Yahoo!7 Answers Blog Australia

Like many Australians, did you over-indulge during the Easter period?

I know from personal experience that it can be quite difficult to ignore the overload of chocolate! Unless you are a hermit, it can be quite hard to escape… It’s everywhere you look – in shops, people giving and receiving, and advertisements galore. It can be quite easy to get swept up in the retail chaos, especially after Easter Sunday when the eggs are all heavily reduced.

Aside from the religious significances of Easter in Australia, the 4-day Long Weekend is a time to relax and enjoy time with friends and loved ones. It is also a time to reflect!

Easter marks roughly 3 months since the year began and when you made all kinds of promises to yourself to begin the year anew. How have you done so far?

Using myself as an example, I started the year out full of enthusiasm. I kept the momentum going in February by looking at different options for low impact exercise; I even ended up replacing my old rusty mountain bike with a lovely new road bike and began commuting to work. I loved getting up earlier and seeing the sun rise and getting home that little bit earlier of an afternoon, I even lost roughly 8kg! But as I progressed into March, I began to falter and by the time Easter rolled around, I was definitely becoming lazy.

So, I need your help to get motivated again

• What are the best ways to get back into activities, such as exercise, after lapsing for a time?

Do you have any tips on how I can get back into the groove again? Maybe I need to alter my approach or thinking? Leave a comment below or on the question above.

Kate
Community Manager

Have you all been keeping up with the Yahoo! Answers “Get Fit Program“?

If you remember from my post a few weeks ago, “New Year’s Resolutions: Do you keep them?“, one of my goals this year is to get fit. This is something that I am going to be asking you all about over the coming months, as I strive to improve my life in general – plus I need someone to keep me motivated!

All the advertising out there on TV and radio, in magazines and newspapers, even on billboards and other signage outside, screams the message about Australia’s rising weight and fitness problems. Whilst I could stand to lose a few kilos (I’d be lying if I said I was a fit young thing anymore!), I’m not going to obsess over it. What I’d rather focus on is improving things like my lifestyle, eating and exercise habits etc.

I am already active and what I’d like to start off with is, adding some exercise to my week. I suffer from old injuries to my knees, so unfortunately old staples such as running and strenuous gym sessions are already out for the time being, which points me toward low impact exercise. I have access to a bike, and actually use the bike in getting to work sporadically. I also have a few swimming pools and centres around my local area. So which would you recommend?

• What activity, and why, is better for low impact exercise – cycling or swimming?

Answer via the question above or leave a comment below

Kate
Community Manager

Photo by inka7791

Welcome to week two of the Yahoo! Answers “Get Fit Program.” Last week we told you how you can meet other people looking to share fitness ideas in a Yahoo! Group called “Get Fit, Stay Healthy,” shared some practical exercise tips for corporate employees, and provided a few tips on how to shed excess pounds to tone up your muscles.

This week, our fitness pros, Joanne and Joan from Plus One Health Management have picked a few more questions to answer from the community—you can find their answers below.

Question: “I need help with eating healthy at school when all they sell is cheese fries and pizza!” – Danni

Answer: I can understand your frustration, if you are trying to eat healthy but the healthy options are limited.  You may want to bring your lunch to school, to avoid temptation, and to be prepared.  You can also talk with the foodservice provider to suggest healthier options.  Healthy foods that cafeteria providers sometimes have include sandwiches, yogurt, fruit, baked chicken or fish, and pasta with veggies. Good luck! Also remember that if you are limited on food and have to eat pizza, you can try walking around your school campus with friends to ensure that you’re including a healthy activity with your lunch.

Question: What’s the best way to stretch before working out? – Chris

Answer: Prior to a workout, a warm-up that includes dynamic stretching should be performed. Dynamic stretching involves performing low-intensity movements similar to your workout activity. For example, squats help to get the muscles warm for any type of lower body activity. Static stretching (stretch and hold) is the most beneficial if it is performed after a workout. Not sure what the difference is between dynamic or static stretching is? Check out the definition from our pros, here.

Question: Are there any standing up ab exercises you could do, say, in the shower or waiting in line (that might be awkward)? – Hah.

Answer: Wow you’re really thinking! However, I don’t recommend exercising in the shower as you could slip and injure yourself. Instead, when you’re safe and dry, try standing up tall and tighten your abs. Practice good posture, suck in your abs and maintain normal breathing—all of these things will help you maintain a tight core and help work your abs.

Question from Shine: How do I start exercising when I’m already out of shape?

Answer: Start slowly, but make it count—don’t overdo it. Progress quickly,  keep it up, and read this article for even more tips from Shine.

Check back next week for even more tips from our fitness gurus as they answer even more of your health and fitness questions!

Photo by colonnade

Each January many people across the world make a similar New Year’s resolution: to lose weight, get fit, or get healthy. And each January, they start the year off right—with the best of intentions, and the best laid plans, but about a week in, they run into a road block: where do they go from here?

If you’re one of these people, Yahoo! Answers is here to help! We’ve enlisted the help of Joan Arico and Joanne Haggerty: two fitness pros from Plus One Health Management, Inc., who work with the staff at Yahoo! Headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.

Over the next few days, you’ll have the opportunity to post your fitness related questions to the open question found here and Joan and Joanne will select a handful and answer them over the next few weeks. With your questions and their help, together we’ll help get the Yahoo! Answers community in shape for 2010!

Each week, we’ll feature one question on the blog, as well as health tips and tricks that will help you get in shape and meet your health goals for 2010.

