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What Motivates You to Move?

February 11, 2011 By


In an attempt to better understand what motivates others, during the entire month of January, I randomly asked 100 active people in Ottawa what it was that helped motivate them to get up, get dressed, and get active on tough, lazy or busy days.

Here are the top ten things that came up over and over again:

10. Coffee or espresso before exercise. One women also said that she brings a cup of hot green tea with her to the gym to sip while she’s exercising.

9. A new exercise play list. Music is a powerful motivator and naturally makes people want to move their bodies. Spotting someone dancing on the Stairmaster isn’t so uncommon at most fitness facilities.

8. Photos of younger, thinner days up on the refrigerator. For one woman however, having a photo of her at her heaviest was the motivation to never be that way again.

7. Having sports gear out and ready to put on in the morning or in a prepared gym bag in the car to go directly after work.

6. Having something new, be it new runners, a new treadmill, or a new heart monitor. New gadgets are a temporary motivator and can break the boredom of your usual routine.

5. Feeling fat or bloated. Surprisingly, this was a frequent feeling that motivated people to go that extra mile. Eating too much or doing too little can be motivating enough to make you go hard at it.

4. Keeping a workout journal. Writing it down can keep you accountable for your activity, or lack thereof.

3. Reading about or watching others exercise. Be it in fitness magazines, or watching your partner do pushups on the kitchen floor, monkey see, means monkey do! People get pumped when they see someone else in action.

2. Training with someone. Be it a friend, a personal trainer or exercising in a group, working out with someone else is the #2 thing that motivates most.

1. Seeing results in the mirror. There is no better inspiration than working hard at something and seeing firsthand that it works. Clothes get baggy, people constantly complement how great you look. It’s a powerful thing!

So what motivates you to move? Finding out could mean the difference between achieving your goals…or not. We’d love to hear. Write to us at www.fit-anywhere.com

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10 Fun Ways to Stay Fit Over the Holidays Without the Gym!

December 21, 2010 By

If you think that your only option for maintaining fitness over the holidays is a long boring hour on the treadmill, or mindlessly running through your usual sets at the gym, I challenge you to think differently. Exercising outdoors is an invigorating way to share time with friends and family, while being fit. Here are the top 10 fat-burning, calorie-consuming activities that anyone can do over the holidays.
10) Ice skating – Ice-skating can be an excellent exercise, not only is it good cardio, but it also works the large muscle groups of the legs, butt and core. One hour of ice-skating can burn between 400-700 calories.
9) Tobogganing – Hauling a sled uphill, especially one carrying the load of a rosy cheeked child on it, and gliding effortlessly downhill afterward, creates the perfect rest/effort combination, like that of interval training, without you even realizing just how much you’re working. A good hour of sledding can burn 300- 550 calories.
8) Downhill Skiing – This well known winter sport tones the muscles of your hips, thighs and calves and burns 470 – 800 calories per hour.
7) Snowshoeing – An excellent outdoor cardio, allows you to explore some great untouched winter wonderlands. Take the road less travelled and burn 420-670 calories per hour.
6) Road Hockey – This fun-spirited outdoor game is great to play during family holiday get-togethers no matter what your age or level. A good hour of road hockey is excellent cardiovascular activity and can eat up between 400-800 calories.
5) Cross Country Skiing – The perfect full body workout! You won’t feel a touch of the cold during this activity as cross country skiing has you burning 400-700 calories in a one hour bout.
4) Snow Ball Fights – whether organized into teams with specific battlefield rules or just random snowball tossing, a good snow ball fight will have you running, ducking and throwing hard. Burn between 300-600 calories with this activity.
3) Snowman Making – This light-hearted activity will bring you right back to the days of your youth…and the squatting, rolling and lifting will bring your body right back there as well. This winter pastime burns 200-300 calories.
2) Shovelling the snow – The least fun activity of the list but the most necessary. Snow shovelling works the muscles of the upper and lower back, arms and shoulders, burning between 450 – 1230 calories depending on the size of your walkway and the heaviness of your snowfall.
1) Making Snow Angels –Clearly the most effortless and short lived exercise of the list, yet still an excellent addition to any of the above activities, as all four limbs move in unity, burning 200-250 joyful calories per hour… a smile on your face is guaranteed during this one.
Embrace the winter this year! Break a sweat outside.

