“Creamy pastas. Cheesy pizzas. Confections galore!

When I turn on the television to watch my favorite show, there are commercials of chocolate fondue waterfalls gliding over fruit, cookies, and pound cake. When I’m out running errands, many storefronts display their freshly baked loaves of bread, and the sharp, creamy aromas of cheese hang in the air as I walk by. (I’m seriously getting hungry as I write this.)

But just as my mouth starts to salivate, the familiar chorus in my head starts:

No, you can’t eat that! You’re too fat.

But it’s the weekend. I’m allowed a little wiggle room.

That’s very unhealthy. If you eat that, your progress will be set back.

If I buy something decadent and eat it, I bully myself the rest of the day. If I don’t buy it, I’m spending the rest of the day thinking about it.

Does this sound like you too? Let’s read on to see how we can have a better relationship with food (and stop all the guilting and shaming).

1. Ending the Shame Game…”

for Beccas full post- https://ignite-incandescence.com/2020/12/16/why-i-have-a-bad-relationship-with-food/

-Becca Benevento

When you first start exercising you want to focus on strength first. Why strength? Becuse everything else from muscle endurance, cardio endurance, flexibility, and body compostion will all follow suit. If you start with cardio you are more likely to injure yourself because the muscles around your joints wont be strong and stable and you wont be able to engage/use your muscles as much, the more you can engage them the better you can do.

If you start with muscle endurance you wont be able to lift enough weight to really engage your muscles like you need to in order to elicit the change you are looking for.

If you start training flexibility first (nothing wrong with stretching as a warm up before your workout) then you can open yourself up to injuries because you can get a false sense of your range of motion (ROM)and control, so when you do start to lift weights you can over stretch your muscles, then leading to a possible muscle tear. Then you will have to relearn you ROM’s all over again.

Body composition change happens from resistance training and proper nutrition with some cardio…. If you start with Strength training that means you will be able to move heavy weight with more control = muscle endurance will be easier since you will move down a little in weight so you can do more reputations and you can move the proper amount of weight (under control) to elicit the change you want = your cardio can be more diversified and your joints will be stronger and more secure.

COVID -19 update : Because of the situation with the virus and the rules and regulations I am not able to be at my on-site massage locations. I will return once I am allowed to. I am currently doing recommendations online for recovery…. I am also doing online training, its a great way to stay healthy during this shutdown. I can work with you in just bodyweight training, minimal equipment or full home gym and we meet “face-to-face” via FaceTime/skype/zoom every week.

This link provides great information about fitness myths for women; five-female-fitness-myths-debunked-by-science https://drjohnrusin.com/five-female-fitness-myths-debunked-by-science/

Thank you Bay Area, CA. This last Wellness tour was the best one yet! Big thanks to everyone that participated with massage bodywork sessions and training sessions. See you later this year.

In short, massage is great for muscle recovery. It healps in the healing process from stress or injuries, warm up for physical activity, cool down from physical activity, and general relaxation. Since massage helps with stress and the recovery process it can help get you back to where you want to be faster and with top performance.

On the media— The media can be vary deceiving. When you see a celebrity that is in shape or one that does a quick transformation you have to remember that them being in that physical condition is a part of their job.

They have a team of people around them to help make them look the way they do. They have a trainer they work with multiple days a week, a professional chef that cooks proper meals for them or they have a meal planning service that delivers food to them that is based around there goals and they could also be working with a nutritionist.

Having proper nutrition is half the battle. Lets not forget they also have the money and time to be able to do it that most of us don’t.

How long until you see change and the process— It can take up to 3 months (the best bet) before seeing a real physical change in yourself if you are new to the fitness world.

The first few months are really building up your CNS (central nervous system) by bridging your mind muscle connection. The best way to think of it is as a long game rather than the short game. You can’t cheat biology.

A lot of people new to fitness don’t realize this and they can get discouraged because they want to see results fast. Most likely because of all “quick fixes” we get through the media and because they see celebrates with fast transformations (discussed in the Media section).  This is a process and this journey is different for everyone.

Tech in the fitness industry— Apps and fitness tech is good for tracking your heart rate during cardio but definitely not for when you do any kind of resistance training. They are great for cardio because your heart rate stays at an elevated level for a sustained period of time. Its not until you stop that your heart rate slows back to normal, and that is all that your gadget tracks and its how it tracks the amount of calories burned, if its accurate of course.

During resistance training your heart rate goes up during your set but goes down during the rest period between sets, so your fitness tech doesn’t take that into consideration. It doesn’t read the physical exertion you are putting your body through during each rep/set, thereby not accurately reading the amount of calories burned and overall benefits of resistance training. If you are new to exercise this can really mess with your head and lead you to not doing what is necessary and changing your exercise program when you should be sticking with it.

Getting abs and a slick midsection— Everyone wants them. A slick midsection is one of the hardest things to attain, they usually show up last when you are doing a program and they are the first to leave when you stop exercising. Getting solid abs and core show up from exercising your whole body, not from doing a million set ups. You will want to build a nice strong core first then go for the six pack. A strong core is functional, a six pack is the aesthetic part of the front ab wall and its only purpose is to flex the spine forward. A strong core will help with lower back injury prevention and help give you power for the rest of your exercises.

In order to get a slick midsection do a combination of proper nutrition, free weights and body weight training, add kettlebells, medicine balls and battle ropes to keep thing fresh. I also cant recommend deadlifts and squats enough. You can do various squat variations if traditional back squats arent your thing.