Best Fitness Blog

...By Karli Taylor

How many times have you asked the question “How can I lose weight”?

Though the answer has evolved overtime as more and more research is done on weight loss, obesity and health, essentially the answer remains the same: what you eat and how much you exercise directly relate to your ability to lose weight and keep it off.

However, there have been changes and advances on those ideas. For instance, did you know you should eat 5 or 6 times a day depending on how long you are awake? Yes, it is true, five or six smaller, healthier, nutrition packed meals are better than 3 larger meals. Not only will this keep you from feeling hungry throughout the day, but it will also help to increase your metabolism.

How often you eat is only a piece of the puzzle, however. Make sure you are paying attention to WHAT you are eating as well. Though home cooked meals are always the best because they contain fewer fillers and additives, life often necessitates pre-packaged or pre-prepared meals. When you need to make a “bad choice”, making “better bad choices” involves checking labels to make sure you can pronounce all of the ingredients, asking for no sauce or light sauce, asking for items to be steamed or baked instead of fried and eating only half of the portion that you are served.

In addition to the food that you eat, exercise is a factor in weight loss. Put simply, you need to burn more calories than you consume. This does not need to be as daunting as it may seem. What do you like to do? Find something that you enjoy and invite your friends to join you which will help to keep you motivated. If you don’t like to exercise with others, find a good book to get engrossed in while you walk on the treadmill.

In order to lose weight, you will have to make changes to your lifestyle. Make changes slowly as not to overwhelm yourself. Use low fat or skim milk rather than whole, buy wheat bread rather than white, drink 3 more glasses of water a day, park farther from the store entrance. Sneaking these changes in to your life will make change easier on yourself.

Contact Best Fitness in your area for more information and ideas on how to change your lifestyle in order to lose weight.

Visit one of our Best Fitness Clubs to learn even more about this topic. We have locations in Albany,NY, Tonawanda, NY, Schenectady, NY, Erie, PA, Nashua, NH, Chelmsford, MA, and Drum Hill, MA.

...By Karli Tayor

If you are a woman over 40 who wants to lose weight, you may have realized that it is a totally different ball game than it was when you were in your 20’s.

Not only do you have a slower metabolism; you may also be experiencing a hormone imbalance which can cause fluid retention, bloating, poor thyroid functions and weight gain. Though these things may seem like you are beginning a losing battle, all hope should not be lost! Weight loss is still possible, the process is just a bit different.

Over 40, dieting may no longer provide the best results. As you age, your body will not respond to quick fixes and short term plans like it may have at one time. When you are over 40, rather than dieting, you need to change your lifestyle to make it healthier. An over 40 diet needs to be different than your diet was when you were younger. Choose foods with higher nutrient value that provide more of the things you need for energy with fewer calories while avoiding eating out and pre-packaged meals which are common to the lifestyle of woman today.

Keep in mind that labels can be deceiving. Many foods labeled low-sugar often contain extra fat or salt instead of sugar to help the taste and texture. Similarly, many “low-fat” foods are loaded with excess sugar for the same reasons. Though life may get hectic, taking the time to prepare fresh foods will not only help keep your weight in check, but will also help keep you healthy.

"No time to exercise” is often a mantra of women over 40. But middle aged women must incorporate physical activity into their schedule. In fact, if you want it to fit in, you can fit exercise into your schedule. But you can add little things to your daily routine, such as parking farther away, take the stairs rather than the elevator and walking on your lunch hour. Increasing physical activity in your daily routine can have a large impact on your weight loss goals.

Believe it or not, a good night's sleep is essential for weight loss. Unfortunately, many women don’t get an adequate amount of sleep because of their busy lifestyle. It is important to get 6-8 hours of sleep a night, so if you want to lose weight, learn techniques to relax so you can sleep at night.

