Ways To Set Weight Loss Goals Efficiently

There’s a lot of reason why it’s a good idea to lose weight. But if you need one that isn’t about looks, then how about pain management? Keeping your weight under control is actually helpful when it comes to back pain prevention which has been rising and becoming more common nowadays. You're more likely to suffer from low back pain if you are overweight or obese, or quickly gain a significant amount of weight. Being overweight, especially in the mid-section, shifts your entire center of gravity forward and puts additional strain on your back muscles. Try to stay within 10 pounds of your ideal weight to avoid experiencing unnecessary back pain. To help you lose weight successfully, here are some tips to plan better on how to do it because it all starts on the goal setting.

Be Specific

Don’t just say you’re gonna lose weight. Determine why you want it for, how much you want to lose and how exactly are you planning to do it. Let’s say you’re trying to lose weight to reduce your back pain, then don’t just kill yourself at the gym or start starving yourself because while you may see results doing those, it’s also very likely that you’ll develop other problems along the way.  

So first, you should look into where you’re at weight-wise. Keep a record by writing it down or making a note on your phone (whatever works for you) so that you can stay on track. And then know how much you want to shed since having that figure whether it’s 10 lbs or 50 lbs allows you to see if you’re progressing or not. Lastly, you should really get into the details on the steps you’re thinking to go about it. Like you should plan your meals, know the foods that you can and cannot eat. It also helps to schedule your workouts so you’re more likely to stick to it.

Set Short And Long Term Goals

It’s important that you have both short and long term goals when you’re trying to shed pounds. Why? Because while the long term goal, which let's say losing a total of 40 pounds, is the finished product that you want to achieve. The short term ones, like losing 5 pounds every month, allows you to stay motivated and focused on reaching your ultimate goal. If you only think of the 40 pounds that you wanna lose, it’s easy to be discouraged or get lazy along the way since it’s gonna take some time before it happens. But if you have mini goals every week or month of the journey, the whole thing won’t feel much of a struggle because you can see that you’re getting close to what you want in the long run.

Examples of short term goals that can help you reach your long term ones are:

·         Switching into healthier alternatives of your usual meals or snacks.

·         Limiting alcohol/soda/fast-food to once a week only.

·         Cooking your own food at least for one meal a day.

·         Drinking a glass of water every hour.

There are a lot more that you can make adjustments to in your daily life depending on your routine and lifestyle but setting even those tiny goals keeps you more accountable to your plans.

Stay Realistic

Biting more than you can chew is a surefire way to failure. Understand that you didn’t gain the excess weight that you have overnight. So do not assume that the transformation will happen overnight too.

Set goals that you know is within your capability and probability. Now, what does that mean? It means the goals that you should set, both short and long term, should be realistic and achievable. If you normally eat out due to your busy schedule and have never exercised before, then don’t plan on home cooking 3 meals a day 7 days a week and/or going to the gym every single day on top of that. Chances are, you wouldn’t last a week and you’ll drop the whole weight-loss goal.

Cooking your own food is the best way to limit things and be more in control on what you feed your body. But if you’re really busy, then just commit to cooking at least your own dinner and packing your own snacks at work. Once you’ve gradually worked out your schedule to that and have gotten used to it, then you can slowly try to wake up a little earlier and make your own breakfast. This way you have two main meals and snacks that are healthy and then accept that packing your own lunch may not just be feasible since you don’t have more time to cook in the morning and allow yourself to grab whatever’s convenient in your cafeteria. Planning it this way makes it easier to accomplish thing more often than forcing yourself into unrealistic goals and then beating yourself up when you can’t do them. That just defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

When it comes to exercising, especially if you have an office job where you sit a lot, admit to yourself that you may not be able to do it as consistently as you would like to. So don’t be disappointed with yourself if you can’t go to the gym every day. Just find ways to move more wherever you are. They say sitting is the new smoking. Not only can sitting for an extended period of time cause health issues, it also a reason why you might be struggling to shed pounds since insufficient physical activity leads to that. So if you have a deskbound job, even find ways to interrupt sitting or squeeze more exercise in your routine like taking the stairs to your office instead of the elevator counts as a workout. Sedentary lifestyle causes some people not only gain weight but also develop musculoskeletal conditions which can make losing weight even more difficult. If this is your case, better consult a chiropractor right away to address your condition accordingly which when treated can help you lose weight in the process.

