Set the mood with music

What’s in your iPod or mp3 player?

Turns out that the music you listen to during a workout can impact how you feel about your fitness routine.

Studies show that people who listen to fast-tempo music exercise longer before tiring. And, they feel as though the exercise is easier even when the intensity stays the same.

Some gym-jamming tunes to try? Artists like Beyoncé, Black Eyed Peas, Bon Jovi, the Rolling Stones, and AC/DC are perfect for keeping up your stamina during your sessions.

On the other hand, music also plays a role in de-stressing. Quiet, calming tunes with slower rhythms have a relaxing effect on the brain.

After a super-hectic day, find a comfortable place to sit or lie down and listen to your favorite mood music. Try to pay close attention to the physical sensation of breathing out and breathing in for a totally relaxing and transporting effect.

Some artists to check out to help you unwind are Enigma, John Legend, Earth, Wind & Fire, or Maxwell. Anything classical may also work for you.

Bonus play? You can also turn on the calming mood music during your workout cool down.

If you’re ready to get in the best shape of your life, while listening to a custom-tailored workout soundtrack, call PEAK Strength & Conditioning CLUB to set up your complementary consultation. Call 610.336.7472 or email info@peaksc.com to get started.

Yours in health,

Joe

Joseph Arangio
Director,PEAK Strength & Conditioning
Author, WeddingShape Diet and Fitness Guide for Brides
5925 Tilghman St.
Suite 200
Allentown, PA 18104
USA

Have a food free-for-all

Hot dogs, hamburgers, nachos, onion dip, cake! Go ahead…indulge!

Of course, there is a catch.

And that’s to save these forbidden foods for special occasions like the 4^th of July, birthdays and big game days.

Unless, that is, it’s your weekly free day.

Once a week, give yourself a food free-for-all day where you allow yourself to splurge on things you’ve avoided all week. Order a pizza, have a soda or finish dinner with a dessert.

Just make sure you get back on track the next day or you’ll be on a diet downward spiral that’ll be hard to bounce back from.

Here are some more stay-on-track nutrition tips to keep in mind:

1. Keep a food journal or log. Spending lots of time thinking about food, calories, the scale, your butt or gut can be stressful. And that raises cortisol hormone levels, which makes you fat. To break the food freak-out cycle, keep a log of everything that goes down the hatch. That’ll make you more aware. And awareness puts you in control.

2. Fuel your bod before workouts. Make sure that you’ve eaten enough to get through your daily workout or you’ll run out of gas and be unproductive. What to eat? Try a portion each of protein and carbs, like chicken breast and an orange, an hour before gym time and you’ll be golden.

3. Shun fast food. Ensure you maintain your shape-up goals by never being caught unprepared. Stock your kitchen cabinets and freezer with quick, healthy meal-worthy foods like chicken noodle soup, frozen veggies and low fat dinners. If you’ve got quick-to-prepare food at home, you’ll be less likely to stop at a forbidden and fatty drive-through.

4. Dine in. Whenever possible, eat a healthy dinner at home. If a hectic schedule has you dining out more than usual, don’t snack on the before-entrée bread, don’t have a pre-dinner cocktail and don’t order dessert.

5. Just say no to drinks. Alcohol is fat-free, but loaded with calories. What’s more, it interferes with sleep, which has negative health implications all its own. Instead, go for the water. And, if you’re a juice-drinker, mix half a glass of juice with half a glass of still or sparkling water, which will save you about 85 calories per glass.

Now that you’ve got that under control and you’ve decided on your weekly cheat day, make sure your healthy eating habits are reinforced with a regular workout schedule.

Call PEAK Strength & Conditioning CLUB for your free consultation and fitness assessment at 610.336.7472 or visit www.peaksc.com to learn how to fit the fitness into your whole getting-healthy routine.

Yours in health,

Joe

Joseph Arangio, M.S., C.S.C.S
Director, PEAK Strength & Conditioning
Author, Wedding Shape Diet and Fitness Guide for Brides
5925 Tilghman St.
Suite 200
Allentown, PA 18104
USA

P.S. Here’s a link to my latest book: http://www.weddingshape.com/index.html

P.P.S. Check out these success stories: http://www.youtube.com/user/weddingshape

No equipment? No gym? No problem!

You don’t need a fancy gym or expensive equipment to lose inches, boost energy and get in top shape.

In fact, some of the greatest body-shaping, muscle-sculpting moves require no equipment at all.

Check out these fat-melting moves that require nothing but your own body weight:
http://www.youtube.com/user/PEAKSC

And after you check out those simple, body-weight moves, check out PEAK Strength & Conditioning CLUB online at: http://www.peaksc.com.

We can help you get in the best shape of your life with more fitness tips and nutrition tricks that kick-start your metabolism.

Call us now for your free consultation to get started on a personalized fitness routine designed just for you: 610.336.7472.

Yours in health,

Joe

Joseph Arangio
Director, PEAK Strength & Conditioning CLUB
Author, WeddingShape Diet and Fitness Guide for Brides
5925 Tilghman St.
Suite 200
Allentown, PA 18104
USA

P.S. Check out these success stories: http://www.youtube.com/user/weddingshape

You snooze, you lose

Did you know that a sound slumber helps you shed pounds?

Research suggests that a solid night’s sleep boosts levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger, which means you’ll be less inclined to overeat if you get your recommended seven to eight hours.

In addition to appetite suppression, catching enough ZZZs is imperative to your overall health and helps to repair and energize your body and keep your emotions in check.

Sleep deprivation affects your body-firming progress and disrupts your body’s normal ability to process and control important substances, like glucose, cortisol and thyroid hormones.

