Fitness4Her

Women's Fitness

Archives for April 2010

Calcium: Strong Bones Are Just the Beginning

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Most of us, when we were younger, were told to drink our milk so we would have strong bones and grow up tall. While it’s true that calcium is crucial in the diets of adolescent women and plays a big role in developing strong bones and teeth, its role in our health doesn’t stop there.

Calcium is currently being called the “miracle” mineral because of its proven ability to help control and prevent a number of conditions that can affect us when we’re older. Not only does it help prevent bone loss in women who suffer from osteoporosis, but it can protect against potential strokes, depression due to premenstrual symptoms, and certain types of cancer. Calcium can also help control and lower high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.

Calcium is essential in a healthy pregnancy because of its ability to promote bone growth in the fetus and improve bone mass in the mother. During the last two trimesters of pregnancy and if you are breastfeeding, your body will absorb more calcium from the food you eat, which might make it necessary to include a calcium supplement to your diet.

For dieting women, it’s crucial to get the required daily allowance of calcium. Recent studies have shown that calcium also plays a vital role in weight loss. Tests were conducted on women in mid-life age and the results showed that women who had high calcium intakes, didn’t gain weight and women with low calcium intakes did.

So, if we’re convinced that consuming more calcium in our diet has all of the above health benefits, why aren’t more women making a conscious effort to have more calcium in their diets or at the very least taking a calcium supplement? When you don’t have enough calcium in your diet, your body will take what it needs from your bones. This loss of essential minerals can often lead to weakened bones and eventually osteoporosis.

Getting calcium into your body is as easy as selecting the right foods to eat. Obviously dairy such as milk and cottage cheese are good choices, as long as the low-fat options are consumed. Also canned fish such as salmon or sardines can provide ample calcium as well as most dark green leafy vegetable such as collards, broccoli, kale, or bok choy.

If you still think getting the appropriate amount of calcium, for women 19 to 50 it’s 1,000 mg a day, through diet alone will be a challenge, then a calcium supplement should be considered. Whatever you choose to do, it’s essential that you begin taking calcium seriously and making it a lifetime commitment that can help you enjoy a long and healthy lifestyle.

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Dante’s Favorite Family Snack

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In the evening or during football season, it’s always nice to have some healthy snacks on the ready for when the family gets the munchies. This little treat is a family favorite but my youngest son, Dante likes it the best! The spices remind me of Autumn and is great for serving during a football game. Makes 16 half cup servings.

2 cups Pretzel Goldfish crackers
3 cups low-fat granola
1/2 cup sesame sticks, broken up (choose whole wheat or honey wheat)
3 cups chopped mixed dried fruit
PAM Fat-Free Butter-Flavored Cooking Spray
1 tsp all spice
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon

Directions
1. Mix all ingredients and spray lightly with PAM.
2. Sprinkle with all spices and toss.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.
4. At 10 minutes into cooking time, stir ingredients to cook evenly.
5. Cool and eat, or store at room temperature.

Health Benefits
Low in fat, calories, sodium and sugar. Healthy snacks such as these are important to women’s fitness. We need at least two snacks each day and it’s great to be able to indulge in something so tasty and delightful.

Love this snack as much as we do?  Tell us about it in the comment space below:

Dancing: The Darling of Exercise

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Dancing isn’t just fun thing to do when you’re young. Dancing is a great exercise that should be part of a healthy lifestyle. For instance, you can burn as many calories belly-dancing as you can walking, swimming or riding a bike. As with any physical activity, however, the weight-loss benefits of any sort of dancing depends on the frequency and length of your workouts and your exertion level as well as your weight and physical condition.

You’re practicing good health and fitness when you move to the music. If weight loss is a priority, choose a form of dancing that keeps you moving continuously. Simply put: the more you move, the more calories you’ll burn.

Dancing burns calories, boosts energy, improves circulation and tones muscle. A 120-pound woman can burn about 120 calories doing 30 minutes of moderate social dancing. Dancing helps to increase strength, endurance and flexibility. But did you know that dancing can also relieve tension and stress, improve your mood and boost your creativity.

