Fitness & Wellness

Herbs That May Boost Your Energy And Focus

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

We’re here at Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY, to help you achieve your goals. Many people want to lose weight, almost everyone wants to feel and look their best, but did you know that regular exercise and a healthy diet can boost your energy and focus, too. When it comes to nutrition, the herbs and spices you add can also make a difference. Both herbs and spices do more than just add amazing flavor, they add nutritional benefits with little or no additional calories. That’s a win-win situation.

It may not be coincidence that sage means wise and is the name of an herb.

Sage has been used for centuries. In fact, its genus name, salvia, comes from the Latin word to heal. Sage has chemicals in it, such as rosmarinic acid, luteolin, quercetin, camphor and apigenin. Those may help increase cognitive abilities in adults and are definitely good for the brain. As a supplement to the diet, it increases alertness and improves memory and mood. Sage inhibits AchE—acetylcholinesterase—which affects the neurotransmitter acetylcholine by breaking it down. Acetylcholine is necessary for memory and attention.

Peppermint gives you fresh breath and helps your brain.

Whether it’s candy canes at Christmas, toothpaste or that refreshing soap for the shower, peppermint smell brings to mind a pleasant memory or vision of cleanliness. In fact, just inhaling peppermint can increase your alertness, energy and improve your mood. If you’re cramming for an exam or find you get the three o’clock droop at work, keep some peppermint oil on hand to sniff. You don’t have to consume peppermint to get the value, just put a little on your wrist or a handkerchief and sniff. The scent stimulates blood flow and the brain, which is a great combination. Putting a drop on your neck, temples or over your scientists can help relieve headaches.

Ginseng and gotu kola are both used as supplements.

Almost everyone has heard of how ginseng boosts your energy, but did you know it also improves brain function? The ginsenosides, ciwujianosides and eleuthero-sides are the compounds thought to give it that benefit. In a recent study, it was shown to improve physical performance and fight off fatigue. It’s probably best known for its promise of improved sexual functioning in men. Another herb from the East that’s been used in traditional medicine and often combined with ginseng is gotu kola. It also boosts brain functioning and improves alertness. One study that lasted just two months showed that of the 28 male participants, those who took doses of approximately 750 milligrams benefited the most and had improved memory, alertness and a better mood.

If you’re taking medication, always talk to your health professional if you’re introducing new herbs into your diet. Some herbs interact with medicine and cause side effects. It’s best to be safe than sorry.
Just like peppermint, smelling rosemary essential oil improves cognitive abilities. When you sniff it, it lets the terpenes in the rosemary oil directly affect the brain. Put rosemary oil in a diffuser in the office and watch improved output with fewer mistakes.
While it definitely doesn’t smell as good as peppermint, garlic can also boost your memory and cognitive functioning by bringing relief from fatigue.
Try some tea to boost your energy and brain. Green tea, licorice root tea, and black tea all boost your energy and provide clarity. However, one of the best picker-uppers can be as simple as a tall glass of water.

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

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How To Finally Start Eating Healthy This Year

Published by superadmin on January 17, 2021 | Leave a response

Did you want to start eating healthy this year, but you’re not sure where to start? We can help you. While some people love to dive right into a project and make all the changes at once, others like to dip their feet in the water and change a little at a time. We work with all types of people and understand that. For those that love doing everything at once, just check out our healthy menus on our Fit Meal Formula plan. If you want to start with tiny steps, here’s how you start.

Give up sugar and products with added sugar first.

There’s nothing like doing the hardest thing first and working from there. Giving up products with added sugar is definitely one of the toughest for many people. One of the reasons is that sugar is addictive. Not only does it affect the same receptors in the brain as cocaine, which bring you pleasure, but the more sugar you eat, the less sweet it tastes, so you have to eat more and more for the same enjoyment.

Find ways to add more vegetables to a meal.

Use vegetable noodles, like zucchini instead of lasagna noodles or enjoying the flavor of spaghetti squash instead of pasta. Make up vegetable soup to act as a meal starter or for a warming lunch. If you’re making a sauce, such as spaghetti sauce, add a few extra veggies, like some bell peppers or a little spinach. Add veggies to your smoothies or use a veggie and fruit smoothie for lunch. Roasted veggies or kabobs are delicious and can fill you up, not out. Increase the amount of vegetables you eat and you’ll reduce the amount of higher calorie foods.

Skip those processed foods and eat more whole foods.

