One of the most common injuries I see is in the shoulder area.  It makes sense that this would be one of the most common injuries because of how mobile the joint is and how unstable it is.

I don’t spend too much time talking about rehab and preventative exercises because they don’t do much for toning muscles or burning calories, but they do play a huge role in keeping you healthy and allowing you to work out at a high level!

What have you found to help your shoulders stay strong and avoid injury?

Here is part 1 in a 5 part series that my good friend Davey and I are doing together to give you some great exercise ideas that you can do at your home or gym.  In each video I will show Davey an exercise and he will show me one of his favorite exercises.

Awhile back I did another video about some of my favorite strength training and fat burning exercises.

*If I would have known how white and pasty I looked, I wouldn’t have worn a white cut-off, but I am at the airport now ready to go on my cruise, so I can hopefully get rid of a little pastiness!

**This was also taken pretty early in the morning after having gone to bed at 2 AM, but you gotta get your workout in, no excuses!

Next week we will be sharing with you some of our favorite butt and thigh exercises!

If you are ever in the OC area in CA feel free to look Davey’s bootcamp up.  Here is his website http://ocbeachbodies.com/boot-camp/

I would really apprecite your opinion on a couple things!  I have been getting tons of requests and new ideas for more DVDs.  I definitely plan on doing more in the near future.  Here are a couple of the ideas that I will be doing.

1.  Mom and Kid workouts:  How old do you think the kids should be?  What should I try to include in these workouts?  Things I should consider?  What would be valuable for you to know about?

2.  Mom and Baby workout: This will be for moms with a kid under the age of 1.  Exercises and workout she can do using baby carriers, and using the body as bodyweight.  What ideas do you have to make this helpful?  What should I be sure to include in this DVD?

3.  Couples workouts:  I am going to put together a few DVDs with husbands and wives and also just partner workouts.  What ideas do you have for these.  Anything I should specially consider.

4.  Body Part Training:  Short 5-8 minute workouts to target certain areas such as the butt, thighs, arms, and shoulders.  Any ideas for this?

5.  Knee friendly workout:  I know many of you (including myself) have the bad knee plague I want to make a workout that gets around bad knees and still allows for a killer workout!  What ideas do you have for this dvd?

6.  Sexy Seniors (Okay I wouldn’t really call it that): A workout designed for 60-70 year olds that is more doable than some of the very high intensity workouts have but not as lame as sitting and standing from a chair (come on, you are capable of FAR more than that!).  What would you like to see in this type of workout?  Any considerations?

I know I have asked a lot of questions.  Feel free to answer some or all the questions or and ANY other ideas for additional programs.  I am committed to providing you with the most effective and powerful programs that will transform your body and mind!

I was sent this video last week and I thought it was a very good and motivational video about the importance of teaching our kids how to eat healthy and cook.

I think one of the biggest reasons our nation has become so sick, is the fact that the parents these days didn’t learn how to cook when they were a child and now it is getting passed down to the kids.

Before the 1970’s most homes still valued the home cooked meal and eating together as a family.  After the 1960’s this became a less frequent occurrence and homes started eating more prepackaged and fast food, no longer spending the time to prepare food together as a family and pass down the cooking skills to their kids.  Consequently many who were kids in the 70’s didn’t develop those skills and now that they have kids, they are continuing to feed fast food and easy to prepare “fake” processed food you can get in a can or box.

Many of my most unhealthy clients who have struggled with weight and sickness their entire life, were raised in homes where their parents didn’t eat healthy and teach their kids to eat healthy.  Having a childhood like that really sets the person up for challenges later in life because they aren’t use to eating in a way that energizes the body.

Check this video out!

I am curious what you think about this topic, not having kids myself, I am not an exert yet on this topic.

One of the most frustrating things that I have to try to get people to do is stop drinking soda, despite the fact that it rots teeth, discolors teeth, causes bad breath, makes you fat, and dehydrates you, and causes you to crave even more calories!  I have heard a million excuses to why people still drink it!  I recently posted a similar article that got people thinking.  Click here to check it out.

