All posts by gshort@shortfam.com

Health

5 Fresh Foods You Shouldn’t Keep in Your Refrigerator

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By Hilary Meyer, Associate Food Editor, EatingWell Magazine

Now that spring has sprung, I’m loading up on more fresh veggies, and that has me thinking about the best way to store them to keep them at their freshest. I only go to the grocery store once a week, which means I have to keep my produce stored properly to avoid ending up with a giant pile of bad veggies ready for the compost pile at the end of the week.

And as it turns out, the refrigerator is not the go-to storage unit for all your produce. Below are 5 types of produce you shouldn’t keep in your fridge.

Tomatoes: OK, a tomato is technically a fruit, but taste-wise, it’s closer to a vegetable. If you’ve ever grown tomatoes, then you know that they love the heat and hate the cold. Turns out even after they’re plucked from the vine, they still hold their aversion to cold. The fridge is not the ideal place to store tomatoes. Store them there and your perfect tomatoes turn into a mealy disappointment. They’ll still be good for cooking, but not the best for eating fresh. Instead store them on your counter (not in direct sunlight) and enjoy them when they’re ripe.

Basil: Tomatoes and basil go well together on your plate and it turns out they have similar needs in the storage department too. Like tomatoes, basil loves the heat, so extended periods of time in a cold environment like a refrigerator causes it to wilt prematurely. Basil will do best if it’s stored on your counter and treated as you would fresh cut-flowers. A fresh bunch of basil can be stored for in a cup of water (change it every day or two) away from direct sunlight. Covering it loosely with a plastic bag will help keep it moist (but make sure the bag has an opening to allow for some fresh air to seep in).

Potatoes: Potatoes like cool, not cold temperatures. They do best at around 45 degrees F, which is about 10 degrees warmer than the average refrigerator. Most of us don’t have a root cellar (a cool, dark place to store root vegetables like potatoes), so keeping them in a paper bag in a coolish spot (like a pantry) is best. Why paper? It’s more breathable than plastic so potatoes won’t succumb to rot as easily. And why not the fridge? Storing potatoes at cold temperatures converts their starch to sugar more quickly, which can affect the flavor, texture and the way they cook.

Onions: Onions don’t come out of the ground with that protective papery skin. To develop and keep that dry outer layer, they need to be “cured” and kept in a dry environment like a pantry, which is not as damp as the refrigerator. Also, lack of air circulation will cause onions to spoil, as will storing them near potatoes, which give off moisture and gas that can cause onions to spoil quickly. Store onions in a cool, dry, dark, well-ventilated place. (Light can cause the onions to become bitter.) Scallions and chives, however, have a higher water content, bruise more easily and have a shorter shelf life, so store these alliums in the fridge.

Avocados: Avocados don’t start to ripen until after they’re picked from the tree. If you’re buying a rock-hard avocado, don’t store it in your refrigerator, as it slows the ripening process. On the other hand, if you have a perfectly ripe avocado that you’re not ready to use, storing it in the refrigerator may work to your advantage by prolonging your window of opportunity to use it before it becomes overripe. So the bottom line on storing avocados is store hard, unripe avocados on your counter and store ripe avocados in your refrigerator if you’re not going to eat them right away.

BeachBody, Health, Motivational, Newsletter

5 Ways to Break through Dreaded Weight Loss Plateaus

By Justine Holberg

You’re tracking calories, working out each day, then bam! For a week or two, the scale refuses to budge…and you realize you’ve hit a dreaded weight loss plateau. Now what? Even though it’s completely normal to hit a snag in your fitness journey, a perceived setback like this can send even the most dedicated dieter off course, away from healthy eating and toward cookies, cake, and pizza. But you can be strong and start getting back on the weight-loss track again. Try at least one of the following techniques, and there’s a good chance you’ll burst through your plateau in no time. Here are five important things to know about hydration and exercise:

1. Zigzag your daily calorie intake. In theory, you’ve got to eat less to lose more, but this isn’t always the case. Sometimes you just have to shake things up. Here’s one way to do it: If your average daily intake is 1,400 calories, try dropping to 1,200 one day, going up to 1,800 the next day, and then dropping back to 1,400. The idea is to keep your metabolism guessing. There’s no magic number that works for everyone, so you’ll have to experiment until you find the right calorie levels for you. According to Beachbody Director of Results Steve Edwards, what happens when you zigzag is that you force your body to choose how many calories it needs to recover from the rigors of your exercise program. “Most people who hit a plateau are undereating. If you are indeed undereating, adding calories for a few days, then lowering them again, will help you force your body into a hormonal response that will not only help you break out of a plateau, but—as you learn to recognize the signals—will teach you how much food you should be eating.”

2. Switch up your exercise routine. If you do the same workout each day, eventually it can start to become less challenging, and (unfortunately) less effective. If you push yourself to new levels of strength or exhaustion, you’ll almost certainly see a shift. Here are some ways you can challenge your body:

  • Swap your jog for a bike ride.
  • Try weights with your cardio routine. (ChaLEAN Extreme® or RevAbs® can help you do this.)
  • Add intervals of high intensity to really make you sweat. (INSANITY® is a great workout for this.)
  • Drop to the floor for 10 push-ups right now!

The idea is to try something different. According to Edwards, “The better you get at something, the easier it becomes. That’s why we’re always telling you to add more weight as you get stronger, and to move faster and jump higher as our programs progress. But it’s also why all of our programs have phases of training. As your body adapts to stimulus, you need to change that stimulus in order to keep results happening.”

