What Will You Gain with a Weight Loss Program? The Best Kind of Diet is Not a Diet The Direct Connection Between Stress and Weight Gain Get Over the Sugar Hump to Reduce Cravings
2Inspirenutrition.com April 2022 FREE
Fun Facts About Losing Weight and Being Healthy Exercise Your Way to a Healthy Cardiovascular System 4 Best Types of HIIT Workouts How to Exercise When You’re Feeling Tired What is a Foam Roller?
INSIDE THIS MONTH’S ISSUE What Will You Gain with a Weight Loss Program? - pg. 3 The Best Kind of Diet is Not a Diet- pg. 6 The Direct Connection Between Stress and Weight Gain - pg. 8 Get Over the Sugar Hump to Reduce Cravings - pg. 10 Fun Facts About Losing Weight and Being Healthy- pg. 12 Exercise Your Way to a Healthy Cardiovascular System - pg. 14 4 Best Types of HIIT Workouts - pg. 17 How to Exercise When You’re Feeling Tired - pg. 19 What is a Foam Roller? - pg. 22
It’s never too late to make your health a top priority, and what better time than now with summer just around the corner? This month’s issue is designed to help you find that extra motivation & help to achieve those health goals that you have been striving for. We will breakdown what you can gain from a weight-loss program. Sounds crazy, right? You will also realize that the best type of diet isn’t a diet, but instead a lifestyle change. We will also breakdown those common myths and misconceptions that are floating out there about diets, and prove to you why a lifestyle change is the answer for both you and your taste buds. Ever wonder why you stress eat and what the consequences are? We do, so we made sure in this month’s issue to help you understand and tackle those cravings to help you not only meet, but also crush your goals. You will also be guided and educated on how to overcome that pesky sugar hump to reduce the cravings that taunt you whether it be from your own fridge, pantry, or out in public. Will the foam roller become your next, best workout partner? Who knows, make sure to read to find out why your workout may unintentionally be missing the most consistent gym buddy around. To you & your health, Dennis M. Postema P.S. Make sure you let your friends and family know they can get a free subscription to 2Inspire simply by visiting our website.
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What Will You Gain with a Weight Loss Program?
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Most people go into a weight loss program having no idea of the vast gains they will experience as a result of the loss. Maybe they just think they’ll drop a size or two or three, learn a few new tricks for how to eat healthier and become more disciplined. They will: but it’s so much more than that.
can say goodbye to this limited mindset that holds you back from really living. Losing weight will help you look good, feel good, do more and grow confident…. so you can go after your dreams and do the things you want to do in life. Increasing attractiveness.
People say we should not Many of us stay trapped in judge a person’s looks an unhappy lifestyle while based on size. Someone may have a beautiful or using food as an escape. You can unlearn this once handsome face yet still be overweight. But there you embark on a healthy remains the fact that we lifestyle and create new do look better when we habits. are a healthy size and shape. What will you gain by losing weight and Sticking to a regular changing your habits? exercise routine that combines cardio Confidence. with stretching and weightlifting results in a Weighing more than we leaner and more sculpted would like can affect our body even bringing out confidence in all areas the contours of your of life. Whether feeling neck and face. So if you’re self-conscious taking already naturally attractive, those first steps onto the beach, not going after that with good features plus some extra pounds on person you’d like to date, you, you are bound to worrying about how you look on a job interview, or increase your hotness turning down any activity factor even more after losing weight and getting that emphasizes how out of shape you are, you in shape. 4
Improved health overall Being overweight put stress on the body. The organs take a beating having to process all of the food, sugar and other harmful substances we ingest when we overeat or choose foods that are low in nutrition or contain harmful additives. We talked about how this can impact our looks. But even more importantly, you want to be healthy in order to fully participate in life without struggling, breaking a sweat, or increasing your chance of injury. When you lose weight, you gain overall improved health. Your body is better able to attend to its basic functions such as processing your food, eliminating waste, regulating functions like metabolism and hormone production, and fighting illness. New knowledge of good nutrition and health. Many people who are overweight go into their weight loss program having little knowledge
and understanding of what should be done to optimize health and stay fit. Choosing a weight loss program or healthy lifestyle approach that combines smart food choices with a regular exercise can greatly improve their understanding of how the body works and what’s needed to maintain good health. A community of supporters. One thing you may not have considered is that if you get serious about making a healthy lifestyle change, you might get the opportunity to meet others who share your goal and will encourage and support you on the path. It’s great to be surrounded by people who embrace your way of living and can keep you motivated. One challenge that many weight loss seekers share is that they might not receive the support they need from family and friends. Eating is a highly social activity. So when we decide to change our habits around food and eating, we sometimes 5
don’t get the type of understanding and support that we need from the people we love the most. That’s why when you join a community of similarly minded weight loss and healthy lifestyle seekers, you get to benefit from the shared mindset and mutual encouragement that happens between you and your peers.
