Creating the Plan for Your Garden

First, you’ll need to decide what foods you will plant and grow in your garden. My suggestion is to create variety; plant vegetables that you like and some that you want to try. Also include herbs and spices; they’ll give your garden a wonderful and fragrant scent. If you team up with some neighbors, each of you can plant different things, then exchange and swap out at harvest time.

Commit to “Workin” it

Plan to work or tend your garden for 30 minutes every day. You’ll reap the benefits by having a bountiful harvest and build some strong muscles in the process. All that weeding, hoeing, picking and watering will strengthen your core, back, arms and shoulder muscles. Not to mention burning some serious calories. For 30 minutes of work, you could burn around 115 calories. You can burn more by either working your garden longer or more strenuously.

Spice Up Your Lunch

One of the best benefits of creating your garden is that you get to eat your results. Use this time to experiment with new recipes. Because you will be taking your lunch regularly, you’ll not only save money, but I bet you’ll lose some excess fat in the process.

Water, Weed and Pick

Make sure you give your garden plenty of water when needed. Conserve water by using a rain barrel to capture rain water and set up a drip irrigation system. Instead of using tonics to get rid of the weeds, pick them yourself. Be careful of your back and all that bending, but you will notice a stronger, flatter core before long. Pick edibles often. Be conscious of when your garden stares to bear fruit. You can prolong your growing season by keeping veggies from getting too large before you pick them.

Can Them for Later

Now that you’ve got all that great food, don’t waste it, can it! With the economy as it is, canning is coming back in style. You can purchase a kit or go on the Internet to search for all the info you need.

Good luck with your new garden and your new body!

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On the show today you will learn how to lose weight BEFORE Thanksgiving and how to keep it off during Eating Season 2011. I’ll share with you 10 tips to help you lose fat during this 30 Days of Fat Loss and 5 tips to help you maintain until the end of the year when everyone is pushing food your way and trying to sabotage your efforts.

Each week you will learn how to be more fit next week. Tune in to listen to tips, tricks and strategies to help you get on and stay on the FitTrak.

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Wellness means feeling good about yourself, confident in what you are doing and comfortable in your space while presenting a healthy air about yourself. Carrying around extra weight can lead you to feel just the opposite of the feelings listed above. Although I have not been able to pinpoint one, inexplicable meaning of wellness, when you hear the word, you get a sense of its meaning and whether or not it fits on you.

Achieving your weight loss goals can help you to move closer to a state of well-being and in turn help you to achieve a great sense of wellness. It’s kind of a catch-all term right now, everyone seems to use it when they are describing their programs but no one, it seems, can really pinpoint a definition.

I suppose that’s because wellness is more of a feeling, a state that you achieve. Losing weight and getting closer to your goal weight and a better level of health helps you to in turn achieve a greater sense of wellness. Some will argue that you can still be healthy and be overweight. My opinion is that you are only healthy until your system begins to rebel against the extra weight you are carrying around, then you begin to realize that something must be done.

Now I know that everyone isn’t a size 3 or even a 6 and no one has a perfect body fat percentage or body mass index. However, I do honestly believe that you can carry too much weight for your system to handle, that’s when problems set in.

I totally agree with self-acceptance and learning to love your body with all its flaws, Lord knows I have my own, but everything and everyone has a limit. My job is not to tell you where your limit is but to help you achieve optimum health and wellness to a point where you are truly comfortable and all your systems are as normal as possible. Since every person is unique, everybody has a different optimum functioning level. So it’s really all experimentation; you and me working together to find out what works for you. I can’t tell you when, but you will know. After all, it’s your body.

In conclusion, losing weight and accomplishing your goal makes you feel empowered because you did what you set out to do. Now you feel like you can do anything. You feel successful. Feeling successful and empowered leads you to do more to help yourself achieve and maintain optimum wellness.

This article is part of Optimum Body Sculpting’s “Wellness, Weight loss and Fitness” series. Check out the other articles in this series:
How to Get Fit and Stay that Way

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We’ve all heard of the ‘Fat Burning Zone’, but what exactly is that?  Exercising in the Fat Burning Zone refers to the concept that if you exercise at a moderate intensity with a lower heart rate and at a slower pace you’ll burn more fat calories. Sounds great … but when it is all said and done it is just Not True! Let me explain why with this example. Two ladies’ both weigh 130 pounds and both are exercising for 30 minutes on a treadmill. The first lady is working at an exercise intensity of 60%, in the 30:00, she will burn 146 calories, half or 76 calories are from fat. The second lady is working at an exercise intensity of 80%, in the 30 minutes she will burn 206 calories, and 82 are from fat! As you can see the second lady burned a little more fat calories, but the total overall calories burned was a much larger number. Remember 1 pound equals 3,500 calories, if you eliminate 3,500 calories either with diet or exercise you will lose 1 pound.  For the average person the bottom line in weight loss is the number of calories burned or eliminated not the source that they come from.

