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Exercise to Excellence
My client, the food critic: Getting with the program
By John “J.T.” Toves
So, now we are on the go! March was our recommit month (our own “March Madness”), and we are into full swing with my client’s exercise and weight loss program. Here are some highlights on our very promising start.
My client Susan, is back on track with keeping her diet squeaky clean on nontasting days – no more fast foods, and no more home meals high in fat or sugar. We began the month with a home invasion – raiding her refrigerator and cabinets and taking out everything that had sugar or fat as twenty-five percent or more of total calories per serving. I walked away with three shopping bags of “illegal” food. I’m pleased to say I noticed a look of happy resignation on my client’s face when the items were being removed. It does feel good when you’re in the act of doing things to improve your health. I was also happy to hear that her food-tasting schedule would be on the lighter side for the month, which would definitely help boost our efforts.
On the exercise front I need to acknowledge and applaud her four-legged friend, Jasmine, her 1-year-old pit-bull mix. The passing of Susan’s long-time beloved cat, Stephen, had been one of the reasons for her weight gain over the stressful previous year. Luckily she participated in a pet rescue project where she met and fell in love with Jasmine, and instantly brought her home.
Jasmine’s great contribution to our exercise efforts is that she needs a lot of it – and I mean a lot. To keep her from endless games with squeaky toys at 2:00 a.m., Susan needs to take her on walks of up to three hours twice a day. When that does not happen, the squeaky toy festival begins, and continues well into the morning. Needless to say, Jasmine has come to be an integral part in Susan’s daily exercise. Kudos to all our pet friends who help us to move and improve our health!
For healthful eating on nontasting days, we came up with a food preparation plan so Susan can stay clean most days of the week. She was always prone to skipping meals when running from meeting to meeting. This would always leave her ravenous and in danger of making bad food choices when she did have a chance to eat. Now she has emergency food with her at all times to curb all those slips. We’ve agreed on prepared bags of radishes, hard-boiled eggs, Pria bars, string cheese, and citrus fruits.
Our workouts have been great. I’ve felt like a proud parent when I’ve seen Susan’s excitement as we do the exercises we had her do over a year ago, and only with a little confidence lost. She has said more than a handful of times, “I didn’t think I was going to be able to do that exercise so soon.” Most of all, Susan impressed us both with her 200 leg kicks on the heavy bag. Her favorite workout had always been a Muay Thai kickboxing session, and mind you, it is definitely nothing like Tai Bo that even your grandmother can do. It is more like Tai Bo times twenty, so we were both thrilled with her full impact kicks on the bag.
So, it did indeed turn out to be a fantastic start. Healthy food (check), no sugar and fat (check), food intake logging (check), exercise five times plus a week (check), high motivation (check), four-legged friend assistance (check), – and, I think we’ve got it!
I hope you are rooting for us as we are for you!
John Toves, also known by his clients and friends as J.T., is a certified trainer at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco and at the new Action Fitness in the Marina. He tailors programs for strength and power development, functional training and weight loss. He can be reached at 415-812-9065 or jctoves@sbcglobal.net .
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