Abhishek Agarwal asked:

Which do you prefer, aerobic or anaerobic exercises? Do you know the difference? Does it make a difference? Not really. The words aerobic and anaerobic represent different ways the body gets energy for exercise.

In aerobic, meaning with oxygen, exercise involves or uses oxygen to fuel metabolism, and the main fuel comes from burning fat. This type of exercise involves relatively less muscle fatigue. Aerobic exercise is of moderate intensity. Anaerobic, or without oxygen, exercise is higher-intensity exercise where the muscles rely on fuels other than oxygen. Anaerobic exercise burns sugar as the main source of fuel. Either way, you still burn fat.

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Light exercise cleans out lactic acid (a waste product) and stimulates cell regeneration. To burn fat, rather than sugar, there are several things to remember:

- Breathe deeply. Use your diaphragm to draw in air, through your nose, and hold the breath for a few seconds. Then exhale through your mouth.

- Exercise at a comfortable level. If 10 is extreme exertion, exercise at a 7. You should still be able to carry on a normal conversation while you work out. Doing this for 45 minutes a day will restore energy and make you feel great!

You may think you don’t have time to exercise, but you should make time. The benefits to your health and well-being far outweigh the cost in time. Since proper exercise increases energy, you won’t need to sleep as much as you have in the past. So, take a little of your nighttime sleep to exercise. You’ll be better for it.

Or use your lunch break to exercise instead of having a heavy lunch that adds fat. Your productivity will increase. You’ll be more alert and energetic. And the time you save in added productivity can be applied to those other important tasks you aren’t willing to trade for exercise.

Rebounding (also known as cellularise) is a great way to get aerobic exercise. A rebounder is a mini-trampoline that provides excellent, non-impact exercise through bouncing. If you have access to this type of equipment, try it! It’s a fun exercise for all ages and types, and it’s less expensive than other types of exercise equipment.

Whether you have access to a rebounder or not, use any break or time out to get in some movement and deep breathing. Any type of exercise will have great benefits. It will improve your heart, making it stronger and larger. Deep breathing will make your lungs stronger, too. The movements you use to exercise promote proper blood flow to your joints as well as to your muscles, so you reduce possible joint pain by engaging in regular exercise. And research suggests positive links between exercise and overall health – preventing almost every type of disease.

Many of us spend most of our days sitting crouched at our desk, typing away at our computer, focused on the job at hand. And while we do this, our bodies get stiff, tired, and full of natural toxins. Proper exercise flushes the system and stimulates internal organs, including the brain. It restores energy and improves attitude.

Your investment in just a little moderate exercise will repay your effort with benefits that last a lifetime. You’ll live better, live longer, and enjoy life more when you commit to and follow through on a regular program of exercise.

Jennifer Jolan asked:

Since I started cooking homemade dog food for my two dogs years ago, everyone has noticed and commented on how much better they look, and I get asked what are you doing differently. Since feeding homemade dog food I can see significant changes, such as glossier fur coats, more energy, and they also smell better.

Imagine eating the same chemical filled food, day after day, for your whole life. The build up of cancer causing chemicals and preservatives is bound to affect your health negatively.

Checking with your vet or a pet nutritionist first, before starting your pet on a homemade dog food diet is always recommended. Just as we enjoy a variety of foos, so do our dogs.

Make sure you don’t just suddenly give your dog his new homemade diet in one immediate change, as this will cause stomach upset in most dogs. Slowly change him over by daily increasing your homemade food, and decreasing the old food.

A well balanced homemade dog food should contain approximately 40% meat, 30% starch, and 30% veggie/fruit on a daily basis. To ensure a healthy nutritious diet just follow the basic formula for any combination of ingredients.

Get a good dog nutrition book, written specifically by an animal nutritionist, and read up on the proper kcals (calories) per day per pound of your dog, so you will know exactly how much to feed per day. Also there are many excellent homemade dog food recipe books available now, especially since the dog food recall killed so many of our beloved pets. Many more people are making their own homemade dog food, because we have become much more aware of the commercial dog food companies practices.

