Most of us at one point or another, has wanted to get a chiseled midsection. Most of us have given up on the dream of having “ripped” six pack abs. But you don’t have too.

There are many reasons to build your abdominals and reduce your body fat.

Below are three.

1. You look and feel good

   How you look and how you feel about your body can have a big impact on your psyche. When you feel good about your body, that feeling good spills over into other areas of your life.

   Mind, body, and soul are all connected. Feeling good is a prerequisite for going out and having good flow back to you. So when you feel good about your body, it helps you become more successful in other areas of your life; as long as you’re not too vain and hyper focused on your waistline.

2. Your spine is more stable and pain free

   When you build your ab muscles, it’s like developing an internal corset that holds your gut in. When you tighten your “Inner Weight Belt,” you create more stabilization for your spine, vertebrae and discs. We have had dozens of clients vastly improve, and many totally eliminate back pain, simply by developing stronger abdominal muscles.

3. You gain the ability to become more athletic, doing functional activities.

   Having a strong, athletic abdominal wall is very important for optimal body movement. This is very important at any time of your life but especially in your 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Being able to work, play, and move is a big part of aging gracefully. Having pain or limited range of motion in your core can be very challenging.

One big misconception that many of people have about building a strong, sexy midsection is that all you have to do is sit-ups. The more sit ups you can do; the better your abs will look. This is called “Spot Reducing”. You can build up an incredible abdominal wall with the best exercise program on earth; but if you do not bring your overall body fat level down, you will not see your abs.

The truth is, it is impossible to reduce your mid-section by just doing abdominal exercises.

For tight abs you must also reduce overall body fat. To accomplish this, you need to focus on:

Food – Nutrition

Make sure to eat unprocessed foods; organic when possible. If it is made in a plant, stay away; if it comes from a plant, eat it. Remember the axiom, “Lean, Green, and Marine.” Lean grass-fed red meats, green colorful leafy veggies, and fish, are all good foods to include in your nutrition program.

However, pay very careful attention to the types of fish you consume, as a vast majority of fish have become so polluted that the damage they can incur far outweighs their benefit. For more information about the best and worst of the bunch, please review this previous article.

These days, I strongly recommend you substitute much of your fish intake with a high quality, animal-based omega-3 supplement instead. My highest recommendation goes to krill oil. 

But eating good quality unprocessed foods may not be enough for most people.

In order to reach your true fitness and fat loss potential you must eventually work you way up to eating 5-6 small meals per day.

When you eat small meals (with protein and carbs together) more often throughout the day, you boost your body’s metabolism.

When you eat only once or twice a day (which is very common today because most people are in a hurry) you are sending a message to your body that food is scarce. Therefore it is going to slow down the rate at which you are burning calories.

Exercise- Resistance and Cardio

One of the most time-efficient ways to burn more calories is to gain more muscle. Because for every pound of additional muscle you gain, your body will burn an additional 50-70 calories per day.

So, if you gain 10 lbs. of muscle, you will burn 500 -700 more calories per day than you did before. And that is just to carry around that muscle with your daily activities (you even burn more calories at night when you sleep). So, in order to burn more calories, you must increase your physical activity level.

You have the best chance of gaining the most amount of muscle in major areas like legs, buns, chest, and back. Therefore a resistance program that is designed to hit all these major muscle groups is crucial.

A nice mix for an intelligent routine that can be woven into a lifestyle would be to do two 30-minute interval cardio sessions (preferably first thing in the morning) and two or three 60 minute resistance sessions per week.

Lifestyle Choices

Also important in bringing your overall body fat level down is choices you make outside of your work outs and meals. Like getting enough rest.

Since you will be training relatively intensely, you need more sleep to help in recovery. You see; you are actually tearing your body down while you work out. Your muscles and your energy systems rebuild and recover away from the work outs. Work out too much and you will limit your muscle growth and lower your immune system.

Also, it is a must to avoid using alcohol, tobacco, and other types of drugs. You’ll want to limit your intake of caffeine and stay away from fat burning pills and ephedrine. These types of supplements and drugs are only a short term help toward fat loss and are very harmful to your system.

Lowering your stress levels through meditation, deep breathing, prayer, Meridian Tapping Techniques, and laughing can help you reach your true fat loss potential.

