One of the most common New Year resolutions made each year is to get back into shape. Health club and gym membership rosters swell with new enrollees the first week of January.
If you were one of them, you probably experienced long lines to get a turn with the exercise equipment, weights, or even a spot in an exercise class. And if you were like many of the well-intentioned new members, you already find it a struggle to make it to the gym on a regular basis – or have already given up altogether.
If you need a little encouragement to get started again, this article will give you some incentives you may not have thought of already plus some tips on how to stay on track this time.
Exercise: What’s in it for me?
You already know exercise is important for your health in a general sense. But here are some specific benefits you can experience through regular exercise:
Exercise strengthens bones, provides more protective muscle mass around them, and improves balance – all increasingly important as we age to protect our bones
Burn off fat, but not just while exercising – muscles burn fat calories 24 hours a day
Feel happier and fight depression thanks to endorphins released during exercise
Take it slow
One of the biggest reasons for quitting an exercise program in the first two weeks is discomfort from sore and aching muscles. Take time to warm up and stretch before every workout. Begin with a light workout and build gradually to avoid injury and excess soreness. Apply ice to any injury immediately, followed up as needed with heat or a pain relief cream. Allow a day or two of recovery time before working the same muscles again, more if they are still sore.
Keep it interesting
Boredom is the curse of many exercise programs after a few weeks. Getting in shape doesn’t require following the same weight circuit at the gym or the same course around the running track day after day. Try a new class, exercise routine, or take a different route on your daily run. Don’t be afraid to be creative. Even sex gives your heart, lungs, and major muscle groups a great workout while burning about 300 calories an hour.
Chart your progress
Make your workouts a habit. Haphazard scheduling makes it far too easy to skip one, then two, then more workouts. Try using a workout journal to track your progress and keep you on course.
There has been little disagreement for decades that packing on extra pounds can be detrimental your health. Now there’s reason to believe higher levels of belly fat have a direct relationship with pain throughout the body.
Having an “apple-shaped” body with more fat around the midsection has been proclaimed as unhealthier than having a “pear-shaped” body where fat accumulates more on the thighs and buttocks for years. Excessive weight gain has also been associated with health issues such as an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Recent research at the University of Illinois and Washington University School of Medicine has found that fat stored in the mid-section really does play a large role in a key driver of disease and pain in the body: inflammation.
The latest research has discovered that visceral fat, which accumulates around the internal organs as opposed to under the skin like subcutaneous fat, releases high levels of an inflammatory molecule known as IL-6. These increased levels of IL-6 correlate with increased levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) associated with chronic inflammation. The resulting systemic inflammation produces a protein called Circulating Immune Complex (CIC). CIC is the culprit behind inflammation-related pain and swelling.
Visceral fat cannot be removed through procedures such as liposuction due to its location next to sensitive organs. Surgery also fails to reduce the size of fat cells. That’s why eating healthy, staying active and even taking nutritional supplements really are necessary to get many of the weight loss benefits of reduced pain throughout your body.
In addition, excess weight in the midsection places additional stress on the spine and muscles of the lower and middle back. So while being overweight doesn’t guarantee you’ll experience pain, it certainly does increase your chances.
You can find more information about how to lose weight without aggravating your back or other joints by browsing the articles section of our website.
Balance and moderation may be the last things you think about during Thanksgiving. But, the fact is, the holidays give us too many opportunities to take a step away from our weight loss and fitness goals. Here are a few simple strategies you can use to minimize the effects of your Thanksgiving feast on your body.
Don’t go to the Thanksgiving dinner hungry. Starving yourself all day before the big meal will send your metabolism for a ride – a SLOW ride. You should eat breakfast and lunch as you normally would on any other day.
Don’t Drink Your Calories. You will get plenty of calories from food during your Thanksgiving feast. Even a couple of sodas or beers can add several hundred calories to your intake and can also reak havoc on your digestive system. Soda and beer can cause gas and bloating and will give you that dreaded stomach bulge you’re trying to avoid!
Eat like a Cow! Did I say that? Yes! What do cows do extremely well? They chew their food! Your body needs some time to realize that it has a job to do after you’ve fed it. Allow time for your digestive enzymes to break down your food and use it for energy.
Balance Your Meals. Thanksgiving dinner is not an all-you-can-eat buffet. Fill your plate primarily with lean protein and vegetables. You can still leave some room for your favorite foods, as long as its minimal.
Go skinless on your turkey. Choosing skinless turkey will slash away a good portion of fat and cholesterol. Save your appetite for the healthier side dishes and desserts.
Make a conscious choice to limit high fat items: high fat food items are found in the creamy or cheese-filled food selections. For instance, mashed potatoes are usually made with butter and milk; green bean casseroles are often prepared with cream of mushroom soup, cheese and milk and topped with fried onions; candied yams are loaded with cream, sugar and marshmallows. If you cannot control the ingredients that go in to a dish, simply limit yourself to a smaller helping size. Moderation can save you hundreds, if not thousands of calories!
