Is diet soda really the healthier option?
We talk a lot about ''watching what we eat,'' but if you never gave a thought to what you ate and instead watched only what you drank, you could probably cut 450 calories a day out of your life. (Yes, nearly a pound of fat loss a week!) Americans today drink about 192 gallons of liquid a year—or about 2 liters a day. To put it into perspective, this is nearly twice as many calories as we did 30 years ago.
When confronted with the growing tide of calories from sweetened beverages, the first response is, “Why not just drink diet soda?” Well, for a few reasons:
Just because diet soda is low in calories doesn't mean it can't lead to weight gain.
It may have only 5 or fewer calories per serving, but emerging research suggests that consuming sugary-tasting beverages--even if they're artificially sweetened--may lead to a high preference for sweetness overall. That means sweeter (and more caloric) cereal, bread, dessert--everything.
Guzzling these drinks all day long forces out the healthy beverages you need.
Diet soda is 100 percent nutrition-free, and again, it's just as important to actively drink the good stuff as it is to avoid that bad stuff. So one diet soda a day is fine, but if you're downing five or six cans, that means you're limiting your intake of healthful beverages, particularly water and tea.
There remain some concerns over aspartame, the low-calorie chemical used to give diet sodas their flavor.
Aspartame is 180 times sweeter than sugar, and some animal research has linked consumption of high amounts of the sweetener to brain tumors and lymphoma in rodents. The FDA maintains that the sweetener is safe, but reported side effects include dizziness, headaches, diarrhea, memory loss, and mood changes.
Diet soda does you no good, and it might just be doing you wrong!
source: David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding (Men's Health)
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Monday, November 30, 2009
FIRST EVER HIP-HOP CLASS AT FFY!!!
Fitness For You will be offering CARDIO HIP-HOP!
*SAVE THE DATE: Saturday, December 5th at 9:25 AM
This is a fun and exciting dance class that incorporates cardio training with modern popular music. A great workout is achieved through the use of high-energy dance combinations. What’s better than grooving your way to a lean, toned dancer’s body? Come check out CARDIO HIP-HOP with Courtney on Saturday morning!
Courtney is FFY’s new marketing intern from Merrimack College. With 19 years of dance experience in the fields of ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop, and more, Courtney is ready to take her dance workout to the next level. So come join us this Saturday, December 5th at 9:25 AM to dance your butt off!
*SAVE THE DATE: Saturday, December 5th at 9:25 AM
This is a fun and exciting dance class that incorporates cardio training with modern popular music. A great workout is achieved through the use of high-energy dance combinations. What’s better than grooving your way to a lean, toned dancer’s body? Come check out CARDIO HIP-HOP with Courtney on Saturday morning!
Courtney is FFY’s new marketing intern from Merrimack College. With 19 years of dance experience in the fields of ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop, and more, Courtney is ready to take her dance workout to the next level. So come join us this Saturday, December 5th at 9:25 AM to dance your butt off!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving- Club Hours
Thanksgiving Hours:
Wednesday: 4am-6pm
Thursday: CLOSED
Friday: 8am-6pm
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Benefits of Sauna
Don't forget! Fitness For You has state-of-the-art saunas in the locker rooms. Check out all the benefits below, and remember to take advantage of our saunas during your next gym visit!
Our modern lifestyle makes most people's skin inactive. Many of us don't sweat, especially during the winter months. Our skin is exposed to hundreds of chemicals during the course of our life, and is affected by them. From innocent bath products such as shampoos, shower gels, lotions and soaps to deodorants. Household cleaning solvents, detergent residues on clothes and chemicals from the bath or shower water also affect the skin. Regular use of the sauna gradually restores the skin's elimination ability. Sweating removes toxic chemicals and metals faster than any other detox method. It is a good habit that pays many health dividends.
The sauna's benefits are numerous. It is extremely relaxing, leaving your body soothed and your mind serene. However, its main advantage lies in the fact that it promotes sweating, helping the body to rid itself of toxins. It is also believed that exposure of the skin to heat stimulates the production of white blood cells and strengthens the immune system.
Other benefits of the sauna include:
• Improved blood circulation: The sauna increases and improves the rate of blood circulation and breathing.
• Weight Loss: Sauna is similar to mild exercise. It burns about 300 calories per average session. Regular sauna treatments combined with a healthy diet and moderate exercise will help you lose weight and stay fit and healthy.
• Skin cleansing: A profuse sauna-induced sweat followed by a shower cleanses your skin far more thoroughly than just taking a shower. It makes it soft and healthy with immediately noticeable effects
• Body relaxation: The heat and humidity of the sauna diffuses the pain caused by stress build-up and relaxes tired muscles. A sauna in the evening will leave tense muscles and sore limbs totally relaxed. Sauna also temporarily relieves arthritic pain.
• Mind relaxation: Regular sauna adepts all agree that it effectively helps relieve physical and mental fatigue and stress.
Source: pureinsideout.com
Our modern lifestyle makes most people's skin inactive. Many of us don't sweat, especially during the winter months. Our skin is exposed to hundreds of chemicals during the course of our life, and is affected by them. From innocent bath products such as shampoos, shower gels, lotions and soaps to deodorants. Household cleaning solvents, detergent residues on clothes and chemicals from the bath or shower water also affect the skin. Regular use of the sauna gradually restores the skin's elimination ability. Sweating removes toxic chemicals and metals faster than any other detox method. It is a good habit that pays many health dividends.
