Healthy Shrimp and Avocado Salad
Filed under: Healthy Cooking, Miscellaneous, Nutrition
Shrimp and avocado salad
This is a great healthy salad that is fresh and good for you. It can be used as a light lunch or as a meal. I sometimes add boiled new potatoes to it if I serve it as a dinner.
Ingredients:
For Salad
1 Large ripe avocado (you can add 2 if you like them that much). 
1lb cooked large shrimp peeled or you can use frozen and thawed.
2 fresh red ripe tomatoes chopped
1/4 red or yellow onion chopped
2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1 bag mixed salad greens.
ground salt and pepper to taste
For The Vinaigrette
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
To prepare salad, cut and slice avocado. Place salad greens on plate. Top with shrimp, tomatoes, onions and cilantro dress with dressing. You may need an extra dash of salt and pepper on top.
This serves 4-6 people. Wasn’t that easy?
10 Ways to Start Losing Weight Now
Losing weight is hard for everyone. If you want to lose weight and you’ve ‘tried everything’, try the following tips. Don’t do all of them. Don’t do them in order. Just pick one and give it a try for a few days. Then try another one. If you can do all ten, you’ll be shedding pounds in no time.
1. Don’t Go on a Diet! Stop thinking of ‘diet’ as starving or depriving yourself or as a new and interesting approach to eating. The dictionary’s first two definitions for ‘diet’ are ‘food and drink regularly consumed’ and ‘habitual nourishment.’ So don’t ‘go on a diet’. You’re already on a diet. You just need to modify your diet so that you’re eating more healthy foods than harmful foods. And if you make just one small change each day or each week and make it part of your regular eating pattern, you’ll lose weight.
2. Eat six meals per day. You may have already heard this before but it’s worth repeating and it’s easier than it sounds. If you’re overweight, chances are you’re skipping regular meals and eating a lot of calories through random snacking throughout the day and lots of liquid calories (soda, mocha choca lattes, chips, chocolates). Instead of foraging all day long on whatever comes near you, try to eat three square meals and three scheduled healthy snacks. For example, eat breakfast before you work and then, midway between your breakfast and lunch, have a planned snack. Nothing fancy but keep it real. An apple with some peanut butter is a great choice or keep a stash of protein bars handy and have one for a snack. When lunch rolls around, you won’t be overly hungry so you’ll be more likely to make a sensible choice for lunch. Have another snack midway between lunch and dinner and you’ll find the same results. After dinner and before bedtime, have one more snack for the day. Make it a small one and keep the carbs low.
3. Stop drinking soda. Period. That’s it. Each 12 oz. can of soda has 7 and 1/2 teaspoons of sugar in it. If you grab any 24 oz bottle or get a medium or larger soda from any fast food restaurant, you’re consuming 15 teaspoons of sugar! Think about ordering your coffee with 15 sugars in it. If you want to see a visual measurement of the sugar in soda, check this out. You won’t believe how much sugar you’re getting.
4. Drink more water. If you stop drinking soda, you’ll be looking for a substitute. Water is the best. Since water contains no calories, it can serve as an appetite suppressant, and helps the body metabolize stored fat. It’s fat -free, cholesterol-free, low in sodium, and has no calories. Also, drinking more water helps to reduce water retention by stimulating your kidneys. Dehydration leads to excess body fat, poor muscle tone & size, decreased digestive efficiency & organ function, increased toxicity, joint & muscle soreness, & water retention. Water works to keep muscles and skin toned. Try to drink 8 glasses of water a day. This is an easy and effective step towards losing weight.
5. Hold the Fries. Have a salad or a vegetable (or a baked potato) instead of those french fries or chips. Even though many fast food chains, restaurants and the makers of snacks (chips, etc.) are voluntarily switching from ‘trans fats’ to better oils like canola oil for frying, avoiding fried foods is best.
