I want to provide everyone with a summary of my 10 fitness principles. If you follow these health and fitness concepts you’ll be on your way to living a more active healthy lifestyle. When reading these principles, it is more important to understand the overall philosophy of them as opposed to following them to the letter. You can read the full article about each principle by clicking the highlighted links.

Ten Fitness Principles

1-    Don’t control your weight with exercise

Trying to control your weight with a lot of exercise is a losing battle. Eventually you will wind up burned out, unhealthy and have a number of over use injuries. You have to learn how to control your weight with your diet.

2-    Avoid processed foods

I can confidently say that if you eat heavily processed foods on a regular basis you will be shortening your life. Research has found that being over weight is responsible for 216,000 premature deaths each year and the over consumption of processed foods are a major contributor to the obesity epidemic in the US.

3-    Live an active lifestyle

If I had to choose between working out in the gym for an hour a day and them sitting behind a desk as opposed to living an active lifestyle by moving around all day long, I would pick an active lifestyle hands down for good health.

4-    Hard work should be short in duration

I’ve been telling my personal training clients for years that “when you workout hard it should be short and when you workout long it should be easy”. Yet this is a common sense concept that most fitness enthusiasts can’t accept. One of the biggest mistakes you can make with your exercise program is to have the mind set that more or harder is always better.

5-    Eat lots of vegetables with some protein and fat

The best way to eat everyday is to consume lots of vegetables, a couple of fruits, some animal protein, an egg or two, some nuts and seeds, and plenty of healthy fat. I know there are so many schools of thought when it comes to the ideal diet. The last 20 years could not be any more confusing for the average person looking to lose some weight and eat healthy. After studying nutrition in school, then reading just about every best selling diet book that was published and finally using my experience working with a few hundred personal training clients over the years, I have concluded that eating whole natural foods are the way to go.

6-    Do easy aerobics on a regular basis

Besides doing your short hard strength and interval work-outs you need to do easy longer aerobic work-outs on a regular basis. This principle can blend into living an active lifestyle (Principle #3) but an active lifestyle can be stop and go, while easy aerobics should be continuous.

7-    Get adequate sleep

We all know how important it is to get adequate sleep but so few of us do get enough. Your body can’t function at an optimal level if you are always sleep deprived because many important reactions happen to our bodies when you are asleep. Vital hormones are released when you are asleep that help your brain function, immune system and can even help you to lose weight. Check out this article I wrote called Lack of Sleep Leads to Weight Gain.

8-    Lift weights

We all need some form of weight lifting for good health. It can be your own body weight, free weights or any type of resistance that makes you push, pull and just work hard. I’m not that concerned what type of resistance you choose as long as you workout relatively hard and keep it short in duration.

9-    Cut down on sodium

You have to cut down on sodium to have a healthy diet. Most people in America eat an average of 3,400 mg of sodium a day while the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) is less than 2,400 mg which is just about a teaspoon of table salt. I recommend you limit your sodium to no more than 1,500 mg per day and even less, if you have high blood pressure. I try to eat less than 1,000 mg of sodium per day.

10- Have outdoor play time

The older we get the less time we seem to spend outside. When we were kids all we wanted to do was go outside and have some fun. We would play hopscotch or get a ball game going with some of our friends or just run around. I think we all miss that now. One of the unhealthiest things you can do as an adult is spend all day inside.

Give these principles a try. They don’t involve spending 6 or 7 days in the gym overtraining. They’re just based on a lifestyle philosophy that involves being active, eating right and training smart. You can have that great body and feel years younger if you follow these principles.

If you haven’t already, make sure you get my free “Forever 27″ workout and diet plan. In this report, I explain to you the strategies I teach my clients to have a 20-something body, regardless of their age.

