A 7 Step Strategy to Prevent Holiday Weight Gain
December 20, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Here is a 7 step strategy that you should employ to prevent overdoing it at the dinner table this holiday season. Use the following tips to allow yourself to stay social and to be able to indulge in moderation without splitting your pants before the New Year:
1.) Start the day well hydrated
Water competes with food for space in your stomach and can help decrease your appetite. Avoid eating more as a result of being dehydrated. Start your day with at least 16 ounces of water and continue hydrating throughout the day. A great strategy to reduce the amount you eat at any holiday event is to have a glass or two of water with every plate of food.
2.) Make sure not to skip any meals
Utilize the strategy of eating meals high in lean protein and vegetables every 2-3 hours starting with breakfast. Not skipping meals will prevent the overwhelming urge to eat huge portions at your gathering. Avoid meals that are high in both fat and processed carbohydrates as they will create a hormonal environment that will induce more cravings and store the excess as more fat.
3.) Perform at least a half hour of moderate to intense exercise
Moderate to intense exercise primes your body to utilize nutrition in positive ways, by increasing insulin sensitivity and creating the need to replenish nutrients throughout your body. Making sure to perform this activity prior to your event will assure that your body will utilize the upcoming meals to replenish itself rather than store fat.
4.) Follow your exercise with a protein shake before you get ready
Having some liquid nutrition post workout is a great way to keep the metabolic furnace burning and assure that you body does not start eating away your precious muscle before the upcoming meals. Drink this immediately after your workout and get ready for your holiday event.
5.) Prioritize lean proteins and vegetables first
Now arriving at your event It is important to have a food strategy to follow. It is okay to indulge in a sweeter or more rich dish as long as your plate has its share of lean protein sources and vegetables. Make sure to eat these first THEN you can dive into that treat. This should keep you from over indulging in all the high calorie foods around.
6.) Wait at least an hour or two before second servings
I know this may be asking a lot but keeping with the strategy of spreading your meals throughout the day will normalize your blood sugar faster to prevent fat gain. Try to stay away from the sweets on later meals.
7.) Avoid empty liquid calories and alcohol
Staying away from empty liquid calories is always a good strategy. Drinking the sodas and alcoholic beverages that are often available at these events will surely spoil you fat loss efforts.
These small changes can literally save you hundreds, even thousands of calories, and more importantly will keep your body from creating extra fat-storage and set you back from achieving your health and fitness goals
3 Quick Fit Tips To Keep Your Body Fat-Free For The Holidays
December 20, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Everyone is busy during the holidays. Don’t let that be an excuse to avoid your training regimen. Choose to be sedentary and you risk losing the lean muscle mass and strength you have worked so hard to build and maintain. Loss of lean muscle mass will lower your resting metabolic rate, the amount of calories you burn even when sitting around. This means that everyday you will be burning less calories while eating the same amount as always. Where do those extra calories go? Right to your fat sites! To top it off losing strength will mean that the next time you start to work out your performance will be sub par and you’ll get smacked in the face with that ugly word that no one ever wants to encounter when it comes to their training: regression! There are many clever ways to maintain or increase the number of calories you burn per day, both from exercise and from your normal daily activities, to stay slim this holiday season. Use the strategies below to maintain and/or increase your current amount of lean muscle mass and maximize your daily calorie burn to best protect yourself against holiday fat gain!
1.) Perform at least one intense strength training session per week
Studies show that performing at least one strength training workout per week is an effective way to maintain your current levels of strength and lean muscle mass. To best maintain your fitness levels shoot for at least one good strength training workout per week and prevent unwanted regressions. To best prevent weight gain, aim for three total body strength workouts per week. To maximize fat burning, perform three total body strength workouts per week and also perform three cardio interval workouts per week on non strength-training days.
2.) Sneak in Mini-Workouts
When you honestly cannot find a five to 20-minute time slot to complete an effective total body workout, look for hidden chunks of time during the day to get in a certain number of exercises that work your entire body. Got a free moment from now until you need to take the turkey out of the oven? Then, bang out 10 push-ups, 10 rows, and 20 squats. Using this method throughout the day will lead to big numbers that will burn calories and let you keep that metabolism boosting muscle.
