Yes, you guessed it. Americans resolve to lose weight. So it is not at all out of the question to assume this resolution may be on your list as well. If so, then keep in mind that achieving your health and fitness goals is not just a day-to-day, week-to-week or month-to-month affair. The key to keeping this New Year’s resolution is changing your entire lifestyle. Although the phrase weight loss is really the hot button, fat loss is the actual issue. In order to lose excess body fat, you must take care of your body and nurture your emotional state too. So it is very important to remember as fat is lost, you should also help yourself crucial gain self-esteem.

Do not put your self-esteem on a weight loss plan as well. Here are a few practical tips to effective fat loss and esteem improvement: First, Take some time to learn. Do not be a dense dieter. It is recommended that you one of the original lifestyle diets, the Zone Diet Plan. As creator of this particular way of living and eating, Dr. Barry Sears has written eleven Zone Diet-related books and many include easy recipes to keep you in the Zone.

You may want to purchase a Zone Diet book and then try the recipes with your family. Get yourself into the nutritional state of mind. Becoming knowledgeable

will help you to internalize a healthy lifestyle you can follow with sincere understanding and confidence. Second of all, realize Although weighing yourself is indeed important, it is in fact much more important to let your clothes speak for themselves. Monitor how your clothes are fitting you. That is much more gratifying and less defeating. Thirdly, If you were thinner in the earlier years of your life, keep your thin photographs taped to your mirrors and carry one in your wallet. Take photos of yourself each month and put them in a scrapbook. It is very important to have a realistic view of your soon-to-be self. Do not throw away that old pair of jeans that fit just a little bit too tight. Keep them around since some day, you will slide into them. No more tugging and squeezing. Set a realistic date for trying on the old jeans so you are not disappointed. Fifth of all, Beware of the dreaded binge. Do not set yourself up for failure, which can play havoc with self-image. Have a healthy snack between mealtimes that will keep you satisfied so you’re less likely to overeat at the next full meal. Perhaps 1/2 of

a Meal Replacement Bar. You will then be less likely to stop at your favorite fast food restaurant for a double cheese burger and large order of fries. Also Select an exercise program that you actually enjoy doing. This could mean taking a belly dancing class, running with your puppy, or participating in some group sporting events. And last but not least, Add superfoods to your diet like nuts and seeds, beans and sprouts and other green foods. Get into the habit of buying them and jazz up your diet and the nutritional profile of the your recipes as well. This will help keep you in the zone for good.

For more information on the Zone visit Zone Diet Nutrition and learn more.

Ryan Joseph is a Writer/Researcher. More info. about the Zone Diet Plan can be found at http://www.zone-products.com.

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How should you refuel your body after exercise? We seem to be surrounded by commercial recovery foods and fluids. These recovery foods and fluids offer a combination of carbs and protein, but are they the best for exercise recovery nutrition?

If you are an athlete who exercises one or two times a day to the point of total exhaustion, you most definitely need to focus upon adequate recovery nutrition. A few examples of this type of an exerciser would be swimmers preparing for competition or even high school males and females preparing for any type of sport competition.

For those athletes who need to focus upon an adequate recovery nutrition plan, you will be better off planning in advance the right foods and fluids to replace calories, carbohydrates, protein, fluids and sodium. Your best choices are probably not a commercially prepared plan.

If you are tired, time is an issue and are without a planned ahead nutrition recovery plan, the simplest solution is to drink less water and more cranberry, grape or any other of your favorite fruit juice. Juices provide the fluid, carbs and calories you need right after strenuous exercise.

If you need to lose weight and restrict calorie intake you are better off to fuel your body appropriately in daytime to ensure your ability to perform during strong workouts. Enjoy a light dinner and fewer evening snacks. The worse thing you can do is restrict calories during the day and exercise on an empty stomach.

If you exercise solely for good health and fitness three or four times a week for 30 to 60 minutes per session, you can be less focused on recovery nutrition. Your body does not become depleted during fitness work-outs. You also have plenty of time to naturally refuel before the next work-out.

What is a good recovery nutrition plan?

