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Yoga For Neck, Shoulders, Upper Back - 10 Minute Yoga Quickie - Yoga With Adriene

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1.0 Mile Happy Walk | Walk at Home | Walking Workout

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There's a lot of confusion, mystery, and desperation around how to lose fat and gain muscle. We applaud body transformation pictures we see on Instagram, Facebook, and magazine covers but are never able to replicate the results ourselves.

Well, that mystery is over because I will tell you exactly how to achieve those results in this article.

The journey to getting there is straightforward but not easy. Most people give up too early in the game, when they stop making visible progress.

Keep reading to learn how to utilize your metabolism and the laws of muscle building to lose fat and gain muscle fast.

Skyrocket Your Metabolism to Lose Fat

Learning how to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time is one of the biggest misunderstandings of body transformations because they are opposite metabolic processes.

To lose fat, you must have calorie deficits each day, and to gain muscle, you must be in a caloric surplus, but you cannot do both at the same time.

When you look at pictures, it looks like it can be done simultaneously, but what is actually happening is a change in fat and muscle percentages.

If your weight stays the same through your journey, and you lose body fat, your percent of lean muscle mass automatically goes up by default. You didn't gain any muscle, but your fat and muscle ratio percentages have shifted.

Calculating Your Calories to Lose Fat

There are many good calorie calculators out there that will give you an estimate on how much to eat to start losing fat for weight loss. You usually need to cut about 10 to 15% of your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) calories to start the process.

You can find a visual explanation of TDEE below:

Remember that the calculators are just an estimate. It's up to you to track your measurements and to adjust your caloric intake to ensure you're getting the results you're looking for.

Metabolism calculators take into account four different ways your body burns calories to come up with your TDEE, or how many calories you burn in a day:

Resting metabolic rate

Thermic effect of food

Thermic effect of activity

Non-exercise activity thermogenesis

Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)

This is your baseline metabolism at rest, or how many calories your body needs to survive if you spent the entire day lying in bed awake.

RMR accounts for about 60 to 75% of your total daily energy expenditure. Your RMR is mostly determined by how much you weigh.

A heavier person has a higher RMR than a lighter person, even if the lighter person has a higher lean muscle mass, because the metabolism of muscle only contributes to about 20% of your total RMR energy expenditure.

Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)

You've heard that to lose weight and gain muscle, you should be eating lots of protein. This is true for a number of reasons:

Lowers your intake of other types of foods, like processed carbs.

Increases satiety, so you continue to feel fuller, longer.

The building blocks for your muscles are found in protein.

About 30% of the calories from protein intake are burned off during the digestion process, which includes absorption and waste removal of it. Eating more protein as opposed to other macros increases the amount of calories burned during digestion. That's why you feel fuller with a higher protein diet.

Thermic Effect of Activity (TEA)

The calories burned in TEA are relatively minor in your entire TDEE equation. TEA is any calories burned during official exercise, like going to the gym, doing an aerobics class, or going for a run. It covers any exercise you do outside of your normal activities.

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)

The calories burned in NEAT is the big game changer for most people and can vary up to 2000 calories burned per day between people with identical RMRs.

For the majority of us, when we're done with our workouts for the day, we don't do much else for movement. We spend about an hour in the gym, and instead of using the other 15 hours awake as an opportunity to move and burn more calories, we spend it sitting.

This is how there can be such a big difference between the amount of calories burned between two people who have the same RMR.

Outside of your gym workout, any additional body movements count towards burning additional calories. The quickest way to add this to your day is to make everything you do as inconvenient for yourself as possible.

Examples of inconvenient activities that count towards NEAT include:

Taking the stairs versus the elevator

Parking farther away

Getting up to change the TV channel versus using the remote

Pacing and walking while on a phone call instead of sitting down

Increasing your NEAT goes a long way to helping your burn calories faster, leading to quicker fat loss. For more ideas on how to make life a little more inconvenient to up your activity level, check out this article.

The Laws of Building Muscle

Congrats on reaching the stage where you want to tone and get some definition! Learning how to lose fat and gain muscle isn't an easy process, so if you've taken it on, that's a huge step.

To build muscle, first you want to increase your calorie intake.

Based on your TDEE, you want to add about 10% more calories as a starting point. This is enough calories to build muscle, and any excess can lead to fat storage if you're not training hard enough or aren't active enough.

