I called my HOA today for the umpteenth time to try to get them to fix the . . . → Read More: Fort Collins Registered Dietitian Tells Clients to Be Postive to Achieve Your Weight Loss Goals]]> The following is a guest blog from Esther Hansen, R.D. Esther owns Ft. Collins Weight Loss & Nutrition. Esther has been helping our clients with all their nutrition challenges and our clients are seeing amazing results! Enjoy!

I called my HOA today for the umpteenth time to try to get them to fix the concrete on my front doorstep. Instead of being demanding, I decided to be endearing and grateful.

Lo and behold – I got what I asked for and more!

Major epiphany – if treating people well gets immediate, positive results why not extend the same kindness to ourselves in our quest for better health through nutrition and exercise?

Compare the principal that positivity produces results with our normal approach to health wherein we are conditioned to think of nutrition and exercise as a chore, the means to an end of an unrealistic goal of a flawless physique.

We motivate ourselves with hatred of our jiggly arms, double chins or love handles (be honest – you have an unflattering pictures of yourself as motivation); by fear of cancer and diabetes and shame at being part of the obesity epidemic.

How is this working for us? Are we succeeding with this approach? Let me be blunt: negativity breeds failure.

I searched for a tool to developing a more positive outlook and I found this video from Sean Anchor:

I was so drawn to his approach and research that I shamelessly adapted his 21-day challenge for being happier at work to 21-days to be happier with your body and health. In less than a week I felt better about myself and was exercising more and eating healthier without effort. I shared it with a few of my clients who noticed immediate results.

Here are the details to the challenge:

1. Write down 3 positive things about your body or health for which you are grateful. This teaches our minds to see positives vs. negatives.

“I love my sexy back!”
“Sore muscles mean I am getting strong!”
“I am grateful that I can walk!”

2.  Write down one positive, health-related happening from your day. This allows our minds to re-live a positive experience, floods our minds with the neurotransmitter dopamine which makes us happier and makes it easier to learn new habits.

“Passed up the bowl of M&Ms in my office lounge!”
“I am sore from an incredible workout with Dennis!”
“I have so much energy today!”

3.  Exercise daily. This teaches our minds that our behaviors matter. I am a dietitian, not an exercise guru so I will leave details to Dennis. However, I will share one tip I have learned about exercising:

If you make exercise fun, you are more likely to stick to it!

Find an active hobby that brings you joy like playing racquetball or walking your dog. Re-frame your focus from “have to” to “get to.”

4.  Meditate. This reteaches our minds to focus on the task at hand and retrain ourselves away from what Sean calls “cultural ADHD”

This does not have to be a drawn out Zen hour. I suggest that my clients start with one meal per day (dinner is usually the best time). Turn off the TV, radio and cell phone. Put down the book, magazine and newspaper and just eat. Focus on every single bite. Notice how it tastes and feels and when you are satisfied. Take your time and push the plate away when you are satisfied.

Being mindful as you eat and stopping when you are satisfied is the simplest way to cut calories.

5.  Do something nice for yourself. I am not talking about treating yourself to a piece of pie. Food should never be a reward! Treating yourself could be something intangible such as giving yourself a compliment, forgiving yourself for a slip-up, allowing yourself an hour alone to relax; or it could be something tangible such as treating yourself to a new song from iTunes or a massage.

Does this resonate with you?

Are you ready to stop fighting against your body and start respecting it?

I challenge you to complete these steps for 21-days and in so doing, change your body by changing your mind. Instead of investing your precious energy on negativity, focus the same energy on positivity and you will be transformed. Get your Pollyanna on!

I can’t wait to hear your success stories! Please share them with me at esther@ftcollinsweightloss.com

Esther Hansen

Ft Collins Weight Loss

www.ftcollinsweightloss.com

Dennis here…thanks to Esther for this wonderful pick-me-up blog! As Esther said, send her your success stories as you take on this challenge and share them here in the comment section!

Yes, I am advocating you stop exercising. But let me give you some background first.

Late last year, I was working really hard to get ready for the New Year’s rush. You know the time of year. Everyone has made a resolution to get into shape and . . . → Read More: Personal Trainer in Fort Collins Tells Clients to Stop Exercising]]> Wait, did you just read that headline right?

Yes, I am advocating you stop exercising. But let me give you some background first.

