The Forge Blog
Michael S. Parker shares his fitness and nutrition tips, opinions and education.
Michael is the founder and head online personal trainer at Forge. He has earned multiple credentials from the National Academy of Sports Medicine, National Exercise & Sports Trainers Association, and the Spencer Institute. He is a Certified Fitness Nutrition Coach and Lifestyle & Weight Management Specialist. He also holds a business degree from University of Phoenix.
Michael is also a former college instructor and consultant to the Advanced Personal Training and Exercise Science program offered by Bryan University. Further, he is an advisor, author, and consultant to multiple fitness companies and publications in the United States.
Can You Eat and Move Your Way to Better Mental Health?
Mental health – and how to manage it – is a topic that has gained increased attention between the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and a public willingness to be more frank about it. Ofte...
Four General Goals with Forge
Let’s talk a little bit about why people pursue fitness journeys. What are they looking for? When you identify these goals, you can also see how we build customized plans to support each one of the...
Meal Plans And Their Value
With any type of fitness routine, you don’t want to ignore the other half of your weight loss and overall health equation – that’s nutrition and diet! Some of the people who are advising clients ...
Getting to Know the Benefits of Circuit Training
Circuit training is a type of training where you rotate through several stations, engaging in several exercises for a certain amount of time or number of reps, one after another, with little rest u...
Why HIIT Is a Smart Workout Solution for Those with Busy Schedules
If your goal is to achieve significant health benefits while achieving the desired results, you must exercise often with sufficient intensity and for a set amount of time. However, to achieve long-...
How to Stay Healthy for the New Year
It is known that most people fail to meet their resolutions in the new year. Some of the most common reasons why people are unable to stick to their New Year’s Resolutions are a lack of time and ...
4 Ways Older Adults Can Benefit From Personal Training
Being physically fit in your younger years helps you improve and maintain your overall health. During your golden years, you still need to find the time to commit to performing regular physical act...
How to make working out a habit?
If you’re struggling to stick with a fitness routine, it might be time to get creative. One of the most critical aspects of creating an exercise habit is developing a process that works for you and...
Eating To Build Muscle Mass
As adults, what we eat affects our health and has an impact on how we lose or gain weight. We typically hear about eating certain foods and dieting to reach our weight goals when dropping a few pou...
How To Eat Healthy While Working From Home
Over the past year, there has been an 87% increase in the number of people working from home. Working from home isn’t all fun and games; there are also some challenges associated with remote work...
Advantages Of Your Own Trainer And Nutritionist
Being motivated to stay fit can be hard. Even though we know that it is vital to stay healthy by eating right and exercising, we always find something that seems to be more important. The importanc...
Forging A New You
What does it mean to succeed with a long-term fitness and exercise routine? It depends who you ask. Well, like some other forms of organic processes, the human body is refined through time and pres...
4 Good Reasons to Work With a Fitness and Nutrition Coach
Building lean muscle and planning nutritious meals can be more difficult than you think. You could be consuming the wrong foods that are detrimental to your fitness regimen. It’s so easy for you ...
Four Things You Get In Every Coaching Session
At Forge Fitness and Nutrition Coaching, we strive to provide a higher level of personal service in fitness and nutrition counseling. Why is that important? Because people are realizing that they n...
Elements Of Custom Fitness Training Online
At Forge Fitness and Nutrition Coaching, we are proud to offer our proprietary online training and coaching resources directly through the Internet – to you! Our model has worked very well, especia...
The Right Exercise Approach For Women Over 40
For women over the age of 40, losing weight and keeping a toned body can be tricky. Many women who have never experienced maintaining their size and shape find that in their 40’s, all bets are of...
Ways to Restart Your Healthy Habits in March
Everyone starts strong in the new year on their fitness goals, but our fitness goals are often forgotten as spring rolls around. But as you begin to sweep up, vacuum, polish and tidy around your ho...
How Amino Acids Help Promote Good Health
For years, experts and scientists have studied the importance of proteins to the body and in the diet. However, there are still some people who don’t realize how important amino acids really are ...
Staying Healthy Over the Holidays
Everyone loves the holiday season. It gives you the chance to spend time with loved ones, exchange gifts, enjoy good food, and relax amidst beautiful decorations. However, this year is unlike any o...
Serving Over 34 Countries?
Yes, it’s true – when you look at our landing page, you can see that we operate all over the world. We have clients in the U.S. and Canada, as well as far beyond North America. We have clients in...
“I Eats My Spinach”: Diet + Exercise = Success!
If you’re of a certain age, you remember the old Popeye cartoon reels where the muscled and agile sailor pops up on-screen, shoveling green stuff out of a can, and singing about his fitness and pro...
Why Exercise? Your Body Is Begging For It
We live in a society where it is very easy to stray away from physical activity. We have technology that can do virtually anything we need it to and can complete pretty much any task necessary, mak...
Add Diet Improvements to Your Fitness Plan
If the question is whether working out can help you shed pounds, the answer is emphatically “yes!” If the question is whether you can do it without managing your diet, the answer is – probabl...
Setting Personal Fitness Goals
Physical fitness works best when we set goals. Setting personal goals helps to motivate us and provides us with a point for which to work towards. No matter what type of exercise, diet, or other me...
Healthy Ways to Celebrate Your Fitness and Weight Loss Success
An important part of any fitness journey is setting goals. It doesn’t matter if you have achieved a specific number on the scale, a number on the weight bench, or ran a certain number of miles, k...
