For the past 30 years I have made working out in some way, shape (pardon the unintended pun) or form a part of my weekly routine.  It all started after  I had graduated from Arizona State University and begun working in banking.  When I first started a jogging program that summer, I was still smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day.  I had promised myself that once I finished with school, I would give up the cancer sticks.  When I started running most every day, I would come back home, gulp down a bunch of water and immediately light up a smoke!  Certainly not very healthy, but I had at least started on the path to getting physically fit.  In November of 1977, I once and for all was able to  cold-turkey the cigarettes,  kick up my running to 60 to 80 miles a week and run 10Ks and half marathons for the next 5 years.  But after putting up with shin splints, stress fractures, tendinitis in my right knee and finally a rear-end collision that had me going to the chiropractor for a year, I gave up running and began working out at a fitness center, which I do to this day.  As far as dieting goes, that is not my gig.  It’s not that I believe that doing a sensible diet would not be beneficial - even though fad and crash diets seemingly do little good in losing and more importantly keeping off unwanted weight- it’s just that I would prefer to eat what I like in reasonable proportions than try to maintain a rigid diet.

Looking back on all the running I did I certainly know what it’s like to have that runner’s high.   Running for me was  really addictive, but I now see that I could have gotten physically fit without all the assorted pains and excessive time spent running each week.

My workouts now are 4 times a week concentrating on using free-weights, cables, stretches and the occasional 20 to 30 minutes on the treadmill.  Each workout is between 40 minutes and an hour, not the 10 to 12 hours I used to spend running each week.  This gives me more free time to do other things, while giving me a full-body workout.

So what should you do if you want to lose weight, keep it off and get physically fit?  Researching fitness information I came up with many fat loss and weight loss tips.  Here are twelve tips focusing mainly on fat loss.

Eat Smaller and More Frequent Meals

Keeping your metabolism up and running is a key to losing weight and keeping it off.  How to do that is simply eat small portions 4-5 times a day.  Your body stores fat.  When you eat large meals two or three times a day, your metabolism slows down and your body wants to retain as much fat as possible, burning muscle instead, not knowing when the next meal is coming.  Eating small amounts frequently speeds up your metabolism and keeps your body burning fat, not muscle.  Remember that your body burns muscle more efficiently than fat, so you must do the things that burn fat.

Take in Less Than What You Burn Off

This one is pretty obvious, but you have to burn off more calories than you take in each day.  There are free calorie counters on line, which you can use to give you an idea of how many calories are in the food you eat.  This will take a bit of work on your part to calculate daily what your caloric intake is, but it may be worth the effort.  As far as how many calories you use up each day is not so easy to calculate.  Cardio machines give you calorie burning numbers but these numbers may not be accurate, so focus on the 12 tips.

Change up your Food Groups

You will lose weight easier if you not only eat smaller proportions, 4-5 times a day, but vary your diet.  Eat less carbohydrates like bread and pastas and more lean sources of protein: chicken and turkey breasts and fish.  Whey-based protein powders do well, also.  I do differ with some experts, who include fruits, which are carbohydrates, as foods to eat less of.  Fruits are good sources of vitamins and many supply our body with anti-oxidants.  Of course, vegetables, especially fresh ones, should be a part of everyone’s daily intake.

Drink Plenty of Water

Water helps to reduce fat, and it keeps our bodies hydrated, which is especially needed in hotter and dryer climates, like where I live in Arizona.  Two to three liters is the recommended amount.  For those of you who are like me and think in ounces the equivalent water intake is about 68 to 102 fluid ounces - approximately 2-3 quarts daily.  Drink the water frequently throughout the day.

Think in Terms of Fat Loss not Weight Loss

What is important is not so much how much you weigh, but how much fat you carry.   We have different bone structures and body types.  We cannot change our body type or bone structure, but we can alter how much fat we carry and how we look.  And remember: Muscle weighs more than fat.  So as you diet, work out and gain muscle and lose body fat, your weight may not change much but how you look and feel will.  Remember that this is more about losing body fat than just a weight loss program.

