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...

Is Butter Better? Read On! AHA Guidelines May Not Be Based On The Best Research  New Book Casts Doubt On Years Of Common Methodology Investigative reporter Nina Teicholz has just released a book this week challenging our thoughts about how we structure our diet. In a WSJ article , Ms. Teicholz outlines her issues with AHA guidelines  that recommend less animal fat (or saturated fat) as part of ones diet. She contends that the reduction in saturated fat has led to the increased consumption of carbohydrates, which has cascaded into another entirely different set of health issues such as type 2 diabetes. Her book is available at http://www.thebigfatsurprise.com/ Here's a few other articles that support this contention From NPR:  The Full-Fat Paradox: Whole Milk May Keep Us Lean Why Milk Is The Ultimate Post Workout Food Butter Is Back Behind The Headlines: Saturated Fat and Heart Disease 'Uproven' Is Beef Bad For You? Or The Envir...

What's Trending This Week In Fitness? Because another Polar Vortex is crushing the east coast again! Testosterone Warnings Becoming A Reality Public Advocacy Group Asks FDA For Warning About Heart Attacks here  and  here Other Hormonal Factors Could Contribute To Low Energy and Low Libido  here Concern's Raised About Testosterone Replacement Therapy  here Workout Motivations In Bad Weather Simple, At-Home Workouts In Bad Weather  here Music Is a Great Workout Buddy  here Fast Five Minute Workout!  here 15 Minute Arm Crushing Workout  here Some Winter Meal Suggestions, Get Ready For Spring 10 Winter Comfort Food Meals, Fast And Easy  here Simple Quinoa Recipes  here Mix It Up With Some Great Lentil Recipes (lots of Protein!) here

Every once in a while (or for some of us, it's every weekday), we're up late and feel the need to eat something, and it's just too hard to say no. Well, fortunately, we don't always have to withhold ourselves from those late night munchies. According to a short article from  Women's Health , the expert advice is to eat something that won't spike blood sugar, make you more hungry, or be too calorie rich. Sorry Jimmy, that just won't do The best snacks are kept to about 100 calories, with no more than 15 grams of sugar, and about 3 grams of fiber. It's also good to wash it all down with a little water (flavored slightly with either lemon juice or another splash of fruit juice flavor- it helps curb the cravings). Some suggestions are: One cut up fruit in a 1/2 cup yogurt or sour cream A cup of berries in that same 1/2 cup of yogurt or sour cream 1/4 cup salsa and about 10-12 corn chips (low-sodium is better)  6-8 carrot or celery sticks with h...

Over the years, we have thrown around words like 'VO2 Max', Resting Heart Rate, Oxygen Intake, and so on. I actually blogged about this about a year ago  How to ACTUALLY go from Couch to 5k , and I had some funny pictures of Homer Simpson running and a cool chart showing oxygen intake and deficit relationship. Today, I am going to give you some tools on how to calculate VO2 Max, make it meaningful to you, and have you start making any necessary changes to your lifestyle to get you feeling your 'fitness' age. What's your fitness age? Let's start with VO2: this is the volume of oxygen your body will use in one minute. It's the ratio between the amount of oxygen in the air you inhale divided by the amount of oxygen in the air you exhale, all during the course of one minute. To save you the thousands of dollars it would cost to measure this with specialized equipment, some fantastic sport scientists have developed some simple formulas that you can use to...

A Calorie May Not Be Just A Calorie Recent Studies Show That Genes or Bacteria May Affect Matabolism A recent article in the Economist gives a synopsis of four very fascinating studies into how different people may metabolize glucose in different fashions. The metabolic pathways could change based on either certain genetic features of the person (or mouse in the study) or the presence of certain types of bacteria. Fat Mouse, Healthy Diet! There is another more extensive article in the New York Times looking more closely at how diets higher in fruits and vegetables but lower in saturated fat would not only result in weight loss, but also correlated in a change in the types of bacteria present in the mice that were losing weight in the study: the fat mice started to have similar bacterial compositions as the lean mice.  Eating healthy is an important part of changing the stomach flora, and we have discussed on this blog about some important dietary changes that you...

Rituals make our food more flavorful - some simple gestures, not necessarily related to the food, make our involvement, and therefore our enjoyment, of the food, much higher. Nutrients are better on a plate than in a bottle - the food-first approach is everyone's best recommendation. Living on pills isn't. Get Informed! - know what to look for and what to know about supplementing your diet without risk of side effects or wasting your money on stuff that won't get absorbed. Get the app! -  have all your nutritional information on your smart phone Another "things you might be getting wrong" list - this focuses on weight perception and weight loss Best points about meals and weight loss: Only eat when you know what you're eating- so try to make the food yourself  Foods higher in fiber and higher in flavor go best together- like broccoli and garbanzos Watch the dressings on your salads- vinegar and olive oil are best bets for low calorie fla...

In an excellent social experiment,  TCU scientists  discovered that people were less likely to overeat when confronted with how long it would take to "walk off" the food they were eating. The study comes in the wake of the Affordable Care Act requiring calories be displayed on the food. The journal article can be found  here This image is from Scientific American's article on the subject. You can see how the calories "jump off the page" when confronted with the prospect of having to walk off everything you just ate. You can use this  exercise calorie calculator  to see how long it can take you to burn off breakfast lunch or dinner with a large variety of exercises

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...

We Tried This: Strong vs. Skinny | TIME.com According a recent edition of the ACSM Health and Fitness Journal , the fitness industry has made some strides into what is considered a healthy body image. No longer is the muscular look taboo, but the 'lean' look is still the appropriate trend- and the fitness trends are changing too: Lean isn't always healthy. Body fat percentage and muscle tone, like rings on a tree, tell the true story of how well the body has been kept. Blood tests also tell the tale that lean isn't always healthy. Trendy fitness fads like Zumba and other dance classes aren't getting the job done. Neither are the spin classes. Classic, good-ole fashioned boot camp and weight lifting are getting the results. The attitude is different. People (especially women) demand to be pushed and challenged. And they aren't afraid of 'getting too big' anymore. Just of climbing the next hurdle. Check out the latest trends as we head to the end of...

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...

New Fifteen Minute Workout!!! Warm up: give yourself about two minutes worth of jumping jacks, but try to hop in different planes of movement. Try standard jumping jacks, then try to switch the timing of arms and legs, and then try scissors jacks switching arms and legs back and forth. Add some twists: make the warm up different. Workout: This workout is all about unilateral movements- we are using one limb at a time. Left leg lunges- step the left leg forward, bend both knees to 90 degrees, and finally return to a standing position. Repeat for one minute Right leg lunges- same as above, repeat for one minute. For more of a balance challenge, hold your arms up above your head Left arm clean and press- using a dumbbell or any weight you have around the house (a gallon bottle of water, for example), squat down low with the goal of touching the weight to the floor, followed by standing up and pressing your weight overhead. Repeat for one minute. Right arm clean and press- same...

From the IRS website : You can include in medical expenses amounts you pay to lose weight if it is a treatment for a specific disease diagnosed by a physician (such as obesity, hypertension, or heart disease). This includes fees you pay for membership in a weight reduction group as well as fees for attendance at periodic meetings. You cannot include membership dues in a gym, health club, or spa as medical expenses, but you can include separate fees charged there for weight loss activities. Many employers offers an FSA (flexible spending account) or HSA (health savings account) as part of their health care package. This means that you may be able to use the money from those accounts towards personal training. You need to do two things before jumping in and purchasing sessions: You need a prescription from a medical doctor, or a note from your health care professional describing your need for a personal trainer. You should consult with your tax advisor about writing off the co...

The constant battle with the scale can be unending and unnerving. Before you even consider using it as your guide to a healthy weight, you should really consider the alternatives: Body fat percentage : this is the most accurate measure of health and fitness. It means a low weight or lean person can have too much body fat and still have the potential for many ailments associated with being "overweight" including Type II diabetes and osteoporosis, for example. A heavier person with normal body fat percentage would actually be better off. Technology allows us to measure body fat percentage through a bioelectric resistance pad, which are those silver pads you can find on some scales. Make sure you purchase that kind of scale because it really appraises you of true progress- more lean tissue and less fat. See how you fall out on the chart below: Waist-to-Hip Ratio: this is another effective way to measure how much fat has accumulated around the abdomen. As a general rule...