Translation? The lack of sleep directly affects how you look.

Here are two quick tips for a sound slumber:

1. Wear socks. Research confirms that cold feet keep you up and warm feet help you nod off more quickly. The reason? Warm toes mean your blood vessels are dilated and the blood flow’s healthy, which leads to sleepiness.
   
   
2. If you wake up during the night, don’t turn on the light. Remaining in the dark will help you get back to sleep sooner.

Routine exercise also helps you tire so that a sound night’s sleep is more likely. PEAK Strength & Conditioning CLUB’s fitness coaches design workouts that get you in shape, build muscle, burn fat, and yes, ensure a restful night.

For more information about PEAK or to learn more about leading a healthy, fit lifestyle, call us at 610.336.7472, visit www.peaksc.com or email info@peaksc.com.

And for inspiration, check out these success stories: http://www.youtube.com/user/weddingshape

Yours in health,

Joseph Arangio
Director, PEAK Strength & Conditioning CLUB
Author, WeddingShape Diet and Fitness Guide for Brides
5925 Tilghman St.
Suite 200
Allentown, PA 18104
USA

Take a Time Out

Check out this week’s issue of Time Out New York.

The magazine recently tapped me to share top tips on how to avoid over-eating at various summer festivities. You can see which secrets I shared here:

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/spas-gyms/30275/conquering-the-buffet

Yours in health,

Joe

Joseph Arangio
Director
PEAK Strength & Conditioning CLUB
5925 Tilghman St., Suite 200
Allentown, PA 18103
USA

Stop sabotaging your weight loss and nutrition with these smart-snacking tips

If you’re committed to a fitness routine and you’re doing your best to eat right every day, you’re well on your way to a healthy body that feels -- and looks – great!

But if you’re stuck – you just can’t get the scale to budge one point lower – you might be sabotaging your efforts without even knowing it.

The hidden-calorie enemy? Snacks.

We turn to snacks as a mid-afternoon pick-me-up or as a nighttime staple after dinner. And the choices we make are usually where we go wrong.

There is hope, however, and such a thing as smart snacking. Here are some tips to keep you on track:

1. Arm yourself with single-serving snack packs. Fortunately, manufacturers are giving consumers a grab-and-go single serving option of their goodies. These packages help you to keep your portions – and calories – under control. A few baked whole-wheat pita chips might be a healthy snack, but a 16-ounce bag of them certainly is not!

2. Weigh your food. No. Really. Weigh it. The weight of food – not just the fat and calories – is what fills you up. So you can eat less and still feel satisfied during your mid-afternoon snack. Smart choices include oranges, strawberries, grapefruit and cantaloupe.

3. When choosing fruit as your smart snack food of choice, follow the rainbow. Turns out the compounds, vitamins and minerals in produce that are good for you are also responsible for the
pigments that give them their color.

4. If carbs are calling, consult the GI to find low glycemic index foods. The reason? Low GI foods move glucose into your blood stream slowly to keep your energy level on an even keel and allow you to feel fuller longer between meals. Instead of white bread, choose whole wheat. Rather than pretzels, reach for popcorn. Try dried fruit instead of jelly beans. And splurge for a sweet potato instead of a baked potato.

Remember, too, that portion control is key to managing your weight and spurring weight loss if that’s your goal. And if you’re happy with your weight, these tips can help keep you on track.

For more information about smart snacking, losing weight and toning up, take a look at my book, WeddingShape Diet and Fitness Guide for Brides. In addition to tons of fitness tips, the book includes all kinds of nutritional news and lifestyle tricks that work together so you can reach your best body ever.

Best,

Joe

Joseph Arangio

PEAK Strength & Conditioning CLUB
http://www.peaksc.com

Maximize your workout and bust past plateaus

Think you can melt fat from a trouble spot with a targeted exercise? Think again.

Spot reduction is one of the biggest fitness fairy tales out there.

Performing countless arm curls is not the best way to remove extra jiggle and create amazing arms. Also, doing hundreds of crunches may strengthen your abdomen, but if you’re taking in more calories than you’re burning off, washboard abs will be covered in a layer of insulating fat!

Rather than choosing exercises that target individual muscles (like arm curls for biceps), you should perform movements that work many muscles at once.

A second tip for getting the most out of your time at the gym is to visualize your muscles as you exercise. For example, if you can picture how your deep abdominal muscles wrap around your waist like a girdle, it’s easier to work the entire muscle when you’re doing core work.

Next, improve your technique. Performing an exercise is one thing; doing it right is altogether different. Take an old-school ab exercise: the sit-up. You may be surprised to learn that this gym-class staple primarily works the muscles that cross in front of your hips. Unless you deliberately squeeze your midsection throughout the entire set, you’ll miss out on the belly-firming benefits.

There’s one in every gym … you know, the guy doing arm curls with too much weight. He’s arching his back, grunting, and jerking the bar back and forth like some uncoordinated, painful dance routine. Worse yet, he’s using just about every muscle except the ones he’s trying to work. The lesson? Maintain control. Perform every exercise deliberately.

Lastly, appreciate why some exercises are better than others. Traditional “body-sculpting” movements (again, like arm curls) that are performed in an isolated manner and involve only a handful of muscles, won’t give you a fit and defined physique. In short, the best exercises are the ones that recruit many muscles, and, as a result, involve lots of coordinated movement. A great example? Squats.

Need some help putting these tips into practice? Ask the trainer at your gym for assistance. You – and your body – will be happy you did!

Yours in health,

Joe

Joseph Arangio
Director/President
PEAK Strength & Conditioning CLUB
5925 Tilghman St.
Suite 200
Allentown, PA 18104
USA