Blake and Gwen Beckcom

According to the American Stroke Association (ASA), a stroke is a brain attack – as opposed to the more commonly known heart attack – that affects the arteries leading to and within the brain. While heredity can play a big part in the risk factors associated with stroke, lifestyle choices can contribute to reducing the risk of having a stroke.

Three factors to lowering stroke risk

High Blood Pressure: High blood pressure is the leading cause of having a stroke and the most important controllable risk factor. According to industry research, there is a 55 percent increase in your stroke risk if you have prehypertension. To lower blood pressure levels, exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet, limit alcohol intake, avoid tobacco, reduce caffeine consumption, reduce stress, reach out to family and friends for ongoing support and visit your doctor regularly.

Healthy Diet: The way you feed your body not only contributes greatly to your body’s overall health and fitness, but also works to lower your risk of heart and brain disease. Research suggests that low fat, low cholesterol diets that include dark vegetables and fruits, which contain antioxidants, may reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. In general, dark-skinned fruits and vegetables (kale, spinach, Brussels sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, broccoli, beets, red bell pepper, onion, corn and eggplant, prunes, raisins, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, plums, oranges, red grapes and cherries) have the highest levels of naturally occurring antioxidant levels. Cold-water fish contain beneficial omega-3 fatty acids (halibut, mackerel, salmon, trout and tuna) and some nuts (almonds, pecans and walnuts) are a good source of vitamin E antioxidants.

Physical Lifestyle: Constant, regular physical activity is the cornerstone to a fit body, healthy heart and strong brain. Physical activity three to four times a week in 45 to 60 minute increments is important for maintaining good blood flow throughout the body and to the brain, encouraging the growth of new brain cells and significantly lowering the risk of a stroke, among others.

An ASA report states the chance of having a stroke approximately doubles for each decade after 55 years of age, however anyone at any age runs a risk of having a stroke. It is essential to know the signs of stroke so that you can act quickly if you or a loved one is showing any of the following signs. The ASA released a stroke detection method called F.A.S.T., representing the four items to check in a suspected stroke victim: Face, Arms, Speech and Time.

By living a lifestyle that includes healthy food, fitness and awareness, you are equipping yourself with the tools to reduce the risk of having a stroke. This column does not take the place of your certified physician. Consult a physician regarding detailed, stroke-specific questions. Certified personal trainers at Fitness Together are available to help you get started on living a heart and brain healthy lifestyle that focuses on consistent exercise and healthy eating.

—Gwen and Blake Beckcom are the owners of Fitness Together. Contact them at 619-794-0014 to begin one-on-one, or tandem personal training focused on a healthy you. Follow their blog at betterbodysandiego.com.

Let the beauty of the weather, with its cool, clear, sunny days – not too cold and not too hot – inspire you to spring forward on your health and fitness commitments.

What’s the best strategy for getting back on track?

Make a commitment to yourself to slowly reincorporate both cardio and strength or resistance training exercises back into your schedule. Combine exercise with attention to your nutrition, taking advantage of the glorious spring bounty of fruits and veggies, and you will be on your way to a beautiful bathing suit season.

Here are four scientifically-proven lifestyle changes you can make that, when combined together, are the best way to help you get that spring training in gear. Make time in your schedule to make fitness happen.

1. Accountability is one of the most important tools at your disposal for helping you make and keep health and fitness goals. The first step is to carve out time in your daily schedule for exercise. Once you pencil in the exercise time on your calendar, it becomes easier to keep because you’re treating the time as any other appointment. Make the appointment and keep the appointment.

2. A nutritious, calorie-controlled diet begins with a high-quality breakfast to jumpstart both your day and your metabolism. Now is the time to change those unhealthy eating habits. Try to bump up your intake of colorful fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and good fats. If weight loss is your goal, then keeping track of what you eat with a food journal is essential for helping you take control of your eating habits.

3. Daily cardio exercise is important. You are probably already aware that regular cardio exercise is key for keeping your body lean and your cardiovascular system fit. Health professionals recommend daily cardio exercise such as walking, running, swimming or biking for at least thirty minutes each day. A brisk walk to take a break from the workday will do wonders for your mental outlook, too.

4. Strength training keeps it all together. A regular program of strength training is essential for maintaining muscle mass as we age. The problem is that with every decade of life, we lose a considerable amount of muscle. We also tend to gain fat in its place. This leads to a condition called Sarcopenia, the degenerative loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength associated with aging. A decline in quality of life and loss of independence is associated with elderly who have this condition.

For women, another concern is the loss of bone mass. Bone loss for women and muscle loss for everyone tend to accelerate as we move into our 40s. The best way to attenuate muscle loss and bone degeneration to help you now and in your golden years is to strength or resistance train on a regular basis today.

Spring is the beautiful season of renewal. Take advantage of this fresh spirit to rejuvenate you and your health and fitness routine. You can achieve your health and fitness goals, one workout, one meal and one day at a time.

—Gwen Beckcom is the owner of Fitness Together. If you are stuck in a rut, need a little push or just don’t know what to do, call her at 619-794-0014. Follow their blog at BetterBodySanDiego.com.

Spring is in the air, bringing changes to weather, wardrobes and waistlines. With the holidays and cold weather behind you and plans for spring break trips, pool time lounging and outdoor activities, this is the perfect time to focus on healthy eating.

In light of National Nutrition Month, it is the time to shake off the winter doldrums and make the transition to healthier eating habits. Here are five nutrition tips and tricks to help you spring into action and transform your eating habits, one step at a time.

Don’t do it alone

The most important step to successfully transitioning to healthier eating is to establish a strong network of support in preparation for your journey. Breaking old habits and making healthier lifestyle changes is a difficult task, so don’t be afraid to ask for help. By enlisting support from family, friends and a health and fitness professional, you will get started on the right path to continued nutrition success.

You bite it, you write it

The simple act of writing down and keeping track of all food or beverages that enter your mouth will increase awareness of the amount and variety of foods you eat each day. Keeping an accountability food journal is the best tool available to help increase your consciousness regarding the foods you eat. A journal also enables you to analyze the circumstances that contribute to making less healthy food choices. Journaling should be as specific as possible and include the date, time, amount of food, situation and hunger level. Your journal will not only help you keep track of your daily food consumption, but also serve as an insightful follow up tool.

Take baby steps

Few people are successful with major lifestyle changes when they dive in headfirst. The best strategy to achieve major goals in life is to break the goal down into small, doable steps. For instance, if your goal is to improve your eating habits and you have a problem eating too much high fat, high calorie fast food, then it would probably not be realistic to cut it out completely. Instead, come up with a better plan and one that is doable for you, such as cutting back on fast food consumption or even choosing healthier fare at fast food restaurants. Rome was not built in one day and neither should your transition to healthier eating.

Focus on the positive

Some people equate healthy eating with deprivation and eliminating favorite foods from their diet. To keep your nutrition transition from stalling before you take the first step, give yourself the gift of positive thinking and keep your momentum toward healthy eating moving strong. Instead of putting the sole focus on eliminating foods from your day, switch your mindset to a more positive approach. What healthy foods can you add into your day? For example, if you want to cut back on your red meat consumption, perhaps commit to Meatless Mondays or reserve one day a week dedicated to trying different kinds of fish from around the world. Have fun with it and make your journey to healthy eating an adventure.

Break it down

A marathon is 26.2 miles and is run one step at a time. Many people fail in making the transition to a healthier lifestyle when they take the all or nothing approach. The key to successfully making this transition is to embrace the opportunities, work through the challenges and learn from your mistakes during each step of the journey. By breaking your nutrition transition plan down into one step, one meal and one day at a time, you will cross that finish line healthier and happier.

—Blake Beckcom is the owner of Fitness Together. For information about how to take appropriate steps for where you find yourself today, call him at (619) 794-0014. Follow their blog at www.BetterBodySanDiego.com.

These past eight weeks, the local gyms I travel to for my own workouts have been fraught with frenetic activity. There are lines of people waiting for cardio equipment, people waiting for weights and machines and wanderings of potential gym rats on club tours.

In general, it is an overall cram-fest of people, all set to tackle their own New Year goals. We regulars know it’s only a matter of time until the herd thins, leaving the long-haulers behind to continue to plod up our individual fitness hills. This month the inevitable thinning of the herd reaches its peak, which gladdens me from an over crowded perspective yet saddens me because of a sense of loss for all those people who gave up on 2012 being their fitness year so soon in the journey.

Several factors usually bring an early end to the motivation to get fit:

Realism

Many times, we simply bite off more than we can chew. Instant gratification desires drive us to unrealistic expectations of getting in shape. It took your entire life to get to the place where you are now, and it will take time to get you to where you need to go tomorrow. It’s just not a six-week process. “The Biggest Loser” phenomenon is not reality. Take a long-term view and set small, appreciable goals to mark your progress along the fitness highway to be a long hauler. This is about your life, your lifestyle and your longevity.

Disbelief

You have to believe in yourself and you have to realize you will have setbacks. Saying, “It’s just too hard, it takes too much time, it costs too much money, or it’s taking longer than I thought,” are setbacks, pure and simple. What if you could trade all the days of doing nothing between today and the day your doctor tells you bad news with days of doing something to fight against that bad news? If you could trade all the days between this day and that day, you would trade them for days of fighting for your life. Believe in yourself. Don’t doubt; just do. You never know what you might be training to prevent.

Nutrition

The herd is often thinned by poor outward results due to poor inward nutrition. Nutrition takes effort. Use a food diary and learn about appropriate calorie intake for your metabolism and goals. My belief is 70 percent of the fitness equation is about what we eat. Do you train so you can eat whatever you want, or do you eat to maximize your energy, ward off disease, fuel your workouts and prolong the quality and duration of your life? You simply cannot out-train bad nutrition. Do the homework and do the discipline consistently.

