Archives June 2013

Diet Tips That Rule over Fad Diets

Helpful diet tips you can use.

Looking around for a trendy new diet tip turns up a number of good ones. With those a number of bad fad diets that you’d probably rather stay away from popped up as well.

Here you’ll find four diet tips that turned up in our search along with some tips on how to identify what bad fad diets are as opposed to some good solid tips that you can actually use to lose weight with.

Good Diet Tip #1 – Healthy Bacteria for Healthy Digestion

Most people have negative connotations when they think of bacteria because of the harm they have been known to cause us. News channels feed off of the horror stories that deadly bacteria can cause. Not all bacteria are bad and some are even necessary.

There are good healthy bacteria strains that are important to help you digest and extract nutrients from your food. They help liberate the nutrients in your food in order to feed your body’s cells and crucial for excellent health.

While one bacteria strain may be taxing on your system another can be important to help make it work right. Your digestive system is reliant upon good bacteria to digest your food. The better your digestion the more nutrients from the food are made available to your body. In turn you’ll find that your elimination of waste is also better and your hunger is more satisfied due to the nutritional value you are receiving. This can help you to lose weight.

How to Get Healthy Bacteria Working for You

Taking digestive supplements is one of the simplest ways to get a good variety of digestive bacteria or enzymes into your digestive system. Another is through foods like raw fruits, vegetables and yogurt.

Supplements can offer a large variety of enzymes that help to digest a large variety of food types. Where one might break down dairy products well, another would break down proteins well. You want to look for guaranteed live viable cultures from a trustworthy company.

When you start taking digestive supplements there’s a good chance that you’ll start going to the bathroom like a healthy person should and may just find that pounds are dropping off your body by this alone. This is one of those diet tips that might sound a bit faddish but this is not the case. However, no digestive system can operate efficiently without receiving the necessary amount of fiber so add that in and this is one diet tip that should treat you right.

Fiber will help you feel fuller while it works to clean your digestive system. After a few weeks of ingesting enough fiber to work with your healthy bacteria, you should see the scale numbers start to slide on a downward trend. If you were to pick any one single diet tip, this one should be it but keep in mind that a combination of things will give you a better success rate.

Good Diet Tip #2 – The Nordic Diet

The Nordic Diet is a new diet researchers have come up with by studying the nutritional habits of the healthy people from Denmark, Sweden and Iceland and what they consume to stay fit and healthy.

Similar to the Mediterranean diet which has long been know to be healthy, the Nordic Diet is comprised of fish, healthy oils, berries, root vegetables and whole grains. Red meat and sugar are rarely consumed if ever. Studies have shown that for people who follow the Nordic Diet or the Mediterranean Diet, they have a noticeable reduction in both cholesterol and inflammation.

Some of the foods incorporated into the Nordic Diet may not be as plentiful in all areas as in the foods of the Mediterranean Diet. So, with either diet plan you really can’t go wrong and it’s not a problem if you have to interchange some of the food items from either diet. Finding the right combination that will work best for you is all that really matters because both of these diets are loaded with good healthy eats. A little mix and matching can have a good outcome.

Good Diet Tip #3 – The Gluten Free Diet

Gluten free eating has been getting a lot of attention lately and many people report big benefits when they take the step to kick gluten out of their lives. Guten is a protein found in wheat grain and it causes many problems from inflammation, food allergies and weight gain.

High gluten foods are also high in sugar which helps to fuel the weight gain. This is the primary reason people go gluten-free but what they find when on their gluten-free diet is that besides the weight loss benefits, many people begin feeling better over all and bothersome allergies begin to vanish.

Many people live with allergies that occur when they eat food with wheat in it and have no idea that the gluten in giving them problems. This is becoming common knowledge and manufacturers have started producing more and more foods that are gluten-free.

Look for foods without wheat and substitute foods with corn meal, oat flour and rice flour for gluten-free alternatives. By choosing these alternative food choices, you won’t be giving up the nutrients you need plus many people find that the weight melts off their body without a whole lot of other effort when they remove gluten from their lives.