All food is processed, since washing food is processing it. We’re talking about highly processed foods. Those types of food have additives, chemicals and often very little nutrition. If you want a snack, opt for fresh vegetables with dip or yogurt with fruit. In fact, you can make a delicious parfait by layering Greek yogurt, frozen cherries chopped in pieces and walnuts or sliced almonds.

Make sure you have a healthy protein with your meal. Healthy protein can come from animals or plants. Fish, eggs, poultry, nuts, beans and lean beef are good examples. Protein leaves you feeling fuller longer, so you eat less.
A simple way to ensure you get the maximum amount of your vitamins each day, make sure you have a rainbow plate of food at each meal. Choosing fruits and vegetables that have a wide variety of color means they offer a wide variety of nutrients and phytonutrients.
Do you drink soft drinks? Change to water. Even diet cola can affect your waistline and put on visceral fat around your middle, according to recent studies. Visceral fat is the worst type of fat and hardest to lose.
When you’re ready, we’ll be ready with healthy menus, shopping lists and an easy way to ensure you’re eating healthy every day. We make it easy for you to stick with healthy eating.

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

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Best Drinks To Have Before Bed

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

Getting a good night’s sleep is extremely important. Not only does it help you concentrate better the next day, it can actually help you lose weight or prevent weight gain. A good night’s sleep improves your athletic performance and can improve heart health, too. It’s an important factor in preventing depression, as well. Reducing inflammation and boosting your immune system are highly important for your overall health and a good night’s sleep can do it. What you drink before you retire to the bedroom makes a difference. Here are some drinks to have before bed.

Hot chocolate is soothing, but warm milk helps you sleep better.

A cup of hot chocolate often comes with fond memories, like Christmas morning or an evening around the fire with family. Sure, a cup of cocoa or hot chocolate can help you sleep, but the chocolate contains stimulants. It’s better to opt for warm milk instead. Milk has calcium and calcium aids sleep. It also is warm and prepares your body for sleep. It aids with stress reduction, too. The tryptophan in milk helps your brain to slow nerve activity.

Herbal tea is good before bedtime.

You’ve probably heard that chamomile tea is calming and good for insomnia. It helps lower stress levels and can aid in getting better sleep. Other herbs such as valerian, also have a soothing, destressing action. Green tea contains theanine and that can promote good sleep. It lowers the stress hormones that tend to keep you awake. Add some ginger, orange peel, honey or peppermint to your tea to improve the results.

A glass of cherry juice can help bring on the ZZZZs.

Cherries are known to boost the quality of your sleep. It’s the tryptophan content in cherries that make it a great sleep aid. Tryptophan is required to make melatonin that regulates your sleep/wake cycle. Cherries also have melatonin. Tart cherries have the most. One study found that drinking a cherry juice concentrate improved nightly rest. Another study showed that people who drank two cups of cherry juice a day boosted their sleep time by an hour and 24 minutes, while relieving symptoms of insomnia.

Ashwagandha, also known as Indian ginseng, has been used to treat stress and anxiety. The root has compounds that increase sleep and the leaves promote non-REM sleep, which is when the body regenerates bones and tissue.
Who doesn’t love the smell of peppermint? While the smell of peppermint may be invigorating, drinking peppermint tea may help you sleep. The reason hypothesized is it does that by relieving gastrointestinal problems that may be keeping you awake.
Opt for golden milk, which is better than regular milk. Golden milk contains ginger, milk and turmeric, with all three providing compounds that help you sleep in a different way.
If you can’t drink regular milk or simply want an alternative, warm almond milk is good for sleep. Almonds have minerals and other compounds that promote sleep and help you sleep sounder.

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

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Which Cardio Burns Belly Fat?

Published by superadmin on December 25, 2020 | Leave a response

No matter how hard you work your abs, if you have a layer of fat covering them, nobody can see your hard work. While spot exercises create strong underlying muscles, when you lose weight, you lose it all over your body, not just in one spot. So finding the cardio that burns belly fat the best is actually finding one that burns the most calories.

Cardio may not be the best way to lose belly fat.

The truth is, the best fat burner is a combination of strength training and HIIT—high intensity resistance training. Strength training builds muscles as it burns calories and muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue does. HIIT isn’t a type of exercise, but a way of doing any exercise. It bounces between going at top intensity for a short period, such as 30 seconds to two minutes and then dropping back to a recovery intensity for the same amount of time or longer. You can use this technique with any cardio workout.

Take it easy and go walking or running, but modify it to a HIIT workout.

