How To Really Make A Lifestyle Change

When most people think of the job of a personal trainer, they usually assume it is someone who will help you learn or show you how to exercise properly and teach you nutritional guidelines to follow.  While those are very true characteristics of a personal trainer, a good one should be doing much more.  I'm sure you have heard of the phrase, "make a lifestyle change for successful weight management."  We hear this all the time but how can it be accomplished?

Our goal as fitness professionals at SDPT is to try and accomplish this.  We don't simply want to write and exercise program and a few nutritional tips.  Our real purpose is to educate you on how you can live the healthiest lifestyle that you see fit.   While everyone is looking for the quick fix, this usually leads to short term and limited results.  When a true plan is developed and maintained we see the best results possible.

Here are some pointers on how to integrate a new habit into your lifestyle.  This ideas are from the book, "The Power of Less."

1. For the next 30 days select one and only one habit that you think would make the biggest impact in your life.  Focus all of your effort on this one habit.  This could be keeping a food log, drinking more water, starting an exercise program, stretching....anything that will impact your life more positively.  Your goal is to only attempt to achieve this one new habit for one month.  When you get too ambitious, things start to fall apart.  We see it all the time.  A client who never has worked out before wants to work with a trainer 3 times a week, take a yoga class, a spin class, start a super restrictive diet plan, and train for a marathon.  Individually these are all great goals but it will be too overwhelming and most likely none of them will be achieved.  
2. Write down your specific goal and your plan of action.  This is where a trainer can be extremely useful helping you design an effective plan that you can simply follow to see results.  But if you can't hire a professional at least do research and come up with a plan that you can put into place.  If things come up you can alter the plan if necessary but stick with it as best as you can.  
3. Post your goal publicly.  Those that try things on there own with no accountability are at a huge risk of failure.  Tell people what you are doing and why you are doing it.  If you don't want everyone to know then don't blast it out on facebook, but make sure a few people know what you are doing and ask for their help.  If they are true friends they will do anything to help you succeed.  If they get in your way, it might be time to spend as little time as possible with those people.  
4. Continually reassess and evaluate your progress.  After a few days look at your progress and see how you are doing.  If you have fallen off track, get right back on.  This is where your support group comes in.  Inform them of your progress and ask them to check on you regularly.  You might even find out that a friend or coworker has a similar goal and starts it with you.  

Once you have successful integrated that new habit you can decide if another habit should be started or you continue to work on the one.  It is amazing how much of a difference one simple change can make in the long term.  

Please feel free to contact us if you need any help with your plan.  

You Stay Healthy San Diego,

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS

San Diego Premier Training

Are you working out too much?

Most people assume more is always better with exercise.  But there is a point when you might be working out too much and getting worse results.  The first question you should ask about an exercise program you are currently doing is "Are you getting results still?"  If the answer is no you might think the solution is to workout more.  While for some people this may be the case but not always.  There are two reasons why you should not increase how much you are working out.

The first one is simple.  You might be overtraining.  Overtraining leads to less results and more injuries.  Remember that exercise is stress.  It is a good form of stress on the body but it is still stress nonetheless.  Too much is bad, regardless if it is good or bad stress.  Remember that when you workout you are actually getting weaker.  You are breaking your body down so it will redevelop stronger and able to handle the increase workload.  This is true for cardio or strength training.  Just think if you are strong before you go into a workout or after.  You will definitely be stronger before the workout.

The key is properly recovering after the workout is over.  If you are training as hard as you can every time you exercise you might be overtraining.  Here are some symptoms:

1. Decrease in exercise performance
2. Chronic fatigue
3. Loss of muscle mass
4. Increase number of infections or illness
5. Psychological staleness or loss of motivation
6. Elevated resting heart rate

These are some of the more common signs of overtraining.  If you feel this might be what you are suffering from it is ideal to take a week or so off.  This doesn't mean you can't exercise at all but you just want to back off the intensity and frequency.  Once you feel better you can resume your normal routine.  It is a good idea to plan a lighter week every 6-8 weeks in order to prevent overtraining, especially if you are working out hard.  

On top of overtraining there is another reason you need to watch how much you are working out.  This is critical if you are training to lose weight.  If you workout too hard too after you may actually decrease your activity for the rest of the day.  Studies are showing that when individuals increase the amount they workout, they actually move less for the rest of the day.  So they might burn more calories during a workout, but they burn much less for the rest of the day.  This means you don't burn as much as you think you are and will not see the weight loss that you want.  

To solve this problem, just try and pay attention to your energy levels throughout the day when you workout.  If you feel tired and like you can't move, you might be training too much.  An exercise program should give you more energy, not take it away.  You could always track your movement with a pedometer or a fitbit to make sure you keeping up the same activity levels.  

So see if you might be working out too much.  I generally recommend 2-3 days of cardio and 2-3 days of strength training.  You should have 1-2 days of recovery each week though to allow you to keep up the intensity each workout.  

You Stay Healthy San Diego,

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS

San Diego Premier Training