The All New & Improved…Tiger Fitness Los Angeles!

The premiere Personal Training and Boot Camp Company in Los Angeles and surrounding cities has just massively expanded it’s fitness programs with a whole gym bag full of FAT BURNING, MUSCLE TONING, CORE STRENGTHENING AND BODY REVITALIZING fitness programs!

The NEW TigerFit Personal Training System is the ultimate program for building the beach ready body that you want. You will experience muscle building improvements and weight loss results that you have not seen in years, if ever. Fat will burn, muscle will tone, energy will increase and your body will transform back into its youthful shape. You will finally be able to pull that belt a few holes tighter and make your skinny jeans your regular jeans. It’s that effective, it’s that amazing.

The best part of the system is that it is adabtable and flexible. We have applied the dynamic principles of the TigerFit Personal Training System to three high-octane fitness programs that run the gamut from one-on-one to group training, from outdoor to indoor, from affordable to premium.

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TigerFit Advanced Personal Training

For people that need the one-on-one attention that having your own personal trainer provides. Clients are always amazed how easily they get into incredible shape with this system. With Advanced Personal Training there is no guess work, and most importantly, you don’t have to go it alone. With a seasoned professional by your side, guaranteeing your success, results tend to come faster.

Click Here for Personal Training

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T3 Small-Group Personal Training

For clients that want to workout with a few friends. Each T3 session is a small group, limited to 3-6 clients, with similar fitness focus (weight loss, bridal party tune-up, etc). The best part is the training costs are shared while you attain your fitness goals. You can put together your own group or I can match you with other fitness minded people that share your goal.

Click Here for Small-Group Training

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TigerFit Boot Camp

TigerFit Boot Camp is perfect for clients looking for a team-oriented, alternative fitness experience. We call our boot camp a kitchen sink fitness program because we throw in everything that we can think of; challenging body weight exercises, yoga, circuit training, pilates, weight training. You name, we use it. Not only does using the best of every fitness method get our clients into amazing shape, it insures that the program stays fresh, and that our clients enjoy the experience. TigerFit Boot Camps make it hard to believe you are getting in such great shape because you’re having so much fun.

Click Here for Boot Camp

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Sign-Up for a FREE Fitness Orientation:
Go to TigerFitnessLA.com to Get Started Now >>>

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Tiger Fitness Los Angeles offers Personal Training and Boot Camp fitness program in the following locations:

Bel Air Beverly Hills Brentwood Culver City Hollywood Los Angeles Malibu

Mar Vista Marina Del Rey Pacific Palisades Playa Del Rey Santa Monica

Venice Beach West Hollywood West Lost Angeles Westwood

So, Your Once Flat Belly is Packing on the Pounds—Take a Breath, it’s Time for a Few Lifestyle Changes.

Teens and twenty-somethings eat an endless supply of pizza and tacos and never have to think about the fatty consequences. Unfortunately, this carefree metabolic lifestyle does not last forever, whether it’s because of hormonal changes, bad genes, or just getting older, you may be noticing a belly lump creeping over your belt — especially into your 30s and 40s. The bad news, gaining fat in your abdomen is very, very unhealthy when compared with other locations in your body. Extra belly fat increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes and few types of cancers. The good news is that, if you readily embrace the idea that this naturally occurring process is happening to you, it makes it easier to change your bad habits and make the few necessary lifestyle changes that will help you win the battle over your belly fat.

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The Gathering Abdominal Storm
As we age and our metabolism shifts down a couple of gears and the overally percent of body fat in the body slowly builds. Men pack it on mostly in the belly and back and women in the in the arms, legs and hips (after menopause it shifts more to the abdomen).

Most people think belly fat is limited to the flabby roll out front that you can grab with both hands — but it’s the deeper abdominal fat that cannot be seen that is really a cause for concern. This Visceral fat resides deep inside the abdomen cavity, surrounding the vital organs. Accumulating this type of fat has been linked to heart disease, diabetes and many other health problems. The fat located between the skin and your abdominal muscles (subcutaneous fat), is a serious visual blight but less likely to be a serious health risk.

Your slowing metabolism and decrease in physical activity contribute to a steady weight gain as you get older, interestingly, those factors do not influence visceral fat gain directly. For this you can blame your mom and dad, because heredity appears to be the culprit — you may simply have inherited a bias to gain weight primarily in your belly.

Some men and women experience a fatter waist without gaining any weight. You may not be packing-on additional fat, but a shift is occurring from your limb and hip fat to your mid-section. Even in men and women of a normal weight, too much fat located in the midsection is very unhealthy.

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Deep Abdominal Fat Really Matters
Increasing fat in your abdomen does a lot more harm than making your shirts and pants too tight. While packing-on the pounds in general can have serious health effects, deep abdominal weight gain is remarkably unhealthy. This type of belly fat increases your risk of many diseases:

• Type-2 Diabetes
• Cardiovascular disease
• Breast Cancer
• Metabolic Syndrome
• High blood Pressure
• Gallbladder Issues
• Colorectal Cancer

Abdominal fat cells are not just benign energy waiting to be used as fuel. These fat cells are active and produce hormones and substances that can adversely affect your health. As an example, fat-cell-produced hormones can create insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes); some fat cells can produce female hormones after menopause (increasing breast and prostate cancer risks). This is a newer field of study, but this much is known; too much visceral fat can negatively change the body’s normal hormonal balance.

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Measuring the Mid-Section
Question, you’ve gained a flabby roll around your torso, so how can you know if it’s in an unhealthy zone? Answer, calculate your body mass index (BMI) or waist-hip ratio. Simply measuring your waist can tell you if you have an unhealthy amount of belly fat, in fact, BMI is becoming thought of as a less accurate measure of overall body fat percentage.

Measure your waist by running a tape measure around your belly at about navel level. Breathe normally and do not tighten your belly, and do not pull the measuring tape so tight that it distorts your skin down. In women, a waist measurement of 35 inches-plus is an unhealthy concentration of deeper abdominal fat, for men it’s 33 inches. A measurement of 32 inches or more, no matter what you weigh, increases your adverse health risks.

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Fighting Belly Fat with Fire
Because Visceral fat is located deep inside your abdominal cavity, you could conclude that it may seem like a difficult spot for targeted reduction. It turns out, that visceral fat reacts well to a regular exercise regimen and a healthy, calorie-controlled diet. Targeted abdominal exercises help to firm the abdominus rectus (your abdominal muscles) and flattens the belly.

Daily exercise of moderate-intensity is the best way to burn belly fat. When you increase your toned muscle mass and lose weight, your belly fat begins to be used as fuel and incinerates. You will notice that your tummy lump is the very first area to flatten when you start an exercise program. Talk to your doctor about the amount and type of exercise you should get to promote good health and specifically combat abdominal fat.

Strength training, exercising with weights is effective in blasting the belly lump and should be incorporated into your comprehensive exercise routine.

Changing unhealthy eating habits and adopting a healthy, calorie-controlled diet is necessary for success in your quest to fight belly fat. Become a nutrition label reader, and replace saturated fats with healthy, polyunsaturated fats. Eat more complex carbohydrates like fruits and vegetables, and reduce simple carbohydrates such as white bread and pasta. If your main goal is to lose belly fat, you must reduce your portion sizes and control daily calorie intake. This is the way to your flat belly.

While you can not specifically target belly fat, you can tone up your abdominal muscles and get a smoother, flatter belly. Sit-ups are not the most effective way to tone your abdominal muscles,  instead, use these exercises to target both deeper and lower abdominal muscles:

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Toning Your Deeper abdominal muscles.

Abdominal Bicycle Crunch
Lie on the floor with hands clasped behind your head to hold lightly, elbows pointing to your sides. Bend your knees to all the way to your chest. Bring the right knee and left elbow together, try to have them touch; at the same time, extend your left leg about 45-degrees above the floor. Lower your extended leg close to the floor to make more challengeing if it no lower back. Do not strain–go as far as is comfortable to. Repeat on the other side, bringing your right elbow and left knee together while extending your right leg. Alternate sides. Each alternating side equals one repetition. Be sure it is your torso twisting–not just just your neck.

Captain’s Chair
Sit on the edge of a solid chair with your feet flat on the carpet. Sit up straight, lengthen your spine. Hold the seat of the chair on both side of your hips. Breathe out and slowly bring your knees to your chest, try not to arch or strain your lower back. Hold for two to three seconds. Slowly lower your legs and breathe in. Raise and lower your legs to make this flat stomach exercise more challenging or by by using both arms to hold yourself in the air!

Hip Lift Exercise
Lie on flat on your back, arms to the sides, hands palms-side down. Lift your legs so the bottoms of your feet are facing the sky; your legs should be at a 90-degree angle to your torso. Lift your hips off the floor, upward toward the ceiling. Make sure you’re lifting with your abs, not by pressing downward on your hands; your hands are there simply to keep you balanced. It’s all right if your hips come far enough forward your straight legs angle toward your head. Slowly lower your hips back to the floor. Continue raising and lowering your hips.

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Lower abdominal muscles.

Double Leg Lifts
Lie flat on your back, with your hands placed under your butt, with hands facing the floor. Contract your lower ab muscles, and tighten the muscles of your legs, raise them straight up vertically, and hold them there for a 2-3 seconds. Lower them down until they are a few inches off the floor, and hold it there again for a few seconds. Repeat 5-8 times to begin with. Later, as you feel your abs getting stronger, increase the reps to 15-20 times. Then, as you get even stronger, you can lift your head and shoulders off the carpet while performing the more leg lifts.

Alternating Leg Walks
Start by lying supine (on your back), place your hands under your butt, and take 2-3 deep breaths. Contract the lower abdominal muscles and raise your right leg up slowly, until it is perpendicular to your body. The, equally slowly, lower it back down, until it is a 2-3 inches off the carpet, while at the same time raising your left leg. Keep raising your legs alternatively about 9-11 times to begin. As your abs become more strong, increase the count to 16-22 times. Lift your head and shoulders off the carpet while performing the exercise.

Double Leg Reverse Crunches
Lie down flat on your back, with your hands clasped under your butt. Lift both legs up until they are perpendicular to the ground. Bend your legs at the knees, so that the lower part is parallel to the carpet. Contract your lower abs, and maintain your bent knees, while gradually lower your legs until the soles of your feet are just a 2-3 inches off the floor. Keep your abdominals contracted and hold this position for a 2-3 seconds. Increasing the contraction in your abs, raise your knees up again, towards your chest. This is a more difficult exercise, so begin by doing just 4-6 reps. As you get stronger, increase the reps gradually, until you can do 16-22 reps.

Ab Scissors
Start by lying supine (on your back), with your hands clasped under your butt, contract your lower abs and tighten your leg muscles and raise both your legs up, until they are about 2-3 feet off the carpet. Without bending the knees, get your right leg across your left leg, so that both of your legs are crossed. Open your legs, and close them, reversing the positions of the legs. Keep repeating this scissor action, keep your lower abs contracted, about 9-12 times, to start with. Then, increase that to 16-22 reps as you become stronger. 

Getting a flat belly and keeping it has always taken the one-two punch of toning and controlling calories. Adopting a well-rounded, fun exercise program  and healthy eating habits will get you to great abs before you know it and banish the flab forever!

Fitness Tip:

Exercise of the day: The Ball Hug-a-Ball will help you get a great stretch for both your back and entire core area with your fitness ball.

Discover the Fitness Secrets
of the “Naturally” Lean

You know who they are, the “naturally” lean people. You see them on almost every magazine cover wearing their ridiculously skinny jeans and their washboard revealing midriff tops. Their super charged metabolisms seem to burn off anything they eat leaving their bodies impossibly lean without any effort.

They’re just too perfect to live and, truth be told, they don’t really exist. These people with seemingly impossibly fast metabolisms, these people that eat anything that they want are just like you and me. They just have a secret weapon against fat that anyone can use, including you.

Secret Weapon #1:
They eat when they’re hungry:

Here is a statement that I want you to burn into your memory; if as a society we only ate when we were hungry, there would be no overweight people in the world.

Your body has the ability to regulate your weight naturally. Your brain knows that extra fat on your frame is unhealthy; it actually fights against it… for awhile. However, society has programmed us to overeat.

Portions are enormous, snack foods like chips and cookies are not just encouraged, they are mandatory, almost everything in our world is somehow tied to food. That’s right, you have been programmed to overeat.

Remember when you were a kid? You didn’t worry about watching calories. You ate when you were hungry. Somewhere along the way those natural eating patterns set by your own internal rhythms were overridden with imposed programming.

Maybe your parents made you clean your plate before leaving the table, maybe you learned to eat when you were stressed out, maybe you got into the habit of eating junk in front of the T.V. Somewhere along the line our natural habit of eating when we were hungry became eating when we are stressed, or sad, or bored, or distracted.

As a society we use food for almost anything but what it was intended for, a source of fuel. The first step to getting to lean is to separate actual hunger, from something masquerading as hunger. Thirst, lack of sleep, stress, boredom, all can trigger the hunger reflex.

There was a time when listening to your body and its internal rhythm was second nature. The first secret is to get back to the point where your body tells you what it needs and when it needs it… and you listen.

Secret Weapon #2: They eat the foods
that they want to:

Our bodies have the innate ability to eat the foods that they need. What we call “cravings” are actually our bodies way of telling us we need something in that food to grow, heal, maintain.

However, just like our ability to regulate when we eat, we have reprogrammed or ability to regulate what we eat and how much we eat. Listening to our bodies is not something that is encouraged in our society, as a matter of fact the assault on our natural inclinations is relentless.

Every commercial, every billboard, every magazine advertisement screams that we should consume, and consume as much as possible. Not only have we built a fast food restaurant on every corner, we can have it delivered if we don’t want to leave the couch. We have an entire industry dedicated to getting us to overeat.

Once again, the secret here is to listen to your body, not that commercial. Have you ever felt “bad” after eating food that you knew was unhealthy? Maybe it gave you heartburn, maybe it made you sluggish and tired, maybe you got a headache. All of these things are your body way of telling you, no, screaming at you that you ate the wrong thing.

Now, how do you feel after you’ve eaten a meal that you know is good for you. A quality lean protein source, lots of fresh vegetables and fruits, a complex carbohydrate.

I’d be willing to bet that you feel great! You have more energy. Your mood is lifted. Your workout was more satisfying. What do you think your body is telling you when feel this way? Listen to that message. Embrace that feeling.

Secret Weapon #3:
They don’t count calories :

We are all creature of habit. Take a look back at any week of your life and you will see patterns in the way you eat. We usually eat at roughly the same times everyday, and we usually eat the same things from the same places.

Once the pattern is recognized and established you know where your calories are coming from, and once they’re counted, you know how many you’re taking in. Now of course there are some times when there will be exceptions, like when you’re traveling or special occasion dinners.

However, for the most part your diet stays pretty constant. The trick here is to know the calories in the foods you eat, to make that knowledge a part of the eating process.

Once you know the calorie counts for all of the foods that you eat, you automatically know how many calories you’re taking in on a particular day and if you’re over or under your calorie goal. So the secret here is, don’t count…know!

Secret Weapon #4:
They don’t keep a food journal:

Now I know that I’m going to get some grief for this one. As a trainer I insist that all of my clients keep a food journal. Well, you might ask, how can not keeping one be a secret to being impossibly lean?

