Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 33 i Women's Fitness Guide

REDUCED RISK OF HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE High blood pressure is known as the ‘silent killer’, as there are no symptoms, and it can increase your risk of heart attack and heart failure. It can also damage blood vessels, as well as causing kidney disease and stroke. Monitor blood pressure regularly and get it checked if you're concerned. A normal blood pressure range is 120/80 to 140/90. Regular exercise combined with a healthy diet can help to reduce your risk of high blood pressure. REDUCED CANCER RISK Exercise can reduce your risk of certain diseases. It's been proven that regular cardiovascular exercise, such as running or cycling, can decrease the risk of certain cancers. Cancer Research UK says bowel cancer risk can be reduced, as exercise increases the rate at which…

more fun! 1 MIX IT UP If you do the same routine each time you train, your body will adapt, it will become easy and, most importantly, you'll become very bored. You will reach a point where you'll feel like you're merely going through the motions. Instead, try some different classes, sign up for something new and vary the order of the exercises you're currently doing. 2 PUSH YOURSELF Try something you've never done before that pushes you out of your comfort zone. It could be trying a boxercise class for the first time, or taking up an entirely new form of exercise, such as tennis or rock climbing. 3 GET HELP FROM EXPERTS Whether you're swimming, running or taking a yoga class, ask the experts to help you improve.…

Top tip Try matcha green tea powder, a known natural fat burner. Green tea extract is rich in catechins, which has thermogenic properties and promotes fat oxidation. Add a quarter or half a teaspoon to hot water and drink, stir into a pot of plain yogurt, or add to a smoothie. KICK-START YOUR WEIGHT LOSS! This week is designed to boost metabolism. The focus is on protein-rich meals, with plenty of veg and some healthy fats. This will stop you feeling hungry, making it easier to stick to the plan. Each day throughout the eight-week plan, remember to stay hydrated, opt for low-glycaemic carbs, include good fats (such as oily fish, nuts, seeds, olives and avocado), as these stimulate metabolism, and only snack when hungry – the snacks in the…

Stress can make you gain weight. How? Firstly, you'll be more tempted to overeat and snack on unhealthy treats. Secondly, when you are in a stressful situation, your brain tells your cells to release a burst of adrenaline, so you can fight or run from the ‘danger’ it perceives you to be in. You also get a surge of cortisol, which tells your body to replenish energy, and this can make you very hungry. Your body will continue to release cortisol while you remain stressed, so prolonged periods of stress can have a significant effect on your waistline. Thirdly, being stressed or overly concerned about an issue can interfere with your sleep, which can change the hormone balance in your body. This in turn can increase hunger. Leptin is a…

When you're busy and don't think you have any spare time to stop what you're doing and exercise, you may be surprised to hear this is probably the best time to take a break. When you get stressed, your ability to think clearly can be impaired, and it's easy to work yourself into a frenzy about what needs to be done and ponder how you are going to get everything finished. This is the time when you need to be able to think clearly, and find yourself some time and space to work out a plan to complete your tasks. Rather than taking a break that involves eating an unhealthy treat because you're stressed, or wasting time watching mindless TV, now is the perfect time to exercise. If you work…

When you skip a workout, it's common to start feeling de-motivated and skip another. And then another. And before you know it, you've given up your latest fitness routine and gone back to your old habits. You feel bad about yourself… and you feel like you've failed. It's a vicious circle. But here's the important thing: every single workout counts. Every session will add up in terms of calories burned and every workout you do will help keep you on track mentally. Every workout skipped will increase feelings of negativity and make you feel you aren't in control of your life. When you stick to a workout regime, you feel empowered. You feel like you're taking control. So make a commitment to yourself to work out consistently, but keep it…

How often do you need to exercise to get the best results? The American College of Sports Medicine recommends exercising three to five times per week, resulting in an expenditure of between 1,000 and 4,000 calories in total (over the whole week) and working at an intensity of 57 to 94 per cent of your maximum heart rate. To work out your maximum heart rate, deduct your age from 220. It also recommends exercising for 20-90 minutes each time. If you're new to exercise, committing to short, regular workouts is a great idea – around 15 minutes, plus a five minute warm-up, such as a brisk walk, can be ideal. If you have more time on certain days, then doing more exercise will obviously burn more calories. As well as…