Tips on how to work abdominals

Make sure to make your movements slow and shorten the range of motion on your exercises. The old-fashioned sit ups do not isolate your ab muscle very well at all, whereas very slow crunches (limited range of motion) work very well.

Your abdominal muscles need more variety than other muscle groups. Make sure to hit your abdominals from all three sides, each week. Crunches / sit ups will focus on your upper abs; knee-ups and leg raises will focus on your lower abs, and punches, twists and side bridges will focus on side obliques.

Try doing two sets of three different exercises in each abdominal work out.

Work your abs two or three times per week at most. Like other muscle groups, if you work them out effectively they will be slightly sore the next day. This is a sign that they need to rest and recover before you exercise them again.

Also make sure that you use a wide variety of abdominal exercises.

You may only be able to use an effective ab exercise for two or three work outs before your body gets used to it. That is not to say you can’t use it again later, but you will want to use new ones for a few weeks.

For many videos on unique, effective abdominal exercises, please see: fitness.mercola.com

You Do Have the Power to Change!!

Your Healthy Lifestyle Coach,

Darin

Research has found that exercise-related alterations to gut hormone signals could contribute to the overall effects of exercise and help manage body weight.

Exercise is already known to increase sensitivity to leptin, a hormone released from fat cells that inhibits food intake. A new study also looked at gut hormones that are released before and after a meal to initiate and terminate food intake.

According to Science Daily:

“The authors measured gut hormone release after a palatable tasty meal before and after rats exercised in running wheels. In rats with a lot of running wheel experience, consuming a tasty meal led to increased blood levels of an inhibitory feeding hormone, amylin. After the meal, the same rats showed a more rapid rebound of a stimulatory feeding hormone, ghrelin.”

Almost everyone agrees that exercise makes people feel happy and calm, a conclusion which is supported by research. But exactly why it does so, at a cellular level, has been difficult to determine.

However, a recent animal study provides some interesting clues.  Researchers found that mice allowed to exercise were more stress resistant, and tried to figure out the reasons.

According to the New York Times:

“To discern what was different, physiologically, about the stress-resistant mice, the scientists looked at brain cells using stains and other techniques. They determined that neurons in part of the rodents’ medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain involved in emotional processing in animals and people, had been firing often and rapidly in recent weeks, as had neurons in other, linked parts of the brain, including the amygdala, which is known to handle feelings of fear and anxiety.”

Building muscle, losing fat, and improving overall health are a dependent on one important hormone — insulin. People with high insulin sensitivity have better blood sugar regulation.

The website Bodybuilding.com offers 6 tips to get your insulin sensitivity high and keep it there.  Here are some of them:

Tighten the Reins On Refined Carbs:  One of the primary reasons people develop diabetes is their overconsumption of refined carbs and sugars, which causes their pancreas to continually pump out more and more insulin.

Have Some Healthy Fats:  Another way to increase your insulin sensitivity is by optimizing the rate at which your body processes carbohydrates by eating plenty of healthy fats.

Perform Depletion Workouts Every So Often:   By depleting your muscle glycogen levels, you’ll create a large “sinkhole” into which glucose can move.

Stay Active All Day:  Most people hit the gym regularly, but they succumb to long periods of inactivity during the rest of their day.  This is asking for trouble.

To read the rest of their tips, you can click on the link below.

Sports nutritionist Cynthia Sass, writing for Shape, lists five diet mistakes that could interfere with getting the most out of your training time: 

Drinking a Protein Shake Before a Workout:  Protein is digested slowly than carbs, so too much pre-workout can give you stomach cramps.  Have them afterwards instead.

Exercising on an Empty Stomach:  This forces your body break down its own muscle mass and convert it into blood sugar.

Overusing Energy Bars:  Too many of these and you might “eat back” the calories you burned exercising.

Not Eating Enough “Good” Fat:  The right kinds of fats are needed for your cells to heal and repair post workout.

Buying Into the Afterburn Myth:  You will indeed burn more calories in the hours after a workout — but for most it amounts to just 50 additional calories burned, not enough for a calorie splurge.

This question comes up a lot from my female clients. And the answer is, no, most likely you will not.

In fact, gaining more muscle through resistance exercises is an integral part of any well rounded fitness / fat loss program.

Having more muscle on your frame is the best “fat burning friend” that you will ever have.

Below are some advantages to incorporating resistance training (lifting weights) into your fitness / fat loss routine, along with a sound nutrition program, a strong positive mindset, and a social support plan.

Muscle is Five Times More Dense Than Fat

Conversely, a pound of fat takes up five times more space on your body than muscle, which means you can gain a pound of muscle and lose a pound of fat, and while your weight stays the same, you will actually shrink in size, and get that toned look you are looking for.

I can understand why many women may be reluctant to start lifting weights. You may have visions of steroid-bloated female bodybuilders with veins running through their biceps and chests. Of course, there is that extreme, but keep in mind those women are out of balance. That kind of build is NOT the typical result of weight lifting, and 99 percent of women simply do not have the level of natural testosterone to gain muscle like men.

It is a common misconception that muscle weighs more than fat. In reality, it’s simply a matter of density. They take up different amounts of space. Muscle is five times more dense than fat, meaning it takes up five times less space on your frame, pound for pound.

Burn More Calories 24 hours a Day / 7 Days Per Week

Another great advantage to gaining muscle through resistance training is that you burn more calories.

Why?

Because muscle is anabolic and demands energy just to sit on your frame – even when you sleep!. For every pound of muscle that you gain in the future, your body will burn 50-70 calories more per day.

That means, if you add 10 lbs. of muscle through a sensible fitness program (which is very possible), you will burn 500 – 700 calories more per day. And burning more calories leads to shedding excess fat.

How Weight Lifting Can Reduce Your Risk of Diabetes and Heart Disease

Remember, shedding excess fat is about more than just looks.

Your body has two types of fat: visceral and subcutaneous. Subcutaneous fat is found just under your skin, and is the type that causes dimpling and cellulite. Visceral fat, on the other hand, shows up in your abdomen and surrounds your vital organs including your liver, heart and muscles.

Visceral fat has been linked to serious health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and stroke, among many other chronic diseases.

If you want to reduce your risk of heart disease (and a host of other chronic diseases), the key is to keep your inflammation levels low, and avoid gaining visceral fat in your body.

Exercise is a critical component for this, as it both lowers inflammation in your body, and is one of the best weapons to fight visceral fat. For example, one study found that volunteers who did not exercise had an 8.6 percent increase in visceral fat after eight months, while those who exercised the most LOST over 8 percent of their visceral fat during that time.

So, since increasing muscle-mass puts your calorie burning into overdrive, which reduces fat stores, weight lifting is an essential part of a healthy fitness routine.

One of the Best Ways to Fight Osteoporosis

Your bones are actually very porous and soft, and as you get older, your bones can easily become brittle and less dense. Especially if you are inactive.

When you engage in resistance training you put more tension on your muscles, which in turn puts more pressure on your bones.

In addition, as you build more muscle, and make the muscle that you already have stronger, you also put more constant pressure on your bones.

Weight-bearing exercise is one of the most effective remedies against osteoporosis. The last thing you want to consider is to take a drug to improve your bone density, as without question, that is more likely to cause long-term harm than benefit.

I have had many clients who have amazed their doctors by reversing osteoporosis and osteopenia by lifting weights a couple times per week. So when it comes to fighting osteoporosis, stay off the meds and incorporate weight-bearing exercises instead. For example, a walking lunge exercise is a great way to build bone density in your hips, even without any additional weights.

You Have the Ability to Sculpt Your Physique

It’s important to realize the difference between simple weight loss and the body sculpting so many are trying to achieve. Body sculpting is not possible with cardio exercise only. For example, if you start out with a pear shaped figure and lose weight by calorie restriction and/or cardio work alone, you will simply end up with a smaller pear shape. For many, this is not enough.

However, by including weight training in you program, you have the ability to literally reshape your shoulders, buns, arms, back, and chest. You are the sculptor and can create virtually any changes you so desire.

But don’t think that the benefits of resistance training are limited to mere cosmetic adjustments — although most will agree it does feel great to look good in your birthday suit. You see, the intensity of your resistance training will achieve a number of beneficial changes on the molecular, enzymatic, hormonal, and chemical level, which will help slow down (and many cases stop) many of the diseases caused by a sedentary lifestyle, including:

1. Metabolic syndrome
2. Insulin sensitivity and resistance
3. Diabetes
4. Auto immune diseases

Optimal health is dependent on an active lifestyle; eating fresh, whole foods, avoiding as many processed foods as possible, and addressing the stress in your life. Ignoring any of these basic tenets of health will eventually lead to a decline in health and any number of diseases.

