Ultra-FIT magazine

Need a quick hit of fitness and health information? Today’s article is just for you and focuses on fat loss…

A large percentage of the population is overweight and many of those people or actually obese. The definition of obesity is the accumulation of so much body fat that ill health is the result. Losing fat, exercise and diet can seem like very complicated topics as there is so much information available, especially on the internet. In this article, to save you a whole bunch of reading, I’ll provide you with some simple fast weight loss tips you can implement right now to help you lose fat, get fit and stay healthy.

Fast Weight Loss Tips:

1. Eat vegetables at every meal
   Most vegetables contain very few calories so you can eat lots of them without having to worry about gaining weight. With the exception of starchy veggies like potatoes, you can eat pretty much unlimited amounts of the green stuff without worrying about weight gain. Fill your plate with veggies – you’ll find they are tasty, filling and above all healthy. Shoot for a variety of colours to ensure you get the broadest spectrum of nutrients possible. Try to eat your veggies in the rawest state you can so as to preserve the nutrients in these super foods. 
2. Eat protein at every meal
   Protein foods such as lean meat, poultry, eggs and fish provide essential amino acids which help maintain your muscle mass and allow your body to grow and repair. Protein is also satisfying to eat and helps keep your metabolic rate elevated for hours after you have eaten. Stick to lean proteins to avoid consuming unnecessary calories but there is no need to become a fat-phobe. The fats that naturally occur in protein foods are generally good for you. This is especially true of fish.  
3. Don’t drink your calories
   Many popular beverages like soda, juices and coffee-based drinks contain a lot of calories – either from sugar, fat or a combination of the two. It’s very easy to consume a lot of calories in liquid form without affecting your appetite. This means that you are more likely to overeat as calorie-dense beverages don’t register with the hunger centres of your brain the same way food does. Stick to water, plain coffee without sugar or cream, tea and green tea and, if you must have them, diet sodas. Save your calories for eating and not drinking. This applies to alcohol too…! 
4. Never grocery shop on an empty stomach
   Grocery shopping when hungry is a sure-fire way to ensure you buy a bunch of empty calories that you don’t really need. Low blood glucose, caused by hunger, will likely result in a shopping basket full of cookies, cakes, chips and candy as that is what your body often craves when your blood glucose levels are low. Eat a well balanced meal an hour or so before you do your grocery shopping and also stay away from the isles where the concentrated carbs live – it’s better to avoid temptation completely than trust in your willpower.  
5. Consume the majority of your carbs close to your periods of activity
   Carbs aren’t necessarily bad for you but they are the fuel for an active lifestyle. By this, I mean that the more active you are the more carbs you can and should eat. Most of us are, however, mainly sedentary. If you, like most people, earn your living and spend your leisure time sat down, you don’t need a whole lot of carbs – unlike someone like a builder who does hard manual labour all day. Mainly sedentary people should time their carb consumption around exercise and consume some before and then after workouts and mainly eat low carb meals the rest of the time. Consuming carbs before a workout ensures you have the energy to exercise and after will help refuel your muscles so you are good to go when you next hit the gym. The rest of the time, a lower carb intake is best.

Use these fast weight loss tips and you’ll soon start seeing progress in your weight loss efforts!

Need a quick hit of fitness and health information? Today’s article is just for you!

Back to black
Regular tea drinkers may be doing themselves a disservice by adding milk to their daily cuppa. According to a recent study by the European Heart Journal, the proteins in milk, caseins, may cancel out the health benefits of the flavonoids in tea. For maximum benefits from your cup of char, skip the milk or, better still, go green!

Nuts to oil
A recent study by the American College of cardiology has revealed that walnuts could protect against heart disease even more effectively than olive oil. A 10 nut serving, around 28 grams, will provide a healthy dose of the nutrients that promote artery elasticity and prevent clogging.

Caffeine kick
Caffeine can improve running performance but it also might increase upper body strength according to the Journal of Strength and Conditioning. Researchers tested 37 regular exercisers and in a double blind test. Those that had consumed caffeine increased their performance by an average of 2.1% compared to the placebo group.

