Eating for Energy

Running on empty?

Drop that candy bar and fuel up on healthy foods that keep you going strong.Do you start the day feeling fatigued? Do you hit an afternoon energy slump that makes you want to take a nap under your desk? Or do you come home so exhausted you can’t imagine getting up and doing it all again tomorrow? If so, your lack of get-up-and-go may have something to do with the way you are fueling (or failing to fuel) your body. When your system starts broadcasting signals that it’s having trouble keeping up with your energetic demands, that’s a good time to consider the role your dietary choices may be playing in creating or exacerbating that energy deficit.

If you’re cutting calories and skipping meals in an effort to control your weight – or depending on processed and fast foods, convenience-store snacks, caffeine, or candy to get you through your overly busy days – there’s a good chance you’re simply not giving your body the essential nutritional building blocks it needs to operate at peak capacity. If you’re eating this way, you may also be creating a dietary vicious circle in which the nutritional deficits you’re inadvertently creating are making you even more vulnerable to other food-choice pitfalls. “Many people think they have a willpower problem when really they’re experiencing a lack of nutrient-dense food,” says nutritional psychologist Marc David, MA, author of The Slow Down Diet: Eating for Pleasure, Energy and Weight Loss (Healing Arts, 2005).

Fueling your engine with refined carbs and caffeine in the morning, for example, tends to contribute to afternoon blood-sugar crashes and midday cravings that, in turn, make it hard to pass up unhealthy snacks and too-heavy lunches. Eating a too-big or less-than-healthy lunch can leave you feeling brain-fogged, logy and desperate for sugar-fueled pep – sending you straight to the vending machine about 3 p.m. You can turbocharge your day just by skipping the sugar cereal or pastry for breakfast and eating a veggie omelet instead, says Liz Applegate, PhD, senior lecturer in nutrition and director of sports nutrition at the University of California, Davis. “Getting some protein at every meal, rather than just carbohydrates, helps you feel more alert.” Choosing smart midafternoon snacks – like fruit and nuts or veggies with almond butter can help you keep that good thing going.

Giving your body nutrient-dense, whole-food fuel throughout the day not only helps you maintain your energy levels, it also makes you far less susceptible to the call of those fast-food drive-thrus and vending-machine indulgences that tend to bring you down. But blood-sugar and macronutrient balance is only the beginning. If you are shorting yourself on key nutrients, like B vitamins and certain minerals, or if you’re overloading your system with late-night bingeing and foods that create digestive or immune distress, you may be interrupting your energy circuitry in more-complex ways. The good news is, once you understand how your current choices and habits might be undermining your energy, you’ll also know exactly how to turn your fuel crisis around. Energy-Production Essentials To stay energized, it helps to know how your body makes and captures energy. The real power lies in tiny structures inside your cells called mitochondria. “Most people don’t realize that we burn calories in our mitochondria with oxygen, just like in our car’s engine,” says Mark Hyman, MD, author of UltraMetabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss (Scribner, 2006).

“The more mitochondria you have and the more efficiently they consume oxygen, the faster your metabolic rate, the easier your body burns calories, and the more energy you have.” Exercising and eating breakfast both speed up your metabolic rate by helping your body produce more mitochondria and making the mitochondria you have more efficient. Mindless munching and yo-yo dieting, on the other hand, damage your mitochondria so you can’t turn calories into energy as effectively. “Then two things happen: You gain weight and you get fatigued,” says Hyman. “You may also feel a few aches and pains. So you wind up in pain, fat and tired.” Exercise – especially interval and strength training – when combined with high-octane eating, can help you boost the number and efficiency of your mitochondria even more dramatically.

Pep Talk “Most of us can have the energy we need right now. We just need to manage it better.” Making a few small changes in the way you eat can free up reserves of energy you didn’t realize you had. For example, when you eat too much at once, eat too quickly, consume foods that don’t agree with you or eat too close to bedtime, these habits put stressful demands on your body that effectively drain valuable energy from your cells. And when you skip meals, fail to drink enough water or go on crash diets, you starve your body at the cellular level, which can also quickly run down your energy stores. Relying on caffeine to fill the gap just makes matters worse. Caffeine produces energy by stimulating your central nervous system. Not only can excessive caffeine intake overwork your glandular system, it can also quickly deplete vitamins B and C, magnesium, and several microminerals.

So rather than resorting to caffeine and sugar fixes to provide short-lived energy bursts, try tuning up your metabolism for the long haul with the following suggestions: Pace Yourself. Start your day with a little protein, like nut butters, eggs or a protein shake, to help balance your energy throughout the day, says Applegate. And drink plenty of water (several ounces per hour) to prevent dehydration, which can lead to fatigue and headaches.

Rather than depending on big meals, which divert blood flow to the digestive tract and, in turn, make you feel sleepy, eat several smaller meals throughout the day. Especially avoid large meals at bedtime. Your body will spend the night processing food rather than healing and repairing tissue. Eating meals too fast can also send the body into a stress response. “Our bodies are not designed to take in a lot of food quickly,” says David. So the food just sits there in your stomach, the enzymatic activity in your entire gut stalls, and you lose more energy. Focus On Digestion. When you look at a juicy mango and feel your mouth start to water, it’s a reminder that your digestive system works more efficiently when you’re focusing on your meal rather than on the TV or the newspaper. “Our awareness of the meal increases our metabolism of the meal.” Respect Your Endocrine System. Eating a balanced diet supports your entire endocrine (glandular) system by keeping your hormones balanced. “Your hormones are directly connected to what you put in your mouth, and they profoundly impact your metabolism and available energy,” says Hyman, who recommends eating a diet rich in whole, organic fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, beans, and fresh fish. Eating sugary, starchy, processed foods drains your energy by increasing insulin and cortisol, he notes.

