Ice Cream

I'm not even exaggerating when I say I could sit down and eat an entire half gallon of ice cream in one sitting. I'm a huge ice cream-o-holic. It's a daily struggle for me to pace myself and eat only a little here and there so I don't undo all my hard work, but I have come up with some strategies that may help you if you suffer the way I do with it.

1) Eat ice cream (or comparable indulgence) with a very small spoon. It will take you longer to eat, you'll eat less, and you'll enjoy it more!!!

2) Do not eat ice cream when you're hungry! Ice cream is not a meal! Maybe you've never made this mistake, but I have! I'm hungry and rooting around for something to eat and see that alluring ice cream and once or twice I sat down and ate a bunch of it. Whenever you eat an indulgence, you're either a) eating more than you should or b) replacing the something nutritious you could have eaten with sugary junk. So either you're depriving yourself of essential nutrients or gaining fat deposits one day at a time.

3) Eat foods in a measuring cup. I force myself to put my ice cream in a glass measuring cup and limit myself to 1 cup (and only if I can afford it - which I know because I religiously track my diet on My Fitness Pal). Then I eat it with a small spoon and make it last and then that's that. This way I don't just eat and eat and eat. It's the worst idea ever to eat out of the container. I can basically guarantee you're going to eat A LOT more than you thought you would.

4) Measure your food. This way you know how many servings you've eaten so you can tally up the damage. Hopefully you're tracking your diet somehow and when you measure food it makes it so much easier (obviously) to record your diet. I have a digital scale and a set of measuring cups that are my best friends.

5) If you're going to eat an indulgence because you're bored, don't! If you're bored, read a book, go for a walk, exercise, play a game, whatever, but don't sit there and eat yourself into a stuppor! It's very hard to divorce our emotional attachments to food and to restructure our habits with food, but if you don't like the road you're on now then GET OFF. Take the detour past the coronary bypass and kick that junk that doesn't love you to the curb! KNOW that you're doing something very good for yourself every time you say no to junk. You deserve it, so say no.

6) If you're going to eat something like ice cream, try to eat it at lunch time instead of after dinner/before bed. That way you're more likely to burn off the sugars that go with it so they don't just sit there forming fat on your butt, thighs, and stomach all night long. When you ingest something sugary your insulin levels spike and it sends a message to your body to start storing fat. If you want to keep fat off, you need to watch how much sugar your ingesting. This is, yet again, where monitoring your diet using something like My Fitness Pal can be a life saver.

If you get bored and reach for food, I'll teach you how to knit. It's a great hobby and a dying art! Or pick up Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, I couldn't put that book down for 14 hours til I finished it!

Get strong, stay strong,
Cassandra Wyzik
B.S. - ACSM Certified Personal Trainer
www.FitToYouBrevard.com
Personal training and group classes for
Brevard County residents!

JAVA!

That's right, the topic du jour is COFFEE! I don't know about all of you, but I really love a warm cup of coffee every now and again (like every couple hours). I'm a little ADD (if you couldn't tell by the meandering topics you find here) and coffee really chills me out and helps me focus. Plus, in this cooler weather we're getting into it just feels so nice having a warm cup between my hands.

At one time I worried about what coffee drinking might do to my health but more and more I'm finding out what it could do FOR my health (and yours!). Now, I'm not talking about drinking 500 calorie vente mocha latte blah blah blah 5 times a day. I believe you should get away with as little additives in your coffee as possible. I started drinking coffee in New Orleans at Cafe Du Monde and coffee that was half milk and sugar was the norm for me for some time after. Now I can drink it mostly black, with just a little vanilla almond milk to take the edge off.

So I've compiled some statistics I found online to keep it short and sweet and included a couple of links if you want to read some articles on the subject, but here it goes:

The health benefits of coffee!

Heart Disease (up to 25% reduction in mortality risk (for women))

Diabetes (up to 60% reduced risk)

Dementia (up to 65% reduced risk)

Colon Cancer (up to 25% reduced risk)

Cirrhosis (up to 80% reduced risk)

Gallstones (almost 50% reduced risk)

Parkinson’s Disease (up to 80% reduced risk)

Headache Relief

Asthma Relief

Cavity Protection (because of anti-bacterial and anti-adhesive properties of compounds within coffee)

and the links:
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/coffee-new-health-food

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/story?id=1074559

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/28/coffee-health-benefits-how-coffee-might-save-your-life.html

There you have it! So no feeling guilty about brewing up some joe in the morning to get you going! Keep it on the healthy side by keeping all the sugar and processed junk out of it and hopefully this simple change will benefit you for the rest of your longer life ;-)

Live well, live long,
Cassandra Wyzik
B.S. - ACSM Certified Personal Trainer
www.FitToYouBrevard.com
"If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything"

The Underglorified Glutes

Everyone is familiar with gluteus maximus, the old derriere. It's companion muscles, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus, however, are highly underglorified. Originating at the pelvis and inserting high on our thigh bone, these incredibly important muscles stabilize our pelvis, help us balance while on one leg, and move the leg away from our body. Did I mention they are what give your buttocks lift and "body"?

