Staying Fit and Healthy During the Holiday Season

December 2, 2011
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The holiday season is a great chance to enjoy food and fun with the people you love the most. Unfortunately, a lot of people tend to go overboard when it comes to festive eating. Who can blame you when there are so many delicious treats that only come around during this time of year. Sometimes it’s impossible to say no as we indulgent food that makes the holiday season even more exciting. But by the time New Year’s rolls around, a lot of us regret eating so much as our waistline begins to expand.

With healthier eating and smarter choices, there’s no reason why you have to deal with weight loss after the holiday season. It’s entirely possible to stay fit while enjoying family meals and good times as well. Of course you won’t be able to go crazy with all of the food you’d like to eat, but you might be surprised at how enjoyable careful moderation can be. Here are some things to consider that will help you to stay trim during the holidays.

Avoid Dieting – it might seem like a good idea to skip a few meals or go on an all-out diet for the holidays. But if you don’t do things carefully, you could end up creating incredible cravings that become irresistible. You might also slow down your metabolism to the point that your body can’t help but gain weight throughout this time. You should avoid unhealthy dieting at any time of year, and there is virtually no chance of success in the long term if you start during the holidays.

Don’t Go For Seconds – this seems like a very simple rule, but it can work wonders if applied appropriately. Just make sure that you don’t go for seconds at family meals. Whether it’s a meal cooked by your grandmother or a self-serve buffet, go ahead and indulge with your first plate. Limiting yourself to one helping will help to cut down on the excess calories.

Watch the Drinking – remember that every calorie counts during the holiday season, and for many people, a lot of calories come from a drinking. Every delicious alcoholic beverage contains calories and in many cases, more than you know. You don’t have to go completely dry during the holidays, but you should be aware of how much you drink and where you can cut back.

Cook Your meals – a great way to ensure that you aren’t getting too many high cholesterol foods or excess calories is to prepare your own meals. Instead of going out to a restaurant for a big family dinner, think about using fresh ingredients and the healthiest recipes you can find. Having full control over what goes into a menu gives you far more control over your overall health. Obviously you aren’t going to be able to cook every meal during the season, but one or two can make a tremendous difference.

Exercise – if you are serious about staying fit during the holiday season, then get up off the couch! You might be loaded with obligations and busier during this time of year, but there are no excuses for not exercising. It will help to keep your metabolism going and allow you to indulge in more treats because it gives you a lot more leeway your overall caloric intake. Rather than dealing with a fast weight loss program in the future, maintain a healthy degree of exercise and you’ll be able to maintain your regular weight.

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HCG Diet Success: Maintenance/Starches

December 2, 2011
By

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The HCG diet is a diet that many people follow and has led a lot of people to achieve their weight loss ambitions and goals. Many people work really hard to lose weight and find it very hard to be successful. The great thing about the HCG drops is that it does have a great record of results for a wide array of different people. One of the things that a person who is following the HCG diet needs to keep in mind is that it is a fairly strict diet and it does require a lot of will power as well as a significant amount of motivation. The diet has four phases and along with each phase comes certain parameters that a person must abide by in order for the diet to work and in order for a person to lose weight.

During stage three, which is the maintenance phase of the diet a person is not allowed to eat starches for the first three weeks of the maintenance phase. It is very important for an individual to know what a starch is as a means to know what a person must avoid eating. Many people may think that they know what constitutes a starch, but once a person is told that they can no longer eat them they realize that they are not exactly sure what qualifies as a starch and what does not qualify as a starch. It is imperative for a person to be sure of what falls under the category of a starch if this person is going to abide by the rules of t he diet which stipulate for an individual to not eat starches.

Starches cover an extensive amount of different foods, some that are commonly associated with a starch like foods and others that a person might be surprised to find fall under that category. Breads fall under starches and that even includes the Melba toast and bread sticks that are on the meal plan and list of foods that a person is allowed to eat, so for the first three weeks a person cannot eat these as part of the meal plan. A person cannot have any type of pasta or any type of rice. An individual avoiding starches should also definitely avoid cereal and oatmeal for breakfast.

One might be surprised to learn that there are also some vegetables that fall under the starch category. A person who is avoiding starches cannot eat yams, corn, carrots, pea or potatoes as all of these vegetables are starches and, therefore prohibited from the beginning phases of this healthy diet.

There are also some fruits that a person cannot eat either. Bananas, pineapple, mango and cherries are all fruits that must be avoided when a person is eliminating starch from their diet.

