Fitness & Wellness

People don’t always eat because they need the calories to sustain them. They eat for a number of reasons. Sometimes, it’s emotional and triggered by anger or sadness. Sometimes, eating occurs because, frankly, you have nothing better to do. It’s hard to tell whether you’re hungry or bored in those instances, unless you focus on why you’re searching for food. Before you grab a quick sandwich, try some of these tactics to see if you’re really hungry or if it’s something else you seek.

How do you feel?

If you’re stomach is growling and you haven’t eaten for hours, it’s not difficult to identify hunger. Sometimes, those cravings to eat come when you’re full. That’s when you know it’s something else driving you toward the cupboards and fridge. Real hunger grows slowly and lets you know several times you’re hungry. Emotional hunger occurs suddenly and becomes an overpowering craving for specific foods. These may be emotional comfort foods or crunchy salty ones, like chips. Both types indicate a feeling feeding rather than true hunger.

Try exercising or doing something active.

There’s no doubt that your nibbling was the need for something to do or overcome frustration, anger or sadness, if it goes away when you workout for a while. It doesn’t have to be strenuous, although getting your heart rate up does trigger hormones that make you feel good and burns off hormones from stress. Running up and down stairs for a few minutes is one solution if it’s rainy or dark outside, going for a walk if it’s not, can divert your attention and often work off that irresistible urge to snack.

Have a “to-do” list close at hand.

You can eliminate the urge to eat, while getting more done if you have a “to-do” list in hand. These are active tasks that you can complete in 20 to 30 minutes. They shouldn’t be major projects, but things you wanted to get finished “some day.” Cleaning out a drawer, the top shelf of a closet, moving the couch and sweeping both the couch and floor behind it are a few examples. When you feel that craving come on and know it’s from boredom, start one of the tasks on the list. Make them quick so you can cross it off the list and get the feeling of satisfaction, which often makes the craving go away.
– Do your cravings indicate a nutritional shortage? If you keep finding you have the same cravings, maybe it’s a nutritional shortage. There are a number of stories where pregnant women crunch on ice, only to find they lack iron or vitamin C to absorb it. When they get an adequate amount the craving disappears.
– Drink a glass of water. Sometimes, people eat because they’re thirsty, not hungry. If you drink a cup or two of water and the craving is still there, it’s something else.
– Think before you eat. Give yourself an emotional checkup. Is there anything bothering you? Figure out how to resolve it, even if it means just letting it go.
– Are you feeling deprived? That’s not a surprising emotion if you’re denying yourself some of the food pleasures you enjoy. Start with allowing a small portion of your favorite food as a reward after a week of healthy eating and then move on to non-food rewards, like a new outfit.

If you’ve ever tried to create a workout program on your own, you’ll find there are hundreds of different exercises and many different ways to do them to reap benefits. It can be confusing, which is why we provide the programs live or online. We make sure you get variety in workouts for several reasons. The first is easy. It prevents the boredom that can occur when you do the same workout repeatedly. You simply go through the motions after four to six weeks and eventually that boredom will make it harder and harder to workout, until eventually you quit.

You’ll push past the plateau when you switch your workout regularly.

When you do the same workout repeatedly, plateauing often occurs. It’s when the body becomes too efficient at doing an exercise or specific group of exercises and burns fewer calories. Efficiency is good in our daily life, but when it comes to weight loss, not good at all. You’ll see slower weight loss and less progress, which is why trainers offer a wide variety of workouts to help you accomplish your goals.

When you do the same workout repeatedly, you can develop stress injuries.

Runners often have stress injuries like shin splints, Achilles tendinitis, stress fractures and plantar fasciitis. Those come from doing the same type of movement continuously. You’ve heard of tennis elbow and workout injuries from strength training that start with pain, but if the exercise continues, ends in chronic persistent pain even when not lifting. Overuse injuries mostly occur in older individuals, but if you run constantly, it can happen at any age.

You need to work muscles on all planes to ensure functional fitness.

There are three planes of motion. The first divides the body into left and right halves. It’s called the sagittal plane and encompasses backward and forward movements. Bicep curls and back squats exercise that plane. The second is the frontal plane, that divides the body into a front half and back half. It involves side to side movements, like side bends. The third plane is the transverse plane and that divides the body into the top half and bottom half. When you do twisting movements you’re working that plane. Switching exercises frequently focuses on strengthening muscles on all planes.

There are many muscles in your body, some very small, some large. When you vary your workout, you ensure that you build all the muscles in your body.

Switching your workout is good for both your body and brain. Learning new exercises, like learning movements in ball room dancing, stimulates the creation of neurons in your brain and keeps the ones you have in better health, boosting your memory and aiding your learning skills.

Switching your workout keeps you more excited about exercise. Some people find that it also helps to find a different way to workout, like bike riding, when you don’t go to the gym or exercise with an online program.

Every time you switch your workout, your body has to adapt to the change. You might feel sore for the first few days, until it makes the adaptation.