Build Your Own Gym Equipment

I think all of us at some point in our lives have purchased some, extremely overpriced, magic gym machine that was going to get us into shape but later just became an expensive paperweight or clothes rack. There are some pieces of equipment that I think you should invest in but I think alot can be home made for next to nothing. In my opinion the essentials to any home gym are a good bench some dumbells and a barbell. If you're going to spend money, spend it here. But with that said you don't have to spend a fortune. Check out all your second hand shops for bargains. You can often find a good bench and tons of dumbells and plate weights at second hand shops for cheap. Here are some ideas for DIY gym equipment: 1. Pull up bar. No execise looks more impressive than pullups! And to make a pull up bar is probably one of the cheapest pieces of equipment you can make. Get a piece of steel pipe, attach it to your rafters and you're set! 2. Dip bars. Another excellent exercise. Also looks quite impressive! What I did to make dip bars was get to brackets that you would use to hold up a piece of counter top and then attached them tot he wall at just the right distance apart. 3. Tricep pull down machine. This is getting slightly more complicated but its still relatively easy to do. Bought a pully for about $2. Attached it to the rafters in my garage. Strung a rope through and tied the one end to a dumbell and the other a piece o pipe. You can add more weight to the one end as you advance. I'll post some photos up soon of some of my homemade gym equipment.

Eat Differently

Diets fail. We all know this, but why do they fail? One of the main reasons is that they center around low fat diets. Low fat diets can suppress the manufacture of testosterone. Testosterone helps the building of muscle and the burning of fat. When testosterone levels are low your body stores fat. In one stud, men with higher testosterone were 75 percent less likely to be obese. Another reason why diets fail is because they don't make enough use of the most powerful nutrient for building muscle and speeding up your metabolism. As I've mentioned before, digesting protein burns up more calories than digesting other foods, plus it builds fat burning muscle. You're getting 2 for the price of one. But even in the realms of protein, you'll find that some proteins are better than others. A study was done to see the difference eating animal protein would have against eating soy protein. The animal protein (meat) burned more calories despite the fact that there was less of it. Therefore animal protein is superior to plant protein. Diets also limit your intake. We all know what its like having to nibble on a few celery sticks for breakfast and then a wheat cracker for lunch. At some point you are going to snap and when that happens you're probably going stuff your face with all the great tasting rubbish out there and be in a worse position than before you even started the diet. People still think that the best way to lose weight is to eat hardly anything and sweat yourself to death on a treadmill and thats why diets fail more often than not. You have to change the way you eat. Before you were counting the calories of the food that you were putting in to your body. Now you are going to be counting the calories that the food you're putting in is burning!

Excercise Differently

I'm sure you've noticed that when you go to the gym everyone always seems to race for the treadmills, stationary bikes and elliptical trainers. It seems like everyone wants a cardiovascular aerobic workout. After all, the more you sweat the more fat you burn right? Well, in a way, yes. Cardiovascular training burns a lot of calories. In fact it burns more calories than strength training or other exercises like pilates or yoga. But when it comes to weight control, aerobic exercise doesn't quite cut it. Here's why. Cardiovascular exercising builds no muscle. And as we've discussed before adding just a half a kilogram of muscle burns an extra 50 calories per day. Add 2.75kg of muscle and you're burning a whopping 300 more calories per day. Just like a car, your body runs on fuel. When you're doing low intensity cardiovascular exercises like running or jogging, the fuel your body is running on is called glycogen. (The stored form of carbohydrate in the muscles and liver) When you continue for 20 minutes or longer your body runs out and it begins to look for other fuel that it can burn. And the next best thing to burn is protein. Your body actually begins to eat up muscle tissue by converting it to protein and burning it up for fuel. So by burning protein you're not only losing the opportunity to be burning fat, you're also depleting your body of fat burning muscle. Less muscle mass equals slower metabolism which in turn makes it more difficult to lose weight. But weight, there's more. A study was conducted to see the amount of calories burned when strength training and doing cardiovascular aerobic exercises. The study concluded that during the exercises the aerobic burned far more calories than the strength training. Although weight lifters didn't burn as many calories during the exercises, Their bodies kept burning up fat for the next 48 hours compared to the 30-60 minutes for cardiovascular. After the weigh lifters were done there bodies were burning calories for 2 days! and the aerobic guys only for another 30 - 60 minutes! This phenomenon is known as afterburn. Thats why part of our plan will be to add fat burning muscle to our bodies. Like I said before, you don't have to worry. You're not going to turn into one of those gigantic WWF wrestlers. Just adding a couple of kilograms of muscle can make a huge difference!

Tips for Lowering Your Blood Pressure.

Cut out ham. Ham contains stacks of sodium. About 240 milligrams per slice. A study showed that people who cut down there daily sodium intake from 3300 to 1500mg per day. knocked almost 6 points off their systolic pressure and 3 off their diastolic pressure. If you really want to eat cold meat. Try and find one that has low sodium comtent. Here's another tip. If food comes canned or jarred its probably packed with sodium. Limit your alcohol intake. Research showed that one or two drinks per day can reduce your blood pressure slightly, however, having three drinks or more per day pushed the average persons systolic pressure up by ten points and their diastolic pressure by 4 points. Drink more tea. A study showed that men who drank tea twice per day were 25 percent less likely to die of heart disease than those who didn't drink tea. The reason for this is that the flavonoids found in tea not only help the blood vessels to relax but they also thin the blood which reduces clotting. Eat Apples. Men who eat apples frequently have a 20 percent lower risk of developing heart disease than those who eat less apples. Eat fresh berries. Raspberries, blue berries and strawberries contain a substance called salicylic acid which happens to be the same heart disease fighter found in aspirin. Eat more fish. The omega-3 fats that are found in fish help strengthen the hearts muscle, lower blood pressure, prevent clotting and reduce levels of inflamation in the body. Eat Grapefruit. Eating a single grapefruit per day can reduce arterial narrowing by up to 46 percent, lower bad cholesterol by 10 percent and help reduce your blood pressure by 5 points. Eat lots of potassium. Studies show that not getting at least 2000mg of potassium per day can set you up for high blood pressure. Good sources of potassium are: Banana 487mg, sweet potato 694mg, spinach 792mg per 170g, raisins 1086mg per 145g. Use olive oil. Researchers found that men who simply changed from using corn oils or vegetable oils to using monounsaturated fats like olive oil. Lowered their blood pressure by 30 points in 60 days without making any other changes to their diet.