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I tell clients in Schertz/Cibolo, Texas, that they can be anyone they choose to be. That doesn’t mean that if they’re five foot two inches tall, they’ll suddenly sprout up to six feet four. It does mean that they can boost their energy and overall fitness to become more active. You can lose fat and build muscle tissue. You can have the body you always want and be the best you. It’s time to discover who you are by taking the steps you need to take to make that dream come true.

Getting fit won’t solve all your problems, but it will give you the determination and energy to face them.

There are so many inspirational stories on how working out has helped people who have faced serious health conditions, many caused by obesity, and helped control them. There are also stories of people who faced other types of loss, loss of a loved one, depression and loss of self-esteem and even loss from drug or alcohol abuse. These people found that the exercise helped boost not only their physical strength, but also helped with their mental strength, overcoming depression, anger and building self-esteem.

You have a lot more to offer than you’d ever imagine.

If you don’t know where to start to change your life, getting fit can help. Focusing on one goal and accomplishing it can help you achieve another goal. Getting fit, losing weight and boosting your energy, plus that confidence you get from accomplishing a goal can help you achieve anything you choose. Eat healthier and exercise regularly can change your life and help you become a new you.

Get the look you want.

Feeling good and looking good should be part of everyone’s life. It doesn’t matter how far you have to go, there’s victory every step of the way. Setting a goal that’s achievable and a time frame to achieve it is important. If your goal is big, break it down to smaller ones that you can do in a few weeks or a month. That helps keep your motivation going. I’ll work to help you set up a program based on your fitness level and as your fitness improves, adjust your workout to match that improvement.

• Learning to eat healthier is also part of the program. You’ll be amazed at how healthy eating actually makes you feel good, besides helping you lose weight. You’ll never feel hungry or deprived.
• It’s not always easy to change your life, nothing worthwhile is easy, but it can be fun and extremely rewarding. There’s a lot of comradery with our groups.
• Make small changes and keep doing them until they become habits. If you’re not ready for a full time fitness program or a full program of healthy eating, start by walking more or eating fruit instead of candy. All small changes can add up to a new you.
• When you’re ready to discover exactly how great you can be, I’ll be ready to help at Custom Body Boot Camp and prepare a personalized program to help reveal the new you.

Want to Learn More About Discovering Who You Are?

It’s tough to stay motivated, no matter what your goal is. It’s especially tough when you don’t get positive feedback immediately. It’s one reason you see so many motivation tapes and practices for people in sales or those who want to climb the corporate ladder. It’s also one of the reasons people often fail to reach their fitness goals and give up instead. Getting fit doesn’t happen overnight, but accountability increases results in favor of achieving those results.

Accountability means being accountable to someone else.

When you have a goal that affects others, such as something simple as picking up groceries for dinner after work, you tend to be more vigilant because others are depending on you to achieve that goal. How many times have you given a party or had friends over and thoroughly cleaned your home, even doing jobs you’ve put off for years? That’s the pressure of being accountable. It’s one reason having a workout buddy or personal trainer helps. They know when you’ve skipped a workout since you’re supposed to be meeting with them.

You first have to set a goal.

Setting a goal means clearly defining what you intend to do. Then you need a timeline and a set of steps you’ll take to do it. Letting someone else know both your goals and your steps to achieve it increases the potential of achieving that goal. In fact, the American Society of Training and Development found that committing to someone gave you a 65 percent chance of success. However, if you have an appointment with someone to take the steps toward your goal, like a personal trainer or workout buddy, your chances of achieving that goal grows to 95 percent.

Group sessions can keep you going.

While private sessions with a personal trainer are great for motivation, so is working out with a group. You’ll often find one person in that group that you can identify with and become a workout buddy. They know when you’re missing sessions. Working out with a group can also boost your motivation in other ways. Energy and dedication is contagious. Everyone cheers each other on when they all have common goals.

