Complex moves help to burn extra calories. Not to mention you get the benefit of feeling the burn in multiple areas. Give this one a shot!
Squat Press
You may hold weights in your hands for added strength training, or go weight free!
Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, and your arms bent with your hands in fists (or holding weights) and your wrists/palms facing up.
Squat down, keeping your back straight, and bending your knees no further than a 90 degree right angle, where your thighs are parallel to the ground. This will force you to push your booty out. ;) As you squat, press your arms up as if you were doing a bench press.
As you rise from the squat position bring your arms back to the starting position.
Complete three sets of ten, resting for one full minute between each set.
In no time you'll have a tighter tooshy and leaner arms!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Father's Day
With Father's Day just two days away, everyone is probably racking their brains trying to come up with something brilliant to give the dad in their life. As with every holiday, Father's Day is yet another day where we spoil our dads with whimsical breakfasts, and tasty dinners. Why not try something different this year?
Many of us are glutenous when it comes to eating out. Let's face it, if we see it on our plate, we'll want to put it in our mouths! So let's change up what we see on our plate, but still create something delicious for the special dad in your life. Here are some examples:
Pancakes with homemade fruit salad on top instead of sugary syrup. Find a few of your dad's favorite fruits, chop them up real small, you can even put them in a pan with 1/2 cup of water and let the fruit meld together into a yummy sauce! Trick? Find sweet fruits that won't require you to add more sugar to the mix. :)
Crepes anyone? A breakfast favorite! You can find already made crepe wrappers with your fruit section at the grocery store! Get some fruit preserves (with your jelly and jam section!) and put it inside the crepe and warm to nummy goodness! To top the crepe? Try some low/no fat whipped cream!
Want to try something new for dinner? Buffets are a crowd pleaser, but have you ever really looked at the food you are putting on your plate? The food is mostly fried, slathered in butter, or just plain greasy! Then there's the never-ending line of palate pleasing desserts that do nothing but increase your waistline! Instead, try one of these options:
Salad buffet anyone? I'm sure you've heard of this wonderful place called Souplantation. It is a wonderful place filled with salads galore, homemade soups everyday, and a fruit bar that will please any sweet tooth! What's best about this, is you can keep going back, and you won't be eating a week's worth of calories in one meal!
Try a dinner in instead! Yes, it's nice to go out and have a big fuss made over your dad on this special day. But what about making up one of his favorites, and trying to cook it a little leaner than before? Better yet, what about grilling up something great like kabobs?!
Holidays don't mean that we have to eat to enjoy it, yet this is where our world has gone. So much of what we do is geared around what we are going to eat. We can enjoy ourselves while eating a little healthier at every meal. It doesn't take much, and your waistline, and HIS will thank you. :)
Happy Father's Day!
Many of us are glutenous when it comes to eating out. Let's face it, if we see it on our plate, we'll want to put it in our mouths! So let's change up what we see on our plate, but still create something delicious for the special dad in your life. Here are some examples:
Pancakes with homemade fruit salad on top instead of sugary syrup. Find a few of your dad's favorite fruits, chop them up real small, you can even put them in a pan with 1/2 cup of water and let the fruit meld together into a yummy sauce! Trick? Find sweet fruits that won't require you to add more sugar to the mix. :)
Crepes anyone? A breakfast favorite! You can find already made crepe wrappers with your fruit section at the grocery store! Get some fruit preserves (with your jelly and jam section!) and put it inside the crepe and warm to nummy goodness! To top the crepe? Try some low/no fat whipped cream!
Want to try something new for dinner? Buffets are a crowd pleaser, but have you ever really looked at the food you are putting on your plate? The food is mostly fried, slathered in butter, or just plain greasy! Then there's the never-ending line of palate pleasing desserts that do nothing but increase your waistline! Instead, try one of these options:
Salad buffet anyone? I'm sure you've heard of this wonderful place called Souplantation. It is a wonderful place filled with salads galore, homemade soups everyday, and a fruit bar that will please any sweet tooth! What's best about this, is you can keep going back, and you won't be eating a week's worth of calories in one meal!
