Archive for the ‘Nutrition’ Category
Thursday, January 6th, 2011
The average American eats out of their home at restaurants 40% of the time. Then out of all these meals eaten away from the home people eat at ‘fast-food restaurants’ 4 out of 10 times. Let’s face it Americans love fast-food and that’s why there never seems to be enough fast-food franchise concepts or fast-food chains. The first thing we’ll explore are the major reasons Americans love fast-food so much. Below I have listed the major reasons why Americans are so addicted to fast-food.
1. The cost - Fast-Food can be a fairly cheap way to feed ourselves and our families when we are eating out.
2. Our children love fast-food - The fast-food industry and franchise model has been very masterful in connecting with our children. They provide small toys with inexpensive meals that our children really clamor for. McDonald’s franchise was the first to really be able to connect with small children and by all accounts are still leading the way in getting to adults’ wallets by going through their kids.
3. Fast-food is just darn right fast as well. The American lifestyle has always kept us on the move in every sense of the word. We are a busy people with a lot going on and sometimes we just don’t have the time to sit down and eat a well prepared meal. That’s why the drive-thru has been so successful in the United States. Fast-food franchises and chains literally provide us with the opportunity to pick up a hot meal in mere minutes and we don’t even have to get out of our cars.
4. Consistency - Fast-food franchises provides an opportunity for people to enjoy consistency in the flavor of the food all over the country. In fact, in some cases you can enjoy the same flavors all over the world. Fast-food is the ultimate comfort food for Americans and it is quickly becoming that for all of the world.
5. The taste - Fast-food franchises provide inexpensive food, consistency and toys for our children as if they were Santa on Christmas morning and they can do it in a timely fashion. The food tastes great to many people.
So the question is now what’s the issue with fast-food and the alarming growth of the fast-food franchise empires. The food has taste, consistency and its priced right. At a fitness franchise like Illuminate Gym Franchise Development the issue is simple . The nutritious value of fast-food just isn’t there. The food is usually packed full of hormones, sodium, saturated fats and processed sugars. For individuals that find themselves eating 40% of their meals at fast-food franchises/restaurants (and believe me they are out there) there could be a very high cost to pay for such inexpensive foods.
Earlier this year I met a man who was a New York stock broker who had literally lived off of fast-food, coffee and sodas during his 20’s. By age 33 the combination of stress from being a commodities trader on Wall Street and his poor diet had landed him the hospital with his first heart attack. He was a busy young man trying to earn a living in New York and he didn’t have the time to make a nutritious meal for himself. Instead he spent a decade packing his body full of fat and cholesterol to the point where he almost lost his opportunity to enjoy the fruits of his labor. He almost lost his life.
The point is here at Illuminate Gym Franchise Development we are constantly trying to get people to change their lives and their physique for the better, but first its important that we break peoples’ addictions to fast-food franchises to help them not only lose weight, but also to help clear their liver, heart and kidneys of harmful fats and cholesterols. As a fitness franchise and a personal training franchise owner its really hard to watch as more and more fast food franchises make their way into every single community. If you can stay away from fast-food franchises for your benefit today and for the benefit of your future and if you find yourself inside of a fast-food franchise look to see if they offer an raw foods such as, salads.
Thanks so much for reading the blog here at ‘Franchise with Illuminate Gym’. We are a fitness franchise that takes a very active role in our customers’ day-to-day nutrition choices, because at the core of being fit and lean you have to have a good diet. Unfortunately, for all of those fast-food lovers out there take it from a personal trainer, a gym owner and a fitness franchise CEO there isn’t much on that menu in the drive-thru that’s going to help you live a healthier lifestyle. Thanks again and if you or someone you know is interested in fitness franchises, gym franchises, or personal training franchises then please contact us here at Illuminate Gym Franchise Development. Have a healthy day and stay out of those fast-food franchises!
Tags: addiction to fast-food, diet, diets, fast food, fast-food diet, fast-food franchise, fitness franchise, fitness franchises, franchise, gym franchise, gym franchises, health, healthier, heart attack, lose weight, Nutrition, nutritious value of fast-food, personal training franchise, personal training franchises
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Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
As a fitness franchise we know that the majority of our customers are looking to lose a little weight and to improve their fitness level. At Illuminate Gym our personal trainers work very hard with our clients to ensure they are on the path to lose weight. However, we all know the most important part of losing weight is our personal training clients’ diets. Today I want to take a close look at a major misconception with many of our clients. Today we are taking on the fruit smoothie misconception.
