by IcennaEmach | Mar 8, 2012 | Uncategorized
This is a video I like. The reason I like it is not so much because of the information regarding how changing one thing about us can alter many areas of our health, but because of the manner in which it is presented. Typically, health writers, health presenters and those in the health field in general, relentlessly tell us what to do and what not to do.
The 10 minute video is refreshing because the presenter’s approach is non judgmental in narrative. The researched facts are outlined and disseminated in a “class act manner” that allows the viewer to determine what he is ready to do or not do with the material being presented. I like this.
It’s no secret among weight loss/health coaches that people change most effectively and long lastingly when they are fully supported non judgmentally by knowledgeable professionals that offer them smart structure for change rather than random actions they must institute to weigh less or be more healthy. Rarely do diets work in the long run. Sadly, too often people believe they can jump right in, skip all the important lifestyle steps and be on their way to a healthy lean new body. Ironically they continue to repeat this process throughout life. It’s a vicious cycle that eventually breaks down the spirit of the person.
Watch this video. Put no pressure on yourself but to listen. After the video, if you find that you are thinking about any kind of lifestyle change at all, from exercising more, to eating less, to trying to feel more energized in life then give me a call.
This is what I have been doing for over 11 years now. Get out of your mind the traditional personal trainer. Yes I do this. But more to the point is that I take people from where they are at health wise and weight wise, to where they need to be to excel. As a side note, if you think health coaching is for the weak willed and that personal training is for the strong willed, then I challenge you to contact my long list of high achievers who are walking the walk with me. The list includes both men and women, and varies in ages from 42 to 66. They include physicians, CEO’s, retired educators, vice presidents, retired marketers, business managers, magazine editors, and various other professionals that have figured out that the real work for change is done one on one with me as their health coach.
This is not a promotional for me by any means. But it is a promotional for you. I’m promoting you to ask yourself if you are ready to change yet. And if you are, then call me. If not, that’s ok; one must be ready and committed. If you are ready and committed then I am available to pay attention to the details of what you want your life to look like, and to have you fully reach your potential! 904 501 6002.
Click here for the 10 minute video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo&feature=player_embedded#
If video does not link, simply copy the entire link to a compose e mail by pasting it. Double click and watch.
by IcennaEmach | Feb 5, 2012 | Uncategorized
The letter below is from an email I received recently from a client who trains with me at the Serenata Beach Club.
I think you will find it interesting.
Hi Kim,
Daughter Barbara from NM was visiting and left yesterday. She asked me to ask you this question.
Barbara goes to Jazzercise classes. Her young instructor makes statements like if you are going to eat a double cheeseburger best to do it at noontime so you can burn off the calories during Jazzercise. Barbara thinks it does not matter when you eat the excess calories. Is theJazzercise kid correct?
Hi Bob,
I’ll start with other research that may be of interest to you and Barbara.
The research I am familiar with in regards to exercising after a high fat meal is that, exercise aids significantly in returning your arteries back to normal. In other words, after a high fat meal those that exercise can reverse the ill affects of clogging up the arteries as in atherosclerosis. I’d hesitate to exercise vigorously after a high fat meal however as the body can be put in a stressful situation trying to do many things at once.
Example: using blood to digest the high fat food in the digestive organs while trying to get enough blood to the working muscles of the legs during an exercise program. We can get away with eating and exercising immediately when younger, but not a good idea when we are older. As a reference point, I am almost in the latter group! Ha ha! The research suggest 30 minutes of easy walking to be enough to return arteries to normal. I would not engage in more vigorous exercise such as jazzercise shortly after a high fat meal such as the burger mentioned.
More to Barbara’s point. It used to be thought that a calorie is a calorie and if there is a calorie deficit we will lose weight. Now it’s known that blood sugar stabilization is an added benefit to losing weight more efficiently and above and beyond calories. However, most people will lose weight when they have a calorie deficit totaling 3500 calories. They can also lose weight by expending 3500 calories in vigorous activity. I always suggest doing a combination unless someone is severely overweight. There are some people who have a metabolism that has been abused through various dieting techniques, and consequently it may take a while to get the body back in balance, and losing the necessary weight.
In fact I am seeing this more and more and it interests me greatly. Best plan of attack to lose weight is to spread out your calories throughout the day so that you may reap the advantage that a stabilized blood sugar gives you in weigh loss. Case in point. With all being equal with two people including activity, weight, height gender,calorie deficit and etc, the one who stabilizes the blood sugar through three meals and perhaps a snack or two will tend to lose more weight.
by IcennaEmach | Jan 25, 2012 | Uncategorized
A while back, I started a project called Movement is Life, which is still running and provides many of my clients with weekly progressive online cardiovascular exercises designed for healthy living and weight loss. As I look back into why it has taken off, I realize that movement is the impetus for creating a rational mindset that is open to sensible weight loss expectations. Because of that, I am ready to offer an extension of the Movement is Life program that may be helpful to you called Movement is Life-Changing the DNA of the Traditional Dieter.
This Isn’t a Lose Weight Quick Scheme
There are dieting marketers aplenty who will tell you that you can lose 21 lbs in three weeks with their time tested formulas. I’m sure some of those gimmicks work rather well, and I am not saying that some folks aren’t making that kind of success, but that’s not what I am selling. With Movement is Life-Changing the DNA of the Traditional Dieter, you and I are going to look over several things, from what affects a woman’s resting metabolic rate/what affects a man’s resting metabolic rate, to elements of a successful over age 50 weight loss plan, increasing your human growth hormone naturally, why baby boomers gain weight, weight gain and menopause, to why we overeat and how to begin the process of change. None of what I offer will fall into the camp of “lose weight quickly,” and so, if that’s the goal, you might look elsewhere.
We Will Talk About Motivation As Well as Actions
Wishful thinking is okay. Turning it into a vision is central. Wanting to lose weight via exercise and better eating habits is a must. If you are a person that wants to stop the process of aging prematurely because of poor exercising and eating habits, then this program is for you.
Don’t Quit Your Current Exercise or Eating Plan Just Yet
We’ll cover different topics every week, and along the way, you’ll find some things that resonate with you and others that won’t. Additionally, every single week for 10 weeks you will receive a cardiovascular plan designed specifically for you that is not a cookie cutter plan. Don’t jump into this whole hog and think that you will be changing everything all at once. Instead, let’s figure out what works well for you, how you intend to make some changes that are not drastic and keep you feeling motivated about being headed to a better way of life. Let’s see if we can find what makes you healthy, happy, and lose weight. I’m not selling desperate attempts at weight loss. BodySmartWay is selling sensibility.
If This Sounds Interesting
If you are interested in learning more, give me a call at 904 501 6002, or just sign up here on my blog at www.bodysmartinc.com and go to Movement is Life. The weekly online coaching plan, Changing the DNA of the Traditional Dieter, although not indicated on my blog here will be included free if you sign up with the Movement is Life plan by Februuary 29,2012
And if not, a new potentially useful post is coming out soon.
Our Wealth is in Our Health,
Kim Miller
BodySmartWay
by IcennaEmach | Jan 2, 2012 | Uncategorized
Integrated thoughts from the American Council on Exercise and myself.
NationalProjections
1. Obesity Awareness
Losing weight will continue to be the primary reason consumers seek personal training support as the public responds to the expanded messaging concerning the dangers of physical inactivity and obesity. The recently released Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index report that showed a modest improvement in the nation’s obesity rates for the first time in more than three years is a very encouraging sign. However, the fact remains that three out of five Americans are still overweight or obese requiring more work to be done.
2. Whole-life Training
Lifestyle coaching will become a bigger trend, with more personal trainers expanding their education and training to enable them to holistically improve their clients’ lifestyles. Additionally, fitness facilities will hire nutritionists and other allied healthcare professionals,such as physical therapists and psychologists, to serve the expanding needs o ftheir health-conscious members by offering wellness, nutrition and stress-management programs.
3. Behavior Modification
While great strides have been made in health education,too many still believe the best way to lose weight is by following a restrictive or current fad diet. The recently introduced ACE Integrated Fitness Training® (ACEIFT®) Model incorporates tools personal trainers can use to help identify appropriate strategies for working with each client to enhance goal setting, motivation, adherence and rapport. Educational campaigns and programs such as the ACE IFT Model, “PersonalTraining, Reinvented™”, and the ACE Lifestyle & Weight Management Coach certification will prepare fitness professionals to help clients better understand that there are no shortcuts to lasting results.
My Thoughts
1. Obesity Awareness
The primary reason clients retain the services of personal trainers and health coaches are often more layered than simply losing weight. Although most people begin training/coaching because they want to lose weight and look better, their motivation for continuing is reinforced when they see that exercise offers much more than just weight loss.
They realize exercise makes them feel better, gives them more energy, and makes them feel more alive. Often they site evidence of the power of weight training and cardiovascular training when after years of being in pain they recognize their knees feel better, their back feels better, and their muscular strength and endurance is enhanced resulting in more daily energy. Often their doctors tell them they no longer have osteopenia,high blood pressure, pre – diabetes and other lifestyle diseases.
One client who recently engaged my services asked if I could help him lose weight so he could pass a life insurance policy’s wellness test. He was only 48 years old, but 27 pounds overweight. With slightly high blood pressure, and increased total cholesterol of 227 he was rightful concerned .With only three months of progressive training, logging an average of 10 miles a week on the elliptical trainer, weight training 30 minutes twice a week, and making two dietary changes, he passed his insurance policy’s health test.
His 3 month BP was 110 systolic and 77 diastolic! Well within a healthy blood pressure range. His total cholesterol went from 227to 178 and his weight, which was the main reason he foresaw as hindering his ability to get life insurance went from 192 to 175 in the 3 months. Still training today, and motivated by the added benefits that exercise brings, he cites he will never go back to his previous lifestyle habits. I’d add, it is this type of awareness and intuitiveness that ultimately keeps weight off for a lifetime!
Losing weight is the most often stated reason for beginning an exercise plan, however my experience is that clients continue to train because of the multitude of benefits that exercise and being physically fit brings.
2. Whole Life Training
Lifestyle coaching will become a big trend. In my work at Serenata Beach Club in Ponte Vedra, there has been an increasing awareness of the necessity to change lifestyle habits. There is a positive trend in smarter thinking that says, “I am tired of all the dieting plans, and pseudo-health information snippets that simply don’t work!
These more savvy people understand the need to get rid of the gimmicks and start changing their habits. They are more than receptive, infact, they demand holistic coaching to help then break habits developed over a lifetime. These are the people who invariably do well as clients because they have made an attitude shift in thinking that it’s their own eating behaviors that need to be changed, rather than actual dieting plans.
Effective health coaches are not interested in coaching clients who are looking for a quick way to lose weight. It goes against the grain of the holistic approach.
With clients who have not arrived at this state of understanding, I usually suggest establishing an exercise routine. Exercise is often easier to adhere to than is modifying their diets. The thinking is that with exercise comes a clearer state of mind. Once an exercise routine is implemented and practiced, the wheels start turning in their own minds. Withina period of planned exercise progressions, I will often see a newfound initiative in clients to take further responsibility with other lifestyle changes, specifically eating behavior modifications. When this occurs, they become terrific coaching clients!
People who have been there, and done that, and are tired of playing the losing weight then gaining weight game are the self-motivated consumers. These consumers do well, lose weight, get leaner, get fit, look great, and enjoy their new lifestyle changes. No cookie cutter diet prescription can have you loving your new lifestyle and keep you from gaining the weight back like the holistic coach approach can.
The holistic coaching trend is exciting. As more trainers become certified coaches and practice their coaching profession, I am confident BMI’s will decline. We will become an increasingly more robust community, one that thrives on healthy living, developing habits that make a real difference in our own lives as well as in the lives of our loved ones who want to ensure weare around for a long time to come.
3. Behavior Modification
Ten years ago, the term behavior modification was rarely used to describe how one might approach losing weight and getting fit. We heard dieting advertisers use language such as, “it’s not your fault you can’tlose weight”, “take the mystery out of counting calories by using our prepackaged foods”, or “no need to exercise to lose weight.” Not anymore.Consumers got smart. Tired of feeling like pawns at the mercy of lose weight promoters, they now are realizing in great numbers that absolutely it is their responsibility to change their lives by changing their behaviors.
It may sound daunting to put the responsibility on one’s self,but the sooner this is realized the better and healthier our lives will be.This is not to suggest that we have no need for people to support us and coach us into a better lifestyle because that’s exactly what is needed. But the only one that can do the work in changing unhealthy behaviors is the individual himself. As a coach, I can help fill the gaps of information and provide a needed structure and outlet for people to plan and strategize what they need to be doing to change, but it’s clear that change only happens when the client himself is doing the necessary behavior modification work.
Health consumers are savvier than in years past. We are placing the responsibility of healthy living and weight loss on ourselves through thoughtful behavior modifications. This is a trend, I am happy to report, that is here to stay, and will continue to grow in this coming new year in our local communities!
My last coaching/training program sold out in 2 days.
If you didn’t get on board in time, I’ll be offering it again in June. I’ll take reservations for only 10 people, but payment confirmation will be necessary by March 1, 2012. Call 904 501 6002 to reserve for June 2012.
Wishing you a healthy and happy 2012!
by IcennaEmach | Nov 8, 2011 | Uncategorized
In these hectic times with banks failing, massive mortgage defaults, and market crashes, looking beyond our personal finances into the one investment we can’t live without, our health, is gaining traction.
Health and economics are now intertwined. Without robust health, we are personally bankrupt. Within 20 years many economists project our healthcare costs will bankrupt our economy if current trends continue.
Investing in our health should be similar to investing in a retirement savings plan. Contribute regularly over many years, and in our “golden years”years we have better health and happiness, more independence, lower medical costs, and a peaceful mind. Failure to make these contributions to our health account or regularly “depleting” our health savings through poor eating and exercise habits and we become weak and vulnerable to life’s ups and downs.
Most personal training clients I see today acknowledge the deep connection between their health and economic well being citing that it makes them more energetic, more work and family -productive, more optimistic about their healthy lives and keeps healthcare and pharmaceutical costs at a minimum.
This sentiment wasn’t always true. During my 10 years as a Personal Trainer at the Serenata Beach Club, focusing on the health benefits of exercise and eating right as the cornerstone to feeling good about ourselves and our healthy futures was not so apparent.
For the first eight of those ten years, I have felt like it was not what people wanted to hear.
Years later and mainly because of our changing times, the sentiment of Our Wealth Is in Our Health has taken hold. Looking good is still important, but even more important are the additional benefits of feeling good, being more productive in work and family life, cutting health care and pharmaceutical costs, and having the peace of mind knowing we are doing all we can to protect ourselves and our family’s future.
With staggering job losses seeming out of control, and many retirees having to stay in the job market, one would think that many more people would be seeking the assistance of personal trainers and health coaches. Why are we not doing so in greater numbers?
