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Choosing Healthy Options This Holiday Season

Published by superadmin on December 25, 2023 | Leave a response

If you want to be healthier, you have to make some changes or continue the program taking you toward good health. Sticking with a healthy meal plan and regular exercise is a start. It may feel impossible over the holidays, but you can do it. It’s a matter of selecting healthy options instead of unhealthy ones. Planning can make all the difference and so can a good night’s rest. If you lack sleep, the body produces more ghrelin—the hunger hormone, and less leptin—the one that makes you feel full. That can cause you to overeat and destroy your weight loss program or feel miserable trying to stick with it.

Plan ahead and don’t skip meals.

Some people skip breakfast and lunch if they know they’re going to a family smorgasbord-style meal. That can work against you. You’ll probably fill your plate and eat it fast when you finally do eat. That doesn’t give your stomach time to tell your brain it’s full, so you consume far more calories than you would otherwise. Eat a breakfast and lunch, so you aren’t ravenous. Permit yourself to have that special treat you look forward to eating but keep portion size in mind. Fill your plate with a healthy salad, then go easy on the bread, pasta, or high-calorie food.

Get some exercise and chill out.

The holidays can be stressful and packed with activities but make time for exercise. Exercise helps relieve stress, so you’ll enjoy the holidays more if you do it daily. If there’s no time for the gym, try to combine family activities with physical exercise. Walk through the neighborhoods and downtown to see the decorations or spend an afternoon with the kids walking through Christmas at the zoo or the museum. Do several shorter exercise sessions throughout the day when you have ten or fifteen minutes.

Prioritize your tasks.

Taking care of yourself and your family should be first. That includes your job and paying your bills. After that, you can prioritize everything. Not every task is equally important. Only you can determine which should take the top priority. Check your list and see if you can delegate some of the responsibility. You might find that others love helping out. Get the whole family together to make baked goods instead of spending your time alone in the kitchen. Even grown children will love learning your recipes and working together. It may become a new holiday tradition.

Plan on giving yourself some leeway at a holiday celebration that has delicious but often fattening food. Even if you do overeat, it’s not the end of everything, go back to a healthy diet the next day.
Try meal planning and prep. Meal planning and preparation can cut the time spent in the kitchen during the week and make it easier to choose healthier options.
Hydrate!!! It’s colder outside, so you’re not sweating, but that’s often when you forget to hydrate regularly. Carry water with you and sip on it throughout the day.
Make your meals healthier by changing some recipes. You can use applesauce to replace some of the oil or the sugar in a recipe. Use zoodles instead of pasta or substitute sweet potatoes for white potatoes.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Best Foods That Cut Your Cholesterol

Published by superadmin on December 15, 2023 | Leave a response

There’s been a rise in interest in good health in San Antonio, TX. More and more people are coming to Iron Fit to improve their health. Some are here to lose weight. Others want to lower blood sugar levels, blood pressure, or cholesterol levels. Exercise helps with all those things, but so does eating healthy. The food you eat can do all those things. It can help you avoid the need for medication. A healthy diet not only can cut cholesterol, but it can also rebalance it, lowering the bad cholesterol and increasing the beneficial cholesterol.

Keep your arteries from clogging by cutting out food with added sugar and eating fruit instead.

When people think of cholesterol, they usually think of triglycerides, LDL—bad cholesterol, and HDL—good cholesterol. There are many functions that LDLs perform, so they’re vital to good health, but high amounts of LDL or triglycerides and low amounts of HDL can cause health issues. Sugar promotes an increase in LDLs and a reduction in HDLs. It can also cause increased triglycerides. That can lead to a fatty build-up in the arteries. Giving up food with added sugar and choosing food like apples, grapes, strawberries, and citrus fruits improves cholesterol levels. These fruits are high in soluble fiber pectin that reduces LDL.

Other types of fiber in whole foods also help.

As already noted, pectin, a type of soluble fiber is beneficial for lowering harmful cholesterol. When you eat food with soluble fiber, it dissolves into a gel. The gel traps the bad cholesterol and it also feeds beneficial microbes in your gut. A second type of fiber, insoluble fiber, can’t be digested, even by the gut microbes. It does promote a healthy gut microbiome, which does affect cholesterol levels. Increasing both soluble and insoluble fiber levels helps. Pears, peaches, oatmeal, and oranges are high in soluble fiber and can lower bad cholesterol levels.

