Fitness & Wellness

What Foods Help With Bloating?

Published by superadmin on January 5, 2022 | Leave a response

Whether you feel overly full for hours or simply can’t pull your tummy in or zip your jeans, when you could with ease just a day before, you probably are bloated. There are several ways to approach the problem and even help prevent it. One way is to eat foods that help with bloating. There are two types of bloating. One may occur overnight and may be related to your menstrual cycle. The other occurs immediately after a meal. The first is normally from retaining fluid, while the second is more about the digestive process, the build up of gas and sometimes liquid build-up in the digestive tract.

Maybe the problem isn’t eating foods to reduce bloating, but not eating certain foods.

If the bloating is severe and is followed by diarrhea, maybe you need to identify what caused the issue. You might have a food intolerance or allergy, such as lactose or gluten intolerance. Both of which can lead to sudden gas and digestive upset. Try removing milk products from your diet for a few days or cut out products with gluten and see what happens. Foods high in fructose can also cause bloating. Finally, high fiber foods, while good to prevent bloating, must be increased slowly. If you don’t, you’ll be faced with the problem you’re trying to eliminate.

Make it simple and drink more water or consume more fluid, like chamomile tea.

Sometimes, bloating can occur because you don’t have enough fluid to match the fiber you ate. Drinking more water, particularly before a meal can help. If it’s water retention that caused the bloating, water also helps. It balances out the amount of fluid and sodium in the body and helps flush out the extra sodium. Dandelion tea is also a natural diuretic. Ginger tea helps relieve stomach and digestive issues, such as gas. It increases the movement of food through your system and relieve bloating.

Increase your greens, especially spinach.

Spinach is a good source of magnesium. In fact, one cup of cooked spinach gives almost 40% of the daily recommended amount. Magnesium is important for activating enzymes that help with digestion. It also helps keep the muscles relaxed in the bowels and keeping stool soft. Celery, another anti-bloater, is high in water and also has potassium. Potassium is good to relieve bloating from water retention and the fiber and fluid helps relieve gas. Another salad topper that can help is cucumbers. It is an anti-inflammatory food that can help prevent intestinal inflammation caused by food allergies and gut imbalances.

Toss away those straws, that chewing gum and even cigarettes. They tend to cause you to swallow air that can add to bloating. Even eating fast can be one of the bloating culprits.
Try some yogurt for bloating. It can provide beneficial bacteria to normalize your digestive system. Kefir, sauerkraut and other probiotic foods also help.
Just like the potassium in celery can help reduce bloating, so can the potassium in bananas. One medium-sized banana provides 422 mg of potassium, plus resistant starch. That helps eliminate constipation and gets rid of trapped gas.
Chew on a fennel seed or two after a meal. Fennel is a folk medicine for digestive issues. It also has diuretic properties to eliminate both types of bloating.

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

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

How To Stay Motivated As A Beginner

Published by superadmin on December 25, 2021 | Leave a response

Most people start a workout program excited and determined. Little by little, they lose that excitement and eventually the skip their workout entirely. Before you know it, that one day of avoiding the gym turns to several and then, they’re right back where they started. It’s hard to stay motivated as a beginner and finding out your downfall and ways to avoid it can help.

Working out is hard and makes your body hurt.

This is one of the first reasons people quit workout programs. It really isn’t natural to make yourself work harder. Even worse, your body sometimes hurts a bit. Let’s start by finding ways to avoid this problem. Don’t overdo it to the point that you’re in real pain. Start slowly. Sure you’ll have some sore muscles, but it’s a good kind of sore that says you’ve accomplished something, not the type of soreness where you can’t walk. Stay hydrated and do both warm up and cool down exercises.

Progress is often slower than you’d like.

Even if you make great strides in your progress, it’s still pretty slow for most people. You won’t see a difference the first few weeks, which can drain you of enthusiasm. You may feel different, so focus on that to help keep you going. Start by taking a snapshot once a month. Wear the same outfit and stand in the same spot so you have the same perspective. Track your progress in the gym and see how much you’ve improved from your first few days.

Sometimes, you get too busy to come to the gym.

This is one of those reasons that I hear quite often, “I was just too busy to come last week.” That’s why I always suggest people schedule an appointment in their own time management program. Don’t let the decision depend on whether you have extra time or not. Coming at the same time every day will turn your workout into a habit, and we all know habits are hard to break. Working with a trainer is also a benefit, since you have an actual appointment and someone is holding you accountable.

