Weightloss Now – Page 4

March 14, 2015March 14, 2015

Set records, achieve personal bests and feel good about your health and fitness through exercise

Achievement through fitness

Through my career in fitness, I have met many achievement oriented individuals. Additionally, I have met real people with less than ambitious hobbies.

Validation vs. achievement

Most people want to be looked at positively in the eyes of others. If at times, you felt without others, it’s great to re-establish and find new connections. If you want people to find you physically attractive, perhaps you would select an outfit that looks fitting and appropriate for the occasion so that you can feel confident in your appearance.

Performance based goals

Your exercise program must include progressive resistance. There are unlimited ways in which you could practice your body through resistance training. Free-weights are common tools across the world for developing skill and strength in movement patterns.

I made this makeshift sled at my last gym. Furniture sliders and some steps which a pvc pipe to keep the weights in placed. This is conditioning that destroys fat everywhere.

Morning sled push session. This conditioning exercise destroys fat everywhere.

Practically speaking, you want to make progress in activities that make you move hard. Work hard with your pushing and your pulling and your hinging and your squatting.

All out intensity

Start optimizing your lifestyle. By gaining strength, speed, and power then you will achieve personal bests. Then you will have begun to alter the course of your body’s lifeline by activating your healthier genetic identity.

March 12, 2015

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What you don’t know about eating healthy could be holding you back from fat loss

Are you losing fat at light speed or slower than a turtle?

Over the years as a professional in fitness, I’ve heard many statements about how people eat.

“I eat pretty healthy already.”

“Oh, my diet is pretty good.”

How come I keep doing this and my body never changes, feels like I’m going nowhere!

“I know how to eat healthy.”

And yet… these people are still not satisfied with their bodies. If you accept that you could not possibly eat any healthier, then you are either a highly successful health wizard or quite simply you are settling for less.

Will you ever be happy by settling for less than your best?

Most people have very little understanding of what it means to truly eat healthy, but they think they do. From my experience of people who are interested in improving their fitness and getting that lean, toned body of their dreams, people usually fall into one of several categories.

Category 1: People who buy processed foods that have deceptive labels and have little to no health benefit (or even negative health effect)

We like to believe that if somebody tells us that this is good for us AND that it tastes good, then it’s healthy enough for you. But you’re settling. Here’s an example:

What’s wrong with this image?

In the above picture, the Nestle brand promotes their juice product by adding small amounts of DHA (an omega-3 constituent) and then claims that this product supports brain development since research has shown DHA is good for the brain.

The problem: By consuming very sugary drinks, it’s not good for the brain unless the body is truly deprived of energy source. After consuming dense sources of sugar such as processed fruit juices, the body must respond by releasing insulin hormone into the blood stream. Over time, with regular consumption of sugar laden foods, the body enacts an immune related inflammatory response which eventually does more damage to the major organ systems. You think diabetes is good for the brain? Think again.

The solution: Be mindful about what you are truly consuming. Read the label entirely before you make the decision to put it in your shopping cart. Limit processed foods.

Category 2: People who, with good intentions, lower their calories too much and eventually starve their body of nutrients

These people are the quick fixers. They want to lose weight and they want to lose weight now, they will do anything it takes. They think that by exercising six days a weak and eating below maintenance calories that they will achieve the body of their dreams in time for their trip to Cabo San Lucas.

The Problem: By depriving the body of nutrients and over-exercising, the body becomes stressed and other systems within the body begin to degrade. For example, when the immune system begins to weaken, the body will put more value on immunity than fat loss… even if that means holding on to fat!

The Solution: Focus on nutrient density. Whenever you are at a caloric deficit, the overall value of every calorie becomes much more important. That’s why vegetables, fresh juices, herbs, lean proteins etc. are the best approach to fat loss. And not just fat loss. Healthy body composition, hormonal function, longevity, disease prevention and more.

Category 3: People who invest their time in learning about nutritional approaches from different perspectives and viewpoints, apply it to their lives, and LISTEN to the signals from their body

Long term success in fitness comes down to one thing…

But before we get to that, let’s take some examples of people who fit into this category. An example would be the person who joins a fitness studio and learns about a diet such as the zone diet. They start to place certain “values” on the specific foods that they consume, all the while becoming more mindful about what they are literally putting in their bodies.

Here’s one for the paleo fans out there

While a specific diet approach may not work for them, they will take the bits and pieces that resonated with their body and continue to seek and learn.

