If you’ve never tried a stair stepping machine (StairMaster, stair climber, etc.), you’re missing out on a fantastic cardio exercise that strengthens your legs and lungs at the same time. A stair stepper is a moderate-intensity option that anyone can do.

Not all stair stepping machines are alike, but most offer workout variables based on three things: resistance, pace, and foot position.

Resistance:
Start with a low resistance and ramp up until you have to push in order to move the pedal back down. If the pedal’s doing the work, resistance is too light. Don’t lean on the side rails or handles; these are for balance only.

Pace:
Most machines allow you to control how fast the pedals move, either manually or in a preprogrammed workout. Go fast enough so that during the peak of your workout, you can answer a question comfortably, but not carry on a conversation.

Foot Position:
Most of the time, you should start with your foot flat on the pedal, rising up onto your toes slightly as the pedal raises. But if you’d like to work your hamstrings or calves, you can scoot your feet back so your heels are off the pedal, pushing you up on your toes more fully and frequently.

*Extra Tip: Your body position should be upright at all times. Don’t lean your weight into the handlebars or console. Leaning to the sides or front of the machine actually decreases your workload dramatically and increases your risk of injury due to improper form. Think about standing tall and letting your hands just lightly touch the handlebars for support.

Check out my post, actually my son’s post on Medi-Weightloss Facebook page!

Check out this link for a funny, yet informative explanation of how we get fat!!

Video

Here is a handout that Medi-Weightloss Clinics® put out about the importance of fiber in your diet! Check it out!
Fiber is classified into two categories; soluble and insoluble. Insoluble fiber is considered roughage and does not break down easily. This type of fiber passes through the digestive track faster and helps relieve constipation. Soluble fiber is thick and absorbs/retains water. The soluble property forms a gel and slows digestion. Soluble fiber has been known to stabilize blood glucose, allow better nutrient absorption, and increase the feeling of fullness.
Constipation is defined as not producing a bowel movement for three or more days. Your bowel patterns may change while on the Medi-Weightloss Clinics® Program. For example, you may experience less frequent bowel movements due to your decreased food consumption. As long as your stools are soft, you are not constipated. Medi-Weightloss Clinics® Inner Balance is a crucial component of the program designed to promote regular bowel function. Adults, take one to two (1-2) capsules, as a dietary supplement, twice daily with at least 8 oz of water or other fluid. Taking this product without enough liquid may cause choking. See choking warning on supplement label!
Questions to Ask Yourself:
1. Am I drinking enough water?
2. Am I eating green vegetables?
3. Are my stools soft?
Use Medi-Weightloss Clinics® Inner Balance as your first choice to avoid constipation. If unresolved, you may try these over-the-counter fiber supplements: Benefiber®, Unifiber®, or Fibersure®. It is important to read the label on all over-the-counter products as they may contain calories and carbohydrates.
Guidelines for Consuming Fiber
1. Increase consumption of foods high in fiber or supplements gradually to prevent gastrointestinal side effects such as gas and bloating.
2. It is important to increase your fluid intake when you increase the amount of fiber in your diet.
Foods High in Fiber
Collard greens, Raspberries
Avocados without skin, Broccoli,
Spinach, Blackberries,
Chard, Apples
© 2012

Fitness Management Magazine conducted a study to determine the role of weight training on body composition changes. In this study, 72 overweight men and women were put into two groups. Both ate the same diets and exercised 30 minutes a day for 8 weeks. But one group followed a typical weight-loss exercise program, spending all 30 minutes on aerobic exercise, while the second group did 15 minutes of aerobic exercise (exercycling) and 15 minutes of weight training (Nautilus machines). Here are the results:

Exercise Program	Body Weight Changes	Fat Weight Changes	Muscle Weight Changes
Endurance exercise only	-3.5 pounds	-3.0 pounds	-0.5 pounds
Endurance and strength exercise	-8.0 pounds	-10.0 pounds	+2.0 pounds

That moment when you decide to just say, “To heck with the diet”, and then you spend 2 or 3 or 7 days reverting to your previous food plan gains you what? WEIGHT! Then you kick yourself again after you step on the scales and they tell you that you have ANOTHER 10 or 20 pounds to lose! Why do we do this? I think there are several reasons!

Stress or Anxiety is a big factor in overeating! It doesn’t matter where the stress or emotional tension comes from (work, family, school, etc.), everyone needs to deal with daily frustrations in some way. So, you’re not a nail-biter. And there’s no way you’re going to pull any hair out of your head after seeing uncle Joe go bald at 22.

So what do you do when you’re stressed? Eat. Emotional eating may sound like a problem more often experienced by women, but some men deal with emotional upheaval by overeating as well. Whether it’s due to stress, courtesy of your unbelievably demanding boss, or anxiety over a breakup, when life becomes stressful, many men overeat to sublimate frustrations.

