Category: Health and Fitness

Eat Mini-Meals To Lose Weight

The standard American diet consists of three big meals each day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But many fitness and health experts agree that these three big meals – plus whatever snacks we might also eat – may be contributing to our expanding waistlines.

In fact, lean fitness pros have a secret diet strategy that helps them stay slim and trim. Rather than eating three big meals each day, they eat five or six mini-meals!

The concept is not new. In fact, it’s very common among fitness enthusiasts. Bill Phillips uses it in his popular Body for Life program, and David Kirsch recommends it for his Ultimate New York Body Plan. You can take a look at this diet plan on https://njcenterforcoolsculpting.com/ and thereby implement that in your lifestyle easily. Here are some of the ways how this diet plan is going to help you in losing weight.

  • Your metabolism stays revved. Your body is like a furnace. And if you want it to burn fat, you need to keep it fueled. Feeding the fire often with small meals will help keep your metabolism burning.
  • You’re less hungry. If you want to eat five or six small meals each day, you’ll probably be eating every two to three hours. And when you eat that frequently, you don’t have time to get hungry! That means you never “binge” because you’re famished.
  • You don’t overeat. Since you’re only eating small meals, you’ll portion your food out before you sit down to eat. That means you won’t have a huge, heaping plate of food on the table, and you won’t overeat!

If you’d like to incorporate mini-meals into your diet plan, try some of these tips to ensure that it works for you:

Eat the right mix: A plain baked potato is not a mini-meal. You need a mix of protein, carbs, and fat in every meal, even if the meal is small. The right mix depends on your own personal needs, health goals and exercise habits.

Know what a mini-meal looks like: Portion sizes are relative. But by the time you finish eating a mini-meal, you should feel satisfied without feeling full. If you can feel the food sloshing around in your stomach, you may have eaten too much. Again, this is all relative and based on individual needs. You may need to experiment to find what works for you.

Eat snacks if necessary: If your schedule doesn’t permit five or six mini-meals each day, try serving up smaller portions at your regular three meals, and then adding in a few small snacks during the day. You’ll still get a lot of the benefits of a mini-meal, but small snacks are often easier – and quicker – to eat.

Many dieters find that making a switch to five or six daily mini-meals helps jumpstart their weight loss. They find this way of eating leads to more energy, too. Give it a try and see if it works for you – and your waistline!

Home Foot Therapy for Tired Achy Feet

Each time you take a step it exerts a tremendous amount of pressure on your feet, around 500 pounds per step for an average sized person. Add to that pressure the effects of improper fitting shoes and/or shoes designed for fashion, not comfort. No wonder we have tired achy feet by the end of the day. Here are some home foot therapy tips that will help rejuvenate your tired achy feet and help prevent future foot problems. You can also try using mindinsole foot inserts to give some relief to your tired feet. 

When you get home and pry your feet out of those shoes that having been killing you all day, try this home foot therapy: sit down and play a game of footsie with two of cans of frozen orange juice. Place the cans of frozen orange juice under the arches of your feet and roll back and forth for 5 minutes. This home foot therapy will loosen up tense foot tissues in those tired achy feet. The cold will reduce inflammation that may be in your plantar fascia, the tough connective tissue that stretches through your foot arch from your heels to your toes. If your plantar fascia remains tense over a long period of time, you can develop heel spurs, bony deposits where the tissue connects to the heel, causing acute heel pain.

Stretch your tired achy feet like a dancer. For this home foot therapy, kneel on the floor with the balls of your feet on the floor, tucking your spread out toes under you to stretch the arches of your feet. Sit back on your heels so that your body weight presses your toes against the floor. Hold this home foot therapy stretch for a few seconds, slowly increasing your time as it becomes more comfortable. After doing the home foot therapy stretch with your toes tucked under you, do a follow up foot stretch with the tops of your feet flat on the floor. This home foot therapy will help prevent you from getting tired achy feet and from developing heel spurs by stretching the plantar fascia in the feet.

Tight calf muscles can interfere with your foot’s ability to strike the ground properly when you walk, resulting in tired achy feet, heel or arch pain. Try this home foot therapy stretch for calf muscles: stand barefoot facing a wall, stretch out your arms in front of you so that your palms are flat against the wall. Keep your heels on the ground, back straight, elbows bent and lean into the wall until your cheek touches the wall. Hold the stretch for as long as is comfortable. You should feel a good stretch in your calf muscles, if not, you are standing either too close or too far away from the wall.

Home foot therapy also includes some exercises for your toes. To keep toes loose and flexible, try picking up marbles or similar small objects with your toes. Place a pencil between your toes and squeeze for 5 seconds, repeating this home foot therapy exercise between each toe. Rolling a golf ball under the ball and arch of your foot is a good home foot therapy massage for relieving tired achy feet.

And finally, wear a good pair of running shoes when possible, even if you don’t run. When you have tired achy feet, they need all the support they can get. Running shoes will cushion your foot while supporting your arch and heel, giving your tired achy feet present relief and future protection.

Detoxify And Loosen Your Back And Spine With The Seated Spinal Twist Yoga Pose

The seated spinal twist, or Ardha Matsyendrasana, is a wonderful intermediate-level yoga stretch for the back. It is said to detoxify the internal organs and provides great stretching and flexibility benefits for the entire length of the spine.

Yoga Warm-Up for Seated Spinal Twist

Matsyendrasana is a strenuous yoga asana that twists and wrings out the entire body. It should be performed later in a yoga practice session. Yoga warm-ups to prepare could include Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar) and standing strength poses such as a Warrior series (Virabhadrasana) to lengthen and loosen the back. Once the body is warm, the muscles will be softer. This allows for easier stretching and less risk of injury. This yoga pose should be avoided in pregnancy or by people with back problems. Remember to always be gentle and listen to the body’s wisdom.

Preparing for the Seated Spinal Twist

Sit in Stick Pose (Dandasana), a pike position with the feet straight out in front, feet flexed and active. Lengthen the spine from the tailbone to the crown of the head. On an exhalation, bend the right knee and cross the right foot to the outside of the left knee. Continue to lengthen the spine. Place the right hand behind you, close to the buttocks, palm flat, to serve as a second spine. Reach your left hand around to hug the outside of the right knee.

Performing the Seated Spinal Twist

Breathe in deeply, and with a slow exhale begin to twist to the right. Start the twist by leading with the belly button, then the heart. Finally, turn the shoulders, and finish by turning the head to look behind you. Continue to lengthen the spine throughout the turn, and back off if any pain is felt. Breathe in and out slowly and deeply through the nose. Use the right arm to support and intensify the stretch and twist.

Intensify the Seated Spinal Twist

To increase the stretch, straighten the left arm and place the left elbow to the outside of the right knee. You may hold the arm straight with extended fingers or soft fist, or bend the elbow and place thumb and forefinger together. To enter full Matsyendrasana, bend the left leg and gently point the heel towards the right buttock. Continue to breathe deeply for four to five breaths to get the full benefit of the pose, and then slowly and gently unwind. To maintain balance, repeat the pose in the opposite direction.

Benefits of the Seated Spinal Twist

This yoga pose provides a thorough stretching of all the muscles of the back and neck and helps to increase the flexibility of the spinal column. It is believed that the intense twisting of Matsyendrasana helps to wring excess blood from the internal organs and therefore acts as a detoxifier.

You can learn more about such tips and recommendations that you can follow for a healthy spine and back from Joshua S. Rovner. He is a popular spine specialist that provides you best treatment with his vast experience.

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