Teddy Zane - Flex Fitness

Teddy Zane, owner of Flex Fitness in Irondale, is the guest on episode 31 of Birmingham Shines.

Health and fitness starts with food.

“You can’t outtrain a bad diet,” Zane says.

Teddy is an ACE certified trainer.

Bodybuilding Awards include:
--Mr. New York
--Teen Mr. Upstate New York

Flex Fitness is an awesome gym in Irondale, a suburb of Birmingam, with 24/7 access. Flex Fitness offers a full range of cardio workout machines, as well as multiple varieties of circuit training machines. There's a full floor of free-weights for the hard-core bodybuilders, but Flex Fitness really emphasizes fitness for everyone. 

In this week's episode we talk about nutrition, designing a workout regimen and more. Here are some highlights:

Some folks don’t get the results they want because they quit too soon when they don’t get the results fast enough. Patience is a key and you also have to pay attention to what you’re eating.

Most of us can’t get all the vitamins, minerals, amino acids that we need, even if we’re eating reasonably well. So it’s not just about what you’re will to give up and a commitment to eating the right combinations and quantities.

You also have to pay attention to the quality of the food you’re taking in. Industrially-produced poultry and beef, farmed fish, these receive food that’s largely corn-based. As a result, you don’t get the Omega 3 fatty acids and other benefits of grassfed, pastured livestock.

Teddy recommends intermittent fasting to help detox body and restore gut health. This is not the solution for someone with a medical condition, but for a normal healthy person intermittent fasting can be an excellent tool for restoring colonic health and intestinal function.

With intermittent fasting, you go 12 hours, usually overnight, with no food intake to give your digestive system a rest. Drink a lot of water, especially in the morning after, to help flush out toxins.

Food and fitness are the fountain of youth.

Not sure where to start, if you aren't already on a fitness plan.....Teddy offers these tips:

• Set a goal. Identify your goal and a reason to achieve it.
• If you can’t manage your self-discipline, get a trainer. Not mandatory if you can stay committed to your plan, but a trainer is great to keep you motivated.
• Ask people in great shape to help you. It’s better to talk to a real person--even a friend who’s knowledgeable--rather than just going to YouTube or a website for motivation.
• Be consistent. Don’t be sporadic. Your body adapts quickly, so you want to keep moving forward.

Bodybuilding is for the extreme-fit enthusiast. Most people just want to focus on cardio to get rid of stored body fat. A key to maximize fat-burning is to work out on an empty stomach and you must get your heart rate up (more on that shortly). Drink lots of water.

Take a branch-chain amino acid supplement before your cardio workout. Branch chain amino acids usually come in powder form. Take before the workout, on empty stomach, to preserve muscle and burn fat.

For strength-training, want to have a couple of meals in the day before your strength workout.

Ideally, do your cardio early, on an empty stomach. Make sure you get your heart rate up to the right level, based on age. A heart rate monitor is crucial for making sure you hit the right threshold in cardio to burn fat.

Then have 2 meals before strength training. Do your strength 2 p.m. or later, after you’ve had good nutrition.

 

Flex Fitness is located on Crestwood Blvd. in Irondale.

Irondale is (as some of you may know) the hometown of the Irondale Cafe, which inspired The Whistlestop Cafe in Fannie Flagg’s book, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe.

Find Flex Fitness on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Flex-fitness-117410334948869/

http://birminghamshines.com