Archive for June, 2010
Protein Powder: How Much Do You Know?
Most people know that they need protein, and that people who work out need more. But there seems to be confusion on the reason we need protein, and over the amount of protein needed. Protein powder is generally regarded as a “bodybuilder supplement,” but really it is great for anyone who needs to up their protein.
Why Do I Need Protein?
Dietary protein, called the building blocks for muscle, is where your body gets the material it needs in order to repair and maintain muscle tissue. Many people who do not workout have the misconception that they do not need to consume protein because they are not trying to build their muscle, but it’s not just about building muscle. Life, living, breathing and moving, breaks down tissue.
When you sleep, your body does most of its repair from the daily damage to each cell. The nutrients you take in from food, liquids and supplements is what it has to go on to make sure that everything is up to order. If there are not enough materials to get the job done, it doesn’t. In cases where there are repairs that need to be done to vital cells and organs and there are not the proper nutrients, the body will break down muscle tissue itself to use the raw materials to make the necessary repairs.
How Much Protein Do I Need?
The largest protein recommendation ever supported by a controlled study is 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of lean body mass, or approximately 0.73 grams protein/pound of lean body mass. You determine your lean body mass by knowing your body fat percentage. Relying on a scale to tell you your body fat is not a great idea. Scales and electronic devices can be up to 20% off. Try and get your body fat tested by an experienced, certified trainer.
Formula to determine your protein needs.
- Multiply your body fat percent by your total weight
- Subtract the two numbers
- Multiply that number by 0.73
- You are left with the approximate number of grams anyone would need
In active people can get away with as little as .4 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass
(ex. 160lbs @ 10% body fat: 160 x 0.1 = 144. 144 x 0.73 = 105.12. 105 grams of protein needed daily)
There are many resources that promote consuming more than this, but there is no evidence to date that supports that train of thought. There are also claims made that too much protein consumption is bad for the kidneys, but once again, there is nothing to support that elevated protein consumption, in a healthy individual, is damaging to the kidneys. However, if you are consuming more than 400 grams a day, you are on your own.
Probably the biggest set back of consuming too much protein is that your body will have nothing to do with the extra calories but to store it as fat. Using a protein powder to make sure you are meeting your protein goals is a great way to get quality protein without consuming excess fat and carbohydrates.
90% of Strokes Are Due to 10 Risk Factors
A international study found that a handful of risk factors account for 90 percent of all the risk of stroke. High blood pressure plays the most potent role. Of that list, five lifestyle risk factors usually were the culprit. High blood pressure, smoking, abdominal obesity, diet and physical activity — are responsible for a full 80 percent of all stroke risk, according to the researchers.
The findings come from the INTERSTROKE study, a standardized case-control study of 3,000 people who had had strokes and an equal number of healthy individuals with no history of stroke from 22 countries. It was published online June 18 in The Lancet.
The study was to be presented Friday at the World Congress on Cardiology in Beijing. The study reports that the 10 factors significantly associated with stroke risk are high blood pressure, smoking, physical activity, waist-to-hip ratio (abdominal obesity), diet, blood lipid (fat) levels, diabetes, alcohol intake, stress and depression, and heart disorders.
Across the board, high blood pressure was the most important factor, accounting for one-third of all stroke risk.
The god news is that most of the risk factors associated with stroke are modifiable or reversable to some extent. By controlling the behavior that leads to the high risk situations, one could have a considerable impact on the incidence of having stroke. Cetainly no one is saying the
Controlling blood pressure is important, he said, because it plays a major role in both forms of stroke: ischemic, the most common form (caused by blockage of a brain blood vessel), and hemorrhagic or bleeding stroke, in which a blood vessel in the brain bursts.
In contrast, levels of blood lipids such as cholesterol were important in the risk of ischemic stroke, but not hemorrhagic stroke.
So in short if watch your diet, get some exercise, don’t drink alcohol, or smoke you can reduce your risk of having a stroke. That doesn’t sound like bad advice.
