Love Notes by Jari Love

Posts in the Jari Love category

Things You Can Do At Night to Promote Weight Loss

Of course nights are great for going on dates, binge-watching Netflix, doing work, chatting on the phone—you name it. But you know what else they’re great for? Setting yourself up for bigger and better weight-loss results. Just follow these tips to get yourself that much closer to your goal weight.

Have a Low-Sodium Dinner
“If you want to wake up feeling less bloated, definitely skip the Chinese dinner,” says Keri Gans, R.D., author of The Small Change Diet. What happens is the salt stays in your system overnight, so you wake up puffier than you normally would. The best option is to cook a healthy meal of steamed veggies and a lean protein—neither of which should be loaded with salt.

Make Sure Your Bedroom is Super Dark
The hormone melatonin can help your body produce more calorie-burning brown fat, according to an animal study published last year in Journal of Pineal Research. Since your body already produces melatonin when you’re in complete darkness, make sure your room is light-free to boost and promote weight loss.

Turn Down the Thermostat Before Hitting the Hay
The idea of burning more calories while you sleep may sound too good to be true, but a National Institute of Health Clinical Center study found that people who slept in a 66-degree room burned seven percent more calories than people who snoozed at 75 degrees. Seven percent isn’t a ton—but it can’t hurt!  SEE MORE that will PROMOTE WEIGHT LOSS

By Collage Video | | fitness, Healthy, Jari Love, Motivation, tips, Wellness | 0 comments | Read more

Top Foods to Gain Muscle

People that workout in the gym want to build muscle tissue. Both men and women know that toned, firm muscles look great. You need to workout to achieve good growth, but to build large muscles, you need to eat right. Finding the top foods to gain muscle can help you build, while also reducing the amount of fat on your body. Even if you don’t want big guns or washboard abs, these foods help people shed fat, too. Not only do you need to build muscle tissue to get that sculpted look, you need to take off a layer of fat that might be hiding all your hard work.

 

Start with high quality protein.

Lean red meat is often what people think of when they consider protein, but there are many other types of food that fit that category. Eggs are one source of protein that offers not just high quality protein, but also healthy fat and other nutrients. Eggs have high amounts of leucine that boosts muscle growth. Salmon is another protein choice that provides high amounts of protein, but also high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin B. Both play a role in building muscle when you’re exercising.

 

Which came first, the egg or the chicken breast?

While eggs are powerful in your diet for boosting muscle growth, so are chicken breasts. In fact, many trainers make it one of the most often used protein sources if their client is working to gain muscle mass. It has high amounts of B vitamins that are important for muscle gain, as well as aiding in losing fat, which is just as important for showing those muscles off to the world. While you’re at it, add some “chicken of the sea” and include tuna in your diet. Those omega-3 fatty acids slow muscle loss in older adults and increase muscle growth.

 

Dairy can help boost muscle growth.

If you want a snack that’s great for your after workout protein, try Greek yogurt or cottage cheese. Both contain high quality protein. You can boost the amount of protein by adding some whey or casein protein in it. Stick with Greek yogurt over regular yogurt to get the most protein per serving. Choose low fat cottage cheese if you’re cutting calories. Cottage cheese has leucine, a beneficial protein that helps build muscle tissue.

 

  • Vegetarians can use beans to build muscles. Beans provide plant-based protein, fiber, B-vitamins, iron, magnesium and phosphorus. They also boost your immune system.
  • Almonds, peanuts and edamame—immature soybeans—are great snacks that provide more than just protein, they also provide folate, vitamin K and manganese.
  • Have you tried chickpeas? You may know them as garbanzo beans and maybe even don’t like them, but there are some dynamite hummus recipes made from chickpeas that can add to your list of muscle building snacks.
  • It’s not all about protein, you need carbohydrates and fats, too. Healthy carbs help you workout harder to build muscles. Consider adding brown rice to your diet for that.

