Fitness Friday| How To Reduce Cellulite

Image from Google

I'm going to be honest here, so I don't know about you, but I know I suffer from the dreaded cellulite, but thankfully I'm not alone as apparently Ninety per cent of women suffer from it, including celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Blake Lively! It is caused by a combination of factors including toxin build up, water retention and poor circulation.

Below are some tips I have picked up over the year to help reduce the appearance of cellulite!

Step One- Change your diet

Healthy eating is very important when it comes to cellulite, as eating processed, junk food only encourages our bodies to retain water and slows down our circulation. Reducing your consumption of saturated fat, caffeine, wheat, salty foods, alcohol and refined carbs will make a big difference. 

Step Two- Move your body

Exercise it the most effective way to ridding cellulite. For the best results you should try and mix up your work outs, include; aerobic exercises such as jogging and cycling or swimming; toning exercises such as weight training and lots of squats; lymph-boosting exercises like yoga and Pilates. 

Step Three- Stimulate your system

Stimulating your lymphatic system increases the oxygen travelling through the body, and gets rid of toxins. The most effective method is through body brushing. You do this by selecting a brush which is not too soft or not too hard, and brush before your bath or shower. Start at the feet and working up your legs and across the hips, bottom and stomach in upward strokes. Move from the hands, up the arms to the shoulders, always brushing towards your heart. 

7 Top Tips

1. Eat plenty of fresh foods and reduce your processed food consumption.
2. Eat protein daily.
3. Cut out fatty, sugary foods which are stored as fat, mainly on your lower body. 
4. Drink loads of still water!
5. Exercise! Exercise and Exercise! 
6. Relax once a day- take a few minutes to concentrate on your breathing.
7. Body brush to improve the skin texture and use a good moisturiser. 

Do you have any of your own tips?

Fitness Fridays| Blast Fat Fast

For those of you who work out, work out and work out some more, but are yet to see the results, this may be because you have hit a plateau with your fitness. This is basically where you reach a point in your exercise routine where your body has become used to the routine, and additional progress cannot be made. This typically happens every 6 to 8 weeks.

The following tips should help you defeat the plateau and find yourself fighting the fat again.

• Factor in Rest- There does exist such a thing as too much of a good thing. If you give yourself a rest week every fourth week, you will actually gain fitness by allowing your body to recover and grow stronger. If you feel very tired or something is niggling, do not be afraid to take an extra few days, or even try a lower impact form of exercise for a week.
• Short and Sweet- If you are aiming for fat loss, then shorter, high-intensity workouts are the most effective. Incorporate interval training into your routine. This consists of a short burst of high-intensity work followed by longer, low-intensity recovery periods. Ideally you want to aim for 45 seconds of high intensity, followed by 90 seconds of low intensity, repeated every 8-12 times. You can do this running, cycling on the stepper... just do it!
• Lift it up- strength workouts are essential for your workout routine. Weight training raises your metabolism, gives you a totally new body shape, sheds fat, and improves your body composition. Incorporating strength training for 20 minutes, 3 times a week will train your body to burn fat while making you lean. 
• Just keep moving- Every little helps! Any extra movement you do throughout the day will burn more calories, all those little thing between your gym sessions can make a difference. Take the stairs, get off the bus a stop early, jumping jacks in ad breaks, just keep moving!
• Nibble away- In order to keep your metabolism up you need to keep eating (obvious the right stuff, not rubbish.) Start the day with a decent breakfast then keep nibbling every two to three hours. Keep snacks near/on you such as nuts, seeds, hard boiled eggs, fruit and veg. 
• Shake it up- As mentioned earlier, your body get used to the exercises you put it through, therefore try and keep things fresh, keep it surprised. Change the frequency, length, and intensity of your workouts, Try a new exercise; yoga, Pilates, dance, swimming, spinning, use weights and kettle balls, just be adventurous. 

I hope this help a few of you get out of a rut, and back to making a difference to yourself. Do you have any other tips?

Fitness Fridays| Little changes equal big changes

Image taken from We Heart It

So a few of the past Fitness Friday articles may have been a little daunting or a too big of a challenge for some of my lovely readers and followers. Therefore today I am offering some advice on the little changes that everyone can make that will make a big change to your life and health, so here we go;

1. Eat before you exercise- research shows that your body burns the same amount of fat whether you eat before exercise or not. However exercising on an empty stomach means you exhaust your supply of glycogen (this is glucose you store for energy). If you do this you will end up burning more your muscle instead of building it... not good girls!
2. Combine your strength exercises- do not just lift your arms weights while standing still. If you are doing arms lifts with your free weights, combine these movements with squats, as the more muscles you use at the same time the more calories you will burn. Don't over do it though! 
3. Beware of mini-sized snacks- you may think eating snack size treats is being good, however studies have shown that it is easy to overeat these. This is because it makes it harder to stick to one portion, your silly little mind believes that because the calorie count is so low on these snacks, you convince yourself that its OK to have seconds. Its OK if you have the iron will and will power, but just be careful girls! 
4. Reduce your rest time- The fewer rests you do mean you do the same amount of work, but in less time, therefore reducing your workout time, or meaning you can do twice as much work in the same amount of time. In a study, it was found that people who waited 35 seconds between exercise sets lost 27% more body fat than those who rested for three minutes.
5. Eat protein at every meal- Please please so this girls! This will dramatically change your diet for the better, so if you make one change do this! You will fell fuller for longer, which prevents you from snacking. The best sources are eggs, lean meat and fish, and nuts.  

Look Perfect Despite Not Feeling It| How to Cure a Hangover

So its that time of year, when a lot of people burn the candle at both ends of the stick. Meaning some of us can end up becoming unwell and looking even worse. Due to myself working in hospitality I don't get much time off work, so I am guilty of not having much sleep, too much alcohol and energy drinks, and a poor diet. Here are a some tips that I follow or have heard of through the years.

Tired Puffy Eyes

We've all woken up with little piggy eyes, despite getting what we thought was enough sleep.

These puffy eyes, are actually caused by things such as dehydration from excessive alcohol consumption, or from sleeping in dry stuffy rooms. 

To reduce the symptoms try letting gravity do its work, so prop your head up while you sleep with an extra pillow. If this does not help, try gently tapping the eye area lightly with your finger tips, working from the inner eye by your nose, toward the temple. 

If this does still not work, use the good old trick of cupping each closed eye with a chilled stainless steel teaspoon for five minutes. 

Bloodshot eyes

Eyedrops! Eyedrops! Eyedrops! These work miracles, as often bloodshot eyes are the telltale of a tired or hungover person. For those who wear contact lenses, so cannot spend the day putting eye drops in many companies now have solutions that you can spray on your closed eyelid and they still have the same effect.

There also exists a homemade remedy, however I have not tried it, so do not know whether it works, but to me it sounds painful due to the witch hazel. Anyways you are to add a couple drops of witch hazel into an egg cup of mineral water, then place it snugly over the eye allowing it to wash the eye for around 10 seconds. 

Chapped lips and noses

Shiny, peeling noses are often around this time of year to the risk of colds and flu. The easiest way to get rod is of a slick of one per cent hydrocortison products such as Hc45 cream, which is available at chemists. 

Chapped lips need protected and healed from products such as Vaseline, use this especially at bedtime. 

Always avoid matte, pale, frosty lip colours of you do have chapped lips as this highly emphasized the flaky lips, instead use moisturizing lipstick with a sheer gloss or satin texture. 

Dry, Flaky skin

Due to low humidity, central heating and other dehydrating elements pf the colder months, our skin becomes dry, flaky and dull.

I am an avid believer in exfoliating, but it is needed even more so in the winter. We do not shed our skin unlike reptiles, so we need to give ourselves a helping hand. Exfoliating will rid the old dead skin cells, and reveal more fresh healthy cells. Always layer on the moisturiser afterwards though, otherwise you will see no benefit. Outdoor exercise will also help boost circulation and will improve the look of your skin. 

Dull complexion

Diet and exercise will always help your complexion, there is really nothing better. So despite the cold months and stodgy food, please still keep up your exercise regime. 

Boost your complexion even more so with the use of a good moisturiser, a radiance-enhancing one will work best. Really massage the lotion into your face, then let it absorb into your skin for five to ten minutes before applying your foundation. 

The dreaded hangover

You feel awful because of the alcohol leaving you dehydrated, which affects the blood vessels around the brain giving you an awful headache. 

- The things you can do to minimize the symptoms are lining your stomach before you go out with a good meal. This helps slow down the rate the alcohol is absorbed. 

- Drink water before, during and after drinking alcohol this is the best thing you can do as it slows down your drinking, and helps flush your body of the alcohol and stops dehydration. 

- Treat headaches with paracetamol rather than aspirin or ibuprofen painkillers as these can irritate your stomach.

- Eat protein rich meals (if you can keep it down) scrambled eggs, or a chicken wrap are ideal.

- If you are feeling sick, ginger helps as it has anti-nausea qualities. So have a smoothie with ginger included in it, also  a smoothie will help replenish your body with vitamins. 

- Eat yoghurt, better still live yoghurt. As the "friendly" probiotic bacteria in your gut can help to boost recovery from alcohol-induced liver damage. 

What are your go-to tips to ensure you look alive after a heavy few nights? What hangover cure do you use?