Archive for February, 2011
How To Listen To Your Body To Create Health And Wellness
A sevenhour seminar on CDs recently came to my attention. It’s entitled “When Food Is Food and Love Is Love” by Geneen Roth. To participate in the program offered it is necessary to “listen to your body” to find out when it wants food what it wants and when it’s had enough.
Piece of cake right? Pun intended. For some of us it simply isn’t as easy as it sounds. How often do we do that? Or for that matter how is it even done? I was sincerely surprised and not a little put off when I realized that I eat when it’s time to eat and I usually munch on what my emotions or my mind want. I was brought up that way and it looks to me like those around me are doing the same thing.
Giving it a sincere try left me not eating for 24 hours because I didn’t have a clue how it felt to be hungry! That didn’t seem to hurt me and eventually I got a feeling of “butterflies” in my stomach for want of a better description. All was not peaceful in my innards. My mouth started watering long before that but that didn’t seem to be enough of an indication for me to act on.
Asking your body what it wants is just as tricky. I got answers loud and clear from my emotions and mind but my body seldom wanted sugary foods and sought a better balance when asked.
Finding out what was “enough” was the least difficult. Once the sensation of “butterflies” were accessed. “Enough” is when they go away for me. How strange to approach eating so wisely.
A side benefit was that things started to taste and smell quite wonderful. I started to sit down and pay attention to my food and eat more slowly. It’s been a revelation to find that I was more focused on shoveling it in than I was on what it was I was eating.
As the weeks have progressed I’ve started to become curious about the rest of my life. Like8230;why can’t this same approach be taken with the decisions I make about my work and play activities and my choices about friends?
The art of listening to your body resonate with a negative or affirmative response can be slow to come by. At least it has been for me. I’ve had to get past tons of “shoulds” and “should nots” first8230;unconscious programming that I wasn’t aware of. However with practice I’m starting to get the hang of it and it’s starting to offer me a deeper freedom. Why not give it a try? Nothing ventured nothing gained!
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;For more informative articles on mountain bikes and mountain biking visit http://www.mountainbikesbiking.com
How To Know If You Are Burning Muscles Not Body Fat? Burn Fats Not Muscle
The danger of any weight loss program is that you may lose more muscles than fats. This is not healthy at all because when you lose muscles your metabolism will slow down and your body will in turn retain more fats.
So how do you know if you are burning more muscles than fats? There is a simple and inexpensive way to find out.
Firstly you must know that whenever your body burn fats for energy a certain chemical call ketones are released. “When your body releases ketones it is chemical evidence that you’re consuming your own stored fat.” said the famous MD Dr Atkins.
You want your body to burn the food you have eaten and even more so if you are obese your body fat for energy and not your muscles.
One simple yet inexpensive way of knowing whether you are burning your body fat or muscles is to test for the production of ketones. If you are releasing ketones you are burning fats instead of your muscles. If you are you are on a weight loss program and you are not producing ketones then your program is not effective because you are burning other energy sources such as carbs or your own muscles. That means your weight loss program is virtually ineffective and can even be dangerous.
Ketones strips to test for ketones in your urine are readily available in most pharmacies. These strips are usually used by diabetics but are also a wonderful tool to check how effective your weight loss program is.
If you are losing weight and do not include exercises and a healthy diet in your weight loss program or you are actually on a severe caloric restriction diet chances are very high that you may be burning your muscles for energy instead of your fats. Losing too much muscle is dangerous and may be fatal. Do know that your heart is a muscle. Does this statement give you warning bells?
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Kathryn O’Neill is chief editor for Home Treadmill Reviews a consumer oriented website focusing on the home treadmill market.
For the latest brand reviews buying tips 38; best treadmill buys visit: http://www.TreadmillReview.net
How To Instantly Increase Your Strength On The Bench Press
Want a method that guarantees you’ll be able to instantly add weight to all lifts in your weight lifting routines?
Learn how to warm up correctly.
I don’t mean just warming up before you begin your weight lifting routines but warming up correctly all the way to your heavy sets.
In my opinion most people do not warm up correctly before beginning their heavy sets in their weight lifting routines.
This could have a significant and negative impact on their ability to lift maximum weight and overload the muscles sufficiently.
If you don’t achieve proper overload there will be no new muscle fiber stimulation and no new muscle growth.
Not only will a proper warmup lessen your chances of becoming injured it will increase your strength the very first day you put this principle into practice.
Every single time you put your hands on those weights it should be to either get stronger or more muscular. Not just for the act of bringing a weight up from a rack and to your chest.
Lifting weights do not have a direct impact on fat burning. It does have an indirect effect.
After all the more lean muscle you have the more calories you’ll burn.
Weight training is anaerobic not aerobic; so don’t try to perform an aerobic workout by lifting weights. So how does this relate to warming up correctly?
Simple.
Most people spend way too much time and energy warming up in their weight lifting routines to the point when it’s time to perform their heavy sets they’re too wiped out from their warmups.
This has defeated the purpose of weight training. Lighter weights lifted less muscle stimulation.
This means less muscle growth as a result.
Take the bench press for example. Just the other day I witnessed someone do the following in their bench routine.
This person started with the bar which in most gyms is 45 pounds. They busted out a quick easy set of 10 reps. They then put on 45pound plates 135 pounds and did another set of 10.
Then they went up to 155 pounds and did another 10 reps. Here’s where they’re starting to go wrong. They’re beginning to use way too much energy on these warmups.
They then did another set with 175 pounds for 10 more reps then 200 for a set of 8 reps. So far 5 sets and this person hasn’t even started their “heavy and intense” sets yet! They’ve wasted time energy and intensity all before it really even counted.
On the 6th set they noticed they were starting to tire quickly and could only handle 210 for 5 reps. So this is where they stop the bench press portion of their workout figuring that since they are fatigued they have worked the muscles sufficiently.
After talking briefly with this person I realized they had been at this weight and unable to break past this plateau for months. They just assumed it’s where they were meant to be that they couldn’t get any stronger.
If the only way a muscle will grow is through increased overload weight why expend so much needed energy on the warmup sets in your weight lifting routines?
You need to save it for the productive sets the last one or two of the set where the weight being used is the most you can handle for four to six repetitions.
I explained to him that in order to keep gaining muscle and strength he would have to lower the number of warm up sets and instead focus on improving his last few.
There you have a quick and easy way to increase the amount of weight you lift on your bench press. Lower the number of reps you do and you’ll immediately be able to increase the amount of weight you lift.
Lynn VanDyke is the proud owner of http://www.strengthtrainingwoman.com/.nbsp; She is a certified personal trainer yoga instructor and nutritionist. Her site is quickly becoming an essential strength training destination.