Changing How You Eat

August 4, 2017/in Blog, Dieting Advice, Nutritional Consultant

As you may know, not fueling up with the right nutrients can affect how well your body performs
and your overall fitness benefits. Even though healthy eating is important, there are myths that
hinder your performance if you listen to them.

Below, you’ll find some myth busters on healthy eating.

Working out on an empty stomach.

If you hear a rumbling noise in your stomach, the rumbling is trying to tell you something. Without listening to them, you are forcing your body to run without any fuel. Before you exercise or do any physical activity, always eat a light snack such as an apple.

Relying on energy bars and drinks.

Although they are fine every once in a while, they don’t deliver the antioxidants you need to prevent cancer. Fruits and vegetables are your best bets, as they are loaded in vitamins, minerals, fluid, and fiber.

Skipping breakfast.

Skipping breakfast is never a good idea, as breakfast starts the day. Your body needs fuel
as soon as possible, and without it, you’ll be hungry throughout the day.

Low carb diets.

Your body needs carbohydrates for your muscles and the storing of energy.

Eating what you want.

Eating healthy and exercising doesn’t give you an all access pass to eat anything you want. Everyone needs the same nutrients whether they exercise or not, as well as fruits and vegetables.

Not enough calories

Although losing weight involves calories, losing it too quickly is never safe. What you should do,
is aim for 1 – 2 pounds a week. Always make sure that you are getting enough calories to keep your
body operating smoothly. If you start dropping weight too fast, eat a bit more food.

Skip soda and alcohol.

Water, milk, and juice is the best to drink for active people. You should drink often, and not
require on thirst to be an indicator. By the time you get thirsty, your body is already running a
bit too low.

Changing how you eat is always a great step towards healthy eating and it will affect how your body performs. The healthier you eat, you better you’ll feel. No matter how old you may be, healthy
eating is something you should strive for. Once you give it a chance, you’ll see in no time at
all just how much it can change your life – for the better.

The Chair Massage Concept

August 4, 2017/in Blog, Massage Therapy, Personal Training

Massages in chairs or simply in sitting positions have always had their place among most ancient and traditional massage techniques around the world but the contemporary Chair massage as we know it today and as we occasionally refer to as the On-Site or Seated massage is a trend that began as recently as 1982. The Chair massage was the brainchild of David Palmer, the director of the Amma Institute of Traditional Japanese Massage at that time who is considered to be the “father” of Chair massage.

Mr. Palmer came to realize that, whether due to the high cost or the sensual intimacy of conventional table massages, or maybe the lack of sophistication on the part of the public or perhaps due to the combination of the three in one proportion or another, there were too few people who sought such body works services and, therefore, there was not enough work for all the graduates of his institute.

Mr. Palmer’s entrepreneurial intuition and insightfulness led him to adopt a few existing old-time techniques and to renovate others to develop a modern massage technique which could be performed anywhere as it required only brief periods of time, no need for the removal of clothing and quite reasonably priced. Consequently, his Chair massages became convenient, affordable and non-threatening.

The first clients to enjoy the newly developed Chair massage were the employees and customers of the Apple Computers outlets where David Palmer and his graduates set up their makeshift workstations in 1984. That venture lasted only about twelve months and the demand at the time was not huge, but they did give up to 350 Chair massages each week and it proved to be a step in the right direction and a very good beginning. By 1986 a specially designed and structured chair to better accommodate Chair massages went into production and today, there are well over 100,000 such chairs in use within the United States as well as in many other nations around the world.

David Palmer realized that Chair massage will be truly successful only with further development of this particular niche and he opened continuing education seminars for training graduates of other massage schools. During the twelve months of 1986, he taught 24 Chair massage seminars at 24 different locations in the United States as well as in Sweden and Norway. The concept of the Chair massage was embraced with open arms when presented to the American Massage Therapy Association and as a consequence, by 1990 just about every massage school in the nation was teaching it.

