New Website Coming Soon

Hey guys as many of you know I have been working on this blog for a while now but I have unfortunately had to put it on the backburner while pursuing my marketing/public relations degree.  

This blog has allowed me to incorporate my love for both fitness as well as music and am excited to share some news with you loyal followers.  I have exactly 3 months to complete my senior project or capstone and have decided to put it all together.  I will be working on building and maintaining a website/blog that will bring together my 3 loves in life.  During this time I am going to start working on design and the production of the website.  

I am in process of coming up with new material for my fitness section which includes new trainer interviews as well as the latest trends in health and fitness.  Looking for contributors and also ideas for what you guys want to hear about.  I am in talks with bringing in a weekly column that will allow you to get the answers to all your questions relating to fitness and nutrition.  This section will be monitored by a certified health and wellness expert.  

I am also going to be expanding my music/band pages that will bring you the local acts that cannot be missed.  I will be showcasing a band a month that I feel is worthy of the title.  I will be conducting band editorials and show reviews of some of So. Californinas brightest talent out there.  I have been doing band promotions for many years and will be conducting interviews from all genres as well as promoting shows all up and down the coast.  

This is a big project and will be looking for others in the industry who would like to be involved.  Of course this website will be built in stages and the last and final stages will be a back door for local talent where musicians will be able to interact with one another through a discussion board/classifieds that will allow you to promote shows or to look for promotors/managers or others that can help take you to the next level.

If you are interested in contributing whether it is through the fitness aspect perhaps you would like to add articles that you think the readers would enjoy or if you are a trainer that is looking to get your name out there in So. Cali to promote your business or if you are up and coming in the music industry looking to get a review or interview done I am currently looking for new talent in both aspects.

The other part of the website will be a place to promote what I do which is most aspects of marketing and public relations.  I am looking for new bands to promote and manage so if you are interested in my services there will be information on that as well so please feel free to contact me.

You can reach me by email please allow up to 48 hours for a response as I am juggling many projects right now including my last 3 months of school but I will return all emails within 48 hours.

~Heather Robinson
hr_promos@yahoo.com

10 “So Called” Healthy Foods That Aren’t

We have all heard the saying you are what you eat well sometimes what we eat is not as good for us as we originally thought.  There are a lot of foods out there that claim to be “good for you” low fat, less sugar, and or diet products.  However when you really get down to it we can classify this as ‘false’ advertising.  The food you thought were going to help you lose weight may indeed be packing on the pounds.  I came across this article on fittogether.com which really opened my eyes to the so called diet industry and this so called “diet” foods that we consume everyday.  Hope you find this useful and there are even suggestions for food substitutes.

 

