What if I were to tell you that over the weekend I had ravioli, popcorn, cookies, smoothies, crackers, dip, chocolate chip cookie dough bars, muffins, chocolate pudding, ice cream, chicken parmesan, and more and enjoyed it without feeling guilty AND actually felt as though I still stayed on track in terms of my nutrition? 
Am I crazy?
No - it's all possible to fit those foods into your life if you pick the right products and keep things in moderation. Those foods would all be typically classified as "dirty" or "unhealthy" but I'm posting this as an example that foods aren't inherently "good" or "bad" and that trying to "eat clean" 24/7 is not necessary or ideal. 
Now yes, it is true that the above foods are typically very high in calories and it would be hard to fit them into your daily macronutrient goals, but I'm here to show you that if you shop right, you can buy much healthier varieties of the same foods and stay on track.
Below I will compare the nutrition of my food choices vs. an alternative popular version:

It's pretty clear to see the vast amount of differences between the food choices in terms of their nutrition values. I hope this helps to highlight the point that if you put some effort into food planning and choices, you can still eat foods that are enjoyable and stay on track with your nutrition plan. And while this post is meant to serve as an example of how to incorporate delicious foods and snacks into a lifestyle, I also want to point out that my weekend also included "healthy" food options such as chicken, veggies, fruits, protein shakes, etc. I also went out for dinner and ordered Chicken Parmesan with angel hair pasta, but only had half my portion and a side salad so I could take home the rest. This saves 50% of the calories. And I also fit in a quick workout as well over the weekend. 

With the right preparation, you too can find the perfect balance and be able to enjoy your food choices and continue progressing toward your health and fitness goals.

​I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and best wishes for a Happy New Year! With 2016 right around the corner, many people across the world will be planning their New Year's Resolutions, and losing weight or getting in shape is at the top of list in terms of popularity. Unfortunately, studies show that, by Jan. 10, most Americans have already given up and only 8% of people actually achieve their New Year's Resolutions. Here are a few tips to help you stick to your resolutions and achieve the results you desire.

Set Both Long Term and Short Term Goals
Envision what you want to achieve and write your goals down or make it into something visible and tangible so you will be reminded of your goals each day. Whether it's a reminder you'll read each morning or a note that you'll come across throughout the day, keep the goal fresh in your mind and work towards achieving it each day. Additionally, remember to set smaller, short term goals to help you stay accountable and continue progressing. 

Be Realistic
Rome wasn't built in a day. And most likely, you didn't gain the weight overnight so don't expect to lose it overnight either. While 7 day fasts and 14 diets are all the rave, they do more harm than good. Fast and rapid weight loss oftens leads to primarily water and muscle loss, which will do more harm to your metabolic capacity in the long run. And typically, once you return to your old habits, you'll regain the weight and then some. Any diet which you cannot sustain in the long run is not worth starting in the first place. Successful weight loss is about making lifestyle changes, both physically and nutritionally, as well as psychologically so that you can lose the weight and keep it off. These changes need to be adjustments that you can adhere to today, tomorrow, next week, and next year. Losing weight is one step, but weight loss maintenance over the long term is a true accomplishment.

Focus on the Process, Not Just the Goals
While it's easy to talk about what we want to achieve, we must take action. Aim to take steps each and every day to help get you closer to your goals. Whether it's substituting one soda per day with a glass of water, or committing to exercising 3x per week for 30 minutes, every step counts. Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. We don't have to be perfect and we shouldn't expect the process to be easy. But strive to do your best each day because consistency is the true key of success.

Tell Others
Let your friends and family know what you're trying to accomplish and how they can assist you on your journey. They can help keep you accountable and stay on track. Also having a workout buddy to motivate you and expect to meet you at the gym certain times during the week can be a great tool, especially on days that your mind is tempting you with excuses to skip the workout. Staying motivated is vital for success and while extrinsic motivational factors may be the primary fuel source at the beginning, they can become intrinsic motivational factors over time. See my previous post regarding exercise and motivation here.

Be Patient and Proud of Yourself
The best things in life take time, hard work, and consistent effort to achieve so be patient and believe in yourself. Anything is possible! It will require commitment, dedication, time, will power, and sacrifices. There will be temptations and times when you fall down. But failure isn't falling down. Failure comes from refusing to get back up. You can make it happen if you set your mind to it and I promise you that the results will be well worth it. Each day, wake up with determination and a goal. If you achieve it, you'll go to bed with satisfaction at night. 

