Win An Autographed Copy of The 90-Second Fitness Solution!

It’s time to kick start your new year with a healthy lifestyle! I figured this book would help provide you with the information you need to get started!

Three lucky readers will win an autographed copy of The 90-Second Fitness Solution!

What is The 90-Second Fitness Solution?

This book is designed for people like you and me. Life is busy and complicated, and The 90-Second Fitness Solution provides a unique set of 90-second sets that are efficient for a healthy and stronger you.

Skeptical? I might be a little too, but there are plenty of testimonials in the book that will quickly change your mind about the power of intense workouts and consistency.

Overall, The 90-Second Fitness Solution will help you accomplish the following:

1) Shorten your workouts

2) Simplify your eating

3) Save money on supplements

4) Stress-proof  your life

About The Author

The 90-Second Fitness Solution was written by one of the most respected and in-demand fitness trainers, Pete Cerqua (with Alisa Bowman). Pete owns and operates the 90-Second Fitness flagship studio in New York City and has been helping people lose weight for more than 20 years.

Want more info? Check out the book’s website: 90-secondfitness.com

How to Enter

1) Join this website (through Google Friend Connect) and make a comment on this post with your email address. If you are already a member, just log in and comment. Yup, it’s that easy!

I encourage you to consider the bonus entries, since we will announce the winner on this site, facebook, and twitter!

Bonus Entries: 

1) Find us on Facebook and “like” our page. We’ll have a post that you can comment on, which will provide you an additional entry point when you comment on it. Nice!

2) If you like to tweet, you should “follow” Skinny Twinkie on twitter! All you need to do is Retweet our tweet on twitter that announces this giveaway, and you will get another entry point.

3) Do you have a blog? Grab my button and add it to your site or you can blog about this contest and link to this giveaway post, provide the link to your blog in the comments section on here (or facebook), and you will have gained another chance to win!

4) For those of you addicted to Pinterest (you know who you are!), add SkinnyTwinkie.com to your list of favorites and include the link in your comment.

♦♦♦You can give yourself a total of five chances to win! ♦♦♦

Contest Rules and Eligibility

This contest is open to all U.S.  and Canadian residents who are 18 years or older. Void where Prohibited by Law. This is a giveaway, which means you are not obligated to buy anything from anyone.

This contest starts on January 5th 2011 and will end on January 22nd, 2011 at midnight EST.

Skinny Twinkie will use Random.org to choose one winner by picking a random number based on the total number of entries. Skinny Twinkie will draw the winner on January 23rd, and the winner will be announced that same day on SkinnyTwinkie.com, twitter, and facebook.

If you are selected as a winner, we will contact you via email, to let you know that you have won! If you do not reply back to us within 48 hours after we have notified you, we will choose another winner and you will forfeit your prize.

Good luck everyone!!!

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Tags: contest, exercise, Fitness, fitness trainer, giveaway, Health, Nutrition, Pete Cerqua, The 90-Second Fitness Solution

Exercise Can Be Fun!

Exercise doesn’t have to be boring. You don’t have to physically walk into a gym to burn extra calories, lose weight, and become healthy.

Did you know that you can make exercise fun?  Check out the video below and you’ll understand what I am talking about!

What other fun exercises can you come up with?

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Tags: burn calories, exercise, fun

Know Your Heart Rate Zones

Too many gym goers  just aren’t seeing the results they want to see. They don’t know what they are doing wrong, and most of them just stop going to the gym altogether. Problem is, just going to them gym and exercising your hardest just isn’t always the best way to see the results you are after. If you want to maximize your exercise results, the key to your problems is knowing your heart rate zones.

Calculating Heart Rate Zones

If you want to reach your goals in the gym, you first need to know what your maximum heart rate is.

Maximum Heart Rate

220 – age = Maximum Heart Rate

For example, if you are 30 years old:

220 – 30 = 190

Now that you know what your maximum heart rate is, you can determine what your heart rate zones are.

