Good Morning, New Leaves! I hope you all had a great weekend and gave yourself a spa day.

We are nearing the half way point in our Turn Over A New Leaf 30 Day Fitness Challenge. If you have been participating in the challenge from day 1 and doing my 45 Minute Workout DVD, it’s time to add some resistance! If you have 1 pound dumbbells, now is the time to start using them.

When performed properly, resistance exercises provide the safest and most efficient way to achieve firm, toned and strong muscles.  If you’re concerned that adding dumbbells to your workout will cause you to muscles to grow larger, please don’t worry about that: It will not happen. In order to make a muscle grow in size, you must use what is called “The Overload Principle”.  Simply stated, you must repeatedly force a muscle to work harder than it is used to working.  In order to do this you must use weights that are so heavy, you can only do a maximum of 10 repetitions per exercise.  If you are able to do any more than that, you are not overloading the muscle and therefore, are in no “danger” of creating increased muscle mass.

So, get yourself some dumbbells OR fill up two 16 ounce bottles with water and use them for your next workout. Tomorrow, we will be doing a mini fast: We will eat only raw fruits & vegetables and drink lots of water and juice (freshly made or store bought 100% no sugar added juice). Go grocery  shopping tonight, if you need to.  Until then, be well!