Reduce Your Intake of Useless Calories

Here’s a useful tip which most people tend to forget about when dieting:
Reduce your intake of useless calories.

Many individuals add on to their meals calorie total by drinking sodas and juices. Clearly, research shows that this just adds calories. In other words, you tend not to reduce your food intake to compensate for this. In terms of calories, it's a whopping change to go from a regular Coke to a Diet Coke. Just think to yourself for a second. If you’re drinking 12 Cokes a week, and believe me, this happens very frequently, you are consuming roughly 1680 empty calories.

Now, why do I say empty calories? Well the calories in these sugar filled drinks carry little to no nutritional value, not to mention taking in the evil high fructose corn syrup.

HFCS causes obesity and diabetes and deposits fat around critical organs like your liver. It's also contaminated with mercury from the manufacturing process according to studies done in past years. Even plain fructose (like in fruit drinks) isn't good for you unless it's in fruit that you're consuming whole.

HFCS, aspartame and other artificial sweeteners, and MSG are the worst substances anyone can consume.
Take a protein shake for instance. If you were to consume 12 shakes a week compared to 12 sodas or glasses of juice, you would be adding loads of protein and nutrients to your body which your body could use through the course of the week for muscle building and provide energy. Not so much with the others.

Now if you were to drink Diet Coke rather than regular coke, you would be saving almost a half of pound right there, i.e., since there are 3500 calories in a pound.

Now you see how this can add up?

My suggestions for limiting useless calories:

Replace soft drinks with water all together and limit your intake of fruit juices; use low-fat salad dressing or something else entirely; and forgo sweeteners altogether.

A simple step like having water with your popcorn instead of a keg-sized soft drink can save you 500 + calories.

What are some other foods that would fall under the “empty” calorie department?

• Beer, Wine, and other alcohol beverages. A can of beer contains about 150 calories from sugar and not much else. Also, calories from alcohol tend to be stored as fat in the abdomen and alcohol has been shown to slow metabolism.
• Candy. Again, loads of calories from sugar with no micro-nutrients.
• French Fries, Fried Chicken, Chips, and all other fried foods. Large fries equal up to 600 calories, not to mention 30 grams of fat and nearly 10 grams of Trans fat. Like above, tons of calories from fat and very little micro-nutrients.

Just remember, keep it simple and smart. Empty calories do nothing for your fat loss goals. Make sure every calorie you put in your body counts and is beneficial to you.

The Big Debate: Time vs Intensity

The Big Debate: Time vs Intensity

Alright everyone, we all have been there or know someone who has gone to work out and spent hours at the gym perfecting our fitness and not really getting the results we want. If you ask me that is a pretty raw deal!

What if I tell you that you can get the same, if not a better workout in half the time that you usually spend at the gym? Well here is the principle everyone, your body actually has a threshold if you were to call it for anaerobic and aerobic activity; this means your body has limit, about 1 hour and 15 minutes, for the amount of weightlifting and cardiovascular exercise you do! This said, your body does not truly benefit more or benefit less if you go past this threshold, so the idea is high, intense workouts.

Now that everyone understands our bodies’ threshold, let’s talk about intensity. I know most of us have been in the gym and have seen those people just flying through their workout, super-setting every set and using big multi-jointed sets. What do they all have in common? Well for one they are usually RIPPED and FIT! So here is the catch, cranking up your work out intensity with super sets and minimal rest in between sets will not only fire up your metabolism, but push your muscles to their limits.

So let us bring this all together, our body has a threshold of work capacity that can limit our success in the gym; along with a lower, drowned out intensity can really ruin our fitness as a whole. The idea is to have a game plan before you get to your workout and know exactly what you are doing so switching exercises is smooth and quick. The whole idea is to get in and get out. So everyone crank up that intensity and fire up those muscles because you will sweat to success!

ATROPHY is NOT A Trophy!

A recent poll was taken in 24 countries based on 4 categories: 
1. Television watching
2. Internet Use 
3. Aversion to Playing Sports 
4. Calories per day

Among these four categories America ranked first in calories per day and television watching placing us at the top the charts for the “LAZIEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.”

It saddens me to know that with all of the privileges people think they deserve as far as cheaper health care, insurance, etc… That a great majority of you are so unwilling to put in the effort to make your lives a little bit healthier. Staying active increases your chances to avoid illness and live a longer more plentiful lifestyle. America has made it far too easy to not be proactive in our lives.

Atrophy: A wasting or decrease in size of a body organ, tissue, or part owing to disease, injury, or lack of use: A wasting away, deterioration, or diminution.

Atrophy is apparent in a great majority of Americans and as we grow older it becomes more difficult to avoid. Every year that we prolong taking any action towards improving our physical activity levels makes it that much harder to gain back the body that we may have had in our early 20’s.

“Lean muscle mass and bone typically decrease, while body fat increases.”(Maintaining Muscle) This can be avoided by committing to daily exercise routines (minimum of 20 minutes, 3 days a week). However some forms of atrophy cannot be avoided for example if it is neuromuscular disease.

Wouldn’t you rather see your family grow healthy and strong together, rather than grow into the couch or recliner in front of the TV? 

Get out and do something active! I want to help you get into the best shape of your life! Give me a call at 402-650-5761 or email me at corey@omahabootcamp.com.