8 Habits that are messing with your Metabolism

A few little tweaks can help you max out your calorie burn

You exercise, and you try to eat right. But unfortunately you may still be slowing down your calorie burn—and your weight-loss efforts—without even realizing it. Lauren Slayton, M.S., R.D., author of The Little Book of Thin explains the little-known metabolism wreckers that are holding you back—and how you can burn more calories ASAP.

1. You Don't Drink Enough Water:
   "Your body needs fluids to perform all of the functions it needs to," says Slayton. And when it's not performing those functions as well, it's not burning as many calories. Something else to keep in mind: A lot of the calorie burn from drinking water comes from your body working to bring cold water to 98.6 degrees—so drinking hot water with lemon or hot tea all the time won't be as good at boosting your metabolism as cold water will.
2. You Aren't Taking Vitamin D Supplements
   "When you're low in vitamin D, you lose weight slower and your levels of the hormone ghrelin, which makes you hungry, are higher," says Slayton. Since it can be difficult to get enough vitamin D from your diet, she recommends taking a supplement from November through March—when you won't be getting as much of the nutrient from sunlight—to help you drop pounds more easily.
3. You're a Cardio Queen
   You know that exercise is crucial for keeping your metabolism fired up, but if you swear by running or indoor cycling—and only running or indoor cycling—you're not building the lean muscle that'll really give your metabolism a boost, says Slayton. Start incorporating strength training into your workouts to up your calorie burn even more.
4. You Have a Midnight Snack Habit
   There's a lot of emphasis on how important it is to eat regularly so as not to slow your metabolism down, but there's also research that suggests going several hours without eating could be better for you, metabolically speaking. "What I usually suggest for clients is a period of 12 hours without food," says Slayton. "You're hurting your metabolism if you're having a midnight snack and a breakfast before your workout at 7 a.m."
5. You Cut Caffeine Out of Your Diet
   Caffeine gets a bad rap, but it can actually give your calorie burn a slight boost, says Slayton. No one's suggesting you start pounding the stuff, but if you're already drinking green tea or coffee most days, keeping it a part of your routine could help your metabolism run at top speed. 
6. You Skimp on Sleep
   People who are sleep-deprived on a regular basis tend to weigh more than those who get a good night's rest most nights. Why? Research shows it can throw the hormones that control appetite out of whack, making you hungrier and causing you to eat more. Slayton recommends logging at least seven hours a night.
7. You're Constantly Stressed
   It's not just unpleasant to be anxiety-ridden—it's also bad for your metabolism: "Cortisol's a big stress hormone, and when that's activated, your body's more likely to be in fat-storage mode," says Slayton. On edge lately? Try one of these 40 ways to relax in five minutes or less.
8. You're Consuming Too Many Pesticides—and Eating Off of Plastic
   "If you really feel like you're doing everything right and not seeing progress, it's worth looking at where you're getting your food from and what's being sprayed on your food," says Slayton. Some of the chemicals in plastics and pesticides are endocrine disruptors called obesogens, which can set you up for weight gain.

Article Source:  Hilmantel, Robin. "8 Habits That Are Messing with Your Metabolism."Womenshealthmag.com. Rodale Inc., 03 Jan. 2014. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.

The Biggest Mistakes Women Make When Working Out

Whether it's because of the way we're built, the way we've been raised or some other reason, we tend to fall into these exercise traps. Here's what to watch out for.

• Getting Too Attached To Machines
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  The mistake: You favor weight machines over weights, and spend all of your toning time in the Nautilus room. 
  
  The issue: "Functional fitness" exercises that mimic the moves we do every day strengthen the muscles used most often and help us avoid injury. Weight machines, on the other hand, usually focus on one muscle group at a time, and they don't replicate the way we move in the course of our daily lives, says Vonda Wright, MD, a Pittsburgh-based orthopedic surgeon who specializes in injury prevention and mobility. (When's the last time you laid down on your back and pushed a heavy object up with the soles of your feet, like you would on a leg-press machine?) They're not a the most efficient way to build muscle -- for example, you'd use three different machines (leg press, back extension, overhead press) to work the same areas you would with one total-body dumbbell move (squat and overhead press), and you could still get injured. What's more, these machines are usually designed to fit men's bodies, which tend to have a longer limbs and an extended reach. 
  