You probably put walking on the back burner, thinking it’s far too easy to burn tons of calories, but what about power walking. In fact, you can set your calorie burning ovens on high by making it a HIIT workout and adjusting the intensity. Not only does HIIT burn more calories in a shorter period, it burns extra calories longer. It increases your metabolism longer after you’ve finished exercising.

Bicycling can also be a HIIT workout and burn fat quickly.

No matter what type of exercise you do, including bicycling, using the HIIT technique helps burn more fat and that includes more belly—visceral—fat. In fact, some studies show that people doing HIIT workouts three times a week for a 20-minute session, lost not only fat, but inches around their waist, indicating belly fat disappeared, too. Burning off the visceral fat is not only good to flatten your stomach, but also important to your health. It’s the most dangerous type of fat to your health.

If you need to lose belly fat—which translates to losing weight—but have bad joints, try an elliptical workout. It’s a good cardio workout that doesn’t pound your joints like jogging and other types of exercise.
Remember to make your daily life more active to burn fat. You can run up and down stairs to burn calories and those burnt calories mean fat loss, which can also cause you to lose belly fat.
Create circuit training to burn belly fat. You can create a workout that burns fat more quickly. Just shorten the time between exercises to maximize the results.
No matter what type of exercise you do, what you eat is important. In fact, to get rid of belly fat, eating healthy should be your first step, with exercise forming the second.

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

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Why Running Outside Is Better

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

Louisville, KY, is beautiful, which is one big reason that running outside is better. There are so many things to see and enjoy that it makes running better and less of a chore. If you’re running to some place, like a local coffee shop or to the store, all the more reason to enjoy a run. Are there other reasons beside enjoying the landscape, a purposeful run or visual enjoyment? There are.

While some treadmills offer adjustments to the incline, most don’t have a downward incline.

Going down hill always seems easier, but it’s also quite necessary. It helps strengthen the muscles in the front of your legs. Treadmills also can’t simulate twists and turns in the road. Treadmills don’t have an uneven surface like you might find on a trail, which makes running more challenging and works you harder. You get all those movements when you run outside. It works your muscles in more ways than a treadmill does.

If you run outside and not on a treadmill, you can do it anywhere.

Are you going on a vacation? Unless you’re staying at a hotel with a treadmill, you’re out of luck if that’s the mode of exercise you choose. However, if you run outside, it’s not a problem. You can do it anywhere and it could be a great way to get to know a city and watch the city start to bustle if you do it early in the day.

Breathing fresh air and getting out in the sun is healthy.

You’ll soak up more sunshine and that means an increase in vitamin D, when you workout in the fresh air. Studies also show that working out or running outside can lower your blood pressure, compared to running on a treadmill in the gym. There’s no drive to the gym, so you’ll save plenty of time and take less time getting to and from the gym.

Running outside can add variety to your workout and give you a break from the norm. That can help prevent burn out and increase your desire to stick with your exercise program.
If your run includes a local park or playground, you can take a break and use the equipment for some upper body workouts on the monkey bars and jungle gyms. There’s a wealth of workout equipment that is fun to use.
No matter where you run, you’ll get the benefit of boosting your cardio fitness and aid in keeping bones strong. Studies show that weight bearing exercise like running is even better than some medication for osteoporosis.
A personal trainer at Body Sculptors will be happy to design a program that includes alternating gym workouts and outside exercise. We believe working out, no matter where you do it, is important.

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

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Diets Without Meat

Published by superadmin on December 5, 2020 | Leave a response

You might be surprised at how many diets without meat there are. If you think of vegans immediately, it isn’t too surprising. That’s what people normally consider, a diet that has absolutely no animal products. Vegans not only cut out meat, fish, eggs and dairy, they also exclude food that contain those products. That includes food that has gelatin in, which is made from animal parts. Sweets, fruit snacks, many confections and even the frosting on Pop Tarts has gelatin. Any food with milk or eggs in the ingredients are not in the diet.

A lacto-vegetarian diet includes milk.

If you’re a lacto-vegetarian, you don’t eat meat, poultry, fish or eggs, but you do have dairy in your diet. Milk is allowed, so is cheese, yogurt and butter. If eggs are added to the diet, it’s a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet. By adding milk and eggs, it makes it easier to get all the types of protein that otherwise requires combining plant proteins for a strict vegetarian to achieve a completion. In the same vein of thought, ovo-vegetarians include eggs, but not dairy.

Pesco-vegetarians eat fish and seafood.

