Life's Path.....to Las Vegas

Most of you already know that we are moving to Las Vegas on April 1st. It is very exciting for us. I just want to thank all for supporting me in my career change for the last two years and your friendships. Of course we will come to Jackson occaisionally to see family as well. I can always be reached through this website or at dianeclimer@yahoo.com. Look forward to hearing from you! ~Diane

Some Basic Rules (as shared from Truly Huge Fitness Tips)

In order to achieve the maximum benefits and to train effectively
and safely, always observe these principles:

Warm Up & Cool Down:

This cannot be stressed enough. Most workout-related injuries can
be avoided by proper warm-up and cool-down. Your muscles need a 5
to 15 minute warm-up as well as a brief cool-down. This holds true
for all weight training workouts.

Start At The Appropriate Level:

If you begin training at to high a level you risk serious injury.
You will also develop poor form, which will hinder your efforts
and discourage you. Use this as a guideline: If you cannot lift
the weight your working with 10 times with proper form, the weight
is too heavy. Similarly, don't choose too light a weight; the last
2-3 repetitions of your set should be difficult.

Proper Technique:

To get the most out of training and to reduce the chance of injury,
use proper lifting techniques. These include working with your
muscles through their full range of motion (Not locking out any
joints), lifting at a speed at which you can control the weight
and easily stop if necessary, and maintaining good posture.

Exercise Large Muscles First:

You should work your large muscle groups first-your chest, back,
and legs - before you exercise your biceps, triceps and smaller
muscle groups. Because our bodies naturally recruit large muscle
fibers first, these muscles will be the first to fatigue.

Progress Gradually:

Increase reps before increasing resistance. Reduce rest interval
between sets to increase workload.

Breath Correctly:

Do no hold you breath. Exhale at the moment of highest effort.

Challenge Your Muscles:

All training should begin progressively, using increases in weight
until your goals or a plateau are reached. Then, change your workout
to include increased reps with lowered weights at the end of a set,
change the order of exercise, or add sets, etc., to reach new goals.
(workouts should change about every 6-weeks).

Give Your Muscles & Mind A Rest:

You'll get the most out of your training if you give your muscles at
least 48 hours rest between weight training workouts to recover and
rebuild.

Food for thought...and the FDA

Money is really what drives the decisions of the FDA. It's such a shame because who do we trust if we can't trust the FDA? If you have not heard, the FDA feels that meat and milk are safe from CLONED animals. I am very happy to be a vegan, although I know 99% of the population is not, however, in our very near future, I believe more and more people will consider veganism. This problem could hurt our kids more than anything. Since this is the cheaper way, restaurants probably wont need to put this on the menu either. Another reason why you need to be even more careful with going out to eat. America is making it harder and harder for the population to eat clean, pure and healthy foods.

If you click below you can sign a very fast petition to allow the consumers to know if the meat is cloned or not. This will effect everyone. Thank you in advanced for supporting the health of ourselves and children. To read more on this issue check out www.notinmyfood.org.

Copy and paste to the site below to sign the petition.


http://cu.convio.net/labelclonedfood

5 Easy Steps

I truly believe that nutrition is the biggest, by far, component of
a good fat loss program.

There's a saying in the fitness industry, "you can't out-train a
bad diet", and that hold's true almost 100% of the time (and
especially as you get older).

Fortunately, I also believe that good nutrition for fat loss is
very simple. And here are my 5 steps to building a fast fat burning
diet.

1) Find out how much you are eating now. Use fitday.com. (There is no fee to use this!)

2) If you are not losing weight, eat less.

3) Eat fruits, vegetables, nuts, and good protein sources. Don't eat
junk from a bag or a box.

4) Give yourself one treat meal per week to look forward to - not a
treat day, just a treat meal.

5) Plan ahead. Prepare your meals (spend 1-2 hours on the weekend
getting your meals and meal plan ready for the week). Identify
obstacles and come up with solutions to avoid them.

That is it.

Very simple. Most people do pretty well on 1-3 and even 5, but mess
up on number 4. I often hear how well someone did all day long, but
then while making dinner they snack on upwards of 500 calories of
their kid's treats, or other processed carbohydrates they have lying
around the house.

The little things can add up to big time problems. So take a good
long look at everything you eat.

And all of this can be avoided if you follow rule #5.

Combine these five simple nutrition rules with three short workouts
per week of resistance training and interval training, and you have
a very manageable fat loss plan that can fit any busy lifestyle.

Happy New Year

Ok, please forgive me, It's been awhile since an update. I hope your holidays were great. Now that there officially over, its time to get to work. I rarely make resolutions, but rather a wish list of what I would like to accomplish. Keeping your goals small and "doable" is the best way to start. This past year has been awesome for me, working with clients to help them meet their fitness goals. I celebrate a year of being a certified fitness trainer, and look forward to many more. Keeping up with the fitness industry on whats "in" and whats "out" is my passion to share, and I can only be grateful, to have been able to do so.

