Transformation vs. Lifestyle Coaching
So you've decided the time has finally arrived to look into some professional guidance when it comes to your health and fitness. Naturally, you hop on your favorite social media platform and start...
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How Fast Should I Be Losing Weight?
It typically takes several years or more to put on excess body weight. When it comes to losing it however, many individuals want to see their unwanted body fat gone ASAP. Lured by before and after...
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The Cure for Cortisol
The Cure for Cortisol No hormone has a more negative connotation among the general population than cortisol. Traditionally framed as the harmful "stress hormone" and frequently scape-goated as a...
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Ultra-Processed Food Won't Make You Fat...At First
Ultra-Processed Food Won't Make You Fat...
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How to (Actually) Speed Up Your Metabolism
How to (Actually) Speed Up Your Metabolism Sort of like "the economy", many people view "my metabolism" as some mysterious, unseen force whose fluctuations are beyond our control. Whether it's "slow......
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Making The Case For Energy Drinks
Making The Case For Energy Drinks "Those things can’t be good for you…". As a seasoned consumer (dare I say, connoisseur?) of energy drinks, this is a phrase I'm quite familiar with. Viewed by...
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Could Post-Workout Cold Exposure Kill Your Gains?
Could Post-Workout Cold Exposure Kill Your Gains? Inflammation is a dirty word in the health and fitness space. Along with "hormones" (looking at you, cortisol), it's the root of all evil and...
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Got High Blood Pressure? Don't Drop the Salt
Got High Blood Pressure? Don't Drop the Salt The World Health Organization cites hypertension, aka high blood pressure, as the leading risk factor for global disease burden. It's estimated that in...
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Hormesis: The Type of Stress You Need in Your Life
Hormesis: The Type of Stress You Need in Your Life How cold was your shower this morning? Did you already spend some quality time in an ice barrel today? Any biohacker, longevity expert, or general...
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Want to Avoid Seasonal Sickness? Trust Your Gut
Want to Avoid Seasonal Sickness? Trust Your Gut Look around at this time of year (mid-January at the time of this writing), and you'll see family, friends, and colleagues canceling engagements and...
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2023 Year in Review: Semaglutide, Carnivores, and More
2023 Year in Review: Semaglutide, Carnivores, and More 2023 will soon be in the rearview, and that got us thinking about some of the biggest stories and trends we saw within the health and wellness...
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Colostrum: Immune-Boosting, Anti-Aging Super Supplement?
Colostrum: Immune-Boosting, Anti-Aging Super Supplement? The social media ad-scape has taken "wonder supplement" trends to a whole new level over the last several years. Seemingly out of nowhere......
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Cheat Days: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly
Cheat Days: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly We've all heard someone we know say "It's a cheat meal!" as they prepare to body a BBQ double bacon cheeseburger and side of onion rings. Now that I have...
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Are Probiotics Really Worth Taking?
Are Probiotics Really Worth Taking? At this point, most health care practitioners generally agree that gut health is a critical and foundational piece of overall wellness. As research on the gut...
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The Truth About Protein Absorption
The Truth About Protein Absorption Some misconceptions and half-truths just seem to stick around, and this is one of them: "If I eat more than X grams of protein in one meal, then the 'excess' will...
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Calorie Counting: Recipe for Success, or Stress?
Calorie Counting: Recipe for Success, or Stress? No topic sparks debate in the diet and nutrition space quite like "tracking," aka calorie or macronutrient counting. Some camps demonize calorie...
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Why "Meal Plans" Don't Work
Why "Meal Plans" Don't Work So you've decided it's time to seek professional guidance and support when it comes to your personal nutrition. The exercise part is obvious, and you're working on that......
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The Two-Step Formula to a Diet 180
The Two-Step Formula to a Diet 180 What if I told you there was a two-step formula to vastly improve your diet, significantly decrease your risk of numerous health concerns, AND catapult you toward...
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3 Steps to Creating Change That Sticks
3 Steps to Creating Change That Sticks How do we deliberately enact change in our lives? Quite a question, huh? If changing our behavior on our own was easy, an entire industry of counselors......
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How Much Should You Really Be Eating
How Much Should You Really Be Eating? The question seems almost too obvious to ask, as I sit down for a nutrition consultation with someone interested in coaching services. More often than not, this...
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Caffeine: Are You Consuming Too Much?
Caffeine: Are You Consuming Too Much? Ah caffeine, one of the only drugs you have to explain NOT using. It's estimated that 85% of the U.S. population consumes at least one caffeinated beverage a...
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How Accurate are Nutrition Labels? And Does It Really Matter
How Accurate Are Nutrition Labels? And Does It Really Matter? If you've ever spent any amount of time "dieting" or paying attention to your food intake, you've no doubt flipped over a package and...
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Is Calorie Counting Really the Answer?
Is Calorie Counting Really the Answer? Calories in vs. calories out: Eat more than you burn, gain weight. Burn more than you eat, lose weight. Sounds as simple as can be, yet there's arguably no...
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Control Your Blood Sugar: Glycemic Index vs. Glycemic Load
Control Your Blood Sugar: Glycemic Index vs. Glycemic Load It's hard to argue there is a metabolic condition wreaking more havoc in the United States today than diabetes. In particular, the...
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Adrenal Fatigue: Fact or Fiction?
The human endocrine system is responsible for the regulation of all bodily hormones and thousands of corresponding processes they influence. As such, issues related to hormones and this system can be...
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Why BCAA Supplements Are Old News
Why BCAA Supplements Are Old News If you’ve spent any amount of time in a strength training gym or facility, you’ve likely seen someone carrying around an old plastic gallon jug filled with a...
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The Impact of Impact Training: Starting a fitness routine or return to play
The Impact of Impact Training: Starting a fitness routine or return to play When starting a fitness routine or returning from a performance setback, there’s confusion whether impact or non-impact...
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This is Your Brain on Fat
This is Your Brain on Fat Likely the most misunderstood macronutrient, fats are an indispensable part of our diet and serve a number of critical bodily functions, including a major role in the health...
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Dietary Fiber: Beyond The Bathroom
Dietary Fiber: Beyond The Bathroom When it comes to the wide landscape of diet trends and fads, we've seen it all. Low fat, high fat, low carb, no meat, all meat, all fruit, all plants, you name...
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Creatine: Just Take It
Creatine: Just Take It Creatine. If you've been around the health and fitness world for any period of time you're undoubtedly familiar with it, even if you haven't used it before. Hell, if you've...
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The Forgotten Weight Loss Ally
The Forgotten Weight Loss Ally In our society's obsessive and endless search for weight loss solutions (versus seeking to prevent weight gain in the first place, which is silly), we look to many...
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Do You Want to Thrive, or Just Survive?
Do You Want to Thrive, or Just Survive? “Ah my knee always hurts…;” “I’m constantly tired, regardless of how much I sleep…;” “I have a stomach ache every day.” Some of these...
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Your Drug-Free Guide to Seasonal Immunity
Your Drug-Free Guide to Seasonal Immunity Tis the season to be sickly, right? Temperatures drop, there's some moisture in the air, sunlight becomes scarcer, and we welcome in the pathogen parade...
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Why Death Rates Increase During Holidays
Why Death Rates Increase During Holdiays As children, the holiday season can be a time of joy and excitement. Represented with magic and wonder, days are counted down until these holidays...
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Top 5 Herbs To Manage Your Holiday Stress
Top 5 Herbs To Manage Your Holiday Stresss The year-end holiday season is upon us, which can mean many different things for many people. For some here in the U.S., it's the most festive...
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Why You Didn’t Improve Your Health in 2022
Why You Didn't Improve Your Health in 2022 With the end of the year fast approaching, many of us take this time to reflect on 2022. As we sift through heaps of stuffing and piles of pastries, we...
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Minerals 101: A (Mostly) Sweet Symphony
Minerals 101: A (Mostly) Sweet Symphony In the world of diet and nutrition discourse, few topics inspire as much excitement in your average individual as macrominerals! Said no one. In fact, when...
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Paralysis by Analysis
Paralysis by Analysis As a new year approaches many people start to think about next year’s goals, and with that, preliminary plans are constructed which may even include a step-by-step process...
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How Posture Affects Mental Health
Do trivial tasks feel unbelievably daunting? Do you ever get that feeling of impending doom? Or maybe you experience not being able to catch your breath, sit and/or relax? Perhaps you have panic...
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Pillow Talk: Upgrade Sleep For Optimal Wellness
Pillow Talk: Upgrade Sleep For Optimal Wellness Fans of 90s hip-hop may be familiar with the famous line, "I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of Death." While the lyrical stylings of Nas...
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Why 'Lift with Your Legs' is Foolish
Why 'Lift with Your Legs' is Foolish Have you ever seen an image like the one below? Or maybe when you helped a friend move, they told you with good intentions to “lift with your legs, not your...
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Weight Loss vs Fat Loss vs Fat Burn
Weight Loss vs Fatt Loss vs Fat Burn It’s no joke that one of the main reasons nutrition information is so confusing on the internet is because of improper use or manipulation of terminology.......
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How to Overcome Your BIGGEST Health & Fitness Mistake
How to Overcome Your BIGGEST Health & Fitness Mistake Does this sound familiar? Going from 1) little to no activity, 2) zero consistency with any sort of exercise routine, and/or 3) a “free...
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Mastering Mindset: 5 Steps To Achieving Your Goals
Mastering Mindset: 5 Steps To Achieving Your Goals No matter what kind of changes you aim to make to your body, (e.g. aesthetic, longevity, performance), you must take control of your nutrition, and...