6. Eat Breakfast. This is actually a tip included in ‘eat 6 meals a day’ suggestion but for those who want to take smaller steps, this is probably the most important meal. Skipping breakfast means you’ve been starving your body since you went to sleep for 8 hours already, plus however long it is until your next meal. What does your body do when it’s starving? It slows down your metabolism and holds on to fat. On the other hand, eating breakfast consistently signals to your body that there is no need to store fat and your body begins to process your food and fires up your metabolism to start your day.
7. Eat More Protein. Protein is the building block for healthy muscle and roughly a third of your meals should consist of protein. If you eat meals without protein (think coffee and donuts, a bagel with OJ, pancakes with fruit), you’re body begins to pump out insulin to keep your blood sugar levels under control. You’ll get a sugar rush while your body converts the sugar to fat and then you’ll crash. Eating protein with every meal in addition to carbs and healthy fats allows your body to regulate this process.
8. Make better choices. Very few people have time to prepare all of their meals and be ready for healthy snacks and meals all day long. Business travelers, busy moms, working moms, all have too much to do and few hours to do it in. So, we grab food that is available. Having meals prepared or at least a plan is ideal. But when you can’t, make the best choice you can, with what’s offered to you. Substitute a chicken sandwich for a burger. Add a salad or baked potato instead of an order of french fries. Hold the mayo and have mustard. Have the dressing on the side. Order the smaller steak. Choose brown rice instead of white. Order fish. Just one better choice at each meal will make a world of difference.
9. Don’t Eat Past Full. Treat your body more like your car and you’ll eat better. You wouldn’t overfill your gas tank and you wouldn’t put 6 quarts of oil in your car. You measure out what your car is supposed to hold and needs to run properly and that’s what you put in your car. Do the same with your stomach. Prepare a dish of food that is reasonable in size, eat it and stop. You don’t need to be full at every meal. And, if you’re eating 6 meals a day, you won’t want to. A good rule of thumb for determining portion size is the size of a deck of playing cards, the size of your closed fist or the palm of your hand for all solid foods.
10. Resistance Train. If you’ve never worked out at all, talk to your doctor before you begin any exercise plan. But if you’re stuck in a rut with the treadmill, stationary bike and other aerobics, and getting no where, get off the treadmill and start to incorporate resistance training into your workout. A good pattern is aerobics one day and resistance training the next. Weight training or other resistance training (includes pushups, pullups, squats with your own body weight, walking lunges) have one excellent benefit that aerobics does not provide. When you resistance train, you break muscle down during your workout. As a result, you burn calories (and fat), during your workout and all day long, as your body repairs itself with all of the healthy choices you make in your diet all day long. Depending on how hard you train, you can burn calories all through the day and night, from one resistance training workout.
If you are having trouble figuring out how many calories to eat, use our food database and calorie counter (you need to be logged in to track calories) and find or build workouts using our find a workout creator.
Eat Fat, Lose Weight with Flat Belly Diet
Prevention Magazine has a Flat Belly Diet that was released with great fanfare and as if it was a new concept. It’s one worth repeating. Kudos to them for revealing a truth about food that should be self-evident but that we overlook. We need fat. There are good fats. God put all sorts of great foods on the earth that we’ve overlooked because there has been this ‘low-fat’ mentality for so long.
The Flat Belly Diet is based primarily on mono-unsaturated fatty acids (abbreviated MUFAs).
As stated on Prevention’s website: ‘There are five major categories of MUFAs: (1) oils, (2) nuts and seeds, (3) avocado, (4) olives, and (5) chocolate. Eating one serving of any of these foods at every meal will help reduce your accumulation of dangerous belly fat; control your calorie intake and you’ll lose inches and pounds, too–especially around your waistline.
There are two different types of fat: subcutaneous and visceral. Subcutaneous is right under your skin. You can see it and pinch it and you have a little everywhere that you have skin. You may have a lot on your waist or your backside.
Some subcutaneous fat is necessary but too much of it can be bad and is usually a visible sign of being overweight or obese. Subcutaneous fat is the first to go when you follow a diet rich in MUFA’s along with an exercise program and overall healthy diet.
The second type of fat (visceral fat) is much more dangerous and harder to lose. Visceral fat (which gets its name from viscera, which refers to the internal organs in the abdomen) resides deep within the torso, wrapping itself around your heart, liver, and other major organs. In fact, it’s possible to be relatively thin and still have too much visceral fat. That’s why it’s sometimes referred to as ‘hidden’ belly fat.’ Excess visceral fat can subtract years from your life.
Visceral fat has been linked to a long list of adverse health conditions, including:
High blood pressure, stroke, and heart disease
High cholesterol
Diabetes
Breast cancer
Dementia
One of the main reasons visceral fat is so deadly is because of its role in inflammation, a natural immune response that has lately been tied to almost every chronic disease there is. Visceral fat secretes precursors to an inflammatory chemical that helps fuel the systemic process that exacerbates early symptoms of disease.
In fact, according to a study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, visceral fat may have a greater impact on the cardiovascular health of older women than does overall obesity. Danish researchers found that women with excessive belly fat had a greater risk of atherosclerosis than those whose fat was stored mostly in their hips, thighs, and buttocks. Here’s why:
The proximity of visceral fat to your liver boosts production of LDL cholesterol (the ‘bad’ one), which collects in your arteries and forms plaque, a waxy substance.
Over time, this waxy plaque becomes inflamed, causing swelling that narrows the arteries, restricting the passage of blood.
The narrowing passageways increase blood pressure, straining your heart and potentially damaging tiny capillaries.
The inflammation further increases your risk of blood clots, which can break loose and cause stroke.
But it gets worse. Visceral fat also contributes to insulin resistance, an early precursor to diabetes. Insulin resistance is a condition in which cells do not respond to insulin and the pancreas is forced to increase production in order to clear the bloodstream of glucose. Over time, insulin resistance can lead to full-blown diabetes, which can severely comprise the entire circulatory system and cause long-term issues with vision, memory, and wound healing.
As if that weren’t enough, a Kaiser Permanente study comparing people with different levels of belly fat showed that those who had the most belly fat were 145 percent more likely to develop dementia compared with people with the least amount of belly fat. Why? Inflammation again, suggest investigators.
These science-based studies should be reason enough to motivate you to shed your belly fat forever. But even if you reduce calories and exercise regularly, you can still be left with too much hidden visceral fat. What is the answer? According to Prevention, the answer is eating the right kind of …fat. Studies have shown that MUFAs, are the key to shedding both subcutaneous and the deadly visceral fact. It is these five fats that create the corner stone of the Flat Belly Diet.
Testosterone Not Just a Male Hormone
Testosterone, which declines with age, is one of the key hormones. Testosterone is important for bone building and/or prevention of bone loss, libido (sex drive), energy levels, cognition, memory, and heart health. It is also beneficial in lipid (cholesterol) and blood sugar control. Recent research has shown that testosterone deficiencies are common in diabetics and men admitted to hospitals with “heart attacks”
The necessity of testosterone in men is fairly well known and it is generally considered a “male” hormone. This is clearly a myth. Testosterone is present in women also and equally as important in women for the functions listed above. Women also decline in testosterone as they age. It is particularly important in women (and men) for bone, heart, and sexual health.
In addition to the benefits I have already described testosterone is an anabolic hormone. Along with appropriate diet and exercise testosterone aids in the conversion of total body fat into lean muscle mass. The “spare tire” or mid- abdominal fat seen commonly in middle age is linked to declining hormone levels, particularly testosterone.
As with the other hormones testosterone is available for replacement in both synthetic and “natural” (bioidentical) forms. The synthetic forms carry a much greater risk of liver and or adrenal abnormalities, and potentially increased risk of certain cancers. Bioidentical testosterone has been used in men and women both here and in Europe for over 60 years with an excellent success rate and
limited side effects. As with any hormone, testosterone replacement should only be done under the direct supervision of a licensed, trained physician after appropriate diagnostic testing.
Alcohol Contributes to Belly Fat
Filed under: Miscellaneous, Nutrition, Women's Fitness, mens-fitness
By understanding what happens when you drink, you can make your own judgment calls as to whether or not alcohol should be included in your workout and muscle-building (dieting) plan. Yes, muscle building…Remember muscle speeds your metabolism!
