Here are some really quick and handy health and fitness tips that are easy to follow and introduce into your health and fitness regime. You’ll get great results by following these tips. For your convenience I have divided these tips into Nutrition and Exercise. It is important that you realize that your health and fitness goals will require you to find the right balance of healthy eating and active exercise.Nutrition:
When deciding what to eat ask yourself ‘can I grow this or can I catch this’. If the answer is yes then you’ll know that it is a whole food that is healthy and nutritious for you.
Keep all your coffee drinking to pre-noon. This will give you the benefits of caffeine while ensuring that you still get a good sleep. Sleep is a huge part of allowing your body to repair and get rid of body fat.
Green tea is a great replacement for coffee as it helps to keep you alert while putting a lot of anti-oxidants into your body.
Rather than microwaving food to reheat try steaming it. Steamers are a cheap appliance and steaming keeps more nutrients in your food.
Never allow yourself to become thirsty. Mild dehydration stresses the body and is counter productive to your health and fitness goals.
Exercise:
Become an exercise anywhere, anytime kind of person. Bust out 10 push ups anywhere you like. 10 Squats. You’ll soon find that by adding random exercises to your routine your body will get fitter and stronger faster. Your friends might think it’s a little strange that you do exercises here and there but eventually you’ll inspire them to do the same.
Keep your body guessing with a variety of exercises and levels of intensity. Don’t always do hard and fast training and don’t always go for low intensity workouts. Variety keeps your body guessing and gets great results.
Join a club or training group as it is proven that people who train in a group are far more likely to stay consistent with their training over an extended period of time.
Don’t neglect flexibility as part of your training program. Try to stretch for at least 20 minutes a day.
Invest in a foam roller and take the time to learn about self myofascial release. Foam rolling is a great way to prevent injury and to keep your body supple and flexible.
When doing cardiovascular training such as runs/walks work for time. Try and go a little further in the same amount of time. This will help you to increase the effort you are giving on your workouts.
Always listen to your body as far as your training goes. If you are feeling some aches and pains learn to tell whether it is a good pain or a bad pain. A good pain can be related to muscles that are a little sore from your previous workout whereas bad pain is normally sharp and more than gentle walking type pain.
If you can start to incorporate some of the tips above you’ll be well on your way to developing good health and fitness habits. It is impossible to be genuinely healthy without taking care of both aspects of fitness. A healthy lifestyle is something that forms over time as you educate yourself about what to put into your body and how to move your body effectively.
Digital Photography Secrets
If you have ever wondered if there are digital photography secrets, the answer is YES!With traditional photography using an SLR camera you have to be exact with your framing, your lighting, your exposure time, in other words you really need to be an expert to produce good photography with an SLR.Digital photography is a little more lenient. While it always helps to start off with a fairly good image, with digital photography you can edit your picture to bring out the very best.Professional digital photography software, such as Photoshop, will let you do amazing things with your photos. Besides the basic fixes, you can be creative and try all different styles with your image. Photoshop is a great option if you can afford the software.But there are also many free tools for editing your photos, do a search online for “Photo Editing Tools” and you will come up with plenty of options. My favorite free editing tool is Picasa 3, not only does it provide you with the basic tools you need, it works great for organizing your images, and sharing them with friends and family too.Which ever editor you use, follow these 4 simple digital photography secrets.Straighten Your ImageAny good editor will provide you with an option to straighten your image. This is very critical as an off balance photo, unless it is intended to be that way, will have an amateur feel to it. You want your images to be as professional looking as possible, right? I have both Photoshop and Picasa 3, and I actually prefer the straightening tool in Picasa 3. It is very easy to use, and you do not lose any of the image the way you do when you use the straightening tool in Photoshop.Crop Your ImageNow that your image is straightened, if your picture is perfect, leave it alone! But if there is something you do not want in your image, crop it out! The focus of your picture should be on your subject, if there is too much activity around the subject, crop the image down so the focus is where you want it to be.Adjust Your ContrastAdjust the darkness/lightness of your digital photo. If you are using Picasa 3, open up your image, and an editing box will appear to the left. Click on “Auto Contrast” to see what kind of an effect it has on your image. If you find you do not like the effect, simply hit “Undo Auto Contrast”.Adjust Your ColorsSometimes the colors do not come out exactly as sharp and crisp as you would like them. You can do amazing things with editors to fix this problem too! Picasa 3 has a very simple “Auto Color” tool that can bring out the very best in your image.If you do choose to use Picasa 3 to edit your images, after you have gone through the 4 steps you need to save the changes you have made. To do this, click on the “Back to Library” button in the top left hand corner. Now look to the right side, and you will see a button “Save to Disk”. Click on that button, and all of your changes will be applied to your image. It is that simple!Picasa 3 has other great features for editing too. It offers a red-eye tool to remove those scary looking red-eyes from your image, and also a fill light tool for images that came out just a bit to dark.So now you know 4 digital photography secrets that will improve the quality of your digital photos. Give them a try and you will be amazed at how much better your photos will look!
Home Improvement Ideas: Recreational Room
Doing home improvement on your recreational room is the perfect answer in a slow economy. You can improve your home and have many fun things to do as a family in your home instead of leaving it and spending more money.Home improvement ideas include having a professional install carpeting, wood floors or laminate wood floors to your recreational room. To choose which type of flooring to put in your recreational room ask yourself these questions:If I am to put carpeting in my recreational room, will it last? Will there be a lot of children using the recreational room? If there will be a lot of children using the recreational room you may want to opt for wood flooring or laminate flooring. You want everyone to have a relaxed and fun time in the recreational room, not stressed and nervous about spilling on the carpeting.If I buy wood flooring will my dog’s nails scratch the flooring? Will there be a hot tub in my recreational room that will get water on the floor? If you have a dog or multiple dogs you may want to opt for laminate wood flooring. These days laminate wood flooring is very strong and you can even purchase laminate wood flooring with grooves between the “wood” to make it look even more natural.If you live alone or as a couple you may choose wood flooring or carpeting in your recreational room as most adults are more careful with regards to stains and scratching the floor. Remember the choice is yours with the flooring you choose. We are giving you thought out suggestions when you choose to improve your home.Before you hire someone to install the flooring, make sure you add a fresh coat of paint to each room you will be improving. The professional that you hire can also help you choose which type of flooring is best for your home and living situation.If you have a large rec room with a few rooms off of it, you may choose to make the largest room your main room. Many folks like to have this room as their media center. The media center will have a large screen TV, comfortable chairs and/or couch with cup holders. You may choose to add a bar to your recreational room. You can put in a little freezer to keep the ice cold as well as beverages. If you are going to stock your bar with liquor please remember to lock it up.You may also add a game system such as the Wii, PlayStation 3, etc. to add to more fun.A pool table and/or air hockey table, vintage games such as Pac Man and foosball are nice additions to entertain you and your family as well.In one of the rooms off of the recreational room, you may have the floor installer add carpeting or another type of flooring. Use this room to put all of your workout machines in. This can be your quiet workout room. You may want to add the home improvement of having built in speakers in this room so you can listen to music to get you working out even harder. Another home improvement idea is to add mirrors to this room so you can watch yourself workout and your body improve.The other room off of the recreational room can be the room you design for relaxation. You may put in wood flooring, safe tile with ridges on it so no one slips or laminate wood flooring. Beforehand, hire a professional painter to paint the room a comfortable cool color that makes you feel relaxed. Now add a hot tub to the room that fits you, your spouse and/or the size of your family. Add candles and make sure you have a built in speaker or two in this room so you can listen to soft music while you de-stress.Other home improvement ideas include making sure the windows in your recreational room are keeping heat in and the cold air out and vice versa in the summertime. If not, it is time to replace your windows so you can save money on your heating and air conditioning bills. New windows will also improve the look of your home.There are many home improvement ideas you can hire a professional to accomplish so you can create the recreational room you and your family desire.