Your Fitness Diet & Health - Nutrition Wellness

You are smart enough to know that your eating habits will contribute to your well being. Many of us lead busy lifestyles and as a result of which look for short cuts to health. This is understandable but not necessarily smart. You need to think outside the box a little, the box being your regular old habits.

When it comes to diet, nutrition is the key factor relative to healthy aging. Nutrients are critical to human health. You essentially need protein, carbs, minerals, oils, fats and vitamins.

When your diet consists of fruits, vegetables and whole grains you reduce the possibility of disease. Good eating habits also help control blood pressure and cholesterol levels. When all of this is in check you will feel and look better. Nutrition is one of the greatest resources we have to fight against disease.

Essentially nutrition is the study of everything related to food which covers anything from food preparation to its consumption. It also covers how the body handles food. This in effect teaches us how our health can be affected by food choices.

On the other hand wellness is not just about how you feel it's more about how you function. Wellness is mainly considered as a holistic concept, holistic in the sense that it covers physical, spiritual, social, emotional, intellectual, and environmental dimensions.

As we know, eating nutritiously and exercising are necessary for a healthy lifestyle, but that is only part of the picture. Wellness therefore is largely determined by the decisions you make and how you live your life.

As a consequence wellness is about looking at the total picture such as blood pressure, body fat, exercise behavior or what you eat on a daily basis. Health and wellness is about balance.

Diet basically refers to what you eat. Often when we hear the term diet we tend to think weight loss, in other words eating less food in order to lose weight. Diet not only refers to food it also refers to liquid. Drinking water is part of your diet.

When it comes to altering your diet as in the amount you eat and what you eat it is always wise to make small incremental changes. This way your chance of success when making these changes is far greater. As we all know what you eat and how much you eat plays a significant role when it comes to weight loss.

Fitness also covers the subject of nutrition. When we refer to fitness it includes good nutrition, flexibility, relaxation, sleep, and more. Fitness is much more than cardio, it is also about strength and resistance training The combination of all of the above adds up to health and wellness because it is all relative and even when we talk about diet for weight loss those who exercise and eat healthy are more likely to succeed for obvious reasons.

Diet Health - Beware of the Orange Juice

Orange juice is traditionally considered to be a good drink for your diet health. But major food manufacturers have turned this around.

Orange juice is healthy for you when it is consumed moderately (3-8 10 oz. glasses a week) and if it is made using organic oranges and a juicing machine. Most orange juice you find in your local grocery store is processed and should be avoided.

Why You Should Avoid Processed Juices

Most orange juice is made from concentrate in factories where tons of sugar and preservatives are added making orange juice anything but good for your diet health. There is already a ton of natural sugar in oranges. There are several oranges in one glass of orange juice. Think of all the natural sugar in one glass of orange juice. You just don't need any more than that.

Too much refined sugars (white sugar) make you gain weight, cause depression and virtually any disease, yet drink manufacturers add sugar to the juice so it tastes better. They name the brand something catchy, put a bunch of oranges on the label, and are basically selling orange soda, minus the carbonation.

On top of all that, the way they process the oranges and how they grow non-organic oranges causes most of the vitamin and mineral content of the orange to be lost. So you are not really getting the vitamin C the nutrition facts' label assumes you are.

Watch out for this with much of the juice you buy at the store and see advertised on television. I have recently seen many of the major drink manufacturers try to cash in on the goji, noni and acai berry trend, by saying their "juicy juice" contains these fruits. Please don't buy in to it. These are nothing like the real thing and, in my opinion, are a complete scam.

Have You Ever Seen Real Orange Juice?

If you actually take organic oranges, use a juice machine, and make real orange juice you will see actual orange juice. Real orange juice looks nothing like the stuff you buy in the store. It is not the same color, texture, or taste of the store brand juice. I hope that makes you think about what you are really buying from now on.

Juice Mixers Are Your Key To Perfect Diet Health

Probably the only successful ingredient of an all-orange juice diet would be a juice mixer. These machines are a great diet health tool because they will make you fresh juice from virtually any fruit or vegetable. This way you can ensure you are getting real juice that contains vitamins and minerals, and is not polluted with any additives.

There are many juicers to choose from and are easy to find online. Most work very well, my only recommendation would be to find one that has minimal parts to clean after making your juice.

