How Can Fat Be Essential?

By Garry Gamber

Did you know that some fats are essential to the body? Yes, there are some fats that our body cannot produce which means that we must get them from our food. Perhaps you've heard of omega-3 fatty acids and omega-6 fatty acids. These are both considered essential and must be supplied by the foods we eat.

What do they do? Well, the omega-3 fatty acid, for example is used for the production of healthy cell membranes and for the production of a class of hormones called prostaglandins. You know how aspirin and acetominophen are anti-inflammatories? So are the prostaglandins that our bodies produce from omega-3 fatty acids.

Now, we need the omega-3's and the omega-6's to be in the proper combination to be most effective to us. Empirical evidence shows that the proper ratio is about 4:1 between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. What do you suppose our average diet gives us? About a 20:1 and up to a 40:1 ratio; not even close to the optimal ratio.

Why is the balance so out of whack? Well, our normal diets are rich in omega-6 fatty acids. We get them from meats, dairy products, and processed foods. We eat a lot of those foods on average. We get omega-3 fatty acids from certain vegetable oils such as flaxseed, canola, and soybean. And we get omega-3 fatty acids from cold-water fish such as mackerel, sardines, salmon, and tuna.

Eat more fish! You've heard that said before, and now you know why.

Especially the salmon. It is especially rich in the beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. Salmon , or any of the other omega-3 rich fish (but what tastes better than good salmon?) should be consumed at least once a week.

In order to get the omega-6 vs. omega-3 ratio in order, decrease your consumption of the saturated fat from meats and dairy products and increase your consumption of fish such as salmon.

Do you know how else you will benefit from increased consumption of omega-3 fatty acids? Your cholesterol level will improve. You see, the essential omega-3 fatty acids have the ability to help decrease your total cholesterol and your LDL cholesterol level. The LDL cholesterol is the so-called bad cholesterol. So you will improve your cholesterol levels by adding a better balance of omega-3 fatty acids to your diet.

Not surprisingly, the omega-3 fatty acids can be heart healthy. Several diseases show improvement when patients increase their intake of these essential fats. Check out Dr. Ray Strand's important book for citings of clinical studies of omega-3. The book is titled, "What Your Doctor Doesn't Know About Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You." It's a wonderful book and should be a standard reference volume in your nutrition library.

Eat well, take appropriate supplements, and stay healthy.

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Most people are unsure about how to begin a fat loss program. They have many questions about food choices, meal composition and exercise.

Getting yourself in good physical condition will require willpower and dedication and the desire to get results. It is not easy to lose body fat. It took a long time to accumulate the fat and it will take just as long to remove it.

Remember that you should aim to lose 1.5 to 2 lbs. per week. Lose any faster and you are probably losing water and muscle. Losing muscle is detrimental to any fat loss program because it is muscle that burns calories. THE MORE MUSCLE YOU HAVE THE MORE CALORIES YOUR BODY REQUIRES!

If you lose fat slowly while learning to adopt a healthy lifestyle, you are more likely to keep the weight off. And, if you ever falter, you'll know exactly how to get back to your goal weight without returning to your old ways.

Here is how to start a good eating program.

1. Increase your water intake. If you are exercising, try to drink at least 100 oz. to 128 oz. per day.

2. Limit yourself to two drinks per week. Alcohol slows your metabolism and decreases your body's ability to burn fat by as much at 40%. Empty calories!

3. Decrease significantly or completely eliminate sugar from your diet. If you are a dessert person, treat yourself once a week to something sweet. This includes soda. If you are a soda drinker, switch to diet and only have two cans per day... Splenda sweetened preferred!

4. Eat 5 small meals per day. This is the most important factor in losing fat. Eating smaller more frequent meals will speed up your metabolism and prevent your body from going into starvation mode. Each meal should be approximately 3 hours apart.

5. Try to eat a serving of vegetables with 3 of your 5 meals. Vegetables are water rich (so is fruit) and have plenty of vitamins and fiber. They are filling and of course they are good for you.

6. Do not eat 3 hours before bedtime. The evening is when you are least active and your metabolism slows in preparation for sleep. You risk storing late-night calories as fat. IF you are absolutely starving at night, have a few pieces of fat free turkey breast to fight the hunger.

7. Do not skip breakfast. This is the meal that will govern your day. Eat a basic breakfast of carbohydrates, protein and fat to set up your metabolism for the day and to provide fuel for your daily activities. Remember, if you don't feed yourself a small wholesome meal in the morning, your body will draw on your muscle tissue as a source of energy, putting you in a slump and in muscle deficit. This means your body will eat your muscle to fuel your activities and your body fat will grow.

