David Scott Cohen

The following are a few tips that will help  assist you in your quest for the best your body can be:

If your mission is to lose weight, don’t go crazy at first. You can start taking off pounds by just cutting your calories a little bit each day. Also, portion control plays a major roll in weight loss.

It is always best to prepare as many meals as possible. At restaurants you never know how much butter and oils are used.

. Drink a lot of water, especially before every meal to take up space in the stomach.

. Eat slowly. It takes your brain twenty minutes to realize that you are full.

. Don’t miss meals. Your body shifts into a defensive survival mode because it does not know when its next meal is coming. Therefore, your metabolism slows down so as not to burn precious calories. You help burn fat when you feed the metabolism. Eating a lot of small meals throughout the day is the way to do that. Instead of eating that whole sandwich in one sitting, eat half now and the other later. Allow your body to digest it.

. If time is a factor, weight train, as opposed to aerobic train. When you do aerobics you only burn calories for as long as you are on the machine. The lean muscle you develop from weight training will burn fat even at rest. Ex: If a lean muscular person is sitting on a couch with a  person high in body fat and they are watching a football game, the muscular person will have burned more calories than the high body fat person by the time the game is over.

. Simple arithmetic: If you put in more calories than you burn you will put on weight.  And vice a versa.

It has been scientifically proven that if you sniff your dessert instead of eating it you will be just as satisfied. Try it before knocking it. (Take big sniffs and as many as needed)

. Never eat beyond comfort. If you gorge yourself the body cannot digest the food fast enough and it sends the excess to the storage dept; the fat cells.

. Fat and muscle weigh the same: (a pound is a pound, whether it’s feathers or bricks) but a pound of fat is more bulky and lumpy than muscle, so it will effect your body composition differently.

We have all heard the term muscle memory. What that means in simple terms is that even if you take a few weeks off from working out and you lose your strength and size, your muscle cells will remember where they were at. In just a few workouts you will be able to get to the same level as before when you took that layoff. The same goes for fat cells. If you finally achieve your desired weight you must now work hard at maintaining that weight because your fat cells also remember where they were. In just a few bad meals you can put on the pounds that you worked so hard to take off. Starve the fat cells, don’t give them a chance to expand.

Dieting is work and hard work. Look at it as a job that you must do each day in order to survive and live a good life. Set aside an hour each day from your schedule to take care of your body. The payback is tremendous: Your problems will diminish almost immediately, you will feel refreshed, you will become calmer, and the euphoric feeling that is experienced when you leave the gym is incredible.  Nothing desensitizes your stress like a great workout!

Remember: The better it tastes, the greater the chance it is cooked with butter or has lots of fat. Fat tastes great. It is Gods way of testing our ability and will to stay healthy. He didn’t make it easy. It is something that must be achieved by resisting the sinful foods.

And please! Please! Stay away from fried foods.

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A friend of mine wanted to order an expensive workout video program that claimed he would look like an adonis in just 6 weeks. He sent me the link and wanted to know my thoughts.

Here is my response:

Steve, with all due respect, I have seen 100s of these in my 25 years as a trainer and none are really of any value in the long run.

It is no different than a “get rich” scheme. Yes, you will lose weight. But the problem is that you will spend all this money on something that can be achieved cheaper and easier if (and I mean if) you are willing to devote at least an hour a day to training (cardio and weights) and get serious about your food intake.

Understand that getting in shape and staying in shape is not a 3 or 6 week course, it is a lifetime commitment. I spent my whole life (except while in the womb and a few early years) taking care of my body for health and aesthetics (mostly aesthetics I must confess) and even at this point, I cannot stop or take a break, because in two weeks time muscle cells begin to atrophy and in a few months of doing nothing but eating and sitting on a couch I would be as soft and winded as one who never did anything. That is the tragedy of it but that’s what separates those who want to feel good, exude confidence, and have a better quality of life compared to the person who has no vigor, tires easily and looks like a train wreck. If hard work and devotion and restraint is what it takes to achieve this level that I have achieved than it’s all worth it.

I have the secret to achieving what you are looking for, except so does anyone else who is in the gym with me. You know what it is too and you know how to achieve it except you would rather believe that if you give this guy your money he will get rid of years of eating poorly, and not exercising.

Anyway, here is the secret: Train hard, eat right, and don’t eat too much of what’s right.  I have been living that way all my life. A trainer definitely will push you, correct your form and show you how to do the exercises properly so that you get the most out of your workout. But after you leave the gym it is up to you to either eat right or not. It is hard work to resist eating poorly. Fat taste good, sugar is addicting, carbs are satisfying and filling.

This is not something you do for a short while. You don’t pick up a diploma, and say “I’m done!” It is something you have to stay on top for the REST OF YOUR LIFE.

Good luck pal.

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