Healthy Lifestyle

Well, life does seem a bit like being on a treadmill at times, with you going at it full tilt but not really getting anywhere fast. This is one of the really unfortunate curses of a modern lifestyle in that we have so much to enrich our lives but we’re so busy working to get them that we don’t have the time to enjoy them.

One of the great similes that relates to the world of fitness and exercise then is exercising on a real treadmill instead of getting outside in the fresh air and pounding the pavement! I’m not saying don’t make full use of fitness equipment treadmills as every piece of apparatus has its place in the physical workout strategy. But don’t discount the benefits that can be gained from getting out into the fresh air and walking or running as nature intended.

There are several benefits to running (or walking) outside in the open air that you can’t get from using such apparatus in a gym.

The first and most important is that fresh air itself. Ok, if you live in a city or built up area where the air quality is not so good, polluted by the exhaust fumes of far too many internal combustion engine powered vehicles and all manner of other man made pollutants,  then maybe you could actually be doing yourself more harm than good by breathing in excessive amounts of carbon monoxide and carcinogenic toxins like benzene.

But if you live in a more open area such as a smaller town where there are lots of open spaces and fewer vehicles to pollute the air, then breathing in the fresh air is better for you than the air conditioned atmosphere of a gym. The wind in your face is exhilarating, and the feeling of freedom that can only come from being in the great outdoors is a powerful motivator to improve your health so that you can enjoy even more of it as often as possible.

It also has the effect of diverting your attention away from the stresses of modern life with its restrictions on your time and resources,which in itself is a great boost to health by removing some of the stress from your life. Every little thing that you can do to reduce stress and improve your quality of life counts towards a more enjoyable, healthy and long lived stay on this planet.

Getting out into the open and getting a little closer to nature is one positive step to spending less time on the treadmill of life and more time getting real again.

There is so much information flying around the Internet these days, it gets difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. This is especially so when trying to find info that relates to dieting or weight loss. One of the questions that gets asked a lot is “What are zone diets?” so this post will do its best to explain them.

Zone diets are derived from a system of dieting and healthy lifestyle created by Barry Sears PhD and packaged as The Zone Diet. It works on the fairly simple principle that as long as you eat a well balanced and healthy diet and combine that with regular daily exercise, you should be able to maintain a healthy weight without needing to resort to artificial or unnatural means to lose weight and keep that excess weight off.

The diet itself comprises a variable set of daily meals that are shipped out to customers in batches of seven day’s supply, covering three meals a day plus snacks that can be eaten in between meals. The meals are balanced out to contain 40% proteins with 30% of low GI carbohydrates and a further 30% fats, the majority of which are unsaturated or good fats.

When people see this relatively high level of fats included in a diet, they initially worry that is too high and it will make then gain and not lose weight. This is not so, as it is not the fats themselves that generally cause weight gain, unless you eat them is extremely high quantities, but, the overall levels of calories you consume that are in excess of what your body can burn through exercise.

So that’s what zone diets are, in a nutshell and in their most simplistic terms. They work where other fad diets may fail simply because our bodies need a balanced diet where no major food group is excluded. As long as we balance the food we eat with sufficient exercise to burn off the calories that food contains, we will not gain weight. Pure and simple.

So you could actually save yourself a lot of money by avoiding expensive diet plans and get back to basics. Eat well and healthily, cut right down on junk foods, high sugar foods, fizzy soda drinks and alcohol and for heaven’s sake do some exercise and you’ll be healthy!

This is an interesting concept that I thought I’d bring up here about the actual forthrightness of all the Nutrisystem reviews that exist. This is mainly because there are so many of them published in a multitude of blogs and ezine sites that its almost impossible to see the wood for the trees! But for all the apparent wealth of information that’s out there on the subject, just how unbiased and honest are the vast majority of them?

Well, to be honest I have to say that the vast majority of these articles that are splattered all over the web are nothing more than in your face sales pitches that are designed to get you to buy the product with little thought to providing any substance in the truth department! Its far too easy these days to provide a few paragraphs of pure hype to get a visitor to your site to click a link or a banner and be transported to the company site where you are tempted to part with your cash to buy into the dream without first knowing half of what you’re buying into.

Some of the better reviews actually provide a more balanced view and talk about the disadvantages and downsides to this diet food delivery system as well as its good points. If you’re going to pay for something, you should at least know if there may be issues that can be detrimental to your chances of success, after all.

