Most of us are under the misconception that fit people work hard and spend most of their lives deprived in order to achieve their amazing bodies. Nothing could be further from the truth!

I’ll let you in on a little secret…It’s not hard to get and stay fit. It’s not about hard work and deprivation.
It’s all about boundaries.

Let me explain.

When you were a child your parents set boundaries around you. They were the authority on what was or wasn’t acceptable behavior. You had to complete your chores before dinner. You had to finish your homework before going out to play. You had to eat all your vegetables before dessert.
If you failed to comply with these boundaries, then you knew there would be consequences.

As an adult you, and only you, are the authority on what is or isn’t acceptable behavior.

You are in the position to set boundaries around yourself. These boundaries serve as a framework of order around you — a rock of support in an otherwise chaotic world.

With self-imposed boundaries, you can assure your success in anything, specifically with weight loss.

Your fitness boundaries have to be self-imposed — no one is going to do it for you.

Don’t look at this as a bad thing! Self-imposed boundaries are self-empowering.

Your Fitness Boundaries

It’s time to introduce boundaries back into your life. These boundaries are the key to unleashing your ideal fit and healthy body.

1. Fitness Boundary One: What you eat.

If you were to be perfectly honest with me, you could list off the foods that are unhealthy and fattening. So why are you still eating them?
Place boundaries around what you will allow yourself to eat. Acceptable food items include whole foods, vegetables, fruits, whole grains and lean meats.

2. Fitness Boundary Two: How you exercise.

I know you’re not an Olympic athlete, but that doesn’t mean you can simply pass on exercise. By now, you are well aware of the host of benefits that exercise provides. With regular exercise, you’ll look great, feel amazing and have more energy than ever.
Place boundaries around how often you must exercise. Choose exercise that is challenging and fun — don’t be afraid to try new activities that improve your strength and endurance.

3. Fitness Boundary Three: When you indulge.

Let’s face it — we live in a world where indulging has become the norm rather than the exception. When you live life without fitness boundaries, every day is an opportunity to indulge. These indulgences all add up quickly, causing your clothes to become tight and your energy levels to drop.
Place boundaries around when you can indulge. You’ll find that by limiting your indulgences you’ll end up enjoying them even more.

Don’t just give in to every temptation because temptation is EVERYWHERE.  Instead, plan your moments of indulgence and practice discipline and self-control. Weddings, parties and vacations are great opportunities to indulge; a co-worker bringing donuts into your office isn’t.

Putting It In Action
Sit down and take a long, hard look at your lifestyle. Are you eating as healthy as you could be? Are you exercising three to five times each week? Are you indulging too often? Answer the following questions:

   1. What three food items can I eliminate from my daily diet? (These should be nutritionally void items.)
   2. When can I schedule exercise into my week? (Pick three to five days, and select a specific time frame.)
   3. When will I allow myself to indulge? (Don’t go overboard here, especially if you need to lose weight. Enjoy a treat a couple times each month, and do so guilt-free, knowing that you’ve maintained healthy food boundaries the rest of the time.

Remember that self-imposed boundaries are self-empowering.

Fitness boundaries put your fitness results on autopilot. If you know what constitutes an acceptable meal, then choosing what to eat just got a whole lot easier. If you commit to exercising three times a week, soon it becomes second nature.

Need help setting up your fitness boundaries? Synergize! can help – call 954-924-4465 or visit www.SynergizeWeightLoss.com to schedule a FREE no obligation consultation.

Can you believe we are almost through 2010? If you started a weight-loss or fat-loss program at the beginning of the year and have been consistently following it, then you should see some serious results by now. If not, you may have one (or more) of the problems I’ve outlined below.

1. You are eating TOO much. Even if you are carefully measuring and planning your main meals, extra calories can sneak in during snacking. It is VERY common to significantly underestimate the number of calories you are consuming on a daily basis. If you’re not sure, then write down everything you eat for one whole week. Healthy eating does not equal proper portion control. It is VERY easy to eat too much of the right foods.

2. You are not eating enough. This is counter-intuitive, but the belief that the less you eat the less you weigh is a HUGE recipe for disaster. You need to create a caloric deficit by reducing your calorie intake slightly. If you go too far below your maintenance calories, your body goes into starvation mode, which sheds muscle and stores calories as fat for a future energy source.

