Archive for July, 2009

by Katherine Crawford M.S.

Trying to tone arms and eating out don’t mix. Why? Because your arm fat loves restaurant food. In fact, it grows with restaurant food.

Unfortunately, a restaurant’s main goal is to get you to come back. How do they do this? By injecting their food with the tastiest (and unhealthiest) of ingredients. The more taste, the more sales.

Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are a perfect example here. Found in so many restaurant items, Harvard researchers have proven that they’re lethal. Not good.

But not all hope is lost. There are some things you can do to minimize-and in some cases eliminate-the damage when eating out. In this article I will reveal 4 tips to get tone arms even when eating at a restaurant:

1. Eat lean protein. Most protein in restaurants is laden with fat. Stay clear of beef, lamb and pork. And don’t even think about the hot dogs or ribs-they have the most fat of all! Instead, try to have some poultry or tofu. Ask the waiter if they have any grass fed beef.

2. Stay clear of all the refined carbs. I know you love digging into that massive loaf of bread the waiter brings out, but we’re on an arm toning mission here. And that bread isn’t going to do us any good! Instead, stick to whole grains, and if possible, legumes ONLY. Now if you don’t have enough self control with the bread, have a salad before the waiter brings it out.

3. Make sure your salad is healthy. What can make a salad unhealthy? A monsoon of dressing and an explosion of cheese. Strive for a salad that has spinach or some type of lettuce mix and make sure that you don’t have more than 1 table spoon of dressing. And don’t go crazy with the cheese!

4. Eat half of what’s on your plate. A full course meal at a restaurant can have an entire days worth of calories-I’m not exaggerating here. Your jiggly arm fat loves restaurant food. Request a to-go box before your meal arrives, and once it does, shove half of it in. Alternatively, you could share a plate with the person you are with.

Disclaimer: if you rarely eat out, these tips are less relevant. However, if you eat at restaurants more than once per week, then you should follow the advice in this article. You shouldn’t give up socializing when trying to tone arms! So have fun!

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by Katherine Crawford M.S.

If you want to tone arms and eat out regularly, be very careful. Eating at restaurants is a flabby arm slippery slope. And you will eat at restaurants because they play an important role in how we socialize.

Unfortunately, a restaurant’s main goal is to get you to come back. How do they do this? By injecting their food with the tastiest (and unhealthiest) of ingredients. The more taste, the more sales.

What could possibly be so unhealthy??? Trans fats are a prime example. Soon to be banned in many states, they are absolutely lethal.

However, you should NOT eliminate all restaurant eating. In fact, you should go out every once in a while and control what you eat. After all, eating out forms a large part of how we socialize. Thus, here are 4 rapid-fire tips on how to tone arms when dining out:

1. Stay away from the high-fat protein. Stick with lean sources of protein like turkey and soy products. Pork, beef, lamb, and especially hot dogs an ribs will come laden with fat. Fat that will feed your flabby arms.

2. Stay clear of all the refined carbs. I know you love digging into that massive loaf of bread the waiter brings out, but we’re on an arm toning mission here. And that bread isn’t going to do us any good! Instead, stick to whole grains, and if possible, legumes ONLY. Now if you don’t have enough self control with the bread, have a salad before the waiter brings it out.

3. Avoid unhealthy salads. Is it possible for a salad to be unhealthy? Oh yes An iceberg salad (little nutritional value) drenched with dressing and crusted over with cheese can reach the 1000 calorie level. Crazy, but true. Ask for spinach or lettuce mixes, have no more than 1tbsp of cheese and ask a for a SMALL portion of dressing on the side!

4. Don’t eat everything that’s on your plate, seriously. A single meal at a restaurant can have a whole days worth of calories. Trust me. This is the main reason why your arm fat will love it every time you eat out-it knows it’s going to get fed very well. Only eat half of what’s on your plate or share it with someone else.

Having said all of this, note that if you rarely eat at restaurants, the occasional splurge will not have a significant impact on your mission to tone arms. If, however, you eat at restaurants more than once per week, then you should definitely apply these tips!

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by John GilbertGrant

Weight-loss programs abound these days, with “newer and better” jumping on board every day, touting “no carbs,” “low carbs,” liquid diets, “the Master Cleanse,” and on and on and on. It’s enough to make your head spin, isn’t it? But in fact, the tried and true wisdom of any weight-loss program is that you have to have a balanced amount of calories with enough “good” fats and carbohydrates, and enough protein, to help you lose weight and then maintain the weight once you’ve lost it.

It’s a simple fact that fad diets don’t work. They come and go, and they may even work for a while, but the simple fact is, no fad diet works for long because it’s unbalanced and unhealthy. You simply can’t sustain it. Therefore, a healthy weight loss/maintenance program is the only way to go.

It’s probably true you can construct your own healthy weight loss program (perhaps with the help of a nutritionist) so that you can lose weight and keep it off, comfortably, and without starving. The problem is, a lot of us have neither the time nor the inclination to do this, and so go back to munching junk food “quick grab” lunches, meaning that we also stay overweight.

Jenny Craig can help you fix that. No “new kid on the block,” in fact, Jenny Craig has been around for 25 years. The program works because it gives you a carefully constructed meal plan that you fresh fruits and vegetables and low-fat dairy to. The meals are prepackaged, so there’s no thought given to it, and it appeals to the “quick grabbers” in all of us. There’s no thinking with this meal plan. You simply grab your meals and go. In fact, that element is one of the biggest reasons Jenny Craig is so successful. It gives dieters the convenience they want, but it does so with healthy meals are carefully constructed and prepackaged so that dieters don’t have to think about what they’re eating.

