Fit Forever with Kathy!

Is Yoga A Good Way To Lose Weight?

The answer might surprise you.

I get asked all the time, “Does yoga help you lose weight?” Well, it all depends on the type of yoga you’re doing. There are slow, fluid classes that are more about stretching, and there are other classes that are more about power, speed and strength. All yoga is beneficial to your health and your mind, but which style you choose will determine how many calories you’ll burn.

If you’re looking to lose weight with yoga, here are 3 reasons why it’s a good idea to start today:

To burn the most calories during yoga, pay attention to the labels! “Vinyasa Flow” classes earn 3 times as many calories than traditional “Hatha” yoga!

It’s a fact — yoga burns calories. To burn the most calories, find a yoga class that focuses on strength, fluidity, flow or power. Typically, these classes will be called “Vinyasa Flow” or “Power Yoga.” When you choose these classes, you’ll not only burn calories, but you’ll also increase your heart rate throughout the class. You can burn up to 597 calories in a Vinyasa Flow class, and only 189 in “Hatha” yoga, a term that describes a class that’s more relaxin and focuses on flexibility.

To reduce your caloric intake throughout the day, take mindfulness off the mat and into your life. 

Research shows that the mindfulness side of yoga has a strong correlation with weight loss. This is because the mindfulness that you practice in yoga is carried on into your daily life. The stillness of being in the moment will help you make healthier decisions throughout the day, especially when you’re faced with a choice like, “Should I have a brownie or should I have some strawberries?” Making decisions like this become easier when you practice yoga, because you’ll learn balance, confidence, and relaxation so you can stay in-the-moment and make decisions that are beneficial to your health.

To burn more calories after class, perform strength-training poses.

Yoga helps develop strength. Some yoga poses require you to hold your own body weight while using your breath. While you’re bearing this weight,  you build muscle in your entire body…from your arms to your core to your calves! As you gain this strength, everyday tasks (like running up a flight of stairs) become a little easier. This increased muscle mass will help you move more efficiently throughout the day, which helps burn extra calories!

Remember, yoga will not only help you lose weight, it will improve your balance, strength, coordination, flexibility, cardiovascular health and physical confidence. It’s a must for anyone suffering from aches, pains or too much tension, or if you’re looking to drop a few pounds. Here’s to your health!

What’s The Best Time Of Day To Workout?

by Kathy Smith

There are benefits for both morning and evening workouts, so call on your natural body rhythms. 

What’s the best time of day to workout? It’s a classic conundrum; once people have tackled the old “I don’t have time to exercise excuse (the “dog ate my homework” of reasons not to work out), the next question is, naturally, when to do it.

First of all, you need to find a time that works for your schedule, of course. But you also have to find a time that works for your body – and in order to that, you’ve first got to try and understand your body’s own natural energy cycles and rhythms. You’re probably familiar with the terms “larks” and “owls,” and probably know someone (maybe even yourself) who fits the classic description of a morning or night person. Truth is, though, most of us are not extreme larks or tend to rise somewhere between 7 and 8 A.M., get sleepy around ten at night, and fall asleep by midnight, with variations of up to an hour or two either way.

More important is the fact that, whatever hours we keep, we tend to follow a consistent pattern of energy and bodily function over the course of the day. This inner clock is governed by chemical processes in the human body that synchronize themselves to the light-dark cycle of the environment. Coming to terms with your cycle will help you in everything you do, including making your exercise schedule more consistent.

If you took your temperature every four hours around the clock, you would probably find that it rose and fell by a few tenths of a degree over a twenty-four-hour period. You’d also find that the periods of higher temperature would correspond with periods of higher energy and mental alertness, while the dips in temperature would correspond with sleep, or with that slump period during the day when you feel the need to rest and recharge.

