Category Archives: Health & Nutrition

Guide to Nutritional Supplements and weight management.

Anytime fitness

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Is anytime fitness your goal? Anytime fitness is not hard to achieve if you
use the right exercise program for your age and personality.

When we think of exercise, it involves activity. Whether it may be physical or mental activity depends on what we want to achieve with it.
You can train your brain with mental activity by solving a cross-word puzzle or trying to solve a mathematics problem. However, the type of exercise I like to discuss will be physical activity.

Physical activity is one of the four aspects of lifestyle, which have a major influence on our health and well being. The other three are: nutrition, stress, and synthetic chemicals. Nevertheless, half the Australian population doesn’t have adequate exercise and one in eight adult is totally sedentary.

Anytime fitness does wonders for the working of our bodies and minds, for our attitudes and moods and for the prevention of degenerative diseases and early aging. The evidence for benefits in relation to heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure are overwhelming. More recent evidence confirms that there are benefits also for the prevention of adult-onset diabetes, osteoporosis, colon cancer, anxiety and depression.

In contrast to these benefits, sedentary living may be responsible for as much as one-third of the fatal cases of heart disease, colon cancer and diabetes.
When we analyze the large number of benefits which are responsible for being fit, it’s easy to get motivated to get started with activity, or to keep it up, whatever the case may be.

We have to keep in mind that it is important for any physical activity that it should be enjoyable, otherwise there is a big change that we discontinue sooner or later. It is important to think of fitness as part of normal health and part of our normal life, not just an eccentric hobby. It may surprise you that only a small amount of regular physical activity can make the difference between a body which is sluggish, lethargic, lacks tone and is overweight and one which is energetic, fit, trim and good looking.

Walking is the best exercise you can have, because it’s natural. Good long brisk walks give a lot of benefits- the whole body begins to respond. You breath properly, your circulation and heart benefits, and it’s good for the mind and positive thinking.
It’s only in recent years that fitness gurus have recognized the supremacy of brisk walking. In contrary to jogging, brisk walking provides a lot of benefits without any problems. Walking is almost as important as the right food. You need to eat and exercise properly,
the two together gives you the best results to achieve anytime fitness.

The internal organs of the body need tone and for this most of them depend almost entirely on physical activity. As we breathe deeply, the diaphragm – which separates the chest from the abdomen – rises and falls repeatedly, massaging all the internal organs, particularly the stomach, small intestine, bowel, lungs and liver. The stretching and relaxing of the intestines is vital in preventing that wide spread form of ‘self poisoning’ : constipation. Exercise does keep you regular!

Physical activity has many health benefits. I’m not going into details about the health benefits of exercise, you can read all about it in my article: “Exercise for good health”.
Sufferers from rheumatism and arthritis, also those who are overweight, are prone to take too little exercise. When people are troubled with rheumatic twinges it is usually a sign that more exercise is needed and that their diet contains too many acid-forming foods.

Forms of exercise
Forms of exercise is a matter of personal preference.
While exercise programs often vary from person to person based on fitness levels and goals, each one should include aerobic exercise, resistance – and flexibility training.
Those components will help you improve your fitness level and help you overcome obstacles that challenge your agility, balance, coordination, endurance and strength in everyday life to give you anytime fitness .

Skipping is an effective form of exercise, and one of the best exercises
for keeping fit and is very suitable for wet days, as it can be done indoors.
The skipping rope should be just long enough to clear the head, when standing erect.
Five minutes skipping every day is adequate for the first week, increasing gradually to ten, fifteen and finally twenty minutes.
During bad weather it is best to skip at an open window, or better still, under a veranda.

Generally speaking, when we grow older we should take less strenuous exercise than when we were younger. Walking and gardening are safe exercises for almost all ages. Tennis could perhaps better be left to younger people, although here and there one finds elderly people playing tennis with all the vim and gusto of youth. These people have usually ‘grown up’ with the game and accustomed themselves to what is normally a strenuous form of sport.
Swimming, like walking, is very suitable for older people, although they are advised to keep to the slower back and breast strokes, rather than the more tiring modern strokes.
Swimming has the advantage that the body’s weight is partly supported by the water, which makes it possible to exercise without straining oneself or damaging a muscle.

We don’t recommend exercise as a method of reducing weight
for this is most disappointing. Exercise will reduce weight temporarily, but the appetite thus acquired will rapidly put weight back again.

The physical beauty of a man or a woman is due largely to the quality and shapeliness of the muscles. Properly developed muscles which in repose do not bulge, but are smooth in contour and firm in appearance, giving a pleasing and attractive outline, which was obviously part of nature’s plan! Only anytime fitness and good health can achieve and maintain the body beautiful!

I like to mention that I have developed an exercise program that can benefit young and old people, busy people and retired folks.
It’s just a matter of choosing which exercise fits you best.
I have included in my program how to exercise, warming-up exercises,
aerobics, weight-bearing exercises and nutrition for athletes, which is also important to give you anytime fitness. You can get it here!

    Healthy for Life with Exercise

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    If people would realize how many health benefits exercise can offer, there would be no hesitation in getting started with some form of exercise.

    Especially older folks are harder to get motivated, because they think the exercise will cause an injury. At the contrary, exercise will keep there overall fitness level and muscle strength in optimal form. It’s a matter of choosing the right form of exercise.

    Swimming, walking and gardening are very suitable for older people.
    Swimming has the advantage that their body weight will be partly supported by the water, which makes it possible to exercise without risking any bodily harm.

    Walking is the best exercise you can have, because it’s natural. Good long brisk walks give a lot of benefits- the whole body begins to respond.
    You breath properly, your circulation and heart benefits, and it’s good for the mind and positive thinking.

    It’s only in recent years that fitness gurus have recognized the supremacy of brisk walking. In contrary to jogging, brisk walking provides a lot of benefits without any problems. Walking is almost as important as the right food. You need to eat properly and exercise properly, the two together gives you the best results.
    The internal organs of the body need tone and for this most of them depend almost entirely on physical activity.

