7 Best Exercises for Weight Loss

Exercise is one of the cornerstones of weight loss. According to Self magazine, you have to eat right, make exercise part of your routine, push yourself in your workouts, and find a workout you enjoy. If you can achieve each of these, you have a good chance of losing weight.

Not all exercise is created equal, so there are some exercises that will help you lose weight most effectively. Bear in mind that if you haven’t exercised regularly, you need to start slowly and build up.

You might not be physically able to do some of these seven exercises, but you can follow the suggestions for the intensity that accompany each exercise.

Get ready to burn some fat

Jump Rope

Women’s Health recommends jumping rope as a major fat burner. If you can skip at 120 skips per minute, you’ll burn between 667 and 990 calories an hour. As a side benefit, it tones the entire body!

Your rope should be long enough so the handles are at shoulder level when the loop touches the ground. Jump over the rope. Skip for one minute, rest, and redo. Build up your time and speed. Very speed and intensity for the greatest effect.

High-Intensity Interval Conditioning

Running sprints can burn almost as many calories as jumping rope. Don’t just go for miles or time. Instead, sprint as hard as you can for 20 seconds, jog for 40 seconds, and repeat.

The recovery period is important. Don’t skip it! This type of training is called high-intensity interval training (HIIT). It pushes your system and helps your burn fat.

You can do HIIT while cycling or on stationary bikes, walking, and other forms of exercise.

Weight Workout

Resistance training builds muscle and burns fat. It also increases your resting metabolism and helps you burn calories even when you aren’t working out. Weight train three times a week and change your reps or weights every three weeks.

For example, lift at 20 pounds and three sets of fifteen, then increase weight by five pounds and decrease to three sets of ten, then decrease weight by five pounds and increase to three sets of twenty.

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Boxing and Kickboxing

Boxing and kickboxing are forms of interval training where you might not anticipate the intervals, making it more challenging. Learning to punch correctly uses your core as well as your arms.

Spar for ninety seconds and rest for thirty seconds. Working out with other people is a lot of fun and a good teacher will keep you moving and motivated.

Boxing isn’t just standing and punching. There is a lot of moving around, dodging and weaving, or as Ali said, “move like a butterfly…”

Kettle Balls

Kettlebells have been around for a long time – they were popular in the late 1800s as gentle exercise. In reality, effects from a HIIT kettle ball workout last 36 hours!

Experts suggest switching from upper to lower body workouts without a rest period for maximum effectiveness. Complete three moves and switch.

Make sure you are taught to do the exercises correctly for safety and maximum workout. The low-impact workout exercises the entire body and the intensity burns fat.

Running

The least equipment-demanding workout there is. Just make sure your shoes are of good quality! Vary your run speed or use hills to increase your workout.

The dreaded treadmill and elliptical machines are great for an indoor run that allows you to add hills. Get your glutes and thigh muscles involved for extra calorie burning.

If you can’t run, walk up hills, change your speed and you can still get in age or injury-appropriate workout.

Lunges

A lunge uses the big leg and butt muscles for maximum calorie burning. Start with your feet hip-width apart and hands-on hips. Step forward with one leg.

Keep your back straight, lower your body until you form a 90-degree angle of your front and back legs. Come upright and step back. Repeat with the other leg. Do ten times on a side for three sets.

If you can’t go all the way, do what you can. You’ll see improvement over time.

AS Determination

Eat right – that means to cut down the calories and make sure that every calorie is working for you, not against you. Find something you like to do and stick with it.

Vary the intensity of your workout both in your workout and with what you do. Use the big muscle to your advantage. Your butt, thighs, and core should be involved for maximum fat burning.

If you have physical limitations, you can still exercise within those limitations. Find a good trainer to teach you who to do exercises properly and build a program for you. Start slowly and build up.

Lemon water is a huge fad right now, but you may be wondering if it can live up to the hype. It has been touted for everything from weight loss to cancer prevention, and while we can honestly say that no single beverage can cure every physical ill, this drink is pretty darn good for you.

One of the best things about drinking lemon water is that the recipe is up to you. You may use as much or as little lemon as you prefer, and even include additional ingredients like mint, honey, or other fruit. Lemon water may also be consumed warm or cold according to preference.

However, according to nutritional experts, the ideal way to drink lemon water in order to reap the most benefits is warm with at least ½ a sliced lemon included, peel, and all. You don’t need to eat the lemon slices, but the peel contains valuable polyphenols, which are antioxidant compounds that can aid in weight loss. Adding lemon slices to warm water helps to extract more polyphenols than cold water can.

So what are the potential benefits of drinking lemon water every day? There are many, and some of them, like #3 and #7, make the habit worthwhile all on their own. Along the way we will bust a couple of myths about lemon water, too.

Get Fresher Breath

If you are sick of chewing gum or chomping on a mint every time you have to speak closely with someone, lemon water could be the answer. When you think about the sheer number of products that contain lemon scent, this starts to make sense. The citrusy odor of lemon is able to neutralize odors, whether that is on your countertops or in your mouth.

