Personal Trainer Los Angeles | Fitness Trainer LA | Weight Loss Los Angeles

March 15, 2010

Keeping the Spice in Your Personal Training Program

Filed under: Health and Fitness, Nutrition — Tags: , , — nbarrett @ 12:42 pm

Spring is coming! Take to the great outdoors and be re-motivated for your cardio!!!

We all at times feel like not exercising. Where do you find the motivation to exercise?

You are not alone when you ask yourself this question. The best way forward is to get out of our heads about exercise and just take action steps.

Some ways to motivate ourselves to exercise work better than others. Through my experience as a trainer working with many clients, I have put the following list together…

1. Make it enjoyable and fun to do

Find something that you enjoy doing. Sure, you may think that cardio machines in the gym are as boring as ‘egg whites’, but you can make them much more fun by listening to your choice music, or a great book on your I-Pod.

2. Visualization

Visualize how you will look getting that 20lbs off, or on how you’ll feel when you harden your mid-section. Picture  yourself doing cardio for 30 minutes and feeling fresh and wanting to do more!

If you can only do 10 push-ups and want to do 15, visualize yourself doing them by counting to 15 one at a time. Visualization is used by many top athletes to get them past performance plateaus.

3. Sign up for a fitness event.

A 5k race can be motivating, inspirational and fun, giving you a deadline to aim for. It will give your training more purpose.

4. Think about how you will feel if you don’t train

When you exercise you experience the release of endorphins in your body which give you a natural high. How do you want to feel today? Sluggish or energized? The amount of time as individuals that we spend thinking about exercise is great. Have you ever stopped and wondered how much? Nothing will change if we think, only if we take control and do it will we see change! Cause and effect at it’s best!

Lastly just enjoy and the future will come and will be as good as we make it!

Read more about my training philosophy here

January 15, 2010

Healthy Ways to Beat the Flu Season with Olive Leaf Extract

Filed under: Health and Fitness — Tags: , , — nbarrett @ 2:22 pm

Instead of taking the ‘flu-shot’, which actually lowers your own immune system, not to mention the fact that it fills your body with the stuff you don’t want… Sickness!!!

Move away from Sudafed and all the over the counter “Wonder chemicals,” as they just mask the symptoms… alas after 3 weeks of use one is better!!!

Beat the Flu Naturally Occurring Supplements

Research has shown that Olive Leaf Extract with high levels of Oleuropein can offer the best way to boost immune system against many types of bacteria, viruses, yeasts and fungi.

The great thing about olive leaf (Oleuropein), is that unlike synthetic flu shots or antibiotics, it does not destroy the good bacteria, only the bad bacteria. It acts as a natural broad-spectrum antibiotic, anti-viral/fungal, anti-bacterial compound.

It does this when taken orally, by dissolving the outer lining of the infectious germs, and hence then penetrates the infectious germs/cells preventing more from forming.

The effective part of Olive Leaf is a phyto-chemical compound called Oleuropein extracted from Mission and Manzanillo olive trees.  (Learn more about maintaining optimal fitness by taking the right supplements here).

A person’s immune system becomes weakened when fighting an influx of bacteria and infectious germs, making the body more susceptible to sickness.

When Olive leaf is taken orally, two natural enzymes in the body – esteraize and beta-glucosidase – convert the Oleuropein in Olive leaf to elolenic acid. Elolenic acid helps boost your immune system.

Recommended Dosage for Olive Leaf Extract Supplement

  • 2 capsules 900MG ( approx) 3* per day for 3 days when symptoms first occur.
  • 1 capsule 2x per day for maintenance.

Need a personal trainer and nutritional counselor to help you craft a customized fitness, nutrition, and supplement plan for you?

January 7, 2010

Setting Goals 2010 – Achieve Your Weight Loss Goals

Filed under: Health and Fitness, Newsletter, Personal Trainer — Tags: , , — nbarrett @ 6:40 pm

Main Personal Trainer Site

Resetting Goals

There are many ways to reach goals,and using the following tools will help you:

1) Write down all your goals to give them more force and have a clear picture of what you want.