You get a wider variety of food as a pesco-vegetarian, also known as pescatarians. These people do not consume poultry or meat, but do include fish of all types in their diet, including shellfish. They may or may not include eggs and dairy, besides the fruits, vegetables and grain they consume. This type of diet tends to mirror a Mediterranean diet. It’s considered one of the healthiest diets by some and probably the easiest to follow. The Omega-3 fatty acid from the fish is just one reason for that.

There’s even a word for people that eat meat, but not much of it.

If you’re a flexitarian, you’re more of a vegetarian than a carnivore. You eat meat, but tend to eat more plant based protein than animal protein and get most of your calories from plant sources. While you aren’t restricted to fish or strictly vegetables, that tends to be what is on your plate. Cutting back on meat, having several days a week that are meatless, tends to be done more for health reasons, than moral or environmental reason. It’s far easier to design a balanced diet for a flexitarian than it is for other types of vegetarians, since everything can be consumed. It’s just a matter of how much.

Even if you aren’t a vegetarian, having a meatless Monday might be a boost to your health, but only if you’re replacing that meat with a healthy option.
Some people start out with one day a week meatless for their health and find out it makes a big difference in their budget and extend it to more days for even more savings.
Meatless meals and diets are catching on across America. You’ll find that even fast foods offer meatless options.
If you’re going vegan, eliminating all animal products, from your diet, study how to get a complete protein for each meal by making food combinations. Peanut or nut butter on whole wheat bread is one way and whole grain rice with beans is another.

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

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What I Wish I Knew Before I Started Working Out

Published by superadmin on November 25, 2020 | Leave a response

People often ask me what I wish I knew before I started working out and that’s tough to answer, since I fell like I’ve always been active and have been doing this for a while and forget. However, after working with so many people, I hear comments and remember many of the misconceptions that I had when I first started to get fitter. My first realization was that it all started with healthy eating and that a great body begins in the kitchen, not the gym.

Everyone needs to find his or her own motivation and set their own goals.

No matter how much you want to motivate someone, if you don’t find out why they want to look and feel better through a healthier lifestyle, you simply can’t. People need to have a personal reason and a personal motivation for those times that going to the gym isn’t a top priority. Nobody can give you that motivation or set your goals. Those things must come from you. If you’re here because your doctor said to come, then staying healthy is your goal and seeing your kids have kids or enjoying a healthy life longer.

Seeing progress takes time.

One of the biggest misconceptions, and often one of the most detrimental to your workout program, is the desire to see immediate results or thinking that you’ll get the same results every week. It took time for you to get out of shape or overweight and takes time to get your body back into shape. You should track your progress, doing everything it takes to see weight loss and a difference in your appearance, but some weeks you won’t see that progress. That’s because fitness isn’t always linear. We track your fitness to make sure that if it occurs for longer than a week, we make some changes to your program.

NEVER compare yourself to another person or their progress.

No two people are alike. That’s a mantra personal trainers say every day. Their progress will go differently, too. Men may lose weight faster than women because they have a higher ratio of muscle tissue. Your neighbor may progress faster when it comes to strength. Don’t compare yourself to anyone, even if you’re the one that’s making the best progress. At some point, the tables will turn, so only compete against yourself.

Fitness can be fun. If you’re looking at the workout in the gym with awe and some reservation, you need to take a step back and reconsider. You can do fun activities to get fit. We even offer small group activities, where you and friends can have fun getting fit together.
You don’t have to go it alone or reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, using the expertise of others is the best route to take to get the quickest results. There’s no shame in getting help from experts in any area.
Scheduling a time and making an appointment with fitness will help you stick to the program. When you are developing a habit, like working out, doing it at the same time encourages it to develop.
Changing your mind about working out and eating healthy makes a huge difference. If you only focus on the negatives and not the positives, you’ll get discouraged really soon. Feel how the workout energizes you and how tasty healthy food can be, not on what you can’t eat.

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

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How To Meal Plan And Hit Your Goals

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

We focus on all aspects of fitness at Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY. Not only is working out important to get to your proper weight and level of fitness, so is eating healthy. In fact, most trainers feel that a great body starts in the kitchen, not in the gym. To make eating healthy easier, planning your meals and preparing them ahead is the best option, especially for busy people. If you don’t know how to meal plan, it’s a process where you create menus, cook ahead and have the meals ready to warm every night. We make it easier by creating the menus for you, but you can do it on your own.

You need to plan ahead so you have all the ingredients.