Of course, this “grab and go” convenience can be a disadvantage, too, because I can hear you thinking, “Well, overweight and obese people get that way because they don’t learn how to cook properly and learn proper portion sizes, not just because they don’t learn how to eat properly.” But the Jenny Craig weight-loss program addresses that, too, because the first part of the program (the “grab and go” part of the program) is relatively short-lived. The meals themselves are meant to serve as models to what healthy portion sizes and meal contents look like. During that same time, dieters also meet with counselors, with the ultimate goal of planning and cooking their own healthy meals with healthy portion sizes.

And if there are any disadvantages to this program, it’s that it’s relatively expensive. You’re going to pay between $10 and $15 a day for the prepackaged meals, plus any extra expense for your own dairy and fresh fruits and vegetables. The other thing is, this program is not meant to be a permanent solution. It’s just meant to get you started on healthy eating habits and give you the knowledge you need to continue with your own weight maintenance once you’ve reached your goal weight, with your own healthy cooking and portion control.

But if you think $10-$15 a day sounds like a lot, let’s take a moment to think about that. How much do you REALLY spend on food every day, counting fast food grabs, junk food grabs, donuts at the office, etc.? If it’s around $600 a month, then Jenny Craig (including the extra fruit, vegetable and dairy purchases) is going to be no more expensive. And then, there’s also the indirect expense of being unhealthy and overweight, which can have long-term and expensive medical consequences. Losing that weight with Jenny Craig is certainly going to save you money over the long haul.

So what’s the consensus? Jenny Craig, like any weight-loss program, is really meant to be a temporary tool and not a permanent solution. However, it can teach you how to cook and eat properly, and give you a jump-start on weight loss, so that you lose weight slowly and healthfully — no crash diets, fad diets, or deprivation. It’s solidly and nutritionally based, and there are 25 years of success behind it. It’s not perfect, certainly, but it can certainly give you a good start toward your goal weight that may be just the momentum you need. Whether or not it’s the right program for you is entirely your decision.

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by Dana Hawkes

The acai berry diet promotes the consumption of the acai berry. People will get the acai berry in many ways. They will look to acai berry juice to get a liquid form of the berry. They may even look to supplements and pills to get what they demand. Some even look for acai powder for a way to get the acai that they need. While these are essential and good ways to get acai, there is more to the diet than meets the eye.

The acai berry diet cannot stand alone to be extremely effective. Those who are looking for strong results are going to want to set the diet with both diet and exercise. The exercise is easy. Trying to figure out the right foods to eat with the acai berry diet can be somewhat difficult.

One chief type of food to eat is fish. Fish can give you multiple benefits. Fish features healthy fats, known as omega fatty acids. The acai berry diet also features these omega fatty acids. Eating more fish will remove unhealthy fats from your diet while enhancing your omega fatty acid intake.

Eating more fruits is a great way to supplement the acai berry diet. Fruits feature many of the antioxidants and vitamins that the acai berry features. These fruits will help to give your body more of the vitamins and nutrients you need for a healthy lifestyle.

When thinking about dieting with the acai berry diet, you need to think about portion control. Many people are unnecessarily eating unhealthy foods. While they have some, their largest problems revolve around the portion of food that they eat. Think about how much food you are eating in one sitting, and think about what a healthy amount would be. You may need to cut back on your eating habits to allow the acai berry diet to do its work.

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by Carla Stewart

Has your doctor recommended Acetaminophen pain relievers? If you take Acetaminophen, you should know that exceeding the recommended acetaminophen dosage for an extended period will raise your risk of kidney and or liver damage. An adult should not take more than 4,000 milligrams of Acetaminophen per day. Anyone who drinks heavily, who takes blood thinning medication, or who has liver disease must exercise extreme caution with Acetaminophen.

The U.S. Acute Liver Failure Study Group found that acetaminophen poisoning is the leading cause of liver failure in the nation, accounting for approximately half of all cases. Acetaminophen becomes a toxin when large amounts are ingested or under other specific conditions. Some of these instances of liver failure occur even when following the dosage recommendations printed on the bottle.

Too many people may take a lot more than the recommended dose of over-the-counter pain relievers that are acetaminophen-based, They have this mistaken belief that taking more of acetaminophen, tylenol, etc will be more effective for the pain without posing health risks. Many consumers do not know that acetaminophen is present in many over-the-counter products, including remedies for colds, headaches and fevers, which makes it possible to exceed the recommended acetaminophen dose.

Acetaminophen is the generic name of a drug found in many common brand name OTC products such as Tylenol, and over the counter acetaminophen as well as prescription products such as Vicodin and Percocet. Acetaminophen is an important drug, and its effectiveness in relieving pain and fever is widely known. This drug is generally considered safe when used according to the directions on its labeling. But taking more than the recommended amount can cause liver damage, ranging from abnormalities in liver function blood tests, to acute liver failure, and even death.

With the use of herbal remedies in todays society, an ever growing population are tired of synthetic drugs, and want all natural herbal antidotes to help alleviate their health conditions. There has been a resurgence in the use of natural herbs for pain relief,and there is an alternative to using Acetaminophen pain relievers.

White willow is widely known as a source of salicylic acid, the precursor of one of the world’s most commonly used painkilling drugs “Aspirin”. White willow bark contains a number of flavonoids, and numerous glycosides, of which salicin is the most important. In the body, salicin is gradually converted into salicylic acid. Salicin, unlike aspirin, does not irritate the stomach as much.

Willow bark has been used throughout the centuries in both the West and the East, and continues to be used by herbal practitioners for the treatment of fever, pain, headache, and inflammatory conditions. widely known as a source of salicylic acid, the precursor of one of the world’s most commonly used painkilling drugs “Aspirin”. The medicinal power of white willow lies in its inner bark.

The benefits of white willow bark is that it will last a lot longer than aspirin, even though initially it is a little slower to act.

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