Thursday, September 6, 2007
Everyone wants to live a long healthy life, but few of us know how to go about doing so. Most people think that as they age, getting some type of health problem or disease is inevitable. This is simply not true! All of the major causes of death--cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung disease and injury--can be prevented by the things you do. The major change that you need to make is in your eating habits. The problem is that no matter how health conscience of an eater you are, your body will still lack most of the daily nutrients you need to live a long healthy life. Everywhere you look you will find evidence supporting the fact that it is impractical and virtually impossible to obtain the amounts of nutrients needed for optimal health from food alone. People that take dietary supplements know and understand this. They know that the most needed dietary supplement to take is a multivitamin so that their body can receive a variety of much needed vitamins and minerals. What they don't know is the differences between multivitamins and which ones have the highest potency, balances of nutrients, and the best absorption. Many cheap, low quality grocery-store brands (and many brands available through supplement stores) fail at obtaining high quality ingredients for absorption and potency. With most of these brands, there is a high probability that the vitamin simply passes through your system undigested, or with a low percentage of the nutrients absorbed.
First let's get one thing straight: If you are taking vitamins in pill form, then you definitely have not found the most beneficial supplement on the market. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against pill form supplements, it's just that I know that your body will not get all of the nutrients contained in that supplement. Even If you were to buy the highest quality vitamin on the market, the fact remains that your body has to break down that pill to liquid form before it can be digested properly. When your body breaks the pill down, the pill loses its potency and if the pill is of low quality, your body might not break it down at all (in other words the pill goes right through your system without being digested). Even If your body is able to break down the pill you are still only going to receive 10%-20% of the nutrients. That means for every $100 you are spending on nutrients, you are literally flushing about 90% of it down the toilet. Why take your system through the extra step of breaking down a pill when you can purchase a vitamin that is already in liquid form that will bypass the digestive process and go directly into the bloodstream and into the cells within a matter of minutes? I have tried several dietary supplements in liquid form and the Himalayan Goji Juice endorsed by Dr. Earl Mendell is the only all natural liquid vitamin that I can drink without having to chew some gum to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. This Goji Juice has a delicious taste and comes from goji berries with the highest nutrient density.
Himalayan Goji Juice is the only liquid on earth that contains all the nutrients you need to increase your energy and strength naturally while treating high blood pressure, cancer, diabetes, heart disease kidney disease, and a long list of other health problems. This juice contains four active polysaccharides (phytonutrient compounds) unique to the goji berry that come together to control many of of the body's most important biochemical defense systems, and are of great importance to the smooth functioning of every cell in your entire body. The juice also contains 19 amino acids (including all of the essential ones); More protein than whole wheat; 21 trace minerals including germanium (an anti-cancer trace mineral rarely found in foods); Vitamin C at higher levels than even those found oranges; Vitamin E (rarely found in fruits, only in grains and seeds); B-complex vitamins, necessary for converting food into energy; Essential fatty acids (EFA's), which are required for the body's production of hormones and for the smooth functioning of the brain and nervous system; Beta-Sitosterol, an anti-inflammatory agent (Beta-Sitosterol also lowers cholesterol and has been used to treat sexual impotence and prostate enlargement); and a complete spectrum of antioxidant carotenoids, including beta-carotene (a better source then even carrots) and zeaxanthin (protects the eyes). Goji berries are the richest source of carotenoids of all known foods.
If you care about your health and well being, then you want to consume food and nutritional supplements with the highest level of nutrients. Himalayan Goji Juicewill give you the nutrients you need to stay healthy and disease free.
This article was written by fitness enthusiast Vernita Sherman of GojiNutrients.com and Ultimate Fat Burning Secrets. Vernita is the owner of several health and fitness websites, and she is dedicated to discovering the best natural health products on the market for her website visitors. To learn more about Goji Juice and receive a free copy of the Goji ebook, please visit http://www.gojinutrients.com
Weight loss vs. Fat loss – Yes There Is a Difference!
In order to lose weight, your body must burn more calories than it takes in, but keep in mind that your body needs calories for energy and when you exercise; your body needs even more calories. Before I talk about energy, the first thing you must understand is that losing weight and losing fat is not the same thing. Just because you lose weight, does not mean you lose fat, and just because you lose fat, does not mean you lose weight. When people talk about losing weight, what the really want to do is lose the excess fat on their body and obtain an attractive figure.
When you eat, the body uses most of the calories for energy. If you eat more calories than the body uses, it will get stored as fat. If you do not consume enough calories per day you will lose weight, but you will also lose energy. When you do not consume enough energy (calories) for your body, it will start using up your energy stores to make up for the energy deficiency. Unfortunately, the energy stores used is not your stored fat, but instead it's protein and carbohydrates (carbs) that will supply most of the energy (stored fat makes up a very small percentage). Your body will take the protein and carbohydrates from your muscle cells; causing your muscle mass to reduce (say goodby to that toned attractive look) which forces your metabolism to decrease (a low metabolism = slow or no fat burning). When this happens your body requires less energy to maintain its new lower body weight (remember the body weight is lower because you loss muscle), which is why your body conserves energy by slowing down the metabolism. In other words, the body has adapted to the new lower energy (calorie) intake which means that you will no longer continue to lose weight.
