25 Nutrition Tips for Fat Loss & Healthy Eating

1. Consume healthy, high-fiber and low-sugar whole foods. These foods include lean protein (lean beef, chicken, fish and meal replacement powders and bars), colorful fruits & vegetables (broccoli, onions, peppers, asparagus, eggplant, carrots, assorted berries, apples, oranges, etc.), unsalted nuts (walnuts, almonds and cashews), and whole grains (steel cut or whole rolled oats oatmeal, low glycemic Ezekiel bread, and oat bran).
2. Food choices should contain a large nutrient-to-calorie ratio.  Simply put, you want a large amount of nutrients with as little calories as possible.  So, no junk food with empty calories that provides nothing nutritious for your body.  For example, eat a piece of whole low glycemic fruit instead of drinking fruit juice or fruit-flavored beverages.  Or eat dark leafy green vegetables (2 cups steamed broccoli has 87 calories) instead of loading up on starches like potato chips, or snack on a variety of nuts instead of ice cream and cheese balls.
3. Consume 5-6 small meals each day rather than 2-3 large meals.  A well-planned schedule will help you achieve this goal.  Eat within 30-60 minutes after waking up, and then every 3 hours thereafter until you go to bed.  For example, begin your day with breakfast, have a small morning snack, lunch, a small afternoon snack, a light dinner, and end the day with a small evening snack.  Smaller, more frequent meals help you control you blood sugar levels, sustain your energy levels, utilize nutrients better and retain more vitamins.  It is essential for controlling your hunger and your fatigue levels.
4. Avoid combining fat and sugar within a meal.  A simple way to improve our health and lose fat is to avoid “fast food” and stop consuming cola or juice.  Basically, when both fat and sugar are combined, it sends certain hormonal signals for your body to shuttle those nutrients directly toward fat storage.  However, by consuming fat with protein or carbohydrates with proteins, you will send different hormonal signals that will elicit fat burning and increase metabolism (lean protein + non starchy carb = High TEF).
5. Avoid eating excess calories at meals.  If you consume 2-3 meals each day, start by splitting up your dinner into two meals spaced 3 hours apart.  Even though you are not changing your calories, your metabolism will start to improve.  There are two reasons for this:  one, your body cannot utilize all the nutrients (even the best of meals) when eaten in one sitting and inevitably, the remainder will go to fat storage; and two, in between those meals the body doesn’t have nutrients to fuel itself, so it resorts to breaking down muscle tissue in order to create fuel to sustain the body.  Anytime you decrease your muscle tissue, you are slowing down your metabolism because muscle = metabolism and this is the only place where fat can get burned.
6. When eating at a restaurant, avoid excess sugar, fat or oversized meals.  Restaurant meals are way too big to eat in one sitting and contain enough food for two – sometimes three people.  It’s critical that you recognize the pitfalls of dining out.  Often, you cannot control the ingredients used or the method of preparation when dining out. Stick with the foods recommended as often as you can – healthy, high-fiber and low-sugar whole foods such as lean protein, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and whole grains.
7. Avoid “processed carbohydrates”. Typically, these include carbs from a bag or a box.  Processed carbs generally contain too many calories and too much sugar.  Processed carbs rapidly increase and decrease blood sugar, resulting in hunger, cravings, fatigue and a release of fat storing hormones.
8. Consume low-glycemic carbohydrates instead of processed, high sugar carbohydrates.  Low-glycemic carbohydrates include vegetables, oatmeal and whole-grain products.  They are digested slower.  A slower digestion results in more stable blood sugar levels, decreased hunger, increased energy levels and a steady release of fat-burning hormones.
9. Replace processed carbohydrates with high fiber foods at all meals and snacks.  Examples include oatmeal or oat bran instead of sugary-cereals for breakfast, salads with low-fat, low-sugar dressing for lunch, vegetables instead of French fries or bread for dinner, and walnuts instead of candy or chips for snacks.  Fiber helps control blood sugar levels, appetite and energy.  The American Dietetic Association recommends 25-35 grams of fiber per day – while most Americans get only 14 grams (or fewer) of fiber per day.
10. Consume a lean protein every 3 hours. If you miss anything, let it never be the protein.  Protein maintains muscle mass (your fat-burning engine) and helps in the recovery process from exercise and stress.  Good quality lean proteins include: skinless, boneless chicken breasts, turkey breasts, wild salmon, 93% lean beef, low-fat cottage cheese and other low-fat dairy products.  For vegans and vegetarians, tofu, seitan, tempeh and other soy-based products and/or meal replacement bars and shakes are perfect.  Aim for 0.6 grams to 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight daily.
11. Avoid foods containing trans-fats (also know as trans-fatty acids or hydrogenated fats – the artery cloggers).  These fats have no nutritional value and have no place in a supportive nutrition program.  Most processed convenience foods found in a bag or a box, as well as most margarine, contains trans-fatty acids.  Learn to be a label detective, but, remember, trans-fats currently are not listed on nutrition labels for most foods!
