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The Importance of Aerobic Exercise

By admin on Thursday, July 1st, 2010 | 3 Comments

How important is aerobic exercise in today’s busy lifestyle?

In our health conscious society, everyone is working out. There are a multitude of programs designed to give you maximum results. However, nothing beats good old fashioned aerobic exercise to shed calories, pounds and inhibition.

Aerobic ExerciseAerobic exercise is fun, and healthy for you in a variety of ways. In addition, the wide variety of aerobic exercises available make it interesting and fun.

Aerobic exercise benefits your body and mind in a couple of ways. Initially, it will raise your heart rate. This jumps your metabolism, and can help you burn calories at an accelerated rate. Moreover, it helps to build lean muscle, especially in your legs.

Certain types of aerobic exercise can also tone your core, if it requires balance. Finally, aerobic exercise is fantastic for clearing your mind. It allows you to focus and unwind all at once, relieving stress by producing endorphins, which gives you a mild feeling of euphoria.

How should one introduce aerobic exercise into their routine? The answer is slowly. Starting an intensive aerobic routine suddenly will cause major muscle pain, and exhaust you. If you are not an active person, start by introducing aerobic background activity into your daily routine.

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Safe Weight Loss Is Most Important

By admin on Thursday, July 1st, 2010 | 2 Comments

Safe Weight LossWeight loss is an all important subject for many people, but safe weight loss is most important.

Back in the seventies and eighties it seemed that there were new fad diets coming around nearly every week. First it was the all fruit juice diet, then the no fruit juice diet.

Some diets were all about beets and beet juice (yuck) and some diets were all about eliminating all dairy products. No fat or low fat diets were very popular for a while until scientists debunked them because most of them had high caloric content which actually made you gain weight.

We all of course know about the protein diets that eliminated most of the carbohydrates from the diet like the Atkins diet. One thing is for certain, for real, effective, safe weight loss you first need to understand how the body works and what effect certain foods have on our bodies.

We all know those types of people that are naturally skinny and can eat anything they want without getting fat. There seem to be these people everywhere we look, especially on TV, the movies, or in all the magazines. They seem to be mocking us regular folks with their smug attitudes and easy fit lifestyles while the rest of us have to shop at big and tall stores and hit the gym every day with the false hope of losing an inch or two.

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Ultimate Weight Loss Secrets Revealed

By admin on Thursday, July 1st, 2010 | No Comments

Ultimate Weight LossIs there such a thing as ultimate weight loss secrets?  Do Hollywood stars really have hidden secrets when it comes to ultimate weight loss results?

This is probably not true since most of them practically live on diets (mostly fad diets) and they never seem to get fat. What do they need secrets for if they are on perpetual low caloric intake programs?

There are several easy tips however that one can use that will guarantee ultimate weight loss results in a short period of time. These tips are easy to follow and will help you to shed those unwanted pounds and inches.

One very easy secret to ultimate weight loss is to follow the three day rule. The three day rule is simple to understand and start but much harder to stick to, especially the first time that you attempt it. Simply stated, you begin your diet and exercise program and you stick to it religiously for 3 straight days.  The 4th day, whether you want to or not, you go off the program and eat whatever you like.

The next day you start all over again and do another three days straight of diet and exercise with the fourth day off. This is one of the ultimate weight loss secrets that is most effective and you should not be surprised when you drop the weight in big chunks.

Another ultimate weight loss secret is to not weigh yourself for at least a week after beginning any program. That means putting the scale away and not sneaking a peek no matter how much you are tempted to do so.

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7 Day Diet

By admin on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 | 2 Comments

Holiday alert! Need to lose a few pounds? The 7 day diet plan that works!

With the holiday season fast approaching, plenty of people are looking to lose a few pounds in order to look their best for the round of parties, holiday photo ops and encounters with family and friends you may not have seen for a while. Women seem to be particularly sensitive. Men’s clothing tends to hide a lot of flaws, but your LBD does not. If you need to lose 5-7 pounds to look trim and svelte in your party dress, give this 7 day diet a shot. It works, is healthy and requires minimal discipline and is relatively easy to muddle through for fast results. Interested? Let’s see how you can succeed.

The biggest advantage you can gain is to indulge in daily exercise. Yes, indulge! When you think ‘exercise’, a boring, strenuous routine probably comes to mind. It doesn’t need to be any of these things. You can fit in exercise on a daily basis, that burns significant calories, in four 8-minute stints you’ll hardly notice. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park far from the grocery or work entrance and walk briskly. You won’t waste time looking for the closest parking spot, while indulging in a little weight loss. Trim your tummy and thighs with a dozen sit ups in the morning before showering.

