My Journey Through a 6-Week Fitness Challenge: Week 2
Trainer & Nutritionist Tips:
Drink enough water! Water benefits you in many ways, including helping you feel full throughout the day, and fueling your metabolism (when dehydrated, you don’t burn calories as effectively). Water helps cushion your joints, and transports vital nutrients and oxygen throughout your body. The recommended amount is 64 ounces per day, however when dieting and/or exercising your body requires extra water.
Sleep is also essential to a person’s health and well-being, according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). Each individual’s needs vary, but in general most healthy adults need an average of eight hours of sleep per night. Did you realize that lack of sleep can possibly be causing you to gain weight? When you have sleep deprivation, and are running low on energy – you will often grab a junk food snack or comfort food. As to the Sleep-Diet connection that is current fodder for diet books, “It’s not so much that if you sleep, you will lose weight, but if you are sleep-deprived, meaning that you are not getting enough minutes of sleep or good quality sleep, your metabolism will not function properly,” explains Michael Breus, PhD, author of Beauty Sleep.
How my week went:
This week’s biggest triumph for me was that although circuit training class still kicked my butt, it wasn’t quite as hard as last week. Awesome. That’s a very encouraging feeling, when a new type of exercise gets a little easier, or the weight you’ve been lifting feels a little bit lighter. That’s you, getting stronger!
On another note, my personal trainer explained that when you do the same form of activity, and only that activity, all the time – your body acclimates, and it loses its effectiveness. So let’s say a girl has been exclusively using the Elliptical machine all winter (I’m not mentioning any names. Ok, it’s me.). If she starts adding different routines to her fitness schedule, it will quickly yield exponentially greater benefits. Although disturbing at first, I considered this good news, as it’s fairly easy to remedy. I’ve therefore been trying classes totally new to me during this challenge. And I already feel that one of my biggest take-aways from this experience is going to be adding diversity to my workout routine, and thus achieving greater gains in the same amount of time.
If you’re joining me with your own version of a fitness challenge… hang in there! There’s more good weekly fitness and nutrition tips to come, that I plan to share here on LiveStonewear.
About the Author
Tami Mittan aka The Colorado Mountain Mom, joins us for a second year as a Stonewear Designs Ambassador. Tami lives in the high mountain desert area of Western Colorado with her two young kids, where she and her husband encourage their children to have fun in the “free” outdoors. She splits her time between full-time work as a system engineer and being a mom-at-home. And while her life is busy as it is, she prioritizes staying active, “Being healthy and active leaves me with that great feeling of being a strong, confident woman,” she says. “Also, when I’m living an active life, I cope better with its challenges and get more fun out of my days!” Her favorite activities and sports include hiking, biking, jet skiing, waterskiing, horseback riding, golf, camping, traveling, exploring, baking, scrapbooking, and reading.
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