Fitness & Wellness

Fasting is a general term for many ways of consuming or not consuming food. There are water fasts that can last for days and intermittent fasting that may last a few hours. Some of these may affect your metabolism negatively, while others may have a positive effect. What is the difference in how the body reacts? It all depends on whether you’ve reached starvation mode and how restrictive it is.

Long water fasts may slow your metabolism.

If you only drink water on your fast and consume no calories for days, you might slow your metabolism. Even a severe calorie-restricted diet for a long time can cause a problem. Your body senses a shortage of food and imminent starvation. It reacts as it was created to avoid death and slows the metabolism. That ensures survival by saving the calories for vital functions like brain, heart, and lung functions. You have to boost your metabolism once the fast ends. Building muscle with exercise helps.

Fasts that won’t harm your metabolism include intermittent fasts.

Intermittent fasting can be achieved in several ways. The most common method is to shorten the window when you eat. It’s often done by eating within an eight-hour window and fasting the other sixteen hours. Your body never senses starvation, so it doesn’t diminish your metabolism. Another way to do intermittent fasting is to eat severely calorie-restricted diets three days a week and eat the normal amount of calories on the other days. Some people include feast days in their fasts, where they eat more than their normal calories.

Intermittent fasting has other benefits.

Studies show intermittent fasting may make you healthier. It may slow aging and potentially improve your metabolism when compared to calorie-restricted diets. It allows your body to flush out damaged cells and may help prevent inflammation that can cause asthma, stroke, arthritis, MS, and Alzheimer’s.

• Some people use a 12-hour window to eat and a 12-hour window to fast. It’s easy to do since seven or eight hours are spent sleeping. You can eat breakfast at seven and stop eating at seven that night.
• One reason intermittent fasting works so well is that your energy level never dips. It helps improve fat burning without burning muscle tissue, increases the creation of stem cells, and helps regulate blood sugar.
• You need to consume healthy food when you eat as part of your fat. It doesn’t matter whether you’re consuming a liquid diet of juices or a calorie-restricted diet. Choosing healthy food is a must.
• You can’t use long-term fasts for extended periods. Your body requires food. Without adequate calories, it starts breaking down muscle tissue. Always check with your healthcare provider before starting any fast.

For more information, contact us today at VIP Fitness Center

At VIP Fitness, we use strength training to benefit both men and women. While some women worry they’ll build bulging Hulk-like muscles. Nothing could be further from the truth. Female hormones prevent bulking up. Women bodybuilders have a grueling workout and strict diet to build their muscles. Some even take it a step further using chemical methods.

Women can improve their body composition.

That also boosts their metabolism to make it easier to lose weight. Muscle burns more calories to maintain, so the more you have, the more calories you burn 24/7. Muscle tissue is more dense and weighs more per cubic inch. Even if you don’t lose weight, you’ll lose inches. Your clothes will fit better, your posture will improve, and the backaches and pains of poor posture will disappear.

The older you get; the more important strength training becomes.

Once a woman passes menopause, the risk of osteoporosis increases. Osteoporosis is the leaching of calcium from the bone. It weakens them and makes them brittle. When the muscles tug on the bones, they calcify to stay strong. The more it tugs, the more dense the bone becomes. If the muscles aren’t challenged with weight-bearing exercises, there’s no need for the bones to be strong. When the calcium leaches, the bones become weak. Strength training can help recalcify the bone. Younger women have a limited risk due to estrogen. Menopause changes all that. Studies show that menopausal women who are inactive have twice the bone mass loss as active women.

Avoid high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and menstrual cramps with strength training.

You’ll lose weight, lower your blood pressure, and improve insulin sensitivity by doing strength training. When your blood sugar is high, your body sends insulin. Insulin signals the cells to open and uptake the sugar. Insulin resistance causes the cells to be less responsive, so the body makes more insulin. Exercise helps burn glycogen stores in the muscles and gives them the capacity to hold more, making cells more receptive. Insulin resistance causes belly fat, food cravings, and weight gain. Improving insulin sensitivity makes weight loss easier and can help reverse type 2 diabetes.

