Investing in a special exercise trampoline leaves you feeling bright, active, totally happy and ready for more. And that is not an exaggeration. Thousands and thousands of people are using trampolines of all sizes, not just for fun filled days for the kids but as a serious fitness regime.

Trainers recommend it because it protects your joints, improves coordination and keeps you fit.

But the best part about this particular workout is that it is fun! Trampolining is a fantastic, safe way to exercise. Not only can you fit it around your physical abilities and needs, trampolining is flexible in terms of time and space. You can do it at home indoors (mini trampoline!) or in the garden.

All manner of people use it as a way to keep fit, from older people who need aerobic exercise that has less impact on their joints, right through to sportsmen and women, athletes and boxers who need extremely effective exercise. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: bone disease, cycling, mood-enhancing chemicals, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, osteoporosis

Tried and trusted exercise bikes have been a fitness companion for many people for years. They are simple piece of equipment and you can use them any time and do not need to prepare too much before you leap on!

They give your legs a fantastic workout and condition your cardiovascular fitness too. They are great if you already enjoy cycling but live in a very built up area and want to avoid the traffic.

Exercise bikes build your athletic fitness and leg muscles in particular. Leg muscles are the strongest in the body so exercising them will lead to an improvement in many areas of your fitness, especially running and walking, playing with the kids and running up the stairs.

Your stamina improves tremendously and using an exercise bike allows you to build up stamina safely because, unlike with running for example, there is no impact. By doing only two sessions a week and increasing the length of session and resistance per session, you will start to notice the difference after the first week and you will be able to run or walk longer distances too. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: cycling, knee injuries

When it comes to weight loss, our natural instinct is to cut down drastically on our calorie intake. After all, didn’t that doctor tell us that we needed to keep our calorie intake in check for fast weight loss? This is the reason why we tend to focus on eating low calorie foods all the time.

If you have decided to consume only low calorie desserts from now on, it means that you have become much more health conscious by deciding to take control of your daily calorie intake. This is indeed a good decision. However, focusing exclusively on low calorie desserts is not a good idea.

What if I tell you that in reality, low calorie foods would eventually make you gain weight? If that sounds crazy to your ears, here is a simpler explanation: when you focus on eating only low calorie foods, your body tries to keep your metabolic rate at a low level. Think about it, does your body really need to keep your metabolic rate high for burning off low calorie foods? Obviously not. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: cycling

I don’t need to tell you how much workouts are crucial for quick weight loss. However, if you don’t do the following three things, your workout sessions would just prove to be a waste of time. Let me tell you about the top three things you should do in order to extract the most out of each and every workout session you participate in!

Variety is the spice of life: This is true not only of foods but also workouts! If you want to gain the maximum benefit out of exercises, you should do a variety of workouts so as to keep your body guessing! When you do the same old workout each and every day, your body gets accustomed to it and consequently burns fewer calories than before.

Think about it this way: if you eat the same old food time and again your tongue would get used to its taste and then you would no longer be as interested in that food as before! The same holds true for workouts as well!

So one day you may do some jogging, another day, indulge in swimming, then basketball, cycling, etc. If you are doing intense workouts you should alternate between the various types of intense workouts available!

Replace long boring cardios with interval training: The days of long boring cardios are gone. Why would you spend four hours on cardios when you could gain the same benefit within just five minutes?

Interval training is the new craze among weight loss aspirants. You only need to spend five minutes on it in order to lose weight quickly and easily! Apart from being a huge time saver, another advantage of interval training over cardios is that it helps you burn fat even at rest! Just imagine, won’t it be nice if you could burn fat simply by sitting on your couch and watching your favorite movie? If you want that then you need to start doing interval training!

Snack before exercising: Who said snacking before exercising is not good? If you snack one-and-a-half hour before starting the workout, you have nothing to worry about! When working out, many people become fatigued half-way. This won’t happen to you if you snack before hitting the gym.
The best kind of snack for this purpose is a low-carbohydrate protein bar! You should also drink plenty of water before, during and after exercising! The more hydrated your body is, the easier it will be for you to sustain the intensity of workouts!

Tags: basketball, cycling, food, food time, Swimming

I have been looking through some of my blog posts for this year and realized that I have posted a lot about eating and not quite enough about exercise. You do exercise a lot don’t you?

Well if you are like most people the answer may be a sheepish no…that’s ok, change is near.

I wanted to kick off some exercise posts by today letting you know 5 exercise myths and why you have to stop believing them. Read this mythbusting a few times so that you are not as scared about getting scared about exercise. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: cycling, energy, food, performance sports, sportsman

eDiets has an article telling us what fit people do. It is right on the mark

1. Sleep well and wake up naturally. Many fit people arise without an alarm clock feeling energized, rested and hungry. They have set fitness goals and a plan to achieve them. People who are fit fall asleep easier, have more quality sleep and require less sleep than someone who is unfit. Lack of sleep is strongly associated with obesity. Sleeping helps the body repair, rebuild and recover.

2. Get prepared. Fit people pack their gym bags the night before, have clothes laid out for exercise, toiletries packed for a shower, clothes for work and an appointment in their planner for physical activity. They regard their workout appointments as highly as any other business or social commitment. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: breast cancer, cycling, fitness goals, food, food choices, fund raiser, healthy meals, Leukemia, morning exercise, obesity, physical activity, plan meals, planner for physical activity, self-help snake oil, stress management, workout, workouts

As you can imagine top athletes are very particular with what they eat and when. I was over at a running blog today when I ran across the following article about Carb cycling.

Crib Sheet on Carbohydrate Cycling at Her Active Life

The basic idea behind carb cycling is that you eat every day based on the next day workouts. Some top athletes will build their eating around bog events as well as seasonal patterns of training and working out output.

