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If you participated in our January 1st challenge, thank you! The challenge was to guess how many times I exercised in 2010. A package of Catalyst products for permanent weight loss valued at $350 is on its way to Deborah Phillipi!

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Deborah guessed 355 exercise sessions for my activity output last year. My actual total was

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So you realize its time to take your workouts to the next level in order to achieve your weight loss and fitness goals. Perhaps you’ve outgrown those dumbbells in your dusty basement or you are bored with your current workouts. Maybe the variety of exercise possibilities in a gym is a motivator.

Congratulations! Nothing burns fat quicker than more muscle. In the world of permanent weight loss, building muscle through weight lifting or resistance training is the best thing you can do for yourself.

Navigating the maze of equipment in a gym can be daunting; navigating the unwritten rules and unseen territory of other users’ workouts can be even more confusing. Many people find a gym, particularly the weight-lifting area, intimidating. Becoming comfortable quickly is important to your fitness progress. Here are a few tips to make your journey easier.

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First of all, keep in mind the gym is a shared resource. The object is to have as much variety and equipment available as possible. That’s a plus for your workout. But, you also have to be mindful of others sharing the space.

1. Wear appropriate clothing. Never wear tight clothing, too-short shorts or revealing clothes. They can be distracting which will get you no points with others and may be downright embarrassing. What looks good when you pose in front of a mirror might be a horror when you are lifting weights in some of the improbable poses weight lifting demands, no matter what your shape or size. Avoid ripped or torn clothing (safety issue) and make sure clothing is clean.

2. Wipe down benches and equipment when you are finished. Most gyms provide antibacterial spray bottles and towels for this purpose. If not, you must carry your own sweat towel.

3. Avoid excessive makeup, cologne or aftershave. Makeup + sweat = acne and cologne + sweat = air pollution.

4. Hair should be secured. I actually saw a long ponytail get caught in a weight stack last week. Instant whiplash! It was not a pretty sight and the wearer was plenty embarrassed but, ultimately, everything comes down to safety and this could have caused a serious injury. Most injuries in the gym are caused by carelessness.

5. Rerack all weights after use. Return bars and dumbbells to their appropriate location. This is a safety issue as well as a courtesy to others. Unload your weights from any bar or machine after you use it.

6. Don’t hang out or socialize on the gym floor or, even worse, on the equipment. Take conversations to the snack bar, the parking lot or the lobby. Leave your cell phone in the locker or your car. If you have questions about equipment or an exercise, ask a gym associate or trainer.

7. Never crowd another lifter. This is a hard one during peak gym hours but placement is important. You don’t want to find yourself in the path of a lifter doing lateral raises with 80 lb. dumbbells. Also, don’t pick a spot to do your exercise that is in between another lifter and the mirror. (Mirrors, by the way, are used to assess proper form, not for doing hair, applying lipstick or posing.) Another spot to avoid is any position that makes it impossible for others to reach a rack and retrieve weights. Long stretching routines should be taken to the designated stretching area. If there isn’t one at your gym, ask for it. And, please, no yoga poses in the weight room or, worse, in the aisles between equipment.

8. If you are doing more than one set, vacate the equipment between sets. You may not realize someone is waiting for that piece of equipment. I have seen exercisers hang around for long intervals between sets, staring at the ground or even reading a book! If you want to read, you should be in the library or coffee shop.

9. If you are doing multi-sets, accommodate others who need the equipment. Likewise, ask to work in politely if someone is hogging the equipment. It’s probably not a good idea to ask to work in if there’s a huge difference in weights (free weights) or bench position. On machines with weight stacks, it’s an easy switch to pull the pin and change the weight being used so there’s not much excuse if someone won’t work in with you there.

10. By the way, will there be jerks who refuse to share equipment, snarl at you if you ask for a spot and leave a mess behind them? Yes. There will be others who feel they have to grunt and groan through their entire set or otherwise attempt to command the attention of others. There are lots of words for these people and I will not mention them here. The important thing to remember is that these are rarities in the gym. It’s best to ignore them and move on, keeping your focus on your workout.

Despite what you may think, most people come to a gym to work and work hard. Respecting this work ethic and cooperating with other gym-goers helps create an environment where everyone can accomplish their goals.

It’s December 31st. Resolutions fill the air. It’s only natural to want to make changes, and we’ve been conditioned to assign a “start date” to every “project.” Think: first day of school, Mondays, first of month, summer.

But some changes take a bigger shift than one day can signify. We can start a diet on a certain day… but a journey to permanent weight loss has no start date. That’s because every day of the past is part of it, including all those bloomin’ diets and freaky binges and the very sad thirteen Weight Watchers tries where I let some stranger put me on a scale and record my worth.

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My own journey to permanent weight loss has been going on for over 35 years. I’ve helped thousands of people on their journeys. And my experience has taught me that we all want real, deep and meaningful change in our lives. But that scares the crap out of us so we opt instead for superficial change.

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Oh, it’s the day after Christmas and what do I see at the gym?

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Lots of Santa’s elves, working out excessively, hoping to make up for yesterday’s excess eating! Perhaps they indulged in too many cookies, or Santa shared too many cups of eggnog!

There were some of us who would be there, no matter what our holiday was like. But the woman frantically grasping the treadmill rails as the timer ran past 75 minutes… and the red faced man rotating from bike to stairmaster to treadmill… those are signs of desperation, the all-out drive to burn calories after overeating – in short, MAKEUP EXERCISE!!

But is it actually possible to make up for yesterday’s calories by burning more today?

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You know those emails you receive from Aunt Mary with the cute sayings? Usually they tout “life through the eyes of a 5-year-old” or “signs with outrageous text – if you read it the right way.”

Well, I got one today with some very funny sayings in it. One really caught my eye:

You do not need a parachute to skydive.
You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

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Now, there are many things I’d like to do twice – especially skydiving.

But, what about weight loss? Anyone want to do that twice?

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The people of Okinawa eat until they’re 80% full. They even have a name for this naturally slimming habit: hara hachi bu. We can adopt this healthy habit by dishing out 20% less on our plates or leaving 20% behind.

80% Burger

Does it make you uncomfortable to leave food behind? I used to feel that way. I broke the habit

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One of my clients saw my last blog post. She said, “Pat, you don’t like any of the traditional weight loss formulas, do you?”

No, I don’t.

I don’t like them because they don’t work. Trying to follow them took years of effort and rendered me mind-numbingly incapable of success. When I threw them out the window, things started moving in a positive way in my life.

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Being on a diet usually leads to fixation on the scale.

We are happy when it goes down, unhappy when it goes up, frustrated when it stays the same. (The truth is, any time it stays the same, we are winning, but few of us see it that way when we’re immersed in the struggle of dieting off excess weight.)

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Here are some basic facts. The body is made up of fat and non-fat (lean) tissue – this includes bone, muscle, organ tissue, interstitial and connective tissue. All of this lean tissue is mostly water – 73.2%.

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