Back day today and this week is Total Gym week. As I've mentioned before, I kind of like my Total Gym weeks because I find the Total Gym makes for a very low impact workout yet still getting great muscle activation.
10 Elliptical.
Total Gym - Seated Wide Row.
Total Gym - Seated Narrow Row.
Total Gym - Pull Downs (Lying on Back).
Total Gym - Abs: Seated Side Twists in Side Position).
My Last YouTube Video "The Most Important Workout Technique You'll Ever Learn" took a long time to do! I didn't really think it would take so long but there ended up being a lot of stages: Scripting, and audio recording, and editing the audio, and then adding all the images... I spent several weeks working on it in my spare time. I hope people take the time to watch it because it really has helped me to stay fit and on track to fitness in my 40's.
That said I plan to focus now on videos that showcase exercises using the Total Gym. So stay tuned and see why I like this little inexpensive workout machine so much.
OK this exercise is probably the hardest for most people to really learn how to take advantage of. And unfortunately it's the absolute best thing you can do to get fit and stay healthy. It won't put on a bunch of muscle and it won't improve your cardio. It will however strip away years of weight gain and give you a more youthful appearance!
The parts of your body we are going to work on with this key exercise is primarily your mind and your mouth. That's right, we're talking about eating habits and before you skip this video and keep looking for the miracle answer to getting thinner and in better shape - this is the answer! As Iv'e said before, there is no magic pill or machine that will instantly transform your body into a greek God or Goddess.
If you still don't believe me then take a look at these facts:
3500 Calories = 1 Pound of Fat
It takes 3500 calories to gain or lose 1 pound of fat. So in other words if you eat 3500 calories more than you body needs in a one week period then you will gain 1 pound of fat on your body. And if you eat 3500 calories less than your body requires in a one week period then you will lose 1 pound of fat on your body.
Let's Take a look at the "Working Out toLose Weight Approach" In an average fairly intense 1 hour workout you can burn about 500 calories. Lets be optimistic and say that you workout every day of the week! This means that you can burn off 3500 calories per week, or 1 pound of fat per week.
Now let's be realistic, when you workout you usually end up getting hungrier and start to eat a bit more than normal which offsets the workouts meaning you burn off 3500 calories per week but then you eat an additional 3500 calories potentially breaking even. This is still OK because your body is hopefully getting in better shape. More muscle and better cardio (Heart and Lungs).
Now Let's Take a Look at theEating to Lose Weight Notice I didn't say dieting! I am not on a diet, I just eat better and I'm more aware of what goes into my body. Now there are many different opinions on eating right and what you should and shouldn't do when eating to lose weight. But at the end of the day it all comes down to simple math. Eat more food than your body needs and you gain weight, eat less food then your body needs and you lose weight. Sounds simple right! It is!
Don't get too worried about your metabolism slowing down as a result of starving your body! Your metabolism probably already has slowed down to some degree. Now If the opposite where true, then simply eating more food should supercharge your body into burring tones of calories and resulting in loss of weight. This simply isn't true. Your body metabolism will adjust based on much you eat but it does not adjust so much that you can not manipulate it by eating more or less.
At the end of the day you need to consume less calories then your body requires, so how can we do this?
I am not going to suggest radical changes to what you are already doing, I'm simply going to suggest some small changes and alternatives that you can make to reduce how many food and beverage calories you take in each day. You can decide which of these suggestions will work best for you, and maybe over time work more of them into your daily eating habits.
Non-foods Can Be the Worst.
Beverages can have tones of calories hidden in them so here are some alternatives:
Juice If you are a big juice drinker, then start cutting your juice with water and try to get it down to a half and half mix. Over time you will find your watered down juice to be more thirst quenching while having way less calories. 1 cup of orange juice has about 120 calories and most people will drink closer to 200 calories of OJ per glass, so if you mix that glass of OJ with water you can reduce your calories by 100 per glass. Times that by say three glasses of OJ per day and you just saved yourself 300 calories per day. This would be equivalent to doing a half hour workout each day! It's up to you, spend 3.5 hours in the gym per week or cut your OJ with water!
Pop If you drink pop, try moving to diet pop, I hated diet pop but they grew on me and now I prefer the diet pop to the sugar based pop. Again try mixing your pop with half diet and half regular until you get used to it. An average can of pop also contains about 200 calories, so if you can move to diet pop and you drink 3 pops per day you just saved yourself 600 calories per day or the equivalent of 7 hours in the gym per week.
Coffee If you drink your coffee black, then I have nothing to say to you because coffee has virtually no calories, maybe 5 or so per large cup. Personally I hate coffee black so here's what I do. I used to cut my sugar out but found I was off setting it with more cream. Cream is where most the calories exist in a coffee beverage. You are actually better off to add sugar rather than cream. Try using a table spoon of sugar and one serving of cream instead, or try using milk instead of cream. Personally I like my coffee with cream so I have my coffee with one cream and one sugar. Many people like what is referred to as a double/double. A double/double will have about 150 calories per cup. If you can make it a single/single you just saved 75 calories per cup of coffee, if you drink a lot of coffee then you can reduce your calorie intake by 200-300 calories per day. Again the equivalent of another 3.5 hours in the gym!