The sauna's benefits are numerous. It is extremely relaxing, leaving your body soothed and your mind serene. However, its main advantage lies in the fact that it promotes sweating, helping the body to rid itself of toxins. It is also believed that exposure of the skin to heat stimulates the production of white blood cells and strengthens the immune system.
Other benefits of the sauna include:
• Improved blood circulation: The sauna increases and improves the rate of blood circulation and breathing.
• Weight Loss: Sauna is similar to mild exercise. It burns about 300 calories per average session. Regular sauna treatments combined with a healthy diet and moderate exercise will help you lose weight and stay fit and healthy.
• Skin cleansing: A profuse sauna-induced sweat followed by a shower cleanses your skin far more thoroughly than just taking a shower. It makes it soft and healthy with immediately noticeable effects
• Body relaxation: The heat and humidity of the sauna diffuses the pain caused by stress build-up and relaxes tired muscles. A sauna in the evening will leave tense muscles and sore limbs totally relaxed. Sauna also temporarily relieves arthritic pain.
• Mind relaxation: Regular sauna adepts all agree that it effectively helps relieve physical and mental fatigue and stress.
Source: pureinsideout.com
Monday, November 9, 2009
Massage - It's Real Medicine
Here at Fitness For You, we offer 15 and 30-minute chair massages with Laurie from Advanced Health and Wellness. Having your honey rub your back is sweet, but it's tough to compete with the hands of a pro. A good massage therapist can make you feel like a new person. Here are some of the other benefits:
1. Reduce Pain
Rubdowns are especially effective for aches like lower-back pain. Researchers have found that massage works better than common treatments including chiropractic therapy and acupuncture. It's not clear why, but several studies show massage reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol while boosting the feel-good hormones serotonin and dopamine. Those changes slow your heart rate, reduce blood pressure, and block your nervous system's pain receptors. Massage also increases blood flow to the muscles, which may help them heal.
*A bonus: Massage seems to ease distress from migraine, labor pain, and even cancer, as well as the body tenderness seen with fibromyalgia. Plus, the benefits may last as long as a year after just a few treatments.
2. Improve Sleep Quality
Fluctuations in several types of brain waves either relax you or wake you up. Massage increases delta waves -- those linked with deep sleep. That's why it's easy to drift off in the massage chair.
3. Increase Brain Power
A 15-minute chair massage boosts alertness. Many people report that it feels like a runner's high. Tests also show that brain-wave activity stimulated by massage is linked to improved attention.
4. Fight off Colds
Massage helps ward off bugs by boosting your "natural killer cells," the immune system's first line of defense against invading illness. The stress hormone cortisol destroys natural killer cells. Therefore, since massage decreases cortisol, your immune cells get a boost. Massage even seems to boost immunity in those people with severely compromised immune systems, such as breast-cancer patients.
5. Get Rid of the Blues
Less cortisol and more serotonin and dopamine in your system may also mean less stress, anxiety, and depression. The sense of well-being people feel after a massage is a big reason why some hospitals offer it to anxious patients preparing for surgery and cancer patients going through chemo.
6. Reduce PMS Symptoms
A small study of 24 women with severe PMS found that massage reduced symptoms such as pain, water retention, and mood swings. Try it with proven remedies such as exercise (and “who-cares-if-they-work” solutions like a little dark chocolate).
Try out a chair massage next time you come to the gym! For more information, e-mail Kristin@FitnessForYouGym.com
Source: Kristyn Kusek Lewis (Health.com)
1. Reduce Pain
Rubdowns are especially effective for aches like lower-back pain. Researchers have found that massage works better than common treatments including chiropractic therapy and acupuncture. It's not clear why, but several studies show massage reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol while boosting the feel-good hormones serotonin and dopamine. Those changes slow your heart rate, reduce blood pressure, and block your nervous system's pain receptors. Massage also increases blood flow to the muscles, which may help them heal.
*A bonus: Massage seems to ease distress from migraine, labor pain, and even cancer, as well as the body tenderness seen with fibromyalgia. Plus, the benefits may last as long as a year after just a few treatments.
2. Improve Sleep Quality
Fluctuations in several types of brain waves either relax you or wake you up. Massage increases delta waves -- those linked with deep sleep. That's why it's easy to drift off in the massage chair.
3. Increase Brain Power
A 15-minute chair massage boosts alertness. Many people report that it feels like a runner's high. Tests also show that brain-wave activity stimulated by massage is linked to improved attention.
4. Fight off Colds
Massage helps ward off bugs by boosting your "natural killer cells," the immune system's first line of defense against invading illness. The stress hormone cortisol destroys natural killer cells. Therefore, since massage decreases cortisol, your immune cells get a boost. Massage even seems to boost immunity in those people with severely compromised immune systems, such as breast-cancer patients.
5. Get Rid of the Blues
Less cortisol and more serotonin and dopamine in your system may also mean less stress, anxiety, and depression. The sense of well-being people feel after a massage is a big reason why some hospitals offer it to anxious patients preparing for surgery and cancer patients going through chemo.
6. Reduce PMS Symptoms
A small study of 24 women with severe PMS found that massage reduced symptoms such as pain, water retention, and mood swings. Try it with proven remedies such as exercise (and “who-cares-if-they-work” solutions like a little dark chocolate).
Try out a chair massage next time you come to the gym! For more information, e-mail Kristin@FitnessForYouGym.com
Source: Kristyn Kusek Lewis (Health.com)
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
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