exercise

Eating rich, gourmet foods while watching your favorite shows on television seems like fun until you start to see the numbers ticking higher on your bathroom scale! A lot of people really do want to change their sedentary habits and lose weight, but getting motivated is the biggest obstacle to that goal. Here are a few tips for how to lose weight fast in fun and healthy ways.

Start Walking the Trails

Some people dread working out in gyms because it can be monotonous and boring. Going to the same place every day and looking at the same sights can be less than inspiring. If this is your issue, try walking the trails near where you live. Something about being outside in the serenity of nature gives you the energy and motivation to get healthier. There’s a good chance that there’s a nature trail within 5 to 10 miles from your home where you can enjoy nature while walking off the pounds. Remember to bring your favorite music or an audiobook to listen to while you’re taking in the sights.

Do Impromptu Five-Minute Spurt Workouts

When you’re reluctant to do a workout routine regularly, it’s often because you aren’t looking forward to doing it for an hour or more, especially if it’s going to make you hot and sweaty. So instead, do your workouts in five-minute spurts throughout the day. Pick about five different videos of five-minute workouts (mix it up with yoga, cardiovascular, and targeted routines) and turn them on whenever you get a moment during the day. Then go back to doing whatever you were doing before feeling much more energized. If you’re driving and aren’t in a rush to get to your destination, pull over and take a 5 minute walk in a nice area or park, then go back to your car. Add a little spice to your life!

Make Healthy Eating Interactive with Instagram

One of the best ways to commit to healthier eating and losing weight is to get a wider community involved. Use your Instagram account to post photos of your healthy meals. People love food photos on Instagram and the “likes” you get will encourage you to post more. You’ll also be encouraging others to join in on the fun. Make a daily habit of posting at least one healthy meal you’ve prepared on your account and build your following.

Create Unique Health Drinks

Discovering and experimenting with new health drinks that can help you drop weight fast can be fun. Just visit the produce section at your local grocery store to see the many options you have for creating new smoothies and juices. Make it a new project for yourself–do research on the specific fruits, vegetables, and natural supplements that help promote weight loss. Examples include lemons, pears, apples, spinach, berries, flaxseed, green tea, and green coffee bean extract. Also consult your physician for specific nutritional advice.

Listen to Comedy When You’re Jogging

Jogging (whether outside or on a treadmill) isn’t the most exciting physical activity for everyone, but it does wonders when you want to drop weight fast. To make jogging more fun, put in your headphones and listen to comedic routines on your smartphone (you can find plenty on YouTube). Not only will you burn fat from jogging, you might also burn off a few inches from laughing.

If you’re looking to lose a few pounds but lacking the motivation to exercise and eat better, try these ideas to lose weight fast in a fun way. You may be surprised by how quickly the fat begins to melt away, and also by how much better you feel both physically and mentally.

Posted by Jade

Gardening at home, whether it’s done indoors or outside in your yard, can be a very satisfying experience. It’s estimated that over 160 million Americans garden every year. For many, it’s a hobby, for others a profession, for some it’s a way of life; it seems all gardeners garden because of its many advantages. Here are four benefits of vegetable gardening that might encourage you to get out there today and sow some seeds.

It Gives You Peace

The average day is full of distractions, from the television to disagreements with family members. Your garden is a place where you can find some peace and serenity. The only distraction is the occasional butterfly or bee buzzing by. You can relax and listen to happy birds chirping nearby or put on a pair of headphones and turn on some classical music while you’re tending to your vegetable plants or working in the dirt. No matter what’s going on in your world, you can find respite by going to your garden and communing with nature.

You Feed Your Family and Save Money

One of the top benefits of vegetable gardening is that it gives you a way to provide your family with healthy, homegrown foods while also saving you money on grocery bills. A one-time investment of about $50 in seeds and supplies for a small garden can yield you hundreds of dollars in vegetables that you would have bought for your family at the supermarket during the year. Additionally, you can harvest the seeds from your newly grown veggies and keep them for a decade or more. Many say that stockpiling seeds is even more valuable than collecting gold–vegetable seeds give you the security of knowing that you’ll always be able to feed yourself and your loved ones.

You Get Moderate Exercise

If you’ve been looking for a way to ease back into a more active lifestyle, vegetable gardening just might be the solution. It gives you a way to do moderate exercise with a purpose.It’s estimated that you can burn 300 calories in an hour of gardening.

You’ll have an excuse to walk more as you carry supplies to and from your garden. You have to dig holes and till the soil with repeated back and forth motions. You’ll also have to bend and stretch to pull weeds and pick your greens. Once you get used to performing these activities every day and your body feels more refreshed, you might be inspired to step it up and start doing morning jogs around your neighborhood or a little yoga for lunch.

Your Kids Learn How to Grow (In More Ways Than One)

If you have young children or teens, vegetable gardening could be an activity that changes their lives and inspires them in the future. A lot of young people in modern times are housebound — tied to their computers. They rarely come outside unless they are trying to get better reception on their cellphones. If you show them how to garden from a young age, you’ll teach them the timeless lesson about sowing good seeds, watering them, watching them grow and then reaping the benefits. This lesson will apply to just about every area of their lives.

Let these 4 benefits of vegetable gardening be your inspiration for starting your own home garden this year. You may be surprised at how rewarding and uncomplicated it is to grow your very own veggies.

Posted by Jade

Photos courtesy: Flickr/pictoquotes, Flickr/galant, Flickr/usdagov, Flickr/all-seeing_angler

5 Tips for How to Lose Weight and Have Fun in the Process

4 Amazing Benefits of Vegetable Gardening

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