November 2017

Congratulations! We’re on to week 2 of the Maintain Don’t Gain holiday challenge at Synergy Personal Fitness Training. This week we’re switching our focus from strength to endurance or high rep training. That means we’ll be going for high rep sets of 15 or more repetitions using lighter weights in our resistance training.

There’s a long-standing misconception that any kind of weight training will make you “bulk up.” So, too often people are reluctant to incorporate resistance training into their routines for fear of adding size or gaining weight. But, according to the American College of Sports Medicine, high rep training comes with some pretty attractive benefits.

Training with lighter weights (30 – 60% of your one rep maximum) for more reps will actually:

• Decrease your body fat as you add lean muscle to your body – A study examined the results people got from lifting heavy weights vs. lifting lighter weights for higher repetitions. It showed that those who worked with lighter weights saw a notable increase in muscle tone and definition with a decrease in body fat percentages.

• Increase your muscle strength –

The recent consensus among the health conscious crowd is that sugar is bad for you. It’s blamed for everything from expanding waistlines to cardiovascular disease and diabetes. In fact, some are even shying away from eating fruit because of its sugar content. But is sugar really bad for you?

While some might say that sugar is sugar — especially in low-carb or Paleo circles — the truth is that all sugar is not equal. Although at a molecular level glucose, fructose and sucrose is the same whether it’s in table sugar or fruit, the way your body processes it is not the same at all. So, what accounts for the difference? It’s all about the source and whether the sugar is natural or refined.

Let’s take fruit for example. The first distinction is that the sugar in fruit is naturally occurring. It is not manufactured or refined. In addition to sugar, fruit also contains hearty amounts of fiber and water that help to fill you up. So, you are not likely to overeat on apples or oranges or bananas. Contrary to what some might have you believe, a study published by the National Institutes for Health showed that eating whole fruit actually decreases the risk of obesity and diabetes.