Stop the Long and Boring Cardio Sessions

This is one I wish that I had known about when I started working out.  Longer is not necessarily better.  It is more important to vary the intensity of your cardio workout.  Do a couple minutes on a cardio machine at your base level and then 30 to 45 seconds at your max.  This way you will burn more calories.  Using a treadmill or elliptical will also reduce stress to your joints vs running on hard surfaces.

Do Full Body Compound Exercises

When you go to a gym or fitness center you will invariably see people working on specific parts of their body: chest, biceps, triceps, legs, back, shoulders.  Understand that there is nothing wrong with this if you want to improve on certain body parts.  However the consensus now is that by doing full body compound exercises like overhead presses, dead-lifts, pull ups, push ups, squats and other full body exercises that work more than one muscle group, you will get better overall results.

Free-weights and Cables

Why should you use free-weights and cables over machines?  You are forced to balance weights and coordinate muscles and have a greater range of motion, which means more muscles worked effectively and  more calories burned.

Get a Cardio Workout with Weights and Cables

Getting your metabolism up and burning  fat can be accomplished not only by using a cardio machine, but by doing 10-15 reps of an exercise, waiting  no more  30 seconds to one minute to do the next set of reps and continuing until you have done 5 to 6 exercises in your workout routine.  Normally each exercise should consist of 3 sets of 10-15 reps.  If you can’t do this amount, then reduce the weight until you can do the sets and reps and maintain good form.  Bad form will reduce the effectiveness of the exercise and in combination with more weight than you can handle can lead to injuries.  Be sensible.

How Many Times Should You Workout?

Once or twice a week is not enough and 6 or 7 times a week is likely too much and can cause fatigue and burnout.  Plus your muscle groups need time to repair.  But 3 to 4 times a week is about right for most people, unless you are an athlete.  You should alternate your workouts to give the muscle groups you worked time to recover.  Muscle is torn down during a workout and is built up upon rest.  So if you do an upper body workout one session, you could do a lower body workout the following session.

Follow a Structured Program

Set the days and times of the week that you will dedicate to your workout.  Get into a routine.  Join a fitness center or gym if your budget allows.  Working out at home can work for some, but unless you are very dedicated, reduce the distractions and have the right equipment and space, home workouts tend to fail.  How many people do you know that have treadmills, exercise bikes and home gyms that are sitting unused?  Probably quite a few.  Going to a facility allows you to get away from those home distractions, has a multitude of exercise and cardio equipment to help you vary your workout, and people that you come to know and workout with.  Hooking up with a workout buddy may be of help to keep your resolve up.  Just be careful that if your buddy does not go on a workout day or quits working out that you don’t use his or her absence as an excuse for you not to workout.

Set SMART Goals

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

Goal setting is very important if you want to get results.  To help you in setting SMART goals and reaching them, you may want to work with a certified trainer.  Many fitness centers will give you a free one-time analysis and set up a program with you.  However if you want to get better results, you may want to pay for workouts with a certified trainer.  Not only will the trainer ensure that you have good form, the proper weight and do the proper exercises to meet your goals, but they will vary the program when necessary and provide feedback on your progress.  Some trainers will even put together a diet for you and recommend supplements.  Using a trainer will mean more dollar outlay but can be very rewarding.  And once you have reached your goals, you may continue workouts on your own with only an occasional need for the trainer to vary your workout programs.  And while you are losing fat and weight, it is likely that you hit the dreaded weight loss plateau before you reach your goal.  Don’t be discouraged.  Just check out the 8 Ways to Break a Plateau by Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., Certified Nutrition Specialist and author of three books on nutrition and natural cures.

Now go out and get physically fit and have fun.  Remember that you didn’t get in the shape you are in today in two or three months, so plan on a step by step approach to reaching your goals with focus, a reasonable diet and a fitness program that you can commit to 3-4 times a week.  Now if you want to see how to become financially fit click here.