• Unless people work hard to stop the process, the body starts losing muscle in the mid-thirties. You lose between 3 to 5% every decade. Lack of strength can cause the inability to do the activities of daily living in senior years and impede independent living.
• When you do strength training, you’ll reduce back pain, arthritis pain, and chronic depression. You’ll have more energy and a better attitude. Obesity leads to chronic and terminal illness. Strength training can reverse or prevent it.
• Women with menopausal symptoms, like hot flashes, can be helped with strength training. One study found that 15 weeks of training cut the occurrence of hot flashes in half and helped shed menopausal weight gain.
• Strength training can help improve the quality of health during pregnancy. It can reduce complications during pregnancy and make delivery easier. Always check with your healthcare professional before starting any exercise program.

For more information, contact us today at VIP Fitness Center

At VIP Fitness, we use strength training to benefit both men and women. While some women worry they’ll build bulging Hulk-like muscles. Nothing could be further from the truth. Female hormones prevent bulking up. Women bodybuilders have a grueling workout and strict diet to build their muscles. Some even take it a step further using chemical methods.

Women can improve their body composition.

That also boosts their metabolism to make it easier to lose weight. Muscle burns more calories to maintain, so the more you have, the more calories you burn 24/7. Muscle tissue is more dense and weighs more per cubic inch. Even if you don’t lose weight, you’ll lose inches. Your clothes will fit better, your posture will improve, and the backaches and pains of poor posture will disappear.

The older you get; the more important strength training becomes.

Once a woman passes menopause, the risk of osteoporosis increases. Osteoporosis is the leaching of calcium from the bone. It weakens them and makes them brittle. When the muscles tug on the bones, they calcify to stay strong. The more it tugs, the more dense the bone becomes. If the muscles aren’t challenged with weight-bearing exercises, there’s no need for the bones to be strong. When the calcium leaches, the bones become weak. Strength training can help recalcify the bone. Younger women have a limited risk due to estrogen. Menopause changes all that. Studies show that menopausal women who are inactive have twice the bone mass loss as active women.

Avoid high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and menstrual cramps with strength training.

You’ll lose weight, lower your blood pressure, and improve insulin sensitivity by doing strength training. When your blood sugar is high, your body sends insulin. Insulin signals the cells to open and uptake the sugar. Insulin resistance causes the cells to be less responsive, so the body makes more insulin. Exercise helps burn glycogen stores in the muscles and gives them the capacity to hold more, making cells more receptive. Insulin resistance causes belly fat, food cravings, and weight gain. Improving insulin sensitivity makes weight loss easier and can help reverse type 2 diabetes.

Unless people work hard to stop the process, the body starts losing muscle in the mid-thirties. You lose between 3 to 5% every decade. Lack of strength can cause the inability to do the activities of daily living in senior years and impede independent living.

When you do strength training, you’ll reduce back pain, arthritis pain, and chronic depression. You’ll have more energy and a better attitude. Obesity leads to chronic and terminal illness. Strength training can reverse or prevent it.

Women with menopausal symptoms, like hot flashes, can be helped with strength training. One study found that 15 weeks of training cut the occurrence of hot flashes in half and helped shed menopausal weight gain.

Strength training can help improve the quality of health during pregnancy. It can reduce complications during pregnancy and make delivery easier. Always check with your healthcare professional before starting any exercise program.

If you’ve recently been injured, you don’t have to sit in your easy chair nursing a bowl of ice cream or mashed potatoes for comfort. You can stay fit and healthy even if you can’t do your normal workout. It may take some modifications or changing your fitness routine, but it’s possible. Get creative to overcome your limitations while you keep your goal in mind. Always listen to your healthcare professional before starting an exercise program to ensure you won’t exacerbate your condition.

Once you get the green light, identify things you can and can’t do.

If you’re in a complete body cast, finding what you can do is a challenge. Most injuries aren’t that dramatic. Usually, it’s the upper body, lower body, or weakness that leaves you bedridden. Those things don’t affect all muscle groups. If the injury is on the upper body on one side, you can still work the opposite side and your lower body. If you’re bedridden or can’t stand unaided, you can work your arms in many ways. Don’t shy away from exercising the uninjured arm or leg. Studies show that using exercises that elongate the muscle— eccentric exercises—benefits the other side as well. You’ll slow muscle loss on the injured side and maintain muscle mass on the uninjured side.