The standard energy cycle for most of us is:

• Upon waking: Body temperature and metabolic rate rise.
• Midmorning: Highly alert. Best time for activities requiring critical thinking and concentration.
• After lunch/early afternoon: Energy and alertness plummet as body temperature drops. For many, an afternoon nap is a refreshing, natural response.
• Mid to late afternoon: Body temperature and energy rise again. Mental faculties return.
• Late afternoon: Metabolic peak; a good time to exercise and then eat dinner.
• After dinner, about two hours before bed: Energy and metabolism drops, melatonin levels rise, preparing us for sleep.
• Pre-dawn Deep sleep; body temperature is at its lowest. Studies show that one-vehicle accidents, as well as industrial shift worker accidents, happen during this period.

Most of us have an intuitive sense of our energy profile. Still, it’s uncanny how we try to fight it – to work, eat, or drive when we should be sleeping; or, conversely, to squander our most valuable brain time on activities that could easily be done during less alert periods.

So whether you’re an early bird or a night owl, there are benefits to working out during all times of day. Below are a few benefits for working out both in the morning and in the afternoon.

4 Benefits of working out in the morning:

• Amps up your metabolism in preparation for the day
• Balances blood sugar levels
• Improves focus and energy
• Workout is DONE for the day!

4 Benefits of workout in the afternoon:

• Transitions your day from afternoon to evening so you can de-stress after a long day
• Boosts mid-day energy levels
• Relaxes and rejuvenates you for the evening
• Easier to find a workout partner in the afternoon than early in the morning!

Knowing and, more importantly, respecting your body’s daily energy map is an invigorating way to make yourself more productive, improve the effectiveness of exercise, reduce the likelihood of accidents, improve your sexual performance, and, in general, increase your enjoyment of life. Here’s to your health!

Kathy

Eat These, Drop Pounds!

by Kathy Smith

Foods That Shred Fat…Naturally

Here’s good news to kick off your Friday – certain foods you allow your body to work tirelessly to help you burn calories and torch fat. This means you can literally torch calories as you chew. Some foods do this by their thermogenic effect, and others with their nutrient capacity. See which foods feed your metabolism’s fire below.

Go For Green Tea

Here’s a little secret about me…green tea is my no-penalty pleasure. Not only does its natural caffeine levels speed up your heart rate, but a new study by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that due to the EGEC levels in green tea, drinking four cups of green tea a day helped participants lose six pounds in 8 weeks.

Stock Up On Salmon

Of all the lessons you learn today, I hope you take this one seriously. Fat is the preferred fuel of human metabolism, and it always has been. We need fat for insulation, protection, energy, and even to think. In fact about two-thirds of the brain is composed of fat, and the protective sheath that covers communicating neurons is 70 percent fat. But not all fats are equal. The king of fats are essential omega-3s, which are found in foods like salmon. The omega-3 levels in salmon boost your metabolism by lowering the leptin (a hormone) in your body. Many recent studies suggest that leptin directly influences your metabolism, determining whether you burn calories or store them as fat. If you don’t like fish, simply take a fish oil pill.

Lean protein (chicken, turkey, lean beef)

Keep on cooking those chicken breasts, because they’re firing up your metabolism! It works like this: When your body digests protein, it takes more energy than if it were to digest carbs. This means that the more lean protein you eat, the harder your body is working, and the more calories it’s burning. Because protein has a high thermogenic effect, it allows your body to burn approximately 30% of its calories during digestion. This means that if you ate a 200-calorie chicken breast, you would burn 60 calories by simply breaking it down.

Jump On The Jalepenos (and other hot peppers)

It’s surprisingly simple — hot peppers include a compound called “capsaicin,” which heats up your body, helping boost your metabolism by up to 25%, for up to three hours after you eat. So if an omelette is on the menu today, load it up with jalepenos, cayenne, or hot sauce.

Take Turmeric

In the spice game, turmeric is a true all-star. This powerful anti-inflammatory is usually associated with spicy Indian dishes – but there’s so much more to it than that. The key ingredient in turmeric is curcumin, which may just work wonders for the body. Studies suggest that curcumin can not only help speed up your metabolism but also improve your insulin production, aids in proper carbohydrate absorption, and helps clear the plaque in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s.

Also, take into consideration these fat-burning foods:

• Almonds (with skins)
• Eggs
• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Grapefruit
• Lentils
• Greek or Icelandic yogurt
• Quinoa
• Olive oil
• Avocado

Here’s to your health, and a speedy metabolism!