Good Tip #4:  The Vegetarian Diet

Going all out vegetarian can be a challenge especially for those that like and eat meat regularly. Giving up meat and poultry entirely may not be something you would want to do but knowing that becoming a vegetarian can help you lose weight makes you want to do it anyway.

How about a compromise? If you’re not ready to go full blown meatless, how about starting to make some smaller improvements by going meatless just a day or two a week at first?

Adding in vegetarian meals only for a few days a week is doable and it will help you with weight loss and your health in general. You can get there by gradually adding in more vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains and less meat each time until you reach your goal.

As you progress, work toward limiting red meat intake to only one time per week. Eliminating red meat from your diet can have many positive benefits in terms of weight loss and the health of your entire body. While some people go totally vegan and eliminate all animal products completely, other people adjust to eating poultry and fish while partially or even completely eliminating red meat.

If you go vegan all the way, it’s important to get enough protein into your diet and this can be done with plant sourced food and whole food supplements. A protein shake or drink made up of rice protein, pea protein or chia protein is a great fit for someone wanting to avoid all types of animal products.

Besides the weight loss benefits that come with a vegetarian diet, the health benefits are numerous. When you start eating more vegetables and fruits, the more of the important antioxidants and other beneficial nutrients you get.

Most people notice an improvement in their health rather quickly when they embark upon a vegetarian diet. The same goes for the Healthy Bacteria Diet, Nordic Diet, Mediterranean Diet and the Gluten-Free Diet listed above.

It seems like every time you look up there’s a new diet program being touted as the next best thing since sliced bread. Just flip on the TV or hop on the internet and you’ll quickly find a new and promising diet designed to work just for you.

While there are lots of good healthy diet plans and tips offered, there are also some that can be downright harmful and unhealthy for you. But how can you tell the difference between good dieting advice and a crazy fad diet?

To spot diet fads, asking the questions below can help you determine if it’s a fad or genuinely good advice. It would be helpful to skim over the article Freaky Diet Fads That Attract Desperate Dieters to see some recent examples of fads and keep the questions below in mind when you’re looking at any diet plan.

Is it a Good Diet Tip or a Fad Diet – Which is it?

  • Does the diet promise weight loss results without any effort?
  • Does it promise to help you lose more than 2-3 pounds a week?
  • Does it ask you to eat inedible items?
  • Is eliminating or eating one single food required?
  • Is caloric intake restricted to fewer than 1200 calories a day?
  • Is a surgical or medical procedure recommended?
  • Is it backed by science, research and studies?
  • Does the diet want you eliminate all fats from your food?
  • Does it look and sound like it’s too good to be true?

Ask yourself the above questions when looking at a diet that’s appealing to you. Losing weight by taking a risk with your health is not worth it by any means. The questions above can help you determine if it’s a diet fad that you’re looking at or sensible diet tips that have value and hold promise.

When you want a healthy diet plan to follow and are unsure how to put the pieces together yourself, let MyFitnessNut.com give you a hand. The best diet tip yet is to follow a complete weight loss program like this one to the right which has been put together by reputable nutritionists that really know what they are doing.

Diet Fads That Attract Desperate Dieters

Crazy diet fads can harm your health.

Watch out because when people are desperate to drop fat and weight off fast there’s no telling what they might resort to but these diet fads below should be labeled “Don’t try this at home” diets.

Absurdly Silly Diet Fads People Really Do

From starvation diets, tongue patch diets, boredom diets to cotton balls are all on the list of freaky diet fads desperate people use to try to find an effective weight loss solution.

Some people will try anything when they are desperate to lose weight and I mean anything. Looking at some the diet fads circulating around the internet it’s almost laughable to think people really do this stuff to themselves.

Sadly, desperate times call for desperate measures which leads some people into making poorly thought out decisions. Some people will try just about anything as apparent by the following diet fads; diets that claim to help you lose weight without putting much effort into them.

