Exercise
Featured Articles:
Exercise Recovery Nutrition Plan: Who Needs It?
by: Connie Limon
How should you refuel your body after exercise? We seem to be
surrounded by commercial recovery foods and fluids. These recovery
foods and fluids offer a combination of carbs and protein, but are
they the best for exercise recovery nutrition?
If you are an athlete who exercises one or two times a day to the
point of total exhaustion, you most definitely need to focus upon
adequate recovery nutrition. A few examples of this type of an
exerciser would be swimmers preparing for competition or even high
school males and females preparing for any type of sport
competition.
For those athletes who need to focus upon an adequate recovery
nutrition plan, you will be better off planning in advance the right
foods and fluids to replace calories, carbohydrates, protein, fluids
and sodium. Your best choices are probably not a commercially
prepared plan.
If you are tired, time is an issue and are without a planned ahead
nutrition recovery plan, the simplest solution is to drink less
water and more cranberry, grape or any other of your favorite fruit
juice. Juices provide the fluid, carbs and calories you need right
after strenuous exercise.
If you need to lose weight and restrict calorie intake you are
better off to fuel your body appropriately in daytime to ensure your
ability to perform during strong workouts. Enjoy a light dinner and
fewer evening snacks. The worse thing you can do is restrict
calories during the day and exercise on an empty stomach.
If you exercise solely for good health and fitness three or four
times a week for 30 to 60 minutes per session, you can be less
focused on recovery nutrition. Your body does not become depleted
during fitness work-outs. You also have plenty of time to
“naturally” refuel before the next work-out.
What is a good recovery nutrition plan?
Since muscles rely on carbohydrates, the athlete should plan to
replenish depleted blood sugar and muscle glycogen within 30 minutes
of post-exercise. It may require some concentration and definitely
some planning to refuel your body with the appropriate carbohydrates
after an intense work-out. Athletes who weigh 100 to 200 pounds need
300 to 600 calories of carbohydrates repeatedly every two hours for
six hours. Now….the worse thing you can do is not plan ahead to have
the appropriate carbohydrates on hand and grab a donut, a hot dog, a
burger or chips right after your intense work-out. These things will
not refuel your blood sugar and muscle glycogen and your muscles
will of course not recover from the demands of strenuous exercise.
If this type of eating continues your health will suffer some dire
consequences. Be wise and plan ahead with the appropriate
carbohydrates. Some quick sources would be an instant breakfast
drink (I use these for myself often and always feel an instant
healthy boost of energy). Fruit smoothies are excellent sources of
carbs, fluids and protein.
Dehydration is indicated by scanty, dark urine. Thirst is a poor
indicator of whether or not you have had enough to drink. If you
become severely dehydrated you may need 24 to 48 hours to totally
replace the loss. To combat severe dehydration sip on an enjoyable
beverage until your urine is pale yellow like lemonade. Fruit
juices, smoothies and milk shakes are better than sport drinks. It
is better to drink orange juice than Gatorade. Orange juice has much
more potassium.
Your best bet is to prevent dehydration altogether. A simple way to
determine how much fluid you need is to weigh yourself naked before
and after an hour of hard exercise during which you drank nothing. A
two pound per hour loss equals one quart. In this example you would
need to drink 8 ounces every 15 minutes of exercise.
When you sweat during exercise you lose sodium. You would have to
sweat hard for more than 4 to 6 hours before you would actually
deplete your body’s sodium supply. An athlete exerciser can easily
replace sodium losses with just a standard diet that offers 6 to 12
times the amount of needed sodium. A sodium recovery diet for
athletes could consist of eating salty foods such soup, pretzels,
salted crackers. Sport drinks are a weaker source of sodium as
compared to soup, pretzels and salted crackers. Should not be too
difficult to pack extra pretzels or salted crackers for your
strenuous work-out sessions.
Muscles need time as well as adequate carbs and calories to refuel
and heal. Take a day off after a hard workout to allow your muscles
to recuperate. Daily hard exercise does not increase performance. It
only increases your chances for injury.
Exercising to Lose Weight or to Become Healthier?
You really should try and separate exercise from weight loss. Think
of exercise as something you do for enjoyment that will in turn make
you healthier, fit and more able to withstand stress. If you need to
lose weight, pay attention to your calorie intake and cut back a
couple 100 calories a day for one year while you exercise for
enjoyment. You should reap rewards both in how you feel as well as
how you look. Taking a day off between work-outs is also recommended
for the exerciser who seeks good health and fitness from their
exercise routines. You need to allow your body to recover and heal.
Overdoing it will not bring you faster or better results. You will
probably end up with injury instead. However, you will not need to
focus upon an exercise recovery nutrition plan. You can still use
the advice given here for athletes, but in general, you will not
suffer any dire consequences if you do not practice an exercise
recovery nutrition plan.
About The Author
Connie Limon. Visit us at http://www.selfimprovementbook1.com and
sign up for our newsletters. Self Improvement Book is a guide to
information about self improvement, personal growth and self help
tips. It is an organized directory referencing information in other
websites on the World Wide Web.
Exercise Treadmills Are The Most Popular Exercise
Equipment
by: Jerry Cahill
Exercise treadmills provide a great way to burn calories and give
basic training to your walking muscles as well as practice your
walking form. Modern treadmills have some pre-programmed workouts to
give you a controlled workout challenge. The treadmill may also have
readouts for heart rate, calories burned, etc. which give you
feedback data so that you can see how you are performing at any
moment. Remember, more speed equals more calories burned. Instead of
increasing the distance, try to speed up, increase the tempo so that
you can stress your body and burn the most calories. According to
the Medical College of Wisconsin study you burn 865-705 calories on
an average with a 60 minutes treadmill workout.
There are a lot of advantages related to the use of exercise
treadmills. First of all, there is the safety factor. Working out at
home, or at the gym is much safer then running outside. And since
you are inside, you have easy access to restrooms, water, and
changing your gear.
Another great thing is that you don’t depend on the weather. You can
even watch TV during your training. And last, but not least, you
have no excuses for missing a workout.
Statistics show us that more than 40 million people buy treadmills
every year and the number of buyers is increasing every year. In
fact if you go into more detailed stats you will find that
treadmills alone account for over one third sales of all home
exercising equipment. So as you can see, treadmills are getting very
popular these days and it looks like they are the better choice when
compared to stair machines, stationary bikes and all other exercise
equipments.
Keep in mind that a treadmill is an expensive purchase, so you must
think wisely before you buy one. Naturally, you want a treadmill
that is affordable, durable and compatible with your body. The
Internet can be of great help when searching for the right one. The
best way to do so is by reading online ratings and reviews given by
experts as well as common people on different brands and range of
treadmills. Also, check the official websites for additional reviews
and the price.
Probably the toughest part is finding a treadmill that is compatible
with your body structure. It is particularly dependent on what
injuries you have and how you deal with it. Test before you buy. The
testing time for each of the machines should be more than twenty
five minutes as anything less will not give you an accurate result.
Go to the local gym or at the manufacturer’s office. If you are
buying your first fitness machine you should not necessarily go with
the one with many features but should consider the one which is more
durable in the long run.
A good exercise treadmill will come with a lengthy warranty period –
at least one year. Be sure the manufacturer is one who has the
standing in the market that gives his products good warranty as
well.
Even after your best selection, how the equipment performs depends
on the spot you choose to install it. You need to be sure you have a
large enough space to place your treadmill.
About The Author
Jerry Cahill is a contributing editor for exercise websites. He can
be found on the internet at: http://www.exercisestreadmill.com
Weight Loss: Easing Into Exercise
by: Donovan Baldwin
Okay, let's just accept the fact that if you want to lose weight, be
healthy, or both, you need to get some sort of exercise program
going. This has been proven over and over again. Yes, you CAN lose
some weight without exercise, but your health will not improve, and
you may find you have created some new problems if all you do is
alter your diet in order to lose weight. Also, trying to lose weight
without changing the way you have lived your life will prove the old
adage to be true:
"Keep doing what you've been doing and you will keep getting what
you have been getting."
So, to set about changing what "you have been getting" out of life,
at least in terms of health, fitness, and weight loss, you will need
to get into some sort of exercise program.
THE PROBLEMS
There are a few problems that people encounter when they start
exercising...particularly if they have not been exercising for a
while or even worse, are beginning an exercise program for the first
time.
1. They have trouble finding the time to exercise.
2. They have difficulty making exercise a habit
3. They are dissatisfied with the results of their exercise program.
4. They injure themselves.
SOME SOLUTIONS
1. Many people find that until exercise becomes an integral part of
their life, it is difficult to "find the time" to exercise. There
are two points here.
Engage In Opportunistic Exercise
This is the sort of exercise that can be factored into each day's
activities. While parking a few feet farther from the store can be a
great way to introduce some physical activity into your daily life,
one such event once in a while will not make a great difference. On
the other hand, it IS a start, and one of the hardest hurdles to
overcome is actually STARTING some sort of exercise program. Putting
several of these events into your week, parking farther away, taking
the stairs, carrying the groceries in from the car, standing up
during phone calls, or walking in place while watching TV, for
example can get you started on the road to feeling better, looking
better, and better health.
Make A Commitment To Exercise
There is an old saying that work will expand to take up the
resources committed to it. In other words, if a business is doing
perfectly well with one phone and a combination fax/copier and then
gets several multi-line phones and a high-speed copier, the
employees will soon find they "cannot get along" without these
additions. Our lives are similar. In our example, if the boss finds
a need to cut costs, the employees will soon find that they CAN
function without the high-speed copier, just like they did before.
In our lives, if we make a commitment to exercise, we will be able
to "make" the time available, probably by changing something in our
lives, but the bottom line will be how important the exercise is to
us.
2. For most of us, one of the hardest aspects of this whole exercise
thing is making it a habit. If it is not a habit, we will probably
start "forgetting" or "having something else to do" and the exercise
will eventually fade into the background and be forgotten.
It will be even harder to make something distasteful or
time-consuming into a habit. A good tip here is to begin small and
concentrate on getting used to the exercise as a regular part of
your daily routine before you worry too much about all the other
aspects. In other words, start with something simple that you can
easily insert into your life, something that will be easy to
remember to do regularly. Once the exercise IS a habit, you can
expand it and you will soon find that you begin to get uncomfortable
if you miss it.
A good point here is that the benefits of regular exercise express
themselves in many ways, and if you move from being a non-exerciser
to a regular exerciser, you will actually begin to enjoy your
exercise experiences.
3. Unrealistic expectations plague many who try to begin an exercise
program. The reality is that even the finest exercise program will
take time to become fully effective and even then the intensity and
breadth should increase and the weight decrease at a measured pace.
Added to this is the fact most people do not really know how
exercise works and what to expect. If you are starting slow as I
advise and gradually increasing your effort, gains in fitness will
be slow. Weight loss will also be slow, but, over time, a good
exercise program will help your weight loss program, your overall
health, your mental outlook, and provide defense against many
conditions and illnesses.
NOTE: If you are beginning an exercise program as part of a weight
loss program, don't be surprised if you gain weight for a while.
This is normal. Ignore your scale and concentrate on how you feel
and how your clothes fit. Even though you may be gaining weight, you
might actually be shrinking as lean tissue replaces fat.
4. Related to the item above is the potential for injury.
Unrealistic expectations occur because of ignorance and lack of
experience. The same is true for injuries. People either try to do
too much too soon, or simply perform exercises improperly or with
the wrong equipment. A good brisk walk can feel good from the first
day of your new exercise program, but not if you walk too far, too
fast, too soon, or wear the wrong kind of shoes.
Remember, how much you CAN do is not necessarily how much you SHOULD
do.
I have a friend who has started exercise programs several times
since I have known her. Every time, she tries to start out doing as
much as she can. Later she begins to feel sick because she is in
poor condition, and then feels washed out and experiences pain over
the next few days. That's the end of her exercise program until the
bug hits her again a few months later.
Start slow, build up slowly, but keep on doing it and you will reap
the rewards of a regular exercise program.
About The Author
Donovan Baldwin is a Dallas area writer. He is a graduate of the
University of West Florida, a member of Mensa, and retired from the
U. S. Army. Find more weight loss information at:
http://cinch-weightloss.web-home.ws/