Author: Abbey

Consider this your permission to skip the gym today: Exercising too much without giving your body a break might make you sick, according to new research published in the journal Frontiers of Physiology. Researchers at Catholic University of Brasilia observed people who do CrossFit on a regular basis to see how the high-intensity exercise affected their muscles and immune system. After two consecutive days of the rigorous workout, people showed reduced levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines—proteins that white blood cells produce to help lower inflammation. In effect, the back-to-back workouts with no rest were hampering their immune function.

That study looked at CrossFitters specifically, but they’re not the only ones who need a little R&R. Taking some time off from the gym is essential, no matter what kind of workout you tend to do—whether it’s weight-lifting or running or something low-impact like a barre class. “Rest days are important regardless of intensity level because you’re placing the body and mind under some form of stress,” says Marlon Briscoe, a certified personal trainer and owner of BodyByBriscoe Studios in New York City. “Imagine going to school or work 365 days a year with no break—how would you feel?”

Keep reading for his tips about how to make the most of your days off.

1. TAKE OFF AT LEAST ONE DAY A WEEK.

If you’ve been exercising regularly for a while and are fairly advanced, you can probably get away with working out three or four consecutive days without any time off, says Briscoe; but even so, make sure to take off at least one full day each week. If you’re a newbie, you might want to ease into a routine and give yourself another day or two off (spread them out throughout the week).

“When you have a day or two off between workouts, your body will be able to come back at full force,” says Briscoe. Plus, he says, your mind will be rested, “so you’ll also be more encouraged to continue your program.”

2. ON WORKOUT DAYS, MIX IT UP.

If you do work out a few days in a row, make sure to target different muscles—for instance, do arms one day and legs the next, or alternate running days with cross-training. “Muscles break down during exercise and repair when you’re at rest,” says Briscoe. So if you keep working the same muscles over and over, they don’t get the chance to build themselves back up. “You’ll compromise your results if you work out the same body parts on consecutive days,” he says.

Another reason to change up the routine: You’ll lower your chances of injury. If your muscles are tight or sore and you try to work through the pain, you have a great chance of harming yourself, says Briscoe.

3. ON YOUR OFF DAYS, BE LAZY.

Don’t be tempted to go for an easy bike ride, jog, or yoga class on your day off—because you won’t really be giving your body the break it needs. “A rest day should be just that: rest,” says Briscoe.

If you want to do something a little active, he advises sticking to easy stretching (holding each stretch for at least 30 seconds) or foam rolling. Those will help keep your muscles loose without putting too much added strain on them.

4. PAY ATTENTION TO THE P.M.

Getting enough Zs is another key component to your recovery post-workout, says Briscoe. He also recommends eating something with casein protein before you head to bed to help your muscles further recover while you sleep. Science has shown this is a good strategy; in fact, downing a beverage with casein protein half an hour before bedtime improved exercisers’ protein synthesis rates (which helps repair muscles) by 22 percent in a 2012 study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. So feel free to enjoy a protein shake as a midnight snack.

Want to know how to really make your bank accounts grow? Copy what financial planners do. We grilled real financial planners to find out how they manage their own money.

1. PAY YOURSELF FIRST BY TRANSFERRING YOUR SAVINGS TO A DIFFERENT ACCOUNT.

“I always take my savings from my paycheck the day I’m paid and I transfer it to my savings account. The money is out of sight and out of mind. It is very rare to find a person who can’t spend more money if you give it to them. By taking the money out at first, you remove the temptation to spend those savings, and have a savings process in place.”
– Robert Finley, principal at Virtue Asset Management, a fee-only independent advisor serving the greater-Chicago area

2. PAY ALL YOUR BILLS EVERY PAYCHECK.

“I use credit cards to acquire the points from spending. By paying the credit cards off every two weeks [rather than once a month], I make sure I never forget a payment, and it helps keep my balances lower for reporting purposes. This process of paying bills every paycheck prevents missing bills or late payments. It also allows me to have a better handle on cash flow, because I am reviewing my financial picture every two weeks.”
– Finley