So start moving, and do remember to include strength training in your fitness / fat loss program. It is the number one way for you to remain strong, young, and independent well into old age.

For effective, easy to duplicate exercises, please go to our youtube video www.mercola.com/peakfitness

Your healthy lifestyle coach,
Darin Steen

Exercise increases levels of the protein PGC-1alpha, a brain molecule that may protect against Alzheimer’s disease.  The protein also has metabolic effects that also appear to guard against type 2 diabetes.

When researchers studied brain samples from dead Alzheimer’s patients, they found they contained less PGC-1alpha than normal.  Further investigation revealed that cells containing more PGC-1alpha produced less of the toxic amyloid protein characteristic of Alzheimer’s.

According to the Salisbury Journal:

“Since exercise is known to raise levels of PGC-1alpha, the findings may help explain the link between regular physical activity and reduced Alzheimer’s risk.  They also provide a clue to why people with diabetes are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.”

An informal MSN both yielded a list of 14 routines and pastimes that help make men happy and healthy.  Here are a few of them:

Morning exercise:  Morning exercise is closely associated with positive mood and sustained energy throughout the day.

Alone time:  A few minutes to hold the world at bay adds to contentment.

Date night:  Couples with a dedicated plan for spending time together tend to argue less and are better equipped to resolve tensions.

Games and sports:  Healthy competition in adult play increases abilities in decision making and problem solving.

Generosity and charity:  Try making someone else feel good can make you feel good in turn.

To read the rest of the list, you can click on the link below.

In a recent study, researchers took a group of sedentary, overweight men and women and over 18 months trained them to run a marathon. The men lost just a few pounds, and the women in the study averaged no change to their weight.  One reason may be that people tend to increase their caloric intake as they increase their exercise; diet and exercise go hand in hand when it comes to weight loss.

But exercise by itself has many benefits, of which Lifehack lists a few:

Increases your energy levels: The more energy you use, the more you have.

Improves the quality of your sleep: Exercise helps you get to sleep more quickly, and improves the sleep quality as well.

Helps combat chronic disease: Exercise helps improve your blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and has been linked with delayed onset of dementia.

Improves your mood: Exercise promotes positive brain chemistry.

To see the other three benefits they list, and what they had to say about them, you can click on the link below.

Everyone wants to age gracefully.  But whether or not you do is largely based on your own choices.  Planet Green has assembled some tips on how to stay healthy as you age.  Here are a few of them:

Cultivate Happiness: Happiness boosts your immune system and reduces stress.

Seek Out Novelty: Your brain loves new experiences and sensations, which help it continue to build neural connections throughout your life.

Exercise: Exercising regularly makes you less likely to develop diabetes, heart disease, dementia, osteoarthritis, depression and obesity.

To see the rest of their suggestions, click on the link below.

As many as 80 percent of Americans will experience back pain at some point in their lives. The problem is difficult to treat, and many treatments are expensive.

However, the majority of back pain is the result of muscle and ligament strain or weakness — which can usually be prevented by developing core strength and proper posture.  Maintaining good posture improves muscle tone, makes breathing easier and is one of the best ways to prevent back and neck pain.

According to the New York Times, here’s what you can do to maintain good posture:

“Stand up and lift your chin slightly; align your ears over your shoulders and your shoulders over your hips. Place your hands on your hips and pitch forward about two inches.  There should be a slight inward curve in your lower back, an outward curve in your upper back, and another inward curve at your neck. Maintain this posture and sit down. When you are sitting or driving for long periods of time, place a cushion or rolled-up towel between the curve of your lower spine and the back of your seat.”

Popular misconceptions can damage your fitness plans.  Yahoo Shine has collected 10 of the most pervasive and damaging fitness-related rumors.  Here are some of them:

Myth — Strength training will bulk you up

In fact, researchers have found that working out with heavy weights increased exercisers’ sleeping metabolic rate (the number of calories burned overnight) by nearly 8 percent. That’s enough to lose about 5 pounds in a year right there.

Myth — All calories are equal, so it doesn’t matter what you eat

Some foods take more work to eat, and therefore burn more calories while you’re digesting them. Eating vegetables and lean cuts of meat can increase your calorie burn by up to 30 percent.

Myth — Eating fat will make you fat

Getting enough of the right kinds of fat in your diet is actually essential for good health.

