tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62075025874461360372024-03-12T19:22:36.043-07:00The Health HubUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger94125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-74155729118783562152015-03-08T11:13:00.000-07:002015-03-08T11:13:34.194-07:00The Importance Of Physical "Variability" In Cardio Exercise<strong>Your Cardio Workouts May NOT Be Helping You Unless You Incorporate A High Range Of Heart Rate Shifts In Your Training</strong><br />
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<br />Are you a cardio junkie? Everyone seems to think that "cardio" is the best way to get in shape and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>lose body fat. I'm going to show you with this article why I<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>disagree</strong>!</div>
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It is quite common to hear fitness pros, doctors, and other health professionals prescribe low to moderate intensity aerobic training (cardio) to people who are trying to prevent heart disease or lose weight. Most often, the recommendations go something like this:</div>
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"Perform 30-60 minutes of steady pace cardio 3-5 times/week maintaining your heart rate at a moderate level"</div>
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Before you just give in to this popular belief and become the<strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“hamster on the wheel”</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>doing endless hours of boring cardio exercise, I’d like you to consider some recent scientific research that indicates that steady pace endurance cardio work may not be all it’s cracked up to be.</div>
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First, realize that our bodies are designed to perform physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery, or stop-and-go movement instead of steady state movement. Recent research is suggesting that "physical variability" is one of THE most important aspects to consider in your training.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />This tendency can be seen throughout nature as most animals tend to demonstrate "stop-and-go" motion instead of steady state motion. In fact, humans are the only creatures in nature that attempt to do “endurance” type physical activities such as running long distances at the exact same speed the whole time.</div>
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Most competitive sports (with the exception of endurance running or cycling) are also based on stop-and-go movement or short bursts of exertion followed by recovery.</div>
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To examine an example of the different effects of endurance or steady state training versus stop-and-go training, consider the physiques of marathoners versus sprinters. Most sprinters carry a physique that is very lean, muscular, and powerful looking, while the typical dedicated marathoner is more often emaciated and sickly looking. Now which would you rather resemble?</div>
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Another factor to keep in mind regarding the benefits of physical variability is the internal effect of various forms of exercise on our body. Scientists have known that excessive steady state endurance exercise (different for everyone, but sometimes defined as greater than 60 minutes per session most days of the week) increases free radical production in the body, can degenerate joints, reduces immune function, causes muscle wasting, and can cause a pro-inflammatory response in the body that can potentially lead to chronic diseases.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br /><strong>Highly variable cyclic training</strong></div>
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On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training has been linked to increased antioxidant production in the body and an anti-inflammatory response, a more efficient nitric oxide response (which can encourage a healthy cardiovascular system), and an increased metabolic rate response (which can assist with weight loss). Furthermore, steady state endurance training only trains the heart at one specific heart rate range and doesn’t train it to respond to various every day stressors.</div>
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On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training teaches the heart to respond to and recover from a variety of demands making it less likely to fail when you need it. Think about it this way... Exercise that trains your heart to rapidly increase and rapidly decrease will make your heart more capable of handling everyday stress. Stress can cause your blood pressure and heart rate to increase rapidly. Steady state jogging and other endurance training does not train your heart to be able to handle rapid changes in heart rate or blood pressure.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />The important aspect of variable cyclic training that makes it superior over steady state cardio exercise is the recovery period in between bursts of exertion. That recovery period is crucially important for the body to elicit a healthy response to an exercise stimulus. Another benefit of variable cyclic training is that it is much more interesting and has lower drop-out rates than long boring steady state cardio programs.<br /><br />To summarize, some of the potential benefits of variable cyclic training compared to steady state endurance training are as follows: improved cardiovascular health, increased anti-oxidant protection, improved immune function, reduced risk for joint wear and tear, increased muscularity (versus decreased muscularity with endurance training), increased residual metabolic rate following exercise, and an increased capacity for the heart to handle life’s every day stressors.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br /><strong>Sports Workouts and Sprinting</strong></div>
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There are many ways you can reap the benefits of stop-and-go or variable intensity physical training. Most competitive sports such as football, basketball, volleyball, racquetball, tennis, hockey, baseball, etc. are naturally comprised of highly variable stop-and-go motion which trains the heart through a MUCH wider heart rate range compared to just steady walking or jogging. </div>
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Doing swimming workouts in a variable intensity fashion may also be more beneficial than just swimming for a long duration at the same speed. Same goes for bicycling -- that is why mountain biking, which involves extreme ups and downs at various intensity levels may also be more beneficial than just a long flat steady pace bike ride.</div>
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One of the absolute most effective forms of variable intensity training to really reduce body fat and bring out serious muscular definition is performing wind sprints. Wind sprints can be done by sprinting at near max speed for 10-30 seconds, and then taking 60 seconds to walk for recovery before your next sprint. 6-12 total sprint intervals is usually a very challenging workout for most people.</div>
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In addition, weight training naturally incorporates short bursts of exertion followed by recovery periods. High intensity interval training (varying between high and low intensity intervals on any piece of cardio equipment) is yet another training method that utilizes exertion and recovery periods. For example, an interval training session on the treadmill could look something like this:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />Warm-up for 3-4 minutes at a fast walk or light jog</div>
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Interval 1 - run at 8.0 mi/hr for 1 minute<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br />Interval 2 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br />Interval 3 - run at 10.0 mi/hr for 1 minute<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br />Interval 4 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />Repeat those 4 intervals 4 times for a very intense 20-minute workout.</div>
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Also, don't overlook other great ways to incorporate variable intensity cardio training by using a jump rope, a rowing machine, stairs running, or even outdoor hill sprints.<br /><br />The take-away message from this article is to try to train your body at<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>highly variable</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>intensity rates for the majority of your workouts to get the most beneficial response in terms of heart health, fat loss, and muscle maintenance.</div>
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Source: <em>Mike Geary<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></em><em>– Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist</em></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-80257518419925814112015-03-08T11:02:00.000-07:002015-03-08T11:02:25.049-07:00Antioxidants - One Of The Secrets To A Youthful Appearance, Anti-Aging, Disease Prevention, And A Leaner, Stronger, Healthier Body!<strong><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I’m sure by now you’ve heard all about the amazing health benefits of antioxidant rich foods in your diet. Not only do these free-radical fighting antioxidants help you look and feel younger by slowing down the aging process, but they can also help to prevent cancer, heart disease, and loads of other degenerative diseases. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">But that’s not all. Antioxidants also help you to recover better from exercise… and that means you can<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>build more muscle<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>burn more body fat<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in the long term! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">And although we all want to be healthy and feel youthful... most of us also want to look good!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The function that antioxidants play in aiding your recovery from exercise is the inhibition of free radicals produced during exercise. Any time you workout, free radicals are produced in the body that can create inflammation. Having an adequate supply of antioxidants about an hour or so before your workout can greatly reduce the damage caused by free radicals, hence, improving your muscular recovery from exercise. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Some of the most potent sources of whole food antioxidants are berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cranberries), cherries, acai fruit, various teas (green tea, white tea, black tea, yerba mate, oolong tea, chammomile tea, red tea - a.k.a. rooibos tea), nuts, seeds, red and black beans, purple potatoes, grapes, red wine, nuts and seeds, coffee, dark chocolate or cocoa, and tons of other fruits and vegetables. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Many spices are also extremely potent sources of antioxidants -- such as cinnamon,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>turmeric, oregano, basil, black pepper, and most other herbs and spices.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">My favorite pre-workout antioxidant-loaded snack is a piece of whole grain toast with almond butter, a small amount of blackberry jam, and topped with a pile of fresh blueberries or sliced strawberries. I wash it down with a glass of iced green tea or rooibos tea sweetened with just a small bit (about a teaspoon) of raw honey. This is literally a quintuple-whammy of potent anti-oxidants!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The almond butter, blackberries, blueberries, raw honey, and the green or rooibos tea are all loaded with different varieties of muscle protecting, youth promoting antioxidants. I throw down this snack about an hour before my training. Give it a try for yourself, or be creative and come up with your own antioxidant-rich pre-workout snack based on your tastes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Remember, your body is continually bombarded every day by free radicals (creating oxidative stress) from exercise, air pollution, smoke, sun exposure, junk food, exposure to chemicals, etc. To reap the full benefits of antioxidants, try to make sure that every meal and snack you eat has at least one or two sources of antioxidant rich foods. This will give you a continuous supply of antioxidants throughout every day to prevent the damage and aging that result from the free radicals you are constantly exposed to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I recently helped design a very powerful and synergistic antioxidant blend supplement. Since I personally know the owners of this company, I know these are legit and good quality...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Although I typically don't recommend many supplements (because 95% of them are usually bogus), the 2 supplements I do recommend are a good antioxidant blend and a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Krill oil (which is even more powerful than fish oil).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>antioxidant blend (called Longevity)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>contains a powerful blend of some of the most potent antioxidants on the planet such as:</span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">pomegranate</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">acai berry</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">coffeeberry</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">green tea</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">wolfberry</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">and biovin grape (same antioxidants as red wine)</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Antioxidants are just one piece to the puzzle of a healthy diet that will give you the lean, muscular, youthful (can help slow aging markers), and disease free body that everyone wants. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Source: <span style="font-size: xx-small;"><em>Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-29622866440899675592015-03-08T10:53:00.000-07:002015-03-08T10:53:15.612-07:00Body Part Isolation vs. Complex Movements In Strength Training<strong>What You Need To Know About Weight Training For A Strong Lean Body That Both Looks Good And Is Injury Resistant!</strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Working as a personal trainer & fitness professional, there is one type of question I get all the time that shows that many people are missing the big picture regarding the benefits of strength training. This popular question usually goes something like this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">“What exercise can I do to isolate my _______ (insert your muscle of choice – abs, quads, biceps, triceps, etc)?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">It doesn’t matter which muscle someone is asking about, they always seem to be asking how to ‘isolate’ it. My first response to this question is always – “Why in the world would you want to isolate it?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The first thing I try to teach my clients is that the body does not work well in muscle isolation. Rather, it works better in movements along a kinetic chain; that is, large portions of the body assist other portions of the body in completing a complex movement. In fact, there really is no such thing as true muscle isolation. There is almost always a nearby muscle group that will assist in some way with whatever movement you are doing. However, this article compares attempting to ‘isolate’ body parts via single-joint exercises to the much more effective strategy of performing multi-joint complex movements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">When you attempt to ‘isolate’ muscles by performing single-joint exercises, you are actually creating a body that is non-functional and will be more prone to injury. Essentially, you are creating a body that is a compilation of body parts, instead of a powerful, functional unit that works together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Now if you really want to end up hobbling around in a body bandaged up with joint problems, tendonitis, and excess body fat, then by all means, continue trying to ‘isolate’ body parts. On the other hand, if you would rather have a lean, muscular, injury-free, functional body that works as a complete powerful unit to perform complex movements (in athletics or even everyday tasks), then you need to shift your focus away from muscle isolation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Believe me, focusing on how well your body functions will give you the side effect of a body that looks even better than it would have if you focused on muscle isolation. For example, take a look at the physiques of any NFL running backs, wide receivers, or even world class sprinters. Trust me when I say that these guys pretty much NEVER train for muscle isolation (their strength coaches wouldn’t be crazy enough to let them), yet they are absolutely ripped to shreds! Just look at guys like Maurice Green or Terrell Owens and tell me who wouldn’t want a physique like those guys.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Another benefit to moving away from the ‘muscle isolation’ mindset in weight training to a more ‘complex movement’ mindset is that you will find it much easier to lose body fat. The reason is that by focusing more on multi-joint complex movements as opposed to single-joint muscle isolation lifts, you not only burn a lot more calories during each workout, but you also increase your metabolic rate, and stimulate production of more fat burning and muscle building hormones such as growth hormone and testosterone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Let’s look at an example. The machine leg extension is a single joint exercise that works mainly the quadriceps, can potentially cause knee joint instability in the long run, and doesn’t even burn that many calories. On the other hand, exercises like squats, lunges, step-ups, and deadlifts are all multi-joint complex movements that work hundreds of muscles in the body (including the quadriceps) as a functional unit, create more stable and strong joints in the long run (when done properly), and also burn massive quantities of calories compared to the single-joint exercises. </span></div>
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Now although I do feel that multi-joint exercises should comprise the majority of your weight training workouts, I also think that there can be some benefits with just minor inclusions of single-joint exercises for variety, etc. I choose to build my training programs with about 90-95% multi-joint exercises and about 5-10% single-joint exercises at most.</div>
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Source: <em>Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-85109509316779175422015-03-08T10:39:00.000-07:002015-03-08T10:39:16.705-07:00Focus On Both Consistency AND Variability In Your Workouts For THE Best Results And To Avoid A Training Plateau<span style="font-family: Arial;"><em></em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In one of my recent articles, I spoke about the fact that you must alter your training variables that make up your workouts if you want to continuously get good results, whether it is losing weight, building muscle, or toning up -- Exercise Variables for Breaking Plateaus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">While changing your training variables is an integral part of the success of your training program, your workouts shouldn’t be drastically different every single time. If you are all over the place on each workout and never try to repeat and improve on specific exercises for specific set and rep schemes with specific rest intervals, then your body has no basis to improve on its current condition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The best way to structure your workouts to get the best results is to be consistent and try to continually improve on a specific training method for a specific time period. A time period of 4-8 weeks usually works best as your body will adapt to the specific training method and progress will slow after this amount of time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">At this point, it is time to change around some of your training variables as I described in the "exercise variables" article, and then stay consistent with your new training program for another 4-8 weeks. To refresh, some of these variables are:</span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">the numbers of sets and reps of exercises,</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">the order of exercises (sequence),</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">exercise grouping (super-setting, circuit training, tri-sets, etc.),</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">exercise type (multi-joint or single joint, free-weight or machine based),</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">the number of exercises per workout,</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">the amount of resistance,</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">the time under tension during each exercise,</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">the base of stability (standing, seated, on stability ball, one-legged, etc.),</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">the volume of work (sets x reps x distance moved),</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">rest periods between sets,</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">repetition speed,</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">range of motion,</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">exercise angle (inclined, flat, declined, bent over, upright, etc),</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="color: green;">training duration per workout, training frequency per week, etc.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">For example, let’s say you are training with a program where you are doing 10 sets of 3 reps for 6 different exercises grouped together in pairs (done as supersets) with 30 seconds rest between each superset and no rest between the 2 exercises within the superset. If you are smart, I’m sure you are tracking your progress with a notepad (weights used, sets, and reps) to see how you are progressing over time. Let’s say that after about 6 weeks, you find that you are no longer improving with that program. Well, now it is time to change up your variables, and start a new program.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This time you choose a classic 5 sets of 5 reps routine, but you group your exercises in tri-sets (three exercises performed back to back to back, and then repeated for the number of sets). This time you decide to perform the exercises in the tri-set with no rest between them, and then recover for 2 minutes in between each tri-set to fully recoup your strength levels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">There you have it…a couple examples of how to incorporate both consistency and variability into your training programs to maximize your results.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Source: <span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-54972822052682423402015-02-22T10:38:00.000-08:002015-02-22T10:38:17.089-08:00Barbell, Kettlebell And Dumbbell "Complexes" To Take Your Body To A New Level of Hardness and Conditioning!<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/normal Arial; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"></span></strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><em><img alt="dumbbell complexes" height="204" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/dumbbells.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right;" width="300" /></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If you've been looking for a different training technique to break out of a rut, eliminate the boredom, and bring on new results, workout "complexes" may be just what you've been looking for.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">What are workout "complexes"?</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;"></span></strong></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If you've never heard of "complexes" before, the basic concept is that instead of repeating the same exercise for multiple reps to complete a "set", you sequence one rep of several different exercises right after one another and repeat the sequence several times to complete a "set". It's basically like performing a routine, instead of just mindlessly performing a typical "set".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This type of training is excellent to work a huge amount of your body's musculature in a short amount of time, and definitely takes your workouts to a whole new level of intensity. The conditioning aspect of this type of training is amazing, as you'll find yourself huffing and puffing after repeating a sequence a mere two or three times.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If I had to venture a guess, I'd have to say that this type of training probably elicits a good growth hormone response as well, due to the large amount of full body work completed in a given time period. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I like to incorporate about 5 exercises into my complexes. Any more than that and you might start to forget what's next in the sequence. I'm going to show you example routines to use for "complexes"<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>below for</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>barbells, dumbbells, and even kettlebells</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>too. I'm willing to bet this is a totally different style than you've ever trained before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Here's an example of a killer barbell complex that really gets me fired up:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="background-color: #ffff99;"></span></strong></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">Example Barbell "Complex" Sequence</span></strong></span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1 rep: barbell clean and press from floor (explosive lift of barbell from floor to "catch" on front shoulders in one motion, then push-press overhead);</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1 rep: barbell back to thighs, then hang clean (explosively pull bar from knees and "catch" the bar at shoulders);</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1 rep: keep barbell at shoulders, then<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>front squat;</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1 rep: barbell back to thighs, bend over, then bent over row;</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1 rep: barbell back to thighs, then finish with Romanian deadlift</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">repeat each rep of the sequence 2-3 times</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Use a weight that you can still handle for your<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>weakest</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>lift of the bunch, but keep it heavy enough to challenge you. Try to repeat the sequence 2-3 times without resting... That's 1 set. You could progress over time on this routine by increasing the amount of times you repeat the sequence in each set, or by adding sets on subsequent workouts before eventually increasing the weight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">For example, say you completed the above complex with 155-lbs for 3 sequences per set for 3 sets in today's workout. Next time you perform the workout, try to do 155-lbs for 3 sequences per set for 4 sets. Once you successfully complete 5 sets with 155, increase the weight 5 or 10 lbs next time, and drop back to 3 sets. This is a great way to make improvements over time, while cycling your training volume.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Now I'm going to show you a great kettlebell complex that really kicks my butt. If you don't have a kettlebell, you can use a dumbbell, but I'd highly recommend picking yourself up a kettlebell... they're very convenient to have around the house when you want to bang out a quick intense workout at home without going to the gym.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I've been training with kettlebells for about 5 years now, and can definitely say that they've dramatically improved my strength and overall physical capabilities. If you're not familiar with kettlebells, they are an old eastern European training secret that has just started to take the US by storm over the last few years. Many elite athletes are using kettlebells as their preferred training tool for serious results. If you're new to kettlebells, you can learn how to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>get started with kettlebells at this article.