It seems the issue of health and wellness is well known among children, men and women and everyone wants to keep fit. Have you realized how people go the gym of late, seems that business is really booming but I think you don’t have to spend a dime in the gym well unless you need to tone your muscles after losing weight and have a fabulous body that will be people’s envy. All you need is to eat healthy and enjoy these fruits of your graceful work.
Keeping fit; helps you develop a psychological framework that conquers depression. You see when you’re obese or plump in the manner of having excessive fat in your body you will get depressed and continue to eat in a very unhealthy manner, since most people succumb to eating when depressed and this is a risk of shortening your life .It should be able to help you counter most health problems like high blood pressures and cardiac arrests.
People believe that by starving themselves, the amount of fat in their bodies is reduced and some even end up being anorexic but that is not the case. If you again maintain a healthy lifestyle, your metabolism will be increased and do all the work for you by finding a natural way of burning the food that you eat so you do not have to starve or worry about what to eat. You will be more flexible and active since having a fit body means that you also have an energetic body therefore you can perform any task without having to tire quickly.
A high percentage of us have an ageing phobia and so more plastic surgeries are performed and more people are heading to the shops for anti ageing creams. Why spend all that money yet you can easily withhold the ageing process, hard to believe right? Here is the thing, when you feel old, it means that your body is tired or not in good shape but when you feel young, it means that energy is freely flowing in your body and your body is in a pretty good shape.
So by keeping fit, you will feel younger and thus ageing will not be an issue to you. It also helps you burn more calories than you take in and this is a good thing. If you can burn around ninety thousand calories a year then a daily intake of two hundred and fifty calories will not be a bother and this is another way of losing weight without starving. Keep fit, stay healthy, younger and happier.
Jennifer is a middle-aged single mother with a young daughter. She has been avoiding sugary foods for a few weeks. And she has also been faithfully watching her portions. She has been exercising for an hour 4 times a week as well. However, she has not lost any weight, and doesnt know why.
This is not uncommon. You might be doing everything you can to lose weight, but cant seem to make any progress. Consequently, you are frustrated or depressed and are ready to give up.
One problem is that many diets are homogeneous. They dont consider the individuals physiology, metabolism, and lifestyle. They are a cookie-cutter approach to weight loss, which doesnt work in most cases. Therefore, employing the services of a registered dietician may be the best solution. This can be done in person or via the Internet, where you can contact your dietician any time of the day or night via e-mail. Your dietician will be your personal coach and cheerleader, helping you through the inevitable setbacks.
Lack of support is a big reason that diets often fail. You might feel like you have no one to talk to about your weight problems. When this is the case, some individuals go to psychotherapists to help them with their food-related issues. This can be very helpful, especially if an individual suffers from an eating disorder, such as anorexia or bulimia. Bulimia and anorexia are serious diseases that need to be treated by a medical professional in order to ensure the recovery of the patient.
Hidden calories in the foods we eat is another pitfall of dieting. Often, we are consuming calories and dont even know it. Sugary drinks like sodas and fruit juices are a common source of unneeded calories. By switching to diet drinks, or drinking water, and substituting skim milk for whole milk, you can eliminate the hidden calories that are keeping you from reaching your weight loss goals.
Being a yoyo dieter is another problem. You might start a diet, then quit before youve made any measurable progress because you are bored or feel deprived. Healthy weight loss is not often quick, and involves losing only a couple of pounds per week. Keeping a positive attitude and sticking with a healthy diet plan is key to losing weight.
Lifestyle change is part of successful eating and exercise. Avoid eating for comfort or emotional fulfillment. Changing the way you eat requires lifetime commitment; it means that you have to follow the plan for the long haul. Find an eating plan that is healthy, and that you can stick to. While your main goal might be to lose weight, you should also focus on being healthy. Fad diets cannot give you both of those things. For that reason, you must carefully choose your eating plan.
Getting in shape takes more than aerobic exercise. While aerobics are an important component to overall fitness, you also need to incorporate muscle building workouts several times a week to achieve a well balanced exercise program.
The benefits of aerobics are well known. When you exercise aerobically you strengthen your heart muscle as well as your entire cardiovascular system. Muscle building workouts fine tune the body and make it better able to function and burn away fat.
