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August 17th, 2009
If you have celiac disease.
What is this disease?
It is a digestive disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food. People who have this disease cannot tolerate gluten, a protein in wheat, rye, and barley. Gluten is found mainly in foods but may also be found in everyday products such as medicines, vitamins, and lip balms.
If you do not have it should you go on a gluten free diet?
The down side:
• Some people diagnosing themselves with gluten intolerance really have it - but, by going on this unsupervised, they are masking the signs that would allow a doctor to get an exact diagnosis and look for related problems, such as fragile bones, says Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University in New York.
• may end up short on vitamins.
• specialty foods are expensive.
• can be fattening. Manufacturers aiming for a yummy wheat-free bagel or bread often rely on fat to replace gluten
What are the benefits?
You do not eat processed foods, and eat more healthier foods. As with any diet consult your doctor.
The question is, is gluten free diets another fad diet. If you feel that the low carb diet was a fad, then yes this diet is a fad if you do not have Celiac disease. If not planned correctly gluten free diets like any other diet can do more harm than good. If you have Celiac disease then you have to avoid gluten.
If you do not have Celiac disease, stop jumping from diet to diet. Eat right, eat healthy, there is no magic formula that is going to make you drop 100 pounds over night.
August 17th, 2009
Recumbent exercise bikes come with bucket seats. Bucket seats allow you to sit lower to the ground and lean back as you pedal. Because of this, they help counter muscle tension and stiff backs. They also promote proper posture without compromising on helping you develop endurance and strength. They are also good for people suffering from back and leg problems because they allow for exercise without much difficulty and risk of injury.
Advantages
Good for all fitness levels: Because it’s very comfortable to use, even a beginner will find the exercise bike easy to operate. However, it can also offer a great workout challenge for athletes. Just adjust to a setting that matches your fitness level.
Offers sustainable workout: Since it offers something for all fitness levels, you can definitely find a workout that can suit you. It keeps your workout from being boring by giving you different programs. Choose an easy course one day and step it up the next. With the different programs it can offer, you are sure to find something that suits your fitness needs.
Safe: The bucket seats help ensure that you are using the proper posture for your exercise. It puts your body in angles that effectively work you out without putting pressure on your joints. Doing an exercise with proper posture not only safeguards you from injury but also makes your exercise more effective.
Buying a recumbent bike is a great investment. You can use it as a beginner and work your way up. And it even keeps up with your progress! When buying a recumbent exercise bike, look for one that offers a wide range of programs and includes heart rate and pulse monitors.
April 9th, 2009
There’s a common notion that people tend to eat the same number of calories from day to day. But that’s not necessarily so, says Barbara Rolls, PhD. Many people eat the same weight of food from day to day. Therein lies the strategy behind her new weight loss book, “Volumetrics.” If people consume the same volume of food they always do but with fewer calories than usual, they’ll lose weight, without feeling hungry.
Dr. Rolls has the credentials to weigh in. Unlike so many fad diet “experts” whose primary objective is to sell books, she is a nutrition and obesity researcher with years of scientific study to her credit.
The research, which was conducted at Penn State University, served women similar meals and snacks over several different days but varied how many calories the meals contained per pound.
On some days the women ate a pasta salad that had more vegetables than pasta. On other days, the salad contained more pasta than vegetables, which upped the amount of calories per bite. The women were allowed to eat all the food they wanted.
The women ended up satisfying their hunger by eating the same daily food weight-about 3 pounds. As a result, on some days they were satisfied with 30% fewer calories. The researchers explain that as the stomach fills and the food is broken down into tiny particles satiety occurs whether a pound of food contains five hundred calories or fifteen hundred.
The book rates more than 600 foods for their calories per gram of weight. Not surprisingly, vegetables and fruits rated very well on the calorie per pound scale. The book points out that it’s sometimes easier to lower the energy density of a dish like lasagna by adding, say, spinach or eggplant rather than taking out fat by removing cheese.
