Thursday, August 20, 2009

Ten Changes You Can Make to Your Diet to Start Losing Weight

The truth about diets is that most of them fail. Diets are often an expensive, temporary solution to lose weight with very little long-term success. Most diets do not fit into normal life and can actually lower your metabolism if not supplemented with physical activity. However, by making the following ten changes to your diet, you can start losing weight and keep it off for good.

1. Drink six or more glasses of water daily. Divide your weight in pounds by two and the resulting number is the number of ounces of water you need to consume on a daily basis to maintain and control your weight. Get a water purification system, add lemons or limes to your water and carry water with you everywhere you go. Be sure to drink at least two cups of water with every meal.

2. Use a salt substitute. Salt does not contain any calories, but it does cause the body to retain water. Use a salt substitute and your body will expel water and weigh less.

3. Take a multi-vitamin daily. Multi-vitamins not only enhance general health and provide protection from certain types of cancers, but medical doctors have also linked multi-vitamins to weight loss. Take a multi-vitamin with chromium, vitamins B-6 and B-12 once a day with breakfast to start shedding pounds.

4. Avoid cream and sugar in your coffee & tea by switching to artificial sweetener. The caffeine found in coffees and teas is as an appetite suppressant, making you less hungry after drinking to help you eat less at your next meal. Without sugars, creams or other additives, an 8-ounce cup of brewed coffee contains around 2 calories! However, two teaspoons of sugar is equal to 30 calories and one tablespoon of cream accounts for just over 50 calories, so switch to artificial sweeteners for maximum weight loss.

5. Boil and drain vegetables without butter. Feel free to eat your favorite vegetables with every meal, as long as you boil them without butter. Vegetables are caloric dense, meaning you will feel fuller from eating smaller portions. Use vinegar or lemon juice instead for taste.

6. Avoid dressing in your salad. By using vinegar, lemon juice or artificial sweetener in your salad, you can cut down on fat without sacrificing on taste.

7. Boil or broil all lean meats and fish (beef, veal, lamb, fowl and fish). Lean meats are high in muscle-building, fat-burning proteins. The leanest poultry choice that is also high in protein is white meat from the breast of chicken or turkey. Check labels on ground meat and only buy ground beef made from 90% or higher lean meat.

8. Avoid pork and shell fish. Pork and shellfish calories can be especially high due to added sugars and fats. Limit your portions of pork and shellfish or eliminate them from your diet.

9. Do not eat between meals or skip any meals. Eat meals at the same time each day. Skipping meals not only makes you hungrier, so that you will eat more than usual at your next meal, but also creates metabolic changes in the body that can result in weight gain.

10. Avoid all alcoholic beverages. Pure alcohol contains close to 7 calories per gram, making it almost twice as fattening as carbohydrates or proteins, which both contain about 4 calories per gram. If you want to lose weight and reduce body fat, stay away from alcoholic drinks.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Its Strength Training Time!

Tighten up as you lighten up, that's what strength training is all about. It's an extraordinary way to tone your body and turn that extra flab into muscle. We're not talking about body building, just simple, light weights and floor exercises designed for targeting different muscle groups. Contrary to popular believe, strength training may be more important to successful fat loss than aerobic exercise. Depending upon the intensity of your workout, you may actually burn more calories with weight training. Done right, you will gain muscle, but you'll lose fat, and muscle burns calories faster than fat ever will. In just 30 minutes, two to three times per week you can tone, tighten and lose weight.

There are a number of strength training exercises you should incorporate into your exercise routine, each targeting different areas. These include the following:

· Squats: These work your gluts, quads, calves and hamstrings all at the same time.

· Push Ups: Work all the muscles of your body at once including your chest, shoulders, back, triceps and abs.

· Lunges: Tighten up those leg muscles including quads, gluts, calves and hamstrings.

· Sit ups: Work those abs with crunches and sit ups as well as elbow to knee twists.

· Weights: Using light weights to focus on your arms shows almost instant results. Toning your arms is best done with single-joint movements like curls, kickbacks, tricep presses and tricep extensions.

A personal trainer at Lucille Roberts can help design a strength training program that targets each of your muscle groups, appropriate for your strength level. In addition, there are a number of classes specifically designed for strength training as well as those that incorporate all or some of the above mentioned exercises.

Once you understand the importance of the Big Three you're on your way to a stronger, firmer, thinner you. Training with others helps motivate you and keep you on track, and you'll find a community of women at your local Lucille Roberts that have like-minded goals. Hop on a tread mill, do some sit ups, ride an elliptical, join in on one of the hottest exercises classes around, get tips from a personal trainer…everyone's there to help. Plus, Lucille Roberts has a new diet menu each week for you to try as well as weight loss products and supplements to help you reach your goals. Together you can create great things.


Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Lucille Roberts will Amaze You!

Lucille Roberts is the only place that you can work out as much as you want, burn as much fat you want and take as many classes as you want for as little as ten bucks a month with no contracts. For more information visit http://www.lucilleroberts.com