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Diet Fads Rarely Deliver on Their Promises

With few exceptions most of these diet fads simply can’t deliver on what they promise to do and others can be downright harmful to your long term health. Below you’ll find some diet fads that are floating around the internet and at the top of the freaky diet fad list is…

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The Cotton Ball Diet – Freaky Diet Fad #1

Can you seriously believe this? What’s being said is that some already bony thin models thought of the bright idea to eat cotton balls dipped in a juice, such as orange juice. They do this instead of eating regular food and it’s supposed to help them feel full and avoid high calories in order keep thin.

What is supposed to happen here is that the cotton balls dipped in fruit juice will make you feel full while adding very few calories. The problem is one, this provides inadequate nutritional value and two, the cotton ball is supposed to slowly dissolve away but it doesn’t always work that way and can cause severe complications.

No, your cat’s hairball formula isn’t a good fix for cotton balls plugging your internal piping so check that one off crazy thought list. Visualize a skin and bones super-model thinking this might be a terrific way to lose those last two ounces then forget about it.

What goes through a persons mind here? This doesn’t seem right to do this to yourself because it should be obvious this is not a healthy eating habit. For some people nothing much matters in the name of skin, bones the idea that’s what it takes to look beautiful.

People need real food, real nutrition and yes real calories in order to enjoy good health and true beauty. It should be no surprise to learn that most if not all people who go to this extreme level of dieting are suffering from an eating disorder and may need some psychological help.

The Cotton Ball Diet is one of the most extreme diet fads we’ve uncovered here. From clogging up your intestines with foreign objects to not getting the nutritional intake to meet your basic needs, you’re putting your body and health in danger.

Never agree to a diet that asks you to eat objects that are inedible.

The Boredom Diet – Freaky Diet Fad #2

This one sounds exciting right? Who wouldn’t like to stick to a boring diet for the long term anyway? Seriously, the question should be “who would want to?” You know it’s not going to work just by the sound of it.

The bright idea behind the boredom diet is to make eating totally boring, lacking in both excitement and variety. It’s debatable whether it really works or not but the trick is that if you can make your food super boring then you won’t be as likely to overeat.

It makes sense that a nice variety of mouth watering foods would make you want to eat more than the same old boring thing meal after meal.

Because eating the same things all the time sucks for most people it is supposed to help you learn your hunger pang cues because when you don’t enjoy eating, you begin to do it only when your body needs to eat. You supposedly start eating only when you have to – not because it’s time to eat and you’re really looking forward to eating a great meal.

If the thought of eating only your favorite food sounds good, you might want to think that thought over again. Eating one type of food only for extended periods of time is not at all good for you because your body needs a wide variety of nutrients that for the most part can only be obtained by consuming a wide variety of foods.

When your boredom diet eating patterns kick in and get really boring you are naturally going to crave other nutrients. The only way to get what you’re missing is to put an end to your boredom diet and start eating some variety each day. Your body will steer you in that direction, cravings will take over and you will be compelled to eat other types of food so that your body can satisfy its nutritional deficiencies.

The boredom diet is a diet destined to fail from the start. I mean who in the world would want to eat the same exact thing all of the time anyway?

Feast 5 Starve 2 – Freaky Diet Fad #3

Yet another diet fad destined to fail before we can even get out of the gate. Imagine a diet where you can eat whatever you want to eat for five full days. Sounds like and easy-to-do diet until you hear what you have to do the next two days. Starve.

Two days each week you must keep your calorie count below 600 so you’re not totally starving for two full days but close enough that your body starts shedding weight. The irritation, fatigue and anxiety you go through can be extreme and generally speaking, you’re not going to feel so great going through these two days. If you make it, you will positively not want to do it again and you’ll probably feast and gain all the weight back quickly.

It’s hard to say what this will do to your body’s health over the long run but normally when you yo-yo like this, each cycle makes it harder and harder to lose weight and keep it off. Besides, how long could you last starving yourself so severely for two days every week?

