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Are All Calories Created Equal?

Are All Calories Created Equal?

Published by on July 5, 2023 | Leave a response

Clients at Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY, understand that cutting calories can help you lose weight. They even understand that some foods are healthier than others. I’m lucky to have such smart clients who also know not all calories are equal. It’s not the actual calories that makes a difference in whether a food will promote weight gain, but the food itself. If you eat 2400 calories, all from healthy fruits and vegetables and a friend eats an equal amount of calories from sugary treats, you’ll get more benefits and lose weight faster than they will.

In order to metabolize some calories, it takes extra energy.

If you ate a stalk of celery, it wouldn’t amount to many calories. Your body would get even fewer calories since it takes calories to digest the celery. Some people think celery is a negative calorie food, but so far, no studies have proven or disproven the theory. Celery is also a diuretic, so if you’re gaining weight from retaining water, it helps you lose it. Eating 100 calories from celery—which would be a lot—has less effect on your weight than eating a hundred calories of cookies—two medium ones.

It’s about thermogenesis.

When you eat, it has to digest. That all takes energy and produces heat. The body has to break down the food by producing digestive juices and sending the food through the digestive tract. There it breaks food down further, removing the nutrients from the food. Those are extra calories used and not available to the body. Fibrous foods, like fruits, vegetables, or other complex carbohydrates, fats, or meat, use many calories for digestion, while simple carbs, like sugar and sugary products, use much fewer. Hence, 100 calories from high thermogenetic foods depletes to fewer calories, while those from sugary treats are available at 100%

The fiber in the food and the toxic elements make a difference, too.

Food with added sugar can be toxic. It can cause inflammation, which can cause weight gain. It can cause insulin resistance that leads to that and diabetes. A few calories from food with added sugar is more than just a few calories, it also can change your gut microbiome. A healthy balance makes your body work properly, but an unhealthy balance leads to disease and even obesity. If you get your calories from high-fiber food, the fiber feeds beneficial microbes to improve health and reduce weight.

  • Let’s not forget the nutrients in the food. Magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin C, carotenoids, iron, and zinc can all boost your weight loss efforts. Studies show that obese people are often deficient in vitamin D. People eat for a number of reasons besides just hunger.
  • Eating other thermogenetic foods, like meat and fat, can keep you feeling full longer. It’s because these types of food take longer to digest. Complex carbohydrates take longer to digest than simple ones.
  • The same food can have a different caloric effect. If you refrigerate a potato, reheating it later, the chilling process changes half the starch into resistant starch. You can’t absorb resistant starch so it passes out in your feces.
  • Calories from junk food are considered empty calories. That’s because they provide no benefit, other than the calories they provide. Choosing food that offers other benefits can make you leaner and healthier.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

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Strength Training Benefits As You Get Older

Strength Training Benefits As You Get Older

Published by on June 25, 2023 | Leave a response

As people age, they often focus on endurance and do some type of aerobic exercise to improve it. They also may include stretching in their daily exercise routine. Far fewer people include strength-training. Many don’t realize all the benefits it provides as they get older or think it could be too taxing for them to do. Some senior women think strength-building is just for men, or worry they’ll become muscle-bound. The truth is, strength training is important for people of all ages no matter what their gender, particularly seniors.

Strength training won’t build big muscles in women, but it will keep seniors mentally sharper.

While the attitude is changing, some women think that lifting weights is just for men and unladylike. That’s not true. Deceased icon, Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, had a personal trainer and regularly lifted weights. She knew it helped her maintain her health both mentally and physically, allowing her to serve with clarity until her death at age 87. While she was a trailblazer who broke the glass ceiling, nobody would ever call her too muscular. The male hormone testosterone increases muscle bulk, and the reason women don’t develop large rippling muscles without a lot of extra work and a special diet.

Fighting obesity is important.

Obesity can lead to serious health conditions that include diabetes and heart disease. Aerobic-style exercises like walking and running burn calories, but the calories come from both fat and lean muscle tissue. Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue does, so the less you have, the fewer calories you’ll burn. That makes losing weight or preventing weight gain harder. Strength training builds muscle tissue allowing you to torch more calories, preventing obesity, the leading cause of preventable death.

