6 Core Exercises to Fix Your Bad Body Posture

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

If you work from a desk all day or sit in a car for a long commute to and from work, chances are that you’ve experienced the painful effects of poor posture.

From neck, shoulder, and back pain, to weak abs, and tight hip flexors, sitting too much takes a severe toll on your body.

Incorrect posture is often characterized by the following signs:

– Rounded shoulders
– An excessive arch in the lower back (Lumbar Lordosis)
– Tight chest muscles and a stiff thoracic spine (Kypholordotic)
– Forward head
– Weak glutes
– Weak abdominals
– Tight hamstrings
– Lower back pain
– Mid and upper back pain

How Your Core Affects Your Posture

Our core muscles play a vital role in how we move our body. They have a direct affect on posture, movement, and mobility. Your core is always working – when you stand up, walk, lift an object, or even breathe. The strength of your core determines your ability to balance, stabilize, and control weight every time you exercise.

The spine and pelvic girdle act as the control center of your core with the surrounding muscles – like your abdominals, erector spinae, and gluteus – contracting and providing stability.

Since incorrect posture leads to both tight and weak muscles, it’s important to implement a good stretch and mobility regime with exercise.

Our six core exercises to improve posture will strengthen all of the muscles surrounding the spine and pelvic girdle to help correct the pain, weakness, and tightness that comes with improper posture.

6 Core Exercises To Improve Posture

A note on proper breathing: Just as proper form is important to receive all of the benefits of an exercise, proper breathing is too. As you complete the following core exercises, it is important that you breathe properly in order to engage the core and strengthen it.

• Inhale through nose
• Exhale through mouth as you pull your navel up and in towards your spine to contract your abs.

Plank | 45 sec

This exercise strengthens the rectus abdominis – the six-pack muscle – along with the internal and external obliques. It also works our back muscles like the erector spinae and the glutes.

1. To begin, lie down on the floor. Prop yourself up onto your forearms and spread your fingers wide so that your hands are flat on the ground. Your forearms should be parallel to one another.

• Tuck your toes under and lift your knees up off the floor. Straighten out your legs and keep your hips in line with your shoulders.

• Pull your navel up and in towards your spine, firm up your quadriceps and squeeze your glutes. Press firmly against the ground with your forearms. Focus on breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth as you hold for 45 seconds.

Prone Back Extensions | 15 reps

This exercise strengthens the erector spinae and glutes, and helps to improve the mobility of the spine.

1. Start by lying down on the floor on your belly.

• Straighten your legs out behind you with your toes untucked and place your forehead on the mat. Bend your elbows and place your palms on the mat next to your ribs with your elbows pointing up towards the ceiling.

• Keep the tops of your feet pressing down into the mat the entire time. Inhale to peel your forehead, chest, and palms off the mat. Hold for a moment at the top to feel your lower back and glutes working. Then, exhale to slowly release back down.
• Repeat for 15 repetitions.

Bird Dog | 20 reps, alt sides

This exercise strengthens the rectus abdominus, the obliques, the erector spinae, and the glutes.

1. Begin kneeling on the floor in a tabletop position. Stack your shoulders over your wrists and your hips over your knees. Spread your fingers wide and press down through your palms and engage your abs.

• Press down firmly with your left palm and your right knee. Take an inhale and lift your right hand off the ground while at the same time lifting your left leg off the ground. Straighten your right arm forward and your left leg back, reaching through your fingertips and toes.

• Pause for a moment to balance, then slowly place the right hand and the left knee back down as you exhale. Switch sides, then continue alternating for a total of 20 repetitions.

Russian Twists | 20 reps

This exercise strengthens the internal and external obliques, the rectus abdominis, and the erector spinae.

1. Start by sitting on the floor with your knees bent and your feet on the ground.

• Reach your arms straight out in front of you and bring your palms to touch. Lean your upper body back an inch or two and squeeze your shoulder blades together. Engage your abs and pick your feet up to make your shins parallel to the ground.

• Take an inhale and then as you exhale, twist your torso to the right, bringing your hands to tap the floor next to your right hip. Inhale, to come back to center and then, exhale to twist to the left. Inhale to come back to center and then continue going side to side for a total of 20 repetitions.

Modification: If you feel your lower back hurting or if your shoulders begin to round forward, modify by keeping your feet on the ground.

Side Planks with Hip Dips | 15 reps per side

This exercise works the transverse and rectus abdominis, the obliques, erector spinae, and the glutes.

1. Begin by lying down on your right side. Prop yourself up onto your right forearm and take your left hand onto your left hip. Flex your feet and stack your left foot on top of your right foot.

• Press into your right forearm to lift your right hip off the ground. Then, reach your left arm straight up towards the ceiling.

• Inhale, lift your left hip an inch higher, then exhale to dip your right hip down a couple of inches towards the floor. Inhale to lift left hip back up then continue for 15 repetitions. Then, switch sides.

Bridge with Bent Elbows | 45 sec

This exercise strengthens the erector spinae and the glutes.

1. Start by lying on the floor with your knees bent and your feet hips-width distance apart. Bend your elbows to 90 degree angles and press the triceps into the floor with your fingertips pointing towards the ceiling.

• Keep your knees in line with your toes and inhale to lift your hips up towards the ceiling.

• Press down through your heels and squeeze your glutes and abs. Hold for 45 seconds and then slowly release.

Watch this video – How To Correct Your Posture – 5 Home Exercises To Fix Your Posture

Written by Kelly Collins

Author Bio:

Kelly is a certified Personal Trainer with NASM, a Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Teacher, and has her B.S. in Kinesiology from San Diego State University. She is co-owner of Roaming Yogi Adventures, a yoga and adventure-based retreat. She believes that having fun and well-rounded exercise is the key to maximizing strength, flexibility, and mental health.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook

How to Tackle the Most Stubborn Vertigo and Dizziness?

 

Click HERE to Discover How You Can Heal Your Vertigo and Dizziness Permanently in Just 15 Minutes

Stopping the Most Stubborn Vertigo & Dizziness

Vertigo is one of the most common health complaints that doctors get. Most of the time, they’re unable to help.

And even after doctors use their most effective techniques to treat vertigo, and after it seems like the underlying cause is gone, the vertigo continues.

But a study in the latest Chinese Journal of Otorhinolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery now reveals a simple method to eliminate this residual vertigo after initial treatment.

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is the type of vertigo in which calcium crystals fall into the semicircular canals in your inner ear, where they irritate the nerve hairs that send balance information to your brain.

Drugs cannot cure this type of vertigo. The most common treatment method is head movements that move the calcium crystals back out of the canals so they can no longer interfere with the information those nerve hairs send to your brain.

But even after completing a program of head movements, many vertigo sufferers still struggle with residual dizziness and the accompanying difficulty in daily function.

With these people in mind, scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai conducted a study to see how to finish off that residual vertigo that survives initial treatment.

They recruited 129 people with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo who had undergone successful canalith repositioning procedures and whose circular canals were now free of these irritating calcium invaders.

All the subjects were still struggling with residual dizziness.

The researchers divided them into three groups:

• one that received no additional treatment.
• one that received vestibular rehabilitation training for four weeks.
• one that received 12 milligrams of betahistine three times a day for four weeks.

Betahistine is an antihistamine commonly prescribed for vertigo.

At the end of the four weeks, the participants completed the commonly used Vestibular Activities and Participation measure, a questionnaire that asks respondents about their daily activities and social participation to check the effects of dizziness on their lives.

In addition, the researchers performed a sensory organization test, a common balance test that assesses subjects’ ability to use visual and other sensory clues to maintain their postural stability.

These were the final results of the study:

1. The daily activities and social participation of all three groups improved over time, with the subjects in the vestibular rehabilitation group experiencing the fastest improvement. There was no difference between the rates at which the other two groups improved.

