Tag: Health and Fitness

5 Habits That May Sabotage Your Workout Program
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5 Habits That May Sabotage Your Workout Program

Exercising regularly decreases your chance of developing some diseases and helps you preserve a healthy body weight. On top of that, it helps individuals improve their overall mood, which is great for their mental health.

If you don’t have a strategy in place, though, it will be impossible to achieve your goals. For this reason, a realistic training program must be in place. It will serve as a “roadmap” to lay out the steps needed to achieve your fitness objective.

Moreover, you will also need to adopt positive habits to see results from your program. While it’s important to cultivate positive habits, it’s just as essential to avoid the bad habits that could derail your efforts. Keep reading to learn more about these poor habits and how to overcome them.

Not Warming Up and Cooling Down

As you warm up, your muscles receive nutrient-rich, oxygenated blood as your heart and breathing rates increase. Aside from warming up, taking pre-workout nitric oxide Supplements may facilitate better results.

Additionally, there is less risk of injury or overheating during exercise if you first do a warm-up, which enhances the efficiency of your movements by engaging and stimulating the connections between your nerves and muscles. 

Like warming up, cooling down after exercise ensures that blood continues to flow throughout the body and prevents dizziness and other adverse effects of abruptly stopping physical activity, such as heart palpitations and nausea.

Furthermore, if you give yourself a moment to think about why you started exercising in the first place, you’ll be far less inclined to give up when things become tough. To ensure that your body and mind are prepared for success, use your warm-up and cool-down time to focus on the exercises towards achieving your fitness goals.

Skipping Workouts

Every fitness enthusiast eventually has to admit that they have skipped a workout. While there may be valid reasons to put off exercising for longer than a week, we cannot neglect the chance that you may be dragging your fitness level backward.

When you stop working out, your body immediately begins to decline. In other words, you will see a downturn in exercise’s positive impacts. Muscles become stiff, and cardiovascular and respiratory fitness drops. You will also gain weight because your metabolism has slowed, and you’ve lost about 10% of your ability to utilize oxygen, which helps us burn calories.

Another result is that if we skip a session, things will snowball quickly. One missed workout turns into two, then three, then four, and suddenly you’ve established an entirely new habit.

Not Getting Enough Sleep

Getting a good night’s rest is a serious problem for most people.  The average adult needs between seven and eight hours of sleep every night, but more than 30% of the population is sleep deprived. And that indicates that over 100 million Americans alone also undermine their fitness objectives. 

We work out for various reasons, including better heart health, stronger lean muscle mass, greater stamina, and more. If you don’t get enough good sleep, your body won’t be able to make enough human growth hormone (HGH), and you won’t reap the benefits of this hormone. Since HGH controls the metabolism, not getting enough sleep can also cause you to lose weight. 

In other words, you can boost your weight loss efforts simply by getting enough sleep every night.

Overtraining

If you don’t give your body enough time to recover after a rigorous training program, which can include doing too many exercises in a row without enough rest days, your hard work might end up backfiring. Remember that your body will force you to rest if you don’t make it a part of your program.

The higher the level of your overtraining, the greater the “price” you will “pay” in the form of disease, injury, or fatigue. With greater physical issues comes a greater need for “time off” from a workout. As a result, your routine has halted or, worse yet, reversed.

Poor Nutrition

When it comes to longevity and optimal health, nothing beats a combination of regular physical activity and healthy eating habits.

As we all know, overeating and undereating can result in weight gain. Although a small calorie deficit is necessary for weight loss, consuming too few calories might cause the body to slow its metabolism to conserve energy, leading to more fat retention than if you consumed an equal amount of calories but in a more sustained manner.

Additionally, try to avoid eating anything heavy before bed, as your metabolism slows significantly at night. More importantly, planning your grocery trip can help you avoid being tempted to buy junk food. You may find nutritious prepackaged or simple-to-make dishes in most grocery stores, but don’t forget to read the labels.

While putting fitness and diet first may seem daunting, it might be simpler than you think when you only start early in making a few changes to your daily routine.

Final Thoughts

Developing positive habits is a major challenge to physical fitness. Whether you succeed in reaching your fitness objectives depends on your habits before, during, and after your workouts. We hope you’ll be able to avoid the poor habits we’ve mentioned here so that you can execute your training program successfully.

