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Start a Fitness Program by Increasing how Much You Walk

Published by superadmin on July 15, 2020 | Leave a response

While many clients come regularly to the gym for their workout, there are those that for a variety of reasons, never go to the gym at all. Even those that attend regularly often find they cut corners avoiding other exercise outside the gym. In fact, they may even circle a store parking lot several times trying to find the closest spot, rather than doing the extra walk. Whether you workout regularly or are completely sedentary, increasing how much you walk can be a huge benefit to your overall health.

You’ll improve your heart health when you walk.

It doesn’t seem like much exercise while walking, but it can make a big difference in your cardiovascular health. One study found that people who walked around at least five minutes every hour maintained all the benefits from working out compared to those that remained seated for longer than an hour. Adding walking to your program of exercise or even starting one with walking is simple and it costs nothing to do. It helps shed pounds and raises your good cholesterol.

Does the 10,000 steps a day method work?

You may have heard of the recommended 10,000 steps a day, but did you know there was research that backed it. An Australian study using 2500 subjects that were sedentary showed the group that added the activity of 10,000 steps a day increased their mortality by 40%. A second study showed that just increasing walking by 3,000 steps a day lowered the risk of dying by 12%. These studies spanned a minimum of 15 years. A third study showed that just 150 minutes of walking each week, lowered the risk of dying by 20% overall with the risk of dying of respiratory disease lowered by 30%, and dying of cancer lowered by 9%.

You don’t have to do your walking all at once, either.

Pedometers have become popular with people using them to register every step. It also encourages them to walk more, if for no other reason than to improve their personal best. While 30 minutes of walking every day is ideal, it doesn’t mean you have to do it 30 minutes straight. You can break it up into three 10-minute sessions at different times of the day. If you have a slightly longer time for lunch at work, walk to your favorite restaurant that’s ten minutes away, eat and walk back to work. That’s two ten minute sessions completed and just one left to go for the balance of 30-minutes.

Alternating your walking speed from a brisk speed with a short period of recovery and back to a brisk pace can help you get into shape faster. It’s a form of interval training.
Walking can be the perfect way for a sedentary person to start their workout program. It can be personalized by adjusting for speed, distance and amount of time spent. It can be done in shorter sessions as noted previously.
Find ways to add more walking to your daily life. Besides parking further from the store, taking the stairs rather than the elevator, walking to lunch and getting up and walking for five minutes every hour is beneficial, too.
If you’re uncomfortable working out in front of others, you can start a weight loss program with healthy eating and walking. As you start to see the pounds drop off and you feel more energetic, it’s time to go to the gym for a complete program of fitness.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Burn Calories and Boost Your Mood

Published by superadmin on July 4, 2020 | Leave a response

You can actually watch people’s faces change from stressed to more relaxed as they workout at Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY. When you workout, you not only burn calories, you also boost your mood. The recent stay at home order caused many people to become sedentary and there was an increase awareness of depression on a national level. Society wasn’t getting the exercise they needed to chase the blues away and often mild depression became even worse. While there are medications for this mental health issue, one of the best ways to help is strength building exercises. You’ll get a benefit for the body and the mind.

Strength training has both mental and physical benefits.

Strength training is a real calorie burner that builds muscle tissue. That muscle tissue requires more calories to maintain than fat tissue does, so it raises the body’s metabolism. That’s a huge benefit when you’re trying to lose weight. It also boosts mental health, according to the WHO—World Health Organization. The WHO suggests you get at least two days of strength training for improved bone strength, overall fitness and improved mental health. While the endorphins make you feel good, it’s more than that. Strength training helps improve sleep, reduce anxiety and symptoms of depression, improve cognitive thinking and increase self-esteem.

A meta-analysis backed the belief that exercise was good for mental health.

A meta-analysis is a study of many different studies on the same subject. One recent one was looking at those that looked at the mental health effects of strength training. The conclusion was that people who did strength training received benefits that included the reduction of depression symptoms and a significant improvement in their mental health. The studies spanned various health statuses, amount of training received and even whether they actually became stronger. For people that had no signs of depression, there was modest improvement in attitude, but for those with mild or moderate symptoms the improvement was far greater.

How does exercise actually help?

While strength training was the focus on the meta-study, other studies showed that aerobic training also helped. It helps explain why people pace when they’re under stress. Dopamine, endorphins and norepinephrine are released during exercise and these hormones boost your mood. Exercise helps build new neurons in the brain and they are the communicator cells. They release the chemicals that help keep your mind calm. Several studies show that HIIT—high intensity interval training—lowered symptoms of depression in older adults better than normal depression treatment or low intensity workouts.

When people workout and stick with a program, they often increase their self-esteem because they’re doing something good for themselves and accomplishing goals.
A protein— the brain-derived neurotrophic factor—is boosted via exercise. That protein is lower in people that have depression.
An 11-year study of 34,000 adults showed that people who exercised as little as an hour or two a week were far less likely to be depressed than those who didn’t by as much as 44 %.
Exercise helps improve sleep and improved sleep is a great way to help avoid depression.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Why Taking A Time Out Can Improve Your Happiness

Published by superadmin on June 24, 2020 | Leave a response

Going to Disneyland, taking a vacation or enjoying the latest nightspot may not be what you need to be your happiest. Sometimes, you can improve your happiness by stepping back and taking a short break. Wearing the latest fashions, being in with the in-crowd and having the latest iPhone isn’t going to make it either. Being happy is a state of mind. Nobody can make you happy but you. Sometimes, all it takes is carving out a few minutes each day to count your blessings and looking at the things that truly make you happy.

Being more aware of your needs can start the process.

Understanding what your true feelings are may seem simple, but self-awareness is the basis for being happy. You have to know what your real desires are, not what society tells you they are. After all, there are conflicting commercials bombarding you daily telling you what you should want out of life and many of those things aren’t important to you. Finding out what’s not important is a huge step, then you can work on what is important to you.

Taking time out can also help reduce the stress in your life.

Unless you take time to appreciate what you have and identify not only what you want, but also what you don’t want, you’ll have stress in life. If you’re living under a great deal of stress, you’re not only not happy, you probably aren’t as healthy as you should be. Learning ways to cope with stress, such as meditation, exercise, deep breathing exercises or other type of stress relief can help you reduce your stress and encourage a state of happiness.

Taking time out can help prevent burnout.

If you’ve ever had a burnout, you know it affects all areas of your life, not just your happiness. It affects how efficient you are at work. It also affects whether you are social. Burn out can be prevented. Recovering from your burnout takes far longer to overcome than simply taking a few minutes each day to prevent it. Taking time to prevent both physical and emotional exhaustion will keep you at the top of your game and help you enjoy life more.

Learn to prioritize your tasks. Sometimes, other people’s emergencies shouldn’t be yours. If you’re constantly bailing out someone, you’re denying them the opportunity to learn and destroying your own happiness.
If you truly enjoy helping other people or like to be the head of a committee, then it’s what makes you happy and worth pursuing. Sometimes, work is what truly makes you happy and if that’s so, do it.
Taking time out from both work and play to appreciate the “wins” and “glories” of the day will help you achieve even more.
When you identify things that make you happy, focus on the end results, too. Do you love how you feel after working out? Focus on achieving that feeling the next time you go to the gym and you’ll find working out is a lot easier.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Why Your Weight Doesn’t Really Matter

Published by superadmin on June 14, 2020 | Leave a response

How can I say your weight doesn’t really matter when I’m helping people in Louisville, KY, shed extra pounds? It’s easy because it’s true. Too often people focus too much on weight. It means you’re on results, rather than process, and just one result. Getting into shape isn’t all about weight loss. If you’re eating healthy and working out regularly, getting to a healthy weight is one of the outcomes, but so is increased strength, endurance, flexibility and better health.

You might be changing the composition of your body.

If you’ve worked out regularly and switched your diet to healthy eating, you still might not see a difference when you step on the scales. The reason may be that your body composition or fat to muscle ratio has changed. Muscle tissue weighs more per cubic inch than fat does, because it’s denser. Your weight won’t change if you’re substituting muscle tissue for fat tissue. If your clothes are getting baggy but your weight hasn’t changed, that’s what’s happening.

If you choose healthy foods and workout regularly, you don’t need to weigh yourself daily.

Some people weigh themselves daily or even more. That can be both misleading and depressing. Your body weight fluctuates throughout the day. Hormones, the type of food you ate and even the amount of sodium in the food can make a difference. Whether you have a full colon or bladder can also affect your weight. While that difference is minimal, people who weigh frequently look for minor differences and either praise themselves or sink into depression when they read the scales. Focus on doing what it takes, not the scales.

Your weight doesn’t reflect your health or your energy level.

Just because you’re skinny, doesn’t mean you’re healthy. People who are thin can be far sicker than someone that’s slightly overweight but still fit. It’s all about lifestyle decisions, eating healthy and working out regularly. If you can’t run to the corner of the block and back without begging for oxygen, no matter how thin you are, you’re out of shape and definitely not healthy. Focus on your health and healthy habits.

The scales can lie. Sometimes, just standing slightly different on the scales can make a difference. Try it sometime. Weigh yourself and then get off the scales and try a slightly different stance. You’ll often see a pound or two difference.
One reason people have more success when they use a personal trainer, is that the trainer tracks other things, besides weight. Try tracking the number of reps you do in a workout or how much more you can lift.
Check your energy level. If you used to come home at the end of the day exhausted and now have energy to spare, your program is working.
Try an experiment. If you find you’re constantly turning to the scales, deny yourself the opportunity for at least six weeks. In that time, focus on healthy eating, regular exercise and other lifestyle changes. You’ll feel better about yourself and still make progress.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Why You Need To Take Care Of Yourself First

Published by superadmin on June 4, 2020 | Leave a response

For some reason, it has become noble to work yourself to a frazzle and simply take care of other people’s needs. It shouldn’t be that way. In fact, it’s not just an unhealthy stance to take, it’s also dangerous and counterproductive. You should take care of yourself so you have the energy to help others and the good health not require others to take care of you. There are some emergencies where that doesn’t hold true, but for the day-to-day schedule, you deserve to be number one.

Have you ever wondered why the parents are supposed to put on their oxygen mask before they do their child’s?

If you’ve listened to the flight attendant when they’re explaining emergency procedures, they always tell parents to put on oxygen masks first, before attending to children. That’s logical. The parent is responsible for putting on both the child’s mask and theirs and if they are unconscious from lack of oxygen, they can’t do both. The same logic holds true for taking care of yourself. Luckily, in everyday life, it’s not a matter of emergency or doing one before the other. It’s a matter of putting yourself on the priority list, just as you would any other important person.

It’s okay to say no occasionally.

If you find you’re on every committee, because everyone knows you’ll do a good job or nobody else will do the job, maybe it’s time to put a halt to that. People often find themselves running the minute their feet hit the ground in the morning. That’s very noble, but you need to take time for yourself. You need both time to take care of yourself, like going to the gym and eating healthy meals, but also time to decompress and be still. It’s okay to schedule time for that’s just for you and tell others no if you don’t want to take on another commitment or if interferes with your “you” time.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed with work and resented family members who sat and watched TV?

The first thing to identify is whether you asked for help. If you didn’t, why not? Was it your sense of pride that stopped you? You don’t have to handle everything yourself. In fact, you’ll often find that people are glad to help when you ask. Instead of resenting family members or co-workers for not helping, why not ask them to help? You don’t have to be the demigod of work. If you’re happy to help others, they’re probably feeling the same.

Decide what makes you happy and pursue it. You have choices. There are ways to enhance your life and do more things that truly make you smile. Focus on your happiness. It doesn’t mean you aren’t taking care of others in the process.
Taking care of yourself also means being kind to yourself. Everyone makes mistakes, beating yourself up over those mistakes isn’t productive. Learn from them and move on.
Self-care might be anything from taking time to meditate, learning something new or giving yourself some praise when it’s deserved. It could be something as simple as giving yourself a few minutes to nap.
Self care isn’t selfish. In fact, it can actually be helping another person. It feels good to help someone in need and the key difference is doing it when you want, not because you feel forced into it.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

How To Stay Physically And Mentally Healthy When You’re Stuck At Home

Published by superadmin on May 27, 2020 | Leave a response

When time was available, did you find that you didn’t get all those things done you thought you would if you just had a little more time? It’s been the same experience for most people that I’ve talked to recently. They found that it was just as hard to stay physically and mentally healthy when you’re stuck at home, as it is when you’re busy with work and running everywhere. Most people give tips on how to make time, but ignore the fact that too much time leaves us all open to procrastinating. It all starts by taking the first step toward a healthy lifestyle. We have provided online help to make it easier.

Start with a healthy diet.

A healthy diet is at the core of getting fit, building your immune system and losing weight. If you’ve read recent statistics, you know that obesity is the leading cause of preventable deaths. It’s not always easy to know what’s healthy and what’s not. Of course, everyone knows that eating the sugar in candy bars isn’t good for you, but fail to understand how sugar is in so many of our processed foods. We have created healthy menus based on what you told us, your goals and your personal taste. You just buy the food.

Get a workout program designed exclusively for you.

We offer online training that’s personalized, but you can get extra exercise without it, even if you’re stuck at home. I feel so strongly that everyone should be their fittest, I don’t care if you use our program or something else. I just want you to start something. If you’re completely out of shape, get up and move. Climb stairs. Go for walks…even if it’s just walking around the house. Throughout the day, take a minute or two and do windmills with your arms or lunges. It all starts with increasing your movement. I want everyone to move more and do recommend our easy to follow exercise programs, but just using cans as weights, doing simple exercises and being aware of moving more is important.

The key is not to overdo and knowing that everything you do counts.

If you get winded just walking down the steps…that’s what you need to do more often. Don’t push yourself beyond your limits, especially when you’re first working out or putting more emphasis on moving. There is no best way to start…you just have to take the first step. Many people find that scheduling a specific time and making a workout an appointment is a big help. Create a way to track your workout, noting how much you did each day. Winners keep score.

You won’t be stuck at home forever. While you have time, you can make meals ahead and freeze them for later just by doubling the recipe. They’re great for those busy days when you’re out and about. They’ll be ready to heat and eat.
If you’re not fit enough to workout for an extended period, break up your workout to ten minute sessions. If you do three ten minute sessions each day, you’ll soon be able to workout longer and combine them to two and then one workout.
Do something good for yourself or others and get exercise in the process. Deep cleaning can be exhausting, which is one reason it’s also good exercise. Cleaning out closets can be, too, but you can also help others by donating items to help those in need.
Your mental health affects your physical health. Stay positive. Have an attitude of gratitude for everything you have. Spend a few minutes each morning to appreciate all you’ve been given and you’ll start your day off right.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Why Is Salmon Recommended Over Other Types Of Fish?

Published by superadmin on May 16, 2020 | Leave a response

If you’ve read much about eating healthy, you’ll probably notice that salmon is often recommended. There are good reasons that nutrition experts recommend salmon. Let’s start with it as a source of healthy Omega3 fatty acid. There’s a recommended ratio of omega6 fatty acid to omega3. The average American diet contains somewhere between a 10 parts Omega6 to 1 part Omega3 all the way to a fifty to one ratio. It should be closer to a four to one ratio and that’s where salmon can help. According to the Heart Association and Mayo Clinic, boosting your Omega3 is one of the best ways to improve your heart health. It protects blood vessels, lowers blood pressure, prevents clots and lowers triglycerides. Replacing meat with salmon can lower cholesterol levels.

You can boost your overall health by eating salmon a few times a week.

Salmon has a wealth of nutrients, besides the omega3 fatty acids. It’s loaded with iron, zinc, niacin, B12 and B6. It provides selenium that helps your thyroid in top working condition, while also aiding your immune system. Many of those nutrients in salmon are antioxidants, which means they protect the cells from damage. Cell damage can cause illness, aging and death. The body requires 55 micrograms of selenium each day and a 3-ounce serving of Coho salmon has 36, while pink salmon has 44. Wild salmon rather than farmed, offers the most.

There are several varieties of salmon, so the nutrients vary.

While all salmon is healthy for you, the amount of protein and nutrients vary by the type of salmon you have. Consider the amount of protein in each type of salmon. They’re all close, but Coho salmon offers more protein per 3-ounce serving than Atlantic salmon with Coho offering 23.3 grams and wild Atlantic salon providing 21.6. Potassium also varies, but in this case, Atlantic salmon wins with 534 milligrams compared to 387. Protein is a building block and potassium supports muscle function, which includes your heart, aids to digestion and strong bones.

Eat salmon for its astaxanthin.

What is astaxanthin? It’s an antioxidant that provides many health benefits. It also provides the pink color to salmon. Astaxanthin can aid in preventing oxidation of the bad cholesterol—LDL. It also increases the good HDL. Those two things alone can help reduce your risk for heart disease. If you want to look younger, there’s evidence that astaxanthin can help you do it. That’s because it helps prevent skin damage. One study observed a group of 44 skin damaged individuals and found that after being given a combination of 2 mg astaxanthin and 3 grams of collagen for 12 weeks, the skin elasticity and hydration improved significantly. Astaxanthin can also help the brain and nervous system.

Eat salmon as a source of vitamin B. Just 3.5 ounces of wild salmon has 18% of vitamin B1, 29% B2, 50% niacin—B3, 19% pantothenic acid—B5, 47% B6, 7% folic acid—B9 and 51% B12.
Consuming salmon a few times a week can help you lose weight. It can increase metabolic rate, help keep your appetite under control and boost that feeling of fullness. Best of all, studies show that when you lose weight, it is often belly fat.
Inflammation may be the cause of many diseases, from cancer and heart disease to diabetes. Salmon is anti-inflammatory, meaning it reduces inflammatory markers and improve symptoms of inflammation.
Increase salmon in your weekly diet and you can improve brain health, while also lowering signs of depression and anxiety. It also protects fetal brain health in pregnant women and age-related memory loss.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Calming Herb And Spices To Fight Anxiety

Published by superadmin on May 3, 2020 | Leave a response

Anxiety, being uptight and suffering from stress occurs everywhere, not just Louisville, KY. You don’t have to run to a physician to get a prescription or take an over the counter medication to help you relax. There are lots of natural ways to get rid of that anxious feeling. Exercise is one of those ways to burn off stress hormones. A good night’s sleep is another. For those occasional times, using calming herb and spices can also help to fight anxiety.

Try a cup of chamomile tea.

Since ancient Greece, chamomile has been a source of help for relaxation. It has a calming effect and studies show that it’s the phenolics, like flavonoids, phenolic acids, quinones and several other phytochemical antioxidants that not only help you sleep and relax, but also aid in anxiety relief. Studies of chamomile also found that it can reduce stress related headaches and loss of appetite. One study showed that chamomile demonstrated a reduction of cortisol, a marker of stress. Use the flowers of chamomile to make the tea.

That delicious scent of lavender is what you need for a relaxing moment.

This is another herb that’s been used for its calming effects for centuries. While you can make lavender, using it as part of aromatherapy, or as a massage oil brings the best results. It does more than just calm you and relieve your anxiety. It can make you feel more positive, too. Some people put a drop or two of the oil on a small cloth and lay it on their pillow when they sleep. It reduces the level of cortisol. In fact, when compared in a drug study to an anti-anxiety drug, lorazepam, it was as effective for persistent anxiety.

Ginger is yummy, makes a great tea and also helps you become more mellow.

If you’ve ever consumed ginger tea for stomach problems, you may have also experienced how relaxed it made you feel. The Gingerol, which is an antioxidant, lowers the stress hormones in the body. It’s one reason it’s often just what you need when your stomach is in knots or upset. If you’re under stress, your digestive system slows. There’s less stomach acid and movement of food through the stomach and the intestines. Ginger helps that by boosting the production of stomach acid that’s slowed by stress. Add fresh ginger to your cooking or chop it up and pour water over it for tea. You can also buy ginger tea bags.

Sprinkle on some turmeric for not only stress reduction and improved mood, but improved heart and brain health. It just takes ¼ teaspoon a day to make a difference.
That heavenly smelling basil may help you improve your brain and overall cognitive functioning, but it’s also good for stress. There are a number of different types of basil, which include a variety of flavors from lemon to cinnamon. Holy basil is usually considered the most medicinal.
Lemon balm is an easy to grow herb that adds the flavor of lemon. You can use it in cooking, and it goes well with pork and fish. To get the relaxing effect, create a tea or use it in aromatherapy.
Nutmeg is another relaxing spice that’s mentioned frequently in folk medicine for its ability to help you relax. It contains myricetin and elemicin to do that, while also boosting the creation of mood improving serotonin and dopamine. In the case of nutmeg, adding just a pinch to your food can help.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

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What Is The Paleo Diet?

Published by superadmin on April 26, 2020 | Leave a response

No matter where you live, Louisville, KY, or other city, you probably have heard of a variety of different diets, including the Paleo Diet. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a diet based on what man probably ate during the Paleolithic era. It’s also called the caveman diet for the same reason. Why would you go back to that type of menu? Those who practice it and follow the diet say it’s more like eating what the body is matched to genetically, before the era of farming.

What food is in the Paleo diet?

Most Paleo diets consist of fish, fruit, vegetables, lean meat, nuts and seeds. That would have been the menu of the hunter/gatherer before farming developed and dairy, legumes and grains were added to the diet. The foods allowed that proponents say we’re genetically programmed to eat are listed and those that aren’t healthy, besides dairy, legumes and grains, include salt, vegetable oil, processed food and refined sugar.

Some of the choices are commendable and a top priority for healthy eating.

Laying off added sugar and extra salt definitely won’t hurt anyone in normal circumstance, with the added exception of someone that has sweat to the point of depletion of electrolytes from salt. Here, we’re talking about the tons of extra salt added to each meal. Giving up processed food is also part of eating healthy and will get no objection on my part.

Where a Paleolithic diet might be bad.

The Paleo diet includes consuming a higher amount of fatty meat and red meat. That can lead to a higher level of LDL—the bad cholesterol. It also increases the risk for bowel cancer and can be as much as four times more saturated fat than recommended by the American Heart Association. If your diet is too low in carbs, it can also cause quicker exhaustion if you’re participating in rigorous and long duration aerobic workouts. Finally, the exclusion of both grains and dairy can lead to less fiber, calcium, B-vitamins, iron, selenium and magnesium.

In the short term clinical trials, a Paleo diet proved superior over other dieting styles, such as the Mediterranean diet when it came to controlling blood pressure, glucose tolerance, lowering triglycerides, weight loss and appetite management.
While you might lose more weight in six months with a Paleolithic diet, studies on obese women show that the benefits weren’t the same at the two-year mark, where weight loss was about the same.
Even though weight loss was approximately the same at 24 months, the study also showed the Paleo group lost more fat, had a reduced circumference, indicating less visceral fat and improvement to triglyceride levels.
The best way to lose weight and remain healthy is still through a balanced diet of healthy food. We can help you with a diet that includes meal plans, recipes and even grocery lists to help make weight loss easier.

For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training

Posted in Fitness & Wellness