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It is understandable if you gained some weight during the Stay-at-Home order. We were stressed and there wasn’t much to do. This caused many of us to binge on TV and food. Now that we are getting some sense of normalcy back, many of us are motivated to shed the quarantine-layer. 

First and foremost, don’t stress out if you did gain a few extra pounds. More stress isn’t going to help anything. Instead, focus on the initiatives that you can take to start feeling better and the weight will take care of itself.

Focus on these key principles and you will experience some pretty fantastic results including increased energy, better sleep, improved body composition, lower risk for illness and disease and weight loss.

Nutrition – Focus on what you should be eating not what you shouldn’t!

Water

Drink 80 ounces of water each day.

Plant-based

Focus on consuming vegetables and/or fruit at each meal. Eat a predominantly plant-based diet. Go local and organic whenever possible.

Eat Smaller Portions

Plan your meals so that you consume a balanced diet and practice portion control. Try to fill up on veggies.

Don’t go to bed on a full stomach

Avoid eating 3 hours before bed. Give your body some time to process your meal before you go to sleep.

Plan

Grocery shop at least once per week to stock up on healthy choices and fresh fruits and veggies and take the time to prep your meals for the week.

Lift Heavy

Muscle-conditioning

Lifting weights is the best way to boost your metabolism, lean up and sculpt your body. Incorporate strength and muscle workouts a minimum of two times per week. Go for one set of 8-15 reps of a variety of exercises for 20-60 minutes. Movements like squats, lunges, step ups, pushups, pullups, core conditioning and other functional strength moves are great.

Sweat

Cardio

Exercise aerobically 3-6 days each week for 20-60 minutes each session at various levels of intensity. Activities like walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, rowing, hiking, or stair-climbing will do the trick. Try to expend at least 300 calories per cardio workout.

Move more

In addition to your weekly sweat sessions, add more daily activity into your life. Take the stairs, walk more, stand versus sit… If you start moving more in your life, then you won’t have to spend hours in the gym every week!

Stress Release

Mobility & Flexibility

Finish each workout with some stretch and release, deep breathing, meditation and/or yoga.

Sleep

Try to get at least 7-8 hours sleep per night. Sleep is when your body recovers and repairs. Plus research suggests that a lack of sleep triggers appetite and fat gain.

Yours in health & fitness,
Sherri McMillan

Note: As an avid Columbian reader, you can redeem a complimentary initial in person or virtual personal training appointment to help get you started. Email us for more details.

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We Are Open!

Northwest Personal Training is NOW OPEN! We are SO EXCITED to see you! For Private Training, you’ll have the option to continue doing virtual training, outdoor training or training at the studio. For Group Fitness classes, you will be able to continue doing virtual online classes (live or saved) and we are also going to host some outdoor programming.

There are a lot of safety precautions that we have been preparing and will have in place so please watch this video where I explain everything we are doing to keep you safe.

Here is a link to our Reopening Protocol in detail so you can review closely.

#NWPTSTRONG
#WEAREOPEN

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