So it pays, if you’re searching for information on a diet food plan like Nutrisystem to find the reviews that actually mention its bad points as well as the good so you know exactly what to expect and what not to expect from the product. After all, you are trying to lose weight by using their diet system, you should at least know if it will even work for you with respect to your own lifestyle and needs. To make informed decisions before parting with your hard earned cash at least means that you are going in with both eyes wide open and knowing what you should expect to get out of it.

Gluten is a substance found in wheat and also in barley and rye and is a good source of protein. It is added to many processed foods to boost their protein levels and is added to the flour for bread making as it helps the bread rise evenly and produces a better structure in the final loaf. The downside to gluten is that for those who suffer with a condition called coeliac disease, it triggers a bad immune system response and causes sufferers many disagreeable symptoms.

For this reason, the gluten free diet plan has been formulated to help sufferers of coeliac disease to lead a fairly problem free life by completely eliminating all products that contain gluten from the diet.

From a weight loss viewpoint, this type of diet is an excellent way of losing weight as it eliminates nearly all the foods that cause weight gain. There are so many products made from wheat that are on the “bad” list, such as cakes, pastries, biscuits, bread, pasta and a whole host of junk foods that are derived from wheat based products, such as pizza, burgers (they contain breadcrumbs as do hot dogs, sausages, stuffings etc), anything coated in breadcrumbs, many candy bars that contain biscuit or wafer and it also includes most processed foods you buy in the supermarkets.

So by cutting out all these foods and replacing them with healthy fresh produce, fruit, vegetables, berries and nuts as well as rice products, dieters can lose weight quite easily and sufferers of coeliac disease can get on with living a more normal and also healthier life.

People often wonder whether there is any validity in ready to go weight loss diet plans such as Nutrisystem and similar packages. There are countless Nutrisystem Reviews online that mostly give it a good press, but then again, most of them are thinly veiled sales pitches, so of course they’re going to give them a glowing report! So do they really work? Let’s look at what we can see with our own eyes.

Diet plans are fine and in theory at lest should work well to help a person lose weight, as after all that’s what they’re designed to do. Most work by restricting your calorie intake in a 24 hour period. This is the major aspect of weight loss that would work every time if only the people that were doing the diet plan would also do some exercise to compliment it.

After all, you must burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. Its no good just restricting your calorie intake without exercising, or your nody will just go into survival mode and use even fewer of the calories you consume, while storing the excess as fat.

As good as any diet can be, it needs that combination of exercise and diet to truly work. Most diet plans are well balanced, with nutritious foods that are designed to supply the body with all the nutrients it needs while keeping the number of calories down to a reasonable level. That is along with reducing the amount of fats, trans fats, sugars and low GI carbohydrates, all of which tend to slow the body’s metabolism down. So by reducing these aspects, these diet plans actually help your body to lose weight by giving its metabolism a boost. All you have to do is stick to the diet and not cheat!

So the bottom line when it comes to weight loss diet plans such as Nutrisystem is that no matter how good their diet is, they will work if the person using them combines that diet with sufficient exercise to burn off the calories, no matter how few they are consuming each day.

The idea of losing water weight refers to getting rid of excess water that is retained in body tissue and not used for generally hydrating the body. So if you want to know how to lose water weight, read on.

Water retention, or edema to call it by its correct medical name, is a condition where the body stored excess fluid in body tissue which can cause swollen legs or ankles and causes a person to be heavier than they need to be. So how do you go about losing this excess fluid?

The very first thing you should do is to consult your doctor. That way the doctor can test for and rule out any medical conditions that might be causing your edema. If you are given a clean bill of health, you doctor may prescribe diuretic pills (water pills) which will help your body to flush the excess fluids. These must only be taken for a few days then stop, or following your doctor’s guidelines.

There is also a natural way to deal with water retention and that is through diet. Yes, that old weight watcher’s word raises its ugly head yet again. But really, if your diet is not up to par, then you are letting yourself if for a whole host of unhealthy conditions that will build up over time without you realizing and then will come out and hit you when you least expect it.

So for dealing with water retention, you should make sore you cut down on your salt intake for a start. If you are consuming too much sodium, you will retain more fluids as well as raise your blood pressure and risk several other medical problems down the line.

Cut down your refined sugar intake if this is high. Too much sugar causes a equal and opposite response by your body by releasing high levels of  insulin into your bloodstream, which not only cause more fat storage but also water retention.

