With summer fast approaching, many of us are thinking about losing that extra few pounds around our mid-section and developing a lean, flat stomach. Unfortunately, lower abdominal fat and "love handles" can be two of the most stubborn and exercise-resistant areas from which to lose fat. Here are a few tips from FitSense.com to help you get results.

There is only one way to lose fat in the so-called "stubborn areas", and that is with the correct combination of proper diet, aerobic exercise, abdominal training, and weight training. The first thing you need to realize is that it is impossible to "spot reduce"' fat from one specific part of the body. Fat loss occurs systemically, meaning that you can't control where the fat is lost. When you burn fat for energy, you will draw it from all areas of the body, and the first place you tend to put it on will be the last place it comes off...unfortunately :-(. The best way to burn the layer of flab from your midsection is not necessarily to do more abdominal exercise, but to do more cardiovascular exercise. Because you don't burn significant amounts of fat until glycogen stores are depleted (which takes 10 minutes on average), the key to maximum fat loss is to work out aerobically (this is using the treadmills, bikes, climbers, ellipticals or taking a cardio class) for 30-60 minutes continuously per session. Even if you're doing cardio every day, without a good diet, you still won't see results. Abdominal fat loss is a 50% exercise, 50% nutrition combination. A fat loss diet must be low in calories. Regardless of how much you workout, if the number of calories you take in is greater than the amount you burn, you'll still put on abdominal fat. The final component of your abdominal fat-reducing program is resistance training. It is important to train the entire body--not just your abdominal muscles. Working out with weights will increase your lean body mass, which in turn raises your resting metabolic rate. The faster your metabolism is, the more fat you will burn!

Losing abdominal fat is not easy, but it is simple if you know the formula. The formula for losing the last few pounds of abdominal fat is as follows: " Losing fat takes time, so get started now! Be patient and don't expect to get "ultra lean"' overnight. " Burn the fat off the abdominal muscles with lots of cardiovascular exercise or you won't be able to see them under the excess fat. " Choose biomechanically correct exercises to train the abdominal area, including crunching type exercises, and avoiding hip flexor exercises such as leg raises. " Eat natural, low fat, low sugar, low calorie foods in small servings throughout the day. " Work out with weights; don't just train your abdominals, train your entire body. Training your entire body uses your stabilizing muscles in your mid-section, helping you achieve that flat tummy and increases your resting metabolic rate.

Feel free to ask any member of the Club One Fitness staff for a few creative abdominal exercises to get you started!

According to a recent article in Consumer Reports, two sets of 8-12 repetitions for each muscle group are all that is necessary to see results. Of course, if you are a body builder or a serious athlete, a lot more would be required. In addition, doing strength training for each muscle group twice a week would be ideal. If you are performing your strength training on consecutive days, you will want to switch off on muscle groups, to give each muscle group a day of rest!

With the warmer weather rapidly approaching, now is the time to recommit to toning your body. As you can see, it can be done with very little time and effort, so get started with your strength training today!

According to a new study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, interval training burns fat and improves overall fitness more quickly than constant but moderately intensive physical activity, In the study, subjects burned 36% more fat and increased cardiovascular by 13% when interval training as opposed to continuous moderate exercise.

Does this mean you should abandon you long runs and your bike rides? I don't think so. But I think was this does tell us is that too many of us myself included tend to stick to a single format when we train. This study underscore that you cannot say enough, even to experienced, seasoned exercisers, that cross training is the best way to get past plateaus to take your fitness to a higher level.

If you are like most of us, you are on the go most of the time...taking the kids to soccer practice, making dinner, paying bills, staying on top of things at work, the list goes n and on. As Americans, we are busier than ever and continue to add more stress to our lives on what seems like a daily basis. We all know that exercising regularly is extremely important for improving our health as well as for shedding a few unwanted pounds. So, why do we have such a hard time making time for working out?

A lot of us have the misconception that in order to make any real difference in our current fitness level, you need to devote hours upon hours to the gym. And who has time for that? But if you exercise smart, this is simply not true. If the busiest people can find time for fitness, so can you! The key to fitting fitness into your life is to make it convenient and practical for your schedule!