Since muscles rely on carbohydrates, the athlete should plan to replenish depleted blood sugar and muscle glycogen within 30 minutes of post-exercise. It may require some concentration and definitely some planning to refuel your body with the appropriate carbohydrates after an intense work-out. Athletes who weigh 100 to 200 pounds need 300 to 600 calories of carbohydrates repeatedly every two hours for six hours. Now.the worse thing you can do is not plan ahead to have the appropriate carbohydrates on hand and grab a donut, a hot dog, a burger or chips right after your intense work-out. These things will not refuel your blood sugar and muscle glycogen and your muscles will of course not recover from the demands of strenuous exercise. If this type of eating continues your health will suffer some dire consequences. Be wise and plan ahead with the appropriate carbohydrates. Some quick sources would be an instant breakfast drink (I use these for myself often and always feel an instant healthy boost of energy). Fruit smoothies are excellent sources of carbs, fluids and protein.

Dehydration is indicated by scanty, dark urine. Thirst is a poor indicator of whether or not you have had enough to drink. If you become severely dehydrated you may need 24 to 48 hours to totally replace the loss. To combat severe dehydration sip on an enjoyable beverage until your urine is pale yellow like lemonade. Fruit juices, smoothies and milk shakes are better than sport drinks. It is better to drink orange juice than Gatorade. Orange juice has much more potassium.

Your best bet is to prevent dehydration altogether. A simple way to determine how much fluid you need is to weigh yourself naked before and after an hour of hard exercise during which you drank nothing. A two pound per hour loss equals one quart. In this example you would need to drink 8 ounces every 15 minutes of exercise.

When you sweat during exercise you lose sodium. You would have to sweat hard for more than 4 to 6 hours before you would actually deplete your bodys sodium supply. An athlete exerciser can easily replace sodium losses with just a standard diet that offers 6 to 12 times the amount of needed sodium. A sodium recovery diet for athletes could consist of eating salty foods such soup, pretzels, salted crackers. Sport drinks are a weaker source of sodium as compared to soup, pretzels and salted crackers. Should not be too difficult to pack extra pretzels or salted crackers for your strenuous work-out sessions.

Muscles need time as well as adequate carbs and calories to refuel and heal. Take a day off after a hard workout to allow your muscles to recuperate. Daily hard exercise does not increase performance. It only increases your chances for injury.

Exercising to Lose Weight or to Become Healthier?

You really should try and separate exercise from weight loss. Think of exercise as something you do for enjoyment that will in turn make you healthier, fit and more able to withstand stress. If you need to lose weight, pay attention to your calorie intake and cut back a couple 100 calories a day for one year while you exercise for enjoyment. You should reap rewards both in how you feel as well as how you look. Taking a day off between work-outs is also recommended for the exerciser who seeks good health and fitness from their exercise routines. You need to allow your body to recover and heal. Overdoing it will not bring you faster or better results. You will probably end up with injury instead. However, you will not need to focus upon an exercise recovery nutrition plan. You can still use the advice given here for athletes, but in general, you will not suffer any dire consequences if you do not practice an exercise recovery nutrition plan.

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Okay, before we start, let me explain the purpose of this article. I want you to get so healthy, you’ll never need to make a health insurance claim. You’ll save money by increased fitness. You’ll save money with a long no-claims insurance history. And you’ll look and feel much better.

There’s three sides to your maximum health and fitness. Diet, and Exercise. But that’s only two ! Let me split Exercise into Aerobic exercise and Aneorobic exercise.

Get all three right. Get the right balance. And you’ll get as fit and healthy as your body and genetics will allow.

Whole forests of paper have been filled with advice on each of these fitness factors. Just go into your local bookstore, and see shelves of diet advice. Shelves of exercise advice.

Funny how so much contradicts itself, especially for diet e.g right next to each other on the shelf, you’ll find a book advocating low carbs & low fat; another saying high fat is okay if you keep the carbs low. Yet another focuses on high protein, and says carbs don’t matter…

* Diet

Let me give you this simple diet advice. Stick to low fat, low carbs and high protein. Many medical and weight loss studies over the last 10-20 years prove this approach. Many other diet myths come from way back in time, and look just plain wrong when analyzed with modern methods.

* Aerobic Exercise

Couch potatoes don’t realize how easily they can start feeling fit and healthy. Just walk somewhere 3-4 times per week, for around 20 minutes each time.

Ideally, do some more demanding aerobic exercise. I do a lot of cycling, because it’s great low-impact exercise. And I get to see beautiful scenery while I ride.

