Mind Body & Soul

Being healthy and fit is more than doing exercise and eating plenty of fruit and vegetables - it's a complete way of life . Your mind, body and soul all have to work together in healthy harmony.
What use is a 6 minute mile or a six pack if you're about to kill the boss, or you sit at home depressed with a chocolate bar for company. So having it all is a dream?
With a few simple steps, we can all be healthier and happier and laugh a little more.
Life is all about living - being happy with yourself and others around you. Its to easy to become negative with your thoughts when your around the wrong people, or within the wrong enviroment.
Remember to make a change in your life - you will often need to make changes in your life.
What you do will decide who you are!
Use your time wisely to help dedicate time to where you want to go - if you don't have a plan or a dream then your likely never accomplish your total fulfillment.
A dream will always be a dream until its written down - then it becomes a goal - try and achieve all your goals in life.
Unlike pushing the weights or pounding the streets - training the mind and soul is about training your inner self - your thoughts - your well-being.
Classes such as Yoga - Tai Chi are excellent for assisting with your breathing and relaxtion whilst enabling yourself to be focused on yourself.

Pilates Slims Your Silhouette

Personal Fitness Trainer
Pilates promotes a longer, leaner body line just as yoga does, because it involves stretching, bending, and twisting the body while developing core strength. But Pilates is not particularly aerobic, so if you are looking for a big calorie burn, use Pilates as an adjunct exercise to running, walking, biking, or using a fitness machine at the gym. Pilates plus aerobic exercise makes for a comprehensive fitness plan, since Pilates increases strength and flexibility and can prevent injuries and improve athletic performance in the same way as regular yoga practice. Many athletes find the emphasis on core body strength in Pilates helps them in their other sports.

Importance of Cooling Down

Personal fitness trainer

After vigorous aerobic exercise it is important to take 10 minutes or so to cool down gradually. Do not stop abruptly. For example, after a long run or jog, walk around and keep moving, rather than just stopping.

Cooling down properly (moving around) redistributes the blood that may have pooled in the extremities when you end your workout, and it prevents muscle stiffness because it allows the metabolic wastes to be worked out of your muscles.

How Do I Start Exercising?

Making the personal decision to begin exercise is the first step. Committing to make it a priority in your life is the next.

Often, the biggest challenge you will face is changing your lifestyle. Many of us have created bad habits over a the years and changing these requires a committed effort to consciously recognize and alter some of these patterns. Ultimately you need to change both your internal beliefs and your external environment to step you up for success.

It takes time to develop new habits, so a positive, forgiving attitude is essential. You will not become an athlete overnight, but by slowly changing your internal dialog and external situation, you will find a new lifestyle that encourages fitness.

Begin by checking with you doctor to ensure that you can safely exercise without restrictions. Once you have the ok, surround yourself with supportive people and role models. Having a support system is crucial in starting a workout program. Accountability and motivation are very important to success. Ask those who are active how they’ve set up their lifestyle to support activity. You will learn a lot from those who are doing what you want to do.

You might also consider several sessions with a qualified personal trainer to learn what to do to reach your fitness goals. Keep in mind that there is no right or wrong way to stay active. Find something that works for you whether it’s bike commuting to work, walking after dinner, joining a sports league, exercise while watching tv, or training for a marathon. There are so many options and sometimes we don’t realize how life provides many opportunities to be active – we just have to recognize them.

Physical health is often the last item on the daily agenda in trying to balance, school, jobs, relationships and all of the other demands of your daily life. However, if you make physical fitness and healthy lifestyle a priority, you will find more energy and enthusiasm for the other areas of your life.
Ideally, your exercise routine should be goal oriented, especially for new exercisers. Your goal must be realistic relative to your starting point, and measurable in a way that you will see your progress.

What Are the Specific Benefits of Exercise?

Psychological and Emotional Benefits
Personal Fitness Trainer

Aerobic exercise is linked with improved mental vigor, including reaction time, acuity, and math skills. Exercising may even enhance creativity and imagination. According to one study, older people who are physically fit respond to mental challenges just as quickly as unfit young adults. (Stretching and weight training appear to have no such effects.) Both aerobic and non aerobic workouts have been shown to reduce depression. According to one study, exercise was as effective for improving mood in people with clinical depression as some common forms of psychotherapy. Either brief periods of intense training or prolonged aerobic workouts can raise levels of important chemicals in the brain, such as endorphins, adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine, that produce feelings of pleasure, causing the so-called runner's high. One study found that teenagers who were active in sports have a much better sense of well being than their sedentary peers; the more vigorously they exercised, the better was their emotional health. In one study, regular brisk walking cut in half the incidence of sleep disturbances in people who suffer from them. It should be noted that exercise in the evening, however, can cause sleep disturbances. Rhythmic aerobic and yoga exercises may be particularly helpful for combating stress, anxiety, and sleeplessness.

Four aspects of exercise

Personal Fitness Trainer

(1) Cardiovascular fitness

Personal Fitness Trainer
This refers to the fitness level of your heart, lungs, veins and arteries which are responsible for processing and transporting oxygen to your muscles. As your fitness improves, your heart will become more efficient, being able to pump more blood with fewer contractions. This is was is meant by a reduced or slower resting heart rate. A slow resting heart rate means your heart is working with ease and efficiency; a high resting heart rate means that your heart is having to work hard. (Resting heart rate is the number of heart beats per minute when you first wake up and before you get up). Exercises which use oxygen (i.e. aerobic exercises) are those which improve cardiovascular fitness.

(2) Muscular strength and (3) Endurance

Personal Fitness Trainer
If you do not use your muscles they will shrink. Muscular strength is necessary to perform fundamental movements of everyday life: lifting your children; carrying your shopping, even standing. Endurance (stamina) is necessary to continue to walk or carry your shopping without becoming tired. Both are essential in order to maintain mobility and functionality, particularly in older age. Without them we cannot live an independent life. Furthermore, muscular tissue uses more calories than inactive tissue which is good news for those trying to control their weight. Resistance exercises improve muscular strength and endurance.

(4) Flexibility

Personal Fitness Trainer
Flexibility is critical, yet often overlooked. Flexibility is the range of movement at a joint (where two or more bones meet). Without flexibility we will suffer from increased stiffness (and so an inability to perform simple tasks easily, like turning around to reverse park) poor posture and muscular tension, particularly in older age. Furthermore, flexibility helps to reduce the possibility of injury and risk of low back pain. Exercises to improve flexibility include stretching and yoga.

Exercises to look younger

Personal fitness trainer

Like they say, age gracefully. No matter how old you are, would you like to have wrinkles, age spots, uneven and sagging skin? Definitely not! Everyone wants to hide their age as much as possible, and celebrities are more ‘at fault’ in this regard than us. Look at Demi Moore and Cameron Diaz-do they really look their age? They have their own personal fitness trainer.

Time was when anti-aging tools were the prerogative of the celebrities. Not so any more! Today anyone can use them! In fact, I will tell you of a simple way to look more beautiful and hide your age and I will be your own personal fitness trainer.

You already know that exercises can help you lose weight and become fit. However, do you know that there are also special types of ‘facial exercises’, which would help you fight against aging? If you do these facial exercises regularly, you will look several years younger! In this article I will tell you about them.

1. Neck exercise: Tilt your neck backwards and then in a roundabout way. This is a great exercise for quickly shedding the extra pounds from your face; plus your blood circulation would also improve with this exercise. Make sure you do not move your neck in a jerky way or in any awkward position as it can cause neck injuries.

2. Jaw exercise: Open and drop your jaw, then open and close your mouth. Do this at least 20-25 times. This is yet another way to get rid of facial fat, particularly the fat around your chin and neck! For best results, jaw exercises should be done early in the morning.

3. Smiling: Not the half-heated smiles; I mean, smiling with a wide open mouth - smiling like that can help you get rid of facial fat.

4. Other things: While these facial exercises can work on their own, there are other things you need to take care of. For example, you need to watch your diet! If you can survive only on juices then there is nothing like that! Fruit juices are good for your health since many of them are rich in vitamins! A strict fruit-juice diet would help you achieve a glowing skin quite fast.

If you cannot survive on a juice-only diet then you can eat vegetables and fruits. If possible, eat fruits and vegetables in their raw forms; if not, you can boil them! Junk foods are obviously a strict no-no. Sugar and salt intake should obviously be reduced and regulated.

Looking young is not all that hard! You don’t need to buy the latest and greatest cosmetics or go under the knife in order to look beautiful! Just follow the four simple tips I outlined above and relive your youth.

Personal fitness trainer