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I'd recommend just starting off with one kettlebell and learn all of the single kettlebell drills first, before delving into the double-bell drills. Just one kettlebell coupled with some bodyweight exercises can literally be enough to comprise your own home gym, without any other equipment necessary. Or a kettlebell can just be a great alternative workout to incorporate into your routines once or twice a week. Either way, it opens up a whole new world of training for you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">Example Kettlebell Complex</span></strong></span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">one arm swing</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">one arm snatch, keep the bell over head;</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">one arm overhead squat;</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">bell back down to bottom, then one arm high pull;</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">bell back down to bottom, then one arm clean & press</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">repeat sequence with opposite arm</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">As with the barbell complex, repeat the sequence (without rest) 2-3 times with each arm. That's one set...and one hell of a killer set at that! Try increasing from 3 to 4 to 5 sets on subsequent workouts with a given weight before increasing your sequence reps. If you're not drenched in sweat with your heart beating out of your chest after that complex, you either went too light, or you are a mutant freak!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Since dumbbells are more accessible to most people than kettlebells, now I'll show you how to put together a good dumbbell complex. This dumbbell complex is a better option for beginners or intermediate exercisers. The barbell and kettlebell complexes I showed above are for advanced trainees.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">Example Dumbbell Complex</span></strong></span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">dumbbell squat and push-press</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">front lunge with one leg, then the other</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">back lunge with one leg, then the other</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">curl to overhead press</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">keep dumbbells at shoulders and squat</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">repeat sequence 2-3 times</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Again, the same type of sequencing and progressions explained with the barbell complexes work great with the dumbbell complexes. I think an amazing workout strategy is to alternate barbell complexes on one day with kettlebell or dumbbell complexes on alternative training days.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">For example, you could do barbell complexes Monday, kettlebell or dumbbell complexes Wednesday, and back to barbell complexes on Friday. Maybe hit some sprints and bodyweight drills on Saturday; then Monday would be K-bell or D-bell complexes again, Wednesday would be barbells again, and so on. Give this program a try for a month (if you dare), and you will be one hardened individual! Make sure to shift to a different training style after 4-5 weeks as your body starts to plateau on this specific training routine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Source: <em>Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-24072024274581357592015-01-07T12:26:00.000-08:002015-01-07T12:26:09.361-08:00My Top 55 Lean-Body Foods To Boost Your Energy, Balance Hormones, AND Lose Body Fat<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; clear: both; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><em><img alt="healthy steak" height="84" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/steak.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right;" width="112" /></em></span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial;">In many of my Newsletters, I like to provide a healthy snack or meal recipe that not only is delicious and healthy, but also helps to get you closer to that hard-body appearance that everyone is looking for, while also more importantly, improving your health for life. In this article, I'd like to give you healthy food ideas in a different way. This time, I figured I'd just give you some ideas of what I stock my fridge and cabinets with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="background-color: #ffff99;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><img alt="" height="130" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/bluebry.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right;" width="111" /></span>Remember, if you don't have junk around the house, you're less likely to eat junk!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span> If all you have is healthy nutritious foods around the house, you're forced to make smart choices. Basically, it all starts with making smart choices and avoiding temptations when you make your grocery store trip. Now these are just some of my personal preferences, but perhaps they will give you some good ideas that you'll enjoy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Some of these will be obvious healthy choices, such as fruits and veggies... however, others on this page I think will surprise you!</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Alright, so let's start with the fridge. Each week, I try to make sure I'm loaded up with lots of varieties of fresh vegetables. During the growing season, I only get local produce, but obviously in winter, I have to resort to the produce at the grocery store. Most of the time, I make sure I have plenty of vegetables like onions, zucchini, spinach, fresh mushrooms, red peppers, broccoli, etc. to use in my morning eggs. I also like to chop up some organic chicken or turkey sausage or grass-fed bison sausage into the eggs, along with some swiss, jack, or goat cheeses (preferably raw grass-fed cheeses when I can find them). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">By the way I'm talking about whole eggs, NOT egg whites. Always remember that the yolk is the most nutritious and nutrient dense part of the egg, so only eating egg whites is like throwing away the best part... and no, it's NOT bad for you because of the cholesterol... whole eggs actually raise your GOOD cholesterol. Try to get free range organic eggs for the best quality. There's an entire article I did on the topic of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>whole eggs vs egg whites.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Coconut milk</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is another staple in my fridge. I like to use it to mix in with smoothies, oatmeal, or yogurt for a rich, creamy taste. Not only does coconut milk add a rich, creamy taste to lots of dishes, but it's also full of healthy saturated fats. Yes, you heard me right... I said<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>healthy saturated fats</strong>! ...Healthy saturated fats such as medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), specifically an MCT called lauric acid, which is vitally important for your immune system.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If the idea of healthy saturated fats is foreign to you, check out my article about<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>why saturated fat is not as bad as you think.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Back to the fridge, some other staples:</span></strong></span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Walnuts, pecans, almonds - delicious and great sources of healthy fats. Try to get raw nuts if possible as the roasting process can oxidize some of the polyunsaturated fats in some types of nuts making those damaged fats slightly more inflammatory. Overall, nuts are still healthy even if they are roasted, but raw nuts are optimal. </li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, and yogurt (grass-fed and organic if possible) - I like to mix cottage or ricotta cheese and yogurt together with chopped nuts and berries for a great mid-morning or mid-afternoon meal.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Chia seeds and/or hemp seeds - I add these highly nutritious seeds to yogurt, smoothies, or salads for a great nutty taste and loads of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins and minerals. Don't use pre-ground versions of these seeds as the omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are highly unstable and prone to oxidation, creating high levels of free radicals if you use pre-ground seeds. No grinding is necessary to properly digest these seeds. </li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Whole eggs - one of natures richest sources of nutrients (and remember, they increase your GOOD cholesterol so stop fearing them).</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Salsa - I try to get creative and try some of the exotic varieties of salsas.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Avocados - love them...plus a great source of healthy fats, fiber, and other nutrients. Try adding them to wraps, salads, or sandwiches.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Butter - don't believe the naysayers; butter adds great flavor to anything and CAN be part of a healthy diet... just keep the quantity small because it is calorie dense... and NEVER use margarine, unless you want to assure yourself a heart attack. Most important -- choose organic butter only, since pesticides and other harmful chemicals accumulate in the fat of the milk which is used for butter, so choosing organic helps avoid this problem. Also, and MOST importantly, always choose<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>grass-fed (pastured) butter</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>as it will contain higher levels of healthful omega-3 fats and the fat-burning conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) ...Kerrygold is a popular pasture-raised butter in most stores.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Nut butters - Plain old peanut butter has gotten a little old for me (and peanuts aren't as healthy as other nuts due to aflatoxin concerns), so I get creative and mix together almond butter with pecan butter, or even cashew butter with macadamia butter...delicious and unbeatable nutrition! Using a variety of nut butters gives you a broader range of vitamins and minerals and other micronutrients, and gives you variety instead of boring old peanut butter all the time.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Leaf lettuce and spinach along with shredded carrots - for salads with dinner.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Home-made salad dressing - using balsamic vinegar, spices, extra virgin olive oil, and Udo's Choice oil blend. This is much better than store bought salad dressing which mostly use highly refined canola or soybean oil (canola and soybean oil are both very inflammatory in the body). Here's an<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>article showing why to NEVER use store-bought salad dressings.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Sprouted grain bread for<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>occasional use</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>-- My personal belief from years of nutrition research is that we're not really meant to consume the massive quantities of grains (not even whole grains) that we do in this day and age... a small amount may be okay, but our digestive systems are still primarily adapted to a hunter/gatherer type of diet with only a very small amount of grains, therefore I try to only have breads and other grain-based foods on cheat days. Just remember that too much gluten (which is still in most sprouted grain breads) can cause some degree of damage to your gut health even if you're not officially gluten intolerant.</li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Some of the staples in the freezer:</span></strong></span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Frozen berries - during the local growing season, I only get fresh berries, but during the other 10 months of the year, I always keep a supply of frozen blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cherries, etc. to add to high fiber cereal, oatmeal, cottage cheese, yogurt, or smoothies. I also get frozen<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>goji berries<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>sometimes for a little "exotic" variety. </li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Frozen fish - I like to try a couple different kinds of fish each week. There are so many varieties out there, you never have to get bored. Just make sure to ALWAYS choose wild fish instead of farmed versions, as the omega-3 to omega-6 balance is MUCH healthier in wild fish. Also, as<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>this article shows, there are some possible other health issues with farmed fish.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Frozen chicken breasts - very convenient for a quick addition to wraps or chicken sandwiches for quick meals.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Grass-fed steaks, burgers, and ground beef: Grass-fed meats have been shown to have as high as, or even higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids than salmon (without the mercury). Also,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>grass-fed meats<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>have much higher levels of fat-burning and muscle-building conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) compared to typical grain-fed beef that you'll find at your grocery store. I recently found an excellent on-line store where I buy all of my grass-fed meats now (they even deliver right to your door in a sealed cooler) -<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>www.healthygrassfed.2ya.com</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Frozen buffalo, ostrich, venison, and other "exotic" lean meats - Yeah, I know...I'm weird, but I can tell you that these are some of the healthiest meats around, and if you're serious about a lean healthy body, these types of meats are much better for you than the mass produced, hormone-pumped beef, chicken, and pork that's sold at most grocery stores.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Frozen veggies - again, when the growing season is over and I can no longer get local fresh produce, frozen veggies are the best option, since they often have higher nutrient contents compared to the fresh produce that has been shipped thousands of miles, sitting around for weeks before making it to your dinner table.</li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Alright, now the staples in my cabinets:</span></strong></span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Various antioxidant-rich teas - green, oolong, white, rooibos (red tea) are some of the healthiest. One of my newest favorite teas is yerba mate, which is a south american tea that is loaded with antioxidants and other nutrients. I've found some delicious yerba mate mixes such as chocolate yerba mate, mint mate, raspberry mate, etc.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Oat bran and steel cut oats - higher fiber than those little packs of instant oats, which are typically loaded with sugar. If I'm trying to reduce body fat and get extra lean, I make most of my breakfasts based on eggs and veggies and bison sausage, but if I'm on a muscle building phase, I increase carbohydrate intake and use more oat bran and oatmeal.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">The only healthy oils I have in my cabinets are virgin coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil. Macadamia oil may also be a reasonable choice as long as it's not "refined". But other than that, all "vegetable oils" (which is usually soy and corn oil) are total junk and very inflammatory. Never use soy or corn oils! Also, always avoid canola oil, as<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>there is nothing healthy about canola oil, despite the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>deceptive marketing claims</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>by the canola oil industry.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Cans of coconut milk (loaded with healthy saturated MCT fats) - to be transferred to a container in the fridge after opening.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Tomato sauces - delicious, and as I'm sure you've heard a million times, they are a great source of lycopene. Just watch out for the brands that are loaded with nasty high fructose corn syrup. You also want to make sure that the tomato sauce is made with olive oil instead of unhealthy soybean oil or canola oils. Also get tomato sauces in glass jars instead of cans, as canned tomatoes are notoriously high in the dangerous chemical, bisphenol-A (BPA) due to the acidic leaching of BPA from the can lining.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Stevia<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- a natural non-caloric sweetener, which is an excellent alternative to the nasty chemical-laden<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>artificial sweeteners like aspartame, saccharine, and sucralose.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Raw honey - better than processed honey... higher quantities of beneficial nutrients and enzymes. Honey has even been proven in studies to improve glucose metabolism (your efficiency in processing carbohydrates). I use a small teaspoon every morning in my teas. Yes, I know that even honey is pure sugar, but at least it has some nutritional benefits... and let's be real, a teaspoon of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>healthier raw honey<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is only 5 grams of carbs... certainly nothing to worry about, and a better choice than refined sugar.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Organic REAL maple syrup - none of that high fructose corn syrup Aunt Jemima crap...only real maple syrup can be considered real food. The<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>only</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>time I really use this (because of the high sugar load) is added to my post-workout smoothies<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to sweeten things up and also elicit an insulin surge to push nutrients into your muscles to aid muscle recovery.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Organic unsweetened cocoa powder - I like to mix this into my smoothies for an extra jolt of antioxidants or make my own low-sugar hot cocoa by mixing cocoa powder into hot milk with stevia and a couple melted dark chocolate chunks (delicious!).</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Cans of black or kidney beans - I like to add a couple scoops to my Mexican dishes for the fiber and high nutrition content. Also, beans are surprisingly one of the best sources of youth enhancing antioxidants! Did you know that black beans and kidney beans have<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>more antioxidants</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>than blueberries...it's true!</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Dark chocolate (as dark as possible - ideally more than 70-75% cocoa content) - This is one of my treats that satisfies my sweet tooth, plus provides loads of antioxidants at the same time. It's still calorie dense, so I keep it to just 1-2 small squares after a meal... but that is enough to do the trick, so I don't feel like I need to go out and get cake and ice cream to satisfy my dessert urges.</li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Lastly, another thing that's hard to go wrong with is a good variety of fresh fruits and berries. The staples such as bananas, apples, oranges, pears, peaches are good, but I like to also be a little more adventurous and include things like yellow (aka - mexican or champagne) mangoes, pomegranates, kumquats, papaya, star fruit, pineapples, and others. Also, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, black raspberries (the highest fiber berry) and cherries are some of the most nutrient and antioxidant-dense fruits you can eat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Well, I hope you enjoyed this special look into my favorite lean body meals and how I stock my cabinets and fridge. Your tastes are probably quite different than mine, but hopefully this gave</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">you some good ideas you can use next time you're at the grocery store looking to stock up a healthy and delicious pile of groceries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Source: Mike Geary<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-86679172010796638452015-01-05T11:41:00.000-08:002015-01-05T11:41:28.320-08:00Make Better Choices When Forced To Eat Fast-Food<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">I was out recently with some friends and we stopped at a fast food joint. I hate fast food joints, but sometimes everybody else wants to go there, so you just have to make the best of it and find something at least somewhat healthy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">If you're forced to eat fast-food, here's a tip to make sure that you're not doing much damage to your body...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">ALWAYS AVOID the soda and anything deep fried including French fries, hash browns, and anything breaded like chicken nuggets, chicken patties, or breaded fish sandwiches. These are all absolutely soaked in deadly trans fats from the industrial hydrogenated vegetable oils they use to fry all of these items. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="background-color: yellow;">Note:</span></strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Even though some fast food restaurants have vowed to not use hydrogenated oils loaded with trans fats any more, they are still using highly refined processed oils, which are still inflammatory and negatively affect your health (and waistline).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">Remember, as I've said before, I've seen studies indicating that as little as 1 gram of artificial trans fat per day can have serious degenerative internal effects in your body such as inflammation, clogging and hardening of the arteries, heart disease, various forms of cancer...not to mention packing on the ab flab. That's as little as 1 gram!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">Consider that a typical fast-food meal of a breaded chicken sandwich (or fish sandwich), along with an order of fries can contain as much as 10 grams of trans fat! Add on a cookie or small piece of pie for dessert (which are usually made with deadly margarine or shortening), and now you're up to about 13 grams of trans fat with that entire meal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">If 1 gram a day is slowly killing you, imagine what 13 grams is doing! And that was only one meal that you ate. Some people are consuming 20-30 grams of artificial trans fat per day, and not even realizing what they're doing to themselves internally. Please realize that nobody, I mean NOBODY, is looking out for your health, except for YOU.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">Anyway, back to the topic of how to avoid this stuff and eat a reasonably healthy meal on the rare occasion that you're forced to eat fast-food. As for drinks, avoid the sodas...they're nothing but heavily processed high fructose corn syrup which will surely end up as extra belly fat. And yes, that mean NO DIET SODA either! This stuff is pure evil to your body. Here's an article I did about<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>why diet soda makes you fat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">Your best bets for drinks are always water or unsweetened iced tea. You get the added benefit of the antioxidants in the unsweetened iced tea (but stay away from any sweeteners).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">At breakfast, the best choice is an egg, ham, and cheese on an English muffin (not on a croissant, which is full of nasty<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>trans-fats!), or a fruit & nut salad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">At lunch or dinner, the best choices are a grilled chicken sandwich, the chili, a grilled chicken salad without croutons (again...croutons = more trans), or even just a plain cheeseburger. This doesn't mean these fast-food items are truly healthy and organic, but they're the best options you have at most fast food places.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">The main take-away point from this little fast-food article is that the nastiest stuff at these fast food joints are the sodas and fries, and any other deep fried items. If you stay completely away from those items, you're at least making better choices than 95% of most people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">For any of you that have seen the movie "Super-Size Me", you saw how eating fast food every day absolutely destroyed that guy's health, but did you happen to notice the one guy that was the king of eating big macs (or some kind of burger)? I don't remember what kind of burger it was, but basically this guy has eaten these fast food burgers almost every day of his life for the past 30 years or something like that.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">Did you notice that he stated that he almost never eats the fries or soda, even though he eats the burgers every day? And he's not necessarily overweight. Now I'm not saying that fast-food burgers made with their refined white bread and low quality beef and cheese are the healthiest thing, but the point is... it's the fries and sodas that are the real health disaster.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">Alright, so next time you're out at one of these places, remember these tips and choose smart!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype";">Personally, I can't remember the last time I ate at a fast food joint like mickey D's or BK. If at all possible, I'll try to find some corner deli with fresh salads or sandwiches instead of fast food.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">By the way, if you haven't heard yet, McD's has added a nutrition label to all of their food wrappers now. Remember that as little as one gram of trans may cause some internal harm and now you can actually see how many grams of trans fat you're eating right on the food wrapper. That might change your mind about finishing it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;"><br /><em style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;">Source: Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</span></span></em></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-41268047493136141072014-12-14T06:12:00.000-08:002014-12-14T06:12:04.364-08:00Good Trans Fats vs. Bad Trans Fats - Great Read Hubbers!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<strong>Artificial trans fats-are one of the most prevalent poisons in our food supply; but most don't know that healthy natural trans-fats DO exist. Read On....</strong><em><br /></em></div>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/normal Arial; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I'm going to talk about something today that most of you have probably never heard... that there is a distinction between good trans fats and bad trans fats. There is some evidence that the good trans fats can help you with fat loss, muscle building, and even cancer prevention, while the bad trans fats have been shown to cause heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and the general "blubbering" of your body.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I'm sure most of you have heard all of the ruckus in the news over the last few years about just how bad man-made trans fats are for your health. If you've been a reader of my newsletter and my Truth about Six Pack Abs e-book program, then you definitely know my opinion that these substances are some of the most evil food additives of all and are found in the vast majority of all processed foods and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>fast foods<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>on the market today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In my opinion, man-made trans fats are right up there with<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>smoking</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in terms of their degree of danger to your health. After all, they are one of THE MAIN factors for the explosion of heart disease since approximately the 1950's.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">With all of the talk about trans fats in the news these days, I wanted to clarify some things, particularly regarding bad trans fats vs. good trans fats. If you've never heard of good trans fats before, let me explain in a bit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>The Bad Trans Fats</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">First, the bad trans fats I'm referring to are the man-made kind. These are represented by any artificially hydrogenated oils. The main culprits are margarine, shortening, and partially hydrogenated oils that are in most processed foods, junk foods, and deep fried foods.