Get a Plan and Stay Accountable
Even if you have the proper mindset, you still need the game plan for success. And while there's no substitute for hard work, it's also important to strive to work smarter as well. There are millions of diets and fitness plans out there, but for it to be truly successful, it must be customized for the individual. Everyone is different so a "cookie-cutter" diet plan will never be optimal. A customized program should be based on many factors, including one's body composition, lifestyle habits, current and previous diets, likes/dislikes, workout equipment, preferences, and goals. Along with the proper plan, motivation and accountability is vital. Will power can fade so having the support and guidance to pick you up when you fall and keep you progressing along the path is essential. And when the right plan is combined with consistent progression, then resolutions and goals will indeed come true.

If you're ready to take the first step towards your goals today with a customized online personal training plan, click here.

- Joe Zucchi

 The latest episode of Weight Loss, Fitness, & Your Health is now available for viewing! In this episode, Dr. Piotrowski and I discuss tips for avoiding holiday weight gain. I hope you find it informative and helpful in the coming months! Feel free to comment here or ask any questions in regards to the video.

I apologize for my recent posts being continually centered around the FitOrbit fiasco, but I want to keep everyone as updated as possible regarding the situation. I am happy to report I have some good news. Today, all the trainers, such as myself, received an email. Here's an excerpt:
"The Company has been making every effort to send final payments and will work on completing final payments out to you by this week. We thank you for your understanding and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to you."
It is good to finally receive an update on the situation after weeks of silence from FitOrbit.com. In addition, I reached out to the FitOrbit support rep for more information in regards to the clients awaiting their refunds. I received a prompt reply stating:
"As far as client refunds go, I've reached out to the managing team and there has been a slight delay in completing the client refunds due to multiple requests from their financial institution and other resources. Every client will be compensated for a refund of all/any unused weeks of their remaining plan."
So although it may take a bit more time, it's nice to hear that the refunds are still planned and should occur hopefully in the near future. 

I hope this provides some comfort to those awaiting refunds and gives you more information regarding the situation overall.

UPDATE 11/2/2015: Just wanted to post a quick final update regarding FitOrbit. The trainers have finally received our final payment this past week. We have been informed that they are also working on the refunds for the customers as well. Hopefully that will happen soon. If you would like, another option that has been successful is asking for a refund via PayPal. Some clients have successful received their money back by going through that method.

I wanted to provide a quick update regarding the information I have learned from some of my clients in regards to the recent FitOrbit closing. If you haven't seen my original post, please see here.

Unfortunately, FitOrbit has failed to provide any information thus far in regards to potential refunds or even an explanation as to why the closure occurred. 

I have reached out and sent emails to FitOrbit support, and at this time, I have yet to receive any response from FitOrbit administration. I myself, along with the other trainers, have still not received our pay check for our final month (September) so we await that as well. Typically trainers receive payment online on the 15th of the month so I will know more very shortly. There is a reddit page where some customers are talking about it as well: Link

One of my clients has also begun the process of filing a complaint with his state’s attorney general regarding a possible lawsuit against FitOrbit if a refund is not sent out to customers. Another customer also reported on Twitter that "Chase gave me a temp credit for my dispute of the FitOrbit membership" so perhaps checking in with your credit card company may be a wise idea as well. Also, since they did business across state lines, you can file a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission here.

You can also file a fraud complaint through PayPal as well. According to PayPal, FitOrbit has 10 days to respond to the claim. If they don’t, it will be closed in the customer's favor.

As I mentioned previously, I myself and the other trainers received no notice ahead of time regarding the closing of FitOrbit. We were notified via a very brief email, similar to what customers received, on the day prior to the website shutting down. It's very unfortunate and unprofessional of them to not be providing any clarity about the circumstances or time frame for our payments. I'll be sure to keep you updated on any further news I receive.

I hope this information has been helpful for you. If you have any questions, feel free to email me. I hope to continue working with you as part of my new online program through JPZ Fitness! I have created a complete fitness plan that you can learn more about here.

