FitSugar

Why Does My Body Shake?

FitSugar — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:45:00 PST

Sometimes during certain exercises, my muscles quiver involuntarily, especially when I'm doing ab work. Does this happen to you?

Good news: That shaking means you're working and strengthening your muscles. But it's also a sign that the muscle is not accustomed to the demands you're putting on it.

The trembling indicates how the muscles grab and release one other as they lengthen and shorten during the exercise. But that action will become smoother, and the shaking will stop, once the muscles become more used to the activities you're doing.

Although the shaking isn't dangerous, the fact that you're putting extra demand on the muscles could result in some soreness the next day. The soreness reflects the fact that there's some muscle damage, but when the body repairs it, you come back fitter and stronger in the end, so it's a good thing.

Just think - If you do the exercise everyday then you will get stronger and shake less. Test that theory by doing the 4 minute short, sweet and complete ab routine everyday.

Fit's Tips: So don't overexert yourself too much. If you find yourself quivering from the start, take the intensity down a bit, and ease your muscles into working harder gradually.

4 Reasons to Add an Exercise Ball to Your Home Gym

Leta Shy — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:58:44 PDT

The exercise ball may occupy a lot of room in your home gym, but it's one versatile piece of equipment. Find out how to get the most out of your exercise ball below.

A healthier seat: Ditch your normal seat on the couch and sit on an exercise ball instead. Using a ball to sit helps correct your posture, tones your abs, and encourages you to stretch, all of which sounds a lot better than the lower back pain that too much sitting on the couch can cause.

Routine shakeup: Adding an exercise ball to your normal mat routines can shake things up and challenge you. For example, you can plank using an exercise ball at your feet to make holding your pose that much harder, or sit or lay on your exercise ball while you execute arm exercises. Even just practicing your balance by kneeling on the exercise ball can help you tone and whittle. Need some ideas? Try these amazingly effective ab and butt workouts using the exercise ball:

Find out how to do the plank pike and the hamstring curl using an exercise ball with this advanced exercise ball workout video.
Skip boring crunches and do this ball pass ab exercise instead.
Challenge your core and balance with this single-leg squat, done against a wall using an exercise ball.
Lie on the ball and work your arms with this chest press move.

Read on for more reasons to use an exercise ball.

Tina Fey Shares Memories of Her Skinny and Chubby Years

Susi May — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:56:14 PDT

Happy Birthday to our fave funny lady! Tina Fey turns 42 today. We've been fans of the actress, writer, and comedienne since her early days on Saturday Night Live. Like many of us, Tina's weight has fluctuated over the course of her career, and to mark her birthday, we're sharing some of her funny quotes from juice cleanses to body image.

Before making the leap from writers room to on-camera talent, Tina followed the pragmatic Weight Watchers program to drop pounds. But that doesn't mean she hasn't dabbled in more extreme techniques to lose weight. She explained to Jimmy Fallon, "I don't really believe in those [cleanses] - your body's not like a purse. You're not supposed to turn it inside out and shake it. But I was like, 'Oh, I don't care. I just need to jump-start this.' So I tried it." After an allergic reaction caused her lips to swell, she abandoned a juice cleanse. Go figure.

These days, Tina works out with trainer when she can fit a session into her hectic schedule, and if she can't, she takes a walk. She's even become a fan of yoga and the superfood kale.

Before settling into her healthy weight, Tina experienced both sides of the weight equation and shared her memories of these phases in her book, Bossypants. In two short, consecutive chapters, she explains the positive and negatives of the different times. Keep reading for a brief excerpt after the break.

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!

Summer Music Festivals That Offer Fun Ways to Stay Fit

Lizzie Fuhr — Thu, 10 May 2012 04:32:49 PDT

Summer music festival season is in full swing, and we can't wait to get in on all the action. While all these adventures are certainly a fun way to head to a big party, sometimes the whole thing can become a little too much. After all, if you're taking your vacation time to head to one of these events, don't you want to come back at least a little revived and rejuvenated?

The Wanderlust Festival set the precedent, but lots of other festivals have taken notice of the close-knit relationship that can exist between music and fitness. You're going to be burning some serious calories by shaking your thing as your favorite musicians perform, but if you want to get more fitness into your festival experience, here are some of our favorite festivals that offer options to complement the whole experience.

Hangout Music Festival

When: May 18 - May 20, 2012
Where: Gulf Shores, AL
What They Offer: This year The Hangout is offering a series of mellow morning yoga classes taught by Kelly Morris. Live music from double bassist Garth Stevenson will accompany the Rock Your Body yoga experience that welcomes yogis and yoginis of all levels. Did I mention this whole thing is situated on a beautiful beach?

