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Reward Yourself

Reward Yourself

Published by on April 25, 2023

No matter what your fitness goal is, achieving that goal is rewarding. Along the way, sometimes you need a little boost, which is when you should reward yourself. If you’re starting a fitness program, results aren’t immediate. A small reward for an intense workout or staying loyal to your plan can go a long way. Whether your ultimate goal is running an eight-minute mile or lifting twice your weight, sometimes just making it through the complete workout without stopping to rest can be an achievement. When you achieve that, you need to celebrate and reward yourself.

There are many ways to celebrate benchmarks.

A benchmark isn’t necessarily your goal, but a hurdle to overcome along the way. Most people have goals that take months to achieve and don’t see any physical changes from their workouts for several weeks. A reward helps people stay motivated, but it shouldn’t be food, especially if it’s a pint of ice cream or pastry! It should be a luxury, like a massage, a long soak in the tub, or a full hour for yourself.

Find your guilty pleasure.

Are there items of clothing that you consider out of your price range, but would love? Maybe there’s a cruise you’d like to take or a weekend getaway that sparks your interest. To achieve that goal, you need to pay yourself. Create a jar to hold your payments. If you had a normal workout, give yourself a small amount, maybe a dollar. If your workout was intense, increase the amount, going as high as $4 to $5. If you miss a workout, take out a dollar and donate it to charity or give it to a friend or family member.

Workouts don’t always have to be in the gym.

If you’re a beast in the gym one day, give yourself permission for your next workout to be something fun. Find something you love to do, like going dancing and dancing to every song. Make your reward for an intense workout a fun activity that’s physically challenging. Walk or ride a bike to meet a friend for dinner or do laps in a pool. Give yourself permission to flex those muscles you’ve created doing something fun that you couldn’t do before you started an exercise program.

  • Let others know your accomplishments. Don’t be shy about sharing your feats on social media. Whether it’s taking a before and after picture and sharing or just letting people know how hard you’ve worked, sharing your accomplishments can be rewarding.
  • Search for healthy snacks and find the ones you love. After a tough workout you deserve a reward and also need a post workout snack that’s a combination of carbs and protein. Save the special snacks for that reward.
  • Keep score. It’s rewarding. Take the time to track your progress. List the exercises you did, including the number of repetitions and sets. Record how easy or difficult it was so you can visualize how much you’re improving.
  • Take time to spend with family or friends just having fun. It doesn’t have to be formal. Play basketball with the kids or a rousing game of tag. Call a friend to meet you for coffee and enjoy the conversation and time with your friend.

For more information, contact us today at Hawaii Fit Camp!

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Reach Your Goals

Reach Your Goals

Published by on April 15, 2023

Do you want to live healthier? Is being fit one of your goals? If there is no plan to achieve what you want, you only have a dream or a wish, not a goal. To reach your goals, you need to create a plan of action and put forth the effort to follow that plan. If your goal is big, it may sound overwhelming, but you can change all that by breaking it down into smaller, easier-to-achieve weekly or daily goals. Identify what it will take to make your goal a reality, then determine the steps to get there. Before you know it, you’ll achieve your goals and maybe surpass them.

Create SMART goals.

SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. You can’t just say you want to lose weight, you have to identify how much you want to lose. You have to be able to measure your goal, whether it’s losing weight or lowering blood pressure, or you won’t know when you reached your goal. Is the goal achievable? If your goal is to grow 8 inches taller, but if you’re an adult and no longer growing, growing 8 inches is impossible. Is the goal realistic? Do you want to lose weight, but won’t commit to giving up junk food or changing your diet, it’s not realistic. Do you have a deadline? Without a deadline, you’ll always put off starting until tomorrow.

Design a plan of action and start with a healthy diet.

Know yourself. Are you better at making one change at a time, just “dipping your toes in first” or are you a “jump in with both feet” type of person? Know yourself and start by doing what will bring the most probable success. Maybe you start with just one aspect, like giving up food with added sugar or highly processed food.

Are you living a sedentary lifestyle?

Your body needs to move to be fit. If you don’t stay active, you won’t be able to be active when you want to be. Progress doesn’t occur overnight. Start with small changes and stick with them. Add an exercise program. You can begin by walking a half hour a day or break it up and do three ten-minute walks. Once you develop the habit, create a formal exercise program or stop in for a consultation. We create personalized nutrition and fitness programs and provide the support to stick with them.

