The art of healthy lifestyle

Physical Fitness

2009-11-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

Physical Fitness
Physical fitness is the ability of your body systems to work together efficiently to allow you to be healthy and effectively perform activities of daily living.

Being efficient means being able to do daily activities with the least amount of effort.

A fit person is able to perform schoolwork as well as responsibilities at home and still have enough energy and vigor to enjoy school sports and other leisure activities.

A fit person has the ability to respond to normal life situations such as raking the leaves at homes, stocking shelves at a part time job, or marching in the band at school.

A fit person also has the ability to respond to emergency situations such as running to get help or aiding a friend in distress.

As a child you were probably very active and thought little about improving or maintaining your fitness.

However, most people become less active as they grow older.

Developing a personal plan for regular physical activity can help you keep your activity level high and avoid sedentary living.

The activities you choose can be those that you like doing best and those that are best for you. Getting fit and staying fit can be fun when you choose activities that you enjoy.
Physical Fitness

General Definition of Obesity

2009-10-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

General Definition of Obesity
Obesity is generally defined as the abnormal or excessive accumulation of fat in adipose tissue to the extent that health may be impaired.

Measuring the level of adipose tissue and determining when it is likely to affect health is not an easy task.

Quantification of adipose tissue mass can be achieved by a number of laboratory methods including underwater body density measurement and body fat content estimated by dual energy X-ray absorptiometer.

In addition, the development of new techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT), has provided researchers with the opportunities to describe human adiposity in more detail.

However, most of these methods require costly equipment meaning that there is limited to clinical research setting.

In large scale population surveys and clinical/public health screening, an index of body weight adjusted for stature is commonly used as a surrogate for body fat content.

These indices are defined as different combinations of weight and height, such as weight divided by height or are defined as weight expressed as a percentage of mean weight divide by height or are defined as weight expressed as a percentage of mean weight for a given height and sex.

The most widely used in Quetelet’s index, better known as body mass index (BMI), which is body weight (kg) divided by height squared (meter square). This index has been shown to correlate weakly with height and strongly with body fatness in adults.

Determining the weight status status and level of adiposity in children and adolescent is even more problematical.

This is a stage of rapid growth and development.

During growth in childhood and adolescence, not only does height increase but body composition changes as well, thus classification of obesity according to a single measure is difficult.

In addition, international or regional weight status standards for children and adolescents may be less reliable as the age of onset of puberty and its associated physical changes often varies between different countries, ethnic groups or cultures.
General Definition of Obesity

It is not our fault

2009-10-05T07:31:00.001-07:00

It is not our fault
Before planning how to get well, it may help to consider the various reasons we get sick, only a few of which are under our control.

Sometimes our genes are programmed for susceptibility to one or another awful disease.

We may lack sufficiently healthy food or water. We may grow up without opportunities for exercise, fresh air, education, relaxation or love.

Studies of stressful life events – job loss, divorce, relocation, death of a family member, etc – consistently show higher rates of all types of disease following such stressors.

To these, we can add all of our maladaptive response to life’s insults: bad posture, attitudes, or diets, unacknowledged emotions, lack of exercise, overwork, hurry, various forms of self abuse and addition.

All of these injuries behaviors were learned somewhere or adopted before we knew better for reasons that were necessary - or at least seemed like good ideas – at the the time.

Most disease, then except for overwhelming infections or pure genetic defects, arise from numbers of factors stretching back through our lives and heredity and outward though all our social and environmental influences, a web of causation that we cam never completely sort out.

For various reasons, our bodies and minds (do not get their needs met, and they react by getting sick.)

Our bodies weren’t made to last forever and years of wear and tear eventually cause breakdown.

Therefore, it makes no sense to blame ourselves for illness, to feel guilty about things we could not control.

Guilt doesn’t do anyone any good. Far worse than guilt, though, is helplessness, the feeling that turns us into victims without hope of salvation.
It is not our fault

Effects of Exercise on Mood

2009-09-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

Effects of Exercise on Mood
Everybody now knows how that physical activity and feelings or energy are integrally related.

Moderate exercise raises energy temporary, and physical conditioning through long term exercise leads to sustained levels of higher energy.

Of course too much physical activity can reduce energy but the low levels of physical activity that modern people maintain usually do not reach that point of diminishing energy, except in short term exertion or in conjunction with health problems.

