What you eat is more important than how you move.

So you may be wondering- Why is a personal trainer talking so much about food? Glad you asked! Here is the answer:

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in my opinion what you eat is at least 80% of the weight loss battle.

And I'd say it's about 70% of the battle to stay fit once you've lost weight. Reason? I've never seen a truly physical fit adult over the age of 20 who wasn't very mindful about what he or she puts into their mouth. The occasional (once a week, tops) splurge meal? Sure! Regular, mindless shoving of food into their mouth? Not happening. Not that I've seen.

I'm not saying that exercise isn't important- it is. But if you exercise like a body builder and eat like an overweight person, you're going to look an overweight person. You'll be more fit than most other out overweight people, but you'll still be overweight. I live this truth every day of my life.

And for the record, I'm sure you've heard this before, but you can not turn muscle into fat. Muscle cells are muscle cells, fat cells are fat cells, and ne'er shall the two metamorphis into one another. You must build muscle and lose fat to see the muscle. That's just the way it works.

I've had this exchange more than once:

Other person- "How do I get myself into good physical shape?"

Me- "Well, you have to watch what you eat. Without changing your dietary habits you won't see or feel maximum results."

Other person- "I don't eat that much!"

Me (mentally- if they are overweight)- "Bull doo-doo!" (I cleaned that up!)

If they ask, I share some general guidelines they can follow (I'm not certified to give particulars), and give them help with their exercise regime. Sometimes they tell me they have every intention of watching what they eat, in addition to following our exercise program.

I am sad to say that most of the time they stick with the exercise, but 90% of the time they don't change their eating habits. So the changes in the mirror are minimal, since all of that beautiful muscle is hidden under a layer of fat.

Additionally, all of the muscle you put on can't benefit your body they way that losing fat can. And the strength you give your heart with cardiovascular exercise can be negated by extra fat on the body that the heart must work hard to pump blood through.

Am I saying to abandon your exercise routine until you get the excess weight off? No!!! Good Lord, PLEASE don't do that! If you are exercising, keep it up! First of all, it's raising your metabolism, helping to maximum your dietary weight loss efforts. Second of all, it'll make you more fit in general and help give you a "tighter" appearance, making the general lines of your body more pleasing. And thirdly, once you do lose weight you will have wonderful, sexy muscle to show off instead of tired, loose, skin filled out with minimal muscles development. You'll be ahead of the game and looking enviable when you get closer to goal!

If you already are a low body-fat percentage and exercising but not seeing results the way you think you should, it's time to clean up your eating. I've seen people amazed at the difference a good, sound eating plan adds to their already sound fitness routine.

I'll be the first to admit that changing eating habits is difficult. I struggle with this issue regularly. I love to eat! But until I get the excess weight off of my body I won't see the full extent of the fruits of my efforts from exercise. That, my friends, is a sad, true fact.

So, if I were to have to choose for someone between eating right and exercising, I'd pick eating right. Every time.

BTW, I'm curious. Is anyone reading this?

Excuses, Excuses!

Unless a doctor has told you differently, any reason you have for not eating right or exercising is not a reason, it's an excuse.

Sounds extreme, doesn't it? It's not.

Here are a few I've heard:

-"I don't like the way healthy food tastes." You've become accustomed to eating unhealthy foods. Likewise, you can become accustomed to eating healthy foods. The trick is to start. It'll take time, but you'll get there. And you'll believe it was worth it once you do.

-"I don't have time to count calories." First of all, counting calories only takes time in the beginning. After a few days, armed with a good calorie-guide and nutritional information on the side of packaging, you'll be able to find the calorie count in any particular food fairly quickly. It's good for you to know what exactly is in the things you are putting in your mouth. Secondly, you don't have to count calories. Join a sound diet plan (Weight Watchers is my favorite) that has taken most of the work out of calorie counting by supplying you with comprehensive lists of easy-to-look-up foods. Then follow it.

-"I don't have access to good foods." This is usually baloney, but if all you have access to is butter-dripping vegetables, fried chicken, and triple-layer cake, sop as much butter off of the veggies as you can with a napkin, take the breading/batter/skin off the chicken and the frosting off the cake. Then eat a lot less of them. And move more. (Refer to my "Move More" post.) Many times we have to adapt. For help, refer back to my first blog.

-"It's more expensive to eat healthy."  Well, okay....... Most of the time, yes.  I'll give you this one.  But doctors bills and missed work from being in poor health costs more.

Now some I've heard for not exercising:

-"I injured my (insert body part here). I don't want to hurt it again." So did I. Years after rehabbing a torn rotator cuff I still have to be careful about how much weight/how I lift with it. But the fact is that I can lift weights. It's not enough of an excuse to stop exercise entirely. If you have recently injured yourself, ask your doctor what you can do for exercise. Ditto for surgery.

-"It makes me feel uncomfortable". Look, it's called a work out for a reason- It's work! We all feel some degree of discomfort at some point when we exercise. But trust me, muscles adapt very quickly. Pretty soon you'll be feeling better more often and uncomfortable less often. And you could wind up surprising yourself by looking forward to workouts and wanting to make your body a little uncomfortable with challenging it. You can't know until you try.

-"I don't like to sweat." This always elicits a chuckle from me. Do you want to be sweaty a little bit of the time, or look flabby all the time? That's what it comes down to. Your call. The sweat excuse is by and far the weakest one I've ever heard.

And my all time favorite:
-"I don't have time." This one makes me want to pull my hair out! Hey, listen, if you don't have time to exercise now, think of how much less time you'll have in the future when you're sitting in a hospital bed, recovering from open heart surgery. How will THAT fit into your busy schedule? Or the schedules of your equally busy loved ones? I can almost guarantee you will be thinking (besides "Dear God, please don't let me die!"), "I wish I'd have made time to exercise and eat right. This is not worth it."

Do you want to wait and see if I'm right, or do you want to start taking care of yourself?

None of us have time to not take care of ourselves.

Even just a 20-minute walk to clear your head at the end of a busy day is better than nothing and will have a positive accumulative affect on your health.

I'm sure you can come up with more. Throw them at me! Let's see if you can render me answer-less.

Again, unless a doctor has told you that eating right and/or any form of exercise are hazardous to your health, any reason you have isn't a reason, it's an excuse.

Any Exercise Is Better Than No Exercise!

I think I'm gonna want that put on my grave marker, I say it so much: Any Exercise Is Better Than No Exercise!

If you only have time for a 5-minute walk, take a 5 minute walk!

If you have an injury that won't let you exercise for more than a few minutes, exercise for a few minutes!

If you feel like the little bit you can do won't matter, it matters!

First of all, any amount of moving will help to raise your metabolism, which I covered in my "Move More" post. This makes you burn more calories, which in turn makes you slimmer, which in turn, makes you healthier. Why? Because It ALL Makes A Difference! (Title of blog, in case you needed reminding one more time.)

And second of all, when you DO get to where you can put in more time/effort for physical activity, you will be that much more fit to get started and make the most of it.

And it might, just maybe, be the thing that finally gets you into action about setting aside time for full-blown workouts. Gosh, I hope so! But even if it's not, any exercise is better than no exercise.

Hey, listen- I'm a big proponent of long, thorough workouts. I love them, and I do them often. But today, due to a thunderstorm this morning during my regular walk time, all I could do was an afternoon walk in the Texas heat with the dog and my 20-year old daughter. It was NOT what I would call a cardiovascular workout. It's wasn't even really what I would call a workout. Between the dog (who is fickle on a leash), the heat (waaaaaaay too hot to be exerting myself much) and talking to my daughter (who really needed some mom-gab time), getting a true cardio workout was impossible. But you know what? It was the best I could do today. And that has to be good enough. I could have said to myself "What the heck? It won't even be enough of a workout to shower- what's the point?" But I didn't, because I know that any exercise is better than no exercise. (And because I know that one scheduled exercise day without exercise could lead to two, which could start me on the sedentary path, which I never want to be on again.)

Here are a few ideas:

- Do push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, something during the TV commercials to a 1/2 hour show.

- Do calf raises or modified push-ups on the counter (feet on floor, hands on counter edge) in the kitchen while you are waiting for your microwave popcorn to finish.

- Do walking lunges while you walk through the house: http://www.5min.com/Video/Walking-Lunges-30427368?sid=247 (trust me- you'll feel this one the next day!)

- Go for a quick walk whenever you can fit it into the day.

- Go dancing. (Dancing, any kind, is GREAT exercise!)

- Sit on an exercise ball at your desk instead of a regular chair. (I'm sitting on one right now!)

The power really is yours to decide if you will do nothing or something. And in the case of exercise, something, unless under doctors orders to do otherwise, is always better than nothing.

