Posts Tagged ‘dietary supplements’

6 Hidden Dangers Of High Protein Diets

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

High protein diets are extremely seductive. After all, they can cause a massive amount of weight loss in a very short amount of time. But there is a catch, most of the weight is water.

Moreover, there are many other nasty side effects with high protein diets.

So here is why ketogenic diets may not be for you:

1. Fast muscle catabolism: This process literally happens over night when you restrict carbohydrates. You see, without carbohydrates your body turns to its own tissues for energy. In other words, you put your muscle tissue on the dinner plate.

2. Increased cortisol: This further accelerates muscle breakdown while simultaneously decreasing your immunity. You see, cortisol has an immunity suppressing effect. This is one of the many reasons people feel so weak when on high protein diets.

3. Less mental performance: You see, although your body can convert muscle protein to sugar for your brain, it’s not a very efficient process. Subsequently, your mental performance decreases. So if you need to maintain mental performance, high protein diets are probably not for you.

4. Less serotonin: Your levels of serotonin go up as your carbohydrate intake goes up. Taking out carbs from the equation will cause your serotonin levels to plummet. So make sure you are prepared for this worsened mental state before going into ketosis.

5. Decreased exercise output: You cannot reach your exercise potential without carbohydrates in your diet. You see, carbs are what give your muscles energy to function at peak capacities. Unfortunately, a decrease in intensity translates into less calories burned.

6. Decreased muscle tone: Without carbs, your muscles will not looked toned. There is no way around this effect. You see, your muscles look best when they are full of water and carbs. Both of these give them their tight and toned look.

Ketogenic diets are very hard on the body. And they will prevent you from reaching peak performance. So make sure you take into account the pointers in this article before ditching your carbs!

Author Katherine Crawford, an exercise physiologist and former arm fat sufferer, teaches how to do arm exercises for women. Unearth how to get sexy and toned arms by visiting her website with shake weight reviews right now!

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5 Key Strategies For Spending Less Time In The Kitchen When Toning

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Figuring out how to minimize the amount of energy, time and effort needed for you fitness plan, is one of the best ways to ensure long term adherence.

After all, if you have to spend all day in the kitchen cooking healthy food, you are very likely to jump ship.

So here is how to spend less time cooking healthy food:

1. Buy vegetables in bulk: Although vegetables perish quickly and don’t taste good past a certain point, you can still buy then in bulk and extend their freshness. One of the best ways to extend freshness is by putting everything in air tight Ziplocs upon purchase.

2. Don’t spend time extracting egg whites: Although you can save some money, the amount of money you save doesn’t warrant spending all day cracking eggs. Just get some egg substitutes or egg whites and save yourself time and energy.

3. Pre-cook protein: Protein stores for much longer than vegetables and many other food sources. So batch your cooking of protein for best results here. Even better, certain sources of protein combine well with many different recipes. Chicken, for instance, can serve as the protein base for an innumerable amount of meals.

4. Buy frozen: Frozen food, although not as tasty, is a great time saver and can get you out of a bind when you need something quick. And keep in mind that frozen food isn’t devoid of nutrients either. Frozen protein sources and vegetables are great options here.

5. Use technology: Specifically, seek out gadgets that automate the cooking process for you. Slow cookers are a great example here. You see, they are so far advanced these days that you really can set a meal up for cooking and then forget about it.

Optimizing your eating patterns is the best thing you can do to reduce the barriers to fitness success. Too many people fail because they think dieting has to be an all out commitment. They key here is to work smarter, not harder!

Author Katherine Crawford, a fitness physiologist and former arm fat sufferer, instructs on how to get rid of bingo wings. Figure out how to get sexy arms by visiting her blog with shake weight reviews now!

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Researching Supplements And Deciding If That Is The Choice For You

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

Bathroom cupboards in most houses have supplements, prescriptions, creams and vitamins for anything and everything. People are in such a craze for things that help to create quick solutions for physical or mental issues that they have going on. If you think about it for each thing big or small that ails someone there could around twenty supplements out there to help with it.

Family doctors can be very expensive to visit when there is something wrong and you not only pay quite a bit of money for the pleasure of just going to the office but then you have to spend more for the medication they prescribe for you. Some people experiment with over the counter fixes first and if lucky they find the right one immediately. Sometimes so many different ones are tried that it ends up being more expensive that visiting the doctor from the beginning.

The one place that you can research all about supplements with out it taking any amount of time and you do not have to go anywhere is the internet. It is the easiest just to type in the supplement you are looking for into Google and wait for the results. The longer your search phrase is the more narrowed down the list will end up being. The result will be much more accurate if you put in the type and anything else you know about the product.

Once the search comes up the links that start at the top of the internet page will be the most relevant search to your query and it will digress from that point as you go down the list further and further. Usually most of the information you are looking for can be found in the top twenty five results and anything after that is just repeat.

