How To Maintain Your Fitness During The Holidays
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! …Or is it? The holiday season is upon us, which means the next few weeks will be busy with family, get-togethers, holiday parties and more. While this time is typically full of holiday cheer, gifts, snow, and joy, it can also mean a lot of food, alcohol, and sweet treats. You’ll also likely be busy running around Christmas shopping, last minute gifts, planning for events, dealing with visiting family, figuring out what to cook, etc, there’s not a lot of time in your schedule to accommodate fitness. Combined with the fact that it’s...
How To Create a Fitness Program in 5 Steps
Physical activity is important to living a healthy life, as it can reduce your risk of chronic disease, improve your balance and coordination, improve your sleeping habits, and help with anxiety and depression. However, you may not know how to start working out effectively. As with anything in life, it always helps to start with a plan. Here’s how you can design your own fitness program in 5 easy steps. 1. Assess Your Fitness Level Before you start anything, be honest with yourself. Where is your fitness level? You probably have a general idea of how fit you are, but how do...
4 ‘SPOOKY’ THINGS THAT CAN HAPPEN IF YOU DON’T EXERCISE
Halloween is right around the corner, and we are starting to see signs of “spooky” decorations and costumes all around us. Sure, ghosts and goblins and witches are spooky, but do you know what else is spooky? All the things that can happen if you don’t live an active lifestyle! A lack of exercise can lead to more severe health issues than weight gain or obesity, though that certainly still is an important concern. Not exercising can lead to physical, mental, and even financial consequences. A life of inactivity can lead to some of these spooky outcomes: 1. GREATER RISK OF HEART...
WHAT’S MORE IMPORTANT FOR WEIGHT LOSS: DIET OR EXERCISE?
So you want to lose weight, but all of your previous attempts have gotten you nowhere. Or you may have succeeded in losing some weight quickly, only to regain it just as fast. Maybe you’ve tried both exercise and dieting, but aren’t sure which is more effective. While both diet and exercise are important contributors to weight loss, cutting calories promotes weight loss more effectively than increasing exercise. It’s generally easier to lower your calorie intake than it is to burn more calories through increased exercise. IMPORTANCE OF DIET Weight loss is generally 80% diet and 20% exercise, and the science seems to...
WHAT CAN A PERSONAL TRAINER DO FOR ME?
If you’ve never worked with a personal trainer before, the idea of paying someone to help you workout may sound ludicrous. Why pay someone more when you can workout at the gym by yourself for a cheaper gym membership? Or even at home for free? But ask yourself, have you ever really gotten the results you desired from working out on your own? Do you have trouble sticking through with a consistent workout? Do you make every best effort to exercise on a regular schedule, only to find yourself slacking off? Working with a personal trainer provides so many benefits that...
5 YOGA POSES TO IMPROVE YOUR WELL-BEING
Yoga is a great practice to add to your exercise routine as it provides many benefits. Not only does yoga provide physical benefits, like improving muscle tone, flexibility, and balance, but it also helps you relax and reduce stress. Research has shown that yoga can also reduce anxiety, depression, and chronic pain, improve sleep, and enhance overall well-being. We’ve gathered six simple poses that can easily be added to your workout routines. 1. EASY POSE (SUKHASANA) How to do it: On your yoga mat, sit cross-legged with your hands resting on your knees, palms up. Keep your spine as straight as possible. Push...
How To *Actually* Get Motivated To Workout
When most people think about motivation, they think it’s getting yourself “pumped up” or excited to do something. But you may have found that it’s difficult to motivate yourself to do something you don’t feel like doing—especially if it’s something you haven’t tried or succeeded at before. If you’ve previously tried and failed to find motivation to workout, you know that reading inspirational quotes or watching “motivational” videos doesn’t always work. This is because boosting motivation doesn’t work like that. We have the misconception that motivation leads to action, when in fact, taking action is what actually increases motivation. Wait what? This...
Get Better Sleep For a Better Workout
Everyone knows that exercise is the main component of maintaining fitness. But it’s actually during the post-exercise recovery phase between workouts that the body implements changes from the exercise. One of the best ways to recover from a hard workout, and get the best results, is to get optimal sleep. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 35 percent of people are sleep deprived. This means that 1 in 3 people are not getting an adequate amount of sleep on a regular basis. While sleep is important for all aspects of life (i.e. functioning at work...