Well, I’ve heard of lots of fitness fads, but this one sounds downright dangerous, especially for someone like myself who I happen to know sucks at surfing!  The reason I mention surfing is because you use a surf-like board when practicing paddle board yoga.

It looks like it may be a little wider of a board than is traditionally used in surfing, which may be a little better for stability.  In paddle board yoga, you may also be using an actual paddle stick with the paddle flat at the end.

Paddle board yoga is pretty much what it sounds like. You paddle out on your surf-like board to a deeper part of the water (probably in case you fall in).  You then do all of your classic yoga moves like downward dog, core work (abs), inversions, backbends, spinal stretching and relaxation techniques in the water.

This adds another element to your yoga that is good for balance because it forces your body to constantly do all these tiny little corrections to make sure you don’t go end up in to the water. So, you are actually strengthening the entire body, even the tiny muscles get toned because they are working the entire time, stabilizing the body.

This is because the water is waving and girating, as it always does, and you are unknowingly stabilizing all your core muscles the entire time you are doing it.  Also, you get the added benefit of being on the water, which has a calming effect. Also, moving water puts out negative ions.

Negative ions balance out positive ions, or free radicals, which destroy cell health. There is a reason that we tend to feel energized and simultaneously calm near moving water – it’s because of the ions and the sounds of the water, soothing our souls and rejuvenating our resolve.

Doing paddle board yoga may seem a stretch, but it may be just the thing to help tone your body as well as a way to get out on the water and have some fun.

One of the most ridiculous things I ever read about working out and drinking water is that you should try really hard to just avoid drinking water or beverages at all.  The one thing I do agree with is that you shouldn’t drink sugary electrolyte replenishing drinks during workouts, unless you need the carbs and you are doing something extremely intensive like running a marathon, a triathlon or something like that.

During the course of “normal” working out though, that is not advised.  Why? Well, working out, you’re burning calories and carbs. You don’t want to add more of the very thing you’re trying to burn while you’re working out.

There is also evidence that you stop producing HGH, the precious Human Growth Hormone, that you taper off on producing with age, when you work out. But the catch is you only produce it much more during workouts when you’re not also simultaneously carb loading.

Some recommendations actually say to wait a few hours after a workout to even eat or drink any carbs.  So what about just drinking plain old water during a workout?  Nothing wrong with that, right?

Definitely not. You actually need to replenish some of the lost water through the sweat you’ve been putting out during a workout. The more you sweat, the more you’ll need to drink.  The argument from the non-water drinkers is that you are hurting your body’s natural mechanism for putting the body into high calorie burning mode during a workout.

They claim that you are bringing the body temperature down and defeating the purpose of heating it up. That’s only if you’re drinking severely cold water though, and the effect is momentary, trust me.  So, I think this can be safely debunked.

One thing you don’t want to do is drink too much water. This can lead to cramping and a belly full of water that can be uncomfortable to carry around when you’re moving around vigorously.

Too much water, or food for that matter, when you are working out vigorously lends itself to cramping.  Plus it just plain weighs you down. When your body is using energy to burn off food AND work out, you are inevitably going to have a mediocre workout that you can’t put 100% in to.

A recent fad that has been circulating through Hollywood for a while, and is starting to make its way to the mainstream is drinking coconut water for better hydration as a sort of more natural alternative to sugary, chemical-laden sports drinks.

Sports drinks like Gatorade purport to hydrate you better than water because of their high electrolyte content. Electrolytes are merely minerals, and they fuel our body with hydration better than ordinary water can because they help balance the hydration better in our bodies more quickly.

If you’ve ever noticed, Gatorade and other sports drinks are a great way to hydrate when you’re sick and throwing up or are losing a ton of water through diarrhea.  My husband and I drink the grape flavor and eat a ton of saltines whenever we’re sick.

Well, coconut water is advertised as having electrolytes such as magnesium and sodium in it, and these are two things the help add electrolytes to your body and add to your hydration and energy.  However, recent tests came to the conclusion that only one brand of coconut water on the market actually has the amount of these ingredients that it claims to.

Coconut water can be seen in lots of celebrity’s hands these days in the tabloids. I just saw one of Ellen Pompeo (the girl from Grey’s Anatomy) carrying a bottle of the slightly sweet water under her arm after what looked like a workout.  Other celebs have been photographed with it as well, always looking like they were coming from the gym or taking a yoga class.

However, one may not want to add sugar to their body right after a workout. If you’ve ever read about HGH production, then you may have heard that your body does not go into overdrive making HGH like it does without any sugar when you consume sugar after a workout.

For that reason, it is recommended that, although sugar is the one thing you mostly crave after working out because it’s quick expendable energy, it’s the one thing you should stay away from.  Sugar after working out actually slows down the body’s production of HGH that occurs afer physically exerting yourself.

One of the main benefits of exercising is increasing your HGH production, so if you negate that, you negate a major benefit of working out!

One huge benefit that I personally notice from working out, is that I seem to keep a lot of the mushy, smushy pesky water weight off my problem areas like my thighs and my belly (althought that used to not be a problem area, as I get older, it’s getting harder to maintain). 

Why would working out regularly help you to lose water weight? Well first off, you lose a lot of that water weight through sweating. When you lead a sedentary lifestyle, you probably don’t sweat a whole lot, which means you aren’t getting rid of excess water weight on a daily basis.

Not sweating can be very bad for your health, as this is the way that your body not only gets rid of water (besides urinating), but it is also the body’s way of getting rid of some of those toxins that can build up in your body as a result of your diet or lifestyle, and environmental toxins that can enter our body.

I notice a huge difference in my body when I’m working out reguarly – the kind of workout where I sweat a lot – aka, where I do lots of tough cardio work.  I notice that my body seems more sleek and streamlined, and I can fit into my clothes better, even if I have not changed my diet at all.

Anyone who has lost five pounds (which is almost all water weight usually, since the first five usually are, especially when lost quickly), can tell you what a huge difference this small weightloss can make in the way your clothes fit. It can make a large difference in your tummy area, your butt and thighs, all of which are the buzzwords for most women.

Guys will notice it a lot in their bellies, which always tends to be one  of the problem areas for men.  Men tend to get jiggly here, and they tend to retain water there and in their love handle region, on the sides of the belly, when they retain lots of water from consuming too much salt or not working out enough and sweating.

Working out and moving, and doing intense cardio, not only helps you keep water weight at bay, but it also keeps your circulation going, which can help with everything from cellulite to water retention.  The cellulite reduction part is obviously very appealing to women. 90% of women (at least) admit to having cellulite.