Many people believe at Illuminate Gym that keeping a “liquid diet” is obviously cutting your calories. Now many of our clients are well aware of the calories inside of alcohol and other drinks such as, Starbucks frappucinos. But what about those smoothies at those ’so-called’ health conscious fruit smoothie bars? Our advice here at Illuminate Gym is to look again at that so-called healthy snack/meal. Today we are going to take a look at an extreme case of a high calorie smoothie at the ‘Smoothie King’. The smoothie is supposed to be nutritious snack that is filled with fruit, antioxidants, and vitamins. The smoothie is called ‘The Hulk Strawberry Smoothie’. I mean how unhealthy could a fruit smoothie be? It’s just fruit and yogurt right? Wrong! This so-called healthy snack is packed full of sugar and fat. The small ‘Hulk Strawberry Smoothie’ has an excess of 1,044 calories, and yes I said small. It also has 35 grams of fat and a WHOPPING 120 grams of sugar. Those numbers may not seem that substantial, but think of it this way: You could eat 2 Big Macs from McDonald’s and you still wouldn’t match the calories found in the ‘Hulk Strawberry Smoothie’. You could also drink 3 1/2 cans of coca-cola and you still wouldn’t match the grams of sugar in the smoothie.
So next time you make your way into a smoothie shop make sure you look at getting one of their ‘low-calorie’ smoothies because you could be better off heading into a McDonald’s for that snack. At Illuminate Gym we always find that its these types of misconceptions that keep people from being successful in losing weight or keeping the weight off. Thanks so much for reading the blog here at www.illuminategym.com and please keep up with us at www.gymfranchises.net as well. Thanks again.
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Tags: antioxidants, calories, diet, fitness franchise, fitness franchises, fruit smoothie, gym franchise, healthy snack, liquid diet, Nutrition, personal trainers, personal training, personal training franchise, smoothie, weight, www.gymfranchises.net, www.illuminategym.com
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Thursday, December 30th, 2010
Friday is New Year’s Eve and a lot of adult Americans will make their way out to bars, clubs and friends’ houses to ring in the New Year. Most of these people will throw caution to the wind and forget about their personal trainers, the gym, their Yoga classes and they will drink 2010 away to nothing. At Illuminate Gym Franchise Development and at all our Illuminate Gym Franchise Locations we are well aware of this and we are a giving our customers something to think about before they get out there and start drinking more than they usually do throughout the year. As a fitness franchise and especially a personal training franchise we think it’s our duty to educate people about the way over-drinking could impact their health and fitness. Below is a calorie counter for 1 single drink in each category meaning that if you are going out on New Year’s Eve you will have to multiply the total calorie number by how many drinks you actually consume.
- 1 standard bottle or can of beer (not strong beer) =150 calories
- 1 ounce of liquor (without mixer, which can add a lot of calories) += 70 calories
- 1 ounce of after dinner liqueurs = 188 calories
- 1 glass of red wine (125 ml) = 80 calories
- 1 glass of dry white wine (125 mls) = 75 calories
- 1 martini = 140 calories
- 1 wine cooler = 150 calories
- 1 small margarita =168 calories
- 1 Glass of Champagne = 75 Calories
It’s pretty shocking to see the calorie breakdown of all these alcohol drinks people will be having over the weekend. This may not mean a lot to a lot of you, but as a certified personal trainer, fitness professional and the owner of a fitness franchise model I can tell you that alcohol is a major source of calories for a lot of people. I think a better way to look at the calorie table above is to think about it in this way….a McDonald’s cheeseburger has 300 calories so how many of these alcohol drinks would you have to drink to equal a cheeseburger from McDonald’s (which most of you will probably consume on January 1st to counteract that hangover).
2 Beers = 1 McDonald’s Cheeseburger (300 calories)
5 Small shots of liquor (350 Calories) > 1 McDonald’s Cheeseburger (300 calories)
2 After Dinner liquers (376 Calories) > 1 McDonald’s Cheeseburger (300 calories)
4.25 Glasses of red wine = 1 McDonald’s Cheeseburger (300 calories)
5 Glasses of Dry white wine (375 Calories) > 1 McDonald’s Cheeseburger (300 Calories)
3 Martinis (420 Calories) > 1 McDonald’s Cheeseburger (300 Calories)
2 Wine Coolers = 1 McDonald’s Cheeseburger (300 Calories)
2 Margaritas (336 Calories) > 1 McDonald’s Cheeseburger (300 Calories)
4 Glasses of Champagne = 1 McDonald’s Cheeseburger
Hopefully this comparison to the McDonald’s Cheeseburger gives you an idea of how many calories people will consuming through just alcohol this New Year’s Eve. Here at Illuminate Gym Franchise Development we just ask that you don’t forget about the gym, your personal trainer or how hard you have worked out in 2010. And if you haven’t found a gym, a yoga studio or a personal trainer then make sure you do in 2011. Also if you are going out this New Year’s Eve and you know you are going to drink make sure you make the right decisions about alcohol for instance, stay away from margaritas and beer if at all possible because there are just so many calories in both of those. Either way have a safe and Happy New Year from all of us here at Illuminate Gym Franchise Development and we will look forward to seeing you at one of our fitness franchise locations in 2011. Thanks so much for reading.
Tags: alcohol, calorie, calories, cheeseburger, fitness franchise, fitness franchises, gym, gym franchise, gym franchises, hamburger, illuminate gym, Illuminate Gym Franchise Development, McDonald's, Nutrition, personal training franchise, personal training franchises, worked out, yoga
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Wednesday, December 29th, 2010
That’s right all those fitness experts and fitness professionals your gym franchises, mega gyms and small ‘mom and pop’ gyms are about to fill up with all those New Year’s Resolutions. Of course by March of this year all of those New Year’s Resolutions will probably find their ways back to the couch and back to that bag of potato chips. It seems that the combination of the all the holiday over-eating and the New Year brings people to the realization that it’s time to get back to the gym or to check out that new fitness franchise down the road. Then as the New Year’s Resolutions we make start to fade away out of our minds we go back to our regular habits of not going to the gym and eating too much. This is why the obesity levels of the the United States continues to swell to well over 60%. That’s why here at Illuminate Gym Franchise Development we have come up with a new idea for all of our fitness franchises this year.
This New Year we are not looking for New Year’s Resolutions… We are looking for New Year’s Results. That means we are asking all of our Illuminate Gym Franchise owners, personal trainers and other fitness professionals to start telling their new customers that making a hollow New Year’s Resolution isn’t enough this year. Our customers need to make a commitment to change their lifestyles by working out at Illuminate Gym and changing the nutrition habits that pushed them into making the New Year’s Resolution to get fit this year. So what do you think? Isn’t it time for you to start making New Year’s Results this year rather than that promise to yourself that you know you probably won’t keep. You need to make a commitment to your fitness and Illuminate Gym franchise locations and personal trainers can help you get there. Check out www.illuminategym.com or www.gymfranchises.net to see where our Illuminate Gym franchises are located. Thanks for reading have a healthy and happy New Year!
Tags: fitness franchises, gym, gym franchise, gym franchises, Happy New Year, illuminate, illuminate gym, New Year's at the gym, New Year's Craze, New Year's gym goers, new year's resolution, New Year's Resolutions, Nutrition, obesity, personal trainers, personal training, work out, workout, www.gymfranchises.net, www.illuminategym.com
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Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
‘Tis the season for holiday eating and we are knee deep into it, but there is another culprit that has people not working out as hard as they can this Holiday Season. No matter what your religion or what you celebrate there is always a certain buzz around this time of year that seems to push people to plop their credit cards down on shop counters to buy things they wouldn’t during the rest of the year. This time of year also makes us all over indulge in rich foods that we don’t see anytime except this time of year. Not to mention the sheer amount of food we eat during this time of year pushes the United States’ adult population to gain an average of 3-4 pounds during this time period. At Illuminate Gym Franchise locations we also are well aware that people also start to get a bit more sedentary during the holidays, and even some of our hardest working clients start to slack a bit during the holiday season which doesn’t help with that weight gaining statistic for American adults.
It’s our personal trainers and fitness instructors’ jobs at our fitness franchise locations to help our customers stay focused on their fitness goals. The word we like to use at Illuminate Gym is ‘accountability’. You need to have accountability to yourself and to the quality of life you want to live in the future. Thanks so much for reading and please check out www.gymfranchises.net to read more about Illuminate Gym’s franchise development. Have a healthy day!
Tags: fitness franchise, fitness franchises, group exercis instructors, group exercise, gym franchise, gym franchises, holidays, personal trainers, weight gain
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Saturday, November 27th, 2010
Illuminate Gym franchise owners and personal trainers look to help customers through the next month and a half as food and alcohol will be all around us all. Our goal for many of our clients at all Illuminate Gym Franchise locations is to make sure our clients maintain all of their accomplishments that they have obtained through personal training at our franchise locations.
It was commonly thought during the years that the average American puts on about 7 pounds of fat during the holiday season. However, now most experts believe the number is more likely to be closer to 3-4 pounds of fat. That being said the average American will also not lose any of this new-found holiday weight by next holiday season which gives the average adult American an average weight gain of at least 3-4 pounds of fat per year. And we wonder why numbers are rising every single year in the United States. This holiday season nobody expects you to be perfect in your eating or even work out schedule. However, at Illuminate Gym we are asking that our clients stay the course on their personal training schedules while watching the amount of foods they eat during the holiday season because the temptation to fall off the wagon will be everywhere during the holiday season.
If you are looking to get into better shape check out our locations page to find an Illuminate Gym franchise unit near you or if you are someone looking to get into the fitness franchise world then please check out some information about our exciting fitness franchise opportunity at www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php or at www.gymfranchises.net. Thanks so much for checking us out and have a healthy day!
Tags: fitness franchise, fitness franchises, franchise, franchise opportunity, franchises, gym, gym franchise, gym franchises, illuminate gym, personal trainers, personal training, personal training franchise
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Thursday, November 11th, 2010
If you ever find yourself traveling to Chandler, Arizona you can stop by the Heart Attack Grill and try some of their Flat-liner Fries and their single to quadruple bypass burgers. And by the way there are no diet drinks at the Heart Attack Grill because they’re committed to serving not only saturated fat, but also sugar. Sounds appetizing doesn’t it? The Grill is so honest about there menu’s health risks as they even have a ‘Surgeon Generals Warning’ on their front door that reads, “Go Away! If you come in this place, it will kill you!”
Inside of the retro-restaurant patrons… or patients are asked to put on hospital gowns and medical bracelets while owner, Jon Blasso flips burgers in a his scrubs with a stethoscope and a Lucky Stripe Cigarette hanging from his lip of course (By the way Lucky Stripe Cigarettes are also on the menu at the Heart Attack Grill). Waitresses walk around in short nurses outfits writing prescriptions rather than orders. The good news if your able to eat the quadruple bypass burger and an order of flat-liner fries then your attractive nurse/waitress will wheel you out to your car in a wheel chair. You know you have found a great deal when you can eat all of that saturated fat and sugar and you don’t even have to walk to the parking lot right outside of the Heart Attack Grill.
The other great thing about the Heart Attack Grill is if you weigh over 350 LBS you eat for free!!! John Blasso the owner claims on their website that his food is absolutely worth dying for. The other interesting thing about John Blasso was he used to own a chain of Jenny Craig outlets…. That’s right John Basso used to own weight loss clinics in Arizona and now he is the founder of the Heart Attack Grill.
I’m not even sure what to say about this business model, but it seems to be working so their is little to say except, ‘….and we wonder why Americans are so fat?’ Thanks for reading and try to have a healthy day.
Tags: burger, diet, fat, heart attack, sugar
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Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
Many fitness franchises out there are not offering nutritional counseling to their customers??????? I know the question marks make my last statement confusing, but I’m just not sure how you can have a fitness franchise that doesn’t offer nutritional counseling. As I have said in earlier blogs I truly believe that success in the gym is 70% nutrition and 30% working out. Meaning that no matter how hard you work out if you are eating the wrong things you will never truly obtain your fitness goals. That’s why it is so shocking that there are fitness franchises that don’t offer any sort of diet advice to their customers/clients.
At Illuminate Gym we make it a point to offer free diet advice and guidance to all of our clients to ensure they have the best opportunity to obtain their fitness goals. I like to think of it like this…. Our personal training clients spend on average an hour to three hours a week at our facilities meaning that there are roughly 160 other hours in the week for our clients to undo everything they have done in the gym with their personal trainers. What this means is we need do do some counseling to make sure that our personal training clients don’t walk away from our facilities feeling like their investment into Illuminate Gym was a waste. I’m just not sure how other fitness franchises don’t offer the same sort of services to their customers.
