The Importance of Core Strength

In the past fifteen years, core training has become a priority in the fitness world. It is definitely one of the most important things you can do for your body. Having core strength will help you with just about everything that you physically do.

What are your core muscles? Well they are all of the muscles that are in your body, minus your legs and arms. They include all abdominal muscles, pelvic area, and back muscles. These core muscles, particularly the deeper ones close to your spine, are vital for a strong healthy body.


Many of us have done crunches as a way to strengthen our stomach, but that exercise is only hitting the superficial part of your abdominal region, and does not go deep enough to strengthen the transverse abdominal, obliques, or the erector spinae. Those are the muscles that help to make up your core.

Core training can provide so many benefits for your body. It will improve your balance, posture, athletic performance, stability, reduces risk of injury, protects your back, and improves your body shape.



There are a number of ways to train your core for strength. One of those practices is Pilates. (see blog on Pilates) Pilates is all about strengthening the core. You can do some of the Pilates exercises right in your home. You do not need the equipment used in Pilates gyms to do the mat Pilates exercises.


Working with an exercise ball is also a great way to strengthen your core. Doing the balancing exercises is great for core strength. (see blog on exercise ball) Anytime you are balancing on the ball, you are using your core muscles to do it.


Abdominal exercises like the bicycle crunch, ball crunches, scissor abs, ball leg lifts, hanging leg raises, V-sits, and side crunches are all effective in creating core strength. (see blog on abdominal exercises)


One of my favorite ways to strengthen my core, and probably one of the most effective, is to do the plank exercise. You can do a forward plank and side planks to work your core to its best. If you are not strong enough to perform these challenging exercises, you can do a modified plank until you get strong enough to do the tougher one.

Plank exercises do not take much time. If you do a forward plank for one minute, you will be doing well. You can add time to it as you develop more strength. Do it until it feels like you want to quit, then do it a little longer. I always tell my students, the weakest part of your body when you are doing the plank is not your core, but your mind. Your mind wants you to get back to being comfortable, and the plank is anything but that.


So when you are planning your fitness routine, do not leave out your core exercises. They are the most important exercises to do. Core exercises will also sculpt your body to a beautiful shape. What's not to love about that?




Till Tomorrow,
Queenie

Feeling Tired?

Do you have those days where you feel tired, wore out, and just plain exhausted? Well most of us do have those days if you are alive and breathing. There are a few things that you can do to get yourself back up and running.

One of those things is to go for a walk. When you are tired and wore out, it is not a good time to do an intense work out. The risk of injury is greater when you are not at your best. Taking a walk, however will help to get some energy back in your body, and your mental state.


Walking will help to get more oxygen to your cells and to your brain. This will help revive you and give you a little pick me up. It will also help your circulation to improve, which will allow you to feel better as well.

Just being outdoors and feeling the sun and wind on your skin will help to wake you up. Nature is always good for your soul when you are feeling a bit blah.

Another thing that will help to get your energy up is to listen to some up beat music. Music that makes you feel happy with a good beat is always good to get you moving when you are feeling slow. It especially helps when you are exercising, but is good for that walk you take when you are feeling tired too.


Have a cup of green tea for a lift when you are needing a little more energy. Green tea has caffeine in it, but is much healthier for you than that cup of coffee. The caffeine in green tea is minimal compared to a cup of coffee, and is much less acidic than coffee is.

Taking one of those power naps I spoke of in an earlier blog is a great way to beat that tiredness in the middle of the day. But remember not to nap more than thirty minutes or so, or you will most likely feel more tired after the nap than you did before it. Twenty to thirty minutes is all you need to invigorate yourself from being tired.


Meditation can also revive you when you are in a slump. A visual meditation of something that you love will give you energy. Think happy thoughts, day dream of a wonderful place, or think about something that you would love to happen and visualize it coming true. All of these things will help to lift you up and give you more energy.