Again, be sure to track your measurements and adjust your calories if necessary.

Second, follow a muscle-building program that you can sustain for at least 3 to 6 months.

Consistency is key with building muscles because they need to be stimulated and broken down on a regular basis in order to build back up. You want to strength train at least twice a week for at least an hour each time to start getting results.

Of course, more often is better but requires better planning and a more complicated body parts training plan. So, start simple if you're a novice. It's not necessary to train 6 times a week unless you're training for a competition.

Progressive Overload

Muscle needs to be challenged in order to grow. You need to gradually and consistently increase the amount of load and volume you are lifting.

Load means the amount of weight you're lifting during weight training. Up to a certain point, it becomes unrealistic to keep adding pounds to each exercise every week, at which point you need to switch exercises and work on your weaker points to break that plateau.

However, the goal with load is to keep increasing the amount of weight you lift.

Increasing the volume you do is another method to progressive overload. Volume means the total number of reps for that specific exercise. If you're doing 3 sets of 12 reps, it means you've done a total of 36 reps.

But increasing volume doesn't mean doing super high reps of 20+ unless you're training your muscle for endurance versus strength.

You want to use a challenging weight and be able to lift more of it each week through increased reps and sets.

Here is a visual explanation of how you can engage in progressive overload:

Training Intensity

Paying attention to what you're doing is required if you want to lose fat and build muscle because you want to build and improve the mind-muscle connection to optimize growth.

A healthy mind-body connection means you're able to better feel your muscles working during each lift.

You know you've picked the right weight when the last 2 to 3 reps of your intended rep range is challenging. On occasion, you want to push past the burn and muscle fatigue for the last reps.

This little bit of pushing past the discomfort is the difference between an average body and a body with more definition. Lifting almost to failure increases muscle recruitment, metabolic stress, and anabolic recruitment to grow muscles.

Proper Recovery

This is the most overlooked aspect of building muscles. We focus too much on pre/post workout meals, macro tweaking, and supplements, forgetting that we already have the ultimate tool for recovery: our own body.

For best recovery practices, allow at least a day, but no more than 3 days of rest between workouts that stress the same muscle group. Overtraining results in diminished exercise capacity, possible injury, and illness.

Remember, muscles are broken down in the gym and built outside of it during recovery.

Get 7 to 8 hours of sleep, and be mindful of your stress levels to optimize recovery time. A lack of sleep and excess stress will spike cortisol levels, leading to hunger cravings, decrease regulation of burning fat, and cause faster aging.

You can learn how to lower your stress levels fast here.

Stop Program Hopping

Every day, there is new workout, new exercise, new program on a website, in a magazine, or in your social media feed. No wonder we're tempted to try a little bit of everything!

Frequent program hopping stops you from getting any results.

When you change programs too often, you don't make progress on each exercise. It becomes hard to gauge whether you're getting stronger or even getting results because you're not allowing enough time for your body to adapt.

Strength is a skill that needs to be built and developed by practicing it consistently. If you're changing the skill set too often, you won't know if you're improving, and, therefore, cutting yourself short of future muscle gains.

Conclusion

The steps to losing fat and gaining muscle are simple, but the journey to get there is not.

Tracking and measuring your calories is the quickest way to lose fat, along with increasing your activity level outside of the gym. Having a stronger, more toned body can be yours when you follow the laws of building muscles consistently.

Applying these methods will guarantee that you get the results you're after!

More on How to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle

Featured photo credit: Benjamin Klaver via unsplash.com

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5 Breathing Exercises for Anxiety (Simple and Calm Anxiety Quickly)

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There's a lot of confusion, mystery, and desperation around how to lose fat and gain muscle. We applaud body transformation pictures we see on Instagram, Facebook, and magazine covers but are never able to replicate the results ourselves. Well, that mystery is over because I will tell you exactly how to achieve those results in this article.

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subscribe to Life Kit podcast

subscribe to Life Kit podcast

If you're working or learning from home, you know the toll it can take on your body and mind. You might not have a supportive chair to sit on or the most comfortable tech to accommodate long hours in front of a computer at home. But you don't have to suffer through it, and you don't necessarily have to spend a ton of money on a solution.