Alcohol and growth hormones
One major issue with the consumption of alcohol has to do with its effects on the release of growth hormone. Growth hormone is the substance in the body that plays a very large role when it comes to building muscle, stimulating other cell growth and development, and promoting optimal bone growth. When this hormone is low, you aren’t going to get the same amount of muscle development as you would when it’s at an optimal level.
Growth hormone is predominately secreted during the early sleeping hours of the night and becausealcohol tends to disrupt the natural sleep rhythms that occur, it will decrease the amount of growth hormone released. This decrease can be up to as much as 70%, so it will really short-circuit the progress you are able to make.
Alcohol and recovery (Alcohol is a TOXIN to the body)
Another area that alcohol affects when it comes to muscle building is your ability to recover. Since alcoholis a toxin to the body, energy is going to have to be expended in order to remove it from the system and to recover from any negative effects it has had on the tissues.
Since this takes time and energy reserves, you won’t have as much energy in store to recover from your workouts, therefore you will not be as fresh when you return for your next gym session.
Alcohol and muscles don’t usually get along, so consume with care:)
Alcohol and dehydration
Dehydration is another issue you have to watch out for if you choose to drink alcohol while trying to build muscle and work out. Since alcohol acts as a diuretic in the body, unless you are sure to replace the extra fluid with water or another non-alcoholic beverage that doesn’t contain caffeine, your natural water balance will be disrupted.
Dehydration has a number of negative effects on the body, from inducing feelings of fatigue to causing low physical performance, making you feel hungrier (which is especially problematic while dieting), and disrupting the ability of the muscle cells to produce ATP — which is your primary source of muscular energy.
Alcohol and glycogen synthesis
Aside from ATP, the next source for muscular work is stored muscle glycogen. Unfortunately, though, when you consume alcoholic beverages, alcohol synthesis will take precedence over glycogen synthesis, resulting in decreased stores in the muscle cells.
When you go to do your next workout, your body will have less energy to run on, causing fatigue to set in early. (NOTE: this is the perfect setting for injury and another reason to avoid alcohol)
When your workouts are ended prematurely , you won’t derive as many benefits in terms of increases in strength since the necessary overloading stimulus (which is partly defined through volume of weights lifted) will not be increased.
Alcohol and aerobic ability
Even when it comes to aerobic activities, alcohol affects performance.
In this scenario, alcohol can cause an increase in blood pressure throughout the body and a corresponding increase in heart rate.
Since your heart will already be working at an increased rate during aerobic activities, the additional stress from the alcohol will only amplify the heart rate and make the exercise feel harder than it should.
I know what you are thinking…NO drinking alcohol is not good stress on the heart! So increasing your heart rate through drinking isn’t the same as hitting the treadmill.
Alcohol and body fat
Finally, the last issue surrounding alcohol consumption is that it contains calories, and these do add up quickly. At seven calories per gram, after three or four drinks, these calories would equal a good-sized meal. Unless you are going to cut down on food intake in order to make room for these calories (which is rare, as usually you’ll actually find yourself snacking on high-calorie items such as nuts, pizza, wings or nachos), fat gain will result.
So, next time you’re contemplating whether or not you should have that drink, keep these factors in mind. Definitely, alcohol and muscle building are not a good pair, as stated by all the above points!
Welcome to the New MyBodySite.com Blog
Filed under: Miscellaneous, Nutrition, Sports Training, Supplements
MyBodySite.com is committed to providing its members with cutting edge tools to help achieve and maintain fitness and health. We know that information is key to getting and staying in shape. That is why we are launching this new blog platform that will allow us to provide you with articles from experts across the spectrum of fitness and health.
Whether you need information about nutrition, weight loss, sports training, bodybuilding, supplements, workout routines or any topic in fitness and health, you’ll find it here are we grow our articles base to be the largest on the internet.
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John Cummings
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MyBodySite.com
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