Coppell Personal Trainer and Boot Camp Health Tip: Combat Weight Gain Due to Hormone Imbalances

Coppell Personal Trainer and Boot Camp Health Tip: Combat Weight Gain Due to Hormone Imbalances

Hormone imbalances can have a great impact on weight – both in gaining weight and efforts to lose it.  My goal through this week’s tip is to try and simplify your understanding of how hormone imbalances come about and what you can do to correct or prevent it from happening.  

Why understanding hormone imbalances is important

Typically and in an optimal state, hormones work in perfect harmony together to help keep your body running smoothly and healthy.  When just one hormone is out of balance, it can cause all sorts of problems.  Many times these imbalances can and often do lead to weight gain.  
As a person that has dealt with weight gain, I know the challenges of trying to shed unwanted pounds and keep them off.  When losing weight would finally become a priority for me, I would work really hard to try and lose weight using previously tried successful methods.  However, as I got older, previous diets would not work for me and just seemed to be harder and harder to lose the pounds.  

When I retired in April of 2007, focusing on my overall health and wellness became a priority for me.  I was determined to get in shape and lose weight once and for all!  In addition, as a woman rapidly approaching my 50’s, I know I am going to face even more challenges as the menopause years loom ahead of me.  

About this same time, I also started listening more closely to the troubles other women faced as they aged and struggled with weight gain. “It must be hormone related” was the common response I heard to “Why can’t I lose weight?”  Hearing these comments combined with my own issues, got me interested in learning more about the role women’s hormones play in weight gain and more importantly, what we can do to lose the weight.
Hormones:  Simplified (I hope!)

Our bodies produce many hormones, but there are three hormones in particular that play a key role in aging and weight gain:  Insulin, stress (adrenaline and cortisol are the primary stress hormones), and estrogen hormones.

Insulin plays a huge role within our bodies as it relates to metabolism and body fat.  Its main job is to regulate the absorption of sugar (or glucose) into our body’s cells.  Glucose is our body’s primary source of energy or “fuel” and is needed to perform any physical task. What we put into our bodies makes a big difference on how well insulin can perform its function.    

Sugar gets in our bodies through carbohydrates (carbs).  Foods in their natural state, (such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains) are the “good carbs”.  “Bad carbs” are those foods that are refined and processed.  Typically, most of the nutritional value has been stripped from these foods.   When are diets regularly consist of bad carbs, over time this type of eating behavior can lead to a condition known as insulin resistance. “When you are insulin resistant your body converts every calorie it can into fat — even if you’re dieting. And it won’t let you burn fat when you exercise.”¹  

The type of food we eat isn’t the only thing that can disrupt the balance of our hormones.  Stress hormones kick into high gear when our bodies perceive some type of external threat. A threat can be anything from stubbing your toe to a blow to the head.  As soon as your body perceives a threat, stress hormones block off or suppress many processes within our bodies, including our digestive process.  When we experience a prolonged state of stress, our system goes into what is sometimes referred to as the “famine effect”: “despite adequate food, the body interprets prolonged stress as a famine, and once again, the body thinks it should store every spare calorie as fat.”¹

Everyone has stress in their life.  How we deal with it determines whether or not our stress hormones become imbalanced.  
Natural changes women go through in our lives do not always cause a hormone imbalance.  However, as we age, the estrogen hormone that is produced in a woman’s ovaries, begin to produce less and less.  During this slowed production time, our body naturally looks for someplace else to produce estrogen, such as within other organs, our skin or guess what?  Body fat!  Yes, our fat cells can produce estrogen.  

If a woman carries extra body fat, in particular in their belly, the situation often becomes exacerbated because these now estrogen producing fat cells have even more reason to stay put!  Even more worrisome is that excessive estrogen production is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and some types of cancer.  The same risks that is found in people that carry too much weight around their bellies!  See the connection?

How to fight back and return your hormones to perfect harmony

Hopefully you see the connection these hormones have and their importance to our ability to fight the spread of our middle as we age.  Given our lifestyles today, it is no wonder our hormones are out of balance.  The access to fast foods and easy quick meals is too convenient.  Couple a bad diet with the daily stress we all face in trying to juggle families, careers, spouses and a social life. Even if we do have a good handle on these two areas of our life, no woman can stop the aging clock.  It’s no wonder so many adult women feel they are in a no win situation in their struggle with weight gain.  

