Fitness & Wellness

Do you feel like your stomach is in knots? Are you often ill, catching every cold or flu that is in the area? Do you often feel anxious or depressed? Those are all symptoms of stress. Stress is the body’s response to danger. It causes the release of hormones that prepares the body to fight or run. That’s good if the danger is a wild animal or an attacker, but not good if it’s a traffic jam or an angry shopper. You can learn to deal with stressors, but sometimes, too many small things build up and you need to release it. That’s when you turn to exercise, since exercise is a great stress reliever.

Exercise burns off the hormones of stress and replaces them with ones that make you feel good.

People who workout at Iron Fit often are amazed at how angry they felt before they started their workout and how that all dissipated during the workout, leaving them feeling far better than they did before the anger and stress started. There’s a reason for that good feeling. Not only does the exercise burn off the hormones of stress, it also triggers hormones called endorphins, that make you feel good. Some call it a runner’s high. These neurotransmitters do function in the brain much like opiate drugs, providing the same pleasurable feeling that helps deal with pain or stress.

Sometimes exercise lets you quiet your mind.

Have you ever been so “into” your workout that everything else seemed to fade away? Maybe your mind was so focused that you only thought about each movement or the sound of your feet on the pavement. During that time, all the problems of the day disappear and your mind is truly in the moment. It’s like having meditation in motion and meditation is a good stress release.

Stress leads to anxiety and depression.

Recent studies show that exercise is a good adjunct therapy for both depression and anxiety. It’s believed that it’s because it helps eliminate the stress hormones that are often part of the problem. The body creates the feel good hormones that also help bring relief from the anxiety or depression. Several studies showed that just participating in moderate exercise three to four times a week can even help eliminate the need for medication.

You’ll help yourself both mentally and physically with exercise. Not only does it help your body by burning off the hormones of stress, it also helps build stronger bones, lower blood pressure, stabilize blood sugar, lower cholesterol and improves your self-esteem.

• Start your workout slowly. If you haven’t exercised before, don’t try to take on lifting too much or working out too long. If you’re lifting weights, allow your body a day or two to rest between sessions.
• Always check with your health care professional first before starting any program of regular exercise. In most cases, your doctor will approve. Always tell your personal trainer of any medical conditions before you begin.
• Have fun. If you make exercising more like a job, it becomes one more stress on your system. Incorporate fun activities into your fitness program, like hiking or basketball. It’s all about staying active and enjoying life.

For more information, contact us today at Ironfit San Antonio

You don’t have to want to lose weight to want healthy snacks. It’s good for everyone, whether it’s for more nutrition or just lower calories to lose weight. You can control the ingredients, so you know everything they contain and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to make them either. Snacks play an important role in your overall nutrition and help you fill up, so you don’t eat as much during a meal or grab those sugar treats that are empty calories to fill in the void.

Get a piece of fruit for a sugar boost, fiber and nutrients, plus some type of protein.

Probably the easiest snack to make is one that involves fresh fruit and a source of protein. Apples and peanut butter are a favorite, but so is a slice of cheese and grapes or an apple. Unsweetened applesauce and cottage cheese or cantaloupe is another tasty treat. Try making a delicious treat with Greek yogurt chopped frozen black cherries (or other frozen fruit), walnut or other nut pieces and putting it in small mason jelly jars with lids. It will be ready to mix and serve with no added sugar and plenty of protein and nutrients.

Make your own special dip for those raw veggies.

Whether it’s raw fruit or vegetables, when they’re cleaned, cut and ready, they’ll be eaten. Create your own dip and you’ll know exactly what’s in it, so there’s no hidden additives or preservatives. Of course, when it comes to dip, serving size counts for those calorie counters. Consider bean dips or ones made with Greek yogurt. For bean dips, you can use almost any type of bean, but Canelli beans are a favorite of many. Use a food processor to mix and smooth the beans with olive oil, garlic, thyme, Italian parsley and chicken broth or make a yogurt dip with garlic powder, sriracha sauce, salt and pepper.

A smoothie packed with fresh fruit and vegetables can be a meal or a snack.

