Justin G. Walls, Certified Personal Athletic Trainer

A common issue facing many exercisers is that, even after having committed to a regimen of nutrition and exercise, the goals of weight loss and muscle gain just aren't lining up. You'll ask "why am I not losing weight?" and the answers seem elusive. If you have a wellness coach or a trainer whom can coach you, then talk to him or her about the issue. Just remember that this process is challenging and it's not your fault if its not working immediately. Here's a few possible things to consider: Talk to your coach or trainer. Share your concerns. Adjust the meal planning - your meals may be leaving you hungry, and that's a recipe for disaster. Review your meal plan with your coach to see if there's adequate protein, fat, or hydration in your plan Exercising too often or too hard - completing a challenging routine may make you feel accomplished, but if your metabolic rate is getting too high, then your body will signal the need to consume more foo...

Last week, there was yet another article  in the WaPo Health section about the benefits of going gluten-free. Sports Illustrated had an article about gluten-free athletes  a couple of years ago, touting the benefits of freeing up your body's metabolism from the breakdown of gluten in the intestine to more athletic performance work (reallocating scarce resources in the body makes sense right?). I shoulda eaten more carbs... To be fair, nobody is advocating carb-free diets for athletic performance. In "Endurance Sports Nutrition", Dr. Eberle points out that the science is pretty straight forward on this: you need carbs to perform and keep you going for the long haul until the body can access glycogen stores, but carbohydrates are the main thing that will keep you in the long races. You can read more about this  from the publisher's website What we are discussing is whether gluten, being a difficult protein to break down, can slow you down just a little. In...

Use Breathing to Relieve Stress Ever notice how athletes will take a breath or two before going for the big play? Breathing is one of the easiest ways to relieve stress. You can read up on stress and the different forms of relief at this great article on Bodybuilding.com . I want to focus on a simple technique to reduce stress and light anxiety. Firstly, breathing is a stress response as part of our natural "fight or flight" response. However, we are able to access this response and slow our own breathing to reduce the hormone secretion during a stress response. Controlling breathing will also regulate heart rate and blood pressure. Combining breathing techniques with exercise is an added effective technique at changing our overall pathology of stress relief which usually manifests itself as neck and shoulder pain, which can be relieved through good old fashioned "talking about your stress". Research has shown that punching a bag, for example, my actually reli...

In a fascinating piece of survival economics, Howard Schneider asks in a WaPo fitness column as to whom we could expect to survive and lead in a "World War Z" scenario. The question is: is it better to be really fit and lean with little body fat, have lots of fat because food will be scarce, or somewhere in between? Brad Pitt- fit to survive! It basically boiled down to striking a balance between fitness and body fat reserves. A person with low body fat reserves will likely find it difficult to survive in a post-apocalyptic Earth due to the need to consume more calories each day. However, a person with high fat reserves would probably be too slow to effectively run away from danger. Don't rest too long!   We have discussed body fat percent in a previous post . It really is a better assessment of fitness than weight alone. So from now on, think of yourself not as being the most fit looking, but as being the winner in the survival of the fittest!

Normally, people think of exercisers as those who work hard, train hard, and eat like there won't be food tomorrow. Take for example, the Michael Phelps breakfast of champions: So that's what gold medal swimmers eat The NY Times Health Blog referenced a recent study from some University of Wyoming professors that demonstrates the opposite. Apparently, running would cause both men and women to reduce the calorie intake of their next meal by almost 100 more than someone who had just exercised by walking, and way more than someone who was totally sedentary. You can read the full study here . The study looked at some of the hormone and peptide production resulting after the two types of workouts. The result of running left the volunteers consuming fewer overall calories and making their calorie consumption much better regulated. The article quotes Prof. Catia Martins as saying: Exercise “improves the body’s ability to judge the amount of calories consumed and to adjust fo...

I often throw in how important is mental acuity to the overall body functionality. Especially at this time of year when getting large groups of family together, I thought about giving everyone an excellent mental exercise that they can use while *ahem* sitting around and eating at a table (just watch those calories, ok?) Using this simple method can reduce stress, and especially the additional eating that is often associated with stress. You have probably heard of Dr. Martin Seligman's ACR positive psychology ? ACR is Active Constructive Responding, and the basic premise is to promote only positive responses to outside stimuli. There is a good test at the PBS blog to give yourself cues on when to use this technique. Stay positive, enjoy your families and your time off from work to reduce stress and change your routine. Then feel energized and ready to return to your normal grind and workout, possibly with better tools than before! Happy Thanksgiving!

The Washington Post  quotes a survey that many people, for various reasons, are reporting trouble with getting a good night's sleep. Sleep is an important part of normal biological function, helps with recovery, and contributes to proper metabolic function. Not sleeping enough at night can impact a person's ability to think clearly, perform tasks efficiently, affects focus and attention, and it makes you yawn an awful lot! Sleep- it's good for you! A excellent research project of the NIH in its Sport's Medicine journal chronicals many of the issues related to interupted sleep patterns as a result of shift work ( link for article ). Some negative affects of altered behavioral patterns, such as eating at night (mentioned in section 2.2) have links to obesity because of the low metabolic trends during the night hours. As the paper does note, there was some difficulty in gaining access to enough participants to fully study the effects of nocturnal workers versus th...