It also might come as a surprise to some people that they cannot eat beans while avoiding starches, while beans are healthy, they are under the category of a starch.

Starches must be avoided at the beginning of the HCG diet and it will certainly help for an individual to know undoubtedly what is a starch.

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Wheels for Weight Loss: Bikes, Skateboards and Rollerblades

November 10, 2011
By

Weight loss should not be a chore. In fact, as personal trainers will tell you, exercise activities should be fun.  And your healthy lifestyle should not end the second you leave a fitness camp.  You can and should continue to incorporate the fitness activities you learned at camp into your work and daily life.

Consider, for instance, the morning and evening commute to the office or your weekend trips to the mall. Driving a car or taking a cab, train or a bus leaves most of your muscles idle from one car seat to the next. They also require you to spend gas money or to pay fares. Your carbon footprint does not get reduced either.

Short trips within the city can be more fun, more fit, more economical and more environmentally friendly by biking, skateboarding or rollerblading. The price of these rides is very minimal compared to the price of a car. They also do not require constant refills of gas or electricity. Remember to check the quality of your equipment before buying, though. Test how they handle your weight as they will be carrying you every day.

These three ways of getting around town are good cardio workouts. The speed and adrenaline that your legs and arms create gets your blood pumping and increases your heart rate to healthy levels.

To add to this, these holistic exercises require your body to work for balance and to resist gravity. This strengthens your bones.

In terms of sweating off the fat, an hour on a bike, skateboard or rollerblades will make you burn almost 300 calories. And this is at a light pace on smooth terrain without the tricks. Imagine how many calories you can burn off as you go faster at 12 miles per hour on terrains like unpaved roads. (You can use an odometer to measure your speed and distance. Imagine the muscle strength you will develop as you try tricks like pirouettes.

In as short as a week, you will notice that you can do activities longer without feeling short of breath. In a month, your hips, thighs and buttocks will become more toned. The fact that you have to keep your head up and your eyes forward while you bike, skateboard or rollerblade will also force your body into a straight posture. Such a posture while working out will tone your back and torso. You can also add arm and wrist movements to even out the strain, especially when on rollerblades or a skateboard.

Remember to practice safety also. Wear a helmet and knee pads. Wear comfortable clothes and shoes that let you move and stretch. (You can carry your work clothes in a backpack.) Wear gloves to protect your hands from friction when you bike. Know the traffic laws in your city and keep yourself in bike lanes, white lines or sidewalks. Bring a bottle of water. Warm up by riding at a light pace for the first 10 minutes, and you’re off.

 

FitFarms are fitness / fat camps based in the UK and the Middle East. The UK Weight Loss Camp have been awarded No. 1 by Virgin.

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Fitness Equipment: When to Workout

November 7, 2011
By

HCG Ultra

Getting up in the morning and doing your workout routine is your best bet on getting into a habit with your workouts. Once you can get into a habit of working out it makes it almost easy to lose weight and get in shape. Most people quit their workouts after a few weeks. Most don’t make it past the first month of workouts. The results have shown that if you can workout on a normal workout routine for three months than you will continue working out after that. I think its because you have made it into a habit and you also have done it long enough to feel the effects of your workouts and know how much better you feel now. By three months have past you are either in shape by now or you are pretty close to reaching your weight loss goals.

Fitness equipment can play a big part of reaching your weight loss goals. There are plenty of fitness equipment machines to help you, the total gym is a great machine that I use three times a week for fifteen minutes and it really helps me to workout those areas that I can’t really workout on my own with. The pull up bar is another machine that I really like. If you get one get one for your home. You can hang it right above a door frame in your house. I have one in my hallway and I make sure whenever I walk past I do a couple of reps on it. If you can do that than pretty soon you are going to be strong in your upper body. There are more machines like these that can help you, you should look at these first and if you don’t like them than try to find something different. You don’t necessarily need fitness equipment for your lower body. I would just run or bike to get all the cardio you need.

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Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Pro

November 1, 2011
By

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Boxing has continued to be one of the biggest and most popular sports in the world, drawing in millions of spectators from all around the world. Sumerian carvings from as early as the third millennium (BC) have depicted bare – knuckled brawlers fighting it out in front of a crowd of spectators, showing that the premise of boxing appeals to a deep seeded primal urge to physically compete with others. It’s fair to say we have come a long way since bare knuckle Sumerian fist fights, those who prefer to drunkenly punch it out in the street will inevitably find themselves looking for criminal defence solicitors, but the sport of boxing is very much alive and more popular than ever! With boxing classes and gyms becoming more and more popular in recent years, many are flooding to the classes to learn fitness techniques, self-defence and discipline; others go to test their physical aptitude and pursue a career in professional boxing.

