My Typical Day at Unite

This is what a day in the life at Unite Fitness Retreat looks like…I must say, I like losing over two pounds a day!!!

5:45am	Rise and shine, enjoyed a cup of coffee and fruit.
6:30am	Boot camp with Leah, I burned about 300 calories already!
7:30am	Egg white omelette with feta and tomatoes, set daily goals with Bre. Ready to meet my goals and increase my stamina today.
8:30am	Fat Burn Blast- this class literally melts the fat off my body... Insane workout!
9:45am	Personal training session, today was leg (and butt) day... Can you say squats?
10:45am	Break and protein shake, yum... I need to rest my body in the meditation room for a few.
11:00am	Water aerobics, amazing... I just burned another 350 calories and I actually feel refreshed.
12:30pm	Veggie Burger and Salad, the best veggie burger I've ever had. Nutritional Lesson with Leah, today we learned about portion control and plate size.
1:45pm	Today I met with Shanna (my counselor) we talked a lot about emotional eating and negative thinking... Tomorrow I get my weekly massage, I can't wait!!!
3:00pm	Snowshoeing in Park City... Seriously fun and the best workout so far!
6:00pm	Grilled sun dried tomato chicken with zucchini and polenta and a huge salad, delicious!
7:00pm	Foam roller stretch, this feels amazing, my body needed to stretch.
8:00pm	Hot tub and relaxation, early to bed for me!

10 Ways to Beat the Holiday Bulge

1. Eat a healthy snack prior to attending social events so you’re not ravenous when you see temptations everywhere, never go to a party hungry.
2. Look at the holiday as a day, not a week or a month. Allow yourself to splurge on one day-not for two months.
3. Exercise. You will most likely eat more calories around the holidays due to the parties, large family meals, and gifts of chocolate and cookies! Therefore continuing to exercise throughout the holidays speeds up your metabolism to burn the extra calories faster.
4. Drink 3 liters or 96-ounces of water daily, it aids in digestion and will keep you feeling full longer.
5. Get outside, even if it’s chilly, bundle up.  Take a walk the fresh air will do you some good.
6. Make time to relax; this is a stressful time of year for most of us.  Make sure you pencil in some YOU time, read a book, get a massage, take a bath, whatever gives you a much needed break.
7. Avoid the mentality that, “It’s the holidays so I can eat whatever want and splurge just because.  Stick to the 80-20 philosophy (80% of our food should be nutrient rich, while 20% can be less nutrient rich).  Oh, and limit your alcohol, just because it’s the holidays doesn’t mean you need those empty calories.
8. Get out there and shop!  Park further away at the department stores, walk the mall with a friend and get gift ideas.  Move your body!
9. Remember what the holidays are all about. Focus less on the food and drinks and more on celebrating the special season and the company of the people you love — your family and friends.
10. Give yourself the gift of health this holiday season.  It’s never to early to start your “New Years Resolutions”.  Make this the year to really get your health back on track.  Maybe you’d like to lose the last 10 pounds, or maybe you need to get a handle on your weight and health once and for all.  Wherever you may be, recognize that this is your chance to turn it all around.  If you are ready for a change, give Unite Fitness Retreat a call today and let us show you how our personalized fitness and weight loss program can transform your life forever. 866-589-5615

Happy Holidays from your friends at Unite Fitness Retreat!

Yesterday You Said Tomorrow

Does this sound like you?

Boot Camp Workout

Ready to Sweat?

Fitness boot camps never go out of style for good reason: The military-inspired workouts burn serious calories.

Built on three fundamentals of training—cardio, strength, and agility—boot-camp workouts require little more than your body weight to get result. They’re more intense than any fitness class and more fun than traditional gym workouts.  Fitness boot camps never go out of style for good reason: The military-inspired workouts burn serious calories.

Stick to Basics

Put aside your stability ball: Boot camps are all about bare essentials, starting with the moves.

By stringing together exercises like jumping jacks, pushups, and squats into circuits that go from one move to the next with little or no rest in between, these workouts turn your body into an uber-efficient resistance machine. The moves target muscles throughout your entire body.  They’re much more effective than equipment-based exercises that isolate one single muscle group at a time.

