Tight Talk Tuesday: Improve Your Wellness
Which aspect of your wellness could you improve on:
We envy the friends who’ve got it all together – they have a consistent workout routine, they pack a healthy lunch, eat a healthy dinner and call it a night after only a glass or two of red wine. Cheers to them! But for some women, it’s one or the other. You kick your booty in the gym a few days a week, but when it comes to making dinner, you do what’s easy for you & your busy family, but isn’t always the best for your butt. Or you do eat a fairly balanced diet yet you can never find time to make yourself a priority and hit the gym. And we won’t make you call yourself out, but there are some women who have trouble committing to making healthy changes in their diet or routine and know they’re never going to get results until they make a difference in their lifestyle.
You may have heard us say it before, but diet is 80% of the equation. Here is the equation: W=CC-CB. Your weight (W) = calories consumed (CC) – calories burned (CB).
If you eat more calories than you burn then you gain weight or if you eat fewer calories than you burn then you lose weight. In order to lose one pound of fat per week, you need to eat about 500 calories less than your typical diet. Since 3,500 calories equals about 1 pound of fat, if you cut 500 calories from your typical diet each day, you’d lose approximately 1 pound a week (500 calories x 7 days = 3,500 calories). Remember, you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in to lose 1 pound.
By attending a high-calorie (~500) burning class like Bikini Bootcamp at KITF, you can stay on track with the CB portion of your equation. We also offer nutritional guidance to help you build meal plans and hold yourself accountable by tracking your daily intake and progress with a fit food journal. We’re here to help you meet your goals and become the best you that you can be. Let’s do this together and score an A+ for your fitness equation!
Need help getting started? Here’s a plan to get your gears going for both diet & exercise in just 2 days. The kicker: you gotta keep it up to reap the results! Click here.
Tight Talk Tuesday: Yoga
Poll:
Have you tried a yoga class?
-Yes, I love what it does for my mind & body
-No, but I’m open to the experience
-No, I don’t think my body bends that way
Crazy busy days make us feel tense. Yoga is one of the best calm-down tricks. Go for back-bending poses: they create space in your chest, allowing more oxygen to flow to your lungs. When that happens, your heart doesn’t have to work as hard and your heart rate and blood pressure go down, making you feel much more Zen-like. One of the simplest yet most effective back bends in Bridge Pose. Try it the next time you’re on edge- you should begin to feel more serene right away.
How to: Lie on your back with your knees up and feet flat on the floor, hip-distance apart. Let your arms rest by your sides as you lift your hips toward the ceiling. Tuck your tailbone slightly and draw your belly button in toward your spine. Once you feel comfortable, interlace your fingers underneath you and gentle wiggle to move your elbows and shoulders together, opening your chest. Press down with your hands and feet to increase the lift. Hold 5-15 breaths then release. Repeat 3-5 times.
Keep It Tight Fitness offers Hot Vinyasa Yoga class every Sunday at 2:30 p.m. with Grace Gravelle of Front Porch Yoga. Join us to loosen your muscles, clear your mind and start your week with relaxation before you have a chance to let the stress take over on Monday morning.
Tight Talk Tuesday: Stretching
How disciplined are you about stretching?
I do it before every workout
I do it after every workout
I do it before & after every workout
Sometimes, like when I roll over in the morning
Never
Take our poll here on Facebook & weigh in!
Did you know taking the time for a good stretch can help your heart! When researchers at the National Institute of Health & Nutrition in Tokyo measured the blood pressure of healthy-weight people and then had them perform sit-and-stretch tests, they found that the least flexible participants also had higher systolic blood pressure which puts them at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease.
Stretching may reduce activity in the sympathetic nervous system and over-stimulating that system can stiffen your arteries. Stretching is often something you do during regular exercise and exercise protects your heart.
At Keep It Tight, we suggest a 5-minute stretch before and after classes on your own and we also encourage you to do additional stretching before bed and in the morning on days when you rock it out in a more challenging class than your muscles are accustomed to.
Here are some of our favorite stretches to keep you limber:
We like to work those hammies A LOT on the chair so this will surely help: Lie on your back, keeping your back flat and eyes focused toward the ceiling. Grasp the back of your thigh your leg slightly bend, both hands woven together. Pull your thigh into a 90-degree position and slowly straighten the knee and pull the thigh closer to your chest.
To stretch your back, lay face down on the floor, with your arms by your sides. Slowly lift your upper body, feeling the stretch in your back and chest, keeping your eyes facing down and holding your neck neutral.
To stretch your trunk, arms and abdomen, isolate yourself and twist at the hip. Reach across your chest with one arm and twist in that direction. Drop your other arm and reach behind your arm; switch arm positions and twist to the other side.
We hope these simple stretches help you to feel flexible and ready for your next workout!
Tight Talk Tuesday: Cardio
If you’ve been to one of our classes at Keep It Tight Fitness, you know we love to kick it with cardio! It’s the best for shaving that “icing off the cupcake” and slimming down to show off that muscle tone. Of course water is a great hydrator when doing intense cardio exercise, but sometimes you crave something more interesting and thirst-quenching, right? Here are some sips that exercisers really need without adding loads of calories.
Take our poll on Facebook & let us know which drink is ideal for you by clicking here.
So how did you answer? Check out these suggestions to cure your cardio qualms:
Tight Talk Tuesday: Salty vs. Sweet
Take our poll: Salty vs. sweet – where do you stand with your snacking? Vote here!
Regardless of how strict your diet may be, it’s important to allow yourself to indulge just a little bit. By fitting space for snacks into your calorie count, you avoid bingeing and over-indulging in less-than-healthy options. Just be sure to read the labels and use portion control!
Check out this article from Fox News about “7 healthy junk foods to get your salty & sweet snack craving fixes.” Click here to salivate & get snacking!
Also, did you know tasty snacks can mess with your brain? You start to put the hurt on that tube of Pringles and the next thing you know, your fingertips are drumming against the bottom of the can! Blame your brain. Research from The Journal of Clinical Investigation suggests that high-fat & salt food “hits” the brain with fatty acids, dulling the effects of insulin & leption, two hormones that signal your body that you are full. Since the brain is blunted from these triggers, you overindulge in sumptuous treats. The study authors say one particularly fatty acid (found in those salty snacks!), palmitic acid, seems to be the worst culprit. Palmitic acid is found in beef, butter and cheese. One more reason to watch your portion control when snacking!
So what is it… salty or sweet? The Diet Channel has some information on “7 things to know about food cravings.” Find out here. What do yours say about you? Feel free to weigh in (no pun intended) in the comments section below.
MEET THE OWNER
Melissa Matson, Creator/Owner, of Keep It Tight Fitness, located in Cincinnati, OH, instills passion into every aspect of her life. Melissa has built a strong foundation in the principles of both fitness and nutrition.
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