How To Get Toned

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Nolan

People often ask about getting toned without understanding what getting muscle tone actually means. Muscle tone is the amount of tension a muscle maintains when it’s at rest. It is a neurological phenomenon, and if one wanted to increase muscle tone, the most efficient way to do it would be to lift heavy weights for low repetitions, increasing neuromuscular efficiency.

However, many people use the term “toned” to refer to a person with visible muscle definition. In this sense, there are no special “toning” exercises for your muscles. Fitness advice for women is often guilty of purporting to have the “secret” to a toned body. For men, the question is often ‘how do I get ripped?’

The answer, in fact, is extremely simple: build up muscle mass and lower your body fat.

Fat people may have huge muscles, but they will never be “toned” unless the fat is removed to reveal the muscle underneath.

Skinny people have an easier time getting “toned”, as any muscle they put on is not covered by fat. However, it is often harder for a skinny person to add muscle.

Number 1 myth: Higher reps (over 15) will get you “toned.” This is completely untrue. Higher reps help with muscle endurance, which may be useful for some sports. However, if your goal is to get “toned,” you should be focusing on increasing muscle size. The larger the muscle, the easier it will be to see. Do not worry about getting bulky. It’s not easy to put on muscle, and it is very doubtful that you’ll accidentally put on too much. Even if you do, it’s not hard to shrink down to your desired size.

To get more “toned” you will need to have a low body fat percentage. Too much fat and you will look flabby, bloated, or bulky, no matter how big your muscles are. Fat cannot be spot reduced on the body, thus preventing you from toning just one body part. A healthy diet is necessary to lower your overall body fat, making your muscles more visible.

A note to women: Often I hear about women who are averse to heavy weights as they don’t want to “bulk up” or “look like a dude”. The fact of the matter is most women will never get as bulky as guys because they lack sufficient testosterone. The female professional athletes you see with large, “toned” arms got that way through of a much more vigorous workout routine than you will ever attempt. A woman’s lifting routine should not be that different from a man’s.

Just remember the simple formula: increased muscle size + lower body fat = “toned” body.

Thanks for reading How To Get Toned. I hope you found it helpful, informative and interesting. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment. You can follow me on twitter.com/salirefitness.

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Supplementation For Success

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Nolan

I wanted to share some extremely important reasons you may find it difficult or impossible to lose that last 5, 10, or 25 pounds.

So you might be asking, how can I be eating less and not losing weight? In a word BioAvailability. As you know, I always say that weight loss is 80% to 85% nutrition. Well it is, but maybe not for the reasons you are thinking.

Let me explain a bit further and in so doing explain the science behind why you, me, and everyone else need supplements.

Why Supplements

You need daily supplements because they close a gap and they fill a void. The right supplements simply give you what you are not getting naturally or cannot get through your normal caloric intake and digestive process.

You may be saying uhmmm….so what?

Do you want to look leaner, feel more energetic, be more vibrant and productive? Want to feel 19 years old again? Weight lifting, cardiovascular exercise, and limiting caloric intake help you lose weight. Your weight loss may not be from fat loss and it will definitely not be long term.

Why? Because of the world we live in and because of our BioAvailability rate. The BioAvailability rate is the amount of nutrients our body can utilize after we eat, assimilate, and digest.

BioAvailabity Rate And Metabolism

By the time we reach 39 years of age we can only absorb 22.4% of the foods we eat. That’s right, only 22.4%. This means we may be eating, but our body is still starving, conserving, and craving.

Most American’s eat 2,000 calories or more per day. If you eat 2,000 calories per day but you can only utilize 22.4% of those calories, even if they are well designed, nourishing calories you are still operating on only 448 calories per day! From a nutritional standpoint your body interprets that as starvation and starts to slow down your metabolism to a crawl or a standstill and you store fat and carbs and gain weight.

This is horrible and this is why your blood sugar is constantly fluctuating causing dehydration, lethargy, headaches, and cravings. This is the key to weight gain. So how do we stop this reality and get energized, leaner and more nourished.