Orange juice can be good for your diet health, but not the way most people drink it. Make it yourself with a juicing machine, drink it in moderation, and make juice with other fruits and vegetables if you want to go on a real "juice diet."

Diet Health - The Importance of Fruit

Why eat fruit for optimal diet health? Fruit is loaded with things that are healthy for your body, like antioxidants. Antioxidants are substances that help your body fight free radicals (toxins) that are found in your environment in the form of pollution and in your food as chemicals and preservatives.

Free radicals can do immense harm to your body. They are the reason that now more than any other time in history more people are sick with disease, more people are on prescription medications, and more people are obese. Even children as young as five and six are being diagnosed with diabetes.

However, if you go to parts of the world where people don't have access to a diet of processed, chemical laden food you won't find much illness, obesity, or ill health at all. As a matter of fact the average life span and level of overall health of individuals in these areas is significantly higher than that of people in the United States or Europe.

Why is This?

It is because their diet health revolves around a lot of organic fruit. Organic whole foods don't contain any free radicals because they are grown naturally without any:
- pesticides
- artificial fertilizers
- growth hormones
- preservatives
- chemicals

The antioxidants that are in fruit (the highest concentrations are in dark colored fruits) fight free radicals and slow down the aging process. The Acai berry, from the Amazon rainforest, has enough antioxidants to help fight diseases like cancer. The goji and noni berry have been found to have similar diet health benefits.

Fruit For Your Brain's Health

Believe it or not, adding fruit to your diet can give you a more efficient memory. This is because when you eat "living" foods, such as fruit, they are perfect nutrition for your "living" cells, which make up your brain and every other part of your body. If your cells are thriving and healthy, that corresponding part of the body will have improved function as well.

Fiber

For optimal diet health you need fiber. Fiber ensures a healthy digestive system, which is responsible for the final task in eliminating free radicals from your body. Consuming adequate fiber is also key in fighting and reducing the risk of getting diseases like colon cancer.

Making organic fruit a part of your diet and health helps your body fight and prevent many unwanted things such as:
- Heart disease
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Alzheimer's
- Cataracts
- Stroke

As you can see there are many reasons to reach for a piece of fruit rather than a candy bar or bag of potato chips when you want a snack. Of course you can indulge in whatever you want sometimes, but if you can eat more fruit you will notice the diet health benefits pretty quickly.

Diet Health - How to Go Vegetarian

As more and more people are waking up and finally realizing the benefits of great health and vitality they are turning in their old lifestyles for new ways of living. One of these trends has been the shift towards vegetarian and vegan diet health.

If you are interested in learning more about vegetarian diets vegetarian food guides are a great place to start. You can find them all over the web, at bookstores, or at your local health food store. These guides effectively lay out what nutrients you need and the vegetarian foods that contain them.

Vegetarian Diet Health - Some Things Stay The Same

Even if you decide to be a vegetarian, many food items in your diet won't change. For example, the staple of your diet and health, fruits and vegetables, don't change. You just need to make sure that they are organic.

You still want to consume grains, but you want to make sure that they are whole grains. You can still consume dairy products if you choose. But make sure that they are organic and contain animal fats. Almost all of the nutrients in animal food products is in the fat. So if you are going to drink milk, drink whole milk, not skim or 1%. Eat real butter, not margarine, etc.

Obviously the biggest change for people switching to a vegetarian diet is not eating meat. If you are wanting to go vegetarian to get healthier, but really like eating meat than don't worry about it if you still eat it sometimes. There is nothing wrong with that. Just try to keep it to a minimum and try some of the alternatives listed below instead.

Vegetarian Diet Health - Meat Alternatives

Without meat people need to look for protein alternatives. Protein consumption is critical as protein is the second most abundant substance in your body after water.

If you aren't eating meat and you don't take a high quality protein supplement you need to eat three of these meat alternatives daily:

* Beans
* Seeds
* Nuts
* Tofu
* Eggs

Vegetarian Diet Health - Supplemental Nutrients

Many vitamins and minerals come from animal fats so without meat it is important that you take vitamin and mineral supplements every day. Yes, you get vitamins and minerals from fruits and vegetables, but because of soil erosion and pollution fruits and vegetables don't contain the vitamin and mineral content they should.

