Do you want to know my secret fitness weapon?
A key component to good health and good looks is being fit and not carrying excess body weight that puts a strain on our entire system – joints, heart, liver, kidneys – you name it, it takes its toll! Fitness and exercise have always been important to me. As a child, I ran and played outdoors daily – skipping, hopscotch, bike riding – anything to be active.
As a teenager, I played basketball for a school team, but also played every “pick-up” sport imaginable with my friends after school – baseball, hide and go seek, soccer, badminton – just having fun!
I learned yoga at the age of 15, (long before it was cool) and as a young Mom, I had a daily “workout” program that I followed on T.V., recording it and fitting it into my busy schedule.
I was able to eat whatever I wanted and never gained an ounce! That changed, of course, when I hit my 40s and no longer had as active a lifestyle. Now it is more important than ever, to schedule activity and some workout time each day!
In recent years, my exercise of choice is power walking (or walking a treadmill when in hotels), because it is available to me anywhere. I still do sit-ups, push-ups, the plank, back stretches, squats and recently took up yoga again, but these are not done daily. I mix it up and keep my body guessing!
The important thing about exercise is that you do it regularly, so you need to find something that you find enjoyable enough to keep you coming back. Variety is important, too, because our muscles get used to the “same old, same old” and don’t give us the same results, if we just stay in our comfort zone, doing something that is routine and comes easily. The more muscle we build, the better our body burns calories.
Since 1995, my secret weapon, whenever I exercise is the Access Bar. It’s a food bar that I eat 15 minutes before any activity (when I’m gardening, too) and it accesses my stored fat and burns it as fuel. No need to get the heart rate up to a certain level before fat burning takes place. It starts right away and I can burn 2x the fat that would normally be consumed by the same activity.
With limited time to exercise, I like getting double the “bang for my buck”. The side benefit is that there is no lactic acid build-up in the muscles, so I don’t experience soreness or stiffness the next day, no matter how new or difficult the activity is. Fat burning, instead of burning glycogen (the sugar in the muscles, that is formed by eating carbohydrates), allows me to have more energy, so I can work out longer, if need be, with no slump in energy.
This is just one of the products that I can’t live without and could be categorized as my most favorite of my favorite things!
