Walking and Health

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle ensures longevity and mental and physical well-being.  Eating right, exercising daily, and nurturing a positive attitude are all basic, everyday practices that really aren’t that hard to work on.  The key to a healthy lifestyle and for almost all other issues in life is balance.

Eating right is so important and yet, so many times, rushing around in our day to day busy hectic schedules, we grab something on the run from whichever fast food place is in sight.  The best thing to do is to plan ahead.  Plan your individual or family meals in advance by utilizing a slow-cooker, by cooking meals ahead of time and freezing them in small portions.  Also, read labels at the grocery store and get snacks high in fiber and low in fat.  Take along these snacks to school, work or family outings and resist the urge to grab a candy from a vending machine.  Maintain balance and portion control when it comes to eating healthy.

Making the right eating choices goes hand in hand with exercising.  Exercising is wonderful for maintaining body fitness and mental fitness.  Incorporate a variety of  exercises into your weekly routine that include flexibility exercises such as stretching, aerobic exercises such as walking, running, tennis or swimming, and anaerobic exercises such as some sort of weight training.  Rotate your exercise regimen to include all three types of exercise weekly to maintain a healthy heart, healthy body and improved immune system.

An overall healthy lifestyle includes eating properly and exercising properly and keeping a positive attitude.  Success comes with a positive outlook on life.  Remain optimistic in times of adversity, turn negatives into positives, make lemonade out of lemons, and always do your best and try your hardest.  Mind power is so important. Use it in a positive manner. 

Eating right, exercising often and maintaining a positive attitude are all basic ways to enjoy your life by keeping a healthy lifestyle.  In this day and age with all the hectic schedules and fast paced routine, it’s very easy to get off track.  Take a deep breath and remember that balance is so important in any situation. Get back on track, eat right, exercise often and keep a positive attitude.

Here we go about to embark into summer and you look at your swimsuits from last year and wonder how they shrunk when you haven’t even washed them.  Wait a minute.  It’s not the bikini that got smaller, you got bigger.  How did that happen? You were mentally ready on January 1st to lose those extra pounds, but by January 10th your heart just wasn’t in it anymore. You shed a few pounds, but spring came and you got more active, so that meant you could eat more because you’re burning more calories since you are exercising more.  Just like a bear that wakes up from his long winter break, you started eating and eating.  Now it’s time to get back into shape.

Summer is around the corner and summer bikini bummer is right in your face.  Let’s deal with it and start working on your tummy now.  Try different exercises that work the whole core.  You don’t want to concentrate so much on your abs that the rest of your muscles get neglected.  Pilates is a great way to exercise the entire core.  WebMD has a great slide show on Abs, the name of the section is called, Ab Envy and you can link to it here.  Ab Envy Slide show .  A few of the exercises they reveal are:

• The Canoe Twist
• The Cat Kick
• The Pilates Zip Up
• normal everyday “extras” to help abs

The main point is that if you start a few months before summer and exercise more and make good choices towards eating healthy, the Summer Bikini Bummer will be a thing of the past. 

What do you think?  How long does it take you to get into shape for the summer bikini months?  Do you work out all year so you don’t have this issue, or do you feel like your weight creeps up more and more every year and you have to try harder and harder to get it off?  Let me know what you think.

So, you go on a diet and you lose those extra pounds.  Now what?  How do you keep off the pounds that you just lost?  The last thing you want to do is get back to your old eating habits and gain the weight back that you worked so hard at losing.  The gaining weight, then dieting to lose it, then gaining it back again is the old yo-yo dieting theory.  Some even say that if you lose weight and then gain it back, you usually end up gaining more weight or gain fat and not muscle, so in a sense, your body is worse off than before you started. 

There are many products out on the market now that can help you to lose weight.  But, let’s say you lose twenty pounds by following a strict diet.  Good for you, but how do you keep the pounds off.  Well, Dr. Suzanne has gone and done it again!  She gave you the revolutionary secrets to fat loss in her eBook “Top Secret Fat Loss Secret” which shook the very foundations of the food manufacturers and opened the eyes of millions just like YOU to help take your life back and your waistline.

Even though, she helped people lose over 56,562 lbs total and counting with her amazing secret, she noticed an unsettling trend.  She found that there was no problem for them losing the weight but, to her disheartenment they seemed to be struggling to keep it off!  We have ALL gone through this. It seems too familiar.