Lastly, don’t forget about the power of drinking enough water. Make a habit of keeping a water bottle with you at all times. Drinking water is one of the best things you can do for your health and it help your kidneys, helps your body detox, and it improves bowel movements. Keep a water bottle on your desk at work.

If you are a woman over 40 and you want to lose weight, contact Best Fitness in your area for help.

Visit one of our Best Fitness Clubs to learn even more about this topic. We have locations in Albany,NY, Tonawanda, NY, Schenectady, NY, Erie, PA, Nashua, NH, Chelmsford, MA, and Drum Hill, MA.

...By Karli Taylor

It is one thing to change your attitudes toward food and exercise when you are actively trying to lose weight, but those habits need to remain intact once the weight is off in order to maintain your weight loss. In short, permanent behavior change is necessary to effect long lasting physical change.

One of the best gifts you can give yourself whether you want to lose weight or not, is the gift of a personal trainer.

A personal trainer can create a program for you with your current fitness level and goals in mind. But more importantly, a personal trainer can help you stay motivated. Trainers provide education, support, and accountability. Just the fact that you have paid money for a personal trainer will help you keep your appointments.

Personal trainers will help you exercise at a level that is right for you, and can help push you to new levels. A good personal trainer can help you target the areas you want to work on and provide the right combination of machines, cardiovascular activity, and functional strength exercises for you.

Goals like building strength, improving posture, decreasing body fat, and staying fit, flexible and healthy are ones that can be capitalized on with a personal trainer. Clear goals keep you focused and moving steadily forward every day. Contact Best Fitness in your area to schedule personal training for weight loss.

Visit one of our Best Fitness Clubs to learn even more about this topic. We have locations in Albany,NY, Tonawanda, NY, Schenectady, NY, Erie, PA, Nashua, NH, Chelmsford, MA, and Drum Hill, MA.

...By Karli Taylor

There are many steps women can take to improve their health. It is very important for women to remain physically active as they age and focus on the importance of incorporating simple preventive and positive health behaviors into everyday life.

With their numerous roles as spouse, mother, caregiver of children and often parents, women often forget to focus on themselves. Recently however, studies have proven that when women take care of themselves, the health of the entire family improves.

Essentially there are 5 measures to improving women’s health: maintaining regular health checkups, physical activity, a healthy diet, not smoking and remaining safe in the home and during everyday activities.

Regular bone density scans are very important. Having healthy bones is important at any age, but as we age our bones get thinner. However, Osteoporosis is a more of a concern for women, because women are four times more likely to develop this disease than men. Healthy eating habits, regular cardio exercise and a strength training regime are imperative to healthy bones. Women should definitely engage in weight-bearing exercises in order to limit the risks of Osteoporosis. Eating healthy also aids in bone health.

Visit one of our Best Fitness Clubs to learn even more about this topic. We have locations in Albany,NY, Tonawanda, NY, Schenectady, NY, Erie, PA, Nashua, NH, Chelmsford, MA, and Drum Hill, MA.

... By Karli Taylor

If asked, most people will tell you that drinking green tea is good for you. Over the last decade, green tea has been linked to health benefits ranging from fighting cancer and heart disease and lowering cholesterol to burning fat. More recent research has pointed out a few ways to get more out of that tiny little tea leaf….

Green tea has been linked to a reduced risk of heart attacks, thanks to powerful antioxidants called catechins. Studies show, however, that our bodies are only able to absorb about 20 percent of these healthful compounds. The good news is that by combining green tea with lemon juice, we can increase the absorption to over 75%!

So after brewing yourself a cup of green tea, squeeze in the juice of one whole lemon. If you don’t like the flavor of lemon, lime and orange can in at a close second and third in recent studies. It is the ascorbic acid, or vitamin C, that improves catechin absorption.

