Refresh Your Fitness and Nutrition Goals For the Spring

      The value and importance of a healthy, lifestyle through good nutrition and supplementation. It is very important to have a healthy diet that consists of good foods that provide a combination of vitamins, minerals, healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, and protein in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  A healthy diet that consists of all of these key elements is essential in order to live and maintain a healthier lifestyle and to also help to minimize diseases in our bodies and in our minds as well. When you combine healthy eating habits along with exercise and proper rest for recovery it will help us to maintain your health and well being.  

     Here is a list of healthy foods that will help you to achieve a healthier lifestyle. Lets start with vegetables green leafy vegetables such as spinach, kale, arugula, mustard greens, and romaine lettuce are all healthy vegetables that provide adequate amounts of vitamin C vitamin A iron, folate, and chlorophyll which helps to maintain a healthy alkaline environment for your body and also aids in the proper digestion and absorption of  foods in our bodies and helps is to absorb and eliminate our waste as well. Other vegetables that help to maintain our health and well being are carrots they contain high levels of vitamin A and  beta carotene and also are essential to helping us to maintain healthy eye site which is very important to our health as well. Other vegetables that are also good for us our beets, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. There are also a lot of good fruits that are god for us to consume as well such as oranges, strawberries, blueberries, melons, pineapples and mangos. All of these fruits contain considerable amounts of both vitamin A and C and potassium as well as other vitamins and minerals. Another good thing about these fruits is that they are water soluble and help us to maintain proper hydration throughout the body. They are also essential in many ways because they also provide many healthy benefits to our health and well being. 

     Healthy fats are also essential in maintaining a healthy lifestyle as well. Healthy fats such as olive oil, hemp seed oil, flax seed oil, and fish oil and various nuts  as well as avocadoes that are all essential and healthy fats that our bodies need in order to maintain our health and well being. Health fats are another key element and component in helping us to maintain our heart health as well as healthy joints brain health and also to keep our skin healthy as well. In addition to this there are also other healthy fats such as wild caught fish salmon, tuna, sardines, and maceral which are all  good for our health and well being. These fats also contain considerable amounts of sustainable protein as well. When you combine healthy fats with vitamins and minerals it will help us to improve our health and well being and reduce our chances of becoming sick. Other sources of health fats include lean beef, chicken, turkey, and bison all of these contain very high amounts of protein. There are also some plant based alternatives for those that choose to not eat meat or are vegans tempeh, tofu, rice and beans and also hearty whole grains such as wheat and oats  are all good choices for people that want to live a healthier lifestyle as well. 

     There are also foods that help us to fight inflammation and that are also good for our gut health as well such as ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, cumin,  garlic, mushrooms, and both bone broth collagen and multi collagen as well. These are all essentially important because they help us to reduce inflammation in our bodies and help us to recover faster as well. These foods can easily be added into one's diet through these foods help us to maintain healthy joints, healthy skin, and healthy a healthy gut and also help us to reduce soreness in our bodies as well.

     These foods can also be combined with fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, and protein and can be used into smoothies and shakes which makes it easier to consume and digest for our bodies and helps to provide more natural immunity for our health. Smoothies are a great in many ways they can be used as a healthy meal replacement. They can be taken on the go when you don't have the time for a real meal and can be basically taken at any time during the day as well. In addition to all of these benefits smoothies weather you use a blender, Nutra bullet or ninja to make your smoothies all of the essential fats fruits and vegetables are all broken down and pulverized so that it makes it easier for us to consume and digest for our bodies while providing us with all of the healthy benefits in order for us to maintain a healthier lifestyle. 

     Everything that I have mentioned in this article  are all very important elements and are also essential in helping us to maintain optimum health and well being. Supplementation is also a very key factor as well because we cant always get everything that we need from our foods 

     Here is a list of foods that you either want to eliminate or minimize your intake of them in your diet. Foods such as cheese, fatty meats, and highly processed foods such as cake, cookies, ice cream, candy and gum as well as commercial drinks such as Snaples because they can cause a variety of health issues in our bodies such as high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and many other types of cancer which contribute to poor health and illness in our bodies. Foods like this that contain to much sugar as well as other chemicals can cause joint pain and inflammation which can also cause a lot of pain and discomfort in our bodies. 