Increasing food with omega-3 can help lower LDL levels.

There’s a reason doctors recommend eating fatty fish at least twice a week. Fatty fish like salmon contain high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids. The body needs both omega-6 and omega-3, but it needs it in a specific ratio that ranges from one part omega-3 to four parts omega-6 to one part omega-6 to four parts Omega-3. Unfortunately, the average American diet has too much omega 6. It’s at least four times more than it should be. More omega-3 in your diet can reduce triglycerides and lower LDL levels. Besides fatty fish, increasing other foods like walnuts and flaxseed provides benefits.

Eliminate trans fats from your diet. While the FDA banned hydrogenated vegetable oil, trans fats can still be found in microwave dinners, pancake and waffle mix, some commercial baked goods, donuts, coffee creamer, and microwave popcorn.
Have a cup of tea, especially green tea. All tea contains catechins and quercetin, but green tea has the most attention. The catechins inhibit the creation of cholesterol and help prevent absorption. Tea lowers bad cholesterol levels.
Include more spices in your diet like turmeric and garlic to lower cholesterol. Sweet potatoes also lower cholesterol. Watermelon contains antioxidants that protect your body from free radicals that can raise bad cholesterol levels.
Choose meatless Mondays and substitute grains like quinoa and brown rice. When you eat animal products, make sure they come from pastured animals to boost omega-3 levels and lower cholesterol levels.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio

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Why Breakfast Is So Important

Published by superadmin on December 5, 2023 | Leave a response

Historically, starting the day with a healthy breakfast has always been important. It helps control hunger and breaks the fast after a good night’s sleep. Breakfast should be more than just cereal or a muffin. It should contain healthy carbs, fat, and protein. The protein and fat keep you feeling full longer. The carbs provide instant energy. The first meal of the day also boosts cognitive performance and focus, so it’s just as important today as it was in the past for children. Since we’ve changed from an agrarian culture, it’s not as vital for most adults today.

Everyone is different, and breakfast affects them differently.

Adults can benefit from breakfast, especially if they workout in the morning. It can help boost physical performance. People with health conditions can also benefit. However, the type of breakfast should be different from the past if you’re not doing physical labor. A farmhouse breakfast is high in carbs and protein with some healthy fat. It keeps you full, but it may make you sluggish and add extra pounds if you aren’t active. Eating a lighter breakfast with protein, fat, and carbs, like Greek yogurt and fresh fruit, is more suitable.

Some people fare better when they skip breakfast and extend their nightly fast.

Intermittent fasting—IF, can be done in several ways. One way is to limit the hours when you eat. While there are all different types of plans, the most often used allows you to eat within an eight-hour window and fast for the other sixteen hours. For example, someone doing IF might eat their first meal at 11 a.m. and eat nothing after 7 p.m. If you start your meals at 11 a.m., the chances of eating breakfast are slim. For some people, IF is a blessing for weight loss. Studies show it can help people stay younger at a cellular level. For those people, breakfast isn’t vital.

Find what works best for you.

A healthy breakfast can boost your energy, putting you on the right path for an active day. It plays a role in your overall nutrition. Other studies show that IF can be the best option for weight loss and good health. One study showed that just delaying the first meal by 90 minutes and keeping the others at their normal time can help boost energy and weight loss. As with exercising, a personalized program works best.

No matter whether you eat a big breakfast, a small one, or none at all, don’t choose donuts and coffee or baked goods. Eat something healthy. If you’re trying IF but get too hungry, have a healthy snack available.
Some studies show that people who eat a healthy breakfast have improved nutrition and lower bad cholesterol levels. Many studies show that while IF works, it may be due to limiting nighttime snacking.
Since everyone is different, it explains why studies may have opposite conclusions. Some show that skipping breakfast burns more calories but may increase inflammation, which causes other health issues. Other studies show eating breakfast supercharges your calorie burning.
The benefits of breakfast vary from individual to individual. It also varies day-to-day for each individual. If you have demanding physical labor, a healthy breakfast may be beneficial, but not for days that aren’t as demanding.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Best Fruits To Boost Vitamin B

Published by superadmin on November 25, 2023 | Leave a response

In San Antonio, TX, there are fresh fruits and vegetables year-round. Fruit is one of the popular snacks that fills that urge for a sweet treat but also benefits good health. Many contain important vitamins and minerals, such as the vitamin B complex. There are eight different types of nutrients in the vitamin B complex. They all perform important functions, such as aiding in creating energy, improving skin health, and taking part in producing blood cells. The eight types of B vitamins include B-1(thiamine), B-2 (riboflavin), B-3 (niacin), B-5 (pantothenic acid), B-6, B-7 (biotin), B-9 (folate), and B-12 (cobalamin). Each performs differently in the body. Many are in the same fruits.

