Fitness & Wellness

Best Ab Exercises For Women

Best Ab Exercises For Women

If you’re female and want a curvy look that includes a narrower waist and flat stomach, you want to focus on ab exercises for women. Abs include transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis, internal obliques and external obliques. If you want a flatter stomach, you need to strengthen those muscles, plus work on other core muscle groups. If you want a flat stomach and a sculpted outline, you also need to get rid of the fat that covers them. You can’t spot exercise to get rid of the fat. You have to lose weight all over. Eating healthy should be the start of your quest to get strong ab muscles and a great looking appearance.

One of the easiest ab exercises to learn is the plank, but it’s the hardest to do.

The plank might look simple, but it’s tough to do. It works your entire core, including the abs. You can do it anywhere you have privacy and it doesn’t require equipment. Tired of watching commercials, waiting for your program to come back, do a plank. Lay with your stomach on the floor and toes touching. Your arms should be directly under your shoulders with the forearm on the floor. Lift your body until it’s a straight line with upper arm vertical and the weight on your toes and forearm. Hold for a minute or as long as you can. Increase the holding time as you build strength.

Try a yoga pose called Navasana.

Sit on the floor with your legs in front and knees slightly bent. Lean back slightly as you bring your feet toward you to form a V with your legs. Stretch your arms in front of you parallel to the floor and level with each other with palms facing. Hold. Tighten your abs to help maintain that position and steady your balance. Hold the position for as long as you can and increase the length of time as you get stronger.

Modify those sit-ups.

Do regular sit-ups with two changes. Your feet should be in butterfly position with legs bent and feet touching is the first change. The second change is requires a rolled-up towel, placed behind your lower back to keep your spine supported and force the abs to do the work. Lay back on the towel and then lift your upper body, exhaling as you rise. Inhale as you lower your body.

  • Include a bicycle crunch to get fast results. Lay on the floor with hands behind your head, lift your head slightly off the floor keeping your hands behind your head. You’ll lift your legs off the floor one at a time as though you’re riding a bike and touch the opposite elbow to your knees, as you do.
  • You’ll be amazed at how much belly fat can disappear when you do strength training and focus on cutting out added sugar and extra caffeine.
  • It may sound simple, but jumping rope can be an excellent way to take off belly fat. It builds the abdominal muscles as it burn calories and gives a great aerobic workout.
  • Improve your posture and try a daily suction exercise. Stand as tall as you can and attempt to pull your stomach in until your belly button hits your spine. You can make it easier by bending and blowing out all the air out of your lungs, pulling in your stomach and then standing straight and holding.

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


Why Can't I Lose Weight?

Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

When people come to Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY, they often feel they simply can’t lose weight and that their body isn’t capable of it. That’s simply not true. While there are conditions that make weight loss more difficult, there are also ways to improve the condition and help you on the road to normalcy. Hormonal imbalance, chronic stress, inflammation and many other conditions respond favorably to a change of diet and a program of regular exercise. No two people are exactly alike, which is why we focus on your needs and problems.

Change your diet and reduce inflammation, calories and additives.

Diet makes the biggest difference in weight loss. Most people who want to lose weight first try dieting. Actually, diets don’t work, at least not in the long run. What does work is healthy eating. Eliminating processed foods, cutting out foods with added sugar and processed flour goes a long way to aiding in weight loss. Those types of food often trigger inflammation, which interferes with the normal weight loss process. More whole foods and fewer processed foods often results in lower calories and a reduction of insulin resistance, which also helps weight loss.

Of course, exercise should be part of the program.

While you can’t out exercise a bad diet, you still need to get more active if you want to lose weight. Exercise helps burn more calories. It also helps burn off the hormones of stress. One of those hormones is cortisol, which is linked to belly fat. Stress can cause weight gain and make it harder to lose weight. Exercise and a healthy diet can help get your hormones back on track and aid in normal weight loss. Not only will you lose weight, you’ll feel fabulous.

Are you eating more than you realize or emotionally eating.

Sometimes people eat a snack on the go. Maybe it’s grabbing a quick candy from the candy bowl as you pass a cohort’s desk, or you “clean the bowl” after dinner, eating those last few spoonfuls rather than store them. Emotional eating is also a problem. Do you crave crunchy things when you’re angry or sugary treats when you’re sad? Keep a food journal and log in everything you ate. If you had an emotional experience right before eating, list that as well. You’ll learn a lot about yourself and your eating habits.

