Simple, Yet Sensible, Tips for Eating While on the Road

Weight loss can be hard. It's not easy to lose weight, even when you are at home and can cook for yourself. You want to keep track of your calories, which is made simpler when you prepare the food. If you prepare it, you know what's in the food, and so you can keep track of calories.

But what do you do when you are traveling or on vacation? Does your weight loss program stop as soon as you leave the house?

There is no doubt that it is more challenging to lose weight when you are eating out. You have no way of determining exact portion sizes, and you don't know for sure how much extra sugar has been added to sauces and everything else you eat.

However, you can still lose weight while you are on vacation, if you follow these simple tips:

1. Exercise. Even if you are traveling, you can still exercise, and we know that exercise is one of the keys to weight loss. Bring your exercise clothes and work out in the fitness area at the hotel. Go for a swim instead of sitting in your hotel room watching television. Even better, walk. If you set aside half an hour per day to go for a walk, you will feel refreshed, explore your new city, and burn some calories.
   
   
2. Eat in for breakfast. Most hotels have a kitchenette or in room mini-bar refrigerator. Buy some milk and cereal and a plastic bowl and spoon, and have cereal for breakfast while you are traveling. It's quick, inexpensive, and a lot fewer calories than a hotel breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages and hash browns.
   
   
3. Pack a lunch. If you can, pack a lunch. By bringing your own lunch, you have control over what you are eating. If you can't pack a lunch, then
   
   
4. Find a deli for lunch. A sandwich or other healthy meal is better than fast food for lunch.
   
   
5. Use the internet to plan your meals. Many restaurants post their menus, with nutritional information, on the internet. Find out what restaurants are in the city you will be visiting, and check out their menus in advance. If you know what healthy food is on the menu, you can decide in advance what to order.

A trip or vacation does not mean you suspend your weight loss program. With some advance planning you can lose weight, even while traveling.

As a weight loss success story, Charles Lewis writes about how to lose weight permanently without fads or gimmicks. Visit http://www.weight-loss-lose-weight.com for information about exercise and weight loss.

Article provided by: Charles Lewis

Reviewed by: Greg Magnus, eoecho.com

Burn Calories With Everyday Activities

When you think about exercise, do you automatically imagine yourself on a treadmill in a gym? Or doing laps in a swimming pool? If so, you might be surprised to know just how many calories you can burn doing everyday activities.

Housework is one chore that everyone has to do at some point. Rather than dread it, proceed briskly through your chores and you can have an excellent workout. A 150 lb person can spend as much as 140 calories by mopping the floor for a half hour. Vacuuming for 30 minutes spends about the same number of calories. Take off another 75 calories by ironing for a half hour.

Outdoor chores also provide great opportunities to burn calories. The same 150 pound person will burn 177 calories pulling weeds for half and hour and another 120 calories mowing the lawn. Because gardening often involves stretching and bending, it offers muscular as well as cardiovascular benefits. Save 300 calories by spending an hour washing your car. Bagging leaves and grass clippings burns 136 calories in 30 minutes.

If you like to entertain, you can make up for that slice of cake by cleaning up after the party. If it takes you an hour, you'll burn over 300 calories. If you wash the dishes as well, you'll burn another 152 calories. If you spend an hour rearranging furniture before and after your party, that's a whopping 450 calories. However, keep in mind that all these activities need to be performed at the same intensity level over time in order to receive the full benefits. Still, even if you only burned half the estimated calories preparing for and cleaning up after your party, that would still be 500 calories worth of cake.

Home improvement tasks can burn calories as well. An hour of indoor painting burns 204 calories. Removing and installing carpet spends calories in 30 minutes. Roofing burns a whopping 400 calories an hour, just be sure you drink a lot of water if you're spending the day up on a hot roof.

Even something as simple as going to the grocery store can be a calorie-burner. A half hour of brisk grocery shopping will spend about 130 calories. If you walk a half hour to the store, subtract another 100 calories from your daily total. Just don't spend all your savings on Oreos.

If all else fails, simply sleeping for 8 hours burns 50 calories.

By Kadence Buchanan. Kadence writes articles on many topics including fitness, health, nursing, and aging.

Reviewed by: Greg Magnus, eoecho.com

Getting A Good Workout At Home

No matter what any pill-marketing advertisements may tell you, the heart of weight loss is getting regular exercise. While some people don't like to go to the gym, either due to embarrassment or the effort involved in driving elsewhere just to exercise, there are plenty of exercises that you can do in your own house to help you keep fit and in shape. With that in mind, here are some exercises that you can perform in the comforts of your own home.

Jumping rope - while most of us forgot about jumping rope the second that we got out of grade school, it is truly a great workout. Studies have shown that a mere five minutes of jumping rope is equivalent, calorie-burning-wise, to jogging for a full mile! What's more is that you can jump rope in your house and it costs very little to get your own rope. Just be sure that when you are jumping rope that you keep it high-intensity, spinning the rope quick enough to generate some real movement of the body.

Climbing stairs - do you have a stairway in your house, or do you live in an apartment building? If so, congratulations - you've got your own stairmaster! Few people realize the merits of simply walking up and down a flight of stairs when it comes to fitness. While plenty go on stairclimbers with reckless abandon, roughly the same workout can be attained by just walking up and down flights of stairs. Once you feel that the benefits of stair climbing aren't enough for your workout, try carrying weights, or even soup cans, as you climb the stairs. This added weight, although small, helps your body to get more in shape.

Sit-ups and push-ups - these two exercises help you to tone the muscles in your chest and abs while burning calories. They don't require any equipment, and you can even do them while you're watching TV! If you're watching television and a commercial break happens, take the opportunity to do a set of push-ups and a set of sit-ups. In no time, you'll notice a lot more tone to the muscles in your body.

Cleaning - cleaning around the house is actually quite the aerobic activity. In addition to burning calories, you're also performing some house work that can really pay off. Be sure to keep a steady pace while cleaning, ensuring that the exercise that you get from the process is intense enough to make a difference.

By Kadence Buchanan, Kadence writes articles on many topics including weight loss, food, and health.

Reviewed by: Greg Magnus, eoecho.com

Additional articles by Kadence Buchanan:

• Burn Calories With Everyday Activities
  When you think about exercise, do you automatically imagine yourself on a treadmill in a gym? Or doing laps in a swimming pool? If so, you might be surprised to know just how many calories you can burn doing everyday activities.


• Yoga Improves Strength
  A number of people wonder if yoga can improve their muscle fitness and strength levels. While they recognize that yoga can help reduce stress and increase flexibility and overall health , when it comes to increasing muscle fitness people think it might the most appropriate exercise to do the job. But, according to experts, yoga can definitely make you stronger.

Upcoming Fitness Events

Mark Your Calendars!

Club Industry 2006
October 4-7 - Chicago, Illinois

IDEA Personal Trainer
October 5-7 - New York, New York

Town Sports International Summit & Trade Show
October 29 - New York, New York

The PMA 6th International Educational Conference
November 2-5 - Palm Springs, California


For fitness facility owners interested in marketing research info:

27^th Annual Marketing Research Conference

September 10 – 13 – Sheraton Hotel and Towers – Chicago, IL

The Annual Marketing Research Conference is one of the AMA's largest and most popular professional development forums for the market researcher. This conference promises to deliver opportunities to learn about ground-breaking research innovations; hear research application case studies from leading companies; be encouraged to challenge the status quo and network with new and old friends in the home of the World Series Champions- the Chicago White Sox.

This conference is ideal for Mid- to Upper Level Market Research Executives.

What You Will Learn:

• How other marketing researchers responded to the key strategic issues they faced in the past
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• Three or four big ideas that you can implement immediately upon returning to the office

More info: www.MarketingPower.com/research
or call 800.AMA.1150

First Aid Solutions at WebMB - Fitness and Health

I recently received a WebMD newsletter, which informed me of the company’s new content related to first aid solutions for minor medical and health related emergencies. The content is timeless health & fitness information, useful to anyone in the world, and requires little updating.

With the high level of outdoor fitness activity during the summer this should be a popular site. There are a number of solutions for minor health related issues at this well designed website. I don’t know if the webmaster’s goal was to generate repeat traffic for the site or improve their SEO results, but it should do the trick.

For any major health emergency, call 911. Most major fitness events have health professionals onsite or on call for emergencies.

I hope you don't need it, but here’s the link: First Aid Center by WebMD

Changing your diet is the solution

More often than not, changing your diet is the key to your weight lose. Several people have recommended nutrisystem diets based on their "results." So if you have not tried it, consider giving it a shot. I lost almost 40 pounds within the last three years - a little at a time is fine by me. However, now that I exercise regularly it is difficult to lose any additional weight. So, I'll try nutrisystems to see if I can lose another 15 pounds, which is my goal by the end of 2006.

If you know anything about nutrisystem, please leave a comment so we can hear your story. Thanks!