Hello Everyone. Hope you had a good Christmas and are looking forward to welcoming the New Year tonight. The Free Fitness Tips Newsletter - December 2008 is now online. You can view the HTML version by Clicking Here. You can view the PDF version by Clicking Here. If you have anything you would like to say about this month's newsletter please leave a comment at the end of this post. Happy reading :-) … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2008
Replace Christmas Candy With Dried Fruit & Nuts
As I have mentioned numerous times this month maintaining a healthy diet over the Christmas holidays can prove extremely difficult. One of the reasons for this is that candy and cakes are so much more prevalent around this time of year. Everyone seems to be offering you candy, mince pies, chocolate logs or Christmas pudding. Often the temptation to snack on these festive treats can prove too difficult to resist. When this happens I find dried fruit and nuts are a very effective tool. In this article I will be discussing exactly why dried fruits are an effective substitute for these … [Read more...]
5 Healthy Winter Breakfast Ideas
In some of my previous posts I discussed the importance of diet over the festive period. You may have heard the phrase that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It is the first meal you have after waking up and can have a significant impact upon how you feel for the rest of the day. Eating a poor breakfast or skipping it completely can make you feel tired, sluggish and moody for the rest of the day. With all the other things you have to deal with over the holiday period having a poor start to the day is the last thing you need. That's why today I'm going to share with you five … [Read more...]
Merry Christmas from Free Fitness Tips
Hello Everyone. I'm just leaving a quick post to wish you all a Merry Christmas. This blog has grown a lot this year and that is down to the continued support of my readers. I hope you all have a wonderful day, enjoy spending time with your family and get to have a rest after a tough year. This month I have been writing about how you can keep your diet and fitness regime on track over the festive period. I started the month by writing about the common cold & the flu and then moved on to discuss whether vitamin C can help reduce your chances of contracting them. I then moved on to … [Read more...]
8 Ways to Lighten your Christmas Dinner
With Christmas day just around the corner I thought today I would share with you some advice that you can use on the big day. In some of my previous articles I have emphasised the importance of a healthy diet during the festive period. Today I am going to expand on this topic and give you eight tips to help lighten your Christmas dinner. 1) DON'T PUT BREAD ON THE TABLE:- Most people tend to use bread as a pre-dinner appetiser. The problem with this is that people often fill up on bread before the meal adding numerous calories without even realising it. Instead why not try serving your … [Read more...]
The Importance Of Getting Enough Vitamin D This Christmas
Vitamins are important nutrients that help your body function properly. They all have different roles to play and a deficiency of any one vitamin can lead to a number of nasty side effects. Whilst they are all equally important, vitamin D is perhaps even more important over Christmas. In this article I will be discussing why vitamin D is particularly important over the festive period and how you can make sure that you get enough. As I discussed in my previous article on vitamin D it is one of the fat soluble vitamins. The main role of vitamin D is to help the body absorb calcium and … [Read more...]
4 Top Tips For Improving Your Mood This Christmas
In my last few articles I have been discussing how our mood often suffers at Christmas. Not only do we have the stress of organising gatherings with family and friends, buying presents and the cold weather to deal with but we also have an increased chance of catching the common cold or the flu. On top of this research has shown that the lack of sunlight in the winter months can lead to a type of winter depression called Season Affective Disorder (SAD). However, it's not all doom and gloom. There are a number of things you can do to ensure your mood stays positive over the festive period. … [Read more...]
5 Outdoor Exercises You Can Do This Christmas
In my previous article I discussed 6 Christmas exercises that you can use to stay fit over the festive period. In that article I suggested that you join a gym, get some exercise DVDs or get a Wii fit so that you can exercise in an indoor environment that is warm and light. However, if you can brave the winter weather and the cold outdoors there is plenty of scope for exercising outside this Christmas. In this article I will be discussing five outdoor exercises that you can try over the holiday period (if you are brave enough). 1) GO SLEDDING:- As long as it snows then sledding is a great … [Read more...]
6 Christmas Exercise Ideas
As I have been discussing in some of my previous articles Christmas is a difficult time when it comes to fitness. Tempting foods are all around, the weather is generally poor and common colds and the flu are increasingly common. This makes it very difficult to maintain an exercise routine over Christmas. However, if you make proper plans then you should be able to maintain a proper exercise routine. In this article I will be providing you with 6 top tips for maintaining an exercise routine over Christmas. 1) EXERCISE IN THE GYM:- I personally exercise in the gym so this one is not a … [Read more...]
The Importance Of Getting Enough Sleep This Christmas
In the winter getting out of bed in the morning becomes decidedly trickier. Instead of waking up to clear blue skies and bright sunlight we often wake up to dark, cold, wet weather. However, it's not just the weather that makes us want to stay in bed. Research suggests that our circadian rhythms change over the winter months. In this article I will be discussing why you may feel like staying in bed all day over the Christmas period, what you can do to get yourself up bright and early and why quality sleep is so important at this time of year. As I mentioned above the urge to stay in bed … [Read more...]