Now for the food: remember, this is only a 7 day diet. Instead of a cup of coffee and a pastry for breakfast, make a fruit smoothie with your favorite fruits, juices and yogurt. This is a low-calorie meal, full of antioxidants, fiber and vitamins that fills you up. If you need a mid-morning snack, munch on a bran muffin washed down with a glass of juice.

If you normally stop in for lunch at the fast food place for a burger and fries, treat yourself to a salad (the fast food places have caught on to their health-conscious customers) or, better yet, make your own salad at home. Supermarkets now stock plastic containers of spring greens, mescalin, spinach and other healthy and tasty dark green leafy lettuces. A large container runs about $5 and contains sufficient greens for about 4 large salads. Add one sliced, hard-boiled egg, slices of fresh mushrooms, wedges of tomato, grated cheese and some lean meat, such as shrimp or chicken, douse it with a balsamic vinaigrette and you’ve got a filling lunch, full of fiber, protein, more antioxidants and an array of vitamins and trace minerals your body needs, enjoys and is easy on the calories, paving the way to your 7 day diet success and a nicely fitting LBD.

Dinner usually presents more temptations than breakfast and lunch. While the rest of the family is chowing down on meatloaf with gravy, a baked potato and a serving of buttered corn, you want to treat yourself to a piece of fish garnished with salsa or marinated in ginger and sesame. Indulge in a piece of garlic bread and a dinner salad. Feel superior! Alternative dinners which help you reach your goal include a plate of whole grain pasta and high-fiber veggies, marinated chicken breast, pork tenderloin (the ‘other white meat’) and a giant chef’s salad. Your 7 day diet regime will pay off. Besides, with a menu like this, you can hardly feel deprived! Fix a fruit cup with non-dairy whipped topping as the dessert for the whole family.

The success of your 7 day diet plan requires a calorie counter. Plan your menus in advance and calculate your daily calorie intake. With foods like these, counting your calories will be a pleasure!

Following these guidelines, your 7 day diet plan will be a success. In fact, you may find you want to continue with this eating plan and lose yet more weight. Make lean meats, high fiber foods and whole grains the centerpiece of each meal. By the time you’re hosting and attending holiday events, you’ll be the picture of health, full of energy and a great complexion. Try the 7-day diet. It works!

Pros and Cons of a Raw Food Diet

By admin on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | 6 Comments

If you follow dieting trends at all, then you probably know that a new weight loss method crops up every few months or so. From cabbage soup to green tea, Atkins, and South Beach, there’s a different approach for everyone. The raw food diet is one of the latest health fads going around, so I thought it would be a good idea to examine what this method is all about prior to trying it out. Here’s what I learned.

Raw FoodThe basic principle of the raw food diet is that we lose too many essential enzymes and nutrients during the cooking process. Foods in their natural state are most beneficial to our bodies, so we should avoid heating anything to more than 116 degrees F. (I’m not exactly sure where that temperature comes from, but many different raw food diet websites mentioned it, so I decided to repeat it here.) When we eat naturally like this, we’ll be healthier as a result. People following a strict raw food diet generally eat things like fresh fruits and vegetables, uncooked meat, fish, or eggs, nuts, seeds, beans, and anything else that is organic and unprocessed.

The proponents of this type of raw food diet believe that there are many benefits associated with it. For instance, they say you’ll have more energy, will lose weight, and will rejuvenate your skin as a result of not consuming processed sugar or refined white flour, both of which have been blamed for Americans’ bulging waistlines. In addition, followers of the raw food diet will decrease their risk of heart disease and improve bodily functions such as digestion. In other words, you’re essentially eliminating a bunch of toxins from your body when you stop eating processed foods, so all of these positive changes should follow.

But there are some drawbacks to the raw food diet as well. For one thing, eating uncooked meat and eggs carries a significant risk of bacteria-related illness if you don’t store or handle the items properly. Salmonella, E. coli, and listeria can all come into play from handling some uncooked foods. In addition, it can be difficult to get the recommended daily levels of calcium, iron, or protein from strictly following this weight loss method, so your health could suffer in other ways or you might have to take supplements to make up for any deficiencies.

