Twitter topic of the day: Stress management

This post is my twitter daily tips / topic of the day. Follow me on Twitter @ezhomefitness

My #questionoftheday is what do you do to relieve stress? I'll retweet the best answers!

Stress can wreak havoc on your body - not only mentally but physically as well. Stress can undo your diet too! Stress taxes the body's recuperation ability, as well as other internal issues such as high blood pressure, upset stomach, fatigue, etc. Exercise helps relieve stress physically and mentally it helps too as exercise releases feel-good endorphins. Feel stressed, exercise! Stress wreaks havoc on your sleep patterns and how deep you sleep. You can get a full night's sleep and still wake up feeling fatigued. Stress also wreaks havoc on your diet as you turn to comfort foods to help you through the stressful time. Worse yet, smokers begin smoking more when stressed and that's a huge double whammy to the body's recuperation system. Same for alcohol. Another thing about stress is that it wears you down mentally and makes you even less motivated to diet & exercise (which would help!) Unfortunately, I know about stress & its effects all too well as I went through a very rough time with my mother's year-long health battle. She battled for a year with various physical problems & sadly lost the battle. I was there for the family & it all took its toll on me after. My fatigue was coupled with anxiety (which I never had) & it really took me out of my game for a long time so I am speaking from experience. I began my road back by eating better & then getting back to exercise. I knew exercise was the key. Doing weights was too much for my system at that point so I looked to my martial arts background & began doing Qi-gong which is like Tai Chi. Within a week, I began feeling the stress cloud on my body lift and that gave me new energy to do more. I exercised my way out of it. You can too! Find what works for u & will de-stress u- take time for yourself, LAUGH, eliminate stressful things, stay away from negativity. Above all exercise! Exercise is the key to beating stress. Yoga, dance, martial arts, cardio, weights, etc. Do what makes u feel better. Don't let stress beat you and don't let the stress also become a stressor upon you. Take control as soon as you can & get yourself back!

#Quote of the day: The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning. - Ivy Baker Priest

Twitter topic of the day: Don't psyche yourself out of dieting & exercising

This post is my twitter daily tips / topic of the day. Follow me on Twitter @ezhomefitness

My #questionfortheday is do you psych yourself out of dieting and exercising?

Get out of your own way! Dieting and exercising is hard. It's not easy or fun to lose weight. It's true but you knew that already so now go from there. Don't make excuses to slack off on your diet or not do it all, same for exercise. One day off will become two, etc. Stop the cycle! You know it's going to be work to diet and work off the pounds that took you months & even years to pack on. So dig down deep & attack it. Find motivation in the mirror, your clothes, whatever it takes to get the job done day after day. Eventually the motivation will come! You have to allow yourself the time to get to that point where you can start results that will feed your motivation! Be patient. Unrealistic expectations are the detours to your success. You are getting fitter & healthier just by dieting & exercising. Don't psych yourself out from dieting & exercising, psych yourself up instead to get it done. You can do it! if you can't do it on your own, then do what you need to do to find someone who can psych you up and motivate you from day to day! Finding someone to help hold you accountable to your dieting & working out can sometimes be the difference between success or failure. Just make sure you find someone who is not going to derail your diet and exercise program and that will always push you forward. Go for it! No excuses. Excuses when it comes to #diet & #exercise will just keep you in the same present you are now. Embrace your future!

#Quote of the day: Self-trust is the first secret of success. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Twitter topic of the day: Girly & manly exercise stereotyping

This post is my twitter daily tips / topic of the day. Follow me on Twitter @ezhomefitness

My #questionoftheday is do you disregard exercises because they are too feminine or too masculine for you to do or try?

Many people tend to disregard very effective forms of exercise because they consider these exercises as just for women or just for men. The truth is your body can't tell the difference if it's a feminine or masculine exercise. All your body knows is if it works or not. Many men shy away from yoga or stability ball training because they think these exercises are too girly but they are the ones missing out! On the flip side, many women shy away from weights & resistance training because that's a man thing to build muscle. Open your mind to ALL the exercise possibilities and see for yourself just how effective these exercises are for men & women. Incorporate all different types of exercises into your training to get a complete workout program. See what works & what doesn't. Incorporate all different types of exercises into your training to get a complete workout program. See what works & what doesn't. Different exercises work out different bodyparts and different muscle combinations so you can easily see the value in exercise variety. You have to keep the exercises interesting to keep you motivated and fresh from month to month. Change your workouts each month.

#Quote of the day: Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true. - Leon J. Suenes

Twitter topic of the day: Exercise "gadgets" and you

This post is my twitter daily tips / topic of the day. Follow me on Twitter @ezhomefitness

My #questionoftheday is how many of you have bought an exercise gadget that u used just once & didn't like or didn't find it as advertised?