3 Steps to Success

Step #1 – You must remember you are not trying to lose weight, you are trying to lose fat. If you lose 10 pounds and are not properly nourished you will be losing more than fat. In those ten pounds you might have lost 5 pounds of muscle, 3 pounds of water, 1 pound of bone density and 1 pound of fat. In you are properly nourished you would have lost around 8 pounds of fat and 2 pounds of water.

Step #2 – We must eat properly. You see there is a reason that farmer’s markets are so healthy. It is a proven fact that all fresh foods (fruits and vegetables) that are picked lose 80% to 85% of their nutrients within 3 hours of being harvested. I do not have a garden at home, do you? If you do not and you shop at the grocery store like me, that apple, sweet potato or broccoli that we just ate is only yielding 15% to 20% of the nutrients it had days earlier. We are once again malnourished.

Even in America we are greatly malnourished. Even though we are gaining weight, we are greatly malnourished. You must have something to fill the gap. It must be something that can give you what your daily food intake isn’t giving you. It must be something your metabolic rate and bioavailability rate isn’t giving you either.

You need to be nourished, you need supplementation. Let’s try an exercise. Ask yourself honestly and then rate your answers. Would you say you are as lean, as energetic, as vibrant, as healthy, and as sexy as you were at 19 years old?

You see at 19 years old you were a ninety percenter. At 19 years old, you were able to absorb 90% of the foods you ate, receive the energy from these foods and then burn the excess off. That is why at 19 years old, you could eat a whole pizza and not gain a pound. Now when you eat one slice and you gain 2 pounds.

Not fair? Well it is fair, you see, its science, and we are greatly responsible for helping the process. However, we can also greatly influence it’s reversal. Studies in nutritional journals and publications have shown that even though you can only utilize 22.4% of your food intake at 39 years old, you can reverse the process. You can reverse the process by taking a cleanse, a multivitamin, a multi mineral, and probiotic replacement. After 60 days you can ramp your metabolism back up to a whopping 85% efficiency…..85%! Wow you’re 19 again!!

Does that sound like something you might be interested in?….. YES??….NO??

Step #3 – Exercise more, supplement well, and have an accountability partner! For that you must call Salire Fitness at 504.821.4896 and get the recipe for success…Will You??

Salire Fitness credits one of their many nutritional partners for much of the dietary information supplied in this blog post. We would love to put you in touch with our nutritional experts if you need more information.

Thanks for reading Supplementation For Success. I hope you found it helpful, informative and interesting. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment. You can follow me on twitter.com/salirefitness.

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Fast Food Free February

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Nolan

Give up fast food for the entire month of February. That’s right. Give up big macs, Taco Bell, spicy chicken sandwiches, frosties, chicken nuggets and burgers for a whole month. Cut it all out of your diet. I guarantee that at the end of the month you will feel better and have more energy.

Why is fast food so popular?

It is readily available – We are simply overrun with fast food and junk food options. Coming home from work when you are tired and don’t feel like cooking. You pass a McDonalds and pull into the drive through because it is there. It is easy. You know what you want already before you even look at the menu.

Fast food is also one of the only late night dining options available. At 2am, a fast food drive-thru is usually the place open.

Price – 2 for $2 hamburgers and dollar menus can suck you in when you’ve got three bucks burning a hole in your pocket.

Taste – Fast food tastes good. With all the salt and fat in fast food, it should. Obviously opinions will vary about how good fast food tastes.

How to quit eating fast food

Educate yourself – Fast food is terrible for you. It is industrially produced using steroids and genetic alteration to make animals grow unnaturally fast and fatter. They nearly every part of the animal.

Eating fast food is not really that cheap. If you want to save money, learn to cook for yourself. Learn to cook. Save money. The easiest way to do this? Cook in bulk. Make enough dinner for leftovers for lunch the next day.

Decide – Make the decision to stop eating fast food and make it public. Tell your friends and family that you aren’t eating fast food anymore. This way you will be held accountable and there will be peer pressure to achieve your goal.

Act – Make it your habit to seek out real food, at the expense of spending time and money on fast food. You want healthful choices to become second nature.

Thanks for reading Fast Food Free February. I hope you found it helpful, informative and interesting. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment. You can follow me on twitter.com/salirefitness.

