PHYSICAL WELLNESS
Lose Weight,
Improve your Health,
Prevent Disease
Physical Wellness is about being at your physical best. When you look and feel your best inside and out, you will have vitality that you always dreamed about.
Obtaining Physical Wellness
Physical wellness is developed through healthy eating, sleep, and exercise habits. All three are necessary components to physical well being. Additionally, physical wellness is concerned with taking a proactive role in disease prevention and seeking medical attention when necessary. By getting in tune with your body, you will understand the relationship between good nutrition and how your body performs as well as the warning signs for sickness and disease.
Stop Dieting, Start Eating
With so much emphasis put on being ‘skinny’, many Americans have turned to unhealthy fad diets to try and lose weight quickly only to end up gaining it back. Diets don’t work. I must admit, that being a twenty something female, I tried my share of fad diets to fit into my skinny jeans or to look good in a bikini. It wasn’t until I stopped trying to ‘not eat this or that’ and eating what my body was craving, that weight stabilized and my overall health improved. Your body is smarter than you think. It knows exactly what types of foods you need and when. When you start listening to your body and follow it’s cues on nutrition, you will be giving it want it wants and it will reward you back. I know what you’re thinking, “my body wants chocolate cake and cheetos, but that will make me fat.” I got so sick of trying to eat no carbs or low fat or vegan to try and lose weight that I one day, I just gave up and said “what if I just ate what I wanted, but didn’t over eat?” I decided that I was going to eat what I want for one month. No diets, no restrictions, whatever I wanted I could have. I weighed myself at the beginning of month and was going to weigh myself at the end to see what would happen to my weight. This first week I indulged in everything that I had been holding myself back from. I would eat a bagel for breakfast (carb heaven), pizza for lunch, chips and candy in between meals, and take chinese food and Ben Jerry’s ice cream for dinner. I ate what I wanted but decided I would stop when I felt satisfied and not overeat. I assumed that this was what the month would be like for me, but something shifted in the second week. I noticed I didn’t crave all the junk food that I ate the first week. I felt bloated after eating pizza, would get headaches and crash from all sugar in the candy, and felt gross after eating take out. I had satisfied my cravings and then some and no longer wanted to eat a bagel every morning for breakfast. I wanted things like a turkey avocado sandwich or a mixed green salad or fruit. The rest of the month was about the same, for the most part I wanted healthy wholesome food with a few treats in between. _________________________________________________________________
Get the body of your dreams by eating the foods you CRAVE___________________________________________________________________ I weighed myself again at the end of the month, expecting to have put on weight and found that I actually lost 3 pounds! Because I was eating what I was craving, I felt satisfied and was actually eating healthier than before.
Why Organic?
Not to be mistaken for another fad, organic food should be a mainstay of your daily diet. What’s the big deal with organic food? Organic foods are high quality foods that are grown without any harmful chemicals or antibiotics.Although, they come at a premium in cost, it is worth the money spent because organic foods will save you from disease and weight gain in the long run. The human body was not made to synthesize genetically modified food and ingest pesticides and the long-term effects of these chemicals result in obesity and disease. Let’s say that you go to the grocery store and pick out what you think is a healthy food—an apple. It is a conventionally grown apple that has been grown with pesticides and coated in wax to make it shiny and more appealing to the eye. As you eat that apple, your body is breaking it down and taking what it can from the food for fuel. It breaks down the fiber and begins to absorb the nutrients, when it comes across the pesticides and recognizes that it is a toxin and stores it in a fat cell to protect itself. Anything that your body does not recognize, eg. chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, it will flag as toxic and will insulate the invader from harming the rest of the system. As long as you continue to ingest chemicals, your body holds onto these fat cells and will keep producing new ones. Once you stop consuming toxins, your body will feel it’s safe from contamination and gradually will stop producing new fat cells and release the existing ones. However, if you continue to consume pesticides and other additives, your body will eventually become overloaded with toxins and disease will manifest. By eating organic fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy, you will be giving your body the nutrition it needs without the harmful chemicals found in commercial foods.
Whole Nutrition
Think of your body like car, when you take care of it and put in the right fuel it runs smoothly and takes you where you need to go. Your metabolism behaves very much like the engine of a car. If you keep it stoked with high quality nutrition, it will be at peak efficiency burning calories and maintaining homeostasis. Instead of focusing on eliminating foods from your diet, focus on adding nutrients your body needs. Think of eating fresh organic produce, meat and diary that do not contain antibiotics, sustainable seafood, and high quality supplements. Improve your overall wellness by learning about 'super foods' and essential vitamins and how to incorporate them into your diet. Learn about health nutrition and how to create your own healthy diet plan. The idea is not to make drastic changes to your lifestyle, but small tweaks here and there to make a big difference.
Benefits of Breaking a Sweat
You know that physical exercise is good for you, but do you know all the benefits you can gain from increasing your heart rate?Exercise helps you to sleep better, manage stress, and prevents disease. Don’t forget about the toned muscles and weight control you gain from your workouts. If you need a little reminder as to why you should get off the couch, check out all the ways physical activity can improve your life.
• Combat chronic disease - Exercise helps reduce blood pressure, boost HDL, the good cholesterol while lowering triglycerides. • Boost your mood - Physical activity stimulates your brain to release endorphins, leaving you happier and more relaxed after your workout. • Loss/Manage your weight - The more calories you burn, the easier it is for you to manage your weight. • Increase your energy level - Ever notice you feel more alert after a work out? Exercise gets your blood flowing to deliver oxygen and nutrients to your body. When your body receives fresh oxygen and blood, your energy level increases. • Improve your sex life - Exercise gets your blood flowing—to all areas of the body. Daily physical exercise can enhance arousal for women and combat erectile dysfunction in men. • Improve your sleep - Regular exercise helps you deepen your sleep. • Manage Stress - Physical exercise provides an outlet for built up tension. When you workout, you expend your nervous energy,leaving you feeling more relaxed afterward.
Elements of a Balanced Routine
Aerobic Activity
Cardiovascular exercise otherwise known as aerobic activity is a fundamental part of any exercise regimen. Aerobic activity is any exercise that increases your heart rate continuously over a period of time, bringing in fresh oxygen to body. Why is cardio so important? In addition to training the heart and lungs to be more efficient, cardio burns calories. It is the cornerstone to any weight loss plan because as you engage in physical activity, your body uses it’s calorie stores to fuel the muscles and also raises the metabolic rate for a period of time after working out. According to the Mayo Clinic, it is recommended that you engage in 2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week or one hour and 15 minutes a week of vigorous activity.
Strength Training Strength training helps tone your muscles, raises your metabolism, and increases your bone density. It is important for everyone to engage in some kind of weight bearing exercise as you age to prevent loss of muscle mass and to protect against osteoporosis. According to Madelyn H. Fernstrom, Ph.D., director of the Weight Management Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, “Your metabolism slows by 5 percent each decade. Compared to age 25, you’ll burn about 100 fewer calories a day at 35 and 200 fewer at 45. Do nothing, and you could gain eight to 12 pounds a year.” Madelyn H. Fernstrom, Ph.D., director of the Weight Management Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “Your metabolism slows by 5 percent each decade. Compared to age 25, you’ll burn about 100 fewer calories a day at 35 and 200 fewer at 45. Do nothing, and you could gain eight to 12 pounds a year.” Weight lifting or strength training exercise helps to maintain or increase muscle tone, preventing your metabolism from dropping. Pound for pound, muscle burns 3 times as many calories as fat, so the more muscle you have, the more calories your body burns at rest. Incorporate strength training two to three days a week into your exercise plan and make sure to work out all major muscle groups.
Stretching Often overlooked, stretching is an important exercise to do to prevent injury and maintain range of motion. As you lift weights and do cardiovascular activity, your muscles contract and tighten. Stretching does just that, it stretches the muscles out so that they do not stay tight. Stretching also relieves soreness from exercising, improves the range of motion in your joints, and can even help relieve stress. Try stretching after your next workout; your muscles will be warm and flexible and will benefit from the release. As little as five to minutes after your workout can make a huge improvement in your range of motion and decrease muscle soreness from built up lactic acid.
Get your ZZZZ's
Sleep is essential to good health. It is a necessary part of the restoration and recovery of body cells from the stresses of every day life. Without adequate sleep the mental and physical body are unable to function properly and making an individual less alert, more tense, and more susceptible to infection. How much sleep you need depends on each individual, with the general guideline between 8-10 hours. The best way to determine the ideal amount of sleep you need is to go to bed and get up naturally without an alarm. Try it out on a weekend or sometime when you don’t need to be up at specific hour and see how you feel when you can sleep as long as your body needs. I recommend doing this 4 or 5 times, so you can better gauge an average amount. Getting adequate amounts of sleep is essential for maintaining physical wellness.
Need more reasons to get your ZZZs? Check out why sleep is so good for you.
• Sleep keeps your heart healthy
• Sleep improves your memory and concentration
• Sleep makes your skin look good
• Sleep reduces stress and cortisol levels in the body
• Sleep improves your eyesight
• Sleep helps to control your body weight
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Professional Link Partners
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Physical wellness is an interactive process of becoming aware of and practicing healthy choices to create a more successful and balanced lifestyle. It is not gained overnight; it is cultivated over time. You must appreciate and value of the relationship between sound nutrition and the functioning of the body. To begin your journey of optimal wellness, please visit
STRENGTH TRAINING ENDEAVORS
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