Category: Nutrition
Do you ever feel bombarded with messages from the media telling you that “xyz” food is bad for you? One day eggs are good for you, the next day they are bad for your heart. You need to eat more spinach, less fat, more protein, less sugar… So what’s the bottom line? It all boils down to the fact that what you DO eat is more important than what you DON’T eat.
Start From Scratch Through my coaching programs and e-book on PCOS, I focus A LOT on nutrition and the foods that will naturally help you achieve hormonal balance and reverse symptoms associated with PCOS and insulin resistance.
If you’re a proud owner of Freedom from PCOS, then at some point you should receive my “Constructing an Effective Meal Plan” worksheet that helps you map out your personal meal plan so you can see results more quickly. For everyone else, I’ll map it out for you…
The best way to figure out what you should be eating to live up to your highest health potential is to start from scratch. Sit down with a pad of paper and a pen and follow these simple steps.
First, write down everything that you currently eat. This may take awhile, but you will be able to see that if youre not where you want to be health-wise, youre probably eating a lot of empty calories (empty calories mean that the food has little nutritional value, so it has lots of calories that do not serve you). Ive personally struggled with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and insulin resistance, and this is one of the best exercises Ive ever done to improve my condition (though, most women aren’t willing to do this tedious, but TREMENDOUSLY effective exercise).
The U.S. government recommends that you eat between 5 to 10 fruits and vegetables every day. This recommendation is a great one and it has helped dozens of people lose weight and become healthier. The beautiful part to this is that once you start piling on the fruits and veggies, your plate (and stomach capacity) has no room left for the extra junk you used to eat! Fruit and vegetables are naturally filling, and when combined with lean protein, youre satisfied and energized.
*Side Note: Do NOT be afraid to eat fruit if you have insulin resistance. It is not bad for you. On the contrary, fruit contains essential vitamins and nutrients that promote a healthy body.
You should also add other essential carbohydrates such as grains in the form of brown rice, quinoa, barley and buckwheat. These carbohydrates are so good for you and give you natural energy, while helping shed unwanted body fat!
The easiest way to know if a food will benefit you is to identify whether or not its whole. Whole means it hasnt really been tampered with spinach is whole, spinach maria is not.
Start over with your nutrition habits by throwing out all the junk that is causing mayhem in your health and replacing your home with whole, healthy foods. If youre struggling with PCOS and insulin resistance, its time you took a direct approach to naturally overcome your condition by feeding your body the nutrients it so desperately desires.
Copyright (c) 2010 Katie Humphrey
Many people think that athletes are examples of health and that it is strictly related to their nutrition plans and a lot of exercise. Well, in some cases it is true, but there are still people who consider themselves as athletes and practice some totally inappropriate diet, what may finally end in serious health problems. The next time you will meet one of them, try to speak about following issues to make sure, that they know what and why they are eating.
Extra proteins will help you to gain more muscles
Professional nutrition plans for athletes prohibit more than 2.5 times higher protein intake than it is shown in RDA. The higher intake can be responsible for dehydration or even severe problems with liver or kidney. Furthermore there is no scientific proof that high-protein diet will effect in gaining extra muscles.
Athlete should intake fluid when he is thirsty
One of the most common problems in athlete’s life is the possibility of dehydration. Even when an athlete is not thirsty, he may need additional fluid to drink, for every lost pound of weight should be replaced with no less than two cups of water.
Nutrition plan for athletes before competition should not contain sugar
We must remember that sugar gives us energy, so small intakes of this carbohydrate will not only bring no harm, but even can be beneficial for the performance of the athlete.
Sport drinks are good only for those athletes who exercise a lot
Again, we speak about the danger of dehydration. While the total water loss due to exercises may wary depending on the type of exercises, conditions of the gym and the health status of the athlete, the possible problems caused by dehydration are so severe that there should be no restriction in drinking sport drinks, even by those who exercise for less than an hour a day.
You can lose weight when you exercise a lot
This is another common myth. Of course when we consider the water loss as loss of the weight, we may still believe in this superstition, thus endangering ourselves to dehydration. A true athlete, however, knows that every water loss must be replaced as soon as possible and the best and the safest way to loose some additional weight is by proper nutrition for athletes.
While we all want to have healthy and good looking bodies we must remember that not everyone can be an athlete. And when we finally become one of them,we should always keep in mind a single fact, only proper nutrition for athletes, free of popular, but false, beliefs and myths can let us not only stay for years in good shape but also win.
We often gasp at the prospect of trying a new diet program. Please focus in for a minute on the word “diet.” What comes to mind? Low calorie foods, low carbohydrates, and no fat. Without a doubt there many different variations regarding what constitutes an effective diet program. Some of these include no carbs, low carbs, or slow carbs. Also, there’s no fat, some fat, or a lot of fat. Then there’s no protein, low protein, or all protein. Where is a person who wants to lose weight and burn fat turn? What nutrition, that’s right, NUTRITION, not DIET program is the best for you? Do you want to sample a wide variety of tasty food that takes care of burning the fat and provides the proper nutrition to kick start your metabolism.
When we’re searching for the right NUTRITION program for your needs, we must always start with the basic function of human physiology. All of our nutrition needs are based around metabolism. Again, let me say, metabolism “rules the roost” in our bodies’ gastrointestinal physiological (GI) processes. Remember back to your basic high school biology class and recall the three main purposes of the GI system:
1) circulation;
2) secretion; and most importantly when battling weight,
3) digestion and motility (basically this means how the body consumes energy). When we eat, we’re basically consuming energy. The types of energy (food) that we consume effect how the body responds from a physiological standpoint.
