Let’s Talk About Keys to weight loss

BY ANDY FEIGUM, FITNESS DIR. AT ANYTIME FITNESS

Cardiovascular exercise, resistance training, and keeping track of total daily calories and macronutrients (protein, carbs and fat) are the three biggest components of weight loss. Ideally you should be doing all three, but if I had to rank these in order of importance it would look like the following.

Track Your Macros/Daily Calorie Intake: In the simplest terms, weight loss happens when you use more calories than you consume. Macros help you understand where those calories are coming from and how they affect your body. You don’t necessarily need to exercise to lose weight (your quality of life will improve greatly if you combine diet and exercise but it’s not an absolute for weight loss) but you do need to determine what a safe and manageable calorie deficit is for your goal. Knowing your macros will help ensure a balanced diet while maintaining a calorie deficit.

Resistance Training: (Weight Lifting) is critical when it comes to weight loss and maintaining a high quality of life. I understand that not everyone loves the weight room, but the return on investment - denser bones, stronger ligaments and tendons, better posture, enhanced sense of independence and more muscle to burn calories throughout the day, cannot be overstated.

Cardiovascular Exercise: Cardiovascular training, also known as aerobic exercise, simply means you’re doing an activity “with oxygen”. Walking, hiking, cycling or using gym equipment such as a treadmill, elliptical, or a rower can all count as cardio exercise as long as you are performing the exercise in such a way that your heart rate is elevated to roughly 50-60% of your maximum heart rate. Research has shown that around 200 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week is required in order to see noticeable changes.

If weight loss is your goal, the best place to start is tracking calories and find a safe caloric deficit that still meets your daily macros, because even if you don’t count your daily macros, your body does. Resistance training will help you build and maintain muscle. And if you don’t want to feel winded walking up a flight of stairs, add moderate intensity cardio to your routine. Good health will cost you time, energy, and the occasional sacrifice, however, the cost will be even greater if you don’t make the effort now.

We are David and Darcy Weekley and we love Moon Valley and being a part of this neighborhood. We have purchased the preschool/daycare Anderson Preparatory Academy. We have been remodeling the building and developing the educational programs over the last year.

We have a passion for this industry and understand the importance of feeling secure in where your kids spend their days. We have implemented a new curriculum for each class that meets the standards of qualityfirstaz.com, We offer a weekly Karate class that is included in tuition, we have a weekly dance class available and are developing a daily PE class for all our students; we keep our students busy and the time flies we have many other ideas to make our school, like the community, one of the best places in the valley. We renamed our school Moon Valley Prep to reflect the community we serve. Dedicated to Safety, Fun and Learning.

We have lived and raised our own children in Moon Valley since 1999. We have participated locally in cub scouts, boy scouts, girl scouts, little league baseball/softball, USA swim league, National Charity League(NCL) and Boys Team Charity(BTC). Our children went to Lookout Mountain Elementary, Mountain Sky Junior High and graduated from Thunderbird High School.

This community has given our family so much we feel a tremendous amount of gratitude to be able give back and make this neighborhood a little better by offering the quality services we were able to take advantage of for our family 20+ years ago. We could not have chosen a better place to raise our children, and preschool is one of the first steps of that.

This neighborhood has so much to offer that many are unaware of everything available for families locally. We hope to give back to this wonderful community that supported our children by providing outstanding childcare. We love to get to know the new parents of this neighborhood and continue to make this the best place to grow up.