Fitness4Her

Women's Fitness

Working The Core For A Stronger Body

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The secret to visible abs is no secret at all: You have to develop your core muscles and lower your body’s percentage of fat. You can train your abs all you want, but if your diet isn’t in check, you’ll never see that six-pack.

If you need to lose belly fat, your healthy diet should consist mostly of whole, unprocessed foods, such as lean protein, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Limiting processed foods and added sugar helps prevent excess fat gain. Consume fewer calories than you burn daily if you have belly fat to lose.

Let’s face it—a toned and trim mid-section is an eye-catching sight. Beautiful to behold—it’s the sign of a truly fit body. But, those hard abs are more than aesthetics alone. Developing a six-pack will help to strengthen your back and legs and the exercises for your abs can help to train other parts of your body, too.

To get good abs, you have got to develop your core muscles. Your core is the center of your strength. So, just where is your core? The major core muscles are found in the belly and mid and lower back. These muscles engage regularly during the day, not just during exercising. They serve as the axis of all your activity—providing you the ability to stabilize, twist and bend.

Whether playing a game of tennis, simply reaching across a table to clear the dishes, stretching to reach the upper shelf of a bookcase, or bending down to pick up a child, you utilize very small muscles in the body to keep yourself steady. Even the act of walking relies on core muscle strength to stay upright. Certainly the large muscles of the legs are working hard to propel your body forward, however the large muscles would not be able to perform their function if not for those small muscles found throughout your torso, between your shoulders and your hips.

To engage your core, imagine that you are pushing your belly button towards your back. Not merely sucking in your gut, engaging the core wakes up all the abdominal muscles and prepares them for battle. When engaging your core, you should be breathing normally, so don’t hold your breath.

Practice engaging your core at all times, when you sit, stand, work and play. In addition to the above exercises, keeping your core engaged will really make a difference in the definition of your abdominal muscles. Focus on form and make sure your abs engage in every rep. Be consistent and persistent in your goal. You will get there and you will love the way you look.

Get Stronger, Sexier and Leaner Legs

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Want leaner, stronger, sexier legs? It’s a work in progress that requires perspiration and persistence. To develop and tone any specific area of your body, you must commit to a balanced diet and regular exercise. Cardiovascular exercise helps you burn calories to expedite fat loss. Weight training and resistance training help to build and tone muscles.

Aim for at least 30 minutes per day of moderate-paced exercise. Activities such as jogging, cycling and hiking won’t directly burn leg fat, but they will contribute to greater leg strength and muscle tone. These activities also burn lots of calories – you’ll burn about 350 calories for a half -hour jog. One of the great benefits of exercise (and there are many) is that the more muscle you build the faster you will lose weight. Pound for pound, muscle tissue burns more calories at rest than fat does, so the more muscle you build, the more calories you will burn off.

To tone and strengthen your legs, design your workout with extra leg-strengthening exercises like squats, lunges, step-ups and side shuffles. Aim for a minimum of one set of eight to 12 repetitions of each exercise using a weight that feels heavy by the last reps. If you’re new to strength training, you may notice improved strength and tone in the first few weeks; fat loss may take longer, however, depending on how much you want to lose.

If cellulite is a problem, don’t be discouraged. It is estimated that nearly 90% of women have some cellulite on their bodies. Contrary to what you might think, cellulite isn’t because you are fat. It’s more of a problem of looks but not one of health. However, there is a lot you can do to treat, reduce and even prevent cellulite.

Stay hydrated, by eating foods that contain a significant amount of water like watermelon, cucumber and tomatoes. These foods improve skin hydration, keeping cells functioning at their peak level. Blueberries are an excellent super food to keep in your diet. Blueberries help keep collagen strong and healthy, providing the skin with structural support to promote thick, strong and cellulite-free skin.

Never give up! Stay focused and finish what you started. Remember that you are further along than you were yesterday. Every second you devote to your health and fitness is an investment that will pay off in your future. To get your legs looking their best, keep exercising and keep eating foods that nourish and build the body you desire.

The Best Women’s Diet for Weight Management

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The latest trend for dieting is eating clean. Sounds good, so what possibly could be wrong with that? Nothing really, as long as eating clean, equals a healthy balanced diet that includes the nutrients you need to stay healthy.

Be careful of fad diets that just are not good for you. Many of these diets lack a balance of protein, carbohydrates and fats. They are highly restrictive of certain food groups and are just not nutritionally sound. Succumbing to these types of diets sets you up for failure or worse.

When you deprive yourself of a certain food group you run the risk of nutrient deficiencies. An imbalanced diet can lead to ketosis. Sound scary? It is! This is a condition that causes the body to break down muscle tissue. No! This is the last thing you want to do, as a matter of fact it’s a last ditch effort from your body indicating that trouble is brewing.

There are obvious differences between the female and male physique. But did you know that the nutrition and fitness requirements for women differ than those of a man? It’s true; women need fewer calories but more nutrients than men.