Move More!

Here is what I believe is our second-biggest reason we are getting fatter as time goes on: We don't move enough.

I'm not talking about organized time to go out and exercise (which I think is most definitely a good thing)- I'm just talking about generally moving more.

A majority of us are far more sedentary than our parents and grandparents were, simply by the nature of the modern world. We have remote controls and moving walkways and lawn mowers that push themselves. Even sedentary office work was more active years ago: To make a copy or file papers you had to get up. Now you can hit the "copy" button on your computer screen and have the document in your hands without leaving your seat. Many things are filed digitally.

As bizarre as it sounds, we are both more productive and more sedentary.

It just takes less calories to live these days.

Now, I'm not dogging progress, but the bottom line is that the less you move the less calories you burn. And the less calories you burn the less calories you should eat. Of course, we aren't eating less calories (I covered this subject in my very first post), so it's really no mystery as to why our waistbands are expanding.

The only solution to this problem is of not moving enough is, of course, to move more. But how do you do that when your day is already full?

As the title of my blog states, it ALL makes a difference. Even the small things. With that in mind, aside from regular, planned exercise, there are small changes we can make that will make a big difference for our bodies and overall health over time. It's not that they burn a lot of calories in and of themselves, but cumulatively they raise your metabolism which burns a larger period of calories over time. The key, of course is to get into the habit of doing these things consistently, day in and day out.

Here are some ideas:

- Get the blanket (or remote, or laptop computer, or whatever else you are wanting) yourself, instead of asking one of your kids or someone else to get it for you. Even if it's just two steps away or entails reaching to the other end of the couch.

- If you want a snack, get it yourself! If it's not worth getting up to get it yourself, you don't really want it. Don't eat it.

- Vacuum your car instead of having the guy at the car wash do it. (You could get REALLY ambitious and wash your car yourself! This is actually a very fun thing to do with your kids.)

- When you are doing yard work, go get the hedge clippers yourself, instead of asking someone else to do it for you.

- Park your car at the other end of the parking lot and walk into the store. Save the closer spots for old people and parents with small children. Yeah, yeah.... I know you've heard this one before, but it's a good tip and something we should ALL be doing.

- Walk around at lunch. I don't mean put on your workout shoes and take a power walk around the block (which is a very good idea!), but just get up and move around. You'll be back to sitting down soon enough.

As time goes on you'll think of more ways to move more and sit less.

A high metabolism really isn't so much given as it is obtained.

Stress Eating

Here's one of my big issues- Stress eating! I believe I'm far from alone and it's one of the big reasons we are getting fatter as a nation.

Let's face it- Life isn't getting any less stressful for any of us. We come up with gadgets and gizmo's and computer programs and other various "stuff" to give us more time and enable us to relax, but it never works. Why? Because if we find ourselves with a few extra minutes we don't sit down and take a break. We find one more thing to do with our day!

But as humans, a basic need we have is a to relax. Enter eating. Eating is easy and can be done on the run. You can even order food and eat it without ever leaving your car. It's an instant stress relief and often about the only pleasurable thing we do all day. So we do too much of it, in both quantity and frequency.

Add to this that, unfortunately, the bad stuff is usually the quickest to grab for the instant-pleasure rush, and next thing you know your girth is increasing. One day you look at yourself in the mirror and think "How did I get here?".

Been there. Done that. No longer fit in the T-shirt.

This is one of my hardest areas to conquer. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to this one. I wish there were, but learning to quit stress-eating (and I am still learning!) is a process.

Don't worry- I'm not so naive as to think that you can reduce the stress in your life by much. I know as well as you do that if you could, you would. I try all the time to make life slow down and fail miserably. Life hurls stuff at you and you have to deal. Sometimes the only thing you CAN control is what goes into your mouth. So choose to have that control!

Here are a few things that I am finding useful:

- STOP EATING IN THE CAR! I have a strict I-never-ever-ever-ever-eat-while-sitting-in-a-moving-vehicle rule. Plus, if you get out of the car and go in to order your food, even if it's to take it to your destination to eat it (not to eat it in the car!), the moving around helps to raise your metabolism just a bit. And every little bit helps! (Refer to title of blog!)