One hit wonder
Next time you are tempted to skip training, remember that a recent study conducted in Norway revealed that just one workout a week will help reduce your risk of suffering a fatal heart attack or stroke. One intense workout a week lowered the risk of death from either condition by 51% in women and 39% in men. Surprisingly, more frequent bouts of exercise did not equate to a significant further reduction of risk.

Back-breaking work
If you have been blaming your bad back on your weekly training regime, you may be mistaken as a recent study by the British Chiropractic Association suggests that 59% of back pain sufferers are in pain because of their work environments. Badly set up workstations, lack of lumbar support, hunching over key boards and holding phones between the shoulder and ear all exacerbate existing problems and can cause new ones. To avoid work related back pain, make sure you have an ergonomically set up work station and take a break from sitting every hour.

Don’t hold your breath – your eyes may pop out!
In a study in the Archives of Ophthalmology, scientists found that men who held their breath while bench pressing had twice the intraocular pressure, a major risk factor for developing glaucoma, compared to non-breath holders.

Slap on the sunscreen – even in winter
If you exercise outdoors in the summer then you’ll probably put on sunscreen, hat and sunglasses before heading out the door for your daily run but, did you know that UV radiation levels are almost as strong during the winter months as they are in the summer? Make sure you avoid the harmful effects of UV rays by using a high factor, water resistant sunscreen even in the winter – although you can probably skip the lotion if it’s dark!

 

Long life advice from the ancients…
The Vilcambamba region of southern Ecuador claims to have large numbers of people reaching their 100th birthday in good health. Some have attributed this longevity to their consumption of a natural mineral water, which is remarkably free from impurities.

In the Hunza Valley in Pakistan people routinely live into their 90s, which researchers believe could be due to their diet of fruit, grain and vegetables. Many of their plants are eaten raw and they also eat high proportions of apricots, cherries, grapes, plums and peaches.

On the Greek island of Ikaria, which has the largest proportion of 90-year-olds in the world, locals are famed for drinking a thick mountain herbal tea. The drink, which is consumed several times a day, contains a variety of dried herbs including wild mint, rosemary, purple sage and spleenwort.

The common link? Virtually no processed foods, added sugars, trans fats or junk food!

Need a quick hit of fitness and health information? Today’s article is just for you!

Workout economy
Short of time? You can work virtually every muscle in your body with just 3 exercises…squats, bench press and chin ups/lat pull downs will get the job done in minimal time. Perform these exercises as a circuit to work your cardiovascular system or as traditional sets to target muscle mass, strength or endurance. Add a 5 minute warm up and cool down and you have an effective, whole body workout in 30 minutes. Source www.solar-fitness.com

Ready, steady, go!
When choosing vegetables for a meal, try to make sure you consume something red, something orange and something green. By having a variety of colours in your diet you are far more likely to be getting a broad spectrum of essential vitamins

7 Super foods
Researchers at Tufts University in Boston have come up with a way to calculate the antioxidant properties of fruits and vegetables. Antioxidants are believed to provide a protective effect against conditions such as heart disease and cancer by interfering with the damage caused by free radicals. Antioxidants are also believed to help retard the aging process. The 7 foods listed below provide additional individual benefits as well. Prunes, for example, are frequently used to relieve constipation, while spinach may be helpful in avoiding memory loss and staving off Alzheimer’s. Consumers are urged to not only eat the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables each day, but to choose nutrient-rich sources such as these:

1. Prunes
2. Raisins
3. Blueberries
4. Blackberries
5. Kale
6. Strawberries
7. Spinach

Breakfast like a king!
When it comes to cutting calories, breakfast is often the first thing to go. But new research suggests that people who are successful at losing weight – and, more importantly, keeping it off – eat breakfast every day. Researchers from the Centre for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Centre in Denver analyzed data on nearly 3,000 people who had lost, on average, 70 pounds and kept it off for a year or more. Study subjects were enrolled in the National Weight Control Registry, which is an ongoing study of adults who have successfully lost 30 pounds or more. Only four percent said they never eat breakfast every day.