Exercise also can reduce tension, although this mood relationship with exercise is not as clear as the exercise association.

In any event, the mood effects of exercise have been evident in study after study.

Therefore, in managing moods it is essential to be fully aware of how physical activity affects you.
Effects of Exercise on Mood

Walking –The King of Exercise

2009-09-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

Walking –The King of Exercise
As you walk grasp yourself in the small of the back and feel how your entire frame responds to every stride.

Notice how almost all of your muscle are functioning rhythmically.

No other exercise gives us the same body harmony of movement and improved circulation. Brisk walking is the best exercise for almost everyone.

Your walking should never be done consciously, No “heel and toe” business. No getting there in a certain time.

Let it be fun and natural. Walk naturally with head high, spine and chest lifted up. You will feel elated, so you will carry yourself proudly, straight, erect and with arm swinging.

Vow to become a health walker and make the daily walk a fixed item on your health program all the year around, in all kinds of weather.

If the outer world of nature fails to interest you, turn to the inner world of the mind. As you walk, your body ceases to matter and you become as near poet and philosopher as you will ever be.

By end of the days, the healthy functioning of your muscles and quickened blood circulating with a sense of balanced harmony and happiness.

Gardening is another rewarding form exercise. It may give enough exercise in the open to help keep you in good physical condition.

But gardening may not prevent weight gain if there is too little movement and because you are bent over more instead of being erect.
Walking –The King of Exercise

Shake the Salt Habit

2009-08-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

Shake the Salt Habit
The health of your arteries is critically important to virtually every aspect of your health.

Too much salt (sodium) ages your cardiovascular system by raising your blood pressure and hardening, stiffening and thickening your arteries and the walls of your heart.

You want to keep your blood vessel soft, smooth and supple like they were when you were a child and a teenager and avoid developing the rigid, inflamed and crusty pipes that can lead to heart attack, stroke, and congestion heart failure.

As an American adult, chances of developing high blood pressure during lifetime are 90 percent.

If you continue to follow your current lifestyle, sooner or later you will probably get hypertension – the medical term for high blood pressure.

Why? For starters, the average American consumer about 4000 mg of sodium daily, which is about six to ten times more salt than we were designed to eat.

Add the fact that blood pressure rises in response to too much body fat, stress and sugar and too little sleep and exercise and you have to the recipe for high blood pressure.

Excess sodium does much more than just raises your blood pressure. A study shows that high sodium intake reduced blood vessel wall function.

In addition, salt leaches the calcium from your bones, making you prone to osteoporosis and fractures, and also appears to increase cancer risk – especially in gastrointestinal tract.

A recent study found that extra salt the diet increased the like-hood of heartburn (also known as esophageal reflux) by as much as 70 percent.

A good place to start lowering the sodium in our diet is by removing the salt shaker from the table and hiding it in an inconvenient spot.

But only about 5 percent of the salt in our diet comes from the salt shaker; 75 percent comes from processed and restaurant foods.

Most people do not choose to eat high sodium product – they jut eat the foods that are readily available in our culture.

Salt is everywhere in our modern diet even in foods such as bread that don’t taste salty.

Processed foods are loaded with salt to help preserve freshness, and the more sodium you eat, the more you will crave salt. When you eliminate highly processed, high sodium foods from your diet, you will take a huge step toward a healthier, more vigorous life.
Shake the Salt Habit

Formula to Good Health

2009-07-06T03:39:00.000-07:00

Formula to Good Health
Most American today are overfed yet undernourished, which eventually leads to obesity and poor health.

The answer to those pervasive problem is simply to eliminate the low nutrient to calories ration foods like processed grains, sugars, fatty processed meats, soft drinks and packaged snack foods, and increase the intake of high nutrient to calorie ratio foods like vegetables, fruits, seafood and whey protein.

A diet with a high nutrient to calorie ration supplies with large quantities of beneficial vitamins, minerals and other antiaging phytonutrients, but at the same time it reduces your calorie intake.

If you want to lean, fit, vigorous, and brought and happy, you must do what you are designed to do. People usually eat until they are full or satiated.

If you consume natural high nutrient but low calorie foods like fruits and vegetables, you can eat more volume and thus will feel satisfied for a longer period after eating.

