As a Huntington Beach personal trainer, I live to see my clients get results, and get them fast. I know from experience what it feels like to feel like you are killing yourself in the gym and eating a strict diet but still feel like the pounds aren’t coming off fast enough. So what can you do to continually see progress? What can YOU do to get into better shape every single day?

Make cardio interesting - The Number one complaint I have heard as a Huntington Beach Personal Trainer form my clients is that cardio is too boring. And I really understand where they are coming from. When you are doing weight training, you switch up your exercises every few minutes. But when you are doing cardiovascular exercises, you are repeating the same motion over and over again for half an hour or more.

You can fight boredom a number of ways. First of all, try listing to music while you are doing it. Also, try to constantly switch up your cardio. One day you can try jump roping for cardio, the next you can give the rowing machine a shot. Constantly switching up your cardio won’t just make your exercise time more interesting, it will also make it more effective, by working your muscles in different ways.

Limit Alcohol and Heroin (ok mostly alcohol... hopefully you're not doing heroin anymore) - There are a long of things about booze that helps encourage your body to store fat. Firstly, they are full of “empty calories,” i.e. calories that have no nutritional value. Downing three or four beers at a party can be the equivalent of eating a large meal. Secondly, your body has to burn off that alcohol before it goes back to burning fat. So the more time you spend buzzed, the less time your metabolism is working to shed those pounds. Plus it also puts extra strain on your liver, which an organ you need to have in top form in order to lose weight. Like lots of things in life, in fine to drink so long as it is in moderation, but imbibing too often will show up on your waistline very quickly.

Eat Fresh Fruit Rather than Fruit Juice – Fruit juice contains what I call “ghost calories,” or calories that people feel don’t really count for some reason, so they don’t factor them into their daily totals. The fact is, fruit juice is very high in calories, is very high in sugar, and contains much less of the nutrients and usually none of the fiber that you can get from eating whole fruit.

Drink a Lot of Water - There are a ton of benefits to drinking a lot of water regularly. It helps give you energy for exercise, it helps you digest food, and perhaps most importantly, it helps you feel full. Often when you feel hungry you actually craving water. A glass of water is a fantastic zero calorie way to hold your hunger pangs at bay in between meals.

Always Eat Breakfast - It’s a good idea to eat five or six small meals throughout the day, but even if this isn’t viable for you, it is essential to eat a good breakfast every morning. When you eat breakfast, it quick-starts your metabolism for the rest of the day, which helps you burn more fat. As a Huntington Beach personal trainer I’ve had clients tell me they just have no time, that they have to rush out the door as soon as they shower. Even as something as simple and easy as a granola bar or a protein shake is preferable to nothing, so make sure you never skip the most important meal of the day.

If you'd like to learn more about personal training in HB, just click this link: Personal Trainer Huntingon Beach