Kim's Fitness and Nutrition

For nearly 3 decades, we fitness professionals have been teaching clients that if they wanted to burn fat, the most effective approach was to do sustained (20-60 minutes) cardiovascular exercise while in the midrange of their training zone. For most people, that would be between 125-150 beats per minute. Why? Our bodies prefer fat as fuel, and should we place too high of a demand on them, they will shift out of the aerobic system into the anaerobic system, which burns glucose for fuel. Being that fat loss is the goal, this is undesirable, right?

There is a new machine available that is changing the way people train. It debuted in 1990 in California and was designed by a scientist in Europe. This machine blew me away. I have worked in the fitness industry for 24 years now, and there have been so many fly-by-night gimmicks that have come and gone, I can't begin to name them all. When I first heard of this machine, I was very skeptical, and frankly thought there was no way anyone could get a total body workout in just 8 minutes. I began to research the R.O.M. for a client that had come across it and was intrigued. He thought he might want one for his home. The more I looked into it, the more I was intrigued as well.

I am finding that my ego is very clever at disguising my motives in ways that fool me into thinking that I have a right to "beat that drum." For most of my life, I believed that I was justified in fighting for those things that were unfair, immoral, or infringe upon those people I care about in "not nice" ways. I also thought that it was very important to defend my point of view ... to fight for the right to be "right." I thought that in order to eliminate bad things from my world, that I had to get petitions signed and march in rallies and speak out against those people and ideals that offended me. I must actively show my disapproval and fight for what was "Right." Little did I know that all that focus on those things that I was so opposed to fueled the fire for those things to grow ever stronger.

For the first 25 years of my life, I was brainwashed into thinking that fitness looks like those people in Muscle, Fitness and Shape magazines. I really thought that to be healthy and fit, I had to somehow whittle myself down to a size 2 and lower my body fat to below 15%. I wanted to be like those models, and yet had no earthly idea how I was going to accomplish "THAT!" As time has passed, and I have worked for years in the fitness industry, I came to realize that fitness is as unique as each and every one of us. In fact, it is not a certain look at all. It is much more about how you feel, your quality of sleep, how well your body fights off flus and colds, your energy level at the end of a long day, and the feeling of being strong and capable, able to move through your everyday tasks with ease and grace - that's fitness.