Variety is the spice of life

People are often surprised when I say I’ve been a slacker and need to work out. They see that I teach 3 to 5 classes a week and assume that that should be plenty. On the one hand, it is. I can certainly maintain a certain level of fitness just by doing my job. However, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the body is amazingly adaptable and will find a way to do less work each time. (Exactly the way I do housework…)

Since I teach a lot of classes that have a set choreography (Body Pump and Body Jam) I’m often doing the same movements over and over. Not only do my muscles know what to do to cheat on their calorie burn, but I’m only using a certain group of muscles. If you’ve been stuck doing the same workout this is also happening to you. You’ll know I speak the truth after you shovel all this snow tonight. How many “new” muscles are you likely to discover tomorrow morning when you try to get out of bed?

Keeping your workouts varied not only keeps you from getting bored but it makes sure you hit as many muscles as possible.  This is good for both your physique and for injury prevention (see shoveling comment above). I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are certain body shapes associated with specific sports. Take Speed Skaters – they have thighs of steel. And swimmers with their massive upper bodies. They are athletes who put a lot of effort into one sport (More effort than I put into, well, pretty much anything) and their bodies respond accordingly. I’m certainly not saying you’ll get legs like a speed skater if all you do is use the elliptical machine but I am saying that you won’t be toning up your arms and other body parts.

Bottom line: Vary your workouts. Even if you’re already a trainer.

Local and Low Cal Product Recommendations

I like to eat. In fact, I pretty much work out to support my eating habit. However, over the years I have learned a few tricks to keep my enjoyment from becoming overindulgence. One of those tricks is finding food substitutions that taste as good or better than the things I think I really want.

For example, I grew up a huge fan of Thousand Island salad dressing. A salad just wasn’t a salad without (lots of) it.  When I finally decided I needed to lose weight I knew that drowning my salad in Thousand Island wasn’t probably the best way to go about doing so. I weaned myself off of it gradually until I no longer missed it. Do I still crave Thousand Island’s creamy goodness? Yes. But that’s mostly because I’m conditioned to want it. Once I get over myself and simply try something else (sometimes through sheer force of will) I find I enjoy my salad just as much.  What I now use instead is a super flavorful Fat Free Balsamic Vinaigrette by Maple Grove Farms of Vermont. It’s really tasty so a little goes a long way and 2 Tbsp only has 5 calories. FIVE! I’ve never seen another salad dressing with so few.  Even better, I know what all the ingredients are: Water, balsamic vinegar, cider vinegar, dehydrated garlic, salt, spices, cane syrup, and xanthan gum. (Ok, I don’t really know what xanthan gum is but you get what I mean.) A quick glance at the other balsamic dressing that’s been languishing in my fridge yields ingredients like potassium sorbate, propylene glycol, and calcium disodium EDTA. [Side note: I was a biology major and I distinctly recall measuring out EDTA for some gnarly chemical experiments. Oh, and it's used as a detergent. YUM!]

I’d also highly recommend Fox Hollow Farm’s Fox Mustard. It’s a spicy sweet mustard that is awesome on sandwiches or as a dip for pretzels. I haven’t yet used it as a marinade as they suggest on the jar but I’m sure that would be wonderful too. It’s got 15 calories per teaspoon but packs enough kick that you don’t need more than that. And how’s this for ingredients: brown sugar, canola oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard flour, water, molasses, fresh garlic, and spices. That’s it. No additives or preservatives. Lots of taste.

If you have products you love – preferably natural ones that aren’t full of “-oses” and “-ates” and other things that can’t be pronounced – I’d love to hear about them. Bon appetit!

Friends are for…stealing good ideas from

A friend of mine, whom I’ve known since we were about 12 and both had wicked awesome 80s perms, has a blog that she just shared with me. She, like me, has struggled with weight and has changed her body over the years. Unlike me, she’s done a lot of it through diet. Her blog’s premise is this:

“After all these years, I’ve amassed a ton of ideas, recipes, tips, tricks, and recommendations about how to eat healthy, lose weight, keep weight off, and (most importantly!) keep myself from going nuts in the process.  My friends are always asking to share my “secrets”, so rather than type them all into separate emails I’ve decided to share them with everyone through this blog. “

Since I am not (yet!) the poster child for good eating I thought I’d share her blog with you.

I’d also like to send you directly to one of her posts: It’s About Energy, Not About Time. I think she does a perfect job summarizing great ideas to help you get more energy and get things done. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Ask the Trainer

Question: Over the last year, I’ve gained weight in my hips/thighs/butt area so I want to try and thin down that area. I’ve gotten so I really enjoy the stair mill [a reverse escalator], but I wanted to make sure that wouldn’t just bulk me even further. My usual routine is 30 minutes on the elliptical and then 30 on the stair climber. Do you think that will help slim me down? Or should I try something else?

Answer:

First the bad news: Unfortunately you can’t spot train and thin down just in your legs. If that was possible I’d have the world’s flattest abs. Sadly, no matter how many crunches I do that is not the case. Our problem areas are problem areas for a reason. Sigh…

The good news is that you can tone and tighten your legs along with everything else. The other good news is that as a woman you are unlikely to bulk up simply by using the cardio machines. You’d have to carry weights (BIG weights), take supplements (BIG supplements), and generally let the gym run your life in order to look even remotely like a body builder.

What you really need to do is switch up your workouts. Our bodies are super-efficient machines so if we keep doing the same routine our bodies figure out how to do it using the least amount of calories. What happens is that the first few times you do a program you burn say 300 calories. Then your body gets wise to you and only burns 297, then 295, then 293…you catch my drift. By switching things up a little now and then your body doesn’t know quite what to do and can’t get away with slacking off.

If you love the stairmill or other cardio equipment, one way to change your routine would be to do High Intensity Interval Training. Another would be to change which machines you are using. At RVC, the Wave is great because it moves side to side, like skating, which uses completely different muscles than other machines. Ergo, your body won’t know what hit it the first few times. Also try biking, rowing, and cardio classes. You could even simply switch the order of your workout or mix it up by doing 15 minutes on the stairmill, 15 minutes on the elliptical, and then repeat the stairmill and elliptical for 15 minutes each. Or try 5 minutes on each piece of cardio equipment – with bikes, Arc Trainers, AMTs, Versa Climbers, Rowers, Treadmills, Steppers, Ellipticals, The Wave and Stairmills at your disposal just doing 5 minutes on each would give you 50 minutes of cardio and hit pretty much every muscle in your body. Try it and see how much harder it is.

Finally, the best and most counter-intuitive way I’ve found to lose weight and get smaller is by weight training. It seems odd that by building more muscle you’ll get smaller but that’s exactly what I’ve found to be the case. The more I lift the smaller I get. (It helps that the more muscle you have the faster your metabolism works.) I teach a class called Body Pump that is barbell based and I have never looked so toned or been so strong. However, I too have to be careful and make sure I switch thing up. Even though I teach several classes a week I find the pounds creeping up and the jeans getting tighter (and I can’t keep blaming the dryer). If I don’t up my weights in class or do something completely different like swimming, running, or free weights I start getting a little thicker than I’d like. (It doesn’t help that I’m a big fan of eating and don’t always make the right choices but that’s a post for another time.) Luckily, I get bored if I do any one thing for a long time so I like changing my routine. So get creative and change your routine. Your body will thank you.

Don’t believe me?

What about her? This is Janet Marsico. She’s an all-natural (i.e. no hormones) body builder and has won a bunch of Fitness Championships. (Please ignore her ‘Tanorexia’. I don’t get it either.)

She was asked: What would you tell women who are primarily interested in losing weight but they’re afraid of lifting weights because they think they’re going to get too big or muscular or lose their femininity?

Janet’s Answer: Well, I myself was one of those women so I can definitely relate to this question and completely understand where these women are coming from.

Heavy weights are intimidating and a bit overwhelming, absolutely. BUT, it takes a lot of eating, and a lot of time to gain serious muscle so they need not worry. Plus, they have to remember, what is on top of the muscle at times is not always “muscle”. The muscle tends to get covered by water and fat tissue. They just don’t realize it.

The majority of women don’t have enough testosterone naturally to get “big.” The women that have given bodybuilding and weight training a bad rap have enhanced themselves with male hormones. With proper diet, cardio and training, you can definitely achieve the look you want. But lose their femininity with heavy weights? No way. In fact, going back to genetics, you won’t believe the amount of weight I have to put on a leg press machine (which is NOT a lot), just to maintain the size on my quads. I put three 45 lb. plates on each side and that’s not even my maximum weight. … So ladies, do not be afraid of those heavy weights, challenge them!

To see more of her interview go here.