  • Just focusing on increasing your daily activity, such as taking stairs instead of an elevator or walking more and walking faster, can be a place to start. We identify your level of fitness and create a program that matches it.
  • Eating slower is one way to reduce the amount you eat. It also aids digestion. Drinking an 8-ounce glass of water before a meal is another way to reduce caloric intake.
  • Create a sleep schedule to get adequate sleep. Lack of sleep causes a hormone imbalance. Your body creates too much ghrelin—the hunger hormone, and too little leptin—-the hormone that makes you feel full.
  • Big goals are exciting but can be overwhelming. Break them down into smaller, easily achieved goals to experience success quickly and stay motivated.

For more information, contact us today at Hawaii Fit Camp!

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Why Exercise Is Good For Your Health?

Why Exercise Is Good For Your Health?

Published by on April 5, 2023

People who live in Honolulu, HI, have the perfect setting for an active lifestyle. If you want to live a longer and healthier life, stay active. Exercise can help you stay healthier and reduce the risk of many chronic diseases. Not only is exercise good for your health, but it’s also good for the spirit. It can help you feel better about yourself and more confident. When you exercise, you’ll have more energy and walk taller. Your improved energy level also affects all areas of your life.

Burn off excess fat and prevent obesity with exercise.

Diet plays the most important role in preventing obesity, which is now the leading cause of preventable death. Exercising regularly is a close second. Exercise helps burn fat and build muscle tissue. The more muscle tissue you have, the easier it is to lose weight. Muscle tissue requires more calories to maintain than fat tissue does, so the more you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate. You’ll also burn calories as you exercise while boosting your energy, so you’ll be more active longer.

Exercise improves your gut microbiome.

What’s your microbiome? It’s the millions of microbes in your body. While few agree on how many microbes are in the body, scientists agree there are more microbes than cells. Microbes can be beneficial or harmful. The beneficial ones aid in digestion and trigger many functions throughout the body. They affect your mood, your weight, and even automatic functions by affecting major nerves. The more you exercise, the more beneficial microbes you have.

Exercise can help prevent osteoporosis.

When muscles tug on bones, the bones uptake more calcium to make them strong enough to endure the tug without breaking. If there isn’t enough muscle mass or you don’t do weight-bearing exercises that cause that tug, bones start losing calcium, which makes them porous and leads to osteoporosis. Around the age of 35, people start losing muscle mass, which continues for the rest of their life. That loss of muscle due to lack of exercise can cause osteoporosis. Studies show that exercise is as effective in increasing bone density as many medications. The only side effect it has is a healthier body.

  • Exercise affects the number of stem cells throughout the body. You may have heard of fetal stem cells, but adults also continuously produce them and they’re used to repair the body. The number produced is boosted when you exercise.
  • Exercise can help you look years younger. Not only does it help produce more stem cells, but it also makes telomeres longer. Health issues and aging occur when cells are damaged or die. Telomeres protect the DNA from damage so cells can replicate longer.
  • A program of regular exercise helps reduce the risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. It aids in regulating blood sugar levels and improves insulin sensitivity.
  • You’ll reduce pain when you exercise. Back pain often occurs because of weak core muscles. Exercising can help. Exercise can relieve the pain of arthritis. Acid reflux and breathing difficulties can occur due to poor posture, and exercising helps.

For more information, contact us today at Hawaii Fit Camp!

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Exercises That Target Your Thighs

Exercises That Target Your Thighs

Published by on March 19, 2023

If you’re hoping to lose all the excess weight on your thighs by doing spot exercises, you’ll be sad to hear that spot exercises don’t melt the fat on just the thighs, but all over your body. While you can’t expect to target specific areas of fat with exercise, what it does is build muscle tone and help change total body composition of muscle to fat. That not only helps reduce thigh jiggle, but also helps eliminate the cottage cheese appearance of cellulite.

Get your cardio every day.

The 10,000 step technique is one way to encourage cardiovascular exercise. Nobody is sure that 10,000 steps is the exact number of steps needed, but everyone agrees it’s a good place to start, particularly if you’re sedentary. Find ways to vary your cardio to help work your thighs. Ride a bike to work or take the stairs instead of the elevator. All these work the muscles of the leg, burn fat and help tone your legs. Climbing steps is particularly good for thighs and weight loss.

Bodyweight workouts can tone the thighs.

