Answer Fitness®: Practical Fitness Advice for Everyone

The Seven Healthy Habits of Highly Fit People

Adopt these seven, simple habits of really fit people and realize the benefits of a healthier body. 

Ever wonder how people who always seem to be in great physical shape got that way? More importantly how do they stay healthy, fit and in-shape?

Here are the seven healthy habits that almost all fit people seem to have in common:

Healthy Habit #1: They Eat

No one ever dieted their way to long term fitness and health. Despite the disturbing trend toward fad diets like Master Cleanse (which involve extreme calorie restriction or striking entire food groups from a person’s diet,)  well-conditioned, in-shape people eat.  And they actually eat a lot.

The difference between fit eaters and fat eaters, is that highly fit people eat differently — they tend to eat more whole, unprocessed foods; have higher lean protein intake; consume the bulk of their carbohydrates in the form of complex carbs like whole grains, vegetables and whole fruit; and avoid the “fat free food” trap.  They also tend to eat more frequently (as many as six to seven meals a day), but make those meals smaller. 

The result is that they have more stable blood sugar, more consistent energy levels, and are less prone to gaining body fat because they rarely eat more calories in any given meal than their body can utilize.

Continue reading The Seven Healthy Habits of Highly Fit People…

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How to Choose A Gym That’s Right For You

Ask yourself these nine questions to make sure you’re choosing the perfect gym … before you sign the contract.

Whether you are looking to get in-shape and choosing a gym or fitness club for the first time or have a current gym membership and are looking to make a change, finding the right place to work out can be a confusing and intimidating process, especially for beginners.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

The International Health Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) estimates that in 2006 there were 29,000 commercial fitness centers in America. If you live in a major metropolitan area, you can expect to find between 10-25 fitness centers competing for your membership. In smaller towns, your choices may be more limited, but between local rec centers, nearby colleges, the YMCA and commercial gyms, it’s easier than ever to have access to a gym, regardless of your location.

So with so many options, how do can you be sure you’re making the right choice?

Continue reading How to Choose A Gym That’s Right For You…

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Why Answer Fitness®?

So I finally did it. I took the plunge and started a blog.

First, an admission. And then some explanation.

The admission: I started Answer Fitness®  for some pretty self-serving reasons.

Now the explanation.

Answerfitness.com exists because I really needed a single place to collect all of the fitness tips, diet tricks, health and nutrition research, recipes, and workout regimens that I currently have scattered in various bookmarks, Microsoft Word documents and yellow sticky notes. So at the most basic level, this website is a way for me to organize my own training and health.

But there are some other reasons ….

Continue reading Why Answer Fitness®?…

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

About Answer Fitness®

Answer Fitness® provides practical fitness advice and information on diet and nutrition, exercise , weight-loss and weight training for people who are passionate about fitness and staying in shape, regardless of their experience level.

My Goal

This is not a diet blog.

While food is major focus of Answer Fitness®, my goal is to shift people’s thinking regarding good nutrition from something that they pay attention to only when they need to lose weight, to something that they think about every day. Once you begin eating healthy, you should never have to go “on a diet” again. 

So who is this “Matt” guy and why should I listen to him?

The simple answer is that I’m one of you. I’m not a professional athlete, competitive body builder or a doctor. 

What I am,  is a “fitness nerd.”

And I wear this badge proudly.

This means I feel strongly that working out is 75% mental. 

For me, physical activity is a medititation of sorts. And I love the science of it all. The amazing ability of the body to adapt to whatever we heap on it. The chance for us to live longer, be healthier and more fit than our parents or grandparents. The physical challenge to be better than what we are drives me. 

I also want to break the stereotype that being fitness-minded means you can’t be … um … minded.

I have dual bachelors degrees in Philosophy and History from the University of Michigan. So in addition to running Answer Fitness, holding down my “day job” and working out, I also like all kinds of ”nerd” stuff like Russian Literature, WWII military history, Plato and Anatomy & Physiology.  

Finally, I don’t blog because I need income.

I do it instead, because,  like my readership, I’m passionate about eating healthy, staying in shape and passing on some knowledge.

I don’t know it all and I admit this. So I spend a lot of my free time (what I have of it), digging through scientific research to try to come up with something objective and proven that I can pass on to the people who visit my site.

My day job is interactive marketing, which means I spend a lot of my time sitting behind a computer or in a meeting room. Fitness for me is both a hobby and a necessity. Working out let’s me blow off steam, clear my mind and focus for 90 minutes each day on something other than Google algorithms or website conversion. For me, exercise and eating well are just as important as feeding your mind. I try to do all three. 

In the end, it always comes back to the basics: eat well and close-to-the-earth, exercise frequently and workout hard in the gym. There are no “magic pills” or “revolutionary” diets that can substitute for these three principles.  Period. I know it, because I’ve been there.

Answer Fitness® was inspired by my experiences as a Top Contributor to the Diet and Fitness category in Yahoo Answers.

Fitness and healthy eating seem of the surface to be very simple things, but people are perpetually confused. Between the seemingly contradictory scientific research around diet that people read online and in the news, the amazing claims of diet and supplement marketers, and the practical challenges of staying active in an increasingly sedentary society, people are looking for answers, not just hype, to stay healthy and fit.

Finally, you’ll see me talking a lot about food. Yes, I want you to eat. While it may seem counter-intuitive, you can’t lose fat without eating. But I also want to challenge the perception that a lot of people have that you can’t eat healthy and burn fat and have your meals taste phenomenal.

I actually flirted with the idea of naming this blog “No Boiled Chicken” because the idea that eating healthy requires you to consume bland foods like boiled chicken, canned tuna and brown rice drives me crazy.

I have bodybuilder friends who struggle to gag down yet another boiled chicken breast, when — with a little help – they really could be eating “clean” and enjoying their food, instead of dreading it. I want to change that.

So welcome to Answer Fitness® and say goodbye to canned tuna!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!