Establish Your State Of Mind

Remember that weight-loss goals can also be behavior goals, or “state of mind” goals. These types of goals include:

·         Eat slower

·         Pay more attention to the Nutrition Facts labels and ingredient lists on food products

·         Stop negative “self-talk,” such as telling yourself you’re fat or incapable of change

·         Change the direction in which you walk or drive to avoid food temptations

A behavioral change could include meditation classes to help alleviate stress, which in turn could help you eliminate stress-related behaviors such as eating junk food for comfort. It could also be staying abreast of new research that relates to diet, pain, and the connection between the two. And, of course, when it comes to weight control and overall health, any physical activity you can safely do, including walking, is much better than no exercise at all, can help boost your spirits, and could give you a little more leeway in your diet.

Stay Open Minded

If you want to successfully change your lifestyle to achieve your goal, know that you have to be flexible. Even if you've started to adapt healthy habits, always keep in mind that things may not work according to your plans every single day. Let’s say you’ve been making your own breakfast and dinner for weeks now but due to events or hectic work schedule, you couldn’t do breakfast. That’s okay. Use that opportunity to find a place to grab breakfast that’s still healthy. Or if you couldn’t go to the gym as planned, then just find 5-minutes within the day to do simple but compound workouts at home or during breaks at work to maximize the time.  You don’t have to actually follow your weight loss plan to a T. Improvise if you must or take alternative routes that still leads to the same direction of your plan. Try new things or different ways to achieve your goal and you might just learn that you have a lot of options to choose from when time or circumstances are working against you. They may not be what you’ve set out to do but if they’re healthy habits and changes then you’re basically still on track.

What To Eat When Trying To Lose Weight

When people try to shed pounds, the automatic action is to restrict certain foods in their diets. But this mindset only makes your body feel deprived which will only result to relapse in your diet in the long run. Why not think about the foods that you can eat that can give your body what it really needs while helping it lose weight?

✔ Watermelon

If you have sweet tooth, instead of grabbing artificial sweets, opt for a juicy fruit like watermelon. It will serve the same purpose and provide anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties at the same time.

✔ Cucumber

We know cucumber has high water content which gives the feeling of fullness but won’t pack on pounds because it’s a low-calorie food. Plus it has vitamin K that helps with blood clotting.

✔ Apples

The saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” couldn’t be truer. This fruit is packed on fiber that helps slow down body’s breakdown of carbohydrates and absorption of sugar. As a result it helps control blood sugar. Aside from that, it’s great for those who suffer constipation as it promotes movement of material through digestive system.  

✔ Berries

It’s high in fiber and rich in antioxidants. Aside from that, it has low glycaemic index which is known for preventing blood sugar level from spiking and crashing.

✔ Vegetables

Most veggies have high water content while some have high fiber content. Both of these are good when trying to drop pounds since it helps you feel full longer and helps cleanse your digestive system.

✔ Tomatoes

This fruit also help your satiety because of its high water content. It comes with vitamins A, C, and antioxidant lycopene that is not only good for the heart but also lessen risks of some cancers.

✔ Green Tea

Instead of coffee, why not reach for a cup of green tea? It’s not only calories-free, but is also full of antioxidants, improves cardiovascular health, decreases inflammation, and controls hunger pangs while hydrating your system.

✔ Celery

Do you know why models snack on celery? That’s because it’s a vegetable that reduces bad cholesterol, it contains “good” salts, which is organic, natural, and essential to health unlike table salt that retains water in your body, has diuretic and cleansing properties, and only contains 10% calories!

✔ Grapefruit

By including even just a half of grapefruit in your breakfast, you’ll be able to keep hunger pangs at bay which means you won’t feel the need to snack in the middle of the morning.