12. Consume healthy fats from olive oil, grape seed oil, flaxseed oil, flaxseeds, walnuts, almonds, cashews, wild salmon and omega-3 fortified eggs.  Olive oils and nuts are high in monounsaturated fat.  Monounsaturated fats are associated with good cardiovascular health.  Reach for the nuts instead of chips and candy.  Fish, such as wild salmon, provide omega-3 fatty acids that are associated with good cardiovascular health.  The American Heart Association recommends eating fish at least twice per week.
13. Eat the rainbow daily.  The nutrients in fruits and veggies are linked to its color so consume as many different colors of fruits and vegetables as you can.  You should eat at least 5 servings vegetables and 1-2 servings of fruit daily.  Veggies and fruits will provide you with innumerable nutrients including fiber, vitamins, minerals, and many phyto-nutrients that simply do not exist in other foods.
14. Consume a wide variety of foods, especially colorful fruits and vegetables that contain a variety of nutrients and a small amount of calories per serving (large nutrient-to-calorie ratio).  Condiments like low-sugar tomato sauce and salsa also help increase the nutrient content and taste factor of a meal.  Fruits that are nutrient dense include raspberries, blueberries and strawberries, while other fruits such as grapefruits, oranges and apples contain high levels of the soluble fiber, pectin, that helps slow digestion and keeps you full.
15. Become a label detective.  Avoid foods packed with excess sugar, calories, or that contain any trans-fat.  As a general rule, the less processed the food, the more nutritious it is.  Rule of thumb – if you can visualize where the product came from – growing out of the ground or an animal – then choose it.  I’ve never seen a coke tree.  Remember to aim for nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods when snacking.  Log our nutritional intake on a nutrition log form daily.
16. Drink at least half of your body weight in ounces of water daily.  This is simply a recommendation.  You should be monitoring the concentration of your urine to determine whether or not you are dehydrated.  Dark = dehydrated, clear = hydrated.  Most of your liquid consumption should be in the form of water.  Reduce the amount of liquids containing calories.  When in doubt drink water!
17. Consume green tea daily.  It’s calorie-free and has numerous health benefits.  Replace soda, juice and coffee with green tea and water to avoid unnecessary liquid calories.  A typical can of soda contains 150 calories and a large soda from a fast-food joint can contain over 600 calories!!  Soda has no nutritional value and is loaded with sugar that will cause a rapid increase in your blood sugar levels.  The exact opposite of what you are trying to accomplish!!
18. Eat a small protein-based meal before bed.  Yes, I know you’ve heard not to eat before bed because it will be stored as fat.  The truth is, your body needs a steady stream of nutrients including protein every 3 hours and also, your body does not know time.  By consuming a small protein based snack before bed, you will ensure your muscles are properly fueled and your blood sugar levels are stable.  A great snack includes carbmaster  plain yogurt or low fat cottage cheese.
19. Reduce your intake of caffeinated beverages.  Research shows that the caffeine content of commercial coffees can vary on a daily basis depending on water content and brewing time.  One day your coffee may have 600mg of caffeine, the next only 200mg!!  Keep track of your caffeine intake in your food log and make sure to count for the extra calories that are added in the form of cream and sugar –they add up quickly!!
20. For long-term weight loss, make small but consistent nutrition changes on a daily basis. These small changes will result in huge improvements over time.  Start by switching from whole milk or 2 to 1% or then eventually skim.  Use only “lean-ground” (90% or higher), turkey, chicken and buffalo meat to reduce total fat intake.  Substitute calorie-free or low-calorie condiments instead of high-fat condiments (i.e. mustard instead of mayo).
21. Reduce your alcohol consumption. Alcohol is liquid fat and has no place in a supportive nutrition program.  Each shot of alcohol, glass of beer or glass of wine is about 150 calories.  If it’s a mixed drink, count 300-1000 calories per drink!!  Plus alcohol is converted to sugar in the liver and your body’s ability to burn fat is “cut off” which means the sugar is eventually stored in the fat cells.  It’s easy to see how alcohol intake can add up to fat gain.  Restricting our alcohol and sugary beverage intake will help you shed fat in a very short time.
22. Do the grocery shopping on your own.  Research suggests that adults spend more money at the grocery store when they shop with their kids and are more likely to buy high-calorie foods.  If you shop alone, you are more likely to stick to your supportive grocery list.  Buy as much whole foods as possible and less refined packaged foods.  Both you and your family will eat better.
23. Strive for progress, not perfection.  Do not try to change everything at once.  Make it your goal to make 2-3 improvements weekly.  For example, in week 1, reduce your intake of soda.  In week 2, add 1 new vegetable to your dinners.  In week 3, drink more water….and so on….
24. Recruit the help of family members, friends or a coach who will help support your healthy nutrition plans.  It is also a good idea to have someone hold you accountable to your goals so when the going gets tough, you’ll have a friend to remind you of your goals and why you are pursuing them!
25. Remember, it’s OK to cheat.  I’m hesitant to put this one on here, but I know that it’s nearly impossible to “toe the line” 100% of the time (see tip #23).  Allow yourself one cheat day a week – but practice moderation!  This way you’ll look forward to the day you get to eat whatever you want and behave during the rest of the week!

Secret to Finally Achieving the Weight Loss, Health and Fitness Results You Want

Really it’s no secret at all.  You have to make a commitment to changing your life to achieve your goals and once a commitment is made to reaching those goals, it’s imperative that you are held accountable to it.

The commitment I am talking about is life long.  There is no magic pill when it comes to decreasing your body fat and improving your overall health.  There is work involved, but when done the right way it doesn’t have to take up all your time.  The human body takes 4-8 weeks to adapt to a new exercise program before you see noticeable changes.

Therefore, because you will have to work toward your goal at a minimum of 8 weeks (actually for life since your adopting a new lifestyle) you’ll need someone to hold you accountable.  Someone that will push you when you don’t feel like working out.  Someone that knows your goals and how painstakingly important those goals are to you.  That is the real secret.  Without accountability it’s just too hard to do it on your own.

In a study done at Virginia Polytechnic University they found that accountability increases the likelihood of sticking to an exercise program by 2200%.  They simply took two groups of people who were asked to go walking everyday.  For one group they placed a phone call to the participants each week for 6 weeks, while the other group received no calls.  Simply by calling and asking how the program was going increased the participants adherence to their commitment to stick with walking.

I use accountability in several facets of my life.  My commitment to my clients and helping them achieve their goals keeps me accountable to my health and fitness.  If I’m not living it, how on earth can I ask others to “buy” into it.  I’m connected with a men’s group at my church and the relationships I’ve developed there help me stay accountable spiritually.  Accountability is key to success.

One way to incorporate more accountability into your fitness routine is to get a workout partner.  Find a friend with common goals and commitments so you can keep each other on track.  Schedule your workouts with each other in your planners so you treat it like an appointment.  By doing this both of you will be more likely to stick with your commitment to achieving your goals.

The other way, and the most effective, is to hire a personal trainer.  This is not some shameless self promotion either…it’s fact.  While having a friend to workout with will help, your still at the mercy of how consistent your friend is their program.  Plus, you need an impartial party to push you in areas that you need improvement.  And a friend or family member won’t risk hurting the relationship to make you work harder, or even make you stick to your workout schedule.

So, why hire a personal trainer?  Three very, very important reasons:

1. We have the knowledge of how to put together a complete program
2. We create a workable plan of action that integrates all components required for weight loss, health and fitness success
3. We are the support system required to help you make the lifestyle changes necessary to not only achieving your goals, but also maintain them for life

Make the commitment to changing your lifestyle, your habits, your future, and your health.  Get the necessary help and accountability that you need so you are guaranteed to achieve your goals.  With these two elements in place before you start your new exercise program there is no doubt in my mind that you’ll finally achieve the weight loss, health and fitness results you want!

