Monthly Archives: May 2012

Making Weight Loss Fun!

When you’re trying to lose weight, exercise is pretty much a must. But if you’ve never gotten into any kind of exercise routine then you probably haven’t discovered something that you enjoy. All exercise might seem like work. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is literally an unlimited variety of exercises out there, so there’s bound to be something that you will enjoy.

If you like the outdoors, you could:

  • jog
  • walk
  • swim
  • roller blade
  • play with your dog in the park
  • go whitewater rafting
  • ride a bike

If you aren’t fond of the outdoors, that’s ok too. There are tons of indoor activities you could including:

Try doing different things each week so you don’t get bored with one thing. Yoga is really good for both toning your body, while also reducing stress. Try to substitute that in once a week and you’ll feel great. Regardless of what you choose to do, just make sure you’re doing something several times a week for half an hour at a minimum. Remember that that half hour doesn’t always have to be all at once, either. If you walk for ten minutes, then later in the day play with your dog at the park (actively) for twenty minutes then you’ve gotten in half an hour of activity that day.

The secret to exercising more is finding things that you like to do. So keep trying different things until you find something that’s fun for you. Don’t let it get old and boring once you do, either. If you start to get bored with it, then start trying other things again and come back to it.

 

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Chocolate Lovers Thinner than Others?

Do you find it hard to resist a chunk of sweet, decadent chocolate? If so, there’s good news. According to a new study, it appears that those who regularly consume chocolate are normally skinnier than those who don’t. Although the weight difference is slight, it gives a shimmer of hope to researchers in finding out just what causes it. The exact cause isn’t yet known. On another note, they say it could just be a statistical flute.

The study that shows chocolate lovers as being thinner those who don’t regularly indulge in chocolate consisted of about 1,000 participants. Each participant, nearly 70 percent of which were men, completed a survey. The survey included details about how regularly they ate chocolate and researchers then went to work trying to see what they could find.

On average, the participants had a BMI (body mass index) of about 28. At 28, they’re classified as overweight, but not necessarily obese. As researchers analyzed the data, they figured out that those who ate chocolate the most often actually had a lower BMI than the others.

This is by far not the first time there have been benefits found that relate to eating chocolate. It’s one food that holds quite a bit of mystery for health experts and researchers to still figure out. We know that it’s full of antioxidants. Eating chocolate has also been shown in a variety of studies to hold other health benefits too, such as lowering cholesterol and blood sugar. By reading these studies, you’d never guess that chocolate was full of fat and carries a whopping number of calories…

They said that on average, how often you eat chocolate could account for around a five pound difference in your weight. Before you run off and start chowing down on chocolate, think twice though. For one, it’s a delicate balance to eat enough but not so much that the calories and fat take a toll. For two, they aren’t positive about what kind of chocolate participants ate.

Also, they stress that chocolate isn’t going to help you lose weight.

 

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Amazing Swimsuit Arms in 3 Super Simple Moves

Losing weight and getting in decent shape is one thing, but toning up the arms is often a very tough challenge for women. Getting your arms ready to show off in an evening dress or even a swimsuit doesn’t have to be as tough as you think, though. If you’re like many women, you’ve tried and tried and nothing has seemed to work in the past. You can run till you drop and tone your entire body, but your arms (especially the top under-arms) just laugh at you. If that sounds familiar, don’t fret… here are some simple moves that will help you finally conquer the mystery of toning up those arms.

Cardio Counts

When you think about toning your arms, you probably don’t think about running, aerobics or swimming. But all of these can help… anything that gets you moving and gets your cardio going. Cardiovascular exercise is an important part of any muscle-toning you want to do. Simply targeting one area and only working that area will not give you the results that you’re looking for. So before we get into arm-specific moves, we want to emphasize that you have to include cardio workouts into your routine regularly. Aim for five hours of cardio each and every week. We’re not saying you have to dedicate a full hour five times per day, either. You can split this five hours up however you like, but just be sure to shoot for getting in a full five hours throughout the week.

