Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Stop Gaining Fat by Zero Carb Cravings
Do you ever find that you're feeling really hungry and craving sugary food? If there's anything sweet in sight, you just can't control yourself. That piece of cake just looks so good. It's because of feelings like these that some people think that carbohydrates aren't good for them. They think that the key to losing weight is to avoid carbs. But actually, Americans have gotten fatter since low carb diets came on the scene. Today, over 60% of Americans are overweight or obese.
If you find yourself craving carbs it doesn't mean that carbs are bad for you. Cravings are our body's way of telling us that it's missing something. In Americans, the cravings are often associated with one of two things: the American custom of eating three meals a day, or low calorie diets.
If you eat three large meals a day, you're probably eating more at each meal than your body can handle. Even if you're eating nutritious foods like fresh fruit and vegetables, cereals or lean meat, if you give your body more calories than it can use at the time they will be stored as fat.
When you eat, your body releases insulin to process the sugars in your bloodstream. Any sugar that isn't required at the time is stored in your fat cells. Once the insulin is released, it keeps on doing its job until all the sugar has been processed. At this stage, the levels of both sugar and insulin in your blood will be very low. If this happens, you can be left feeling tired and irritable. This is why, if you have a large lunch and then don't have another meal until that night, you start feeling hungry around mid-afternoon.
This mid-afternoon hunger and tiredness is your body telling you that it needs more fuel to keep it functioning. Remember, there's no sugar in your bloodstream at this stage because the insulin has already processed it all and sent it to your fat cells. So you start to crave foods with lots of sugar because this is what your body desperately needs. If you give in to your cravings, your body then releases lots of insulin again to process the sugars and the cycle of highs and lows of blood sugar continues.
Maybe you managed not to give in to your cravings and didn't have anything to eat between lunch and dinner. Your body still needed energy so where did it come from? If there's no other source, your body will convert muscle tissue to sugar to use as energy. The end result of this is that your metabolism will become slower. Your body will become accustomed to burning fewer calories and you will build up more fat. This is what happens if you are on a low calorie diet.
So back to the two reasons you crave carbs that were mentioned earlier. If you're eating just three meals a day you are constantly putting your body through a series of sugar and insulin peaks and troughs and not providing it with a constant supply of fuel to convert to energy. And if you're on a low calorie diet, you're forcing it to find fuel from your muscles and slowing your metabolism.
So what's the solution? If you eat more regularly and have five small, nutritious meals throughout the day, you will keep up the fuel supply to your body. You won't go through periods of hypoglycaemia (which is when you have used all the sugar in your bloodstream) and you won't need to draw on your muscles to provide the sugar you need. Once you get into the habit of eating this way, you'll find that your cravings for carbs are a thing of the past.
Friday, October 16, 2009
What Happens When You Get Too Little Protein in Your Diet
Proteins are composed of long chain like forms of amino acids. Amino acids are basic and fundamental to life. As a chemical compound, it is made of amine and carbonyl functional groups. To put it simply, they are made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen and on some rare occasions, sulfur. These four or five materials build themselves into various chain-like structures and form different types of protein. Protein is the life line of human health.
Human cells, muscle tissue, and the organs of the body are made up of protein. Long chains of amino acids are structured to make different types of proteins. There are 22 types of amino acids and the human body needs all of them to be healthy.
Different types of proteins in our body execute different body functions. Our body's strength, its flexibility and elasticity are taken care of by a protein called collagen, and our hair and skin are composed of the same protein.
Proteins we consume through food are broken down into amino acids in the process of digestion and absorbed by the body only to be rebuilt into different types of proteins that are the requirement of the body. There are twenty two kinds of amino acids essential for the human body. And in that 14 are produced by the body and the remaining 8 are to be obtained though food.
Complete and incomplete Proteins
A protein that can be obtained through one food source like a meat or dairy product is called a complete protein. A complete protein is obtained generally though meat, diary products, eggs, fish and poultry. Vegetables, fruits and nuts do not contain all the essential proteins in one food items and so it is termed as incomplete.
