Fitness & Wellness

Dating can be a challenge. There’s always that awkward silence over dinner in the early stages and that deep rut you’ve ingrained in your dating after doing the same thing repeatedly after months of dating. It’s time to start looking for alternatives that are fun and different from the norm. It would be a double bonus if they could make you healthier in the process. Here are some ideas for flirty fitness dates that will break the ice and make dating less awkward early in a relationship, while jazzing up a longer one.

Whether it’s a first date or a date night after years of marriage, a paint ball date is fun and active.

You won’t have to worry about what to say or feeling awkward and uncomfortable, you’ll be too busy dodging paintballs and running to do that. There’s bonding when you and your date are a team against another couple or stalking each other to see who’s the best if there’s only the two of you. This is the perfect activity for a first date that lets you get together without forced intimacy. It also breaks the monotony of a more seasoned relationship, even if it’s after 25 years of marriage. Make sure that the place you go rents equipment if you don’t own any.

Canoeing the rapids or paddling a two person kayak on serene waters.

Before you decide whether you want a more adventurous outing, such as tackling the rapids or one that’s more relaxing like canoeing or kayaking a placid lake. One will give you more of a chance to talk while the other will let you work more closely together to stay upright. Both require co-operation and communication and make you feel more at ease, focusing much of the attention on the kayaking.

Decide on a healthy meal and then go to the local farmer’s market to get the freshest ingredients.

Shopping together in an outdoor market provides a little exercise, but the biggest benefit is seeing all the great produce and fresh foods the market has to offer. It’s fun to find the fresh herbs and maybe sample the cheese from the local farm that raises grass fed cows or try an exotic fruit or vegetable you’ve never heard of previously. Eating healthy is part of fitness and this type of date could start a trend for your next meals.

• Pack a picnic lunch and go for a hike. Enjoy Mother Nature and find a quiet spot along the way for a romantic picnic. Make something healthy and special for the hike.
• Try indoor skydiving. It’s fun and will leave you feeling light as a feather, while still getting great exercise.
• Try rock climbing. Start with a local climbing wall and learn the “ropes” so to speak.
• Sign up for a boot camp and make this a continuous date night that leaves you fabulously fit.

The older you are, the more you need exercise. The body loses muscle mass faster the more you age. However, there are also some precautions you need to take, particularly if you have health issues. Here are some exercise tips for seniors that can help you get fitter faster and exercise in a safer manner. The first is more of a requirement, than a tip. Always check with your health care professional first and let your personal trainer know of any special needs. You may want to have your trainer discuss any serious conditions with your doctor or health care professional.

Include all types of exercise in your workout.

You have four different types of fitness; endurance, flexibility, strength and balance. As you age, you lose lean muscle mass. That reduces your strength. The aging process, particularly if you don’t exercise, takes its toll on your endurance and flexibility as well. Balance decreases and that can lead to falls with serious complications. To be your healthiest, you need to have a well rounded program that addresses all areas. A personal trainer can help you do this, but you also can do it on your own with a little research.

Walking, bike riding and swimming can build endurance.

You don’t have to have a sophisticated program to build endurance, walking every day can do the trick and be a gentle way to start your workout. Swimming is also good and doesn’t place undue pressure on joints. Strength training is important to help reduce not only muscle loss, but the bone loss of osteoporosis. It can improve balance in the process. Besides a program of strength training that can involve weights or resistance bands, seniors can use every day activities to build up their arm strength. Carry grocery bags, use soup cans as weights and do a set of curls or other strength building exercises when you think of it. Everything is a weight when you lift it…but make sure it’s not too heavy for you and you’re using proper form.

Take dance classes, yoga or do a stretching routine for flexibility.

Dancing can provide endurance training and some types of dancing add to flexibility fitness. Yoga is known for improving flexibility, just as stretching is. If you’re unable to go to a gym or other type of flexibility training, doing a routine of stretches at home can help. We have online training with routines to help you in every area so you can start working out at home.
– Enjoy your fitness program. It doesn’t have to be all sweating and grueling workouts. Getting exercise can be any activity that’s both fun and physical.
– Workout with others to get both social benefits and physical ones. Studies show that a healthy social life can improve your health. When you workout with others, you’re more apt to stick with the program.
– Combine a program of exercise with healthy eating to maximize the benefits.
– Go slowly. You can’t reverse years of inactivity all at once. Start your program slowly and increase little by little. You can break up your workout to several sessions, too. Instead of one long 40 minute workout, four short ten minute ones may be more reasonable, at least until you get fitter.

If you’ve fallen off the workout wagon, getting started again can be scary, but it’s even worse if you’re starting to workout again after surgery. The type of surgery you had also makes a difference. The first thing you must do is make sure you have your health care professionals okay to begin working out. Even if you feel good, there are many factors to consider. Your doctor is your best source of information for when to begin your program of exercise.

You’ve got the okay, now what?

Muscles atrophy from lack of use. Smaller muscle groups may take as little as 72 hours to start the process. Larger ones take longer. You’ll probably have at least a little atrophy and the older you are, the more you can expect. When you do go back to the gym, it’s time to take it slowly. You might want to rush right back where you left off before the surgery, but your body probably won’t be ready.

Realize that you may need to make some adjustments in form.

Depending on the location or type of surgery, you may have to modify the form you use for each exercise. If there’s injury to one side of the body, such as a torn ligament in one arm or leg, cross education may help build that side while it heals. There is research showing that exercising the uninjured side can actually help build up the side that’s injured or at least slow atrophy.

Work with a personal trainer or physical therapist.

