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Studies show that exercising can help lift depression, no matter what your age. In fact, in cases of mild depression, it’s often the recommended treatment. Just walking can be an effective tonic to lift the spirits. For more severe cases of depression, many therapists are adding exercise as an adjunct therapy. While we always recommend a full body workout that hits all types of fitness, including strength, flexibility, endurance and balance, you don’t do it all to get benefits for depression.

It’s all about stimulating endorphins, burning off stress hormones and getting your blood circulating.

When you exercise, your body starts burning off the fight or flight stress hormones. While flexibility training won’t necessarily do it, something as simple as walking or running will. Movements as simple as slow dancing can be beneficial for those that don’t enjoy walking. Movements like tai chi are good for those that are wheelchair bound. It’s all about getting the body moving and boosting circulation.

Just 30 minutes of walking every day can help you feel better.

If you don’t think you can walk for a half hour at a time, try three sessions of ten minutes each. Studies show that as long as you get at least ten minutes in each session, three sessions have the same benefits as a half hour one. It’s all about stimulating the endorphins. Do it regularly and you’ll feel much better after each session. After several weeks, you’ll probably be able to do an entire half hour at once. Do it regularly each day to get the depression lifting benefits.

Strength training is also a way to get depression relief.

A number of studies show that strength training is good for lifting depression. In fact, one focused on stroke survivors that did strength-building workouts for ten weeks. Not only did the study show it provided a number of benefits for overall health, it helped lift depression that often occurs after a stroke. Strength-building also improves your self-image and feeling yourself grow stronger is part of that. Increasing your strength gives you more of a feeling of self-reliance and independence. They can also lift your mood.

• Yoga can also help lift depression. While yoga builds flexibility and strength, it also helps develop discipline and mindfulness. The breathing exercises help settle your mind and act like a type of meditation.
• Try walking barefoot on the grass on a sunny day. Both the sun and the grounding that comes when your bare feet connect to the ground can help lift your spirits.
• Have fun with the kids and make memories. Whether it’s taking them to the zoo and walking, shooting hoops, dancing in the living room or riding bikes, you’ll feel better exercising with the kids. If you don’t feel like it, fake it until you can make it.
• Another reason exercise can help anyone of any age is that it helps you sleep better at night. Lack of sleep can cause mild depression and depression can also cause insomnia. Break the cycle with exercise.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy

Herbs have been used for thousands of years to help relieve many health issues, besides making food taste better. Two popular herbs are cumin, and turmeric, which provide many health benefits, including aiding digestion. Each one has special properties to help relieve gassiness, soothe sour stomach and relieve that queasy feeling. Both of these herbs are used in cooking, with cumin more popular for

What is cumin?

Cumin is a spice that originated in Egypt. In fact, it was often used in mummification. It’s often confused with caraway, although the taste of cumin is hotter. That’s one reason it’s often used in chili or found in chili powder. It’s used in soups, curry and sometimes in pastry. It contains monounsaturated fat, protein, fiber, vitamins E and B, plus iron, magnesium and manganese. Cumin has been found to be beneficial for hemorrhoids, heart disease, inflammation, vomiting, insomnia, viral infections and to boost the immune system. The Sanskrit name for cumin is Jira, which means digestion. It’s frequently mentioned in the Bible, too. One verse refers to tithing with mint, dill or cumin, so it was highly prized.

Turmeric also provides a number of health benefits.

Turmeric comes from India. It gives dishes it’s added to a golden color. It’s used both in cooking and part of herbal remedies, more recently, the scientific community has found its beneficial for a number of ailments. It helps the body with its anti-inflammatories and antioxidant properties. Besides digestion, turmeric helps prevent heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, metabolic syndrome and degenerative conditions, which often occur from chronic inflammation.

How cumin and turmeric aid in digestion.

Part of the reason cumin helps digestion comes from the fiber that stimulates the digestive system and prevents constipation. However, it’s the thymol in cumin that really helps. First, it helps prevent gas from forming and combats flatulence. It stimulates the glands that produce enzymes and secrete acids for digestion. Enzymes are important for proper digestion. It’s also good for acid reflux. The curcumin in turmeric helps stops the inflammation that leads to GERD. The anti-inflammatories and antioxidant properties also help with Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.