Which brings us back to long term success in fitness:

It’s a Lifestyle

We have so many opportunities to be led and to be our own leaders. At times we allow the experts to feed us knowledge and support, meanwhile the answer to your motivation lies within you.

How can you leverage that intrinsic motivation which is somewhere inside us all? Maybe you need to spend more time around that person with healthy habits that start to rub off on you. Maybe it’s a book that changes your life, or gosh even a blog like Dre Fitness. If you sat down and had a conversation with me, would it help?

Based on overall population data, there’s a good chance that you don’t eat nearly as healthy as you think you do

More than two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. Hundreds of thousands of people per day die or suffer from preventable diseases because they either lack the nutrients or they are taking in way too many toxins for their body to handle.

Accept that your learning will never end and that your concept of healthy eating will always be out dated unless you make an effort to be more mindful about your foods.

To conclude this article, my last point is that maybe you don’t even have to keep reading at all. What if you just TRULY listened to your body and experimented with different foods. Stop weighing yourself and start looking at yourself. Did that cake make your belly a bit rounder? Or on the other hand, maybe drinking fresh celery juice made you feel energized, tightened up your skin, and improved your joint pain.

My goal will always be to empower you

Comments and engagement always appreciated, stay tuned for more…

Nutrition, Immunity, and Digestion Orangetheory Fitness Seattle Orangetheory Seattle Weightloss Now

January 14, 2015

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Have a goal for every workout: Fat Cells respond to progressive resistance by getting smaller!

What is the goal of this workout today?

We all come into the workout room with different needs, strengths, and expectations. To some, not having a specific goal for every workout is actually unfathomable.

My goal for this workout

Keep track of specific exercises that have been done in the past and perform in more progressively challenging ways. These techniques help you to burn more fat:

Perform the exercise faster on the concentric, and slower on the eccentric
Use more resistance than before
Greater amount of reps using the same weight
Decrease rest intervals without sacrificing heavy weight
Using heavy weights in a larger range of motion
Improving your form and technique with weights that you struggled with before
Combination of the above

Time constraints can be motivating, as is some healthy Orangetheory Fitness competition

I don’t often speak to these accomplishments even if it is noticeable it helps me stay motivated in fitness.

Examples of a good goal to have

Let’s talk about a treadmill goal to begin with. Of course we’re following a HIIT program and the ideal length for a treadmill workout is between 20-30 minutes.

You can try to improve your times in the following ways:

Your one-mile time
Your half-mile time
Your quarter mile time
Your tenth of a mile time

Kyle Anderson from Seattle on the right running hard

You can further improve fat loss by:

Your .25 mile run at 3% incline
Your .25 mile run at 5% incline
Your .25 mile run at 7% incline

Then on a later workout once you have recovered, do your .25 mile run at 1% incline and you will likely be able to run faster than you did before at that particular incline!

Thus progress! Fat cells should get smaller due to this physical and neural progression in muscular contraction.

Once you have accomplished it, nobody can take that away from you!

It’s yours.

Now believe in it and go with it

Orangetheory Fitness Seattle Orangetheory Seattle Physical Fitness by Dre Weightloss Now

January 13, 2015February 9, 2015

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When Women train Heavy, will you Bulk Up or LEAN OUT? Fat Loss Talk

The cultural roles and expectations that we face can make us feel self critical

I have no doubt that people who stay lean and healthy all year round are those who also surround themselves with similar people. So in that sense of culture, I believe that people with healthy mindsets are a benefit of culture for fat loss. At the same time, the images on TV and mass media are certainly causing shifts in the discussion of our bodies.

Seems that fit people share similar activities

How does this all play into what it is to have a healthy body image?

Well, let’s ask what is it to have healthy body image?

Wake up knowing you will take on the day, it will not take on you
Feels or seeks to feel intrinsic reasons to exercise
Finds way to challenge what the body is truly capable of physically and consequently mentally, emotionally
Places a high value of quality of food for both internal and external human benefit

It’s ultimately not about the body fat %. It’s not about six pack abs or firm buttocks. It’s about the you, the person.

Should Women Lift Heavy?

First, let’s focus on the goal of an individual. Not all women should lift heavy particularly if the exercise is contraindicated from orthopedic needs or for some other factor that precludes strength development.