•   First, focus on a healthy diet.  One that consists of lean meat, low-fat dairy, whole grains, lots of veggies and fruits as well as healthy oils and minimized alcohol intake.
By simply changing what you put in your body, you will immediately begin to see changes in how you feel.  You will have more energy, (which will allow you to deal with your stress better), you will most likely sleep better, (adding further to your energy level) and you may even start to lose weight!  By putting good calories in your body, your insulin will quit converting the calories to fat and allow your body to begin burning calories.
•   Second and very simply put – just move!  Start walking.  Dance around the house.  Stretch.  Join a gym.  Buy some inexpensive workout DVD’s.  Hire a personal trainer of find a local fitness boot camp. Just do something.  Start with 10 minutes a day and gradually add 5 minutes to your day.  You don’t have to exercise all at once either.  Break it up throughout the day.  Whenever you can get 10 minutes in.  However, eventually try to get in at least 30 minutes per day.

By adding exercise to your daily routine combined with a healthy diet you will begin to see a change in how you feel and your overall appearance.  Give it time though.  Those extra pounds didn’t appear in just 2 weeks or a month, so don’t expect to lose it all in that amount of time.  Expect to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week and in no time, you will have the results you have been wanting.

Written by:  Julie McCan, CPT    Julie is on the www.GetYouInShape.com  team of personal trainers.  Julie has been a Coppell resident since 1984. Get You In Shape has is a Fitness Company in Coppell, TX. Coppell boot camps, Dallas boot camps, private training, 40 Day Challenge, weight loss, sports performance and nutrition are the main services of Get You In Shape

¹ Source:  Womentowomen.com

Note:  If you do suspect you have some type of hormone imbalance, be sure to consult your Doctor.  You should always talk to your Doctor before you start any new exercise program or diet.

Get You In Shape’s programs include the Get You In Shape Boot Camp (Dallas and Coppell), 40 Day Challenge, sports specific training, weight loss programs, Corporate wellness plans, nutrition plans, core fitness training, strength training, toning and more. Clients include athletes (golf, basketball, tennis, football, track, baseball, baseball, volleyball, and softball) corporate executives, professionals, weekend warriors, cheerleaders, dancers, models, stay at home moms, and anyone looking for results.
Owner Brad Linder, has been featured in numerous newspapers and even as the fitness expert on the news 8 (ABC). He continues to use the gifts that he has been given to help serve the needs others have when it come to being healthy, losing weight, sports, toning up, and overall fitness.
More information about Get You In Shape at www.getyouinshape.com

Expanding Your Horizons with Health Readings

Our environment is changing gradually. We must have already known that technology plays important roles in changing the environmental. Since the industrial revolution started firstly in England, all industrial was starting using machines in the production process. The impact of this development did not only happen to economic and social conditions, but it also gave impact to environmental conditions.

Because factories used machines in producing their products, it made factories could produce their products massively quickly and costless. The productions using machines actually gave bad impact because the residual resulted from those machines and production contributed the pollutions such as air pollution caused by factories smoke, water pollution, noise pollution, and even created diseases. Talking about diseases, in this recent world, there are many new diseases invented. Indirectly, the pollution made from the technology has contributed in creating unhealthy environment for human living. The unhealthy environment actually can easily trigger the diseases that attack human’s body easily. People now easily get diseases starting from the ailments until the severe diseases. The ailments that you commonly feel such as cough, headache, flu, stomachache, toothache, etc. And severe diseases got are commonly like cancer, stroke, cardiac diseases, AIDS, etc.

But you cannot ignore any ailments when it begins attacking your body. If you ignore the symptoms that you are feeling, sooner it can be severe diseases. Even it can be a cancer. Therefore, it is important to maintain your body’s health like the words “It is better to prevent than to cure.” It is simply to apply healthy lifestyles. You can do exercises regularly in the morning, consume more nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables, and have enough rest everyday, at least 8 hours to sleep per day. Maybe you have got cough. If you have got that, do not ever ignore it. Flu is caused by virus that enters human’s body and it attacks human’s respiratory systems as well as cough disease. When you get this, you should drink medicines immediately. If you do not get well after drinking medicines, you need to see the doctor to get better treatment. You can increase your knowledge about health, medicines, diseases, and medical treatments in health articles provided by HealthArticlesPro.com. Since health becomes crucial part in human’s life, people need to care about their body’s health. There are many tips that you can follow to maintain your health.