Eating unhealthy fats and drinking too much alcohol can destabilize your energy by creating excess estrogen and other hormones. “Along with insulin and cortisol, your thyroid hormone is one of the big-three hormones that control metabolism and weight,” Hyman says. To keep your thyroid up to speed, he suggests cutting back on caffeine and eating more of the following: seaweed and sea vegetables (for iodine); sardines and salmon (iodine, omega-3 fats and vitamin D); Brazil nuts, scallops and herring (selenium); and dandelion and mustard greens (vitamin A). Supplement Wisely. While experts disagree about the role of supplements in supporting energy metabolism, most agree that getting inadequate nutrition is a surefire way to compromise energy and vitality. If you’re low on energy because you have a vitamin or mineral deficiency, you may benefit from taking a multivitamin, B vitamins, essential fatty acids, supergreens supplements, digestive enzymes, amino acids or other supplements recommended by your nutrition or healthcare adviser. But for maintaining balanced energy and overall health, nothing can beat the effectiveness of eating whole foods that are as close to nature as possible.

From tinkering with your diet to making larger adjustments in your lifestyle, you don’t have to make all these changes at once to enjoy a noticeable uptick in energy. Start by changing the things that seem doable now. And never underestimate what even a small change can achieve. “Energy is a lifestyle,” says Applegate. “And when you change how you eat, you change how you feel in your everyday life.”

Tips on Eating Healthier for Life

Everyday, we encounter a huge array of food options. A small corner store often has hundreds of different drinks to choose from. Grocery stores present us with endless, exhausting aisles of options. Menus, even in small restaurants, can be several pages in length.
On top of all this, we are constantly hit with a barrage of information about food:
• advertising convincing us that we should give in to every craving
• diet gurus trying to get us on to the latest trend
• health experts warning us about today’s big food scare
With so many options, and so many conflicting sources of information, it is hard to figure out exactly what “eating healthy” is, and it’s even harder to avoid overeating. However, there are a few basic pieces of information we can arm ourselves with that will go a long way towards allowing us to cut through the overdose of choices and advertising claims, and enter into a lifetime of healthy eating habits.

The Golden Rule of Healthy Eating
If there were a pyramid of keys to eating healthy, the stone at the very top of that pyramid would be moderation. Eating everything in moderation is absolutely essential to good health, and ignoring or overlooking this simple fact often leads to obesity and other health problems.

How to Moderate
One of the main reasons we tend to overeat is that we don’t pay attention to what we are eating and we don’t pay attention to our bodies when they tell us that we’ve had enough.
• Always eat consciously and slowly. In this way, we become aware of how much we have consumed, and we know when we’ve had enough.
• Avoid taking second helpings at meals.
• Don’t order the largest sized item on the menu at restaurants.
• If you snack, never directly out of the bag of chips or box of cookies so that you don’t know how much you’re eating until it’s all gone.

Portion Sizes
A great way to become aware of what we are eating is to understand portion sizes. Most of the time, we eat three or four times the amount recommended on food labels. Below, you will find a rough guide to healthy portion sizes:
• A portion of meat or protein is 3 oz., roughly the size of a deck of cards. We should be eating no more than 2-3 portions a day. Ideally, these should come from lean meats like chicken or fish, or from non-animal proteins, like legumes and tofu .
• A portion of dairy is equivalent to 1 cup of milk, or 1.5 oz. of cheese – roughly the size of a golf ball. We should be eating no more than 2-3 portions a day.
• A portion of fruit or vegetables is about equivalent to the size of one medium apple or orange, or a ¾ cup of vegetables. We should be eating 5-10 portions a day. However, fruit is high is sugar and should be consumed more moderately than vegetables. While 3-5 servings of fruit a day is plenty, we can easily enjoy 6-8 servings of veggies without compromising weight loss goals.
• Food guides tend to recommend 5-12 servings of grain products a day. This may seem like a lot, however, a serving size is equal to only ½ a cup of cook rice or pasta, 1 slice of bread, or ½ a bagel or scone.
With portions like that, it’s easy to see how those carb calories pile up fast! Just don’t forget that a healthy diet does require some carbohydrates. The problem with carbs is that they are usually full of sugar, and are highly addictive. Maintaining a healthy carb intake may be the biggest dietary challenge for many people, but remember:
1. moderation is key
2. listen to your body
3. stay in control

Timing is Everything
Another key to eating moderately is to control when we eat. We now know that people are much better off eating 5 or 6 small meals a day. When you eat a large meal, your body can’t handle all the nutrition that is being taken in, thus much of it gets converted into fat and goes to waste. However, if you eat several small meals a day, your body will process the same amount of food more efficiently, resulting in healthy, natural weight loss.
Never skip breakfast. This will just make you feel rotten, and more likely to pig out later in the day. The final key that locks the door against overeating forever is to avoid starving yourself. Once you get really hungry, your next meal will almost inevitably be a large, fatty one. By eating moderately and consistently throughout the day, you will actually eat less, your body will process food more efficiently, and you will lose weight without feeling hungry and miserable.

How to help your sore muscles recover!

You’ve pushed yourself to the limit — jogging, Boot Camp, Zumba or whatever it is you do to exercise — and have no sooner wiped the sweat from your brow when it hits you: sore muscles and fatigue … the variety that make you wonder, “Why am I doing this to myself?!”

What causes sore muscles and fatigue after a workout?
Many things, but often it occurs because you’ve exerted yourself and your body needs time to adjust.
To be fair, muscles soreness often doesn’t occur for 12 to 36 hours after a workout. This type of soreness, called delayed-onset muscles soreness (DOMS), is more likely to happen when you’ve just intensified your workout or started a new activity. It’s caused either by a buildup of energy waste products in the muscles or microscopic tears in muscle fibers.
With DOMS, you may think you’re out of the woods, and then be hit with muscles soreness, stiffness, weakness and fatigue.
Meanwhile, energy-wise it’s possible to still be “feeling the burn” from your workout for a day or more afterward. What causes this may actually be your brain — not your muscles. Researchers from the University of Cape Town in South Africa found that prolonged exercise increases blood levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), a molecule that makes people feel tired, 60 to 100 times higher than normal.
This may, in fact, be your body’s way of telling you to slow down before any muscle damage occurs.

What to do so You Feel Great after Your Workout
Exercise should, technically, make you feel more energized, toned and fit — not tired or sore. And while a little bit of fatigue and aches are normal, if you feel awful after you workout it’s a surefire way to quickly give up your routine. Here are 14 simple tips that you can use before, during and after your next workout to make sure you feel the way exercise is intended to make you feel: great!
1. Make sure your body has fuel. Eating a small snack about an hour before your workout may help give you energy.
2. Get enough sleep. If your body is truly tried, your workout will only exacerbate this feeling.
3. When you start a new exercise routine, or increase intensity/duration, do so gradually.
4. Take a few minutes to warm-up before your workout.
5. After you workout, stretch your muscles.
6. Don’t exhaust yourself. If you’re feeling completely out of breath or extremely fatigued, decrease the intensity of your workout.
7. Give yourself time to recover. Avoid training the same muscle groups two days in a row.
8. Drink plenty of water. Dehydration can lead to fatigue.
9. Eat something after your workout. Eating a mixture of protein and complex carbs within 90 minutes of working out will help repair your muscles and give you energy. Some great snack ideas include nuts and fruit, yogurt or cheese and whole-grain crackers or a tuna sandwich on whole-wheat bread.
If you’ve already worked out and now feel sore, here’s what you can do to soothe your achy muscles:
10. Massage the area.
11. Apply a cold pack to the area.
12. Use Icy Hot, a natural, proven topical gel that will relieve your pain in minutes.
13. Give it time. Muscle soreness should go away on its own in a few days.
14. Do some low-impact exercise. This increases blood flow to your muscles and can help to relieve soreness.

Choosing Healthy Fats

For years, nutritionists and doctors have preached the benefits of a low-fat diet. We’ve been told that reducing the amount of fat we eat is the key to losing weight, managing cholesterol, and preventing health problems. But when it comes to your mental and physical health, simply “cutting the fat” just doesn’t cut it.
Research shows that, more than the total amount of fat in your diet; it’s the types of fat you eat that really matter. Bad fats increase your cholesterol and your risk of certain diseases, while good fats have the opposite effect, protecting your heart and supporting overall health. In fact, good fats—such as omega-3 fats—are absolutely essential not only to your physical health but your emotional well-being.

Making sense of dietary fat
A walk down the grocery aisle will confirm our obsession with low-fat foods. We’re bombarded with supposedly guilt-free options: baked potato chips, fat-free ice cream, low-fat candies, cookies, and cakes. But while our low-fat options have exploded, so have obesity rates. Clearly, low-fat foods and diets haven’t delivered on their trim, healthy promises.
Despite what you may have been told, fat isn’t always the bad guy in the waistline wars. Bad fats, such as saturated fats and Trans fats, are guilty of the unhealthy things all fats have been blamed for—weight gain, clogged arteries, and so forth. But good fats such as the monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, and omega-3s have the opposite effect.
As a matter of fact, healthy fats play a huge role in helping you manage your moods, stay on top of your mental game, fight fatigue, and even control your weight.

The answer isn’t cutting out the fat—it’s learning to make healthy choices and to replace bad fats with good ones that promote health and well-being.

Myths and facts about fats
Myth: All fats are equal—and equally bad for you.
Fact: Saturated fats and Trans fats are bad for you because they raise your cholesterol and increase your risk for heart disease. But monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are good for you, lowering cholesterol and reducing your risk of heart disease.
Myth: Lowering the amount of fat you eat is what matters the most.
Fact: The mix of fats that you eat, rather than the total amount in your diet, is what matters most when it comes to your cholesterol and health. The key is to eat more good fats and less bad fats.
Myth: Fat-free means healthy.
Fact: A “fat-free” label doesn’t mean you can eat all you want without consequences to your waistline. Many fat-free foods are high in sugar, refined carbohydrates, and calories.
Myth: Eating a low-fat diet is the key to weight loss.
Fact: The obesity rates for Americans have doubled in the last 20 years, coinciding with the low-fat revolution. Cutting calories is the key to weight loss, and since fats are filling, they can help curb overeating.
Myth: All body fat is the same.
Fact: Where you carry your fat matters. The health risks are greater if you tend to carry your weight around your abdomen, as opposed to your hips and thighs. A lot of belly fat is stored deep below the skin surrounding the abdominal organs and liver, and is closely linked to insulin resistance and diabetes.

Types of dietary fat: Good fats vs. bad fats
To understand good and bad fats, you need to know the names of the players and some information about them. There are four major types of fats:
• monounsaturated fats
• polyunsaturated fats
• saturated fats
• trans fats
Monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are known as the “good fats” because they are good for your heart, your cholesterol, and your overall health.

GOOD FATS
Monounsaturated fat Polyunsaturated fat
• Olive oil
• Canola oil
• Sunflower oil
• Peanut oil
• Sesame oil
• Avocados
• Olives
• Nuts (almonds, peanuts, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, cashews)
• Peanut butter
• Soybean oil
• Corn oil
• Safflower oil
• Walnuts
• Sunflower, sesame, pumpkin seeds, and Flaxseed
• Fatty fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, trout, sardines)
• Soymilk
• Tofu

Saturated fats and Trans fats are known as the “bad fats” because they increase your risk of disease and elevate cholesterol.
Appearance-wise, saturated fats and Trans fats tend to be solid at room temperature (think of butter or traditional stick margarine), while monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats tend to be liquid (think of olive or corn oil).

BAD FATS
Saturated fat/Trans fat
• High-fat cuts of meat (beef, lamb, pork)
• Chicken with the skin
• Whole-fat dairy products (milk and cream)
• Butter
• Cheese
• Ice cream
• Palm and coconut oil
• Lard
• Commercially-baked pastries, cookies, doughnuts, muffins, cakes, pizza dough
• Packaged snack foods (crackers, microwave popcorn, chips)
• Stick margarine
• Vegetable shortening
• Fried foods (French fries, fried chicken, chicken nuggets, breaded fish)
• Candy bars

General guidelines for choosing healthy fats
With so many different sources of dietary fat—some good and some bad—the choices can get confusing. But the bottom line is simple: don’t go no-fat, go good fat.

