If you have put off pumping iron, get to it. According to experts, you burn calories faster after a strength-training session than you would after a cardio session. And researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that lifting weights 3 times a week for 25 weeks caused women to lose an average of 4 pounds of body fat.
It’s common knowledge that ideally, for optimum health, people should eat a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables. But the reality is that most people fall short of that ideal, leaving them with a diet that is severely lacking in essential vitamins and minerals. Luckily, there are ways to compensate for a less-than-perfect diet. Vitamin and mineral supplements are a great way to fill the gaps left by your diet, or to provide a potential boost in the vitality and health of anyone.
Most dieticians and doctors will agree that it’s best to consume most of your vitamins through the foods you eat rather than through a pill. One reason for this is that vitamins in healthy foods work in conjunction with other elements in the food that are not found in supplements alone. In other words, the combined effect of the vitamins with other nutrients hold a stronger punch than vitamin supplements alone. But that’s not to say that supplements hold no value, of course.
In certain groups, in fact, vitamin supplements are imperative. It is recommended that all pregnant women, for example, consume folic acid supplements regardless of their diet to help prevent debilitating birth defects like spina bifida. Doctors also suggest that dark skinned people and people lacking regular sunlight should take vitamin D supplements. Senior citizens should take B12 complexes, and the list goes on and on.
While their potential to improve health is great, too much of a good thing can be wasteful at best, dangerous at worst. Certain supplements, like vitamins E and A for example, can be toxic in high doses so care must be taken to keep track of your supplement regimen.
While there are still naysayers who dispute the benefit of taking vitamin supplements when the diet is balanced, the fact is that when taken in appropriate doses, vitamin supplements carry little true risks, yet offer great potential benefits, such as reduced risk of cancer and heart disease.
Most physical activity requires a lot of time and physical demand on your body, so taking in the proper nutrients is of the utmost importance. Whether you are Mr. Universe or an MMA champion consuming the proper amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates will give your body the energy to get through those grueling workouts and, in addition, grant you a healthy lifestyle in the long run.
So what about the different nutrients that your body takes in? Why is it so important? How much and when should you be eating? When devising your daily meal plan always divide up all your nutrients that you should be taking in over the course of 5 meals. You want to feed your body every 3-4 hours. Giving it the nutrients that it needs throughout the course of the day will maximize energy levels and consumption of vitamins and minerals.
Let’s start with protein. Everyone knows the common cliché that protein is only meant for bodybuilders who want to gain muscle. This is totally untrue. The rule for protein intake can stretch across all athletes, particularly MMA fighters. Protein is the one type of calorie that your body does not store for energy. Lack of protein throughout the day will cause you to feel sluggish, weak and in the long run you will lose overall muscle on your body. General rule for protein is that it should be taken in with every meal. Great sources of protein are chicken and turkey breast, lean red meat, fish, eggs and protein shakes. All of these sources are very low in saturated fat and will help you complete your daily protein needs.
Consumption of fats in your daily meal plan is also important and essential. Fats are needed to sustain energy levels in the body and to help in muscle repair after a
grueling workout. Try and stay away from foods that are high in saturated fat such as fried or fast food, really fatty cuts of beef and corn oils. These are the fats that will make you fat and that can raise your cholesterol levels, potentially giving you heart problems. The fats that your body needs to sustain high levels of energy are low in saturated fats but higher in mono-saturated and poly-saturated fats. These fats help you get through your training and in addition will actually help your cholesterol levels. Great fats to eat are nuts (almonds, walnuts, peanuts or cashews), fish (salmon, tuna, tilapia and cod), eggs, lean cuts of beef (sirloin or fillet), peanut butter, and olive oil. These fats should be used moderately throughout the day with almost every meal to sustain your performance levels.
Carbohydrates are also very important to the body because it replenishes the body of the simple sugars and starches that it needs to function at optimal performance. The two best times to take in starches are in the morning and after you workout. In both cases your body is depleted: in the morning from sleeping from 6-8 hours and not eating and after a workout when your body’s blood sugar levels have been drained from intense exercise. In both instances, carbohydrates are needed to replenish the body and to get it out of a catabolic effect, when your body burns muscle. Great carbohydrates to eat during these times are oatmeal, sweet or baked potatoes and white/brown rice. All of these sources are slower to digest and your body will utilize them throughout the day.
Carbohydrates to stay away from are breads, fast foods, pasta and refined sugars such as cakes and other desserts. These sources will spike your sugar levels in the body, making you feel very lethargic and will be stored in the body as fat. Fruits and vegetables also play an important part in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Vegetables such as salad, broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus give your body lots of vitamins and nutrients. Fruits such as apples, oranges, berries and bananas also provide the body with antioxidants to fight off any sicknesses.
