If I'd known I was going to live so long, I'd have taken better care of myself.

Leon Eldred
Long Beach Personal Training for weight loss

This is not a one size fits all weight loss plan.  You will be individually assessed and a program will be designed  and progressed just for you. 

Benefits

  • Boost your metabolism.
  • Increase energy.
  • Manage your weight. 
  • Improve strength, athleticism and cardiovascular fitness

What to Expect

  • Fully integrated functional, weight training and conditioning program. (programs include core, balance, flexibility, and strength training using a mixture of traditional resistance, Pilates, Plyometrics, and Interval Training methods.
  • Review of current diet and design a plan that works for you based on your likes and dislikes-including shopping lists items from Trader Joes and acceptable fast food options for when your on the go. 
  • Unlimited phone, text, or email correspondence for you to ask questions and check in.
  • Travel workout programs-I will send you on your trips with a plan!

Scheduling Options
    2 - 5 days per week

    30 - 60 minutes a day


Overview

Losing weight effectively means that you aren't going to try rapid weight loss methods, such as crash or starvation diets. To lose weight and keep the weight off, you have to make changes that you're able to live with for the rest of your life. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), you should aim to lose no more than 1 to 2 lbs. per week. Anything more dramatic is considered dangerous unless you are being monitored by a doctor.

Step 1

Track your daily food intake. Write down everything you put in your mouth. Use an online application like LiveSTRONG's Daily Plate to track the number of calories you eat daily. Do this for one week before you try to lose weight so you know how many calories you eat daily. The CDC states that in order to safely lose weight, you should trim 500 to 1,000 calories from your normal calorie intake daily. A popular plan is to cut 500 calories from your food intake and to burn off 500 calories through exercise each day. You should continue keeping track of your caloric intake until you get familiar with your new eating plan.

Step 2

Focus on the food pyramid. You must include foods from all of the food groups. MyPyramid.gov lists the food groups as fruits, vegetables, oils, grains, milk, and protein and beans. By training yourself to eat according to the food pyramid, you will be able to effectively lose weight and keep it off.

Step 3

Rethink your snacking habits. Snacking on high calorie foods will work against your diet program. Instead, choose healthy snacks, such as low-fat yogurt or a 100-calorie pack of snack food.

Step 4

Set a schedule for eating. Ideally, you should eat small meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism up. When you're hungry, your metabolism slows down because food is its fuel. When you are planning your schedule, you should also plan the foods you will eat for each meal or snack. Use a checklist to ensure that you are following the food pyramid number of servings for each food type.

Step 5

Drink water and low-calorie beverages. Soft drinks and drinks with a lot of sugar contain a considerable number of calories that can easily sabotage your diet plan.

Step 6

Exercise on most days of the week. The Weight-control Information Network recommends doing 30 minutes of moderate to intense exercise daily. This can include strength training such as lifting weights; aerobic activity, such as walking or swimming; or a combination of strength training and aerobic activity. This exercise can be split up into multiple sessions per day if necessary.
Did you know that:
  • The Chinese eat almost 300 more calories than we do per day, yet are much less obese.
  • The Chinese eat 6-24% of their calories from fat while Americans consume 30-46%
  • The Chinese eat almost no dairy products, and low levels of calcium rich foods, yet get less osteoporosis than we do in the west.
  • The Chinese eat about 30% less protein than we do and over 3x more starch-are you still counting carbs?
  • The Chinese average intake of fiber is 3x ours!!!

from-The China Project, T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D
Whole Grains and Fiber

Any food made from wheat, rice, oats, corn, or another cereal is a grain product. Bread, pasta, oatmeal and grits are all grain products. There are two main types of grain products: whole grains and refined grains.

Whole grain kernel

Whole grains contain the entire grain – the bran, germ and endosperm. Examples include whole-wheat flour, oatmeal, whole cornmeal, brown rice and bulgur.

Refined grains have been milled (ground into flour or meal) which results in the bran and germ being removed. This process removes much of the B-vitamins, iron and dietary fiber. Some examples of refined grains are wheat flour, enriched bread and white rice.

Most refined grains are enriched, which means that some of the B vitamins and iron are added back after processing. Fiber, however, is not added back to enriched grains. Some examples of enriched grains are wheat flour, enriched bread and white rice.

Whole grains and nothing but the whole grains

Eating whole grains provides important health benefits:

  • Whole grains are generally good sources of dietary fiber; most refined (processed) grains contain little fiber.
  • Dietary fiber from whole grains, as part of an overall healthy diet, helps reduce blood cholesterol levels and may lower risk of heart disease.
  • Fiber-containing foods such as whole grains help provide a feeling of fullness with fewer calories and so may help with weight management.

Grains are also important sources of many nutrients:

  • B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and folate) play a key role in metabolism.
  • Folate (folic acid), one of the B vitamins, helps the body form red blood cells.
  • Iron is used to carry oxygen in the blood.
  • Magnesium is a mineral used in building bones and releasing energy from muscles.
  • Selenium is important for a healthy immune system.

It’s important to include a variety of grains in your eating plan because grains differ in their nutrient content. Whole grains can be a good source of fiber, but refined grains usually are not.

Getting to know whole grain products

Whole grains are consumed in the United States either as a single food (e.g., wild rice, popcorn) or as an ingredient in a multi-ingredient food (e.g., in multi-grain breads).

Nutrition Facts panel highlighting the fiber content

Whole grains cannot be identified by the color of the food. Bread, for example, can be brown because of molasses or other ingredients, not necessarily because it contains whole grains. That’s why it’s important to read the ingredient list on the food label. For many whole-grain products, you will see the words “whole” or “whole grain” before the grain’s name in the ingredient list. The whole grain should be the first ingredient listed.