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5 Warm-Up Tips That Save Time & Prevent Injury
5 Warm-Up Tips That Save Time & Prevent Injury Some of the biggest barriers to exercise are lack of time and injury, and how you prepare for a workout in the warm up can largely minimize these...
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Carnivore, Herbivore or Omnivore?
Carnivore, Herbivor or Omnivore? It’s no joke how popular the carnivore diet has become in the last few years, and it’s crazy to think about how much meat people are eating on these diets. The...
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The Convenient Truth About Hard Work
The Convenient Truth About Hard Work We as humans were designed to work. We struggle, we adapt, and then we overcome. When we do this on a consistent basis, we grow to greater and greater...
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Is Living An Active Lifestyle Good Enough?
Is Living An Active Lifestyle Good Enough? While living an ‘active lifestyle’ is far better than living a chronically sedentary one, simply being “active” could leave you short of some...
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The Importance of Maintenance Phases and Diet Breaks
The Importance of Maintenance Phases and Diet Breaks One of the biggest misconceptions of nutrition programs is that they’re all about losing weight or gaining muscle. This couldn’t be...
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The Secret to Aging Well and Keeping Vitality
The Secret to Aging Well and Keeping Vitality If you were told there’s a way to maintain vitality, energy, function, bone density, muscle mass, and confidence while aging, would you want that?......
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Why All Your Friends Are Losing Weight On Keto
Why All Your Friends Are Losing Weight On Keto I get it, it feels like everyday we’re flooded with incredible transformation photos of people who finally made the switch to a keto lifestyle (or any...
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Microworkouts: Extend Your Life & Increase Gains
Microworkouts: Extend Your Life & Increase Gains Whether you are just trying to start your health and fitness journey or you are looking to take your results to the next level, “micro...
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3 Easy Things to Focus on if You’re New to Health & Fitness
3 Easy Things to Focus on if You're New to Health & Fitness You want to start getting in shape, but you’ve never set foot in a gym before or tracked a single calorie a day in your life! Where...
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Immune Boosting Health Habits
In March 2020, we all bunkered down in our homes. We donned masks and began social distancing for the sake of slowing the spread of an unknown Corona-19 Virus. Loads of information spread like...
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Youth Fitness Training - The WHOLE Truth About Preventing Injury
Let’s get real, playing any sport or engaging in any type of physical activity presents an inherent risk of injury whether novice or professional; youth, teen, adolescent and/or adult, PERIOD. ......
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Nutrition Coaching done right...CICO & Metabolic Adaptation
Metabolic Adaptation, Weight Loss, & Weight Gains Through Proper Nutrition Coaching. Calories in vs calories out (CICO). This has been the main focus for anyone who has ever attempted to lose...
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Training Youth Athletes & Injury Prevention
Participation in organized sport among children and adolescents in the US is rapidly increasing. According to the CDC, close to 30 million children and adolescents participate in sport, and the...
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Eliminating The Hurdles
Changing your life is more than wish fulfillment and positive thinking. Motivation might get you started, but YOU must keep YOURSELF on track. Anything worthwhile is not easy, and despite all of...
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Exercising Intelligently & With a Purpose
Humans have always been physically active. Our ancestors and contemporary hunter- gatherers walked an average of 10,000 steps (about five miles) per day with frequent bouts of more intense physical...
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No Going Back
So many times I think to myself - "If I could just go back and do that again…". Well, that's not an option. There are things, moments, times in my life that I wish I could do again. Some I wish...
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Making Sense of the Collagen Buzz
Let’s first start with the very basics. Collagen is the main structural protein outside the cell space in many connective tissues. It provides support, strength, elasticity and protective...
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Why Your Diet Isn't Working
If you’re reading this in hopes of discovering the single detail that evokes an “AH-HA!” moment and instantly sends you into diet and nutrition perfection, you won’t find that here. This...
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Prioritizing You - Self Care Through Exercise
The world in which we live today is fast paced – we are constantly on the move, we have demands that are placed upon us, and we have obligations to fulfill regarding work, family, and friends...
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Getting Started RIGHT
We’re at time of year again where “fresh starts” are all abuzz with “It’s a new year, new you” or “It’s time for New Year’s Resolutions.” But don’t let the calendar determine...
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The Cortisol Paradox & Why Sometimes Less Is More
Working out more frequently, for longer periods, or for shorter periods with more intensity does not always equate to better or faster health and fitness results. Dare we say it...
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Liver Detoxificaton
Many people confuse things like cleanses and fasts with proper liver detoxification. Using liquid solutions of juice, tea, broth, in isolation or in combination with a short-term or prolonged fast......
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Do You Have A Leaky Gut?
We’ve only recently begun to understand the extent of the gut flora’s role in human health and disease. Let’s define gut flora as the billions of micro-organisms that populate our...
