Is Diet Soda Bad For You

July 3rd, 2009

If you recently made the switch between drinking regular sodas to drinking diet sodas, kudos to you. You should be proud because you’ve taken a major step to stop weight gain and help yourself lose weight.

But before you begin feeling too good about yourself, you should know that while you’ve taken a great step in the right direction, it is only a partial step. Drinking diet soda is better than regular sodas, but it is still not the healthiest beverage choice you can make.

Most of us focus on the food we eat to determine how many calories we consume. What we don’t know is that a lot of us drink a great part of our calories. A lot of us drink unhealthy beverages and we can easily cut hundreds of calories each day just by switching to healthier choices. Yes, you heard me right: hundreds of calories each and every day.

Is diet soda bad for you? The Answer is Yes.

There are a number of reasons:

1. Diet soda can lead to weight gain - even though diet drinks contain less calories than the original beverage, doesn’t mean that they can’t induce weight gain. Diet drinks may still be rich in calories. In addition, there’s nothing like sweetened drinks to help you develop that awful sweet tooth which will make you eat a lot of sweet and fattening foods as well.

2. It’s bad for your teeth - Even though these drinks contain far less sugar and are mostly made up of artificial sweeteners, they’re still highly acidic and may contribute to teeth erosion.

3. Drinking unhealthy drinks often makes you crave to snack something in the process. I’m not sure why that is, but people who drink bad stuff tend to munch bad stuff as well, adding even more calories to their body.

4. Drinking diet sodas means that you’re drinking less healthy beverages like water, green tea, or natural juices. These are drinks that can do you good and you’re missing out on them.

5. Aspartame, which is the sweetener which is often used to flavor diet sodas has been linked in some research to tumors in animals. It is currently deemed safe by the FDA, but there are numerous side effects concerning this chemical which should worry anyone who drinks diet sodas.

Remember, drinking can harm your diets even more than eating, because drinking doesn’t really make you any less hungry.

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Can You Out Train a Bad Diet?

July 1st, 2009

Weight loss is very simple really: your burn calories by being active (Even sitting on the couch burns calories) and you gain calories when you’re eating food. If you burn more than you consume, you will lose weight.

This is very simplistic, of course, because you can change how you burn calories by boosting your metabolism and you can decrease the calories that you consume and determine which type you consume more of, by eating a more healthy diet.

When you look at it like that, it seems that as long as you workout enough, you can eat whatever you want.

This isn’t really the case. While it’s true that professional athletes and people who workout for long hours can consume more calories than the rest of us, you can’t out train a bad diet. Eventually, the bad food will catch up with you.

For one thing, if you’re eating a lot because you’re working out a lot as well, consider what will happen if you ever stopped working out as much due to an injury or lack of time. You will gain weight very quickly.

In addition, a bad diet isn’t just about the calories you eat but also about the type of food that you consume. If a food has too many chemicals and preservatives than it isn’t healthy for you even if you don’t gain a single pound by eating it. It’s just not good for you.

A good diet is rich with foods that have the nutrients we need to lead a healthy life for many years. Not just to shed fat.

The problem is that most of us don’t really know which are the foods that are good for us, contain the nutrients we need, and can help us to boost metabolism and shed fat.

We can’t be expected to read every label on every product and do our own research. Who has the time?

I will try to provide as many helpful guidelines as I can on this blog and through my newsletter (which you can sign up to for free at the top-right corner of this page) but if you need something to get you on the right track, I found a place where you can get super high quality meal plans for men and for women:

Meal Plans Done For You

These meal plans are well crafted, tasty, sensible, and you have different plans for different fitness goals like weight loss, muscle toning, and so on, so all you need to do if follow these plans and you know you’ve got the nutrition side of your healthy lifestyle covered.

All the food in these plans is affordable and easy to make so it shouldn’t be a problem to follow these plans:

Meal Plans Done For You

This is an easy, done for you way, to eat right. Remember, you can’t out train a bad diet. Get the right diet and you will see results.

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Ab Coaster Review - Does the Ab Coaster Work

June 30th, 2009

I tend to follow infomercials for fitness equipment because I love seeing the difference between the rosy picture on the infomercial and the real results people get.

As you may recall, I’ve written a previous post about the Ab Circle Pro which is one machine which sells like crazy but which many people are disappointed with.

Today I want to talk about the Ab Coaster which is a much bigger and sturdier machine than what is mostly sold on TV. This is a machine which many gyms also have which is always an interesting thing.

Anyway, the Ab Coaster works the abs from the bottom up as it simulates the hanging leg raise exercise. You can do this exercise at any gym or anywhere you can find a parallel bar to hang from. However, this exercise puts the arms and upper body under such tremendous strain that most people can hardly do a single repetition, not to mention a complete set.

Working the abs from the bottom up can actually be more effective than crunches or other exercises. This made the Ab Coaster very interesting.

I decided to do a little digging online to see what people thought about this machine.

It seems like this machine is of a different level of quality than most of the things which are sold on TV. First of all, it’s sturdy and well built so it rarely breaks. Second, it does provide a good workout. Third, it’s comfortable to use.

Those were the good things. The less than good things were: 1. The price if high, around $400. 2. It’s big and bulky and will take up room in your home.

All in all, the Ab Coaster seems like a good machine to workout with. However, I believe that the infomercial does paint a much rosier picture than what real life results will look like. You can’t get flat abs by doing stomach exercises alone. It doesn’t work that way.

You will still need to do full body workout and cardio to get flat abs which is why I doubt that the Ab Coaster will replace your gym. I believe it’s not a complete solution.

At $400 this is a big decision. Take the time and choose wisely.

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I don’t feel Like Going To the Gym Today

June 29th, 2009

image of dumbbells I know the feeling, there are days on which you just don’t want to go to the gym. I can relate. Whether you’ve had  a bad night sleep, a hard day at work, lost your mood due to some fight with your spouse, whatever. Not feeling like going to the gym is a natural thing and it happens to me, often.

Every once in a while, it’s okay to succumb to this feeling and skip a day. Rest, do some household chores or errands, spend time with your kids, whatever it is you feel like. This little respite may make you crave going to the gym a lot more than you used to before.

Every so often it’s okay to take a week or 2 off as well. You’re allowing the body to rest and that’s perfectly healthy. However, you need to be watchful that this doesn’t turn into a habit.

If you decide not to go to the gym, you need to make a personal decision when is the next time you’ll go. When that date and time comes, there are no excuses. You have to go. This is the sort of discipline you have to maintain in order to make sure you don’t fall out of the habit of working out, and this is something which can happen to any of us.

Another idea for you is to not skip the gym entirely but do a short workout. Even doing 20 minutes on the treadmill is better than being totally inactive. Furthermore, the act of going to the gym has its own importance regardless of how hard you workout. It keeps you in the habit and this is vitally important in its own right.

A third idea is to skip the gym but not your workout. While the gym does have its advantages, you can do a workout at home. Doing squats, lunges, push-ups, crunches, leg lifts, lumberjacks, and so on doesn’t require equipment and can still get the heart pumping. Therefore, if you want to watch TV tonight, go ahead, but don’t just sit on the couch and do nothing. Actually move yourself and be active.

I hope this helps you overcome this workout mood problem. Have a great workout.

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Sex and Weight Loss - Is There Really a Sex Diet

June 25th, 2009

Okay, I apologize in advance if you don’t like the topic but I can assure you that this post is not raunchy or sleezy at all. However, it is about sex.

It’s not about technique or dirty pictures, or anything of that nature. It is simply about how having sex can lead to weight loss.

Yes, it’s true. While we mostly focus on doing cardio and lifting weights, lovemaking is a great and fun physical activity that can help you burn calories and get thin.

You may be surprised at how many calories are burned during sex. If you make love 3 times a week, you can burn 7,500 calories in a year which is what you would burn if you jogged 75 miles. This isn’t a typo. 75 miles.

Sex has many health benefits besides being a calorie burning activity:

1. It’s fun which is always good for your health.

2. It helps reduce stress which is known as a major weight gain culprit. Stress can also increase the risk of heart diseases, ulcers, and other illnesses.

3. It helps you get a good night sleep which has a lot to do with the fact that it reduces stress. Sleeping well has long been connected to weight gain. Studies show that people who sleep better tend to lose weight more easily.

4. It helps strengthen your muscles and bones. More muscle tone equals a faster metabolism rate and also helps you look better.

5. Sex helps to improve your cardiovascular fitness levels which is always a great thing.

All in all, just by making love with the person you love you get to not only lose weight but to also improve your health and burn some calories in the process.

Of course, sex can’t be your sole activity. You do need to spend some time doing regular exercise and to make sure to follow a healthy eating plan. Other than that, have fun, make love, and lose weight.

For more fat burning tips, visit How to Lose Stomach Fat

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