3. DON’T USE A DEBIT CARD OR ATM MACHINES.

“I use cash whenever possible, and I don’t want to have to pay the ATM transaction fees. I also believe I am in better control and am more mindful of my spending when I am using cash. Cash purchases make it feel very real.”
– Anne Brennan Malec, licensed clinical psychologist and financial therapist in Chicago

4. REVIEW ALL CHARGES.

“When I do use credit cards, I always review every charge to make sure no fraud has occurred and to bring an accountability to my spending—to make me aware of how much I spent in the last month on food, clothing, transportation. Awareness is the first step in the change process. I also review my Mint account to be sure I am spending within my budget.”
– Malec

5. SUBSCRIBE TO FOOD DELIVERY SERVICES.

“Food and dining expenses can quickly add up each month, and will-power is a muscle that can tire at the end of the day. It is not uncommon to have the very best intentions to plan to stop at the grocery store after work and pick up some items for dinner, but because you are tired and hungry, you decide instead to order in. In order to defend against this very human impulse, I began to subscribe to Blue Apron, Home Chef, and Hello Fresh. These allow customers to order meals in advance, and deliver the complete food kit to your home. The benefit is that you are no longer faced with the 4 p.m. dilemma of what to make for dinner.”
– Malec

6. PAY DOWN YOUR MORTGAGE BEFORE RETIREMENT.

“Not only is this one less payment to make, but it’s psychologically liberating.”
– Marianela Collado, certified public accountant with Tobias Financial Advisors in Florida

7. MAKE THE KIDS PAY.

“Kids should have some skin in the game when it comes to college funding. This enables college kids to be vested in their degree versus not really appreciating the cost going into their education. It creates a sense of responsibility on them to be focused, to finish on time, and to make sure they have a degree that will enable them to get a job to pay off student loans, or to pay while in school.”
– Collado

8. SEPARATE DISCRETIONARY AND FIXED SPENDING.

“We have a set amount of cash that we use every two weeks for what we call “discretionary items”—groceries, kids activities, entertainment, and gas. This helps us keep our spending in check because these are the areas where we can get into trouble. For these, we put the money onto our debit card, and [use our bank’s app to monitor the balance]. If the money isn’t available, we don’t go out to eat. All of my fixed bills (mortgage, phone, insurance, TV, etc.) are paid on the last of the month out of one separate account.”
– Paul Sydlansky, certified financial planner and founder of Lake Road Advisors in Binghamton, New York

Lose anything lately? Perhaps it’s because your home is covered in clutter and you can’t motivate yourself to organize it. The average person spends 10 minutes a day looking for their stuff, according to Tile, an app that helps people find their misplaced items. That’s over an hour a week that you spend searching your house for your keys, wallet, and more.

If you’re tired of the frustration and are ready to finally make a change, follow these tips from organizational pros on how they motivate themselves to stop watching puppy videos and start organizing.

1. MAKE A TO-DO LIST.

Use a pen and notepad—or the notepad application on your computer—to keep track of tasks that might slip your mind, suggests Kelly Brask, a professional organizer with Less Is More. No task is too small to make it to the list; Brask’s currently includes: “Copy Girl Scout schedule from Mail to family calendar” and “Find out how late Salvation Army is open for donation drop off.”

2. DO ONE THING EACH DAY.

Tackling an entire organizational list may be intimidating, but simply doing one thing, such as cleaning out a desk, is reasonable. Then, set aside the time to get it done, says Monica Friel, owner of Chaos to Order in Chicago.

3. SET A TIMER.

Carve out a time in your calendar to organize for just 30 minutes. “You may find it easier than you thought,” Friel says, adding that it’s better to start than to never begin, as at least you’re making a dent in the project. And if you find yourself on a roll and decide to tackle the next few items on your list, all the better.

4. ASK FOR MORAL SUPPORT.

“Having someone that will check in and cheer you along in the process is a great motivator,” Friel says. For a group of sympathetic supporters, join a Clutterers Anonymous group. They aim to help each other stop cluttering, one day at a time.

5. TURN OFF DISTRACTIONS.

These may include the television, the radio, computer, or phone. And close the door of the room you’re tackling so you don’t wander away, says Jane Carroo, a certified professional organizer with Organizing Coach Company. Be alone with your project so that you can give it the attention it needs.