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How To Take Control Of Your Wellness
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Take Back Control Of Your Wellness – Here’s How To Do It

Wellness refers to having control over every aspect of your life. It is not about having just one aspect right, while staying stressed about other aspects. When you strive for wellness, it begins and ends with you!

Therefore, to better understand that you must ensure you do not neglect yourself.  You must manage stress, anxiety, and depression. Balance, continuous improvement, and acceptance are the keys to true well-being.

So to improve your self-management skills, the following suggestion will come in handy.

Consume A Healthy Diet

To ensure your body gets enough nutrients, you must consume a healthy and balanced diet. How healthy your internal systems are is determined by what you eat. Additionally, it aids in identifying your emotional well-being and any mental diseases, like depression.

For example, you might eat a lot or just not eat enough if you have mental stress. Both are wrong. Your body will suffer major health issues if it lacks key nutrients. You might also experience emotional distress and anxiety. So, make sure you should get enough fruits, vegetables, and nuts regularly.

Get In A Routine Of Physical Activity

Your body’s blood flow improves when you stay physically active and workout every day. You feel more energized, awake, and cognitively alert as a result of the increased blood flow and oxygenation.

So why would you not do anything which has so many benefits? 

As you start exercising, there might be a thought of experiencing pain. To keep yourself going, you must have knee pads for work. Such proactive measures will allow you to have comfort and prevent further stress.

You don’t need to join an expensive gym. Instead, you may do it on your own in your house. In the beginning, if exercise gives you discomfort, you can start with a walk or jogging in the morning. Then, as your body gets used to this routine, you should start challenging yourself with tough exercises. The key is to establish it as a daily routine. 

Ensure Your Get Enough Sleep

It could seem like the most obvious advice, but you should not take it lightly as most people don’t adhere to the fundamental steps for their general health and wellness. 

You must understand that the human body requires adequate sleep and rest to recover and refuel. For daily physical and mental activities, this healing is crucial.

Furthermore, when you get into a workout regimen, you might feel fatigued, and your body will require more sleep than usual.

There could be many distractions, as you might want to watch a movie at night or social media attracts you. But all these things should not disturb your sleeping hours.

Discover and Engage In New Hobbies

Your hobbies can keep you occupied and interested as they play a vital role in wellness. You make positive efforts to enhance your emotional well-being when you are interested in and like performing certain things.

It also relieves your brain of the stress of daily life and work. Developing new interests is a terrific way to improve mental and emotional health.

Therefore, you must spend a lot of time doing what you like. It will require less effort, and you may perform such activities easily and save a lot of time.

Quit Unhealthy Activities

Where it is important to understand what you should do, it is essential to apprehend what you should not do. For example, if you get into a routine of exercising but don’t quit smoking and drinking alcohol, then what’s the point of doing all that physical activity?   

No matter how much money you spend on your health or how hard you try, your efforts will be in vain if you continue unhealthy habits. Striving for wellness is a complete package. It is about ensuring you change your lifestyle, not just a habit. 

So let go of all that you realize is bad for your mental and physical health.

Accompany Yourself With Like-minded People

You must surround yourself with like-minded people. For instance, you have a group of friends who ask you to go for a drink. How many times would you refuse them? You might refuse 2-3 times, but eventually, you will go with them and could start a bad habit if done too often.

On the other hand, if you find a partner in jogging, they can still take you along even if you act lazy for a day.

Such small things are significant when you analyze your activities for 6 months. 

Conclusion

Attaining wellness is a great idea. But you must know that it will not happen in a day. Try to train your mind to do things right and to keep doing them. Set small goals, as achieving goals will keep you going for longer.

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3 Easy Ways To Strengthen Your Body
Articles, Guest Articles, Health and Wellness

3 Easy Ways To Strengthen Your Body

There are many ways to strengthen your body. This can be achieved through regular visits to the gym, performing as a professional athlete or through unintentional avenues such as walking often or gardening.

Keeping our body healthy and strong has a range of benefits such as being able to undertake heavy tasks more easily, perform better at school or work and most importantly feel better within our skin. 

Goals centred around strength training can quickly consume your every movement if you overthink it. Strengthening your body can be easy and fun but only if you let it.

It is vital to understand that taking care of your mental health and being kind to yourself is an important part of the strength building journey. There is no use beating yourself up for missing one day in the gym. 

You don’t gain all your muscle in one day, so you won’t lose it in one day either. You just need to stay dedicated and positive. 

