Fitness

[Elizabeth Carpenter]

A place to talk about our fitness goals and encourage each other.

[Elizabeth Carpenter]

Belief, Vision, and Method


One of the best descriptions of the psychological factors necessary for the success of can be summed up in three words—belief, vision, and method.

These are words that give life and inspiration to athletes and the weekend warriors alike. Again, the psychological tenacity necessary for success can be broken down into three simple factors: belief, vision, and method.

Belief is self-confidence knowing your worth and knowing you can do well.
Vision is your goal and you have to know what you want in order to get it.
Method is the process you use to fulfill your vision—how you train and live from day to day in a healthier lifestyle.


Belief Behind Motivation


Though a good framework is important to meet your fitness desires, desire alone is not enough to reach your fitness goals. Every day you may in fact desire something; a higher paying job, a new car, better health, etc. You can even want these things with a burning desire but how often do those things happen through just wishing? About as often as you win the lottery, right?

If desire’s not enough, what’s the next step?
What will help you attain that which you desire in your fitness goals?
Could it be as simple as belief?

It is not a religious belief though that can play a part. It is a belief which can be created. It’s defined as a state of mind created by repeated affirmations or instructions given to the subconscious mind in the form of autosuggestion. Autosuggestion is that which comes from oneself, the repetition of verbal or sub-vocal messages as a means of changing behavior.

What exactly does this mean?

Through the process just described, you convince the subconscious that the fitness goal which you desire to achieve, you will achieve, and you will act upon that belief by making concrete plans for achieving the fitness goals in the form of belief. But keep in mind that you must put into action your affirmations or instructions in order to meet these goals.

All this means is that through simple, repetitive techniques you retrain your mind in a positive, goal oriented manner to overcome old habits and create new fitness habits. These new habits become ingrained and automatic, habits you believe in to the point that you’re 100% convinced you can obtain your goals as you put into action that which you believe.

Borrowing from Napoleon Hill’s book “Think and Grow Rich,” below is a fitness motivation “formula” that has been modified for individual health and fitness goals.

Fitness Motivation Formula

1.I know that I have the ability to achieve any fitness goal in life; therefore, I will persistent in a continuous action toward its attainment.

2.I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality; therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts at least twice daily upon the task of thinking of the fitness goal I intend to achieve, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture.


3.I know through the principle of autosuggestion, any fitness goal that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually be expression through some practical means of attaining it; therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to working on this development of motivation in the area of my fitness goals.


4.I have clearly written down a description of my fitness goal, and will never stop trying, until I have developed sufficient motivation for its attainment as it becomes apart of my everyday healthy lifestyle.


5.I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory, and repeat it aloud twice a day, once upon arising and once before retiring to bed, with full belief that it will gradually influence my thoughts and actions so that I will become successful in my fitness goals.


Vision

Are you a goal oriented person?

If you are, then you probably know that all successful people in life know the basics of setting and achieving their goals. If you want to achieve a healthy life, then setting fitness goals should be no different than anything else you do.

Setting fitness goals gives you motivation and drives you for the short or long term success. Goal setting helps you obtain the knowledge necessary to achieve. Setting clearly defined fitness goals will also measure progress and provide accountability.

The first thing you need to do when setting fitness goals is to have a vision of where you want to be a month from now or a year from now. Your vision of yourself must be clearly defined. For example, a good short term goal would be to want to loose 8 -10 lbs. in one month. Then break down your goal into smaller targets so you can easily hold yourself accountable to complete it.

When using this weight loss example: you want to set weekly goals for that month to loose 2 lbs a week. Then write down the steps necessary to loose 2 lbs a week. Use these steps as your plan to success and you must be realistic with yourself in regards to these steps in order to reach your goals.

Although the information in this chapter may seem the most challenging aspect of all, it really is not. The guidelines and techniques will help you to achieve your fitness goals and virtually all aspects of your soon to be (if not already) opulent and healthy life!