Try a dinner in instead! Yes, it's nice to go out and have a big fuss made over your dad on this special day. But what about making up one of his favorites, and trying to cook it a little leaner than before? Better yet, what about grilling up something great like kabobs?!
Holidays don't mean that we have to eat to enjoy it, yet this is where our world has gone. So much of what we do is geared around what we are going to eat. We can enjoy ourselves while eating a little healthier at every meal. It doesn't take much, and your waistline, and HIS will thank you. :)
Happy Father's Day!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Men's Health Week
This week, from June 14 to June 20, is known as Men's Health Week. It is a week focusing on all the important aspects of men's health, and how to overcome adversities with health and things related to health, such as obesity.
Healthy, Fit, and Fabulous has been lucky enough to receive a guest submission touching on the importance of exercise in a man's life. Please give a warm welcome to Steve Jasper, and let's remember that a Healthy, Fit, and Fabulous lifestyle is for EVERYONE!!
Men's Health Week
By Steve Jasper
Every year, Men's Health Week falls on the seven days prior to Father's Day. The significance of this event would mean nothing without first realizing that one's health is not only a measure of the lifestyle you lead, but how you stay in shape as well. A fraction of men are regular gym-goers who work out tirelessly with exercise equipment in order to keep their bodies healthy and active. Men realize that working out serves a more important function than just building muscles. Working out can help you improve your body image, self confidence, and even add years to your life.
Men's Health Week (June 14-20th) is a week of awareness involving health issues and diseases for men that easily can be averted with early action, treatment, and healthy prevention. It's no coincidence that Men's Health Week leads right up to Father's Day, because Father's Day is where we celebrate a man we love and wish nothing but health and happiness to. Yet, how can more men be proactive in staying healthy and avoiding illness and heath issues? Well, a good place to start is to be educated about how to use the gym, and exactly how important it is to do so. A better knowledge of how to properly exercise is integral to fighting obesity and improving your health.
The list of ailments that go along with obesity is almost endless: diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, respiratory problems, and even cancer all have higher incidence rates in the obese. This is scary enough, but looking at the statistics, it's even more frightening. The Journal of the American Medical Association states that 72 percent of men over the age of 20 are considered to be overweight or obese while 32 percent are dangerously obese. This is too much- especially when studies held by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have shown that physical activity may greatly reduce the risk of both obesity and most health conditions in men.
Depending on who you ask, going to the gym may either seem like a hobby or a chore, but following those routines are important to staying fit and healthy for men everywhere. Now, we all come up with excuses as to why we can't work out. When polled, the biggest reason men gave for not being able to exercise is, "not enough time." The best way to overcome this hurdle is by getting your hands on one of your own personal home gyms. When you factor in the time it takes to travel back and forth from your fitness center, the gas money spent to do so, and the various membership fees, a home gym starts to look like a very reasonable option. And if you are more likely to work out regularly on your home gym than you are at your club, then all the more reason to pick one up.
Steve Jasper is not a medical expert. If you have any serious medical concerns, please consult a qualified medical professional before undertaking a new fitness regimen. Steve is a contributing blogger from Gymsource who writes an all topics related to fitness equipment and more.
Thank you, Steve, for your guest submission! :)
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Breakfast Sandwiches
Now you can have a healthy breakfast sandwich! Follow the recipe below, and load up on flavor and protein, all while cutting calories, sodium, carbs and sugars! Trust me! These are my favorite morning treats!
Breakfast Sandwich
Ingredients:
1 MorningStar Veggie Sausage Patty
1 Better Start Thomas English Muffin
1/4 cup Kraft Fat Free Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1/4 cup Crystal Farms All Whites Egg Whites
Directions:
Toast english muffin, and spread 1/2 Tablespoon of butter on each half. Set on plate butter side up.
Sprinkle half the amount of cheese on the bottom english muffin.
Place your cooked sausage patty (Recommended cooking is on package. While it takes best from the oven, it tastes just as well cooked in the microwave at a fraction of the time!) on top of the shredded cheese.
Sprinkle remaining cheese on top of sausage patty.