• Set a shorter term goal and give someone permission to hold you accountable. Whether it’s diet, exercise or both, keep them posted weekly on your progress. If it’s a family member or friend, make sure they are 100 percent to seeing you achieve it.
• If your goal is big, such as losing 100 pounds, break it down to smaller goals. These are ones that you can achieve in a month or less. Those keep you motivated, too.
• There’s an old saying, “Winners keep score.” It means that if you want to achieve a goal, you need to track the results of your efforts. It’s another way of being held accountable on paper.
• Being held accountable means you’ve taken ownership for your goal and accomplishing it. It actually gives you a sense of freedom, since the path to reach that goal has already been defined, so there’s no worrying about what to do next.

Schertz/Cibolo, TX, like many towns across the country, now have restaurants that not only have healthy food options, they focus primarily on healthy eating. People are now finding out you can enjoy the taste of eating right. Healthy food doesn’t have to taste healthy. You know the type of food. It smells like vitamins and tastes like cardboard. What’s funny, is often those types of food are filled with additives, which include vitamins, but aren’t as healthy as the good tasting, often fresh from the garden, whole foods.

Whole foods are more than just a crisp salad.

Even though salads consist of healthy fruits and vegetables, eating healthy is more than just eating salads. You can even create salads that are budget friendly by using leftovers from earlier in the week. Consider marinating with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing and grilling skinless chicken breasts. Save some of the marinade for the salad. Eat some of your bounty that night, freeze some and use some for a salad made of mixed greens, cherry or grape tomatoes, basil, avocado, onion and bocconcini—mozzarella balls. You can even add a side of fresh green beans or broccoli and a quarter cantaloupe. You’ll have the chicken to freeze for other meals.

Salmon goes well with pea pods and wild rice.

It’s summer and I love healthy recipes you grill, so this one is a top favorite around our camp fire. You need 2 5-oz. salmon fillets, one tablespoon melted butter mixed with a tablespoon of lemon juice, a dash of salt and pepper and a tablespoon of fresh basil. Lay each fillet onto a piece of aluminum foil and sprinkle half the mixture over it. Fold the foil. Put it on the grill or your campfire and cook for ten to fifteen minutes. Serve this delicious meal with grilled asparagus or grilled Brussels sprouts and a salad. For dessert, consider a Greek yogurt fruit tart.

Eating a vegetarian menu doesn’t have to be boring either.

Whether you opt for a yummy black bean chili with a side salad or get more creative and make roasted cauliflower and avocado enchiladas, there’s a whole world of healthy recipes for vegetarians and vegans. Ensuring you get quality protein is the key to success. Soybean products like tofu, tempeh and edamame provide protein and are often used in vegan dishes. Lentils, chickpeas and beans are also good sources. Nuts, nut butters, seeds—including chia seeds and hempseed are on the list of protein foods. Ancient grains like amaranth and quinoa also provide protein.

• While they aren’t nearly as good of a protein source as meat, giant portabellas make a delicious burger when grilled, while providing other health benefits. Combine the portabella burgers with other sources of protein like wild rice.
• Stuffed peppers can be even healthier and vegan. You can adjust the amount of hamburger by replacing some with mushrooms, spinach or squash or make it completely meatless.
• When you eat healthy, you broil, boil, bake or grill the food. Deep fat frying is not part of healthy eating.
• Get adventurous with your food. Try spaghetti squash. It’s easy to make and tastes delicious. You can top it with sauce or toss it with a little butter and garlic.

It’s not too late to get your body bikini ready. In fact, participants of our six weeks challenge prove it! They’ve made important changes that really make a difference in how they look, whether enjoying a day at the beach or a night out on the town. You don’t have to put on a bikini to appreciate what a difference six weeks makes. Not only will you look great, you’ll be ready for all the fun that summer has to offer.

It all starts with eating healthy.

While exercise is important, good health, weight loss and a boost in energy levels all starts with a healthy diet. Don’t let that term diet fool you. When you eat healthy, you probably eat more than you would when you’re not dieting. You simply change the type of food you eat. It starts with cutting out processed foods and sugar or white flour products. Some people start slowly and just cut out food with added sugar. They start reading labels and are often amazed at how many foods have added sugar, foods you might not expect. Kicking the sugar habit is tough. Sugar is addictive and stimulates the same pleasure center in the brain as opioids.

