Are your Vitamins Worthy?

Is Your Vitamin giving you what you need?.........

Vitamins are good for us because,  let’s face it, most of us just don’t get all the nutrients we need from the foods we eat so we must supplement with vitamins.  And that is all a vitamin is, a supplement.  Vitamins don’t give us direct energy,  however, they do provide roles in our metabolism, they help in creating new body tissue and they also help when we are deficient in a certain vitamin.

Some brands of vitamins use cheap fillers that aren’t broken down in the body, which means you are missing out on some of the important nutrients.  To test your vitamin, drop the vitamin in a cup of water.  If yours doesn’t dissolve completely in an hour, choose a new vitamin..........

So go ahead, take your vitamins, just make sure you are getting the vitamins and not the fillers!

Yours in fitness and beyond!!

Nancy

Which DIET do I go on? The Low Carb Diet? The Low Fat Diet? The Shake Diet? The Counting Points Diet...........

As we start our new year many people wake up and say, “This is it, this is the year I am going to lose this extra weight.  I am going on the ................... diet!”  Well, I have been in those same shoes.  I have been on every diet you can imagine.  Many of them are successful.....at first, and then once you lose the weight and start to eat normal again, well then thats when we start to see the scales creep back up again.....and, low and behold, we are eventually back to where we started....and more!  How does this happen?  We work so hard to try to lose the weight and keep it off.  We get comfortable with our new look and we start to relax.  It happens over and over and over and believe me, it has happened to me.  I want to tell you that after my own personal weight loss and my schooling , I have become a new believer in one diet and one diet only....and the best thing about it is.... it is NOT a diet!  It’s really simple.... its CALORIES IN VS. CALORIES OUT!  The more calories you put in your mouth, the more you must burn by doing exercise.  So, I want to show you how you can calculate how many calories you need in one day, if you are inactive or if you are a hard core workout person.

The following is the Harris Benedict Equation  which determines your BMR and which takes into account your current activity level and how many calories you expend with this level.   This will help you determine the calories needed for your desired build.

You first need to determine your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate)  This is the amount of energy you use while at rest.  Your body burns this amount of calories every day.

Women:    BMR = 655 + (4.35 x your current wt. in lbs) + (4.7 x your ht. in inches) - (4.7 x your age in years)                                                              

Men:    BMR = 66 + (6.23 x your current wt. in lbs) + (12.7 x your ht. in inches) - (6.8 x your age in years)


NOW, you can find out how many calories you can burn with exercise by taking your current BMR and multiplying it by the appropriate activity level.   There are 4 activity levels.  Choose the one that best describes you now.

* Sedentary - You get little to no exercise.  Multiply your BMR by 1.2

* Lightly Active - You get light exercise or play sports 1-3 days per week. Multiply your BMR by 1.375
 
*Moderately Active - You get moderate exercise or play sports 3 - 5 days a week. Multiply your BMR by 1.55

*Very Active - You get hard exercise or play sports 6-7 days per week. Multiply your BMR by 1.725

*Extra Active - You get very hard exercise, play sports every day or have a physical job requiring twice the training.  Multiply your BMR by 1.9


Here is an example of a 45 year old female weighing 150 lbs, is 5’8’ and moderately active.......

655 + (4.35 x 150 lbs) + (4.7 x 68”) - (4.7 x 45) = 1,415 Calories (BMR) The amount of calories she burns doing nothing but living.

Now, take   1,415 x 1.55 (HB Factor - Moderate exercise)  = 2,193 Calories she burns daily with the moderate exercise 

Therefore, to gain one pound, you must consume 3,500 more calories than your Harris Benedict factor so if you added 3,500 to the answer you came up with, then there is the reason you gain weight.  And remember, it creeps up on us.  We really don’t need the amount of food most of us like to consume.  A well balanced “diet” and moderate exercise  3 - 5 days a week can give you the results you want.....without being on a diet.

Now your job after figuring out how many calories you need to eat in a day, is to keep a record of your daily foods that you eat for 4 days.  And remember....drinks of any kind but water and diet drinks have calories and some have a lot and yes THEY COUNT TOO!!  Figure out how many calories you are really consuming each day and see what you need to cut out.  Then,  you can see EXACTLY what you need to do to drop some weight and you don’t even need to go on a diet.....just watch your calories and exercise moderately 3 - 5 days a week.

I hope this has been as helpful to you as it is to me.  It is nice to know that I can really eat ANYTHING I want, in moderation!  I just need to make sure I don’t go over the HB factor! That doesn’t mean you eat a diet of junk because we all know, junk food is empty calories.  They don’t satisfy us! Eat healthier and start today.....

Happy New Year to all!

Nancy

Harris Benedict Equation information taken from the book Williams’ Basic Nutrition & Diet Therapy 13 Edition by Staci Nix Co. 2009, p. 83

Addicted to Intervals......

Over the last few years or so, it has become high on my priority list to make sure I throw a lot of cardio into my workouts because I have always believed that it helps to keep the weight off...and it does!  However, in our busy lives, who has the time to run or walk for 45 minutes to an hour and then go do resistance training for another hour?  I have recently become very interested in interval training for my cardio workouts and have found that a quick warm up on some sort of cardio equipment followed with short, bursty intervals of things like mountain climbers, box jumping*, stair stepper, and rowing have been very successful, and, I have achieved the same results as I did when I was trying to walk or run....in fact, I am more muscular doing this sort of exercise, than when I was running.  Raising your heart rate for intense short periods and then bringing it back down for active recovery and repeating these actions several times, has been proven to be very effective.  So, my point is not to put down running or long cardio workouts, but to offer other alternatives if you indeed do not have the time to put into a long workout every day.


Here are some suggestions that you can do for about 20 to 30 minutes either before or after you do resistance training.  Some prefer to do cardio after, some prefer to do cardio before.  I prefer to do cardio before because it warms me up and I feel ready for the weights. If you are a heavy lifter, you may want to do your cardio after you lift to save your energy for the heavy loads.


     Sample routines after a simple warm up:


     Row for 500 meters
     60 Mountain Climbers (each foot counts as one)
     20 push ups
     Rest for one minute


     Row for 500 meters, rest one minute, row another 500 meters
     60 Mountain Climbers
     20 Push ups
     Rest for one minute


     Row for 500 meters
     15 Box Jumps (start with a small box and work up to a higher box)*
     Stair Stepper (set on intervals for 5 minutes - I recommend level 8)   
     60 Mountain Climbers
     Rest for 2 minutes
     Begin your resistance training if you have not already done so.


*Box jumping is a form of plyometrics and should not be done by those who have not seen it demonstrated.  It is highly advisable to have a spotter with you if you are a beginner and as you increase the height of the box or step.


This is an excellent interval workout that will DEFINITELY get your heart rate up and you will be huffing and puffing....AND it won’t take you 2 hours to get a workout in!  You can mix all sorts of cardio machines in....it doesn’t have to be this exact workout.  You can include things like the bicycle, the elliptical, jumping rope, medicine ball slams, sprinting, running, walking, grapevine running,  etc.  Just mix it up.  It makes for staying more motivated and you don’t get bored so easily.  Better yet, have someone join you and you can take turns choosing what to do for the next set.....that way, you aren’t always trying to come up with something to do, and there is a bit of curiosity when you know someone else is going to pick the next exercise for you.


Just a few thoughts......


Have fun and stay safe!


Nancy

Welcome to Fitness & Beyond

You may want to know what I meant when I dreamed up my new blog name, Fitness & Beyond!  Sort of like the movie Toy Story that came out so many years ago....seeing Buzz Lightyear try to fly to Infinite & Beyond!!!  Well, that is sort of where I am going with this Blog...in other words, fitness is not JUST about going to the gym, or working out for an hour and then we are finished.....We eat or drink anything we want because we “worked out” for an hour.   There is more to fitness than just “exercise”.  We have to go BEYOND exercise and think about our nutrition, our sleep habits, our mental health, as well as our physical well being in order to make a well rounded “fit” person.

I would like to make this blog a source of information for you all to read and learn.  There is always something you can learn about fitness and living a healthier lifestyle.  I will post all sorts of “healthy tidbits” for you to read and learn from.  Some I get from other sources that I want to share and some I learn on my own.  Whatever it is, you can pick and choose what you want to take away from it all.

I wish each of you a very Happy New Year and may you be blessed with either starting to live a healthier lifestyle or continued success with your current fitness level.   May you continue to go BEYOND to your personal very best!

Happy New Year!

Nancy