No more low fat diets?
Women who follow a low-fat diet may not be getting as many essential nutrients as they should, according to the findings of a 27,000-person U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) study. More than half the women who reduced their fat intake to less than 30 percent of total calories were short-changing themselves on vitamins A and E, calcium, folic acid, iron and zinc. This, in turn, places them at greater risk for osteoporosis, pregnancy-related problems and, perhaps, certain types of cancer. While a low-fat diet is recommended for the prevention of obesity, breast cancer, diabetes and heart disease, following a low-fat diet at the expense of nutrients is not a wise choice. Instead, women – and men as well – should follow a diet that is varied and balanced, low in fat and high in essential nutrients. For some, supplementation may be in order. For others, simply choosing high-nutrient foods over high-sugar, low-fat foods can make a positive difference in overall health.

R.I.C.E For Injuries
If you are unlucky enough to  suffer from a sports related injury, use R.I.C.E!
Rest – Take a break from exercise or any type of movement that may stress the injured area. A minor injury should be rested for one or two days, while more severe injuries may need longer.
Ice – Ice the affected area. Icing reduces pain, limits swelling and bleeding, and encourages rapid healing. Wrap ice in a towel to avoid direct contact with the skin.
Compress – Compress the injury with a stretch bandage. Make sure not to wrap it too tight, just enough to support the injured area comfortably.
Elevate – Elevate the limb. If possible, try to keep the injured part above the level of the heart. At the very least, try to keep it higher than the hips. This helps limit swelling and also prevents movement of the area that is injured.

Need a quick hit of fitness and health information? Today’s article is just for you!

Fish for brains
The Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago found you can slow age-related cognitive decline by a whopping 10% simply by eating fish once a week.

Smoke gets in your eyes
Cambridge University has found that smoking triples your likelihood of suffering age-related macular degeneration – a disease of the retina which can lead to blindness.

Small investment – big pay off!
Moderate exercise for 20 minutes, 3 times per week has been shown in numerous studies to lower the risk of “all cause mortality”. In other words, 1 hour a week of exercise can add years to your life!

Eggs are excellent
In addition to being a great source of protein; studies done by the University of Connecticut have found that consuming 3 eggs a day will significantly reduce the likelihood of developing metabolic syndrome – diabetes, hypertension and obesity. After a 12 week trial, it was reported that participants HDL (good) cholesterol increased by 20% whilst LDL (bad cholesterol) levels either remained unchanged or went down.

Good news for coffee consumers
Dr Paul Nghiem of the University of Rutgers has studied the effects of caffeinated drinks on human health and the results are very interesting. The often maligned coffee bean is in fact beneficial for reducing cancer risks, promoting cell repair and as an antioxidant so, providing you tolerate caffeine and have no heart or blood pressure related issues, a daily cup of the brown stuff will do you good!

It’s even better news for the great British cuppa
2 cups of tea a day can cut your risk of heart disease by 44% according to studies by the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in the US. The bioflavonoids found in tea are also linked to reduced cholesterol levels, reduced blood clotting and lowered blood pressure.  

Bad news for soft drink consumers
Researchers at Sheffield University have discovered a link between sodium benzoate, a preservative used in the manufacture of soft drinks, and degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, liver cirrhosis and cancer. In addition, carbonated drinks can cause the leeching of calcium from bones and thus increase the risk of developing osteoporosis or brittle bone disease.

Laugh for longer life
Laughter really is the best medicine! Researchers at the Loma Linda University in California have found that laughing lowers blood pressure, reduces stress and boosts immune function while also triggering the release of feel good hormones called endorphins. Make the effort to laugh at least once a day – after all, it’s free!

An apple a day really can keep the doctor away
A study revealed at the Experimental Biology Conference in 2009 revealed that habitual apple eaters were 36% less likely to have high blood pressure and 27% less likely to suffer metabolic syndrome – a condition associated with modern diets and sedentary lifestyles. In addition to their healthful benefits, apples also contain plenty of soluble and insoluble fibre to keep your digestive tract healthy and are low in calories making them the dieter’s friend.

A little of what you fancy does you good!
Chocolate, in particular the 70% plus cocoa solid containing variety is a very rich form of antioxidants which can lower the risk of developing various cancers and reduce free radical damage. Dark chocolate also contains chemicals called catechins which are also found in green tea and boost metabolism. However, even dark chocolate contains sugar and fat so beware of over-consumption and eat in moderation.