Meg Honan is a professional ergonomist and Environment, Health, and Safety specialist for the Department of Occupational Medicine at University of California San Francisco. She's got a few tips to improve home office setups and encourage healthy working habits.

Lift your head and lower your arms

Your monitor screen should be at eye level so you're not craning your head down to see. And, your keyboard and mouse should be low enough so you're not shrugging your shoulders and lifting up your arms like a praying mantis to type and click.

Honan says this common "head down and arms up" position sets you up to feel "achy, sore and tired." To combat this uncomfortable and oftentimes painful position, lift your head from your neck and lower your arms to work from a more natural posture.

One way to do this is to split up or reposition your tech. Bring your laptop or desktop monitor screen up to eye level with a stack of books or some other platform.

Place your keyboard and mouse at a lower height where you don't have to shrug your shoulders to use them. If your keyboard is attached to your laptop, consider connecting an external keyboard and mouse so you can lift your head and lower your arms. External mouses don't just help lower our arms, but they also prevent the constant strain of using a trackpad.

Support yourself

Honan says that the best height for your arms to work is about 26 to 27 inches - that's two to five inches shorter than your average desk or table. To make up for this difference, sit on a pillow or raise the height of your chair so you can lower your arms to a more comfortable position.

Support your lower back by placing a pillow at the small of your back and positioning your feet on some sort of platform. A box, a stack of books or a sturdy pillow would all work.

Flexible seating (like an exercise ball) can be a nice change of pace, but it won't support your body in the long term. If you're sitting, opt for a chair with two arms. If it's adjustable in height or in the lower back area, that's even better!

If you typically work with a laptop in your lap, get a flat service that can sit across your chair's arms. You can use a shelf from a bookcase you're not using, a baking pan or a cutting board.

If you'd like to stand for a while, convert an ironing board into a standing desk. Get creative!

Switch positions

At the office, you might walk to meeting rooms, leave the building to get a cup of coffee, or cross the building to use the restroom.

At home, Honan warns, "you're actually far more sedentary than when you're in an office."

One way to make movement a habit is to switch positions every time you pick up a new task. Need to make a phone call? Walk around while you're on the phone. Joining a video call on your laptop? Pick it up and put it on a bookshelf while you stand.

According to Honan, a popular phrase among ergonomists is "the next posture is the best posture." So, think of all the different ways you can position yourself and your body will thank you.

Stretch

If your limbs shrink inward and your back becomes more slouched as the day goes on, move your body in the opposite direction it gets stuck in.

If you're finding yourself crunching up your body, stretch "like a starfish," says Honan. "Get up, put your arms back and allow your body to use its normal range of motion, not just the part that curls up like a ball."

Take a walk to reset your joints and muscles and give your body a change of pace.

If it helps, set a timer for movement. Or create a solid goal, like a 30-minute walk or workout at the end of the workday.

Pay attention to discomfort

We all have aches and pains sometimes. Hopefully, they go away with time. But, if your pain continues to build over the course of a week, or if it doesn't go away overnight or over a weekend, "that's when you need to really pay attention," says Honan. "That means...you're starting to sustain something that could be more worrisome and really needs your attention."

"Don't wait that long," says Honan. "By the time you're feeling pain and discomfort, you're already paying a price."

You're a person, not a product

Paying attention to ergonomics isn't just about making you more efficient, it's about making sure that you feel good and wholly yourself when you're working - so you have the time and energy to do all the things you want to do outside of your job.

"Good work done in the easiest amount of time, the shortest amount of time... that allows you more time for everything else that makes you, you," says Honan.
The podcast portion of this episode was produced by Sylvie Douglis. We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.

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Lift Your Head and Lower Your Arms - You Might Just Feel Better : Life Kit

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subscribe to Life Kit podcast subscribe to Life Kit podcast If you're working or learning from home, you know the toll it can take on your body and mind. You might not have a supportive chair to sit on or the most comfortable tech to accommodate long hours in front of a computer at home.

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9.8.20 Click the link to access the video for today's session.

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9.8.20 Click the link to access the video for today's session.

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Store photos and docs online. Access them from any PC, Mac or phone. Create and work together on Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents.

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Window Swap gives you a window to the "world" - see a part of the world from someone else's window.

