Fitness, Work out and Nutrition Tips from World Gym Chicago
What are your goals and questions?
Are you trying to lose weight?
Are you trying gain muscle?
Everyone has different goals. And there a gazillion articles out there online and in magazines.
The idea for a better, leaner body is simple.
Your body uses food for energy. It stores any excess energy as
fat. This means if you eat more food than your body needs for daily activities
and cell maintenance, you’ll gain weight.
To lose weight, you need to get your body to use up these stores
of fat. You only have 2 choices:
- –reduce the amount of calories you eat
- — or increase your levels of cardio activity to burn more fat and calories.
This is why experts talk about weight loss in terms of diet and
exercise. Pretty simple.
The basic equation is this: the more muscle tissue you have, the more calories
you will burn. This is why world class weight lifters must eat
thousands of calories a day to maintain their weight. Muscle is active
tissue, fat is not. Thus, muscle “burns” a significant number of
calories each day for its own maintenance. In her book Strong Women Stay Slim
, Miriam Nelson, a Tufts University researcher, showed that a group of women who followed a weight loss diet and did weight training exercises lost 44% more fat than those who only followed the diet. While aerobic activity can help burn calories, muscle’s where it’s at when it comes to giving your metabolism a significant daily boost even at rest.
Use food as energy. Big is out. Small is in.
With the advent of “super-size” meals and increasingly huge portions at
restaurants, our concept of normal serving sizes is a distant memory. Be
mindful of the amounts of food you consume at a sitting. When
necessary, divide your food in half and ask for a take home bag. Split an entree with your date. It is
all too easy to be a “plate cleaner” even when served enormous portions.
Learn to pay attention to your hunger level and stop eating when you
feel comfortably full, not stuffed. Many people in fitness believe 6 smaller meals every few hours are better then 3 big meals.
One of the best nutritional tips – eat good protein with EVERY meal. Delivering your body a constant supply of Protein throughout the entire day is essential for optimum muscle growth. Protein is made up of amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of your muscles and body. Without them, it would be impossible to build, repair or even maintain muscle tissue.
Some foods contain complete protein, meaning they provide all of the essential amino acids necessary to build muscle. These include: Eggs, lean Meats (this includes lean pork, Chicken and Turkey), Fish, and Milk. And many athletes have whey or soy protein shakes as well throughout the day, as one of their meals.
It’s really a simple formula to a better body.
Stop by World Gym at 909 W. Montrose at Sheridan and
talk to one of their trainers, for advice and guidance.
Uptown. (773) 348-1212