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Best-Mike

Diets that work for one person may not work for another. You really have to know yourself and choose the diet that fits your lifestyle and personality. Most popular diets do work if you stick to them but if you pick the wrong one they will never work. Just because your friend lost a lot of weight on a particular diet doesn’t mean it’s the right diet for you. I know how frustrating this can be.

I’ve been helping people lose weight for over 25 years as a personal trainer so I know that not every diet works for everyone. I do have my favorite diet for weight loss which is a low-carb approach with eating tons of vegetables and lean proteins.  I know that this diet; however, is not for everyone.

What you really have to do is sit down and make a list of all the foods you just can’t live without.  If you see a lot of carbohydrates on the list then the low-carb approach is not for you. If you see a lot of processed foods on the list then you might want to try a low calorie approach or intermittent fasting.  These diets allow you to eat the foods you like but in small quantities or allow you to skip meals to eliminate calories while still eating your favorite foods.

Keeping your weight under control is most likely the healthiest thing you can do for your body. Losing weight the healthy way by eating a lot of natural foods like vegetables, lean meats, poultry and fish with some whole grains is the goal but in my opinion it’s more important to lose the weight anyway you can. Keeping your body weight at an optimal level is the most important thing.

Diets that can Work for You

Carbohydrate lovers can count calories. My formula for counting calories is take your body weight and times it by 10. That’s the maximum amount of calories for you to consume in order to lose weight. For example, if you are 150 pounds, times it buy 10 which will give you 1,500 calories for the day. A 150-pound person will consistently lose weight eating 1500 calories a day. Calorie counting pretty much works for everyone but it takes a lot of discipline.

If you can’t live without eating meat, chicken and fish try the low-carb approach. Thousands of people have lost weight on the Atkins Diet as well as the South Beach Diet and a number of moderate low carb diets. I’m actually a fan of these diets as long as you eat a bunch of vegetables along with your lean meats.

If you’re a person who just can’t live without processed food and junk food your best approach is intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting involves skipping meals like breakfast or just not eating for 24 hours once a week. This method allows you to eat all your favorite foods while still eliminating calories from your diet through fasting. This approach has worked well for thousands of people and studies have shown that there are many health benefits to fasting. My favorite program for intermittent fasting is the Eat Stop Eating program. If you still want to eat all your favorite foods check out this program.

I hope this article helps. I know it’s not easy losing weight especially with all the different diets out there. Just keep in mind the most important thing is to lose the weight. Therefore, find the right diet for you even if it’s not considered the healthiest. Here’s a link to an article by a nutritional professor who lost 27 pounds and lowered his cholesterol by eating mostly junk food while just counting calories.

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Best-Mike

Tight hip flexors can cause a number of problems with your body. Two of the biggest problems is back pain and hip pain.  When the three primary hip flexors known as Psoas Major, Illacus and Rectus Femoris are tight they can tilt your pelvis into a position that extends the spine. This may cause back pain. Most people will try to fix the problem with stretching; however, in my opinion stretching will not permanently help and may even lead to further dysfunction.

When a personal training client comes to me with tight hip flexors the first thing we do is try to figure out why the hip flexors are  tight. When you have a tight muscle it’s generally tight for a reason; therefore, just doing stretching is not going to solve the problem. It will eventually tighten up again as soon as you ease up on your stretching program. Furthermore, stretching a tight muscle might open up a range of motion that your body is not ready for and can lead to a more serious injury. What you really want is flexibility (or mobility) with stability.

How do you get Mobility and Stability for the Hip Joint?

Whenever I want to increase the flexibility of a muscle or joint I take a three-prong approach.  The first thing I do (with my personal training clients) is look at the body as a whole through a range of motion and muscle testing evaluations. Sometimes when you have a tight hip flexor the problem is really coming from a different part of the body. You may have an issue with your ankle or knee that’s making the hip compensate and tighten up. Let’s assume for purposes of this article that the problem is isolated and in the hip. Now if the problem is isolated to the hip there are two main things I would do. The first thing is starting them on a joint mobility program. Secondly, I would go after strengthening the antagonistic muscle group.