Strength Training

Like we said, you don’t want to focus on just one muscle or area that you want to tone. So as you do these, remember that on some days you should be focusing on other areas, too. The more muscle you build through strength training, the more calories you’ll burn naturally. Building muscle increases your metabolism, which is a great way to get passive calorie-burning going on.

To begin with, you’ll need a couple of dumbbells. Using two small ones is better than one big one, because you can control your movements more precisely, but either will work. If you have one big one and can’t get two little ones right now, then start with that until you’re able to get two small ones.

Rear-Facing Arm Lifts

Get your dumbbells out and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Stretch out your arms behind you with your hand sitting slightly behind your upper thighs. Of course, if you’re using two dumbbells, you’ll have one in each hand and if you’re using a single one then you’ll be holding it with both hands.

Lift the dumbbell(s) up until it starts to become uncomfortable – don’t go past that or you will risk getting hurt. Keeping your arms straight, lower them back down slowly and repeat the lift.

Sidearm Lifts

For this one, you really need two small dumbbells since you’ll be doing them both at the same time and one large one may be too heavy to do for single arm lifts. Put one dumbbell in each hand and let your arms relax by your sides. Slowly lift your arms straight out to the sides until they get to shoulder height. Lower them and keep doing the lifts. Lifting them shoulder height shouldn’t be painful. If it is, then it’s likely that your weights are too heavy.

Straight-Up Lifts

Remember at the beginning when we talked about the underside of the upper arms often being the toughest to tame? Those areas that sag are often referred to as saddlebags. This exercise is a great way to get rid of them and tone that area. Unlike the sidearm lifts, where two small dumbbells are pretty much required, you can do this one with two small ones or one larger one.

Put your arms straight up. Now bend them at the elbows to bring your hands down behind your head holding the dumbbells. Lift ‘em straight up above your head slowly, lower and repeat. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t do many of these, as it’s a more advanced lift than the others. Just do what’s comfortable and over time you’ll be able to add more.

 

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Little Known Beauty Tips Using Pomegranate

Taking garcinia cambogia can help with weight loss, but Adding pomegranate to your diet can bring great benefits to both your health and the way you look. Native to areas like Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Himalayas, it was introduced to the Western world in the later part of the 1700’s. It’s now commonly farmed in California and Arizona to make delicious pomegranate juice.

This savory fruit is rich in antioxidants and other ingredients that are well-known to help promote healthy skin and a healthy lifestyle. It’s been used for a number of health conditions, including diabetes and high blood pressure. Just some of what you can get out of pomegranate include Vitamin B5, Vitamin C and potassium.

Skin Care with Pomegranate

Pomegranate is rich in iron, which means it helps your skin cells get the oxygen they need and helps your skin stay smooth and clear. Because it helps aid your digestive system, it helps regulate problems and imbalances in your body that can often be the root cause of acne problems.

We all know by  now how amazing antioxidants for our skin and overall health and pomegranates provides plenty since it’s a powerful source of Vitamin C. Vitamin C is also responsible for keeping your sebum levels in order. If your sebum levels get out of whack, it can easily cause acne flare-ups.

Applying Pomegranate to Skin

Apply pomegranate juice or an extract to the parts of your skin that need attention. You should be able to start seeing some results in merely days. If it’s aging and wrinkles you want help with, then try some pomegranate seed oil. Studies show that this can help improve your skin’s ability to produce collagen and reduce the appearance of wrinkles.

Applying pomegranate seed oil to minor cuts and scrapes may also help speed up the healing process.

Stop Sun-Aging by Adding Pomegranate to Your Diet

If you’ve damaged your skin by too much fun in the sun and it’s starting to show, then it’s time to consider adding pomegranate juice to your diet. Drinking this juice can help extend the life of fibroblasts. Fibroblasts control your skin’s collagen and elastin, which is what determines the tone and silkiness of your skin.

