I Just Want To Be Fit

Simple At Home Glute Workouts

Box Jumps

Stand in front of a bench or box with your feet placed about shoulder width apart. Do a half squat, keeping your knees behind your toes. Using your arms and legs, propel your body into the air, landing with both feet on the bench and your knees soft. Step down with one foot, and then follow with the other. If you’d like to challenge yourself, hop off the bench with both feet, landing with soft knees. Because this exercise challenges balance, take your time.

Repeat 2-3 times.

Step-ups

Stand in front of the bench and step up with your right leg, placing your whole foot down onto the bench and pressing through your heel. Push off the ground with your left foot and tap it on the bench. For a challenge, lift your left knee as your step up. Contract your abdominals to help you balance and squeeze your glutes as you step up. Step back onto the floor with your left foot, followed by your right.

Repeat 2-3 times switching sides each time.

Bench taps

While standing in front of the bench, touch your right foot to it, keeping your weight on your left foot. Now quickly switch feet, pumping your arms as you move.

Continue alternating.

Flutter Kick

Lie face down on the bench and extend your arms in front of your so your elbows are in line with your ears. Keep your head in line with your ears. Keep your head in line with your spine. Point your toes and lift your legs slightly off of the ground. Using small, controlled movements, flutter your arms and legs.

One-legged squat

Stand facing away from the bench in a lunge position with the top of your left foot resting on the bench and your right foot planted firmly on the ground. Check that the toes of your right foot are facing the same direction as your hips. Keep the angle between your legs tight, if your feet are too far apart, you’ll stress your hips. From this position, lower your body until your right thigh is parallel to the ground. Keep your right knee behind your toes and your torso upright. As you release, contract your quads, glutes, and the hamstrings of your left leg.

Repeat 2-3 times while switching sides.

Side-plyometric squat

Stand to the left of the bench and place your right foot on top, making sure your entire foot is firmly planted. Keep your left foot on the floor. Do a half-squat, keeping your back flat, abs tight, and knees behind your toes. Then propel your body off the floor, over the bench, and down to the right side. Land with your right foot on the floor and your left foot on the bench.

Continue alternating at a steady pace.

The Team at i-Supplements.com

Walking to Run?

I know there are a few of us out there who dream of being able to have daily running sessions that last for miles and miles to help alleviate some of our daily stresses. the truth is though, not all of us are born runners, some of us have to work at it!  Here are some tips to help you get better, build quality and endurance out of your sessions running and walking.

Most of us have to start with the basics, for example – walking, before learning how to run, in a sense.

Walking – Power walking is sometimes seen as the new jogging.  It can be a safer way to get your cardio up and enjoy the same health benefits as jogging with lesser intensity and personal risk.  Some of you are probably wondering why walking counts as exercising since everyone walks… Well there are a few tips to help keep your cardio up and increase the amount of effort you put into it.  Keep your head up, and your back straight.  Lengthen your stride, but don’t lock your knees.  Locking your knees can lead to painful knee injuries.  Try using hand and leg weights to add dynamic and increased effort.  Pump your arms to increase blood flow and exercise more muscles.

Running – Taking a break during a training session is sometimes easy to view as a sign of weakness or failure.  This viewpoint however encourages runners to place the importance of their training sessions on quantity and not quality.  While it might not be a good idea to stop and rest every time you begin to feel the burn, it is also not a good idea to force yourself to keep going if you’re exhausted or injured.  This can result in reduced quality in your breathing, circulation, muscle function, and over time, could have drastic consequences for your future sessions.

It is important to culture the ability to listen to your body.  After running for a period of time ask yourself whether you feel tired.  If you feel tired, keep going but pay attention to which part of your body is feeling the strain.  Is there too much tension in a specific area?  If so, it may be necessary to stop, rest and recalibrate.  The simple step of being mindful of your body will lead to greatly increased session quality and therefore better results.  It is important to realize that the way you are thinking about your training sessions will alter the way your muscles develop.  They reflect our state of mind.  If you are continuously training with a competitive attitude, the same muscle tensions will be present time and time again.  It’s ironic because people who are just starting out want to get to their fastest time possible and end up sacrificing their form in the process.   This is why it’s crucial to maintain an open mind a listen to what your body is trying to tell you during your sessions.

Learn to walk before you run, you’ve heard it a million times, now it actually means something!

