App Thursday: Daily Ab Workout

Sup­ple­ment boot camp with ab work!

Daily Ab Work­out is a great 5 to 10 minute daily ab rou­tine for men and women that steps you through ten of the best ab-sculpting exer­cises. These proven exer­cises, demon­strated by a cer­ti­fied per­sonal trainer, tar­get all major abdom­i­nal mus­cles. Spend­ing just min­utes a day can strengthen your core and tone your abs.

The routine’s sim­ple inter­face, com­plete with video and timer, allows you to eas­ily fol­low along and under­stand each exercise.

Com­pat­i­bil­ity
iPhone
iPod touch
iPad

Cost
FREE

Learn more →

App Thursday: Tap & Track Calorie Tracker

Tap & Track is a favorite in the iTunes App Store, with close to 20,000 four-star rat­ings. Tap & Track doesn’t require Inter­net access, mak­ing it easy to track food at any time. The app’s data­base con­sists of more than 400,000 food items from more than 2,000 food brands and more than 700 restau­rants. Tap & Tracks also fea­tures more than 180 exer­cises, includ­ing house­hold chores like dust­ing. In addi­tion to view­ing daily infor­ma­tion on calo­ries, fat, sat­u­rated fat, pro­tein, carbs, sug­ars, sodium, and fiber, users can actu­ally set their own bud­gets for carbs and fats. The app also allows numer­ous pro­files, so more than one user can track their food and fit­ness using the app. Users can export nutri­tion data to an email account and open it in an Excel spreadsheet.

Descrip­tion
Tap & Track imple­ments Apple’s phi­los­o­phy of sim­plic­ity, but at the same time offers hun­dreds of amaz­ing fea­tures that you’ll love to use every day. The app never requires inter­net access, so you can keep track any­time, anywhere!

• Over 400,000 food items
• Over 2000 food brands
• Over 700 restaurants
• Over 180 dif­fer­ent exercises
• Daily info on calo­ries, fat, sat­u­rated fat, pro­tein, carbs, sug­ars, sodium & fiber
• Track calo­ries and Food Score
• 40:30:30 Pie Charts Reports
• Dis­play­ing your daily calo­rie needs/limits
• Full screen graphs
• Exer­cise tracking
• BMI cal­cu­la­tor
• Weight track­ing
• Sync between iPhone, iPad and web!

Cost
$4.99

Com­pat­i­bil­ity
iPhone
iPad

Learn more →

Morning Exercise is the Most Effective

Get­ting up is worth it!

The good news for morn­ing peo­ple is that peo­ple who exer­cise in the morn­ing gain more ben­e­fits than peo­ple who work out at other times of day.

1. Morn­ing Exer­cis­ers Stick With It
Stud­ies have shown that peo­ple who exer­cise in the morn­ing, or being a morn­ing exer­cise rou­tine, are more likely to still be exer­cis­ing one year later, when com­pared to those who exer­cise at other times of the day.

2. Morn­ing Exer­cis­ers Have More Energy
Although you may have to drag your­self out of bed in the morn­ing, the energy you cre­ate by exer­cis­ing in the morn­ing will sus­tain you through the day. You will have more energy to go to work, take care of the kids, or do what­ever it is you do all day.

You also have more energy to exer­cise in the morn­ing, than after a long day of work or childcare.

3. Morn­ing Exer­cis­ers Sleep Bet­ter
Exer­cis­ing in the morn­ing will help you sleep bet­ter at night. By get­ting up ear­lier, you will go to sleep ear­lier, hope­fully find­ing your nat­ural sleep cycle. Work­ing out in the evening hours can cre­ate an adren­a­lin rush that may be hard to come down from and get some sleep.

4. Morn­ing Exer­cis­ers Eat Bet­ter
A psy­cho­log­i­cal and nutri­tional ben­e­fit that comes with morn­ing exer­cise is a day of eat­ing bet­ter. When wake up early to exer­cise, and spend an hour or more actu­ally exer­cis­ing before doing any­thing else, you willap­proach eat­ing with a dif­fer­ent men­tal­ity than if you exer­cise in the evening.

It is eas­ier to avoid temp­ta­tion and talk your­self out of eat­ing unhealth­ily when you spend your wak­ing hours sweat­ing away the pounds. The fact that you got up and did some­thing healthy and­pos­i­tive for you body will keep you from indulging or mak­ing the wrong food choices.

5. Morn­ing Exer­cis­ers Are in a Bet­ter Mood
Another added ben­e­fit of a morn­ing work out is enjoy­ing the pos­i­tive mood you have cre­ated. You will be proud of your­self for get­ting up an exer­cis­ing. You will feel clear and calm by exer­cis­ing in the morn­ing. Exer­cise makes you feel good men­tally as well as phys­i­cally, and that feel­ing can last all day after a morn­ing exer­cise routine.

The Benefits of Sweating During Exercise

From Fit­Day

1. Cleaner Skin

Unfor­tu­nately, sweat­ing has got­ten a bad rep­u­ta­tion. But sweat­ing is actu­ally your body’s way of help­ing to keep your skin clean. Every day, tox­ins build up in your pores that need to be released. If they’re not, then your skin can break out and cause pim­ples, rashes and other skin infec­tions. By sweat­ing out these tox­ins, your skin stays cleaner and, over time, it will appear to look health­ier than ever.