Heat oil in pan for egg whites. Once heated, pour egg whites in center of pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Flip egg white to cook other side. When cooked, place the egg white on top of the cheese and sausage stack and place top of english muffin on top of egg white.
Enjoy your sandwich! It's VERY tasty, and one will fill you up!
Breakfast Sandwich
Ingredients:
1 MorningStar Veggie Sausage Patty
1 Better Start Thomas English Muffin
1/4 cup Kraft Fat Free Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1/4 cup Crystal Farms All Whites Egg Whites
Directions:
Toast english muffin, and spread 1/2 Tablespoon of butter on each half. Set on plate butter side up.
Sprinkle half the amount of cheese on the bottom english muffin.
Place your cooked sausage patty (Recommended cooking is on package. While it takes best from the oven, it tastes just as well cooked in the microwave at a fraction of the time!) on top of the shredded cheese.
Sprinkle remaining cheese on top of sausage patty.
Heat oil in pan for egg whites. Once heated, pour egg whites in center of pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Flip egg white to cook other side. When cooked, place the egg white on top of the cheese and sausage stack and place top of english muffin on top of egg white.
Enjoy your sandwich! It's VERY tasty, and one will fill you up!
Walking Off Weight With Fiber!
We've all heard that more fiber in our diets is a crucial part to a healthy diet and lifestyle. Most of us attribute fiber to staying regular, and many of us do not know how this one little thing can actually help us to lose weight when enough is consumed and partnered with the right activity.
Walking is something that doctors have told their patients to do since the dawn of time. When an overweight person walks into their doctor's office, the doctor will usually tell that person to eat healthier and walk for at least 30 minutes a day. I know that's what my doctor told me 30 pounds ago.
While we know that walking is good for us, and fiber is good for our diet, no one has ever thought to put these two together. How much walking do we really need? How much fiber is enough? An article in the May 3, 2010 edition of First magazine lays it all out for us.
First, the walking. We've heard it a million times. People ask someone that they know how they lost so much weight, what is the most common answer? Walking. It's disgusting, I know. It seems so boring and not a very fun exercise, not to mention, I can't STAND to exercise. But, in order to lose that weight, it's one of those things we just need to buckle down and do. But here's the thing, so many of us hear about speed-walkers, or people who walk with walking sticks and weights, etc. First lays out the skinny on walking right for maximum burn.
Slow your pace to release trapped fat. There it is. You no longer have to walk so fast that you can barely breathe, just in order to lose those extra pounds. High-intensity activity such as running or weight lifting puts stress on cells, prompting them to call on glucose for rapid energy. A body under stress will pull this glucose from the blood and from muscle stores. In the article, Dr. Strutman says that "this causes blood sugar levels to drop rapidly, leading to intense hunger and post-workout energy slumps." In fact, one study showed that women who exercised strenuously consumed 60% MORE calories during their post-workout meals, which put them at risk for weight gain.
Walking at a moderate pace, your muscles have time to convert fat into usable energy, so your body begins burning fat over burning glucose, which you will just have to replace to keep your energy up for the rest of the day. Now, you're probably wondering how long you need to walk in order to make the magic happen. 2 hours a day? 3?!?!?!!!! How about 30 minutes a day, with your daily recommended fiber intake? Does that sound reasonable?
Now to the fiber. You're walking at a moderate pace now, burning fat instead of glucose, so where does the fiber come in to the equation?
Increase fiber intake to flush body fat. Wow! How does that work? The article continues and states that once the walking gets your trapped body fat freed up, the fiber helps ensure its speedy exit from the body.
I'm sure you've heard of that magic pill Alli. Alli works like fiber does. It grasps on to the fat that you intake during a meal, and like an usher at a wedding, escorts that fat right out of your body. So fiber is a more natural way to escort the fat out, not to mention, a lot cheaper, too!