Smoothies are great when you’re in a hurry and don’t have time for a full meal, but they also make a good snack. Just toss fresh or frozen fruit and/or vegetables into a blender and turn it on. You can mix in ice, yogurt, frozen fruit juice or whatever you have available. Try throwing in a banana, frozen cherries, some milk or Greek yogurt, a bit of nut butter and a touch of vanilla extract and salt for a banana split smoothie. To make it a meal, you need ingredients that satisfy longer, like more protein and healthy fat.

• If you want to fill up, but not out, make sure your snack has healthy protein and healthy fat to keep you full longer. Nuts provide protein and healthy fat. Avocado provides healthy fat and loads of nutrients.
• If you want a super healthy and different type of dip for veggies, mash avocado with a little lemon juice, spices, salsa or Parmesan cheese. It’s nutritious and delicious.
• Make microwave popcorn that’s healthy. If you don’t have an air popper, you can still make healthy microwave popcorn. Put ¼ C kernels in a brown paper lunch bag and fold the top. Microwave until you hear the popping slow. Add spices or Parmesan cheese for flavor.
• Make your own healthy summer treat in Popsicle form. Create a creamy frozen treat with berries, cherries or other fruit blended with plain yogurt and frozen. Frozen banana rounds that are blended, smooth mimic ice cream flavor and texture without the calories. Add nuts to make it even better.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit

If you don’t spend much time outdoors, maybe you should reconsider that decision. There are a lot of benefits you can derive from getting more outside time, rather than spending all your time inside. The summer heat can be quite a deterrent, so early in the morning is a perfect outside time. Studies show that just walking around outside surrounded by greenery, such as in a park or woods, compared to walking city streets, provided a benefit for memory and mood. People walking in a botanical garden or park scored higher on memory tests by 20% compared to those walking in the city. Another study showed that walking in the glory of Mother Nature also helped depressed individuals remember better.

The great outdoors provides fresh air and stress relief.

How do you measure stress. One method is to measure the amount of cortisol in the system. Cortisol is a hormone created by stress. There are several studies that show that spending time in a forest can help lower cortisol levels, as well as improve memory. It’s often called forest therapy. There’s a reason many people escape the city on weekends and relax camping in the woods. It simply refreshes their system. In fact, workers with a window that has a natural view show improved job satisfaction.

You’ll be healthier with reduce inflammation when you spend time with Mother Nature.

The great outdoors is more than just relaxing and beautiful, it has the power to reduce inflammation, too. Inflammation occurs as a response to a threat on the body. It might be something as simple as catching your finger as you close the door or as threatening as a harmful virus or bacteria. You can get too much of this necessary function. The body can actually be damaged from increased inflammation, which ends with a wide variety of conditions from depression to cancer. One study showed that seniors that spent a week in the woods not only lowered inflammation levels, but also blood pressure.

Did you know that you could improve your eyesight with a trip to the woods?

Studies of 2,000 schoolchildren showed that children who spent time outdoors were less likely to develop nearsightedness and lowered the potential of it getting worse. That same protection wasn’t afforded to those that spent time playing sports inside, so the difference did not come from being more active. Another research study showed that increasing outside play during recess lowered the risk of nearsightedness by 8 percent.

• Getting out in the great outdoors also helped improve mental energy. You’ve heard of mental burn out, getting out in nature more frequently can help prevent that. In fact, once study found that just looking at pictures of natural settings can do it.
• Your immune system gets a boost when you spend more time in nature. In fact, one study shows that an environment that is heavily forested improves the immune function down to the cellular level.
• Several studies show that people who are exposed to more green areas tend to live longer. A Dutch study of 250,782 concluded that it improved the health of those who had more access to green areas.
• Japanese studies showed that people who lived in an area with more forest had lower mortality rates from cancer. That study was even controlled for smoking habits and socioeconomic differences.

For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit

If you’ve ever mentally wandered off in the middle of a conversation, thinking about work or other off topic things, or gobbled down food, not even tasting it, you need to practice being present. It might sound simple, but it’s not. It’s easy to slip back into not being present, so just accept it is going to happen occasionally. Just like any habit, practice makes perfect. Being in the present is all about focus and not allowing your mind to be distracted about the past or future events. It’s all about being in the moment and the here and now.

Being in the present is part of mindful eating.

Mindfulness or mindful eating is all about being in the present. It brings the mindful eater to a point where they focus on the food and savor every bite. Being in the present allows the dieter to truly enjoy a meal without focusing on restrictions. Instead, the dieter focuses on the flavor and each mouthful consumed. Choosing to be in the moment, the dieter eats more slowly and enjoys every bite, which often results in eating healthier food and eating less. Several studies show that this type of eating aided in weight loss and improved satiety.

