KinkyShea’s Health and Fitness Tips

Hello Ladies!

First let me say how excited I am to be apart of this community. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nicole (screen-name KinkySheaPT) and health and fitness has become a huge part of my life. I’m a certified personal trainer that currently works for the U.S. Armed forces. My job is to keep our brave ladies and gentlemen in uniform fit to serve and defend our country. I also hold a bachelor’s degree in Sports Medicine and I’m currently looking to expand my horizons by becoming a licensed physical therapist. In addition to being a personal trainer I’m also a natural curly! February 28, 2010 will mark my first year being 100% natural after a long transition period following a botched relaxer. I am a proud 4A/4B curly that is still learning quite a bit about my hair and thanks to sites and communities like this one, I have come a long way. I have learned so much from the ladies in the CN community and decided to try to give back as a way of showing thanks. What better way to do so than sharing my knowledge in a subject dear to my heart and how it can help our hair? We may not realize it but healthy bodies and healthy hair go hand-in-hand and I am honored to be able to share with the CN community tips on how to keep our bodies healthy and improve the health of our hair! So let’s get to it!

It is no secret that regular physical activity is great for ones body and longevity. It helps shed and keep off unwanted pounds, keeps illnesses and diseases at bay, and gives one a sense of doing something good for oneself. Regular physical activity can also help your hair in numerous ways. For example, regular physical activity can help you feel relaxed afterwards therefore reducing stress, which can cause hair thinning and breakage. Physical activity helps to increase circulation to the scalp, as well as the rest of the body, thereby delivering important nutrients to the scalp and hair follicle. What’s the point in taking all those wonderful hair supplements and eating “hair friendly diets” if the nutrients have a hard time reaching its? Regular physical activity can also lower blood pressure and cholesterol, which in turn can reduce dependency on (or avoid all together) blood pressure and cholesterol medications that can cause hair loss. Why take something that could harm your hair if you don’t have to? Physical activity can also have a huge effect on your emotional well being as well, by making you feel happy and releasing those wonderful “happy chemicals” in the brain (like the ones release when you eat chocolate!) which can help reduce or eliminate dependency on some anti-depressants for people with mild depression. Yes, some of these medications can cause hair problems too! So now that we know some of the things that regular physical activity can do for our hair and us, next week we will look at how incorporate an easy walking routine into your daily routine. As the weeks go on we will also look at other fitness and wellness tips, including a “super food of the week”, to get you hair and you looking fly as possible from the inside out!!

Ciao,

Nicole (KinkySheaPT)