Well, we’ve all heard that the physical education programs at schools don’t keep the kids active enough anymore, but some teachers appear to be taking things into their own hands by a story that I recently read. A schoool teacher in Georgia says that she uses yoga for her students to be able to relax and absorb their learning lessons more readily as well as to help them bust stress. Think kids don’t suffer stress like adults do? Think again!

Lots of the students in this particular teachers class say that doing the yoga positions before and during class helps them to destress and makes them better able to learn things, especially when the teacher correlates a specific yoga position to piece of learning material. I think yoga in schools is a great idea.

Yoga is notorious for helping relax peopel and get them more in tune with their bodies and their breathing techniques. Breathing correctly is immenseley therapeutic when it comes to relaxation and stress, and it also helps to prevent the cells from aging as rapidly and deteriorating, since it provides increased oxygen levels to the cells and helps them to regenerate instead of dying off. In other words, it keeps our whole body healthier, since we are, in essence, made of of cells.

Other teachers also started offering yoga to students in their classes, and all have had rave reviews from students as well as teachers. Think about it, you’d probably have a much more “zen” classroom if you’re promoting peaceful calm and the zen like qualities that come along with yoga almost inevitably. Like I said the last post, my boyfriend did yoga for the first time a couple days ago, and he really liked it and said it made him more calm and relaxed. I think we should campaign to have yoga in all schools! Whatd’ya think?

I made my boyfriend do a 30 minute yoga DVD with me for the first time ever just a couple of days ago. Why? Well, he has a problem with breathing correctly, and I told him that yoga would help him to regulate his breathing. Also, he is not flexible at all and never stretches before he works out, one of the worst things you can do for your muscles since they are more prone to stiffness and injury if you don’t stretch them properly before you work them out or bulk them up.

He often has problems with getting a stiff neck, shoulders, and back, and I’ve been on him for years to stretch and do stretching exercises before he works out. I finally got him to do the yoga DVD with me, and he liked it.

We did a lighter yoga video that was focused on whole body strengthening and breath conditioning, so it was moreso a long stretching and breathing session, with few challenging poses and more focus on breath and stretching. Exactly what he needed, in other words. It’s part of the Yoga Zone DVD collection actually.

He did have a hard time doing some of the poses, but he held them for as long as I did, and I was impressed. There was a lot of popping going on, and he did find it hard to breathe properly, which just goes to show how much he really needs to do yoga and other breath conditioning and stretching exercises all that much more. He didn’t get all that sore the next day, and he felt the relaxation techniques really worked. So now, I’ve got him saying that he will do it once a week with me. Progress, gotta love it!

I think that I might buy myself a Christmas present this year with my annual bonus from work. I really want a suspended punching bag like professional boxers use, along with the little bag that suspends from the top of the contraption that goes back and forth as you punch it from the side. You can also do roundhouse kicks to the large bag, which is an excellent exercise for the legs and outer thighs, which you know I’m a big fan of.

It seems that most of the good boxing equipment and punching bags are made by Everlast, at least they are in the two places I’ve looked so far which is Dicks Sporting Goods and Sams Club. Sams Club has the huge contraption that has a body sized punching bag that stay put, and the little one at the top that you can do the quick punching with , as well as a set of boxing gloves.

Ok, I admit, I already bought the punching gloves, or boxing gloves. Funny thing is, I had to buy the kids sized ones since I have very small hands, and the larger ones were ridiculously large on my hands, and probably would have caused me injury instead of preventing injury since they are so big and bulky. There are woman’s ones, kids ones and men’s ones, but the women’s ones were still too large and bulky for me to use comfortably.

Boxing is not only good for anxiety relief and getting pent up anger out, but you can build yourself a mighty buff pair of arms pretty fast doing this, as well as train yoruself cardiovascularly since you are bobbing around a lot, working the waste, and getting the heart rate up throughout the whole workout. I can just see coming home after a long day of work and taking it all out on the punching bag. Talk about therapy!

I recently purchased the exercise DVD called Love Your Legs online, and wanted to give you guys a review of it, even though most of the reviews I read on it gave a lot of info already, I still wanted to give you my own personal spin on what I think of this DVD. It’s not a very well known DVD right now as far as I know, although the fact that the renowned dermatologist and one of the cellulite authorities, Dr. Howard Murad, even appears on the DVD and gives his advice on how to get rid of cellulite.

I like this DVD for a couple of reasons. One, it doesn’t just focus on the exercises, which in my opinion are superior exercises that target my saddle bags and outer thighs like nothing else ever has. I’ve tried a lot too, so I know a little about outer and inner thigh exercises and how they need to be effective to work. To be effective at reducing saddle bags and also to target the specific areas that need the work, they have to be isolation exercises, and the proprietor of this DVD does this very well.

She focuses on a couple of things. She starts off telling us how we need to eat to reduce cellulite successfully, which is mostly common sense things like stay away from sugar, but she also mentions that antioxidant consumption is necessary so that we can destroy the toxins that help add to our cellulite and fat storage.

There is another section on fitness training for fat and cellulite reduction, and then she goes into the serious lunges and other lunge-like exercises that are modified to target the buttocks, backs of the thighs, and the fronts of the thighs and sides, all of which are woman’s worst problem areas, and the reasons we hate our legs many times.

I found the exercises to be extremely effective, and in fact, that first time I did them I couldn’t make it all the way through and was very sore for a few days. However, the next time was easier and I was able to make it through all of them. I love the fact that it makes the sides of my thighs burn, as no other exercise ever made it so that I could feel the burn in the actual area I was targeting.

You know it’s working when you feel that. She also goes over massage and stretching techniques, all of while I love. She demonstrates them as well. I think she’s got a hit on her hands, if she continues to market this DVD, since so many women are very self conscious about their thighs, buttocks, and other problem areas.

Yep! Just when you thought you’d seen everything, and all the fanciest cellular phones that will do everything but make you a pot of coffee, there is now a state of the art phone that is purporting to act as your personal trainer, wherever you go, whether you want it to or not! It sounds almost like your very own little mini drill sergeant to me!

It’s called the “Wellness” mobile phone, and it is to be made by a Japanese firm, so far just the prototype is out. Just a few of the phones neat butt kicking abilities (kicking your butt, that is, and acting as a willpower summoner) are motion sensors that can tell when the person with the phone is moving, in turn counting calories burned during that time, a sensor on it that you can position a certain way to read your body fat, a built in mp3 player, and even a bad breath detector!

Talk about an all in one phone. It also has built in sayings that address whether you’re stressed, tired, anxious, and other things and has the best things to say as a pep talk to get you to get up and move around and just get through it. So in essence, it is like a personal trainer who coaxes, congratulates and encourages you to get off your butt and start working out.

Sometimes I think I could use a device like that – I think we could all relate to those periods of time when we just want to do nothing but watch tv, lay on the couch and bake cookies. But the downside to that is of course the it makes our backside inflate very quickly, especially the older we get! The Wellness phone should be available to the public soon, it was just unveiled at a trade show as a prototype recently.

I purchased a DVD called “Love Your Legs” that is a video that is supposed to help with that dreaded female atrocity that all women hate called cellulite. Cellulite affects a large percentage of women – we’re talking above 95% most likely, so cellulite has been a target of the beauty industry for years, with new creams and products coming out all the time that are supposed to help reduce the appearance of cellulite – and many of them do make a little difference.

However, it is mostly diet and exercise that make the biggest difference when it comes to reducing the appearance of cellulite in the female body, and it starts with a healthy diet with no sugar (refined sugar, that is), high antioxidant levels and omega 3 fatty acids, and only lean proteins and lean foods that do not have high amounts of fat or salt in them. That means pretty much all fast food except for salads are pretty much out of the picture!

As far as this Love Your Legs DVD is concerned, the creator of the DVD does seem passionate about helping women get rid of their cellulite, which is a major self esteem buster for lots of women, some who won’t even don a bathing suit because of it’s unsightly bulging spongy appearance. She combines a nutritional information guide and appearance by renowned dermatologist Howard Murad with great exercises for the legs that will help tone and sculp out cellulite and minimize its appearance.

She also recommends other lifestyle changes and self manual massage with a moisturizing agent for two times a day for about five minutes in the cellulite affected areas to combat the unsightly stuff. Apparently a lot of cellulite’s appearance has to do with the fact that the areas it appears most have the littlest circulation and this minimal circulation contributes to the puckering of the skin and loss of elasticity.

The exercises and the foods recommended, as well as the manual self massage, are supposed to help stimulate that circulation and also help break apart the fat deposits that stop the spongy stuff. I did the exercises recommended, and boy let me tell you, I could not even get through the whole twenty minutes. It’s now two days later and my legs are still burning.

And I work out regularly, so this stuff must be effective to make my legs into spaghetti for two days! I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going with the Love Your Legs DVD.

To maintain optimum health, it is imperative to drink an adequate amount of water each day. Water is the best type of liquid to maintain proper hydration. Other sources of liquid may quench your thirst, but water aids the process of digestion, absorption, elimination and dilutes toxins the best to benefit your body.

Certain liquids that contain caffeine or alcohol are actually diuretics and will cause you to excrete more water than you take in. Often, people have mild dehydration during the day at some time and don’t recognize it. The recommended intake of water per day is eight glasses of water that are eight ounce size.

If you are suffering from a cold or respiratory ailment, increase your water consumption to eight ounces per hour. This helps to thin mucous and aids healing from your respiratory ailment. When looking at your intake of liquids, consider water as a separate entity. The type of water that is preferable is distilled, but you can take in tap water or another source.

The temperature of the water effects the speed of rehydration. Colder water will rehydrate your body more quickly than warm water.
Don’t wait until you’re thirsty to drink water. Your thirst mechanism doesn’t start until you’ve lost at least two cups of water. If you live in a hot, dry climate, the time between thirst and serious dehydration is very brief.

Carry water with you throughout the day. Keep chilled water with you in the car and take it to work with you. Take a tall drink of water before bedtime as you lose water while you sleep. Another good size glass of water when you wake is a good idea. If you have coffee only when you wake, it will cause you to lose more water.

During your exercise routine, take breaks for water. Don’t wait until you’re finished exercising to take in water. By that time, you may have begun to dehydrate. Water is essential to life just as air is. Keep in mind to drink the eight glasses of water per day so you’ll be healthier and well hydrated.

I know it’s a bit early to be asking for gifts or even thinking about what to buy others. Well, maybe not so much for some early birds who routinely start shopping months early for Christmas so they can avoid the holiday rushed and the inevitably picked over racks of merchandise at malls around the holidays. I myself tend to fall somewhere in between. While I wouldn’t consider myself an early Christmas shopped, I also don’t consider myself a last minute Christmas shopper who is still out on Christmas Eve putting the finishing touches on her Christmas shopping.

Christmas and New Years are one of the biggest times to purchase a piece of fitness equipment. One, because some people have holiday money or bonuses that are burning holes in their pockets and have wanted a new elliptical machine or treadmill for months, and two because we all put on a little extra padding around the holidays because of all the horribly fattening foods, and many people rush out to start their New years resolutions as soon as possible, and purchase the exercise equipment for the coming year, in hopes of starting a new trend of health, fitness and vibrancy.

At any rate, Christmas time and after Christmas is often a wonderful time to get good deals on not only on elliptical machines, but also on popular brands of treadmills like Horizon treadmills and ProForm treadmills, both of which also happen to make excellent elliptical machines. The elliptical has morphed into my favorite piece of exercise equipment. I own a Horizon myself, and I love it. I use it all the time, and it’s just like working out on an expensive piece of gym equipment.

I love the fact that I’m getting an excellent cardio workout in without necessarily impacting my joints hard, or building that big bulky muscle that only guys really want on their legs. Instead, the elliptical is built to help make for sleek and toned muscles, not boxy and bulky muscle tone, because of the fluid movement it creates. For a complete review of ellipticals see Elliptical Reviews, and by all means, please share your experiences through comment postings on your ellipticals or other exercise equipment.