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Eating the right food

by admin on 29. Jan, 2010 in Dieting, Weight Loss Work Out Plans

Whether you are a vegan, a vegetarian or you eat meat at all meals, there is a simple set of rules which can keep you healthy. There are thousands of diets out there, thousands of recommended life styles and they each say that they have the right way. So in the following paragraphs I will try to present you the most common eating habits which were proven to help people live longer and healthier.

One element which everybody agrees that it does wonders for your health are the antioxidants. What do they do? Antioxidants are organic substances which have the simple effect of keeping your body cells young. Imagine that with each breath you take the oxygen destroys and degrades lots and lots of cells in your body. Of course, due to the structure of our DNA once a cell is destroyed a new copy of the old one is created to take its place. The problem is that the copy is not perfect and by making a copy of the copy of the copy the cell starts to lose important information. This is the reason for which we age. It’s simply a copying error. So, getting back to antioxidants, what they is quite simple and yet amazing – they protect the cells from oxygen damage. The more antioxidants you have in your diet the younger you will maintain yourself.

So which are the foods containing the miraculous antioxidants? One of them is the wine. So drink wine, but drink with moderation as it’s also an alcoholic beverage and alcohol is certainly not healthy. Chocolate (in fact the cocoa) and green tea are also a great source of antioxidants. Just google around or ask a professional nutritionist and you will find even more foods like these. You will stay young and avoid chronic diseases such as heart problems, lung problems, Alzheimer or cancer.

Vegetables are gold! Eat lots of colored legumes and vegetables. They contain all the nutrients, vitamins and minerals which make our body tick on the right frequency. So vegetarian or not eat vegetables as often as you can! Are you in love with meat? Just remember one thing – at least eat grass-fed animals.

Even though this might seem exotic, sea food is actually miraculous. People living on islands having sea food as their basic element in their nutrition exceed 100 years of age with ease. Shark meat is also a wonder of nature. The only creature on this planet which can’t have cancer is the shark. So eat  this type of white meta as often as you can.

Eating the right food is not about the diet you’re on or about the specific aliments which you eat or don’t eat. In the end it’s about not making excesses and trying to keep it natural.

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Diet, Exercise, Mindset: The best combo to burn body fat

by admin on 11. Jan, 2010 in Dieting, Weight Loss Work Out Plans

Losing body fat needs concentrating on a program that deals psychosomatically; unless there are appropriate exercises and mindset strategies, even the best diets have been noticed not to come into any use. On the flip side, even if your diet structure is not the perfect one, with a proper mindset and an exercise regime (though of a higher intensity), one may expect spectacular results.

Let’s find out first why some people accumulate fat and others do not. The key to this problem is metabolism; someone inactive has a slower metabolic rate and that is because the body programmed itself towards fat-burning inefficiency and derives its necessary energy from the free carbohydrates. You do not empty your savings account when you have sufficient inflow of cash. It works similarly.

So the best way to start things over is by eliminating the post-lunch carbohydrate intakes. The body shall reprogram itself to burn fat due to the lack of free carbs and within a fortnight (more or less), you shall start discovering a new you.

Should you like to burn it a little more, opt for strength training. Strength training has been proved as the most effective among all exercises that help burn fat, even more than the oh-so-popular steady paced aerobic exercises. Besides optimizing metabolism, it shall also allow you to gain (and stay in) a good shape.

Regarding mindset, nothing is possible unless you are focused. If you are pumping irons while letting your mind moving astray, there shall hardly be any benefits, simply because of the reason that the full intensity cannot be reached. It also makes the motivation go down and the overall process stops before you even realize.

A quick tip here: Body fat percentage should never go below 8% and 15% for men and 10% and 20% for women; anything below that can be achieved only by unhealthy and unsustainable chemical means, which shall create more troubles than benefits in the long run. Agreed that the initial efforts shall be much easier, but staying high-spirited forever is obviously a better choice rather than being a high-tech fitness freak for a few days or months.

But above everything else, you must also keep your calorie intake under check. Remember that one gram of protein comprises 4 calories, whatever source (chicken, meat, fish or eggs, milk or protein powder); it’s the same with the carbs, whereas, with the fats and the oils, a gram shall deliver you with 9 calories. Try avoiding animal fats (because of LDL); oils from plants (rich in HDL) are much better. Regarding alcoholic beverages, a gram (i.e. 1 ml) of it contains 7 calories, much more than in non-fat milk (only 340 calories a liter) or orange juice (425 calories a liter).

That’s information enough towards a slimmer and trimmer you of tomorrow.

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Atkins Diet: An extreme measure for big changes through rapid weight loss

by admin on 09. Jan, 2010 in Dieting, Weight Loss Work Out Plans

Extreme weight loss tips are found in galore; question remains, if they are free from any negative side effects. However, this is something that takes the backseat when radical results are promised; whether or not the tips prove themselves useful is a different question altogether, though the negative effects do not spare often.

Most of the times, it is a lack of commitment that forces people to take up the so-called magical weight-loss measures; other times, it’s confusion. Even then, some stop much before completing the prescribed span, which starts yet another chapter of agonies. However, there also co-exist extreme measures that are completely natural; the only problem with them is you really need being consistent if you want to shred down ASAP.

Not sure if you’ve come across anything called the Atkins diet; it is perhaps the best diet that helps losing a lot of weight within a real short span, yet keeping your health intact. The formula is quite simple; fatty foods with moderate amounts of protein with 10 grams or less of carbs. Definitely, it’s not the ideal diet to develop tons of muscle, but as far as healthy weight loss is concerned, it works out magically.

But the Atkins diet also has its downsides. It makes you feel grouchy, out of focus and unenergetic, so energy supplements are welcome, provided you stay within the prescribed dose of nutrients.

Consistency comes next; just like any project you undertake requires the specific time, so does weight loss. If you give up after a week or so simply because you are not seeing any results, the Atkins diet may backfire and help you heap some more pounds above what you had formerly. Sticking with it through thick and thin shall solve your weight related problems more proficiently than you may expect.

However, Atkins diet requires you to go for natural and organic foods and you must choose them in a way that you’ll enjoy eating continuously over a long span. So off with the pizzas, tacos and pastas, you must come up with some interesting alternatives.

Lastly, it’s about water. The more you have of it, the cleaner your system shall remain and trigger the fat burning procedure. Get rid of the misconception that diet sodas help you to reduce weight and no soda can take the place of clear and sparkling water. A gallon of cold water everyday and see your body fat going away.

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Diet: the 5 factor diet

by admin on 04. Jan, 2010 in Dieting

Harley Pasternak introduced the 5 factor diet plan. This diet is considered as one of the most useful diet plans ever told. The plan talks about 5 things i.e. 5 meals a day are to be consumed, 5 days are to be dedicated to the workout in a week’s time and each workout has to contain 5 exercises. This plan is practical and works for most of the people. In this article, you will see what are the 5 meals and what exercise are to be done in the workouts.

The meal that has to be consumed 5 times a day must have the excess of fiber. It must contain fats but only healthy fats. If the unhealthy or saturated fats are consumed then the entire scheme of the 5 factor plan is destroyed. You will also have to make sure that you are eating quality proteins. Proteins are very important for the body and the 5 factor plan focuses on that.

The plan also focuses on using the beverages which are sugar free. These days the sugar free beverages are easily available in almost all the parts of the world. So it is not a matter of inconvenience for the dieters. The dieters will also have to make sure that their five meals do not contain carbohydrate rich food. Remember that the plan focuses on the 5 meals and you will have to make sure that you are following the guidelines in order to get the benefit from the plan.

The great thing about this 5 factor plan is that it does not bore you. You will find it easy to follow this diet plan. The trick is the cheat day. The plan includes Sunday as a cheat day. This means that you can eat anything on Sunday following the 5 factors criteria. This cheat day makes the dieters stick to the plan and they do not find it hard to follow the plan.

The problem with the 5 factor diet plan is that it specifies food which you will have to eat each day and in each meal. This means that you will have to ensure the availability of that food type. In most countries, this can become a major problem. The substitute is not given in the plan and hence if certain food item is not available, you will find it difficult to continue.

The 5 meals that the diet plan talks about are very interesting. It talks about eating more than three times. This is what the most of the modern diet experts believe to be the way to weight loss. The more meals you eat, the better is the chance to reduce weight. The three meals in the plan are full meals whereas the other 2 meals are sort of snacks.

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