Strength Training Does Not Add "Bulk"

by Lana Carson, Nationally Certified Personal Trainer, Omni Fitness Club

"I've lost 30 pounds over the past several months just by walking every day. I'm happy with losing the weight, but I don't like how flabby I look now. I've been told to lift weights but I don't want to get bulky.'"

Good job! Not only for losing 30 pounds but for adding exercise to your daily schedule.

So, you've lost weight but look a little droopy ¬ a problem! Whoever suggested weight training to you was absolutely correct. Many women believe that exercising with weights will make them "bulky," but nothing is farther from the truth. Pies and cakes make you bulky, not strength training.

Often, individuals who focus on one form of exercise for weight loss (i.e. walking in this case) and do not incorporate any sort of strength training will experience the effect you are describing. To avoid the "disappointment of the droop," it's important to add exercises that shape your muscles so as you reduce body fat, the underlying muscles start to show their shape and tone. This will give you the firm appearance you're looking for.

Weight training serves another important purpose in addition to the beautiful aesthetic benefits. By increasing muscle tone, you increase your metabolic rate. Simply put, people with more muscle burn more calories throughout the day - even at rest - than people with less muscle! This is an important factor to consider for long term weight management or weight loss because the goal is to condition the body to become a fat burning furnace and this is exactly what weight training will do.

Weight training often gets a bad rap, especially by women, because they believe it will make them look too muscular or bulky. The truth is, it's the primary form of exercise that is recommended to reduce inches! "Bulky" is not fitting into your clothes because you've put weight on. "Muscle" looks like Laila Ali!

If you would like to learn how to incorporate weight training into your current exercise program, please feel free to contact Lana Carson at the Omni Fitness Club at (231) 739-3391. Or email me by going to our website at www.omnifitnessclub.com.

Lose Weight Naturally

from Health Hutt

The first thing to do if you seriously want to lose weight is to change your eating habits entirely.

Do not eat white sugar, white potatoes, and white bread. Instead, eat raw fresh fruit and vegetables with a lot of greens such as salads, including kale, spinach, romaine lettuce, etc. For a salad dressing cut up a tomato and mix with Grapeseed Vegenaise. We are literally what we eat! If you want to be lean and thin then eat like a monkey. Avoid pork since it burns hot in the body - the DNA of pig is so close to humans that we absorb the fat in it and it goes onto the body the same way and in the same places as it was placed on the animal. At Health Hutt we sell raw cashews, walnuts, almonds, pistachios, etc., great alternatives to meat and protein. Eat food in its most natural raw state as possible. 

Second, get a good trace mineral product such as Water of Life. About one teaspoon a day of this gives the body what it needs, so cravings will diminish and be easier to handle.

Third, use only a very good quality of sea salt on your food. I use Himalayan Pink Sea Salt. This also gives the body trace minerals and is very good for electrolyte balance.

Fourth, it took this long to gain weight so it takes a while to lose, and you will if you eat properly. A supplement I recommend to take while making these changes in eating is New Chapter's "Diet and Energy." It has the thermogenic properties that will boost the metabolism. Another is Nature's Plus FatBuster. This is time released so you can take two a day and forget about it. It also has a clear energy that is not shaky on the body but gives a good feeling and helps to curb appetite.

Stop in today to one of the three locations of the Health Hutt and see what your body is really capable of!

To ask about natural remedies or other vitamin supplements phone the Health Hutt closest to you. In Muskegon call (231) 739-1568. Be sure to watch "Forever Young" with Host Bryant Meyers Wednesdays at 3:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. and Thursdays at 3:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. on Comcast Cable 77.

Soft Drinks in the Schools: A Hard Problem to Fix

by Monica J. Lakatos, D.D.S., Northshore Dental Associates

According to an ADA report, soft drinks, including carbonated beverages, fruit juice, and sports drinks, increased by 500% since 1955. Americans drank more than 53 gallons of soft drinks per person in 2000, passing all other beverages, including milk, beer, coffee and water!

This increase in soft drinks is showing up as rampant decay on kids' teeth. It also has shown to decrease bone density in girls. Weight gain is epidemic in kids and a large part of that has to do with the amount of soft drinks they consume. One of every four drinks is a soft drink, and the ADA says it is clear that soft drinks have displaced other nutritious beverages and foods from the diet.