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">These hydrogenated oils are highly processed using harsh chemical solvents like hexane (a component of gasoline), high heat, pressure, have a metal catalyst added, and are then deodorized and bleached. A small % of the solvent is allowed to remain in the finished oil. This has now become more of an industrial oil rather than a food oil, but somehow the FDA still allows the food manufacturers to put this crap in our food at huge quantities, even with the well documented health dangers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">These hydrogenated oils cause inflammation inside of your body, which signals the deposition of cholesterol as a healing agent on artery walls. Hence, hydrogenated oil = inflammation = clogged arteries. You can see why heart disease has exploded since this crap has been loaded into our food supply over the last 5 to 6 decades.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">As time goes on, and science continues to unveil how deadly these oils really are, I feel that eventually they will be illegal and banned from use. The labelling laws were just the first step. In fact, certain countries around the world have already banned the use of hydrogenated oils in food manufacturing or at least set dates to phase them out for good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">However, keep in mind that as companies are starting to phase out the use of hydrogenated oils in processed foods, they are replacing them, in most instances, with<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>highly refined polyunsaturated oils</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>such as soybean oil, cottonseed oil, corn oil, etc, etc. These are still heavily processed oils using high heat, solvents, deodorizers, and bleaching agents. Even refined oils are known to produce inflammation in your body...a far cry from natural sources of healthy fats.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Don't be fooled by the new onslaught of foods claiming "trans fat free"... if they use heavily refined oils (even if they're non-hydrogenated), it's still pure evil for your body, and very inflammatory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Once again, for the best results, your best bet is avoiding highly processed foods altogether and choose<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>whole, natural, minimally processed foods. Your body will thank you!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>The Good Trans Fats</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Ok, after having trash talked the man-made trans fats, let me clearly state that there<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;">is such a thing</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>as healthy natural trans fats. Natural trans fats are created in the stomachs of ruminant animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, etc. and make their way into the fat stores of the animals.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Therefore, the milk fat and the fat within the meat of these animals can provide natural healthy trans fats (best in grass-fed organic versions only).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Natural trans fats in your diet have been thought to have some potential benefit to aid in both muscle building and fat loss efforts. However, keep in mind that the quantity of healthy trans fats in the meat and dairy of ruminant animals is greatly reduced by mass-production methods of farming and their grain and soy heavy diets. Meat and dairy from grass-fed, free-range animals always have much higher quantities of these beneficial fats.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">One such natural trans fat that you may have heard of is called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and has been marketed by many weight loss companies. Keep in mind that these man-made CLA pills you see in the stores may not be the best way to get CLA in your diet. They are artificially made from plant oils in a manner similar to hydrogenation, instead of the natural process that happens in ruminant animals. Once again, man-made just doesn't compare to the benefits of natural sources.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Here's a great site I found that I use to order all of my<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>healthy grass-fed beef and other free range meats. The service is impeccable and they deliver right to your doorstep in a sealed cooler. It's worth it to know that you and your family are actually eating meat that's good for you instead of the normal grocery store junk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Now that all of your labels should be listing grams of trans fat, keep in mind that if a quantity of trans fat is listed on a meat or dairy product, it is most likely the natural good trans fats that we've discussed here (*I<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>only</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>recommend grass-fed meat<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>or dairy). Otherwise, if the quantity of trans fat is listed on any processed foods, it is most likely the dangerous unhealthy crap from artificially hydrogenated oils, so stay away! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>One more important note about food labels and trans fat listings</strong>... keep in mind that food manufacturers are allowed to label a food "trans fat free" if 1 serving size contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat. So you may see some products with hydrogenated oils as one of their main ingredients, but if they make the serving size small enough so that it contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving, they can label it as trans fat free... now that's BS! just another example of our broken system!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Source: Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-84020276241800710652014-11-26T04:05:00.000-08:002014-11-26T04:05:36.296-08:00The Hidden Truth About "Reducing Your Cholesterol"<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; clear: both; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<strong>You may be surprised at the REAL causes of heart disease -- and it's NOT saturated fat or dietary cholesterol</strong><em><br /></em></div>
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We all know that heart disease is one of the leading killers of people around the world, particularly highest in countries such as the US and Australia.</div>
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However, did you know that there are several medical studies worldwide that clearly show that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>higher cholesterol levels in the body actually increases longevity instead of decreasing it</strong>?</div>
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Yes, you heard that right! People with high cholesterol have been statistically shown to live longer and healthier than people with low cholesterol in several studies. There are multiple references for this phenomenon in Shane Ellison's controversial book, The Hidden Truth about Cholesterol Lowering Drugs, Dr. Uffe Ravnskov's (MD, PhD) book entitled<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The Cholesterol Myths, as well as Sally Fallon and Mary Enig's book,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Nourishing Traditions.</div>
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So why in the world are the pharmaceutical and medical industry pushing for practically everyone on the planet to "lower their cholesterol"? Well, the first, and more innocent answer, is flawed medical studies from decades ago that have been accepted as fact and never fully analyzed for their validity. Another answer is that this practice of recommending that half of the damn planet takes a cholesterol lowering medication (such as statin drugs), regardless of whether they truly have any real risk for heart disease, creates insane multi-squillion dollar profits for the drug companies.</div>
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As a perfectly absurd example of how doctors have been wrongly influenced by the drug companies... about 8 years ago, I was a perfectly healthy 28 year old, in great shape, exercising daily, eating a balanced healthy diet full of antioxidants and quality nutrition, no smoking, and with no real risk factors for heart disease, and just because my cholesterol level has been consistently measured over 200 for my entire life, my doctor recommended I consider using a cholesterol lowering statin drug.</div>
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Consider how outlandish this scenario is! The drug companies have hypnotized doctors into prescribing unnecessary prescription drugs to healthy young people with perfectly normal cholesterol levels that just happen to be over this arbitrary number of 200 that they've come up with. Luckily, I refused to be a guinea pig and fork over my hard earned duckets for potentially dangerous drugs, and decided to start researching this whole cholesterol and heart disease connection myself. Consider also that my father, who is now over 60 years old, has had cholesterol levels slightly over 200 his entire life also (just like me), yet he is perfectly healthy at his ripe age of 60.</div>
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<strong><span style="color: maroon; font-size: small;">High Cholesterol is NOT the Villain!</span></strong></div>
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As time goes on and scientists continue to learn more about heart disease, it has become quite clear over the recent years that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>inflammation within the body (NOT cholesterol levels)</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is what causes plaque build up in the arteries and eventual heart disease. Inflammation can be caused by many personal factors such as stress, smoking, viruses, consumption of refined and/or hydrogenated fats (man-made trans fats), an imbalance of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats to omega-3 polyunsaturated fats in the diet, excess refined sugars in the diet, etc.</div>
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Here's a quick and dirty of how it works in general. Cholesterol is a healing substance within the body (among many other important functions), and responds to arterial inflammation by getting deposited in combination with other substances, forming "plaque" as a healing agent on the artery lining.</div>
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Levels of inflammation in your body can be measured with what's called a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>CRP test</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(c-reactive protein). The accuracy of this test still has room for improvement, as it can vary depending on the time of day and other factors, but it is a much better indication of heart disease risk than a cholesterol test (which is practically<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>useless</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>for determining heart disease risk).</div>
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Another more important test than cholesterol levels for heart disease risk is a test for serum<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;">homocysteine</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>levels. The next time your doctor wants you to get blood cholesterol tests, request CRP and homocysteine tests instead. He/she should be well aware of the validity of these tests if they are up to date.</div>
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Basically, if you have significant internal inflammation, this plaque will be deposited as a healing agent<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>regardless of whether you have high or low cholesterol</strong>. On the other hand, if you don't have excessive inflammation, high cholesterol levels just keep circulating without getting deposited on the artery linings. Therefore, it is more important to control inflammation rather than trying to artificially "lower your cholesterol" with possibly harmful drugs. </div>
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Lowering your cholesterol doesn't attack the root of the problem (what is actually causing the inflammation in you). Lowering your cholesterol does nothing except to make the drug companies rich, and possibly leave you with a whole assortment of possible negative side-effects.</div>
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Also keep in mind that "lowering your cholesterol" can have detrimental effects on your hormone balance as cholesterol is one of the building blocks for hormone production. </div>
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The good news is that preventing heart disease is about living a healthy lifestyle and controlling inflammation, not about throwing down a dangerous drug pill everyday. </div>
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Controlling your inflammation to prevent heart disease is as easy as reducing the stress in your life (try deep breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, etc as well as preventing stress in the first place by keeping a calm demeanor), maintaining a healthy weight, eating a high-antioxidant, highly nutritious unprocessed diet (as recommended in my<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Truth about Six Pack Abs program), and avoiding smoking, trans fats, junk foods, and other causes of heavy free radical production in the body. Also, if you want a great tasting supplement drink that was designed to control inflammation, try<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>this Superfoods Cocktail, which has 76 high-antioxidant superfood ingredients that help to control inflammation in your body (and it tastes amazing too).</div>
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I hope this article has given you some helpful info about the real causes of heart disease and not the propaganda that has been shoved down your throat for years, based on flawed medical studies from 40-50 years ago, making drug companies filthy rich.</div>
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If you or anyone you care about is currently taking statins, or if you just want to learn more about cholesterol and the controversy that is revolving currently around statin drugs, please read the book The Cholesterol Myths.<br /></div>
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<em>Source: Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em><em></em></div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-87091374900403289242014-10-30T03:52:00.001-07:002014-10-30T03:52:59.578-07:00Unique Lean-Body Workouts For Time-Crunched People: Super-Fast 'Mini-Workouts' To Do At Home Or The Office<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: darkslategrey; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><strong>This Might Be The 'Weirdest' Workout Set-up You've Ever Tried In Your Life!</strong></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: yellow;"><img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/WomanFlat.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: 200px; width: 200px;" />Warning:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>this style of workout is WAY different than anything you've ever tried before and may result in a dramatically leaner, stronger body so that your friends no longer recognize you in a matter of weeks!</div>
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Alright, I exaggerated about your friends recognizing you, but this workout is still great for busy people that always use the excuse that they don't have time to go to the gym, or even for the normal gym rat to try out for a few weeks to break out of a plateau.</div>
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Please keep an open-mind and don't worry so much about what other people think, because this is quite different and you may get some funny looks, but you'll get the last laugh with your new rock hard body! To be honest, most people are too self conscious to try something like this. If that's the case for you, then that's your loss</div>
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<strong>Here's how it works (these workouts can be done at home or even in your office):</strong></div>
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Instead of doing your traditional workouts of going to the gym 3-4 times a week and doing your normal weight training and cardio routines for 45-60 minutes at a shot... with this program, you will be working out for just a couple minutes at a time, several times throughout each day, 5 days/week.</div>
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This actually SAVES you time compared to typical 45-60 minute gym workouts 3 days a week.</div>
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<strong>Why are "Mini-Workouts" Beneficial?</strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: lightyellow;">Aside from saving you time at the gym, the other main benefit is hormones! </span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>...More growth hormone release (aka, the "youth hormone"), and less cortisol production.</div>
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The reason for this is that some studies show that growth hormone can be stimulated with as little as a couple 30-second "bursts" of extremely high intensity exercise such as sprinting, and multiple "<span style="background-color: lightyellow;">mini workouts</span>" per day provides more opportunities to trigger growth hormone release rather than just one longer workout per day. And these shorter workouts will never cause the harmful cortisol release that longer workouts can cause.</div>
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<strong>How to do "Mini-Workouts"</strong></div>
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The program will consist of only bodyweight exercises done for<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-color: yellow;">about 2-3 minutes, 6-8 times per day, throughout each day</span>. Now obviously if you work a normal office job, you are going to have to not be shy about doing a few exercises in your office and having your cube-mates watch you. Actually, I've found that some people that have tried this have actually gotten their co-workers to join them!</div>
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If you have a private office, then you don't have to worry about anybody watching you. If you work from home, or are a stay at home mom, there's no reason you can't fit these in throughout the day while at home. If you end up having a busy day with meetings and so forth, and can only fit a couple of these 2-minute workouts in, then so be it, but try to get as many done each day as you can.</div>
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If you're on a normal 9-5 office schedule, I recommend doing your 2-minute workouts every hour, on the hour, with the exception of lunch. For example, you could try 9 am, 10 am, 11 am, 1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm, and 4 pm.</div>
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<strong>Some of the bodyweight exercises that are the best to focus on are:</strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">bodyweight squats (and variations)</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">push-ups (and variations)</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">forward, reverse, or walking lunges</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">up & down a staircase if one is available</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">floor planks (holding the plank position from forearms and feet)</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">floor abs exercises such as lying leg thrusts, abs bicycles, etc.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">one-legged bodyweight Romanian deadlifts</li>
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This list is not fully comprehensive, but I wanted to keep it relatively simple. If you know other good bodyweight exercises, you can add those to your routine also. If you want to keep it real simple and don't want to get down on the floor for anything, you can stick to squats, lunges, and push-ups and still get great results.</div>
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The good thing about these workouts is that you do enough in 2-3 minutes to get your blood pumping, heart rate up a bit, a large portion of your body's muscles worked, and body temperature raised. However, it's usually not enough to break a sweat in only 2 or 3 minutes, so you don't have to worry about sweating in the office or where ever you may be. At most, you might just get a little moist on the skin.</div>
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<strong>Here's an example workout routine at home or the office (adjust the reps up or down based on your capabilities):</strong></div>
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<strong>Mon/Wed/Fri</strong><br />9 am - 10 push-ups/15 bodyweight squats, repeat 1X for 2 sets<br />10 am - plank holds (hold the planks as long as you can taking short rest breaks for a total of 3 minutes)<br />11 am - 5 push-ups/10 bodyweight squats, repeat for 4 sets<br />1 pm - plank holds (hold as long as possible in 3 minutes)<br />2 pm - 8 push-ups/12 bodyweight squats, repeat for 3 sets<br />3 pm - plank holds (hold as long as possible in 3 minutes)<br />4 pm - max push-ups/max bodyweight squats in one set (no repeat)</div>
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<strong>Tues/Thurs</strong><br />9 am - 6 fwd lunges each leg/6 rev lunges, repeat 1X for 2 sets<br />10 am - one legged bw Romanian deadlifts (RDL) 6 each leg/floor abs for 20 sec, repeat 1X for 2 sets<br />11 am - 3 fwd lunges each leg/3 rev lunges, repeat for 4 sets<br />1 pm - one legged bw RDL 3 each leg/floor abs for 20 sec, repeat for 4 sets<br />2 pm - 5 fwd lunges each leg/5 rev lunges, repeat for 3 sets<br />3 pm - one legged bw RDL 10 each leg/floor abs for 30 sec (no repeat)<br />4 pm - max fwd lunges each leg/max rev lunges in one set (no repeat)</div>
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In order to progress on these workouts, you could either add 1 or 2 reps to each set per week, or you could progress to more difficult versions of each exercise each week (for example, close grip push-ups, one leg raised push-ups, squats with arms raised straight over head, etc.).</div>
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The above routines are just a couple examples of how you can use this very unique style of training. Use your creativity and come up with your own. Think about what you've accomplished with these<span class="Apple-converted-space"> '</span><strong>mini' workouts </strong>completed throughout each day... You've increased your heart rate and pumped up your muscles 6-8 different times throughout each day, burning a lot of extra calories and stimulating your metabolism.</div>
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Even though each "mini" workout was a very short duration, you've accumulated lots of repetitions for almost every muscle throughout your entire body, and you didn't even have to break a sweat during any of the "mini" workouts. And there's hardly any excuse for not being able to take a 2-minute break once per hour and do a couple of exercises.</div>
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Another benefit of this style of training is that now you don't have to devote any time before or after work to going to the gym because you already got your workouts little by little throughout the day. You've now got some extra free time on your hands!</div>
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Try this type of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>time-efficient workout routine</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>out for 3-4 weeks and then go back to your normal gym routines. I think you'll find that it was a great way to break out of a plateau and stimulate new results in your body. You can try mixing in a cycle of these "mini" workouts every couple of months to keep things fresh.</div>
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Keep in mind that this is only one method of training and doesn't mean that you should only stick to this method for eternity. You will hit a plateau on any given training method, so I'd recommend just rotating it into your arsenal of various training methods. And by all means, don't worry so much about what other people think...have the courage to try something a little different. In the end, you'll be the one laughing back at all of the "blubber-bellies" at your office that are giving you funny looks while they eat their donuts!</div>
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Feel free to email this link on to any friends or co-workers that you think would like to try these types of unique quick daily workouts. Heck, try to get your co-workers to do these with you if you can!</div>
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Source: <em>Mike Geary</em><em>, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-50546930277670623892014-10-29T10:55:00.000-07:002014-10-29T10:55:50.131-07:00The TRUTH About Potatoes, Glycemic Index, And "White Foods" - Friend Or Foe For Fat Loss?<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, Georgia, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial;"><img alt="potatoes and glycemic index" height="113" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/potatoes.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right;" width="170" /></span></strong></span></em></span></span></span></span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd like to start a little discussion today about carbohydrates... and in particular, "white foods" as well as potatoes. One reason I wanted to mention this is because so many health and fitness professionals trash talk potatoes about being a bad carbohydrate choice because of the high glycemic index. Some even say such ridiculous things as "avoid any and all white carbohydrates".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok, now while I certainly agree that white bread and refined white sugar are two of the worst things we can be feeding our bodies, I definately don't agree with avoiding any and all "white carbohydrates". Now I know all of the buzz lately has been about colorful foods and the protective antioxidants that they contain. They tell you to focus on colors and stay away from white.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">"White Foods" aren't necessarily always the enemy</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">It's true that colorful foods are great, but it is a big mistake to specifically avoid white foods! There are plenty of white foods that have specific nutrients that are hard to find elsewhere. Let's look at a few examples...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Onions & Garlic</span></strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">What about onions and garlic? They are both white and they are chock full of protective phytonutrients, vitamins, and trace minerals that aren't easy to find elsewhere in a normal diet... such nutrients as allicin, quercetin (an important flavonoid), chromium, and other unique anti-inflammatory nutrients.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">In fact, onions are so powerful for our health, that one study of centenarians (people that live to over 100 years old) identified that a common thread of these amazingly healthy individuals was that they ate a lot of onions throughout their lives. And we also know that garlic is one of the most powerful substances for a strong immune system, among other qualities. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong><span style="color: maroon;"></span></strong></em></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Cauliflower</span></strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Another example of something white that is great for you is cauliflower. Cauliflower is loaded with vitamin C, fiber, minerals, and special compounds such as glucosinolates and thiocyanates, which are specifically abundant in cruciferous vegetables<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. And a little-known fact is that some of the compounds in cruciferous vegetables help to combat other estrogenic compounds in our food supply and environment and can help prevent excess belly fat. So eat up on that cauliflower!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong><span style="color: maroon;"></span></strong></em></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Mushrooms</span></strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Not many people realize this, but surprisingly, even white mushrooms have high levels of unique nutrients and antioxidants. White mushrooms are high in a couple types of antioxidants called polyphenols and ergothioneine. And some types of mushrooms, such as portobella mushrooms, are surprisingly good sources of Vitamin D.