lifestyle that includes nutritious foods and regular exercise means that you are inviting healthy habits into your life. Once you cultivate these behaviors in yourself they eventually become habits which can be lifechanging.
An example of this is exercise. If you never exercised before, or if what you did in the way of exercise was minimal, Awareness. a surprising thing can happen. You might Once you embark on begin to realize that you a healthy lifestyle, you feel so much happier may gain awareness and and healthier after you insights that you never exercise. You have more had before. You will learn energy, your body feels new ways of thinking stronger and you can about food that help you move more easily and embrace and sustain good freely. habits. You will become more mindful about what This can become a lifelong goes into your body and good habit, in that when the effects that it can have, you don’t exercise you both positive or negative can now recognize the depending on what it is. difference in how you
feel and in your energy levels and mood. For some people, exercise becomes You may grow in a lifelong practice once awareness of your own they introduce it as part of emotional dependence on their weight loss goals. food and you may seek to improve the relationship that you have with food. Committing to a healthy Good habits.
The Best Kind of Diet is Not a Diet
The best kind of diet isn’t a diet at all. Instead it’s a lifestyle change. Many people have lived their whole lives with a misconception around how much food they really need to be healthy and sustain their energy.
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Our beliefs around food come from family and our social group. If you were surrounded by people who ate prepared foods from boxes, cans, packets, and jars, then that’s what your perception of a good meal will be. Portion sizes, too, are dictated to us by the people in our lives.
The importance of exercise can either be emphasized or downplayed by our social group. Oddly enough, many parents of kids who play sports don’t practice what they preach to their own kids. If your group of adult friends doesn’t exercise, you are likely to fall out of the habit of exercising as well, even if you know it’s a smart idea. Myths and Misconceptions About Weight Loss
can prevent them from becoming fit and healthy. People have the wrong idea of what an appropriate portion size is. You may have been conditioned to pile lots of food on your plate, and you also may have been told to clean your plate. Often, we do not need as many of the calories, especially from sugar and fat, that are present in foods we eat, as we think we do.
Furthermore, there are Here’s a list of ways people other ways to avoid mistakenly think which wasting food (such as
storing our leftover portion, or feeding it to the dog), that do not involve eating when we’re not actually hungry or don’t need such quite such a large portion size as was served to us.
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People think that once they reach their weight loss goal, they can just go back to eating however they want. This is the quickest way to gain back all of the weight you worked so hard to lose. That’s why we don’t call it What’s a good portion size a diet which implies that when you’re trying to lose this is temporary. Instead weight? of a diet, your goal for If you don’t feel like weighing less and being getting out the measuring healthy is to permanently cups and mini food scale, change how you eat and you can do a rough exercise, and never look determination of how back. much is a good serving of food by using a dinner Many people don’t know plate as a guide. how to stick to mainly whole foods. We may have Your dinner plate should been raised on boxed, be half filled with colorful packaged, and canned vegetables. This can prepared foods, bottled include salad and it can dressings and bottled also include lightly cooked sauces. Often, these green and cruciferous foods contain weight vegetables such as gain-causing ingredients broccoli and cabbage, for like sugar and sugar the biggest nutritional substitutes, corn syrup and benefit. addictive flavorings that cause us to want more Now you have the of those foods, such as remaining half of the dextrose and MSG in its plate to fill up. Divide the various forms. other half of your plate between meat or other Many people are protein source, like fish, accustomed to dosing beans, legumes, tofu... and themselves with sugar a starch such as potato, multiple times per day. Are rice, pasta, or bread. All the you one of them? We also better if you can make it a have not been taught to whole-grain starch which recognize that many sohelps to slow digestion called healthy foods have and keep us regular. high amounts of added
sugar. The companies who make these products have a goal of making people crave and want more of these foods because of their taste and sweetness. People were never taught that exercise, physical movement, and any activity that increases heart rate should be a part of one’s daily life. There was a time when manual labor was par for the course. So people got their exercise and burned calories without trying. But after office desk jobs and computers arrived on the scene, technology soon replaced physical work and movement. The “white collar” career was born, and with it followed the expectation that if you had a good job you would have less reasons to move around and do physical labor. We have been brainwashed to believe that the less we move, the better off we are. It’s a part of our culture to try and get the closest parking spot, take the elevator instead of the steps, hire someone to do the physically challenging jobs and generally do as little as possible in the way of moving our body or exercising our muscles.
The Direct Connection Between Stress and Weight Gain
Being stressed all the time contributes to weight gain. A lot of times we don’t even realize we’re stressed. We become accustomed to dealing with certain challenges, irritations, and disruptions in the course of our everyday life. We feel stressed, but don’t notice. 8
Society has actually caused us to expect stress as par for the course. Even our computers are tuned to create stress for us while billed as being time savers and task managers. But the truth is that computer and smartphone use not only greatly contributes to stress levels in our bodies, but we are more likely to stay sedentary due to the ever-presence of these devices in our lives.
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that aren’t good for us and can lead to obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease.
people are finally realizing that self-care should come first. That means eating well, exercising, resting, and doing things that bring you happiness.
So what can we do to decrease stress in our body to reduce food When we learn to say cravings? Below finds a list no to the activities and of helpful tips. commitments that create Prepare healthy snacks to stress in our lives, our anxiety levels decrease. take along. Protein feeds Without the pressure of the brain and fuels the muscles, so we are better daily life, we have more time in our schedule to do able to think straight and the things that would be act in a stressful situation When we’re stressed, our when one comes up. You good for us. nervous system seeks only need a small serving a burst of feel-good Exercising, enjoying times of something like cheese chemicals to calm down and whole grain crackers, spent outdoors, doing and escape the anxious DIY projects, and having plain yogurt, and a piece feeling. We seek that out meaningful moments with or two of fruit, a hardin the form of foods that our favorite people help are high in starch, fat, and boiled egg and some us naturally burn energy calories, as well as sweets. carrot sticks, to take you out of that hunger danger and offload stress. This will definitely lower your These foods might taste zone that can lead to cortisone levels while great going down and trouble. helping you lose weight or they might give us that keep off the weight that Reduce stress from temporary high. But the you’ve already managed your life if possible. It is addictive component to shed. actually easier than you of this means that every think to reconfigure your time you feel anxious, Not to mention, if you’re technology and stop the you’re going to look putting your physical constant interruptions for that quick food fix. energy toward cleaning, that disrupt your life Here come the empty household projects, calories, sugar and fat that and create anxiety, overreorganizing, and tackling accumulates on your body communication, and those tasks that you would and cause you to become confusion. normally eat outsource, overweight and unhealthy. you are doing the work of Work on living a life in support of your goals and reducing stress in your life Knowing this, it makes values. This does not have while staying active. So sense that if we actively that’s another way to lose to mean being selfless. reduce stress in our lives, weight and reduce stress we’ll be less likely to reach With life having become without even really trying. so hectic in recent years, for those addictive foods
Get Over the Sugar Hump to Reduce Cravings Food cravings are a weight loss seeker’s nightmare. Everyone gets a craving for a certain kind of food or a favorite indulgence from time to time. However, when you’re trying to lose weight always seems to be the time when the cravings get stronger. This is for good reason. Once you embark on a healthy eating plan to facilitate weight loss, your body goes through withdrawal from certain substances that it has gotten used to and depended on, like sugar. 10 10
Sugar is highly addictive because of the chemical effect that it has on the brain. It’s said that sugar addiction is as strong as nicotine addiction. To complicate matters, if sugar has been a main feature of your diet for a long time, you probably have some yeast buildup in the digestive system. Once you embark on a healthy eating plan, you may reduce your sugar intake to the point that the yeast in your digestive tract begin to die off. This causes a variety
of symptoms such as extreme hunger, fatigue, headache, mood swings and other unpleasant side effects. You may even go through a few days where you feel like you’re coming down with the flu as your body works on offloading the toxins produced by yeast die-off in your gut. After a week or so, you may feel your energy levels return to normal as the sugar cravings subside. Once you’re past this point, it will be easier
to say no to sugary desserts, snacks, and treats. If you do backslide on your antisugar campaign, you might actually find that sugary foods now seem extremely sweet to your taste buds. This is because your body has gotten used to living without them. It also means you’re now in a good place. So try to stay on track with controlling sugar in your diet. Tips for Cutting Sugar from Your Diet Love to indulge your sweet tooth, but you know that it will lead to eating more sweets, and throw you off your weight loss plan? Work on your health by becoming sugar savvy. Sugar hides in many foods that we don’t even think might be contributing to weight gain and poor health. Below find some good practices and tips to help you cut out or drastically lower the amount of sugar in your daily diet. The bulk of your diet should be from whole 11
Watch out for condiments. Ketchup is the leading offender when it comes to foods that masquerade as foods. Nature did a good being good for us but are job of balancing natural high in sugar. It’s hard to sugar with fiber in plants say whether a ketchup that we consume. If you’re alternative would be watching sugar, you worth it because the can eat some of these general recipe of tomato, foods from time to time vinegar and corn syrup but keep portions low. is what gives ketchup its Vegetables and fruits that signature flavor. You can contain carbs are still a also substitute your sweet much healthier choice condiments with ketothan prepared foods that friendly ones that contain contain high amounts of a sugar substitute. But processed, white sugar. how will these affect our health in the long run? The If you need something sweet for an energy lift, try jury is out on that one. a piece of fruit or even a sweet veggie like carrots Become a label reader. or sweet potatoes. Again, When in doubt, read the portion control is key. ingredients and the basic Work off the carbs from nutrition information on these foods with some a certain food. Again, you cardio exercise. should mostly eat whole foods for optimal nutrition Keep blood sugar levels that results in weight loss. stable. Take along protein- But from time to time, based snacks so you can you may want something refill fuel before getting to from a box, bag, or jar. that danger zone where Granola, for example, is you grab the nearest junk billed as healthy but the food. You want to avoid sugar and fat totals can tip too-low blood sugar (from the scale for weight loss being hungry) and tooseekers. Read the carb and high blood sugar (from fat counts to learn which eating processed sugar, or foods are safe and which high amounts of carbs). should be avoided.
Fun Facts About Losing Weight and Being Healthy 12
about cultivating healthy habits and then sticking to the plan. Consistency will get you there. So will feeling like This means that over time you’ve failed but yet you can either slowly destroy, or slowly preserve, continuing to try again your own health. And it and again. also shows that that your body regenerates itself It’s okay every 4 months which means that you get to be to eat fat. In fact, lipids an active participant based or fats are an essential on what you choose to eat component of basic nutrition. Just be sure to and put in your body. choose healthy fat from plants such as from nuts A diet is temporary, and seeds, avocados and but a lifestyle change is olives. Limit your intake of permanent. And that’s saturated fat from meat what really helps you and cheese. make the changes you need to lose the weight A healthier lifestyle and keep it off for good can lead to healthier and be your healthiest, relationships. strongest self. Every 35 days your skin replaces itself and your body makes new cells from the food you eat. What you put in your body really does matter and can make or break you in terms of how healthy you are.
Your thoughts dictate your reality. So if you want to get healthy and be comfort and strong, then you must start with a mindset shift. Success begins with believing that you can do it. Weight loss success is 13
when we exercise, and that shows up in improved mood, increased patience, and resulting healthier relationships. Weight loss is not about success versus failure.
If you really truly want to change your habits so you can look healthier, feel better, be stronger and enjoy your life more fully, then you must change the way you think about Imagine how many weight loss. It is not a marital disputes and success versus failure family fights could be avoided if everyone made situation. Staying healthy means never giving up. If exercise part of their daily life. Cardio increases you get derailed from your endorphins and stretching goals, start over again. Each day is an opportunity settles the nervous system by releasing stress to actively choose. hormones. We feel better
Exercise Your Way to a Healthy Cardiovascular System
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What kind of exercise is good for your heart? It doesn’t matter what type of personality you have or what your chosen exercise is for getting in your cardio. There’s a heart healthy type of movement for every preference. Prefer to do cardio in the privacy of your own home? Invest in a home gym and get a cardio machine or a couple of them. Try a stationary bike if you love an at-home spin session. Or build your gluteus while you get those BMPs up, with a Stairmaster or elliptical. The treadmill is perfect for those rainy days when you want to hit the pavement but just don’t feel like weathering the elements. Cardio doesn’t have to involve machines. You can get your heart rate up with some simple equipment that won’t cost a lot of money. A hula hoop can be a really fun way to burn calories, move those muscles and get your heart pumping. In fact, it is said that 10 to 15 minutes of hula hooping a day will drastically reduce your waist and improve your cardiovascular condition significantly. 15
Jumping rope is another
where you want, when you want. If smooth terrain is your ideal, then hit the trails at your local jogging path at the park. If traffic lights and crosswalks don’t phase you, trot along the city streets with your headphones cranking your favorite tunes. Next time you’re out and about, look around. No matter where you roam, you’re bound to see a jogger getting those paces in for the health of their heart and vascular system. low-cost way to speed up the beats of your heart and have some fun. Maybe you can do 15 minutes of hooping and 15 minutes of jumping rope.
Other simple ways to get some cardio in while multitasking in your busy life? Instead of sitting on the sidelines while your kids play sports, jump in the game. Boost your heart rate while tearing around those bases in a game of kickball or softball. Exercise your heart muscle scoring that soccer goal or playing defense.
Got a flight of stairs in the house? Pop on those headphones, crank up your favorite tunes and do 15 or 20 flights. Stairs are a great way to firm up your backside, tighten those quads and give your Any number of outdoor heart and lungs a healthy, sports that your children cleansing workout. are likely to participate in will be enhanced if you What about jogging? You join in offer some pointers don’t have to be a longand use the time to distance cross-country improve your fitness level runner to benefit from and direct that energy to a daily or several days a a healthy heart, lungs, and week jogging session. Jog body.
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4 Best Types of HIIT Workouts
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If you aren’t already familiar with the idea of HIIT workouts, the idea behind them is pretty simple. Rather than long exercise sessions, HIIT encourages you to do very short exercise sessions, but it also encourages you to do extremely hard, calorieburning exercises. One of the main attractions of HIIT is the freedom to do any combination of exercises that you want. With this in mind, this article will look at 4 of the best HIIT workouts. Sprinting and Jogging/ Walking
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One of the top HIIT workouts that you can do is a combo of sprinting and jogging or walking (depending on your personal preferences and fitness levels). Why is this on this list? Well, it is incredibly simple and easy to do. Everyone out there knows how to sprint and how to jog. You don’t need to learn how to do any special exercises,
which makes it a lot easier for those of us who aren’t sure how to do things like burpees or other highintensity cardio exercises. Push-ups and Squats If you are feeling truly adventurous, you can try push-ups and squats. This HIIT workout, as the name suggests, involves a combination of both push-ups and squats. Basically, you do a sequence of 10 push-ups and 10 squats (you can do them one after the other or alternate). Then you rest and repeat. The reason this is an adventurous workout is that it is fairly difficult. The mixture of squats and push-ups can take a massive toll on your body, but if you can handle it, it is a great way of burning calories, burning fat, and building muscle. Treadmill or Exercise Bike Workout Both treadmills and exercise bikes are
absolutely amazing pieces of equipment when it comes to delivering an effective HIIT workout. The main reason for this is because both of these pieces of equipment come with very useful resistance settings. So, as you can probably guess, the HIIT workout for both of these pieces of equipment involves turning the resistance level to a very high-setting for a short period, then turning it back down and continuing as normal. Prisoner Workout You can easily modify the standard prisoner workout into being a truly effective HIIT workout. Just do a mixture of push-ups, pullups, and squats in rapid succession and then rest. The numbers are up to you decide and can be tweaked to fit your body better. This is a good HIIT workout for strengthening all parts of your body and it burns some serious calories.