Follow the Clock

Set a time limit for each exercise— think 20 to 60 seconds. It keeps you from pushing too hard and from slacking.  If I told you ‘Do squats until I say stop,’ you wouldn’t give 100 percent. But if I said ‘Do squats for 30 seconds,’ you’d work harder because you’d see the end in sight.

Take It Outside

Without fancy equipment or complicated moves, you can do a boot-camp workout anywhere—a park, a playground, even a parking lot.

And taking your sweat session outside has some serious perks: When researchers compared the mental benefits of an outdoor workout with an indoor one, 71 percent of the fresh-air exercisers felt less tense afterward, while 72 percent of the cooped-up crew felt even more stressed.

Buddy Up

One key to success is camaraderie. A group makes you accountable to show up, and the support helps you push through an intense workout.

When it comes to fitness, the power of your peeps is well documented: One review of 87 studies on nearly 50,000 subjects found a clear link between social support and exercise. Enlist a small group of friends who have similar fitness goals and pick a time and place. If you’re a no-show, next time they’ll make you drop and do 20.

Referene:  Woman’s Health Magazine

Obtaining a Healthy Diet and Sticking to It

#1 Plan for Success

To set yourself up for success, think about planning a healthy diet as a number of small, manageable steps rather than one big drastic change.

Simplify

Think of your diet in terms of color, variety, and freshness. This way it should be easier to make healthy choices.

Start slow and make changes to you eating habits overt time.

Changing everything at once usually leads to cheating or giving up on your new eating plan. Make small steps, like adding a salad (full of different color vegetables) to your diet once a day or switching from butter to olive oil when cooking.

Every change you make to improve your diet matters.

Don’t let your missteps derail you—every healthy food choice you make counts

Drink More Water

It’s common to mistake thirst for hunger, so staying well hydrated will also help you make healthier food choices.

Exercise everyday

Find something active that you like to do and add it to your day.

The benefits of lifelong exercise are abundant and regular exercise may even motivate you to make healthy food choices a habit.

#2 Moderation is Key

People often think of healthy eating as an all or nothing proposition, but a key foundation for any healthy diet is moderation. The goal of healthy eating is to develop a diet that you can maintain for life, not just a few weeks or months, or until you’ve hit your ideal weight. So try to think of moderation in terms of balance. We all need a balance of carbohydrates, protein, fat, fiber, vitamins, and minerals to sustain a healthy body.

For most of us, moderation or balance means eating less than we do now.  More specifically, it means eating far less of the unhealthy stuff (unrefined sugar, saturated fat, for example) and more of the healthy (such as fresh fruit and vegetables).

Try not to think of certain foods as “off-limits.”

When you ban certain foods or food groups, it is natural to want those foods more, and then feel like a failure if you give in to temptation. Start by reducing portion sizes and not eating them as often. Later you may find yourself craving them less or thinking of them as only occasional indulgences. Think smaller portions.

When dining out, split a dish with a friend, and never supersize anything. At home, use smaller plates, think about serving sizes in realistic terms, and start small. If you don’t feel satisfied at the end of a meal, try adding more leafy green vegetables or rounding off the meal with fresh fruit.

Healthy eating is not about strict nutrition philosophies, staying unrealistically thin, or depriving yourself of the foods you love. Rather, it’s about feeling great, having more energy, and keeping yourself as healthy as possible– all of which can be achieved by learning some nutrition basics and using them in a way that works for you. You can expand your range of healthy food choices and learn how to plan ahead to create and maintain a tasty, healthy diet here at Unite Fitness Camp. Give us a Call today!

Leah Britt
Certified Personal Trainer/Nutritionist

Time to Work Out

There’s Always Time to Work Out

Leah’s best ways to fit exercise into a busy schedule

These four cardio workouts – two indoor and two outdoor – take 20 minutes each. So the next time one of you catches yourself saying: “I just don’t have time today,” you can remember that 20 minutes is all it takes for a fun, effective workout – no excuses!