 

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Boosting Brain Function with Berries

You know how much we love keeping up with superfruits and news about natural health supplements, so it should come as no surprise that we’ve found another great news bit about berries. More than 16,000 women (70-years-old and up) took part in a study that seemed to show a great connection between berries and memory improvement. In fact, those who ate the most berries on a weekly basis kept a better memory for more than years longer than the others.

A researcher by the name of Elizabeth Devore, who currently works at the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said that she doesn’t see any reason why men would have any difference in these kinds of results. And while this study was sponsored by the California Strawberry Commission, it was published by the Annals of Neurology without hesitation. Devore highlighted the fact that the writing, results and data analysis were all done independently and that the strawberry commission played no role in these aspects of the study.

This could be great news since there are an alarming number of Alzheimer patients and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of that slowing down.

Devore recommends that everyone try to include more berries in their diet. In the study, participants were tested every couple of years (1995-2001). Those who consumed a minimum of either half a cup of blueberries each week or two and half cups of strawberries saw amazing benefits over those who ate less than that.

How do Berries Help?

The energy generators for your brain cells are called mitochrondria. They’re also thought to be responsible for producing some toxic substances that often result in Alzheimer’s disease, though. You have probably heard them referred to as free radicals. Antioxidants are known to interact with these substances and prevent them from causing damage. Berries are an amazing source of flavonoids that act as antioxidants, which could be the main reason why there’s such a connection between berries and brain function improvement.

The only thing to take a bit of caution about is that the participants diet were not controlled, but was simply reported by the participants own recollections. You can read more about this study on this CNN Health blog or you can read more about  natural health supplements and the superfruit diet.

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Powerful, Little Known Secrets of Cumin

Though I’m sure you’ve heard of (and probably use) cumin, I bet you didn’t know that it can help you with losing weight. Did you? Cumin is very common in African, Asian and Latin American dishes and offers a wide variety of health benefits… both for physical and mental health. Let’s take a look at just some of the reasons you should be including cumin in your cooking.

Physical Benefits Cumin Offers

First of all, cumin is an amazing source of iron, which is important for ensuring a healthy digestive system. It helps your body produce energy more effectively, carry a healthy supply of oxygen to the tissues in your body, and improves your immune system. An interesting thing about cumin too is that studies have shown that it is anti-carcinogenic. That means it can help prevent the development of cancer. Specifically, it’s been shown to prevent liver and stomach cancer although it’s only been proven with animals so far. Cumin has also been proven to help those who suffer from arthritis, asthma and kidney disease.

Cumin Helps with Weight Loss?

Because cumin increases your metabolic rate and body temperature, it is also becoming more well-known for helping people lose weight. In Indian cooking it’s commonly combined with a number or other spices, such as ginger, fenugreek, black pepper and turmeric powder. This helps increase the effect that it has on your digestive system and helps your body absorb more nutrients, which in turn helps prevent your body from storing fat.

Abdominal Fat Burning

Not only is cumin great at overall helping your body not to build and store fat, but it’s specifically good at targeting your abdominal fat. It can increase your fat burning by as much as 25 percent! But if you want to get the most out of cumin’s weight loss abilities, it’s best to combine it with other spices like mentioned above. A few more that you can mix it with are mustard, fennel and fresh ginger.

Kickin’ Out the Bad

Cumin helps your body get rid of waste more efficiently and quickly, which means it helps ward off disease and this also helps with weight loss.

Improve Mental Health with Cumin

As mentioned, cumin is also beneficial to mental health. It can help you improve your memory and sharpen your concentration skills. It’s commonly suggested to use cumin in your daily diet if you suffer from any kind of insomnia, too.

Summary

Cumin is an amazing little spice that just about anyone can benefit from. If you haven’t been using it, then start adding it to the dishes that you make. You’ll get an increase in your metabolism, kick your immune system into better gear, naturally detox your body on a regular basis and burn fat away faster. Besides, there aren’t any known dangers or side effects of cumin so there’s really no reason not to start using it today.

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