Importance of Proteins
For proper growth, sustenance and repair of body cells, for the health of muscles, tissues, organs and for body function like metabolism, digestion, transportation of nutrients and oxygen through blood circulation, proteins are imperative.
Apart from that more importantly for the production of antibodies, or in other words, antibodies are little soldiers who fight any infection that invades into our body and fights diseases and makes us healthy. The healthy skin and shining hair of which we are proud of is due to the proteins.
Too little Protein means ill health
Like our grand mothers say often, 'anything too much or too little is harmful' is absolute truth in case of protein. Too much protein intake leads to many uncomfortable physical complications just as too little of protein intake can lead to complications.
Protein is needed to repair and create new cells, tissues, hormones, enzymes and muscles and lack of protein would impair these important body functions leading to grave situations. Many foods which supply protein do contain certain other minerals and vitamins like iron, a lack of which creates an eternal tiredness and fatigue. The person who lacks iron feels weak and becomes listless with lack of energy.
Physical activities consume protein daily, and so it is essential to give regular supply of protein to the body daily. And too little protein can cause severe skin ailments and would make you look lusterless and pale.
Children need a lot of protein as they are in the phase of growing and insufficient protein in children hampers their growth very much.
For a period of time if the body fails to get sufficient amount of protein through food, it starts breaking the muscles which contain large amount of protein to fulfill its need. This means eroding of the muscle and it is generally known as muscle wasting. And prolonged such situation leads to a vicious cycle of protein energy malnutrition where in when the body does not get any other source of energy, body's muscles and organs a re broken down for energy. The digestive system suffers with the loss of cell lining which is important for absorption of nutrients from the digested food. Thus a vicious cycle of poor diet and insufficient absorption of nutrients from food lead to severe body wasting.
So, too little protein intake is dangerous and very harmful to health.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Become a More Athletic Golfer to Improve Your Golf Game
Golf and Fitness are two terms that can finally go hand in hand, thanks to one Tiger Woods and his famous mystery workout routine, and the other professional and amateur players who have followed his lead. Once an activity perhaps identified more with pot bellies, motorized carts and cups of beer on the course than physical strength and a good physique, there is now no question that golf has entered the world of a full fledged sport that requires physical training to perform at its best. Golfers on the professional tours look like athletes now, with more and more toned athletic bodies being seen on TV crushing the ball down the longest, most difficult courses in the world. Spending some time in the gym has been shown that it can make as big a difference in a golfer's score as time on the range or putting green. The game itself has changed, and the way players approach it has changed, as well.
As a personal trainer and avid golfer, the relationship between fitness and golf is a natural one to maintain, but it wasn't that way when I started playing the game as a junior. I first picked up clubs when I was about 5, then started playing seriously by about the seventh grade. By seriously I mean it had become the obsession that many golfers feel when they realize they would rather be golfing than just about anything else. A group of friends and I played regularly, and by high school, we were not only on our golf team together, we were some of the best players in our entire small town.
I was never able to hit the ball as far as my friends on the team, and one thing they told me over and over was that I should lift weights and get stronger, which at the time they did because they also played on the basketball team in the winter. As a skinny cross country runner at the time, I saw no need nor had any interest in lifting, as the weight room intimidated me in high school. I look back almost 30 years later as a much stronger, longer and better player than I was then (because I lift weights!) and wonder what might have been had I listened to them.
What my friends on the golf team did in the high school weight room in the early 80's was primitive to the workout science and programs that are available to golfers now, but they were definitely on to something. One way to look at it was that before it became popular, they were athletes who happened to play golf, and it showed in the length they had off the tee. This athletic approach can be applied to any golfer's game in the present day and immediately improve their ability to play better. With some examination, it is easy to see why.
The golf swing itself is actually an incredibly complex movement that combines virtually every muscle in the body into one coordinated action. The requirements of balance, coordination, flexibility, stability, strength and power all come into play in just one swing. Over the course of a practice session or round, endurance becomes a factor as well. Having some physical fitness in all of these areas can make for a much more effective swing. It is a bit ironic that golf itself does not require you to be in shape to play (unlike running a 10 k race, for example, which needs a level of fitness to even be attempted), nor will it really get you in shape by playing regularly (unless you walk rather than ride a cart). Yet working out overall dramatically increases the ability to perform the golf swing itself. So many players look to the next big expensive driver to add yardage off the tee. Well, what it they could hit it harder by being in better shape, and straighter, too?
Getting into the specifics of golf fitness, flexibility is paramount in the modern golf swing. The ability to turn the body through the trunk away from the ball, storing potential energy on the backswing, while maintaining an anchored, solid stance through the legs and hips, is what has been shown to generate the most power. Tiger Woods has a tremendous shoulder turn on his backswing which sets him up to uncoil with great speed through the ball on the downswing.
A person taking golf lessons and attempting to emulate Tiger's shoulder turn typically doesn't even have a body physically capable of doing that motion effectively! They may be taking lessons, yet are prevented from practicing the motion that they are learning by a lack of flexibility and fitness in the muscles of the trunk and back. Only by improving their fitness in these areas through proper training can they then expect to perform the proper motion.
In addition to flexibility, core strength and stability throughout the body are essential as well. These fitness terms refer to the body's strength in the trunk and the ability of the muscles of the entire body to operate in a coordinated, athletic way, which provide a stable "platform" in the body for hitting the golf ball. The more coordinated and stable the body is, the less motion is wasted during the swing and the more effort goes straight into hitting the ball where it is meant to go.
After flexibility is attained and a good amount of core strength and stability as well, more basic strength can then be added into a fitness routine. This could be along the lines of the classic term "lifting weights" that my high school buddies wanted me to do. A flexible and stable body that gets stronger, as long as the flexibility is not lost, can add significantly more effort to the golf swing, especially in situations where the ball may be in the rough or have a lie that requires more effort than the typical swing. If you watched Tiger Woods during the US Open in June, 2007, his physique from his fitness routine looked more muscular than ever, yet was very flexible. There were comments from the TV announcers many times on the level of his fitness and how it played out in making his game more effective. He is quite capable of hitting shots no one else on earth can because of his fitness level. As a result, he has more shots available to him to help him score.
So we know now how fitness has changed the game of golf and what is available to the player who chooses to add more fitness to their routine and golf game. Anyone can benefit from some exercise that is golf specific, and can participate at the level that they want. A person doesn't have to workout like Tiger Woods to get better. Sometimes even just working out regularly itself can make all the difference.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
What is Organic Farming and is it Important
Organic farming is a broad concept with extreme application. It is well appreciated on a large scale by the people as now with the help of it they can easily grow their own food. If you have a little bit of free time with you then you need not to face any kind of problem. You can prepare and serve good quality delicious food by doing organic farming at your home.
It is not true that organic farming is practiced at a small scale only. By having a trip of farming sector you can easily understand how much vast this sector actually is. This is not the case some time before. Few years back it was not a highly thriving and demanding sector but now the case has totally changed. It is now not limited to a small scale industry as day by day more corporate sectors are taking interest in this field. Large corporate farming is taking keen interest in the concept of organic farming. Continuous research is going on to find out the way by which huge fields of a single crop can be grown. No one can deny the fact that in the process of organic farming, pests are believed to be the major threat. Due to harmful impact on the biodiversity unnatural pesticides are not much preferred to use.
If you are going for the natural pesticides for controlling the pests then it is certainly an eco friendly approach but believed to be much expensive in contrast to unnatural ones. Some time before, due to expensive nature they were not much preferred in the process of organic farming. After the entrance of large scale industries with huge budget this can be achieved now very easily. Natural pesticides can be a good option when it is about the large scale organic farming but if you are going for it at your home or at a small scale in a separate piece of land then it is advisable to look for any other good option. This is because like other kinds of farming organic farming also requires the process of sowing, cultivating and harvesting. If you do not have proper arrangement of water for the purpose of irrigation then you require depending largely on the rain water. If you are concluding the process of organic farming at your home then irrigation is not a big issue but even at a small scale proper arrangement of water is very essential. If you do not have a huge budget with you then it can be a difficult work for you. You require investing a good amount on purchase of seeds, irrigation, fertilizers, harvesting, etc.
