Fitness & Wellness

Some people think of broad shoulders and muscular arms when they think of upper body workouts, but they provide more than just bulging muscles. They provide toning and sculpting. I have several clients in Dublin, CA, who focus on upper body workouts to eliminate bat wings—those flabby underarms nobody wants to show in the summer. Others want to improve their upper body strength to improve their posture, breathe easier and improve their upper body strength for better functional fitness, to prevent injury doing everyday tasks.

Using weights can help you slim arms and get trim quicker.

If you workout at the gym, weights and resistance training offer big benefits for arm, shoulder and upper back toning. Resistance bands are an inexpensive option, too. You can do this exercise with weights or even a water bottle filled with enough sand or water to make it an appropriate weight for you. Start with feet hip-width apart, bend forward at the hip with chest parallel to the floor and arms pointed to the ground. Pull the bottles toward you, while you press your shoulder blades together, then slowly lower them back down. Repeat several times for one set.

Bodyweight workouts are great upper arm exercises that you can do anywhere.

There’s nothing better to work your upper body than planks and push-ups and there are many modifications of each to help vary difficulty and work different muscle groups on various planes. Start with the basic plank that builds triceps, shoulders and core muscles. They’re simple, yet provide a tough workout. Lay on your stomach, raising up with weight on toes and forearms, elbows directly under the shoulders. Raise up and straighten arms. Hold. This is standard plank position. To make the workout tougher on upper arms and shoulders, lift one arm while in this position.

A dumbbell side raise tones arms.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand, keeping your arms by your side with your palms facing your body. Slightly bend your knees as you lift your arms straight forward until they’re level with your shoulders, then lower them again. After doing several sets, start an overhead extension that also tones arms quickly. Align feet with hips, gripping one dumbbell in both hands. Raise it over your head with it held vertically. Lower it behind your back slowly, until your elbows are pointing straight upward. Raise the dumbbell straight up again and repeat.

• Bicep curls focus on forearms and biceps. Hold a weight in one hand with palm facing upward. Bend your arm at the elbow, lifting the weight toward your shoulder.
• A wall push-up can be done anywhere. Lean against a wall with elbows bent and hands on the wall. Straighten your arms until your elbows are straight and slowly lower yourself against the wall.
• Keep it simple with arm circles. Stand with fee shoulder-width, extending your arms out straight to your side, creating a T. rotate your arms and shoulders making backward circles and then reverse direction and rotate them forward. Do ten each way for a set. Do three sets.
• Doing push-ups will provide a great upper body workout. You can do knee bent push-ups until you build the strength for traditional ones. At LIV Fitness, we have rowing machines and other equipment to make your upper body workout more successful.

For more information, contact LIV Fitness

Your BMI—body mass index—uses height and weight to measure the amount of body fat. However, it’s just an approximation and not meant to be the final verdict. It’s best for people that are new to exercise, since it doesn’t take into account the amount of muscle mass you have, your bone density or the overall composition of your body.

BMI uses a height to weight ratio.

If you weigh 150 pounds, you could be extremely fit and at your ideal weight, or you could be too thin or too heavy. It all depends on your height, body frame and gender. A woman that’s 4’10” would be overweight, while a male 6’4″ would be too thin. It’s used to avoid the need for charts. By calculating your BMI, the result is a universal number that can be used for anyone. If you have a BMI of 18.5 or lower you’re underweight. The factor of height and weight are already considered. Anyone with a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered at an ideal weight and higher is overweight. People with a BMI of 30 or higher are obese.

There are flaws in the use of BMI.

Your bone structure plays a role in how accurate your BMI will be. A larger bone structure could add a few pounds to your weight, so someone with a small bone structure should weigh less than someone with a large bone structure. Men weigh more than women. A muscular person will be thinner than someone with no muscle tissue, even if they’re the same height, weight, gender and bone structure.

BMI is a quick and helpful way for physicians to help identify potential health risks.

While BMI isn’t the most accurate weigh to identify whether you’re fit or not, it’s certainly a quick way. By simply looking at one number, the doctor gets an idea for the potential problems faced by the patient. For instance, breathing problems, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and sleep apnea are often problems faced by people with a higher BMI. While it’s a start, doctors also know it’s not the full answer.

Even though BMI is a start, there are other factors that play a huge role in predicting potential disease. Waist circumference, for instance, is an important indicator. Even if your BMI doesn’t indicate obesity, for men with a 40.2 inch waist or women with a 34.6 inch waist, the chance of diabetes is great.