 

Jari Love – original creator of Get RIPPED! DVD series and group exercise classes. The hot-selling and critically acclaimed Get RIPPED! series enables individuals of any fitness level to burn up to three times more calories than the traditional weight-training program, and has received rave reviews from fitness critics throughout North America since the first title debuted in late 2005.

Lower Your Blood Pressure With Exercise

If you get the verdict from your doctor that you have high blood pressure, it’s not too late to take action.

While you should always follow your doctor’s orders and make sure he okays a program of exercise, you might be able to avoid taking blood pressure medication for the rest of your life. You can lower your blood pressure with exercise and a healthy diet. It takes time, so don’t get rid of your medication right away and never without getting the blessing of your health care provider.

Exercise makes your heart stronger.

High blood pressure comes from the pressure on the arteries. If you’re heart is weak, it has to work harder, increasing the pressure. When you workout regularly, that builds a stronger heart that doesn’t have to pump with as much effort, relieving the extra exertion on your arteries and decreasing your blood pressure at the same time.

Exercise helps you lose weight.

Obesity can make your blood pressure climb. Not only does it affect you while you’re awake, it can cause sleep apnea, which also increases your blood pressure. Exercise helps you lose weight, but you need to have a healthy diet, too. Just losing 2.2 pounds can lower the mercury one millimeter, so you can imagine how much you’ll improve your blood pressure if you have even more weight to lose and accomplish your goals.

Reducing stress can lower your blood pressure.

Stress is a killer and it can be one of the causes for high blood pressure. In fact, you can almost feel your blood pressure climb when you’re in a stressful situation. You can get relief from working out in the gym. Exercising hard can burn off the hormones of stress and replace them with ones that make you feel good. You’ll lower your blood pressure, while you burn off the stressors of the day.

  • The changes to your blood pressure don’t occur overnight. It takes between one to three months to see any difference. Even then, the problem will return if you quit working out.
  • Exercise can help reduce inches around the waist, which is visceral fat, the most dangerous type of fat that affects all your organs and can increase blood pressure.
  • The food you eat can raise or lower your blood pressure. Foods high in sodium can cause your blood pressure to rise, while food high in potassium can help you reduce the effect of sodium on your blood pressure. Eat more whole foods and eliminate processed foods that often have a high sodium content.
  • If you smoke, quit. When you workout regularly, it can help you through the rough parts of quitting, but even then, it will be tough…but worth it!
By Collage Video | | Blood Pressure, Exercise, Healthy, Jari Love, stress, Weightloss, Wellness | 0 comments | Read more

The Only Trend that Matters

by Jari Love

Do you keep up with new trends in the world of fitness? There always seems to be a headline proclaiming the latest and greatest trend, each promising to be the solution that you’ve always needed.

Of course, these trends pass with the seasons, quickly being replaced with something newer and more popular.

Today I’d like you to consider the only trend that really matters to your health and fitness progress: the trend of your own behavior.

Here’s what I mean: Have you ever noticed how easy it is to do the same thing today as you did yesterday? This applies to both your activity level and your diet.

  • If you got up at 5am yesterday to get in a workout, then getting up at 5am again today is going to be pretty easy. However, if you slept in until 7am yesterday then getting up at 5am today is going to be much more difficult.
  • If you ate pizza and beer for dinner last night, then eating pizza and beer (or a burger and fries) is going to feel pretty natural. However, if you ate grilled chicken and broccoli for dinner last night, then eating a salad and grilled fish for dinner is going to feel easy.

Remember learning about inertia in school? Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion. This has incredible application to your fitness journey.

The longer you can maintain a healthy fitness trend in your own behavior, the easier it will become to maintain that trend. Isn’t that great?!

This simple concept, of maintaining your own daily fitness trend, is the way to continue towards your goal, to avoid setbacks, and to maintain your forward momentum.

So the next time that you see a flashy headline about the latest fitness trend, simply smile to yourself and focus on keeping your own daily fitness progress on track.

By Collage Video | | Behavior, Fitness Trends, goals, Jari Love, personal development, tips | 1 comment | Read more

The POWER of Habit

by Jari Love

John Dryden famously said, “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.”

Confucius said, “Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.”

And Aristotle noticed that, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

It’s pretty clear that the habits you adopt will shape who you are. What are your habits?

Do you eat the same thing for lunch, go through the same exercise routine, and fall into bed at the same time each night?

Or maybe you’ve made a habit out of eating something sweet before bed, avoiding the gym, and staying up as late as possible.

When it comes to your fitness, the two habits that define you are your eating and exercise habits. In fact, everyone that you know who is in great shape has dialed in these two important habits.

If you aren’t happy with your body, then simply adjust your eating and exercise habits.

Here’s how to adopt a habit:

  • Decide on the ONE habit that you would like to develop. It’s tempting to pick up 3 or 4 healthy habits but choosing just one new habit is realistic and doable.

Here are some healthy habit ideas:

  • Do not eat after 7pm each night.
  • Bring your lunch to work instead of eating fast food.
  • Exercise 4 times a week after work for 45 minutes each time.
  • Only eat fruits and veggies as your afternoon snack.
  • Get up early and exercise for an hour each morning.
  • Workout with me 3 times a week.
Write your new habit down on paper. Also include your 3 main motivators for developing this new habit, the obstacles you’ll face, and your strategies for overcoming these obstacles.

 

Here’s an example:

  • My new habit is to work with a personal trainer 3 times each week.
  • My 3 main motivators are 1) to feel confident in my bathing suit this summer, 2) to have more energy, and 3) to fit into my skinny jeans.
  • The obstacles I will face are 1) not having the energy to go to my session after work, 2) not having enough money to pay for sessions, and 3) not having my spouse’s support.
  • I will overcome these obstacles by 1) doing my workouts before work instead of after work, so I have more energy, 2) cutting down on frivolous spending to ensure that I can afford it, and 3) asking my spouse to join me so we can get in shape together.

Commit fully to your new habit, in a public way. This could mean posting it on social media, or simply announcing it at the dinner table. Put yourself in a position where you’ll be embarrassed to give up on your new habit.

Keep track of your progress. You could keep a detailed journal or simply make a check mark on each calendar day that you successfully exercise your new habit.

Once your new habit becomes second nature, usually in about 30 days, feel free to add a second habit by going through the same steps.

Jari Love – original creator of Get RIPPED! DVD series and group exercise classes. The hot-selling and critically acclaimed Get RIPPED! series enables individuals of any fitness level to burn up to three times more calories than the traditional weight-training program, and has received rave reviews from fitness critics throughout North America since the first title debuted in late 2005.

Excuses For Not Exercising: Your Top 5

by Jari Love

 

Calling you out on your favorite excuses for not exercising:

  1. You have no time: Do you have time to sit and watch your favorite shows? Take a long hard look at your schedule and find the time. It’s there if you just look for it.
  2. You have no energy: This excuse will be a non-issue once you’ve been exercising regularly for a couple of weeks. Your energy will build as you become more fit and active.
  3. You have no motivation: Do you want to look better? Do you need to fight disease or aches and pains? Find your motivation and run with it.
  4. You’ve failed in the past: I get it; past failures are painful to face. But you haven’t really failed until you give up. Don’t give up on yourself! Go out there a do it.
  5. You don’t know where to begin: No problem. Follow this site and together we will get your workouts back on track.

Slowly put your excuses down and walk away from them.

Embrace your motivation, and get started!

Jari Love – original creator of Get RIPPED! DVD series and group exercise classes. The hot-selling and critically acclaimed Get RIPPED! series enables individuals of any fitness level to burn up to three times more calories than the traditional weight-training program, and has received rave reviews from fitness critics throughout North America since the first title debuted in late 2005.

By Collage Video | | Jari Love, Weekly Blog | 0 comments | Read more

Portion Control: Save Calories with One Change

by Jari Love

In a world overrun by crazy restrictive diets, miserable juice plans, and weight loss pills, it’s easy to forget about one simple concept: portion control. But new research shows that making this one change—or paying more attention to how much you eat rather than what you eat (or don’t eat)—is the gold standard if you want to lose weight. In fact, scientists at Cambridge University in the UK have found that cutting back on serving size alone can help Americans eat an average of 527 fewer calories per day, resulting in a weight loss of one pound per week, all from by reducing portion size. 

How does this happen? Researchers crunched the numbers on more than 60 studies on food intake to find that the bigger portion sizes that are now so commonplace in our society have caused us all to eat more, regardless of our gender, hunger levels, how thin or fat we are, or amount of self-reported willpower. In particular, they found that supersized portions can add more than 500 calories to each of our plates every day, which has only helped to make us fatter… and fatter. 

“The message is that, however it happens, reducing the amounts of food that end up in front of us in the first place is key [to weight loss],” says Gareth Hollands, PhD, senior research associate at Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine and coauthor of the paper. 

But there’s one big problem: The first and only step of portion control—eat less—is notoriously difficult to do. So how do you accomplish the feat? Here are the top meal-reshaping, fat-blasting tips from Lisa Young, PhD, author of The Portion Teller. 

  1. Forget about portions when you eat out, because restaurants are notorious for serving oversize meals. Resolve before you even walk into a restaurant to split an entrée, supplementing with a salad or veggie side dish. Avoid all-you-can-eat deals like the plague, and wait to have your cocktail until after your meal, since alcohol is proven to trigger overeating. 
  1. Downsize your plates and glasses to smaller tableware, which will go a long way in reducing how much food ends up on your plate. 
  1. Most of us, even the healthiest, weight-conscientious of eaters, are serving ourselves WAY too much food, without even realizing it. 
  1. Fill half your plate with low-calorie, fiber-rich fruits and veggies that aren’t dripping in butter or cream sauce (herbs and spices are your friends!), using one-quarter of your plate for a lean protein and the final quarter for sweet potatoes or a whole grain like brown rice. 
  1. Plate your meal in the kitchen and keep serving dishes there so that you’re forced to get up for seconds rather than reach across the table. 

via prevention.com

Jari Love – original creator of Get RIPPED! DVD series and group exercise classes. The hot-selling and critically acclaimed Get RIPPED! series enables individuals of any fitness level to burn up to three times more calories than the traditional weight-training program, and has received rave reviews from fitness critics throughout North America since the first title debuted in late 2005.

Spicy Butternut Squash Soup – Recipe

by Jari Love

The perfect time of year for soup. This delicious squash soup is full of immune boosting properties and is perfect for those cool days. 

Spicy Butternut Squash Soup

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:

1 small butternut squash, about 5 cups, peeled, cored and cubed into 1 inch pieces

2 tbs coconut oil

1 chopped yellow onion

1 tablespoon coarsely chopped garlic

1 teaspoon ginger

1 green jalapeño

1 small sweet apple such as gala

1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves and stems

1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk

1 cup vegetable broth

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup fresh basil leaves

 Directions: 

  1. Melt oil a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook onion about 2 minutes. Add ginger, jalapeño, garlic and squash and apple; cook, stirring occasionally, 8 minutes.
  2. Stir in vegetable broth and coconut milk. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Simmer until squash is tender about 20 minutes.
  3. Add cilantro, salt and basil. Puree soup in two batches. When blending hot foods, allow the heat to escape to prevent splattering. Serve hot, with plain yogurt or sour cream, pepper, and pumpkin seeds, if desired.

 Enjoy!

Jari Love – original creator of Get RIPPED! DVD series and group exercise classes. The hot-selling and critically acclaimed Get RIPPED! series enables individuals of any fitness level to burn up to three times more calories than the traditional weight-training program, and has received rave reviews from fitness critics throughout North America since the first title debuted in late 2005.

By Collage Video | | health, Healthy, Jari Love, Recipe, Weekly Blog | 0 comments | Read more

1-MINUTE ACTIVITIES THAT WILL MAKE YOU HEALTHIER

by Jari Love

Young Businessman Doing Pushups At His Workplace

It seems that Americans these days are glued to their desks, their cards, and their couches, rarely getting up to stretch, walk around, or clear their minds from the clutter of life. We are enchanted by all the things happening in our outside lives that often times taking time for yourself is lost.

Even the greatest of workouts isn’t beneficial in the long run if you spend over half of your day sitting. It’s a scary thought to think our bodies are festering diseases due to our inactivity. Unfortunately, this is becoming the norm in America. According to the Huffington Post, sitting is the new smoking.

“Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death,” says Dr. James Levine to Huffington Post, inventor of the treadmill desk and a director at the Arizona State University Mayo Clinic for obesity solutions.

Sitting is slowly killing us, but if you catch the problem early enough, there is no way you can’t turn your fate around. The little things add up; it’s up to us to remember to do think of our health.

Even the CDC has launched campaigns “Five Minutes (Or Less) For Health” that include lists of activities to help us stay safe and healthy throughout our days.

Doing these 1-minute activities for a minute, or more, can help you stay healthy. Here are some ways to stay active from the moment you wake up till you fall asleep.

1. Do squats or lunges while you make breakfast.

2. Bagel in the toaster? Squat until it’s ready. Eggs frying? Squat until you need to flip them. Even squat as you make your coffee or pour your orange juice. This will also help to wake you up and increase that blood flow early in the morning.

3. Park farther away at work.

4. Stand up at work, or take a break every 15 minutes to walk around.

5. Purchase a pedometer and set a daily goal. (Try to reach over 10,000 steps!)

6. Warm-up by walking on the treadmill at the gym.

7. Squeeze a hand grip while you’re on a phone call.

8. Lift your legs up and down under your desk for a minute.

9. Sit up straight all day long.

10. Rotate your wrists for a minute every so often. (Give your hands a keyboard break!)

11. Twist at your desk chair.

12. Sit up straight and stretch to each side for 30 seconds. Do this a few times throughout the day.

13. Do 20 jumping jacks.

14. Make sure no one is in the bathroom at work and quickly do 20 jumping jacks. You’ll feel more energized and squeeze some activity in.

15. Drink a glass of water 8 times throughout the day.

16. Deep breathing.

17. Fidget while you work: Often times fidgeting are lifelong habits that try to be avoided, but studies show that fidgeting can increase our calorie burn 20 to 40%.

18. Pace while you’re on the phone.

19. Clean your home (even if you only have a minute to spare). Vacuuming, sweeping, mowing the lawn, weed whacking, doing laundry, and dishes all increases total calorie burn throughout the day and helps to clear your mind.

20. Exercise while you watch sports late at night. Abs, mountain climbers, burpees, you name it. Your heart is telling you to sink into your couch, but your body is telling you to get in shape.

21. Squat or pace while brushing your teeth.

22. Eat dinner standing up.

23. Do 10 to 20 pushups before bed.

24. Stretch before bed for one minute.

Jari Love – original creator of Get RIPPED! DVD series and group exercise classes. The hot-selling and critically acclaimed Get RIPPED! series enables individuals of any fitness level to burn up to three times more calories than the traditional weight-training program, and has received rave reviews from fitness critics throughout North America since the first title debuted in late 2005.

By Collage Video | | fitness, Healthy, Jari Love, Motivation, Weekly Blog, Wellness | 0 comments | Read more

Weight-Lifting Moves to Substitute for Deadlifts

by Jari Love

If your goal is to add lean muscle and mass, everyone will tell you that you need to focus on two main exercises: the squat and the deadlift. Whether you really aim to get into shape, or start building some serious muscle, you’ll want to zero-in on your legs — because developing the muscle groups in your legs will not only help you burn more calories, they will also help you tone and train every other muscle group in the body.

The problem with trying to do squats and deadlifts — deadlifts particularly — is that you need access to the right equipment. To put some serious weight on the floor, and then proceed to pick it up, you need barbells, and a ton of plates. For some people, access to those things can be hard to come by.

Still, for others, physical limitations — past injuries, doctor’s orders, etc. — prevent them from incorporating the traditional deadlift into their routine. That can present an issue for people who are serious about building muscle and getting in shape, because it’s really hard to understate the deadlift’s importance in the world of weight training.

But fear not, because we have some alternatives for you. True, the exercises featured on the following pages aren’t perfect, and they won’t get you as far as traditional deadlifts will. But they’ll do in a pinch, and will work as viable substitutes when and if you need them. They’ll help you continue to build your lower-body — but it’s still better to do true deadlifts if possible.

With that, here are five suitable deadlift alternatives that you can incorporate into your routine.

  1. Dumbbell deadlift: Likely the simplest and most effective replacement for barbell deadlifts is the dumbbell deadlift. All you’re really going to be doing is swapping the bar for dumbbells. The video above, from The Fit Lab will give you a basic demonstration. It’s a simple, easy exercise, and will work the same muscle groups as a traditional deadlift. The only issue is that the dumbbell deadlift has its obvious limitations — dumbbell sizes, chief among them. Just be sure to keep your form and posture in mind, and dumbbell deadlifts will work when you’re without access to a barbell.
  1. One-armed dumbbell deadlift: A variant of the dumbbell deadlift is the single-arm or one-arm dumbbell deadlift. This, too, is relatively simple, and you can see a quick demonstration in the video above from Jeff Fields. Fields even throws some additional resistance into the mix in the form of a band, which is a great way to add a little bit of weight when you run into the eventual issue of maxing out on dumbbell sizes. Once you have the standard dumbbell deadlift mastered, try going at it with one arm — just make sure to keep your form intact.
  1. Bent-over rows: Bent-over rows, when done correctly, can be used in lieu of a traditional deadlift. You can do them with a barbell, if you have access to one (and if you do, just do regular deadlifts), or with dumbbells, which make them a more viable alternative for most lifters. Ben-over rows, like the other lifts on this list, are also a fairly simple exercise to nail down. Yet, again, it’s all about making sure you have the correct form. The video above demonstrates it very well, so thanks to Testosterone Nation for that.
  1. Kettlebell swing: Kettlebell workouts are soaring in popularity, and with good reason. They’re versatile, fun, and can be used to work out the same muscle groups as most traditional lifts, albeit in a much different sort of fashion. Case in point, the good old kettlebell swing can be used to give your quads and glutes a workout, much in the same way a deadlift session would. Yes, it’s different, but if you’re in a pinch, swinging a kettlebell around will help facilitate the muscle growth you’re looking for. Just make sure you’re going at it with a weighty kettlebell.
  1. Pistol squat: Finally, if you’re without barbells or dumbbells, or any other piece of equipment, you can use your own body weight to fulfill your deadlift quota. One of the best exercises for that is the pistol squat — a variant of the traditional bodyweight squat. And it’s a bit more challenging than it looks — so try it out a few times, and really work on your stance and form to get it right. Even after one or two reps, you’ll really start to feel it.

via cheatsheet.com

Jari Love – original creator of Get RIPPED! DVD series and group exercise classes. The hot-selling and critically acclaimed Get RIPPED! series enables individuals of any fitness level to burn up to three times more calories than the traditional weight-training program, and has received rave reviews from fitness critics throughout North America since the first title debuted in late 2005.

By Collage Video | | exercise, fitness, goals, Jari Love, tips, Weekly Blog, Wellness | 0 comments | Read more
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