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Does Anxiety Have a Purpose?
Most people are familiar with the feeling of anxiety. There is a lot of information online about ways to cope with it yet so many of us are trying to push it down, ignore it, wish it away, drink and/or medicate it away. Even if this feels good in the short term, anxiety always comes back, often stronger than before. Exercise is one of the top listed ways to cope with anxiety as if we are exercising the demons. While working out is a tactic I swear by because of the endless benefits it offers, I do not advocate solely on working out as a cure all. There is no question…
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Effects Of Obesity On Pregnancy
Forty percent of American women are obese. Doctors recommend that obese women lose weight before pregnancy. Not only are obese women 35% less likely to become pregnant, but for those who do become pregnant, there is an increased risk of stillborn births by 2x the rate of women who are of normal weight. Obese mothers additionally are at increased risk for complications during pregnancy. Examples of this include, increased risk of miscarriage, c-sections, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and sleep apnea. Babies born to obese mothers are more likely to become obese as children and as adults, suffer from neural tube defects, and be premature. In the U.S., being obese has officially become a marker for…
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Use Pregnancy To Improve Health And Fitness
It is common to give up on weight loss programs because they can be very demanding and hard to maintain. Although it may seem counterintuitive, pregnancy is a fantabulous opportunity to improve your health, increase comfort, and minimize time spent in labor. The best part is, your baby benefits from your efforts too. Charles Duhigg states in his book titled Smarter, Faster, Better, “Figure out how this task is connected to something you care about. Explain to yourself why this chore will help you get closer to a meaningful goal. Explain why this matters and then you’ll find it easier to start.” If you connect the importance of working out and eating…
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Diets Suck!
When most of us sign up for a new diet or exercise routine that promises losing ten or more pounds, we get excited and think it will work this time, even though nothing much has changed since the last time you purchased a weight loss program. The problem is that many weight loss programs are marketed and sold as temporary or quick fix solutions. If you reach, or get close to reaching, your goal weight, the carrot is yours. This is the most dangerous time though; many people begin putting weight back on once they have reached their goal weight. This is particularly true if the diet was highly restrictive…
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What’s Missing In Your Weight Loss Program
Do you diet and exercise for a while, fall off the wagon, then start back up again when you feel fed up? Yo yo dieting is common but can cause damage to the body when done repeatedly. So many emotions, both conscious and unconscious, are involved in eating patterns. When one consciously decides to begin a new diet and/or exercise routine, willpower is the primary driver of behavior. The problem is, willpower doesn’t work long term; if it did everyone would look the way they want to. Most people generally know what they need to do to lose weight, so how can you stick with what we know works? A…
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Does It All Go Downhill With Age?
A common reason people start new fitness/health routines is because they begin to feel the effects of aging, whether that be weight gain, achy joints, or a lack of energy. A good preventative health plan includes strength, mobility, flexibility, and balance training. It may seem counterintuitive to think of regular resistance training as a method of reducing discomfort, particularly because it may not seem comfortable while working out, but the benefits are undeniable. There appears to be a misconception that exercise sessions must be harsh or last for long stretches of time, but that isn’t necessarily true. This is where a good coach comes in, one who adapts your program…
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Lacking Motivation To Exercise
Many times we make resolutions at the beginning of each year to get fit. Gyms pay big money to advertise things like, “A new year, a new you.” Those ads pay off for them; people buy memberships even if they don’t use them because everyone wants to look better and be healthier. You might hope that purchasing a gym membership will amp up your ambition to become more active, but willpower is hardly effective as a long term strategy and burns out quickly and easily. Many times we bully ourselves to do something that we only want to do on a surface level. In other words, your deeper mind knows…
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How Your Assumptions Keep You Unfit And Unhealthy
Chances are you have been on the health and weight loss hamster wheel for a long time. Every new diet and/or exercise routine you try works for a little while, but then brings nothing but more of the same. If you start a new technique, or go back to one that has brought you positive results in the past with the same mindset, you can guarantee that your results won’t be any different than they were the first time you tried. With that said, there are weight loss methods that aren’t healthy and can actually exacerbate health issues or create new problems. For this reason it is best not to assume…
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Doomed If You Hate Traditional Exercise Programs?
Not even a little bit! Everyone has different preferences which makes us unique. If we all liked the same types of clothes, foods, or even people, there would be no variety and life would be pretty bland. What works for one is not necessarily guaranteed to work for another. Many exercise and health professionals have found a method or technique that they love and want to share with everyone because it has positively impacted their life. This is wonderful and should be shared but may not work for everyone. If you found an exercise you love, do it! Don’t question it. If you hate typical exercise routines but you loved…
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Hate Fit People?
When you see a fit woman, do you feel envy? Do you curse her in your head and rationalize all the ways in which her life must be miserable in order to look like that? The mind loves to make up stories about everything and everyone. It will never stop for as long as we have a body. We often unconsciously push away the things we want most out of life; you can’t change what you don’t realize is there. If the story that arises in your mind rationalizes all the ways it isn’t fulfilling to be fit and healthy, how hard that woman must work to look like that, and…