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong><span style="color: maroon;"></span></strong></em></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Potatoes</span></strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Now that also leads us to another example - white potatoes (which by the way, can also be found in red, yellow, purple varieties, etc). Many health professionals claim that potatoes are a bad carbohydrate because they are thought to have a high glycemic index. First of all, if </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">you understand that glycemic index is not necessarily the most important factor in choosing your carbohydrates then you're well informed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">While a generalization can be made that most low glycemic index carbohydrate choices will help you lose body fat easier than high glycemic index choices, it is not all that it's cracked up to be. There are many other factors that determine how your body will react-to and process the carbohydrates you ingest, such as<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em>glycemic load</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and also how you combine the high GI food with other foods such as protein, fiber, and fats, which all slow down absorption of the ingested carbs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">For example, using glycemic load as an example... it is known that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>watermelon</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>has a high glycemic index. However, the glycemic load of a normal serving of watermelon is just way too low for your body to start packing on body fat just because you ate a high glycemic index fruit. You would have to eat such an enormous quantity of watermelon just to get enough grams of carbohydrates to have any negative glycemic effect, that it is just non-sensical.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Not to mention that watermelon is also a great source of vitamins, minerals, and lycopene. There's just no reason to avoid it simply because it has a high GI. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>My point is... candy bars, cupcakes, and donuts make you fat</strong>...<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;">NOT watermelons, carrots or potatoes</span>... French fries excluded of course.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, as i mentioned, food combinations are important in how your body processes the carbohydrates and the associated blood sugar and insulin response you receive. For example, if you mix a high glycemic index carbohydrate with an extra source of fiber,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>healthy fats, or even certain proteins, many times the blood sugar and glycemic response will be slowed down considerably by the way you combined the food.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Alright, so back to my point that white potatoes are actually a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>healthy carbohydrate<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>as long as you eat them in the right form... and please don't ruin them by deep frying them into french fries either! French fries are one of the most evil things ever invented for your health, but only because we ruin them by soaking them in a scorching bath of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>trans-fats<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in the deep fryer from the hydrogenated oils that are typically used.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Keep in mind that potatoes contain so many vitamins and minerals that the list is way too long to even try. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>One Warning though about potatoes: </strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Please note that potatoes do contain low level toxins called glycoalkaloids (it's the plant's protection mechanism) that are concentrated in the skin, so it is a good idea to always peel potatoes before making any dishes with them. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;"></span></strong></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Will 7-9 potatoes per day make you fatter?</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">On the topic of potatoes not being so bad after all, I don't remember where I saw this referenced, but I recently saw a particular study that had participants eat something like 7-9 whole potatoes per day for several weeks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">At the conclusion of the study, the potato eaters had actually consistently lost weight! I'd venture a guess that the reason the people lost weight is that they were probably so full from eating all of those damn potatoes, that they actually consumed less calories than normal! An average sized potato only has about 100-120 calories, and I can surely imagine you'd be full constantly from eating 7-9 potatoes each day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, this does NOT mean that french fries are okay to eat! Those will only make you fat, and the trans fat will lead to an early death. Seriously... fries are one of the most deadly foods in our food supply. Plus, deep fried potatoes build up<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>dangerous acrylamides<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>from the frying oil reacting with the starch, and these compounds are carcinogenic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, back to the 7-9 whole potatoes per day... Now I would never recommend going to those extremes, but my point is that an occasional potato a couple times a week is not going to hurt your efforts to get lean, especially if you combine it with some other fibrous vegetables and maybe a healthy fat and some protein. On that note, I have one of my favorite recipes for you, using potatoes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: medium;">Geary's Lean-Body Potato Side Dish</span></strong></span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Desired quantity of baby potatoes (I like to use this mixture I found recently at a health food store... it is a mixture of white, red, yellow, and purple baby potatoes)</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">1 red pepper</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">1 green pepper</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">1 yellow pepper</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">1 or 2 onions</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">a couple cloves of garlic, finely chopped (or mashed garlic from a jar, organic preferably)</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">1 or 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, grass-fed butter, and/or virgin coconut oil</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(sometimes I mix a bit of all 3)</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">a little salt and pepper to taste (I like using a sea salt instead of normal commercial salt)</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Cut the baby potatoes into slightly smaller pieces and place in a steamer until soft all the way through. Slice up the peppers and onions into strips and add with the chopped garlic into a pan with the olive oil and/or butter and/or coconut oil. Cook the peppers, onions, and garlic until tender, and then add the steamed baby potatoes. Stir it all together and serve. This is a delicious and healthy side dish that goes great with chicken or red meat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope you've enjoyed this little topic today about potatoes, healthy carbohydrates, glycemic index, and my killer healthy potato recipe idea!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">If you enjoyed this article today, feel free to share this page with your potato-loving friends, colleagues and family.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Source: <em>Mike Geary</em><em>, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-85959948679448292772014-10-27T15:30:00.000-07:002014-10-29T10:48:13.266-07:00The TRUTH About Good Carbs, Bad Carbs, Low vs High Carbs, And All Of The Carb Confusion<div align="left" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; clear: both; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<em></em><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/bread.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: 208px; width: 277px;" />With so much talk, confusion, and controversy in recent years about "carbs", I wanted to give you my take on good carbs vs bad carbs, low carb vs high-carb, and all the other "carb confusion" out there. I'll also show you some of my favorite healthy carbohydrate choices, and exactly why they are better than other choices.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">First of all, although I'm not a "low carb" extremist, I do believe that one of the main reasons so many people struggle to ever lose any body fat is that (regardless of complex vs simple carbs) they are<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>over-consuming processed grain-based or sugary carbohydrates</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>such as:</span></span><br />
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">cereals</span></span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">pasta</span></span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">rice</span></span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">bagels</span></span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">muffins</span></span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">breads (even whole grain varieties are not ideal if you're looking to lose body fat & prevent digestive system damage)</span></span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">sodas (loaded with sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup)</span></span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">juices</span></span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(way too much fructose and total sugar without any of the fruit fiber)</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">candies</span></span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">crackers</span></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">It is extremely hard to lose body fat if you're overconsuming any of these types of carbohydrates (even if you workout very hard). In addition to causing wild blood sugar swings and insulin surges which can promote body fat deposition and throw your hormonal balance out of whack, eating too many carbs also increases your appetite and cravings, leading you to eat MORE calories overall compared to if you ate a higher percentage of fat.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Note that I didn't include potatoes in the list of processed carbohydrates. Despite the trash talking they get from many fitness professionals, I think<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>whole potatoes (not fries or chips!) are a nutrient-dense healthy food<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in general, although the skins of potatoes do<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>contain mild amounts of toxins.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Even carbohydrate sources that most people think are "healthy" usually are just excess calories that don't really deliver a whole lot of nutrient density... and many types of breads and cereals pretend to be "whole grain" with clever marketing while in reality the first ingredient in them is refined flour, which is just going to shoot your blood sugar through the roof.</span></span><br />
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However, even "whole grain" products have been shown to have just as much of a massive blood sugar impact as refined grains in many cases, particularly when it comes to wheat products. And unfortunately, whole grains are also bad because it's generally the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>bran portion</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of grains that contains the majority of gut-damaging antinutrients that can inflame your digestive system or prevent absorption of certain minerals by your body.<br />
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<span style="color: maroon;"><strong>What does "low carb" vs "moderate carb" vs "high carb" even mean?</strong></span><br />
According to expert Nutrition author Chris Kresser, below are the differences between low, moderate, or high carb ratios compared to your total calories. Keep in mind that the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-color: lightyellow;">average person eating a modern western diet</span>consumes a massive<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>50-60%</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of their calories from carbs.<br />
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><strong>Very Low carb</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>= lower than 10% of total calories (Good for therapeutic uses such as cancer treatment, Diabetes treatment, Alzheimers & other conditions)</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><strong>Low carb</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>= 10-15% of total calories (good for weight loss, blood sugar control, digestive improvement, and Diabetes control)</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><strong>Moderate carb</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>= 15-30% of total calories (good range for the average person to maintain weight, balance energy, balance hormones, etc)</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><strong>High carb</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>= greater than 30% of total calories (Good for people that want to GAIN weight, gain muscle, or are high level athletes)</li>
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Personally, I tend to cycle between the low-carb group and the moderate-carb group depending on the day of the week, so I range between 10% to 30% of my daily calories from carbohydrates. I've found this is where I feel best and perform best. If I go "high-carb" like the average American, I pack on body fat VERY fast, and it's not fun. I try to keep high-carb days to only 1 day per week, aka, my cheat day.<br />
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<em><strong><span style="background-color: lightyellow;">Note:</span></strong> If you consume 2000 calories per day, then that means 200 calories, or approx 50 grams of carbs for the day would be 10% of your total calories. For me, because of my height and high activity levels (I'm a big skier, mountain biker, hiker, swimmer, etc), my daily maintenance is more around 3000 calories, so that would mean 75 grams of carbs would represent 10% of my calories (75 x 4 = 300 calories from carbs). On most days, I'd estimate that I get between 80-100 grams of carbs total, which is equivalent to 1 piece of fruit, 1 sweet potato, some various veggies throughout the day, along with a little bit of honey in my tea, and a little bit of coconut sugar in my coffee.</em><br />
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<span style="color: maroon;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">My take on it is that the majority of people struggling to lose body fat would do much better following these types of carb guidelines:</span></span></strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>1.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Reduce or eliminate your grain-based carb products in the diet (cereal, pasta, rice, crackers, etc) and focus more of your diet on healthy grass-fed and/or free-range meats and eggs, grass-fed raw dairy or<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>fermented dairy<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(kefir and yogurt), nuts, and TONS of vegetables and fruits (for most people, keeping fruit to 1-2 pieces per day is best). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">I understand that it's very hard for most people to give up entirely their breads, cereals, and pastas. But don't worry, just save the grain-based carbs for no more than a 1-day per week "cheat day", and most people can still do just fine if you're not gluten intolerant or Celiac.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>2.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Instead of the grains for most of your carbs, try getting most of your carbs from vegetables, sweet potatoes, and a variety of whole fruits and berries (<strong>NOT fruit juices</strong>, which remove the beneficial fiber as well as other essential parts of the fruit).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>3.</strong> If you're going to eat any grains at all, focus on sprouted grains if you can, or sourdough on the occasions that you absolutely need to have bread. Since sourdough bread has been fermented, some of the antinutrients have been broken down, and even the gluten is thought to be at least slightly more digestible in a sourdough bread.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Note on wheat germ --</strong> although wheat germ is a nutrient dense food (compared to the nutrient-poor starch portion of wheat), beware of the gluten in wheat if you have any intolerance. Many people have wheat/gluten intolerances and don't even realize it. It could be worth it to get tested to see how your body is handling wheat.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">If you are choosing sprouted grain breads, make sure that it's 100% sprouted grain, and not regular flour as the main ingredient followed by a portion of sprouted grains. Sprouted grains are healthier than "whole grains" because the sprouting process deactivates many of the antinutrients that can cause digestive problems and prevent certain minerals from being absorbed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>4.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>To replace the void if you're used to consuming lots of bread, pasta, cereals, and other carb sources... try filling that void with more<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>healthy fats<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>such as nuts, seeds, avocados, coconut oil, olive oil, olives, grass-fed butter and cream, aged cheeses, nut butters, as well as healthy proteins such as grass-fed dairy and meats, whole free-range organic eggs, etc.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Healthy fats and proteins go a long way to satisfying your appetite, controlling proper hormone and blood sugar levels, and helping you to make real progress on fat loss.</span></span> Consuming more healthy fats instead of carbs also helps to transition your metabolism into a "fat adapted metabolism" instead of being a "carb burner" like most people. Having a "fat adapted metabolism" gives you more stable energy levels, stable blood sugar, balanced hormones, and more. On the other hand, being a carb-burner gives you more energy spikes and dips, blood sugar swings, and cravings.<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">With all of that said, even when I'm eating a low-moderate carbohydrate diet, here's one of my favorite carb sources that is high in fiber as well as tons of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Sweet potatoes or yams</strong></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">I always choose the orange varieties instead of the white varieties of sweet potatoes for more carotenes. One of the problems with sweet potatoes is the time it takes to bake a sweet potato for 1 to 1.5 hrs.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">I cook my sweet potatoes in a different way that only takes 5 minutes and they come out delicious... and no, I would NEVER use a microwave (We talk more about<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>why never to use a microwave to cook your foods in this article).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The easiest and quickest way I've found to cook up a sweet potato is to slice it up into thin slivers and put it into a pan that you can cover with a lid. I add a touch of butter, virgin coconut oil (beneficial medium chain triglycerides), and about 3-4 Tbsp of water and simmer with a covered lid for about 5 minutes. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">When the sweet potatoes are soft, then add a little cinnamon and maybe a touch (no more than a teaspoon) of real maple syrup (if you want a little more sweet flavor) and you're all set with a delicious healthy carb side dish to go with any meat dish. Add a side salad and you've got the perfect lean-body meal plan.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Source; Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></span></span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-88070025594660659432014-10-25T11:31:00.000-07:002014-10-25T11:31:56.841-07:00The "Land Meat" That Rivals Wild Salmon In Omega-3 Content -- Grass Fed Beef & Other Grass Fed Meats<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; clear: both; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;">Improve your health, lose body fat, and build muscle with one of the healthiest protein sources available</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><img align="right" alt="healthy grass fed steaks" height="240" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/Image/steak.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor;" width="320" />I know you've heard all of the buzz over the last few years about the health benefits of wild salmon and other fish that have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">However, did you know that there's a "land meat" that has similar omega-3/omega-6 ratios as wild salmon? In fact, this "land meat" not only contains as much, or even higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, but without the possible negatives such as heavy metals (mercury, etc) and PCBs that can be found in fish frequently.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I've talked about this type of meat before and how it's one of the healthiest forms of meat you can possibly eat... It's grass-fed beef and other grass-fed ruminant meats such as bison, buffalo, lamb, and venison.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Now I know that a lot of people will try to convince you that meat is not good for you... and to be honest I partially agree with them when it comes to your typical factory farm-raised meat where the animals are fattened up with huge quantities of grains & soy that are not their natural diet & given unhealthy doses of hormones, antibiotics, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">However, when animals are healthy and eat the diet they were meant to eat naturally, the meat is actually healthy for us. Not only are grass-fed meats a super-high quality source of muscle-building proteins, but they are also a great source of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>healthy fats</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(surprisingly to most people).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Let's take beef for example... When cattle eat mostly grain and soy, the fat composition of their meat becomes higher in inflammatory<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>omega-6 fatty acids</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(which most of us already consume too much omega-6's) and lower in beneficial<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>omega-3 fatty acids</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(which are typically lacking in modern diets). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">On the other hand, when cattle eat mostly grass instead of grains & soy, their meat becomes higher in omega-3s and lower in omega-6 fatty acids, achieving a more natural balance of omega-3 to omega-6 fats. In addition, grass-fed beef also contains much higher levels of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;">conjugated linoleic acid<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>(<strong>CLA</strong>), which has shown some promising benefits in studies for losing body fat and gaining lean muscle mass.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Note</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- only the natural form of CLA from grass-fed meats and dairy has shown the fat loss and muscle building benefits in studies... beware of the supplement pill forms of CLA, which are artificially created.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">A similar comparison can be made between wild salmon and farm raised salmon. Wild salmon is a healthier option than farm raised salmon and has higher levels of omega-3's because the wild salmon eat what they're supposed to eat naturally. On the other hand, farm raised salmon are fattened up unnaturally with grain/soy based food pellets which detrimentally changes the salmon's fat ratio of omega-6 to omega-3.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The problem is that it is VERY hard to find healthy grass fed meats in typical grocery stores. In fact, even at health food stores, you might find some "organic" meats (which is at least a little better than standard), but it is often hard to find any real grass-fed meats.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">They have everything you could ever want... grass-fed burgers, rib-eye steaks, filet mignon & any other quality beef cuts, grass-fed buffalo, grass-fed cheeses, and even free-range chicken and turkey! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">And better yet, they deliver it right to your house with no shipping costs either... and I actually found that the prices were pretty comparable to what I usually pay at the grocery store anyway.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I'll tell ya... I was like a kid in a candy store when I found this site. I placed my order for all kinds of goodies on a Friday, I got a shipping notification email that Monday, and my delivery came right to my door the very next day in a sealed cooler... I couldn't believe the service I got from this company.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Wouldn't it give you peace of mind to know that you and your family are eating meat that is actually good for you instead of the mass produced junk at most grocery stores? I know I'm getting most of my meat from them from now on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Everything in my order ended up being awesome... here's my recommendations:</span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">the grass-fed filet mignons (delicious and tender!)</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">grass-fed burgers and bison burgers when I need a quick but healthy 5-minute meal (use some grass-fed cheese and sprouted grain roll for the ultimate balanced meal)</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">the free-range chicken and turkey sausages (makes great Italian dishes or healthier breakfast sausage)</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">grass-fed cheese and butter (higher in CLA and omega-3 than normal butter or cheese)</span> <span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">they even have free-range turkeys available for big family meals (you won't find free-range turkeys in stores)</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Plus, besides getting much healthier meat than you'd ever find in the store, another benefit to this site was that it was like doing my grocery shopping from my living room, instead of fighting the crowds at the store.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Source: <span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>by<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></em></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Mike Geary<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></em></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>- Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-63980783828449954492014-10-23T09:33:00.000-07:002014-10-23T09:34:06.135-07:00The 7 WORST Exercises That HARM Your Body - This Is An INCREDIBLE Article Health Hubbers!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: maroon;"><strong>These 7 common exercises are popular with many exercise enthusiasts, but can actually do more harm than good... Are you doing these?</strong></span> </div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/knee.gif" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: left; height: 167px; margin: 5px 7px; width: 158px;" />Unfortunately, there are certain “exercises” in the gym that cause more harm than good. I’d like to take a strong look at the 7 most prevalent injury-causing exercises in most gyms. The worst part is that these exercises are pretty much useless when it comes to building strength or losing fat. There really isn’t much of a point in doing them, whatsoever, and yet they can destroy our results.</div>
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It’s time to put an end to the worst exercises on Earth. I’m here to help you understand how your body moves, why it responds to exercise the way it does, and how to minimize your risk while you maximize the effect from every exercise you do.</div>
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As a side note, I think it’s important to mention that the last thing I want is for you to feel discouraged; rather, it’s important that you feel inspired to know you have eliminated the negative from your exercise program. Now, you’ll be able to safely rely on the fact that “you’re doing it right” when you exercise. Plus, I think you’ll be shocked to realize how much you’ve learned about your body’s ideal positioning and muscle recruitment strategies with exercise.</div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/dr_k1a.png" style="border: 0px currentColor; height: 187px; width: 673px;" /></div>
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<strong><em><img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/ankle-pain.gif" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: 120px; margin: 5px 7px; width: 180px;" />If an exercise creates muscle imbalances, this can lead to joint deterioration all over your body and even blunt fat loss.</em></strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>You see, once your joints are out of position, your body has sub-sensory pain signals taking place all over the body. These pain signals tell your brain to shut down the muscles in the area in order to avoid “pulling on the injury” and causing more damage. The end result: no muscle contraction and weaker muscles.</div>
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We exercise to be stronger in our daily lives and live a longer/higher quality of life. If an exercise has no true benefit in either or both of these categories, then what’s the point?</div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/foot-pain.gif" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: left; height: 150px; margin-left: 9px; margin-right: 9px; width: 96px;" />Just because someone tries an exercise in a gym isn’t a reason to make this part of your routine. The gym is full of mostly amateurs, including several of the personal trainers at big name gyms. After all, that’s where many of us started out at one point or another...</div>
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“” into an unsafe position involves increased pressure on the labrum or capsule of a joint while performing an exercise. Simultaneously, it’ll be likely that a muscle is being overstretched while being recruited to contract. This is a recipe for disaster. Instead, let’s find a position of rest for the joint and then exercise it. This will assist the natural delivery of nutrients to the joint and joint capsule.</div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/dr_k1.png" style="border: 0px currentColor; height: 326px; margin-bottom: 7px; margin-top: 7px; width: 698px;" /></div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/dr_k3.png" style="border: 0px currentColor; height: 558px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px; width: 717px;" /></div>
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<strong><em>Ok, you’ve already got a great background for judging exercises and their quality, or lack thereof. Now, let’s dive in and take a look at the 7 worst exercises:</em></strong></div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/leg-press-text.png" style="border: 0px currentColor; height: 39px; width: 412px;" /></div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/leg-press.gif" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: 185px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px; width: 185px;" />These are awful. Here’s why: Creates muscle imbalances, zero functional benefit, winds up joint to unsafe position</div>
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<strong><em>Muscle Balance Perspective:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Quads are generally stronger than hamstrings; this reinforces the problem.<br />When your quadriceps overpower your hamstrings in deep knee flexion, there is increased torsion placed into the meniscus, increasing the likelihood of knee injury.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Quads and glutes should be used as a pair. In this case, they are not being used effectively.<br />When your glutes do not fire while using your quads with a great level of force, there is increased risk of low back injury.</li>
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An imbalance between your quadriceps and hamstrings can quickly result in a number of knee issues, including patellofemoral (kneecap) and meniscus damage. Even worse, when your quads overpower your hamstrings, it’s not uncommon to develop restrictions in these muscles as your body attempts to even things out. These restrictions lead to increased pull on the top of your pelvis, tipping it forward, and placing pressure in your low spine.</div>
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This all sounds complicated, but let’s make it easy. Just stand up and lean backwards. If your hip flexors are tight, you’ll feel a stretch in the front of your thighs. It’s a good bet that we should get you training in more functional abs positions. You may already be spending too much of your day in this pre-shortened position, causing ‘active insufficiency’ to take place.</div>
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<strong><em>Functional Benefit Assessment:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">In most cases, people aren’t coming down to a full 90 degrees of knee flexion, which is needed for getting in/out of a chair.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Even in these cases your abs are so pre-contracted (active insufficiency) and low back extensors so overstretched (passive insufficiency) that it’s tough to use your quads with any abdominal or low back support.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Since your abs and low back are out of the picture, this exercise loses a lot of its functionality.</li>
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<strong><em>Metabolic Effect:</em></strong></div>
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The metabolic effect of this exercise is less because the number of muscles used is less than similar weight-bearing (closed-chain) exercises. Ultimately, the number of muscles and joints you use in a given exercise determines the metabolic effect of that exercise.</div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/leg-extension-text.png" style="border: 0px currentColor; height: 40px; width: 411px;" /></div>
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<strong><em><img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/leg-extension.gif" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: 189px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px; width: 188px;" />Muscle Balance Perspective:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Quads are generally stronger than hamstrings; this reinforces the problem.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Quads and glutes should be used as a pair. In this case, they are not being used effectively.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Interestingly, if you are having a hard time contracting your vastus medialis oblique (VMO) in your knee, the last 15 degrees of this movement can be helpful, but careful with the torque into your knee joint.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Again, only for the last 15 degrees until your knee is totally straight, and th is can often cause more damage than good.</li>
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<strong><em>Functional Benefit Assessment:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">It can also be argued that this exercise may help if you are a soccer player, but power lifting has been demonstrated to improve sprinting and kicking ability much more than any variety of leg extensions.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">When you walk, you use your quads and hamstrings; here, it’s just quads.</li>
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This comes down to torque. Think about a long screwdriver and a short screwdriver. It’s easier to use the long one, meaning you don’t have to turn it as hard. This is a result of the force of you turning the screwdriver x the distance to the end of the screwdriver. That’s how torque is calculated.</div>
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In this example, we are exercising above our knee, but the weight goes on our ankle. Think about that distance... that’s a lot of torque into our knees with a lot of weight!</div>
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<strong><em>Metabolic Effect:</em></strong></div>
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Low. This is a single joint exercise that is isolation-based. By definition, there will be a low metabolic effect. Instead, choose more compound movements such as squats, deadlifts, or lunges for an increased metabolic effect with this muscle group.</div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/leg-curl-text.png" style="border: 0px currentColor; height: 38px; width: 407px;" /></div>
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<strong><em><img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/leg-curl.gif" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: 191px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px; width: 192px;" />Muscle Balance Perspective:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Majority of force placed through distal hamstring, rather than proximal. This results in increased pressure behind the knee.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Requires change of position to recruit medial hamstrings and glutes on this exercise, which should be used as a muscle pair.</li>
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<strong><em>Functional Benefit Assessment:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">I can’t think of a moment in time where I need to perform this movement in daily life.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">However, if I ran hurdles, this may help, but again deadlifts and power lifts seem to improve sprint capacity at the same time and provide greater benefit.</li>
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This is a question of torque into the knee again. Also, in this case, the hamstrings tend to cramp a lot, which isn’t necessarily a good thing, or necessary at all.</div>
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If you have a Baker’s Cyst behind your knee, that’s a lot of pressure. For others, it’s really pulling the posterior horn of your meniscus, while missing your proximal (closer to your butt) hamstring altogether.</div>
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<strong><em>Metabolic Effect:</em></strong></div>
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Low effect, as this is a single joint exercise.</div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/bicep-text.png" style="border: 0px currentColor; height: 40px; width: 381px;" /></div>
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<strong><em><img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/bicep-curl.gif" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: 198px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px; width: 198px;" />Muscle Balance Perspective:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Forward shoulder position leads to increased stretch (passive insufficiency) on the rotator cuff and biceps tendon.<ul>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">An imbalance between your pecs and lats/shoulderblade stabilizers results in a forward shoulder position. This leads to rotator cuff tendonitis, biceps tendonitis, and increase risk of tears. Also, this limits the amount of growth of both your pecs and lats, due to the sub-sensory pain stimulus, as well as the actively insufficient pecs and passively insufficient lats (see above for definitions.)</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">This is true for your shoulders and neck. In this forward position, you are at risk for injury. Also, like many people who perform this exercise, you may be placing excessive weight into your armpit, which is where your brachial plexus is. This is the bundle of nerves that controls your arms.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">This all sounds complicated, but let’s make it easy. Just stand up tall and place your hands straight up into the air. Now, bend your elbow out to the side until your shoulder and elbow are both at right angles. If you already feel a stretch, your pecs are super tight. You may already be spending too much of your day in this pre-shortened position, causing ‘active insufficiency’ to take place. This will limit your strength and fat loss gains, while also increasing your risk of injury.</li>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Position also leads to increased pressure on the anterior and posterior capsules of the shoulder. Any pain signal or pressure will reduce the recruitment of your delts and shoulder stabilizers.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Biceps are being shortened in an over-shortened position for your pecs, reinforcing a common imbalance.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">The elbow is only safe when balanced. You need to train your brachioradialis (hammer curls), biceps (curls), and brachialis (reverse curls) in order to hit all elbow flexors.</li>
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<strong><em>Functional Benefit Assessment:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">This is an artificial movement, in an abnormal position. It’s only purpose is to build biceps, and there are better ways. For example:</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">The biceps is an elbow flexor, but it’s also a supinator (meaning it turns your palm up). Preacher curls only work on elbow flexion, which means you’re missing 50% of the muscle’s action. Whoops!</li>
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Evening out all of your elbow flexors has more carryover effect.</div>
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<strong><em>Metabolic Effect:</em></strong></div>
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Low effect, as this is a single joint exercise. In fact, it may be detrimental due to the likelihood of the sub-sensory pain stimuli going off in the shoulder girdle, preventing some of the neurological signal from reaching the muscle.</div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/smith-text.png" style="border: 0px currentColor; height: 41px; width: 402px;" /></div>
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<strong><em><img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/squat.gif" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: 192px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px; width: 193px;" />Muscle Balance Perspective:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Your hamstrings are basically off in this exercise, meaning that it is totally quad dominant.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Simultaneously, it’s very hard to properly recruit your glutes when the weight is not directly loading your spine. Without glute support, you are weakening your core, ultimately increasing risk of injury and slowing fat loss.</li>
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<strong><em>Functional Benefit Assessment:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Since your hamstrings and glutes don’t really have to work here, you’re not squatting like you would in real life.<br />Actually, here, it’s unsafe for the opposite reason, interestingly enough. Check this out...</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">When you squat with your arms overhead, you tend to lean forward, or your knees come forward, or both. Controlling for this is the controlling inter-related segments so they can get stronger and more mobile together. These segments need to work together to prevent injury, so squats that are not on the smith machine tend to limit you to the correct weight selection, while these squats do not.</li>
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<strong><em>Metabolic Effect:</em></strong></div>
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Low to medium. Since you are using your ankle, knee, and hip joints, the metabolic potential goes up slightly. However, it’s important to remember that muscle imbalances lead to all sorts of situations that lend themselves to a metabolic crash.</div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/tricep-text.png" style="border: 0px currentColor; height: 40px; width: 646px;" /></div>
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<strong><em><img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/tri-extension.gif" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: 199px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px; width: 200px;" />Muscle Balance Perspective:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Overstretched proximal triceps in this position, causing increased tension on the triceps tendon by the elbow.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Internal rotation, targeting the medial triceps head, can lead to shoulder impingement and more serious issues.</li>
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<strong><em>Functional Benefit Assessment:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">This is another movement that never happens in daily life. When are we overhead forcefully extending our elbow like this. It’s kind of silly, if you think about it.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">You may be arching your back while doing this, which could cause a lot of strain and take your abs out of the picture, altogether. Bad idea!</li>
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<strong><em>Metabolic Effect:</em></strong></div>
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Low to none. Since we are only really working our elbow joint and a small muscle group, we aren’t gaining much of a metabolic effect whatsoever. Also noteworthy, this is an open-chained exercise that produces a lot of torque into the shoulder and elbow. </div>
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<img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/rotation-text.png" style="border: 0px currentColor; height: 45px; width: 647px;" /></div>
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<strong><em><img alt="" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/files/rotation.gif" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: 209px; margin-left: 6px; margin-right: 6px; width: 211px;" />Functional Benefit Assessment:</em></strong></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Since this exercise actually is working brachioradialis against gravity (the dumbbell is weighing me down, against gravity, not side to the side), it’s only adding to the muscle imbalances I may already be experiencing.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Holding a dumbbell in my hands and moving it side to side is not placing tension on the external rotators of my shoulder, just my elbow flexors. This issue is not being resolved.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;">The only weight being placed into the shoulder is the torque from your hand, which is holding the dumbbell, through your elbow, and up to your shoulder.</li>
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<em>So, all in all, it’s causing a very small amount of damage with no benefit.</em></div>
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<strong><em>Functional, Muscle Balancing, and Metabolic Effect Summary:</em></strong></div>
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As you can see, not all exercises were created equally. I strongly recommend that you analyze an exercise before just going for it. I realize that you’re working hard to get great results, improve your health, and create a higher quality of life for yourself, but just make sure you get it right people.</div>
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Source: <em>by Dr. Kareem Samhouri - CSCS, HFS Neuro Metabolic Fitness & Rehab Expert</em></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-12102540832337000042014-10-22T15:31:00.000-07:002014-10-22T15:31:20.167-07:00Does Diet Soda Make You Fat, Or Does It Help Weight Loss?<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><img alt="diet drinks make you fat" height="142" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/soda.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: left;" width="103" /></span></span></strong></span><br />
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<em><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br /></em>We all know by now that soda (aka "pop" in some areas) is one of the most evil things you can put in your body... the nasty chemicals, the gut-fattening high fructose corn syrup, and a myriad of health problems caused by this carbonated cocktail worshipped by those that don't care about their health or body.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/ab" style="color: #015398; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: underline;"><img alt="fat burning foods?" height="300" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/200x300custom-bff.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right;" width="200" /></a>Since you're one of my readers, I know that you actually<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>do</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>care about your health and the appearance of your body.<br /><br />Surprisingly, many people falsely believe that "diet" soda is in some way a good thing for losing body fat. In fact, I hear people all the time proudly state that they "eat so healthy and only drink diet soda".<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />So let's set the record straight...<br /><br />There is NOTHING even remotely healthy about drinking diet soda. In fact, I've even seen several studies that showed dedicated diet soda drinkers got even FATTER than their regular soda drinking counterparts.<br /><br />Here's some findings from an 8-year University of Texas study that I had read...<br /><br />An excerpt from the study author:<br /><br /><em>"What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher." <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />"There was a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>41 percent increase in risk of being overweight</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day,"</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Fowler says.<br /><br />Ok, as if we didn't already know how bad regular soda was for us, and now they're showing us studies that diet soda makes us even fatter than the already bad stuff!</div>
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<strong>There's a lot of complicating factors as to why this occurs...</strong><br /><br />One reason is that the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas create a negative hormonal response in the body that increases fat storing hormone production and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">increases cravings<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>for more sweets and refined carbohydrates in the time period after consuming the diet drink.</div>
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I've been reading more studies lately on the effects of artificial sweeteners and one thing that appears clear is that it's not a good idea to try to "fool" your body. Essentially you "fool" your body by drinking something very sweet (sweetened with artificial sweeteners), but you don't actually ingest the sugar calories your body expects. Your body has a hard time knowing how to deal with that.</div>
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With artificial sweeteners, your taste buds "sense" that you ingested something very sweet, and even though you might not have ingested sugar, your body follows with an insulin response. As you know, higher insulin levels can increase cravings as well as triggering your body to deposit body fat.This is not to say it's any better to drink a sugar-sweetened soda which has it's own host of problems.</div>
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Another reason for weight gain from drinking diet drinks is that people may subconsciously think that because they are drinking a diet soda, that gives them more leeway to eat more of everything else, hence consuming more calories overall.</div>
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The cause for weight gain from diet drinks may actually be some combination of both of those explanations above.<br /><br />I've said this all along, but the bottom line is that if you're serious about your health and body, soda of any kind (and artificial sweeteners in anything for that matter!) should be avoided at all times, except for very rare occasions when you can't avoid them.<br /><br />Another article I did about<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>artificial sweeteners explains more of the problems with them and good substitutes<br /><br /><strong>So what is a good alternative to diet sodas?</strong><br /><br />The best alternatives are good old water with lemon or unsweetened iced teas... you have plenty of options with teas - green, white, black, oolong, red... be creative in making your iced teas and you'll enjoy it more. Plus you'll get a more diverse array of antioxidants.<br /><br />I just add a little of the natural non-caloric sweetener stevia to my iced teas and I love them. Please share this page with your friends and family to help them kick the diet soda habit.</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><em>Source: Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-65711941040650229802014-10-19T12:01:00.000-07:002014-10-19T12:04:04.512-07:00The Top Fat Loss Secrets For Flat Six-Pack Abs And A Lean Stomach<br />
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I had the pleasure of being interviewed recently by a fitness professional from NYC, Certified Personal Trainer, Geovanni Derice. The interview is below and I think you're going to like it... I reveal some of the hardest hitting strategies for getting rid of that stubborn stomach fat to uncover those flat six pack abs that everyone wants.</div>
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"<span style="font-weight: bold;">GD:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Welcome Mike to our 4-ever-Toned Fitness Journal. For those who do not know you, please tell us a few things about yourself and how you can help our readers with their fitness and health.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">MG:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Thanks for having me, Geo. Well, to go back a little, I have been heavily involved in fitness and sports for about 20 years now, ever since I was a teenager. Being involved in sports in high school got me interested in strength training and conditioning.</div>
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At that point, once I started feeling more energetic, getting stronger, and looking better, I was instantly hooked for life. I'm 36 now and still addicted to the way living a healthy and fit lifestyle makes me feel energetic, confident, strong, and youthful on a daily basis.</div>
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I decided earlier in my 20's that I wanted to make the commitment to help other people experience the excitement of being fit and getting in the best shape of their lives, especially since we've reached an epidemic of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, etc. That's why I became a fitness professional. It just gives me so much satisfaction to help others, who have struggled for years to get in good shape, and show them that it can be done, and it can be fun in the process.</div>
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I've expanded over the years from just reaching local individuals with personal training, into being able to help people all over the globe achieve their fitness goals with the reach of the internet. I only hope that my passion for fitness inspires people to take action and improve how they look and feel for life.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">GD:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Now Mike, there's so many things out there as to what works and what does not work... if you had to pick 3 things that work time and time again to get flat lean abs, what would they be?</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">MG:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The first and most important thing to get control of in order to lose your belly fat and get flat abs is cleaning up your diet. Exercise is important, but your diet is king when it comes to losing body fat so that you can see your abs.</div>
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There's so much confusion these days about what a healthy diet that promotes fat loss really is... after all, we are bombarded by conflicting messages in the media about what is healthy and what is not, and you have all of these gimmicky diet books about low carb, low fat, high protein, vegetarian, fasting, atkins, south beach, liquid diets, and hundreds more. There's so much conflicting info, that the average consumer doesn't even know where to start when it comes to eating for fat loss.</div>
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The second thing that works time and time again, is to focus on the intensity of your workouts and focus on working the body as a whole in order to get the best metabolic response to lose that stubborn stomach fat.</div>
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In order to really get lean, the workouts should have a high intensity, with short rest periods, working the largest muscle groups of the body, instead of trying to isolate specific small muscles like the biceps, triceps, or calves.</div>
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For the third thing, let's talk about actually training the abs specifically. When it comes to training the abs, if you want real results, I always recommend forgetting about the crunches and situps for the most part. They are ok for someone that is really deconditioned, but most people that already have some training under their belt need a much better stimulus for their abs than crunches. Crunches are one of the abs exercises that actually provide the least amount of resistance, and remember that resistance is what develops and tones the muscles.</div>