Commitment

You need to have a strong why in your commitment equation to start your fitness program. Strong motives with intent and purpose will ward off the desire to quit when the going gets rough at home or work, you hit a plateau or you catch a cold. A short-term, finite goal—like working out to go to a reunion—usually ends when the goal is over. Use short-term goals like birthdays, reunions, vacations and anniversaries as motivating commitment boosters along the entire journey. Define why you are getting in shape in a broader confine. What’s in your family gene pool? Will any of that come knocking on your door one day? Now there’s a commitment builder.

—Gwen Beckcom is the owner of Fitness Together. For information about how to take appropriate steps for where you find yourself today, call her at (619) 794-0014. Follow their blog at BetterBodySanDiego.com.

As you roll in to the New Year, you may find yourself in a rut of doing the “same old, same old” when it comes to your fitness and wellness routine. As the temperatures get cooler, climbing on the dreaded treadmill or elliptical machine may seem to be your only option for burning up those extra holiday calories.

Cardio training, though, can include more than the traditional running, biking and swimming. By taking your workout up a notch with high intensity cardio variations, you can jump start your fitness so you look better, feel better and perform better all year long.

The common fitness theme this time of year is fighting the bulge and finding time to squeeze in a workout. Although concentrating on eating in moderation is a key component to weight loss and maintenance, cardio exercises focused on interval training help combat the belly bulge. Interval training focuses on intense bursts of exercise within a workout that not only jump-starts your heart rate but also burns body fat quicker.

The good news for those with a hectic schedule is that you don’t have to bang out hour after hour on the treadmill to realize the best cardio results for your body. Shorter durations of high intensity exercise can be more beneficial than traditional endurance training. Basic exercise science supports that the harder you work, the more calories you burn for every minute you exercise. High intensity cardio variations speed up your metabolism for hours following a workout session, too.

If weight loss and maintenance are your main goals this new year, ditch the treadmill and opt for a fast and furious workout full of burpees, wind sprints, jump pull ups and slam balls. Your belly will appreciate it and so will the scale. As we all know, strength and conditioning exercises build muscle.

The secret weapon to defining and showing off hours spent in the weight room is by combining cardio with proper nutrition. To create greater muscle definition in common problem areas—arms, abs and glutes—it is important to incorporate metabolic cardio conditioning to your fitness regimen to unveil your hidden lean and sleek muscles.

When your goal is to build strength and muscle, combining strength-training exercises with total body cardio is key to realizing the best results. This type of cardio approach packs a variety of total body movements into your workout that aims to raise your heart rate and maintain the increased level for five to ten minutes.

Some good full body cardio exercises include mountain climbers, battling ropes, jump squat circuits, burpees and medicine ball slams. These exercises allow you to build more muscle and burn calories while giving you the most bang for your buck in regards to time and effective cardio exercises.

Whether your goals are to combat the belly bulge, build more muscle or successfully train for an upcoming event, incorporating high intensity cardio into your fitness routine will not only make you feel and look better, but will also help you to perform better in any new year endeavors.

—Gwen Beckcom is the owner of Fitness Together. For information about how to take appropriate steps for where you find yourself today, call her at (619) 794-0014. Follow their blog at www.BetterBodySanDiego.com.

Tight muscles, cramped joints and a lethargic body are not how you want to ring in this winter season. Instead, prepare your body for winter exercise by introducing stretching into your overall health and fitness routine. Don’t worry; you don’t have to schedule a ton of time to make stretching beneficial and effective. Ten minutes will do the trick.

Start with the Basics

When incorporating stretching into your workout, you should take a two-phased approach. The first phase should focus on preparing your body, joints, heart and lungs for a dynamic workout, while the second phase should focus on cooling down your muscles and preparing your body for an active recovery following your workout. In essence, it is most effective to sandwich your strength and conditioning workouts with two short, but effective, active stretching routines.

Phase One: Warm Up and Dynamic Stretch

If touching your toes and taking deep breaths to start your workout is your idea of warming up and stretching then you are missing out on an excellent opportunity to set yourself up for a great workout. According to research by The National Strength and Conditioning Association, passive static stretching can lead to reduced performance when compared to an active, dynamic warm-up alone.

A great workout starts with a great warm-up, so the first step to an active warm-up to increase your performance is spending a few minutes on a foam roller. The purpose of the foam roller is to provide soft tissue flexibility in preparation for a more fluid and free-moving workout. The few minutes it takes to foam roll will pay dividends for the remainder of your fitness session.

After you’ve established more flexible muscles with the foam roller, the next step is to prepare your body for elevating heart rates and getting down to business. The warm-up should not be easy. It should start easy, but then progress to the point that when you’re finished five minutes later, you’re ready to go full steam ahead into your workout. A dynamic warm-up should include explosive movements such as high knees, skipping and moving lunges. It is important to remember that the purpose of these types of exercises is to prepare your joints and ligaments for the high intensity portion of your workout. Make sure not to push yourself too hard. Instead, focus on starting slow and revving up your body for an effective and dynamic workout.