Change your mindset. Find something positive every time you workout. Maybe you felt less stressed afterward or even felt fabulous. Maybe you noticed you have more energy throughout the day. Find a positive and focus on that.
Set a big goal and break it down to smaller goals that are easier to achieve. If you have to lose 40 pounds, focus on two pounds a week. You’ll get to experience success quicker and success is motivating.
Workout with a friend. If you don’t have a personal trainer, workout with a friend. Just like the trainer holds you accountable and is depending on you to show up, so is your workout buddy.
Celebrate the small successes. While it’s impressive to do several one armed push-ups, choosing a piece of fruit as a snack instead of a candy bar is also impressive. Give yourself a pat on the back for the small successes along the way.

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

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

How To Find The Right Trainer

Published by superadmin on December 15, 2021 | Leave a response

There’s a reason they’re called “personal” trainers. Trainers work specifically to create programs based on you, your needs, goals and present level of fitness. In Louisville, KY, we think we make it easy to find the right trainer by offering a week of free group training or a free personal training consultation. Finding the right trainer can make the difference between being successful and falling short of your goals. There are some things to look for in a trainer.

Personal trainers need to talk to you and ask a lot of questions.

If you want to create a program designed specifically for someone’s needs, goals and fitness level, you have to ask them questions. If a trainer doesn’t spend time learning about you, identifying your fitness level, learning about your dietary needs and even doing a fat analysis, maybe they’re not a personal trainer, but just a trainer who does cookie cutter programs. While everyone has similar needs, to get the best results, you need a program designed specifically for you.

Exercise isn’t enough.

Is weight loss your goal? You also need to change your eating habits. You can’t out-exercise a bad diet. The same is true for building muscles or achieving other fitness goals. You need the raw material for your body to be healthiest, learning to eat healthier is the way to do it. It’s not a diet, but learning how to make smarter choices. Some of those choices can be as easy as choosing fruit over a candy bar, while others may be substituting brown rice for white rice to boost nutrition and save calories.

The workout program shouldn’t be static.

You make progress and get fitter as you workout and your workout program should reflect it. Good trainers not only track your progress, they constantly reevaluate your program to ensure you’re working your hardest. You’ll also get a variety of workouts to avoid plateauing. The body weight plateaus because your body becomes efficient at doing a specific workout and burns fewer calories. With a trainer, you’ll never be bored and always work toward maximum potential.

Good trainers spend time ensuring you know how to do each exercise right. Doing it improperly can cause injury or minimize the benefit.
Eating healthy is a lifestyle change that never ends. It doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to eat your favorite high calorie food, but will eat it less often, keeping portion control in mind.
Trainers ensure you work on all types of fitness, strength, flexibility, endurance and balance. You need all types of fitness to be your healthiest.
A good trainer will help you create goals that are realistic and attainable. He or she will help you break them down to ones that can be achieved more quickly, to provide more motivation.

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

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Reasons To Document Your Fitness Journey

Published by superadmin on December 5, 2021 | Leave a response

Why would you want to document your fitness journey? There are a lot of reasons. First, when you track or document your journey, you’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t easier. When you track what you eat and your caloric intake, plus track your workout, you can see whether you’re eating too much or not working out hard enough or doing things right.

Documenting your fitness journey doesn’t mean just weighing in weekly.

While weight is one measurement of progress, there are many others. For instance, taking body measurements can help show how you’ve lost weight or turned fat to muscle. You’ll lose inches when you do that, even if you don’t lose weight. Muscle tissue weighs more per cubic inch than fat tissue does. That means you may weigh the same, but if you have more muscle tissue, you’ll have smaller measurements. Taking a picture of yourself in the same location and clothing can also help learn the change.

Tracking your workout does two things.

When you track your workout, you can see where you started and how much more you can do. Whether it’s doing more reps or lifting more weight, it gives you an idea of progress. It also helps to have your workout written out and ready so you don’t have to stop and try to remember how many you did or what comes next.

Tracking what you eat can also help.

While the old way to journal your food intake was to have a notebook, where you wrote everything. Today many people use their cell phones to track their food intake. If you’re working with Body Sculptors, we have a registered dietitian who can help you find the easiest way to track your progress and ensure you’ll stick with a healthy plan of eating that’s designed specifically for your special needs and preferences. You can use your cell phone to track your exercise or go the old fashioned route and write it out.