Visualization and Mental-imagery


Just as exercise develops the muscles, taking time to visualize your fitness goals will help develop your mental-imagery. There are 3 components that you must have in order to reach optimum results and they are as follows:

1.Desire = Drive and Determination
2.Discipline
3.Action

The stronger your desire—drive and determination—and the more sustained it is, the more certainty you add to reaching your goals quickly. In order for your desires to become powerful, you will need to feed them with the leading of your drive and determination.

How is this accomplished?

By thinking about the goals your desires are producing on a daily basis and imagining that your goals have already been achieved. By doing this, you will be in the optimum mental state to make your goals a reality. Your mind will attract the events that are capable of producing the results you seek.

The next component is discipline, the essential condition for all personal development and accomplishments. Without this component, you cannot expect to achieve your fitness goals. In fact, how can you expect to accomplish or receive anything at all if you’re not able to fix your attention on the goal you have set out to achieve? No matter how many other great qualities you possess, for personal success—physically, mentally, or spiritually—you need to exercise discipline.

How do you learn and practice discipline?

By consistently repeating exactly what it is you are seeking to achieve. You are reminding yourself of your fitness goals you are out to achieve, whether it is to gain muscle, lose body fat, run faster, or become more flexible.

The last component is action!

Even if you possess desire, and discipline, without action you will never obtain what you want. Combining desire, discipline, and action creates the top threes for meeting your fitness goals successfully. Many people have great ideas, foolproof plans and knowledge, yet everything falls apart for them. Why? Because they never act or they never act persistently enough—the difference between a person who knows and one who succeeds resides in the individual’s ability to act.


Method

There is a standard method of achieving your fitness goals. Quite simply, it requires baby steps if you are a beginner, which lays a foundation of several elements if you currently are engaged in a fitness program and are seeking more advanced goals.

But first and foremost, method is the process of achieving your fitness vision and the following points are great methods to follow for any fitness program:

Specific – Your fitness goals should be detailed, clearly defined, and stress exactly what you’re going to do and you want to achieve. For example, instead of setting a goal to lose weight, set a specific goal to lose 3 inches off your waist, lose 5% body fat, or lose 3 pounds of fat.

Measurable – Whatever goal you choose, make sure that you can measure it. You need to do this so you can see and measure the progress over time. For example, losing 1 pound per week would be a goal that is measurable over time.

Reasonable – Now that you might have started to think of some goals, you have to remember to keep them reasonable. Keep your goals reasonable or you might find that you’ll be putting your health at risk, or at the very least, you’ll be disappointed. For example, losing 30 pounds in one month is not reasonable! In fact, this could be potentially dangerous to your health and be detrimental in the long term. In this case, you would probably be losing water weight and muscle mass, and in the long run, you would gain all that weight back, and have less muscle mass (its your muscles that burn fat… the more of it you have, the more fat you can burn. But the less you have, you’ll be burning less body fat).

Time – Set a deadline—deadlines move us to action. There’s nothing worst than having a goal, working towards it, but never finishing it! It’s almost like a major school project that’s assigned to you. Imagine if this project didn’t have a deadline, and you’re asked to complete it whenever you want. Do you think you’ll complete it soon? Probably not! If there’s no deadline, there’s no pressure to finish a task. It’s the same with exercise and fitness. If you set a goal to lose 10 pounds of body fat, but you don’t set a deadline, you’ll probably be trying to lose 10 pounds of body fat forever! Set a deadline for your fitness goals, and work towards achieving it. Once the deadline passes and you’ve reached your goals, set new ones and a new deadline, and work to achieve that!

Reason – This is probably the most important step in the goal setting process. Not only is your “reason” the motivation for you to achieve any goals, but it’s probably the reason that caused you to buy a gym membership or home exercise equipment in the first place! You must define your reasons for wanting to achieve a goal. Every person has different reasons for starting a fitness program. Some just want to lose a few inches off their waist because of an upcoming event, but for others, it could mean the difference between life and death. Whatever your “reasons” may be, make sure that they’re compelling, and accurately represent your reasons for your desire to achieve your goals.