Those who seek to take boxing seriously and compete professionally will have to endure countless hours of exercise and training, and may still never quite make it to the level they were hoping for. So, with a few helpful hints and tips, you can learn how to improve your performance in the ring and have the edge on your competitor.

In the Ring, In the Zone

It is said that boxing is 70% mental and 30% physical; waking up every day to run and train takes commitment and dedication. Train yourself to be strong minded and after a few weeks your workout regime will become a part of your life. Becoming strong willed is not something that can happen overnight, you must have confidence in your physical condition and capability to compete in the ring. Taking confidence into the ring with you can help put you on the offensive, instead of spending an entire bout on your back foot.

Punch Counts and Combinations

When working on your boxing technique, be sure to work on your combination punches. Never get into the habit of throwing one or two punches; the more combinations you use the better chance you have of landing a punch and scoring points. spa as often as possible and perfect your fighting technique, alternate between a heavy spa to push your body’s physical limitations, and a light spa used as a learning tool to fine tune your movements and combination punches.

Reach Your Physical Peak

The most obvious advantage you can have over your opponent is a physical advantage. Make sure you incorporate a variety of workouts into your regime to work on your strength, agility and conditioning. Use the heavy bags and speed bags, these help to improve the power of your punches and the speed at which you can throw them.  Jump ropes are one of the best and cheapest exercise methods available, it helps to improve flexibility, agility, speed and increase your exhaustion thresh hold.

So there we are, some simple rules that (if followed religiously) can help you to dramatically improve your physical and mental condition and ultimately, your in-ring performance.

 

This article was written on behalf of Gray & Co by Daniel Travis – Brown. Follow him on twitter @DanTravisBrown

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Exercise Variety Is The Key To Being Super Fit

October 11, 2011
By

P90X

Exercise is the way that we get fit, improve our stamina and develop a healthy looking body, however when we look at sports stars they often look ‘super fit’ mainly because of the intense workout routines they undergo during their training regimes but also due to the variety they have in their regimes.

Most sports require you to have a decent level of physical fitness and stamina to be able to play them effectively such as football, boxing, tennis etc. One of the most common ways to get your cardio and stamina levels up is to engage in long distance running, though this is often viewed as a dull and repetitive task for many people which is why many simply people do not do it.

Getting ‘super fit’ does not have to be about long runs and can actually be very fun; but only if you let it. Most sports stars use many different training methods and incorporate a wide variety of stamina building techniques in their training regimes because different muscle groups are used in different sports.

Using this knowledge and approach is the key to getting super fit in an enjoyable way. For this to work well for you there needs to be a commitment on your part to try new things and you also will need engage in sports that you never thought you would. (See Below)

Sports Training Is Key

A great way to get fit is to start a sport that needs a good amount of cardio fitness to do it such as boxing or football. By doing a sport like this you will straight away improve your fitness and also improve muscles strength in muscles you have not used in years. To take your fitness to the next level you should have 3 sports you play each week, as the more sports you play the more muscles you utilise as each sport uses different muscle groups. Playing multiple sports is a superb alternative to going to the gym which many people find quite mundane and repetitive.

Example:

Nearly every town in the UK has football clubs that people can join, where they train once a week and play a match on a Sunday. This is perfect chance to get out socialising while also improving your stamina, speed, agility and also general football skills.

As football only takes up a short amount of time you can also join a local boxing club, karate club or some sort of martial arts club. The reason this is such a good idea is because it teaches you skills that many people have always wanted to learn such as self defence skills, furthermore these types of combat sports do amazing things for your confidence, flexibility, stamina and strength.

The third sport should be something you enjoy doing which can be anything such as tennis, squash, badminton, 5 a-side football, golf etc. The idea here is to do something you have a passion for so that you are at least doing one sport within you comfort zone each week. If you don’t have another sport in mind then get down the gym and do a class such as swimming, yoga or a spinner’s class which will again help you socialise and also improve muscles you don’t normally use.

Remember the more variety you have in your workout regime each week, the more you can get out of your body by using new muscle groups and also improving your own skills set.

Jonathan works on behlaf of Soccerbox who specialise in retailing football kits and football shirt ranges such as manchester united kits, Arsenal kits, Chelsea kits and many other quality football shirts and football merchandise.

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