Stationary Bicycles for Fitness

Stationary bicycles are the third most popular type of home gym equipment sold today (the two most popular are, of course, the treadmill and the elliptical trainer). People are drawn to stationary bicycles for a variety of reasons to include the fact that you're getting a pretty good workout while you're sitting down!

Some people like to read while they're doing their cardiovascular training and a stationary bicycle lends itself nicely to this. Bicycles are also a great way to tone your legs, burn fat and improve your cardiovascular conditioning all without any impact on your joints. There are four main categories of stationary bicycles; upright, recumbent, spin bicycles and dual action air bicycles. Below is a quick summary of what makes each unique.

Upright Bikes

An upright bike is what comes to mind when most people think of a stationary bike. It looks similar to a regular road bike, but it has a console built into the handlebar area. This bike option provides a seat that does not have a back on it. The pedals on an upright bike are located below the user and slightly in front. The hip angle on the upright bike is about 45 degrees.The biggest benefit of this type of stationary bike is that it forces the user to engage their core muscles while pedaling. The biggest drawback of the upright bike is that the seat tends to be extremely uncomfortable.

Recumbent Bikes

These bikes are the most comfortable of all of the bike options available today. They usually have a comfortable seat that has a back on it, which allows the user to lean back slightly while pedaling. The actual pedals on the recumbent bikes are located in front of the user and slightly lower than the user. The user's hip angle on the recumbent bike is about 90 degrees.While the attraction of this type of bike is the comfort it provides, make sure you "try it on" before you buy one since some of the consoles sit too low for taller users causing them to hit their knees while pedaling.

Spin Bikes

Spin bikes are the closest thing you can get to a regular road bike. They are similar to upright bikes in design, but they are usually a higher quality and have lower consoles. Spin bikes don't usually have the standard consoles that are found on upright and recumbent bikes. Their basic design is geared towards serious users who aren't interested in bells and whistles, but are looking for a serious workout from their stationary bike.

Dual Action Air Bikes

These bikes have an upright design with the added benefit of movable handlebars similar to those found on many elliptical trainers. These are the least common type of stationary bike and offer the fewest options. They are called air bikes because the front "wheel" is actually a fan that cools you as you pedal. This type of bike is fine for a casual user, but it's not recommended for anyone looking for an advanced workout.

With all of the types of stationary bikes available, there are a variety of standard features that should be looked at prior to purchasing any type of stationary bike. Unlike treadmills and elliptical trainers, the price of a stationary bike doesn't necessarily indicate its quality and you can get a quality machine for less than $1,000. Some of the things you should look at when researching stationary bikes include; resistance, adjustability, console features, weight limits and warranty.

Losing The Fight But Not The Battle

In spite of the many weight loss options, diet plans, and diet pills available and the fact that we spend over $30 billion each year on weight loss products and services we as a nation are losing the battle. You would think we would all be slim and trim. But the reality is that 3 out of every 4 of us are overweight or obese and that number is growing according to the World Health Organization.

Many of us believe it is simple to lose weight. The idea behind weight loss is simple – burn more calories than you eat. But if it is really that simple why aren't we successful at it? Why is the epidemic of overweight people continuing to skyrocket? Below are 3 things you will need to look at in order to get yourself on a healthy track.

1. Your Attitude - If you are only on a health kick fad to lose weight or look a certain way, it will be hard to lose weight permanently. Why? Because you are likely to give up if you don't see results quickly enough. Although losing weight is a great health goal, just weight loss alone is not enough to motivate you for the long haul. Weight loss is slow – it takes time to lose weight so how will you motivate yourself in the meantime?

A good way would be to find some more reasons to be healthy, such as having more energy, looking and feeling more youthful, wanting to live longer and better, sleeping better or getting off toxic medications. Those reasons would give greater staying power for the long term as they add so much more substance than just weight loss alone.

2. Your Workouts - If you don't workout with the right exercise program consistently enough it is very hard to lose weight. You will get the biggest "bang for your buck" with strength training exercise. As it is toned muscle tissue that will increase your metabolism (your body's engine) strength training is the only exercise that will do this for you.

You will then be burning more calories every single minute of the day and night. Low intensity activity like walking, jogging or cycling is not enough to rebuild and maintain muscle tissue. Keep those things going if you enjoy them and they are part of an active lifestyle but don't expect them to do the job of a proper exercise program.