Do you understand portion control? Too often we overestimate what one serving looks like and consume several portions at once. Snacks are particularly notorious for this, since their serving size is often far smaller and you eat more.

Depression can actually cause weight gain. Luckily, a healthy diet and regular exercise are good for both weight loss and depression

Maybe you don’t get enough sleep. Lack of sleep can cause an imbalance of the ghrelin—hunger—hormones and leptin—satiety—hormones. Get more sleep and you’ll feel less hungry naturally.

Are you drinking enough water. Studies show that people who increase their water intake to at least eight glasses a day can increase their ability to lose weight.


What Is BMI?

What Is BMI?

BMI stands for body mass index. It’s one measure of your overall health, but not the final one. BMI uses a chart to calculate a number that shows whether you’re underweight, healthy, overweight, obese or extremely obese. It’s reached in a simple manner. Just find the patient’s height at the side of the chart and weight at the top. Where the two intersect, it’s their BMI. There are charts specifically for men, women and children. If you’re a 5’8″ woman and weighed 140-pounds you’d be listed as healthy, but if you gain twenty pounds, you’d be listed as overweight.

The height-to-weight ratio is important, but there are still flaws.

One problem with using the BMI number, which ranges from 9 to over 30, as an indicator of health is that everyone is different. Someone who has a big bone structure will weigh more than someone who has a smaller frame and that’s not accounted for using BMI. People with more muscle mass may weigh more and be healthier than someone with the same measurements, but lots of fat. Muscle weighs more than fat tissue does.

It’s not perfect, but it helps.

If you’ve been going to the same health care professional for quite a time and suddenly he or she sees your BMI change, with the number moving either way, up or down, it’s time for your health care professional to take a second look and ask some question. What did you change? If you are losing weight, were you trying to lose it? Did you start an exercise program? Is there something wrong that’s causing you to lose weight? If you’re BMI is constantly increasing, it’s time to take action and do something about the weight gain.

Tracking your BMI compares your weight and height to options considered healthier.

It may not be the perfect measure of good health, but it’s an easy way to start. People with a high BMI have a bigger risk of developing conditions like arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, high cholesterol, liver disease, colon, breast or prostate cancer or sleep apnea. Combined with other medical information, it can help the health care professional identify problems earlier and more precisely.

  • A new technique called RFM—relative fat mass index—includes waist measurement replacing weight as part of the calculation and is far more accurate, while also being just as easy to calculate.
  • Other alternatives to BMI, besides RFM, are far harder to do and more expensive. They include MRI scans and underwater weighing, which calculates body volume and density.
  • In most cases, BMI is a quick go to, since it identifies problems with weight in 80% of the cases. If someone is fit and muscular, most doctors can see that immediately. Insurance physicals and places where the person isn’t seen, but where just the BMI number is shown is often the problem.
  • Taking waist circumference in addition to BMI is important. Your BMI may show you’re not overweight, but your waist circumference, an indicator of diabetes and other diseases, might say differently. A 40.2 inch waist for men or a 34.6 inch waist for women increases the chance of diabetes.

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


Make Healthy Eating Easier

Make Healthy Eating Easier

If you thought healthy eating was simply too hard to do, there are ways to make it far easier. It may start by simply cutting out food with added sugar. While that sounds easy and makes sense, people often struggle because they’re addicted to sugar. It triggers the same receptors as opioids and creates a bit of a withdrawal. It’s also in most the processed products on the grocery shelves. To complicate the matter, manufacturers use several names for sugar. If you see high fructose corn syrup on the list, put down the product and quickly walk away.

If reading labels is more than you can tolerate after a long day at work, choose a different option.

Switch to more whole foods. These are foods that are less processed and have no additives. Spend your time at the produce section and shop for lean cuts of meat and poultry. Include fresh fish in your diet once a week, but don’t fry it. If you choose peanut butter, find one that has only peanuts in it and nothing else. When choosing fresh fruits and vegetables, include a rainbow of colors. Each phytochemical that creates the color provides a different benefit for the body.

Focus on what you drink, too.

You may be drinking tons of calories and artificial additives that make your body less healthy, plus pack on the pounds. Don’t be fooled by zero calorie or diet drinks, either. Studies show that people who drink diet drinks often have a larger mid-section circumference. Stick with drinks naturally low in calories, such as herbal or green tea and especially water.

Make it super easy.

