Tips to make exercise enjoyable

Staying fit can be challenging for all athletes of varying abilities. For a lot of us, its safe enough to agree that its hard enough to get off the couch. There are certain secrets that fit people possess to maintain and manage their fitness regime. Other than having serious health benefits, it is essential to make exercise enjoyable rather than a routine. Here are some valuable tips:

- Think about the physical activities that you enjoyed doing as a child and possibly try it out. It would take time to decide what kind of fitness is suitable. 
- Always change your fitness activity by walking, hiking or bike riding
- Workout for a good cause such as breast cancer
- Do yoga which relaxes the mind
- Could listen to your MP3 player while working out
- Increase the level of activity time and intensity by building your endurance level little by little. Balancing against a wall.
- Eat more protein
- Stand on your head to gain balance and control. 
- Review your progress with regular focus on what you have achieved

Recipe: Honey Joys!

Prepare: 10 mins 

Cook: 10 mins

Makes: 20 approx.

Although eating healthy should be the main focus of most young adults. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle however can be difficult, particularly with a busy schedule. Everyone deserves to have something sweet to create a balance in a diet. Here is an easy recipe that will take you back to your childhood. 

Ingredients:

• 4 and a 1/2 cups of cornflakes

• 1 Tablespoon of Honey (some extra can be added depending on sweetness preference)

• 1/3 of a cup of Castor Sugar

• 90g of Butter/Margarine

• Cupcake patties

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius (fan forced).

2. Combine the butter, sugar and honey in a saucepan on medium until combined, melted and frothy.

3. Add the cornflakes and reduce heat slightly

4. Using a wooden spoon stir the cornflakes with the butter mixture until the cornflakes are covered. Remove saucepan from stove immediately after combined. 

5. Place the patty cakes in a cupcake tray. Fill these patty cakes with the cornflake mixture so it is evenly spread among all patty cakes.

6. Place in the oven (middle shelf) for 10 minutes.

7. Put on cooling tray for 10 minutes. Once cooled, Serve.

Enjoy!

A Guide to do Sit ups

The motion of sit ups allows to be beneficial for an athlete’s whole body. It doesn’t only work on your abdominals it also works the hips by building a strong core. This type of exercise requires no equipment apart from a yoga mat or any sort of mat to create a stable and comfortable surface to lay down on. Sit ups can also be performed on a gym ball enabling spinal comfort. 

Steps

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. 

2. Place your hands on opposing shoulders, so that your arms are crossed over your chest, or behind your head. This allows you to have a central rising point. 

3. Keep your heels on the ground and your toes flat to the ground, slowly and gently lift your head first, followed by your shoulder blades. Pull up from the floor until you’re at a ninety-degree angle.

4. Head always looking straight, and no chin on chest and do not pull the head forward.
5. Roll back down to the starting position. 

6. Repeats steps 3-5 at least 20 times.

Markets

Markets have to be one of the best ways to get products at bargain prices, no matter what it is you’re looking for. Although some markets can be very up-market (no pun intended) price-wise, you can often get cheap clothes at them all over the world, and Sydney is no exception. If you’re a student looking for bargains that still look great, or even if you’re not on a tight budget, don’t be afraid to seek out clothes markets. Glebe, Rozelle and Kirribilli are just a few ones that have great stuff at bargain rates. Markets are an accessible way to pick up some vintage pieces without spending a fortune. They are definitely a gateway to mixing and matching, and you can find great accessories at them too. If you’re the type of person who wants their wardrobe to be more original than the typical ‘high street fashion’, you may have just found your very own outlet. Importantly, markets like these are not only a fantastic way to get cheap, original pieces but also a great way to make money for yourself. Why not get a group of friends together and organise a stall one weekend? After all, someone may love your neglected clothes, and you can get some extra cash on the side.

Healthy Morning Habits: Get Up & Get Moving

This post’s healthy habit suggestions are a little more challenging than drinking a glass of water. If you can push yourself to try even one of these you will undoubtedly see an improvement in the amount of energy you have in the morning and throughout the rest of the day. 

