One proven way to reduce sick days and improve both the mental and physical well being of your employees is to promote physical activity at the workplace. Many office workers spend long hours stuck behind a desk, so motivating them to get up and move should not be much of a problem. Something as simple as scheduling a mid-morning break, complete with stretching exercises, can do wonders for workers and help them be more productive on the job.

Another great idea is to start a walk at lunch program. Instead of sitting down to a greasy fast food meal, encourage your workers to enjoy a healthy lunch, followed by a brisk walk around the grounds of the company Some companies have even started walking clubs, complete with prizes for participation and certificates of accomplishment.

While these are all good ideas, in the end each business owner will need to decide which kind of motivation works the best. After all, the goal is to get your employees up and moving, and the actual way you accomplish that goal does not matter as much.

Take the stairs instead of the elevator whenever you can

Start off slowly. Don’t make your first trip via the staircase one that involves having to walk up eight flights of stairs Increase the number of stairs you walk up over time. After a few months this will become a habit and you will rarely even consider about taking the elevator.

Volunteer to run errands around the workplace

If someone in your department wants something delivered to a colleague three floors down, then volunteer to take it. Don’t think that your position and status in the company mean that you can’t volunteer for such a task. Leading by example is the best way to lead. You’ll gain respect as well as improved fitness levels!

See if any colleagues want to join you for a lunchtime walk

Walking for 30 minutes outside in the fresh air will provide you with your recommended daily quota of exercise, and leave you feeling re-energized for the afternoon ahead.

Remember to take regular breaks from you workspace throughout the day. One trick to ensure you do is to drink plenty of water. At least then you’ll have to walk to the washroom every so often!

However, the truth is that there is no scientific evidence that the “8 x 8″ rule – drinking eight, eight-ounce g) asses of water every day – is necessary for th e average, healthy adult. Eight glasses is actually too much water for many of us for the simple fact that we don’t typically lose that much fluid everyday.

Ideally, you’ll maintain a balance by replacing as much as you lose through bodily functions like sweating. Our bodies need that balance to remain healthy.

If you drink too little, you risk health problems like dehydration. If you drink too much, you risk different health problems “Water poisoning” is a very-real health problem, for example. A less-extreme problem is frequent urination.

Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that we obtain moisture and fluids through other sources. Food is a good source of moisture, for example. You just don’t need to drink as much after you eat a slice of watermelon as you do when you haven’t had that fruit. Your body uses the moisture to replace lost fluids, which means that you don’t have to drink as much to maintain the balance.

And despite popular belief, it’s okay to get some of your daily liquids through decaffeinated drinks like coffee and soda. Though it’s not necessarily healthy to drink nothing but caffeinated beverages, your body can use the liquid to replenish what it’s lost during the day. You don’t have to feel bad for having a glass of soda when you’ve had only two glasses of water.

Ultimately, each of us has our own water requirements. Your body’s needs are not set today, for the rest of your life. If you’re sick, you might need more fluids. If you’re exercising you’ll surely need more. You might need four glasses a day. Another person might need three. And your needs today will change tomorrow if you lose a different amount of fluid. The best thing to do is to drink when you are thirsty. Your body will tell you when it needs hydration, so pay attention to the thirst signals and respond as soon as possible. This, actually, is another aspect of the ‘hydration myth.” We used to believe that, if we waited to drink until we were thirsty, it was too late. This, however, is not typically true. If you listen to your body and do what it needs you to do, you will usually be fine.

So – don’t feel bad if you just can’t bring yourself to chug sixty-four ounces of water every day. If your body is taking in enough fluid, you’ll be fine. Pay attention to what your body is telling you and keep yourself hydrated. That’s the best way to make sure you’re taking in enough liquids.

Lose It! – Free

Set goals and establish a daily calorie budget that enables you to meet them. Stay on track each day by recording your food and exercise and staying within your budget. Enter food and exercise easily using a searchable database. Quickly re-enter foods and meals you’ve had in the past. Lose It! is the most complete and streamlined weight loss application available for the iPhone.

Restaurant Nutrition – Free

The Restaurant Nutrition application allows a user to easily view nutritional information about restaurant menus and track what they have eaten. The Restaurant Nutrition user can turn on diets to track calorie carbohydrates, protein, and fat to help track and quantify their dieting progress.

iFitness – $1.99

iFitness is a personal trainer for your iPhone that teaches, encourages, and tracks your progress from start to finish.  It features video demonstrations, over 2300 exercise and stretching routines and the ability to design your own workout.

Gym Buddy – $2.99

Gym Buddy is an easy to use, completely adaptable workout log. Define your exercises, plan your workouts, and log your sets by repetitions, weight, time & notes.