    Exercise produces big results whether we’re 40, 60 or 80. According to the Human Physiology Laboratory at Tufts University Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, we respond well to exercise at any age. Muscles grow, bones strengthen, and metabolism increases. Our body fat decreases while blood sugar and balance improve. I proved this to myself when I taught strength training at a retirement residence. With modest effort, exercisers in their 80s grew stronger and more vital. We were all delighted.

    Reduced muscle strength is associated with age-related disability. The most common cause of muscle weakness is inactivity. After three months of high-intensity muscle training, healthy men over 60 experienced gains similar to those reported for younger men training with similar intensity and duration. People who were stronger remained more independent and less burdened by advancing years.
    Any type of exercise helps, but combining aerobics, strength, and flexibility works best. For most people, aerobic exercise is an easy place to begin.

    As we breathe deeply, the diafragm – which separates the chest from the abdomen – rises and falls repeatedly, massaging all the internal organs, particularly the stomach, small intestine, bowel, lungs and liver. The stretching and relaxing of the intestines is vital in preventing that widespread form of ‘self poisoning’ : constipation.
    Exercise does keep you regular!

    In the mid-eighties, a vital clue to the right exercise for lifelong
    health was uncovered by brilliant research in biochemistry.
    Biochemists established that all cell replication in the immune system and therefore all immune strength is dependent on availability of the amino acid glutamine. Your immune system uses a ton of it.
    But immune cells cannot make glutamine. Only muscle cells can do
    the job.
    So your muscles have to supply large amounts of glutamine to your immune system every day in order to maintain it. That’s it!
    The mitochondria of muscle are the furnaces in which most of your
    body fat and sugar are burned for fuel. Muscle is what stresses
    your skeleton to maintain your bones. We also know that muscle is
    the vital link which also maintain your immunity and hence your
    resistance to all diseases. Muscle is the health engine.
    Which so much overwhelming evidence that muscular exercise is
    essential to health, what are we doing about it? A big fat zero.

    Muscle is the health engine.
    It’s a proven fact that the right exercise not only maintains your heart, your lungs, your muscles, your bones, a healthy level of body fat and even your intestinal function, but also some more subtle functions, like insulin and your body’s dealing with sugar.It has been known for more than fifty years that lack of exercise leads to glucose intolerance.

    However, not long ago research has shown that getting of the couch and start moving, not only maintain insulin function to deal with the sugar, but it also can reverse decades of damage. Insulin dependent diabetics, for example, using the right exercise program, can increase insulin efficiency so much that some patients, who have used insulin daily for years, no longer need it.

    In healthy people, the right exercise completely protects glucose tolerance against the degenerative changes in insulin metabolism that lead to adult-onset diabetes.
    Healthy old men who maintain a lifelong exercise program, have the same healthy insulin efficiency as young men. A high sugar diet, which progressively destroys insulin metabolism, makes it virtually mandatory to exercise if you want to avoid glucose intolerance as you grow older.

    Most physicians believe that hardening of the arteries, a degenerative process, is inevitable. Dr. Lakatta at the National Institute on Aging Research Center in Baltimore, is showing in ongoing experiments, that regular exercise maintains arterial elasticity and even reverses arterial hardening that has already occurred.
    I could fill many pages citing numerous bodily functions which are maintained by regular exercise. But I will keep it short.

    Research recently undertaken has revealed the major way in which exercise protects you against all diseases. It started with the evidence that exercise increases the overall number of white blood cells. Followed by more precise findings that moderate exercise increases bodily production of lymphocytes, interleukin 2, neutrophils and other disease fighting components of the immune system. There is no
    doubt that the right exercise strengthens your immunity. And it also strengthens your resistance to all forms of damage, decay, bacteria, viruses, toxins and even radiation. Closing with the wise words of Louis Pasteur, the father of modern medicine:”Host resistance is the key.”

    For an exercise program that teach you aerobics, weight lifting and
    nutrition for athletes, click here!

    Exercise to lose belly fat

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    The best exercise to lose belly fat is high-intensity forms of exercise combined with full-body weight training.

    For the body to function properly and if you want to lose belly fat, it is imperative to integrate the principles of good eating habits with a well-balanced exercise program.

    Every day, you should see to it that your heart is exercised.
    Aerobic exercises stimulates the respiratory and circulatory systems.
    This way you will supply fresh oxygenated blood to your cells.
    And your body will function more efficiently.

    The heart is like any other muscle, if you don’t use it, you will lose it!
    Do something everyday, preferably early morning for half an hour.

    There are many aerobic activities to choose from: swimming, tennis,
    skipping robe, light jogging, bike riding, stretching and brisk walking,
    as well as aerobic classes.
    If you don’t have the time to go to the gym, you can probably buy some equipment to exercise at home, for example rebounding on mini trampolines. Rebounding is a terrific aerobic exercise for all ages, that you can do at home or even better, in the garden.

    It strengthens and tones every cell of the body, because it works against the gravity pull.
    Your heart rate will slow down, which is important. The lower the better. Mine is at 60 beats/minute and has been like that for a long time.

    Don’t make the mistake of excluding exercise from your daily life.
    A walk in the forest or at the seashore will do wonders for your physical well-being and for your emotional and spiritual outlook.

    Weight-bearing exercises have several advantages above aerobics.
    Weight training increase significantly cardiovascular capacity and endurance.
    Weight lifting is better than aerobics to lose belly fat.
    It also increases muscle mass, thereby providing a more plentiful supply of glutamine for your immunity.

    Apply high intensity forms of exercise and full-body resistance training.  Low intensity cardio exercise has no effect for removing visceral fat in particular.  High intensity exercise such as interval training, sprints (bike sprints or running sprints), AND full-body weight training are very effective at helping to improve your body’s ability to manage glucose and increases insulin sensitivity, a crucial step in removing visceral fat.

