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Too much of good stuff is usually worse than no stuff at all As I said long time ago, balance has to be found in everything you do: be it in sports, sleep patterns or in your diet. It seems that vitamin D is not an exception to this rule.

Recently, high vitamin D dosages of +3,000 IU have been linked to kidney stones and nausea. So by taking too much of it out of the bottle might eventually be counter-productive and even harmfull! The findings are yet to be proven, which won’t happen till the mids of 2010, but you’re better off using your common sense and keeping your “the more the better” philosophy in check. It doesn’t matter whom to blame: the general public ignorance or industry’s abusive disinformation campaigns. You are resonsible for yourself. No one else.

And while the world is getting more and more complicated everyday and you seem to lose track of what is truth and what is a lie, you need just a few simple rules that will always keep you on the safe side. Rule #1:  too much of anything is never good.

This is an absolute rule that applies to anything. Vitamin D is not an exception. Just take a 20 minutes walk in the sun, which will give you some 1,500-2,000 IU of Vitamin D. This way you’ll avoid the bottled supplements and do something for your fitness in the process.

Keep it safe bodytweakers!

If you have a cracking sound in your knees and a certain “uneasiness” or even pain when doing movements like going up the stairs, do not disregard this. Eventually, it could grow into a bigger problem as it was in my case.

Knee problems have always been an issue for me. I suppose, it lies in my family’s genes since my mother and his father had the same problem as me. It started as I was about 14 years old It didn’t hurt at all and I didn’t feel anything disturbing. Just this strange cracking sound. So I though “whatever… I can live with it!”. Unfortunately, it changed during the following years.

The cracking sound got louder and I felt a small pain in my knees. I mean, I still could live with this problem, but I was worried if it could get worse at the age of 30, 40 or 50? So I went for an specialist’s advise and was told that there was nothing wrong with my knees and that the sound would go away with the age. I was also advised that I should start running and train my quads as it usually helps in this kind of problem.

However, running didn’t change much. I think, it even got a bit worse since I was running on concrete back in Madrid and this impact is not very healthy for the knee joints. (Follow my advice and go run on a beach if you have one nearby! You will avoid the trouble in the long run! )

Fortunately enough a friend of mine suggested to try cycling. It doesn’t have much impact on your knees, trains your whole legs and is fun as hell! So I started with simple spinning classes half a year ago. Very soon I was doing 2 classes in a row, 3 to 4 times a week. Apart of dramatically improving my endurance and cutting all that fat I have saved up during my time off running, I have noticed an incredible improvement in my knee joints! There’s no pain anymore and the sound is almost nonexisten. Hooooray!!

Two months ago I have bought a mountain bike (which was my biggest fitness investment ever) and have started to train going up and down the hills in my area. Sometimes aroung 100 miles in one go! This is really fun and gets very addicting! Leg strength, endurance and overall health keeps improving. I am even considering to participate in a few mountain bike marathons this fall!!

Summing up, cycling is probably the best choice if you have knee problems (better than running or leg training at the gym). Good road or mountain bikes can get somehow expensive, but they are worth every penny! I consider my bike as my best investment since the benefits you get are worth much much more. Cut the costs on other crap. Get rid of junkfood and stop bying stuff you do not need. Save money for things that DO matter!

If you are a busy person and you do not have much time to go the gym and stay there for 1-2 hours, then it is not a problem. You can workout in your own home anytime you want.

Some people put in their money to costly exercise equipments like treadmills, stair climbers, cycles and a lot more. Naturally, eagerness is very high only in the beginning. You will start putting your expensive equipments in the storage room or in the garage when your eagerness declines. There are instances when some people use just one exercise machine at home, so the tendency is the exerciser is not receiving the complete health benefits that he or she can get from exercising. According to some studies, if you want to do a correct and balance fitness program that will tone your muscles, burn fat and will help you prevent from different diseases, you should do stretching, weight training and cardiovascular exercise.

You might be thinking how it is possible to have a home gym environment. There are a lot of things you can do so that the enthusiasm you have won’t fade away. All the negatives can become positive when you start making a good home fitness place. Variety is the secret for you to enjoy the fitness place in your house.

You should know first different ways on how to get fit: Free weights, walking, jogging, running, bicycle workout and a lot more. Then you can already start from this.

You can still do cardiovascular exercise without buying expensive treadmills and stationary bikes. If you have a pool at home, swimming is a great cardiovascular exercise. You can also follow an exercise video at home. If you don’t have free and big space in your house, you can easily go out of your village and start walking or jogging for a couple of minutes.
For your strength exercises, you can always choose free weights. There are a lot of dumbbells, wrist and ankle weights available in the market. You can also use jump ropes, resistance bands and exercise videos. Exercising with mirror and music will help you maintain your shape and enjoy what you are doing.

Variety is the key for you to keep your interest with working out at home. You don’t have to spend so much money. You don’t need to have huge spaces and you don’t need those very luxurious gym equipments. All you need to do is to plan everything in your house so that you can already start getting fit.  And you will just suddenly realize how inexpensive it is when it comes to financial and spatial aspects.