Dieting: Top 5 healthy drinks
Flat Belly Drink: Watermelon Smoothie
As long as they’re made without sugary mixers like sherbet, smoothies are a guilt-free way to hydrate—and watermelon is a terrific, low-cal smoothie base. Not only is it a natural hydrator because of its water content, watermelon is also loaded with nutrients, including cancer-fighting lycopene, as well as an amino acid known as arginine. A study in the Journal of Nutrition found that arginine can decrease body fat and increase lean muscle mass, so whip up this 56-calorie metabolism booster and sip away!
Flat Belly Drink: Iced Peppermint Tea
This minty thirst quencher is super refreshing on a hot summer day, but it’s also a super-effective belly flattener. Peppermint helps your stomach process fat, ensuring even high-fat foods like burgers and steaks are digested quickly, which helps prevent bloat.
Flat Belly Drink: Pineapple Frappe
This blended pineapple drink tastes like a beach vacation in a glass—and it packs in two belly-flattening ingredients. A tablespoon of flaxseed oil adds monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), proven belly flatteners, and pineapple itself contains bromelain, an enzyme that helps break down protein, ease digestion, and banish bloat.
Flat Belly Drink: Green Tea
Besides reducing your risk of cancer and heart disease, green tea benefits the whole body and contains catechins, antioxidants that studies show can help reduce belly fat. If you sip green tea before a workout, these compounds can also increase your fat burn during aerobic exercise.
Flat Belly Drink: Dark Chocolate Shake
Really? Yes, really. Chocolate — especially the dark kind — helps you slim you down because it decreases appetite and lessens food cravings overall. However, at nearly 400 calories, this shake is more of a meal than a snack. Try it for a quick breakfast to keep your appetite tamed for hours.
Coffee: Bad Reputation, Good Health
Coffee has long had a special place in my heart. Although I am not too fond of American brewed coffee — it’s too weak, in my opinion — even that is a variety I am learning to like.
Nothing beats the smell of a freshly pulled shot of espresso. It livens the senses in every way. The rich inviting aroma wakes you up instantly and the taste embraces you like a warm hug.
The reputation of this popular drink is not always a positive one. Blamed for yellowing of teeth and a wide array of health issues, many do not know of the health benefits associated with drinking coffee.
Studies have shown that coffee is filled with large amounts of antioxidants and may actually lower your risk of cancer.
In a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, CBS News reported that the “study found that, among the 20,000 women who participated, those who drank more than two-and-a-half cups of coffee daily were less likely to develop uterine, or endometrial, cancercompared to women who did not drink coffee at all.”
Chest and Back Workout Video
Why eating bugs is good for your health and the environment
What would it taste like to eat a cricket? That’s what I wondered recently while watching a mother bird feed its fat, hungry babies. As it happens, Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo has an insect chef serving crickets on the weekends this summer, so I had the chance to find out!
While at Brookfield’s Xtreme Bugs exhibit, I tasted crickets prepared two ways: toasted with Cajun spices (tastes like crunchy sunflower seeds) and in sweet banana-cricket pancakes. No legs and no antennae tickled my tongue – just crunchiness. I could not bring myself to eat the mealy bug larvae cookies. But talking with the chef who prepared the bug delicacies gave me confidence, as she is also a trained entomologist (insect scientist). With her expertise, I knew she would only serve up safe and tasty bug food to a wary public.
Raising animals, especially cattle, to fulfill the human demand for meat, is costly both financially and environmentally (as explained further in our latest EcoMyths article). According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface” and are a major source of deforestation around the world. The livestock sector also produces significant levels of greenhouse gases, mostly from manure, including 65 percent of human-produced nitrous oxide, a much more damaging greenhouse gas than even CO2. So, could eating bugs replace some of our craving for meat? We think so.
4 Ways To Turn Your Walk Into A Workout
A daily walk is a great way to maintain good health. These variations on your stroll can make the exercise even better.
We typically look to measurements like weight, cholesterol level and blood pressure when we evaluate our health. But we may want to add another statistic to the list: Our number of daily steps. Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop recommends a minimum of 10,000 steps a day — that’s about five miles — to maintain good fitness. And yet a 2010 study from the Department of Kinesiology, Recreation and Sport Studies at the University of Tennessee found that the average American takes only about half that many — 5,117 a day.