Choose one of our nutrition plans and use the menus and shopping list provided. You can even save money, since the recipes are designed to use ingredients several ways throughout the week. Cook all the food on the weekend and then just heat and serve throughout the week. It takes the guesswork out of menus and what to eat, while teaching you new recipes and techniques to eat healthier.

  • Always have healthy snacks available. Cube a melon and have it ready in the refrigerator or slice up the celery and have dip ready. When you have healthy snacks ready, you’ll be more likely to eat them.
  • Don’t be fooled by products labeled low fat. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily healthy. Manufacturers often add sugar to make low fat products more palatable. You also need to eat healthy fat to burn fat.
  • Learning to eat healthier is all about making smarter decisions. For instance, you can substitute brown rice for white rice and save calories. Using Greek yogurt instead of sour cream for potatoes is another calorie savings.
  • Focus on how you cook, too. Steaming, broiling and grilling food is far healthier than frying it. Wipe out all deep-fried foods from your diet. Not only do they pack on the pounds, they’re unhealthy.

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


How To Beat The Soda Habit

How To Beat The Soda Habit

It’s a hot day and you want a refreshing drink. What is the first thing you want? If you said water, then good for you. If you said sweet tea or soda, you probably haven’t started working on healthy dietary habits yet. Too much sugar in your diet is harmful to your overall health and soft drinks not only are high in sugar, they’re high in phosphoric acid, which is also unhealthy. Phosphoric acid can lead to poor bone density and osteoporosis. If your soda is a cola or any other high caffeine drink, you’re increasing the potential. It’s time to beat the soda habit and improve your health and lower your caloric intake.

Track your intake.

You might not think you drink that much soda, but you’ll be surprised if you track how much you drink and even when you drink it. Don’t forget to write down the caloric intake each time. Just making yourself more aware of a problem or situation, can often help you control it. You’ll be amazed at how many extra calories you drank. Will you save enough calories to lose an extra half pound a week? That’s 26 pounds over a year’s time.

If you’re having a problem, don’t try to do it all at once.

The sugar in the soft drink is addictive. If you’re drinking cola or other drinks with caffeine, it’s also addictive. Anyone who has given up caffeine can attest to their headache. Unfortunately, many over the counter headache remedies also contain caffeine, so they can’t be used to stop it. Take it slowly and start by cutting your consumption in half. If you started out drinking four cans of pop a day, cut down to two and supplement with water for the other half. Then cut it down to one can a day and keep reducing the amount until you don’t drink any.

Find alternatives to soft drinks.

Do you hate water? Some people do. Why not drink infused water. It’s made by cutting up fruit and/or vegetables putting the pieces in water and allowing it to sit in the refrigerator for a few hours until the flavor is released. Look for a healthy alternative to sweetened drinks. Ice tea with no sugar is an acquired taste. Try it with green tea. It’s healthy and you really can’t drink too much.

  • Keep a bottle of water with you at all times. Sip on it throughout the day, especially when you’re going to be some place where soft drinks are readily available.
  • Ask for a slice of lemon in your water when you go out to eat. You’ll find it quite refreshing and it has many health benefits, especially for diabetics. It has antioxidants that help fight disease and improves your heart health.
  • Don’t give up the sugary soft drinks just to go to low calorie ones. A recent study showed that drinking diet soft drinks can cause your waistline to expand and fat to settle around your mid-section.
  • Give yourself a choice. Giving up soft drinks is a bit like quitting smoking for some people. A friend of mine who quit says she never quit. She keeps a pack of cigarettes available in case she wants one. The pack is three years old and still unopened.

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


Exercises That Relieve Stress

Exercises That Relieve Stress

You don’t have to be in any particular occupation, location or circumstance, stress occurs no matter what you do, or where you live, whether it’s Louisville, KY, or any other place on the globe. Doing exercises that relieve stress can help you live a happier, healthier life. Stress creates hormones that prepares the body for the fight or flight response. If those hormones aren’t burned off, they can create lasting changes that lead to serious conditions. There is scientific proof that exercise helps anxiety, which can come from prolonged stress.

Improve your body and health, while getting rid of stress with an HIIT workout.

HIIT—high intensity interval training—can be used for any type of exercise. It’s a way of modifying the intensity of the workout that helps build muscles faster and reduce stress. You go at peak intensity for a short time, followed by an equal amount of time or longer at a recovery pace. Then, you repeat the process throughout the workout. You can do it with walking, running, any type of workout at the gym or whatever you choose. It burns off the hormones of stress.