I want to thanks Patricia Roehl for sharing this with me.  I am not sure if every statement in the coke section is correct, but I am guessing it is!

WATER

#1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated..
(Likely applies to half the world population)

#2. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak
that it is mistaken for hunger.

#3. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one’s metabolism as 3%.

#4. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.

#5. Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.

#6. Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.

#7. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term
memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.

#8.. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%., and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer. Are you drinking the amount of water you should drink every day?

COKE

#1. In many states the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.

#2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of Coke and it will be gone in two days.

#3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into thetoilet bowl and let the ‘real thing’ sit for one hour,then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.

#4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.

#5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.

#6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Apply a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.

#7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.

#8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of Coke into the load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle.. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION:

#1 the active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. It will dissolve a nail in about four days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase of osteoporosis.

#2. To carry Coca-Cola syrup! (the concentrate) the commercial trucks must use a hazardous Material place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.

#3. The distributors of Coke have been using it to clean engines of the trucks for about 20 years! Now the question is, would you like a glass of water?

or Coke?

I want to hear from you!  Why do you drink soda?  Or have you been able to kick this awful and destructive habit?  How did you do it?  How do you now feel?

One of my peers in the fitness industry did an amazing post on the differences in the quality of eggs we buy.  His name is Mike Geary and he is the author of Truth About Abs, which is a downloadable book and program that has sold close to 500,000 copies!  I have purchased his program and really loved the great information.  He specializes in burning fat and teaching people how to eat to burn the most fat.  He and I have very similar viewpoints.  Feel free to check out his program.  If you decide it is a program you want to invest I do receive a commission for it, so you would also be helping my business out.  But I wouldn’t promote it unless I REALLY believed in it!

Eggs with 22x more omega-3’s?

I’m always amazed how many people overlook the importance of what an animal was fed and how that relates to the nutritional benefits of that product.

Eggs are a perfect example.

As you probably know, our egg supply in the US comes mostly from factory farm chickens that not only live in horrendously unhealthy conditions for the chicken, but also fed an unnatural diet of grains that SEVERELY affects the nutritional qualities of the eggs for your health.

I’ve been digging around on this topic for a long time, and here are some interesting things I’ve found:

In general, the regular eggs you get at the supermarket (that are fed grains and are from factory farms) contain anywhere from 30mg to 80mg omega-3 fatty acids per egg (depending on egg size, variety of hens, exact ratio of feed, etc)

However, hens allowed to roam freely outdoors and/or fed a diverse feed of greens, mixed vegetables, bugs, grubs, worms, etc can contain anywhere from 300mg to 700mg of omega-3’s per egg.

One such study came from a Dr. Simopoulos who analyzed the omega-3 vs omega-6 content of eggs from a farm in Greece where the chickens roamed freely and ate a variety of natural foods such as greens and bugs/worms. These eggs were compared against analysis of “supermarket eggs” fed a typical grain diet in the US.

The eggs from the free roaming chickens in Greece had an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of 1.3 to 1 while the “supermarket eggs” had a horrendous omega-6/omega3 ratio of 19.4 to 1.

As for total omega-3 content per egg in Simopoulos’ report, the eggs from the free-roaming hens in Greece had 300 mg of omega-3’s per egg, while the “supermarket egg” had a lowly 30mg of omega-3’s per egg.

I’ve also been reading the inside of egg cartons at grocery stores lately and comparing notes on their label claims of omega-3 fatty acids.

The egg producers recently have been catching on to the public’s knowledge of the reduced omega-3 content in mass produced eggs… so certain brands have now been “fortifying” the hens diet with feed additions higher in omega-3’s to help balance out the excess omega-6’s found in eggs from grain-fed hens.

Usually, this fortification occurs by adding either flax seed or an algae meal (or fish meal) to the hens feed. The hens eat more omega-3’s and that produces a higher omega-3 content in the eggs.

