|
Lean Routine: 6 Muscle Moves!
How can you improve your body fat numbers?
Two words: Move. Strengthen.
Make Your Move
For a truly lean routine, you need aerobic activity and lots of it. Start with 20 minutes of walking, swimming, cycling or dancing three days a week. Or just jump into one of the pleasures of the fall season!
Try raking leaves, picking apples, or exploring the fall foliage from a local nature trail. Most important, build activity into your daily routine. Walk the kids to school (or at least to the bus stop!). Take a halftime break during Sunday afternoon TV football for 30 minutes of the real thing in your backyard.
Add in our classic toning set, and you'll see results!
Consult your physician before starting this or any form of exercise.
These classic favorites strengthen and elongate muscles for lean, elegant body lines. For best results, do two sets of 15 repetitions for each exercise. Complete the series four times a week.
Double Duty
Where It Works: Inside and front of thighs, buttocks and arms
How to Do It: Stand tall with legs wide, feet pointing out. Holding weights*, hang arms in front of hips, palms up. Squeeze buttocks together. Lift abdominals. Don't hold your breath! Bend knees until hips reach mid-thigh to upper-knee range. Keep knees over heels; press inner thighs out. Meanwhile, slowly curl hands up to shoulder height, keeping elbows pinned to sides.
*Use free weights (three to five pounds each), bottles of water or soup cans.
Armed and Sinewy
Where It Works: Back of arms, overall posture
How to Do It: Stand with feet hip distance apart. Lean forward from hips; relax knees. Grasp hand weights*, bend elbows and slowly lift arms toward the ceiling; squeeze shoulder blades together. To finish, straighten arms as if hammering nails into the ceiling. Squeeze the muscles above your elbow.
*Use free weights (three to five pounds each), bottles of water or soup cans.
Outer Limits
Where It Works: Hips and thighs
How to Do It: On a mat or carpet, lay on your side, propped up on your elbow. Stack one leg on the other, with knees bent slightly and feet flexed. Lift your waist; hold your abdominals firm. To finish, raise top leg about six inches while tightening the hip and thigh muscles.
Inner Winner
Where It Works: Inner thighs
How to Do It: On a mat or carpet, lay on your back with your hands at your sides. Lift legs straight up, keeping them together and aligning feet over hips. Feet may be pointed or flexed; knees may be slightly bent. For added back support, slide hands under buttocks. Slowly open legs 20 to 30 inches, or until you feel a slight stretch in the inner thighs. Slowly bring legs back together.
Twister
Where It Works: Abdominals and waist
How to Do It: On a mat or carpet, lie on your back. Bend left leg and place left foot on floor. Place right ankle on left knee. Extend right arm to side, pressing right hand into floor. Position left hand behind head. Press back of waist toward floor; inhale. Exhale and lift left shoulder to right knee, tightening abs as you twist. Don't pull on your neck; keep hips on floor.
Building Up
Once you're comfortable with your aerobic exertion, aim to increase to five 30-minute sessions. For the next level of muscle strengthening, aim for three sets of 15 reps.
Encourage yourself, but don't push too far too fast. That's a quick ticket to injury or burnout. Consistency and quality of form hold the keys to your success. Good luck!
Tell Your Doctor About The Virtual Clinic!
We will be happy to send them more information about The Virtual Clinic Diet and how it can make their job easier.
|
All In Your... Body?
Your chest is pounding, your palms are sweaty, you can't breathe.
Are you having a heart attack - or a panic attack?
Tug of War
Some diagnoses can present a tug of war between mind and body.
Physical manifestations of depression or anxiety, for instance, can send a woman from doctor to doctor, insisting on a "bodily" solution to an emotionally rooted problem.
On the other hand, many physical conditions may cause significant emotional effects that have a woman convinced she needs psychological help. Physicians may even reinforce this message.
These "medical mimics" include anemia; thyroid, adrenal, blood-sugar or hormonal imbalances; vitamin deficiencies and heart disease.
How to know the difference?
Two Sides
Whether you start with a psychiatric or physical evaluation for your problem, you and your health-care provider should be fully aware that there are two sides to the mind-body fence - and not rule out either one in tracking down the cause.
Physical problems may fool patients and doctors alike. Psychiatrist Robert J. Hedaya, M.D., a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical School, admits he once prescribed anti-anxiety medication for a 55-year-old woman whose child was beginning college. A "textbook case" of separation anxiety, he had concluded.
When the woman's panic attacks continued, Hedaya took another look. Her problem, it turned out, was a serious vitamin deficiency.
'Whole Psychiatry'
Thus began Hedaya's pursuit of what he calls "whole psychiatry" - seeking physical causes of psychosocial symptoms.
Hedaya says doctors should look more closely at patterns of seemingly emotional or mental complaints and run certain tests before concluding the complaints are "all in a patient's head."
That's especially true when a problem begins late in life without a likely stress trigger. Hedaya tells of one patient, a 72-year-old woman, who began exhibiting seemingly psychotic behavior. She was eventually found to have an artery blockage and to have suffered a number of small strokes.
Art and Science
Not all therapists embrace Hedaya's approach.
"I think it reinforces the idea that mind and body are separate and that the 'real' symptoms are those of the body," says David Spiegel, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University.
Spiegel allows, however, that medicine, a blend of art and science, is not a "one-shot deal."
You try things, says Spiegel. And if you don't get better, you try something else.
Contact: Medical Weight Loss Clinic®
Email:
info@mwlc.com
Postal:
Medical Weight Loss Clinic®
23625 Northwestern Highway
Southfield, MI 48075
Phone: (800) 340-DIET (3438)
Fax: (248) 355-0475
|