The Team at i-Supplements.com

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Don’t Deprive Yourself of the Joys of Working Out

Why should I exercise? - Researchers have sought to answer this question for years. In 1996, the Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity was released, detailing the research behind the benefits associated with exercise. This report goes beyond the anecdotal “it-just-feels-good” reason for exercising.

Who is exercise good for? – While not all types of exercise are appropriate for everyone, everyone can benefit from some type of exercise. After all, exercise is not limited to just running or step aerobics after all! If you can’t make it to the gym, you can try water workouts or seated-chair classes. You can play softball or squash, go in-line skating or even take a turn or two around the mall, provided you don’t spend all your time lingering in front of shop windows. And if you think activities such as ballroom dancing or tending the garden don’t qualify as exercise, think again. The primary factor in choosing an activity should be whether or not you enjoy it.

How much exercise does it take? – How much one exercises is an individual decision, but numerous research studies indicate that hours of intense exercise are not necessary to reap desired benefits. In fact, health specialists now recommend that most adults accumulate 30 minutes or more of moderate physical activity on most days of the week.
Moderate activity is any activity that raises your heart rate and gets the blood pumping without leaving you out of breath or exhausted. So, rather than blocking off a large portion of one’s day, 10 minutes of walking at lunch and another 20 minutes after dinner, for example, is all it takes. For those who are so inclined, exercising at slightly higher intensities for longer periods of time can bring about even greater health benefits.

Less important than the intensity or duration of each exercise session is making the commitment to perform some type of physical activity every day, whether you focus on aerobic, strength or flexibility training. Soon, the exhilaration of movement and the empowerment that comes with greater fitness and health will have you hooked on exercise. It won’t happen overnight, and there may be some aspects you find less enjoyable (some people just can’t get over the sweating part of it), but the sense of feeling better, of feeling healthier, will overpower any negative attitudes toward exercise that you may still be harboring.

The Team at i-Supplements.com

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Teaching Kids to Effectively Exercise

Unlike adults, most kids are not interested in organized or supervised exercise programs. Children prefer activities that are typically considered free play. If you plan to set a regular exercise program for children understand that they do require education and motivation to participate in a regular routine.
Here are a few tips on teaching and motivating children to exercise:
1.    Clear Training Objectives: If you are organizing a regular routine workout with children, set clear training objectives in a simple to understand manner.
2.    Use concise instruction with precise demonstration: Show and tell is a simple but effective way to communicate the information.
3.    Attentive Supervision: Many children lack confidence in their exercise abilities and appreciate adult supervision and encouragement. A qualified instructor can provide great motivation for young exercisers.
4.    Appropriate Assistance: Strength training is often difficult for young exercisers. Provide a little manual assistance to guide them to a successful exercise experience.
5.    One Task at a Time: Give children only one task at a time to ensure they do not become confused. This increases the probability they will progress successfully through the exercise session.
6.    Gradual Progression: Take small steps with young exercisers. Do not introduce a new task until the first one is mastered. Better to have young exercisers learn the correct way to exercise than to un-learn the wrong way.
7.    Positive Reinforcement: Increase a child’s self-confidence and satisfaction with exercise by giving them encouraging comments, personal compliments or a pat on the shoulder. Telling children they are doing a good job is one of the best ways to keep them doing a good job.
8.    Specific Feedback: Positive reinforcement is much more meaningful when delivered with specific feedback. Giving a reason for your comment increases the value of the statement.
9.    Careful Questioning: Children may be reluctant to give information that could be useful in selecting the right exercises. Try to ask questions that require more than a yes and no answer.
10.    Pre- and Post-Exercise Dialogue: Spend some time before and after an exercise session in an enthusiastic conversation with the children. It will give you insight into what makes them tick.

The Team at i-Supplements.com

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Sweat your way smart

Have you ever vowed to get ready for swimsuit season by starting to exercise — only to end up too busy, tired, or achy? The right motivation can make you 70% more likely to keep it up for the long haul. But focusing only on weight loss can cut your odds of success by over half, say researchers. A better inspiration: the amazing health rewards you get by being active. A stronger heart and lower cancer risk are two well-known benefits. Here, more that are guaranteed to motivate.

1. A single treadmill session can make you brainier. Exercisers who ran just two 3-minute sprints, with a 2-minute break in between, learned new words 20% faster than those who rested, in a Germany study. Getting your heart pumping increases blood flow, delivering more oxygen to your noggin. It also spurs new growth in the areas of the brain that control multitasking, planning, and memory.