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Motivational Minute Podcast #1

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Nolan
 
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10 Quick Fitness Tips

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Nolan

1. Set Goals – Determine and write down your specific fitness goals, so you’ll be more likely to achieve them. Avoid making goals such as “I want to lose weight.” Be specific, such as losing 10 lbs. in 10 weeks. This goal is achievable, realistic and something you can track.

2. Track Progress – Plan each workout and record the results. Keep your fitness records in a binder or on a computer spreadsheet. Planning your workouts weeks or a month in advance will create accountability for each workout, and the results will track progress over time.

3. Variety – Keep your fitness routine fresh by trying new workouts. Using a variety of exercises will create muscle confusion to help avoid injuries, fitness plateaus and workout boredom.

4. Strength Training – Strength training helps to build muscle and increases bone density, which ultimately increases your overall fitness.

5. Plan for Recovery – Give your body time to rest and recover. Horton says that sleep helps to relieve the stress that depletes energy, strength and the desire to workout. Sleep also improves mood, immune function, cognitive performance and motor performance. Strive to get seven to nine hours of sleep every night.

6. Warm Up/Cool Down – Warm up and cool down with every workout. Warm-ups should last five to 10 minutes and are designed to increase body temperature and heart rate. Cool-downs help to stretch the body to increase flexibility and decrease muscle soreness.

7. Eat Properly – Nutrition plays a critical role in your fitness. Training and fitness can improve or decrease based on nutrition. Obtain balance, variety and moderation of lean protein, natural carbohydrates and good fats. Lean proteins consist of chicken, fish, poultry and lean red meat. Natural carbohydrates are found in fruits and vegetables. Good fats come from nuts and seeds, such as almonds, walnuts, macadamia nuts and sunflower seeds.

8. Group Fitness – Working out with others will help motivate you during each workout and will hold you accountable to stay on track to achieve your fitness goals.

9. Make It Fun – If you aren’t having fun, you’re less likely to stay committed to your fitness goals.

10. Work Out On A Regular Basis – Make exercise a regular part of your day by setting time aside for exercise. Fitness improvements occur over time, and taking prolonged breaks between workouts prevent these improvements. Inconsistent workouts eliminate momentum and reduce the possibility for successfully reaching your fitness goals. Make fitness a habit and perform workouts and fitness routines consistently throughout the week.

Thanks for reading 10 Quick Fitness Tips. I hope you found it helpful, informative and interesting. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment. You can follow me on twitter.com/salirefitness.

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Lose Fat AND Build Muscle

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Nolan

By itself, losing fat or building muscle is not enough. You need both.

You can’t see your perfect muscles if they are blanketed with fat. You see the dents, crevices and bulges causes by excess fat. You see the shape of the fat, not the body underneath. You have to carve away the bulges, dents and crevices with proper diet and exercise. Only then can you see your hiding muscles.

No matter how little fat you have, you still need muscle definition. What is the point of being in shape if you are just a bag of bones. To look lean and in shape, you need to have some muscle tone. It does not matter how little body fat you have if you have no muscle tone.

So, if you are relatively low body fat, but still don’t have abs, or the look you want, perhaps your focus is in the wrong area, instead of dieting even more, maybe it’s time to start building muscle.

Thanks for reading Lose Fat AND Build Muscle. I hope you found it helpful, informative and interesting. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment. You can follow me on twitter.com/salirefitness.

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The 50k in 30 Days Fitness Challenge

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Nolan

3 Serious Steps to complete health and a beautiful body

STEP #1 – Eliminate 800 calories per day for 30 days. That equals 24,000 calories per month eliminated!

The average woman eats around 2,000 calories a day and the average man eats around 2,500 calories a day. I propose for these individuals to cut 800 calories a day out of their daily diets. This would bring their net calorie intake to 1,200 for women on non-exercising days and 1,500 for men on non-exercising days. On exercise days the net calorie intake should be 1,500 for women and 1,700 calories for men.

Also while not going above your 1,200/1,500 calorie threshold for females and 1,500/1,700 calories for males, be sure to not go below the 1,200 calorie net per day threshold for women and the 1,500 calorie net per day threshold for men on any day.

Try the following to assist you:
First, take a multi-vitamin for calcium then eliminate all or as much added sugar from your diet as possible. The easiest way to do this is to eliminate as much dairy, bread, pastries, muffins, pasta, and alcohol as possible.

Next, you can download Apps for your phone like my fitness pal which has a food label scanner built into it. This will greatly simplify the calorie counting process and eliminate hours of calorie recording.

Step #2 – Burn 500 calories per workout with four workouts a week. This equals 2,000 calories burned per week for four weeks which will give you a total of 8,000 calories burned per month!

On the average at a 60 minute Salire Fitness boot camp, campers of any age and any fitness level typically burn 500 calories as a minimum according to heart rate/calorie counting watches that are worn by male and female clients.

On the average a light to quick paced jog (4.5 to 6.5 mph) will burn 500 calories in 45 minutes and a vigorous walk 3.8 mph to 4.4 mph will burn 500 calories in 60 minutes.

Step #3 – Hang out with your 18,000 P.A.L.S. – Presses or push-Ups, Ab crunches, Lunges, and Squats

Perform a total of 600 reps (150 reps of each exercise) each day through four different exercises. This can be done throughout the day in any way that works for you. One scenario can be 150 reps of each in a row of one exercise or sprinkled throughout in 25 or 30 rep sets for each of the four exercises. Remember the key is to achieve 150 reps of each exercise to equal 600 per day and 18,000 at month’s end, no matter what strategy you choose to employ!

Each set of one 150 rep exercise if done consecutively takes 2 to 3 minutes, but can be broken up as best works for you. Lunges and squats can be modified or exchanged for bicep curls and side lying or standing leg lifts for someone with knee pain, injuries and etc.

Prerequisites and Partnering:
Salire Fitness never advises starting a workout routine and/or eating plan without first consulting your personal physician. Medical evaluation is imperative if you are going to be successful on your wellness endeavor. Salire Fitness believes that accountability partnering and proper supplementation are added benefits that will greatly increase the likelihood of sustained success on any fitness journey and we offer great advice and services in both areas.

The Specifics:

1. Goals – Set goals and be S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measureable, action-oriented, realistic and timed):

Before ever embarking on a journey of any kind you will need S.M.A.R.T. goals. For instance if you were going on a vacation to a destination like Disney World, I suspect you would set down certain specific goals and answer questions like:

  1. How much are we willing to spend?
  2. When will I want to go?
  3. When I get there what theme parks am I most interested in seeing?
  4. Am I expecting to have all of the best amenities or am I just wanting the family to have a fun and exciting time without eating and staying in the luxury hotels and restaurants?

You must have goals before just jumping on a plane and traveling to Orlando, Florida. You must be smart, have a measureable outcome, be ready to act not just talk, you must be realistic in your budgeting, and you must have a time frame. The same is true in any endeavor that is worth the effort and that you truly wish to experience successful and lasting change within. How fun and enjoyable would your trip to Disney World be without a real plan? I venture to say it will cost more money than it needs to, it will create more stress than we care to experience, and will leave a negative impression on your memory bank, much like many people’s past fitness endeavors have.

2. Priorities

You must set your priorities. These are some “catalysts” questions for doing just that.

  1. Who do I most want to be while on this journey?
  2. If not now, then when?
  3. Why can’t I have the physique I once had?
  4. What is more important than showing up to my life in a way that motivates me and gives me a zest for life?
  5. If someone else can undergo a transformation, why can’t I?
  6. What are my next steps, what resources will I need and by when can I have them in place?
  7. How will my life be greater by taking this journey?
  8. What is the exact weight I will achieve when this journey is complete?

Next you must define your core reasons for embarking on a wellness journey and ask how this journey will fit into your current busy life and schedule and then determine your level of commitment.

3. Be prepared for a Curve Ball and learn to Chunk:

Break those big numbers into smaller groups and you’ll breeze through it. In coaching we help clients do this with life tasks and it is called chunking and is very successful. It removes anxiety and makes tasks manageable and more enjoyable, freeing clients to take smaller bites instead of feeling the need to eat everything at once.

One example of chunking is breaking your exercise sets into smaller sets. Now if you can do a set of 150 pushups at one time, that’s great. You performed the 150 reps and now can move on to the next exercise. If you are unable to do 150 pushups at a time, then chunk it into smaller sets throughout the day. Remember, there is no wrong set size!

Also, sometimes life can and will throw you a curve ball. For instance, a busy schedule can be one of those times. If that happens and you cannot perform all of the reps for that day, don’t be discouraged because you can always make up those extra reps.

4. Log it to Love it:

I believe you must log your workout reps and meals in a journal or spreadsheet each day. This cuts down on guesswork and confusion and gives you something to look at on a daily basis as a motivation mechanism because you are able to experience your daily success in a real and tangible way.

It takes a person between 21 and 30 days to form any new habit. This is considered low in duration when compared to the time experts say that it takes to successfully obtain a lasting wellness habit. The reason is because fitness and nutritional habits (or the lack thereof) are engrained in us since early childhood and usually have to do more with personal psychology rather than a lack of determination or physical activity.

This is where logging your meals and reps will come in and where you become more empowered for lasting success! Now I understand this is not the most exciting aspect of fitness. For many people it seems very impractical and arduous, but people who log their journey have an 82% greater chance of sustained success! 82% seems pretty significant to me, so if you are serious about reaching your goals and want to do it in a practical and proven way, log everything.

Remember you need resolve. You must change your beliefs and your level of engagement. You must embrace the journey whole heartedly or you will simply just meander!

Finally, logging your workouts is a great metric to keep the guess work to a minimum.
It will:

  1. Help to eliminate the guess work
  2. Allow you the opportunity to see how you were able to commit and overcome

5. Be aware of over training:

There is no doubt about it, some time within this challenge you will be over trained. Watch for the signs and then adjust your plan appropriately. If you are feeling fatigued, irritable, and/or very sore then you are probably over trained.

In my experience there were a few times when I was feeling up to working out, but when I picked up the weight to start exercising again, my body started screaming at me. My central nervous system was burned out and my body just didn’t want to work. Depending on the severity of it I did one of 2 things:

  1. Lightened the load. If I felt irritated or fatigued after doing a few sets with the heavier weight, then I would lighten the load to get through the workout.
  2. Backed off completely. After doing a few sets, if I was completely irritated and fatigued, then I would just call it a day and rest.

6. Nutrition, Supplementation and Rest—Plan Ahead:

Cut out all the excess and negative nutrition from your diet.

You know what I’m talking about: cookies, chips, soda, crackers, any added sugar, and any processed foods. You are demanding a lot from your body with this challenge. It’s imperative that you feed your body healthy and nutritious food. Do not take the attitude that since you are working so hard that you can eat what you want. You’ll never be happy with the end results if you follow that thought process. You can’t push your body to the max and expect it to respond when you are filling it full of over processed food, sugar and salt. It just doesn’t work like that. Your body composition will suffer and so will your strength and endurance. Once you feel the difference that fresh healthy food makes you won’t go back. This is a perfect opportunity to clean up your diet and make a permanent change for the better.

7. Protect your back and your joints – Form is everything:

18,000 reps is a lot of pull on your joints especially your shoulder and elbow. You can protect your back and your joints by listening to your body and removing all momentum. You must remember with the crunches to put your hands under your head for support only, not to pull your head up and achieve extra reps. Also when it comes to your presses, squats, lunges, curls and etc exercise good form and neutral posture (the posture your Mom told you to maintain while sitting at the table or walking throughout your day!)

8. Rep scheme:

Do what works best for you. I provide these rep schemes as a guide or just to give you some place to start. After only one week into this challenge you will know what works best for you. I personally liked sets of 30, 50, or 150. This made it easy to keep up with all the reps. As I mentioned before, I focused on 150 at a time for each exercise and chunked it as I felt best for me.

Play around with it and come up with some rep schemes of your own. Be sure to share when you come up with something good.