    These types of high intensity exercise routines are also very effective at increasing your
    fat-burning hormones and creating a hormonal environment conducive to lose belly fat. 

    Don’t train with weights for more than one hour per workout. Your ability to gain lean mass,is limited by your hormone levels. After 45 minutes to one hour,hormone levels decline.You can force yourself to continue,but it doesn’t do your body any good.

    Use a wide variety of exercises. Restricted resistance exercises, especially on machines, stress only certain fibers of a muscle in certain positions. You need to get all the fibers
    in all positions.

    You have to move some weights if you want to lose belly fat and have a long and healthy life. Click here for an exercise program that will help you to lose belly fat.

    Exercise Plan

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    Before starting any exercise plan it is necessary to get an approval from your doctor.
    Start easy,don’t take strenuous weight programs in health clubs, which takes time out of
    your working day. It takes too much of your time and becomes a burden.

    Your exercise plan should be part of your daily routine to be successful.
    It is better to exercise in the morning for twenty minutes than three hours at the gym
    on the weekend.
    Use your own body weight and gravity, instead of machines, which provide ample
    resistance. It is best to progress gradually, there is no need to work to your limit.
    Don’t strain. Your body doesn’t need to be heated in order to improve.
    The rhythms of nature are your limits.

    Your exercise plan has three goals:
    First and most important: to maintain and increase your muscle mass.
    Secondly: To maintain your cardiovascular system.
    Thirdly: To maintain your flexibility.

    The average person stiffens as he ages, increasing the risks of strains and tendon, ligament and skeletal disorders.

    When you have your doctor’s approval, you can do a little aerobics to warm up the system and get your blood pumping. Twenty minutes at even mild intensity will have cardiovascular benefits.
    I recommends aerobics to begin with for everyone, before you pick up weights.
    Then 5-10 minutes stretching after your muscles are warm is all you need to maintain flexibility lifelong.

    Now you are prepared to exercise your muscles. Your exercise plan should include resistance exercise for shoulders, arms, chest, back, legs and abdominal. If you exercise three days per week, which is the starting level for consistent benefit, then do:
    Day 1 – Shoulders and arms
    Day 2 – Chest and back
    Day 3 – Legs and abdominal For 5 days per week, do one body part per day.

    1) Never do more per exercise than one warm-up set of 12 – 15 easy repetitions, followed by one medium heavy set of 6 – 10 repetitions to exhaustion.

    2) Work a body part only once per week. It takes about 48 hours for exercised muscles to breakdown worn cells, then 48 – 72 hours to build new, stronger replacements. The muscle remains at maximum strength for 5 – 8 days and then slowly declines. Exercising a muscle every 5 – 8 days is the optimum program for progress.

    3) Don’t train with weights for more than one hour per workout. Your ability to gain lean mass,is limited by your hormone levels. After 45 minutes to one hour,hormone levels decline.You can force yourself to continue,but it doesn’t do your body any good.

    4) Use a wide variety of exercises in your exercise plan. Restricted resistance exercises, especially on machines, stress only certain fibers of a muscle in certain positions.
    You need to get all the fibers in all positions.

    5) In one hour at two sets per exercise you can do 12 exercises easily. Don’t force yourself to do more. For weight exercises, see Bill Pearl’s book: The Encyclopedia on Weight Training.

    6) Accentuate the return phase of the repetition, when the muscle in question is lengthening under load. In a barbell bicep curl for example, the eccentric contraction occurs when you are lowering the bar to the start position.
    Restrain yourself all the way down, because it is the stress of lengthening under load that causes most of the strength and lean mass gains that you are seeking.

    7)Take a protein drink daily within one hour after workout. Research shows that weight training puts subjects into protein deficit, despite the high protein level of the American diet.

    8) Take daily antioxidant supplements. All exercise increases oxidation in the body.

    9) Eat an alkaline diet. All exercise increases body acidity. See www.nutrobalance2.com/ the alkaline/acid food theory.

    10) Sip a cold light carbohydrate drink (7-10%) throughout workouts. Drinks containing a little glucose, a little zylitol plus mostly glucose polymers are best. It will trickle carbohydrate continuously into your blood and spare your muscle glycogen, thereby maintaining your energy level.
    It will also prevent dehydration. Even 3% dehydration can reduce strength by 10%. And it will help to keep your body temperature down, at the same time reducing the amount of blood diverted to the skin for cooling, thus leaving more to supply your muscles with oxygen and nutrients.

    A final note about weight-bearing exercise: without the stimulus to your body to grow, nutritional supplements can’t work properly. Important new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows, that multi-vitamin and mineral supplementation had little effect in improving the health of old people. But when a resistance exercise was added
    to their exercise plan, the health benefits were astonishing. Ranging from over 100% improvement in strength and muscle size to big improvements in mobility and recreational activity.

    It takes a bit of puff and stick ability to grow a high-performance body. But once you’ve done it, a little bit of exercise necessary to maintain it is one of life’s greatest bargains.

    Here is an exercise plan that covers the basics of exercise, aerobics,
    weight bearing exercises and nutrition for athletes.

    Activity: Protection against all Diseases

    Health & Nutrition

    Activity is important to maintain a healthy body and for protection
    against all diseases. I refer to my article: “Benefits of Exercise”
    When you are not sleeping your body was designed to be almost
    continually active.
    If you immobilize a limb for just three hours, it starts to degenerate.
    That’s why even during sleep you automatically flex and stretch and
    turn more than a hundred times in one night. Inactivity is deadly!

    You can read this in a report by Dr. Walter Bortz in the Journal of
    the American Medical Association in 1982.
    He reviewed over a hundred studies showing that the sedentary lifestyle
    developed in the last 50 years in America causes widespread bodily
    damage. This damage occurs independently of other health risk factors,
    like smoking, alcohol, fat, age and family history of disease.