You can consume any traditional medicines or herbs such as ginseng and ginger drinks, fruit and vegetables juices, drink tea, and other traditional medicines and herbs. At HealthArticlesPro.com, you can find your favorite health articles directory such as articles about pregnancy, plastic surgeries, healthy foods, cancer, mental health, and many more. You can also submit your own article in this website. But your article must be originally your own work.

Healtharticlespro.com is a health article directory that you can find interesting and useful information on most popular health themes. Check out our quality articles on health-related themes to help you look and feel your best!

7 Diet Tips To Help You Lose Weight Safely And Effectively

Losing weight means changing a lot of things including your diet and eating a healthy diet is imperative to losing weight effectively and safely. Before you can achieve that goal you need to know some essential diet tips that will help you.

The following are the tips that you need to know and use if you want to lose weight the right way.

1. Change your diet one step at a time – Don’t make drastic changes to your diet because this will have a negative influence on your weight loss goals. Instead, you want to be sure that you change your diet one step at a time.

Start by eating fresh fruits when you want a snack during the day. Once you are used to doing that you can start adding small changes to your diet until you are finally eating a completely healthy diet that will benefit your weight loss goals.

2. Weigh yourself – This is essential to do when a change in your diet occurs and you are trying to lose weight because it will help you keep track of your success. Plus it will help keep you motivated to get those numbers down.

3. Tell everyone about your diet – This is important for two reasons. One being that if others know you are on a diet they won’t pressure you to cheat. The other reason is because when others know you are trying to lose weight, they may become your best support system.

4. Let yourself cheat – Maintaining a healthy diet all the time can be very hard to do and for some people it becomes impossible. If you let yourself cheat once a week, you will have something to look forward to and it can be your reward for eating healthy the rest of the time.

5. Exercise – Dieting on its own is not going to be enough for you to lose weight though. You also need to do some moderate exercising at least two or three times a week. This will get your metabolism working and help your body burn fat so you can achieve your weight loss goals.

6. Eat more – This may sound strange, but it is important. You want to eat 5 to 6 small meals a day, instead of three big ones because this will help you to keep your metabolism working throughout the day.

7. Drink plenty of water – When you are trying to lose weight you need to drink plenty of water so you don’t become dehydrated. Also your body may lose water when you are trying to lose weight so drinking plenty of it will help prevent this from happening.

Anyone can effectively and safely lose weight with these diet tips. You just need to start using them today and before you know it you will find that the weight you want to lose is finally starting to disappear.

Men’s Good Health Tips

Nothing is better than a good health at all. The truth of the matter is that health is a wealth. Many people talk about the money but for me the real wealth for you is none other than a good health. That is why there are thousands of people out there who have the realization of a natural fitness. If you want to stay healthy and fit naturally, then you will need to become consistent in your timings always. Why is timing all about? When it comes to the timing, it is a regular physical activity in the shape of running, jogging, stretching and walking early in the morning daily. Do you know about the outcomes of early morning walk? Are you familiar with it? If not, it would immediately improve your metabolic system resiliently. Most importantly, early morning workout will not only make you physically fit but also make you mentally a tough person for lifetime. Add to that, it would mitigate all your stress, anxiety, depression, and hypertensions immediately. That is why 30 minutes brisk walk can definitely pay you lots of rewards instantly. 
When it comes to the aerobics, they are much improved exercises and workouts that have to be performed by you on a regular basis. Do you know about the top aerobic exercises? Aren’t you familiar with it? Well they are consisted of many unique styles and shapes such as yoga, dancing, swimming, bodybuilding, weight lifting, bicycling, skate boarding, basketball, football and ice hockey. Oh yes please bear in your mind this philosophy that the more you perform aerobic workouts the longer you will have the chances of getting a stronger physical and psychological fitness. Also you have to bear into your own minds this reality that until you adopt a regular exercise routine nothing is going to be happened in terms of your calories reduction and actual weight loss at all. So the more you stick to the punctuality the longer you will have the chances of getting a holistic fitness. Besides regular workout routine, it is absolutely pivotal for you to stick to the hygienic foods all the time.
Always eat those foods that have less amount of calorie for you. For example, grilled chicken is a healthy food for you as compared to beef. Finally you have to bear in your mind the philosophy of rest. By the way, 8 hours sleep is enough for revitalizing your entire body muscles. Moreover you should always keep on listening to a good music because music is the food of your soul at all. In short, those men’s health tips would certainly lend a hand to you how to stay healthy and fit for long time.

