Eating clean also means staying away processed food. These types of food include man-made sugar, bad fats (hydrogenated, trans-fat), preservatives, white bread, and any other ingredients that are unnecessary.

When we shop for our food we try to buy locally produced food and buy fresh produce that’s in season, so naturally we hit the farmers’ market whenever possible. Another way to shop is to think about shopping the perimeter of the grocery store. This is where unprocessed foods can be found.

This is my favorite seasonal salad using Eating Clean guidelines. I didn’t use a recipe for this. It’s something I came up with but you may find similar recipes online. The amounts are very open. Experiment with portions and ingredients. You can’t mess it up!

Quinoa Cucumber Salad

• 2 Cups of cooked quinoa (Quinoa is a complete protein!)
• Chopped cucumbers (I use 2-3)
• Chopped tomatoes (I use 3-4)
• Chopped green onions – the amount depends on what you like
• Chopped basil – around ¼ c. but really this should be to your taste
• Chopped cilantro – Around ½ c. – again use the amount that you like
• Lime juice – about 2 T.
• Olive oil – ¼ c.? I honestly don’t know how much I use. I just pour a bit in to see how it mixes. I know I don’t use a lot because I want this to be fairly low in calories.

Mix all the ingredients together and chill.

Even my 17 months old granddaughters eat this!

Are we all back now? Good.  Ok, I’m not trying to get you to quench your thirst with soda, that’s never good advice.  What I am trying to emphasize is the question at the end, “what’s my motivation here?”  If you aren’t asking that question every time you step into the gym, you might be robbing yourself of making some good progress.  Here’s why, exercise can affect the body as a type of hormesis.  (follow me on a bit of a nerd safari here) Hormesis is the theory that exposure to a certain stresses or toxins a low levels over time will build a resistance or immunity.  You see this with things like certain illnesses (chicken pox), alcohol (too much will destroy your liver, but small amounts can improve your health), and exercise.  Too little exercise is obviously bad, but too much exercise can also have detrimental effects, both to you and to your goals.  What you want is to balance your physical stress with adequate rest and nutrition to facilitate an adaptation toward being more resistant to that stress!

Now, most people who have been at this fitness thing for a while have a pretty good grasp on the fact that they need rest days and a good nutrient dense diet; however, there are still those who might not be getting the most out of their training because they don’t think about the other side of this hormesis thing.  Let’s assume that a lack of rest and nutrition are not the issue at hand, but an individual is still not seeing that type of muscle gains/weight loss/improvement they are seeking.  Well, hormesis dictates that the stress placed on the body will trigger a favorable adaptation toward that specific stress.  For example, lifting an increasing volume of heavy weights over time will trigger the adaptation of building muscle mass, because you body knows that is what it needs to do in order to be more resistant to that stress in the future.  Additionally, you don’t see too many marathon runners who look like professional wrestlers.  This is because the type of training they do facilitates the adaptation to drop any inefficient or unnecessary body weight, including muscle mass.  This concept seems to be elusive, and tends to be where some people’s training program fails to achieve results.  When people try to do too many things at once, their body has competing adaptations.  (There are some genetically gifted people whose capacity for work and recovery borders on the miraculous, but if you aren’t already a professional athlete, you can probably correctly assume you are not one of them.)

Here is the point where you need to ask yourself, “what’s my motivation here?” What are you trying to accomplish when you hit the gym?  Do you want to be bigger and stronger?  If yes, then don’t train like you are going to run a marathon!  Are you interested in endurance athletics? If yes, then weight training is important only to the point of having a good strength to body weight ratio.  After that you’ll want to focus on building efficiency in the specific movement patterns of the sport.

What’s your motivation?

Weight gain in senior women can hide the fact that muscle loss contributes to the problem of poor fitness. Research has shown that a woman in her 50s may have 15lbs less muscle and 45lbs more fat than she had in her 20s. Yikes! But there is help for us older ladies – strength training offers you a chance to reverse muscle loss, increase your metabolic rate, lose weight and gain power for everyday activities.

Many women of all ages focus on eating fewer calories to prevent weight gain, but this does not reduce the rate of muscle loss or metabolic slowdown. Strength training, with free weights or exercises using the body’s own weight, takes care of both issues head on and should be a part of every senior’s fitness program.