With the recent unexpected closing of FitOrbit, I have received many emails and messages from clients looking to continue working with me in a similar fashion and keep striving to reach their goals. What made FitOrbit unique was that it offered convenient online personal training from the comfort of your home in a very affordable package. The weekly workout plans, nutrition plan, and ability to email me anytime to ask questions and continue making progress was a perfect combination for many and has led to some truly incredible transformations. With the benefits also came some downfalls such as a poorly designed and outdated online interface, no mobile access, a very limited exercise database for trainers to choose from, a confusing and limited nutrition log, technical glitches, and more. 

Today I am very excited to announce my new Online Personal Training Plan! This online program has been designed and built by me to deliver a new and improved platform that offers much more than what FitOrbit offered, in a much easier to view layout. I have gathered feedback from others and implemented features that I've always wanted. Here are some of them:

Training Features:

• Custom workout program designed for your lifestyle, goals, abilities, and available equipment
• Training plan is viewable on computer & phone, editable, and contains video instructions for proper form. Limitless possibilities of exercises I can implement as well!
• Training plan is adjusted each week to keep you progressing and prevent plateaus
• Ability to adjust weight/reps for each set as well as add comments
• Automatically calculated total workout volume

Nutrition Features:

• Enjoy the foods you like with a flexible dieting nutrition plan
• Calorie and macronutrient suggestions designed for your goals and body type
• Organized food and recipe databases so you enjoy the food you eat
• Automatic meal plan generator for meal ideas customized to your macros and food preferences
• Online monitoring of your nutrition log through MyFitnessPal
  • Contains database of virtually every food and meal
  • Trackable from both computer and mobile
  • Has barcode scanner for simple and quick input

Other Features:

• The plan is much easier to view and is organized and beautifully designed
• Everything is accessible from your computer, tablet, or phone
• Ability to email me anytime with your questions
• Access to the JPZ Fitness Google+ Community Page
  • Exclusively available for JPZ Fitness clients, this community allows members to discuss health, fitness, and nutrition as well as motivate one another!
  • I'll be posting recipe ideas, training tips, recent news articles about health and fitness, and much more

Pricing
FitOrbit's slogan was "Ridiculously affordable. Remarkably Successful." I know that value is very important and the idea of paying a trainer at a gym $50-80 per hour of training is outrageous. And many online training packages from competitors to FitOrbit charge very expensive upfront costs for packages that you aren't even sure you'll like! One very popular company charges "$377.99" for a 12 week plan, while another charges "$550" for 4 Weeks Training & Diet with only 1 Modification. Extremely expensive to say the least. I want to offer you more features for less - much less. I'll even beat the price that FitOrbit had straight from it's website. The cost there was "$40/week if paid by the week, $30/week if paid for 1 month, and $17 per week if paid for 3 months in advance. I'll beat all these prices and won't lock you in for months at a time. Here's my special offer:

You're getting all the features listed above at an incredibly affordable price. If you want to lose fat, strengthen and/or build muscle, and improve your health & well-being, then I dare you to find a better option out there. Together we will work together to achieve your goals and be successful. It's going to take hard work and commitment, but with my guidance and motivation, you can do it.

To join today, please visit the Services tab or click here to go directly to the purchase page.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at any time.

I look forward to working with you!

Sincerely,

The latest episode of our new TV show on Chelmsford Public TV, "Weight Loss, Fitness, & Your Health" is now available to view online! Episode 4 discusses why fad diets don't work, some of the common fad diets available today, and how we can learn from them to be successful with our own nutrition plan.

Click here to view Episode 1

Click here to view Episode 2

Click here to view Episode 3

In addition to my position as a Fitness and Nutritional Advisor and owner of JPZ Fitness, I have been working as a FitOrbit.com online personal trainer for over 3 years now and it's been wonderful to be able to make a positive impact on hundreds of lives and help people lose weight, gain muscle, improve their health, boost their confidence, and live life to the fullest. I was chosen as one of the Top 10 Trainers and have had the pleasure of working with such a wide variety of clients across the world, helping to educate and motivate them to be the best they can be. 

Unfortunately, today I received notice that FitOrbit is coming to a close tomorrow. As a trainer on the site, I am shocked because I had no idea this was coming and did not receive notice earlier. It is also unfair to the customers who signed up for many months in advance and are wondering if they will receive a refund. I am not sure what the policy will be and I have not received any replies from my emails to support. I will update you with any information I discover.

