Fitness & Wellness

Losing weight is all about changing habits and making lifestyle changes. Some of them are harder, like changing your entire menu, while others are easier, such as finding ways to increase your activity, even if it’s just taking the stairs. Drinking water can be one of those simple ways. In fact, it’s far simpler than even parking further from the store and walking more. (Although it can really help if you do both!) How can drinking water help you shed pounds?

Ask for water instead of a soft drink or alcoholic beverage.

One of the easiest ways is drinking more water. If you simply drank water instead of drinking a higher calorie drink, like cola, you’ll cut back on calories immediately. If you drink a can of cola just once a day, it can save you 100 calories. Since it takes a deficit of 3500 calories to lose a pound, you could lose a pound in 35 days by making the switch and it wouldn’t require much thought or work to do. Don’t try substituting it for sugar free diet drinks. New studies show that drinking sugar free drinks may put inches on your midsection. That’s visceral fat, the worst type of fat and the hardest to lose.

If you’re thirsty, you can mistake it for hunger.

Your body sends your brain millions of messages every day. Sometimes those messages are misinterpreted. Have you ever stood in front of the refrigerator trying to figure out what you want to eat, thinking you’re hungry, but knowing crackers weren’t going to satisfy you? Lots of times, especially when dry snacks are unappealing, your brain misinterpreted what your body was saying. In reality, you need hydration. It can explain why watermelon or something juicy sounds so good. You’ll save calories if you’re hydrated.

Try drinking a large glass of water before a meal.

You’ll fill up before you start eating and won’t eat as much. Several studies show that just drinking a glass of water before a meal can help reduce your calorie intake by 75 calories. It doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider that the average person eats two meals a day, it could save you 1050 calories in a week and in little over three weeks, you’d save 3500 calories and lose a pound.

• If you want to burn more calories and have a better workout, drinking water can help do that. Even mild dehydration can cause you to drag. Instead of drinking coffee, try a glass of water. It’s the quicker picker-upper.
• Boost your metabolism with ice-cold water. According to some studies, drinking cold water makes your body work harder. It makes your insides cold and the body has to warm it.
• Don’t guzzle water, especially if you’re working out, it can make you sick. Drink 8 ounces an hour before working out and then sip on it during your workout.
• Do you bloat up with water weight? Water can come to your rescue. It acts as a diuretic. Your body hoards water for a variety of reasons, one is to normalize sodium levels. Water helps flush the sodium and you’ll get back to normal.

For more information, contact us today at VIP Fitness Center

Is cilantro a super-herb or just a wonderful herb to flavor salsa? It’s easy to answer. There are a number of healthy reasons for adding cilantro to your diet. The cilantro plant looks a lot like parsley when it’s growing and if it bolts and forms flowers, eventually those flowers turn to seed, which is another spice called coriander. People describe the taste of cilantro differently, with some saying it has a peppery, citrusy, fresh taste and others comparing it to the smell of linoleum or like eating soap. Fresh cilantro used to be more difficult to find, but now it’s sold fresh in most groceries in Fort Lee, NJ.

Cilantro has antioxidant properties.

Like many herbs and spices, cilantro has antioxidant properties from quercetin. It also has antibacterial benefits to help prevent food poisoning. The compound dodecenal in cilantro is as effective as the antibiotic drug called gentamicin in stopping the microbes causing the problem. It fights cholera, listeria, dysentery, and salmonella. It’s especially potent against listeria and salmonella. It also has eight other antibiotic compounds, so add it to your main course, snack or side dish. Cilantro laden salsa is delicious on eggs in the morning.

Help your blood sugar and blood pressure levels.

Is your blood sugar too high? Cilantro may help. It’s been shown to help promote liver health and balance blood sugar levels. Add cilantro to any dish that you can to help improve your health by lowering your blood sugar levels. It also is known to help provide a healthier lipid profile by lowering total cholesterol and triglycerides. It can aid in dissolving the cholesterol that has built up in the blood vessels, too. That can help improve heart health, lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of strokes. The potassium in cilantro can aid in lowering blood pressure, as well.

If you have toxic heavy metals in your body, cilantro comes to the rescue.