Myth: Thigh reducers and ab equipment can spot reduce body fat

Let’s face it!  You know this to be true.  Doing only crunches to reduce your waistline simply DOES NOT work.  So why do so many people still fall for the late night infomercial touting sexy abs by using their new and improved abdominal trainer, fat melting creme, or fat eliminating pill?  Answer: desperation, convenience… and a lack of complete understanding of how the body actually works.

Think about it… you didn’t gain the body fat you currently have in just a few short weeks.  And you definitely didn’t tell it where you wanted it to be distributed when you gained it.  The opposite is also true.  It’s not going to go away in just a few short weeks from doing crunches or using a thigh trainer, nor will the body just burn abdominal fat while leaving all the rest to be used up another time.  Your body distributes fat evenly over the body and it burns it off evenly over the entire body.  Now… you may have more body fat in one area over another, but that trouble area is not the only place you have body fat.

The key to burning large amounts of body fat is working all the major muscle groups with complex, multi joint movements in a total body resistance training routine to dramatically change and effect your metabolic rate.  Combined with a good, healthy supportive nutrition plan and high intensity interval training cardio plan, total body resistance training done in this fashion will not only help improve the overall metabolic demand of the workout, but will also help build and maintain lean muscle tissue that will result in a higher resting metabolic rate (calories burned at rest).

Complex, multiple joint exercises are exercises that work more than one muscle group in the same movement.  In the video above, Drew demonstrates a squat press using resistance tubing which works the legs, glutes, abdominals, shoulders, and triceps.  That exercise is far more effective, and efficient, than working each of those muscle groups separately.  Supersetting that exercise with the pushup jackknife exercise and alternating each of them in a circuit fashion will help you complete a workout in far less time as well.

So, get up off those machines in the gym that isolate each body part and start exercising more effectively, more efficiently and more functionally!  If you need more help with designing your total body resistance training routine, request a consultation with a certified Jackson Personal Trainer today.

Myth: Women get “bulky” from lifting weights

Most women that I first come into contact with when discussing health and fitness goals have some preconceived fear that if they lift heavy weights they will become muscle bound and bulky…making them look “manly”.  This could not be further from the truth, and there are three basic reasons why.

1. Muscle is more dense than fat – because muscle is more dense it takes up less space or volume per pound than fat does.  In fact, adding muscle tone over the entire body will actually cause you to shrink.  You see, muscle is a metabolically active tissue.  This means that each pound of muscle that you have burns calories, even while you sleep. Fat is not metabolically active.  Therefore, adding muscle over the entire body will help you burn more fat at rest and ultimately cause you to shrink in size.
2. Women are not hormonally designed to build large amounts of muscle – most women think that if they lift weights they will end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but this just cannot happen because women do not produce the right hormones to increase muscle size like that.  Women, in general, do not produce enough testosterone to promote rapid muscle growth.  I’m not saying that women cannot produce muscle, they can.  I’m simply saying that women are not designed to build muscle the way a man is able to.  Strength training will produce muscle growth in women, just not to the extent that it does in a man.
3. Women are not bio-mechanically designed to support large amounts of muscle – a woman’s hips are typically wider than their shoulders, and their skeletal frame cannot hold lots of muscle like their male counterparts.  Because men have wide shoulders their skeleton can support more muscle mass in the upper body.  It’s simple physics, and a woman lifting heavy weights is not going to change that.

There are numerous benefits to lifting weights as part of a well rounded fitness routine.  The added stimulus to the bone from weight bearing exercises and strength training help you retain bone mineral density and fend off osteoporosis.  As you age, it helps you stay strong and maintain your independence.  And it just plain makes you look healthy and sexy…which all women want to feel.

Remember, heavy loads will produce the highest metabolic demand when used correctly. And the higher the metabolic demand, the greater the caloric burn post workout at rest.  Women can and should be doing regular strength training as part of their weight management program.  Building muscle tone will not only make you stronger and smaller, but will also make it easier for you to maintain your new body size for years to come.

To your health and continued success,

Clint Barr

P.S.  If you’re not sure how to get started on a strength training routine and make it work for you, request a no obligation health and fitness consultation with a certified Jackson personal trainer at Raising The Barr Fitness.  We’ll show you how to get the most out of your time and effort.  Or click here to find out how you can get started on our exclusive weight management program right in the comfort of your own home.