When you document your progress, you’ll also learn a lot about yourself. For instance, if you find you have stomach problems, check your diet and make a note. You may see a pattern and eliminate the problem.
Documenting your progress can also help motivate you. Taking a picture every month allows you to see the difference that occurs slowly on a daily basis. It’s rewarding. Winners keep score.
Documenting your workout and diet is a start, but if you want to feel better and have more energy, document your energy level. How many steps on the stairs can you take without getting winded? Are you exhausted at the end of the day or do you have energy? Track what’s important to you.
You can also document other important numbers besides your weight, like your blood pressure or sugar levels. Exercise and a healthy diet can help normalize both blood sugar and blood pressure.

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

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Get Vitamin D Without Excessive Sun

Published by superadmin on November 25, 2021 | Leave a response

If you’ve heard that you need vitamin D to help boost your immune system, you heard right. Not only do you need vitamin D, studies show about half of Americans are deficient in Vitamin D. The body produces its own vitamin D when the skin is exposed to the sun. In areas like Louisville, it’s impossible to get adequate sun to produce vitamin D in the winter. That means you have to find alternatives get vitamin D another way,

What is vitamin D?

While vitamin D is essential to a healthy body, it’s not really structured like a vitamin and isn’t an essential nutrient. The nutritional definition of essential means the body needs it, but can’t produce it so it must come from food. Our bodies actually make it from sunlight reacting with cholesterol. Unlike vitamins, its chemical structure is more like a steroid hormone—-such as sex or adrenal hormones. Like hormones, it affects the functions of the body and binds to receptors, which triggers specific reactions. Hormones are messengers. All cells of the body react from vitamin D.

Start with the easiest method of boosting your vitamin D, safe sunning.

Safe sunning means getting about 12 minutes of body exposure to the sun at midday in the summer, when the sun is highest in the sky. Do this three times a week if you’re at a latitude above 33 degrees (the same latitude as Atlanta, GA). The further north you are, the more sun you need. If you’re fair skinned, start with less time and for those darker skinned do more, since melanin blocks the sun. The further north you are, the more sun time you need.

Consume food with vitamin D.

Organ meat like liver, contain higher amounts of vitamin D. If you have the opportunity to choose between farmed and wild salmon or other fatty fish, choose wild for it’s higher vitamin D content. The same is true of choosing meat from grass-fed or free-range over factory farm meat and animal products. They also contain higher sources of other nutrients, such as vitamin A, CLA and omega-3 fatty acids. Fortified products like milk, cereal and orange juice are good sources of vitamin D, as are fish roe, eel, cod liver oil and eggs.

Vitamin D not only boosts your immune system, it protects the brain, helps maintain a healthy insulin level and is necessary to absorb calcium properly. It’s important for healthy lungs and heart.
A study of 216 covid patients showed that 80% were vitamin D deficient. Another study showed that people who had dark skin and those who were obese had the largest population deficient in vitamin D. They were also more susceptible to complications of covid.
Safe sunning does not mean completely eliminating sunscreen. It simply means exposing as much skin as possible to the sun for a short time before applying it. The color of your skin and location determines the amount of exposure time.
As you age, your need for vitamin D increases. If you’re under 70, you need 600 IU a day. For those over 70 the amount increases to 800 IU a day.

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

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

The Link Between Sleep And Weight Loss

Published by superadmin on November 15, 2021 | Leave a response

It’s almost a badge of honor to say you’re getting too little sleep. It’s as though you’re working harder, but that’s not always true. In fact, lack of sleep, can affect your productivity at work or at school. It also can make weight loss harder. You burn calories as you sleep and getting adequate sleep can help you burn even more calories.

Too little sleep can cause an imbalance of hunger/satiety hormones.

When you don’t get enough sleep, your body starts producing less of the satiety hormone, leptin, which makes you feel full. It also boosts the production of ghrelin, the hormone that makes you hungry. It’s pretty hard to control your appetite when your hormones that are sending messages to your body are out of whack. Too little sleep can also cause a craving for sugar and sugary treats, to give you a boost of energy.

You’ll slow your metabolism when you don’t get enough sleep.