So when you are feeling tired and wore out try some of these things to get you back in the game. We don't always have the option of just going to bed and ending our day when we feel this way. Most of us have things to do, places to go, and people to see. Its hard when you are out of energy, but trying these techniques will help you.

Till Tomorrow,
Queenie

Protect Your Skin with Sunblock

I grew up in coastal California and spent much of my time outside and in the sun. In the summer, I literally spent every day at the beach or pool. Back in those days we did not have sunblock, in fact we put oil, coconut butter, or anything on our skin that would help us to get darker and more suntanned.


I remember my mother and aunts saying to me, "You better stay out of that sun, you will get wrinkled and have sun damage when you get older." Well when I was a teenager, I thought that getting older would take much longer than it did!

Wow, getting older came fast, and yes I have had a great deal of sun damage, skin cancer, and more wrinkles than I should have had if I had not gotten so much sun on my skin.


I now use sunblock everyday on my face whether I am outside or not. I have a 75 spf, and I use a 30 spf powder as well. Having had multiple procedures to remove pre-cancer and cancer off my face, I am not going to take any more chances.


I sunblock my body with at least a 50 spf. With all of the sun damage that I have done to my legs, I have sun spots all over them, and those are things that they can not remove with any of the latest skin repair techniques. I have also had several cancers on my legs removed. I still get plenty of color even using these strong sunblocks.


Now I wish I had paid a little more attention to my mother and aunts. Of course back then I thought I knew it all, and that I had plenty of time before I was old and wrinkled. HA! Zippity DO Da, that is how life goes, fast like a bullet!

Here are some sobering facts on sun damage to skin. Over 55 million people will develop skin cancer in their lifetime. One in 75 of those people will develop melanoma, a often fatal form of cancer.


Melanoma has increased 1200% since the 1930's. This is scary....in teenagers it it has increased 100% in the last ten years. It is the most common cancer in women under 30 years old.


We do get vitamin D from the sun, and that is important for our health. Many doctors say you should get fifteen minutes of sun several times a week without sunblock. It is recommended that this sun exposure should not be done when the sun is at its most intense. That is usually from about noon to three o'clock. Better to do it in the morning hours, or late afternoon.

Wearing hats and protective clothing are always a good thing. Now days you see kids at the beach with water suits on. They look similar to a wet suit, but are made of a lighter fabric to protect them from the sun and keep them cooler.


Getting under umbrellas or patio coverings is best when outside long term. When you are in situations like bike riding or running, wear your water proof sun block and wear visors or hats when possible.

Keeping your skin from aging prematurely involves staying out of the sun! I wish I had done more of that myself. Its too late for me to reverse the damage that I did when I was younger, but its not too late for you if you are young.

Follow the recommendations of using sunblock, protective clothing, hats, and staying in the shade. Trust me when I say, you may think you have a long time until you get older, but it is a fast trip to your older years. Take precautions now so that you can keep skin cancer out of your life. You will look younger for it!

Till Tomorrow,
Queenie

Burning Fat

Burning fat is usually the main focus of exercise, even though there are so many other incredible things that happen to your body when you are working out. Besides burning fat, you are strengthening your bones, your heart, reducing the risk of disease, oxygenating your system, reversing the aging process, lowering your stress levels, and more.

However fat burning is what many people who exercise are going for. It is important to know what your heart rate is while you are exercising to reap the full benefit of the fat burning process. For most of us our fat burning zone is in the 65 to 85 percent of our maximum heart rate.

As I have stated in previous blogs, an easy way to figure out your maximum heart rate is to minus your age from 220. Then find 65 to 75 percent of that number, and that is your target fat burning zone. If you are working out at 55% of your max heart rate, you will not be burning as much fat. If you are working out at a heart rate of 90% or more, you will also be burning less fat, as well as throwing yourself into a anaerobic zone.


Having more muscle on your body will assist you in burning fat too. Muscle requires more calories, therefore boosting your metabolism to burn more fat.