RunKeeper – Free

RunKeeper is an iPhone application that enables you to use the built-in GPS in your iPhone 3G to track all of your outdoor fitness activities, including duration, distance, pace, speed, elevation, calories burned, and path traveled on a map. You can store all of your historical activities on the RunKeeper website and share them with your friends!

I hope these fitness applications will help you stay on track with your fitness goals as they have for me.

Do you know of any other iPhone fitness apps that should be added to this list? Let us know in the comments!

Holidays are the time to relax, laze around and take a break from your normal daily routine. It not only helps in breaking monotony but it is also a time where your food habits and workout routines can go haywire and you may end up gaining unwanted weight in your body. In order to refrain from putting on these excess kilos, you can take some simple conscious steps and still make your holiday comfortable.

Try to stay fit during the holiday and continue light workout routines in your hotel fitness room. Even if you cannot exercise regularly, do not miss a chance when you can work out. You can do crunches, sit ups and push ups anywhere as you do not need any equipment. Take walks around the place you stay and enjoy the evening breeze. Try participating in at least one walking tour once a week around the place you stay.

If you are planning to stay fit on vacation, try to visit the beach, you can go for a good swim or if you are staying in a resort do not miss using the pool at least for half an hour. Go for a quick jog in the morning so that you feel energetic and fresh during the day and you can get the best out of the morning breeze.

You can also include outdoor fun activities like trekking, rock climbing, kayaking during your holiday and enjoy the scenic beauty. This would definitely take care of your exercise routine and stay fit on vacation.

Try taking a conscious decision against a lot of high calorie meals during your travel. A big meal can spoil your sleep which can also result in gaining weight. In case you are planning for a heavy meal, it should be during lunch and not during dinner.

When you are attending parties of gatherings, you can opt for nutritional delicacies including salads and vegetables. Do not over indulge yourself in junk food delicacies that are not quite desirable in your diet plan, you can consume small portions rather than consuming a full plate. You can also enjoy low-fat gravies. Increase the amount of vegetables on your plate rather than the fatty stuffing. Moderate your desserts by choosing non-dairy and fat-free topping. In order to not concentrate too much on the food, you can spend time with some wonderful people you like and cherish the time with them.

It is highly recommended to avoid alcohol as much as possible as it adds a lot of calories to your body. You can increase your meal content to keep yourself full rather than consume alcohol. Drink lots of water throughout the trip.

Try and avoid erratic meal routine, to stay fit during holidays and plan your food routine ahead when you travel. Carry some healthy snacks along with you so that you can avoid overeating in case you skip a meal. You can have fruits and fibrous foods to maintain healthy stomach.

Lastly, enjoy what you eat and do not get into the deprivation mode. You should not end up craving for enjoyment and not really experiencing a holiday in a true sense by restricting yourself too much.

Click here to learn fat burning secrets from the worlds best body builders and fitness models

Increasing the metabolism is the key to losing weight by burning calories and replacing fat, so that one becomes toned and well-shaped. Metabolism is essentially the physiochemical processes that occur in the body and is composed of anabolism and catabolism. Anabolism is the process of body matter construction where the body synthesizes, and from various nutrients creates the protoplasm that constitutes the body matter and is required for growth and repair of tissues that get damaged due to wear and tear of living. On the other hand, catabolism is the chemical process which is destructive in nature and leads to breaking down of complex substances into simpler forms with the release of energy that is required for fueling various processes and functioning of the body.

Together, the anabolism and the catabolism constitute metabolism, the rate of which is called the basal metabolic rate (BMR). The BMR is expressed in terms of the way energy is used by the body for its vital processes. The rate of metabolism is a function of how many calories you ingest by way of food intake and the number of calories that you burn through various types of physical activity.

One of the simplest and most effective ways to speed up your metabolism is to exercise. Exercising is effective as the vigorous physical activity helps to heighten the rate of burning of calories. The more is the intensity of the exercise, the greater the loss of calories. Exercise is useful for reducing body fat and increasing the lean matter, thus making the body lean and fit. It also helps you to build muscles so that your body becomes well toned and attractive to behold.

Aerobic exercise is one of the best ways to increase your metabolism. You can jog, swim or run the treadmill to increase your body’s metabolic rate for as much as 4-8 hours after you finish the exercise. So the next time you cycle around the block in the morning, do realize that you are speeding up your metabolism.

Weight training per se does not increase your metabolic rate, but it certainly helps in burning fat to give you that special toned look. So if you combine aerobic exercise with weight training you can speed up metabolism and also increase fat burning. Also, it makes sense to exercise in spurts of 10-15 minutes spread over the day so that the metabolic rate remains high and you keep in losing weight continuously.

Eating well is also essential to speed up your metabolism. You need to have a good breakfast as the body has the tendency to accumulate fat if you fast or if you try to deprive your body of food. Having 6 small meals a day is also a good idea to keep up the metabolic rate.

So now you know how to speed up your metabolism. Wish you all the best!

Click here to learn fat burning secrets from the worlds best body builders and fitness models

What is a liquid diet? It is prescribed when a person is suffering from gastrointestinal problems or infections or surgery in the mouth that does not allow ingestion of solid food. The advantage of a full liquid diet is that it keeps the body nourished and hydrated even when solid foods cannot be consumed by the patient due to medical reasons and exigencies.

Then, what is a liquid diet provides? It provides the body with essential nutrients, salts and minerals that help to keep up the body’s immunity and keep it fit under adverse circumstances. Such diet is helpful when a patient is not exactly on a saline drip and at the same time cannot start eating full meals. It’s like a meal type which is intermediate in nature and helps tide over the threatening situation effectively. Requirement of such diet also occurs after dental procedures like tooth extraction.

A liquid diet consists of fluids such as meat and vegetable broths, soups, clear fruity juices and ices as well as popsicles. These may also include carbonated or aerated drinks and gelatin deserts. Whatever the case, in essence of the liquid diet means total absence of any trace of solid substance. Presence of even a small portion of solid would not qualify a diet as being liquid in nature.

There are some liquid food forms that consist of strained fluids which may be smooth in consistency and where the food content may either be clear or somewhat opaque. The items that could be included in this category are milk and milkshakes, cream soups and broths, both vegetarian and otherwise. In some instances fully and smooth cooked cereals like cream of wheat, oatmeal along with a dash of butter and honey could do the trick.

Some of the examples of a liquid diet are as follows:

• Fruit Juices: You can have apple or grape and cranberry juice after ensuring that the pulp has been strained out properly. However, you cannot consume canned or fresh fruits as these are full of fiber which is solid in nature.

• Soups: Broths which are of vegetables or meats and strained cream soups are ideal. But you have to necessarily avoid soups which have solid chunks or pieces floating in them, be it of meat or vegetables.

• Beverages: Soda, colas, coffee, tea and water can be consumed without a second thought.

• Milk: You can have skim or whole milk and cream. Do avoid yogurt.

• Sweets: The example of a liquid diet you can have in this category are fruit ices, sherbets and cold drinks, ice cream, custards (without fruit fibers) and puddings which are liquid in form. All solid sweets, chocolate bars and the like have to be avoided.

What to avoid: If you are on a liquid diet you cannot consume butter and cheese, meats and meat products, cereals like rice and wheat based pies or dishes, breads and pizzas or burgers are also not allowed.

Adhering to a full liquid diet is quite simple to follow. It doesn’t really take much!

There are some reasons for this phenomenon. Vacation time is when one is relaxed and care-free. Being away from the hustle and bustle of modern life gives one a sense of well being and could lead to a person putting on weight. One tends to take it easy and also put on extra calories by being more generous and indulgent when it comes to food and drink. Indiscipline is quite punishing and manifests itself in the form of extra weight especially during holidays.

Here are some tips on staying healthy during the holidays:

• Eat wisely: Just because you are on vacation that does not mean that you can abandon your balanced diet. Consuming excess carbohydrates and even proteins causes the excess calories to be converted into fat. This is not at all permissible if you want to manage and even lose weight. You need to maintain your balanced diet with adequate portions of the different food types included in your meals. Have smaller, but more frequent meals or snacks to ensure that your metabolism is maintained at a level which is conducive to overall health and induces weight loss. Again, if you starve, your metabolism could dip and create hunger pangs that could cause you to overeat and become bloated up.

• Exercise: This is essential for weight loss and maintenance. During vacations, many people have a tendency to laze it out and take it easy, even stopping their regular exercise routines just because it’s a holiday. This is not acceptable, as weight gain does not stop just because you are not working and taking rest. It’s advisable to keep on doing your exercises, preferably early in the morning so that the weight loss continues throughout the day. Start early and remain fit. If you are doing some sightseeing during the day and into the night, it’s better to exercise in the morning or else you may not have the time, energy or even the motivation to exercise later.

• Drink plenty of water: Drinking enough water is essential as it keeps your metabolism at an even level. Drinking small amounts of water before meals also restricts appetite and prevents you from gorging and overeating. When you are out in the sun, ingesting enough water is also essential to prevent dehydration which is unhealthy. You do not need to wait until you feel thirsty to drink water. Just drink small amounts of water regularly throughout the day to ensure that you are not dehydrated. Remember that the human body is 70% water and that water is essential for life.

• Keep off alcohol: Alcohol makes the body put on those extra kilos real quick. It’s true that a beer belly is very unseemly and makes one look unattractive. While an occasional drink could be okay, as a rule, try to avoid too much alcohol during vacations, so you can be sure you’re staying healthy during the holidays.

Follow the above tips to help in keeping the weight off during the holidays. Happy Holidays!

Read all about hand sanitizer overuse here.