It is also not clear as to the reason behind the shutdown of FitOrbit. ​I feel as though FitOrbit has failed to take full advantage of it's top position in online fitness and over the past months and even year, there has been very little development and the company appeared to have basically stopped working on improvements. There were glitches and technical issues on both the trainer side and client side that have not been fixed for over a year, with no help from tech support, leading to a lot of frustration for the users, including loss of customers. The mobile app, which was very useful to all my clients, was taken down and never updated or re-added to the app store. An Android app was never created. The FitOrbit social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, etc) were no longer maintained and haven't been updated for months. The last updates were actually in reference to Kumu, another start-up initiative which also came to a close. The website itself hasn't been updated in years and the database of foods and exercises for us trainers to pick from was poor and had much room for improvement. And there were no longer any check-ins or updates from the staff or FitOrbit team. The lack of updates led to a stagnant feel that wasn't motivating for new clients or trainers alike. 

I reached out to FitOrbit administration multiple times over the past several months addressing my concerns, offering my suggestions for improvements, and willingness to help improve the platform but received no reply. I feel as though there was so much untapped potential that could have taken FitOrbit from a decent online training platform, to the top company in health and wellness with the potential for helping an even larger number of people get into shape and become healthier.

People are looking for an affordable and easily accessible online personal training program that allows them to receive training plans from the comfort and privacy of their own homes and without the need to pay by the hour at the gym or follow a pre-made plan that isn't customized for their needs. With FitOrbit no longer around, I want to offer a special program through JPZ Fitness for those looking to continue with a similar format. I will be working on putting together a discount package for you all and will have more details over the course of the week. I know that many of you signed up because FitOrbit is affordable and easy to access right from your computer so I will do my best to offer similar pricing & features. In addition, we will no longer be limited by FitOrbit's out of date interface and lack of updates. I have designed a better workout template with limitless exercise possibilities that is viewable both on your computer or from your phone. For nutrition, we can make use of MyFitnessPal and other tools that are much more up-to-date and have excellent features and mobile apps. I also hope to offer an optional online community where we can interact together and motivate each other, in addition to the ability to send me private messages as well. If you are interested in continuing to work with me, please send me a brief email letting me know. I'll be in touch shortly and will have more info soon. Lastly, if you have any suggestions regarding what features you'd like me to implement into my online training program, please leave a comment below. I truly appreciate it!

For those of you from FitOrbit.com who will not be continuing, I just want to say that it has been such a pleasure working with all of you and I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart for your hard work and inspiration. I am proud of you all for the progress you've made and hope I have been helpful in educating you and guiding you to becoming fitter and healthier.

Thank you,
Joe Zucchi

Do Vitamins currently sells the follow supplements, with more coming soon:

• PurePump
• WonderWhey
• Alpha Omega
• DailyD
• PrettyPills
• VitaBeard
• Regulator

It's truly a breath of fresh air to see a supplement company take the higher road and strive for making healthy, natural, chemical-free, non-GMO and effective products, rather than following the popular trend of "proprietary blends," false and gimmicky advertising, and supplements packed with fillers, colors, artificial flavors, sweeteners, and preservatives. Most brands on the market either have an abundance of artificial ingredients or the few alternative natural supplements out there are flat-out ineffective and lacking in scientific research. To see a brand offering natural product with proper, effective dosages of ingredients rather than sprinkled amounts is a rare find. And along with that, Do Vitamins even goes beyond that by getting the top of the line forms such as CreaPure, AjiPure, omega-3 from wild Alaskan fish, and organic whey protein from grass-fed cows. I really appreciate such attention to detail and care for the consumers and am excited to be a part of it.

Soon I will be posting reviews regarding their products as well as recipes and more information regarding how to get the most out of your supplements. 

Team Member - Joe Zucchi

Press Release

Chelmsford Award Program Honors the Achievement


CHELMSFORD July 2, 2015 -- JPZ Fitness has been selected for the 2015 Best of Chelmsford Award in the Fitness & Nutrition Program category by the Chelmsford Award Program.



Each year, the Chelmsford Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Chelmsford area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2015 Chelmsford Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Chelmsford Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Chelmsford Award Program

The Chelmsford Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Chelmsford area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Chelmsford Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community's contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Chelmsford Award Program
http://chelmsford.awardcontact.org/PressReleaseub.aspx?cc=DEVQ-RBDY-5FDD

CONTACT:
Chelmsford Award Program
Email: PublicRelations@awardcontact.org
URL: http://www.awardcontact.org

###