BodyHealth is excited to bring you Part 2 of Korey Rowe’s exclusive 10-Day Holiday Workout Challenge! Days 6-10 are here, giving you the perfect opportunity to push yourself even harder, refine your form, and finish strong. Whether you’re at home or in the gym, this program is designed to keep you active, consistent, and energized through the holiday season.

Let’s tackle these next 5 days together and finish the year strong! We also hope you’ve had a chance to check out our Holiday Recipes article where you'll find 10 delicious recipes to help keep your performing and feeling at your best.

As we're in the Winter months, we wanted to provide a little information on how our immune system works and how you can prepare your body to stay as healthy as possible during this period.

Getting sick is never fun.

Our Immune System helps protect our body from harmful bacteria, viruses and toxins coming in. 

And, as there are certain things that can either bolster or weaken it, we wanted to share some key points to help make your holiday season one you can fully enjoy.

Let's dive in.

Explore Healthy Holiday Recipes for delicious, nutritious dishes perfect for festive gatherings. This collection features creative, health-conscious options to keep you feeling great during the holidays without sacrificing flavor. From appetizers to desserts, these recipes are packed with whole ingredients and simple instructions, making holiday cooking stress-free and enjoyable. Discover how to balance indulgence with wellness this season!

BodyHealth has teamed up with celebrity fitness trainer Korey Rowe to bring you an exclusive 10-Day Holiday Workout challenge. This dynamic program is designed to keep you motivated, energized, and on track, whether you’re sweating it out at home or in the gym.

Follow along as Korey takes you through specific workouts crafted to help you stay active this holiday season. With this routine, you’ll build strength, stay consistent, and finish the year on a high note. Part 1 features an incredible lineup of workouts for Days 1-5 below. Stay tuned for part 2, and let’s make every rep count!

If we want to slim down while gaining lean muscle or toning our muscles, we need to address our hormones. 

This is because achieving hormonal balance allows our body to fully and correctly utilize the nutrients we’re consuming for what we do want and not for what we don’t want.

We’ve already covered how high Cortisol hinders fat loss and slows muscle growth. As well as how Growth Hormone, Testosterone and IGF help to speed fat loss and muscle growth.

But there is another aspect to this balancing act: Estrogen, Progesterone and Thyroid.

These hormones exist in both women and men, and are each necessary in proper amounts.

But when they go out of balance, they can create a vicious spiral that raises cortisol and cravings for junk food, lowers growth hormone, testosterone and IGF, and makes fat loss and muscle gains much harder all around.

We've spoken a lot about hormones, but here we cover specifically how toxins affect these.

Testosterone levels have been dropping for decades, while estrogen levels have risen sharply.

And hormonal imbalances are now much more than just being deficient in one or another hormone.

But why is this?

There are exact chemicals in the environment now which block hormones from being created, block them from being used, disrupt their normal action, or even impersonate them entirely.

And, while this affects muscle-building and fat loss significantly, its effect goes far beyond this.

Let's dive in.

Those are some big claims in that title.

And how could they be true when we have statements like:

“BCAAs stimulate the building of protein in muscle and possibly reduce muscle breakdown.”

“Valine is needed for your muscle fibers to fire, for tissue repair, and for the maintenance of proper nitrogen balance in the body.”

“Leucine stimulates muscle protein synthesis and may be the dominant fuel involved in anabolic (tissue building) reactions.”

Well, unfortunately, the claims in the title of this article are true.

They come from research studies done on BCAAs, while the above quoted statements come from marketers.

BCAAs, or Branched Chain Amino Acids, taken on their own regularly and over time, can have a significant effect on body fat creation, muscle gain reduction, kidney trouble, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity.

And it's becoming quite a problem. Just google "BCAAs side effects" or "BCAAs and Type 2 Diabetes" and you'll find much more than you wanted to.

But how can they say these things and how does this all work?

Let's dig in and see.

Getting good sleep is one of the most important things we can do, not just for muscle building and fat loss but for our mood, energy levels, and overall health.

Sleep is when our body is able to recover and repair cells, a lack of it even affects our aging process, speeding it up internally, as well as visibly causing wrinkles and sagging skin. 

During the first few hours of deep sleep is when many hormones, including growth hormone and IGF (major fat-burning hormone) are released.

Getting enough sleep also helps to keep cortisol levels lower and balance estrogen, testosterone, progesterone and thyroid.

So if we want a lean, toned or muscled body, then we need deep sleep every night for full recovery, muscle building, natural fat loss and hormonal balance.

Yet a third of Americans get poor sleep, and those with the worst sleep generally have poor health.

So what causes this and what can we do to not only get better, deeper, more refreshing sleep, but also to reverse the effects of poor sleep?

Let’s dive in and see.

Cholesterol is very firmly associated with lifespan. Just not in the way most people think.

In fact, according to newer research, levels of cholesterol in the ranges of 210-240 are associated with longer lifespans.

And lower levels of cholesterol lead to lower levels of energy, overall health and hormonal deficiencies among testosterone, estrogen and others.

In this article we cover how cholesterol actually operates in the body, what it actually has to do with high blood pressure and how it’s not quite the villain it’s been made out to be, but a vital part of our body’s proper functioning.

When working out, training, or just going about our daily lives, optimal blood flow is very important.

It's necessary for the fullest recovery after exercise, high energy levels, performance, muscle building, and fat loss. Not to mention, overall health.

Poor blood flow even affects our mood.

It's how the nutrients, water, and oxygen needed for energy creation and cellular repair flow to our cells.

And how the toxins flow out.

If our blood flow is lower, our cells do not get these nutrients or oxygen fast enough and our energy levels go down during high intensity workouts, or in daily life.

This lowers endurance, slows recovery, muscle building, and fat loss significantly, and can leave us feeling exhausted, low energy, and even depressed.

Achieving healthy blood flow then is important for maximum results and maximum overall health.

This is the end of the Gut Health 30-Day Challenge. Now it’s time to take a step back and see where we are, and where we go next!

The goals for this program were:

• Digestion significantly improved and heartburn should be gone or noticeably lessened.
• Bowel movements will have normalized.
• Cravings for sugar or junk food should be gone or severely diminished.
• Any extra inches around the waste caused by bloating from gas should be fully or mostly gone (this is a bigger deal than most people realize).
• Hormones will be in much better balance.
• Mood and energy levels will be much higher and stress levels will be lower.
• It will be easier to relax, to fall asleep and to stay asleep.
• Skin health will have improved, quite visibly in some cases.
• Mental ability will have improved for some.
• Longevity will have increased.
• It will be much easier to lose fat on a diet and get through the “cravings hurdle.”
• It will be easier to add muscle, especially for those in their 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.
• And, if HRV levels were measured at the beginning of the challenge, these should now be higher.

In another article we covered what SIBO is, how it comes about, what feeds it, and how it creates cravings for sugar and other junk foods, preventing fat loss and causing low energy levels.

But there is another aspect to SIBO which has more destructive and far-reaching effects.

There is something called Leaky Gut, where there are actual microscopic perforations in the intestinal lining that is meant to protect our internal organs from the harmful bacteria, parasites and toxins coming in through our digestive tract.

And it's behind a significant number of physical conditions common today, from hormonal imbalances, stress and poor sleep, to liver and kidney trouble, heart trouble, skin issues and even premature aging.

So let's see what it is and what SIBO has to do with it.