Good, now that I have  your attention I want to impress upon you the importance of working these muscles. Not only will your butt look better than ever, but you'll be reducing your risk of falling as you age, strengthening your hip bones (one of the first places struck by osteoporosis), and keeping lower back pain and pelvic misalignment problems at bay.

I mentioned that the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus help us balance while on one leg. I know what you're thinking: "How often am I on one leg anyway? Who cares?". Well, do you walk or climb stairs? How about get in or out of a car? If you do, then you experience a period of balancing on one leg! This is why strengthening these muscles keep us from falling as we age. Many older people were simply walking around when their leg gave out beneath them and they fell, probably breaking their hip or wrist as they attempted to catch themselves on the way down. You can avoid this fate and look ass-tastic while you're doing it by adding a variation of this very simple exercise into your routine:

Hip Abduction:

While standing, hold onto a wall, chair, railing, etc for support and raise your outside leg straight out to the side. Do this about 10 times and switch sides. Complete 3 sets. Repeat every other day!

You can also do this from a laying down position. Add resistance bands or ankle weights (if you don't have knee problems) to make it harder.

This is my favorite variation because it involves the core as well. You can make this exercise easier by leaning against a wall, then a chair, then a table, etc, progressively getting closer to the ground as you become stronger.

I've said my piece! Now go work your butts off (or up!).

In wellness,

Cassandra Wyzik

B.S. - ACSM Certified Personal Trainer

Fit To You Brevard

www.FitToYouBrevard.com

Drink up!

I've talked you all to death this week so I'll do a quick trainer tip today:

If you’re having a hard time meeting your water requirements try a refillable plastic bottle that you’ll be happy carrying around. Preferably one with a functional spout and a lid that won’t let it spill. I even have a bottle with a ring around the lid that allows you to count how many times you have filled it up! If you don’t have a bottle like mine, put a rubber band around the neck every time you fill it. Whatever helps you remember!  Remember you should get about 64 ounces at least every day to feel your best!

Cheers!

Cassandra Wyzik

B.S. - ACSM Certified Personal Trainer

Fit To You Brevard

Personal Training - Group Classes

www.FitToYouBrevard.com

Which is more important? Diet or exercise?

This question gets asked a lot and a lot of answers get thrown out there. A lot of people say that diet is 80 percent of weight loss and exercise is 20 percent. I really don't agree with that at all. I think they're both very important and you should definitely focus on both, but for sustainability of your metabolism, I think exercise is more important.

You can diet all you want and will the weight come off? Well, yes, BUT if you stop dieting ever, you'll have no buffer and will gain weight right back. This explains the "yo-yo" effect you often see in people. They're dieting and dieting, they lose the weight, they go back to normal and bam, weight back on.

Why does this happen? They're missing a very crucial ingredient: muscle mass! If you have very little muscle mass, your body will have a lower metabolism and will not be very efficient dealing with calories. If you have muscle mass you will burn more calories 24/7 than people who don't and the more muscle you  have, the more calories you'll burn. I've quoted the statistic before: it takes 10 calories per day just to keep 1 pound of muscle alive. That may sound insignificant but it adds up really fast! If you have 10 more pounds of muscle than you do right now, you'd burn an extra 100 calories EVERY day. Just for having muscle.

Typically this is why people find it so difficult to keep weight off later in life. We've all been told that after you hit a certain age you can expect your metabolism to just stop. That's completely untrue. When we're young we tend to have more muscle mass and are generally more active. As we age and things stop being as easy as they once were so we hang up our activity hats and sit it out. Our muscles get smaller and less efficient and our metabolisms go right with them.

Good news is: you can fix this! Add a strength training program to your life 2-3 days a week with 48 hours in between the same muscle groups and you can reclaim the body you had 20 years ago, or better! You'll also be preventing or reversing bone loss, fighting cancer, sleeping better, feeling better, lowering your blood pressure, looking better, have more energy, and all the other benefits that go with strength training.