Creating the menus for the week is probably the hardest part of meal planning. It’s also one of the reasons most people fail to do it more than a few weeks. Finding food you like that has the right number of nutrients, contains fewer calories and uses only healthy ingredients is tough, but still doable. The internet offers a variety of menus from which to choose. However, if you want to save time and have a less stressful way to do it, just use our app. It contains meals designed by nutritionists based on your personal input.

Taking a few hours on the weekend can save time during the week.

If you’re too tired to think about what to eat after a long day of work and often opt for carryout, planning a weekly menu and preparing food ahead is perfect for you. In fact, it’s often quicker than waiting in line at a drive-through. Chop all your fresh vegetables at once for every meal that week. If you’re having melons or other fruit, get it ready, whether it’s dessert or a snack. Use everything. If you’re making a dish with chicken, use the bones to make a broth for a soup later. Bake two main dishes in the oven at the same time, which will cut your time in the kitchen.

Pack your food in individual serving sizes.

Is portion control a problem? If you meal prep ahead it doesn’t have to be that way. When you’re hungry, it’s not the perfect time to decide how much you should eat, nor is it the best time to shop for the week’s groceries. That’s why shopping is done in one day, after you’ve eaten and portions are determined when you cook on the weekend. You can ingredients in a main dish one day, such as green beans, and as a side dish another day.

Don’t forget that leftovers, especially fresh cut vegetables, can go into a soup if they’re not eaten during the week. You can make the broth from left over meat and bones.
Some people save money by checking the food on sale and using in season fruits and vegetables when they plan menus.
Meal planning can save money, since you can include the ingredients in other items that week so nothing goes to waste. You also can make enough for extra servings and freeze it for later.
Planning meals ahead and cooking them over the weekend, lets you get the whole family in on the process. You can take your list to the grocery and have the kids help, while also getting them to help you cook on those days. It’s a good lesson on healthy eating and great family time.

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

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Favorite Health Food Stores

Published by superadmin on November 5, 2020 | Leave a response

I am writing this blog because so many clients ask about the best health food stores and want information on where to go. You’ll really be surprised at my answer. Any grocery with an organic fruits, vegetables and meat selection are the best places for health foods. I love the organic section, but it’s not necessary to buy only organic fruit and vegetables. Food on the Clean 15 list are relatively free from pesticides, so choosing non organic avocados, sweet corn, pineapple, frozen sweet peas, onions, papaya, eggplant, cauliflower, mushrooms, asparagus, cantaloupe, broccoli, kiwi, honey dew melon and cabbage will save you money.

Organic meat, eggs from free-range chickens and butter or milk from grassfed cows are also a high priority.

You might have expected a different answer, but any store that sells these products gets an honorable mention from me. What the animals eat makes a difference. Butter from grassfed cows actually has more nutrients, including conjugated linoleic acid, which is good for heart health. Eggs from free-range chickens have more vitamin D and less cholesterol. Organic meat doesn’t contain hormones and let’s not forget choosing sea food and fish from wild sources.

Go to local Farmer’s Markets for in season fruits and vegetables.

If you want to get food at it’s peak, choose local options. Another source of health food is the Farmer’s Market. Local farmers, particularly those that do organic farming, provide healthy options for all meals. You get to talk to each vendor and get a feel on how they farm and whether they use pesticides. Remember, the healthiest options always contain the least amount of ingredients and no preservatives or pesticides. So starting with fresh fruits and vegetables from locally grown sources is a great idea.

Look for whole food markets and natural food markets for a good selection.

I don’t want to name specific markets, since I like all the local whole food stores and natural markets around and go to several of them, particularly when items are on sale. Some of the healthiest stores I go to actually have some lower prices than you might expect. I focus more on whole foods than nutritional supplements, unless you have a special need that requires supplementing nutrition, such as not digesting food as well.

We’re lucky enough to have many groceries and whole food markets dedicated to healthy eating, but also several healthy options for a dinner or lunch out. If you’re going out to eat, look for natural food options.
If you do meal planning, you’ll save money. It is often a savings that’s more than the extra you spend buying organic.
Grow your own. Some people have a chicken or two for eggs. Others don’t want to be that involved, but raise a garden. Just one tomato plant in a tub can provide both satisfaction and tomatoes for meals.
Shop where you can buy whole foods in bulk. You’ll save money and time getting some ingredients in bulk. If you’re near a pick-your-own farm, it’s a money saving way to get healthy ingredients and have some family fun picking.

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

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