Why I Train and How I Train

This is going to be a very bloggy blog… if that makes any sense. Sorry for the few days off; it has been a crazier-than-normal past week or so.

As you can see from the picture below, last week, I was “forced” into action when we were taking Noke for her morning walk. A genius couple decided to “tie” their 120+ lb Great Pyrenees to a ~15lb garden table that wasn’t anchored to anything, while they went inside together to get their morning coffee. The dog must’ve planned on greeting Noke, even though we tried to avoid her, and everything went downhill quickly from there. When the table hit the ground, Daisy (the huge white cloud of fur) ran and, thinking that the table was chasing her, wouldn’t stop. The male owner ran outside the coffee shop, freaked out and started chasing her.

Please consider that this is happening on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood (Los Angeles, California) so the chance that Daisy ran into the street and got hit (by a car) was extremely high. They had a 3-5 second head start before Fit gave me that look and told me I had to help. With my torn calf and handful of other injuries (I’ve only been doing PT and rehab exercises the past three months) I chased after Daisy and the table she was pulling down the sidewalk. It took about two seconds to pass her owner and caught up to her a few seconds after she turned onto a side street that leads up to the Hollywood Hills… phew! Unfortunately, the table provided a barrier between us and when I reached to grab her, I fell THROUGH THE TABLE and onto the concrete.

Feb282018

Master of Modification: Adaptive Athlete and CrossFit Sensation Lindsay Hilton

This is a guest post from Carole Klein. She is the manager of social media and content for Unique Fitness Concepts located at their headquarters in Vernon Hills, IL. She has a B.S. in exercise physiology and is a fitness industry expert with more than 20 years of experience as a competitor and personal trainer.

It might be tempting to think that being born without arms or legs would pretty much make it impossible to become a fitness inspiration to the entire world. However, that’s exactly what incredible adaptive athlete Lindsay Hilton has done. Hilton first grabbed people’s attention when a video of her working out went positively viral in 2016. Since then, she’s become a CrossFit sensation and a serious inspiration to people all over the world.

She continues to influence athletes and fitness enthusiasts all over the world as she sets (and accomplishes) new goals, and we personally can’t wait to see what she does next. Here, we’ll take a closer look at Lindsay Hilton and her amazing journey as an athlete. We’ll touch on some of her most noteworthy achievements. We’ll go over a few useful lessons we can all learn by watching Lindsay set the fitness world on fire, as well.

Mar292017

5 Fitness Instagram Accounts You Need to Follow in 2017

It’s time to get fit and fabulous. Being healthy (or hungry) and fit should not only be just a New Year’s Resolution. It should be part of your daily routine. This can be a challenge at times so we all need some motivation to get up and exercise. If you’re among those struggling to stay on top of your fitness routine, then get your dose of fitspiration and motivation from these fitness users on Instagram.

Feb012013

7 Tips for Getting Back on Track with Your Goals

It’s February 1st of the new year. One month since the start of 2013. Where are you at?

Maybe you’re not exactly where you want to be. You’ve set goals, but you haven’t quite followed them all the way through. You’ve started your path, but perhaps you’ve diverged somewhat–say eating 4 treats a week instead of 2. That’s okay. It’s important to not get frustrated and throw up your hands. What’s important is to look back and see when and why you cheat and ditch the goal. Here are a few tips on getting back on track…

English: DeBarra Mayo in workout gear 1987. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1. Evaluate and re-design your goals. Perhaps you weren’t so wise–or realistic–when you set these goals. Maybe you didn’t listen to me when I told you to do your SMART goals. Sometimes when we are trying to help ourselves with truly good intentions (for example, setting goals and resolutions), we shoot ourselves in the foot by being over-ambitious. Now, I am never one to be a dream-killer, I’m in support of getting what you want, but we need to be in the real world when we do them. So take a look at your goals, and decide maybe if it’s too ambitious and you need to take a smaller step first.

2. Be held accountable. I’m not saying you have to tell the whole world what you want to do. But have someone know. And have that someone be a person who can remind you and be your supporter on this mission of yours. You could look into personal training–I know some of my client would not make it to the gym if they didn’t know I was waiting for them. If you don’t want to jump into a trainer, find a gym buddy. It can be a social and a fitness visit–you can go to your gym, or go for runs, or circuit training in the park!

Personal trainer monitoring a client’s movement during fitball / core exercise. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3. Make a date. Whether it be with yourself, your trainer, or your exercise buddy–write it down in your planner, calendar, iPhone, WHATEVER you have. One of the easiest ways to get back on track and into fitness is to creating your workouts (or at least your workout times before the fact). This way you can look at your phone, schedule, whatever and know, “Okay, Wednesday at 3pm is when this workout is planned, and I think it will be focused on cardio and lower body.” Every week, I would plan it in my schedule, when, what, and where I was working out. And then I would send that schedule to my fitness buddies for them to join in.

4. Make it mandatory. Make it a part of your schedule, not something you could do. I always considered it along the same lines of my classes during college (of which I never missed, weird, I know, but for some reason couldn’t make myself do it). And because I would never miss a class…why would I miss a workout? Unless sick, of course. I made it mandatory, just as attending my Existentialism or Human Rights class. It was a part of my schedule. Make it a part of yours.

Schedule (Photo credit: Marco Buonvino)

5. Share a goal. Have a friend with a similar goal or resolution? Why not go at the thing together? This will double your chances of actually succeeding. You will have each other there for guilt and support, and it’s always easier to do something when you are part of a team. I’m sure if you think about it, you know someone who wants the same thing you do–and I’m sure they’d be thrilled by the idea.

