Yogic Diet to stay fit and young

Today everyone is talking about Yoga. Yoga, as thought to be just another way of workouts, is much more than just a physical activity. It focuses on mental, emotional and physical well being of an individual. Yoga inspires individuals to embark upon a journey that will bring a healthy, disease free, long, contented and spiritual life ahead. No matter what is the age, size, sex, health condition, religion or the mental state of a person is, yoga is for everyone. There are variations which meet the needs of everyone. If you are already practicing yoga postures only, you have a further chance to improve your life by switching to 'Yogic Diet' which will enhance your physical comfort and mental peace. You will be feel younger and fit than ever before.

A yogic diet will undoubtedly make the body light, fit, and bring about better control over emotions and stress. The diet will certainly give you a better clarity of the thoughts & concepts. This diet is easy to digest and helps in detoxification of the body naturally. In addition you will be blessed with enhanced memory and concentration after a few weeks of continuing with this kind of diet.

The yogic diet strongly recommends the vegetarian diet, believing the fact that human body is not intended to eat meat because our digestive system is different from the meat eating animals. Consider the fact that it takes 3 days for red meat to pass through the digestive system whereas vegetarian food is eliminated only in 24-28 hours. In addition to health benefits, yoga propagates non-violence, thus killing an animal for food is not acceptable.

The yogic diet constitute mainly the fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grain cereals, legumes, pulses, seeds milk and its products, nuts and honey. The emphasis is laid that food should not be over cooked or undercooked as both the practices spoils nutrition present in it. Avoid having too cold and too hot food because it becomes difficult for the body to digest it in both extreme cases. The food which is too spicy, salty, sour, under ripe, over ripe and bitter should not be eaten. The use of tea, coffee, alcohol, chocolate, too much sugar, garlic and eggs is also omitted. The diet should have all essential nutrients in a balanced form.

You don't have to change your diet overnight but proceed gradually towards yogic diet. You will see the results soon. This diet will bring harmony in your life suppressing the stimulating factors that cause restlessness, diseases and other mental diversions.

Source:  Examiner.com

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Cut Down Extra Calories in this Holiday Season

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year are occasions when family and friends are gathered around, adds fun to our lives and brings moments of joy. These occasions may distract you from the everyday concerns and worries but, distraction from your diet-No way. On an average a person gains 7-10 pounds between Thanksgiving and New year! Here are few steps to keep up yourself throughout the holidays and add joy.

Count the calories

The Caloric Control Council reveals the fact that an average American consumes around 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat on Thanksgiving Day alone. The fat amount equals to the fat that we should take in three days and twice as many calories which should be consumed in one day. Most of these calories come from snacking all day. So you better watch what you are snacking on and control the portion size.

The turkey itself is a lean meat containing low fat and moderate number of calories. If you are eating a 3 oz serving of white meat, you get 140 calories and 3 grams of fat. In contrast to this, dark meat consists of 160 calories and 7 grams of fat and twice as much iron as present in same amount of white meat.

You can remove skin which is going to cut back 18-20 calories per serving and 2-3 grams of fat. Further cut down calories by basting the bird with white wine or low sodium broth instead of using butter. Add lot of vegetables in the stuffing. The vegetables like carrots, onion, water chestnuts and celery are low in calories and add to taste.

Replacing just one cup of sugar with a sugar substitute like Splenda brand will save over 750 calories. So why not to use it in your pies and other baked goods.

You can further save approximately 77 calories per servings by replacing bleached flour with whole wheat flour. If you think your recipe really requires bleached flour, add half wheat and other half bleached flour.

Make your own chip dip. Replace half of the mayonnaise with low fat sour cream. You will get same creamy flavor, texture and feel and only 1300 less calories in a cup.

Commercially prepared canned Cranberry sauce contains 110 calories in one fourth cup and is loaded with sugar , corn syrup and other sweeteners. Home made cranberry sauce has 20 calories per one fourth cup!

