While it may seem counterproductive to eat after you have just spent an hour in the gym trying to burn calories, it is crutial to ingest some nutrients for post- workout muscle and cell repair. Not only do you restore depleted nutrients if you eat something within 30-minutes of completing your exercise program, you also help prevent the "hungry like a wolf" hit that often occurs a few hours later. This is one reason people who work out hard, often still have trouble losing weight and keeping it off. When they eat, they eat like they are starving.
A post-workout meal (or snack) helps regulate your blood sugar levels, and helps keep you energuzed instead of sluggish.
Keep the meal small, and similar to caloric consumption as a pre-workout meal. Protein is essential here, as your body will quickly adapt it for replenishing muscles and cells.

For more on nutrition, check our website and/or call Sarah at 681-6161.

With the New Year here and the desire to make this "the year" you accomplish at least some of your fitness goals, here are a few tips to help get you started and sticking to your plan:

1. GET AN ASSESSMENT. Spend $80 and have a personal trainer give you a complete fitness baseline. You need to know where you are so you can check later to see what progress is actually happening!

2. Don't go gung-ho and then quit! Start slowly, simply, and plan a PROGRESSIVE approach. Each visit do just a little more than the visit before.

3. Don't stress your workouts. Simply put, if you are getting no enjoyment out of exercise, you're doing the wrong workouts --- and you will quit! This should not be a time of stress, but a time of focused activity.

4. Don't let your workout become too easy. The balance is always in feeling like you have accomplished something, not just showed up and gone through the motions.

5. If your workout gets too long or "wanders" around the club without aim, you need to refocus and improve the quality of your exercises, not the quantity.

6. Your workout routine is the same old, same old and/or only concentrates on a few simple routines over and over. Your body adapts. You need to throw your muscles a curve occassionally, and you need to always have a well-balanced fitness regimen.

7. Get advice! You can always ask simple questions of the staff and trainers at BCH&F. We will always help when we can. If the need is greater than simple solutions, then don't think using a Personal Trainer is a vanity. Trainers can put you on the right track without having to put you into a long-term personal training program. Most people need new directions about every 6-weeks to 2-months.