5 Tips It’s Time To Get A Personal Trainer
We get it. You don’t need a babysitter at the gym. And yes, you’ve heard of YouTube. But sometimes, an hour with a personal trainer is worth 10 on Google. These are some of those times: You’re on deadline. The sooner you start training for that triathlon, bike race or other athletic event, the better. And before you start specializing, it’s good to build foundational skills, experts say. A few sessions with a fitness coach can get you started with a well-rounded routine to build your strength and endurance, which means you’ll get more out of your training without risk of injury. You’re piggybacking on someone else’s workout. Watching the big kids at the gym seems like a no-brainer, until: … Continue reading
Are You Hindering Your Own Weight Loss?
When we get comments about customers beginning our product, the majority of them say something to the effect of one of two things: “I found you guys when I was researching weight loss products and I’m really excited to try out your program. I’m ready and this is the year!” “Saw your product on line and nothing seems to work for me. Here’s hoping you guys are different.” And while it’s always nice to see people giving us a chance, it’s not hard to see which of these is starting in a more successful state of mind. Our past experiences sometimes have a way of hindering our success in ways we don’t think are apparent. I’m not saying that the … Continue reading
January’s Ship Shape Challenge Winner!
It's our favorite time at IdealShape, time to announce the winner of this month's Ship Shape Challenge! Our fourth competitor for the 7 day cruise for two is Reanna Nix. She has lost an incredible 60 lbs on the program, so without further delay, here's her story in her own words: As a child my mother always taught me to finish all of my dinner. What ever I was given I knew I had to eat. That was the rule and I always obeyed. As I grew older it was set in my brain that I must finish my food. It didn't matter if I was already full. This very quickly lead me to gain weight and a lot of … Continue reading
Is the 4-Minute Workout Legit?
This pocket-sized workout might be deceptively powerful Good-bye long, drawn-out cardio. In just four minutes, experts are saying, you can accomplish double what you have been by spending hours at the gym. Appealing to our shortcut-loving brains, the “burst” movement is catching on quickly. The most popular example is the Tabata Protocol (no, this isn’t a Star Trek reference): also known as the “four minute workout,” it calls for eight bursts of 20-second rigorous activity, separated by 10-second periods of active rest. The rigorous activity can be cardio: full-blast running or cycling, interspersed with walking or slow peddling, for example. Or it can be a circuit of full-body resistance exercises, like burpees, plyometric jumps, lunges, mountain climbers, squats or jumping … Continue reading
Overcoming Our Annoyance with Health Tips
I’ve been searching for some fresh exercise inspiration this week. I’ve trolled Fitness Magazine, Men’s Health, even the SelectHealth quarterly newsletter. Finally today I found it: an article on Yahoo! by Prevention Magazine about getting in sync with the body’s natural energy and eating cycles to lose weight. The daily play-by-play wasn’t my inspiration. It was the comments section. Specifically, 1,372 seriously annoyed people—most of them ticked off with the advice, the rest ticked off at the people who were ticked off. The exasperating advice? Not 4-Hour Body type stuff. It asks for no extreme diet experiments, no gut-busting workouts. In fact, it’s fairly simple guidance: Get up in the morning, squeeze in a burst of cardio, eat breakfast, eat … Continue reading
Thank You To All Our IdealShapers
In December of 2010, I was just getting back to America after a few months teaching English in China. It was a great, albeit difficult, experience but that's another story. When I landed home I knew I had to find a job. I had been asked to look into IdealShape and to be perfectly honest, I was skeptical. Weight loss was not my area of expertise and I had a personal distaste of the entire dieting industry. I looked at their site, which was…rough around the edges to say the least and didn't know if this was the right place for me. However, when I sat down with Dave, Skyler, and Carla they helped me understand their vision. I quickly … Continue reading
Are You Sabotaging Your Spouse’s Diet?
Your better half is committed to eating healthy in the New Year, and you’re behind ’em one hundred percent. Or are you? New research has found that when it comes to nutrition habits, we are who we’re hitched to. Which means that, despite your nagging about his dangerous three-bag-a-day Cheeto addiction/her habitual midnight Taquito fests, you could actually be the culprit. Gulp. The Marriage Diet A diet study published in November offered an inside look at this phenomenon. The research team, led by UC Berkeley’s Mark Pachuki, tracked the eating patterns of some 3,400 people—groups of spouses, friends, brothers and sisters—over a 10 year period. As the decade stretched on, they watched in awe (or neutral scientific observation) as the … Continue reading
Today’s the day! Are you ready?
It's officially the New Year so all those resolutions you've been thinking about start now! If you haven't already sat down and written out your goals for 2012, that would be a great place to start. Setting goals (and writing them down) is one of the best things you can do to ensure that this isn't just another year of false promises to yourself. Ever since I can remember I have believed in the power of setting goals. Writing them down on paper, looking at them daily and visualizing what my life would be like after I achieve that particular goal. The first time I can remember setting a significant goal was when I was 17 years old. My younger … Continue reading
Worst New Year’s Nutrition Advice
You’ve been pigging out for a month straight and now you’re frantically preparing to reverse the damage and start fresh in the New Year. Well in the words of Snoop Dogg: just chill. The National Institutes of Health found that people tend to overestimate the damage done during the holidays. The study showed that most Americans gain only one pound between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. So before you overcompensate with rash diet tricks, it pays to get some perspective. Besides, that’ll buy you time to sort through all the bad diet advice out there. Including these: Bad advice #1: Reverse holiday chowing with a detox Considering a New Year’s cleanse? Fasting might seem to offer a fresh start for … Continue reading
December’s Ship Shape Winner: Mitch McCuistion
Christmas is over and New Year's Resolutions are looming. It's time to get motivated to get in shape, and here at IdealShape, we're happy to help you with some incentives. Like our Ship Shape Challenge where you can get a chance at winning a Caribbean cruise for two! Or maybe you just need some awesome success stories to get yourself motivated. Well Mitch McCuistion is here to give you the low down on his weight loss journey. Congrats Mitch, you win cash and free product and take the 3rd of 12 slots for the IdealShape cruise entry! Remember the deadline for January's ship shape challenge entries are due by the 15th. Keep it up guys, you're all amazing! At the … Continue reading
