Fitness and Joy

There are many type of workout creates many types of body pain. Workout recovery doesn’t just mean lying on the couch and kicking up your feet. The best post-workout recovery means using a variety of strategies to help your muscles heal. Here are some of those strategies: Myofascial Therapy Myofascial release includes massage and foam rolling. Performed immediately before and after exercise, it may help decrease feelings of delayed onset muscle soreness while speeding muscle recovery. Myofascial release can be a part of passive and active recovery days as well as cross-training workouts. Active Recovery Active recovery means low-intensity, generally low-impact exercise that promotes blood flow and tissue repair without further stressing the body. If you’re feeling fatigued from strength training, engage in a lower intensity cardiovascular bike ride or walk, which enables your body to circulate waste products caused by the rigorous activity. Or try a gentle yoga practice to stretch out ...

Everybody knows that high fiber is the best part of your food and necessary for our body. High Fiber is mostly polysaccharides composed of glucose units, but human digestive enzymes cannot break the bonding of these units. We can think of fiber as non-starch polysaccharides. These include cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, and some other types of fiber. That might sound like Greek to you, but fiber is an important part of our daily diet, and a high fiber diet might be perfect for your body. Depending on their solubility in water, there are of two main types of fiber: soluble fiber and insoluble fiber. Both of these types are important for optimum health. Fiber has a number of health benefits and hence is highly recommended in daily food. Some of its health benefits are: It promotes the feelings of fullness and reduces energy consumption. It prevents constipation, hemorrhoids, and other intestinal problems. Fiber helps prevent bacterial infection of the appendix....

When it comes to dieting you will find all kinds of crazy and faddish diets on the market today. In addition to the many diets there seems to be every kind of diet aid you can imagine. From shakes the diet industry has evolved to include everything from candy bars and pudding to pills and patches. Each item makes the claim that it can help you drop those unwanted pounds quickly and easily. Well I can tell you for a fact there is very little easy for must of us about dropping a few pounds. If you would like a few tips that should make your weight loss goals a little easier to achieve then perhaps the following tips will help you out. Drink Plenty of Water There really isn’t enough that can be said about the importance of drinking water in an effort to reach your fitness goals. Water hydrates the body first and foremost but water is also an important way of tricking your body into believing it is full. Other drinks do not work nearly as well as water in this endeavor and many drink...

Fad diets are a sort of diet plan or aid that aims at losing weight, usually in a relatively short time. Fad diets attract a large number of people who suffer from weight problems and are helplessly looking to some way of arriving at a shapely physique. The problem with fad diets is that their fat-reducing effect is temporary and results in quick regain of weight. What is worse is that most of these diets are harmful to health. Fad diets are not as new as they might seem at first. These date back to the mid 19 th century when an obese Londoner was prescribed such a diet on experimental basis. Now, after a century and a half, fad diets have become popular among people with weight problems. Teens and young adults especially flock to fad diets for answers to weight problems. Fad diets are usually centered on a higher consumption of fats or proteins while stressing to go easy on or, in some cases, completely cut out carbohydrates. It is the low intake of carbohydrates that brings abou...

There are illnesses that you can get from dieting and they are called eating disorders.  There are two main types and they are anorexia and bulimia.  There are about 2 million people in the United States that are suffering right now from one of these eating disorders.  These illnesses are going to be more likely in girls and women than in men however there are male patients that are battling eating disorders as well. Anorexia is showing up more and more in teenagers.  This is true more so for girls of middle to upper class families.  Men and boys suffer from anorexia but not as often.  Anorexia is when a person will not want to eat when they need to in order to survive.  There are anorexia patients that avoid eating most of the foods that are out there but will also be more likely to follow activities like grueling physical exercises in order to make their weight come down. Usually their weight is already below normal.  Gaining weight is the wor...