The Chair massage is not officially categorized as a therapy or a treatment but rather as a minimal relaxation technique. Whether that was a deliberate marketing ploy and clever salesmanship or not, it worked to attract people who would otherwise shy away from other kinds of massage therapies and treatments. For the most part, those who took the first step and braved the process of the Chair massage, would have become more open minded about progressing and graduating into the “true” massage therapies.

Nowadays, chair massages are readily available in shopping malls, airport terminals, independent shops, franchises, hotel lounges, hospitals, gyms, spas, bus depots, train stations, supermarkets, community centers, eateries (particularly the new-age cafés), convention centers, beauty salons, barber shops, medical and dental offices, university campuses, corporate workplaces and even at street corners, public parks and city square throughout the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom.

The Chair massage is estimated to be the fastest growing and most popular form of skilled touch, as professional massages are performed on the otherwise touch-deprived masses. It is David Palmer’s greatest dream to see young children performing shoulder rubs among family members and friends as part of their regular daily routine; and expressed in his own words, “When we reach that point I will know that we have arrived at our goal of a world where touch is recognized as essential to the development and maintenance of healthy human beings.”

Four Common Muscle-Building Myths

August 3, 2017/in Blog, Fitness Programs, Muscle Building

Bodybuilding is a field that’s often flooded with a lot of conflicting advice. While conflicting advice can sometimes have two right answers, very often the advice that’s given is just plain wrong.

In this article, we’ll expose four of the most common muscle-building myths.

Myth #1 – Eat More If You Want to Build Muscle

One common myth is that if you’re skinny and want to gain muscle, you need to consume a lot of calories. Unfortunately, this is more likely to get you fat than get you built.

Yes, if you want to gain muscle mass you do need to eat a few more calories than you’re burning. But you don’t need to consume 2,000 more calories than you’ve been eating in the past.

Eat more food, but don’t stuff your body with calories. It’s not healthy and won’t help get you where you want to go.

Myth #2 – You Should Tense Your Abs When Lifting Weights

Another common myth is that tensing up your abs when you’re lifting weights will help give your spine more support, thereby reducing the likelihood of injury.

This myth stemmed from a research study that was conducted, showing that people who had back pain tended to have lax abdominal muscles. They concluded that by tensing up the ab muscles, back support was increased which reduced back pain.

This story spread among the bodybuilding community and has come to be accepted as fact today. Unfortunately, it’s just plain wrong.

In reality, your body naturally knows what to do when it’s lifting heavy objects. Yes, you do need to tense up your abs – but your body does that automatically already. If you tense up your abs even more manually, you can throw off the whole system and actually increase your chances of injury.

Myth #3 – The Trick Is to Eat a Lot of Protein

Yes, eating a lot of protein is crucial. However, just increasing the amount of protein you eat isn’t going to cut it.

In order to really make a difference in your muscles, you need to have the right kinds of proteins. You also need to have the right combination of proteins; and you need to eat other foods that support that protein intake.

Yes, increasing proteins is important – but it’s not the magic pill.

Myth #4 – The Path to Losing Fat is Not Eating Fat

Finally, a lot of people who decide to start building muscles decide that they need to cut all fats out of their diet. Unfortunately, this is actually harmful rather than helpful.

Your body needs fats in order to operate properly. Yes, you should definitely get rid of trans fats and oily foods, but it’s important to keep consuming healthy fats so your body has the resources it needs to work properly.

You can actually lose more fat by eating enough of the right kinds of fat than if you tried to cut out all fats from your diet.

These are four of the most common myths in bodybuilding today.

Why Eating in the Evening Causes You to Gain More Pounds

August 3, 2017/in Blog, Dieting Advice, Nutritional Consultant

There are a lot of different people out there that say you really should not eat after seven p.m. because it can lead to the possibility of more weight gain but in all honesty you need to always remember that a calorie is a calorie; it doesn’t matter when you eat but if you eat more in a day than what your body can burn then you will gain some weight.

