The end of the year is upon us, and I thought, what better way to recap all the great health and fitness related articles covered in the blog this year than by having a bit of a quiz. I invite everyone to take the fitness test and see just how much you know about health and fitness.

Guilt over eating the wrong foods only makes you more likely to keep eating them!

Is It Beneficial To Beat Yourself Up After Eating Junk Foods?

Guilt \ˈgilt\: noun
1 : the fact of having committed a breach of conduct especially violating law and involving a penalty; broadly : guilty conduct
2 a : the state of one who has committed an offense especially consciously b : feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses, sin or from a sense of inadequacy : self-reproach
3 : a feeling of culpability for offenses

Guilt. In many ways food has become the new sin the Western world, one that justifies self torment and lowers self esteem everyday. You have that extra slice of chocolate cake, the glass of wine at the company party or the applepie at the family holiday dinner and in the moment there is no mistake that you do enjoy it. Sometimes rich and fatty foods can be almost sinful for lack of a better word, but you feel absolutelyterrible afterwards, and you really wish that you had not eaten the foods that you had. The guilt for some can be overwhelming, but the question remains, are these feelings of guilt really helpful? The answer is a resounding no! In fact what we know of human behavious is that the more you beat yourself up about eating something that you feel that you shouldn’t have the more likely you are to keep eating it! Interesting cycle, and one that has helped most of us stay locked in a constant and unsuccessful struggle to improve our eating habits.

Understanding Our Patterns Of Food Consumption

The first step to understanding the harm that guilt inflicts upon us when we associate it with food is to understand our patterns with regard to food consumption. Know thy enemy and know thyself and in a thousand battles you will never be in peril. These words written by a Chinese sage thousands of years ago apply just as much to war as it does to behavior modification as it is only through an intimate understanding of ourselves that change can be effected. Most simply make the resolution one day that they will no longer eat unhealthy foods and as valiant as this may be it is almost always unsuccessful. If it were that easy then weight management would not even be an issue and as most can attest this simply isn’t the case.

It Is A Mistake To Believe That Our Slips Are Caused By Lack of Willpower

To change the way we eat requires something far more than a resolution or diet, there must instead be an unrelenting commitment to a very real change in lifestyle. For this to happen we have to divorce ourselves from the destructive perspective that somehow there must be some form of atonement for any failures that occur while we are on the path of change . It is human nature to believe that when a ‘wrong’ is committed, that some form of guilt is required, usually  followed by some form of penance as well. The problem is that when the ‘wrongdoing’ comes from eating something that we believe we shouldn’t nothing positive comes from it and it can be the starting point for lifelong eating disorders as one of our most basic acts as human beings is defiled by what we perceive as a lack of willpower.

Over the course of my career as a personal trainer I have seen so many men and women suffer tremendously from this way of thinking and the sad part is that society itself plays a large part in reinforcing feelings of guilt and failure in those that are struggling to control their weight. When people stray from their perceived perfect eating plan by eating something that falls into the category of forbidden, they tend to fall into a downward spiral of self hatred and disgust. This self inflicted form of  flagellation is followed by a resolve to either exercise more, diet harder or employ some extreme method to compensate for the ‘damage’ done by their indulgence. Sadly this is an all too familiar refrain for most people today.

 
Guilt Has No Place In A Healthy Mind and a Healthy Body

 
Physiologically speaking, there isn’t anything that can be done to compensate for a slip in one’s diet. Nothing at all. What is done is done and any attempts to try to undo the past are wasted exercises in magical thinking.  You eat something and there is nothing that you can do to reverse the fact- the universe does not have a rewind button and so we must simply move on. By wallowing in guilt we only bring ourselves closer to the likelihood of developing an eating disorders or at the very least lose some of our self respect. None of this has anything to do with the intended goal of living better and healthier lives in healthier bodies. Instead the slips must be looked upon as what they are; learning experiences that teach us more about ourselves since every slip holds the information necessary to help avoid their continued reoccurrence. With this attitude in mind, guilt no longer has a place in our relationship with food.

Guilt Makes You More Likely To Keep Eating The Wrong Foods 

If you decide that you are no longer going to eat unhealthy foods, your new attitude only serves to supplement your original behavior where eating unhealthy foods were acceptable. Behavioral psychology reinforces what  many of us have learned through objective observations;. namely that the very habits that we seek to change resurface because they are not fully forgotten. New and old ways of thinking co-exist as opposing impulses that will always be in competition unless steps are taken to disarm undesirable attitudes. Simply put, the more you beat yourself over the head about eating that piece of cheesecake, the more you help yourself recall the image of you eating it and the harder you are making it for yourself to forget about eating cheesecake.

