I will be returning shorty - promise

I was hit with a nasty illness as well as personal issues. Our house was damaged by two trees that hit and took out a lot of our rooms. Repairs are still progressing. I apologize for so much down time from my writing but sometimes life creates issues to your progress.

But I rise again and will become "normal" again in my duties and responsibilities.

Stay tuned.

Eddie

Spoke too soon - found out why my posts were not posting and fixed it

Holiday party tips

Hello, So now that Christmas is upon us, the holiday parties are the focus of spreading that cheer. And really, it is hard to pass them up. Let me give some quick tips and revelations.

The average alcohol drink will set you back from 100 to 800 calories! And that is just for one drink. HO Ho doesn’t sound so fun the next day after you gained a few pounds for a few hours of joy. And that yummy spiked eggnog comes in around 400+ calories!

Now lets add in the holiday cookies and cakes and well it goes on and on.

How does one have fun and still stay on target?

1) Between each drink of alcohol drink a glass or bottle water. This helps with keeping your more sober as well.

2) If you will be going to many parties set up a food theme strategy. For one party tell yourself that this will be your sweets events and have your sweets – hopefully within reason. Same goes for other parties. Maybe one you will indulge more with the drinks, another maybe take the healthy road and eat the veggies and dips if available.

3) While mingling stay close to the healthy foods since you will be apt to pick as you mingle.

4) And if you are dedicated and stick to the healthy food go for it. Your goals will stay true to the body you want inside and out.

5) Eat first before you start drinking. You’ll be least apt to consume those high calorie drinks.

6) Dance the night away if available. A sure way to burn calories and limit access to that food and drink.

My answers might surprise but I have learned that if you take away guilt and empower an individual during these types of events you will have a greater chance of success. In my business I have had great success with these types of strategies.

As always - I am available for personal training either in person (if in NJ) or over the web. If you feel you have stalled in your pursuit of fitness and need some expert knowledge to get you on track reach out to me.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CPT
Perfect You LLC

Blog technical issues

To all, I am having difficulties posting large posts so until I can get this solved there will be no posts. Sorry.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto

Thanksgiving

Now that Thanksgiving is over I want you all to take a moment and ponder the following.

How much love and happiness did you experience when you saw family and friends as well as others when they saw you?

Exercise and good health allow us to continue to spend many "Thanksgiving Days" with the ones we love. As well as they with us. Never forget your health goals and work it all year to be healthy. And never hesitate to reach out to the friends and family you saw over the holiday to assure they are as healthy and fit as possible as well. It could just be your simple words that make all the difference for their current or future goals.

Remember you ALWAYS matter to somebody. And so does anyone else.

All my best Perfect You followers.

All my love and respect,

Eddie Camaroto

Thanksgiving survival guide

Ah, the joy of stuffing our faces among great company. Yes Thanksgiving is a few days away and for most of my clients this time scares them.

You see they have been on target with all their goals and they know that Thanksgiving is a day to EAT.

I will share some tips that I relate to them to make this day of thanks happy and not stressful.

1) The average person will consume 3,000 calories at the dinner. WOW! It takes 3,500 calories to gain a pound so this number is significant.

2) Do not skip breakfast or a small lunch before the feast. If you think that this will save you calories you are off track. It will make you more hungry later and you will then over eat. Plus no matter how much you starve yourself realize that ingesting 3,000 calories is way more then the body can handle at a sitting so it will be put away in the fat stores of your body. So by "saving" those calories you have done nothing but make you eat more. Eating before will make you less hungry and yes likely to over-indulge. I am sure this bursts a few bubbles of your Thanksgiving attack.

3) Sample everything. What I mean by that is take a small helping of "everything". By engaging your taste buds to a variety of foods and textures you are less likely to over indulge in 4 helpings of sweet potatoes. Plus you are more likely to eat more healthy choices.

4) Watch the bread it is the killer of many successful diet strategies. If you love bread choose a multi-grain variety and dip in olive oil or use a butter substitute. Any never touch your bread till you have eaten 2/3 of your meal. By the time you get to your bread your feeling of fullness should just be about starting to register.

5) Don't skip the desserts. But rather use the same strategy you used with your meal plate. Take a lot of different items just assure that they are small slices or portions. And use a napkin to hold them all (if possible). This forces you to manage those portions more effectively then a plate where you could layer the sweets on to.

6) If there is a fat-free option available jump at it: Example: fat-free ice cream to top that apple pie etc.