2007 brought kettlebell training in the limelight, and is my preferred full body functional training. It's amazing how a weight that looks like a bowling ball with a handle can bring so many different variations of training, whether your younger or older, just beginning training, or experienced. It can be done in a small amount of space, in your garage, or in the summer, outside! But, being as versitale as I am, I know it is not for all. Any activity of exercise done in a safe manner is awesome, shoot for 30 minutes of activity every single day, whether its walking or cleaning the house.

Here is a great link to remind you of all at least 25 wonderful benefitsexercise offers. Until next time....Diane

Holiday Fitness

Wow, Vegas was lots of fun, and warm too compared to Michigan. But like the holidays, vacations can be nutritionally challenging as well, but I was fortunate to have a great gym at the Stratasphere to work off the few frozen margueritas I treated myself to. Here are some tips for the holidays for you.....

Fat loss is like running a business or household budget. You haveto control what comes in and what goes out. And as many successful business owners and household managers will tell you, "What gets measured, gets improved".That's why, if you are truly committed to success, you need to take measurements of your body (body fat and tape measures of your arms,legs, hips, and waist) and track those changes over time. Take photos. From the side, from the front, from the back. Hey, nobody has to see them. They can be just for you.


And if you aren't happy with your photos, don't worry, because I have the 3 most important tips for sticking to your fat lossprogram over the holidays...

#1 - Social support you need either a workout partner, a nutrition buddy at work, or helping hands from your family to succeed. If you're trying to go it all alone, then everyone around you will drag you down, whether intentionally or not.That's right, sometimes people purposely sabotage the success of others. So hang-out with people who have similar goals, whether at your gym or online reading this blog.

#2 - Measure your progress with photos, tape measurements of your arms, legs, hips, waist, and thighs, as well as your body fat. If you aren't measuring, you don'tknow where you need to improve. (Ask Diane for this anytime!)

#3 - Record your progressWrite down the progress made in your workouts, recording the sets and reps and weight for each exercise. For your nutrition, record itin a spreadsheet or online like Fitday.com, its free! . And finally, keep track of what works and what doesn't, so you know what to avoid.

Happy Thanksgiving

I don't know about you, but it's hard to believe Thanksgiving is almost here! Let alone, everywhere you go it's Christmas before Thanksgiving is done with. I even bought my first present of the year yesterday. I am heading out for Las Vegas on Friday for a week and I can hardly wait. A little hiking at Red Rock Canyon and also Lake Mead if we have time. We are not big gambler's at all, but still love all the things to do in Las Vegas, not to mention all the sunshine they always have there, mountains, and I could go on. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with family and friends and here is a fun video to keep your holiday munching in check....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjWPclrWVY

I couldn't agree more

I often get asked, What's the best way to burn fat and lose my belly? Do aerobics work better than interval training? Does resistance training help at all? What should I eat to lose stomach fat? All of those are common questions. But here's the truth. Cardio is not the best way to burn fat. In fact, I've met very few people who have successfully used cardio to lose stomach fat. And most of those people were young men, and anything works for them when they want to burn fat. If you want to lose stomach fat fast, you need to increase the intensity of your workout by using both resistance training and interval training to lose stomach fat.

Let's take a look at the perfect workout plan to get you maximum fat burning results in minimum workout time. Here are the keys.

First, start with a circuit of bodyweightexercises to prepare your body for a fat burning workout. This should only take 5 minutes. Follow that up with supersets of resistance training using multi-muscle exercises for maximum metabolism boosting. This works so much for post-exercise calorie burning than slow cardioworkouts. That will lead to more belly fat burning as well. After 15 minutes of resistance training, finish with 15-20 minutesof interval training. Use a warmup, then do a few intervals, and then cool-down. You don't need a lot of intervals to get great fatburning results.With that workout schedule, you'll be in and out of the gym in 45minutes, three times per week.Compare that to what most people do, which is run, jog, cycle or use the cardio machines for 45 minutes straight. Sure, that will burn calories, but it doesn't build a better body.



The best way to lose stomach fat is to use the following three exercise methods.



1) Bodyweight circuit training to warm-up the body

2) Resistance training supersets to boost the metabolism

3) Interval training to burn belly fatPut those three, short exercise methods together into one greatbelly fat burning workout if you want to lose stomach fat



My training revolves around this theory as told by Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS, Turbulence Training. Who wants to spend hours on cardio? Not me. Come see me at Snap Fitness and get started today! See you soon :-)