Use low-sodium or reduced-fat varieties of cream of mushroom (or cream of celery) soup for green bean casserole. Choose low-sodium, and you’ll cut nearly 1,000 milligrams of sodium (per can) from your recipe.

Use water, skim milk or low-sodium chicken broth instead milk to dilute the soup.

Now you are ready and you can look forward to spend time with friends, family, and good food!

The Right Kind of Exercise for You

All of us understand the importance of staying fit and the role played by the exercise in keeping us fit. We have many energy saver system like drive through fast food points, banks, cleaners, pharmacies, elevators, escalators, moving walkways, television and music systems with remote controls, automatic washers and dryers etc. Our inactivity has increased actually because of spending long hours in working on internet, watching television, playing video games etc.This kind of sedentary lifestyle puts our longevity and health at risk. If you have not included exercise in your daily routine then you are at a high risk of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart diseases, obesity etc. Obesity is further associated with other diseases like heart failure,diabetes, pulmonary hypertension, stroke, degenerative joints, many types of cancer, gall bladder diseases and many more. Many of these disease are life threatening and may lead to premature death

We all have excuses and explanation for not doing exercise like lack of time, odd working hours, home, kids etc. But we must convince ourselves that the worldly possessions like money, power, status, image all are of no use if we do not have good health. Thus, it is very important to keep yourself healthy. Good eating and drinking habits and exercise keeps you fit for whole life. Exercise and workout will not only keep you healthy, increase longevity but will also give you mental peace because “A healthy body has healthy mind”.

But, before you think of making exercise an essential part of your life you should keep in mind following points :

1.Exercise should be enjoyable: Exercise must not be mind numbing and unnatural. If it is boring , nobody is going to do it for a long time. It has to be interesting so that you get motivate to do it regularly. So, choose the kind of exercise that you really find interesting and motivating. You should feel good physically as well as mentally after doing exercise.
2.Exercise should be easily accessible: It is easy to find reasons for not going or not doing exercise if it takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to get to that. If you have chosen exercise which is not readily available then the fever of exercise goes off after some days. Sustaining exercise under optimal conditions is difficult so better choose the exercise which is easily accessible.
3.Exercise should be injury free: Sometimes people get injured during exercise and hence give up exercise. Thus ,choose exercise which is natural and injury free.
4.Exercise should involve the muscle group from whole body: Exercise should be such that it involves the exercise of major muscle groups from our all body parts.
5.Exercise should give you an option to do it at high, moderate and low intensity: The exercise you take should give you an option to go at the level you need or can do. For example, for beginners, over-weight and old age it should not be very heavy or tough.

Read more: http://healthmad.com/fitness/the-right-kind-of-exercise-for-you/#ixzz0oUYH7j2n

10 rules for Flat belly

Most of us are so much concerned about the belly fat hanging over our waistbands. The frustrating reality here is that the midsection is one of the trickiest and difficult areas to tone. Even people dedicated to regular exercise often can't iron out their abs. You need to have some kind of tummy flattening plan. The "inch you can pinch” around your belly may be harmful. A moderate amount of fat is essential for life. It keeps you warm in the winter. But too much of it can be bad, starting with the fact that fat functions as a visible sign of being overweight or obese. Worse, it makes us lose confidence in our body image.
Excess fat has been linked to a long list of adverse health conditions, including:
High blood pressure, stroke, and heart disease
High cholesterol
Diabetes
Breast cancer
Dementia
 
One of the main reasons fat is so deadly is because of its role in inflammation, a natural immune response that has lately been tied to almost every chronic disease there is. Fat also contributes to insulin resistance, an early precursor to diabetes.
In order to have a flat belly you can try out following:
Maintain calories level of your body: there is a calorie level which can be maintained in the way that you neither gain weight nor lose weight. Observe your body. You can find it out by trial and error method. You can also find it by multiplying your body weight (lbs) by 11. This gives you a rough estimate of your daily calorie requirements. Once you find out your maintenance calories level, start reducing your food consumption very gradually which must not be more than 10% of the calories.
You may be tempted to drastically cut down on food consumption but that will not prove to be effective in getting a flat stomach but then the body thinks that it is starving and it initiates the body’s starvation response.

Make an Exercise Regime focusing Weight Resistance Training Lifting weight to shed 'weight' is a good way out. Weight training tells you how fast you will burn fat. Strength training helps both building more muscles and increase the calories burning efficiency. For each pound of trained muscle on your body, you can burn 35 to 50 calories of energy per day. Each pound of fat requires only 7 to 10 calories to maintain it. When you lift weights, you need more calories to feed those hungry muscle cells. That's why it is key for trimming fat around the belly.
Add MUFA to your diet- Studies have shown that a core group of healthy fats--monounsaturated fat known as MUFAs can prove to be effective in shedding fat. Those good-for-you fats help to protect you from chronic disease and, according to new research, can help you to get a slim waistline.There are five major categories of MUFAs- oil, avacado, nuts and seeds, chocolates and olives. Eating one serving of any of these foods at every meal will help to reduce accumulation of dangerous belly fat.
Tighten up your abs- sit on the chair and pull your stomach inside as if you are trying to pull up a tight pair of jeans. Hold it for 10 seconds. Do atleast 25 times a day and you can see the results.
Include fat burning food in your diet: This includes bananas, apples, beans, citrus fruits, broccoli, grains and grain products, cabbage, melon, pasta, tomato, zucchini, pineapple, root vegetables and peppers.
Commit to your target- If you start a diet and exercise regime, make it for good. Eating healthy foods and exercising only until you hit your target weight. Getting healthy is a lifestyle choice that has to last.
Picture yourself- Stick a picture of yourself on your refrigerator door at both your original and current weight or you can have a picture of one who inspires you. This will help you to remind of why you should stick with healthy foods.

Meal Replacements for Weight Control: For losing weight, we need to reduce the intake of the calories below the daily activity needs. When we reduce the number of the calories, we draw from our fat stores to obtain energy. By replacing meals with specialized complete meal formula, we lose fat and weight.
Substituting meal replacement for regular snacks can increase your meal frequency and controls the weight, since the low-calorie meal replacements limit calorie intake. Meal replacements have become popular way for helping many people successfully start losing weight. Meal replacements can be a good therapeutic approach to weight loss but only if, they are used in combination with lifestyle and diet education and professional support.

Core strength training: It is very essential to have core strength training to eliminate fat around the belly. Become aware of your abdomen. This mental awareness helps you stay focused on your goal- to eliminate the excess inner abdominal fat and achieve your goal of a waist that is less than 35 inches for a women and less than 40 inches for men. Core training also builds a stronger calorie burning furnace when you build more muscles. Having a strong core is key to all kinds of daily activities like sitting down, picking things up, carrying groceries and even walking. The abs and the back work together as a team. The stronger the abs- the stronger is the back.
Have positive attitude: Instead of focusing on the failure of your past habits, consider focusing on 30 minutes to a flat stomach. Set attainable goals. This means goals that you have control over. If you set a goal to lose five pounds in a week, you have no control and set yourself up for failure. Instead, set a goal to exercise 30 minutes a day five days a week. Along with that set a goal to stay within your calorie count. As you achieve these goals each week, your motivation will increase. Other tips include:
Measure instead of weigh -- Measure your waist and stomach before you start and again each six weeks. Weight can fluctuate as fat is replaced by water or muscle. A tape measure shows the inches melting off your midsection.
Dont shop when hungry: Never go to shopping when you are hungry or you will end up buying more fattening food. Best thing is to eat before going for food shopping and always prepare a grocery list. Only buy food which relates to your each week diet program.

Source-http://citymasala.com/October2009/FlatBelly.pdf

Blast Belly Fat and Sculpt Your Body with Weight Training

Muscles are our premium calorie burners. A pound of muscle burns three to five times the amount of calories compared with pound of fat. Doing cardio is not enough to cut the belly fat. You need to strengthen your muscles and cut back the fat around belly as well. Regular strength training -lifting weights for 1 hour twice per week- can eliminate your belly fat three times faster than doing only cardio exercise.