3. Eat some almonds. Almonds are a great snack, plus there’s some research that indicates that they can help you burn fat. That’s because they contain fiber and fatty acids—the good kind of fat that helps you lose weight. A study published in the International Journal of Obesity compared two groups of people who ate a 1,000-calorie-a-day diet. As part of their daily diet, one group ate 3 ounces of almonds every day. The other group ate a mix of complex carbs. What happened? The group that ate the almonds lost more weight. So next time you grab a snack, try a small handful of almonds, or as Edwards says, “Any nut, really. While almonds are one of the better nuts, all of them have a similar nutritional profile and make excellent snacks. That research probably would have turned out similarly if they’d used walnuts or filberts or whatever.”

4. Get more sleep. This may seem like the opposite of number 2, but the truth is is that you could be training too hard, which is about the quickest way to hit a weight loss plateau, because an over-trained body holds on to weight as if it were starving to death. There’s no better way to test this than to try and sleep more. The reason is that your body recovers much more quickly from exercise while it’s asleep, and if you’re burning the midnight oil while trying to do INSANITY, you could easily plateau from lack of recovery time. In a recent study at the University of Chicago Medical School, researchers found that during a period when study participants were deprived of sleep, they metabolized glucose less effectively. Additionally, they had higher levels of the hormone cortisol, which has been shown to impair memory, increase insulin resistance, and slow recovery in athletes. “There’s a good reason why five-time Tour de France winner Eddy Merckx said, ‘The Tour is won in bed,'” says Edwards. Your body’s recovery response during deep sleep is only rivaled by performance-enhancing drugs. When you’re on the borderline of overtraining, getting more sleep is the first thing anyone should try.”

5. Relax. Believe it or not, the one big thing besides diet and exercise that can cause you to plateau is stress. When you’re stressed, your body sends out higher levels of the hormone cortisol that, as stated in number 4, can encourage your body to hang on to fat. “Cortisol is actually a performance-enhancing hormone,” says Edwards. “But it’s gotten a bad rap because we’ve begun living our lives at too high a volume. Cortisol is released at times when the body is in an emergency state. It increases performance, but only over a short period of time. When cortisol is released and forced into action at regular intervals, it causes your body to wear down and switch to more drastic means of survival, like holding on to excess amounts of body fat. Your life shouldn’t feel like one big emergency. As a society, we need to learn to be more tranquilo, as the Spanish say.” We get stressed for many reasons, almost all of which are influenced by the society around us. One of the best ways to combat stress is to get some alone time to chill. If you’re the type who can’t let go, try some forced relaxation techniques, of which yoga seems to be one of the most effective. There’s something special about the mind/body interaction of yoga that forces a relaxed state even from the most stressed of us. If you feel you need a lot of help, dig into an intense course, like P90X Yoga X. For others, something lighter, like Yoga Booty Ballet® Pure and Simple Yoga, will do the trick. If you’re not into yoga, then consider at least adding some stretching into your schedule. Most of Beachbody’s programs have at least one stretching session. TurboFire® even has two!

Original Article:http://www.teambeachbody.com/get-fit/fitness-tip/-/ftip/140026045/all/0/75

BeachBody, Health, Newsletter

Sugar Addiction Detox 101

Sugar Addiction Detox 101

By Debra Pivko

Sugar, sweet sugar—a delightful minute on the tongue in exchange for what feels like a lifetime on the hips. But weight gain isn’t the only consequence of eating too much sugar. Ready for the not-so-sweet truth?

 Strawberries Covered in Sugar

Overconsumption of processed sugar can contribute to a number of conditions, including tooth decay, type 2 diabetes, hormonal imbalances, overgrowth of candida yeast, chronic fatigue, more severe PMS symptoms, anxiety—and yep, even wrinkles. On the other hand, if you start to cut sugar out of your diet, you can shed excess weight, increase your energy, improve your concentration, improve your moods, and possibly steer clear of diabetes. Ready to kick-start your sugar detox? To help you out, I’ll let you in on some reasons why we get addicted and how to read food labels for hidden sugars. I’ll also give you some tips on how to start your sugar detox so you’ll have a much better chance at living a long, vibrant, and disease-free life.

ChocolatesWhy we crave sugar. According to AskDrSears.com, “Sweets trigger an increase in the hormone serotonin—a mood-elevating hormone. The body and brain get used to this higher level of serotonin and even depend on it for a sense of well-being. So when our serotonin level dips, (we dip) into the (sweets) to ‘correct’ the situation.” According to the Web site, sweets also “trigger the release of endorphins . . . the brain’s natural narcotics, helping you to relax when stressed.”

You’ve probably noticed that although sugar gives you an initial high (a rapid spike in your blood sugar), you crash several hours later, leaving you wanting more. It’s because sugar takes away more energy than it gives. Eventually, you find yourself exhausted, anxious, and moody. I know I’ve definitely experienced this crash too many times.

Is the sweet taste worth the unpleasant effects? Think gaining weight is the only negative effect of consuming too much sugar? Nancy Appleton, PhD, author of Lick the Sugar Habit, describes some surprising ways sugar intake can negatively affect your health:

  • Suppresses the immune system’s defenses against bacterial infections
  • Increases the risk of blood clots and strokes
  • Contributes to hyperactivity, anxiety, depression, and difficulty concentrating
  • Can lead to hypoglycemia, kidney damage, an elevation in harmful cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, and tooth decay
  • Helps speed the aging process, including wrinkles and gray hair

The list goes on . . .

