Month: September 2023

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Can I Eat More If I Work Out?

Can I Eat More If I Work Out? A combination of a balanced diet, a consistent exercise routine, and a stable sleep schedule is ideal when it comes to improving the current status of your health. Yet, there’s a point at which diet and exercise intertwine and make matters a bit more complicated.
In particular, many people wonder whether exercising more means you can eat more without negatively impacting the positive progression of your health. That’s especially the case when you consider the calories and nutrients lost through intense and frequent exercise.
Below, we’ll discuss the role that losing calories and nutrients plays in the amount of food you should be eating on days you work out.

Replacing Lost Calories

No matter what type of exercise you’re participating in, you’re burning a set number of calories based on how long and how intensely you perform the exercise.
When you burn more calories than you’re consuming throughout the average day, you’ll experience weight loss. That’s great if you’re looking to lose weight, but it’s not so great if you’re trying to build muscle and strength.
To maintain your weight on days that you exercise, you’ll need to be taking in as many calories as you’re burning through exercise.
That means eating a greater number of calories during the day!
You should try to limit the extra calories to how many calories you burn during your workout in order to maintain your current weight. A few extra or a few less won’t make much of a difference but being a few hundred calories off can make you gain or lose weight!

Eating More Nutrients to Refuel

When you exercise, your body uses carbohydrates, fats, and proteins to provide you with the energy you need to complete your workout. Additionally, your body loses electrolytes like sodium and potassium when you exercise intensely.
After you’re done with your workout, it’s incredibly important that you replace the nutrients you lost during exercise and supply your body with the fuel it needs to continue with your day.
Though that means eating more over the course of your day, it also means eating the right food. The “extra” food that you’re eating on days in which you work out should be nutrient-dense and help to return your body to its natural state.

The Limitations

You can eat more during the day if you’re burning calories and losing nutrients during exercise, but there are quite a few limitations.
Under no circumstances does working out enable you to consume unhealthy foods and not experience the negative health consequences associated with them. That means working out doesn’t make it okay to hit up a local fast-food joint on your way home from the gym.
Coming home from the gym after a 30-minute run only to eat a cheeseburger and French fries with a large soda won’t only put you above your daily recommended calories, but it’ll also overload your body with unhealthy fats, sugars, and salt.
Rather than burning calories and improving your health, your body must now work to rid itself of the unhealthy level of these nutrients that you just consumed. It practically reverses the positive effects of your workout!
You should be replacing the number of calories that you lost and focus on replenishing the nutrients that your body craves post-workout.

Final Thoughts

In short, yes. If you’re looking to maintain your current weight, you’ll need to be consuming more calories and nutrients on the days that you’re exercising. But you need to make sure that the additional calories and nutrients you’re consuming after a workout are healthy and will support your health and fitness goals.

 

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5 Important Benefits Of Kettlebell Training

Kettlebell Training. Kettlebells are one piece of fitness equipment that, although been around for quite some time, has only become mainstream as of relatively late. These odd-looking devices can be found today at pretty much every place people work out. Commercial gyms, group exercise classes, and even many hotel fitness centers are equipped with at least a few kettlebells.

Kettlebells are the type of item that would make the list of essentials if one were required to choose only a few pieces of fitness equipment to perform a quality workout. The versatility and convenience of the kettlebell are widely utilized by many fitness enthusiasts today.

In this article, we are going to point out 5 great benefits of training with kettlebells that anyone can enjoy, wherever they choose to workout.

Real-Life Application

The problem with traditional pieces of resistance equipment used in most workouts is their limited carryover to real-life tasks. A barbell or dumbbell, with weight loaded evenly on both sides and an ergonomic handle in the middle, makes manipulating these objects a lot easier. Unfortunately, almost none of the things we have to pick up outside of the gym resemble this design.

With the kettlebell, the weight is distributed somewhat unevenly throughout the device. It takes a far different movement pattern to perform exercises with a kettlebell, one that is much more similar to random things we find ourselves picking up and lifting during everyday tasks.

Utilization Of Limited Space

For those of us who work out someplace other than the gym, such as at home or even at the office, space tends to be in limited supply. This situation does not allow a large amount of bulky equipment and storage areas for workout gear.

The kettlebell provides a valuable tool for any workout, while also being extremely space-friendly. Even the heavier kettlebells available for purchase still take up a fraction of the space when compared to other pieces of equipment of the same weight.

