Oxygen Health & Fitness

A Sweet Surprise from your Kiama Fitness Trainer

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Today’s topic for the Wednesday Wellbeing might actually be the last thing on your mind after an Easter Long Weekend full of Easter Eggs. But that’s also the reason I have included it – to give some background information for the chocoholics among us. Now in no way am I encouraging you to go out and gorge on chocolate. But if it is something you find yourself caving into regularly then the information today might leave you feeling a little less guilty when you discover that a little bit of the right type of chocolate can be good for you.  So read on to discover

Why Dark Chocolate can actually be healthy:

Chocolate is made from plants, and as such contains many of the health benefits of dark vegetables. These benefits are from flavonoids, which act as antioxidants. Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure through the production of nitric oxide, and balance certain hormones in the body.

Heart Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Dark chocolate is good for your heart. A small bar of it everyday can help keep your heart and cardiovascular system running well. Two heart health benefits of dark chocolate are:

* Lower Blood Pressure: Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate everyday can reduce blood pressure in individuals with high blood pressure.
* Lower Cholesterol: Dark chocolate has also been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) by up to 10 percent.

Other Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Chocolate also holds benefits apart from protecting your heart:

* it tastes good
* it stimulates endorphin production, which gives a feeling of pleasure
* it contains serotonin, which acts as an anti-depressant
* it contains theobromine, caffeine and other substances which are stimulants

Doesn’t Chocolate Have a lot of Fat?:

Here is some more good news — some of the fats in chocolate do not impact your cholesterol. The fats in chocolate are 1/3 oleic acid, 1/3 stearic acid and 1/3 palmitic acid:

* Oleic Acid is a healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil.
* Stearic Acid is a saturated fat but one which research is shows has a neutral effect on cholesterol.
* Palmitic Acid is also a saturated fat, one which raises cholesterol and heart disease risk.

That means only 1/3 of the fat in dark chocolate is bad for you.
Chocolate Tip 1 – Balance the Calories:

This information doesn’t mean that you should eat a kilo of chocolate a day. Chocolate is still a high-calorie, high-fat food. Most of the studies done used no more than 100 grams of dark chocolate a day to get the benefits.

One bar of dark chocolate has around 400 calories. If you eat half a bar of chocolate a day, you must balance those 200 calories by eating less of something else.

Chocolate Tip 2 – Taste the Chocolate:

Chocolate is a complex food with over 300 compounds and chemicals in each bite. To really enjoy and appreciate chocolate, take the time to taste it. Professional chocolate tasters (yes there is such a job) have developed a system for tasting chocolate that include assessing the appearance, smell, feel and taste of each piece.

Chocolate Tip 3 – Go for Dark Chocolate:

Dark chocolate has far more antioxidants than milk or white chocolate. These other two chocolates cannot make any health claims. Dark chocolate has 65 percent or higher cocoa content.

Chocolate Tip 4 – Skip the Nougat:

You should look for pure dark chocolate or dark chocolate with nuts, orange peel or other flavorings. Avoid anything with caramel, nougat or other fillings. These fillings are just adding sugar and fat which erase many of the benefits you get from eating the chocolate.

Source: About.com Longevity

Friday Fuel – A favourite treat from your Kiama Fitness Trainer

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It’s time for some flavoursome Friday Fuel.

Each week I endeavour to give you something new to add to your repertoire of healthy breakfasts, lunches and dinners. A few times, I have given you some healthy snack ideas too. Today is another one of those days.

As a Kiama Fitness Trainer I see people chowing down on this food a lot. Often with a coffee in the other hand.

Today’s version of it comes from Anabolic Cooking by Dave Ruel.

If you’ve got a sweet tooth, this one’s for you. If you indulge in the odd cake or muffin, this one’s for you. If you need to add in some healthier snacks it’s for you too.


Click on the above image to download this delicious recipe

Let me know what you think of it!

A little Monday Motivation from your “Goal Setting” Kiama Fitness Trainer

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Some people may read the information below and think, yeah yeah, this Kiama Fitness Trainer has said this before – Goals bla bla bla… but today’s Monday Motivator is attached to that subject for very good reason.

In a few days we enter February. Usually by this stage, just one month after people have set their New Year’s Resolution, a staggering 80% have dropped off. Research by the University of Scranton shows that a mere 8% of people are successful in achieving their resolution! But…

People who make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions. So the stats measure up that firstly you gotta set the resolution. Then define the Goal further. Then make them S.M.A.R.T.  Goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Based.

You may have heard this before and it is great information. But…

Wanna know one of the first real steps to achieving them?

Write them down!

Goals are useless if it’s just information floating around your head. I don’t even care if you can remember the spiel in your head about how Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Based your Goal is.

A written goal brings clarity and focus. It gives you a direction. And by rewriting your goals you not only reaffirm what your goals are.You may also find new insights that bring more clarity and focus to your goal and life.

A written goal is a powerful reminder that you can use to keep yourself on the right track when you feel stressed and may consider making hasty decisions.

“People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.” — Brian Tracy

Which person are you?

Five Tips for Making Kiama Fitness a Priority

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Committing to a Kiama fitness program is really hard.  It’s tough to stay motivated when you are the only one saying you have to do it.  It’s hard to see the fruit of your labours when some of them are only measurable with a doctor’s complex testing and instrumentation. It’s exceedingly easy to be consumed by the responsibilities of life and it’s really easy to tell yourself that one more day won’t make a difference.

To make Fitness a priority in your life, you need to give yourself as many reasons and as many helpful tools as you can.  Here you’ll find five great tips for making fitness a priority in life, rather than an afterthought.

5 Tips To Make Health And Fitness A Life Priority

Clarify your undeniable need for fitness, enlist some help, and pencil—no pen—fitness in to make sure that you live well and live long.

Write it down—what gets done in the course of your day?  The things you’ve made time for.  Exercise should be top of that list because it is what will ensure that you are around to do more and live better.  Schedule time for fitness just as you would for getting dressed, working, and attending important meetings.  Block out your time for fitness in your daily planner first so that you make the time.  Schedule exercise in at a time that makes sense and the rest around it.

Buddy up—get a friend to be your fitness buddy; or, if a friend isn’t interested or available, partner with a like-minded acquaintance and make him or her your friend and fitness buddy.  Having a buddy makes fitness fun and (close to) painless and helps you support each other.  You’ll find that the reasons you give your buddy to go on work for you, too!

Make a list—list all the reasons why you want to get fit and be healthy.  This helps you set fitness goals, motivates you with clear reasoning, and works as a reminder for those times when ambition is waning.  Refer back to your fitness list to see what goals you’ve accomplished, what goals need revamping or replacing, and for general motivation.

Reward yourself—create a reward system as further motivation; with one rule—your reward cannot be food.  Give yourself something worth working for, something that promotes fitness, and something with lasting motivational power.  A massage treatment, new clothes/wardrobe, a long weekend or vacation, or new recreational or even fitness activity are some good rewards to start with.

Look to the pros—the guidance and support of a good personal trainer is unbeatable as a prioritization strategy for Kiama fitness.  A personal trainer will help you in innumerable ways by making exercise more enjoyable, more ‘do’-able, providing ongoing information and support, structuring a fitness program tailor-made for you, and being a general source of motivation.  You’ll find that keeping that appointment time and being accountable to someone else helps, too.

You’ll find these five simple tips for prioritizing fitness in your life will go a long way toward your success on the Kiama fitness trail.  Small changes like these can make a big impact and really help you keep your good health and well being at the forefront of your list of things that need doing.

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