Nutrition

The 12 Best Smoothie Ingredient

You can boost your brain, build muscle, burn fat, and help your heart in less than one minute: Just mix up a smoothie and slurp. It’s that simple—if you include these dozen add-ins that not only pack health benefits, but also make your shake taste even better.

Peanut Butter

Packed with protein, manganese, and niacin, peanuts can help stave off heart disease and, when eaten in moderation, promote weight loss.

Fat-Free Milk

All the calcium and protein, none of the fat.

Blueberries

The huge amounts of antioxidants, such as anthocyanins, in blueberries have been shown to slow brain decline and reverse memory loss.

Low-Fat Vanilla Yogurt

A cache of calcium and digestion-aiding probiotics in every scoop.

Raspberries

An antioxidant powerhouse bursting with fiber, manganese, and vitamin C, these berries will keep your heart and brain in top shape.

Fat-Free Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

Calcium, phosphorus, and none of the guilt.

Pineapple-Orange Juice

OJ has vitamin C, and pineapples contain bromelain, a cancer-inhibiting, inflammation-reducing enzyme

Cherries

In addition to their vitamin C and fiber content, cherries have been linked to reducing arthritis pain.

Bananas

Heavy on potassium, fiber, and vitamin B6, bananas do wonders for your heart and provide good carbs to keep you full and energized.

Whey Protein

Its essential amino acids help pack on the muscle—making whey the best friend of athletes and gym rats.

Frozen Mangoes

To their stock of vitamins A and C, mangoes add a healthy dose of beta-carotene, which helps prevent cancer and promotes healthy skin.

Ice

A little H2O never hurt anyone.

** This is great for a morning breakfast or a Post workout.**

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The Hidden Dangers of Your Excess Abdominal Fat – It’s More Serious Than a Vanity Issue!

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Did you know that the vast majority of people in this day and age have excess abdominal fat? The first thing that most people think of is that their extra abdominal fat is simply ugly, is covering up their abs from being visible, and makes them self conscious about showing off their body.

However, what most people don’t realize is that excess abdominal fat in particular, is not only ugly, but is also a dangerous risk factor to your health. Scientific research has clearly demonstrated that although it is unhealthy in general to have excess body fat throughout your body, it is also particularly dangerous to have excess abdominal fat.

There are two types of fat that you have in your abdominal area. The first type that covers up your abs from being visible is called subcutaneous fat and lies directly beneath the skin and on top of the abdominal muscles.

The second type of fat that you have in your abdominal area is called visceral fat, and that lies deeper in the abdomen beneath your muscle and surrounding your organs. Visceral fat also plays a role in giving certain men that “beer belly” appearance where their abdomen protrudes excessively but at the same time, also feels sort of hard if you push on it.

Both subcutaneous fat and visceral fat in the abdominal area are serious health risk factors, but science has shown that having excessive visceral fat is even more dangerous than subcutaneous fat. Both of them greatly increase the risk your risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, sleep apnea, various forms of cancer, and other degenerative diseases.

Part of the reason visceral fat is particularly dangerous is that it apparently releases more inflammatory molecules into your body on a consistent basis.

If you care about the quality of your life and your loved ones, reducing your abdominal fat should be one of your TOP priorities! There’s just no way around it. Besides, a side-effect of finally getting rid of all of that excessive ugly abdominal fat is that your stomach will flatten out, and if you lose enough stomach fat, you will be able to visibly see those sexy six pack abs that everyone wants.

So what gets rid of extra abdominal fat? Is there actually a REAL solution beyond all of the gimmicks and hype that you see in ads and on commercials for “miracle” fat loss products?

The first thing you must understand is that there is absolutely NO quick fix solution. There are no pills or supplements of any sort that will help you lose your abdominal fat faster. Also, none of the gimmicky ab rockers, rollers, or ab belts will help get rid of abdominal fat either. You can’t spot reduce your stomach fat by using any of these worthless contraptions. It simply doesn’t work that way.

The ONLY solution to consistently lose your abdominal fat and keep it off for good is to combine a sound nutritious diet full of unprocessed natural foods with a properly designed strategic exercise program that stimulates the necessary hormonal and metabolic response within your body. Both your food intake as well as your training program are important if you are to get this right.

I’ve actually even seen a particular study that divided thousands of participants into a diet-only group and an exercise/diet group. While both groups in this study made good progress, the diet-only group lost significantly LESS abdominal fat than the diet & exercise combined group.

Now the important thing to realize is that just any old exercise program will not necessarily do the trick. The majority of people that attempt getting into a good exercise routine are NOT working out effectively enough to really stimulate the loss of stubborn abdominal fat. I see this everyday at the gym.

Most people will do your typical boring ineffective cardio routines, throw in a little outdated body-part style weight training, and pump away with some crunches and side bends, and think that they are doing something useful for reducing their abdominal fat. Then they become frustrated after weeks or months of no results and wonder where they went wrong.

Well, the good news is that I’ve spent over a decade researching this topic, analyzing the science, and applying it “in the trenches” with myself as well as thousands of my clients from all over the world to see what works to really stimulate abdominal fat loss.

The entire solution… all of the nutritional strategies, as well as training sequences, exercise combinations, and more have all been compiled in my Truth About Six Pack Abs Program.

Keep in mind that the point of this whole program is NOT abdominal exercises (that is only a very small portion of it). The main point of this program is showing you the absolute most effective strategies for losing your stubborn abdominal fat, so you can get rid of that dangerous health risk, as well as get a flatter more defined midsection.

If you follow the guidelines, you WILL lose your belly fat that has been plaguing you for years. This is not guesswork… it is a proven system that works time and time again for all of my clients on every corner of the globe that actually apply the information I teach. If you apply it, the results will come. It’s really that simple.

The only reason most people fail in their fitness goals is that they have good intentions at first to adopt a new lifestyle, yet after a few weeks or months, they abandon their good intentions and slip right back into their old bad habits that gave them the excess body fat in the first place.

I want to help you succeed in finally getting rid of that extra abdominal fat that is not only UGLY, but also DANGEROUS.

Don’t waste another day allowing that nasty abdominal fat to kill your confidence as well as contribute to your risk for MAJOR diseases.

Train hard, eat right, and enjoy life!

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Can “Energy Drinks” Actually Improve Your Strength, Endurance, and Energy Levels… Or is it All in Your Mind?


energy  drinksPlus an important lesson on how to help your mind control your exercise and diet results

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
author – The Truth About Six Pack Abs

You may have noticed from a lot of my ezine issues that I speak a lot about the power of your mind and how this controls the results you get in your body.

This is yet another example of the power of the placebo effect, and probably the only reason anybody gets any results whatsoever from typical supplements (I’m talking more about bogus “miracle” diet pill supplements rather than legitimate whole food or herbal supplements).

I recently read about an interesting study regarding energy drinks and whether they actually give any results (sorry, I don’t have the exact citation or the exact numbers involved), but here was the general details of the study…

The researchers split the group into 2 large groups of people.  The first group they gave one of these typical “energy drinks” that you see everywhere (which I’ve mentioned before are a complete waste).

Now here’s the important part… the researchers specifically told this 1st group of people that the energy drink they were receiving would increase their strength and endurance levels and increase their energy output.

The 2nd group received the exact same “energy drink” but was not told what the drink was, so nothing was said about it improving anything. For all these people knew, they were just being given a drink because they were thirsty.  They were not told that this drink was an “energy drink”.

The very interesting results:

The 1st group, which was told that the energy drink would improve their strength and endurance, actually DID increase their strength outputs and endurance tests.

However, the 2nd group, which received the EXACT SAME “energy drink” was NOT TOLD that it would help anything, and therefore, they showed no measurable signs of improvement on any of the tests!

Wow… yet another powerful example of how it’s ALL IN YOUR MIND!

Energy drinks don’t really help with anything, but if you strongly believe in your mind that something you are doing will improve your results, it really CAN help your results.  This is the placebo effect at its best!

One way that this phenomenon can be applied to your nutrition and workouts:

1. When you’re performing certain exercises, you need to really strongly BELIEVE IN YOUR MIND that those exercises are transforming your body… in return, that strong belief will improve your results in the gym MUCH more than just mindlessly going through the exercises.

2. When you are eating healthy food, you need to really strongly believe and think about how much that food is making you leaner, stronger, and giving you more energy. If you believe strongly how much that food is helping you, it WILL help you much more than if you didn’t think positively about what you were eating.

This is very powerful stuff!  Your brain really CAN control your fitness results or lack of results.

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5 Diet Tricks That Over Deliver To Get You Faster Fat Loss

from http://approvedfitness.com

Tired about reading all those diet tips that seem to sound smart but never really make any difference in your progress? If you’re like most people you are very much looking forward to sporting a new and improved you in a few months time and don’t want to be wasting weeks, if not months, on techniques that simply just do not work.

You’ve put in the effort and now, you expect results. The problem is that if the effort you’ve been putting in isn’t on sound strategies that actually do deliver, that effort is going to be effort that’s sadly wasted.

That’s why your job is to figure out which tricks work so that you can start making the progress you’re after.

To help you cut to the chase, we’ve eliminated all those junky types that will only waste you time and stripped it down to the essentials. If you implement these into your diet, I guarantee you will see results because of it.

Let’s get you started.
1. Avoid Corn Syrup

Right off the top, if there was one change that you should immediately make to your diet, this is it. Any time you see the words ‘high-fructose corn syrup’ on a package label, run far, far away (and preferably, run fast).

This sweet ingredient is going to be anything but sweet for your waistline. Study after study illustrates that those with high levels of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in their diet gain more weight than others without it. Even if you eat the same amount of calories, you still could put on more body fat if you’re consuming foods rich in this ingredient.