Green up and make your plate a rainbow of color.

Spring is here and there’s so many great foods available straight out of local farmer’s gardens. If you can, use organic fruits and vegetables to avoid exposure to chemical pesticides. There’s a list called the “Dirty Dozen” that shows the fruits and vegetables that were tested across America to find which ones contained the most pesticides. There’s also a list called the “Clean Fifteen,” which shows traditionally grown fruits and vegetables that had negligible amounts of chemicals, so you don’t have to buy organic to get the benefits. The more colorful the mix of fruits and vegetables, the more nutrients you’ll get.

Start your exercise program immediately.

Working out plays a huge role in shedding weight and getting your body toned and gorgeous. If you’re skinny and flabby, it’s not attractive, either. Getting healthy and fit means including all types of exercises in your workout. You need strength training to help build muscle tissue and tone the muscles, flexibility training to prevent injury and endurance to keep you going longer. If you start today, you’ll have start looking like the person you want to be in six weeks. Everyone will notice the difference.

• The more muscle tissue you have, the easier it is to lose weight. Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue does, so you’ll burn more calories 24/7.
• Boosting your endurance also helps you burn more weight. The more energy you have, the more active you’ll be even when you’re not working out. An active lifestyle is part of getting fit.
• Eating healthy means you can eat almost anywhere and stick with the program. Even if you have a slice of birthday cake or a cookie, all is not lost. You simply make sure that you stick with healthy eating the rest of the time.
• You’ll be amazed at how great healthy food tastes. In fact, after eating healthy for six weeks, you’ll probably be able to appreciate the sweetness of fresh fruits and find it satisfying as a sweet treat.

You can’t get much done when you feel like garbage. That’s why people who want to be more productive look for ways to improve their health. When you get healthy, you improve your energy level and move faster with fewer breaks. Of course, that’s the recipe for productivity. There are also many other reasons getting healthy helps you become more productive. Getting healthy may involve having a medical issue resolved. That certainly can make you feel more energetic and productive. However, it can also mean making lifestyle changes that boost your health and productivity.

You’ll have fewer injuries when you’re at your fittest.

Have you ever heard of functional fitness? Functional fitness ensures you won’t get put out of commission from lifting a small object or your child. If you’ve ever felt that stabbing pain from doing something simple and blamed it on moving wrong, you know the consequences of not being functionally fit. Functional fitness improves balance and coordination of muscle groups, plus makes muscles stronger. It improves their range of motion, while preventing muscle and joint injuries.

Working out regularly boosts functional fitness, while helping you lose or maintain weight.

Getting your body ready for action, no matter how simple, and preventing injury is just part of the aid that getting functionally fit provides. It helps you shed weight and boosts your energy level. Whether you’re doing specific exercises for functional fitness or just a well balanced workout program, you’ll be doing your body a favor by building flexibility, strength and endurance. It builds more energy and that translates to more productivity.

What you eat makes a difference, too.

All those sugary treats may actually be robbing you of energy. Sure, your energy level goes up quickly, but it also drops just as dramatically when that sugar boost runs out. If you’ve barely made it through the day, eating handfuls of sugar frequently to supplement your energy, it’s time to change. Eating healthy helps prevent serious conditions, such as high blood pressure and cancer, while boosting your immune system to prevent less serious conditions that can keep you out of commission for a few days or weeks. Focus on eating healthy and you’ll see a boost in your energy and get things done more quickly.

• Eating healthy and regular exercise not only boosts your energy level for physical jobs, it increases your mental sharpness. Studies show exercise boosts the development of new neural pathways.
• When you eat healthy, you’re providing your body with all the nutrients necessary to build muscle tissue and maintain healthy and energy.
• Working out and developing functional fitness improves balance and reduces the risk of falls. That keeps you working and being productive.
• Once you do what it takes to get healthy, you’ll find it gives you the confidence to accomplish other goals, which can include those that about work.

