The focus is always on calories in versus calories out.  But if you focus on when you eat, that can aid in better energy levels, mental focus and fat loss. 

Often people think skipping breakfast or a small light breakfast is the weight to go for weight loss.  However, this is the furthest thing from the truth.  After a long night of sleep, our body’s natural cortisol levels are highest from 6am to 9am.  What does that mean?  Our body is ready to eat and we should to maximize our metabolism.  Eating a solid breakfast is a great way to elevate your metabolism and boost energy levels for he day.   Ideally, we should shoot for about 25 percent of our daily calories at breakfast. 

Following breakfast we want to eat every 4 to 6 hours to keep our metabolism high and our blood sugar constant.  Healthy snacks are great to haave and if you’re choosing to snack don’t forget the protein.  Lunch should be a medium sized meal and dinner should be a light meal.  Imagine an upside down triangle.  Your meals should go from largest to smallest like this triangle.

Now imagine the body that you want.  I would rather have it look like the upside down triangle, with strong shoulder and smaller bottom half.   Than a regular triangle with a big base.

 When you eat can impact the look of your body.

Well, in Amber’s world, buns is that same as your butt. And I always get questions about a better butt. I want you to have a better butt, but for reasons beyond looking better in your jeans. Having strong glutes is great for preventing injuries, walking better, and overall better functionality.

But I know all of you just care about havin’ better buns and looking great! So enough mechanical jargon, let’s just get talkin’ about the exercises.

Split Squat or Bulgarian Squat: In this exercise you have the rear foot elevated behind you and either holding dumbbells or a barbell. While keeping most of your weight in the front foot, lower your body by bending your knee. Your strength and flexibility will dictate how low you go. At the bottom of the one leg squat, focus on squeezing your glutes to stand back up.

 Reverse Lunges: Another great exercise and it’s even a little tougher doing it off a platform. This exercise can be used with dumbbells or a barbell. Step your right leg behind your body, bending your left leg, lowering your hips and keeping your trunk upright. Lower your body until your left thigh is parallel to the floor and your knee angle is close to or at 90 degrees. At the bottom of the lunge, focus on squeezing your glutes and putting pressure in your front heel (not toes). Push hard through your left leg, as you stand up and return your right leg into standing position.
Make sure that your knee stays above your ankle and does not move past your toes.

 RDL: My ultimate favorite exercise. This exercise really engages the glutes and hamstrings. And because the knees are slightly bent it is a little easier on the lower back. This exercise starts from the top using either a barbell or dumbbells held with straight arms and the torso upright. When you start to bend over the back remains flat or slightly arched, the knees are typically bent slightly (about 10-20 degrees) and the hips move backwards with the shins staying more or less vertical, the weight should be back on the heels. Really focus on hinging at the hips. Go as far as your flexibility and form can handle. If your back starts to round that is too far. You’re hamstrings will let you know as they will start to “pull” if you are going to far.

 Two More Can Help:

Hip Bridge: This is a great move for a beginner. Lay on your back with knees bent, feet hip width apart, and hands placed on the floor next to your body. Squeeze your glutes and lift your hips off the ground. Do not force your hips too high so your body becomes arched. The body should be nice and flat. When finished, lower hips back down to the ground. Feel free to change the surface your feet are on to a bosu or ball.

 Band Step Outs: This is a great exercise to feel on your outer thighs. You need a band for this exercise. Step on a band with both feet about hip distance apart. You want to create resistance with the band, so crossing the band and pulling it close to your body will make the bad tighter. With knees slightly bent, and pelvis in neutral alignment step one foot out to the side. Make sure not to turn your foot out. Slowly step your foot back in. Do multiple repetitions on one side before switching to the other leg.

This is the stop out position. Note: she does not have the band crossed in front.

 Add these exercises into your workout to increase your glute strength and perk up those buns.

For everyone who wants to keep up on how they slip aspartame into ourfoods, drugs, vaccines (yes, vaccines), OTC meds (especially child products), aspartamehas a new name of AminoSweet. Since aspartame has gotten sucha bad name (as it should), Ajinomoto has renamed this toxic chemicalsweetener. Start double checking your labels.

At Andare Fitness, we just started a transformation contest! This is an exciting time for our contestants because they get to come face to face with reality and where they are at with their health.

What I recommend to do is evaluate the four components of being a healthy person. Those components are sleep, diet, exercise, and happiness/stress.

Sleep:

Am I getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night?
Am I sleeping through the entire night?
Do I take time during the day for a nap or quiet time?
Do I get to sleep no later than 10:30pm?
Do I wake-up feeling rested and ready to take on the day?

If you answered Yes to all five then your sleep and rest quality is good. If you answerd No to three or less, then you need to work on the sleep component of your health.

Diet:
Do you eat processed foods? Ex. food from a box or white flour/sugar foods or frozen dinners are processed:
Do you eat vegetables with fewer than two meals a day?
Do you skip breakfast?
Have you been on more than four different “diets” to lose weight?
Do you eat meals that only contain carboydrates?

If you have answered NO to all five questions than your diet is good. If you you have anwered Yes to 3three or more, you may need to work on your nutrition.

Stress
Do you often feel anxious?
Do you worry of job, income or money problems?
Do you lash out at others?
Do you feel that you are exhausted all the time and can’t take anymore?
Do you feel sad, depressed, lonely or isolated?

If you answered NO to all five, then stress is not affected you. If you answered Yes to three or more Stress really could be affecting your health.
Exercise:

Are you exercising at least 3 days a week?
Does your exercise program increase your functionality and well being?
Are you strength training at least two days a week?
Are you working on flexiblity and mobility at least 2 days a week?
Is your exercise program enjoyable?

If you answered yes to all five, the you have a good workout program going. If you answered, no to three or more you may need some assistance with your exercise program.

This is just a brief evaluation of your health. But I hope it gets you thinking. If you’re not happy with your current state of health, then take a look and see what needs to change. Being aware of what is not working is a powerful tool in making changes.

I wish each one of you the very best as you pursue your most healthiest  and happiest life.

Oh, by the way. A great resource is the book “How to Eat, Move, and Be Healthy” by Paul Chek. There is an extensive questionairre in the book to give you a clear evaluation of your current health.

The Ask Amber section is a great way to get your exercise questions answered. Here is a recent question posted to the website:

‘After a good workout people breathe heavily sweat feel weak and may ache. Explain why each of these reactions may be occurring?’

I am going to break down this question into each reaction.

People breath heavily because depending on the workout, they work in different energy systems. When we move into anaerobic energy systems, we work in a state where we don’t have a lot of oxygen avialable to us. Therefore, once we’re done we’re huffin’ and puffin’ to replenish the oxygen that was not present during the work.

Sweating is the bodies way of thermoregulation. As we workout, we increase our body’s internal temperature. To get back to homestasis (or our body’s comfortable temp) we sweat as a cooling mechanism. Some people sweat more than others, it’s just genetic.

The achy part, often comes from our muscles working hard and being challenged. The achyness can be a result of fatigue or from the muscle fibers being torn. The repairing of the muscle fibers ensures a heavier load can be handled in the future. Often, the soreness does not set in for a few days and this is referred to as DOMS Delays Onset Muscle Soreness. The weakness that comes along is from accumlation of lactic acid in the muscles. Once lactic acid is forming, the body wants to slow down so that it can get rid of it.

Thanks for the great questions. This will help many people as they workout!