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How to Stay Fit Even in Winter

I know it's tough to work out when you have to rise before the sun and bundle up before you head outdoors. What you really want to do — and the last thing you should do — is to hit the snooze button and pull the blankets up over your head. But it's only winter! Don't let it throw you off your game.

Yes, the so-called winter blues produced by short days and cold weather can be very real and very draining, but exercise is one of the best ways to fight those feelings. Stop wasting time mulling over whether you should get up at 5 a.m. Get moving! That means getting your gear ready the night before so you can grab it and go. Remember, no excuses! Once you're outside, you'll be glad you stuck to your plan — and you'll find out pretty quickly that cold air can be just as good as coffee when it comes to getting you moving.

Here are some other tips for getting outdoors when the temperature drops:

• Protect yourself. Dress in layers of soft, breathable fabrics such as bamboo, organic cotton, and merino wool. You'll be able to adjust the layers according to your body heat — remove them as you warm up, and putting them back on as you cool down. Take care to protect your head, hands, and neck with hats, gloves, and scarves, and don't neglect any exposed skin — apply layers of organic SPF face cream and lip balm as needed. 
• Stay hydrated. When your body's working hard to stay hydrated out in the cold, dry air, each exhalation can sap your system a little more. People tend to forget that they can get dehydrated as easily by exercising in cold weather as in hot, so it's extremely important to up your water intake. The same goes for fuel: Even if you aren't out to run a marathon in Antarctica, getting a hearty helping of complex carbs an hour or two before vigorous exercise can make all the difference. 
• Warm up…and stretch and cool down inside, where it's warm. When it comes to the cold weather, it's really important to make sure your muscles aren't stiff, so take the time to warm up slowly to prevent pulling a muscle. 
• Be smart. Listen to your body — and the weather forecast. Bring it indoors if the mercury dips unusually low — freezing temperatures can end up doing more damage than good for even the most ambitious of outdoor enthusiasts. After all, you can always do my circuits or DVDs indoors! 

 Remember — the best way to liven up the dead of winter is to make great use of it. Running, hiking, downhill and cross-country skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, and ice skating are all ideal for getting outside and enjoying winter's beauty.

Change Up Your Routine With Exercise Classes

Haven't found an exercise you absolutely love to do? You've tried them all — ellipticals, recumbent bikes, treadmills, even the dreaded StairMaster — and hated every second of it. Well, you're not alone. But that doesn't mean there isn't an exercise out there just for you. Have you ever considered that you just don't like exercising alone? Often, it's the solitary nature of exercise that turns us off. Sometimes we need a support system to keep us moving. Sound like you? Try joining a group exercise class and find out!

The advantage to exercise classes is that they're a whole lot more fun than sweating it out by yourself. Most group classes add an element of fun to the mix — like hooking you into the latest and hippest dance moves and music. Plus, when you join a group, people will look out for you, which can motivate you and help keep you accountable. Just make sure the class you take involves a minimum of 45 minutes of activity and keeps your heart rate up above 60 percent. Try any of these or other cardiovascular classes at your local fitness center or gym:

• African dance 
• Boot camp 
• Cardio kickboxing 
• CrossFit 
• Hip-hop dance 
• Indoor cycling  
• Mixed martial arts 
• Obstacle or endurance training classes 
• Step aerobics 
• TRX suspension training
•  ZUMBA®

7 Tips for Controlling Your Appetite

If you suffer from constant food cravings, there are some steps you can take to remedy the situation. The first step is to make sure you're eating correctly for your metabolic type. This will help a lot. If you're certain that you are eating as you should for your metabolic type and you still feel hungry all the time, consider these tips to curb your appetite:

Don't skip meals. You should be eating three square meals a day, plus one snack, and spacing your meals throughout the day so that you don't go longer than four hours without eating. This will keep your blood sugar levels and hunger hormones stable.

Drink tons of water. When you feel as if you're starving, pour yourself a huge glass of water or grab a bottle of seltzer — it will help quell the urge to snack.

