superadmin

Low-Carb Breakfasts Are A Good Way To Go

Low-Carb Breakfasts Are A Good Way To Go

If you’re grabbing a donut or bagel on the go or choose cereal as your main breakfast, you might be facing issues you could avoid by eating low-carb breakfasts. There are several reasons to cut the carbs. More recent studies have shown these benefits range from improving weight loss efforts to boosting endurance when you exercise. You’ll feel more energized and less hungry if you switch out that bagel for an egg-stuffed potato or grab a ham and egg muffin instead of a donut.

You’ll get a metabolism boost with a low-carb breakfast.

Harvard Medical School conducted a study in 2018 that found people who consumed low-carb meals burned more calories than those who didn’t. The participants that ate these types of meals torched an extra 209 calories each day. While the study focused on eating all meals low carb, you don’t have to. Start your day with a low-carb breakfast can set the pace for the day. According to the study’s conclusion, just cutting back on carbs can boost metabolism.

Eating foods lower in carbohydrates can keep you full longer and curb hunger.

If you eat fewer carbs, you’ll have a better balance of leptin and ghrelin. Ghrelin is the hunger hormone and leptin is its counterpart that makes you feel full. Eating fewer carbs reduces the ghrelin the body makes. A breakfast rich in protein not only makes you feel full, but it also keeps you feeling that way longer so you may not need a mid-morning snack and won’t overeat at lunch. A study conducted at Tulane University School of Public Health in 2016 showed that eating food low in carbs kept people feeling fuller longer than their counterparts who ate a low-fat, high-carb diet.

Your endurance will be enhanced when you choose low-carb foods.

Many studies focus on the best foods for athletes. One study in the Journal of Human Kinetics in 2017 tested athletic endurance based on diet. A high-fat, low-carb diet improved the performance of athletes compared to those who ate a high-carb, low-fat diet. It causes the muscles to burn fat more efficiently and store more energy in their muscles. It was especially recommended for runners and other endurance-style athletes.

  • You’ll help burn belly fat and keep it at bay if you cut the carbs. The fewer carbs you eat, the less likely you’ll be to gain visceral fat that accumulates around your belly and waist. It’s a deep fat that crowds the organs and is the most dangerous type of fat.
  • While some low-carb breakfasts take preparation time, some are quick. Plain full-fat Greek yogurt, nuts, and a few berries, sliced apricots, or apples for sweetness can be a good alternative.
  • If you’ve ever crashed and burned from a high-carb breakfast of sweetened cereal or donuts and had to eat to stop the shakes, you’ll appreciate eating a low-carb breakfast that can help manage blood sugar levels.
  • You might be surprised to find that eating fewer carbs can improve your blood pressure. It also improves cholesterol levels. Many studies show that sugar—the ultimate carb—can increase blood pressure more than salt does.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy


Survive The Holidays Without Gaining 10 Pounds

Survive The Holidays Without Gaining 10 Pounds

If you’re like me, you love spending the holidays in New York, NY. The town is alive with holiday decorations everywhere and the smell of delicious food coming from every doorway. It’s easy to pack on the weight during the holiday times, but it’s not necessary if you take a few precautions. You can enjoy the holidays and all they have to offer without gaining those extra pounds. You just have to make a few small changes and be more aware of what you eat.

Stick with a schedule.

You need adequate sleep and don’t forget to exercise. Both can help you maintain your holiday spirit and keep extra weight at bay. Exercise helps eliminate stress hormones and slow the potential for stress eating. It also burns tons of calories. It may be hard to maintain your sleep schedule with all the extra work holidays require and parties to attend. Make it a top priority. Lack of sleep increases the hunger hormone ghrelin and diminishes the one that makes you feel full leptin. When you have adequate sleep, you’ll be less prone to overeating.

Share your treats.

New York is a melting pot of ethnicity and the food at the holiday times proves it. It’s difficult to choose from babka, Bûche de Noël, melomakarona, kieflies, or other ethnic sweet treats, let alone the other high-calorie holiday foods. If you have several friends who don’t want to overindulge, each person can order a treat and share by cutting them into bite-size pieces. Everyone gets a taste test without overindulging.

