Health

Taking Care of Yourself

As some of you may know, on November 2nd, I hurt my neck at the gym. It didn’t feel different than other times in the past when I turned it the wrong way, but after two days, I ended up going to the Emergency Room. BIG mistake. Growing up, playing sports, I had many trips to the emergency room. Throughout college, two more that I can remember. While living in Boulder, another two that come to mind. In our first five or so years in LA, I had been accident free… or perhaps I just toughened up and dealt with issues myself. I don’t know why I decided to head to the ER at Cedars-Sinai on November 4th. The doctor, who I won’t name, was your typical doctor. To be honest, I haven’t cared much for any of my doctors in the past. I give credit to one chiropractor and one eye doctor that I’ve worked with; everyone else seemed like a robot, or some kind of societal drone. This man was no exception and did nothing other than tell me to be careful, write some useless prescriptions and order some tests. 

spacer

5 Benefits of Taking Fish Oil Supplements

Fish oil is one of the things that you should always take as a supplement due to the many benefits that it has on your body. Whether you want to improve your optimal health or build muscles, fish oil is always a recommendation. Fish oil is a kind of fatty acid that is taken from the tissues of fish that are oily. It is known to contain the Omega 3 fatty acids that are very important for the body. In this article, we shall discuss some of the benefits that come with fish oil supplements.

Here are 5 benefits of taking fish oil supplements:

spacer

The Push Up & Plank Challenge

While many of you are probably preparing for Freeform’s (although we all know it as ABC Family) 25 Days of Christmas, which starts today with Kittens vs Christmas Trees, there are others stressing about their physical health during the month of Thanksgiving all the way to Christmas. While we spoke about optimizing your health from a food and fuel point of view yesterday, we have a simple, yet rewarding challenge to issue for this month… starting today!

Everyone can do push ups and planks. By that, I mean, there are a lot of people who cannot swim because they do not have access to a pool or body of water. There are people who cannot cycle because they do not have a bike and cannot afford a membership to a gym. Nearly everyone can roll out of bed in the morning and get on the floor to put down a set of push ups and a plank. 

spacer
optimum nutrition2

The Optimal Holiday Season

Thanksgiving is over and you’ve probably just stopped feeling full from what was surely a gluttonous night. Preparing for the madness and chaos between Christmas and New Year’s, we are all trying to stay in the best physical and mental state possible. After all, we need to hit some of our 2018 resolutions and prepare ourselves for 2019. Instead of just giving up entirely and letting yourself go, give December your absolute best effort. We already threw some tips out for Black Friday shopping, which are still somewhat useful now. Even if you missed out on all of the sales, focus your mind and be an absolute beast this last month of the year.

In order to keep your mind in the best possible place and minimize the stress that is associated with this time of year, we need to keep our bodies in great shape. We need to stay healthy and fight off colds or flus that notoriously wreck us at the worst time possible. (I remember having a 106 degree fever while recovering from Bells Palsy a few years ago, at our family Christmas celebration… it was the worst!) Regularly exercising and eating well will put you in a good place and set you up for success, but everyone can use some help. Fortunately for all of us, one of our absolute favorite companies in the health and wellness space just came out with some new products and after trying them for a few weeks, we have to share!

spacer

A High Protein Diet Plan To Lose Weight And Improve Health

In the present era, everyone is keen to maintain a healthy life with a perfectly balanced diet that contains an appropriate amount of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Sometimes, in the excitement of losing weight faster, we lose sight of the important components and, as a result, we have to quit that dietary plan. So for a healthy diet plan, we should keep in mind a few things such as:

spacer

A Beginner’s Guide to Counting Macros

[Please enjoy a guest article from former NFL player, Chris Gronkowski!]

Starting a new diet can be a difficult adjustment and part of the change involves becoming accustomed to a new routine and way of thinking about food. Counting calories is an accurate but sometimes challenging method for tracking what you consume each day. If your goal is to lose weight, you’ll want to record how many calories you eat and work to burn off more calories. For some people, this dieting method is tedious and easy to forget about. But those willing to stick to a strict approach may want to take it one step further and experiment with counting their macro calories.

What Is a Macro Diet?

Following a macro diet is similar to the process of counting calories but, instead, you must focus on tracking how much you consume of the three macronutrients—protein, carbohydrates and fats. One of the major benefits of counting macros is that you are compelled to consume only foods that are fueling your body in some respect. For example, if you were on a calorie-counting diet, you could eat a bag of potato chips as long as you write down the calorie count. But, with a macro-counting diet, you would want to replace the chips with a food heavier in protein, carbs or fats.

Macronutrients are vital to our body’s well-being, and they can be found in nearly every food. Most items though are classified by whichever macronutrient they have the most of—for example, beef is considered a protein even though it also contains fats. Counting macros has been a popular practice amongst athletes for many years but, as of late, people have found this method to be a beneficial way to hold themselves to healthy eating habits.

spacer

4 Tips to Rowing for Health and Fitness

If you’re looking to get into great shape, rowing offers a full body workout that gets you closer to achieving your goals. Rowing is an effective cardio exercise that not only promotes weight loss but also tones your muscles and increases your endurance. You can burn as many as 600 calories per hour by working out on a rowing machine. Combine this fun exercise with a healthy diet and you’ll soon be delighted by the results.

Getting a sturdy rowing machine isn’t as complicated as you’d imagine: simply check Body Trained and scroll through a variety of rowing machine reviews to find one that suits you.

spacer

5 Tips to Buying Medical Supplies

To some of us, obtaining medical supplies is a way for us to stay healthy and function normally. These medical supplies include walkers, wheelchairs, oxygen tanks, diabetes supplies, and other products. Thankfully, we now live in the times where access to these products has become a lot easier. In fact, you can even easily buy these medical supplies online. But for that exact same reason as well, it can be worrying to buy online because there are supplies that cannot guarantee a good product. So when it comes to buying medical supplies – whether they are second-hand or not – it is necessary that you are wise about it.

spacer

Pre Workout Routine: 5 Things to Do Before You Workout

There are certain things you can do before your workout to make it easier and more successful. Here is an outline of a pre workout routine to get you started.

Did you know that less than 5% of adults in the United States perform the recommend 30 minutes of exercise or physical activity every day? That translates to only one-third of U.S. adults getting the amount of physical activity recommended each week.

Many people complain that their workouts make them feel poor or tired rather than energized, as exercising should. The root cause of this disconnect may stem from their pre-workout routine.

Learn what to do before a workout to maximize your chance of feeling empowered rather than drained. Check out the 5 simple steps below and start to enjoy working out.

spacer

Building Hamstrings

We don’t often repost content from other sources, but sometimes, we come across an article that is presented in a manner that we find very easy to digest. While we’d never heard of Stack as a media source before, every week, I receive newsletters from the American Swimming Coaches Association, with important articles relevant to swimming. Sometimes, I don’t even read through them, but this headline caught my eye: 4 Simple Ways to Build Stronger, More Resilient Hamstrings.

spacer