Previously sedentary senior women can add 2 to 3lbs of lean muscle weight after two to three months of strength exercises. This increases the resting metabolic rate by about 7 percent in older adults. Older women who do an hour or two of strength training exercises each week improved their cognitive function as well. What? That’s right. While improving our physical selves we are helping our minds.

Additional benefits of strength training for older women include arthritis relief, better balance, stronger bones, better weight maintenance and a healthy state of mind.

And strength training is fun! It feels good, is empowering and rewarding. So what are you waiting for?

At first read that barley makes sense. We’ve seen the infomercials with the sexy man or woman. They have those rippled abs and solid bodies. All they do is climb on a contraption that forces them to do the perfect crunch every time and then whamo they are lean and sexy with no belly fat.

If you look closely you’ll notice those sexy sexy men and women don’t really have much fat anywhere on their body. The truth is that crunches, sit-ups, and every variation therein are good but only to define the muscles comfortably hiding beneath the rolls. You have to lose weight to show the ripped abs. There is no way around it.

So what’s the easiest way to earn a flatter tummy? Be fit. Focus instead on your legs and back. Together, they make up more than 70% of your muscles. Working out that amount at one time will help you lose weight faster. To repair that much muscle after a strenuous workout will help you lose weight faster.

Add to that interval training where you have short periods of exertion coupled with rest and you are revving your metabolism to be a fat burning machine.

THERE IS NO QUICK FIX! You want the sexy, you have to do the work. Those models are paid to work out, to eat lean and clean. They work hard for their results. It didn’t come from a bottle, doing a hundred perfect sit-ups a day, or by accident. They fought, struggled, and sweat for those abs. Why do you think you’re any different?

Aaron Behr 

They seem like two easy questions right? But if you really stopped and thought about them maybe they’re not that easy.

Let’s start with what’s important.  Most peoples’ main goal is to get in better shape, lose body fat, and tone up. So you have a goal great, what are you going to do to get to that goal in a reasonable time?  Remember mental toughness?

Make a checklist that ties into staying focused. What I’d do, and have done, is buy a white board and make a list of things you have to do every day. Mine for example:

1. Thank god for waking up

2. Run

3. Do PT

4. Swim

5. Eat healthy

6. Study for the navy

Make a list and hang it up to make you responsible for getting it done. You can’t point fingers at anyone and say, “I’m not getting where I want to be because of him or her”. Take responsibility for yourself. If you’re not getting closer to your goals everyday you don’t want it bad enough, period. Making a list keeps you in check. Tell everyone your goal, especially family because they will stay on your ass about it and that will help you stay focused in getting to your goal. Trust me it works.

Wake up every day determined, with a burning fire, to go out there and get it done. Always have a smaller goal and write it down every day. Know that you are going to lift a couple pounds heavier today or that you are going to lose a pound; knowing that will help you stay focused.

Stay away from the word “try”. When I go to the gym, I know what I’m going to “do”. To “try” says I don’t want it bad enough. Always stay positive and ready to do more. I know a lot of people have a hard time with saying, “I can’t get to the gym. I can’t eat healthy. The main reason is due to having kids and having to take care of them”.

Well I have a question. If you can’t take care of yourself, how do you expect to take care of your kids? Get them involved with setting goals and working hard to stay fit and healthy. That was the number one thing I learned from my parents at a young age; set a goal, give it everything you got, work hard to get it done, and have unbreakable determination. Nothing in life that’s easy is worth having. Nothing!

Now hopefully you’re thinking and making a list of 1-5 things you want to accomplish. Your body is your fortress. It’s a gift. So don’t put junk in it and don’t neglect it. Getting in shape and having better health should be number one on your list of goals and in importance. If not, then stop reading.

Focus, very simply, ties back to mental toughness. Write notes and hang them up. Set reminders and put quotes up where everyone can see them. They will show others your goals. So they ask you, “How’s working out going?” or “How’s that new diet?” you with have an answer that will be hopefully an impressive one.

The one thing I found helpful for myself on long runs is listening to speeches from athletes, Presidents, and Generals. I have to find something that gives me the chills and makes me want to get off my butt and do work. You have to find what works for you. Where do you see yourself 45 days or a year from now? Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today. It’s easier to sit back and buy the ticket to sit at the game than to be the person in the game. A person can only be beaten in two ways; giving up or dying.

