5-tips on how to improve your fitness and lose weight

Today, most of the population in developed countries is living sedentary way of life during occupational or even leisure activities. This has resulted in constantly increasing percentage of over-weight and obese people which in turn has negative effects on overall fitness and health.

Losing weight and improving overall fitness should be the number one priority if you want to live a long and healthy life.

The main reason for getting over-weight is the amount of calorie intake. If you consume more calories than you spend you are slowly gaining weight and start to accumulate fat.

The solution for the problem seems relatively simple and that is to consume fewer calories than you spend. One pound of fat equals 3500 calories. If you consume that much less you will lose one pound of fat. Take good care when lowering your daily calorie intake. Consuming too little calories can have negative effects on your body and overall health. You should start with the amount of 500 calories. Consume 500 fewer calories daily then you spend, and you will lose 1 pound of fat every week.

Here are some tips that will help you to overturn your daily calorie intake.

  1. Build muscle – The more muscles your body has the faster your metabolism is which in turn burns more fat. Having more muscles burns more calories even when you are at rest because it needs more calories to maintain muscle tissue. You can indulge yourself in many exercises to build muscles and weight lifting or high intensity cardio training (HIIT) is one of them.
  2. Eat less, but frequently – Eating 4-6 times per day revs up the metabolism. Each time you eat your body burns more calories just to digest the food. Don’t skip your meals and don’t merge the meals.
  3. Cardio workout – Cardio exercises that range from simple ones as walking to a more intense like running, swimming or cycling are perfect for burning calories. Thirty minutes per day is a minimum to experience health benefits in as little as 4-6 weeks.
  4. No need for dieting – Avoid low calorie diets and supplements because they are of no use when you are trying to burn calories. This technique only makes you lose water weight or even worse, muscle weight, and soon as you stop your diet you gain weight faster than you lost it.
  5. Consume foods that help you burn fat – Eating healthy food like whole-grain food, green vegetables, fruits and food rich in protein (important for building muscles) are very helpful in reducing the amount of fat contained in your body. Try to avoid processed food like white bread, pastas, cookies, biscuits, etc.

Consume foods that help you burn fat – Eating healthy food like whole-grain food, green vegetables, fruits and food rich in protein (important for building muscles) are very helpful in reducing the amount of fat contained in your body. Try to avoid processed food like white bread, pastas, cookies, biscuits, etc.

These are five important tips that will help you to return your body to a mint condition. After only a couple of weeks you will start to see real improvements to your body shape, weight, muscle strength, you will have more energy and be in a better mood. Don’t starve yourself out, but rather be responsible to your body.

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Does Aerobics Make You Lose Muscle?

Yes, it’s true. It’s a scientifically proven fact that muscle proteins are broken down and used for energy during aerobic exercise. However, you are constantly breaking down and re-building muscle tissue anyway. This process is called “protein turnover.” Your body is constantly alternating back and forth between anabolic (building) and catabolic (breaking down) cycles. That’s just a normal part of life. Your goal is simply to tip the scales slightly in favor of increasing the anabolic side and reducing the catabolic side just enough so you stay anabolic and you gain muscle (or at least maintain it).

This fact of human physiology has often been taken out of context and used to scare people into not doing cardiovascular exercise for fear of losing muscle. When you fast overnight as you sleep, you lose muscle too, but that doesn’t mean you should stop sleeping!

Sure, it’s possible for you to lose muscle from doing too much cardio, but it’s highly unlikely. Shying away from cardio completely because you think you’ll lose muscle is a huge mistake. Only excessive amounts of cardio would cause you to lose muscle. Extreme amounts of aerobic work, such as the type of training done by competitive endurance athletes, could be considered over-training. Over-training tips the scale towards the catabolic side. Just look at the slight, wiry physiques of any distance runner or triathlete if you need proof of that. It’s difficult to generalize and pinpoint one specific amount as too much, but a safe maximum guideline would be 45 -60 minutes of cardio a day, 6 to 7 days a week. Within these limits, you shouldn’t worry about losing any muscle – as long as the proper nutritional support is provided. Beyond 60 minutes a day, you hit a point of diminishing returns and you may increase the chance of injury, over-training and muscle loss.

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Fighting Parkinson’s, Step by Step

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 22, 2011) — With every step of her first half-marathon on April 3, University of Kentucky alumna Emily Sandford will be fighting Parkinson’s disease.

Sandford, 29, lost her mother, Claudette Hill, to young-onset Parkinson’s on April 3, 2007. To mark the fourth anniversary of her passing, Sandford is on a mission to raise $2,500 to further Parkinson’s research at theKentucky Neuroscience Institute (KNI) by participating in the Run the Bluegrass Half-Marathon.

The day will also mark two other milestones for Sandford: the loss of more than 100 pounds, and her 30th birthday on April 5.

Sandford, who works as a marketing manager, is also a prolific blogger who has chronicled her fitness journey through her blog for approximately two years. A few months ago she announced her fundraising endeavor for KNI. So far she has raised over $1,500 in donations and sponsorships for the half-marathon, primarily through her blog. She has received donations from as far away as Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as many from across the United States.

On her blog, Sandford discusses her workouts with a trainer, her progress toward being able to complete the 13.1 miles of the half-marathon, her weight loss, and her feelings about her body and herself. Although she has completed two 5K races, Run the Bluegrass will mark the most distance she has ever covered at once. Blog readers have been able to share her training and fundraising journey toward the half-marathon.

“I really am exposing myself. The best thing to come out of it is the support I receive from readers,” Sandford said. “My husband has also been amazing. He’s a nurse, and compassionate and caring.”

So, what inspired Sandford to challenge her body, while honoring the memory of her mother?

“My mom had young-onset Parkinson’s, beginning in her mid-40s,” Sanford said. “She passed away at the age of 50. She could not control her health; I can control obesity and my own health. Parkinson’s is something you can’t prevent. It slowly takes away people’s motor skills and abilities. It can happen at any age and progress at any rate. By doing something active that people affected by Parkinson’s can’t do, we can bring light to the cause.”

Sandford relates that after the death of her mother and a series of stressful life events she gained a large amount of weight.

“My mom died, I had my birthday, I graduated with my MBA, I got a job, got married, got laid off, and started another job. That whole period was the breaking point,” she said.

While on travel for work, she felt herself becoming easily winded and realized “something has got to give.” It was then she reached out to a personal trainer and started her blog. She rallied the resources of sponsors like the Lexington Athletic Club.

“That was difficult,” she admits. “I don’t like asking for help, ever.”

Sandford was inspired to fundraise for KNI after participating in the 2010 Business Lexington Trivia Bowl, which also benefited Parkinson’s research at KNI.

“I just want to encourage people to support the people locally who are making a change. We have this fantastic resource at KNI,” Sandford said.

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