There is much debate till now on the use of unnatural pesticides in the process of organic farming. Several environmentalists and consumer protection organization have claimed that the use of unnatural pesticides not only damage the environment but also have an adverse impact on the quality of food. For killing the insects and pests these pesticides are used but they are not considered helpful after sometime. It is so because these insects as well as the pests easily get adapted to the effects of the chemicals involved in them and so these pesticides looses their worth. Sooner or later it damages the health of the final consumer who without knowing consumes a large amount of lethal chemicals and synthesized materials along with the natural food. Thus it is injurious for the health of the human being as well.
Thus there are several ways by which you can have your favorite vegetables as well as fruits and that too with the help of inorganic as well as organic farming. As there are several pros as well as cons of both it is up to you to decide the one that is best for you. You can make use of organic farming to turn your dreams into reality and the best part is it is already benefiting millions of people so you are not at all required to worry for it as well.
NaturesOrganicMarket.com offers discount prices on organic baby clothes, organic coffee, and more.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
How to Determine the Value of Your Gold Coins
Gold has been mankind's most desirable asset for more than 3,000 years. It freely circulated as everyday money - except during times of great economic turmoil - from the time of the Ancient Greeks and Romans right up to 1933. Until that year, the value of the great majority of gold coins was the same as their face value. That meant a $20 gold coin could be freely exchanged for 20 one-dollar bills. And 20 one-dollar bills could be exchanged for one $20 gold coin. It was a two-way system that promoted a stable value for our money.
That era ended in 1933. As part of his effort to re-inflate our economy from the depths of the depression, President Roosevelt recalled all circulating gold coins. He had his Treasury Department melt them and send the newly formed ingots to Fort Knox for storage. Then Roosevelt revalued gold, in a series of steps, from its pre-1933 value of $20 to $35 per ounce.
The Market for Gold Coins Changes
Literally overnight, a $20 gold coin contained more than $20 worth of gold. Owners of the limited number of coins that survived the federal recall order, primarily collectors and overseas banks, wondered how to determine the value of their gold coins. Were they only worth their gold value, or would the government's efforts turn once-common issues into scarce and rare dates?
Today we know the answer to that question. The government's massive melting of our circulating $1, $2.50, $5, $10, and $20 gold coins created hundreds of rarities out of coins with original mintage that suggest easy availability. Here's one example: the Philadelphia Mint struck 2.9 million $20 gold coins in 1931, one of the higher mintage of the 1907-1933 series. Based strictly on its original mintage, the 1931-P should be easily available and not too expensive. Thanks to the government's melting, all 1931-P $20 gold coins are rare and extremely valuable.
Gold Coin Values Today
Speed forward to 2009. All U.S. gold coins minted before 1933 are worth FAR more than their face value, and many are worth FAR more than their bullion (metallic) value. That's true because the number of collectors of U.S. gold coins of the pre-1933 era has expanded tremendously. At the same time, the available supply of these coins has remained relatively unchanged. Because rare coin market values are set by the interaction of supply and demand, the long-term value of pre-1933 U.S. gold coins has shown a distinctly rising trend.
So how can you determine the value of your pre-1933 U.S. gold coins?
We live in an age of tremendous availability of information. Early in the last century, collectors and investors were content to determine their gold coins' value by following (and interpreting) auction results. In the late 1940s, publishers began offering a once per year guide book that listed values for every U.S. coin. Then monthly publications were introduced, providing ads and estimated market values. Then weekly coin newspapers, filled with articles, auction results, and market commentaries, were established. Today we have all of these sources, plus the information on the Internet.