Sleep! Two hormones, leptin and ghrelin, regulate our appetite, and both are directly affected by how much sleep we get. These hormones work in a kind of "checks and balances" system to control feelings of hunger and fullness. Getting eight hours of shut-eye each night helps the hormones work properly, which in turn will help curb your appetite.

Examine your hunger. The next time you feel hungry between meals, consider the last time you ate. If it was less than three to four hours earlier, your stomach isn't growling, and you're not weak or tired, you're probably emotionally unsatisfied in some way rather than genuinely physically hungry.

Think about what, besides eating, soothes you. Steer yourself toward positive feelings of self-worth and you'll choose activities and behaviors that inherently contradict self-loathing and self-destructiveness.

Don't panic. You can and will lose weight. Even if you're eating a little more than the meal plan calorie allowance, you can still lose — it just might take a little longer. Exercise is also crucial. Working out harder and more often will help burn the extra calories you might take in if you have a bad day.

Do not beat yourself up! Sometimes we slip up, and that's okay — healthy living is not an all-or-nothing proposition. I'm here for you, and I know you can do this. Believe in yourself and try to incorporate my suggestions into your life, and let's see how you do.

The Secret to a Better Butt

The gluteals — your butt muscles — are the largest and strongest muscles in the body. Their function is hip extension, or driving the upper legs backward. I cannot overstate how important it is to make sure these muscles are getting their workout. Activities that engage this muscle group include walking, running, jumping, and climbing. Lunges, leg lifts, and squats are all great for exercising the glutes. Here's the lowdown on some of my favorite squats.

Traditional squat (good if you're a newbie): Stand with your feet hip-width apart, with your weight on your heels. Keep your abs tight and your shoulders squarely over your hips. Sit back and down as if you were going to sit on a bench. Keep your back straight. Then stand up, straightening your legs, and repeat.

Sumo squat (good if you're a little more advanced): Place your feet as wide apart as you can and point your toes outward. Lower your body until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Hold for a beat, then exhale and press back up to the starting position. Repeat. This squat modification places a greater emphasis on the inner and outer thigh muscles.

One-leg squat (good if you're a hard-core exerciser): Stand with your weight balanced on your right leg. Lift your left foot an inch or so off the ground. Keep your head up, and don't lean forward; abs stay tight, and the right heel stays on the ground. Don't let the knee extend over the toe. Slowly lower yourself as far as you can comfortably go. Exhale and stand up straight, still balancing on the right leg. Continue for a full set on the right leg, then switch to the left leg and repeat. This modification requires tremendous balance and allows you to strengthen each leg.

The Hormone You Always Want More Of

Growth hormone (sometimes referred to as HGH, for "human growth hormone") is something we all want more of. It builds muscle, burns fat, helps you resist heart disease, and protects your bones — among many other health benefits. By increasing your muscle mass, growth hormone raises your resting metabolic rate and gives you more power for your workouts. It also helps you tap into your fat stores for fuel and discourages your fat cells from absorbing or holding on to any fat floating around in your bloodstream.

In addition to these amazing feats, growth hormone helps your liver synthesize glucose, and it promotes gluconeogenesis, a really cool process that allows your body to create carbs out of protein. This helps you lose fat faster while providing your brain and other tissues with the energy they need.

As with so many other beneficial hormones, production of growth hormone declines with age, and many things we do speed the decline:

1. We deprive ourselves of good-quality sleep. Growth hormone is released in adults in an average of five pulses throughout the day, the largest of which happens during deep sleep. Shortchange yourself on sleep and you'll shortchange yourself on growth hormone.

2. We eat too many low-quality carbs. Refined carbs, such as those in white bread and white rice, keep our blood sugar and insulin levels high, which suppresses the release of growth hormone. Protein, on the other hand, can facilitate the release of higher levels of growth hormone.

3. We don't exercise enough. When you don't exercise and your muscles become insulin-resistant, you increase your level of circulating insulin, which further suppresses growth hormone. We need to get off our butts and capitalize on this incredibly healthy hormone! One surefire way we can turn our bodies into growth hormone factories is with intense exercise. During intense exercise, and especially during interval training, growth hormone encourages the body to use fat as its fuel instead of glucose. Not only does this help you burn fat while you exercise, but it stabilizes your blood glucose level so that you have the energy to keep exercising.

How to Choose the Right Sweetener

If you've been reading my blog, you may already know how I feel about synthetic sugar substitutes. To put it mildly, I really, really don't like them because they confuse your body and mess up your metabolism. If you find yourself reaching for one of those blue, pink, or yellow packets to sweeten your coffee or tea, I want you to stop and try a natural alternative rather than putting chemicals into your body. Sugar, of course, is natural, but its calories add up.

Sugar is also murder on your dental health — the more you consume, the higher your risk of cavities. That's why I want you to try crystalline xylitol or stevia as a sugar substitute. Both are produced from natural sources rather than being chemically engineered: Stevia is made from the stevia plant, and xylitol is a sugar alcohol derived from the fibers of many fruits and vegetables. Xylitol does have a few calories, but it has less of an effect on insulin levels than sugar does. I prefer the taste of xylitol to stevia, but they're both good choices. Other options like organic maple syrup, Monk fruit, Nectresse, Stevia, and Truvia are good choices as well. The following are okay — but only in moderation: agave syrup, wild organic raw honey, and cane juice. Keep an eye on what you're consuming and limit yourself.

A possible benefit of xylitol is that it may help prevent cavities. In a recent study, researchers at the University of Washington gave teething babies and toddlers xylitol syrup and found that it prevented tooth decay. It's theorized that xylitol inhibits the growth of bacteria that can cause cavities to form, and for this reason the sweetener is used in many toothpastes and gums. Like other sugar alcohols, xylitol may cause mild gastrointestinal trouble if you consume a lot of it, but I've never had this problem.

If you like your coffee or tea unsweetened, more power to you! But if you need that little kick of sweetness, don't put your hormonal health at risk with artificial crap. Also, if you chew gum or use breath mints, be sure to choose products that contain xylitol or stevia (which may be listed as rebiana) rather than nasty artificial sweeteners such as aspartame.

How Much to Exercise Each Day

You may have heard the U.S. Surgeon General's recommendation of at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity each week (and that breaks down to just 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week). What's important to understand is that this is intended for people who want to maintain the most basic level of fitness — but not for people who want to lose weight. But if you want to drop those pounds, you're going to have to be prepared for a bit more work.

I much prefer the World Health Organization's recommendation of 60 minutes at a time as a starting point for my clients — an hour is ideal to get the most out of your workout and see significant results. Your 60-minute workout sessions should always include a 5-minute warm-up, followed by 50 minutes of your primary cardio or strength-training exercises, followed by at least 5 minutes of cooling down and stretching.

Of course, putting in more time will get you more results — but there's a limit. Excessive intense physical activity releases stress hormones, such as cortisol, into the body. This can actually inhibit weight loss, causing your body to react by storing fat and retaining water out of self-protection. So, to reach your goal, I recommend limiting intense exercise to no more than two hours a session.

Is Eating Small Meals the Key to Weight Loss?

Are six small meals really better for your metabolism, than a healthy three-meals-a-day diet?

It's time to get to the bottom of this popular weight-loss myth. The Truth: The exact opposite is true: If you keep eating small amounts of food throughout the day, you’ll never burn any fat.

This myth is an easy one to buy into, because at face value, it seems like it makes sense. By eating frequent, small meals, you’re continuously stimulating your metabolism, and thus burning more calories, right? WRONG. Here’s why:

By grazing around the clock, you’re preventing your body from burning fat. When you’re constantly eating, you’re consistently releasing insulin, which puts your body into its “absorptive phase.” Basically what this means is that the insulin in your body is storing sugar — and not letting other enzymes in your body release sugar to break down fat. The goal is for your body to be in “postabsorptive phase,” where it uses your energy stores for sustenance, and burns more fat.

Grazing can cause you to lose track of your calories consumed. When you have three, well-balanced meals a day, it’s easy to keep count of all of the calories you’re consuming and it’s much easier to nutritionally balance your meals. Conversely, when you have six, small meals — it becomes harder to count and remember how many calories you’ve eaten in a particular day. It also becomes more difficult to ensure that each time you’re eating, you’re consuming the appropriate combination of macronutrients like healthy proteins, fats, and carbs.

You’re left feeling unsatisfied. Studies have shown that many people don’t feel satiated following a small meal, which can then cause them to overeat later, to make up for it. Psychologically, grazing can leave you wanting more because you never sit down to have a full meal. Instead, I want you to eat every four hours — three meals per day with one snack between lunch and dinner. Eating every four hours stabilizes your blood sugar, optimizes insulin production and manages hunger.

The Bottom Line: Three balanced meals, spaced out every four hours — with a snack between lunch and dinner is the ideal meal plan for weight loss. Your body will use your energy stores and burn more fat!

Be Wary of Artificial Sweeteners

To many people, artificial sweeteners seem like the solution for weight loss. You can get the sweetness of sugar in your diet soda without the calories. What could be bad? Well, as it turns out, a lot of things.

As Americans, we are dropping our per capita consumption of regular soda (great!), but the bad news is we are replacing that soda with diet soda. Artificially sweetened food is not the answer to regular sugar. When we eat regular sugar, our body registers the sweetness and comes to understand that very sweet things contain a lot of calories. Studies suggest that when we trick our bodies by using artificial sweeteners, our internal ability to count calories is thrown way off. Researchers at Purdue University found that when rats who'd grown accustomed to consuming artificially sweetened liquids were given sweet foods high in calories, the rats overate. Some research has even linked diet soda to an elevated risk of metabolic syndrome, though the relationship isn't clear.

As a recovering Diet Coke addict who was formerly known to ingest Splenda by the boatload, my advice is simple: Don't use artificial sweeteners. Your whole way of eating should be consuming food the way nature intended, before it got sent to a chem lab and became indecipherable to our biology.

I want you to cut down on regular sugar as much as possible, but it's okay in very small amounts. If you eat too much sugar, it will make you gain weight, but at least it's natural and not completely screwing up your internal calorie counter. I didn't go cold turkey with sweeteners, and you don't have to either — the key is to use natural, nontoxic products. I recommend crystalline xylitol and stevia. The artificial sweeteners I want you to steer clear of are acesulfame-K (Sunett, Sweet One), aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal), saccharin (Sweet'N Low, Sugar Twin), and sucralose (Splenda).

Is It Okay To Skip Meals?

Question: I'm trying to learn to listen to my body and eat only when I am hungry, and sometimes I just don't really want anything to eat. Is it okay to skip meals or to eat fewer than the recommended calories?

Answer: You should NOT skip meals. There are so many adverse effects to skipping meals. Not only does it slow your metabolism but it can also lead to overeating, because when you do eat, you're overly hungry. As for cutting your calories below your recommended allowance, remember this golden rule: Never allow your daily calorie allowance to fall below 1,200 if you are a woman and 1,500 if you are a man. Falling below these daily allowances can do real damage to your metabolism and result in excessive loss of lean muscle tissue. When you dramatically reduce your calories on a consistent basis, it can slow your metabolism or trigger a plateau. Consistent exercise — plus the occasional high-calorie day — will help ward off a plateau. Now, provided you are not going below the 1,200 mark, you CAN drop your daily calories below your usual allowance, but make sure that you are exercising and taking the occasional high-calorie day to help you avoid a plateau.

Do You Know The Right Portion Sizes?

When it comes to losing weight, "calories in/calories out" is the name of the game. Burn more than you consume — it's that simple. But how do you know how many calories you consume in the first place?

Getting an accurate calorie count is easy on days when you can measure all your meals and snacks with the help of a measuring cup and scale. Once you've done all the scooping and weighing, you can get the number by adding up the calories based on your portion sizes. But how do you estimate calories when those tools aren't available?

If you're eating out, here are some useful tips for assessing portion sizes:

• The size of your fist is roughly equal to a 1-cup serving of cereal, wild rice, black beans, and most other grain foods. 
• The size of your thumb is roughly equal to a 1-ounce serving of cheese. 
• The center of your palm of your hand, without fingers, is roughly equal to a 3-ounce serving of fish, chicken, beef, or other meat. 

Easy, right? Give yourself a hand — no pun intended — and start measuring!

The Truth About Cardio Exercise

Oh, you love cardio. I know it. But my program, for the most part, makes straight cardio exercise obsolete. The kind of resistance training I recommend includes cardio intervals and compound movements, which effectively raise your heart rate while burning fat. But as I always say, cardio is weight-loss extra credit — it's a great way to get a workout on days when you're giving your muscles a break from strength training. That's why it's important to get a few cardio basics under your belt, so that you know when to do cardio in relation to your resistance training.

If you plan on doing cardio on the same day as your resistance training, it's better to do it after your weight routine. While it's true that a 5-minute cardio warm-up is necessary before any resistance training, doing intense cardio beforehand will deplete most of your available blood sugar, which you need for those quick bursts of energy that resistance training requires. Also, cardio will fatigue your muscles before you lift a single weight, which will prevent you from maxing out your muscles' potential. On the days when you are resting your muscles and doing cardio alone, the best time of day is absolutely any time. The most important thing is that you do it.

Knowing How Much to Lift

Q: What size dumbbells should I be using — 5-pound, 10-pound? What's a rule of thumb for how much to start with, when to move up, and so on?

A: For weight loss, research has found that lifting between 60 and 80 percent of your 1-rep max (that is, the heaviest amount of weight you can lift for one repetition of an exercise) is the best way to stimulate muscle growth, which is what helps you lose fat. The problem is that most of us don't think about how much weight we need, or go to the trouble of figuring out our 1-rep max for every exercise we do. In fact, I see many gym-goers lifting the same weights week after week — this is just one way to keep your body from changing.

So how do you figure out how much to lift if you don't know your 1-rep max? Here's what I suggest, especially if you're a beginner:

• Choose a weight you can only lift with good form for 12 to 16 reps (which constitutes 1 set). You don't need to go into complete muscle failure, but make sure you're challenging your body. 
• Begin with 1 set of each exercise, slowly working your way up to 2 to 3 sets (adding a set each week). 
• When you've added sets and have a solid foundation (after 6 to 8 weeks), add enough weight so that you can ONLY do 8 to 12 reps. 
• Continue to progress by adding a rep each week until you reach the max reps (no more than 16); then increase your weight again and drop your reps back down to 8 to 12. 

 The important thing to remember when it comes to strength training is that you must give your muscles more weight than they can handle — that's how muscles grow. The challenge of lifting heavier weights is just as much a mental game as a physical one. If you haven't pushed your body's limits in a while, the act of lifting weights alone may be all you can handle. If you're consistent with a basic program and build a solid foundation of strength, you'll be ready for the next step — increasing the amount of weight to push your muscles to their limits. You'll be amazed at the changes in your body!

Make the Portion and Calorie Cut

Americans have completely skewed ideas about portion size. No other country on earth offers portions as enormous as the ones here. Honestly, go anywhere else in the world and order a meal. You'll see the difference.

We're conditioned to believe that more equals better. Just look at the endless marketing of fast food; we're constantly encouraged to eat more in order to take advantage of a "bargain." But what kind of a bargain are you getting if you're eating 100 french fries in one sitting just to save a quarter you wouldn't have spent in the first place? And the reality is that Americans are paying for this illogical thinking with their health and their lives.

Here are a few techniques you can use to keep your portions under control.

• If you're at home, use smaller plates. This creates the illusion of eating a bigger serving. 
• If you're at a restaurant and you know the portions are going to be huge, ask the server to put half your meal in a doggie bag before it even hits the table. This saves you money as well as unnecessary calorie overload. 
• Share an entrée with your dining partner. 
• Make a new rule for yourself: Always leave something on your plate. This reminds you that you are in control of the food, not the other way around. A little bit of empowerment can go a long way!