Ask The Expert

Charles "Chizel-It" Harris is a personal trainer and owner of Chizel-It Fitness Center in Owings Mills Mall. He offered these tips to help stay motivated in a fitness program.

"Motivation is one of the things I find people struggle with over forty, the reason being time restrictions, single parenthood, not only that -most women have a lot on their plate now- work, homework, kids and school," said Harris. To overcome that challange, he suggests a group fitness program as a form of accountability.

Once you get into a routine you want to get some healty eating habits so you will see results.

Meals depend on time management because of our hectic schedules. Without proper planning you will eat too much or not enough.

"The way society is now, it's so hectic and you don't really have enough time and when you get hungry you will grab the first thing- you will grab fast food, Dunkin Donuts or go to anyplace like that and by doing that you'll throw your whole food regimen off," said Harris.

So lets take his advice and get with an accountability partner and watch what we eat. Time management is good for many areas in our lives, even health and fitness.

Caring for our Temple

The Bible calls our body our temple. Now, consider an actual temple - a building. Would you litter your temple with trash? Imagine how it would look if people were to open the doors of this temple and see garbage thrown about from room to room.

While taking some personal reflection, I thought about some of the things I have been doing to my temple. For instance, yesterday I went on a caffein binge. I hardly slept last night and I realized this is not good for my body. I kept waking throughout the night and this morning I made a committment to not do that to myself again.

Take a personal inventory of the things you are putting into your temple. We always have a reason for why we do it, but these unhealthy habits are slowly littering our temple.

When is the best time to start an exercise program?

Working out requires committment, so depending on where and how you plan to exercise, weather matters.

Personally, I like it hot. I usually begin a program when I believe the weather will be consistently warm. If I begin and there is snow on the ground or the temps are really low I will not be motivated to get out of bed.

If you are like me, you have tried several times to get motivated to workout and for whatever reason stopped. It also does not help me to know someone else is struggling.

I am not motivated by someone's success or discouraged by someone's failure.

Hello, This is...

Hello,
My name is Veronica. I want to begin a journey of my successful obliteration of body fat and excess weight. I do not want to LOSE weight any more because I keep finding it again. Yes, obliteration is the key this time.

I seem to have this one problem. My BACK. Every so often, it wants to take a break and it fails to warn me in advance. So, aside from the forced breaks because of a physical dilemma, I will exercise and eat the proper foods (most of the time). I love to cook and try new recipes, and they are not all fat-free Ya dig?

I have linked to the RSS feed for the 50Million Pound Challenge. Use these links to get more ideas. I'll check in later.

Lady "V"