Slow down and prioritize.

That’s good advice for everyone, whether you’re fighting the battle of the bulge or not! You can prioritize tasks to help prevent stress and prioritize the food you put on your plate. Start by filling your plate with a large salad. Take smaller amounts of higher-calorie food and save them for last. Eat slowly, chewing each bite until it’s liquid in your mouth. That slow pace gives your stomach time to signal to the brain that it’s full. Savor every bite, noting the texture and taste. It’s called mindful eating and can help reduce the amount you eat at every meal.

  • Don’t deny yourself a treat that you only get once a year. Just don’t do it often. Keep portion size in mind and enjoy every bite. You don’t have to feel deprived. Stop eating when you’re full.
  • Take a walk after dinner with the family. It could start a new tradition. Walking helps digestion. Make it a brisk walk to burn a few extra calories. You might be surprised how many people love doing it.
  • Drink a big glass of cold water about twenty minutes before mealtime. Studies show people eat less when they do. The water fills them without adding extra calories. If it’s cold, it burns a few calories.
  • Don’t skip any meals on the day of your celebration, especially if there are high calorie treats for grazing. Eat something light and healthy before you leave the house so you’re not ravenous when you arrive.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy


Teenage Mental Health And The Role Of Fitness

Teenage Mental Health And The Role Of Fitness

People are becoming more aware of the need to focus on teenage mental health. While many factors affect the complex issue of mental health, fitness is one of those that can be dealt with more easily. Technology has created a generation where sitting with a screen in front of your face is considered having a social life. It’s created more stress on teenagers at a time when physical activity has decreased. Physical activity burns off the hormones of stress and makes people feel less depressed and anxious.

There’s a mind-body connection.

Besides burning stress hormones, exercise helps improve the gut microbiome. The microbiome includes the trillions of microbes, both beneficial and harmful, that are part of the digestive system. Some beneficial microbes affect mood. There is a microbiota-gut-brain axis that affects mood and thinking patterns. Exercise can increase the microbes that help prevent depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and eating disorders.

Building strength and endurance builds confidence.

When teens work out and build strength, it improves their posture. Improved posture can build self-esteem. When people, teens or otherwise, have good posture, it makes them look more confident, so people treat them differently. They treat them as though they are more confident. Teens learn what they live. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and they become more confident. Improved confidence can help eliminate anxiety and depression.

Studies show that exercise can help reduce depression and anxiety.

Many studies have shown that exercise can help reduce anxiety and depression. It’s so well-known it’s used as an adjunctive therapy for depression and anxiety. It is as effective as many of the drugs used and the only side effects are beneficial ones. It makes sense to include it as a preventative, as well. Including physical activity in the lives of every teen could help prevent undetected mental health issues and treat existing, detected ones.

  • Physical activity as part of every teen’s life can improve both mental and physical health. Striving toward fitness goals can help teens to develop the mental strength to reach other goals.
  • Both physical activity and diet are vital to maintaining teen mental health. They determine the physical health and affect the microbiome that directly affects the brain.
  • Adequate sleep aids in determining a teen’s mental health. Exercise improves the quality of sleep and makes it easier for teens to fall asleep. The better quality of sleep a teen achieves, the better the mental health.
  • There’s a direct link between the rise in obesity and the rise in teen mental health issues. Changes in dietary habits and decreases in physical activity have added to the obesity epidemic.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy


Importance Of Staying Hydrated

Importance Of Staying Hydrated

Staying hydrated seems like it’s too simple to be important. Drinking a glass or bottle of water when you’re thirsty is all you need to do. It’s simple, but like breathing, vital to your existence. There’s not one amount of water necessary per day, even though 8 cups is generally accepted. The amount of water you should drink varies. It’s based on activity level, surrounding weather, your metabolism, and size. Your overall health, alcohol consumption, and age play a factor, too. The extremes of age, the very young and old have less bodily fluid, so losing a small amount can cause dehydration.

Water plays a role in many functions.

Water is necessary for every system in your body to function properly. It helps prevent a build-up of bacteria in the bladder by flushing it out regularly. It plays a role in digestion, carries nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and cushions the joints. Water aids in keeping your body temperature normal and maintaining electrolyte balance. It helps keep blood pressure normal, while also preventing constipation.

Dehydration can make you tired.

If you reach for a cup of coffee when you get tired, try a glass of water instead. Coffee acts as a diuretic, so you may end up with sum zero benefits. While water can help eliminate fluid build-up and water weight caused by too much sodium, it does not act as a diuretic as coffee does. Even though coffee still provides some hydration, water does it better and doesn’t cause headaches or a racing heart. The next time you’re tired, drink a glass of water. You’ll feel more energized almost immediately.

It’s not just water that helps keep you hydrated.

You do get fluid from food. If you’re thirsty, watermelon probably sounds pretty inviting. It’s because of the juice. Sometimes, the body doesn’t differentiate properly and mistakes thirst for hunger. It can cause you to eat more to satisfy the urge. The next time you think you’re hungry and nothing sounds satisfying, have a glass of water. You’ll be surprised at how your hunger might fade. You’ll be surprised at how your hunger might fade.

  • Dehydration can cause delusion, particularly in older people. It’s often mistaken for dementia. Many seniors become dehydrated because they don’t recognize their thirst or fail to drink water to avoid constant bathroom trips.
  • Sipping on water throughout your workout can help boost the session’s productivity. It increases your energy by keeping you hydrated. Unless you’re doing a long, intense workout, you don’t need a sports drink to replace electrolytes.
  • Your brain and lungs are approximately 73% water. It’s no wonder you get a headache when you’re dehydrated. If your joints ache, drink a glass or two of water. It often helps, since it lubricates the joints.
  • Drinking more water can give you a youthful appearance. It can give you more pep and help prevent the skin from drying and looking less plump. Adequate hydration helps prevent premature wrinkling, particularly around the eyes.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy


Abs Are Mainly Made In The Kitchen

Abs Are Mainly Made In The Kitchen

There’s a reason we focus on personal training at Upfit Academy in New York, NY. It allows us to find the best way to help you accomplish your goals. If you’re working toward six-pack abs or just a flat stomach, working out alone may not be enough. Great abs start in the kitchen. No matter how strong your abdominal muscles are, or how much they ripple, if they’re covered in a layer of fat nobody can see them and your tummy will still look puffy.

Focus on food that builds muscle and burns fat.

Getting rid of that layer or two of fat is paramount when you want a beach body everyone will admire. No matter how many planks or suspended sit-ups you do, fat can hide your progress. If your body is shrouded in layers of fat, you may be strong and have rippling muscles, but the rest of the world will just see fat. Fiber can reduce a round belly. Slow digestion can spoil your appearance. You can avoid the bloating appearance it causes by slowly increasing the fiber in your diet. Fiber also helps you lose weight by making you feel fuller and longer.

You need healthy fat.

Healthy fat helps burn fat. It sounds counterintuitive, but consuming the right type of fat can help you lose weight and get that shredded appearance. Healthy fat includes olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil. Unhealthy fat that packs on the pounds are trans fats. Instead of eating fried food, use olive oil on a salad to help you lose weight.

Increasing the protein in your diet can increase fat burning and reduce your appetite.

Consuming meals high in quality protein can help lower the potential for excess body fat. A high protein diet also provides the materials to both build new muscle tissue and preserve already existing muscle tissue as you lose weight or convert fat tissue to muscle tissue. A diet higher in protein is linked to less belly fat which can hide all your efforts in the gym.

  • Even though building great abs starts in the kitchen, you still have to go to the gym to get results. Vary your workout and include more core exercises. Most are compound exercises that also burn more calories.
  • Don’t forget to include herbs and spices in your diet. Ginger, black pepper, red pepper, cinnamon, and mustard seed can help. Cinnamon is proven to reduce insulin resistance, which is responsible for the accumulation of belly fat.
  • If you’re eating highly processed food, fried food, or food with added sugar, you won’t get the results you want. All of these cause inflammation and can lead to increased belly fat that hides your toned abs.
  • Instead of cardio, use strength building to get rid of fat and show off your abs. When you do cardio, it burns tons of calories, but they come from both muscle and fat tissue. Strength training burns fat.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy


How Your Eating Habits Affect Your Skin

How Your Eating Habits Affect Your Skin

If you’re having a problem with dry skin, it may come from your eating habits. It doesn’t matter what type of skin you have, what you eat plays a role in your skin’s health. If you eat salty food, you could end up with a puffy look from water retention. The right type of diet can promote collagen production which makes your skin look more youthful. Your skin is the largest organ of your body, so it makes sense that, like your other organs, it’s also affected by your diet.

