We’ve all heard that we should drink more water but it’s not always clear why. The main reason for drinking water every day is to replace fluid loss from everyday activities. Especially if you’re working out, our bodies lose a lot of fluid through sweat, which is great! But this water needs to be replaced. Here is a list of six extra benefits that result from staying hydrated. 1. Prevents headaches If you don't replenish the water you lose during the day you'll end up dehydrates, which opens a whole new can of work... It causes normal body function to decrease and results in headaches. Drinking more water will keep you hydrated and assist with keeping those headaches at bay. 2. Prevents memory loss A natural part of getting older is memory loss but one way to fight it is by drinking more H2O. Water boosts the energy needed to keep your brain active and an active brain remembers better for longer! 3. Lessens addictive urges Do you actually need that Coke or are you just thirsty? Try quenching your thirst with water and you may find that some of those cravings will start to subside. This can also apply to hunger, sometimes your body is craving fluid but your mind interprets it as hunger, so remember, down a glass of H2O before you go. 4. Cleanses toxins Not just referring to toxic waste chemicals, your body produces waste throughout the day that needs to be flushed out. Water encourages the toxins to break down and pass through your body much easier. You may need to check out the bowl before you flush, but it's a great way of keeping track of how hydrated you are. 5. Increases muscle function If food is the fuel of the body, then water is the octane, it makes everything work better. Water increases the efficiency of the red blood cells that carry oxygen to our muscles, so get ready to feel a little more spritely and to get better results in the gym too! 6. Boosts metabolism Drinking water keeps your metabolism busy and flowing smoothly. If combined with a number of other factors including your diet and exercise, it can assist in losing weight.
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We've all said it at some point. When that friend asks you to go the the gym with them or your partner asks if you did any exercise today... we say: 'I don't have time'. Well, we are here to help, below are ten tips for fitting exercise into your life.
We're here to help. Below you will find our top 10 tips for fitting exercise into your life; 1. Do something you enjoy! Everyone enjoys some form of physical activity, and by choosing something you love, you're way more likely to stick to it. This could include walking the dog, team sports, running, weight training, yoga. 2. Make a plan If it’s scheduled into your week, it will happen. Trying to fit a workout in without planning it into your week often leads to no workout at all. 3. TV time Who doesn’t sit down a watch a little bit of TV at night? Why not bust out some moves during the add breaks! Squats, push-ups, crunches, star jumps are just a few great exercises that don't need equipment. 4. Be accountable Working with a personal trainer and having sessions booked in advance mean you have automatically designated that time to improve your health. You can check out our PT options here. 5. Work-out buddies There's nothing quite like a bit of social pressure to keep you on track so why not train with a friend? Having someone that also wants to improve their health and fitness goals are a great motivator and a great way to catch up during the week! 6. Family time We're always looking to get more time with out families, try to include something active. It can be anything from going for a walk, bike ride, playing a game of soccer, or going somewhere like Bounce Inc. (Room of trampolines? I'm yet to hear a kid turn that down.) 7. It's all about timing Are you a night owl? If so, you probably won't stick to the 6am group classes... Swap it out for something you'll stick too, like a 6pm or 7pm class. Decide what time of day exercise works best for you. 8. Substitute Try switching out things you already do to get in a bit more activity. Be it cycling or walking to work... or the shops. Or even subbing out the elevator for the stairs. Little things add up, getting public transport to work could mean you're walking an extra 20 minutes per day compared to if you just got in your car. 9. Work out at work Want to improve your posture and core strength? Well, if you sit at a desk all day, consider swapping out your chair for a swiss ball. Or, if you're particularly committed... Keep some dumbbells or foam roller under your desk so you can get some exercises in on your lunch break 10. Make allowances for missed sessions and set backs Sometimes everything doesn’t go according to plan... don’t stress, have a plan B! If you are unable to make the gym or exercise that day, plan to exercise on a day you generally wouldn’t to make up for lost time. Looking to get a start? Check out our group class and PT options: Ingredients
2 avocados (240g) 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil 12 cherry tomatoes (60g) 1 tbsp coriander, finely chopped Instructions 1. Preheat the oven to 200C 2. Halve the avocados and put the halves on a lined baking tray or in an oven-safe dish. Drizzle with half the olive oil. 3. Slice the cherry tomatoes. Put them in a bowl and toss together with the rest of the olive oil and chopped coriander. Place the tomatoes in the pit where the core has been. 4. Bake for 15 minutes Nutrition Information KJ: 1432 KJ Protein: 2.6g Carbs: 2.8g
Recipe: LifeSum 1. Match a Group Fitness Class to your personal goals Everyone is different and everyone has different goals when it comes to their fitness. Because of this we offer a wide range of group fitness classes that are tailored to work different parts of your body. So check out the different classes and find one that matches what you're looking for. 2. Give it a try The best way to get started it by just attending a class. All our classes are open so you don't need to book in. Just rock up and get involved, and best of all, your first class is free so you don't need to think twice about getting started. 3. Don't overthink it All of the classes have a description that you can check out here. Have a read through and find something that you're drawn to. It might be something you've never tried before, like boxing or yoga, or something that makes you feel right at home in your comfort zone, like a running group. 4. Ask a trainer If you're still unsure, or want a bit of guidance on what kind of class would be best at helping you achieve your goals, just ask one of our trainers in the gym, they'll be more than happy to point your in the right direction. 5. Join a friend Got a friend that already goes to a class? There's nothing like a little friendly competition to push you that little bit further. Tag along with them to make sliding into the class a little easier. Or if you don't, convince someone to come with you, their first class will be free and you could have a new gym buddy. Flavoured with coconut, ginger and garlic, this fish dish is high in protein and fibre.
Ingredients For the Goan-style marinade
Method Preheat oven or barbecue to 190 degrees. Combine coriander, 2 cloves of garlic, ginger, tamarind, chilies, peppercorns, turmeric, salt, stevia and coconut flesh in a food processer, blend together until the ingredients form a thick paste. Add a small amount of coconut juice if needed to make the paste smooth. Lightly score the fish making three diagonal cuts on each side, being careful not to cut all the way through the flesh. Stuff the cavity of the snapper with the marinade and bind the fish together with twine. Place snapper in a roasting tray. Pour 1/2 cup of coconut juice over the fish, cover with foil and bake in the oven or on the barbecue for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until the flesh flakes away easily with a fork. When the fish has about 10 minutes to go, add the asparagus to the tray. You may wish to add extra coconut juice if the tray is dry. Brush the remaining garlic cloves, lemon halves, corn and capsicum with olive oil and place on a preheated barbecue plate or griller. Cook for 10 minutes, turning frequently, until corn is tender and golden brown and the capsicum skin blisters. To plate, arrange the asparagus on a large serving dish, place the whole snapper on top. Add the grilled vegetables over and around the fish, garnish with a few coriander leaves and slices of chilli. Average per 350g (includes vegetables)
Recipe analysed by Food and Nutrition Australia On the ever-changing list of curatives said to smooth fine lines and revitalise tired skin, chocolate is not a cosmetic remedy often cited by skincare brands. Indeed, a sticky application of Cadbury’s over dark circles is unlikely to do much by way of lending vibrancy to your visage.
However, recent research conducted by Korean dermatologists at Seoul National University has found that, when ingested in its purest form, a little choc treatment can undo years of epidermic damage. In a trial where participants consumed 12g of phenol-rich cacao a day, the substance was found to reverse harm done to skin by ultraviolet radiation, known as photoageing. Over the course of 24 weeks, they recorded a 3 per cent increase in skin elasticity, while the depth of study subjects’ wrinkles also decreased slightly. By contrast, a placebo group saw skin elasticity decrease by 8 per cent and depth of wrinkles increase by the same amount. So, shake up your morning grooming regime and prep your skin for the dangers of summer sun to come by taking your skincare plan to a different cabinet – mix 12g of cacao nibs with banana, peanut butter, raw honey, cinnamon and milk. Let’s call it the chocolate fountain of youth. This article was originally published on Men's Health Everyone knows smoking, consuming too much sugar and drinking too much alcohol will harm our long-term health — but many of us do these things anyway. Why?
Of course, we may simply decide not to worry about the negative consequences and engage in these activities because they give us pleasure. But sometimes we do care about the potential outcomes enough to want to stop indulging, and still find it hard to do so. Why do so many of us struggle to forgo the extra cookie even after we've decided to go on a diet? People tend to value potential future rewards less than similar immediate rewards when they must choose between them. Psychologists and economists call this "delay discounting". A body of research has revealed those more prone to delay discounting are also more prone to poor health as a result of obesityand addiction, and have a shorter life expectancy. Delay discounting tasks assess something similar to the iconic "marshmallow test" for young children. Participants are given a single marshmallow and told if they can wait for the experimenter to come back later without having eaten the marshmallow, then they will get a second one. The degree to which a child is prepared to wait for the second marshmallow has been found to predict subsequent health outcomes, including their adult body mass index. Waiting also predicts later achievements at school, university and on diverse other measures of "success" even decades later in life. The future is uncertain Discounting future rewards is not unique to humans, which suggests deep evolutionary origins of our general tendency towards immediacy. One ultimate reason for this is the future is inherently uncertain — the only guaranteed food reward in nature is the one already in your mouth. Someone else might pluck the fruit for which you had been waiting patiently to ripen, or some predator might get you in the meantime. Recent findings suggest people who have been exposed to natural disasters, violence and death discount future rewards more. Presumably that's because these events reinforce the notion that the future is volatile. In one study, children were less likely to wait for the larger reward in the marshmallow test when the experimenter administering it had broken an earlier promise. On a fundamental level, then, we may be prone to present gratification because we cannot trust the future will play out how we might want it to. When delayed gratification works Nonetheless, people can be remarkably patient in some circumstances. Think of the time and effort so many of us invest to get advanced training or to save for retirement — many even restrain themselves in the hope of reward in an afterlife. One of our most powerful psychological traits is our capacity to imagine future events — to create mental scenarios of what could happen if, for instance, we were to make different decisions. This ability, quite possibly unique to human beings, may be one of the keys to why we can pursue specific future outcomes for which there is no current reward, such as when we choose to take an aspirin each day to prevent a future heart attack. The capacity to consider future possibilities and care about our remote well-being is highly complex. It requires the maturation of sophisticated mental abilities that develop gradually over childhood. Imagining the benefits of delaying our gratification in the present gives us a sense of the eventual — often more important — later consequences. In this way, the imagined events can act as their own mini-reinforcements en route to the real thing. For instance, we might foresee what it could feel like to go on a hike tomorrow with a hangover and find imagining a sober version of the experience more rewarding: motivating us to forgo the extra beer tonight. How to make better choices now While adults have the basic cognitive ability to consider the future, we do not always imagine ourselves in the relevant future situations when we make decisions. When we do travel virtually in time and mentally pre-experience how good or bad our current behaviour might make us feel at a future point, we tend to make more prudent choices. A wealth of recent research suggests having people take a few moments to imagine their personal future while they make choices between immediate and delayed rewards can curb their short-term preferences. Similar studies suggest thinking about the future can ameliorate impulsive eating, cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. Even if these manipulations are simply priming people to focus more on the future, the studies demonstrate thinking about future consequences can shift our priorities and change behaviour. Due to the considerable effort invested in public health campaigns, most people are now aware of the future ills that come hand in hand with many of our immediate pleasures. Our tendency to discount the future makes it difficult to translate this knowledge into more prudent behaviour. But our preferences are malleable, and imagining the future outcomes of our current behaviour might just help us turn our knowledge and intentions into real-world action. This article was originally published on ABC Health Our health and fitness gurus at Fitness Results Alfred Cove have put together the perfect training plan for anyone looking to get back into exercise. Whether you've never really been the kind of person to go to the gym, are trying to get back in after a break, or are a mum wanting to get back into it after a pregnancy, our Kickstarter programme is perfect for you. The details
Shoot us a message, give us a call or come by the gym to get started today! In brand new research from the O’Dennell Brain Institute, scientists have suggested that a low level of fitness can speed up cognitive decline. According to the results, exercise protects against the deterioration of brain nerve fibres associated with memory retention.
"This research supports the hypothesis that improving people's fitness may improve their brain health and slow down the aging process," said head researcher Dr. Kan Ding. In the study, Dr. Ding analysed the link between fitness and the health of white matter in the brain of elder patients who were either at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s, or who were showing early signs of memory loss. "Evidence suggests that what is bad for your heart is bad for your brain. We need studies like this to find out how the two are intertwined and hopefully find the right formula to help prevent Alzheimer's disease," said Dr Rong Zhang of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Zhang has previously identified that physical activity increase the speed of brain messages sent to the body. However this new study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, is the first to take objective measurements of participants’ fitness levels, without relying on self-assessment, creating a much higher level of certainty to these hypotheses. To measure levels of fitness, the team subjected participants to a maximal oxygen uptake test before using brain imaging to monitor brain activity. The study is a strong affirmation of previous studies linking physical activity to healthy brain functioning, however Ding recognises that there is a lot more to learn. "A lot of work remains to better understand and treat dementia," said Dr. Ding. "But, eventually, the hope is that our studies will convince people to exercise more." This article was originally published at Men's Health You know the feeling. It's 10:30, you're at work, you're stomach starts to say hello but it's still too early for lunch. Do you go for the biscuits? Well, try this recipe for peanut butter stuffed chocolate protein truffle balls instead.
Ingredients 2/3 cup mashed avocado ¼ cup + 2 tbsp chocolate protein powder 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 2/3 cup milk chocolate chips or ½ cup of cacao 5 tbsp Pics Peanut Butter ½ cup banana chips (crushed) Method
This recipe was originally published on Men's Health |