Fitness Motivator, December 15, 2002 Volume 2, Issue 13

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to it. If you would like to be removed from this mailing list, please see the instructions at the end of this newsletter. Our subscriber list is NOT made available to other companies or individuals. We value every subscriber and respect your privacy. This newsletter is published once a month, usually around the 15th.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Welcome to all our new subscribers, and I extend my appreciation to everyone who forwards this newsletter to friends. One friend telling another is how we grow, and I deeply appreciate your support. If you know anyone who might like it, please forward this newsletter to them or send them this link: http://www.exerciseyourwillpower.com/FitnessMotivator

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As you are know, the holiday season here! Some of you may have given in to temptations and decided to wait until January to get serious about your eating and or fitness programs. Some others are walking the straight and narrow and, in the process, denying themselves.

Whatever your plans to get through the holiday season, realize that that you can enjoy the holiday without too much damage if you plan ahead.

If you know you are going to a party or going to a holiday dinner, prepare yourself ahead of time.

And if you should not live up to your well intentioned plan to get through this holiday season without damage, remember that you can plunge into your fitness/health program along with everyone else in January!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Want to Burn Fat?....Build Muscle!
By Shawn C. LeBrun Weight-loss and Fitness Coach

Want a sure-fire way to help your body rid itself of unsightly body fat, better yet, keep it off for good? Learn to accelerate your body's metabolism. One way to do this is by incorporating resistance training (weight-training) into your routine.

Your metabolic rate determines how your body utilizes calories throughout the day for energy. Metabolism is simply the speed in which your body burns through food. It is the conversion of digested nutrients into components for energy or building muscle. Having an accelerated metabolism means that we will burn more calories often because our body will be utilizing and burning off food more often. One way to accelerate our metabolism is by increasing our amount of lean muscle tissue in the body. Muscle helps speed up your metabolism. Since muscle is metabolically active tissue, the more you have the more calories you burn. This is why resistance training is so vital to long-term weight loss. By the way, long-term weight loss is really the only safe and effective way to lose weight. Quick weight loss is not long-term weight loss.

When you add lean muscle tissue to your body composition, you increase the amount of calories your body burns and you also increase your metabolic rate. Muscle requires energy to maintain and it gets that energy from burning calories.

There are studies that suggest that you only expend about 10% of your daily calories through exercise, the rest is expended through your body's metabolic functions. So again, the more lean muscle tissue, the more calories your body will burn for energy throughout the day while going about your daily routine.

Now, the quickest and easiest way to add muscle through resistance training is to perform your resistance training with less repetitions and a little more weight. It would stand to reason that if you could lift 100 pounds 10 times, you could lift more weight than that if you had to do less than 10 times. I incorporate lower reps into my clients workout programs and the results are an increase in lean muscle. Over time, this increase in lean mass will help accelerate fat-loss by dipping into stored body fat as a source of fuel. Losing body fat, remember, simply comes from expending more calories than you consume. Also, progressively strive to lift more weight when the weight you are using becomes too easy. If it's too easy, you will not benefit from it very much.

The combination of resistance training with supportive eating throughout the day will assist your body in adding lean muscle to its frame. This lean muscle will increase the amount of calories you burn off throughout the day. So to lose fat, hit the weights!

ShawnLeBrunFitness.com is an online weight-loss and fitness website that offers online clients a proven system that produces the desired results they strive for. Visit http://www.shawnlebrunfitness.com and get a FREE E-BOOK.

Back to Table Of Contents

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There are many physical, mental, and physiological benefits to regular exercise. One category of benefits is the impact that exercise has on many of your body's hormones. Hormones are chemical messengers within your body that affect almost all aspects of human function:

- Stimulates protein synthesis (muscle tone/development), and strength of bones, tendons, ligaments, and cartilage.

- Decreases use of glucose and increases use of fat as a fuel during exercise. This helps to reduce body fat and to keep blood glucose at a normal level which helps you to exercise for a longer period of time.