1. Yogurt - culprit number one simply as it is deliberately sold as a healthy food. The egregious yogurts I am referring to are the conventional, brands advertised on television (the most familiar being the one of the brunette that keeps weighing herself, until she’s finally a size 0, ready for the beach. Nonsense). Yogurts should taste tart. If it tastes like ice cream, it contains added sugar and other “enriched” ingredients. Good yogurt is healthy and you should eat one a day. See BestCovery.com for the brands of yogurt I recommend.
2. Cranberry Juice – you might think you’re doing good for your bladder when in fact you’re drinking purple sugar water. Pure cranberries are sour — lemon sour. You wouldn’t be able to drink a teaspoon without squirming, let alone a glass. The added cranberry contained in these popular brands are insufficient to claim any medicinal or preventative value. Do yourself a favor, if you want to avoid a bladder infection with cranberries, opt for capsules. Or drink plain water.
3. Diet Soda – diet anything. If you take the fat out, you are removing flavor, so you must replace it with sugar, and in this case, the sugar too is fake. If it contains any of the following, chuck it: aspartame (Nutrasweet), sucralose (Splenda), Saccharin (Sweet’nLow). These are all artificial sweeteners made in a lab. It says on the packaging that it kills animals. Sure, those animals were fed a diet of artificial crap, but so are a lot of people. Stevia sweetener was just recently approved by the FDA and is made with plants. I use it in my coffee. It is an acquired taste.
4. Energy Bars – before you munch on one of these, check the fat calories. You’re eating a candy bar. What’s the energy, here? Protein. But why sacrifice your waistline for a quick rush? Get your protein from whey or hemp. Put some in your water bottle. Some true energy bars (nutrient dense and loaded with fiber, vegetables and other superfoods): some of the best ones out there for you are Vega Whole Food Vibrance bars, Garden of Life’s Organic Perfect Food bars and Pure bars.
5. Soy Milk – marketed as a dairy substitute, the benefits of soy milk are weak. Non-fermented soy products can cause a variety of health problems if consumed in large quantities (as in cereal, lattes or with dinner). Soy milk also contains the same insulin substance found in milk, which has been linked to breast cancer. Opt, instead for hemp (I like Manitoba Harvest and Living Harvest brands) or almond milk.
6. Cereal – an American breakfast staple and a bachelor’s turn-to dinner, a bowl of cereal is quick, easy and not that great for you. Cereals that claim to help you lose weight and lower your cholesterol probably aren’t. Most people consume cereal with milk or soy milk, negating any of the health and weight loss benefits. Try flax flakes, or make your own cereal at Me and Goji.
7. Mineral Water – don’t think that you’re body is absorbing the minerals contained in mineral water; they’re simply too coarse. Sometimes, the minerals in mineral water is sodium, which should be avoided with people who suffer from high-blood pressure. The best waters are unaltered, mature spring water, preferably artesian.
8. Milk - additives, hormones, preservatives, steroids and is pasteurized. Pasteurization obliterates all of the nutrients, enzymes, vitamins and denatures the protein content. Why would anyone want to drink this stuff? Calcium? You get calcium from vegetables. Eat at least six servings a day.
9. Peanut Butter – ever load up your protein shake with peanut butter, thinking you’re getting even more protein? Try fat. Especially if you get your shake at smoothie shops, gym bars and other shake places. Real peanut butter is made with peanuts and peanuts aren’t sweet. Peanut butter is indeed good for you, but you won’t find any benefits consuming conventional brands (and the protein content is minimal).
10. Bran Muffins – muffins are miniature cakes (and it still counts even if you just eat the tops, like Elaine did on Seinfeld). Skip the Starbucks muffin and get the protein plate or order their oatmeal.

Excercise? Help or Hinder?

Your feeling good and working out life is good then all of a sudden bam you get a cold and or flu. All of a sudden your wondering what to do you feel like crap and feel less inclined to working out but at the same time you have great momentum going with your workouts and know as soon as you take a break it is a lot harder to get back into it again. Studies have showed time and time again that working out consistently actually boosts the immune system however with that being said there also comes a time that ones body needs to take a break when you are feeling run down that is your bodies way of communicating with you that it needs a rest.

I just went through a similar thing last week where I was in the last week of a 4 week high intensity training program and got wiped out the last day due to illness. I am the type that will continually fight being sick until there is no more denying it. I would not recommend doing it this way you must listen to what your body is trying to tell you. This article does a great job of outlining when pushing through is okay and when enough is enough, but again the important thing is, is that everyone is different so listen to your body and adjust your exercise routine according to that.

Exercise and the Common Cold 

If you want to prevent getting colds this season, then regular, moderate exercise may be just what the doctor ordered. Findings show that exercise helps your immune system fight simple infections like colds and flu. Exercise also helps ward off the big stuff like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and cancer. Yet what about exercising when you have a cold? Is it safe?