    Here follows some of his findings:
    By itself, simple inactivity causes a chain reaction of cardiovascular
    decay. First, it reduces vital capacity. That means, sitting like a slug
    reduces your ability to take up and use oxygen.
    As a result, muscles, organs, and brain become partially oxygen deprived.
    In addition, inactivity reduces cardiac output, that is, the ability of your
    heart to pump blood around the body.
    So the tissues of couch potatoes become double deprived.
    They get less oxygen and less blood and the essential nutrients the blood contains.
    In an effort to make up these deficits, your body constricts arteries,
    thereby raising blood pressure. This arterial constriction on top of
    a weakened heart not only increases the risk of clots and stroke, but also
    makes your cardiovascular system less able to respond to sudden movement
    or changes of position.
    Consequently, sedentary folk often suffer dizziness on standing, because
    the impaired system cannot instantly increase blood flow to the brain.
    With any sudden movements they are prone to falls and accidents,
    because the restricted system of blood flow cannot respond efficiently.

    Activity Can Save Your Life
    One of the best studies was conducted by renowned exercise guru
    Dr. Kenneth Cooper at his Aerobics Center in Dallas.
    They followed 13,344 men and women for 15 years.
    This meticulous research, controlled for all major interfering variables, like age,
    family history, personal health history, smoking, blood pressure, cardiovascular
    condition, and insulin metabolism.
    At the fifteen-year follow-up, reduced risk of death was closely correlated
    with physical fitness. This included death from cardiovascular diseases,
    a variety of cancers, and even accidents.
    There is no longer any doubt: activity can save your life, while couch
    potatoism creates an existence that is nasty, sick, and short.

    Activity: Protection against All Diseases
    The right exercise is a major strategy for protection against all diseases.
    Physicians who do not incorporate exercise into their treatment protocols are
    guilty of malpractice.
    The right exercise maintains your heart, lungs, your muscles, your bones, a healthy
    level of body fat, even your intestinal function.
    But what about more subtle functions, such as insulin, and your body’s handling
    of sugar?
    We know that couch potatoism leads to glucose intolerance.
    However, research has shown not long ago that getting off the couch not only
    maintains insulin function to deal with the sugar, but also can reverse decades
    of damage. In healthy people the right exercise completely protects glucose tolerance
    against the degenerative changes in insulin metabolism that lead to adult-onset diabetes.
    Research has revealed the major way in which activity gives you protection against
    all diseases. It started with evidence that exercise increases overall white blood cells.
    Then came more precise findings that moderate exercise increases bodily production of
    lymphocytes, interleukin 2, neutrophills, and other disease fighting components
    of the immune system. There is no longer doubt that the right exercise strengthen
    your immunity.

    Remember the wise words of Louis Pasteur, the father of modern medicine:
    “Host resistance is the key”.

    Hence activity strengthens your resistance against all sorts of damage, decay, bacteria, viruses, toxins, even radiation and gives protection against all diseases. .

    I can recommend one of the best exercise programs on the internet to obtain and improve
    your overall health!

    Diet & Weight-loss

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    If you are looking for some practical advice for weight-loss and keep it off permanently, the following information will help you to achieve this.

For weight-loss, five days weekly exercise of 30 minutes is much superior to three days weekly of 70 minutes, even though the total weekly exercise time of the three day people is an hour longer. In order to keep that metabolic rate churning, frequent exercise is the key.

For healthy, permanent weight-loss, depriving yourself is not the answer. 
Deprivation and bingeing become a vicious circle, and that's just one of the many problems with dieting.
    circuit-training

    Another thing is that diets are temporary, therefore, the results have to be temporary.
    The fact of the matter is that dieting doesn’t work. It never has and it never will.
    If diets worked, would the rate of obesity in America not decreasing each year in stead of increasing? In 1982, fifteen billion dollars were spent on weight-loss schemes in the US alone! If diets worked, that incredible high amount of money would surely put an end to this problem, wouldn’t it?
    The fact is, that this ridiculous high amount is increasing by one billion dollars every year. In spite of the new diets that come and go, the problem is becoming worse.

    Natural Hygiene
    Natural Hygiene is the most remarkable approach to the care and upkeep of the human body. Natural Hygiene will teach you how to eat. The loss of weight is only one of the benefits of Natural Hygiene as a life-style. A significant increase in energy and overall well-being is also one of the benefits of Natural Hygiene.

    Natural Hygiene is practiced today by people around the world who enjoy long, healthy, disease-free lives. The basic foundation of Natural Hygiene is that the body is always striving for health and that it achieves this by continuously cleansing itself of deleterious waste material.

    It is the science of understanding the effect that food has on the length and quality of the life of a human being. It’s focus is on prevention and healthful living.
    It teaches people how to eliminate the cause of their health problems, rather than constantly battle the effects of continiously violating natural laws.

    The underlying basis of Natural Hygiene is that the body is self-cleansing, self-healing and self-maintaining. It is based on the idea that all the healing power of the universe is in the human body; that nature is always correct and cannot be improved upon.

    The Natural Body Cycles
    These cycles are based on rather obvious functions of the human body.
    On a daily basis we take in food (appropriation), we absorb and use some of that food, (assimilation), and we get rid of what we don’t use (elimination).
    Although each of these three functions is always going on to some extent, each is more intense during certain hours of the day.

    1) Noon to 8 P.M. Appropriation (eating and digestion)
    2) 8 P.M. To 4 A.M. Assimilation ( absorption and use)
    3) 4 A.M. To noon Elimination ( of body wastes and food debris)

    Our body cycles can become apparent to us if we simply witness our bodies in action.
    Obviously, during the hours we are awake we eat (appropriate), and if we put off eating, our hunger tends to increase as the day progresses.
    When we are sleeping and the body has no other noticeable work to do,
    it is assimilating what was taken in during the day. When we awaken in the morning, we have what is called “morning breath”, because our bodies are in the midst of eliminating of that which was not used – body wastes.

    Physiologically our bodies want to eat early in the evening so that at least three hours can pass which is the time needed for food to leave the stomach and the assimilation cycle can start on time.

    The reason that 62% of the people in America are overweight is that our
    traditional eating habits have consistently violated the all-important elimination cycle. In other words, we have been taking food in (at a record pace!), and we have been using what we need from that food, but we have NOT been getting rid of what we can’t use. Far more time is spent appropriating than eliminating. So the secret of loosing weight is to get rid of the toxic wastes and excesses we carry around.

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    Metabolic Imbalance.
    Natural Hygiene use the word “Toxamia” what modern science now calls Metabolic Imbalance. The human body is finely designed to stay in balance in terms of tissue building up (anabolism) and tissue breaking down (catabolism).
    An excess of one over the other is called “metabolic imbalance”.

    By keeping your system toxin-free, you significantly increase your change of having a comfortable body weight, because excesses of toxins in the body are the fore runners of obesity.
    Your body is building toxamia daily in two ways:
    Through the normal process of metabolism and by residue left over from the foods which are not efficiently utilized.

    As far as your weight concerned, common sense will tell you that if more of this toxic waste is built than is eliminated, there is going to be a build up of the excess. That translate in overweight.
    To make things worse, toxins are of an acid nature. When there is an acid build up in the body, the system retains water to neutralize it, adding even more weight and bloat.

    So how do we maintain metabolic balance and accomplish the removal of toxic waste from the system while still enjoying our food?
    There are three easy to follow principles or tools, that can assist you in doing just that. The first of these tools to help you realize your goal of permanent weight loss is.

    The principle of High-water-content Food
    Water is important for our survival, and so is food and air.
    What do we mean when we talk about high-water-content food?
    Our earth we are living on contains 70 percent water for survival. And so does our bodies. May be you find this hard to believe, but it’s a fact.
    When you consider those two facts, wouldn’t it make sense that to maintain a body that is always in top condition, you must consume a diet that also contains 70 percent water?

    If your body is 70 percent water, so where does it get that water from if you don’t replenish it on a regular basis? From the moment you are born until the last breath you take, your body is craving this essential of life.
    This is besides drinking water, that’s another subject. Drinking water does not bring the results I’m talking about.
    When we talk about high-water-content food, there are only two types of food that have that high water content: they are fruits and vegetables. They should predominate in our diet.

    All the nutritional requirements our body has – all the vitamins, minerals, proteins, amino acids, enzymes, carbohydrates, and fatty acids that exists and that the human body needs to survive – can be found in fruits and vegetables.
    The nutritional requirements are carried by the water in those fruits and vegetables into your intestines, where all nutrition is absorbed.

    However,I believe we have to supplement our diet with high-quality nutritional supplements, because modern farming techniques, using chemical pesticides and fertilizers, destroy a large part of the minerals in the soil and the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables.
    Selenium, for example, an important mineral that protect against cancer, can’t be found in Australian soil anymore.
    Even when you buy organic food, the food gets polluted water and air from the environment. So it’s good to keep this in mind.

    If you are an athlete, it’s important to eat an alkaline diet, that is: a diet that is rich in fruit and vegetables. All exercise increases body acidity.
    See www.nutrobalance2.com/ the alkaline/acid food theory.

    Besides carrying nutrients into the body, water performs the essential function of cleansing the body of toxic wastes.

    All three of our body cycles function with the greatest ease when supplied with the water in fruits and vegetables on a regular basis.
    If you want to be vibrantly and vigorously alive, in the best possible shape, you have to eat food that’s alive.

    The importance of proper food combining has been proved as a result of
    intense research over the last 100 years.
    Food combining teaches us that the human body is not designed to digest more than one concentrated food in the stomach at the same time. Any food that is not a fruit or a vegetable is concentrated.
    The principle of correct food combining is based on 11 different food groups and associated individual foods. You can get a food combining chart from “Laugh with Health” from the Internet.

    Another important thing to keep in mind is that drinking any liquid during a meal will upset the natural digestive process of the juices in the stomach. You should not drink within an hour before a meal or within two hours after a meal.

    Most people like fruit but don’t know how and when to eat it.
    The correct consumption of fruit is closely associated with proper food combining. Fruit is, without doubt, the most beneficial, energy giving, food you can eat.

    Fruit has the highest water content of any food. Fruit requires less energy to be digested than any other food, in fact, almost none.Fruit is glucose in the body.
    Fruit does not digest in the stomach. It is essential to eat it on an empty stomach and you should never eat it with or immediately following anything else. This is also very important. Fruit is the most important food that you can eat.

    How long do you have to wait before you can eat fruit, depends on the type of food. After a salad or raw vegetables you have to wait 2 hours.
    After a properly combined meal without meat – 3 hours
    After a properly combined meal with meat – 4 hours
    After any improperly combined meal – 8 hours

    From the time you wake up in the morning till noon, eat ONLY fresh fruit and fruit juice. When you eat fresh fruit on an empty stomach, it has only a positive effect, it accelerates weight loss.

    The detoxification of your system is very important so that energy can be fried up to be used in reducing weight. Any time you alter your eating habits, your body has to adjust itself to that change and by doing so can initially leave you feeling out of sorts. See any temporary discomfort as the cleansing process taking place and health returning.

    Protein is the most complex of all food elements. It is the hardest for the body to break down. Remember, the strongest animals are plant and fruit eaters, not meat eaters.
    Keep in mind that all dairy products except butter are extremely acid forming.

    No weight loss program nor the benefits mentioned in this article will work without proper exercise. You can find an excellent exercise program here that gives you anytime fitness.