Using a reasonable program, lifting progressively heavier weights has many benefits:

Progressive resistance on a body weight exercise

Increased calorie burn at rest
Develops the Fast Twitch muscle fibers which allow you to burn even more calories while exercising
Makes you stronger, more fit person
Promotes healthy metabolism, especially in the area of systemic glucose management and insulin resistance
Tends to put you in a good mood, feeling of accomplishments, actual achievements
Focuses on performance, what the body can do, a healthy perspective

There are many established benefits of lifting heavy weights for women. It’s not my case to argue whether or not you want to use heavier weights, but in the case that you do want to see the benefits, then you are at the right place.

All women have different response to exercise and nutrition

Because of our genes and our environmental conditions (including what your mother ate and how well she slept), everybody has different responses to lifting progressively heavier weights. So I’ll keep it simple here.

Woman who lift heavier weights WILL DEFINITELY BURN MORE FAT…

In terms of bulking, there are two main factors at play:

1. How much food is being eaten; the quality of food consumed is just as important as the overall volume

I’m not sure what she eats, but I’d bet it’s pretty balanced nutritionally

and..

2. The current hormonal status of the individual.

Let me elaborate on this for a moment. Just like in men, women have a range of testosterone and some women just naturally have more in their bodies. If this is the case, they may build muscle easier than other women. They may also be sexually aggressive but that is WAY beyond the scope of this.

On the other hand, diet can affect our hormones as well. Women who show a preference for frequent consumption of simple sugars, starches, alcohol, trans fats and other low quality foods are more likely to add “bulk” which is more visibly as fat mass.

Lift heavy to tone up and eat lean to stay lean

I’d wager she exercises too

So it comes down to a discussion on body image

The worst reason to exercise is to look like somebody else. To have somebody’s butt or their legs or their arms.

You will never.

Best to focus on being you and accepting that exercise is your healing and you need it frequently.

Good luck all, thanks for reading

Nutrition Physical Fitness by Dre Weightloss Now

January 9, 2015

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Maximizing your Treadmill Intervals for Fat Loss, Performance and Unlimited Benefit

Will this blog help you get unlimited benefits? Maybe that’s a big statement

I’ve spent years now testing various treadmill interval blocks. Being native to the Pacific Northwest, I can run outdoors whenever I want but there are many times when I prefer to run indoors on a treadmill.

Treadmill intervals, if you go to OTFSeattle you’ll recognize a face or two from this special Ft. Lauderdale workout

The benefit of running on a treadmill:

Since it is a machine, you can find it easier to quantitatively track, record and achieve parameters of progression.
Increase resistance by simply increasing the incline
There is never a need to go downhill, so there may be less stress on the knees and the quads will be subjected to less stress and therefore less soreness.
Typically, less soreness means you can up your training frequency, thus getting faster results (so long as you stay healthy).

Designing effective treadmill interval blocks

Treadmill intervals are more a mental game than anything else. Almost every healthy person who uses a treadmill regularly can run faster than the maximum speed they’ve ever used on a treadmill. People just need a little encouragement! That’s why HIIT classes like Orangetheory Fitness in Seattle (my home studio Capitol Hill!!) are so popular and effective.

Example of a progressive HIIT block on the treadmill

Since teaching exercise classes to over a thousand people in Seattle, I’ve started focusing on how to coach these treadmill blocks even more effectively than before. Example of a recent All-Out block I coached my classes on.

30 second all out at 1% (exerciser chooses their most intense speed possible for 30 sceonds)
45 second walking recovery
30 second all out using the same speed as last time, but at 3% incline
45 second walking recovery
30 second all out at 1% incline, starts off as an aggressive push, and halfway through exercisers are coached to peak at their maximum speed (even if only for seconds at a time)

After the block was over and people were walking for recovery on the treadmills, I asked people to raise their hand if that was the fastest they have ever gone on the treadmill. More than a quarter of people raised their hands, knowing they have achieved something they never achieved before and thus breaking another mental barrier which could have held them back from their fitness goals.

Kyle Anderson in the teal from Seattle, Washington. He's our fitness and business inspiration

Kyle Anderson in the teal from Seattle, Washington. He is one our fitness and business inspirations and a leader for the local team here

HIIT is here to stay

Exercise science tells us this. Workouts only need to be between 20-60 minutes long and the intensity can vary from minute to minute throughout the training. There is no better way to release that cocktail of beneficial fat-burning hormones in the hours after your workout. Good recovery from high intensity training guarantees the accelerated decrease in fat-cell size.

Stay tuned my people