Don’t get me wrong, when I say that not all workouts are created equal, that doesn’t mean you should stop the exercises you’re doing in search of the best ones. Quite the contrary. ANY EXERCISE is preferable to no exercise at all. However, some will get you in shape faster or help you lose weight quicker. In fact, it’s one reason people use personal trainers. Getting the best results for your time in the gym is always a goal. You need to identify what you’re hoping to achieve to find the best exercise for your needs. Each type is necessary, but focusing on a specific type can give you the best results.

Strength training is at the top.

If your goal is weight loss or building muscles, strength training should be at the top. While cardio workouts burn calories, so does strength training. Strength training also helps prevent muscle loss that can lead to bone loss. Aerobic training, cardio, doesn’t discriminate where those calories come from. They may come from burning body fat or burning lean muscle tissue. When you’re burning calories for strength training, you’re also building muscle tissue and muscle tissue burns more calories 24/7 than fat tissue does.

You need cardio, flexibility and balance training.

Don’t let the promotion of strength training mean you have to give up other types of exercise and head for the weights. You need all types of workouts to be fit. That’s why your goal is important. If burning calories is tops, go for it, add strength training to your workout schedule, but don’t do it more than twice a week if you’re going hard. Your muscles need time to recuperate and heal. Balance and flexibility training can help prevent injury from falls or sprains and strains. Cardio is necessary for heart health and endurance.

HIIT—high intensity interval training—is a way to get all the benefits.

HIIT is a method of doing different types of exercise, not an exercise itself. It’s a type of interval training. When you workout with a HIIT format, you give it all you have for a short time, followed by a moderate pace to recover. Then you repeat this process until your workout is over, between 10 and 30 minutes. You notice I didn’t mention a specific type of workout. That’s because you can use HIIT with any type of exercise. You can run hard and then jog, then back to running hard. Pushing hard in interval training gets many of the same results, but you’re working a lot of body areas.

• HIIT workouts provide cardio and strength training. They can also include balance and flexibility, so you get a full workout.
• HIIT workouts keep burning fat after you’ve finished. It uses fat to get your body back to normalcy after the workout.
• There are various ideas of the ratio of HIIT between the all out and the resting time. The best ratio should be one that’s tough for you, but not so tough you have to quit. A heartrate monitor helps.
• Any interval training can be turned into a HIIT interval training. Just adjust the amount of energy you put into the exercise. Go at maximum heart rate for a while and then do exercises at moderate rates.

There’s a lot of reasons people might need some nutritional guidance. First, everyone is blasted by advertisement that says certain foods are super healthy, so eat them. That’s just not true of some foods. If you’ve listened to the ads for high fructose corn syrup, they say it’s natural, because it comes from corn. According to the FDA, it is. It doesn’t contain artificial flavors, colors or synthetic substances. However, it’s far from natural. The starch is extracted from corn, treated with an enzyme that releases the glucose and then another one that changes half of that into fructose. The substance left, high-fructose corn syrup, never would or could appear in nature without scientific intervention. It can cause changes in hormones that can make you gain weight.

What do you believe?

That’s a tough question. The answer, however, can be simple. If you want to eat healthy, eat foods that are closer to their natural state and undergo little if any processing and avoid sugary food. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables, a healthy lean source of protein and healthy fat, such as an avocado, olive oil or nuts, can keep you on a road to healthy eating.

Planning well balanced meals may be a simple as creating a rainbow on your plate.

Fruits and vegetables of different colors have different nutrients. They even have different phytonutrients. Yellow and orange vegetables, for instance, contain beta-carotene, zeaxanthin, flavonoids, lycopene, potassium, and vitamin C. Beta-carotene comes from the yellow or orange coloring. It converts to vitamin A. Blue and purple vegetables contain lutein, anthocyanin, zeaxanthin, resveratrol, vitamin C, fiber, flavonoids, ellagic acid, and quercetin. The anthocyanin, a powerful antioxidant, gives the fruit or vegetable the purple color. Each color provides different health benefits.

