Health Articles

Congratulations. You have started your fitness program. It’s new, challenging, and exciting. You feel like the decision is a step in the right direction. Here are a few smart nutrition tips to help guide the eating process in your fitness program.

• Drink Water. Drinking water can never be overstated. Water assists in the removing of waste products from the kidneys. It also plays a role in burning fat. Use water as a food suppressant strategy before meals. If you drink a glass of water 30 minutes before your meal, you may eat less because water makes you feel full. Water can be abused. Make sure you drink sensibly. Try taking a water bottle with you and sipping on it throughout the day. Shoot for a goal of drinking half your body weight in ounces as a guideline.
• Eat 4-5 small meals. Eating 4-5 meals a day gives your body a few advantages. Spreading those meals out over a 2.5 – 3 hour period provides nourishment to your body over short scheduled time frames. Eating along this type of schedule increases your metabolism as it causes your digestive system to work to digest food intake. Eating 4-5 small meals is particularly beneficial for ensuring that your blood sugar is in balance. Not eating for long periods of time causes the body to reach for its protein stores as opposed to its fat stores to feed upon. This greatly hinders the weight loss and the process of building muscle.

• Eat healthy fats. Eating healthy fats such as flax seed oil, extra virgin olive oil, and walnut oil, provide you with omega-3 fatty acid. Omega-3 is known for its ability to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, inflammation, and depression. Adding 1-2 servings of salmon, mackerel, or few eggs to your diet can provide you with this valuable unsaturated fatty acid.
• Eat 1-2 fruits daily Fruits play a vital role in our diets. Fruits have fiber. The benefits associated with are many. Fiber helps us to regulate blood sugar and our waste products. It is also been effective with cholesterol and triglycerides that can lead to heart disease. There are more benefits, but these 3 alone highlight the value of adding fiber to your diet.
• Drink 1-2 shakes While the preferred method of ingesting calories is to have “real food”, the reality is that some situations are not conducive to sitting at a table and eating a regular meal. One effective solution to this dilemma is to use 1-2 meal replacement shakes. This method provides you with a few advantages. The first advantage is convenience. The shakes come in packets or in a container where calorie and nutrients are already prefigured in a scoop serving. Second, it takes away the need to sit down and have a formal meal. While it may be less appealing than preparing a meal, it is an effective substitute in curbing hunger.Starting a new fitness regimen doesn’t have to be difficult. Incorporating these smart nutrition tips can provide you with a valuable consumption guideline to complement your overall fitness objectives.

Lactose intolerance is something that almost citizens experience heard of by this point, but not everyone knows that you can also be yeast intolerant. basically, a yeast intolerant person has a body that overproduces Candida.

Now, Candida is a yeast-alike fungus that cluster together and lives in the moist tracks of your body (like the digestive track, the vagina or the mouth). Most people are able to maintain the stage of Candida in their body in check due to the beneficial bacteria that we all have.

Still, there are times when the yeast grows excessively and your body is no longer proficient to keep it in check. If this happens to you, then you suffer from yeast intolerance and can come down with yeast infection like Thrush or Candidiasis. There are a quantity of people out there who sense that Candidiasis is a major perpetrator behind some of the extra usual continuing glitch that people have, like abdominal soreness and problems with their bowel functioning.

It’s very likely that the chances of coming down with Candidiasis is directly related to the wellness and diet of the person in question. For illustration, Candida boom on foods that hold a lot of yeast or simple sugars. Similarly, they mature very quickly on foods that are fermented (like yogurt, alcohol and cheese) or that contain a lot of vinegar (like most sauces, dressings, and pickled items).

Whenever you have good overall health, then consuming a lot of these foods may or may not have a enormous effect on the Candida levels in your body. However, times of stress, times of illness, or any other time when you are going to have a faded immune system make you ripe for an infection, no matter how good your health normally is. The apply of antibiotics or other medicines can desolate the amount of good bacteria in your system, which also can make it difficult for your body to keep the right levels.

Imperfect nutrition is frequently seen as a prominent contributor to Candida problems. A unpleasant dieting makes you less healthy overall and can weaken your immune system, and reduce your ability to deal with the toxic byproducts of the yeast. An excessive craving for sweets and other yeasty foods can be a big tip off that you have an illness that you need to deal with.

Whilst there are drugs and medicines that you can occupy to fight the infection, ever-changing your dieting is generally thought of as one of the best ways to annihilate the problem.