2. Low­ers Body Temperature

If you never sweat, there’s a good chance that you have a very high body tem­per­a­ture. In order to pre­vent this from hap­pen­ing, your body needs to sweat to avoid over­heat­ing. It’s one of the rea­sons that you start sweat­ing when you exer­cise. Your body heats up to burn calo­ries and keep your energy lev­els high. At the same time, your body starts to release sweat through your skin to help keep it from get­ting too hot. You need to stay hydrated if you exer­cise for this very rea­son. With­out an ade­quate sup­ply of water, your body can­not sweat and your inter­nal tem­per­a­ture will be too high for you to work­out nor­mally. If you do not sweat enough, you can also suf­fer from heat stroke or heat exhaustion.

3. Helps Fight Sickness

Get­ting a fever is no fun. So when you get a fever, the first thing you do is run to the med­i­cine cab­i­net to reduce it. How­ever, a fever is actu­ally your body’s way of fight­ing off sick­ness by try­ing to help you sweat it out. If you are sick, it could actu­ally be ben­e­fi­cial for you to try work­ing out (pro­vided, of course, you are able to do so) because sweat­ing can help your body to get rid of your sickness.

Sweat­ing is one of the best things that your body can do to help keep itself healthy. Though you prob­a­bly do every­thing you can to stop your body from doing it, the phys­i­cal act of sweat­ing is ther­a­peu­tic for your body. It helps your skin, which is your largest organ, to stay active (espe­cially dur­ing the win­ter months) and it helps your inter­nal organs to stay cool by low­er­ing your over­all body tem­per­a­ture. If you do not exer­cise or work­out reg­u­larly, you prob­a­bly do not sweat much. You should try to change this. At the very least, there are saunas and spas avail­able to you that allow you to enjoy the ben­e­fits of sweat­ing with­out ever set­ting foot in the gym. Try to sweat more often to help your body stay healthy.

Heat and Exercise: Keeping Cool in Hot Weather

May’s start­ing out HOT HOT HOT. Don’t for­get water!

From Mayo Clinic

Exer­cis­ing in hot weather puts extra stress on your body. If you don’t take care when exer­cis­ing in the heat, you risk seri­ous ill­ness. Both the exer­cise itself and the air tem­per­a­ture increase your core body tem­per­a­ture. To help cool itself, your body sends more blood to cir­cu­late through your skin. This leaves less blood for your mus­cles, which in turn increases your heart rate. If the humid­ity also is high, your body faces added stress because sweat doesn’t read­ily evap­o­rate from your skin. That pushes your body tem­per­a­ture even higher.

When you exer­cise in hot weather, keep these pre­cau­tions in mind:

Watch the tem­per­a­ture. Pay atten­tion to weather fore­casts and heat alerts. Know what the tem­per­a­ture is expected to be for the dura­tion of your planned out­door activity.

Get accli­mated. If you’re used to exer­cis­ing indoors or in cooler weather, take it easy at first when you exer­cise in the heat. As your body adapts to the heat over the course of one to two weeks, grad­u­ally increase the length and inten­sity of your workouts.

Know your fit­ness level. If you’re unfit or new to exer­cise, be extra cau­tious when work­ing out in the heat. Your body may have a lower tol­er­ance to the heat. Reduce your exer­cise inten­sity and take fre­quent breaks.

Drink plenty of flu­ids. Dehy­dra­tion is a key fac­tor in heat ill­ness. Help your body sweat and cool down by stay­ing well hydrated with water. Don’t wait until you’re thirsty to drink. If you plan to exer­cise intensely or for longer than one hour, con­sider a sports drink instead of water. Sports drinks can replace the sodium, chlo­ride and potas­sium you lose through sweat­ing. Avoid alco­holic drinks because they can actu­ally pro­mote fluid loss.

Dress appro­pri­ately. Light­weight, loos­e­fit­ting cloth­ing helps sweat evap­o­rate and keeps you cooler. Avoid dark col­ors, which can absorb heat. If pos­si­ble, wear a light-colored, wide-brimmed hat.

Avoid mid­day sun. Exer­cise in the morn­ing or evening, when it’s likely to be cooler out­doors. If pos­si­ble, exer­cise in shady areas — or do a water work­out in a pool.

Wear sun­screen. A sun­burn decreases your body’s abil­ity to cool itself.

Have a backup plan. If you’re con­cerned about the heat or humid­ity, stay indoors. Work out at the gym, walk laps inside the mall or climb stairs inside an air-conditioned building.

Under­stand your med­ical risks. Cer­tain med­ical con­di­tions or med­ica­tions can increase your risk of a heat-related ill­ness. If you plan to exer­cise in the heat, talk to your doc­tor about precautions.

Heat-related ill­nesses are largely pre­ventable. By tak­ing some basic pre­cau­tions, your exer­cise rou­tine doesn’t have to be side­lined when the heat is on.