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Are you Starving Yourself Fat?

December 7, 2010 By


When it comes to weight loss, eating habits and proper nutrition play an enormous role in your success. You can train hard everyday, but if you’re not fueling yourself properly, it will be impossible to get the results that you’re looking for. What is the number one mistake that the average working person makes with regard to their eating habits? Nope, it’s not one too many happy meals, but rather skipping meals all together.

When it comes to weight management, cutting back your calories is certainly a good remedy for trimming the waistline, but how you eliminate those excess calories is just as important as what you eliminate. Counting calories has never been a practice that I’d condone as a personal trainer. However, being mindful of your body’s daily caloric needs is very important when it comes to having a healthy weight. Your body needs calories in small amounts regularly in order to keep your metabolism up and working to burn the calories that you consume. However, skipping meals, especially breakfast, can greatly affect how your body uses the fuel that you provide it.

Imagine that your body’s metabolism is like that of a campfire. In order to keep the fire burning without going out, you must continuously maintain it with sticks and twigs and small fire logs, keeping the flame hot by regularly adding more good fuel to it. Forgetting to add more wood to the fire would result in a weak flame, or could even put the fire out, leaving you merely with smouldering embers. Once you realize that it’s time to add more fuel to the fire, it could be rather difficult to get a hot flame back. Your tendency might even be to add a rather large log in a desperate attempt to get it going. However, you needn’t be a scout to know that an oversized fire log will take days to burn over embers.

The same principle applies to your metabolism. If you skip a meal, or let yourself go hungry for too long, your “fire” will diminish as well, since it’ll have nothing to sustain it. Once you do decide to eat again, chances are that your body will have placed itself in a starvation mode, slowing the metabolism down, storing up energy in the form of fat. This is the body’s means of survival since it doesn’t know when it will eat again, and therefore conserves whatever fuel it had last. Unfortunately, it conserves it as fat on your body.

What also happens, is that when you skip a meal, you choose to overeat at the next meal, so not only does your body store extra energy as fat as a response to being starved, but overeating at one sitting stretches your stomach so that it will need all that much more to feel full the next time you decide to eat. Your stomach is the size of a fist, keep that in mind when you’ve heaped a mountain of food on your plate.

You can avoid such detrimental eating patterns by eating small meals and snacks every 2-3 hours 4-6 times per day, with a cessation 3 hours before bedtime. After a good grocery shop, take a little time afterward to prepare snacks, cutting up vegetables and fruit, rationing portions of nuts and other snacks so that they are ready when you need them. Never let yourself go hungry! Keep your fire burning with regular, balanced meals and healthy snacks.

If you’d like more information on how to maintain a healthy weight by eating properly and regularly, contact us today.

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Fitness: Simply and Naturally

May 18, 2010 By 0

When it comes to Health and Fitness, Get Back to What’s Simple and Natural!

For many, getting fit and healthy evokes intimidating ideas of lifting weights amongst bulging bodies in a health club, or even radically changing one’s regime to conform to the latest bestselling diet book that’s hitting the stands. However, maintaining your fitness and being ‘in good shape’ really doesn’t have to be so complicated. Despite the booming production of high-tech “fat-burning” equipment, and the massive growth of the dietary supplement industry, your health and wellbeing are still best fostered the old-fashioned way, through an active and balanced lifestyle. When it comes to your health, ignore the hype and stick to common sense practices that you can live by throughout the years to come. Here are a few simple lifestyle staples, easily underestimated and often overlooked, but nevertheless fundamental in the battle to stay fit and healthy.

