Should I eat less in the wintertime?

Many people believe that the body slows its metabolism when the tempature drops, but they're forgetting an important fact: Humans aren't bears. We don't hibernate. And as a result, our metabolisms don't fluctuate with the seasons. You should base your calorie intake on your weight and activity level, not the outside are temp, and if you're consistent in your exercise habbits, there's no need to change your eating patterns.

Unfortuately, Many people spend their winters eating a bit more and exercising a bit less, which leads to weight gain. If that sounds like you, cut 200 calories from your food intake and broaden your idea of exercise.

If my cholesterol scores are good, can i eat whole milk and full-fat yogurt?

Yes, as long as you continue to monitor your cholesterol yearly, exercise vigorously, eat a healthy (mostly low-fat) diet, and don't smoke. But that still doesn't give you full permission to raid the dairy aisle: A single eight-ounce cup of whole milk contains 25 percent of your daily intake of saturated fat, nad enjoying it too often can raise your LDL scores. Kicking back with a bowl of creamy Greek yogurt every once in a while, however is a necessary indulgence.

I lift weights but don't do cardio. Is this heart healthy?

If you have time for only 3 workouts a week, keep doing what you're doing. When researchers at the University of Alabama compared the effects of a healthy diet and cardio with a healthy diet and strength training, they found that the latter strategy was far superior for boosting heart health. Why? Strength training fires up your metabolism for 38 full hours after you workout, resulting in greater fat loss. The closer you come to your ideal weight, the healthier your heart becomes. It's that simple. If you have time for one more weekly workout, however make it cardio. A recent study in the journal of Clinical Science found that aerobic exercise trains your cardiovascular system to transport oxygen more efficiently, another cornerstone of heart health, in an ideal world, you'd do three total-body strength sessions a week, as well as one or two 30 minute cardio sessions in the form of intervals.

Be a star in your own cinderella story!

No time to lose

If you've got only 20 minutes to train and your goal is FAT! loss, the key is to keep things moving. You'll not only burn more calories and elevate your heart rate, which improves your cardiovascular health, but also get the added benefit of post-exercise afterburn: you'll continue to bun more calories throughout the day because of the boost in your metabolism.

To help speed your workout along, you'll superset antagonist muscle pairs: chest/back, quads/hamstrings, and biceps/triceps. (your front delts get worked with a chest press, and your rear delts get worked with rows.) Each exercise pairing is done as a superset, meaning that you do an exercise for each body part in back to back fashion with no rest until you complete both moves. One muscle group has time to recover while its antagonist is working. What's more, research shows that a muscle is stronger when it's stretched beforehand (meaning that by supersetting opossing muscle groups, you'll actually be stronger than if you're doing straight sets.)

To keep you from having to race around the gym wasting time, each exercise pairing involves the same equipment, simplifying the superset process and ensuring that you keep rest intervals to a minimum. Choose a resistance in which you approach muscle failure between 12 and 15 reps, a target that not only builds a degree of muscle but also keeps your heart rate elevated, chewing up more calories via increased muscle volume while inducing a deep muscle burn. Make sure that you keep your rest periods to a minimum after each superset - no more than 30 seconds, as each muscle group has already started the recovery process when your working its antagonist.

DB Bench/DB Row
Lunge/ Deadlift
EZ bar curl/ Lying tri ext

I often get asked, “What’s the best way to burn fat and lose my belly?”

People want to know if aerobics is better than strength training, or if traditional cardio exercise is better than intervals.Well, to say I've done them all would be an understatement.With over 15 years experience helping others, training myself, training for sports, spending countless hours in the gym, I'm pretty confident in knowing what works and what does not.

But first of all, I want to frame my responses. I'm going to talk about what works for people that have a limited amount of time to exercise, mostly because I expect my readers don't have 90 minutes per day to devote to a workout. That's why there is a huge disconnect between some of the information found in magazines and the ability of the reader to apply it to their lives.We just don't have 6-8 hours per week for exercise, nor do we need it. If you're a triathlete, you might need that, but not someone that just wants to lose fat and gain muscle.Having said all that, the bottom line for getting a better body is...

Use bodyweight exercises to warm-up, strength training supersets to build muscle, and then finish your workout with interval training to burn fat in a short amount of time. I've structured my system so that you are in and out of the gym in 45 minutes, three times per week. You'll do 5 minutes of bodyweight exercises to warm-up. Then we move into the strength training supersets, where we use two exercises performed back to back with minimum rest between each.

This cuts our workout time, while still giving us maximum results. We only need 20 minutes for this, and we'll use basic exercises, and sometimes even more bodyweight exercises, depending on the client's goal for muscle building.And finally, we'll do 18 minutes of interval training. A warm-up, followed by six short intervals at the appropriate fitness level for the client, interspersed with short periods of low-intensity recovery. Finish with a cool-down. And that's the workout.

Again, about 45 minutes total.Compare that to what most people do, which is run, jog, cycle or use the cardio machines for 45 minutes straight. Sure, that will burn calories, but it doesn't build a better body. In fact, there are a few "dark sides" to long slow cardio, including less-than-optimal results, the potential for overuse injuries, and it is an inefficient form of exercise. If you only have 30-45 minutes for your workout and you spend it all on a cardio machine, when are you going to train the rest of your muscles and sculpt a better body? So the best way to burn belly fat is with a combination of strength training and interval training. It’s fast, it works, and it’s fun!

staying accountable

While blogs are great, there is really nothing like being accountableto somone else, and the benifits of personal training.
One very extreme way of accountability is a little trick one of my trainers told me about it is a little something called the ALPO diet.

It's actually more like a bet, it's really simple you make a committment to someone you know that if you do not stick to your stated exercise and nutrition program that you will EAT can of ALPO or whatever type of dog food you favor.

A good way to stay on track if you use this tactic, is to buy the can of dog food and pack it around with you everywhere you go, to work, to social function, any where, it will be there as a reminder.