A healthy schedule to follow would be to always eat healthier when possible and to have decent meals each day and dinner is okay to have around eight at night, if you follow this then you will not have to worry about stressing out. Believe it or not some research shows how about one third of people eat about fifteen percent of their calories at eleven p.m. or later.

Doing late night snacking can be the result of several different things such as trying to relax after a long and hard day at work that was really stressful. When you are eating something and you are not really hungry it is a response to the stress that you are feeling and when this is happening it is super easy to abandoned your healthy efforts and eat way more than you should.

This is something that everyone does from time to time and a little bit of it is okay but if it becomes a habit then it can lead to a lot of negative aspects such as weight gain and even other health issues.

Eating snacks and foods when you are about to go to bed is not that wise because it can make your blood sugar levels go way up and they can stay at this increased level for up to twenty four hours.

And if the foods or snacks that you are eating right before bed are high in fat and or high in calories then you are going to be in for a night of sleep that seems like forever because you will be restless with tossing and turning back and forth all night long. A night of sleep like this will make you feel drained and so you will end up eating more then what you should the next day as a way to give yourself some more energy.

The best thing you can do for yourself when it comes to eating healthy and trying to lose weight is to eat around ninety percent of your calories throughout the day and then at nighttime you can consume the rest. The rest of your calories that you can eat should be about one hundred and fifty to two hundred.

This makes for a great snack that is light in calories but still delicious and you won’t have to feel guilty about eating it. Also be sure to add in some exercise off and on each and every week to help boost your energy and lower your weight.

Self Massage Devices

August 3, 2017/in Blog, Massage Therapy, Personal Training

This is for all of you out there who are like most of us; too busy and too cash poor to treat ourselves to massage therapy on a regular basis or at all. That is indeed an unfortunate self denial. However, this particular denial can never guide us to also deny the fact that we can all use the benefits of massage therapy for it is not a mere luxury of the superfluous nature but an inherent need.

As a matter of fact, massage therapy is deeply embedded into the fabric of our being and we all instinctively practice it to some extent without ever calling it that.

What do we do when our tummies hurt, when we have headaches, when we stub our toes, when our muscles tighten and cramp and so on and on? We automatically and without contemplation or forethought place our hands to the areas of discomfort to press and rub.

Guess what? That is self massage therapy. And self massage therapy is every bit as effective and beneficial as any other kind of massage therapy, and it can be performed at any time and at any place to accommodate our unforgiving schedules and at no cost.

However, there are some parts of our bodies which are difficult to reach and therefore impossible to self massage. There are also times when our own two hands are too fatigued or sore to perform the self massage therapy we need.

Furthermore, there may be certain situations that would require our hands to be put to other uses while we wish we could do some massaging. For those reasons, some very intuitive and insightful inventors designed self massage devices which can resolve these issues without depriving us of a good massage.

Massage devices are by no means new concepts as implements have been used on peoples’ bodies for many centuries throughout the world:

Mesopotamia and Egypt. Some writings indicate that the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians used a variety of objects to manipulate the body and those would date as far back as 3000 B.C.
China. The oldest massage tool that has been discovered thus far is made out of jade and it was used in the Longshan culture of China during the Shang dynasty and dates back to about 2000 to 1500 B.C. — a massage knuckle.

At approximately the same time, tools carved of wood or animal bones were used to apply pressure to painful points in the body, and needles carved out of wood were used to treat gout.

Greece and Rome. Stones (jade, marble, basalt and others) were allegedly used either hot or cold by the Greeks and Romans in 175 B.C.

The strigil, rubbing cloths and tapotements made of ebony, wood or bone were also used in the Roman and Greed empires and flagellation (self beating) was practiced with the use of twigs or leafy branches.

England. The English shaped needle-like instruments to alleviate the symptoms of gout.

An English veteran of the American Revolution, Admiral Henry of Rolvenden, created a large collection of tools to treat his own aches and pain. He drummed his back with a hammer covered with cork and leather; he made a few wood carvings to pound the soles of his feet, he used cattle ribs to loosen the knots along his tendons and to stroke certain parts of his body and he fashioned small bone gadgets to massage the inside of his mouth.