• To make the benefits of cucumin in turmeric more bioavailable, use it with a bit of black pepper. The piperine in black pepper enhances the absorption of curcumin by 2,000%.
• Studies showed that 20 drops of cumin essential oil in water every day relieved the symptoms of IBS, such as abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea and painful bowel movements.
• While taking some of the herb turmeric may help, too much can be a problem. Too much turmeric or turmeric tea can actually increase stomach acid. It also thins the blood, so don’t use it if you’re on blood thinners or two weeks before surgery.
• Adding turmeric to your diet may provide benefits for exercise and can help with depression. It boosted the action of Prozac when taken together. It also improves dopamine, brain-derived neurotrophic factor and serotonin.

For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy

Eating healthy is extremely important, especially if your goal is weight loss. At UpFit Training Academy, not only do we train hard, but we also focus on the lifestyle changes that are necessary to achieve all fitness goals. This includes exercise, nutrition, proper sleep, hydration, and much more. With rising prices, especially living in New York City, it can get expensive to only consume fresh, organic fruit and vegetables. As a result, our clients, especially the busy ones, often ask; are frozen foods bad for weight loss?

Frozen fruits and vegetables are often cheaper and easier to prepared than fresh ones

Wondering whether or not frozen foods are good or bad for your health completely makes sense. In a city where time and money are occasionally in short supply, wanting to use frozen foods to save on both of those is valid. So, can they be used when trying to lose weight? The answer is that it depends. Will frozen pre-made meals and pizza rolls help you achieve your weight loss goal? Probably not, given that they are highly processed, provide little nutrition, and probably won’t satiate you. This may lead to cravings or eating more food later in the day. However, if you are using frozen fruits to put into your smoothies, or frozen vegetables to make home-cooked meals, then frozen produce can definitely be the way to go.

Most frozen fruits and vegetables are vine-ripened and immediately processed

Most fresh produce you purchase in the store is not as fresh as you may believe. It’s often picked before it ripens so that by the time it gets to you it is in consumable condition; not to mention the processing and shipping it goes through before reaching your store.

On the other hand, some research has shown that frozen fruit and vegetables have similar nutritional content and that some frozen food actually retains an even higher amount of nutrients due to it being picked at peak ripeness before it is frozen.

So, can frozen produce be used in order to aid weight loss?

Definitely! As with many things regarding nutrition, there are some things to be aware of in order to get the most out of your frozen fruits and vegetables.

• Make sure you read the ingredients label on the back of the frozen package.  Some products contain hidden calories or added sugar that are unnecessary, empty calories. Look for companies that sell only the fruit or vegetable without excess ingredients.
• Based on the nutritional guidance we provide here at UpFit Training Academy, you can create your own meals and freeze them for later in the week to save on time for when you might have a busier day.
• If using frozen fruits or vegetables helps you get them in and makes it easier for you to cook at home, then use them! Frozen fruits and vegetables are better than none, and potentially even better than fresh ones.

For more information contact us today at Upfit Training Academy

Do you, like many others, hold the self-limiting belief that you can’t lose weight, get that raise or learn a new skill? This is a good opportunity to practice self-awareness and ask yourself why. Is it because you tried to lose weight before and didn’t succeed the way you wanted to? Maybe you have asked for a raise before and were shut down. Or maybe you have actually succeeded at your desired goal before, but something unexpected happened in your journey causing you to stop progressing. Whatever it is, your past experiences do not have to define your future when pursuing a goal. Building confidence and belief in ourselves takes practice, but we can always go back to those skills if we ever fail at a weight loss program or get rejected from a job and pick ourselves right back up.

Success breeds success

Exercise has a strong association with difficulty. As a result, when people start a new exercise program, they can tend to do too much, too fast. This can be difficult for our confidence because if we set our expectations too high, we may not be able to stick with that original plan. When first starting an exercise program, it’s important to be realistic so that we can build upon our small wins. At UpFit Training Academy, we sit down with our clients to come up with clear and manageable goals so that their confidence can be built in the early stages of training with us. Small successes early on lead to bigger successes down the line as our confidence increases, motivating us to do more.

Confidence is Built Through Action

On the other hand, some people underestimate what may be necessary to achieve their fitness goals. Without the required action to achieve our goal, it may be very difficult to build confidence as there is nothing to feel confident about. If we don’t push ourselves we will always be stuck in the same place. This is why our trainers heavily rely on progression and overload to not only improve and reach our client’s goals but to also build confidence week to week when clients see their numbers improve.

Final Confidence Building Tips

• Eating healthily can build our confidence by making us feel good about ourselves and our body, on top of increased energy levels. Check out this blog post for more information.
• Sometimes faking it till you make it can build confidence. Speak confidently, walk confidently, and have a confident posture. Even if you don’t feel it immediately, you are starting to understand what it’s like to act like a confident person.
• Set up small wins for yourself. Setting realistic expectations in your life is important; make sure they are challenging yet attainable. If it’s too easy, you won’t build your confidence because you already knew you’d be able to achieve it.

Exercise is one of the best tools to build confidence because it inherently boosts our mood via endorphins, making us feel better about ourselves. To learn more about how we approach training, visit UpFit Academy. 

If you can’t make it into UpFit Academy or don’t live in New York City, at-home exercises are a great alternative to ensure you stay fit. Our online options allow both the benefit of having a trainer as well as being in the comfort of your own home or having a trainer when traveling. You don’t need any equipment, either. If you have a body, you can do a workout! Here’s a sample of some great bodyweight exercises to get started.

Bodyweight exercises don’t require equipment

Strength training can be done without weights! You have weights with you everywhere you go when you do bodyweight exercises. One of the best bodyweight core exercises is the plank. It’s simple but if done right, not easy. Starting laying down, extend your body. With your forearms on the floor right underneath your shoulders, push yourself off the ground. The only points of your body touching the floor should be your forearms and your toes. You should be able to place a wooden stick along your back without it falling off or sitting at an angle. Engage your core, drawing your belly button to your spine. Start slow, and try and work up to a minute or two.

Work larger muscle groups with squats

When you train large muscle groups, your body releases nitric oxide which widens blood vessels to lower blood pressure. One of my favorites is the squat. Your feet should be firmly planted shoulder-width apart and pointed slightly outward. Your back should be straight. Lower your body by shifting your hips back and bending your knees as though you were sitting down in a chair. Your chest should be proud, whilst your abs should be engaged to control the movement. Go down as far as you can without lifting your heels off the ground. Once at that point, push up and slowly rise.

Walking lunges can be done anywhere

Lunges work one leg at a time and you can do walking lunges anywhere. It’s a functional fitness exercise, since it mimics the actions of walking. It not only builds strength, but it also builds flexibility. Start with your feet hip-width apart. Take a big step forward. Lower your hips, keeping most of the weight on your foot in front. Your back heel will lift, but your front foot should be flat. Both knees should bend 90 degrees, with your back knee almost touching the floor on the way down. Your hips should mimic an elevator, going straight up and down.

Final tips for working out at home

• Consistency is the key to success no matter where you workout. If you’re working out virtually or on your own, schedule a specific time to workout and stick with your schedule. Make it a priority.
• Form is important and should be your top priority when you’re learning a new exercise. You’re better off doing fewer repetitions and getting your form correct than pushing yourself and sacrificing form, which can lead to injury.
• There are a number of variations of the basic bodyweight exercises that you can use to work the muscles different ways. The walking lunge is one example. Instead of stepping backward with the foot in front, you step forward with the one in back.
• You need all types of exercises, endurance, strength, flexibility and balance in your workout. You also need a warm up and cool down. That’s why our virtual option can be great help, as you’ll have proper guidance. The routine will be personalised just for you!

For more information on training options, contact us today at UpFit Academy