Myth: A Regimen of “Cardio” Will Burn the Most Fat

Cardiovascular exercise is essential for overall health and fitness, but just doing “cardio” alone as part of a weight loss program will NOT produce the fat loss that most individuals expect. Long term, your ability to burn calories at rest by just doing cardiovascular exercise for fat loss will be greatly decreased.

As a fitness professional I have worked in various fitness centers and witnessed hundreds of people spend countless hours on a treadmill, elliptical, or stationary bike week in and week out, and never see any changes in their body composition. Why? Because cardiovascular exercise doesn’t do anything to build, or even maintain, lean muscle tissue which is a metabolically active tissue. In other words, by just doing “cardio” you will have essentially trained your metabolism to become slower.

Have you ever experienced a plateau effect in your weight loss? You work diligently for about four weeks and see some okay results. But as you continue over the course of several months you see less and less progress. Inevitably frustration sets in and you end up quitting all together. The problem is not that you weren’t working often enough, rather you were not forcing the body to adapt to any new form of stimulus. Over time the body adapts and becomes more efficient at performing tasks…that’s what we call “getting in shape.” So day in day out doing the same thing produces a smaller metabolic effect because the body is more efficient at performing the work.

Now, not only are you training the body to burn fewer calories at rest due to loss of muscle, but you are also preventing the body from being challenged to it’s maximum potential. Furthermore, in order to continue to see results from steady state cardiovascular exercise you have to either run/walk/bike faster OR longer. And unfortunately, there are not enough hours in the day. I think you will agree that spending more time exercising is not exactly what you had in mind when you set out to reach your health and fitness goals.

Quite the contrary. So instead of committing several hours a day to the same old boring “cardio” routine, incorporate the following to maximize the amount of body fat you want to lose:

• Cross Training – use different kinds of stimulus for your cardiovascular conditioning days that will continue to challenge your energy system to produce maximum results.  Incorporate running/jogging, biking, swimming, playing basketball/volleyball, etc.  This will prevent your body from becoming accustomed to any one type of training stimulus
• Resisitance/Strength Training – you absolutely must perform exercises that will challenge the muscle so you can build, or maintain, lean muscle tissue.  This becomes even more important as we age and our metabolism slows down.  Remember, one pound of muscle can burn up to 50 calories per day at rest.  Whether you’re male or female it’s essential to your overall fitness and weight loss goals.  You can even do resistance training in a way that is highly beneficial to your overall cardiovascular health.
• High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) – performing high intensity bursts of maximal effort exercise followed by periods of rest cycled over and over has been shown to be the most effective form of cardiovascular conditioning for weight loss, and more importantly fat loss.  You’ll get maximum calorie burn, and what’s better is that it takes half the time!

It’s not about the amount of calories you burn during a workout…far from it.  You have to focus on what effect the workout has on your overall metabolic rate for several hours after the workout.  Research shows that combining high intensity resistance training with HIIT produces a very high metabolic demand where the metabolism operates at peak levels for up to 4-6 hours after the workout and doesn’t return to resting levels for up to 36 hours.  I’ll tell ya…working hard for 30-40 minutes a few times per week and seeing incredible results sure does sound better than busting my tail everyday for 60-90 minutes to accomplish far less results.

When planning your workouts, assess your goals and determine how much time you are willing to commit to your exercise program.  If you’re like most of us, including me, than time is usually a factor so make the most of it!  If you need help determining what kind of program is right for you just click here to request your fitness and nutrition consultation with a certified Jackson personal trainer today!

To your health and continued success,

Clint Barr

Fact or Fiction: “Dieting” Will Eliminate Body Fat

Fiction!  “Dieting” will not eliminate body fat.  In fact, long term it will do just the opposite.  Let me explain…

The term “dieting” that I am referring to here is what most individuals call it when they say they are “on a diet.”  I’m referring to restrictive calorie dieting.  This is where you calculate the number of calories you are currently taking in on a daily basis and drastically reduce that amount to produce your desired weight loss goal.  You will initially lose weight implementing this strategy, but unfortunately it’s the wrong kind of body weight.

You see… the body cannot decipher between intentional calorie deprivation and starvation.  Rather than the body adapting to make up for the lower calorie intake by burning fat, it will actually slow the metabolic rate (the rate at which we use energy) and hoard any calories that are being ingested to store as fat to ensure survival.  Due to the lower caloric intake causing the body to hoard and store the calories taken in, the body needs alternative fuel sources and adapts by breaking down muscle tissue for immediate energy.

The overall effect of this is a slower metabolic rate because muscle is a metabolically active tissue.  Lean muscle tissue burns up to 50 calories per pound at rest each day.  If you were to add, and maintain, just two pounds of lean muscle in the course of a year, that would be the equivalent of ten (10) pounds of body fat in calories.  So, by restricting your diet it will effectively cause you to burn fewer calories at rest, making it harder for you to maintain a lean body weight.

Not only that, but because you are taking in less fuel for your body, you will become lethargic and lack energy.  Energy that you need to have effective metabolic enhancing workouts, and energy that you need to stay active. It’s a formula for failure, and one that many try to implement all to often.

The lower energy levels also lead to uncontrollable cravings.  The body senses that you need energy so it relays messages to the brain that you need high energy dense foods and fast absorbing foods.  Therefore, fats and sweets become foods that you crave.  This adds to the body’s natural hormone response to store these calories as fat.

So what do you do if you’re not supposed to “diet”?

Remember, the use of the word “diet” in this article refers to restrictive calorie dieting.  Diet by definition is simply the food you eat on a daily basis.  In order to lose body fat you need to combine an effective exercise regimen, including resistance training, with a supportive nutrition plan that will produce a positive change in your body composition.  But for time sake, let’s cover some simple and effective tactics you can start applying to your diet right now to see results…

1) Increase meal frequency – in simplest terms, eat more often.  Studies have shown that eating 5-6 small meals each day is the most effective method for producing a lower body fat composition.  By eating every couple of hours you are preventing your blood sugar from dropping below levels that cause you to crave high energy dense foods (refined sugars and fats).  You also prevent yourself from overeating at each of those meals because you’re not as hungry due to the fact that you ate just a few hours earlier.  So, you’ll not only eat fewer calories at each meal, but it will be much easier to avoid the foods that are primarily stored as fat rather than used for energy.

2) Drink a lot of water – dehydration can slow your body’s metabolic rate by as much as 50%, making it difficult for you to burn significant calories at rest.  Water is calorie free and can make you feel more full as well.  Make sure you are drinking water throughout the day and especially when exercising.  To know whether or not you are drinking enough water, simply monitor your urine color.  The more concentrated (dark) your urine, the more dehydrated you are.  Conversely, the more diluted (clear) your urine, the more hydrated you are.

3) Eat Your Vegetables – research shows that individuals who consume vegetables regularly each day are significantly leaner than individuals who do not consume vegetables regularly each day.  The reason is because most vegetables are low energy dense foods with a high nutrient value.  Example: 2 cups of steamed broccoli is just 87 calories.  In contrast, just one glazed donut can be as high as 350 calories.  Moreover, the donut is composed of simple, refined carbohydrates that break down quickly and don’t sustain you for very long.  Broccoli is a complex, fibrous carbohydrate that takes significantly more time, and more energy, to be broken down by the body.

You don’t have to restrict your calories and starve yourself to get the lean, tone body that you’ve always wanted.  Quite the contrary.  Eat healthier foods more often and combine that with a structured exercise regimen that includes resistance training, and your goals can be achieved.

If after reading this you are still struggling to connect all the dots, you can (and should) seek help.  Reach out to us, that’s why we’re here.  Submit your questions in the comments section below and we’ll gladly respond as soon as we possibly can.  And feel free to request a no obligation health and fitness consultation.  You can also pick up a copy of our “True Success: Nutrition for FAST Fat Loss” DVD by clicking on the banner at the top right hand corner of this page.

To your success,

Clint Barr

How To Measure Weight Management Success

Before starting a new weight management program it’s important to get baseline measurements so you can monitor changes and track results.  Often times most individuals just use their household bathroom scale as the only tool to measure weight management success.  Unfortunately, the scale doesn’t tell the whole story.

The scale cannot make a distinction between the “good” lean weight and the “bad” fat weight.  These two are important to distinguish between, because losing lean weight slows metabolism and will make it difficult to maintain the weight you have lost.  And can cause the body to re-gain any lost body fat, which leads to the yo-yo effect that so many struggle with.

In reality, the weight that you want to lose is fat.  We all want well defined arms and shoulders, and of course, the six pack abs…we want to be tone!  So we must make sure that when we are going through a weight management program that we monitor and track our lean body weight (muscle) and our fat weight.