8. To lose fat you must put yourself into calorie deficit. This means you will have to eat less than you have been eating. Try to eat 500 calories less per day than you have been eating or reduce your calorie intake by 250 calories and add enough exercise to burn 250 calories. (Example: 35 minutes on a treadmill at 4% incline at 3.5mph.)

9. Lower your starchy carbohydrate intake, increase your protein intake and be careful how much fat you eat. Some fat is necessary. Try not to eat more than 20% of your daily calories from fat. Starchy carbs are potatoes, rice, beans, bread, pasta, oatmeal, etc. Replace these carbohydrates with fibrous carbs, such as green veggies. The best way to slowly lower your carb intake is to stop eating starchy carbs after 3pm so that your last two meals of the day do not contain starchy carbs.

10. Get 8 hours sleep per night. Sleep, rest and relaxation are of prime importance. It's during periods of sound sleep that our bodies recuperate and build muscle tissue. Lack of sleep encourages the production of the hormone Cortisol. High levels of Cortisol have been shown to promote fat storage.

My fat loss and fitness plan "Every Body Loses" will give you the tools you need to begin a healthy weight loss program. The style of eating and exercising outlined in my book is one that you can follow for life without feeling deprived.

Be Well & Stay Fit!

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Did you know that when you are on a diet, if you eat something and no one sees you - it doesn't contain any calories! Of course that's not true...but it is how many of us think! Learn how to beat the hunger pains between meals.

Are you a secret snacker? Do you eat when you are bored, upset, angry? Does every day mean a chocolate bar for you? Snacking...the secret sins of most people wanting to lose weight.

As a wellness mentor I find that people are often feeling so guilty about snacking they are embarrassed to talk about it openly. Women in particular laugh nervously when I ask them what happens to their food consumption around 4pm. This often is the time of the day when the "Snack Monster" rises up and takes control of them! Often these women berate themselves with ideas about being weak and out of control. They either eventually give up on their diet altogether or develop counter thoughts so they don't feel so bad. "It didn't really matter - it is fat free". Or, "if no one notices, the calories don't count".

Your diet does not have to be like this.

You can lose weight without being hungry. You can learn to take control of the "Snack Monster" and your program can be one to set you up for success, not failure.

An important key is to learn how to recognize what your body requires, the signals it gives you, and learn how to respond to those signals appropriately - diet and guilt are two words that do not belong together.

Hunger is the body's way of telling us we need to replenish depleted nutrients. Unfortunately our body can't say "I need more vitamin D". That would make things so easy! Many of us interpret hunger pains as our body saying "I need more fat", "I need more sugar".

The keys to healthy snacking are:

1. Know what foods to avoid, and

2. Planning - get yourself organized.

What is a healthy snack? One that contains little or no sugar, little or no salt (sodium), no white flour and no saturated fat. Check the food labels to see what is inside. Many foods are now labeled 'fat free' but are laden with sugars and will still cause an influx of calories. Do not assume that 'fat free' means healthy! Western societies are eating more and more fat free foods, and yet obesity levels are rising faster than ever.

Healthy snacks do not live in a vending machine.

Here are some healthy snack ideas.

· Raw vegetables, such as celery, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, green pepper, green beans, cucumbers, mushrooms or zucchini may be served with a lowfat dip.

· Fresh fruit in season.

· Low fat quick breads and muffins, such as pumpkin, zucchini, banana or bran.

· Non-sugared cereals, snack mixes made with popcorn and whole grain cereal.

· Low fat yogurt with fresh, frozen or canned fruit.

· Shakes with low fat milk or yogurt and fruit.

· A few squirts of butter-flavored spray and a sprinkle of garlic or onion powder on popcorn

Organize yourself to stay on track.

. Plan to have a small snack mid morning and mid afternoon. It is much better to curb your hunger than to starve yourself.

. Plan your snacks as part of your overall daily food plan.

. Organize your week - especially if you work outside the home. Write a list of snacks for the entire week and make sure you shop ahead. Buy enough to last the whole week.

. Buy a variety of healthy snacks so you don't get bored.

Studies show that people who have a healthy intake of food in four of five episodes throughout the day are less prone to obesity than those who eat three or less times during the day.

Snacking CAN be good for you!

(c) Copyright Kim Beardsmore
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3075

You see a lot of articles in magazines and online about exercising to burn off excess bodyfat and yes, it does help. But it's not the only, nor even the best way to lose fat. To reduce bodyfat you need to be in a calorie deficit, and following a healthy diet is your most powerful weapon in that battle for a number of reasons...