    Exercise for Good Health

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    When we realize how many health benefits physical fitness can give us, it’s easy to get motivated and get started with exercise, or to keep it up, whatever the case may be.
    When we have health, we have hope, and when we have hope, we have everything.

    Exercise as a life saver
    Renowned exercise guru Dr Kennith Cooper conducted one of the best studies by following 13,344 men and women for 15 years. This conscientious research, taking into account all major interfering variables, like age, family history, personal health history, smoking, blood pressure, cardiovascular condition, and insulin metabolism, showed that, at the follow-up after fifteen years, reduced risk of death was closely correlated with physical fitness. This included death from cardiovascular diseases,
    a variety of cancers, and even accidents.

    Strengthening heart & lungs
    Many studies prove that exercise protects your body by maintaining vital capacity, and therefore maintaining adequate oxygenation of tissues. The health benefits of restoring vital capacity are superior to any drug or medical treatment.

    Blood pressure protection
    In a typical study, sedentary hypertension patients, aged 55 to 78 years with elevated blood pressure
    where followed. After participating in an exercise program, systolic blood pressure felt by a whopping 20 mmHg. Regular exercise will lower blood pressure in almost anyone.

    Lower cholesterol level
    Cholesterol is essential to every function of your body. It forms part of all organs, including your heart and your brain. Recent research showed that average cholesterol levels in runners and bodybuilders ranged between 158 mg/dl and 183 mg/dl. It proves that exercise makes the healthy difference.

    Exercise and Cardiovascular Health
    Cardiovascular diseases are far out our biggest health problem. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in the U.S. Heart disease and cancer combined, account for almost 50% of all deaths each year and affects nearly 14 million. It kills more than twice as many Americans as all cancers, 9 times as many as all other lung and liver diseases together, and 28 times more than all forms of diabetes. There are good reasons to warn everybody starting an exercise program to have a thorough medical and physicians approval before they start.

    Cancer prevention
    A study by Dr Kenneth Cooper showed that cases of all forms of cancer were closely related to lack of physical activity. Unfit men and women where 300% more likely to develop cancer. But the best findings from this study is that you have to move only a smidgen out of couch potato land to prevent cancer big time.

    Exercise against all diseases
    The right exercise maintains your heart and lungs, your muscles, your bones, a healthy level of body fat, even your intestinal function. The right exercise in healthy people completely protects glucose tolerance against the degenerative changes in insulin metabolism that lead to adult-onset diabetes.

    Research has revealed the mayor way in which physical activity protect you against all diseases. It started with evidence that physical activity increases overall white blood cells. Then came more precise findings that moderate exercise increases bodily production of disease fighting components of the immune system. There is no longer a reason to doubt that the right exercise strengthen your immunity.

    Exercise is a medicine to create a positive change in a person’s physical, emotional and mental states.

    If you like all of the above, I can recommend one of the best exercise programs on the internet to improve and maintain your overall health!

    Related Articles – exercise, fitness, cholesterol, cardiovascular health, cancer, diseases, immunity,

    Health Advantages of Following a Low-Fat Diet

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    Choosing a low-fat diet is another way to reduce weight. During the last few decades it has been shown that reducing the amount of saturated fat in your diet is one of the best things you can do for your health.

    You will significantly increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, certain types of cancer, and many other conditions when you consume fatty foods. Today, 66% of Americans are overweight or obese and the rate of obesity has more than doubled to 32%, with most of the increase occurred during the past 20 years.

    The key to losing weight is: reducing the total calorie intake. And the easiest way to do that is to eat less fat. One gram of fat delivers
    9 calories, which is more than twice as many as the same amount of
    protein or carbohydrate. Also, our body likes fat. It’s easier to store calories from fat than from other sources.

    Danish researchers found that those who reduced the amount of fat in their diets from 39% to 28% of total calories and increased their carbohydrates intake were able to lose an average of 9 pounds
    in just 12 weeks. In addition, people who followed lower-fat diets were able to keep the weight off long after the study ended.

    Another advantage of reducing fat from your diet is that it can increase your general sense of well-being, according to research. In a study of more than 550 women, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, found that when the women cut their daily fat intake in half – from 40% to 20% of total calories – they felt more vigorous, less anxious, and less depressed than they had when they were eating their former diets.

    Heart Health
    Fat in your diet often goes to your arteries. There is a direct link between the amount of fat in your diet and your risk for heart disease. This is particularly true of saturated fat. The dangerous type that clog your arteries, can we find mainly in meats, full-fat dairy products, and snack foods. Eating a diet low in saturated fat is the best way to lower this risk, according to research.

    There is no need to go on an extreme low fat diet to get the benefits. Even reducing the amount of saturated fat in your diet just a little bit can lead to a reduction in cholesterol levels.

    Cancer Protection
    When you make the switch to a low fat diet, you get protection against many diseases, including cancer.
    Researchers at the University of Benin in Nigeria found that when laboratory animals were fed high-fat diets, they began producing enzymes that led to cancerous changes in their colons in just
    three weeks.

    You can also apply in real live what works in the laboratory. In a study of 450 women, researchers in the department of epidemiology and public health at Yale University School of Medicine found that cutting just
    10 grams of saturated fat a day – the equivalent of switching from two glasses of whole milk to the same amount of fat-free milk – could reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by 20%.

    A low-fat diet is protective not only because of what it doesn’t contain but also because of what it does. The result of cutting back on fats is that you generally eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains
    and legumes. all of which have been shown to keep us healthier, says Jo Ann Manson, MD, professor of women’s health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

    Good for the Eyes
    Finally, eating a low-fat diet may also protect you against macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss in older adults.
    In a survey of more than 2000 people, researchers from the University of Wisconsin in Madison found that those who reported getting the most saturated fat increased the risk of getting macular degeneration by 80%.

    Starting your Low-fat Diet
    If you want to start reducing the amount of fat in your diet, to know where to begin is not always easy.
    Firstly, you have to find out how much fat you’re actually getting each day. Ideally, you should get between 25% and 30% of your total calories from fat.

    For example, suppose you normally get 2000 calories per day.
    When you’re following a low-fat diet, no more than 600 of your total calories should come from fat. This will adds up to 67 gr of fat per day.

    Don’t let lowering your fat intake to 30% discourage you! This is a reasonable amount of fat to go into your diet. According to Lalita Kaul, PhD, a national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and professor of nutrition at the Medical School of Howard University
    in Washington D.C. Eating low fat means: avoiding fried foods, forgoing rich, fatty restaurant meals for home-cooked fare, and searching for tasty low-fat recipes with which to replace some of your higher-fat favorites. Reach for a Lean Cuisine meal or a Lean Pocket when
    you’re looking for at-home convenience.

    Keeping track of your daily fat intake by reading food labels is probably the easiest way.
    They are based on a 2000-calorie diet. So you can look at foods which are 30% or below.
    Look for a spread that says “zero trans fat” on the label, to avoid partially hydrogenated oils.
    Also avoid cookies and other baked goods and snack foods that contain trans fats.

    Trans fats are now required to be listed on nutrition labels along with total and saturated fat.
    If you are dining out or buy foods that don’t have labels, you can buy a nutrition reference guide in a bookstore or supermarket.

    As mentioned before, the most dangerous type of fat to watch out for is saturated fat, which is found in animal foods like meat, butter, cheese and eggs, and some plant sources such as coconut oil, palm oil, tropical oils and cocoa butter.The same foods that are high in saturated fat are also high in cholesterol. So when you decrease one, you automatically decrease the other.

    The American Heart Association recommends that we should get less than 7% of our total calories from saturated fat,partly by choosing fat free or low-fat milk and leaner cuts of meat, like sirloin or top round.

    Enjoy the Good Fats in Moderation
    Generally, you should reduce all kind of fats in your diet. Although monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat are not bad,you should eat them in moderation, because they contain as many calories as bad fats. They are found in vegetable and seed oils, such as olive,sesame,
    and safflower oils, and in nuts and seeds. They have been shown to actually lower cholesterol and may help prevent it from sticking to artery walls.

    The fat found in fish, omega-3 fatty acids, has been shown to reduce clotting and inflammation in the arteries, which can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.
    You don’t have to eat a lot of fish to get the benefits. When you’re following a low fat diet, having two fish meals a week will go a long way toward keeping your arteries in the swim.

    Health Advantages of Mediterranean Diets

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    Although the cases of heart disease in the United States were staggering during the early 1960s, heart disease rates from people in Greece were some of the lowest in the world.
    But what was most remarkable about this fact was that they were enjoying this excellent health, although their diet contained nearly 40% of its calories of fat. In addition, they had one or two glasses of wine with their meal.

    Scientists discovered while searching along the Mediterranean Sea that not only the Greece people enjoyed a long life, but also neighboring countries, like France, Italy and Spain.

    Christopher Gardner, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention research Center in Stanford, California stated:
    “For one thing, the traditional Mediterranean diet includes a lot of
    vegetables and legumes, along with fruits, fresh whole-grain breads, dates and nuts.
    Meats like lamb and chicken were consumed sometimes and in small portions, and the main source of fat in their diet is monounsaturated fat from olives and olive oil, rather than the saturated fats from animal food. In addition, physical activity plays a big part in their daily routine”, he adds.

    But how healthy is the traditional Mediterranean diet ? you may ask.
    In one study, French researchers looked at 600 men who recently had a heart attack. They gave half of the men a traditional Mediterranean diet and half of them a low-fat, low cholesterol diet that was usually advised to people with heart disease to follow. Those who followed the traditional Mediterranean diet had a 70% lower rate off recurring heart problems than those who followed the prudent low-fat diet.

    Similar results were found with other studies. After examining the diets and disease rates of people in seven different countries, researchers found that, taking in account the 46% of death rates of middle- aged men in America, only 4% of men on Creta, had similar problems. In fact, the death rate from all causes on Creta during this 15 year study was lower than that of the other countries.

    Researchers in 2006 reviewed 35 experimental studies of the Mediterranean diet and found that the diet had a positive effect on cholesterol and insulin resistance. They also found that the diet lowers the risk of metabolic syndrome, heart attack and heart disease. And also the risk of cancer in obese patients who have had a heart attack.

    The Fat Factor
    Olive oil is the most important factor in the Mediterranean diet.
    The total fat intake is 25% to 35% of total calories. Although people in Mediterranean countries eat as much fat as we do (or more), they eat relatively little meat. They eat red meat only a few times a month, but fish and poultry are eaten every week.

    As a result they consume only very small amounts of artery-clogging saturated fat. “The big difference comes from limiting saturated fat and replacing it with monounsaturated fat, like olive oil.” Dr. Gardner says. Besides the fact that olive oil is a monounsaturated fat, it also contains antioxidants compounds that help prevent chemical changes in the body that can cause the law-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol to stick to the lining of artery walls. Sweet desserts made with sugar and saturated fat are consumed only a few times a week.

    Nuts and seeds are the second-most common source of fats in the Mediterranean diet. Nuts contain alpha-linolenic acid, which is converted by the body to the same kind of heart-healthy fats we find in fish (which is also part of the Mediterranean diet). Studies have proved that people who eat the most of these fatty acids are the ones least likely to get heart disease.

    The omega-3 fatty acids in fish that people in the Mediterranean countries eat have proved to reduce clotting and inflammation of the arteries, which decrease the risk of heart disease and stroke.
    Following reports from the American Heart Association, clinical trials have shown that cases of cardiovascular disease decreases, when people consume omega-3 fatty acids, especially when it comes
    from fish and plant foods, rather than from supplements.