Pacific Islands. The Polynesians used a thinly curved limb shaped out of the indigenous guava tree called the laau lomi-lomi stick as well as rounded lava rocks called lomi balls. Both these devices tools were used for rubbing, pounding and pressing.

In the 1890s the Health Culture Company of New York introduced an entire line of manual self massage devices and those have been used widely ever since, even more than the electronic devices which began flooding the market in more recent years.

The selection available to you today is extraordinary and the prices are surprisingly low. Among them are rollers, balls, percussion sticks, mats, vibration devices, and much, much more.

Your First Three Months at the Gym

August 2, 2017/in Blog, Fitness Programs, Muscle Building

Your first three months at the gym can be a whirlwind of experiences. You’ll have to get to know a lot of different equipment, meet a lot of different people with different approaches to body building and have to get to know a completely different environment, while consistently working out in a way that’ll actually produce results.

Here are a few tips for your first three months at the gym.

Take Advantage of the Free or Discounted Personal Trainer Offers

Most gyms will offer you a free or discounted personal trainer session as part of your gym membership. Take advantage of this offer.

Usually the trainer will start by giving you a guided tour of all the different equipment in the gym. This alone is worth the time it’ll take. This tour will allow you to get the most out of your gym experience.

Then your personal trainer will ask what your goals are and discuss different workout options and dietary tips to help get you there.

Yes, they’ll probably try to sell you a training package at the end of the hour. If you don’t want to sign up, just let them know – don’t worry, they won’t be offended. They get that every day.

Try to Find the Most Fun Thing in the Gym

If going to the gym feels like a chore to you, chances are you won’t keep up the habit in the long run.

Instead of forcing yourself to do exercises you don’t like or to use unfamiliar equipment, try to find the thing that you enjoy the most in the gym.

For example, if they have a swimming pool, why not go for a swim and see if you like it? If they have kickboxing classes, hot yoga classes or group cycling classes, why not give those a shot?

Once you’ve found something you enjoy and you’ve gotten in the habit of going to the gym regularly, then you might consider doing something a little more challenging. But in the beginning, focus on finding something that you really enjoy.

Find a Buddy

Talk to the other people in the lockers, in the cafeteria or after group classes. Make friends who are also passionate about fitness.

Having friends to compare notes with, to learn from and to share experiences can really help keep you motivated. And it’s more fun. You’ll also have a spotter for exercises like the bench press.

The most challenging part of developing a new gym habit is sticking with it for the first thirty days. Once you get in the habit of going to the gym, you can then spend your time and energy on building the perfect workout. In the beginning, though, just work on building the habit of going to the gym regularly.

How Do I Overcome Cravings For Soda

August 2, 2017/in Blog, Dieting Advice, Nutritional Consultant

Craving a soda to drink can be something that happens all the time or it can be something that happens every now and then, if you always want a soda and soda is something you drink all of the time than you may have caffeine rushes at times as well as teeth that are stained.

There are several things you can do in order to stop craving sodas as much as you do. The following are seven steps in which you can take in order to do so.

For starters you should only purchase and consume sodas that are free of caffeine, they are still refreshing with how they taste but they do not have as many calories so they are a healthier version of soda to have. Having other kinds of liquids to drink around the house is a wise choice to drink as well such as lemonade, milk, apple juice, water, orange juice and more. When you are craving a soda do not go and get one, instead drink some water and if you are not wanting water then drink some juice and drinking from a glass is a great choice to make too.

The fourth thing you can do is if you wake up in the middle of the night and want a soda you do not drink one instead drink a little bit of milk that is more refreshing and will be easier on your stomach. If you drink soda from bottles keep them and fill some up with water like your sprite bottles that are empty and your Coca-Cola bottles that are empty up with some tea.

Remember that your body gets naturally addicted to caffeine and sugar so instead of drinking soda all the time replace some drinks or something else with another kind of food that has sugar in it; consider snickers that are fat free, some cake or even a bag of candy that is small. Small steps are what you need to take and then go from there.