Some of these so-called “omega-3 eggs” have label claims anywhere from 100mg omega-3’s to 250mg omega-3’s… Definitely better than the 30mg omega-3’s found in the typical “supermarket eggs”.

I also stumbled onto a specific brand of eggs recently that touted that it’s hens are fed a patented feed mixture of 20 different vegetables, grains, and minerals. Because of the diverse diet that these hens are fed, their measured omega-3 content is listed as 660mg omega-3’s per egg, as well as a perfect 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3.

This is 22x the omega-3 content of the grain-fed “supermarket egg” that contained only 30mg omega-3’s in Dr. Simopoulos’ report.

That just shows how powerful of a difference in the nutrition composition that occurs simply by feeding the hens a proper diverse diet. And we haven’t even touched on the nutritional content of vitamins, minerals, carotenoids, etc that will obviously be higher in a healthy hen fed a diverse diet as opposed to a factory farmed hen.

However, that’s only a small step in the right direction. Even these egg companies with new label claims of increased omega-3 content still doesn’t guarantee that the hens were raised in an outdoor environment, and allowed to roam freely instead of being confined in cages and kept indoors in filthy conditions their entire lives.

Keep in mind that “cage-free” doesn’t always mean that the hens actually go outside… according to some reports, it only means that there is a small door somewhere that the hens COULD go outside if they found the small door and were smart enough to venture through it. This could vary vastly from company to company.

This is supposedly a loophole in the whole cage-free labeling system. I’m not sure if there’s any way currently to know IF the chickens actually ventured outside even when they’re labeled “cage-free”.

So what are the best options?

1. By FAR the best option is if you can find a local farmer where you KNOW that the hens are actually outdoors most of the time and allowed to eat a natural diet with high variety. These will be the superstar eggs in terms of nutritional quality.

This could be at farmers markets or even farmers that deliver to urban areas (which I’ve found in every state I’ve lived, so it’s not impossible).

2. Ok, I understand that not everyone will be able to find a local farmer or a farmer that delivers eggs from happy hens that roam freely eating what chickens were meant to eat…the world isn’t perfect…

So, the next best option is to read the labels on egg cartons and see if it sounds like the hens were fed a highly variable diet (instead of just grains). Sometimes this can come from algae meal or flax seed, etc added to their diet. This is at least an improvement over standard supermarket eggs.

Despite what you may hear from some so-called “health experts” who say that all eggs are equal, these types of eggs WILL have nutritional benefits compared to your typical supermarket eggs.

Also, look for organic as well as antibiotic and hormone-free if possible. “Cage-free” may or may not always be an improvement depending on the company.

And lastly, if you read articles or hear people telling you that whole eggs are unhealthy because of saturated fat and cholesterol, please tell them (in a nice way) to GET A CLUE!

That’s not how it works… here’s a previous article below that I did about whole eggs vs egg whites, which also touches on the saturated fat and cholesterol topic:

http://www.truthaboutabs.com/whole-eggs-or-egg-whites.html
Feel free to fwd this to your friends or family that would enjoy today’s eggs article.

Again if you want to learn more about Mike’s Truth About Abs Program, click here.

Amber "After" with more zest for life and confidence!

I am going to begin to feature more of my clients who really go at the eating and exercise 100% and get quite quick results.  I don’t want to make it sound like this is going to happen to everyone, but looking at what those who are successful can be a big help to see what might work for yourself.  So in the upcoming weeks, I will ask some of my clients to share their exact food journal as well as workout plan.  I hope that you will be able to take small tips and tricks and apply them into your eating and exercise life.

I would like to introduce you to Amber, she has been coming to Fit Fun Bootcamps for 1 month now and has lost 13 lbs.  It is very impressive to see the toning that is occurring all throughout her body and the many many inches she is losing.  She had less than 20 lbs to lose total, so for her to lose this much the first month really shows how hard she has worked and how nearly perfect she has been with her eating.  When I first met her and asked what her goals were, I could tell the spark wasn’t there in her life, she wasn’t happy and not in a good place.  A little more than 1 month later she is a completely different person, her spark is back and she exudes confidence now, which as a trainer, is SO great and exciting to see!  She has made a 180 degree change.

Amber is going to let you in on what she did exactly!  So check it out.

Food Journal

I stick to the the same meals/snacks for the most part, and add new snack ideas every week.

Day 1

Meal 1 (after I workout, around 7:45am):
2 Eggs (I now buy the cage free organic; they taste MUCH better, too) with spinach and tomatoe
1 Slice of oatmeal toast (the first three ingredients are filtered water, whole wheat flour, and enriched wheat flour)
Should I buy a different kind?  Yes I would recommend Ezekial Bread
1 cup coffee (No sugar added and I STOPPED putting half and half in
Meal 2 (around 11am)
Apple slices with 10 almonds
Meal 3 (around 2pm)
2 Wasa crackers with hummus and turkey slices
Meal 4 (around 5pm)
3 oz of chicken
Spaghetti squash
Green beans and cauliflower

Day 2

Meal 1
1/2 cup oatmeal with dried sweetened cranberries and a little brown sugar
2 Eggs with salsa
1 cup of cofee
Meal 2
Banana with peanut butter
Meal 3
2 Wasa crackers with turkey slices, grape slices and tomato slices
Meal 4
3 oz of chicken
1/2 cup brown rice
Broccoli
Meal 5
Soynuts with raisins and m&m’s

Day 3

Meal 1
2 Eggs with albacore tuna and tomato
1 cup coffee
Meal 2
Strawberry banana shake made with peanut butter
Meal 3
Apple slices with peanut butter
Meal 4
3 oz chicken
1/2 sweet potato

Day 4

Meal 1
2 Eggs with spinach, tomatoes, and salsa
1 Cinnamon raisin english muffin
1 cup coffee
Meal 2
Banana with peanut butter
Meal 3
Soynuts with raisins
Meal 4
3 oz chicken
1/2 cup brown rice
Broccoli
Meal 5
Green tea
1 Spring roll with peanut sauce (I waitress at a Thai/Lao restaurant right now….green tea has been my savior on work nights) More on How Amber Lost 13 lbs in 4 Weeks!

Hello everyone from a beautiful Vancouver Canada.  I got the opportunity to go to the Olympics and definitely didn’t pass it up.  I have had an amazing time being in the Olympic villages, seeing some of the athletes and going to the competitions.  I would like to share with you a couple lessons I have learned from Olympic athletes that you can apply to your own lives to become better and fitter.

Check out the video I shot from the winter games!

1.  Commit to being your best 100%. Athletes sacrifice a lot because they know what they want and they aren’t going to let anything stop them from reaching it.  What areas haven’t you been giving 100%?  Where can you sacrifice in order to reach your goals?

2.  Visualize the competition practicing very hard everyday in order to push you to work even harder. Your opponent might be extra fat, your big girl jeans, or lack of energy.  Each time you want to quit or each time you don’t feel like getting up… think about those big girl jeans or the lack of energy you are living with and take back control!

3.  Surround yourself with like minded and fit people. The athletes in America spend much of their time at the Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs with the other athletes.  They eat, sleep, and workout together in order to be the best.  They also hire the best coaches to make sure they stay on track and are going about their training and nutrition the right way.  You should be joining fitness groups, getting groups of friends together who are going to set a specific goal, get your husband to workout with you, or hire a coach or fitness professional.  If you are local my trainers and I woud love to have the opportunity to coach you and help you achieve your goals through Fit Fun Bootcamps. If you don’t live around the Dane County area, I have put together all my programs and information onto home workout DVDs that you can do by yourself or with a group of friends.  Each month you will receive a DVD in the mail, I am giving you the opportunity to try it our for free (just pay shipping) click here to find out more.  If you really want to target your core (abs), I can coach you through that as well with my Got Core program!

4.  Visualize yourself having reached your goal. When you hear Olympic athletes get interviewed just about everyone says that they saw themselves standing on the podium putting the gold medal around their neck.  Visualize how you will feel, what you will do when you achieve the goals that you have set for yourself.  Each day picture in great detail that moment of success.

Please share!  What has the Olympics games meant to you!  Have you taken anything away from them so far?

Today we get to hear from Tracie Hittman, my nutritionist.  I have now been taking gelatin consistently for a couple weeks.  It is still early to tell if I feel different, but I love the fact that it is so high in anti-inflammatory proteins!  If you like this article be sure to check out some of Tracie’s past articles.

Coconut Oil

Intro To Hypothyroidism

Signs That You Have Low Thyroid

How To Treat Hypothyroidism

Gelatin - A Powerful Healing Tool

America as a nation seems to be under extra stress right now. Increased stress hormones can lead to inflammation. These stress hormones are called adrenaline and cortisol. In order to have low inflammation and good health we need to keep these hormones under wrap! Lowering inflammation is also extremely important because most disease states are related to inflammation inside of the body. Inflammation is a process by which the body’s white blood cells and chemicals protect us from injury, infection and foreign substances such as bacteria and viruses. It often causes pain, redness, heat, and swelling in the affected area. Inflammation can be short term, like a sprained ankle, or chronic, like arthritis. Some signs or symptoms of inflammation in the body are:

• Redness
• Swollen joint that is warm to touch
• Joint pain
• Joint stiffness
• Loss of joint function
• Fever
• Chills
• Fatigue/loss of energy
• Headaches
• Loss of appetite
• Muscle stiffness
• Obesity
• Any health condition that ends in “itis” (colitis, arthritis, bursitis)

Besides stress, the foods that you choose to consume can also increase inflammation. One of the biggest issues with the American diet is that we do not eat the whole animal and primarily consume muscle meat. In common terms, the muscle meats are the breast, fillets, chops, steaks, roasts, stew meat and ground meats.

This practice of only eating muscle meat creates an imbalance in our amino acid intake. We are missing gelatin, which used to be found in traditional bone broths, and is known to be very high in anti-inflammatory amino acids such as glycine and proline. Making bone broths (click here to find out how to make own on gelatin bone broth) or adding gelatin to your diet can reduce inflammation and even help joint recovery after workouts.

There are 2 Different Types

There are 2 different types of gelatin: hydrolyzed and non-hydrolyzed.  Hydrolyzed gelatin will dissolve instantly in any liquid, where non-hydrolyzed gelatin needs hot water added to dissolve completely.  If you want to have a quick pre-work out snack, you can add hydrolyzed gelatin to some pure fruit juice. Non-hydrolyzed gelatin can be used to make healthy gelatin similar to Jell-o.  Knox gelatin does not contain the same nutritional value as the brands recommended.

Make Your Own Healthy Gelatin

Click here for a recipe on how to make your own Healthy Gelatin Recipe.

How Much Should I Take?

Another benefit of gelatin is that it contains 6 grams of protein per tablespoon. This is a great way to increase your daily protein intake, as well as to add anti-inflammatory amino acids to your diet. I recommend starting off with base intake of 2 T per day mixed in any liquid (broth, small amount of pure fruit juice) or soft food (yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.).

Have fun experimenting with the many ways that you can add gelatin into your diet to reduce inflammation.

Resources

To purchase Joint Care Gelatin (hydrolyzed gelatin) from Gelatin Innovations call 1-847-678-4708 and tell Shelia that Tracie Hittman sent you or purchase it locally from Core Athletic.  You can purchase Great Lakes Gelatin (non-hydrolyzed) from Core Athletic, Woodman’s grocery stores or direct by calling 847-223-8141.

If you would like more information on Tracie Hittman Nutrition, LLC please visit: www.itsyourplate.com.

I want to thank Aimee for sending me this New York Times article.  The following day I saw it on the news.  This is a very interesting topic for me, because I spend a lot of time educating those on my grocery tours about this exact thing.  The serving sizes on the boxes or bags don’t represent what we as Americans are actually eating.  I teach my clients to see how many servings are in a box and then estimate how many servings the box will last you, instead of just using the food label.

While I am a huge proponent of the manufacturers being more honest about how they label foods, I also feel strongly that consumers need to be well informed themselves, and take some of the responsibility.  If we become tuned into what 1 oz of chips looks like, 3/4 cup of cereal, 3 OZ steak, or half a cup of ice cream, we can be in more control over the amount of calories we eat.

Here is the article:

One Bowl = 2 Servings. F.D.A. May Fix That.

By WILLIAM NEUMAN

Seeking a new weapon in the fight against obesity, the Food and Drug Administration wants to encourage manufacturers to post vital nutritional information, including calorie counts, on the front of food packages.

The goal is to give people a jolt of reality before they reach for another handful of chips. But the urgency of the message could be muted by a longstanding problem: official serving sizes for many packaged foods are just too small. And that means the calorie counts that go with them are often misleading.

So to get ready for front-of-package nutrition labeling, the F.D.A. is now looking at bringing serving sizes for foods like chips, cookies, breakfast cereals and ice cream into line with how Americans really eat. Combined with more prominent labeling, the result could be a greater sense of public caution about unhealthy foods.

“If you put on a meaningful portion size, it would scare a lot of people,” said Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina. “They would see, ‘I’m going to get 300 calories from that, or 500 calories.’ “

The problem is important because the standard serving size shown on a package determines all the other nutritional values on the label, including calorie counts. If the serving size is smaller than what people really eat, unless they study the label carefully they may think they are getting fewer calories or other nutrients than they are.

And if manufacturers increasingly push key nutrition facts to the front of packages - as many have begun doing - the confusion could be magnified. Rather than helping fight obesity, it may simply add to the perplexity over what makes a healthful diet.

“If people don’t understand the serving, whatever number they get for fat or calories is misleading,” said William K. Hubbard, a former F.D.A. official who consulted with the agency last year.

Consider the humble chip: most potato or corn chip bags today show a one-ounce serving size, containing a tolerable 150 calories, or thereabouts. But only the most disciplined snacker will stop at an ounce. For some brands, like Tostitos Hint of Lime, that can be just six chips.

In the real world, many people might eat two or three times that, or more. Munch half a bag of Tostitos while watching the Super Bowl and you could take in about half the 2,000 calories an average person needs in a day.

“We are actively looking at serving size and evaluating what steps we need to take,” said Barbara O. Schneeman, director of the F.D.A. office that oversees nutrition labels. “Ultimately, the purpose of nutrition labeling is to help consumers make healthier choices, make improvements in their diet, and we want to make sure we achieve that goal.”

The push to re-evaluate serving size comes as the F.D.A. is considering ways to better convey nutrition facts to hurried consumers, in particular by posting key information on the front of packages. Officials say such labeling will be voluntary, but the agency may set rules to prevent companies from highlighting the good things about their products, like a lack of trans fats, while ignoring the bad, like a surfeit of unhealthy saturated fats.

On today’s food packages, many of the serving sizes puzzle even the experts.

For ice cream, the serving size is half a cup. For packaged muffins, it is often half a muffin. For cookies it is generally one ounce, equal to two Double Stuf Oreos. For most children’s breakfast cereals, a serving is three-quarters of a cup.

It is difficult to say exactly how much people eat, said Lisa R. Young, an adjunct professor of nutrition at New York University, but she said that research showed that the portions Americans serve themselves had been growing in recent years.

When it comes to cereal, she said, many children probably eat two cups or more. More on Are You Being Tricked By Food Label Serving Sizes?