Not long ago I wrote an article who was published by fellow site www.tryingfitness.com (click here Could Your Walking Gait Play a Role in Your Life Expectancy) where I was commenting on scientific research that showed that the faster your gait, the longer you would live. At the beginning I was confused about this but when I learned more about the topic, it all came clear to me. I will not go and explain it here (you can visit the article) but suffice to say that if you run or walk fast is because you have a better physical condition.

Today I read the following headline:

“Coffee drinking linked to longer life”. NEW research suggests several cups of coffee a day might not be so bad for your health, and it may even be tied to a longer life… For more information: Coffee drinking linked to longer life

When you read the extract you will find that these findings are also based on a scientific research and there seemed to be a lot points which are not totally confirmed. There is one particular point that caught my attention:

“The authors cautioned that the link between coffee drinking and a longer life might not reflect a cause and effect relationship. They also noted coffee consumption was often associated with a number of unhealthy, death-hastening habits such as smoking, eating of red meat and heavy alcohol use.”

Even if this discovery turns out to be 100% scientifically backed up, at this point in time, I would never, not remotely close, substitute exercising by drinking coffee. As a matter of fact, I don’t even like coffee. Exercising has additional benefits (it improves your mood and it makes you feel better, for instance) that, so far, can’t be found in drinking coffee.

Of course, at the end you will tend to apply the minimum effort law and I can tell now, loudly and clear, this will not make you happier and healthier.

Please leave your comments below!

The Original Post is Located Here: Drink Coffee. It’ll Keep You Healthier. Really?

Every year, millions if not tens of millions of persons visit the Louvre Museum in Paris. As you know, one of the greatest pieces of art of all times, The Mona Lisa, is right there at the Louvre. As clearly pointed out, the Mona Lisa is just one of 35,000 pieces of art located under the museum’s premises. So, why does everyone rush to see the Mona Lisa?

At some point, the Louvre’s management decided to highlight Da Vinci’s piece of art. By doing so, they decided to put at a different level of recognition the rest of the 34,999 pieces of artwork. Now, this doesn’t mean and shouldn’t mean that if you go to the Louvre you should neglect the vast collection of art located there. What it should mean to you is that, once there, you are presented with the opportunity to enjoy 35,000 artistic creations and you should try to enjoy every piece of them. No matter how small or how hidden that piece of art is.

Making an analogy, you should take every chance to practice any kind of sports, exercise or motion-related discipline in order to keep up with your good health. It does not matter if it is a mundane running regime or whether you join the most sophisticated gym club membership,  it all boils down to actually exercise your body and benefit from it. Just to give you an example:

I found out this fitness tip that claims that if you run or ride a bike, you can improve your memory and learning skills. Who wouldn’t want to not only look and feel healthier but at the same time, get smarter? Well, I know that I would want that, would you?

A new lab study, reported in The New York Times has found that exercise can improve your memory and learning skills. In the study, scientists fed a group of mice certain drugs that mimic muscle changes from exercise and compared them to sedentary mice. The mice who “exercised” ended up performing much better on memory and learning.

So, in summary, all you have to do is look for your “Louvre” (attitude) to start enjoying of all the innumerable ways to get and stay fit and achieve you desired level of health. If you keep coming back, I promised you will find it here! Post your comments now!

The Original Post is Located Here: The Mona Lisa and The Mundane Exercise

Today’s busy mom rarely has time for two-hour bouts at the gym. Working out at home is attractive, but staying motivated when working out to the same DVD every day can be difficult, too. Let’s face it, managing the rigors of family schedules, work deadlines and self-care means you need to find time-conscious and budget-friendly workouts that are engaging and get results….More at New Workouts to get You Fit

If you want to stay or get fit you don’t need to spend long hours at the gym, anymore. With the help of technology, you can feel and look like you always wanted.

For those who are interested in workouts that save time and money, visit: fitness workout
If you enjoy the information, please come back and post your comment.

The Original Post is Located Here: Workouts at the gym, home or anywhere!