Mind Blowing Tongue Patch Diet – Freaky Diet Fad #4

Just when I thought that I’d had enough of these freaky fad diets, this little oddity reveals itself – the tongue patch diet. Can you believe it?

This latest fad in dieting is done by a cosmetic surgeon. Crazy as it is, a surgeon actually sews a rough patch to your tongue designed to create discomfort. Read that again… designed to create discomfort. This patch is designed to cause pain when eating solid food.

To avoid the pain you get by chewing solid food you are supposed to choose liquids instead of solids which can help you lose weight. Nuttier than the cotton ball diet, the tongue patch has reported issues such as uncontrollable drooling, speech difficulties and pain.

People will pay thousands of dollars for a tongue patch that has a strong risk of infection, causes discomfort, could come lose and choke you, will fuse to your tongue if not removed and surgical reapplied in thirty days if you chose to keep it.

The tongue patch diet is all around a bad idea. Eating should be pleasurable if you are going to stick to any diet plan. Besides, you are not going to be happy and survive very well drinking a pure liquid diet every single day.

Replace These Bad Idea Diet Fads with Good Idea Diet Tips

There you have a few modern day fad diets that you probably want to stay away from. For valid weight loss tips that can really help you, see Good Diet Tips That Rule over Fad Diets and learn how to spot bad diet fads and what dieting tips will help you make healthier dieting choices.

 

Weight Loss Solution

A successful weight loss solution.

If you’re sick and tired of weight loss programs that are ineffective while doing nothing more than wasting your time and money while failing to deliver, then you need to watch this short video below and follow along with the proven weight loss solution it provides you. – Frank and Anna

Here you will find a complete weight loss solution.

How’s that for a scientifically proven weight loss solution for melting away those unwanted pounds without turning your life upside down? Such a nice simple solution for losing weight and you don’t even have to think about it much because everything is so well planned for you.

Certainly you already know that you don’t have to look very far to find hundreds of programs advertised as “weight loss solutions”. The problem is that you’ll spend much valuable time and money yo-yoing and even failing completely just to find the one weight loss solution that will work for you.

Choose a Weight Loss Solution that is Proven and Effective

When you’re ready to start a weight loss program or make an investment in weight loss supplements you want to be sure that what you are buying is effective and not some gimmicky fad diet or false promises in an eye-catching advertisement.

The waste of good money is one thing but more importantly the waste of time and what it does to your mentality when you fail. Even when you know that it’s the fault of a poorly designed weight loss plan, it still takes a mental toll on you when you fail.

So, if you really want a solution to losing weight, one that will help you lose then maintain your weight in simple doable steps; watch, then follow the video above then follow along with where it guides you.

This Weight Loss Solution is the ‘Real Deal’

Very seldom will My Fitness Nut’s Frank or Anna make a personal recommendation let alone both at the same time. We’re usually about researching, testing when necessary, reviewing and then providing additional resources to help you make the best decisions for what you want to accomplish.

This is one of those rare occasions where we both agree that this is a weight loss plan that will work well for most people who follow it. We’ve seen people use this program to get rid of belly fat that numbers of sit ups could never dissolve. We’ve seen people who’ve tried dieting for years, finally become happy with the direction they are going within a few short weeks of starting it.

Waste No More Time Looking for a Weight Loss Solution

It feels good to be able to drop weight quickly in the beginning so that you can see fast results while continuing to see fat melting off week after week moving you closer to your ultimate weight loss goal. It not only feels good, it looks fantastic too.

Don’t waste anymore time, money or senseless frustrations with fad and gimmick diets. Watch the weight loss solution video to the right and follow along with the free trial because we already know that you’ll be so happy you did.

How to Burn Fat

Effective weight loss tips on how to burn fat.

Introduction to Effective Weight Loss

This article will give you some tips on how to burn fat and effective weight loss techniques to not only help you shed the pounds but keep them off. We hope that you enjoy reading the various sections and that you’ll find these weight loss tips helpful and informative.