It is very difficult to get fit by eating vegetables and fruit.

If you also make sure to include healthy lean protein with each meal, you will stay full longer and be able to avoid cravings.

If you trying to lose weight and not feel deprived, subtle changes can lead to realm lasting results.

A study researchers tested whether they could fool people into thinking they were eating the same amount of calories even though they trimmed their intake by 800 calories a day.

They did this by “super-sizing” the portions of foods with high nutrient to calorie like vegetable and fruits.

At the same time they cut high calorie synthetic foods containing sugars and fats by about 25%.

As turned out, the participant did not even notice that they were consuming fewer calories because they were eating more food and staying full longer.

On the other hand, when the researchers cut calories by just decreasing portion sizes, participants complained they weren’t getting enough to eat.

In other word, you will feel less deprived and have better luck losing body fat if you increase your intake of fruits and vegetables and cut out processed high sugar and high fat foods, rather than relying on cutting portion size alone.
Formula to Good Health

Take Control of Your Life

2009-06-04T21:47:00.000-07:00

Take Control of Your Life
1. Slow down
Save some energy for your body and life, instead of giving every last ounce to work, worry, other demands or entertainment.

2. Make a change
Change something in your life that is damaging. No matter how small any successful change builds self confidence and makes the next change easier.

3. Get help
None of us can do it alone; life is a cooperative effort. Learn to find and ask for help.

4. Value your body and your life
Listen to your body and treat it with respect. Fill your life with more pleasure, love and reason to live.

5. Grown up. Educate yourself, take responsibility, be assertive
Accept yourself the way you are, but don’t give up in getting better.

These steps would sound intimidating, even to me, except for three things.

First, we rarely need the whole program. Anything we do for ourselves is likely to pay dividends.

Second, every single step should feel good; the whole idea, supported by scientific studies, is that improving quality of life will improve our health.

Third, we’ve probably doing many things right already.
Take Control of Your Life

Exercise and Hypertension

2009-05-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

Exercise and Hypertension
Lifestyle plays a major role in the development of hypertension and any program to reduce blood pressure must take this into consideration.

Medical experts note that any changes that are implemented must be maintained if blood pressure is to be controlled in a long term basis.

Smoking should be moderated or preferably totally avoided and alcohol intake should be kept to a minimum.

Weight loss reduces blood pressure in this with and without hypertension and be primary goal for hypertensive who are obese or moderately overweight.

Other factors for reducing and controlling hypertension are increased exercise and stress management.

Regular exercise reduces stress and blood pressure, so it is highly recommended as an integral part of your life.

Consistent aerobic exercise can both prevent and lower hypertension.

Swimming, which is frequently prescribed as a non impact exercise to lower high blood pressure, can produce a significant decrease in resting heart rate (a sign of cardiovascular health) and systolic blood pressure in previously sedentary people with elevated blood pressure.
Exercise and Hypertension

Obesity and Weight Loss

2009-05-04T00:55:00.000-07:00

Obesity and Weight Loss
Obesity clearly poses a danger to health, have been associated with numerous health problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and certain types of cancer.

However, diets for weight loss have been shown to be ineffective and even damaging to health.

A well balanced that avoids the wrong dietary fats, refined sugars, and excess calories (which all contribute to weight gain), regular exercise, drinking adequate amounts of pure water and stress reduction can help maintain a healthy weight.

Weight loss has become a national obsession in America. As many as 40% of women and 24% of men in the U.S are trying to loose weight at any given time through such diverse methods as diets, special dietary supplements, exercise, behavior modifications and drugs.

While this obsession is often fueled by psychological needs (the urge to conform to an artificial of beauty fostered by media, fashion and peer pressure) rather than physical needs, it is estimated that 97 millions Americans are overweight.

Excess weight has been linked to a number of health problems, including high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, gallbladder disease, respiratory conditions, as well as breast, endometrial and uterine cancers in women and cancer of the colon and rectum in men.

In fact, 85% of Type II diabetes cases are attributed to obesity, along with 45% of hypertension, 35% of heart disease and 18% of high cholesterol.

Obesity has also been shown to result in a decreased life span for both women and men and may be contributing factor in as many as 300,000 deaths each year.

The answers to weight gain and weight loss, though, are not always simple and easy.

