Five Components to a Fit and Healthy Lifestyle

I want you to answer these next few questions and I want you to be completely honest with yourself. They are simple, harmless questions but if you answer NO to any one of them you could be causing harm to yourself. Are you ready? Go ahead-give it shot!

1. Are you in the best possible shape you can be in?
2. Do you get regular physical activity more than two times per week?
3. Do you know how many calories you are consuming each day?
4. Do you know how many calories you should consume each day?
5. Do you know what cardiovascular exercise and resistance training workout is best for you?
6. Do you know how to get started with a proper nutrition plan and exercise regimen?

If you answered NO to just one of these questions, you could potentially be traveling down a path that will negatively affect your health and overall well being. I want you to read those questions again and instead of flying through and giving a simple YES or NO; I want you to think about how you could turn those NO’s into YES’! AND…..BEGIN! Did you do it? Did you convert one of those NO’s into a YES? If you did, great job! The point of this was to make you realize that YOU have the power to make a healthy lifestyle change. It begins with baby steps but each step will lead you on your journey to a new and improved you!

At Gold’s Gym of Eau Claire, there are certified personal trainers that will help guide, motivate, educate and challenge you to reach any fitness goal you have set for yourself. If you haven’t set a goal then your trainer can help you to do that too! Once those goals are set your trainer will inform and educate you on the Five Components of Fitness: 1) Proper food intake 2) Proper cardio 3) Proper dietary supplementation 4) Proper resistance training and 5) Personal assistance-your trainer! If you want to reach your goal, whether it is fat loss, muscle gain, optimal health or improved sport performance, then it is absolutely crucial that you comply with each of the five components. If just one component is sub-par then it will be very difficult to reach your ultimate goal. It is your trainer that will help you to improve those weaknesses and build on your strengths.

Now, you are probably wondering how all five components work. Sit back, relax and let me continue on. To make this a little bit more interesting, I’m going to use a fictitious client, named Claire. Claire wants to lose 15lbs, increase her energy level, tone up her entire body and improve her flexibility. It begins with a little homework, called the Client Profile Packet. The packet contains questions pertaining to lifestyle, medical conditions, 60 questions alone on how one feels about food, a 24-hour dietary recall (detailed journal of everything one ate and drank), and a grocery check-off list. Once complete, the trainer and Claire will review it and discuss her answers. Then a harmless body composition test is taken along with girth measurements, resting heart rate, and “before” pictures (not mandatory but very helpful and eventually motivational). Based on the information answered in packet, the measurements and the specified goal/s, Claire will find out how many calories she needs to consume each day, how many carbs, protein and fat grams she needs for each meal, plus she will learn the importance of planning and timing each meal based on her lifestyle, how to eat out healthy, and much more! The beauty of this is that Claire can eat many of the foods she all ready eats but each meal will be more balanced. Claire will receive a menu plan and all she has to do is follow. For variety and freedom, she will also learn to exchange foods on the menu.

Claire now has a structured menu and knows how many calories she needs to consume to start to drop fat. The next component is proper cardio which is the stimulus needed to burn more calories and aid in fat loss. Claire’s cardio program will be based on activities she enjoys which may be jogging, biking, group exercise classes, etc… Her trainer will then prescribe a cardio activity, will tell her how many days per week to perform the activity, how long each cardio session should last, and where her heart rate should be during the workout. Most machines have heart rate monitors built in but at Gold’s we also have heart rate monitors that can be borrowed. The trainer will tweak the cardio activity often so that the body does not adapt. Adaptation leads to a plateau which leads to diminished results and frustration.

Since Claire is consuming fewer calories and is now incorporating exercise she is losing nutrients. Obviously, we get nutrients from food but since Claire is not able to add more calories she needs to get nutrients from some where else. If not, her body is going to attack her muscle (lean mass) and this is not good. Muscle is our calorie burning machine we don’t want to lose it. One pound of muscle can burn an extra 40-50 calories doing absolutely nothing. Don’t fret-this is where dietary supplementation is crucial. By adding a multivitamin, Claire will receive nutrients without adding calories. It is important to get nutrients from food first but the way foods are grown and prepared now days and with a fast pace lifestyle, most people don’t get the right kinds or amounts needed. Apex multivitamins and its other supplements are designed to complement each other based on individual nutrition plans and goals. They are created by a licensed pharmaceutical company and have a sophisticated delivery and release system so that the nutrients are released in the right amounts at the right time. For someone like Claire who is trying to lose fat, Apex also provides Fat Burn formulas that are safe in combination with the multivitamin.

Claire is now taking a multivitamin so that her muscles will not be attacked but now Claire needs to build some muscle (lean mass). This is done through resistance training. Resistance training has so many great benefits, especially the prevention of osteoporosis. It will also strengthen the joints, increase muscle strength and endurance, increase metabolism, and tone and tighten the body! Resistance training can be done with resistance bands, bodyweight, medicine balls, machines, dumbbells, and more! That is why it is so important to work with a certified trainer which brings me to the last component-Personal Assistance!

Claire’s personal trainer will be able to design a resistance program that will be safe and effective for her and maximize her time so that she can burn the most amounts of calories in the time allotted. There is such a wide variety of things to do. The trainer not only takes the guess work out of what exercises and cardio activities are best, but will help to educate Claire on the importance of proper food intake to help her to reach her fitness goals. It can be very overwhelming at but will become easier the more one works at it. Before Claire knows it, she will have higher energy levels, will sleep better, her clothes will fit better, and she will feel amazing both physically and mentally!

If you are someone who wants to feel amazing not just now but for the rest of your life, then don’t put it off for one more second. Take charge of your body! Only YOU have the power to make a change and YOU can do it! As my favorite quote states, “If you don’t take care of your body where are you going to live the rest of your life?” - Anonymous

Lori Heck
Director of Personal Training
Gold’s Gym-Eau Claire

Gold’s Gym Personal Trainers offer FREE 20 minute consults for members and nonmembers. If interested please contact Lori Heck at 715.552.4570 or lori@goldsgym-ec.com.