Squats are good for improving thighs, but also good for everyone, no matter what their goals, especially seniors. You use the same muscles in a squat as you use for getting in and out of chairs. Squats can be tricky at first if you’re doing them right, so you can use a chair for balance or do wall squats. To modify the area worked, adjust the width of your feet from close together and narrower than shoulder width, to shoulder width and wider. It will work all the muscles in your legs and keep workouts interesting as you add the modifications to your workout.

Ballet strengthens the legs and thighs, so mimic the movements.

There are a number of exercises that look like ballet moves. In fact, plie squats are named after one. It’s a regular squat that uses a wider stance and has feet pointed outward, like in a plie. Those tone the inner thighs dramatically. Be your own exercise machine by supplying resistance when you work your inner thigh muscles. Sit with feet and knees about 12″ apart and put the palms of each hand on the inside of the corresponding thigh. Try to push your thighs together, while you create resistance with your hands. You can then put your thighs together, place your hands on the outside of your thighs and try to open your thighs with your hands providing pressure to keep them closed.

  • Combine toning your thighs with weightlifting. Since you lift with your legs, it only makes sense that you’ll build thigh muscle tissue when you lift weights. You can also use weights while doing lunges and squats for your thighs.
  • Exercise is important, but so is a healthy diet if you want to lose fat and make your thighs slimmer. Don’t forget to eat healthy, skip the sugar, fatty foods and those highly refined options. Stick with whole foods for nutrients, weight loss and less cellulite.
  • Get a rubber playground ball or rolled up towel and exercise while you watch TV. Put the ball/towel between your knees and squeeze it as hard as you can, rest and squeeze again.
  • When you’re ready for a really tough exercise, try raising up on your toes. It doesn’t sound hard, does it? However, the second part is moving into a squatting position without ever letting your heels touch the ground! You can start by using a wall, chair or table for support. Now that’s a workout for your thighs and the rest of your body.

For more information, contact us today at Hawaii Fit Camp!

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Workouts That Tone Legs Fast

Workouts That Tone Legs Fast

Published by on March 17, 2023

Workouts that tone legs do more than just make your legs look better. They help you build stronger legs and get important weight bearing exercise that can help deter osteoporosis. If you’ve neglected your legs for a few years, with the pandemic the start of the downfall, it’s time to get busy and get back in the grove so you can show off your legs at the beach this year and wear shorts without feeling self-conscious.

Entertain your family and tone your legs by lunge walking around the house.

Lunges are great exercises to tone legs. They not only tone your legs and build muscle tissue, they improve your flexibility. A traditional lunge starts standing with both feet together. Then you put one foot forward, bending your knees, with your thigh parallel to the floor in front and the rear knee almost touching the floor. Stand up and bring the back foot forward as you do. Entertain the family by walking across the room doing lunges or have the kids play follow the leader with you being the leader, lunging your way around the yard.

You’ll tone your arms, build core strength and tone legs with a plank.

A plank is versatile and when you combine it with a reverse leg lift, it’s dynamite on the upper legs. Get into plank position and slowly lift one leg behind you while holding the plank with the other leg and arms. A glute bridge is tough enough. You lay on your back with knees bent and arms beside you, then lift your bottom off the floor until your body is at a 45 degree angle. For maximum leg toning, add one more step. Maintain that position and lift one leg, pointing your foot toward the sky and keeping it straight in line with your body.

Squats are also versatile and you can make them fun by modifying them.

Why is modification important for bodyweight exercises? The modifications can do a number of things. They can make an exercise more difficult or easier. They can also work different muscle groups or the same muscle groups on different planes. Squats work leg muscles, but you can modify them to work the muscles harder or in different ways by adjusting how wide apart your feet are. There are sumo squats with the feet extremely wide apart that work the thighs or close stance squats to work the quads.

  • Step-ups, box jumps and single-leg deadlifts are also good for toning leg muscles. Put one leg on a coffee table or chair behind you and lower yourself into a squat for a Belgium split squat that really works fast.
  • Mountain climbers are not just good for toning legs, they’re great for building endurance. Start in plank position then bring one foot forward with your thigh touching your chest, then back to start position, bringing the other leg forward. Increase your pace as you get fitter.
  • Don’t do your legs two days in a row. Alternate the days with upper body and fun, relaxing exercises like swimming, walking riding a bike or dancing. Take it easier on those days, since you’re devoting them to active recovery.
  • Cankles aren’t attractive either, so don’t forget ankle workouts. You can do them while seated, making circles with your toes. Calf raises on stairs, jumping rope and riding a bike also help.

For more information, contact us today at Hawaii Fit Camp!

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