• BMI measurements are not only quicker, but also less costly as other techniques to find body mass, such as MRI scans or underwater weighing, which identify body density, volume and fat for a clearer picture.
• Another new technique that’s just as simple is the RFM—relative fat mass index. It uses waist measurements to height. Women use 76 – (20 x height/waist circumference) and men use 64 – (20 x height/waist circumference).
• Since a cubic inch of muscle weighs more than a cubic inch of fat, some of the fittest people will be classified as overweight or even obese if they’re super muscular. It’s one of the biggest flaws in BMI.

For more information, contact LIV Fitness

Are you constantly carrying a Kleenex or coughing and sneezing at inappropriate times? Now more than ever, curtailing that constant cold symptoms that occur with seasonal allergies is important. Unfortunately, most people in Dublin, CA choose to either stay indoors and miss out on all the fun of warmer weather or take a pill that makes you feel groggy and half awake for hours. There may be a better way to reduce the effect. Try eating right to reduce seasonal allergies. There are foods that can help relieve allergy symptoms by reducing the runny nose or boosting your immune symptoms.

Drink a little ginger tea.

When you think of ginger as a natural remedy, you normally think of it to help with an upset stomach or nausea. However, It’s also good for the runny nose, watery eyes and sore throat from allergies. It’s an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. An animal study in 2016 found that the pro-inflammatory proteins were suppressed in the blood of mice, which also leads to a reduction of allergy symptoms. Besides drinking ginger tea, try adding it to your favorite recipes. It’s delicious in stir fry, makes a flavorful marinade and is great in baked goods.

Get plenty of vitamin C.

There’s a wide variety of food that’s rich in vitamin C. Automatically, people often think of citrus fruit first, but a cup of red bell peppers has three times the amount you’d find in an orange. Other food you might not expect, like broccoli, cantaloupe, cauliflower, kiwi and sweet potatoes also are high in vitamin C. While vitamin C may not prevent allergies or even cure them, it helps decrease the runny nose from allergies that causes all the problems in the upper respiratory tract, so it reduces the symptoms of allergies. It also boosts your immune system in the process.

Don’t forget to pile on the fresh tomatoes.

While tomatoes do contain a high amount of vitamin C, with one medium sized tomato providing a fourth of your daily recommended amount, they also have other powerful compounds. Tomatoes contain lycopene, an antioxidant that helps reduce inflammation. Eating them fresh off the vine is delicious and healthy, providing the highest amount of vitamin C. However, when you cook tomatoes, it boosts the amount of lycopene your body can absorb. No matter how you add tomatoes, they’ll help your allergies.

• Just like ginger, turmeric not only adds a little spice and flavor to a dish, it can also help reduce the effects of seasonal allergies. It’s an anti-inflammatory that reduces the effects and swelling of rhinitis.
• If you’ve looked for natural cures, you may find a lot of the remedies contain bee pollen. Bee pollen has anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antifungal properties. It deters the activation of cells that cause allergic reactions. Use local bee pollen that’s often found at a farmer’s market.
• Onions are a great source of quercetin, which is a natural antihistamine. They also contain antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds to help reduce ancillary effects of allergies. The top producers of quercetin are raw red onions, with scallions and white onions following. Raw is better than cooked.
• Boost your omega-3 fatty acids with food like salmon, flax seed, oysters, cod liver oil and chia seeds. A 2005 study showed the more you had, the lower the potential for allergic reaction. Another study showed it helped reduce the narrowing of airways, so is good for season allergies and asthma.

For more information, contact us today at LIV Fitness

I try to dispel as many weight loss myths as I can to help clients in Pleasanton, CA, but there are always new ones arising or old ones reworded to sound like new information. Some are easy to dispel, such as those that promote a fad, like magical weight loss elixirs such as the lemonade diet. One myth that can be particularly defeating is the belief that you’ll lose the same amount each week. I’ve seen people despair because they did everything right, yet didn’t lose a single pound and others that cheated who managed to shed four pounds instead of two. You need to judge your weight loss program over several months, since weight fluctuates daily, even if you burned and ate the same number of calories. It’s often caused by water weight fluctuations.

It’s a myth that all you need to do is exercise to lose weight.

