That's Fit

You can read every fitness magazine and website out there, you can try this supplement and that weight-loss pill, and you can even go to the gym from time to time. But, are your goals clear? More specifically, do you REALLY know what it is you want in terms of your fitness?

I think the concept of wanting something, as opposed to having or doing something that you'd like, is an interesting one. The phrase generally tends to be tossed about quite carelessly; "I want a new car," "I want to lose 20 pounds, "I want to go on vacation." However, if these things (or the different things that you claim to want) are truly -- absolutely and without question -- what you want, you would have them. And so would I. Want is a very, very strong word, one that requires a great deal of time, effort, and dedication to effectuate. Look, I'm just as guilty as the next person of claiming to want things that I know may never materialize, so please don't think I'm waxing philosophical here from atop an ivory tower. My only reason for mentioning all of this is to make it clear that reading health magazines, taking diet pills, occasionally eating healthy, and going to the gym now and again simply may not be enough to get the body you claim to want. The body you would like to have? Perhaps. But not the one you want.

Here's the situation: You were caught up at work, and then had to drop off your dry cleaning, pick-up junior from baseball practice, make him dinner, bring him to his friend's house before their favorite TV show starts, and now you're finally on your way to the gym ... and it closes in a half an hour.

You rush in, and the gym employee is quick to tell you that they are closing soon, clearly hoping that you'll turn around and leave. But you don't. You change into your workout clothes, but -- oh wait -- you forgot your iPod in the car. Shoot. So, you run back out to your car to get it, only to then realize that you left your keys in the gym. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Back into the gym you go, grab your keys, and then it's outside to your car and grab your iPod (which turns out to be out of battery anyway -- son of a ... !!!). Then, you race back inside the gym, throw your keys in your locker, slam it shut, and then finally make your way over to the machines. Just as your about to step foot on a treadmill, one of the employees gets on the P.A. and announces: "Attention members, the time is now 9:45pm. The gym will be closing in 15 minutes." 15 freakin' minutes!!!

What do you do?

Something occurred to me yesterday while I was at the gym. I wouldn't exactly call what came to me an epiphany, but it still served as somewhat of an awakening. As the sweat cascaded down my face while I completed a set of squats, I noticed that I was only one of a handful of people in the weight room who was actually working out at that very moment.

What were the other 30 or so people doing? Sitting down. It's not that they weren't working out; they were just taking a break in between sets. What's the problem with that?. No problem at all -- it's important to take a short break to allow your muscles to recuperate. However, when the total time you spend taking a break exceeds the amount of time you spend working out, then you have a problem.

Think of it this way: Let's say you go to the gym for an hour. And during that hour, you perform a total of 15 sets (for the sake of discussion, we'll assume that's three sets of five different exercises). Now, if you perform 10 to 12 reps per set, it probably takes about 30 seconds to finish a set. If you do the math, you're looking at a total of about 450 seconds (or about seven and a half minutes) spent actually working out. That means the remaining amount of time in your hour-long workout (about 52 minutes) is spent inactively.

The nutrition facts listed on food labels appear to be pretty straightforward, but then again, so do the directions that come with Ikea furniture. That's why it's important to compare key ingredients when trying to improve your dietary habits.

Here's a breakdown of what some of those line items on nutritional labels mean (as for how to put together that new armorer you just bought, however, I'm afraid you're on your own).

Serving Size: All the nutritional stats are based on this fact. Sometimes a food's serving size is not equal to its total content. Also, if a food contains 30g of carbs, for example, and its serving size per container is two, then eating it in its entirety means you're actually getting double that amount of carbs (60g) because 30g represents how many carbs are in each serving.

Servings Per Container: You may be surprised to find that even small packages oftentimes contain more than one serving.

Total Fat: "Low-fat" foods contain three grams or less per serving.

Have you ever driven across the great plains? It's a beautiful landscape, for sure, but no matter how far you drive, it never seems to change. Mile after mile, all that surrounds you is the same flat prairie, in some cases without as much as a small hill to change the scenery. Well, if you haven't changed your workouts, your results will flatten out just the same, causing you to reach a similar plateau.

Just like you would need to take a different driving route to see new scenery, you have to change your workout in order to continue seeing new results.

While it's not always necessary to make major changes to your workout to bust through a plateau, you must make change of some kind. Otherwise, your body will continue to maintain your current level of fitness but never go much further than that.

The tricky part is, the more experienced a lifter you are, the more dramatic the change you make usually has to be. While altering rep counts, increasing or decreasing the speed of lifts, or reducing rest time in between sets may work for some people, it may not be enough of a change for people who've been pumping iron for several months or years.

Many people work hard to have their bodies ready for beach season. But, once Labor Day rolls past and the colder, baggy-clothes-wearing months arrive, many exercise programs tend to go into hibernation until spring.

This year, however, we're going to make sure that we stay healthy and fit year round. Not only is this better for your health and wellness, but it will make fitting into your bathing suit next summer that much easier. To make this inter-seasonal fitness a possibility, it's going to take a little lot of work. Diet: clean. Stress: less. And -- what we'll focus on here -- exercise: difficult. Alright, we've already wasted enough time. Let's get to that workout, shall we?

Start first with a five-minute warm-up on a treadmill or stationary bike (or just walk around your neighborhood). Once that five minutes is up, it's time to kick things into high gear.

Do two sets of 12 repetitions of squat thrusts, resting 30 seconds in between sets. Once you've finished your 12th rep of your second set, jump right onto a treadmill (or, if you're outdoors, just start running). Run for 90 seconds at a very high speed (almost a sprint), and then slow down to a moderately-paced jog for three minutes. Repeat this process three times and then rest for two minutes.

Tired of being the guy on the beach who gets sand kicked in his face? Years ago, you could have bought the Charles Atlas dynamic tension muscle-building system to help you fight back. These days, adding some muscle to your frame requires far less effort (outside the gym, anyway).

No longer do you have to mail a check or money order, wait six to eight weeks for a package to arrive, only to then realize that your order was accidentally switched with a woman in Appleton, Wisconsin who ordered a new bird feeder (but let me tell you, that lady is jacked now!!)

Instead, there are hundreds of reputable magazines and websites a person can turn to for some weight room guidance. Needless to say, seek out publications and wellness sites that are most applicable to your particular fitness goals. To that end, and since the goal -- insofar as this particular post goes -- is to bulk up, you're already at the right place, my friend. Try the following quick-tips on for size ... literally.

Don't skip breakfast. Fill up on fruit, some whole-grain carbs, protein, and healthy fats. For a quick fix, try mixing a chocolate protein shake with some steel cut oats and a tablespoon of natural peanut butter.

As the saying goes, every fighter has a plan until he gets hit. When it comes to getting fit, that same logic often applies. Many people have he best of intentions, but when the physical effort, time crunch, and tests to their willpower become too much, those intentions sometimes fall flat on the canvas.

That all being said, it is still necessary to have some sort of plan. Whether or not that strategy is sound, well, that's another story. Nevertheless, in almost all cases, eating right and performing regular exercise will benefit you. That much is not in question. What is in question, however, is whether or not your plan is providing you with the maximum results.

Making that determination, however, is seldom ever easy. One of the main reasons for the difficulty is the surfeit of conflicting fitness information that is passed along magazines, peer-reviewed journals, websites, and the locker rooms of gyms and health clubs. When trying to come up with an example, the "working out in the morning before breakfast" debate was first to come to mind.

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Not exactly on the level of "Why are we here?" or even "If a tree falls in the woods ...?" for that matter, but a thought worth pondering nonetheless. But what is so important about a first impression, anyway? Why isn't the second, third, and fiftieth impression just as important? As best as I can tell, they are.

Let's say you run into someone you went to high school with years ago, and no longer are they the brace-faced, out of shape, ratty haired, pimply-faced kid you remember them being. In fact, they look incredible. While it is true that your first impression of them remains, if this hottie is suddenly giving you the time of day, chances are you'll gladly replace your first impression of them for the new one.

OK, with that said, let's pretend for a second that you're the one whose looking to make a new impression. Maybe your high school reunion is coming up and you would love to replace your former classmates' first impression of you with a new one. If a large part of this opinion-changing process involves shaping up your body, these exercises will surely help put the 'press' in the newer (and better) impression you make.

Even with the best of intentions, efforts at becoming healthier are frequently curtailed by injury, unsatisfactory results, plain boredom, or a little something known as fitness burnout. Rushing headlong into a diet and exercise program can be likened to when a halfback who doesn't use his blockers. And, in many cases, the amount of progress made is about the same (not to mention a similar degree of pain). This is why it is sometimes better to ease your way in and take small steps at the start.

Focusing first on exercise, some newbies tend to be overzealous, working out on every single machine in the gym, lifting far more weight than they can handle, and doing cardio at an intensity level that would make an Olympian beg for a break. While there's certainly nothing wrong with pushing yourself, a better approach -- especially when you're just starting out -- is to make incremental steps over time.

August has finally arrived, which means that summertime is reaching its final stretch. Be that as it may, it's still not too late to get lean for those last couple of strolls down the beach. There's very little time to waste, everyone -- let's get rid of those bellies by Labor Day, shall we?

Reduce Caloric Intake. This pretty basic tenet is one that can easily be forgotten. For best results, try cutting about 20 percent of your normal caloric intake. This way, you don't run the risk of catabolizing muscle, too, as restricting your diet to too few calories will do so. If you don't know how many calories you're currently consuming, start checking nutritional labels today. Or, you can visit www.fitday.com for a complete listing of how many calories are in some of your favorite foods. Then, once you've established how many calories you're currently eating, take that number and reduce it by 20 percent.

Come November 4th, 2008, a new President will be elected into office in the United States. This much we know almost with certainty. What is not known, however, is who that person will be. While I would love to wax on about my political beliefs and who I think the next person will be to sit in the Oval Office, I have no interest in causing a war of words -- polemics aren't really our thing here on That's Fit. Things concerning the human body? Yeah, that's more our speed.

To that end, there are very specific physical traits that many of our past Presidents have possessed, some of which may serve as a predictor of who will win the race for the White House. Newsweek recently used this criteria to create a physical feature-by-feature breakdown of how John McCain and Barack Obama may fare come November.

Here's a summary of their findings...

HEIGHT: Four of the last nine elections have been won by the shorter candidate, giving the 5'7" McCain a fighting chance against the 6'3" Obama. However, in most of those cases the height disparity was not significant, whereas in this case McCain is giving up 6 inches to Obama. The last time anyone overcame such a blatant difference in height was in 1852. What's more, we haven't had a shorter-than-average President since the 5'6" Benjamin Harrison. Advantage: Obama

I'm going to be traveling a few times this month for various reasons, so I'm already looking at my schedule to figure out when I might be able to squeeze in my workouts. According to the website of one of the hotels at which I'll be staying, they have a "fully functional fitness facility." Apart from informing me of their apparent obsession with the letter F, this statement tells me very little about the place itself.

"Fully functional" can mean a wide variety of things. And when it comes to fitness centers, it could in one situation mean that it rivals Gold's Gym, while in another it could mean that there's a clunky exercise bike from 1978 and a set of sand weights similar to those that came in the Hulk Hogan Hulkamania Workout Kit I had when I was 10 years old (which also included a jump rope, motivational cassette tape featuring the voice of the Hulkster himself, and -- of course -- a tear-away, kid-sized Hulkamania T-shirt. Thankfully, no pictures remain). If the hotel's definition of "fully functional" is closer to the latter, I can pass on the gym altogether and still get a great body weight workout in my hotel room. However, if the fitness center happens to at least have the very basics (treadmill, weight bench, some free weights), that's more than enough for me to complete the following workout, designed for an on-the-go That's Fit reader by Greenwich, CT-based personal trainer Adrian Garce.

30-minute workout

1. Before beginning, be sure to do a few minutes of simple stretches.

2. Walk on the treadmill for one minute, increasing by one degree of incline every 20 seconds, walking at an average of 3.1 speed.

It's 9:30 in the morning. If you wake up at 7:00 every day, you've now been churning and burning for a solid two and a half hours. Shower: check. Shave: check. Get dressed: check. Eat breakfast: check. Drive to work: check. Log on: check. Begin task number one of 1,000: check. Respond to 25 emails: check. Leave first meeting of the day: check. And that just about brings you to where you are now at 9:30. If you're already feeling like you need a nap, it's clearly for good reason.

What are the chances that your boss will let you curl up under your desk for twenty minutes to catch some Z's? Well, if you happen to work for any of the growing number of companies in the U.S. that are allowing employees to take power naps, your chances are actually quite good.

Newsweek reports that 37 percent of Americans nap during the day, citing a survey by the National Sleep Foundation. What's more, about a third of people surveyed stated that their employer permitted naps, and that more than a quarter said they would sleep at work if they were allowed to. While this may seem counterproductive to improving employee output, it actually offers both employees and employers long-term benefits.

Burning calories doesn't always require a grueling session in the weight room or a hike across a difficult trail. As a matter of fact, even as you sit and read this right now, you're burning calories (albeit, not all too many). The process of burning calories during everyday tasks is known as Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT).

That all being said, this doesn't mean that you can ditch your workout and replace it with bird watching. Well, you can -- I just wouldn't advise it if your goal is to lose weight. It's here that I take some issue with what some so-called fitness experts are suggesting these days. Case in point, I recently came across an article in ... you know what, I'll leave the name of the magazine out of it. Let's just call it the Popular Family Magazine for the sake of discussion. Anyway, in said Popular Family Magazine, an article listed 20 ways to drop some pounds. So far, so good, right? Indeed; that is, until I saw that backyard barbecuing was recommended as a way to burn calories.

Does the concept of NEAT apply here? In all fairness, yes it does. According to FitDay.com, a 135-pound woman burns 86 calories per hour while cooking. However, you're only fooling yourself if you think cooking some burgers and hot dogs constitutes an effective means of weight loss. Plus, let's not forget that the whole point of preparing and cooking food is to eat it. So, after you've burned your measly 43 calories (I've never heard of a hamburger taking an hour to cook, so I've cut it down to calories burned in a half hour) calories while grilling, you then negate them entirely by consuming about 420 calories with the burger or about 300 calories with the hot dog.