Back on tracks

A few too many Easter treats and chocolate eggs yesterday?
Time to get back on the program today!!! Go back to your regular workout routine (or start one) and burn a few more calories than usual, cut back on the food you will be eating and maybe even contemplate a light detox.
No excuses allowed.
Make it happen.
Shorts and bathing suits season is here!!!
Be smart and get healthy

Sport Drinks: low cost and healthy alternatives

Sports drinks, like Gatorade, are intended to improve athletic performance by replacing fluid and electrolytes lost in sweat and carbohydrates burned for energy. Unfortunately they are also packed with sugar. Here is a healthier alternative since you need to replace the electrolytes you just lost while sweating. Electrolytes are basically a salt that can carry an electrical charge. The cells of your body rely on them to carry the electrical impulses responsible for muscle contractions and nerve impulses to other cells. Without electrolytes, your body cells couldn't communicate efficiently. Electrolytes affect the amount of water in your body, blood acidity (pH), muscle action, and other important processes. You lose electrolytes when you sweat, and you must replace them by drinking fluids

It turns out that two tablespoons of lemon juice contain almost exactly the amount of potassium in 8 oz of a typical sports drink. So, if you want to make your own low-carb sports drink, it's quite easy. Just mix together:

· -1 cup (8 oz) water (not carbonated)

· - 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

· -small pinch of Celtic Sea Salt

· -sweetened with Stevia to taste

Another alternative is this drink:

· -coconut water

· -pinch of Celtic Sea salt

· - Stevia to taste

This second alternative is even better because the coconut water contains medium chain triglycerides(MCT) which are a unique form of dietary fat. Their reduced chain length also means that MCTs are more rapidly absorbed by the body and more quickly metabolized (burned) as fuel. The result of this accelerated metabolic conversion is that instead of being stored as fat, the calories contained in MCTs are very efficiently converted into fuel for immediate use by organs and muscles. They boost energy levels and increase fatty acid metabolism to aid in reducing fat deposits. Hence this makes them perfect from a weight loss aspect. And on top they have been shown to suppress appetite.

Be smart, stay healthy

Supersize me

And God populated the earth with broccoli and cauliflower and spinach and green and yellow vegetables of all kinds. And Satan created McDonald's, and McDonald's brought forth the double-cheeseburger, and Satan said to Man, "You want fries with that? ", and Man said, "Super size them.”

KNEES

We put an enormous amount of mechanical stress on our knees on a daily basis. And, typically, the knee is designed to take it. However, certain bad habits could be shortening the life of your knees and opening the door to chronic pain and disability.

Your knee joint is made up of bone, cartilage, ligaments and fluid. Muscles and tendons help the knee joint move. When any of these structures is hurt or diseased, you have knee problems. Knee problems can cause pain and difficulty walking.

The way you stand, walk, and move can have a tremendous impact on the health of your knee joints. Taking time now to evaluate some basic choices, such as your stance, your shoes, and your level of overall health and fitness, may help you side-step debilitating knee conditions like osteoarthritis and help keep your knees healthy, inside and out.

Your knees bear the brunt of your body weight, so it's crucial that you maintain a healthy body mass index (BMI). Every extra pound you carry ads up to 3 pounds of pressure on your knee joints when you walk, and 10 pounds when you run. So, if your BMI is 25 or more, you may be compromising the health of your knees. In fact, obesity is one of the biggest risk factors for developing osteoarthritis because it speeds the breakdown of cartilage. Dropping extra weight -- particularly body fat -- may be the single most important thing you can do to reduce the risk of developing a serious knee problem.

If your body is not properly aligned, your muscles, joints, and ligaments take more strain than they are able to endure healthfully.

Vitamins C, D, E and B and minerals like calcium, zinc, chondrotin, and omega 3 are a must in the diet that is good for your knees.

To avoid injury when running, never run straight down a steep hill. Walk down it. If walking downhill is out of the question, then run down in a zigzag pattern.

Tips to prevent knee problems:

· weight loss

· Good nutrition (proper supplementation)

· proper warming up and stretching

· take care of your feet,

· wear proper shoes so you can have proper support

· make sure your back is properly adjusted

· use common sense

Work can be a pain in the neck

For those of you who are doing a lot of computer work, paper work or reading, here is a tip to help you save a lot of pain and damage to your neck, shoulders and upper back.

A lot of “desk” work creates tremendous pressure on your neck and shoulders. This postural stress leads to irritation and inflammation of joints and muscles which in turn results in neck pain, shoulder pain, back pain.

Shoulder-and-neck-strain-syndrome (SNSS) has become the most common musculo-skeletal disorder of the upper body. It is also the most common cumulative trauma disorder encountered by the occupational medicine physician.

The symptoms range from a “tight neck" with or without headaches to severely

incapacitating neck, shoulder, arm, wrist and hand pain / weakness.

Before you reach the level of serious damage here is a quick tip that will save you a lot of pain.

Set yourself a timer for 20-30 minutes (trust me you WILL forget if you do not, time goes by quickly when you are busy). When the timer rings, take your gaze away from your work/ computer and focus on a point as far away as you possibly do it. Do a light stretch of your neck and shoulder, stand and do an overall stretch by making yourself as tall as possible, take a sip of water and go back to work. This entire process will take anywhere from 30-60 seconds. This will reduce the accumulation of stress on your body, eyes and brain. It will save you hours of time spent in a doctor’s office and a lot of pain, headaches and weaknesses.

Take a little time for yourself. Be responsible for your well being and health

Slow down

We all know that eating fast food is unhealthy but did you know that eating food fast is also unhealthy?

Eating too fast can be a major cause of indigestion and, according to at least one study, may increase the risk of heartburn or gastric reflux. A study conducted and presented at Digestive Disease Week showed that healthy volunteers who ate their meals in five minutes experienced more heartburn and acid reflux than those who consumed their meal during a more leisurely thirty minute time interval. If you have a tendency to experience heartburn after a meal, try to schedule at least thirty minutes for a meal. You just may find it improves your symptoms.

Eating too fast may also cause us to overeat. It takes about 20 minutes for our brains to register that we're full. If we eat fast, we can continue eating past the point where we're full. If we eat slowly, we have time to realize we're full, and stop on time.

Sitting down with family or friends and taking time to enjoy your food is good in so many ways. It will make you eat slower which we have already discussed the health benefits. It will make you laugh (I hope) and laughter is another effective way to aid the digestion process.

Also studies have shown that by putting on slow background music it can make a person eat food at a slower rate

So slow down, enjoy your meal and give yourself a better chance to be healthy.

Be an animal

In nature we would have been much stronger from running around, hunting and climbing. Human muscles are perhaps now relatively some of the weakest in the animal kingdom, This should be more than enough reason to go to the gym!
The reason for the above is that an animal's life style is far more active – we train for an hour and sit down for the rest of the day whereas animals hunt and run all day. Try to do something physical as often as you can – not just in the gym.

Warm ups VS Stretching

Contrary to popular belief, stretching before a workout does not appear to decrease the occurrence of injury. The risk of injury seems to be about equal for those who stretch and those who do not stretch before exercise. The warm-up, not stretching, seems to be the important deterrent for injury, performed before an exercise bout.

Although stretching does not seem to offer many short term benefits when performed before exercise, stretching does seem to offer other long term benefits. Improved flexibility may help prevent back and other orthopedic problems. Individuals with certain muscular imbalances or postural problems can benefits from stretching. Stretching can help maintain flexibility which may otherwise decline with age or inactivity due to an injury. Stretching may be more safely performed after dynamic exercise, when muscles are warm. Unless an activity requires extreme flexibility, stretching before is probably unnecessary. And even then, stretches should be performed before a warm up.

Stretching is not the same thing as warming up. Confusing stretching with warming up is an all-too-common mistake, so don't feel bad if you thought the two were one in the same. Warming up involves spending a few minutes doing lighter intensity activity that mimics your upcoming workout—walking before running, slow cycling before biking, light aerobics before a fitness class. That is a warm-up. It gives your body time to adjust to the higher demands of exercise so that your breathing rate, circulation and heart rate can all increase in order to supply your working muscles with the blood, nutrients and oxygen they need to keep things running smoothly. Warming up also helps lubricate your joints.

Stretching does not serve the same purposes and therefore does not pass for a warm-up. Stretching at the end of your workout, right after your cool down is best because your muscles and joints are much warmer and lubricated after a workout than they are before one , which means you'll get more out of your stretches at this time. And because your body is returning to a relaxed state, stretching after exercise is simply a feel-good way to end your workout.

Be smart, stay healthy.

Beauty is more than skin deep

Your skin is not only your largest organ – it’s also the thinnest. Only 1/10th of an inch separates you from all sorts of toxins. Your skin is highly permeable, allowing what you apply to your skin access to your bloodstream (and thereby to the rest of your body)

Which is why I remind you not to put anything on your skin that you wouldn’t be willing to eat.