Citrus fruit contains more than vitamin C.

You’ll get six of the eight B vitamins when you eat citrus fruit. It contains all B vitamins but biotin and B-12. While most B complex comes from animal products, legumes, and nuts, a 6-ounce serving of grapefruit juice can supply 27% of the daily required amount of niacin. It also contains thiamine. You notice I said juice rather than eating the grapefruit. There are scant amounts in the whole grapefruit but it’s more concentrated in the juice. There are also trace amounts in pineapple and orange juice.

Avocados are really a fruit.

If you thought avocados were a vegetable, you’d be in good company but very wrong. It’s a large berry with a single seed in the middle. It fits the definition of a fruit, which is “the sweet and fleshy product of a tree or other plant that contains seed and can be eaten as food” It’s similar to tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant when it comes to the definition of fruit. Avocados contain riboflavin (B-2), folate (B-9), niacin (B-3), and pantothenic acid (B-5).

Prunes get you going and provide riboflavin and niacin.

Most people know that eating prunes can help them in the bathroom, but few realize it can help build red blood cells and benefit nerves. That’s right, prunes and prune juice contain thiamin for creating red blood cells. It also contains niacin, which promotes the proper functioning of nerves. Other fruit or fruit juices that boost riboflavin include grape juice and raisins. Peaches, nectarines, and orange juice are also good sources of niacin.

Vitamin B-1 (thiamin) keeps the brain and nerves functioning properly. While meat, eggs, and legumes are better sources, you’ll find trace amounts in pineapple and orange juice.
Vitamin B-6 is necessary for brain functioning and healthy blood cells. You’ll get smaller amounts from bananas, raisins, and watermelon.
Folate is vital for women of childbearing age and pregnant women to prevent birth defects. Pregnant women need 600 micrograms a day. A small orange provides 29 micrograms. Other fruits with folate include cantaloupe, banana, and papaya.
No fruit sources provide vitamin B-12 (cobalamin). It’s only in animal products. B-12. It plays a role in cell metabolism, red blood cell formation, the production of DNA, and nerve function.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio

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Are Treadmills Considered Cardio?

Published by superadmin on November 15, 2023 | Leave a response

What are you doing when you’re on a treadmill? You’re either walking or running, depending on the speed. Both are good cardio workouts. Are there benefits to using a treadmill rather than walking outside or doing laps in the mall in the morning? There are. The first is the fact you can do it in your own home. You don’t have to get street-ready to walk on a treadmill. You can wait until you finish showering, washing your face, brushing your hair or teeth. The only preparation you require is warming up before you start.

Staying inside can extend your exercise time.

You won’t have to cancel your run or walk due to rain. You also won’t have to run or walk in inclement weather, whether it’s too hot, cold, or wet. All three conditions can make walking or running outside a little more dangerous. Overexertion and heat stroke during hot weather are easy to achieve. You can become dehydrated, even if you carry water with you. You can slip and fall on ice during cold weather. While it doesn’t happen often, we all witnessed how bad ice can be if it gets cold. It’s harder for you to see and for cars to see you during rainy weather.

You can more easily push yourself to improve when you use a treadmill.

Treadmills have different settings and a variety of programs. It not only takes the boredom out of steady-state running or walking, but it can also boost your endurance. You don’t have to remember to push yourself harder for a short period. The treadmill does that for you. Some allow you to set a program based on your goals, whether they’re boosting endurance, maintenance, or burning fat.

You don’t have to depend on the available terrain to work your muscles harder.

Treadmills offer different inclines so you aren’t always running on a flat surface. Unless you’re planning your route carefully and have access to an area with hills, it’s not possible if you’re running or walking. There’s also less impact on your joints on the treadmill than if your feet were pounding the pavement. It’s still not a low-impact exercise, just a bit easier on the joints.

