Christmas has just passed but the gift giving usually keeps going on for the next week or two, especially if you follow the Russian Orthodox Calendar. If you do, then your Christmas is on January 7th of 2019. So, you see for those people still shopping and having a hard time coming up with the right gift for the right people, there is still time to make it happen.

One thing you need to keep in mind as you hurry from store to store is that a person’s health is probably one of the most important things to them, and to you for that matter. Helping or motivating a person to help themselves to get fit so that they can be around for a lot more Christmas holidays in the future is always a good thing and one that won’t go unnoticed. One way you can help your loved ones get fit is to get them motivated to do so by giving them a tool to help themselves be more active and set goals for themselves that they can track and monitor their new lifestyle as they strive to hit those goals. And when they do, help them to create new ones to reach. In this way, they can always help themselves improve on their way to becoming a new, healthier person.

Using a fitness tracker like the Garmin Vivosmart 4 Wellness and Fitness Tracker  The vívofit 4 activity tracker follows their progress 24/7 and lets you ditch the charging cord, thanks to its 1+ year battery life. It’s also safe for the pool or the shower, and its "always-on" color display is bright and easy to see, even in the sunlight. Let your personality shine through by customizing the screen with color themes, watch faces and text phrases or by swapping out the band for a different one.

Accessory bands are available in various colors and styles. And before we forget, changing the battery is as easy as removing a few screws, replacing the old Energizer 3V CR1632 Batteries  (2) with new ones and retighten the screws. No more dependency on having to use a charging cable!

Get Moving, the Easy Way
No need to manually start and stop your activity timer — Move IQ has you covered. It can automatically capture and classify different activities such as walking, running, biking, swimming and using an elliptical. For walks and runs, it can even start an activity timer automatically. Review the captured data later, on Garmin Connect.

Throughout your day, Vívofit 4  periodically syncs to Garmin Connect². The Garmin Connect™ app makes it easier than ever to "Beat Yesterday". Bold, colorful activity cards provide all your statistics at a glance. Scroll down to easily compare today’s totals to past results or tap in for more detailed information. Activities and other health measurements recorded by your device are presented in vivid detail. And the data you see is customized just for you and the way you move. If that doesn’t give your friends, the motivations to keep moving towards the goals they've set for themselves then you may as well get them a subscription to the "Jelly of the Month Club"!

Using Garmin Connect to have your data uploaded so that their friends, (including you) can see their progress is a great way to hold them accountable for their daily, weekly, monthly progress. This all goes a long way to making sure by next Christmas you’re going to be looking at a group of healthier friends thanks to your gift of the Garmin Vívofit 4 Activity Tracker .

Of course, even being fitter won't help the way they look in those: "Ugly Christmas Sweaters" they have on!

Happy Holidays from your Ugly Sweater wearing crowd here at HeartRateMonitorsUSA.com!

 

 

Well, how’s the second week of January looking for you? Still making that before or after work, trip to the gym? Have you hooked up with a buddy to join you in your pilgrimage each day to the house of working out? Or maybe you’re going it solo, there’s a lot to say for each of these scenarios, the main point though is to get there if a gym is where you plan to be in order to get yourself fit for 2018.

Regardless if you meet up with a friend at a gym, or out on the street or mountain path for a run or jog. The important thing is to get yourself moving. But regardless of how you’re doing it, with friends, or going solo, are you tracking your progress? And if you’re going solo, relying on your own commitment that you made prior to that ball dropping down to herald in the new year, have you already had thoughts of skipping your new routine when that alarm clock went off at 5 am?

What most people need is an encouragement to continue with that resolution to get healthy for the New Year. At least in the beginning, that’s why having a partner that is also committed to getting healthy is probably your best bet on seeing your commitment through. Most studies have shown that people are less likely to quit on their fitness resolutions if they have a partner that they work out with. Reason being, they don’t want to be shown-up that they failed, or let their partner down.

So having a partner can help you get through the early stages of beginning a new workout routine but things have a habit of changing, just like personal schedules, or even tougher, work schedules. There may come a time when either you or your buddy need to reschedule your time of working out together, or maybe things happen when it’s just not possible to train together anymore. Well if you’ve been both tracking your fitness progress. Things may not be a total loss. In fact, there are still ways you two can still connect, just by using your activity trackers, if, if you’ve got the right tracker that allows you both to connect with each other, no matter what schedule you both keep when working out!

I’m talking about using the new generation of smartwatches that not only monitor your activities, keep track of all those calories you’re burning up while piling up the miles on that treadmill or doing some carb-busting HIIT training to get those muscles toned and flexible.
A smartwatch like the Garmin Vivomove HR Hybrid Smart Watch  This watch can not only monitor your activities but also monitor your sleep habits and let you know when you may need to calm yourself down a bit because your STRESS levels are just a little too high. And remember we mentioned that you and your fitness partner can still keep in touch with each other and be aware of each other’s fitness progress and what goals you’ve both met? Well, staying connected with the Vivomove Hybrid is easy since it uses Garmin’s Connect feature to upload your stats to the Free Garmin Community, where you can select who sees your stats and who you can see as well to monitor each other’s progress and work against each other to make sure your reaching those goals you set back on that cold December 31st New Year’s Eve when the wind-chill was -15 below zero in Time’s Square, remember? And when you do have those slow days when you seem stuck in your chair trying to get all the information you need in order to create that necessary pie-chart. Your Garmin Vivomove HR Hybrid will prompt you to move because you’ve been inactive for just too long. Move, even if it means getting up and taking the stairs to the next floors restroom instead of the one right down the hall from your desk. So this one fitness product can be your mental coach reminding you when and how often you need to be active each and every day besides your regular daily exercise routines.

So, what are you waiting for, Get up, Get Out and Move!

 

So, how about it? Are you an early riser or an after work fitness enthusiast? Either way, this time of year, no matter when you get out to train, and I mean running, through the streets, or for some of us, we find the peace and quiet, of a local cemetery, is as good a place as any to tackle some people free paths.  Yes, I said cemetery's  You can usually dial it up a notch by going up and down the hills that usually make up this tranquil resting place. Tranquil, it may be, but maybe a little eerie this time of year as well with Halloween right around the corner. Be honest, running early in the morning or early evening can sometimes make you feel just a little bit uncomfortable. We have all had that “hair on the back of our neck”, starting to rise feeling, right?

Well, sometimes that’s a good way to generate some extra speed or spring in your step to get you out of that particular area and into a better lit place where you feel a little more comfortable.

Seriously though, now is a great time of year, with it being the fall season, to take part in a local run, or ½ marathon that seems to pop up everywhere this spooky season. In fact, according to a “Running USA” survey, Halloween is now the 2nd most popular holiday running time, second only to Thanksgiving! So now is a great time to get on your smartphone or tablet, and do a little searching to see what’s available nearby that you can take part in. Most occur on this coming Saturday, but there are events scheduled on Sunday as well, this Halloween weekend.

As always, anyone who takes their running seriously, keeps track of how well they do, against their distance levels and the time it takes them to get there. The advantage of taking part occasionally in a timed “Fun” running event is that you can gauge your performance against how well you do compared to others who are running around you. I’ts always good to put yourself up against some competition so that you have a visible objective in front of you that you can concentrate on to see just how well you really are doing. Sometimes we get a little complacent when we run solo. We can get ourselves into a stagnant running routine and talk ourselves into a “half-truth” that, yes, we just finished our run of the day and our time is about the same as always. So I guess I’m doing all right, after all, I didn’t lose any time right? Well, that is correct, but you may not be pushing yourself as hard as you should be doing in order to get yourself to a “Next Plateau” level either!

Running in events that take place throughout the year is a good way to see just how well you really are doing against some competition. One way to improve yourself while your training is keeping constant records of your time, exertions (heart rate), naturally your distance and seeing how many calories you're burning during this type of work out. A good fitness tracker can do this for you and one like the Garmin Vivosmart 3 HR  With this type of activity monitor, you're able to track everything you need from heart-rate (thanks to Elevate wrist heart rate monitoring), steps, distance, calories burned, floors climbed, distance traveled, intensity minutes, and VO2 max.

So it a great tool to provide you with the right data so you know just how well you're doing all the time, even when you get to the gym for some strength training. Which is important enough that we’re going to do another blog post just on that. The importance of strength training to a runner.

So how about it, you up for a little ghoulish fun? After all, a lot of the Halloween running events that are taking place allow you to dress up as your favorite spooky monster, demon, or TV celebrity, whatever puts a smile on your face, and maybe your racing companions.

So, get on that smartphone, do a little searching and get yourself registered for some Halloween running fun. Once you do this, you’re going to look forward to taking part in another one again, and again. And don’t forget, with Thanksgiving coming up fast, (Remember, this is the “Top Dog” in holiday themed racing events), you're going to be able to pick and choose which event you can take part in to see if you’re moving your personal training bar farther ahead!

Me, I think, I’ll be making myself up as zombie from the ‘Walking Dead” series… Just can’t get enough of that show…..but you can forget about the staggering zombie gait...

I’m looking to finish with a great time, how about BOOO?

 

You are into being healthy and getting in the best shape you possibly can, right? After all, you wouldn’t be reading this blog post if your nighttime favorite thing to do is “Binge Watching” TV shows on Netflix! Well, with getting healthy, besides a good regimen of physical activity and pushing your body to its limits in order to reach your true potential. Is the way to get you to that healthy, happy place.

We also know that tracking your exercise routines, so that you know exactly how your doing and when to push yourself past your old goal and onto a new one, is the key to maintaining your physical goals. Tracking correctly is important. We know, we’ve been there ourselves and we rely on accurate data to monitor our progress because we are as committed as you are to getting healthy and staying healthy! HeartRateMonitorsUSA.com is committed to providing the best Activity Monitors, GPS Trackers and Heart-Rate-Monitors that are on the market today. One of the best that is currently out there is the Vivoactive 3 Smart Activity Tracker from Garmin  This watch does it all, and keeps you connected to the world around you via being connected to your smartphone. And since it’s a multi-purpose tracker, you can use it for any sports activity your currently engaged on and it will track your progress along with keeping tabs on your heart from the wrist-based heart rate monitoring functionality.

So that’s one of our recommendations for the avid health conscious individual that we know you are. But we would be remiss if we didn’t also focus on your eating right and getting the right forms of fuel to power that engine, which your body is comprised of. And eating the right forms of Nutrition has a lot to do with it!

You may have started this road to being fit a few years ago, or maybe it was just a New Year’s resolution. And it’s a little funny but that time of year will soon be upon us again. Where does the time go? Anyway, getting back to nutrition, you may have started this exercise thing just to lose some weight. And if you’re grounded in your commitments, you made a new life out of doing everything you can in order to be fit. That means the types of foods you eat and how much you need on a daily basis. You’ve heard from us before that food, is like fuel to your car. The better the grade of fuel, the better your output, or results and the distance you travel.

Diets seem to have been around forever, after all, we know most of us have been on one or more, who are we kidding, I know I’ve been on a score of diets in trying to seek out the easiest way to drop those pounds, on and off for probably 20 years or better!

Well, one diet that seems to be growing in popularity right now is the Ketogenic Diet, in fact, it was a segment on “Good Morning America” featuring Laura Spencer, who has adopted it as a way to help her body build itself up against illness. It has been described as the Atkins Diet on Steroids! If you would like to watch a clip, you can just click on this link: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/keto-diet-train-body-burn-fat-lose-weight-50316253

The Keto Diet approach is simple, It's all about following a low-carb diet where the focus is on eating real food, not just food low in carbs. It’s not that far away from the Atkins diet but it does have some twists. The object of the keto diet is to force your body to get into and stay in a glycogen deprived state and maintain a mild state of ketosis (burning fats for energy). In order to achieve this you need to increase the fat intake and restrict the carbs to a minimum. When the body does not have enough glucose for energy, it burns stored fats instead. It involves drastically reducing the carbohydrate intake, and replacing it with fat.

In short, you should eat REAL FOOD (meat, eggs, nuts, yogurt, vegetables and occasionally some fruits). Apart from the obvious limitation of net carb content in foods, it is also recommended to avoid processed food and any food that may contain preservatives and colorings. Hence it gets you back to basics in eating and that is why a lot of people that are into non GMO and organically grown foods seem to be able to adopt this diet than those that enjoy their daily dose of carbs. When you get right down to it, the KetoDiet is not just about losing weight at any cost; it's about adopting a healthier lifestyle.

Now just so you have an idea of what you can eat on this diet, we listed a few of the basics here below. Naturally, before you begin any structured diet program, consult with your physician.

Grass-fed and wild animal meat: grass-fed meat (beef, lamb, goat, venison), wild-caught fish & seafood (avoid farmed fish), pastured pork and poultry, pastured eggs, gelatin, ghee, butter - these are high in healthy omega 3 fatty acids (avoid sausages and meat covered in breadcrumbs, hot dogs, meat that comes with sugary or starchy sauces), offal, grass-fed (liver, heart, kidneys and other organ meats). Eating these types of naturally raised meats fall into the organic family very nicely. The key is to know who is providing the meat you purchase when you pick it up at your grocer. You can usually get a list of a grocer’s purveyors if you ask for them. You can then make sure that their products meet with the specifications you are looking for.

Healthy Fats: Saturated (lard, tallow, chicken fat, duck fat, goose fat, clarified butter / ghee, butter, coconut oil)
Monounsaturated (avocado, macadamia and olive oil)
Polyunsaturated omega 3s, especially from animal sources (fatty fish and seafood), Again, non-farm raised. Only because the fish food that they are given in the raising process usually contains GMO additives in order for them to grow to a larger size.

