Perfect Fit Personal Training- Health and Fitness Blog

Running, walking, swimming, biking; all of these exercise modalities work your heart and lungs. February is heart month, so it's a good time to take a look at your current program and see if you're doing enough to keep your heart healthy. Besides eating good foods and maintaining a healthy diet, it's important to work your heart regularly through cardiovascular exerecise. Here is my latest article in February's Alive magazine on Heart Rate Training. Have a healthy day!

Exercise to lose weight, or diet to lose weight? That is a very frequently asked question. So what's the right answer? Well, both are important. You can exercise every day and maintain your weight with the same diet, or you can eat nutritiously and have a lower volume of food and higher volume of exercise which will equal weight loss. You can exercise a lot and eat too much, and gain weight too! It's all about math. Calories have to be in a deficit to lose weight. Check out this study from Stanford University on what do do first; diet or exercise. Have a great day!

My latest article in Alive Magazine  is out! This magazine is free in health food stores across Canada, or you can view it online here . If you're a runner, or even just an avid exerciser, this article can help you avoid unwanted injuries. Hope you enjoy my latest article !

Gotta Love Oprah! Her site has tons of great health tips including this one: Stop Mindless Eating Check it out now and see how Oprah's site can help you to stop mindless snacking.

Getting into the gym on  your own may seem like a daunting task, so why not invite a friend or two and make it even more fun! Group training is the way to go for convenience, fun and price. Your friends can encourage you and keep you motivated to keep coming, even when you just want to sleep in a little longer... Group personal training is great for the budget, the body, and the social calendar. Instead of meeting up for coffee and a muffin at your local cafe, you can meet up at the gym and get in an awesome workout. Burn the calories at the gym and save the calories from the cafe; you probably just shaved 600 calories off from your day! Not bad for an hours work. So grab a friend or two, and contact me for a free consultation for group training on the North Shore. We can set up personalized programs with meal plans for you and your friends; you just need to commit to showing up! Here are some of the benefits of group training with Nicole Palacios of Perfect Fit Pers...

It's a New Year and a New You! Hey, why not? Every year you may think the same thing...why not get fit? Why not lose a few pounds? Why not get active? Well, don't put it off any longer. This is YOUR year! Perfect Fit Personal Training has been in the fitness industry for 18 years, working with every type of individual, and all ages. We are ready to help YOU reach your goals! We will work one on one with you to reach your personal health and fitness goals SAFE and EFFECTIVELY. Don't wait another year to start your fitness journey, contact us now for a FREE CONSULTATION in North or West Vancouver. Nicole is an ACE and BCRPA certified personal trainer and a BCAK registered kinesiologist with a degree in Exercise Science. Nicole's articles have been published in: Alive, Chatelaine, Women's Running, Pregnancy, Impact , and more! She is an expert source for fitness in : Shape, Shape Online, SheKnows.com and more!

One of the biggest reasons people gain weight at the holidays: lack of willpower.  But what if it was possible to manipulate your willpower, making you unwavering to the temptations of the season?     Hypnotist Colin Christopher , author of the book Success Through Manipulation: Subconscious Reactions That Will Make or Break You , who helps his patients lose weight through hypnosis, says hypnosis manipulates and strengthens a person’s willpower so much, that he guarantees anyone who uses it can lose weight this time of year when food is in abundance.       That’s not his opinion; the stats back it up.  The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology says that adding hypnosis increased weight loss by an average of 97%, and increased the effectiveness of weight loss post hypnosis by more than 146%. So how does it work? ·          Direct access to the subconscious – ...

A client of mine was chatting to me about nutrition, and asked "Which is healthier, chicken fat or fat from cheese?" Well, chicken fat is animal fat, but technically, so is cheese as it comes from cows milk (we're talking about dairy cheese. 100 grams of chicken meat contains approximately 9 grams of fat , and it's high in l inoleic acid. 100 grams of American cheese (varying types) has 32 grams of fat . There are many types of cheese, some having higher amounts of fat than others. According to :  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3033/The-good-cheese-guide.html ;  Cheddar Per 100g: calories 412, fat 34.4g (saturates 21.7g), calcium 720mg CHEDDAR is one of the highest-fat cheeses, which is bad news considering it's also one of our favourites. However, it is a great supplier of calcium and provides respectable quantities of zinc. Orange Cheddar is simply white Cheddar with added orange colouring. Obviously cheese is not the best c...

Perseverance and motivation hard at work here! My amazing client of two years just loves lifting heavy, and wanted to keep going on the pulley row. Last week we did 80lbs, then 90 and she wanted to try 100. She just kept going for it. Today she said, let's try 110, how about 120? Eventually she said, let's try 130! She did a set of 12 reps after already doing her other three sets at the above weights. She continues to amaze me with her strength and hard work. She was so pleased with her success! Way to go!

Eating Clean, This catch phrase is getting  a lot of lip action lately, and it's no wonder. With many people realizing that processed foods and refined sugars are not the way to go in terms of food choices, they're turning towards the most obvious choice: Clean Eating. What does Clean Eating entail, anyway? Basically, you eat real, whole foods and enjoy the flavours without added sugars, flours, and sauces from a jar that's been sitting on a shelf for months. I just came upon a wonderful website in my quest to send my clients some new recipe ideas, here it is:  http://www.heandsheeatclean.com/p/about-us.html There are tons of great eating clean recipes on this site. Here are another few great recipes I'd love to share with you right now! Crock Pot Pulled BBQ Chicken Prep Time:  5 minutes Cook Time:  PT6-8H Total Time:  PT6-8H5M Makes 6-8 servings Ingredients 1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce 1/4 cup white vinegar 1...

Pop has a lot of calories, the sugary kind, not the diet of course. The diet is low calorie, but who knows what you're really putting into your body, right? Anyway, back to sugary pop, or soda. http://www.shape.com/weight-loss/weight-loss-strategies/how-lose-10-pounds-safely?page=3 If you drink one can of pop per day, that's around 160 calories extra per day. Over the course of a week, that's more than 800 calories your ingesting in liquid, which has no nutritional value, and doesn't fill you up. Double that amount, and you have the caloric intake for an average sized woman for the whole day! Do yourself a favor, if you're trying to lose weight, and you drink sugary pop, then try to cut it out as soon as possible. The carbonation, the calories, and the sugar are all wreaking havoc on your weight, your bones, and your physique. http://www.shape.com/weight-loss/weight-loss-strategies/how-lose-10-pounds-safely?page=3  You can read about my tips here. ...

Supplements; they're the latest and greatest thing to hit the health and fitness industry. Well, maybe not the latest, but definitely getting a lot of attention lately. Wondering what exactly a supplement is defined as? http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-oview.html With health companies promoting a gamut of supplements from creatine to flax, and protein to Vitamin D, how much of it do we really need? I often have people ask me if they should take supplements; mostly protein as it's widely touted as being important to take, especially after working out. People that are in good health and eat sensibly generally don't need to supplement. This type of assistance is important for people that are low in something, such as iron or calcium. If you're getting enough of those things from the foods you eat, and you don't have a defiency issue, than you should be fine. Certain doses of healthy supplements can cause unhealthy reactions if you're not taking the recommended amou...