Make Use Of The Stairmaster

Using the stairmaster at the gym is something you can add into your everyday life without causing too much disturbance to your routine. 

And because you essentially have been walking up stairs your entire life, the stairmaster is practically second nature. Which means it is a really easy machine to get the hang of and I guess you could say master.

The first week or so that you add the stairmaster into your routine, you might find yourself out of breath with aching calves but it will be worth it when you see the definition building on your legs. 

You will also feel a great deal of satisfaction and accomplishment when you notice your improvement in your daily life such as not getting out of breath walking up the stairs at work. 

Using the stairmaster can help you burn anywhere from 70 to 100 calories in just 10 minutes making it a really good addition to your routine as it helps you burn a huge amount of calories in a short time. This is good if you are looking to lose fat and grow your muscles for a more chiselled appearance.

The stairmaster works your legs, abs, back and calves. It can also improve your flexibility between joints in your hips and knees.

Other benefits include relieving stress and giving you the opportunity to focus on your music, podcast or tv show which can be hard to do during other aspects of your workout such as lifting weights.

Use Resistance Bands With Your Workout

If you are a beginner in the fitness world, you may choose to engage in general exercise which helps you strengthen your core and slowly build up your muscles.  As you begin to feel more confident and immersed in the fitness world, you may become more interested in targeting specific areas of your body. 

Using resistance bands is an easy way to upgrade your routine to strengthen targeted areas in your body at a faster rate. You can find resistance bands within gym vending machines, sports shops or on Amazon. Prices typically range anywhere between £1 to £15 ($1-$20). 

The brand and price point of resistance bands is not relevant. Instead you should aim to find something that is within your budget and has a few good reviews. 

One thing that is worth keeping in mind is that resistance bands come in varying levels of resistance. It may be a good idea to get two or three bands to decide what intensity level you like working out with. 

You can also ask the personal trainers in the gym if they have any suggestions for you or if they can give you a test session with resistance bands.

The usage of resistance bands is versatile, but the general idea is that they can be used during exercises to create a resistance force which makes your body exert more energy to complete the exercise. This is a form of strength training without the usage of weights.

Resistance bands are really handy during exercises such as push ups. You will need to get into a push up position and place each end of the band in each hand, with the bulk of the band resting on your upper back. As you begin to push up, the band will stretch and create a resistance which your body will have to work harder to push against in order to complete a total push up.

You can also use resistance bands for lunges, squats, bicep curls, chest press and many more. It is a great way to increase and test your strength. 

Resistance bands are also a good option to keep in your gym bag if your gym has limited weights which always seem to be busy with other people. Resistance bands give you the opportunity to strength train even when you cannot get access to the weights at the gym.

Open Water Swimming

Open water swimming is a fun activity that exercises your entire body. This is a perfect fit for those who live close to any lakes, oceans and reservoirs. If you don’t live close by to any open water, you can opt for an indoor swimming pool.

Swimming strengthens your arms, legs, back, shoulders, chest and entire core which makes it a great alternative or partner in crime to the gym. 

Swimming in open water compared to an indoor pool will exercise the exact same muscles. However due to differences in water pressure, temperature and behaviour (waves), you might find that open water swimming provides a greater workout as it requires substantial resistance and strength.

You must ensure that you know how to safely swim in open water before choosing it over an indoor swimming pool. Open water is not the greatest choice for beginners as there are no lifeguards or shallow ends to help you out.

Most high end gyms also feature indoor swimming pools which you can make use of as part of your membership. Switching between your gym routine and indoor swimming is a good way to keep yourself feeling energized and motivated.

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Three Activities That Will Significantly Improve Your Health
Articles, Guest Articles, Health and Wellness

3 Activities That Will Significantly Improve Your Health

Having good health is the root of any personal success and happiness in life. This is why it is vital that we take good care of ourselves in order to be at our best.

Maintaining good health not only helps us avoid things such as strokes and heart attacks but it can also allow us to perform better at work and within our social lives. When your body is functioning properly, you are more likely to feel productive, happy and focussed.

While everyone knows that it is important to keep on top of our health, we can still find ourselves neglecting it. This happens if you have a busy work life, children to take care of or illnesses that limit productivity such as anxiety and depression. 

Often when we think about improving our health, we think of unrealistic routines at the gym and our eating habits. The truth is, the gym is a great tool for improving our health and it does not need to be hard.

There are plenty of ways to strengthen your body in the gym without feeling overworked.

Below we explore three of the most effective activities that can help improve your health over time. All three are affordable and easy to integrate into busy routines.

Morning Run

Going for a run in the morning can provide great benefits to your health, strength and endurance. You can run outside, or if the weather or conditions around you are not suitable, you can use a treadmill at home or the gym. There are typically a multitude of treadmills in the gym which means you will not need to fight for them like you might for weights.

It is a really good exercise to add into your daily routine as it can reduce your risk of certain diseases and joint pains whilst also relieving you of any stress or anxiety. 

When you become consistent with your morning runs, you will find that your endurance will build up, allowing you to run faster and get further and ultimately burn more calories. This not only strengthens your body but can also allow you to lose weight which will significantly improve your health, if you are overweight.

While your endurance builds, so will your muscles. Specifically your glutes, quads and hamstrings. If you are looking to get stronger and more defined legs and thighs, then morning runs could be an easy place to start. 

To have efficient results within your muscle definition, we suggest eating enough protein and carbohydrates before and after visiting the gym. 

Carbohydrates will fuel your body before the workout, allowing you to push yourself further while the protein will ensure your muscles allow your muscles to grow and repair themselves.

An important feature on most treadmills is the incline. This mimics the hills you would come across when running outdoors. You can choose this option for a greater workout and faster muscle growth on your legs.

Choosing to run in the morning is a very calculated choice. Morning runs allow you to get your exercise out of the way which means you can relax in the evening.

Other benefits of running in the morning include having more energy compared to the evening. This means you can run faster and burn more calories compared to working out after work when you are exhausted.

Running in the morning can also increase your productivity at work as it is known to have positive effects on your memory, problem solving and decision making.

Swimming

Swimming is an activity most of us did in our younger years and now we might find ourselves occasionally re-exploring it when on holiday. This makes it easy to think of swimming as a fun activity rather than a form of strength training and a way to improve our cardiovascular health.

The motions used during swimming strokes work to tone the muscles in your back, shoulders, arms, thighs, legs, abdominal and chest. Essentially, swimming is a full body workout. 

Swimming requires you to engage in a repetitive movement of pulling and pushing yourself through dense water. Pulling yourself through water over and over again can act as a lower intensity version of performing pull ups and lifting small weights.

Swimming is a fun activity as opposed to lifting weights in the gym which means it is a great option for improving your health as you may feel more inclined to stick to it.

Other enticing factors of swimming include benefits to your posture, endurance, flexibility and overall mood.

You can choose to swim in a local indoor swimming pool or even try your hand at open water swimming. There are a great number of differences between swimming indoors vs outdoors, but the most important thing to consider is that you know how to safely swim in open water before venturing out there. 

Swimming indoors is a really easy option as most gyms include this within their amenities and you have an added layer of safety compared to outdoor swimming.

Walking

Walking is one of the easiest ways to improve our health as it is a low intensity activity, it does not require any fitness knowledge or training and most importantly it is free.

Daily walks will provide you with great benefits to your cardiovascular health while still giving you the feeling of a workout. It is also a great way to end your intense workout days. Using the walk as a way to cool down and lower your heart rate after a strenuous workout.

The running theme within all three activities we have mentioned is that none of them require a great deal of effort, money or dedicated chunks of your time. 

Each activity is flexible in the sense that you can do 5 minutes or 50 minutes and you can do them at whatever pace, and time suits your lifestyle best. This makes the process of improving your health much easier and increases the success rate.

Walking will provide slower results than swimming and running, but it is important to remember that slow and steady indeed wins the race. If you choose to walk at a more brisk pace then you will also improve your endurance and cardiovascular functionality. 

To take this activity to the next level you can add ankle weights into the mix which will further develop your leg muscles and increase the intensity of your strength training.

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Healthy Habits To Add To Your Routine In 2023
Articles, Guest Articles, Health and Wellness

Healthy Habits To Add To Your Routine In 2024

2024 brings us all a new year in which we can chase our goals and become a better version of ourselves. The most popular New Year’s resolutions each year revolve around working out, eating healthy, building muscle and losing weight.

These resolutions are often mocked or brushed aside as they are deemed to be unachievable and difficult. The truth is that they are super straightforward and easy to implement. The hard part is sticking to them.

Usually once people have cheated on their resolutions, they use it as an excuse to give up on them. Sticking to your new habits requires you to continuously show up and try your best, regardless of any setbacks. This is the only way you will see results and change your life.

It is definitely easier said than done but in this article we explore some healthy habits that you can bring into 2023 and tips on how to stay disciplined, focused and energized.

Develop A Gym Routine

It seems that everyone has a gym membership on January 1st. So why not put it to good use rather than letting it sit there and rack up charges. A great habit to develop in 2023 is using your membership often and creating a gym routine that you can actually stick to.

Creating a gym routine includes deciding what you want to target (weight loss, core strength, muscle gain), which machines you want to use, how long and often you want the gym sessions to be and the intensity level.

Take the entire process at a steady pace to avoid overworking or overwhelming yourself. It would be beneficial to consult with a personal trainer at your chosen gym in order to learn more about which machines would be the best fit for your goals and experience.

The biggest thing to keep in mind when creating your routine is to ensure it is fun. You can do this by choosing machines that you enjoy or by creating a gym playlist that will get you pumped and excited for the workout. Keeping the process fun will make it much easier for you to stay consistent.

Creating a gym routine means you can choose what time of day you have to workout, how long the workout will be and how intense it will be. This is completely tailored to your needs and abilities which can make it feel much more bearable.

There are many different types of gyms to choose from at varying prices, just choose one that has all the equipment you need and is in close proximity to you. Ensuring the gym is close by will allow you to make fewer excuses about getting yourself there.

Meal Prep

Meal prepping goes hand in hand with attending the gym. It ensures that your body is efficiently fueled each day so you can function at your best. 

Making it a habit to grocery shop and batch cook meals each week allows you the opportunity to spend the rest of the week eating tasty meals without having to exert any additional energy.

Meal prepping does not always include overnight oats or salmon and quinoa. The meals are fully in your control and you do not need to follow what everyone else is doing. 

A meal you typically do not see being meal prepped is tuna pasta bake. From the outside looking in, this meal seems overloaded with cheese and way too many carbs. But it can be made with alternatives such as low carb pasta, protein pasta and protein cheese.

Finding ways to turn your favourite meals into healthy meal prep is more worthwhile than copying meals that you know will sit in your fridge and never get eaten.

You need a balanced diet in order for your body to function correctly, be productive at work and avoid getting sick. Your meal prep should aim to include fruits, vegetables, protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats. 

Including a range of healthy carbohydrates and proteins in each meal of the day will assist your strength training and help your muscle gain become more defined. Carbohydrates and proteins also fuel your body in preparation for working out. They give you the energy needed to push through a workout.

Meal prepping food that is healthy, yet filling and delicious, will help you avoid falling back on old ways by ordering takeout or bingeing on snacks. Sticking to this habit will also help you save money as batch cooking is much cheaper than eating processed food, ready made meals and ordering takeout.

Participate In An Active Hobby

Building a healthy habit does not have to feel like a chore. There are many ways you can become healthier in a fun way such as participating in an active hobby. 

Hobbies are activities that are done solely for enjoyment. This includes things such as rock climbing, dancing and playing sports. The great thing about active hobbies is that while they keep our brain stimulated and produce endorphins, they also build strength and endurance within our body.

Making it a habit to engage in an active hobby at least once a week can transform your physical and mental health.

There are a selection of active hobbies that are affordable, easy and don’t need a huge deal of committed time towards them. If you are a fan of sports, you might find adding football, rugby or badminton to your weekly routine is fitting and easy for you.

Open water swimming is another affordable active hobby that allows you to be in nature and do something fun while exercising your entire body. Before venturing into the water, ensure you know how to safely swim in open water.

Swimming in open water is hugely beneficial to your health as it helps you tone your legs, arms, back and shoulder muscles while also increasing your endurance.

If you find yourself unable to leave the house for various reasons, there are two main active hobbies you can fall back on. The first is to spend dedicated time playing with your kids or your pets. 

Running around, laughing and jumping with kids or pets is a great way to work on your cardiovascular health while having fun. Running on a treadmill can have the same effect on your breathing and health but it is much harder to stick to. 

If you live alone, you can look into starting a home or garden project. Redecorating requires you to lift heavy objects and spend a lot of time actively moving around. 

This can be physically difficult so it is important to take it at your own pace and ensure you have the correct protein intake so your growing muscles can recover efficiently.

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