Eating gives people a feeling of control and power, and the sensory experience of taste and the comfort of a full stomach may act as distractions from the problems you want to avoid.

Boredom eating is the other issue that comes to mind! You may overeat because there’s nothing better to do. Think about it: All of your buddies are busy with their girlfriends and the only thing worth watching on TV is the Discovery Channel special on bats — and you’ve already seen it, twice. But, hey, it’ll be a lot more interesting if you watch it while eating a bag of chips, right?

Many men also eat just for the sake of eating, even when the TV isn’t on. Eating is a visceral, sensory activity, and charges up the senses — which is why eating is often seen as a form of entertainment in and of itself. Sure, it might be fun, but it’s not the kind of hobby that will help your golf game or make you a more engaging conversationalist.

Are you in a rut? Are you having a hard time losing weight or even gaining while you’re actively trying to lose it? There are several things that can contribute to this issue. One of which is lack of sleep! Susan Zafarlotfi, PhD, clinical director of the Institute for Sleep and Wake Disorders at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey states in an article that addresses this issue on Web,MD, “When you have sleep deprivation and are running on low energy, you automatically go for a bag of potato chips or other comfort foods”. This article explains that a large portion of the population goes with less than 6 hours of sleep per night. If the average person who gets 5 hours per night were to get 7 instead, you would be surprised on how well the body will begin to work to get rid of that fat! Dr. Micheal Breus, a sleep specialist, wrote an artcle in the Huffington Post that further points out the importance of sleep! He says that “Low sleep causes your body to produce more of the stress-hormone cortisol, which in turn spurs your appetite. ” The Science Daily reported that when dieters in a study got a full night’s sleep, they lost the same amount of weight as when they slept less. When dieters got adequate sleep, however, more than half of the weight they lost was fat. When they cut back on their sleep, only one-fourth of their weight loss came from fat. They also felt hungrier. When sleep was restricted, dieters produced higher levels of ghrelin, a hormone that triggers hunger and reduces energy expenditure. Harvard University even reports that lack of sleep can cause lots of problems! They list 6 things that lack of sleep effect!

• Learning and memory: Sleep helps the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory consolidation. In studies, people who’d slept after learning a task did better on tests later.
• Metabolism and weight: Chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by altering levels of hormones that affect our appetite.
• Safety: Sleep debt contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the daytime. These lapses may cause falls and mistakes such as medical errors, air traffic mishaps, and road accidents.
• Mood: Sleep loss may result in irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate, and moodiness. Too little sleep can also leave you too tired to do the things you like to do.
• Cardiovascular health: Serious sleep disorders have been linked to hypertension, increased stress hormone levels, and irregular heartbeat.
• Disease: Sleep deprivation alters immune function, including the activity of the body’s killer cells. Keeping up with sleep may also help fight cancer.

How many people do you know who lost weight simply by switching from Coke to Diet Coke?

Probably not many.

That’s because unless followed by other lifestyle changes, choosing diet drinks is absolutely useless.

Diet Soda – What Exactly is it?

Diet sodas are carbonated beverages.

Instead of sugar, they are sweetened with artificial sweeteners like aspartame, cyclamate, saccharin, acesulfame-k or sucralose.

Almost every popular sugar-sweetened beverage on the market has a “light” or a “diet” version… Diet Coke, Pepsi Max, Sprite Zero, etc.

These drinks are calorie free, which technically should help people lose weight and prevent sugar-related diseases like metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

However, the evidence for these beverages having any use is completely nonexistent

Diet Soda and The Metabolic Syndrome

The metabolic syndrome is a group of risk factors for disease that often occur together and raise your risk of diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

It is defined as having at least three of the following:
Abdominal obesity (belly fat)
High fasting glucose
High triglycerides
Low HDL cholesterol
Elevated blood pressure

Drinking “calorie free” beverages instead of sugary ones does not appear to be helpful against the metabolic syndrome.

In a study published in the journal Circulation in 2008, which followed 9.514 people for 9 years, drinking artificially sweetened beverages was associated with a 34% greater risk of developing the metabolic syndrome (1).

Another study found a 36% increased risk of metabolic syndrome and a drastically increased risk of diabetes in diet soda drinkers (2).

Bottom Line: Observational studies show a correlation between diet soda and the metabolic syndrome, which can lead to serious diseases.

There is an association between diet soda and depression

In a study of 263.925 adults aged 51-70, individuals who drank soda were 30% more likely to be diagnosed with depression over a period of 10 years.

The link was stronger for diet soda than regular soda (3).

Diet soda is also associated with preterm delivery.

In a study of 59.334 pregnant women in Denmark, 1 serving per day of diet drinks was associated with a 38% increased risk of preterm delivery. 4 servings per day increased the risk by 78% (4).
Type II diabetes has increased at an alarming rate in the past few decades and now afflicts about 300 million people worldwide.

This disease is highly associated with obesity and sugar consumption, so some would argue that replacing sugar-sweetened beverages with calorie-free drinks would help.

However, there is no evidence of these drinks being helpful against diabetes.

A study of 6.814 individuals aged 45-85 years, daily consumption of diet soda was associated with a 67% increased risk of type II diabetes (2).

In another study, 66.118 French women were followed for a total of 14 years. Women who consumed the most diet drinks had a 121% greater risk of developing type II diabetes (5).

Data analysis from two large Harvard studies revealed that diet drinks raised diabetes risk in women, but not men. Each daily serving increased the risk of a diabetes diagnosis by 6% (6).

Bottom Line: The association between diet soda and diabetes is very strong, especially in women. One study showed more than a doubling in risk.

The main reason people switch to diet drinks is to cut back on calories in order to lose weight.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work.

In a study of 3.682 individuals from San Antonio, Texas, consumption of diet soda was associated with double the risk of becoming overweight or obese (7).

Other prospective studies also show an association with artificial sweeteners and weight gain (8, 9).

However, we do have one randomized controlled trial, where 318 individuals were split into 3 groups: A control group, a group that replaced sugary soda with water and a group that replaced sugary soda with diet drinks (10):

At the end of the 6-month study, there was no significant difference between all three groups. In this controlled trial, diet soda didn’t make things worse, but didn’t make them better either. Neither did water.

I’d like to point out that many short-term feeding trials show that artificial sweeteners can increase appetite and food intake in the short-term compared to sugar, but other studies show the opposite effect or no effect at all (11, 12, 13, 14, 15).

Bottom Line: Observational studies show a strong link between diet soda and obesity, while one controlled trial shows no effect at all.
Take Home Message

Many of the studies above are so-called epidemiological studies, which can not prove that diet drinks caused anything. Such studies can only show an association.

Whether diet soda can cause harm or not has yet to be proven in controlled trials, but it is clear that there is a strong statistical association between diet soda and disease.

One possible explanation for the link is the fact that people who are already gaining weight are more likely to turn to diet drinks.

There is of course, no physiological need for these drinks in the diet, although many people tend to enjoy them.

I personally choose to avoid diet soft drinks, mainly because I don’t like the way I feel when I drink them and prefer to keep my body as free of artificial chemicals as possible.

HIIT Sessions usually last less than 20 Minutes

Remember to check with your doctor first before starting any new exercise regimen! This is for your protection!!

High Intensity Interval Training is a proven method to burning fat quickly! Here is a published study put out by the NCBI that shows positive results from HIIT! High Intensity Interval Training is a specific type of interval training routine. It is mostly used for individuals trying to lose weight. It has a number of distinct goals and differences which make it unique.

The first difference is in time, excluding warm ups and warm downs last no longer than 20 minutes. This may seem like a very short space of time but believe me; if you do the workout correctly you will be exhausted by the end of it. The goal of HIIT is to hold an anaerobic state for a long cumulative time. It’s designed with rest intervals to allow you to sprint harder for longer. Take this as an example, if you were to sprint for 100 meters, you would go full out for about 15 seconds (depending how fast you were). In an advanced HIIT workout you would probably spend about 7 to 8 minutes going full out in a 15 minute workout. If you are a beginner you should start with 4 to 6 minutes total workout time.

For Maximum Benefits make sure you are using Major Muscle Groups

There are a range of activities that you can do with HIIT. When choosing an activity try to pick one that safely uses the largest muscle groups in your body. High Intensity Interval Training will try and tap the energy sources found inside the muscle. The larger the muscle group being exercised, the more the benefit.

The absolute best for HIIT is sprinting. If however you have injuries or other problems which prevent you from sprinting by all means pick something else which you can manage safely. The second best would probably be a stationery spinning bike.

Do HIIT every Second Day

An HIIT workout should not be done on consecutive days. The workouts goal is to operate at a high intensity. So when you do your reps, you do them as hard as you can. Working as hard as this produces the benefits of High Intensity Interval Training. The workout burns energy from your muscle systems and it needs time to replenish it. If this doesn’t happen you will not be able to workout with as much intensity and you have much greater chance of injuring yourself. The benefits happen in your body during your rest period and the more rested you are, the more intensity you can put into your workout.

Obliterate your Fat when you combine Good Nutrition and HIIT

A lot of people including yours truly believed that if you wanted to maximise weight loss it was best to do HIIT on an empty stomach. Recent research is showing that this just isn’t so and in fact the opposite is true. Make sure you have had something to eat about half an hour before you exercise, make sure it something balanced and easily digestible, you don’t want something heavy while you are exercising.

