ForeverStrong® Fitness

Your Scale Does Not Tell The Whole Story

Body fat is something that most people view as a part of everyday life, but few recognize that there is a dangerous type of fat that can contribute to heart disease, dementia, cancer, depression and many other diseases.

What is Visceral Fat?
Visceral fat is stored in a person’s abdominal cavity and is also known as a “deep” fat that wraps around major organs. Shape or size can be deceiving when determining if you have visceral fat or not. You may be carrying excess visceral fat within your abdominal cavity whether you are overweight or average size. For example, Body Mass Index (BMI) is used by many as an indicator of health. It involves comparing your weight in relation to your height to give an indication of your weight status. But BMI doesn’t take into account muscle mass, age, sex, ethnicity, general level of fitness. Therefore, even if you have a ‘healthy’ BMI you may still be carrying excessive visceral fat, and could still be at risk of the health complications associated with it.

In addition to giving you a large waist, visceral fat can change the way your body operates. Fat cells do more than simply store extra calories – they pump out hormones and inflammatory substances. Storing excess fat around the organs like the liver, pancreas and kidneys increases production of pro-inflammatory chemicals, and at the same time, it interferes with hormones that regulate appetite, weight, mood and brain function.

We can reduce the negative impact of visceral fat by making a few lifestyle changes:

Revise Your Diet
Aim to eat high-nutrient-dense, real foods. This means avoiding packaged foods and artificial ingredients. We also want to eat plenty of healthy fats, including coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, wild-caught fish, nuts and seeds. Healthy food fats have beneficial effects on insulin balance, hormones and weight management.

Exercise Regularly
Exercise helps us balance insulin and makes our cells more efficient at using glucose. While different types of exercise can limit cardiovascular risk, studies have suggested that high-intensity resistance training tends to produce faster visceral fat loss than mild or moderate training. But, as always, the best exercise is the exercise that matches your lifestyle and becomes a habit.

Reduce Stress
Stress triggers cortisol production and interferes with appetite control, metabolism, sleep and cravings. The things we do to fight stress (pleasure, play and social connection) are often overlooked when it comes to fat loss, but we know how important it is to beat stress in order to beat excess fat.

Prioritize Sleep
The benefits of sleeping at least seven to eight hours a night are studied and well-documented when it comes to hormone and weight control. Good rest recharges our appetite and stress hormones, boosts our metabolism, and keeps cravings away.

“Example of Data from the InBody Results Sheet”

Solid Information You Can Use to Create A Plan
At ForeverStrong we use the InBody scanner to help our clients accurately measure how much visceral fat your body is storing.  The Inbody test is a non-invasive body composition analysis that provides a detailed breakdown of your weight in terms of muscle, fat, and water on an InBody Result Sheet. An InBody Test takes only 45 seconds. By monitoring this data over time, you can pinpoint the changes needed in your diet and exercise to achieve your goals.

Our Personal Trainers have helped hundreds of people in Howard County and the surrounding areas lose weight, tone up, and become stronger.  Our neighbors in Highland, Clarksville, Columbia, Burtonsville, Olney, Ashton and Silver Spring love their personalized training program. Unlike group fitness classes, each client receives a custom program guaranteed to deliver measurable results. We’d love to help you too. Call us at 301-452-5547 or email info@trainforeverstrong.com to see for yourself. Mention this article for a free session!

3 Reasons Why Losing Weight Fast is a Bad Idea

Fast Weight Loss leads to FrustrationPlease don’t hurt yourself trying to lose weight. We don’t have to look far to find someone who is on a diet, or thinking about starting a diet.  In fact, a recent Gallup survey noted 45% of Americans are trying to lose weight.

We also don’t have to look very far to find a new ‘revolutionary’ weight-loss program that promises super-fast and super-easy results.  Many times, these ‘revolutionary’ weight-loss programs deliver shocking short-term results.

Before I continue, let me specify what I’m referring to as “fast weight loss.” This is any program that results in weight loss greater than one to two pounds per week.

Why is this type of weight loss program a bad idea?