Vegetarian Diet And Health - Loving Your New Lifestyle

Becoming a vegetarian is a personal decision. It is a lifestyle that people embrace for many different reasons. The most common reason is just to get healthy, thin and feeling good.

Try being a vegetarian for six months. Keep track of how you feel, your weight, energy levels etc, and then compare how you feel after six months to how you felt before you started. That should give you a good answer as to whether or not being a vegetarian is for you. Good luck on your journey towards health and wellness!

Diet Health - Nutrition For Diabetes

If you have diabetes your diet health does more than keep your blood sugar under control, it keeps you healthy and well, which prevents virtually all health conditions. However, diet health is not something you are given because you have diabetes, it is obtained by the choices you make.

The Perfect Diet

You may have heard about "diabetes diets," but there is no such thing. A diet full of organic fruits, vegetables, nuts, and one hour of hard exercise everyday is all anyone needs to stay perfectly healthy, including those with diabetes.

If you would like the diet broken down for you, you should be getting:
* 40% of your daily calories from protein (meat, beans, nuts and/or supplements)
* 30% of your daily calories from complex carbohydrates (vegetables, fruit, oats)
* 30% of your daily calories from fat (dairy, meat)

Most people with diabetes are overweight witch is why a diet higher in protein is suggested. However, it is important that anyone with diabetes makes sure that they do get the required 30% daily dose of complex carbohydrates.

These carbohydrates help regulate blood glucose levels. If you have "type 1" diabetes and are not overweight you may eat more carbohydrates than protein if you wish.

Other tips for those with diabetes who are overweight is to reduce the daily calorie intake by 250 to 500 calories and to start exercising by walking for twenty minutes to one hour a day. These two tips will help you lose weight consistently and safely.

What to Avoid

Many doctors will say that a little sugar is not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to a diabetes diet, but too much sugar can become a problem pretty quickly. So be careful.

Diabetes nutrition consists of keeping foods high in fat and sugar to a minimum for both weight control and nutritional considerations. Stay away from all processed foods (everything in the aisles at your grocery store, fast food, etc.). They have no nutritional content whatsoever.

What You Need To Understand

These diabetes, diet and health recommendations are not about making a diet health change, they are about making a lifestyle change. Even if you switch to the right diet for few weeks, or start exercising, without the burning desire to transform your life all of your efforts will be short lived.

It may seem overwhelming right now to have to change your diet health forever, but if you approach your health and well-being one day at a time it will shed any anxieties or frustrations you may have. Just make the best choices you can today and eventually it will catch on and you will want to live a healthy life everyday.

All About Heart Health

The heart is a muscle, it is as small as a fist, and its main function is to pump blood to the entire body. This blood supply is responsible for taking nourishing oxygen to cells that enable each cell to perform its bodily function. In turn the spent blood is returned with harmful carbon dioxide to be expelled via the lungs. This miraculous muscle is literary what keeps us alive and breathing.

The healthy adult body contains about 2 gallons (5 liters) of blood. This blood supply is constantly circulated through the body, via heart, arteries to capillaries to the veins. One entire cycle takes about 60 seconds.

If any part of the circulatory system suffers due to disease, the heart will ultimately be put under greater stress and in time become damaged, and unable to do its job. If the heart is unable to function properly the body will become vulnerable to a variety of health problems.

There are several risk factors that can increase ones chances of developing coronary heart disease. Many of these risk factors can be treated or controlled, some factors are uncontrollable. It is every important to become well acquainted with the risk factors of heart disease. One of the best ways to prevent coronary heart disease is to decrease ones controllable risk factors through life style changes.

There are uncontrollable risk factors that are unavoidable, and out of ones control.

Age: Risk of heart disease increases over the age of 45 in males, over 55 in females.

Family History: Children of parents that developed heart disease before the age of 55 have a higher risk of developing heart disease.

Racial and ethnic background: Mexican Americans, African Americans, American Indians, all have greater risk of developing heart disease than Caucasians.

Risk Factors that can be controlled with life style changes are as follows:

Smoking: Cigarette smokers are at greater risk than pipe and cigar smokers. All forms of tobacco are proven to be detrimental to the hearts health.

Studies have provided good documentation that Second hand smoke is also known to be detrimental to heart health.

Physical Inactivity: Inactivity puts a person at higher risk of developing heart disease.

