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No matter what your age or gender, there are a lot of reasons to start working out this year. If you live in Winter Haven, FL, it's even easier to increase your activity than it is in colder climates. Walking more is one way to increase your activity and any increase is good, but is walking enough? You need more than just cardio and lower leg strength to be truly fit, which is why you should make this year devoted to your health and start working out to round out your fitness program.

You need strength training to help prevent injury and loss of muscle mass.

After you reach your mid-30s, you start to lose muscle mass. The loss of muscle tissue can be between 3 and 5% every decade. It doesn't have to occur if you maintain a program of regular exercise, but what if you didn't and are now much older? It's never too late. While it's harder to build the older you are, it's still possible. When you workout regularly, your body maintains higher HGH and testosterone levels to make maintaining muscle mass easier. It also increases the number of stem cells that help keep you looking and feeling younger.

Exercising regularly can fight osteoporosis and help regulate blood sugar.

When you lose muscle tissue, it can cause you to lose bone density. When muscles tug on the bone, it causes them to uptake calcium to keep them stronger and prevent bone damage. If you don't have strong muscle tissue to do that, it can cause decreased bone density---osteoporosis. Exercise also helps prevent and even reverse type 2 diabetes. It aids in increasing insulin sensitivity. Several studies show that strength training lowered body fat, while it increased muscle mass. In doing that, within four months helped lower blood glucose levels dramatically.

Exercising can reduce inflammation.

Exercise helps inflammatory diseases in several ways. Studies on patients with rheumatoid arthritis showed it reduced pain by building up the muscles, tendons and ligaments around the joints to relieve the pressure. It increases circulation, which can relax tight muscles and improves posture. By strengthening the muscles in the back, it can relieve back pain, too. Exercise also increases the production of stem cells to replace worn and damaged cells. It lengthens telomeres that protect the cells from DNA damage, allowing them to replicate longer.

• Exercise helps improve the microbiome in your gut by increasing the population of beneficial microbes. These beneficial microbes affect all areas of your health, from your mood to your digestion.
• Exercise helps prevent obesity and can aid in eliminating visceral---belly---fat. Studies show that just losing 2.2 pounds can lower both the top and bottom blood pressure numbers by 1 mm Hg.
• Exercise helps the body maintain the process of angiogenesis, which maintains the proper amount of blood vessels. Producing too few blood vessels can lead to heart disease and too many can promote cancer.
• Put your workout on your calendar. Make it an appointment with good health and do it the same time every day until it becomes a habit. Making it a habit can boost your chances for success.

For more information, contact us today at Habitat Health & Fitness

A lot of people focus on losing weight to get healthier, and sometimes do it to excess. They fret if they've gained a pound and get ecstatic when they've lost one. While losing weight is an excellent goal, in the general scheme of things, it doesn't matter, especially if you're losing inches. When you stay the same weight, but shed inches, it means you're building muscle mass. Muscle tissue weighs more per cubic inch than fat tissue does, so even if you don't lose a pound, but change your body's composition to more muscle mass, you'll be thinner and wear a smaller size.

The scales can make you discouraged.

When you lose weight, it's not a straight line down, but one with peaks and valleys with each peak or valley lower than the previous one. Depending strictly on the scales to get a picture of how well you're doing is deceiving. Throughout the day and week your weight fluctuates. Sometimes, your body retains more water than other times. Your weight can give you false encouragement or unnecessary disappointment.

Losing weight may not help get rid of a Buddha belly.

The weight you carry in your abdominal area is the most dangerous type of weight. It's also the hardest weight to lose. It crowds your organs and can cause all types of health issues from increased risk of heart disease to increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Instead of weighing yourself, take a measurement of your waist, then divide it by your height in inches. If your waist is 27 inches and your 5'5" or 6'5", then you'd divide 27 by 65. The answer is 0.41. A good result, which means you don't have visceral fat, is 0.5 or less.

How your clothes fit is a good indication.

If your pants are looser than they were a month ago, you're doing fine, regardless of what your weight is. If the scales said you lost 2 pounds, but your clothing is getting tighter, there's something wrong. Either your scales are off or you're being deceived. Using an article of clothing as your measure is a good idea. Before you start your weight loss program, find a pair of pants that are too tight to use as your guide. Once a month, try them on to see how well they fit.

• If you want to lose visceral fat, you need a healthier diet, plus regular exercise, with high intensity workouts the best. It's important to get enough sleep, limit your alcohol intake and reduce your stress level.
• You don't need to give up weighing yourself altogether. Just don't overly depend on the number on the scales and use other ways to track your progress. Using body measurements is another way to track.
• Take a picture of yourself once a month. Wear the same clothing each time and make it revealing, to show your body in full. After a few months, compare the before and after.
• Identify the reason you want to lose weight and use that as a way to track progress. Do you want to have more energy, lower blood pressure, or lower blood glucose levels? Use blood pressure readings, the number of flights of stairs you can climb or resting blood glucose levels.

For more information, contact us today at Habitat Health & Fitness

Choosing almond butter for sandwiches and snacks over peanut butter does sound a little trendier and can provide a welcomed change. Is almond butter healthier or just something different? Are you better off opting for other types of nut butters, like almond butter? What does the nutritional breakdown say?

What's the difference between the two when it comes to vitamins and minerals?

Sadly, almond butter beats the old stand-by peanut butter. It has far more calcium---seven times to be exact---which is necessary for bones and teeth. There's three times the amount of vitamin E, too. Vitamin E can help prevent narrowing of the arteries from plaque build-up. If you compare the amount of iron, which is necessary for red blood cells, you'll find that almond butter has twice as much. Peanut butter still has a considerable amount of these nutrients, just not as much as almond butter.

Eating nuts or nut butter is a good way to get healthy fat.

People often freak out when they hear the word fat, believing it will cause you to be fat, but it's necessary for a healthy body. The key is to eat the healthiest type and avoid trans fats, which is unhealthy. If you compare peanut butter to almond butter, you'll find both provide monounsaturated fat that's good for you. However, almond butter has about 25% more of this type of healthy fat, with peanut butter providing twice as much saturated fat per serving, which should be consumed in moderation.

Which has the most fiber or protein?

Peanut butter is the winner when it comes to protein. It has 3 grams of protein per tablespoon compared to almond butter's 2.4 grams. When it comes to fiber, however, almond butter wins that round. It has slightly over twice the amount of fiber as peanut butter does. You need both fiber and protein to help fill you up and keep you feeling full. Both will do the job adequately, since peanut butter has more protein, while almond butter has more fiber.

• Both peanut butter and almond butter contain about the same amount of magnesium, zinc, potassium and biotin. They both contain approximately the same number of calories, which is just under 100 per tablespoon.
• Monounsaturated fat, which is more prevalent in almond butter, can help you control blood sugar better and reduce the risk of heart disease. Saturated fat, more prevalent in peanut butter, is necessary to build cell membranes, absorb fat soluble vitamins and increase bone density.
• If you're making your own almond butter or peanut butter or opting for one that's commercially made that has no other ingredients, the amount of sugar you get will be minimal. Always read the label, since some companies add sugar to their nut butters.
• Peanut butter is easier on your wallet, with a far lower price. Both are good options, especially for diabetics. One study found that when diabetic women ate five servings of nuts or nut butter per week. It significantly lowered the risk of heart disease.

For more information, contact us today at Habitat Health & Fitness

It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes, we see people have all the signs that they're working out too much. Yes, no matter how healthy exercise is, you can take it too far. Check your workout schedule. Are you working out for hours every day? Are you doing strength training for your whole body seven days a week? That can be a good indicator.

What are the dangers of over-exercising?

Over-exercising can be counterproductive. In fact, that's also one of the signs. If you're putting in more time in the gym and really exercising, but aren't seeing the results, you might need to cut back on workout time. Working out too much taxes the body. It doesn't give the muscles a chance to heal the small microtears, which build muscle tissue. It takes 48-hours or longer for those to heal, so you need to give the muscle groups a rest. If you want to do strength training daily, alternate muscle groups you work.