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I provide a ton of great abs exercises in my book, but one of THE highest resistance exercises for the abs, is hanging leg raises (but NOT the way you see most people at the gym doing them). The key to doing these and actually working the hell out of your abs is to curl your pelvis up as you raise your legs. Almost nobody ever does this right. To be honest, the majority of people cannot do this at first, but I provide some strategies in my book as to how to progress to doing these correctly.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">GD:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>What are people doing wrong when it comes to developing the coveted "6 pack abs"?</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">MG:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Well Geo, I know this sounds funny to most people, but the MAIN thing that people are doing wrong to get those flat 6-pack abs is... are you ready for this?</div>
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They spend<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>entirely too much time focusing on training their abs</strong>! WAY too much time spent on abs exercises. Sounds crazy, but it's true.</div>
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Remember, having a flat and visible six pack of abs is all about getting down to a low body fat percentage. In order to do that, your workouts must focus on stimulating a fat burning hormonal environment in your body, and increasing your metabolic rate. That just does not happen when you focus too much time training a small muscle group like the abs.</div>
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Instead, you must use the majority of your time focusing on training the largest muscle groups of the body like the legs, back, and chest. That's what stimulates your metabolism and the fat burning hormones that will get you truly lean and sporting a flat sixxer!</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">GD:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Which exercises are the top exercises that people need to do if they are to get maximum defintion with their midsection?</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">MG:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>When it comes to developing the abs themselves, I again refer to any kinds of hanging abs exercises, as well as some good floor abs exercises like lying leg thrusts (all described and illustrated in my book).</div>
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However, maximum definition in the abs and midsection comes from losing bodyfat, and the most effective exercises featured in my program for that goal are various forms of swings and snatches (unique dumbbell or<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>kettlebell exercises<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that almost nobody ever does in normal gyms), squats, deadlifts, lunges, step-ups, clean & presses, mountain climbers, sprinting, and other full body exercises and calisthenics. If you want great looking flat abs, focus on those instead of focusing so much on training the abs directly!</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">GD:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>When it comes to diet Mike, people really have tried millions of ways to get one thing... and that is fat loss. What recommendations have you used to successfully help your clients lose body fat and keep it off?</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">MG:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I have included a fully comprehensive discussion of this topic in my book, which accounts for almost half of the book, but I'll try to make some nice simple generalizations to get people started on the right path immediately. The most important thing is that your diet is as natural and unprocessed as possible. It almost always comes back to the overprocessing of food that makes it unhealthy, and makes it totally wreck your metabolism and hormone balance in your body.</div>
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For example, why eat refined grains, when you can eat sprouted whole grains (keep in mind that I usually recommend strictly limiting grain-based foods overall for best results due to the problems with antinutrients and gluten in grains which are inflammatory).</div>
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Why eat refined sugar, when you can get natural sources of sugar from a high nutrient whole food like fruit. Why eat highly processed, refined, and hydrogenated vegetable oils (these are THE worst thing in the modern diet), when you can eat natural sources of healthy fats like nuts, avocados, fish, eggs, coconut milk, organically raised meat, and so forth.</div>
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The point is to not fall for some gimmick like extremely low carbs (although I do believe in a fairly reduced carb intake as that is a big problem for most people), low fat, super high protein, or any other combination that has you focusing on one macronutrient vs. another.</div>
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Your body needs all macronutrients to thrive and obtain a variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc. Trying to cut an entire food group out just works against what your body needs. I get into much more detail on this vitally important topic towards losing body fat (especially that stubborn stomach fat) for life in my book.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">GD:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Thank you very much Mike for sharing with us all of this great information. </div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Source: Interview with Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</span></em></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-8162401194399019302014-10-11T15:01:00.000-07:002014-10-11T15:01:47.909-07:003 Counterfeit Foods Marketed As "Healthier" - These Are Deceptive <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial;">I was at the grocery store yesterday and had to shake my head at all of the deceptive labels with everything claiming all sorts of things that are supposedly "healthy", but aren't really. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">One of the things that really disturbed me was that I saw several examples of healthy foods in their natural state, but I saw<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>counterfeit</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>versions of these foods claiming that they were healthier than the original...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Yet in reality, all of these "counterfeit" versions were actually MUCH<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">worse</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>for you than the original, and more highly processed... This is food marketing deception at it's worst!</span><br /> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Example #1: Product claiming "Better than peanut butter" by being a low-fat peanut butter</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This product is ridiculous! I can't believe anyone would ever believe that this junk is better for them than natural peanut butter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">What I'm talking about here are the types of peanut butter that claim to be "lower-fat peanut butter"... But remember that "low-fat" many times just means more added sugars and carbs to replace the fats they took out. Not good!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">First of all, if you buy a good simple peanut butter (organic is best), it is usually nothing but 2 ingredients... peanuts and salt. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><em><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">Note:</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Remember to always avoid peanut butters that contain harmful hydrogenated oils. Peanut butter that contains palm oil is a better alternative than added hydrogenated oils... but natural peanut butter with just peanuts and salt is best.</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Back to the counterfeit peanut butter... This counterfeit peanut butter which claimed it was "better than peanut butter" (trying to seem healthier than peanut butter based on it's label claims) had a list of junk in it you wouldn't believe. First of all, they strip most of the healthy fats out of the peanuts so that it is a "low fat" product. Ok, now you've just taken away one of the healthiest parts of the product...the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>appetite satisfying healthy fats</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that you need to control cravings and manage more stable blood sugar levels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">To make things worse, the healthy fats were replaced with TWO different types of sugary syrups as well as additional dehydrated cane juice (aka SUGAR), in addition to added refined starches.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This product has taken something as simple and natural as peanut butter, and turned it into what should really be called some sort of processed candy. Yet, they claim that it's healthier than peanut butter because it's "lower fat". And somehow they get away with deceiving people like this. Don't be their fool! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This overly processed peanut butter may be lower in fat (by removing the healthy fats), but it's also<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">higher in sugar and total carbohydrates</span>, bringing the calorie total pretty close to regular peanut butter, and having a much higher blood sugar impact than just plain high-fat peanut butter.</span><br /> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Example #2: Product claiming to be "better than eggs".</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I won't get as detailed on this one because I've talked extensively about this entire topic in several other newsletters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">But basically, this product was just egg whites with a bunch of added chemical colorings, flavorings, and other nonsense, including fake added vitamins.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Again, this product has essentially ruined a good thing by removing the healthiest part... the YOLKS! And yes,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">the yolks ARE the healthiest part of the egg</span>. Anybody that tells you different doesn't understand much about REAL nutrition and are still brainwashed in 1980's and 90's low fat dogma. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The important thing to look for in quality whole eggs are cage-free and organic, and also the diet that the hens ate. Most commercial egg farms are a disaster for the health of the hens, as they are crowded inside hen houses and never see the light of day, and are fed unhealthy amounts of grains and GMO soy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Your best bet is to find a local farmer that you know allows the hens daily time outdoors to roam freely on land and eat a variety of greens, bugs, etc. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">I understand that not everybody can find a local farmer that does this type of thing... so what you want to look for at the grocery store is organic, free-range eggs, and also brands that claim higher amounts of DHA or omega-3's. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">A slight improvement over standard eggs is if the hens had flax seed or algae feed included in their diet to increase the omega-3 content of the eggs. These eggs will have a better ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats and possibly more vitamins and minerals than hens that ate nothing but corn and soy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Example #3: A product claiming to be "better than butter".</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This was essentially chemical-laden margarine loaded with highly processed and deadly trans fats and refined vegetable oils (known now to be almost as harmful as trans fats), yet it had the nerve to claim it was "better than butter", simply because it was lower in saturated fat (which is actually healthier).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Who are they fooling!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Even low quality butter is healthier than ANY margarine. One problem with butter can be pesticides and hormones from improperly raised cows in confinement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">For this reason, you always want to choose<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>organic butter</strong>, and preferably, if you can find "grass-fed" organic butter, then that is the absolute healthiest butter for you. In fact, a little known fact is that adding a little butter to your steamed vegetables<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-color: lightyellow;">helps your body to absorb more of the vitamins and minerals in the veggies</span>. It's true...having veggies with a fat source aids your assimilation of vitamins and minerals. If you missed the article recently about why<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>healthy grass-fed butter can even help fat loss, read that here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><u>Another factor in favor of butter:</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Due to the content of stable saturated fats in butter, this makes butter one of the healthiest oils or fats to cook with. Oils high in polyunsaturated fats are the worst to cook with due to their highly unstable nature, which contributes to excess free radical production and damage to the cells of your body. For more info about this topic, here's an article I did about<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>healthy vs unhealthy cooking oils</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>What about the saturated fats in butter?</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">No, the saturated fat in butter is NOT bad for you. If you've been reading my newsletters for some time, you know that we've already beaten that topic to death. If you're new to this newsletter, you can go back to this page to see why saturated fats are a perfectly natural part of the human diet and always have been: <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Evidence that saturated fat is NOT bad for you</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Feel free to share this article with your friends and family and help to protect their health.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><h1 style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #990000; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: bold 25px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 6px 20px 0px 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: maroon;"></span></span></span> </h1>
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<em>Source: Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist</em></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-35403936318974465952014-10-09T04:58:00.000-07:002014-10-09T04:58:59.343-07:005 Fabulous Fat-Burning Strategies<div class="html_content" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px currentColor; color: #2b2b2b; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/24px Lato, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<strong style="border: 0px currentColor; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s how to work out, eat right — and lose fat.</strong></div>
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<a href="http://firmingyou.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/sweat-center-helps.small-preview.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor; color: #24890d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="sweat-center-helps.small preview" class="size-full wp-image-83 alignright" height="200" src="http://firmingyou.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/sweat-center-helps.small-preview.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor; float: right; height: auto; margin: 7px 0px 7px 24px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="200" /></a>You work out zealously and eat healthy meals — at least most of the time — and the pounds are starting to drop off. You’re looking and feeling more toned, too, just as you’d hoped.</div>
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But with all this effort, shouldn’t you lose fat? Shouldn’t the flab be dissolving faster? If you’re of a certain age, you know the flab we’re talking about.</div>
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If you’re a woman, you may still have the dreaded muffin top, that slab of fat that spills stubbornly over the top of your best jeans, spoiling the look<span id="more-79" style="border: 0px currentColor; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>. Or if you’re a man in that same bracket, you may have the unsightly pot belly that adds years to your otherwise youthful physique.</div>
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Shouldn’t fat burning be faster? Not to mention easier?</div>
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WebMD consulted an exercise physiologist and an exercise physiologist/registered dietitian to find out how best to burn fat — once and for all!</div>
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Here are their five best fat-burning strategies</div>
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1. How to Burn Fat: Get Realistic</h3>
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<b style="font-weight: 700;">Get real tip No. 1:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“You can’t spot reduce,” says Darlene Sedlock, PhD, an associate professor of kinesiology at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. “Nobody wants to hear that.”</div>
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Translation: If you’re hankering to get rid of the jeans spillover or the pot belly, you need to burn fat from head to toe. “Anything to reduce your overall body fat will help,” she says.</div>
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<b style="font-weight: 700;">Get real tip No. 2:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>You need to give it some time. “There’s no easy fix to the flab,” Sedlock says. “Over time, some of the flab will disappear,” if you’re diligent about the eating and exercise plans. Give it several months, she suggests. Your weight might not change, but you will notice a difference in the way your clothes fit, she says.</div>
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<b style="font-weight: 700;">Get real tip No. 3</b>: This is perhaps the cruelest. You probably can’t expect to be as flab-free as when you were 20. “Skin loses elasticity as you age,” Sedlock says. The sagging of the skin adds to the unsightly appearance of flab, she says.</div>
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Other factors also make flab a challenge, says Jim White, an exercise physiologist and registered dietitian in Virginia Beach, Va. who is a national spokesman for the American Dietetic Association. “As we age, muscle mass declines, and metabolism slows, so we are definitely fighting an uphill battle.”</div>
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So is some flab inevitable with age? “It seems to happen, but if you make a concentrated effort to avoid it, you can,” Sedlock says. Too late if you’re reading this article, of course, but preventing flab is a lot easier than banishing it, she says.</div>
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Even so, it’s possible to reduce your fat and flab, White and Sedlock say. Besides being realistic, here are their best tips.</div>
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2. Fat-burning Workout: Pump Up the Cardio</h3>
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A good overall cardiovascular conditioning exercise program is crucial to burn fat, say Sedlock and White. “Walking is excellent,” White says, but most people have to pump it up a bit from their routine pace, especially if they’ve been exercising for a while and the flab isn’t budging.</div>
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“Increase the days,” White suggests. “If you work out two days, go to three. Or if you’re jogging for half an hour, increase it to 45 minutes or an hour.”</div>
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Interval training — that is, alternating bursts of intense activity with bursts of lighter activity — is a good way to burn more fat, White says. “Walk for five minutes, then jog for five,” he says, then repeat. That strategy will burn overall more calories and more fat. If you are already jogging, jog then sprint to mix it up, he says.</div>
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Increasing intensity for a short period within your regular workout will burn more total calories and therefore more fat, Sedlock says.</div>
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3. Fat-burning Workout: Pump Iron or Do Other Strength Training</h3>
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If you’re trying to banish flab, weight training three times a week for a half hour each session — if you’re a beginner — is ideal, White says. Once your flab is under control, two weight training sessions a week usually will help you maintain tone, he says.</div>
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“Work the full body,” he says, rather than focus only on, say, triceps work for flabby upper arms. A full workout works all the major muscle groups, not just the flabby ones.</div>
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If you’re a beginner to weights or other kinds of strength training, such as resistance bands, get some expert instruction first by hiring a personal trainer for a session or two, experts suggest.</div>
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You can incorporate the full-body weight training exercises that focus on your flabby areas, of course, White says. “For the muffin top, focus on the [abdominal] oblique muscles by doing bicycle kicks,” he says, “or do oblique twists with the cable [weight] machine.”</div>
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A simpler at-home exercise to burn fat, White says, is: Get a broom, hold it straight up over your head, then lean to the right and the left. You should feel the effort in your so-called love handles.</div>
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For flabby upper arms, you can do dumbbell kickbacks with hand weights. (With upper arm parallel to the floor and bent at the elbow, lean over a weight bench or other low bench with your other arm supporting your body. Extend the lower arm holding the weight until it is straight. Repeat and switch the weight to the other hand.)</div>
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To maximize the fat burning during weight training, women should aim for 12 to 15 repetitions per exercise, White says, and focus on a higher number of reps rather than constantly boosting the weight. Men should aim for eight to 12 reps and increase the weight periodically.</div>
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4. Fat-Burning Workout: Crunch Your Flab</h3>
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Although a lot of people think a thousand sit-ups or crunches a day will get rid of the flab, that’s not entirely true, Sedlock says. “Sit-ups aren’t going to get rid of your abdominal fat, per se,” she says. “Sit-ups strengthen the abdominal musculature.” So that means with enough sit-ups your tummy should have a better appearance, she says.</div>
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“If part of the muffin top is due to those muscles not being exercised for a long time, toning up those muscles may help,” she adds.</div>
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Pot bellies can be toned up with crunches and reverse crunches (lie flat and raise your hips and legs to work the lower abdominals).</div>
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5. How to Lose Fat: Overhaul Your Diet</h3>
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Every other week, it seems, there’s some new “fat-burning” food or supplement. On the list: chili peppers, low-fat dairy, and numerous dietary supplements.</div>
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There’s some truth to the fat-burning food claims. “Some studies show certain foods can speed metabolism,” White says.</div>
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For instance, capsinoids — compounds derived from chili peppers — increased fat burning slightly, and more so in subjects who had a body mass index (BMI) over 25, the beginning of overweight, according to Japanese researchers who published the study in<i style="font-style: italic;">Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry.</i></div>
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Researchers have debated the role of dairy foods in weight management. Diets with at least three daily servings of [low-fat] dairy products speed weight loss and body fat loss in obese people compared to a diet with little dairy, according to Michael Zemel, PhD, of the University of Tennessee, who has published his results of the value of dairy in the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="font-style: italic;">Journal of the American College of Nutrition</i>and other journals.</div>
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But White says don’t rely on the so-called fat-busting foods to banish flab while you eat whatever you want the rest of the day. Instead, White suggests, incorporate the fat-burning foods into a sound diet.</div>
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What’s sound and flab-unfriendly? Whole grains, lean protein, plenty of fruits and vegetables, and eight glasses of water daily, White says.</div>
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Small frequent meals also help you lose weight, White says, although not all experts agree that many mini-meals are better than three square meals.</div>
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“I have a client who came in eating one [huge] meal a day, and he weighed 300 pounds,” White says. He put the man on five small, healthy meals a day. He lost weight, White says, and was amazed. Eating often also helps keep your energy levels up, White says.</div>
