10/3/2008
We are at the halfway point, and even though we haven`t seen big drops in weight, our participant`s body circumferences and body fat percentages have dropped significantly. Everyone has lost inches off their entire body, but most importantly, inches off their waist and hips. Sometimes it`s hard not to focus on the weight that`s being lost (or not lost), because it`s something that can be measured fairly easily. The fact is, there is a lot of focus on people being the "correct" weight. Keep in mind that everyone carries their weight a little differently, loses weight differently, and puts on weight differently, so if the scale isn`t showing the changes that you are expecting, look for other ways to keep tabs on yourself. Every four to six weeks, have your body circumferences or body fat percentages checked. An even easier way is just to try on your clothes, and see if they`re fitting you differently. If they are, great! And if not, it might be time to change up your workout. Great job Margo, Nick, Chris, and Ali...keep it up!!

9/25/2008
Week 5 brings us more muscle endurance workouts, doing 2-3 sets of 15 reps for 10-12 total body exercises. Everyone is looking good and keeping with the healthy recommendation of 1-2 pound weight loss per week. There are so many different benefits of being physically active and exercising regularly, such as a decrease in blood pressure and cholesterol, strengthens the cardio-pulmonary system (heart and lung), weight maintenance, improves sleeping patterns, etc. One benefit that is sometimes overlooked or not well known is the positive effect exercise has on a stress management. Exercise increases your overall health, and your sense of well-being, which puts more pep in your steps everyday. But exercise also has some direct stress-busting benefits. It pumps up your endorphins. Physical activity helps to bump up the production of your brain`s feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins. Although this function is often referred to as a runner`s high, a rousing game of tennis or a nature hike also can contribute to this same feeling. It`s meditation in movement. After a fast-paced game of racquetball or several laps in the pool, you`ll often find that you`ve forgotten the day`s dilemmas and irritations and concentrated only on your body`s movements. As you begin to regularly shed your daily tensions through movement and physical activity, you may find that this focus on a single task, and the resulting energy and optimism, can help you remain calm and clear in everything that you do. It improves your mood. Regular exercise can increase self-confidence and lower the symptoms associated with mild depression and anxiety. This can ease your stress levels and give you a sense of command over your body and your life.

9/18/2008
The focus for week four is muscle endurance. Ali, Chris, and Nick have been doing different circuits for the core, upper and lower body. Keeping the repetitions up, and the weight lighter, trains the muscles to perform for longer periods of time, also helps in muscle toning. For Margo`s workout, we are staying with the Nautilus machines for her lower body since that seems to cause her the least pain and inflammation and we did an upper body workout using cable machines. Everyone is losing or maintaining their weight, which is a great thing to see. A lot of times, people come to a weight loss road block, where diet and exercises routines are kept the same, but no more weight is lost. Just like I mentioned in last week`s blog, once the body gets used to a regular routine, it is done adapting and changing. Here are a few more tips to go along with last weeks to help stay away from those road blocks or plateaus: Zig-Zag calorie intake, or calorie cycling is the process of varying daily calorie intake, while maintaining the same weekly intake. Strength training - if you are not doing this as part of your program or lifestyle, then it`s time to start. Working your muscles will help to strengthen bone tissue, increase lean mass, and ultimately boost metabolic rate. Change your exercise routine - if you walk a lot, try jogging, or swimming, or cycling, anything that will change the way your body is working. If you are doing low intensity cardio work, then try some high intensity exercise. Alter macro-nutrient intake - Although it sounds complicated, once again, the idea is to change what you are eating. If (for example) you are eating a moderate diet that is higher in carbs, try eating less carbs and more protein. There is no need to get super-technical over the whole thing. If you have a carbohydrate snack every day at morning tea time, change it to a protein snack. Whatever you are doing consistently, try mixing it up a bit. Change meal frequency - If you are eating three square meals a day, start adding snacks in between (which may mean reducing the portion size of the main meals).