Organ meat (liver, kidneys etc.) and occasionally adding eggs are very good for your pet, and as we all know variety in our diets is always nice.

There are three important ingredients that must be included in your dog’s home made dog food every day.

1. 40% meat – chicken, beef, turkey venison or other lean meat of your choice.

2. 30% vegetable/fruit combo – cooked and pureed – you can use all one veggie, a variety of cooked frozen veggies or a mixture of veggies and cooked pureed fruits. You can use frozen, canned or fresh, whichever is handy and on sale.

3. 30% starch – white or brown rice, barley, oatmeal, macaroni or other pasta, or potatoes.

The easiest and quickest way is to make what I call doggie stew. Everything is thrown into one pot and steamed together until cooked. I use just a small amount of water to start to cook the meat, pasta and veggies. Cook the whole batch in a covered pot, and add water as it is absorbed. You don’t want it to be soupy when finished. Then I use a fork and shred the cooked meat and mash the veggies all in the same pot. Done and delicious.

I also give a calcium supplement, along with a few teaspoons of flax seed oil, or a vegetable oil such a canola, drizzled over the top. An addition of iodized salt is also good for your dog in a quantity depending on your dog’s weight.

Feed two meals per day, rather than one big one.

Your homemade dog food can be prepared in larger batches and frozen in the proper serving sizes, ready to thaw and eat. Any hot food should be allowed to cool down before serving your dog. I usually leave the mixture on the counter for 20 – 30 minutes, and it is close to room temperature by then. Your dog’s stomach can be upset if they eat food that is too hot.

Give it a try, and you will find that it is not as time consuming as it sounds, once you get into a routine, and your dogs will live longer healthier chemical free natural lives.

I am an animal lover and advocate of raising healthy, happy pets, as part of the family. I truly believe this starts with proper, adequate nutrition, which in turn extends your pets life. Check out what is the best of the best for you dog here:

http://www.recipes4gourmetdogs.com

Jane_Dinunzio

Judy Sharp asked:

We all know that the food we eat makes a big difference in the amount of weight we lose.

It’s simply a matter of making choices – low fat chicken rather than fatty meat, water and fresh juice rather than soda, baked potato rather than fries. It’s the choice we make when we purchase our food for the week, or go to the drink machine at work. Soda or water? Water!

When you substitute the healthy weight loss foods you lose weight faster and have more energy.

The top healthy foods you can eat to lose weight:

1. Vegetables. Eat as much as you like! It doesn’t matter what you choose, as long as it’s fresh. Avocados have fat, but it’s fat that will help you lose weight – and fill you up! Potatoes are starchy, but they won’t put on the weight, especially if you’re eating a lot of other vegies as well.

Eat them raw or cooked, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is to have more vegies on your plate than anything else.

No butter or sauces, of course. You’ll be amazed at the subtle and delicious tastes of vegetables! A good soy sauce will add flavoring if you like.

Buy organic if you can – you’ll reap the benefits in healthy energy. If not, wash all vegetables well.

Vegetables are alkaline and balance the body’s chemistry. They’re full of fiber, vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants and low in calories. Try to get a mixture of colors in your diet – green, orange, red, yellow and white.

2. Fresh fruit will also help you lose weight because it’s full of fiber, vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants, just like vegetables. Yes, it has fruit sugars, but they are the complex kind that takes time to digest, and so do not end up as fat cells.

And it will REALLY speed up your weight loss if you use fruit as a replacement for candy and puddings.

3. Eat plenty of whole grain. In order to lose weight it MUST be whole grain. Substitute brown rice for white, wholegrain pasta for regular, and try some of the other wonderful grains available, such as buckwheat, quinoa and spelt. Eat traditional rolled oats for breakfast or a wholegrain cereal, preferably without sugar. If you eat bread, make sure it’s made of a good whole grain. Don’t choose the kind called “multigrain” when it’s mostly white bread with some seeds scattered in it.

4. Beans. Substitute all or several meat portions a month with beans. You can cook them from scratch – or to save time, buy them canned. If you buy them canned, put them in a colander and rinse well with running water. Full of protein and fiber, beans are an excellent low-fat way to get your protein.

5. Water. Drink water, water, water. Soda puts on weight very quickly. And don’t be fooled by diet sodas. Sugar substitutes still add weight – something you rarely hear the truth about.

You can also drink fresh fruit and vegetable juice. Drink it as soon as it’s made for that zinging, full feeling and lots of weight burning.

Ben Adams asked:

A lot of people have been wondering and asking whether whole food vitamins are better than regular vitamins. Many experts have tried to answer that question based on different premises, different studies and different researches. But this article is the only one that will give you a straight-up, no frills answer and that is: YES whole food vitamins are better than regular vitamins. Of course the next question that comes after is, WHY are whole food vitamins better than regular vitamins?

Here are a few reasons why:

1. Whole food vitamins make you feel great and look great because it contains all natural vitamins and not the synthetic, laboratory-created vitamins. Whole food vitamins also help you lose weight and give you more energy to go through your day.

2. Recently, researchers and experts have been peddling the benefits of having a diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and seeds. Having these in your daily regimen, they say, lowers the risk of getting cancer, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. But in order to get the sufficient amount of vitamins and nutrients it is advised to not only have fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and seeds present in your everyday diet but to also take whole food vitamins along with it. The significant antioxidant properties of vitamins, minerals and raw enzymes found in whole foods has previously been taken too lightly but is now proving to be a real life saver.

3. In order to reach the prescribed amount of vitamins and nutrients, like lycopene and beta-carotene, intake per day you would have to consume enormous amounts of food that you may not have the stomach to handle. For example, the required daily dose of lycopene is equivalent to 10 tomatoes and that is plenty enough to make you full without having enough room for other food offering other essential minerals and nutrients too. Whole food vitamins, on the other hand, allows you to achieve the prescribed daily nutritional requirement because each pill you take contains the sufficient amount of vitamins and minerals that you would otherwise be unable to get.

4. Whole food vitamins compared to regular vitamins is made of dried fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and seeds that have been pounded and turned to a powdery form and then placed in a capsule or shaped like a pill. Regular vitamins are synthetic vitamins that are not natural and are nothing but artificial concoctions by chemists in laboratories. They are not a product of nature and are therefore not as healthy as the natural vitamins you can get from raw food. Synthetic vitamins are designed right down to its molecular structure to imitate the molecular structure of a natural vitamin. This means that regular vitamins are stripped of the “life giving” enzymes present in raw foods and whole food vitamins.

5. Minerals and calcium supplements are made from rocks, corals and industrial mineral compounds. Would you want these things in your body? The truth is these compounds may not even want to be in your body in the first place because these types of minerals are in a raw form, which the human body may not absorb. Eve though these raw minerals are being treated to make it less coarse, its effectiveness is still questionable and whether it is being properly absorbed is still unknown. Aside from that, long term benefits from synthetic calcium and other minerals are also unknown. Whole food vitamins and minerals on the other hand are made from all-natural REAL food that naturally contains calcium and other minerals. Whole food vitamins and minerals is the safer, more effective alternative to regular vitamins.

6. The human body is designed to receive and process nutrients that come from food and not synthetic supplements. Regular vitamins contain synthetic materials or ingredients that the human body may not agree to and may not be able to absorb and process properly. Although regular vitamins have never been tagged as a culprit for man’s many afflictions, just the fact that it is an unnatural creation and is alien to our body is enough reason for me to fear it. Whole food vitamins are the only vitamin supplement that is 100% safe because it is 100% natural.

Chris McCombs asked:

You need to get in more exercise, probably. It will improve your life in a myriad of ways. But the first step towards embarking on a fitness plan is always motivation. And to get motivated, you have to understand why you need to change your diet or invest the time into exercise. Here are just a few of many ways exercise change your life for the better.

1. Exercise Improves your Stamina

Exercise don’t just improve you stamina for physical activities either. It helps you last longer on work projects, school assignments, and anything else that might require a great deal of sustained concentration. It does this by training your body to use its energy reserves more efficiently, and thereby giving more energy to do the things you do every day. Every action will feel easier and take less effort. And you will have more energy to engage in your favorite hobbies.

2. Exercise Prevents Diseases

Our bodies are actually built for exercise. A lot of it. If we don’t give it the exercise it craves, a lot of its functions don’t work as well as they should, and the immune system is one of them. Exercising regularly makes your body more capable of fighting of colds, flu, and infections. It also reduces your cholesterol level, which will make you less prone to suffering a heart attack or stroke.

3. Exercise Strengthens and Tones Your Body

When you look better, you feel better. And when you feel better, everything in your life improves. You get along better with better people. You feel more capable of tackling challenges. And it can even help boost your career. It will also increase your bone density, which will make your bones less prone to breaks and help keep you more active as you age.

4. Exercise Improves Flexibility

Better flexibility lead to better balance and coordination. This wont just help you engage in your favorite physical activities, but it will actually help you just get through your day more effortlessly. It’s a wonderful feeling to go through every day without ever having to worry about a sprain.

5. Exercise Improves your Overall Quality of Life

Ask anyone who went form being sedentary to working out regularly: exercise helps you a thousand different ways that all add up to a happier you. If you have never experienced the joy and contentment of a fit lifestyle, you owe it to yourself to start a training routine right now. It doesn’t have to start out huge. Just plan out some cardio for tomorrow, like going for a little walk. When you get used to that, add in some weight training. Eventually, as your fit life continues to develop, you will find yourself more confident, happier, and with more energy than you had ever thought possible.

6. Exercise Controls Weight

When you weight train and do cardiovascular exercise regularly, your fat inevitably drops and your muscles grow. When you do this, you burn more calories actively, and you help boost your metabolism so you burn more calories around the clock. When combined with a smart diet, this inevitably leads to significant weight loss.

Tracie Johanson asked:

Most of us recognize the benefits we can expect from exercise. Engaging in regular exercise, including both cardiovascular and resistance workouts, brings such benefits as lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, stronger bones, improved balance, a lower risk of some cancers and of course weight loss. One bonus that is often overlooked, however, is how exercise can improve our mental health.

Baesd upon solid research, exercise has proven to be an effective alternative to medication for people who suffer from depression.

More that 17 million American adults are diagnosed with depression each year, but there are many more that suffer occasional bouts of ‘feeling down’ and are not diagnosed.

You might be depressed if you have feelings of anxiety, are sad or have ‘empty’ feelings, lack the motivation for ordinary activities, experience sleep problems including fatigue, insomnia or oversleeping, have eating disorders, feel worthless or have frequent thoughts of death.

The good news is that not everyone who suffers from depression needs to be on antidepressants. Exercise may be a solution for those who wish to fight depression without medication. Duke University Medical Center published a study on the effects exercise has on depression. The 16-week study showed similar results for the group that took medication as the group that exercised.

A third group that combined exercise with medication showed the greatest improvement.

To reap the depression-fighting benefits of exercise, you don’t need to spend hours in the gym, either. Even small amounts of exercise will release the endorphins that make us feel better. Develop an exercise plan while you are not feeling depressed and you will have a much better chance of keeping it up than trying to motivate yourself to start an exercise plan after you’re already depressed.

Women are two to three times more likely than men to suffer from depression, with one in five women experiencing major depression in her lifetime.

Stacy, a young mom from Nampa and Pick Up The Pace health club member, said “Last winter, during the inversion I really suffered. I couldn’t even get motivated to clean my house or cook a decent meal. I was on the verge of having to get a prescription. I started exercising regularly and this winter I sailed through the inversion with no problem.”

Margaret, who recently lost her husband, has discovered that exercise is better than grief therapy. “It’s a lot cheaper than seeing a therapist and I’m doing something good for my body. Sitting at home crying every day is not an option. I still grieve, but now I have the energy and motivation to do something else with my days.”

Before starting beginning any exercise plan, consult with your physician. Do not discontinue any prescribed mediation without consulting with your physician.