To some, the concept of milling grain at home may appear to be a rather time consuming task. However, as time consuming as it can be, it does hold some great benefits. It is an unfortunate fact that very few families consider milling their own grain simply because of the convenience that comes from purchasing flour and other meal ingredients from local stores. However, by making the benefits of milling your own grain known, more families than ever will not only reap the benefit of saved money over time, but all will also reap the massive health benefits which come from natural, GM-free foods.

• Milling grains at home is cost effective over time: Purchasing the same items we require from our local store is something which we often do without thinking, but how often do we think about the overall cost of the products we buy? When you consider the price of a simple bag of flour bought from your grocery store and calculate how much money you spend on this product on a yearly basis; you may be quite shocked by the number you are presented with. Un-milled grain is considerably cheaper than processed flour, meaning that over time you will save a great deal of money by opting to mill your own flour. To begin with you will require purchasing a grain mill in order to complete this task with ease, but this will be money well spent once you notice a difference in your yearly grocery bills.

• Grain milled at home is free from additives and preservatives: As we become more aware of how sensitive our bodies are and how different foods can cause us complaints, now more than ever we need to introduce healthy, cleans foods to our diet. The products you make at home will be as healthy as they can possibly be as they will not contain any of the additional chemicals which are often added to store-bought foods. This will result in healthier baked products that are enriched in essential vitamins which will benefit all of your family, and you will also notice that your baked goods taste more delicious than any product you may purchase in-store.

• You will know exactly what grains are in your baked products: With more people than ever identifying health issues that stem from to food allergies, it is imperative that we are aware of the ingredients used in the foods we eat. Incorrectly labeled foods can result in individuals ingesting ingredients which can cause terrible complaints, causing us to simply eliminate vital foods from our diet that we require. Milling your own grain at home means that any baked goods you make will be free of wheat, gluten or any other compound which you require to be eliminated from your diet. This means that your entire family can still enjoy the foods they love without the worry of experiencing any side effects, and you are safe in the knowledge that your family is eating a clean diet. Whether you are baking bread, pie crusts, cereals or any other foods which incorporate the use of your own milled grains, you can be 100% sure that they are allergen free.

• Home-milled grains can also be used to make natural cosmetic products: Home-milled grains do not have to be reserved for food items, but can also be used in order to create a number of natural cosmetic and beauty products. These items are perfect for those who are extremely sensitive to products that are fragranced or contain chemicals, and can even be used to treat a number of skin ailments, for example to reduce the discomfort that stems from eczema. Milling grain can be used to create natural oatmeal which makes a great exfoliant for the face and body. In fact, any coarse meal mixed with warm water makes a very cheap and effective skin cleanser.

• You can mill almost any type of grain: Most grain mills are equipped to mill anything from the finest flours to the coarsest cereals. This means there is virtually no end to the variety of baked products you can create by milling at home. Soybeans, lentils, buckwheat, rice, normal wheat, millet and rolled oats; you can mill these quickly and with ease with even the most basic grain mill. All milled products you bake at home will be packed with nutrition, delicious, and ready to be incorporated into anything you wish to make.

So, by introducing your own milling grain at home you will benefit from fresh, additive-free, vitamin-laden flours and meals that are not only cheap to produce, but extremely delicious. With more people than ever having to make sacrifices in their diet in order to live with their food allergies, now is the time to invest in a means to an end and allow yourself to enjoy those foods you love without the worry.

Rice is the staff of life for over half of the people in the world. Many rely on rice for the bulk of their diet. Rice is so versatile that it can be served at almost any meal and as snacks. It is without a doubt the world’s greatest grain. Many people grow up eating some kind of basic rice dish. Some like rice pudding, fried rice, beans and rice, gravy and rice, rice pilaf and many other rice dishes. Each culture has its own special rice and way of cooking it. Rice is a grain that can be served with almost any dish. There are over ten thousand varieties of rice. Many Asian markets offer a great selection to choose from.

Below is a list of many of the more common types found in American markets.

Whole-grain is also called brown or polished rice. It is one of the least processed forms. It is hulled but bran is left in tact. The bran retains the fiber, vitamins and minerals. Cooking time is longer because the bran is left on. The wild variety rice is really a grass. It is native to North America. It is often sold mixed with the long-grain white variety. It is usually mixed with the white rice in order to make it affordable. True wild rice is quite expensive.

Basmati is a long-grain variety with a slender shape and fragrant taste. It is highly regarded for its fragrance. True basmati is grown in Pakistan and India. America and other countries now grow their own hybrids. Glutinous, sweet or sushi rice is a short grain variety which clumps together when cooked. This an excellent rice to eat with chopsticks. It does not contain gluten. It is sometimes called glutinous because it is sticky.