Making the connections a good personal trainer/health coach can offer are difficult. Many would benefit from the guidance of a skilled, trained professional-a health coach-to help them move forward in a positive way – even in the face of enormous external stressors. Just as we go to an accountant, a dentist, and other specialist when we want help, a trainer/coach is a skilled partner and the best antidote to the failure most people experience in trying to become fit, lean and healthy on their own. What do you think? Can a trainer/coach help you invest wisely for a better future?
by IcennaEmach | Oct 11, 2011 | Uncategorized
There is a story I’ve heard. And like many stories, the question is never whether it is real, but whether you can learn something from it. Here’s one such story that if you are aiming to improve your health and lose weight, you should read.
Picasso is touring a school with someone who wants to know why the institute of education is failing the children. Picasso asks a roomful of six-year-old children, “Who here is a painter?” All hands go up. “Who here is a dancer?” “Who is a singer?” All hands go up. “Who here is a storyteller?” All hands go up. He walks down the hall to where the seventeen-year-old children are taking classes and he asks the same questions. Few, if any hands go up. “There’s your problem,” says Picasso. “Schools train our children not to be painters, dancers, singers, and storytellers.”
The meaning of the story is something that we may relate to better in the midst of our careers, but it should have meaning to many of us, regardless of our ages, who are striving to improve the quality of our lives.
Few would disagree that we’ve become conditioned over time to believe that as we age, we must settle for less than optimal health. Like the older children in the story, we have become conditioned to expect less of ourselves and less of our physical bodies. I am not suggesting that we are ageless and this is not an article on how to live forever. This article is about living a healthy lifestyle that makes us look and feel our most optimal at any given age.
You Have What It Takes
When people tell me that they can’t lose weight and keep it off, I say that they most definitely can! What often happens is that most people buy into weight loss regimens, lose weight, and then gain it back. They buy products and weight loss tactics, that don’t appear gimmicky, but that are, and that lure them into believing they will lose weight, look good, feel better, and be happy.
It’s nothing new to understand that the role of promoters is to make us believe we can lose weight, keep it off, and live happily ever after. When this doesn’t happen, or if it does, and the weight soon reappears, dieters are left disillusioned in their weight loss abilities until… another book comes out, another product is marketed, or an improved weight loss tactic comes on the scene again, starting the whole dysfunctional process all over again.
Fortunately, many health coaches, including myself have been gaining traction in helping people understand the right way to lose weight and keep it off. Our successes are increasing, and many people, even those once previously anxious for quick weight losses are realizing the compounding effects of losing weight smartly. Theyuse less medications, have more energy, more vitality, more confidence, more lean muscle mass, better health numbers, and best of all, they’ve created lifestyle changes that keep the weight off for life!
Below is an illustration of our differences. See if it helps. Also, see if it helps you get a better understanding of why programs that don’t engage you mentally in the decision making process/personal responsibility fail. Savvy health coaches bring awareness. They help their clients strategize a system to help them not just lose weight, but keep it off for life!
PROMOTERS SAY And What HEALTH COACHES SAY
It’s easy. No thinking involved It’s manageable. Let’s put a plan together individualized for you.
You will be sexy! Health is sexy! Continuing to lose and gain is not sexy.
Just buy these products. Just use your gray matter.
It costs only $2.00 a day. Reduction/elimination of meds is possible.
Eat whatever you want. Eating for enjoyment and health is possible.
You Have What It Takes
You are a singer and a dancer and a storyteller and an artist. You are all the various things you want to be. You might never play ball like you did as a child, but you look good – you feel good- you are a living breathing being, living at your most optimal level for who you are today! You might never play for the NBA but why should that keep you sidelined in silence?
You choose how your days are spent. You know in your heart that being your healthy best comes down to making solid lifestyle choices, using your gray matter, and changing your behaviors. You know that most lifestyle plans featured today are just diversional tactics, keeping you from doing the real work of being lean and fit. You know, that any “feeling good plan”, that does not engage you, challenge you, and question you, is not going to work. And you realize that like a young singer, dancer, painter, or storyteller, you can’t be seeking the nostrums of the promoters. This is your day though. What is it going to be?