Making things happening requires self-discipline, not a lot but some indeed. While surfing the internet I noticed that there seems to be in many sites, at this present time, a lot of noise around a book called Cardio Core 4×4 from Jay Cadellio’s. What I really like from the book is that it sends out the message that in order to overcome procrastination, you do not really need much at all:

you only need a four foot by four foot space to execute all the moves—perfect for a tiny apartment or hotel room. If it’s time that’s tight, good news for you too, this program consists of 20-minute workouts which are done just four times a week for 40 days with no gear. Every move requires just your body weight. …More at Exercise Book Review: Jay Cardiello’s Cardio Core 4×4 and check out why ice cream is good as post-workout food.

Obviously,the message here is that with self-discipline and determination you can do wonders for your body and health in as little as 40 days, how cool is that?

If you think about it, standing out of the crowd does not really take a lot. In my experience, it only takes consistency and perseverance. Now, did I get across like this is easy to achieve? I hope not, because it is not. But rather than saying that it is easy, I’d like to say that it is simple to get there. If you put this in perspective, making a decision to start a new endeavour is just a 3-seconds process. Simple, right? What takes more effort and discipline is actually making you follow your own plan. If you are like me, once I start listening to that tiny little voice inside me that will not shut up until I start undertaking my new resolution, I will not get peace of mind until I know I am in the right track to accomplish my set goal.

Just recently I have found out that whenever I started to undertake new actitivies that I didn’t know I was capable of achieving, I find myself extremely excited and motivated to keep moving on and try new things as I have started a whole new inertia of ever increasing achievements that keep me pushing on and on.

The same principle is applicable in the training arena. Check this:

But you won’t be surprised to hear that I’d advise you to consider branching out into more than one discipline.
You may be apprehensive, thinking that diverting some of your training time into sports where you’re not as strong will adversely affect your core skill set. But by expanding to include other sports, whether it’s a duathlon or a triathlon, not only will you get more pleasure from training and racing, you’ll also get fitter, stronger and less prone to pick up niggling or recurring injuries….More at Try new things – Improve your cardio

The Original Post is Located Here: Trying New Things. How about Ice Cream for Your Workouts

Regardless of your main reason, I would like now to introduce you to psychological concept that all humans abide by. It seems like  humans are more prompted to react to scarcity rather than to abundance. Let me explain. We tend to react  quicker to a situation where we might loose something as opposed to reacting, with the same speed, to a situation where we might gain/acquire or earn something with the same level of satisfaction.

If this is true and we refer to our objective of losing weight, we could easily explain what the author in the following article doesn’t seem to understand:

As exercise and weight loss goals go, most of us have never entertained the goal of preventing weight gain. Somehow, saying “I want to prevent weight gain,” just doesn’t have the same resonance as, “I want to lose weight!”…

More at Exercise and weight loss lesson of the week: It’s easier to prevent weight gain than it is to lose weight

When someone says “I want to lose weight”, (s)he is more likely to react [sooner] because (s)he has already lost, in this case, her physical shape, so we are dealing with the concept of scarcity. Whereas when someone says “I want to prevent weight gain”, it is implicitly understood that you still haven’t lost your shape, therefore you are still having abundance of “good and healthy body”.

If you want to know more about the psychological aspects of these two concepts, please visit the article and then come back to comment on this post. As always I hope you enjoy this.

The Original Post is Located Here: What is the Difference between “I want to lose weight” and “I want to prevent weight gain”

I do not know about you but lately I have been exposed to a ton of new and exciting ideas. Ideas that at the beginning seem outrageous but when you digest them and face them, they are simply not. Has this happened to you? I bet it has.

Lately I have come to realize that the more I challenge myself, the more I am able to accomplish. It is quite amazing. Thinking that you can do/undertake tasks that you never ever expected to do, is quite stimulating. But, at least for me, the exciting part of this new approach is the following: the new tasks that I am able to undertake, aren’t tasks that in the past I tried to accomplish and could not carry them out. What amazes me is that these new tasks are undertakings that I didn’t know anything about them and thus I didn’t know I was able to achieve them.

As you can imagine I am very content with my new “abilities”. Why? Because, providing I am a person with good judgment, I will be more open to carry on with more and more stimulating activities that will make my life more fulfilling.