Increase your intake of proteins if this is an area you are neglecting. That means more meat (of you are not vegetarian, that is) fish, nuts, seeds, fresh fruit and leafy green vegetables. Also increase you intake of omega 3 and 6 fatty acids (walnuts, flax seeds or cod liver oil caps are good for this)  and also the B vitamins.

Doing all these things while combining them with daily exercise and drinking more plain water (yes, really) and herbal teas and green tea will all help to rid you of the excess fluids in your body.

Welcome back and here has to be the most unpopular post on the planet right now! With a title like that, it’s bound to set off a chain reaction with millions of irate housewives shaking their fists at me and calling me out. But whatever they say, its true that doing housework is not only good for you, it helps keep your weight in check too. That’s right, you can actually lose weight doing housework!

How do I know this? Because I’m the one that does the housework in my home and the exercise is actually pretty beneficial, especially for someone who spends his working day in front of this computer writing stuff.

So how does it work?

Well, the whole strategy is based upon not seeing housework as a chore, but shifting your perception on it being a form of daily exercise designed to help tone up those flabby bits while burning off some excess calories that slobbing out on the sofa definitely does not. The disclaimer here is that this may not be for everyone as we’re all different, but its better than nothing and when you put your mind and determination into it, it can work for you too. Here’s how it works for me.

Ok, first job is to grab a CD with all my might and put it in the player. Loud, rhythmic music is essential, just like it is with aerobics. The style is your choice, but it has to be pretty fast, foot stomping stuff, so keep your Brahms lullaby stuff for after… I hate modern electronic music, being a musician myself I prefer real music played by real people and as I grew up in the late 60s, early 70s, I like foot stomping rocking music, so AC/DC are a favourite…

Ok, once the music is pounding the wall, I sweep what has to be swept in time to the music making a big deal out of each broom stroke. If my neighbours could see me they’d think I’d gone totally nuts… What has to be mopped gets mopped with the same treatment. Rough and tough! I run up and down stairs as fast as I can and as often as I can because that’s a great cardiovascular exercise. I don’t vacuum because I live in a house with marble floors so there are no carpets to vacuum, hence all the sweeping and mopping, but if I had to vacuum too, then I’d make sure I put a lot of energy into it just the same. Cleaning windows is hard work, especially the big ones, so I really put a lot of effort into it and by the time I’m done I’m sweating and out of breath.

That’s good and it means I’ve been working hard enough to shift those calories. Some jobs don’t get done every day and so you get to vary some of the jobs day to day, which is good. But every cleaning job gets pretty much the same treatment until I’m done.

Here’s the thing. If you don’t sweat and get out of breath, you’re not burning calories and you’re not working hard enough to lose weight. Work harder!

When you do all that for maybe an hour every day, you soon start to feel the benefit!

Welcome back to the healthy blog that gives it to you straight! This time out I’m going to be a real killjoy and call out soda - yes, the fizzy canned or bottled drinks that everyone loves! Guess what?

Soda is bad for you!

Well, maybe deep down inside you’d already guessed that was the case, but the problem is that television advertising is so good these days they have you believing that soda makes you happy, goes with having fun, makes relationships buzz, brings friends together… ok, you get the way they get inside your brain. Its all a bunch of carefully orchestrated lies, of course. The reality is that if you drink two or three (or more) cans of soda a day, you are staring obesity city in the face and a whole heap of health problems queuing up to get you in the future.

Why is soda so bad for you?

There are two major reasons why soda is bad for you. First of all, regular soda contains far too much sugar. It raises blood sugar levels and makes your pancreas work like crazy to produce enough insulin to counteract it. Over time, your pancreas will lose the fight and you’ll be staring type II diabetes squarely in the face. All that raising and countering of blood sugar levels makes your body store all the excess as fat. Right where you don’t want it. On your belly, that is! This is one of the better known weight loss tips which is to avoid belly fat production. That is dangerous because not only does this make you overweight, increased levels of belly fat is now linked with, wait for it… cancer!

So what about sugar free soda? Surely that is better to drink?

Wrong. Sugar free soda, like all other sugar free products contains artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and sorbitol. Both these substances interfere with the brain’s function when it comes to registering hunger. Yep, they make you feel hungry even when you’re not. What do you automatically reach for when you’re drinking sugar free soda? Potato chips, slices of pizza, burgers, fries, chocolate or candy bars, pretzels, corn snacks, the list is pretty long but you can bet they’re all loaded with calories. All those extra calories add up to that well trodden road leading to Obesity City!

