RIO Fitness Chicago® Exercise & Nutrition Blog

RIO Fitness Chicago® Tip:

Yesterday made it ONLY thirty days until Summer 2011! Don't panic if you've slacked all Winter on exercise & healthy eating. It is still possible to lose four to ten body fat pounds by Memorial Day. Here's TEN simple tips we can start doing TODAY, to look & feel our best for Summer 2011!

1) It's a really hard challenge for some, but until Memorial Day don't have a drop of alcohol. Alcohol increases levels of the body fat producing hormone cortisol, alcohol lowers testosterone which is the hormone that helps us burn body fat, and obviously alcohol has calories which can contribute to gaining more body fat if we overconsume our daily limit.

2) Have a qualified health & fitness professional calculate your daily calorie limit. Losing or gaining body fat comes down to: daily calories consumed vs calories burned. We need to be burning more calories than we are consuming, but not to the point of starvation. Get your specific number calculated TODAY!

3) Eliminate all trans & saturated fat from your daily nutrition. All of that "bad" fat is contributing to your arteries clogging up, and to the collection of fat deposits underneath your skin = more cellulite.

4) Start consuming more healthy fats (poly & mono unsaturated) daily. This includes unsalted/raw nuts, avocados, oily skin fish (salmon, mackerel, tuna, herring, etc.), unsalted/raw seeds, and cooking with olive or sunflower oils. Also, look for foods high in flax. Add flax seeds to yogurt or soups to get that healthy fat you need to help decrease bad fat.

5) Start consuming more fiber. Fiber helps to slow down the digestion of the sugars we consume. We need to slow that down, because the faster sugars are digested & absorbed, the quicker they are stored as fat. Start paying attention to the nutrition facts on everything, because we want 8g+ of fiber in the foods we eat.

6) Monday thru Friday, as soon as you wake up, before you consume any calories, do just TWENTY-FIVE minutes of high then low intensity 60 second intervals of cardio.

7) Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, also strength train. If you're going to weights and cardio together, first do the weights, then cardio. The most effective and quickest way to get lean/tone and lose body fat with cardio/weight training is HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING. Google/YouTube it for more.

8) Consume a WHEY ISOLATE PROTEIN always after you exercise (after both cardio & weights). This will help to build more lean muscle tissue, and the more you have the more calories you will burn all day long = faster results. A perfect one to have because it's very low in calories/fat, zero carbs/sugars, and high in protein is Nature's Best Perfect ISOPURE.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/nb/perfectisopure.html

9) Unless you eat them ONLY after exercise do NOT have any bread/pasta/rice/oat carbs. They are high glycemic carbs, which are sugars that digest quickly; and if not burned immediately are stored as fat. Fruits & veggies are the carbs that are okay to eat throughout the day because they digest slowly. No exercise = no high glycemic carbs. Earn them!

10) Get rest at night. Lack of sleep causes: the body fat producing hormone cortisol to increase, decreases growth hormones that help us recover from exercise & our day, increases the cravings/appetite hormone ghrelin, and decreases levels of leptin which suppresses appetite.