It’s the holidays.  Time for festivities, holiday cheer, and eating, lots of eating and not enough exercising.  It happens every year, despite trying to tell ourselves that this year will be different.  So weight goes on with ease but comes off oh so slowly, if at all.  Usually we count on good old New Year’s resolutions to take care of the extra baggage.  Many times it is to join a gym, increase the amount of exercise we will do or go on a crash diet.  But do any of these work.  Sure exercise at the gym, walking, jogging, swimming and cycling will certainly help if we do this with some religious vigor and frequency.  Crash diets may take weight off quickly but once stopped, not only do you gain back the weight lost but add even more weight.  So crash diets do not work.

For me to maintain weight and have good health and fitness, I do a workout at LA Fitness four times a week that includes both aerobic training for the heart and weight training for strength and muscle toning.  I like working out.  I would do it even if a fitness center was not available. Working out has been a life style of mine for 30 years.  I would like to say that I eat a good mix of protein, carbohydrates and fat, but that would not be the case.  So I keep my weight constant mainly through exercise and not over-eating.  If I am at a restaurant and served large portions, I will eat enough to satisfy my hunger and take a doggy bag home.  At home I am careful not to gorge on food that I really like.  So four days of exercise and not over-eating works for me.

But what works for me doesn’t  work  for everyone. In an 2008 American Heart Association update on Overweight and Obesity - Statistics reported that $142 million Americans 20 years and older are either overweight or obese and of those 62 million are obese.  According to a study published in the August 2008 Epidemiologic Reviews three out of four adults in the United States will be overweight, and 41 percent will suffer from obesity by the year 2015.  And that says emphatically that Americans have a weight problem.

So if you are doing an exercise program and dieting or just dieting (hopefully on a weight loss program and not the latest crash diet) and have reached a weight loss plateau,  Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., Certified Nutrition Specialist and author of three books on nutrition and natural cures give us some tips on what to do when we are dieting and hit the inevitable plateau.

If you have reached a debt management plateau and need a debt elimination program that works this may be what you are looking for.

Later that week he was back in with a small box of books that were on specific autos or automakers - some on cars or automakers no longer in existence - and a book on the norton motorcycle and one on harley davidson history. What made them gems to me was that they were written in the 1960s and early 1970s. The Harley Davidson book was a Ballantine’s Illustrated History of the Car Marque Book No 12, written by Maurice D. Hendry, published July 1972.

The book covers such topics as: Mr Harley and the Three Davidsons, Racing Supremacy, In peace and War and The Largest Motorcycle Factory in the World. Wonderful illustrations and harley davidson history going back to the 1901 a draftsman named Bill Harley and a pattern maker named Arthur Davidson “spent evenings and early mornings experimenting with a two-wheeled dream in a basement workshop in Milwaukee,” according to Bob Green, who wrote an introduction to the book.

As I read through the book, I could almost visualize riding a 1936, 61-inch OHV model cross country, much like three-second generation Davidson boys, Gordon, Walter and Allan did with earlier 1930 models. No interstate highways, no semis, no windshields, just dust, dirt, wind and rain blowin’ in your face. What fun; what an adventure. (Well maybe my 2005 Road King would be a more comfortable ride, and it does have a windshield to keep stones and bugs off you and a comfortable seat and electronic ignition. Guess I’m a little spoiled.) But the Davidsons’ trip hearkens back to my oldest brother taking a cross country trip in his Indian motorcycle in the early 1950s when he was 18 years old.

If you are a Harley enthusiast, this harley davidson history book is a must read.

If you want to know how I have time to write blogs on this subject and others visit United First Financial.

Government Accounting Practices Differ from Private Companies’

The federal deficit for 2008 would top $1trillion if the government had to use the same accounting methods as private companies. And if you think that is a lot of money, the $1 trillion does not include the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, which is accounted for in the 2009 budget year that began October 1st.
Adding to future deficit concerns is $49 trillion more that the government is promising than it can deliver for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits over the next 75 years unless Congress steps in to shore up the system. Some combination of tax increases, benefit cuts or other policy changes is needed to stave off unsustainable deficits. This according to a 188-page “Financial Report of the United States Government” for the 2008 budget year ending on September 30th, released by the administration. Sound sobering?