You might think it’s too expensive to eat healthy, but it’s not.

Not all your protein has to come from grass fed organic beef or other more expensive sources. Beans are a great source of protein and a bag of beans can make a soup that feeds a family. Add a fresh salad and a side of vegetables, like garlic roasted broccoli and you have a healthy meal. Don’t let some of those high cost “specialty” items fool you. Remember, if it says gluten free and has a high price tag, you might be paying for the advertisement. Foods like rice and potatoes are naturally gluten free.

• Eating healthy doesn’t have to take a lot of time, but it does take planning. If you plan ahead, you can make extra meals when you cook and freeze it. It’s easy when you make soup.
• When you buy fruits and vegetables that are in season, you can also save money.
• The biggest benefit of getting nutritional guidance is learning how to create healthy meals. It’s not a diet, because they don’t work.
• Once you start eating healthy, you won’t want to go back to old eating habits. You’ll find that healthy food actually tastes better.

FitBit is popular in Schertz/Cibolo, TX, just like it is everywhere else. I often get questions from people about how important it is to add this tracker to their weapons for good health. The answer is, it depends. That’s right, some people find it extremely helpful, while others like more traditional techniques or different technology. It’s simple, small and records a number of different types of data throughout the day. It may record the amount of calories you burned, the number of steps you take and even spot how hard you’re working… are those steps a slow stroll or a hard hitting run? It’s a good tool to keep you accountable.

Get other health information with FitBit.

Wear it at night to see the quality of sleep you have, too. It also records your heart rate, the number of steps and stairs climbed and the distance you traveled. Newer models identify they type of exercise, interval mode and when to stop or start. If you’re doing weight lifting, it records that too. It can give you a cardio fitness score based on all the data it collected, your profile and your resting heart rate. You also get virtual badges for achieving goals to add to your motivation.

There are other tech products to also help you get fitter.

Wearing fitness gadgets is now fashionable and there are a host of competitors on the market. Jawbone’s Up, another fitness wristband, lets you know if you’re sitting too long and need some activity. BodyMediaFit has a host of features to tell you how fit you are from your heart rate to the heat that comes off your body. Not getting the right type of sleep? Try Zeo to monitor it.

Go old fashioned.

Maybe you’re not a techy kind of person. That’s okay, you can use simple device to help you get fit faster. If you set at a desk all day long, bring a timer or use one on your phone to remind you to get up and walk every 50 to 55 minutes. Track your workout with a simple chart created on a small pocket pad. Sometimes, the act of logging the information yourself is just as motivating.

• Working out with a friend can be just as motivating, but products like FitBit are helpful when you’re on your own.
• Counting out a thousand steps a day is too cumbersome to do without some type of technology. That’s one reason these types of fitness aids are so popular.
• While a formal program for working out is important, you also need to stay active when you’re not at the gym. These apps and tools can help you stay more active and if you’re a mom, a great way to prove to a spouse just how much you do!
• FitBit isn’t for all types of exercise. For instance, if you’re a swimmer, it won’t help you there.

I like to focus on the benefits of strength training for older women, not because they’re available just for that group, but because older women tend to avoid strength training. Some of my senior female clients avoid it because they grew up believing either that it was unladylike, built big muscles or was dangerous for people beyond a certain age. Sometimes, they believe all three myths. Older women get a dramatic benefit from building muscle tissue with strength training and it can lead to a reduction in medication and better health.

You’ll build muscle mass.

No, you won’t become the Incredible Hulk or start a race of muscular super seniors, but you will keep the muscle mass you need for a healthy life and everyday tasks or fun. As you age, you lose muscle mass. The American Council on Exercise estimated that between the age of 30 and 80 almost 40 percent of muscle mass is lost if you’re sedentary. That means you get weaker and unable to function like you did a few years prior. Eventually, it could mean you can’t live on your own. That would be a shame, since in many cases, it’s preventable.