3. Your Eating - Changing the way you eat is another thing you are going to have to do for long-lasting weight loss. You need to be willing to replace unhealthy foods with healthier choices - every single day. This might mean that you:

* Keep a food journal
* Spend more time preparing meals
* Say no to extra food portions
* Get at least 20 grams of protein at each of your 4-6 meals each day
* Make conscious choices every day about what you put in your mouth.
* Focus on what you should be eating, not what you shouldn't be eating.

To lose weight you will need to pay attention to what you eat and make good choices. A structured diet or food plan eventually ends, but healthy eating never stops...there should never be a time when you are not eating healthy.

You might feel you are sacrificing the good stuff (pizza, ice cream, fast food, etc.) and your life won't be fun if you can't have those foods. And guess what? You can still have them...just in moderation when you do partake.

Are you ready and willing to make these changes? Are you ready to stop giving your body the most convenient food available (often a bad choice) and, instead, spend time planning what and when you will eat? That's what it's going to take for you to lose that extra weight and get healthy permanently.

Is Yoga for You?

A lot of women perform yoga exercises not just to lose weight or maintain proper body weight but also because they want to be healthy emotionally and mentally. Yoga is also known to contribute to the decrease of a number of problems during menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause. There is research to prove this, but it’s easy to see the physical, mental, and emotional benefits evident on those women who practice yoga.

Yoga Helps You Cope with a Busy Lifestyle

If you are still undecided about yoga, then there are a number of things about it that will help you decide. One of these is its relevance to today’s world, even if it is one of the most ancient practices of all times.

Yoga is considered as the perfect solution that helps women cope with their busy days and the resulting mental and physical stress. This is especially true if they are working moms who need to deal with the pressures of both work and home. Sitting behind a desk or even driving a car for several hours every day would already result in a woman’s having shoulder and back problems that will not only affect their lives at the office but also at home when they are dealing with the family and household chores.

Choosing the Best Yoga Style Helps

Deciding if yoga is really right for you would also require you to choose the yoga style that will fit your lifestyle, personality, and needs. If you are a working mom, your yoga needs might differ from those women who are just working at the office for long hours every day. As such, it is very important to find the perfect teacher or trainer who has the right knowledge about yoga who is not only qualified and accredited but also compassionate and sensitive to what you really need.

Yoga Styles:

1)Vini Yoga. This is a personal practice that could be developed through the incorporation of meditation, proper breathing, and posture as well as prayer and rituals. The amount of all these aspects that could be incorporated into your yoga practice will have to be changed though as a woman and her needs change and develop. Therefore, if you are still a student or a young professional, then the physical aspects of yoga might be more important for you, while older women might focus more on the spiritual, mental, and emotional aspects.

2)Ashtanga Yoga. Also considered as the power yoga, this style is known to be flowing and athletic. Breathing is very important in this yoga style as a woman flows through a series of postures. This is able to generate a lot of sweat and body heat, thus helping women detoxify their bodies.

3)Ananda Yoga. This yoga style makes use of temperate poses. This is gently meditative and perfect for those who would like to practice a yoga style that helps them to look inwards so they can focus on making their emotions better.

NUTS TO YA!

A very tasty and handy source of nutrition while dieting is nuts and seeds. These foods for dieting provide a healthy supply of protein and can help replace your meats for daily nutritional requirement for short periods. Of course you wouldn't replace meats totally, as a good steak or chicken breast is necessary occasionally for your mental well being also.

But nuts are filled with all the nutrition necessary to grow a tree or schurb or any other plant, and are very healthy when used as a diet supplement. They have high fat content, but it is of the unsaturated variety which is good from the cholesterol standpoint. Nuts actually reduce LDL cholesterol (bad for you) and help you maintain your HDL (good) cholesterol.

Due to their high fat content, some dietitians dropped nuts as a health food, but in recent times they have been put back on the good foods list. And since there is so little difference in the dry roasted and the ones roasted in oil you can eat either, depending on individual taste. They are all good for you. They were considered by the Romans to be a food of the gods. Nuts are known to help in the fight against cancer, and can reduce the risk of heart disease. They have high amounts of fiber, protein, minerals, vitamins B and E, and several good dietary fats.

Nuts are a great snack between meals, and much better for you nutritionally than say a candy bar. Several clinical studies view nuts as being healthy for your heart. Lowering your blood cholesterol is a definite plus from a heart standpoint.

Seeds are also good food for diet and overall general health. They are great in stir fry vegetables as well as salads. A handful of seeds (sunflower, sesame, pumpkin and many other seeds) can provide your daily requirement of certain nutrients. That places it in the excellent food category for nutrition. Some seeds carry upward of 75% of daily requirement of copper, with sesame seeds having the highest concentration.