In the first chapter you’ll find out why it is important to lose excess weight and to maintain your ideal weight. Being overweight can lead to various health problems; you’ll soon discover what some of these health risks are.

The different ways you can lose weight will also be revealed to you as well as how to keep from regaining the weight you have successfully shed. The importance of sticking to a realistic diet and exercise program that you can do will also be covered below.

Many diets fail and you’ll read some of the reasons behind that as well as the side effects of quitting or failing a diet attempt. You’ll learn how to choose a diet that will not fail you and some tips to help you stay committed to your diet program once you begin it.

So move forward and read on about how to burn fat for effective weight loss and start your journey towards a slimmer, fitter and healthier you…

Raw Food Diet Plan

Follow this simple to start raw food diet plan.

Developing Your Raw Food Diet Plan

Before getting started on your new eating adventure you’ll want to have your raw food diet plan in place and ready to be followed. If you don’t normally eat a lot of raw foods already, gradually switching raw for cooked foods over a few weeks or more may be necessary for your plan to work out.

And that’s exactly what I’m going to try to help you do here…

Small changes can add up to big changes and changing everything all at once can be tough to do. So, begin by understanding your current food habits by asking your self “What raw foods do I already consume” and make a list. This is the first step in creating your raw food diet plan.

Once you have the list for your raw food diet plan the next step is to analyze what raw foods already in your life and the quality of them. Can they stay or do you need to replace them too?

Here’s an Exercise for Developing Your Raw Food Diet Plan:

Let’s say that you wrote down that you already ate salad. That’s good right? Not so fast – depending on where your salad comes from and how it’s made, it could be downright bad for you. From food borne illness bugs like e-coli and salmonella to pesticides and preservatives lettuce and complete salads alike can be good or bad for you.

So, how do you know what’s good or bad? The fact is that if you did not personally grow, harvest and prepare your own salads you can truly never know for sure. Another fact is that few people are going to do that so you have to a find a balance of a little bit of education and trust.

Commercially prepared and package lettuce and salads are not going to cut the muster. Neither are fast food restaurant salads. So, back to your list for your raw food diet plan; you’ll need to cross off all salads that are not made by you or someone you highly trust to serve clean healthy food.

Do this with all raw foods already on your list. It will reveal what habits you already have to assist you in making the switch to your raw food diet. The key is to continue with what you already like while you start to turn non-raw food versions into more preferable raw versions.

Changing Over From Cooked to Raw Food

Let’s say that you love and eat salsa regularly but you always buy it in a jar. To fit into your raw food diet plan you can easily make drop-dead delicious salsa fresh at home with very little fuss.

You can still have it – just scratch the salsa in a jar from your list and add in your easy to make and fresh raw food salsa. After a few times of making it you’ll never want to go back to that disgusting jar stuff ever again. Fresh made salsa is awesome.

Plan your switch to a raw food diet carefully and start changing your foods out gradually over time. Start with replacing just one meal a day or declare one day a week as a nothing but a raw food day. This will help make implementing your raw food diet plan a successful one.

Shopping For Your New Raw Food Diet Plan

As you begin switching out the foods you eat from cooked to raw, you will want to pay close attention to your shopping habits. But just because you’re changing over to raw, it doesn’t mean you have to find all new places to buy your food. You just have to start changing one or more of the items you buy.

Many stores today carry lots of organic fruit and vegetable choices now and as popularity has been growing, the prices are coming down to reasonable levels. Organic used to be very pricy when you could find it but today many farmers are helping to fill the gap by making organic produce more widely available.

One of the best ways to buy, and frequently at a lower price, is at a local farmer’s market. Here you’ll be able to find some of the freshest locally grown food and support local farmers as well as local small local business owners. Some areas have weekend only farmer’s markets and others are open every day of the week.