But the best point, perhaps, is that “not every food choice you make should be determined by energy density” because some foods, “like chocolate, are too delicious to give up.” Now that’s our kind of weight loss book.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The cardiologist looked up from the treadmill report and grimly stated, “You are a walking time bomb. You need to go to the hospital immediately.” Two days later a heart surgeon sawed open Gene Millen’s chest and stitched in bypasses to six clogged arteries.
“A six way heart bypass isn’t a record” said Gene, “but it’s not bad for a skinny 59 year old with normal cholesterol and blood pressure. The villains and heroes in the heart attack melodrama may surprise you as they have me.” |
April 9th, 2009
Treadmills are the number one exercise machines both for ease of use and for calories burned.
According to a study done by the Medical College of Wisconsin and the VA Medical Center in Milwaukee, calories burned on the treadmill for 60 minutes averaged 865 - 705. This beat out the stair machine, rowing machine, stationary cycle or even cross country ski machine.
But how do you get the MOST calorie bang for your buck? How do you superboost that calorie burn, especially if you don’t have a lot of time to work out?
I asked this question of several personal trainers that write for our website and here’s what they came up with.
These 3 easy tips will boost your calorie burn while on your treadmill AND possibly even after your workout!
#1) Walk Uphill
By using your treadmill incline, you are forcing the larger groups of muscles to work, thus burning more calories. You can often double or even triple the amount of calories you normally burn by walking on an incline.
Don’t want to walk on an incline for 20 minutes straight?
Another way to burn calories on your treadmill is by doing incline intervals: walking on a steep incline for 1 - 2 minutes, then walking on a normal incline for 5 minutes (while you catch your breath) and then repeating.
Incline intervals are a powerful way to challenge your body: you don’t allow your body to get used to the same workout routine and the same repetitive muscle motion. So the number of calories burned rises and stays high - even after your workout.
#2) Don’t Grip the Handrails
If you’ve been to many gyms, you’ve probably seen your fair share of people grasping onto the front or side handrails as they walk.
While it’s fine to touch them for balance, you shouldn’t have to hold on. That actually burns less calories since your legs aren’t doing the work by themselves - they’re getting help from the treadmill frame.
Instead of holding on to the handrails, try lowering your intensity until you don’t need to hold onto the handrails for support. Then, to build more calorie burning power into your workout swing your arms or carry 2 pound handweights to get a total body workout. Overall, you’ll be burning more calories this way than holding onto the handrails for support.
#3) Build in Speed Intervals
Just like incline intervals, this challenges your body to not only work harder while on your treadmill, but the higher calorie burn will continue after your workout.
Walk (or run) at your normal pace for 3 minutes and then do 30 -60 seconds at a faster pace (so that you’re breathing heavily by the end of the interval). Then slow it down to your usual pace again for another 3 minutes.
You’ll definitely feel the difference after your workout!
(Of course never push yourself so hard that you feel pain. If you ever do feel pain, slow your pace down right away and talk to a medical professional)
So there are 3 tips to help you burn calories on a treadmill and keep your calorie burn high post workout. It’s recommended that before starting any exercise program, you should consult your doctor. Remember that everyone is different. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else but instead listen to your body and do what you can.
Before you know it, you’ll have reached your fitness and weight loss goals!
April 9th, 2009
Extra body weight is being perceived as an epidemic in the United States. The latest data from the National Center for Health Statistics show that 30 percent of U.S. adults 20 years of age and older - over 60 million people - are obese. About 60-65 percent people in the U.S. alone are overweight. This increase is not limited to adults. The percentage of young people who are overweight has more than tripled since 1980. Among children and teens aged 6-19 years, 16 percent (over 9 million young people) are considered overweight.