More muscle mass means greater strength.

The stronger you are, the less likely you’ll fall, which can lead to the inability to care for yourself. Besides lack of strength and improved balance, when you lack adequate muscle strength, it causes sarcopenia. Sarcopenia leads to a wasting of muscles, which are necessary to maintain bone strength. Strong muscles tug on the bones, causing them to uptake calcium to be strong enough to resist the tug. Lack of strength-building allows the bones to lose calcium, causing osteoporosis. Strength-building leads to stronger muscles and bones.

  • Strength training can slow the process of aging on a cellular level. Studies show that exercising increases mitochondrial activity to keep cells younger. The people benefiting most were 65-80.
  • Unless you workout regularly, muscle loss starts in the 30s, with loss increasing every decade. The older you are, the harder it is to build muscles due to lower hormone levels and more inefficient protein processing.
  • Strength training helps maintain mental fitness. Dementia, depression, and Alzheimer’s all benefit from regular strength training. Many therapists use it as an adjuvant therapy.
  • Weight training can help relieve arthritis pain, back pain, and aching joints. It builds the muscles, ligaments, and tendons to help reduce further pain by providing more support.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

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How Grains Affect Your Health

How Grains Affect Your Health

Published by on June 15, 2023 | Leave a response

What are grains? They are seeds designed for plant reproduction. They are also an integral part of a healthy diet and help you maintain good health. There are downsides to consuming grains. They may create health conditions ranging from mild to serious. One issue occurs because seeds have protection to ensure the species survives. It starts with the seed coat, which is strong enough to resist digestion. Not only does each person react differently to grains, but some also have problems with one grain and not others. Celiac disease, for instance, occurs when sensitive people eat grain that contains gluten, like wheat.

Enzyme inhibitors in seeds protect them.

When consumed, seeds pass through the digestive tract and are expelled whole in the waste, often miles from the parent plant. The new location gives it space, and the fecal material provides fertilizer. Other factors that ensure the survival of the seed and plant can cause health issues in humans. Even when seeds have their own space and fertilizer, it doesn’t mean conditions perfect. It may be too hot, cold, wet, or dry. Enzyme inhibitors in the seeds prevent the seed from sprouting where it’s doomed to fail. That same enzyme inhibitor can affect the enzymes in the body that are necessary to digest food, creating stomach issues.

The lectins in grains are natural pesticides that protect the seed and sprouting plant.

Seeds are almost magical. They contain everything necessary for survival, including pesticides. The pesticide is the lectin in the seed. It’s a pesticide, so it’s only logical that consuming large amounts can cause digestive issues in humans. Grains contain complex carbohydrates and proteins, which are harder to digest. Wheat, for instance, contains gluten, a complex protein. Gluten intolerance has grown dramatically in the last 50 years since hybridization increased the amount of gluten in grain.

Grains contain an anti-nutrient.

Phytic acid is the anti-nutrient contained in grain. It’s how plants store phosphorous. Phytic acids prevent phosphorous, magnesium, zinc, calcium, and iron from breaking down and absorbing. It attaches to those minerals so they aren’t available to the body. One way to reduce the phytic acid in grains is to soak the grain, ferment it, or sprout it. It was how grain was prepared for use in the past. It eliminated both the phytic acid and the enzyme inhibitors.

  • Eating whole grains can help prevent heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and chronic inflammation. Including sourdough bread, which is fermented, sprouted bread, or bread made with soaked flour. Avoid bread made with highly processed and bleached flour.
  • Why choose whole grains? Processed flour is stripped of nutrients. The milling process removes the bran and germ containing the fiber and nutrients. It leaves only the endosperm that is starchy and high in calories.
  • If you have digestive issues caused by grains, identify which grains cause the problem. Pseudo-grains and brown rice flour might be good alternatives.
  • If you go grain-free it can lead to an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and lead to constipation, and nutritional deficiencies. It can cause inflammation, weight gain, and affect immunity.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

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How To Burn Fat And Keep It Off

How To Burn Fat And Keep It Off

Published by on June 5, 2023 | Leave a response

In Louisville, KY, people are searching for easy ways to burn fat and keep it off. It’s not just a local phenomenon, it occurs everywhere. Some quick fix programs help you lose weight, but the weight is often water weight that returns almost instantaneously. Other programs may help you lose fat, but those often involve restrictive diets that aren’t meant for long-term use. Again, the fat returns. There is one option that keeps fat from returning. It requires lifestyle changes that become habits that are hard to break.

