We’ve all heard about the magic pill, formula, workout, or diet that will give us what we want immediately. In fact there are so many of them out there that have all these promises attached yet after a few weeks we realize we probably won’t get what we want from this magical source.

But out of all the “magical” solutions out there, there is one we highly believe in here at Breakthroughs To Fitness.

In fact it’s actually free and takes about 10 minutes a day.

Do not take this solution lightly as it is the one tool that’s gets people healthy, fit, and lean if you follow it on a daily basis.

That tool is a FOOD DIARY!

I can promise you with full confidence that if you filled out a food diary on a daily basis you will reach your goal. However, just going through the motions of filling it out won’t work. You must go back and analyze your day, week, month and figure out where your challenges ly and where your successes ly.

Keeping track and reviewing your past diary entries will allow you to create or tweak your plan going forward to reach that goal you set forth. It doesn’t have to be some fancy book or expensive online tool. Just a pen and paper or a word doc on your computer will work out great. Simply jot down everything you eat and drink at what times throughout the day. If you can estimate calories that’s great, but you don’t have to be a calorie counter to reach your goals.

If you look at the most successful businesses in the world you will notice what they all have in common: they track everything day in and day out. They know how much money comes in and how much goes out everyday!

Now you don’t have to compare yourself to the most successful businesses. We all have different goals, commitments, and time frames. As long as you keep consistent track, your goals will seem more promising to reach.

So give it a shot and see the difference it makes with your health. Keep food diaries worked for me in getting me below 4% bodyfat, so it will work for you as well.

Any questions regarding this topic, feel free to post your comments below.

Dedicated to your results,

Rahsheen Slaughter

Breakthroughs To Fitness

Long Island Personal Trainer

I’m actually writing this blog at midnight because I just got off an amazing show called Talkin’ Health with Health Coach Joe Casper from FireYourDiet.com.

Joe is a great friend of mine and very knowledgeable when it comes to nutrition and the physiological effects the body creates with nutrition. For some great information on nutrition (and Joe goes into detail but keeps it basic to understand) check out his book called Fire Your Diet.

Joe has been recognizing the results we have been creating with our clients that he wanted to share our system and expertise with his audience on his show Talkin’ Health. Here are the cliff notes below we shared until we get the full recording to share:

1. Tabata protocols which last 4 minutes has shown to burn more calories then 60 minutes of walking/jogging on a treadmill. If you haven’t heard of them before be sure to research around and see how powerful they are when time is crunched.

2. Have cheat days is absolutely necessary. From a psychological and physical standpoint, cheat days can boost your metabolism and increase the fat burning furnace

3. Knowing your why and motivation in order to achieve lasting changes with your body. Without knowing those two components, you are most likely going to fall off the health wagon

4. The six components that make up a complete fat loss system: Resistance training, Nutrition, Supplementation, Smart Cardio, Flexibility, and Coaching. Missing one can set your whole program off.

5. Why journaling is the number tool to utilize for your fat loss success and overall health success. You don’t have to count calories to journal. JUST WRITE WHATEVER YOU EAT AND DRINK!

6. How Breakthroughs To Fitness is changing the game with our unique fitness system. Designing customized programs with cutting edge science and time tested methods.

Just the cliff notes alone can save you alot of trouble with your fat loss goals. I never said it was easy, but it is a simple formula to put together to achieve great results. You just have to stay consistent with the plan and have all 6 components being utilized at once.

I will leave you with this… A confused person generally does nothing! If you are confused about something or need assistance with any of the 6 components that make up a complete program, email us at b2f@b2finc.com for your answers. We love assisting individuals in creating breakthroughs in life through fitness.

Dedicated to your results,

Rahsheen Slaughter

Breakthroughs To Fitness

Long Island Personal Trainer

P.S. It’s never too late. Decide now that tomorrow will be different. You have the power to decide

Watch the video below to view all the excitement and energy at the 1st Breakthroughs To Fitness Pushups For Charity event starting here on Long Island:

It’s been 23 days since the 1st Pushups For Charity event launched here in Long Island, NY. I can still say that the energy still lives within our company from the event. To date we have collected over $8,200 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Metro New York.

AND WE STILL HAVE DONATIONS COMING IN!

Pushups For Charity is a nation wide movement that is made up of 100 elite Fitness professionals with a joint goal of raising $500,000 for 2010 for charity. With just one company raising over $8,200 (and still counting), this goal will be achieved.

For more information on the next Pushups For Charity here on Long Island, visit www.PushupsForCharityLI.com or to see if there is one in your town, visit www.PushupsForCharity.com

Dedicated to your results,

Rahsheen Slaughter

Breakthroughs To Fitness

www.b2finc.com

Long Island Personal Trainer

DECIDE TODAY!

There’s actually many great decisions one can make, but when I heard this one, it really hit home with me. Below is a decision this man made that changed his life forever (and the lives around him)

To keep this private we are going to call this man John. John was a hard working man from a young age. He was so ambitious and determined to build a great life for himself. This attitude landed him a well paying job on Wall Street.

He was working day in and day out. Waking up before the crack of dawn and getting home sometimes around 10 pm. However, deep down. although the money was great, this was not John’s life blueprint…

…because he would always get home and miss the chance to spend time with his new born son. It was until one Friday night when he walked into his son’s room that he broke down and cried.

At that moment he knew something had to change and he DECIDED that he was going to quit monday. He followed through with his decision and changed his life forever. That decision gave John the ability to see his children grow up, was able to be home by 6pm, and eat dinner with the family every night.

30 years later, John couldn’t be happier and told one of our coaches that same exact DECISION!

I tell you this, because sometimes we feel like we have no control over our life, when in fact we do. We just have to DECIDE.

There are people out there in great need to change there health right now. They are either on the verge of developing disease or they are about to create a strong habit of neglecting their health.

Like John, DECIDE today that you will make your health your top priority (even if you do not have a plan yet). That doesn’t mean perfection, rather an active pursuit in taking care of yourself.

This decision can change your life and 30 years from now you can look back and say this is one of the greatest decisions I ever made.

Dedicated to your results,
Rahsheen Slaughter

Breakthroughs To Fitness

Long Island Personal Trainer

P.S. A great decision many people tell us is that they decided to come in for a consultation with us. Make that decision to learn how our fitness and nutrition coaching programs can assist you in creating lasting change. Visit www.b2finc.com/freeconsult.html

Long Island Polar Bear Club

What an amazing weekend. I was able to experience 2 great events. The Superbowl and the Long Island Polar Bear plunge at Long Beach to raise funds for Make-A-Wish foundation of Metro New York.

The Superbowl was exciting because both competitors really brought their A game and battled it out. The Saints at the end were able to pull through and become the victor.

However, I want to talk more about the Polar Bear experience and after give some health advice on how temperature can enhance your workouts and results.

My buddy Keith Piro from the Glen Cove Mansion had signed up to do this Polar Bear plunge on Superbowl Sunday to assist raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Metro New York. I have never heard of this event, so I was intrigued and wanted to support him.

Boy was I in for a surprise. The beach was filled with thousands (I mean at least 15,000) of people all their to support one cause. It gets better. At a certain time about 5,000 people all jump into the ice cold ocean for a nice refreshing plunge.

It was great to see the faces of those who have never done it before because it gave them such a rush of excitement and achievement. I want to congratulate my buddy Keith for accomplishing something great for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Metro New York.

Now to complement this post, I wanted to talk about the effects warm and cold water (in the shower) have on your body to assist in enhancing your health. Here are a few benefits below. Before trying any temperature changes on your body, I want you to note to take this slowly. If you go all out and change temperatures on your body to the extreme, you will feel tortured, so take it one step at a time.

1. You receive better circulation with the changing of temperatures. When you start off with a warm shower, blood rushes to your skin and muscles. When you switch the shower water over to cold, the blood then rushes to the internal organs. Switching back and forth between these two temperatures will force the body to circulate the blood more efficiently. In the end, a better circulation means faster recovery and improved performance.
2. Healthy skin. When taking a warm shower, your pores open up which is great for cleaning. When you switch it over to cold, the pores close up which can keep out dirt and oil from infecting the skin. This process can also help with reducing swelling on the surface.
3. The mental benefits you receive. Ever wonder why you wake up with a cold shower, but get very relaxed with a warm one? Well it takes us back to the first point where cold showers will rush blood supply to our organs. Your brain will receive alot of that blood rush which will make you up. On another note you have to be mentally strong to complete this process on a daily basis. Over time, it turns into a type of meditation going through the process which will clear your head for the start of the day.

Those are just a few benefits that I felt were important to know. As I mentioned, this is not something you want to just jump into with extremes. Start out very slowly with the temperature changes. This will allow your body and mind to adapt where you can incorporate this into a consistent habit.

Did I mention that this can also assist you with fat loss? I am not talking about the increase in calorie burn in order for your body to adapt to the changes. I am referring to the recovery benefits so that your body can go through more intense workouts over time as it recovers faster from this process.

Go try it out!

Dedicated to your results,

Rahsheen Slaughter

Breakthroughs To Fitness

Long Island Personal Trainer

I hope you had a great week so far. We are finishing up with a strong mindset here at Breakthroughs To Fitness with our thoughts already focused on what to come ahead next week.

If you haven’t read the last post (which you can get to by clicking http://breakthroughstofitness.com/blog/state-of-the-union-address-sparks-long-island-personal-trainer-to-reform/) I suggest you do so. You will notice 5 areas where you could reform in order to create the body you deserve. The reason I recommend that is because we have someone we are going to speak about shortly who has reformed in those 5 areas which landed her the client of the month position.

Before

Tatiana has been a part of our family for about 2 years now. First she started out with our bootcamps 2 years ago and then recently came on board as a private coaching client. At the age of 26 Tatiana was committed to our bootcamp program. She was there almost every class. The missing link though was she did not address key areas in order to achieve those amazing results we seek out.

Going through the program she received results but nothing like I am going to share with you shortly. The areas where she had lacked were creating a plan for herself to follow additional cardio routines, finding time to eat more or even better quality foods do to her work schedule, and blaming her work schedule for not being able to follow a proper nutrition plan.

The moment she became a private coaching client is when things turned around. She slowly incorporated additional healthy meals into her lifestyle, followed a personalized fitness program, learned a new survival skill with Coach Frank (see picture below of Tatiana’s powerful kicks), held herself accountable to the B2F team, and followed a stretching routine.

Not that this is surprising to us, but she went from 126 pounds and 28% body fat to 108 pounds and 19.2% body fat in just a little over 12 weeks. That’s a loss of 18 pounds and 8.8% bodyfat. Such an amazing accomplishment and she is still kicking butt because she has a wedding to get ready for in the next 5 months.

She has dedicated time to her health, stayed committed to the program, is working her butt off with Coach Frank, stopped blaming her work schedule and started planning better to intake proper nutrition, and above all believed that she could make this happen.

Tat and Coach Frank

It is such an honor to display an achievement and success story like this, because you can do it too. We have plenty of other case studies we are going to share over the next coming months so you can see this is all possible for you as well.

So you if haven’t read the last post, be sure to read it now and start making changes in the 5 areas we talk about in your life TODAY!

Dedicated to your results,

Rahsheen Slaughter

Breakthroughs To Fitness

Long Island Personal Trainer