The 7 Day Detox/Jumpstart - For Weight Loss and Wellness

The time has come to stop the madness! What do I mean by that? Well I mean it’s time for me to stop stuffing food mindlessly in my mouth while I’m standing in the kitchen, running out the door or driving in the car. It’s time for me to stop saying I’ll go back to being “good” on Monday after the weekend is over and the celebrations are done. It’s time for me to stop treating myself after a stressful day with a huge bowl of guacamole and chips and a couple of glasses of wine.

The new year is here and it’s time for me to get back on track and recommit to being consistent with my fitness and nutrition again.

Don’t get me wrong I adore good food and I love to cook and I believe that delicious food is an integral part of a truly good life. I am also, as some of my friends might say, obsessed with nutrition and exercise. I like to feel good and I’ve learned over the years that I feel so much better on every level when I eat cleanly and properly for my body and I exercise consistently!

So it’s time for a 7 Day Detox/Jumpstart! I do one every Spring, Summer and Fall and Winter and I find it’s very helpful to get me moving forward fast and quickly back on track. It’s also a great way to start shedding those extra Holiday pounds and get going with my New Years intentions of being more consistent in nourishing my body with really good, clean food.

If you’ve been thinking it’s time for you to either get back on track or to start living a healthier lifestyle, I invite you to join in with me and share in my 7 day journey and experience your own. Everything is so much more powerful and lots more fun when you join with others and support each other along the way.

If you’d like to join me, just put your name and email address in the box below or to the side and you will immediately receive a copy of The 7 Day Jumpstart. There are no strings attached, it’s my complimentary gift to you to start you off on journey towards vibrant health and your own perfect weight!

Walk For Whatever Ails You!

I have always loved walking. I walk when I’m feeling off, I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m depressed, I’m worried, I’m frustrated, I’m stuck, I feel tired, I feel off, I feel blaa. Walking is what I do when I don’t know what to do. Walking is the way I clear my head and brighten my mood.  For me, walking is the ultimate therapy for whatever ails me!

I also walk for the sheer pleasure of it. I love feeling the soothing, rhythmic movement of my body and the refreshing air being pulled deeply into my lungs. I revel in the quality of the natural light and shadows and the sights and sounds that surround me as I stroll through the woods. I love the expectation of possibly coming upon a flock of turkey, family of deer, a fox, a beaver or seeing a hawk swoop through the trees.

I’m really lucky because I can walk out my door and be on a whole circuit of trails that go through the woods for miles and miles. There are streams and ponds, hills and fields and an abundance of tumbling down stone walls. A truly delightful potpourri of nature’s landscapes that change with each of the New England seasons.

We humans were designed as walking machines. A healthy, fairly fit body can walk for hours at a moderate pace without fatigue or wear and tear. Unfortunately, this may not be the case for a lot of us these days because of the life sedentary life styles we live. But no matter where you are on the scale with your health and fitness, most people can at least walk for short periods of time. And once you start walking a little, you can increase your time as you build strength and stamina.

There are tremendous health benefits to walking especially if you do it outside. Walking strengthens your heart and lungs; improves your circulation; strengthens your leg and core muscles; improves your balance; strengthens your immune system; moves the lymph fluid through your body; increases your metabolism and can help you lose weight; improves your mood and helps ease depression. There is a saying that says “move a muscle, move a thought” and the steady rhythmic motion of walking is highly conducive to the shift of negative thoughts.

So my advice to you is that if you’re feeling off for whatever reason, put on your sneakers or boots, grab your coat and head out the door! Have you taken your walk today? I have!

Is Your Exercise Routine Making You Fat?

New studies are finding that the way we’ve been told to exercise for the last few decades is totally counter productive to the way our bodies were designed to work. We are still genetically programmed the same way we were during our “Cavemen” days when we lived as Hunter/Gathers. Think about it - Our bodies were designed to move in short bursts of intense exertion, followed by periods of rest and recovery.

Nature has designed your body to adapt to whatever environment you encounter. If you ask it to perform activity, repeatedly and routinely, it will gradually change to meet the challenge more effectively.  Continuous endurance exercise produces unique challenges your body must overcome. It must not run out of fuel, overheat, or be overwhelmed with metabolic wastes. One of the ways your body adapts is by “downsizing” your heart, lungs, blood vessels and muscles so they can efficiently do the job required without wasting energy and using up fuel.

Your body’s marvelous efficiency works against you when it comes to burning fat too. Conventional wisdom tells you that you burn fat during exercise. But this only makes matters worse. This tells your body to make and store more fat so you’ll have something to burn during your next workout. This is why so many people get frustrated when they don’t see results after months of spending hours at the gym. Every time you burn fat during exercise, you body reacts by making more fat.

Studies show that the most reliable way to burn fat is with short, intense exertion periods followed by recovery periods.  The trick is to trigger an “after burn.” This happens when your body burns fat after you stop exercising. Here’s the secret: It’s all about what your body uses for fuel during exercise. During the first minute or two, your body burns ATP (adenosine triphosphate) for energy. This is your body’s most potent and available source of energy. It’s used for quick bursts of movement, but it doesn’t last long. After a few minutes, your body shifts gears and starts to burn carbs in your muscle tissue. This lasts for 15 to 20 minutes. When you stop exercising during this process, your body will automatically burn fat to replace the carbs you just burned. This “after burn” melts away the fat your body has put “in storage.” You’ll continue to burn fat up to a full day after you finish each Fit Fast session. This is largely due to the boost your metabolism gets from your training. Because your body needs extra calories to repair muscles, replenish energy stores and restore your body to its “normal” state, you continue to burn calories – and fat – long after your workout is over. After a few months of Fit Fast your body stops storing fat because it simply doesn’t need it.

This way of exercising also stimulates HGH Human Growth Hormone which degreases rapidly as we age. HGH is sometimes called the “fountain of youth hormone” as it is responsible for increasing metabolism and lean muscle and slowing down the aging process.

Is Your Workout Helping You to Store Fat?

There is a kind of fat that you don't see and it's toxic and it's deadly!

Visceral fat is internal fat. It wraps around organs like your heart, liver, and kidneys. It fills up all the space in your abdominal cavity, so there's no room left for your organs, nerves, and vessels to function properly.

It's far more dangerous to your health than subcutaneous fat, which lies right beneath your skin. Subcutaneous fat is what you poke at and pinch. Like the "spare tire" you get around your middle.

Visceral fat is a storehouse for toxins that pump directly into your body. When you have too much visceral fat, you can almost guarantee you'll develop heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Too much of it produces excess secretion of a substance called adipokine. This causes body-wide inflammation that leads to these diseases.

You don't have to be overweight to have it. Over 30 million normal-weight Americans have high levels of visceral fat. You can be perfectly thin on the outside and fat on the inside.

You see, your body gets to choose the type of fuel it burns during exercise. And any time you exercise at a medium pace for a long time, your body chooses fat as its fuel.

While that may sound like a good thing, it's really the worst thing you can do. You don't want to use fat during exercise, because it's telling your body that you need fat for fuel. Your body hears, "Make more fat!" and it delivers. So, once you're done exercising, your body continues to make fat and tuck it around your organs. Now you have even more fat to use as an energy source the next time you jump on the treadmill.

A much better way to get rid of deadly visceral fat is short-bursts of intense exercise. I use this principle in all of my exercise programs for my clients and I've been using it on myself for the last 4 years.
Here's the point you need to know …

Real fat burning doesn't take place during exercise. It takes place after you exercise, as you recover. We call this "the afterburn," and it's one of the key components to staying lean and youthful. Short bursts of close to maximum exertion, stimulate HGH (Human Growth Hormone) who's production slows down significantly as you move into your 20's and keeps going down from there. The good news is, is that you can increase it's production by exercising and eating correctly.

Short-burst intense exercise is simply short periods of exertion followed by rest. You start at the intensity and speed that's right for you and gradually increase it until you're breathing heavily. Then you stop and recover.

Short-burst exercise tells your body that you don't have to make more fat and squirrel it away for the next time. You're not going to exercise long enough to use it for fuel, so why make more fat? And it stimulates HGH production.

Instead, when you keep your sessions brief, you use carbs for fuel during exercise and then use fat long afterward. Ten to 20 minutes is all you need to rev up your metabolism. Then, during times of rest, your metabolism burns up your visceral fat.

Visceral fat disappears very quickly when you exercise this way. When you follow this plan instead of doing hours of cardio, you burn up to 9 times the fat for every calorie burned.

You can choose any form of exercise you like. It can be treadmill, bike, running outside, calisthenics or as simple as walking. The key is to start where you're comfortable and build from there. Here's a routine you can try at home:

• Begin walking for a few minutes at a comfortable pace to warm up.
• Increase the pace for 60 sec. and recover for approx. 60 sec. or as long as it takes.
• Repeat the 60 sec. of exertion going a little harder and then recover.
• Repeat the 60 sec. of exertion and recovery - by the 3rd cycle you want to feel like you can't go any more by the time you get to the end of the 60 seconds of exertion. You should gasp a little as you come into recovery and if you are wearing a heart rate monitor it will bump up a couple of notches as you start your recovery.
• Repeat the exertion and recovery cycles 5 to 8 times depending on your level of fitness and how you feel.
• Recover by walking for at least 3 minutes.

When you are done you should by sweating profusely and feel like you got in a really intense workout but you should feel energized not beat-up.

You need to pay attention to your body and work at your own personal fitness level. If you are just starting out you might just walk as fast as you can during exertion. If you are very fit you should be sprinting as fast as you can from the 4th through 8th exertion cycle.

Combine your short-burst exercise program with a high-protein, low-glycemic diet that includes lots of fresh vegetables. You'll get the best results this way.

I have been exercising this way for the last four years and I just love how it makes me feel and look! The added bonus is it takes so little time to get a really great work-out! - Bonnie