If you are concerned about your weight or heart health, rather than avoiding fat in your diet, try replacing saturated fats and Trans fats with good fats. This might mean replacing some of the meat you eat with beans and legumes, or using olive oil rather than butter.

•Try to eliminate Trans fats from your diet. Check food labels for Trans fats. Avoiding commercially-baked goods goes a long way. Also limit fast food.
•Limit your intake of saturated fats by cutting back on red meat and full-fat dairy foods. Try replacing red meat with beans, nuts, poultry, and fish whenever possible, and switching from whole milk and other full-fat dairy foods to lower fat versions.
•Eat omega-3 fats every day. Good sources include fish, walnuts, ground flax seeds, flaxseed oil, canola oil, and soybean oil.

How much fat is too much?
How much fat is too much depends on your lifestyle, your weight, your age and most importantly the state of your health? The USDA recommends that the average individual:
•Keep total fat intake to 20-35% of calories
•Limit saturated fats to less than 10% of your calories (200 calories for a 2000 calorie diet)
•Limit trans fats to 1% of calories (2 grams per day for a 2000 calorie diet)

Get your personalized daily fat limits
See Resources and References section below for an easy-to-use tool from the American Heart Association that calculates your personalized daily calorie needs, recommended range for total fats, and limits for Trans fats and saturated fats.
Saturated fats: Reduce this bad fat
When focusing on healthy fats, a good place to start is reducing your consumption of saturated fats. Saturated fats are mainly found in animal products such as red meat and whole milk dairy products. Poultry and fish also contain saturated fat, but less than red meat. Other sources of saturated fat include tropical vegetable oils such as coconut oil and palm oil.
Simple ways to reduce saturated fat
•Eat less red meat (beef, pork, or lamb) and more fish and chicken
•Go for lean cuts of meat, and stick to white meat, which has less saturated fat.
•Bake, broil, or grill instead of frying.
•Remove the skin from chicken and trim as much fat off of meat as possible before cooking.
•Avoid breaded meats and vegetables and deep-fried foods.
•Choose low-fat milk and lower-fat cheeses like mozzarella whenever possible; enjoy full-fat dairy in moderation.
•Use liquid vegetable oils such as olive oil or canola oil instead of lard, shortening, or butter.
•Avoid cream and cheese sauces, or have them served on the side.

Sources of Saturated Fats/Healthier Options
Butter/Olive oil
Cheese/Low-fat or reduced-fat cheese
Red meat/White meat chicken or turkey
Cream/Low-fat milk or fat-free creamer
Eggs/Egg whites, an egg substitute (e.g. Eggbeaters), or tofu
Ice cream Frozen yogurt/Reduced fat ice cream
Whole milk/Skim or 1% milk
Sour cream/Plain, non-fat yogurt

Eliminate Tran’s fats from your diet
A Trans fat is a normal fat molecule that has been twisted and deformed during a process called hydrogenation. During this process, liquid vegetable oil is heated and combined with hydrogen gas. Partially hydrogenating vegetable oils makes them more stable and less likely to spoil, which is very good for food manufacturers—and very bad for you.
No amount of Trans fats is healthy. Trans fats contribute to major health problems, from heart disease to cancer.

Sources of Trans fats
Many people think of margarine when they picture Trans fats, and it’s true that some margarines are loaded with them. However, the primary source of Trans fats in the Western diet comes from commercially-prepared baked goods and snack foods:
•Baked goods – cookies, crackers, cakes, muffins, pie crusts, pizza dough, and some breads like hamburger buns
•Fried foods – doughnuts, French fries, fried chicken, chicken nuggets, and hard taco shells
•Snack foods – potato, corn, and tortilla chips; candy; packaged or microwave popcorn
•Solid fats – stick margarine and semi-solid vegetable shortening
•Pre-mixed products – cake mix, pancake mix, and chocolate drink mix

Be a Trans fat detective
•When shopping, read the labels and watch out for “partially hydrogenated oil” in the ingredients. Even if the food claims to be Trans fat free, this ingredient makes it suspect.
•With margarine, choose the soft-tub versions, and make sure the product has zero grams of Trans fat and no partially hydrogenated oils.
•When eating out, put fried foods, biscuits, and other baked goods on your “skip” list. Avoid these products unless you know that the restaurant has eliminated Trans fat.
•Avoid fast food. Most states have no labeling regulations for fast food, and it can even be advertised as cholesterol-free when cooked in vegetable oil.
•When eating out, ask your server or counter person what type of oil your food will be cooked in. If it’s partially hydrogenated oil, run the other way or ask if your food can be prepared using olive oil, which most restaurants have in stock.

Getting more good, unsaturated fats in your diet
Okay, so you realize you need to avoid saturated fat and Trans fat… but how do you get the healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats everyone keeps talking about?
The best sources of healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are vegetable oils, nuts, seeds, and fish.
•Cook with olive oil. Use olive oil for stovetop cooking, rather than butter, stick margarine, or lard. For baking, try canola or vegetable oil.
•Eat more avocados. Try them in sandwiches or salads or make guacamole. Along with being loaded with heart and brain-healthy fats, they make for a filling and satisfying meal.
•Reach for the nuts. You can also add nuts to vegetable dishes or use them instead of breadcrumbs on chicken or fish.
•Snack on olives. Olives are high in healthy monounsaturated fats. But unlike most other high-fat foods, they make for a low-calorie snack when eaten on their own. Try them plain or make a tapenade for dipping.
•Dress your own salad. Commercial salad dressings are often high in saturated fat or made with damaged Trans fat oils. Create your own healthy dressings with high-quality, cold-pressed olive oil, flaxseed oil, or sesame oil.

Damaged fat: When good fats go bad
A good fat can become bad if heat, light, or oxygen damages it. Polyunsaturated fats are the most fragile. Oils that are high in polyunsaturated fats (such as flaxseed oil) must be refrigerated and kept in an opaque container. Cooking with these oils also damages the fats. Never use oils, seeds, or nuts after they begin to smell or taste rank or bitter.

Omega-3 fatty acids: Superfats for the brain and heart
Omega-3 fatty acids are a type of polyunsaturated fat. While all types of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are good for you, omega-3 fats are proving to be especially beneficial.
We’re still learning about the many benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, but research has shown that they can:
•Prevent and reduce the symptoms of depression
•Protect against memory loss and dementia
•Reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer
•Ease arthritis, joint pain, and inflammatory skin conditions
•Support a healthy pregnancy

Omega-3 fatty acids and mental health
Omega-3 fatty acids are highly concentrated in the brain. Research indicates that they play a vital role in cognitive function (memory, problem-solving abilities, etc.) as well as emotional health.
Getting more omega-3 fatty acids in your diet can help you battle fatigue, sharpen your memory, and balance your mood. Studies have shown that omega-3s can be helpful in the treatment of depression, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and bipolar disorder.

There are several different types of omega-3 fatty acids:
•EPA and DHA – Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) have the most research to back up their health benefits. Both are found in abundance in cold-water fatty fish.
•ALA – Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) comes from plants. Studies suggest that it’s a less potent form of omega-3 than EPA and DHA. The best sources include flaxseed, walnuts, and canola oil.
Fish: The best food source of omega-3 fatty acids
Omega-3 fats are a type of essential fatty acid, meaning they are essential to health, but your body can’t make them. You can only get omega-3 fats from food.
The best sources are fatty fish such as salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies, or sardines, or high-quality cold-water fish oil supplements. Canned albacore tuna and lake trout can also be good sources, depending on how the fish were raised and processed.
Some people avoid seafood because they worry about mercury or other possible toxins in fish. However, most experts agree that the benefits of eating two servings a week of these cold-water fatty fish outweigh the risks.
If you’re a vegetarian or you don’t like fish, you can still get your omega-3 fix by eating algae (which is high in DHA) or taking a fish oil or algae supplement.
Choosing the best omega-3 supplement
With so many omega-3 and fish oil supplements and fortified foods, making the right choice can be tricky. These guidelines can help.
•Avoid products that don’t list the source of their omega-3s. Does the package list the source of omega-3 fatty acids? If not, chances are it’s ALA (sometimes from plain old canola or soybean oil), which most Westerners already get plenty of.
•Don’t fall for fortified foods. Many fortified foods (such as margarine, eggs, and milk) claim to be high in omega-3 fatty acids, but often, the real amount of omega-3 is miniscule.
•Look for the total amount of EPA and DHA on the label. The bottle may say 1,000 milligrams of fish oil, but it’s the amount of omega-3 that matters. Read the small print. It may show only 300 mg of EPA and DHA (sometimes listed as “omega-3 fatty acids”), which means you’d have to take three capsules to get close to 1,000 milligrams of omega-3.
•Choose supplements that are mercury-free, pharmaceutical grade and molecularly distilled. Make sure the supplement contains both DHA and EPA. They may be hard to find, but supplements with higher concentrations of EPA are better.
Fish oil supplements can cause stomach upset and belching, especially when you first start taking them. To reduce these side effects, take them with food. You may also want to start with a low dose and gradually increase it, or divide the dose among your three meals.

How much omega-3 do I need?
The American Heart Association recommends consuming 1–3 grams per day of EPA and DHA (1 gram = 1,000 milligrams). For the treatment of mental health issues, including depression and ADHD, look for supplements that are high in EPA, which has been shown to elevate and stabilize mood. Aim for at least 1,000 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids per day.

The truth about dietary fat and cholesterol
Cholesterol is a fatty, wax-like substance that your body needs to function properly. In and of itself, cholesterol isn’t bad. But when you get too much of it, it can have a negative impact on your health.
Cholesterol comes from two sources: your body and food. Your body (specifically, the liver) produces some of the cholesterol you need naturally. But you also get cholesterol directly from any animal products you eat, such as eggs, meat, and dairy. Together, these two sources contribute to your blood cholesterol level.

Good vs. bad cholesterol
As with dietary fat, there are good and bad types of cholesterol. HDL cholesterol is the “good” kind of cholesterol found in your blood. LDL cholesterol is the “bad” kind. The key is to keep HDL levels high and LDL levels low. High levels of HDL cholesterol help protect against heart disease and stroke, while high levels of LDL cholesterol can clog arteries, increasing your risk.
Research shows that there is only a weak link between the amount of cholesterol you eat and your blood cholesterol levels. The biggest influence on your total and LDL cholesterol is the type of fats you eat—not your dietary cholesterol. So instead of counting cholesterol, simply focus on replacing bad fats with good fats.
•Monounsaturated fats lower total and bad (LDL) cholesterol levels, while increasing good cholesterol (HDL).
•Polyunsaturated fats lower triglycerides and fight inflammation.
•Saturated fats raise your blood cholesterol.
•Trans fats are even worse than saturated fats, since they not only raise your bad LDL cholesterol, but also lower the good HDL cholesterol.

Health Benefits of Drinking Water

Drinking a healthy amount of water is vital to your health. You can never imagine just by drinking a healthy amount of water, you gain tremendous health benefits, and sometimes you can even throw away your migraine medicine or pain killer.
Before you can appreciate the benefits of water to your health, let’s review the role of water in human body.

Functions of Water in The Body

The human body is anywhere from 55% to 78% water depending on body size. A rule of thumb, 2/3 of body is consists of water, and it is the main component of human body. Did you know that your tissues and organs are mainly made up of water? Here is the %:
• Muscle consists of 75% water
• Brain consists of 90% of water
• Bone consists of 22% of water
• Blood consists of 83% water

The functions of water in human body are vital. The water:
• Transports nutrients and oxygen into cells
• Moisturizes the air in lungs
• Helps with metabolism
• Protects our vital organ
• Helps our organs to absorb nutrients better
• Regulates body temperature
• Detoxifies
• Protects and moisturizes our joints
Every cell in your body needs water from head to toe. That is why it is so important to drink enough fluid. Take for example, brain consists of 90% of water, if you do not supply enough water to your body, your brain cannot function well, and you will get headache or migraine. Hence, next time, if you feel fatigue and headache, it may be the sign of dehydration.
Harmful Effects and Symptoms of Dehydration

The Harmful Effects Result from Dehydration:
• Tiredness
• Migraine
• Constipation
• Muscle cramps
• Irregular blood pressure
• Kidney problems
• Dry skin
• 20% dehydrated – Risk of death

Symptoms of Dehydration
Here are some of the symptoms that you need more water:
• Dark Urine – Dark Yellow or Orange in Color: Urine is generally pale yellow to clear when you have sufficient water intake. Dark color or strong smell indicates that you need to drink more water.
• Dry Skin: Skin is the largest body organ and requires its share of water.
• Thirst: Thirst is the most obvious sign that you’re already dehydrated. It is always a good practice to drink more water when you are not thirsty, don’t wait until you’re thirsty.
• Hunger: Most people mistake hunger for the indication to eat more, whereas in actual fact, they may be dehydrated. So before you have your meal, grab a glass of water.
• Fatigue: Water is a source of energy and gives you a boost in energy.

Top 11 Health Benefits of Drinking Water

You will be amazed of the benefits of drinking water as follow:
1. Lose weight: Drinking water helps you lose weight because it flushes down the by-products of fat breakdown. Drinking water reduces hunger; it’s an effective appetite suppressant so you’ll eat less. Plus, water has zero calories
2. Natural Remedy for Headache: Helps to relieve headache and back pains due to dehydration. Although many reasons contribute to headache, dehydration is the common one.
3. Look Younger with Healthier Skin: You’ll look younger when your skin is properly hydrated. Water helps to replenish skin tissues, moisturizes skin and increases skin elasticity.
4. Better Productivity at Work: Your brain is mostly made up of water, thus drinking water helps you think better, be more alert and more concentrated.
5. Better Exercise: Drinking water regulates your body temperature. That means you’ll feel more energetic when doing exercises. Water also helps to fuel your muscle.
6. Helps in Digestion and Constipation: Drinking water raises your metabolism because it helps in digestion. Fiber and water goes hand in hand so that you can have your daily bowel movement.
7. Less Cramps and Sprains: Proper hydration helps keep your joints and muscles lubricated, so you’ll less likely get cramps and sprains.
8. Less Likely to Get Sick and Feel Healthy: Drinking plenty of water helps fight against flu and other ailments like kidney stones and heart attack. Water adds with lemon is used for ailments like respiratory disease, intestinal problems, rheumatism and arthritis etc. In another words one of the benefits of drinking water is that it can improve your immune system.
9. Relieves Fatigue: Water is used by the body to help flush out toxins and waste products from the body. If your body lacks water, your heart, for instance, needs to work harder to pump out the oxygenated blood to all cells, so are the rest of the vital organs, your organs will be exhausted and so will you.
10. Good Mood: Your body feels very good and that’s why you feel happy.
11. Reduce the Risk of Cancer: Related to the digestive system, some studies show that drinking a healthy amount of water may reduce the risks of bladder cancer and colon cancer. Water dilutes the concentration of cancer-causing agents in the urine and shortens the time in which they are in contact with bladder lining.

Can you see the importance of water to your body after understanding the above benefits of drinking water?

Grocery shopping tips!

Do you know that there is a strategy to how grocery stores are designed? The periphery, or outside areas of the store, contain perishable food items, like the dairy, meat, and produce departments. The inside aisles house canned foods, paper goods, cleaning supplies, breads and cereals. Since these items don’t require refrigeration, I recommend you start shopping in these aisles first. The longer your perishable items are in your grocery cart and are not properly cooled, the more at risk they are for bacterial growth.

So, let’s get started with our healthy shopping list, starting in the produce area. Both fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins and anti-oxidants, and are great sources of fiber. They are also naturally low in calories and in sodium. The newest recommendations are to eat five to nine servings a day from fruits and vegetables, so load up your cart here.
In the meat department, choose lower fat cuts of beef like sirloin, eye of round, flank or extra lean ground beef. Avoid heavily marbled, or fatty meats. Select skinless, breasted poultry over the darker cuts, like the thighs and legs. If you find that skinless cuts dry out while cooking, then leave the skin on and remove it before serving. Any type of seafood is an excellent choice, even shellfish. Cold-water fish, like salmon, swordfish and tuna are rich in Omega 3 fatty acids, which help promote heart health. If you are pregnant, you need to be careful of the mercury found in many of the cold-water fish,
so you should check with your physician before eating these types of fish.

Deli meats tend to be high in sodium and some can be high in fat. Choose sliced turkey or chicken breast, ham or lean roast beef. Many delis offer an “in- house” cooked poultry, which has less sodium added. Avoid salami, bologna, and pastrami cuts.
In the dairy case, look for non-fat or 1% milk. Even though a yogurt is reduced in fat, it can be high in sugar. Light, low fat yogurts that are sweetened with artificial sweeteners are better alternatives if you are diabetic or watching your weight. Look for cheeses that have less than five grams of fat per serving. Eggs are a great source of protein, but the yolk lends fat and cholesterol in your diet. Egg substitutes are made from egg whites and are a good alternative.

Look for bread and cereals that advertise they are 100% whole grain and contain at least two or more grams of fiber per serving. Choose brown rice and whole grain pastas. Beans are a great source of protein and are high in fiber and low in fat. Add them to soups, stir fry’s or salads.

In the frozen case, avoid any frozen meats that have been breaded. Non-fat frozen yogurts and sorbets are good alternatives to ice cream. No sugar added and light ice cream is available for diabetics.

Always use a grocery list and never go shopping on an empty stomach. In most instances, growling hunger pains lead us straight to the unhealthy food choices in the grocery store.

It’s never too late

Shawn Bell’s Boot Camp

A (slightly) older potential client wrote to me recently, wanting to know how to change her bad habits ingrained after so many years of doing them. She wanted to know, “Is it too late to change?”
And I can understand the feeling. Doing bad habits for years makes them deeply entrenched, and getting out of that trench might seem impossible, hopeless.

I once was stuck, and felt the weight of built up bad habits crushing, smothering, and burying me. I felt helpless, like I had no control over myself, and was too discouraged to even try to change.
This discouragement is what does it. It’s not that changing bad habits is impossible. But if we are so discouraged we don’t try, we will never change them. To try and to fail is of little consequence, but to never start at all is fatal to the habit change.

And I’m here to tell you, that changing bad habits is not impossible. No matter how long you’ve done them, no matter how many decades.
It can be done. By you. By taking a single step.

Here’s how.
Know as you start that you aren’t changing a mountain. You don’t have to change years of bad actions. Those actions are gone — they’ve evaporated into the ether, and you can forget them. Forgive yourself for them, and then forget them.
You don’t need to run a marathon to change a habit. You just need to take a step. And you can take a step.

Consider for a moment your bad habit. You might have a dozen, but choose an easy one. Not the one you’re most afraid of — the one you think you can lick.
Take a step back and think about this habit. When do you do it? What things trigger the habit — stress, food, drinking, socializing, boredom, sadness, waking, being criticized? What need does the habit fulfill for you? Know that it does fulfill a real need, and that’s why you keep doing it.

Realize something — stop here to drive home for yourself a crucial point: you must realize that you don’t need this habit to fulfill this need. You don’t need the habit. You can deal with stress in healthier ways. You can beat boredom. You can cope. You do not need the habit, and you will learn better ones with practice.
You might be feeling a bit overwhelmed at this point, but you’ve done the hardest part. Now you just need to take one more little step.

Commit to yourself to make a small tiny insignificant but powerful step each day. Commit fully, not half-assed. Commit by writing it down, and putting it up on your wall. Commit by telling a friend about it, and asking for help. Commit by putting it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, your blog, a forum you frequent. Be all in.

Find a replacement habit. One that is healthier. One that fulfills the need. One that is easy. One that you can do after your trigger, instead of your bad habit. One that you enjoy and will look forward to. If you need to relieve stress, for example, consider walking, or pushups, or deep breathing, or self-massage.
You’re now ready to climb out of your trench. Remember, just a tiny step.

Notice your urge to do the habit. Pause. Don’t do the bad habit. Let the urge pass, then do your new replacement habit.
Repeat, noticing the urge, letting the urge pass, not doing the bad habit, doing the good habit instead. You might mess up, but that’s OK. You’ll get better with practice.

Practice as often as you can, every day. You’ll get really good at it. Don’t worry about how long it takes. Keep doing it, one urge at a time.
Know, Consider, Realize, Commit, and Find, Notice, Repeat, and Practice. These are easy steps that don’t take a lot of work. You can do them as you sit here, reading this post.
It’s never too late. There is no habit that can’t be broken by the pressure of a single footprint. Make that footprint by taking a single step, today.

7 ways to build an Exercise habit

You’ve probably tried it several times. You’re fed up with your skinny look or overweight body. You decide to finally do something about it. So you join a boot camp. Some friends decide to join you. After a few weeks however, your friends don’t show up anymore. Then you end up alone. And eventually you quit.
Yeah I know, this happens all the time. I’ve seen it over and over again. I know what you’re thinking. How come some people can stick with it and others not? What is their secret?

I’ll first tell you what it is not: it’s not discipline, it’s not willpower. Discipline and willpower only work in the short-term.
What works in the long-term is making exercise a habit. That’s their secret. And that’s what this post is about — 7 ways to build the exercise habit.

1. Set your Goal. What do you want to achieve?
• Bigger muscles?
• Less fat?
• More strength?
• More speed?
Exercising can be used for several means. Before you take a gym membership, start by setting a definite goal. What is it that you want?
Don’t try to achieve more than 1 thing at a time. Start with one goal. Once you have attained it, you can work towards a second goal.

2. Set a Deadline. Set a date by which you will reach your goal. Write your goal and deadline on a piece of paper and put it somewhere you can see it multiple times a day.
A good place would be on your nightstand. Look at it on waking up and before going to bed. This will act as a constant reminder of your goal.

3. Make a Plan. Once you have set your goal, you must back it up with a plan.
• Which exercises will you perform?
• How many sets and reps will you do?
• How many times a week will you go the gym?
Your time is precious. Any minute in the class must bring you closer towards the achievement of your goal. So choose a solid training program.

4. Exercise First Thing in the Morning. When you’ve just had a tough day at work, it can be hard to train for another hour at the gym. A solution is to exercise first thing in the morning:
• Wake up early
• Eat breakfast
• Prepare the stuff you need for work
• Go to Boot Camp
One hour later, you’re another step closer towards the achievement of your goal. And you have your whole day to do whatever you need to do.

5. Stick to your Plan. This is something I experienced on numerous occasions. The days you don’t feel like exercising, are often your best days. Maybe it’s the mind-body connection: the body says no, but the mind says go. Thus the body eventually says go too. I don’t know.
Whatever it is, when it’s the day to train, it’s the day to train. Make no excuses, go to the class. If you don’t feel 100% healthy, still go boot camp, but train at a lower intensity. The fact that you’ve been there, is more important than the quality of your training. And as I wrote above, sometimes it can turn out into one of your most productive workouts.
The more you exercise, the more you build the habit. Stick to your plan.

6. Train With Someone Who Has The Exercise Habit. If you’re training partner quits, you’ll probably end up quitting too. But if your training partner hangs on, you’ll take it as a challenge.
Next time you go the boot camp, look around you. Look at the people who exercise. Find someone who is serious with his training. Take the initiative: ask them if you can train with them. If you choose the right person, he or she will accept your request. Most people know that getting into exercising is not easy, they know because they’ve been there.
A good training partner will motivate you & help you achieve your goal. If not, keep on looking.

7. Be confident. You can achieve whatever you want, if you believe that you can do it. Having a clear goal and a plan will already arm you with self-confidence.
Know that it will take 30 days to build the exercise habit. During the first 30 days you’ll need to push yourself to the gym. After 30 days it will become easier: the habits starts to take over, pushing you the gym.

Write this next to your goal and deadline: “If they can do it, I can do it”

The Habits That Crush Us

Why is it that we cannot break the bad habits that stand in our way, crushing our desires to live a healthy life, be fit, simplify, be happier?
How is it that our best intentions are nearly always beaten? We want to be focused and productive, exercise and eat healthy foods, stop smoking and learn to get rid of debt and clutter, but we just can’t.
The answer lies in something extremely simple, but something most people aren’t aware of:
We don’t know how to cope with stress and boredom in a healthy way.
The bad habits we’ve formed are often useful to us, in dealing with stress and boredom. Consider the bad habits that fit this bill:
• Smoking
• Internet procrastination
• Eating junk food
• Drinking
• Being rude/angry/depressed
• Watching TV or playing video games (if you become addicted & sedentary)
• Shopping (getting into debt, building clutter)
• Procrastinating on finances, paperwork, clutter (too stressful)
• Inactivity (avoiding exercise is a stress avoidance technique)
• Biting nails, chewing hair, clenching jaw

This isn’t a complete list, but all of these habits fill a strong need: they are ways to cope with stress and/or boredom. We have formed them as coping mechanisms, and they stick around because we don’t have better ways of coping.
So what if instead, we replaced them with healthier ways of coping? We’d get rid of the problems of these bad habits, and start getting the benefits of better habits.

Better Coping Habits
How can we deal with stress and boredom instead? There’s no one answer, but the habits we form should be ones that lead to healthier results. Some ideas:
• Walk/run/swim/bike
• Do pushups, pullups, squats
• Boot Camp
• Play with friends/kids
• Create, write, play music, read when we’re bored
• Learn to enjoy being alone, instead of being bored
• Take a daily walk and enjoy nature
• Deal with finances, clutter, paperwork immediately, in small steps, so that it doesn’t get stressful
• Take control of a situation: make a list, get started in baby steps, so things don’t get stressful
• Learn to be mindful of your breathing, body tension, stressed-out thoughts
• Get some rest
• Learn to savor healthy food that you find delicious
• Slow down
• Take a hot bath
• Learn to live in the present

These are some good examples. Each habit above will help cope with or prevent stress or boredom. If you replace the bad habits with these, your life will be less stressful and healthier. You’ll have less debt, less clutter, less fat, less disease.

Changing the Habits
The old habits of coping didn’t build up overnight, and they won’t go away overnight either. We built them up through years of repetition, and the only way to change them is also years of repetition.
But an important start is to realize why we do them — stress and boredom, largely — and realize that there are other ways to deal with these two problems. We need to be aware when stress and boredom start to kick in, and instead of being afraid of them, realize that they are problems easily solved by other habits. Let’s take the fear out of stress and boredom. Let’s learn that we can beat them simply, and prove that with repeated good habits.

Once you have that realization, follow the usual Zen Habits steps to changing a habit:
1. Pick one habit at a time.
2. Start very small – just a minute or two, if you want it to stick.
3. Use social motivation like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or email.
4. Be very conscious of your triggers, and do the habit consciously every time the trigger happens.
5. Enjoy the new habit. You’ll stick with it longer if you do.

We have been crushed by the habits we’ve formed out of fear of stress and boredom. We can fight back, by learning to breathe, to smile, to go slowly. We can humble these giants that crush us by turning them into mere gnats to be shooed away with a smile.

Proteins, Fats, and Carbs:How to Balance Your Diet

Dieting can be confusing. High-protein diets claim to help you lose weight quickly, but can lead to high cholesterol and increase your risk for heart disease. High-carbohydrate diets may be low in fat, but can lead to high triglyceride levels, which cause hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis). To add to the confusion, a new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that people who eat very little protein and too much carbohydrate and fat will have more body fat and less muscle mass. So what does this all mean for you? Which diet is best?

Diet and Exercise
First, most of these diets don’t make any specific recommendations on physical activity. Exercise is an extremely important component to weight loss or maintaining weight. Routine exercise helps build muscle mass and gives you more energy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends 150 minutes (2.5 hours) per week of “moderate-intensity” activities as well as muscle strengthening exercises twice a week. “Moderate-intensity” activities can include brisk walking, jogging, or bike riding. Basically, you just want to sweat and increase your heart rate. Muscle strengthening exercise can include weight lifting, Boot Camp, pushups, or sit-ups.

Load Up on Lean Protein
Once you increase your physical activity, you will need to make sure you consume enough protein to help build and repair muscles. It is recommended that you aim for 20-25% of your daily calories from protein. For a 2,000-calorie diet, this would be about 400-500 calories from protein (100-125 g) per day. Make sure to choose lean protein such as chicken, fish, beans, lentils, nuts, or non-fat milk. By choosing lean protein, you decrease the amount of fat you consume, which typically is the cause of high cholesterol and heart disease.

Choose Healthy Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are also an important part of a balanced diet. While most diets recommend cutting back on carbohydrates, these foods actually provide you with the energy you need to keep going throughout the day. Aim for 45-60% of your daily calories to come from carbohydrates. For a 2,000-calorie diet, this is between 900-1200 calories (225 – 300g) per day. Choose “healthy” carbohydrates, such as fruit, vegetables, and whole grains. If you consume mainly refined grains (white bread, cookies, crackers, etc), then it may contribute to weight gain. Find carbohydrates that are high in fiber content, as this will keep you feeling fuller longer. Beans and legumes are also a good source of carbohydrates.

Limit Fat
Finally, limit your fat intake to 15-20% of your daily calories. You still need fat, just in small amounts. Choose “healthy” fats (unsaturated fats) that can help keep your cholesterol within normal limits. These can be found in olive oil, canola oil, nuts, avocados, and fish. Try to limit your intake of sweets (junk food), since these fats tend to have more saturated fat which can lead to heart disease and high cholesterol.
In conclusion, all fad diets may work to some extent. However, each has its own possible side effects that could affect your overall health. Try to find a nice balance between all the food groups (fruit, vegetables, protein, carbohydrates, and dairy). Start exercising a little each day, and you will find out how quickly 150 minutes adds up.

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