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I love to Work Out!

As far as I can remember, I've always been a pretty active person. As a kid I was always running around the neighborhood, playing kickball, riding my bike and chasing my brother (heeeheee). In high school, I began playing Tennis for our team and spent hours upon hours in a week training, practicing and playing. Then in college, I got into the workout gym scene and got a membership to my school's Fitness Center and attended Aerobics Classes religiously. My senior year I learned how to play raquetball and would play any opportunity I got. In the summers when I was at home working, I would get a summer membership to the Waukesha Althetic Club.

Once I graduated college, I got a membership to the West Allis Althetic Club, which, similar to the Waukesha Althetic Club, was a nice, upscale club. But when I moved to Brown Deer I had to quit and join a new club. In July of '95 I decided to join Bally Total Fitness since I figured pretty much anywhere I moved, there would be one near. And I was right! When I moved to Dallas in May of '96, I began going to a Bally's near my home. In 2000 I decided to also get a membership to 24 Hour Fitness, since there's one only 1 mile from my house. I go there all the time to work out now, although I'm planning on keeping my Bally's membership because it's so cheap now and because perhaps someday when I move, I'll move closer to a Ballys.

My workouts in the mid to late 90s included cardio (Precor, stairmaster, aerobics, step classes, and raquetball), and some mediocre weight training. I would stay away from the free weights and concentrate mostly on the machines such as Omega, Cybex and LifeCircuit. I would always finish up my workout with ab exercizes.

Back in college (early 90s), I did a lot of freeweights, since there weren't many "machines" available, and I had always wanted to get back to doing that. When I met Chris (my ex-boyfriend) in April of '99, he was willing to show me how to do a complete free weight workout safely and effectively. That's when I took another step to making working out my main interest and hobby.

After trying several routines since '99, I have settled into really liking the Body For Life Workout as recommended by Bill Phillips in his book, Body For Life. I highly recommend it! I weight train on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for 45 minutes at a time (much better than the 1.5 hours I used to do) and do 20 of intense interval cardio on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. I am on a upper body/lower body cycle.

And just as important as my workout routine is, so is my eating lifestyle. Up until 1999, I always thought I was eating healthy (low fat, fruits, chicken, etc.), but until I actually ADDED up my number of carbs, protein and fat I was eating each day, I realized what I was eating was in no way ideal. I was eating 1200-1500 calories a day, 3 meals a day, very high in carbs and very low in unsaturated fat and protein.

Chris helped me realize that I needed less carbohydrates and more unsaturated fat and protein in my diet to even my hormones and blood sugar levels out. He introduced me to a book called THE ZONE by Barry Sears and I read it and it made a lot of sense. The premise is to change your lifestyle to follow a 40/30/30 way of eating. 40% of calories from Carbs, and 30% each from Protein and Fat (10% saturated and 20% unsaturated). If you are looking for a way to help your body more efficiently digest and process food, I highly suggest you check out this book or any of the dozens of 40/30/30 books out there. Most importantly to understand, though, it's not a diet, it's a normal, healthy way of eating. Click here if you'd like to hear me explain more about this concept of having each meal you eat be balanced in protein, carbs and unsaturated fat.

Eating this way with a few minor tweaks (which also is in compliance with the Body For Life eating regimen), accompanied with my new, improved workout routine has helped me drop my body fat and raise my lean muscle mass. I won't specify the numbers here, but if you'd like to know, drop me a line, and I'd be happy to share.

As of 2001, I'm trying something a bit different for variety. It's called Natural Hormonal Enhancement (NHE) and it's by Rob Faigin. Basically, what it entails is eating low carb and low saturated fat all the time, save for a evening carb-load meal 2 times per week. Eating low carb gets your body into a fat-burning mode instead of sugar-burning mode. It also natually increases most good hormones and decreases bad hormones (like cortisol). The difference between this and Atkins is that you can't eat as much saturated fat as you want AND you carb load 2 nights per week. Carbs are important for maintaining metabolism, energy, and for replacing muscle gylcogen. To me, this is the perfect balance of gaining muscle and losing body fat. I recommend this program for those serious about nutrition only because eating low carb can be difficult. However, I would like to say that since beginning this eating program, I have all but lost my cravings for carbs, since I have cut near all sugar out of my diet.

Another thing that has made an impact on my health was watching the EAS video by Bill Phillips called BODY OF WORK and learing about the BODY FOR LIFE Challenge. The Body of Work video contains wonderful, touching, amazing stories of all sorts of people who have changed their lives around and went from unfit to fit in just 12 weeks while taking the Body For Life Challenge. I highly recommend the video. It's free with a $15 donation to the MAKE A WISH Foundation. And great news! I placed in the Top 2000 of about half a million entries for the Body For Life Challenge 2000! Sweet, huh?!

I also discovered several great fitness and diet related sites that have become favorites to me.

On top of my diet and exercise, I also take vitamins, meal replacements and supplements. I take a multivitamin everyday as well as 500mg of Calcium w/ Vitamin D, a Vitamin K, a Vitamin C and an Antioxidant. A very interesting book to read that discusses Vitamins and Minerals is The Real Vitamin and Mineral Book : Using Supplements for Optimum Health by Shari Lieberman. She does a great job explaining what vitamins and minerals are good for what ailments and what they also help prevent and optimize. Vitamins have proven to truely boost my immune system and, in general, help keep me feeling healthy. It's nearly impossible to get your needed daily optimum allowances of vitamins and minerals from diet alone.

My favorite meal replacements (when on BFL) are Myoplex, MET-Rx Drinks, Amino 2222 Liquid, Labrada Lean Body Shakes, and SportCookies.

As far as protein drinks, I drink Isopure Protein Powder, Complete Protein Diet shakes, Designer Protein, and EAS' SimplyProtein Powder.

As far as protein bars, I like EAS Low Carb AdvantEdge, Precision Bars, Atkins Advantage bars. I also take Flaxseed Oil, Glutamine and in the past I have taken Creatine like BetaGen and MET-RX Mass Action.

Well, I guess I've blabbed about nutrition and fitness enough to make you fall asleep. Heck, if anyone even reads this far, it'll be a miracle! :-D Anyway, I hope maybe you've learned something and please, feel free to email me with any more information or comments on what I'm doing with my diet and workout routine.

Here is a list of tips I put together to lose fat and gain muscle. They've worked for me, so I don't see why they can't work for you.