When it comes to dieting there are very few organizations that have achieved the lasting success of Weight Watchers. They have been around quite a while and show no signs of stopping. More importantly, their success stories speak volumes for those who join and stick with the program. So what makes this program so successful when many others come and go? Community Believe it or not, one of the most important things about Weight Watchers secret to success, so to speak, is the sense of community that is forged between the men and women who are trying to lose weight. There is something humbling and exciting about standing in front of the scale week after week and sharing not only your personal successes and failures but also the failures and successes of others.  Far too often we those who are dieting simply do not have an adequate support system at home. The bonding that is done during the Weight Watchers meeting is a strong bond of men and women who may come from different back...

When it comes to dieting firstly prepare your mind, far too many people set themselves up for failure before they even begin the process. They literally dread going on their diets and before they start the process are planning their mishaps along the way. Sad to say but true, far too many would be dieters are planning their first Rocky Road mishap while eating their last bowl of Rocky Road before the big event. I have no idea why we tend to do this to ourselves but it is something I see in dieters everywhere. The far too popular notion is that one must binge on the foods most loved and enjoyed before beginning the dieting process because these things must be completely eliminated in order to shed those unwanted pounds. If you are honest with yourself, nothing could be further from the truth. Moderation is simply a concept that many of us are loathe to embrace. You must change your way of thinking about food and your personal enjoyment of food in order for any diet you embrace to be...

Slim Fast is another great diet aid that has been around for quite a while. From it’s origins as a thick and gritty powder designed to help you stave off hunger to it’s current incarnation as a line of weight loss products and meal bar supplements we have seen some amazing transitions and longevity in this particular product.  Slim Fast is becoming famous for the new flavors they have introduced and their steady stream of testimonials from those who have met or exceeded their goals by using the Slim Fast system. Using Slim Fast when dieting can assist those with little will power when it comes to chocolate and sweets achieve their weight loss goals by having the higher calorie shakes and snacks throughout the day followed by a sensible meal in the evening and indulging in their craving for sweets throughout the day. It’s a good plan as long as those using it can manage to stick with the plan. In the past Slim Fast would not have been a product I would have recommended for those...

Obesity is the big problem around the world now these days. Obesity has many negative health consequences in many young couples. Some are better known and documented than others. Recent studies have shown that yet another potential consequence of obesity is difficulty when it comes to conceiving a baby. Fertility troubles are a growing problem in this country and around the world. One reason that is being hailed as a very viable culprit is obesity.  While most people look immediately to the female in the relationship for this particular problem the facts indicate that male obesity can also lead to a low sperm count, which can also hamper fertility efforts and progress. Our bodies were designed for specific purposes. It is utterly amazing how well each part of the human body works to support the others. There are very few machines that can compete with the genius of the design of the human body. After thousands of years to study the human body there are still many mysteries hidd...

There seems to be one universal truth when it comes to dieting. No one really enjoys the process though we all eagerly await and anticipate the results. The problem is that far too many men and women around the world focus so much on dieting and perfecting their external beauty that they forget the beautiful people they are inside along the way. Our culture is becoming obsessive about the perfect body and the perfect body image. If there was one message that should make it out to everyone dieing it is this: dieting should be more about health than beauty. You should not need to conform to some preconceived notion of what is or should be beautiful. If we create a world where everyone looks alike it would be rather boring in the end. You need to focus on being happy with who you are in order to achieve the greatest dieting success you will have ever dared dream. Many of use eat out of emotional need or a simple need for comfort when we are depressed, hurting, uncertain, or simply in ...

An overwhelming variety of both natural and highly processed foods is available at the market. To guide people in picking healthy food items, the Department of Agriculture has designed the food pyramid. It is a labeled illustration, shaped like a pyramid, which demonstrates groups of essential food types and the quantity in which a normal individual requires each of these foods.  At the base of the food pyramid are such food items that serve as ready sources of energy. These are rich in starch, low in fat, and include cereals, pasta, bread, and different types of grains. By the specifications of the food pyramid, a normal adult individual needs 6 to 11 servings of these items daily. Whole grains are the best and healthiest food of this group. In a single serving of these foods you can include a slice of bread, a cup of cereal flakes, one flat tortilla, and one ounce of rice or pasta.  As the geometry of the food pyramid shows, vegetables and fruits are required in less qua...

It is difficult in the world we live in to watch as so many children are literally overburdening their bodies at such young ages by being overweight. These children simply cannot run, jump, and play with the other children because their bodies simply will not allow them to do so. For these children, dieting is almost a necessity despite our best efforts to insulate them from the self-esteem issues that often accompany obesity. If you have a child that is well outside the normal weight range for his or her age you are the one who must make the efforts and take the necessary steps to insure they shed those pounds in order to live a life that is as close to normal as possible. The first thing you need to do however is consult with your child’s doctor about the best possible course of action that will also safeguard the health of your child. Put quite frankly however, if you do not take the efforts to assist your child in shedding those pounds you are placing the health of your child a...

Nutrition and physical activity is going to go along together for our bodies.  Exercise is going to give us fitness along with four major things: flexibility, strength, muscle endurance, and cardiovascular health.  Diet on it’s own is not going to be able to give you this.  You need to have the physical part as well.  One thing to remember is that a bad diet can affect the way that your fitness training goes even if you follow the best type of exercise plan that you can.  You need to put a healthy diet and a lot of exercise together to stay as healthy as you can. It is going to be achievable to answer the question of how long you need to exercise to keep as healthy as you can.  The average is at least 20 minutes of exercise at least three times a week.  This will help to strengthen the cardiovascular health.  Another idea is that 3500 calories must be used in a week by doing any sort of physical activity. This will benef...

You know “diet” brings immediate thoughts of failure to the minds of many men and women around the world? Could it be that we have all learned through trial and error that diets simply do not work? I know many of you are sitting back with jaws dropped at the moment. After all, this is an article about dieting, right? It is and it isn’t. Dieting is the kiss of death for many while a new phase in your life or lifestyle adjustment may be just the thing that will mean success for you and your fitness and health goals.   Eating for some is an addiction. Unfortunately, you can’t exactly give up eating all together as a smoker can give up cigarettes. I’m not applying by any means that giving up cigarettes is easy but how much more difficult would it be if you were forced to have three a day? At that point you may as well enjoy them every time the urge hits right? The same holds true for food. You must eat in order to survive. You cannot live without eating. This means that if food is a ...

Most people around the world by now have heard of the Atkins diet. It has been one of the most highly touted and highly controversial diets of our time. Those who love it have nothing but great things to say about it but those who are critical are not shy about their opposition either. The largest criticism when it comes to the Atkins, or low carb diet would be the near absence of whole grains, which are considered the cornerstone to a healthy diet by many.  Dieting with the Atkins diet involved eliminating a large degree of carbohydrates from your diet. In the past there hasn’t been as much of an emphasis on fitness and exercise with the Atkins diet as there seems to be currently. This is good news however as an active fitness regime is as essential to successful weight loss as cutting calories and in this case cutting carbohydrates. You should take great caution that you are getting accurate information when it comes to Atkins dieting if this is something you are considering ...

  The world of dieting you will find that there are many diet plans, weight loss plans and fitness plans on the market. It takes years for some to become a contender and others remain a best-kept secret of sorts. One such ‘best kept’ secret would be the 3 Hour Diet that was designed by Jorge Cruise. I am sure that there are many reading along and chuckling under your breath that there is no way one can lose weight by eating every three hours however the science behind the theory is fairly common and Jorge Cruise is a mainstay in the fitness industry. The long and short of this diet operates with the knowledge that if you do not feed your body accurately and regularly your body will go into what is called ‘starvation mode’. In this mode your body holds onto the fat rather than burning it up and consuming it for use. This means that your body is burning muscle rather than fat to take the energy it needs in order to function. With the 3 Hour Diet you will not feel hungry all the t...