So if you are dieting and watching your food intake, a great source of nutrition as well as strength would be nuts and seeds. They are handy and require no refrigeration and can provide a reasonable snack at anytime during the day, be a good food for dieting, as well as a good supplement for your regular meals.

The Practice of Dieting

Dieting is the practice of ingesting food in a regulated fashion to achieve or maintain a controlled weight. In most cases the goal is weight loss in those who are overweight or obese, but some athletes aspire to gain weight, usually in the form of muscle. Diets can also be used to maintain a stable weight. Dieting in children and young adults should be undertaken with extreme caution, as receiving adequate nutrition through a well-balanced diet is crucial during childhood and adolescence. Research shows that putting children on starvation or extreme diet can be harmful. The brain is unable to correlate taste with nutritional value, which is why such children may consistently overeat later in their life despite adequate nutritional intake. Physical exercise is also an important complement to dieting in securing weight loss. This is primarily for your physical well being though, as the energy burnt during physical exercise has only limited effect on weight loss. One hour of aerobic exercise for a man burns only enough calories to be the equivalent of 2 ounces of fat. Weight loss typically involves the loss of fat, water and muscle. As muscle tissue is denser than fat, fat loss results in increased loss of body volume compared with muscle loss. Reducing even 10% body fat can therefore have a dramatic effect on a persons body shape. Muscle loss during weight loss can be restricted by regularly lifting weights or doing push-ups, or other strength oriented exercises, and by maintaining sufficient protein intake. Persons on low-carbohydrate diets, and those doing particularly strenuous exercise, may wish to increase their protein intake. Any diet that fails to meet minimum nutritional requirements can threaten general health and physical fitness in particular. If a person is not well enough to be active, weight loss and good quality of life will be unlikely.

Learning Foods for Diet

The worst health problem faced by America today is obesity. People just like to eat, and in so doing, eat too much of the wrong foods which have been ill prepared. Learning the foods for dieting, and proper preparation of same, could be a major milestone in the fight against obesity. Too much red meats and fatty fried foods don't do much to help the problem. Poor eating habits also contribute to poor blood chemistry that can be dangerously high in cholesterol and triglycerides which can lead to blocked arteries. Another problem is that obese persons have a much greater chance of developing diabetes also. In dieting there are certain absolute rules to follow which help to insure success. Learning proper foods for diet will help to insure success. For instance, there are good carbohydrate and bad carbohydrate foods that should be kept in mind. Carbohydrate foods with a high glycemic index (bad carbs) should be avoided, while the carbohydrates with low glycemic index (good carbs) are acceptable. A dies to be effective must be medically and nutritionally sound, but if it is hard top live with, is not practical and in all probability will fail. It must be flexible and simple, with as few rules as possible. It should allow people to eat basically the way they want to eat, utilizing foods for dieting that will improve their
nutrition intake, which in turn will improve their blood chemistry. Ideally, it will be a regime that can be followed after reaching your proper weight, so as to insure maintenance of your losses over the long run. Too many diets end up with weight loss, but then regaining most if not all of the loss. This can be disappointing as well as demoralizing.

Healthy Foods for Diet

There are numerous diet plans on the scene today. One that is getting a lot of attention now is the raw food diet. A recent article in a publication credited the plan with not only helping a diabetic lose several pounds, but he also was able to drop his insulin shots, and all in a 30 day period. It's understandable that raw foods do have more natural nutrients than foods that are prepared by cooking, as the heat in the cooking process has a tendency to destroy some of the natural nutrients. A good balanced diet plan would be one with at least 75% raw food. A great plan is healthy and will help you succeed in weight loss and enjoy raw food. The plan must be simple, with as few rules as possible, and fun to follow. It must be realistic, have proper balance of protein, good fats and carbs, and be adaptable to the individual involved. You must enjoy any diet for it to be successful. Foods for diet may be raw versions of foods you are already familiar with, for instance guacamole, pesto, salsa, ice creams, hot chocolate, raw cheese and honey, raw granola, chocolate cake, or your favorite salad. Other fun foods you might like are goji berries, raw chocolate, young coconuts, etc. Some recipes in this diet can be complicated and should not be tried at first. The plan should be kept simple to start, and work up later. Smoothies with super foods, juices, and raw versions of foods you already know are helpful in the beginning. These can increase chances of success on the raw food diet.