Fix Your Posture!

These days, a daily routine might look as such: drive to work, with shoulders protracted, chest caved in, and a hump in the thoracic spine. At work, sit at your desk in the same position. On the drive home, mimic your morning commute posture, and to top it all off, slouch in front of the television at night. Its no wonder most of us show horrible thoracic spine mobility and that "hunched" over posture.

While it is understandable that you need to perform those daily tasks (except the television part), there are ways to overcome those posture inhibitors.

First, we can stretch the muscles that become too tight from sitting all day long. Second, we can strengthen the opposing muscles to help "pull back" the shoulder blades.

Here are some quick tips:

Pectoralis major stretch (chest):

Stand at the end of a wall or in a doorway facing perpendicular to a wall. Place the inside of your bent arm on the surface of the wall. Position the bent elbow shoulder height and turn your body away from positioned arm. Hold that stretch for at least 20 seconds and repeat with opposite arm.

Anterior Deltoid stretch (shoulder):

Sit on the floor. Lean back and place your hands flat on floor behind your body slightly wider than shoulder width with your fingers positioned away from your body. Slide your hips forward away from your hands. Hold that stretch for at least 20 seconds.

Barbell Row (strengthens rear deltoids):

Bend your knees slightly and bend over a bar with your back straight, approximately horizontal to the floor. Grasp the bar with a wide overhand grip. Keeping upper arm perpendicular to your torso, pull the barbell up toward your chest until your upper arms are just beyond horizontal to the floor.

Dumbbell Reverse Flye (strengthens rear deltoids):

Grasp dumbbells to each side of your body. Bend your knees and bend over through your hips with your back flat and close to horizontal to the floor. Bend your elbows slightly and have your palms facing together. Raise your upper arms to sides until your elbows are shoulder height.

By adding these stretches and strengthening movements into your daily routine, you can fight against bad posture, and keep your shoulders, neck and back pain at bay!

-Eric, Trainer, FT Newtonville

http://www.fitnesstogether.com/newton

Losing Weight During the Winter

Things change during the winter months, the sun sets earlier making your evenings at home longer and you are not able to be as active outside. Because of this you want to come up with a different dieting and exercising strategy. One that allows you to eat your favorite foods so your diet doesn't stagnate and one that allows you to get more benefit from less exercise.

Let's modify your diet plan.

When you diet, typically you keep your calories low week after week. What happens is your body adapts to this lower calorie intake by slowing your metabolism. During the more active summer and fall you might have been able to keep your metabolism higher with added activity but now in the winter, you likely notice your weight loss slow.

What you want to do to keep your metabolism pumped up and also keep you from feeling deprived during the winter months is add a high calorie cheat day to your dieting week. This one day will boost your fat burning metabolism up and speed fat loss.

This concept is not new, in fact it has been well researched and proven to work and it is just what you need to keep your body from adapting to your low calorie diet!

Let's modify your exercise plan.

You simply cannot be outside getting the same level of exercise, so it will help to learn a way to exercise that allows you to cut your time commitment in half while increasing your fat burning. The way to do it is to vary your intensity during your workout.

Simply take 20 minutes of cardio and vary your pace between periods of low intensity and periods of maximum intensity and you will be burning fat more efficiently the entire day.

Losing weight during the winter is easier when you learn how to make your diet and exercise work better and burn fat more efficiently!

~The above is an excerpt taken from an EZineArticle entitled "Losing Weight During the Winter - Secrets and Strategies to Easily Burn Fat Over the Winter" by Dr. Becky Gillaspy, EZineArticles.com Expert Author

http://www.fitnesstogether.com/newton

Pressed For Time Training

In a perfect world, you would have time to accomplish all your everyday tasks. However, we do not live in a perfect world and it is hard to find the time to get everything done on your agenda. Most of the time, the first activity that gets tossed to the wayside is your health!

You don't need hours upon hours of free time to get a good workout in. It comes down to taking advantage of whatever free time!

Here is a sample workout that you can do while watching television at night:

Every 10-12 minutes perform:

- 1 plank for 60 seconds

- 1 set of regular or modified push-ups

OR

Every 3rd commercial break perform the movements (you will be surprised how quickly three commercials come!)

You don't need to devote your entire day to training, however, by adding in something as easy as this you can still work your way to your fitness goals!

-Eric, Trainer, FT Newtonville

http://www.fitnesstogether.com/newton

Winter is Coming - How's Your Vitamin D?!

We all know it's coming and the last couple weeks, it feels like it's already here. Break out the ice scrapers, gloves, and shovels, winter is right around the corner.

There are many changes to the environment that we must deal with - in addition to that icy cold, if you haven't noticed, it's getting dark at 4 in the afternoon! Everyone knows they should be exercising, eating correctly, and getting their sleep. One factor that many forget about in the cold months is their lack of sunlight exposure and Vitamin D production. It is extremely hard to get sufficient Vitamin D through diet and sunlight alone. Therefore, supplementation is key on keeping your levels in check!

Deficiencies in Vitamin D have been linked to breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, and depression. Vitamin D is also essential for bone growth and plays an important role in the absorption of calcium (DeNoon, WebMD). Supplementing with 400-1,000 IU a day can help keep your Vitamin D levels in check. Some studies have shown higher dosages to be more effective at keeping your levels where they should be, but starting out on the low end and seeing how you respond is the best way to go.

Have your Doctor check your Vitamin D levels and see if supplementation is right for you! We could all use a little boost through these next few months!

-Eric, Trainer - FT Newtonville

http://www.blogger.com/www.fitnesstogether.com/newton

The Hunger-O-Meter

In my last post titled "Enjoy Your Food AND Lose Weight", (read it if you haven't!), I talked about slowing down when eating as a way to promote weight loss, increase nutrient absorption and promote greater enjoyment of food.

Today I'm going to introduce the Hunger Scale, which is a very powerful tool for discovering one of the most important signals your body gives you: hunger.

The image below is a perfect example of this Hunger Scale. Other examples can be found, but this one is as good as any I've seen. Click on the link to take a look.


http://healthyweight4life.net/sample/hunger_scale.jpg

Here's how to use the hunger scale:

1. Print out the Hunger-Scale.

2. Before eating breakfast, look at the scale and determine what number you are. Make a note of that number.

3. Eat your meal (SLOWLY!). After your meal, wait 20 minutes (do not eat anything in this 20 minute span). Look at the Hunger Scale again and note where you rank now.

4. Do this for every meal for 1 week.

Sound like a pain in the butt? Maybe, but if after one week you dont feel more in tune with your body's signals, I'll be very surprised!


This new level of body/stomach awareness should prove to be very helpful in keeping your nutritional goals far more manageable.

Give it one week and let me know how it goes.



Leo Desforges- Trainer, FT Newtonville

www.FitnessTogether.com/Newton

Simple Tips for a Better Night's Sleep

Sleep is a very important part of our overall health - including weight loss and general diet control! Here are a couple important tips from world-renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin on how to improve your quality of sleep.

Stay away from grains and refined sugar snacks before bed!

Eating grains and refined sugar snacks before bed can seriously disturb your sleep. They raise your blood sugar and then create a reactive hypoglycemia that will awaken you, making it potentially impossible for you to fall asleep again. It is also the main cause why many women wake up before 1AM; refined grains often contain allergens such as gluten which cause the body to produce cortisol which awakens women.

Sleep in a bat cave!

Do your best to sleep in complete darkness or as close as possible. Keep in mind that even the tiniest bit of light in the room can disturb your circadian rhythm, your pineal gland's production of melatonin and the gut’s production of serotonin (better known as the happy neuro-transmitter.) Hint: a simple sleep mask can shut out light and make sleep even better! Furthermore, the minimal light rule applies to the bathroom as well - if you need to get up in the middle of the night, keep the light off or use a dim nightlight! Turning the light on when you get up to use the bathroom will instantly disrupt the production of the sleep hormone melatonin. In fact, some researchers even believe that being awake longer than 3 seconds during the night is enough to interrupt melatonin production.

Try these out two quick tips and reap the benefits of better and more sound sleep!

http://fitnesstogether.com/newton

Enjoy Your Food AND Lose Weight!

A simple trick to enjoy your food more (and lose weight in the process):

SLOW DOWN.

Eat your food slowly. Savor the flavor of your food. Truly enjoy it. There are many reasons to SLOW DOWN when eating: more enjoyment of food, greater satiety from less calories (which can help to lose/maintain bodyweight), better digestion and decreased stress.

There are many ways to practice the simple SLOW DOWN method of eating, and a few of my favorites are as follows:

1. Stop multitasking. No eating and driving, TV-watching, blogging, walking etc. Cutting out all those other distractions will not only help you to focus on the incredible flavors, textures and colors of your meal, but also help to reset unhealthy eating habbits such as mindless snacking/nibbling which often lead to caloric excess.

2. Use chopsticks! Personally I eat 90% of my meals with chopsticks (really) and it is a great and simple way to SLOW DOWN. As a nice bonus, you'll look really cool when you go our for sushi and all your friends are struggling with their eattin' sticks and you're elegantly hoisting sashimi.

3. Consciously and deliberately chew, savor, explore, enjoy and experience your meal. Listen to your body's signals as to fullness and learn to stop eating when full. Numbers 1 and 2 above are a great assistance in number 3.

SLOWing DOWN is a skill that takes practice and commitment, but I'm quite sure that as you begin enjoying your food again, you'll begin to reap the rewards.

-Leo, FT Newtonville Trainer

http://fitnesstogether.com/newton