Alcohol If you like the occasional drink, as do I. You can cut down your calories a couple of different ways. First use Diet pop rather then sugar based ones. Keep in mind that one ounce of alcohol is about 65 calories. If you are a beer drinker then try moving to light beer, they usually save you about 50 calories per bottle. I also mix some water into my drinks which helps keep me more hydrated and less likely to be hung over the next day. It's kind of hard to figure out what you can save per day because some people drink very little and some people drink a lot. You can definitely save several hundred calories per week or day by being a bit more selective.
Water Probably the best thing you can do is drink water and lots of it. Your body needs it, it has no calories and it also fills up your stomach making you less hungry. If you're not a big water drinker try adding some lemon juice or another type of light favoring to make it a bit more palatable.
Meal Regularity and Meal Size One of the best things you can do is to try not let yourself get super hungry, when you get really hungry you tend to lose control and eat way to much of all the wrong things. To overcome this you need to eat more often, snack more often, and eat less food per meal. When you overeat you are actually training your stomach that it needs a lot of food, as you begin to eat smaller meals your stomach will feel more content with less food. Try starting off the day with a small breakfast followed by a snack in-between a moderate lunch, and again a snack in-between an average size dinner, ending with a snack before bed. You will find it way easier to be in control of how much and what you eat throughout the day. Your body will also not be getting huge rushes of food that set off insulin spikes leading to more hunger cravings and energy ups and downs. Your metabolism will also be more regulated throughout the day and will generally tend to increase as a result. A good trick is at breakfast,lunch, and dinner, use a smaller plate and then before toy get seconds, give yourself a 15-20 minute rest to give your stomach and brian the time they need to tell each other you are actually full now.
Fast Foods In todays busy life we almost can't help eating at fast food restaurants and for some of us it is more often than we'd like to admit, myself included. I'm not going to lie to you, I drop into my local McDonald's and Wendy's several times per week. However, this doesn't give me a license to go nuts! I'm not going to say that fast food is healthily but it doesn't have to be high in calories. When I go to McDonald's for lunch I will often have a McDouble Cheeseburger with a side Caesar salad and a Coke Zero. This only ads up to about 600 calories. On the other hand if I had the McDouble with regular fires and a regular Coke my caloric intake would be closer to 1000 calories. The extra calorie for just that one meal is like doing an hour workout! Also try cutting out the cheese or the mayo, both of these on their own add almost 100 calories to your burger, so you could sable 200 calories just by removing cheese and mayo. Get the salad not the fries and if you can don't use all the dressing that came with it, use half. Most of the calories are in the dressing not the salad.
Get diet pop, or even better, get a water. Stay away from the milkshakes and deserts if at all possible. Go with the grilled meat as it's always better then the deep fried stuff. If you like salads then get the meal salad but again try and not use all the dressing. Of course there are always cheat days but make them the acceptation not the norm.
Some Snacking Tips
Fruit is always a great choice.
Grab a handful of peanuts, they are high in calories but are appetite suppressing so a little goes a long way.
If you are having a chocolate craving then have some! But just have some and not all, eat a few bits and leave the rest for another time. When I feel like some chocolate I grab a few squares of dark chocolate and bingo the crazing is gone.
You don't need to eat it all! Just because you buy stuff in predetermined sizes it doesn't mean you need to eat it all, have half of the fruit bar, or half of the bag of chips, or half of what ever it is you are having for a snack. It's a snack not a meal.
Pickles are virtually calorie free - go nuts!
Some Meal Tips
I can't possibly cover everything about meal eating tips but hopefully the suggestions I present will give you a good idea of what you need to do.
Again, don't binge eat or it will be near impossible to have control over what you eat. Making sure to have snacks in-between meals will help with this.
Don't grab the largest plate in you house or you will feel like you have to fill it up.
Eat more chicken and fish, and less red meat. Red meat has way more fat.
Load up on vegetables and salads, and try using soya sauce on your veggies instead of butter, if you do use butter cut it back as much as you can. Again cut back on salad dressings or use the calorie reduced ones.
Carbs, we're talking about pastas, Just have some and don't fill your plate with carbs. Switch to healthier more complex carbs like whole wheat breads and pastas, your body takes way more time to process complex carbs reducing the energy spikes and drops.
Try and avoid cream sauces and soups by switching to tomato pasta sauces and clear soups, over time the cream based sauces and soups will actually start to taste way to rich.
And do you really need butter and Peanut butter on toast, use better judgement?
At restaurants try sharing a meal with your significant other. Share a large salad to start off the meal and share the main meal too, You'' actually save some money and walk away surprisingly full.
I really hope this information helps you, it's not meant to be the end all be all, just some tips off the top of my head that have made a big difference for me. Even if you start with some of these tips and work your way up to incorporating more of them, you will see changes in how you feel and look.
Today was party day for my Mother-in-law, she turned 65. This is one of the reason I have been so busy around the house cleaning and prepping! I really wanted to get a quick workout in today and I needed to catchup on some exercises I missed the last three days due to all the work around the house...
I managed to get a Back, Shoulders and Arms workout done before I had to get ready for the 65th birthday party.
Below are some photos of the event and the house and yard all the work went into:
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 5:31PM 
