Oh, my cherries!

Hi everyone! After a few days, I am back! And today I will entertain you with some nutrition basics.
As said in the previous posts this blog will not barely deal with fitness meant as exercising and diet. It will also provide you with intresting facts about your daily routine that may change the way you see things.

Therefore, today's topic will be cherries. What a wonderful fruit! I do not know about you but they are so delicious that once I start eating one, I just cannot stop!

Since it is one of those fruits that everyone likes it is important to state that cherries have various beneficial effects on health. They contain vitamins A and C that improve our vision and help the immune system. They also help prevent diseases suh as arteriosclerosis, kidney failures and cellular aging.

It is also recommended, and extremely smart, to use the all fruit for food/drink preparations. For example, if you suffer from cystitis, you can prepare a green peduncles infusion to drink twice a day.
If you suffer from joint pain, do not throw the cherry pits away as they are good conductors of heat to be used for relieving pain. Here are the two most common use:

• Hot therapy - joint pain: wash the cherry pits and let them dry out. Creat a pillow out of them and heat it in a microwave for about 1 minute. Put it wherever it is needed. 

• Cold therapy - contusions and sprains: wash the cherry pits and let them dry out. Creat a pillow out of them and put it in the freezer for about 2 hours. Put it wherever it is needed.

Food Yoga: Nourishing Body, Mind & Soul!

Today I will inaugurate a series of posts that do not necessarily deal with fitness in its strict meaning but with healthy living in its broader sense.
Here I will mainly focus on adopting healthy habits for a better life by giving a few ideas in the form of recipes.

As said many times before, eating is strictly linked to our physical and mental health. While many believe that in order to lose weight it is necessary to eat very little and, if possible, fast, there is nothing more wrong than that. Metabolism needs always to be moving and in order to do so it is important to eat.
Of course it is not easy especially during seasons such as winter when cold and greasy ingredients have the best of us. However, if we pay attentions to the ingedients we eat, choosing seasonal products (especially fruits and vegetables) we will not find any burdens on our paths.
I will give you the instructions for a healthy and fresh summery salad, may it inspire you!
Ingredients:
2 oranges
1 lemon
1 avocado 
1 fennel
1 shallot
some mint leaves
a handful of pinenuts
Peel, de-pith and section the oranges, cut the avocado into cubes and sprinkle the juice of a lemon on it. Cut the fennel and shallot into thin slices and chop the mint leaves with the pinenuts. Arrange the orange slices on a plate, season the avocado, fennel and shallot with oil, salt and pepper and put the mix over the first layer. Sprinkle the mint with the pinenuts over it. Enjoy!

I would not want to repeat myself but breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Therefore, the way we eat breakfast, what we eat is crucial for our day. Eating too much is not recommended just as much as eating not that much is not an option. It is also important to keep an eye on what we eat during the morning or along the day while at work. We should replenish our body with the lost fluids and energies without stumbling upon unhealthy sugary snacks. The best alternative would be to prepare energising fruit-based smoothies at home and take them along with us everywhere we go! Here you have two intresting recipes:
Ginger and Turmeric Tea
Pour hot water over a ginger slice and a pinch of turmeric and cardamom. It is best served hot but not boiling!
Bananas and almond milk smoothie
Blend 1 banana with 30 gr almond, a cup of yogurt, a teaspoon of flaxseeds and one of almond milk. It is a perfect recipe for breakfast to be eaten with a slice of whole-wheat bread.

whole-grain bread

a Slice of Whole-Grain Bread

a Slice of Whole-Grain Bread

Variety is the spice of life... even in fitness!

Variety is so important to any fitness program because by avoiding boredom, you will be able to get in shape. However, before going into further details I would like to address a tricky topic that concerns men: six-pack abs.

Who said that women are the only ones to be obsessed with the perfect swimsuit-ready body?
Nowadays, more and more men are living a sedentary lifestyle: they use the car to go anywhere, their job constists in sitting all day long in front of a computer and they have no time to keep fit. In addition to that, they are constantly eating more and more UNhealthy food with the result of having the so called beer belly (even if they do not drink).
To be honest, (and I am talking as one of these men) everyone wants to have a v-shaped body even though men tend not to say it loud.
This is why, I decided to design a series of exercises for your abs to be done daily, a few minutes each day. In this way, you will not feel exausted but you will see the results in a matter of months.

Now it's time to go back to the main topic of this post!
If traditional workouts have run their course for you, if you are not a gym person, take a look at one of the most unusual fitness trend I found that is inviting folks to have a little fun while breaking a sweat. Who knows? Maybe it could be your ticket to fitness.
If you’ve always dreamt of being in Cirque de Soleil, trapeze classes are your chance to unleash your inner circus star. Indoor and outdoor trapeze schools are popping up throughout the country for those who want to learn how to flip and fly. Most beginner classes start out with basic moves taught on the ground before moving to the skies. And, aside from being super fun, it’s a fantastic way to target your upper and lower bodies, particularly your lats and shoulders, and carve out your core.
Together with being an extremely intresting activity, trapeze schools allow you to get fully in shape. Unlike exercises such as spinning, kickboxing and zumba fitness that are characterized by cardio and lower body workouts, trapeze enables a fully body workout: thighs, glutea muscles, harms and the upper body are all involved! See you at trapeze schoo then!

Let's get back on track!

                                                                       Today I will talk about how to get back into shape. Since there are two main methods: weight training exercises and swimming, I will talk about both of them separately.

Swimming is without a doubt one of the healthiest sport and it can be done during both winter and summer (you can go to the beach or use a pool).
Its being healthy derives from different elements:

• it does not have any negative effects on the skeletal system
• it stimulates muscle growth and strenghtens the muscles
• it makes articulations and ligaments flexible
• it strenghtens heart and chest muscles
• it prevents weight gain
• it relieves the effects of asthma
• tit balances the levels of cholesterol 
• it prevents diabetes
• it reduces stress since by stimulating the production  of endorphines 
• it helps you live longer

However, be careful. Swimming can be risky if you have certain physical characeristics: without further ado consult with your doctor and get a checkup done!

At the same time, if you want to get back on track there are some exercises you can do together with running: you can see them in the image shown above. An hour of these exercises each day helps keep fit, relieve stress and relax.
Abs, biceps, quads, shoulder, gluteal muscles and so and so forth... A perfect body that's ready for swimsuit season!