Most soft drinks contain phosphoric acid and citric acid. These acids dissolve tooth enamel and can result in erosion of the enamel. This erosion, combined with the sugar in these drinks, progresses to decay. People who drink large quantities of soft drinks will also have more sensitive teeth making it difficult to brush well.

Part of the problem is that soft drinks are so readily available. Schools get paid by beverage companies to sell their products and place vending machines. Money is always hard to turn down. Every school in the nation is in need of more. In order to improve this problem, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation has gotten together with the American Beverage Association and Cadbury-Schweppes, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo to improve the oral and overall health of the nation's children. Under new guidelines, elementary and middle schools will sell water, calorie-capped servings of juices, fat free and low fat milk. High schools will be allowed to sell diet drinks, unsweetened tea, fitness water, flavored waters, etc. (This is in addition to the regular sugar sodas, of course.) Beginning this year the beverage industry will compile data on the percentage of schools under contract that are in compliance with the new guidelines. By the 2008-2009 school year, they plan to have 75% of the schools meeting the standards. By 2009-2010 they expect the guidelines to be fully implemented.

Keep in mind that these are guidelines by the industry. Parents should request that their schools do more. Eliminating sugary drinks or limiting the times they can be accessed is the first step. Request that your local vendors sell items that are not so harmful to kid's teeth and health. Given the choice, kids do not always choose what's best for them. We need to at least have healthy choices available and educate kids on the dangers of unhealthy snacks.

Monica J. Lakatos, D.D.S., at Northshore Dental Associates, 1179 Whitehall Road in North Muskegon, can be reached at (231) 744-6100.

What Exactly Does Understanding Speech Involve?

from Hearing Wellness Center

To understand speech we must be able to detect, decode and interpret what we hear. And that's a job for one of the most powerful natural processors of all - the human brain.

It involves good hearing and the ability to process what we hear. Our ears have several complex, highly delicate mechanisms that work in perfect harmony to pick up sounds, channel them correctly and transform them into electrical signals for the brain to interpret.

To understand spoken language the brain must first decode the various speech signals - the vowels and consonants - and make words and sentences out of them. This complicated task is made even more complex in the presence of background noise and more difficult still when someone has hearing loss.

Three Communication Barriers - Hearing loss raises three communication barriers. First, soft sounds become difficult to hear. Secondly, consonants such as t, sh, f, p, s and th begin to fade. You might think that because they are higher pitched and spoken more softly than vowels, this wouldn't matter. But it does; the consonants actually convey most of the word information.

If you were to write a word and then remove the vowels you would probably still be able to decipher it. But write the same word, this time without the consonants, and you would have serious difficulty trying to decipher the word.

Basically, the role of the consonants is to separate syllables and words from one another - a task which takes place in the brain. If you can't hear the various sounds, they can't be passed on for deciphering and interpretation; it just sounds as though other people are mumbling.

Try reading these words without vowels and without consonants. Do you recognize them?

Without vowels: _ r _ n g _ j _ _ c _.

Without consonants: O _ a _ _ e _ u i _ e.

They are both the words, orange juice!

The third and final communication barrier is noise. Restaurants are a good example of this, where the clatter of silverware, background music and people's voices all compete for your attention. With good hearing we can pick up sounds, determine how loud they are, where they come from and whether they are worth listening to. Without good hearing, your brain can run into dire straits trying to focus on what's important and filter out the babble!

Not all hearing aids can cope with these types of challenges but Oticon's advanced digital hearing aids include what is described as "artificial intelligence." Artificial intelligence, in conjunction with your residual hearing, can scan the environment for sounds. Based on the information these new hearing aids gather, a battery of sound processing systems performs thousands of calculations - simultaneously. And, based on the outcome, these aids adopt an amplification strategy guaranteed to provide the most benefit and the clearest speech for that particular listening situation.

For more information or for a demonstration of this new technology please contact us.

Margaret M. "Peg" Sass-Simon, M.A., CCA-A, is a clinical/educational audiologist with Hearing Wellness Center, 6653 Grand Haven Road, Spring Lake. In Muskegon, call (231) 798-2323.