Exercise and Prevention of Colds 

Exercise and physical activities are important parts of a personal action plan to stay healthy and prevent chronic illness. Regular exercise allows you to improve your overall fitness, which can help to boost your immune system — the body’s defense against infections. Regular exercise appears to have the advantage of being able to jump-start the immune system, and that can help reduce the number of colds you get. With exercise, the number and aggressiveness of certain immune cells, such as the ones called natural killer cells, increase by as much as 50% to 300%. If you exercise regularly, this temporary increase can help make the immune system more efficient at destroying intruders that cause illness such as colds. Some findings report that moderate intensity exercise — daily 20 to 30 minute walks, going to the gym every other day, or biking with kids a few times a week — may reduce the number of colds you get. In one study reported in the American Journal of Medicine, women who walked for a half-hour every day for one year had half the number of colds as women who did not exercise. In this study, researchers associated regular walking with increasing levels of infection-fighting white blood cells. In another study, researchers found that the number of T-cells — a specific type of white blood cell — in 65-year-olds who exercised regularly was as high as those of people in their 30s.

Should You Exercise With a Cold?

Because exercise may help to boost immune function, it’s usually safe to exercise with a cold. Still, if you exercise with a cold, it’s important to listen to your body. Sometimes cold medications such as decongestants can increase your heart rate. In addition, your heart rate is increased with exercise. The combination of exercise and decongestants can cause your heart to pump very hard. You may become short of breath and have difficulty breathing. If you have asthma and a cold, make sure you talk with your doctor before you exercise. If your asthma symptoms are worse with a cold, you’ll need to use caution. Exercising with a cold and asthma may cause increased respiratory symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath. These symptoms may require you to use more asthma medications to open your airways. Overuse of asthma drugs can also cause your heart rate to increase. If you have a fever with a cold, exercise may stress your body even more. That’s why it’s important to wait a few days to get back to your regular exercise regimen. Working out too hard with a cold could stress your body, causing you to feel worse. This additional stress may hinder your recovery.

Too Much Exercise May Increase Colds

This isn’t a problem for most of us, but if you’re trying to reduce the number of colds, make sure you take time for rest and recovery after periods of intensive training. Your immune system fights most effectively when it isn’t stressed. Research confirms that a moderate exercise program may increase immunity and your resistance to respiratory infections. But scientists also note that athletes who train rigorously without recovery are more susceptible to viral infections like colds or flu. While immunity is boosted when you work out moderately, the opposite may be true for elite or high-performance athletes such as runners, swimmers, and other athletes that push their physical limits with intense training without sufficient recovery. For example, there’s evidence of suppressed immunity during times of prolonged and intense exercise training with an increased number of upper respiratory tract infections. When workouts become stressful or excessive, there can be decreased amounts of white blood cells circulating throughout your body and increased amounts of the stress hormone cortisol, which may inhibit the ability of certain immune cells to work properly.

When Should You Call the Doctor About Exercise and Colds?

If you exercise with a cold and have any of the following symptoms, it’s important to stop and call your doctor: • Increased chest congestion • Difficulty catching your breath • Coughing and/or wheezing • Chest tightness or pressure • Trouble breathing or excessive shortness of breath • Light-headedness or dizziness • Difficulty with balance

Writing it Down and Making Yourself Accountable

Writing it Down and Making Yourself Accountable

I always thought about working out as my answer to weight loss and keeping it off but as you can see from my previous posts I have come to learn that this is not how it works. Attaining your fitness goals must come from not only from exercise but nutrition and diet as well. I am not ashamed to admit I have a poor relationship with food I always have. The last few years I have learned how to “diet” as a way of dropping the weight when need be. This is not healthy or satisfying and as soon as you stop “dieting” you are going to gain all that weight back plus more. This fact is disheartening and can sometimes lead to giving up on your fitness goals.

Through the help of the boot camp I am currently enrolled in (www.krazebootcamps.com) they have showed me a way to be accountable for what I am eating and have shown me a new way of not dieting but rather healthy eating and a new found freedom of knowing the right foods to eat and the ones to stay away from. It is simple yet complex it is called writing it all down. I know it seems funny how simply writing it down can help but take it from me it does! It may sound tedious at first but  once you begin the journey it becomes easier and almost becomes second nature. Once you become accountable and see what you are actually eating you can then begin to make the change for a healthier lifestyle. Let me start by telling you there are several ways of going about it.  One of the easiest are websites that can help track your calorie consumption and weight loss goals for you.

The one I currently use is and the one my trainer recommends is:

http://www.livestrong.com there is a section called myplate which has a food database of over 200,000 different foods and it will break down everything for you including calories, fat, carbs, and protein of each food and it will give you a breakdown daily as well as weekly and monthly to show you where you are and where you should be to reach your goals. This website is all inclusive you can even set your own weight loss goals and the website will customize calorie and fitness suggestions based around you and what it is you are trying to accomplish. There are also other great tools on the website as well including a BMI (body mass index) calculator and other great weight loss tools.

This is just one example of how you can go about being accountable and if you are not very tech savvy and prefer the old fashioned paper and pen route you can pick up a 99 cent notebook from target and begin writing everything down. There is no right or wrong way to do this the important thing is to make yourself aware of what you are eating and perhaps even showing it to someone else knowing this will help you steer away from foods that you know you should not be consuming.

I have been doing this for 2 weeks now and have dropped 3 pounds so trust me it works!

Losing Sleep May Be Causing You to Add on Those Extra Unwanted Pounds

Well being that I got about 5 hours of sleep last night I thought what better opportunity than now to research sleep and its affect on our health and fitness.  I think we all know that sleep is important to feel well rested and vigo rated for the days work but did you know that lack of sleep actually affects your weight loss and diet as well.  Being that my blog is all about fitness I thought I would touch on that subject and fill you in on exactly why sleep deprivation can keep you from reaching your fitness goals. 

                                                                                                                        

FIVE Reasons Why Losing Sleep Will Ruin Your Fitness Goals:

1. Sleep loss affects the hormone cortisol. It causes you to still feel hungry even though you have eaten an adequate amount of food.

2. Sleep deprivation interferes with carbohydrate metabolism, causing high blood glucose levels. Excess glucose means an overproduction of insulin, which equals an extra storage of body fat. Eventually this can lead to insulin resistance which can contribute to diabetes.

3. When you are in a deep sleep, growth hormones are at work. A lack of quality sleep will reduce the amounts of growth hormones, which are proteins set out to regulate the proportions of fat and muscle in your bod. This is the time your work in the weight room materializes. If you want muscle, you need a good night sleep!

4. The hormones leptin and ghrelin are also a big factor in weight loss and sleep patterns. Ghrelin tells you that you are hungry. Leptin lets you know when you are full. When you don’t get enough sleep ghrelin rises while leptin levels fall. You wind up always feeling hungry. That is exactly what I experienced myself.

5. Symptoms of sleep loss such as stress and a lack of energy definitely affect your fitness plans. If you are not in the mood to work out and are too tired to anyway, then you will lose hard earned workouts and lose progress pretty quickly.

Sleep Deprivation What Is It And Do You Suffer From It?

Sleep deprivation occurs when a person doesn’t get adequate sleep, and while there haven’t been any conclusive findings regarding how sleep deprivation can affect physical performance, there’s every indication that sleep deprivation can have a negative effect on your level of physical fitness and ability to perform a variety of tasks.  Losing 1 hour of sleep over the course of 2 weeks will put a person in some serious sleep debt and can affect performance as it can negatively impact recovery from workouts.

Without going into a whole rigmarole about the different phases of sleep, suffice to say that the slow-wave sleep - the third and fourth phases of sleep - are the deepest and most important phases of sleep.  During this time, we’re as close to hibernation as is humanly possible.  Slow-wave sleep is the precursor to Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, and we go from slow-wave sleep to REM sleep 4-6 times during the time when we are asleep.

Our bodies are always in a process of recovery, but during slow-wave sleep the recovery process is really humming along as it’s really the body’s main concern.  When we’re in this phase of sleep only the most essential functions are active so that growth and repair are maximized.  Our metabolism is at its lowest point while the endocrine system, via the pituitary gland, increases the amount of hormones that it pumps out.

Here’s a Sleep Quiz that appeared in the April 2002 edition of the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s Strength and Conditioning Journal, in an article written by Peter Walters, PhD, CSCS of the Kinesiology Department at Wheaton College. 

1. Do you frequently fall asleep if given a sleep opportunity? (A sleep opportunity is defined as a quiet, dark environment for at least 10 minutes)
2. Do you usually need an alarm clock to wake you?
3. Do you tend to “catch up” on sleep during the weekends?
4. Once awake, do you feel tired most mornings?
5. Do you frequently take naps during the day?
6. Do you consistently sleep more than 9.5 hours per night?
7. Do you feel lethargic or “slow” throughout the day?
8. Do you sleep longer during times of depression, anxiety and stress?

This quiz was designed for athletes, but I think that it pertains to just about everyone and can help to determine a person’s sleep needs.  According to the article in which this quiz appeared, if you answer yes 2 or more times to questions 1-5 you might need more sleep, and if you answer yes 2 or more times to questions 6-8, you might need more sleep.

Being that there is no perfect formula to determine how much sleep a person needs, these questions can help you to figure out how much sleep that you

Credit: http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Reasons-Sleep-Affects-Your-Fitness&id=1173487

Is Your Relationship with Food Sabotaging Your Weight loss?

There are so many ways to sabotage ones weightloss the number one way is through your diet.  I am one of those people who workout daily yet have this unrelentless fight day after day with the foods I eat.   The relationship you have with food can determine your success when trying to live a healthy lifestyle.  The good news is once you identify the problem you can then begin to fix it.  However, until you do you will never know how to go about making your relationship with food a healthy one.

 

7 habits of highly unsuccessful dieters, and how to break them.      

 Do any of these situations sound familiar?

• Your meals usually come out of a carton, a vacuum-packed bag, or over the deli counter.
• You almost never eat alone: TV, the Internet, phone, or your favorite magazine is there   for nearly every meal.
• You find it next to impossible to walk away from free food, even if you’re not hungry – including all-you-can-eat buffets, supermarket sample tables, and those “taste me” booths at flea markets.
• You spend more time regretting what you ate than preparing it.
• You eat when you’re hungry. Also when you’re sad, mad, hurt, annoyed, irritated – even, sometimes, when you’re overjoyed.

If you find yourself saying “That’s me,” you may have fallen prey to one or more unhealthy eating styles, mealtime or lifestyle habits that can get in the way of weight control.

Sometimes, destructive eating patterns are easy to spot, such as when you turn to food every time you’re facing a problem. But often, the cues are so subtle that these unhealthy habits go unnoticed.

“Because we have been living with these habits or ‘eating styles’ for so long, we often don’t even realize we are doing them,” says Linda Yerardi, RD, LD, a dietician at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md.

So while you might recognize that you overeat when you’re very upset, Yerardi says, you’re less likely to see how little, everyday stresses are also driving your eating habits, with nibbles and bites that add up by the end of the day.

Another example: Eating while watching television or reading may make us feel less lonely, says weight loss coach Janice Taylor, but it also causes a disconnect with the fact that it’s mealtime. And that, she says, often means a disconnect with how much you are eating.

“Television puts in you a light trance, and to some extent, the Internet or even reading a magazine can do the same thing,” says Taylor, author of Our Lady of Weight Loss: Miraculous and Motivational Musings from the Patron Saint of Permanent Fat Removal. “So you end up chewing one mouthful while already shoveling another one onto the fork, without even tasting what you’re eating.”

Finding Your Eating Style

While eating styles are as individual as we are, some researchers believe they can be grouped into just a handful of behavior patterns.

After analyzing surveys from more than 5,000 men and women, researchers Larry Scherwitz, PhD, and Deborah Kesten, MPH, identified seven common patterns.

“Each of the newly identified eating styles was independently related to self-reports of overeating frequency; five of the seven were significantly related to overweight and obesity,” the authors wrote in Explore: The Journal of Science of Healing, which published their findings.

Some of the unhealthy patterns identified by the study include:

• Food Fretting: You’re overly concerned with what you eat, and have a negative relationship with food.

 

• Task Snacking: You almost always eat while doing something else — like watching TV, answering email or even cooking — which can lead to overeating.

 

• Emotional Eating: You turn to food not only during life’s traumatic moments, but anytime you feel stressed, anxious, or a little upset.

 

• Fast Foodism: Simply put, you’re “hooked” on processed and convenience foods, and you gulp them down fast!

 

• Solo Dining: You use food to fill a social void – and the more often you eat alone, the more you eat.

 

• Unappetizing Atmosphere: You eat behind the wheel, at your desk, or standing up in front of the refrigerator. This keeps you from concentrating on what you’re eating, and makes it more likely you’ll overeat.

 

• Sensory Disregard: Mealtime is hectic, and you disconnect entirely from the eating experience. This leads to   eating without thinking, and that usually means overeating.

While you may not see your own exact situation in these categories, Taylor says the bigger picture here is that all seven behaviors serve a single purpose: They take the focus off appetite and provide another reason for eating.

“Whether it’s a distraction, an amusement, a comfort, a consolation — if you are not eating mindfully, and you are not one with your food, chances are you are going to overeat,” says Taylor, creator of the “Kick in the Tush Club” weight loss newsletter.

Solving the Problem

 

So what can you do to home in on your bad eating habits – and change them?

First, says, psychologist Abby Aronowitz, PhD, spend about a week writing down everything in your life that’s connected to food.

“This is not just about keeping a ‘food diary’ – it’s really a lifestyle diary, one in which you record everything that has to do with eating,” says Aronowitz, author of Your Final Diet.

This includes not only writing down what you ate, but how much you ate, where you were when you ate it, the time of day it was, why you ate it, if you were alone or with someone else, and, most importantly, what else you were doing while you were eating, she says.

Aronowitz says it may also be helpful to note how many of your foods were fresh, frozen, processed, fried, steamed, baked, broiled, take-out, or eaten at a restaurant, and how many you ate “out of the box.”

“Eating anything out of a box, without a predetermined portion, can be especially dangerous – before you know it, it’s gone, and you haven’t even tasted the last few hundred calories!” says Aronowitz.

After one to two weeks of journaling your food habits, you should begin to see a pattern emerge.

“You can not only identify your eating ‘triggers,’ but also the driving force behind why you may be eating more than you need, and even more than you realize,” says Aronowitz.

Your Eating Style

Once you know what your eating style is, Yerardi says, you can take steps to compensate.

“If you know, for example, that an all-you-can-eat buffet means you are going to go eat all that 10 people could eat, go in prepared: Put a time limit on how long you will stay, or on how many dishes you will try, ” says Yerardi.

If noshing and nibbling is the only way you can deal with stress, Taylor says, then nosh and nibble on healthy, low-calorie foods.

“Just because you feel the need to eat when you are nervous, doesn’t mean you have to eat Boston cream pie,” she says. “You can eat a tasty and wholesome snack.”

Moreover, all the experts who spoke with WebMD say that if you try to make eating a conscious experience that touches all your senses, you’re less likely to overeat. And even if you do, you’ll be less likely to punish yourself for it afterward.

“When you are aware of what you eat, and you eat it consciously, at least you have enjoyed it – as compared to eating it unconsciously and not even remembering what it tasted like,’ says Taylor.

The motto she suggests to all her weight loss clients: “Confess your food sins – forgive yourself – and move on!”

