Stuck in a Rut

If you weight train on a regular basis, the time will come when your routine will no longer yield results. Your muscles will just become accustomed to your routine and stop growing.

Assuming that you have realistic expectations for yourself, your muscles should continue to grow if you train properly. Just remember that researchers have concluded that the human body cannot make more than 1 pound of muscle per week, no matter how hard you train.

If your expectations are in check and you are still not seeing the results you want, there are ways to get out of your rut.

First, change your work out. Change the exercises you do for each muscle group. Different exercises target the muscles differently and even slight changes will help get you back on track. Alternatively, you can lift heavier with fewer repetitions or lift lighter with more repetitions. You can also change rest periods or range of motion.

Finally if you are a beginner to weight training and have been doing full body or even two-day splits, you might want to ramp up your program and go to a three or four day split, which is more taxing for your muscles.

Other important factors to consider are nutrition and recovery. Make sure you are feeding your body the proper amount of protein after your workout. Your muscles need protein to replenish and grow. Lifting weights and then denying your muscles of the protein they need defeats the whole purpose of weight training. Although there is no precise amount of protein that you will need, most experts agree that if you work out, you need approximately 1.2-1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (or 0.6-0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight).

Finally, your muscles need at least 48 hours to recovery time. Muscles don’t grow during a workout. They grow during rest. So if you’re not allowing the adequate time for them to grow, they simply won’t and your intense workout will have gone to waste.

Blueprint for Success

I love reading success stories. They're so motivational! But I don't know why I read so many of them. They're pretty much all variations of the same story.

Person comes to a realization that they are not happy with their health and or fitness level.
Then, that person makes a real commitment to make a change in their lifestyle.

Finally, the person makes a concrete plan of action, because that old cliche "If you fail to plan, plan to fail" really does make a lot of sense.

Trust me, it's that easy, and if you read any success stories online, you'll find those three steps guaranteed!

Dust Off Your Treadmill

Treadmills can be one of the most useful machines you can use to help you lose fat and gain endurance.

Unfortunately though too many people "under-use" treadmills and when they don't see any results at the end of their work outs, they give up on the machines and begin using them as a clothes hanger.

If you want to get the best out of your treadmill, whether at home or at the gym, follow these guidelines:

1. Try listening to upbeat music or watching music videos while on the treadmill instead of watching the news. Upbeat music will motivate you to work harder.

2. Try the interval routine. Interval training, whether on a treadmill or with any other type of cardio, is the best way to incinerate calories.

3. Use the incline. When running, put the incline to #2 at the very least. #2 mimics outdoor conditions, so if you want to give yourself an even harder workout, try the higher inclines. Walking at the #10 incline will work your glutes. Just remember not to lean.

4. Don't lean and don't hold on to the handles. You'll burn more calories if you're not holding on, even if you're going at a lower speed.

5. Challenge yourself. Rather than just running for 30 minutes, measure the miles you've run and then challenge yourself to do better each time.

6. Vary your routine. As with everything in life, if you get bored, you're going to stop what you're doing. Try different programs on the treadmill or give yourself different goals to accomplish so you're not bored!

10,000 steps away from fitness

U.S. health professionals, in their quest to make fitness and health easier to understand, have adopted a 10,000-steps-a-day guideline for people looking to get fit.

This guideline is adapted from a long-held Japanese belief. Although this seems like a one-size-fits-all program, the elderly are encouraged to walk less, while young people are encouraged to walk more. Typically, 10,000 steps is about a half hour of walking plus your regular activity.

Considering North Americans' obsession with numbers, this is a great way to add exercise to your daily routine.

Buy yourself a pedometer and go. Think this is too simple to work? Well, a Standford University study found that those who adopted the 10,000-step goal increased the number of steps they took by 27%.

Rethinking artificial sweeteners

A new study by the Journal of Behavioral Neuroscience has conclusively show that using artificial sweeteners not only does not prevent weight gain, but may actually help you gain weight.

Researchers fed one group of rats yogurt sweetened with sugar and another group of rats yogurt sweetened with saccharin. The total amount of food eaten dramatically increased in the artificial sweetener group. After 14 days, the saccharin rats gained weight, had increased body fat and a slowed metabolism.

The researchers believe that artificial sweetener increases your appetite. Yikes! They say any sweet taste will signal your body that calories are on the way and trigger hormonal and metabolic responses (i.e. hunger). When you consume non-nutritive or non-caloric sweeteners, like aspartame or saccharin, you are tricking your body and you will feel hungrier and eat more.

Being on a low-carb diet, I find this study pretty disturbing. I guess I'll have to re-think how to get my sweet fix.

Good Advice to Throw Out the Window

This blog contains lots of useful information and suggestions that, when followed, will improve your health. And for the most part, everything is practical. I always think "would I do that" before writing about something. There is, however, some advice out there that is impractical.

Here is some weight loss wisdom that may be worth rethinking:

- Drinking 8 glasses of water - When I do this I literally have to go to the bathroom every five minutes. It is the most annoying thing in the world. (Well, one of the most annoying)

- Don't eat after 7 p.m. - Yeah right! I don't even get home from work / the gym before 8. Unfortunately this is never gonna happen. Having said that, I eat every few hours anyway so my dinner (late as it is) isn't usually too big. Then I have another healthy snack just before bed so that my metabolism can keep moving.

- Eat only slow-cooked oatmeal. - If I had more than 5 minutes each morning for breakfast, I would use it to sleep. If you're like me and rely on instant oatmeal, try to use the unflavoured kind and add your own berries and some sweetener instead of the sugar-filled "flavoured packets" of oatmeal available in stores.

- Don't weigh yourself. - I can't help this. I weigh myself almost daily when I'm trying to lose weight. My scale also has a body-fat calculator and I use this scale more as motivation. If the numbers go down (including the body fat) then I know I'm headed in the right direction. If they're not, then I need to kick it up a notch.

Resolution Update

3 months have passed since most of us made our New Year's Resolution to get or stay in shape. It's time to step back and make sure we're still on track!

How's the workout regimen going? It takes at least 21 days of repeating an action before it becomes a habit. So if you've been hitting the gym regularly, you should be doing great right now. But if you're finding yourself going irregularly, force yourself to make a 21-day commitment to working out. Trust me, it will get easier after that.

Also, don't make too many changes at once. You may overwhelm yourself. If you're working on improving your training, don't worry too much about micro-managing your diet until your training is taken care of. So, maybe this week you concentrate just on getting some cardio in, next week you can fine tune your leg workout (in addition to your now in-tune cardio) and he week after that, focus on something else.

When you are ready to work on your eating regimen, remember moderation. If you are too hard on yourself or give yourself a diet that is overly strict, you will not stick to it. Also, no matter how moderate your eating changes are, leave room for lapses. There are going to be parties where you are going to want to drink and eat a piece of cake. As long as those parties don't happen every day, you should not be hard on yourself. Leave room in your life for, well, life.

These small changes may mean it will take longer for you to reach your goals, but you will reach them more happily and you are more likely to stick to a healthy lifestyle even after your goals are reached.