Physical therapists may be the first place to start, particularly if you’ve been in a cast or had surgery that impedes the workout a great deal. However, once they give the okay, the next step to getting back to prime is to work with a personal trainer. The trainer will work closely with our health care professional and create a program that will get you back on path, but at a pace that’s right for you.
– See if you can take walks to help stay in shape while you’re on the mend. It helps slow the muscle atrophy, but is a gentle exercise.
– Don’t ignore pain. Pain is our body’s way of messaging us that something is wrong. More than ever, after surgery you need to listen to the message.
– Make sure you eat healthy. You’ll need all the nutrients you can get to help put you on the road to recover, but don’t want to gain excess weight that will take a time to
lose once you’re back on your feet.
– Stay hydrated. Flushing the toxins out of your system and keeping your body hydrated is important. Make sure you drink plenty of water.

Don’t let one slip or even several days or weeks of neglect stop you from looking and feeling your best. It’s time to get back on the fitness wagon. Even if you fell off the wagon, then sold it for money for Oreos, it’s never too late to start over and get back into the routine of working out. One thing about exercise, it’s not a task, like doing laundry, where if you let it go for a few days, you can catch up again in one night. It takes time to get back on track, so you may have to take it slowly at first.

Sure, you messed up, but don’t let that stop you.

When you were learning to walk, you fell, stumbled and didn’t do it well at all. You never let that stop you. Slipping up and falling off the wagon is part of learning a new lifestyle. Some people get it immediately and once they start, it’s part of their life forever. Most people start and stop several times until they find the right motivation or learn to make it a habit in their life.

Were you in front of an open refrigerator all night?

Healthy eating is one of the biggest problems people face. They often feel that if they cheat on their diet or healthy eating habits, it’s all over but the shouting. That’s not true. In fact, there are cheat days built into healthy eating. Sometimes, eating a bit of the food you’re craving helps you stick with a healthy eating plan. In fact, eating more than normal on occasion may even help you shed weight by letting your body feel as though food is plentiful. Chalk up that eating marathon to a bad day and get back on track.

Are you feeling too tired to go to the gym.

When you’re tired, what you may actually need is a little exercise to get your blood circulating. However, if you’ve been working out furiously and not taken any time away from the gym, you may have overworked your body. Examine your workout habits and see if you really need rest. That’s not falling off the wagon but giving your body time to mend. Your personal trainer can help you identify the problem.
– Decide to workout for just ten minutes. If your exercise program has been put to the side, use the ten minute theory. Put on some music, run in place, do a few squats. If you feel like doing more time, go ahead. Otherwise, try ten minutes a few more times throughout the day.
– Take it one day at a time. Rather than say you’re going to eat healthy from now on, say you’re going to eat healthy tonight…and do it. Little by little get back to old healthier eating habits.
– Work with a personal trainer. If your exercise wagon crashed and burned, a trainer can help you create a new one.
– Switch your routine around to have more fun. Add fun activities like bouldering, bike riding and even Kangoo jumps to the workout.

Comfort foods are often high calorie foods that tickle your taste buds and lower levels of stress. While you do have to beware of comfort foods, they really do provide stress relief, but not just from the pleasure of eating them. It’s from the neural activity it causes. One study on mice showed that rats under duress responded to sugar water, their comfort food, and displayed signs of reduced stress. When the liquid bypassed their taste buds and went directly to the stomach, there was no relief. That says comfort foods work only when they linger on the palate for a few moments and set off the taste buds.

Find a substitute for the food you crave.

All foods have certain characteristics. Sure, all comfort foods hit the taste buds, but sometimes it’s more than that. Sometimes, you need to hear the crunch and feel your jaw working. Crispy crunchy snacks are often your weakness in this case. Tooth grinders and clenchers often find these types of crunchy snacks best. Try a crisp apple instead of pretzels or chips. Salty foods are also important food cravings and again, chips might be your answer. Substitute with air popped popcorn. In the experiment on mice, a sugar substitute worked to replace the sugar water.

Find a physical outlet.

Whether you’re angry or sad, exercising helps. Stress of all types produce stress hormones that leave you feeling terrible. In order to get rid of that feeling, working out, not eating, is the answer. You need to do something active, to mimic the fight or flight response, which is what nature meant to happen. Run up and down stairs, take a brisk walk or do anything that gets your body moving. It works to eliminate that feeling of frustration, anger, sadness or just general depression and the blahs.

Identify what causes the urge to eat the comfort food.

You have to know what the problem is in order to solve it. Taking the time to chart your cravings and the events that led up to them is important. If you find you want comfort food every time you visit a friend, is there something lacking or wrong with your relationship? Does your work make you want to grab a big bowl of mashed potatoes or is it frustration with your budget? Work on solving the problem or learning to deal with it. The first step is always admitting one exists, not hiding out in a big helping of food.
– Learn portion control. You don’t have to give up comfort food, just limit the intake. Combine it with fresh veggies or other healthy snack. I have a client that loves mashed potatoes. Now, instead of eating a bowl full, she puts a small amount in a dish and uses it as a dip for celery. She gets the taste, but in a far smaller amount.
– Use fruit to quench that craving for something sugary. Make sure it’s one of the sweet fruits, such as bananas or grapes.
– If you love ice cream, make your own low calorie, healthy alternative. Slice a banana and freeze it on a tray, then mash or blend it until smooth. It tastes cool, creamy and a lot like ice cream.
– Fried foods are often at the top of the list. Baked alternatives are a good choice. Try some baked sweet potato fries. Experiment with various healthy foods until you get the same sensation of your comfort food.