Young people can usually get away with a suspect diet while they stay active. I’m sure there are plenty of high school athletes who don’t do any calorie counting or worry about skipping their favorite fast food. But as you get older, it’s not so easy to get away with ignoring half of the health formula.
In fact, when comparing the importance of diet vs. exercise, it’s now believed that diet wins out, hands down. The best thing for you do is to combine the two, but a new study says that your food has the bigger impact on your weight.
“Decreased physical activity may not be the primary driver of the obesity epidemic,” said Loyola University nutritionist Amy Luke, a member of the study team.
Jim Richards. (Photo by Wade Payne of AP.)
Jim Richards of Knoxville, Tennessee, 51, attributes his 20-pound weight loss to commuting to work on bicycle. Richards commutes every day to work and back. That’s 40 minutes of exercise every day, before he even steps into a gym.
He’s one of the healthy success stories that can be tied to what’s referred to as active transportation: people who leave the car keys at home and commute to work by foot or pedal. Or maybe it’s just taking that quick trip to the grocery store on your bike instead behind the wheel.
There’s a new study that came up with results that aren’t exactly shocking: Countries that have the highest rate of citizens who walk, bike, or even use public transportation to get around town have the lowest rates of obesity.
Encouraging youth sports is obviously a good thing for a number of reasons. It not only helps keep your kids fit, but they are put in social situations that help build character.
The benefits may be long lasting for young ladies who take part in weight-bearing activities (running, tennis, volleyball, etc.). A new study shows that older women who participated in weight-bearing activities in their youth now have stronger bones than those who didn’t.
Which is better, lifting weights or taking a fitness class? Well, I can take both sides on this one!! Weight training is a great exercise for the body and can help prevent so many injuries and future problems. Lifting weights has been proven to increase muscular strength and endurance, improve body composition and heart strength, increase bone density, improve flexibility and mobility, and improves sleep and energy levels as well. Lifting weights can also improve posture and postural imbalances.
Fitness classes, as in step aerobics or body pump, are also a great workout for the entire body. These classes are a great way to meet new people with common goals and interests and a great way to keep from becoming bored with your exercise.
Over the next few weeks I am going to introduce and discuss new workouts that may help change up your routine a little bit. This will ”shock” the body and will also help keep your workouts from getting boring and monotonous.
The “Power Of 10” workout, created by Adam Zickerman, focuses on building lean muscle mass as well as muscular strength and endurance. The goal of this workout is to find a weight that you are able to perform 8 to 10 repetitions with at a very slow rate of movement. This workout consists of a ten second cadence; ten seconds out and ten seconds back all while keeping the muscle contracted the entire time. Try to focus on not stopping at either the top of the exercise or the bottom as well.
According to Zickerman, there are 10 commandments to this workout:
1. Speed: 10 seconds up and 10 seconds down
2. Breathing: Freely and evenly
Work weeks are busy these days and sometimes rather impossible to fit in a decent workout. Busy mornings, short lunch breaks, and family time at night leave the exercise life empty handed. But, what about a sweat free workout over lunch? This will allow you to get your needed exercise without a shower or a change of clothes. Obviously, by not sweating you are not getting the heart rate up for a good cardio workout, but a short, sweat-free workout is better than no workout.
What can exercise do for me? What a popular question this is; how many answers can you come up with? One, two, five, twenty-five? Honestly, there are so many benefits of exercise that it is nearly impossible to name them all. What is the definition of exercise? Well to me, exercise means any activity that requires physical or mental exertion, especially when performed to develop or maintain fitness. Exercise not only increases physical fitness, but helps increase mental strength and fitness as well.
Exercising is great for the body on so many levels it’s not even funny. It helps strengthen the heart, the mind, and the body. There are two categories of exercise; one of which being aerobic and another being anaerobic. Anaerobic refers to the type of exercise that does not need or use oxygen. This type of exercise usually consists of short powerful bouts such as a tennis serve or a sprint. The second category of exercise is aerobic, which means “with oxygen”. An example of this would be longer, but less intense bouts of exercise. This type of exercise usually consists of a fitness step class or a three mile jog. Both of which are great for the body.
The benefits of exercise are:
Reduces the risk of premature death
Improves sleep patterns
Being active is very important and requires a huge commitment to find time every day to exercise. I am going to have you rate your physical activity on a daily basis. The physical activity guidelines state that an individual should exercise at least thirty minutes a day for three to five days a week. That is just a guideline though; recommendations for physical activity are as follows: forty-five to sixty minutes of exercise for five to six days a week.
These guidelines and recommendations are tough to achieve and will definitely take a lifestyle change if you have not already done so. The daily rating scale is as follows:
Each day is worth 20 points:
- If you exercise for an hour you get 20 points
- If you exercise for forty-five minutes you get 15 points
Being a kid is tough. You’re dealing with puberty and peer pressure. It can all be so overwhelming. And sometimes those pressures can manifest themselves as anger.
Parents know all too well how kids can huff and puff, slam doors, or fight with siblings as an outlet for their frustrations. To compound things, overweight kids may be more susceptible to bullying, which in turn can make them more volatile.
Now, researchers have found that the best way to ease anger is by exercise. Exercise is known to help improve mood and reduce hostility in adults, so why not with kids? And if children are happier and calmer, they are sure to be less hostile.
“It may help children control their anger, and that might be because they’re in a better mood because they don’t get angry as much,” says Dr. Catherine L. Davis of the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, the lead researcher on the study.
The proof came in two of three controlled groups of kids who were given 20 minutes of daily exercise, or 40 minutes of exercise for 10 to 15 weeks. The more a child’s fitness increased, the greater his or her anger was reduced.
Many people often believe that doing crunches and sit-ups will help get that six pack that they have always wanted. Well, by performing crunches and sit-ups you will definitely work the ab muscles and get that so called “tone”, but you will probably not get the result that you want without proper diet and cardio work-out. If you want abs, you have no other option but to watch your diet and do your cardio. By performing crunches and sit-ups, you are working the muscle under the fat and you need to burn the fat in order for that six pack to “pop out.”
Muscle tissue and fat tissue are two different types of tissue and you need to burn the fat tissue before you can see that six pack. Doing crunches alone will never get the results that you are looking for. You would have to perform millions of crunches to get the results that proper diet and cardio can achieve.
I have put together a few exercise tips that may help you achieve your desired goal:
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