Too often I’ve watched people in the gym workout for an hour and smugly congratulate themselves on the pounds they’ll shed. Then they go their favorite watering hole and have a couple of beers and a double burger and large fries to celebrate. No matter how much you workout, you still have to eat healthy to shed those pounds. It’s all about calories in, calories burned. Exercise will raise your metabolism, because the more muscle tissue you have the more calories you burn, but it won’t offset huge meals that are high in calories. In fact, what you eat is the most important part of weight loss, since you can’t out exercise a bad diet. Combine a healthy diet with regular exercise and you have a formula for success.

Only a certain type of exercise will help you lose weight is another myth.

Whether you’re discussing aerobic exercise such as running or strength training, there’s no one right weight loss exercise. Doing tons of aerobic training does burn calories, but the calories come from both fat and muscle tissue. The less muscle tissue you have, the harder it is to lose weight. On the other hand, doing only strength training isn’t the answer either. You need all types of training to be healthy, which includes flexibility training.

One of the worst myths is that it doesn’t matter what you eat, as long as you cut calories/carbs.

I’ve seen devotees to both carb and calorie counting who either live on rice cakes and celery sticks—if they count calories—or eat nothing but plates and plates of sirloin steak because it has no carbs. Both extremes can’t be maintained for long and aren’t healthy. The best way to shed pounds is to eat healthy foods, cut out food with added sugar and white flour, processed meat and other highly processed foods. Focus on whole food with lots of healthy vegetables, fresh fruit, lean meat or poultry and you’ll lose weight.

• It’s a huge myth that you have to go hungry if you want to lose weight. Nothing could be further from the truth. You simply have to switch to healthier eating.
• Diet food or drink isn’t necessarily healthy for you and won’t necessarily help you shed pounds. The same is true of low fat items, which often has sugar added to make it palatable.
• One huge myth is about the health of both thin and obese people. While being obese is linked to several diseases, being obese doesn’t mean you necessarily have health issues, just as being thin doesn’t mean you’re healthy.
• It’s a myth that supplements can help you lose weight. There was one supplement that actually worked for weight loss but not in a good way. It was called Wow and came from Frito-Lay a little over 20 years ago. It contained olestra, which is a potent laxative and the weight loss was flushed down the toilet.

For more information, contact us today at LIV Fitness

If you sat at home munching on bon bons and binge watching Netflix, just to realize that in a few weeks you’ll be going back outside and even to the beach, it’s time to start to get ready for summer/ While it’s already here, it’s not too late to salvage some of the fun in the sun. There’s still a few months of beautiful weather and you could look and feel fabulous to end the season in glory.

Set your goals first.

Unless you write down your goals and make them specific, you only have a wish list in your head. How much weight do you want to lose? Do you want to just tone your body? Are you hoping to boost your energy to have more fun in the summer. Once you identify your goals, you can start a program with the steps to achieve them. How much weight do you hope to lose a week and for how long. What are you going to do to lose that weight? If you have a personal trainer, he or she will help you work on the how, with healthy eating and exercise programs designed to get you to your destination.

No matter what your summer goal, healthy eating should be part of it.

Looking and feeling great describes what most people hope to achieve. They want a higher level of energy, a sleek, toned body and good health. Whether it’s weight loss, building muscle tissue or boosting your energy, you need good nutrition and that comes from eating whole foods and cutting back on refined, processed or sugary food. Just making those changes can put you on the path to good health.

Stick with your workout program.

You can lose weight and get healthy by combining a healthy diet with a program of exercise. Both of these need to be part of your healthy lifestyle. That’s why creating a consistent appointment time for exercise is important. It becomes part of your life and a no brainer. Your appointment with the gym is just as important as any other appointment, even the annual checkup, because it helps you stay healthier.

• Eating healthier is easier if you plan meals ahead, do shopping once a week—after you ate—and making all meals on the weekend, so all you have to do is heat and serve.
• If you want to save time, double recipes for meals made ahead and freeze for another week. Before you know it, you’ll have a freezer stocked and can spend more time enjoying summer fun.
• While working out at the gym is important to ensure you work all parts of the body, don’t forget to include fun, yet active pastimes like bicycling, hiking or swimming. It’s all about enjoying your fitness.
• Always track your progress. If you have a trainer, he or she will do it for you, but if you’re going it alone, you can do it several ways, such as weight, clothing size or health indicators like blood pressure.

For more information, contact us today at LIV Fitness