Dynamic exercises for your lower body

Video: In this workout a personal trainer goes through some great exercises to strengthen your lower body.

Classic Minestrone Soup Recipe

Ingredients

4 tablespoons margarine

3/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped carrots

1 (19 ounce) can cannellini beans

1/2 cup shredded cabbage

1 (14.5 ounce) can stewed tomatoes

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 1/2 cups cubed potatoes

1 quart vegetable broth

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons dried parsley

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup elbow macaroni

Directions

Melt margarine in a heavy pot over medium heat. Add onion, celery, and carrots; saute for a few minutes.

Add beans, cabbage, tomatoes, tomato paste, potato, stock, garlic, parsley, and salt to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat. Simmer for approximately 1 hour until vegetables are barely tender.

Add pasta, and simmer for 30 minutes more. Correct seasoning, and serve hot.

The Double Crunch

Video: A personal trainers demonstrates how to do a double crunch, an exercise that targets your core area.

Cheap and Effective Workout Ideas

Exercising doesn’t have to be expensive and being short on funds shouldn’t be an excuse for not getting enough daily exercise. With a little thought and determination it is possible to exercise almost for free every day!

Walking – This is of course one of the cheapest and easiest exercises to do. All that you really require is a pair of walking shoes, which you probably have anyway. All that is left is to put on your shoes and walk for 20 to 30 minutes each day.

Crunches – Crunches are a great way to strengthen your back and stomach muscles. Aim to perform one to two sets a day of about 10 to 20 crunches in each set. As you improve you can either increase the number of sets or increase the number of repetitions.

Cycling – Most people have access to a bike and cycling is a wonderful exercise. It improves and strengthens your muscles and your cardiovascular system. Going on a bike ride is a great way to de-stress yourself after a hard day at work. It is also enjoyable by yourself or with a group of people.

Dancing – What’s to stop you from putting on your favourite music and dancing? This is a great form of exercise that requires no new clothing or shoes. You can dance around the house with your kids or alone while doing your housework.

Playing Ball – Get outside with your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend or kids and play some type of ball game. This could be soccer, baseball, volleyball or just having a good old game of catch. This is a great way to have fun and brings back memories of your childhood.

Swimming – If you are lucky enough to live near a lake or river you can enjoy going for a swim all summer long. This normally costs nothing unless you have to pay for parking at a beach area. Memberships at local swimming pools can be relatively inexpensive and a good way for a family to spend some quality time together.

Hiking – Grab your hiking boots and head out to a local walking trail. This is a fantastic way to visit local scenic areas and get some fresh air into your lungs. It also makes for a wonderful day out with the family. Why not take a picnic lunch and really enjoy your outing.

So there you have some inexpensive ideas on how to fit exercise into your lifestyle. You really have no excuses left anymore, it’s time to start exercising and living healthier.

Cantaloupe Salsa Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups diced (1/4 inch) cantaloupe

1/4 cup finely chopped sweet onion such as Vidalia

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil

1 (2-inch-long) fresh Serrano pepper, minced (including some seeds)

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

Toss together all ingredients in a bowl and let stand, covered and chilled, 10 minutes.

Stretch for your lower back

Video: This stretch is good for anyone who spends a lot of time at their desk or in a car.

Water: The Great Dieting Secret

Want to know the one thing that you should be consuming more often than anything else if you really want to win the battle of the bulge? That’s right – it’s water! Most doctors agree that you should be consuming at least several eight ounce glasses of water per day as is, but if you’re looking to diet, it’s not a bad idea to carry around a bottle of water with you wherever you go.

Why is this? Well, for one, water helps fill your stomach. We of course do not suggest that you skip out on meals in favor of water, but staying well hydrated can help you manage your food cravings. Many people eat when instead their bodies are actually craving water! Keeping a bottle of water at your side throughout the day helps stave off the cravings to eat and will keep your fuller for a longer period of time after meals. Another great trick in using water to lose weight is to take a sip of water between every bite of food you take at a meal. This also helps fill your stomach and lets you eat slower, so your stomach has time to transmit signals of fullness to your brain. Many people keep eating long after their stomach is actually full, and pausing for water is a way to help your body register its food intake.