Arborio is an Italian round-grain form. It has a chewy center and the rest of the grain is soft and creamy. Arborio was originally grown in Italy, but is now grown in America and other countries.

The Black type comes in medium and short grains. It is grown in Southeast Asia and California. When it is cooked the grains turn lavender or purple.

Red rice has reddish-brown bran and is chewy and has a nutty flavor. It goes well with hardy foods. Jasmine is a long-grain variety that is aromatic. It is a little sticky but is moist and tender. It is grown in Asia and the United States. There is instant and parboiled rice. These are good for quick meals. Instant cooks very quickly. Parboiled is pressure-steamed before milling to retain some of the otherwise lost nutrients. It is firm when cooked but takes longer cooking time than instant.

Long-grain white rice is the most familiar rice in America. This rice is stripped of its germ and hull. It cooks up into a nice fluffy dish. Many companies add some of the lost nutrients at completion of processing.

There are many ways of cooking rice. We can boil, steam, bake saute, or microwave it. After learning how to cook and use the various varieties of rice, we can cook our way around the world. We can visit cultures that we have only dreamed of.

According to an internet article I recently read, GERD or gastro-esophageal reflux disease (years ago it was simply referred to as heartburn) affects 44% of adult Americans at least one time a month. This statistic seems realistic to me based on the number of hands I see in the air at my lectures when I ask people in the audience to raise their hand if they suffer from GERD, acid reflux or heartburn.

The amount of money spent on prescription and over the counter medications to get relief from GERD is staggering. The number of ads seen on TV for these products is also amazing; this represents big money for the advertising and drug industries.

Common over the counter products include: Tums, Pepto Bismol, and the myriad other antacids both tablet and liquid, as well as simple enzymes from pineapple (bromelain) and other sources.

Popular prescription drugs for GERD include: Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium, Tagamet (I think several of these are so commonly used they are now over the counter), Zantac and Pepcid.

As with any chronic irritation, ongoing problems with GERD, acid reflux, indigestion or heartburn can lead to serious health issues, including cancer.

Long, long ago on a distant planet far, far away before I became raw I suffered terribly from GERD, which at the time was called heartburn or acid reflux. The pain was at times so awful that my Dr. actually sent me home with an aerosol can of benzocaine I think it was-maybe it was novocaine? Anyhow it was a spray can that could be sprayed directly down my throat to numb it to relieve the pain. I put the can in the trunk of my car, and then and there decided I had to do something else, this was definitely the wrong track I was on. I was 44 years old. I never used that can. Instead, I began my journey into raw food.

If you suffer from GERD, or acid reflux or heartburn, or if you know someone who suffers from GERD, et al, (particularly if they are a SAD* eater) please listen up -because for many people with this problem there is a simple solution. (*Standard American Diet)

CAVEAT: I am not a Doctor. I am sure that there are people for whom this solution will not work. I am sure there are people that really truly need the drugs I listed. I speak from personal experience not only as a long term raw fooder, and this can work for non-raw fooders as well, but also as someone who understands the theories of food combining.

Please consult with your medical personnel prior to trying out my suggestions to end GERD forever. In no way should this be construed as medical advice because I am in no way qualified to give medical advice. I never went to medical school, I never went to nursing school, heck, in truth I am a complete idiot about all things medical. This is simply advice on how to eat your everyday food in a way that has helped me, and many hundreds of people have told me it has helped them.

If you are currently taking medication for GERD please do not stop taking your medication without consulting with your Doctor. If you should choose, while still taking your prescription medication, to try out the dietary advice I am about to give, that is entirely up to you-again, let me repeat so there can be no misunderstanding here, it is always best to consult with your physician before making any type of change.

The solution(s) to ending GERD, heartburn, acid reflux, indigestion:

Reducing the amount of acid- forming foods eaten helps many but not all GERD sufferers. Eating a balanced, high variety diet of all or mostly raw foods is an alkalizing diet and that alone can help many people.

The rest of the story is about food combining. If you are not a raw fooder, never plan to be a raw fooder, or know someone who is not a raw fooder and never plans to be a raw fooder, but suffers from GERD, et al, try food combining. This means no longer eating your meals the way your Momma served them.

