Okay maybe it’s just that Love / Hate relationship but certainly it’s not one  of those workouts that I’m thinking of the night before and just jumping at the chance the next day to start.  You don’t agree?  Well maybe you’re not giving yourself the intensive cardio workout that your body is needing.

On a scale of 1 to 10 during your workout, what level would you say you are at if 10 is you can’t hardly breath and feel like you’re going to puke and 5 is pretty much just ho, hum?

So, these workouts typically aren’t fun for me.  And running, come on people, what’s up with that?  I hate it!  Did I just put an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence?  I did!  I just can’t help it!!!  Breathing hard, legs burning and your chest feeling like it’s about to explode.  Who loves that?

Now some of the cardio that I do is intense I have to admit.  It’s not for your average Joe, but really anyone with a desire and commitment can do it.  Take Insanity for example.  This program is aptly named because it truly is an INSANE workout.  Jumping, squatting, hopping around, up and down, plyo this, push up this, jeesh you would have thought I was back in boot camp, only 100 times worse.

But here’s a couple of good thoughts from my dear friend Tony Horton (check him out in the video below).  “You’re only good at the things you do often and you become great if work at the things you struggle with most”.  And I also agree with him that I don’t really enjoy these workouts but they’re important and I do them anyway!

So I’ve rambled on a bit about why I hate cardio.  But it is the one thing my body, my heart and my mind crave.  If I don’t feed them this particular thing, then they all will fall into a state of disrepair and unfortunately the worse that can happen is that my heart decides it’s the weak kid on the block and gives me grief for it.

You all know deep down that the easy low intense cardio that you’ve been doing isreally not helping you to burn fat.  That is one of the goals of doing cardio.  Studies have shown that high-intensity training and especially when combined with an interval workout can burn up to 9 times the amount of fat as other cardio workouts.  Further enhance this fat loss by doing them in the morning on an empty stomach and you’ll have the effects of the workout throughout the day to help burn fat.

So the morale of the story here is to “Do It Anyway”.  Regardless if it’s a little or a lot, just do it!  And if you need some motivating, shoot me an email and I’ll love to partner with you in your success.

If you found even just a tad bit of this post useful, please share it with a friend.  You can click “SHARE” below and then maybe give it a little tweet up top!  Thanks!

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Turbo Fire is HERE!

Okay, the great thing about what I do is I also get to review NEW stuff!  SO……………  I actually got to do some of this in California with the none other than the author, producer and workout guru herself, Chalene Johnson!

Turbo Fire is one of those programs that comes around only once in a couple hundred years.  What?  Okay, a little stretch there, but it’s about to take this country by storm like her other  big hit Turbo Jam.

The moves, the cardio, the music, the class………….they’re all primed for you to get the best results of your life.  11,…count them, ELEVEN DVD’s that will have you stretching, punching, leaping, dancing and moving like never before!  You’ll go through intense Fire Drills so HOT sweat will literally be running off you.

But don’t take my word for it, WATCH the video !!!

So here’s what’s in the box.  Unless you go for the DELUXE version of course.  And always for more fantastic information on this, just click here “Fitness Programs“.

My last words to you today are “What are YOU waiting for?”  If not you, then please share this with a friend.  Just click on the SHARE button below and then give it a little “Tweet” up top.  Decide!  Commit!  Succeed!

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Simple question right?  But let me tell you, it’s one that makes you really examine your day, your night, your week and your life.  How does the day come and go?  What’s it like, …your life?  What do you do after you wake up in the morning, shower, dress and go off to work, or meet friends or play?  What’s your day like?

If your  day is anything like mine, then you ‘ll have to get a few towels and mop up the sweat!  As my good friend Tony Horton once commented on a friend of his teaching him to ski, who  said “I only have three rules… Keep Up, …Keep Up, …Keep Up”.  That’s what my day is like.  Whew!  I’m tired just thinking about it.

Up at 3:50 am.  Down a bottle of water, pop in a workout DVD and huff and puff to some cardio or grunt and clink weights with some resistance training.  My friend, this is no fun that early in the morning.  Afterward, a quick shower…”thank gosh”…then in the car for an hour drive to work.  I can’t believe at 615 am the email is beeping at me, the phone starts ringing off the hook, the radio is squawking and people are literally streaming in the door for help, direction or a badly needed kick in the butt  .

Hours and hours later, I’m finally out the door for another trip home.  Arriving there, it’s time for another workout.  And usually my heart is not in this one!  Then Samson my dog keeps wandering in looking at me with those serious stares probably thinking “Are you EVER going to take me out?”.  So out the door we go for a 30 minute jaunt around the neighborhood.

By this time, SWMBO’d (She Who Must Be Obeyed) is home and we take a few minutes to cook and eat dinner.  We spend a few minutes talking then we both graduate towards something soft and cushioning to collapse on (That’s IF I don’t have a lot of work to do on the PC).  We either watch a bit of TV, read a book or chat.  But by this time it’s almost time to hit the hay and cry ourselves to sleep knowing that the cruel little box on the nightstand is going to shrill and scream at us all over again when we least want it to.

SO……What’s the point of all this rambling?

Take a moment today and examine your life, or just the day.  Plan a little down time, something special just for you or with your significant other.   Break the routine, refresh your mind, body and Spirit with something that your body knows it needs, but you’ve been unwilling to give it.

If you’ve been out of the exercise routine for some time, take this opportunity to try something to get your blood pumping and your heart going.  Plan 45 minutes to an hour of exercise with some proper warm up and stretching before and after.  There’s no better time to do this then now.

If you’re a workaholic or a couchaholic, break the routine.  Go home early from work one day, you know it’ll be there when you get back.  Stop by a lake or a park on the way home and sit on a park bench or watch a kid’s softball game.  Enjoy the moment, relax and breathe.  If you’re a couchaholic, see my paragraph above!

Life is way too short for us to let it pass by and our not even seeing it or experiencing what Joy there is all around us.  I admit, my life is way too busy and that’s why I’m writing this.  I’ll take my own medicine and do some of the above and check back in with you later on what I did, but my challenge for you today is……….Just do it!

AND …..please take a moment and click the SHARE button below and then give it a little ‘Tweet” up top……Just do it! 

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Hi Gang! Here’s part 2 of the Warm-Up and Stretching series I’m writing about. Keeping it short and simple so that I don’t go into too much boring detail and keeping it somewhat interesting for you.

So, we learned in the previous blog, Warm Up Before Stretching, to warm up first. Now after our body temperature has been raised and our muscles, tendons and ligaments are warm it’s time to stretch.

Stretching and flexibility go hand in hand. And as the word basically describes itself, flexibility is the degree of movement that a joint can make. I’m envious of those people who are born with a large amount of flexibility but for the rest of us, we all tend to have a limited amount of flexibility which may even decrease over time. The joints themselves also determine the amount of flexibility we have, but we can improve things by stretching our muscles, tendons and ligaments. Basically there are two types of stretching, Static and Ballistic. For now, just focus on the Static stretching. Move your arm, leg or whatever as far as comfortably possible, and hold it in that stretched position for about 15 to 30 seconds. I have to emphasize here, don’t bounce your way to this point.  That could cause injury which is the sole thing your trying to prevent.  Ballistic stretching can be OK, but just not right now.

Do this for all parts of the body and you’ll put yourself on the road to improved performance in sports and daily activities. Keep this routine up and you may just be able to bend over and tie those shoelaces once again.  If not, then maybe we need to talk about that mid section and getting rid of that.

I hope you found this article helpful and I would really appreciate your help in getting the word out.  Click on the “Share It” button below and you’ll have possible helped someone from getting injured!  Have a SUPER day!

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Okay, here’s why I love what I do!  Tony Horton is on Fox talking about his awesome at home workout program P90X.  It’s become such a phenomenon that is sweeping this country.  It you haven’t heard of it, then you haven’t watched TV lately and you’ve probably not been out of the house.  This is the main reason I got into being a representative of this awesome company as a “Coach” with Beachbody.

But I’m not here to promote my business, because anyone can just click on the Tab “Be A Coach” and join me, but I want for the man, Tony himself to share with you.  This morning he was on the Fox news channel talking about P90X and what it’s about.  I really got a kick out of Dave down on the floor doing some push-ups alongside Tony.  What a great picture.

I remember too when I was out in California with Tony Horton, sharing the floor with him as he pushed me through extremes I never thought I had in me.  We were moving and grooving and basically creating pools of sweat around us.  And if he’d been given more time here on Fox, I’m sure there would have been a pool of sweat there too.

Confusing the muscles with P90X is what really keeps people from reaching a plateau.  Tony’s correct term for this of course is muscle confusion.  He’s told me time and time again that there’s no confusion about muscle confusion.  He has that witty sense about him that I enjoy each time I pop in a DVD and workout at home with the P90X program.

Here he is on the Fox News Channel.  Take a moment and see what he has to say about it.  After wards, please click on the “Share It” button below so that all your friends out there who haven’t yet seen P90X can see what all the fun is about.  And with a small plug,…if you haven’t gotten your yet, it’s not too late, just find it here!

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Okay, I have to apologize here.  I’ve blogged about this and that and forgot to add in the great stuff about what “I’m about”…which is fitness, nutrition and health!  So here I just want to take a few minutes and talk about the all important “warm up” before stretching.

A lot of people think stretching is overrated, but I don’t.  I think it’s a necessary part of exercise or sports.  But I also have come to believe that warming up before the stretch is very important.  These two things may seem like the same thing to some, but actually are two different things.  Warm-ups do what they say.  They warm the body up, that’s to say they increase the bodies temperature.  You body temperature will rise and with that, your muscles, ligaments and tendons will also warm up.  You can just picture that more blood is flowing to these areas, to your muscles.  You become more elastic and less tight which has the added benefit of reducing the chance of muscle pulls or strains.

To do this, …warm-up, …you have to get your muscles moving.  I recently have completed several rounds of Insanity and this is where this technique really hit home with me.  For nearly ten minutes we do three sets of cardio interval work, 3 minutes each.  Slow at first, then moderate, then at a higher speed.  The variety in this warm-up for me includes, running in place, jumps, lunges, knee bend kicks, squat jacks and few others at different times.  The body is moving and the muscles are warming up.

After this you can feel free to do some stretching.  You will have broken a sweat during the warm up but not to the point of fatigue or breathlessness, so ten minutes is plenty of time for the warm up.

I hope that you consider this the next time you go out to exercise or play some kind of a sport and remember to do it “before” you stretch.

If you found this article helpful and enjoyed it, please take just a moment and click the “Share” button below and then give it a little “Tweet”.  Thanks for dropping by, and check back soon for more fitness, nutrition, health, inspiring or just plain goofy articles.

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Fast Easy Weight Loss

OK……so what’s fast?  That’s one of the questions I’m sure is on your mind because how to lose weight quick is pretty common for most people.  The second one may be, how much can I lose?  The third may be, how to lose weight easy?  Fast easy weight loss can be broken down into just a few simple thoughts, ideas and actions.

As the summer sun warms the white sandy beaches around here, a lot of people bring out those bathing suits and try them on only to look in the mirror gasping at how much weight they’ve gained over the winter and Holiday’s.  Now it’s crunch time, the vacation is set, hotels booked and the new bathing suit at the store is on your mond as the one you want to wear.

Let’s look at this a moment…

• How to lose weight quick -First you need to know how many calories it takes for you to breathe, pump blood, grow hair, blink…you know, basically to stay alive.  My number (called RMR, resting metabolic rate) is 162 lbs. x 10 or 1600 calories.  Second, I need to know how many calories I burn in a day apart from any exercise. So 1600 x 20% is 320 calories.  So leading a sedentary life, only doing those things to get me around town, the house and the sofa is 1920 calories.

Here’s the fun part.  I know that I want to lose 5 lbs.  And I want to do it quick.  So the simple math behind this is, burn more calories in a day then you take in.  One pound is equal to 3500 calories.  The “fast” part of this question is, what are you willing to do?

• How much can I lose – Staying with the 5 lb example let’s apply the math above.  If I want to lose these 5 lbs. in 5 weeks.  That means 1 pound a week which I think is a good goal.  So that means I have to eat less than 3500 calories than I normally would have.  So… each day I need to consume 1420 calories.  I’m saving 500 a day and at the end of 7 days I will have lost one pound.  Five weeks will yield a 5 lb. loss.

• How to lose weight easy – OK, so now you know the magic formula.  But let’s kick it up a notch.  Let’s say I do some exercising each day of the week.  And that exercise burns 500 calories.  So the simple equation here is that by eating less and burning more, I can lose 2 lbs. a week.  Now I will say right here that your body needs fuel, so I would not encourage eating less.  Take the one pound of weight loss by doing the exercise.  Not only will you lose weight, you may even build a little muscle which will also help you to burn more calories in the future. So I may have embellished a bit on the headline how to lose weight easy.

Have fun!

All lifestyles aren’t created equal, so take that in mind when reading through this post.

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Here’s an approach to muscle repair and muscle growth vs. consuming it. Yuck! I’ve done a bit of research from online websites, fitness magazines and gurus on the subject and I’ve tried to put this together in a non-technical sounding way (as best I can) so that you can have some information to use in your next workout sessions. Please note that gaining muscle mass will also help you burn more calories throughout the day. So shoot for those muscle gains by adding these muscle building secrets to your gym bag.

• 90-120 minutes BEFORE you workout – Eat an energy bar such as the P90X Peak Recovery Bar or an equivalent that has about a 3-2-1 ration of Carbohydrates to Proteins to Fat.
• 45 minutes BEFORE you workout – Take some BCAA’s (Branched Chain Amino Acids), a tablet is easy at 3-4g
• AFTER a good hard 45 minute workout – Mix up a delicious Recovery drink such as the P90X Recovery Formula or equivalent in a 4-1 Carbohydrate to Protein mix. Now there’s sugar in this, but your body needs it! Another 3-4g of BCAA can help too.

So in a nut-shell (nuts are good too…see SuperFoods) knowing what you need to fuel your body with as you exercise during the day is important to our physiology. Muscles need the fuel at different times and we don’t want them to “eat their own” as in a recent Lost In Space movie, but we want to protect them, allow them to recover and to grow. Now if you’re really into digging deep into more of the techie stuff, just look up Catabolism and anabolism as it relates to muscles and exercise.

Now eating throughout the day to help you gain muscle mass is for another story, probably right after this one! Chow!

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Ouch!!!!!!  What did I do to deserve this?

Woke up this morning that’s what!  Feeling pretty skipper, I decided to pop one of my favorite workouts into the DVD player.  Newly released, this program called INSANITY has overtaken the infamous P90X just by a tad.  I love it!  And I hate it!  How can that be?  Well… you get it then tell me the same thing!

Trying to type here and describe this program would never do it justice, so I invite you to visit the link I have here “INSANITY” and check it out for yourself.  There’s more moves, more blood pumping, heart racing, sweat flowing and people dropping than you can shake a stick at.  But if you get through this series, your guaranteed to have changed your body.

My experience?  I’m glad you asked.  I have to admit, I was pretty intimidated by the whole thing.  I started out strong and it kicked my butt!  Can I say that on the web?  I guess so.  I gained some muscle mass, lost some fat and increased my strength and endurance.  I’d say that was a winner in my book.  But any way, just wanted to share a quick note and encourage YOU to take action NOW and try it for yourself.  Now I’m going to go lay down on the couch and pass out!

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Oh My Goodness….  I thought I was going to have an easy day of cardio this afternoon.  Was I in for a surprise.  I usually workout at home in the comfort of my living room or office / gym.  Today I just wanted a quick 30 minute cardio and what happened was probably more like an hour.  So let me explain.  The DVD interval cardio portion has only 11 moves of 1 minute each…twice through.  So that’s 22 minutes right?  Add in the warm up, stretching and cool down and it will take you out to the 40 minutes or so.

Here’s the problem my friends…

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