DelFest

When: May 24 - May 27, 2012
Where: Cumberland, MD
What They Offer: DelFest is a festival that understands the connection between mind, body, and spirit. They hold activities coined movement playshops open to all festival attendees. Yoga and hula-hooping are the stars of the fitness show at DelFest.

Lightning in a Bottle

When: May 24 - May 28, 2012
Where: Silverado, CA
What They Offer: Lightning in a Bottle created a special environment called the Lucent Temple of Consciousness dedicated to workshops, speakers, and lots of yoga classes. We also love that at LIB you can take a workshop and learn how to grow your own spirulina!

Keep reading for three more festivals that offer fun ways to stay fit.

Tracy Anderson's Weight-Loss Tips For Brides-to-Be

Leta Shy — Fri, 04 May 2012 02:39:22 PDT

It seems like Tracy Anderson has trained half of Hollywood, and one of her biggest fans, Nicole Richie, even enlisted her to help her get in shape for her 2010 wedding. "Nicole worked out six days a week, she learned dance aerobics, she did her muscular structure work, and she did it in such a healthy beautiful way," Tracy says of her client's devoted wedding prep. If you want to look like a starlet on your wedding day, here are a few tips Tracy Anderson shared with us for brides-to-be who want to get in shape.

First, start early: Don't wait until the last minute to try and lose weight and then expect miracles, Tracy warns. "The thing that is most unfortunate is when a bride comes to me and has never done anything before and is like 'Oh my god, I have to lose 30 pounds in a month,'" Tracy says. She recommends you figure out your diet and exercise plan as soon as you start looking for venue locations, at the beginning of your wedding planning, so you don't end up resorting to juice cleanses or feeding-tube diets to lose pounds weeks before your big day. (Tracy jokes, "If I were the husband-to-be, I can think of nothing less sexy than my fiance installing a feeding tube to look 120 pounds thinner on the wedding day. I'd probably call it off!")

Read on for Tracy's diet and exercise recommendations for brides!

13 Health Gimmicks You Can Stop Wasting Money On

Business Insider — Tue, 01 May 2012 00:15:21 PDT

Consumers have a tendency of falling for the next big health gimmick. Save your money on health duds with these Business Insider tips.

No matter how many times we're told otherwise, Americans' obsession with get-healthy-quick schemes will likely never die. Too bad most of these fads aren't worth their weight in salt - or your hard-earned dollars. We've put together a list of some of the worst budget-sucking health trends that still persist today.

Coconut Water

Coconut water may be nature's version of Gatorade but some brands have already caught fire for over-hyping its nutrient content. Vita Coco agreed to settle a $10 million class action lawsuit over an independent study that showed the drinks didn't pack near as many electrolytes as advertisements implied. Some coconut waters are also loaded with added sugar, which will do nothing to help your waistline.

Alternative: Pick up your own young green coconuts on the cheap from an Asian produce market. Just crack them open with a cleaver and pop in a straw.

"All-Natural" Foods

30 percent of Americans bought more natural foods in 2011, according to a Rodale study. But what are we really paying more for? There's no clear cut regulation on what makes food "natural," which means just about any company can slap that label on its packages, add a fancy green theme and jack up the price.

Says Andrew Schrage of MoneyCrashers: "Before buying any food that is touted as being 'all natural,' take a look at the ingredient list before you check out. Keep in mind that butter and salt are indeed natural ingredients. So stocking up on natural foods may not achieve anything other than increasing your grocery bill."

Read on for more.

5 Habits of the Always-Fit

Leta Shy — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 16:48:23 PDT

Some people make it look so easy - they bounce out of bed in the morning, sprinkle their Greek yogurt with berries, and hop outside for their daily run. A green smoothie and a few post-workout stretches later, they're well on their way to having yet another healthy day.

For others, sticking with a healthy lifestyle isn't always so simple. Staying fit and healthy can be a struggle, since sticking to a workout and diet (aka not diving into a pint of ice cream every night) can test anyone's willpower. But the good news is that practice makes perfect, and becoming one of those enviably fit and healthy people can be just a few simple lifestyle changes away. Read on for five habits to borrow from the always-fit.

Make it a no-brainer: It can be hard to start an exercise routine, but it can be even harder to stick with it. But keeping with a regular exercise schedule gets easier the more you do it - that is, until you stop. Those enviably fit people have a secret: think of exercise as a daily must-do. You'll avoid getting into a rut, and you'll start to consider a workout as part of your everyday routine. Not only that, getting into an exercise routine makes skipping out that much harder; many people say that if they go without exercise for a few days, they start to feel anxious.