There are some things you need to look at and decide what is important to you. Is price the most important and if not where does it rate exactly on that list. You want to know if they even ship to your area before you waste too much time trying to order from them. Finding out if the company is reputable is fairly important as well.

You should try your best to find out exactly from where the products are coming from. This question could be answered by looking at the contact information and maybe googling the specific name for reviews. A good hint if there is no contact information they are probably not legitimate.

Always consult your doctor on side effects or conditions you may have before you start taking any new supplements or vitamins of any kind. Never hesitate to get a second opinion or to take the supplements to your doctor to make sure they are real.

If you are thinking of using protein supplements of any description to aid with your diet plan, then buying them online is not only the most cost effective way of purchasing them, but you will also be offered the widest range of products. Visit discount-supplements.co.uk to look into what health supplements are right for you.

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Why Carbs Are Essential For Healthy Weight Loss

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Losing weight and keeping it off will be extremely hard if you don’t eat enough carbohydrates. Unfortunately, despite this truth, endless weight loss hopefuls simply stop eating carbs.

Even worse, the initial weight loss caused by carbohydrate restriction is not fat, most of it is water that you quickly regain.

So here is why carbs are essential for healthy weight loss:

1. Your nervous system is optimized to function on a steady supply of sugar: Without carbohydrates, your brain turns to ketones, the breakdown byproducts of fat and protein catabolism. And while it can survive on ketones, it can’t reach maximum performance with them.

2. You miss out on a wide variety of essential nutrients: Not only are carbohydrates loaded with fiber, but they also have a wide array of phytonutrients and anti oxidants. So without carbohydrates, you miss out on the weight loss benefits of natural fiber and you miss out on the health benefits.

3. You can burn the most amount of calories: To keep your metabolism as high as possible, you need to exercise as hard as possible. Unfortunately, without carbs, this isn’t possible. This is one of the reasons why people on a low carb diet find it harder and harder to lose weight.

4. You miss the glut-4 increase without them: In other words, your cells become hyper absorbent towards carbs for a very short time period immediately after exercise. And this is a great time to shuffle an excess of carbs into your muscles which in turn will allow you to maximize caloric burn next time you exercise.

5. You won’t look defined: Carbohydrates are in direct control of how your muscles look. Without them, your muscles will look very loose, jiggly and lacking in tone. This happens because carbs pull water into your muscles which makes them toned and tight.

6. They stabilize mood: Serotonin, the feel good hormone, and carbohydrate intake are intimately related. Without carbohydrates, your mood will drop. In fact, depression and mental agitation are very common in low carb dieters.

You can lose weight while eating carbs. The key is to watch your total caloric intake and to watch your levels of blood sugar. Do this and you will be able to lose weight and keep it off!

Author Katherine Crawford, an exercise physiologist and recent arm fat sufferer, instructs on how to get rid of bingo wings. Unearth how to get sexy arms by visiting her blog with shake weight reviews right now!

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Random Tips To Make Dieting Easier For You

Saturday, May 8th, 2010

Figuring out how to make your dieting process more efficient will increase the chances of success a lot. The problem is that figuring out these efficiencies can take time.

So, without further ado, here is how to make fat loss dieting a little easier:

1. Make two of your meals salad based: This is by far the easiest way to get more vegetables in your diet. And more vegetables will stabilize blood sugar while also increasing energy. And the best part is that vegetables are virtually calorie free.

2. Drink water in small quantities very often: The best approach here is to drink small quantities of water every 1-2 hours. The issue here is that your body slowly dehydrates in between meals. Thus, it is critical to make sure you drink water during these periods.

3. Don’t break your bank account by going organic: You see, eating organic is not necessary for optimal health. In fact, if you stick with normal food, you will be just fine. The only thing research has proven is that organic food is better for the environment.

4. Have a shopping process: Don’t leave your grocery shopping to chance. Instead, have a set schedule when you go to buy groceries. This will prevent hiccups and will create a strong routine in your behavior that leads to proper weight loss.

5. Make every effort to eat at the same times of day: Doing this will provide the best internal environment for dieting success. Your body responds best to set schedules of eating. In fact, research has shown that erratic eating patterns lead to more weight gain.

6. Reduce the caloric load of your last meal of the day: Not only will this help you burn a little more fat when you sleep, but it will also help you go to sleep faster and deeper. This in turn will make everything seem that much easier since sleep is the strongest predictor of mood.

If you make small tweaks and changes to your dieting process, it can really add up over time. So take action on this advice sooner rather than later, because later usually never comes!

Author Katherine Crawford, an exercise physiologist and former arm fat sufferer, teaches women how to get toned arms swiftly. Figure out how to get sexy and toned arms by visiting her website with shake weight reviews now!

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