Alternate Your Interval Training Routines

One of the key principles around High Intensity Interval Training is preventing any type of plateau. It’s designed around pushing your body to constantly adapt, and as your body is always trying to please, it invariably does. When this happens your improvements slow down.
To counter this, always keep your body guessing, after you have done about 8 weeks on a particular HIIT program, give yourself one week off then start a new one.

Proper Technique

It is hard to imagine that something you do everyday can have striking effects on your routine! As I completed my weightlifting session this morning, I started to think about all the different things I do where I have to think about my breathing! I will start with weight training!

WEIGHT TRAINING:

People are tempted to hold their breathe during heavy exertions. This is called the Valsalva maneuver. The Valsalva maneuver involves forcibly exhaling against a closed glottis (entrance to the throat), which increases your intrathoracic pressure (pressure in your chest). This raise in chest pressure can couple with adverse effects that could become life-threatening. The Valsalva maneuver causes your blood pressure to rise to extremely high levels. A study by the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the S.P.O.R.T. Clinic in California examined the effect of breathing on blood pressure during leg presses of the maximum weights subjects could lift. When subjects exhaled slowly during the maximal effort, the average blood pressure was 198/175 mm Hg. When subjects performed a Valsalva maneuver during maximal effort, the average blood pressure was an astounding 311/284 mm Hg. The blood pressure response to the Valsalva maneuver is dangerous because it compromises blood flow to important areas of the body, including the brain. Holding your breath during weight-lifting could cause dizziness or even fainting, especially when standing. In addition, according to the University of North Texas Health Science Center, the Valsalva maneuver increases your risk of catastrophic brain injuries. Such injuries include stroke, cerebral hemorrhage, retinal (eye) hemorrhage and retinal detachment.

 

Proper breathing technique during weight-lifting simply requires that you do not do the Valsalva maneuver. A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that inhaling during the concentric phase (when the weight is moving against gravity) produced similar blood pressures to exhaling during the concentric phase. Thus, whether you are inhaling or exhaling during the concentric phase, the important thing is to make sure you do not hold your breath, even just for a moment. However, many athletes find it is more comfortable to exhale during the concentric phase and inhale during the eccentric phase (when the weight is moving with gravity). In addition, the heart rate is slightly lower when exhaling during the concentric phase, which may offer some advantage to this technique.

Proper breathing is essential during exercise. During aerobic activities, such as running or swimming, a good breathing pattern ensures that your working muscles will continue to receive the oxygen they need to keep contracting. According to researchers at the University of New Mexico, proper breathing is also central to nonaerobic forms of exercise, including weightlifting, yoga, tai chi and pilates.

How Breathing Works

When you inhale, air is pulled into microscopic air sacs in the lungs called alveoli, where oxygen is delivered to red blood cells and carbon dioxide is transferred from the blood to the air in the alveoli. The oxygen-rich blood flows to your heart, which then pumps it out to your body. You exhale the carbon dioxide.

You Don’t Usually Have to Think About It

The respiratory center of your brain automatically sends messages to your respiratory muscles, telling them when to breathe. This is automatic; you don’t have to think about it. But according to researchers at the University of New Mexico, when you exercise, your brain notes that there is an increase in carbon dioxide and lactic acid—a byproduct of exercising muscles—in your blood and tells your respiratory muscles to increase the speed and depth of your breaths so you can offload all that extra carbon dioxide and deliver additional oxygen to your working muscles.

The Pace of Your Breathing

According to the American Council on Exercise, you can determine your effort level during exercise by how hard you are breathing. For moderate-intensity exercise, such as walking, you should not be breathing so hard that you can’t carry on a conversation. For vigorous-intensity exercise, such as jogging, you will be breathing faster but you still should be able to talk in short sentences. Elite athletes who are exercising near their maximum heart rate usually can’t say more than a word or two because they are breathing so hard.

The Role of Breathing in Yoga

Breathing patterns and techniques are central to the practice of yoga, which is not an aerobic exercise but nevertheless can improve a person’s strength and flexibility. According to University of New Mexico researchers, yoga’s pranayama breathing technique improves your immune system and helps with hypertension, asthma and stress.

Tai Chi Emphasizes Breathing

Tai chi, an ancient Chinese form of martial arts, uses movement, meditation and breathing to improve health. According to the American Cancer Society, tai chi improves posture, balance, muscle mass, flexibility, stamina and strength and provides the same cardiovascular benefits as moderate exercise, such as walking. Deep breathing through the diaphragm contributes to its benefits.

Common Misconceptions

The idea that the best way to take a deep breath is to expand your chest is a misnomer. University of New Mexico researchers say the best way to get a full, deep breath is to breathe from the diaphragm while expanding the chest at the same time.