There are two types of muscle building workouts that will either allow you to gain muscle mass or tone your existing muscle. The goal of a low rep, high weight muscle building workout is to increase muscle mass, or plump up the muscle to its greatest volume. Lifting heavy weight causes the muscle fibers to swell and you will notice a significant increase in the mass of muscle under your skin. The goal of high rep, low weight muscle building workouts is to tone the muscle and make it stronger without a significant noticeable change in mass. Women often perform toning workouts in order to sculpt their muscles and make them appear more defined and bodybuilders select programs that allow them to increase mass.
When people begin new muscle building workouts they expect results quickly. This is fine if your body is lean to begin with. But if you have a high ratio of body fat to lean muscle, you will have to do aerobic cardiovascular exercises to burn off fat in combination with muscle building workouts to build muscle in order to see the desired results. Eating a low fat diet composed of lean proteins and low carbohydrates is also helpful in building muscle and reducing fat.
One of the benefits of muscle building workouts, aside from larger and more toned muscles, is an increase in your bodys ability to burn fat. Even when you are not exercising, your muscles continue to burn fat more effectively when you perform a regular fitness program that includes muscle building workouts. Aerobic exercise strengthens your heart and improves the function of the cardiovascular system which is important in delivering blood to your muscles. But to continuously burn fat you need a combination of both aerobic training and muscle building.
It is a misconception that by working out you are actually building additional muscle tissue. We are born with the highest number of muscle fibers we will ever have and that will never change. What you are trying to change through muscle building workouts is the appearance of the muscle tissue, bulking it up and making the fibers larger and more defined.
We know that using free weights and machines is the fastest and most efficient way there is to improve your metabolism and strength, but for many reasons these may not be convenient or readily accessible to you.
You may also have no access to a commercial gym, home gym or are on business trip, but there can be a solution, a strength-training workout without the need of expensive machines.
As with any exercise, whether you are using your own body weight, machines or free weights, if the resistance doesn’t increase, your muscles won’t be worked to their maximum capacity and the stimulus these fibres need to grow will be missing.
Exercises done correctly will build the lean muscle and increase your metabolism in the same way as performing exercises at a gymnasium, but without the time constraints and associated costs.
These exercises can be easily done in a bedroom, hotel room, a park, school yard, ceiling rafters in a garage or in a doorway and all you have to do is use your imagination. There will always be a way to add more resistance to your workouts.
Please remember: It doesn’t matter where you are working out at home, a hotel, or a park always warm up properly before beginning your session, and cool down and stretch when you are finished.
Leg Exercises
Squats –
They build muscle in the thighs, shape the buttocks and improve endurance. Position your feet about 13 to 17 inches apart or at shoulder width, keeping the back straight and your head up. If you want you can use something that will give you some support, i.e. a desk, bookcase, sink etc.
Now squat down to where the tops of the thighs are parallel to the floor, hold for a second and then stand up, but dont bounce at the bottom of the movement, use a nice fluid motion. Always exhale your breath as you stand up.
Lunges
Stand straight in correct posture; now stand with one leg forward and one leg back. Keeping your abdominal muscles tight and chest up, lower your upper body down, bending your leg (don’t step out too far).
You should have about one to two feet between your feet at this stage, the further forward you step, and the more your gluteus and hamstring muscles will have to work.
Do not allow your knee to go forward beyond your toes as you come down and stop where your feel comfortable (try not to let your back come forward) then push directly back up. Do all your reps on one leg then switch legs and do all your reps on the other leg.
Back Exercises
Chin-ups –
Chin-ups are a great upper body workout, particularly targeting your biceps, deltoid and lat muscles. Use a doorway chin-up bar, ceiling rafters in a garage or grab the moulding of your door frame, position your hands with an under hand grip and hang down stretching the lats, slowly raise your body until your chin reaches the bar level.
Pause a moment before slowly lowering yourself back to the starting position. Dont swing or use momentum to get your body to the top, just use the target muscles. Doorway chinning bars remove from the doorway when you are not using them and can be put up and taken down in seconds.
Bent Over Row –
Take up a position with your right hand and right knee braced on a sturdy bed or some other flat surface that will provide a good support. Now pick up a dumbbell or something heavy that you can hold onto with your left hand.
Visualize your arms as hooks and slowly bring the dumbbell or object up to the side of your chest, keeping your back straight, then lower the weight back down to arms length, no lower, on extremes, safe form only please. Concentrate on your back muscles. Reverse the whole procedure and do the exercise now with your right arm.
Chest Exercises
Push-Up –
The push up is used for building chest, shoulders and arms. Lie face down on the floor with your hands about shoulder width apart and keeping your palms turned slightly inward. Now push-up until your arms are straight, lower and repeat for repetitions.