Non-Starchy Vegetables: Leafy greens (Swiss chard, bok-choy, spinach, lettuce, chard, chives, endive, radicchio, etc.)
Some Cruciferous vegetables like kale (dark leaf), kohlrabi, radishes, celery stalk, asparagus, cucumber, summer squash (zucchini, spaghetti squash), and bamboo shoots

Fruits: Very limited, again, you need to get to that Ketosis state So Avocados, yep, this is the one that you can eat freely. Rich in omega fat.

Non-Starchy Vegetables: Leafy greens (Swiss chard, bok choy, spinach, lettuce, chard, chives, endive, radicchio, etc.) some cruciferous vegetables like kale (dark leaf), kohlrabi, radishes celery stalk, asparagus, cucumber, summer squash (zucchini, spaghetti squash), bamboo shoots.

As with many trends in nutrition, the results come down to an athlete’s level of training and ability to follow strict diets. If you decide you want to try this new way of fueling, consult with a registered dietitian or your physician first. Remember that fat is higher in calories than carbs or protein, there are nine calories in a gram of fat while there are only four in a gram of carbs or protein, so if you increase your fat intake, you may actually need to eat less. Another fact to consider: saturated fats

Another fact to consider is that saturated fats have been linked to heart disease and high blood pressure, so it’s important to choose fats that are high in unsaturated fat, such as fish, nuts, oils, and avocados. As always, it’s a good idea to let your physician know what you are intending. He / She may want to follow your progress more closely as you embark on this new nutrition trend, just to make sure your body stay’s in balance.

Now, the above is just a rundown on what the Keto diet is all about. It’s still too early to come to a definitive answer if it’s good for everyone. Because each person is different and all you can do is to try it and see how it affects your daily routines.

 

Ok, it’s now Mid - October, and the seasons are starting to change over to Fall, and Winter is not too far away, in fact, it was just earlier this week that they had snow in Denver, Colorado.

If you had trouble getting up in the morning when the sun started peeking through your window for your morning workout, just think how much harder it’s going to be when the moon is still shining brightly at 5 am?

Well, for me, I enjoy this time of year, and yes that means getting outdoors with the stars and moon shining down on me. At this time of the morning, things are quiet and the animal life starts to move around if you listen you can hear them moving around you if you happen to live in a rural area. There is a hint here, besides your light-gear of choice, it’s not a bad idea to take along a walking stick with you just to have something with you to help you make some noise if some of the larger animals or even a skunk crosses your path.

And if you’re a city girl or boy, the street sounds this time of day are all their own as well. You may be friends with the paper route delivery people as they drop off their stacks of papers to be bundled up and delivered. Or the local vendors as they get ready to open up their shops to start another day. You might even be a patron of the local coffee shop and stop in after you’ve had your morning run through the streets.

Now we have written before how quite a few studies have shown that exercising in the morning can set you up for a more productive day, both at work and at home, if you’re a mom or stay at home dad. Getting up and moving can get those endorphins streaming through your system to give you that happy feeling as you go about the start of your day.

So, getting back to where we started with the Fall season now upon us, the hot summer sun is fading into a memory as the cool, crisp air of autumn air envelopes us as we go about our daily activities. So, why are you working out in the gym, and breathing in that work out atmosphere, (we really mean odors), when you can be ingesting a fresher, cleaner breath of air outside?

Sure, there is a time and place to use a gym, especially if you’re using the facilities to get in some weight training to up your game, but you still can’t beat the great outdoors to get your blood pumping as you go through some cardio!

One thing you want to make sure you’re doing, no matter where you decide to work out, is to track your efforts and the progress your making. A great way to do that is with an Activity Tracker. There are many to choose from but we like the versatile Garmin Vivoactive Strapless Heart Rate SmartWatch, This watch will soon be your go-to buddy for everything you need from just keeping the time, to keeping track of where you are on the trails by using its state of the art GPS technology and that’s only part of it. With the new wrist-based heart rate monitoring capabilities that are built in you can now track just how well your performing no matter where you doing the straining and grunting 

And since it’s a “Multi-Function” smart watch, no matter what your engaged in this Fall as far as activities go, it will monitor and track all of your moves. From hiking, running, a stint on the golf links, to maybe even a fall or winter swim in that gym pool, or if you’re adventurous, a polar plunge, this watch has you covered!

And there’s nothing like a fall biking trip, and between the GPS that it comes with, and the ability to automatically connect your data, including your location to Garmin Connect, your friends and family will always know where you are.

So again, why are you still working out in a gym this time of year? When you have the ability to keep track of your progress with this great smartwatch from Garmin ? Your only problem is to decide what you’re going to do outside, and where you’re going to be doing it!

So what are you waiting for, go and get that Vivoactive Smartwatch from HeartRateMonitorsUSA.com and let’s see you take the “Fall Season” head on!

From the energetic staff here, at HeartRateMonitorsUSA.com