  The fix: For maximum efficiency, try total-body exercises that involve squatting, bending, lunging and reaching. Wright suggests cardio-strength moves like walking lunges with a weight ball, squat jumps and wood-choppers. Or alternate your machine workouts with boot camp classes that focus on strength-building moves.
• Jumping Like A Girl
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  The mistake: When doing squat jumps or box jumps (hopping up and down with both feet on platforms of various heights), you try not to land too heavily or too hard. 
  
  The issue: When you're jumping down from any height, you increase the force and pressure on your joints, so the way you land becomes crucial in preventing injury, says Wright. Men, she says, instinctively seem to get it: They land with their butt sticking out and their knees both facing forward and deeply bent, which absorbs impact. Women, shes noticed, tend to land with their legs straighter and their knees closer together, which can be hard on the joints (it could even cause a ruptured ACL). 
  
  The fix: Wright recommends starting with standing broad jumps (where you swing your arms and jump forward with both feet) until you perfect your form and are able to land without wobbling. Increase the height very gradually, and consider stepping down to the ground instead of jumping.
• Over-Resting Between Sets
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  The mistake: You use your time in between sets to call your sister, scroll through Facebook updates or check for online sales of yoga pants. 
  
  The issue: Fitness pro Bob Greene often sees women hanging out between sets at his boot camps and the gym, which, he says, can really undermine their workouts. Socializing on the phone gives your muscles too much time to recover -- you need them slightly fatigued in order to build strength. 
  
  The fix: Instead of taking a break, Greene suggests taking a brief "pause" that lasts for just 15 to 30 seconds. "Any more than that and you'll lose the benefit you gained from the previous set," he says.
• Staring At A Concrete Wall
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  The mistake: Instead of watching yourself in the mirror, you like to zone out as you race through sets. 
  
  The issue: With the rise of the super-minimalist, industrial-chic -- or just industrial -- gyms, mirrors can be hard to find. Even in gyms where mirrors line every wall, some people find them distracting, so they don't use them. A mirror, though, can be a great way to keep an eye on your form, says Wright, and can help you make sure you're doing an exercise correctly 100 percent of the time. 
  
  The fix: Use the mirror, especially when you're doing technical moves like power cleans, deadlifts or even squats (so basic, yet so easy to do incorrectly).
• Wanting To Impress Your Trainer
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  The mistake: You don't want to admit when you're pooped or in pain. 
  
  The issue: When you're tired or unfocused, you compromise your form, and that's when injuries happen, says Jessica Matthews, an associate professor of exercise science at Miramar College in San Diego. Just one sloppy rep, especially when holding heavy weights, can cause you pain or discomfort for weeks. Over time, pushing yourself too hard -- or letting someone else push you -- can lead to serious overuse injuries.
  
  The fix: Tell your trainer as soon as you feel dizziness or pain (even soreness can be a problem if it's affecting your form) or if you're seriously dragging. You trainer won't hold it against you -- in fact, it's in his best interest to keep you healthy, safe and active.

As a reminder, always consult your doctor for medical advice and treatment before starting any program.

Article Source:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/exercise-mistakes-women_n_4561216.html

Women’s Flexibility Is a Liability (in Yoga)

by William J. Broad

FROM my own practice and research, I know that yoga is generally a good thing. The bending, stretching and deep breathing can renew, calm, heal, strengthen, lift moods, lower the risk of heart disease, increase flexibility and balance, counter aging and improve sex. In short, the benefits are many and commonplace while the serious dangers tend to be few and comparatively rare.

Eleanor Davis

Even so, last year, after my book on yoga came out, letters from injured guys prompted me to see if the practice, despite its benefits, was hurting one sex more than another. To my surprise, reports from hospital emergency rooms showed that, proportionally, men got injured more often than women and suffered damage that was far worse, including fractures, dislocations and shattered backs.

It made sense. Women are well known to be more flexible than men. Macho guys, yoga teachers told me, too often used their muscles to force themselves into challenging poses and got hurt. The overall numbers were relatively small but large enough to argue that men who did yoga should exercise caution.

Earlier this year, the picture of female superiority began to blur when a prominent yoga teacher in Hawaii wrote me about a poorly known threat to women.

The teacher, Michaelle Edwards, said that women’s elasticity became a liability when extreme bends resulted in serious wear and tear on their hips. Over time, she said, the chronic stress could develop into agonizing pain and, in some cases, the need for urgent hip repairs. Ms. Edwards sent me her book, “YogAlign.” It described her own hip pain long ago and how she solved it by developing a gentle style of yoga.