Phase Two: Cool Down and Recovery

After you’ve left all of your effort, sweat and tears on the gym floor during your high intensity strength and conditioning workout, it is now time to take three to five minutes to incorporate some light stretching and cool down techniques to finish off your fitness routine. The purpose of this stretching phase is to loosen up any knots that might have built up in your muscle fibers during your workout and prepare your body for proper recovery that will last hours after your workout has ended. It is important to stretch the major muscle groups you exercised during your workout and to focus on any problem spots that you may have. Some simple, but highly effective cool down and recovery stretches include the child’s pose, lower leg lunge stretches and the cat stretch for your back and shoulders.

If stretching is typically an after-thought for you during your workouts, focus on incorporating ten minutes of pre- and post-workout stretches this winter to prepare your body for optimal performance during and after your workouts.

—Gwen Beckcom is the owner of Fitness Together. For information about how to look better, feel better and perform better with a total body stretching and fitness routine, call her at (619) 794-0014. Follow their blog at BetterBodySanDiego.com and join them on Facebook at Fitness Together San Diego-Mission Hills.

Attitude

You are worthy of having the best life, the best health and the best future, but you do have to will it into existence by working at it consistently, thinking you can. When the voice of self-doubt talks to you along the journey, cast it to the curb and think thoughts that propel you.

“I am strong. I am able. I am getting better each day. I will do it, and I can do it. I must do it.” Where your mind goes, your body follows.

Listen, fitness is a journey. It is not a destination. Destination fitness is finite in that it has an end. “I’m going to lose weight for the reunion” has an end date, namely the reunion. The wedding, the birthday, the vacation, the whatever all are finite. Once the goal is attained, caution is thrown to the wind and it’s game over.

Fitness takes consistent effort over the long run. Take it one day, one week, and one year at a time. Living fitness is a lifestyle, and use significant events as incentives for extra pushes along the way.

Alcohol

Remind yourself that alcohol is poison to your system. That’s how our body reacts to it, jumping into hyper-drive to cleanse the blood and defog our brains. If you are trying to be calorie conscious, alcohol is the super saboteur. It has calories in and of itself, and when you drink before a meal, as example, it dulls senses and impairs decision-making regarding portion sizing and quality of foods.

Drink more, and the end result is eating more along with paying more, both at the dinner table and in the morning. Recovering from alcohol is a physical process that takes time and does not tend to make you raring to go to the gym. Getting fit and maintaining fitness is hard. Adding alcohol to the equation makes getting results nearly impossible. If you are serious about your fitness journey, abstain. You can act crazy and have fun with water, lemon wedge and a straw. Tell them later, “the water made me do it.”

Acquaintances

Yes, your friends, in a myriad of ways, can unintentionally and intentionally sabotage your fitness journey. First and foremost is how they live and what they eat and drink. We are all social creatures and social grouping is a way of life, but peer pressure can lead you astray.

The pressures to drink and to drink more, or eat and eat more are usually there in group settings. When it is easier to give in than stand your ground, consider other social plans. When we get on a fitness-minded journey, some of our personal relationships are bound to and need to change.

This becomes readily discernable and an easier choice when you get serious about your fitness and health. It is not so much about you not being part of the in crowd as it is about you being in a crowd of your own. If your friends can’t, won’t or don’t join you, perhaps another crowd beckons.

Apathy

Once you let apathy in, blowing off workouts tends to take over. Miss a few workouts and the next step is finding reasons to blow them off for other days and your sense of caring about your fitness health journey fades. Getting back on course is so difficult, and you’ll end up with regret wondering what happened.

Your fitness must be top priority as it is about you, your care and your longevity. There is no one to care more about you. Keep fitness first as it pays the highest long-term dividends in your health care program, as compared to your laundry list of other to do’s.

—Blake Beckcom is the owner of Fitness Together. For help on “saboteur list” management, contact Blake at Fitness Together at (619) 794-0014. Follow their blog at BetterBodySanDiego.com.

You’ve said to yourself, “I’m going to get into shape.” You’re motivated. You’re determined. There’s no stopping you this time. An ad for a treadmill appears, and you say, “That’s it. I’ll get one and use it everyday.”

You buy it, get it delivered and set it up. The “get fit now” treadmill has you off to the races, until you remember you need some “get fit now” clothes, too. So you go and buy the newest trendy outerwear (just trying on the stuff makes you feel tighter and fit). “I feel good,” you say, as you look at all the new fitness attire.

At first you’re so excited because you really believe you’re going to get in shape. You get an exercise chart out, go on the Internet, find the workouts and get a routine. Of course, you have the equipment and the clothes—and now the workout—but up to that point, are you any more fit or healthy? No, because application makes all the difference.

It’s in the consistent doing that helps to get you in shape.

Have you have ever purchased a book on a specific diet you plan to try? You bought the diet book, started reading, got excited, and said, “I’m going to lose the weight this time.” You probably even go to your pantry and throw a bunch of stuff out, replacing the stuff with food from a health food store.

You’re moving in the right direction, of course, but in reading the book and cleaning out your pantry, have you made any real progress? No, because, again, application makes all the difference. Buying the stuff, committing to the stuff, believing in the stuff, paying your bills for the stuff, intending to get into shape and even telling your friends about your plans doesn’t do any good if you don’t apply it.