3. You are not lifting weights. Cardio burns calories, but it doesn’t boost your metabolism. Resistance training is *critical* to maintaining your muscle and tone. If you’re not lifting weights while trying to lose body fat, then you will lose muscle and tone and your metabolic rate will decrease causing you to burn fewer calories 24 hours a day!

4. You are simply not exercising anywhere near enough. You can only decrease your caloric intake so much before you start losing your fat-burning muscle. VERY FEW people are successful at losing weight AND keeping it off without exercising almost every day! Make it a rule to be active at the very least 30 minutes a day.

5. Impatience. Are you impatient? Are you looking for instant results? When it doesn’t happen, you may give up. You have to be resolved to the fact that fat loss and change WILL be slow yet steady! Try focusing on progress, not perfection.

6. Skipping meals. Are you skipping meals? If so, then do not expect to see results. Skipping meals slows your metabolism, causing your body to store calories rather than burn them. Eat equal amounts of food every three to four hours. Don’t have time? Plan ahead and keep snacks with you always.

7. Too Many Carbs. Are you eating sugary foods or simple, refined carbohydrates? White rice, white flour products, white pastas, soft drinks and sweetened drinks (like juice and the hundreds of products that contain added sugar that’s deceptively listed on ingredient lists with names like sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, etc.) turn off the hormones responsible for releasing your body fat and instead turns on the hormones that store fat.

8. BOOZING. How many alcoholic drinks do you have each week? Alcohol stimulates your appetite, slows your metabolism and it’s loaded with empty (sugar) calories! One gram of alcohol has seven calories, which is more than carbohydrates and protein which each have only four!

9.  FAILURE TO PLAN. Are you planning and preparing your meals ahead of time? If you have not planned your meals, then you are more likely to cheat and find yourself off track. Most people are too busy to eat properly in the spur of the moment. Take time on the weekends when you have more time to plan your meals and snacks ahead of time.

10. Lack of Accountability. Do you have a coach or training partner- someone who holds you accountable and ensures you do what you say you’re going to do? If not, chances are you won’t. Consistent exercise is just one of those things that MOST people need help with. I trained for nearly 15 years, have owned my own studio for four and probably enjoy working out more than the average person, and I still have to hire a trainer to keep me on track. It’s just the way it is.

As you can see, there are lots of variables to consider when trying to lose weight. If you don’t want it bad enough to do what it takes, it won’t just accidentally happen. If you really want to change, quit playing around with it. Get serious about it and make it an absolute, non-negotiable priority in your life, and it will happen.  



Shondelle Solomon-Miles is a body transformation expert and owner of Synergize! training studio in Hollywood, Fla. You can reach her at www.SynergizeWeightLoss.com.

Take a walk through any gym, and you’ll notice many mistakes. Mistakes that waste time. Mistakes that put people in danger. And mistakes that are just plain stupid. Maybe you make a few of these mistakes yourself.

By avoiding these common blunders, you’ll put yourself on the fast track to results. Check out the following five fitness mistakes and the solutions you need to avoid danger and to get fit fast.

Mistake 1: You don’t challenge yourself
The goal of a good workout is to challenge your body, not to simply go through the motions. If you don’t need a few minutes to fully recover after a workout, or if your clothes are as dry after your workout as when you walked into the gym, then chances are you’re not pushing yourself hard enough. Unfortunately, just going to the gym is not enough. You actually have to work hard, get out of your comfort zone and break a good sweat. Lack of intensity, in my opinion, is THE biggest reason that most gym goers don’t get RESULTS!
My motto: Train HARD or Go HOME!

Mistake 2: You do the same routine
You may have noticed that most people do the same exercises each time they visit the gym. Maybe you’ve been doing the same exercise routine as long as you can remember – if it isn’t broken then don’t fix it, right? Wrong.
The truth is that exercise routines have expiration dates, and that is the date that they begin to lose their effectiveness. The best way to prevent a plateau and maximize your results is by consistently confusing the muscle. In other words, you vary your workouts frequently, if not daily. My clients never perform the same workout within a three- to four-month span. The benefit of this is one: their bodies never get used to the workout, and two: they never get bored with their “routine.”

