Making Exercise a Daily Routine

* Do you tell yourself you’re going to exercise and never do? Do you find it hard to find time to exercise? Well in this week’s newsletter of BetterLiving we will talk about eating healthy and how to make exercise fun and apart of your daily routine. Being able to exercise or being active doesn’t need to involve a gym. There are plenty of ways to exercise without leaving your house and having to spend that monthly fee at the nearby gym. People don’t realize but being active not only makes you healthy but improves your everyday life. For example if you’re having a rough day at work or just a stress filled day from school, nothing clears your head and relieves stress like exercising. Just being able to get out of the house and exercise is fantastic. It gives you 30 minutes of your day or more not having to worry about anything but yourself. Studies show that being active and healthy improves learning for the classroom. Some of the simplest activities, like playing tennis or taking a dance class or even running or walking, provide the biggest brain boost. Quoted from a news article found on the Internet, "You're challenging your brain even more when you have to think about coordination," "Like muscles, you have to stress your brain cells to get them to grow." “Complicated activities also improve our capacity to learn by enhancing our attention and concentration skills, according to German researchers who found that high school students scored better on high-attention tasks after doing 10 minutes of a complicated fitness routine compared to 10 minutes of regular activity. Those who hadn't exercised at all scored the worst.”

So let’s get to those fun exercises for you to do at home with little or no equipment. First exercise I recommend is walking or running around town, running/ walking will increase stamina and help tone muscles and lose weight. The first time you run or walk it doesn’t have to be long or real fast. Just a light jog around the block, increasing the length of your run a little more each time you perform it. (Ex: start with 1 mile as your distance and next time do 1.3 miles) Next exercise is sit-ups; sit-ups are a great exercise for the core, which is the abdomen. There are many variations of sit-ups, such as crunches, bicycles, sit-up with a twist and on and on. So look up a few easy core exercises, something that you can handle and doesn’t look strenuous. After picking your exercises, do each exercise 3 times for 20 to 25 repetitions. Now if you’re looking for some exercises for your legs, body weight squats, which is a simple squat with no weight. Easily performed if you put your back against the wall, knees out and squat so your legs are bent a little past 90 degrees. Again do this 3 times for 12 repetitions each. Then there are stairs, which is self explanatory, you can either go to a nearby school where there are bleachers, or if you have a set of stairs in your house. Simply walk up them and then walk down them, for about 6 5 to 7 minutes straight. Last exercise I have for you is jumping rope, a great cardio workout that helps tone muscles, strengthen your legs, and work on your core, jump rope for about 3 minutes then take a break and see if you can do it a second time. Those are some simple at home exercise you can do if you don’t have time to the money to run to the gym. Remember that if something is uncomfortable or too exhausting lower the amount of reptitions being done. Remember to be in your comfort zone when working out, we do not need you to over work or hurt yourself. Now that we have showed you a few simple workouts that are fun and easily can be done at home. Go work out I’m sure you can take 30 to 45 minutes of your timeÁ for a handful of these workouts. Just remember not to over exert yourself and to be in your comfort zone. There should be no reason you cannot do this at home or in limited amount of time.

Now that we talked about exercise let’s talk about some easy things to do so those exercise gains or losses you get stay loose and don’t come back, I’m talking about eating healthy too. You can’t just exercise and not eat healthy, they go hand and hand. Now where just going to brush up on some easy things to look out for when eating. First tip is to always eat a good amount of nutrient filled foods. Your daily diet should include vegetables, dairy, poultry and protein filled foods, cut out all the fatty foods or additives. Maintain a healthy weight, to help with maintaining weight; make sure you eat in moderate proportions. If you keep portion sizes reasonable, it's easier to eat the foods you want and stay healthy. Remember to eat regular meals; skipping meals can lead to out-of-control hunger, often resulting in overeating. When you're very hungry, it's also tempting to forget about good nutrition. Snacking between meals can help curb hunger, but don't eat so much that your snack becomes an entire meal. So now that you have read about some new material, now lets put it to use and start you daily routine of exercise today. N

Name Of Site / URL / General Content / Audience / Rating
US New: Health Section / http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/fitness/articles/2010/06/30/0630healthexercise / 5 mind blowing effects of exercise / Good for all ages / ***
Fit Hacks / http://www.fithacks.com/index.php/2010/01/28/7-simple-exercises-you-can-do-from-home/ / 7 Simple exercises you can do from home / All Ages / *
Real Time / http://www.realtime.net/anr/10eattip.html / 10 tips to healthy eating / All ages / **
DR.P Body / http://www.drpbody.com/nutrition.html / Just a general website on healthy lifestyles, from hygiene, to food pyramids, exercises and more / All ages / *

By Vince Colucci