✔ Kale

No, the hype about Kale is not over-rated. It actually helps your lose weight! How? Well, it has low calorie content, it suppresses your hunger, and it is a nutrient-dense food, which means your body gets the energy that it needs without negative effects like eating fried foods.

It’s important that to be healthy, you must focus on getting fit not just becoming thin. So instead of constantly trying to depriving your body of foods, try focusing on providing necessary nutrients for your body. Aside from that, it’s also possible that the reason why you’re not losing weight is because you think that you only have to do one thing to make it happen which is go on a diet. What you may not realize is that losing weight and keeping that weight off relies on maintaining as healthy lifestyle. This is why chiropractic care aims to treat the body on a holistic level, meaning its goal is to not only provide immediate relief from issues such as back pain, but to help the body heal and manage itself from the inside out, so it's less likely to face other health issues such as weight gain.

Chiropractors in Singapore now incorporate weight loss, nutrition, and exercise counseling into their treatments because losing weight won't just reduce back pain and other musculoskeletal symptoms, it will slash your risk of a number of medical conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure. So remember, it’s not just about the numbers you see on the scales so don’t just aim to be thin, you should instead work towards improving your overall health and you’ll see how everything just falls into place including your weight.

5 Tips From Top Trainers To Quickly Improve Your Athletic Performance

Whether you work out for fun or to stay fit and healthy, you must want to up your game in some way or another. To do that, here are some tips to take your fitness to the next level which can help you Build muscle, gain speed, and improve agility.

1.      Relax And Release

Massage from a therapist or self-massage AKA self-myofascial release (SMR) with foam rollers, massage sticks and even baseballs can reduce muscle stiffness, promote circulation and induce a state of relaxation in the muscle, although research has been equivocal. It might be painful during, but SMR can be performed the night of a hard workout to remove scar tissue, adhesions in the muscle and restrictions in the fascia (a type of connective tissue that wraps around the whole body).

2.      Activate Your Muscles

Warm Up is just as important as the workout itself. So, just as you need to complete an exercise to the last count, you need to do the same to your workout. Don’t cut it short thinking you’ll get the same benefits in the actual exercise. Know that your body can’t go from 0 intensity and blast into 10; you have to ease into it. And you do that by warming up for at least 15 minutes before going right into your work sets. If you do this, you’ll notice that you’re more flexible and you don’t feel as strained to exercise. Bands do wonders for your body. Muscles contract and react to the band’s resistance, which gives you the ability to stabilize joints.

3.      Sleep

Aside from not being able to train at your best, lack of sleep inhibits your body’s ability to store glycogen, increases your body’s level of cortisol, and create damage in your growth hormones. All of these affect muscle growth. Getting enough sleep allows your body to repair muscles and keep your hormone levels up. So basically, sleeping is your body’s way of going into repair mode. Therefore, as you become renewed when you wake up, you are able to train harder and better.

4.      Keep Yourself Hydrated

When trying to work on a goal body, people tend to focus a lot on their workout routine and diet plan, so much that they miss out on hydration. You need to keep yourself hydrated not only because it helps you from feeling overheated but also because drinking water helps regain energy and because your body needs liquid to avoid your muscles from drying out which can affect your muscle growth.

5.      Opt For Active Recovery

Not giving your body time off from training can over exhaust your muscles, especially if you always do high intensity workouts, and lead to plateau. But if the idea of idling around doesn’t sit well with you either, better incorporate low-intensity exercises like walking and swimming in between your regular high-intensity ones. This way, you get to stay active without overdoing it.

If you are going to take the time to exercise, then you probably want to get the most out of the time you are in the gym. It’s important to remember that to achieve this it doesn’t just mean going to the gym is enough, it also mean you should be doing it right.

One way that people are finding to be beneficial for getting the most of their fitness routine is through chiropractic care. That’s because it helps reduce the pain by keeping your spine in alignment, opens your range of motion since properly aligned spine allows the joints and other areas of the body to work more efficiently, and strengthens bones and muscles because when your back is aligned that’s less stress and extra work for your bones, muscles, and joints which results to them being able to do their job better.