How to Exercise When You’re Feeling Tired
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Two excuses commonly heard to avoid working out is either “I don’t have the time” or “I’m too tired”. The first one is not valid as everyone can find time to exercise even if it is doing 10 minutes of Tabatha or HIIT training. However, the second excuse could be a valid one. And if you are too tired, is it mental or physical tiredness? Below are some suggestions on how to power through a workout when you really don’t feel like doing it.
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do some form of exercise. Maybe just a change to your normal routine would help spur you along. Instead of doing your normal three-mile run, but maybe walk a mile or two instead would suffice for that workout. The distance is shorter and intensity less, but at least you are doing something. In the world of exercising, anything is better than nothing!
Or instead of doing cardio training, opt for strength Depending on the training instead. If that is circumstance, you in still too strenuous, try yoga fact could be too tired. If or Pilates – something that the stress from work has goes at a slower pace and ratcheted up to the point intensity, but still provides where you are exhausted a good workout. And with every night after work, meditation and breathing your best bet may be to techniques in yoga, it rest for a few days until might be just what you things slow down at work. need to get back in touch If you feel you may be are with yourself. Sometimes starting to get ill, then just changing up things definitely do not work out. is motivation in itself. In In this situation, your body these needs all the rest it can cases, get. being too tired might However, under other circumstances, where you not be are just tired for no special the case; you may reason, just stepping just be outside and breathing in bored the fresh air could be the with the motivation you need to
routine. If you just don’t feel like exercising – like your get-up-and-go-got-upand-went, think about how good you will feel post-exercise. Exercising releases endorphins in the brain which improves mood - known in exercise circles as a “runner’s high”. You experience it after each workout, so just thinking about that positive post-workout feeling could be the motivation you need to “just do it”. Of course if your tiredness persists more than a few days, you should see your healthcare professional to find out why you are so tired. It could be a stressrelated condition coming on or sleep deprivation. In any case, your doctor many be able to help you get back your motivation to exercise.
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What is a Foam Roller?
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One of the more unique exercise aides out there is a foam roller. The name alone is self-explanatory, but if you still aren’t sure what a foam roller is and what it is useful for, then this article is for you. In here, you will find out exactly what a foam roller is and what it’s used for. What Are They? Foam rollers are extremely simple exercise aides. They are just solid tubes made of very soft foam. They can be used to do a variety of different things. For example, foam rollers can be used to do various exercise routines such as yoga or Pilates, both of which have routines built around foam rollers.
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Foam rollers are also used heavily in both massage therapy and physical therapy. They have little impact on the body and can be used to stimulate areas, which makes them helpful for patients
recovering from injury or surgery. The Different Kinds of Foam Rollers There are actually a few different varieties of foam rollers out there. On the one hand, you have very light foam rollers. These are the softest and have the most amount of give. They aren’t too useful for exercising, but can be extremely comfortable, and are helpful for therapy purposes. Then there are standard foam rollers that have a good balance between softness and give. Finally, there are extremely dense foam rollers that make great exercise aides, but that might also be a bit too firm for some. Are Foam Rollers Effective? Foam rollers are an extremely effective tool. Study after study has found that foam roller-
based therapies and exercise routines are a very effective way to deal with lingering muscle issues and muscle pain. They are also a very good way of helping patients recovering from serious muscle issues to regain muscle strength. Is A Foam Roller Right for Me? Foam rollers can technically be sued by anyone, no matter their weight, age, or physical status (fit or unfit, injured, or uninjured, etc.). However, it should be noted that they do require some forethought to use. You can’t just pick up a foam roller and start using it since you are likely to end up using it wrong. But, if you are willing to put the time into learning how to use it properly (this can be done by looking up videos, guides on the internet, etc.), then they can be very helpful.