Drinking some lemon water after a meal that included onions, garlic, fish, or blue cheese can wipe out the lingering evidence. Lemon is also great for stimulating saliva production, which itself cleanses the mouth. A dry mouth, such as the one you wake up within the morning, actually smells worse due to excessive bacterial growth.

Keep Your Skin Looking Younger

When you drink lemon water each day, you are already adding critical hydration to your skincare routine. Hydrated skin looks smoother and tighter, reducing the appearance of lines and wrinkles. When you are fully hydrated your body also has more opportunity to expel toxins through sweat.

The addition of lemon to your water boosts your intake of vitamin C, a powerhouse nutrient that plays a strong role in the production of collagen and elastin, the elements in the skin that keep it strong yet flexible. Some studies indicate that a diet high in vitamin C will also reduce wrinkling, something that everybody wants.

Take In More Vitamin C

As long as we’re talking about vitamin C, let’s delve a little further into its many health benefits. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that can neutralize harmful free radicals before they do cellular damage.

Therefore, making sure you get your daily recommended amount is thought to lower the risk of stroke, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. And because our bodies don’t synthesize vitamin C from other nutrients, we need to get that RDI from food. Lemon water can help you reach the suggested level of 60 mg per day.

Experience Easier Weight Loss

We can tell you upfront that lemon water is not a miracle weight loss product. Drinking it every day is not the only thing you need to do in order to successfully shed pounds. However, people who do drink lemon water tend to report easier weight loss overall. It is not totally clear why, but it’s possible that drinking more flavored water can help you feel full and satisfied between meals.

But let’s not forget those polyphenol antioxidants in lemon that have been shown to support weight loss in mice. Studies found that lemon reduced weight gain in mice despite a high-fat diet, and insulin resistance was also improved. Human studies are needed to follow up on these promising results.

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Stabilize Your Moods

The same invigorating scent that neutralizes odors can also reduce your stress and keep you feeling calm. That’s why lemon oil is a common ingredient in aromatherapy oils. When you drink lemon, you get the same stress relief plus the benefit of potassium in the fruit. Potassium is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, and high blood pressure is a key factor in your experience of stress.

If you drink your lemon water warm, you’ll experience additional soothing effects. But however you consume it, try reaching for some lemon water before you resort to wine after a particularly difficult day.

Avoid Kidney Stones

Even if you have never had a kidney stone personally, chances are you’re aware of how agonizing they can be. Most kidney stones are essentially calcium deposits, and you can reduce your risk of forming one by getting more citric acid in your diet.

Lemon is a citrus fruit that contains a lot of citric acids – in fact, just ½ cup of lemon juice contains as much of it as medications prescribed for kidney stones. Keeping good and hydrated is also an important part of kidney health, so daily lemon water can be an awesome preventative measure when it comes to kidney stones.

No More UTIs

And speaking of agonizing conditions, urinary tract or bladder infections are incredibly painful as well. It’s honestly like peeing tiny knives when you have one, and unfortunately, they are easy to contract. One way to minimize the occurrence of these infections is to keep your urine alkaline. Though lemons are acidic in their whole form, citric acid produces alkalizing byproducts when it is digested.

Daily lemon water helps maintain an alkaline-leaning pH in the urinary tract. It doesn’t affect the pH in your bloodstream, however. Your kidneys do that work, and diet is not connected to the process. Don’t be taken in by claims that lemon water can alkalize your whole system.

Conclusion

There are lots of reasons that daily lemon water is a good habit, and all it takes is 7 days to see the difference. On top of everything we have already mentioned, proper hydration alone is so important for good health. When your water is more palatable due to the addition of lemon or other citrus flavors, it can be a lot easier to down the ideal amount of 91-125 ounces each day.

We encourage you to experiment with lemon water and see how much better you feel on a daily basis. Just don’t expect it to blast off extra pounds, detox your system (the body does this just fine on its own), or raise your IQ. But for all the great things lemon water can do, we recommend it!

10 Reasons You Need to Stop Drinking Soda Today

Okay…yes, sodas taste good and deliver a powerful rush of energy. They are also widely available, coming packaged with many restaurant meals. We tend to think we are losing money if we don’t take the soda.

But in the long run, drinking soda is not only damaging to your health, but it also doesn’t sustain that energy boost you crave. As you’ll see, there are at least 10 good reasons to give up the habit. Don’t shoot us; we’re just the messenger!

It causes you to gain weight

One soda has more than the daily recommended dose of added sugar, but it doesn’t make you feel full the same way as calories that are eaten. Therefore, the sugar you’ve taken in via soda gets forgotten when making food choices the rest of the day. Your liver doesn’t forget, though.

The form of sugar most commonly found in sodas is high fructose corn syrup, which can only be processed and used by the liver. When you drink heavy doses of HFCS, the liver is forced to convert much of that fructose into fat that gets stored within this vital organ as well as pumped into the bloodstream, ultimately settling around the waistline.

It increases your risk of type 2 diabetes

Drinking just one soda a day greatly increases your risk of developing metabolic syndrome, which involves a cluster of conditions like hypertension (high blood pressure), excessive blood sugar levels, and high cholesterol. Having metabolic syndrome puts you at a much greater risk of eventually developing diabetes.

The body is simply not made to process that much sugar all at once. A soda habit forces the release of an excessive amount of insulin, which eventually becomes ineffective at its job.

When that happens, the body pulls water from all of its cells in an attempt to flush out the extra unprocessed sugar. That’s diabetes, and it can lead to all sorts of further health complications.

It is void of nutrition

There is no question that soda represents wholly empty calories. It has no vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, or fiber. It is simply water, sugar, caffeine, and chemical additives.

Diet sodas are no better, though they contain zero calories. Artificial sweeteners have been linked to several health problems, as we’ll discuss in our next point, and in fact, may cause your body to react in the exact same way as if you’d had the sugar.

Artificial sweeteners can make you sick

Drinking diet soda is just as bad. Data is emerging that non-nutritive sweeteners like aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose may have a negative effect on metabolism, gut bacteria, and appetite.

Some studies suggest that common sweeteners trigger headaches or migraines in people prone to them. But even worse, the incidence of high blood pressure, diabetes, weight gain, and heart disease among people who drink diet soda regularly is no lower than for those who drink the non-diet version.

It destroys your teeth

Obviously, sugar is problematic when it comes to the health of your teeth. That’s because the bacteria that live in your mouth feed on sugar and produce acid as a byproduct. The acid eats away at your enamel, causing cavities.

When it comes to soda, though, it’s not just about the sugar. A recent study published in the journal General Dentistry studied and compared the mouths of cocaine users, methamphetamine users, and habitual soda-drinker.

It found the same level of tooth erosion in all three cases. In the case of soda, the damage was caused by citric acid, which compounds the damage already done by sugar.

It can cause depression

Plenty of things can cause depression, and depression may be mild or intense, clinical or high-functioning.

Still, it is worth noting that the American Academy of Neurology determined that over the course of 10 years, people who consumed more than four cans of soda per day had a 30% higher risk for clinical depression than those who avoided sugary beverages entirely.

Now, four sodas per day is obviously an excessive amount that most people probably don’t consume – we hope. However, if you are struggling with a chronically low mood and using soda for a boost, know that it may be causing more harm than good.

It is harmful to bones

Researchers at Tufts University recently found that drinking soda compounds the problem of degenerating bone mineral density. Our bones naturally become less dense as we age, and the problem is more significant for women than men. That’s why older women especially are encouraged to take a calcium supplement.

The study showed that cola drinkers tend to have a 4% lower bone mineral density than non-drinkers. Part of the problem may be that drinking a lot of soda leads to reduced consumption of calcium drinks like milk.

Caffeine has also been associated with limiting calcium absorption. But another idea is that the phosphorus in colas gets consumed in quantities disproportionate to available calcium and thereby leads to bone loss.

It irritates the skin and eyes

If you want to get honest reporting about the safety of food additives, look to Europe, which has taken the lead in banning substances found to be dangerous to humans.

Sodium benzoate and a close cousin, potassium benzoate, are both common additives to soda. Both are classified by the Food Commission in England as mild irritants to the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes.

Now, maybe you consider “mild irritation” to be worth it, but it seems to us like adding a paper cut to a gaping wound – you were already in dire straits but now are that much more uncomfortable. Stop blaming those itchy eyes and dry skin on seasonal allergies if you are regularly downing sodas.

It causes reproductive issues

The culprit, in this case, is actually the can or plastic bottle you drink from, rather than the soda inside. These vessels are lined with bisphenol A (BPA), a hormone-disrupting chemical.

Federal agencies have agreed that BPA can cause harm to infants at normal exposure levels, and so bottles and sippy cups are now mostly free of the stuff.

However, despite growing evidence that BPA plays a role in infertility and birth defects – and can spike blood pressure levels – the investigation into the effects of BPA on adults has been tabled. It continues to line soda cans and bottles, as well as the containers used for canned produce. If that doesn’t make you angry, what are you taking? (And can we have some?)

They are addictive

Eating sugar causes dopamine to be released in the brain, and that makes us feel good. Humans are hardwired to seek out things that release dopamine, which is how addictive drugs compel users to keep taking them, even as their health declines.

The amount of sugar in soda releases a huge blast of dopamine, and so is especially attractive to the brain.

That feeling is behind the problem of addiction, and numerous studies reveal that habitual soda drinkers consume the drinks in a pattern that resembles that of addictive drug users.

If you have become addicted to soda, you will experience overwhelming cravings, need to drink soda to feel “normal,” and experience physical discomfort when you aren’t able to have some.

For all these reasons and more, it is important to at least limit your intake of soda if you can’t quit altogether. It’s perfectly understandable if going cold turkey is a scary idea.

Try gradually eliminating soda from your diet as you replace it with other healthier options. Plain water is best, but you can also go for sparkling water with a splash of fruit juice if it bubbles you crave.

If what you really need is caffeine, lightly sweetened tea and coffee are much better sources of this. Just remember that ditching soda is the single biggest move you can make to shed unwanted pounds and improve your general health. In the end, it’s a small price to pay for the reward you’ll get.