2. The balance of all three groups improved at the same rate until reaching normal levels.

3. It took between two and three weeks for all symptoms to resolve.

This shows that natural treatments are just as good or better than medications. And the best way I know to tackle the most stubborn vertigo and dizziness are the simple vertigo exercises explained here…

Vertigo Cured Using This Simple Home-Based Technique

A new British and Swedish study reveals disturbing findings on doctor’s ability to help people with vertigo.

Or, you could say it reveals the amazing ability of people to heal themselves of vertigo.

Because after receiving info on a simple way to heal vertigo, the self-help group fared much better than the group guided by doctors.

A total of 296 vertigo sufferers, aged 50+, were either sent for face-to-face visits to a doctor or were directed to a simple website with information and techniques to battle vertigo.

A vestibular rehabilitation website was compiled by health psychology and primary care researchers at the University of Southampton. It included video demonstrations, text directions, personal feedback, and cognitive-behavioral coping strategies.

You can find the site here…

The general practitioners to whom the other group was sent served at 54 primary care facilities in the south of England.

To measure the severity of their vertigo, the researchers gave the participants the Vertigo Symptom Scale–Short Form at the beginning of the study, after three months, and again after six months.

By the end of both the three-month and the six-month periods, the vestibular rehabilitation group had less vertigo than the general practitioner group.

Moreover, after both of these periods, the vertigo-related disability scores were also much lower in the vestibular rehabilitation group than among their peers who received the standard treatment.

This shows that people can often achieve much better results from taking charge of their conditions themselves than from relying on doctors that may sometimes be misguided.

But even better than vestibular rehabilitation are simple sets of vertigo and dizziness exercises, found here, that work almost instantly to tackle the most stubborn vertigo and dizziness…

These Common Foods Cure Vertigo

Vertigo is the most common complaint that doctors receive.

One of the reasons it’s so hard to treat is that doctors struggle to find the root cause of vertigo.

But now, the European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology has just published a study that identifies one cause of almost all cases of vertigo.

And with that comes a simple solution to treat it naturally.

Peripheral vertigo is usually contrasted with central vertigo. It occurs when something goes wrong in your inner ear, as opposed to your brain or brainstem, as is the case in central vertigo.

The overwhelming majority of vertigo cases in the world are cases of peripheral vertigo.

Turkish researchers from academic and medical institutions in Istanbul and Kutahya wanted to know whether people with peripheral vertigo had more oxidative stress in their bodies than people without vertigo.

They recruited 60 subjects—30 with vertigo and 30 without—who had an average age of 60.

Blood samples were collected from all the subjects and tested for three common markers of oxidative stress: prolidase, malondialdehyde, and catalase.

They found substantially higher levels of prolidase and malondialdehyde in the bloodstreams of the vertigo sufferers compared to those without vertigo, but there was no difference in the levels of catalase.

This suggests that people with vertigo have higher levels of oxidative stress than the rest of the population, as indicated by two common markers.

It is fortunate that it is possible to prevent some of this oxidative stress—first, by avoiding foods that cause oxidative stress, such as refined grains, sugar, fatty meat, and too much vegetable oil, and second, by eating plenty of antioxidant foods.

Antioxidant foods include the following:

1. Vitamin C. Think kale, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, yellow bell pepper, tomato, peas, guava, kiwifruit, orange, lemon, grapefruit, strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry.

2. Vitamin E. Think spinach, broccoli, squash, pumpkin, sweet potato, avocado, olive oil, coconut oil, almond, hazelnut, pistachio, sunflower seed, sesame seed, pumpkin seed, shrimp, oysters, crayfish, trout, herring, salmon, kiwifruit, mango, blackberry, peach, apricot, and guava.

3. Vitamin A. Think sweet potato, carrots, butternut, all squash, pumpkin, kale, spinach, lettuce, tuna, oysters, milk, all sweet peppers, paprika, basil, marjoram, tomato, mango, and papaya.

4. A wide variety of flavonoids in a wide variety of foods, especially rosemary, oregano, sage, marjoram, cucumber, artichoke, broccoli, cauliflower, radish, red wine, grapes, blackberry, cocoa, capers, onion, and citrus fruit.

5. Curcumin and capsaicin. Think curry and chili peppers.

This leaves you with many antioxidant foods from which to choose.

Watch this video to learn how to tackle the most stubborn vertigo and dizziness – Stop Vertigo/Dizziness at Home; Brandt Daroff Maneuver

But eating antioxidants may not be enough to completely eliminate vertigo or even to tackle the most stubborn vertigo and dizziness. However, the simple exercises here have been proven to help almost everyone to get 100% vertigo free—as soon as today…

This post is from the Vertigo and Dizziness Program, which was created by Christian Goodman. This is natural vertigo treatment program created for people who are looking for the most effective vertigo home remedies, that utilizes the power of exercises to permanently eliminate vertigo symptoms.

This will help to eliminate tension and improve your blood flow and balance. From this Vertigo Relief Program, you will learn to strengthen your tongue, achieve whole-body balance, relieve tension and enhance your overall well-being.

To find out more about this program, click on Tackle the Most Stubborn Vertigo and Dizziness

7 Ways to Eat Away Your Autoimmunity and Inflammation

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

How I Ate Away My Autoimmunity with the Paleo Diet

PaleoPlan Nutritionist, Kinsey Jackson, shares her journey to reclaiming her health and how she naturally reversed her autoimmunity.

Chances are you know someone with an autoimmune disease or disorder. Over 80 different autoimmune disorders have been recognized to date, and this number continues to grow as scientists uncover more ways in which the immune system can become dysregulated.

Some of the more well-known autoimmune diseases include celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune thyroiditis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Crohn’s disease, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes, and eczema.

Simply stated, autoimmunity occurs when your immune system attacks your own tissues. A healthy immune system creates antibodies against anything that it perceives as foreign, such as viruses, bacteria, and the like.

In the condition of autoimmunity, the immune system starts producing antibodies against the body itself (called autoantibodies), which lead to the characteristic symptoms of autoimmunity: pain, swelling, and tissue destruction.

If you suffer from autoimmune disease, then you know how serious things can get when your immune system goes haywire and mounts an attack against you.

Since the immune system can target virtually any type of tissue or cell in the human body, the number of autoimmune disorders is theoretically endless. Regardless of the particular autoimmune disease, the underlying cause is always an overactive immune system that’s destroying the body’s own healthy tissues. In fact, what distinguishes one autoimmune disease from another, is simply the part of the body that’s currently under attack.

For example, rheumatoid arthritis is the result of the immune system targeting the body’s joints. Autoimmune thyroid diseases occur when the thyroid gland is under attack. Psoriasis and eczema result from the skin cells being targeted and lupus is the effect of damage to the connective tissues.

By now you may be wondering… why in the world would our immune system turn against us!? The answer: a leaky gut.

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Your Gut on Inflammation

Not until recently have we had solid evidence of how a leaky gut plays a major role in most (if not all) autoimmune disorders. Considering that 70 to 80 percent of the immune system lies in and around the gut wall, it’s not hard to imagine how the immune system gets triggered when particles of stuff from your intestines leak through the gut wall and into contact with the immune system, which produces inflammation in response.

A leaky gut that never heals can eventually result in chronic inflammation because the immune system’s first and foremost job is to produce inflammation in response to anything it perceives as foreign.

As it turns out, inflammation lies at the root of the vast majority of “diseases of modern society” that plague the modern world today, including heart disease, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and dementia, cancers, and of course, autoimmune diseases. Perhaps that’s why the father of Western Medicine (Hippocrates) proclaimed over 2,000 years ago that “All disease begins in the gut.”