Sugar PyramidMake the decision to detox from sugar. The first step in breaking a sugar addiction is making the decision to stop eating it completely for at least a few days to start to get it out of your system. While it’s usually best to make dietary changes gradually, sugar has the unique ability to inspire cravings that are refueled every time you give in to them. The only way to break the cycle is to stop feeding the fire. Then your cravings should subside substantially. Continue to resist large amounts of sugar and actively avoid situations that cue you to eat sweets. And whether you’re at work, at home, or at a party, just because a cookie is sitting out on a table in plain sight, that doesn’t mean you have to eat it.

Ask yourself why you’re eating sugar before you put it in your mouth. Are you eating out of habit? Because of circumstance? For a special occasion? Because everyone else is? Watch yourself like a lab rat. Begin to face your truth by keeping a food journal. I like to jot down what drives me to eat sugar, when I crave it, where I eat it, why I want it, and how I get it. For example, do you pop up out of your desk chair in search of cupcakes the second you hear people at the office singing “Happy Birthday”? Journaling can be helpful preparation for stomping out your sugar habit by making you aware of why you’re eating it.

HoneyBegin to eliminate sugar from your diet. For thousands of years, people ate whatever sugar occurred naturally in their diets, and it didn’t seem to be a problem; it was a treat. Registered dietician Becky Hand reports that the typical American now eats the equivalent of about 31 teaspoons (124 grams) of added sugar every day (about 25 percent of the average person’s daily caloric intake), and that sugar alone adds up to almost 500 extra calories each day! Our bodies simply weren’t designed to handle this massive load. The American Heart Association recommends that added sugar should be limited to no more than 6 to 7 percent of your total calories (not including naturally occurring sugars found in fruit and dairy products.) To put this in perspective, if you eat 1,200 calories a day, you should limit your intake to 21 grams of sugar per day. That’s the equivalent of about 6 ounces of low-fat fruit-flavored yogurt or one 8-ounce glass of orange juice.

To begin eliminating sugar from your regular diet, simply cut out foods with sugar, white flour, and high fructose corn syrup—including cakes, cookies, pastries, and most desserts. It’s okay to have a dessert or sugary snack on occasion, but make sure it’s not your main dish. Although sugar is generally found in desserts, added sugar can also be found in your main and side dishes, and even sauces. Look closely at the labels of processed foods, cereals, and sauces—like ketchup, barbecue sauce, spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, and dressings. You can usually find nutritious alternatives with less sugar that taste just as good.

If you’re a Team Beachbody® Club member, you can get a personalized, balanced online meal plan to ensure that you’re getting the proper nutrition you need to meet your health goals. You can even use the food analyzer to search for the nutritional makeup of various foods, so you’ll know which ones are high in sugar and should be avoided.

Eliminate hidden sugar. As you begin to decode ingredient labels, it’s really important to know all the other words for sugar and sugar alcohols. Here’s a hint: Look for words that end in “-ose.”

  • Agave nectar/syrup
  • Cane juice crystals
  • Cane sugar
  • Caramel
  • Corn syrup
  • Corn syrup solids
  • Carob syrup
  • Dextrin
  • Dextrose
  • Fructose
  • Fruit juice concentrate (apple, grape, or pear)
  • Galactose
  • Glucose
  • High fructose corn syrup
  • Honey
  • Lactose
  • Maltose
  • Malt syrup
  • Molasses
  • Sorbitol
  • Sucrose

Trick your taste buds. Using spices and herbs can trick your taste buds into thinking you’re eating something sinfully sweet. Try adding cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla, or other sugar-free flavors and spices to your coffee, cereals, or other dishes and drinks that could use an extra kick.

Fruit ParfaitEat a healthy breakfast. What you eat for breakfast will actually influence your food choices for the next 12 to 15 hours, and influence your energy levels, moods, and overall sense of well-being. Dr. Joe Klemczewski, PhD, explains that eating a healthy breakfast balanced between lean protein (like egg whites) and slower-digesting complex carbohydrates (like oatmeal) will help you have good energy throughout the day, stabilize your blood sugar, reduce cravings, and make wiser food choices. Typically, your blood sugar is at fasting levels when you wake up in the morning. If you start the day off with a muffin and a latte, you’re choosing to ride the roller coaster for the rest of the day. If, on the other hand, you begin your day with a veggie omelet and fruit or some oatmeal, you’re opting for a balance of foods that will be absorbed at a slower rate. Then you’ll have a steadier flow of blood sugar that’s far easier to keep balanced than if it were fueled by a muffin, a bagel, or a cup of coffee dosed with sugar and cream.

Eat throughout the day. The best way to avoid impulse eating when you’re overly hungry is to eat several small meals, spaced throughout the day. This will keep your blood sugar more stable than eating the traditional two or three large meals spaced farther apart from one another. Schedule your meals around your body’s needs rather than around your to-do list if you can. You’ll find it much easier to stop eating once you’re full; to make smart food choices from a rational, calm place; and to maintain even moods and energy levels. Eating balanced meals is essential for getting real satisfaction from what you eat and leaving cravings behind. For most people, this means approximately 50 percent of your meal should be vegetables or fruit, and the rest should be split between protein (beans, meat, dairy, etc.), grains, and a bit of oil or other fat. However, everyone’s a little different, and you should experiment to find what works best for you.

High-fiber foods fill you up—yet they bring less fat to the table, says Barbara J. Rolls, PhD, the Guthrie Chair in Nutrition at Pennsylvania State and author of The Volumetrics Weight Control Plan. Plus, eating high-fiber foods allows you to eat a higher volume of food while ingesting fewer calories. It’s a concept called “energy density”—the number of calories in a specified amount of food, Rolls explains. Some examples of energy-dense foods are: apples (skin on) and bananas, avocados, flax meal, and kidney beans.

CookiesFind alternatives for when you have a craving. Make sure you find alternative foods and activities that you actually enjoy. If they aren’t satisfying, you’ll eventually abandon them for your old habits. When I’m craving something sweet yet healthy, I usually go for either low-fat Chocolatey Cats Cookies (for People) from Trader Joe’s® (only 9.9 grams of sugar per serving) or chocolate Shakeology® (only 9 grams of sugar)—that’s not bad for a sweet treat. Yep, I’m a sucker for chocolate, but I can still enjoy the taste without overdosing on sugar!

Original Article: http://www.teambeachbody.com/about/newsletters/-/nli/253#150954335

Health

Science Shows How Exercise Might Help in Prostate Cancer

By Steven Reinberg


TUESDAY, Jan. 31 (HealthDay News) — Vigorous exercise causes  changes in some 180 prostate genes among men with early stage prostate  cancer, a new study suggests.

Included are genes known to suppress tumor growth and repair DNA, which  might mean that exercise could prevent or delay progression of the  disease, the researchers said.

“There are many reasons to exercise,” June Chan, associate professor of  epidemiology and biostatistics, and urology at the University of  California, San Francisco, said during a Tuesday press conference. “Here’s  yet another great reason to exercise and it may offer a prostate  cancer-specific benefit.”

For the study, Chan’s team compared prostate genes from 70 men with  low-risk prostate cancer to normal prostate genes from 70 men.

The cancer patients in the study were undergoing “active  surveillance” — also known as “watchful waiting” — rather than active  treatment.

The men answered questions about how much and what type of exercise  they did.

Chan’s group found 184 genes that were differently expressed in men who  did activities such as jogging, tennis or swimming for at least three  hours a week, compared with genes in men who did less exercise.

Genes more highly expressed in men who did vigorous exercise included  well-known tumor-suppressor genes associated with breast cancer, BRCA1 and  BRCA2, the researchers found.

In addition, these men also had increased expression of genes involved  in DNA repair, they noted.

The researchers hope to confirm their findings in a larger group of men  who are undergoing active surveillance, and also among men who have  experienced a recurrence of their cancer.

There are limitations to this study, Chan said. Most important, the  study was small and so the results could be by chance, she said.

“If confirmed, the results suggest that vigorous physical activity  might offer protection against prostate cancer progression,” Chan said.

Exercise has also been found to have benefits for breast and colon  cancer, the researchers noted.

The results of the new study are slated for presentation Friday at a  meeting of  the American Society of Clinical Oncology in San  Francisco.

Because this research is being presented at a medical meeting, the data  and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a  peer-reviewed journal.

Dr. Anthony D’Amico, chief of radiation oncology, and a prostate cancer  expert from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said that “this is an  interesting, hypothesis-generating study that will require further testing  and perhaps opens doors to exercise as part of future prostate cancer  treatment, but it’s too soon to tell.”

In two studies last year, Chan’s group found links between vigorous  activity, such as brisk walking, and a lowered risk of prostate cancer  progression and death.

In one study, which appeared in the February 2011 Journal of  Clinical Oncology, men with prostate cancer who participated in three  or more hours a week of vigorous activity had about a 50 percent lower  risk of death from all illnesses, and a 60 percent lower risk of death  from prostate cancer, compared to men who participated in less than one  hour per week of vigorous physical activity, Chan said.

In the other study, published in the May 2011 issue of Cancer  Research, men who walked three miles per hour or faster had about half  the risk of prostate cancer progression of men who walked at two miles per  hour or less, she said.

“These studies suggested that some form of cardiopulmonary exercise  might offer specific benefits for prostate cancer,” Chan said. “However,  the molecular mechanisms by which physical activity exerts this effect on  prostate cancer remains unknown.”

Original Article: http://news.yahoo.com/science-shows-exercise-might-help-prostate-cancer-001015233.html

Health

3 Surprising Reasons to Give Up Soda

By David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding

America has a drinking problem. No, not booze. I’m talking about soft drinks. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, the average American guzzles 44.7 gallons of the sweet stuff every year. Not sure what 44.7 gallons looks like? It’s about what you’d need to fill a small kiddie pool.

But the truth is, you don’t need me to tell you that soda isn’t healthy. We all know that America’s drink of choice contributes to our country’s ever-expanding obesity problem. But, as Rodale.com writer Leah Zerbe discovered, love handles are just the beginning. Read on for her report on three shocking soda facts that will have you saying “Just water, please” from now on.

Shocking Soda Fact #1: Soda fattens up your organs

A recent Danish study revealed that drinking non-diet soda leads to dramatic increases in dangerous hard-to-detect fats. Researchers asked participants to drink either regular soda, milk containing the same amount of calories as regular soda, diet cola, or water every day for six months. The results? Total fat mass remained the same across all beverage-consuming groups, but regular-soda drinkers experienced dramatic increases in harmful hidden fats, including liver fat and skeletal fat. The regular-soda group also experienced an 11 percent increase in cholesterol compared to the other groups! And don’t think switching to diet varieties will save you from harm: Artificial sweeteners and food dyes have been linked to brain cell damage and hyperactivity, and research has shown that people who drink diet soda have a higher risk of developing diabetes.

Shocking Soda Fact #2: Soda contains flame retardants

Some popular soda brands, including Mountain Dew, use brominated vegetable oil—a toxic flame retardant—to keep the artificial flavoring from separating from the rest of the liquid. This hazardous ingredient—sometimes listed as BVO on soda and sports drinks—can cause bromide poisoning symptoms like skin lesions and memory loss, as well as nerve disorders. If that’s not a good enough reason not to “Do the Dew,” I don’t know what is.

Shocking Soda Fact #3: Drinking soda makes you a lab rat

Many American soda brands are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, a heart-harming man-made compound derived mainly from genetically engineered corn. The problem? Genetically engineered ingredients have only been in our food chain since the 1990s, and we don’t know their long-term health impacts because the corporations that developed the crops never had to test them for long-term safety. Case in point: Some recent findings suggest that genetically engineered crops are linked to digestive tract damage, accelerated aging, and even infertility!

Original Article: http://health.yahoo.net/experts/eatthis/3-shocking-soda-facts

BeachBody, Health, Inspiration, Motivational, Newsletter, Shakeology

December 18th Newsletter

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CoachGShort Weekly Newsletter December 18th

Making Your New Year’s Resolutions

I love a new year.  It almost seems like we can start all over, finally become that wonderful, productive, healthy, happy person we’ve always wanted to be. The trouble is, the enthusiasm to make changes, especially with exercise and diet, tends to fade once we realize we can’t change everything overnight.  If you want to make lasting changes, there are three things you can do to make your resolutions work all year long: Adjust your attitude, change your lifestyle and come up with a plan for success.

Adjust Your Attitude

If you have the wrong attitude about fitness, you’re already setting yourself up for failure.  Most people look at exercise as:

  • Punishment for bad eating
  • An obligation
  • Painful
  • Time consuming
  • Impossible to sustain over a long period of time
  • Boring

If any of these sound familiar, how long do you think you’ll stick with your program?  Nobody wants to do something painful, boring or obligatory.  Before you throw yourself into weight loss, suss out your attitudes about exercise and figure out whether these attitudes are true or just lies you’ve been telling yourself for years.  Then, try a different perspective and look at exercise as:

  • A break from a stressful workday
  • A way to boost energy and mood
  • The only time you’ll have to yourself all day
  • A chance to get totally physical and let your mind rest
  • A chance to reward your body for working so hard
  • A way to improve your quality of life immediately

And here are some more key points about exercise that you must understand:

  1. Willpower won’t work.  Willpower is for short-term success.  Long-term success requires planning, discipline and finding ways to motivate yourself every day.
  2. Motivation will not magically happen.  What motivates youwill change from day to day.  You have to recommit to your goals each day, tweak them to fit changes in your lifestyle and attitude and find new ways to motivate yourself over the course of your life.
  3. You will not always want to exercise and eat healthy.  Even the most committed exerciser doesn’t always want to do it.  Know that you will have to work on it every day.
  4. Diets don’t work.  Stop wasting your time following someone else’s plan for you.  Make your own plan based on realistic changes–if you can’t follow your chosen diet for the rest of your life, you’re wasting precious time.

Adjust Your Lifestyle

The facts about being overweight:

  • You can’t be overweight unless your lifestyle is set up to encourage it.
  • You can’t be overweight if you haven’t allowed yourself to eat too much.
  • You can’t be overweight if you’ve made a daily schedule that doesn’t allow time for exercise.

Never forget that losing weight and maintaining that weight loss is a lifetime prospect.  You will never stop working to maintain your fitness and weight.  So, before you start that same old diet or exercise program, ask yourself this question:  Can I sustain this diet for the long term?  Is this exercise program something I can do every day?

Once you recognize the gravity of permanently losing weight, you’ll need to change your lifestyle to accommodate this goal.

  • Figure out your bad habits.  Keep a food/activity journal for an entire week.  Do it without judgment or shame–you’re simply trying to figure out what you’re doing every day that may be hurting your weight loss goals.
  • Replace those bad habits, one at a time, with different habits.  Experts know that you can’t break bad habits without forming new ones.  If you take away your daily Egg McMuffin and don’t replace it with something else you’ll drift right back into the old McDonald’s habit.

This may sound simplistic, and it is.  Giving up something yummy for something healthy isn’t easy.  You have to change your environment to make it impossible to have or even want that Egg McMuffin.  Get started with these ideas:

  • Decide what you’ll eat instead of fast food.  Stock up on breakfast foods you like, keep meal replacement bars in the car or try healthy fruit shakes or smoothies.
  • Eat before you get in the car so you won’t be starving and, therefore, tempted to hit the drive thru.
  • Change your driving route to work so you don’t even pass by McDonald’s.
  • Don’t carry cash in the car (even if you DO have the urge to indulge, you won’t be able to), write down your weight loss goal and tape it to your steering wheel or your glove compartment so, when you’re reaching for your wallet, you’re immediately reminded your goals.

Make a Plan

You’ve figured out how to change your bad eating habits by replacing them with good ones and you’ve learned to create an environment that doesn’t allow those bad habits to exist.  Now, you need to make a plan for what you really want.

Set Your Goals

Write down specific goals you have (not just ‘I want to lose weight.’).  List everything, for example:

  • How much weight you want to lose.  Make sure the amount of weight you want to lose is reasonable for your height and frame.  This Ideal Weight Calculator will give you a starting point for setting your goals.
  • A target date to reach your goals.  Make sure you’ve given yourself a reasonable time to reach that goal – (a safe bet would be to lose a pound a week)
  • Why you want to lose this weight (i.e., I want to look good in a bathing suit for summer)
  • What you think will happen if you reach your goal
  • How you’ll maintain your weight loss once you reach your goal (remember, it’s a lifetime thing–even when you reach your goal, you can’t quit!)