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Source: Kathleen Doheny www.firmingyou.com </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-8020464742139878682014-10-08T07:10:00.000-07:002014-10-08T07:14:43.034-07:005 Reasons That I Think Treadmill And Elliptical Machine Workouts Are A Waste Of Time<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><strong><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: maroon;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Plus 10 Workout Ideas That I Believe Are More EFFECTIVE And FUN!</span></span></span></strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><em><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><img align="right" alt="elliptical machine cardio workout" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/Image/Elliptical.jpg" height="230" style="border: 0px currentColor;" width="230" /></span></span></em></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Now that I made all of the treadmill and elliptical machine worshipers angry... let me say that if you truly enjoy mindlessly pumping away on a treadmill or elliptical (or exercise bike for that matter too), then by all means, keep doing what you enjoy, because<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>enjoying your exercise</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is one of the most important aspects to sticking with any exercise program...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">However, don't say that I didn't warn you that you were wasting your time with all that mindless cardio machine boredom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If I haven't mentioned it before, I don't believe in cardio machines, and to be quite honest, I don't think I've personally used a treadmill, elliptical, or exercise bike for at least the last 10 years or so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">As a matter of fact, I don't even use cardio machines anymore for warm-ups before a workout (I did before occasionally)... Nowadays, I prefer to do dumbbell or<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>kettlebell<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>snatches and swings mixed with bodyweight exercises as the perfect full body warm-up at the beginning of my workouts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><strong>So why do I have such hatred for cardio machines?</strong> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>Well, here are 5 reasons</strong>:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>1)</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Treadmills, ellipticals, and exercise bikes are mind-blowingly BOOOORING! Personally, I can think of a million things I'd rather be doing than<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>pedalling my way to nowhere</strong>!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>2)</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Mindless steady state cardio exercise while watching TV or reading creates a mind / body disconnect resulting in poor results from your exercise routine. Instead of reading a gossip magazine or watching a cheesy reality TV show on the TV screen in front of the cardio machine,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">a REAL workout<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>consists of actually having your mind engaged strongly in what your body is doing!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>3)</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I've seen studies that indicated that treadmill running may be less effective than outdoor running for various reasons such as stride abnormalities on treadmills vs natural running, slightly less caloric burn compared to outdoor running, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">...although I never recommend just "jogging" anyway (or as Ron Burgundy would say, "yogging") ... Instead, variable intensity walks / runs or sprints are so much more effective, training your heart rate in a much wider range instead of just the same pace during the entire workout. I choose to do a lot of hiking up mountains and also sprinting, but never steady state jogging.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>4)</strong> Treadmills and ellipticals are ridiculously expensive and a waste of money for people that workout at home... there's so many better options for home workouts you could have spent your money on rather than wasting it on a treadmill, bike, or elliptical.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The perfect home gym setup is MUCH cheaper... there's no reason you need anything other than a jump rope, bodyweight exercises, a few dumbbells, stability ball, maybe a few kettlebells (if you want to get fancy), and perhaps high tension bands for some more variety. And of course... the great outdoors has some of the best workout options of all... hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, skiing, sports, and more!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>5)</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Treadmills and elliptical machines are just a very ineffective way to workout compared to other options. The metabolic response is much lower compared to the types of workouts ideas that I describe below. Why should you do treadmill or elliptical workouts when you can get better results by doing more interesting forms of training that actually stimulate a fat-burning hormonal response and stimulate your metabolism to a greater extent...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">So what are the alternatives to treadmills, exercise bikes, and elliptical trainers? Here are<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;">TEN</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of my favorite types of alternative workouts:</span></strong></span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>jumping rope</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- great mind-body connection - try speed jumping, crossovers, and double jumps once you get skilled at it. An amazing metabolic exercise with one of the cheapest pieces of equipment available. There's a reason that every world class boxer uses this exercise!</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>kettlebell training</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- nothing will get your heart pounding like high repetition KB swings and snatches or clean & presses (can be done with dumbbells too, but I prefer KBs). Personally, I think one of the most intense body changing exercises ever invented are double kettlebell snatches (snatching both kettlebells at the same time overhead from the floor).</span> </li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>outdoor wind sprinting</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(the ultimate exercise for a rock hard ripped body... just look at the chiselled powerful bodies of world class sprinters, and compare that to the weakling withered physique of a typical marathoner... nuff said! I generally do wind sprints 2-3 days a week during the warm times of the year, and I'll do something such as 50 yards, 60 yards, 70 yards, 80 yards, 90 yards, 100 yards, and then repeat (with about 40-60 second rests between sprints). By the way, for the international folks, a "yard" is just slightly shorter than a meter.</span> </li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>hill sprinting</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- yet another classic exercise for a rock hard lean and powerful body! I like to do 30 yard sprints up a steep hill and then walk down and repeat a bunch of times for maybe 20-30 minutes. Amazing workout.</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>The rowing machine</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- ok, I don't really lump this in as a "cardio" machine like treadmills and ellipticals... I think the rowing machine is actually a great full body workout that actually uses resistance... The best results come from using variable speeds and really pulling hard to challenge your body.</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Sprint style swimming workouts</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- a more muscular workout than steady state distance swimming... I actually love the upper body pump I get from sprint style swimming -- this is the same concept as sprinting vs jogging but in a pool instead. It's all about intensity!</span> </li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>heavy bag punching / kicking workout, speed bag, rebound bag</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- all are great forms of training and much more interesting than boring cardio machines. These exercises are also great examples of exercises that require an<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">intense mind-body connection</span>, which is missing in boring cardio equipment like treadmills and elliptical machines.</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>shadow boxing -</strong> This is an awesome workout, but if you're shy, this is best saved for your home workouts since you'll get some crazy stares doing this at a typical gym from people who think they're "too cool" for stuff like this.</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><strong>dumbbell circuits</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>-- This is a super metabolic type of workout that involves alternating between various full-body multi-joint exercises to get a crazy fat-burning workout in minimal time. A good example would be alternating between dumbbell lunges, overhead presses, bent over rows, step ups, and squat presses all with minimal rest between.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>bodyweight training</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- bodyweight squats, push-ups, lunges, jumps, bear crawls, mountain climbers and jumpers, planks, and the list goes on and on. Another example of great mind-body connection and much more metabolic type of training than treadmills and ellipticals.</span> </li>
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Well, I hope this article helps give you ideas on how you can get away from all of these mindless and ineffective treadmill and elliptical trainer machines (and exercise bike) workouts that are just wasting your time and energy that could be better spent on more effective workouts. </div>
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If you want maximum results, it's all about your intensity levels and also your mind-body connection... and that all important mind-body connection is usually missing when it comes to elliptical and treadmill workouts, that most people do while watching TV or reading.</div>
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Source: <em>Mike Geary</em><em>, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist</em></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-18983507778598730302014-10-07T15:19:00.000-07:002014-10-07T15:19:45.864-07:00It Takes HOW MUCH Water To Grow An Avocado?!<div class="blog-master-image node-master-image-large" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 15px/1.1em Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, "Bitstream Vera Sans", sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin-top: 0.8em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
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We've heard a lot about how the boom in almond and other nut production is <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/07/your-almond-habit-sucking-califoirnia-dry" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">straining California's dwindling water supplies amid the state's worst-ever drought</a>. But what about the avocado, another trendy commodity that grows on trees and delivers all-the-rage healthy fats?</div>
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US consumers certainly love this unctuous tropical fruit. According to the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/fruits/avocado-profile/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">US Department of Agriculture</a>, avocado production per capita jumped from 1.1 pounds annually in 1999 to 4.5 pounds in 2011.</div>
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Avocados don't require nearly as much water per pound as almonds. But they do require significantly more than other kinds of produce, as my colleague Julia Lurie shows in this chart:</div>
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<span class="chart-title">How Thirsty Are These Fruits and Veggies?</span></h1>
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The amount of irrigated water, in gallons, that it takes to grow a pound of the following in California</div>
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<svg height="171" style="overflow: hidden; position: relative;" version="1.1" width="620" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><defs style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><rect fill="#8fb3dc" height="18" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#698eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="438" x="88" y="10"><rect fill="#8fb3dc" height="18" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#698eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="249" x="88" y="34"><rect fill="#8fb3dc" height="18" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#698eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="72" x="88" y="59"><rect fill="#8fb3dc" height="18" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#698eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="64" x="88" y="83"><rect fill="#8fb3dc" height="18" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#698eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="58" x="88" y="107"><rect fill="#8fb3dc" height="18" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#698eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="33" x="88" y="132"></rect></rect></rect></rect></rect></rect></defs></svg><div class="label series" style="font-size: 12px; left: -10000px; position: absolute;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Lettuce</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 536px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 12px; width: 24px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">74.1</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Avocados</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 347px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 36px; width: 24px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">42.1</span></div>
<div class="label series" data-column="Food" data-row="1" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 11px; position: absolute; text-align: right; top: 36px; width: 67px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Peaches</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 170px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 61px; width: 24px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">12.2</span></div>
<div class="label series" data-column="Food" data-row="2" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 11px; position: absolute; text-align: right; top: 61px; width: 67px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Oranges</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 162px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 85px; width: 24px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">10.8</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Tomatoes</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 156px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 109px; width: 17px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">9.8</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Strawberries</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 131px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 134px; width: 17px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">5.5</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Lettuce</span></div>
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(Note that the figures in this chart, and the one later in this post, include only blue water—which comes from rivers, lakes, streams, and aquifers—and not rainfall or recycled water.)</div>
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And as in the case of almonds and so many other crops, California dominates US production, accounting for about 90 percent of the US avocado harvest. Nearly all of it takes place in Southern California, in a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.californiaavocadogrowers.com/selling/acreage-inventory-summary" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">five-county region</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that straddles the coast from San Luis Obispo to San Diego.</div>
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Like the rest of the state, the southern coastal region is locked in a drought, and largely cut off from the flow of surface water from the state's big irrigation projects. The result has been strife in the avocado groves—<a href="http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/aug/31/environment-san-diego-water-agriculture-wine/?#article-copy" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">sky-high water costs</a>and a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2014/01/28/15694/plenty-of-avocados-to-go-around-for-the-super-bowl/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">reliance on water pumped</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>from underground aquifers.</div>
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But overall, California's avocado farms have a relatively light water impact. Unlike almonds and pistachios, whose acreage has expanded dramatically in recent years, land devoted to avocados<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.californiaavocadogrowers.com/selling/industry-statistical-data" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">has actually shrunk</a>, from a high of 76,000 acres in 1987 to fewer than 60,000 acres in 2012 (although production has held steady, because yield increases have offset the loss of acres). Also unlike the state's nut growers, California's avocado farmers aren't taking advantage of a boom in demand from Asia. According to the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/fruits/avocado-profile/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">USDA</a>, US avocado exports are so small they're "negligible."</div>
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Also, avocados are a perishable, seasonal product, and the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.westpakavocado.com/2007/avocados/availability.cfm" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">California season peaks from May through August</a>—meaning that for the rest of the year, we rely on Mexico, Chile, and Peru to satisfy our guacamole habit. All told, the USDA<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/fruits/avocado-profile/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">reports</a>, about 70 percent of the avocados we consume are imported.</div>
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<span class="chart-title">Where Do Avocados Use the Most Water?</span></h1>
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The average amount of irrigated water, in gallons, that it takes to grow a pound of avocados</div>
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<svg height="161" style="overflow: hidden; position: relative;" version="1.1" width="590" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><defs style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><rect fill="#8eb3dc" height="18.5938" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#688eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="394" x="102" y="10"><rect fill="#8eb3dc" height="18.5938" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#688eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="302" x="102" y="35"><rect fill="#8eb3dc" height="18.5938" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#688eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="292" x="102" y="60"><rect fill="#8eb3dc" height="18.5938" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#688eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="130" x="102" y="85"><rect fill="#8eb3dc" height="18.5938" r="0" rx="0" ry="0" stroke-width="1" stroke="#688eb5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" width="116" x="102" y="110"></rect></rect></rect></rect></rect></defs></svg><div class="label series" style="font-size: 12px; left: -10000px; position: absolute;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Global average</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 506px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 12.29px; width: 24px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">96.8</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Chile</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 414px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 37.29px; width: 24px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">74.1</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">California</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 404px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 62.29px; width: 24px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">71.8</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">USA</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 242px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 87.29px; width: 24px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">31.9</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Mexico</span></div>
<div class="label value" style="font-size: 12px; height: 14px; left: 228px; position: absolute; text-align: left; top: 112.29px; width: 24px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">28.4</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgb(255,255,255);">Global average</span></div>
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And so most of the water impact from our growing appetite for avocados lands on other places. And as Eilis O'Neill recently<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://civileats.com/2014/09/29/are-your-avocados-draining-a-communitys-drinking-water/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">reported</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in<em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Civil Eats</em>, satisfying our demand for off-season avocados is causing trouble in another drought-stricken region, Chile's Central Valley—which, like California's, lies between a snowcapped interior mountain range and a coastal mountain range.</div>
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In part because of demand from the United States, avocado farmers in Chile have used so much water that some towns' wells have run dry.</div>
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This valley is the epicenter of Chile's fruit-and-veg export behemoth that began in the 1980s. As this US Department of Agriculture report<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/fruit-tree-nuts/trade.aspx#.VCry0yldVqo" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">states</a>, Chile's Southern Hemisphere location gives it a "counter-seasonal production schedule with the United States"—that is, Chile's summer starts around the time that ours ends. The rapid rise of Chilean produce into the US market is a big reason US consumers can expect bountiful produce aisles year-round—it "extended the availability of certain fruits in the market without direct competition with domestic production, and gave US consumers fruit choices beyond the traditional domestic winter fruits of citrus, apples, and pears," the USDA notes. Chile now supplies a fifth of US fruit, the USDA adds.</div>
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Avocados<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.avocadosfromchile.org/chilean-avocados/natural-environment/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">were part of that boom</a>. As O'Neill notes, land devoted to avocados has expanded rapidly—from about 6,180 hectares (15,270 acres) in 1980 to 27,000 hectares (66,700 acres) in 2006, all the way to 36,000 hectares (88,960 acres) in 2014, according to the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://gain.fas.usda.gov/Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/Avocado%20Annual_Santiago_Chile_11-27-2013.pdf" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">USDA.</a></div>
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And just as in California, climate change and drought have meant less surface water flowing from mountain ranges to irrigate crops—and a shift to pumping water from underground aquifers. As a result, producers have "used so much of the region's waters that small farmers with shallow wells—and some nearby towns—are left with no water," O'Neill writes, echoing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-c1-east-porterville-20140918-story.html#page=1" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">reports of waterless towns</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in California's Central Valley.</div>
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Like our Golden State, Chile takes a laissez-faire approach to groundwater regulation, O’Neill reports—a legacy of the reign of General Augusto Pinochet, a free-market zealot who came to power in a US-backed coup in 1973 and remained dictator until 1990.</div>
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And large, export-minded farm operations have the wherewithal to drill larger and deeper wells, squeezing out small farms and nearby communities, O'Neill reports. Meanwhile, the profits from Chile's farm export boom<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/05/seasonal-agricultural-workers-left-chilean-boom/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">remains pretty concentrated in the hands of large landowners</a>.</div>
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Chile's avocado harvest starts in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.westpakavocado.com/2007/avocados/availability.cfm" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">runs from August to March</a>—making it a prime supplier during the football season guacamole blitz.</div>
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O'Neill's piece gives us something to think about as we plunge chips into that delicious dip. "When you eat an avocado that comes from [a large producer in] Chile, think about the fact that the water used to produce it is water that homes in the country's most humble communities now lack," water activist Rodrigo Mundaca tells her.</div>
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Source: Tom Philpott 'Mother Jones' Article</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-12230727449003609532014-10-05T14:20:00.000-07:002014-10-05T14:20:06.133-07:00The 3 Best Abdominal Exercises That Are NOT Your "Normal" Ab Exercises<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; clear: both; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 16px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>A<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;">unique ab workout</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that doesn't contain your typical boring stomach exercises - no crunches or situps here!</strong></span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial;">Instead of the typical ab routines that we see so often with crunches, situps, leg lifts, etc... I like to give my readers better options for metabolism-boosting high intensity workouts that work their entire body while also working their abs... thus building rock hard abs & core, but also creating a much better fat-burning workout than a typical ab workout.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I'm going to show you an example today of one of my favorite "ab workouts" that doesn't include any direct "ab exercises" at all. This is actually a full body workout that works your abs pretty hard indirectly, and stimulates a good metabolism boost! It's in a tri-set format (similar to a super-set but alternating between 3 exercises instead of 2).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Here goes:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #ffff99;"><strong>1a.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Renegade Dumbbell Rows<br /><strong>1b.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Front Squats with Barbell<br /><strong>1c.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Mountain Climbers on Floor</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">A good rep scheme to use with this could be 3-4 sets of 8 reps for each exercise, or more sets for less reps, such as 5 sets of 5 reps of each exercise. Mountain climbers can be done for a time interval (such as 30 seconds) instead of "reps".</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: small;"><em><span style="background-color: #ffff99;">Exercise Pics & Descriptions:</span></em></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Renegade dumbbell rows</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>are done starting in a pushup position with the hands on 2 dumbbells. You then row one dumbbell up while stabilizing your body with the other arm. Bring the dumbbell back to the ground and alternate the rowing arm while stabilizing with the opposite arm. This stabilizing effect during the rows creates incredible work for your entire midsection core area. Trust me... you'll feel it in the abs!<br /><br /> <img alt="renegade rows start position for solid core" height="220" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/Image/renegade-row1_small.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor;" width="293" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><img alt="renegade rows - great ab & core exercise" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/Image/renegade-row2_small.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor;" /><br />Renegade Rows shown above</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Front squats</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>are done similar to back squats, however with the barbell in front of your body on the front of your shoulders instead of resting on the upper back as in back squats. You stabilize the barbell on your shoulders by crossing your arms and pushing your fists into the bar against your shoulders while keeping your elbows out in front of the body.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This takes a little practice at first, so you will want to seek a professional trainer at your gym to help you with the form. Front squats require extreme stabilization strength from the abs due to the barbell weight being shifted to the front of the body instead of the back. Even though this is mostly a leg exercise, you'll feel this one in the abs big time! Any time I do front squats after not having done them for a while, I get a really deep soreness in my abs the next day.<br /><br /> <img alt="front squats start position for rock hard abs" height="220" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/Image/front_squat_start1_small_copy.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor;" width="293" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><img alt="front squats - surprisingly good abdominal exercise" height="220" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/Image/front_squat_mid1_small_copy.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor;" width="293" /><br />Front squats shown above</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Mountain climbers</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>are done by starting in a pushup position and then shuffling your feet in and out so that your knees are moving in under your chest and then back out to starting position. It sort of resembles climbing a mountain but flat on the floor. If you want an advanced version, you can also shuffle your hands 8-10 inches forward and backward in addition to the leg movements. This really makes it a full body exercise and MUCH more difficult than standard mountain climbers.<br /><br /><img alt="mountain climbers ab exercise start" height="220" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/Image/mountain-climber1_small.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor;" width="293" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><img alt="mountain climbers - great ab exercise" height="220" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/Image/mountain-climber2_small.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor;" width="293" /><br />Mountain Climbers shown above</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">After finishing each exercise, try to move to the next exercise with very minimal rest (no more than 15-20 seconds). Rest about 1-2 minutes after completing each "tri-set" before repeating the sequence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This will give you one of the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>best ab workouts</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>you've ever had without even doing any direct ab exercises.... and with a LOT more fat-burning metabolic effect compared to standard ab exercises... You'll see what I mean after you try it! This can be used as a stand-alone workout (as it can be very intense if you use challenging weights), or you can incorporate it as a portion of your full body workout.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Source: <span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Mike Geary<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-84702177447556890852014-09-30T07:18:00.000-07:002014-09-30T07:18:37.539-07:007 Reasons Why You Should Start The Day With A Cup Of Warm Water And Lemon Juice!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #afd698; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/22px "Droid Sans", sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
