Fitness Universe 2009

I am considering doing the Fitness Universe competition in May this year. I am seriously comtemplating it??? It will give me about 100 days to prepare!

It Was Easy!

Those were the words uttered by my hairstylist. Words you don't hear too often, particularly pertaining to weight lost. I was getting a hair cut last week and one of my hair stylist's clients told her that she noticed that she had lost weight and looked great. My hairstylist actually said "it was easy, all I did was give up sugar and soda"! I can tell you, I was shocked because you don't hear that too often. I often hear people say "it's so hard to lose weight" and my thought is "whatever"! Of course if you continue to eat the same junk foods and sit on your couch instead of getting off your butt and at least go for a walk, it's going to be difficult! If you continue to do the same thing, you are going to get the same results, and you are not miraculously going to lose weight! Losing weight is simply burning more calories than you eat. Losing weight is easy, what is not easy is changing your habits to allow you to lose weight! There are so many habits people can change to help them lose weight. Some examples include:

• Park a bit further and walk. I often see people sitting in their cars waiting for a closer parking spot and I'll park my car at a further spot and walk all the way to the store and they are still waiting!!!
• Walk up a flight of stairs instead of waiting for the elevators. The washroom on my floor at work is getting renovated and it's amazing the number of people who wait for the elevator to go up 1 flight of stairs intead of just walking up or down 1 flight.
• Eliminate soda (including diet soda) and sugar in your diet.
• Just be more active, instead of a couch potato!

Those are all easy things to do, aren't they?

My New Website

I have been extremely busy these past few week building my new company Bernees Naturals and the website http://www.berneesnaturals.com/, that I have not had a lot of time to write. Although I've been busy, I am still getting in my workouts and eating healthy. Unfortunately yesterday I did have a Lindor chocolate truffle binge. I ate way too many truffles, but that was yesterday and now I must move on.

Bernees Naturals is my new project! I've been using and creating natural products since my teens. I am a night owl and during the summer months I would stay up reading almost every book in my parent's house. I read all of mom's Harlequin Romance novels and after a while I figured out that they were all the same plot, just different characters, so I moved on to read my mom's herbal remedies/cures and self help books. My mother had all these books about natural facial masks and basically things in your refrigerator for facials, natural moisturizers, conditioners etc, that you can use instead of purchasing all those store packaged products. For example, I made yogurt masks from natural homemade yogurt (of course my mother also had a yogurt maker), the yogurt mask is one of my favourites and is excellent for dry winter skin.

I am a big believer of natural and organic products and foods. I avoid artificial and processed foods and products as much as possible. When I purchase foods, as well as products I put on my skin, I read the ingredients. What I've often noticed is that there is so often so little of the ingredient in the product although the product may be given the product name. For example, a bottle of "Cocoa Butter Lotion" may have cocoa butter at the bottom of the ingredients list. I am not sure why manufacturers are allowed to do that?
My products contain no artificial preservatives, or parabens and are full of stuff that's good to put on your body and looks good enough to eat. For example, my kiwi/mango scrub looks and smells like kiwi but my products are NOT edible! I also have a cocoa butter lotion, Shea body butter, mango body butter, and a conditioning hair creme. Feel free to visit http://www.berneesnaturals.com/ to learn more about my products!

Train Hard and Live Healthy!

BMI - Body Mass Index

I've added a BMI chart to my website! Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. It is applicable only to adult men and women. Nothing is perfect, so at times a Body Mass Index percent may state that you are overweight and it may be incorrect. This is expecially true for really athletic individuals. This is because this index doesn't really know the percentage of bodyfat you are carrying. For example, you could weight 140 lbs and if your percentage of fat is only 15% and you are carrying a lot of muscle, this index could calculate that you are over weight. It may be best to use the BMI along with a body fat percent to help determine if you are over weight.

Last week I was listening to this radio program, The Michael Baisden Show and he had callers calling to explain the difference between fat, voluptuous, curvy, big boned etc. It was amazing how many people, in my opinion were in denial. All of the callers were women, and I don't think anyone who called weighed less than 200 pounds, but for the most part insisted that they were voluptuous or anything else but fat. I really felt like calling in to say "get a grip", you are 5 feet 2 inches and you weigh 200 pounds! Reality bites! Really now, will someone who is 6 feet 5 inches tall tell you that they are not tall? So why is it so difficult for someone to say the 3 letter "F" word? As they say, the first step is admitting it!