Release of growth hormone from the pituitary gland in the brain is increased with increasing aerobic exercise time, especially more intense exercise such as interval training. To receive an article on interval training, send email to: Intervals.

- An endogenous opioid from the pituitary gland that blocks pain, decreases appetite, creates a feeling of euphoria (the exercise high), and reduces tension and anxiety.

Blood levels of endorphins increase up to five times resting levels during longer duration (greater than 30 minutes) aerobic exercise at moderate to intense levels and also during interval training.

Also, after several months of regular exercise, you develop an increased sensitivity to endorphins (a higher high from the same level of endorphins), and endorphins that are produced tend to stay in your blood for a longer period of time. This makes longer duration exercise easier (you're feeling no pain) and it causes your exercise high to last for a longer period of time after exercise.

- An important hormone in both males and females for maintaining muscle tone/volume/strength, increasing basal metabolic rate (metabolism), decreasing body fat, and feeling self-confident. It's produced by the ovaries in females and by the testes in males.

- Females have only about one tenth the amount of testosterone that males do, but even at that level in females it also plays a role in libido and intensity of org*sms. Production of testosterone in females begins to decline as a woman begins to approach menopause and in males it begins to decline in his forties.

Blood levels of testosterone increase with exercise in both males and females beginning about 20 minutes into an exercise session, and blood levels may remain elevated for one to three hours after exercise.

- The most biologically active estrogen, 17 beta estradiol, increases fat breakdown from body fat stores so that it can be used and fuel, increases basal metabolic rate (metabolism), elevates your mood, and increases libido. This hormone is at much higher blood levels in females, but the ovaries begin to produce less of it as a woman begins to approach menopause.

The amount of 17 beta estradiol secreted by the ovaries increases with exercise, and blood levels may remain elevated for one to four hours after exercise.

- A hormone produced by the thyroid gland, Thyroxine riases the metabolic rate ("metabolism") of almost all cells in the body. This increase in "metabolism" helps you to feel more energetic and also causes you to expend more calories, and thus is important in weight loss.

Blood levels of thyroxine increase by about 30% during exercise and remain elevated for several hours afterward - this period of time is increased by an increase in intensity and/or duration of exercise. Regular exercise also increases thyroxine levels at rest.

- A hormone produced primarily by the adrenal medulla that increases the amount of blood the heart pumps and directs blood flow to where it's needed.

- Stimulates breakdown of glycogen (stored carbohydrate) in the active muscles and liver to use as fuel. It also stimulates the breakdown of fat (in stored fat and in active muscles) to use as fuel.

The amount of epinephrine released from the adrenal medulla is proportional to the intensity and duration of exercise.

- An important hormone in regulating (decreasing) blood levels of glucose ("blood sugar") and in directing glucose, fatty acids (fat), and amino acids (protein) into the cells. Insulin secretion by the pancreas is increased in response to a rise in blood sugar and/or amino acids (protein), as is often the case after a meal. Typically, the larger the meal, or the greater the quantity of simple sugars consumed, the larger the insulin response.

An excessive insulin response causes fat production within the cells - thus, insulin is sometimes called the "fat hormone". Many overweight people's cells develop a resistance to insulin so that it takes more insulin to have the same effect. This creates a situation where blood levels of insulin are higher than normal. This condition is often improved by losing weight and daily aerobic exercise.

Blood levels of insulin begin to decrease about 10 minutes into an aerobic exercise session and continue to decrease through about 70 minutes of exercise. Regular exercise also increases a cell's sensitivity to insulin at rest.

- A hormone that is also secreted by the pancreas, but it's job is to raise blood levels of glucose ("blood sugar"). When blood sugar levels get too low, glucagon is secreted and causes stored carbohydrate (glycogen) in the liver to be released into the blood stream to raise blood sugar to a normal level. It also causes the breakdown of fat so that it can be used as fuel.

Glucagon typically begins to be secreted beyond 30 minutes of exercise when blood glucose levels may begin to decrease.

So, next time you're exercising, think about all the wonderful things that are happening to your hormones. It might even make you want to do more exercise!

Author and exercise physiologist, Greg Landry, offers a FREE newsletter, "Healthy Weight Loss for Women", and weight loss success stories at his site...Fitness.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

" The journey is the reward."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Recently, I had the pleasure of seeing my 6-month old niece Rianna in Las Vegas. She has just started eating "real" baby food beyond the formula in her bottle, and I got a kick out of feeding her one of her meals of squash. Okay, so not all of it got in her mouth, but she was pretty cooperative overall.

I was curious as to what else she was eating, and my sister-in-law showed me an assortment of baby food jars containing green beans, carrots, bananas and a variety of other fruits and vegetables.

It was at this moment the following thought hit me. When we come into this world we are "NMP" (a healthy eating style) and then some! We don't start off eating meat, poultry and the various other junk food we become accustomed to later on. The craving for these items is something we learn. And if we can learn it, we can also "unlearn" it. That's what I did when I used my unique Fallback Methods to make the easy, gradual transition to my healthy "NMP" eating style. By the way, I coined the acronym "NMP" for my book "Have Your Cheeseburger And Keep Your Health Too!" to describe my healthy eating style. It stands for "no meat or poultry", but unlike vegetarian diets, includes fish, and its emphasis on converting favorite comfort foods we all grew up on and like to eat out, into more healthful meatless forms.

You can do your children a huge favor by bringing them up "NMP," or at least as "NMP" as possible, and letting them continue with the non-meat/poultry diet they naturally started when they first were introduced to solid food. You can also help the other children in your life--grandchildren and nieces and nephews by teaching them when you have time with them that good food choices are their friends.

There is an epidemic of overweight and obese kids in the United States due to poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle (too much television, video games and computer time). So diseases like Type II diabetes which are supposed to be "adult onset" are starting to show up even in teenagers. Researchers have shown that arteries can begin being clogged by poor diet from the early years of childhood on. It's never too soon to adopt healthy eating habits that can put a child in the best possible position to have a very long and healthy life.

So does this mean that as your kids grow they cannot have all the "traditional" kid fare that all of us love like hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken nuggets? Not at all! There are healthy and delicious non-meat/poultry versions of all of these foods that you can use, and feel good about giving your child. So your kids can definitely "have their cheeseburger and keep their health too!" There's even one company, Yves, that has introduced a line of "lunchable"-type meals that mimic those incredibly unhealthy, heavily-advertised meals that kids are often sent off to school with.

And, just because you're not a kid (at least in numeric age) anymore yourself, it doesn't mean that you can't easily "unlearn" and improve upon your current eating habits. "NMP" eating is designed to allow you to eat healthfully, yet still have all your favorite comfort foods. "NMP" also teaches you to avoid hidden food dangers. It's the unique combination of the two that gives you the best of all possible worlds when it comes to diet and your health. So why not make "NMP" the healthy eating style of choice in your household? It's never too early and it's never too late!

Note: Please check with your pediatrician or other healthcare professionals to determine the best way to incorporate healthy "NMP" eating in your child's diet and it's applicability to his or her particular needs.

Melanie is the author of "Have Your Cheeseburger And Keep Your Health Too!" This Booklocker.com print best seller uniquely shows how healthy eating achieved with favorite comfort foods is deliciously possible! Melanie also publishes a free monthly e-zine called "Have Your Cheeseburger And Keep Your Health Too! Update" (subscribe by e-mail to healthycoach@aweber.com). Visit her web site Healthy Eating Coach's Corner at http://www.healthyeatingcoach.com.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Check out our the facelift that our Exercise Your Willpower website has gotten. If you need more motivation and some group support, feel free to subscribe to the Exercise Your Willpower mailing list. To get more information, visit our website at: http://www.exerciseyourwillpower.com

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*