LOSE the WEIGHT….GAIN the WEIGHT…LOSE the WEIGHT…GAIN the WEIGHT…

This viscous cycle of Yo- Yo Dieting has to end and end NOW!  As you know, Dr. Suzanne leaves no stone unturned when searching for the TRUTH!  After countless interviews with diet experts and people just like YOU who have struggled with the battle of bulge and have won she discovered that all of them did a very similar SIMPLE EASY to DO SYSTEM that kept the weight off !!!!

Instead of keeping this amazing discovery to herself Dr. Suzanne has created the YoungSlimFit Program to give you all of the tools that they used to finally end their battle with the bulge!!  So if you are someone who is just flat out sick and tired of the endless Yo-Yo Dieting then do not hesitate any longer.

Go here to secure you life changing program!    I want to Stay Trim

I would not hesitate long because she gives you 50% OFF of the normal price just for ordering within 24-48hrs!

What exactly is the swine flu?  What are the signs and symptoms of the Swine flu?Will I get it by eating pork?  Do I have to touch a pig to get it?  Is it like a normal flu?  The swine flu is similar to a regular flu.  You may experience a sore throat, coughing, a headache, fever and chills, body aches, and fatigue.   You may also have diarrhea and vomiting.  Check with your doctor to see what strain you have and if you may have the swine flu, a lab test can determine the differences.  Get yourself checked out if you think you have the flu, only your doctor can diagnose the swine flu via lab tests.

How do you contract the swine flu?  You can not get it from eating pork.  Humans may get it by coming in contact with an infected pig, though.  Also, infected humans may spread it to other humans in ways similar to the common flu via sneezing, coughing, or touching something which has the viruses on it.  It is not clearly known how quickly the swine flu can spread through humans. 

Those who become infected with the swine flu may be contagious as early as a day before they have any symptoms and may may continue to be contagious up to seven days after signs of symptoms are present.  It may last even several days longer in children.  Always wash your hands and wear a face mask if you are in malls or areas where there are known cases of the swine flu.  As in most flu epidemics,  try to avoid individuals with swine flu symptoms and continue to get plenty of sleep, eat a nutritious diet and exercise.  Wash your hands as often as you can with soap and water or hand sanitizer.  Cover your mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze to prevent the spread of any illness.  

Try to avoid traveling to Mexico where there are known cases.  Also, avoid travel to certain parts of the United States where cases are surfacing.  If you have a low immune system due to another illness or a recent transplant,  avoid these areas until things settle down.   You’re best bet, no matter what kind of health you are in, is to try to avoid sick people.

Getting bored with the same old walking routine? Pole walking is the latest craze from Europe that is sweeping the US.  I saw pole walkers the other day in my neighborhood.  So I did a little research.  I thought maybe they were training for the skiing season.  However, upon doing a little research I found out the real reason they are using two poles while walking. 

Using the two poles while doing normal walking increases the amount of calories burned by 46%.  With pole walking, 90% of your body muscles are being used.  Wow! Compare that to 35% for bicycling and treadmill and 65% for jogging. The more muscles used in a workout-the more calories are burned.  That’s simple, yet powerful.  Imagine that, by adding two poles to your regular workout, you get an overall complete body fitness workout and increase the amount of calories burned.  Can you say, “I can do this!”

Do you have aches and pains in your neck caused by work overload, financial woes because of the bad economy, or just too many things to do in a day?  Pole walking uses the upper body during walking and helps to strengthen and relax neck, shoulders and back muscles.  It also helps to relieve stress in general.  If you’re like most people and keep all your stress in your neck and shoulders, pole walking can help eliminate these problems.

Pole walking also helps your posture.  By keeping your body upright and in a positive, natural movement, you build up the upper body, where more than 50% of your muscles are located.  The strengthening and usage of the muscles in your upper body helps in better overall posture.

Internally, there are even more benefits to pole walking than just regular walking.  When utilizing the poles, you strengthen your heart.  Adding poles to your normal walk increases your cardiovascular workout by 20%.  This in turn helps to lower lower cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels.  This is beneficial to those with diabetes. 

Try walking with two poles the next time you go for your morning or evening walk.  You’ll immediately feel the extra exertion by your upper body.  Relax and take it slow and soon you’ll wonder how you did without them.  Pole walking takes practice and there are several websites currently available to help with the purchase of poles and guidance in proper technique. Pole Walking Instructions Another website: Pole Walking One more: Pole Walking I’m going to look more into this and update this posting as I learn more about the fitness fun and relaxation benefits to pole walking.

Interested in purchasing your own poles. KEYTZ Nordic Walking Fitness Poles - Lightweight Carbon/Aluminum Shafts (Black, White, or Pink) - Pair

 Read more about Pole Walking: The Ultimate Nordic Pole Walking Book