I know that we just watched the finale of the Biggest Loser Families a couple of weeks back or so but there is already another Biggest Loser starting tonight. Biggest Loser Families.

I think this is the second go round for Biggest Loser Couples as we had one a few seasons ago as well. My wife bought a prevention magazine a couple of weeks ago and they had bios in there for all of the new contestants.

Believe it or not this is the 7th season of the Biggest Loser. It seems like not too long ago that the first season started with all of the excitement of people wondering what it was about.

This season will start with 11 teams of two including one team, Jerry and Estella, that are the oldest in the shows history. Again this season Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels will be the trainers.

If you just can’t wait to see the new people tonight you can see the rundown on the NBC Biggest Loser site.

As I have mentioned a few times before and offered bonuses upon, there are three diet, weight loss, or health improving plans that I have reviewed. The plans are really very different from each other and I often get questions about which is the best based on a persons attitude and often which is the best of the three for me. These plans are:
Burn The Fat, Feed the Muscle

Fat Loss for Idiots

Turbulence Training

I have a lot of questions coming at me about which of these is the best and I wanted to make sure that I answered these questions before I move on to writing about any other plans and programs in the future.

Any weight loss program to me has two components, exercise and diet. Here is where the above diets sit in those categories. Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of one of the biggest new years resolutions I am launching a page of stop smoking remedy reviews as well as a 10 day email course to help people quit smoking.

I have setup this new email program for those of you who are trying to quit smoking. Everyone who has come to this blog has at least seen the signup form for my fitness tips newsletter and fitness program but I also wanted to help people that smoke and that is why I have created a stop smoking email course. Smoking is less acceptable now then it was even 10 years ago when I quit smoking and often I feel bad for the trouble that smokers need to go through to keep their habit alive.

Dangers of Smoking

Smoking though as we all know is an incredibly dangerous habit that leads to emphezema, lung cancer, diminished lung capacity and a lot of health problems that are directly related to the poor air flow and dirty blood that you will get from smoking.

Another problem that many people have with smoking is the smell on them and their clothes. The smell of smoke to a non smoker is very strong and at times can be awkward. People that smoke have a harder time concentrating in long meetings as the nicotine cravings come and especially bad are times when salespeople have to have people in their cars and have to apologize for the smell. Read the rest of this entry »

Being January 1st I thought that it would be very important to remind people about how to join a gym. I was listening to some sports radio guy on ESPN this morning and he was telling people:

“If you are thinking about getting in shape, don’t. Don’t go and join a gym or get in shape it’s too much trouble. One of your friends probably convinced you it was a good iea and you don’t need to do that anyway. Keep doing what you are doing”

I was a little offended by the guy until he continued:

“My workouts that take 50 minutes always take 2 hours in January when so many people join a gym. Don’t bother getting in shpae, who wants to feel better about themselves, who wnat to get complements abouot how great they look, who want to look years younger, no just stay at home in front of the TV and eat fried food, someone has to to keep the economy going buying too much bad food.”

What a great rant. Anyway, last year I wrote a series of articles aboout what to look at when you are joining a gym. Here are the links to the articles:

Joining a Health Club - The how and why of joining a gym

Joining a Health Club - The Tour - The guys at the gym put on a little dog and pony whow and it is almost worthless unless you know your priorities and ask the right questions

Choosing a health Club - Distance from Home - Where would your gym be? Close to home? Close to work?

Health Club Staff - How to know what to look for in the staff at the gym itself. Your membership si paying for the staff you should get your moneys worth.

If you are going out in the next couple of days to join a gym I think that it will really help you make a better decision to read these articles.

Good luck with the gym shopping.

Happy New Year!

Over the years I have had some really good years and some really bad years as far as making change on new years day is concerned. I know that back in my drinking smoking partying days I would not commot and do the work for anything and sadly I now call those my lost years. Not anymore. Every year I move forward and I have accepted the fact that every year parts of my life chance a lot and always for the better.

So what makes the biggest difference in my eyes? Making the commitment with action.

The trouble with thinking of a new years resolution and trying to get it done is that you will forget it easily when other things in life distract you, so you take the action of writing it down, and this gives you a better chance.

To further improve your chances of meeting your new years resolutions, today you must do things that will move you towards them, ACT!, get moving now!