To make it more difficult elevate your feet. Try placing the toes of your feet on a stable, elevated surface such as a bench, chair or a stair. Straightening your body, position your hands on the floor at shoulder width, lower your body until your chest touches the floor at the bottom, and then return to the starting position in a nice fluid motion.
Dips –
This exercise can be done between two sturdy chairs or other surfaces that provide stability. The dip is another great upper body exercise. Its a compound movement as well and involves working all the muscles that the push up works.
Keep your head up and body as vertical as possible. For the beginning of the movement, start at the top (arms fully extended) and lower yourself until your upper arms are parallel to the seat of the chairs, hold and then push up to the top of the movement until your arms are fully extended again. Keep looking straight ahead and dont bounce at the bottom of the movement.
Adding Weight
Although the simple weight of your own body is enough resistance to provide an effective workout we need progressive overload (added resistance) to become stronger.
So all we need to do is add some weight wherever we can find some. Because there are no metal plates and fancy machines to use it doesnt matter because the body doesnt care where it is as long as it’s receiving resistance of some kind.
You can use heavy books clasped in your hands. You can buy some cheap weighted dumbbells or ankle weights. A weighted vest will also allow you to add resistance for both chin-ups and push-ups. Try to buy one that will let you remove and add weight as you see fit. Also a backpack filled with books can be perfect for most of the exercises and is a cheap alternative.
How about a couple of buckets and fill them with a certain level of water? As you get stronger fill them with more water. This is perfect because depending on the exercise, all you need to do is to increase or decrease the amount of water in the buckets for the required amount of resistance.
To wrap things up
We know that using free weights and machines are the fastest and most efficient way there is to gain lean muscle and strength, but by performing the exercises in this article youll find that they will provide you with the same benefits as going to a gymnasium but without the ongoing costs and time constraints.
Over two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese. Thats quite a high percentage of adults who have a need to shed a little or a lot of fat! The only way to do this is one pound at a time!
Many overweight individuals wish and hope for a quick cure to their weight problems. Theyll try anything that promises instant results! Unfortunately, these miracle weight loss products are scams! They may help a person shed some water weight, initially. But, the fat isnt going anywhere without a little effort on that persons part!
For those of you who have tried weight loss diets or are thinking about trying one, consider all the dieters who have tried the same diets and failed. The number one reason for permanent weight loss failure is the inability to stick with the diet!
Many individuals become yo-yo dieters. They try one diet for awhile, lose a few pounds, quit the diet, gain back the weight (and then some), and move on to another diet. The process is repeated. With each new attempt, there is often more weight to lose than there was initially!
Successful Weight Loss Strategies
If you want to lose weight successfully, you must realize, first, that there are no miracle diets or products that will blast away the fat! You didnt gain the weight overnight! You arent going to lose it overnight, either! You will have to put forth effort to lose the fat, one pound at a time! Even after youve shed those extra pounds, you will have to continue to work at controlling your weight, if you wish to keep the fat off!
In an article on Consumer Reports.org which rates various popular diets, Cathy Nonas, R.D., M.S., (an obesity researcher at North General Hospital in New York) states, The best diet is the one you can stay on. Consumer Reports goes on to say that adherence is importantTo maintain lost weight, dieters must permanently reduce their calorie intake, because they will need fewer calories to fuel their now-smaller body.
Fad diets typically fail in the end. From my own personal experience, I have found that eating sensibly works best! If you want to lose weight (one pound at a time), keep it off, and feel good, too, why not try cutting down on the empty calories found in most American diets? Eat more raw vegetables and fruits and whole grains. Go easy on the fats and processed sugary or salty snacks. Limit yourself to smaller portions and avoid having second helpings. This type of diet is one that you CAN stick with and live with for the rest of your life!
Yes, youll have to make a few lifestyle changes, and youll have to work on being more disciplined in your eating habits. But, in the end, it will be worth it! Youll look better! Youll feel better! Your confidence will return, and youll believe that there isnt anything that you cannot do!
Wouldnt it be worth giving up that 44-ounce Coke and that huge order of greasy French fries for a healthier, happier you? If you simply cant do without a few French fries and a Coke now and then, go ahead and treat yourself to a small serving. Cut back on calories somewhere else that day. Occasionally, its okay to indulge. But, if you seriously want to shed the extra fat and keep it off, be conscious about everything you put into your mouth. Youll lose that weight, a pound at a time!
Note: Before beginning any weight loss program, be sure to check with your medical professional.
Healthy Lifestyle 