Why bootcamp has become so popular

February 7, 2020

Many people have vowed to get their fitness back on track in 2020 however, many fell off the fitness wagon hard and fast. This is because they have either gotten annoyed pushing their way through the gym crowds. Alternatively, they have gotten bored running on the treadmill in a never-ending cycle. The fantastic news is that there is a form of exercise which is a little bit more exciting than the usual gym routine in order to help people to keep on track with their fitness.

Fitness boot camps have been happening across the world for years now, but many people are only now starting to realise how much fun – while at the same time being a fabulous workout – that these can be.

The word ‘bootcamp’ comes from a military-style of training during which cadets are trained to become soldiers or, alternatively, military officers. The camps consist of rigorous exercises such as stretching, running, relays, pushups, pull-ups, and obstacles.

During Bootcamp classes, gyms or personal trainers bring together a collection of like-minded people who have a common goal that they want to achieve through workouts which are rigorous. The camps take place out in the open, in gardens in addition to other open spaces.

With so many different exercise methods which are available to people who want to lose weight, why are people flocking to boot camps?

Here are a couple of reasons.

Affordability

If your aim is losing weight, the normal course of action is to go to a gym. However, if you are embarrassed to do so owing social circumstances or for some other reason, you would seek out an alternative. As hiring a personal trainer can be expensive in addition to inconvenient, many people opt for Bootcamp classes.

Outdoors

When you work out in a gym, you are going from one set of four walls to another. However, at a fitness boot camp, you have the additional advantage of working out in the fresh air. The envigorating garden air refreshes your mind body and soul. It fills you with a zest to take your exercise seriously as well as achieve your goal.

Training in a group

Any Bootcamp is made up of like-minded individuals who come together in order to achieve a shared goal. As everybody is working to reach the same fitness goal, Bootcamp groups take the form of support groups.

Friendships which develop in this atmosphere span a lifetime. Members of the group keep in contact even after the camp has disbanded. They continue to motivate one another so that all of them can keep up the pace which was set during the camp.

Endurance, Discipline as well as Confidence

Bootcamps not only train you to work out but they also instil discipline, build confidence in addition to inculcating endurance. Your body and mind are trained to follow a certain routine as well as work within the set format. As we said in the previous paragraph, working out with other like-minded individuals gives you the sense that you are not alone in your struggle. In addition, this assists you with building your confidence.

Many fitness newbies are reluctant to engage in bootcamp workouts. This is because they feel that they won’t be able to keep pace with the perceived military-style training. However, beginners actually find attending gym more intimidating as opposed to bootcamp.

Go to Bootcamp with an open mind. Everyone is at different fitness levels and are striving to get fitter in addition to stronger. The most essential thing is to take decisive action as well as to give Bootcamp a go..

The Tools for Healthy Living

Health & Fitness Shopping

September 9, 2017

Eating healthy food doesn’t have to be a chore and can make a real difference to your life. Sure, everyone from time to time slips into a bad habit or two, such as overdoing the burger and fries or having too much soda or even a little too much alcohol. However, as long as those don’t turn into permanent habits where you are damaging your health because of what you put into your body, you can use lots of ways to prepare and eat healthily and enjoyably.

Take the time for preparation

It is, unfortunately, so easy to slip into resorting to pre-packed foods or takeouts when you’ve had a hard day at work and you’re tired. However, if you’re prepared with the right tools that can make things really easy for cooking or making a delicious salad, then you don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen to whip up a tasty meal. Once you’ve got into the swing of it, you’ll wonder why you’d never done it before.

Here are some ideas for some great tools to help make your food preparation so much easier and give you all the nutrition that you need.

Getting the right pans

Pan-cooked food can often be tarnished because of the fats that you use in the pan. Now and again that can be fine, but if you want to eat healthier, you need to look for a pan that will let you cook without those additional fats. You can, of course, use a variety of oils for pan cooking, including olive, corn, and vegetable, as well as butter.

One of the healthiest ways to prepare your pan-cooked food is by using a Gotham Steel pan, allowing you to sear steaks and retain their delicious juices, broil fish just enough so that the flesh doesn’t get tough, and simmer a whole range of sauces. You can also sauté vegetables, such as potatoes and mushrooms, without the need for added fat – the perfect way to enjoy some really healthy meals.

For boiling vegetables, make sure that you have some sturdy copper-bottomed pans so that the heat is quickly transferred to the water and results in less electricity or gas used when cooking.

A quality blender

Fruit and vegetables are an essential part of having a healthy diet, and when you have the time, especially in the morning, it’s ideal to sit down with a grapefruit or some oranges to get plenty of vitamin C and fiber into your body.

If you’re in a rush in the morning, you can easily grab some fruit and put it into a quality blender to give yourself the perfect smoothie or shake. You need a blender that will take out any lumps to give you that professional smoothie texture, and you can experiment with all sorts of fruits and vegetables – try mixing them up – to achieve your favorite flavor. You can also prep these at night, quickly and simply, so that they’re ready for you in the morning.