9. Music:

It is a proven fact that music moves the soul, calms the mind, ignites passion and raises your chances of succeeding in a wellness endeavor by 68%. I say jam out, find that theme song and go at it with a song in your heart and pep in your step!

10. Support and accountability:

I mention this last, but it is definitely not least. Getting through this challenge with a support system is a must. It will also be a lot more fun. When you know somebody is watching or counting on you, you will be more likely to do it even when you don’t want to. It’s a lot easier to blow off when you are the only one who knows you’re doing it. Don’t make that mistake. If you take this challenge then tell everybody. Find a friend either in real life or online to take the challenge with you.

11. Conclusion:

I really believe with the nutritional discipline of lowering your calorie intake (along with supplementation), cardiovascular exercise and/or weight lifting, all combined with the daily exercises of reps, this program will be nothing short of transformational!

I believe you will see great results for both your physique while also enhancing your mental clarity, focus, and self-esteem!

Thanks for reading The 50k in 30 Days Fitness Challenge. I hope you found it helpful, informative and interesting. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment. You can follow me on twitter.com/salirefitness.

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Flexibility and Mobility

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Nolan

Flexibility is the ability to move your body into an extended position or range of motion – the splits are a good example. Mobility, however, is better thought of as “flexibility in motion” – high kicks, for example, are related to the splits flexibility, but are not the same, as a person who can do the splits may not be able to kick high.

Flexibility and mobility are similar. So similar, in fact, that the terms are generally used interchangeably. Just try to think of it this way: flexibility work tends to involve static stretches, and mobility work tends to involve movement through a full range of motion.

Thanks for reading Flexibility and Mobility. I hope you found it helpful, informative and interesting. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment. You can follow me on twitter.com/salirefitness.

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Twenty Three And A Half Hours

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Nolan

What is the strongest predictor of premature death? Not obesity. Not smoking. Not hypertension. Not high cholesterol. Not diabetes. Low fitness level is the strongest predictor of premature death.

Can you limit your sitting and sleeping to just twenty three and a half hours a day?

Thanks for reading Twenty Three And A Half Hours. I hope you found it helpful, informative and interesting. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment. You can follow me on twitter.com/salirefitness.

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The Top 10 Reasons To Exercise

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Nolan

1. Live A Healthier Longer Life – People who exercise regularly live longer. Regular exercise reduces the risk of dying prematurely.

2. Control Your Weight – Regular physical activity helps to reach and maintain a healthy weight.

3. Be Physically Attractive – With perfect body you look better in clothes and you look better naked. Exercise helps reduce body fat by building muscle mass. Both resistance and aerobic exercise improve body composition even without dieting.

4. Enjoy A Strong Immune System – Regular moderate exercise has a beneficial effect on the immune function. The findings from some studies support the possibility that exercise may delay an age dependent decline in immune function.

5. Have A Better Sex Life – Regular exercise maintains or improves sex. Physical improvements in muscle strength and tone, endurance, body composition and cardiovascular function can all enhance sexual functioning in both men and women. Men who exercise regularly are less likely to have erectile dysfunction and impotence than are men who don’t exercise.

6. Manage Your Stress – Exercise allows you to release your stress on a set of dumbbells before you vent on your coworkers and family.

7. Be Part Of A Community – Joining group exercise classes will enable you to meet like minded people. Many people who meet in boot camp classes carry their relationship out into the outside world. It’s fun to meet new people with similar interests, goals and struggles. Who knows, you may just make a friend for life.

8. Be Happier – Exercise releases dopamine and endorphins. These chemicals can produce feelings of euphoria and pleasure. Research also shows that those who suffer from mild depression and who also exercise feel better much faster than those who don’t.

9. Have More Energy –Exercise increases your energy levels and can help make you more productive in almost every aspect of your life. Plus you’ll sleep better too, which adds to the feeling of being refreshed and ready to take on the world.

10. Have More Self Confidence – The sum of all these benefits is self confidence. Greater self confidence is drives success, so its value can’t be underestimated. Exercise and fitness are an enormous part of reaching your potential.

Thanks for reading The Top 10 Reasons To Exercise . I hope you found it helpful, informative and interesting. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment. You can follow me on twitter.com/salirefitness.

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