Choose foods that contain one of the following ingredients first on the label’s ingredient list: whole wheat, graham flour, oatmeal, whole oats, brown rice, wild rice, whole-grain corn, popcorn, whole-grain barley, whole-wheat bulgur and whole rye. These are all whole grains.

When grocery shopping, an easy way to identify whole-grain products is to look for the American Heart Association Whole Grain heart-check mark on food labels.

whole grain heart-check mark

This mark on a food label means that it:

  • Contains 51 percent or more whole grains by weight
  • Plus is low in saturated fat and cholesterol

Dietary Fiber

Dietary fiber is the term for several materials that make up the parts of plants your body can't digest. Fiber is classified as soluble or insoluble.

When eaten regularly as part of a diet low in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol, soluble fiber has been associated with increased diet quality and decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. Soluble or viscous fibers modestly reduce LDL (“bad”) cholesterol beyond levels achieved by a diet low in saturated and trans fats and cholesterol alone. Oats have the highest proportion of soluble fiber of any grain. Foods high in soluble fiber include oat bran, oatmeal, beans, peas, rice bran, barley, citrus fruits, strawberries and apple pulp.

Insoluble fiber has been associated with decreased cardiovascular risk and slower progression of cardiovascular disease in high-risk individuals. Dietary fiber can make you feel full, so you may eat fewer calories. Foods high in insoluble fiber include whole-wheat breads, wheat cereals, wheat bran, rye, rice, barley, most other grains, cabbage, beets, carrots, Brussels sprouts, turnips, cauliflower and apple skin.

Many commercial oat bran and wheat bran products (muffins, chips, waffles) contain very little bran. They also may be high in sodium, total fat and saturated fat. Read labels carefully.

Getting the right amount counts

The number of servings of grains that you need each day depends upon your age, gender and calorie needs. The recommended amount of grains that a particular person should consume daily is expressed in terms of “ounce-equivalents” but is commonly referred to as “ounces” (or servings) of grains.

A person who needs 2,000 calories each day to maintain a healthy body weight could eat 6 to 8 servings of grains (at least half of the servings should be whole-grain foods) and 8 to 10 servings total of vegetables and fruits (about ½ cup counts as a serving).

We recommend obtaining fiber from foods rather than from fiber supplements. Check the Nutrition Facts label on food packages to find foods with a higher amount of fiber. Try to get about 25 grams of fiber each day.

Sizing up whole and enriched-grains

The following count as 1 ounce-equivalent (or 1 serving) of grains:

Whole-grain choices

  • 1 slice whole-grain bread (such as 100% whole-wheat bread)  
    whole grain foods
  • 1 ounce ready-to-eat, whole-grain cereal (about 1 cup wheat flakes)
  • 1⁄2 cup cooked whole-grain cereal, brown rice, or whole-wheat pasta
  • 5 whole-grain crackers
  • 3 cups popped popcorn

Enriched choices

  • 1 slice white bread
  • 1 small white roll
  • 1 ounce ready-to-eat cereal (about 1 cup corn flakes)
  • 1⁄2 cup cooked cereal, white rice, or pasta
  • 9 mini 3-ring pretzels
  • 1 4.5 -inch pancake
  • 1 6-inch flour or corn tortilla


Your training will have you losing inches,burning fat, getting fit, while having fun!  Click to read what others have to say. 
Your workouts will burn a massive number of calories without breaking your body down completely.  This is important so that you can train harder sooner-less down time because of excess soreness.   Any trainer can randomly train you hard and make you sore and miserable the next day.  The trick is to progress the workouts so that you are feeling it the next day but not so sore that you can barely move--your body can not fully recover from that much destruction at once--you must gradually progress so you can physically and mentally recover. 


The gains you will make will keep you excited to get back to the gym.  We also will be constantly changing things up, keeping your body confused and always working hard to keep up-and....your body will keep up, in fact it will love the constant change and confusion and will adapt, growing stronger and more efficient, while staying injury free!

Get in shape and get back to playing like a kid again

Question

High-protein diets: Are they safe?

Are high-protein diets generally considered safe? What do the kidneys do with excess protein?

Answer

from Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D.

High-protein diets are generally well tolerated by healthy adults. But a dramatic increase in protein-rich foods may be dangerous for people with liver or kidney disease because they lack the ability to get rid of the waste products of protein metabolism.

Some protein is essential to human life. Protein is found in your bones, muscles, skin, organs, blood, hormones and enzymes.

Your body can't store excess protein. During digestion and metabolism, protein is broken down into amino acids — the building blocks of protein. Your body uses these amino acids to make enzymes and other proteins. But any "extra" amino acids are stripped of nitrogen. The non-nitrogen parts of amino acids are used for energy or converted into fat, and the remaining nitrogen is eventually excreted by your kidneys and liver. These waste products have been shown to cause kidney injury, and in the presence of liver disease, excess nitrogen can cause further problems. High-protein diets may also increase the risk of kidney stones and osteoporosis. If you have kidney or liver disease or any chronic health condition, talk to your doctor before starting a new diet.

For most healthy people, a short-term high-protein diet generally isn't harmful. However, if followed long term, high-protein diets may limit other healthy foods, such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables. In addition, many high-protein foods — such as meat, milk, cheese and eggs — are also high in fat and cholesterol, which can increase your risk of heart disease, stroke and other health problems. So choose your protein sources wisely. Good choices include fish, beans, lentils and low-fat dairy products.