That is why women need a diet and fitness program designed for the unique needs of a woman’s body. We have to be especially careful eating foods that are high in calories but with little nutritional value because we need to get as much nutrition as possible from the foods that we eat.

Concentrate on portion control rather than engaging in boring fad diets. Eating one particular food all day long, completely avoiding certain food groups or having to eat foods in a specific order are lifestyles that few people can adapt forever.

Think about people whom you know or celebrities who have lost weight. Which ones have kept it off? Was it the friend that was on the grapefruit diet or the extremely low fat diet? Was it the celebrity who is endorsing the diet that’s guaranteed to work?

Many of these diets are extremely low calorie diets—no wonder people lose weight from them, but are they depriving themselves of needed nutrients, by eating such a small amount of food? Most importantly, is this a quick fix weight loss or one that will last forever?

The only way to achieve permanent weight loss is to find a diet plan that you can live with. If you love ice cream, fine! Just reduce your calorie intake by portion control or food choices but keep a balanced diet and stick with a regular exercise routine. If you find that you begin to level off or start to gain weight then you may need to re-examine the type and quantity of food that you are eating.

The Benefits of Fermented Foods

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Feasting on fermented foods is a healthy trend that’s gaining popularity. Eating fermented, probiotic foods has many health benefits. Fermented foods contain lots of antibodies that add a barrier against microbial infection and help to build a stronger immune system. They also improve brain function, promote healthy skin, regulate the appetite and reduce sugar and refined carbohydrate cravings for better weight management.

Fermented foods are foods that have been through a process of lactofermentation in which natural bacteria feed on the sugar and starch in the food to create lactic acid. This process preserves the food, and creates beneficial enzymes, B-vitamins, Omega-3 fatty acids, and various strains of probiotics.

The microflora that lives in fermented foods creates a protective lining in the intestines and shields it against pathogens. This natural fermentation process has also been shown to preserve nutrients in the food and make it more digestible.

With all of these benefits, I am sure you will want to include some of these tasty probiotic foods in your diet. Here’s a run-down of some of the more popular fermented foods and the benefits they provide. You can find most of these foods, or the ingredients to make them, at your local grocery store.

• Sauerkraut is high in dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K and B vitamins. It’s also a great source of iron, copper, calcium, sodium, manganese and magnesium. Boosts digestive health, aids circulation, fights inflammation, strengthens bones and reduces cholesterol levels.
• Pickles contain 18 percent of your daily value of vitamin K, an essential fat-soluble vitamin that plays an important role in bone and heart health.
• Kombucha is rich in B-vitamins, enzymes, probiotics and a high concentration of acid (acetic, gluconic and lactic). Improves digestion, helps with weight loss, increases energy, detoxes the body, boosts the immune system, reduces joint pain and prevents cancer.
• Yogurt provides better overall diet quality, healthier metabolic profiles, healthier blood pressure and increased triglyceride levels.
• Kefir contains high levels of vitamin B12, calcium, magnesium, vitamin K2, biotin, folate, enzymes and probiotics.
• Kimchi contains high levels of antioxidants that reduce the risk of serious health conditions such as cancer, diabetes, obesity and gastric ulcers.
• Miso has anti-aging properties and helps to maintain healthy skin. Boosts the immune system, improves bone health and promotes a healthy nervous system.
• Tempeh reduces cholesterol, increases bone density, reduces menopausal symptoms, promotes muscle recovery and has the same protein quality as meat. It contains high levels of vitamins B5, B6, B3 and B2.

Achieve Your Fitness Goals Through Journaling

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If you ever feel as if you aren’t progressing in your long-term goals, keeping a journal will show you evidence of your hard work. You will be surprised at how much you have achieved since you first started your workout plan. It’s often easy to forget the level we were working from when we began.

When you are serious about your fitness goals it is just logical to keep a journal. You can record your level when you start and what you are working to achieve. Whether you want to lose weight or build an exercise program to fit your needs, keeping a journal is the key to your success.

It has been proven time and again that people who keep a fitness journal stick to their diet and exercise plans and have a much better chance of reaching and maintaining their goals than those people who don’t. Journaling is one of the simplest and most reliable tools you can use.

For best results, keep a journal nearby to record your food and beverage intake. Be sure to log in everything that you consume. This will help you monitor many things including caloric intake, hungry times throughout the day, nutritional value of your meals and homemade versus dining out/delivery/take-out. While it’s not impossible to stick to your diet plan when eating out, logging your meals in your journal will make you aware of the foods you eat and keep you accountable for your success.

Journaling allows you to make short-term as well as long-term fitness goals. I have found that making monthly, weekly and daily exercise goals keeps me focused and I am less likely to stray off path than if I just make longer term goals. Every day is a chance to succeed; if I fall short one day, I can rejoice in the knowledge that I have succeeded before and will do so again. My journal is proof that I have achieved much and am dedicated to my own success.