Why? Protein and carbohydrate (starch) need very different amounts of time to digest as well as completely different types of enzymes to digest them. So when you eat steak and potato at the same time, your digestive tract has a huge conflict. Nothing actually digests properly or well, leading to, you guessed it: GERD, acid reflux, heartburn, indigestion, and incomplete digestion possibly including or contributing to what some people refer to as leaky gut syndrome.

The fix for the Standard American Diet eater or the predominantly cooked and processed food eater (I will get to this info for the raw food eater further on):

Look at your typical plate of food. What is traditionally on it?

Let’s call it The Big Three of the Dinner plate:

• protein such as steak, chicken, hamburger, tuna etc..

• starch like mashed potatoes, rice, French fries, pasta, this category includes bread.
• vegetable such as carrots, green beans, asparagus, this includes salad.

When I was growing up, and I think it’s still true in many homes today, all Responsible Mothers in their Right Mind served the The Big Three of the Dinner Plate: meat, veggies and starch.

Do you want to feel better? Forget about the way Momma served your meal, instead eat like this, let’s call it the Delicious Duet of the Lunch and Dinner Plate:

Choice One: Steak, chicken, lamb etc with vegetables including salad. NO Bread, NO potato, NO rice. At a completely different meal separated by at least four hours try this:

Choice Two: A starch such as rice, potato, baked yam or pasta along with veggies including salad.

No longer the Big Three of the Dinner Plate, now you are consuming the Delicious Duet of the lunch and Dinner plate. Some more examples (and yes friend you ARE going to have to learn what a protein is and what a carbohydrate is so you can make this work.)

Note to Raw fooders- you can help your friends and relatives suffering digestive problems more with this information than with just about any other, once they try it and feel better- well just maybe they might listen to you about something else.

Example of food combined meal to avoid acid reflux:

1. Eggs, bacon, sliced tomato, fruit (No toast, No potato)
2. Veggie, cheese and or meat omelette, sliced tomato or fruit salad (No       bread, No potato)
3. Waffles, or pancakes, fruit salad or sliced tomatoes (No meat, No    cheese)
4. Steak/meat (pork, hamburger, chicken etc) with large salad and non-  starchy vegetable like asparagus, green beans, okra, summer squash,  cabbage etc (No rice, No potato, No bread)
5. Rice or potato dish, or yams, or pasta, bread and large salad and any  type of cooked non-starchy vegetable (No meat, no cheese)
6. Pasta with tomato sauce and a large salad, with bread. (No meat, No Cheese)

To put it another way:

• Eat your meat with your veggies
• Eat your starches with your veggies
• But never eat your meat with your starches (think: meat and veggies, yes, starch and veggies, yes, meat and starches no.)

Another hint: Eat the main protein meal for lunch as it takes longest for protein to digest then eat the main starch (carbohydrate) meal for dinner; it will help you to sleep better later.

Two more hints: try not to dilute your food with liquid. Drink between meals not during. Taking digestive enzymes are helpful as well especially taken with heavy meals.

If you eat meat or protein at each and every meal like many Americans do (eggs for breakfast, tuna for lunch, hamburger for dinner), in order for this approach to work you will have to give up at least one meal a day with high protein. Also a hamburger at McDonald’s is now a no no. But you could eat the hamburger only plus some veggies. Or you could eat the bun only plus veggies, you could probably eat the bun and the French fries-not advisable, but you could. (These are very graphic examples but should help you to remember, this info is important for GERD suffering SAD eaters. Don’t we all know one?)

Raw Fooders food combining approach

I don’t personally know any raw fooders that suffer from GERD. It has become apparent that food combining principles are less important when eating all raw. This is probably due to the many enzymes available or when the body adjusts to all raw or high raw the relative ease of digesting raw rather than cooked, processed foods. However it is still a good idea to keep protein and starch separate and most raw fooders try to keep fruits and vegetables separate when practical. Don’t forget if it has a seed it’s a fruit, so cucumber, zucchini, squashes, tomatoes etc are all fruits when you are figuring things out for your meals.

An example of poor raw food combining:

Eating yams and nuts at the same meal would put a strain on the digestive system and result in incomplete digestion. Eating large quantities of starchy veggies and nuts, even if this combination doesn’t physically bother you, probably doesn’t do a body good. Likewise, and most people know this, some foods digest very quickly and should be eaten first then wait 20 minutes, or should just be eaten alone, this applies to all types of melon. Fresh squeezed juices also digest very quickly, it’s not a good idea to eat a lot of food, followed by melon or juice. Eat them first, wait a bit before eating again, or eat them alone.