Heavy metal toxins, like arsenic, aluminum, mercury or lead, are everywhere from the food we eat to the water we drink. They can come from water, food or breathing in contaminated air we breathe and accumulate in your body. There are substances in cilantro that bind to these metals and help remove toxic metals from the body. Heavy metal toxicity can cause heart disease, cause neurological problems, hormonal issues and more.

• Move over cranberry juice, cilantro’s in the house and ready to tackle those urinary tract infections, too. Not only can it help prevent the growth of bacteria, but the seeds can also help in relieving symptoms.
• Cilantro can help prevent gas, bloating and aid in relieving indigestion. It causes digestive enzymes to be released and makes the digestive system more efficient. If spicy foods give you heartburn, add cilantro. It even helps with IBS.
• Cilantro can be a great natural sedative. It’s been found to have the same anti-anxiety effect as Valium, but without the side effects. It also can be a great aid to improved sleep.
• You can use it as a natural antihistamine. If you have poison ivy, mix cilantro with coconut oil and apply it where needed. It’s even good for hives and sunburn. You can also mix it with water and strain it, then mix the solids with coconut oil and drink the water for inside-outside protection.

For more information, contact us today at VIP Fitness Center

You don’t have to live in Fort Lee, NJ, to know that your lifestyle makes a difference whether you live longer or not. Whether it’s eating healthier, getting adequate sleep and hydration or participating in a program of regular exercise they all increase your potential lifespan by reducing the risk of serious illnesses or conditions. Man was created to move and only the fittest survived. Today, because of poor eating habits and lack of exercise, we see an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and an epidemic of obesity.

You’ll rust out before you wear out.

When you exercise, it stimulates the creation of stem cells that replace the old cells in your body. It also helps lubricate joints and keeps muscles flexible, to help avoid injury. Exercise aids your digestive process, including improving the microbiome in your gut. Those microbes perform many of the tasks necessary to the body and even affect your mood. One study, conducted by the Cleveland Clinic and New York School of Medicine, found that obesity was the major cause for loss of life-years in the US. It was closely followed by smoking and tobacco use, high blood pressure and diabetes. You’ll note the last two are also linked to obesity.

Exercise helps protect the cells.

Besides building new cells, exercise also helps protect the old ones. Exercise also lengthens the telomeres. Telomeres protect the chromosomes and help keep them from unraveling. They act like aglets, those plastic tips on shoelaces, which keep the laces from fraying. The more you exercise, the longer the telomeres are. They wear away first, keeping the chromosome intact.

No matter what your age or your physical condition, you can exercise.

Even people who are bed bound can exercise. It’s good therapy and can keep muscles more supple. If you have a serious condition, like heart disease or cancer, the right type of exercise can help you. It provides benefits that include reduced side effects of treatment and improved results, reduced fatigue, improved attitude and faster recovery. People with painful conditions, like arthritis or back pain, will probably benefit from exercise. You’ll find most life threatening conditions improve with the right program of exercise added to treatment.

• You can start a program of exercise at any age but start slowly if you’ve been a couch potato most of your life. One study in Australia found that walking 10K steps a day lowered mortality risk by 40%.
• No matter what your age, your body continues to create stem cells that can replace any type of cell in the body. They’re often used to repair joints and many doctors suggest exercise to boost their creation.
• Exercise helps boost the creation of nitric oxide, which makes the blood vessels relax, so they expand. That helps lower blood pressure.
• Even mental health can be improved with exercise. It not only can reduce the potential for depression and anxiety, it also can keep the brain functioning better and is often used with Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.

For more information, contact us today at VIP Fitness Center

You may be burning tons of calories and eating healthily, but still have layers of fat around your middle. Most people focus on losing weight, when they should be focusing on losing fat. There are a myriad of myths about losing fat that you’ll hear when you’re trying to shed that extra fat around your belly. It’s hard enough to get into shape, but the misinformation makes it even more difficult.

One popular myth is that aerobic exercise is the best for losing fat.

Aerobic exercise, like running, is exceptional for burning calories, but not necessarily good for fat burning. When you run, you do burn tons of calories, but the body takes those calories from both fat and lean muscle mass. The less muscle mass you have, the fewer calories you burn, since muscle tissue requires more calories for maintenance than fat tissue does. If fat burning is at the top of your list, do strength training workouts. They not only burn a lot of calories, but they also help build muscle mass, while burning calories from fat.