Some Tips To Keep On Top of Your Fitness Goals


Grab a pen, a few pieces of paper, and prepare to do some writing.


Use this formula to form your goals:


I, _________ (name) will __________________________ (specific, reasonable, and measurable goal) by doing

_______________________ (action oriented) by ______________ (timed-date).


I will achieve this goal because ___________________________ (insert your reason why).


Signature: _________________ (your name) Today’s date: _____________



Now, post your goals anywhere that is highly visible, and read it everyday. The more often you come across seeing your goals in writing, the more likely it’s going to be in your daily thoughts, and the more likely you’re achieve your fitness goals.

So, if you’ve been leaving your home gym equipment to collect dust or keep putting off going to the gym where you have a membership, start now by writing down your goals with the following methods above. Trust me, you won’t regret it!

[Brigitte Dedekind]

Very helpful! I've been struggling getting goals down properly (SO many distractions!!)... even in writing them down, I've been steering off towards irrelative points, which means instead of getting focused, I've been getting more scattered.... so THANKS, this is good stuff, will get started in formulating my goals this way asap!

[Grant R. Nieddu]

AND, one of the videos (or audios, I can't remember which) we did has a step-by-step on how to write the goal, put a date to it, and go from there.

[Elizabeth Carpenter]

Making Fitness A Lifestyle


Today, there is a growing emphasis on looking good, feeling good and living longer. Increasingly, scientific evidence tells us that one of the keys to achieving these ideals is fitness and exercise. But if you spend your days at a sedentary job and pass your evenings as a "couch potato," it may require some determination and commitment to make regular activity a part of your daily routine.

Exercise is not just for Olympic hopefuls or supermodels. In fact, you're never too unfit, too young or too old to get started. Regardless of your age, gender or role in life, you can benefit from regular physical activity. If you're committed, exercise in combination with a sensible diet can help provide an overall sense of well-being and can even help prevent chronic illness, disability and premature death. Some of the benefits of increased activity are:

Improved Health
•Increased efficiency of heart and lungs
•Reduced cholesterol levels
•Increased muscle strength
•Reduced blood pressure
•Reduced risk of major illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease
•Weight loss

Improved Sense of Well-Being
•More energy
•Less stress
•Improved quality of sleep
•Improved ability to cope with stress
•Increased mental acuity

Improved Appearance
•Weight loss
•Toned muscles
•Improved posture

Increased Stamina
•Increased productivity
•Increased physical capabilities
•Less frequent injuries
•Improved immunity to minor illnesses

Getting moving is a challenge because today physical activity is less a part of our daily lives. There are fewer jobs that require physical exertion. We've become a mechanically mobile society, relying on machines rather than muscle to get around. In addition, we've become a nation of observers with more people (including children) spending their leisure time pursuing just that—leisure. Consequently, statistics show that obesity and the problems that come with it (high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, etc.) are on the rise. But statistics also show that preventive medicine pays off, so don't wait until your doctor gives you an ultimatum. Take the initiative to get active now!

[Elizabeth Carpenter]

Components Of Fitness


Heredity: Even though heredity influences overall health, you can lead a healthy or unhealthy life regardless of genetic makeup. It is not possible to establish the relative portion of an individual’s overall health or fitness that is determined through heredity, therefore your genetic background neither dooms nor guarantees success in achieving fitness.

Environment: Your environment includes your climate, altitude, pollution as well as social factors like family, friends, and workplace characteristics that affect your overall health and fitness. Your past and present environments affect you whether you realize it or not. For example, if you do not acquirer the proper or adequate food as apart of your surroundings, it is unreasonable to focus on components of fitness until basic needs are met.

Disease or Injury: Years of living in a toxic environment, poor eating habits, inactivity and the myriad of complications stemming that result can cause or exacerbate otherwise preventable disease and injury. You cannot consider yourself “fit” if disease or injury is present. Think of the word disease as “the absence of ease” or “dis-ease.” Not so coincidentally, those who are happy and “at ease” are also generally more healthy and fit.