Another great way to eat super fresh and save a little money at the same time is by visiting a “pick your own farm”. These are great places to take kids along to teach them the value of harvesting your own food. The farmer gives you a basket; you pick the food from their field and pay a small price in comparison to a grocery store for the basket you just filled up.

Pick your own farms are a great money saver, they’re educational, good for a little exercise and can be lots of fun for the whole family. And so can your own personal backyard or sun porch garden to replace a portion of your grocery store list.

Don’t forget about shopping online either. You can find deals and a wide variety of raw whole food items by shopping on the internet – just be sure you do your research and do business with a reputable companies and brands.

Kitchen Technology for Your Raw Food Diet Plan

If you want to go on a raw food diet but can’t see yourself eating certain items cold and completely raw you can do add a little bit of heating to your plan. No cooking allowed but a quick blanch can change things up for you in a good way.

Take broccoli for instance. If you despise having to eat it cold, boil some water, drop the broccoli in, give it a stir and say out loud “this is going to be great” and quickly remove from the water. Season it with a dribble of olive oil, black pepper with a tinge of sea salt or lemon juice for a surprisingly good taste and texture.

That’s a raw food recipe that can work with a number of vegetables to spruce up the flavor and texture while taking the “boring” out of it.

Other than those typical kitchen items a juicer is a nice addition to your raw food diet plan. You’ll want a good quality juicer that extracts the most amount of juice possible out of the produce you put into it and it must be easy to clean. If it’s a pain to clean then you’ll likely use it less often.

When using a juicer with fruit you’ll want to pay attention to calories as the juice contains a concentration of sugars. An apple may only be 90 calories but when you juice four of them for some fresh apple juice they can add up quickly.

Don’t through all those valuable fiber leftovers from the juicer away either. And that brings us to the next piece of raw food diet kitchen technology – namely, the food dehydrator.

What you do is take the leftovers from the juicer; in this case it’s apple, mix in a little ground cinnamon with a tiny bit of stevia for a sweetener mixed in. Next, flatten it out, dehydrate it and break up into smaller pieces that are not only delicious but really good for you too.

Dehydrators are great for all kinds of uses. You can turn a seasonal trip of farmer’s market great buys into a years worth of dehydrated apple slices. From apple wafers or slices to homemade fruit roll-ups, a food dehydrator is a valuable piece of kitchen technology for the raw food enthusiast.

To wrap up our kitchen technology here, a blender or food processor for making smoothies, meal replacement shakes, salsas, slaws and other raw food recipes gives you a large variety of choices when preparing your meals.

Make Your Raw Food Diet Plan a Reality

Going on a raw food diet is a lifestyle change that everyone chooses for different reasons. And in these days of an over processed food supply, raw whole food is something your body can identify with in a historical and intimate way.

Whatever your reason for going raw; better health, more energy, weight loss, mental clarity and focus, you can do it by creating small steps in your raw food diet plan. Just take it slow at first and do small manageable steps that you can deal with one step at a time.

Focus on one raw food item or meal at a time and before you know it, your raw food diet plan will be complete. So go back to “The Pathway to a Raw Food Diet” to read it again if you need to, then start writing down your own plan and take your first step to a healthier life.

 

Pathway to a Raw Food Diet

Your raw food diet pathway for changing out cooked for raw foods.

Most people, men and women alike have heard about all of the great benefits of the raw food diet, but many people are still not sure to exactly what it is and how they personally benefit from eating raw foods.

When you are first considering getting into eating a raw food diet, you’re probably at a point in your life where you’re feeling a little sluggish or that something in your body is feeling “off.” The fact is that we’re tired, overweight, burnt out and feeling stressed.

A key problem here is that we aren’t getting the proper nutrition and by you looking at a raw food diet now is your body telling you it is lacking important nutrients that it desperately needs.

A raw food diet doesn’t mean you have to go all out vegetarian either. Many raw food eaters will even go as far as eating raw meats and dairy products but this can be a bit risky so we’re just going to stick to the safer fruits and vegetables here.

