Staying Fit Away From Home

This is a guest post by Michael Manning. Michael Manning is a fitness and healthy living aficionado. You can find his writing at his new blog located at http://mikemanningmusings.blogspot.com

Summer is on its way, and for many people, that means it's time for vacation. Unfortunately, it also means that you could ruin the physique you've worked so hard to attain. It's easy to slack off on your diet and fitness routines while you're traveling. There are plenty of fun things to do and ready access to any junk food your heart desires. Furthermore, it's tempting to ditch your healthy habits using the vacation as an excuse. To avoid re-packing on the pounds, it's important to maintain your fitness routine away from home.

Plan for Fitness

When you're arranging your accommodations, try to choose a hotel that has a fitness center. On a recent trip to San Francisco I was able to book great accommodations because I did some research beforehand. I checked a travel review site where I could see all of the hotels in San Francisco and check what amenities they offered and see great reviews from people who previously stayed there. When you get up in the mornings, head straight to the fitness room and get your workout out of the way. Studies have shown that this gives you more energy and makes you more likely to make healthy food choices throughout the day. If the fitness room should get full, however, it's important to have backup. Just in case, it's recommended that you pack some minor fitness gear such as a pulse monitor and some resistance bands. With these things, you can easily work out in the comfort and privacy of your hotel room.

Choose Wisely from the Menu

Many hotels serve a continental breakfast. Depending on how you make your choices, this can be either a benefit or a burden. Without a doubt, there will be junk foods like pastries, kids' cereals, french toast and waffles. However, there will also be healthy foods that will help you maintain your fitness goals. Aim for the healthy foods so you can keep up with your diet, which will also help your energy levels for the day. For snacks and other meals, a trip to the local grocery can be helpful. Stock up on ready-made salads, nuts or fresh and dried fruit. It is important to indulge every once in a while when you are on vacation, but keeping an overall healthy diet will help you with your sleep, energy levels, and stress which will in turn make your trip much more pleasant.

Stay Hydrated

It's easy to become dehydrated during your travels. For starters, the air inside of a plane's cabin is very dry, causing you to lose water rapidly. While flying, make an effort to drink a glass of water at least every hour. It's also best to avoid dehydrating beverages like alcohol, sugar and caffeine. Once you arrive at your destination, if you spend a lot of time outside in the sun, always bring some water with you. Your metabolism and energy levels suffer when you're under-hydrated, leaving you vulnerable to weight gain and fatigue.

Exercise Benefits for Cancer Patients by David Haas, Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance

Exercise Benefits for Cancer Patients Begin at Diagnosis
Of the many stressful events in life, a diagnosis of cancer ranks highly. One in two men and one in three women will face the stress of diagnosis, which can result in secondary symptoms and ultimately exacerbate the symptoms caused by cancer and treatment. Secondary symptoms caused by diagnosis include depression, anxiety, insomnia, and loss of appetite. Researchers have discovered a therapy that is capable of lessening the stress of diagnosis and other common symptoms as well.

Exercise as a treatment has been evaluated for many types and stages of cancer. It prevents and reduces the severity of symptoms and also increases the efficacy of treatment, reduces the risk of recurrence, and reduces the development of chronic diseases related to specific treatments.

Benefits of Beginning Exercise with Diagnosis
Clinics have been slow to make physical fitness experts available to patients at every stage of treatment, but this shouldn’t stop anyone from being active. Those with fitness experience should continue at their normal levels and talk about their routine with their doctor. Those with little history of exercise are advised to speak with their doctor and begin a low to moderately intense program.

Programs can consist of walking for 20 minutes each day for six days a week. Other exercises such as yoga, cycling, swimming, or any type of aerobics work as well. Strength training at least twice a week is also important. Weight training, isometric exercises, and special types of yoga will build lean muscle quickly and increase your aerobic ability. It’s vital to achieve higher levels of fitness before treatment, especially for chemotherapy and radiation. Treatment will reduce exercise capacity and those who start in better health will experience less severe symptoms.

One study performed for the Journal of the National Cancer Institute sought to determine whether exercise following breast cancer diagnosis was responsible for reducing cancer mortality and recurrence. After controlling many factors, experts found exercise did improve overall and disease-free survival for cancer patients.

Addressing Other Forms of Cancer
Breast cancer requires regular screening and is highly treatable. Other forms of cancer spread before being caught and others are resistant to treatment. In cases like pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma, exercise may seem unwarranted, but research shows it will still be beneficial.

When time is limited, quality of life becomes an important factor. At least one study has shown that a higher quality of life can be used to predict longer survival time. In any case, exercise is a unique method of reducing the severity of multiple symptoms without worry of compounding side effects.

About the Author: This is a guest post by David Haas, Awareness Program Advocate. Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance. David is a cancer support group and awareness program advocate at the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance. In addition to researching the many valuable programs, David often blogs about programs and campaigns underway at the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance, as well as creative fitness ideas for those dealing with cancer, while creating relationships with similar organizations.

I' m back - Burning Fat

First of all, my hearty new year wishes to the readers.

It is going to be more than two months since I blogged. Work is overwhelming and never gives me time to take break for blogging. Let me not talk too much about my work. I m back in action and hope that I continue to blog. Today, I feel so happy that I m consistent for the past two weeks in jogging. Started to job again with a kilometer run and over a period of two weeks, today I jogged little over 12 kilometers. Yes, it is 12 kilometers. This is the first time I jogged that distance with my heavy body. I could feel that my fat was burning when I ran. Before I started to run today, I thought to run 15 kilometers but gave up as my knees started to give pain. So, I called it for the day and came to my room in train (BTW, I m San Jose, USA for a short trip).

It is very funny that for the first time (in US and in my life), I went to office by jogging (around 4 miles) and on my return I covered almost three quarters of distance. Overall, I jogged little more than 12 kilometers. Of course, I covered the distance in two hours.

As usual, I saw few great human beings who cheered me up on the way - a man in cycle, a lady with her son, a couple with their kid, an old lady cheered me up with a lot of smile on their face and words of greetings.

Will this be "yet another year"?

Every year is passing by and the churn is the same. Personally, this year was fulfilling both professional and personal front. During the last part of the year, I was discussing an idea with my friend Rajkumar about starting a website to share knowledge. Finally, we, together with yet another friend Badhrinath, started a website OpenGyan targeting college students.

Assume that there is a wonderful person this world. Everyday he credits few thousand bucks (86400 bucks) a day but he takes the balance when he credits 86400 bucks the next day. In other words, he just refills to make to sum to 86400 bucks. What will you do? Won't you make sure that you fully utilize the entire money and make it zero bucks. In fact, all of us, irrespective whether it is holidays, weekends, festival and illness are receiving 86400 bucks but most of us do not utilize it fully. If you have not figured it yet, the answer is "number of seconds in a day". We often waste our time in unnecessary things.

So the first thing, I would like to do is "Not to waste time" and "Having sense of URGENCY". In Hindu mythology there is king who does his funeral everyday. When you have that, everything will fall in its place and the world will unfold new opportunities.

Being a human being, I would like to do many things such as reading/understanding few Unix/Linux books cover to cover, do some serious blogging on technology, make some meaning in my life (and others' life), just shed 30 kilos of my fat, read at least 2 autobiographies, 10 new books and so on. Unlike the other new year, I eagerly look forward for 2009 to see myself transformed.