Tag: exercise

The Five Best Ways To Work On Your Strength Training

The Five Best Ways To Work On Your Strength Training

Anyone who regularly visits the gym or has an exercise routine will probably already have strength training built into their workout regimes – but if you’re just starting out on your fitness journey, you might not have encountered it yet. Put simply, strength training is 

Pilates, Yoga, or Barre: Which is the Best Option for You?

Pilates, Yoga, or Barre: Which is the Best Option for You?

The fitness industry is burgeoning in Australia, and that spells good things for the citizenry at large; such a trend reflects that Australians care about exercise and that young and old alike are willing to invest in their personal health and wellness. Happily enough, there’s 

Tips for Keeping Fit and Healthy

Tips for Keeping Fit and Healthy

Keeping fit and healthy is a top priority for many people, but there are also people who find keeping in tip-top condition a struggle. We’re all aware of the benefits of regular exercise and healthy eating, but for many, life just gets in the way. Whether it’s your busy schedule, family commitments or because you simply feel so tired at the end of the day ordering in takeout and binge-watching Netflix seems like the only option, here are some tips to help you get on track and, most importantly, stay there. The good news is you don’t have to make lots of dramatic changes to your lifestyle. Small changes and taking one day at a time will soon encourage you to adopt better habits and meet your long-term goals with ease.

  • Eat Well

When you’ve had a long day at work, and you’re too tired to cook something, it’s very tempting to resort to eating processed and convenience foods. To make things even harder, the media constantly bombards you with images of so-called healthy alternatives. Fast food is another type of food you could be relying on more than you should. There’s nothing wrong with having these types of food on a treat day, but they shouldn’t become a part of your daily menu. Eating a well-balanced diet is imperative if you want to stay fit and healthy. Start making small changes right away and include more fruit, vegetables and whole grains at the same time as reducing saturated fats, salt, and sugar.

  • Increase Your Exercise

Does your job mean you’re sat down for several hours during the day? Do you lounge around when you get home from work rather than getting up and doing something? Even though technology has made our lives much easier, we still spend large portions of our day sitting down or not moving enough. Being physically active has immense health benefits; for example, improving your heart and lung function, helping you lose weight and clearing your mind of negative thoughts. Don’t think that moving more means you’ve got to run a marathon every weekend, however! Gentle exercise is also beneficial in promoting a healthier lifestyle. To get the most benefits, you need to be active for at least 30 minutes every day. It could be a brisk walk around the park in your lunch break, fitness classes or taking part in a sporting activity.

If you think you might need a little extra help to get things started and improve your muscle tone and strength, there’s always the option of taking supplements. Find out more about them here.

  • Stop Smoking and Drinking

One of the best things you can do for your long-term health is to quit smoking. It’s a very addictive habit that can cause a host of long-term health issues as well as being linked to cancer and emphysema. It’s not the easiest habit to quit, but there are resources and health professionals that can help you. Another habit you may need to break if you want to live a healthier lifestyle is drinking alcohol. Even a few units every week can affect your physical health and wellbeing. There’s nothing wrong with a treat every now and then but drinking alcohol daily can lead to long-term complications.

  • Protect Yourself from the Sun

As soon as the sun comes out, are you out in the garden topping up your tan? Sun is essential for the vitamin D it provides, but long-term exposure could be harmful to your health. You shouldn’t be lying out it in for hours at a time, and it’s advisable to stay out of direct sunlight when it’s at its strongest, between the hours of 10 am and 3 pm. Protect your skin from the harmful rays that damage the skin and could lead to cancer by using a high factor sunscreen. Sunglasses are also crucial for protecting your eyes.

  • Get Enough Sleep

Sleep is essential because it’s the time when your body’s batteries are recharged. To keep you going throughout the day, you should aim for six to eight hours. That doesn’t mean there won’t be moments during the day when you find yourself running low on energy. Take a small nap if you want to recharge your batteries quickly, but don’t make it any longer than 30 minutes. Nap for longer than this, and you might find yourself staying up later in the night.

There are a number of things you can do to help you sleep better, and the most important is to have a regular sleep pattern. Get up and go to bed at around the same time every night and limit your screen time before you turn off the light.

  • Take Care of Your Teeth and Gums

Teeth and gums are often overlooked when people are thinking about ways to stay fit and healthy. They do, however, have a lot to do with your overall health. As well as impacting on your breath and appearance, bacteria in your mouth can also get into your bloodstream and spread to other organs. It has been known to contribute to heart disease, diabetes, dementia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and infertility.

  • Keep Good Company

What you eat and whether you exercise is going to be influenced by the people around you, almost as much as the effort you put into it yourself. Therefore, it’s important to surround yourself with people who have the same fitness goals as you do. If you’re struggling to find friends and family members who want the same as you, there will be groups and clubs you can join that promote a healthy lifestyle. It might not be long before your friends and family see the results of your hard work and express a desire to join you.

The ultimate choice to stay fit and healthy is yours. If you’ve spent much of your life so far eating bad food and neglecting your body, it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to repair some of the damage.

4 Natural Ways To Lower Your Blood Pressure

4 Natural Ways To Lower Your Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is a health condition that many people suffer from, and a lot don’t even know it; it affects roughly one-third of adult Americans. The problem is, it is not an insignificant complaint, and it can lead to heart disease, stroke, and even 

Why Food+Sleep+Exercise=Success!

Why Food+Sleep+Exercise=Success!

In order to feel truly well in body, mind, and spirit, we need to address our health with a holistic approach. This means that just exercising will not be enough. Eating well alone with not be enough and nor will sleeping well – taken in 

Shortcuts to Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle

Shortcuts to Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle

Are you the type of person who winces and jolts when someone tells you that they are having fun while working out? Do you have trouble maintaining a healthy lifestyle, due to tight schedules? Well, you’re definitely not alone in this. The majority of people face these problems or loathe the idea of exercising regularly and/or eating healthy. But what if we told you that these habits can be both fun and easy? Even if you consider yourself to be ’lazy’ in that regard, or maybe you’re pulling out the good old excuses such as ’I don’t have time for exercising/eating healthy,’ – there really are many different ways for you to change that and get moving.

Set realistic goals in the beginning

The first mistake that you can make when committing to a healthier lifestyle is going all-in. Take small steps, and take pride in what you achieved. Sometimes the hardest part is just getting out of the chair. But don’t try to do too much at once. For starters, it would be more than enough to take a brisk 10-minute walk in the neighborhood, or get down on the floor and do some yoga or stretching.

Try to do that every day. Let that be your first goal. 10-20 minutes of light exercises won’t work wonders for you overnight, but what really matters is building up that routine. The progress is bound to happen, just stick to your plan long enough and the results will gradually show. Even if you skip a workout or two, the important thing is not to give up and continue with your old nasty habits. Focus on long-term plans and look at the bigger picture. Don’t let minor setbacks distract you from your goals.

Have fun while working out

Shortcuts to Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle

Does doing push-ups and sit-ups regularly sound like a tedious nightmare? What about playing games? We people are homo ludens, beings who like to play, as Johan Huizinga famously wrote. You can do just about anything while playing games – including getting fit. Just think about all those team sports out there, that people are enjoying every day.

You don’t have to be at a high or professional level to have fun playing a sport with your friends or a random group of people. The core element of everything is some kind of game, you just have to find the one that suits you the most. If you are not a fan of going to the gym, try running/jogging, swimming, riding a bike, roller skating, or hiking in the woods. Getting your body to move is what’s really important. And by all means, it doesn’t have to be conventional. You can try dancing regularly, throwing a frisbee with friends or flying a kite. It all counts as a form of exercising, and you will quickly see the benefits also.

Fast food doesn’t have to mean ’junk’ food

Shortcuts to Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle

The notion that quickly prepared foods are by default unhealthy is a myth busted a long time ago. So is the one which tells a story that all healthy foods taste bad. For example, for breakfast, you can make a delicious omelet by adding some spinach or lettuce to the mix, and some cheese on top. If you’re in a hurry, just put sliced avocado on top of the toasted whole-grain bread, add salt, pepper and olive oil. You won’t be hungry until lunch with so many healthy, unsaturated fats.

For lunch, opt for grilled turkey or chicken breasts over hamburgers. Higher protein intake also makes you fuller for longer periods of time. Great alternative for quick meal preparation is making a tasty smoothie as well. You can make them in no time. Blend your favorite fruits and veggies with a couple of spoons of oats and supplement it with True Protein, and you have virtually everything your body needs. Higher protein intake is especially recommended if you’re working out. Protein supplements are an awesome way to heal those torn muscle fibers after exercising.

Conclusion

So, to conclude, there really shouldn’t be any excuses in terms of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. If you find tedious or annoying some of the more traditional methods of working out, choose something adventurous and daring instead. Even if you’re too busy with daily tasks and can’t find enough time to eat right and exercise on a regular basis, there are still more than a few ways to get around this. Life is not always fun and games, but why not make working out and eating good, nutritious foods entertaining and amusing? Remember, it’s never too late to pick up those healthy habits. Now you know that it’s really not that hard to make these changes. Basically, all it takes is good will and right approach towards something which is often times labeled as tiresome.

A Guide To Common Injuries

A Guide To Common Injuries

Everyone suffers some form of injury in their life whether this is during exercise, because of an accident or seemingly out of the blue. Although these are often minor and will heal by themselves, they can be problematic and stop you from doing daily activities, 

The Surprising Health Benefits of Doing Extreme Sports

The Surprising Health Benefits of Doing Extreme Sports

More and more people are into extreme sports nowadays. People do it for fun, people do it for the adrenaline rush and some are, simply put, daredevils. Exploring human capabilities is fun and these sports are a true proof of that. Of course, doing an 

Five Proven Benefits of Working out in Addiction Recovery

Five Proven Benefits of Working out in Addiction Recovery

Handling substance addiction is not easy, and I can say that because I have seen my mom making desperate attempts to get me off drug addiction. I clearly remember that I used to be a bright child at the school until grade five. After that my assessments started showing that I was clearly not interested in studying and most of my attention was somewhere else. It was worrisome for my mother but unless parents that scold kids, she started trying to find out what was wrong with me. The day she discovered that I’d regularly buy weed online from her card was absolutely devastating for her, hop over to this page. I realized I had to mend my ways because I was ruining my life and so I started trying to find ways to cure my addiction. Amongst the various things that helped, yoga counts the most. It kept me going on the most horrible days and gave me hope. So today I will tell you about a few ways in which it can help you, if you are trying to get rid of substance abuse.

Five Proven Benefits of Working out in Addiction Recovery

1. Better Cognitive Functioning

This point is indisputable. Yoga has a great impact on improving our overall cognitive functioning which can be highly affected by substance abuse. Since a yoga workout encourages the release of hormones in a very natural and healthy way, it gets out body right back on the track in an attempt to normalize everything within our system.

2. Increased Spirituality

There is nothing that beats a desperate state of mind as good as spirituality. Yoga is not merely a physical exercise, it is a form of meditation that involves your entire body and therefore; it’s curing mechanism works in a very intricate manner. When I did yoga, I found out that it was bringing a great deal of peace to me and I felt more peace. It boosted my spirituality and I felt connected to something larger than myself.

3. Strength Training

When I had to let out what I felt, I went for boxing or strength training. There were days when I was extremely angry and obviously that was all part of the phase where I was trying to get rid of the addiction. I realized that with healthy diet and regular strength training I was building muscle. It helped me shift my focus on the fact that we can make our lives better instead of deteriorating them. Working out does possess physical advantages but it also helps with healing mentally and eliminates insecurities.

4. Getting Social

Part of the reason I fell for pot addiction was my friends. When I was in my teens, my friend circle evolved quite immediately after a couple of adult parties, and before I could realize that something was off I was in the company of some really bad people, so I suggest that you workout because in gym or at your yoga class you will probably find someone like yourself who is struggling with substance abuse and that can help you get rid of your old connections. Make friends who are encouraging towards your purposes.

5. Overall Health

I noticed that my body had depleted reservoirs of several substances that are vital for our health and that primarily happened because I tend to not eat enough when I was addicted to weed. When I started working out, I also started focusing on my diet and that turned everything around for me. I suddenly started looking better and feeling better.

If you are struggling with substance abuse, you should consider working out regularly. It will be a very positive change in your life.

Author Bio:

Currently a student of English Literature, in his final years, James Martin is passionate about writing his thoughts into words. He takes up writing projects in his leisure time to accompany his studies. Generally, understands the essence of writing on every topic, but especially those that relate to his field. He regularly writes at https://cannabismo.ca/

Pro Tips to Get More From Group Fitness Classes

Pro Tips to Get More From Group Fitness Classes

Whether you’re swinging kettlebells or pedalling through a spin session, group fitness classes are a great way to get into shape. Health and fitness classes provide instructor motivation, an energetic atmosphere, and boredom proof routines to keep you going with personal accountability for your own