Treadmills provide the ultimate in goal setting. It takes the guesswork out of how far or how long you ran. You set the treadmill for mileage or time and just walk or run.
You can choose the muscles you want to work on by setting the incline on a treadmill. Unless you’re running up mountains, you can’t focus on hamstrings and calves. Best of all, you can run for a half hour at an upward incline without spending the same time coming back down.
Using a treadmill provides all the heart-healthy benefits of any cardio. It lowers blood pressure and improves cardiovascular health. It’s far safer to run on a treadmill at night than it is to run outside.
If you’re not ready to face the public by running outside, don’t do it. Get on the treadmill and exercise. You’ll boost your mood and be ready for the day, facing people with a smile.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio

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Dieting Vs Healthy Eating

Published by superadmin on November 5, 2023 | Leave a response

This is the time of year when many people start dieting to look their best for the holidays. Some opt for strict fad diets that may take off pounds, but they leave you wiped out and less than your best. Instead, choose healthy eating that is a slower process but with results that last the rest of your life. What’s the difference between the two? Healthy eating isn’t restrictive. You don’t have a list of specific foods but a generalized list of options. That makes it easier to maintain healthy eating.

We live in a diet culture.

You’ve read about it before, but it bears repeating. We’re a society that values dieting, which results in food shaming. It’s created a warped view of food and nutrition, leading to eating disorders. There are no “bad” foods. Some foods are healthier and more nutritious with fewer calories. If you crave a sweet treat and eat it, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person who has eaten forbidden food. That type of thinking leads to binging. After all, you already crossed the barrier. If there are no “forbidden” foods, just foods you should eat more often than others, you might be satisfied by eating a small amount, putting the craving to rest.

Diets always end.

When you diet, you follow a specified regime until you reach a specific goal. That heralds the end of a diet. Then you go back to your regular eating habits that put on the weight in the first place. You’ll often gain it back and sometimes add more pounds. Yo-yo dieting is hard on your body and your mental health. Sometimes, you fail at dieting. That often ends up with binging and eating all those forbidden foods. Again, you gain the weight you lost and sometimes more. Eating healthy doesn’t have an end, even if you eat healthier on one day than you do on another.

Eating healthier helps you make smarter choices.

Dieting encourages you to look at food as simply calories or carbs. It often doesn’t consider whether that choice is the healthiest. You could lose weight if you ate nothing but rice cakes, but it wouldn’t provide the nutrition you require. Focusing on healthier eating not only naturally reduces calories, but it also boosts nutrition. If you switch from white rice to brown rice, you’ll not only boost nutrition but also save calories.

Eating healthy also focuses on other factors of a healthy lifestyle. It includes getting adequate sleep, hydrating frequently, and getting plenty of exercise. All these things help keep you thinner and improve your overall health.
You’ll save money on groceries if you eat healthy rather than dieting. You can plan your meal around healthy food that’s on sale or in-season to save money.
Eating healthy allows your favorite foods that diets would otherwise forbid. The key is to eat a small amount and eat it less frequently.
Some strict diets cut calories so drastically that it slows the metabolism and leaves you tired. That means you’ll burn fewer calories, making weight loss more difficult.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio

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Natural Remedies For Sleeping Better

Published by superadmin on October 25, 2023 | Leave a response

If you listen to pharmaceutical commercials, you probably think there’s a pill for everything. At the end of every commercial, the announcer speaks rapidly in a soft, unemotional voice about all the side effects of the drug, many of which are far worse than the ailment it’s supposed to cure. Many people in Louisville, KY, look for natural remedies to help them sleep that don’t require disclosures. Lack of quality sleep causes many physical issues, yet millions of Americans suffer from it. Many people may be in bed for 8 hours but still don’t go through all stages of sleep to be healthy.

Should you eat before bedtime or not eat?

Almost everyone has heard you shouldn’t eat before bed, but that isn’t always true. The type of food you eat and the amount you eat is the key. Don’t overload your stomach with fatty foods, food high in sugar, or junk. It can cause digestive issues if you do or if you eat too much. However, if you can’t sleep, the problem may be hunger. Man is hardwired to stay awake and hunt for food if he’s hungry for survival. If you can’t fall asleep, try eating a small amount of protein with tryptophan, like beef, poultry, or seafood, combined with a healthy carb.

Get plenty of exercise.

A consistent program of exercise can help you sleep better. It doesn’t matter what type of exercise, walking, running, calisthenics, or just dancing. If you have a chronic problem with sleep, getting 30 minutes of exercise daily can help. Don’t overdo it, especially at first. It can cause aching muscles that will keep you awake all night. Not only will exercising regularly help you fall asleep, but it will also improve your quality of sleep, too.