Get up as soon as you wake. Hitting the snooze button can wreak havoc on your body. Each time you hit that button and lie back down your brain thinks it’s not actually time to get up yet and restarts your sleep cycle. This increases the effect and duration of that groggy, “I-hate-mornings” feeling known as sleep inertia. 

By getting up at the same time every day (and going to bed at the same time) we also help to regulate our body clocks. After a while our body’s rhythms change so we wake up naturally at that time with less trouble, and get a better night’s sleep overall.

Get moving and stretch. One of the first things you can do after getting out of bed is to spend at least a few minutes stretching. This really helps to wake you up by getting the blood and oxygen circulating, loosening up any stiffness, aching in your joints and muscles, straightening your spine and helping your mind focus on waking up for the day. 

Tough to stay motivated? It's better with friends.

Get moving some more. If you have time in the morning, try getting in a little bit of exercise before breakfast. Going for a 15 minute walk can help your brain wake up even more by further improving your circulation. The time you spend walking can allow you to relax in preparation for your day, or you may use the time to plan the day’s goals.

If you are interested in doing a higher intensity workout like a run, it is a good idea to have a small piece of fruit or other light breakfast item beforehand so exercising doesn't leave you feeling drained.

5 Chrome Browser extensions that will change the way you surf the web.

If you’re still using the default browser that came with your computer, such as Internet Explorer, Safari, or Edge, you may want to seriously consider a faster and more feature-rich browser such as Google Chrome.  One aspect that makes Chrome so great is the ability to add apps and extensions to it to make it even better.  Here are 5 extensions that will improve your experience on the web.

Without AdBlock.

1.      AdBlock

Does what it says on the tin – blocks ads on the web.  Ad blocking is not a new concept, but it is transforming.  Many people find it unethical to block the way that content providers make money whilst viewers freely enjoy their pages at the provider’s expense.  There is a good case for this, though ad blocking has now changed.  The AdBlock extension now has an “acceptable advertising” program that allows ads that meet a certain criteria and blocks ads that don’t.  This is a good compromise for people wanting to improve their online experience whilst supporting the great people making it all possible.  Of course, you can still block all ads should you wish if you change the setting.

With AdBlock.

2.  AutoPagerize

AutoPagerize is a neat little extension that takes the effort out of having to press the “next page” links at the bottom of each page, creating an seamless page that can be constantly scrolled.  It works on most pages that incorporate this kind of design and makes browsing through several pages quick and easy.

3.      Lazarus

Lazarus is an extension that records what you type into form pages so that if you were to have a browser or computer crash, or anything happens where you lose your page, you have an easy backup to restore from.  Can be a real life saver.

Search in Windows.

4.      Bing2Google

This one is just for the Windows users.  Bing2Google is for people who simply prefer Google to Bing.  When you use the Windows Search (including the one on the new taskbar in Windows 10) to search the web, it takes the search query on its way to Bing and redirects it as a Google search.  Works perfectly every time.

5.      LastPass

LastPass is a free password manager that keeps all your passwords in one vault.  You can have unique passwords for every online account without having to remember them.  Just have one complex password for LastPass and all the other passwords can live in the vault.  LastPass can auto-login to pages should you set it to.  Your passwords are safe with LastPass.

Get results in Google on Chrome.

Benefits of exercise

Exercise is a very essential pathway to improving physical abilities and ultimately gaining appropriate fitness. You might think exercise needs a lot of motivation. Getting fit and staying fit is a great achievement, yet a hard task for some. Becoming fit helps an individual feel happy, healthy and full of energy. Exercising also helps keep the immune system stabile by improving the overall health by reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Regular exercise also helps reduce the risk of stroke, cancer and arthritis which helps from getting depression.

Exercise controls weight, by just going to walks which helps burn calories and help control your weight. It also increases the level of energy and endurance by physical activity which improves strength muscle and boosts endurance. This is beneficial by higher concentration in the red blood cells. This helps the oxygen and nutrients deliver to the tissue affect throughout the body and your muscles becomes more stronger and more elastic. For people who struggle to sleep helps you sleep better because the physical activity is generally retiring which makes it easier to sleep. Exercise is a one of the best methods to reduces stress. Exercise makes your muscles relax and the endorphins released in your brain reduce the stress levels dramatically.