Complete Fitness Tips

Archive for January, 2010

“I don’t exercise. If God wanted me to bend over, he’d have put diamonds on the floor,” comments Joan Rivers. It’s true, many of us simply do not enjoy fitness and exercising. It’s also true that every single person in this world can benefit from a proper fitness and nutrition program. Use these top 10 fitness tips to get your workout routine started today. As always, talk with your doctor before starting a new fitness or nutrition program.

1):- Set Realistic and Tangible Goals

Simply stating that you want to lose weight is not effective. Be specific. For example, I want to lose 5 pounds of fat by February 14th.

2):- Measure Your Progress

Take your base measurements and then re-take them on a regular basis. You cannot measure your progress if you have no idea where you started from.

3):- Log Your Workouts

Each and every workout session should be logged. Keep all of your fitness logs in a binder and create your very own success journal.

4):- Mix Up Your Cardio Workouts

Cardio sessions should vary in intensity and in length. Try new cardio activities and keep things fresh.

5):- Strength Training Is Not Just for Men

Everyone should strength train. Strength training builds muscle and increases bone density. Train all major muscle groups 1-3 times per week.

6):- Rest

Get 7-9 hours of deep sleep each and every night. Also rest your muscles by not working out 1-2 days each week.

7):- Warm Up

8):- Cool Down

Cool down by stretching out your entire body. This helps increase flexibility and decrease muscle soreness the next day.

9):- Nutrition Is Half the Battle

Eating small meals throughout the day complements your fitness routine. Learn to eat healthy and kick diets out of your life forever.

10):- Stay Motivated

Find a workout partner. Sign up for a marathon. Work with a personal trainer. Do whatever it takes to remain committed. If you falter, let go of guilt and get back on your routine as soon as possible.

There are many natural sweeteners to choose from if you want to avoid sugar, but don‘t want any of the artificial sweeteners over which there are a few questions. You can choose from xylitol, luo han, stevia and others, but before discussing these, let‘s have a look at the problems with sugar, artificial sweeteners and the American sugar industry.

Sugar as most people know it originates either from sugar cane or sugar beet, though by far the biggest American industry is in the cane. There are many different types of sugar, though that obtainable from cane sugar is sucrose. Sucrose is a disaccharide and carbohydrate, stored by plants as a reserve energy source to be used when needed. Humans cannot directly use sucrose, and it is metabolized in the body to glucose which needs the hormone insulin to help convert it into energy.

Insulin is produced in the pancreas, and a lack of it, or the body‘s failure to use it properly, is referred to as diabetes. There are two types of diabetes:

Type 1: A total lack or deficiency of insulin due to the pancreas producing insufficient quantities of insulin, or even none at all. This is often seen in young people and is generally cause by the immune system attacking the insulin-producing sells in the pancreas. The treatment for type 1 diabetes is to introduce insulin to the blood, normally by means of injections, plenty exercise and the adoption of a high carbohydrate low fat diet.

Type 2: This is strongly associated with obesity and weight, and is due either to insufficient insulin production by the pancreas (but not as deficient as for Type 1 diabetes) or an inability of the cells of the body to properly use insulin. Type 2 diabetes does not always require insulin injections, and can be treated by exercise, diet and weight control. However, there are occasions where insulin injections are also required. It tends to affect people older than those with Type 1 diabetes and 90% of cases are of this type.

Most people know that dieting by itself is not enough to lose fat successfully. But if you put together a good diet plan with a good exercise program, that includes both cardio training and weight training, then you have a much higher change to succeed. Certainly it is not that easy to burn fat with cardio at a very high rate all the time. So making changes, when changes have to be made, is very important.

• First of all if you are not having very good results with cardio at the moment, then the first strategy you could use, is to increase the duration of your cardio workouts. The longer your cardio workout is, the more fat you burn. For example if your cardio workout is 25-30 minutes long, then you can easily increase it by 10-15 minutes or even more. If that does not yield results, then you can increase your workouts more, but only up to 60 minutes. Going beyond 60 minutes means you are putting much more effort in, then you are actually getting back.
• The second strategy you can use, is to increase your intensity. If you are already doing 45-60 minutes of cardio, then increasing your intensity is a very good strategy. Because the more intense your workout is, the more calories you burn. Of course the danger is to push too hard and when you push too hard, then you get out of breath. When this happens, then you are not able to do the amount of cardio you need. If you are at 70% of your max heart rate, then you can easily increase your intensity, but if it already is 85% or more, then it does not work.
• The third option, if you have already increased your intensity and the duration, is to increase the frequency of your workouts. Very simply, if you there is a very big difference, in the amount of calories you are burning, when you are exercising 3 times a week and when you are exercising 6 times a week. Some people have very good results with only 2-3 times of cardio a week, but some people have to increase it to 6-7 times a week. There are so many options to increase the effectiveness of your fat burning cardio workouts. So put them to the test and find out what works best for you.