Avoid alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine before bedtime.

People drink coffee to stay awake, so it seems like a no-brainer. However, most people don’t consider the caffeine in colas, chocolate, and energy drinks. Drinking or consuming caffeine-containing substances late in the day can keep you awake. Alcohol may help relax you, but if you drink it before bed, you won’t get the quality of sleep. You’ll wake up throughout the night or miss several stages of quality sleep.

Get out in the sun and eat food higher in omega-3. Both vitamin D and omega-3 are necessary to produce serotonin which plays a vital role in how quickly you fall asleep and the quality of your sleep.
Eating almonds or almond butter on toast can also help. Almonds contain magnesium that can calm your mind and help you sleep. A magnesium deficiency can cause insomnia.
Make sure you turn off all electrical appliances that emit light, such as the computer or TV. Sleep in a dark room that’s a bit on the cool side. You may think the TV helps you fall asleep, but it interferes with the quality of sleep.
Make a sleep schedule and stick with it, even on the weekends. Falling asleep at a specific time becomes a habit and helps you go to sleep quickly.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

Foods To Boost Your Immune System

Published by superadmin on October 15, 2023 | Leave a response

Eating healthy has become quite popular in San Antonio, TX, for many reasons. Some people do it to maintain a healthy weight or lose weight. Others adopt a healthy diet because they like how they feel when they eat whole food. A large group uses food to maintain good health and boost their immune system. The recent pandemic taught people that living a healthy lifestyle helps protect the body from serious illness.

Your immune system functions better when it’s given the right nutrients.

Vitamin C is well-known for boosting immunity, but other vitamins are just as important. Vitamins E, A, B-9—also known as folate, and D are all immune boosters. Vitamin C is in citrus fruit, red and green bell peppers, and strawberries. Vitamin E, another infection-fighter, is in almonds, peanuts, and sunflower seeds. Vitamin A is in both plant and animal sources. In plants, it’s made of orange and yellow fruits and vegetables like carrots and sweet potatoes, and also from green leafy vegetables. Fish, meat, and dairy also contain vitamin A. Folate from food like spinach and kale helps cells work properly. Vitamin D is crucial for the proper functioning of the immune system. It’s in salmon, tuna, and fortified foods.

You need minerals and phytonutrients for your immune system to be at its best.

Iron, selenium, and zinc are minerals necessary for a healthy immune system. Zinc is vital in the production of immune cells. Selenium helps prevent infection. Iron carries oxygen to help all cells function. Including oysters, lean meat, salmon, and tuna in your diet can help you get all three. Phytonutrients not only help boost the immune system but do so much more. Phytonutrients give plants their color and smell and are part of the plant’s immune system. Anthocyanin is one example. It makes blueberries blue but is also powerful in fighting disease in the human body.

Eating to boost immunity is about what you eat and don’t eat.

If you focus on whole foods with plenty of fruits and vegetables and avoid food with added sugar and highly processed food, you’ll be doing your immune system a favor. Food with added sugar can cause inflammation. Excess sugar reacts with immune proteins that change the immune system. Switching to a whole-food diet can relieve the problem.

Adding probiotic food to your diet can also benefit your immune system. Your gut microbiome is an integral part of your immune system and these foods make it healthier. Yogurt is one example of a probiotic food.
While probiotic food may add more beneficial microbes, to keep your microbes healthy, you need prebiotic foods to feed them. These are foods with soluble fiber, such as apples and beans.
Getting vitamin D from food is difficult unless it’s fortified. Choose safe sunning as an option. It’s available year-round in San Antonio. The sun reacts with the skin to produce vitamin D.
Exercise plays a crucial role in a healthy immune system. It lengthens the telomeres that protect the cells and releases cytokines and chemokines that keep the immune system functional.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio

Posted in Fitness & Wellness

How To Make Working Out A Habit

Published by superadmin on October 5, 2023 | Leave a response

You can’t expect miracles from one exercise session, you have to do it consistently. That’s why it’s important to make working out a habit. If you’ve ever tried to stop a bad habit, you’ll understand that habits are hard to break. Suppose your habit was watching TV after dinner every night, and you changed it by forcing yourself to get up and walk after dinner. Before too long, you wouldn’t have to force yourself. You’d do it automatically and be healthier for the change. Your digestion would improve thanks to gravity. You’d have more energy and probably lose weight.

