I wanted to share my story with you - and hopefully inspire you. I am not claiming to know everything, but the steps used below worked for me and will probably cause anyone else to have similar results. 

Training hard is a tricky balancing act. If you train hard enough and/or long enough, injuries will happen…and it happened to me! Here is my story. After years of running on hilly terrain and progressively increasing mileage, my body finally said it has enough. I recently developed tendinitis in my right Achilles tendon to the point where I couldn’t run like I wanted to anymore. After the initial panic subsided, I decided to come up with a plan so I wouldn’t lose much conditioning while healing my boo-boo.

In my mind, there were two things that I needed to adjust:
     1) My exercise routine
     2) My diet

My exercise routine - I obviously wasn’t going to heal my tendinitis by continuing to do what got me hurt in the first place (running), so I decided to cross-train. Bought a bike and got on it. Here is a list of the major benefits of cross-training:
     ▪ Maintain fitness conditioning while resting the injury
     ▪ Become a more complete athlete by working different muscles in a different way - muscle confusion.
     ▪ Work on weaknesses: sometimes, what you like doing the less is what you need the most.
     ▪ Burn more calories. Since you are new at the cross-training activity, you are less efficient and need to work harder at it. There is a reason why in the first place you choose a certain sport: you probably enjoy it more because you are good at it. Choosing an activity you are not good at yields quicker and more drastic results
     ▪ Avoid mental burn out and workout rut by trying a new and exciting sport.
     ▪ Expand your circle of friends by meting new people with a common interest

My diet - I made only 2 changes to my diet, and trust me, it wasn’t perfect to start with!
     1) Knowing that I was going to burn less calories overall (running burns the most calories as long as you can do it and have the time for it), I decided to record what I ate. JUST THAT! By journaling, it made me aware of my total daily caloric intake and how much fat, carbs and protein I was actually eating. I used a free online calorie counter and there are many to choose from out there. Patterns did emerge, which required only small tweaks to fix
     2) I watch WHEN I ate carbs (the not so good carbs, not fruits and veggies). Here is the rule I followed: There were two times I gladly ate complex carbs (rice, pasta, bread, cereals, etc…). For breakfast (early in the day) and after a hard workout. Since I exercise in the morning, dinner was the meal I needed to watch. I usually chose lean protein with veggies and fruits if I was still hungry. By eating complex carbs early during the day you ensure that you’ll use them that day for energy. After exercise, your muscles are highly receptive to carbohydrates and your body is more likely to store ingested carbs in the muscles in the form of glycogen rather than transforming them into fat. Your window of opportunity: 1 hour after you are done with your workout.