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Why Beast Mode is Wrecking Your Results
If you’re a fitness enthusiast and somehow unfamiliar with the term “beast mode,” just look back to the last time you went all-in on that new diet and fitness program….when you attacked each...
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The Skinny On Un-Healthy Fats
With all the hype surrounding the keto diet contrasted against the back-end of the prominent and often misinterpreted paleo diet, health conscious Americans seem to be all over the place with regard...
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Is Too Much Estrogen Making You Fat?
A healthy balance of primary sex hormones is essential for optimal health. The delicate and intricate endocrine system can be easily interrupted and/or upset. Estrogen dominance, or excessive...
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Exercise During Pregnancy #2 - Psychological & Emotional Benefits
Despite having few studies focused on the psychological benefits of exercise during pregnancy, many studies that do exist conclude that pregnant moms who engage in a well-structured and monitored...
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Exercise During Pregnancy - The Do's & Don'ts
Currently there is more than sufficient evidence to support “moderate” to “vigorous” exercise for the benefit of both mom and baby. There is a direct link between healthy mothers and healthy...
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Ultrasound Body Composition Assessment - Red Dot Fitness Personal Trainers use technology for client comfort, efficiency, & convenience
In short, the ratio of muscle, bone, water, and fat make up your body composition (body comp). More simply, when analyzing body comp, we can refer to the above as fat free mass/lean body mass...
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Getting Back In Shape - Are You Winning?
Every fitness journey starts with a desire. For the average human, commonly the desire is to return to a level of fitness they once knew and felt. And sometimes, the desire is simply to obtain the...
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Nutrition & Exercise - Why Personal Trainers at Red Dot Fitness Cherish Seeing People Fail
In a way, it’s sad really: So many intelligent, educated, hard-working, and conscientious individuals contact us and walk through our doors trying to find a personal fitness coach and failing before...
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Forward Head Posture
Are you appropriately addressing your FHP? Odds are you’re either reading this on your mobile device or sitting down reading at your computer. Either way, it’s very possible that you’re...
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How to do it all without getting overwhelmed
Successfully navigating the routine of taking care of yourself: In the 20+ years we have been in the health and fitness industry, now more than ever we’re seeing consumers and enthusiasts reach...
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The Importance of a Professional Nutrition Coach
Make sure you're informed: If you asked 10 people about what “healthy nutrition” means to them and followed that question up with which foods they consider “good” and which ones are...
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We Are Red Dot Fitness - Come Get Some!
At Red Dot Fitness we’ve earned a lot of attention lately. Have you seen our new facility? It’s awesome. If we were you, we’d have questions too – we get it. When you look at all we have to...
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The Alameda is our new home!
Red Dot Fitness debuts new facility on The Alameda SAN JOSE -- The Alameda, in San Jose, just got a new addition that provides local residents the opportunity to live life to the fullest with good...
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Intermittent Fasting: TRF, ADF, & WDF
Intermittent Fasting: TRF, ADF, & WDF WTF is the Hype About? You’ve no doubt recently been hearing the buzz about intermittent fasting, so what’s the deal? Caloric restriction methods...
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High–Protein Confusion: What’s the Deal, Bro?
High–Protein Confusion: What’s the Deal, Bro? Protein: The Un-Equaled Macronutrient Within the realm of sports, health, and fitness, nutrition is a dominant and continuous topic of discussion...
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The Lowdown on Meal Frequency
The Lowdown on Meal Frequency What’s the deal? To meet your fitness or weight loss goals, should you eat smaller, more frequent meals or stick to the traditional three squares per day? Well, it...
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5 Tips to Battle the Winter & Holiday Weight Gain
The days are shorter, the weather is cooler, clothes are fitting a little more snug, and you've abandoned the fitness program you were so dedicated to over the summer. Sound familiar? So what now......
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Prepackaged Snacks
Let’s be honest, it is extremely challenging in today’s fast-paced culture to completely get away from processed or minimally processed foods – it’s a matter of fact for many families and...
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Tips for Continued Healthy Eating
Life is fast-paced and preparing healthy meals can take organization and time. Below are some ‘tips and tricks’ that can help you prepare for a furry of fast paced meal preparation when time is...
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All Systems Go!
WARM-UP & SWITCH-ON! At Red Dot Fitness we see a tremendous cross-section of clients. This diversity constantly keeps us on our toes and makes exercise programming fun and interesting everyday...
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Best Exercises and Efficient Use of Time
What are the best exercises? And, what's the most effective use of your time for a quick workout when you are in a time crunch? We found this article in The New York Times, April 15, 2011, and we...
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Answering the CrossFit question for the last time
Our Position on CrossFit: We are both respectful of, and continually amazed with, what the CrossFit organization and community have done for their brand and clientele with their fitness model...
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