Bring The Benefits Of Personal Training To Your Home Through Online Fitness Coaching
With many of us still unable or unsure about getting back out to our gyms, finding the inspiration and will to exercise at home can be difficult. Finding ways to integrate exercise into our daily r...
The Health Impacts Of Becoming Physically Fit
The fitness industry is growing quickly and rapidly as more and more people seek ways to become physically fit and healthy. For many who are ready to start their journey towards becoming physically...
5 Awesome Ways to Get Fit without Visiting the Gym
Whether you want to lose weight or build muscles, the gym might seem to be the ideal solution. But, while working out at the gym works for most folks, it isn’t the only approach to better health....
3 Reasons You Aren’t Sticking by Your Exercise Routine
As we gaze upon another month starting, you may have already forgotten about your resolution for the New Year. Do you remember yours? According to statistics, exercise is the most common New Year’s...
Getting Interested in Exercise
The day you decide you are going to start exercising can be a very exciting and motivational turning point. Not only are you assuming control of your health in a positive way, but it can also help ...
3 Ways an Online Personal Trainer Can Help Your Reach Your Health Goals
For some people, the idea of a completely online personal trainer sounds like a strange idea. After all, what’s the point of a personal trainer if you never get to meet with them personally. Howeve...
Reasons Why Exercise Feels So Good
For many of us, getting up off the couch and moving around can be considered an achievement in itself. After that first workout, when the muscles are aching and bodies are exhausted, it can be disc...
3 Ways Meal Prepping Can Make Your Life Easier
Over 45 million Americans go on a diet each year. Successfully losing weight can help you avoid serious health problems and will make you feel better in your own skin. As you begin a new diet, you ...
What’s More Important to Your Fitness Goals Diet or Exercise
It’s perfectly understandable to be a little bit confused when contemplating the benefits of diet versus exercise when embarking on a new fitness regimen. While some people firmly maintain that d...
4 Reasons Why Most Dieters Fail to Meet Their Goals
Trying to lose weight or get in shape is one of the most challenging things a person can do. The National Institute of Health estimates that more than two in three adults in the U.S. are obese or o...
Carbohydrates | “The Truth” Fitness and Nutrition Webinar Series
Discover the truth about carbohydrates. Do carbs make you fat? Are carbs bad for you? These questions and more will be answered in this free “The Truth” Fitness and Nutrition Webinar Series...
5 Tips For Keeping Your New Year Resolution
New Year Resolutions can be great for personal improvement, but millions of people give up in the first few months. Here are 5 tips to keep your resolution...
21 Day No Added Sugar Challenge
In the Forge Online Personal Training "21 Day No Sugar Challenge" you can choose your level of commitment by eliminating sugars one of three following categories....
mparkeradventures.com
Check out my latest adventures and learn why fitness is important to me......
Michael Parker Podcast Interview
Share This! Brought to you by Fitness Professional Online, this show is dedicated to facilitating conversations that matter with fitness professionals from all over the globe. Your host, Eric Malzo...
Forge Fitness Classes
Cutting-edge fitness classes exclusively designed by Forge for CACFit in Auburn Ca. All classes are led by a certified personal trainer!...
Forge Fitness Apparel
Forge apparel to inspire your workouts...
Fitness And Nutrition Tips for Travelers
Travel presents its own unique challenges for fitness and nutrition adherence! We will explore 6 quick tips to keep you on track with proper food management and prioritizing exercise....
IT Band Exercises & Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome Exercises
Share This! I would like to address some corrective exercise strategies for two conditions that affect many people, especially endurance athletes. Today, we will address iliotibial band syndrome ...
How To Take Body Measurements For Fitness
Learn to quickly and accurately take body circumference measurements for fitness. Body measurements are a great way to track composition change and objectively compare results over a period of time...
Join Networking Groups – Ignite Young Professionals
5 Reasons Millennials Are Joining Networking Groups. And If Not…Why They Should....
4 Week Core Challenge
Share This Challenge! This simple and fun 4 week core challenge is a great way to super-set primary core moves into a limited schedule. There are 4 exercises and 5 movements that you should be abl...
Forge on Good Day Sacramento!
Share: Forge Online Personal Training is happy to share this clip from our in-studio segment with Good Day Sacramento! Cody is wearing the giraffe costume because April the Giraffe was supposed...
5 Steps To Overcome Feelings of Defeat
Some people even say at this point, it's just too hard to change so they miserably stay in their comfort zone. But it’s a trap, not a comfort zone....
The Mainstream Media Fitness Lies – Part 2
In Part Two, we explore the top fitness lies: The Gimmick Lie – The Nutrition Lie – The Duration Lie...
The Mainstream Media Beauty Lies – Part 1
In Part One, we explore the top beauty lies: The Skinny Lie – The Zero Blemish Lie – The Fashion Lie...
5 Basic Types of Fitness Centers
Not all fitness clubs are created equal and not all gyms are right for everyone....
5 Simple Steps to Healthy Eating
Experts around the world agree that proper nutrition is the fundamental key to health and well-being...
5 Tips for Overcoming Fitness Failure
Thousands of Americans are stepping on scales or looking in mirrors wondering what happened to last year’s resolution...
Online Personal Training Problems
Sometimes, innovative concepts completely alter or improve the way we engage every day activities or utilize commodities....
Healthy Holiday Eating Tips – Surviving Holiday Food Temptation
The holidays are a special time to share with friends and family yet so many people struggle with maintaining a healthy lifestyle during the season...
Weight Training Fundamentals
With over 52.9 Million Americans working out in a health club, less than 13% work with a certified fitness professional and 44% who quit working out annually claim it is related to lack of...