Having said those, it would be a smart move to seek chiropractic care every after exercising especially in a tropical country like Singapore. This way you’re not just maximizing your effort and results in working out but you can also avoid getting injured while doing so. You may be able to get your health in tip top shape and gain the maximum benefits from your exercise routine with the help of chiropractors in Singapore as well as set you up for long term health and wellness.

Causes Of Lower Back Pain And Chiropractic Care

Hectic work schedule, chaotic family life, crazy partying, trying to look perfect in social media. Nowadays, the demands of modern living can really take a toll on your health, no wonder most people are complaining about lower back pain.         

   

However, while the stress of daily living can no doubt bring all sorts of pain to your body, sometimes low back pains are also due to health conditions. Here are some most common causes of low back pain.

Subluxations

Also known as misalignments. This means some vertebrae in the spine are not in their normal position. Unless these subluxations gets corrected or adjusted by a chiropractor, it will continually cause pain. Aside from pain, misalignments can also lead to systematic dysfunction and disease.

Disc Herniation

This condition may not show symptoms like lower back pain. However, it may bring intense and debilitating pain in other parts of your body. What’s worst is that it doesn’t heal completely but you can prevent it from deteriorating further by seeking regular chiropractic care.  

Sprain, Strain, And Spasm

If you’re the type of person who has little to no physical activity during weekdays, then tries to do extreme ones during the weekends, you’ve probably experienced this already. Overworking your muscles and ligaments leads to small tears in the tissues and cause sprain, strain, or spasm. Consult a Chiropractor here in Singapore for early detection and treatment.

Stress

As mentioned above, with the modern lifestyle majority of us have nowadays, stress will be a part of your life too. While a little stress is a good motivation, too much of it can lead to muscles becoming weak, sore, and loaded with trigger points which often materialize as low back pain. If this is your case, knowing how to take a break is often the key. If there’s no sign of improvement, time to consult a professional.

Chiropractic Care

Chiropractors in Singapore are aware how fast-paced life is in the Lion City which often results to people suffering from low back pain. But through spinal manipulation, the pain can be relieved, it also gets to the root cause of the problem, and prevents it from coming back. Therefore, you longer have to live with pain relying on painkillers that just numbs the pain without actually treating the problem itself.  

Athletes And Other Celebrity On Chiropractic Care

Just when you think chiropractic care is exclusive to back pain sufferers and is not really a known form of alternative medicine, here are some famous personalities to prove you wrong.  

Tiger Woods, American Professional Golfer

“I’ve been going to a Chiropractor for as long as I can remember. It is as important to my training as the practice of my swing.”

Could you imagine how would his swings be if chiropractic care wasn’t a part of his routine?

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hollywood Actor And Former Mr. Universe

“Chiropractors are miracle workers”

If his spine weren’t in good shape, lifting all those weights to build his body which won him Mr. Universe back in 1969 would be next to impossible.

Mel Gibson, American Actor And Filmmaker

"Chiropractic is about health and fitness. Chiropractic is about natural, preventive health care. What you are doing, and I have experienced this for the last 30 years myself on my own body, means that whenever I have a problem—or even if I don’t have a problem—and I go to a chiropractor, my problems are gone for a long time."

Chiropractic care is not only about relieving pain, it’s also about health maintenance.

Marlo Thomas, American Actress, Producer, And Social Activist

“Chiropractic solved my neck and shoulder pains; it put me back on my feet. I think chiropractic is great!”

Neck and shoulder pain doesn’t have to be endured because chiropractic don’t just eases the pain but also goes to the root of the problem and eliminate it.

Peter Fonda, American Actor

“Regular chiropractic adjustments go hand in hand with good health.”

Eating healthy and exercising is good, but combines it with chiropractic adjustments will give you great results.