If you want to lose weight (very common today of course) then start eating right this morning and get some exercise this morning as well. I read a book once where the lady that wrote it (Your Best Year Yet!)
said that in a drunken bit of bravado she announced that she was going to run the London Marathon and the next day, hungover she realized she would have to give it a shot and she started running that day….that is what it takes.

So to help you today to get started I am going to pull a few posts from the archives that will hopefully give you some ammunition to get started today. You can always change your life for the better so why not start that process today?

My wife starts her day looking at the headlines on the People Magazine website and this morning saw this article about to Biggest Losers having a baby….and there is a picture of how they look now.

Marty Wolff and his wife Amy met during the third season of NBC’s The Biggest Loser in 2007, got married in March 2008, and now are expecting their first child in July 2009, PEOPLE has learned exclusively.

Although they had been talking about having kids during their courtship, “After we got married, at a certain point, we let nature take its course,” Amy says. “We are very excited!”

The Wolffs, who live in Omaha, Neb., run a weight loss and self-improvement program called Reality Wellness. They also help organize local competitions, such as Shape Up Omaha, focused on getting folks fit.

“We take a token of what we learned on The Biggest Loser and applied it,” says Amy. “We’ve helped 250 people this past year lose 5,000 pounds!”

Now you have done most of the work and even more than most to make sure that your New Years Resolutions have a fair chance of succeeding. You have made a list of what you did this year and your hopes for next year. You have made a list of what your goals will need as far as steps and dates.

Now you have to see why your New Years Resolutions will fail.

Yes I know that you have always been told to again be positive and just look at succeeding in your goals but the trouble is that some time next week or next month you will hit a wall of some kind. If you are on a diet you will see cheesecake, if you are quiting smoking you will walk into a crowded smoky party, if you are looking for a better job you will hit a bit of complacency.

So what can you do to limit these possibilities of failing in your goals? The best way is to look forward at what your weaknesses are (your failures from this year maybe?) and decide ahead of time how you will handle these problems and how to avoid them. Read the rest of this entry »

So yesterday I wrote about how it is best for you to make a big list of all of your goals for next year as well as all of your accomplishments and non accomplishments for this year. I hope you really took this taks seriously and made big lists. Both of my list for this years stuff and next years goals are up aropund 100 items.

Of course there is no way that you can nail 100 things for next year, if you try to accomplish too much then you will end up doing nothing well. So it is now important to start grouping the things on this list. How many of these things go together? Is there a two week vacation that will cover a lot of those travel urges? Do you have a lot of household type task that you can get done all in a weekend? Do you have various health and fitness goals that kind of dovetail each other?

I know that a lot of the goal setting pros would say keep a small list but what you really want to do is have a manageab,e set of goals that will change your life. What 5 or 10 of these goals would really be impressive to complete? Which 5 or 10 goals are really stepping stones to changing your life next year? How many of the itmes on your list are going to make a differenece to your family and friends that you really do want to accomplish? Read the rest of this entry »

Stevia has been used in sodas marketed as dietary supplements and in other countries for sweetening treats and other foods but before now was not officially approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Experts had predicted the FDA would approve before the end of the year and the market for natural-based sweeteners would rise exponentially. December is as close to the New Year as can be and seems like the perfect time for introducing new products.

Officially recognized by the FDA this week, Cargill received the notification in the form of a letter stating that they have no objection to the previously submitted research that rebaudioside A (rebiana)—Truvia’s scientific name—has been generally recognized as safe (GRAS). The letter continues to support Truvia’s safety and the research behind a panel of experts from an independent company that provided the data.

PepsiCo has also teamed up with Merisant to produce PureVia another stevia-based sweetener, which also received the same FDA safety letter this week.

Cargill has complete confidence in this product and is elated at the recent findings that stevia-based sweeteners are now safe for use by all consumers. Marcelo Montero, president of Cargill, stated, “The FDA brought the appropriate rigor to the process and we are extremely pleased with the news.” Read the rest of this entry »

I have started my new years gola setting and it is really taking the form of a big list right now. I hope that you read the bit I wrote a couple of days ago about Setting New Years Goals as it really laid out a great overview of what you need to do this week.

I know that some people think that it is best to sit down for a couple of hours and really do the work of setting goals but I hate the idea. I tend to have a one track mind at a time and am sure that I would miss stuff so I am just working with the first couple of bits right now.

Review of 2008

I am making a long list of all the tings that I did, got and achieved in 2008 and in addition all the failures, disappointments, and bad decisions that I made. Read the rest of this entry »