Is Your Weight Loss Real?

Permanent Weight Loss VS Temporary Weight Loss

I’ll never forget one of FitForever’s most exciting weight loss challenges. During this challenge we had some challengers who were experiencing huge weight loss numbers. When the final numbers were in, I was blown away. 4 people in our challenge had lost 40 + pounds in 28 days. One challenger lost 48lbs, that is 1.7 lbs per day or in other words, a 5,950 calorie deficit daily. In intense exercise, a great 60 minute session would burn 1000 calories.  I never thought results like this were possible and while I was excited about the results I was nervous about the long term effect and rebounding of weight gain.

My nervousness was validated when in our next challenge, only 1 of our 40lb loser’s had kept weight off.  The harsh realization of true weight loss was on the table. Is weight loss when you loose weight only to gain it back again? Extreme fad diets that cause rapid weight loss, immediately to gain it back, is like a doctor who negligently prescribes an addictive medication with a million side effects.  Rapid weight loss plans typically sacrifice long-term health, your metabolism, and hormone regularity and leads to large weight gain. Once your metabolism and other body systems are compromised by extreme diets, weight gain is more rapid and weight loss is harder to achieve. When weight loss becomes harder to achieve you are more likely to participate again in an extreme diet.  This is referred to in the fitness industry as yo-yo dieting.  Yo-Yo dieting is where you go from extreme diet to no nutrition plan and then back to extreme diet again. This is coupled by rapid weight loss and rapid weight gain. Yo-Yo dieting is hard on your body and long term health. Our goal at FitForever is to create a reality that stays away from Yo-Yo dieting.

True weight loss can only happen when you find a new lifestyle that allows the weight loss to stay off or continue.

FitForevers 2012 Spring WLC nutrition plans are not focused on immediate weight loss but on true permanent weight loss. Week 1 ingredients and quantity are focused on long term health by:

• Eliminating preservatives, gluten, trans fats, sugars and other toxins
•  Building the heart and circulatory system
•  Supporting hormone balance
• Boosting the metabolism.

Weeks 2 & 3 are focused on lifestyle and quantity. Week 4 will be another shock to the body similar to week 1. Here is how your personal plan should develop after the challenge is over. Find meals, quantities and combinations from weeks 2 & 3 that you can do more permanently. Then every 3 or 4 weeks repeat 3 of your favorite days from week 1 or week 4 as a weight loss shock to the body.

Every time you follow a clean healthy nutrition plan you need to determine; are these lifestyle meals and snacks or shock meals and snacks? Health and nutrition is a life long development process. Be aware of how different foods make you feel and choose the foods that make you feel the best! If you choose your nutritional intake based on how it makes feel you, you will live long, you will be strong and you will laugh forever! We love you and are excited about your health.

Love Jared

Week 3 Nutrition Plan

For those of you who have just finished week 2, congratulations! We hope you enjoyed it and found it easier to manage than week 1. Week 3 is another lifestyle diet. This means that the meals we eat this week are ones that we should be eating when we're not on an official "nutrition plan". Please, if you have any questions, concerns, allergies, etc. let your trainer know so we can make necessary modifications. We love you!

Week3 Mens Diet

Womens Week 3 Diet

5 Must Rules of Weight Loss

5 Must Rules of Weight Loss

1.  Never, Never, Never Skip meals or snacks. To keep your body from going onto full blown starvation mode, make sure that you have some kind of nutrition coming into your body every 3-4 hours. I see a number of clients slow or halt their weight loss results by skipping meals or snacks. Don’t slow your success! Eat meals and snacks. If you are cutting calories to accelerate results, adjust your dinner. Never decrease vegetables as a form of calorie cutting.

2.     Get your rest. You are deprived from calories and your body is working over time to turn fat into usable fuel. During this time, your body’s ability to recover and recuperate is impaired. To help your body repair, get extra sleep, lean protein with each meal and plenty of vegetables.

3.     Understand your body and adapt. If you find your energy is low at a specific time in the day, then treat the problem the next day by consuming green tea, herba mate or other energy boosters 1 hour before your energy’s low. I personally start my day with a green tea, another cup in the mid morning, and again between lunch and dinner to decrease appetite.