Make sure to pick multi-joint, compound movements that hit as much of your body’s major muscle groups in the shortest amount of time possible (e.g. squats, deadlifts, lunges, push-ups, rows, etc.). Use the plan below as guide to build your own Mini-Workout. Adjust the repetition ranges accordingly based on your current strength levels. The only thing you need is your body weight and resistance bands or dumbells. Perform this plan up to three times per week, resting a day between workouts. Make sure to alternate between Plan A and Plan B for more variety. You can either hit your total by doing one exercise first (e.g. perform push-ups rest-pausing as needed until you get 100 total), or by simply employ circuit style training (e.g. 20 squats, 10 push-ups, 10 rows, repeat 10x throughout the day to hit your totals).
Your Mini-Workouts For The Holidays
Plan A-
Body weight Squats or Hip Extensions: 100-200 total
Push-ups: 50-100 total
DB/Band Rows: 50-100 total
Plan B-
Body weight Lunges or Single-Leg Hip Extensions: 50-100/total per leg
Off Chair/Couch Dips: 50-100 total
DB/Band Curls: 50-100 total
3.) Engage in more outdoor holiday activities
I have been in some pretty incredible snowball fights in my day. Though I was always having a blast while pelting my friends behind cleverly built igloos, I was never aware of how exhausting a good snowball fight can truly be until I came indoors afterwards. My snowsuit was soaked with sweat and I had spent the last 30 minutes or so in total fight or flight mode. Talk about an awesome way to burn calories without even thinking about it! Get outdoors this holidays season and throw around the pigskin or have your very own “Ice Bowl.” Once again, all these calories here and there truly do add up and could make a difference between you fitting in your pants or ripping your pants by the time the clock strikes midnight this New Year!
Salinas Boot Camp Personal Trainer Strength Workout Videos
December 4, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Hey Everyone!
I recently figured out that video editing isn’t all that hard to learn and decided to post a few videos of Jim and I during some of our strength training sessions earlier this year.
I feel it is important to note that we do not always put such an emphasis on moving heavy weights as we do in these videos. We train ourselves much like we train our boot campers, to be a great generalist and be ready for all that life may through at you. That being the case it sure is fun to let loose every once in a while and through in a good strength session with some heavy weight to see what progress you have made.
If you are interested in learning to perform exercises such as these we encourage you to seek the advice of a qualified strength coach. Visit our personal training website at www.lead-the-pack-fitness.com to provide us your contact information and individual goals so we can help you.
John Wolf
Leading the Pack!
5 Killer Kettlebell Exercises to Build Lean Muscle Fast
December 4, 2008 by admin · 5 Comments
As a real world fat loss expert who has helped hundreds of people lose thousands of pounds of fat, I know a thing or two about exercise selection. Because of this I am constantly asked what the best exercises are to lose fat AND gain muscle fast.
I’ll keep this as simple as possible for you. The best exercises for fat loss are also the best exercises for muscle gain and visa versa. These exercises all have one thing in common: they provide a UNIQUE challenge to your body AND involve as many muscles in your body as possible.
Both the scientific research and the real world case studies have shown that total body workouts are superior for maximal fat loss and muscle gain. But let’s take this one step further…
Let’s dramatically accelerate results by preferentially selecting TOTAL BODY EXERCISES within each TOTAL BODY WORKOUT! For example, squats are well known for being one of the best muscle-builders with a serious a fat-shredding effect. However, the squat goes from great to UNSTOPPABLE for changing your body for the better when you make it a combination movement by adding a row or press to each squat rep. It’s obvious that you can reap more benefits this way since you have now involved your upper body into the king of lower body exercises.
It’s as simple as the Dream Body Equation below:
Performing Total Body Exercises Within Each Total Body Workout à
More Muscles Involved =
More Calories Burnt + Greater Muscle-Building Stimulus =
Greater Fat Lost + Greater Muscle Gain
I have a true love-hate relationship with the following movements I am about to share with you. Love because of the unparalleled fat-melting, muscle-building results they provide. Hate because they break me every single workout by leaving me in tears while in a pool of my own sweat. In other words, these are not for the weak of mind, body, or soul!
