Excellent LEG Toning Exercise

Sumo Squat

Try this exercise to tone and strengthen your inner, and outer thighs:

• Stand with your feet as wide apart as possible while pointing your toes outward.
• Lower your body until your thighs are parallel to the floor.
• Hold for a beat, exhale, and then press back up to starting position. Repeat.

Keep your shoulders directly over your hips at all times. For best results, don't lean forward or let your knees extend beyond your toes. Keep your abs drawn in and don't arch your back. It's up to you to use additional weight or not.

Healthy Eating - Basic Principles

Variety and quality are two essentials when it comes to eating well and reducing your risk of chronic disease. While the basic principles of healthy eating are quite simple, unfortunately the majority of people fail to follow them, and end up looking like Homer Simpson. ->

Embrace variety. Don’t base your diet predominantly on just a few foods. Consuming a wide variety of healthy foods, especially nutrient-dense, high-fiber vegetables and fruits in a rainbow of colors, provides you with the phytonutrients (plant chemicals) you need to stimulate your body’s immune cells and infection-fighting enzymes and prevent disease.

Avoid processed foods. Your diet should consist primarily of whole foods that haven’t been adulterated by processing or the addition of sugars, a lot of sodium, trans fats, and preservatives. Evaluate the quality of the carbohydrates, protein, and fats you eat and learn how your food is produced. Be aware that the nutrient value of the animal protein that ends up on your plate can vary widely depending on what food was available for that cow, pig, lamb, chicken, or fish to eat.

Avoid empty-calorie foods and beverages. Some foods and beverages, such as packaged baked goods and sugary sodas, are filled with empty calories to begin with; while others, like white bread and white rice, are stripped of their nutrients and fiber during processing, destroying their nutritional value.

Remember that taking vitamin or mineral supplements is not a substitute for a healthy whole-foods diet. Be aware that calories count, but…stop obsessing about calories, grams of fat, carbohydrates, protein, or anything else. Counting every calorie and weighing your food down to the ounce is simply not conducive to a pleasurable lifestyle or useful for keeping extra weight off over the long run. When you make healthy food choices most of the time you will be satisfied with reasonable food quantities, and counting becomes unnecessary.

 

2012 New Year Resolution

There is going to be a lot of crap floating around out there about how to loose weight and keep it off this year. There really are many different ways to do so, and finding the one that works for you is as important to YOUR weight loss as your own genetic structure. 

So my advise this year is to keep it simple. Don't take on too much. Make realistic goals. Like loosing 5-10 pounds over the next 6-8 weeks. Not something ridiculous like 20 pounds. 20 pounds will take  much longer than that.

Adopt smaller changes in your daily routine. Like cutting back on the sweets (2-3 per week, instead of daily), or limiting your caffeine intake to one cup of joe per day. As you slowly add these changes into your daily life, you'll find them easier and easier to make habitual, and last the entire year through.

Here are some tips I found that are very useful, and easy to adopt:

#1 Surround yourself with positive people. As you begin your weight-loss journey, get family and friends to support and inspire you. Ask them to encourage you to make healthy decisions and stick by you during challenging times. Having the right support will help keep you committed to your goals.

#2 Be creative. Make one of your resolutions a commitment to introduce new nutritious, appetizing foods into your daily meals. Aim to try one new vegetable a week or experiment with different ways of preparing basic seafood, meat, or poultry dishes. Being creative with foods and recipes will not only help prevent food boredom, but it will also keep you on the right track.

#3 Set realistic weight-loss goals!! Studies show that while crash dieting can lead to quick weight loss, it ultimately leads to more weight gain over time. To help you stay on a healthy path as you shed excess pounds, set realistic goals. With a gradual weight-loss plans, you’ll learn good eating habits, improve your overall health, and keep the weight off as eating right most of the time becomes your lifestyle.

#4 Reward yourself. Every success counts — big or small. So whether you’ve decided to get off the couch, quit smoking, or kick another unhealthy habit, it’s important to reward yourself for your achievements. Instead of using food as a reward, treat yourself to other things that help you feel good about yourself like new workout clothes or a new (tighter) pair of jeans.