Outdoor option 1:

To add intervals to a normal walk, start at your usual pace and gradually build up the intensity for each interval.

Warm-up: 2 min at 3.5mph, building to your regular walking pace 16 min: Walk fast for 2 min (5mph walking, 7mph running). Walk more slowly for 2 min (4mph walking, 6mph running). Do this four times. You should be breathing hard in the fast sections and able to speak only a few words. During the easy intervals, you should be able to hold a conversation

Cool-down: 2 min easy pace (3.5mph)

Total calories burned: 99

Outdoor option 2:

Grab a skipping rope and get ready to sweat – this program will keep your heart pumping. Do it in a park near some steps.

Warm-up: 2 min jogging

3 min running at a strong pace

2 min running up and walking down steps

1 min skipping

3 min running fast

2 min running up and walking down steps

1 min skipping

2 min running fast

1 min running up and walking down steps

1 min skipping

Cool-down: 2 min easy jogging

Total calories burned: 250

Indoor option 1:

Choose the manual program on a stationary bike and adjust the levels yourself. For each workout, take it down a notch if our suggestions are too hard.

Warm-up: 2 min at level 3 (maintain 80rpm)

1 min easy (level 4; this should be a pace that you could maintain for half an hour if necessary; come back to this pace for all subsequent “easy” intervals)

1 min hard (level 6)

2 min easy (level 4)

2 min hard (level 7)

3 min easy (level 4)

2 min hard (level 8; to get through this tough interval, breathe deeply while you focus on one point)

3 min easy (level 4)

2 min hard (level 7)

Cool-down: 2 min at level 3

Total calories burned: 189

Indoor option 2:

Choose two different machines at the gym (stairclimber, elliptical trainer, treadmill, bike or rowing machine) and alternate between them. For my example, I’ve used the elliptical trainer and stairclimber, but mix it up as you wish.

Warm-up: 2 min on elliptical trainer (level 3)

4 min on stairclimber (level 7)

4 min on elliptical trainer (level 7)

4 min on stairclimber (level 8)

4 min on elliptical trainer (level 7)

Cool-down: 2 min on stairclimber (level 3)

Total calories burned: 228

Twenty minutes that count

Need more evidence that a 20-minute workout is worth the effort? Let the numbers do the talking. First, look at how much you’d burn during a normal 20-minute routine and then see how much you can burn just by boosting your intensity for short periods of time. And remember, the more intense your workout, the more you’ll sweat and the more calories you’ll burn.

20 minutes regular activity burns the following calories*:

walking (3.5 mph) 80
running (10-minute miles) 200
cycling (level 4) 160
rowing (moderate effort) 140

20 minutes with intervals burns the following calories:

walking (3.5 mph/power walking) 85
running (10-minute/8-minute miles) 225
cycling (level 4/level 7) 180
rowing (moderate effort/very vigorous effort) 155
* All calorie counts are for a 150-pound adult.

4 Fun Fall Exercises

The kids are back in school, the weather is cooling to a perfect crisp temperature, the leaves are changing color.  It’s the perfect time to get outside. Here are five fun fall exercises:

A Fall Hike

The best way to enjoy the changing colors, is to get our there and be in the middle of it. The time spent out in nature will do as much good for your mind as for your body. Pack a water bottle and head up the nearest trail, don’t forget your camera.  One of our favorite hikes at Unite Fitness Retreat is straight up Millcreek Canyon, it’s seriously amazing.

Mountain Biking

Nothing feels better than the breeze blowing through your hair as you ride your bike down a sidewalk.  The leaves crunching under your tires.  Explore parks in your area, they usually have great bike trails.

Raking Leaves

Get your kids involved and jump in a  pile of leaves!  You’ll burn tons of calories and get your yard cleaned up as well. Raking leaves is a great upper body workout and it’s sure to get you energized.

Kicking the Soccer Ball

Boredom is the number one killer of good health and fitness regimens. Exercising with a friend puts the fun back into your workout. Grab a soccer ball and kick it around, you may surprise yourself at your new skills.  If soccer isn’t your thing, try basketball or tennis.