For more, check out Setting Realistic Fitness Goals or How to Set Weight Loss Goals to make sure you’re setting goals you can really reach.

Set Up Your Program

To set up a good routine, you’ll need to know the basics of a complete program.  You’re program will involve cardio, strength training and stretching.

For help choosing a program contact me and we will find the right program for you!  You can find my contact information at the bottom of the newletter or visit my site www.beachbodycoach.com/coachgshort to look at the different products that BeachBody has!

Ensure Your Success

Success involves using every resource you have to keep you going.  Do whatever it takes to be consistent including:

  • Enlist all family members to get involved.  If everyone eats healthy, you won’t have to fight to avoid that bag of chips your spouse munches on every night
  • Join a BeachBody Challenge
  • Get a friend to exercise with you
  • Take time every week to schedule your exercise routines
  • Keep a workout bag packed so you don’t have to scramble for your gear
  • Keep a fitness journal to track your workouts and progress
  • Reward yourself often with massages, new clothes or a vacation
  • Change your program every 6 weeks to avoid plateaus
  • Re-visit your goals every three months and gauge your progress.  If you’re not reaching your goals, maybe you should change them to something more accessible

The important thing to remember is that losing weight requires that you change your lifestyle.  You have to change the way you think about exercise and eating, change the way you schedule your day and how you prioritize your tasks. It’s easy to lose a few pounds, but it’s hard to keep them off for good.  Being prepared for what’s ahead is your first step in the right direction.

Using Meal Replacements For Weight Loss

Information & Research:

Do you find that losing weight is difficult because you are eating on the run with no time to shop, cook, or plan meals? Do you eat out or get take-out food a lot and then eat restaurant portions that may prevent you from losing weight and keeping it off? These are some of the reasons people who want to lose weight often consider using meal replacements.

What Is A Meal-Replacement?

A meal replacement is a portion-controlled, prepackaged meal, shake, drink or bar that contains approximately 100 to 200 calories and is used to replace an entire meal or snack to help you reduce your total calorie intake and thus lose weight. These include nutritionally fortified diet protein shakes, snack bars, and low-calorie meals.

The weight loss shakes and bars are usually low in fat and calories, with about 100 to 200 calories, 2 to 5 grams of fat, about 10 to 15 grams of protein, various vitamins and minerals, and up to 5 grams of fiber.

How Do Meal Replacements Work?

Meal replacements help people lose weight by providing a controlled amount of calories, protein, carbohydrates and fat in a prefixed portion. They simplify meal planning because they are convenient — easy to store, and requiring little preparation. They are also reasonably prices, usually costing less than the meal they replace.

Meal replacements reduce the number of decisions you have to make about what to eat and reduce your exposure to tempting foods that might result in overeating.

Many effective weight loss plans that use meal replacements recommend either using them in addition to eating 1 or 2 healthy “grocery” foods meals, or replacing 2 or 3 meals and several snacks per day to lose weight, and then replacing 1 meal per day to maintain weight.

Using a meal replacement instead of an entire meal or snack can help you to reduce your calorie and fat intake and your blood sugar levels. When you first start using meal replacements, you will likely notice an immediate reduction in your blood sugar levels because you will probably be consuming fewer calories and less carbohydrates than you would with your usual meal.

How Effective Are Meal Replacements?

Recent studies show that meal replacements have an important role to play in the diet of anyone who wants to lose excess body-fat and build healthy lean muscle.

A good example comes from a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers from the University Hospital of Ulm in Germany assessed the effects of low-calorie diet combined with meal replacements on weight loss in a group of 100 obese patients.

Half of the group followed a self-selected diet of 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day, which included three meals and two snacks. The other half followed a similar self-directed diet except that they replaced two snacks and two of the three meals with meal replacements (shakes, soups or hot chocolate).

After three months, the people on the
self-selected diet lost an average of 2.9 lbs., while the people using meal
replacements lost an average of 15.6 lbs.

After the first three months, everyone was asked to replace one meal and one snack per day with a meal replacement. Over the next 24 months, original self-selected diet group lost an average of nine additional pounds, and the original meal replacement group lost an average of another seven more pounds. At the end of the study, the self- selected diet group had a 5.9 percent weight loss, whereas the original meal replacement group had an 11 percent weight loss.

Another study by researchers from the University of Nevada report similar results. Women using meal replacement supplements were able to maintain a far greater weight loss over the course of a year than those using other methods to control their weight.

For the full articles and more studies please click here: Using Meal Replacements For Weight Loss

I truly believe in this product! I recommend giving this product a try and with the Beach Body Bottom-of-the-Bag guarantee if you are not totally satisfied in the first 30 day you can return it for a full refund (less s&h). If you are interested in trying a sample please either message me on teambeachbody.com or send me an email at gshort@shortfam.com

Beach Body Coaching Team!!!

 

What are you doing to fight obesity?

Who else is looking to spread the word of health and ready to “END THE TREND”?

Contact me @ me@coachgshort.com for details on how you can spread the word, get in shape and help your finances!! Together we can end the trend!!

Success Story Of the week!!

Please contact with any questions.
Gregory Short – Independent BeachBody Coach

BeachBody, Inspiration, Newsletter, Shakeology

October 30th Newletter

Gallery

CoachGShort Weekly Newsletter October 30th

BeachBody Challenge

I have always has the team thread that I am running which anyone can join weither you are doing P90X, Insanity, 10 minute trainer, or any other BeachBody workout.

Do you want to join? Do you have a friend that wants to get in shape with you?  Email me right away as there are only 5 spots for this challenge!!  Email me today at: me@coachgshort.com

We will be starting November 7th so don’t hesitate!!

 

Using Meal Replacements For Weight Loss

Information & Research:

Do you find that losing weight is difficult because you are eating on the run with no time to shop, cook, or plan meals? Do you eat out or get take-out food a lot and then eat restaurant portions that may prevent you from losing weight and keeping it off? These are some of the reasons people who want to lose weight often consider using meal replacements.

What Is A Meal-Replacement?

A meal replacement is a portion-controlled, prepackaged meal, shake, drink or bar that contains approximately 100 to 200 calories and is used to replace an entire meal or snack to help you reduce your total calorie intake and thus lose weight. These include nutritionally fortified diet protein shakes, snack bars, and low-calorie meals.

The weight loss shakes and bars are usually low in fat and calories, with about 100 to 200 calories, 2 to 5 grams of fat, about 10 to 15 grams of protein, various vitamins and minerals, and up to 5 grams of fiber.

How Do Meal Replacements Work?

Meal replacements help people lose weight by providing a controlled amount of calories, protein, carbohydrates and fat in a prefixed portion. They simplify meal planning because they are convenient — easy to store, and requiring little preparation. They are also reasonably prices, usually costing less than the meal they replace.

Meal replacements reduce the number of decisions you have to make about what to eat and reduce your exposure to tempting foods that might result in overeating.

Many effective weight loss plans that use meal replacements recommend either using them in addition to eating 1 or 2 healthy “grocery” foods meals, or replacing 2 or 3 meals and several snacks per day to lose weight, and then replacing 1 meal per day to maintain weight.

Using a meal replacement instead of an entire meal or snack can help you to reduce your calorie and fat intake and your blood sugar levels. When you first start using meal replacements, you will likely notice an immediate reduction in your blood sugar levels because you will probably be consuming fewer calories and less carbohydrates than you would with your usual meal.

How Effective Are Meal Replacements?

Recent studies show that meal replacements have an important role to play in the diet of anyone who wants to lose excess body-fat and build healthy lean muscle.

A good example comes from a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers from the University Hospital of Ulm in Germany assessed the effects of low-calorie diet combined with meal replacements on weight loss in a group of 100 obese patients.

Half of the group followed a self-selected diet of 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day, which included three meals and two snacks. The other half followed a similar self-directed diet except that they replaced two snacks and two of the three meals with meal replacements (shakes, soups or hot chocolate).

After three months, the people on the
self-selected diet lost an average of 2.9 lbs., while the people using meal
replacements lost an average of 15.6 lbs.

After the first three months, everyone was asked to replace one meal and one snack per day with a meal replacement. Over the next 24 months, original self-selected diet group lost an average of nine additional pounds, and the original meal replacement group lost an average of another seven more pounds. At the end of the study, the self- selected diet group had a 5.9 percent weight loss, whereas the original meal replacement group had an 11 percent weight loss.

Another study by researchers from the University of Nevada report similar results. Women using meal replacement supplements were able to maintain a far greater weight loss over the course of a year than those using other methods to control their weight.

For the full articles and more studies please click here: Using Meal Replacements For Weight Loss

I truly believe in this product! I recommend giving this product a try and with the Beach Body Bottom-of-the-Bag guarantee if you are not totally satisfied in the first 30 day you can return it for a full refund (less s&h). If you are interested in trying a sample please either message me on teambeachbody.com or send me an email at gshort@shortfam.com

Beach Body Coaching Team!!!

I would like to welcome Phil F. (CoachPhilF) and Harold M. (CoachHaroldM) to team engage.  They have decide to join my personal team to pick up the fight against Obesisty!!  That make a full dozen people on my personal team of a group of 60 on Team Engage!!

What are you doing to fight obesity?

Who else is looking to spread the word of health and ready to “END THE TREND”?

Contact me @ me@coachgshort.com for details on how you can spread the word, get in shape and help your finances!!  Together we can end the trend!!

Success Story Of the week!!

Please contact with any questions.

Gregory Short – Independent BeachBody Coach

Health

Rubio’s how I will miss you…

So rubios has been one of our favorite local resturants and I always thought it was fairly healthy but Tuesday I found out the truth.

I ran out of time and decided to drive home for lunch and called my wife and asked if she had lunch yet, she hadn’t so I asked what she wanted and she had just had a NEAT treatment so she couldn’t have sugar.  So I head off to Rubio’s and get her a grilled Veggie Burrito and myself a HealthMex Chicken Burrito.  So calorie wise I am golden with only 500 calories for the burrito, but then we look at the ingredients.  There are so many processed items in all of there food.  I commend Rubio’s for providing this information.  Rubio’s Ingredient Statement

Needless to say I was very disappointed and so I say farwell to Rubio’s.

Ignorence might be bliss, but knowlege is power.

BeachBody, Health, Motivational, Newsletter

October 22nd Newsletter

CoachGShort Weekly Newsletter October 22th

Metabolic Efficiency: Working Hard or Working Smart?