Start by moving more.

Consistently burning calories means being more active regularly, including an exercise program. Exercise does more than just burn extra calories. It builds muscle tissue. If your body has more muscle tissue, you’ll burn more calories. Why? There are two reasons. First, muscle tissue requires more calories for maintenance than fat tissue does. The more you have, the higher your metabolism 24/7. A second reason is that exercise releases irisin. The body has both brown fat and white fat. Brown fat mitochondria burn more calories. The lumpy, hard-to-lose white fat insulates the body. The irisin exercise releases white fat into brown fat, which increases calorie-burning by 20%. The more you exercise, the more calorie-burning brown fat you develop.

The key to fat loss is your diet.

No matter how much you exercise, you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. It doesn’t matter if you run marathons or workout at the gym, if you’re consuming an unending amount of unhealthy, high-calorie foods, you’ll gain weight in the form of fat. Fat is the way the body stores excess calories. Your body needs micronutrients like vitamins and minerals, phytonutrients like anthocyanin, and macronutrients, which include protein, fat, and healthy carbohydrates.

You need other factors for a healthy lifestyle to make keeping fat off easier.

If you dehydrate or lack sleep, you’ll lose energy and be less active. That can cause a drop in the calories you burn, plus put stress on your overall health. Lack of sleep also causes the body to produce more ghrelin, the hunger hormone, and less leptin, the hormone that makes you feel full. That makes it difficult to resist temptation, plus causes you to crave sweets to get the burst of energy it provides. Food high in sugar causes blood glucose levels to rise quickly. Just as quickly as it rises, it drops dramatically, making you crave more sugar. It becomes a cycle of destruction.

  • Eliminate food with added sugar. The high glucose level caused by increasing sugar in the diet also causes a high insulin level and inflammation. Both can cause an increase in fat, particularly around the midsection.
  • Just working out may not be enough. An active lifestyle outside the gym helps. People sitting at a desk all day need to take five minutes every hour to get up and move to preserve the benefits of regular exercise.
  • Learn portion control. Healthy eating doesn’t mean giving up everything you love. You can still eat your favorite food, but not as often, and with portion control in mind.
  • Living healthy also means getting adequate sunshine. Sunshine provides you with vitamin D. More recent studies show that a higher percentage of obese people have a vitamin D deficiency.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

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The Benefits Of Eating More Protein

The Benefits Of Eating More Protein

Published by on May 25, 2023 | Leave a response

You need to eat adequate protein to ensure your body is working at peak performance and has all the building blocks necessary. One of the many benefits of eating more protein is improved weight control. Protein fills you up and leaves you feeling fuller for a longer period. It lowers your ghrelin—the hunger hormone—level and increases peptide YY—a gut hormone that makes you feel full. One study showed that when obese women increased protein intake from 15% of their calories to 30% of their caloric intake, they reduced the number of calories they ate by an average of 441 daily without intentionally trying.

You’ll build stronger bones when you eat more protein.

You may have read that a higher protein intake causes calcium to leach from bones to neutralize the increased acid load from protein. Most people would believe it would make a higher protein diet bad for bones, but that’s not true. Over the long term, consuming more protein helps build stronger bones. Studies show that people consuming more protein have more bone mass as they age and a lowered risk of fracture or osteoporosis. More protein also helps maintain muscle mass, reducing the risk of osteoporosis.

More protein aids in gaining muscle mass.

