Personal Training Blog with Douglasville Personal Trainer David Hansey

Some people have willpower – others do not.

If you are not at your ideal weight, you are in the DO NOT category. Do not try to kid yourself. Be honest with yourself and realize that you do not have the ability to have things in your home that are not healthy. And in reality, those things that you have in the house “for the kids” or “for the spouse”, why are you encouraging them to eat poorly?

So let’s go clean out that pantry and get real with honest eating.

First, remember that fresh food is usually your best choice. So let’s start with the fridge and freezer. Toss out the margerine – a tub of fat — come on. If you actually need to add a small amount of butter or oil to something, you are better off with olive oil and even butter so get rid of the tub of margerine.

Check your sugars — while yogurt is healthy, getting one with sugar as a top ingredient and a million grams of sugar is a NO GO. If you can’t find one that is low in sugar, you are not trying hard enough. Check out the brands meant for babies, the organic brands and check out plain yogurt (and add your own fruit)

Consider new alternatives – plain yogurt makes a great alternate to sour cream — trust me it is good!!! Vegetarian corn dogs for the kids have more vitamins, less fat and about 1/2 the calories of the real thing and they taste good. Veggie burgers such as Gardenburger and Morningstar Farms make a great alternative to a greasy burger.

Is your crisper full — it takes a lot of veggies to have a healthy diet and if your fridge has almost none, you have to ask yourself where do you plan to get your 5 servings a day.

In the freezer, is it full of ice cream, greasy toaster pastries and instant biscuits. – Ya, gee, I wonder why you can’t stay on track too. Throw it all out.

Moving on to the pantry!!! I will have more on fridge fixing in the future too so stay tuned!

In your pantry, the biggest enemy is sugar. And he hangs out in there with his evil friend, fat. Watch out for fat free products because to make you not miss the fat, they usually add more sugar.

Cookies — You really should not have any packaged cookies in the house. Sorry, but this is not something that should be part of your diet. A cookie while you are out somewhere once in a while with a coffee is going to be a lot more satisfying and it has a built in calorie limit because you only buy one not a whole bag.

Crackers — I have some plain soda crackers in the cupboard and I use them rarely with things like tuna but there are very few crackers that are not pure carbs. Some of the flatbread crackers like Wasa are a good alternative because they have a TON of fiber and very little calories.

Bread — read the label on your bread. Does it have ingredients like fructose, maltrose, molasses — well those are all SUGAR so they should not be main ingredients in your bread. And eating a bread with 100 calories a slice is crazy. That means your whole lunch is pretty much just your bread. Use your calories more wisely.

Cereal — I see very few people who talk about their weight problem who eat oatmeal (not sugar loaded instant but just oatmeal) for breakfast. Along with some fruit and some protein, you have a low calorie nutritious breakfast. Can you say that about frosted anykind of cereal. Most boxed cereal is sugar city and even the ones who dropped their sugar, are still loaded and have almost the same amount of carbs as the original

I will be having a part 2 of this coming out soon – the changes listed above will make dramatic changes to your diet and weight loss success. TRY them if you are not getting the results you want.

Yes, I completed the Atlanta Marathon yesterday. What a great Thanksgiving tradition. It was a different marathon than those I have ran in the past. It did not have the crowds to cheer you on — to be honest, I find the crowds really helpful the last few miles. But the solitude of certain parts of the run was also nice too.

I would not suggest this as a good “first race” because of the solitude, the time of year (it rained and was chilly). There are great first time races such as Honolulu (people’s marathon), Disney, any of the Rock and Roll Marathons, Chicago (totally flat)

That said, if you have raced before, I think you would love the Atlanta Marathon. It is a fast course (I shaved a whole 35 minutes off my ING Georgia Marathon time. And as far as marathons go, it was cheap and the logistics were awesome (easy to get my packet and easy to get dropped off (there is a huge parking lot at the start/finish. And while I like to see people who run and walk the half-marathon, it rocked to not have them at the start since they start at an entirely different start.

Interested in training for a race? Awesome. I will now be tweaking my workout to do the ING Georgia Marathon in March.

Hey there to all my Douglasville personal training clients here both at the gym and at home. I truly love seeing all of you meet your goals with your fitness routines.

I will be on vacation this week for both the Thanksgiving Day holiday as well as to run the Atlanta Marathon on Thanksgiving Day. — YEP — 26.2 miles!! I am excited. I have been training for a few months now (after running the ING Marathon in the Spring and the Peachtree this summer) and I am excited. This will be my 5th marathon — WOW !!

So I would like to take the opportunity to wish all of my clients, friends, readers and everyone who reads this THE VERY BEST for a safe, happy, healthy Thanksgiving.

It is with great gratitude to all troops everywhere for keeping us free, that I wish you the best on Veteran’s Day.

And it is with great hope, that I wish that we never forget the sacrifices that you make every day.

It is with great pride and great honor that I extend the best Birthday wishes to all Marines everywhere on this, the Marine Corps Birthday.

Semper Fi !

Getting a great workout at the gym is a piece of cake. But at the busy club in Douglasville where I train, I see people struggling just to make it to the gym and then a lot of them wasting their time once they are there.

Fitness takes a commitment. Give yourself over to YOUR NEEDS one hour per day (come on that still leaves 8 to sleep, 10 to work and another 5 for assorted things!)

During that hour you gotta move. No group fitness classes, no chatting, no reading, no rest periods between sets. Here is what you have to do. ** Note — I don’t say no group fitness classes because they are not good, I say it because the truly time rushed should focus on THEMSELVES, not on a preset routine made for the masses and doing an hour aerobics class does not give you your strength training. No sorry, even the ones that use weights are still aerobics and NOT strength training because you are not lifting heavy enough weights. So do classes on the days in between or when you have more time. For the truly rushed, this workout gets you in and out of the gym in an hour – enough said — here it is…..

Cardio – 35 minutes — 5 minutes to warm up and then 30 good SERIOUS minutes — you should be SWEATING

Weights — 25 minutes
You will do large body parts — think walking lunges and squat with a military press rather than thinking about small muscle groups like biceps. And you will do multiple sets but you will split them with another exercise.

For example, a set of walking lunges followed by a set of push ups then back to the lunges, etc. This way your muscles get a rest between sets without you sitting there.

Trust me, this routine will make you work and will make the MOST of your gym time. Anyone who is seriously rushed should do this. Oh, and skip your ab work, do it later at home instead of being plopped on the couch for the whole evening!

If you have no idea what the strength training portion should be, try booking a few personal training sessions with a Board Certified personal trainer. You will get a workout that you can follow that is set in the same amount of time that you have if you get a 1/2 hour personal training session.

Hope that helps you realize that there is a way to fit fitness into even the busiest day and make it to the gym — no excuses.