Turn up the music and do some fast dancing.

Dancing works very much like HIIT. You move fast and burn off stress hormones, while also varying the intensity. When most people dance, they aren’t constantly in vigorous movement, but have pauses where they sway or make other motions that allow them to catch their breath. Try finding a happy song to dance to and put a smile on your face while you dance.

Learn techniques you can use every day.

Stress never waits around until you’re ready to go to the gym. It hits at all times of the day. You need a tool to help you burn off the hormones of stress. One of the simplest and easiest to use any time, any place, is walking. Maybe it’s why some people revert to pacing during trying times. Studies show that you can reduce the potential for stress-related conditions, like high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes by adopting a walking regimen. It helps quiet your nervous system, release major muscle group tension and makes you breathe more deeply. If you get a chance to walk in a more natural setting, like a park, it’s even better.

  • Tai chi, qigong and yoga all help you relax. The movements are slow and gentle and there’s a lot of focus on the correct way to breathe, which also helps reduce stress.
  • Your time at the gym counts as a stress reliever. No matter what you do at the gym, it helps reduce stress. Any exercise can help you feel better and more relaxed for hours.
  • Exercise also helps improve posture and that can boost your confidence to help prevent some stress. Go for a swim, bicycle, take the kids for a hike or come to the gym regularly to burn off the hormones of stress and help prevent them.
  • Learn ways to control minor stressors. You can start by turning off the TV and getting off social media if you find yourself stressed. Take that time to turn on music and dance, walk or garden.

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


Realistic Ways To Eat Less Processed Foods

Realistic Ways To Eat Less Processed Foods

Is your finest china a Styrofoam container and plastic spoons your best cutlery? It’s time to make some changes and switch to a healthier eating style. You need to eat less processed foods, but it can sound like a tall order, especially if you aren’t a good cook. Here are a few realistic ways and you don’t need to have any culinary skills to make them. Start by buying fresh fruits and vegetables, wash them and prepare them as snacks. Keep your kitchen stocked so when you want a snack, the snacks will be ready for you to eat.

It doesn’t have to be all fresh fruit and vegetables.

Using frozen fruits and veggies can be just as healthy as using fresh. In fact, in most cases, even healthier. The processing, in this case, is okay, if the packaged fruits and vegetables are processed without any additives, frozen immediately and used within a specific time frame. They may have more nutrients than the fresh veggies that had to be picked early for shipping and may have been on the grocery shelf for a few days. Use frozen veggies as you would fresh ones when you cook them. Cook a batch of quinoa and toss in a mix of cooked veggies for a healthy, quick meal.

Cut out sugary drinks and switch to water.

Seriously, you’re probably paying a lot for that bottle of sparkling sugar water called a soft drink. Make a change and switch to water. You can flavor that water by putting slices of fruits and/or vegetables in the water and letting it sit in the refrigerator for several hours. The water picks up the flavor. There are a number of recipes for the infused water. Pick ones you like and you’ll switch off the soft drink in no time.

Do meal planning and prep.

Meal planning takes a little time but it’s well worth the effort. Once you get into the rhythm of doing it, it becomes easier and easier. You use one night a week, usually when grocery adds come out, planning the meals and making a grocery list. You spend the weekend making the meals. Meal planning also leaves few leftovers, since you can use them for other meals. The meals are frozen or kept in the refrigerator so when you get home from work, it’s just heat and eat.

  • Start adding extra veggies to all your meals. Are you going to have scrambled eggs for breakfast, toss in some red sweet pepper, onions or spinach. Making noodles? Add some broccoli, carrots or other veggie.
  • Even if you don’t meal plan, avoid adding processed foods to your cart when you go shopping. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to make new creations when you don’t have the already processed foods available.
  • Do a switch with processed foods. If you love dessert, try a parfait of Greek yogurt, frozen of fresh fruit, half a ripe banana and walnuts or almonds. If you mash the banana into the yogurt and add the fruit and nuts, it’s like a pudding.
  • Make your changes slowly rather than all at once. You don’t have to give up all processed food at once or forever, for that matter. Try something new each week and gradually make changes, before you know it you’ll be eating healthy.

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


Does Fiber Help With Cholesterol Levels?

Does Fiber Help With Cholesterol Levels?

At Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY, clients get the benefit of both diet and exercise expertise. We provide personalized diets that can help you lose weight, lower blood pressure, normalize cholesterol levels and more. They’re based on your needs, preferences, and goals. Many of the diets contain foods higher in fiber since fiber can provide many benefits for the body. It’s often underrated, but necessary for a healthy body.