Great Benefits Obtained on a Raw Food Diet

When you go grocery shopping you might have all of the right intentions in the world of buying good and healthy vegetables and fruits, thinking you’re getting a decent variety of the right vitamins and minerals your body needs. Then you bring your bounty home and destroy those beneficial nutrients by cooking them to death.

The way you prepare your foods can actually destroy most of those valuable nutritional benefits that you so proudly loaded into your grocery cart and brought home. Vitamins like Vitamin C, important for boosting your immune system and Vitamin B which provides you with energy, are drastically reduced by heating and cooking your food. If you must cook them a quick blanch is recommended for the best nutrient preservation.

Losing Weight on a Raw Food Diet

Raw food diets can help you lose weight too. Fruits and vegetables in general are very filling but even better at satisfying our hunger when eaten in their raw state as opposed to cooking them.

Within reason, you can have an unlimited amount raw fruits and vegetables that are full of fiber and provide you with a positive catalyst for losing weight. And all that fiber and the naturally occurring digestive enzymes make a great colon cleanser which in its own is a strong helping hand in maintaining a good healthy weight.

Gaining Energy with a Raw Food Diet

Another benefit of eating a raw food diet is energy gain. Most raw food lovers will choose a wide variety of foods to implement into their diet. The best thing that you can do is to try to incorporate every color of the rainbow that you can to maximize your exposure to vitamins, minerals and phyto-nutrients.

Typically, the larger variety of colors you choose, the larger the number of fatigue-fighting nutrients that are available to your body.

Slowing down aging is another perk to eating your food in the raw. Anytime we alter our foods by cooking, even cutting, their natural benefits begin breaking down. You simply can not get any better food than picking it raw off of the plant and immediately eating it. Once picked from the plant the breakdown of nutrients begins. So the fresher picked and the faster eaten once cut up or juiced the better off you are.

One common benefit that people come to realize is all those antioxidants and anti aging rewards you get when consuming raw food. You can actually see these benefits occur in health of your skin. Shortly after you begin your raw food diet you’ll likely start to notice improvements to your skin and you can trust that similar benefits are happening inside your body as well.

Dangers of Pursuing a Raw Food Diet

A true “hard-core” raw food diet isn’t only about vegetarian diet with fruits and vegetables, nuts and grains. It also involves the eating of uncooked meat, fish, unpasteurized milk (and other dairy products), and raw eggs.

With proper food handling, this is usually not a problem for most people, but for people who have medical issues, pregnant or a weak immune system, a raw food diet may do you more harm than it does you good.

If you have any medical issues it’s a great idea to your medical go-to professional and ask them if a 100% raw food diet would help or be bad you. The last thing you want is to pursue the health benefits from a raw food diet and end up making a pre-existing condition worse.

There are also certain things you’ll need to keep in mind when eating raw foods. For example most people don’t know that the eyes and green patches on the skin of a potato hold toxins and need to be discarded. And that all fruits and veggies need to be washed well before consumption.

Tips for Scrubbing Your Raw Food Clean

Fill a 32 oz spray bottle with white distilled vinegar and dissolve ¼ cup of regular table salt to create a chemical and pesticide stripping solution that also does a wonderful job of killing many harmful microbes. Simply wash your veggies and fruits with clean water – spray the vinegar/salt solution on the produce using your hand to do a “soft scrub” – then re-rinse with clean water. This does a better job for less cost than many store bought solutions.

You’re after an improvement to your health and energy level and the last thing you want is some nasty bug or chemical residue to send you down the wrong road. Obtaining fresh ingredients from a reliable source is very important for your produce but even more so if you’re going on a full blown raw food diet.

Raw Food Diet Food Sources

There’s nothing quite like raw food that’s pulled right out of your own organic garden and eaten instantly after being washed. Next in line is organic produce grown by others locally followed by trucked-in organic produce.