Heart Rate Zones

Zone One: 65% – 75% of Maximum Heart Rate

Zone Two: 80% – 85% of Maximum Heart Rate

Zone Three: 86% – 90% of Maximum Heart Rate

For example, if you are 30 years old:

Zone One: Heart Rate of 123.5 – 142.5

Zone Two: Heart Rate of 152 – 161.5

Zone Three: Heart Rate of 163.4 – 171

Advantages Of Each Heart Rate Zone

Zone One

• This is a great zone for your warm up and cool down during the exercise.

• If you are new to working out, this is a great zone to stay in during your entire cardio workout.

• This zone will help improve the blood’s ability to deliver oxygen throughout the body and remove waste which increases blood volume and allows the heart to become stronger.

• This is an Aerobic workout, which uses your muscle glycogen and fatty acids as an energy source.

• An example workout would be walking or even jogging.

Zone Two

• This zone is near the anaerobic threshold, which is when the body is at a point where it can no longer produce enough energy for the muscles with normal oxygen intake. As a result, higher levels of lactic acid is produced. Increase your anaerobic threshold should be one of your cardio goals.

• Exercising at an aerobic level, such as being in Zone Two, will result in more calories being burned with a higher percentage of those calories coming from fat. This is an effective zone for those who want to decrease body fat.

• This is the Aerobic/Anaerobic workout, which uses your muscle glycogen and lactic acid as an energy source.

• An example workout would be jogging, group (cardio) exercise classes.

Zone Three

• This is a high intensity workout that can’t be kept up for a long period of time. You should only stay in this intense zone for 60 seconds or less.

• Once you have worked your way up to this zone, you should only go into this zone about once a week – that’s it! If you go into this zone too much, you will overwork your heart and have less efficient workouts.

• Zone Three should only be used in conjunction with Zones One and Two.

• The benefit of Zone Three is to prevent  plateaus and to continue improving your overall fitness level and boost your metabolism.

• Increases the amount of oxygen burned after the workout, also increasing the number of calories burned after the workout.

• This is an Anaerobic workout, which uses ATP/CP and muscle glycogen as an energy source.

• An example workout would be a fast run or sprinting.

Interval Training

Knowing how to use your heart rate zones to your advantage will help increase the effectiveness of your workouts.

Before you start any exercise program – especially Interval Training – I suggest that you get the approval from your Doctor to make sure your heart can handle the intensity involved in this kind of workout.

Beginners

Zone One: 20-40 minutes (entire workout)

• If you haven’t been exercising consistently, it’s important that you start here. You will still get a good workout in, without causing more harm than good. You need to develop a strong cardio base before you move on to other heart rate zones.

Intermediate

Zone One: 5 minutes (warm up)

Zone Two: 1 minute

Zone One: 5 minutes

Zone Two: 1 minute

Zone One: 5 minutes

Zone Two: 1 minute

Zone One: 5 minutes (cool down)

• You may only end up being in Zone Two for about 15 or 30 seconds, rather than the entire minute. That’s OK and is expected. Once the minute is up, it’s time to go back into Zone One for 5 minutes. If you never reached Zone Two during that minute, your heart may not be ready for Zone Two.

Advanced

Zone One: 10 minutes

Zone Two: 2  minutes

Zone Three: 1 minute

Zone Two: 1 minute

Zone One: 10 minutes

• This Zone should not be used by beginning or intermediate clients, otherwise it could result in a critical health-related injury.

I suggest buying a Heart Rate Monitor that can easily provide you with your heart rate throughout your workout so you can adjust your pace accordingly. You can manage your heart rate while walking, jogging, running, biking, or even on an elliptical machine or group exercise class. Just monitor your heart rate regularly and know which zone you should stay in.

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Tags: exercise, Fitness, Heart Rate Zone, Weight Loss

Keep Warm When It’s Cold Outside

For most of us, the weather is getting cold outside! How will you stay warm this Fall and Winter? In addition to dressing accordingly, I like to do a couple of things to help me keep warm and cozy during the cooler months, as well as keep my health in check!

Drink Herbal Tea

Whenever you drink warm beverages, it immediately increases your body’s temperature. I suggest staying away from hot chocolate, since they are (usually) full of sugar and will do more harm than good since sugar suppresses the immune system.

For the last couple of years, I have started to try different caffeine-free herbal teas that have a specific health benefit to them. For example, I love to drink Echinacea Tea to help support the immune system during the colder months. I figure that I could use all the help I can get to stay sick-free!

Exercise

Just because it’s cold outside, it doesn’t mean you can lounge in your sweat pants and forget about exercising. You can do plenty of exercises either outside or indoors, it doesn’t matter which ones you choose, just don’t buy into your own excuses to not workout.

Exercise will not only boost your metabolism to help you burn excess fat, exercise will increase blood circulation which will increase your body’s temperature throughout the day. In my own personal experience, I have found exercise to be very effective in keeping warm throughout the day.

Thermogenesis

When you eat foods that will increase your body temperature, this is known as thermogenesis.

Root vegetables, such as potatoes, carrots, kale, sweet potatoes, and cabbage require more energy to digest and will help create internal heat when eaten.

Hot peppers, such as thai peppers, chili peppers, or other hot peppers, help stimulate the circulatory system which raises the body’s temperature.

Eating warm foods, in general, will temporarily help increase body temperature in the cooler months.

Stay warm and healthy!

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Tags: exercise, herbal tea, Thermogenesis

Are You Making One Of These Common Exercise Mistakes?

One of the hardest things about going to the gym is not working out- it’s watching other people workout. Why? Most people are doing the exercises wrong, which is a bigger deal than most people realize. Common exercise mistakes could either reduce the workout’s effectiveness or cause serious injury.

As a Certified Personal Trainer, I have learned a thing or two about doing exercises properly, and I have created a list of exercises you need to make sure you are doing correctly.

Exercise Mistake: Lifting Too Fast

If you are going to lift weights, you need to make sure that you make the most out of every single rep that you do. Lift the weights slowly, which will allow for a much more effective workout, prevent injury, and will help allow you to do the exercise correctly.

Weightlifting is not a race.

Exercise Mistake: Overlooking Heart Rates

A lot of people hop on those exercise machines like it’s nobody’s business. The problem is, most people don’t start exercising at the cardiovascular level that they should be. They are usually out of shape and try to keep up with those who have been exercising every day for their entire lives.

The best thing you can do is find out which heart rate zone you should start in, and don’t over do it by skipping to a higher heart rate zone that your heart (and the rest of your body!) just isn’t ready for.

Exercise Mistake: Not Stretching

I would say the exercise mistake is “forgetting to stretch”, but let’s face it. You remember to stretch, but you probably just don’t want to do it. Don’t worry, I’ve been there. Once I started to learn more about the benefits of stretching with my exercise program, I took my stretching a lot more seriously. So why do you need to stretch? It helps prepare your body for your workout. It helps prevent injury. Stretch before and after your workouts.

Exercise Mistake: Never Changing Your Workout

If you want to continue seeing positive results with your workouts, you need to switch things up with your workout routine. Your body needs change on a regular basis, and I think you will need it for your sanity, too!

Exercise Mistake: Forgetting to Check Yourself Out

Wait! Did I just tell you to check yourself out? Yes. Well, not in the way that you think. Check yourself out when you are exercising – especially lifting weights – to ensure that you are using proper form. Proper form will help you have a much more effective workout as well preventing injury. Of course, don’t overdo it when you are checking yourself out, since that could cause a problem too (See guy in picture? Very bad form…not good.).

Exercise Mistake: Overdoing It/Not Doing Enough

We all have workout sessions where we get excited about making a positive change in our lives, and we just over do it with our workout. Try your best not to over do it again and again, since it can have a negative impact on your workout results.

Just as some people have a problem overdoing it, some just don’t do enough in their workouts. If you leave the gym feeling like you didn’t workout at all, you just aren’t doing enough. Remember, it’s perfectly normal to sweat while you are working out. Don’t be afraid to burn some calories!

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Tags: effective workout, exercise, exercise mistakes, Fitness, prevent injury