Your metabolism helps burn the calories you consume, even when you’re not working out or simply sleeping. That can cause weight loss to be even more difficult. One mega study that reviewed a large group of studies showed that those who lacked adequate sleep increased their potential to be obese by 55% if they were an adult and by 89% if they were a child.

What you eat at bedtime may make a difference, too.

Sometimes, it’s hard to sleep and you need a little snack to sleep better. It’s built into our DNA from early man, who kept hunting until he ate. If insomnia that’s keeping you awake, try eating a high protein food, such as cottage cheese. Cottage cheese contains casein protein, which also increases the number of calories you burn as you slumber. You’ve probably heard about drinking a glass of warm milk before bedtime, it’s based on the same principle. It also takes about seven hours to digest, so your digestion will be working throughout the night, while providing protein during the night for muscle repair.

Room temperature can make a difference. A cooler room helps you sleep better, but also help you burn more belly fat. Studies show a room temperature of 66 degrees is ideal for shedding visceral fat.
If you sleep well at night and get enough sleep, you’ll have more energy throughout the day. That can help you stay more active and burn more calories.
There are several degrees of sleep, with deep sleep being the time when you burn the most calories. Creating a sleep schedule and sticking with it, even on weekends, can boost your deep sleep time.
Avoid hitting the snooze button if you want the best type of sleep. When the alarm goes off, get up. You’ll get more uninterrupted sleep that way.

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

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

What Foods Boost Your Immunity?

Published by superadmin on November 5, 2021 | Leave a response

Whether your goal is just to build your immunity to stay fit or ward exposure to an exposure to a virus or bacterial infection, clients at Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY, ask for help finding foods that build immunity.
It takes more than just exercise to be healthy, you need to eat healthy, too. It’s why we offer nutritional advice and help at Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY. If you want to provide the nutrients you need for immunity, you need to eat the foods that provide it. Whether you’re worried about catching the latest variant of Covid-19 or simply want to boost your immunity to stay healthier and avoid the common cold, eating healthier and focusing on immune building foods can help.

Food that contain vitamin D can be a big benefit to your overall immunity.

Studies on patients hospitalized with covid deduced a large percentage had vitamin D deficiencies. Safe sunning is one suggestion, but you can also eat food higher in vitamin D. Milk products and juices are often fortified. Egg yolk, salmon, red meat and organ meat like liver are also higher in vitamin D. Since Louisville is above the 33 degree latitude line, you can’t get adequate vitamin D from the sun year around. Older people, the obese and those with darker skin can also have a problem getting it from the sun.

Fresh fruits and vegetables can provide most the phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals you need.

Eating citrus fruit can provide vitamin C, which is an immune booster. If citrus fruit upsets your stomach, red bell peppers are also high in vitamin C. Foods with bioflavonoids, like anthocyanin, the substance that make purple and deep red fruits and vegetables that color, like blueberries, grapes, blue/purple corn and eggplant are examples. Other foods that help boost immunity provide vitamin A and include cantaloupe, Brussels sprouts, carrots and strawberries.

Sometimes, what you don’t eat is just as important.

Start by cutting out highly processed food and sugary treats. Not only are they absent of nutrients, they contain ingredients that can cause inflammation. Inflammation is the cause of many serious conditions and have few or no antioxidants that can fight free radicals, which can lower your immunity. Conditions caused by chronic inflammation include Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease. Sugar and highly processed foods also can destroy your body’s microbiome. Having adequate beneficial microbes actually boosts your immunity.

Add soluble fiber to your diet to increase the healthy microbes that aid in digestion and boost your immunity. Apples, black beans, avocados, broccoli and pears are high in soluble fiber.
Zinc can boost your immune system. Foods that contain zinc include crab, whole grain foods, lobster, red meat, dairy and oysters.
Spicing up your diet with herbs and spices like cinnamon, garlic, cayenne pepper, black pepper, saffron, turmeric and ginger. Turmeric, for instance, contains curcumin to boost immunity and garlic contains allicin.
You can improve your gut bacteria with probiotic foods like kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut and kim chi. Be careful when you choose yogurt. Make sure it doesn’t contain added sugar.

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

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

The Easiest Way To Get Ripped In 3 Months

Published by superadmin on November 5, 2021 | Leave a response

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Posted in Fitness, Fitness & Wellness, Inspiration, Nutrition