Prevent Cardiovascular Disease: have a healthy heart (step 4)

Step 4 Ask yourself, "What kind of fruit am I?"

Carrying extra weight around isn't just a drag during swimsuit season. It can also be dangerous, especially if those excess pounds find their way to your belly and not, say, your hips. Recent studies indicate that abdominal fat is metabolically different from the other fat in your body: As you gain padding around your middle, the individual cells swell, and their size is linked to higher triglyceride levels and lower good cholesterol.

The best treatment for belly fat? Signing up for Weight Watchers isn't enough; you're going to have to pry yourself off the couch too. New research shows that diet and exercise together reduce the size of abdominal fat cells, which doesn't happen if you lose weight through dieting alone. Working out regularly also has a ripple effect on the body: Not only do dangerous pounds come off, but your muscles become more efficient at using blood; your heart gets stronger; and your blood vessels become more limber, so blood flows more easily.

And you don't have to run a marathon every week to get these benefits. Cardiologists recommend an average of 30 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise a day, which has been shown to increase life expectancy by 3 1/2 years. Whether walking, running, or swimming, you should aim to work your heart to about 50 to 70 percent of its maximum rate. Even this amount of exercise is powerful enough to combat other high-risk factors: A study out of the Cooper Institute in Dallas found that even moderately fit people had half the death rates of those who were sedentary.

While doctors used to think that weight training was bad for the heart because it increased blood pressure, research now shows it can actually lower blood pressure when transforming fat into muscle, which burns calories and keeps them from landing on your belly. This is why strengthening exercises, two or three times a week for all the major muscle groups — arms, legs, shoulders, chest, back, hips, and trunk is advised. Pilates- or yoga-based regimen that zeroes in on the core muscles of your abdomen and lower back can also be done. Either way, consistency is key, as is starting young. regular strengthening can not only help prevent age-related loss of bone and muscle mass, but also help reduce body fat and improve endurance, both of which can decrease your risk of heart disease.

photo credit: wikimedia.org

Paula patton- On how she stays fit

Paula Patton is a 34-year-old actress and wife of RnB singer Robin thicke(they are expecting their first baby). She is most popular for her role as Ms. Rain, the heroic teacher in the emotionally powerful film Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire. She is a very beautiful woman who takes healthy eating and exercises very seriously. According to her, this is whats kept her in shape all these years. Below is how she stays healthy, happy and stress free. Hopefully this will inspire people to stay fit.

Paula's Feel-Good Guide


1. Breathe Deep

"A year ago, I started doing Ashtanga yoga five or six days a week. Even if I do 30 minutes, I can clear my head. I've cut back during my pregnancy. I told my trainer I don't want to see the inside of a gym. She said, 'Don't worry. I'll have you back [in shape] in six weeks.' "

2. Go Green

"I'm trying to eat smart because I don't want [losing the] postpregnancy weight to be difficult. There's this packet of nutrients called Green Vibrance, and I at least try to have that. I also try to eat a salad every day. I switched from drinking coffee to green tea, but I've been craving milk shakes. My trick for not giving in: Fill up with some fruit or water first, then see if I still want one."

3. Feed Your Face

"Since I've been pregnant, my nails have been stronger and my hair is thicker. My skin has been dry though, so I use a lot of La Mer products. I've also been doing Intraceuticals oxygen facials and Shiseido eye masks. I'll pop them on and look fresher. I'm also loving my Clarisonic facial wash brush. It's my new toy."

4. Get Some Shut-Eye

"When people say 'You have a pregnancy glow!' I wonder if it has to do with my healthier lifestyle. No more cocktails, and I'm getting more sleep than ever—nine or 10 hours a night. I was never that girl!"

hopefully, we can all include some of the above tips to our fitness regime. i personally drink green tea. its full of anti oxidants and has anti ageing benefits :)

Photo credit: womens health mag

Get rid of your Love Handles

A friend of mine asked me a while ago how she can get rid of her love handles. She said she had tried everything from dieting to rigorous exercises and she still couldn’t get rid of the Jelly belly. I must say I have been through this as well, but have managed to come up with an effective routine that got rid of it all. Majority of African cultures appreciate love handles, and see it as a sign of good living and feminine maturity, but there are some modern day Africans who will rather not have the extra fat. Also contrary to popular belief love handles don’t just affect women; there are loads of men that battle this as well.