The problem with fast weight loss (and the reason it never works in the long run) is that your body isn’t designed to lose weight fast. As soon as you try to do it, some significant changes happen in your body.

1.  Your Hormones are signaled by your fat

  • Not all body fat is bad for you, and ALL of it has a purpose.
  • Stored body fat is in direct proportion to a hormone called leptin.  This hormone controls appetite, modulates metabolism and promotes fat burning.
  • When fat levels drop quickly, leptin levels drop quickly as well, and your body is triggered to believe you are starving.  That shuts down systems and makes your body do everything it can to conserve energy and stop you from losing more weight.

2.  Nutritional deficiency from fast weight loss

  • Restrictive, extreme low-calorie diets are usually deficient in necessary vitamins/minerals.
  • Lack of vitamins leads to unhealthy skin, hair, and nails… along with a suppressed immune system.  That means you’re more likely to get, and stay, sick. Then, your workouts, become less productive, or even skipped, further halting your weight loss efforts.
  • Lack of minerals can lead to irregular heartbeat, muscle cramps and loss of bone mass. This can also inhibit your exercise routine, lead to premature fatigue and slow your recovery process.
  • Lack of adequate protein and amino acid intake can inhibit your muscle growth and possibly reduce your existing lean muscle mass. Since muscle is metabolically active tissue, your metabolism is powered by this precious tissue. When you lose muscle, your metabolism slows down and makes it even harder to keep the weight off.

3.  Psychological Complications from fast weight loss

  • Fast Weight Loss Diet ShakeSevere restriction is not sustainable in the long-term, and is known to lead dieters into a binge/restrict cycle – the body fighting with the mind to try to get enough nutrients to survive. It’s only a matter of time before your willpower breaks, and often leads to a pattern of binge eating followed by guilt, then emotionally driven guilt binge eating.
  • This cycle very often leads to severely disordered thinking about food and weight, and frequently into eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia.
  • Restrictive diets can become socially excluding – you’re so worried about your food that you’re not enjoying life with your family and friends.

The good news is weight loss and a life of healthy maintenance is possible but, you can’t do it by buying into the marketing promises put out by businesses intent on making a quick and easy profit.  Fast weight loss harms your body, it harms your mind, AND in 97% of cases it leads to regaining not only the weight you lost, but more weight on top of it (that’s leptin at work, trying to keep you safe!).

Want to lose weight, and keep it off for good?

Check out the new program that we are running  at ForeverStrong. Currently, we are on Week 4 (out of 12). I’ll be starting the 12-week  program again soon, where we’ll focus on establishing Healthy Habits and creating a road map to sane, slow, sustainable weight loss and lifetime weight maintenance. Click Here to find out more.

~By Kelly Scott 

Resource: Mayo Clinic

Dottie. Inspiring and Motivating.

This month, we celebrated Dottie’s 50th birthday, HardStyle, with a Fabulous 50 kettlebell workout.  50 Burpees, 50 Snatches, 50 swings, 50 Clean & Presses and 50 Goblet Squats. It was definitely fabulous.

These ladies put a lot of sweat into the celebration!

Today, We are proud to feature the birthday girl.   After 9 months of training at Fulton Kettlebells {Now ForeverStrong} , her story is both inspiring and motivating. You can read what she has to say about her experience so far. View her fabulous transformation at the end of the interview:

 

What were your initial goals, and did you accomplish them? 

The initial goal was to be able to move better, keep up with my husband, who still looks like he did when we married 26 years ago and be able to say yes to more of what life has to offer. I feel like I have accomplished those goals.  My husband and I regularly go for four and five mile hikes and are planning a bike trip soon.  This is a great thing for me and for our relationship. 

What kept you motivated and inspired to stick with us?

The environment at Fulton Kettlebells is motivating.  I look forward to the sisterhood that has developed with the “four o’clock” group of women.  We encourage each other and share our triumphs.  Kelly and Brian are very focused on helping me reach my goals.  They both have very different styles and both styles seem to hit the mark more often than not.  For the first time I find I am look forward to working out as a reward for getting through the day.   In the past, with other programs I would start to come up with excuses for not working out.

How would you compare your energy now versus before?

I had no energy before.  I came home from work and would sit on the coach and it would be all I could do to fix dinner and grade some papers. Now, I work out three times a week before going home.  On days I do not have kettlebells, I feel restless and almost always end up doing something, a walk, or a chore or something.  I am way more productive now.

How would you compare your body and physical health now versus before?

I am beginning to enjoy my body.  I have had fun shopping for smaller sizes and  I really enjoy all of the positive comments from family and co-workers.  I was really fortunate in that I did not have any identified weight related health issues (no health issues).  However, I really feel it was just a matter of time before my body did start suffering from the extra pounds.  I am glad that I was proactive about getting into shape.

How would you describe your overall transformation?

Amazing and motivating. I have come this far and feel and look years younger and better. (What better way to embrace 50!?).  I am about half way to what I thought was an unreachable and unrealistic goal.  Now not only do I think I can do this, I think I can do this this year.

How would you describe your experience with kettlebell training?

Kettlebell training is different from any other program I have ever tried.  I never really did much with weights before.  I always thought it was about aerobics and sweating.  I sweat but it is a different kind of sweat.   One thing I find challenging, but also find to be important for me is all the thinking and concentrating that goes on.   My body and mind is involved in Kettlebell training and I think that is an important link.

What was the most challenging aspect of Kettlebell Training?

Starting kettlebell training is hard because there is a large learning curve before you feel like you are doing anything.  My first few work outs exhausted me because I was so out of shape, but I didn’t not really think of them as work outs.  Sticking with something that is so new, that needs a lot of leanring and instruction is hard once you decide you just want to get on with it.  I am glad I stuck with the learning curve.

What was the easiest aspect of Kettlebell Training? 

The easiest aspect was how quickly I felt like part of a community of people all working for the same outcomes and all focused on the same basic goals.   The community at Fulton Kettlebells is really important and Kelly and Brian are key in making that happen.

What was the most fun and exciting part so far? 

The blast classes, especially the birthday blast classes are the most fun.  The most exciting part was deadlifting 106 pounds and beating all my 13 year old students in plank endurance.   My students were surprised and now when they need to wake up or refocus we will all do planks or push ups together and they really like it.  The me of just six months ago would no way be able to do that.

What’s the next goal you are working towards and how to you plan to tackle it?  

I am about 50 % of the way towards what I originally thought was pie in the sky.  I would like to get out of the obese category and maybe even borrow a t-shirt from one of my daughters.   I plan to keep coming to Fulton Kettlebells, find other ways to get moving with my family and friends and I will definitely continue to food journal and work on making healthy, life-long life style changes.

 

Motivated and inspired? Find out if kettlebell training is right for you by calling for a free consultation 301-200-2223.

 

A ‘SMART’ Goal

Meet Robin. Four month’s ago at her consultation, she wore a lovely form-fitted dress that she had fallen in love with in while visiting California. After losing a a great deal of weight on her own, she looked to the coaches at Fulton Kettlebells to help with shedding the final pounds.

Together, we set a SMART Goal.

SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time Based.

Using this dress and a deadline, we created a plan.

Being new to kettlebell training, she completed the fundamentals and then started training 2-3 times per week at Fulton Kettlebells {Now ForeverStrong}. She also started a food journal and committed to making better decisions about the quality of the food she consumed.

How did she do? See for yourself:

What does Robin have to say about this?

“I can’t say enough good things about training with Brian. He has been able to help me understand how to work out properly ensuring that old injuries do not occur again and encourages me to push myself. He willingly shares his expertise with you to make the sessions fun, challenging, and a learning experience. He is easy to relate to and has a good sense of humor which helps to motivate me.

If you want to be challenged, encouraged, and see results, I highly recommend this place.” -Robin.

 

What’s your SMART goal?

Need help with your success plan? Whether your goals are physical, or performance based, we can help.

We will start by evaluating your movement to assess a baseline of where you are now. Then, based on this, we can create a plan that’s realistic for you. Working with your schedule and preferences, we can create a plan that’s relevant to you. By establishing several  short-term goals within a specific time frame, we can propel you towards your finish line.