Salad chopping

Sometimes, it seems as though preparing a salad can be hard work, chopping away with a sharp knife; however, actually, it is worth it as salad is one of the healthiest types of meals that you could have. Raw salad means that you get the benefit of all the nutrients without any of them being taken out by cooking. The crunch of a fresh salad, with lettuce, radishes, cucumber, young tomatoes, and any number of other ingredients, sends a signal to your body that it is going to like very much.

Invest in a salad chopper, throw your ingredients into a bowl, and chop away until you have things exactly how you want them. It’ll save you a lot of time, and you can prepare exactly as much as you want so that there is no wastage.

Preserving leftovers

Food wastage is a huge problem, especially in the Western world, so rather than throw things out, you can get jars that have airtight seals that will help preserve many different foods. You want to preserve freshness, so using these can help with foods such as lemons, avocados, and zucchini so that they don’t spoil or dehydrate. Plan your menus ahead, and you can use everything that you buy over a number of days and save yourself money.

Eating well

It doesn’t have to be a hassle to eat well. Healthy food is easy to prepare, and if you put the time aside, you’ll soon find that there is a real difference in how you eat and the health benefits that follow after.

Does Your Personality Change throughout Your Life? If So, Can You Control It?

Entertainment Health & Fitness

April 3, 2017

Fact: Major Changes Take Place in Personality As You Mature

Long-held theory on personality is that it is intransigent to change. It is assumed that our personalities are developed in childhood, and fixed for life. Outgoing personalities remain so, introverted personalities remain so, aggressive personalities remain so, and calm personalities remain so, and so forth. But new research from Sanjay Srivastava PhD goes counter to the grain of conventional wisdom. Extensive research was conducted on 132,515 adults between the ages of 21 and 60. Over their lifespan, the top 5 personality traits were studied. These include neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. Quite surprisingly, there were major changes in personality as people aged. The most notable changes in personality took place with those who are disciplined, organized, and led structured lives. This aspect of personality increased with age, as people’s careers started to blossom in their personal lives developed.

Another important personality trait that showed dramatic change over the years was affability. People are generally more inclined to be kindhearted and affable after the age of 30, according to the study. This trend continued throughout later years, particularly among women, but was present in men too. Not all aspects of personality are as likely to change as others. For example, extroverted personality behavior and neurotic personality behavior showed gender discrepancies. Younger women generally scored higher than men in those departments. Over time however, that gap narrowed. Of course, the personality factors that were studied online and in person are subject to demographic, locational, cultural, and other factors.

Can You Up the Ante by Playing to Your Personality Strengths?

Interesting data has been collected over time, and there is compelling evidence to suggest that success is possible with all personality types. Nowhere is this more evident than competitive gaming. Poker remains the most glaring example of how a specific personality can succeed, regardless of the conditions. This is called playing to your personality strengths. A risk-averse player can be as successful as an aggressive player in the game of poker. A great example of this is Bruno Politano. This poker champ has always played his cards close to his chest, and he has won an incredible $1,185,614 to date. He maintains that despite the situation, every play should be deliberate and the least amount of risk should be taken. His deliberate plays are closely associated with the organized personality type. Otherwise known as The Rock, Bruno believes that variance is less important than knowledge in games of poker. This dovetails perfectly with his personality and game plan.

Can You Control Personality Changes?

All personalities have strengths and weaknesses. For many of us, it would be desirable to be able to control our personalities by being less aggressive, more assertive, extroverted or impassioned about certain things. The fact of the matter is that no single personality is best for all situations. What is preferable is the right emotions and behavior at the right time. Many folks wish for a different personality type such as an extroverted personality if they are introverted. Other folks wish that they were more organized and disciplined when they live in a haphazard laissez-faire sort of way. Can you possibly change your personality type? While personality cannot really be changed too much, if at all, our traits can be adapted to meet our life challenges. In other words, our environment directly impacts the traits and behaviors inherent in our personality. In a stressful situation, we may rely more on our organizational skills and diligence to succeed than we do on our introverted nature.

This makes us appear to be assertive when we are inherently shy. Another great example is the difference between our work lives and our social lives. At work, we may be inclined to be assiduous and detail oriented, organized and structured. Outside of work, we may enjoy cutting loose and being hedonistic. Which is the true personality type? Are they mutually exclusive? It should be pointed out that a sociable person may not necessarily be an extrovert. Somebody who is affable to others in public may not be an extrovert by nature. By contrast, an introvert who is sociable may be mistaken for an extrovert. We learn certain behaviors, and character traits from our interactions with our environment. Consider these as your shadow traits, and careful management of them will be conducive to a happier existence.

How to Succeed in your Resolutions

Health & Fitness

January 8, 2017

Have you fallen off the resolutions wagon already? It is not easy to meet your goals and we put incredible pressure on ourselves to achieve sometimes unrealistic things.

We have created a means to reaching your goals while rewarding yourself and making life a little easier. The concept is to segment your goal into achievable segments. For example, if you want to get healthy for 2017 then think of the means to achieving this, it could be by reducing sugar in your tea or by taking the stairs and not the lift. The bingo card below shows an example. You choose a box with a goal to achieve for a day / week / month and then once completed you move to the next square in any direction. Once you have completed a line then reward yourself!

