Consumer Education
Weight Loss and "Toning"
 Everybody has fat cells. When a person eats too much their body will store the extra calories within the fat cells. When a person is losing weight the body is drawing from the stored energy in the fat cells. You are never burning fat or getting rid of the fat, it will always be there. One pound of fat in the body is 3,500 calories stored. So, if a person is 20lbs. overweight, that means they have consumed an excess of 70,000 calories! Most people only need around 1,800-2,300 calories per day, so to store 70,000 calories is no small feat. Weight loss and weight gain is simple: calorie intake vs. calorie expenditure. If you use more calories than you eat, you lose weight. If you eat more than you use, you gain weight. The only exceptions are the .5% of people with a genetic or medical condition that affects their metabolism. It is this basic fact that is important to understand, regardless of everyone's claim to have the secret to weight loss. There are hundreds of abs-machines, a variety of equipment pieces, special diets, and supplements that claim to be the answer to your weight loss issues. The truth is, THERE IS NO SECRET TO WEIGHT LOSS. Exercise, food quality, and food quantity are the main things that one needs be concerned about to affect the ratio of intake vs. expenditure. People are looking for the easy way out and the quick fix while wasting a lot of money during the process.
Toning is weight loss. Looking toned is being lean. Being lean is having a low body-fat percentage. Reaching a low body-fat percentage comes from the ratio just mentioned. One can do "toning" workouts all day long, but if they are over eating, there will be little visual difference. There are people who can do every pilates move known to man that are still overweight. There are people who can lift a mid-size sedan and are still overweight. There are people that eat one meal a day and are still overweight. This is all because their ratios are not favorable to losing weight. Another possible situation that often occurs is that people will eat too infrequently, which slows down their metabolism. The body goes into a sort of starvation mode where it tries to conserve energy to protect itself when it is not receiving enough calories and nutrients. Determining your daily calorie requirements and dividing that by the number of meals you eat in a day is a simple strategy to avoid that problem and support your body for exercise. A dietitician and knowledgeable personal trainers should be able to help you in determining your daily calorie requirements.
What should I do for exercise?
Every style of exercise serves a purpose. There is usually more than one way to accomplish the same fitness goal. Most people are looking to get fit, lose weight, and look good. Almost any type of exercise can do that when accompanied by a balanced diet. There are different people who are fit, healthy, and look great who are involved in one or more of the following activities: running, swimming, cycling, weight lifting, dancing, martial arts, boxing, yoga, pilates, basketball, tennis, racket ball, baseball, soccer, football, horseback riding, aerobics classes, and so on. What these people all have in common is that they are extremely active and they have a diet to support their activity level. Any activities that are challenging and safe for your body should be adequate. To promote long lasting physical health, try to choose activities that are balanced and work the whole body. Many activities can lead to imbalance in the body, which will eventually lead to injury. So, depending on the activity you choose, you might want to also incorporate some sort of corrective or preventative exercise program to prevent injury and allow you to keep active for a long time.
 Functional and Core Training
These two terms are often confused. Functional training refers to any type of training that has application in your own life. Core training refers to exercises that incorporate and place demand on the core. The core is defined as the lumbo-pelvic -hip complex. Core musculature consists of the abdominals (transverse/rectus), obliques (internal/external), gluetial complex, and the muscles of the lumbar or lower back. So, for example, if you are balancing on a stability ball while doing a one arm shoulder press, could that be considered functional training? No, not unless you work in a circus. However, that exercise could be considered core training because of the high demand placed on the core for both strength and stability.
A workout consisting of a circuit of machines is neither core training nor functional training. Most machines put you in a supported environment meaning you have a back rest or are seated or both. In addition to being in a supported environment, machines usually will only let you move in a fixed plane of motion. What this does is isolates that particular muscle or muscle group. The problem with isolating muscles or muscle groups is that your body doesn't work in that way. Your body works in an integrated fashion. There is a term called intermuscular coordination. This term refers to the level of coordination between muscles, which is necessary to produce movement. For example, when you pick something up, you are not only using the muscles in your arms. You create a base with your legs, your core holds your spine where it needs to be, and then you can produce force through your arms. If any of those components are missing, movement will not occur and should it occur using less than optimal movement, excess stress will be placed on the body leading to injury sooner or later. So the higher level of intermuscular coordination, the higher the strength output. Your body is like a sports team. The better the team members work together, the more effective and successful they will be. Even the star player needs the support of his team. If everyone does their own thing and there is poor communication you lose. Your core is involved in everything, whether you are aware of it or not. If you neglect the core you are building a house on sand. If you train the core the way it should be trained, you will have a concrete foundation.
The majority of the American population is experiencing chronic or reoccurring back pain of some kind. This is greatly due to the increasingly sedentary lifestyle in this country. We sit in the car to go to work, sit at our desk at work, sit at lunch, back to work, drive home and wow, what a long day, lets sit on the couch and relax. This is the common lifestyle among working Americans. Even among homemakers there is too much inactivity. Sitting and inactivity allows the core musculature to get weak and de-conditioned along with other postural deviations that occur. A weak core will lead to an unstable spine and hip region, which allows for altered posture, which leads to chronic pain and/or acute injury.
Nutritional supplements are everywhere. They come in pills, powders, liquids and various other forms. Sometimes they are already mixed into our foods when buy them at the store. This article is not meant to teach people what supplements they should or should not be taking. What we are trying to urge people to do is to be more cautious and informed before taking supplements that they may be considering. Supplements are relatively unregulated when compared to drugs. Manufactures are allowed to make big claims with little research. It is the responsibility of the consumer to do their own research on supplements and consult a medical professional trained in nutrition (not your best friend, favorite magazine, fitness trainer or kid working at the shop in your local gym).
Supplements vary greatly in what their claimed effects are and their degree of effectiveness.
Is your supplement synthetic/ laboratory made or does it come from a natural food source?
Natural high quality food is most likely the better source of nutrients compared to supplements.
When talking about vitamins, they often times require other components in order to be utilized by the body. Does your supplement have everything you need?
You may have heard that a supplement is good for something, but how do you know your body is lacking it? More of a nutrient is not always good. Certain nutrients can be dangerous in excess and others will pass right through the body.
Supplements manufacturers are not required to list potential side effects.
Many supplements tested by independent laboratories have been found to be contaminated.
By definition nutritional supplements are meant to deliver a nutrient that is missing or lacking in an individual's diet. So logically the first step in deciding if supplements are right for you would be to have your diet evaluated. If you discover that you are eating an imbalanced diet, then balance it. If there are circumstances such as food availability, allergies, etc. a supplement might be considered. If you want to take it a step farther, consult with a medical professional trained in nutrition and find out if you are deficient in anything. Then do your best to research the quality of the supplement including all of its ingredients before making your decision.
Hopefully we have given you enough reasons to be cautious when considering a supplement. When doing your own research look for research conducted by independent laboratories that are not affiliated any company that manufacturers or sells any supplement. No company will publish research that damages their own reputation.
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