Thursday, February 27, 2014

Reducing Workout Soreness



Many people have a misconception about working out. Sometimes this misconception hurts their weight loss goals. This dangerous misconception is the idea that every workout will always cause uncomfortable muscle soreness and tightness. This soreness can disrupt sleep patterns and prevent collagenweight loss products from working correctly as well as simply reduce motivation.

But how are those extremely fit people at the gym working out every day? Why is your health nut friend not walking hunched over with a limp after his run on the treadmill? It could be one of two things: either they’ve gotten over the hump of soreness or they know exactly how to prevent and relieve it.

Why Do We Get Sore?

When we work harder than we’re used to or starting up new activities with new muscle groups we end up getting sore. This soreness is caused by micro-tears in the muscle fibers. These tears are also part of the reason why our muscles get bigger after working out. It’s at this point that they are allowed to heal and adjust. Eventually, if you continue working out regularly and doing similar exercises, you’ll get used to the movements and delayed onset soreness will cease to be a problem until you push yourself to the next level or change your routine.

How Do We Get Relief?

Getting relief from next day soreness is fairly easy. If you’re sore the next day it’s best to simply wrap a bag of ice in a towel and press it on the painful area. This will give you some relief for a while unlike heat, which will just relieve the pain while the heat is contacting the area.

You can also take some anti-inflammatory medication, such as Ibuprofen, from time to time to relieve pain. While this works well infrequently, taking them too often can prevent your muscles from repairing themselves correctly over time.

How Do We Prevent It?

As they say, prevention is the best medicine. Luckily preventing, or preemptively reducing, muscle soreness is extremely easy.

Warm Up

If you’re hopping on a treadmill for a run, walk first. If you’re doing some heavy lat pulldowns, do some lighter reps first. All you need to do is warn your muscles that you’re about to push them. Once your body is alerted to it you can work out, not get as sore, and reduce your risk of injury.

Hydrate

This one goes without saying but water is a fantastic lubricant for muscles. It is also vital for muscle repairing and growth. Just like putting WD-40 on a squeaky hinge, giving your muscles water will significantly reduce soreness and injuries.

Protein

Protein is necessary for building muscle and expelling energy so it makes sense that you would need it in order to make quick muscle repairs immediately after a workout. Making sure that you have the protein available to develop your muscles is also vital if you’re using supplements like Lose andSnooze weight loss.

If you make sure to use these strategies, you will be able to avoid a lot of the pain and tightness associated with working out. If you reduce those then you will be able to stay more motivated for a fitter, leaner you!

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Reading Your Nutrition Labels



Aside from just using great supplements like Lose andSnooze weight loss, there are other actions that you should take to increase weight loss such as lowering your caloric intake, making sure you’re getting the right amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrates, keeping your cholesterol in check, and monitoring how much of each nutrient you’re getting. Although this may seem like a daunting task, it’s really very simple. Reading the nutrition labels on the food you buy can be one of the quickest and easiest ways to make healthier decisions for you and your family. After all, that’s what it’s there for.

Serving Size

Pay close attention to the serving size of the product that you’re buying. Not every serving size is for everyone. For instance, many cereals have a serving size of one-half to one cup. How many people actually eat only one cup of cereal when they have a bowl? Although the serving size is calculated in a specific way by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) it will seem arbitrary for your purposes as it differs from product to product and brand to brand. To account for this it’s good to estimate how much of a product you usually eat and calculate the rest of the nutrients from there. For example, if you usually eat twice the amount on the package, multiply everything by two.

Percent Daily Value

The “percent daily value” on a food label isn’t the recommendation for everyone. In fact, it’s not the correct recommendation for most people (unless you’re a 5’8” 130-pound male that is 25 years old that is somewhat active, then it’s pretty close). The percent daily value is calculated by the FDA for those with a 2,000-calorie diet. Again, not everyone has this so it is best to find your own calorie recommendation and adjust accordingly.

More About Recommendations

The recommendations get even more confusing when you realize that the recommendations are not goals. Some of them are maximum recommendations and some of them are minimum recommendations. Once you’ve reached 100% of your “recommended” fat and sodium content for the day it simply means that the FDA is saying that they recommend you don’t go any further.

