According to a recent article in The New York Times, exercise not just enhances mood and reduces anxiety but scientists are on the groundbreaking cusp of understanding the physiological processes that enable you to feel that amazing workout high after a long run or trek on the treadmill.

We have long known that exercise enables the growth of new brain cells. But at an October meeting for the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, researchers from Princeton University revealed a startling revelation: In response to exercise, brains are calmer and more able to respond to stressful stimuli than brains that have not been exposed to regular exercise.

While the research was conducted on rats, the study does hold powerful implications for the far-reaching benefits of exercise in humans.

According to The New York Times, rats whose oxidative-stress levels had been artificially increased with injections of certain chemicals were extremely anxious when faced with unfamiliar terrain during laboratory testing. But rats that had exercised, even if they had received the oxidizing chemical, were relatively nonchalant under stress.

“It looks more and more like the positive stress of exercise prepares cells and structures and pathways within the brain so that they’re more equipped to handle stress in other forms,” says Michael Hopkins, a graduate student affiliated with the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory Laboratory at Dartmouth.

So if you find yourself this week waiting in an airport line 200 people deep or with a houseful of ungrateful and cranky relatives, show your nervous system some love and move your body. Even if it’s just a brisk walk around the block as the pumpkin pie cools or an early a.m. fitness fix at the gym before the rest of your household wakes, you will feel much better prepared to handle daily stress with a little movement under your bum.

And hey, your bum will probably benefit too!

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Exercise Makes You Less Anxious and Reduces Stress

A quarter of those surveyed who were unemployed said they didn’t get enough rest any night in the last 30 days.

The study seems to confirm the anecdotal belief that west coasters are more laid back than the east coast. Twelve of the 14 best-sleeping states were west of the Mississippi.

The report wasn’t very in depth, as they just asked people about their perception of how much sleep they got, not the actual hours.

The Health Consequences

Sleep problems can lead to other health problems, surprisingly maybe even diabetes. Researchers aren’t quite sure if lack of sleep directly causes diabetes or if it’s associated in some other way. But, even a remote piece of evidence should be enough to think twice about watching your favorite late night talk show.

Sleep Aids

Exercise is a great way to help your sleep problems… assuming you aren’t just staying up late by choice. The National Sleep Foundation reports that afternoon exercise can help with deeper sleep, and even cut down the amount of time it takes for you to fall asleep. Evening exercise may have the opposite effect, while morning workouts seem to get the best results.

Keep in mind that there may be occasions when prescribed sleep aids are appropriate, but they shouldn’t be seen as the long-term answer.

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Americans Aren’t Getting Enough Sleep

Several female clients of mine have come to me over the past few months and stated that they really wanted to lose weight. I told them to write down everything that they ate and what activities they did each day outside of the workouts that we were doing together. After a few months of keeping a food journal and activity log, every single client saw results and were completely satisfied with how they were feeling and looking.

Below are the top weight loss tips and a sample exercise routine that I use with my clients who are trying to lose weight.

1. Keep a Food Log: This will help you see and understand what you are putting into your body
2. Keep an Exercise/Activity Log: This will allow you to increase your intensity and length of workouts
3. Exercise 5 Days a Week: If you are not sweating, you are not working hard enough
4. Drink 64-100 Ounces of Water a Day: Hydration is a huge factor in weight loss and appetite suppression
5. Chew Gum: Helps keep the mind and stomach satisfied
6. No More Soda: Cut the pop and other sugars out of your diet
7. No More Alcohol: Reduce the empty calories
8. Reduce T.V. Time: Stay active rather than sitting around and watching television
9. Don’t Snack After 7 p.m.: Snack during the day, but not at night because your activity levels have decreased
10. Get 8 Hours Of Sleep a Night: Refreshes the body and allows for a more productive day

Try this Weight Loss Routine:

Do 45-60 minutes of cardio, plus:

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10 Tips for Achieving Successful Weight Loss

So, wouldn’t it be great if you knew what you could do to control your diabetes, or better yet prevent diabetes, in the first place? Well, you’ve come to the right place. This blog post will describe the top three steps you can take to prevent or reverse type 2 diabetes.

1. Eat healthy

If you already have type 2 diabetes, then you have (hopefully) learned about the importance of keeping carbohydrates consistent throughout the day, meaning enjoying a small amount of healthy carbohydrates with each meal. Well, this also works in preventing type 2 diabetes.

I recommend people choose carbohydrates in the form of fresh or minimally processed starchy vegetables (like potatoes), fruits, beans (like lentils), and whole grains (like brown rice, quinoa, and corn) for their meals. Non-starchy veggies have such low carbs for the calories and they are almost 100% water that you don’t need to limit those.

Just watch how they are prepared. Steamed or broiled with herbs, spices or a little olive oil is best. Refined sources of carbohydrates should be limited as much as possible: sugar, white bread, white rice, etc. You don’t need to eliminate all foods with these ingredients, but try to make a healthier swap whenever possible and limit your portion sizes of these foods.

2. Exercise more

Exercise can help slow or prevent the progression of diabetes a number of ways. Exercise helps to maintain a healthy weight, lose weight, manage stress, and improve sleep (more on that next). Exercise also helps people manage a healthy blood sugar level whether you have diabetes or not.

When you exercise, you burn sugar for energy. Regular exercise also helps keep blood vessels healthy to prevent heart disease, which diabetics often get from damage to blood vessels. You don’t have to be a marathoner either. As little as 1,000 calories worth of activity spread throughout the week (walking 30 minutes and 20 minutes of strength training three times a week) causes your muscles to utilize sugar more effectively and keep it from floating around in your blood, which leads to diabetes.

3. Lose weight

Get a tape measure and take a waist measurement. Men, if you’ve got 40 or more inches around the waist you have 12 times the risk of developing diabetes than a male with 35 inches. Women, if you have 37 or more inches around the waist you are 12 times more likely to get diabetes than a female with 32.5 inches.

Eating healthy and exercising more are the best steps to losing weight. Get a trainer, dietitian, join a class, or buy a book/dvd… but do something to help yourself lose weight sensibly.

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Top Three Ways to Prevent Diabetes

The list of exercises ranges from a single-leg leg press to a split squat jump. Each exercise is hand picked to target different areas of the glutes and hamstrings.

The glutes are made up of three gluteal muscles: gluteus maximus (largest and most superficial of the three), gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus. The hamstrings (posterior thigh muscles) are made up of three muscles as well: semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and the biceps femoris.

I recommend performing two sets of 20-30 repetitions. Good Luck!!

The Ultimate Butt Burning Workout

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The Ultimate Butt Burning Workout

Remember, if you are not breaking a sweat, you are not working hard enough!

So, putting exercise aside, being healthy mentally and physically requires a lot more than just getting the heart rate up. Below are 10 simple ways to a healthier you! Each of the following will help increase your energy levels and in turn, better workouts and more productive days will be the result.

1. Rest: Get six to eight hours of sleep a night
2. See the Doctor: Schedule regular doctor/dentist visits
3. Relax: Find time to relax and enjoy life
4. Be More Active: Find ways to get the heart rate up more throughout the day, in addition to exercising
5. Laugh: Find time to laugh
6. Eliminate Stress: Avoid stressful situations and try not to worry as much
7. Help Someone: Giving back has been proven to offer health rewards
8. Get a Hobby: Can help you enjoy life more as well as reduce stress levels
9. Try Something New: Try something new each week or weekend (dancing, hiking, etc.)
10. Smile: Reduces stress and it seems to be contagious

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10 Simple Ways to a Healthier You

First off, this added resistance during aerobic activity strains the joints and can cause injury to the ligaments and tendons. Secondly, it just silly.

So, if you are guilty of this, please do your joints and your body a favor by hitting regular non-weight/resistance bearing cardio followed up by your weight training.

It is a proven fact that the human body reacts to specific training (Law of Specificity). The Law of Specificity refers to the similarity between a training activity (exercise) and the actual task (goal). If you are training to run faster in a competition, then you have to run fast in practice (not use ankle weights). It is as simple as that.

