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One of the best things about working out is how you feel when you’re done. It’s an accomplishment, especially if you really didn’t feel like working out in the first place. It’s more than just that. Working out relieves the stress of the day and leaves you feeling more relaxed and at ease. While working out and getting fit changes how your body looks, fitness helps mental health, too.
When you’re under stress, your body undergoes a lot of changes. That’s because the brain sends out little messengers to make those changes and prepare it for running away or fighting. That fight or flight response slows blood flow to the digestive system and sends it to the limbs, increases heart rate, raises blood pressure and basically prepares the body for either outcome. Those changes, if not countered, can make long term changes in the body, including the brain. Burning off those hormones, helps stop those changes and brings positive changes to your mood and mental health.
There’s been a lot of studies done recently that show the benefits of using exercise as an adjunct therapy for depression and anxiety. Part of the reason is the burning off of stress hormones, but there’s also more. When you workout, the body creates hormones that make you feel good. In fact, even moderate exercise several times a week is beneficial and in some cases, have eliminated the need for medication.
Try working out if you want more brain power. Studies show it helps boost mental functioning. Some of those studies focused on mental decline in aging and dementia. It can help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by as much as 50%, as stated by the Alzheimer’s Research & Prevention Foundation. It helps keep old connections in the brain, while encouraging making new ones, strengthens the hippocampus, which boosts memory and stimulates the creation of new brain cells called neurogenesis.
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While we’re luckier than some places, Gloucester, ON can get pretty uncomfortable in the summer, especially if you’re going to exercise in the heat. For those days that the temperatures reach their high, it’s time to adjust your workout schedule if you exercise outside or without air conditioning. Play it smart in the heat and take precautions. If you’re running, do it in the early morning or later in the afternoon, around four or five, when it’s cooler.
No matter where you workout, some of these guidelines are good for everyone. Choose materials that breathe and wick sweat away from your body. It allows your body to remain dryer and cooler. Natural materials also help your sweat evaporate more easily. Consider natural cotton, linen and jersey material. For outside workouts, choose lighter colored clothing that reflect the sun, avoiding dark clothing that absorbs the heat. Keep your clothing loose to aid in evaporation and avoid chaffing.
When you workout, you lose a lot of fluid through sweat. Rather than waiting and guzzling water all at one time, keep a bottle with you and sip on it throughout the workout. Sipping a bit every 15 minutes will help you stay hydrated, which also helps your workout go better. If you’re working out more than an hour, it’s time to switch out the water for a sports drink to replenish your body’s electrolytes. Sports drinks aren’t necessary for shorter workouts and may add to your total calorie and sugar intake.
For runners, choosing the best path is important. If you can’t workout in the early morning, look for a path that’s shaded. Running on asphalt can add to the heat. It can be 40 to 60 degrees F hotter. (4.4444 C to 15.6 degrees C). The less exposure to the sun you have, the cooler your body will be. When you’re out in the sun, make sure you have sun screen. If you choose to have sun exposure to reap the benefits of vitamin D, make it controlled exposure for short periods, not the whole workout.
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There are a lot of steps to achieving good nutrition and weight loss. One of the best ways is to create a meal plan and do meal prep ahead of time. That allows you to have ready made meals you can heat and serve, which take far less time than going through a fast food line and far less brain power at the end of a long day than trying to figure out what’s for supper. Planning meals and preparing them ahead can be a bit of a task if you don’t have help. Luckily, our nutritionists can help you with the meal plans, then all you do is shop and prepare. What’s the best day to meal prep? It’s the day or days that suit your schedule.
That can be quite a task and doesn’t always provide the nutrition your body needs. Spend one night creating a menu that you can use for the week and then list all the items you need to buy at the grocery to create that menu. If you’re working with a certified nutritionist, that part of the task is already complete, making you more apt to opt for planning and cooking your meals ahead.