What do you spend 30 minutes doing each day? Watching your favorite television show (and this is usually more like 60 minutes or more)? Reading the paper and having a cup of coffee? Running errands? So, why not 30 minutes a day, three days a week working out? That is less than 1% of your week. (I exaggerate because of the driving time to and from the gym. But you get the idea.)

In fact, some of these things can be done while working out or in conjunction with your workouts. Let's take a look...watching your favorite television show. Why not watch your favorite television show while exercising. Some health clubs now have integrated television screens in their cardiovascular equipment (things like bikes, treadmills, etc). So, instead of munching on your favorite snack food and taking in 300 calories while watching American Idol, why not burn 300 calories while watching American Idol and walking on a treadmill? Similarly, you can bring the paper and your coffee to your gym and hop on the elliptical trainer while you read and burn off those same 300 calories. Devote just 5 of those 30 minutes to lifting weights, and you are going to change fan to muscle, allowing you to burn more calories all day long as you sit behind your desk.

Working out, whether it is cardiovascular or strength training, 30 minutes a day, three days a week can significantly improve your overall health. Cardiovascular exercise: running, biking, swimming, playing basketball, etc. decreases your chances of having a heart attack or stroke, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, while also maintaining or decreasing your weight. Strength training improves bone density, muscular strength, and as discussed above, allows you to burn more calories while you are not working out. Strength training also decreases your chances of developing diseases like osteoporosis, a disease commonly found in women as we age, that leads to weak bones.

If you are a typical Severna Park resident, you made a New Year's resolution a couple months ago to lose weight or in some way improve your health...maybe it was to quit smoking or lower your cholesterol, regardless, now is a time to check in with your self to see how you are doing. If you have fallen off the bandwagon, or not quite gotten on the bandwagon, now is the time to do so...and start with scheduling in 30 minutes! Give it a try. All you have to lose is the old body you want to replace!

We have all heard that you should try to eat a diet high in low fat protein, low in carbohydrates. But recent studies have shown that people who derive most of their protein from vegetable protein have lower blood pressure. Good sources of vegetable protein are broccoli, beans, and brown rice, and nuts. All of these can be easily added to your diet and take little preparation.

Don't forget to fill out a member survey on your next visit to Club One Fitness. We want to know what you think about a variety of topics!

Happy President's Day!

So like most of us, you watched the Super Bowl, ate some tortilla chips, some dip, some brownies, and forgot all about your New Year's Goals for healthy eating. Alas, don't despair, research shows that most people fall off their New Year's horse way before Super Bowl Sunday. So, use today to revisit those goals and evaluate how well you have done so far (wings and beer of yesterday aside). What do you need to improve on? What have you done well? And, most importantly, how can you rework your life so that you can reach all your goals? Is working out first thing in the morning just not happening because you are always late? Do you after work-workouts get replaced by Happy Hour? Are you keeping to your diet goals?

And, are there any new goals you would like to set? January 1st isn't the only day to design a new you. I had a member today ask me to help her come up with a plan so that she could lose weight and train for a 5k run in May. And, as always, I was happy to help and so is the entire staff at Club One Fitness! So get back on your horse!

Happy Monday!

Since it's only January 4th, I'll continue on yesterday's theme....new you for 2008. If you have made resolutions for change in 2008, you are not alone! According to a survey of 1000 adults, here's rundown of resolutions:

1st place: Weight Loss

2nd place: Working Out more

3rd place: (tie) Quit Smoking; Become More Fiscally Responsible

4th place: (tie) New Job; Eat Healthy

According to the same survey, only one in four are successful in achieving their resolutions. Researchers stated that the main reason that people do not achieve their resolutions is that they do not have a plan nor do they take the time to prepare for change. So, as discussed yesterday, I recommend writing down your goals and coming up with a plan. If your plan is weight loss, you will need a plan for eating and for working out. What are you going eat? How are you going to change your eating habits? What habits do you have that are good/bad? When are you going to the gym? What will your workout regimen be? I recommend making a log of your visits to Club One Fitness. Some people even benefit from having a detailed log: miles run, resistance training done, classes taken, stretching accomplished, etc. I think it helps to see your accomplishments on paper (as well as your failures) to keep you motivated.