How do you beat those application blues? Set your alarm clock 15 minutes earlier to create some needed time for yourself. Make fitness appointments in your day-planner just like any other important appointment you have. Use short-term goals as motivators. Write these goals down, place them somewhere visible and refer to them often. If you told friends about your goals, have them hold you accountable to them.

Then, weigh yourself once a week against your weight loss plan, and don’t get discouraged. It takes time. Create and receive rewards along the way, when key fitness goals are met. You’re not the only one with unused clothes and fitness equipment. Clean it all off, reinvigorate and get going.

—Gwen Beckcom is the owner of Fitness Together. For information about how to take appropriate steps for where you find yourself today, call her at (619) 794-0014. Follow their blog at www.BetterBodySanDiego.com.

With a fast-paced, easy access to almost everything type of living combined with a high demand for instant gratification, it is easy to lose sight of our fitness being a journey. We want whatever we want, now. We want the weight off now. We want that svelte look now.

We want the skinny jeans now, we want to be off our blood-pressure medication, cholesterol medication and any other assortment of meds now. We want more energy, less stress and better sleep, and we want it, well, now. It is part of our nature; the nature of impatience that arguably brought about many good things in our culture.

We all have it within us. I can feel it at the red light or standing in the grocery line. It’s the part of us that screams “hurry up and get there, would you?!” I feel it, too, when I look in the mirror at all those body parts I want changed. My wrinkles and excess fat? I want them changed. Now.

Perhaps one of the most important, and at times overlooked, elements of fitness is rest. Rest is important for us in the physical as well as the mental realm of the fitness journey. Though some of my best workouts have come on the heels of not feeling up to it or being tired or mentally down, I also know the importance of listening to my body and getting ample rest in order to recover.

The secrets to recovery revolve around our nutrition, hydration and rest. Lots of water and clean eating go a long way, as do scheduling training days and ‘off-days’ within each week. Spacing one, two, or even three days between sessions and keeping your workouts changing in orientation are part of the answer. From time to time in my fitness journey, I have crossed paths with folks that train every day but complain of plateauing due to a lack of change, overtraining and inadequate rest. Their minds are stuck in a gear of impatience on the ‘now’ highway.

Lack of results and a consistent sense of emotional burn like these people encountered can be signs of overtraining. The little aches and pains you may be feeling in your knees, feet, shoulder, hip—or any joint for that matter—as well as a continued level of fatigue in any muscle group are other signs.

How do you beat it and stay on track?

In your workouts, add greater periods of rest between your sessions. This will give you better rest physically and, more than likely, a shot in the arm mentally. Then, change your workout. Do your existing routine in reverse order and change the order of workouts during the entire week. For example, on Monday, do the workout you would normally do on Wednesday and do it in reverse order. This alone can reinvigorate you.

In your daily life, get more sleep. Some studies have shown we need seven to eight hours of sleep on a consistent basis to be at our best. When you sleep, your body is in ‘repair mode’ to prep you for the next day. Too little sleep means too little repair time. Say no to a crammed day and find ways to create time for periods of doing less or doing nothing in your week.

When was the last time you sat on the sofa to read a book or to take a nap? Saying yes to everything crowds you out. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Part of your burnout can be brought on by our emotional mindset. Worrying, for example, will not solve your dilemmas and can add to your fatigue. What was the last thing you worried about? Did worrying help you solve it? Why give your energy to worrying?

Fitness is a journey and small steps—including resting and recovering—taken over the long haul of your journey will get you there safely and in good health.

—Blake Beckcom is the owner of Fitness Together. For information about how to take appropriate steps for where you find yourself today, call him at (619) 794-0014. Follow their blog at www.BetterBodySanDiego.com.

Getting in shape does not mean you have to spend hours at the gym, but how to train when there is no time can make a big difference. A secret to getting in shape and feeling great is prioritizing your health and fitness into small, frequent windows of available time. Here is a speedy 20-minute workout using sculpting moves that shape specific muscle fibers which, when targeted, tone, firm, and keep your metabolism revved up to increase your calorie burn throughout the day.

The following seven moves performed at 12 to 15 repetitions, with little to no rest, becomes one set. In 20 minutes, you can complete two sets.

Do a quick 3-minute warm up by marching in place.

Chest Press
Lie face up on a bench. Hold a dumbbell in each hand so they are end to end. Extend your arms over your chest without locking your elbows. Lift your legs and bend them so your calves are almost parallel to the floor. This will engage your core for added benefit. Bend your elbows out to the sides and slowly lower your arms toward your chest until your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Keep your abs tight and your back flat, pause for a second, and then press the weights up, extending your arms directly above your chest.

Sumo Squat with Dumbbell
Stand with your legs wider than shoulder-width apart and your toes pointing out to the sides as far as comfortably possible. Hold a pair of dumbbells at your hips. Keeping your heels firmly planted, slowly bend your knees, dipping your butt until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Pause, then slowly straighten your legs and immediately rise up on the balls of your feet for a calf raise. Pause, and then lower your heels back to start.