Keys to Wedding Weight Loss
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Summer is a time for wedding bells and eternal bliss. Wedding are in full swing and the calumniation of months of planning are coming to fruition. Family, friends and photographers gather to mark and commemorate the joining of two hearts.
Sometimes with all the excitement of making sure that everything will be perfect for the special day, happy couples overlook the most important piece…themselves! Planning a wedding can be super stressful and lead to unwanted weight gain. By the time the best day of your life rolls around, the dress is too tight, photographers have to use a wide lens and your wedding album is full of pictures of someone you don’t even recognize.
It doesn’t matter how pretty the flowers are or how perfect the chapel is if you are not happy with the way you look. It is never too late to start a plan of attack on wedding weight loss. The urgency of your effort will depend on the time you have left to squeeze into your dress or tux.
· Schedule time to exercise
· Watch what you eat
· Find supplements to help
First Thing is Fitness: Nothing is better than putting some time in at the gym to sweat out wedding frustrations and to make sure your wedding/honeymoon body is on point. There is no doubt that you are in a time crunch! You probably don’t have time to hit the gym for hours a day…don’t sweat it! You don’t need hours, you need to make the most of the time you have.
Find some way to force yourself to be accountable! If hiring a trainer is out of the budget, investigate group training or sign up for a class at a local MMA or kickboxing club. You don’t have to be a fighter for these classes. Most schools have fitness classes full of non-contact, exercises that give you great results! Some of the classes are pretty reasonable, but if you are like most people, you are more apt to show up if you have already paid for it!
Control the Intake: It is called taste testing, not an open buffet! While it is important to know what you are serving…doing a bunch of taste tests can lead to thousands of excess calories if you are not careful. You do not have to finish the ‘sample.’ Many caterers and bakeries supply you with much more than a taste. Do yourself a favor, don’t finish it. Take some one with you and cut the job in half. Once your friend has ruled out many of the choices, try the ones left to make your selection.
Try to not fall victim to stress eating. Planning a wedding is a super stressful time, or can be. Many couples find them selves eating out of a nervous worry or stress. Also keep the alcohol to a bare minimum! The calories from alcohol go straight to your waist and hips. If you don’t want to end up with a budda belly on your honeymoon, skip happy hour!
Find a Diet Pill that Works: You are in a time crunch. Sure it would be great to get to your optimum body without using supplements, but time is of the essence. Diet pills are great resources to reach goals fast and make special memories ones that you can look back on and not wish you had worked a little harder.
BSN Supplement Pyramid Breakdown
With so many supplements on the market, each with different claims and objectives, BSN created a supplement pyramid to help guide people to proper supplementation. One of the hardest parts is knowing where to start, what is the most important. The clever marketing of various supplements keeps us guessing and often veers us off track. If you put the cart before the horse you will never leave the station.
BSN build a Supplement Pyramid to provide a visual demonstration of what is important and where your most of your attention should go. It is built upon the idea of stacking. Stacking is the specific combination of supplement in order to gain muscle, lose fat, or improve performance.
The benefits of stacking include:
- Reduced risk of metabolic “saturation” or “de-sensitization”:
- If you target more than one pathway, you will be less likely to have any given pathway become “saturated or “de-sensitized”. This reduces your chances of reaching a plateau.
- Quicker progress:
- The more pathways you target at the same time, the quicker you can reach your goals, rather it be performance or physique. It’s like using snake shot; the more pellets coming out of the gun, the more you are going hit.
Beginners will want to mainly focus on the most important segment, Nutrition Support. This is the foundation of the pyramid. As you gain experience, you can stack additional BSN supplements in order to address additional pyramid segments, but without having a good grasp on the Nutritional Support aspect of training, the others won’t have the effects that they could. Once you have a handle on nutrition, determine your muscular and weight management goals followed by performance, recovery and hormonal support.