What needs to happen is a gradual shift in eating patterns over time where new foods replace old foods. In time the new foods stay at our primary level of consciousness and the desire for the old ones simply fades away. This leads to a true definition of health; one where we want the foods that are good for us as opposed to avoiding bad foods because we know they are bad for us. Disarming those attitudes requires a fundamental change in perspective, a change that comes only with time and patience. It is only when you are able to enjoy foods that are good for you that you will be able to break the cycle. In the meantime, do your best not to eat the wrong foods, but if you do just keep going and don’t look back! Have a wonderful and guilt free holiday season!

NYC Personal Trainer Kevin Richardson is the most sought after personal trainers in New York City, a lifetime drug free bodybuilding champion and the founder of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise™. His high intensity 10 minute workouts have been helping people get better results in less time for the past 19 years! Get a copy of his free weight loss e-book here!

Most are frustrated by their lack of results on the treadmill- now we know why!

Aerobic Exercise Will Not Help You Lose Weight- High Intensity Workouts Will!

The party line for years has been that aerobic exercise will help you burn fat and increase your overall endurance, while brief high intensity workouts only work the muscles and have no bearing on fat loss or increasing cardiovascular capacity. Since the 1980′s this has been the gospel handed down from so many accedited organizations while real world results have done little to support it. More and more people are doing aerobic type exercise and yet few see truly significant results in the gym, while for almost two decades programs like the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise ™with its 10 minute workouts have helped literally hundreds of people from fitness models, bodybuilders, actors and performers to housewives and business people lose weight and get into cover model shape all while improving their endurance from only high intensity workouts with weights. Research has come a long way in validating what has been my life practice- namely the use of high intensity workouts to help build muscle, reduce fat and improve endurance and it has been a long and hard road over the years, but the success of all those that I have trained over the years in addition to my own success as a lifetime drug free bodybuilder and martial artist has always served as the incontovertible proof that 10 minute workouts do indeed work better than traditional programs. Now we have the science to prove it as well and it is my hope that it helps the general population begin to get real results from their fitness programs as so many fall short and are frustrated by their lack of success following traditional training protocols.- Kevin Richardson, NYC Personal Trainer and founder of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise™.

It’s a common cause of frustration, you go to the gym, sign up for an aerobics class or maybe hit the treadmill for an hour or so, and you feel really great about starting your weight loss program. However after a month of all that hard work and sweat, the results are less than spectacular. You love the way you feel during your workouts but the needle on the scale hasn’t really moved much. Maybe you aren’t doing enough, so you logically increase your efforts. Instead of going to the gym three times a week, now you are now going five days a week, maybe even six- but still to no avail. You are not looking anything like the models in the gym commercials and you can’t figure out for the life of you why it’s not working. Burnt out, over trained and fatigued from all that exercise (and more than a little frustrated), you give up after a few months and the gym membership that you had every intention of using goes to waste. Perhaps your body type is somehow resistant to losing weight, maybe it is just your genes, or maybe there is something wrong with your metabolism? Fortunately, none of these factors are to blame; the reality is simply that aerobic exercise isn’t exactly great for weight loss.

Studies Contradict The Fat Burning Effect Of Aerobics

A study published recently in The British Journal of Sports Medicine was the latest of a series of reputable research to come back with less than stellar results for the effectiveness of aerobic exercise as a weight loss tool. In this study 58 obese individuals went through 12 weeks of supervised steady state aerobic exercise without any change in their diets.  In spite of the exercise regime, the group average weight loss was only around seven pounds or so, with many losing three pounds or less. The author’s conclusion was “From a public health perspective, exercise should be encouraged and the emphasis on weight loss reduced.”1 Not a glowing endorsement for weight loss at all. True there is a calorie burning effect to any form of exercise, aerobics included, but an overwhelming body of research shows, achieve significant weight loss with exercise alone, without a major change in their eating habits- which right there casts doubts on whether aerobics are really needed in the first place. The going theory for many years has been that by doing aerobic exercise, there is an so called after burner effect- namely that your metabolism speeds up as a result for hours afterwards thus helping the body burn more calories. Sounds fantastic, and it helped sell a lot of equipment over the years, but it doesn’t hold water when held up to scientific scrutiny. In a study done at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver, several groups were brought together to measure the fat burning effects of aerobic exercise, ranging from lean endurance athletes to sedentary and obese individuals. For the duration of the study, the subjects would spend 24 hours in a special laboratory configured as a calorimeter, designed to measure exactly how many calories they would burn during the period. Researchers could also tell from using several mathematical formulas whether calories burned were in the form of fat or carbohydrates. Each subject spent 24 hours in the calorimeter without doing anything whatsoever as a base reading and then another 24 hours period that included one hour of riding a stationary bicycle at an easy pace that supposedly makes the body burn fat rather than carbohydrates stored in the muscles. To the astonishment of the researchers, they found that none of the members of the groups, well trainer athletes included, experienced an increase in fat burning on the day that they performed the aerobic exercise. In fact, they found that most had actually burned slightly less fat during the period that they exercised as compared to the 24 hour period that they did nothing. Some other studies point the idea that the after burner effect of increased fat burning after exercise comes from short, high intensity resistance training and not from aerobic exercise.

