Fitness & Wellness

When you eat healthy, you get results. It’s true, but many people fail because they don’t consider what they drink as part of the program. Soda can be devastating to a diet. Soft drinks, whether or not they contain sugar can undo all you’ve tried to achieve. Even in sit down healthier eating restaurants in Raleigh, NC, soda is often one of the drink choices. If you want the best results and to be your healthiest, you have to quit soda, even sugar free soft drinks.

Soft drinks are as addictive as cocaine.

Quitting soft drinks isn’t easy. The sugar in the soft drink gives you an adrenaline rush. Some drinks also contain caffeine, which also gives an energy boost. Studies show that the effect of sugar on the brain is similar to that of cocaine and while can be just as hard to quit. It’s more than just the sugar in the drink. Soft drinks contain high phosphorus levels that actual can leach the bones of calcium. When you have high phosphorus and high calcium levels in the blood, it can create calcium deposits in the eyes, lungs, heart and blood vessels.

Switching to diet soda isn’t the answer.

One study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society showed that people who drank diet soda all had bigger waistlines. In fact, in the study, waist measurements increases were three times as much as people who didn’t drink diet soda. The bigger the person, the bigger the increase. Waistline measurements indicate visceral fat—belly fat. That’s the fat that can cause the most health problems. Diet cola also affects your weight in another way. The brain detects sweetness of the drink via the taste buds and sends a message to the body to prepare for sugary treats and boost the insulin. When no calories arrive, it disrupts the creation of the hormone that tells the body its satisfied and to quit eating.

Start weaning yourself from soft drinks.

It will be tough to switch off soft drinks, but it’s possible to do without feeling too many side effects. If you can do it all at once, good for you. Otherwise, start making the substitutions slowly and build. What you find to fill the void may not be as satisfactory first, but after a month or two, you’ll barely crave that can of soda. Find an unsweetened drink you like. Green tea has no calories and can even help you lose weight. I’m a water fan, but you have to be careful if you drink bottled water. Some bottled water is nothing more than water from the tap of a city that’s bottled. A water purifier is often a good investment if you have city water or well water may have chemicals.

• It may be easier to switch when you realize that soda actually speeds up the aging process. Is that soft drink worth looking older or feeling older?
• Track your calories from soft drinks. If you’re drinking full sugar soft drinks, you’ll be amazed at how many calories you can save by switching to a non-caloric drink. Just don’t make it a diet soft drink or expect a larger waistline.
• When you’re thirsty, try a bottle of water first to see if it helps. Often, you’ll find that it does just fine in quenching your thirst. Other times, you aren’t thirsty, but want a sugar boost. Grab some fruit.
• If you’re not ready to give up diet soft drinks, consider how those sweeteners are made. They’re all made in a lab and contain ingredients the body wasn’t created to digest. They play with your natural brain functions. If it’s a substance pretending to be a food, don’t eat it.

Healthy and happy do go together. It doesn’t mean you can’t have one without the other, but it does mean that when you have one, the other tends to follow. I want to help all my clients in Raleigh achieve both. While it might not seem I have much input into the happy part of the equation, that’s not true. Most of my clients find that once they start working out, their mood improves dramatically. That’s because exercise burns off the hormones created by stress that leave you feeling tied up in knots. Exercise also stimulates the brain to create hormones that make you feel good, adding to your overall sense of happiness. It’s also because my clients have more energy.

When you look good, you feel good about yourself.

Everyone wants to look good, it’s human nature. When you’re eating healthy and working out, you’ll start noticing the difference. It’s not all about muscle tone and losing weight either. Your skin looks younger and has a glow. That’s because the exercise stimulates blood flow that sends oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body. It also starts the production of more antioxidants that protect the cells from damage that can cause illness and aging.

Who wouldn’t be happier having more energy and zest for life?

Boosting your energy level can help you get through life’s demands with flying colors. Exercise and eating healthy has an amazing effect that way. When you eat healthy, your body functions at top performance and the more you workout, the more energy you seem to have. In fact, the boost in productivity and improved cognitive thinking is one reason many employers offer workout programs and nutrition programs for their staff.

If you find yourself falling on the couch and napping at the end of the day, maybe you should consider working out instead.