My philosophy on eating healthy, as well as working out is that it should become a part of your lifestyle. It should become second nature to know how many calories that you’re taking in and the quality of those calories.

Keeping a food journal is just a way to establish patterns, once the patterns are established, once you recognize the parameters, once all of this is engrained and your old damaged programming is rewritten, the food journal is internalized, just like it was when you were a kid, before your natural rhythms were disrupted. It’s just like counting calories, sure you have to do it before you can know what the count is.

Sure you have to keep your journal before you can establish patterns. But once you have, your day to day eating is established. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve asked to see my clients food journals and I see page after page of the same things over and over. Once you reach that point, the need for a food journal is done.

Secret Weapon #5:
They don’t “Workout”:

This is another one of those remember when you were a kid scenarios. Kids don’t go to the gym. They don’t need to. They play. Their workout is whatever is the most fun at the time.

Playing tag, riding bikes, roller skating, climbing the jungle gym all kept us burning calories when we were little. It’s time to get back to that mindset. Workouts shouldn’t be a chore. They should be fun. If your workouts aren’t fun, you’re doing it wrong.

If you don’t like running, don’t run. Ride a bike instead. Find a trail that inspires you, invite friends to go along. If riding a bike doesn’t get your mojo running then go surfing. The point is find something that you love doing, and you’ll never workout a day in your life.

I happen to love weight lifting, always have. Even when I was a little kid I had a set of dumbbells. Ok, maybe I was a weird kid, but the point is that when I workout, I’m doing something that I love.

Every one of us has a favorite activity. It might have been awhile since you done it, you may have even forgot about it, but somewhere in your brain is the memory of pure joy that only physical exertion can bring you. Find that bliss, it will save you.

So there you have it, the secrets to being impossibly lean. Just like most things in life, the answers are simple, they’re just not easy. Stick to the basics, make minor adjustments and have fun. Getting lean can be a rewarding journey. Don’t be afraid to start that journey today.

Tip: Blend your foods – Blending your foods means making sure that if you are eating a food item that does contain carbohydrates, make sure that you incorporate a good low fat protein along with it. Eating a low carb tortilla wrap, that the first ingredient is whole wheat flour, unrefined and adding lean chicken breast as part of your filling in the wrap, maybe with some thinly shredded romaine lettuce and other veggies.

Exercise of the day: The Ball Lower-Back Strengthener will help develop your entire core area in your lower back region at the same time help support your small stabilizer muscles.

Tip: Stay focused on eating green in every meal – Always incorporate a good high quality low glycemic index dark green vegetable with each meal. I suggest things like spinach or romaine lettuce in your lunch time salads. Eating broccoli, asparagus, or steamed spinach as your vegetable at dinner time. All of these dark green vegetables supply your body with great vitamins and nutrients as well as being great sources of fiber and are naturally low on the glycemic index scale and will keep your blood sugar levels from spiking after eating. So think Dark green at meal time and challenge yourself to keep it as part of each and every eating event.

Exercise of the day: The Band Lat Pull Down is a wider grip back exercise that is performed in a kneeling position, utilizing the contraction benefits of an exercise fitness band.

Fitness Tip:

Exercise of the day: The Ball Band Arm Row Intermediate provides an advanced back exercise movement, while using an exercise ball for balance and helping develop your small stabilizer muscle groups.

Fitness Tip:

Exercise of the day: The Ball Kneeling Push Up is a beginner chest exercise movement using partial body weight and ball stabilization with a fitness ball.

How Much Physical Activity is Enough?

-Fran McMillian, Venice, CA

Dear Fran;

It depends on what your goals are.

If you want to improve your fitness, aerobic activity 3 days per week of a moderate intensity for 20 to 60 minutes (either all at once or broken into segments) will be enough.

But a well-rounded program that improves not only your fitness, but also your strength and flexibility is recommended.

To improve your strength, add 2 to 3 days of strength training to your aerobic routine. And finish your aerobic and strength training activities with stretches to improve your flexibility.

-The Tiger Fitness Team