Best Fitness Blog

You are busy, and when you are busy you exercise less and don’t eat as well as you should. But the key to weight loss is burning more calories than you take in, but also eating healthy. You may think you eat fine, but if you take a few minutes to evaluate what you eat, you may start to notice some unhealthy habits. The first question that you should ask yourself is: What types of processed foods do you eat?

Processed foods have added fats and sugars to make them taste better, last longer and cook faster. This hidden extras add on the calories more quickly than most of us realize. Because of this, the typical American diet is loaded with sugar, fat, and sodium, often leading to high blood pressure, low energy, and poor digestion. The best way to reduce your risk for many diseases and health issues is to choose natural and minimally processed foods. Often called “eating clean”.

If you want to eat clean, you need to eat the least processed food with the most nutrients. How? No more fast foods, no more frozen food aisle at the grocery store, choose fresh vegetables and fruits over canned or frozen.

Choose foods that are low in fat, high in fiber, with essential vitamins and minerals. This will control blood sugar, give you more energy for exercise and give you the fiber that you need for better and healthy digestion.

Eating a less processed, healthy diet along with increased exercise can boost your metabolism and help you lose weight. Replacing fast foods and processed foods can help you eat less calories overall and increase the amount of fiber you eat. Additionally, high-fiber whole grains, vegetables, and fruits will help you feel fuller longer causing you to eat less. Did you know that people who eat an additional 14 grams of fiber a day eat 10% less throughout the day.?

Do you want to get in shape, take care of your body and change your appearance? Pilates is the way to do it. Most people regardless of age or abilities can benefit from Pilates. Pilates strengthens the core of your body which includes the muscles in the back, tummy and rear. Through strengthening the core of the body, you can achieve tremendous physical results, as well as increased mental health.

The muscles in your core affect your entire body, so with each pilates exercise you are working the entire body, not just one muscle group. Because of the nature of pilates exercises, through these work outs you will lengthen and de-compress the spine which increases your stability, and elongates your core muscles giving your body a longer and leaner appearance.

Just in time for spring feel your self confidence boost as you posture improved, your belly firms and your body lengthens. Because Pilates is a low impact workout, anyone can participate. Contact Best Fitness in your are to see how Pilates can benefit you.

...By Karli Taylor

Many people are trying to lose weight, and we all know that diet and exercise is the way to do it. Of course burning more calories than you take in is the way to drop some pounds. But sometimes consuming more is better too. Consuming more water that is.

Everywhere you look there is a fad diet, or someone trying to sell you a cleanse book. Forget diet pills, fad diets and cleanses. There is an effective weight-loss aid that you already have: water. And we are not talking about vitamin waters, or flavored waters; just add more plain old water to your diet and rinse away the weight.

Do you want to lose weight? A recent study has shown that while cutting down on portions, and drinking two 8-ounce glasses of water before breakfast, lunch, and dinner may help you lose weight and keep it off for at least a year. This research was presented at the American Chemical Society, in Boston.
Adding water to your low-calorie weight-loss diet, and exercise plan can help you with weight-loss success.

The reason may be that drinking water before meals helps fill your stomach, making you less hungry and less likely to overeat. It has been determined that drinking water before meals encourages your body to lose weight. It could also be that drinking more water may discourage you from drinking soda and other high calorie drinks.

For more diet tips, and a custom designed exercise and weight loss plan, contact Best Fitness in your area.

...By Travis Webb

One of the most important areas of your body is the core. Over time the fitness community has changed their focus of ab workouts to core workouts. This is mainly due to our growing understanding in how the core works. As our knowledge has grown we have also developed equipment to activate and utilize the core more efficiently such as the stability ball.

Your core wraps around your torso and includes a variety of muscles in your hips. One of the ideas behind sitting on a unstable surface, like a stability ball, is more muscles will be recruited to stabilize as you move. If your form is correct you can help stabilize your core in this fashion. Some of the benefits include reduced lower back pain, improved balance, increases in strength throughout the body, improved coordination and decreased susceptibility to injury.

You can use a stability ball in sit ups, pushups, squats as well as hundreds of other exercises ranging from beginner to expert. I’m frequently asked what size stability ball should be used and the answer is in how tall you are and what exercise you are looking to do. The size and density of a stability ball can vary from large to small and high density to low density. I’ve found a method to be standing next to the stability ball, if it is as high as your knee you are good to go!