One common measure to determine ideal body weight is body mass index (BMI), which is a ratio of height and weight multiplied by a factor. This ratio should be less than 25 for both men and women. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, and a BMI equal or over 30 is clinically obese. Obesity has also been linked to other nutritional disorders, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardio-vascular diseases. Shockingly, the numbers of teen obesity in the United States is also leading to teen diabetes.
One factor that is chiefly responsible for the accumulation of extra body weight among Americans is the fast food culture. These fast foods chiefly include burgers, sandwiches, fries, pizza and soda. All these foods are high in calories, fat, sugar, and salt – the main enemies of ideal body weight and optimum health. They are also low in essential nutrients (vitamins, minerals and trace elements) and fiber – the friends of good health and general well being. So why is this fast food culture overpowering us? Face it - any food that is high in fat, sugar and salt tastes so good. And fast food well qualifies for this category. In addition to the taste temptation, fast food is also readily available and unfortunately cheaper than the healthy food. The other factors that contribute to excess body weight are lack of exercise, sedentary lifestyles, and improper eating habits leading to decreased metabolism, certain medical conditions and their drug after-effects.
Weight loss, weight gain and weight maintenance is no magic. It is simply a ratio of calories-in and calories-out. By “calories-in” we mean how many calories you are obtaining from your food on a daily basis, and by “calories-out” we mean how many of these calories you are burning in the same day. In order to lose weight, your calories-out should be more than your calories-in everyday until you reach your weight loss goals. For maintaining weight, there should be no significant difference between your calories-in and calories-out on a daily basis. For gaining weight (for example, for underweight people), your calories-in should be greater than your calories-out until your reach your desired body weight. It is recommended that a big part of the calories-in for the people trying to gain weight should come from protein sources, so they gain muscles rather than body fat.
Now, the question is how do we calculate calories-in and calories-out. Your calories-in can be calculated with the help of a dietician, who would calculate the calorie equivalent of the food that you consume in general on a daily basis. There are also software available to do the same calculations that you can search over the internet. The calories-out are in general more than your resting metabolic rate (RMR), which is the amount of calories that your body burns without any activity. Many dieticians and gymnasiums offer the RMR calculation tests. Also, there are software available to calculate your RMR that you can search over the internet. In order to lose weight, the general rule is that you need to consume fewer calories per day that your body burns naturally anyway. Either with the help of a dietician or these nutrition software, you can come up with certain foods or their quantity to cut down from your daily diet in order to start losing weight. At this point, it is extremely important to know that you only need to cut down on your calories-in, but you still need all other nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals and fiber, for optimum health. If your weight loss plan includes cutting down on certain foods and / or their quantity, it will be a good idea to include the supplements of these vitamins and minerals to ensure optimum nutrition.
It should be noted that carbohydrates, fats and proteins provide the calories in the food. So obviously one has to cut down on these nutrients in order to restrict one’s calorie intake. When it comes to carbohydrates, you should cut down on the bad carb intake that are high in calories and also burn fast making you hungry again. The bad carbs are mainly derived from processed foods and sweet snacks and desserts, such as, candies, cookies, chips, doughnuts, brownies, Danish, etc. Rather, these bad carbs should be substituted with good carbs. The sources of good carbs are whole grains like rice, wheat, oat, barley, whole grain cereals, whole grain breads, fruits, vegetables, etc. The nutrition recommendation is that less than 30 percent of your total calorie intake should come from fat.
This fat consumption should be lower in saturated fat and should include unsaturated fats, such as polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats, as they are beneficial for heart and general health. The good sources of these beneficial fats are vegetable oils, fish oil and olive oil. As far as proteins are concerned, about 40-50 percent of the human body mass is composed of proteins. Therefore, one has to be really careful when it comes to protein nutrition. One should cut down on red meat foods that are although high in proteins, are also high in fat. One should increase the intake of vegetarian sources of proteins, such as soy, beans, pulses, as they are generally low in fat. The good sources of animal proteins are chicken and fish as they are in general low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fats, such as omega-3 fatty acids.
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