Beautiful skin starts on the inside.

While some creams and lotions can help protect your skin from the elements, they don’t provide the same benefits as a healthy diet. No matter what you pay for a cream, it won’t help. If you don’t eat a healthy diet, your skin shows it. It requires the basic building blocks to be beautiful. To complicate matters a bit, each person is different and has different skin types. Each skin type requires modifications to diet to help it look and be its healthiest.

You can help oily skin with a healthy diet.

If your diet consists mostly of fried foods, you’ll have problems with your skin. It can cause cellular damage to all skin layers. That can lead to acne, cysts, early aging, and a dull, ashy skin appearance. A diet high in oxidized saturated fat leads to poor circulation that affects the entire body. It can cause skin to lack the ability to retain moisture, creating the opposite problem of dry skin. You need fat in your diet to create cells that make you look your best but it has to come from healthy sources. Eating food high in omega-3 fatty acids, like fatty fish, can improve your skin. Avocados and walnuts also contain healthy fats.

Drink more water for improved skin.

Drinking water may sound too simple, but it’s excellent for dry or older skin. Adding juicy fruits and vegetables also helps. They provide hydration and nutrients your skin requires. Tomatoes and grapes are two of those foods. Tomatoes contain vitamin C, beta-carotene, lutein, and lycopene. They can help prevent sun damage and are necessary for healthy skin. Red grapes provide hydration. They also contain resveratrol, a potent antioxidant that prevents skin aging.

  • Avoid overdoing alcohol. Too much alcohol dries your skin. Another dehydrating drink is coffee. It’s high in caffeine. Even though green tea is high in caffeine, it also contains catechins that prevent sun damage and improve hydration, elasticity, and thickness.
  • The catechins found in green tea are powerful antioxidants that can protect your skin against sun damage and reduce redness, as well as improve its hydration, thickness, and elasticity.
  • Highly processed food and food with added sugar causes inflammation. It can negatively affect all types of skin, including those with acne. If you have acne, increase foods high in zinc or vitamin C, like pumpkin seeds or red bell peppers.
  • Bone broth is high in collagen, which can reduce wrinkles. Cocoa can also provide antioxidants for aging skin. It reduces wrinkles and improves skin thickness, blood flow, texture, and hydration.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy


How To Lose Weight...Without Dieting

How To Lose Weight…Without Dieting

You can lose weight without dieting by changing a few of your habits. Of course, you still can’t increase your consumption of unhealthy food like pastries and sweets or highly processed food like burgers and fries. You can reduce your calorie intake with simple changes, like chewing slower. When you eat too fast, it doesn’t give your stomach time to message the brain it’s full. Chewing your food longer helps you eat less before that happens. It decreases food intake and is a simple way to lose weight.

Increase your protein intake.

Protein takes a longer time to digest and makes you feel fuller longer, which causes you to be less hungry so you eat less at the next meal or don’t snack between meals. Eating protein at breakfast, rather than cereal, can keep you full until noon. Consider an egg instead of just a bowl of cereal or toast. Studies show increasing protein consumption is linked to weight loss.

Trick your eyes with smaller plates.

Using smaller plates makes you feel like you’re eating more, but it’s just an illusion. It’s a great idea if you go to a buffet. Use a small dessert or salad plate for each trip. Eat slowly and if you go back for seconds, you’ll probably get less food. If you use a big plate, make it for lower-calorie foods, such as vegetables and salads. When eating in a restaurant, opt for healthier baked or grilled food, rather than fried.

Make your own food at home.

You can create healthier meals and get an additional bonus, dividing them up into individual serving sizes. Restaurants are businesses that need to make money to survive. They often use less healthy options when they cook to reduce the cost. It may be why a 2017 study found that people who made meals at home tend to gain less weight than others who eat in restaurants frequently.

  • Just like protein, fiber fills you and keeps you feeling full longer. Foods high in fiber are also lower in calories. Soluble fiber feeds beneficial microbes in your gut that can also help you lose weight.
  • Drink more water. A glass of water before a meal can fill that empty spot in your belly and help you eat less. It also can boost your metabolism and increase your energy so you burn more calories.
  • Get more sleep. Lack of sleep causes the body to make more ghrelin—the hunger hormone—and less leptin—the one that makes you feel full. Adequate sleep helps you eat less. It can boost your energy level so you burn more calories.
  • Cut out soft drinks, including diet drinks. Studies show that diet drinks can add inches to your middle, while the high sugar content of regular soft drinks packs on the pounds. Drink more water, unsweetened tea, and black coffee.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy


How Fast Can I Lose Weight?

How Fast Can I Lose Weight?

At Upfit Training Academy in New York, NY, our mission is to help you reach your goals as fast as possible. Whether you want to bulk up, increase endurance, or lose weight, we find the most efficient and healthiest way to help you do that. All fitness goals are based on one principle, consistency. You can’t instantly change from a couch potato to an Adonis overnight. You can, however, speed up the process by using the best, most effective, techniques to reach your goal.

Weight loss is all about the numbers.

To lose one pound, you have to have a 3500-calorie deficit. The average person burns anywhere from 1600 calories to 3000, depending on weight, age, gender, body mass composition, and activity level. If you use 2300 as an average the maximum you would burn in a week is 16,100. That means if you had an average weight and activity level and ate nothing for a week, the most you could lose would be 4 ½ pounds. Of course, that’s not sustainable or even realistic. You have to eat something to be healthy and survive.

Start with a healthy diet.

Upfit Training Academy focuses on developing healthy habits and keeping the weight off permanently. You’ll learn to choose healthier options that are lower in calories and help boost your metabolism to burn more calories. The best goal to set is 1 to 2 pounds a week. If you are severely overweight, you’ll lose more. Cutting calories too low for long periods will put your body into starvation mode and your metabolism slows. You’ll also develop healthier eating habits that can keep weight off permanently.

We’ll help you with exercises that torch calories.

If you increase your activity level, you’ll increase the number of calories you burn each week. Using the best types of exercises to burn calories should be your goal. While cardio torches calories, the energy comes from both fat and muscle tissue. Muscle tissue uses more calories for maintenance than fat tissue does, so the more you have, the more weight you’ll lose. Strength training also torches calories while building muscle that helps you burn even more calories. Modifying your workout and creating a HIIT—high intensity interval training—workout also torches calories but in far less time.

  • The more you weigh, the more calories it takes to do everything. It’s like carrying 30 or 40-pound weights constantly, so you’ll burn far more than the average person. You can cut calories more dramatically and lose weight faster initially.
  • Weight loss is all about consistency and developing new habits. Yoyo weight loss is hard on your body and bad for your health. You may lose several pounds, but it’s usually water-weight that returns quickly.
  • Never try to out-exercise a bad diet. It’s impossible. To lose weight faster, you need to eat healthier and reduce your calorie intake as you increase your activity level.
  • Our trainers will help you lose as much weight as quickly as is safely possible. Losing weight too fast can cause gallstones, depression, and wrinkled skin. We’ll help you find the healthiest option.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy


How Exercising Can Be A Stress Reliever

How Exercising Can Be A Stress Reliever

If your day is hectic and it feels like the top of your head is about to blow off, take a break and go to the gym. You’ll end up leaving more refreshed and ready to handle those problems. That’s because exercising is a stress reliever that can help clear your mind and boost your energy. Stress saps you of your power and exhausts you. Exercise helps you get back to normal and function at your peak. There are scientific reasons to back this.

Scrub out the hormones of stress and replace them with happy hormones.

Stress hormones prepare your body to fight or run. It’s an automatic reaction to danger. That response sometimes serves a purpose, but for most of today’s stresses, it’s not appropriate. Can you imagine the problem an employee would face for punching a boss or what would happen if you abandoned your car and ran away in a traffic jam? Exercise burns off those hormones and replaces them with ones that make you feel good. It’s normal body chemistry and helps the body deal with pain and stress.

You can escape the world when you work out.

The continuous rhythmic movement of exercise acts like a meditative chant. It allows your brain to take a break from the problems of the day and focus only on body movements. Many runners describe the feeling they have when they’re in stride. They hear nothing but the sound of their feet on the pavement and the rhythm of their steps. That laser-sharp focus extends to the gym, whether lifting weights or doing squats. It turns the focus inward, just as meditation does.

Doctors now use exercise as a complementary treatment for depression and anxiety.

Stress can cause anxiety and depression. Besides professional therapy, many now use a program of exercise to help patients instead of medication. Studies have found that it helps relieve symptoms of depression and anxiety as much as most drugs and it doesn’t have negative side effects. Exercise not only releases endorphins, but it also boosts circulation. Sending more oxygen and nutrient-laden blood to the brain can improve your mood and clear your mind.

  • You’ll sleep better when you work out. Higher quality sleep can improve your mood and the quality of the following day. When you combine exercise with having fun, it improves the results more dramatically.
  • You’ll improve your posture when you work out and help prevent aches and pains. Feeling better physically can reduce stress. Improved posture makes you look and feel more confident and less stressed.
  • Exercise improves the gut microbiome. The microbes in the gut affect your physical health, and also your emotional well-being. By increasing the diversity and the population of beneficial microbes, you’ll be giving your mood a boost, too.
  • Changing your diet to a healthier one can also play a role in stress reduction. A diet high in sugar increases stress, while one with less sugar and more whole foods is beneficial for the mind and body.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy


How Fitness Helps With Mental Health

How Fitness Helps With Mental Health

There’s a direct link between fitness and improved mental health. If you focus on living a healthier lifestyle, which includes getting adequate sleep, regular hydration, eating a healthy diet, and exercising regularly, you’ll feel better both physically and mentally. Therapists now use exercise as a complementary therapy instead of prescribing drugs. They found that exercise can bring the same benefits without any negative side effects and with many positive benefits.

Stress hormones can cause a problem.

If you’re under stress the body prepares to run or fight. It’s the fight-or-flight response hard-wired into our brains. Unless you run, fight, or do some other type of movement mimicking either, the changes made remain. It can leave you in a state of panic, affect digestion, and cause other damaging physical changes that worsen with time. Exercise helps burn them off, reverse the changes, and produce neurotransmitters that help you deal with pain and make you feel good.

Your body needs sleep to feel your best.

Exercise improves and increases the quality of sleep. Getting adequate sleep is important for mental health. If you’re tired, it’s easier to feel more emotional about situations that might not bother you otherwise. Your brain reorganizes during sleep and repairs itself. It cleans out the accumulated waste and increases lymphatic fluid to help avoid mental decline. Exercise also boosts circulation. The increased circulation brings nutrient and oxygen-laden blood to the brain to clear away the cobwebs and help you see situations with more clarity.

Your diet affects your mental health.

Your gut has trillions of microbes that aid digestion and affect both the body and mind. What you eat determines the population of microbes. The microbes produce enzymes and send signals to the brain. Other microbes produce short-chain fatty acids that regulate the nervous system and help prevent anxiety and depression. Food high in soluble fiber feeds the bacteria that make our bodies stronger. Food high in sugar feeds harmful bacteria. A healthy diet is also beneficial to the body. Eliminating food with added sugar can reduce inflammation which can affect mood.

  • Studies show a reduction in aggression occurs when you increase omega-3 fatty acids and reduce the amount of omega-6 fatty acids consumed. It also can reduce inflammation which takes a toll on mental health.
  • Staying hydrated is also important for mental health, especially in seniors. Even mild dehydration can cause changes in seniors that resemble dementia. It can cause brain fog and irritability in younger people.
  • What you eat affects the production of neurotransmitters produced in the gut. Much of the serotonin in the body is produced there. Serotonin is responsible for mood shifts and many other functions.
  • Studies show that endurance training can improve memory. It helps build new brain cells and neural links. Several studies suggest that exercise may be a good complementary treatment for Alzheimer’s and dementia.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy