Something many of us can use to improve our diet.

Elizabeth Pivonka is a registered dietitian as well as president and CEO of Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH), the nonprofit entity behind the Fruits & Veggies-More Matters® national public health initiative. She says, “Eating fruits and vegetables is important to maintaining a healthy weight and may reduce the risk of many diseases, but adding more to your diet can sometimes feel like a challenge.”
Pivonka has several tips to help consumers add more fruits and vegetables to meals and snacks.

• Instead of a pasta or rice based side dish, serve a leafy green salad
• Make sure to add lettuce or spinach along with plenty of sliced veggies to your sandwich
  Serve fruit as a dessert
• Add frozen or canned veggies to soups and stews at that last minute for a boost of nutrition and flavor
• Keep dried fruit on had in the car or at your desk at work for a quick, healthy snack
• Drain and rinse any kind of canned beans and add them to your salad for added fiber and protein
• Add diced veggies to meatloaf, meatballs, and hamburgers
• Keep a bowl of fresh fruit out on your kitchen table or counter for grab-and-go snacks
• Next time you eat fast food, try fruit and vegetable menu items such as salads, sliced apples, mandarin oranges and baked potatoes
• Make breakfast smoothies with fresh or frozen fruit, low-fat yogurt, and 100 percent juice

Pivonka says, “Adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet is easy when you remember that all product forms count; fresh, frozen, canned, dried and 100 percent fruit and vegetable juice. Every step taken toward eating more fruits and veggies helps, so try to fill half your plate with them at each meal.”

Peter Ragner: Martial Arts Expert, Author, Speaker and Motivator.

“I wanted to write you a testimonial about my experience with the LifeWave™ Patches. I am a former professional soccer player and have been a personal trainer for 12 years. I am amazed at the exercise endurance I get when I wear the patches. Let me give you my first day experience with the patches and you will see what got my attention.

I played tennis for 2 hours in the morning, went home and lifted weights, cut my lawn, ran with my 4 dogs (1 at a time), cleaned my house and ran with my dogs again without any drop in energy! I could not believe the difference the patches made. Since then, I have used them when I play tennis and when I lift. People always ask me how I do all the things I do in one day and I tell them the answer is simple, LifeWave™.

I also would like to give some of the experiences I have had with my personal training clients:

• 77.2% increase in leg strength in a 4 week period for 2 of my clients (week 1 without patches and 3 weeks with them).

• My clients are gaining between 30% and 77% strength monthly.

• 1 client lost 7 lbs in the second week she wore the LifeWave™ patches.

Every client is amazed at the great feeling they get when they wear the patches! I just thought you should know how much my clients and I love the LifeWave™ patches.”

Mike Gailey
Former Professional Soccer Player
Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist

Read more testimonials on: http://www.energymaker.net/Testimonials.htm

]]> http://the-problemsolvers.com/683262/lifewave-testimonials/feed 0 http://the-problemsolvers.com/683262/lifewave-in-the-news-%e2%80%93-pbs-interview http://the-problemsolvers.com/683262/lifewave-in-the-news-%e2%80%93-pbs-interview#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:27:53 +0000 Margret http://the-problemsolvers.com/683262/?p=392 Great TV program about the Lifewave patches, found at youtube

part1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKSxWOk_QTI

part2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWlTRVkaLPU&feature=related

part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8yaxsNUA3E&feature=related

Photo: Photodisc

For all the magazine headlines touting the amazing fat-blasting powers of yoga, it’s a relatively anemic calorie burner. A typical 45-minute class burns off fewer calories than a honey glazed doughnut, hold the sprinkles. Yet, yoga can help you lose weight, just not for the reasons you might think.

Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center recently quizzed 303 people about their activity and eating habits and then cross-referenced them to see which groups had the most insight into why they ate and what they ate. It turns out that the yoga devotees were more in tune with the social and emotional reasons they reached for a honey glazed than the average couch potato, and interestingly, even more so than the folks who walked into the same gym but headed for the treadmill, bike or weight room instead of the yoga studio.

Presumably, runners and cyclists are just as concerned with how their clothes fit, but they seem to focus on pragmatic weight-loss strategies like counting calories and portion sizes versus the feelings that may trigger eating. According to Dr. Alan Kristal, the lead author on the study, these are separate skills. “When you practice mindful eating, you eat because you’re actually hungry versus responding to cues like being emotionally distressed or bored or because there is a candy dish in front of you,” he says.

Kristal says this study was inspired by the initial results of an earlier investigation done by his team which showed that doing downward dogs on a regular basis may help prevent middle aged spread. In that study, yogis who started out the decade at a normal weight gained less than the average person – 4 pounds compared to 13 — and overweight yogis actually lost weight during the same time period. Kristal suspected that the weight-loss effect had more to do with increased body awareness, specifically a sensitivity to hunger than the physical activity of yoga practice itself, which typically burns only about 240 calories per class. He hypothesized that mindfulness – a skill learned either directly or indirectly through yoga – could affect eating behavior.

“I think the power of yoga is in the way you learn mindfulness skills,” he says. “When you are in a yoga pose, you take it to your edge and you tend to hold it for a while. It isn’t excruciating but it is uncomfortable. You learn to observe this in a non judgmental fashion but you don’t get all twisted up in it – you observe it calmly. I think this translates to dietary habits by teaching you to feel a little uncomfortable when you want to eat for reasons other than hunger. You learn to live with these feelings and eat only when you actually are hungry.”

The study wasn’t able to tease out whether or not people who practice yoga are more mindful by nature, and certainly there are mindful eaters who never spend a single moment belly breathing. Plus, Kristal isn’t suggesting you shouldn’t count calories or eyeball your pasta portions when trying to lose weight. “Mindfulness is a skill that augments the usual approaches by encouraging you to build positive relationships with food and eating,” he says.

My 2 cents: Mindfulness is simply one more tool in the tool box. And who couldn’t use a little extra edge when trying to wrestle with the urge to add chocolate sauce to cottage cheese? Mindful techniques are best learned in classes that focus on the meditative aspects of yoga. The boot camp and cattle prod approach may sizzle more calories but won’t put you in touch with the mind and body connection that helps you come to terms with your feelings for food.

Now for your 2 cents: Has yoga helped you lose weight or become a more aware eater? Do you have any other non-yoga tricks for making peace with food? If so, tweet me. On my twitter feed, I’m giving away an advance copy of the DVD “Element: Yoga for Weight Loss,” starring LA yogi-to-the-stars Ashley Turner – it will go to the fifth person who signs up to receive my tweets. The disc doesn’t drop until the second week in September, so you’ll be the first on the block to experience this mellow, mindful yoga workout.

source: http://www.thatsfit.com/2009/08/26/yoga-for-weight-loss/

My personal belief is based in natural health so I believe that any changes you make, weight loss or anything else, should be done safely, no matter how fast or slow you go about it. So here are the core fast weight loss principles that I believe every weight loss program out there should believe:

Fast Weight Loss Principle #1: Goals are extremely important. Without goals, you will not know where you’re going with your weight loss program. Take the time to plan out on paper (or at least jot down a general idea) the goals you have for losing weight: number of pounds you want to lose, number of inches you want to shed, number of months you feel you can achieve it in.

By doing this and looking at your goals everyday, you will be able to focus so well on your end goal, that your weight loss program will speed by with fantastic results. During any down moments, by focusing daily on your weight loss goal, you will be able to motivate yourself into success!

Fast Weight Loss Principle #2: Monitor your progress. Keep a weight loss journal (or call it what you want) with you everyday. Don’t think of it as a tedious task but instead, focus on the improvements you will be able to see yourself making. Think of it as you are currently writing your weight loss success story that you can look back on and say, “Yes, I did it!”

The things you will want to monitor are the types of foods you eat as well as a rough estimate of the daily calorie intake, which is important for weight loss but not in a “You need to count calories” idea. By making yourself familiar with your daily calorie intake as well as the types of foods you eat, weight loss will become easier as you go on because you will learn what you need to do to lose weight (the specifics can change day by day).

Fast Weight Loss Principle #3: Picture your progress. It may seem silly but simple things like taking note of how your pants fit on day 1 versus day 20 or even taking a picture of yourself at regular intervals can really do wonders to motivate you and keep you going with your weight loss.

If you opt for the picture idea, your weight loss will be very clear to you in those pictures each week or month (go with week instead). So to keep yourself going, ham it up for the camera!

Fast Weight Loss Principle #4: Bottom line, cardio plus strength training are key. Beyond that, just find exercises in both cardio and strength training that fit your liking. If you’re not much for running, then go for swimming or bicycling.

For strength training, it is best to consult a personal trainer to find out the best exercises as well as a variety of exercises for you to use to achieve your weight loss and sculpting goals. With both cardio and strength training, it is important to consult your physician before beginning the physical portion of your weight loss program.

Fast Weight Loss Principle #5: Eat right. Yes, you’ve probably heard that phrase everywhere and there’s a reason why it’s absolutely essential that you make sure you eat right.

Now, each weight loss program will tell you certain things to avoid and certain things to “highlight” but make sure that the weight loss program you choose definitely includes plenty of meats and vegetables. (I can’t imagine that any program would advise you against eating meat and vegetables but you never know.)

The quantities and types of each will, as I said, differ depending on the specific weight loss program you choose but make sure the one you choose does include those two food groups.

As there are many people with different likings, there are also very different weight loss programs that will fit each person’s individual preferences. But it’s wise to make sure that the weight loss program you choose has a balanced foundation with principles that will really help you lose weight quickly and safely.

source: http://www.ameps.org/the-essential-healthy-weight-loss-tips-for-all-dieters/

However, when it comes to working out and trying to gain muscle mass, getting good nights rest is very important. Getting a good night’s sleep, can help with many different aspects of your health and how your muscles grow is part of that. The worst thing for you to do is change your sleep schedule so you are sleeping at different times during the day.

This article will show you the various reasons why sleep is so important to your workout.

For starters, your body recovers and rebuilds muscle while you are asleep. This is the crucial time when other parts of your body are shut down and not consuming energy or internal resources that your body uses to repair damages from bodybuilding.

With that said you will need to make sure that you stay on a schedule for sleep so that you do not confuse the body, or else it can’t heal the old and new muscle properly. If you do not give the body enough rest or enough time to heal then you will risk doing damage that can harm your health.

The energy that is consumed while working out is extreme, and if you do not get sleep you will go to the gym tired, leaving you with little results. When you start going to the gym tired it will no longer be fun and you will start taking days off.

If you are big into working out, then you know it takes motivation to get in there on a daily basis and get a good workout. You have to be able to get in there and get yourself pumped up so that you can get a hard workout.

Then at the same time, you may not even have the physical energy or motivation required to get a good weightlifting session in to begin with. There’s only so much your body can handle over the course of a day with a tiny amount of sleep. And after, work, school, family commitments and anything else you may be dealing with, working out to your full potential is often what remains undone.

This is as much of a mental game, as it is a physical one. You need to make sure that you get the proper amount of sleep so that chemical balances in your body are normal, providing you with a good rhythm.

One of the biggest things in bodybuilding is your body’s ability to burn fat constantly. This requires you to have a high metabolism. When you sleep your body releases some hormones into your bloodstream that are essential for proper metabolism.

So how much sleep should I be getting? No matter what you want to maintain a consistent sleep schedule. So that means that sleeping for 2 hours on Friday night and then sleeping for 12 hours on Saturday night doesn’t amount to the same benefits as sleeping 7 hours both nights in a row.

The best thing to do is to set yourself up with a routine that gives you enough time to get rest at night. This way your body can repair itself and help you to achieve your fitness goals.

source : http://blogexercise.com/lack-of-sleep-is-not-good-for-bodybuilding

1.  Load Up on Produce

It is recommended that we all eat five to seven servings of fruits and veggies a day, and dieters who go heavy on the produce are more likely to lose and keep the weight off. That’s because fruits and veggies are low-calorie foods, and many of them are also high in fiber, which is filling. Eating more of a plant-based diet offers a greater variety of nutrients with fewer calories.

2.  Learn to Cook and Dine In

Dining out occasionally is a lovely way to spend an evening, but don’t make a habit of it. The secret ingredient at many restaurants is butter and excessive oil — in other words, fat. Studies have shown a relationship between number of meals eaten out and greater weight gain. Cooking your own meals helps you with portion control. Here are some recipes to help get you started in the kitchen.

3.  Go For Whole Grains

Whole grains are high in filling fiber and offer important nutrients like vitamin B6, which helps reduce PMS symptoms, and skin beneficial vitamin E. Eating whole grains means your calories from carbs provide nutrients you need. Choose whole grain breads too, since refined white flour has little nutrient value and is higher on the Glycemic Index than whole grain flour.

4.  Move It to Lose It

Physical activity, be it training for a half marathon or walking home with your groceries, is important for losing weight and keeping it off. Going to the gym is great, but don’t skip out on everyday movement that helps burn calories — take the stairs, walk your dog, vacuum vigorously, bike to dinner, garden. Curious how many calories your daily activities burn? Check out my calorie calculator

5.  Portion Control and Moderation

Portion control is essential for taking off weight and keeping it off. Healthy foods, like nuts, eaten in mass quantities will still pack on the calories. Moderation is the key. Pasta is one food where we tend to go overboard with portions. A cup of pasta is a portion, and that is about the size of a light bulb. I would go with whole wheat pasta too. You can eat the foods you love, just be moderate.

6.  Keeping a Food Journal

Keeping a tally of all the calories you consume in a day can help you stay on track. Many studies have shown that dieters who keep food journals lose more weight. If you have made it to you ideal weight, keeping a food journal is way to ensure you maintain your healthy weight. Here is my downloadable food journal if you like to use pen and paper. Or track your caloric intake on your iPhone

Source: Getty

Is ‘chunky’ in or out?
The shows – Drop Dead Diva, More to Love, Dance Your Ass Off and Ruby – range from dance to comedy to reality – some promote health and weight loss, some say you’re fine just as you are, as they light up the grill and fill up on dessert. Mixed messages for sure.

Alas, the sought after nugget of gold came to me during Episode #5 of Dance Your Ass Off, when Shayla showed off her hip hop moves to “Low.”

Shayla, a 200+ pound beauty, rocked it with confidence. She oozed sexy. And there you have it, sexy has absolutely nothing to do with the number on the scale. It has all to do with turning off the criticizing chatterbox in your head that stops you from seeing and appreciating your unique and beautiful self.

Sexy people have an ‘air’ about them. They know how to ‘claim what’s theirs;’ they know how to ‘mark their territory.’ They know how to stand tall and through body language and words send out a positive message to the Universe. “Here I am! Happy to be alive. Confident, self-assured, and sexy!”

Sexy people ooze confidence, attitude and love. Want to ooze sexy with Our Lady of Weight Loss and me?

Sexy 101: 9 One-Size-Fits-All Tips on How to Let Your Sexy Rip

1. Shake It, Move It – From Jive to Meringue. Step it up and find a new way to shake your booty that connects to and energizes your soul. Nothing sexier than a high energy happy!

2. Wear Clothes that Fit – No matter what your size, there’s nothing less flattering than wearing clothes that are either too big or too small. Just take a look around you. Am I right, or am I right?

3. Smile Bright - There is nothing more alluring than a happy smile. Show off those pearly whites, and if they are not so pearly, get them whitened. It’s totally worth the investment.

4. Good Skin – Glowing skin adds to your glowing aura. Be sure to wash your face before you go to sleep as well as when you wake up, and throughout the day if you live in a dirty, gritty city like I do.

5. Smell Like a Million Bucks - Consider getting a new perfume and dabbing on a drop or two (don’t go crazy), or using a great smelling soap that lingers. Bottom line, you sure don’t want to smell bad, do you?

6. Focus on Personality - Forget what the scale says in either direction. If you are thin, and you are oozing sexy based solely on your looks, watch out. It won’t last forever. And if you’re on the chunky side, let it go as well. Let the real fun, energetic, loving and caring you shine through.

7. Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. – Everyone has something to offer to another person. You are loveable, creative, talented, and worthy of love. Just make sure that the person you are lovin’, is worthy of you!

8. Walk with Confidence – Now that you are energized, clean, smelling good, and you teeth are shining – step out with confidence. Believe in yourself. Strut your stuff and …

9. Have Fun - Lighten up, have fun. The definition of sexy should be: someone who is laughing, smiling, being real and having fun!

More Tips on How to Ooze Sexy:
Sex, Healthy Mindset: Psychology Today interviews Janice Taylor
Eat, Have Sex, Lose Weight
Vegetables are Sexy, and You Can Be Too!

It has been stated that average cardio workouts can prevent us from weight loss. We must concentrate on some tips that can help us make cardio interesting and help us lose more fat and calories.

Cardio refers to cardiovascular muscle related exercises that can be done using machines like elliptical machine, recumbent or upright bikes, rowing machines, and treadmills.

It can be done by rope jumps, sprinting over short distance, and swimming also. It is a common method for people to go to the gym and work on low intensity cardio workouts using such machines for half an hour to an hour at very slow speed.

It can be done from 3 to 5 sessions every week and we can see instant results for the first few weeks but after that, we will not lose weight anymore and will become frustrated with repeated workouts.

Reason #1: It Is Boring!

Cardio workouts can be very boring and unless we are long runners who love running, we cannot spend more time on it. We need some method to get back the enthusiasm for doing such exercises and it can be done by trying some magazine reading, watching television or talking with friends and just distract ourselves while doing workouts.

Reason #2: You Burn Fewer Calories Each Time You Workout

Every time we start, doing cardio regularly our body becomes adapted to it and does not use as much energy. Initially, cardio can use fats instead of glycogen so there is a chance of losing more calories, but if we do it regularly, we will lose less weight and we will become more frustrated.

So it is not beneficial to us. The only option is to work for longer duration than what we usually do, to shed more weight. We must increase our time span that we workout, for example if we run 5 miles a day we must make it 10 miles the next month so that we shed the same weight.

Reason #3: The Average Weight Loss Cardio Workout Does Not Stimulate Your Metabolism

The cardio exercises done at the same speed does not help increase the metabolism so we must focus on increasing the amount of time and switch to high intensity workouts then and there.

Solutions:

We can use various techniques during cardio workouts like interval training, which can help burn more calories and reduce body fat. If performed in the perfect way, it is faster and fun.

It has a very good effect on the body metabolism and this helps burn calories even after working out.

Interval training is a superb option for enhancing the results during cardio workouts and it is just a mixture of high and normal intensity workouts at proper time intervals to get the desired results.

see more detail on http://www.ayushveda.com

When we are pursuing high-impact physical activities and sports, such as swimming, running and aerobics for example, we should be consuming high energy food options in much larger proportions. Through the establishment of an understanding of how high energy food options work in order to determine the right proportions that your body is going to require in order for you to sustain your health and wellness while participating in weekly activities. If you consume the right high energy food proportions on a daily basis, then you will have no trouble maintaining a balanced diet while you are exerting yourself in physical activities.

There are a number of important high energy food options that you should be aware of, and these food items come from all five of the primary food groups. The main five food groups are the fruits and vegetables group, the dairy group, the meat group, the grain group and the pasta group. In order to make sure that you are getting the maximum amount of benefits from high energy food, you need to be choosing high energy food items from all five of the essential food groupings.

When it comes to searching for high energy food options, you should be looking for:

• In the fruits category, you should be looking at strawberries, pineapple and banana.
• In the vegetables category, you should be looking at green and leafy vegetables, especially kale, spinach and cabbage for example. A good balance of these high energy green leafy vegetables is important for maintaining good energy and optimum health.
• In the dairy category, the best foods are generally dairy foods containing fats, but you should only be eating a high fat content if you are extremely active.
• In the meat category, you can choose read meets for high energy and white meats in order to sustain your levels of energy throughout the day.
• In the grains category, two good options are wheat and barley, which are both rich in the nutrients that provide a lot of energy. Anything that contains these two grains is going to be a safe bet as a high energy food.
• Another staple high energy food is pasta, because it can supply your body with a lot of much needed energy all throughout the day.

What you need to know about eating high energy food options is that maintaining a balance between all of the food groups is what you need to be doing in order to maintain optimum energy and optimum health.

see more detail on: http://nutritionfitnesslife.com