Ah yes, the other side of the coin. Suppose you exercise like a boss but don't diet. Well, you'll still lose weight because your body will be an efficient machine, but if your diet is poor, you could still have a beer gut, bloating, or you'll never see your muscles because they're covered in a layer of fat. I still think it's not as bad as the dieter who doesn't exercise scenario, but at the end of the day you need both diet and exercise to be as healthy as possible. Not to mention that if you're exercising all the time, your body will need more key nutrients, like protein, calcium, potassium, etc, to maintain your new physique. If you're not getting proper nutrition then your overworking and under nourishing your body which isn't good either.

Of course, whether you exercise or not, you still want to be sure you're getting the proper nutrients. This is why I recommend "My Fitness Pal" or something similar as a way to track your diet and see how you're doing from a food standpoint. You can download a free app for your phone or track online (free) at www.myfitnesspal.com.

That's enough for today! More tomorrow!

In wellness,
Cassandra Wyzik
B.S. - ACSM Certified Personal Trainer
Fit To You Brevard
Satellite Beach, Florida

Money saving tip!

I grew up VERY poor, a fact which has defined my life in many ways. Mainly, it made me very thrifty and a big DIY lover. Many people feel held back from exercising because they have a lack of equipment. While your body is all the gym most of us will ever need, it's nice to throw something new into the mix from time to time. Personally I managed to stay in great shape for years using only my bodyweight, but fun equipment thrown into the mix from time to time can really help with your excitement and enjoyment levels.

One piece of equipment I've always found appealing are Valslides.

The concept is simple, you put them under your feet or under your hands and they allow you to slide freely across carpeted surfaces. If you get the booties to wrap around them, they slide across hard surfaces. They're super versatile, you can take them anywhere, and they take up a very little amount of space in your home. BUT the $35-40 price tag has kept me from buying them.

Here's the tip! Some of you may have realized already that these look exactly like furniture movers. I'm not joking, you can get them at Lowes or Home Depot or even Walmart. I happened to find a set of 4 at Lowes for $10. As a sometimes seamstress, I even sewed up some booties for one of my pairs out of some leftover fleece and elastic and now I have a set for carpet and a set for hard surfaces...for $10! I saved at least $60!

My new "Super Sliders"! 

With booties!

With a little creativity you can make your own dip station, pull up bar, TRX system, weight bench, sandbag, and basically everything else you might ever need! My dad made a weight bench and rack with wood, high density foam, and faux leather. He even incorporated metal loops that he could feed resistance bands through or hook on to make it even more versatile.

So get creative, think outside the box, do some research (Google is your friend!), and think of other things you can make that will help motivate you to work out!

Be well,

Cassandra Wyzik

B.S. - ACSM Certified Personal Trainer

Fit To You Brevard

Satellite Beach, Florida

"Fitness for every body!"

Myth Busting

A popular belief in the fitness industry is that low intensity, long duration exercise is the most effective way to lose fat, but I, and many others, say nay!

Dr. Angelo Tremblay and his colleagues at the Physical Activities Sciences Laboratory in Quebec, Canada compared the impact of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise and high-intensity interval training on fat loss. Skinfold measurements revealed that the interval training group lost more body fat. Moreover, when they took into account the fact that the interval training used less energy during the workouts, the fat loss was 9 times more efficient than the aerobics program. In short, the interval training group got 9 times more fat-loss benefit for every calorie burned exercising. How can that be?

Because, after taking muscle biopsies, measuring muscle enzyme activity, and lipid utilization in the post exercise state, they found that high-intensity intermittent exercise caused more calories and fat to be burned following the workout. In addition, they found that appetite is suppressed more after intense intervals.

One of the many reasons I love interval training, or any form of strength training, is that your metabolism stays elevated for up to 48 hours after you're done working out in order to repair your muscles and make them stronger. Compare that to, say, jogging when as soon as you stop, you stop burning calories. Over time, you will burn much more fat and look a lot better when you focus on strength and interval training. When people neglect strength training, they will always look a little, well, flabby. Without muscle mass to keep your metabolism elevated, you're far more likely to put weight back on later on in life.

Did you know??
~It takes 10 calories per day just to keep a pound of muscle alive. An additional five pounds of muslce will burn up to 1500 calories per month which is equivalent to 5 pounds of fat burned per year!~

Just looking at walking versus running as a means for fat loss, higher intensity cardio training is still superior to low intensity.  Just read this article to see what I mean:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/busting-the-great-myths-of-fat-burning.html

So pick up the pace people! You'll spend less time exercising and get far more benefits!

In wellness,
Cassandra Wyzik
B.S. - ACSM Certified Personal Trainer
Fit To You Brevard
Satellite Beach, Florida
"Fitness for every body!"