People who drink green tea with their meals report feeling more full and are less likely to want a second helping than those who drink plain water. Experts say the compounds in green tea can affect the hormones that regulate hunger and fullness. If you are drinking green tea for fat loss, you may want to try adding black pepper to your next meal. A recent study found that the combination of greet tea and black pepper boosts the absorption of EGCG, a key antioxidant in tea tied to calorie burning, by over 100 percent. Studies say as little as a half-teaspoon of black pepper can increase the absorption of tea’s beneficial compounds.

By Karli Taylor

Even though the low-carb craze has finally started to die down, I still hear people ordering burgers without buns and salads instead of sandwiches in an attempt to lose weight. There is not one particular type of food that makes us fat- Bread is not the enemy! Let’s take a look at some ways to keep the bakeries in business while still managing our waistlines.

Despite what disciples of the low-carb craze profess, bread can actually be an ally in the battle of the bulge. Though simple white breads can leave us feeling less than satisfied, hearty whole grain breads that are heavy and dense can help fight cravings for hours after we have eaten them. The complex carbohydrates found in whole wheat and whole grain breads provide fiber that makes us feel fuller for longer and keeps us from reaching for a snack 20 minutes after we finish our lunch.

So what should you look for when choosing something on which to spread your pb&j? I’m sure that you have heard to look for whole wheat or whole grain on the label, but make sure that the first ingredient is whole wheat or whole oats- without the “whole” you may be getting the nutrients of a white bread with some brown food coloring!

The key word is FIBER. Look for a bread that has at least 4 grams of fiber per slice, and you will feel fuller for longer while helping to maintain your gastrointestinal health at the same time.

Once you find something with 4 or more grams of fiber, make sure that the sugar does not outweigh the fiber. Some breads may have a decent amount of fiber, but the calories are through the roof . Your best bet is a light whole wheat bread or one of the newer sandwich thins or flat breads on the market. With about 100 calories and five or more grams of fiber and protein each, they really are the best things since sliced bread!

...By Karli Taylor

Did you know that 70% of the calories that Americans eat every year are from restaurant meals?

With our over-extended lives, it often seems easier to pick something up or stop somewhere on the way home to eat, but the benefits of preparing your own meals are hard to ignore.

First of all, it’s less expensive to eat a home cooked meal than to buy take-out or eat at restaurants night after night. Find a few recipes that appeal to you, make a list, and buy only what you need, you can make a week's worth of dinners for about the same amount of money you'd spend in a mid-range restaurant for two or three meals. As an added cost saver, there are usually leftovers when you cook at home that you can use for lunch the next day.

In addition to saving money, eating home cooked meals will save your waistline. When you are preparing your own food, you control the amounts of fat, sodium, sugars and overall calories. Restaurants typically add butter, oil, salt and sugar to make foods more palatable adding hundreds of unnecessary calories to your plate.

Home cooking also puts you in control of portion sizes. You are the one deciding how much food to put on your plate which eliminates the temptation to overeat. Did you know that today’s restaurant portions are almost double what they were 10 years ago.

Last but not least, preparing your own food at home assures you that the food you are eating is fresh and free of chemicals and additives. All the techniques used to process food - canning, dehydrating and freezing - virtually destroy the flavor of food, so chemicals are often added to enhance their flavor. While chemicals might make the food look and taste better, it's not doing much for our bodies. The fewer chemicals you have in your body, the better your health will be. Studies have shown that chemicals contribute to obesity, high blood pressure, cancer, and come neurological issues.

With a little planning and a few weeks to get yourself into the habit, eating in will be as easy as eating out- and your body will thank you for it.

... By Karli Taylor

I hope you are sitting down for this one: After the age of 20, if you do not add activity to your day or cut calories, you will gain approximately one pound each year.

Now that I’ve gotten your attention, what if I told you that you don’t have to do anything drastic to keep that weight from creeping up on you? Feel better? Keep reading.

If you walked an average of 150 extra steps every single day, you will avoid that weight gain. That is the equivalent of walking for 3 minutes that you would normally be sitting. You can accomplish this simply by pacing your office or home while on the phone or parking a little bit further away from the front door or your office or grocery store.