On the other hand, with carbohydrates, fiber, and the vitamins and minerals (sometimes listed at the bottom of the nutrition box) the “recommendation” means that they recommend you eat at least 100% of the recommended value.

Not All Fats are Created Equal

Finally, it’s important to know what kind of fats and cholesterol you’re getting with your food, since not all of the labels will tell you what you’re getting yourself into. You’re more likely to get a specific breakdown of fats instead of cholesterol on the box, but what do all of those weird words mean?

Monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and Omega-3 fatty acids are usually from places like canola oil, nuts, and legumes. They’re generally good for you and can help you lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.

Saturated trans fats, usually found in animal products, are not as good for you but still necessary for various bodily functions. It’s also important to take the good with the bad in regards to saturated trans fats because it’s difficult to get all of the nutrients you need without eating animal products. It’s possible, but more difficult.

And that brings us to the lower rung of fats you should eat: hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats that act more to preserve the food than to preserve your body. They’re usually found in shortening or stick margarine. Need we say more?

Knowing what you’re eating is extremely important to maintaining a healthy balance in your body. Supplementing your weight loss with collagenweight loss products can allow you to lose weight more quickly and easily, but it will always start with you and your healthy habits. No supplements in the world will help if you subsist solely on cookies.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

The Health Benefits of Weight Loss


There are many benefits to weight loss due to a healthy lifestyle including exercise, healthy eating habits, and supplements such as collagenweight loss products. You’ll look better, feel more confident, and be healthier overall. There are dozens of amazing health benefits to losing weight and feeling great. Here are just a few.

Reducing the Symptoms of Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is a chronic condition that causes you, for any number of reasons, to stop breathing, breathe in a very shallow manner, or breathe irregularly while sleeping. When your airway is obstructed during sleep, your blood oxygen level drops resulting in your brain pulling you out of deep sleep. Oftentimes this condition is accompanied by snoring, frequent waking, and general fatigue during the daytime hours.

By losing weight you may be able to reduce the obstructions in your airway while you are asleep thereby reducing the effects of your sleep apnea and, in rare instances, eliminating sleep apnea altogether.

Preventing or Helping Arthritis

Osteoarthritis causes your joints to become stiff and painful. This is caused by a breakdown of cartilage due to overuse. Just like rubbing a mortar and pestle, vigorously together weight can cause joints to grind together more than necessary, accelerating the speed of degradation.

By removing some of the weight from your joints, it can significantly decrease the weight that you’re putting on your joints. Even a few pounds can drastically change the way your bones and joints feel. Obviously, it won’t reverse the degradation of your joints but it will lighten the load on those joints.

Lowering Cholesterol

Cholesterol isn’t bad by itself and we need both LDL and HDL cholesterol to survive. Both of these types of cholesterol gets into the body through the food we eat and is developed naturally in the body. Where there is too much LDL cholesterol in the bloodstream, you can put yourself at risk for heart attacks and stroke. By maintaining a healthier diet and losing weight, you can lower this risk, lower your LDL levels, and raise your HDL levels so that they are healthy.

Reversing or Preventing Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes can be caused by several different factors but two of them are weight gain and a poor diet. By changing your diet, adding supplements such as lose andsnooze weight loss, and dropping some weight, you will be able to lower your blood sugar and make yourself feel great. When you are considering losing weight for your diabetes it is especially important to talk to a doctor beforehand as your medications and diet may need to be monitored frequently and changed often.

Lowering Blood Pressure

Blood pressure, basically, is how hard your heart has to work to pump blood through your body. There can be many reasons for this, but one of them is significant weight gain. If you develop high blood pressure, you are at significant risk of developing further cardiovascular problems including stroke and heart attacks.

When you lower your weight, your blood pressure can also go down due to the pressure being off of your veins and arteries but also because your diet is likely better. This reduces the chance of significant cardiovascular complications in the future.

Developing healthy habits does a lot more for your body than make you look good and feel stronger. It can have real, measurable impacts on your body and your health.