You’ll reduce stress when you live in the present.

Whether its debt, self-consciousness about potential social blunders or worrying about health or that of family members, it all causes stress and all comes from either living in the past or the future. When you learn to relax and truly be in the moment, much of the stress discontinues. You listen to the other person and that improves understanding. You deal with each situation immediately, rather than mulling it over later, interfering with other parts of your life. It helps reduce anxiety, depression and lack of self-confidence.

Living in the moment can actually save time.

Have you ever left clothing on the bathroom floor, when it would be just as easy to put them in the hamper? Avoiding subtracting balances in your checkbook either immediately or daily can also mean more work later or even failure to identify a shortage of funds. Being in the moment helps you realize the prudent thing to do and gives you the reward immediately with a sense of self-appreciation.

• When you live in the present, you learn to identify the things that really bother you. You notice your mental and physical reaction to specific things, such as that feeling when you hear the word taxes. It helps you identify things that make you uncomfortable and deal with them.
• Being in the present also aided in weight loss because people were more aware of the mindless eating they had previously done. It makes you more aware of whether you’re hungry or simply reaching for food out of habit.
• Living in the present makes you far more comfortable with social interaction. You focus more on conversation and what’s occurring at the time, rather than worry about how you look or what others are thinking.
• Your workout will become easier. You’ll no longer worry about how you’ll feel at the end of 20 repetitions, since your focus will be strictly on the one you’re doing. It keeps your mind focused on simply finishing the repetition you’re doing, not the future repetitions.

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

If you get up from a meal feeling like your stomach is ready to pop or that if someone poked a pin in your belly, you’d fly around the room like a released balloon letting the air out. Nobody likes to feel gassy or bloated, but sometimes, feeling bloated can be a good thing. That’s right. Besides the fact that it encourages you to walk off the bloat, the key to why it’s good, lies in the reason you’re bloated. If it came from eating a diet that’s based on less animal products and is more plant-based, with a higher fiber content, just appreciate the fact you’re improving your health and realize that it won’t always feel that way.

More plant-based food means more fiber.

Food that sticks around for a while tends to cause gas. Plant-based foods, particularly those high in fiber fit that description. People can’t digest fiber, but the bacteria in their digestive system thrives on it. It occurs because the bacteria are digesting it and their bi-product is gas. It’s a pre-biotic that helps build healthy colonies in your colon. You not only get the benefit of better health; you also feel full longer when you eat high fiber food.

Some macronutrient-type fiber creates more gas.

A small study on bloating found that people switching from a diet low in fiber to in high in fiber all experienced some bloating. There was a difference, however, in which type of macronutrient fibers gave them the most gas. People who ate fiber that was rich in protein, like seeds, peanut butter, bens and nuts, tended to have far more bloating and gas than those who ate food like oats, brown rice and whole grains, which are carbohydrate-rich sources. In fact, the difference was significant. The higher protein fiber increased bloating by about 40%.

It’s all about timing.

The body needs the right type of bacteria to digest a high fiber meal. If you don’t have enough of those, the result is bloating. By introducing fiber into your diet slowly, you’ll reduce bloating and let your body ease into a higher fiber diet. Slowly increase the fiber and make sure you drink plenty of water. There are two types of fiber, soluble and insoluble. The soluble fiber attracts water and turns to a gel. Insoluble adds bulk. Adding water helps replenish the fluid required for soluble fiber and keeps your system moving, while preventing gas.

• Everyone is different and so are the microbiome in their gut. You may find that certain high fiber foods give you more gas than others, based on the type of bacteria that’s most prevalent in your stomach.
• Sometimes, it’s not what you eat that gives you gas, but how fast you eat. You may be swallowing air when you’re eating fast. Slow down, be aware that other things like chewing gum, drinking through a straw and smoking also cause you to swallow air.
• If gas becomes a serious problem and slowing down didn’t help, try moving after meals. Simply walking around can help aid digestion and relieve much of the bloating you’ve experienced.
• Introducing fiber into the diet too fast can do more than just create bloating and gas, it can cause constipation. Increasing your water intake as you increase your fiber intake helps prevent this.

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