Fitness & Wellness

Getting fit isn’t always easy. It takes an effort. However, you can make it easier by adopting a better attitude toward fitness. Everyone has had those days when they’d rather go directly home and nap rather than working out and it’s on those days that your attitude makes a difference. At those times, you need to switch your focus from how tired and stressed out you feel to how much better you’ll feel after your workout.

Remember what made you start your fitness program.

Everyone has personal reasons they started a program of fitness. Sometimes, it’s for weight loss, sometimes for better health or more energy. No matter what your reason, always keep it at the foreground, so on those days when you’re ready to quit or just skip a day, the reason is prominent in your mind. It provides that extra incentive to switch to workout mode.

Working out will be hard, but focus more on how it’s helping you.

If you go into a fitness program thinking that it will be easy, you’ll be disappointed. If it’s a good program, you’ll work hard. The program needs to work you toward your maximum potential and when you find it easy, be adjusted to match your new level of fitness. That’s where trainers provide a huge benefit. They always make sure you’re working your hardest, but never beyond your capability.

As you master each muscle, feel pride.

One of my clients that got the best results often smiled throughout the entire workout, even though it was hard. One day I asked her why and how she managed that. She said she loved feeling how much control she was gaining over each muscle group and how each muscle responded when she did each exercise. She noted that the appreciation came after a parent had a stroke and she watched as that parent struggled just to make a minor movement.

• If you really hate the workout you’re doing, don’t do it. Do something else instead. If you hate running but love swimming, use swimming as part of your fitness program. Even in the gym, a personal trainer can help you with exercises you’ll enjoy doing.
• Are you bored or not losing weight as easily? It’s time to switch up the workout and get a new one. Doing the same routine continuously can cause plateauing and especially boredom.
• If you want to stay motivated, make working out a game. Track the amount of weight you lift or the number of reps you do and challenge yourself to beat your personal best.
• Take time to celebrate your successes. It takes the sting out of the workout and makes it all worthwhile. Even if you haven’t hit your big goal, hitting a weekly or monthly goal is a big deal. Celebrate it.

For more information, contact us today at Evolution Lifestyle Fitness

When you’re discussing the pros and cons of supplements, you also have to identify the type of supplements you mean. There are supplements for basic nutrition for weight gain, improved health, as an energy booster, to overcome deficiencies due to poor processing of nutrients and those for body building and performance. Supplements might be that daily vitamin or proteins and amino acids. It can be minerals, too. Just like any man made substance you put in your body, sometimes it’s a huge benefit, but other times either waste your money or be harmful.

For the most part, supplements to improve health if you have a bad diet are a poor substitute for healthy eating.

Why would you support bad eating habits by paying for supplements? Instead, changing how you eat to a healthier manner would be better. However, if you are deficient in certain vitamins and minerals, supplementing for a while may be the answer. Seniors often don’t absorb nutrients, so supplementation is often a good route to improved health. Pregnancy can also call for supplementation. Supplements are costly if you want those that are easily absorbed and beneficial, so it’s always best to get the nutrients from the food you eat.

For bodybuilding and improved workouts, some people include supplements in their daily regimen.

A lot of supplements are sold to body buildings in the form of protein powder. It’s the building block for muscles and can help build and repair muscles. The amino acids are the same as found in chicken, beef and pork. Creatine is higher in supplements and adds bulk. Taking too much of this can have side effects and cause severe problems, such as heart and kidney problems, diarrhea, dehydration and cramps. It’s also tough to identify just how much of these supplements you need.

Bioavailability is both a pro and con for supplements.

If your body doesn’t absorb a certain nutrient, it has poor bioavailability for that nutrient. Older people often can’t absorb the nutrients as well, so it makes sense to supplement. The type of food you eat also affects absorption. If you love your green leafy veggies and high fiber foods, you can reduce your absorption of minerals. If you sit in the sun or eat foods high in vitamin D, you’ll absorb calcium better. Eating whole foods helps provide all the nutrients you need for absorption.

• Not all nutrients are found in supplements. Some nutrients work synergistically with others. One study was isolating anthocyanin from blueberries for its cancer fighting qualities and found that it was only effective when combined with the other nutrients in the blueberry.
• You can get too much of a good thing. Water soluble vitamins, such as vitamin C flush out of your body in your urine if you have too much. However, fat soluble vitamins are stored in fat tissues and the liver. They can build to dangerous levels and cause harm.
• Supplements are a far less satisfying way to get nutrition. Not only does eating healthy provide the nutrition in a satisfying manner, it also reduces or eliminates the toxins found in processed food.
• At Evolution Lifestyle Fitness, we can help you have a healthy diet that’s both nutritious and delicious and it won’t put on pounds.

For more information, contact us today at Evolution Lifestyle Fitness

If you haven’t already heard of mindful eating, I’ll help you understand it. It’s a great tool to help you lose weight, while also aiding you in enjoying every bite of food you eat. What exactly is mindful eating? It means living in the moment and really experiencing the food, rather than just shoveling it into your mouth, making eating an experience and realizing how that food affects your health and well-being.

Mindful eating focuses on concepts like culture and how it affects the food you choose.

Mindful eating goes beyond just that moment you’re chewing, but also back to the practices of your culture and how it determines the food you choose. If you’re served a plate of grasshoppers, you’d normally turn them down or eat them reluctantly, but that’s all cultural, rather than focusing on nutrition or taste. While shoveling your food down isn’t wrong, because they’re no right or wrong with mindful eating, it certainly isn’t eating mindfully.

Try a little exercise in mindful eating.

When you sit at the table and have a plateful of food, before you take a single bite of anything, you need to stop and think. Decide what you’ll eat first and then think about how it will nurture you and all the positive benefits of that selection. It can be pretty easy to do if you’re choosing vegetables, but if you have a candy bar or French fries, it’s tougher to find ways it will help your body, except perhaps to provide energy via calories.

Mindful eating isn’t a diet, but it can help you lose weight.

If you think about each selection and focus on its benefits, you’re bound to realize that some food simply doesn’t benefit you. Mindful eating also helps you appreciate the food more that’s a healthy option. While you’re focusing on the moment, you’ll savor the subtle flavors of the food and appreciate how it helps you live. If you have an eating disorder, eating mindfully can help. It aids in reducing depression, stress, anxiety and binge eating.

• People often lose weight when they adopt mindful eating. They no longer focus on calories, but the substance of the food they’re eating, creating awareness and removing many of the emotions attached to food.
• If you’re like many people, especially at the holidays when food is everywhere, you’ll often find yourself eating without realizing it. When you practice mindful eating, you’ll stop and think before you put food in your mouth.
• Being present in the moment when you eat also allows you to enjoy each aspect of the food, from the crunch or melt-in-your-mouth texture to the subtle flavors of the herbs and spices.
• Mindful eating is good for anyone that wants to change, unhealthy and unwanted eating habits.

For more information, contact us today at Evolution Lifestyle Fitness

In the early days of our nation, kids got their exercise with physically demanding chores and still loved running and playing when they were done. With each generation, life got easier as labor saving devices replaced the need for children to do the work and kids focused more on fun. Unfortunately, today that fun doesn’t include running and playing, but sitting in front of a computer screen, even a tiny one in a phone. To get children more active, it’s no longer of just letting kids be kids. Instead, you have to motivate your kids to get exercise.

Motivating kids to workout is just half the battle.

Besides an easier lifestyle, fast food became a way of life. There’s inexpensive junk food everywhere you look, even in schools! Every grocery aisle has sugar coated treats and every checkout counter from gas stations to drug stores have a rack of candy just waiting for children to reach out and enjoy. Fresh fruits and vegetables have taken a backseat to sugar coated pastries made with white flour. Getting kids to eat healthy is another challenge parents have to do.

Start by being a role model.

Whether it’s exercising or eating healthy, you set the stage. Children learn what they live and if you exercise regularly, eat healthy and do all the things necessary for a healthier lifestyle, they’ll automatically think it’s part of everyone’s life. Sitting down to a meal is important. Not only does it encourage poor eating habits, it weakens the family unit and communication. Make sure there are plenty of healthy foods on the menu and healthy snacks in the refrigerator for after school.

It’s more than just exercising.

You can bring a lot of enthusiasm and family fun when you live an active lifestyle. Get the whole family to sign up for classes. We offer something for everyone in the family, even Grandma and Grandpa. Instead of going separate ways, have one day devoted to family fun where you hike, rock climb, swim or even bike together. If kids grow up in an active family, they tend to stay active all their lives.

• Lighten your load and get the kids involved. Have the children help you make meals and snacks. It can be something a simple as stuffing celery with peanut butter and putting raisins on top for ants on a log.
• Plan and prepare meals ahead. Take one day to make a whole weeks worth of meals. Do it as a family project. Make extra, so you won’t have to cook one weekend or will only have to make a few meals.
• Get plenty of sleep. Created a regular bedtime for everyone in the house and a regular time to get up, even on weekends. That consistency can keep you and your kids happier and healthier.
• Share your fitness goals and successes with the kids and encourage them to do the same. No matter who or what age you are, you tend to do more of what you focus on and what provides positive feedback.

For more information, contact us today at Evolution Lifestyle Fitness

The nutritional needs for your teenager are different from yours. Teens are growing and changing at this time and that requires more nutrients and more calories than you require. To be their healthiest, they need something more nutritious than the average American diet. The higher caloric requirement, which is approximately 2800 calories each day for boys, which can be as high as 4,000 if they’re in sports and 2,200 calories for girls, which also increases for activity to up to 3,000. Adult men normally only require 2500 calories and women only require 2000.

Protein is important for teens.

Lean, healthy protein, such as protein from fish, dairy, poultry, meat eggs, or vegetarian options like most types of beans and Tofu is important to growing teens. They need it for muscle growth and development, which is often occurring quite rapidly in males and the physical changes that are taking place. Approximately 10 to 30 percent of their caloric intake should be protein.

Fresh fruits and vegetables should be served with every meal.

Too often food fresh from the garden is tough to find, unlike centuries ago when the family garden was where most food originated. Teens need to have a wide variety of colors on their plate to ensure they have all the healthy nutrients necessary. Not only do vegetables provide nutrients and energy, they provide fiber. Make sure your teen has five serving of varied fruits and vegetables each day. If you want to break it down further, they should have 2 to 2.5 cups of veggies and 1 to 1.5 cups of fruit.

Strong bones and teeth come from adequate calcium.

You might immediately think of milk when you think of calcium, but that’s not always the healthiest option. Some children can’t tolerate cow’s milk, while other studies show a diet that contains more than a glass of milk a day might decrease life expectancy. Instead, make sure there are viable high calcium options, such as almonds, lentils, broccoli, beans and dark leafy greens available.

• One way to ensure your teen is eating healthy snacks is to make sure they’re available. Have veggies and dip, cubed melon or other healthy options ready for munching in the fridge.
• Just like you, your teen needs healthy fat in his or her diet. Their brain needs fat for peak performance, so ensure whole eggs, fatty fish and avocado are on the menu and nuts are part of their snacks.
• Go with full fat options, rather than choosing low fat alternatives, like low fat yogurt. When manufacturers remove some of the fat, they normally add extra sugar to make the food taste better.
• Check out some of our recommendations for teens. We help them make smarter choices when it comes to what they eat. For instance, using brown rice, rather than white rice, provides fewer calories and more nutrition.

For more information, contact us today at Evolution Lifestyle Fitness