Just as my previous thoughts refer to my mindset, the same principles can be

applied to your body. When I wrote in the title of this post “SAID and done”, I was, in fact, referring to:

SAID “specific adaptations to imposed demands.” Basically, it means that your body will eventually adapt to the demands you place upon it. So if you exercise regularly, you must constantly alter your routine in some way in order to continue to get results, or to get off a weight-loss plateau…

More at 10 Ways to Keep Your Workouts Exciting

As you can read in my previous post here, when senior adults engage in a strengthening exercise routine that demands “thinking”, the benefits are outstanding because they are able to enjoy not only a healthy body but they can keep their mental health longer.

Well, when you add spice to your workout routine you will keep your motivation longer and that will keep you healthy.

The nice part about changing up your workouts is that not only does it keep your body guessing, but it also keeps your brain guessing, which can help keep workouts from getting ho-hum or boring, and keep you from losing your exercise motivation!

More at 10 Ways to Keep Your Workouts Exciting

I have written a couple of elliptical reviews that should give you some hints as to how to keep a healthy body using cross trainers. Check them here Sole E35 and here Schwinn 420.

Make sure to read that article and come back and post your comments. I would love to hear the implications that these thoughts may cause in your life! Thanks!

The Original Post is Located Here: SAID and Done!

See, I recently discovered the power of having a walking routine. I am personally a living proof that walking is an excellent exercise.

Walking Training

Because I used to walk an average of 45-60 minutes every weekday and sometimes even during the weekend, I experienced that I kept under control my weight, my health and my physical condition. And I did not do any thing else: no gym, no swimming, etc. So I know it works. So why do I say that walking is no good? Well, at the time I engaged in that walking regime, I was in my early 40′s. Today, a couple of years later, I DO still think that walking is an excellent exercise. So am I making sense? Probably not. See what I found here.

I found out that when you are a senior adult (70-80 years old) walking and for that matter aerobics, isn’t as good as strenght training.

But while supervised weight-lifting seemed to boost mental functioning among those struggling with incipient memory loss, aerobics-based activity programs did not confer a similar mental health benefit, the study team found…

While the study emphasizes in mental health and not on overall health, let me throw at you the following question: What sense does it make to be healthy but with dementia? Perhaps not much, I would say. As for the study, the following experiment took place:

For six months, the women engaged in 60-minute classes twice a week. One-third were randomly assigned to a strength-training program that included lifting weights; one-third walked outdoors in an aerobics program; and one-third took basic balance and toning classes.

Seventy-seven women completed the program, which included standard verbal and visual memory tests, and decision-making and problem-solving tasks. Almost one-third underwent functional MRI at the start and end of the study to look for brain activity changes.

After 6 months, compared to those in the balance/tone classes, the strength-training group was found to have experienced “significant” cognitive improvement.

The strength-training group also experienced activity changes in three specific parts of the brain’s cortex associated with cognitive behavior, the researchers found. These changes were not seen among the balance/tone group.

As for the aerobics group, while significant physical improvements were cited relative to the balance/tone group, this group did not appear to accrue the same mental benefits as the strength-training group….

More at Strength Training May Give Boost to Seniors’ Brains

At the end of the study there is an interesting conclusion, I encourage you to go and visit the source and then come back an comment on this post. I will appreciate it!

The Original Post is Located Here: Walking as training exercise is no good

If you are trying to find the magic pill, the hidden secret, the lost story or any other piece of information that will transform you physical shape, be seated because it is going to take a long, long time for you to get it. Let’s face it. When it comes to staying in good shape, there is one and only one solution: taking action. Nothing will get you closer to your goals than taking action. No matter how good or expensive your remedy or method is, if you don’t use it, it is worthless.

The good news is that you only required one single ingredient to get started. Can you guess what I am talking about? Well, don’t guess any more. Let me tell you. It is willpower combined with action. As you can read in the following quote, it does not require a whole lot to get started:

We’ve all heard it before–take the stairs instead of the elevator, park the farthest away in the parking lot when you shop, go for a walk on your lunch break. These tips aren’t revolutionary, but they really do help burn extra calories throughout your busy day.

 

Make a conscious effort to add small amounts of easy physical activity interspersed throughout your day, especially if you have a job where you’re largely inactive. Try to get up and walk around your office for a few minutes every hour, or do some chair exercises for about 10 minutes every couple of hours. In addition to burning extra calories, you’ll likely give yourself an energy boost to make it through your hectic work schedule….