Personal Interest: One of the major components of fitness involves personal choices made daily. Everything from wrinkles to osteoporosis, from arthritis to atherosclerosis, and from dental care to dermatoses are signs of premature aging—most are preventable for the most part. People who choice to cast caution to the wind in regards to overall health and fitness, tend to suffer higher levels pf “disease” compared to those who have chosen a healthy and physically active lifestyle.

Stress: Many psychologists say that “stress” should be measured by how well you are able to “control” outcomes in your life. We all encounter stress on various levels at some points in our lives, but it is how we deal with it—positively or negatively—that counts.

Mind-Body-Spirit Link: If you do not realize that your overall health and fitness go more than just skin deep, you are missing a critical component—the most important component all. God created us as spiritual beings that are designed to move and exercise freewill in all matters; this even includes how we chose to maintain our overall health and fitness for His glory alone.


Healthy living along with regular exercise and physical activity are closely connected. Being physically fit not only helps people live healthy lives, it also helps people live a better quality of life. People who make exercise and physical activity a part of their daily lives when they are young are more likely to keep it in their lives as they grow older and benefit from it throughout their lifespan.

Physical activity is defined as any movement that spends energy. Exercise is a subset of physical activity, but it is an activity that is structured and planned. While many children engage in physical activity, usually by playing with their friends, the amount of physical activity they get as they grow into adolescents usually declines. In fact, many researchers believe that physical inactivity is a national health problem that can increase the risk of illness and disease.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), doing some kind of exercise or physical activity on a regular basis helps to increase strength and flexibility, improve endurance, control weight, increase bone mass, and improve self-esteem, as well as reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and the risk of developing high blood pressure.

The best way to keep exercise and physical activity a permanent part of your life is to make it fun and enjoyable. If people are given different options of what they can do and have easy access to those options, they are more likely to participate in exercise and physical activity. This allows people to have a positive attitude toward physical fitness.

[Elizabeth Carpenter]

The Heart Of Aerobic Exercise


Aerobic exercise is any activity that you can sustain for more than just a few minutes while your heart, lungs, and muscles work overtime. Aerobic exercise engages oxygen transports and consumption—the role of the heart and the muscles—which are proven benefits of aerobic exercise.

Your heart gets stronger and pumps more blood with each beat (larger stroke volume). But it's not just that. A conditioned heart also has greater diameter and mass (the heart's a muscle too and gets bigger when you train it aerobically), and it pumps efficiently enough to allow for greater filling time, which is a good thing because it means that more blood fills the chambers of the heart before they pump so that more blood gets pumped with each beat.

Greater stroke volume means the heart doesn't have to pump as fast to meet the demands of exercise. Fewer beats and more stroke volume mean greater efficiency. Think about a pump emptying water out of a pool. The pump works better and lasts longer if it can pump larger volumes of water with each cycle than if it has to pump faster and strain and to get rid of the water. High stroke volume is why athletes' hearts don't pump as fast during exercise and why they have such low resting heart rates.

Now downstream from the heart are your muscles, which get more efficient at consuming oxygen when you do regular aerobic exercise. This happens because of an increase in the activity and number of enzymes that transport oxygen into the muscle. Imagine 100 oxygen molecules circulating past a muscle. You're twice as fit if the muscle can consume all 100 molecules than if it can only consume 50. Another way of saying it is that you're twice as fit as someone if your VO2 max is 60ml/kg/min and theirs is 30ml/kg/min. In terms of performance in this scenario, you'll have more endurance because your muscles won't run out of oxygen as quickly.

Mitochondria inside the muscle increase in number and activity. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of your cells. They do all the heavy-duty work to keep you moving. They use the oxygen to burn the fat and carbohydrate that makes you go. You would be nowhere without mitochondria. The good news is that they increase in number and activity, by as much as 50%, in just a matter of days to weeks in response to regular aerobic exercise.

Oxygen being pumped by the blood throughout the body is important. Muscles are like engines that run on fuel—just like an automobile that runs on fuel—only our muscles use fat and carbohydrates instead of gasoline. Oxygen is a key player because, once inside the muscle, it is used to burn fat and carbohydrate for fuel to keep our engines running. The more efficient our muscles are at consuming oxygen, the more fuel we can burn, the more fit we are, and the longer we can aerobically exercise.

