No 10 Muscle tears are more likely to happen to cold unprepared muscles. If you are a 'desk jockey' for the majority of the time, it may be very likely that you have tight shortened muscles. Throwing yourself into a class situation or the gym without preparing yourself is setting you up for a tear or worse! So never arrive late for a class, they do the warm up for a reason! And always do 5 - 10 minutes of mobility and warming up before your main workout in the gym, or before a run or bike ride.
No 9 Question, which has more chlorine - A swimming pool or a healthy bag of salad? Amazingly the answer is the bag of salad. Apparently your bag of salad is washed in a chlorine solution that is 20 x stronger than the average swimming pool! Chlorine is a neuro toxin, you do not want this in your body. In an ideal world buy unbagged leaves and wash thoroughly under the tap. Or use a 'salad spinner/dryer' like I have. Bought mind from Robert Dyas years ago, under £10 and does the trick.
Again its all down to the supermarkets, everything tends to be packaged so our food lasts longer. We think we are getting value for money, but are we really - again this debate will probably go on indefinitely also!
No 8 Abs - Six Pack! Don't have enough time in this blog to tell you how to get 'Six Pack Abs', but what I will say is that it is not easy. Abs are most definitely created first in the kitchen. If you eat unhealthily and have a high body fat % you'll never see your abs showing through, even if you do 1000 sit ups a day! The programme also mentioned genetics (and I agree) that no matter how hard you work on your six pack, you may never be destined to get them:(
No 7 Hollywood Diets and Crazy Eating Regimes! Just don't do it! Hollywood A listers will have an army of people helping them reach a specific size for a particular film part. And often the way that they achieve this will not be the healthiest, causing strain on both their heart and adrenal glands. And as we know crash dieting leads to eventually gaining all that back and more.
No 6 Running and your joints. I believe some weight bearing exercise is imperative for strong bones and connective tissue, but too much pounding on your joints for a long time (especially if you are overweight to start with) is not sensible. All you have to do is compare a marathon runners body with someone who runs shorter intense distances such as 100 and 200 metres and the differences in their shape is very obvious.
No 5 Gym Memberships. There are so many gyms out there now, expensive ones and budget ones. All with different membership prices and packages, to entice you in. At the end of the day they want your money and commitment, and will try most things to draw you in. Search and try a few before deciding, you don't have to sign up to the first one you walk into, no matter how hard the customer advisers pitch is. Find a facility you are going to make use of several times a week, whats the point of signing up for membership if your not going to use it. Also remember you don't necessarily have to join a gym, you can work out just as hard at home or outside with a personal trainer at a fraction of the cost of membership.
No 4 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' by Kate Moss. If you eat less, you'll be healthier and you'll live longer, starving yourself to a longer life. Initially I don't like the word starving, makes me think of children in the third world, far from healthy! They say recent studies have shown that an extreme cut in calorie intake could help you live till your over 100! A study on a number of people that lived on a calorie diet of less than 1000 calories, although they looked the same on the outside, internally their bodies were not ageing in the same way. That's why diets such as the Caveman or Paleo way or eating has become popular. Cavemen wouldn't have been able to have pizza at 11 at night, they would have been asleep from 5pm in the winter. They went to bed when it was dark and got up when it was light. Our bodies are still designed to stay on that cycle. What's that got to do with living longer? Our pancreas makes digestive enzymes to digest foods, but at night the same enzymes help to repair cells. So if you eat less that means these enzymes can get on with the job of repairing damage
No 3 Bikram (hot) yoga and bacteria. This included the story of Kerry Dawson an Osteopath who went to partake in a hot yoga class. These types of classes are taken in 40 degree heated rooms. She came out of the class very hot and tired (as expected I presume, having not done one). Sadly the next day she was rushed to hospital with 'bacterial meninghitis' and went into a coma for 6 day! Hopefully a very rare occurrence, you decide.
This them brought them on to the subject of that lovely subject of exercise and pooping! I suppose when we are warm and muscles are loose or pliable, especially during some postures in yoga and pilates things down below become very relaxed that it becomes inevitable to break wind. Sadly I have been there (shouldn't admit to it really, but come on we've all done it, haven't we?) During the forward position of a 'roll back' pilates move, yep it happened. And in quiet relaxed surroundings too. And as I'm so honest, actually admitted to it, what was I thinking! Okay lets move on quickly I think :)
No2 Don't read everything in the paper because they can be shockingly wrong (surprise, surprise!) Just some captions have included, 'Water can make you fat', 'Just one fizzy drink a day raises men's risk of aggressive prostate cancer by 40%', 'Chocoalate can help you beat persistent coughs', 'Chips may cause Cancer'. Please don't panic if you read something in the paper, magazine or media. If you think it may be relevant to you and it prompts you to take advice from a health professional then that's good. On the downside it may have made you unnecessarily scared and stressed. Better to look at what you are reading with an objective mind and find what's relative or not relative to you and deal with it either with someones support or it may be just that you need to have a closer look at you nutrition.
No 1 Fad Diets, they just don't work!
F Plan Diet, Cambridge Diet, Cabbage Soup Diet, Water Melon Diet, Dukan Diet, Grapefruit Diet, Low Carb, Low Fat, No Fat Diet, GI, GL Diet, GL Motors Diet, Weight Watchers Diet, The Lemonade Diet, OMG Diet, Maple Syrup Diet, Cotton Wool Diet, Watercress Soup Diet, The Bleak Diet, Apple Cider Vinegar Diet, Baby Food Diet, The Master Clense Diet, Macrobiotic Diet, Victoria Secrets Diet, The Cookie Diet and I've left the best to last 'The Placenta Diet', yep new mums (the Hollywood ones I expect, although any British mum's trying this, I'd love to hear if it helped shed any weight) having your babies placenta dried, crushed and turned into placenta pills! There's probably even more wacky ones to add to this already quite incredible list.
Now even if these diets did work, it is inevitable your going to gain all that weight back and more, its just a matter of time. During dieting your body is put into starvation mode and your metabolism is slowed. When you start to eat normally again (as you won't be able to keep these diets up for long) all that lovely weight and more will rapidly be gained back.
So that's it, bit tongue in cheek, but hopefully you've been given an entertaining and light hearted view of the health, wellness and fitness world. Love to hear your comments and stories.
Till next time, stay well and healthy the natural way:)
Amanda
Nice tips....
ReplyDelete