The Importance of Daily Vitamins

We all know that vitamins are vital to our overall health. Your body cannot function properly without receiving the necessary vitamins and minerals every day. Sometimes called "micronutrients" by doctors and nutritionists, vitamins and minerals work in conjunction with proteins, fats, and carbohydrates to keep us healthy.

In our fast-paced world, many of us have problems meeting all of our nutritional requirements each day from diet alone. We are on the run and do not always have time to eat healthy meals. To make up for some of the vital vitamins and minerals we may be missing, many doctors recommend that everyone take a multivitamin each day.

Since vitamins and minerals help your body function properly, you cannot afford to miss out on the daily requirements. Sure, you may not notice health problems immediately, but over time, missing out on essential vitamins and minerals can really take a toll on your body.

Moreover, studies have shown their importance in combating certain diseases, such as cancer. Vitamins and minerals help in many ways. For instance, they keep your organs functioning properly, aid in healing fractures, and help your eyesight remain clear and sharp.

Take vitamin A as an example. Among other things, this vitamin helps your immune system. To get the required amount of this vitamin each day, you need to eat four or more servings of vegetables and fruits.

Also found in vegetables and fruits is vitamin C. Chances are, you may not be getting enough of this essential vitamin, especially if you smoke. Smokers often do not get enough because they need more than non-smokers.

Other people need additional vitamins and minerals as well. For instance, pregnant women need vitamins rich in folic acid. Some people need additional iron in their diets. Your lifestyle may necessitate that you need more of certain vitamins.

In addition to a multivitamin, many doctors recommend that some patients take omega-3 supplements. Heart patients, for instance, routinely are told to take additional omega-3 supplement pills to help maintain a healthy heart.

Just as not getting enough vitamins is bad for you, taking too many vitamins is equally bad. Your body has trouble eliminating certain vitamins, such as A, D, E, and K. You want to take the correct amount of these vitamins to optimize the healthful benefits.

Taking a multivitamin is one way to insure you are getting all the valuable vitamins and minerals you need. But which one should you take? The marketplace is flooded with vitamin supplements.

The best way to choose a multivitamin is to look for ones that contain 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance of most vitamins and minerals. Also, buy from a reputable brand name that has been around for years.

It's important that your supplement not contain hazardous materials, and the manufacturer of your multivitamin should have research information available on their website.

You can find most major brands of vitamins at your local drug or grocery store. In addition, many companies sell vitamins on the Internet. Like the companies at your grocery store, online companies offer multivitamins that helps you meet your daily requirements.

When deciding what vitamins you need and how you can stay healthy, do your research. Visit the websites of several companies and see what their products have to offer.

More important, read about what testing they do to ensure that their products are safe and meet your nutritional needs. A company that is sure of its products will have performed testing and will have a proven record of success.

Although supplement manufacturers have had to meet certain requirements for years, in June 2007, the FDA augmented existing laws. Now companies that sell vitamin and herbal supplements must test their products for impurities and contaminates.

Moreover, all companies must prove their claims. Some companies have been testing their products for years and publish this information on their websites.

When choosing vitamin supplements, always look for a company that strives to make the safest and most effective supplements on the market. After all, when it comes to your health, you can't afford to take any risks.

To Your Health,

Michael Toscano & Brue Baker

Owners / Founders
http://www.DietHealthandFitness.com/

Does Nutrition Play a Major Role In Creating A Healthy Lifestyle?

Some diet and nutrition plans might sound good on the surface but there are many things to consider when ensuring proper nutrition in your meal plan.

Some people try to reduce or eliminate their carbohydrate intake when dieting because by reducing carbohydrates you reduce the sugar in your system. The problem is that since carbohydrates provide glucose and glucose provides energy to the cells in the body, this may not be the best solution.

There are two types of carbohydrates you may be aware of; simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates metabolize quickly, increasing the amount of glucose in the blood and then storing some of the leftovers in fat cells throughout the body.