Eat Fresh and from the Earth
More and more processed and packaged foods such as microwave dinners, chips, cookies, pastas, and desserts are filling the isles at the supermarket. They are even finding their way into the stalls of farmer’s markets. Although tasty, packaged foods can have high amounts of preservatives, sugar and sodium. Unfortunately, they can also have harmful chemicals that seep from the plastic into the food itself during storage. Similarly, certain packaged foods labeled BIO or Organic, aren’t necessarily good for you. Despite their conformity to the bien-etre movement, many of them can be high in sugars, salt, and saturated fat.
Think Simple: Foods that come from the earth are always better than from the factory. Forget counting calories, and enjoy healthy-sized portions of a variety of food that is grown locally and is in season. Choose colourful fruits and vegetables from local farmer’s markets, and avoid the inside aisles of the grocery store. If you must do your shopping at the supermarket, remain near the outside aisles, where the fresh food can be found. Prepare lunches and snacks that travel with you in order to avoid an impulsive unhealthy food purchase, and be wary of food that has a long shelf life.

Get your H2O
Our bodies are made up of over 60% water. The average male needs to 3.7 liters of water everyday and the average female 2.5 liters. Exercise, salty foods, caffeine, and alcohol dehydrate the body. Drinking enough water is essential for maintaining good healthy skin, warding off colds, flu and other winter ailments, as well as maintaining proper organ function.
Think Simple: Try drinking a full 8 oz. glass of water first thing upon waking. It is an excellent way to rejuvenate the body and reactivates your sleeping digestive system. Carry a refillable bottle of water with you and sip it throughout the day at work. Drink 500 ml of water an hour before any physical activity, then another 200 ml 20 minutes before, and then again every 15 minutes during activity.

Get out there and Play.
Our bodies are designed to be mobile. However, the average person does not get enough exercise and spends the majority of their time on this earth in a chair or in their vehicles. Most doctors agree that in order to maintain an appropriate weight and a healthy heart, we need to do a minimum of 20 minutes of exercise 3-5 days per week. But what defines exercise, and how do you know if what you’re doing is effective for your particular body? For some, a 10 km run is child’s play, while for others, vacuuming the living room carpet can be strenuous. So how can you know if you’re fulfilling your body’s exercise needs?
Think Simple: Play a sport, walk with friends, or bike to work, but be sure that you are working at the appropriate intensity for you. To determine if you’re working too hard or not enough, perform a few self-monitoring tests. For starters, monitor your perspiration. The body will sweat at room temperature if it is working. Similarly, you can monitor your breathing. Can you carry on a conversation with someone during activity? With the appropriate intensity, you should be able to chat without gasping for breath. Finally, second to none for assuring that you’re working at the intensity that is best for you, know your Target Heart Rate (THR), there are a few ways to perform this calculation, the simplest one that has been used in the fitness industry for decades is as followed. To find your THR subtract your age from 220 and then multiply your answer by .6 to find the lower end of the range. Then do the calculation again, but multiply by .85 to find the upper end of your TRH.

For example, for a 45 year old male:
220-45=175
175 x .6= 105
175 x .85 = 149
Target Heart Rate: between105 beats per minute to 149 beats per minute

Generally speaking, a 45-year-old male should aim to have his heart beating between 105 and 149 beats per minute during physical activity. A novice exerciser should stick to the lower end of the range, while those more experienced at the upper end. To monitor your HR during exercise, place two fingers on your wrist or neck and count your heartbeats for 15 seconds. Then multiply that number by four. If the number falls within your THR, you are working at an intensity level that is appropriate for you. If it falls below, turn up the intensity and vice versa.

Achieving your optimal health can be simple. Eating fresh and healthy, exercising your heart, as well as strengthening and stretching your muscles regularly are the simple gests that count. You needn’t be a member of an expensive fitness club, restrict your diet, or buy the latest exercise equipment. Sticking to simple and natural exercises that you enjoy, eating fresh, locally grown food, with treats in moderation, and consciously making an effort to commit to a healthy lifestyle over the long term, is your best bet in achieving success that lasts a lifetime.

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Body Acceptance

April 17, 2010 By 0

No body is perfect. Accept your body and weight for what it is, and instead, aim for a healthy goal, such as having better fitness, to become a faster runner, or to be able to touch your toes. Avoid obsessing about imperfections by target training only problem areas. Work at your overall health and fitness and the rest will fall into place. Don’t expect perfection but strive to be you at your very best; healthy and fit.

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