4.     Ensure flushing is happening. On a regular basis, it would be good to have 1-2 bowel movements per day. During weight loss, seek to ensure you are flushing completely by in taking a lot of water and make sure you get your chia drink. If this alone is not causing you to have more bowel movements then normal, try herbal laxative tea. I like Smooth Move or Get Regular.

5.     Move fast and often. Look to keep your mind and body directed. Move often as possible and when you are moving, move fast. Lots of movement through out the day can cause you to burn as much calories as you would in a 1-hour  intense work out. Keeping your body moving will keep your metabolism high. 

Weight Loss Thoughts

Weight Loss Thougths!

Your mind is powerful, much more powerful then you or I know or understand. Thoughts affect your health. Every thought has a positive or negative impact on your health. The stronger the intensity of the thought, the larger that thought will impact you. The cumulative effect of your thoughts can swing your health in one direction or the other.

Healthy thoughts are like great exercise. We should practice them with regularity, necessary to make them habitual and efficient. Thinking healthy thoughts does not always come natural. Those who have been exposed to healthy thoughts, will have an easier time thinking that way. For those who have been exposed to more negative thoughts, thinking healthy thoughts will be more unnatural. Thinking healthy thoughts is and brain muscle that is developed with experience and exposure just like other muscles in the body.

Love yourself enough to accept who you are and what your mental muscles have been exposed to. Analyze  your thoughts daily. Be your own best life coach. How do you analyze your thoughts? You check the feelings that are associated with each thought. When your thoughts cause positive feelings, it is probably a healthy thought. When thoughts cause negative feelings, it is probably an unhealthy thought. Choose healthy and abandon the unhealthy. There are certain thoughts that have proven weight loss effects.

Best 3 weight loss thoughts:

•      Gratitude: Treat gratitude like vegetables, you should have 3-5 servings daily. That means 3-5 times a day, express gratitude, to yourself, to your loved ones, and to your maker. Dive into these gratitude thoughts, visualize what you are grateful for and bask in those feelings.     

•             Love: Treat love like protein, an essential need! Think of people you love,  memories you love, and pets you love.  Look to connect more strongly with those you love.  Connect with your loved ones.

•       Laughter: Treat laughter like healthy fruit. In the right consistent dose, this will keep you young. Look up funny videos on YouTube, watch funny videos and be quick to laugh.

If you want to look and feel your best, then take these mental suggestions seriously. Strive to get the right amounts of gratitude, love and laughter for 10 days straight. I guarantee if you do, you will see a healthier, more fit you! Make healthy thoughts a daily habit.

Live Long, Be Strong, Smile Forever

Love Your FitForever Family

Week 2 Nutrition Plan

Alright everyone, here is week 2 of our nutrition plan. This week should be a relief from week 1. This week we are focusing on a lifestyle diet. This means that the meals we eat this week are the type of meals that we can and should be eating on a regular basis outside of the weightloss challenge. For those of you who have already completed week 1, congratulations and enjoy week 2! Remember if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to comment, or ask your personal trainer. You are strong! Remember that at FitForever we are all family!

Mens Week 2 Nutrition Plan

Womens Week 2 Nutrition Plan

Week 1 Nutrition plan

Alright everyone, we've got our Week 1 nutrition plan up for those who are participating in our spring weight loss challenge. This is an exciting time for everyone participating! Please remember that this first week is going to be a cleanse and will be a little more challenging than weeks 2 and 3. Stay hydrated and remember that you'are supported by your FitForever family.

This week is about shocking the body and getting the weight loss started. We have combined the best foods for weight loss to ensure your success.

The nutrient foods will fill you daily needs and curb cravings. Your special chia healer drink is a appetite suppressant, supper hydrator, fiber flusher and more. Please consult is your trainer about getting this chia drink right. If you find a meal on the plan that does not meet your budget or you cannot stomach the please replace with with a different meal from a different day.

