FitSugar

Drinkers Are More Active Than Non-Drinkers?

FitSugar — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:00:03 PDT

I always thought that eating right, exercising regularly, and limiting your alcohol intake went hand-in-hand. That's not so, according to data gathered from a government health survey. Researchers found that people who drink regularly seem to exercise more often than non-drinkers, and the more they drink, the more active they are.

According to the research, women who drank at least 46 drinks in the past month (one or two drinks per day) were considered heavy drinkers, and they exercised at least 20 minutes more a week than light or non-drinkers. Women who drank 15 to 45 drinks a month were considered moderate drinkers, and they exercised an extra 10 minutes a week as compared to alcohol abstainers. Those who enjoyed a drink or two a day were also more likely to take part in vigorous exercise like running.

Why the connection? To find out,

One reason drinkers may be more active is that they want to prevent weight gain from sipping all those liquid calories. Drinking certain beverages such as wine has also been linked to health benefits, so it makes sense that health-conscious women would exercise and feel good about enjoying a drink every so often. Drinkers may also be the type to be more adventurous or social and take part in team sports and outdoor activities like skiing or rock climbing. After sweating it out with friends outside, it's common to follow with a trip to the bar.

Tell me, does your healthy lifestyle include both exercising and drinking?

Ashtanga Yoga: Why Avoid Drinking Water?

FitSugar — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:30:00 PDT

If you've ever walked into an Ashtanga Yoga class, I'm sure you've noticed that it's warm in the room, but not even close to as hot as Bikram. The warmth helps your muscles to loosen up slightly, but the quick-paced and strength building vinyasas between poses is what really heats up your body. Think of it as creating an inner fire that heats your body from the inside out, which helps you loosen up tight muscles. It also makes you sweat a lot, which helps in detoxification.

Drinking water during the practice prevents that heat and puts that internal fire out. Not only that, but if you stop every 10 minutes to take a sip of water, you interrupt your breathing and the flow of the sequence, which in turn will disrupt the moving meditation you've got going on.

It is very important to drink 10-12 glasses of water throughout the day so that you are well hydrated by the time you arrive at class. If you've been drinking all day, you shouldn't need to drink during class, however, if you are feeling nauseous, overheated, or dizzy - definitely listen to your body and drink water if necessary.

Fit's Tips: Depending on the class you go to, some Ashtanga Yoga instructors are very strict about this, which I personally don't agree with. As an instructor myself, I trust that my students are better able to make decisions about their own bodies. If an instructor you take class from makes you feel uncomfortable about your need for water (or anything else for that matter), talk to them after class about it. I'm sure they'd want to know how you feel.

Source

Insanity's Shaun T's Last-Minute Diet and Exercise Tips

Leta Shy — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:34:46 PDT

Shaun T, the personal trainer who's motivated millions with his at-home workouts, knows how to get people in shape in a short amount of time. After all, his Insanity workout program promises incredible results in just 60 days of sweating and jumping in front of your TV.

With Summer a mere few weeks away, we spoke with Shaun about how to get in shape for anything - whether it's a beach holiday, wedding, or event - when you've only got a little time. Find out his recommendations below!

Watch your drink calories: "Don't drink your calories. That's the number one rule of thumb: not to drink your calories. It will eliminate so many calories in your body. Everybody knows that sugar that's not burnt off eventually turns into fat," says Shaun, who's also holding live workouts nationwide to promote his partnership with Powerade Zero. Shaun recommends portion control and cutting the amount of sugars and carbs in your diet in half, but "still ensure you have enough energy during the day," he says.

Kick it up a notch: "If you're a person who works out at the gym, try to take [fewer] breaks," Shaun recommends. "If you're a weight lifter, while you're not doing weights, try to do some different cardio exercise in between to try to ramp up the calorie burn."

Keep reading for more of Shaun T's last-minute diet and exercise advice!

How Not to Destroy Your Marriage

The Good Men Project — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:30:42 PDT

We're happy to present this story from one of our favorite sites, The Good Men Project. Today, Mark Tyrrell offers eight relationship tools to make your marriage work.

"All marriages are happy. It's the living together afterward that causes all the trouble." - Raymond Hull

So how do you make your marriage work? Or do you just blindly hope it'll take care of itself?

Think of a hot, successful date with someone you’re attracted to. You have fun, great conversation and more sexual chemistry than a warehouse full of pheromones. You don’t have to “work at” the date because it’s self sustaining. It runs as smoothly as the gliding hand of a classical guitar maestro and you can’t wait for another rendition.

Teenage Dating in a Twilight-Hunger Games World

But marriage, or any long term relationship; well that’s a whole other caboodle.