Melvin Belli, Prominent American Lawyer

“I had headaches for over 30 years until I tried chiropractic. They have completely disappeared.”

Aside from treating neck, shoulders, and back pain, chiropractic can also help with headaches, sleep disorders, high blood pressure, premenstrual discomfort, inflammatory bowel disease, and more.

Lou Waters, CNN Today

“I like to go to the Chiropractor at least once a week and have done for the past 20 – 25 years. I feel better when I go; I have more energy”

Always feeling tired? Go for regular chiropractic adjustments and you’ll start feeling and having more energy.

Dan O ’Brien, Double Olympic And World Championship Decathlon Gold Medalist.

“You obviously can’t compete at your fullest if you’re not in alignment. And your body cannot heal if your back is not in alignment”

Proper alignment in your spine is crucial so that your body can function well and to allow your body’s natural healing process.

Top 8 Things That You Should Know In Order To Do Push Up More Effectively

Push up is one of the most difficult forms of exercises out there. In fact, some people still struggle with it even if they’ve been doing it for some time. While others just don’t do it because for some reason they’re arms gives easily or they can’t push themselves up at all. However, it is also a great full body workout that can really train your muscles to work together and become stronger. If you’re still determined to reap the benefits of this work out, but like many others still find it difficult, here are some tips that may make it easier and effective for you.  

1.      Tighten Your Core

One of the reasons why it’s so hard for people to do it is because they rely on their arms alone to do all the work. In this case, you’ll naturally feel like your back is dragging you down. What you can do is engage your core fully so that your body is perfectly still. With this posture, this movement becomes easier to execute.

2.      Turn Your Hands Out

Your hands are crucial for support as well as how your arms, shoulders, and elbows will move. If they’re not coherent when it comes to their movement, it can put a lot of strain on your wrist. Try rotating your hands outward until your index finger is pointing forward and you’ll notice the difference.

3.      Dig Your Fingers Into The Ground

Instead of letting your finger lay flat on the ground, how about you dig your fingers as if you’re grabbing onto it for support. This will engage your forearm muscles more for added support and reduce the strain on your wrist.

4.      Focus On Your Butt

Always remember that your back should always be neutral, not arching up or dragging down. To be able to achieve this posture, focus on your butt. Adjust your butt to engage your hips and core for better posture. This way you engage your core better and shift the weight correctly.

5.      Keep Your Head Up

Beginners often feel like they have to look down while doing push-ups. However, when it comes to push up, it’s important that you keep your spine straight, which includes your neck. So, keep your neck muscles relaxed but your head firmly in place to reduce risk of strain.

6.      Less May Be More

When working out, it’s crucial not to be cocky. Instead of forcing a lot of counts, it’s always best to focus on perfect posture first. In this case it’s better to do 3 perfect push-ups instead of 10 push-ups with bad posture.  Once you’ve mastered the posture, then you can add reps as you go. It’s also important that you visit your chiropractor regularly for injury prevention and treatment which often happens when working out.

7.      Spread Your Hands

Most instructors will tell you to put your hands directly beneath your shoulders to perform a push-up. But that could actually strain your wrists and reduce your range of motion. Although chiropractic care is a great treatment for musculoskeletal injuries like this, it’s still best to avoid it as much as possible. Instead, spread your hands just slightly wider than shoulder width. You'll find the muscle engagement and ease of motion will improve with a wider hand placement.

8.      Do It Daily

You can’t expect yourself to be good at push-ups at one try. Like anything else, you become better by doing it frequently. This way you also build the strength necessary to be able to pull off perfect push-ups. Do a 30-day challenge, starting with 1 push-up on Day 1 and adding one more for each day. By the end of those 30 days, you'll be much stronger!

These seemingly simple tricks can make a huge difference in your push-up performance. It also helps that you keep your body in check for possible underlying issues that may be making push up harder for you like spinal subluxation or shoulder/elbow problem. If you happen to get a little sore, that’s obviously normal especially if you’re a beginner in doing push-ups chiropractic adjustment can help you with pain relief as well as treating spinal subluxation.