[Elizabeth Carpenter]

Fitness Tools To Keep You Motivated


As we commit to get in better shape and make progress on our wellness journey sometimes we need a little external motivation to get us going or keep us going. Here are three very useful, fun and inexpensive fitness gadgets that can give any fitness program a boost.


1.Fitness tool - heart rate monitor

Studies have proven that your heart rate while exercising directly correlates to the amount of calories you burn and the amount of cardio-respiratory fitness benefits you receive from the activity. The harder you work, the higher your heart rate and the more calories you use. A heart rate monitor is a fast and easy way to see your heart rate without stopping to take your pulse.

Some may discover that their heart rate stays in training range when taking a kick-boxing aerobic class. But, on the days that they walk around their neighborhood, they have to walk faster than they thought to get their heart rate to the same level. A heart rate monitor will keep you in your fat-burning target heart rate zone and let you know when you have sufficiently cooled down as well. It’s really a great tool to keep you making progress as you train for better health.

You realize amazing things about your body with a heart rate monitor. Wear it around during the day and see what your resting heart rate is while sitting at the computer and then see how it changes as you walk a flight of stairs.

Heart rate monitors vary in price, are very easy to use and are EKG accurate. Most sports equipment stores sell a wide range of models priced from $50 to $140 depending on the different functions the monitor performs. The most basic model works great for general fitness purposes.

2.Fitness tool - pedometer

A pedometer counts your steps as you walk or run. Obesity research related the reduced number of steps we take each day to a rise in obesity. Most Americans take less than 3000 steps a day. Research proves that if Americans would just take more steps during the day they would lose or maintain their weight. The ideal goal is 10,000 steps a day.

The steps can be from walking around the house, climbing stairs, shopping, walking the dog, power walking in the neighborhood or on a treadmill. As you walk more you burn more calories. Some studies suggestion that walking 10,000 steps a day will burn an additional 300 calories. Do this every day without changing your eating plan and lose one pound a week—try it.

Pedometers are very inexpensive—from $10 - $35—and can be purchased at sports and outdoors stores or on the internet. Usually price does matter for quality and accuracy. The cheapest model may not be your best option.

3.Fitness tool - portable device and headphones

Music will motivate you to keep going when you want to quit. Listen to your favorite music on an ipod or other portable device. Keep the volume at a level that allows you to hear what is going on around you, especially if you are walking or running outside.

[Elizabeth Carpenter]

Benefits Of Exercise and Physical Activity On The Body


It is a known fact that adding regular exercise and physical activity to your daily routine will improve health and well-being. And that exercise and physical activity doesn't necessarily need to be strenuous for a person to enjoy the benefits of better health. Of course, by increasing the amount of exercise and physical activity (within reason), you will increase the amount of health benefits.

One of the most important benefits of exercise and physical activity is that it actually lessens a person's risk of developing or dying from many of the most common causes of serious illness and death in the United States. The risk of developing colon cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes is reduced through regular exercise and physical activity. It has been proven that through exercise and physically activity you help build healthy bones, joints, and muscles. Furthermore, regular exercise and physical activity reduces the overall risk of dying prematurely from any cause.

Exercise and physical activity are beneficial to the mind as well as the body. They help improve a person's health and overall outlook on life. In order to feel your best, have more energy, and stay healthy, you should engage in some form of activity at least three times a week. The great thing about exercise and physical activity is that it doesn't matter what a person does as long as it raises the heart rate for a certain period of time (twenty to thirty minutes is good); it is something one enjoys; and it is safe. This means that you can bike, run, or lift weights and each will help benefit the mind. Specifically, a person will experience a natural high and develop the ability to better handle emotions and stress that is encountered throughout life.