You should also be sure to work out on a regular basis because getting exercise is very important when it comes to living a lifestyle that is healthy and it is vital in losing weight and keeping that weight that you just lost off. Working out leads to sweating and when you are sweating you are really losing weight but with all of that sweating you are also losing fluids that your body needs in order to properly work so to balance things out you need to drink a lot of water to replace those fluids but in a healthy manner.

Drinking some sports drinks like Power-Aid and or Gatorade help with providing your body the vitamins, minerals and nutrients that it needs to get energized again so drink like half a bottle of each for starters or something like that, mixing it up helps keep your body and its system on its toes which is what you want.

Self Massage

August 2, 2017/in Blog, Massage Therapy, Personal Training

Are you aware of having a personal massage therapist, actually two of them, available to you and ready to serve and fulfill your wishes twenty four hours a day and seven days a week all year round and charge you not a dime?

And would you believe me when I tell you that these massage therapists are perfectly happy to provide you with therapeutic sessions anywhere you please (your bedroom or living room, your office or car, in a public park or at the library), as frequently as you summons them and for the duration of your choosing? I am talking about your own two hands.

Yes, your own two hands are perfect capable of massaging away your stress, your tension, your stiffness and your pains while bring forth an increase of blood circulation to invigorate and rejuvenate you with a fresh supply of oxygen into every cell in your body. Research shows that massage therapy, whether it is performed by a paid professional massage therapist or by your own built-in and securely affix hands, also boosts your immune systems as the production of white blood cells is stimulated in the process as is your mental capacity.

Chances are that you probably perform self massage therapy on a regular basis without ever calling it that. Stroking your forehead in a spontaneous reaction to a headache, grabbing the back of your neck to squeeze aware aches and stiffness, scrubbing yourself down with a loofah sponge in the shower or bath, rubbing your sore feet after a long day or hard work are all forms of self applied massage therapy. Congratulations! You are an experienced self massage therapist and you did not require formal training, a certification or a license.

The following is a list of techniques you can safely apply to your own body and promote overall wellness from the tip of your toes up to the crown of your head:

Upon awaking and upon going to sleep. Twice a day, morning and evening, treat yourself to a session of gentle punches. Always moving in an upward motion from bottom to top, begin with the legs, proceed to the arms, then the torso, the back, the head and the face. This will beat out your tension, stress, kinks in your muscles, will improve your blood circulation and will strengthen your body.
A treat after dessert. Whether you have had a large meal or a small one, help your digestive process by rubbing your tummy in the same direction as your food travels through the systems; clockwise. Therefore, use the palms of both your hands in a clockwise circular motion.
A therapeutic exercise before and after the more athletic type. Punch yourself before stretching, cardiovascular or strength exercises to get more blood flowing into your muscles. After exercising, rubbing your muscles in the direction of your heart will promote the elimination of metabolic waste as well as expedite the relaxation and recovery of your muscles.
Massage your appended massage therapists. You may do this with or without lotion buy you should do it daily. Intertwine the fingers of both hands and rub the heels against each other in a circular motion. With on thumb, rub the entire palm of the other hand and then switch. Untwine your fingers and thoroughly kneading each hand, gently pull on each finger and finish by pinching the webbing between the thumb and the index finger of each hand.
Play tennis without a racquet. To exorcise tension and stress, massage your feet by stepping on a tennis ball. Actually, a gulf ball will work just as well. From a standing position press one foot on top of the ball, apply as much weight as you can and slowly more your foot around.

Enjoy yourself massage and stay well.

What It Takes to Develop Six Pack Abs

August 1, 2017/in Blog, Fitness Programs, Muscle Building

Six pack abs is one of the most common goals of people who get into body building. Yet it can seem very elusive for most people, as they can work out for weeks and months without seeming to make any progress.

That’s because most people go about building six pack abs wrongly. It’s not just about doing a lot of push-ups and sit-ups. Yes, ab exercises are important, but on their own they’re not going to get you there.