Without further adieu, here is the official top 5 list of my favorite Kettlebell combination exercises in the world for fat loss and lean muscle gain:
Exercise#1- Double Kettlebell Clean + Squat + Push Press Combo
Exercise#2- Renegade Row + Spiderman Pushup Combo
Exercise#3- Kettlebell Snatch + Windmill + Overhead Squat Combo
Exercise#4- Kettlebell Reverse Lunge + Upright Row Combo
Exercise#5- Double Kettlebell Suitcase Deadlift + Jump Shrug Combo
Please remember that these are advanced movements that require coaching before attempting. If you are ready to take that step use the contact form to reach me and receive a free 1-week trial to our Salinas Fitness Boot Camp. Of course it’s now up to you to take your workouts, and your body, to the next level.
Leading the Pack!
John Wolf
http://www.lead-the-pack-fitness.com
Circuit Training Workout For Rapid Fat Loss
December 3, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
For most gym-goers, the cornerstone of their resistance training workouts has been performing exercises in a straight set format. What this means is you perform a set, a certain number of reps for a given exercise and then you rest anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes based on your training goals before repeating this set a number of times based on your goals. For more of a fat loss and lean muscle gain emphasis shorter rest periods are ideal. For more of a strength or power emphasis, longer rest periods are prescribed.
Is there a problem with this format? Well, though straight sets are extremely easy to comprehend for people new to fitness, they are also an extremely inefficient way to order your exercises. In most commercial gyms you’ll typically see someone perform three sets of 10 reps for let’s say the bench press. They pump out 10 reps, go to the water fountain, talk with some buddies, watch a couple of minutes of whatever is on the TV, and then walk back to the bench area to hit up their second set. In general, most people, guys in particular, tend to take about 3-5 minutes between sets. In the case of three sets of 10 on the bench that means it would take up to 15 minutes to complete only one movement pattern (a horizontal push). That means you’d need at least in hour to perform four different exercises!
A much more effective and time-efficient approach to ordering your exercises is utilizing the alternating set format. Here you’ll perform one exercise, rest for a short period of time, then perform another non-competing exercise, rest for a short period of time, and so forth. Alternating sets allow you to work different areas of your body when you would otherwise be resting with the straight set format. Plus, by working another area of your body with a non-competing exercise you allow your body to recover from the previous exercise(s). The result is improved training economy and density: more work accomplished in less time, the cornerstone of any sound fat loss program. There are several ways to perform alternating sets outlined below:
1.) Supersets: Alternate between two different non-competing exercises (e.g. upper body and lower body such as push-ups and lunges)
2.) Trisets: Alternate between three different exercises (e.g. push, pull, and lower body such as push-ups, rows, and lunges)
3.) Circuits: Alternate between four or more different exercises
Though supersets and trisets are excellent alternating set options, I believe circuit training is by the far the best option time and time again. To demonstrate why, let’s examine my favorite circuit training template using timed set intervals:
The 50-10 Five Exercise Circuit: You will alternate between 50 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest for all five exercises in the following 5-minute circuit:
Exercise#1- Squats
Exercise#2- Pushups
Exercise#3- Single-Leg Hip Extensions
Exercise#4- Bodyweight Row
Exercise#5- Front Plank
Perform this circuit up to four times for a 20-minute total body fat burning workout.
Basically, in the same 15 minutes that it took to get in three sets on the bench you could have gotten in three sets of five different exercise for a staggering total of 15 work sets! Plus, the intensity on each exercise will be just as high as in the straight set format because in this five exercise circuit you will have full recovery with over four minutes before you return to any given exercise (just as you did with the straight set format described earlier).
To recap, the key to creating the optimal hormonal environment for fat loss is to perform each exercise with maximal intensity while separated by brief rest periods in order to accumulate a high volume of total body work in the shortest amount of time possible. Circuit training provides for the best of both worlds and is thus simply unmatched for simultaneously maximizing fat loss and lean muscle gain. Use the following template I use with my many boot camp clients for some killer, yet simple fat loss circuits:
Exercise#1- Double-Leg
Exercise#2- Push
Exercise#3- Single-Leg
Exercise#4- Pull
Exercise#5- Core
I’ll be sharing some more great circuit training workouts from my boot camps in the weeks to come 
Leading the Pack!
John Wolf