A starvation diet will help you lose fat is another myth.

Again, you’ll be using calories from lean muscle mass as well as from fat tissues. That loss of muscle mass makes weight loss more difficult. Your body also has a built in survival mechanism, where it slows the metabolism and goes into starvation mode when it isn’t receiving enough calories for an extended period. That also makes it harder to lose both weight and fat. You need both a program of regular exercise and a healthy diet that’s lower in calories, but not at starvation mode.

If you steer clear of all types of fat, you’ve fallen for another fat loss myth.

You need healthy fat for a number of reasons. Ironically, it’s necessary for burning fat! Food manufacturers look for ways to sell more product, it’s part of being in business. Some offer fat free options. You might not understand how that can be bad, but it is. Food tastes different when fat is removed. To make it more flavorful, they add sugar. Often the healthy fat the food contained was better for fat loss, than the reworked version that’s loaded with sugar and other carbs.

• You think the more hours you’re active, the more calories you burn, so you don’t get enough sleep. When you lack sleep, it creates a hormonal imbalance, reducing leptin, the hormone that makes you feel full and increasing ghrelin, the one that makes you hungry, so you eat more.
• You believe all you need is to workout regularly to lose weight. Sad, but true, you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. It takes both diet and exercise.
• You don’t count what you drink into consideration. Whether it’s a sugary drink, a latte with the works or a beer with the gang, it all adds calories and can lead to slower fat loss. Even artificially sweetened drinks can put fat on around the middle.
• You may believe the myth that working out at a specific time will help burn fat. The truth is, no matter when you workout, it’s good. You should have a specified workout time that you know you’ll be able to do consistently.

For more information, contact us today at VIP Fitness Center

If you’re going workout like a Navy SEAL, you have to be in shape first. Just getting a chance to become a SEAL is pretty tough. You need to be at peak performance to pass the entrance requirements. The official list of requirements includes: 500 yards of swimming the sidestroke/breaststroke within 12 minutes 30 seconds, a 10-minute rest, 50 push-ups in 2 minutes then a 2-minute rest, 50 sit-ups in 2 minutes then a 2-minute rest, 10 pull-ups and finally a mile and a half run in 10 minutes. Those are the bare minimum requirements, but faster times and more repetitions are required to be truly competitive for the few openings for the training.

The training to get accepted is grueling.

The training for the Navy SEALS requires both physical and mental toughness. They are required to go beyond the point where most people would quit because of pain. Their life or the life of their fellow SEALs may depend on it. Their workouts use not only body weight, but also their rucksack, which is carried on their back while they do bodyweight exercises and run. That extra weight make pull-ups, push-ups and other calisthenics more difficult.

What is the 26-week training program to prepare for the test for the SEAL Program?

There is training to help the Seal hopefuls prepare for the Entrance Exam. It requires a variety of different types of training. Each week a moderate long distance run and swim are required, plus a continuous high intensity run and swim. Interval workouts are used in both swimming and running, as well. Every week, 4-5 calisthenic and core exercise routines are completed, 4-6 strength training sessions, a daily flexibility training session and injury prevention exercises. It’s a grueling schedule, just to train for the entrance exam.

Not everyone wants to be or can be a Navy SEAL.

You don’t have to want to serve as a SEAL to benefit from the type of training they do. It’s hard and made to build mental toughness, pushing beyond exhaustion and pain. Each person has his or her own level of fitness and mental block that prevents them from achieving their best. Modifying the SEAL’s fitness program to match your level of fitness and pushing harder to achieve more each time should be your goal if you want to workout like a Navy SEAL.

Every Navy SEAL’s training includes push-ups, pull-ups, distance swimming, distance running, sit-ups and hiking or running trails carrying a heavy weight in a backpack.

While the candidates for SEAL training workout several times a day, every day of the week, that’s not necessarily recommended for everyone. Taking a day off of intense workouts and doing active recovery, like walking, may be best for you.

Always consult your health care professional before beginning a program of exercise, particularly one as rigorous as the SEAL training. Always track your workouts to ensure you’re reaching your goals.

At VIP Fitness Center, we may not make you workout like a Navy Seal, but you’ll get a workout that’s designed for your needs and tough enough to get results. We also help you learn how to eat healthier, since good nutrition is mandatory for good results.