Magical and transforming, dancing can breathe new life into a weary soul and make your spirit soar. Dancing can inspire new romances or rekindle old ones. Dancing puts you in touch with your body and builds your self-esteem.

Dancing can help keep your body, including your brain, healthy as you age. Exercise increases the level of brain chemicals that encourage nerve cells to grow. Dances that require you to remember dance steps help boost brainpower by improving memory skills.

Whether it’s ballet or ballroom, clogging or jazz, salsa or samba, dance is great for helping women and men of all ages and fitness levels stay in shape. There’s even chair dancing for people with physical limitations.

Indulge yourself in this most primal form of creative release. It’s a fun and exciting way to stay in shape that’s why it’s the darling of exercise. Go on, shake that booty!

How do you feel when you dance?  Share in the comment space below:

The Very Vital Vegetable Dip

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Vegetables are great for snacking, but everyone wants a little dip on the side. This very vital vegetable dip will add zing to your vegetables without masking the flavor. Makes 12 servings and is great at parties or just set it down in front of the family and watch it disappear.

2 cups low-fat cottage cheese
1/2 cup chopped scallions
4 tsp fresh lemon
1 tsp low-sodium soy sauce
2 tsp mustard
1/2 cup chopped pimiento
1/2 cup chopped fresh chives
2 clove garlic, minced

Directions
1. Place all ingredients in processor or blender.
2. Process until smooth.
3. Serve with an assortment of raw vegetables, including broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, celery, cucumber slices, cherry tomatoes, or anything you like.

Health Benefits
A good women’s fitness program will include at least five servings of vegetables each day that’s why a veggie dip like this is so great to make. This dip is low in calories, fat, sodium and sugar. The scallions, pimiento, chives and garlic aid digestion and add flavor to this delightful dip.

Love this dip?  Leave a comment in the space below:

Finding the Motivation to Diet

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Dieting. It’s not one of our favorite words in the English language, but it’s one that most of us come face to face with at one time or another. It evokes images of starving ourselves over salads and rice cakes at lunch while our ever-skinny friend wolfs down a plate full of nachos without a care in the world.

We know that we have to diet. We probably have said to ourselves at some point within the last month or so, “I really need to lose some weight.” So what’s stopping us from starting? Most of the time, the hardest thing about dieting is actually finding the right time to start. If there are sweets or chips in the house, we tell ourselves that we have to wait till everything is finished, and then we’ll start. Or if there is an upcoming celebration we tell ourselves we have to wait till after that event and then we’ll start dieting.

We come up with excuse after excuse not to start our diets and soon before you know it, you now have to lose 15 pounds instead of the 10 you started out with. But it doesn’t have to be this way!

Dieting doesn’t have to be hard. It’s actually pretty simple when you think about it. If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. They key is finding low calorie and low fat foods that you enjoy eating. If you hate eating rice cakes… you’re going to have less luck sticking to your diet if that’s all you ever allow yourself to eat.

So before you begin your diet, make a list of all the foods you enjoy. Then go through your list and see if you can make a few adjustments to some dishes that will decrease the amount of fat and calories. If you like tacos, try using low fat cheese, low fat sour cream, and perhaps fish or a lean turkey meat instead.

If you can’t make any adjustments, put that food in your “treat” list. Dieting is all about balance and by allowing yourself a treat every now and then; you will find it much easier to maintain your diet for a longer period of time.

Spend some time in the produce department of your grocery store. Are there fruits or veggies that you really enjoy? These make a great substitute for chips or sweets. Eating a handful of raspberries or blueberries, can be just as satisfying as eating candy, minus the guilt you feel after you gorged on gummy worms. Keep these in your home at all times in plain sight. Don’t hide them in a drawer where you can forget about them. It helps to always keep a fruit bowl handy where you can quickly grab an apple or a peach when you feel the urge to snack.

Dieting doesn’t have to be a chore. With just a few easy changes to what you are already eating, you can begin your diet and stick to it without having to torture yourself with tasteless food.

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