Here’s how to actually get six pack abs.

Selective Working Out Doesn’t Work

Trying to just work out one area of your body to develop that part’s muscles doesn’t work. In other words, exclusively doing abdominal exercises won’t get you six packs.

Why? Because your abs have fat covering them. Even if under all the fat you have ripped abs, people won’t be able to see them. Unfortunately, when you’re just doing push-ups and sit-ups that’s what you’re doing: toning your muscle under the fat, without eliminating the fat.

The first step to actually getting six pack abs is to reduce the amount of fat in your abs. Unfortunately, you can’t selectively lose fat. You have to lose fat throughout your entire body for this to work.

Removing the Fat

Fat burning essentially comes down to doing cardio exercise regularly. Try to exercise at between 70% to 80% of your maximum heart rate for 30 minutes or more three or four times a week.

If you do this, in about a month you’ll start to notice your body overall becoming more toned. If you measure your body fat percentage, you’ll find the amount of fat in your body lowering and the amount of muscle increasing.

As this happens, your abs will naturally become more and more visible.

Diet

Of course, in order to burn that fat you’ll also need to make changes to your diet. You can’t just burn fat and then take the fat back into your body.

Eliminate all extraneous fats from your diet. A bit of fat from protein foods or other “healthy fats” is okay, but stay away from anything that’s unnaturally fat.

That means no deep fried foods, no fast foods, no meals that are frozen or microwavable. Read the calorie contents and ingredients of packaged foods before you buy.

Building Stronger Abs

The last and final step is to do the exercises that strengthen your abs. You can start the phase at the same time as when you start cardio and start changing your diet, but you’ll only see the results from the ab workouts once you do the rest of the steps discussed in this article.

There you have it. To build abs, you need to burn off the fat throughout your entire body so there’s minimal fat covering your abs. Then you need to change your diet to keep that fat off. Finally, use abdominal exercises to tone up your ab area.

Does Eating Slowly Help With Weight Loss?

August 1, 2017/in Blog, Dieting Advice, Nutritional Consultant

Research has proven that it takes a decent amount of time for your brain to realize that it is full when you are eating so if you eat your food at a rather fast rate you will end up eating more food than what your body really needs. The same research also proves that when you eat slower you will not only eat less food but you will also begin to lose some weight.

The three main methods of what it takes to properly eat slowly is knowing the basics of eating slowly, how distractions can come in handy and the strategies it can take in order to continue eating slowly.

Some of the basic steps to keep in mind are that you need to always remember in order to get rid of one habit that is bad you need to replace it with a habit that is good. You should also not ever wait to eat; if you are feeling really hungry then it is going to be hard to want to eat slower. This is why you should eat several smaller meals throughout the day.

Even though you are eating smaller meals slowly you should still count all of the calories that you consume. Foods that are very high in fiber, air or water are the best foods to go with and your snack foods should be a wise choose as well such as fresh fruits and fresh vegetables and even some different kinds of nuts.

When it comes to eating slowly start by doing your best to stretch out the meal for as long as you can this includes cutting your food slower, putting in your mouth slower, chewing slower and waiting longer to take the next bite. Try eating a bite, wiping your mouth and taking a small sip of water for practice this way when you are done with each bite you can place your utensil back on the plate. And when you take a bite there should only be a little bit of food on the fork or spoon.

Lastly is how bringing in distractions can become very helpful with learning how to properly eat slowly. A distraction is something that will cause the process of eating to become slower; if it helps after each small bite you could also either talk to stretch the meal longer or look through a magazine or newspaper while you are eating.

If absolutely necessary a crossword puzzle can come in handy as well. Some music that is relaxing and having the lights dimmed are some really good tips to follow as well but this setting is not ideal for every meal so save these techniques for special meals. Slow music will lead your body to naturally move slower which will make you eat slower and the lights being dimmed helps to promote a calmness from within which can lead to you slowing down as well.

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