Love handles are mainly deposits of fat which accumulate at the lower sides of the abdomen. As we become older we are prone to a certain type of fat called visceral, which collects around our organs. It may also be caused by women's menstrual cycles and food allergies. Our stomach is the main collector of this fat. The fat deposit is often pulled down by gravity from the sides down to create a more bulging area. The bulge may sometimes be visible even when light clothes are worn. The same fat store can also be observed in the lower front of the stomach, sometimes called a beer belly.

The time it takes to get rid of love handles greatly depends on how large one’s love handles are. Focusing on abdominal workouts initially will be pointless and yield hardly any results without doing cardio and switching to a healthier diet.
Begin with intense cardio exercises; such as swimming, jogging, cycling and aerobic classes. Alternate with a few minutes of less intense workouts such as power walking. Best results will be seen if you work three cardio work-outs a week for 40 minutes each. Repeat this sequence regularly and you'll begin to observe weight loss in the abdominal area as well as whole body.

While undergoing cardio switch your diet to a healthier one, note that i am not asking you to starve yourself. Simply cut down on sodas, pastries, fast-food, fatty dishes and alcohol and bulk up on veggies, rice, proteins (especially white meats like chicken), and wholegrain produce. Lowering your calorie intake will get your body to burn fat deposits. Drinking a lot of water will help your body burn off calories faster. Drink about 8-10 glasses of water each day.

When you start to notice a reduction in the size of your love handles, it is important to tone up the area. Working the obliques (the abs muscles that run down both sides of your abdomen) will Increase your abdominal muscle mass and your abdomen will look much firmer.

Here are 5 highly effective abdominal exercises to help trim down love handles.




Side Bends: Stand straight with knees slightly bent and feet apart, then slowlylower the trunk a few inches to the left side then back again to do the right side. Try to keep the body and legs in line by not bending forwards or backwards. Repeat for 12 – 16 repetitions. Weights can be carried for extra challenge.




Bicycle Crunches: Lie flat on the floor with your lower back pressed to the ground. Put your hands beside your head. Bring knees up to about 45- degree angle and slowly go through a bicycle pedal motion. Touch your left elbow to your right knee, then your right elbow to your left knee. Keep even, relaxed breathing throughout.Repeat for 12 – 16 repetitions.



Plank: Lie face down on a mat resting on the forearms. Push off the floor, raising up onto toes and resting on the elbows. Keep your back flat, in a straight line from head to heels. Tilt your pelvis and contract your abdominals to prevent your rear end from sticking up in the air or sagging in the middle. Hold for 20 to 60 seconds, lower and repeat for 3-5 reps.



Hanging Knee raise: Begin hanging from a bar with your arms straight. Bring your knees up to your chest, hold for three seconds and then bring your feet back down. Use only your abdominal muscles to lift your legs and use slow body movements. Repeat for 12 – 16 repetitions


Medicine Ball-Russian Twist: Sit on the floor with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Hold the medicine ball and extend your arms out in front of you, recline back so that your body is angled about 45 degrees. The more you lean back, the more challenging it will be. Also you can lift your feet about 1-2 inches off the floor and keep you feet in the air during the entire set. Repeat for 12 – 16 repetitions.





Other effective tips for abdominal fat loss are:

• Sleep - Sleep helps you to get rid of abdominal fat accumulations. While you sleep your body will develop muscle mass, which allows you to burn off calories.
• Breathe - exhale through your mouth and inhale through your nose as often as possible. By doing this you will firm your abdominal muscles.
• A good laugh
• Eat your dinner earlier. The later you eat, the harder it is for your body to digest the food and it is just going to sit in your stomach.
• Stand up straight. Be conscious of your posture and pull your stomach in; this will force the middle muscles to work 24/7.

Debby Soetan

Body sculpting

With movies like 300 and TV shows like Spartacus, women are very aware what a fit man looks like and african women are no exception. In this generation, big tummy and flabby arms are so not cool..so boys...this is a general introduction to enable you be on your way to getting that GLADIATOR body.

Body sculpting is reaching the crest of being physically fit. If you think that you are in good shape but just need focus on few areas of your body, the following excises are just perfect for you to achieve the goal. One important aspect that is often overlooked by men while they’re planning a complete body sculpting is maintaining the balance.

If your upper body happens to be rock solid, you cannot ignore the lower body. The exercises written below will help you achieve the perfect middle ground.

Going for complete body sculpting routine needs you to take different routes.Every exercise helps you define in some or the other way, what you need to do is exercise in a way that improves your fitness level. First thing you need to start exercise with is a bench press. Exercise is excellent to build muscles in pectorals and arms. You can also alternate the daily benching exercises in such a way that one day you focus on higher weight benching with fewer reps and the other day you can try pressing a smaller weight with twice the number of reps.

The next thing that you need to do is Triceps dips. All you need to do is face away from the front of weight bench and then place your arms over the seat of the bench. Now extend your legs outwards so that your experience all the weight over your hands. Start lowering and raising your body in the way of you would perform push-ups.

The next area that you should focus on is your abs. Having a perfect abs is a great way to balance the upper body. You can perform declining sit-ups for achieving the same. You can use a decline bench and secure your feet over the top and then slowly start performing the sit-ups. The gravitational resistance will make your job tough but it will provide maximum attention to your abs.

Make sure that you exercise your lower body for an equal quantity of time so that the sculpting routine remains balanced. You can strengthen your legs using squats. You can also work on quads. A quad is basically an extension machine which is effective for leg muscle exercises.


Reference : www.menshealth.com

The road to Fitness

Guest Blogger: Adun Okupe (Fitness enthusiast)


Traditionally, there is something about Africans that always seemed to puzzle me. How we accepted that the older we got, the bigger we were allowed to become.
I never fully accepted it. Yet I can understand why. Whilst at school, exercise was easy as it was included in the routine. Yet, as we reach our mid-twenties, what with the pressures from work, social life and family, the one thing that we give up, the easiest thing to give up is our commitment to exercise.

We all know about the benefits of exercise for being fit, slimmer. Did you also know about the benefits of exercise for clearer skin, better hair, nails, and even long-term health? Could it be possible that 30 minutes of walking/running/jogging can yield all the above? YES! I tell you! Yes!

I was speaking to my neighbour recently. She saw me stretching after running, and she stopped to tell me that I should never give up exercise, as it helps reduce the arthritis, the internal organs. She went further to tell me about how she exercises 4 times a week, nothing too strenuous, but enough to keep her going. She is in her 80s and she has cancer, and she has survived the estimated number of years that the doctors gave her to live.

This is not to scare you, but to make us appreciate the values of exercising and fitness, now while we are younger, and then we can incorporate this into our routine, and it can stand us in good stead for our later years.

So, a little bit about me, I love to exercise, jogging, swimming, running, tae bo, kick boxing, body combat, aerobics, hockey, you name it, I’ve tried it and I love it. I also have pressures from life, what with work, schooling and maintaining an active social life, but I know the benefits, and my, are they substantial!
This column will be to guide you, to encourage and motivate us in our quest to look good, inside, and outside, that is, to do away with the African myth of not exercising. If we can take good care of our cars, bags, shoes and gadgets, why not our bodies?

Healthy Weight Loss

GUEST BLOGGER - DEBBY SOETAN (Fitness Guru)

From an early age we start to become highly judgemental of our bodies and begin to notice what we may call imperfections. Haven been in that position myself, I am familiar with what it’s like to look in the mirror and spot areas of my body I would like to be trimmer, slimmer and leaner. Sometimes one even pulls the skin back on the “flawed” body part to present an illusion of how a firmer body will look like.

In most cases Africans are mainly concerned with the outer appearance when it comes to weight loss. People wanting to lose weight can often get fixated on the final target weight. However many are unaware of the huge health benefits that they gain from smaller amounts of weight loss achieved along the way.
The following significant improvements to health are realized with just 10% loss of your current bodyweight:

1. 10% reduction in total cholesterol
2. 40-50% reduction in cancer-related deaths
3. Over 50% reduction in developing diabetes


And that is only the tip of the iceberg. The benefits that a healthy and fit lifestyle can have are amazing. The aim of this column is to educate and inspire Africans to live a healthier life, and more importantly maintain it through exercise.

Tip of the Week: Did you know that it is estimated that a 150-pound person who walks 2.5 miles in an hour will burn approximately 210 calories? Walking can also help reduce stress and improve muscle tone.
Be sure to wear a comfortable pair of shoes, preferably trainers. Also ensure you warm up before you start this is very important so as to allow your muscles to relax before exercise. Start by walking at a very gentle pace for about 5-10 minutes. The second half of the warm up process involves stretching. There are different types of stretches that can be done, such as abs and glute walking stretch, thigh walking stretch, calves walking stretches, etc.

Improvise. You don’t have to set time out of your day just for walking. We Africans tend to drive everywhere we go even for short journeys. Try substituting those short drives for a walk instead.

More information on walking can be found on the website walking.about.com.