Welcome to MyFitnessTrainer.com. I know you’re going to love it! My Fitness Trainer was designed to be your “virtual” personal trainer for online weight loss. That means you get almost all of the benefits of live personal training without the crowded gym and high cost. Your fitness program can be completed in the privacy of your home with minimal equipment. This site has another major advantage: it will teach you about quality foods and getting enough fiber. Also, it will adjust your calorie goals every week to your body’s personal and changing needs, to avoid plateaus. This will help you accomplish what you’ve never done before, and take your fitness to new levels. Please refer to this page often, because it will help orientate you to the site.
Now is the perfect time to take a “before picture.” Take a picture of you from the front and from the side so that you have something to compare to when you reach your goals. I recommend taking the picture in a swimsuit. (Don’t worry- you don’t have to look at it until you have a great “after” picture to compare it with.)
Fiber = Quality Foods
One of the cutting edge secrets you’ll learn about is the value of fiber. I still remember when I first discovered this secret. I had several clients who were having trouble sticking to their calorie goals. I kept telling them that the problem was with their food quality, but I couldn’t list every good food because there were so many. Then I realized that the high-quality foods (with a few exceptions) had one thing in common: high fiber content! Just by watching the fiber content of their foods, my clients started to feel full, and their body fat dropped even faster than before. They were able to maintain their muscle mass while losing more fat.
Generally, the same foods that have high fiber are also high in vitamins, minerals, and other important nutrients. These nutrients make you healthier, which in turn creates a better “fat-burning machine.” The better your fat-burning machine, the more you get to eat, and the more fat you lose.
Fiber has another great quality- it satiates. Fiber has no calories, but it fills your stomach! (Isn’t that everyone’s dream come true?) If you eat a piece of white bread (80 calories) it’ll feel like you barely began eating. If you eat a whole-wheat tortilla for only 50 calories, you’ll really feel like you ate something.
There are a lot of other great things that fiber does, but I’ll share those with you as you go through the program. For now, all you need to know is that the site will help you find those high-fiber, high-quality foods and use them to boost your fat loss!
Smart Calories
Have you ever picked up the latest weight-loss book and been frustrated because the same calorie goal was recommended for everyone? That has always baffled me- how do they expect 1,200 calories to be the universal magic number? On the contrary, every person is unique, and has unique calorie goals. In fact, your calorie needs can change from week to week. For example, if you gain a pound of muscle, you could burn from 50-100 extra calories per day! If you follow a diet that restricts your calories more than necessary you can lose muscle and actually reduce your metabolism. (The more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism, and the more you get to eat.)
If you’ve ever tried to lose weight before, you probably know what a plateau is. Plateaus, or temporary stalls in your weight loss, happen because some change is needed. Your body is a very well designed, smart machine. It knows how to adjust to whatever challenges are placed on it. Unfortunately, it is designed for survival, not weight loss. So, if you exercise and restrict your calories every day, it will figure out some way to “survive” and conserve its “food storage.” In other words, your body will learn how to quit burning fat. This is where personal trainers come in handy. People who work with personal trainers get better fat-loss results because the trainers adapt the clients’ calorie and exercise goals to bust through plateaus. MyFitnessTrainer.com is your “personal trainer.” It will adapt your calorie goals every week to help you break through plateaus.
Entering Daily Foods
It is important to try to stick to the calories goals recommended to you. If you feel hungry, be sure that you’re eating enough fiber and drinking enough water. Most importantly, you must keep an accurate food diary. There is a spot on the site for you to do this. You can enter foods as you eat them and then save them for future entries, too. That way if there are foods you eat often, you won’t have to enter the fiber and calorie counts for them every time. There is a link in the FAQ’s on the Daily Foods page to a calorie-counting site to find the information for foods that don’t have nutrition labels.
To enter your daily foods, just type them in the list. Type the food, the amount that you ate, and the calorie and fiber totals for that food. Hit the save button if you’re likely to eat this food again in the future. Hit the “submit” or “continue your personal training session” button. It’s as simple as that. For tips on reading nutritional information on foods, or for calorie and fiber information, see the FAQ (frequently asked questions) drop-down list near the top of the Daily Foods page.
If you are not able to get to a computer during the day, you can also keep your food journal (or calorie and fiber tallies) on paper. Just click the box that says “click here to manually adjust calorie totals” and then you can enter the total calories and fiber for the day.
Sometimes it will be necessary to make an educated guess on the calories you’ve eaten. Use the calorie counting website, online restaurant nutrition information (like that found at www.dottisweightlosszone.com,) and any other resources you can find. If ever you have no idea as to the calories you ate anytime last week, or if you’re sure they were recorded wrong, be sure to click the box that says “check this box if last week’s calorie counts were inaccurate.” This will make sure that the site doesn’t give you incorrect calorie goals.
Resources To Help You:
There are many resources to educate and support you on your fat-loss and fitness journey. On the right side of your screen, you’ll find the Fitness Library, the Learn More section, and the Q and A (questions and answers.) These are all filled with useful information that will help you maximize your results.
