I wanted to share with you several health and fitness tips that I think you might find useful for your personal exercise and diet program..

Enjoy!

Proportion 

"Men do arms and chest, women only need to workout legs…"

It seems that men have a bad tendency to have "Mirroritis".  I define "Mirroritis" as working out only muscle that you can see in the mirror.  For men, it's working out to much chest and arms and not enough legs and back. 

Women don't often suffer from "Mirroritis", they suffer from "spot reduction" (but at times, so do men).  For women, it's working out the lower body and never working out the upper body.  Women have a bad tendency to only workout legs, thinking that "spot reduction" does work.  In other words, "if I work out my legs, then the fat will come off my legs".

Just remember proportion relates to "outer beauty" and "sex appeal".  To see a male or female with a proportional body is really a beautiful thing.  Don't just focus on one area, "balance is the key".

What is the best way to maintain and enhance proportions?  Workout your back and legs.  This is the easiest and best way to change your proportions.  Also, this is the easiest ways to build muscle thereby raising your metabolism. 

The legs and back are the two biggest muscle groups, therefore you should allocate your time accordingly.  The bigger the muscle, the more time you should spend on that muscle. 

Biological Age and Chronological Age

There is a different between a person's biological age and their chronological age.  For instance, "Wow, how old are you…?   31…?  You look like you're 25… Why is that?"  

It's amazing, I've seen 30 year old men look 40, and 40 year old men look 30…  Why is it that some people look younger than their real age or some people look older than their real age? 

Well yes, part of it is genetic, but part of comes from taking care of yourself.  If you eat healthy and exercise, on the inside and the outside you will be younger.  From your heart, to your lungs, to every cell in your body, much of this has to do with diet and exercise.  Also, stress and lack of sleep can age you as well.

The point of all this is:

"Just remember: you don't have to look your age…"

Sleep and Weight Loss

Sleep 8 hours or more a night.  Obesity is possibly linked to sleep deprivation.  This is due to the fact that your body produces the majority of growth hormones in deep sleep.  By limiting your sleep, you impair your body's ability to produce growth hormones and testosterone thereby leading to fat gain and muscle loss.  Also, after intense training sessions, repair and recovery occur during sleep .  Sleep is critical in this process.

Sleep deprivation increases carbohydrate intake.  Sleep deprivation negatively affects the production of a hormone called Leptin.  This hormone is responsible for telling the body when it is full.  With less sleep your body produces less of this hormone which in turn makes you want to eat more and which also slows your metabolism.

This is one of the most important tips.  Studies have shown that going to bed early before 11PM and waking up at the same time 7 days a week allows a person to go into a much deeper levels of REM sleep.  Furthermore, sleep between 10:30AM and 6:30AM is much more effective than getting the same amount of sleep and sleeping from 2AM to 10AM (Both of which are 8 hours of sleep, one better than the other).  Much of this has to do with our Circadian Rhythm.  Recovery time in between workouts is one of the most important tips for muscle growth and fat loss.  What will really adversely affect a trainees results is a sleep shift on the weekends. 

In the past, I had a much more active nighttime social life on the weekends.  Every weekend I would completely throw off my sleep schedule Friday and Saturday by going out and staying out till 2 or 3AM and I would feel awful Monday through Wednesday, and finally feel good on Thursday and Friday and then repeat the sleep shift cycle. 

The problem with this is that you're in a constant state of temporary "jet lag".  This social jet lag syndrome will affect your recovery time thereby undermining your results in the long run.  Try to go to bed early, even on weekends and get 8 hours or more of sleep.  You'll feel much better by doing so.

Shawn Phillips

Perfect Body Inc.