Bent Over Row
Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, back straight, and knees slightly bent for support. Hold a dumbbell in each hand. Keeping your back straight, bend 90 degrees from the waist and allow your arms to hang toward the floor, with your palms facing inward. Squeeze your shoulder blades together and bend your elbows, raising the dumbbells up to either side of your torso. Pause, and then lower the dumbbells back to the start position.

Reverse Fly
Sit on an exercise ball, chair or bench with your feet flat on the floor and hold a dumbbell in each hand. Bend forward from your hips, keeping your back flat and abs tight. Bend your elbows slightly and raise the weights up to near shoulder level, squeezing your shoulder blades behind you. Return to the beginning position.

Biceps Curl
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, holding dumbbells at your sides. Keeping your elbows in this position, lift the dumbbells upward. Turn your wrists so the dumbbells end up at chest height with your palms facing your body. Pause, then lower.

Triceps Chair Dips
Sit on the edge of a sturdy chair, hands grasping the seat of the chair at either side of your rear. Walk your feet out slightly and inch your butt off the chair. Keeping your shoulders down and your back straight, bend your elbows back and lower your butt toward the floor as far as comfortably possible. Slowly push back up.

Reverse Lunge
Stand with your left foot 2 to 3 feet in front of your right, with the back right heel off the floor. Bend both knees, lowering your hips until your left thigh is parallel to the floor. Without leaning forward and keeping your abs tight, straighten your legs by raising your torso. Pause, then lower. Switch legs to repeat.

Small periods of physical activity can add-up and influence our health and fitness in big ways. You gain flexibility, burn more calories, look sleeker, and feel better when you are active and exercising.

—Gwen Beckcom is the owner of Fitness Together, at 619-794-0014. Follow their blog at BetterBodySanDiego.com.

Gwen Beckom

By Gwen Beckom

Trying to lose weight? Consider eating more and factoring in your individual body type and lifestyle.

Most people, asked whether they’re eating enough to lose weight would find the question ridiculous. But it’s not. Paradoxically, eating more of what’s good for you rather than cutting calories can help you lose weight, because the less you eat the more your body slows its metabolic rate to compensate for the calorie reduction.

Consequently, when trying to lose weight, it’s important to know that everyone has different caloric intake requirements. Along with counting how many calories you burn, you also need to consider your height, weight, gender, age, lean weight and fat mass percentages, as well as lifestyle (whether sedentary or active). Variations among these attributes alter your personal weight loss equation. For example, you might burn 500 calories on an hour-long run, but if you’re 20 pounds overweight and over age 40, you’ll still require fewer calories than a muscle-bound 20-year-old who doesn’t exercise.

Therefore, to lose weight, consider the variety of individual body and lifestyle characteristics that contribute to your weight loss goals—the aforementioned age, height, weight, fat-to-muscle ratio combinations particular to you.

There are many commercially available products such as Fit Bit, Body Bugs and Heart Rate Monitors to help you do this. Websites such as Prevention, and Calorie King, for example, not only list calories in foods but also enable you to input information about your body and activity levels and to track actual calorie intake and exercise in context of gender, height, weight, body fat and lifestyle.

The website Prevention, for instance tracks foods (calories, carbs, fats and proteins), exercise and activities, weight, body measurements and even your mood, so you can determine how many calories your body needs for weight loss or weight maintenance. You can also track how your body responds to different moods/stresses in your life. It’s amazing how stress can halt weight loss and cause belly fat!

Ingesting only sufficient calories to meet your anatomical, metabolic and expenditure needs, choosing nutritionally balanced, high quality, and frequent meals, practicing portion control and eating frequent, small servings are the keys to the ideal body, and these sites will help you to do so.

So the next time someone asks you if you’re eating enough to lose weight, don’t haul off and hit them. The long-term, lasting solution is to eat enough of what your highly individual body needs.

—For information on eating and losing weight, call me, Gwen Beckcom, co-owner of Fitness Together, at (619) 794-0014. Follow us on our blog at BetterBodySanDiego.com.

Fawn Lofton

By Fawn Lofton

Say these words: strong body, strong mind, strong spirit, and let them permeate your mind. What do they mean to you? I believe that no matter where you are or what is going on, it is important to integrate these aspects into your life, as you never know when it will throw you a curve ball.

Strong body
This may mean something different to each of you. For me, a strong body means being in physically good health. Being healthy has been a lifelong passion of mine, and I became a personal trainer/motivator because of it. I was put on this earth to help encourage others to build a strong body and to promote nutrition to instill good health. I am here to be an inspiration to others.

I love motivating my clients to push themselves beyond what they think they can do. I not only push their body’s strength, but I support them mentally to help change their thoughts about themselves in a positive way. Losing weight takes determination, the type that comes from deep within. I help inspire clients to find that desire and act on what they want to look like.