Take control of your food choices: It's an easy excuse to fall for: you can't eat right because you're surrounded by fast-food options, or you just don't have time to prep a healthy meal. People who are fit and healthy anticipate their hunger so they're not caught off guard with a grumbling stomach at the mall food court. Prepping meals and bringing your own snacks may take a little more time, but spending a few extra minutes to make meals and pack snacks will help you stay away from a fast-food fix. Stock your pantry with these healthy staples (think canned tuna, frozen veggies, and energy bars in bulk) that'll make throwing together a meal or to-go snack a breeze.

Read on for more healthy habits.

Is Ice Cream Addictive? The Truth About "Addictive" Foods

Self — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 06:58:37 PST

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Self here on FitSugar!

You've heard the ice cream calling your name from the freezer (or is that just me?) - but are you actually addicted to the stuff? A new study takes a look at how eating ice cream literally affects your brain.

Researchers Kyle Burger and Eric Stice of the Oregon Research Institute in Eugene studied how the brain responds to eating ice cream over time, and made a fascinating discovery: the more ice cream you eat, the more you need to eat in order for your brain to send signals that it's enjoying the treat!

Burger and Kyle surveyed 151 teenagers with healthy body weights about their food cravings. Then they showed the teens pictures of a chocolate milkshake while scanning their brains to see how strong their cravings were. Then they gave the teens real milkshakes while scanning their brains again. The results? The teens who reported eating the most ice cream in the few weeks prior to the study enjoyed the shakes the least, according to scans that tracked activity in the brain associated with reward. "Our results provide novel evidence that frequent consumption of ice cream, independent of body fat, is related to a reduction in reward-region responsivity in humans, paralleling the tolerance observed in drug addiction," the researchers say in the study. In other words: the more you have it, the more of it you need in order to experience pleasure from it.

So is it possible to be chemically addicted to food, like this study and other recent studies suggest? Bloomberg reported that 28 scientific studies and papers on food addiction were published as of November 2011, in an article that compared processed foods and sugary drinks to cocaine. Self contributing editor Janis Jibrin, a registered dietician, believes the answer is "yes." "This study is consistent with other research that shows there is definitely something about the brains of people who report being addicted to foods," she says.

"It seems to be twofold - if you eat these sugary, high-fat foods regularly, you build up a kind of tolerance and you need more and more to get the same hit," Jibrin says. "Some people might also have a genetic predisposition to food addition, and then we live in an environment where it's so easy to access these types of food."

Read on for more reasons why we become addicted to high-fat, high-sugar foods.

Beginner's Mind: 5 Tips to Build Your Yoga Practice at Home

Lizzie Fuhr — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:49:23 PST

A "beginner's mind" is a term you may have heard thrown around the yoga world. It means we're heading to our mats with no preconceived notions about what we can or can't accomplish, what poses we can or can't do - essentially, we should approach each experience like it's the very first time. While this is a tool we can take to all facets of our practice, recently, I've been finding it essential when practicing at home. Regardless of whether you're brand new to yoga or you're a seasoned yogini looking to breathe new life into a stale home practice, it's time to take these five tips to heart!

Set up a sacred space: While yoga is certainly a physical practice, half of its beauty comes with the clarity it brings to your mind. This comes first and foremost with a serene environment conducive to yoga. Make sure you have ample room to move with as few technological distractions as possible. When the mood strikes, turn on soothing music and light a candle or two. This is your time, so let's get it as relaxing as possible!
Make yourself (and your yoga) a priority: It's easy to get distracted from your home practice. Yes, things certainly come up and plans change, but do your best to dedicate a specific amount of time to your yoga. If you're constantly cutting out yoga from your schedule, rethink when it is a best fit. If you normally plan on practicing at night postwork but always cancel, try waking up a little early to kick things off with some Sun Salutations. It will bring a whole new energy to your day.
Be gentle with yourself: Learning to listen to your body is one of the best gifts you can receive from yoga. There's a difference between pushing yourself to a comfortable edge and putting yourself in a stressful position that will lead to a serious injury. I had a fantastic teacher who told me that you can really feel the difference between a "good" hurt and a "bad" hurt. If you're delving into a yoga home practice, you're going to have to get acquainted with this difference. Get yourself set up with all the necessary tools of the trade, and listen to your body now so you don't pay for it with serious discomfort later.

Get two more tips after the jump.