You might be getting colds and flu more frequently.

When you workout too much, it can affect your immune system. Even though exercise burns off the hormones of stress, strenuous exercise, particularly if it's done too frequently or for too long, can actually cause stress. While the muscle repairs, your immune system isn't efficient. It can take up to 72 hours for the immune system to return to normal. That's while the body is healing the microtears in the muscle that cause the muscle to grow. Overtraining can lead to a less efficient immune system.

Your body will tell you what you need to know.

If you're finding you're always exhausted or feel exhausted more quickly when you're physically active, you might be working out too much. Recovery also takes longer after a workout. You simply don't do as well as before and start losing ground. The harder and longer you workout, the worse it gets. Chronic fatigue, longer recovery time, anxiety, anger, depression and confusion are all signs you may be working out too much.

• Alternating your strength-building workout by working different parts of the body on different days or alternating aerobic, strength-building, flexibility and balance workouts can help.
• Exercise helps you fall asleep quicker, so if you find you suddenly have insomnia, you might be working out too much. You can still workout daily, just make alternate days a recovery workout.
• You'll feel tired sooner, indicating you're losing ground from working out too much, but you also may be losing muscle mass and increasing the amount of body fat you have.
• Your heart rate can tell you when you need rest. If your resting heart rate is normally 50 beats a minute, but it jumps to 80 beats a minute regularly, you might have stressed your body too much with too much exercise.

For more information, contact us today at Habitat Health & Fitness

If you're going through scientific journals trying to find the definition of superfood, you'll have a tough time. It's not an official term, but one used by writers, lay nutritional bloggers and others to offer a clearer mental picture of the quality of a specific food. It describes a food that's high in nutrients and offers an extraordinary number of health benefits. It's been used to describe many types of food from the exotic like goji berries, to the more mundane, like beets.

Sometimes, it's just Madison Avenue promoting food.

Marketing is important, even for natural foods. While an advertising agency may have come up with the idea that a particular food is a superfood, it doesn't mean the claim is empty. Superfoods have high nutritional content, especially when you compare it to the number of calories it contains and the ad agency drew your attention to the fact. Superfoods contain enzymes, phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals and healthy fat. They often offer the body multiple health benefits and/or healing properties. Always do your own research.

Most foods called superfoods are whole foods.

Throughout history, man has lived off the land. Many of the foods considered superfoods today have been around, in one form or another, as long as man or longer. Ancient grains are one example. Acai berries, chia seeds, mulberries and spirulina are a few better known ones. You may already know about others like lucuma fruit---gold of the Incas, sacha inchi and maca, which are growing in popularity for their health and nutritional benefits.

Easier options to find are healthy options that should be part of your diet.

You don't have to go to the jungle of the Amazon to find superfoods. They may be grown in your garden or on a farm close to you. Beets, for example, have been labeled a superfood. Nuts and seeds are high in nutrients and healthy fat, so some call them superfoods. Kefir and other fermented foods provide probiotic benefits and other nutrients. Olive oil, mushrooms, salmon, salmon and sweet potatoes often get the honor of being called superfoods, just as green leafy vegetables, green tea, berries, eggs and legumes do.

Superfoods also include spices and herbs. Garlic, turmeric and ginger are all included in that group. Don't forget many of the healing herbs that have been used for centuries, like holy basil and thyme.

If you're trying to decide whether your favorite fruit, vegetable or organic animal product is a superfood, just google it. In most cases, at least one site will call it that. It's because most whole foods provide a wealth of nutrients.

One ancient additive that's considered a superfood is nutritional yeast, which is often used in vegan recipes to give a cheesy flavor. It's high in B vitamins and the best source of B12, riboflavin.

One reason amla---the Indian gooseberry---is considered a superfood, is its ability to retain a high vitamin C content even when it's dried. It has 20 times more vitamin C than oranges and is an anti-aging food in powder form that you can add to drinks.