 

More at Getting Bikini-Season Ready Part 2: The Exercise

Now, if you have made up your mind and want to get into good shape, I will make it easier for you. How? Well, have you heard that it takes two to tango? I am sure you have. But even if you haven’t, don’t worry I’ll explain it here. How about if you could bring a friend of yours to your fitness routine. Working out sole is fine, but friends can make everything better, don’t you think so? I found the following quote that should give some hints as to how to approach your decision to undertake healthy fitness regime in company of a good friend.

Extra motivation

When you know you “should” work out but you just don’t feel like it, knowing that a friend is waiting for you at the gym or the end of the block for your weekly jog can change everything and get you out of bed faster. It can be so easy to skip out on fitness (and turn on the TV or sleep in), but friends can be a huge motivator to keep you going and stay faithful to your fitness routine. If you aren’t currently exercising with a friend, poll your group of pals and see who might be interested in joining you at the gym or going for a jog a few times a week. You’ll be amazed at the difference it makes to your motivation to work out….

More at Top 3 reasons to work out with a friend

Let me know what do you think…

The Original Post is Located Here: Getting Fit: Just Do it

Loosing weight has very little to do with attitude and more with taking action (although the former will make your life and experience a whole lot more pleasant). Look what I found here:

 

For many people, this often comes down to the weight issue, namely, which one will help you lose weight the fastest? The short answer here is: The one you actually use. And, for exercise, not as a Royal Throne for your cat (or, perhaps that only occurs in my house).

The longer answer is that elliptical trainers can help you lose weight…if you work at it. The ‘work at it’ part is where the elliptical trainer and the treadmill often diverge.

…More at Do Elliptical Trainers Help You Lose Weight?

In my view, the answer to this question is pretty simple. If you work out, you will loose weight. If you do not exercise, it will be very hard to keep the weight you have always dreamt of.

In this article you will find the comment of Sonali Agrawal who hast lost 20 pounds just by using a cross trainer. Check here Now!

The Original Post is Located Here: Elliptical Trainers Help You Lose Weight, right?

I actually never paid attention to the fact that in spite of not having joined any gym membership I kept, overall, a good physical condition. Maybe it was due to the fact that my body constitution has always been that of a thin person. Yes, I have always been thin but it is also true that I have also, throughout most of my life, practiced some kind of physical activity.

But this time was different. My family and I moved down to Chile and we did not have a car. So, I had to take my children to school early in the morning just before the work hours. Since my children’s school was not too far away from where the office was, I decided to walk every day from the school to the office. It was a sweet two mile walking routine. I really enjoyed the journey and I was getting fit while getting to work. This morning walking regime was complemented by another 1.5 mile walk when I returned back home every day too.

At that time, I did not realize that I wasn’t gaining weight despite not working out at any gym club. It all came clear when I had to do a project at a Peruvian mine located at 4,500 meters above sea level. My colleagues were having headaches, breathing problems and I did not have as many havocs as they appeared to have. They only reason for it that I could think of was my walking regime.

Ever since I am most convinced that you do not necessarily have to become member of any gym club in order to keep or maintain a good shape. All it takes is attitude and a walking exercise. I then found this article in the NY Times and it makes perfect sense. Please read:

I was long skeptical that walking could replace my hill sprints and other intense cardio routines. Yet when my life became busier than usual last year, and I had to taper my workouts, I made a conscious effort to walk more instead of relying on cabs, buses and the subway to get around town. To my surprise, I actually lost a few pounds, despite exercising nearly half as much as I had been.

Health experts recommend walking 10,000 steps a day to maintain weight, reduce blood pressure and cut the risk of cancer and heart disease. With our pervasive driving culture, many people struggle to meet that ideal daily quota….

New Yorkers, however, live in a city where walking is a natural part of life. Whether it’s heading to public transportation for the commute to work, climbing the subway stairs, strolling after a dinner out or running neighborhood errands, we usually don’t have to think twice about walking. And because of all the extra steps we take, we’re at a fat-burning advantage: 20 minutes of walking, or about a mile, burns around 100 calories. Doing so daily, and with the right diet, can translate to a 10-pound weight loss in a year….

More at Urban Athlete: Walking Helps Many Fit in Exercise

The Original Post is Located Here: Walking Helps Many Fit in Exercise