When you eat fast, you tend to eat more.  If you always finish your meal before everyone else, here are my top six tips to help you slow your eating habits.

“They call me the vacuum cleaner!” one of my patients told me recently.   He’s been a fast eater his entire life.  “I grew up with six brothers and sisters – so, counting my folks, there were nine of us at the dinner table,” he told me.  “As soon as mom put the food down, we’d all scramble to get our share, and then eat it up as fast as we could – because the fastest eater had the best chance of getting a second helping before it was all gone!”  Even though he no longer has nine people at his dinner table, those old eating habits die hard.  This guy can still demolish a plate of food in seconds flat.

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Taking two minutes a day to update a fitness journal will help you perform better! For many people getting fit and staying fit can feel like an impossible task but a fitness journal will help keep you on track and make sure you see progress.  While this may not be the most glamorous subject, it’s important to keep a record of what you’re doing and how you feel about it because you’ll be amazed to look back six months later and see how much you’ve improved.

Keep reading and I will share a few common fitness roadblocks and help you to overcome them through a process of self-discovery. I firmly believe that keeping a fitness journal will help you on your quest to become fitter and healthier. 

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Have you reached a weight loss plateau? If your weight loss has stalled, take a look at my top 5 tips to get help you avoid a weight loss plateau and achieve your dream weight.

One of the more frustrating parts of weight loss is the inevitable weight loss plateau.  Everything seems to be going along fine, and then all of a sudden – no matter what you do – you find that the scale just doesn’t budge.  When you find that your weekly weight loss has stalled that’s often known as a ‘weight loss plateau’ and many dieters find the sudden lack of progress deeply frustrating. Let me help you understand why your weight may plateau and give you some ideas to make sure you continue to meet your goals so that your weight will start moving again.

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Stairs are one of my favorite pieces of exercise equipment.  Most people have access to stairs and, this week, I’m going to help you incorporate stairs in your exercise routine for fat-burning and strength-building results.

Training ‘up steps’ is a staple part of almost all athlete training plans.  We call it ‘up steps’ because we put in the power going up and then take our time coming down. If you have ever visited a U.S. high school or college I’m pretty sure you will have witnessed athletes quick stepping up the bleachers or maybe you’ll have heard the thunderous sound in the distance as they run up followed by a slower thudding sound as they make their way down.

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One key to maintaining a healthy weight is to balance the calories you eat with the calories you burn.  But that’s sometimes easier said than done.

Balancing your calories sounds deceptively simple.  Eat more calories than you burn and you’ll gain weight. Take in fewer calories than you burn and you’ll shed some pounds. Keep your “calories in” and “calories out” about the same, and your weight should stay pretty stable.  So why is it that hardly a week goes by that someone doesn’t complain to me that they’re “exercising like a madman, but not losing any weight” or, “eating like a bird but the scale won’t budge”?  It simply boils down to this: when it comes to counting calories accurately – the ones you eat and the one you spend – there are so many ways it can go wrong.

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Riding a bike is such a perfect way to exercise, socialize, and enjoy some scenery but not all bike rides are equal.  Trust me when I say that a little bit of planning can go a long way when it comes to getting the most out of your ride.

Are you ready to create your own perfect group bike ride and get more out of your ride? If the answer is yes, then check out my four tips below.

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Think keeping a food journal is a waste of time?  You might want to think again.  Study after study consistently tells us that self-monitoring – that is, keeping track of what you eat, how much exercise you get, and how much you weigh – is one of the key components to successful weight loss.  In a recent review of 22 studies¹ on the subject, the authors concluded that, across the board, there was “a significant association between self-monitoring and weight loss.”

What the studies tell us is that when you’re accountable to someone – not just to yourself, but also to a healthcare provider, a life partner or a friend – you greatly improve your chances of losing weight and keeping it off.  And, the more often you keep track, the more successful you’re likely to be. In one study involving nearly 1700 people², those who kept food journals six days a week lost double the weight of those who kept food diaries only once a week or less.

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Have you hit a weight loss plateau? Has your fitness plan stalled and you don’t feel you’ll reach your goals?  Don’t worry, you’re not alone. I can help you power back up and start seeing results again.

If you ever feel that you are doing everything just right with your fitness and nutrition plan but your results don’t seem to represent all of your hard work then I have a simple but effective piece of advice. Hitting a fitness or weight loss plateau is a very common problem in the world of sports performance and general weight loss. There are many theories on why our bodies sometimes hit a temporary yet frustrating roadblock but, by thinking outside the box, you can power through the frustration and start seeing results again. Keep on reading and you may be surprised at just how easy it can be to jump-start your flat-lined results.

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Is it a bad habit to snack, eat after dinner, or clean your plate?  Not always. Your bad diet habits might actually be good diet habits! Read on to see my take on a few common diet myths. 

I spend a good part of my day talking to people about their eating habits, which is not just enlightening, it’s entertaining, too.  When someone reveals what they typically eat in a day, I can get a pretty good sense for how nutritious their diet is – but it’s the little ‘asides’ that tell me much, much more.  Oftentimes, as we’re talking, they’ll suddenly say, “I know this is really bad, but I ….,” and then go on to describe their breach of some sort of “dietary commandment”.  So – in my quest to be not just flexible, but to also help them find their own personal sweet spot when it comes to healthy eating – I try to help them see that what they think is a bad habit… might not be so bad after all.

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If you have a muffin top then I bet you want to get rid of it!  Or, you might be asking what on earth is a muffin top? I know I was bewildered the first time I heard the phrase. My friend explained that it is the fat on your back and sides that bulges over your waistband in the same way the top of a muffin overhangs the base.

On hearing of the muffin top phenomenon, my first reaction was ‘I have an instant muffin top remedy’. My friend listened closely, expecting me to share some profound fitness secret that could fix a muffin top in moments, but my answer disappointed her greatly. Apparently this wasn’t the response she had hoped for:

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Everywhere you go, it seems, there’s pressure to eat.  Here’s how to push back.

For most of us, the last thing we need is the pressure to eat more.  But it happens all the time.  A few years back, one of the fast food chains in the US began a push to add a whole extra meal to your day –  “the meal between dinner and breakfast”.  I do understand the desire for an occasional midnight snack – sometimes you eat dinner early, you stay up late and you get hungry. But once that midnight snack morphs into “the fourth meal”, it starts to sound more like an everyday need – which just makes it easier to justify why we cave into the pressure to eat it.

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Do you need a natural butt lift? If you feel your butt could do with a boost then you need to lunge and squat.  And, if that fills you with dread because you suffer from exercise boredom then allow me to help.

I’m here to help make exercise boredom a thing of the past! Do you ever get bored of repeating the same exercises? Or, are you always looking for ways to spice up your workout? If your answer is yes, keep on reading because I’m going to share five ways you can add a twist to a simple but effective butt toning exercise.

It’s important to keep your routine fun otherwise you’ll be so much more likely to make excuses to avoid exercising. As a fitness trainer, I always hear about the things that people love and hate about certain exercises and I feel that it’s my job to keep people excited and motivated so they don’t quit.

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Happy Valentine’s day!  I know many people are thinking about their romantic heart today but did you also know it’s Heart Health month?  

The story around diet and heart health has been around long enough that you probably know the drill pretty well.  Watch your weight, keep your total fats and saturated fats down, and don’t be too heavy-handed with the salt shaker.  Sprinkle in some soluble fiber – from foods like beans and oatmeal – and you’ve got a pretty good dietary strategy.

All good advice, to be sure.  After all, a high-fat diet can put weight on you, saturated fats can bump up your blood cholesterol levels, and too much salt can drive up blood pressure – all of which can increase your risk for heart disease.  But there are a couple of other pieces to the heart health puzzle that are getting more attention these days – a fatty acid “balancing act”, and a little molecule called nitric oxide.

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If you’re ready to get your body into fighting shape, you can spice up your workout with these boxing-inspired exercises and box away any excess fat without having to pick a fight at the end!

You just have to look at a boxer’s body to know that their training regime is perfect for sculpting a lean, toned and fat-fighting body.  Boxers are known for being toned in all of the right places, especially their upper-body and mid-section. But a boxer isn’t only interested in looking good: boxers need to have the cardiovascular and muscular endurance to fight for 12 straight rounds. In my opinion, this makes boxing one of the best forms of functional exercise for toning your entire body.

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An occasional indulgence isn’t really cheating – especially if you’ve planned for it.

Cheating – on your taxes, on a test, on your partner – is just plain wrong.  And chances are, even if you were to consider cheating, you probably wouldn’t ask for permission from your accountant or your teacher…or your mate.  So why are people always asking me if it’s “okay to cheat” on their diet?  Does it feel “good” to be “bad”? Do they want to place the blame on my shoulders if their cheating doesn’t lead to weight loss?  Or are they simply saying, “I just can’t be this strict with myself every single day – I need a break!”

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