So, you wanna get in the best shape of your life and have abs of your dreams? It’s not just about hitting the gym and eating clean. Here are the top five things you need to do to be the fiercest you can possibly be!
1. You better sleep, bitch
Think you can have a 12 pack while taxing your body to the max and not sleeping? Think again. While you sleep, your muscle cells grow and repair. If you cut your sleep, you cut your gains. Strive to get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep every night.
2. Stop stressing
Your body has a stress hormone called cortisol. When you are super stressed out, your body is flooded with cortisol making you feel agitated, irritable, and sluggish. Find ways to reduce stress in your every day life — yoga, meditation, taking your dog for a walk, not sweating the small stuff, you know, the usual stress busters.
3. Drink up
Most Americans are chronically dehydrated. Even slight dehydration can impact your performance drastically. Exact recommended daily water intake varies on your weight and how active you are. To start monitoring your hydration, get yourself a gallon of water and try to drink it throughout the day. While it sounds gross, if your pee is darker than the color of straw, you’re dehydrated and need to drink more. And no, vodka sodas don’t count.
4. Exercise and lead an active lifestyle.
Wanna look fit and be fit? You have to move your body. A good fitness program will be periodized and include elements of strength training, mobility and flexibility, as well as cardiovascular conditioning. Seek the help of an accredited fitness professional to get your started. Try to be as active as you possibly can in your every day life. If you sit all day, try to take walking breaks. Take the stairs. Walk instead of driving. Do something active on the weekends instead of sitting all day at a boozy brunch.
5. Eat clean
Your diet obviously plays a large role in the success of your workout program. So much can be said on this topic, but as a very broad recommendation, try to focus on eating fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein, healthy fats and whole grains. Monitor your intake with an app such as Lose It or Fat Secret to ensure you are eating enough, and getting the right ratio of macronutrients (carbs, protein, and fat) to support your lifestyle. Most insurance plans will cover a visit with a nutritionist or dietician. We highly recommend doing this, even if only once, to find out what foods will best suit your specific needs.
So, there you have it. We’re about to dive into the holidays, so make sure that you’re being good to yourself so that you don’t burn out by 2015. Nobody wants that.
The Phoenix Effect, a metabolic bootcamp that gets you in shape fast, is offered exclusively at Mansion Fitness, 7914 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood.
MacAdvisor
“Most Americans are chronically dehydrated.”
According to whom? Drinking too much fluid can, in fact, creating a imbalance in one’s electrolytes. The simple basic rule is if you are thirsty, drink some water.
TrueWords
Sadly during most Americans are throwing these rules out of the window…
1. No sleep due to working longer hours to make money to pay for things that they do not need and DO not need to give to others…also the “late night” sales that we are programmed to chase after…
2. Stress is everywhere to please others and present a HAPPY cheerful situation…now I am NOT a grump but some people need to get away from being all things to ALL people and really deal with a smaller circle to create balance…everyone wants to be the center of things and well it is hard to maintain that mania it usually crashes…I am not one to race all over town to attend parties of people who have not made time for me in during the year…I do not feel the need to make an attendance at countless events when in MOST cases you were invited for the numbers and not the quality…
3. Yes, WATER is essential not sugary caffeinated alcoholic drinks with the slogan…it is “holiday season” so indulge…I do not drink much alcohol and surely not coffee and/or sugary things but capitalism has really made people slaves to these products.
4 and 5. Exercise programs and eating healthy get thrown out the window with the promise of a resolution that starts on January 1st…if you did not do it on May 14th…you ARE NOT going to start on January 1st…that is the most ridiculous tradition that is embraced around the holiday season…stop dieting and start eating balanced…but hey I am in the minority in this mantra
oozyrat
@MacAdvisor: Terrible response. Your brain senses dehydration based on the level of sodium in your blood stream, and sends out a thirst impulse. By the point you sense thirst, you’re already dehydrated. In addition, the body flushes excess water regularly along with breakdown muscle products from exercise, so creating a derangment in your sodium because of too much water takes an extreme amount of fluid. Gauging hydration by the color of urine is the best and most-established way to guide water intake.
TrueWords
@oozyrat: EXCELLENT response…your body knows what it needs and responds in kind…the trick is to LISTEN!!!
MacAdvisor
@oozyrat: I still don’t know of any study indicating “Most Americans are chronically dehydrated.” Dehydration is more than just being thirsty. The symptoms are (from http://www.healthcentral.com/ency/408/000982sym.html the website operate by Dr. Dean Edell):
• Dry or sticky mouth
• Low or no urine output; concentrated urine appears dark yellow
• Not producing tears
• Sunken eyes
• Markedly sunken fontanelles (the soft spot on the top of the head) in an infant
• Lethargic or comatose (with severe dehydration)
I don’t think most Americans are exhibiting these symptoms on a daily basis. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends that men should consume about 3.7 liters (about 13 cups) of water daily and women should consume about 2.7 liters (about 9 cups). A gallon is 16 cups or about three cups more than a man should drink and nearly double what a women should drink. Obviously, these numbers are affected by body weight, heat, and exercise, but to suggest one should drink a gallon of water daily because Americans are chronically dehydrated is simply not supported by any science.
TrueWords
@MacAdvisor: You have taken the definition to its MOST clinical extreme..
TrueWords
Also it is OK to drink water from the tap…
STOP BUYING bottled water…
Either filter it but PLEASE stop buying and producing/wasting more plastic…
TrueWords
The equation for a healthy life is 75% diet and 25% exercise…
Also Americans need to STOP treating themselves to garbage as a measure of a good job…
I also see so many people at the gym downing HIGH calorie drinks when they are STROLLING around not working up a sweat…you are NOT going to burn off all those calories…a banana before working out is sufficient with plenty of water…
Realitycheck
Better yet, no eating before work outs, you need that stomach at rest, not busy digesting and taking blood, the blood you need for a good work out.
Eat after, a small fruit salad and a smal piece of lean protein of your choice.
If you have the time and discipline, follow a moderate good diet, extreme diet get boring and you will drop out, work with long terms goals in……..
Balance your works out as 4 times a week weight lifting 5 minutes warm up cardio and 4- minutes weigh lifting, end with 5 mintes coold down stretch or slow cardio.
And 3 afternoon 30-60 minutes cardio.
You will look like a god and younger, working out does improve your skin as well….
Realitycheck
Sorry for the typo…40 minutes weigh lifting……..