The way you start every day is incredibly important. Whether you are a mother, coach, writer, owner of a company or teacher, the question is, what is the first ingredient you put in your body in the morning. Take some time for a ritual, even better – develop a habit that will make you happier and healthier! Some lemon juice and warm water miraculously wash the liver and the kidneys. The recipe is very simple – a cup of warm water (not hot, because the hot water will destroy the vitamin C, the mineral which is responsible for this story) and juice of half a lemon. How much good this will do to your body, you will learn from the following:</div>
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<a class="fancybox" href="http://www.healthyfoodplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Warm-Water-and-Lemon-Juice.jpg" rel="fancybox" style="color: #0094d2; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Warm Water and Lemon Juice!" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1689" height="336" src="http://www.healthyfoodplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Warm-Water-and-Lemon-Juice.jpg" style="background-color: white; border: 4px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto 10px; max-width: 100%; padding: 1px;" width="656" /></a></div>
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<strong>1. It is good for the immune system</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>– Okay, we all know, Vitamin C is excellent against colds and flu, but the lemon also contains potassium, and it stimulates the brain and the nervous system and controls the blood pressure as well.</div>
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<strong>2. It regulates the pH levels</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>– The regulation of the pH levels with an appropriate diet and lifestyle is one of the most important factors of the optimal health. Although it is sour, the citric acids are metabolized during digestion and produce potassium carbonate, which helps to neutralize the acidity and protects the digestive system. Alkaline body is a healthy and strong body!</div>
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<strong>3. A good fighter against extra weight</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>– The lemon contains pectin, digestible fibers which reduce the desire to eat. The warm water creates a sense of satiety, and therefore, it reduces the appetite.</div>
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<strong>4. Stimulates the digestion</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>– When we talk about cleansing the body, the water is one of the best, if not the best choice. Warm water is even a better choice! It stimulates the gastrointestinal tract (stomach, small intestine and colon). The minerals and vitamins in lemons (and limes) help the body to eliminate the toxins in the digestive tract.</div>
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<strong>5. It acts as a diuretic</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>– The lemon juice helps to eliminate the unwanted components and toxins from the body, it prevents the retention of fluids by increasing the frequency of urination.</div>
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<strong>6. It cleans the skin</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>– Vitamin C is good for the skin (teeth and bones). The lemon juice eliminates the toxins from the blood that cause wrinkles.</div>
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<strong>7. It hydrates the lymphatic system</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>– A glass of warm water and lemon juice can help you to start your day hydrated, which means it prevents dehydration and adrenal fatigue. When your body is dehydrated, or deeply dehydrated (adrenal fatigue) it cannot perform all appropriate functions, which leads to toxins, stress and constipation.</div>
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Do not be surprised if after some time you start looking at mornings more positively.</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.healthyfoodplace.com/">www.healthyfoodplace.com</a> </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-79641953759289796882014-09-30T05:30:00.000-07:002014-09-30T05:30:31.439-07:00Do You Really Need "Cardio" Workouts?<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Are cardio workouts or weight training more effective for losing fat...</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /><br />In this article, I have an intriguing discussion about cardio workouts, which will hopefully get you thinking differently, and trying new things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><img align="right" alt="lose body fat with weight training" height="124" src="http://www.truthaboutabs.com/images/cms/Image/6abs.jpg" style="border: 0px currentColor;" width="88" />You may know I've been called the anti-cardio guy before, but this week I'm back posing the question to you... Do you really need cardio training to get lean and in great shape? By the way, you'll see in a minute that I'm not really "anti-cardio", just "anti traditional cardio".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Most fitness buffs, weekend warriors, or anyone trying to get in shape or lose body fat, consider it a fact that they need "cardio" exercise to accomplish these goals. They would never even question it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">However, I'm not only questioning it, I'm going to refute it! In fact, you may be surprised to know that some of the leanest and meanest people I know (men and women), NEVER do any type of normal or traditional cardio. And I've spent over 15 years working out in various gyms, and hanging out with athletes of all sorts, so I've seen it all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I will say that there can be a place for low-moderate level cardio for really overweight or deconditioned people, but even in those cases, there can be more effective methods.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">But what exactly is "cardio"?</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Most people would consider cardio to be pumping away mindlessly on a treadmill, riding a stationary bike, or coasting on an elliptical machine, while watching the TV screen at their state of the art gym. This is what I call "traditional cardio". Hmmm, no wonder the majority of people get bored with their workouts and give up after a couple months without seeing results.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">But if you look closer, "cardio" exercise can be considered any type of exercise or activity that strengthens the cardiovascular system. I'm not going to get into anything technical like increasing your VO2 max or anything like that. To keep it simple, if it gets your heart pumping, and gets you huffing and puffing, it's cardio. I don't care if you're holding dumbbells or a barbell and everyone calls it a weight training exercise...it's still conditioning your heart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Let's take a look at a couple examples. Take a barbell (or dumbbell, or<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>kettlebell) clean & press for example, which involves lifting a barbell from the floor up to shoulders, then push pressing overhead. And listen up ladies, because even though this is usually seen as a manly exercise, it doesn't matter if you're not lifting 250 lbs; if 45 lbs is challenging to you, then you will still benefit just as much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">At first glance, most people think of the barbell C&P only as a weight training exercise or strength exercise. However, I challenge you to do a hard set of around 10-15 reps on the C&P. If you used a challenging enough weight, what you'll find is that your heart rate is probably up to about 80-90% of your recommended max, and you are huffing and puffing like you just ran a 100-meter sprint (which by the way, sprinting kicks the crap out of jogging any day if you want the easiest way to lose the flab).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Try the same thing for a set of 20 reps of one-arm snatches or swings with each arm with a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>kettlebell<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>or dumbbell, and tell me your legs aren't burning, heart racing, and you're gasping for breath. How about trying 5 minutes straight of bodyweight squats, lunges, and pushups with very little rest. Again, notice your heart pounding, sweat pouring off of you, and chest heaving for breaths!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Try and tell me you're not conditioning your heart with this style of training! Conventional thinking says that these are weight training or strength training exercises. However, they are fullfilling your cardio workout needs as well (saving you time!).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Not only do you save time, but you strengthen and condition almost every muscle in your entire body with these full body exercises if you do them with enough intensity...something that can't be said for that boring stationary bike ride or treadmill jaunt while reading or watching TV.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Source: <span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer</em></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-71746576849029927122014-09-28T14:42:00.000-07:002014-09-30T07:19:27.786-07:00The Top 8 Ways To Get Rid Of Belly Fat<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #afd698; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/22px "Droid Sans", sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
Losing belly fat is not something that can be achieved overnight by doing loads of abdominal exercises. To lose belly fat quickly, not only will you need to start exercising, you will need to maintain a healthy diet.<br />
Check out these eight natural and simple ways that will help you to lose belly fat forever.</div>
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<a class="fancybox" href="http://www.healthyfoodplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Ways-To-Get-Rid-Of-Belly-Fat.jpg" rel="fancybox" style="color: #0094d2; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Ways To Get Rid Of Belly Fat" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1573" src="http://www.healthyfoodplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Ways-To-Get-Rid-Of-Belly-Fat.jpg" height="308" style="background-color: white; border: 4px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto 10px; max-width: 100%; padding: 1px;" width="550" /></a></div>
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<strong>1. Start your day with lemon juice<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong><br />
This is one of the best therapies to eliminate belly fat. Pinch some yellow juice into a glass of warm water and add some salt to it. Continue drinking this every morning to boost your metabolism and to get rid of that paunch.</div>
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<strong>2. Stay off from white rice<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong><br />
Replace white rice with various wheat products. Include brown rice, brown bread, whole grains, oats and quinoa in your diet.</div>
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<strong>3. Avoid sugary substances</strong><br />
Stay away from sweets, sweetened drinks and foods rich in oil. Consuming these foods can increase body fat around various areas of your body like abdomen and thighs.</div>
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<strong>4. Drink plenty of water<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong><br />
If you want to get rid of your belly, then drink sufficient amount of water every day. Drinking water, after regular intervals will help to boost your metabolism and remove toxins from your body.</div>
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<strong>5. Eat raw garlic<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong><br />
Chew two to three cloves of garlic every morning, and drink a glass of lemon water after that. This treatment will double up your weight loss process and make your blood circulation smooth in your body.</div>
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<strong>6. Avoid non-veg food<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong><br />
To eliminate belly fat, it is recommended that one should avoid non-vegetarian food as far as possible.</div>
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<strong>7. Load up on fruits and vegetables<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong><br />
Eat a bowl of fruits daily in the morning and evening. This will fill you up with many antioxidants, minerals and vitamins.</div>
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<strong>8. Spice up your cooking</strong><br />
Use spices like cinnamon, ginger and black pepper in your cooking. These spices are loaded with health benefits. They help to improve your insulin resistance and reduce levels of sugar in your blood.</div>
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Source: www.healthyfoodplace.com </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6207502587446136037.post-53075603124647823412014-09-28T11:54:00.003-07:002014-09-28T11:54:50.396-07:00Strategies You MUST Know If You Ever Want To Stand A Chance Of Getting A Flat Stomach With 6-Pack Abs<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">For Both Men And Women...</span></strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Below is an interview that I did with world-famous trainer and Men's Health Magazine Training Advisor, Craig Ballantyne as he grilled me on the top secrets for fat loss and six pack abs. Check it out...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>CB:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Mike, give us a brief background about yourself</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>MG:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Sure Craig. Well, I'm currently a Certified Nutrition Specialist and a Certified Personal Trainer. I've been dedicated to improving my knowledge of fitness, both training techniques and nutrition aspects, for over 15 years now, and I never stop trying to learn more each and every day. I've also been a contributing writer for Muscle & Fitness Hers Magazine, and I'm the author of the popular internationally-selling book, "The Truth about Six Pack Abs" which has had hundreds of thousands of readers in over 150 countries currently.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I just love helping people with this area of their lives, as not only does it improve their outward appearance and confidence, but more importantly, improves how they feel and their internal health, helping them to live longer and healthier lives. It's something I'm very passionate about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>CB:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Okay, so where does the average man or woman go wrong when it comes to training abs?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>MG:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Ok, most people are probably going to be surprised with this answer. In their quest for 'six pack abs', the biggest mistake I see people making is wasting WAY too much of their time training their abs directly... pumping away with all kinds of different abs-specific exercises.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I'm sure you know what I'm referring to. The person is trying so hard to get those abs to show, that they're spending almost all of their time in the gym with hundreds of reps of various crunches, leg raises, twisting exercises, etc. Meanwhile, all of that wasted time directly training the abs could have been better spent on a properly designed full body workout program that would elicit a much better metabolic response and increase the fat-burning hormone levels in their body as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">After all, losing the stomach fat that is covering the abs is the MOST important aspect for most people to finally be able to make their abs visible. Unfortunately, pumping away with hundreds of crunches and leg raises does NOT cause much of a metabolic or fat burning hormonal response. This is the main focus of my Truth about Six Pack Abs book... full body training programs and proper nutrition to strip off that stubborn belly fat and reveal the six pack that's hiding underneath!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Of course it wouldn't be an abs book if I didn't focus on ab development too, but I make sure firstly that the most important concepts for lasting body fat reduction are understood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>CB:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Do you see any gender differences in mistakes they make? And more importantly, do you see any gender differences in the response to various types of ab training?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>MG:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>To be honest, I don't really see any need for men or women to train differently. Bottom line... the best exercises are the best exercises regardless of gender.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">However, in regards to mistakes I see between genders... Yes, I tend to see women more often are deathly afraid to use weight training with anything but really light weights. That is a shame, because THE most effective way to gain control over your body fat for life, is to maximize your lean muscle that your body carries, as well as working that muscle hard through intense resistance exercise regularly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">It's important for women to realize that regular strength training using heavier resistance will NOT "bulk them up" (as long as caloric intake is controlled), but rather is one of the key secrets for losing body fat and staying lean year-round. As a matter of fact, some of the leanest females that I've trained over the years are the ones that aren't afraid to work hard with the weights.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I also notice that most women (and a lot of guys too) spend way too much time with<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>slow cardio exercise. This is simply not necessary, and the way I combine high intensity resistance training into full body routines provides enough of a "cardio" workout in itself usually. We'll get back to this in a minute though.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>CB:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>What about ol' school sit-ups? Do you use these? Are they good, bad, or does it "depend"?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>MG:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Sit-ups are a controversial topic. I don't think they're good or bad per se, but rather "in between". I didn't include them in my program. I simply don't feel they are necessary, and I think there are much more effective abs exercises to focus on. Personally, I almost never do sit-ups except occasionally for a little variety every now and then.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>CB:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Give us a weekly sample ab training program. How many days per week? What are a couple of the best exercises you'd pick? How many sets? Reps? Rest?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>MG:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Well, first I'd like to point out that the full body movements that make up the majority of my programs indirectly work the abs and the entire "core" area to a fairly decent extent. However, I do include abs-specific exercises into the routines generally about twice per week. The "abs-specific" portion of the workouts generally only take about 5 minutes at most with very little rest between exercises.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Once people are past the beginning phase of gaining some initial ab strength, I try to get them away from the exercises that are too easy, where someone can do 50 or 100 reps, as is frequently common with standard crunches. Instead, I like to focus on higher resistance exercises that actually stimulate the muscle fibers to a much greater degree. One example of a higher resistance abs exercise is hanging leg raises with a proper "pelvic curl up".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">It's funny but usually someone that has been wasting so much time with hundreds of reps of crunches can usually only do a few solid reps when they first attempt some of these higher resistance exercises. We also make sure not to neglect some rotational movements, as well as some work for the deeper muscles like the transversus abdominis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>CB:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>What do you use for burning fat, intervals or slow cardio? Or both? Any gender differences here? Or differences between fitness levels (beginner vs. advanced)?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>MG:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In most cases, my answer is definitely intervals... or as I like to call it "variable intensity training". In general, I think slow steady pace cardio is a waste of time, especially if the goal is lasting fat loss.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I think people need to get away from this thinking about "fat burning zones" and calories burned during the actual workout, and look at the bigger picture of what you're doing in your workout to stimulate the greatest metabolic response in your body... and the best metabolic and hormonal response is achieved through variable intensity training and strength training, not slow steady-pace cardio.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Now I will say that if someone is really deconditioned and can't handle higher intensity exercise routines just yet, this still doesn't mean that they can't simply use lower intensity routines, but still use it in a "variable intensity" fashion, by alternating between higher and lower exertion levels throughout the workout.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>CB:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And finally Mike, 1 or 2 of your top secret nutrition tips for carving out those abs. Open your vault of info!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>MG:</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Well Craig, I think you'd agree that there has never been a more confusing time regarding proper nutrition for consumers. Every so called "expert" out there seems to disagree and contradict each other on what's the best way to eat for fat loss and overall good health.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">One of the most important messages I try to teach my readers in this world of heavy confusion is that your diet doesn't need to conform to any of the fad diets... you don't need to go "low carb" or "low fat", or high or low anything for that matter to be successful in losing enough body fat to get lean enough to be able to see your abs. I like to try to simplify things for my readers. I think that balance is the key to success along with eating a diet that is made up of nutrient dense foods in their natural state (as unprocessed as possible).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In general, it is the heavy processing of foods that makes it wreak havoc inside our bodies. Most foods in their natural unprocessed state are inherently good for us. Of course there are always exceptions... a salad of poison ivy leaves is "natural and unprocessed" but certainly would not be good for us!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I'll leave your readers with a couple of the most important aspects of nutrition that help to get you lean for life...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>1.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Get enough quality protein in the daily diet - not only does it have a higher thermic effect than carbs and fat (so you burn more calories digesting it), but it also creates satiety so your hunger is satisfied longer. Plus it's a building block for maintaining and building lean muscle... And remember that the amount of lean muscle you carry is one of the main factors for controlling your metabolism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>2.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Think fiber! When it comes to carbs, make sure that almost all of your<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>carbohydrate intake<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is from higher fiber sources like vegetables, fruits, and high fiber unrefined grains. Try to avoid refined sugars and refined grains as that is one of the main reasons so many people struggle with body fat. I personally don't eat many grains as I prefer to get most of my carbs from veggies and fruits, but I do use sprouted grain breads fairly regularly too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I generally recommend looking for carbohydrate sources that have at least 2-3 grams of fiber per each 10 grams of total carbs. Remember that fiber helps fill you up and also slows down the glycemic response of the foods you eat, all beneficial for getting lean.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>3.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Don't be afraid to eat fat! Many people try to go way too low on their fat intake and this can negatively affect hormone levels in your body as well as causing more cravings. Try to eat enough healthy fats daily.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Good sources are all nuts and seeds, nut butters, avocados, olive oil, organic meats and eggs, coconuts and virgin coconut oil. On that note,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>saturated fats<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>from tropical oils are VERY misunderstood, even by many nutritionists and other health professionals. Yes they are composed highly of saturated fats, but are actually beneficial (but that's way beyond the scope of this article).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>4.</strong><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Avoid the two worst things in our food supply at ALL COSTS:</span></div>
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<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">artificial trans fats<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>from margarines, shortening, and hydrogenated oils that are in most processed foods and deep fried foods</span></li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">high fructose corn syrup, which is in almost all sweetened products on the market</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Again, if you avoid processed foods, it becomes easy to avoid these two worst offenders in our food supply.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I always contend that once you get a handle on these 4 main points of your diet detailed above, the rest starts to take care of itself as you gain control over your appetite, blood sugar levels, hormone levels, etc. It all falls into place, and you eventually gain total control over how lean you want to get.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"><em>Source: Mike Geary, author - The Truth about Six Pack Abs, interviewed by Craig Ballantyne - CSCS, Men's Health Magazine Training Advisor</em></span></div>
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