Even if you are not really at the level of fitness and athleticism to take advantage of a concept like carb cycling this is a nice peek at what the real elite athletes think about when it comes to diet.

Tags: carbohydrate, cycling, elite athletes, fitness, workouts

Many people ask me what the best food for losing weight are and I have to day that there are a few things that I like to tell people before I answer that questions. First there is how your body uses energy and then there is how to make sure that your body does not store fat.

First of all your body is a machine that needs to use a base sugar called glycogen to function. Glycogen is a broken down version of sugar and is not eaten by you but instead is broken down in your body so that you have the energy available to your muscles that they need.

So now the important question is what does your body need to create this glycogen stuff? The answer is that your body can use anything, protein, carbohydrates or fat to create glycogen but it uses the items in the most efficient form possible. Your body will use simple sugars first, then carbohydrates, then fats or protein. This single fact is why the Atkins diet works best over the short term but now in the long term. If your body does not have access to carbohydrates it will in a pinch use the fats in your body to create glycogen for your muscles and at the same time your body will start slowing your metabolism as it will think it is going into a starvation mode.

So now we know why Atkins works in losing weight for the first couple of weeks but after this usually people have trouble losing weight on Atkins and that is because your body thinks that it is starving and slows down. There is an alternative and that is to stop your diet after a few days and then move to another diet a few days after going off of that diet.

If you use this cycling method of dieting you will be able to lose weight consistently and not have to go through the expense, and vitamin needs of Atkins. Eating a higher protein diet as well as having the fruits and vegetables needed to stay healthy is the best fat loss diet possible

The two diets that I know of that use this cycling method of changing your diet after a few days is the Body for life system which has six days on the diet and one day off the diet. The other diet that uses cycling is fat loss For Idiots which uses 9 days on the diet and then 4 days off the diet.

The most important thing here as you can see is to use confusion to your body in your diet.

Tags: atkins diet, cycling, energy, food, starvation

I have watched Lance Armstrong for years in his wins at the Tour de France and was interested in the story that he was going to be running the New York marathon with almost no running training. To be sure Lance is in fantastic shape now although I am sure his 180 pounds now is a little fatter and in slightly worse condition then his prime 165 pound cycling weight. Amazing to me is that he was able to run the New York marathon in just under 3 hours.

As a professional cyclist, perhaps the best that ever lived Lance Armstrong was a true competitor that played to his strengths. Lance is good at riding in the mountains although maybe not the best but coupled with his strength in sprints, also not the best in the world and his strategic vision, which is definitely the best in cycling. Running though is a very different sport than cycling and while running Lance Armstrong had a lot of trouble after about and hour and a half or so because his body is finely tuned for a longer endurance at a lower level of effort, I am sure that the energy Lance Armstrong would put out in a regular day at the Tour de France is likely the same as the top marathon runners on Sunday but he would do this in five hours not two hours.

Still, Lance again accomplished an amazing feat. Most vetran runners would not be able to do the New York marathon in under three hours and I beleive that the two things that made the difference between what he did and just giving up after and hour or tow was his cockiness in knowing that he is one of the great athletes of our time and the mental attitude that allowed him to continue well after his body was willing to give up.

Here is some of what was said in a New York Times article about Lance Armstrong and the race:

After his news conference at the New York Athletic Club, he limped out of the room.

Earlier, Armstrong had said that he could possibly have run a sub-2:30 if he had trained, but now he was quite sure that another marathon was out of the question. Nothing in cycling ever came close to three hours of activity at this level, he said.

“I wasn’t kidding when I said that I’ve never felt this bad, ever,” he said. “My legs are killing me. My back doesn’t feel that great, either. I’m really suffering.”

This goes to show that no matter what kind of an athlete that you are there is always something that is going to be difficult. The next crazy thing I would like to see is a marathoner riding the Tour de France and seeing how that would go. Two different disciplines but there are a lot of parallels to training and how to get your head into the sport.

Tags: athlete, cycling, energy, France, Lance Armstrong, New York, New York Athletic Club, New York Times, professional cyclist, Tour De France

I have found a list of 99 ways to get more exercise. These tips range from stuff to do at home and around the neighborhood to things to do around the city with your family and neighbors.

Exercise Getting started…

1. Schedule a regular time throughout the week for physical activity.
2. Take turns selecting an activity for the family to do as a group each week.
3. Start a log of daily fitness activities for each family member.
4. Adapt all activities to suit those with special needs and preferences.
5. Help everyone to find something active that makes them feel successful.

Exercise Tips for the Home

6. Designate indoor and outdoor play areas where rolling, climbing, jumping, and tumbling are allowed.
7. Buy toys or equipment that promote physical activity.
8. Select fitness-oriented gifts with the recipient’s skills and interests in mind.
9. Limit time spent watching television programs, videotapes, and playing computer games.
10. Use physical activity rather than food as a reward (e.g. family goes in-line skating).
11. Include grandparents, other relatives, and friends whenever possible.
12. Emphasize the importance of having fun and learning; avoid a push “to win”.
13. Get off the couch and change the channel manually — or better yet, turn it off!
14. Spend as much time outdoors as possible.

Exercise Tips for the Kitchen

15. “Pack your own” nutritious snacks and meals for family outings.
16. Keep fresh fruit and vegetables washed, cut-up, chilled and readily available for post-exercise snacking.
17. Have attractive containers of water available during and after workouts.
18. Take the family grocery shopping so everyone can learn to read the nutrition labels (find the cereal that offers the most fiber per serving; find the tastiest non-fat cheese).
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, co-worker, cycling, diabetes, family member, fever, food, Golf, hypertension, kite flying, modified backyard sports, Olympic, physical education teacher, school board, school physical education teacher, skiing, Softball, stroke, Tennis, volleyball, water sports