All of these sources, when you know how to use and interpret them, are extremely valuable. All of these sources can help you determine the value of each gold coin you own. But none is perfect. Each has its own quirks and its own idiosyncrasies.
The single best way to determine the retail or wholesale value of your pre-1933 U.S. gold coins is to have your trusted adviser perform a professional review, this will provide your most dependable estimate of value.
Determine the Value of Bullion Gold Coins
Bullion gold coins, like American Eagles and Canadian Maple Leafs, are struck by governments for sale to investors through a network of distributors and wholesalers. They are minted in unlimited numbers, so scarcity is not a factor in determining their value. That means the value of gold bullion coins can be easily determined with reasonable accuracy on any day.
To determine the value of your gold bullion coins, you need to know their pure gold weight and the spot (or cash) value of gold. Determining a gold coin's weight is usually simple: the coin's design should state them. If it does not, contact your coin dealer.
Once you know your bullion gold coin's pure gold content, it's time to identify the market value for an ounce of gold. For today's value, contact your broker. Your broker provides up to the minute bid and ask prices for spot gold, as well as spot silver, platinum, and palladium.
Now you know the weight of your coin and the value of an ounce of pure gold. To learn your coin's pure gold value, simply multiply the two numbers. For example: you want to know the value of a half-ounce American Eagle gold bullion coin. You know the pure gold content (one half ounce) because it is stated on the coin. You locate gold's current market value, and find it is $950 per ounce. Multiplying one-half (your coin's pure gold contents) times $950 (gold's current market value) yields a gold value of $475 for your coin. Market premiums, distribution charges, and dealer commissions will vary and will affect your coin's value, so be sure to consider them when determining your coin's value.
American Eagles, the world's most popular gold bullion coins, are guaranteed for their content and purity by the United States government. Their value is primarily determined by the price of gold, which fluctuates throughout the day.
Contact ITM Trading Senior Analyst for how to buy Gold coins or more information on buying Gold for Investment.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Local Online Bridal Store Saves The Day For Jilted Brides
In MIAMISBURG, Ohio, SharNett Bridal and Prom store is closed for business. This has left Brides To Be scrambling to salvage their upcoming wedding day without having a gown to wear. The store has posted two signs on its door citing the economy as the reason for shutting down.
The store claims that it does plan to contact current customers. However some unhappy customers have been reporting that they are not being contacted by Sharnett.
Luckily for brides there is a concerned wedding dress retailer stepping up to help save the day.
One of the world's largest online bridal gowns websites, which is based in Centerville OH, is stepping in to help the worried brides. Scott Wells, the owner of the store, says he knows that many of the brides affected by the closing are probably in panic mode right now and he wants to help.
Wells is offering 50% off any of the 6,000 gowns in his inventory and a free tiara to go with it.
When asked why he would do this, Mr. Wells told us "This isn't the first time we have had to help out brides to be. Due to recent bad economy there have been other closings of bridal shops and we have stepped in with the same offer. We are not just in the dress business we are in the memories business as well. I cannot stand by and watch these women's dream day be crushed and do nothing."
This store is actually selling some of the dresses below cost to help the women obtain the wedding dress they dreamed of. Brides just need to show some sort of receipt or documentation that they had merchandise at Sharnett.
Mr.Wells wants to stress that they understand how important a woman's wedding day is and he and his staff are there to help, ''Even if their wedding is next weekend or this weekend, we can put them in their perfect dress. With over $1,000,000.00 dollars worth of inventory in stock and being in business for nearly 30 years, I'm certain we can take care of every bride beyond her expectations."
If you are a victim of a bridal shop closing you can always contact an office online, by email or directly by phone.
If you search Google online and go to the more prominent locations you will be able to find contact information and toll free numbers. Many also post local number listings also.
An online Company with over 6000 quality wedding dresses can be found at http://romanticgowns.com Email info@bridalonlinestore.com Phone: 937-291-1610, 866-694-6967, or 866-437-1588