First, let's quickly look at the physics involved. Calories are a measure of stored energy contained to varying degrees within each type of food, and when ingested it takes 3,500 calories to add one pound of bodyweight. Your body uses some calories every day for internal functions, plus to power you through your daily activities. If you consume fewer calories than needed, your body converts some of its stored calories to make up the difference. If you feed it more calories than it burns, it will store the extra as fat to keep those calories available when food becomes scarce.

The best way to burn fat is a combination of calorie restriction and exercise, to hit the problem from both fronts. So why is lowering your caloric intake more effective than exercise for burning fat? Because the main purpose of exercising is to build strength, muscle and endurance, not burn fat. At best, an hour on a treadmill each day will burn about 500 calories an hour or less, depending on your bodyweight, the speed and the angle of incline. Over the course of a week, if you run for an hour every day you've burned 3,500 calories - one pound's worth of fat. Unfortunately most people will find the energy expenditure leads them to eat more, negating the effects. This explains why you see the same people using the treadmills in the gym year after year with little or no impact on their bodyfat levels.

But what about lifting weights? Weightlifting builds muscle, and muscle burns calories 24 hours a day, right? Yes - each pound of lean muscle you have burns about half a calorie per hour, 24/7. But that's just 12 calories per day - 10 extra pounds of muscle will only burn off a pound or so of fat per month. And once again, this often means an increase in appetite to go with the efforts required to build that extra 10 pounds of muscle.

So while exercise IS a part of the overall picture, both for optimal health and for burning bodyfat, the biggest gains can be made by EFFECTIVELY managing your calories through a healthy nutrition plan. Note the emphasis on 'effectively' managing your calories - simply cutting way back in your daily calories is dangerous and counter-productive. Your body will go into 'starvation mode' if you suddenly stop eating for an extended period and will react by slowing your metabolism down drastically, thwarting your efforts to burn bodyfat.

While every body is different and each person's metabolism is different, start with this general rate: daily caloric intake for men should start at about 12 calories per pound of bodyweight, while for women it should be 10 calories per pound. Pick a reasonable bodyweight goal for your height and gender and use that as your starting point. So if a man wants to burn fat and get down to 175 pounds, he wants to start at 2,100 calories per day. A woman wanting to get back to 120 pounds would start consuming 1,200 calories per day.

Give that level a few weeks to see what effect it has on your bodyfat levels, then tweak it a bit up or down as necessary to reach, and maintain your goals. No, you won't lose fat as quickly as on some of the better fad diets, but you'll lose it safely while learning to maintain the new weight and avoid the yo-yo dieting cycle so many are trapped in.

Pay attention to WHAT you eat as well, not just how much you eat. Carbohydrates are converted to glucose in the liver and then transported through your body by insulin from your pancreas - too many carbs makes your body produce that much more insulin to try and control your blood sugar levels, and if the extra glucose isn't absorbed by your muscles it WILL be by your fat cells. Don't avoid carbs either, though - you need a balance of all 3 macro-nutrients - carbs, protein and healthy fats. Instead opt for healthier carb sources like rolled oats instead of sugary cereals, sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes and have extra vegetables like broccoli and Brussels sprouts when you're hungrier. For snacks, have an apple or an orange instead of chips or chocolate bars.

By following a healthy diet and making exercise a regular part of your weekly routine you can hit your goal weight, get rid of the excess bodyfat and maintain the healthy weight that's just right for YOU. And you'll be helping to stave off or reduce the severity of type-2 diabetes, heart attacks and strokes. Don't put it off - get started on your own healthy nutrition lifestyle right away!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8616525

Americans are fat and getting fatter and this horrific situation is a direct result of the environment we live in. The car culture, everywhere we go we drive and sit. Nobody walks anywhere anymore or rides their bike. We just drive. This car culture coupled with the processed foods and fast foods that we eat all contribute to the fat culture.

As one of the researchers says, "... urban living has led to a dramatic decrease in physical activity, while the development of the food industry and marketing provides us with an enormous offer of tasty, energy-dense food available 24/7." (Simon, M. 2008)

Americans are eating more, and exercising less, no wonder 69% of American adults are overweight and 35% of that number are just plain obese. We are fat America and getting fatter.

So what do we need to do to reverse this trend, because fat people means only one thing and that is death. It can be death by diabetes and the complications therefrom or it can be death by heart attack and usually it is the latter. 600,000 Americans die each year from heart disease. Coronary heart disease is the number one cause of death in both men and women in America. (source, Center for Disease Control, http://www.cdc.gov ) We know what causes diabetes, fast and processed foods and a sedentary lifestyle and this same pattern is exactly what cause the heart attacks that kill so many Americans.

The answer to the above question about reversing this trend is in the food and the exercise. If we know and we do what causes these diseases, then we just reverse that process. If fast and processed foods are what's killing us and it is, then get rid of it in your diet and I know this is much easier said than done, yet it can be done and in fact, it must be done.

How do we get rid of these foods? There are several alternatives out there now. Fore example, the paleo diet, going back to eating what our ancestors ate. Let me just share this with you. Here's what for breakfast. An egg omelet with sauteed mushrooms and a red bell pepper. What's for lunch? Soup, can be vegetable or turkey or beef soup, no potatoes. What's for dinner? Salad, have a chef's salad by adding hard boiled eggs and meat, I usually add some grilled chicken and make a caesar's salad dressing, it's just delicious. And these are just some ideas, you can do a combo of the Mediterranean diet with the paleo diet, but basically stick to a diet that has some lean meat proteins, and lots of fruits and vegetables. This is the diet that will keep you out of the ER and in good shape and also remember to develop an exercise routine. Diet, exercise and nutritional supplements, this is what keeps you in good health and remember, health is wealth.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8583471

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Get a Six Pack with These Ab Exercises for a Flat Stomach

When I get away to Michigan to see my mom, the kids and grandkids, and some friends, it can be intense but a lot of fun. It's always been very important for me to stay in touch with family and friends. And the experience always rejuvenates me. For some, being away from home can be hectic. We easily use the excuse that because we are on vacation, we're too busy -- exercise and a good diet is no longer a priority. That's the last thing we have in mind when vacationing. Instead, we stay up late, sleep in, eat what we wouldn't dream of eating back home, have a few desserts. And why not? You're on vacation, right? But, if you think about it, that comfort food that always has that extra special taste, not only has a direct negative hit to our health, but also our waistline.

Some years ago, I talked to one of my friends, who at that time owned and operated one of the top ten restaurants in the United States. The topic was on nutrition and he said to me, "In our business, we don't cook for health, we cook for taste and that's how we sell food. People, in general, aren't looking for health or even thinking of it." Well, no wonder many come back from vacation with all that extra weight!

Below are some special tips while traveling to keep you healthy, stay in great shape, and even shed those unwanted pounds:

    Rise and shine at the same time and train for at least half an hour. This way, you can get your exercise done before your family gets on their program. And if you need extra hours of sleep, you can always grab a nap later in the day. Remember, you're on vacation!

    Eat in moderation. Rich foods, sweets and carbohydrates are all okay; however, take only a bite or two. And pass on those creamy desserts. Instead, stick to sorbets and fruits. Pass on the bread, rice, potatoes, cookies and cakes. You'll be glad you did when vacation is over. And if your family and friends want to eat like there is not tomorrow, let them. But stick to your guns.

    Stay hydrated! Drink more water than you usually do at home, minimum three quarts a day if you are not exercising. If you are going hiking, playing tennis or anything physical, it's important to drink even more. Also eat hydrating foods for snacks such as fruits or veggies.

    EXERCISE! Walk, both forward and backwards. Stretch, swim and incorporate different possibilities as long as you stay physically active.

    Stillness. Doing nothing is an important part of relaxing and recharging your body, mind and spirit. It's okay if you don't stop at every roadside attraction. Try swinging from every tree or saying hello to every friend and family member. Relax! You'll find yourself more peaceful, happier and a lot healthier than the rest of your traveling partners.

    Get touched. Treat yourself to a massage, facial, scalp massage or foot reflexology. And if you are with a partner, give each other a massage. This will really enhance your travel. When I travel to China to study, I always get an hour foot massage as soon as I get there and another one before leaving. This keeps me healthy, relaxed and puts a smile on my face.

    Program your mind on how you want to look. This may sound a little strange, but it really works. I program my food by telling it where I want it to go and what I want it to do. For example, I say to myself as I am about to eat, "I want this meal to strengthen my muscles and give me more energy" or "By eating this food, I will lose weight."

When you follow these seven easy tips during your vacation, it will really become a real vacation. You will return home in better shape, with less of a belly, well rested, more energy and ready to go full force. We all know what it's like to return from a vacation and then need another soon after.

But because I always incorporate these seven tips, I come back with more energy than before I left - feeling great - ready to get back to work seeing patients.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8607987

Hey every body

you can obtain best free book that allows you to transfomer your belly to a flat stomach without fat through practical easy methods at home

Get a Six Pack with These Ab Exercises for a Flat Stomach