The best way to do this is through hydrostatic weighing, or measuring your body density by weighing under water.  But this is not feasible for most people.  Therefore, skinfold testing is the preferred method for assessing body fat percentage or body composition.  In the medical community, BMI or Body Mass Index is the preferred method simply due to the fact that it is non-invasive and fairly quick to calculate.  But BMI can be deceiving because it is simply a comparison of your body weight to your height.  So if someone has a large amount of muscle on a short frame their BMI could show that they’re at an unhealthy body composition when in reality their body fat is in the acceptably healthy category.

Skinfold testing to measure body composition can be done by any fitness professional.  However, keep in mind that not each fit pro “pinches” exactly the same, in exactly the same location.  For this reason, skinfold testing has a +/- 2% accuracy.  So it’s best to be measured by the same fitness professional each time you get measured.  The scale is necessary for this form of body composition measurement because you have to know how much of your total weight is fat weight and how much of your total weight is everything else or lean body weight.

Why is it important to make sure you are preserving lean muscle mass with your weight management program?  Because, as mentioned earlier in this post, lean body weight (muscle) is your direct link to your resting metabolic rate.  One pound of muscle can burn up to 50 calories per day at rest.  So if your fitness program is not building or maintaining lean muscle then you could be slowing down your metabolism.  This will make it almost impossible to maintain any weight you do lose during your program.

Make sure that you are doing exercises that stimulates lean muscle growth so that you lose the weight you’ve always intended to lose…the fat.  Measure your body composition every 4 weeks to monitor and track results.  If you’re not doing enough to maintain your lean muscle, the skinfold testing will let you know so you can make adjustments to your program and bring about the greatest chance for long term weight management success.

Pushups For Charity Huge Success!

This past weekend we hosted the first annual Pushups For Charity Ridgeland event at Raising The Barr Fitness studio.  The event was a huge success.  Donations are still coming in, but so far we have raised over $4,600 for the Wounded Warrior Project.

I want to thank all the sponsors and participants.  Great job!

Here is a short video highlighting the contributions of all our participants:

If you missed the opportunity to get involved it’s not too late.  Simply go to our Team Page on the WWP website, select the name of someone who participated and make a flat donation.  Every little bit helps, and every dollar goes directly to the Wounded Warrior Project to help injured men and women of the armed forces who sacrifice for our freedoms.

Thank you again for helping make our first Pushups For Charity such a huge success!

Clint Barr

Getting Past Mental Road Blocks

One of the most frustrating things for me is when I allow mental road blocks to hinder my growth… whether professionally or personally.  I don’t want them to, but I’m human and most of the time I don’t even realize that I’ve stumbled until I look back and reflect on it.

Can you relate?

You might be wondering why I’m even talking about such a topic. You may even be asking yourself what this has to do with fitness.

Well, the truth is….it doesn’t directly relate to fitness, or health for that matter, at all. But it does have a lot to do with success and breeding a successful lifestyle.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

As a fitness professional I hear a lot of reasons why someone CAN’T do something. Mostly from a nutrition standpoint, like…

“I can’t eat like that. I’m too busy.”

“I don’t eat vegetables.”

“Can’t I just drink a shake or eat a protein bar instead?”

Sound familiar?

I’m sorry for the harsh tone, but it is necessary. I assure you.

You simply can’t move forward until you get rid of all the head trash, drop the excuses, and get serious about your health and fitness.

You know, in your heart of hearts, that real success…real achievement… and lasting results… require a measure of sacrifice and (at the least) a pinch of hard work….

…there is no “magic” pill!

For most, that sacrifice is trading in the convenience for some planning and preparation. Others it could mean mentally approaching your workouts with vigor and excitement.

However that looks for you, I challenge you to bust through those mental roadblocks….knock ‘em down…go right over them.

Maybe you’re like me and you don’t even realize that you are allowing the negative self talk to reinforce bad habits until after the fact. Or perhaps you don’t know at all, and need them pointed out to you the same way I do in some areas of my life.

My goal in sharing this with you today is to get the “juices” flowing, and maybe spur some reflection about what might be holding you back from reaching your own health and fitness goals…and ultimately help you grow as a person.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with a quote I read today.

“Success doesn’t come to you…you go to it!”–Marva Collins

To your continued success,

Clint Barr

Experience Across the Border

This past week I had the opportunity to go on a mission trip to Mexico.  With all the recent news about the drug cartel violence, I had every reason to back out of the trip.  But I’m glad I didn’t because I would have missed out on a pretty amazing experience.

