Muscle Up

Health/Exercise Tip: Muscle tissue is the ONLY metabolic tissue designed to burn fat. This is why weight-bearing and resistance exercises will always trump cardio when trying to get lean, tightened, and toned. 

However, if you're a lover of running, but want to lose fat and gain muscle (without "bulking up"), make your cardio routine into a muscle-building one:

Sprint for 20-30 seconds (all-out, like a tiger is chasing you) and then walk for 2-5 minutes. Do up to 6 sets of these per workout session (with rest days in between), and you'll start to lose fat & burn more fat even when you're at rest. 

Keep in mind that your ability to build muscle tissue relies heavily on your recovery (sleep, rest days, food/nutrients, & water). So, do your workout, eat, hydrate, and rest well, and the fat will burn off. 

Go get 'em, tiger.

Move Your Bloomin' A**

It's too expensive or uncomfortable to work out at a gym? 

Solution: Start by walking outside (which boosts your mood/gives you a dose of Vitamin D) or around your house in 5-minute increments, 2-4 times a day.  To build muscle, grab anything around you in your home or outside in nature that weighs even 2-5 pounds...it can be a small child (as long as it's yours), a milk jug, or an inexpensive weighted ball.  

Once you change your mindset, the world turns into your playground!  So, get up and get moving because life's too short to make excuses to not use your beautiful body.

G-e-l-atin....It's Alive

Gelatin is an anti-inflammatory protein that's good for reducing symptoms of fibromyalgia, joint pain, tissue degradation, inflammation, asthma, hives, hyperventilation, the size of cancerous tumors, high blood sugar, insulin resistance, strokes, seizures, insomnia, and more.  It also helps to promote weight loss and the health of hair, skin, nails, tendons, and the gut. 
 

Add a dash to your food, smoothies, and/or post workout recovery drink, and reap the benefits.

You can order Great Lakes Gelatin here www.kinectionholistichealth.com/products

Does Your Water Sparkle?

Sparkling mineral water is an amazing source of nutrition. The carbon dioxide (gas that makes it bubbly) is one of the best anti-oxidants for the body, and gives you life and energy. This fizzy water is an excellent mid-day energizer and post workout recovery drink when added to organic, pulp-free Orange juice and a dash of sea salt.

This helps to prevent the build up of lactic acid (which makes your muscles sore), and it prevents/gets rid of muscle cramps (including menstrual), protects against osteoporosis and the hardening of arteries, slows down the release of destructive stress hormones, and gives you a wonderful mental & metabolic boost. 

Coconut Water Yourself

Coconut Water contains fructose and potassium, which balances blood sugar, replenishes electrolytes, regulates blood pressure, normalizes cholesterol levels, improves mood, increases energy, and helps conduct nerve impulses and muscle contractions.

It's a wonderful post workout recovery drink and mid-work-day boost!

Lift Weight To Lose Weight

Women today have a fear of getting fat from eating and bulking up from lifting. We are taught that depriving ourselves of calories is healthy and that the only way to burn fat is by running a marathon. 

However, this unknowingly leads you to the very body you don't want!

Restricting calories makes your body eat its own muscle tissue when you do not have enough food in your stomach to fuel you through a workout and recovery. 

Since muscle tissue actually burns fat tissue, and you lose muscle tissue when you don't eat enough, increasing the stress from cardio exercise, while on little-to-no fuel (during a time when you should be eating more), is ironically making you gain more fat tissue.
Building muscle can only happen when you lift weights, eat nutrient-dense foods, and rest.

So stop depriving yourselves and running scared, ladies: lift those weights and eat....because science, not a fad, says so!

Photo credit: Heather Grimm