Whether you’re a new mother or not, I bet there is something in today’s article that will help become more fit, gain confidence or just learn a little empathy.

No matter how or why you’ve gained weight, know that it takes as long – if not longer – to lose that weight again.  Pregnancy is a special time and new mothers need to concentrate on their baby but you  may need to reprioritize if you are still blaming a spare-tire on baby weight, three years later!

Dads-to-be often gain baby weight too – if someone around you is eating more then the temptation to join in is hard to refuse. This week, I’m going to share five tips that will help you regain the figure you want.  I’m focusing on how to reclaim your pre-pregnancy body because it’s a message I relate to strongly.

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Want to shape up for summer?  Don’t wait until the last minute!  If you start now, you’ve got six weeks or so – plenty of time to see some serious results before swimsuit season starts.

I’m nudging you now, because many people have the tendency to put this off.  As in, “I’m going on a surfing trip next week and I can’t be seen looking like this”  A crash diet to take off a couple of pounds in a week might make you slightly less self-conscious in your board shorts, but if you really want to make some headway before swimsuit season, the time to start is now. 

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A fitness journal will help you improve your fitness level but you may be wondering how to get started. Take a look at a week-long excerpt from a real fitness journal and I’ll reveal what the journal tells us when we analyze the data!

Did you read my post on how to get fit and stay fit by using a fitness journal? Are you still a little unsure of what you need to do and if you have the time? If you answered yes, then check out this sample week from Hannah to help motivate you to start your journal today! I’ve added my six-week evaluation to give you an idea of how simple it can be to play detective and improve your fitness journey.

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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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I want to help you keep your cardio workouts fun, effective and simple, so here are three styles that will help you keep it interesting.

If plodding along on a piece of cardio equipment is not quite your idea of fun, don’t let that be the reason for skipping the most important part of your workout. There are several styles of cardio training that will have you looking forward to your next training session instead of sighing as you lace up your running shoes.

Why is cardio training important?

Cardiorespiratory fitness is basically a fancy term for the function of your heart and lungs being efficient at transferring oxygen to your muscles during movement. The energy systems of the body are complex and require different fuels for different processes. Your cardio system is a constant as it’s vital to keeping you alive.   And, with something this important it makes sense to keep it running in tip-top condition!

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People have different reasons for wanting to shape up – finding out what motivates you can help you stay on track.

There’s no doubt about it – change is hard.  I frequently tell my clients that my job is much easier than theirs – my role is to advise them on how to eat better, while they’ve got the more difficult task of having to actually do it.  But my job doesn’t stop at simply handing out advice – I also try to help people find what it is that will motivate them to make changes.  And the reasons are all over the map.  For some, just the goal of getting healthier is all it takes to kick start the process.  On the other hand, that probably won’t motivate the ones who tell me (and I’ve heard this more times than I can count), “I’m perfectly healthy, I’m just fat.”  Read more »

You would think that people who eat healthy and stay slim would be the ones who spend a lot of time thinking about what they eat.  After all, how else could they maintain a healthy weight unless they’re focusing on every bite?  There are some clear differences in the way normal weight and overweight people approach food and eating – but what we’ve learned is that naturally trim people actually tend to think about food less than those who are watching their weight. 

Naturally slim people have a relatively comfortable relationship with food, so they don’t really focus on it all that much.  But for heavier people, the relationship is often more difficult and complex.  Overweight people tend to be preoccupied with food – which ones are good or bad, how much or how little they should eat (and when) – to the point where they end up thinking about food all the time. 

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Every time I have a new client scheduled to see me for weight loss, I have a pretty good idea of how our first conversation will go.  The first thing they usually want to know is how much I think they should weigh.  The answer is usually less than straightforward (see my post of October 7) and that question is inevitably followed up by a similar, and equally vexing query:  “how long will it take?”.  I’ve had this same conversation countless times over the years, and my answer is always the same – “it depends”.

Not a satisfying response, I realize, but the rate at which a person will lose weight depends on a lot of things.  It’s like a road trip.  You can look at the map, determine how many miles you have to travel, figure your average speed and then estimate how long it will take you to get there.  That works sometimes.  But maybe you come across a traffic jam, or a detour.  Maybe you drive through a town you’ve never been to and decide to stop a while.   

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Quick – how many people do you know who are too heavy?  And how many do you know who aren’t?  Chances are, you know more overweight people than thin ones, since normal weight people are now in the minority – two-thirds of US adults are either overweight or obese.  How we got this way has been endlessly discussed – we eat too much of the wrong foods, we eat all the time and we don’t exercise enough.  So given what we eat and how little we move, the real question is “why isn’t everyone fat?”. 

Humans are designed to stockpile calories.  We’re genetically programmed – just like our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors were – to hang on to every calorie we can.  These thrifty genes can work against us by helping us to store more – and the wide availability of cheap, tasty food just makes it even easier to do so.  But there’s a bit of genetic programming that determines how much energy we spend every day, too – even influencing how much we move when we’re not exercising.

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Sometimes when I talk with people who struggle with their weight, they’ll tell me that the reason they can’t lose weight is because they eat too much at night – “I eat,” they’ll say, “and then I just sit around and I don’t burn it off – that’s my problem”. While intuitively this might make sense, it doesn’t really work this way. Taking in too many calories – at any time of the day – is going to lead to weight gain.

The body just doesn’t micromanage calories that carefully. And here’s why: we evolved under conditions of food scarcity – in order to survive, we had to be able to store extra calories if we overate – whenever that might be – and then be able to call them up when we needed them. Our ancestors foraged for food all day long, and they needed to store (or use) all the calories they could get – whether they were eaten at dawn or around the fire at night.

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Last week, a friend was telling me that he’d eaten a huge serving of a delicious end-of-the-summer watermelon the evening before. Afterwards, he got to thinking – did he overdo it? Can you, in fact, eat too much of what’s good for you?

I get asked this a lot, particularly when it comes to fruit. Depending on what it is you’re concerned about, the answer could be yes or no. If you’re worried about eating “too much sugar” from fruit, then I’d say the concern is unwarranted. Yes, fruit is sweet from the natural sugar it contains, but it’s also packaged up with vitamins, minerals, fiber and a host of healthy phytonutrients that act as antioxidants. And, you’re probably not getting nearly as much sugar as you think – you’d need to eat a quarter of a large watermelon to match the sugar in a medium-sized soft drink. That’s a lot of melon.

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