Sunlight Therapy – Natural Medicine for Natural Healing?

Sun worshippers have yet another reason to bask in the sun…

Some healthcare providers believe that sunlight therapy can be effective in helping relieve a number of health conditions. A matter of fact, a recent study compared 100 patients in Canada, who suffered from depression. The conclusion of the natural health research demonstrated that patients who received light treatment responded faster without adverse side effects opposed to those receiving antidepressant medication.

As a natural health medicine, sunlight therapy may well be on its way to proving what most of us already know — sunshine generally makes us happier. Think back to a time when you were younger…wasn’t it great to get out and play in the afternoon sun? And even as adults, we tend to soak up the rays with utter delight. The reason sunlight therapy may be as beneficial as it is for seasonal affected disorder (SAD; also seasonal depression) is primarily due to its ability to increase endorphins. These endorphins are what I’ll call “happy hormones,” which generally promote a feeling of well being. Chocolate works much in the same way – it, too, raises endorphin levels.

What other natural healing abilities does sunlight therapy offer? If you’re like me, you enjoy the warm glow of the high-noon sun; but just 10 or 15 minutes per day can expose you to a rich source of Vitamin D. This particular nutrient is especially essential as it provides a critical role in maintaining our organ systems. Deficiency in Vitamin D can create a slew of health problems including Rickets, high blood pressure, cancer, and several other chronic diseases and disorders.

As a natural health preventative, sunlight’s Vitamin D has been shown to prevent or even reverse coronary disease. Recent studies suggest that individuals exposed to sunlight had a lower concentration of blood cholesterol during the summer months than in winter months. As most of us are aware, lowering blood cholesterol is vital to maintaining and preserving heart health.

Is sunlight therapy a natural health medicine? If we view the sun in the sense that the existence of nearly all life relies on the light from the sun to survive, we can surmise that it is both a source of life and healing. However, as with any medicine or natural health supplement, taking the correct dose is all important in leading a healthy, happy life.

Interested in learning more about this or other alternative medicine therapies? Let professional training within fast-growing industries like massage therapy, holistic health, acupuncture, oriental medicine, Reiki, and others get you started! Explore natural health courses near you.

*Source – PubMed – The Can-SAD study; and PubMed – Sunlight, cholesterol and coronary heart disease.

Sunlight Therapy – Natural Medicine for Natural Healing?

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Primary Low Diet Carb Diet Tips

There are so many diet plans out there that sometimes it is confusing which one to follow. Some are effective for most people, while some are only effective to special groups of people. One of the more effective diet plans is the low carb diet plan. What is it? It basically is a plan that lowers your daily carb intake so that less carbohydrates gets converted to fat in the body. Some low carb diet tips are to avoid high sugar foods, drink plenty of water, and take in a potassium supplement.

You can avoid following other low carb diet tips except this first step. Avoiding sugars is the primary thing to do in low carb diet. This means avoiding foods that are rich in anything that ends in –ose (fructose, sucrose, dextrose, etc.), such as sugar, corn syrup and flour. Other things to avoid are pasta, bread, grains, potatoes and corn.

It will also tell you to drink plenty of water. Drink at least 64 ounces of water plus another 8 ounces for each 25 pounds that you are overweight.  Water is a necessary component in breaking down fats from your body. It also is necessary in clearing your kidneys to remove the toxins that stay within your fat cells.

Finally, a potassium supplement is necessary in a low carb diet. This diet may cause you to get tired easily because of the loss of potassium due to heavy water drinking. Avoiding this problem requires you to take a potassium supplement for the first few weeks. Check with your doctor as this may conflict with any blood pressure medicine.

Avoiding sugary foods, drinking plenty of water, and taking a potassium supplement are just some of the low carb diet tips to follow to successfully do a low carb diet plan. The only thing to do now is to follow it.

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