It’s Not Too Late To Look Great For Summer
Most of the people that start a fitness workout do so to look and feel great. It may be to get into shape for their upcoming class reunion or to reap the health benefits. When summertime comes, the skimpy clothing and swimwear often reminds people that they need to get back to the gym and eat healthier. Is it too late to reap benefits to look great for summer? It’s never too late. In fact, swimwear often goes on sale in August, so you may even get a great savings when you need to buy a smaller size.
You’ll be amazed at what you can achieve in just one month.
While you won’t lose twenty pounds overnight, you can do a lot in just one month without getting drastic. If you consider just shedding two and a half pounds and week, losing ten pounds can be a breeze when you follow a healthy diet and a program of regular exercise. Both are necessary for weight loss. Losing inches is just as important. That comes from the exercise program. If you start today, you’ll notice that you’re at least a dress size smaller by this time next month.
If you start today, you could be a whole new person in just two months.
While there will be a noticeable change in your appearance and clothing size with just one month of faithful adherance to a healthy diet and program of regular exercise, as you approach the six to eight week mark, everyone will start remarking on the changes. Not only will you look trimmer and fitter, you’ll also have more energy and a glow to your skin. Not all the changes are about fitting into a smaller clothing size, some of the changes are about how great you feel and how ready you are to tackle new projects and live a more active lifestyle. Start shopping for new swimsuits and summer clothes. They’re far less expensive now.
September is still pretty hot and you will be too if you continue this program.
Just because the calendar says it’s fall, the weather in Irvine, CA still gets up to the high 80s. That means it’s still summer weather, with all the trappings of summer, like shorts and sleeveless blouses. Don’t worry about batwings or flabby thighs, if you started this program in June, you’ll have those conquered. Continue on with your workout and you’ll be fabulous looking for the holidays.
- Unlike many areas, where it’s super cold in the winter months, we’re blessed with weather that allows you to show off your figure more, all year around. No matte when you start your fitness program, you’ll get results worth showing.
- You’ll notice your mood improves when you workout regularly and eat healthy. Both provide great help for depression, PMS, anxiety and boost creativity.
- A program of regular exercise and healthy eating also provides other health benefits. It reduces the risk of serious diseases and even helps reduce the risk of age related vision problems.
- You’ll save money on future health care bills. One study by a Fortune 500 company showed that every dollar spent on preventative care, such as healthy eating and exercise, save $2.71 in medical expense later.
Functional Fitness Training Is For Everyone—Even Body Builders
If you’ve ever bent over and felt a twinge, only to realize you can’t stand back up again, you’re a candidate for functional fitness training. In fact, it’s often the preferred type of training for Special Forces and police departments across the nation. That’s because it does more than focus on strength, it combines all types of fitness, which include strength and power, flexibility, endurance and coordination. That’s because they need those attributes in a real life survival setting, not in a static gym setting. It’s also one of the reasons that even weight lifters can use this type of training.
Of course, you’re not a police officer or Special Forces, but you still need functional fitness.
It’s name says it all. It’s being fit enough to do every day things without injury. You don’t have to be riding the waves to get an injury. You could be walking the paths William R Mason Regional Park, lifting a baby or bending over to pick up something you dropped and get injured. It might seem impossible, until you’ve done it and then you’ll blame it on dumb luck or bending just right, where in reality, it could have been avoided. That doesn’t mean you’ll be immune to injury, just reduce the risk of it happening.
Functional fitness started with rehabilitating soldiers.
After WWI soldiers returned with injuries that limited their functioning. They received therapy to help them build core strength and improve their muscle functioning for simple tasks like walking, bending, standing and sitting. Functional fitness focuses on compound movements, using several muscle groups instead of just one. It works muscle groups in multiple planes, rather than just one, like typical workouts and focuses on using the widest range of motion. It also focuses on unilateral training, coordinating muscle movements and working out on an unstable surface.
The coordination of functions is an important difference.
If you lift weights all day long and work on isolated muscle groups, you’ll get big beasty muscles (if you’re a man), but not necessarily functional fitness. It won’t protect you from injury if you’re stretching up to lift something off the top shelf of the cupboard or bending and twisting at the same time to pick something up off the floor. Even those with the biggest muscles can be blindsided and injured if they aren’t functionally fit.
- Exercises that use multiple muscle groups or require constant changes in those groups can help boost your functional fitness. You may think walking, while lifting and flipping a tire ahead of you is strength training, but it’s really for overall functional fitness, with strength training only part of it.
- Functional fitness is great for seniors. It can help keep them independent longer by improving their muscle strength, agility and balance. That helps lower the risk of falls.
- For those just starting an exercise program, using their own body weight for resistance is often the best place to start.
- Always check with your health care professional first before starting any exercise program. If you have a health condition, make sure you share that information with your personal trainer.
Benefits Of A Cyclical Ketogenic Diet
There’s a lot of talk about the benefit of a ketogenic diet for weight loss, but it doesn’t address the need for carbs when doing high intensity exercises. That’s one reason a cyclical ketogenic diet has become so popular. It provides a diet that has a moderate protein content, is low in carbs and higher in fat. It has the advantage of reducing hunger, making you feel fuller, lowering levels of insulin and blood sugar. You normally eat fewer calories because you aren’t as hungry and because insulin levels are lower, you’ll burn fat cells for energy. There are some problems with doing this continuously.
It’s hard to maintain a keto diet when you’re out with the gang.
Going out to eat with a group brings on a whole new pressure. By cycling the diet, to allow you to have your keto cheat day when you’re socializing, you don’t have to worry. Eat what you like when you’re with friends…unless you have a super active social life, then you might have a problem. There are health benefits to cycling this type of diet. For instance, the higher fat diet improves the body’s ability to use fatty acids while improving the health of those with insulin sensitivity and lowering inflammation throughout the body.
Not just any fat will do.
Whether sticking with a straight ketogenic diet or cyclical one, you have to consume healthy fat and protein. Just like carbs, not all fat is healthy and some sources of protein are better than others. Healthy fat includes coconut products, nuts and seeds, avocados, butter and animal products from grass-fed cows and extra-virgin olive oil. The carbs you should avoid are starchy carbs and consume ones that are low-glycemic. Having a diet too high in carbohydrates continuously, diminishes the body’s ability to burn fat, internal, external, healthy or otherwise.
Cycling out of a ketogentic diet is important for a number of reasons.
If you’re constantly on a ketogentic diet, your body goes into a state of chronic nutritional ketosis..which occurs in the feast and famine cycle. That’s not good because it causes the insulin levels in the blood to be too low and your blood sugar levels to rise. Insulin causes the suppression of glucose production in the liver, so without it, it raises your blood sugar levels. Low carb diets can also alter the microbes in your digestive tract that can affect both your digestive system and health. Cycling in and out of a ketogentic is based on your needs. You can even add a day of fasting to it. Many people eat low carbs during the week and have one or two days on the weekend to double or triple their carbohydrate intake.
- Make sure your body is getting the right types of fat, including fatty acids. The recommended balance of Omega-6 fatty acid to Omega-3 fatty acid is 4 to 1. The average American has a 25+ to 1 ratio. Sources of good fat include oysters, salmon and walnuts.
- Your fasting time when cycling in and out of a keto diet can be as short as 16 hours to reap benefits. Just stop eating earlier one day and begin again later the next to achieve that.
- Eliminate processed foods from your diet, which is wise advice no matter what type of dietary plan you follow.
- Even on a “cheat” or cycling out day, make sure the carbs you consume are healthy carbs, to achieve the biggest benefits.