How to Start Exercising (AGAIN)

It is difficult to begin exercising again when you have been living a sedentary lifestyle for many years. The good news is that it is never too late to begin exercising for better health and fitness. The biggest hurdle you will need to overcome is your lack of motivation.

Low motivation is what probably kept you from exercising in the first place. For a majority of people, exercise is not considered fun. Most of the time, we are not going to do things that do not bring some type of joy to our lives.

You can break out of your exercise rut with a few motivational tips below:

1. Get a Physical – Nothing gets you motivated like having your doctor tell you that your cholesterol is high or that you need to shed some pounds. When you hear it from your doctor, chances are, you will be motivated to take action.

2. Walk Don’t Run – If the thought of jumping into an exercise program terrifies you, just keep it simple and start walking each day. Once you you can walk at a moderate pace for 30 minutes or more, step it up to a light jog, then work up to a run.

3. Get Some Music – Nothing motivates me more than working out to my own playlist. I suggest purchasing an MP3 player and loading it up with your favorite songs. You will be amazed how music makes the time fly and pushes you to do more.

4. Learn a New Activity – Make exercise fun by learning a new sport like tennis, martial arts, or boxing. These activities get you in shape and you won’t realize it because you’re actually enjoying yourself.

5. Become a Pro – Have you always wanted to run a marathon or become a bodybuilder? How about a black belt in Tae kwon do? Whatever your dream, it doesn’t matter how out of shape you are now, start training and become an expert.

You can avoid exercise ruts by making exercise a habit, just like brushing your teeth. Once it becomes a habit, it is much more difficult to break. Stuff like working on valve oil for trumpet and cleaning your instruments becomes a habit if your do it everyday.

100 Reasons to Exercise

I want to share this article I read today:
100 reasons to train today:

Because it makes you feel confident
Because it helps you get stronger
Because exercise helps combat depression
Because you’ll feel proud of yourself
Because you have goals you want to reach
Because you’ll feel bad if you don’t
Because you want to move forward, not backward
Because it burns more calories than not working out
Because it improves your heart health
Because you want a great butt
Because it prevents diabetes
Because you want to be a good example to your kids
Because you want to feel good in your clothes
Because it reduces your risk of cancer
Because your body was made to move
Because you want to be an athlete
Because you want to look better
Because it lifts your mood
Because you want to stand taller
Because it reduces back pain
Because it feels good
Because it makes you feel accomplished
Because you spend most of your day on your butt
Because swimsuit season is always coming
Because strong is the new skinny
Because dieting only works so much
Because it strengthens your bones, too
Because it helps you lose weight
Because it allows you to eat more food
Because it’s the best way to spend “me” time
Because it helps you de-stress
Because it’s cheaper than therapy
Because you want a strong core
Because you want to take care for yourself Continue reading

FitBit One

I got a FitBit. Hopefully this well help me track activity better. I average 5,000 steps a day if I am conscious about moving, but my NORMAL and USUAL sedentary lifestyle averages me about 1,500 to 2,000 steps a day. Can you see how dieting alone would not allow me to lose weight? I seriously need to MOVE.

I will share my progress. I have just had it for a week, so it’s new. I just tracked my normal activities this week. Starting tomorrow I will exercise on the treadmill again.

Explanation of Tai Chi and How to Start

Tai chi in Austin, TX, is a great way to improve your health and to meditate while you are moving. Tai chi has been translated or interpreted as an all-encompassing exercise. The chi, or life force, is what provides us with energy and health. In China, many years ago, a doctor was paid for all his patients he wasn’t treating. If anyone in his jurisdiction was sick, he didn’t get paid for their portion. Chinese medicine teaches that when the chi is blocked, sickness, disease, and pain are usually the result. In these teachings is the belief that your joints are the gates that chi flows through. The deep breathing, combined with the gentle approach, the swaying movements, and the focus of the mind on what the body is doing, will relieve tension in these gate areas and open the joints so the chi can move freely through them.

Tai Chi Practice

People of all ages and in all levels of physical condition will benefit from a tai chi practice. If you have never participated in a class or group session of tai chi and don’t know anything about it, it is highly recommended that you find a qualified instructor to teach you the basics of tai chi and to get you started off on the right foot, so to speak. You can ask the instructor about their credentials and their experience. They may offer a free first class for you to try them out and see if their style is something you might be comfortable with. Besides there being many types of tai chi, there are also many styles, depending who is teaching and what type they are teaching. The key is to find an instructor who teaches a type you like and in a style that you’re comfortable with. Taking a class for tai chi in Austin, TX, will start you on the road to feeling better, developing more flexibility, healing, less pain, and a greater connection of your body to your mind and vice versa. Making tai chi a daily practice can change your life in a very positive way.

Reasons to Hire a Personal Trainer for Your Fitness Program

Every year, losing weight or becoming healthy is one of the top resolutions or goals people make. While most unfortunately forget about their goal, stop mid-way or fail, there are others who take this goal to heart and commit to taking steps to change their lifestyles and be healthier.

It is not easy to stop bad habits. Besides deciding for yourself, you need to have the discipline and motivation to continue setting good habits and accomplishing them every day. Having the right people help and motivate you is important. Sometimes having someone to be accountable for is a big push for you to stay committed. This is where personal trainers come in. People often go to the gym without any idea how to develop a fitness program that is tailored to their needs or the goals they want to accomplish. For example, wanting to have a well-chiseled body requires a different workout program than wanting to have a lean one.

Why a Fitness Trainer?

A fitness trainer is an expert who can develop a customized training program for you. Similar to one who is an expert for welding supplies, a fitness trainer is an expert for fitness.

1. He would be able to develop an exercise regimen that fits your specific goals. He would analyze where you stand now in terms of fitness and develops a fitness plan accordingly.

2. He can also teach you the exercises that will work on your problem areas and help you achieve your desired goals.

3. He could also give the tips and strategies for achieving your target. If you have a fitness trainer of your own, then there is no need for you to go to a gym and he will be there to guide you in your fitness training process. However, gyms also have in-house fitness trainers you can hire for some one-on-one time when going for your workout sessions.

Choosing Your Personal Fitness Trainer

When it comes down to choosing a trainer, you need to make sure you pick someone with whom you are comfortable working with and someone you have confidence in. He can help you to achieve your goals. A trainer should motivate and support you, give you constructive feedback, be patient and be continuously working with you to ensure your program is giving the results you desire.

Make sure your trainer has certification. When you choose your personal trainer, you should make sure that they are educated, and have gone through some kind of program and have a certification. It would be nicer if he also knows CPR or has a first aid knowledge and certification.

Check if the trainer has adequate experience, training and education in the field of physical fitness.

Your trainer should be able to give you his undivided attention and be able to prepare a program that will help you get to your goals with more focus on the areas that require great attention.

The trainer you choose should be able to track your development through various assessments. If there is no progress, then he/she would design new exercise programs, which would be beneficial in achieving your goal.

The program he designed should be cost-effective. He would work around in giving you the best results with training.

 

Workout Music

I am in a workout music downloading session the past week. I have been downloaded some mean N’ Sync and Backstreet Boys tunes all week, plus some dance tunes I’d rather not name lest they reveal my true age. I also downloaded some Script, Coldplay, Incubus and Maroon 5 discographies. When I want some angry music to keep my heart rate up, I’d rather hear strains of an epiphone les paul special at m123 guitar.

What is your workout music?

Let me leave you with three fitness truths you can do everyday:

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Getting Back into Exercising or Running After A Downtime

It can be hard trying to get back on track after you have “fallen off a wagon”. I have started really well this year with my fitness goals and even got to a point of walking everyday (brisk walking 5mph). But things went downhill starting a few months ago when my Dad got sick and I had no time to focus on myself.

It is now time to focus on myself again and get back on track though.
I have 2.5 months left of this year.
I will spend it making steps towards my goals. And this is where my fitness mini-goals start.

Here are some tips I have read online. I was browsing www.crownsecurityproducts.com when I decided to look for inspiration on how to get back into shape again.

These might help you too *the following are not my tips*:

Start slowly. If you haven’t run for some time, your mind may remember how to run long distances, but your body might not be ready for tough work yet.

Schedule rest days. Following the start slowly notes, make sure you have a rest day between runs. Your body needs time to recover and grow stronger. Exercise stimulates the body to grow stronger. Rest days are when that growth actually happens. Remember too that rest does not mean lounging on the couch watching reruns and munching on bad food. Active rest such as walking, hiking or some other activity is best.

Incorporate walk breaks. Beginning running for fitness is best accomplished by a mixture of running and walking. Starting off with very short runs (1-4 minutes) alternated with 1 minute walks repeated for 20-30 minutes will have you back to more regular running in short order.

Do some cross-training. Cross training is defined as training in different ways to improve overall performance. From the runners perspective, it could mean cycling, weight training, swimming or another activity that is physically challenging but doesn’t use the same muscles in the same way that running does. Adding cross training to your fitness program will give you better results more quickly than running alone.

Add healthy foods to your diet. If getting out of shape also included adding unhealthy foods to your diet, pick a snack or meal every day to make healthier food choices. Even if you don’t completely re-vamp your diet, several healthier food choices every day will go a long way to improving your fitness level.

And finally, give yourself some time. If you’ve taken weeks or months off from your healthy lifestyle in order to get out of shape, give yourself enough time to get back into shape. It could take you 6-10 weeks or longer to get back into great physical shape. Don’t expect results in just a handful of workouts.

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Considering Liposuction

I need to be honest. If I can have an easy way out of losing weight, I’d take it. I want a weight loss method that’s easy, fast, effective and long-lasting. It sounds like such a tall order, right? Especially when I want “easy” and “fast” with the way I want to lose weight. My friends and I were discussing our weight struggles and I told them that if I had the money (and I know the doctor/surgeon performing), I would do liposuction CT in a heartbeat. I come from a medical background so I know that it is 1) safe and 2) effective.

Liposuction isn’t as scary as it sounds or looks in the pictures you might have seen on the Internet. Based from what I am familiar with, the procedure takes less than a day (and the whole “liposuction” an hour or so). Of course you need to be prepared for surgery and then recover from it – that’s what makes it seem long. After all, it is a surgery – you need to be put under anesthesia.

What happens is the surgeon marks areas of fat where he will insert a cannula, a think sucking tube. When you are asleep, he inserts it just under the skin (in the layers of fat, literally) and he sucks the fat out using a vacuum attached to the other end of the cannula. When the fat gets sucked out, the cells or adipose tissues are destroyed. This is why liposuction centers claims that the results are permanent. When the tissues or cells holding fat are no longer there, where will the fat go and be deposited the next time you eat? There is a disclaimer though. If you had liposuction done on your tummy, for example, your tummy won’t get big anymore but fats might migrate to untreated sections like your arms or thighs. The key here is to make sure you moderate what you eat after the liposuction.

I have seen one who recovered from liposuction. She had gauze pads on incision sites with pressure wraps – she had one done in her upper arms. Recovery depends on you. Your incision sites will leak of fats, water and a bit blood but it is manageable and usually gone in less than a week. You need to have wraps for more than a week though to allow your skin to stick to your visceral linings again (Remember the layer of fat has been removed and destroyed).

If you want to take fat off your body instantly and permanently, the procedure is an option. Take note that most surgeons don’t do the liposuction unless you are about a certain percentage overweight first, so try to lose first before going under the knife.