Under controlled settings, most people trying to lose weight are usually able to lose about 10% of their total body weight, but up to two thirds of that weight is regained within a year.

To achieve significant and permanent weight loss, you need to come up with a plan – incorporating healthier eating, exercise, and stress reduction.
Obesity and Weight Loss

Eat Big to Get a Smaller Waist

2009-04-27T02:02:00.000-07:00

Eat Big to Get a Smaller Waist
Big foods are those that are low in caloric density, but they give you a feeling of satiety on fewer calories.

Examples include salads, noncreamy soups, vegetables fresh fruits, water, nonfat plain yogurt, fish and seafood, and cooked oatmeal.

Because these natural high-volume, or “big,” foods are high in fiber and water they fill you up on fewer calories than the calorie-dense highly processed foods.

You are hard-wired to eat until your stomach is stretched, which generally takes about fifteen to twenty minutes.

If you are eating cheese fries, chicken nuggets and M&M’s and drinking sugared sodas, during that fifteen to twenty minute meal, you will consume thousands of calories, mostly in the form of unhealthy and nutritionally barren foods that will be stored as belly fat and leave you hungry again in two or three hours.

On the other hand, if you sit down to a meal of boil shrimp, crisp celery sticks with guacamole dip, an apple and a tall glass of iced tea, fifteen to twenty minutes later you will be just even full though you consumed a fraction of the calories and loads more antiaging antioxidants, fiber and vitamins.

As a bonus, you remain full for four to six hours without cravings for junk food.

Many healthy foods are essential calorie-free, including spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and asparagus. But not everybody enjoys all the vegetables.

Drinking calorie-free beverage such as water tea and coffee is another way to fill up without stressing your system with excess calories.
Eat Big to Get a Smaller Waist

Variety of Foods: The Good and the Bad

2009-04-06T06:52:00.000-07:00

Variety of Foods: The Good and the Bad
You will thrive best if you can learn to eat an array of fresh, natural foods to get the wide range of nutrients that are necessary for vibrant health.

Different foods provide different nutrients, so the greater variety of nature’s bounty in which you partake, the better health you will enjoy.

Eat an abundance of fruits and vegetables and try new ones every chance you get.

Look for brightly or deeply colored varieties as they are high in anti-aging antioxidants.

Variety is also important when choosing animal protein sources. Red meat poultry, nonfat dairy, whey protein, seafood, and fish all have very different nutritional profiles.

Try not to eat the same type of meat or fish day in and day out.

A mixture of protein sources will supply you with an array of healthful nutrients and still help you to avoid the over-consumption of potentially toxic substance that may be present in specific meats or fish.

For instance, tuna is fine once or twice a week, but if you ate it every day, you might end up accumulating toxic amounts of mercury.

Lean red meat is great in moderation, but when eaten in excess you might absorb too much iron, saturated fat, and heterocyclic amines (carcinogens).

Lean chicken breasts are low in fat but don’t have the beneficial omega-3 fats found in fish and seafood, or the high zinc levels of red meats.

Variety, however, have a dark side. The dramatic rise in America body weight over the past twenty-five years is paralleled by a line documenting the number of new man-made foods introduced into the diet over the same time period.

They are often advertised as low fat, low carb, or vitamin-fortified, but nearly all of these synthetic, caloric-dense delicious new foods are designed to entice us into overeating.

A whole host of designer “fat free” highly processed foods were gobbled up by the American public as it packed on pounds of fat tissue faster than grain-fed cattle in feed lots.
Variety of Foods: The Good and the Bad

Fruits and Veggies

2009-03-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

Fruits and Veggies
No matter what your health concerns – preventing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, whatever – the bottom-line massage from every health organization (including the American Heart Association; the American Cancer Society; the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; and the USDA) is to eat more fruits and vegetarians.

Yet more than 90 percent of Americans fail to consume the recommended amount.

Ideally, you should include a hefty portion of fruit and veggies in every meal and snack.

Here are some tips to help you boost your intake of these carbohydrate-rich foods that not only fuel your muscles but also protect your good health:

Whip together a fruit smoothie for breakfast: orange juice, banana, frozen berries

To your egg (white) omelet, add diced pepper, tomato, mushrooms

Add blueberries or sliced banana to pancakes; top with applesauce

No fresh fruit for your cereal? Use canned peaches, raisins or frozen berries

Put leftover dinner veggies into your lunchtime salad or soup

Keep within easy reach grap-and-go snack, such as small boxes of raisins, trail mix dried fruit, frozen 100 percent juice bars, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots and celery sticks.

Add shredded carrots to casseroles, chili, lasagna, meatloaf or soup

Fruits and Veggies

The Juice Fast

2009-02-10T21:02:00.001-08:00

The Juice Fast
Juice fasting is a safe and easy way to detoxify the body. Fasting is not harmful. If it were, mankind would not have evolved as a civilization.

Fasts have been recorded in ancient history and have been a part of virtually all religious. For example, in the orthodox Christian church, fasts have been practiced for centuries and are still a way of church life today.

We do not recommend water fasts because they are too hard on the body. Such fasts release too many stored-up toxins without supplying the nutrients needed to detoxify them.

These nutrients, especially the antioxidants (beta-carotene, vitamins C and E and the mineral selenium) supplied in abundance in the juices, bind with harmful toxins and carry them out of the body.

Some word of caution are in order regarding juice fasting. Children under seventeen should not follow a strict juice fast. But fruit and vegetable juices are a great supplement to a healthful diet for your child or adolescent.

Diabetics should seek a doctor’s approval before trying a juice fast. Hypoglycemics may benefits from using protein powder as a supplement during the fast. Whenever you are sick, your body is sending you a signal that it needs rest – both from strenuous work and from foods that are hard to digest – along with plenty of immune supporting nutrients.

Juices offer great quantities of nutrients that support immune system, and the juice fast is a powerful healing tool. But don’t wait until sick then fasting. There is a suggestion that juice fast several times a year. You can fast from one t0 five days any time you like. Some people fast from one to five days any time you like.
The Juice Fast

Fitness benefits of Hiking and Backpacking

2009-01-15T17:59:00.000-08:00

Fitness benefits of Hiking and Backpacking
Hiking help increase and maintain fitness levels and contribute to health and well being. One of the great things about hiking is that you can use it to get in shape backpacking.

Hiking and backpacking are fun ways to burn calories, spend times with other people and eat well.

Sunlight offers vitamins D and E, both important for immune functions as well as increased serotonin levels, which elevate mood. Nature has a restorative power and can help alleviate depression.

Contact with nature is correlated with living longer and actual biochemical changes occur in response to trees, plants and animals. As we enjoy the sights and sounds of nature, in addition to learning something about the nature environment, stress levels decrease and endorphins, which also elevate mood, are released.

We experience long term benefits from improving and maintaining physical fitness through hiking and backpacking both on the trail and at home. Moderate physical activity can result in lower healthy care cost and increased work performance.

Regular exercise improves mental healthy, providing a holistic sense of wellness, more positive moods and emotions, better mental clarity and better stress management skills, enabling us to better respond to the demands and joys of life.

This leads to higher self confidence, greater self competence, and better judgment and decision making.
Fitness benefits of Hiking and Backpacking

Active Lifestyle

2008-12-31T20:46:00.000-08:00

Active Lifestyle
One way is to set aside a special time for a formal exercise program, involving such planned activities as walking, jogging, swimming, tennis, aerobic dance, exercise to an exercise videotape, and so on.

But don’t underestimate the value and importance of just being more physically active throughout the day as you carry out your unusual activities. Both can be helpful.

The formal programs are usually more visible and get more attention. But being more physical in everyday life can also pay off. Consider taking the stairs a floor or two instead of waiting impatiently for a slow elevator.

Park and walk several blocks to work or to the store instead of circling the parking lot looking for the perfect, up close parking space.

Mow the lawn, work in the garden or just get once in a while and walk around the house.

These types of daily activities often not view as “exercise,” can add up to significant health benefits.

Recent studies show that even small amounts of daily activity can raise fitness levels, decrease heart disease risk, and boost mood and the activities can be pleasurable, enjoyable ones. Playing with children, dancing, gardening, bowling, and golf….all these enjoyable activities can make a biog difference.
Active Lifestyle

Breakfast: The most Important Meal

2008-12-22T04:35:00.000-08:00

Breakfast: The most Important Meal
You will notice marked improvements in mood and energy, with fewer cravings for junkfood, when you eat a breakfast that is high in water, protein, good carbs (loaded with antioxidants) and healthy fats.

But many people who struggle with their weight often skip breakfast altogether or have a light breakfast consisting of something like a glass of juice with bagel, a piece of toast or a bowl of cornflakes.

The typical American breakfast is essentially pure carbohydrate that is quickly absorbed and leads to a spike in blood sugar followed by a compensatory spike in insulin. This stimulates a steep fall in blood sugar, leaving you famished and sluggish by mid morning and susceptible to cravings for doughnuts, pastries, cookies, and junk foods and sugary drinks from the vending machines that are ubiquitous in the workplace.

This eating style is a vicious cycle that forces you to mindlessly consume excess calories leading t0 obesity, aging and disease. Instead, have a forever young breakfast with protein (eggs, whey protein, fish, or meat) and high nutrient, fiber rich foods (fruits, nuts, berries or veggies), and wash it down with tea, water, soymilk, or nonfat milk.

The rest of the morning you will walk straight by the box of doughnuts at work feeling compelled to indulge your self.

There was a study found that the breakfast bunch received four important benefits:

Lower BMI (average body weight)
Reduced risks of diabetes, metabolic problems and obesity
Better long term weight loss maintenance
Improved mental alertness throughput the day

Breakfast jumpstart your system when you roll out of bed in the morning by increasing your metabolic rate about 25 percent. This revs your energy up and improves your ability to perform both physically and mentally.

On the other hand, people skip breakfasts are stick in the hibernation mode and often plagued with the consequences of a slow metabolism like obesity, constant fatigue or sluggishness and chronically feeling cold.

Snacks eaten before bedtime are more likely to be converted to body fat while you sleep. In contrast, breakfast calories can be burned throughout the day supplying you with the energy you need to perform your best.
Breakfast: The most Important Meal

Healthy Lifestyles

2008-12-10T01:49:00.000-08:00

Healthy Lifestyles
Doing regular physical activity is a healthy lifestyle that health experts feel is among the most important. Not only does it help you prevent many of the major illness and enhance your physical fitness and health, but also it can contribute to good health in other areas as well.

Their list includes some of healthy lifestyles that you can adopt to promote good fitness, health and wellness. These lifestyles are only of benefit if you choose to do them. The choices you make have much to do with your fitness, health and wellness.

Be Physically Active

Adopt Good Personal Health Habits

Eat Properly

Manage Stress

Avoid Destructive Habits

Adopt Good Safety Practices

Seek and Follow Appropriate Medical Advice

Practice Other Healthy Lifestyles

Healthy Lifestyles

Exercise for Your Health

2008-11-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

Exercise for Your Health
Exercise can have many additional benefits, beyond helping you lose weight and keep it off and being an important part of building a healthy, strong, flexible body that will serve you well for years to come.

Exercise can safeguard your mental health. Studies show that being physically active increases your self-esteem, improves your body image, and decreases your risk pf serious depression. Exercise also helps prevent or reduce anxiety. It can be a great stress reducer and mood enhancer.

Exercise can prevent catastrophic disease. It not only protects your heart and lungs, but also can be a factor in preventing certain forms of cancer. For example, studies have found that women who are physically active as teens and young adults significantly reduce their lifetime risk of breast cancer (as well as osteoporosis, the painful and debilitating loss of bones that cripples many women in their later years).
Exercise for Your Health

Eating Vegetables and Fruits for Longevity

2008-11-16T16:34:00.000-08:00

Eating Vegetables and Fruits for Longevity
Vegetables and fruits do so much for longevity quest in so many different ways. Fruits and vegetables are energy foods. For most part, they’re fiber rich carbohydrates, ideal for optimal energy flow. Fruit, in particular, may be the perfect workout food. While other sugars will give a quick burst of energy, fruit sugars deliver a steady stream of carbohydrate energy over a few hours.

All those vegetables and fruit will keep body weight down too. With some notable exceptions like coconuts and avocadoes, most fruits and vegetables have little or no fat and not much in the way of protein either. They still have calories, of course, but filling up on their fiber will push fat and excess calories out of body system.