Budget-Friendly Training

One of the coolest benefits of kettlebell training lies in its ability to provide a full-body workout without the annoying cost of a gym membership or home gym. For all of the workout warriors out there on a limited budget, purchasing even a single kettlebell can be your best friend. You can literally buy one of these devices at virtually any weight and still challenge yourself from a full-body standpoint. This stands true for individuals at every level of fitness. If you desire to create your own workout routine using the smallest possible budget, look no further than the kettlebell!

Creative Exercises

After a while, performing the same old exercises workout after workout can become quite monotonous. There is only so much excitement to be had from bench-pressing or treadmill sessions. Training is supposed to be enjoyable. If you stop looking forward to working out, you risk losing the number one factor responsible for improving your overall fitness: consistency.

Another great benefit of kettlebell training is that the list of exercises using these devices is enormous. The design and performance of the kettlebell allow a huge amount of creativity in exercise design. If you are experiencing somewhat of a burnout from your usual training routine, switch things up and try out kettlebell training to rekindle your fitness flame!

Improved Posture

A large amount of fitness enthusiasts have a habit of dedicating much more time to the “show” muscles, parts of the body seen more in the mirror. If you will notice next time you visit the gym, the number of people performing bicep and chest exercises severely outnumbers those working their hamstrings and upper back.

Naturally, this habit leads to a large number of muscular imbalances throughout the body, setting up the increased likelihood of injury. Kettlebell training offers a solution to this issue in that most exercises performed with these devices require a large demand from the posterior chain of the body.

Often neglected muscle groups such as the spinal erectors, hamstrings, and glutes get a chance to be challenged and strengthened for a change, allowing the equilibrium of your overall physique to even out.

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Kettlebell Workouts Can Change Your Body

Kettlebell Workouts Can Change Your Body. While perusing about your local gym, you may have noticed an odd little device nestled at the end of a dumbbell rack jumbled amongst an array of other strange exercise equipment. This object somewhat resembles a cross between a boat anchor and an oversized pendant adorning a necklace. In reality, this piece of equipment is known as a kettlebell, and it can change your entire perspective of what it means to work out.

kettlebell
kettlebell

Although they have been around forever, kettlebells have enjoyed a recent spike in popularity, brought in part by the CrossFit movement. These strange-looking free weights provide a unique way to challenge the body regardless of one’s fitness level or overall goals.

Kettlebell training usually involves explosive movements utilizing an increased range of motion that other forms of exercise lack. Because of the increased dynamics present in the workout, an individual can simultaneously reap the benefits of strength training as well as aerobic conditioning.

Instead of doing a few sets of say, bench press, then hopping on the treadmill at the end of your workout, you can combine both aspects of these movements into one.

Using kettlebells also increases the carryover of your workout into real life. The problem with many pieces of gym equipment such as dumbbells, barbells, and other exercise machines is that the weight is perfectly balanced in the center of the load. While this makes the management of the exercise more efficient, few objects in the real world feature the same even weight distribution.

The structure of a kettlebell is such that the majority of the weight is distributed several inches from the actual handle. This design forces you to not only move the weight but also requires a higher degree of control and intent to do so. Both of these factors do a great job of mimicking physical tasks you will encounter outside of the gym. In terms of functionality, the kettlebell reigns supreme!

Another beneficial aspect of kettlebell training is the reduced need to constantly change and adjust the resistance. Completing a strenuous and effective workout can be accomplished using only one kettlebell, and never more than a few. Most of us are pressed for time when it comes to maintaining consistent exercise routines.

By eliminating the need to add weight to the bar, find a different dumbbell, and wait for a certain machine to open up, the time required to knock out a training session is greatly reduced.

For those of you who choose to workout at home or on the go, utilizing the kettlebell is a fantastic option. Because of their relatively small size and the aforementioned benefit of only needing one, your ability to work out doesn’t have to depend on a large amount of space or a fully furnished gym. Kettlebell training is an effective way of preserving the consistency and availability of your exercise routine. Convenience and kettlebells go hand in hand (no pun intended).

Whatever your workout routine looks like, it needs to be one that both challenges and entertains you. Nothing is worse than being miserable while dragging your way through a boring workout routine that you have performed a hundred times.

A quick peek into any one of the vast number of kettlebell workouts available online will expose you to many exercises you have probably never observed. Movements such as the kettlebell swing, Turkish get-up, and overhead snatch may all sound foreign to you right now.

However, if you find your current routine to be stagnant and monotonous, give kettlebell training a try. This may just be the spark you need to revamp your motivation for fitness.