Don’t go directly from work to the store if you’re hungry. Your cart will look like the candy counter at a gas station, with bags of cookies and junk food filled to the brim. Schedule a time after a meal or on a weekend morning (if that’s your time off work) to do your grocery shopping. One thing people often find when they adopt meal planning and preparing it ahead is that their grocery bill often drops. Not only will meal prep save you calories and boost your nutrition, it often saves you money. You don’t buy all the junk food on impulse and can compare your list to the sales or have coupons to find the best buy.
Not everyone has the same days off or the country would shut down. If you have the weekend off, pick one day to do the week’s meals or if you prefer, use them both. People who make meals ahead often create double recipes and pack not only a meal for the next week, but ones for future use, too. It’s especially important to do that if you know you’ll have plans or a busy season at work. That way, you can skip a week and either enjoy a vacation from meal prep or not have to worry if work gets in the way.
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There is a real benefit to having a workout partner. It’s sad that often the first and only workout partner many people have, are personal trainers. Workout partners can provide huge benefits. In some ways, it’s like working out with a trainer, since you make a commitment to another person to show up at the gym or whatever location you chose. That keeps you accountable on those days that binge watching Netflix seems like a better idea.
If you’re lifting weights, you need a spotter. A workout partner could be that spotter. Bad form can cause injury. Identifying problems with form is another way that workout partners keep you safer. During the winter months, jogging after dark, even though it is early, is very likely. Consider how much safer you’d be and feel if you’re running after dark with a friend, rather than running alone. It can help you in the event of danger or injury.
Half way through your workout, particularly when you’re first starting out, it becomes hard to continue. Often that’s when you’re making the most headway. If you’re working out alone, you’d be more likely to quit. If your partner is doing the time, you’d be more likely to follow suit. After all, nobody wants to be the sissy or quitter. A study showed that when people worked as a team, rather than alone, they tended to workout 200% longer.
Sometimes, if you’re working out alone, trying something new can be extremely intimidating. That’s not nearly as true if you have a workout buddy. You’ll be more tempted to try new things when someone else is with you. Workout buddies can also bring new ideas and different techniques or even a different way of approaching exercise, which can make working out more beneficial and fun.
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If you’ve never heard of food journaling, here’s a quick breakdown on exactly what it is. It’s a simple way to help you identify and even control what you eat. People often think they ate less than they really ate. In fact, some people tell me they barely eat, yet still gain weight. That all changes when they journal and realize all those calories they consumed without realizing it. Food journaling is even easier now that Smartphones are available. You can voice record or use a memo section in your phone and transfer the information at the end of the day. Most people never leave the house without their phone, so you always have a way to track your intake with you.
Know yourself and you’re halfway to success. You can keep journaling simple and just record the type and amount of food you ate or you could get more involved and add additional information, like what you were feeling at the time. For instance, if you absent mindlessly grabbed a piece of candy each time you pass the bowl, you’ll be more aware of your habit. If you added you reached for candy because you were under stress, it adds to your personal knowledge.
Noting time, place, mood and even circumstances when you ate food gives you information that can help you lose weight, but it also can help you identify what causes digestive issues. It helps you isolate food or food groups that are causing distress. If you feel horrible and bloated and note it, then look back to see all the times it occurred, it can help isolate the offending food. It may even save time and money on doctor’s visits and maybe eliminate unnecessary medication that also has side effects.
The key is identifying portion size. Two people can eat an order of fries, but one will have more calories. How can that be? Maybe because that one person ordered a large order of fries or maybe because the restaurant put more fries than the other did on the plate or in the container. Knowing your portion size is important. The size of the plate can also fool you into thinking you ate more than you did, with the plate small or less than you did if the plate is large.
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It’s easy for people to identify things they should do for a healthy lifestyle. Diet and exercise are always at the top of the list. One important lifestyle change you should also make is to drink more water, especially during the summer in Gloucester, ON, Canada. It’s when you lose a lot of fluid through sweating. Your body needs water, since it’s composed of approximately fifty-five to sixty-five percent water. Adequate fluid is important to a number of functions. When you consider that the heart and brain contain 73 % water, lungs contain 83%, and both the muscles and kidneys are 79% water, it’s easy to understand.