6. Track your goals. Didn’t track those goals last month? Let’s start now. Make a sheet of what you want to do every week, every day. And have check mark boxes to track them. You could do this through Excel or Word, or just write it up on a notepad. Don’t just keep it in a notebook, though, stick it up on the wall where you see it every day.

7. Use apps. If you have a smart phone (and even if you don’t), tap into the wealth of helpfulness you can get from tons of fitness apps. Even if you don’t have a smartphone, you can use these apps online, using your computer. Here are a few that I think are great: My Fitness Pal, Fooducate, Nike Training, Map My Run, and GAIN Fitness.

Use these tips and help yourself thrive to succeed with your goals! Comment with any questions and feel free to email hungryandfit@gmail.com for person-specific questions! Cheers!

Jan012013

How to Make New Years Resolutions that Actually Work

We all know the typical story…we make a nice neat pile of resolutions and then a month later, it’s as if we never made them. It’s okay, it happens to many of us. The key isn’t about persistence (though that is certainly helpful), it’s about creating the right goals. Please don’t say, “I want to lose 60 pounds in a month!” Not going to happen without drugs, crash diets, or other very bad things.

Let’s make SMART resolutions: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely! Yes, this is coming from a personal trainer, how could you tell. So let’s say you want to lose 15 pounds. But specifically, how are you going to do it? Specific terms would be…workout every week, add more servings of vegetables and fruit a day, drinking more cups of water a day, and hiring a personal trainer. That is how you will specifically lose that weight. And why do you want to lose that weight? Let’s say to increase daily energy, increase confidence, and decrease hypertension.

Moving onto measurable goals…this is where we provide a number to all those ways we are going to achieve those goals. Let’s add the frequency of workouts…4 times a week, both cardio and strength training. And we will add 3 more servings of fruits and vegetables each day. And finally, we will drink 3 more cups of water a day. Remember, don’t start crazy big, we want to start in baby steps so we can actually achieve them.

Exercise!

Next is attainable…this we have already set forth. Look up, does that seem attainable? Losing 15 pounds? Sure does, because we’ve laid out a plan before us. Then we move onto the relevant step: here we want to ensure that our minor goals and rules make sense with our bigger resolution of losing weight. For example, to stop drinking soda when you already don’t drink soda is not very useful. Instead, think about those weaknesses. Let’s make another limit, only one oreo per week instead of one per day. You still get your fix but it is significantly diminished.

And now, timely! You want to lose 15 pounds in 3 months. That is 5 pounds per month, an extremely attainable goal. So let’s put it all together.

By March 1st, you will lose 15 pounds, by losing 5 pounds a month in order to increase daily energy, confidence, and decrease hypertension. You are going to do this by strength and cardio training 4 times a week, increasing your fruit and vegetable serving intake by 3 a day, adding 3 cups of water a day, and hiring a personal trainer. You are also going to limit yourself to one oreo per week.

So there’s just an example of one resolution. Make a whole list of them! Make sure you know how you are going to achieve them and that there are baby steps for you to follow. You can add more limitations of course, like fast food only twice a month. You can also add more ways you will achieve the goal such as walk the dog twice a day for x amount of miles. And keep track of everything! Weigh yourself, measure your fat percentage, however you would like to.

Happy New Years!

Please feel free to share your own resolutions and how you are going to achieve them! Happy News Years!!

Oct162012

Give Your Body [SPECIFIC] Love

Weird title, right? For me, love has a lot to do with health, especially when it comes to one’s body. And it’s very important to love your body. And a way I do that is giving it great workouts. Why do I say specific love? Let me tell you.

A lot of people who aren’t really into fitness or go to the gym as a chore, typically do total-body workouts. Meaning that they will try to work each part of their body (from back to chest to legs, etc.) in one workout. And if you do that workout properly and hard enough, each and every muscle group will be sore.

So I have a question. What are you going to workout the next day if all body parts are sore?

Which is why I say SPECIFIC! You don’t have to be a meat head, a fitness buff, or even in shape to split workouts up properly. You’ll be amazed at how much more effective each workout will be. Usually spend 45 minutes on a total body? Imagine 45 minutes spent just on your legs. Now there’s some defined calves.

And specific doesn’t necessarily mean one muscle group each workout, it could mean two or even more. Usually, we split our workouts into two muscle groups each. For example, yesterday we did back and biceps. Another day we would do chest and triceps. Another day? Shoulders and forearms. Legs we usually keep by itself because there are several large muscles to work (calves, quads, hamstrings, glutes, etc.) And so on and so forth. I think you’re getting it. If you want, you can even split it into upper body and lower body workout days. But that will only work if you’re only working out 3 or so days of the week.

By the next day, you’re going to be sore in whatever you worked out. And by the second day after, you should be even more sore. But soreness to me equals happiness, because I know that muscle group is getting stronger. I’ll keep using us as an example. So we worked our back and biceps last night (great workout by the way), which are going to be sore today and tomorrow. Thus, tonight we will most likely work out chest and triceps, core, or something else.

There are so many pros to this way of working out and a very slim amount of cons. The specific muscle groups will get stronger by isolating them, they will develop more quickly, gain endurance, and toning. You will not have all body parts feeling sore and tired thus preventing a good workout.

You have the ability to isolate your workouts. Do it! I hope you can now understand how much better it is. AND it also makes it easier to plan out your workouts, thus making it easier for you to actually workout. I find it’s always easier to follow a workout plan (even if I’m feeling meh that day), because it’s written down what I’m going to do. Trust me, just try it.

Tell us which muscle group is your favorite to workout!