by Brett Blumenthal

Every New Year, it never fails: the gym is PACKED at every hour of every day, for the first three weeks of the year. When January 1st hits, people get a new spark of enthusiasm for being healthy. Gym memberships soar, health oriented websites surge in traffic and personal trainers don’t have enough hours in the day to see the new clients who’ve signed up for sessions.

Unfortunately, the enthusiasm rampant in the beginning of January wanes after a few weeks and before you know it, gyms have membership cancellations, websites see drops in traffic and personal trainers have a more manageable number of clients. This trend is as predictable as the ball dropping in Times Square New Year’s Eve.

Just because this happens to the majority of resolution makers, however, doesn’t mean that you, too, have to be a resolution dropout. Here are a few ways to ensure that you don’t fall off the wagon: [Read more →]

by Brett Blumenthal

Well, the New Year is just around the corner and you have been actively pursuing your New Year’s Resolutions pre-New Year.  It must feel great!  You have gone through three weeks of preparation and you are finally in the last leg of preparing for ‘A New You in 2009′.

Last week, we focused on making smart choices in regards to your diet and nutrition, and rounding out your workout to include not only cardio, but also strength training, core training and flexibility training…all important to ensuring you are taking good care of your body.

This final week is meant to give you all that you need to continue on with your journey to a new you.  So, you should think of it as ‘the final week and moving forward’.

[Read more →]

by Brett Blumenthal

Happy Happy Hump Week!  You are now entering your 3rd week of the four week series of ‘A New You in 2009.’  Last week, we focused on getting rid of bad nutritional habits with a ‘detox’ and revving up your workouts by increasing your intensity and duration.  All of these steps should help to make this week’s ‘to-dos’ easier.  As I’ve mentioned before, make sure you have successfully completed the second week steps prior to moving forward.  This will give you a sense of accomplishment and help you to not feel overwhelmed.

Week 3’s Roadmap is outlined below!  [Read more →]

by Brett Blumenthal

You may have seen the television ads for the ‘new and improved’ Splenda:  Splenda with Fiber.  Call me cynical, but this idea just seems silly. From the makers of Splenda, this seems like a great idea.  They argue that the average adult needs 25 grams of fiber every day true, but only gets 13.  This very well may be true, but does this mean that individuals should turn to this product to rack up the fiber?  I don’t think so…and here’s why: [Read more →]

by Brett Blumenthal

Congratulations!  You are now entering your 2nd week of ‘A New You in 2009.’  Last week, we focused on laying a foundation for a healthier diet and increasing basic activity into your life.  Hopefully, your ‘to-dos’ were easy to get into and not too overwhelming.  If so, take an extra week and stick with the First Week plan to get adjusted.

For those of you ready to jump into your 2nd week, your roadmap is outlined below!  [Read more →]

by Brett Blumenthal

Every weekend, while downstairs in our building’s fitness center, I see this one personal trainer with his client.  I have seen them there every weekend for the better part of 6 months.  The client is a woman who is probably in her mid to late 30s, is extremely overweight and seems to lack genuine interest in exercise.  I say this because she tends to do more talking than exercising.  Further, her discussions are one way conversations, consistently involving her asking her personal trainer about newly released diet pills, exercise pills, weight loss surgery, plastic surgery and the latest and greatest gossip of the most recent face lifts, liposuction, miracle diets, etc., of the stars of Hollywood.  Even with my iPod at full blast, she is so loud and distracting, that it is quite difficult to tune her out.

The reason I am bringing this up, however, isn’t so much to discuss the client, but rather to discuss the personal trainer.  Having been a group fitness instructor and personal trainer myself, I am always interested in how personal trainers work with their clients.  In this specific case, I’m especially bewildered.  I have to believe that this personal trainer isn’t really doing his job.  Granted, [Read more →]

by Brett Blumenthal

Whether or not you exercise, you may have a predisposition to adhering to a program more than others.  Although there aren’t a lot of scientific studies out there on this topic, AFAA, the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America, has developed four distinct categories of the population, each with its own behavioral characteristics.  Their view is that certain populations require different motivators to facilitate exercise adherence within group fitness classes.

Although AFAA specifically applies these categories to group fitness participants, some of the principles can be applied to the adherence of any exercise regimen.  Having an idea as to which of these four categories you fall into, may actually provide you with insights that will help you increase your chances of adhering to any fitness program.  The four categories are described in detail below.: [Read more →]

by Brett Blumenthal

Hopefully you have taken some time to ‘prepare’ for your healthy start to 2009 with the Resolution Roadmap - Day 1 post. At this point, you should be in the right mindset to start moving forward and making progress.  Remember, this Roadmap is meant to help you make smaller changes over a few weeks so that by the end of December, you are ready to start 2009 with a bang.

As a recap, for Day 1 I asked that you get into the right mindset both nutritionally and physically.  Nutritionally, you should stop thinking about diets (and dieting) and instead, focus on the choice of a new lifestyle.  Further, you should focus on the qualitative changes to come vs. your weight.  Fitness wise, you should start visualizing yourself as you want to look and feel, listing out your favorite activities, budgeting for a fitness program and researching your options.

As we kick into week 1 of the roadmap, we want to start making some minor changes that will help you as you make some of the harder changes to come.  Here is your Week 1 To Dos: [Read more →]

by Brett Blumenthal

A few weeks ago, I wrote about getting a jump start on your New Year’s Resolution.  I asked you to share what your goals are for the upcoming year and hoped to start a dialogue around how to reach those goals.  Whether or not you read the entry, you may have been thinking about making a resolution for your health anyway.  Maybe you want to resolve to eat better…or to exercise more…or both.  Regardless, a resolution is a promise…a promise to yourself to make a change in your life.

The tradition of making resolutions is something [Read more →]

by Brett Blumenthal

On November 20th, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that obese people have the right to two seats for the price of one on flights within Canada.  Apparently, an appeal made by Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz and WestJet was declined and as a result, the one-person-one-fare-two seat policy will go into effect January 2009.  The policy “stipulates that people who are too large to fit in one chair should be given two seats, so as to avoid unpleasant situations during the flight.”

As a frequent air traveler, I have witnessed extremely obese people overflowing into the seats next to them, and to be perfectly honest, I am amazed that those passengers don’t get charged for two seats.  [Read more →]