Circuit Training

Part of making 2010 your healthiest year is to get some exercise. Some of you reading this may have a lot of time to work out and some of you may not. Even if you do have a lot of time, I'm sure you don't want to spend it in the gym. I am here to tell you that there is a great way to tone your body and burn some calories in just 20 minutes a day, just 3 days a week.

It is called circuit training. The way that circuit training works is to pick an exercise for each body part and perform each exercise back to back without stopping until you have performed each exercise once. I suggest doing 3 total sets of each circuit. The key is to keep moving, going from one exercise to the next, with little to no rest in between. As a result, this keeps your heart rate elevated, burning over twice as many calories as a traditional hour-long lifting format.

The moves I am going to suggest in this circuit alternate between your lower and upper body parts, making your body work harder to shunt blood and nutrients back and forth. Circuit training spikes your metabolism, meaning you burn an increased amount of calories for several hours after training.

The best part about this workout is that you can do it at home or at the gym, whichever is most convenient for you. All you need is 2 sets of dumbbells (one heavier and one lighter).

The workout: complete each circuit once without resting in between exercises. Once you have completed the circuit rest for 1-2 minutes then repeat. Do this for a total of 3 cycles.

Exercise/Reps

1.Plie squat/10
2.Biceps curl
to shoulder press/8-10
3.Walking lunge/12 each leg
4.Two-arm
dumbbell row/8-10
5.Romanian dead lift/8-10
6. Crunch/10-12
7.Push-up/6-12

For more of a challenge increase your repetitions to between 15 and 20 and skip the one-minute rest period between sets.

A sample week using circuit training:

Monday- circuit plus 30 min cardio
Tuesday- off
Wednesday- circuit
Thursday- 30 min cardio
Friday- circuit plus 30 min cardio
Saurday- off
Sunday- 30 min cardio

If any of you do not know what these exercises look like you can go to googleimages.com and type in the name of the exercise and it should bring up a picture. If you can't find one or cannot perform any of these exercises for any reason feel free to write me a comment and I will be happy to help you find a more suitable exercise.

I hope you all enjoy your new workout and this inspires you to reach your goals for 2010.

Detoxification the Natural Way

When most people think about detoxing they usually think about not being able to eat for 2 weeks or having to drink some nasty drink with some pretty weird stuff in it. I am here to let you know that it is not necessary to do all of the crazy trends to detox your body.

There are some very simple things that you can start doing right now to detox your body, and there are even more things you need to STOP doing....

Stop eating processed foods like sugar, man made oils, and really anything that comes in a box. The best thing to do is eat foods without labels. If you shop the outside corners of your grocery store and avoid buying food from the isles, then you are probably OK.

Eating a diet rich in organic fruits, veggies and hormone free lean meat is the best way to go. We also need to stop being afraid of eating fat. The only fat we need to stay away from is trans fat (fried food), and saturated fat. We need to be consuming omega 3 oils every day. I suggest that my patients take 1 tablespoon of flax oil per 100 lbs. of body weight every day. Also, 5-10 capsules of fish oil per day has so many great benefits. I will talk strictly about eating good fats in the near future.

I also suggest eating at least one salad a day with grated beets and carrots on it. Beets and carrots have been found to naturally cleanse your liver. I have to admit that I was not too excited when I learned I needed to start eating beets. However, if you grate them on your salad you can't even taste them, so grate away! Apples are also known to be a liver cleansing food.

There are some great products out there that can help you kick start the detoxification process. I sell one product in my office that I have had great success with. Of course a wonderful side effect of detoxing is usually weight loss, but in order for you to truly detoxify your body you need to change the way you eat and stick with it even after the detox is over.

To wrap things up here I am going to sum up the things that will help jump start your detox program.....

1.Eat organic fruits, veggies and lean grass fed, hormone free meats (buffalo, chicken, fish etc.)
2. Stop eating processed foods
3. Add some healthy oils to your daily diet
4. Decide that you want to make a life long change and not another diet fad
5. Get ready to start feeling GREAT!!

How To Start Off The New Year Right

Hello all! This is my first blog so I will try to make this as interesting as possible for you...sound good? Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Dr. Becky Campbell and I am a chiropractor in South Florida. I would like to start by telling you a little bit about chiropractic and why this has anything to do with you.

The biggest misconception that people have about chiropractic is that it's main purpose is for back pain...I am here to tell you that this is not what chiropractic is about! It's about HEALTH AND WELLNESS!! What exactly am I talking about? I am talking about your nervous system. Your nervous system is the power plant that runs your entire body. The nervous system is made up of the brain, SPINAL CORD, and miles of nerves that run to every organ, muscle and cell in your body.

The spine is the protective bony structure that covers your spinal cord. If you get a misalignment or subluxation in your spine, that can cause pressure on those nerves that are going to your vital organs and therefore can cause those organs not to function as well as they should. It is a chiropractor's job to remove those misalignment's or subluxations so your body can do it's job! This for me is where health begins.

So, now that you understand what chiropractic really is, there are two other major factors that are going to keep you healthy this year and for the rest of your life.....yep, you guessed it, a healthy diet and for so many people that dreaded word.... EXERCISE!

My goal is to help you find fun or at least more fun ways to get exercise and make it a part of your life forever. I am also going to do my best to educate you on how to NOT diet, but change the way you eat and like it! I will share some great recipes, fun exercises, and very useful health tips with you this year!

We can do this together. Sound fair? Let's make 2010 our healthiest year yet!