Thanks so much for reading the blog at Illuminate Gym and please check us out at http://www.illuminategym.com! Have a healthy day!
Tags: diet, diets, fit, Fitness, fitness franchise, fitness franchises, gym, gym franchises, illuminate gym, Nutrition
Posted in Franchise updates, Nutrition | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
We live in an unhealthy society today where the majority of us sit in front of computer all day and we feed ourselves to excess usually with foods that are filled with saturated fats, sugars and too much salt. The result is unhealthy habits that are leading to our rising obesity statistics and illnesses related to America’s new found lifestyle. Then on top of these horrible habits Americans are getting lazy. Now don’t get me wrong personal training and Illuminate Gym are built on building ‘liability’ into people’s pursuit of fitness. After all, 80% of all people who buy simple gym memberships will not return to the gym within 4 months.
Either way the point is with horrible eating habits and a lack of motivation for fitness it shouldn’t be a suprise that we could see the first generation who will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. That’s a scary statistic to think about isn’t it? The point is that people need to start focusing on what they put in their bodies on a daily basis and also they need to get out of that chair they have grown so accustomed to sitting in and get active! It doesn’t matter what you do, but you have to make time to burn the calories your consuming and make sure you’re not taking in too many calories. It’s a very easy thing to take care of ourselves, yet for some reason we make it very hard for ourselves to take that step to ensure we have a healthy future. Instead we make investments for a healthy financial future, yet we don’t plan for a healthy future???? That doesn’t make any sense at all does it??
It’s time to get out there and start working out for a better future and start looking at the food you are eating and not just tasting it. Have a healthy day and check us out at www.illuminategym.com!
Tags: diet, fat, fit, Fitness, gym, gym membership, health, healthy, Nutrition, personal trainer, personal training, salt, sugars, unhealthy, www.illuminategym.com
Posted in Fitness, Nutrition, personal training | 3 Comments »
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
As personal trainers we always hear women say one key thing, ‘I don’t want to build too much muscle while working out.’ This is a common concern of many clients who are interested in hiring a personal trainer and you can almost see it in their faces as they walk into the gym and they see weight equipment…. All of sudden their eyes open and they start to have visions of them walking on a stage in a string bikini looking like a professional bodybuilder. ‘I don’t want to build too much muscle… I don’t want to look like a man… I don’t want my arms to get bigger…’ starts racing through these women’s minds.
If you are a person who is thinking about hiring a personal trainer don’t be concerned about building muscle. Many people have no idea how hard it truly is to build muscle. Now there is some truth that some of us have more of a genetic disposition to build muscle. However, it’s still a tough for a woman, or anyone for that matter, to build a substantial amount of muscle tissue. You see the issue is that our society has been jaded by the use of steroids. Steroids have actually changed our perception of what the human body is really capable of achieving either through muscle growth or human performance. Many women and men have seen photographs of bodybuilders and athletes who have changed their body’s chemistry to obtain muscle mass and they are convinced that they could look like that by training with a personal trainer twice a week.
The honest truth is to build a substantial amount of muscle you need to make sure you are eating enough calories and the right sort of calories to gain muscle. To lose weight you obviously need to eat less calories than you consume on a daily basis and to build muscle you have to eat more calories than you are burning. That being said a ‘bodybuilder’ must make sure that he/she is getting enough calories from fat, carbohydrates, and of course protein. Then it just takes a lot of hard work and some help with some genetics. Some people struggle for years just to gain 5 pounds of muscle.
The other side of this argument is what the heck is so bad about gaining muscle? Did you know that muscle burns 10 calories a day by just living in your body? That’s right. You see fat is not a living tissue, it’s merely storage, but muscle on the other hand is a living tissue that burns calories every day. So in my mind gaining muscle is actually a good thing because the more you have the more efficient and thermogenic your body becomes. And don’t worry about gaining bulky muscles ladies. It’s really hard to do. Thanks so much for reading and have a healthy day!
www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php
Tags: bodybuilder, bodybuilding, calorie, calories, diet, eating, fat, Fitness, gym, gyms, health, healthy, muscle, muscles, personal trainer, personal trainers, personal training, steroids, work out, workout
Posted in Nutrition, personal training | 5 Comments »