All or Nothing?

It's been over 2 years now since I started my weight-loss journey and I am still learning something new on a daily basis. When I think back to the way my life was before now, it's no wonder why I was so miserable. Every where that I turn today, I am reminded of how clueless I was back then. I talk to people on a daily basis about nutrition and fitness, I hear the same excuses over and over again. The same exact excuses that I use to make for myself are now being spoken to me. So I start asking questions about daily nutrition habits and the answers I get set off a million light bulbs in my head at once. Fitness and nutrition = my life-long passion. I bleed exercise and health like I do the New Orleans Saints. For those of you who know me; know that it's a HUGE deal in my life. We have allowed ourselves to become ignorant and oblivious to the facts of exercising and what we are REALLY putting in our mouths. So today,  I am going to give you the facts! It's all or nothing!

1. Fitness and nutrition have to be combined on a daily basis! It has to be a complete lifestyle change. Yes baby steps consistently can get you from point A to point B but you have to be willing to commit to it and consistently commit. If you aren't ready to change then stop reading this now!
2. Eating 1 meal a day will help you lose weight! FALSE. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. You have no idea what you are doing to your body. Your body is designed to digest the foods you eat and distribute the vitamins and nutrients throughout your body. It is important to give it the nutrients it needs to stay healthy by maintaining a proper diet. It also requires eating several small meals a day. When you just eat one meal a day your body is starving for the vitamins and nutrients it needs to stay healthy. You are depriving it of the elements that make your body function properly. One effect of this would be that you feel like you are starving all the time. Therefore, when you do eat you naturally tend to overeat.


3. Ladies will get bulky performing resistence training. FALSE! I hear this one all the time – most people don’t realize how hard it is for men to bulk up let alone women and remember men have 10 times more testosterone, this is the hormone responsible for building muscle. Females you NEED resistance training if you want your body to be lean and toned.

4. Doing thousands and thousands of sit-ups will give you tight abdominal muscles, but they will do nothing to rid your midsection of fat. There is no such thing as spot-reduction. Thigh adductor and abductor movements will give women's thighs more firmness, but they will do nothing to rid the area of fat, or what is commonly [and erroneously] called cellulite. Nothing will rid the body of fat, unless it is a carefully-orchestrated reduction in your daily energy intake; in other words, if you burn more calories than you ingest. Abs are made in the kitchen!

5. My genetics is to blame for not loosing weight. It’s true genes play a part in how our body balances calories and energy. Genes can make you more susceptible to gaining weight, but HEREDITY doesn’t destine you to be fat. Genetics determine how much calories you will burn, so people with slower metabolic rates may burn calories slower than the one who are more active and have higher metabolic rates.

6. Carbohydrates are bad and have to be avoided. FALSE! Carbohydrate means: carbon plus water and besides from fat and protein they are an essential nutrient for our body. The simplest carbohydrate is glucose, which is a fuel for the brain. Eliminating carbohydrates from our diet can produce significant weight loss in a short amount of time, but the results are not long lasting. As soon as you start eating normally again, the weight comes back, even more than before! The point is not all carbohydrates are bad (mostly the heavily processed carbohydrates). Good carbohydrates are necessary for long-term weight control and any healthy diet must include them.

7. Need to avoid fat to lose weight. There are different types of fat. Not all of them are bad! What we need to avoid are saturated fats (mainly harder fats found on meat, lard and fat dairy products as butter, full cream milk, etc.) and trans fats (oils that comes from vegetables, but have been processed to make them hard and similar to saturated fats). They both contribute to weight gain and raised cholesterol level. Unsaturated fats are the “good one” and they come from vegetables, nuts and fruits. Also Omega 3 fatty acids (mainly from oily fish) are in category of “good fats”, because they prevent heart diseases and help to improve our health.

8. I’m not sore today so I must not have had a good workout yesterday. If you are sore in the days following a workout, that might mean you have a good workout; however, not being sore in the days after a workout has nothing to do with whether or not you had a good workout. The factors you should be paying attention to are the intensity level and productivity. Were your sets done with 100 percent intensity? In other words, did you take your working sets to failure using proper form? Did you make any gains? Did you increase the amount of weight you used or did you increase the number of reps with a particular weight? How you felt while training is another factor. Did you feel sluggish or did you feel energized and ready to push it?

9. Stop listening to your friends- Even if your friends mean well, majority of them don't know what they're talking about. They will tell you to try this pill, try that diet, use this machine, etc, etc, etc. Don't listen to them! Some people's advice is just not smart and just because they may be in decent shape; it doesn't mean that they have the knowledge and skill necessary to help someone else get in shape. One of my pet peeves is people who think they can be personal trainers, but don't have a clue. No matter how close you are to someone or how good of shape they are in, you cannot trust just anyone with your body. Again, I'm not a fitness expert but I have do have the knowledge, educational background, and experience to back it up.

10. Obesity is one of the most leading causes of death in the U.S. Childhood fast-food intake has increased over 500%  and over 100% increase in diabetes since the 80's. Why has this happened? Parents have failed to give their children the proper nutrition. Instead, the drive-thru has become their ultimate fix. It's digusting! Do some research on what you are feeding your children. Stop feeding them nasty nutrition. Give them what they deserve: a healthy, happy, & long life!

Until next time! Keep bringin it!

Rhianna

 


































































Only eating one meal a day can cause your blood sugar levels to drop. Low blood sugar causes intense hunger pains that encourage you to overeat or to eat foods that are unhealthy and very fattening.it lowers your metabolism. As you know the lower your metabolism is the harder it will be to lose weight. This happens because your body slows itself down to conserve the nutrients it has in an attempt to stretch it out until it receives more. The food you do eat will be stored as fat instead of converted into much needed energy.When your body is receiving the proper vitamins and nutrients it needs on a regular basis you will have more energy, burn more fat and lose more weight than you would if you only ate one meal per day. Therefore, it is recommended that you eat several small but nutritious meals everyday. It will make you will feel better and look better.