Getting Fit in 2010

Getting Fit in 2010

Do yourself a favor and quit looking for the secret. There's no magic pill, no secret technique. No tricks or gimmicks. The way to get fit is to exercise...almost everyday. You'll need to commit 30-60 minutes of your time. On some of those days, you will have to push yourself to the point of fatigue. It won't be enough to just break a sweat.

Now, make no mistake, it's better to be active than to simply sit on the couch eating a bag of chips and drinking a Coke. But don't confuse being active with being fit. Many people would benefit from being more active but real progress toward fitness will take more. That's why many people use a personal trainer or fitness coach. It is difficult for most individuals to push themselves hard enough.

Part of getting fit is managing your calories. How strict the management is will depend on your goals. Maintaining weight isn't going to be as hard as getting lean but it still requires discipline. If you want to really get lean, it will require knowing the exact number of calories your body is going to need and the exact number you're putting in it.

Complicated exercise routines or fancy machines are unnecessary, though that doesn't mean they can't be useful. Simple movements using only your bodyweight, exercises like pushups, squats, jumping jacks, etc..., can provide great results. These movements can be done in your living room, in the back yard, the stairwell in your office building, or at your favorite health club.

Burn Fat Faster

Burn Fat Faster

Your metabolism or metabolic rate can determine exactly how quickly you gain or lose fat. Here are some quick tips you can put to use immediately to help crank up your metabolism and increase your fat burning.

1. Eat Breakfast

It's no myth that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If you skip breakfast thinking you are saving calories or time, consider this...
Your body has been in a fasting state for 8 hours or more. When you wake up and don't give it any food, its natural reaction is self-defense. It thinks "famine" and automatically slows your metabolism to a crawl to conserve calories. Not only does everything you eat for the rest of the day have a far greater chance of being stored as fat, your chances of burning any fat off that day are low.
And here's the whammy... you're going to get really hungry later and will probably want to eat something that's not so good for you. With your now-slower metabolism (because you skipped breakfast), you're going to store a lot more of that "not-so-great" meal than usual.

2. Eat Frequently

Besides skipping breakfast, the next biggest metabolism-killer is long waits between meals. Every time you eat something, your metabolism ramps up to process the food. The more frequently you eat, the more frequently your metabolism will get a boost.
The real key, however, is to be sure you're eating smaller meals (eating 5 big meals instead of 3 big meals isn't good for losing fat!). Try to eat 5 or more times per day, even if it's just healthy snacks between meals.

3. Exercise With Intensity

Your metabolic rate is directly related to the intensity of the exercise you perform. Walking will burn calories while you're doing it and give your metabolism a small boost for a little while after but it doesn't compare to high-intensity interval training. That type of training can boost your metabolism for a full 24 hours or more after.
Even if you can't handle high-intensity training, you can always find ways to make the easier exercises such as walking more intense, e.g. walk faster, walk up hills, wear a weighted back-pack, etc.

4. Train With Weights

Weight training builds muscle and muscle is a huge factor in determining your metabolic rate. Muscle tissue is very metabolically active. Your body burns a lot of calories just to maintain it.
Weight training gives your metabolism a triple-shot. Not only do you burn calories during the exercise, you also increase your metabolic rate long after the exercise (provided the training you are doing is intense). Add to that the extra muscle you build from the training and you can see how effective weights can be for boosting your metabolism.

5. Eat More Protein

Of the three major macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats), protein requires the most energy to digest. Protein is also less likely to be stored as fat because of this. Protein will also help you to build up your muscle.
I don't recommend that you overload on protein, however, focusing on getting plenty of good-quality protein from a variety of sources (e.g. lean meats, chicken, fish, eggs, soy, etc.) can help keep your metabolic rate high.

6. Take Your Vitamins

Your metabolic rate basically boils down to chemical reactions in your body. Vitamins and minerals (and water) are important parts of these chemical reactions. If you don't have enough of these components available for your body to use when it needs them, your body will have to limit itself to what you've got.
Think of your metabolism as a car assembly line. You can't build a complete car until you have all the parts available. If, for example, you only have enough doors available to build 100 cars but you have 200 doorless cars on the line, you're missing out on a lot of potential production.
By taking a multivitamin on a regular basis, you will not only support your metabolism but your health as well.

7. Reduce Your Fat

IntakeFatty foods take longer for your body to digest and they leave you feeling fuller longer. While not being hungry is certainly fine when trying to lose fat, eating meals that encourage you to wait longer periods between eating can slow your metabolism.

This goes back to the point about eating frequently. If you eat fatty foods for breakfast, you may not want to anything again until lunch, which could be 5 or more hours away. Ideally, you should eat approximately every 3 hours.

If you're looking to give your metabolism a boost, give these tips a try. A faster metabolic rate can help you tremendously with fat loss.

TRAINER FOR WOMEN

TRAINER FOR WOMEN

Fitness is often an entity that's beyond gender, age or any such categorization. Every human body has a right to stay fit. Staying fit is a route to staying happy and avoiding issues that plague the body that s not taken care of. However every person has his/her own strength and limitations. Some can run long distances but can't lift weights. Some do otherwise.

Personal trainers often are hence the best solution to treat the diversity. For women, the subject of fitness has many more connotations and having a trainer is a great way of hitting the right habits.All women are not the same and sometimes it doesn't make sense for them to slog out the same way as everyone else in a gym. Besides, there are good days and bad days.

Some days she could be very energetic and other days way too strained to do anything. In such a scenario, a personal trainer is the one who understands their capacity instead of putting them through the same routine.For most women, staying fit also means staying in proper shape. Every woman is different from the other in terms of vital statistics and has preferences too.

Sometimes to be able to discuss their requirements in an overcrowded place could be a nightmare for women. The apprehensions do not come out as easily when there are others paying attention. But a personal trainer could be a solution to such embarrassing situations.Women can have a free conversation with a personal trainer. Diet, what shape she wants to be in, what her problems are, even health related issues which she finds very hard to reveal to anyone could find an easy channel to be let out.

What more, having a personal trainer understand the issues of past, could avoid in potential health related effects certain exercises could lead to.Sometimes obese women, who want to lose weight, are ridiculed. It is also very difficult for them to get into workout costume and the fear is constantly working against them. The sight of other fit women in shape could lead to emotional trauma and envy leading to depression and discouragement.

A trainer will do a very good job in such a case. The trainer could soothe the fears and instill confidence and show that, by regular workout, nothing really is impossible.Women could have gone through other situations like pregnancy, child birth or abortion. These are cases where utmost care in every exercise needs to be takes. One cannot afford to follow the common regimen here and needs a specialist to dictate the terms by paying constant attention.

Personal trainer by using past experience could be innovative in dealing with issues and also give sound advise against myths usually followed during these phases. A balance is very important and in delicate phases like this the scope of error is very low.Often every woman needs the help of a personal trainer to know about themselves, about what good and bad have they been gifted with. They have fears, they hear myths, but sound scientific advice is very essential. So many graduates and young working women follow drastic steps to come to shape or lose weight harming themselves. The impulse to maintain their figure needs to be channeled in a proper way, instead of drastic acts of desperation like self starvation or weights etc. which might produce undesired results.

The maturity of a personal trainer would always prove to be handy. Every day is different for every woman, and their personality should be an integral part in taking decision about the way to go to stay fit.

Fibromyalgia Pain at Night

Do you toss and turn at night because of fibromyalgia pain or discomfort?
"People with fibromyalgia tend to have very disturbed sleep," says Doris Cope, MD, director of Pain Management at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "Even if they sleep 10 hours a night, they still feel fatigued, don't feel rested."

Research shows that with fibromyalgia, there is an automatic arousal in the brain during sleep. Frequent disruptions prevent the important restorative processes from occurring. Growth hormone is mostly produced during sleep. Without restorative sleep and the surge of growth hormone, muscles don't heal and neurotransmitters (like the mood chemical serotonin) are not replenished. The lack of a good night's sleep makes people with fibromyalgia wake up feeling tired and fatigued.

The result: The body can't recuperate from the day's stresses -- all of which overwhelms the system, creating a great sensitivity to pain. Widespread pain, sleep problems, anxiety, depression, fatigue, and memory difficulties are all symptoms of fibromyalgia.

Insomnia takes many forms -- trouble falling asleep, waking up often during the night, having trouble going back to sleep, and waking up too early in the morning. Smoothing out those sleep problems -- and helping people get the deep sleep their bodies need -- helps fibromyalgia pain improve significantly, research shows.

Medications can help enhance sleep and relieve pain. But doctors also advocate lifestyle changes to help sleep come naturally.
Tips to Get Better Sleep With Fibromyalgia
Creating a comfort zone at home is key to better sleep, whether you have fibromyalgia or not. It's all about easing into bedtime feeling relaxed -- and staying relaxed so you sleep through the night.

These 10 tips can help people sleep better:
Enjoy a soothing (warm) bath in the evening.
Brush your body with a loofah or long-handled brush in the bath.
Ease painful tender points with a self-massage device (like a tennis ball).
Do yoga and stretching exercises to relax.
Listen to calming music.
Meditate to tame intrusive thoughts and tension.
Sleep in a darkened room. Try an eye mask if necessary.
Keep the room as quiet as possible (or use a white-noise machine).
Make sure the room temperature is comfortable.
Avoid foods that contain caffeine, including teas, colas, and chocolate.
Therapies to Treat Insomnia When You Have Fibromyalgia
If you're still having sleep problems, several therapies can help, including biofeedback, relaxation training, stress reduction, and cognitive therapy. A psychologist who specializes in sleep disorders can discuss these therapies with you.

The therapies help people handle stress better, which helps control fibromyalgia episodes, Cope says. "Fibromyalgia comes and goes," she tells WebMD. "When you're stressed out, that's when it's worse." That's when you're most likely to have insomnia, too.

Medications can also help ease fibromyalgia pain at night, or directly treat insomnia. Medications to ease fibromyalgia at night include antidepressants, anticonvulsants, prescription pain relievers, and sleep aids.

WALKING IS THE BEST MEDICINE

WALKING IS THE BEST MEDICINE

1. Walking prevents type 2 diabetes. The Diabetes Prevention Program showed that walking 150 minutes per week and losing just 7% of your body weight (12-15 pounds) can reduce your risk of diabetes by 58%.

2. Walking strengthens your heart if you're male. In one study, mortality rates among retired men who walked less than one mile per day were nearly twice that among those who walked more than two miles per day.

3. Walking strengthens your heart if you're female. Women in the Nurse's Health Study (72,488 female nurses) who walked three hours or more per week reduced their risk of a heart attack or other coronary event by 35% compared with women who did not walk.

4. Walking is good for your brain. In a study on walking and cognitive function, researchers found that women who walked the equivalent of an easy pace at least 1.5 hours per week had significantly better cognitive function and less cognitive decline than women who walked less than 40 minutes per week. Think about that!

5. Walking is good for your bones. Research shows that postmenopausal women who walk approximately one mile each day have higher whole-body bone density than women who walk shorter distances, and walking is also effective in slowing the rate of bone loss from the legs.

6. Walking helps alleviate symptoms of depression. Walking for 30 minutes, three to five times per week for 12 weeks reduced symptoms of depression as measured with a standard depression questionnaire by 47%.

7. Walking reduces the risk of breast and colon cancer. Women who performed the equivalent of one hour and 15 minutes to two and a half hours per week of brisk walking had an 18% decreased risk of breast cancer compared with inactive women. Many studies have shown that exercise can prevent colon cancer, and even if an individual person develops colon cancer, the benefits of exercise appear to continue both by increasing quality of life and reducing mortality.

8. Walking improves fitness. Walking just three times a week for 30 minutes can significantly increase cardiorespiratory fitness.

9. Walking in short bouts improves fitness, too! A study of sedentary women showed that short bouts of brisk walking (three 10-minute walks per day) resulted in similar improvements in fitness and were at least as effective in decreasing body fatness as long bouts (one 30-minute walk per day).

10. Walking improves physical function. Research shows that walking improves fitness and physical function and prevents physical disability in older persons.