mens2012WLC

womens2012WLC

Cleansing Revealed

9 years ago I began a cleanse; after sitting on the toilet for 3 hours and 17 minutes I was deep in contemplation, why the hell I had started this. (THIS IS NOT THE KIND OF CLEANSE WE RECOMMEND, however it was a great learning experience.) I was experiencing day 2 of what I think was the worst day of that cleanse. It was my first time participating in a cleanse of this severity, it was called the lemon juice cleanse. At the time this cleanse consisted of lemonade for 21 days straight, with nothing else to eat. What they called lemonade was really blended lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper.  Day two was when your bowels and urinary track system started to flow with blended lemons and cayenne. This is what I called The Dreadful Diarrhea Day. I hoped to survive the fiery feelings that my private parts were experiencing. Day 2 was hell but day three was a little better, each day after that seemed to improve from everything from my energy levels to my ability to tolerate burning bowels. I chose to come off of the cleanse at the end of day 10 due to my sever muscle loss and emotional numbness. During my 10-day personal experiment I had lost over 17 lbs., 8 of which I calculated to be muscle loss, 4 from toxins in my body and 5 from fat from my body. I quickly regained the muscle, and was able to keep the fat off.

My real joy of that cleanse came later. After coming off the diet, eating healthy food in the right quantities was easy. After having spicy lemonade for 10 days, red peppers and brown rice tasted like cookies and ice cream. I found more reasons to enjoy the taste and health benefits of natural whole foods.  At the same time I instantly realized the effects of different toxins as I reintroduced processed foods, sugars, table salts, and other preservatives into my body. As my body experienced freedom from some of these processed toxins and then had them reintroduced I became aware of the toxic side effects that most of us suffer from daily. The side effects of these toxins included… my feet swelling up, telling me blood circulation had been compromised and water retention had occurred; my legs hurt. The complexion of my skin was like a withered leaf drying out. I attributed this to poor circulation, salt, and preservatives. I had been drinking over 100 oz. of water, however more of it was going to my legs and not enough to the skin around my eyes. Discard #2 was dry and inconsistent, leaving more toxins in the body for longer periods of time. Not effectively dissuading causes toxic build up which is cancerous an exhausting. Toxic build up with poor circulation and water retention negatively impacts, digestion, utilization of nutrients, energy levels, sleep, and mood.

There is a negative health cycle that starts with poor food, in the wrong time, at the wrong quantity. This dangerous cycle leads to lifestyle side effects of compromised sleep, decreased energy, and lower amounts of strength. Lifestyle side effects such as these can cause emotional stress and compound the problem. These life style side effects have a negative impact on your relationships, job performance, free time and happiness. 

I decided to do a second cleanse, this time I was going to do a little more research to understand and improve the process of cleansing. During this time I was young personal trainer helping clients who were primarily focused on weight loss, however some of them suffered from chronic diseases. As I studied, directed and adapted different cleanses I found there were many similar characteristics in weight loss cleansing and chronic disease cleansing. Soon I was creating 8-10 cleanses a year; always getting feedback from those participating, then adapting my methods based on that feedback as well as their results. I came to understand the components that the best cleanses had in common; they’re are always full of natural foods, and focus on:

1.       Healthy flushing of toxins and repairing balance inside the digestive system.

2.       Consuming high amounts of specific nutrients directed at one of your body’s systems.

The main difference between cleansing for weight loss and cleansing for chronic disease is what body system you are focusing on and the total amount of calories consumed. When you are cleansing for chronic disease you are focused on building the specific system that is affected by the chronic disease and repairing that part of the body. When you are cleansing for weight loss you are focused on building the body’s calorie burning system and allowing the body to eat itself. 

Cleansing your body is much like doing maintenance on your car; the more you keep it well maintained, the easier it is to keep it that way. Each cleanse should have healing effects on your body by restoring and repairing targeted areas, as well as allowing you to process toxin-free nutrients. The cleaner that you eat on a regular basis, the less you will need to cleanse and heal your body. I recommend cleansing about three times a year depending on your lifestyle. 

At FitForever we take a long-term approach to cleansing. Our cleanses are a hybrid of weight-loss and long term health dieting. We typically focus on two different systems of the body, for this cleanse we will be focused on the heart and circulatory system. Weight loss is inevitable; so we want to ensure your loss is from fat and toxins. We want to preserve muscle and strengthen the heart. Total weight loss is not our goal. Targeted fat loss and long term health is.

Each week of the challenge we will be posting more on the health benefits of the diet and how it affects our body. 

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