Want to stay healthy?
Check this video out...eat right and exercise.

What about food?

So far I’ve mentioned a few ways to stay fit at inexpensive costs. Now, what about the foods we eat and all the calorie intakes? I personally hate diets. I rather sweat my butt off running miles than prohibiting myself from eating what I want. But what are some good ways to control your food intakes without dieting? I got some personal tips that have been helpful to others.


Tip #1

I have heard this saying many times in Spanish, not sure if there’s a similar one in English. It translates into something like this: Eat breakfast like a King, have lunch like a prince, and eat dinner like a homeless person. Basically, eat all you want when you have breakfast, eat a moderate lunch and have a very small meal at night.

Tip #2

This one goes along with tip #1. Have about 6 “dinners” during the day. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, (optional) snack. Your body just needs to maintain enough energy in it in order to function. Thus by feeding on small portioned meals during the day, you’ll never be hungry, and you should have enough energy to last throughout the day. Make your snacks healthy, fruits and vegetables preferably.  

 

Tip #3

Do not eat anything past dinner time. I know I mentioned an optional snack in tip #2, but for me this depends on what time you eat dinner. If you eat early at 5pm, then it would be wise to snack on something “healthy” a couple of hours later. However, if you’re like me eating dinner at 7pm or 8pm, that should be the last thing for the night.

Tip #4

Have you even been so hungry you could eat a cow?!  Sometimes when we get our hands on food we tend to eat quickly, and we might not feel so good afterwards. We tend to eat faster than our body has time to process the food and this could make us feel sick. When your stomach is full of food it inflates, and since it’s under your diaphragm (the muscle that contracts and releases your lungs in order to breathe) it could cause shortness of breath. In short- don’t over eat.

Tip #5

 Replace everything you drink with water. No sodas, no juices, no energy drinks. Anything other than water has calories, carbs or sugars. There’s no better way to keep your body hydrated and healthy.  

Burning calories through cardio

How do you burn the most calories? You need to get your heart rate up as high as you can and the best way to do so is through cardio exercises. Their benefits include and are not limited to:

·         Losing weight, burning calories

      ·         Improving cardiovascular health

·         Reduces high blood pressure

·         Reduces the risk of diabetes

·         Reduces cholesterol levels

·         Helps strengthen your immune system

·         Sweating is a great way to release toxins from the body

The best part about it, it’s free.

Go jogging three to four times a week around the block. Make sure to stretch before and warm up so you don’t pull or strain any muscles. Some people wear ankle weights which can help strengthen your leg muscles even more.

Did you know?

• Over 1 billion pairs of running shoes are sold world-wide each year.
• 104.3 calories are burned every mile when running at a 10 minute/mile pace.
• When we run, the human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet.
• In order to burn off a big mac (540 kcal), a 140 pound female would have to run for 52 minutes at a 10 minutes/mile pace.
• Running burns about 50% more calories than walking.
• An average man has enough energy in his fat stores to run non-stop for 3 days at 15 miles per hour.

www.anytimehealth.com

Cycling Other than being an efficient form of transportation it's a great way of exercise. Take a ride to the nearest park, bring someone along whether it’s your significant other, children or even a friend, and make it a fun experience.

 

Did you know?

• Adults who bike to work have better weight, blood pressure, and insulin levels.
• Women who bike 30 minutes a day have a lower risk of breast cancer.
• Adolescents who bicycle are 48% less likely to be overweight as adults.
• The U.S. bicycle industry sold $5.6 billion in bicycles and equipment in 2009.
• More than three times as many new bicycles (14.9 million) are sold in the U.S. each year than cars (4.6 million).
• For every 1 mile pedaled rather than driven, nearly 1 pound of CO_² (0.88 lbs) is saved.
• The health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks by a factor of 20 to one.

www.bikesbelong.org

  

Jumping rope This activity could be even more beneficial than running or cycling. Listen to this:

"This aerobic exercise can achieve a "burn rate" of up to 700 calories per hour of vigorous activity, with about 0.1 calories consumed per jump. Ten minutes of jumping rope is roughly the equivalent of running an eight-minute mile. Jumping rope for 15–20 minutes is enough to burn off the calories from a candy bar” 

www.wikipedia.com
 

Really?! Start incorporating some cardio into your daily routines and see how health improves, your calories go down and stamina increases!

 

 

Let's get started with Plyometrics

Before I focused my career on business, I had many thoughts about becoming a personal trainer, a dietitian or pursuing a field that dealt with being in shape. Now it’s more of a hobby, but exercising has become part of my lifestyle. I have done trials, but never joined a gym. Everything I do, I do it at home, and I can say I have spent less than $50 on exercising equipment.


- Are you willing to spend $40+ on gym membership costs?

- Are you willing to drive every day after a long day of work, for a 30 minute workout?
 

If you’re like me the answers to those questions are no. I’m by no means an expert, but hopefully through this blog, you can learn and experiment different and simple ways of exercising at home, on a budget.

 

To start it off, I wanted to share a type of exercise training which I find very useful. (I will use Wikipedia’s help in trying to define the term). Plyometrics or “Plyos”for short, uses fast-acting movement that helps the body improve overall speed by developing muscular power. A plyometrics trainer describes it as an event that “involves powerful muscular contractions in response to a rapid stretching of the involved musculature. These powerful contractions are not a pure muscular event; they have an extremely high degree of central nervous system involvement. It is a combination of an involuntary reflex (i.e. a neural event), which is then followed by a fast muscular contraction (i.e. voluntary muscular event)."

It sounds difficult right? You’ll be surprised how easy plyometrics actually is, and the best part is that you don’t really need equipment to do it. We have all seen it, and surprisingly we have all done it.  Here are a couple of exercise examples.

 

 

 

Lower body plyometrics:

long jumps, jumping jacks, leg hoping, squat-jumps, bounds, hops.

Spend 30 minutes alternating between these exercises and let me know how your legs feel afterwards!

         

            Upper body plyometrics:

           "Alternative Box Push-off with shoulder press"
          Targets the upper and lower body

        The dumbbells can vary in weight 5-25lbs depending
        on your strength. The more weight of course, the more
        strength your muscles gain. Walmart sells a 10 lb dumbbell
        at a starting price of $9.47 each.

 

                                                                    

             "Burpees"
                 Targets upper and lower body, core

             This one in particular will make you
              sweat and your thighs burn!

              
 

    


                      "Alternating split squat jumps with dumbbells"

                      Targets upper and lower body

Here are a few to get you started! Share your experiences and let me know how each exercise works out!

 

Pictures and exercises taken from GoldsGym.com

http://www.goldsgym.com/healthy/newsletter/2010-06/the-power-of-plyometrics