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!