9/11/2008
As week 3 gets underway, I’m beginning to see a lot of improvements in form and body posture in everyone. Now that we’ve had a few workouts under our belt, the muscles we’ve been working have had time to adapt to the stress placed upon it. So, it’s about time to change up the workouts for everyone. Right away, beginner weight trainers seem to make progress no matter what they do. However, eventually it becomes increasingly difficult to make even the smallest gains because the most productive exercises lose their effectiveness over time. One way to attempt re-stimulating progress is by changing the exercise routinely executed for a particular muscle group. Any significant change in one`s routine can stimulate new progress. When a new exercise has been introduced, the progress for the first few weeks is largely due to neural-motor adaptations. After this initial learning, or re-learning phase, subsequent strength increases become predominately from muscles fibers increasing in size. Changing exercises for a muscle group every workout is not necessary and may, in effect, not allow optimal neurological adaptation. In addition, it becomes difficult to make incremental progress if you change your exercises every workout. Sticking to a program, or a group of selected exercises, for a longer time will decrease your chance of injury, because you`ll be more familiar with your limits regarding load and volume, and it will make it easier to practice and maintaining good form. Your muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, vascular elements and neural-motor units respond favorably with small increases in duration and intensity. If too little weight is used, the body doesn’t have to adapt to an overload (placing a positive stress on the muscles - more than it is used too). Once that adaptation has occurred, it’s time to change up the workout structure (usually every 3-4 weeks). Overloading the muscle can be achieved by changing the intensity and duration, repetition, rest, and frequency. Remember, your muscles grow from the one set when you lift more than you ever did before, and not from the ten sets you did at a weight you have lifted for years.

9/3/2008
As in week one, week two`s focus was on building a strong core foundation and muscle/body awareness. Just like with anything else new that we learn, doing new exercises right takes lots of practice and it is important to not expect yourself to do the movements correctly with lots of reps or weights the first few times you do them. This is why initially, we spend lots of time focusing on correct form and posture with basic body movements so we can then move on later to more complex movements while keeping proper form. After you have mastered the correct movement, try increasing the intensity by adding repetitions or sets, increasing resistance, or changing up your balance points (i.e. standing on one leg, using a body ball). Our nutritional focus on this week was getting out Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) which is the minimum calorific requirement needed to sustain life in a resting individual. It can be looked at as being the amount of energy (measured in calories) expended by the body to remain in bed asleep all day. There are many BMR calculators out on the internet that just need your age, height, weight, and activity level. Once you know your BMR, the next step is to adjust your calories according to your primary goal. The mathematics of calorie balance are simple: To keep your weight at its current level, you should remain at your daily caloric maintenance level. To lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit by reducing your calories slightly below your maintenance level (or keeping your calories the same and increasing your activity above your current level). To gain weight you need to increase your calories above your maintenance level. The only difference between weight gain programs and weight loss programs is the total number of calories required. Also consider what kind of calories your are consuming. You should be getting 10-30% of your calories from fats, 50-70% of your calories from carbohydrates, and 15-30% of your calories from proteins.

8/29/2008
Our first session went very well. Both Margo and Nick worked extremely hard and are looking forward to the next three months. The first workout we did was mainly focused on setting a foundation of a strong core (abdominals, lower back, hips and pelvic area) and body/muscle awareness. We need a strong core to make sure all other body movements are done right and to aid in injury prevention. Because Margo and Nick had not been previously working out on a regular basis, we just did one set of each exercise so not to totally shock the body. I also wanted to make sure that they were doing the proper form and getting the right muscles recruited for each exercise before we do lots of sets. Not only are Margo and Nick are in different stages of their lives, they also have very different physical capabilities. For the most part, they will be able to do the same workout with modifications to make sure they are getting an intense-enough workout for themselves. As for Ali and Chris, their main focus is toning and building muscle. We will start off the first couple weeks just getting back into the resistance training mode, but then focus more on specific muscles. They seem eager and excited to start back up again.