Exercise and sports are two of the best ways to gain muscle fast. There are other modalities as well. What you should know about gaining muscle fast is that the muscles you use the most tend to get bigger and stronger, while the muscles you use less get weaker and smaller. What are the best tips to gain muscle fast?

1. Calculate how many calories you need to build a bigger physique. The calories you need to grow actually depend on your current weight, your age, and your gender. If you lead an active lifestyle, it will also affect your calorie intake needs. The equation for this is simple: What is your current weight? Multiply that by 20. So if, for example, you weigh 130 pounds, multiply that by 20 and you’ll get 2,600. That’s how many calories you need to start building muscle. That is a considerable number. You may be surprised that you need the intake of food with that many calories.
2. Jump-start your muscle-building program by exercising your large muscle groups. You’ll want faster and bigger muscle gains, and the best way to do that is to start your muscle-building process with a bang. In this case, work on the large muscle groups first, such as the chest, back, and leg muscles. Involve these muscle groups in your exercise routines at least once a week. Along the way, your muscles will increase their tolerance for weight lifting. Shock your muscles by regularly changing the weights you lift. When you started your first week of training, you may have used 100 pounds when doing your bench press. You can build muscle quickly if you pack on 10 pounds in your second week of training. Add 10 pounds each week for the next several weeks of your muscle-building workouts. Apply this measure for each exercise on the other parts of your body. This technique is called progressive training and it ensures that your muscles do not become stagnant. It’s a training strategy that keeps your muscles growing. Every week, you will see yourself grow.
3. Regularly change your exercise routine. Your training may consist of working on two parts of the body three times a day. You can change that by training one body part every day for six days a week. On Mondays, you could be working on your chest and biceps, and on Wednesdays on your back and triceps. You can change that to chest and triceps on Monday and back and biceps on Wednesday. As your exercises put more stress on these muscle groups, they force your body to build more muscle.
4. Partial lifting is a good idea. Do you lift weights for 3 sets to the end? You can do this with a partial lift technique of doing 1/3 of the weight on the first set, 2/3 on the second set, and doing full lifts on the third set. Reverse your loading progression where you lift more weights on the first set and less on the second and third sets.
5. Take muscle enhancers and muscle building supplements. Incorporate nutrition into your muscle building program. Examples of supplements you can take are creatine, protein, and glutamine. It’s not that you have to rely solely on supplements for your muscle-building nutrition, but you can use them to augment your diet.

It takes time to build the muscles that will make you look good. Despite these tips to gain muscle fast, expect to gain 5 to 10 pounds of muscle each year as healthy progress. Gain muscle fast with the right exercises, nutrition, and lifestyle so you can achieve the lean, attractive physique you want.

Seventy (70) is the new Forty (40). To many of you that sounds like a lot of BS, as you sit there with aches and pains in places you never knew you had. I’m 70 years old, so I know how you feel. As we age, our metabolism slows, muscle mass shrinks, and our hormone and neurological responses diminish. However, those facts being what they are, recent studies at the University of Alabama Center for Exercise Medicine (Role Tide) for you Bama fans have indeed verified the claim that seventy (70) are the new forty (40) . Several of his studies show that we Baby Boomers, or older adults, can achieve muscle growth and strength. The key is constant effort. If you push yourself to exercise consistently and follow a fitness plan, you will see results. I am not suggesting that you try to bench press in New Jersey and run a Forrest Gump marathon, but rather that you follow a fitness plan that consists of at least thirty (30) minutes three times a week. Seeing the results may take a little longer, but studies indicate that if you are consistent, the results will be the same as when you were forty. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have the physique of a well-toned person in their forties than a sagging person in their seventies and older.

As I mentioned earlier, I am 70 years old and have been following various exercise schemes for over 50 years, long before it caught on. With that being said, my advice is first, and most importantly, to check with your doctor and make sure they give you the go-ahead to start your fitness plan. Once you’ve been freed to start your outline, start with the basics, at a slow to moderate pace. Your training scheme should be basic, but work your entire body.

Let’s start with some basic terms:

(SETs) A set refers to the particular exercise for the particular muscle group in your fitness plan. Example of biceps curl. Our goal is to do three sets of each body part with a minimum of eight (8) repetitions and a maximum of twelve (12) repetitions. Once you achieve twelve (12) repetitions, you need to increase your weight. As with all exercises, once you reach twelve (12) repetitions, without much resistance, increase the amount of weight by 2 1/2 to 5 pounds. It is a judgment on your part.

(REPS.) Reps is short for repetitions, or the number of times you repeat a particular exercise movement. Example Eight (8) repetitions.

Shoulder Width: Place your feet shoulder width apart.

A BASIC OUTLINE:

1) WARM UP: First of all, I like to take a short walk of about ten minutes, on a treadmill or in nature, to get my blood flowing and all parts of my body to relax.

2) Push-ups: to start with 5 to 10 push-ups. If you can’t do a normal push-up, you can do them standing up and pushing yourself against a wall. The idea is movement, wall push ups will still work your chest muscles and triceps.

3) Stretching Bans: Grasp the bans with your hands and place your elbows by your sides, feet shoulder-width apart. Pull the bands across your chest. Do eight (8) repetitions to start. When you buy bans, they will come in various resistance strengths. At first, choose the ban that offers the least resistance. Once you increase your reps to twelve (12), move on to the next ban and start over with eight (8) reps. building back up to twelve (12) repetitions.

4) Dumbbell Shoulder Exercise – Dumbbells come in various sizes starting at 2 1/2 pounds and going up. Bowflex has a convenient dumbbell system that eliminates having a lot of dumbbells. Basically they are two dumbbells that you adjust to the desired weight you need. With that being said, I would start with 2 1/2 or 5 pound dumbbells. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Push the dumbbells up over your head, keeping your feet shoulder-width apart, and then lower them to the top of your shoulders; do eight (8) repetitions. Once you accumulate twelve (12) repetitions, increase your weight.

5) Biceps Curl Using Dumb Bells: Stand tall, feet shoulder-width apart. Using ten (10) pound dumbbells, place them in your hands, arms at your sides and palms facing forward. Curl the dumbbells up to the top of your shoulders, then lower them to your side, always keeping your palms facing forward and your elbows tucked in at your sides. Start with eight (8) repetitions. and work up to twelve (12) repetitions.

6) Tricep Pushdowns – While holding a 2 1/2 or five (5) pound dumbbell in your right hand, lean slightly forward from the waist, and at the same time bring your left leg in front of your bent body, bending slightly the left. leg. Rest your left forearm on your knee or upper thigh. Pulling the dumbbell up along your right side at waist height, reach your right arm behind you, then bring it back to the side of your waist from where you started. Do eight (8) repetitions working up to twelve (12) repetitions. Reverse this position and do the same with your left triceps. I know this sounds a little weird, but it’s a great exercise. Basically you just lean forward and spread your weight behind your body in a straight line.

7) Squats: For beginners, I would just use your body weight. Stand up straight, feet shoulder-width apart, as you squat, push your buttocks out by leaning slightly forward at the waist. I wouldn’t get past a half squat position. As with the other exercises in our fitness plan, start with eight (8) repetitions and work up to twelve (12) repetitions. However, with this exercise I would increase the reps to at least 25 before considering using weights.

8) Lunges: As with squats, I would start with no weights. Stand up straight, extend your left foot by bending both knees simultaneously and lower as far as you can go, don’t overreach, also keep in mind that you need to focus on your balance. Come back up to your starting position. Do eight (8) to twelve (12) repetitions. Repeat this for your right leg. I wouldn’t consider using lunge weights until I could do 25 reps per leg.

Items I found helpful are elastic bands, cable machines, like (Bowflex), dumbbells, and walking on a treadmill or just walking in nature.

Lose Weight While You Sleep – Wow!

I have many clients who constantly ask me how to lose weight, but very rarely do people consider the fact that you can speed up your metabolism while you sleep. I think this is because most people associate fat loss with hard work and high intensity exercise. This is definitely true, there are no quick shortcuts to achieving the body you want. However, there are little tricks you can do to help increase the number of calories you burn.

So let me explain how to burn fat while you sleep, losing weight while you sleep is one of the easiest tricks to burn more fat. The first tip that is probably the most important is to increase your overall resting metabolism.

In addition to increasing your RMR (resting metabolic rate), there are other solutions for losing weight while you sleep. One such solution is to focus on specific types of training that break down more muscle tissue.

Weight training in general has been shown to be the best way to break down muscle tissue safely and effectively. Slow reps with heavy enough weight are one of the best ways to maximize hypertrophy, or muscle breakdown and gain.

When your muscles break down, it takes time and energy (also known as calories) to repair the damaged muscles. So if you do weight training and break down your muscles, while you sleep at night your muscle tissues will use calories to repair themselves.

The other very effective and simple way to lose weight while you sleep is to have a meal rich in fat and protein before bed.

Although a high-fat meal before bed sounds a bit counterintuitive, trust me, give it a try. Fat slows down the digestion of any food we just ate. So if I eat a piece of steak, it will most likely take a lot longer to break down than a whey protein shake.

Don’t eat fat after your workout because you want the protein to break down and get to your bloodstream and muscles as quickly as possible. To further slow the digestion of the food you eat before bed, have a slow-digesting source of protein. Again, whey protein is not very slow-digesting, but there are many slow-digesting protein sources to choose from. This, combined with the fat, will literally create a weight loss dinner.

Protein sources like casein, cottage cheese, milk, pork, steak, chicken, turkey, salmon, and nut butters. Be careful with nut butters because a macronutrient that we do not want to have before bed is carbohydrates. Nut butters typically come with carbs, so if you were trying to cut down and lose weight, you’d probably avoid them altogether.

I hope I have helped answer the question of how to lose weight while sleeping. Go have a weight loss dinner that is high in fat and protein.

A great weight loss plan strikes a good balance between a healthy diet and an active lifestyle. It sounds so simple in theory, yet most of us who want to lose weight find it difficult to stick to this philosophy alone. What’s worse is that we’ve read a tumultuous amount of literature on the “proper” or “best” way to lose weight, and somehow end up getting even more confused.

When you commit to losing weight, you need to make sure that you choose a healthy weight loss plan. You may be wondering how you can make sure that the weight loss plan you are about to do is the right one for you. Well, simply put, it’s all about watching what you eat and making sure you’re participating in an active sports or exercise program. For people who are on the brink of obesity, it’s best to consult a fitness coach or nutritionist to ensure you get professional advice on the best weight loss plan to suit your needs and lifestyle. However, for people who have put on a bit of weight and want to live a healthier lifestyle, here are the top five features of what constitutes a truly healthy weight loss plan.

one. Proper nutrition on single item diets

There are no shortcuts to healthy eating. To your benefit, simply avoid any weight loss plan that urges you to eat only one food. Most people are under the impression that if we only eat foods that increase our fiber or protein intake, we are good to go. It’s worth emphasizing that healthy weight loss means eating a well-balanced diet from all the food groups. Hunger and food deprivation will definitely crash your system in the long run. You may lose weight temporarily, but this will only foster an unhealthy relationship with food. The key to remember is moderation.

2. calorie conscious diet plan

Being aware of what you eat is the first step to healthy eating. The best way to do this is to follow a plan that allows you to track your calorie intake. Being aware of how many calories you are eating is an essential part of losing weight. Many of us find it tedious to count calories. However, a healthy weight loss plan ensures that you get just the right amount of calories your body needs to burn for energy. There is no need to eliminate caloric foods from your diet. Just choose a diet program that is convenient for you to calculate the number of calories you need to lose a certain amount of weight. Reading food labels is a good start.

3. Portion management, water intake and weight loss

Calories aside, a good weight loss plan should encourage you to cultivate portion control. Once again, there is no need to deprive yourself of food. A good weight loss plan allows you to exercise your inner discipline to mindfully eat in moderation and in reasonable amounts to keep yourself satisfied and healthy at the same time. Additionally, proper hydration is a key factor in healthy weight management. Most of us take water for granted. We don’t drink enough water during the day. Worse still, we forget how important water is for a healthy life. Proper hydration plays an important role in detoxification. Drinking 8 or more glasses a day flushes out all the toxins, waste, and even excess water, leaving you feeling light, healthy, and fit. It is even a good technique to enhance satiety at mealtime.

Four. training program

A good weight loss plan should include a regular exercise program. Regardless of the type of sport or exercise you want to participate in, being active is an important requirement for healthy weight loss. Be sure to engage in gradual change. Nothing too intense at first, then slowly increase the intensity to ensure proper body conditioning. Many people who have gained weight have lived sedentary lifestyles for a long time, so it’s important to get active slowly but surely to avoid injury and ensure long-term success. You need to start gradually, say 20 minutes a day. You can start by simply taking a walk or jogging in the park. Over time, you can increase the intensity and duration of your exercise program to avoid a grind and stay challenged. Just like a well-balanced diet, there’s no shortcut to losing excess fat than moving your body around. An exercise program is also a great way to improve your mood and self-esteem in the long run.

5. A weight loss plan that fits your lifestyle

Losing weight the healthy way is basically one big lifestyle overhaul. You don’t have to worry about this long-term goal. Choosing a healthy weight loss plan should require an evaluation of the lifestyle you currently have. To ensure that you can meet your weight loss goals, plan a weight loss regimen that allows you to continue living the way you want without compromising your health and happiness. If you’re a career-driven individual who’s always on the go, choose a weight management plan that doesn’t require 24/7. Better yet, find inspiration in the current lifestyle you have and extend it to your healthy living goals. Busy people can stick to an evening or weekend schedule for their exercise regimen. Eating healthy foods when you’re always on the go requires some meal planning and time management. There is always a way to tailor a good weight loss plan regardless of the demands of your career or family. You just have to manage your time well and commit to making healthy choices.

Let’s face it, some of us are really sick of doing our standard traditional cardio routine on a regular basis. It seems like they are running like hamsters on the infinite path to nowhere, ie the treadmill just doesn’t seem to work. Sure, you could take your mind off the tedious task by plugging in your ipod or watching one of the big-screen TVs your gym might have next to the treadmills.

However, the truth is that if you can watch TV or even hold a conversation while doing your cardio, you are not working hard enough. While I’m certainly not totally against regular cardio practices like jogging or biking, this article hopes to show you some alternatives that will get your blood pumping and get you breathless.

Take, for example, a movement that is most commonly performed with dumbbells, barbells, or kettlebells called the clean and press (often abbreviated to C&P). You lift the barbell/dumbbell off the floor to your shoulders, then push the weight toward the ceiling so your arm is straight over your head. Reverse the action to lose weight. You may be reading this thinking it sounds more like a weight training exercise than a cardio one, but I’m sure after just 10-15 reps with a fairly challenging weight, you’ll definitely have a racing heart rate and shortness of breath. .

This exercise alone is much more effective in the long run than running for 40 minutes on a treadmill to lose weight. Also try one-arm dumbbell snatches to feel the benefits. Your body gets a great workout and your mind has something to focus on. Really focus while doing these exercises and you may even find that your attention span and work capacity can improve as well.

For the busier types, why not try doing five minutes of intense, energetic exercise? For example, five minutes of lunges, push-ups, squats with little to no rest between sets. Five minutes is all it takes and if you don’t feel like you’ve just finished running by the end of these, then you couldn’t have been working hard enough.

Try these exercises the next time you don’t feel like jogging, switching up your exercise program routinely will do you a lot of good.

WHAT IS NOT THE BEST WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM.

The best weight loss program is probably NOT about diets, diet pills, fad diets, or even dieting! While this is about physical activity… we’re all adults here, I’ll use the word… exercise… It’s NOT about pushing your physical limits, embarrassing yourself in front of the neighbors, joining an expensive gym, or hiring a trainer staff. It is NOT about joining a cult, avoiding friends, alienating your family, eating only unattractive and unappetizing food, or feeling guilty and depressed. Above all, you should NEVER try to BE ALONE in your fight.

WHAT IS THE BEST PROGRAM TO LOSE WEIGHT!

Simply put, the best weight loss program is the one you stick with. Let’s tweak that a little bit and say it’s a healthy, doable, rational, flexible schedule that you’ll stick with…it works!

THE BASIC FACTS ABOUT DIET AND WEIGHT LOSS!

Diets don’t work. Yes! It’s that easy. Oh, if you want to drop 5 or 10 pounds to look good at your sister’s wedding, a crash diet might do the trick. But if you really do have a weight problem, as you do with more than 50% of Americans, it’s a lifelong condition and requires lifelong measures. However, do not consider yourself doomed to a life without pleasure and happiness, and do not give up. Go back and read the first paragraph, and realize that there are things that CAN be done, and YOU CAN. In the meantime, however, let me cover a few facts. Quick and dirty. You can scan them and get the basics. This article is not going to be big enough, or intimidating enough, to include everything.

WHY DIETS DO NOT WORK.

Diets don’t work for many reasons, physical and mental, but I don’t have enough space here to cover them all. The main reason why a diet won’t work is that your body has some really effective self-regulation mechanisms. If you deprive yourself of your expected calorie intake over a period of time, you will adjust to need fewer calories. Although you’ll eat less (and definitely not enjoy it), your body will adjust to a new pattern and your weight will stabilize with only a small weight loss. Worse yet, when you stop dieting, as you know you will, your body will maintain its new level of calorie needs while you return to your old eating habits. This brings us to another point.

THE BASIC LAW OF WEIGHT INCREASE AND LOSS.

Everyone’s body works at its own pace and needs, but everyone follows the same law. If you eat more calories than your body needs, it will store the excess as fat. Bottom line. Done. End of discussion… almost. Using the information in the previous paragraph, you can see that when you go off your diet and go back to eating as before after your body has adjusted its needs downward, you now have MORE EXCESSIVE CALORIES TO STORAGE AS FAT! This is why people often GAIN WEIGHT after a diet…or a series of diets.

SO WHAT IS THE BEST WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM?

As you can see, you are back at the beginning of this discussion, but with a bit more information. We can still say that the best weight loss program is the one you stick with, and now you know a little more about why. Since everyone is different, the obvious fact should be that what you need to find is not THE best weight loss program, but YOUR best weight loss program…the one YOU will follow. The big question on your mind is…

HOW DO YOU FIND “YOUR” BEST WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM?

There are many things you can do to improve your health, your life and your personal weight situation, such as drinking more water, getting enough sleep, doing things you enjoy, for example. All of these can contribute to weight loss, but let’s look at two things for now.

1. Get more active: Notice, I avoided saying “exercise.” Oh! I said. Look, exercise equals activity. If you want to do the Richard Simmons and “Sweat to the Oldies” tapes, more power to you. If you choose to buy a Bowflex and in a few months you look like Grandma in her TV commercials, that’s great! However, chances are you just need to make a few lifestyle adjustments and become more aware of the opportunities that exist to “work out” in everyday life. Sure, a planned and scheduled exercise program is great, but so is walking, gardening, swimming, cleaning the house, or… well, you get the idea. The only need is for it to be regular, at least 4-5 times a week, and challenging.

Only you can assess what is challenging. What is challenging today can be just walking to the mailbox and back. One lady started her “exercise program” with that one simple step (no pun intended). Another gentleman started her program by walking to the end of her block. That first day she thought she couldn’t even go back to her house. A few weeks later, she was walking over a mile. At one point in my life, he would regularly run 6+ miles at a time. However, the first time I tried to run, I didn’t make it even half a block. The key is to get started, do it regularly, and challenge yourself.

Becoming more active not only burns calories during activity (remember, the more calories you burn the less stored fat), but continuing the activity over time (I was going to do it regularly) shifts your body to a new level where automatically burns more calories than before. The facts behind this aren’t complicated, but they require a lot more space than we have here, and I said I was going to stick to the basics.

People drop out of “exercise programs” for many reasons. For your purposes, do the activity that fits your schedule, choose the activity you enjoy, and vary the activity…if you cleaned the house yesterday, go for a walk today. By the way, if I tell you to exercise, go for a walk, you might start that avoidance process that causes people to abandon formal, planned exercise programs. Why don’t you take the grandkids to the zoo? If that’s not a workout, I don’t know what is. Be creative. It’s your “exercise program”, make it how you want it to be.

2. Eat sensibly: You know how you SHOULD eat, right! Return to basic. Lots of vegetables, reduce portion sizes, eat an apple instead of a cake or chocolate bar. Get the sugar out of your life. There are all kinds of diet tips out there. Not one of them is worth a hill of beans… but a bunch of them add up to a lot more than a hill of beans. Changing just one thing probably won’t make a huge difference, but… IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Changing seventeen things can make a world of difference, but there’s a secret…

Don’t try to make all seventeen, twelve, or thirty changes at once. Start with one change and once it’s a part of your life, make the next one. You may want to learn a bit about Kaizen. Baby steps in the area of ​​nutrition will help you get where you want to go, just as taking that little walk to the mailbox may one day lead to walking a mile or two at a time.

HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO STAY ON THIS WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM?

Well, for the rest of your life. That’s why it’s important to choose activities you enjoy and learn how to make better nutritional choices while still enjoying the pleasure of eating. Also, many people have trouble losing weight because they have personal problems with life. Your personal weight loss program, regular activity plus nutritional common sense, equals a feeling of control over a situation that has many negative effects on your life. A sense of control over that situation allows you to eliminate many of these negative effects and move on to reorganizing other parts of your life that may need attention.

One last point. I’ve kept it as simple as possible, but it’s based on a lot of information. If you really want to create the most effective weight loss program for yourself, you’re going to have to learn a lot more than you probably know now. The public library is a good place to start, as is the Internet. Be aware, however, that many people will try to tempt you with diet pills and quick weight loss plans. Stay focused on a lifestyle change that will last a lifetime. Even if diet pills, fad diets, and things like weight-loss belts or devices that are supposed to work for you work, their effect is short-lived (and sometimes dangerous) and, as noted above, once you off the pill or program you may regain even more weight than you lost.

A FINAL ADVICE:

Find a weight loss buddy. Share your goals and the information in this article with them. Make sure they are on the same wavelength. You might want to walk with them, you might want to shop with them, but most of all, if there’s no one else who understands what you’re going through…they will, and that’s worth more than gold.

Giving up sugar was one of the most significant achievements of my life. I am the world’s foremost recovered sugar addict (!!).

While sugar is the most addictive food there is, it doesn’t affect everyone that way. One of the key factors in sugar addiction is susceptibility.

I am one of the susceptible people and have had strong reactions to sugar all my life.

How can you tell if you are susceptible to sugar?

Well, it’s often genetic.

Do either of your parents have hypertension? Diabetes? obesity? Alcoholism?

What about depression? Or hypoglycemia (low blood glucose)?

Do you have an apple shaped body type? (This really matters if you’re a woman.)

Do you display any of these behaviors around sugar: compulsion to eat it, loss of control over how much you eat, failed efforts to quit, cravings?

Does sugar interfere with your health? Does it cause you to isolate yourself, miss important events, or use excessive exercise, self-induced vomiting, or laxatives to counteract the effects of the sugar you eat?

If any of these sound familiar, you may be addicted to sugar. But what if you gave up sugar? How could that change your life?

What Sugar Recovery can do for you

Sugar, actually, the high insulin it causes, promotes inflammation and disease: diabetes, prediabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cholesterol, obesity, cancer, and more. Quitting sugar can reverse many, if not most, of those. In fact.

Sugar can cause mood swings, anxiety, depression, irritability. Quitting smoking can help reverse mood problems and make you feel good.

Masses of sugar with your energy. It can make you lethargic and sleepy all day. Quitting smoking can restore your energy levels.

Sugar makes you eat more. Giving up sugar can help you regain control of your appetite.

Sugar makes you want junk food. Change your food preferences so that you want sugary and/or high-fat foods. Quitting smoking can make healthy foods look good again.

What else can sugar recovery do?

If you’ve recently given up alcohol, sugar can make you crave and even lead to a relapse. Quitting smoking can help prevent that and make you feel much better during your (continuous and hopefully permanent) recovery.

Quitting smoking can make you a better role model for your children.

• Show them how you handled a big problem.

• Show them you mean what you say.

• Reverse previous health problems so that you are present at the key events of your life.

• Behave differently to treat them as they deserve.

• Become more ‘equivalent’ and less reactive in order to better handle other things as well.

In this and other ways, giving up sugar may be one of the best things you’ve ever done for your health, your attitude, your appetite, your behavior, your recovery, your children.

mattress prices

Mattresses can cost up to £3000 depending on where you buy them, with an average cost of around £800. Online manufacturers are often considerably cheaper for a number of reasons, but mainly because they have less overhead to pay, as they don’t having to rent a store or employ as many staff as the stores. Test Before You Buy If you buy your mattress in a store, be sure to test it by laying it down for about ten minutes; a good mattress store won’t mind you doing this. DO NOT let the sales assistants influence you, only YOU know what is comfortable for you! If you’re buying a bed for two, make sure you both try before you buy.

If you buy online, make sure they offer an adequate term in which you can return the mattress if it does not suit your needs. A good online retailer will offer a 14 day money back guarantee and give you a FULL refund if you wish to return your mattress within this time. They also have to pay for return postage, unless they state otherwise before you make your initial purchase, but keep in mind that a good retailer won’t expect you to pay for postage. Mattress Test The mattress should feel firm and not loose. DO NOT buy mattresses when you are tired because everyone will feel great! If you are going to buy a memory foam mattress, relax in one position and then move to another. Was it easy enough for you to move? Most people don’t struggle to move on a memory foam mattress, but there are a minority of people who do, so make sure whatever mattress you buy feels good for you! Once you have your mattress, make sure that if you place it on a slatted base, the slats are no more than 6cm wide and no more than 4cm apart. This prevents the mattress from sinking between the slats. If the box spring is not adequate, most companies will not replace your mattress under warranty.

Mattresses and box springs

Manufacturers encourage you to buy a mattress and box spring together. If you’ve had your box spring for many years, it may be worth buying a new one when shopping for a new mattress, as you don’t want to spend your money just on the box spring that won’t fully support your mattress. If you purchase your mattress and box spring separately, or decide to keep your old box spring, please measure carefully to make sure they are the same size. Dimensions can vary, even slightly, so don’t rely on a new twin mattress to be exactly the same size as your old one.

roll-up mattresses

Many online retailers, as well as big box stores, ship mattresses rolled and vacuum packed. This is a great innovation as it saves space (if you bring your mattress home in your car), if you buy rolled mattresses online it will be cheaper to ship as they have a lower volumetric weight, saving you money on expenses! shipping! It will take a few hours for the mattress to fully expand when opened, so give the mattress time to do so before going to bed.

mattress guarantees

Retailers must offer a warranty on the mattress. The longer the warranty, the better. Five years is an adequate warranty length. Beware of places that offer longer than this; Companies have been known to offer a ten year warranty only to change the company name later so they can’t be found again when a warranty is needed. Also make sure that if you ever need a warranty replacement that the company offers at no additional cost; You should NOT have to pay any cost for a mattress under warranty, even if you are replacing your mattress just a few days before the end of the warranty. Know who you’re buying from Be sure to do your research on the company you’re buying from, especially if you’re buying online. See customer reviews and independent reports. You don’t want to buy from a company just because they are cheaper if their service is unreliable. There are so many people selling mattresses online, especially memory foam mattresses, so make sure you buy from a company that can be trusted. Even if you don’t buy from the company that wrote this article, make sure you are getting a good quality product from a company that is trustworthy, useful, and doesn’t just sell for profit.

With the unofficial start of summer later this month, many are starting to think about starting to exercise before putting on their bathing suits and heading to the beach or pool. Exercise is, of course, helpful for weight control and muscle building, and can improve physical appearance. What is not so well known are the other physical, mental and emotional benefits of incorporating exercise into your daily routine.

In addition to weight control, other physical benefits of exercise include improving the functions of our cardiovascular system. Aerobic exercise can help prevent heart disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and stroke. Other forms of exercise can help prevent arthritis, osteoporosis, and can help improve balance to prevent falls.

What is equally impressive are the mental and emotional health benefits of regular exercise. Exercise not only improves focus and concentration, but also improves your mood. In fact, studies have shown that 15 minutes of aerobic exercise is as effective as an antidepressant for some forms of depression. Walking around the block often changes your perspective and helps reduce stress.

Dr. Joh Ratey, who studies the benefits of exercise, suggested that if the positive effects of exercise could come in pill form, it would be the most widely prescribed medication. Since that’s not possible, how do you incorporate exercise into your busy life when you’re already feeling pressed for time?

Ten Tips for Introducing Exercise into Your Day

Don’t you like it or feel like you have time to go to the gym? The good news is that exercise doesn’t have to involve hopping on a treadmill or lifting weights at the gym to be effective. It can be a relatively low cost and not a huge investment of time. Before you start, though, check with your doctor if you haven’t exercised in a while or if you’re pregnant. Also, be sure to wear appropriate footwear for your activity. Many joint or back injuries are caused by wearing old or worn-out shoes. Here are ten ways to get moving:

1. Park away from your office, go to the store or school, and walk. These little walks add up throughout the day. In fact, studies have shown that short bursts of exercise throughout the day are more effective than one long burst.
2. Take the steps instead of the elevator. If you go between floors, go up the steps. You need a quick afternoon break – walk up and down a few times. Exercise will revive you much more than a trip to the coffee machine.
3. Wear a fitness tracker and measure your steps. There are plenty of inexpensive trackers, as well as more sophisticated and expensive devices, but even the cheapest will give you step data. Set yourself a goal and stick to it. For the first few days, use it without changing your activity. Once you create a baseline, add 500 to 1,000 steps per day each week.
4. Use apps to get inspired. Studies have shown that, like fitness trackers, people who use apps have more success sticking to an exercise program. There are apps like 5K that inspires you and takes you from the couch to 5K. my fitness friend Y ActivX are some other popular fitness apps.
5. Sign up for a charity walk or run and use it to inspire you to get moving. Whether it’s 1 mile, 5 or 10 km, it gives you a goal and a deadline to work towards.
6. Grab a friend or two. People are much more likely to stick to a routine if they have another person who will do it with them and hold them accountable. Making fitness social provides the added benefit of connecting with others.
7. Have a family or office challenge. It doesn’t have to be a competition, but it can be a way to encourage each other and keep everyone involved in a common goal.
8. Try a new activity like dancing, walking, swimming, or a fun group exercise class that has always interested you.
9. Make exercise a weekly family activity. Take a hike, bike, or walk around the neighborhood.
10. Household activities like gardening, cleaning, or other projects can be great opportunities to get the blood flowing. Put on upbeat music to keep you moving with energy.

Forgive me football fans… Last Sunday I went to the Eagles home opener here in Philly (I’m still singing “Fly Eagles Fly” in my head), and it literally blew my mind. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into because I watch the games on TV from time to time.

It always seems like everyone is having fun, cheering and all. I’m not really a soccer fan, but I went because I thought it would be a great experience and something very different for me. Little did I know that I would be watching the game with my fingers in my ears and my head between my knees (thank goodness for my yoga practice!).

The opening ceremonies touched my heart with the American flag being unfurled on the field during the National Anthem, that was really nice. But when the four fighter jets ceremonially flew overhead at lightning speeds, I had a “Hit the Deck!” reaction and in nanoseconds it created an energetic trench and dove (my training in Healing Sciences). Unfortunately it was not effective. The sound blast got me! I felt completely devastated (and then all I could think about was our guys and girls in the military experiencing this for real, and I feel tremendously compassionate and grateful to them).

At first I thought it was just me, but when the big, beefy soccer guys with green and bald heads sitting across from me started freaking out, I knew this was no small feat. If these guys were startled, dazed, and smashed (and had hard, dense energy fields), then my experience of my energy system (higher frequency) feeling smashed was not far-fetched.

And that was not the only devastating experience! There was a huge amount of fireworks at the end of the opening ceremony, and we were sitting right near where they were going off. Then every time there was a touchdown, and the Eagles scored big that day (woo-hoo Philly!), they would set off a fireworks display! Well, I don’t do fireworks. He never did. Fireworks are really painful for me.

After the opening and about 2 touchdowns (which was probably already about $100,000 – $200,000 worth of “entertainment” in fireworks and fighter jets) I had my little routine. Every time the fireworks went off, I would cover my ears until my index fingers were in the middle of my brain, scream at the top of my lungs (which mixed in with all the other screaming), and while everyone was jumping to cheer, I did the opposite. .

I slid back in my stadium chair until my head was on my seat and my legs and feet flailed along with everyone’s arms and hands; it was funny how no one noticed except my family members. My brother and sister-in-law who took me, didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically or apologize profusely. We all ended up laughing until we almost peed ourselves.

But when I got home I realized my energy field was shattered. I was exhausted, losing energy and feeling very “out of spell”. Why am I telling you this? Because there are many things that “break” our energy fields and very often people have no idea. They know they’re not feeling well, or they’re tired or dizzy or suddenly hypersensitive to things, but they don’t know why. In reality, most people don’t even know about their energy field, let alone think about how to care for it. Taking care of our energy field is one of the most important self-care approaches we can take. Let me explain what this “shattered energy” is all about, and this is a quick and advanced lesson in Energy Medicine:

We have structured levels as part of our energy field, like a template, and these can break or shake at certain events or encounters. The structured levels are structures on which the physical body subsists, so there is a direct connection to the body and the reasons why someone would feel so bad when the energy is shattered.

Here are some things that can wreck your energy:

–emotional disturbance
–being involved in or near an accident
–experiencing or witnessing severe pain
–loud arguments with people
–common loud noises, such as motorcycles and cars on the road that are unpleasantly loud

One of the best things you can do to repair a shattered energy field is to have an energy work session, such as Healing Touch, Reiki, Brennan work, or even acupuncture. Massage would even help. Not everyone is going to have that access right away, and the sooner you can get treatment after the devastating event, the better! But one thing you can do at home to help repair shattered energy is to use essential oils (therapeutic grade, of course, definitely not perfume grade). If you run an essential oil (such as White Angelica or Valor) in your field, it can help the structured levels of the field to repair themselves naturally.

Many “energy sensitives” like myself have to be very careful about where we go and what we expose ourselves to, and we need to know how to shield, protect, and repair the field (all can be done by running some eo through your field).

What did I do the night I got home from the Eagles game to repair my field?

–I did a body scrub (that’s for a future issue)
–took a lavender bath (that’s another good way to
obtain essential oils to repair our field)
–passed Valor through my energy field (see video below)
–lying on the bed, relaxed and meditated

. . .and I skipped the sports report on the news that night!