Out & About July 2017

room for improvement

Personal trainer Vicki Brown is the founder of LiveFitNow, based in Wash Common. For a free consultation, more information and links to online home fitness videos, visit: www.LiveFitNow.co.uk

It doesn’t take much to increase your fitness levels and sense of well-being says VICKI BROWN. Just a few tweaks here in there in your daily routine – from diet to exercise – and you could soon be feeling in better shape and more energised

at screens before bed, lack of routine and stress levels. Tips to improve your sleep: u set yourself a time to go to sleep each night – this allows your body to get into a natural sleep cycle during which it can recover and repair. u avoid bright lights for up to two hours before bed and limit the number of electrical products on in your room u avoid the consumption of stimulants after lunch, such as caffeine, sugar and nicotine. It is also best to avoid alcohol if you want a good night’s sleep u deal with issues causing you stress. If you are being kept awake thinking about certain issues within your life, addressing these problems will help you be able to put them out of your mind u make sure you drink lots of water and exercise regularly too to aid a good night’s sleep Recommendation: Complete a sleep journal of when you go to bed and when you wake up. Is there routine to your sleep or is it erratic? Look at changes that you could make and see how much of a difference those changes make to your overall sleep. Hopefully that has given you food for thought as to how you can make small changes day to day to improve your general wellbeing. If you want more guidance as to how to address certain elements for your lifestyle, seek help from a professional who can help guide you and structure any changes to suit you.

I think we can all get a little overwhelmed with the amount of information available about what we should and shouldn’t be eating, how much and what type of exercise we should be doing. The list goes on. What can often happen is either not enough or far too much knowledge leaves people unsure as to what they should be doing. In the end, it takes only a few simple changes to make a big difference to how healthy and well you feel. If we look at our health and fitness as a whole, we can break it down into different elements to consider. What we consume, what we do and how we rest. What we eat… and drink How we fuel our body is one of the most important things to consider when wanting to improve your general wellbeing. Drinking water daily and eating unprocessed, densely nutritious foods should make up the bulk of your daily diet. Remember what you put into your body is your fuel… you put premium fuel into your car to get the best performance, that same principle applies to your body. Be aware of what you are eating and how it makes you feel, some foods will give you energy throughout the day and others may make you feel lethargic. Keeping a food diary and thinking about how a food makes you feel can help you make better food choices and may help you curb those cravings. What we do… to use our bodies physically There are sub categories within this area. u Cardiovascular fitness

u Strength u Flexibility u Mobility u Body composition

Try and make sure you get moving everyday. Try and incorporate different types of training into your weekly routine – cardiovascular, strength and flexibility. It doesn’t matter if you have never addressed some of these areas before or you already do some – it is never too late to get started or increase your routine. Remember to pace yourself with whatever you do and progressively make it harder. If you are limited as to how much time you have available, try and incorporate different types of training and integrate them into your day. It does not have to take hours for it to be of benefit. You could do a few stretches in the morning when you get up, park further away from the office so you have to walk those extra steps, do a HIIT workout – small changes, but ones which have a significant impact on your health and wellbeing. How we rest… something that is often undervalued is the importance of sleep. Do you get enough sleep, and enough of the right sleep so that you can fully recover ready for the next day? Many factors can affect the amount and quality of sleep that we get. Things to consider when trying to improve sleeping patterns include caffine intake (when and how much), alcohol consumption, looking

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