Tag Archives: fitness

It’s Hard to follow through

Fitness, , ,

With your New Year’s resolutions, that is. Here are some more ideas the Victor crew found from MensHealth.com for trying to keep your resolutions for this year.

Schedule a competition. Wow – if you plan on a 5K run, you’ll have to train for it. Talk about motivation!

Take selfies. They suggest to do this instead of looking at the scale. Share your progress through pictures.

Set mini-goals monthly. Set up short-term marks to reach throughout the year. It helps to take change in smaller chunks.

Find a partner. It helps to be accountable to someone. Maybe it’s someone to workout with or someone to just offer support and report progress to.

Do an extreme workout. Sometime down the road after you have gotten comfortable with your routine, change it up with one extreme workout a month to make it more interesting – go rock climbing, hike up a mountain, go to a training facility that will help you mix it up.

Sleep Habits

Health Issues, ,

So lately, we’ve been trying to get more sleep by going to bed earlier. A full eight hours should make us feel better, but it really doesn’t help. Feeling tired all week, you look forward to sleeping in on Saturday and getting about ten hours to make up for lost sleep. Does that help? Not really.

The average person need just 7.5 hours of sleep per night. So how is that determined? Each sleep cycle is about 90 minutes and there are usually five cycles per night. What also matters is which cycle you wake up from. The first two are the easiest to awaken from.

It is recommended you stick to a schedule of 7.5 hours of sleep a night. Period.

Read the full article from Business Insider.

What motivates you?

Fitness, Healthy Eating, , ,

Back in January, the style section of Yahoo.com ran a story about Amber Smith, an Aussie living in the UK. She was a 34-year-old content with her life and loved to travel. It wasn’t until she took a trip to Moscow in October 2012 that she finally realized it was time to lose weight. Normally she’d get a seat in the back of a plane so people wouldn’t see her getting a seatbelt extension. She’d use aisle seats so she could spill into the aisle to not bother people. She was a whopping 320 lbs. On this trip, she literally squished the people next to her and realized something had to give, either her love of food or love of travel. She decided she loved to travel too much.

She said she got there because of depression. She moved further from friends for a new job and started a spiral of emotional eating. She banned herself from travel until she could lose some weight. She used the Cambridge Weight Plan, a UK company that has meal replacements. It took a year but she lost 140 pounds!

With flying no more an issue, she has begun to travel again. She enjoys shopping in regular clothing stores again for travel clothes. She can hike on her trips. She is extra vigilant to eat healthy while on her trips. Here are her tips for eating healthy while on vacation:

Skip the bad stuff. Even airports can be difficult for trying to stick to a diet. She stays away from fried items. Try for the healthier choice (steamed white rice instead of fried rice.)

Shop wisely. Buy fruits and nuts for snacks.

Change your approach to eating. Think about the items you put in your mouth. Think about the energy you need and eat appropriately.

Walking: treadmill vs outside

Fitness, ,

Have you ever thought of the difference between walking on a treadmill vs walking outside? The Victor crew wanted to find out something about this. Here are some thoughts we came up with:

PROS:

Walking outside:
offers natural inclines
you walk with a more natural gait
can potentially burn more calories
fresh air / sun
look at beauty all around you

Treadmill walking:
you can walk in any weather
you can set the treadmill to a faster pace and/or incline
control the warmup and slowdown easier
rely on indoor entertainment: tv, book, iPod
no excuse not to walk
can be safer if you are in a shadier neighborhood

CONS:

Walking outside:
weather conditions
stopping for traffic
can’t stop for restroom break as easily
easier to find excuse not to walk (too hot, too dark, too wet)

Treadmill walking:
?

Best Diet?

Fitness, Healthy Eating, ,

So the contest is over. The one the Victor crew talked about a few weeks ago called “My Diet is Better Than Yours” finished just last week. The diets that were used were The Wild Diet, The Superfood Swap Diet, The cLean Momma Plan, The Wellness Smackdown, and The No Diet Plan.

The Wild Diet included fat. The trainee Abel James, says you have to eat fat to burn fat. The diet does focus on plant-based foods and omits processed carbohydrates. Pastured meats, butter, cheese and rich chocolate are allowed.

The Superfood Swap Diet (which happened to be the winner) swapped favorite foods for healthier versions of the food. No refined sugars or snacking are allowed but sweets and alcohol were permitted socially.

The cLean Momma Plan included adding exercise into every activity. An extra squat here or step there.

The Wellness Smackdown is a vegan diet.

The No Diet Plan focused more on how you eat. Tricking your brain into eating less and using blue plates or eating with your non-dominant hand.

Here are some free downloads from the winning diet