Fiber has two forms.

Dietary fiber has two varieties, soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber dissolves in water to form a gel. It’s a prebiotic, feeding beneficial microbes in your digestive tract. Insoluble fiber doesn’t digest but provides bulk for your stool to prevent both constipation and diarrhea. Fiber slows digestion, so it helps regulate blood sugar levels and aids in maintaing healthy blood cholesterol levels.

It’s the soluble fiber that lowers your cholesterol levels.

Soluble fiber attaches to cholesterol, binding to it and preventing it from getting into your bloodstream, then going to all parts of the body. That fiber and cholesterol complete the digestive process and exit the body via feces. It only lowers LDL—bad cholesterol—not triglycerides. It doesn’t increase the amount of good cholesterol—HDL—either. Studies show that it can reduce your LDL by 18% if you eat about 30 grams of fiber a day.

You’ll get other benefits from fiber, besides lower cholesterol.

If you want to lose weight, fiber can help. Fiber can make you feel fuller longer. That means you won’t eat as much or snack as often. If you’re trying to lose weight and want to increase your fiber, do it slowly. You can increase it too much, too fast. It takes a while for your body to adjust to the increase and too much can cause excessive gas, bloating and stomach problems. Increase it slowly, over a two week period, to avoid the effects.

Food that contains high amounts of soluble fiber include, but aren’t limited to, most types of beans, Brussels sprouts, avocado, sweet potato, and apples. Insoluble fiber is found in food like green beans, potatoes, and wheat bran.

Fiber makes you feel fuller longer, so it can help you lose weight. The foods high in fiber are often lower calorie, providing bulk and satiety, but not high amounts of sugar.

When you increase your fiber intake, you’ll improve your microbiome. Beneficial bacteria and other microbes feed on the fiber. They ferment it in the colon, which produces byproducts that kill pathogens and bad bacteria.

If you have insulin resistance, it can make losing weight more difficult. Increasing fiber can help reduce insulin resistance. Oats, beans, broccoli, and other high fiber foods can help.


Try Eating Slower

Try Eating Slower

If there were Olympic competition for how fast you could eat, would you win? In today‘s busy world, taking the time to truly enjoy a meal, rather than shuffling it down to get through, is rare. If you can eat a three course meal before your friends finish their salad, leave the table still feeling hungry or feel bloated a half hour after eating, maybe eating slower can help. Not only should you eat slower, you should savor each bite and become more aware of eating each time you put food in your mouth.

There are several ways to eat slower.

Whether you choose to savor every bite, take smaller bites or chew more thoroughly, they all help you slow down your eating. Focusing on each bite and savoring the flavor can help you enjoy the texture and pleasure you get from the food. Eating slower allows the food to get to your stomach and message the brain that you’re full so you’ll eat less and have fewer problems of feeling bloated after a meal.

Enjoying your food and savoring every bite also makes you more aware that you’re eating.

It may sound ridiculous, but too often, people eat without even realizing it. How many times have you passed a candy dish and grabbed a handful of candy without even thinking? Have you ever cleaned up dishes and mindlessly eaten that last bite of potatoes in the bowl or snacked on the food you were making for supper? When you focus on the food you eat you not only eat slower, you become more mindful and aware of all the times you eat without thinking.

Eating slower can change your attitude about food and help you lose weight.

If you’re trying to lose weight, the act of eating is associated with shame and it shouldn’t be. You should enjoy every bite you eat. Just make sure you’re really hungry and not eating out of boredom. You’ll be amazed at how much better that food tastes. You’ll cut out the guilt when you make peace with food and eat slower. You’ll also lose weight because you’ll eat less and find food far less emotionally charged.

  • It takes about twenty minutes before your body gets a message to the brain that you’re full, so eating slower lets that message arrive. It helps prevent that bloated feeling and you’ll leave the table feeling satisfied.
  • One study showed that when people ate mindfully, which promotes slower eating, they averaged a 26-pound weight loss over six months that was long-lasting.
  • Chew each bite thoroughly. Not only does chewing longer promote slower eating, it can aid digestion. Studies show that increasing the number of times you chewed each bite reduced food intake and promoted weight loss.
  • You’ll improve your digestion, absorb nutrients better, reduce mealtime stress and feel more in control when you eat slower. Chew more, take smaller bites and savor the flavor.

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