Keep in mind that the weight you had lost in the first place was mostly water weight and you will eventually gain it back in the form of fat, not muscle (in order to get your muscle mass back to the way it was before, you have to work on rebuilding it). When carbohydrates and protein that are already in your body are used as the energy source, your body will lose water weight because both carbohydrates and protein hold water in the cells. In essence, you are dehydrating yourself to lose weight. So yes the scale will go down, but approximately 75% (if not more) of it is water instead of fat. And just so you know, exercising while consuming a small calorie intake just makes the situation worse. This is because when you exercise, you start burning off more energy and the more you workout, the more energy your body needs. I already told you above where the energy comes from, and if you do not give your body the energy it needs, it will just feed on your muscles even quicker now that you are exercising. So eat more food! In addition to this, when you cut down too much on your calorie intake, your body will start storing calories because it doesn't know when you will eat again. The calories that are stored will be stored as fat. So in other words, when your body is storing energy, it's basically storing more fat.
To summarize my point: Not eating enough calories results in muscle loss, dehydration, slower fat burning, and your body will always adapt to a lower calorie intake.
Bottom Line: if you can't maintain that lower calorie intake for the rest of your life, you will gain your weight back when you get tired of starving yourself!
To lose weight properly (burning fat) you must increase your metabolism (weight training) and your need for oxygen (aerobics) while eating enough calories each day (nutritious diet) to give you energy and maintain the protein in your muscles because protein helps build muscles, which indirectly burns fat. This brings up another good point: When you build muscle your weight will increase because your muscles are made up of mostly water, but your body fat percentage will decrease because building muscles increase your metabolism (in other words, muscles way more than fat, but take up less space than fat). So keep in mind that losing body fat can't be measured by a scale; use a measuring tape and also look at yourself in the mirror, and then you will see the true results. One of the best ways to know if you are losing more body fat than water is by using a body fat analyzer.
Make sure that you focus on fat loss not weight loss. Your goal should be to lose weight by burning fat, not losing water from your muscles. Remember this when you choose your weight loss program.
This article was written by Vernita Sherman of Ultimate Fat Burning Secrets. Ultimate Fat Burning Secrets is an online resource dedicated to exposing fat burning secrets that weight loss companies are keeping from you. Vernita focuses on teaching you the truth about how to permanently lose weight the healthy way at http://www.ultimatefatburningsecrets.com
Eating Outside Your Box
One way to combat the boredom many people complain accompanies eating healthy is to "eat outside your box," by experimenting with new foods and cuisines and by challenging your notions about what to eat and when. Iceberg is not the only kind of lettuce, apples and oranges aren't the only fruits and there is no law that says you can't eat mushroom lasagne for breakfast and a southwestern omelete for dinner. And just because your parents always eat turkey on Thanksgiving, fish on Friday and meatloaf on Mondays doesn't mean you have to.
Dare to step outside your comfort zone and put an end to your eating rut, by accepting one (or more) of the following challenges to eat and live more healthily and creatively.
1. Make a list of the 10 foods that you eat on a regular basis. Over the course of the next month, eat outside your box by passing on these foods.
2. Try a new food every day. Have you knocked eating soy, tofu, sushi or kiwi without ever giving it a try. Don't allow the opinions of others to inhibit your pallet, give your taste buds an opportunity to decide.
3. Try not to eat any of the same meals you ate last month. Use your imagination and cookbooks like Trim & Terrific by Holly Clegg to invigorate your mundane menus.
4. Do not visit any of the same restaurants you tried last month. If you eat out it must be somewhere new. Order something new and nutritious off the menu.
5. Use a cookbook to explore ways you can make the foods you usually eat more nutritious.
6. Ask people from different race, regions, religious and cultural backgrounds to share their favorites foods and recipes. Incorporate at least 2 into your menu.
7. Buy a new cookbook with recipes from a cuisine you have never experienced. Prepare at least one meal a week from the cookbook.
8. Sit down with a healthy cookbook like The Ultimate Healthy Eating Cookbook edited by Anne Sheasby. Make a list of 30 recipes that look appealing. You don't have to use them – but they will be there when you need them.
9. Make a special trip to the grocery store or specialty food store to shop for herbs and spices. Buy at least 5 of them and experiment with them at least 1 each week.
10. Take a cooking class. Check you local YMCA or community for course offerings.
11. Flip the script. Make a list of the meals you usually eat for breakfast, a list of meals you usually eat for lunch and a list for dinner. Then eat what you normally eat for lunch for dinner, dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner.
12. Each time you go grocery shopping buy at least 5 different brands than you usually do. You may be surprised to learn that different brands offer better taste, nutrition and price.
Jacqueline D. Stanley: Author, Speaker, Chief Encouragement Officer at Lettuce Is Not Enough University: The Place to Learn How to Live Well and Lose Weight.
www.lettuceisnotenough.com
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