However, there’s one thing that many people do when it comes to the consumption of water that can totally be a budget breaker: buying bottled water. The proliferation of bottled water in our society has reached epic proportions – to the point where some states have actually launched campaigns to educate consumers that tap water is drinkable. Remember that: tap water is entirely consumable and there is absolutely no reason to go out and spend twenty dollars on bottled water every week.

Instead, why not spend five dollars on a reusable water bottle and keep on filling it up? It’s a great way to not only be health conscious and cost conscious, but also environmentally conscious! Think of all those used plastic water bottles that end up in the landfills each year. It’s entirely wasteful and needless, seeing as how tap water is drinkable everywhere in the United States and even restaurants will give it to you for free.

So, be a smart dieter and an even smarter consumer by not giving in to the bottled water companies. You’ll save hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year by sticking to tap water and reusable bottles, and you’ll be saving the environment at the same time. Oh, and losing weight!

How to do Arnold Presses

Video: The dumbbell press focuses on the chest and can be done on a ball, seated or flat as shown in this video.

Great Sunday Dinner: Easy Sirloin Tip Roast

Ingredients

3 pounds beef sirloin tip roast, trimmed of all visible fat

4 cloves garlic, peeled and halved

1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Secure roast with cooking twine.

Make 8 (1/2 inch) slits around the roast, and insert 1/2 garlic clove into each slit. Sprinkle with fresh ground pepper. Place on a rack in roasting pan.

Roast in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 degrees F, and insert meat thermometer into roast. Continue cooking about 1 hour, or to desired doneness; remove from oven. Loosely cover with foil, and let roast stand 15 minutes before slicing. To serve, slice as thinly as possible against the grain.

Fitness Focus Legs: Dumbbell Lunges Exercise

This is another very important factor for any leg exercise. This is a great exercise because it works so many of the different muscles of the leg giving you a very comprehensive workout. It works the quadriceps and calf of the leg you are lunging with and it allows you to stretch and work the opposite hamstrings. The weight of the dumbbells allows you get more of a workout because that is simply extra weight that these muscles must work to support.

How to do a dumbbell lunge

1. Start with your body completely straight and your feet facing forward hip width apart.

2. Bring one leg forward and lunge. Make sure to keep your foot perpendicular to your shin (do not lean your shin forward) so that you are targeting your quadriceps

3. You will want to make sure that you land on your heel and roll onto the ball of the foot

4. You want to bend your knee and hip as your move your weight from the heel of your foot to the ball so that your thigh is parallel to the floor.

5. Then you will push off from the ball of your foot to go back to standing straight up with both of your feet together, hip width apart

6. Repeat the above instructions with the opposite leg. Continue this pattern of rotating legs until you have completed the amount of reps in your set

Tips for getting the best results whiles doing a dumbbell lunge

Remember your posture because it is very easy to cheat with this exercise by throwing off your posture. What this means is that you can do many sets and find that it is doing little for you because you are not working the right muscles in the right way

You can get a more complete workout by working the upper body with the dumbbells in your hands. This can be as simple as just doing your bicep curls while you are doing your lunges. The one thing to keep in mind though is that you do not want to have an exercise that will throw you off while you are doing this exercise

Make sure that you sit into the lunge and the farther you can go the better

It is important to not let your knee come forward while doing this. Your calf and foot should be positioned in an L position (90 degree angle)

If you want to really blast your legs with this exercise, instead of alternating legs, you can just do all the reps for the set on one leg and then move to the other leg and do all the reps for that leg

It is important to focus on the muscles as you move through the exercise. Do not just move fast. Instead you want to perform it at a speed where you can make sure you are moving with control and focus on the muscles you are working.