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Who else has heard that consuming Apple Cider Vinegar, daily, is a smart thing to do?  Well, research studies have proven this to be true!  Apple Cider Vinegar has numerous health benefits that could be well worth including it in your diet, daily.  Below, we have included a simplified list of the many health benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar.

1.   Lowers Blood Pressure

2.   Lowers Cholesterol

3.   Lowers Blood Sugar Levels – Great for Diabetes

4.   Balances pH Balance in the Body

5.   Helps Relieve Sinus Pressure & Infection

6.   Helps Sore Throat – Bacteria Fighting

7.   Prevents Flu & Stomach Illness

8.   Digestive Aid

9.   Helps Relieve Heart Burn, Nausea, Acid Reflux

10. Helps with Weight Loss – makes you feel more full

11. Energy Boost

12. Conditions and Strengthens Hair

13. Helps Get Rid of Warts

14. Helps Acne – acts as a good skin toner

15. Itchy or Sunburned Skin

2 tbsp of Apple Cider Vinegar a day can be SO BENEFICIAL!  Make sure to drink yours today!

How to drink it? … Mix in with water or even use it in recipes!

 

I hope you all enjoy!

Caroline Kolowich

Trainer Spotlight: Jonathan Kolowich

Jonathan’s favorite exercise:  burpees

Why Jonathan loves burpees:

  • “Because not only will burpees turn you into an athlete, they’ll also scorch fat and get you conditioned.  Burpees involve agility, balance, coordination, and total body strength; and most importantly, they are just as mental as physical.  Mental toughness is key in everything in life!”

Pictured below:  Jonathan performing the burpee.

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Happy September, everyone!

Continue believing in yourselves, working hard and being the best version of you!

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Amanda Santiago

April 2015 Client of the Month

top atlanta personal trainer client of the month

We’d like to introduce you to the April 2015 Live Life Fit client of the month; Amanda Santiago! Amanda, 24, has been training at Brad Kolowich Jr. Fitness Studio since August 2014. As a producer for Fox Five Atlanta, Amanda works long, and scattered hours each day. Her work day begins around 4:00 AM and often doesn’t end until 8:00 PM. For the last eight months, on her short break between work shifts, Amanda has committed to getting in two personal training sessions a week at the studio, as well as four additional cardio sessions on her own. In the past eight months, Amanda has NEVER missed a session! Perfect attendance is just a small glimpse into the dedication and motivation she puts into reaching her fitness goals. Combined with a consistent workout schedule, Amanda has logged and monitored her customized nutrition plan on MyFitnessPal. Since August of last year, Amanda has lost a total of almost eight inches, completely transformed her body composition and in March reached her goal weight! Congrats Amanda on all your hard work and thank you for being a source of positive energy and inspiration for us all at Brad Kolowich Jr. Fitness Studio!

blog-fitlife-021615 Atlanta Personal Trainers Health Coach

Eating healthier can be tough, but that task becomes extremely difficult when temptations from within the kitchen seem to beckon you. Squash those diet-breakers with these five strategies recommended by top personal trainers and health coaches to help you stay focused on your goals ahead.

1. Begin at the Grocery Store

Your grocery cart is the first point of entrance for tempting foods to reach your home. If these foods don’t make it into your kitchen, they’ll have a much more difficult time tempting you. So before shopping, it’s best to create a listof all the items you’ll need including snacks. This requires a few minutes of planning each week; however, the amount of time you invest now will save you the effort and disappointment in the long run with having to re-start another program. Keep in mind that your list is only effective if you stick to it. Unplanned purchases can prove disastrous, so minimize them by buying only what is on your list and making sure that you don’t shop while hungry.

2. Put Your Pantry on the Program

Troublesome foods exert much less temptation power when they aren’t within your immediate reach. Remember the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind”? Give away or discard all the foods that will make it more difficult for you to stick to your plan. If you have to go to the store to buy a tempting food, you will have extra time to consciously think about whether this is something that’s really important to you or just a momentary whim. Once the tempting foods are out of your pantry, you’ll have an opportunity to reorganize items in a way that puts the healthy stuff up front, visible and within easy reach.

3. Shrink Your Dishes

Oversized glasses, bowls and plates tend to make us feel like we need to fill up the entire space with food or drink. This translates into consuming much more than we originally planned. We often eat first with our eyes, so to speak, and then with our stomachs—meaning that if a meal appears small at first glance because it’s served in a larger plate, chances are we’ll likely eat more to feel satisfied. By choosing smaller-sized dishes, your meals will naturally appear larger and you won’t feel slighted in portion size.

4. Plan It Out

Planning is key to making many healthy changes. Whether it’s creating a grocery list, organizing your pantry or having dishes that make your meal look satisfying, planning helps you prepare in advance to be successful in your endeavors. A great way to plan ahead is to have healthy snacks ready to go. Whether its individual containers of light yogurt, cut up fruits and veggies, or snack-sized bags filled with pre-measured amounts of nuts or whole-wheat pretzels, prepared snacks can serve as important tools to helping you stay on track between meals. They are easily portable and may be brought to work as a great alternative to mid-day vending machine options.

5. Get Out of the Kitchen

Finally, one of the best ways to avoid kitchen temptations is to simply engage in an activity that takes you away from that room in the house. A distraction that takes the focus off the kitchen can help minimize unplanned eating. This could mean engaging in a hobby or craft, reading or even scheduling a little time for physical activity. By participating in other enjoyable activities that benefit you mentally and physically, you’ll likely have the motivation to eat healthier and avoid those kitchen temptations.

By Gina Crome
Gina M. Crome, M.S., M.P.H., R.D.

AceFitness.org

revive-resolutions-art brad kolowich jr personal trainer

Now that it’s almost March, that shiny New Year’s resolution you so enthusiastically embarked on a couple of months ago might have lost its sparkle. So how do you bring life back into your plan now that the initial thrill has worn off? Instead of letting your good intentions fizzle out again this year, make 2015 the year when you actually follow through with what you’d planned. All it takes is a little bit of self-reflection and a few tweaks to your routine to make a sustainable (and fun!) game plan to help you revive your resolutions and ultimately reach your goals.

Get back to basics.
People often bite off more than they can chew when it comes to New Year’s resolutions. Are you really going to overhaul your diet, start working out for an hour a day, pay off every cent of your debt and learn fluent French this year? Probably not! Pick just a few doable goals and break them up into smaller goals. Small changes can have a bigger impact than you might think, and you can always add more goals later if you master your initial ones early on.

Here are some basic ideas to get you started:
Exercise for at least 30 minutes, 3-5 days per week
Swap out junk food for healthier snacks a few days per week (fruit, raw veggies with hummus or a Quest Bars are all good options!)
Track your food daily to see how much you’re really eating
Make a point to get to bed by a certain time every night
Aim to eat at least five servings of fruits and veggies every day
Re-work your routine.
It’s important to switch up your food and fitness routine every so often to keep your body guessing and your brain interested! Instead of slogging away on a machine at the gym every day, try out a home workout DVD, or plot out a new-to-you running route. You might be surprised at how much small changes like these can re-kindle your motivation to reach your goals.

Grab a buddy (any buddy)!
It’s much easier to justify skipping a workout here and there when you don’t have anyone to hold you accountable. Find a fitness buddy who shares similar goals, and hit the gym together. It’s much harder to push that “snooze” button when you have someone else waiting on you! Just make sure your partner is just as committed—or even more committed–than you are. Fitness buddies can backfire if you enable each other to skimp on your healthy habits.

Update your playlist.
If your workout playlist is feeling stale, it can make it even harder to get through a tough workout. Update your playlist at least once a month with fresh tunes to spark your motivation. You can even structure your playlist to play exactly what you need to hear during certain points of your workout.

Bust your food rut.
Gravitating toward the same few healthy meals can be an easy way to keep things simple and stay on track, but some people need a little more variety to help keep their interest while trying to eat better. Break out of your food rut and treat yourself to a fun new healthy cookbook, or check out one of the recipe collections on SparkRecipes for some fresh ideas.

Create fun incentives.
Many people have trouble sticking to long-term goals because they crave instant gratification. Creating incentives for yourself will help you stick with your healthy lifestyle for the long haul by giving you little rewards along the way to your big end goal. Here are a few incentive ideas to get you started:

  • Every time you overcome a temptation to eat junk food or to skip a workout, put a dollar in a jar. At the end of each month, buy yourself a small (non-food) treat!
  • Keep two jars in a place where you see them every day. Make one of them your “pounds to lose jar” and fill it with small stones, each stone representing one pound that you’d like to lose. Every time you lose a pound, move a stone over to the second “pounds lost” jar. This can be a surprisingly motivating visual!
  • Only allow yourself to watch your favorite television shows as a reward for completing your workout for the day. Alternatively, tell yourself that you can’t watch television unless you’re working out while you’re watching!
  • Create your own reward system. If you like games and/or checking things off a to-do list, a more in-depth, personalized reward system could be just the thing you need to jump-start your motivation.
  • When you tell others about your goals, you are more likely to follow through with them to save face. Make a note to tell your friends and loved ones about the goals you would like to achieve this year. You can do this individually in person, or make announcements on your social media accounts for a broader reach. For some people, having just one person to check in with every day about his or her goal progress is enough to make them think twice before reaching for that extra cookie.
  • Hire a personal trainer, health coach or nutritionist to help you with planning, accountability, motivation and education toward reaching your health related goals.

Lean on technology.
When it comes to reaching your goals, technology is your friend! There are so many apps out there these days to help you set and reach almost any type of goal. From food trackers, to productivity monitors, to GPS-enabled fitness monitors, there is something out there for everyone who has a goal to reach. Explore your phone’s app store for the latest and greatest tools.

Re-evaluate your resolutions.
This one might be the most important strategy of all. Sometimes, we make New Year’s resolutions that just aren’t realistic. Take a step back and look at your resolutions. Are they realistic goals for you at this point in your life? Are you biting off more than you can chew at one time? Are you making these resolutions for yourself, or to please someone else? If you’re starting to have doubts about whether or not your resolutions are a good fit for you, it’s perfectly fine to revise them. You are an ever-changing person, and sometimes, your goals and priorities will change, too. If your resolution is no longer serving you, feel free to scrap it and shift your focus to something else that’s a better fit.

This blog is brought to you by Meta, a SparkPeople sponsor.

http://www.sparkpeople.com/blog/blog.asp?post=make_over_your_new_years_motivation&utm_source=sparkpeople&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly-spark

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What makes a great lunch? Is it something new, colorful, warm, hot, sweet, spicy, or one that comes neatly packed in a tupperware container? As a personal trainer and fitness nutritionist, I would say yes to each of these lunch characteristics. However, with a full schedule, time is a rarity in my household and making the time to create healthful meals is a challenge. There are many benefits to eating a healthy balanced meal mid-day, and Fit Chow helps me do just that without any time consuming preparations!

Eating in the middle of the day reenergizes your body and continues to provide your body with the energy it will need to stay productive throughout the rest of your workday. In addition, eating lunch (or small frequent meals) helps to keep your metabolism revving. It is a common misbelief that skipping meals to cut calories may help propel your weight loss. However, this strategy rarely produces long term, sustainable weight loss. In actuality, people who skip meals tend to weigh more than people who eat often throughout the day (according to Weight Control Information Network). Skipping lunch (or other meals/snacks) can rev up your appetite, causing you to over indulge in poor food choices.