If we’re not careful, marriage can deteriorate into little more than a torturous assault course; littered with routine boredoms, frustrations and resentments. Couple all that with external pressures and sometimes marriage feels not worth the effort. But there are major benefits to being hitched or committed, other than just a beneficial tax regime.

Healthy marriage; healthy people.

Being happily married bestows heaps of health benefits. You might be forgiven for thinking that if you’re married you don’t live longer it just seems like it but, no, a good marriage really can help you clock up more years (1) and married people are happier (2) even though they don’t always look it from the outside.

But when marriage doesn’t work it can feel being manacled to a maniac, marooned with a misogynist or nailed to a nag. And I don’t care what the studies say, that’s not healthy. You may hear couples say stuff like: “We are making our marriage work!” but how do we do this?

Making it work.

We pay lip service to “working on the marriage” but what is the work we need to do? Marriage vows such as “to love and to cherish” and “forsaking all others, for better or for worse” don’t really tell us how to make it work, although they give us a clue.

Fortunately a ton of research has been done on what to do and not do to make your marriage, or any intimate relationship work. Follow the guidelines here to become “good at marriage."

Tip one: Be romantic but keep it real.

We are all (force?) fed romance in movies and novels. The handsome man gets the beautiful woman. But what I wonder is what happens after our romantic couple ride off into the sunset together? What do they do exactly? Bicker? Moan at one another? Start to ignore each other?

After all that romance, our beautiful couple is bound to have massive expectations of their life together. But when rose tinted expectations clash with day to reality, watch out!

Romance is vital in any relationship. Always seeing the best in your partner helps to keep things intimate and love should be expressed. But if you have been raised on Mills and Boon Romance novels or feel-good movies, then your own romantic expectations can work against the sustainability of your long term relationship.

When day to day life fails to live up to the giddy, heady lust-filled days of the pre-settled down romance people can become angry, even blame one another: “This wasn’t what I signed up for." They find it hard to take the rough with the smooth because they never really figured there would be any rough.

Expectations not diluted with at least a dash of realism can be a royal road to relationship ruin. Your partner may be an angel, but they have feet of clay. You must learn to love those feet or at least accept them a bit!

Get the rest after the jump!

Thinking About a Juice Cleanse? 4 Ways It Can Cause Weight Gain

Jenny Sugar — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:19:17 PDT

Whether it's to improve energy, clear acne, Spring clean the digestive system, or shed a few pounds, juice cleansing is all the rage now. Even celebs like Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicole Richie are buzzing about the benefits of liquid detoxing. Before you splurge on a juicer or lay down the dough for a liquid detox program, learn how a juice cleanse may lead to weight gain.

Hard-to-measure liquid calories: Since all the calories you're consuming are liquid, if you're not watching your intake, it's easy to consume well over the daily limit. (A pressed juice averages between 100-350 calories per 16-ounce bottle.) Make sure you have a plan to follow and an accurate way to determine how many calories are in each glass or bottle you're drinking. Most retail juicing programs provide calorie counts, but are also pricey to join.
Messes with metabolism: A typical juice cleanse lasts anywhere from three to seven days (or sometimes longer), where you drink 32 to 64 ounces of freshly pressed fruit and vegetable juice each day. When your body doesn't get the all the nutrients (or the amount of calories) it's used to, it stresses out because it thinks it's starving. Often the body reacts to this by slowing down its metabolism, which can make losing weight harder in the future. And while juicing is an easy way to deliver phytonutrients to the body, the fruit-based juices tend to be high in sugar, which can negatively affect insulin levels in the body.

Continue reading for more ways a juice cleanse can cause weight gain.

How to Combat That Afternoon Slump

Leta Shy — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:40:46 PDT

Sometimes, you just can't beat that afternoon slump. Sitting at a desk all day can leave you feeling the opposite of energetic, especially around those postlunch hours when our bodies expend more energy digesting or we crash from the effects of our morning cup of coffee - and when that happens, don't think you can always rely on energy drinks. Besides their long list of unpronounceable ingredients, a new study has found that energy drinks contain high levels of citric acid, which can cause major tooth enamel erosion.

Luckily, even without the energy drinks you don't have to spend your nine-to-five dreading the inevitable urge to nap. Here are some ways for combating that afternoon slump.

Exercise in the morning. A good day begins with a good start. Exercising in the morning is beneficial for many reasons: you don't have to worry about scheduling a time later, and it's nice to be able to check something off your list before the day really begins. A morning sweat session is also good for keeping your energy levels up throughout the day, so if you find yourself hitting a wall in the afternoon, try moving your workout session to before work and see how you feel.
Take an afternoon walk. If you find yourself spending more time dozing and daydreaming than working in the afternoon, take a 10-minute break to rev up your body. Just walking around the office, chatting with co-workers, or taking a break to enjoy the sunshine outside can be all you need to give your body a recharge.