The truth is that 95% of the exercise gadgets that you see on TV that are supposed to make exercising easier don't work & can hurt you. Feedback after feedback from people who get caught into buying the equipment find that the equipment doesn't make the exercise easier. In some cases, the equipment has actually caused the opposite effect of what it's supposed to make easier like strained necks, backs, etc. Now I'm not talking about some of the higher end products but moreso of the "gadgets", especially ones for the abs. These companies know that everyone is looking for that magic item that will "melt away" the pounds and "eliminate" inches, etc. These companies know that even if they offer a money back guarantee that people are too lazy to follow through with the refund requirements. So they make money off people's naivete and desepration to find that simple solution to lose weight, inches and get a great body. Very few of these things work as advertised. Save your money for what really works. Do you want to know what works? The same thing that has worked for years, decades even. Dumbbells, barbells, resistance bands, your bodyweight, cardio and lots of HARD work and SWEAT! No magic solution! You are the solution!

#Quote of the day: The only limitations you will ever face will be those you place upon yourself. - Keith DeGreen

Twitter Q&A Friday!

This post is my twitter daily tips / topic of the day. Follow me on Twitter @ezhomefitness

No tips today because today is "Q&A Friday"!! Cue the applause! Got a diet or exercise question, send it now as an @mention! Go! ;)

Q. What's the best "healthy" substitute for a sandwich? A. A wrap will have slightly less calories. Even a sandwich is ok, watch the extras

Q: I hurt my knee, how long should I wait before working out again? A: Depending on the injury, a few days rest then ease back into it

Q: What's better situps or crunches? A. Crunches are great upper ab builders but situps work out the abs better overall.

Q: Do I have to take vitamins? A. You should! A daily multi-vitamin & mineral supplement is vital to make sure you get all your body needs.

You can't count on that you will get all your vitamins from your diet, especially if you are working out hard. Supplement!

Twitter topic of the day - how to eat right

This post is my twitter daily tips / topic of the day. Follow me on Twitter @ezhomefitness

My #questionoftheday is how often do you eat? Just 3 meals a day? 2 meals a day? Snack throughout the day?

So... how often should you eat? How often you eat is just as important to your diet as what you eat.The average person skips breakfast, has a bad lunch and then eats dinner and flops on the couch. Does that sound healthy to you? Then of course there are all the bad snacks in between that they are noshing on all day long. Bad, bad, BAD!Eating bad like that, there is little surpise as to how their bodies look and feel. So, how often should you eat? Let's start with breakfast - MOST important meal of the day!! Let me repeat - MOST important meal of the day!! Breakdown the word "breakfast", what do u have? Break & fast. Breakfast is the meal that is breaking the fast of not eating all night. Your body is starving for nutrition after having fasted for however long you slept - that's a fast of 6, 7, 8 hours. This is why you must eat breakfast, especially when you are training hard. A healthy body requires the proper nutrition to operate at peak so I've shown you why breakfast is so important. When to eat next? 2 hours later! Yes, that's right. Eat a small snack 2 hrs later. Then eat every 2 hours for a total of 5-6 meals throughout the day. Eat protein at every meal and snack. So your food schedule should be breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack (optional) for the day. Sounds like a lot of eating doesn't it? It is! It will take some getting used to because most people under-eat! But there are many benefits The big benefits of eating this way is that u will raise your metabolism and keep it stoked throughout the day. Exercise will stoke it more! Think of it like a steam engine that keeps getting coal (fuel) to keep the engine going. That is how your metabolism is & needs to be fed. The other big benefit is that eating all these small meals & snacks will keep your blood sugar & insulin response stable = less fat storage! Just keep the meals small! You are taking in a lot more calories than you'll be used to so portion control will be vital. So there you have it - one of the biggest dieting tips you can have. Now it's up to you to put it into effect. ;)

#Quote of the day: Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears. - Arthur Koestler

Putting the "work" into your workout!

"If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?"
~Lord Chesterfield

Hey everyone, sooooooooo... how are those new year's resolutions about losing weight or getting in better shape going? I hope most of you are saying in your heads that it's going great and that it is true and you're not trying to convince yourself that it is.

Are you being strict with your diet or just cruising along? Are you giving it you all every workout? Well, I'm here to give you a little reality check. You have to bust it every time in the gym or at home when you work out. No cruising allowed! There is a reason the word "work" is in workout. It's supposed to be hard!! That is if you want results. You do want results, don't you? I sure hope you're not just going through the motions and wasting your time. If you're putting in the time, then put in the work!

Put in the work means that you should be pushing yourself EVERY workout. If that means you can only manage one extra rep but you're giving it 100% then so be it but the point is to challenge yourself. If you can do two extra reps, do it. Don't go into your workout to just put in the time and say you worked out. Go in there and get something more from it. Learn your limits even as you set new ones each workout. The body is very adaptable and if you don't continuously push it, it is very content with that and the results will stop. Even though you may not see instant results from that one extra rep or that extra set or that extra MPH on the treadmill, trust that you are making progress towards a stronger, fitter you and that's what it's all for, isn't it?

Make every rep work for you, feel the muscle work as you do the exercise. Make every set work for you, feel the last 3-4 reps of every set - make sure those reps aren't easy. Make every exercise work for you, if you're not feeling it doing anything anymore or it's too easy - replace it with a harder exercise. The point is to WORK WORK WORK.

Push your body continuosly and you will see results with the body, fitness and health you always wanted. Now get to WORK! ;)