Health and nutrition is something that everyone should be concerned with this day in age. Obviously our food choices have made eating nutritious meals harder to come by and therefore it's more important than ever before to really 'think' before you eat. Don't be one of the many who are under the impression that if it tastes good, it should be good for you. That kind of thinking couldn't be further from the truth.
Too Many Fat People In The World
When you sit and consider the benefits of health and nutrition these days, you may be surprised that the obesity rate has sky-rocketed in the past 20 years. Back in the 1980's the obesity rate in the U.S. was approximately 20% or so compared to today where more than 65% of Americans are considered obese!
What does that mean to you?
It means that unless you want to be one of the herd, you really need to look into what you're eating. With so much sugar, fat, salt, artificial colors and preservatives in our food nowadays, sorry to say, but only the 'educated' will survive.
You see, with all the fried foods, microwaved burgers and artificial sweetend drinks, many people are not getting the correct amounts of protein, vitamins, minerals and fiber the body absolutely needs. Since these are all building blocks to great health we would recommend you start buying your own groceries and stay away from the drive-thru window.
Did you know that the #1 vegetable eaten is the potato? The sad part is that it's in the form of 'french fries' soaked in grease and loaded with fat!
Also, when you order a burger from one of these fast food places, they throw it in the microwave to heat it up. Here's the reality, once the food goes into the microwave, every ounce of nutrition has been zapped from the food and you might as well be eating a piece of cardboard! (There is no nutritional value from food that comes out of a microwave.)
Another major issue is the consumption of soda. First off, soda has artificial sweeteners, tons of sugar and more importantly a little known chemical called aspartame.
Do you know what aspartame is?
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener that is 180 times sweeter than sugar without the high energy value of sugar. It's used by the major manufacturers because it's cheaper to produce and even though there is major controversy regarding it's safety, it hasn't stopped them from adding it to all types of products.
Aspartame is found in over 6000 products throughout the world, including carbonated soft drinks, powdered soft drinks, flavored chewing gum, confections, geletins, dessert mixes, puddings and fillings, frozen desserts, yogurt and tabletop sweeteners.
It's been found to cause head aches in men and women and when tested in laboratories, they have found it to cause brain tumors, brain lesions and lymphoma.
Needless to say...stay away from Aspartame!
Today as more and more people are abusing their bodies by not consuming the proper food, obesity is becoming a major problem. To solve this dilemma we would advise you to pay special attention to the advantages of health and nutrition and consider taking supplements to augment the nutrition to the body.
You can begin by consuming vitamins on a daily basis and giving up on fast food. Yes, we said 'give up' on the fast food! It's far better to give up on the fast foods and replace it with protein shakes, organic meals and supplements.
If you're looking for a product line that covers the basic nutritional guidelines and has been around for over 50 years, we would recommend you take a look at http://www.perfecthealthshop.com/.
With the busy lifestyle that most people live today, we can only hope you take our advice and get on the pathto total health and wellness before it's too late.
To Your Health,
Michael Toscano & Brue Baker
Owners / Founders
http://www.diethealthandfitness.com/
Showing posts with label healthy living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthy living. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
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.
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
Monday, February 4, 2008
How To Consume Food With Proper Food Nutrition Value
In recent times, there have been many changes to the four basic food groups that we know of: Dairy, Fruits, Vegetables and Meat.
The reason why these groupings have blurred, and some might even say disappeared from the food nutrition scene is that the healthy food diets we can choose from today have many more options than in the past.
Nowadays, you can choose to include legumes, whole grains, fish, seeds, nuts as well as plant oils that all add up to making for better food nutrition. In addition, the many different ethnic, cultural and even religious preferences give us more options than any other time in history.
Create A Healthy Food Plan
To stay healthy, you have to keep in mind the proper food nutrition when you're creating a healthy plan for your meals. A good idea is to create a pyramid plan, which will show you which foods are your best choices.
Since there's a lot of variety in even these food pyramids, you might wonder which one is most suitable for you even though they're more or less based on the same principles.
Good food nutrition, as outlined by the various food pyramids, will mean eating plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. You'll want to cut back on the foods heavy in saturated fats, cholesterol and trans fats in the process. Other than that, to benefit from proper food nutrition you need to also limit or eliminate sweets and excess salt.
As far as alcohol goes, discretion is certainly your best option and you should really moderate the amount of alcohol you consume.
In addition, you need to be careful about the size of the portions of your meals. Keeping a close eye on the number of calories you consume will only benefit you in the long run. And of course, working in some time throughout the day to exercise wouldn't hurt.
Another good option to help you maintain proper food nutrition is to make use of vegetables, not as side dishes; rather, they can be used as main meals which means there are a number of vegetables to consider.
Some choices to consider would be Portobello mushroom burgers, spring greens with butternut squash, asparagus and tomato as well as red pepper French bread pizza, grilled vegetable kebobs, asparagus with almonds, Italian vegetables with pasta and honey-glazed sweet potatoes as ideal vegetable dishes that are sure to be rich in terms of food nutrition value.
To Your Health,
Michael Toscano & Brue Baker
Owners/Founders
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