Getting Ready for Summer

Bikini season is officially here! Some of you may be wondering how long you can really suck that tummy in! Here are some quick tips to see a real difference in the next few weeks. Set your alarm on your phone for every three hours. It is crucial that you follow your schedule to the "T". Eating every 3 hours will control your blood sugar and keep you from overeating. Remember that when you over do it on portion size, even if it's healthy, it sends your insulin level soaring. Insulin is our major storage hormone and high levels automatically mean, "Store Fat!" Write your food down. A study in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine showed that people that wrote their food down daily lost twice as much weight in one year than those that did not. Writing down your food is a huge lesson in awareness. Take it a step further by logging your food in a calorie counter from websites such as Lose It! or Calorie Counter. Change up your workout routine. "Muscle confusion" is big in the work out world for one reason, it works! If we can keep changing up our routine we will enhance our metabolism, build muscle faster, and increase our human growth hormone which is crucial for aging well and losing fat. Cut back on restaurants. Did you know that the average restaurant meal has around 1000 to 1500 calories? For example, the Chicken Pad Thai from Pei Wei has: 1,440 calories (that's more than our small meal plan in a whole day) 5,140 mg of sodium (less than 2,300 mg a day is considered within "healthy range") 62 grams of sugar (that is 15 teaspoons of sugar - a Coke has 10 teaspoons) 210 grams of carbs (that's double the amount of our small meal plan in a whole day) 40 grams of fat (and it matters what kind of fat) Up your Fish Oil. Studies show that 3 to 6 grams of fish oil increases fat loss. This may seem like an oxymoron but here is the reasoning behind why it works: Fish Oil encourages better blood sugar levels which will keep you from storing as much fat. Fish Oil has a positive effect on leptin and serotonin levels which improve cravings. Fish Oil actually turns on enzymes that metabolize fat. Get serious about Shut-Eye. Fascinating sleep studies show us that getting less than 7 hours a night lowers fat loss by 55%. Wearing a sleep mask will affect all your night time hormones including melatonin, human growth hormone, leptin, and ghrelin which all have a direct relationship with fat loss. I hope these tips encourage you to get started right now to look and feel your best for summer. Nothing makes us scream "help!" like swimsuit season.