While the media focus on low-carb vs. low-fat diets, they tend to miss the point about high-protein diets. It’s well known in the fitness industry that higher protein intakes help with fat loss. For one thing, protein helps control appetite.
Most bodybuilding nutritionists recommend that 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight is effective for building muscle and burning fat in normal-weight men and women. But overweight individuals should have more.
A study published in The Nutrition Journal tested the effect of supplemental protein intake on weight loss in 100 obese men and women. All of the subjects received two protein-enriched meal replacement shakes per day. But half received a total of 1 extra gram of protein per pound of lean body mass per day. And the other half received a total of 0.5 extra grams of protein per pound of lean body mass per day.
At the end of 12 weeks, both groups had lost approximately 8 to 9 pounds of weight, but the higher-protein group had lost more fat (3.6 pounds vs. 1.32 pounds).
You can get protein from nuts (a few grams per ounce), beans, tofu, peanut butter, lentils, peas, bananas, apples, oranges, sesame seeds, the list goes on.
If you want to lose fat, a little extra protein can go a long way.
CoQ10 helps the heart pump blood
Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), a nutrient that occurs naturally in every cell in the body, improved blood-vessel function and increased peak exercise capacity in those with heart disease, in two new studies.
In a coronary artery disease (CAD) study, researchers recruited 33 men and five women, average age 55, who had CAD and whose hearts pumped blood normally, to take 300 mg of CoQ10 in three 100 mg does per day or a placebo for one month. Doctors measured the activity of an important antioxidant enzyme, superoxide dismutase or SOD on blood vessel walls, which declines in CAD. Those who had taken CoQ10 had a 29% increase in SOD activity compared to 4% for placebo. Scientists also measured the arteries’ ability to relax (dilate), the heart’s ability to deliver oxygen and the cells’ capacity to absorb oxygen and found that, in all three measures, those who had taken CoQ10 had significantly greater improvement compared to placebo. Participants who began with the lowest SOD activity improved remarkably.
In chronic heart failure (CHF), the heart is damaged and may not fill with or pump enough blood. Researchers recruited 20 men and three women with CHF, average age 59, to participate in four, four-week double-blind phases taking: 1) 300 mg of CoQ10 in three 100 mg doses per day without exercise training, 3) a placebo without exercise, or 4) a placebo with supervised exercise training. Doctors measured the capacity of the cells to absorb oxygen and the ability of the arteries to dilate. Compared to placebo, the CoQ10 group increased by 9% and 38% respectively. Scientists also tracked an index that measures the ability of the left ventricle of the heart to pump blood, which improved by 12%.
There are lots of foods that are good for you. But these 10 superfoods go beyond a simple vitamin dose here or a nutrient-drenched nibble there. These are research-backed, expert-beloved disease fighters and energy boosters. Making them your go-to eats is easy-we’ve got a month’s worth of recipes and a menu planner, so you don’t even have to think about what’s for dinner tonight. Dig in!
Lemon
Broccoli
Dark Chocolate
Potatoes
Salmon
Walnuts
Avocado
Research from Stanford University says that 100 hearty laughs are as good for your heart as 15 minutes on a stationary bike. Now that’s an excellent punch line.
When you crack up over your best friend’s antics, the levels of disease and virus fighting cells in your body increase, according to a study from Loma Linda University School of Medicine.
A UCLA study found that the experience of bonding with other people when you’re stressed out triggers the release of the calm-inducing chemical oxytocin in your body.
A recent American Heart Association study says a glass of red wine a day can lower your heart disease risk by more than 20 percent.
According to a British study of chronically depressed women, those who met with volunteer confidants experienced a 72 percent remission of depression – the same success rate as many antidepressants and cognitive therapy!
Consumption of green tea has been associated with a number of positive effects on health. Several studies have shown regular use of green tea can aid fat loss. Green tea is believed to augment norepinephrine, a hormone that promotes fat breakdown. Other possible benefits of green tea include decreased food intake and decreased formation of fat.
Polyphenols, the bioactive compounds in green tea, account for a third of the dry weight of the leaves. The predominant polyphenols are the catechins including epicatechin, epicatechin-3-gallate, epigallocatechin and epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). Most research has focused on EGCG as the predominant polyphenol.
German researchers recently tested the effects of EGCG rates of carbohydrate and fat oxidation. Subjects consumed either 300 mg of EGCG or placebo, supplementation with EGCG caused a shift in energy utilization from carbohydrate to fat oxidation. The effect was more pronounced after eating a meal. In the placebo trial, only 30% of the total energy burned after the meal was attributed to fat, whereas 54% of the energy burned came from fat oxidation after EGCG supplementation.
These results show supplementation with 300 mg EGCG encourages use of fat over carbohydrate as fuel, which provides a plausible mechanism to explain the anti-obesity effects of green tea.