Take this quiz and see for yourself what kind of an eater you are:

http://quiz.ivillage.co.uk/uk_diet/tests/dontgetfat.htm

 

Get Outside and Get Moving

So there is no right or wrong way to exercise I say just get moving do something that leaves you feeling your best.  Whether that’s taking a spin class going for a run or lifting weights.   I can tell you that I was someone who lived in a gym two hours a day some days even longer and never considered myself an outdoor type of a person.  I liked the treadmills I liked the weights at my disposal and the millions of mirrors that were on every wall to check my “form” of course. 

That was until I took an outdoor class and realized what I had been missing, something about being outside fueled me to go faster harder and longer and now the thought of being inside on a treadmill makes me feel somewhat clostrophobic.  I wanted to explore this new phenomenon and see what is it about the great outdoors that really make it so great.  Enjoy!

1. Fresh air is ridiculously invigorating.                                                           

These days, most of us get to choose to stay inside. We don’t have to work in the hot sun or walk through snowy, windy storms to get to town. And that means we can go an awfully long time without ever going outdoors.

And while it’s always the same temperature in the gym, there’s just something about breathing deep, full hits of fresh air that invigorates the mind, body and soul.

You will, of course, need to be careful if the temperature outside is either dangerously cold or dangerously hot. If you live in an area where this is a concern, choose the time of day that you exercise carefully. Take your run in the early morning, for example. Or if you live in a cold climate, wait for the heat of the day and bundle up in some of the cutting edge fabrics that are now on the market to keep you from missing an outdoor workout.

If you are dealing with extreme temperatures of any kind, it might be best to keep your workout indoors, but these times of the year are typically fairly short, so it’s generally not an excuse for too many months out of the year.

2. Stay connected with nature.

So many of us are in contact with concrete, asphalt, and other unnatural surfaces all day long. Use your daily workout time as a great excuse to venture out onto a dirt trail, road or path. Strive to notice new things about the natural world each time you go, even if you are always on the same trail.

You never know what you’re going to discover in the natural world. Cultivate a reverence for it and you will be hard pressed to return to those indoor workouts.

3. It’s good for you.

Outdoor time has been linked to a wide variety of health benefits. Studies suggest that it increases your energy levels and helps you to stay more alert. We are learning more and more about the importance of a daily bit of natural sunlight, too, which can help fight depression.

Vitamin D, which is created naturally when sunlight acts on the skin, is important for a whole host of bodily functions. It helps to regulate calcium and phosphorus levels in the blood and is vital to the immune system. (Many doctors do recommend, however, that you apply sunblock after about 15 minutes of sun exposure.)

4. Outdoor workouts might help you stick with it.

Exercise outdoors tends to be more exciting and adventurous than the treadmill, so these kinds of workouts may help you stay engaged in your exercise routine.

If your daily exercise time is also your time to escape the four walls of your home or office, for example, you might be more likely to see it as a treat that you give yourself. And when you can see your daily exercise in such a positive way, you’ll be far more likely to make sure you do your workout each day.

And that’s one of the best things you can do for your overall health. Exercise itself helps increase mental focus, tones muscles, helps improve your metabolism, helps increase your lung capacity and just may increase your life span.

5. Exercising outside gives your body fresh new challenges.

When you run, jog or even walk outside, you will be asking your body and your brain to complete more complex motions than those that are performed on exercise equipment. You are also dealing with various terrain surfaces, which can provide a further mental and physical challenge and help to improve your reflexes.

Even if you’re not a runner or a jogger, you can still get a lot out of exercising outdoors. Ride a bike or participate in local outdoor sports, such as soccer or softball, for example. The most important thing is that you truly love the exercise you choose so that you will stick with it.

If you are just starting out in an exercise program, whether outdoors or indoors, make sure to talk with your doctor first and take proper health precautions. You’ll also want to drink plenty of water and pace yourself. It really won’t take long before you’ll be feeling the all of the mental and physical benefits

 Credit: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jamie_Jefferson