     In conclusion it is better to try our best to live in moderation and try to make healthier choices in our lives in order to maintain our health and well being. In addition to this when you can combine healthy nutrition with sufficient exercise and also minimize the bad foods and the bad vices such as smoking, drinking and drug abuse it will help you to live a more healthier lifestyle and live a much more productive healthier life and it will also help you be a happier person inside and out. 

 Resistance Training 

The importance of resistance training. Resistance training is very helpful in many ways for the body as well as the mind. Resistance training helps to build lean muscle mass increase both muscular strength as well as bone strength it also helps us to sleep better which is very important for recovery after workouts. While jogging and running are also good for you in terms of improving our cardiovascular health its the resistance training that helps us to avoid problems such as weight gain, diabetes, obesity, heart related and cardiovascular issues. In fact weight bearing exercises can increase sleep duration by up to 40 minutes and it also enhances sleep efficiency.  The benefits of exercise  weather its resistance training or cardiovascular training both help the body to maintain good health and well being. 

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The 5 Factors of Fitness

When it comes to health and wellness I feel that it is very important to follow a good guiding system one that addresses our needs so that we will be able to achieve our health and wellness goals. This system is what I like to refer to is called the 5 factors of fitness which include nutrition/supplementation, strength training, cardiovascular training  stretching and flexibility, and rest for recovery. All of these factors play a key role in helping us to live a healthier lifestyle both physically and mentally. The list below provides examples of what each of these factors addresses in regards to our health.

1. Nutrition/supplementation good nutrition and supplementation helps to control our weight, increase our energy levels, grow and repair our tissues, and also helps to reinforce our immune system as well.

2. Strength training helps us to be able to restore our balance and reduce our risk of falling as well as increasing our bone density. Strength training can also increase our metabolic rate by about 15%. Strength training can also help to reduce the signs and symptoms of chronic conditions such as back pain, arthritis, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.

3. Cardiovascular training /muscular endurance training helps to make our hearts stronger and improve our lung capacity as well as reduce the risk of diseases and some types of cancer. Cardiovascular exercises also helps to improve our blood flow all around our bodies, thus improving our oxygen supply, hormonal balance, and eliminate waste from the body.

4. Stretching/flexibility helps to increase and improve our range of motion as well as enhance our coordination by improving our circulation throughout the body and by also reducing our risk for injury.

5.Rest adequate sleep allows our bodies to get the proper rest that is needed in order to recover and adapt to the physical and mental demands of training. In general 7 to 8 hours of sleep a day is sufficient for the body to recover from the demands paced upon it from the previous day.

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Good and Bad Fats

Healthy fats that naturally occur in nuts, avocados, and olive oil are some of the healthiest fats you can consume.

Ocean caught fish also provides healthy fats that help support heart health when eaten three to four times per week as part of a healthy well balanced  diet.
Fats such as corn oil, butter, margarine, mayonnaise, and foods such as salad dressings, sauces, and gravies should be limited. Note: Trans fats such as corn oil, butter, margarine, and mayonnaise are used in a variety of processed foods to improve the flavor of the food and extend shelf life. A few nuts or some slices of avocado can add a lot of flavor to vegetables or salads with less fat then rich sauces or dressings.

• Good fats are needed for the normal development and functioning of the brain.
• Deficiency of essential fatty acids can lead to an impaired ability to learn and recall information.  

The Power of Muscle

Exercise builds muscle mass, and as your muscle mass increases you burn more calories, even when you are not exercising.

• Each pound of lean body mass burns about 14 calories per day.
• Each pound of fat tissue only burns about 2 calories per day.

The rate at which your body burns calories when it is at rest (not exercising) is known as your Resting Metabolic Rate. It's also referred to simply as "metabolism." When you build lean body mass through exercise you increase the number of calories you burn every day at rest. By increasing your metabolism through exercise, you make the process of losing or maintaining your weight easier.

Building lean muscle mass through exercise can help you reshape your body in the way you desire. Consuming low fat protein daily can help you build lean muscle mass. Without adequate protein intake, your body will steel protein from your muscles and organs.

The Keys to Optimum Wellness

Your health and wellness begin with understanding these three basic habits.

1. Balance Your Diet You need to get enough of the right foods including colorful fruits and vegetables, protein, good carbohydrates, and just enough good fats for the taste that you want. Dietary supplements can provide the vitamins, minerals, and fiber that may be missing from your diet that your cells need in order to maintain good health.

2. Exercise Reguarly Regular exercise can help you to feel and look your best. Exercise conditions your heart, relieves stress, and makes it easier to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.