But that’s not all. Sugar free soda containing aspartame has one last health destroying property lurking in the shadows for you. Cancer! Yes, aspartame has been linked with cancer in so many trials and medical researches that you wouldn’t believe, yet governments repeatedly deny there is anything wrong with the stuff. But don’t take my word for it. Go ahead and Google “dangers of aspartame” and read the evidence for yourself, understand it and make sure you can see both sides of the argument. Go do it now, I’ll wait…

Ok, who do you believe? Government denials or your verifiable research and your own common sense?

Whatever you believe, believe this. Soda, whether it contains sugar or artificial sweeteners, will make you gain weight and can lead to cancer later on down the road.

That’s why it is so bad for you.

Welcome back to this healthy lifestyle blog with a post that will shock plenty of people who don’t know that white bread is bad for you! Well sure it is, when you think about it and what it is made from.

White bread, especially the innocent looking sliced loaf that you buy at the store, is packed full of zero nutrition and empty calories that will make you gain weight and store it on your belly. It’ll also set you up for a whole host of health problems if you eat too much of it. The worrying fact is that most people in the West eat too much white bread and they are damaging their health without even realizing it.

I’m sure you want to know why white bread is bad for you so here’s the scoop! White bread is made from refined white flour, just like our friend white pasta that we visited in the last post. Refined white flour as you will have gleaned from that post contains no useful nutrient, having had them all removed in the refining process, which includes bleaching the flour with chlorine based bleaching agents. Gluten is added to help the loaf rise and achieve a more uniform shape, which fits in with our increasing need to have perfect looking food from supermarkets. You know, like tomatoes that are all big and red and uniform in shape. Just like they grow naturally… NOT!

Well, that gluten is the cause for allergies in a huge number of people. Many know about it but far more don’t, then wonder why this or that allergy shows up all the time.

But the worst part of eating too much white bread is that it destabilizes your blood sugar levels, which can lead to type II diabetes and loads it up with bad LDL cholesterol which narrows arteries, increases blood pressure and can lead to strokes and heart disease. It slows down your metabolism too, meaning you set yourself up for weight gain. Just look at all the slim healthy people around you and chance are they don’t eat much (or any) white bread. Then look at all the seriously overweight people munching on sandwiches made from white bread…

As an extra health minus point, white bread is extremely unkind to your digestive system and especially your colon because it contains absolutely zero dietary fiber and clogs up your intestines, leading to all sorts of knock-on health problems such as IBS, Crohne’s disease, constipation etc.

Naturally, the industry that makes $billions from the sale of white bread is not going to come out and admit how unhealthy their product is. Why would they? It would cost them money to do that. Far better to keep it swept under the carpet and just let a few annoying bloggers write about it because few people will actually take a blind bit of notice.

Don’t expect government health officials to shout about it from the rooftops either. They don’t want this particular boat being rocked any more than the tobacco industry wants anyone to believe that smokingis bad for you. Which of course it patently cannot be, if you look around at all the smokers there are still…

But that’s a topic for whole bunch of posts later on down the line!

If you want to eat bread and still be healthy, switch to wholemeal and toast your good health. Wholemeal bread contains all the goodness of the whole wheat including the bran, which is high in dietary fiber and good for your digestive system and kind to your colon. It tastes good too!

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The title of this post is pretty self explanatory in the sense that it is a completely self contained statement of fact that has been born out by countless scientific studies into the health effects of various food items that have found their way into our modern diets in the West.

So why should you exclude white pasta from your diet to stay healthy?

The main reason to avoid white pasta in your diet is because it is made from refined white flour, which in itself contains absolutely no goodness whatsoever. It’s like eating cardboard, but tastes marginally better. But white its lack of nutrients wouldn’t normally make it a bad thing to eat, white pasta when used as the main staple bulking ingredient of a meal, which is generally is, then the reasons for cutting it out become evident.

First, like white bread, it contains a lot of high GI (glycemic index) carbohydrates. These are the type of carbs that release sugars quickly into the bloodstream, causing a rush of sugar and a reactive rush of insulin release to counter it. Bad for diabetics and bad for weight gain in the rest of us. What this does is make us feel full quickly, but then makes us feel hungry again soon after, which is a leading cause of weight gain.

It also raises levels of bad LDL cholesterol and because it is not digested efficiently, it slows the metabolism and results in more fat storage, with the emphasis on belly fat. Nice.

So there are plenty of reasons to exclude white pasta from your diet. You can replace it with brown pasta, which is made from wholegrain flour which is much better for you and a subject for a post all of its own later.

Healthy Lifestyle