The benefits of stepping up are clear. Research has shown that regular walking:
- Helps to lower your “bad” (LDL) cholesterol level, reducing your risk of heart attacks and stroke.
- Reduces your blood pressure and your risk of arthritis, diabetes and colon cancer.
- Strengthens your immune system.
- Gives you more energy, and helps you sleep better.
- Improves your strength, flexibility and aerobic conditioning.
- Reduces stress and lifts your mood.
- Improves cognitive function.
Dance your way to fitness with Zumba
People of different age groups take to the zumba, a Latin American dance form, not just for recreation, but also to give them that effective workout.
Dance was long seen as the best way to relax after a hard working week, with city ladies and men letting their hair down over the weekend in discotheques and clubs, grooving to the latest tunes and letting their down. With fitnessemerging as a major factor for both men andwomen of the current generation, dances with well orchestrated moves are emerging as a key way to get back into shape for people of different age groups, and dance academies in the city are beginning to tap that requirement. While freestyle dances, salsa, ballet, hip-hop and other Latin American dances have been popular for decades, newer dance forms are also beginning to emerge as an intensive workout, not just for teenagers, but young professionals, homemakers and people from every walk of life.
Zumba is the latest Latin American dance form, combining the deft moves of salsa, merengue, cumbia, reggae and even a little bit of belly dancing to allow you to burn several calories in just an hour’s time.
Long considered a hobby for people in the city, dance has taken on a whole new dimension in the recent past for those on the lookout for a milder form of exercise than the hardcore workout in the gym. “I have been running a dance academy in the city for two decades now, and there has been a steady increase in teenagers, young professionals and even homemakers joining my dance classes with the sole objective of keeping themselves fit. I have recently been certified as the only Zumba instructor in the city, and this new dance form has caught on rather rapidly, as many people are on the lookout for a milder form of exercise than a strenuous workout in the gym,” says R Edwin, who runs an eminent dance academy in RS Puram.
Healthy Eating: 6 deceiving ‘health’ foods
Many foods are advertised as being low in calories and fat, and they certainly taste like they are healthy too; but are they really good for you? There are countless foods and beverages found on grocery store shelves or served in restaurants that have an aura of being healthy, low fat and low in calories, but unfortunately they are sadly not. These foods easily deceive us, and make us believe that we are consuming fewer calories than we thought, when in fact they are loaded with unsaturated fats, sugar, and other calorie-laden ingredients.
So as the summer gets underway, and more of us are hitting the beach or the pool, here are six unexpected foods that could easily be causing you to pack on the pounds.
1. Sushi
Sushi may seem like the perfect light, low calorie meal when you are trying to drop a few pounds, right? What could possibly make it fattening when it contains raw fish, veggies, seaweed and only a little bit of rice?
2. Tofu
Tofu, another Asian restaurant favorite, can be a very healthy, low fat dish; however, it doesn’t stay that way after most chefs gets theirs hands on it. Tofu naturally has a very bland plain flavor, so do you ever wonder why it tastes so scrumptiously delicious at most restaurants? Most likely, it has been deep-fried and then doused in decadent sauces to give it its sweet flavor and crunchy texture; unfortunately though this process sends the calorie, fat and sugar content far above what you would ever have guessed.
3. Salads
Salad may seem like an odd addition to this list, as after all how many calories and how much fat can really be lurking inside a pile of lettuce? Unfortunately most salads at restaurants don’t just consist of shredded carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, and tomatoes. Most likely you will find nuts, cheese, croutons, and of course creamy dressing. Most of us know that cheeses are high in fat, particularly the saturated kind, but very few of us actually realize how much cheese, and hence extra fat, lands in our salad.
4. Granola
Loaded with healthy nuts and oats, what’s not to love? However, granola contains many hidden ingredients. The breakfast favorite gets a tasty twist from added oil and sugar, which certainly make it delicious, but unfortunately like many tasty food, high in calories. In fact, one bowl contains around 500 to 600 hundred calories, which is almost three times the amount of calories found in the most sugary breakfast cereals available. Make sure you read the box carefully, and watch out for added dried fruit and even honey as this can push the sugar content through the roof.
5. Bottled green tea
Green tea is definitely a super food – filled with antioxidants, it lends your body a healthy hand from head to toe. However, bottled green tea is unfortunately not nearly as “sweet” for your health as most of them contain only a tiny amount of these healthy compounds. In fact, scientists have found that you have to drink about 20 bottles of bottled green tea to get the same benefits of consuming one mug of real green tea.
6. Juices and Smoothies
Last, but certainly not least (in calories), juices and smoothies are some of the biggest culprits when it comes to unhealthy “health” foods. Fresh fruits are excellent for your body as they are without doubt loaded with vitamins, antioxidants and fiber. While many fruit juices contain a lot of the vitamins of the fruit (Vitamin C in particular), they are loaded with sugar.
Triggers that slow metabolism
Age, diet and lifestyle can all send your body’s calorie burn screeching to a halt. Is there a way to fight back? Yes, according to everydayhealth.com.
There are only two true ways to boost metabolism: weight-loss surgery and weight training that increases muscle mass. But there are many factors that can cause metabolism to slow and the number on the scale to creep up. The good news? You can always fight your metabolic triggers and change your metabolism for the better. Here’s how top docs say you can reverse a bad metabolic trend and rev your body’s calorie-burning engine.
Hormones Slow Metabolism, Part I - a natural lack of estrogen receptors in the brain due to aging caused mice to gain weight without consuming more calories, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found. The same principle could apply to humans.
“People put on 10 percent a decade because of how our hormones change as we age,” says Eva Cwynar, MD, an endocrinologist and metabolic medicine specialist in Beverly Hills and author of The Fatigue Solution. If you’re concerned about your estrogen levels, talk to your doctor to find a healthy solution that works for your body.
Certain Diets May Help Body Burn More Calories
Dieters have long been told that to lose weight, you simply need to cut calories. But new research suggests that some combinations of foods may burn more calories than others.
When researchers compared a low-fat diet, a very low-carbohydrate diet and a low-glycemic-index diet, they found that people on very low-carb diets used the most calories. But this type of diet also boosts stress hormones and inflammation, they found.
People on the low-glycemic-index diet — a plan designed to prevent spikes in blood sugar after eating — also burned more calories than those on the low-fat diet, but fewer than those on the very low-carb diet.
“From a metabolic perspective, all calories are not alike,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. David Ludwig, director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“Attempting to severely restrict all fat or all carbohydrates is hard psychologically, and it’s also the wrong approach biologically,” he said. “When you try to force so many nutrients through one pathway, it may have downsides on the body.”
Facts don’t support detox diets
The desire to rid the body of fat and suspected toxins often ends up putting the body through torturous fasts and consumption of strange liquids. While flushes, detox diets and fasts are hyped as a way to remove waste that’s supposedly “stuck” in our digestive system, there’s not a lot of scientific evidence that this is so.
Touted as a means to improve liver and kidney function, fight off disease, increase energy and lift the spirits, the diets often turn a blind eye to nutritional health.
Diets may last as long as several weeks and rely on weird concoctions, such as the decades-old “Master Cleanse,” a drink made up of water, lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper bookended with a cup of salt water in the morning and a laxative tea in the evening. Others claim to flush out toxins by fasting or drinking only juices for up to 14 days or more.
“Our bodies are designed to naturally purify themselves, so these kinds of diets are really unnecessary,” says Ruth Frechman, registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, formerly the American Dietetic Association. “In the long run, they can actually weaken the body by lowering levels of necessary vitamins, minerals and proteins normally provided by food.”
In addition, such prolonged fasts can put blood sugar levels out of whack, a threat for those with diabetes, heart and kidney disease, according to experts.
“You also may experience sodium, potassium and chloride deprivation, which isn’t good,” says Frechman. “These detox efforts aren’t accomplishing anything because what they’re really doing is simply taking out the fluid that’s in your intestines. You’re not getting rid of fat or supposed toxins, only water weight.”
