We all know the saying “no pain, no gain.” Hence, after we workout heavily in the gym, we expect to be sore the day after, and even more so the day after that. This phenomenon is known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS. However, did you know that it is actually possible to work out and significantly reduce – while not 100% eliminate – DOMS? Having DOMS doesn’t mean that you have worked out more or that you have gained more muscle tissue. Indeed, sometimes, no pain means gain. So how do you achieve this?

Condition Your Muscles

The first thing you absolutely must do is condition your muscles.

“Ensuring that you warm up before exercising by lightly working the same muscles that you are going to train can go a long way to reducing DOMS. Bodyweight exercises or light weights can be good for this.”

It is about more than that, however. Really, what you must do is allow your muscles to get used to the exercises you will put them through. Slowly does it, in other words. You may have the initial strength to deadlift 400 lbs when you first start, but if you then force yourself to do three sets of 10 reps of that, you will hurt in the morning, meaning longer recovery times and slower progress. Do what feels comfortable instead, so you start to struggle on the eight rep. Then slowly build your weights up.

Water, Water, Water!

The second incredibly important thing is that you should always be fully hydrated.

“Drinking plenty of water is one of your best defenses against muscle soreness. A good rule of thumb is to drink half an ounce of water per pound of bodyweight. So, if you’re 200 lbs, drink 100 oz of water daily. Sound like a lot? Start chuggin!”

Also, make sure that you are not just hydrated during your workout. While it is vital that you have a bottle of water next to you when you workout, you should also drink properly before you start and afterwards as well. Water is the building block of life, and there is no such thing as too much water.

Take Hot and Cold Baths

This sounds like absolute torture, but hot and cold baths work really well, and this has been scientifically proven.

“A common theme here so far is blood flow to transport nutrients to the muscle and clear metabolites. Physiotherapists advise contrast heat and cold to cause alternating vasodilation/vasoconstriction of the blood vessels at the affected area. Switch every 2 minutes between hot and cold. Don’t use extreme temperatures.”

If jumping between hot and cold showers sounds like torture, there is a much more relaxed way that you could achieve this. In fact, most good gyms will enable you in this as well. That method is the sauna. Having a hot sauna followed by a cold dip, followed by a few minutes in the steam room is a relaxing, far more comfortable way to achieve the same results. Plus, it means your pores are cleaned as well, leaving you with healthy skin.

These are just a few of the methods to help you lessen the effects of DOMS. The most important of these is the warm up. Interestingly, most people think that stretching after your workout, during the cool down process, is actually the most beneficial. In reality, however, unless you were to go from the gym straight into your bed, the warm up is far more vital. Your muscles will cool down through regular movement, but you have to properly prepare them for the workout you are about to do.

A lot of people want to lose weight, for a variety of reasons. Most of us achieve this by cutting out calories and increasing the amount of exercises we do and this tends to work. However, inevitably, we reach some sort of plateau. Either we stop losing weight, we become burned out or we can’t stick to our diet. Most of us then feel like a complete failure, but the reality is actually that we are making a number of mistakes, which can easily be avoided.

Mistake 1 – Training Too Much

When it comes to working out and dieting, the golden rule is less is more. You may feel that if you cut more calories or workout out more, you will see more results. In reality, however, you will leave yourself barely able to cope. If you are cutting your calories, you already don’t have sufficient nutrients to truly sustain your body. If you then also increase the amount of training that you do, it quickly becomes obvious that you will wear yourself out.

“Exercising excessively or incorrectly can backfire on your health in a number of ways. Your body can enter a catabolic state, in which your tissues break down.”

What you should do instead is what is known as the “minimum effective dose,” which means you do as little as possible while still seeing results. Three sets of around one hour a week are more than enough.

Mistake 2 – Doing Isolation Work

Most bodybuilders do targeted isolation work. This is a fantastic idea if you are trying to bulk up, but you are trying to lose weight. If you do this when you are on a calorific deficit, it will backfire tremendously. In fact, it will start to eat up any muscle tissue you do have.

The solution is to do exercises that target the whole body. Also make sure you go through the full range of movements, including pulls and pushes. This way, you start to build up some muscle tissue, while at the same time burning up your fat reserves. Once you have reached your target weight, you can start thinking about bulking up those muscles.

Mistake 3 – Too Much Cardio

Cardio is a firm favorite amongst people who want to lose weight. It gets your heart rate going and burns a whole lot of calories, so it must be good for you. It is certainly true that cardio should be an integral part of your weight loss regimen, but there is such a thing as too much as well. Remember, less is more! Again, you are at significant risk of burn out.

“There is this horrible misperception in our society about fat loss. A lot of people think that if you starve yourself and do two or three hours of cardio each day, the fat is just going to melt off. Actually, performing too much cardio will put your body in a catabolic state and burn hard-earned muscle. The loss of muscle will not only reduce strength, but it will also slow down your metabolism. If your metabolism slows down too much, you’ll have a tough time burning fat.”

If you want to lose weight fast, it is far more important to focus on your diet. Keep the calories down and do only a bit of cardio. This will increase your metabolic rate, leading to weight loss.

Mistake 4 – Cutting Muscle

We all know that to lose weight, we will have to cut. Cut your food intake, and you will start to feel hungry, which is hard to deal with. Plus, there is a chance that you start eating up your muscle tissue. You need to treat your muscle as a sacred thing.

Hence, make sure you follow the Eat Well plate and consume enough protein, fat and carbs to sustain yourself. Although reducing your calories is vital to weight loss, you should not cut more than 10% to 20% from your maintenance level. Remember that you are also working out, which means you’re burning more.

Mistake 5 – Cutting Too Clean

Clearly, if you’re going to change your diet and lifestyle, you will also focus on getting what calories you are allowed to eat from clean, wholesome foods. Nothing wrong with that. However, there is a chance that you start to be too restrictive, and you won’t be able to sustain this. If you never allow yourself that little biscuit, you will only crave for it more.

As more and more people are becoming aware of the need to be proactive when it comes to getting fit, it seems that a few are able to make their new attempts at a healthier lifestyle work for them. More often than not, those who seem to fall through the cracks will have one missing ingredient that could help them make a success out of their efforts. They tried to do it alone. According to ACTIVE.com,

“On any given day in a warehouse, in a park or at the gym you can find people exercising together. There’s everything from Running Clubs, Active X, and Roller Striders to Boot Camp classes. So why exactly are so many people jumping the ‘lone wolf’ ship to workout with others in a group setting?”

As it turns out, there are many good reasons why people will want to have a fitness buddy as they work on improving themselves.

Motivation

There are different types of people who are joining the fitness craze these days but when it comes to rising up at 5 in the morning to get a workout in before work, only few want to hold onto that ‘lone wolf’ position. For those people there is only one way to overcome and apply that ‘Mind over Mattress’ syndrome; to have a friend or workout buddy to motivate you to rise before the sun and start that slow, hard before the break of day. Group workouts and exercise partners have a way of re-energizing you so that you can drag yourself into the gym but you’ll leave with a fire in your belly wanting more.

Accountability

They also have a way of making you accountable for your commitments. If you’re alone and you said you were going to workout three days a week, your partner will be looking for you three days a week. Few things can be more unnerving than having to explain yourself when you didn’t meet your commitment. As pointed out in Fit Savvy,

“You can hold each other accountable for getting to the gym, staying for a certain amount of time and going hard for the duration. There’s the added benefit of having a spotter, plus there are a ton of exercises and stretches you can only perform with a partner (medicine ball tosses, resistance leg lifts, etc.)”

When you have a partner to work along with you there will be a sense of responsibility that will compel you to do a bit more than you would if no one was keeping tabs on you.

Socialization

Because we are social people by nature, group exercises have a tendency to make people feel much more comfortable in the gym than when you’re working out alone. You’ll notice that many fitness experts will pair you with another comparatively fit person to practice new routines with. These groups will foster a team spirit that encourages a certain level of camaraderie and unity that you will be hard pressed to find any other way. As you workout together, you’ll bond closer through shared experiences even in the light of heavy competition.

But probably the main reason so many people want to workout with their friends is the “fun factor.” According to Tesco Living,

“It’s often simply much more fun to get fit with friends. It helps pass the time, alleviates boredom and because you’re enjoying yourself, you’re much more likely to stick at it. You can also either go with one pal, or get a few friends together.”

Of course, we’re all looking to get fit; it is our primary goal. But there is no reason why you can’t get the most out of such an experience and have fun at the same time. Friends have a way of helping us all put our best foot forward and are much more inclined to motivate you in ways you would never do yourself. So, why not make the most out of your friends and together find the perfect way to get fit.

Most of us who need to deal with excess weight will readily admit that poor eating habits are behind the problem. Mindless eating even when we’re not hungry can add an untold amount of extra calories without us realizing it. However, by putting some simple strategies in place, you can not only recognize when you’re eating down the wrong path but also learn how to manage those habits and change your mindless eating into something much more productive. As health experts in the Express blog explain,

“It could be that it’s time to eat or simply that you’re faced with food. Maybe you’re bored or using food as a form of procrastination. Perhaps you’re celebrating or eating in secret to fill an emotional void: Whatever your habits there’s a good chance you’re eating for reasons other than hunger.”

Learning why you’re eating is just as important as what you’re eating, and without that knowledge you’ll always have a problem with managing your eating habits.

Are You an Environmental Eater?

Those who are environmental eaters have a tendency to eat whenever food is in their presence whether they’re hungry or not. This is why many stores make such a large amount of money by putting snack foods right at eye view at the checkout. It encourages impulse buying. The problem is that more often than not your food choices won’t be healthy ones. By recognizing this part of yourself you can implement a plan to keep those enticing foods completely out of sight. Foods that could be most tempting to you should be kept in opaque containers well out of sight and you can reduce many of your temptations.

Are You a Social Eater?

You could be a social eater; however, this will cause you trouble only when you’re around other people, which for most of us is a lot of the time. Meetings, celebrations, and evenings out with friends and family could prove to be a major temptation. Try spacing your social events out over a longer period of time so that you’re not exposed to too much eating at one time. If a friend asks you out, consider suggesting something that involves more activity in lieu of more eating. Taking a walk together, a day at the beach or some other outdoor activity might just do the trick. Another suggestion offered by Health Eating for the Huffington Post is,

“The next time you eat with a friend or a group, slow down, put your fork down between bites and monitor the effect. Taking the lead on speed can help you and your dining companions avert overeating, and feel more satisfied with smaller portions.”

In this case, you have to change your views of eating as a form of entertainment and use it instead as you would with any other part of your life. Once you change your view of food the easier this habit will be to break.

There are many reasons why people may choose to engage in mindless eating. In most cases, they do not even realize that they are consuming countless surplus calories at all, often forgetting that they had anything to eat at all. Changing your eating habits is not always an easy thing to do but with a little insight and understanding of the psychological triggers of eating you can be successful.
As Everyday Health tells us,

“It’s not just willpower, or a lack thereof, that makes us overeat and gain weight. Sometimes, it’s that sneaky bad habit you developed without even realizing it… The next thing you know, one little bad habit can equal out to a lot of weight gain.”

The sooner you come to grips with your eating habits and create solutions to address the problem the sooner you’ll see results in your weight loss efforts.