With that being said, ankle weights are a great way to add progression to an exercise in the weight room. For example, a standard leg raise for the lower abdominals can be made more challenging simply by adding ankle weights or any type of weight or resistance for that matter.

Below are a few exercises that can be performed with ankle weights. The majority of exercises that can be performed with ankle weights are for the abdominals or the hips/hip flexors. I recommend performing two sets of 20 repetitions of the following exercises. Good luck and please feel free to ask if you have any questions!

Ankle Weight Exercises

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Best Ankle Weights Workout

And Jack isn’t just surviving, he looks as vital as when he was a young whipper snapper in his 70s.

So what’s the secret? There may not be one simple answer. To most people in the last few decades of his life, they know him for his juicer infomercials. But, LaLanne originally gained recognition as a successful bodybuilder. He owes his vitality to the power of strength training.

Many experts believe that strength training is the key to preventing age-related disabilities. As you age, if you don’t continue to use your muscles, you will lose mass. This has all kinds of implications, not the least of which is a connection to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic illnesses. This happens by slowing your body’s metabolic rate, which encourages fat accumulation, which in turn snowballs into various health problems.

Muscle mass usually begins to decline at around the age of 40. And by 50, your muscle mass can drop by a staggering 15 percent every 10 years. Strength training can put a stop to the decline.

The most important thing to realize is that it is never too late to start exercising. The human body has an amazing ability to respond to exercise at any age. In studies of men and women in their 80s (or even older), they gained strength just as rapidly as younger adults by doing resistance training.

Consumer Reports gives the following ways that strength training rejuvenates your health:

• Benefits your cardiovascular system
• Fights diabetes
• Strengthens bones
• Prevents cancer
• Builds bones
• Increases mobility

(via: Washingtonpost.com)

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Strength Training Key to Longevity

Over the years, The FIRM has created a line of best-selling workout videos that are designed to tone, strengthen and burn calories using the company’s  trademarked Synergy Training system. Their latest project is the Wave, which was the device that caught my eye as I was thumbing my way through the magazine.

The Wave Speed Slimming System is like having your own personal gym in your home that combines the elements of cardio and strength-training into its outlined workout plan. The device, which looks like a small bridge in one position and a mini seesaw when turned over, is used to tone abs, rev up metabolism, boost the butt, strengthen thighs and firm the core.

The entire Wave Speed Slimming System, which can be purchased online for about $60, includes the Wave device, an exercise mat, four workout DVDs, a weight loss guide book, a wall chart with 100 different Wave moves, and a 30-day access pass to The FIRM online club with online coaching, daily motivational tips, meal plans and more.

If you are hungry for additional information, here is DietsInReview.com’s complete review of The Wave Fitness.

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Shape Magazine Raves About Wave Fitness by The FIRM

• The Power of 50 – 50 squats, 50 push ups, 50 sit ups and 50 lunges. It’s guaranteed to get your blood moving!

• The Birth Date Dash – One my friends invented this, and I thought it was too easy. Until I did it. Add up the numbers in your birth year. In my case, 1969 would be: 1+9+6+9 = 25. Now, run that number of flights of steps. (This is really good for you if you were born in any year that ends in a 9, and not so good if you were born in, say 2000.)

• Wall Work – Create a rotation of counter push ups and tricep dips facing away from the counter, and then rotate it with jumping lunges. Aim to do each set for a minute without stopping, and do 3-5 sets.

• Burpees – Possibly one of the most effective exercises ever, and the one I hate the most. Start by standing, drop to a squat, jump out to push up position, complete one push up, jump your legs back in, and explode up, clapping your hands above you as you do a jumping jack. That’s one. Shoot for 25!

• Jump Rope – If in doubt, and you only have five minutes, jump rope.

There are lots of exercises you can do at home, and most don’t require any equipment, no DVDs or even YouTube demonstrations. Don’t let your inability to visit a gym get in the way of your fitness!

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5 New Ways to Workout at Home