2) Be Precise

Set deadlines, putting dates and time by when goals need to be achieved. Keep goals incremental and attainable, that way you will know when an exact goal has been met. Always reward yourself for having achieved it.

3) Prioritize

When you have several goals, set them by priority. This helps make them stronger by compartmentalizing them, and not diluting by having too many set at one time, often leading to stress and reduced quality of completion.

4) Set goals that are “performance” related, not outcome focused

It is best to set goals that you have more influence as to their outcome. It can be disappointing to set goals that you don’t reach due to extenuating circumstances, business climate, bad judgment, poor weather etc. Outcome goals are uncertain due to the intangibles.

If goals are set on personal performance,or information/ skill to be acquired, then it is easier to influence the goals and gain satisfaction from them.

For example if you enter a Marathon and set a goal of being in the top 2000 finishers,you might achieve a personal best time in the race, but not be satisfied as you did not finish in the top 2000 finishers . As you set the outcome of finishing in the top 2000 finishers, then this would be a defeat. If you set a performance goal of achieving a certain time, then you will have achieved that goal and can draw confidence and personal satisfaction from this goal.

5) Keep goals small

What I mean by this is, set them as step by step to achieving your bigger goals. Derive today’s goals from larger ones. Always reward yourself, taking in the importance of the goal has on effecting others , and use the achievement of each to move you to the next.

SMART Goals Are:

* Specific
* Measurable
* Attainable
* Relevant
* Time- bound

Read Why My Training Program Delivers Unique Results

September 30, 2009

Anti-Aging Supplements for Life Extension

Filed under: Health and Fitness, Los Angeles, Nutrition, weight loss — Tags: , , — nbarrett @ 2:50 pm

Life Extension And Staying Youthful

It would take me many pages to give you all there is about life extension, or delaying the onset of aging, and here I’m going to simplify it into a shorter form.

As we grow older, we suffer major declines in the hormones that we need to stay healthy. The main ones being testament , estrogen, progesterone ,melatonin and growth hormone.  This one growth hormone, is by far the most important.

It has been shown that while the aging pituitary gland adequately produces Growth Hormone, it’s secretion from the pituitary is down-regulated with age. 49 specific amino acids and vitamins have been shown to help maintain a healthy pituitary.

Natural growth hormone causes the body to:

  • Burn body fat
  • Increase muscle mass and skin thickness
  • Improve immune function
  • Improve well being
  • Improve sleep
  • Increase metabolism
  • Thicker hair
  • Feeling of well being
  • Energy
  • Increase bone density

And overall, you reduce the probability that you will spend the last years of your life in a nursing home.

In addition Growth Hormone stimulates the growth of organs that shrink with age, i.e. the heart, liver, kidneys, and thyroid.

Growth hormone can also stimulate production of insulin-like growth factor (IGF), which helps to optimise communication between the immune, nervous, and hormonal systems.

The principle behind the use of multiple growth hormone releasing compounds at the same time is called ’stacking’. The theory behind this principle is that since many of these compounds operate to stimulate GH release by different mechanisms, taking them together will cause a larger release effect.

(I will cover GH more in depth if you request it)! Reply to this email and let me know if you would want a separate newsletter with more info?

3 Supplements To Raise Your Growth Hormone (GH) Levels

L’Arginine & L’Ornithine

L’ Arginine is an essential amino acid. L’Ornithine can also be used together since it metabolizes to L’Arginine in the body. L’Arginine is required for the body to synthesise nitric oxide, which enables the arterial system to retain its youthful elasticity. Nitric oxide also helps to produce endothelial relaxation factor, which is needed by the arterial system to expand and contract with each heartbeat.

L’Arginine/ L’Ornithine /L’ Glutamine have been shown to promote natural growth hormone (GH) release from the pituitary gland. GH promotes healthy anabolic metabolism throughout the body, helping maintain protein synthesis within cells.

GH release is greater when releasers are taken on an empty stomach before exercise, awaking or at bedtime.

GH release may be improved if you take 1/2 to 1 gram of Pantothenic acid at the same time.

Supplement 1 & 2: L’Arginine & L’Ornithine 2000MG

Women

  • 2 capsules upon awaking
  • 2 capsules @ bedtime

Men

  • 3 capsules upon awaking
  • 3 capsules @ bedtime

Supplement 3: L’Glutamine. 1000MG

Women

Non- training days.

  • 3000MG @ bedtime

Training days:

  • 3000MG before training
  • 3000MG @ bedtime

Men

Non- training days:

  • 5000MG @ bedtime


Training days:

  • 5000MG before training
  • 5000MG @ bedtime

I am constantly striving to learn more and become better, to give you a better service. I thank you all, and remain blessed to have you in my life.

Learn More About Supplements for Training and Nutrition Here

Diets Don’t Work, Habits Do

Filed under: Health and Fitness, Nutrition, Personal Trainer — Tags: , — nbarrett @ 2:46 pm

Hi all! How are you?

It is now Fall and once again the holidays are approaching. It is a time to establish good habits, as for some people the holidays start on Halloween, and run through the 1st of the Year!!

Diets don’t work!

As you may know the things we are doing today are a learned behavior .  All the things we do today, good, or not so good, are part of a habit/pattern, that started out one day at a time, until they became part of us.

Diets are a cop-out. Diets are a way to trick ourselves into thinking we are doing something good and healthy for our bodies, while promising ourselves that we can still eat too much of everything we once we’re done being healthy.

You can’t be “done” being healthy any more than you can be “done” weeding a garden. Your body needs regular tending.

Learn How to Speed up Your Metabolism and Burn More Body Fat

Client Case Study

One of my clients, I’ll call her “Client ‘A,’” started out believing in diets. Client ‘A’ was about 45 years old, and weighed about 50 lbs more than she wanted to. She was marketing in the film industry, and very self- conscious. She had tried a trendy low-carb  diet , she had tried a protein – only diet, and had even tried the infamous ” nutritional cookie” diet, but nothing she had tried gave her lasting results, let alone the 50lbs loss she wanted.

“Whatever I do, I don’t seem to lose weight. I think I’m born to be fat,” she told me glumly at our first session. She couldn’t see it for herself, but just by continuing to try to get healthy, she was heading in the right direction.

But one of the problems client ‘A’ had before ,was that she never made permanent changes in her habits. Like many of my of my potential clients, ‘A’ wanted a short-term solution , a quick fix, that would allow her to go back to eating whatever she wanted eventually. Believe me, if there were any such solution, everyone would be lean already.

The secret to weight loss isn’t even a secret. You already know it. The ’secret’ is just that you have to learn to make healthy choices, and do it often enough, so that they replace existing not so good choices. It may sound hard to learn to make healthy choices most of the time, but your brain provides you with a handy coping mechanism; the easiest way to do something most of the time is to make it a habit!

Read and Watch More Client Testimonials Here

April 7, 2009

Personal Training and Nutrition in a Recession

Filed under: Health and Fitness — Tags: , , — nbarrett @ 12:04 pm

There is a lot of talk about recession at present in the media, be it from the radio, TV, press or everyday people wherever we go! This is creating a living ‘in the box’ way of thinking that will create only the energy of a negative mindset with will keep us weak, shrinking and stuck.

What is the way forward? We need a solution to transfer our energies to a positive mindset. The World has a self renewable abundance and if we keep our faith, we shall all have more than we would ever need. The word ‘recession’ is better thought of as a restructuring of the way we spend our money in a more responsible way, after all it is an ‘issue’ we have created through careless over spending fueled by the greed of big industry! This is a whole other topic best left for another post.

The benefits of exercise during heightened times of ’stress’ is priceless as the fitness, mental and emotional benefits are great.

Research has proven that there are mental health benefits from exercise, including reduced stress and increased confidence for those who exercise regularly- even 20 minutes a day.

Exercise helps you improve your overall health. It also reduces your risk  of developing chronic (life- long) conditions such as heart disease, and may help prevent dementia and some forms of cancer.

Continue to make the commitment to improve your  youth and vitality.

The great work and effort you are all making is already greater than 95% of the population.  This will give you the best opportunity to stay young, fit and healthy for a more enhanced enjoyable life.

Powered by WordPress