Alright, let’s take a break from the technical and shift to the practical. There are two ways that our bodies can process food: store it or burn it. Pretty simple isn’t it-that is it sounds simple. If you’re like me and don’t like guess work when it comes to nutrition, you’ll need guidance. We all want to turn our bodies into fat burning furnaces. Finding the right program to build that fat fireplace is the key. We also need a program that is simple and easy to implement that provides the right foods at the right time and results in a nutritional plan that is actually tasty and not bland. There are some very basics that all metabolic nutritional plans that actually burn fat have in common:
1) watch the sugar! Just because it’s low in fat doesn’t mean that a lot of sugar is alright;
2) mix up the food. The human body has a tendency to adapt to the same routine. To be effective, you’ve got keep your GI system guessing;
3) keep it user-friendly. Find a nutritional guide to work for you and not the reverse.
People are very busy and don’t have time to cater to their diet plans. Their nutrtional plans need to cater to them.
Do you recall the old saying, “breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord and dine like a pauper”?
You’ve probably heard it before but never really given it much thought.
It may be old advice but it’s very good advice, particularly the bit about breakfast. When it comes to fitness nutrition, eating a good breakfast really is the key to an effective and healthy nutrition plan.
A lot of people go without breakfast entirely. Many do so because they are convinced that this helps to control their weight. It doesn’t. Others claim to be too busy to make time for breakfast. This is just lack of planning.
Think about it; by the time you waken up in the morning your body has not had any food for probably 7 or 8 hours. Your blood sugar is at its lowest level and without refuelling, your body’s engine is going to be very sluggish and you cannot function effectively.
So a good breakfast is essential to a healthy lifestyle. In fact, it should account for at least one-fifth of your daily food intake.
A granola bar and a cup of coffee just will not do.
Breakfast should be a sizeable meal and it is important to plan it well to make sure that you get the balance you need to maximise your fitness.
Oatmeal (or porridge) is an ideal part of the meal. It is a complex carbohydrate which means that it releases energy slowly and keeps your blood sugar level steady. And it’s versatile too.
Adding fresh or frozen fruit makes it more appealing and boosts your vitamin intake as well. Or try adding dried fruits or cinnamon, vanilla or honey to give even more variety.
Protein plays an important role, but it is important to choose wisely to avoid adding too much fat. Eggs cooked with little or no fat, lean grilled bacon, low fat yogurt and skimmed milk all provide high levels of protein and can be used in a wide variety of ways to make healthy breakfast dishes.
One way to keep the protein levels up and the fat down is to use egg whites instead of whole eggs – or you can mix one whole egg with two or three whites to make a lower fat omelette or scrambled eggs.
Take time to plan your breakfast in advance to make sure that you start your daily nutrition plan well.
You might prefer to get help from a nutritionist or use a scientifically developed program like plan:one, which uses dynamic nutrition technology, to help you improve your nutrition plan.
You will soon notice real benefits in your fitness.
We all know that we should make sure that we get the right amount of vitamins, minerals and nutrients each day, but in reality with our busy lifestyles today this is easier said than done. Many people take a nutritional supplement, the difficulty is knowing if what we are taking actually has enough of what we need in it or that our body will actually absorb the vitamins etc correctly. With many pills and capsules, any benefits can be lost long before they get to the right parts of the body and in some cases your body may only absorb as little as 5% of the amount of the mineral or nutrient quoted on the bottle.
A company called AliveMax has come up with a solution to this problem by creating a range of nutritional sprays that mean you can spray your daily dose of the essential nutrients your body needs to stay healthy directly into your mouth. Alive Max claim that their proprietary vortex technology increases the bio-availability of the nutrients with up to 98% absorption rate.
Each spray has a different purpose, Anti-Aging for cell renewal and heart health, Multi-Vitamin for core nutrition and immunity, Vitality for energy, stamina and libido and S.L.I.M. for healthy weight management. I’ve personally tried each one and I have to say they are very easy to use, simple to carry around and taste great, in fact the weight loss one is really delicious! You do have to hold the bottles upright as you spray, or they can dribble a bit, but once you know this you make sure you get it right.
The products are solely available from independent AliveMax distributors either face to face or you can also become a preferred customer on any of the distributors’ replica websites and enjoy up to 30% off of the usual retail prices. The company can ship the products to you internationally.
AliveMax aims to bridge the gap between online recruiting and traditional methods of building a health network marketing business. Everyone who joins the business is provided with a range of replica lead capture pages and websites to help them promote their AliveMax business, gain new customers and build their team of associates around the world.
The Alive Max marketing plan has seven ways to earn, everything from basic retail commission of around 37% up to the chance to share in a percentage of the company turnover and a car bonus package. It looks quite generous but to be honest in similar in style to some other MLM plans I have seen, may be because it tends to suit this type of product.
By using this Network Marketing method of distribution the company hopes that satisfied customers and distributors will spread the word about the products without the need for, or cost of, traditional retail outlets or advertising. Health products, and especially diet ones, have been sold via MLM for a long time and companies like Herbalife, Forever Living Products and Nexagen have been very successful using this approach. Whether