6. SET AN INTENTION.

This is your goal, and could be getting your desk organized, figuring out your calendar or your eating plan, writing a book, or even starting a business, Carroo says. “Your intention can be written down on paper or in your computer,” she says. “This is what will motivate you to get it done.”

7. CREATE STEPS.

If you are organizing your desk, what do you need to do to get it done? Do you need to sort the papers into categories? Do you need to make a file for each category, to create systems that can help you keep items organized more easily? Carroo recommends breaking your intention down into actionable steps in order to make the task feel less daunting.

8. DON’T SHOP.

Many people think they’ll magically become organized if they bring home new baskets, bins, or hooks. “While those items help sometimes, in some places, that’s not the best place to start,” says Amy Trager, a certified professional organizer in the Chicago area. She suggests starting by de-cluttering before you rush to the Container Store. “It will save you time and money in the end if you don’t have to return items or purchase containers that never get used,” she says.

9. MAKE A DATE (WITH YOUR PROJECT).

Schedule the time to organize, and put that time in the calendar, Trager says. “Don’t just decide that it’s a good time and assume you’ll remember,” she says. Choose that date and time after considering when you not only have a block of time open, but also when you’ll have the energy and mindset to tackle your project. This could be at 6 a.m. before work or at 3 p.m. when the kids are doing homework. “Knowing how you feel at different times of the day or days of the week will allow you to pick times that will maximize your progress,” Trager says.

The storied six-pack—a lean, muscular, and well-defined midsection—is a ubiquitous goal for people who want to get in shape; people like how it looks, all the fittest celebrities have one, and it’s an easy shorthand for describing a particular level of fitness that’s considered an aesthetic ideal.

Louis Sepulveda, a Tier 3 personal trainer at Equinox fitness club in Darien, Connecticut, can testify as much. “Almost every client I have, during their fitness assessment, would mention wanting a six-pack—or at least having a flatter tummy,” he says. But getting that kind of definition isn’t a simple matter of going from fat to fit.

“Everyone, for the most part, is born with the same muscles that make up the ab complex,” Sepulveda explains. “But you need to lose body fat in order for definition to show. For someone who carries more visceral fat—fat stored within the abdominal cavity—having a six-pack can be laborious.”

In other words, thousands of get-ups, planks, or bicycle curls might give you abs of steel, but if you want them to pop out like Brad Pitt’s in Fight Club, you’ll have to eat at a deficit (a diet low in calories and high in protein) until your body has burned enough fat to reveal them. And despite all those internet ads touting “one weird trick to blast belly fat,” alas, says our trainer, there’s no such thing as spot-reducing: “You can’t target a specific area to burn fat.”

And because fat tends to come off in reverse order (the first place you store it is the last place you’ll lose it), if you’re unlucky enough to store extra fat in your belly, you may not be able to achieve that kind of definition without also dropping to a dangerously low level of body fat, something Sepulveda cautions strongly against.

“Having visible abs becomes unrealistic when you’re striving to go below a normal level of body fat,” he says. “As much as everyone hates fat, you need it to live. It’s a source of energy, it supports brain and nerve function. Having very low levels of body fat can become unhealthy.”

In men, extremely low levels of body fat are associated with risks including dangerously low heart rates, a decline in testosterone levels, and poor recovery. For women, too little body fat can result in amenorrhea (loss of menstrual cycles), which in turn is a major risk factor for developing osteoporosis.

And much as we may appreciate the way it looks, the truth is that six-pack abs are actually pretty useless as a measure of fitness. A six-pack indicates absolutely nothing about your speed, your strength, your stamina, your flexibility, or even your level of overall health. All it means is that you have a lean enough midsection for your musculature to show—which is why Sepulveda encourages his clients to focus on goals beyond the coveted six-pack.

“I have my clients strengthen their trunk stability, working all the muscles located in the torso. Adding plank variations, rotations, chops, and lifts to your workout routine will make your abs, obliques, and lower back a lot stronger, not to mention less prone to injury,” he says.

So if it turns out that a visible six-pack is out of reach for you (or if you’re not interested in adopting the kind of restrictive diet it takes to get and maintain one) there are still plenty of good reasons to work that core. Having strong abs will serve you well, both in and out of the gym—and that’s true regardless of whether you ever get lean enough to see them.