Next time you're at Club One Fitness, feel free to ask me to help you design one of these logs. I'll be happy to help.

Have a great weekend and keep warm!

If you are like most of us, every year you set goals or make promises to yourself that this year you will change. This list usually includes such things as a clean, organized, house, going to church, and of course, exercising regularly to change the way you look and feel. Most of us set these goals and what happens? We fail. How can you make this year different? First, stop feeling guilty about the past. What's done is done and you have to move forward toward trying to be who you want to be now. Today. Excluding those people whose livelihoods hinge on being fit or you are obsessive about fitness to the point of approaching clinically insane, the rest of us are going to ebb and flow with our workout routines. I have spent most of my adult life in the fitness industry and my level of fitness rises and falls many times of the course of the year. The solution is to accept that you will have highs and lows and try to maximize the highs and minimize the lows. For all you hear and read about how to stick with an exercise plan, this really sums it up. Another thing you hear about is setting goals. Why doesn't it work? Because goals have to be specific and concrete you have to have a monitoring process of keeping on track with your goals. Simply reading them over every day before you go to work is a huge step in the right direction in terms of monitoring your goals because if you write something down and stick it in a drawer, it is unlikely to resonate with you for long. All of this assumes that you have to write down your goals or resolutions. There is something about the act of writing things down that solidifies the goal and makes it more real. You are also able to then visualize the goal anytime you look at your list. You should include both long-term, or larger, goals as well as short-term, or more attainable goals on your list. Next, breakdown your long-term goals into several short-term goals. For example, if you want to lose 50 pounds in 2008, set your short-term goals of losing 5 pounds each month. Next, prioritize your goals. If you have a long list of goals, you will need to put them in some type of order of importance. Look at your list of goals frequently, at least once a day. This will keep you focused on your goals. You will then be able to cross off the goals reached, and we all know how much fun it is to scratch something off of a list! This process of crossing off accomplished goals will allow you to see your progress and provide you with reinforcement...something we all need. Lastly, looking at your goals regularly will lead to reevaluating your goals. If your initial goal was to workout twice a week, after meeting this goal for 8 weeks, you may decide to now workout three times a week since twice a week had become an easily attainable goal. If you follow these easy steps with goal setting, you are sure to be more successful this year than in previous years. So, with the start of 2008 here, I wish you great success with your personal, professional and of course, fitness related goals! Make 2008 your year...and get started today! Don't procrastinate on changing your life...there is no day like today!

There are 35 days left in 2007! How are you doing with your fitness goals for 2007? Regardless of how you did this year as a whole, now is the time to finish with a bang. What better time to kick it up a notch than during the holiday season? Studies show that the average person gains at least 2 pounds during the holidays, and some even more. Is that how you want to end the year? Well, by recommitting yourself to your workouts at Club One Fitness, you can avert the weight gain and be in tip top shape for 2008. Whenever I am bored with my workouts, I try something new or go back to something I haven't done in a while. Our sports conditioning class may be just the ticket. Lauren has a variety of different exercises, from toning, to strength training, to jump rope that make the hour fly by and the calories burn. Rodney's Boxing for Fitness class is also an intense workout for everyone...even those who have never put on a glove.

If you are having trouble coming up with a plan on how to end the year with a bang, please see me or any of the staff and we will help you come up with a fun and effective way to be great for 2008!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and made it into Club One Fitness today to burn off those extra calories! Beware! If you are like me, you have a refrigerator full of leftovers and will continue to eat Thanksgiving dinner through the weekend....but...consider this: a slice of pumpkin pie has 320 calories, 15 grams of fat and 44 grams of carbohydrates. Sweet potato casserole has 2 grams of fat, 317 calories, and 37 grams of carbohydrates. And just when you thought cranberry sauce was a "fruit", there are 417 calories, one gram of fat, and a whopping 107 grams of carbohydrates per one cup serving. So, if you were planning on having several little "leftover meals", you may be consuming much more than you bargained for! Remember, Club One Fitness is open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Hope to see you there!