When It’s Hard to Get Moving

So many moms today are overweight – thanks to stress. This causes us to build up terrible looking gut pots and flabby underarms and all sorts of problems. Many of us are working moms that simply have no time to for frivolous activities like exercise!
Exercise should form an integral part of any sensible weight loss program Taking up exercise always accelerates the effectiveness of sticking to a weight loss diet plus taking no exercise is bad for your heart and your general health in any case.
On the other hand, there is no need or sense in trying to become a decathlete overnight if you have done nothing more strenuous than lifting your coffee cup in the morning for the past few years. Take it easy because if you try to do too much exercise too soon, you are likely to injure yourself which will prevent you undertaking the exercise that you need to take.
Start off by walking as far as you can as quickly as possible. It doesn't really matter if the first time you go for a walk, you can only manage half a kilometer very slowly. Go out the next day and try to get a few hundred meters further at a slightly increased pace and gradually build up your distances and speeds from there.
Alternatively, you could take up something that is perhaps more gentle but nevertheless equally aerobically beneficial such as swimming. Swimming has the advantage that it exercises every muscle in the body at the same time, plus there is no shock on your joints (particularly your knees and ankles) as there might be if you are walking or jogging.
As you may have realized by now, one of the ironies of losing weight is that you almost always lose weight quicker when you are larger, with weight loss inevitably slowing down the closer you get to your target weight. Thus, it might be tempting to do a little bit more exercise than you should do more quickly than is advisable in an effort to shift the last few stubborn pounds.
If you're going to do this, it is far safer to do so in a swimming pool than it is to try to get rid of the extra weight running further and faster than you have previously on hard tarmac or concrete.
Perhaps you think that you don't have time to take exercise but leaving aside for the moment the fact that you have to get exercise if you want to lower your blood pressure, there is always a way of doing least some exercise.
For example, if you use public transport to get from your home to the office every day, how about getting off the bus or subway a few stops early to walk the last few hundred meters? You might need to leave home five minutes earlier in order to be able to do this but setting your alarm clock to wake you just that little bit earlier should not be a major problem when compared to the benefits that doing this will bring.
If you travel by car and work in an office block, how about climbing the stairs instead of using the elevator? A few flights of stairs represent wonderful aerobic exercise, exactly the kind of thing that you need to give your heart and body a good workout. If on the other hand you have not got the time to do this in the morning, take 10 minutes of your lunch break to do some stair climbing.
Remember, whilst one of the primary reasons that you're doing exercise is to help accelerate your metabolism in an effort to shift some weight, it is also a fact that exercise helps to make your general lifestyle far more healthy and conducive to lower blood pressure.
Hence, even after you hit your target weight and presumably find that your hypertension problem has dissipated or perhaps even disappeared altogether, you should nevertheless continue with your daily exercise routines. Whilst you're no longer exercising to lose weight, you nevertheless need to maintain your reduced weight if you want to keep your blood pressure levels low so taking a reasonable amount of exercise two or three times a week is absolutely essential.

Home Made Sports Drink!

A couple of summers ago researchers from the University of Connecticut's Department of Kinesiology showed up at youth soccer and football camps on the East Coast to study how kid's rehydrate themselves after exercise. What they found is that most kids did not drink enough and that most of them became very dehydrated day by day. By the end of the four day camp between half and three quarters of the kids were seriously dehydrated. This happened despite the fact that there was lots of water around to drink. This is partly because kids just don't think to drink water.

The reason your kids need to stay hydrated is because even alone percent to two percent reduction in body mass through perspiration reduces aerobic performance. Kids weight less than adults so water loss is a very serious thing because in just 90 minutes of exercising without enough water their core temperatures can increase very rapidly.
In a Canadian study, when the kids were offered grape-flavored water, they voluntarily drank 44.5 percent more than when the water was unflavored. And when the drink included 6 percent carbohydrates and electrolytes — when, in other words, it was a sports drink — they eagerly downed 91 percent more than when offered water alone. Does this mean that the parents should be stocking their refrigerators with Gatorade, Powerade or the new Crayons sports drinks for kids (
Some experst say that they will likely drink more of a flavor they like as compared to water, and will benefit from the carbs and electrolytes. Furthermore the salt in these drinks increases the body's ability to retain fluid.
The problem is that sports drinks are not exactly healthy for anyone. They are just sugar water with salt added. They have also been linked with obesity and weight gain.
Sports drinks are also really expensive. Why not try making your own version using the recipe below.
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup hot water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 1/2 cups cold water
In a quart pitcher, dissolve the sugar and salt in the hot water. Add the remaining ingredients and the cold water. The drink contains about 50 calories and 110 mg of sodium per 8 ounces, approximately the same as for most store bought sports drinks.