Eating lunch is important, but what you are eating has equal importance! Some foods pack more nutritional value than others. Combining protein and complex carbohydrates (fruits and veggies) will give you a long-lasting source of energy. At Fit Chow we have combined our expertise in nutrition, health and fitness with Chef Curry’s exceptional cooking skills to create meals that fit this criteria perfectly. Ideally, a healthy lunch should be balanced with protein, complex carbs (fruits and veggies), and healthy fats. By simply packing 4-6 oz of the protein of your choice (1/2-1/3 of the protein in a container) and 4 oz (or 1/2 a container) of vegetables, you will have rapidly created a nutritional lunch to fuel your body through the rest of the work day. We have worked to create options for you that take guessing on healthy choices at fast food restaurants out of the equation.

So, take a lunch break and nourish your brain with healthful foods such as the foods Fit Chow Atlanta provides and I guarantee it will lead to a better and more productive afternoon!

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Heat, along with light and oxygen, can destroy the beneficial fats in some oils. Polyunsaturated fats are the most fragile and are not recommended for cooking. Coconut oil, being mainly a saturated fat, is able to withstand higher temperatures than other oils, making it one of the best oils for cooking. It also gives a delicious taste and superb texture to foods. (http://healthyeating.sfgate.com)

At Fit Chow Atlanta, coconut oil is the only oil being used during any cooking that requires high heat.  To try Fit Chow, visit our website at www.FitChowAtlanta.com.

timing is everything--brad kolowich jr persoanl training trainer atlantaTiming is everything!

When it comes to health and fitness, timing is everything. That is exactly what inspired the creation of Brad Kolowich Jr’s trademark double orange dot at the start of his business logo. The double dots resemble the dots on a standard digital clock. Brad says, “Everything we do is calculated to the T–from our workouts to nutrition to supplementation to recovery time.”

When trying to reach your fitness goals, one of the most important times of the days are the 2-3 hours that encompass the start and end of your workout. Brad Kolowich Jr and his team of personal trainers try to help educate and support our clients on what supplements to take to best support your body before, during and after your workouts to aid in performance and recovery. Here is a sample supplement timing guide to help make the most of your workout (suggestions vary client to client, based of his/her individual goals).

Pre-Workout
The focus of pre-workout nutrition should be on sustaining energy, increasing performance, and supporting the body to reach his/her physique goals. Take these supplements about 30-45 minutes prior to your workout.
Creatine–increases the body’s supply of ATP (energy production). Creatine increases strength and muscle gain when used in conjunction with an exercise program.
Caffeine–improves endurance, reduces muscle pain, and help mobilize fat stores. It may even help to motivate you to workout for a longer period of time.

During Workout
Hydration is critical! Water is best, but you may choose to sip on workout drinks that provide energy and replenish electrolytes, depending on the intensity and duration of your exercise.
Electrolyte drinks–rehydrate and replenish minerals lost during sweating. For long duration events, you may supplement with a drink that provides carbs for energy.
Energy drinks–ideal for extended periods of exercise to boost endurance.
L-Carnosine–helps reduce lactic acid build up in the muscles, enhance muscle contraction and promote muscle recovery.

Post Workout
Post-workout nutrition is the key to timely recovery and repair. The majority of your muscle strength and building happens after the workout! A liquid meal immediately following your workout is the quickest way to replenish and rehydrate the body. Consuming a liquid meal no more than 30-45 minutes post workout will stop the body from going into a catabolic state and ensure you have protein available for the continued protein breakdown occurring.
Protein–is necessary to stimulate muscle protein synthesis and reduce protein breakdown. Whey protein is quickly absorbed and is easy to digest post-workout. It provides the body will all the essential amino acids necessary for muscle recovery. A post-workout shake with a mix of whey, casein and carbs is our favorite way to end a workout.
Glutamine–reduces muscle soreness and speeds up recovery while also supporting the immune system.

Contact us:  inquiries@bradkolowichjr.com to learn more about the supplements which would help you best reach your goals!

-Mandy

 

adapted from Amazing Wellness