Late last year, I was working really hard to get ready for the New Year’s rush. You know the time of year. Everyone has made a resolution to get into shape and will start looking for a trainer to help them achieve that goal. I was coming up with a lot of ideas and doing everything I could to implement them.

Then something happened the first week into January.

I felt like the business was consuming me. It was taking over my life too much. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I would read books but not comprehend what I was reading because I was thinking about the business. I wouldn’t pay attention to the person that was talking to me because I was thinking of what I needed to do next for the business. I couldn’t even go to sleep at night because I was being distracted by my thoughts.

So what did I do?

I basically walked away from the business for eight weeks.

Now I continued to train my clients, work with my trainers and meet with potential clients who contacted me. But that was it. I didn’t do anymore marketing, didn’t send out any emails and became a business hermit.

I was so caught up with everything that it was affecting me mentally and physically.

It was the best thing I ever did for myself in a long time. I was going to sleep at night, I actually had meaningful conversations with people and I enjoyed some great books.

How does this correlate to you not exercising? Let me explain.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with a couple of potential clients who need help. As we were chatting, both of these clients told me that they were ready to exercise seven days a week.

That gave me pause. And I told them that was the wrong thing to do.

A lot of people think that more is better. If I exercise more, I will reach my goals quicker and be happy. If I come up with at least five more marketing ideas, the business will go where it hasn’t gone before. I just have to sacrifice my life to reach that goal.

STOP!

Let me tell you what happens when you exercise too much.

Your body needs rest to repair itself from the damage you did to it when exercising. Constantly breaking down the muscles doesn’t allow for your body to recuperate from the last workout. And then what happens? Check out these signs of overtraining:

• Increased resting heart rate
• Increased resting blood pressure
• Decreased maximal power output
• Decreased sports performance
• Decreased maximal blood lactate concentrations
• Slower recovery after exercise
• Weight loss
• Decreased appetite
• Decreased desire to exercise
• Increased irritability and depression
• Increased incidence of injury
• Increased incidence of infection

Do these sound like good things?

And if you think the weight loss from overtraining is going in the right direction, guess again. You will actually be losing muscle tone. And when you lose muscle tone, you are lowering your metabolic rate that will eventually lead to weight gain down the road.

When I meet with someone who wants to change their habits through exercise, I tell them that exercising 3-4 times a week is a good start. When they build themselves up to a certain level, then going 4-5 times a week is okay. But there is no way anyone should be exercising 6-7 times a week.

And the majority of them are relieved that they don’t have to exercise so much!

You see, less is more in a lot of things that we do in our lives. You just have to find the right balance to live a healthy, productive life. Always going full speed is going to lead to burnout. This will eventually lead to a lack of motivation and then you are right back where you started.

Who wants that?

So next time your body starts talking to you because you have been exercising constantly, listen to your body. Stop exercising. Take a week off. Heck, take two weeks off. It’s okay. Since you have built the habit, you will start right back up again after you have taken some time off.

Let me know what what you have done in your life where you needed to take a break. What led you to that point where you knew you had to stop what you were doing or you were going to become overwhelmed.

Now if you will excuse me, I have some work to do.

And what happens to me after the . . . → Read More: Personal Trainer in Fort Collins Explains Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail]]> Here we are, we have finally made it to 2012, and I have this feeling that it is going to be the best year ever! I don’t care what those pesky Mayans say about the end of the world. I’ll leave that doom and gloom thinking for others.

And what happens to me after the first of the year?

I start to hear from all those people who are setting New Year’s resolutions. And I cringe.

Back up a second, did I just say that I cringe? Yes, I do. Let me explain.

You see, when I was working at XYZ gym here in Fort Collins, I saw what New Year’s really means to the fitness industry. It means hordes of people coming in and buying memberships with all the best intentions. The gyms coffers are being infused with cash and everyone is happy.

But do you know what happens every single year?

A good 40% of those people are not coming back after a month. And that figure jumps to 60-70% in 6-8 weeks.

That’s a lot of people wasting money and having unfulfilled goals.

According to a 2007 British survey of over 3,000 people, 88% of these people who were surveyed did not achieve their resolutions.

When someone tells me they are setting resolutions for the New Year, I get highly suspicious. Do they have the discipline to carry through with these resolutions? How are those resolutions set up?

For me, the word “resolution” in and of itself is a negative concept. We have all become conditioned that resolutions can be broken. When I am setting out to accomplish something, I like to use the term “goal” instead. To me, goals are meant to be achieved. Resolutions can be broken.