When you exercise or are physically active for a certain period of time—about 20 minutes or longer—the body releases endorphins, proteins in the brain that act as the body's natural pain reliever. When endorphins are released, a person may experience a feeling of euphoria. Many people enjoy this feeling and look forward to the natural high they get from keeping physically fit.

Increase Cardiovascular Fitness

Regular exercise makes for a healthier heart. A healthy heart is a strong heart that works efficiently and is able to easily supply the body with blood. The heart pumps blood, which carries oxygen to muscles and carries away waste. How well the heart performs is a good indication of how healthy a person's cardiovascular (the heart and the blood vessels) system is.

Endurance refers to a person's ability to continue doing a stressful activity for an extended period of time. This is sometimes called stamina. What this means is that a person with good endurance or stamina can bike or run for a long time without getting tired. Technically speaking, cardiovascular fitness refers to how efficiently the heart and lungs can pump blood (which holds oxygen) to muscles that are being worked. The more efficiently the heart works, the more energy the body has to continue working without a great deal of effort.

Cardiovascular fitness is improved by aerobic exercise. The word aerobic refers to something that occurs in the presence of oxygen. Aerobic exercise improves cardiovascular health as it typically uses the body's largest groups of muscles (the legs) continually which makes a person need more oxygen. The more oxygen a person needs, the more efficiently his or her cardiovascular system must be functioning. Examples of aerobic exercise include running, walking fast, biking, and dancing. Incorporating cardiovascular, or aerobic, activity strengthens the heart and lungs. This makes it easier to do all sorts of everyday activities, such as hurrying to class, climbing stairs, or mowing the lawn.

Regular exercise helps the cardiovascular system by improving circulation. Circulation is increased because physical activity increases a person's blood volume (amount). This makes it easier for the heart to function and more blood gets to muscles, meaning more oxygen is carried to the muscles.

Gain Strength

Strength is the ability to resist force. Muscles constantly resist force. The more strength a person has, the easier it is for his or her muscles to resist greater force. For instance, someone who can lift one hundred pounds of weight once is stronger than someone who can lift fifty pounds of weight twice.

Just as regular exercise builds strength, it also builds muscle endurance. Similar to cardiovascular endurance, muscle endurance means that muscles are able to work for longer periods of time, making it easier to swim another lap or move a heavy piece of furniture.

Improve Flexibility

Young people are usually quite flexible, but flexibility diminishes as people grow older. Exercises that increase flexibility, such as martial arts, yoga, pilates, and simple every day stretches are helpful in preventing injuries. The more flexible a person is, the less likely he or she is to suffer a sprain or strain a muscle while doing everyday things or while being active.

Build Better Bones

Exercise not only builds muscles, it builds stronger bones. The type of exercise that builds bones is weight-bearing or strength-bearing, such as playing baseball, soccer, tennis, walking, running or weight-lifting. The bones that will be strengthened are those that are directly affected by the activity being done. This is why doing a variety of muscle-strengthening activities on a regular basis is important.

There are several reasons why weight-bearing activities build better bones. First, these activities seem to actually stimulate the formation of bone. Also, with exercise comes muscle strength, which means that the muscles that are exerted grow stronger; this, in turn, benefits the bones. Finally, with improved strength, balance, and coordination, the risk of falls and bone injuries is greatly reduced.

Having thicker, healthier bones helps combat arthritis, a disease that involves the chronic inflammation of the joints, and osteoporosis later in life. Osteoporosis is a disease that gradually weakens bones, making them so fragile that they can fracture easily doing everyday activities. Osteoporosis takes time to develop, and many people are unaware that they have the disease until they fracture a bone. This can result in a painful, crippling condition that is reversible if treated early on. While it is true that osteoporosis mainly strikes older people, it is during childhood and adolescence that bones are forming. Building stronger bones during adolescence will help combat diseases such as osteoporosis later in life.

Boost Energy

Exercise requires energy, as does everything. In addition to expending energy, however, it also gives people increased energy throughout the entire day.

The immune system, too, gets a big boost from regular exercise. A healthy immune system helps fight colds, cancer, and other diseases, and speeds recovery from all kinds of injuries. The less time a person is ill, the more energy a person has to spend on living well.

