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| Heavens’ Bistro Fitness Guru Hi, my name is Justen Arranda. I work as a personal trainer and have spent the past eleven years helping people achieve their fitness goals, such as weight loss, improved muscle tone, and flexibility. From my experiences as a personal trainer I have come to believe that ANYONE and EVERYONE can reach their fitness goals. My goal for this monthly column is simple: give you the knowledge and tools to help you become physically fit. I hope to be a resource for you as you look for new ways, even small ones, to live a healthier life. Each month I will write about a different topic related to health and fitness. These topics will come both from my experiences as a personal trainer and from you. This month’s column is about lifestyle choices. Big or small, the choices you make each day help determine whether you meet your overall health and fitness goals. Did you go to the gym today? Did you take a walk? What was for dinner? If you compare the lifestyles of people who have reached their fitness goals to the lifestyles of those who have not, you will find that much of the difference lies in the little choices people make. According to a surgeon general’s report, 57% of Americans are overweight. With fast food restaurants on every corner, this shouldn’t be surprising. It’s easy to make an unhealthy meal choice. Take a look at the number of fast food joints your drive or walk by one day and it is easy to see that the deck is stacked against us. The sad truth is that these companies are after our wallets, while the true cost ends up being our lives. Our power lives in our choice: Did you choose to eat fast food for dinner? If so, what did you eat? Did you super size your selection? These are the little choices that make up your lifestyle, and they make a big difference. Next time you decide to eat fast food, try ordering your burger without cheese. A little choice, right? What’s the harm in a little cheese? It’s only one slice, right? Did you know that one slice of American cheese has 70 calories and 5 grams of fat? At a burger a week, you’re eliminating 52 slices of cheese, or 3640 calories and 260 grams of fat, in one year. That’s over a pound you just lost! Now did you really miss that cheese? |
On average, Americans walk only one and a half miles a week. So try taking the stairs instead of the elevator three days each week. That’s nearly 1 ½ pounds you just lost over the course of a year. Add this to the calories you lost by eliminating the cheese on your burger, and you’re over 2 ½ pounds lighter at the end of 2005. Make a couple of other small changes, like regularly parking at the far end of a parking lot (only during daylight hours, please) and walking to your destination and cooking with non-fat cooking spray instead of butter and you could easily lose over five pounds this year. And the great thing here is that these changes are cumulative: meaning you didn’t just lose five pounds this year- you are removing five pounds of calories EVERY YEAR OF YOUR LIFE! See, the little choices start to add up! Making small changes can have a big impact; bringing what seem like far off dreams of what you want your health, your body , and your like to be like ever so much closer. Combining small lifestyle changes with a moderate, well devised fitness program and these your dreams become goals that then eventually become achievements that you remember fondly as you continue on your path of health. In closing, I hope this gives you food for thought and challenges you to make the little choices that jump-start your healthy lifestyle. Next month my topic will be: Getting started: What you need to do before you begin. I look forward to
talking to all of you soon, and I wish you all the best. |
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