Short on time? Incorporate these three quick tips for better sleep, fitness and health!
1. Luckie’s Sleep Tip: Keep Your Bedroom Cool
BENEFITS
- Assist in keeping core body temperature low during sleep to promote uninterrupted high quality sleep
- Seven to eight hours of high quality sleep promotes production of growth hormone for calorie-
burning muscle and can assist in controlling appetite
HOW TO DO
To assist in keeping your room cool and core body temperature low, try one or more of the following:
- Keep room temperature between 60-67 degree Fahrenheit
- Use light-weight bed covering
- Wear light pajamas
- Utilize cool-temperature sheets and pillows
For optimal fitness results, balance high quality sleep with exercise and healthy nutrition.
2. Luckie’s Exercise Tip: Plank
BENEFITS
- Strengthens core (abs and lower back area)
- Tones abs and shoulder muscles
HOW TO DO
Get into a push-up position. Rest on forearms with arms positioned at shoulders width. Contract your abs and glutes. Keep body in a straight line. Hold position for as long as possible without allowing hips to sag. Add time as you build core strength.
3. Luckie’s Food Tip: MORE Fruit
BENEFITS
- Good source of antioxidants
- High water content
- Great source of fiber
- Assists with satiety
- Can satisfy cravings
- Great snack between meals
- Can appease appetite
- Tasty dessert
HOW MUCH TO CONSUME
For fresh fruit, load up! The natural sugar in fruit is balanced by its water and fiber content. The water/fiber content will also provide a feeling of fullness. Go organic for fresh fruit with soft skin. Go conventional with fresh fruit with hard skin.
For dried fruit, limit consumption to one handful and go organic. Dried fruit is a good source of iron.
Visit the BlackDoctor.org Fitness center for more helpful articles and tips.
Sloan Luckie, a Certified Personal Trainer and Certified Public Accountant, is the author of the optimal health workbook, Body Under Construction. Body Under Construction shows how to use nutrition, exercise and sleep to attain and maintain optimal health. Sloan’s unique philosophy on building and maintaining optimal health has garnered significant media attention. He has appeared on NBC’s “The Talk” with Marion Brooks, NY1 News with Cheryl Wills, WVON Radio with Kendall Moore, WYCA Radio with TL Richardson and graced the pages of Syd Jerome magazine. He’s conducted wellness demonstrations for women’s heart disease, men’s prostate and childhood obesity awareness seminars. Sloan has also conducted nutrition and fitness demonstrations for corporations and not-for-profit organizations throughout the United States.