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Paleo Obliterates Inflammation

The great news is that the Paleo diet does wonders to help heal leaky gut syndrome. Many people with autoimmunity (and other inflammatory disorders) have great success reversing their diseases by healing their leaky gut to eliminate inflammation.

If you or someone you know struggles with autoimmunity or another inflammatory disorder, then I recommend starting the Paleo diet immediately.

The Paleo diet removes the main food culprits of leaky gut that are known to trigger inflammation in the body such as: grains, legumes (beans), dairy, industrial seed oils, processed foods, and other man-made foods that are foreign to the human body.

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I Ate Away My Autoimmunity with the Paleo Diet

After being diagnosed with multiple autoimmune diseases at the young age of 30 (including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, hypothyroidism, alopecia areata, and eczema), I was able to reverse ALL of these disorders with the Paleo diet, and you can read my story here.

My profound healing experience prompted me to obtain my Master of Science in Human Nutrition and study exactly why my long-term vegetarian diet of nearly 25 years had made me so sick.

Now, as a Paleo nutritionist at Paleo Plan, I hear from hundreds (if not thousands) of people worldwide who share my very own experience. These same people have been able to reverse their autoimmunity with food and lifestyle alone!

If diving headfirst into the Paleo diet sounds overwhelming, then check out these seven easy ways to start eating away autoimmune disease… one delicious bite at a time!

7 Ways to Eat Away Autoimmunity and Inflammation

1. Ditch the Grains

Grains and pseudo-grains contain harmful chemicals called “anti-nutrients” that irritate the gut lining and trigger leaky gut syndrome, which results in the production of inflammation.

These anti-nutrients act to protect the plant while it remains in its seed stage of life. Mama plant doesn’t want you eating her babies, so she concentrates these chemicals in her seeds, which irritate the intestinal lining of most animals who eat the seeds. Keep in mind that grains are the seeds of grasses, and beans are the seeds of legume plants!

Examples of grains that are excluded on the Paleo diet: corn, rice, wheat, quinoa, oats, amaranth, teff, most flours, etc.

2. Ditch the Beans too

Similar to grains, legumes (beans) also contain problematic anti-nutrients (such as phytic acid) that not only irritate the intestines, but also bind up the precious minerals contained within the seed, making these nutrients unavailable for digestion and absorption into our bodies.

Examples of legumes that are excluded on the Paleo diet: beans, soy, lentils, peanuts, hummus, etc.

3. Don’t Go Nuts (on Nuts & Seeds)

Similar to the grains and legumes, nuts and seeds also contain anti-nutrients. However, they contain less of these harmful chemicals because their outer shell serves as the primary defense system while they remain in the seed stage.

Too many nuts and seeds can also trigger inflammation and leaky gut, so you’ll want to keep your consumption to a small handful a day or less.

To reduce the anti-nutrient content of raw nuts and seeds be sure to soak them in water for at least one day to allow them to start the sprouting process and rinse well before cooking or eating (don’t drink the soaking water)!

4. Eat More Fat

As it turns out, humans evolved eating a LOT more fat than we do today. The diets of our Paleolithic ancestors are estimated to have been up to 58 percent total fat and 15 percent saturated fat. In contrast, our current intake of fat is around 35 percent total fat and 11 percent saturated fat.

When we removed the fat from our diets, we increased the amount of carbohydrates, which are independently correlated to the production of inflammation in the body.

This shift in our macronutrient ratios away from fats and towards carbohydrates, may be the single biggest contributing factor to the current obesity and chronic disease epidemic!

While there is no one ideal macronutrient ratio, we keep the macros in our PaleoPlan meal plans within a range that we know works well for most people.

50-60% fat
20-25% protein
10-20% carbohydrate

5. Replace Bad Fats with Good Fats

Most people are confused when they hear that Paleo emphasizes fats which have been long scorned by traditional recommendations (like grass-fed red meats, butter and egg yolks), and avoids fats which are touted for heart health (such as liquid vegetable oils).

Most polyunsaturated vegetable oils are chemically unstable, and can readily become free radicals when exposed to heat, light, or oxygen. Free radicals are extremely health-destructive and are correlated to aging and disease.  Liquid vegetable oils also contain high amounts of inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids, which I’ll discuss in a moment

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In contrast, saturated fats (like lard, tallow, and butter) are much more stable on the molecular level, and can therefore be exposed to much higher amounts of heat, light, and oxygen without turning rancid. Our organs, brains, and hormones rely on saturated fats, which are used throughout the body to build and repair tissues.

Examples of fats to include in your Paleo diet are mainly saturated and monounsaturated fats, with very few polyunsaturated fats. Ideally these fats are grass-fed, pastured, organic, and/or unrefined and include: animal fats, grass-fed butter and ghee, egg yolks, lard, tallow, schmaltz, coconut products, avocados and their oil, extra virgin olive oil, and more.

Example of fats excluded on the Paleo diet: butter alternatives (margarine), “vegetable oils”, Crisco, and the oils of canola, cottonseed, grapeseed, peanut, safflower, soybean, sunflower, etc.

6. Correct your Omega 6:3 Ratio

Your omega 6:3 ratio is simply the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in your body. Most of us have waaay more (inflammatory) omega-6 than we do (anti-inflammatory) omega-3 in our bodies. Having an elevated omega 6:3 ratio readily triggers inflammation because omega-6 is the direct chemical precursor to inflammation!

The best way to correct your omega 6:3 ratio is by gradually increasing your intake of omega-3 fats, while reducing your intake of inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids.

You can accomplish this is by eating oily seafood two to three times a week (that’s about 10-20 oz. of cold-water, fatty fish per week). At the same time, you’ll want to minimize your intake of omega-6 fats, which are found in the vegetable oils I’ve listed above under the “fats excluded on the Paleo diet.”

7. Challenge Dairy

Human beings didn’t eat dairy products before animals became domesticated and current statistics estimate up to 70 percent of the world’s population is lactose intolerant to some degree (lactose is one of the sugars found in dairy), while others are more sensitive to the protein components found in dairy (i.e. casein, whey, etc.).

Many people don’t realize they have a dairy intolerance until they remove it from their diet for at least 4-6 weeks in what’s called an elimination provocation challenge.

Once removed for several weeks, most people with dairy intolerance will react adversely when it’s eaten again (i.e. return of symptoms, allergies, digestive disturbances, etc.). If you’re eating dairy and have even a mild intolerance, it can result in the production of chronic inflammation from your immune system.

Try removing all dairy from your diet for at least 4-6 weeks to see if your symptoms improve (i.e. less bloating, fewer allergies, more energy, less body pain and inflammation, etc.).

If you do decide to include dairy in your diet, be sure that it’s high quality: grass-fed, pastured, and organic. Most people tolerate grass-fed ghee, since it’s butter that has been clarified into pure butterfat, meaning the allergenic protein and sugar components have been removed.

Watch this video – ANTI-INFLAMMATORY FOODS | what I eat every week

The Bottom Line

If you’re suffering from autoimmunity or another inflammatory disorder, please know that there’s hope for you that does NOT involve lifelong pharmaceutical drugs! So many people, including myself, have incredible success putting (and keeping) autoimmune disease in remission with diet and lifestyle alone.

The Paleo diet helps thousands of people worldwide to shed inflammation to regain their health and vitality by simply eating the foods that Mother Nature intended for us to eat.

Healing the gut with delicious, whole foods is by far the safest and most antiquated method to keep our bodies disease-free.

In good health,
Kinsey Jackson, MS, CNS®
PaleoPlan Nutritionist

Written by Kinsey Jackson

Author Bio:

Kinsey Jackson, MS, CNS® is a clinical nutritionist specializing in functional and integrative nutrition. Her own experience of overcoming multiple autoimmune disorders by adopting a Paleo lifestyle vastly contributes to her passion for helping others to also reclaim their health and vitality by making informed dietary decisions.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook