Exercise your rig To a mak

Your set of hand weights is gathering dust under the television. Your new walking shoes are still in the box. You had pizza for dinner twice this week.

OK. Enough judgment and self-trash talk. Forgive yourself. There’s still plenty of time left in 2018 to establish some healthy habits and see the results this year. For down-to-earth advice, we turned to Christal Churchill, an American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM)certified personal trainer and nutrition expert at Zone Health and Fitness in Ocala. Her years as a trainer and background in nutrition have helped many clients achieve success by linking fitness with a healthy eating plan.

Christal shared common sense advice to making over your eating habits and a realistic exercise program that can be done at home without specialized equipment.

“Fitness really begins between your ears,” says Christal, who clearly understands the role psychology plays in the whole weight loss/fi tness quest. “It all starts in your head; your thoughts are so important to your overall health and well-being.”

She reminds clients not to be obsessed with weight. It’s just a number and doesn’t tell you how much muscle you’ve gained. Remember that muscle weighs more than fat, and adding that muscle is key to your body functioning as it was designed to do.

“As you increase muscle, your body fat goes down, and when you build muscle, you burn more fat—even just sitting,” Christal explains. “One pound of muscle burns 50 calories at rest, so 10 pounds of muscle will burn 500 calories at rest. If you needed incentive to gain muscle, here it is!”

Food Matters

You’ve likely read those bizarre stories online: “I Ate Nothing But Twinkies for a Month and Lost 15 Pounds” or “How to Lose Weight on a Fast Food

Diet.” Although this might make you feel better about your own eating habits, let’s be honest here. To make real progress, you can’t just start working out. You also need to address the way you eat.

“Food is 85 percent of your body changing, so you need a healthy lifestyle in the kitchen,” says Christal. “You will always get results from exercise, but it’s when you combine exercise with nutrition that you get optimal results.” one month.

For starters, Christal recommends writing down everything you eat for a week. This will help you identify patterns, such as stress or boredom eating, and start to make changes.

By Cynthia McFarland