Mistake 3: You ONLY Use Machines
When was the last time in your everyday life when you were in a seated position extending your knees with a 75-pound load strapped to your ankles (aka the leg extension machine)? My guess is NEVER!  If your strength training routine consists of ONLY machine training, you are doing yourself a huge disservice because machines do NOT in any way relate to real world movement. Most people spend all day sitting at a desk, and then they go to a gym to improve their fitness and strength by sitting on a machine! Call me crazy but that doesn’t make much sense. What does make sense is to train your body as it naturally moves so that it has practical value in your real life.

Mistake 4: You use bad form
Gyms are filled with people performing exercises with bad form. The two biggest reasons are that you aren’t focusing on the exercise are: you’re trying to lift weight that is too heavy (most often not the case with women) or you learned by watching someone else who had bad form. Lifting with improper form almost always results in injury. Take the time to achieve proper form, and by doing so, you’ll avoid injury and will reap the full benefit from each exercise.

Mistake 5: You workout alone
People who exercise alone are less challenged, less accountable and typically see fewer results. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Why rush to the gym if no one is there waiting for you? Why push yourself if no one is watching? Exercising alone is a recipe for disaster. I’ve been a trainer for nearly 15 years, and I still workout with a trainer for guidance and accountability (and I do pay).

The best way to avoid injury and to see results is to work with someone who will push you to your limits and who understands what it takes to get results. Working with a fitness professional is ideal, but if not, at least workout with someone who knows what they are doing, who will not let you wimp out and who is passionate about seeing you achieve results – without wasting time, energy and effort on mistakes.

Shondelle Solomon-Miles is a body transformation expert and owner of Synergize! training studio in Hollywood, Fla. You can reach her at www.SynergizeWeightLoss.com.

Although  summer in South Florida  isn’t as eagerly welcomed as it is in most parts of the country, most people still want to look better on the beach.

So, are you ready?

Here are a few fat loss basics that will get you lean and mean by the 4th of July. If you apply these 6 basic strategies, you’ll be able to drop at least 15 pounds of body fat in no time at all, but you’ll  need to start now!

1. You need to create a caloric deficit - no doubt about it, the only way to lose fat and weight is to consume LESS calories than you burn. Even if you choose the ‘right’ foods, you may still be eating too much. I suggest dedicating one week to understand portion control. Buy a food scale, use your measuring cups, and identify proper portion sizes for all of the foods you eat most often.  Although this may feel tedious at first, after one week of consistently doing this, you’ll be able to eyeball your meals and determine if you’re overeating.

2. Eliminate ALL sugar and processed carbs from your diet for 5 days out of the week. Sugar is a drug, and it’s not an easy one to give up.  However, if you don’t significantly decrease your sugar intake you will never get lean, because sugar inhibits the hormones that facilitate fat loss. If it’s not realistic for you to ditch your sweet tooth all together, commit to eating NO sugar or white carbohydrates for 5 consecutive days.  You might find that on the 6th day, your cravings are gone, if not, have a piece of dark chocolate, some frozen grapes, or a half of cup of frozen yogurt with a few blueberries sprinkled on top.

3. Exercise HARD at least four days per week. Interval training and high intensity resistance training will give you the fastest results in the least amount of time. Each of your workouts should consist of full body resistance training and short but intense cardio bursts.

4. Supplement.  I’m not a supporter of supplements that promise to melt fat overnight, however I do believe that a good quality multivitamin and omega supplement is critical for not only fat loss, but good health. However, the key in receiving these benefits is to choose pharmaceutical grade supplements that contain REAL food and not synthetic ‘mimics.'

5. Get a coach to hold you accountable!  Accountability is critical when it comes to sticking to a fitness program. Chances are if you don’t have someone to ensure you consistently show up for your workouts, you probably won’t show up for your workouts.

If you take some time to implement these 5 strategies you will definitely see some results by July but the key is you must take ACTION.

To help you do just this I’ve created a special Beach Body promo going on now until May 30th. Check it out at www. SynergizeBeachBody.com.