Workout Routine

Is it Within You!
The answers you seek, the direction you want, and the power to be whoever you want to be.
Your dreams are not yours by mere whim.
They've been meticulously matched to the gifts you're now developing.
Designed to lure you within, where your true power lies,
and then out into the world, beyond imagined limitations and fears.
Trust yourself. Listen to your heart.
You have the right stuff, you know what to do, and it can all be yours.
We will shine in 2009!

It's that time of the year when everyone's motivated with new goals (I prefer goals instead of New Years resolutions) for the new year. We all know that one of the most common goals people make in January is to lose weight. Let me do my part to help all those who want to start a new fitness routine. For those of you who don't know where to start, I've just posted a Workout Routine Template on this Blog (please see left column). You can use this template to create your own routine. All you have to do is the following:

1. Indicate the frequency of your workouts. How many days a week you want to exercise.
2. Determine the muscle groups you want to work out. Whether you want to do a full-body, upper body or lower body workout or to break down the body part (chest, back, tricep).
3. Indicate any weak muscle groups. Weak muscle groups may not always be apparent, but a good rule of thumb is if you had an injury in a particular muscle group, then it is probably weak. For example, if you had a back injury at some point, then your back and most lastly core (abs) are weak.
4. Indicate any exercises you cannot do. For example, if you recently hurt your knee playing basketball, then avoid leg exercises.
5. Finally, hit the "Create Routine" button.

Please consult with a doctor before starting any fitness routine or print out the routine and ask you doctor if it is safe for you to do. If you do not know how to do a particular exercise, below are links to exercises and how to perform them.

http://www.shapefit.com/training.html

http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html

The workout routines will be listed as Sets x Reps. For example, Front squat (Barbell): 4 x 6-8 this will be 4 sets and 6 or 8 reps. I usually rest for at least 60 seconds between each set. Generally the heavier you lift the longer the rest. If you are lifting 5 lb dumbbells then you may not need to rest as long, seriously, my purse weights at least 5lbs therefore I am pretty sure you will not be needed a lot of rest to lift 5 lbs!

So now we have no excuse not to workout! Happy Training!

America's Healthiest Women

Self Magazine’s December issue has a list of America’s healthiest cities for women. The top 3 were:

1. Bethesda, MD
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Honolulu, HI
I would agree that I like all 3 of those cities and have lived in 2 of the 3, unfortunately, Honolulu not being one of them, but who wouldn’t mind living in Honolulu, unless you have something against the beach! The results of this survey is based on a number of things such as the availability of local fresh fruits and vegetables, healthy restaurants, walking trails, subway usage, smoking, obesity, cancer and depression rates. I am surprised that Bethesda is number 1 and not San Francisco but Bethesda is tiny in comparison to San Francisco, so I am sure that has something to do with it. Bethesda is also a very affluent city. San Francisco did rank number 1 for the city with the healthiest eaters and Oakland, CA was a runner up. That I would definitely agree with!
Surprisingly Miami, FL was ranked number 2 as lowest chance of lung cancer. I found that extremely surprising since when I was in Miami last year, it seemed that everyone smoked. I continuously held my breath walking while walking in Miami Beach because people where always smoking. What was most annoying was that people where smoking in restaurants. I actually told my husband that the smoking would definitely prevent me from living in Miami. I am huge anti-smoker and have always been, in college I almost got into physical fights about smoking (I didn’t start it, but I almost punched out a girl in my dorm who accosted me because my roommate and I insisted on enforcing the non-smoking rule in my dorm (it was a non-smoking dorm!).

The 3 unhealthiest cities included:
1. Detroit, MI
2. Gary, IN
3. St. Louis, MO
I have never been to Gary or St. Louis but I can say that I would not ever want to live in Detroit, MI. One of my friends in college got married and moved to Detroit and she insisted that Detroit made her fat! My first thought about that was that was an excuse, but can you not make healthy choices when living in an unhealthy environment?