Be Consistent With Your Goals

By Carole Cousineau

It’s February and it is typically the time of year when the New Year’s Resolutions start to fade. Sad but true, resolutions just don’t always seem to stick!  Is it time to get refocused? You bet!

Consistency needs to be a part of your vocabulary.  Sit down today and write out your fitness goals, make a clear list of what you hope to accomplish. Then, for each of those goals write a “way” or method that you can use to clearly accomplish that goal. With each of these methods, make them part of your week. Plan a schedule that includes your goals and then start on it right away!

Make sure that you include a reward for reaching your goals. Make it fun, like a date night or a night on the town with friends.  Don’t forget to re-evaluate your progress every few weeks, check up on yourself to see if the goals that you wrote down are still relevant; if not, start over!

Identify your goals, look at your list daily, and be consistent. By implementing this simple 3-step strategy, you’ll be on your way and reaching those goals before you know it!

If you need a little “push” to help stay accountable to your health and fitness goals, we offer one-on-one and small-group private sessions.  Our certified personal trainers help you launch a smart exercise program, move beyond stubborn plateaus, break out of fitness ruts and reenergize your workout. Along the way, they’ll challenge you, change your outlook and build your confidence, with results that extend far beyond the mirror. Please contact Carole Cousineau at (514) 695-8851 ext.203 or by email carole@leclubwestisland.com to book your session with a trainer today!

February is Heart Month

Best Wishes for a Happy and Healthy 2012!

3 Tips for Clean Eating and Staying Motivated

The following post is an excerpt from The Balance of Diet and Exercise, written by lululemon ambassador: Errick McAdams.

Every day is a new day
Start each day with the plan to eat clean, drink water and work out. Play every day like it’s the Superbowl. If you play hard you’ll stay ahead of temptation. If you don’t make it, start again the next day and do better.

Pay attention to what you eat
If certain food is making you tired, eat less or cut it out of your diet completely. Your metabolism works like a paper shredder. With a paper shredder you can only put a certain amount of sheets through at one time. If you put more than that, the shredder runs funny, and if you continue to feed paper through it, the shredder will overheat and shut down. Sound familiar? If you eat more than what your body can handle at one time (everyone is different but the base-rule is 500 calories per meal), you will start to run funny too.

Abs are made in the kitchen not the gym
Keep good food in your house and you’ll eat good food. Stock your fridge with Greek yogurt, fresh fruit, lean meats, salads, and lots of cold water.

5 Tips to Help You Lose Fat Quickly

One of the main reasons people fail to lose weight when on a diet is lack of motivation. It is so easy for us to just fall back into our old routines rather than follow a consistent steady plan of action to achieve real fat loss success. If we can make our ROUTINE something that is healthy and promotes weight loss, then we can stop worrying about being motivated and simply do our “normal routine” and lose all the weight we want.

Below are 5 simple tips that you can begin implementing as part of your daily routine to help you lose all the fat you want.

Always East Breakfast: Many times, those on a diet choose to skip breakfast thinking that the lack of calories will lead to weight loss. The fact is, when you DON’T eat, your body goes into survival mode and it tries to store the calories you eventually eat as fat. So, your plan actually ends up backfiring and you gain weight, not lose it.

Steam your veggies: When you sauté your vegetables in butter, you allow them to soak up all the bad fat making your once healthy veggies little piece of fat stuffed junk. Instead, just steam them and top with a dash of salt and pepper. All the flavor of the vegetables will be there without the fat.

Stop Late night snacking: If you are going to sleep, you DON’T need extra calories. Fight off those late night cravings by having a glass of warm tea before bed instead of those cookies or pie. Doing so can help you get rid of thousands of worthless calories from your diet each and every month and help you lose fat quickly.

Eat healthy when you are hungry, then stop: Your body is designed to tell you when it is full. Most of the time, it is our cravings and overindulgence that allows us to keep eating long after our bodies tell us we are full. Listen to what your body is telling you and just eat to the point that you are satiated. This amount will be the perfect amount for your body to have the energy it needs without excess calories that will be stored as fat. It is ok to eat multiple times during the day as long as the food is healthy. This helps to keep your metabolism working.

Move as much as you can: Yes, this means EXERCISE! If you can walk versus ride, do it! Park further away from the front to the building. Jog wherever you go. The more steps you can include in your daily routing, the more calories you will burn. Add to this a regular program of vigorous exercise such as jumping rope, running, or weight training and you can burn thousands of extra calories per week. In addition, and muscle you build will act to burn calories even when you are not working out.

The above represent just a few fat loss suggestions, but if followed consistently, they can be your answer to quick and significant fat loss.