New years is right around the corner, meaning everyone is determining their New Year’s resolution. What will yours be? For most/many, it is to lose weight or to get into shape. Here are a few helpful tips for getting you a jump start on your weight loss goal:
1. Start small. Make realistic, attainable goals. You want to stay motivated, so by setting and meeting small goals will keep your fire burning and you will feel strong to take on another more challenging goal.
2. Try to eat out less often. Unless you are personally preparing your food you truly have no idea what or how many calories and fat you are taking in.
3. Incorporate exercise into your routine. If you’re not ready for daily exercise, doing some every other day would be great, especially if you never exercise.
The Diet Blog at DietsInReview.com is where you’ll find the latest health headlines, interviews with those making an impact in the diet world, and informative articles about fitness, nutrition and mental health from our dedicated team of professionals. You’ll find new articles throughout the day, seven days a week. We don’t stop publishing because you never stop needing a reliable resource to manage your health.
In 2008, we published hundreds of articles, but these are the 10 that made the biggest impact to you.
Top 10 Blogs of 2008
1. Understanding Weight Watchers Points
2. Kettlebell Training
3. Obama’s Diet vs. McCain’s Diet
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
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
There’s a potential victim of childhood obesity that I bet you would have never considered: the horse racing industry.
Really? Childhood obesity is so pervasive, that it threatens the ability of race horse owners to find viable jockey.
According to Deborah Butler, a British college tutor and stable lad (a person who looks after the horses in a racing stable), found that a dwindling amount of teenagers are light enough or eager to take on the manual work of looking after horses.
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
Flu season is here and it is nearly impossible to avoid catching the cold. I have come up with a few ways to help you prevent this from happening. I am definitely a germ-a-phobe and pretty much go to the extreme when it comes to touching rails, door handles, or even shaking hands. I avoid touching rails whenever possible and use paper towels to turn or open door handles. I like to wash my hands every hour while at work and I encourage you to do so as well. Proper diet, sleep, and exercise will also help lower the chances of you catching the cold bug. Eating a variety of foods such as fruits, veggies, meats, dairy, and grains will provide your body with the proper minerals and nutrients to help protect and fight against the flu.
So, while working out, I encourage you to:
1. Wash your hands every 10 to 15 minutes
2. Wipe down and disinfect the machines after using them
3. If there is hand sanitizer available, use it whenever possible
4. Use paper towels to open door handles
5. Avoid touching rails on stairs
6. Eat a well balanced diet
7. Get enough sleep
8. Work-out consistantly
The holiday season is among us and it is time to start thinking about some great gifts for your loved ones. What could be better than receiving a few fitness gifts for Christmas? Well, along with the holidays comes plenty of eating, partying, and more than likely, lack of exercising. A few new spicy fitness gifts may be the ticket to that lost motivation or dedication you may have had.
For example, a new pedometer is a great gift for the exercise enthusiast you know and will motivate them to do a few more miles or a few more steps per day. Another good Christmas idea is a heart rate monitor. This gift will help them track their heart rate and may allow them to push the intensity to the max. A new workout wardrobe sure would not hurt a thing either. What could be better than hitting up the gym in a few new outfits; besides maybe a new pair of running shoes (I hope my Mom reads this article).
Top Fitness Gifts For 2008
Pedometer
New Shoes
Heart Rate Monitor
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:
No Comments 