- Pack food with you. This does take a little extra time, but you are worth those few minutes! I've found that if I have a good quality protein bar (Pure Protein [the small ones] and Kashi go-lean are two of my favs), lo-fat string cheese, an apple or some other kind of fresh fruit, a small pack of beef jerky, bottled water, etc. in the car I am not nearly as likely to stop and get something really fattening if I suddenly feel the need to stress-eat. The trick to this is to only pack a small amount of two or three things. I'd never bring along the entire pack of protein bars, because on a really bad day I might be inclined to eat the whole thing!

- Tell yourself you will wait. If you aren't feeling truly hungry and/or have a sudden desire for something purely sugary (or crunchy, or salty, or whatever your craving is), then you have no nutritional need for food. Assure yourself that you won't collapse from denying yourself for a few minutes. Sometimes it's helpful at this point to seek out a non-caloric drink or a piece of gum. It gives your mouth something to do. Assure yourself that if in 20 minutes you are still needing something to munch on you can always stop and eat. When I use this trick the urge to eat usually passes and I no longer feel the need to stress-eat by the end of the 20-minute period.

- This is an old trick that everyone has heard, but it really has worked for me:
Don't keep fattening snack foods in the house! When I do this I fall into the "Open container, insert face" syndrome much quicker when I am stressed than if the food was not there. If you really, seriously, no kidding want something bad for you, get into your car and drive to eat it. Often the hassle alone makes it not worth the effort. And if you do decide to go out and get a nutritionally low food to stress-eat, don't do it in the car!

- Try to keep this statement in mind: "Long-term guilt is never worth short-term pleasure." I have never once stress-eaten and felt good about it afterwards. The reality of what I have just done to my body simply adds to my stress level. It's a lot easier to resist in the present than it is to work it off in the future.

Notice I didn't say to take a yoga class, jog, talk to a friend, or hit something until your knuckles bleed. Why? Because you don't have any more time to do these things when you are stressed than I do. The best thing you can do, in my opinion, is learn to manage stress in the moment. It's takes some time and discipline, and of course you will do some back-sliding while you are learning to move forward, but it can be done.

Super-size is now regular size!

This is my starting blog because this is, I believe,the root cause of why we Americans are getting fatter. No, we are not doing enough exercise. But that's not our main issue: Our main issue is that we eat too much. Period.

We have become a nation accustomed to eating super-sized portions. And we don't even know we are doing it! What used to be a normal size, back 20 years ago and prior, is now considered child size. I remember when a normal cookie was 2 bites, and anything bigger was considered a colossal size. Then Mrs. Fields started serving the big cookies in the malls, and we started making them at home, and pretty soon they were expected. Now, what used to be a normal-sized cookie is considered a mini, and what we consider a normal-sized cookie is really enough for a small family to share!

Look at an ice-cream cone. I love the big, 1/4 pound dips at Braums as much as the next guy. (If you don't know what Braums is, I feel sorry for you!) But when I order a kiddie scoop it more resembles the ice-cream cone size we saw gals with what we now consider impossibly small waists in circle skirts eating in the 1950's.

With a kiddie scoop you still get the ice cream, you just don't get the big gut to go with it.

In the 80's, when I was a teen, a normal hamburger or order of French-fries at a fast-food joint was the size found in a child's meal now. Children's meals were just coming out, and their size wasn't that much smaller than the adults size- they just had a toy and a small drink added. Adult meals weren't sold as meals: You had to order the "parts" separately. If I recall correctly, adult meals started up after children's meals caught on. We didn't have the option of salads back then, but we were thinner and healthier people. Go figure.

It was the portion sizes.

Smaller portions = Smaller people. It's not rocket science.

The bottom line is that to weigh less, we've gotta eat less. Here are a couple of suggestions: Order the child's meal or the kiddie scoop. (Trust me, even though it's clear you are over 12, they won't stop you. They can't MAKE you order more food! And if you are with a kid, you can fake like it's for them). If a kids meal just ain't gonna cut it and you REALLY want that bacon cheese-burger, fine! Go ahead and order it! But get a single patty, ask them to leave the mayo off, skip the fries, and order it with diet coke, water, or unsweetened iced-tea that you put splenda in instead of sugary soda that has absolutely no nutritional value. If you want a side, get the salad with fat-free Italian dressing or light vinaigrette, and for Pete's sake, take those croutons off!

Yeah, I know it doesn't sound like fun, but as the old saying goes: If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. And what do you want more? Momentarily happy taste buds, or a permanant satisfaction with the way you look in the mirror?