For more information, contact:

The National Mental Health Association Resources Center, 1-800-969-NMHA (6642)

villenoire asked:

our muscles utilizes considerable energy. And the only way to replace that energy is with food! So what happens if you fail to eat the right type of food to build muscle mass? It will take longer to build muscle, and it may even prevent effect muscle building altogether once you reach a certain point.

When looking into the types of food that helps build muscle, you probably immediately think of eating a low fat diet. That is great, but probably the most important type of foods that build muscle are foods containing high levels of protein. Foods like meat, fish, chicken, eggs, cheese and other milk products. Nuts are also a great protetin source.

Finding out how much protein to eat when you are interested in building muscle fast is actually not difficult. First, you will need to find out your lean body mass weight in kilos, and then you simply multiply that figure by 2.75 to determine your daily protein requirement. Calculating your lean body mass uses some complex formulae, so ask a professional at the gym if you do not already have this figure.

Carbohydrates are also important foods that build muscle ? or rather carbs are important components of foods that build muscle. Choose foods that are high in carbohydrates that are also high in fibre ? oatmeal, rice, and potato are all good.

Reducing fat in your diet is of course necessary to build bigger muscle on a body that appears lean and has a low body fat ratio. If you are focussing on what foods build muscle mass, you also need to bear in mind that it pays to reduce fat as well. Although proteins are essential (as we talked about earlier), it is really important to select proteins that are low in fat, or that you can cut the fat off. So eat your chicken without the skin, and go for lean steaks rather than more fatty cuts of meat. Opting for cottage cheese or other reduced fat cheeses, and low fat milk also helps reduce your fat intake.

When eating to build muscle, make sure you drink water. Liquid is important for hydration, and a dehydrated body is sluggish, and can even make you sick. This is not a recipe for obtaining the healthy, fit physique you are striving for.

Most experts agree that between 1.5 to 2 liters of water a day helps flush toxins and hydrate the body. And that is for everyone, regardless of activity levels and desire to have a buff body. So for those of us on bodybuilding diets, who are conscious of building muscle, water is even more important.

Foods that build muscle are one of the two essential components to having the body of your dreams. The other component is your weight training program or other type of bodybuilding workouts that you engage in regularly. Just because you have found foods that build muscle does not mean you can start to slack off with your weight training.

Rebecca Shelly asked:

A study published from the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that overweight premenopausal woman who ate low carbohydrate/high protein diets lost more bodyweight than a group eating high carbohydrate/low fat diets.  Another study published in the ADA Journal divided three groups of post menopausal woman that were overweight.  Group one reduced 400 calories per day.  Group two used less than 400 calories but, did low intensity exercises and group three ate smaller calorie amounts but exercised with high intensity.  All three groups lost weight but it wasn’t all fat.  The group that ate more protein did not lose lean muscle.  And, you do not want to lose lean muscle!  If you are post menopausal lean muscle is very important; to prevent or slow the effects of osteoporosis, making sure you are strong so you don’t fall and just being strong enough to take care of yourself.

Research after research substantiates that protein helps you lose the fat and not the muscle.  If you have more muscle you burn more calories and look better and can exercise more (burning even more calories) with a much stronger body.  Some women express a concern about getting larger muscles.  Ladies this does not mean big bulky muscles.  Women do not have the hormones to create those big muscles that bodybuilders have. Protein shakes and regular exercise means you will stick to your diet and you will only lose fat while retaining your muscle.

Protein powders help control hunger so you won’t eat as much and feel fuller longer.  Now this doesn’t mean you have to eat meat, and other high caloric proteins along with the fat they contain. Plant based diets also supply phytochemicals along with vitamins necessary for your health; this includes beans, nuts, seeds along with vegetables, chicken, fish, eggs and dairy such as cottage cheese, milk, tofu, etc.  Protein shakes help to control hunger and help maintain your muscle.