That leaves us with the questions “How hard should I be working out?” And “How do I figure that out?” There are many scientific ways to determine your exercise intensity including; VO2 max and Oxygen Consumption, Age Predicted Maximal Heart Rate or Metabolic Equivalents (METS) but the easiest way is to use the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) Scale. It is a simple 1 to 10 scale; where 1 requires no effort and 10 means you could not possibly do another repetition. The thing I like most about the RPE Scale is that you are listening to your body. Next time you are on the treadmill up the speed each minute until you get to a 9 /10 on the RPE scale then you will know how to judge how hard your exercising by listening to your body. The RPE Scale works for cardio and strength training fitness exercising.

Follow the below RPE guidelines and listen to your body when you workout.  No equipment necessary!

RPE 1-2      Very easy – you can converse w/ no effort
RPE 3         Easy – you can converse w/ almost no effort
RPE 4         Moderately easy – you can converse comfortably
RPE 5         Moderate – conversation requires some effort
RPE 6         Moderately hard – conversation requires a lot of effort
RPE 7         Difficult – conversation is challenging
RPE 8         Very difficult – conversation is very difficult
RPE 9-10    Maximum effort – basically no talking

For the best possible fitness results – forget exercising in the Fat Burning Zone and work as hard as you can!

Be Fit, Be Healthy, Be Happy!  ~ Tanya

Workout for a Fitter, Healthier You, it’s easy @ tanyastroh.com

Tanya Stroh, B.S., NSCA, ACE

Tanya is the founder and creator of Tanya Stroh Training Solutions, an on-line, fitness and personal training website, featuring uniquely, individualized workouts and the proprietary software technology, TS Trax. Tanya’s philosophy has always been that exercise along with a healthy diet & lifestyle produce the best results. Tanya’s clients, ranging in age from 12 to over 70 years old, have successfully improved and achieved their health and fitness goals because of her highly individualized approach to fitness. And now with Tanya Stroh Training Solutions so can YOU!

Tanya has dual national certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and the American Council on Exercise (ACE). She also holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Education/Physical Education from West Chester University.

As a contributing writer, Tanya is the fitness expert for the “Chester County Women’s Journal” and has provided fitness articles to Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong.com. She is a regularly featured fitness guest on the radio show “Mission Nutrition” which airs live and on-line. With her passion for fitness, Tanya has also spoken at numerous charity events including; cruiser weight boxer champion, Steve Cunningham’s Kids Camp.

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Dr. Oz is back in full force for his new season. I usually don’t watch a lot of daytime shows, but when I see something pertaining to weight loss or fitness, I’m all ears and eyes.

Prior to the airing of this episode, Dr. Oz conducted a poll on his website asking women to choose their biggest hurdle to overcome when trying to lose weight. He took the top three hurdles and discussed them on his show. I’m revealing them to you here and adding a little extra advice on top of it.

#3: Eating Out

Food is all around. Eating is one of the hardest parts of your weight loss journey to regulate because it’s a necessity. You really do need to eat. And because of your hectic lifestyle, a lot of the eating is done at restaurants.

Dr. Oz recommends visiting the websites of the restaurants that you plan to patronize and research their menu. That way, you will know exactly what you can order to help you stay on track with your weight loss plan. He also says not to take home a “doggy bag” because you will most likely eat it right away. But I say, go ahead and get a “doggy bag,” just don’t eat it when you get home, save it for lunch the next day.

One more suggestion is to order an appetizer and a salad or a couple veggies and make a meal out of that instead of ordering a regular-sized entrée. In addition, be the first to order, that way you aren’t tempted by what everyone else is ordering and you can relax, knowing that your diet is safe.

#2: Your Busy Schedule

Let’s face it, everyone is busy these days. In fact, if you meet someone that doesn’t have a lot going on in their life, you may think to yourself “What’s really going on with them??” So it’s no surprise that your schedule can get in the way of your weight loss program, if you allow it to.

Dr. Oz says to create an exercise box where you take index cards and write a different exercise on each card and drop them in the box. Each morning you reach into the box and choose one exercise and do it for fifteen minutes. It’s that easy and you can color it done for the day!

I’m going to throw in a little twist, instead of just writing down a single exercise, write “visit optimumbody” and get a whole workout. There are several videos that you can choose from on the site. Each video lasts 30 minutes, so now you’ve actually completed an entire workout for the day. You are well on your way to success!

Finally, the #1 hurdle, Loss of Motivation:

That’s a tough one! You are so motivated and raring to go, in the beginning, but as time goes on and you really start to get into the process, it becomes harder and harder to keep yourself motivated to keep going.

I love Dr. Oz’s solution: Treat it like an event

I always tell my clients to choose an event like a run or walk or some other type of physical event as a goal to work towards to help them stay motivated. But this idea of throwing a big party for yourself to celebrate your accomplishment is ideal! So set the date (12 weeks from now works well) and send out the invitations! Now that you’ve announced your goal celebration to the world, you’ll be less likely to lose steam before you actually reach your goal.

Use these solutions to the three biggest weight loss hurdles to help you make your weight loss journey a success.

Let me know what strategies you use to help you stay on track.

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Week #11 in our 12 Weeks of Fitness Series: It’s All About Your Blood Pressure: High Blood Pressure is a leading risk factor for stroke, but it also is a key factor in several other health conditions. Are you at risk? Maybe you have it and don’t even know it. Find out all about High Blood Pressure, what it is and why you should be concerned on this week’s show.

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