I like joint mobility movement because when you move through comfortable ranges of motion without trying to stretch your muscles you release synovial fluid within the joint, which lubricates, protects and heals the joint without forcing yourself into positions of instability. Here is a link to an article I wrote about joint mobility movement so you can better understand it. In addition, here is a video I made for one of my clients who was having some hip issues.

When it comes to permanently increasing the flexibility of your hip flexors (Psoas Major, Illacus and Rectus Femoris) the key to doing this is strengthening the opposing muscle groups. Check out this post I did called Muscle Tightness Comes from Muscle Weakness. Many times when a muscle is tight, it is because the opposing muscles are actually weak. For example, if you have tight hip flexors your body will not let you do the opposite motion completely. You will be limited in hip extension.

Therefore, what you have to do is strengthen your hip extensors. In this case, it would be primarily your Gluteus Maximus and hamstrings. What’s happening is that your body is sensing weakness and instability whenever you try to extend your hip so to protect itself it tightens up the hip flexors.

Good exercises to strengthen the glutes and hamstrings are bridges, hip thrusts and kickbacks. These movements will increase the flexibility of the hip flexors. Here is a video of Bret Contreras performing and explaining the hip thrust. You should start with your body weight.

Now to review: the first thing you have to do is look at your body as a whole if you determine that the problem is isolated to the hip. Thereafter, start a joint mobility program and then strengthen your hip extensors. If you do feel like you’re in some type of compensation pattern and that’s whats making your hips tighten up, I recommend you see a professional to help you solve the problem.

I hope this article helps your hip flexor pain.  I know how hard it can be when your body can’t do the things you want it to.

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Best – Mike Cola

The biggest cause of obesity is a diet high in sugar, processed foods and refined grains. Unfortunately I just described the diet that most people in the US are eating everyday. Throw in a sedentary lifestyle and we have the perfect formula for diabetes and a slew of preventable illnesses.

If I had to pick a diet that would cure the obesity problem in the US, it would be a diet that is very high in vegetables, low in grains (if your not very active), and high in omega-3 fats with adequate amount of protein from lean meats, chicken, fish, and eggs.

We’re basically talking about an all-natural diet. I like to tell my personal training clients to eat like a vegetarian who eats meat. In my opinion there’s nothing healthier than eating a variety of vegetables every day. When choosing your vegetables make sure you pick different colors. Different colored vegetables have a variety of vitamins and minerals that we all need.

Why I tell my clients to limit grains is because most grains are low in nutrition while relatively high in calories. If you are very active you can, and should, eat grains. But when it comes to weight loss cutting down on the breads, pasta and cereals are a great way to reduce calories without sacrificing good nutrition. Like I’ve said before, cutting back on carbohydrates is most people’s best weight loss option. Here is a review paper that supports these findings.

Not eating processed foods is a no-brainer. No one advocates eating processed foods but many people don’t realize what they’re eating every day is processed. Whenever someone tells me I never eat processed foods, I always ask them to tell me what they ate yesterday. Typically they will say something like…  a muffin for breakfast, a turkey sandwich for lunch and then pasta with chicken sausage for dinner. It turns out that these items are mostly processed foods.

A natural diet means foods that are not altered from their natural state. A muffin is a grain product that things have been added to it. The cold cut turkey and bread of the sandwich is processed. Pasta is processed. All these foods have been altered from their natural state in a negative way. Mostly by adding salt, sugar and oil.

When preparing meals stick to the basics. If you’re eating grains have a bowl of oats with some nuts and berries. Try to stay away from sandwiches for lunch; instead have some fresh turkey thrown on top of a salad. For dinner have a piece of salmon with 2 different colored vegetables. In addition, eat a piece of fruit every day for dessert. Use natural herbs and spices for flavor and stay away from the ketchup, mayonnaise and barbecue sauce.