Protein is a building block for muscles. It’s why you eat a combination of carbs and protein before and after a tough strength-building workout. It helps maintain and build muscle mass. If you’re trying to lose weight, consume protein to ensure you won’t lose muscle mass. Muscle tissue requires more calories to maintain than fat tissue does, so the more you have the higher your metabolism.

Consuming more protein can help you lose weight in other ways.

Are you prone to late-night snacks or crave food between meals? Protein not only helps you feel fuller, but it also can reduce cravings. Craving food isn’t the same as being hungry and late-night snacking normally doesn’t involve hunger either. Studies show that by upping your protein intake to 25% of your caloric intake, you can reduce daytime cravings by as much as 60% and nighttime snacking by 50%. Consuming protein can also increase your metabolism while you digest it. It’s the thermic effect that increases calories burned and keeps the metabolic fires burning throughout the day.

  • You’ll reduce the risk of a heart attack when you increase your protein intake. Controlled trials show that a higher protein diet reduced blood pressure and even reduced other risk factors for heart disease.
  • If you have an injury, protein helps the body do repairs faster. Whether you cut your hand chopping vegetables or fell outside, eating more protein provides the nutrients necessary to speed recovery.
  • Increasing protein in your diet can make weight loss easier and help maintain that weight loss. An increase in your protein intake can help you keep weight off permanently.
  • People often worry that too much protein can damage their kidneys. If you have a kidney problem, a high intake of protein may be harmful. For everyone else, a diet higher in protein won’t affect your kidneys.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

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How To Stop Feeling Guilty About Overeating

How To Stop Feeling Guilty About Overeating

Published by on May 15, 2023 | Leave a response

People who overeat consistently use food to cope with negative feelings. They stuff down those feelings with food. If overeating is followed by feeling guilty, it adds another negative emotion, and creates a bigger problem. Break the pattern and stop feeling guilty. Guilt drives the compulsion and makes food even more important as an emotional crutch. The shame adds to the feeling of worthlessness and being out of control.

Is it a bad habit, compulsive-addictive behavior, or a way to prove you’re not worthy?

There are many reasons for compulsive overeating. Sometimes, it starts innocently with a desire to look and feel better. Instead of simply looking at healthy food choices, people attach words like good food and bad food, making it more of a struggle of good v evil rather than simply eating a healthy diet. That elevates each infraction to a whole new level. Food can also become your addiction of choice. Foods high in sugar, fat, and salt trigger areas of the brain that cause your body to trigger feel-good hormones. Finding why you overeat will give you a better idea of why, help you control it better, and remove the stigmas.

Learn more about your overeating and guilt with a food/emotion diary.

Instead of tracking every bite of food, track the emotions you felt when you ate the food. Is the message in your head “I shouldn’t eat this,” or “I’m bad if I eat that”? Write down why you should or shouldn’t consume certain foods. Jot down all the self-talk and see how often you taunt yourself with negative input. Before you put your food/emotion diary away, ask yourself if you sincerely want that food and if it’s what your body needs. You might find that sometimes you don’t want it. For those times you do, give yourself permission to eat it without guilt. Eating becomes a decision which gives you control.

Become your own best friend.

Guilt comes with an onslaught of insults inside your head. Ask yourself, “Would I talk to my best friend that way?” If the answer is no, become your own best friend. If you ate the pint of Ben and Jerry’s in your freezer in record time, are you telling yourself you’re a failure, worthless, or something just as berating? Give yourself the talk you’d like to hear from a best friend.

  • If you’re truly craving a specific food, yet berating yourself after eating it, you’re taking all the pleasure out of eating it. Allowing yourself to feel that pleasure without guilt can reduce the need to do it more frequently.
  • Seek professional help if you can’t quit overeating or feeling guilty about it. There’s nothing wrong with getting help.
  • End the deprivation and quit starvation diets. You may be feeling guilty about consuming food that’s necessary for sustenance. Complete deprivation is as bad as overeating followed by guilt. In both instances, you’re punishing yourself.
  • Eat mindfully. Rather than making shame or guilt your focus, turn your attention to the food and savor the experience. Appreciate its appearance, texture, and taste, savoring each bite. You can get as much pleasure from a small amount without overeating.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

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How Not To Gain Weight On A Cruise

How Not To Gain Weight On A Cruise

Published by on May 5, 2023 | Leave a response

Even though Louisville, KY, is one of the nicest places to be, sometimes it’s fun to get away from it. People often find taking a cruise is a perfect way. Food plays an important role on any cruise and sometimes people report they gain weight and lose their momentum on a cruise, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You can enjoy yourself and may even shed a pound or two when you follow a few easy steps.

Stay active.

There’s a lot to do on a cruise, so take advantage of the situation. Find an active shore excursion you’d enjoy, such as a walking sightseeing tour, snorkeling, kayaking. or biking. You’ll see the sights and make memories, while burning calories. Work out at the gym when you’re not taking an active side trip, swim in the pool, or tour the boat. Don’t forget to use the stairs. When planning a meal, choose an option furthest from you and walk. You’ll burn more calories and aid digestion after a meal.

Go for healthier options and healthier food outlets.

Cruise ships offer a lot of options for meals. Choose healthier options. Instead of a heavy dessert, opt for a sorbet for most meals. You don’t have to deny yourself every meal. Choose one meal you’ll use to splurge. Many people make it to the last night to avoid being tempted every night. Say no to the breadbasket and yes to fruits and vegetables. Fresh fruits and vegetables can become a gourmet treat when prepared by a talented chef. Avoid dishes with high calorie, creamy sauces.

Keep a bottle of water available at all times.

You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how water boosts your energy and fills you up. Many cruises focus on fun in the sun, so having a bottle of water at your side constantly fits right into the picture. If you’re on a cold weather cruise, make that water in the cabin and green or herbal tea on the deck. Drink a bottle of water before dining and you’ll eat less. Studies show that subjects experienced weight loss by drinking eight ounces of water before a meal, even though they changed nothing else.

  • Limit drinks to lower-calorie options like white wine, light beer, or vodka. Avoid sugary, creamy ones that may have as many calories as an entire meal.
  • Give yourself permission to enjoy a treat. You’re on vacation, so enjoy. That doesn’t mean you need to become a glutton. Pick one meal a day to splurge, or one every other day. The rest of the time, enjoy healthy but lower-calorie foods.
  • Some dining venues offer a healthy menu with more fresh fruit and vegetable options, no fried food, and main dishes fit for a weight-watching king. Do your research before the trip and opt for the healthiest food outlets.
  • The buffet can be a friend or enemy if you’re trying to prevent weight gain. If you choose the buffet, survey all the options first, then fill your plate. Avoid wearing elastic waistbands and opt for traditional clothing that becomes tight if you overeat.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

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How To Start A Low Carb Diet

How To Start A Low Carb Diet

Published by on April 25, 2023 | Leave a response

In recent years, the low carb diet has gained popularity. Even though eating healthier is a simpler solution that doesn’t require calorie or carb counting, it’s true that carb counting does work. One of the main reasons it works is that low carb foods are often low calorie foods. Low carb foods are often whole foods that don’t contain added sugar and are part of a program focused on healthy eating.

What is a low carb diet?

Carbohydrates are macronutrients, just as protein and fat are. A low carb diet limits carbs, which are found mostly in plant-based foods. Not all carbs are bad. There are three types of carbohydrates: sugar, starch, and fiber. Those three types are all necessary for the body to be healthy. Healthier carbs like fruits, vegetables, nuts, milk, grains, and beans, should be part of your diet, but food with added sugar and highly processed foods shouldn’t. That often eliminates special diet foods that are low in fat, since sugar often replaces the fat to provide the flavor lost when the fat was removed. Pasta and bread are normally missing in a low carb diet, too.

How a low carb diet works.

The belief behind a low carb diet is that the diet will change the way the body gets its energy or calories. It will stop getting its energy from carbohydrates and get it from fat and protein. When the body gets calories from carbs, the body changes the carbs’ glucose to glycogen, then it stores the glycogen in the liver. When the liver is full, the glycogen converts to fat. When you limit carbs, the body must get its fuel somewhere else, which is body fat.

The pros and cons of a low carb diet.

Low carb diets can help reduce insulin resistance, a precursor of Type 2 diabetes. It lowers the levels of insulin released. It also aids in lowering the bad LDL cholesterol levels and increases the good HDL levels. It helps stabilize both triglyceride and blood sugar levels. Extremely restrictive low carb diets have side effects like constipation, headaches, lethargy, heart palpitations, and irritability. It can cause undue stress on the kidneys.

  • Extreme low carb diets like the keto diet can lead to nutritional deficiencies. Studies show that extreme low carb diets didn’t provide enough of 15 of the 27 vitamins and minerals the body requires for good health.
  • Often people mistakenly overeat high fat foods like bacon. While bacon will set the body into a state of ketosis, it’s not the healthiest way to do it and can add too much sodium to the diet.
  • You can get many of the same benefits of a low carb diet by simply giving up food with added sugar, highly processed food, pasta, and bread. Always talk to your health care professional first before starting any diet.
  • At Body Sculptors, we provide personalized nutritional plans. It contains menus, shopping lists, recipes and helps you track your nutritional intake, making losing weight and getting fit easier.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

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Healthy Habits = Healthy Life

Healthy Habits = Healthy Life

Published by on April 15, 2023 | Leave a response

Living a healthy life in Louisville, KY, is all about having healthy habits. It isn’t about eating a salad once in a while or buying a gym membership and using it once or twice. It’s about the things you do every day that make a difference. Developing habits take a while, and many people start with one change and after a month or two, add another. The changes can be as simple as drinking tea or coffee without sugar to something more involved like a program of fitness. It doesn’t matter where you start. The important part is getting started.

A healthier diet should be a goal.

If you’re slamming down quickie burgers like there is no tomorrow, there may not be one for you. To have a healthier body, you have to have a healthy diet. A healthy diet doesn’t mean dieting but making smarter choices. Choose more greens, several selections of vegetables, and lean meat, fish, or poultry. Instead of high-sugar, high-calorie pastry, opt for fresh fruit as a dessert. If you’re overweight, changing your eating habits is necessary to lose weight. The sad truth is that obesity is on the rise in America and many of the obese are also malnourished.

Get moving.

Consider all the changes that have occurred in the last fifty or sixty years. Everyone used to be more physical. Adults would spend time playing tennis, roller skating, or bowling and kids loved playing games outside. Today, everyone is stuck in front of a screen and the only active muscles are in their hands. You’ll rust out before you wear out, so get up and move. Start a program of regular exercise. Make it a habit, so schedule it at the same time every day to ensure it becomes a habit. You don’t have to workout at the gym every time, you can take walks or do other activities.

You probably don’t get enough sleep.

Burning a candle at both ends has become a badge of honor in the US. Unfortunately, that’s bad for your heart and can even make you pack on pounds. Lack of sleep can cause a hormone imbalance between leptin—the satiety hormone—-and ghrelin—the hunger hormone. If you don’t get enough sleep, the body produces less leptin and more ghrelin, so you want to eat more and you gain weight. Lack of sleep can affect your memory, increase the risk of diabetes and negatively affect your immune system. Create a sleep schedule and stick with it until it becomes a habit.

  • If you want an easier way to ensure you eat healthier, our fitness plans are perfect. We provide a personalized menu, a grocery list and recipes. All you do is buy the food.
  • Don’t forget to drink plenty of water and hydrate often, especially in hot weather or when exercising. Even mild dehydration has side effects. For instance, it can make you feel sleepy. The next time you’re tired, drink a bottle of cold water and you’ll probably feel more awake.
  • When you make a change, focus on staying with that change for a minimum of nine weeks. Studies show the average time for forming a habit is 66 days.
  • Eating healthy includes what you drink. Soft drinks or fancy coffee drinks are high in sugar, calories, and ingredients that can be harmful to you. Don’t forget to include snacks in your meal plan.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

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