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Padlet:  Social Emotional Learning Part 2

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Padlet:  Social Emotional Learning Part 2

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Padlet with School Related Information for Teaching SEL

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Tips on Staying Sane During a Stressful Situation

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Tips on Staying Sane During a Stressful Situation

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At Greater Good, our mission is to share scientific research that can help promote a happier, more compassionate society. With the recent COVID-19 outbreak, we're committed to bringing you stories, tips, and tools for these uncertain times in our global community.

We'll continue to update this page with resources for individuals, families, and educators. Here are our most recent articles related to COVID-19:

Connect with us live

Join the Greater Good Science Center Tuesdays and Thursdays for Greater Good Together: 20 minutes of connection on Facebook Live. Our own Eve Ekman and Emiliana Simon-Thomas will lead a brief grounding practice and then offer practices to boost resilience, connection, or positivity. These sessions are FREE and our offering to give you a sense of community and connection during these hard times. They are easy to join: Just log in to our Facebook page Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1 p.m. PST.

The Greater Good Science Center and Reimagine are partnering to present a Daily Dose of Togetherness every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at noon through April 3, 2020. We invite you, for free, to join these special 50-minute virtual experiments where we'll come together online and in community to enhance our collective well-being. Find out how to register in advance and keep up with the calendar here.

Other resources below (click to jump to a section):
Resources for stress and anxiety
Resources for fostering connection
Well-being resources for parents
Well-being resources for educators
Other coronavirus well-being resources
Resources for stress and anxiety

Resources for fostering connection

Discover science-backed practices for more resilience, connection, and well-being, with step-by-step instructions on how to implement them in your life.

Learn research-tested strategies that you can put into practice today. In each episode, a guest tries a specific practice for well-being or connection, and shares their experience.

While you're home, try our online, self-paced course, offering skills to boost resilience and well-being in your life. Results from tens of thousands of our students show that it helps them reduce stress and feel more connected to others.

Made in collaboration with Holstee, this toolkit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.

Well-being resources for parents

Articles for resilience

Practices for parents and kids

Videos for parents and kids

A free online resource for social-emotional learning practices you can weave into your new homeschooling plan.

Well-being resources for educators

Activities and practices for mental health

Activities and resources for learning from home

Other coronavirus well-being resources

Being Resilient During Coronavirus, from Dr. Rick Hanson: Learn tips for feeling safe in a time of fear and threat with this video, meditation, and podcast.

Coronavirus Sanity Guide from Ten Percent Happier: Get live weekday talks with meditation teachers, guided meditations, and lectures, many of which are specifically related to COVID-19. Health care workers also get free access to the Ten Percent Happier meditation app.

Selected Links: The Behavioral Side of the Coronavirus from the Behavioral Scientist: Read insights about the psychological and behavioral patterns underlying our response to COVID-19.

Real-time Resilience Strategies for Coping with Coronavirus from the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience: Follow this list of valuable tips from experts on resilience and emergency management.

The Crisis Kit: 5 Tools for Helping Clients Through Turbulent Times from PositivePsychology.com: Mental health practitioners can use these five exercises to help clients find calm, a sense of control, and acceptance.

Free Live & Online - Daily Meditation & Support Groups from Mindful Leader: Thirty-minute sessions held Monday through Friday from March 23 to May 1, including 15 minutes of silent meditation and 15 minutes of reflection and discussion.

Coronavirus Resources: Staying Connected in Times of Isolation from Living Room Conversations: Conversation guides to help us connect and understand each other in these difficult times, plus live video chats to help us stay connected.

Coronavirus Anxiety: Daily Updates from Judson Brewer: Daily YouTube videos on how to work with these uncertain times and develop healthy, mindful habits, from a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who specializes in mindfulness and habit change.

ArtsWave Edition of Mindful Music Moments, from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Opera: 10 weeks of daily doses of guided meditation set to music.

Mindful Poetry Moments and the On Being Project: Participating schools, individuals and organizations will be offered recordings of poets reading their work. The audio will be accompanied by mindful prompts and meaning-making questions like "Does this poem encourage gratitude? How?" and "What's a line in this poem that brings a strong visual image to your mind?"

For parents

Kind World Explorers, from Camp Kindness Counts, a Greater Good Parenting grantee: A guidebook to support parents with distance learning that provides activities and example conversations that families can have to help foster communities of compassion.

Resilient Parenting, from Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, a Greater Good Parenting grantee: A digital, online parenting tool that can be made available to any families in need of support. It includes topics such as self-care, addressing trauma, how to have difficult conversations with children, and many other very pertinent topics for these times with a focus on character-building. This tool is a partnership between a social worker/case manager and a family, via phone, tablet or laptop that allows for weekly reflection, sharing and support. To receive it, email Heather.Kamia@lssmn.org.

Parents and COVID 19: Helping Your Children, from InfoAboutKids.Org: Here are suggestions for talking with younger and older children about COVID-19, as well as suggestions for parents.

How to Talk to Children about Difficult News, from the American Psychological Association: Instead of shielding children from the difficult news around us, adults should talk to kids about what is happening.

Parent/Caregiver Guide to Helping Families Cope With the Coronavirus Disease 2019, from The National Child Traumatic Stress Network: This resource will help parents and caregivers think about how an infectious disease outbreak might affect their family- both physically and emotionally-and what they can do to help their family cope.

How to Talk to Your Kids About Coronavirus, from PBS KIDS for Parents: Share age-appropriate information, provide reassurance, and what they can do to help during COVID-19 pandemic.

2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), from Healthy Children, American Academy of Pediatrics: Tips for parents about what they need to know about COVID-19.

For educators

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Greater Good's Guide to Well-Being During Coronavirus

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At Greater Good, our mission is to share scientific research that can help promote a happier, more compassionate society. With the recent COVID-19 outbreak, we're committed to bringing you stories, tips, and tools for these uncertain times in our global community. We'll continue to update this page with resources for individuals, families, and educators.

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Supporting Students in Dealing with Stress and Anxiety

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Supporting Students in Dealing with Stress and Anxiety

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When we asked teachers in our Facebook group to report on their biggest challenges, student stress popped up first.

One teacher shared that her first graders "struggle to concentrate in the face of ongoing stress at home. Specifically, one parent jailed, spousal abuse, homelessness, food insecurity, etc.". Another explained that his students often appear distracted from learning because anxiety, self-worth issues, and fear get in the way.

Studies confirm that students are experiencing increased anxiety. Results of a parent survey tell us that one in twenty U.S. children (ages 6-17) experienced anxiety or depression in the 2011-2012 academic year, and another study indicated that about a third of teens (ages 13-18) have suffered from anxiety. Further, 39% of college freshmen surveyed in 2017 reported frequently feeling "overwhelmed by all I had to do."

Challenge Question

How can we support our students in navigating stress and anxiety so that they can feel a greater sense of safety, well-being, and openness to learning in our classrooms?

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School Challenge: Addressing Students' Stress & Anxiety | Greater Good In Education

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When we asked teachers in our Facebook group to report on their biggest challenges, student stress popped up first. One teacher shared that her first graders "struggle to concentrate in the face of ongoing stress at home. Specifically, one parent jailed, spousal abuse, homelessness, food insecurity, etc.".

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Strategies by Subject Area to Support Social Emotional Development

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Strategies by Subject Area to Support Social Emotional Development

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Prosocial teaching strategies are not limited to particular curricula or programs, or to certain academic subjects. They are methods and techniques that can be used in a variety of classes, age groups, and circumstances.

What they have in common is that, in addition to serving learning objectives, they promote social-emotional development and prosocial goals. When implemented well, these strategies can aid educators in creating a supportive, caring classroom environment and spur students to behave in kind and helpful ways towards each other.

To help foster cohesive lab groups in the beginning of the school year, a middle school science teacher gives students a contrast experience of working individually versus working in a group. Using straws, plastic wrap, cotton balls, aluminum foil, and paper, each student has one minute to engineer a wall with protective devices so Humpty Dumpty won't break when he falls. Then, in groups of two, students are instructed to do the task again, but in three minutes. Finally, students are assigned lab roles (project director, materials manager, data recorder, and time keeper) and told to complete the task one last time. After each grouping, the students discuss what worked and what didn't, with a focus on problem-solving skills, cooperation, and conflict resolution.

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Prosocial Teaching Strategies | Greater Good In Education

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Prosocial teaching strategies are not limited to particular curricula or programs, or to certain academic subjects. They are methods and techniques that can be used in a variety of classes, age groups, and circumstances. What they have in common is that, in addition to serving learning objectives, they promote social-emotional development and prosocial goals.