    Physical Activity
    People in Mediterranean countries also take plenty of exercise, in the form of walking, hard physical labor, and stay active in general. They usually keep their weight under control, although they take in a lot of calories.

    Five-a-Day Protection
    The people at the American Heart Association would be happy if they could get us to eat the five servings of fruits and vegetables that people in the Mediterranean countries eat every day.
    The Mediterranean diet prefers seasonally fresh and locally grown fruits and vegetables rather than highly processed foods that don’t contain as many micro nutrients and antioxidants.
    Studies have shown that people who eat the most fruit and vegetables have lower rates of heat disease.

    Also, fruits, vegetables and beans, which are a part of the Mediterranean diet, are one of the best sources of folate, a B vitamin that plays a big part in the prevention of heart disease.
    Folate helps decrease the levels of amino acid called homosysteine. There is a link between too much homosysteine and heart disease. According to research, healthy people with high levels of homosysteine increase their change of getting heart disease about 14 times.

    High Fiber
    To add to all this is the fact that the Mediterranean diet is very high in fiber.High-fiber foods not only assist you by keeping your weight down by making you feel full without to much fat and calories, they also help
    by blocking the absorption of certain fats and cholesterol. In other words, some of these harmful substances are flushed away before they can reach the bloodstream.
    The powerful effects of fiber are shown by a study of almost 44,000 men, aged between 40 and 75 years, who added only 10 grams of fiber a day to their diet and lowered their risk of heart disease by almost 30%.

    A Healthy Drink
    The fact that wine, and especially red wine, is also included in the typical Mediterranean diet, also contribute to a healthy heart. Wine contains compounds, called phenols, that help prevent LDL cholesterol from sticking to artery walls It also keeps platelets in blood from sticking together and causing clots.
    “In moderation, wine can be a nice addition to a healthy diet,’ says Robert M. Russell, MD, director and senior scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in
    Boston.

    Final Thoughts
    Although the Mediterranean diet is most renowned for the fact that it helps to keep your heart healthy, it also appears to lower the risks of other health threats, like breast- and colon cancer. Studies showed
    that compared with women elsewhere in the world, women in Mediterranean countries have less than half the risk of getting breast cancer. The reason for this could be the low intake of saturated fat and high intake of monounsaturated fat in fruits and vegetables.

    “The message here is simple,” says Dr. Gardner, “For optimal health, choose a plant-based diet, which is naturally rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants, low in saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium.”

    Cantaloupe – a sweet fruit that protect our sight.

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    Cantaloupe is a strange word for a fruit, but when we consider that cantaloupe was first cultivated in the Italian village Cantalupo, around AD 1200, it makes more sense.

    This fruit, with his bright colors, belongs to the same family as the cucumber, squash, pumpkin, and gourd . It contains strong compounds that not only helps to protect your sight, but also controls your blood pressure. lowers your cholesterol level, keeps your blood running smoothly, and protect you against cancer.

    “Cantaloupe is one of the few fruits or vegetables which are rich both in vitamin C and beta-carotene,” says John Erdman, PhD, professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Illinois in Urbana.
    These antioxidant compounds have been shown to protect against cancer, heart disease and other age-related health problems, such as cataracts.

    Cantaloupes are loaded with carotenoids, the pigments that give fruits and vegetables their bright colors and provide strong health protection. A study in the Netherlands found, that eating carotenoid-rich fruits caused a 35% less risk of developing age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of irreversible blindness in developed countries.

    Cantaloupe gives also protection for another aspect of sight problems: cataracts. Another study found that women who got the most vitamin A through their diet had a 39% reduced risk of developing cataracts. Once beta-carotene is inside the body, it is converted to vitamin A. Another study found that people whose diets included the most vitamin A, cut their risk of cataract surgery in half.

    Cantaloupe is a rich source of two potent antioxidants: vitamin C and beta-carotene. As I wrote before, antioxidants are compounds that neutralize free radicals, which can cause cellular changes that can lead to heart disease, cancer and cataracts.

    Vitamin C, like potassium, helps to keep the arteries clear and blood moving smoothly by preventing bad LDL cholesterol from oxidizing and clogging the artery walls. Vitamin C is also used by our body to produce collagen, a protein that makes up skin and connective tissue.

    Cantaloupe is an excellent source of vitamin C and beta-carotene. One cup contains 68 mg vitamin C, which is 113% of the Daily Value for this vitamin. Half a cantaloupe provides 5 mg beta-carotene, which is about half of the daily amount recommended by most experts.

    Important Tips
    Cutting cantaloupe under water keeps it longer fresh. Scientists from the USDA found that when you cut cantaloupe under water, it short-circuits the signals plant cells send to each other when they detect an injury, like being sliced.

    Buy them ripe.
    The riper the cantaloupe, the more beta-carotene it contains. The challenge is that melons are often picked while they are still unripe so that they can make it through the shipping process undamaged. To check for ripeness, tap the melon and listen for a hollow sound. Then lift the fruit to make sure that it’s heavy for its size. Finally, smell the fruit to make sure that it exudes a sweet, musky odor. (The smell shouldn’t be too strong; an excessively strong smell indicates an overripe fruit.) If there is no smell, put it down and try another one.

    There should be no stem.
    Mature cantaloupes will only have a smooth, symmetrical basin where the stem once was and flesh that yields slightly to pressure.

    Leave a firm cantaloupe at room temperature for several days to allow it to become softer and juicier. Once’s it’s ripe, put it in the fridge.

    Eat it straight away.
    When exposed to air, vitamin C degrades quickly. So it’s important to eat cantaloupe fairly soon after cutting, says Dr. Erdman. This is particular necessary when the fruit is cut into small pieces, which significantly increases the amount of air to which it’s exposed. Research found that cantaloupe cubes lost 25% of their vitamin C content and 10-15% of their carotenoids after being exposed to air for 6 days.