Another wonderful option that has helped women, including me, are protein powders.  I struggled for years trying to lose those last ten pounds; I gave up and even added more pounds until I got sick of how I looked.  I started using protein powders to make protein shakes, along with a healthy diet and the pounds started melting off.  I do not each much meat to speak of anymore, only fish and chicken a couple times per week; and a lot of veggies, beans and fruit.  Protein powders, rich in amino acids help me exercise longer with more energy, which of course will add to your weight loss.

 

If you haven’t tried the new protein powders out there today you are in for a treat.  With names like Brownie Batter, Cake Batter, Mango Magic, Strawberry Kiwi, Green Apple, Vanilla Chai and Lemon Burst you are not limited to tasteless vanilla or chocolate.  Bodybuilders have used protein for ages to get lean bigger muscles.  If you use protein shakes for weight loss you do not have to worry about getting huge muscles.  You are just drinking enough protein to maintain and firm up your muscles with your amount of exercise, helping your weight loss program and creating a much firmer and curvier body than you could without the added protein.  So if you want to be firm and not flabby, feel full and stick to your weight loss plans try a good protein shake.  It’s a healthy way to lose weight.

Yip See Kit asked:

One of the main reasons people started to exercise is because they want to look good, feel good and to achieve a better quality of life through health and fitness. Excess fats around the body definitely do not look and feel very good. Having too much excess fats would even have serious health implications. There are also many health conditions and diseases associated with obesity, such as hypertension, dyslipidemia (for example, high total cholesterol or high levels of triglycerides), type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and respiratory problems.

Very often than not, instead of losing weight from exercise, they ended up gaining even more weight than before. Why is this so?

This is not surprising if we understand how the energy equation works. Whether we want to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, it is important to understand the connection between the energy our body takes in (food consumed) and the energy our body uses (physical activities). In order to lose weight, we need to use more calories than we take in. To maintain a healthy weight, we need to balance the calories we use with those we take in. If we take in more calories than our body needs, we will put on excess fat. If we expend more energy than we take in we will burn the excess fat.

Exercise plays an important role in weight control by increasing energy output. During the initial phase of exercise, the body uses the carbohydrates from the food consumed as the main source of energy. When all the carbohydrates are being used up, the body would then look for the excess fat store in the body for extra fuel. Recent studies have shown that not only does exercise increase metabolism during a workout, it also causes your metabolism to stay increased for a period of time after exercising, allowing you to burn more calories.

Thus, the intensity and duration of the exercise is also an important factor to determine how much calories are being used up. It will only be effective if we are able to burn those excess fats during our workout. How much exercise is needed to make a difference in our weight depends on the amount and type of activity, and on how much we consume. Aerobic exercises such as jogging, running, Taichi burn body fat effectively. However, many people always have the wrong mentality that they can afford to have a hearty meal and eat all they can after the workout, since they had already burnt so much calories, which very often the meal negate the effects of the workout.

Taking for instance, if we consume 150 excess calories a day, we will gain approximately 15 pounds in a year. We could take that weight off, or keep it off, by doing minimally 30 minutes of moderate light intensity exercise daily. The combination of exercise and diet offers one of the most flexible and effective approach towards weight control.

Muscle tissue is heavier than fat tissue, and through exercise, we tend to develop muscle to a certain degree. Thus, our normal bathroom weighing scale will not necessarily be able to tell whether or not we are “fat.” Individual with well toned and developed muscles, and with relatively little body fat, invariably are considered “overweight” according to standard weight charts. If we are engaging in a regular program of strength and resistance training, our muscles will increase in weight, causing our overall weight to increase. Therefore, looking at the body composition is a better indicator of how much fat we have than just looking at body weight alone. In today’s technology, we can easily find commercial weighing scales which are able to read our body water percentage, body fat, muscles and bone mass.

Lack of physical activity causes muscles to get soft, and if proper nutritional diet is not maintained, excess calories consumed is almost always stored as fat around the body. Those that were once actively engage in physically activities, who continue to eat as they always have after settling into sedentary lifestyles, tend to suffer from “creeping obesity.” Thus, exercise should be a lifelong activity and Taichi still remains as one of the best forms of lifelong exercise for all ages.