By Dr. Mark Cheng, L.Ac., Ph.D., FMS

If you’re involved in fitness, health, or the pursuit of a lean, toned body, you’ve undoubtedly heard the word “metabolism.” You’ve probably also heard that the more highly your metabolism functions, the better your results as far as fat loss and maintaining a slim, trim body. But “metabolism” is actually defined by Wikipedia® as “the set of chemical reactions that happen in living organisms to sustain life.” Simply sustaining life isn’t that challenging a goal to aim for. If you’re engaged in doing a Beachbody® home fitness rogram, mere survival shouldn’t be your standard. Thriving, growing, exceeding, and surpassing should be what you’re working toward!

So let’s take a closer look at your metabolism to see how to optimize it.

The human metabolic process is broken down into two parts: catabolism and nabolism.  Catabolism is the “burning” or digesting of food or fuel sources to provide cells with energy. This is the part of metabolism that provides muscles with the energy to maintain posture and create movement. Anabolism, in turn, uses energy to link chemical compounds together to produce larger molecules, like muscle mass.

For catabolism to be efficient, you need to give your muscles the maximum number of opportunities to burn fuel like fat, carbohydrates, and sugars. So it stands to reason that if you’re training your body for the purpose of burning off excess weight, you want to engage the maximum number of muscles in the most efficient and safest manner possible.

One way to think of your body’s muscles is as their having two main functions: stability and mobility. Most of the big muscles people develop for cosmetic reasons, with prime examples being the quadriceps muscles of the thighs, the pectoral muscles in the chest, and the deltoid muscles of the shoulders, are centered around dynamic mobility. In other words, they’re muscles that allow you to go through a full range of motion. The stabilizing muscles, however, are generally those muscles that are deeper and closer to the joints. These are smaller muscles that include the spinal multifidi, the rotator cuff of the shoulder, and the core musculature of the midsection, and if they’re doing their job properly to stabilize your body while you’re in motion, they also play a major role in energy consumption.

Don’t be fooled, though. While some fitness coaches argue that it’s better to focus on the bigger mobility-oriented muscles because they burn more calories, any weakness or poor functionality in the smaller stabilizers can force the prime movers to pull double duty, making them attempt to both stabilize and move at the same time. This kind of inefficiency can overload one muscle group (prime movers) while robbing another group (stabilizers) of training. This scenario can lead to joint dysfunction and pain, which your body reads as a stressor. When it’s under stress, your body dumps the stress hormone cortisol into your bloodstream. And cortisol keeps packing the flab on around your midsection.

The bottom line is pretty simple. If you want to look good, you’ve got to move well. In order to move well, you have to feel good. In order to feel good, your body has to function well. So to get the most out of your metabolism, both in catabolic, fat-burning reactions and anabolic, muscle-building processes, your training has to involve both dynamic, explosive, gross movements and slow, controlled, precise movements—without pain. Pain is a silent enemy that constantly undermines the effectiveness of our workouts and hampers our metabolic efficiency. So to improve the functionality of your training, make sure you incorporate stability and postural training in addition to your dynamic, high-intensity workouts.

The correct mix of stability and dynamic motor control exercises along with explosive, high-output routines can give your body an incredible boost. By training muscles to perform their correct functions, you work more muscle groups with your exercises, perform those exercises more safely, and dramatically drop your risk of injury. Coordinated functioning of both your stabilizers and your prime movers is the essence of metabolic efficiency. As the stabilizers kick in and increase your caloric burn, not only do they consume more calories through their own action, but they also help the prime movers operate more efficiently with more powerful contractions, creating stronger movement and burning even more calories than ever.

If you want to get past the hump of “those last few pounds,” “the bulge that won’t go away,” or “the little spot I’d love to just tone up a little,” giving your stabilizers a chance to play in concert with your prime movers will set the stage for great movement. And when you move well, you’ll be happy to move more often. As you move more often with metabolically efficient movement patterns, you’ll be able to handle higher-intensity fat-sizzling workouts like P90X® without the cortisol setting you two steps back for every step forward you take. You’ll love how your athletic movements improve, how your quality of life blossoms, and how your lean, healthy, toned body evolves!

Why shakeology?
Just look at the results BeachBody got from an internal 90-day research study where they replaced one meal per day with Shakeology:
By the end of WEEK ONE
  • Improved digestion and regularity
  • Reduced cravings

By the end of WEEK FOUR

  • Increased energy and stamina
  • Lost weight
  • Improved mental clarity

By the end of WEEK TWELVE

  • Lost 10 pounds and 2 inches off waist on average
  • Reduced risk for heart disease and other degenerative diseases
  • Lowered cholesterol on average by 30% and even up to 70%
  • Healthier skin, hair and nails

I truly believe in this product! I recommend giving this product a try and with the Beach Body Bottom-of-the-Bag guarantee if you are not totally satisfied in the first 30 day you can return it for a full refund (less s&h). If you are interested in trying a sample please either message me on teambeachbody.com or send me an email at gshort@shortfam.com

 

Beach Body Coaching Team!!!

Someone asked me why did you become a BechBody Coach? I didn’t hesitate to tell them the reasons why. It is the feel that you get when helping others. The best way I can explain it is when you do a service project for the needy you get that great feeling. But after the service project you may ask about the people that you helped but in most cases that is the only time you have contact with them, where as when you become a BeachBody you help people though their program for 30, 60, 90 and beyond.

Have you ever thought about the people around you that you could help by sharing a BeachBody product?

Who else is looking to spread the word of health and ready to “END THE TREND”?

Success Story Of the week!!

Please contact with any questions.

Gregory Short – Independent BeachBody Coach