The segment of the Supplement Pyramid:
Nutrition Support (N): Dietary supplements that provide your body with tissue “building blocks” and associated vitamins and minerals address the Nutrition Support segment of the Supplement Pyramid. Tissue building blocks include protein, carbohydrate, and fat. Your body uses vitamins and minerals to put them to use. 
Muscle Support (M): Dietary supplements that support the development (building or “toning”) of skeletal muscle tissue fall into this segment. 
Weight Management (W): Products that assist in the reduction or control of body fat and body weight and/or the maintenance of lean (e.g. muscle and bone) mass. 
Performance Support (P): Dietary supplements that support physical or mental performance fall into this segment. If you want to improve your strength, speed, or focus, for instance, then find supplements that address Performance Support. 
Recovery Support (R): Dietary supplements that help you recover from training, sports, or other stressors fall into this segment. 
Hormone Support (H): This segment includes dietary supplements that support your hormones.
Federal Judge Rules the FDA Cannot Silence Accurate Scientific Information About The Health Benefits of Vitamin Supplements
Good news today from Washington DC, Federal Judge Rules the FDA Cannot Silence Accurate Scientific Information About The Health Benefits of Vitamin Supplements. This is a victory for dietary supplements and for free speech. In another huge defeat for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled unconstitutional the FDA’s censorship of selenium dietary supplement health claims. The Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA), along with dietary supplement formulators Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, and the Coalition to End FDA and FTC Censorship, represented by Jonathan Emord of Emord & Associates, were successful in protecting the First Amendment right of dietary supplement manufacturers to provide “qualified health claims” which accurately communicate the state of science in relation to the dietary supplement.
This is a remarkable seventh victory over the FDA by the Emord firm (six of which invalidated FDA health claim censorship). The federal judge denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case and granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment. All principal parts of the decision were clear victories for the ANH-USA and its fellow plaintiffs. This suit was the latest in a series of actions filed against the FDA for its illegal bans on qualified health claims. Qualified health claims are used when there is significant but not absolutely conclusive evidence for a relationship between a food, food component, or dietary supplement and reduced risk of a disease or health-related condition.
The lawsuit was in response to the FDA’s June 19, 2009 decision to suppress selenium/cancer-risk reduction claims. Ten of those claims (all appealed by the plaintiffs) were held unconstitutionally censored. The plaintiffs expressed their belief that this violated their right to communicate truthful health information to the public. The judge found that the FDA had denied claims despite credible evidence supporting them and had thereby infringed on free speech. “The ability to share information with the public about the benefits of health foods and food supplements is essential in order to advance the cause of healthy living and disease prevention. Consumers want to make healthy dietary and lifestyle changes, but have been denied accurate health information.
This ruling will allow producers of natural products to provide accurate health information, based on valid science, to consumers without burdensome overregulation by the FDA,” said Gretchen DuBeau, executive and legal director of ANH-USA. Prior to this ruling the FDA required near conclusive scientific evidence for any nutrient claim. The judge ruled that so long as the claim is an accurate reflection of the state of science, the First Amendment protects it. During these proceedings, the FDA never explained why it believes the censorship of valid science to be in the best interest of the American people or why such censorship would help Americans make better health choices.
Trying to Tone Up and Only Using Diet Pills?
Diet pills are a great way to jump start and promote weight loss, but once you lose some of that weight you need to ask yourself:
What are you leaving yourself with?
Is what you are uncovering what you really want to show?
Will you just be skinny fat?
There is example after example of women who wear a single digit size but are still squishy and laden with cellulite.
You can’t expect to look like Kelly Ripa unless you put in the time she does. She credits her amazing physique to killer workouts. She uses resistance training and an interval cardio workout (that you can see below) to get her results.
Even Kelly had a tough time getting started and even contemplated quitting a few times, but comments from friends about her “nice arms” and “toned legs” kept her going and her body transforming.
You too will have to add more to your life than a diet pill. If you can’t make it to a gym, buy a DVD (like Insanity) and sweat at home. If you are intimidated by the gym, know that most of the people in there don’t have a clue what they are doing, they just fake it pretty well! Most gyms have beginner-advanced classes that incorporate resistance training that are generally at no extra cost.