Running provides even more intensive aerobic exercise, but careful of your joints. Maybe you prefer hiking, to see the local countryside ? Or take up a sport like rowing or tennis. You also get to meet new friends by taking up exercise as a sport.

* Anaerobic Exercise

Many people work on their diet. Many people take aerobic exercise. But many people ignore anaerobic exercise, or weight training.

What makes weight training so important ?

As you get older, muscle mass decreases. Muscle burns fat. So as you lose muscle, it gets harder to keep the fat off. Equally important, weight training can reshape your body.

No matter how much aerobic exercise you do, you’ll still be a pear shape (a smaller pear shape) if you started out a pear shape.

Using weights you can flatten your stomach, tone your thighs, bulk up your chest and shoulders, and reshape your body any way you want.

Weight training is incredibly beneficial to your general skeleton strength and conditioning. Older women can reduce the effects of osteoporosis, and older men can maintain their strength and agility.

This short article can do nothing more than provide an introduction to the three keys to your health. Follow these and you shouldn’t need to make a health insurance claim.

Slash your health insurance costs with a long no-claims bonus. Slash your health insurance costs with any insurer who rates your fitness.

Discover important health insurance facts and advice. Find out more about low carb foods, and how to lose weight quickly and easily. Go to ==> http://www.healthinsurance–quotes.com/ and ==> http://www.low-low-carb-foods.com/

About The Author

Neil Stelling BSc, MBA

DigiLectual Inc. 2004

neil@healthinsurance–quotes.com

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With the exception probably the only one of pearl gatherers, who dive without any autonomous equipment, breathing counts in all sports as well as in fitness. Each sport branch has imposed its own breathing style according to efficiency, effort timing, meteorological conditions etc.

If we take breathing as a taxonomic criterion, sports can be divided in two big groups:

1. The first one includes all the sports that use the technique of respiratory stop or blocking. The most typical among these are force sports such as athletic weight throwing, weightlifting, body building, gymnastics etc. In short, we might say that here the anaerobic extreme is concerned the one which imposes apnea (blocking the thorax and respiration). The main advantage of diaphragm blocking is the rising, for the moment, of the explosive force of the sportsman. A rise in execution speed for maximum force efforts has also been observed. The classic example is the snatch of weightlifting in which force and speed are simultaneously implied on the basis of respiratory blocking.

This respiratory blocking, inevitable in the above-mentioned sports, has also some disadvantages. Among these we could mention high pressure values in the thorax, abdomen and skull, high pressure on blood vessels with low feed-back through the veins etc. Thus, due to the rising of pressure inside the eyes the aggravation of previous short-sightedness is possible. Also, in the inferior limbs, varicose veins can either appear or worsen. Effort in exclusively anaerobic conditions increases rigidity both in the blood vessels and in the muscles.

2. The second big group is the one of sports that do not use respiratory stop. Here we enter the realm of purely aerobic effort. The typical examples are running races, swimming, cycling etc. - generally efforts on long and very long distances. In these events the muscular force implied is little - medium at most - the stress affecting the cardiovascular component and leading to increased cardiac frequency and pulmonary ventilation.

There is also a third category - mixed sports, both aerobic and anaerobic, in which the two techniques alternate. This is the case of sports games, contact sports, rhythm breaking in medium distance running races, etc. In the case of fitness, as both types of effort - aerobic and anaerobic - are present, apnea, as well as effort without respiratory blockage, is used. As far as correct respiration is concerned, there is a general rule stating that one should breath out during the most difficult part of the movement (the positive or concentric course) and breath in during come-back (the negative or eccentric course). Within these courses, we can have or not have a respiratory stop/ blockage. If we have it, it will occur at the critical point of the course.

Another breathing rule is the one that takes into consideration the dilatation of the thorax. In this case, breathing in is done on the course which allows thorax expansion, and breathing out on the movement that contracts it. In both cases, breathing in is done through the nose - in order to filter and warm up the air flow and breathing out is done through the mouth in order to be faster and more efficient.

It is interesting to know that the ’shouting’ that we hear in many weightlifting training sessions or contests, is actually the sound of forced breathing out.

Gaby Munteanu is a fitness trainer, with over 15 years experience, and editor at http://www.healthfitnessworld.com. HealthFitnessWorld.com - Health, Fitness, Body Building, Weight Loss, Nutrition - Articles and Resources.

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