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Reading this post complaining about the Biggest Loser Club reminded me of my experience with the Biggest Loser Volume 1 workout dvd. I brought the dvd thinking that it might have some good beginner routines in it. Boy was I disappointed.

There was a lot of high impact moves in the dvds. I do not like high impact exercises. I am not in good enough shape to do these high impact moves at the tempo of the trainer. My knees will hate…

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Quite often most people end up undoing all their hard work when exercising by eating too much. Exercise in does not compensate for that bowl of ice cream. But it took me a long time to realize that. I figured that since I was sweating and out of breath, I must have burned it off 15 minutes into exercising. In reality it actually takes an hour of moderate exercise to burn that bowl of ice cream off.

According to a…

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My blog got a review! I am glad to know that I am not doing such a bad job after all.

a2a_linkname=”My Blog Got a Review”;
a2a_linkurl=”http://smallstepstohealth.com/2008/04/my-blog-got-a-review/”;

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What is your main reason for wanting to loose weight? What is your initial decision as to why you want to loose weight? When we are in our comfort zone, it is hard to stay motivated for long periods of time. We have been overweight for so long, we have forgotten how wonderful it feels to be active and healthy. So we commit for 3 weeks, fully intending for it to be longer, but leaving…

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When it comes to a healthier life style people think that once they fall off a bit or something unexpected happens, they need to start over. That is not true! Life crisis happen. We are still ahead if we just pick up where we left off. We are only setting ourselves up for disappointment and guilt if we expect perfection in our approach to weight loss. When we mess up, it is natural to feel…

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Living in this century is all about time or shall I say the lack of time. With both parents working and scheduled activities for our kids, we trim our free time to the minimum and often multitask. We know that meal times can enhance our family and social ties to each other, but we choose to ignore it. Food eaten at a leisurely pace in a peaceful setting with loved ones is not a luxury.

Families…

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In a perfect world, we would all have a healthy nutritious dinner at home each evening after a hard day. Since we do not always live in a perfect world, the best we can do is make better choices when we eat out. This is the start of a series of posts discussing what to avoid, the smarter choice to make, and special requests we should be making when we eat at certain types of…

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Last time we discussed the smarter choices when eating at fast food restaurants. Here is the second post of our making smarter choices when eating out series. We will be discussing what to avoid, the smarter choice to make, and special requests we should be making when we eat at restaurants that serve American food.

For American food restaurants the fat traps to avoid are:

• large main course portion size.
• fried or sautéed food.
• cream sauce and dressing.

The smarter…

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This article on msnbc makes me a little angry. The man is writing in for advice because his wife is getting too fat for him and he thinks it is all her fault. But here is the kicker, he was not particularly physically attracted to her in the first place, but it seemed to bother him even more now that she is heavier after having his kids.

Recently my husband and I celebrated our 13 year anniversary (we have…

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This article from ABC News got me thinking about the relationship between sleep and your weight. People who get 8 hours of sleep each night tend to weigh less than people who sleep less. Getting enough sleep encourages your body to produce more leptin hormones and less ghrelin hormones. Leptin is the fullness hormone and ghrelin is the hunger hormone. Getting enough sleep reduces your anxiety and depression which may reduce your emotional eating.

To ensure that you…

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Last time we discussed the smarter choices when eating at fast food restaurants and American restaurants. Here is the third post of our making smarter choices when eating out series. We will be discussing what to avoid, the smarter choice to make, and special requests we should be making when we eat at restaurants that serve Italian food.

For Italian food restaurants the fat traps to avoid are:

• Alfredo or other cream based sauce.
• Cheese based grain dishes…

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According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, the minimum recommended amount of exercise is 30 minutes for general health and 60 minutes for weight loss at a moderate intensity for most days of the week. Moderate intensity means it is difficult to talk, but we can still have a conversation if needed.

I can workout for 30 minutes. I can push myself to 40 minutes if necessary. But 60 minutes is an intimidating number!

But I am…

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Strength training does not have to be painful to be effective. This will be a series of post talking about the three most common strength training injuries (rotator cuffs, the kneecap, and the lower back). This post will focus on the rotator cuffs in our shoulders.

We should replace ‘no pain, no gain’ with ‘no strain, no gain’ as our motto when lifting weights. If we are lifting, most likely we will experience some muscle soreness. The important thing is…

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