Victoria Wellness Professionals

We all live very hectic lives these days. Just trying to find time to get all our tasks done can be stressful in itself. Exercise should never become a stressor in your life. Exercise is meant to de-stress and calm; allowing the mind to relax and the body the work. I have always found a good weight lifting workout a great way to “relax” the mind; work the body and allow all the chores of the day to disappear for an hour.

One of the challenges of todays hectic lifestyles is to find a time to workout and being able to fit your exercise session into an already very busy day. The easiest is to try and fit your exercises into your daily route; meaning either before work or after work. Lunch hours are also a great time to fit in a quick workout and this can be as simple as putting on your runners and going for a power walk.

For me and my lifestyle it is a challenge when to fit my workout in when our gym is running full tilt 12 hours each day. I know for me personally I am not going to workout in the evening. I don’t and never have liked evening workouts. My prime time to workout is around 10 am or 4 pm. Since neither of those times work for me and my job requirements, I needed to look at an alternative. So for me, it is before my work day starts. I know I am not going to do it after work, no matter how noble my intentions are. So, just get it done first thing in the morning!

So today was a leg/arm day for me. And for 5:30 am workout this is what I did:

Frontal (side) lunges supersetted with EZ Curls
Rope Bulgarian Lunges supersetted with EZ Curls (sore elbow so no dumbbell curls for me right now)
Bar Squats supersetted with EZ Tricep Extensions
Romanian Deadlifts supersetted with Tricep Pushdowns

4 sets of each that took me just over 35 minutes to do. Fast and furious.

So, if you are having challenges getting in your workout time let’s talk. There are a lot of options to getting your exercise program included into your daily life. Remember, workouts do not need to be 1 hour, cardio sessions do not need to be 20-30 minutes at a time. Exercise has a cumulative effect, so don’t let time be your enemy.

Narina

Uncategorized cardio, cario, exercise, squats, weight lifting, workout

As I was lying in bed this morning listening to the news on the radio, a short interview with a Nutritionist was playing. It made me think that in this newsletter I would just like to share some comments/news related to health and wellness. Here goes:

The interview with the Nutritionist was focussed on portion control. Her comment was that besides choosing the right foods to eat, it was just as important to control the amount of food you are eating. You can be eating all the right foods, but if you eat too much your weight loss/weight control plans will not be successful. This is always so evident to me everytime I travel to the U.S. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of food the restaurants pile on your plate. One entree can easily serve two people. You would be safe to divide your meal in half right away and no, no asking for doggie bags either.

In 2006, I attended a Conference at UVIC. One of the presenters was Len Kravitz, PhD. Dr. Kravitz is the Program Director of Exercise Science at the U. of New Mexico. He is a highly sought after speaker across Canada and the U.S. Dr. Kravitz’ area of expertise is metabolism and weight loss. These are a few of his comments from that lecture:

NEAT = Non-exercise activity thermogensis; part of daily activity thermogenesis

New research on NEAT – Fidgeters expend 352 addition kcals/day. This is good new for all those of you who “can’t sit still”. Just walking around or standing when on the phone will burn additional calories!

RMR = Resting metabolic rate (60-75% of energy)

Your RMR is a figure of what your body uses in way of energy at rest. All you body’s vital organs and muscle are in need of energy just to survive. Skeletal muscle is 40% of the human body and contains 50-75% of all proteins in the body. RMR of muscle = 15-25 kcal/kg/day and amounts to 20-25% of your daily energy expenditures. As you can see muscle is a very active tissue, which is why as fitness professionals we stress resistance training in all weight loss programs.

60% of your RMR is from liver, kidney, heart and brain. These organs’ metabolic rate is 15-40 times of the equivalent rate in muscle.

To calculate your RMR:

Women: Wt (kg) x .9 x 24 = ______
Men: Wt (kg) x 1.0 x 24 = _____

One of the discussions that Dr. Kravitz brought up was the amount of exercise needed to make significant changes in body composition and how you can accomplish this is short bouts:

“Accumulate time of exercise (cardio work) is just an beneficial as long workouts. Best results are seen with accumulation of 200-280 minutes per week. This can be accomplished in as little at 10 minute bouts.

One study that followed 150 women/132 men for 5 years after their initial weight loss showed that all of these individuals were successful in keeping their weight off for 5 year and they all did consistent cardiovascular workouts of 200-280 minutes per week.”

So, we can take away a few important notes from the above comments: Eat smaller portions, short bouts of cardio are just as effective, and consistency is king.

Narina

Uncategorized aerobics, cario, exercise, metabolic rate, muscle, nutrition, portions, weight loss