Joan and Joanne: Our Fitness Gurus

Joan Arico

Joan has over 25 years of experience in Corporate Fitness and is certified in both Group Exercise Instruction and Personal Training . She is an AFAA Certified Group Exercise Instructor, AFAA Certified Personal Trainer, BS Degree Recreation Administration, CPR/AED Certified.

Joanne Haggerty

Joanne believes that physical activity should be an integral part of your life as much as is brushing your teeth, but far more fun and enjoyable. She is a personal trainer and works in both individual and group wellness programs.

Between the two of them, they have more than 33 years of fitness and health experience in both the personal and professional sector. Both enjoy sharing fitness and lifestyle tips with others in addition to keeping Yahoo! healthy!

Please note that all questions must be in line with the Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines and you should always check with your medical professional before starting any new treatment or health routine. Please review the full disclaimer here.

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Photo by colonnade

As the weather gets warmer and the beach becomes more tempting, quite a few Aussie girls (and probably a few blokes) are looking down at those bat wings,  cottage cheese thighs and muffin top and thinking: “there’s no way I’m going anywhere near a swimsuit until something has been done!”

For all around fitness, I’ve always found that going to the gym starts off well, then a few months into it you’re bored of pounding the treadmill and the elliptical trainer has lost its gloss. And with the weather so lovely, who wants to be cooped up indoors? Some swear by boot camp although people yelling at me tends to make me want to hit them rather than run around the block 20 times.

A varied routine that includes different workouts each day works for people who get bored easily like me. Some recommend a combination of cardio and pilates and others say trying something new like dancing or spinning does the trick.

If it’s a specific area you want to work on, there are lots of different exercises to help tailor your workout. To tone the underside of your arms, mrsross22 recommends:

Military squats- Find a stable piece of furniture like the edge of a sofa and sit on the ground in front of it facing away. Put your arms up behind you and place them on the edge of the sofa. Lift yourself up till your arms are fully extended then drop back down but do not land your butt on the ground, just hover. Then repeat this. I do about 3 sets of 20 reps. More

For that pesky stomach area, yomama recommends a variety of exercises, including:

Resistance training: go for more reps (less weight), try drop sets, try circuit training. All of these are useful for getting more lean and ripped (and as a result will burn fat off your abs). Remember the more muscle you build, the more fat you’ll burn (muscle burns fat). More

The good thing about getting your fitness advice from Answers, is that you know it’s worked for real people out there and the advice isn’t from a stick-thin-never-eaten-a-timtam-in-his-life type of person. Time to grab those sneakers!

Caitlin
Community Manager

Considering that we all do it at some stage every day of our lives, it’s not suprising that more than 2 hundred thousand questions on Yahoo!7 Answers relate to the topic of sleep – getting it, not getting it and getting better at it.

The amazing thing about sleep is that even though we all need it to survive, it’s not always that easy to do. So there are thousands of these questions simply wanting to know –“ how do I get to sleep at night?” In reponse to these questions are thousands of helpful responses and tips from people who have had their own battles with insomnia. It is scary to learn that some people suffer from insomnia so badly that it kills them! Fortunately this is very rare, but it’s not a pleasant thought when you’re lying awake at 3am. The other funny thing is that while it can be so difficult to fall asleep at night, often if you were given the opportunity to lie down at 4pm you’d have no trouble dozing off! Maybe those Mediterraneans are on to something with their regular naps after lunch.

There is a lot to learn about the subject of sleep – like why we lie under blankets even when it’s warm outside, and why a lot of people find themselves twitching before they drop off. And then there’s dreaming – how asleep do you need to be to do it and what do all those funny images mean? And what causes bad dreams, or worse, night terrors, which many children struggle with as they are growing up?

All this talk of sleep leads to another question – how do you keep yourself from dropping off?

Clea

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 Alright – hands up if you’ve already broken your New Year’s resolution. It has only been four days but most of us are already shaking our heads and lamenting that it only took us two days to reach for the second drink, forget about doing sit ups or begin the cycle of throwing wet towels on the bathroom floor and getting hassled about it all over again.

Is there really a way to make New Year’s resolutions stick? What do you have to do to proudly be able to state on New Year’s Eve that you made a change that lasted the whole year?

Bruce Ritchie, Editor of Men’s Health Magazine is asking that very question this week, keen to hear from you how you go about honouring your resolution, especially if it involves getting fit. (And don’t we all promise ourselves that we’ll up the ante on the amount of exercise we do in January!)

Perhaps we should all resolve to exercise less and drink more – that way when we fail we won’t feel so bad!

Clea

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I am a sad victim of the cold sore virus and am forever looking for a way to stop them before they take hold. One of the best methods is getting hold of the strongest cream you can and having it handy at all times – but sometimes that nasty little virus rears it’s ugly head when you are nowhere near an open chemist, so that’s not an option. It’s great to have a couple of home remedies up my sleeve for when this happens, and while I do use ice to try to stop the swelling, I only recently learned that a paste made from baking soda can also be effective in drying out the sore. Thanks to Answers of course!

Answers is full of handy tips from users on how to use household items to get rid of fleas, help a sore throat or reduce the pain of a hangover. Some people would rather go without chemicals and drugs where possible to treat disorders like anxiety or medical conditions such as morning sickness, and there is plenty of advice to be found. Reading through the many suggestions, it seems one product comes up more often than any others – vinegar! One user posted 64 different uses for this simple pantry staple, including everything from deterring ants to clearing up warts.

Questions requesting home remedies for hair issues come up very frequently – from dry scalp to oily hair, from getting it to grow faster to making it shiny… it is certainly amazing to read what you can do with a simple jar of mayonnaise!

Have a great weekend!

Clea

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