The Way to Health & Vitality

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Posted by admin | Posted in Health, Healthy Eating, Healthy Exercise, Healthy Nutrition, Healthy Supplements | Posted on 20-08-2009

It’s time to start a Healthy life:
your 7 days program

How many times have you gone to sleep at night, swearing you’ll go to the gym in the morning, and then changing your mind just eight hours later because when you get up, you don’t feel like exercising?

While this can happen to the best of us, it doesn’t mean you should drop the ball altogether when it comes to staying fit. What people need to realize is that staying active and eating right are critical for long-term health and wellness — and that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The more you know about how your body responds to your lifestyle choices, the better you can customize a nutrition and exercise plan that is right for you. When you eat well, increase your level of physical activity, and
exercise at the proper intensity, you are informing your body that you want to burn a substantial amount of fuel. This translates to burning fat more efficiently for energy.

In other words, proper eating habits plus exercise equals fast metabolism, which, in turn gives you more energy throughout the day and allows you to do more physical work with less effort.

The true purpose of exercise is to send a repetitive message to the body asking for improvement in metabolism, strength, aerobic capacity and overall fitness and health. Each time you exercise, your body responds by upgrading its capabilities to burn fat throughout the day and night, Exercise doesn’t have to be intense to work for you, but it does need to be consistent.

I recommend engaging in regular cardiovascular exercise four times per week for 20 to 30 minutes per session, and resistance training four times per week for 20 to 25 minutes per session. This balanced approach provides a
one-two punch, incorporating aerobic exercise to burn fat and deliver more oxygen, and resistance training to increase lean body mass and burn more calories around the block.

Here’s a sample exercise program that may work for you:

* Warm Up — seven to eight minutes of light aerobic activity intended to increase blood flow and lubricate and warm-up your tendons and joints.

* Resistance Training — Train all major muscle groups. One to two sets of each exercise. Rest 45 seconds between sets.

* Aerobic Exercise — Pick two favorite activities, they could be jogging, rowing, biking or cross-country skiing, whatever fits your lifestyle. Perform 12 to 15 minutes of the first activity and continue with 10 minutes of the
second activity. Cool down during the last five minutes.

* Stretching — Wrap up your exercise session by stretching, breathing deeply, relaxing and meditating.

When starting an exercise program, it is important to have realistic expectations. Depending on your initial fitness level, you should expect the following changes early on.

* From one to eight weeks — Feel better and have more energy.

* From two to six months — Lose size and inches while becoming leaner. Clothes begin to fit more loosely. You are gaining muscle and losing fat.

* After six months — Start losing weight quite rapidly.

Once you make the commitment to exercise several times a week, don’t stop there. You should also change your diet and/or eating habits,’ says Zwiefel. Counting calories or calculating grams and percentages for certain nutrients is
impractical. Instead, I suggest these easy-to-follow guidelines:

* Eat several small meals (optimally four) and a couple of small snacks throughout the day

* Make sure every meal is balanced — incorporate palm-sized proteins like lean meats, fish, egg whites and dairy products, fist-sized portions of complex carbohydrates like whole-wheat bread and pasta, wild rice, multigrain cereal and potatoes, and fist-sized portions of vegetable and
fruits

* Limit your fat intake to only what’s necessary for adequate flavour

* Drink at least eight 8-oz. glasses of water throughout the day

* I also recommend that you take a multi-vitamin each day to ensure you are getting all the vitamins and minerals your body needs.

I suppose that’s all I can think of for now. I should extend my thanks to a doctor friend of mine. Without him, I wouldn’t be able to write this article, or keep my sanity.

Enjoy life, we all deserve it.

You’ll find many more useful information and articles at Health & Vitality – to Enjance Your Life.

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Stoke Your Body’s Furnace With Low Carbohydrate Food

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Posted by admin | Posted in Healthy Eating, Healthy Exercise, Healthy Nutrition | Posted on 14-07-2009

Though there are many different low carbohydrate diet plans, they are based on the same principles. When carbohydrates (such as starches and sugars) are consumed, the body’s blood sugar level rises. To counteract high blood sugar levels, the body releases insulin, which in turn increases fat storage and decreases the body’s ability to burn fat.

When a low carb dieter restricts carbohydrates, his or her blood sugar is only slightly raised, thus preventing excess insulin production. But many low carbohydrate dieters’ hopes are ruined by uncontrollable sweet cravings, hypoglycaemic mood swings, hunger urges and lethargy.

The truth about carbohydrate is that too much carbohydrate provides too many Calories and probably also has certain negative effects on blood glucose and insulin levels. Despite this however, the body must still have a minimum amount of carbohydrate (as glucose) to stay alive.

Although the brain and nervous system normally want the most glucose, these organs can get along without it in a pinch. But that’s not true for certain blood cells and other types of cells. They must have a steady supply of glucose, because without it they’ll quickly die.

For this reason, glucose is so important that your body will begin to make the glucose it needs for these cells out of muscle protein if it doesn’t get enough carbohydrate from food. But, although possible, this is a stressful emergency reaction (called ketosis), which also makes you miserable with hunger, cravings, and many other unpleasant sensations. Obviously, dieting would be much more successful if we could avoid all that.

When your body runs low on any nutrient it needs to stay healthy, it naturally triggers hunger to make you go get it some more of that thing. But if you habitually eat foods that have too little of whatever it’s running low on and too many Calories, you’re going to get fat from this reaction.

Fortunately you can lose the weight again by simply reversing the process. To do so, you learn to eat things that have lots of what your body needs but not many Calories. When you succeed at this your body has no reason to trigger hunger and food cravings even when you’re eating very few Calories and it’s burning excess fat (stored Calories) to make up for this.

This reaction is as true for carbohydrate as it is for each of the other nutrients. If you eat too little carbohydrate, your body will trigger hunger because it needs a minimum amount of glucose every day to supply the cells that can’t use anything else.
If you eat too much carbohydrate, you’ll get fat because too much carbohydrate has both too many Calories and the aforementioned negative effects on blood glucose and insulin levels. So how much is “enough but not too much”? That amount is probably highly variable depending on your lifestyle. A stressful “go-go” day can require a lot of carbohydrate while a relaxed day probably won’t. However, most scientists put the minimum amount of carbohydrate that most people will need in the range of 50-100 grams per day (which is 200-400 Calories from carbohydrate). This is the amount that prevents your body from starting to make glucose out of muscle protein.

Since most food labels list the amount of carbohydrate in the food you eat, tracking and controlling amounts is not difficult. Try to eat in the range of 400 Calories from carbohydrate per day. This will usually prevent the hunger and cravings that are triggered by too little glucose.

There are several other nutrients that also trigger hunger and cravings when you get too little of them – and which must therefore also be managed similarly.

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Healthy Aging Starts with Stress Reduction

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Posted by admin | Posted in Health, Healthy Eating | Posted on 05-07-2009

People are often unaware of what stress can do to their body and mind. Stress is bad for the heart. Stress will give you headaches, or make you feel depressed. Stress can do many harmful things to your body and mind, yet in some instances stress is good. Balancing stress is the key to living healthier.

If you live with unhealthy stress, you will need to take action to reduce the volume. You have many options to relieve stress.

Where does stress come from?
Stress develops from many different things. For instance, bills can cause you stress. Not paying your bills on time due to lack of funds can cause stress. Not having a job or kids can stress you out to the max. In addition, bad relationships can wear on your nerves.

What can you do to get some relief from stress?
Some of the things that may help you to find relief from stress include reading a good book. Wrap yourself up in a warm blanket or cool area depending on the weather and enjoy a good book. Writing is one of the top keys that help you to reduce stress. When you are overloaded with stress, write down your feelings, emotions, thoughts and so on. Writing is a great exercise, put it to good use. Avoid overdoing it, so that you learn to enjoy writing rather than feeling frustrated at the thought of writing.

You could also enjoy a nice hot, bubble bath. Add some candles around the tub, soak and enjoy. There are many ways that people can find relief from stress; you have to decide on the best way for you to find that relief. Go with whatever works best for you.

If you cant find a way to do it on your own perhaps you can visit your family doctor, a counselor, friend or family member that will guide you to reducing your stress. Support is a great tool. Build up a support group that helps you live healthier, rather than wearing you down.

What does stress do to my body?
Stress will do a lot to your body if you let it. It will control your emotions, thoughts, actions, behaviors, bodily functions and so on. If you allow stress to control you, it will bring you down to nothing, making you feel worthless. Stress can do a lot of damage to your body as well as your mind.

What can I do so I am not so stressed?
Stress can be reduced by minimizing bad habits. Try paying your bills on time if possible. If you cannot pay your bills on time due to insufficient funds, pay enough to avoid shut-off notices. You may want to setup a budget so that you spend wisely. Help is only a phone call away as well. Pick up your phone book, talk to people in your area, etc, since you just may find money available to help those with low-income pay bills.

Another good way to avoid stress is to stay away from those who drag you down. If you have friends or family members feeding you negativity, let them go and find positive friends instead. Sometimes tough love is our way of saying, “I’ve had enough.”

In addition, you can learn to eat healthy, exercise and put away those things that wear on your health. For instance, if you smoke, drink excessively, use drugs, etc, you are wearing heavily on your nerves. Put these things behind you if possible; otherwise seek help to put these things behind you. You have many options; check your resources to learn what is available to you.

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