Also, fiber makes you feel full, longer. So with higher intake levels of fiber, the less calories you will intake during the day. The recommended daily intake for fiber is 30 grams. I know, seems like a lot, right? But did you know that half an avocado has 8 grams of fiber? And 2 cups of popped popcorn has 3.5 grams? Then there's the ever loved group of beans, which have 15 grams of fiber per half cup! Of course, out on the market are things like Fiber One cereals and granola bars that have a high amount of fiber in them, and are easier to calculate and keep track of. Just two servings of Fiber One cereals, and your fiber intake is done for the day, and you just need to walk!
Want to hear an AMAZING fact? When 30 minutes of daily walking was combined with the recommended daily intake of 30 grams of fiber, test subjects lost an average of 13 pounds and 4.5 inches from their bellies in ONE WEEK!!
So what are you weighting for? Research your favorite high fiber foods and start incorporating them into your diet with just a smidge of walking per day, and get yourself on track losing weight in a healthy way!
Walking is something that doctors have told their patients to do since the dawn of time. When an overweight person walks into their doctor's office, the doctor will usually tell that person to eat healthier and walk for at least 30 minutes a day. I know that's what my doctor told me 30 pounds ago.
While we know that walking is good for us, and fiber is good for our diet, no one has ever thought to put these two together. How much walking do we really need? How much fiber is enough? An article in the May 3, 2010 edition of First magazine lays it all out for us.
First, the walking. We've heard it a million times. People ask someone that they know how they lost so much weight, what is the most common answer? Walking. It's disgusting, I know. It seems so boring and not a very fun exercise, not to mention, I can't STAND to exercise. But, in order to lose that weight, it's one of those things we just need to buckle down and do. But here's the thing, so many of us hear about speed-walkers, or people who walk with walking sticks and weights, etc. First lays out the skinny on walking right for maximum burn.
Slow your pace to release trapped fat. There it is. You no longer have to walk so fast that you can barely breathe, just in order to lose those extra pounds. High-intensity activity such as running or weight lifting puts stress on cells, prompting them to call on glucose for rapid energy. A body under stress will pull this glucose from the blood and from muscle stores. In the article, Dr. Strutman says that "this causes blood sugar levels to drop rapidly, leading to intense hunger and post-workout energy slumps." In fact, one study showed that women who exercised strenuously consumed 60% MORE calories during their post-workout meals, which put them at risk for weight gain.
Walking at a moderate pace, your muscles have time to convert fat into usable energy, so your body begins burning fat over burning glucose, which you will just have to replace to keep your energy up for the rest of the day. Now, you're probably wondering how long you need to walk in order to make the magic happen. 2 hours a day? 3?!?!?!!!! How about 30 minutes a day, with your daily recommended fiber intake? Does that sound reasonable?
Now to the fiber. You're walking at a moderate pace now, burning fat instead of glucose, so where does the fiber come in to the equation?
Increase fiber intake to flush body fat. Wow! How does that work? The article continues and states that once the walking gets your trapped body fat freed up, the fiber helps ensure its speedy exit from the body.
I'm sure you've heard of that magic pill Alli. Alli works like fiber does. It grasps on to the fat that you intake during a meal, and like an usher at a wedding, escorts that fat right out of your body. So fiber is a more natural way to escort the fat out, not to mention, a lot cheaper, too!
Also, fiber makes you feel full, longer. So with higher intake levels of fiber, the less calories you will intake during the day. The recommended daily intake for fiber is 30 grams. I know, seems like a lot, right? But did you know that half an avocado has 8 grams of fiber? And 2 cups of popped popcorn has 3.5 grams? Then there's the ever loved group of beans, which have 15 grams of fiber per half cup! Of course, out on the market are things like Fiber One cereals and granola bars that have a high amount of fiber in them, and are easier to calculate and keep track of. Just two servings of Fiber One cereals, and your fiber intake is done for the day, and you just need to walk!
Want to hear an AMAZING fact? When 30 minutes of daily walking was combined with the recommended daily intake of 30 grams of fiber, test subjects lost an average of 13 pounds and 4.5 inches from their bellies in ONE WEEK!!
So what are you weighting for? Research your favorite high fiber foods and start incorporating them into your diet with just a smidge of walking per day, and get yourself on track losing weight in a healthy way!
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