Steven Shepherd

What will happen? The gas will gum up and clog the arteries of your car and chitty chitty bang bang you’ll be stalled out on the side of the road.

Wait, I’ll make the challenge easier. Go out, buy a brand new car and never change its oil. Drive all over this great US of A and see how far you get. Without the proper maintenance, without putting the right kind of fuel in your car, you won’t get far. That poor car will die an agonizing death because of your neglect.

You know where this is going?

Why is it that we put garbage in our body’s tanks? Why is it that we never get its tires rotated or oils changed (despite the obvious reality that we don’t have tires or oils or do we metaphorically?)

A pure and simple diet begins with eating clean. To get the best fat burn for our buck, we need to put the right fuel in our bodies. Nothing processed, nothing with outstandingly long ingredient lists with a dozen words you can’t pronounce, and nothing our body stores as fat. Eat clean.

It’s a lot easier than you think. Eat six meals a day with a lean protein, fruit, and veggie. Don’t over salt or over sauce. Eat it the way it was intended to be, natural, without preservatives. Only let 90% of your diet be the serious regimen and splurge every now and then on the other 10%. At Achieve Fitness we give you 4 splurges a week.

It’s all about putting the right fuel in our bodies. To put it simply, the protein rebuilds muscle. It has your branched chain amino acids that help muscle building and recovery. The veggies have fiber and your vitamins and minerals. They keep you clean. The fruit has your sugars and vitamins which give you that energy. It also contains fiber which keeps your metabolism high and your insulin levels low. All together, you have a complete fuel for your body.

It’s the refined grains, potatoes (which are a starch), rice, and corn that slow our bodies down. All grains, whole or otherwise, are designed to be stored for distribution for a later time. They sit in our systems as backup fuel if we need them. You can see a roll, or a loaded potato, or a bowl of rice in each of your love handles.

Make the right choices today, this minute, as you read these final lines. Your body is starved for the right food. You may not feel it, but it’s slowly breaking down because you haven’t worked it out or fueled it up right. If you don’t beginning tuning up your body now, you’ll be forced to when it breaks down on the side of the road.

Eat clean, eat frequently, and eat healthy everyday for the rest of your life.

Doug Schwaberow

Six years ago I had a cardiac arrest a week before the school year started. I flat lined 4 times and was life flighted to Riverside Hospital in Columbus. I received a pace maker there a few days later. I had a couple of complications after that but was able to return to teaching by the first week in October.

I started walking 2 miles at least 3 days a week but wasn’t making the progress that I wanted and needed. This was when I decided to try personal training. And thank goodness I did! I am the strongest I have ever been in my life and can do more than I ever thought possible.

What I have found is that many people of a certain age believe that if we’re not natural athletes or haven’t made exercise a habit before middle age, the door to getting fit has closed behind us. That perception is simply not true. Not only is it never too late to begin exercising, but those of us who came to exercise later in life have found that we can achieve the best shape of our lives in our 50s, 60s and even 70s.

It’s possible to reinvent the body even after years of an unhealthy diet and little exercise. Walk into the Achieve Fitness Boot Camps and you will see some of our clients in their 60s and 70s keeping up with the younger members of the group.

As Americans live longer, and more healthily, than ever before, we are realizing that fitness doesn’t have to decline with age. Despite everything that has happened, I feel better because of my fitness level.

Margaret Fawcett

When people use the “realist” phrase it’s to excuse what negativity they have. It can be used when a goal is a little more complicated to achieve than they’d like. Maybe they want to feel justified in their anger or frustration? Maybe they’d like to avoid the attempt? Maybe they would rather wallow in self pity than actually DO something about the situation.

Let me change gears on you by telling you a story. There once was a client. We will call her Ann to protect her identity. When she came to me, her attitude was awful.

“Aaron,” she said, “I hate my job, my house is always a mess, my husband is an inconsiderate jerk, and my two kids take after him. I’m always running, always busy; sometimes I just want to scream. I just want some ME time.”

At this time, I pursed my lips, tipped my head back and asked, “What are you doing now?”

Ann thought about it for a second. “I’m working out with you.”

“Wouldn’t you call that ME time?”

She stuttered but replied, “I guess.”

“It’s a matter of vantage point. What angle you look at the situation. I imagine there are plenty of wonderful positive things about your life right now if you’d only think about them.” I knew my case had been thoroughly made and waited for her rebuttal.

“But.” There it was, the beginning of denial. “You don’t understand. You’re not me.”

“You’re right. I don’t understand what it means to be you, but we all have a choice to how we view this world. No one dictates that to us. You have a great life.”

She huffed. “It’s not roses.”

“See, why do you have to be so negative?”

“I’m not negative, just a realist.” She smiled as if she had won.

I smiled bigger. “You are a pessimist in disguise. You have a job where, more often than not, you’re respected and your needs are met. Sure the work sucks but all jobs have those days. Dwell on the positive aspects of your days not all the negative ones. Let those carry you through it.”

I went on to break it down for her. I asked her to tell me one positive thing about her job, husband, kids, and being a working mom. Every week I asked her to dwell on those things throughout the week. Every time a negative thought popped into her head, I told her to weigh it with a positive then focus on the positive.

She actually did it. Her life began to transform dramatically. She started eating the right things more consistently, working out more often and harder, smiled all the time, and never ran out of nice things to say about her life. Eventually she was promoted to a job she loved even more. Her happiness spilled onto her family and they literally treated her better and went out of their way to show their appreciation to her.

For Ann, her reality became positive because she had awesome P.M.A. (aka positive mental attitude). So she was a realist and when she stepped back and looked at the positive side, that’s all she could see.

Aaron Behr

I won’t mislead you.  This movement I’m talking about isn’t the next big exercise craze or miracle program.  In fact it’s not an exercise at all.  There is no special form to learn.  Actually, it’s not even a particularly hard thing to do.  Brace yourself, get ready, here’s the big reveal…chewing.  Surprised?  Don’t be.  If you think about it, you (probably) perform more repetitions of chewing than you do all your other exercises combined.  But how you chew isn’t nearly as important as what and when you are chewing.

Your exercise program takes place in a small fraction of your day when you compare it to the amount of time you spend preparing, chewing, and digesting your food.  There are a lot of well-meaning, hard-working people that put all of their effort into their workouts, but continue to eat junk and don’t see the results they want.  I’d bet, If they could take that dedication and use it in the kitchen, they might reach that genetic potential quicker than they thought possible!

OK, we’ve all heard this before.  There is a poster up in Doug’s office that says something like, “you can’t exercise your way out of a bad diet,” which is very true.  I’d like to take that idea a bit further.   I believe that as much as 70-80% of how you look and feel is a product of what and when you decide to chew.  Wait now, before you tell me I’m crazy let me make a point and tell you how this is applicable.  Your genetics give you a solid base to build upon (and sets certain limitations).  Additionally, exercise is the stress you need to place on that genetic base in order for your body to adapt and improve.  These are crucial parts of the health and fitness wheel that can’t be overlooked.

Let me tell you how I apply this to my life.  I have a pretty hectic schedule.  I have a full-time job with a 40 minute commute each way.  I am married and caring for 3 children right now.  I am an active volunteer at my church and work part-time for Achieve Fitness.  When I’ve finally taken care of the things I need to do in my crazy day, I have very limited time to spend working out.  Yet, none of this is an excuse.  I make sure that when I do workout, it is intense.  I also make sure those efforts are fueled with the proper nutrients at precise times.  Am I an elite level athlete?  Heavens no, but I am reasonably lean and fit given the amount of time and effort I can afford, which I attribute heavily to my diet being solid.

Challenge yourself to reach your genetic ceiling.  If you need help with what and when to chew, ask Doug or any of the trainers to help you out.  We are always happy to share what works best for us.  The answers you find might be just a bit different, but I’d be willing to bet that they don’t stray too far from this:  Eat real food with real ingredients.  Cook it yourself and don’t settle for convenience junk.  You are worth the extra effort.  