Further down your list of choices is raw food that’s been grown by others using pesticides, irradiated killing good and bad microbes, or had chemical preservatives and shellacs added to them so they stay fresh and looking pretty on the grocery store shelf. These need to be cleaned thoroughly before consuming using your vinegar/salt solution above.

There’s no doubt about it that the absolute best way to ensure you’re eating the healthiest raw foods possible is to grow and harvest your own product, raise and butcher your own meat and gather your own milk and dairy items.

The thing is though, not everyone’s able to do that. Most of us are too busy earning a living and need to rely on others to grow and raise the food we eat. In this case the best thing is to find a local farmer’s market where the food is generally raised in the local area.

You just need to be a smart about the food you buy and insist on freshness and quality as much as you possibly can. Fresh is better than frozen but frozen is better than canned, steamed, smoked, pasteurized or processed foods because they all fall out of the raw food arena. So, be sure to buy accordingly and read “Starting Right on a Raw Food Diet Plan” before you begin.

 

Best Supplements for Building Muscle

The best supplements for building muscle.

Supplements for Building Muscle

The best supplements for building muscle will vary depending on what you want to accomplish and at what point you are starting from. One thing is for certain though and a starting point for anyone that works out and wants to build muscle needs to include a source of protein in their muscle building plans.

For the hard core fitness nuts, you’ll want lots of quality and digestible protein. You probably knew that already but the key phrase for you here is “quality and digestible protein”.

Protein Tops the List of Best Supplements for Building Muscle

So, the best supplement for building muscle has to start with a well made protein shake. The right protein shakes are a great way to load up on easy to digest protein without having to consume large amounts of unwanted and unhealthy fats. Many weight lifters and fitness trainers recommend the use of protein shakes with other supplements to assist in building muscle.

When you are searching for the very best supplements for building your muscles you’ll want to pay close attention to the ingredients and reputation of the manufacturer. Many supplements for building muscles feature different ingredient combinations and all manufacturers will give you all of the right reasons as to why theirs is the best.

Names Associated With the “Best Supplements for Building Muscle”:

  • Protein
  • Glutamine
  • Nitric Oxide

If you’ve been involved with muscle building for any length of time you’ve probably heard of most if not all of those names above. A few are even questionable when considering safety and ethics. Whatever type of supplement you are considering, you’ll need to look at the different types of ingredients, delivery systems and effectiveness for what you want to accomplish.

For example and at the top of our list for good reason is protein. Protein comes in so many forms and it’s important to understand that each will digest differently and you’ll need to time its consumption as a part of your muscle building routine. Egg, Whey, Casein, Soy, Pea, Chia, Hemp, Rice and the list goes on and they all digest differently.

For most people when choosing the best supplement for building muscle will gravitate towards using whey with vegans being the exception. Whey can be digested by your body in about thirty minutes and that’s important for the muscle builder after a workout.

However, the best protein supplement for building muscle is a combination of different types of protein that all digest at different rates creating a time-released protein feed delivered to your muscles. When you look at egg protein, digestion runs into 1 – 3 hours and with Casein it’s 2 – 7 hours. See what I mean? 

Putting it all together in the right amounts of what’s best, how much to take and when to take it can be a challenge for many people. For most of us, our best option is to pick up a quality protein supplement that is already scientifically formulated to provide what we need to achieve our goals.

The Next Best Supplements for Building Muscle

After settling in with the best protein supplement for what you want to do (e.g. spending half an hour working out vs. climbing Mount Kilimanjaro) Glutamine and Nitric Oxide are next at the top of our list.

There are many of these types of products on the market and both Glutamine and Nitric Oxide are used in special formulations to assist us with increased energy, stamina and recovery. When choosing these type products, stick with a company that has a good reputation and adheres to quality manufacturing processes. Then pay attention to the directions for best results.

You can find more articles like this on a variety of fitness topics at http://MyFitnessNut.com and if you would like to know what we think are the best supplements for building muscle simply send us and email at http://myfitnessnut.com/contact-us/ and ask Frank or Anna.