Are you bedridden?

Stretching exercises can be valuable for several reasons. It keeps your joints lubricated, increases circulation, works the muscles, and prevents muscle aches from laying too long. Besides stretching, you can do arm exercises, work on grip with a rubber ball, lightly flutter your legs, and keep moving. Arm exercises are possible in a wheelchair and bed.

Work on your upper body strength if your lower body is injured.

The reverse is also true. If you have a lower-body injury, it doesn’t prevent you from exercising your upper body. Do a modified leg lift with an uninjured leg from a wheelchair. Nothing stops you from doing bicep curls with an uninjured arm or seated curls with a leg injury. If your upper body is injured, taking walks, squats, and other lower body exercises keeps you toned.

• Swimming or pool exercises are excellent if you have an injury. The water keeps you more buoyant, so it’s low-impact. Use a cast cover or cast designed for use in the water.
• Focus on staying active and maintaining your fitness level. Don’t try to push yourself to the point it’s dangerous. Always do warm-up and cool-down exercises before you begin, even if the exercise is mild.
• Isometric exercises—contracting the muscles and holding—can be done without putting weight on an injured area. Some exercises aren’t safe for certain injuries. Choose your isometrics wisely.
• If you have a physical therapist, ask for help creating a workout plan to maintain your fitness level or tell them your workout strategy to see if there’s any way it can harm you. Always protect the injured area, but work the rest of your body.

For more information, contact us today at VIP Fitness Center

We help clients at VIP Fitness in Fort Lee, NJ, learn to eat healthier. That includes more than meals. It includes snacks as well. What you eat should give you energy without spiking blood sugar. Food that causes blood sugar to rise rapidly has an aftereffect. It also causes blood sugar levels to drop just as rapidly. The type of snack you eat makes a difference. Eating the right food before exercising can improve the quality of your session and start the recovery process.

If you snack before working out or afterward, make it a combination of carbs and protein.

Combining the two, carbohydrates and protein, gives you quicker energy that lasts longer due to the protein. Examples are nuts and raisins or homemade trail mix, cheese and crackers, or veggies and Greek yogurt dip. The addition of protein to the snack not only keeps the energy level high: it starts the recovery process. Dark chocolate is 70% or more cacao and has less sugar. Having a few dark chocolate-covered almonds is another option. High percentages of cacao are the better.

Fresh fruit or vegetables and peanut butter are excellent choices.

Peanut butter and apples or celery is an energy-boosting choice, especially if the celery and peanut butter combo is topped with raisins for the kid favorite, ants on a log. Greek yogurt with fresh fruit in the bottom is another option. Avoid the type with the fruit already mixed into it. That type of fruit in yogurt is laden with added sugar. Mixing a half cup of yogurt with a half banana and adding berries and nuts is another treat that keeps energy levels high longer.

Energy snacks don’t have to be sweet.

Make a pint salad jar. You can add whatever ingredients you have in the refrigerator. It’s all about how you layer it. The dressing goes on the bottom topped with hard vegetables like carrots, celery, or radish slices. That prevents softer veggies, like lettuce, from getting soggy. Layer your protein next. It can be quinoa, or pieces of chicken, shrimp, or other animal protein. Finalize the jar with soft veggies like lettuce and top with something crunchy. Add herbs, berries, feta cheese, and other ingredients to add tang, sweetness, and interest. It will keep your energy high. Make several jars at once. Use smaller ones for snacks and larger ones for meals.

• A hard-boiled egg is a protein source. Cut it in half and create a two sweet, deviled egg halves for a quick snack that boosts your energy.
• Make energy balls. Combine toasted oats or wheat germ with peanut butter and a small amount of honey. Form balls and roll them in remaining toasted oats or wheat germ. Store in the refrigerator for a quick pick-me-up.
• If you need energy and don’t have a snack ready, opt for protein bars or commercial trail mix. Look for ones sweetened with dates, figs, or other fruit and containing protein.
• Cottage cheese topped with fruit or unsweetened applesauce is easy to make, boosts energy quickly, and keeps energy levels high longer.

For more information, contact us today at VIP Fitness Center