Have you ever thought you were hungry and looked for something juicy? Maybe you were just thirsty. Thirst is often mistaken for hunger. If you’re not sure of what you want or simply feel hungry, grab a glass of water first. Water has no calories and is often exactly what your body is craving. Watermelon and other fruits and vegetables that have few calories are also laden with water, so they offer a viable alternative as well. Sipping on water throughout the day can also help you control your appetite and lose weight.
Your body needs adequate fluid to maintain its normal temperature and aid in breaking down nutrients in the intestines. Adequate bodily fluids are also necessary to keep the joints lubricated, protect the spinal cord and act like a shock-absorber for the brain. If your muscles ache, start by drinking a glass of water and see if it helps. If you have a mild headache, try a glass of water first. It may not be the aspirin that helps, but the water you drink to aid in swallowing it. Even some signs of dementia are actually mild dehydration. Seniors are more prone to becoming dehydrated.
You’ll be amazed at how much of a quicker-picker-upper water can be. Unlike coffee, which contains caffeine, water simply hydrates you. Caffeine is a diuretic that can actually deplete your body of water. Lethargy and exhaustion is one sign of mild dehydration. Mild dehydration can cause muscle fatigue and poor athletic performance, too. Two hours before you exercise, drink a couple of glasses of water and then sip on water throughout your workout.
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I love seeing people in Gloucester, ON, using the time for self care during this time and now it’s time to start planning for and participating in things that are healthy no matter what the conditions, but especially after a pandemic. Taking good care of yourself, losing weight to help with underlying conditions and taking a few moments each day to appreciate life and good health. It’s time to start anew with a plan for a healthier, fitter you.
While Adele acknowledged her weight loss achievement started long before the shut down, it took on a more dramatic turn with her unveiling on Instagram. She used the time that would otherwise be more hectic, to follow the advice of a personal trainer with a healthy diet and a program of regular exercise. Her goal, according to the trainer, was to get healthier and that should be the goal of every person, whether it’s weight loss that will get them there, more exercise, healthier eating or simply changing their mental attitude. You only have one life to live and during these troubling times, making the most of that life is magnified.
It’s all too easy to soothe emotions with a diet high in simple carbohydrates, like pastry, candy bars and ice cream, but during any stressful time, what’s best for you isn’t always your first instinct. Eating a diet filled with fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables provides nutrients that can actually help you stay more positive. When you eat sugar, it does stimulate the opioid receptors that gives you that happy feeling. Unfortunately, that good feeling doesn’t last long and before you know it, it can dip to depression. If you’re not following your daily activities, the chances of burning fewer calories is greatly increased. A healthy diet can help you steer clear of depression and encourage you to feel good about yourself, besides building your immune system and reducing the risk of serious conditions.
Exercise burns off the hormones of stress and boosts those that make you feel happier and more satisfied. In fact, some studies show that working out can also be a great complementary treatment for anxiety and depression. It may be why so many people pace during a stressful time. Just taking a half hour a day to be active can improve both your mental and physical health, while burning extra calories and building muscle tissue.
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It’s hard enough to shed weight, let alone trying to lose body fat and preserve muscle mass, but it can be done. It all starts with eating a healthy diet that contains nutritious food, plus enough protein to help build or maintain muscle mass. It should be between 0.8-1.3 grams of protein per pound of current body weight. Not only do you have to have a healthy diet, you have to have one that has a deficit of calories, but not excessively lower, to avoid shedding both fat and muscle tissue.
When people go on a diet, they want to lose fat, not just weight. That decision means you need to cut out processed sugar, food with empty calories and improving the quality of fat consumed. It means cutting down on salt, too. One method that has helped many is intermittent fasting. It’s about limiting your food consumption to 8 hours of the day and fasting the other 16. Intermittent fasting has been shown to boost HGH—human growth hormone. It also helps improve insulin sensitivity, lower triglyceride levels, reduce inflammation and slow cell damage from free radicals. Ghrelin, the hunger hormone, is also modulated with intermittent fasting.