By eating lots of fruits and vegetables, it will reduce cancer risk in at least two ways. The fiber they provide pushes digested food through body gut faster, giving potential carcinogens less times to damage cells in digestive tract. But also, the antioxidants that are so abundant in fruits and vegetables destroy cell damaging free radicals. They may also actually reverse existing cell damage before it leads to cancer.

Eating a lot of fruits and vegetables at any age has been shown to slow down, brake or even reverse many if the unpleasant developments associated with the aging process. Heart disease and cancer are just two such problems that antioxidants combat.

They also help keen body mind sharp, body becomes strong, eyesight keen and body immune system powerful enough to fight off infections and other illnesses.

There’s even some promising evidence that the phytochemicals and other good things in fruits and vegetables retard the aging process itself at the cellular levels.

In other words, if antioxidant intake is high from eating lots of fruits and vegetables, people may be biologically “younger” than others age who have low antioxidants intakes.
Eating Vegetables and Fruits for Longevity

Healthy Eating Lifestyle

2008-10-31T17:08:00.000-07:00

Healthy Eating Lifestyle
Eat for variety
Foods from all food groups are important. Eat foods from all the food groups every day and choose a variety of foods within each food group. For optimum nutrition, eat more foods from the grain, fruits, and vegetables.

Eat fruits and vegetables at every meal and snack
Fruit and vegetables are packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants; plus they provide fiber to help keep our bowels regular. We should get at least five servings of fruit and vegetables combined each day. Fruits and vegetable that are deep green or orange or red pack the most vitamin and minerals. It is important to select fruits and vegetables of different colors to get all of their beneficial nutrients.

Go for whole grains
Whole grains contain more nutrients and fiber than processed or refined grains because the milling process removes the nutritional part of the grain. Aim to make half of all the grain foods that you eat the whole grain.

Limit foods and beverages with added sugar
Sweet drinks such as soda, fruit punch, lemonade, iced tea, and sport drinks have a lot of sugar but no vitamins or minerals. Consuming too much sweet drinks makes it hard to get all of the vitamins and minerals that your body needs. Soft drinks and sweets such as candy, cake, cookies and donuts can cause dental cavities, and they add to calorie intake, which makes it hard to keep a healthy weight.

Choose foods with healthy fat
The fat on our bodies serves several purposes: it protects our organs, keeps us warm, and stores our energy. Fat in food provides a feeling of fullness and it adds flavor. Some fat – namely unsaturated fat – is healthy for the heart, but other fat – the saturated fat – can damage arteries and lead to heart disease over time. Trans fat does the most damage and should be avoided.
Healthy Eating Lifestyle

Exercise for Fun and Fitness

2008-10-17T03:07:00.000-07:00

Exercise for Fun and Fitness
Regular exercise and physical activity are vital to your physical emotional health and can bring you fun and fitness at the same time. Having chronic illness and growing older can maker an active lifestyle seem far away. Some people have never been active and others have given up leisure activities because of illness.

Unfortunately, long periods of inactivity in anyone can lead to weakness, stiffness, fatigue, poor appetite, high blood pressure, obesity osteoporosis, constipation, and increased sensitivity to pain, anxiety and depression. These problems occur from chronic illness as well. So, it can be difficult to tell whether it is the illness, inactivity or combination of the two that is responsible for these problems. Although we don’t have cures for many of these illnesses, yet, we do know the cure for inactivity – exercise.

Most people have a sense that exercising and being active is healthier and more satisfying than being inactive, but often have a hard time finding information and support to get started on a more active way of life.

Regular exercise benefits everyone, especially people with chronic health problems. Regular exercise improves levels of strength, energy, and self confidence and less anxiety and depression. Exercise can help maintain a good weight, which takes stress off weight- bearing joints and improves blood pressure, blood sugar and blood fat levels. There is evidence that regular exercise can help to “thin” the blood, or prevent blood clots, which is one of the reasons exercise can be particular benefit to people with heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and peripheral vascular disease.

In addition, strong muscles can help people with arthritis to protect their joints by improving stability and absorbing shock. Regular exercise also can help nourish joints and keep cartilage and bone healthy. Regular exercise has been shown to help people with chronic lung disease, improve endurance, and reduce shortness of breath. Many people with claudication (leg pain from severe arthrosclerosis blockages in the arteries of the lower extremities) can walk farther without leg pain after undertaking a regular exercise program. It also suggested that exercise may even increase life expectancy. Regular exercise is an important part of controlling blood sugar levels, losing weight, and reducing the risks of cardiovascular complications for people with diabetes.
Exercise for Fun and Fitness

Reasons for Mountain Biking

2008-09-18T00:17:00.000-07:00

Reasons for Mountain Biking
Mounting Biking is for fun
Mountain biking will be contrast with hiking. Both have their niche and the choice is ours. We can do both. In the end, it’s matter of personal preference. Relative to hiking, mountain biking might be for fun. The wind in our face, the feeling of speed…. Speed compresses the time interval between successive events such as turns, drops, and climbs and we are forced to think ahead while controlling the bike. The combined mental and physical challenge makes mountain biking fun.

Mountain biking is for exercise
Mountain biking is a great low impact, cardiovascular exercise. Aerobic activity, which increases our metabolism, is the best way to burn calories. Aerobic activity also strengthens our heart, lungs and legs muscles. Our blood’s capacity to carry oxygen and nutrients is increased, producing stamina. In this regard, cycling is similar to running.

We can use bike’s gears to regulate the intensity of our cardiovascular workout. Using lower gears for an easy spin brings our heart and respiration rates up to sustainable levels for long periods. Or, use the big gears and feel the burn on short, intense rides.

Because of cardiovascular benefits, some have discovered that biking makes an excellent adjunct spot to other activities, such as hiking and backpacking.

Mountain biking as a challenge
Once the sole province of young daredevils, men and women of all ages are now getting into the sport. Part of the attraction is the challenge that comes from the interaction between bike and rider. If we accept this challenge and work at it, our skills will improve. Everyone has personal limits, but practice and tenacity will soon have our riding trails that we once found intimidating. Overcoming these challenges produces a lot of thrills and also provides a sense of accomplishment.
Reasons for Mountain Biking

Dietary Fiber

2008-09-03T14:44:00.000-07:00

Dietary Fiber
Recognition of dietary fiber as an important food component was reawakened in the mid 1970s. Since the simple notion that “roughage” relieves constipation has been replaces by the concept of an active dietary fiber with its many possible implications for general health. Result from the extensive research devoted to the dietary fiber during the last 15 or so years have suggested this food component may be quiet important in the prevention and management of a wide variety of disease states. Not surprisingly, fiber has been implicated as important in various aspect of bowel function. The metabolic diseases, diabetes and obesity, are believed by some researches s to be more easily regulated with high fiber and fiber supplemented diets. Fiber has also has been implicated in the control or prevention of variety of carcinomas as well as certain diseases affecting the cardiovascular system.

The varying aspects of the fiber observed by researches are related to the fact that dietary fiber is made up of different compositions, each with its own distinctive characteristics. Delineation of these many components plus their various, distinctive characteristics emphasizes fact that dietary fiber cannot be considered a single entity.

Food components figures of fiber traditionally have referred to crude fiber, primarily cellulose, rather than being inclusive for the various component making up dietary fiber.
Dietary Fiber

Kinds of Martial Arts

2008-07-31T01:37:00.000-07:00

Kinds of Martial Arts
One of the trendiest sports today is kickboxing, which is featured in film, TV shows, and live events worldwide. Some of the most distinguished names in the business of kickboxing, such as Chuck Norris, were superstar kick boxers and these individuals managed to increase interest in the game dramatically

Many of the participants who enter the sport have skills in kickboxing London and were often included with the best participants in their chosen activity. Many expert boxers also get into the sport of kickboxing London, after a trainer has taught them how to kick.

Kickboxing started in Europe and America as an alternative to traditional kickboxing and is often allied with mixed kickboxing. Although not technically considered one of the kickboxing.

Unlike a kickboxing tournament, the participants in a kickboxing match will typically wear some defensive gear, such as mouth guards, boxing gloves, and a groin shield. This is to take care that the participants in the match do not experience lasting injury from their experience in the ring.

There are a lot of different kinds types of kickboxing that may be featured in a match and a number of the differences in style are region specific in nature. Several countries, including France, India, and Cambodia, have invented their own techniques
Kinds of Martial Arts
By: FinlayMacintosh
Article source: http://www.articlehero.com