Strong mind
We can all say “I’m mentally strong,” but to truly believe and portray this is tough. Having a strong mind means keeping a positive attitude towards life, even through its downs. Life recently threw a curve ball at me. My doctor diagnosed me with a malignant tumor. The news would send many people into a deep depression, but I took it as a gift. I held my head high and kept positive thoughts flowing nonstop. I did get sidelined from training clients, teaching fitness classes and my personal workouts, but it’s only temporary. I am happy to report that I am having a rapid recovery and believe it’s because of my healthy body and positive attitude.

Strong spirit
Whenever you have a bad day, keep your head up. Don’t let getting a traffic ticket or spilling coffee on your white blouse on the way to work ruin your whole day. Turn your thoughts around and keep your spirits high. The way we think and feel impacts us deeply. If you keep your spirits up, more of those good vibes will come your way. Belief is the foundation and key to life’s process and joyful outcomes. Through my whole life—even though I have had some tough cards dealt—I have maintained a strong spirit and faith, and it really has helped.

Life’s curve balls, such as my cancer, are lessons we can learn from. They remind us that each day is indeed a gift that should be enjoyed and savored. They remind us that we are not in control all the time, but that is okay. And they remind us that we are loved by family, friends, God and by all the wonderful people we meet along the way.

From my personal experience, I know that when it comes to strong body, strong mind, strong spirit, fitness makes the difference; it helps you face the good and the bad as you go through life’s obstacles.

Allow me to help you reach your fitness goals. Call Fawn Lofton, Fitness Together Mission Hills, at (619) 794-0014. And follow us on our blog at betterbodysandiego.com.

Fawn Lofton

By Fawn Lofton

To achieve the total package, of a fit body you must have a well-rounded fitness routine, including strength training, cardio and flexibility. Incorporate these three components of fitness whether you are new to exercise or currently have a routine. Including all three into your exercise routine (including a balanced diet) will provide you with long-term benefits as well as short-term body toning and weight loss. And who doesn’t want that?

Strength training
Strength training is the absolute best way to boost your metabolism, because it helps you build and maintain muscle. Lean muscle is active tissue, while fat just hangs there. The more lean muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolism will be.

Unfortunately, our metabolism slows down, every decade after our ’20s. The good news is that incorporating strength training and healthy eating habits into your life can keep your metabolism at its highest no matter what your age, making your body a fat-burning machine.

Cardiovascular
Cardiovascular exercise is key to reducing the risk for disease. These exercises help us de-stress and increase sex drive. They can also be fun. Try a group exercise class like spinning, kickboxing, step aerobics or dance. Or you can take to the great outdoors and enjoy what San Diego has to offer. There are many jogging and hiking trails, some which are also dog friendly.

I have many clients who say they want “sexy abs.” Others say they “do a ton of sit-ups every day” and “still have love handles.”

The first question I ask is, “What is your nutrition like, and do you incorporate cardio into your fitness program?”

You can do a million sit-ups a day, which will sculpt your abdomen, but in order to see the results, you must eat healthy and do cardiovascular exercises to peel the fat off.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends the following cardio routine for healthy adults under the age of 65:

• Moderately intense cardio 30 minutes a day, five days a week.
• Or, vigorously intense cardio 20 minutes a day, three days a week.
• 60-90 minutes of physical activity may be necessary to lose weight or maintain weight.

Flexibility
Flexibility training or stretching provides many important benefits that cannot be achieved by any other exercise activity. The benefits of stretching are endless. Flexibility training, decreases risk of injury and muscle soreness, reduces lower back pain and improves posture. Without flexibility training you are missing an important part of overall health. Save seven to 10 minutes at the end of your workout to stretch, and your body will thank you.

For that total package have fun and mix up the three components. And remember to complement your program with a balanced diet.

—If you’re interested in learning more or are in need of a jumpstart, contact Fawn Lofton, Fitness Together Mission Hills, at (619) 794-0014.

Mike Zarraonandia

Let’s start 2011 off right. Beyond all the great training centers, amazing workout DVDs and knowledgeable instructors and trainers, there is only one thing more important: Your own resolve! And as experience shows, your resolutions are only as good as your resolve.

New Year’s Resolutions
During the course of my 20 years as a personal trainer, each year when January rolls around I hear the those three words uttered by people hoping to magically shed body fat, improve their health and feel and look better than the previous year. This year I decided to take back the
buzzword “resolution” and start over, so I looked it up and found the following synonyms.

Resolution: Decision, energy, tenacity, guts, heart, fortitude, firmness and courage.

These describe someone who wants to make a change. Ask yourself the following questions: 1) Do I have the mental tenacity to adhere to my goals; 2) Do I have the intestinal fortitude, or guts, to keep it going when it gets tough?; and 3) Do I have the will and energy to follow through?

While no magic formula exists, there is a list of intentions you can write to keep your focus and stay the course. Start with what you want to do. Lose body fat? Gain muscle? Get more energy? Write down an affirmation, or resolution that you can manage.” I will be active every day.”

Here comes the hard part. Mental toughness. Your True Grit. You decide on an activity, and then you do it. The 6 p.m. cycle class that you avoided all last year now becomes “hard scheduled” in your planner. That yoga class you’ve been putting off, because it doesn’t sound all
that fun, now becomes part of your routine.