Her warning contradicted many books, articles and videos that hailed yoga’s bending and stretching as a smart way to fight arthritic degeneration.

I put her cautions aside. Finally, in late summer, I got around to making some calls.

To my astonishment, some of the nation’s top surgeons declared the trouble to be real — so real that hundreds of women who did yoga were showing up in their offices with unbearable pain and undergoing costly operations to mend or even replace their hips.

“It’s a relatively high incidence of injury,” Jon Hyman, an orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta, told me. “People don’t come in often saying I was doing Zumba or tai chi” when they experienced serious hip pain, he said. “But yoga is common.”

Dr. Hyman said his typical yoga patient was a middle-aged woman, adding that he saw up to 10 a month — or roughly 100 a year. “People need to be aware,” he said. “If they’re doing things like yoga and have pain in the hips, they shouldn’t blow it off.”

Bryan T. Kelly, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, echoed the warning, saying yoga postures were well known for throwing hips into extremes. “If that’s done without an understanding of the mechanical limitations of the joint, it can mean trouble,” he said in an interview.

The same kind of damage, Dr. Kelly added, can strike dancers who overdo leg motions. Each year, he said, roughly 50 to 75 of his patients who danced or did yoga underwent operations. Most, he noted, were women.

Curious about the back story, I found that medical detectives in Switzerland had pinpointed the origin of the hip trouble more than a decade ago. Arthritis is usually associated with old age, but they discovered it can also strike the young and active.

Women’s hips showed particular vulnerability. By nature, their pelvic regions support an unusually wide range of joint play that can increase not only their proficiency in yoga but, it turned out, their health risks. The investigators found that extreme leg motions could cause the hip bones to repeatedly strike each other, leading over time to damaged cartilage, inflammation, pain and crippling arthritis. They called it Femoroacetabular Impingement — or F.A.I., in medical shorthand. The name spoke to a recurrence in which the neck of the thigh bone (the femur) swung so close to the hip socket (the acetabulum) that it repeatedly struck the socket’s protruding rim.

The main investigator was Reinhold Ganz, an orthopedic surgeon at the University of Berne, in Switzerland. Between 2001 and 2008, his team published many studies, the 2008 one noting that women between 30 and 40 years of age whose activities made “high demands on motion” tended to show the hip damage more often. The paper specifically cited yoga.

The discovery resonated. I found that hundreds of orthopedic surgeons in the Mediterranean region heard a conference presentation in 2010 that linked F.A.I. to middle-aged women who do yoga.

Michael J. Taunton, an orthopedic surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, told me that he first learned of the danger a half decade ago and now annually performs 10 to 15 hip replacements on people who do yoga. About 90 percent, he added, are women.

Stuart B. Kahn, a rehabilitation doctor at the Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, called F.A.I. “an emerging topic as we learn more about what causes hip pain and osteoarthritis.” He said much remains unknown.

Hip damage, for instance, can have complex causes. In addition to yoga, contributing factors can include bone misalignments, excess body weight and subtle joint deformities that differ from person to person. Hip scientists are exploring such factors, but the variations make it hard to predict who is most likely at risk.

Another complication is that yoga probably does help millions of people cope with arthritis, which can strike not just the hips but fingers, knees and shoulders. Scientists have long reported that yoga’s movements can help fight joint inflammation.

Gentle yoga probably helps the hips, too. But, as Dr. Taunton put it, the bending can become “too much of a good thing.”

Ms. Edwards, the yoga teacher in Hawaii, said she warns practitioners to be cautious if doing seated forward bends (like Paschimottanasana), standing forward bends (like Uttanasana) and forward lunges (like Anjaneyasana) — moves that can force the neck of the femur into the socket’s rim.

Recently, she aired her warnings in Elephant Journal, an online yoga magazine. If a woman feels hip tenderness when walking, or sharp pain when doing poses like the revolved triangle, Ms. Edwards said, “you may want to back off.”

Surgeons agree that women who moderate their practice can probably avoid hip trouble.

Unfortunately, yoga teachers too often encourage students to “push through the pain.” That’s not smart. Pain is nature’s warning system. It’s telling you that something has gone awry.

Better to do yoga in moderation and listen carefully to your body. That temple, after all, is your best teacher.

 Article Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/sunday-review/womens-flexibility-is-a-liability-in-yoga.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter