If you’re like most people, you’ve recently resolved to lose weight, get in shape or maybe just to live more healthfully. These resolutions often include a commitment to exercising more regularly, but before you lace up your shoes and get moving, here are five common mistakes you’ll want to avoid in 2016.

Source: 5 Exercise Mistakes to Avoid in the New Year

More people join a gym in January than at any other time of year. While this can be a great first step, joining a gym does not necessarily mean a person will become more active. The key, of course, is actually using the gym. Before you sign up for a gym or health club membership, spend some time researching facilities. Make sure the gym offers the environment and types of equipment and classes you would be inclined to use regularly. And don’t forget the importance of choosing a convenient location. For many people, it makes more sense to join a gym that is close to work, especially if they are more likely to train right after work; others are more likely to use a use a gym that’s closer to home. Find out which location will increase your likelihood of using the gym.

Has anyone told you to “warm up” before you exercise or play sports? It seems simple enough, doesn’t it? What’s easy to do is also easy not to do, and the biggest mistake people make is skipping this important component of exercise. Learn how to warm up properly (and why it’s so important) so you can be more effective with your physical activities.

Source: ACE Fit | Fit Life | The Common Mistakes People Make When Warming Up

WHY

Most people sit for long periods of time or lie in bed before they exercise. Warming up helps you shift gears both mentally and physically. It’s preparation—kind of like chopping vegetables before cooking. The way you prepare your veggies changes the meal. And cooking them can be more challenging if you skip chopping or do it poorly. The same is true of your body when you warm up incorrectly or skip it all together.

When You Warm Up…

• The brain shifts its attention to physical activity mode.
• Joints move through their full ranges of motion.
• Your heart rate increases gradually instead of abruptly.
• Blood circulates through your system.
• The muscles practice movements to come.
• The likelihood of injury decreases.

Chronic stress can take a significant toll on the body and even lead to many long-term health concerns. Stress is so pervasive, however, that many people aren’t even aware of how stressed-out they really are. Here are 5 subtle signs that you may be feeling stressed, along with tips on how to alleviate the effects of that stress.

Source: ACE Fit – Fit Life

According to the American Institute of Stress, numerous emotional and physical disorders are linked to stress. In fact, chronic stress affects each system of the body differently and can cause long-term health concerns.

One of the greatest misconceptions about stress is that mental and emotional stress are not as detrimental as physical stress. Most people associate stress with work and a busy lifestyle, and although true, how we think and how we maintain our emotions affects the mind and the body. For many, their personal life is just as stressful as their career life, if not more so.

In addition, people experience stress due to things like environmental toxins, overuse of technology, constant traveling, changing time zones or switching work shifts, which changes one’s biorhythm and can take several days to adjust to the new schedule. Therefore, stress is a part of the modern day life and the body will respond to the stress placed upon it.

Stress that is stored in the body can show up in the most unexpected ways. Although associated with depression and panic attacks, stress manifests itself also through less obvious signals. These five signs indicate that something in your life is placing stress on your body.

If you’ve hit a health and fitness plateau, it may be time to look at the lifestyle factors that could be slowing down your metabolism and hindering your progress toward achieving your health and fitness goals. While you can’t change all of the factors that determine how your metabolism functions, it is possible to give your metabolism a jumpstart simply by changing some of your daily habits.

Source: The Role of Metabolism in Reaching Your Goals and Improving Your Fitness

Turning these tips into daily habits is a great way to give your metabolism a boost and enhance your ability to meet your health and fitness goals. You may also benefit from working with a personal trainer, who can design a specific exercise regimen that your body responds to positively. Regardless of where you are in your health and fitness journey, don’t despair—get up, get moving and give your metabolism the boost you need to start seeing results.

You know that eating more fruits and vegetables is good for you, but it can be daunting to think about cutting out meat and making the switch to a more plant-based diet. The good news: You don’t have to give up meat altogether to eat healthier. If you’re considering transitioning to eating more vegetables and less meat, this four-step guide can help make the process much more manageable.

Source: 4 Steps to Make the Switch to a Plant-Based Diet Less Daunting

It seems more people than ever are moving away from a meat-heavy diet and making the switch to a plant-based eating style. Not only is this trend popular with celebrities like Carrie Underwood and Gwyneth Paltrow, it is, arguably, a healthier way of eating and better for the environment, as well.

As registered dietitians, we’ve witnessed a growing body of research confirming that diets centered on minimally processed plant foods that come straight from the earth not only fight a myriad of chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, they also help to keep you svelte. However, many people feel overwhelmed when they try to dramatically change their diets, especially If they think mistakenly believe they should cut out all animal products.

Fortunately, this is not the case at all. If you’re considering transitioning to a more plant-based diet, this four-step guide will help make the process much more manageable. When you feel as though you’ve mastered one step, move on to the next. And feel free to start with any of the steps and progress to another step in any order that feels most comfortable for you.

One thing to keep in mind: A “plant-based” diet emphasizes minimally processed foods from plants, with modest amounts of fish, lean meat and low-fat dairy—red meat is eaten at only sparingly. In other words, you don’t have to become a vegan. After all, one of the best ways to embrace a plant-based diet is to enjoy a healthy, anti-inflammatory diet like the Mediterranean diet, which includes fish, seafood, and some occasional poultry and meat.

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been linked to several health issues, including type 2 diabetes and obesity. Here are the facts on HFCS and how it compares to other sweeteners in terms of its effects on overall health.

Source: What You Need to Know About High Fructose Corn Syrup

What Is HFCS?

Chemically speaking, sucrose or plain table sugar is one part glucose—the simplest sugar that is a component in many carbohydrates—and one part fructose or fruit sugar. Therefore, sucrose is 50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose. This is very similar to the chemical composition of honey (48 percent glucose/52 percent fructose). Corn syrup, a liquid sweetener made from cornstarch, can vary in composition depending on the brand. HFCS, a modified version of standard corn syrup, is similar in chemical composition to table sugar and honey with two forms: HFCS-42 (58 percent glucose/42 percent fructose) and HFCS-55 (45 percent glucose/55 percent fructose).

The Controversy

The media has implicated HFCS as a potential contributor to the U.S. obesity epidemic (White, 2008; Zeratsky, 2005). These inferences have been drawn from studies that show Americans have more than doubled their intake of HFCS over the past 50 years, as this sweetening agent has slowly replaced traditional sucrose in a number of processed foods (White, 2008). In the same time period, the total number of calories consumed from just sugar has also doubled to approximately 400 calories per day. Recommendations from the American Heart Association and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics suggest that this level is too high, and that daily sugar intake should be no more than 100 calories for women and 150 calories for men (Fitch  and Keim, 2012; Zeratsky, 2005).

Flexibility is an important component of a well-rounded fitness routine, especially for those who tend to gravitate towards strength training. Incorporating these yoga poses into your workout regimen will help increase range of motion, as well as enhance stability and mobility.

Source: Yoga for Weightlifters: 7 Poses for Increased Range of Motion

Flexibility is an important yet often overlooked component of a well-rounded fitness routine, especially for those who tend to gravitate to strength-based workouts. Adequate range of motion around the joints is imperative to perform loaded movement patterns safely and effectively using strength-training tools such as barbells and dumbbells. In addition to enhancing performance in the gym, incorporating movements into one’s workout routine that enhance joint stability and mobility will also address existing muscle imbalance and allow for greater ease and efficiency when performing activities of daily living (ADLs) outside of the gym. The following yoga poses focus on stretching the major muscle groups typically used when performing ADLs (calves, thighs, hip flexors, back, chest and shoulders) while enhancing mobility in the hips, ankles, shoulders and thoracic spine.

While some believe that losing weight is simply a matter of moving more and eating less, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The human body is much more complex than we realize and there are many variables that come into play when trying to lose body fat. Here are some important things to consider when trying to lose weight.

Source: ACE Fit | Fit Life | How Eating Too Little Will Eat Up Your Fat-loss Goals

You’ve decided to lose weight, so it’s time to start moving more and eating less, right? Well, sort of.

That may sound like the right move, but sometimes it can end up doing more harm than good. The human body is much more complex than we realize, and there are many variables that come into play when trying to shed body fat.

Here are some things to consider when your primary goal is weight loss:

If you’ve eaten out at a restaurant lately, you know that portions sizes are huge, especially compared to those served just a few decades ago. For many of us, this has skewed our perception of what a normal portion size should look like. Here are some easy tips and strategies for controlling both your portions and your food intake.

Source: ACE Fit | Fit Life | 9 Tips to Help You Control Your Portions

The clothing you wear to workout is just as important as bringing a water bottle. Choosing the right clothing, therefore, for your workout is so very important.

Choosing, however, the right exercise clothing is not always easy to do, especially if you are a bit self-conscious about your appearance that I find to be the case with those easing back into exercising. So with that in mind, the best choice is both, practical, objective as well as, subjective, in that it reflects who you are, and your individual taste for fashion. You want your clothing and footwear to be stylish, but they also need to be functional. We wouldn’t want to wear something that’s so practical that you’re wearing something your mother would wear; but of course, I would like to think my daughters feel I have great taste in fashion, so that wouldn’t necessary be a bad thing.

First of all, we want to wear clothing that is appropriate to the sport or activity. That’s a given. If we choose baseball, we wear the appropriate attire, which includes cleats. However, if your activity is just that – to be active, play a little racquetball, hit the cardio machines or run the local trails – to choose the proper attire isn’t that simple.

The best advice I could give regarding workout clothing is that you pick fabrics that breath wicks away sweat. There are many breathable synthetic fabrics that “wick” the sweat away from your skin, which can help it to evaporate quickly and keep your body cool. Clothing made out of fabrics containing polypropylene or fabrics such as COOLMAX® and SUPPLEX® are a good choice for exercise and other activities in which you are likely to sweat a lot, as they allow the sweat to be evaporated from the skin but do not soak clothing and leave you feeling sweaty and uncomfortable.

Cotton shirts and pants, on the other hand, absorb the sweat, and they don’t pull it away from the skin or help it to evaporate quickly. That’s why cotton workout clothes can feel heavy and wet as you exercise.

Equally important is choosing the proper footwear. Having the right, supportive, shoe is extremely important for physical activity, especially weight-bearing activities. Likewise, choosing the right kind of footwear depends on your exercise routine. Certain exercises require shoes that are light in weight while others require more ankle support. If you perform more than one type of workout, you may want to buy a different pair of shoes for each activity, especially for high-impact exercises such as running.

If you’re a runner, for example, you will need lightweight shoes that are designed specifically for running. It’s a good idea to go to a running store to buy your shoes, instead of a standard shoe store. The sales staff will measure your foot and look at the pronation of your foot; whether it over or under pronates, as well as, your gait. If you’re a distance runner, make sure to let the salesperson know how any miles you run each month. This will help them to recommend the right kind of shoes. Now get out there and have some fun!