What to eat before & after exercise...

To get the best results from your workout, it’s important that you’re eating the right things before and after you exercise. Proper nutrition is essential to improving your endurance and preventing injury, keeping your body in the best condition to reach optimum performance levels. By following these guidelines, you can make the most of your fitness plan and start seeing results faster. Here’s what you need to know…

How your body uses fuel
First, it can be useful to understand how your body uses energy while exercising, and how different types of foods will help and inhibit your weight loss. When you do aerobic exercise- that is, exercises that focus on endurance over long periods of time, like cycling, jogging or swimming- your body uses carbs as fuel to start with. When it runs out of carbs, it starts burning fat.

When you do short-term, high-intensity exercises (anaerobic activity) such as strength training, your muscles use up lots of carbs in the form of glycogen, which is a complex sugar. Repetitive and vigorous training can easily use up most of the carbs stored in the muscles. So here’s how you can use this information to make the most of your workouts…

Before exercise
Make sure you’ve eaten a nutritious meal about an hour before you exercise to keep you going strong throughout your workout. Eat foods rich in complex carbohydrates, like whole-grain pasta, rice and bread, or fruits and vegetables. Complex carbs are easy to digest, and will give you plenty of energy to sustain you throughout your exercise, allowing yourself to really push your body to get the optimum results.

Avoid simple sugars like lollies for at least an hour before you exercise, as they will cause your blood sugar to drop during your workout. It’s important to make sure you don’t suffer low blood sugar levels when you exercise, as this can cause jitters and dizziness, which stops you from training as long and hard as you normally could.

It’s also important to make sure you are well hydrated before you work out. Drink 500-600 ml of water in the one or two hours before exercising. This will help you to reach your optimal physical performance, as well as providing resistance to injury and maintenance of normal body temperature.

During exercise
Make sure you take a water bottle to the gym and keep drinking throughout your workout. It’s recommended that you drink 100 to 200 ml for every 15 to 30 minutes of exercise. If you’re doing intense exercise for prolonged periods of times, you might consider sports drinks, which contain simple carbohydrates and electrolytes. Just remember to check the nutrition label- drinks with up to 10% carbohydrates (most good sports drinks) can help improve endurance, as they enter the bloodstream quickly and deliver glucose to active muscles effectively, but drinks with more carbs than that (like fruit juices and soda) should be avoided, as they can cause cramps and nausea.

After exercise
After your workout you should have a small snack that is rich in complex carbs, so you can restore your muscle-glycogen levels. An hour later, you should have a nutritious, protein-rich meal to repair damaged muscle tissues.

You will also need to rehydrate your body, so make sure you drink some more water. One way of figuring out how much you should be drinking is to weigh yourself before and after you exercise. Any weight lost in that time will be water, so drink one to two cups for each half-kilo lost.

Following these guidelines can help you to get the most out of your workout. You’ll find that your energy levels will improve, and you’ll be more able to reach your optimum performance. Be kind to your body- listen to what it needs, and you’ll be seeing better results in no time.

For more information see source: http://sportsmedicine.about.com

Is stress making you fat??

If you have stubborn weight that won’t shift, it is worth a look at your stress hormone levels. Stress promotes fat accumulation so become aware and bust out of the stress cycle for long-term health.

Many health complaints are related to stress from headaches, high blood pressure, digestive problems, menstrual disturbances to sleep problems. In addition to that long list is the accumulation of central fat-or more commonly referred to as the ‘pot belly’. Not only is it an undesired look, it is also the most dangerous type of fat.

Stress hormones
As well as making us fatter, stress also makes fat more persistent and keep you fat. Stress responds via two main hormones-cortisol and adrenalin, which are responsible for your ‘fight or flight’ response.

Adrenalin gets your body ready to fight or flight. It is released very quickly in response to severe stress such as a gunshot, danger, being yelled at or finding a pile of bills in the mail. Adrenalin acts for a short duration. If stress prolongs, then the long-lasting hormone will kick in-cortisol.

Both cortisone and cortisol stress hormones work together to store more fat, especially around your central area. This fat will remain there for as long as your cortisol hormones remain high. Examples of long term stress could be a stressful job, studies, relationship issues or even chronic pain. These stress factors could all contribute to the extra fat that you have stored around your tummy and regardless of how hard you exercise, this particular fat will not budge.

Cravings
Long-term stress also plays with our appetite and food cravings by influencing our food choices. Unfortunately stress does not make us run for spinach and carrots but the high fat, high sugar/salt type junk foods. These types of foods might give you a quick fix of feel good hormone serotonin but shortly after you will feel worse and start the vicious cycle of again by searching for your next serotonin fix. That is why they are called ‘comfort foods’-they temporarily comfort us from the stress blues.

In addition, stress can affect the quality and quantity of your sleep, which in turn affect your food choices. Individuals who are not getting enough sleep often tend to make poorer food choices.