After reading about the raw food diet, I’m still on the fence about whether or not this approach is for me. While I certainly agree with some of the potential benefits, especially the part about cutting out sugar and flour, I can’t imagine eating uncooked eggs or meat, so I would be a partial follower at best. Would I still see good results that way? Maybe I should give it a try for a while and see how it works out!

Teens Losing Weight

By admin on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 | 7 Comments

Teens losing weight need an understanding of good nutrition and plenty of common sense!

Teens are particularly sensitive about their weight. If you’ve indulged in too many sweets, junk foods, soda and fried foods as a child and pre-teen, you may now be looking with dismay at some legitimately extra pounds that you don’t want! On the other hand, you may be of a normal weight, but be of the ’skinnier-the-better’ mind set. In either case, you’ll first want to consult your physician to see how much, if any, weight you need. Often, teens losing weight simply embark on a program of their own making, lacking an understanding of basic nutritional concepts and also, perhaps some common sense.

Surely your Mom has pushed the balanced diet theory on you, fixing nutritious meals, ‘for your own good’. However, the snacks of candy bars and soda at school and maybe a bag of fries on the way home, have caught up to you now. Young kids burn a lot more energy, riding their bikes, playing at the playground and other strenuous activities you no longer do on a regular basis. So, if your physician agrees that you should lose 10 pounds, it’s probably sound advice. Getting and staying fit and trim is far easier to do when you’re young than it is once those pounds are firmly entrenched! So teens losing weight under responsible guidance can give you an advantage for life.

Eat HealthyOn the other hand, some teens should not be trying to lose weight. Let’s say that you’re 5′6″ tall and weight 120 pounds, but the image you see in the mirror says ‘You’re overweight.’ This is a psychological misconception. If your doc tells you that your weight is normal, believe it. Dieting will only rob your body of nutrition required to keep you developing normally. If you nonetheless continue feeling ‘fat’, let your doctor or Mom know. You might need to adjust your perceptions of your physical image through counseling.

Sometimes, as an adolescent, your rate of metabolism may change, slowing down from what it was as a kid. This is another reason for a seemingly sudden gain in weight. This means that when you were a kid, you could get away with the candy, sodas and fries, never gaining a pound. Teens losing weight so often take a radical approach, cutting their calories dramatically, thinking this is the only answer. In this instance, a better approach might be to simply cut out the junk foods, for the most part, and instead load up on the healthy foods to your hearts content. You may shed all the weight necessary, using the less sugar, less fat strategy.

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Low Carb Recipes

By admin on Friday, October 9th, 2009 | 1 Comment

Have you ever noticed how different eating habits affect what you can buy in a supermarket? When the eating habits are wide spread different choices also appear on menus in the major restaurants. When the trend was to eat lower fat foods there were suddenly little hearts next to menu choices that were lower fat. When the Aitkin’s and south beach diets became popular there were suddenly lower carbohydrate choices on menus. Many restaurants now offer Weight Watchers selections complete with point values and exchanges. The main reason for this is that restaurant owners do not want people to stop eating out because they are dieting.

Healthy FoodWhen the Aitkin’s diet was first out my husband and I started following it. At that time there were no low carbohydrate choices in the restaurants or grocery stores. It was hard to find cookbooks that included low carb recipes. There were a few recipes in the Aitkin’s book, but they tended to use ingredients that were not readily available or were quite expensive. I was always looking for low carb recipes because we were getting bored with the same dinner of a salad and lean meat. A friend of mine is a dietitian. She was not thrilled that we were following the Aitkin’s diet because she feels that too much protein is not good for you, however she did have a book of low carb recipes that she let me borrow. My husband and I were both craving crunchy foods as well as sweets. At this time Splenda was not yet available in the United States and we did not like the after taste from the artificial sweeteners. My sister’s husband went on a fishing trip to Canada and he brought back some Splenda for us. When I was looking through the low carb recipes I saw a recipe for cheese cake. The cake did not have a crust but it had all the other things that we were allowed, cream cheese, sour cream, butter and whipping cream. The recipe included artificial sweeteners but I used the Splenda instead. The cheese cake turned out wonderfully. It was so good that I made it for guests when we had a dinner party. We found that it was easy to have people over for dinner when we were on the diet. We would grill meat and make a nice big salad. For the guests I would have bread or a potato.

We were both successful at losing weight on the low carb diet. We slowly added carbs back in when we reached our goal weights. I find that if I over eat and need to drop a few pounds I can successfully do this be following the restrictive first two weeks of the diet.

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