To have energy to function, the human body needs sleep. Sleep, as does food, gives us energy. And regular exercise helps people sleep more soundly. The more soundly you sleep, the more energy you save up during that time, and the more energy you have to work, exercise, study, and do all sorts of things.


The key to exercise and physical activity is to make it a part of your regular routine. Don't feel as if you have to be an athlete. This is fine for some people, but any amount of activity is better than none. With practice, it is possible to incorporate a more active lifestyle into a busy life no matter what age you are!

[Elizabeth Carpenter]

Sleep And Fitness

One important and often ignored element of a workout regiment is taking a break. Rest and recovery is the most neglected component in a workout schedule, and this component is highly linked to your sleep.

There are four phases of the sleep cycle:

•Phase one starts when the sun sets and hormones release that make you start to feel sleepy in the absence of light.

•Phase two occurs when you lie down to relax. This phase lasts for about ten to fifteen minutes.

•Phase three is when you fall into a deeper sleep—this too lasts about fifteen minutes.

•Phase four is when the sleep cycle, occurs about half an hour after you have laid down. During this part of the cycle, the eyes move back and forth very quickly. This phenomenon is commonly known as REM sleep (rapid eye movement).


After going through all four phases of sleep, we see that during this last part of the cycle, the first dream occurs. When that dream has finished, the cycle restarts. Ideally, this cycle repeats itself five times per night. Studies have shown that uninterrupted; a person generally sleeps for eight hours per night.

Sleep deprivation can cause several problems that affect your health and your fitness routine and the two most common ones are as follows:

1.Glucose intolerance – which occurs when the central nervous system blocks the pancreas from producing enough insulin, affecting the body's power to digest food, and may disrupt sleep.

2.Weakened immune system – which can lead to colds or the flu and prevent you from working out to your maximum potential or sticking to a healthy diet.

A quick test to tell if you are sleep deprived is if you can lie down in the middle of the day and fall asleep within ten minutes, it is likely that you are sleep deprived or that your body is overly stressed. If this describes your sleeping patterns, it is important to reduce your sleep debt by setting a bedtime and sticking to it each night.

In conclusion, you need seven to nine hours of sleep each night for your body to run efficiently. Without this valuable feature, you can run into muscle loss, which will lower your metabolism, and affect your drive and focus in working out.

Rest and relaxation, though often neglected, is vital to any fitness routine and overall health.

[Christina]

Hmmmm...VERY good info! Thanks, Elizabeth!!!!

[Christina]

Question: Does anyone else practice Tai Chi?

[Elizabeth Carpenter]

A Day Of Free Activity

The best way to sculpt your body is to focus on your diet and do a short intense weight/interval training workout three times a week. As well as, focus in on cardio work for 30 -45 minutes two times a week. This leaves you with two days that you are able to rest or participate in an active day of free activity.

What does a day of free activity look like?

Well, it is a time for you to allow yourself to enjoy an activity that you would like to participate in or enjoy doing, but you have just been unable to do because of time constraints or other demands that may arise.

A few activities to think about participating in would be as follows:

•Spin Class
•Body Pump Class
•CrossFit Workout
•Leisure Walk
•Yoga
•A Game of Soccer
•Wii Fit
•Gardening

The main goal of an active free day is to do something enjoyable that keeps your for at least 30 minutes. However, you don’t want to exercise so hard that you impair recovery from your previous “scheduled” workouts, which could end up taking away from your next “scheduled” workout.

Be conservative.

When in doubt, do less than you think you should.

From beginners to intermediates you should focus on doing 30 minutes a light activity, such as walking, house/yard work, or a combination of bodyweight exercises.

Do a little exploring while out on a walk or engage in a new sport that you would not likely participate in.

And keep in mind that the newer you are at exercising or if you are heavy, the more you should focus on non-weight-bearing activities—like swimming, the elliptical trainer, and the stationary bike—until your body has adjusted to the activity accordingly.

So, with that said, what form of activity are you going to enjoy on your next active free day?