Studies have shown that drinking a cup of coffee prior to a workout will help your body to burn more fat during the workout. This is from the caffeine in the coffee. Caffeinated sugar drinks are not going to produce the same results due to the high amounts of sugar that will counteract the fat loss.


Eating five to six small healthy meals a day will also help to speed up fat loss. This is due to the fact that it will increase your metabolic rate, and keep your metabolism working faster. These meals need to be quality calories though, not white flour or white sugar products. Fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, lean protein, whole grain, nuts, and legumes, are the foods that would be the best choice for this kind of eating.


Just being active will help to burn the fat also. House cleaning, walking, gardening, washing your car, or any type of physical activity will add to your caloric burn, which will add to your fat burning.


So if you are trying to burn the fat off your body, follow the above guidance, and you will be successful. It is all about quality calories, exercise, being active, and being smart!


Till Monday,
Queenie

Your Feelings and Gut Instinct is Your Guidance System

Have you ever noticed when you do something that is wrong or say something hurtful to someone, you will probably not feel good inside. Your feelings are your barometer to how you should be acting. Many of us do not pay a lot of attention to those feelings however.


Some people refer to it as your gut feelings, or your intuition. I have had many situations in my life where I have ignored my gut instinct, or pushed aside my feelings to continue doing something that I should not have done. Trouble always followed in those situations.


When we are mean, selfish, rude, or dishonest, most of us feel bad inside, but ignore that feeling so we don't have to be responsible for our behavior. For instance, have you ever said something mean to someone, even if they deserved it, but felt crummy after the fact? These feelings are our internal guidance to help us to choose better.

Most people that are mean and rude, really do not feel good about themselves, so they want others to feel as bad as they do. They say nasty things, act rudely, and try to make others feel horrible like they do. I am positive that they never feel good inside even when they are successful in ruining other peoples day. These type of people are just miserable all of the time, and want others to join them in misery.

If you paid attention to your inner feelings and follow your gut instinct, I guarantee you that you will have a lot less trouble and bad situations in your life. Following these inner feelings will help you to make better choices for a better outcome in what ever it is that you are doing.

Many times we feel that we have to be rude or mean right back to someone if they are rude or mean to us. We don't. It is always better to take the high road and respond with nothing, or say something neutral like, "I am sorry that you feel so bad about yourself, that you need to make others feel bad too." Then walk away. This way you will not engage in their bad behavior.

If your gut instinct tells you not to go somewhere, or not to be with someone, best to follow it. It is there for a reason, to help you stay out of trouble and keep you safe. I wish I could turn back the clock and redo the times that I ignored my inner voice. I would have saved myself a ton of heartache and trouble.

So if your stomach is upset or the voice in your head is saying don't do it, or don't go there, it is always a good idea to listen. Many times we still want to do, say, or go, to whatever our gut is telling us not to, so we ignore it only to end up with a bad situation. There is no going back after you have ignored your gut.

Get in tuned with your inner voice and how you are feeling when it comes to your gut instinct. It is a great barometer if you should proceed or not. Pay attention to it and you will save yourself from a lot of pain and sorrow.

Till Tomorrow,
Queenie

The Negatives of Eating Sugar

I have written about this subject before, but it is something that needs to be talked about over and over so you can understand the importance of getting sugar out of your daily diet.

White refined sugar is one of the worst things that you can put into your body. It effects every organ in a negative way. Sugar has no positive effect on your health and well being.


The best way to satisfy your sweet tooth is to do it with fruit. Fruit has so many healthy things in it, and the natural fruit sugar is not harmful to you unless you have candida, or diabetes. Then you would want to limit your intake of any kind of sugar.

Refined sugar can suppress your immune system. That in itself is bad, but there are many other harmful things that sugar does to your health, like upsetting your mineral balance, raising your cholesterol, and reducing your defense against bacterial infections.

Sugar reduces the elasticity of your skin, causes chromium deficiency, causes a copper deficiency, and interferes with your calcium and magnesium absorption.