When you incorporate weight training along with you cardio, you can prevent fat accumulating in your body the first place. Lifting weights doubles the chances of keeping the fat around the belly off long term. Only 20 percent of us do strength training twice a week, with women slightly trailing men. That clearly indicates that almost 80 percent of us are ignoring this crucial aspect of being fit.
Body fitness is characterized by strength, optimal lean body mass (muscles) and minimized body fat. To achieve this, you should sculpt your body by removing fat and increasing muscle mass as much as your genetics allow and holding it there for lifetime.

Here are few principles to help you to strengthen your body:

Lift Weight to Shed Weight

Weight training tells you how fast you will burn fat. Strength training helps both building more muscles and increase the calories burning efficiency. For each pound of trained muscle on your body, you can burn 35 to 50 calories of energy per day. Each pound of fat requires only 7 to 10 calories to maintain. When you lift weights, you need more calories to feed those hungry muscle cells. That’s why it is key for trimming fat around the belly.

Form + Quantity = Results

Do not even lift weight every day. Do it four times a day. First concentrate on your form. As you begin a specific exercise move, realize that muscle is stimulated to grow when it is working the hardest. In a biceps curl, it is the journey up that is the toughest. Count it out. A count of four as you can contract to get up all the way, and a count of three to release and come down. If you run through them too quickly, you will not only injure yourself, but you wont get the optimal muscle training, toning and definition you want.

Mind Your Safety When Lifting

Do reps carefully, using good form to avoid injuring joints. When you lift, aim to keep increasing the intensity by exercising each muscle thoroughly and gradually increasing the weights. Wear weight-lifting gloves for a secure grip and wrist straps to stabilize your wrist when lifting heavier weights.

If you are using machines at the gym, make sure they are adjusted to your height. Have a trainer to help you get the right setting and then write them down on a card so that you can reproduce them on your own.

Core Strength Training

Core strength training is essential to eliminating fat around the belly. Become aware of your abdomen. This mental awareness helps you stay focused on your goal- to eliminate the excess inner abdominal fat and achieve your goal of a waist that is less than 35 inches for a women and less than 40 inches for men. Core training also builds a stronger calorie burning furnace when you build more muscles. Having a strong core is key to all kinds of daily activities like sitting down, picking things up, carrying groceries and even walking. The abs and the back work together as a team. The stronger the abs, the stronger is the back

Source-http://www.greendivamom.com/author/savneet/

Everything About Managing Your Hormones and Blood Sugar

Many people experience problem in blood sugar level and hormone balance management. In order to achieve this balance, it is very important to manage your weight first. Hormones are the power house of the body, and they must work fine. If hormone level is upset your whole body's normal balance is upset. Your lifestyle and eating habits have lead to hormonal imbalance, but you can find the balance again. This requires a change in your diet as well as your exercise habits. Here are few recommendations for general health and for hormone balance:

Take three meals in a day: An average person needs 3 balanced meals in one day. If you get hungry throughout the day, eat a handful of nuts (except peanuts) around 10'o clock in the morning or 3 o' clock in the afternoon to ease hunger pangs. Nuts help in stabilizing blood sugar level, stimulate thyroid and provide valuable nutrients.Want to know more?

Continue Reading

Everything About Managing Your Hormones and Blood Sugar

Many people experience problem in blood sugar level and hormone balance management. In order to achieve this balance, it is very important to manage your weight first. Hormones are the power house of the body, and they must work fine. If hormone level is upset your whole body's normal balance is upset. Your lifestyle and eating habits have lead to hormonal imbalance, but you can find the balance again. This requires a change in your diet as well as your exercise habits. Here are few recommendations for general health and for hormone balance:
Take three meals in a day: An average person needs 3 balanced meals in one day. If you get hungry throughout the day, eat a handful of nuts (except peanuts) around 10'o clock in the morning or 3 o' clock in the afternoon to ease hunger pangs. Nuts help in stabilizing blood sugar level, stimulate thyroid and provide valuable nutrients.
Want to know more?
Read more