The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently stated that worldwide obesity has doubled since 1980. In 2010 approximately 43 million children worldwide under the age of 5 were overweight; this epidemic is a direct reflection of the developed countries’ eating habits. USA ranked #1 on the obesity scale with 30% of its population being obese, Canada ranked not far behind at #11 with 14.3% of its population being considered well over the required healthy weight.

As we are revving up to go to the beach for Spring Break; some of us are just starting a diet and trying to lose weight for the summer and some of us have achieved our desired weight and want to maintain status quo. Many of my clients watch what they eat and many ask me to help them gauge their eating requirements to complement their training program in order to get faster results. Below I will provide you with an example of a one-day meal plan that was designed for a 1500-calorie consumption.

I hear so many women complain about the "turkey neck" that wags underneath their arms, of which they are referring to are their triceps. Come summer time and holiday season, many women forgo wearing sleeveless outfits because they don't want to expose these "jiggly" parts. If you would like to go sleeveless and this is something that has bothered you in the past, it is the triceps you must tone - the muscles that run on the backside of our upper arms from our shoulders to our elbows.

When we go grocery shopping we've got to be more mindful about the foods we choose. We should be aware of and truly understand, the catch phrases and labelling on food packaging. Fat free may mean very little fat, but may mean the product is high in sugar. We should try to educate ourselves as best possible, in order to make truly health conscious choices when shopping. Listed below are the most common phrases you’ll see marked on common food items, and I will try to demystify them and explain really what they mean.

Do you remember back in the spring of 2009 Reebok came out with new running shoes called Easy Tone? They claimed that these new shoes were a quick fix to toning legs and hamstrings. I remember very well because I had several clients ask me if they would work, and I even wrote an article about it right here questioning these “miracle toning shoes”.

It is summer time and that means more outdoor activities, and one of my favourites being tennis. Personally I love tennis because it is a social sport; let’s face it whoever heard of playing tennis alone?! You get to be with friends, it gives you a great cardio workout and it’s just plain fun.

If you are gluten intolerant, it may be slowing down your weight loss program. Recently one of my clients did a series of blood tests, and found out she was gluten intolerant.  As soon as she cut out all items that contained this agent, she achieved her goal weight for which we had been training for the last half year, in a matter of a month. Aside from slow weight loss, when you are gluten intolerant you may also suffer from other symptoms such as bloating, constipation and/or diarrhea, fatigue, the list goes on and on.

As we all know there is no quick easy solution to weight loss. Those who have gone through the process of losing weight, be it 5 lbs or 25 lbs,  know it takes pure desire, planning and discipline to make it happen. However there are a few things you can add to your daily lifestyle that are easy to follow which don't require so much willpower, but help weight loss become more attainable.