven’t exercised our muscles in some time and then decide to start working out again often times we experience soreness the following day, and even up to a couple days later.Don’t let a little muscle soreness get in your way from continuing with your training and ultimately reaching your goals.

Here are some tips for combating muscle soreness after a tough workout:

1. Post workout stretching: Make sure to do static stretches after a workout, focusing on the muscles worked. Hold each stretch for a minimum of 30 seconds. This will help prevent soreness.

2. Active Recovery: The following day after a workout complete 20 to 30 minutes of low-impact exercise. This increases blood flow to muscles to reduce trauma and re-establish the body’s pH level.

3. Drink Water: Half your body weight in ounces, this will help aid in muscle recovery.

4. Take a Hot/Cold Shower: 2 minutes of hot water than 1 minute of cold water three times. This will help get the lactic acid to be flushed from the muscles quicker.

5. Massage: Sports massage is proven to decrease muscle soreness by 30%. So every once in awhile treat yourself, your body will thank you for it.

Please feel free to follow my blog as I give useful workout advice, plus tips on weight loss and nutrition.

Developing Realistic Fitness Goals

by Leave a Comment

As we come close to the end of another year and start to gear up for a new year filled with goals and new year’s resolutions I want you to keep in mind how to make effective and realistic goals. In an age in which there are Biggest Loser contests in which contestants are losing up to 25 lbs a week, fat burning pills that offer fast fat loss, and get rich sales company gimmicks, it’s easy for many to lose touch with how to develop realistic goals for themselves.

Establishing goals are very important to creating a road map for your own fitness challenges and eventual accomplishments. What you want to keep in mind when developing goals is to make them small more short term goals for you to focus on one every couple months. This type of goal setting is much more effective than making lofty, long term goals because than lack of patience can hinder and often stop progression.

When developing your goals you want to keep these 5 rules in mind:

Specific– most be easily understood and unambiguous.

Measurable-must be measurable so there is no question of attainment.

Attainable-the goals must be attainable, not too easy and yet not too difficult.

Relevant-must be relevant to your particular needs and abilities.

Time bound-must have specific dates for completion.

When working with a new San Diego personal training client we always go over goals and goal setting so we are both on the same page while we are working together. Remember a realistic weight loss goal for any individual is 1-2 lbs a week. But don’t get attached to reading your scale because weight fluctuates from day to day and can be discouraging. It’s best to rely on how your clothes fit and your reflection in the mirror to mark progress.

Alcohol Is Just Empty Calories

by 1 Comment

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

by Leave a Comment

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

Lack of Sleep Can Undermine Weight Loss

by Leave a Comment

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

by Leave a Comment

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!!!

by 1 Comment

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

by 1 Comment

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.