Adam Hoar

First, set goals. Four pillars to set a good goal are to be specific, measurable, realistic, and timely. You can’t say, “I want to lose 30 lbs sometime soon after I start exercising.” Now if you say, “hey I’m going to lose 30lbs within 6 months by exercising five times a week eating healthy and I’ll do that by not eating out and partying every weekend,” you have to be positive and keep your eye on the prize. Envision yourself the way you want to look. Everyday look in a mirror say your goals out loud. Envision how you’re going to look, how you’re going to feel because if you can think it and imagine it, then it is possible.

Second, find motivation. Post quotes where you will see them. Write down your goals hang them up with the quotes. If you want to drop 3 sizes to fit in a dress then go buy the dress and hang it up so you have to look at it and remember why you’re working out. Whether it be to look good, feel good, or get in shape you have to have a goal and keep it in mind at all times.

Third, build self-confidence. If you have a great workout, eat well all day, or meet a minor goal look at yourself and say, “Way to go. Keep up the work. You’re kicking butt.”  I’m not telling you to be cocky but high self confidence will take you a long way in staying focused and meeting your goals. If you have to make excuses you don’t want it bad enough. It’s that simple. Either in fitness, a job, or relationship sacrifice and change is necessary to reach goals. You have to make changes if you’re not happy.

Forth, find happiness. Happiness can easily be changed by your mind, stay focused and anything is possible. I know the right mind set works from my experience being only 20, getting certified as a trainer six months after high school, working at a therapy clinic for two years now, and working here at Achieve Fitness while all that working two jobs and training for the Navy for one of the hardest contracts to get; the Navy Seals.

How did I do it and continue to do it? My mental toughness, I always keep my eye on the goal every morning getting up at 4am, working out, running ten plus miles a day, swimming three miles while being able to still cook and eat healthy get sleep, and keep up with all other things. You can’t have excuses on why you can’t eat healthy why you can’t workout. You can always make time, always say I can and I will, and you will be surprised on how things improve.

It’s hard some days, but with the right mind set – Remember why you are sacrificing, the benefit it’s going to have, how you’re going to feel, keep yourself going and always stay positive, look at the bright side of everything – all things are possible.  Never give up. Whatever you put your mind to your body will follow!

Steven Shepherd

 “I’m not telling you it is going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.”

-  Art Williams

So I decided to change!! I decided that I wanted to feel the way I did when I was working with my speed coach in college.  Do I want to get faster? No, I just want to feel the way I did back then, strong and lean.  So I follow the Achieve Fitness programs.

My goals are different than some but the format is the same. I want to gain lean muscle and put on size, but at the same time I want to work on my cardio. The programs that I do with Achieve Fitness allow me to do that.  The program details everything from movement preparation to, corrective exercise (which greatly help with my muscular development), to working on my core (or abs), then we get into the “meat of my resistance program” followed by metabolic work. 

They have me doing Olympic lifts, lifts that I have never done in my life. There fun and I always enjoy learning something new.  What I like most about the Achieve Fitness programs is that it gives me a system or a path towards my goal to add size, stay lean, and work on flexibility, and my cardio all in an hour. I also have coaches that keep me on track with my progress, which I know if I were to do this on my own I would find some way to slack or cheat.  I, just like everyone else, am trying to accomplish my own goals and maintain a healthy lifestyle.  Have I accomplished my goal? No, but I do know that I am a lot closer than I was 3 weeks ago.
Doug Schwaberow

The way to make this new adventure the best it can be is to do something we all know – STAY ACTIVE. We can’t change the age factor, but we can change our activity level. By staying active I don’t mean just golfing, biking, and walking. I mean having a workout program that increases your strength and improves your metabolism. We stay active to ensure we can continue doing the activities we want to do, but we need to remember that we are also role models for our children and grandchildren. It is important for them to see that growing older doesn’t limit us in doing what we want to do.

When I retired from teaching what was most important to me was to be able to play with and take care of my grandchildren. I needed to be able to carry them upstairs for naps, walk across a field to check out whatever was important to a two year old boy, and then most likely carry him back home. I can do these things because I exercise on a regular basis.

Besides being the office manager of Achieve Fitness I am one of their clients. I have trained with Doug Schwaberow for over four years. It’s not easy but the rewards are well worth the effort and time. Personal training has helped me to do all the things I need to do for the care of my grandchildren.

Margaret Fawcett