Once you have found a way to squeeze in a workout on most days, you just need to make sure you are making the most out of it! It won’t help if you aren’t working out hard. There is no point in just going through the motions. You don’t get bragging points just for going to the gym; you get them for delivering results.
The last thing is, when you are taking diet pills and training, which does not mean that you get more leeway in your diet! If you start eating more or not eating enough healthy foods, you will just cancel out your workouts and the calorie burn heightened by your diet pill. Don’t waste all that energy by eating something you will wish you had skipped tomorrow. Keep it clean and your hard work will pay off!
Kelly’s Cardio Recipe:
Alternate jumping rope with 30 seconds of jumping jacks. Start with 20 jump rope revolutions and increase by 20 after each round of jacks until you reach 100. Then reduce by 20 until you’re back down to 20. Repeat twice.
Dietary and Nutrition Supplments are a Neccessity.
The USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion released a draft report for its 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans last week. This report that ultimately form the basis for 2010’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Within the report’s language, dietary supplements receive mixed approval. While highlighting the benefits of some dietary supplements “…if needs cannot be met through whole foods.” This statement has prompted a public response from the Natural Products Association (Washington, DC). “When less than 25% of the U.S. population eats the recommended serving of five fruits and vegetables daily, how are Americans to get the vitamins and minerals they need?” said NPA executive director and CEO John Gay. “Advice to cut off a reliable and safe nutrition source, such as a daily multivitamin, doesn’t seem logical or responsible.” Aside from dietary supplement coverage, much of the report focused on addressing obesity issues and expanding access to nutritional products for Americans. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (Washington, DC) applauded such discussions, stating, “The report wisely recommends that USDA and Health and Human Services develop a national strategy to help people eat better, including ramping up nutrition education, expanding access to fruits and vegetables, and getting industry to provide more healthful products.”
The Other Secrets to Weight Loss….
Do you think that the only part of losing weight is to take a diet pill? That is just not the case, but a good diet pill and a few other things to keep in mind, will help you transform into the physique you want.
1. Drink WATER and lots of it. This is the simplest but maybe the most effective thing you can do to support fat loss. Skip the other drinks! Lay off soda’s, even the diet ones, they are filled with chemicals that may have a negative affect on weight loss. Skip juices, coffee drinks and other liquid treats! Keep it simple! The more water the better. If you are looking for some flavor, try adding cucumber to ice water or a few fresh sliced strawberries.
2. Change your FOOD focus. Switch from a diet plan focused around carbohydrates (breads, pastas, fruits, etc.) to one focused around lean sources of protein(egg whites, skinless chicken/turkey breast, fish, protein powders, etc.). There has been an influx of media that has trained us to revolve our food thought process around carbohydrates. We have been ignoring proteins. This is not the way to go. Once you understand the difference between good and bad carbs, start turning your thoughts to protein.
Including lean protein in your diet will help your body maintain the good body tissue and lose the bad (as long as you are eating the right amount of calories).
3. Eat SMALL frequent meals. This will help to keep your metabolism burning high. If you want to lose fat, you can’t go 5 or 6 hours without eating, and chow down on one huge meal. Even though you aren’t eating “much” you are doing major damage to your metabolism. Your body will train itself to operate on “low.” Every moment you are alive, your body requires energy. Energy is measured in calories (the same as in food). If you require calories through out the day, you need to provide you body with calories through out the day. Denying your body a consistent supply of good calories forces it to be manipulative. As a result, it pulls a bear’s strategy: fat storage. The reason bears are so fat is that they go for long periods of time without eating and their body is evolved to survive, and consequently maintaining a high fat content allows the body to function during times when food is not readily available.
The other problem with infrequent meals is usually that by the time you do eat, it isn’t the best food and generally, you over eat. You body can not process junk any better than it can process a whole day’s worth of calories in one sitting. The calories it doesn’t readily need get stored as fat.