Overweight or Obesity: Persons that have an excess of body fat are at a higher risk than persons of normal weight.

High blood pressure: blood pressure readings higher than 140/90 increase risk of heart disease.

High Blood Cholesterol: A blood cholesterol levels of 200 mg/dl or higher puts one at risk to develop heart disease.

One must keep in mind that the fewer risk factors one has, the lesser chance of developing heart disease. Two or more risk factors indicate a good possibility that one may be pron to develop heart disease. It is clear that some of the risk factors listed can be avoided with life style changes.

A good place to began, develop a good exercise routine. The hardest part of exercising is getting started. Chose an exercise that is low impact, and make sure to consult your doctor before getting started. Once you have a good exercise routine, you might be surprised how much you enjoy it? Walking is a great way to get your exercise, just 30 minutes three times a week will give good results. Naturally it would be more beneficial to walk every day.

Diet is also very important when promoting a healthy heart life style. It is very important to consult a doctor before starting any new diet. Your doctor will take all risk factors that are affecting you as an individual into consideration, considering problems such as increased cholesterol, high blood pressure, a need to lose weight. Your new diet should be personally geared to assist you with getting that healthy heart you desire.

Last of all, but not least, if you smoke, stop. Smoking is considered the worst risk factor one can have. This fact is backed by a multitude of scientific studies. Studies that give way to substantial evidence that smoking will ultimately lead to poor heart health.

Know Your Heart Health

We all know that keeping up with our heart health is an important thing to do. We all know that there are a wide variety of factors that cause heart problems, and we should know by now that there are some basic ways to help protect the health of our hearts. What many people do not realize, however, is that keys to their heart health may be different than keys to the heart health of others.

There are almost as many strategies and tips for having good heart health as there are people with hearts in the world. It is important that each person takes the time to learn about his or her own heart health and to learn about the possible methods of ensuring heart health for years to come.

One of the best ways for anyone to become familiar with the needs of their heart is to see a physician. Schedule a visit to see your doctor and plan to discuss your heart health with him or her. If you can think of any questions or concerns you have regarding your heart health, write them down and bring them along. It will also be very helpful if you have a record of your extended family's heart health history. It is likely that your physician will want to discuss more than just your own heart health. He or she will want to look for patterns or trends that have affected other people you're related to.

A physician can help you determine not only the current health of your heart, but also give you a better understanding of specific things you can do to help prevent heart attack or heart disease. For some people, the most significant factor in achieving and maintaining heart health is to change their diet. The foods we choose to put into our bodies affect our heart health in more ways than we know. Eating large amounts of sugar, carbohydrates or processed foods will eventually take their toll on our heart health. Your physician can set you up with a dietician who specializes in creating unique diet plans that promote heart health.

For other people, it is their exercise and physical fitness habits that a physician will address. Heart health can be significantly altered based upon a person's level of exercise. Your physician will be able to help you create a fitness plan that will be effective for you and your heart health needs.

It is never too late to take your heart health seriously. Make an appointment to see your physician today.

Womens Heart Health: The Scary Truth About Womens Heart Health

Womens heart health is a subject that should be on the tip of everyone's tongue, but for some reason not too many people seem to be talking about it. Unlike other womens issues that have people mobilized and raising awareness, when it comes to the heart there doesn't seem to be too many people championing the cause. It seems as though I can't drive anywhere without seeing a car with a pink breast cancer awareness ribbon magnet attached to it, but where are the magnets for heart problems.

You'd think that there would be tons of soccer moms concerned with womens heart health, especially given the fact that heart disease is the number one cause of death today for American women. I'm constantly hearing about how men die of heart attacks, but more women than men die every year in the United States of cardiovascular disease. Additionally, 23 percent of women over the age of 40 who have heart attacks die within a year. When you compare that to the 18 percent of their male counterparts, it's hard to understand why this isn't more of a women's issue. Where are all of the specials on Oprah? Where are the races for cures?

Even scarier, 64 percent of women who have heart attacks and die suddenly have had no previous symptoms. It's truly a silent killer, striking otherwise healthy people when they least expect it. Also, after the age of 40 the lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease is more than 50 percent in women. The worst part is that diagnostic tests and procedures that work well for men don't work as well in women. This is particularly true of ECG tests, which is also known as the exercise stress test. All in all, more people need to be aware of womens heart health.