Pace yourself throughout the gathering. Thanksgiving Dinner is quite a production in most families. Therefore, we tend to want to honor the host by stuffing ourselves, acknowledging their hard work, well-prepared and delicious meal. Avoid this trap. It is still just a meal.
Research healthy Thanksgiving recipes in advance. They’re all over the Internet! For example, instead of making stuffed turkey sandwiches, make a healthy turkey stew. Just boil a few slices of turkey in water, add bay leafs and a little white wine, and you have a great low-fat turkey stock. Now you can add as many vegetables as you want, and can even include some healthy whole grains if you’re dying for those carbs!
Eat one small meal at a time! Many of us have multiple Thanksgiving meals. we go to grandma’s house for breakfast, then to Uncle Joe’s house for lunch, etc. If you’re locked into multiple eating commitments make sure you treat each meal as a moderate one. Try small amounts of the foods offered at each meal instead of piling it on every time. Most Americans eat about 6,000 calories on Thanksgiving Day! Don’t be a statistic!
Get some exercise! Don’t use the holiday as an excuse to sit on the couch all day. There are hundreds of scheduled turkey trots in the DC Area and most of them allow you to register the same day. Personally, I’m doing the Turkey Burnoff on Saturday the 28th with clients and Friends. It’s at Seneca Creek State Park in Gaithersburg if you’re interested…
If that sounds too overwhelming, just go for a walk or schedule a backyard football game. Made you could invite a few of the Washington Redskins players and have the kids show them a thing or two. I’m sure they could benefit from the advice!
We usually find a way to accomplish what we really want to do. Many of us tell ourselves losing weight is one of those things we really want to do… but it’s not.
That’s because our minds don’t think “losing weight” then naturally project a self image of ourselves as slim and trim. Instead, it takes “losing weight” and immediately equates it with hard work, boring exercises, and a starvation diet. No fun at all.
The root cause of most diet and exercise failures is just that we don’t want to do it. Instead we get urges to eat because it brings us temporary relaxation and pleasure. Our behavior patterns lead to food cravings deeply associated with certain activities or environments. Being overweight itself can be an emotional protective response.
In short, the mind has a tremendous amount of influence on our appetite and attitudes towards exercise. If we can change our internal attitudes towards eating a healthy diet and exercise we have already won half the battle against the bulge. That’s where a weight loss hypnotherapy program may help.
Approved by the American Medical Association since 1958, hypnosis has become a powerful tool in the treatment of both disease and undesirable behaviors including overeating. Clinical results have proven hypnosis can nearly double the effectiveness of weight loss programs. It also appears to lead to continued improvement.
One impressive study followed two groups participating in a weight management program. One group used hypnosis while the other did not. The hypnosis group continued to get results after two years while the non-hypnosis group showed no further results.
If you’ve struggled to lose weight – and keep it off – hypnosis may just give you the edge you’ve been looking for.
I bet you didn’t know that there is a specific class of vegetables that contain very specific phytonutrients that actually help to fight against abdominal fat.
then you may already know about how certain chemicals in our food supply and our environment, such as pesticides, herbicides, and certain petrochemicals from household cleaners, cosmetics, etc can act as xenoestrogens.
Xenoestrogens are chemicals that you are exposed to that have an estrogenic effect and excess exposure can cause hormone balance disruptions for both men and women. So these can wreak havoc in the body for both guys and gals.
These estrogenic chemicals that we are exposed to on a daily basis can stimulate your body to store belly fat, along with many other problems.
So here’s where this specific class of vegetables comes in handy…
One of those cool tricks that I teach in my Fat Burning Kitchen program is that cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, kale, cabbage, etc. contain specific and uniquephytonutrients such as indole-3-carbinol (I3C) that help to fight against these estrogenic compounds…
And by fighting against these belly fat stimulating estrogenic chemicals, this can help you fight against abdominal fat!
So there you go… just another excuse to do what mom always told you and eat more broccoli!
I’ve really learned to like brussells sprouts in the last year too… Melt a little grass-fed cheese on them and some garlic and they’re great!
In case you haven’t picked up your copy yet, I give away at least 12 other specific foods, teas, spices, etc that help to combat the xenoestrogens and can help you to burn abdominal fat faster in my new program… make sure to grab your copy before the price doubles tomorrow
Pass this onto your friends… I bet you’ll shock them with this article about xenoestrogens and how broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts can help to fight the battle against abdominal fat.
Enjoy!
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
The Healthy Back Institute - 333 Main St. Suite #201 Gaithersburg, MD 20878
Phone: 800-216-4908 Fax: 866-843-4319
The Healthy Back Institute is a Get Healthy and Fit Company
One of the most common New Year resolutions made each year is to get back into shape. Health club and gym membership rosters swell with new enrollees the first week of January.
There has been little disagreement for decades that packing on extra pounds can be detrimental your health. Now there’s reason to believe higher levels of belly fat have a direct relationship with pain throughout the body.
We usually find a way to accomplish what we really want to do. Many of us tell ourselves losing weight is one of those things we really want to do… but it’s not.