So here is my checklist for setting goals:

1.  Focus on one goal at a time, rather several. Multitasking has been proven to be a losing proposition in the long run. When you have 100% focus on one goal, then all your energy will be used to achieve that goal. You are not spreading yourself thin. Why are you going to attempt to lose weight, quit smoking and give up coffee all at once?

2.  Don’t wait till New Year’s Eve to set goals. Make it a year-long process, every day.

3.  Take small steps. Many people quit because the goal is too big requiring too big a step all at once. See paragraph #1 of this checklist. There is the quote, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

4.  Have an accountability buddy, someone close to you that you have to report to. You both can make sure that you stay on track and not quit.

5. Set short term, mid-term and long term goals for the entire year. You are not going to lose 30 pounds in 6 weeks. It’s just not going to happen. Instead, tell yourself that you are going to lose at least five pounds in a month. That is a short term goal.

6.  Celebrate your success between milestones. Don’t wait until the end goal is finally completed. You are accomplishing goals along the way, and it’s imperative that you reward yourself.

7.  Focus your thinking on new behaviors and thought patterns. You have to create new neural pathways in your brain to change habits. I will be addressing this in a future blog. If you are not mentally prepared to achieve a goal, then you are never going to achieve it. I have seen this hundreds of times in my profession.

8.  Focus on the present. What’s the one thing you can do today, right now, to move you towards your goal? Be mindful. Become physically, emotionally and mentally aware of your inner state as each external event happens, moment by moment, rather than living in the past or future.

9. WRITE DOWN YOUR GOALS! It has been proven time and time again that those people that write down their goals are more likely to achieve those goals. And post your goals where you will see them EVERY, SINGLE DAY!

10. Share your goals with others. When you share your goals with others, then there is an expectation from them that you are going to do what you set out to do. I guess it’s peer pressure in a way. You wouldn’t want to let down those people that you shared your goals with do you?

With that being said, I am going to share with you one of my goals for 2012. I am going to expand the business into Cheyenne. There it is. It’s out there now. Now the hundreds to thousands of you that read this blog can hold me accountable to this. I have already set out my plan for the YEAR (not just January), so I can take this in little bites at a time.

I truly want to see you accomplish your goals for 2012. I want you to take the first step by commenting on this blog about what your goals (not resolutions) will be for 2012. Go ahead and share it with the world!

Onward!

The first thing that went through my mind after reading the headline was, “Yay! We’re #1!”

But then I read the article. And soon, my enthusiasm quickly . . . → Read More: Fort Collins Personal Trainer Interprets Colorado’s Obesity Statistics]]> Before I went on vacation last month, there was an article in the Denver Post about Colorado’s obesity rate and how we had the lowest obesity rate in the nation.

The first thing that went through my mind after reading the headline was, “Yay! We’re #1!”

But then I read the article. And soon, my enthusiasm quickly died down. And when I got done reading the article, I have to admit that I was depressed.

You see, the good news is that, yes, we are the least obese state in the nation. We should be proud of that.

However, nearly 50% of Coloradoans have become obese in the last 15 years. AND our obesity rate today would have made us the MOST OBESE STATE IN THE COUNTRY IN 1995!!!

Incredible isn’t it?

The other sobering statistic is that Colorado was the only state in the nation where the obesity rate was under 20%. Think about that. Forty nine states have over 20% of their population classified as obese.

And you thought the whole debt crisis recently was a big deal.

How did we get here? I have my opinions. And you probably have heard them all before. Cheap and easy non-nutritious food, cutting physical education classes from our schools, the way our society is set up where we don’t have to physically move to get things that we want anymore….the list goes on and on.

But what do I think is the #1 reason why we are in this realtity?

People simply are not mentally ready to commit to a healthier lifestyle.

When I became a personal trainer in 2003, I realized that our nation was headed for a health crisis. It was one of the main reasons I decided to leave the law profession and pursue this career. I knew I could do something to help those people who didn’t want to become one of these statistics and live a healthy lifestyle.

The thing that I didn’t expect was the resistance some people put up when it comes to their health. They know they want to be healthy, they know what they need to do, but they simply choose to procrastinate.

Believe it or not, exercising and eating right are the easy part. The hard part? Mentally training yourself to want to become healthy.

Just recently, I have encountered at least three potential clients (I guess they are not potential anymore because they are now clients) who told me they want to lose weight, they need to lose weight, but yet they were apprehensive to commit to themselves to lose weight. Mentally, they are just not there yet. But they are slowing getting there.

And it’s these types of clients that I want to train the most.

You see, part of my job is to motivate and hold my clients accountable to themselves. I would venture that at least 80% of the people who hire me do so because they need the motivation. They need the accountability because they can’t be accountable to themselves. And this is the biggest challenge to me as a health professional. If I can’t convince someone to adopt a fitness lifestyle and push themselves to want to accomplish their health and fitness goals, then I am simply just taking their money. And that leaves me with a sick feeling in my stomach.

So where are you mentally? Do you want to become a statistic like in the Denver Post’s article? Are you willing to do what it takes to turn your life around and take the next steps to become healthy?

It’s quite the burden I know. But with the right attitude, you can do it. No personal training client of mine has failed when they develop this never say die attitude. And when that happens, the results are absolutely phenomenal!

To see the original Denver Post article click here: http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_18437184

Onward!

Find out about how our Fort Collins Fitness Trainers will help you lose fat, gain lean muscle and look amazing!

So what do you value most in life? What matters the most . . . → Read More: Fort Collins Personal Trainer Examines What Is Important In Life]]> This post has nothing to do with losing weight, becoming healthy or achieving your fitness goals. However, if you have passion in your life and love your life, I have a feeling that you’ll agree with the message in this post and video.

So what do you value most in life? What matters the most to you?

Prestige?

Family?

Success?

Friends?

Money?

Material Things?

Just imagine if you were on an airplane and all of the sudden the you hear an explosion. You look out your window and see that the engines have blown up. Smoke fills the cabin and the captain gets on the intercom and says these three words: BRACE FOR IMPACT. The oxygen masks drop down and you have seconds to prepare yourself for what is about to happen.

What would you think about in those moments? How would you feel in that moment? Would you look at your life with regret? Would you be happy with what you did with yourself and how you treated others?

What matters the most to you in your life?

Well, this person actually lived through a disaster like this. And in the video below he gives his perspective. This is an AWESOME five minute video that makes you think about what truly matters to us as we all go round and round on this blue orb. I gotta warn you, it’s definitely going to make you think.

I would love to hear what you think about this. Let me know what you think in the comments below. What matters to you?

What is going . . . → Read More: Loveland Personal Trainer’s Client Says Damn that Scale]]> When it comes to tracking your weight loss, how do you measure it? I bet 99% of you jump on the scale every single day and probably let out a groan because you haven’t lost any weight. Sure, you are exercising regularly and eating right, but the scale needle just won’t budge!

What is going on here?

I received this email on Saturday from my client, Nanette:

Nanette put it perfectly when she stated, “Damn that scale.”

So why do I advocate everyone pitch their scales? Let me explain.

Your weight loss goals should have the trifecta of eating the right foods, strength training and cardio training. If any of the three components of weight loss are missing, then losing weight will be a slow, arduous process.

Here is what happens when you strength train. When you develop lean muscle tissue, you are actually shrinking your body. What do I mean by this? Muscle tissue is much more dense than fat. So when you have a higher proportion of muscle to fat, your body is smaller.

And you may be saying, “But muscle weighs more than fat!” If so, then you would be repeating one of the most often quoted fitness related myths of all time. Think about it. How much does one pound of muscle weigh? Now how much does one pound of fat weigh? Uh huh. But since muscle is denser than fat, you are actually shrinking but the scale doesn’t move a lot.

And that is why Nanette is not losing a lot of weight. She is replacing the fat she had with muscle, but she is becoming smaller since muscle is denser. And what does that mean?

One HAPPY client!

And don’t get me wrong if you need to lose a lot of weight, the pounds will come off eventually. However, you are going to notice you are shrinking first. And that is a good thing.

We as a society have conditioned ourselves to have the scale be the final authority in weight loss. And it is my goal as a personal trainer to have weight scales banned for life! They can be very demoralizing at times.

The next time you are frustrated with your weight loss, measure yourself and be cognizant of how your clothes are fitting. It will save you a lot of mental anguish in the long run.

So go to your scale right now, thank it for the years of service that it has provided and unceremoniously kick it to the curb.

Onward!

Find out about how our Loveland Personal Training programs will help you lose fat, gain lean muscle and look amazing!