Monica Morris

Monica Morris is an ACE (American Council on Exercise) Certified Personal Trainer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. With over 15 years of fitness training experience, Monica started her own physical training practice and gained her ACE Certification in 2017. Her workouts emphasize proper warm-ups, cool-downs, and stretching techniques.

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Forum Comments (19)

How can I lose face fat?
I wish there were a way to target-train adipose tissue (fat) in the facial region, but there really isn't any specific training.

One alternative solution is to put your face in an ice bath in the morning to help with puffiness. You can use some other solutions/formulas to help with overall puffiness, but as far as fat tissue, there’s no way to address just that, without targeting fat tissue throughout the body. Also, if there’s an exaggerated amount of puffiness around your face, it could be a sign of dehydration or water retention due to a deeper underlying health issue. Be sure to see a general practitioner if you’re only seeing weight gain in your face.

If weight is distributed throughout your body, as well as your face, then it’s a matter of trying to change your diet and increase exercise, so you can achieve a caloric deficit daily, helping to lose weight, specifically fat. I have learned from experience that when folks attempt to lose overall body fat, their face leans out as well. I hope this helps!
Am I Ambidextrous?
To test if you’re ambidextrous, you can try and write with the opposite hand. The next step would be to grip an exercise band, with it tethered to a stable point, and pull, keeping your elbow close to your side. Try using both hands to assess your back strength on both sides. You can also pull that band so there’s some resistance and tension, then try to twist from the wrist forward and backward. This will give you an idea of how much range you have with either hand.

This would just be to test the ability to complete activities of daily living, using both hands, but not necessarily trying to build up to become ambidextrous, which is also possible.
Meal ideas on how to eat 120 grams of protein a day
Getting 120 grams of protein can seem daunting, but there’s a way to effectively divide it up so it’s not too hard. Ideally, you should eat 5 times per day: breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, and dinner. You should include protein at each interval and keep the fat content low, depending on your goals (e.g., more egg whites than yolks, or fat-free Greek yogurt with chia, flax, and berries).

Here are a few ideas:
Breakfast: an egg white omelette, high fiber oatmeal with added protein powder, or turkey sausage with scrambled egg whites.

Mid-morning snack: a protein shake, protein bar, hard-boiled egg, or handful of almonds.

Lunch: I’d recommend choosing a meat, adding some beans for fiber, and something green (like kale or spinach). A low-fat option like chicken or turkey would work.

Mid-afternoon snack: Hard-boiled eggs, protein bar, an apple with peanut butter, grilled chicken with low-fat spinach dip, or some homemade high-protein baked goods. There are a lot of healthy replacements for traditional ingredients using egg whites, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, and protein powder.

Dinner: Tilapia and broccoli, steak with peas, tuna on healthy greens, or steak with
sautéd onions and pepper. You may prefer to lower carbohydrates since the window of physical activity begins to reduce.
How can I get big and stay motivated?
For motivation, when beginning a fitness routine, it’s great to get creative with ways to stay on track. Here are some suggestions:

1. Get an accountability buddy with similar goals. Even if their goals aren’t similar, you could each work on separate goals and hold each other accountable by checking in or even FaceTiming/video chatting during the scheduled workout time.

2. Communicate your goals to the people in your life, whom you see regularly, so they too can help encourage or support you.

When friends ask me to go out to lunch together or grab a drink, I respond by suggesting that we meet at my gym for a workout or do something physical. This will help shift the dynamic to healthier habits with the people you love or care for.

3. It is said that it takes 21 days to build a habit. That’s first and foremost; something small and attainable just to create a regular time that you get grounded in your body and work towards your gains. The acronym commonly used is SMART, meaning:
S- Small
M- Measurable
A- Attainable
R- Realistic
T- Time sensitive

For those 21 days, set a timer for 10-15 minutes each day and just start with core/abs or stretching. If the goals are too large in the beginning, your brain will develop an aversion to exercise or working out. The task becomes daunting rather than enjoyable. To help facilitate the brain's rewiring, ask yourself after a workout if your mood has improved or if you feel better compared to before the workout. Asking yourself this question helps develop the neural pathways that associate working out with positivity, since the answer will likely always be 'yes, I feel better".

4. Keep a journal, set an alarm, and block off the time on your school/work calendar. Help yourself by helping yourself. People who work out regularly also started somewhere small, so watch for comparing yourself to other peers.

5. After your 21 days of consistency, graduate to 20-minute bouts of training. Rather than off days, just do mobility, so you don't get thrown off when beginning to build a daily routine.

6. For muscle development, at the start, begin with an upper body day and a lower body day. Level up to push, pull, and leg day for 3 workouts a week. There is more "leveling up" to be done, but this would be the first few months.
Any Tips to Get More Weight as a Girl With Fast Metabolism?
Sometimes the inability to gain weight is due to a thyroid issue, generally hyperthyroidism. It’s important to rule that out with a blood panel.

To gain weight, calorically dense foods help put on weight faster. One unit of fat compared to your other two macros is more than double (9 cal per gram).

With that being said, consume foods that are high in fats like avocado, steak, salmon, etc. Eating foods closer to bedtime (as well as throughout the day) sends a message to the body’s metabolism to store the food rather than burning it off as fuel.

It’s important to distinguish between healthier fats (unsaturated) and unhealthy fats (saturated). To avoid the undesirable side effects of high-fat food plans (high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels), avoid foods high in saturated fats as much as possible.
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