3. Drink Lots of Water Your body is about two thirds water. In a average day, you lose at least one pint of water even without excessive sweating. To feel your best, you should drink six to eight glasses of water a day.

  

Watermelon ingredient reduces muscle sorness

Watermelon is rich in the amino acid L- Citrulline, which reduces muscle soreness after exercise, according to a Spanish study of young cyclists, published in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Earlier research shows that L- Citrulline helps to normalize blood pressure, improve arterial health, and prevent heart disease, and may enhance sexual stamina and athletic performance. In the recent study, the effective dosage of L- Citrulline was 1.17 grams, an amount available in supplements.

Why a wellness Evaluation?

 Do you think that you eat healthy but you don't feel healthy? Do you feel tired, stressed and overwhelmed? Do you know your biological age can be significantly different then your real age?

During a Wellness Evaluation you will find out:

• what is your real metabolic age
• What is your body composition (body fat, internal fat level, muscle %, bone density, and other important parameters.
• your body needs according to the parameters found
• a balanced alimentation personalized plan
• efficient weight control

75% of this can be improved if you improve your lifestyle!

Digestion and detox

Digestive issues covers a pretty wide array of symptoms, conditions and causes, without knowing the specifically what your issues are its hard to answer. If for example you have celiac disease or gluten intolerance and are experiencing constipation, fatigue, bloating, gas, or other issues as a result of exposure to wheat, no detox in the world is going to fix that - you'll just have to stop eating gluten. That said a wide range of digestion issues can be helped by a detox. That's because a lot of digestive issues are caused by food intolerance's, with gluten being only one of the many substances that can cause problems. Since nearly every detox I know of removes all of the "usual suspects" (wheat, sugar, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, and peanuts), symptoms are often alleviated. The trick is to know which foods were the problem so that you can modify your diet appropriately after the detox is over.

Detoxification Demystified: The term "detoxification" has been around for a long time but remains a misunderstood and misused term. People use it to describe everything from total fasting to spiritual retreats to specialized nutritional regimens for the removal of specific toxins like mercury. A quick Internet search for "the detox diet" brought up so many listings that if I counted them all I'd still be at it and this article would never have been written. So is there any commonality for all these different programs? Yes the liver. The liver is the "cleaning house" for toxins in the body. Everything has to go through it including all toxins from the air, water, exhaust on the freeway, medicines, pesticides, even toxins made in our own body as a byproduct of metabolism. Nothing gets a pass as far as the liver is concerned its sophisticated two - tiered system of detoxification enzymes - known as the Phase one and Phase two cytochrome enzymes - helps to rid our bodies of all toxic riff raff.

However, you can imagine the liver can get overwhelmed with the workload. It's like it has an overflowing 'in box" or a message center that says "this voicemail box is full." And while the liver isn't the only organ that detoxifies us it's certainly the most important, and the one that's on duty 24/7. This is one reason conventional medicine often scoffs at the concept of a detox, since they point out that the body is always detoxifying naturally. This is true, but it doesn't mean we couldn't use a little help from time to time.

So what is a Detox; For our purposes, let's define a detox as a period of time during which we give our systems - our lives and digestive systems - much needed break. It's a kind of "time out" from the daily assault on our cells of environmental pathogens and problematic foods ( or foods that are perfectly fine for some people but not for you). Doing a detox is kind of like rebooting a sluggish computer, or more accurately, like emptying the trash that's taking up a huge amount of memory.

Along with your actual detox, exercise can stimulate circulation and sweat, which assists in escorting toxins out of the body. Additionally, saunas, massages, and even acupuncture are purported to enhance the results of a detox and help to minimize possible side effects such as headaches or nausea. (Of course, if you experience any of these symptoms you should consult a physician). While most conventional medical doctors will scoff at the idea of a detox there are MDs (and other integrative practitioners) who swear by the concept if you're seriously interested in the concept of detoxing and not just following the latest fad check out the New Detox Diet by Elson Haas, MD, as well as a book written by Alejandro Junger, MD. Its called Clean, and its one of the smartest and best books on detox around, endorsed by health luminaries such as best selling author Mark Hyman, MD. Junger's core concepts are easy to understand and hard to argue with: Number one, toxins are stress create obstacles for normal functioning. Number two, modern eating habits and lifestyles pollute our bodies. Number three, by removing the obstacles and providing what's lacking our bodies can bounce back to health and our energy is restored.