If you are all or high raw food and suffer from digestive upset, try mono-meals for awhile. This means just one food at each meal. All apples. Or all salad. Or all nuts. Eating just one food simplifies the body’s job of digesting, assimilating and eliminating and may help alleviate any digestive discomfort you have. Try taking digestive enzymes with each meal as well, especially complex meals.

This article has turned out to be directed by its very topic: GERD, to cooked food eaters. Some of the examples I used may seem very gross to many of my readers. Please don’t misconstrue my intent, it is to help people who suffer from GERD and related digestive issues. Some GERD sufferers may be raw fooders, but the greatest percentage are probably cooked food and probably SAD cooked food eaters.

I hope that you use the information in this article to help someone, perhaps a friend or a relative or someone in the office. It could be a great first step to introducing them to a healthier lifestyle.
Nomi Shannon is an award winning author and world renowned coach. Her best selling book, The Raw Gourmet, has sold over 150,000 copies. Her second book, Raw Food Celebrations (with S.Duruz), is flying off the shelves at bookstores worldwide.

• In 2008 Nomi received three Best of Raw Awards for Best Raw Educator, Favorite Raw Chef and Favorite Raw Book.
• In 2009 Best of Raw, Nomi placed in the top 5 in five categories: Best Educator, Chef, Blog, Online Store and her personal favorite, Funniest Raw Woman.
• She’s not only a certified Hippocrates Health Educator. She actually ran The Hippocrates Health Institute’s Certification Course back in the early 1990’s.
• Raw since 1987, Nomi has been featured in Alive magazine, Get Fresh, San Diego North County Times, Galveston News, as well as numerous radio shows and other media.

Nomi is known for teaching people proven steps to keeping — or regaining — vibrant health. Her website offers breakthrough information, product reviews, delicious recipes, an enewsletter and an online course — all free of charge. She also offers downloadable courses, her books, raw kitchen equipment, DVDs, phone consultations and live classes.

Since there’s conflicting information about what’s the “best” raw food diet, many raw fooders wonder what to eat. Nomi shows people a simple path to thriving on raw food and leaving the confusion behind. Just as important, she empowers people to whip up delicious meals quickly and easily, turning newbies into thriving home chefs practically overnight.

needs to be slightly alkaline to remain healthy, so a diet of mainly alkaline foods will keep your body at a proper pH balance.

Your system will become unbalanced if you eat too many acid foods, leading to numerous problems, such as weight gain, lack of energy, and depressed immunity. When your immune system becomes weakened, there are many diseases that your body could contract.

In order to maintain an alkaline balance in your body, the pH miracle diet encourages the eating of alkaline foods, and discourages the eating of acidic foods.

While most people have heard of the terms acid, alkaline, and pH, they have no idea how important they are to the overall health of their body. All foods have a certain pH value, making them either acid or alkaline, so every food is either making your pH balance higher or lower.

Scientists in their labs can see the what happens when an acid reacts to an alkaline, but what happens inside the body is harder to tell. They can make assertions of what happens to the digestive system depending on the food. Acidic foods will make the blood, lymph, and saliva more acid and cause a lower pH number, while alkaline foods will do the opposite, raising the pH number.

The normal range for saliva pH should be 7.3 to 7.4, but with the diet of most people their pH is much lower being very acidic. A pH level this low causes the body to be tired and burned out. The acid foods make your muscles fatigue easily, making you wonder where all your energy went.

They also make you age faster from free radical oxidation. The acid foods throw your digestive system out of balance, causing the friendly bacteria in the small intestine to die. Also the acidity stops the intestine from absorbing nutrients and vitamins the way they should.

If you have a debilitating disease, or even a normal illness, check your pH balance, and you will find that it is acidic. To help your situation, start eating alkaline foods, because they have a wide range of health benefits.

Eating alkaline foods will improve your energy levels, strengthen your muscles, allow your cells to function the way they are supposed to function, and stops parasites and yeast overgrowth. Raise your alkaline levels and you will have more restful sleep, pain relief, and more youthful skin.

If you are concerned about cancer, then you need to learn about the pH miracle diet. All cancerous tissues are acidic, while healthy tissues are alkaline. With a pH level of 7.4 cancer cells become dormant. The best cancer treatment, and prevention is to fill your diet with alkaline foods.

Apparently the Raw Food Diet is continuing to sweep the nation. Consisting of fresh fruit and veg, nuts and seeds, sun dried fruit, fruit or vegetable juices, the list goes on. This diet insists that 90 to 95% of food is raw and is mainly unprocessed; you can however include dried fruits and nuts, vinegars or those cured in vinegar. Although the diet is classed as raw food, food may be cooked providing the temperature does not rise above 115 F.

Essential equipment for any raw foody….. a food processor, a juicer, a large glass container to store or soak food in and…….. a dehydrator. Until I began to research the RFD, a dehydrator as far as I was concerned consisted of three glasses of wine and a vodka and orange. Untrue! A dehydrator is a machine which provides temperature controlled drying, available from Amazon (other retailers are available) for approximately ?100. Personally, eating fresh fruit and veg is a very attractive idea, especially as I can’t think of anything worse than eating our feathered and furry friends, but, the thought of Vegetarian Watermelon Gazpacho…… it just doesn’t float my boat. So, will the world continue to follow the celebs who have taken on this diet as another one of their fads? To help you decide, here’s a list summarising the main advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

• Raw food is easy to to digest, provides the maximum amount of energy but with minimal effort getting it,

• the digestive system has to work harder and longer to digest processed and cooked food,
• the RFD does not have to be expensive – pop into your local supermarket and you can pick up seasonal fresh fruit and veg at a relatively low cost,
• weight loss is guaranteed,
• salads and smoothies are quick to prepare with many raw food recipes taking little or no preparation,
• enhances mental acuity and cleanses the body of toxins,
• contains next to no chemicals or preservatives,
• improves skin appearance,
• reduces the risk of heart disease due to lack of trans fats in the diet.

Disadvantages:

Children, pregnant or nursing mothers, people with anemia or those at risk from osteoporosis should take care,
winter months can present problems with the variety of fruit and veg available,
you may need to take supplements in order to replace deficiencies in calcium, iron, Vitamin B12 and protein,
cooking can prevent lethal or harmful bacterial such as salmonella and listeria.

I must admit, on researching this diet my mind was full of romantic images of me switching to RFD, losing all excess weight and obtaining the most fabulous glowing complexion. In reality, it’s never going to happen. I love my Chilli Chocolate, I quite like the odd bag of crisps and I couldn’t find any reference to wine in any of the ‘allowed’ lists. I’m sure it’s great, and looking at the list above the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages….but it’s not for me. So what do you think? Is it necessary to cut out cooked food in order to have a healthy diet? Or can increasing the amount of fruit and veg in your diet provide you with the best of both worlds? Answers on a postcard please

Our body requires more than 40 different kinds of nutrients to ensure that our heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, etc. are in good working condition. If all the different body parts work in tandem, we remain fit and healthy.

Fitness and nutrition are closely linked, but the question is how to choose the proper healthy diet plan without comprising the well being of our body.

For one, there is no short cut to a fit body. The simple rule is that we need to burn more calories than we consume. To burn fat, we need energy. If you think cutting down on fats and carbohydrates can make you far healthier, you are wrong- you will only end up harming yourself.

Our body needs energy to burn fat. If we don’t eat carbohydrates for energy, then our body burns the muscle proteins to create energy to feed our brain and nervous system. In this way, we end up losing valuable muscle mass which is crucial to burn fat. This actually happens when we grow old, because when we age, we tend to gain weight. In the process, we lose muscle mass and are unable to burn adequate fat.

So to burn excess fat, you need to eat properly. Crash diets are just a fad which help you lose weight initially, but eventually end up harming your body. Once you stop the fad diet, the fat just gets piled on all over again.

The foods we must consume are divided into five food groups: fruits, vegetables, cereals, poultry and fish, and dairy products. A healthy diet plan should provide our body with a proper ratio of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals. An excess or a deficiency of these will adversely affect us.

If we have less protein, our body will get a lesser portion of amino acids. These amino acids are necessary for protein synthesis, which helps build cells and repair tissues. Our immunity also takes a backseat, because amino acids are required to create antibodies which fight disease-causing viruses and bacteria. Similarly, if our protein intake is high, it creates a stress on our liver and kidneys and also hampers calcium absorption.

Fitness doesn’t merely mean being physically fit. It is a holistic lifestyle which includes our mental and emotional state too. If we eat well, we look and feel good. Once we cut out the harmful foods, we can see the change and gain newfound energy and confidence.

Children are also victims of junk, fried, and processed foods. Childhood obesity is on the rise, and teenagers suffer from anorexia and bulimia because they have body image issues.

Make yourself aware of important health issues. Decide what kinds of food are good for you and which ones are bad for your health. Make wise and informed decisions, because once you start eating right, your fitness level will increase, and your body will get more energy to function optimally.