By Holly Rigsby, CPT
www.FitYummyMummy.com

Rome wasn’t built in a day and your fat loss won’t happen that way either. Don’t expect to start eating perfectly and exercising religiously tomorrow. Instead set yourself up for success by implementing at least one supportive habit per week. Make an effort to adopt the premise of “progress, not perfection.” By developing awareness that improvement is measured by your daily progress, you can save yourself a lot of grief and frustration from the beginning. Focusing on small, positive steps in everything you do is a vital component to change. It starts you moving in the right direction and the momentum of your amazing, transforming results will soon follow. With time, commitment and a willingness to continue to take those small steps, failure is not an option.

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By Holly Rigsby, CPT

www.FitYummyMummy.com

Would you like to “jump start” your metabolism and lose your ‘mommy belly’ once and for all? If so, the following seven tips are exactly what you need to improve your workouts and ignite your metabolism. Try some or all of these tips, but beware, the result may be a number of admiring second glances and the need to pull your ‘skinny jeans’ out of the closet.

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By Holly Rigsby, CPT
www.FitYummyMummy.com

Breakfast is easily the most overlooked solution than all other fat burning tips combined.

Question: Breakfast.

I always eat breakfast but often don’t get to it until about an hour or sometimes two (if I’m up early) after I get up. Is this OK or do I have to eat earlier than this? (I’m busy during the week getting the kids ready and off to school). What’s the maximum amount of time I can go from waking to eating brekky?

Answer: Hooray! You are eating the most important meal of the day!

Many Busy Moms tend to skip this meal for a variety of reasons. However, doing so will only work against your body’s ability to lose fat.

Skipping breakfast will only send the message to your body that you’re starving – you haven’t had food in the last 6-8 hours. This leads your body to SLOW your metabolism for survival purposes. You essentially are choosing to start your day in fat storage mode.

PLUS – if you do not start your day with a supportive breakfast, it is only natural that by the time lunch rolls around – You are STARVING. The best of intentions cannot overcome the cravings that accompany this feeling. Sure, you may start off your “lunch time” snack or meal with something you consider to be quite healthy. Yet, those nagging cravings do not go away and you are compelled to eat more.

To make matters worse, skipping breakfast also leads to eating more later in the day – a big “dinner”. Eating more calories during the last meal of the day, when your metabolism is naturally slower during the second half of the day and slower because breakfast was skipped leads your body to store those calories as fat.

In fact, studies show that people who skip breakfast and eat fewer times during the day tend to be heavier than people who eat a healthy breakfast and eat four or five times a day. If you skip meals, you tend to feel hungrier later on and you will eat more than you normally would.

To get the Best Benefits of Breakfast – yes, eating within an hour of waking is best. Breakfast will provide you with the energy you need to get through your day. The more energy you have, the more active you’ll be and the more active you are, the more calories you burn.

Favorite Busy Mom Breakfast: Cereal is a MUST. It’s convenient, easy to prepare, easy to eat and full of nutrients – No…”Whole Grain Lucky Charm” does not fall into this category. Choose cereals carefully based on the information on the food label.

Top Breakfast Choices have:
~ 5 grams of Fiber or more
~ 8 grams of Sugar or LESS
~ Sugar is not listed as one of the first 4-5 ingredients.

By Holly Rigsby, CPT
www.FitYummyMummy.com

Have you tried everything under the sun to get a flat stomach, only to come up disappointed? Have you fallen prey to all the gimmicks, fad diets and shameless infomercials promising you that elusive flat stomach that you desire?

Well fret no more, I’m going to let you in on the two ‘secrets’ that will help you shed unwanted fat and reveal your toned, flat stomach once and for all.

The first secret for a flat stomach is eating supportively. While this doesn’t seem like a secret at all, most women get this wrong in spite of their best – but misguided – efforts. Women have fallen prey to low-fat, low-carb, Hollywood, grapefruit, South Beach and every other over hyped diet that marketers can dream up, all in hopes of shedding those unwanted pounds. But eating supportively is isn’t about dieting or deprivation; it’s about moderation and balance. While cutting carbs or fats out of your nutrition plan might give you a temporary loss of a couple of pounds, it’s typically followed by a drop in metabolism and a weight gain of more than you lost in the first place once you go back to your old eating habits.

So what is eating supportively? Eating supportively is having protein and carbohydrates at every meal. It’s grazing on 4-6 meals or snack each day instead of missing meals and then gorging yourself. It’s enjoying a healthy breakfast and not drinking your calories. But most of all, eating supportively is enjoying the foods you love in moderation instead of in excess.

If eating supportively is the first secret to a flat stomach, then what’s the second? The second flat stomach secret is resistance training. Unfortunately, just as fad diets have stood in the path of women achieving the flat stomachs they so desired, so have the myths of spot reduction and cardio being the best method for fat loss. Late night infomercials have long promoted gadgets that promised to spot reduce those trouble spots that women struggle with and sucked us in with testimonials from fitness models that undoubtedly picked up a nifty paycheck for endorsing their wares. But spot reduction is a myth. Think about it – have you ever met someone with a flat stomach and fat arms? Didn’t think so. If spot reduction was possible then undoubtedly one of these happy customers would have toned and tightened their stomach, yet kept their flabby arms.

The other myth that has led women astray is the belief that cardio is the best solution for fat loss. Treadmill manufacturers have sold the virtues of the ‘fat burning zone’ and led us to believe that we could plod along on a treadmill watching Oprah and before long a flat stomach would be ours. These two myths have diverted us from the path of what really does work – resistance training. Resistance training is a flat stomach’s best friend because not only does an effective resistance training session burn plenty of calories while you’re doing it, but it keeps you’re metabolism revved long after you’re done. One recent study showed that you’re metabolism would stay elevated for over 36 hours after a resistance training session.

Try to get that out of an aerobics class.

And there’s another benefit of resistance training when it comes to getting a flat stomach. The lean muscle that you gain will raise you’re resting metabolic rate and help you burn more fat all day long, each and every day.

There you have it, two ‘secrets’ that are guaranteed to boost your metabolism and give you that flat stomach you’ve been longing for. So ditch the diet books and the aerobics classes and start eating supportively and resistance training. Before long that flat stomach will finally be yours.

By Holly Rigsby, CPT
www.FitYummyMummy.com

Moms have mistakenly believed that resistance training shouldn’t be the foundation of their fat loss program. Here are the three most common myths about resistance training and the “truth” about each.

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Have you ever wondered what all the fuss was about strength training, or weight training? Did you think it wasn’t for you because you “just want to lose weight”? Afraid you were going to turn into the Incredible Hulk by picking up a dumbbell? Or can’t figure out the difference between a set and a rep?

My good friend, Paige Waehner, over at Exercise.About.com created a myth-busting, eye-opening 9 week free e-course all about strength training/weight training just for beginners.

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