High Intensity Workouts Compared To Aerobics For Fat Loss

A study of two groups of women conducted at the University of New South Wales in Australia is one of many to come to this conclusion. For this study women were split into two groups, one to perform brief high intensity exercise and one aerobic exercise to determine which type of exercise stimulated the most fat burning effect. After 15 weeks of performing high intensity resistance based workouts three times a week the women in the high intensity group lost an average of 5 ½ pounds of body fat-, which represented an impressive 11.2 percent decrease in their overall body fat percentage, whereas the women in the group that did three aerobic workouts per week for the same 15 week period, actually saw an increase in their overall body fat levels! All that time spent by most gym goers on the treadmill instead of hitting the weights hard and fast is a major factor in why few see significant weight loss today. (While the cry might be that you need aerobics for endurance purposes- the research contradicts this as well- see ‘The Science Behind 10 Minute Workouts)

The Inefficient  Practice Of Aerobics For Weight Loss Might Be The Reason Such Low Calorie Diets Are Used

 This just can’t be, you say to yourself, as there are individuals that slave away doing aerobics and get into great shape all the time- but they all reduce their calories to really low and unhealthy levels to do so. More importantly, they all exhibit a significant lack of energy during the period and are only able to maintain a lower body fat level for a very short period of time before they break down and regain the weight that they originally lost. While this may be common practice, it isn’t healthy, and we know from studies that the yo-yo effect of weight loss and weight gain increases your long term risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Besides, the research points out that the use of aerobics may be the reason why it is so hard for them to lose weight in the first place and why their calorie levels have to go down so low just to lose a few pounds. Aerobics simply are not the best route for weight loss, and while aerobics instructors and StairMaster manufacturers don’t want you to know this, it has been common knowledge for a number of us in the field of drug free bodybuilding.

The Key To Sustainable Low Body Fat Levels Comes From Low Volume High Intensity Workouts From Resistance Training & Proper Diet- Not Aerobics

The author- aerobics free since 1974!

From the very beginning of my career as a natural bodybuilder in Trinidad, all of my coaches strictly forbade me from doing aerobics of any kind. I found it rather odd at the time as all the magazines, books and even the personal trainer manuals advocated the importance of aerobic exercise as a fat burning tool. Yet here I was being told to avoid it like the plague if I really wanted to reduce my body fat levels to 5% or less. Given the number of successful athletes under their tutelage over the years, I heeded their advice, and sure enough I did end up with a body fat percentage under 5% for my first contest, and I have not doubted the soundness of that advice ever since. Over the years, I learned that with the use of brief and high intensity workouts (no more than 10 to 20 minutes of high intensity training three times a week) in addition to a natural based diet, (I call it the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise™) I could maintain a healthy body fat level of 5% and help others do the same. I have never done any form of steady state aerobics as part of my routine, and in eighteen years as personal trainer, I haven’t had any of my clients do it either. Having helped literally hundreds lose tremendous amounts of weight, (read this case study on a member of our 100 lb weight loss club) there must be something to not doing aerobics. Factor in as well the dozens of fitness models and bodybuilders that I am able to get into magazine cover shape using three 10 minute workouts a week and you might give the aerobics machines in your gym a pass.

Related Articles:

Aerobics A Bad Choice For Weight Loss

High Intensity Workouts- Better Results In Less Time From 10 Minute Workouts!