Life is meant to be enjoyed. While you might look forward to sitting the rest of the day in your easy chair and watching hours of TV, you’re missing out on a lot in life. It takes energy to fully participate in everything life has to offer. Spending time with the kids takes energy and if you don’t have it, you could miss so much. If you’re a parent, the time you spend in the gym reaps mountains of quality time having fun with the kids hiking, biking, shooting hoops and going for walks.

Have the energy to have fun.

If all you want to do at the end of the workday is sit in a chair and relax, you’re missing a lot of the pleasure life has to offer. There’s a whole world of fun out there when you have the energy to enjoy it. In fact, many parents feel that taking the time to exercise is more for their family than themselves. Not only does it keep them healthy to be good parents, it also gives them the energy to enjoy the time with their children,

• Exercise reduces the risk of several diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis and even cancer. It can ever improve some diseases and reverse them.
• You’ll appreciate how little time it takes from your schedule to workout. In fact, the fitter you become, the quicker you’ll achieve your normal tasks, so it actually may add time.
• Working out can improve functional fitness. That helps reduce the potential of injury when doing everyday tasks.
• Getting fit has no time limit. You’re never too old to get fitter or too out of shape. If you’re just starting out after years of inactivity, it won’t be easy, but will be worth it.

If you want to achieve fitness, you’re not alone. Many people either are working on that goal or secretly wish they were. It can be even more fun when you share it. Who knows, you might discover that many of your friends secretly want to get started, but were sure how to do it or didn’t want to do it alone. Part of the fun of getting fit is having someone to share the joy of victories. Working out with others in a group is also an economical way to get the benefits of having a personal trainer, but at a far less expensive price than private sessions.

Make it a team effort.

Whether it’s the team at work or your ball team, who wouldn’t do better improving their fitness? You’ll boost the team spirit at work and find you really like your working partners. If you’re an adult ball team, well you know that if everyone is fit, you’ll be far more likely to win games. Working out will keep you fit in the off season, so there’s not as much need for the Tiger Balm and other analgesic products. Getting fit not only shares the enjoyment, it shares the safety. When you’re all in shape, the changes of injury reduce.

Share it as a night out with the guys or gals.

If you spend a couple of evenings a week stopping at your favorite coffee shop or going out for a beer, switch up and go to the gym instead. You don’t even have to give up plans to go out to a club. You can go to the gym first, boost your hormones and burn off those from the day’s stresses. You’ll feel great for the rest of the night and have more confidence. You’ll be the guy or the gal that looks relaxed, enjoying life more. You might find that when you share the idea, everyone will love it.

Make date night a workout night.

Taking couple time can be particularly hard when you have a family. That’s why working out together can be a real benefit. You get a two-fer. You get couples time and healthy at the same time. Exercise not only makes you healthy, it also boosts your sexual drive, so sharing workout time with a spouse can be extremely important. You’ll both get a boost in energy and probably find you even want to start other healthy habits, like eating healthier.

• Best of all, working out with friends is just more fun. It can create some friendly competition to drive you harder or provide sympathy from someone who knows how hard the workout is.
• You can workout on your own at home, but when you workout with a trainer, you’ll get results faster. Even if it is fun to workout, seeing great results makes it even more exciting.
• Working out together can get your ready for a special trip. You don’t have to be skiing or surfing to benefit from getting into shape. You’ll have more energy to walk and sight see, too.
• You may want to try it with friends first. We have a free trial session that you may want to use.

Most people come to our gym in Raleigh to shed a few pounds or get more energy. In reality, what they’re really doing is beginning an exciting journey to health and fitness. Like any journey, it all starts with a destination. Most people refer to that as a goal. It may start out to be shedding a few pounds or fitting into a fabulous outfit for a high school reunion, but I find that once clients learn how good they feel, how enjoyable healthy eating is and how great they start to look, the destination changes. It becomes a lifelong adventure.

Eating healthy is one of the first changes you should make to enjoy every step of the journey.

The nice part of this experience with good health is that everyone’s journey is different. Some people just barely leave their comfort zone while others dive into the waters of fitness and swim to destinations they previously thought were impossible. It’s each person’s choice how far or long they want to travel. When it comes to eating healthy, some people simply cut out processed foods and eat more whole foods, which is an excellent start. Others dive in and look for ways to enhance their nutritional program with herbs, organic food, new recipes and complete elimination of sugar, processed food, white flour and fried foods. There’s no right or wrong journey. It’s all up to the individual and any change for the better is an exciting accomplishment.

Exercise is another step on the journey.

If you were an inexperienced traveler, no one would ever expect you to go to the jungles of the Amazon alone and explore or simply buy a plane ticket for a foreign country without having hotel reservations or some knowledge of the language or country. The same is true for exercise. If you’re a beginner, you need guidance and help to learn how to do each exercise and where to begin. For those more experienced, learning new exercises and having a companion to make sure you don’t get lost on your journey is important. As a trainer, I provide what the person needs for his or her fitness level and knowledge.

Living a healthy lifestyle is more than just diet and exercise.

Just like any journey is about more than the sleeping accommodations and transportation, fitness is about more than just diet and exercise. Learning to increase water intake, getting adequate sleep, avoiding overdoing alcohol, tobacco or other substances that aren’t part of a healthy lifestyle are also important steps. Everyone is different on those types of needs, too.

• A healthy lifestyle also includes your mental attitude. While you’ll find that as you eat healthier and workout, it will improve, smiling more also helps improve it. Try it while you’re alone, you’ll see how it helps.
• Stress can ruin a trip. It also takes it’s toll on your body. Learn ways to reduce stress in your life and healthy ways to deal with those things you can’t control.
• Having companionship is also important. Even people that aren’t particularly social will benefit from helping others or having a pet. Caring about others does something wonderful for ourselves.
• Appreciating every movement, experience and person in life is what ultimately what it’s about. Enjoy feeling your body move as you workout and the taste of fresh foods. Getting healthy takes on a new perspective when you do.

If you’ve given up ever becoming fit again or losing weight, change your mind. No matter what age you are or how out of shape you are it’s never too late to get fit. The more out of shape you are, the slower the initial process. The same is true for those with health issues and seniors. Seniors, in particular may see slower results than their younger counterparts and those results slip away quicker when exercise is discontinued. However, it can be done with consistency and dedication.

There are people older or in worse shape than you that have managed to get fit.

You might not expect a supreme court justice that’s 85 to be an avid gym attendee, but that’s because you may not have seen the vigorous workout of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her workouts vary and are done with a trainer, but start with stretching, strength training and body weight exercises, like pushups and planks. She’s an 85 year old woman, so if you’re in your 40s surely you can build up to her standards. Another story came from a man that was so heavy, he had leg and hip problems with doctors giving him only a few months to live. He started by walking just a few steps outside, then extended it to the corner, then around the block. He lost hundreds of pounds over a few years and now runs marathons—with no health issues.

Start small and work toward bigger.

You don’t have to and shouldn’t do a tough workout that was created for people in good shape the first time you workout. Overdoing it the first few times will most likely make you want to quit or could be hazardous. That’s why personal trainers always assess each person’s fitness level to ensure they have a program that’s tough, but safely doable.

Change your eating habits.

Sure, you may always eat a Snickers or an order of fries right after work, but look at where that got you. Skip a day, but allow yourself to have fries the next day or cut that Snickers bar in two and eat it two days if you can’t simply drop the habit. After a few days off eating half, eat only a quarter a day and eventually none. Start making substitutions. Instead of weaning yourself off fries or candy, substitute a piece of fruit or a small serving of nuts. You’ll lose weight making a few changes at a time.

• Plan meals rather than wait until the last minute. If you plan ahead, you’ll be able to eat healthier. Some people make the meals on the weekend because their weekly schedule is hectic.
• Change out water for soft drinks and skip the sugar and cream in your coffee. Soft drinks provide nothing but extra calories and do have other health risks. Don’t consider diet soda, since there are issues with those, too.
• Learn to cook differently. Just substituting some applesauce for oil or sugar can save calories but leave baked goods tasting just as yummy. Grilling, broiling or steaming can replace frying, making food healthier in the process.
• As long as you’re breathing, you can do something to make your life healthier. There’s no better time to start than today.