I Must Love Me Too

If you have neglected yourself,
make a sincere apology to thee.
Gather the "love-me-not-petals" of your life
and start counting "I-must-love-me-too".
In no time at all you have
a beautiful flower blossom within you. ~ Dodinsky Writings

Sunday, April 24, 2011

A Personal Trainer's Insight on Healthy Weight Loss

As an athletic trainer I will tell you, that you can't just take pills and "HOPE".

2-3 pounds a week is the max for healthy weightloss. If you lose more than that you run a very real risk of SHOCKING your body systems into shut down. If you think you can lose weight "Biggest Loser" style and drop ten pounds a week you're kidding yourself. Those people are VERY closely monitored by medical professionals DAY AND NIGHT, something I'm assuming you're not going to be...

Best recipe for weight-loss:
intake 1200-1300 cals/day MINIMUM -- Don't drop below this because you will send your metabolism into 'starvation' mode and it will try to hold onto as many cals as possible instead of burning them and you will risk your body shutting down functions-- ie your hair WILL get nasty, as will your nails and skin and in extreme cases your body will start shutting down organs like kidneys, liver, etc

Exercise: Do 30-60 min of Cardio five-six times a week. Coupled with strength training exercises rotating focus from arms one day, legs the next, abs the third. You need to give muscles time to repair and better themselves. If you do consecutive days of concentrated exercises you will fatigue your muscles and it will adversely affect your results.

Boost metabolism naturally: Try a three day rotation of High Carb one day, Low carb next day, No carb, third day. This has been proven to be an effective means of kick starting your metabolism without pills (that really, AREN'T proven to work anyways...)

ABOVE ALL: DON'T BE SO CONCERNED BY NUMBERS ON THE SCALE!!!! I don't think I could say this enough, if I told everyone on the whole damn planet-- EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT, YOU CANNOT BASE YOUR PROGRESS ON POUNDS ALONE!!! What CAN you base it on? Well, if you really want a QUANTITATIVE method, go get a bone scan, your doctor should be able to determine how much your skeleton weighs on its own, then add 20 pounds for necessary muscle mass, organs, skin, hair, BOOBS etc. For some people it is JUST NOT POSSIBLE to be 110 pounds!! You need to be working off the look and feel of your body. At what weight do you FEEL your best, what weight do you LOOK your best? Focus on toning and cardio as much as you obsess over your scale number and you'll look fine in your bikini by July.