Kathy

Too Tired To Workout? Try These Proven Ways To Amp Up Energy

3 Moves To Tone Every Inch

by Kathy Smith

Attention: The holidays are almost here! But don’t sweat it. You still have time to rev up your metabolism if you turn up the volume on your fitness routine today! And that’s why I can’t wait to show you the 3 moves (below) that will tone every inch of your body. So get your light weights ready, and start bumping up your caloric burn and toning from head to toe in order to keep your metabolism intensified 24/7. Let’s get started!

Move 1: Twisting Squat Squat With Rotating Twist

How to do it:

Stand with feet hip distance apart, holding light weights in each hand. Push your hips back until your knees are bent to about a 90-degree angle, pulling weights to the chest. As you rise keep the left foot and hip parallel but pivot on the right toe, turning your whole body to the left. As you pivot on the right toe, squeeze the right glute while bringing the weights overhead toward your left side.

Repetitions: 12 with your right toe pivoting and 12 with your left.

Tips:

Move 2: Rolling Plank Rolling Plank

How to do it:

Start in a modifi ed push-up position with your forearms and feet on the floor. Have your feet about 12 inches apart. Pull the navel in toward the spine and keep it there as you breathe in and out for about 15 seconds. Roll to your right forearm, turning both your feet onto their sides. With your left arm in the air, squeeze the shoulder blades together, opening your chest. Hold this for 15 seconds. Then roll to the left forearm, lifting your right arm into the air. Squeeze the shoulder blades together again and open the chest. Hold for 15 seconds.

Repetitions: 1 in the plank, 1 on right forearm, 1 on left forearm.

Tips:

Move 3: Lunge from 9 to 3 Lung to 9 to 3

How to do it:

Stand with feet together, holding a light weight in each hand. Take a wide step to the right, pressing the weight in your left hand in front of your body at shoulder height. Return to starting position, then lunge to the left, pressing the weight in your right hand in front of your body at shoulder height.

Repetitions: 12 on each side.

Tips:

Kathy

Rear Dip Lunge With Tricep Kickback

by Kathy Smith

How to do it:

Holding a dumbbell in each hand, step your left foot directly behind you, taking a wide stance, and bend your legs, lowering your torso down into a lunge. Be sure and maintain that core stability to prevent injury.

While in lunge position, keep your shoulders over your hips, back knee slightly bent, front knee in alignment with your front toes, shoulders back and down.

Feel your weight in your right (front) heel as you push yourself to standing.

As you return to standing, do a tricep kickback: Reach your arms back behind you and extend, feeling a squeeze in the tricep.

Beginners:

Practice the lunge and tricep kickback movements separately and without weights at first.

Advanced:

When you come to standing, use your core muscles to lift the back leg off the floor and extend it behind you, squeezing the glutes as you perform the tricep kickback

Kathy

4 Moves For A Total-Body Workout In Less Than 15 Minutes

by Kathy Smith

For flat abs, try:

For strong arms, try:

For a toned butt, try:

For increased flexibility, try:

Kathy

The #1 Overlooked Muscle To Help You Look Slim….Instantly!

by Kathy Smith

If there’s one area of the body most of us overlook, it’s the back. Naturally, we focus on toning the muscles we can see — our abs, legs, arms, chest, and shoulders. People don’t go around saying, “Hey! You’ve got a terrific back!” But in reality, no muscle group deserves more attention.

Think of your body as a house. Long before you start decorating, you’ve got to build a strong foundation; otherwise the structure will cave in. The foundation for your body’s strength comes from your abdominal and lower back muscles. If they’re weak, your body isn’t going to hold up. At that point, the decorating — sculpted arms and shoulders, for instance, won’t matter.

You’re especially prone to weakening your back muscles by spending a lot of time sitting at a desk or driving a car. In those poor-posture-prone positions, your back muscles tend to stretch out. If ignored, they’ll eventually lose strength. However, if you strengthen them, you’ll counter-act the tendency to slouch. You’ll stand tall, look slimmer, and project a confident image. Try out the superman exercise below to help strengthen your upper, middle, and lower back.

 Superman

How to do it:

• Lie face down on the floor. Keep the ribs and pubic bone on the floor, pulling your navel up off the floor.
• Lift your chest off the floor slightly, keeping your core firmly engaged, and extend the left arm and right leg off the floor.
• Return to the starting position, and switch sides.

Strengthening your back muscles in order to improve your posture will help you boost your confidence. Standing tall projects to the world that you feel good about yourself, and it will make you look 10 pounds thinner…not to mention a few years younger! As we age, we need to pay more attention to our posture. By making a conscious effort to stand up straight, you fight the effects of gravity on the body. You’ll look firmer, more toned, and younger.

Medically speaking, perfecting your posture makes sense. Years of slouching can weaken your bones and put a strain on your internal organs. But when the spine is properly aligned, you’ll find you’re breathing more deeply, sitting more comfortably, and walking with more vitality.

Here’s a head-to-toe demonstration of perfect posture:

 Make it happen!
Kathy

5 Surprising Ways To Speed Up Your Metabolism

by Kathy Smith

Here’s good news to kick off your day — you have an internal thermostat that’s working tirelessly to help you burn calories and torch fat….your metabolism! Even if you feel you have slow metabolism, you have the ability to speed it up to maximize the calories you burn each day, even when you’re resting. How your body burns fat and releases calories depends on several factors, and today I’ll show you the 5 BEST ways to boost your fat-burning potential.

1. Build Muscle

Your body is constantly burning calories, even when you sleep. However, muscle burns more calories than fat. So, women who have more lean muscle mass have a much higher resting metabolic rate and burn more calories, even when their bodies aren’t moving. Here are the facts: one pound of muscle burns six calories a day, while one pound of fat burns only two calories a day…and those calories add up overtime!

More importantly, muscle makes you stronger so you’re naturally more physical throughout the day. And, your other activities…from walking, to hiking to climbing up the stairs can be performed at a higher intensity, which means you’re burning even more calories in your daily life.

2. Integrate, Don’t Isolate

Using the “Integrate Don’t Isolate” method trains your body to perform functionally…the way nature intended. Whether it’s playing tag with the grandkids or hoisting a bag into the overhead compartment on a flight, real life is about twisting, bending, lifting, and pulling. This functional integration recruits multiple muscle groups and trains them to work as a team, improving your metabolism, efficiency, balance and reducing your risk of injury.

So next time you work out, try using this functional approach to focus on integration. For example, instead of doing a basic bicep curl and isolating the muscle, perform a bicep curl combined with a lunge, so that you’re incorporating both upper and lower body muscles as well as the core. Integrating multiple muscle groups in an exercise boosts metabolism and burns more calories in less time, making it a terrific timesaver.

3. HIIT It

We all want to raise our metabolic rate, even after we untie our running shoes. The key to igniting your calorie-burning engines for several hours after your workout is HIIT training (also called “interval” or “burst” training). HIIT training uses short bursts of higher intensity when you work out. For example, if you’re on a brisk walk, try amping up your intensity for 60-second bursts, then continue at a steady-state pace for 60-seconds, and continue this cycle for 10 minutes.

One of the key reasons HIIT training is so effective in helping your body shed calories is because it raises your Lactate Threshold. When you reach your lactate threshold, you’re starting to “feel the burn.” That’s the feeling of your body producing more of the waste product lactic acid than it can clear away. The more the lactic acid builds up, the more you feel the burn. The lactate threshold is what keeps you from pushing harder and breaking through your workout barriers.If you only work out at a steady state pace and don’t push yourself during your workouts, you never reach that limit. But when you push yourself to that grimace range a few times a week by doing some burst training, you raise the calorie count of your workouts and speed up your body’s natural calorie-burning engines.

4. Eat Every 3-4 Hours

When you eat is as important as what you eat. In order to rev up your metabolism, it’s important to stay on schedule, eating a small 400-calorie meal or 200-calorie snack every 3 to 4 hours. I prefer to have my meals scheduled between 8 am and 7 pm, including four meals and one snack. Do this consistently, and you’ll experience fewer hunger pangs, steadier energy levels, and you’ll be less tempted to “cheat,” thus improving your chances of weight loss success.

5. Take Turmeric

In the spice game, turmeric is a true all-star. This powerful anti-inflammatory is usually associated with spicy Indian dishes – but there’s so much more to it than that. The key ingredient in turmeric is curcumin, which may just work wonders for the body. Studies suggest that curcumin can not only help speed up your metabolism but also improve your insulin production, aids in proper carbohydrate absorption, and helps clear the plaque in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s.

Make it happen!

Kathy

Three Before-Shower Strategies For A Better Body

by Kathy Smith

If you’re feeling like you've hit a plateau and can’t seem to make progress, here are three things you can do before breakfast that will jump-start your metabolism, and set your day up for success. You can improve your body by incorporating three simple habits into your routine before breakfast each day. This isn't a gimmick or impossible goal; it is something I live by each and every morning. My days begin with a 20-minute gratitude meditation, then I press play on my iPod and listen to a playlist that includes Jack Johnson and Mumford and Sons. Create your own morning ritual by trying the following three techniques. These simple changes that will give you a jumpstart to a better body and improved health. After a while, they’ll become second nature.

1. Beverage: Do three morning shots

Start your morning off with 3 shots:

1. A shot of water to keep the metabolism high. At least 16 ounces of H2O can kick your metabolism up to 30% for the next hour.
2. A shot of green tea. Green tea has been shown to reduce body weight, increase fat metabolism, reduce cholesterol, and release powerful age-defying antioxidants. If you’re dreading a coffee withdrawal, never fear. Green tea has just the right amount of caffeine to keep you alert at work. It’s the perfect beverage for enhancing your health and improving your physique.
3. A ginger shot to stimulate your body and wake you up! To make your shot, boil a cup of hot water, squeeze in a lemon, and add in a few few cubes of freshly-chopped ginger. Sprinkle with cayenne pepper!

2. Activity: Roll out your mat for movements that matter

Not only does yoga help lengthen and tone muscles, but it also helps you be mindful of your breath so you make better choices throughout the day. Yoga is a simple and powerfully effective workout for toning your body and getting your muscles going. By raising your metabolic rate first thing in the morning, you’ve won half the battle towards improving your physique. A few simple yoga routines will jumpstart your body’s calorie-burning machine, and keep it burning faster all day long. Yoga has a triple benefit on your body.

• First, it gives your metabolism a swift kick, keeping you slimmer.
• Second, yoga tones muscle, giving you a leaner look.
• Finally, yoga helps you to fight stress and anxiety, both of which have been tied to excess weight.

Yoga is a great addition to your strength-training repertoire, especially as a morning wake up. And it prepares both your mind and body for the day ahead. Calm your mind while strengthening your muscles with Core And More, my ultimate combination of yoga and pilates. Plus, Core and More is paired with a workout calendar to take the guesswork out of planning your routine!

3. Food: Never (ever!) skip your protein!

Your day is off to a stellar start. Don’t blow it by sinking your teeth into junk food later on. Good eating begins with good planning, and that planning happens at the start of the day. Planning will help you stick to your goals, staving off those pesky extra ounces that come from indulging. Before breakfast is the perfect time to pack your lunch, select a dinner recipe, and slip a snack or two into your purse.

Breakfast sets the tone for the entire day, and you don’t want to skip your morning meal. Here’s a delectable shake recipe that has tons of healthy goodness (and even some chocolate). If you’re in the mood for something warm and comforting, try my protein-packed Santa Monica Omelet.

The before-breakfast solution to a better body is simple. Do your yoga, drink some water and green tea, and prepare healthy food. You only have one opportunity each day to put these practices into motion. Before breakfast is the golden opportunity to create a haven of health and repose before the day begins. With each morning, you’ll be taking action toward a more vibrant body.

Be sure to check out my YOGA SCULPT DVD for Activity #2!

Thanks for reading,

Kathy Smith