Erik's Weekly Fitness Tip | Sticking To The Basics

What The Basics Aren't

• The basics aren’t sexy.
• The basics don’t grab the headlines.
• The basics, quite frankly, can be boring.  

But, the basics produce results! 

People have a hard time believing me that when it comes to fitness, all you need to do is stick to a few basic principles and you get results. 

Complication

Now complication looks sexy, shiny, fun, and all the cool people are doing it.  The fitness and supplement world is littered with this junk:

• program hopping
• infomercials of ab rollers with ripped models (who by the way did not get those ripped abs by doing the ab roller)
• Shake Weight
• vibrating platforms
• diet pills that sound to good to be true
• fancy machines at the gym
• 8 min abs/buns
• Power Balance bracelets with a special hologram to improve balance (my personal favorite) 

All hype, all snake oil, all totally crap.  But these companies do know one thing, they know how to sell.  They know how to reach that emotional trigger to get us to buy their product or to try their cutting edge workout programs.

But trust me on this, focus on the basics and you’ll get the results you are looking for, without wasting a bunch of money and time on junk that you’d wind up selling at your next garage sale

What do the basics look like?

1.    Consistently eating well
2.    Not over eating
3.    Moving every day
4.    Avoiding sugar
5.    Doing squats
6.    Jogging, running, riding a bike
7.    Incrementally making your workouts harder
8.    Sticking to one program
9.    Setting a goal and sticking it out until you hit that goal
10.    Let’s not forget the most important thing of all…you have to put in the work! 

If you'd like to get back to the basics, call on me 310.251.7420. I offer tailor made fitness & nutrition programs.

Image credit: Ben Warren on Unsplash

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Erik's Weekly Fitness Tip | Captain Obvious

Update

I’m 6 weeks into running again. My body has responded to the old training stimulus {which is now new again} fairly quickly. Besides tripping on a tree root, I would say the transition from heavy strength training to running intervals has been pretty seamless. 

Captain Obvious

I’ve set the goal of running the Village Runner 4th of July 5k!  The last time I ran a race competitively was at the turn of the century and I was 24. {That seems like a lifetime ago.}  So I thought I would call my old coach to get his opinion on my training. 

Long story short, he told me I’m not 22 anymore and that I need to tweak my program. Now I should have figured this out on my own as being a very obvious fact, but it never donned on me until I spoke with him.  Sometimes we need our very own Captain Obvious to point us in the right direction.

I put a lot of value into his ideas because not only was he a coach but he also competed as a Master’s runner.  Who better to talk to than someone who has been there before? 

Who Is Your Captain Obvious?

Do you want to get results? Start asking questions from people who have been there!  Get a coach, a mentor, read books, or talk to people who have walked the walk and succeeded.  Their insight, experience and pitfalls {yes, they made plenty of mistakes along the way} are incredibly valuable to your weight loss, training, or performance goals.  Another set of eyes seeing things from another perspective can be the difference of getting there or not.

Wanna pick my brain regarding fitness, weight loss, or sports performance? Send me your question & I will answer via email & some questions may be featured on my YouTube Channel

Image Credit: Molly Taylor

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Erik's Weekly Fitness Tip | The Battle To Lose Weight

It's Hard

The battle to lose weight is without a doubt one of the hardest battles I see on a regular basis.  There are so many layers when it comes to weight issues: emotional, physical, genetics and misinformation just to name a few.  Weight issues can be a constant battle that takes over a person’s life. I’ve seen firsthand the emotional pain that people suffer over it. 

These issues and layers are above my pay grade, but I can offer you some quick tips that I have seen work. 

What Works

1.     Awareness!  How much are you really eating?  What are your triggers that cause you to stress eat? Are you exercising?

2.     Walking is a perfect place to start.  Before work, on your lunch break, or after dinner.  Walking is a great way to clear your head, get some fresh air, and burn some calories.  Spring is here, it's time to get outside!

3.     Cut sugar! Even be aware of how much fruit you are consuming.

4.     Shop for your food.  Eating out leads to overeating.  Head to the grocery store and buy food that needs to be prepared and stay on the perimeter of the store. Do yourself a solid and make extra for lunch the next day.   Read more here.

5.     Set realistic and short-term goals that you will be able to accomplish. 

6.     Performance!  Look for something you have to work towards besides losing weight.  Walk a 5K, bike around the neighborhood faster than you did 6 weeks ago, walk 7000 steps everyday for a month straight.  Chase down that performance, it’s motivating, fun, and there is nothing better than seeing progression!

7.     Whatever you choose to do, have fun and have a positive attitude! You can do this!

8.    Need more tips? Check out this past newsletter & this one too.

Numbers

I will leave you with these staggering stats:

Diabetes has nearly quadrupled over the last the 35 years.  There are now 422 million people who are diabetic compared to 108 million back in 1980.  A very scary statistic! 

Need help with your nutrition or fitness? CALL ME TO SET UP AN IN-PERSON OR ONLINE APPOINTMENT 310.251.7420

Image credit: Trần Quốc Dương on Unsplash

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