Complex carbohydrates on the other hand, are slower to turn into sugar in the bloodstream and the glucose is usually used before being stored in surrounding fat cells. Obviously everyone is different and each person's individual metabolism rate will ultimately determine how fast these carbohydrates will metabolize within the body.

By focusing on better food nutrition, taking nutritional supplements, eating nutrition bars, fruits, vegetables and the like, not only will you create a healthier lifestyle but you'll also be able to better control your weight day in and day out.

It's pretty much common knowledge that in order to lose weight a person has to consume less calories than their body burns off throughout the day.

The biggest myth people have fallen victim to is that they think the less they eat, the more weight they'll lose. This couldn't be further from the truth.

You see, when you don't feed your body in an effort to lose weight, what you're actually doing is starving your body and when your body is not receiving it's "fuel," it goes into starvation mode.

Now when this happens, your body begins to use the protein in the muscle as it's backup source of energy. Have you ever noticed people who go on diets, lose weight but still look flabby? That's because they're losing lean muscle through the starvation process and when they hit their goal weight and begin to eat "normally" again, they almost always gain back the weight they lost and MORE.

There really is no single diet plan that will offer the same benefits for everyone, but considering the purpose of the diet, nutrition information must be used when developing an individual plan. For the right plan with the right nutrition for each individual, it may be necessary to seek professional advice.

If you're like me, you'd rather figure out your own daily caloric intake numbers. If that's the case, here's an easy calculation you can use to figure out how many calories you should be consuming on a daily basis.

The calculation is as follows:

Your Weight x's 10 = ________ x's (Activity Level)______ = Your Daily Caloric Intake (to stay the same weight)

Activity Levels:

1.4 = Not very active
1.6 = Semi-Active
1.8 = Very Active

Example:

Let's take a 200 lb. male and figure out how many calories he would need to eat each day to stay at 200 lbs.

200lbs. x's 10 = 2,000 x's 1.6 = 3,200 calories/day to stay at 200 lbs.

Here's what you would do if you're trying to LOSE WEIGHT.

If you are trying to LOSE 1 lb./wk, you would subtract 500 calories from your diet each day.

If you're trying to LOSE 2 lbs./wk, you would subtract 1,000 calories from your diet each day.

Example:

3,200 - 500 = 2,700 Calories/day to LOSE 1 lb./wk
3,200 - 1,000 = 2,200 Calories/day to LOSE 2 lbs./wk

Now, if you're trying to GAIN WEIGHT, just do the exact opposite.

If you are trying to GAIN 1 lb./wk, you would ADD 500 calories to your diet each day.
If you're trying to GAIN 2 lbs./wk, you would ADD 1,000 calories to your diet each day.

Example:

3,200 + 500 = 3,700 Calories/day to GAIN 1 lb./wk
3,200 + 1,000 = 4,200 Calories/day to GAIN 2 lbs./wk

You might be wondering why we use 500 and 1,000 calories to figure out how we gain or lose weight.

It's actually because there are approximately 3,500 calories in a pound. If you divide 3,500 by 7 days in the week, you'll come up with + or - 500 calories a day. Pretty cool huh?!

These days when people are pushing for weight management, many people still seem to forget an important part of any diet plan; making sure your body gets the correct nutrition it needs.

While many people are exercising and counting calories, they still may be overlooking the correct amount of calories that their body needs to supply energy to the body.

Many people will cut out several foods in their diet not realizing that some of those foods provide the needed sources of nutrition and actually put their health at risk.

Up until 2005, the Department of Agriculture had a food pyramid that listed four major food groups and had recommendations of how much to eat from each food group. They listed their recommendations from each food group in order to have the proper nutrition in your diet and since then have expanded to the food pyramid to six groups.

We highly recommend taking a look at the newest food pyramid (below) as your guide to building and maintaining a health and nutrition regimen that works best for you.

To Your Health,

Michael Toscano & Brue Baker
Owners / Founders
DietHealthandFitness.com