If you want to shed pounds and maintain muscle mass, the answer is strength training. Doing exclusively cardio burns calories, but they come from both fat and muscle tissue. Strength training tends to burn more fat. Anyone that works out, knows that you can’t do a high intensity workout, particularly one with strength training, seven days a week and expect to get the results you want. You need time to recover or you’ll actually lose muscle tissue rather than gain it.
Fat is harder for the body to metabolize than muscle tissue. So when you crash diet, you’ll lose muscle tissue, making weight loss even harder. Cutting calories also doesn’t provide the nutrients the body needs to heal muscle tissue. Take smaller steps. Cut back two to five hundred calories a day, so you don’t see your metabolism drop like a rock.
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Just cutting calories isn’t enough. You have to cut calories, while ensuring you get the most nutrition if you want to be successful. That means you need to identify the best foods to lose weight, which also provide the most nutrition. It means not all calories are created equally. While they all provide the same amount of energy, they undergo different processing in your body. Different types of food have different effects on your hormones, the amount of calories you burn and how hungry you’ll be.
Eggs have been given a bad rap because of its cholesterol levels. While it’s true that eating a lot of eggs can raise LDL cholesterol levels—the bad cholesterol—they’re great when you want to shed weight. They are an inexpensive source of protein and fat, both of which leave you feeling full longer, and that’s a real plus when you’re trying to lose weight. Several studies have shown that eating eggs, instead of a carb, like bagels, for breakfast, boosts weight loss, plus supplied many necessary nutrients.
You’ll fill up, plus get lots of omega-3 fatty acids when you eat fatty fish like salmon. Omega-3 fatty acids are important anti-inflammatory substances that help protect the cells and reduce the potential for metabolic disease and obesity. Salmon is also loaded with iodine that helps your thyroid function properly.
Cruciferous vegetables, which include cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, are exceptional for dieting. They high in fiber, which fills you up and actually contain quite a bit of protein. Compared to other vegetables when it comes to protein, they’re very high. They also contain high amounts of nutrients. Green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, Swiss chard and kale are low in calories, so you can eat quite a bit. They’re also high in fiber to make them quite filling.
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If you workout at home or at 180 Fitness in Gloucester, ON, you know that it’s only half the answer to losing weight and living healthy. Not only are there questions about what you eat, but also when you eat. Can you rest and digest food properly late at night? Is eating close to bedtime an unhealthy option? While the primary focus should always be on what you eat, when you eat is also important. The amount of food you eat also makes a difference.
What you’re eating late at night makes a big difference. If you’re munching on an apple, the potential that it will disrupt your sleep is small. A big meal will definitely be harder to digest. There’s a reason people often go for a walk after meals. It helps their body digest the food according to several studies. It did that by helping the food move through your body faster. Staying active after a meal also helps lower blood sugar levels. How much you eat makes a big difference, not only in how well you rest, but also in how you feel the next morning.
If you’re hankering for something to eat at midnight, the chances are that you’ll reach for a salad or fruit is smaller. Most people head for the bag of chips or other quick snack available. Few take the time to make something healthy. So often night snackers are loading their bodies with empty calories and will pay for it with weight gain. It’s not about the timing, but rather about the choices made later at night.
Greasy chips, fries, that left over fried chicken aren’t fare you should be eating at all, let alone at bedtime. A diet high in saturated fat, especially when eaten at bedtime, affects the quality of your sleep. It affects the amount of deep sleep you get, non rapid eye movement—NREM sleep. It’s the time that your brain helps you reinforce and evaluate the things learned during the day. It can affect your learning. There are three phases, and during each phase, the body regrows tissue, builds bones and muscle, boosts the immune system and repairs itself. While a high fat diet is bad, eating a small snack that has carbs, fat and protein can help you sleep. Find protein that is high in tryptophan.
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