High Intensity Workouts & Endurance

High Intensity Workouts For Weight Loss & Muscle Building

NYC Personal Trainer Kevin Richardson is the most sought after personal trainers in New York City, a lifetime drug free bodybuilding champion and the founder of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise™. His high intensity 10 minute workouts have been helping people get better results in less time for the past 19 years! Get a copy of his free weight loss e-book here!

19th Street Gym Closes Its Doors & Naturally Intense NYC Personal Training Services Moves to Synergy!

19th Street Gym Formerly Better Bodies Closes Its Doors.

It is with great sadness that I announce that the 19th Street Gym, formerly known as Better Bodies is indeed closed and gone for good. As one of the few remaining independently owned gyms in New York City and one of the last hardcore training facilities in Manhattan, its passing is more than a singular sorrow. Naturally Intense NYC Personal Training Services was based out of the 19th Street Gym since January of 2009 and I selected it as my base of operations because of the great equipment, great staff and the high quality of personal trainers working in that establishment.

19th Street Gym Was A Great Spot For Those Serious About Training

With a wide range of truly first class equipment, 19th Street was the place to train for everyone from professional bodybuilders to famous actors and rap stars. Even more importantly, the atmosphere was really one conducive to serious training, an element missing in so many gym chains today. It’s abrupt closing left many feeling somewhat cheated, as the former 19th Street Gym staff were selling two year memberships right up to the day that the gym closed its doors, but to their defense, the first thing that they said to me when I spoke to them was how badly they felt about selling people memberships right before the closing. From what it seems, they were as much in the dark as anyone else as to the precarious financial situation of the 19th Street Gym and were very much concerned with their own reputation being tarnished as a result. My heart goes out to them, and to all the great members of the 19th Street Gym. The people that trained there were a really great mix, and as I mentioned before, the personal trainers that worked out of the gym were very much top notch. Losing a place that you train can often make you feel like you have lost a home, but I have to give it to the folks at Synergy Gym at 138 West 14th Street- they really did show a tremendous amount of hospitality in opening their doors to me and my personal training clients, as well as all the former members of 19th Street Gym.

Many Former 19th Street Gym Members Are Now At Synergy Gym on 14th Street

Synergy is honoring a portion of all memberships at 19th Street Gym, in addition to giving all former 19th Street Gym members the opportunity to come in and try the place out before making any long term commitments. So far most of the personal trainers from 19th Street and their clients have moved over, in addition to many former 19th Street Gym members as well. Synergy Gym is most certainly a top rated facility with an excellent range of equipment and a great atmosphere as well, and it was a huge relief to be able to find an independent gym with those qualities so close to my old headquarters. So far almost all of my personal training clients have made the jump and they love it at Synergy. What I like as well, is that when I look around, I still see many of the great people that were at the 19th Street Gym, and so it feels like home already. Stop in and check it out if you are in the neighborhood and tell them that Kevin sent you!

Synergy Gym

138 West 14th Street (between 6th & 7th Avenues)

New York, NY 10011 

NYC Personal Trainer Kevin Richardson is the most sought after personal trainers in New York City, a lifetime drug free bodybuilding champion and the founder of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise™. His high intensity 10 minute workouts have been helping people get better results in less time for the past 19 years! Get a copy of his free weight loss e-book here!

Healthy eating with kids! I think one of the main concerns of people with kids is how do you eat healthy in a household where the kids eat all sorts of unspeakable junk foods. The answer is simple- you cook for them, and work at it long enough and hard enough that they don’t feel a need to have a can of soda or stop by McDonalds. The key is to start young and lead by example. It’s a lot of work, but in the end the rewards of having a healthy household where the kids eat well and don’t feel like they are missing out on anything is priceless. By popular demand, here is a repost of one of our most popular blog posts on the subject: A morning in our household with the kids. Enjoy! Kevin Richardson, Founder of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise.

  Healthy Eating With Kids

Making Breakfast & Getting 5 Kids to School

It’s Monday, the end of the weekend and the beginning of the mad hundred meter dash that is the work week. I wake up promptly at 6 am, amidst the snoring of a sleeping household. The kids are still asleep and my (far) better half is still in dream world as well after a long night with the newest member of the Richardson family. Lucien is 8 weeks old, so we are still in the red-eyed stage and stumbling over ourselves as his highness wakes up every two to three hours to feed, (which is not too different from how his dear old dad eats, although I prefer to do so during conventional waking hours.) Seeing as everyone is asleep, I take the time to enjoy the silence and as I begin my morning routine.

With five kids in the house these moment are few and far between so I always try to make the most of it whenever I can. I start getting breakfast ready. Many have asked me if my family eats the way that I prescribe as the founder of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise and the answer is a resounding ‘Yes!” This is indeed a Naturally Intense household and I have always ensured that the kids eat as healthy as possible. I am also blessed in that my significant other has been eating in accordance with the Naturally Intense guidelines for over 5 years before were even dating-so everyone is very much onboard! That being said, I don’t believe in prescribing to others what they should and should not eat as I think that with so many couples it ends up being a source of discord and I think it a bit disrespectful. Stephanie was originally a Naturally Intense personal training client many, many moons ago in addition to being a senior member of the martial arts school that I run, and she has always adhered to the eating principles on her own (which is how the dietary component is supposed to work in the first place). Thus it always made eating at home and eating out really easy for both of us. (Yes, we do eat out and you can check out the Healthy NYC Restaurant Guides if you don’t believe me).  I call breakfast time at the Richardson residence punch in time for my first shift as a short order cook, as each of my little ones have their own particular tastes and preferences. So it isn’t uncommon that I end up cooking 4 different meals for each of them, in addition to what Steph and I will eat as well.

Healthy Eating With Kids- The Munchkins Wake Up

By 6:30 am the munchkins are waking up, bleary eyed and hungry, and I take the orders as they file into the living room to watch Nickelodeon Junior, much to the chagrin of my 14 year old who protests that he never gets to see the BBC News in the morning. I remind him that life isn’t fair and that the 4 year old, the 5 year old and the 6 year old outnumber him, and have been showing signs of feral pack activity recently so he’d better endure a few minutes of Sponge Bob if he knows what’s good for him. He has been humbled by the horde before so he sheepishly submits. So here are the orders for today, Indi, my daughter and future president of a yet undisclosed developing country wants 6 boiled eggs some oatmeal and some strawberries, and I fire up the stove to start it up. (She might be small- but she eats a big breakfast just like Daddy!) My step-son, Paolo (the intellectual) wants white rice and scrambled eggs, while Reid (the muscle of the group) wants rice as well, but with tuna fish (he isn’t too big on eggs these days) . My 14 year old wants oatmeal, with raisins an orange and some eggs. He likes his scrambled whereas boychild number 3 prefers his in omelet form. Thank goodness the youngest of the bunch is breast fed! But he’ll have his orders in soon as well. While juggling all this in the kitchen, I am also getting lunch ready for the little ones as I don’t put much faith in the school lunches and they really like it when they have a home cooked meal at school.

Healthy Eating With Kids-Making Lunch For The Kids As Well

 Today is their lucky day, as I am cooking up a dish of rice, peas and beef, a universal favorite with all of the kids! I have always done my best to cook great tasting meals not just for me, (I am quite the connoisseur if I do say so myself) but for the kids. It only takes a bit of imagination and a small investment of time, but having kids that not only eat well but prefer to eat well as a rule is a priceless return on that investment. Anyway, on to breakfast, which for me is a large bowl of old-fashioned oatmeal, (Steph likes adding some raisins to hers, but I prefer mine plain or with some coconut tossed in). Since I was already cooking in the kitchen I am also having some mahi-mahi that I cooked with a teaspoon of olive oil. I always have some fruit for breakfast, (I try to eat them as they come into season as opposed to eating the same thing day in day out.) The oranges were especially good so I am having one from the bunch.

A small omelette with thyme, onions and a touch of black pepper tops off the feast. The Naturally Intense mantra has always been, ‘Breakfast like a king’ and I certainly follow my own advice! The television is turned off (with some groans, of course!) as we all sit around the table for our breakfast. It is important for us that eating be an activity in and of itself, not something we do while watching TV as the conversations and interaction are an important part of being a family. After breakfast comes the mad rush to wash dirty faces, have teeth brushed, put on clothes, pack lunches and get the kids in the car for the drop offs. The oldest goes by school bus, but it is quite a challenge getting the others all to school on time. After the customary fight over who gets to use the Spiderman toothbrush, and the mandatory wardrobe changes that the little ones go through before selecting an ensemble suitable for them to be seen in public wearing, we are off!

 Continued in A Day In Our Naturally Intense Life Part 2

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Visionary NYC personal trainer, internationally renowned natural bodybuilder and fitness expert, Kevin Richardson lives in Brooklyn with his wonderful family and 2 cats! Get a copy of Kevin’s free award winning weight loss ebook here!