On the very bottom of most pages is a “tip.” You will often have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see it. This tip should help you understand each page of the site. On the Daily Exercise page, there will be a different tip each day. This will help you learn step-by-step. If you’d rather just learn everything at once, just read everything you see on the site. Before long you’ll be an expert!
On some of the pages, there is a special FAQ (frequently asked questions) list that relates directly to the page. You can use this list to look for answers to questions you have about the page you’re on. Some of these answers include links to other websites that are valuable tools for your fat loss. When you’re done looking at them, just close the box to return to the page you were on.
Measurements
If you signed up for a 12 month package you will receive a free set of calipers. They will be sent out within a week. If you signed up for any other membership, you will need to purchase your own calipers. The brand that you’ll need for this site is Accu-Measure. They usually retail for $20-30, but we found a great price on them here.
MyFitnessTrainer.com will call for measurements once a week. Your program will still work if you decide to measure less often, but we recommend measuring at least once a month. That way your calorie goals can be adapted to your body’s changing needs. (The site will use your measurements to determine your calorie needs.) The site will not allow you to enter measurements more often than once a week, and we recommend staying away from the scale except for measurement day.
If you have any question about how to do one of the measurements that the site calls for, just click on the measurement in doubt. For example, if you’re unsure of how to take the caliper measurement, click on the word “caliper.” Instructions will pop up.
Food Lists
If you’ve tried dieting before, you’re probably looking for the list of foods that you can or cannot eat. This program isn’t like that. There are hundreds and hundreds of foods that you can eat while sticking to this program. You can even have the occasional “treat.” The trick is sticking to your calorie and fiber goals at the same time. Your fiber goal will increase with time, so you’ll need to learn to choose high quality foods so you can reach that goal without going over on your calories.
Foods that come from animals have no fiber, but are allowed on this meal plan. The best of these foods are skim milk, lowfat cottage cheese, lowfat white cheeses, eggs, poultry, and seafood. Lean beef is also good, in smaller amounts. Fish is very filling and usually lower calorie. So is shrimp, a personal favorite.
Although there is no all-inclusive list of foods that you can eat, I have put together a list to help get your mind going. The trick is to always be on the lookout for new high-fiber foods and new recipes. The list is in the Free Fitness Library (on the right side of your screen.) Click here for the healthy foods list.
Feel free to email me if you find any great high-fiber foods that aren’t on the list.
Also, as a member of the site, you now have access to the recipes. These are listed in the member menu under Miscellaneous, and then Healthy Recipes. These are some of my favorite high-quality food recipes. You’ll find that if you cook your own food you’ll get a lot more food for your calories than in restaurants. That doesn’t mean you can’t eat out, but I think you may start to like to eat at home a lot, too. These recipes are generally very quick to fix, and they include meals, desserts, appetizers, and everything you need. If you have a great recipe to share, please send it to me. Also, you can find many recipes shared by our members in the Free Fitness Forum, here.
Fitness Forum
My Fitness Trainer is the cutting edge of weight-loss technology. It is a completely interactive online weight loss tool. One of the great resources you can enjoy is the online fitness forum.
The Fitness Forum is a wonderful tool. It gives you the opportunity to share success stories, tips, and questions with others who are on the same path as you are. This tool is available to non-members as well. Click here to visit the online fitness forum.
Equipment You’ll Need
This site is designed to allow you to exercise in the privacy of your own home, with minimal equipment. (You can also use this site with a gym membership, if you want. Just go to the Exercise Library in the member menu, and find gym exercises to substitute for the home exercises.)
For the first week, you won’t need any equipment. This gives you time to get what you’ll need. Here's what you'll need: an exercise band, a workout ball, and a scale. I’d also recommend getting a food scale. All of these can be found at most department stores as well as online. (My favorites are available here for your convenience.) If you are used to working out, a “heavy” band would be best. If this is all new to you, try a “medium” band. The “medium” sized ball tends to fit most people, but get the large if you’re very tall.
Sharing the Site
Do you know someone who could benefit from having the latest technology in fat loss and fitness? As you achieve your goals and look great, you will get asked “what are you doing?” When you tell them about your healthy eating and moderate exercise, they’ll ask where you learned what you know. You can tell them “My Fitness Trainer taught it to me.” Then send them here! At the very top of your screen is an option to “Refer a Friend.” Check for special referral bonuses, which we’ll offer from time to time.
Or, get a MyFitnessTrainer.com t-shirt to tell the world how you did it. Click here.
Contact Information
Our success depends upon your success, and we are here to assure your online weight loss victory. You can contact a certified personal trainer by clicking on the "Contact" link at the top of the screen, or by clicking here. Also, whenever the "Live Chat Now" button at the top right of your screen is green, you can click there to chat live with a certified personal trainer. Use this feature to further personalize your online weight loss results!
You can do this!
Once again, welcome to MyFitnessTrainer.com.