I hope that next time you have a set back; you use some of the simple tips above because I know they work!
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You’re pumped, ready to workout! Or maybe you’ve already been spending hours working towards a flat stomach? Are you getting the results you’re after? Is your six-pack starting to show? If yes, keep on doing what you’re doing: it’s working! If not, read on because I am sure you’re wondering what your doing wrong and probably are frustrated, confused and overwhelmed with contradicting information.
There are 4 major mistakes people make when trying to achieve a sexy flat stomach. I will go over each mistake and will give you a simple solution to avoid falling into these traps.
  1. Over-reliance on cardio training: Cardio burns calories, but has little overall daily effect on your metabolism. Resistance training builds muscles and increases your metabolism for up to 48 hours after your workout. This means that you burn more calories daily when doing resistance training, which translates into greater fat loss (including around the mid-section). The best resistance training is done following the “Tabata” method, which is nothing more than interval training: intense bouts of exercise followed by short rest periods. The higher the intensity, the greater the hormonal response, the more fat you’ll burn after the workout.
  2. Starvation diet: When you dramatically reduce the amount of calories you ingest, your metabolism starts to slow down in an effort to conserve fuel. You’ll be burning fewer calories (also less fat) throughout the day. Moreover, your body will tap into muscles for fuel (as they become a readily available source of energy) and preserve the fat. The after effect of a starvation diet is detrimental because when you put weight back on, it will be in the form of fat, thus leaving you fatter than when you started. The best diet provides you with clean fuel to burn and enough protein to build muscles. Small balanced meals throughout the day are the way to go. Each meal should include complex carbs, fruits/veggies, and lean protein. Detail explanation on how to eat is depicted in my nutritional booklet.
  3. Little to no tracking method: if you’re not tracking what you eat, your workouts, and your body measurements, it makes it real hard to see where you need to make adjustments. Remember that with a tracking method comes an achievable goal. How can you get to where you’re going if you don’t know where that is? Set yourself a goal (within a certain timeframe) and do whatever it takes to achieve it. Start tracking your workouts, meals, weight, inches, mileage, mood, etc. It doesn’t have to be fancy; just grab a notepad and record everything you do to achieve a flat stomach. Review your log every 2-4 weeks and make adjustments. Once your goal is reached, set another one…
  4. Too much direct abdominal work: People still believe in “spot” reduction and that working your abs will burn the fat on top of them… That’s so wrong! In order to get six-pack abs, you need to shed the fat! Crunches burn very few calories therefore are not sufficient to get rid off your mid-section fat. Plank exercises are far more superior at revealing a six-pack as they work your abs muscles deeper (recruiting more muscle fibers) as well as engaging your legs and arm muscle for a maximum number of calories burnt. A strong core is important to carry out other exercises and to improve posture, but don’t waist your time doing hundreds of crunches if fat loss around the mid-section is your goal.
How many of these mistakes are you currently making? Go ahead, give yourself the challenge to eliminate all of the above mistakes from your fat loss plan for the next 30 days and see how much more fat you lose. Good luck!
Still need help with losing weight? Visit www.alloutfitnesscamp.com
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As you know this weekend is a Holiday weekend and I am sure most of you have parties to go to. And I thought you could use some advice on how to tackle the weekend.
Step #1: Nutrition Booklet Refresher. If you haven't looked at your booklet lately, pull it out and start reading. Make sure you understand the plan and how the game is played.
Step #2: Eat a light meal (low calories) just before your party, especially if you know there won't be good food there. This will avoid you to show up starving and gorging on the wrong kind of food.
Step #3: Watch the drinking (as in real drinks). Remember, drinking impairs your judgment. Eating under the influence is drunk eating, which means that you are very likely to eat the WRONG food and feel super guilty the next day.
Step #4: Stay active. No rules there, just keep moving!
Step #5: Show up at fitness boot camp on Monday. It would really suck to be bad over the weekend and then miss fitness boot camp Monday - double whammy, but in a bad way!
PS: Monday, Labor Day, I will be having two workouts as usual (morning and evening). Damage control starts with showing up at boot camp!
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Breakfast swapping is switching breakfast every few days. It is very important you do so. Many people have a tendency to eat the exact same breakfast every single day. This is a dangerous trap for your energy level and waistline. You see by eating the exact same thing every morning, you may deprive your body from essential nutrients and you are limiting the range of vitamins you are ingesting. 

I like to take this concept a step further by switching my breakfast (only a couple of time a week) to a high-protein and very low carb breakfast. What this does, it forces my body to go dig into my fat stores. Now DON'T do this low carb trick every day since you'll quickly run out of fuel (thus, the importance of carbs). 

My favorite low carb breakfast: egg whites (1-3) plus one whole egg, sprinkled with small amount of low fat cheese and left over grilled chicken, if any. I like my eggs sunny side up, but omelet if fine, too. I top this of with a spoon of chunky salsa. Yummy! 

Remember eating clean and smart has a big influence on how quickly you'll reach your fitness goals and your overall health! Be wise!
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Here are the findings of an 8-year study at the University of Texas. Excerpt from the author, Dr. Fowler:
"What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink used was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher." 
"There was a 41 percent increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day," Fowler says.
There's a lot of complicating factors as to why this occurs...
One reason is that the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas create a negative hormonal response in the body that increases fat storing hormone production and increases cravings for more sweets and refined carbohydrates in the time period after consuming the diet drink.
Another reason is that people may subconsciously think that because they are drinking a diet soda, that gives them more leeway to eat more of everything else, hence consuming more calories overall.
The bottom line is that if you're serious about your health and body, soda of any kind (and artificial sweeteners in anything for that matter!) should be avoided at all times, except for very rare occasions when you can't avoid them.
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