AlchemyFit.com

Fitness Tip: Flax Seed Fitness - A great way to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system is by adding flaxseed to your healthy meal plan. Flaxseed contains what is called alpha-linolenic acid which is a fatty acid essential in controlling blood pressure. They have a benefit of helping with digestion; just make sure the flaxseed is crushed for easier consumption and absorption.

Exercise of the day: Ball Waist Rotation Stretch – The Ball Waist Rotation Stretch will help you tone and tighten your oblique abdominal region with the support of your fitness ball.
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Fitness Tip: Go Nuts About Nuts - If you are like most people, you probably love nuts. Recent medical research suggests that Almonds, especially raw and skin on in their most natural state, not only make a nutritious snack, but can also help support a healthy heart by reducing the risk of heart attacks by up to 50%. Just remember though that all nuts are very nutrient dense in calories, so a handful at a time PLEASE!

Exercise of the day: Ball Rise and Shine Intermediate – The Ball Rise and Shine Intermediate is another great challenging lower back exercise movement that will develop your core region with the help of your exercise ball.
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In this day in age where obesity and diabetes run rampant through our society, the focus lies on carbohydrates and protein. Carbohydrate control is very important to maintain a healthy body. Sugar, a form of carbohydrate, is known to raise insulin levels and depress your immune system. The diet gurus and others who wish to profit off of the latest fitness fads, vilify carbohydrates. They lump them into one big category and tell you carbs are bad and to eat more protein. However this couldn’t be further from the truth.

There are many mistakes people make when working out. People who are new to exercise don’t know what to do and those who have been working out for years are stuck in their ways. Here are the 3 most common mistakes you don’t know you’re making:

1. Using light weights to “tone up”

If only I had a dollar for each time I heard this. Most people in America right now will tell you that their dominant fitness goal is to lose weight and “tone up”. Exercise physiologists and personal training purists cringe at hearing the word “toning” when used to describe a leaner physique. The scientific definition of muscle tone is the continual and passive partial contraction of the muscle in a relaxed state. It is an involuntary action that has nothing to do with how your body looks.

There is one thing that we all learned in high school biology that can be applied to fitness. I know there is more than one thing if you want to be technical, but I am referring to the scientific method. To help jog your memory, it was a 5-6 step process to solve a problem that looked something like this: 1. Ask a question 2. Do background research 3. Construct a hypothesis 4. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment 5. Analyze results and draw a conclusion