7) Eat your meal as some traditional Italian families do: Eat in small focused sittings. Like soup/salad first then leave the table and come back 1 hour later and eat the main course etc. The same applies to waiting 1 hour for the dessert. This strategy works so well that this one step alone could make your day must more pleasant and less stomach bulging.

I hope my tips help you out and actually allow you to enjoy a day of feasting without all the guilt.
And for all you hard-core exercisers out there I remind you of my TV workout. In the search window in the top left corner (of my BLOG) just type in tv workout and you will be taken to the article.

Enjoy and I wish all my followers a rewarding Thanksgiving Day.

All my best,

Eddie Camaroto

Second opinions

Second opinions matter

Even though I have my own in-home Personal Training business I still continue to work at one of the best “medically” structured gyms in the state. And because of my position there I see dozens of members daily and many share with me their stories of dismay.

I meet people whose Physical Therapy was cut off too soon and they never questioned why. Or others that were told nothing further could be done for them and they would just have to live it. We, as a society, for the most part, have forgotten that we are empowered to take ownership over our health and quality of life.

But sad as it is I meet TOO many that just accepted what they were told. I see this more with the older population who grew up with the belief that doctors were the experts and the final say on care.

Let me share some personal stories of clients that were told nothing else could be done and then they were lucky enough to see me.

1) One client just went through breast cancer surgery and was given the drug Tamoxin. It is given as preventative maintenance for 5 years after breast cancer surgery. Standard protocol. My client was told that the Charlie horses that were keeping her up every night and I mean every night would be something that she had to live with – it was a known side effect. After three sessions with me she sleeps through every night and is still on the medication. I have given back her life when others said deal with it. All she needed was the proper massage to fix her. She was looking at 5 years of this. I fixed her in three hours.
2) My stroke victim client has her right side paralyzed from a stroke 11 years ago. She was told she would never walk, talk, or move again. Guess what after 4 months with me she talks, walks, and is fast becoming a survivor. Our sessions end in tears of joy with every little progress.
3) Or my client that was told nothing could be done about their skin infections that crippled their legs every month or two. After the proper exercise regiment and a simple application of Vaseline to their legs they have been pain and symptom free for 2 months now. He has lived with this condition HIS WHOLE LIFE! Not so anymore.

I consider myself more educated then most Personal Trainers. I have skills in massage, chiropractic and holistic healing but the fact that I hope I have driven home here is you need to get second opinions (one pro and one con). They only believe the con if you fail at your resolve to get better. I have only taken three clients of mine but I have dozens of stories that all ring the same bell. I fixed them when another professional said they couldn’t. If they never met that second opinion (ME) they would still be in the crippled states. So many clients have come to me with years of trying to battle weight gain and after a month or two with me they see 30-50 pounds off their bodies (and it STAYS off). I gave them hope and never ever said there was nothing else I could do for them. I do not believe in failure – period. There is ALWAYS a way folks. Always!

Please take a hard look at any condition that some professional told you to live with and see if just maybe there is hope with asking the same questions again with someone else.
Please NEVER EVER give up hope.

As always - I am available for personal training either in person (if in NJ) or over the web. If you feel you have stalled in your pursuit of fitness and need some expert knowledge to get you on track reach out to me.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CPT

Perfect You LLC

Long road its been

My mom finally is recovering and at home. The Physical Therapist has started coming to the house twice a week for therapy.

I apologize for not writing again in this dry spell but between her injury and support for her as well as my little sisters wedding in another state it was impoosible to find time for even my own family.

Next week I will be writing again. The theme will be doctors and Physical Therapists.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CEO
Perfect You LLC

No post this week due to an emergency

To all, My mom was involved in a serious car accident on Friday night and is recovering from surgery after todays operation. She suffered a Tibial plateau fracture. She now has plates and screws holding her knee and shin together.

I will not be writing an article this week. I am sure all understand.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto

Sayreville Library Fitness lecture series

To all, I have postponed my Sayreville Library fitness lecture series until the begining of the new year. I will post the actual dates when I know them.

The postponment was due to a variety of reasons: The program director got fired, the advertisments for the lectures never got to press, and I am working on a huge project in my in-home Personal Training business.

Add all those together and the best move was to postpone rather then trying to band-aid the situation.

If you want to be on my lecture email list just send me your email to perfect-you@comcast.net

I send out this list with updates to my lectures and unfortunately forgot to post my postponment on here as well.

Regards,

Eddie

I am back

To all, I have returned from my self-imposed vacation. Personal Training really burns you out - more mentally then physically. But I must admit it feels good to be back. I am refreshed and ready again to take on the world.

In my time off I have not been idle. I may of landed the biggest contract a Personal Trainer firm like mine can wish for. We are in talks with a certain department for the state of NJ to provide exclusive Personal Training for this group. If I land this I may just be set for a lifetime. To make matters even sweeter my virtual training workouts have started to sell more and more. My clients are seeing a real benefit to distance training at a huge discount. And my method of delivery and support I provide has made them happy with their decision. I have recently been asked to build a fitness lecture series for a library in my community and I will be getting paid for my efforts. I am set to start my talks in a few weeks.

Good times are ahead and I wanted to share them with you.

Starting next week I will be going off my usual format and addressing real world cases from my clients and how I took their conditions and made them realize their goals. In this way you can see how a Personal Trainer addresses issues and manages ones care. I expect that some of you may have the same conditions and it might be great for you to see how I deal with overcoming them thru solid science and proper training techniques.

I have been performing miracles for my clients so stay tuned to see just how I made them better.

And hey, I was just picked by the gym I work at (I provide in-home training on the side) to be Personal Trainer of the month. I beat out over 120 trainers for that honor.

All my best,

Eddie Camaroto
Perfect You LLC

P.S. It appears that I have some personal trainers following this Blog. Please reach out to me so we can share info and become better at our crafts. Just send me email at Perfect-you@comcast.net. Together we can share stories and maybe I can help you increase your sales as well. I look forward to hearing from my peers.

Time off

To all my followers I will be taking the next three weeks off to enjoy the rest of the summer and to assure I stay fresh with my content. I will return in October.

My first post will be October 2nd.

If anyone has any fitness questions during this time just send them to perfect-you@comcast.net.

All my best,

Eddie Camaroto

I am moving on up

I just wanted to share some great things that my Personal Training company; Perfect You, is currently experiencing.

1) Perfect You continues to provide world-class fitness lectures at the East Brunswick library. My last lecture brought in 51 participants. Every lecture I give is being well received and the numbers are growing.
2) The Sayreville library, upon hearing about the successful fitness lectures I was giving and the turn-out, have asked me to design their health and fitness lecture series for the year. I have accepted their offer and my first lecture will be on October 14th. I will be giving talks every Wednesday from 6:30pm to 7:30pm.
3) I have been asked to promote my lectures and personal training business on our local TV (TV3). I am super stoked about this one.
4) And finally a local paper (50,000 readership) has sought me out to have them write an article about me and my business - Perfect You.

I now have 40+ Personal Training clients and am starting to experience big growing pains as I am trying to manage and do it all.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CEO
Perfect You LLC

Your dog and you - a way to exercise together

How to elicit your pet into your exercise program

If you have a dog you have an eager and ready at a moments notice partner for your exercise goals. Below I will outline a few ways to utilize your dog into your exercise routines. You both will benefit from your partnership.

1) First, just walk your dog. Strive for a 3 – 5 mile trek (daily if your schedule permits). I suggest taking your dog to parks for the walks since it will be a more pleasant experience for both of you.
2) Take your dog to pet friendly beach or other secluded beach and run on the sand and from time to time run through the water as well. Your dog will go bananas for this one.
3) Play catch with your dog put after you throw that Frisbee or ball run after it as well. Challenge yourself to keep up with your dog.
4) If you have a bigger dog play some tug of war with a large towel and get some incredible core and legwork. But please let the dog pull the towel and do not pull towards you otherwise you may hurt your dogs teeth.

As you hydrate yourself during your exercises please make sure to bring plenty of water for your faithful companion as well and maybe even a few small treats. And if you dog starts panting heavily or looks tired let them rest. Dogs cannot sweat and their only method of cooling themselves off is through panting and in humid air this is very hard for them.

Though these are all simple ideas and you probably have heard of some of the before, don’t forget that a lot of things qualify as exercise and go a long way to improve your health as well as your pets.

As always - I am available for personal training either in person (if in NJ) or over the web. If you feel you have stalled in your pursuit of fitness and need some expert knowledge to get you on track reach out to me.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CPT
Perfect You LLC

Exercise anywhere

How to utilize your environment to exercise

There are many ways to utilize an environment to exercise in if you are creative. Below I outline a few to get you started.

1) Stairs – walk them, run them, do incline or decline pushups off of them, split lunges, do calf raises off of them, put your feet on them as you lie down and do crunches, jump on the first step and then off again for some muscle and cardio work, do mountain climbing off of them to name just a few.
2) Strong small diameter branches – do pull-ups off of them, hang from them and raise your knees to your chest for a great abdominal workout.
3) Chairs – do some dips off of them, chair squats for the legs, do some incline or decline pushups off of them, and if you’re strong enough do some hammer type curls with them.

Never feel exercise is limited to weights and machines. If you look around a little you will see that exercise opportunities welcome you from all directions.

As always - I am available for personal training either in person (if in NJ) or over the web. If you feel you have stalled in your pursuit of fitness and need some expert knowledge to get you on track reach out to me.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CPT
Perfect You LLC

How to make simple exercise equipment

Ways to create exercise equipment from everyday items

With the ever-growing economy meltdown and societies growing waistline exercise is becoming hard from all fronts.

Today I wanted to show some creative ways to create gym equipment from everyday items. Saves your budget and gets you exercising. No excuses.

Chest/arms/triceps/shoulders/core – basic pushups (no equipment needed).

Core – simple ab crunches (no equipment needed). Or hold a jug close to the chest and do some crunches.

Fill two empty milk containers (plastic gallon size) with sand and you will have each milk jug weighing 12.5 pounds each. Of course you can adjust the weight of the jugs by filling them up to your level of fitness.
1) Do some shoulder presses with the jugs for shoulder work.
2) Do some bench presses with them for a chest, arm, and shoulder workout.
3) Raise them in front of you (shoulder height) for shoulder raises or to your sides for lateral raises for a challenging shoulder workout.
4) Hold one jug in each hand and do squats or calf raises for legwork.
5) Hold one jug on one side of your body and do side bends for terrific Oblique work.
6) Hold one jug in one hand and do one-arm rows for Lat and back work.
7) Hold a jug in each hand and do some hammer curls for your bicep.
8) Hold a jug in each hand and do simulated punches for total shoulder work (make sure your shoulders can handle this and that you do not have any conditions that might be harmed by the motion).
9) Hold a jug in each hand and do shrugs for traps work.
10) Tie a small bit of rope around a jug and take a wood dowel (about 1 foot long), drill a hole thru it and tie the rope to it and you have a great device to increase your forearm and wrist strength. Hold the roller in front of you and move your wrists to roll it up to your shoulders then back and then repeat. The burn you will feel will be incredible. I have one of these at home that I made as well.

Wow, look at that you CAN get a total body workout by just using common household items. Of course there are many more I could of stated but I hope you get the picture.

Now there is no more reason to not exercise (at least from a monetary standpoint).

By the way if you fill the jugs with water instead of sand they will weigh roughly 8.5 pounds instead of 12.5 pounds.

As always - I am available for personal training either in person (if in NJ) or over the web. If you feel you have stalled in your pursuit of fitness and need some expert knowledge to get you on track reach out to me.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CPT
Perfect You LLC

Fitness theme for the month of August

Creative ways to exercise
Week 1: Ways to create exercise equipment from everyday items.
Week 2: How to utilize your environment to exercise.
Week 3: How to elicit your pet into your exercise program.
Week 4: How to elicit your kids into your exercise program.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CPT
Perfect You LLC

Diet plans

Current diet plans

This week I wanted to touch a little upon some current diet plans. By no means could I touch upon all of them since there are literally hundreds.

As a Personal Trainer it is my duty to coach my clients in proper nutrition. After all I can train them to success but if they go home and eat three pizzas a night they will never see true results.

I do need to state to you all that while I am very knowledgeable about nutrition I am NOT a certified nutritionist or dietician. We all need to protect our liability. Please take any of my advice and confer with your doctor or nutritional expert.

Weight Watchers:
All and all the best diet plan I have seen and the one that all of my clients have seen success with. It is also the one I see the longest weight loss with.
Pros:
1) Actually teach their members how to eat and match foods.
2) Great meeting support system.
3) Great website loaded with great recipes and support channels to help your success.
4) Allows one to eat normally (within a point range) thus boosting acceptance to new eating patterns.

Cons:
1) Their packaged food is very high in sodium and even Weight Watchers admits this and states to use their food in moderation.

South Beach:
Many have had success with this program but not as much success long term like the Weight Watcher approach.
Pros:
1) Attempts to teach its members about food sources and nutrition.
2) Great website with many tools to help you succeed.

Cons:
1) Expects its members to eat from their packaged food (most times). In my opinion the food is way too high in sodium and once one stops eating the pre-packaged food they are left with the possibility of eating wrong again and misjudging portions.
2) Food from them is expensive over the long haul. Take that money and use it for a gym membership and you will see more permanent weight loss.
3) A high percentage of clients regain their weight after 2 years. Some even more then when they started.

Atkins:
Based on a low-carb diet and this diet scares me very much. It forces you to eat more protein sources then most older people can handle due to liver and kidney issues. I DO NOT recommend this diet for anyone. Your body needs carbs. In fact the recommendation is 150 grams of carbs a day and optimally up to 350 grams a day. Your muscles use carbs as their primary energy source (glucose break-down) and this diet limits your energy for muscle growth.
Pros:
1) People do lose weight on this diet – especially in the first 1-2 months but then it slows and success rates start to falter.
2) It is rather easy to follow and makes eating more pleasurable. In this diet meats are good.

Cons:
1) Very risky for a big slice of the population. Could cause health issues.
2) Does a poor job at teaching “correct” eating habits.
3) In my opinion is based on pseudo-science. Yes, you will lose weight limiting carbs but the potential health risks far out weigh the diets pluses.


Lets do Lunch:
This is a new diet one of clients has started and it really has some appeal to it. Though I have not researched it enough to give an opinion on it yet. I do like what I have seen and read about it. Plus my client is loosing a phenomenal amount of weight with it in a very healthy way. I will report on it later when I feel more comfortable with its success.

Grapefruit, Pineapple, Cabbage soup, Mickey Mouse surprise:
Please if you are doing any of these crazy un-sound diets please stop. Yes you will loose weight in the first two weeks or so because of their nature but these diets are silly and over time you will only do you body harm.
P.S. No there is no Mickey Mouse surprise diet but I thought I would throw it in because the other diets are just as silly.

I am sure I will see rebuttal about how some of these diets did work for some of you. But whenever I hear that I always ask about the exercise routine, the healthier habits they started while dieting, etc. In must all cases it is these other changes that truly made the difference.

The point is if you just watch what you eat, eat a variety of foods, and keep a food log all of you (except in rare cases) will see weight loss.

The reason you always hear this same message for all of these years is because it WORKS.

As always - I am available for personal training either in person (if in NJ) or over the web. If you feel you have stalled in your pursuit of fitness and need some expert knowledge to get you on track reach out to me.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CPT

Perfect You LLC

Weight loss 101

Food Diaries

Hello, one of the most successful things you can do for yourself in your quest to loose weight is to keep a food diary. Though, I have written about this in the past I am compelled to keep pushing it on you all again and again. It really makes all the difference in keeping weight off and learning to eat right.

With the advent of the Internet and sites that track your food it has become even easier to accomplish this. A few posts ago I outlined three sites that provide excellent food tracking logs.

One real world example I can give you is that I have a client that is training with me currently. They give 110% during our two 1-hour sessions a week but every now and then they would put on 3-4 pounds overnight. Well it wasn’t until they accepted my advice and started logging their food that we discovered the culprit. In their case I discovered – after careful examination – that on the days they gained weight they were taking in over 4,000mg of sodium and over 50 grams of saturated fat. They “thought” they were eating healthy and for the most part they were. But we all underestimate the impact of what is contained in our foods. That is why a diary becomes so magical when loosing weight. It allows us to see everything in detail and make conclusions.

I challenge you to keep a food diary for just week through the sites I recommended. I will even sweeten the pot and offer you the benefit of sharing that log and letting me review it for you so I can point or uncover eating trends. I usual charge $50 dollars for this service but I am willing to forgo that to help you out.

By the way my client no longer sees any weight gain and continues to keep a diary daily. In their case I discovered that sodium was making them retain water. Some of the population is susceptible to that and they were one of them. They have learned what a powerful tool a log is to their success.

As a Personal Trainer I give people back their lives, I mend them and make them stronger and healthier. My clients call me a magician because of the results they see when they work with me. But really it is always my clients that have the magical art – I just show then how to conjure up a healthy potion and spell to succeed.

As always - I am available for personal training either in person (if in NJ) or over the web. If you feel you have stalled in your pursuit of fitness and need some expert knowledge to get you on track reach out to me.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CPT

Perfect You LLC

Fitness lecture at the East Brunswick library

To anyone interested I will be giving a fitness lecture at the East Brunswick Library on how to write an effective workout program. I will be sitting with each participant (depending on turnout) one-on-one to design a fitness program that will allow them to progress their goals.



Send me an email to perfect-you@comcast.net if you are interested.



The lecture is free and will be on August 5th from 7:00pm to 8:00pm. You do NOT have to be a resident of East Brunswick to attend.

No post this week - sorry

To all my readers of my BLOG I apologize but I have been ridden with a kick-butt illness. And I have been pretty much down.

I will return next week with a new post.

Regards,

Eddie