Guide to the Better you

So you spent the winter working hard.   You exercised consistently, you were careful to eat more healthy foods and you watched your portion sizes.   Why?   So you would look great at the lake and have plenty of energy to enjoy summer.   You greeted summer with a healthy, toned body. But summer, in spite of all the fun and relaxation it brings, can be tricky and deal us a cruel blow when it comes to our fitness. Have you noticed the scale creeping up a little over the last couple of months?  If so, you are not alone. Summer is a very easy time to overindulge and pick up those pounds that you shed during the winter months. Is that what you want though?  Are you willing to undo all that you worked so hard to accomplish?  Remember that bad habits creep in slowly.  Perhaps you are skipping your workouts a couple days each week, because ‘You have so much to do.’ Or maybe you have been indulging in unhealthy food or drinks a little more frequentl...

  Since the dawn of the fitness industry, cardio has been used by bodybuilders and novices to achieve one goal - decrease body fat percentage. It is not a secret that many athletes want that six-pack and the first thing that is associated with nice-looking abdominal muscles is cardio... However, is cardio really that useful for dropping these extra kilos or is it just a waste of time? Well, today we are going to find that out, but first... What is the price of cardio? Though cardio may offer a variety of benefits that can help us get closer to the ultimate goal of burning extra calories and losing weight, there are hidden costs to it… So let’s have a look at those! Cardio is time-consuming. We live in a world where everything moves fast and if we are not adaptive, we may fall behind. Putting these extra 30-40 minutes after training is something not many people could afford. Students, working adults, pregnant women, and entrepreneurs are managing their schedules ...

  Vacation season is in full swing.   Whether you are traveling to the mountains or the beach, it’s the time of year when many of us start planning for a much needed break from the daily grind. When you think of getting fit, resting is probably not the first thing that comes to mind.   It is true that becoming healthy and fit involves work.   It involves lots of effort and sweat and determination.   But it also involves taking time to rest and relax.   To reach your goals, you need balance :   both hard work and R & R. Dangers of over training In our enthusiasm to lose weight and get fit, it is tempting to focus so hard on effort that we overwork ourselves.   But this is unwise, because it brings undesirable consequences such as: 1.   Burnout.   If you exercise too much with no breaks, you will likely experience burnout.   And this can be deadly as far as your goals are concerned.   Burnout leads to loss of motivati...

  It’s 3 in the afternoon and you can barely keep your eyes open.   Your mind feels foggy, and all you want to do is curl up under your desk for 20 minutes and take a nap. But cutting-edge, productive people don’t take naps, do they?   Actually, they do. It turns out that a nap is exactly what you need in the afternoons when drowsiness takes over your body and mind. From N.B.A. players 1 to Google employees 2 , high-achieving people are turning to naps to recharge. Sleep experts have discovered that naps can improve stamina and motor skills, and enhance creativity.   In fact, Dr. Sara C. Mednick, author of Take a Nap! Change Your Life and Assistant Professor of Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside says, “…without a midday rest, we are not able to perform at optimal levels throughout the day. In fact, our performance falls apart. Napping maintains and even boosts our skills.” 3 When you are running on empty and slugging thr...

  Baby, it’s hot out there!   If you have been working out over the past winter and spring months, you may be surprised at the new challenges that summertime fitness throws at you.   Today is the first day of summer, and you are probably discovering that your body reacts to the heat and humidity differently than it does to cooler, drier conditions. But don’t let the heat cause you to lose your momentum.   You can keep working hard in the summer, you just have to adjust your approach a little.   Keep the following summertime fitness tips in mind as you continue getting stronger and healthier. 1.   Cool down first!   You can improve your performance in the heat by lowering your body temperature before heading outside.   Taking a cold shower or simply putting ice cold cloths on the back of your neck can help you to better tolerate the heat. 2.   Find some shade.   You may need to move your workout to a different area in order to be ...

  Some days you simply do not have time for your usual workout.   Perhaps you are traveling or you have meetings from dawn ‘til dusk.   Or maybe something totally unexpected comes up and your workout time disappears. When life steals your exercise time, however, you do not have to forgo your workout.   If you have just a few minutes, you can burn off 100 calories, get your heart pumping fast and redeem at least a little of your workout. Here are 10 ways to torch 100 calories   Use them on busy days or even to supercharge your normal workout days.   Most estimates are for a person weighing approximately 130-150 pounds.   If you weigh more, you can probably shorten the duration, but if you are lighter, add a few minutes to ensure that you burn at least 100 calories. 1.     Take the stairs .   Stair climbing for 15 minutes will burn 137 calories.   Have a 15 minute break at work?   Find a stair case and set your phone...

  No matter how committed we are to getting in the recommended five to nine servings of vegetables and fruits every day, sometimes we come up short.   It may be that we are busy and barely have time to eat at all, or perhaps we find ourselves in eating situations that don’t include many fresh vegetable choices.   Or maybe we just don’t like them. On days that you find it hard to eat enough vegetables and fruits, a green drink is the perfect answer.   It is a great way to boost your health and even detox your system. Green drinks are just that—green, because they contain the juice of fresh green vegetables and other vegetables and fruits.   There are many reasons to consider adding green drinks to your diet. Why drink green juice? Vegetables and fruit are full of essential vitamins, minerals and enzymes that your body thrives on.   And because you are consuming it in liquid form, your body can digest it quickly.   This is especially helpful if y...

  I have good news and bad news, Dads. First the bad news:   you can’t do it all.   That long to-do list you have staring at you?   Working harder, longer and more frantically will not help you get all your boxes checked.   The reason is because more tasks, more responsibilities, and more activities keep piling on.   But the harder you try to do everything, the more frustrated you become.   The hard truth is that there simply isn’t enough time to do everything there is to do.   Of course we know this intuitively, but for some reason we keep on trying to do it all—probably because we don’t really know what else to do. And if you are like most men, one of the first things to go is your own fitness and health.   Who has time to go to the gym when you are buried under 6 weeks of backlogged to-do’s? Now for the good news:   there is a way out.   You see, when you try to do everything, the most important tasks get mixed up wi...

  It’s time to stop planning and start empowering yourself.   The time to move is now, and a group personal training is the perfect way to get started. Exercising by yourself can be tough.   Nobody knows if you skip, there is no one to push you a little harder, and you don’t have a commitment to anyone else.   One day off turns into two, and before you know it, weeks have passed without you even raising a sweat.   Getting fit in isolation can be done, but it’s much harder and requires a resolve few of us have. That is perhaps why the popularity of group personal training programs is exploding:   people sign up for them because they work. Group Personal Training Benefits 1.   The biggest benefit that a group personal training offers is support .   When you join a group personal training program, you are ensuring that you have like-minded people to motivate you and a qualified leader to help you reach your weight loss and fitness milestones....

  Each year, on the last Monday of May, we celebrate Memorial Day.   Originally instituted as a day of honoring those who died during the Civil War, it eventually became a day to remember any soldier who died fighting in the United States Armed Forces. Memorial Day is the perfect time to pause and consider how much we owe to those men and women who have given up their lives in the pursuit and defense of freedom.   We are so accustomed to living with this freedom in our country, that it is easy to take it for granted.   It is hard to appreciate it when we do not know anything different.   Just like a fish who doesn’t realize it is wet (because it has never been anything else but wet), we tend to not realize the magnitude of privilege that is ours. It takes warriors to build a country where freedom is the rule, rather than the exception.   And Memorial Day is a time to honor those wounded warriors who have made our lives of freedom possible. But we can ...