There was 17 in all going on the trip.  We left on Wednesday evening about 5:30 after an exhilarating work day.  For me Wednesday started at 3:30 am (my normal wake up time) to allow myself time to eat breakfast and do my devotional before leaving to run boot camp class at 5:30 am.  Followed that up with men’s group at 7:00 and then ironed out some details at the studio the rest of the morning in preparation for my absence.

The drive to Brownsville took us about 13 1/2 hours with all the stops, which put our arrival there at 7:00 am Thursday morning.  Needless to say I didn’t sleep very much, if even at all.  Personally I have never done well sleeping in a car (or on a plane for that matter).

My dad lives in Weslaco, Tx which is just 20 minutes from Brownsville, so I got to meet up with him and talk with him about an hour or so before we went across the border.  A quick stop for supplies and food at Walmart was the final task before we made our way into Matamoros, Mexico.  Once we were across the border we drove about 30 minutes west of the city to the Matamoros Children’s Home where we would be living and working for the next two days.

We barely unpacked the van and we were put to work.  At this time it’s about 10 am, so I had already surpassed the 24 hour mark.  Some guys were assigned to working on taping and filling the drywall in one of the newly built cottages and some others started working on building the fascia around the roof.  Myself and 4 other guys were assigned to demolition!

One of the older cottages was being renovated so we simply had to gut the place.  There was a leak coming from one of the pipes in the bathroom so there was some wood rot in a lot of areas, but the termite damage was by far the worst I have ever seen.  The wood crumbled in our hands and sounded like Ritz crackers being crumbled up.  We filled up a huge trailer…twice!  We thought, or at least it felt like, we had been working all day.  It felt like the day should have been over, after all, to us we had already surpassed a complete day.

I was feeling extremely exhausted by this point.  Real fatigue…not the kind of fatigue when you’ve put in a “hard” day at work and you don’t feel like doing the dishes or folding laundry when you get home.  No, this was weak legged, hard to focus on anything fatigue!

Since we couldn’t do anymore demolition in that cottage for the day, we decided to head back to the missionary dorm to eat something and refuel.  Along the way we noticed a couple of swings on the swing set were broken.  We stopped to see what we could do.  And I have to admit I wasn’t thrilled about it.  Fixing stuff isn’t really my thing anyway.  And now I felt like I was going to fall asleep standing up.  We were tinkering with this and that, trying to make it work with what little we had.  We got one side fixed, but the other one had the chain wrapped around the top cross bar.  We tried throwing the swing over but to no avail.  So, I climbed up one of the poles and got the chain unwrapped so we could fix the second swing.

Where was this strength coming from?  More on that in a bit.

After that we finally ate some lunch and sat in the air conditioning for a bit… and that did me in.  I could have easily put my head down and called it a day.  But there was still some work to be done and I felt I should press on.  And I wasn’t the only one, we were all tired.  For the next 3 hours we helped pour a concrete driveway.  Mostly shoveling gravel, lifting 5 gallon buckets of the gravel into the mixer, and filling the buckets again.  Over and over, for hours.  Since I was doing something and moving about, I felt energized.  Then some of the children that live there came over and started to help which was nice, and eye opening at the same time.

My energy (strength) could have only came from one place…God.  What other explanation is there?  There isn’t one! We went down to Mexico to do His work and after being awake more than 36 hours, which consisted of some of the hardest manual labor I have experienced in recent memory, it was obvious that the power/strength/energy was not of our own doing.

You know, when those children came to help us work it made me realize something…this small community that we were there to help was displaying what a community is really supposed to look like.  Everyone there contributes, in one way or the other.  Some of the men who live there with their wives help raise 10 orphan children at a time, as well as their own.  Everybody has chores and they do them willingly, not for money, but rather the betterment of the community itself…each other.

Everyone there was smiling…truly enjoying life.  There are no deadlines, no statuses, no crime.  They live as if today is the most precious gift they’ve ever been given.  That is something I would like to learn.  I wonder how much better my day would be if I really took joy in what I was doing every minute of every day, living thankfully, instead of always looking ahead, planning for the next move in order to get ahead (or stay ahead).

I’d like to think I caught a little glimpse of heaven.  Who knew I’d find it in Matamoros, Mexico?!

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