In addition to finding a diet pill that works for you, keep these three key components to fat loss in mind! They will help you reach your results faster, safer and more permanently.
Diet Pills: Shake the Jitter
When looking for a solution for weight loss, a common answer is a diet pill, but the question comes down to what kind. There are many effective ones out there, but many times they are filled with stimulants.
Stimulants increase your heart rate and often are accompanied with side-effects that include feeling jittery, lack of focus, and sweating. They are defined as: An agent, especially a chemical agent such as caffeine, which temporarily arouses or accelerates physiological or organic activity.
Stimulants have been proven to be effective in losing stubborn fat, but many people don’t want to voluntarily take something that makes them look and act like they are on something!!
There is a solution! There are many great, effective alternatives to diet pills with stimulants. The problem is that many people over look their effectiveness because they “don’t feel anything.” But, that is the whole point.
Stimulant-Free Diet pills do not contain any caffeine, ephedra, synephrine or other stimulating ingredients. People who are sensitive to the effects of stimulants, such as caffeine, prefer these types of diet pills. Stimulant-free diet pills also do not interfere with sleep and will not cause the jitters.
One of the most talked about supplements for weigh loss that is stimulant-free and all natural on the market today is Acai berry supplements and products. People who are working hard to lose weight claim that they get great results when they take Acai berry supplements and products.
Many people will drink Acai berry supplements in the liquid form as a juice before they head off to the gym for their workout. But if you are one who doesn’t like the taste, there are many people who don’t, you can take an Acai berry supplements in capsule or powdered form.
Acai also helps decrease hunger, and the craving for junk foods is diminished. The need for artificial stimulants is gone if you are supplementing with Acai berry capsules, liquids or powder.
The Acai berry is relatively new in the U.S. but has been used in the rain forests of Brazil as a dietary staple for centuries. Researchers “discovered” it when looking for new medicines to help “turn on” the cells in the body that are used for weight loss. Since then, companies have begun to formulate the precious berry into practical methods to supplement for a natural, stimulant-free approach to weight loss and total health.
Diet Pills: Are They What You Are Looking For?
Ever wonder if diet pills will work for you? Using diet pills have brought tons of people quick, amazing results. However, don’t expect to take a pill and sit back and expect the same thing for yourself. You have to put in some work too. There are diet pills that are made with 100% natural ingredients, and clinically proven to be safe and effective. There are several advantages to take diet pills:
1) You will speed up the rate at which you burn fat – Combining a healthy diet with proper exercise and a quality diet pill can create a much faster weight loss experience. Research has shown that diet pills can burn over 200 additional calories a day. The additional calories !
2) They are an inexpensive, practical option – With all the hype for expensive procedures and fad diet programs, it is easy to think that you have to spend a lot of money for the body you deserve. That simply is not true. With a quality diet pill, you will save money and will not have to sacrifice any down time associated with medical procedures and surgeries or timely appointments. Stop wasting your time and money!
3) Even a Caveman can do it – With many of the diet programs out there you have to spend a lot of time getting the program procedure down. There are complicated instructions and regulations. But when you turn to a quality diet pill, you simply take the pill as instructed (generally 1-2 times/day). It is really that easy. No homework required.
4) Save time in the gym – Spending hours in the gym is a luxury that not everyone has. There are things that get in the way like work, family and life. Using a diet pill helps boost up your fat burning furnace even when you aren’t at the gym. However, it is not a get out of gym free card.
5) Have a little diet leeway – Not everyone has the motivation to stick to a strict diet day in and day out. It is reassuring to know that when you are taking a good diet pill you will not suffer by enjoying a good cheat meal from time to time.
6) Have less cravings and control your appetite – Most diet aids are formulated to help consumers with cravings and appetite control. This way, your chances of veering off track are lessened.
7) Most diet pills are 100% safe – Companies are finally putting actual ingredients on the labels instead of hiding them in a proprietary blend umbrella. Now you can know what you are taking, when you are taking so that you can safely lose weight, naturally and fast.