It’s not always easy to eat a whole natural diet in America. They’re processed foods wherever you go. Sometimes it’s hard finding anything natural to eat in a deli or fast food joint. But we have to be motivated and make the extra effort to eat natural. Instead of a deli, walk into a supermarket. Get a bag of raw nuts and some fruit. This is equally satisfying and so much healthier.

Obesity is really out-of-control in the United States. So lets start believing that whole natural foods can be the solution for obesity.

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Best – Mike Cola

I started my fitness blog Fitness Contrarian about 2.5 years ago. I really enjoy doing research and seem to spend half my time reading other people’s health and fitness blogs. When I first started blogging I had no idea how many websites were out there in the fitness niche.  However, over time I seem to keep going back to just a handful of great sites so I wanted to put together my list of the best fitness blogs for 2011.

Best Fitness Blogs 2011

Fitness Black Book: Rusty Moore’s site is one of my favorites when it comes to building a lean healthy body. His workout and diet approach is all based on getting the “Hollywood body” as opposed to the bulky overly muscular look. Whenever I want a fresh point of view about dropping some body fat or building lean muscle I find myself reading Rusty’s blog.

Marks Daily Apple: Mark Sisson’s site is all about living primal in a modern world. One great thing about Mark’s site is he posts everyday so there is a never-ending stream of new content. He believes in and writes about a diet and lifestyle similar to our primal ancestors. He does a lot of good research and really goes in depth about nutrition and how to stay healthy in the toxic world we live in. Mark also manufactures what I consider to be the best multivitamin and protein powder on the market today.

Zen Habits: Leo Babauta’s site is one of the most popular blogs on the Internet with over 230,000 subscribers. Leo writes about living a simple life while avoiding the chaos that is all around us. He doesn’t just write about health and fitness, he covers a variety of topics that can help you live a happier stress-free life. What I like about his blog is that most of the articles can be read in less than 5 minutes. Leo continually gives you new perspectives on how to go about your day in a positive light.

There’s also another blog site similar to Zen Habits, which I should mention called Zen to Fitness. Chris from Zen to Fitness takes a similar writing approach to Leo’s blog site while sticking more to just the topics of health and fitness. I really enjoy reading Chris’s site as well.

Lean Gains: Martin Berkhan is an expert when it comes to intermittent fasting and maintaining low body fat levels all year round. His site Lean Gains gives very scientific and research based information on how to get very lean while building muscle. I have found that many other bloggers including myself follow a lot of Martin’s advice. His site is more for the serious fitness enthusiast or bodybuilder who is interested in the science behind getting lean.

Rob Wolf: Rob is the New York Times best-selling author of the Paleo Solution- The Original Human Diet. I really enjoyed reading Rob’s book Paleo Solution. Rob’s site overlaps Marks Daily Apple a little when it come to nutrition but he’s a former research biochemist, which helps him explain his point of view with solid research. As you can tell, I’m definitely a believer in the Paleo diet. My diet philosophy is somewhat based on these principles.

Robertson Training Systems: Mike Robertson is a premier sports training coach. His site is great for learning how to do movement correctly like deadlifts, squats and an endless number of movements. He explains things very effectively through videos. If you need some advice on exercise technique, check out his site.

JCD Fitness:  JC gives great advice for the 20 and 30 something crowd who want to build muscle and get lean safely and efficiently. I like JC’s writing style; he backs everything he says up with research and one can tell that he takes his training very seriously. He references Alan Aragon’s blog all the time which is also a great blog when it comes to nutrition and training. Alan has a paid subscription called Alan Aragon’s Research Reviews. I think it’s about $10 a month but well worth the money if you like to analyze the latest research.

I can keep going on and on, but I don’t want to overwhelm you with too many fitness blogs to check out. Let me know which one of these are your favorite or tell me your list of the top health and fitness blogs by leaving a comment.

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Best-Mike Cola