If you have been struggling to keep to a healthy diet, it might be worth your while to look at reducing the stress levels in your life first.What can you do?

1. Talk about it
Seek help and tell someone about your worries and stresses. Remember the good old saying; ‘A problem shared in a problem halved.’ Talking can reduce your anxiety levels whether it’s a friend, family or a professional.

2. Get sleep
Eliminate all distractions in the room that you sleep. TV’s, alarms, phones etc. It is best not to even have them in the bedroom at all. The room you sleep in should be designed for sleep, relaxing and rejuvenating. It is the only time of your day that you get to do this. Aim for about 7-8 hours a night.

3. Eat regular meals
This ensures your blood sugar levels won’t get too low and you will make better food choices. By skipping meals a low blood sugar levels might make you overeat and eat the wrong type of foods. In addition, more stress hormones need to be released to activate energy stores.

4. Exercise regularly
Exercise releases feel good endorphins that will increase your mood and confidence. If you are feeling acutely stressed or sleep deprived yoga classes, swimming, tai chi or stretching might help you relax more.

5. Meditation classes
Find a class in your local paper or buy a meditation CD and listen to it regularly.

If you are worried about your cortisol level in your body you can always do a salivary cortisol test, which can measure your cortisol levels throughout the day.

Either way, combating stress factors in your life and ensuring that you have a good work-life balance is essential for good health and is often overseen. Learn to listen to your body’s needs and treat it with respect. You will soon see a positive response if you take good care of yourself-inside and out.

For more information see source: http://www.alfitness.com.au/

10 reasons to have a Personal Trainer

We all need a little help with exercise sometimes, whether we're just starting out or we've been at it for a long time. Still, there are people who shy away from training, unsure of what they'll get out of the experience or whether it's worth the money. Take a look at just a few reasons people typically hire personal trainers and see if it's the right decision for you.

1. You're Not Seeing Results
If you've been exercising consistently for several weeks or months and aren't seeing the changes you'd like, hiring a trainer may be a good choice. A trainer can look at your current program and eating habits and help you see where you could make changes to create more effective workouts. A trainer can also help you determine if the goals you've set are realistic for you.

2. You Don't Know Where to Start
Knowing how to set up a balanced schedule that includes all the activities you need to do can be confusing. The great thing about a trainer is that they can help you maximize your time while helping you stay within your own limits so you don't overdo it. They can also help you set goals and map out a specific schedule so you know when, how and where you'll fit in your workouts.

3. You're Bored with the Same Old Workouts
If you're an experienced exerciser, maybe you haven't considered working with a trainer. But it can be a great choice if you need some variety in your workouts. A trainer can bring a fresh perspective and new ideas to challenge both your body and your mind. Even if you just do a few sessions or meet every few weeks, you'll find it refreshing to have new workouts and new exercise toys to play with.

4. You Need to Be Challenged
If you tend to slack off on your workouts sometimes, especially when things get tough. A trainer can motivate you to push past those self-imposed limits, encouraging you to lift heavier, go longer and challenge yourself more than you would on your own. You'll find it's very hard to slack off with a trainer standing over you.

5. You Want to Learn How to Exercise on your Own
Even if your goal is to create your own workouts and exercise by yourself, hiring a trainer for a few sessions can be a great benefit for learning the right way to exercise. This is especially true if you want to learn more about the muscles in your body, the exercises that target those muscles and how to do those exercises with great form. Just a few sessions can teach you a lot about your body and how it works.

6. You Need Accountability and Motivation
Trainers come with built-in motivation. Not only are you investing money into your exercise program...you're investing time as well. There's nothing like a standing appointment to get your butt in gear for a workout. Not only that, a trainer provides some accountability so, even when you don't have a session, you know your trainer will be asking if you did your planned workouts. Just knowing that may make it harder to skip your workouts.

7. You Have a Specific Illness, Injury or Condition
If you have any specific issues like arthritis, heart disease, old injuries, etc., working with an experienced trainer (who works with your doctor, of course) can help you find a program to help heal injuries and avoid any further problems. It's also a great idea to work with a trainer if you're pregnant and want a safe, effective workout to keep you healthy and fit. Just make sure your trainer has experience with your issues!

8. You're Training for a Sport or Event
If you're training for a marathon, a golf tournament or some other type of sport or event, an experienced trainer can help you figure out what you need to do to stay strong without taking away from your other training. They can also help create a training program and map out a plan for the coming event. Just make sure they are experienced in the sport you're training for since not all trainers do sport-specific training.

9. You Want Supervision and Support During Workouts
Some people know how to exercise and they even know how to do the exercises correctly, but they like having a trainer around for support and supervision. If you're lifting very heavy weights or need someone to help with partner-type exercises, working with a trainer might be a good choice for you. They can spot you during workouts and help you come up with a good training plan for your goals.