The card can be written for any resolutions and goals. Give it a go!

Lifestyle Tweaks To Help You Lose Weight

Freedom Channel

August 30, 2016

Losing weight is really important for many individuals from around the world. Unfortunately, most focus on what they eat and working out. While it is true that some products like Le-Vel reviews are interesting and can help you to have a more active life, the truth is that it is your lifestyle that needs to change first. Lifestyle changes are highly important if you want to gain a sustained weight loss as opposed to simply losing some weight and then put it back on.

Limit Eating Out

If you are currently used to eating out many times per week at restaurants or fast food joints, stop. It is all you need to do in order to drastically improve your weight loss efforts. If this is something that you really enjoy, you can always go for just one outing per week. It is more than enough. Also, instead of ordering the really large portions, go for something healthier and smaller.

Shop Intelligently

When you change your shopping habits you will be able to avoid that unwanted situation in which you feel a craving and you actually have it inside the home. Our routine is what destroys our weight loss efforts the most. When you go to the supermarket make it a habit to avoid the sugary and salty regions. Simply avoid them. Do not buy candy and do not invest money in that. It will be a little difficult on the long run but after some time you will get used to it.

Prepare Your Breakfast Ahead Of Time

One of the biggest problems with losing weight is that people do not really eat a good breakfast. You should never skip your breakfast as it really is the most important meal of the day. We recommend that you prepare the breakfast ahead of time. Simply mix protein with some whole grains for a total of around 300 calories. You can even make it a meal to take on the go if you have to go to work. Sandwiches can also be prepared ahead of time. It is basically impossible to lose weight on the long run if you do not eat a good breakfast every single tip. This is a very easy weight loss tip that will help you so much more than what you think at the moment.

Start Working Out Even If Just For A Few Minutes

Watching TV is something that so many do these days. Why not make this a part of your weight loss process? During the commercials all that you have to do is exercise a little. Jumping jacks and crunches can be done in that short time frame. It is even possible to start dancing while the dishes are done. The calories that you will burn will eventually add up and more importantly, you can keep your mind away from junk food. Since we talk about exercising, do your best to quit smoking! Believe it or not but this will make you healthier and will increase your desire to work out!

Guide to Buy the Right Elliptical or Treadmill

Health & Fitness

March 30, 2016

Fitness is such a passionate domain that a person who is actually conscious about his / her health would never miss on taking up all possible measures to keep it perfect. To meet your fitness goals, you need many tools like gadgets, diet plans, and above all fitness equipment. The prime two machines that you would surely see in each and every gym are elliptical and treadmill. The market offers you load of models like horizon elliptical and others, but even more than these machines what you really need to know is how to use them to get the best out of it. While buying these two machines, often people bank on what the store keeper is saying and promoting; that would not be a wise take for sure. You need to know extensively about these two before making the right choice while purchase.

What are treadmills?

Treadmills are machines that offer you the opportunity to increase weight loss, cardiovascular functioning, and bone density, all good for your overall health. It burns more calories (approximately 50 to 250 more calories an hour) in comparison to bike or elliptical trainer and assures building the bone density of lower extremity at its best. You get the decline and incline feature to customize your running.

What are elliptical trainers?

Elliptical trainers offer you the benefits of all kinds of weight-bearing exercises without the impact. This is basically for low impact workout and does not strain your body and joints. The arm handles in this machine allows you a full body workout. This machine is a combination of stairmaster, treadmill, pedal movement of an exercise bike. You can have a complete workout session without pressurising your back, knees, joints and hips.

With ample models in stores like nordictrack x9i and many others, it is quite natural for customers to get confused as to which machine would be the right choice. Here are some points to remember while you plan to buy either of these two fitness machines –

Budget – This is of course the first criteria when you buy anything; if the price is exceedingly high try to look for other models or similar machines that provide similar kind of effects.
Quality and Durability – These are supposed to be one time investment items; you don’t buy treadmills or elliptical trainers every year thus make a wise choice by keeping quality parameter upmost. Check the products minutely before buying and take a test session of around 15 minutes before making the deal.
Space needed – If you evaluate the folded up machine you will not be able to actually gauge the area it needs to be kept. Especially for treadmills, you need to leave space all around to minimize the chances of injury. Also for elliptical trainer, you need to check if the full body movement can be done freely considering the final space it takes.
Stability– Check how stable the model is; just like individuals the machines also have different characteristics and traits. The stability is not the same for all. Test out few models and check the construction. For treadmills, make sure you do the testing without shoes.
Motor and Warranties – The motor capacity should be decided on the fact if the machine will be used once or twice in a day or rigorous by many users. A continuous duty rating of most of the home treadmills are around 1.5 to 2.5. Consumers should not compromise on warranties. Motor warranty for 1 year is compulsory and the warranty for other parts should be for around 3 years.

These pointers if remembered while buying, you are sure to get the best elliptical or treadmill at home.

Tag: fitness