Still tired? Read on for more tips that'll keep you from taking a nap at your desk!

4 Ways to Lose Weight Before Noon

Jenny Sugar — Thu, 03 May 2012 01:24:21 PDT

With bikini season coming up, many of us are trying to lose those last stubborn pounds. Here are four things you can do before lunchtime to increase your calorie burn.

Eat first thing in the morning: Skipping breakfast may seem like a great way to save calories, but your body actually holds onto fat because it's being starved. Make sure to eat breakfast each morning to jump-start your metabolism. Don't just grab anything; be sure to include protein to give you sustained energy and fiber to fill you up for hours. Here are some breakfast ideas to help you lose weight.
Work out soon after you wake up: Research has shown that morning exercisers tend to work out harder and longer than afternoon or evening exercisers, which translates to extra calories burned. Those who sweat in the a.m. are also more likely to stick with a routine, helping to lose those unwanted pounds. If you choose to exercise as soon as you wake up, eat something small beforehand, and then enjoy a full breakfast afterward.
Snack on fiber: A midmorning snack helps satiate hunger, meaning you won't chow down on way more food at lunch than you normally would. Make sure it's fiber-packed and low in calories like these snacks.
Sip water all morning: Keep that reusable bottle close by so you can periodically drink water until lunchtime. Water is a low-calorie way to fill you up, and sipping keeps your mouth busy if you tend to be a mindless nosher.

8 Signs You're Sleep Deprived

Leta Shy — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:45:22 PDT

Do you normally get enough sleep? Many people don't; in fact, a new study by the Centers for Disease Control, says that 30 percent of all workers in the United States are sleep deprived, meaning they get fewer than seven hours of quality sleep a night. That can put employees like drivers, warehouse workers, and health care providers at on-the-job risk, but even if you're just chained to your desk, chronic sleeplessness can still affect your health by increasing your risk of obesity, heart disease, and other conditions. So, how do you know you're sleep deprived? Here are eight signs you should be getting better sleep, from sleep experts and Prevention magazine.

You need an alarm to wake up.
You use the snooze button on your alarm more than twice.
You fall asleep in fewer than 10 minutes.
Simple decisions stump you.
You're still hungry after eating all day.
You keep coming down with colds.
Weird things make you cry.
You've become a klutz.

If this sounds like you during the workweek, read on for our advice on how to get a good night's sleep.

Everyday Activities That Make Your Allergies Worse

Jenny Sugar — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:45:18 PDT

Most of us are psyched for warmer weather, but allergy sufferers are cursing runny noses, congestion, red eyes, and itchy throats. You may not realize it, but here are the everyday things that can aggravate your symptoms.

Exercising outside is a no-brainer when temps start going up, but not so for those allergic to pollen. If you can't bear to skip outdoor workouts, try to exercise early in the morning when pollen counts are lowest. If you decide to exercise outside, be sure to wash your clothes to get rid of pollen and take a shower to rinse allergens out of your hair. If your allergies are really bad, invest in a gym membership or equipment for your home gym - exercising in the AC will make you breathe much easier.
Opening the window to get some fresh air? Don't you dare. Pollen and other allergens blow in where they come in contact with your eyes and nose. Keep the windows in your home, office, and car closed, and definitely don't use a window fan. If you're hot, turn up the air-conditioning.

Keep reading to find out other common things you're doing that can worsen allergies.

Simple Tips on How to Stay Healthy All Day Long

Lizzie Fuhr — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:18:51 PDT

When striving to be healthy, a few everyday changes can make a world of difference to your body. Maybe you're just focused on a morning workout or staying away from the wrong activities before bed, but if you want to reboot your lifestyle for the long haul, you've got to commit to a healthy lifestyle all day long. Interested in what I mean? Read through these tips to help you keep your healthy living on track whether it's morning, noon, or night.

Morning

If a morning gym session fits your schedule best, then our early morning exercise tips are a must read. From laying out an outfit the night before to scheduling a session with a trainer, these tips can help kick off your day with an energetic bang.

We know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Whatever your dietary needs or time restrictions, we've got you covered. Start the morning with healthy whole-grain hot cereal recipes or low-sugar breakfast ideas or save some time in the morning with a healthy breakfast made the night before.

Think outside the box and mix up your standard morning beverage routine. Take your pick of these inventive drinks to boost your energy to get your head right for your commute and commitments.

Keep reading for tips to stay healthy during the afternoon and evening.