Myth — Diet soda will help you lose weight

Diet soda can increase your risk of metabolic syndrome, a group of symptoms that includes high levels of belly fat, blood sugar, and cholesterol.

To see the rest of the tips, you can click on the link below.

Barefoot running is a subject that is both popular and contentious. The question of whether it is better or worse for foot health cannot easily be answered.  Research shows that when you put young children in shoes, their steps become longer and they land with more force on their heels.  This would seem to imply that running barefoot should certainly be better for your body, because less pounding should mean less wear and tear.

However, just taking off your shoes, if you’ve been wearing them all your life, does not mean you’ll immediately attain proper barefoot running form. Many new barefoot runners continue to land heavily on their heels — and the result can be injury.

The New York Times suggests:

“… [I]f you do have a history of running-related injuries or simply want to see what it feels like to run as most humans have over the millenniums, then ‘start slowly’ … Remove your shoes for the last mile of your usual run and ease into barefoot running over a period of weeks … and take care to scan the pavement or wear barefoot running shoes or inexpensive moccasins to prevent lacerations … Your stride should be shorter when you are running barefoot”.

Many of today’s exercise guidelines originated in the 1940s and 1950s. Even though research has declared some of them counterproductive, fitness “experts” still follow the conventional wisdom. Yahoo Health lists 5 of the biggest exercise myths.  Here’s some of what they found:

Do 8 To 12 Repetitions

In reality, this approach places muscles under a medium amount of tension for a medium amount of time. Vary your repetition range to stimulate every type of muscle growth.

Do 3 Sets of Each Exercise

There’s nothing wrong with doing three sets, but nothing particularly right with it either. In general, the more repetitions of an exercise you do, the fewer sets you should perform.

When You Lift Weights, Draw in Your Abs

In reality, your body automatically activates the muscles that are most needed for spine support during exercise. So focusing only on your transverse abdominis can overrecruit the wrong muscles and underrecruit the right ones.

For the rest of the myths, click on the link below.

Exercise is usually a great way to burn more calories all day long. Fitbie warns against some mistakes that can rob you of your postworkout burn:

Mistake #1: You’re in a rut

When you do the same activity day after day, your body stops being challenged and your results plateau.  Change things up.

Mistake #2: You’re a slave to cardio

Resistance training, such as weight lifting or strength training, is the only way to increase lean muscle mass. Do it at least twice a week, hitting all your body’s major muscle groups.

Mistake #3: You’re stuck in the “fat-burning” zone

A treadmill, elliptical trainer, stair climber, or other cardio machine will often offer a programming option that allows you to stay in a “fat-burning” zone, which is based on the fact that at lower intensities, the body uses a greater percentage of its fat stores for fuel. But you’ll burn fewer calories overall. Instead, burn more calories and more calories from fat by doing intervals — periods of higher intensity followed by a slower recovery pace.

A foam roller, which looks like a firm log, can be a valuable part of your warmup and cooldown routine. Rolling improves circulation and breaks down knots that limit range of motion. Runner’s World suggests these routines:

CALVES: Put the roller under a calf. Rest your other foot on the floor. Roll from the ankle to below the knee. Rotate the leg in, then out. Stack ankles to add pressure.

ILIOTIBIAL BAND: Lie on your side with the roller near your hip, rest your other leg’s foot on the floor. Move along your outer thigh. Increase pressure by stacking your legs.

PIRIFORMIS: Sit on the roller and place one foot on the opposite knee. Lean into one buttock and roll forward and back, using your supporting leg to control the pressure.

ADDUCTORS: Lie on your stomach with one leg extended slightly to the side, knee bent. Place the roller in the groin area of the extended leg and roll the inner thigh.

QUADRICEPS: Lie on your stomach with a roller placed under the front of your thigh and slowly roll up and down from the bottom of your hip to the top of your knee.

To see the rest of their suggestions, you can click on the link below.

A sedentary lifestyle can result in the loss of up to 0.4 pounds of muscle per year. But even if you’re well over 50, you can add 2.42 pounds of lean muscle in an average of 18 to 20 weeks. The same techniques can increase your strength by 25 to 30 percent.

The numbers come from a report on the benefits of progressive resistance training for older adults. The researchers suggest beginning with squats, modified push-ups and tai chi, Pilates or yoga.

After that, according to Dr. Weil’s Daily Blog:

“Then they advise working with a professional who can design a strength training program that advances to working with weights and machines to build and strengthen muscles. In five months, you could be much, much stronger.”

Scientists are pointing to a new factor that may be a major cause of the current obesity epidemic: the American workplace. A review of changes in the labor force since 1960 suggests that at least some weight gain can be explained by declining physical activity at work.

Jobs requiring moderate physical activity accounted for 50 percent of the labor market in 1960. Today, that number has dropped to 20 percent.

According to the New York Times:

“The remaining 80 percent of jobs, the researchers report, are sedentary or require only light activity. The shift translates to an average decline of about 120 to 140 calories a day in physical activity, closely matching the nation’s steady weight gain over the past five decades”.

A new research report shows that what you drink after exercise plays a critical role in maximizing your workout’s effects. Specifically, protein drinks after aerobic activity increase the training effect after six weeks.

Scientists recruited 16 participants and instructed them to exercise on treadmills for 45 minutes three times a week for six weeks. After each workout, one group was given a protein drink and another group was given a carbohydrate drink.

According to Science Daily:

“To measure the making of new structures in the muscle, metabolic pathways were measured using heavy water labeling. Subjects consumed heavy water, which becomes incorporated into many synthetic processes allowing measurement of the rates at which different components of the muscle are being made. Using ultra-sensitive mass spectrometry methods, scientists took muscle samples at the end of the six weeks and were able to determine how much of the muscle and its component pieces were new. In this case, new proteins, DNA, and membranes were measured.”

Long-distance runners can, in fact simply drop dead — usually in the middle of a run, from fatal heart attacks. In 2010, three runners died at the 32nd Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Marathon.

In fact, about 14 percent of athlete deaths are linked to heart problems. Although exercise reduces your cardiovascular risk by a factor of three, too much vigorous exercise, such as marathon running, increases your cardiac risk by seven.

Healthier Talk reports:

“That’s because the further you run, the more stress you put on your body … [L]ong duration exercise releases chemicals that flood your body. And that leads to inflammation … If you have hidden heart problems, this can be seriously risky.”

If you want to reduce your risk of chronic disease and live longer, you might want to try behaving like a hunter-gatherer. Hunter-gatherers tended to engage in short bursts of physical activity followed by periods of rest, and health experts are agreeing that this may be a healthier way to live.

Hunter-gatherers probably expended between 800 and 1,200 calories per day in physical activity. The average American today, however, expends only a small fraction of this energy — with the result being that stamina, muscle strength, and flexibility aren’t maintained.

According to Yahoo Health:

“What’s more, our inactive ways cause us to miss out on yet more healthful habits enjoyed by hunter-gatherers — socializing and outdoor living … Human beings lived for eons as hunter-gatherers, so it’s not surprising that our bodies are built to thrive under physically demanding conditions outside.”

After tennis star Novak Djokovic’s nutritionist discovered he was allergic to gluten, he switched to a gluten-free diet. Since then he’s made the final of the U.S. Open, won the Davis Cup and Australian Open, and is currently on a 39-match winning streak.

Those with an allergy to gluten can have trouble digesting the protein, which can in turn lead to various medical issues.

According to Yahoo Sports:

“Djokovic spoke about the change earlier this year. ‘I have lost some weight but it’s only helped me because my movement is much sharper now and I feel great physically,’ he said in April.”

Researchers and athletic coaches are becoming excited by emerging practice known as “train low, compete high.” The concept involves doing some of your workouts in a carbohydrate-depleted state.  It’s thought to be the nutritional equivalent of training while wearing a weighted vest.

Initial research shows that the technique boosts fat-burning, as well as other metabolic responses to exercise.

The Globe and Mail reports:

“The idea is driven by new interest in ‘cell signalling’ … Exercise stimulates the production of specialized proteins that signal your body to adapt to new demands. These proteins are locked up in your body’s carbohydrate stores, and released as those stores are burned; starting with low carbohydrate stores means the proteins are already free to do their signalling as soon as you start exercising.”

More and more experts, and more and more parents, are realizing that playground time is crucial for children. One recent study of more than 11,000 eight and nine year olds found that even 15 minutes of recess a day led to better behavior in class.

In addition, recess appears to be the most effective way to keep kids active. Another study found that 42 percent of schoolchildren in the U.S. get most of their total daily exercise at recess — which is more than those who get most of their exercise in P.E. or after-school programs.

According to CNN:

“For sure, in light of America’s childhood-obesity problem (17 percent of kids between 2 and 19 are obese), participating in recess is one of the few inexpensive, readily available opportunities we have to get kids moving.”

Researchers studying the heart health of a group of older lifelong athletes found that fully half of them showed evidence of heart muscle scarring. Those with the scarring were those who had gone through the longest, hardest training.

Another study, conducted on laboratory rats, also provides solid evidence of a direct link between prolonged exercise and heart scarring. The results show that years of strenuous cardiovascular exercise can potentially cause damage to your heart.

According to the New York Times:

“Unfortunately, it remains impossible, at the moment, to predict just what that threshold is for any given person, and which athletes might be most vulnerable to heart problems as a result of excessive exercise”.

If you’re trying to get in shape, technology can offer you powerful new tools to help. ABC News has collected five fitness apps for smartphones that can help you lose weight, get fit and eat healthier.

Lose It!

Lose It! provides a digital diary of calories eaten and calories burned. You enter your weight, height, age and sex and then this app sets up a daily budget to help you reach your goals.

CardioTrainer

CardioTrainer, which is currently only available for Android users, is easy to set up. EEnter your weight, height and other key information, and then is can track your progress in running, biking, walking, or rollerblading. It also has a built-in music player, a free calorie counter, and offers verbal encouragement as you work out.

IMapMy

IMapMy uses your phone’s built-in GPS to monitor your fitness activities. You can record the duration, distance, pace, speed, elevation, calories burned and route traveled on an interactive map.

Daily Burn

Daily Burn, for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, helps you manage your diet, fitness and exercise. It has the ability to make a training plan, complete with detailed instructions on how to properly perform a given exercise.

Fooducate

Fooducate helps you figure out what food labels mean, and how nutritious a product is. Just scan the barcode and it will return the name, a grade and the scoring methodology it uses.

New research shows that vigorous exercise helps boost mood — but moderate exercise does not. Researchers drew this conclusions after studying people who took part in two 20-minute work-outs, one moderately intensive and one highly intensive. The mood of the participants was measured before, during, immediately after the work outs.

The study participants exhibited no mood improvements after moderate exercise. However, 20 minutes after the end of the strenuous work-out, the participants reported feeling more positive.

The Telegraph reports:

“Psychiatrists believe that mood improves after vigorous exercise – a phenomenon known as the ‘runner’s high’ – because it triggers the release of endorphins. These are a type of neurotransmitter in the brain that help combat pain.”

Your balance doesn’t stay steady throughout your life. Just like your muscles and bones, your steadiness can deteriorate if it is not maintained. However, balance training isn’t part of most workouts.

As you get older, the senses involved with balance can start to dull — vision and your ability to sense touch, temperature, pressure and proprioception (your sense of where your body is and how it moves.) However, your balance can be shored up, even in very old age.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

“A 2007 study … looked at the effect of a yearlong balance training program on women with osteoporosis. By the end of the study, the women’s functional and static balance improved, as did mobility. Falling frequency declined … Balance training almost always involves targeting core muscles — the ones surrounding the trunk and the back, such as the abdominals, obliques and latissimus dorsi.”

Even if you exercise regularly, it might not be enough to counteract the effects of too much sitting.

Many people have sedentary jobs and also engage in sedentary leisure activities after work, with the result that a lot more time is spent sitting than moving. A study calculated how much time a group of men spent sitting during an average day, and found that those who sat during the day were substantially more likely to die of heart disease.

According to NPR:

“Specifically … men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity. And many of these men routinely exercised … [S]cientists are just beginning to learn about the risks of a mostly sedentary day.”

Experts believe that parents’ behavior highly affects children physical activity levels.  Childhood obesity is on the rise, and parents are the key factor influencing exercise within the home.

A national study surveyed more than 5,000 parents with children from ages 9 to 13 years old.  The analysis asked a variety of questions, and discovered that 78 percent of the families were active together. 

According to ABC News:

“[P]arents and their kids are more likely to exercise together if … Parents believe in the power of good health, and understand that physical activity is important and beneficial … Parents and children frequently eat meals together … Parents tend to set limits on TV watching, AND have confidence in their ability to influence their children’s behavior.”