2. It may seem counter intuitive, but rest isn’t necessarily best for reducing pain and stiffness in the knees, shoulders, back, or neck. Healthy adults who did aerobic activity consistently had 25% less musculoskeletal pain than their couch-bound peers. Exercise releases endorphins, the body’s natural pain reliever, and may make you less vulnerable to tiny tears in muscles and tendons. Staying active can also provide relief for chronic conditions such as arthritis.

3. An active lifestyle may help you check off extra items on your to-do list, says one study. On days staffers participated in on-site fitness activities, they reported thinking more clearly, getting more done, and interacting more effectively with colleagues. You’ll be less likely to miss work due to illness, too. Research shows that people who participate in vigorous leisure-time physical activity (such as jogging or bicycling) just once or twice a week take about half the sick time of those who are more sedentary.

4. A good workout practically ensures a better body image. Studies find that women ages 42 to 58 felt more attractive after 4 months of walking or yoga even if they didn’t lose weight. Exercise can also put you in the mood for love by increasing blood flow to the genitals. Recent research found that just one 20-minute cycling workout enhanced sexual arousal up to 169% in women. And the benefits stand the test of time: Another study of swimmers found that those over age 60 were as satisfied sexually as those decades younger.

5. Moderate exercise doesn’t just rev your metabolism — it boosts your immune system, too, helping your body fight off cold bugs and other germs. Women ages 50 to 75 who did 45 minutes of cardio, 5 days a week, had a third as many colds as those who did once-weekly stretching sessions.

6. Say good night to poor sleep. Women age 60 and older who walked or danced for at least an hour, four times a week, woke up half as often and slept an average 48 minutes more a night than sedentary women, according to one study. That is good news for the many women who toss and turn more as they get older. As you age, sleep patterns start shifting, so you spend more of the night in lighter sleep phases.

7. The next time you feel puffy around the middle, resist the urge to stay put. One study suggests that mild physical activity clears gas and alleviates bloating. That’s because increasing your heart rate and breathing stimulates the natural contractions of the intestinal muscles, helping to prevent constipation and gas buildup by expediting digestion.

8. If you’re among the 50% of adults who report feeling tired at least 1 day a week, skip the java and go for a walk. Researchers who analyzed 70 different studies concluded that moving your body increases energy and reduces fatigue. Regular exercise boosts certain fatigue-fighting brain chemicals such as norepinephrine and dopamine, which pep you up, and serotonin, a mood enhancer.

The Team at i-Supplements.com

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Useful tips to avoid over indulging during 4th of July Parties

With the holiday weekend right around the corner, many of us are easily tempted to indulge more than necessary on many levels! With sweets, treats, burgers and beer, it is easy to fall off the wagon during our Nation’s celebratory weekend filled with barbecue’s, cookouts and more!

We overindulge during these social gatherings with friends and loved ones celebrating the joy’s of summer, and pay for it later in feelings of remorse and discouragement, as well as with weight gain. The weight gain, the discomfort, and the plan to eliminate the weight later only extends the anxiety and provides us with discomforting post holiday stress as well. Don’t be bewildered; there are ways to fight off this horrible ritual of overindulging and regretting it later. Here are a few healthy and useful tips to follow:

1. Exercise. This helps relieve stress tremendously; it also helps us keep our weight in check when there are so many un-healthy choices on the table. Walking or jogging, for example, is a great stress reliever. It allows us to engage in cardiovascular and weight-bearing exercise while not working out too hard.

2. Do not save your calories for later by not eating all day before a holiday meal. This always backfires because you ultimately show up famished and then sit down to a meal that is full of high calorie goodies. Eat normally throughout the day, and instead of trying to manipulate and control your eating behavior, become more conscious about what you are doing and how you can manage the upcoming situation.

3. Let yourself leave if you are uncomfortable, tired, or you have just had enough! Instead of lingering when bored, tired or uncomfortable, go home. If you stay in a situation longer than you really want to, the likelihood of eating and drinking more and more becomes greater and greater. Not overeating will allow you to stay connected to your feelings and your commitment. Enjoy the 4th of July weekend without having to eat your way to your grave.

Happy 4th of July from the i-Supplements.com team!

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Maintain your health while traveling

We all know what comes with this hectic time of year…unbelievable amounts of traveling! Soon the airports will be a buzz and planes will be taking off and landing practically every second it seems like! If you are one of these many summertime travelers, then I’m sure sticking to your diet is your last priority! Well don’t let it be anymore, and don’t think that it will be hard to stick with it! With a little brainstorming and simple planning, it will be easily possible to keep up with your healthy habits! Here are some basic ways to ensure that you keep up with your healthy lifestyle!

1. Bring a water bottle, one you can refill. (Check out the Hydracoach!)
You can bring your water bottle with you to the airport empty, and fill it after you pass through the security checkpoint. (Make sure you refill often.) One thing that you for sure can do while traveling is guzzle the water down when you get bored or hungry! Ladies, make sure to get at least a gallon per day down, gentlemen aim for at least a gallon and a half. Keep up the water intake. This will help reduce water retention, curb hunger pains, and just plain keep those cells in your body happy!

Note: If traveling abroad, nix this idea and stick to the bottled water.

2. Book an aisle seat.
Having an aisle seat will allow you to easily get up and move around, stretch, and make many trips to the bathroom without feeling like you are bothering the person next to you. Lots of water equals lots of trips to the bathroom.

3. Bring healthy travel snacks.
Make a simple sandwich or a yummy wrap made with high fiber, whole grain bread/wrap, nitrate free lunchmeat, low-fat mayo, mustard, lettuce, and tomato. If a sandwich doesn’t sound good then try some fat-free no-sugar added yogurt with mixed berries. Or try bagging up some veggies like cucumbers, green and red peppers, carrots, or celery.

4. Use the in-room coffee pot to make your own oatmeal.
Turn on the burner and add oats and water to the pot first thing when you wake up. By the time you are finished getting ready, your oats will be done.

Note: Make sure to wash the pot thoroughly first before use. Who knows when the last time was that sucker was washed!

5. Check out a local market.
They typically have a fantastic salad bar, great for lunch, or even to pick up a few things and keep them in your in-room fridge if you can. Most hotels will empty your mini-bar fridge or will provide a second fridge upon request. No fridge? Pack your own soft cooler and fill with ice from the ice machine and then add in your goodies!

6. Get in an early morning workout.
Plan for it. Set the alarm. Go to bed an hour earlier. Even if you can’t go to sleep earlier, get up and get that workout in. You will feel much better in the long run if you do. It will help you burn those extra calories all throughout the day.

7. Make an effort to be active.
In addition to the workout, keep your activity up all day long. If you are eating more, move more throughout the day.

8. Choose one splurge meal per day.
If you are going to overindulge for dinner, make sure that breakfast and lunch are filled with lower calorie foods. Focus on lean protein, and high fiber carbohydrates like fruits, veggies, and whole grains. Although we all have learned that 5-6 small meals spaced evenly throughout the day is best, in this type of situation, it is better to plan for a larger meal rather than eating your normal meals around it.

9. Don’t skip breakfast.
Start your day off right. Even if you know you will be having a big meal later in the day, it is important to get something nutritious into your stomach after a wonderful full nights rest.

10. Low calorie foods are your friend.
In general, remember to fill up on a broth based soup or salad rather than bread and/or eating way too much of your main course.

11. Avoid fried foods.
Yea…need we explain? Stick to baked, broiled, roasted, and grilled foods instead.

12. Plan your meal destinations ahead of time.
Make sure to take a look at the menu in advance (if you’re able to), so that you can ensure you have healthy options. Believe me, it really sucks when you end up at a restaurant, open the menu, and realize that 1- there is nothing healthy about this place, and 2- nothing about this menu is worth splurging on.

13. Try the one bite method.
Sometimes all it takes is one bite.

14. If you are going to splurge on alcohol or dessert, make it one or the other, not both.
Both are typically pretty high in empty calories (i.e. sugar) so choose whichever one sounds better and skip the other, saving it for another night.

15. Above all else, moderation is the key.
It is important to enjoy life, and not feel deprived. Just don’t overdo it. Listen to your body. Make sacrifices where you can so that you can enjoy when the opportunity arises.

The Team at i-Supplements.com

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The Controversy Over Salt

Table salt, kosher salt, sea salt, sel de gris, fine grained, course ground, rock salt, herbed salt, garlic salt—the varieties are endless. Someone could open a salt store as big as a Starbucks and be able to fill all the shelves. We love salt and while it is essential to our bodies, overdosing on this popular flavor enhancer can be detrimental to our health, and there’s the rub.

While you can find a salt shaker on every home and restaurant table, in almost every packaged product at the supermarket, and in 90 percent of recipes (desserts included), Americans tend to overconsume on the small white granules. Salt helps to maintain the water content in blood, balances blood’s acids and bases, and is essential for the movement of electrical charges in the nerves that move our muscles. But too much of a good thing can lead to high blood pressure and heart disease. In addition, a diet high in salt content is often associated with weight gain.

The National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association recommends a diet containing no more than 2.4 grams (approximately 1 teaspoon) of sodium per day. On the average, American men consume 10.4 grams of salt, while American women average a salt intake of 7.3 grams daily. These numbers continue to rise, with 75 to 80 percent of all salt consumed coming from processed food.

The First Lady has spoken out about the need to limit salt in her campaign against obesity, and some manufacturers have gotten on the bandwagon, announcing cuts in sodium levels in their processed foods. Kraft pledged a 10 percent reduction, which translates into the elimination of over 10 million pounds of salt in over 1,000 processed food items. Additionally, a panel from the Institute of Medicine recommended that the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulate the amount of sodium used in processed food, citing decades of recommendations that have not been heeded by the public. Given the amount of processed food purchased in this country, the belief is that the best way to reduce salt consumption is by regulating the companies preparing the food.

Now the salt industry is pushing back. Cargill, one of the nation’s largest producers of salt, has hired food luminary Alton Brown to stump for sodium. The most recent ad, called Salt 101, has Brown trying to convince us that we need to have “plenty of salt in your kitchen at all times.” And while we do “need” it, we need it in lesser amounts than we are currently consuming and the food industry is loathe to lower or eliminate salt in its products, because of the flavor-enhancing capabilities.

The answer could just be in cooking your own fresh food rather than relying on packaged ingredients. Doing so would eliminate the overuse of sodium, and overall would be healthier for you.

The Team at i-Supplements.com

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Study Says 10 minutes of exercise, hour-long effects

Ten minutes of brisk exercise triggers metabolic changes that last at least an hour. The unfair news for panting newbies: The more fit you are, the more benefits you just might be getting.

We all know that exercise and a good diet are important for health, protecting against heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions. But what exactly causes the health improvement from working up a sweat or from eating, say, more olive oil than saturated fat? And are some people biologically predisposed to get more benefit than others? They’re among questions that metabolic profiling, a new field called metabolomics, aims to answer in hopes of one day optimizing those benefits — or finding patterns that may signal risk for disease and new ways to treat it. They’ve only just began to catalog the metabolic variability between people.

The researchers measured biochemical changes in the blood of a variety of people: the healthy middle-aged, some who became short of breath with exertion, and marathon runners. First, in 70 healthy people put on a treadmill, the team found more than 20 metabolites that change during exercise, naturally produced compounds involved in burning calories and fat and improving blood-sugar control. Some weren’t known until now to be involved with exercise. Some revved up during exercise, like those involved in processing fat. Others involved with cellular stress decreased with exercise.

Those are pretty wonky findings, a first step in a complex field. But they back today’s health advice that even brief bouts of activity are good.

Your heart rate rapidly drops back to normal when you quit moving, usually in 10 minutes or so. So finding lingering biochemical changes offers “tantalizing evidence” of how exercise may be building up longer-term benefits.

Back to the blood. Thinner people had greater increases in a metabolite named niacinamide, a nutrient by-product that’s involved in blood-sugar control. Checking a metabolite of fat breakdown, researchers found people who were more fit — as measured by oxygen intake during exercise — appeared to be burning more fat than the less fit, or than people with shortness of breath, a possible symptom of heart disease.

The extremely fit — 25 Boston Marathon runners — had ten-fold increases in that metabolite after the race. Still other differences in metabolites allowed the researchers to tell which runners had finished in under four hours and which weren’t as speedy.

Don’t expect a pill ever to substitute for a workout — the new work shows how complicated the body’s response to exercise is, says one of the metabolomics researchers.  But scientists are hunting nutritional compounds that might help tweak metabolic processes in specific ways. For example, they discovered the muscles of diabetic animals lack enough of a metabolite named carnitine, and that feeding them more improved their control of blood sugar.

The Team at i-Supplements.com