MAXIMIZING YOUR WORKOUTS
HOW HARD ARE YOU WORKING

THE FITTER YOU ARE THE HARDER YOU HAVE TO WORK is the reward for all your hard work. It means that you have accomplished something. For instance, if your past aerobic workouts had you walking
2 miles in 30 minutes and you progressed that to a 2 mile run in 20 minutes you would of noticed many changes during that progression of time and speed. You would have found what was hard is now easy, your legs don't have the same soreness that they may of once had, breathing is now easier. You have become fitter! However, over time your body does not see that 2 mile run as  a challenge anymore. So in essence that original improvement in your body now gives you maintenance. Not to say that it is wrong, but let me encourage you to work a little harder, run a little faster or stretch a little longer, because if you liked the improvements that you’ve made so far, think of all the good things to come.

The same principal applies to your anaerobic exercises. When was the last time you added a few pounds to your arm curls or to your leg pressing exercises? In order to improve your body you must overload it. Women do not have to be afraid of “bulking up”, you don’t have the testosterone to do that. The only group I would caution about overloading would be anyone with high blood pressure, heart disease, or if you are pregnant. Take a few minutes and review your exercise routine. Ask yourself if you can add a few more minutes to your cardio routine or add some resistance to it. When your lifting weights ask yourself if you can do a couple more repetitions with good form instead of putting down the weights after you reached a specific number.

Remember, setting goals is easy, achieving goals is where the reward is!

LOSING WEIGHT

Losing or maintaining your weight is directly affected by how many calories you intake per day. The single most effective way of producing a positive outcome is keeping a food diary.

There are many ways to keep a food diary, and recording what you ate may not be the only thing you want to track. The most important thing to remember
is to keep track of any aspect of eating that is giving you trouble. This could be the times of day you ate, how you feel before or after you eat, where you eat or how much you ate.

Here are some ideas that you can try:
Write down only the foods your over ate

Track all the foods you avoided
(Then you can add up all the pounds 
you saved yourself)

Write down the foods you are about to eat BEFORE you eat. You may find
that this very helpful.

Remember - 
If you have time to eat it; 
you have time to write it down!