More muscle mass means denser bones.

It may not seem like lifting weights or jumping could build your bones, but it does. It causes the muscles to pull against the bones and that starts the process of bone building. There’s a vast wealth of evidence that just doing strength training two to three times a week can help retain the calcium in the bones and improve bone formation.

You’ll help prevent chronic disease and improve conditions you already have.

If you presently have diabetes, back pain, osteoporosis, arthritis or even chronic depression, strength training can help relieve those symptoms and even help reverse them. Insulin resistance, the precursor to diabetes, is helped with resistance training and so are people with type 2 diabetes. Strength training increases the protein responsible for regulating how the body absorbs blood sugar.

• Boost your mental attitude with strength training. Getting older doesn’t have to mean getting angrier or depressed. When you workout, you burn off the hormones of stress that can cause you to get crankier. It also boosts the hormones that make you feel good and lift depression.
• Strength training burns calories and boosts your metabolism. A slow metabolism can cause weight gain and that can lead to a number of conditions. You’ll look fabulous, too.
• Deep sleep is harder to achieve when you age. Strength training helps you sleep better. A good night’s sleep is important for a healthy body, particularly for heart health.
• Strength training also improves balance and can be instrumental in reducing falls and accidents that may lead to ending independence.

In Schertz/Cibolo, TX, we’re so lucky to be able to find all types of fresh fruits and veggies available from local vendors. Of course, I’m a huge fan of locally grown fresh produce, especially when it’s organic and right out of the garden. There’s nothing worse than a cardboard tasting piece of fruit or vegetable that was picked early, before it became flavorful and shipped in a refrigerated car to ripen later. I guess what I’m saying is that when you focus on actual taste, it makes a huge difference. Truly tasting the food you eat is one way to get you on the road to eat healthy without depriving yourself.

You don’t have to give up everything you love.

That’s right. When you’re eating healthy, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be struck dead by lightening if you have a small piece of cake or a cookie occasionally. Just don’t eat the whole cake, sliver by sliver, of course. (We’ve all been there at one time or another.) If you do, don’t throw up your hands and quit your healthy eating plan. It’s not the end of the world. Just make sure the next meal is healthy. It’s not the individual food that’s going to pack on pounds or make you sick, it’s the combination of your entire diet.

Find ways to make delicious foods and treats that are also healthy and have them available.

You can make some yummy treats that are still quite healthy. For instance, it just takes two, possibly three ingredients, to make a yummy fruit creamsicle. Grind up fresh berries or fruit like blueberries, sweet black cherries or peaches. Add an equal amount of Greek yogurt and if necessary, some honey or agave to sweeten to taste. Put in a popsicle mold and freeze. They’re ready for you when you need a healthy sweet treat. There are so many other healthy foods that are absolutely delicious and won’t leave you feeling deprived!

Find ways to substitute food or ingredients.

You don’t have to eat everything raw that comes fresh from the garden, just start with a few changes to your diet to eat healthier. For instance, instead of sour cream on that baked potato, add a dollop of Greek yogurt. It looks and tastes the same, plus you can buy a smaller container of yogurt that costs far less than the sour cream, so you save money, too. For baking, applesauce can substitute or some of the oil or sugar in it. It lowers calories and boosts nutrition.

• Eat slowly and savor every bite. You’ll get the full flavor of each bite, plus it slows you down, so your brain has a chance to signal your body that you’re full.
• Double the salad and vegetables. Cut the dessert portion in half. You still get some, so you won’t feel left out and with the double serving of salad and veggies, it may be all you can eat.
• When eating out, eat slowly and eat only half the dish and dessert. Get a take home box and finish it tomorrow at lunch. It’s a free lunch that also helps you lose weight!
• Pay attention to whether you’re hungry or eating for an emotional reason. If you’re bored, lonely or sad, often you eat to console yourself. Instead, try doing jumping jacks, running in place, deep knee bends or other exercise before you walk to the fridge. The exercise can help lift your spirits and postpone that binging.