Keeping Fit is A Daily Battle

I was in the same boat recently when I stopped lifting weights for almost 6 months. I could not find time during those months when I shifted to a new house and took me some time to resume my previous routines. What is the best strategy when returning to lifting weights again after returning from a long layoff?

According to a study by Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, anyone returning from a layoff of six months or more should at first limit their lifting to one set per exercise. This applies too for those beginning to lift weights. The researchers reviewed 16 studies and determined that single-set programs yield gains similar to those produced by multiple-set programs at the start.

“You’re actually better off beginning with a light training regimen to acclimatise your body to additional stress”, says Linda LeMura, Ph.D., a co-author of the study. So there’s no need to break-in your body with doing multiple sets for one to 4 weeks. I actually followed this advice, and re-conditioned my body to adapt to perform more sets after 1 month of doing one set only. This would also prevent injuries or “pulled” muscles, especially when attempting to lift the weight you can do easily before.

Do one set first of approximately 65 percent of your one-repetition max, for one month. One set is 8 to 10 repetitions. After that, resume your multiple sets as you did before your layoff, 3 to 4 sets of about 80 percent of your one-rep max. Take it easy at first and you will be on your way to getting shape again.

Worthy advice from lifehack.org. Too many people waste too much time worrying about what they shouldn’t. It’s all about letting go of guilty feelings and not being affected by external factors, like what other people do to you or say about you. It’s very similar to the “Paradigm Shift” from “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey.

Lifehack.org listed 10; what I like most is “Let go of worrying. It often makes things worse.” It’s a simple advice, and being talked about a lot of times, and sung a lot of times too (Don’t worry, be happy). It boils down to how to do it, of being worry-free - how can we do it? Living less in a fast lane, and worrying less about things, material things, is my advice how to do it.

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“If you have more than 200 orgasms a year, you can reduce your physiologic age by six years,” Dr. Oz says. — I am so glad that my wife saw this on Oprah yesterday. Hopefully someone can find a link to the Duke study that this references but, in making the argument to a woman, isn’t Oprah good enough.

Yeah, having sex enough is a proof that “it” is functioning, your body system is working well. Plus the mental and emotional benefits of being one with someone you truly love and desire. So we might qualify these beneficial sex as those “safe” sex that we had; if not, then it is really not healthy when you contracted a disease because of frequent sex with multiple partners.

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There’s more worrisome news about vitamins: Taking too many may increase men’s risk of dying from prostate cancer.

Wow, what a life! In the hopes of being healthy and fit, we in one way or another are taking multivitamins, but yet, this news proves otherwise. This could lead to slowdown on sales of multivitamin makers? I hope the study elaborates more what caused this, what chemicals, etc., instead of generalizing. This comes from AP news so it could have some credibility? That is also a question mark…I mean these days, even the “reputable” news agencies are sensationalizing news or studies of this nature just to make “news”.

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Body builders and gym buffs, look away now. It appears that the opposite sex is much more interested in your face than your bulging biceps or elegant figure, especially if you’re a man. At least that’s the upshot of the first study to assess how much faces and bodies contribute to someone’s overall attractiveness.

I could not agree more to this - the face has much more ‘value’ when speaking of attractiveness. BUT, you must not discount the body’s form as additional factor for attractiveness. It is best to have good face plus good body, than good face with fat/thin unattractive body. Why limit yourself to your ‘face’ value? And besides, being fit and with good body form is not only for being attractive, it is for our health.

And what’s more, you cannot change the way your face looks, without resorting to drastic plastic surgery or whatever artificial means. You can do something about your body though. By keeping fit, your attractiveness factor goes up and your self-confidence builds up too.

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Three steps to sleeping soundly — with great tips on how to wake early!

It is outlined on the article 3 tips to conquer insomnia - exercise, wake up early, and just go to bed. These are simple and practical tips, but it works! I used to exercise in the evenings, after that my body aches on the muscles that I have exercised. I just lie on the bed, and before I know it, I am sound asleep. Note that before I had insomnia too, eventhough I’m already in bed, I just could not sleep. As an alternative, you may opt to wake up early and exercise early in the morning, having the same effect of being tired in the evening to have a good night sleep.

Add to the benefit of exercise is it’s relaxing effect on our mind. I have covered before in my previous article that exercise makes us feel good. After a workout session, I usually experience a sense of well-being - because I feel good about myself. Eventhough I don’t have the trimmest body in the world - in fact, I’m far from that - I felt good since I know I have exercised for that day and won that ‘battle’ to keep fit. That ‘accomplishment’ gave me a sense of satisfaction - in turn gave me more reason to rest, relax, and sleep better.

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This is one of the most important benefit of exercise: it makes us feel good.

Sure there are the long-term benefits like lowering blood pressure, improved strength and endurance, a trimmer physique and the confidence that follows, increasing mental alertness, and reducing your odds of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. But exercise simply makes us feel good.

Two primary chemicals involved in making exercise feel good are cortisol and endorphins.

Cortisol is a hormone produced by the body under stress, such as anger, anxiety or fear, and it ultimately inflames and damages our organs. Exercise burns cortisol, and thereby makes us healthier and happier.

Endorphins are morphine-like hormone molecules that enter the brain’s neurons and park on receptors that normally send pain-signaling molecules back to other parts of the brain. Some say endorphins are even more powerful and yield a more euphoric feeling than opiate drugs such as morphine and opium, which park on the same receptors when introduced to the body.

Exercise stimulates the brain’s pituitary gland to release endorphins, an abbreviation for endogenous (meaning “produced within”) morphine, in the bloodstream.

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Even with a stagnant gym membership or so-so discipline, individual episodes of intense exercise provides psychological boosts aside from the harder-to-see, harder-to-acquire physical and disease-fighting benefits of exercise.

A single exercise session lasting 20 or 30 minutes at 80 percent of your capacity brings on pain-relieving endorphins, according to work by Robert G. McMurray of the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Even one session makes you feel better and clears your head. Once you make a commitment to exercise then you are motivated to keep feeling good every day. After about two weeks of exercise you stay on course.

I truly find exercising as one way to de-stress and clear my mind. After only one hour of exercising, I feel relaxed. Having a nice hot shower and steam bath after the exercise at the gym adds more to the calm state of mind. Not only my muscles are at-ease, but also it helps to clear the worries of the day.

However, it is also important to keep varying the exercise, as our body easily adapts to hormones (endorphins and cortisol) over time. It is important to realize that routine deadens the heart, and you have to change up your exercise regimen. The body always adapts and you need to challenge it. So, vary the intensity, cross train, take dance classes, try a new sport, use a personal trainer for a few sessions, etc. Keep it fresh, and you will get that high!