If the government was required to use the accrual method of accounting used by businesses, the deficit reported at $455 billion using the cash method of accounting would be $1 trillion. Looking at the 2009 budget year the deficit is projected to top a staggering $1 trillion using the cash basis for accounting, which would be more than double this year’s deficit.

What’s even more troubling is the report doesn’t factor in the potentially enormous liabilities incurred by the Federal Reserve System over the past few months as it has tried to stabilize the financial system by taking steps like guaranteeing $306 billion worth of Citigroup troubled assets. Fed transactions are not reported on the government’s books.

Despite the turmoil caused by the financial crisis, the longer term liabilities facing the government are even more staggering.

Virtually every budget expert warns that the long-term costs of federal retirement programs like Social Security and Medicare are going to swamp the budget as more and more baby boomers retire. The long-term shortfall for Medicare grew by $3.1 trillion over the past year.

According to Representative Jim Cooper, Democrat-Tennessee, “This report show we have fiscal cancer and once you have cancer your have to treat it.” Cooper added, “Our problems are metastasizing at the rate of about $3 billion a year, and that’s before the bailout.”

So the question I raise is how long can our government continue to operate at a deficit, and one that is growing, without severe economic repercussions far worse than what we are seeing today? Businesses cannot operate forever without going bankrupt and out of business. Individuals cannot spend more than they earn forever. Why is it different for a government?

While you and I cannot correct the ills of our government - at least not easily - we can make good personal financial decisions.

Total U.S. consumer debt (which includes credit card debt and non-credit card debt but not mortgage debt) reached $2.583 trillion October 2008, up from $2.552 trillion December 31, 2007.. (Source: Federal Reserve) Residential mortgage debt stood at $10.57 trillion as of September 30, 2008. (Source: Federal Reserve) According to the American Bankruptcy Institute report, December 15, 2008, The 292,291 total U.S. bankruptcies filed during the third quarter of 2008 (July 1 – Sept. 30) represented a 34 percent increase over the 218,909 cases filed over the same period in 2007, according to data released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Total filings for the first nine months of 2008 (Jan. 1 – Sept. 30) were up 35 percent to 841,496, compared to the 622,999 filings during the same period in 2007. The total filings include 29,960 in business bankruptcies. Add to the bad news a recent report by the Mortgage Bankers Association that one in 10 homeowners in the United States was “either at least a month behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of September.”

The common denominator in all this mess is debt. We as consumers are not collectively acting any different than our government. And with massive job losses in all sectors and all parts of America, a deteriorating economy and stock market losses, we will continue to see more mortgage foreclosures and personal bankruptcies. Now is the time to take stock of your resources, reduce your debt as quickly as possible, pay for purchases with cash or by using credit cards that you can and will pay off monthly and stockpile 6-months of cash for emergencies.

As the long-term care (LTC) insurance market has matured over the past 20 years, features have been added to the costly policies to make them more attractive in a tougher economy. The IRS has helped out by making a portion of the premiums tax-deductible.

Enter the “shorter-term” long -term care policy for individuals who are willing to play the odds. These policies eliminate the “lifetime” feature in favor of a shorter time limit on benefits, usually between two and three years, currently the length of an average nursing home stay. These shorter-term plans can potentially cut the cost of average annual premiums in half, and if couples buy a combined policy, they potentially may cut the premium cost further.

The idea of lower-cost LTC insurance is certainly attractive, but it makes sense to get some advice and ask some very important questions before committing. You will need to assess how well-prepared your finances are to sustain a serious long-term illness with the current national average of $70,000 in annual nursing home bills that would not otherwise be covered by (health) insurance.

Rebecca Warren advises your to assess your health, but to understand that while you may be in good health now, this is still no guarantee that in the future you will only need two or three years of expenses. Warren also noted that 40% of long-term care is provided to individuals between the ages of 19 and 65.

Having a long term care safety net may be more important for women, since women typically live longer than men and individually women earn less than men. But financial resources need to be considered along with their health history.

And if you don’t want to go to a nursing home? The idea is to cover every eventuality. The best-designed policies will pay the same amount of benefit for a long-term care facility, assisted living facility, an adult day care center or in the home.

Another consideration Warren says is what’s the record of particular companies in this business. Over the past generation, more companies have gotten involved in the LTC insurance business, and it makes sense to see not only who the leaders are at the time you’re buying and what they’re offering, but how financially healthy these companies are and have been over the course of time.

Banks cutting back when needed most.

The $700 billion bailout for banks is moving along, but you wouldn’t know it. I thought - my mistake - that the bailout money was not just to prop up failing or financially troubled banks, but to also get credit flowing in a restricted credit market. Obviously not.

Michael Sullivan, director of education at Take Charge America, a Valley-based (Phoenix), nonprofit credit counseling agency said, “It’s obvious already from the record number of calls we’re getting that consumers are feeling the impact of tighter credit, and when combined with job losses, it’s forcing many, many people over the edge. Sullivan continued, “The credit crunch for consumers is probably really just getting under way now and, as banks tighten things, it will get worse.”

American Express, siting a “challenging economic environment,” raised it regular interest rates by 2 to 3 percentage points on certain groups of cardholders, said spokeswoman Desiree Fish. It is also raising rates on cash advances, late payments and defaults as well as increasing the charge for transactions involving foreign currency from 2 percent to 2.7 percent.  At Bank of America and Wells Fargo customers that get notice of rate increases are allowed to close their accounts and repay the balances under the original terms if the customers opt out. Citibank allows customers who opt out of rate increases to continue using their Citicards until they expire, and then pay off the remaining balances under the old pricing terms.

Who gets hit the hardest with the increased interest rates and fee increases?  Jim Pierpoint of Bank of America said, “We definitely take into account both how a customer has performed with us - and we’ll also consider external risk factors, such as taking out numerous loans(,) using substantially all of the credit available to them or defaulting on loans to other lenders.”

According to Take Charge America’s Sullivan, those concerned about increase bank fees probably shouldn’t be using credit cards at all. He goes on to say, “That will eliminate the interest and it will eliminate all of the fear,” he said. “Of course, it will also eliminate a lot of the profits to banks, but that’s fine. People need to look out for themselves right now.” One couple living in Phoenix, AZ , said their solution is to skip credit cards and pay as they go. “Its hard still because (Sebastian) just go laid off so our budgets are tight, but we just live that way, not on credit. We had some (credit cards) before, but it ended up hurting us in the end so we just got rid of them.

So what does all this tell us. Well for one, if you prudently use and manage your credit, you probably won’t fall into the risk category that will get your rates increased, fees added or accounts closed. If you are maxing out your credit limits on cards and lines, past due with creditors or taking out too many loans, you will likely get notifications of rate and fee increases or having you credit lines closed.

What I do find interesting, is that I still receive 2-3 pre-approved credit card offers weekly and offers from existing card issuers to use the checks they send me; all of these offers I dutifully shred. I use one card, which I use for normal monthly purchases and expenses and pay off the card each month without incurring any interest. This way I get the rewards, which I use for airline travel, and maintain optimal cash flow. In addition I owe less than $1000 on another card that has zero interest and will be paid off before incurring any interest. I made the decision that money in my pocket is something that I can use to my advantage, instead of the bank’s pocket.

Too much debt is a major problem for Americans. We see it every day in mortgage foreclosures, bankruptcies and, likely as a factor in many divorces. Debt is a stressor. No doubt about it.
I made the decision to reduce my debt, pay off my mortgage early and have more disposable income to give me financial freedom by using the Money Merge Account system, and you can too.

Jeff Polhill

(Home prices) Drop breaks record for consecutive months of falling prices , according to the latest Arizona State University-Repeat Sales Index.  The index compared repeat sales prices of a single house at different points in time. Comparing August 2007 to August 2008, showed a drop of 26 percent in the Valley.  Declines varied from a low of 16.4 percent to a high of 37.2 percent.  Karl Guntermann,  ASU W.P. Carey real estate professor, stated, “If you go back to the Great Depression, you might find something like this.”  John Stih , CEO of the South East Valley Regional Association of Realtors, calls this the worst down cycle that he has seen in the 40 years he’s been in the real estate business.  They’re scared.  Stih says, “Let’s say a house last year was worth $250000 to $300,000, and today they’re selling for $150,000.  He went on to say, “Interest rates are still affordable, but people aren’t buying because of the economy.  They’re scared.”