So dieter beware: high fructose corn syrup now belongs on your hit list.

2. Stop The Food-Serotonin Connection

Want to know something interesting? Every single time you eat a processed form of carbohydrate, your body is going to release a good dose of serotonin in the system. Serotonin is essentially a ‘feel good’ hormone and is one that is often released when drugs are taken as well.

Now can you see just why all that junk food is so addictive to you? It’s not just that your taste buds want the processed carbs, it’s that your body and brain is actually craving them – similar to if you were hooked on a drug. If you regularly eat junk food, don’t be surprised if this habit is a lot harder to break than you thought.

Stay away from the start and you’ll avoid this additive cycle.

3. Keep Your Meals Regular

Just as you wouldn’t ask your car to take a road trip without any gas, you shouldn’t expect your body to do the same thing. The minute you start going too long between meals is the moment your body not only learns to store fat better but the moment your metabolism slows down as well.

It really is like a double whammy as far as fat loss is concerned. If you want to succeed, keep those meals regular throughout the day.

4. Breakfast Is Best

Similar along this principle, never skip breakfast. Breakfast eaters consume far fewer calories over the course of the day despite the fact that they are eating these calories in their morning meal. Skip it at your own risk. If you do, you’ll likely find that by the time 11 am hits, you’ve hit up the vending machine – twice!

5. Eat Foods From The Ground

Want a quick way to instantly improve your overall food choices? When you pick up an item at the supermarket, ask yourself if that item came from the ground or if it had to go through a manufacturing plant first.

If the answer is the latter, that product is one that’s no good for reaching your fat loss goals. The more natural the foods you eat, the faster you are going to see success.

Set Yourself Up For Success

Make sure you set yourself up for success. Little changes in your everyday routine can have huge pay-offs if you do it right. For example, rather than dishing up your meal onto an extra large plate, use a smaller one instead.

Likewise, any treats you do decide to keep in the house, put them out of sight. If you’re constantly staring at them each and every time you open the pantry, it really is only going to be so long before you give in.

So keep all these tips in mind. See how many you can start implementing into your day in order to push yourself to the next step in fat loss.

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5 Ways to Keep Your Cool When the Mercury Spikes

5 Ways to Keep Your Cool When the Mercury Spikes

If anything is certain in exercise science, it’s that each year, a study will come out that flies in the face of what athletes hold as gospel. Take, for example, the recent one about water consumption, from England’s University of Exeter. The sporting community has long assumed that drinking large amounts of H2O helps keep body temperature down when outside temperatures soar. Not so, say the British white coats. You can drink water until you’re blue in the face, but unless the water is cold to begin with, it won’t have the slightest effect on body temp. And that can have dangerous repercussions—more people die each year from heat stroke than from all natural disasters combined. So before you strap on a sweatband and brave the next heat wave, make sure you’ve cooled your heels with these five guidelines.

Check Yesterday’s Heat Index

Your risk of heat stroke rises sharply if the previous day was hot, according to a recent study by the U.S. Marine Corps. Researchers found that victims of heat-related illnesses often became dehydrated the day before they were stricken with heat stroke. “Being dehydrated not only prevents you from sweating efficiently, increasing your risk of overheating, but also causes your body to redirect blood from your muscles to your skin to aid cooling,” says David Martin, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist at Georgia State University and marathon development chair for USA Track & Field.

Mind the Water Temperature

If you’ve heard the old tale about drinking room-temperature water to stay cool, disregard it, say researchers at the University of Birmingham, in England. They found that cyclists who consumed 39°F beverages while exercising in hot weather were able to work out longer and harder than those who drank 66°F beverages.

Don’t Overhydrate

Gauge your body’s hourly sweat rate by weighing yourself before and after an hour workout (1 pint of sweat = 1 pound lost), says W. Larry Kenney, Ph.D., a Penn State University physiologist. Aim to replace only as much as you’ve sweat during every hour of exercise.

Find Good Cover

Ditch cotton T-shirts in favor of fabrics that wick away sweat, ventilate the body, and block the sun. “Sunburned pores are less efficient at releasing sweat,” says Martin. So curtail your exercise routine if you’re sunburned, because your skin will not thermoregulate well. Cotton tees have an SPF of 5, but sun-blocking fabrics, such as Under Armour’s Red Line T-shirt ($40, underarmour.com), offer protection of SPF 30, thanks to their microfiber fabric construction.

Precool Your Core

If you’re competing in any endurance events this summer, take a cue from the U.S. Olympic track-and-field team. When temperatures topped 104°F in Athens, the marathoners donned vests containing frozen gel sticks to cool their cores prior to competition. In doing so, they were able to race harder without overheating and won two of the six medals in the competition. We recommend the Arctic Heat Cooling Vest ($180, arcticheatusa.com).

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