Your exercise tip
– Losing weight: Are you doing it the hard way?
If you are trying to lose weight, but it feels like you are taking the hard road, with trials and hurdles at every turn, go back to these basics.
Firstly, keep regular patterns of 150 to 300 minutes of cardiovascular exercise each week. This needs to be at a moderate (where you can have a conversation but need to take deep breaths mid and end sentence) or vigorous (when you are getting quite breathless, exerting quite hard and are sweating) level.
Secondly, eat less. It is that simple.
Thirdly, lift weights at least once a week. This will ensure that you burn calories at a higher rate when you are not exercising (referred to as having a high metabolism).
Lastly, change your routine regularly. Add hills on your walks and go up and down more than once. Vary the sets and repetitions that you use at the gym with your weights.
The choice is yours – the hardest path or not?
Your health tip – Fruits and the benefits – are you eating enough?
The fruit food group is one that is often overlooked by people who are aiming to lose weight, due to the uncertainty about the sugars (fructose) they contain. There are many pieces of literature that scorn the consumption of fruit as part of a healthy diet. Fructose from fruit has very different effects on the body, in comparison to fruit juice or fructose added as a sweetener.
Having a variety of fruit in your diet can add essential dietary fibre, vitamins A, C and E, and a host of essential minerals. It is recommended that we have two serves (for example a cup of fresh fruit diced or a banana) each day.
Exercise of the week
This week we are looking at a leg strengthening exercise in the gym called the 45-degree leg press. This is an exercise that isolates most of the leg muscles and allows a person to build good strength and shape. Tips for this exercise are:
- Breathe out when you push the weight upwards.
- Keep your abdominals braced at all times. If you have sensitive knees, do not go any lower than a 90-degree bend.
- Keep your heels flat on the plate at all times.
- If it hurts, stop.
Your life tip
Try not to use your electronics before sleep. It does not turn off the mind.
This week’s wise words
“Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.”
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Have a great week and keep healthy in 2017. David.