Supplements Can Help: Remember the liver is ground zero for the detoxification process so it makes sense to give your liver all the help it can get. Supplements can be useful. Many supplements contain nutrients that assist the liver in the two step process. Phase one and Phase two detoxification. For example, milk thistle is one of the best herbs on the planet for the liver. Some detox formulas or kits will also contain a mild laxative, usually made from the natural ingredient senna, and perhaps some digestive aids like enzymes. One final caution: If you're thinking a cleanse or detox is the perfect way to lose weight think again. weight loss isn't the goal of a cleanse, though many people do them for just that purpose. Weight lost during a detox is almost always gained back. However, a smart cleanse can certainly jump start a new approach to eating and health.

The bottom line A detox is not the way to lose weight and keep it off permanently, but t may be one of the smartest ways to teach yourself something about how your body works. After all, digestive issues are just the body's way of complaining that you're feeding it something it does not particularly like. Use this period to find out what that is and then modify your regular diet accordingly. If you look at a detox as a kind of a jump start a way of increasing energy and mental clarity, and simply feeling lighter and refreshed  - it may be just what the doctor ordered.

Why We Might Need More Vitamin C

Researchers at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, a leading global authority on the role of vitamin C. In optimum health, forward compelling evidence that the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of vitamin C should be raised to 200 milligrams per day for U.S adults up from its current levels of 75 mg for woman and 90mg for men. The RDA of vitamin C is less than half of what it should be scientists argue, because medical experts insist on evaluating this natural, but critical nutrient in the same way they do for pharmaceutical drugs, and consequently reach faulty conclusions.

The researchers base their recommendations on studies showing that higher levels of vitamin C could help reduce chronic health problems including heart disease, stroke, and cancer as well as underlying causal issues such as high blood pressure, chronic inflammation, poor immune response and atherosclerosis. Even at the current l;ow RDA, U.S and Canadian studies have found that a quarter to a third of the total population is marginally deficient in vitamin C and up to a fifth of those in such groups as students, smokers and older adults are severely deficient in it.

Battle of the Bulge

According to the American Heart Association, about one in three American kids and teens id overweight or obese today, nearly triple the rate in 1963. A new report by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation advises that if adult obesity rates continue on their current trajectories by 2030 13 states could have rates above 60 percent, 39 states above 50 percent and all 50 states above 44 percent.

A study published in tho International journal of obesity, based research at 10 universities points to the use of hormones in factory meat production as a major reason for this trend. Pesticides are another culprit; the average American is exposed to 10 to 13 different types each day via food beverages and drinking water, and nine out of 10 most commonly used are endocrine disputers linked to weight gain. Genetically modified U.S food crops also sprayed heavily with biocides. Findings presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science linked bisphenol A (BPA) - an industrial chemical contained in plastic soda, drinking and baby bottles - with abnormal estrogen function.

To win the battle of the bulge, Americans need to eat balanced diets and exercise regularly, but additional steps can further help : choose organic, grass fed meat instead of corn fed use glass instead of plastic containers for beverages and food storage, avoid canned food unless the label states BPA - free, and consume yogurt daily or take a high quality probiotic to help restore healthy intestinal flora.

Catabolism

Catobolism means breakdown this can be a positive or negative thing when it comes to building lean muscle mass - breaking down dietary fats and carbohydrates to provide energy is beneficial: the breakdown of muscle protein to energy is not. The state of being "catabolic" is the physiological state in which the body breaks down muscle mass for the nutrients (amino acids) it contains. The body enters a catabolic state when it doesn't have nutrients available to support the demands placed on it. This can happen after your workouts if you don't have a post workout shake and meal or while you sleep, when you aren't taking in any calories. You can't avoid catabolic states but you can make them shorter and less severe by following appropriate nutrition and supplementation protocols.

Nutty Way to Help Preserve Cognition

Walnut consumption is associated with better memory scores and cognitive function, according to the recent findings published in the journal of Alzheimer's Disease. In the prevencion con Dieta Mediterrnaea study, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Health, results show that a Mediterranean diet, supplemented with olive oil or one ounce of mixed nuts, half of which are walnuts is more beneficial than a low -fat diet when it comes to body weight, blood pressure, insulin resistance and systemic inflammation.

The nutrient - dense walnuts provide antioxidants and alpha - linolenic acid (ALA)  the plant based omega - 3 fatty acid. Both are key nutrients with inflammatory properties that help protect brain cells from the oxidative damage associated with cognitive decline.