A personal training post by Cambridge owner Callie Durbrow

Does it really matter where you have body fat?

I always speak about losing fat and how your body can’t “spot reduce” meaning you can’t lose just your belly fat or just your upper arm fat. Your body will shed that fat pretty much at the same time. However, where you have the most concentration of fat WILL take the longest, because you have to shrink those fat cells and if there are more of them, it takes longer. Pretty logical.

Although we know that you can’t spot reduce, there is a lot of research out there regarding WHERE you hold your fat and WHAT it means. Certain sites on your body reveal dominance of various hormones. Here’s a look at what I mean:

Chest (1″ from armpit) = high estrogen
Tricep (back of the arm) = elevated insulin or low DHEA-s (the major secretory steroidal product of adrenal glands)
Scapula (upper back) = high insulin and/or high testosterone, possible inability to tolerate carbs
Mid-axillary (rib-cage area) = possibly thyroid issue
Muffin top = insulin and blood sugar imbalances (too many carbs, calories, excess alcohol)

Abs = long term exposure to stress/high cortisol levels
Quads or Hamstrings (front and back of legs) = long term exposure to estrogen, high estrogen levels or low progesterone
Around the knee = low growth hormone, possible need to detox the liver

One simple thing that we have implemented at our personal training studio is a 5 day detox. This isn’t a crazy pill or something designed to get you to lose weight super fast.

Some of the major goals of our detox are to:

1. Fix your broken metabolism
2. Hormone regulation

• improve insulin sensitivity
• regulate estrogen levels (usually high)
• decrease adrenal fatigue
• decrease high cortisol levels

3. Detoxify your liver
4. Eliminate inflammation
5. Improve poor digestion

What does all of this mean?

The long and short is that these issues are things most people never know about or understand. That’s okay though, it’s not really something you would think about. But if you have one or all of them (very common) they WILL slow down your fat loss progress. Most likely your body will hold onto excessive fat and you’ll wonder why you’re not losing it.

What can you do? Well, our detox plan is pretty extensive but the process is quite simple. Here are some examples:

1. Cut out starches and sugars
2. Eliminate caffeine and alcohol
3. Integrate intermittent fasting to give your liver a break
4. Lift weights
5. Reduce stress
6. Sleep 7-9 hours per night
7. Drink plenty of water
8. Eat organic, green veggies
9. Take a daily vitamin, essential fatty acid and a probiotic

This may seem like a lengthly list of difficult things, but once you implement them into your life you will notice a huge difference. I wouldn’t recommend the detox without supervision and proper implementation but you can focus on upping your water intake, increasing veggies and getting more sleep.

Our personal training members are seeing awesome results and rocking their workouts with more energy than ever….

If you want to grab a spot in our group personal training program with full access to our nutrition plan and detox then just sign up right here….Cambridge personal training 

]]> http://ultimateathleticfitness.com/5-little-known-ways-to-slim-your-stomach/feed 1 http://ultimateathleticfitness.com/bored-to-fat-top-4-ways-to-eliminate-boredom-and-binge-eating http://ultimateathleticfitness.com/bored-to-fat-top-4-ways-to-eliminate-boredom-and-binge-eating#comments Fri, 09 Sep 2011 04:00:31 +0000 Callie http://ultimateathleticfitness.com/?p=1838

A guest post by THE Fit Fem, Sylvia Nasser

Hey what’s up, Callie here and I wanted to present a really special blog post for you. My girl, THE Fit Fem, Sylvia Nasser is going to hook you up big time. Sylvia is an awesome trainer and fitness coach in New York and she kicks some serious a$$ with her clients. I even have some funny pictures of her from a night out one time in California but we’ll save those for another time…

Take it away Sylvia….

Sylvia, The Fit Fem, with some of her awesome clients….

Okay, who wants to admit here that we sometimes eat because we are bored unexpectedly packing on the fat? Ever sit in front of the TV or computer and just start snacking and snacking and before you know it you eat a whole bag of Doritos. And then we end up either feeling pity for ourselves or hating ourselves for stuffing our faces.

Something more than keeping current weight loss and fitness goals is to chance upon recent techniques that will re-energize women’s boredom and related tendencies to engage in binge eating. First, have we to remain guided forever by the food pyramid we have learned since elementary school? There have been recent studies by highly acclaimed Harvard nutritionists (they usually know what they are talking about) and fellow researchers. The main update on the food pyramid is that people have to reduce meals containing the American staples of red meat, refined grains, sugary drinks, egg, and potatoes. Common sense right? Latest science on food pyramid claims its dependency on sufficient and compatible exercise for every woman’s needs.

We have the education and we know the facts. Use it! We know what habits to adopt to achieve your weight loss and fitness goals. But what are the root causes of binge eating caused by boredom. Sometimes knowing the facts are not enough. We have to tackle why exactly some people binge eat. Is it the lack of love, passion, rewarding career, in our lives? Are we bored because we have yet to find what motivates us?

I have listed here the top 4 ways you can reenergize yourself and stop yourself from eating out of boredom again!

1. Keep a journal - You will never get bored again and make it as your alibi to overeat or over-drink. This is because you may now get addicted to a popular free software gradually gaining audience. This free software allows you to calculate and plan as well as anticipate on possible costs and consequences of your food pyramid, diet, and meals. You can find it anywhere online. One of my favorites is www.calorieking.com. Once you figure out your caloric intake, write it down. Ask yourself these questions: How do you plan your weekly diet? What are you going to do with your leftovers? Are you willing to keep a written journal or diary about your observations, changes, effects, and other noticeable details regarding your eating habits? Then, you might as well track most of it all with free software on calories, weight loss and fitness.

2. Drink water – Thirst or hunger? Sometimes we confuse the two. Test yourself out by drinking some water , give it some time and if you feel your craving has gone away then you’ve figured it out. What happens is our thirst can become a chemical response to eating. When we eat, we thicken our blood and we need the water to dilute. But because the feelings are the same, we often times confuse the two. Whatever you do, do not drink soft drinks or juices to satisfy the craving, because you’ll be ingesting empty calories that’ll surely make you fat.

3. Find support – Another way of reducing your boredom and preventing yourself from binge eating and binge drinking is to achieve a well-deserved , self-esteem and conscious effort as you visit credible websites that encourage and motivate you to appreciate all about you, share your weight loss and fitness goals with other dieters and people quite involved eating caused by boredom and depression, and find support from other concerned people as well as resources and tools. Find the humor and passion that these sites offer, and take advantage of the benefits and services also offered by these sites.

4. Cook – Boredom has no room for a woman filled with a great passion for cooking healthy and delicious recipes and cuisines. Try to cook the food yourself and you will know that boredom is unwanted in every kitchen. If you do not know how to cook yet, you may teach yourself cooking styles as you gradually eliminate your problems on boredom and depression. Having a hands-on knowledge and skill on the food you are eating through cooking it yourself brings you a step closer to achieving weight loss and fitness plans.

Don’t let boredom disrupt your plan to weight loss and fitness.

Keeping the fun in fitness,

Your fit fem personal trainer and expert in women’s only fitness,

Syl

—>Check out Sylvia’s Youtube page and get some killer workout tips….The Fit Fem FREE workouts 

A random fitness post by Cambridge personal trainer Callie Durbrow

Have you seen that website, People of Walmart? I don’t usually go on sites like that but this one is funny as hell. They have a featured creature of the day and then you can literally go and look at the pictures broken down from each state and there are captions that people come up with to describe what’s going on.

Maybe growing up in Vermont and seeing these Walmart creatures, it’s more funny to me but either way if you want a quick laugh then go check it out.

www.peopleofwalmart.com

Okay, so that wasn’t really the only thing I wanted to share with you today. I know you’re thinking “I came over to this blog to look at pictures of Walmart creatures? Lame.” Or maybe that’s funny and I should do more….you tell me.

Anyway, I have one simple thing for you today but it was kind of eating at me all day yesterday. People are self-sabotaging. It’s that simple. You train hard and you “eat healthy” so why aren’t you losing fat?

Walking through the door of the gym is NOT the only answer. That does not give you a free pass to just eat whatever you want because you work out.

If your training is in order and you’re not losing fat you need to look at your nutrition.

If your nutrition flat out sucks, you will NOT lose fat. I don’t care what you say, your body is not different than any other person on this planet and you can’t out train a bad diet. If you find that you actually can, come talk to me because I want to see this genetic freak with my own eyes.

Get your nutrition dialed in. You might think you’re eating healthy but upon further inspection you probably are not.

If you need a cool resource then check this out…..

www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate

You can create an account and track all of your daily food intake. This data base has literally EVERY food, so just type it in and search. It also breaks down macro-nutrients (carbs, protein and fat) for each day so you can see what you’re over on. I think their protein requirements are a little low, so if you’re over on that then that’s okay. I’m not a big calorie counter but if you want to lose fat then you do have to create a deficit and this will help you track it and also help you see where your problem areas are.

Just be honest and put everything out there

Enjoy!

A nutrition post by Cambridge personal trainer Callie Durbrow

Eat.Stop.Eat

I wanted to share with you something that has been working well in my lifestyle for several months. Intermittent fasting. It’s just what the title says about, eat, stop, eat. Okay I’m done.

Kidding!

You probably want to know how it works, right? There are several ways to integrate intermittent fasting into your life. The first thing you’ll want to know though is why you would do it.

What about keeping my metabolism up by eating every 3-4 hours? 

Here’s the thing about this. If you are fasting for 12-16 hours, 2 days per week, your metabolism is not going to go all hay-wire because you NEED to make sure that your calorie intake is regulated and high enough during the times that you are eating. Intermittent fasting will back fire and totally suck if you do your fasting and then you restrict your calories like crazy when you actually eat.

So, on your regular eating days you want to go about your every 3-4 hours like we always talk about.

The thing about intermittent fasting (IF) is that you can integrate it several different ways. There is no one RIGHT way to do it and you want to start out slow. I typically do 2-3 days of IF for about 15 hours at a time. And YES you can count the hours that you are sleeping. So what I’ll do is stop eating at 6 or 7pm on a Tuesday night for example and then eat again around 10am on Thursday morning. Then I’ll do the same for Saturday night into Sunday. If I stop eating later on a Saturday night then I just extend my fasting time on Sunday.

Okay so here’s the low-down:

What is Intermittent Fasting?

For those that may not be familiar to the term, intermittent fasting is just taking “intermittent” times of fasting (no food) and working them into your lifestyle. This can be either daily or a couple times a week (will get into that more below).

Some benefits:

• Reducing blood glucose and insulin levels (improving the state of the overall glucose metabolism)
• Increasing fatty acid oxidation with increased FFAs (through increasing lipolysis hormones GH, glucagon and adrenaline)
• Sparing and preserving muscle tissue (lean mass)
• Increasing various health factors (lower inflammation, lower blood pressure, reduced oxidative stress, increased protection against neuro-degenerative diseases, and more)
• Keeping the metabolism strong/healthy

How do I start this IF thing?

Is there only one set way in which to do intermittent fasting? No. I could easily come up with 10 different intermittent fasting protocols based on 10 people’s individual’s needs, lifestyle, exercise, goal, macronutrient ratios, and so forth. But I’ll keep it simple and give the 2 most frequent and basic options.

• Daily Fasting: Typically done every day and only giving the person a smaller eating window in which to get their calories. (for example, a 18hr daily fast would mean someone would only eat every day between the hours of Noon and 6pm). This is a bit more difficult for beginners.

• Fasting 1-3x a week:This could also be called alternate day fasting/calorie restriction (for those doing it every other day). This is just fasting of usually longer periods 18-24 hours but only 1-3x a week. Many variations to play with here like the Eat Stop Eat method (24 hr fasts 1-2x a week).
• Or you can do a mixed approach and fast every other day for a small eating window. For example eat all day Mon, only 12-6pm on Tues, all day Wed, 12-6pm on Thurs, etc. Start with bigger eating windows and make them smaller as you get used to fasting. This approach may work for people who have a lot of weight to lose and can not (I should really say “will not” as everything is a choice!) eat 100% healthy for the moment. This approach may not work for more advanced people who have a high activity level unless you are getting a ton of health calories in that fasting window.

Cardiovascular style training has long been a staple in the United States. This type of training is viewed as the best way to lose weight. While cardiovascular exercise is important for development and maintenance of the heart, lunges, and overall blood flow; it is not the most efficient way to lose weight.

Slow, steady training such as running miles or spending 60 minutes on an elliptical trainer at the gym will burn a large amount of calories but for all the time that you spend doing that exercise, you are actually not getting a great return on investment.

Interval training has been proven to be the most efficient and effective way to lose weight and excess body fat. With interval training you are working for a predetermined block of time and then taking an active rest period following the work. The immediate benefit of this type of training is that you will burn a higher amount of calories while working for a shorter amount of time. Most interval training workouts should last approximately 20 minutes and a maximum of 30 minutes, depending on the workout you are completing on that day.

Here are some of the major benefits of interval training:

1. Less time is spent on the training but more work is done
2. The active rest time supports a higher work rate in the upcoming sets instead of tiring the body for a long period of time
3. The higher level of intensity promotes higher levels of caloric burn
4. Interval training increases metabolism both during the workout and after the training session has been completed
5. With an increased metabolism after the training session, the body can burn calories at that level for up to 36 hours post workout
6. Interval training can be more dynamic, athletic, and fun
7. More variety to decrease boredom
8. Interval and rest times can be adjusted based on your fitness levels and can change depending on the workout you are doing that day

Here are five great exercises to incorporate into your program as a replacement for steady state cardiovascular training:

1. Mountain Climbers
2. Jump Rope
3. Sprints
4. Stair Sprints or Stair Climbing
5. Boxing

All of these exercises can be set up into circuits, rotating from one to the next with a specific rest time between each one. You can also perform 3-6 circuits of one particular exercise with work rates of anywhere from 20-60 seconds depending on your fitness levels. Stay tuned for an upcoming article which will describe exactly how to put together your interval circuits to achieve maximum training benefit and fat loss.