Eating too much sugar can lead to hypoglycemia, can weaken your eye sight, cause an acidic digestive system, can cause premature aging, and tooth decay.

Sugar is a leading cause of obesity, gallstones, appendicitis, cardiovascular disease, food allergies, high blood pressure, decreases growth hormone, and contributes to diabetes.


There have been many studies done on children and sugar. Children can have hyperactivity, anxiety, and mood swings from too much sugar. There learning capabilities are lessened, as well as their ability to focus. It can also cause a rapid rise in their adrenal levels.

Sugar has also been studied in relationship to cancer, and their are many scientists that believe it is a leading cause of many different types of this disease. Ovarian and prostate are two types of cancer that research has proven can be effected by sugar.

I could go on and on about the evils of sugar, but I think you have got the point. If you eat it daily, or eat large amounts of sugar and want to be healthy, best to stop having it in your diet.


I have battled the sugar addiction for my whole life. As a child I was aloud to eat as much of it as I wanted. There were no restrictions. Consequently I have spent a lot of time at the dentist. I have through the years cut way down on the amount that I eat. I feel much better when I do not have sugar in my diet.

It is a drug though, and is very addictive. Just like any drug, you need to have discipline and strength to stay off of it. The more it is out of your system, the more toxic it feels when you put it back in. It actually makes me feel sick now if I have more than a little taste of something with sugar in it.

Losing weight is so much easier without sugar in your diet. You will feel better, look better, and be healthier for it!


Till Tomorrow,
Queenie

Be Responsible for Your Behavior

Everyone I have ever worked with wants to get into shape and be lean. Wanting to, and doing it are two completely different things.

When people come to me to train and lose weight, I tell them in the most direct way that I can, that they need to do certain things with consistency and discipline. Those things are to cut out white flour, white sugar, simple carbs, high animal fat products, alcohol, and stick to natures foods like, fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein, whole grains, and legumes.

I also advise them to exercise at least five to six days a week, preferably seven days a week. They need to do cardiovascular training, strength training, and stretching, for a complete fitness regime. I also tell them to find some time every day to do a ten minute meditation for mental health and stress reduction.



The majority of the clients that I have had in the past twenty three years do not do even half of what I advise them to do to reach the goal of fit and lean that they are aiming for. They continue to eat bad food most of the time, never exercise unless they are with me, and most never try to meditate.


It never ceases to amaze me when they say things like, "I haven't lost any weight", or "Why haven't I gotten more fit?". Its as if they believe just because they come to me for two to three hours a week, they should be getting the results they want without doing the work the rest of the time.


That scenario is played over and over in my work as a trainer. Given the fact that I only have charge of them two to three hours a week out of 168 hours, it seems odd that they can't see where the responsibility lye's.

It does not matter who your coach or trainer is, if you do not do the work, your results will not happen. I am an educator, not a magician. I can teach and motivate, but the student is the one that has to do the work to make things happen.

Getting fit, healthy, and lean, has to do with what you do 24/7. If you only exercise two or three hours a week, it is certainly better than nothing and will keep you from being a couch potato, but to really kick in the fat loss, I encourage you to do more.

If you eat poorly more than you eat healthy, I predict that your fat loss will be minimal if any. Most likely you will continue to gain. If you eat well for a couple of days and don't see the pounds coming off, that's normal, stick with it for life and you will get there.

Being lean and fit is not a short term project, especially as you age. Get into a healthy lifestyle of eating well, working out regularly, and practicing meditation, and you will have your fit and healthy body.

There is no quick fix to getting fit and lean. It will always take effort and discipline to create the good habits of exercise and a healthy diet. You will feel so much better if you can change from eating bad and not exercising to a healthy diet and daily exercise.

Remember that your actions will create how you look and feel. It is never going to be anyone else that will be responsible for your health. It's all up to you. It's all about your choices. Hopefully the consequences of your choice's are fit, lean, and happy!

Till Tomorrow,
Queenie