Creating a healthy habit takes planning.

One way to help you get into the habit of exercise is to schedule it, as you would any other appointment. Find a time that fits your schedule and fill that space every day. That doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym daily. You can do a full workout two, three, or four days a week and use the other days for activities like bike riding, walking, or any activity that keeps your body moving. If your day gets hectic, schedule your workout in the morning before your day starts.

Get a workout buddy.

When you’re working out with a friend, someone else is keeping you accountable. That can prove very beneficial. Studies have shown that periodically checking in with someone can help you maintain consistency. Having a personal trainer also provides that same level of accountability. Not only does a workout buddy keep you accountable for attending the session, but they also keep you going when you might otherwise quit early.

Take it easy at first.

If you’re trying to make exercise a habit, nothing kills the enthusiasm like overdoing it. If you workout hard at first, your body may not be ready. Take it slowly at first and learn the correct form for each exercise. Don’t expect to run a marathon the first week you start running or do a series of variations for two-minute planks if you’ve never even done a 10-second plank. If you exercise so hard you can’t walk the next day, it’s counterproductive.

Set an alarm on your phone to remind you it’s almost time to exercise. While most people have that type of technology, if you don’t keep your phone with you, leave post-it notes to yourself to work out. If you’re driving constantly, put them on the dashboard.
Create goals that increase in increments. You can start with something as simple as working out three times a week for four weeks. You can do the same for each exercise you do, increasing the difficulty slightly each week.
Track your progress. Keep a record of your workout, including the number of reps and sets of each exercise. For fun, add how easy or hard it was. Winners keep score. Exercising consistently becomes a game that you can win.
Remember that you’ll rust out faster than you’ll wear out. Making the body stronger helps protect the joints. It can prevent future tears and damage to the muscles from doing everyday activities.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio

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Workouts For Stay-at-Home Moms

Published by superadmin on September 25, 2023 | Leave a response

Helping people is so important that I encourage regular workouts whether or not you come to my gym. One group of people often neglected are stay-at-home moms and dads. Staying fit should be a goal. Chasing after a toddler or caring for babies takes lots of energy. When you maintain a regular fitness program, you’ll have the energy to do it. Strength, cardio, balance, and flexibility training are necessary to be your healthiest. Start each session with stretching and warm-ups to prevent injury and end them with cool-down exercises.

Get your cardio when cleaning.

Cardio is a type of training that lends itself to everyday activities. If you’re vacuuming, add lunges to the chore. Do a lunge every step forward or backward. It can make the workout and work more fun. Wash windows with vigor and take the baby for a walk. First, exercise at peak intensity, then slow down to recovery, alternating throughout the walk. That turns an ordinary walk into a HIIT—high intensity interval training—workout. The exercises that go with household chores should include squats and lunges.

Get equipment that doesn’t cost much.

Barbells, dumbbells, and kettlebells can be costly, but resistance bands are inexpensive and effective. You can use resistance bands to build strength and improve muscles on all planes. A jump rope can provide an excellent warm-up and great cardio. If your child is old enough, jump rope with them. Another fun tool for exercise that everyone in the family will enjoy is hula hooping. It builds core muscles, improves cardio, reduces inches around the waist, and improves balance.

Bodyweight circuits are perfect for people with limited space.

You can even create a circuit with bodyweight exercises. With circuit training, you move quickly from one exercise to another without stopping to catch your breath or for a short rest. You can rest shortly between circuits. Start with a minute of butt kicks, then move to jumping jacks to warm up. Move to a minute plank, then switch to push-ups. If you can’t do regular push-ups, do modified knee-bent ones. Do a minute of each. Add a minute of mountain climbers and if you can, a minute of burpees. Rest for a few minutes then start the cycle of exercises again.

Strength training is vital. You can use resistance bands or bodyweight exercises mentioned previously or use makeshift weights from cans or bottles filled with water or sand and do traditional weightlifting.
You can include your child in your exercise regimen. Older children can do the workout with you.
Taking walks with the whole family or taking the children to the zoo or on a nature walk can provide the exercise you need for a day. Riding bikes together can also be another bonding and exercise time.
You don’t have to do your entire workout at once. You can break up your workout into 10 to 15-minute sessions and do them throughout the day. It could include a 15-minute walk in the morning and 30 minutes of exercise when the baby’s asleep.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio

Posted in Fitness & Wellness