Can’t find extra time during your average day to sneak in a few steps? You can accomplish the same thing by going to the gym for 30 minutes 10 times a year- yes- a year!

Now, let’s say you don’t just want to maintain your weight, but you’d like to lose a pound every year as you age. All you have to do is double those numbers and enjoy the benefits of virtually reversing the aging process!

The bottom line is simple: weight gain happens slowly over time. SO slowly, that sometimes we don’t see it until it’s too late and we have gained 20-30 pounds. Start being conscious of the amount of activity you do each day, and this sneaky weight gain will never impact your lifestyle!

Food diary ... by Karli Taylor

On my way home from a dinner out during  which I over-indulged a bit too much, I started thinking about writing about diet pitfalls. We all have things that throw us off track, but most of us have DIFFERENT triggers.  This makes it  hard to write a blanket statement about dietary habits or appetite control. The one thing I can make a global statement about, however, is food diaries. Love them or hate them, they work.

Behavior modification weight control is the number one most successful method for long-term weight management. The number one tool used in behavior modification weight control is the food diary. Why is a food diary so effective? In order to lose weight, you must understand your eating habits and what triggers overeating. You cannot assume that we are all overweight for the same reasons. A food diary helps you identify why you are overweight or make poor eating choices.

A food diary turns what is abstract into black and white. You can go back and forth all day long with theories as to why you think you may have gained a few pounds this week- or why you can't seem to lose those last 5. You can make all sorts of justifications and rationalizations, but you can’t deny that which is on the paper. A food diary takes the feeling out of the eating and puts it into a factual format.

Without a diary, you eat without awareness. Our most damaging eating happens when we’re not paying attention. We eat as a reflex to certain situations or emotions. By using a food diary, you can instantly create awareness where before there was none. How many times have you been on the phone while snacking on some chips and soon realized that the entire bag was gone? How many times have  you sat down in front of the TV to watch your favorite television program and realize by the first commercial that you finished an entire box of crackers? By using the food diary, you turn automatic behaviors into conscious decisions.

In addition to logging food intake, you should also log the mood you were in when you ate that food. This type of food diary links the connection between food and mood. A food diary that measures only food intake is missing the most important components of behavior. How often do we eat because we’re bored, stressed, celebrating, etc? These emotional connections to food should be recorded so they can be identified. If you find that you eat because you’re stressed, then maybe your focus should be on finding stress reduction techniques rather than a weight loss program.

The following categories should be included on your food diary:
Food item and quantity: You should write down the type of food as precisely as you can. Don't just write pizza- explain that is was a  frozen double cheese pizza. Also, the quantity is very important. Having a handful of wheat thins is ok when there are 10 in a handful, but I know that when I reach into a box, I grab at least 30 somehow!

Location: Where was the food eaten? The car? Your desk? Your dining room table? We want to track where you’re eating to see how it’s connected to your food choices. For instance, if you are eating in the car, we can pretty much guess that you’re not eating with awareness.

Time Started/Time Finished: Most people who are overweight eat too fast. By tracking the time that you start and finish eating, you can become more aware of if you take time to savor your food or if you scarf it down in a matter of minutes. By now, most of us know that small frequent meals are better than a few large ones throughout the day.

Company: Have you ever noticed that you always make poor eating choices when eating with certain people? Or on the reverse side, maybe you make great eating choices when eating with certain people. It’s important to know how your company effects your eating.

Mood: This is an important one. Our food choices are very often a result of our emotional state, not necessarily our hunger. By having your clients track their moods, they can see connections between how they feel and what they choose to eat.

So when you finish reading this, grab a fresh notebook and start writing with your next mood. If you are not a paper and pen kind of person, try an online food logging website like myapex.com. While online food logs do not have specific spaces for moods etc, there are places to write notes.  If that’s not enough, go a step further and start to blog.  You will be amazed at how effective this is at holding you accountable!!