So what can we expect going forward.  Stih feels that many sellers still have unrealistic expectations on who much their homes are worth, while banks have continued to restrict credit, making it difficult for potential buyer to obtain credit to buy these homes.  Added to that Stih see a lot of potential buyers sitting on the sidelines, betting that prices will drop further.  Guntermann takes a more optimistic view, saying there is evidence that sales have rebounded to where they were a year ago, and year-over-year rate of declines in sales prices is expected to bottom out in early 2009, and then make an upward move toward zero.  Guntermann did hedge a bit by saying prices moving up may not occur until late 2009 or even into 2010.

Jeff Polhill

Which families get hurt the most?  Nationwide families in the bottom fifth of family income average spending 55 percent for higher education costs.  The top fifth of family income earners pay only 9 percent.  And for those who least can afford paying for college, many schools now offer financial aid  to high-achieving students, regardless of need, to boost the school’s reputation.

Why have education costs gone up so much in the past few years?  The public institutions garner much of their aid from their state’s government budget, and with so many states facing growing budget deficits, the schools are getting less dollars.  So what do colleges and universities do?  They have 2 choices: They can cut programs, teachers, staff, non-revenue sports and/or they can increase tuition and fees to their underclassmen and incoming students.  Some schools are being forced to do both.  Based on the reduction in income from the State of Arizona, who is facing the largest budget deficit ever, my alma mater, Arizona State University, has done both.  The state regents recently approved a 5 percent tuition increase for 3 schools within the university - Engineering and Nursing are two of them - and a 10 percent increase to incoming students.  Along with that university president Crowe announced additonal budget cuts affecting departments, staff and teachers to balance the school’s budget.  Earlier in the year our athletic director dropped three non-revenue producing sports.  Luckily two of the affected sports were able to get commitments from alumni to fund the programs for at least the next several years.   But in times of a rough economy and dwindling 401ks and other individual funds donations are not so easily come by.

So with a worsening economy during the worst recession in a long time, loss of jobs, mounting foreclosures, increasing bankruptcies and dwindling savings, 401ks, IRAs, stocks and mutual funds, how are many of our children going to be able to attend colleges and technical schools?  Who is going to foot the bill.  We can’t have a growing nation of high school students graduating with little ability to get the skills and knowledge they will need to get a good job, raise a family, and retire in comfort.

And here is another “fly in the ointment:”  Consumer debt stands at record levels.  According to an article posted in Money-Zine.com from Consumer Debt Statistics, “The latest statistics from the Federal Reserve indicate that the total amount of outstanding consumer debt remained fairly steady in 2007.  In case you’re wondering the total amount of consumer debt in the United States stands at nearly $2.6 trillion dollars - and based on the latest Census statistics, that works out to be nearly $8,500 in debt for every man, woman and child that lives here in the US.  The article went on to say that if $8500 in debt for every person in America doesn’t seem all that daunting, the $8500 does not include mortgage debt.

Americans are swimming in a large cesspool called debt,  If we don’t get a handle on it, we will be in the same fix (if we are not already) as our government.  The solution is to make a budget and live within it, cut down on unnecessary expenses, eat home more often, eat out less, buy fewer electronic gadgets, cut back on entertainment: it costs less to rent a DVD movie and pop some popcorn in your home than go to the theater.  And just as important is to eliminate your mortgage and debt as fast as possible.  If your mortgage was paid for and you owed nothing on your cars and credit cards and other loans or lines of credit, what would life be like?  How much could you reduce the stress in your life?  Could you take more and better vacations? How much money could you save for your retirement?  How much for your children’s education and their future?  There are many MORTGAGE AND DEBT ACCELERATION PROGRAMS out there.  Some better than others.  Incorporate one of these into your overall financial plan so that you will have enough income and assets to retire comfortably and ensure that your children get the education they need to succeed.

Jeff Polhill