Now the toughest part: The test of fortitude! When someone says, “Hey, It’s Taco Tuesday,” you say, “Sorry bro, I have bootcamp class. Why don’t you come with me?”

The toughest part of all: keeping it consistent. Your energy will wane. Count on it. Test your mettle and challenge your resolve by planning ahead, eating for nutrition—not fun—and getting enough rest.

Here’s an example of a week you can start with. Channel your inner Matthew McConaughey, and as he says, “I try to break a sweat every day.”

Monday: Start the cycle! Wake up early and go for a walk. If you’re at a more advanced level, take acycle class. Do your best to build the intensity as you go. Get a buddy to go with you so you can’t back out.

Tuesday: Push it! Start with 100 pushups by completing five sets of 20 pushups, taking a moderate break in between sets. This could be enough for the day for some, or could just be a warm up. Push yourself to do 100 reps a day of all your favorite exercises, including bench press, shoulder press and squats. Take your time and don’t try to get fit all in one day!

Wednesday: Stretch it! Take a yoga class that matches your ability and add it to your schedule.

Thursday: Step it up! Stadium steps have long been the choice of the choicest athletes, so why give it a try? Find a local high school or college and take it one step at a time; spending 20 minutes the first time. Call your best bud when you go again and make it a habit.

Friday: Ab Fab it! This is where you test your guts—literally. It’s the core strengthener called plank. Hold your body in a pushup position as tight as you can for one minute, and then repeat five times. Lying on your back, bring your elbow to the opposite knee slowly, completing as many repetitions as possible.

Saturday: Repeat your favorite exercise! Be the trainer, bring a friend and inspire someone.

Sunday: Rest.

Of course, make sure to get your doctor’s OK before starting your new regime. Challenge yourself to make changes for a better you. Write down your plan and keep adding to it. Because the better your resolve, the more successful your resolution!

—Mike Zarraonandia is a certified personal trainer (CPT) at FIT Athletic Club in downtown San Diego. Have a burning question about your crunch form? E-mail him at mikezarra@aol.com.

Fawn Lofton

Next Level Fitness
By Fawn Lofton

Are you doing crunches until you’re red in the face and still have belly fat? Take a deep, centered breath and realize that the culprit may be your diet or high-stress lifestyle. To get rid of that belly jiggle, you must align your nutrition with your crunches. To go from flab abs to fab abs pay attention to what’s going into your mouth and kick up the cardio. Your belly will thank you later!

Goodbye belly bloat
When you’re sluggish and bloated, it is only natural that you would feel more like a blimp than a babe. One way to eliminate belly bloat is to eat more fiber, fruits and veggies and avoid sugar and foods with gluten. Fruits and vegetables like bell pepper, cucumber, watermelon and celery are high in water content and make great snacks. Speaking of water, drink up! Drinking water throughout the day will flush sodium from your system to reduce bloat. Try to drink at least eight, 8-ounce glasses of water per day. And no, your morning coffee doesn’t count as water intake. Back away from that soda pop, and no one gets hurt!

Kick the salt shaker habit
Choose fresh foods over processed or packaged foods, which are loaded with sodium. Read lbels. Since many foods already contain sodium, there is no need to feed your addiction to the salt shaker by adding more. Reducing salt intake not only decreases bloat, but can help prevent heart problems down the road. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 2,400 milligrams of sodium daily, which is less than a teaspoon of table salt. Fresh basil and cilantro can be used to spice things up and are some of my favorites to add to any meal. Also try adding chili powder, chili flakes, cayenne or ginger to increase your metabolism and burn fat.

Alcohol = empty calories and beer bloat
Limit your alcohol intake to avoid consuming empty calories. Moderation should be your mantra. If you know you have a special event coming up, don’t deprive yourself of the beverages you enjoy. Plan ahead and manage your caloric intake ahead of time, adding extra cardio to your day to allow for that tasty treat you deserve.

Supercharged cardio creates shredded abs
Abdominal exercises alone do not remove belly fat. They build and tone the waistline. In order to see the tone and definition effectively, it’s a must to eat clean and kick up the cardio. Cardiovascular exercise will help burn the layer of unwanted fat off your belly so that stellar abs can shine through. If you already have a cardio plan, kick up the intensity to power up your results. Also mix it up to keep it fun and challenging.

Feel the burn
In order to get chiseled-looking abs, incorporate variations of crunches to work all angles of the abdominal muscles. There are many modifications to the basic crunch or sit-up and you must mix things up to achieve that burn you love to hate. Come in and learn a few new ab burning exercises to compliment your current repertoire, so you can show off your efforts. Intensity and variation are key.

Incorporating clean eating, limiting salt and alcohol, kicking up your cardio and using a variety of ab exercises will have you saying “bye-bye belly bloat” and “hello stellar abs of steal.” Contact Fawn Lofton at Fitness Together of Mission Hills by phoning (619) 794-0014 to get better results faster. Follow us on our blog at betterbodysandiego.com.