10. You want to work out at home

If you'd like to exercise at home but either don't have a lot of equipment or aren't sure how to use what you have, in-home personal training is an excellent choice. A trainer can show you exactly how to use what you have to get the best workout for you or they can bring equipment with them to give you a great workout. They can also make recommendations for equipment that will help you reach your goals.

For more information see source: http://www.about.com/

Will weight training make me bulky??

A lot of people (especially women) shy away from weight training for the fear they will end up with big, bulky, and oversized muscles. This simply isn’t true. A properly designed resistance program can deliver whatever you want from your muscles: tone, size, strength, and endurance.

Men and women often see body builders and think that weights will make them look similarly big and scary. But professional body builders train twice a day for hours on end and follow an extremely strict diet to achieve the hulking figures you see in magazines.

Not only does it take a lot of hard training to develop very large muscles, especially for women, the extent to which our muscles grow depends on many factors including:

• The type of resistance program followed (high volume and loads will add more bulk)
• Diet and food intake (you need to eat plenty of food, especially protein, to have the building blocks for big muscles)
• Gender (females generally don't have the chemicals eg. testosterone for extreme muscle building)
• Genetic make up (some people gain muscle faster than others)

Individuals respond differently to Weight Training

Everyone can benefit from a regular weight training program, especially women. Not everyone however, will respond the same way, even if they follow identical programs because we are all very individual and our genetic and body shapes are all very different. For example, if a program is designed to increase muscle size and strength, men will respond very differently to women as their muscles grow much larger due to higher circulating levels of the hormone testosterone. It’s primarily this reason why most women won’t get big muscles from resistance training, even when training with heavy weights. Genetics also play a part in how we adapt – some people gain lean muscle mass faster and in different places.Good weight training design is of paramount importance and a program must “deliver the goods”. Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean stronger so programs designed to increase muscle strength differ from those designed to increase muscle mass or endurance. Women should follow a weights program designed specifically designed for them and their body type.If weight loss is your goal then combining weights training with aerobic exercise is proven as a very successful approach. A number of studies have shown that aerobic work combined with resistance training gives the best fat loss results. You'll increase your metabolism, gain strength to make your aerobic workouts more effective, and improve posture, balance and get good feelings of well being.

Benefits of weight training

• Bone density (especially important for women in the fight against osteoporosis)
• Muscle endurance (reducing muscle fatigue by lifting lighter weights for more repetitions)
• Muscle tone and firmness (we all like this!)
• Increased work capacity (ie you can walk, run, cycle etc faster and burn more calories)

A weights training program can be designed according to your individual needs. Getting big muscles need not be one of these, so women shouldn’t worry about turning into the incredible hulk from some weights training!

For more information see source: http://www.completefitness.com.au/

SLEEP - Are you getting enough?

Sleep, why we need it, why it can be hard to get, and how it affects everything from athletic performance to our personal success and heath, is one of the hottest topics in science today.

So How Much Sleep Is Ideal?

According to studies people who sleep between 6.5 and 7.5 hours a night live the longest. People who sleep 8 hours or more or less than 6.5 hours have shorter life spans. There seems to be evidence to support that there is just as much risk over sleeping as there is in under-sleeping.

It may be interesting to note that long sleep starts at 8 hours and sleeping 8.5 hours might really be a bit worse than sleeping 5 hours a night.We can only guess at why people who sleep from 6.5 to 7.5 hours an night live longer, but we don’t really know the cause or the effect.

For example we don’t know for sure if a person who sleeps less time a night can live longer by extending their sleep and if a longer sleep can live longer by getting up a bit earlier.

One thing to remember as well if you are an athlete or bodybuilder, is that one of the only times we can grow or repair muscle is during certain stages of sleep. For the active trainer, and athlete our sleep is very important to recovery, in fact it is just as important as the workouts themselves.

The Eight-Hour Myth - Dispelled

So based on the studies and information at hand the 8 hours a night myth has been effectively squashed but it stems from an average. It's possible that the amount of sleep we need is determined by our genes and may be why we are either short or long sleepers.

The Long And Short Of It

Our genes may determine the amount of sleep our body requires for us to awaken feeling refreshed and recharged. This likely occurs across a gamut, with “short-sleepers” needing less than average and “long-sleepers” needing more.

Sleep Debt

When we don’t get enough sleep to meet our needs, we run into sleep debt. Sleep debt can accumulate. There are a number of signs or things that happen when we are in sleep debt

- Daytime sleepiness

- Fatigue

- Difficulty concentrating

- Poor judgment

- Increased risk of accidents

- Other health complicationsWe might be able to pay off sleep debt by taking naps or by sleeping in (or just going to bed earlier).

In conclusion Sleep is very important to everyone regardless of whether you are a bodybuilder or regular person, so remember to make sure your body gets the rest it needs!

For more information see source: www.fitness.com