15-Minute Fitness If only there was a magic potion to melt away those extra pounds and keep them off for good! Unfortunately, no such thing exists and the only way to lose weight for good is through changing your diet. Fortunately, this isn't as difficult as we are often led to believe. It's simple – eat the food that grows naturally and avoid the food that doesn't. Stick to homemade meals over highly processed ready meals, and choose the foods that fuel and nourish. There are three rules when it comes to successful weight loss, which are: 1 Don't go hungry 2 Create a calorie deficit 3 Eat protein – but don't ditch fat and carbohydrates The truth is, whichever way you look at it, these three rules are non-negotiable! Confused? Don't…

BURN MORE FAT When it comes to burning fat, we don't tend to think of yoga as an obvious choice. But the right type of yoga can get you working up a good sweat and burning more calories than you might imagine. If you want to try yoga to burn fat and get lean, the more strenuous types of yoga include Vinyasa, Ashtanga and Power yoga, all of which are more energetic. Vinyasa yoga is made up of a series of sun salutations that you work through quickly, which means you won't have time to recover in-between each pose and your heart rate will rise, leading to a higher metabolic rate. Ashtanga yoga is a series of non-stop poses that lasts for 90 minutes. Similarly, Bikram yoga, also known as…

Do you often lack motivation to exercise? If so, it's worth remembering that even a small amount of regular activity during the week can significantly improve your health, as well as your waistline. While this may sound obvious, you might be surprised how significant those benefits are when you look at statistics from the World Health Organization. So, when you need motivation to exercise, consider these benefits and you'll be more likely to want to get active. In short, regular cardiovascular exercise, such as running, jogging, brisk walking, swimming, cycling, or any continuous movement that raises your heart rate and leaves you moderately out of breath can reduce the risk of disease… CALM YOUR MIND Apart from the physical boost of feeling fi tter, regular exercise offers numerous mental health…

STRAVA Upload your workouts and compete against your friends. You can upload workouts from your iPhone or sports watch, including Garmin, Suunto, Timex, Soleus and TomTom. Analyse your data and compare your fitness efforts against your friends. It may motivate you to work that little bit harder next time. GYMBOSS This has a range of pre-set intervals, so you don't need to worry about keeping an eye on your watch – it's ideal if you want to do a run/walk programme, or a HIIT session. TABATA An app that offers timed Tabata intervals – Tabata comprises eight rounds of effective, high-intensity exercises in a 20-seconds on, 10-seconds rest sequence. MYFITNESS PAL You can log your workouts and food intake, with a food diary that counts the calorie, fat and carb…

We live in an increasingly hectic world, and stress is an unwelcome fixture in many lives. Emotional stressors are something we have to deal with on a daily (or in some cases, hourly) basis, and we are frequently exposed to physical stressors, too. Alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, pollution, lack of exercise, over-exercising, poor sleep patterns and that inconvenient time of the month all add to the stress that is threatening to tip you over the edge and lead to low mood. You might think stress is for the weak – that it's just a buzz word, something that can simply be palmed off while you power through life. But high blood pressure, an aching back or neck, diarrhoea, dizzy spells, fatigue, weight loss or gain, insomnia, frequent colds and lack of…

Many of us can follow a diet or weight-loss plan for a period of time, before we start feeling restricted. Then we resort back to our old eating habits, which often involve overeating when we're stressed or eating purely for enjoyment, rather than because we're hungry. Mindful eating is a useful way to help prevent you from overeating and it will almost certainly improve your relationship with food. So what is it exactly? Mindfulness is a practice with its roots in ancient meditation and was discovered more recently in a modern sense by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who founded the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts in the Seventies. More recently, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) was developed in the Nineties by Professor Mark Williams, John Teasdale and Zindel Segal,…

Yoga can improve your fl exibility, as well as help you unwind, feel less stressed, and improve your strength and balance. Here is a 15-minute yoga session you can do anywhere. Make sure you are warm before you try these poses… brisk walking, jogging on the spot or using one of the cardio machines in the gym, such as the treadmill or cross-trainer, to warm up for fi ve minutes is ideal. Hold each pose for 30 seconds to one minute and repeat the sequence twice. TREE POSE AREAS STRETCHED: INNER AND OUTER THIGHS, HIP FLEXORS, BOTTOM, CORE TECHNIQUE  Stand on one leg, press your hands firmly together in front of your chest and release the tension in your shoulders.  Draw the other leg up and place the…