Tomatoes!

Bright red in color and round in shape, tomatoes are not only look appealing, but also very tasty to eat. Many people thought that it's in the veggie group, when it's actually a fruit.

image credit to free-extras.com

Besides its freshness, tomatoes are rich in antioxidants, which are effective in fighting those free radicals. The antioxidants in tomatoes fight them by adding an electron into the free radicals, neutralizing them and stop the chain reaction of the free radicals that disrupts the health. One of the antioxidants tomatoes is lycopene. Lycopene is an important antioxidants that can help prevent the formation of cancer cells, like prostate, rectal, stomach, and throat cancer.

Lycopene is a part of the "pigment family" called carotene. Carotene is a natural component in fruit and vegetable colors. For example, beta carotene is an orange pigment in carrots.

Our body does not produce lycopene, therefore it needs a supply of lycopene from the foods we consume. Tomatoes actually contain more lycopene than other fruits, such as carrots or watermelon.

Nutritional Content in 100 grams of Tomatoes

• 27 mg of phosphor
• 360 mg of potassium
• 0,6 mg of iron
• 11 mg of calcium
• 23 mg of vitamin C
• 0,06 mg of thiamine (vitamin B)
• 1 g of protein
• 1000 iu of vitamin A

Health Benefits from Tomatoes
Except its merit in preventing the formation of cancer cells, tomatoes also have 5 other important benefits for our health, and they are:
1. Prevent the Premature Aging
With its high content of antioxidants, tomatoes can prevent premature aging from free radicals. Tomatoes also contain citric acid, which can make our skin looks fresh and cleaner.

2. Lower the Blood Cholesterol
The nicotinic acid in tomatoes can help you lower the high blood cholesterol, therefore preventing any heart disease.

3. Maintain the Blood Sugar Level
Tomatoes also contain important mineral, chromium. Chromium is useful in maintaining the stability of the blood sugar. Therefore, tomatoes are good for diabetic people.

4. Lower the Effects of Smoking
Tomatoes are highly recommended for smokers. The chlorogenic acid and the coumaric acid in tomatoes help smokers fight carcinogens, the dangerous substance in cigarettes which can cause cancer.

5. Maintain the Bone Health
Besides chromium, tomatoes also contain other important minerals such as calcium and vitamin K. These two nutrition are important in repairing the broken bone tissues while preventing the osteoporosis.

Start consuming tomatoes today, and get ALL the health merits!

5 Big No-Nos about Fruit-Consuming

We all know that there are many fruits that can fulfill our needs for vitamin. For example, fruits containing many vitamin C are kiwi, apple, orange, mango, cherry, strawberry, and so on. Fruits are also known as the source of antioxidants, such as tomatoes which contain lots of lycopene or mangoes which are rich in carotene. Therefore, fruits are essential in healthy living.

image credit to topnews.in

It's true, but some people are overconfident in some merits of fruit. Truth is, there are couple of things that one have to understand about consuming fruits. Here are the 5 restrictions about fruit-consuming:

1. Consume Fruit as Substitute for Vegetables
Fruits contain some organic acid and aromatic substance which can increase the appetite. Despite the fact, veggies contain more mineral substances than fruits. If you only consume fruits, thinking that it's enough to substitute the veggies, your daily nutritional need are not filled. You still need to consume about 500 grams of veggies everyday.

2. Consume Fruit as Substitute for Meals
A human body can survive with at least 50 kinds of nutrition, especially more than 65 grams of (good) fat that can maintain regeneration and organ recovery. Fruits contain more than 85% of water but less than 1% of protein. Therefore, it can't fulfill the daily need for amino and fatty acid. It's better if you don't consume fruit as substitute for your meal. You can, however, consume it as a snack. See this post for a healthy meal plan.

3. Consume too Much Fruits in Order to Lose Some Weight
Basically, fruits can't be considered as low-calorie foods. More than 80% of fruit contains fructose, kind of "fruit sugar" if I may say so. Even if fruits contain less calories than rice, people always consume more fruit than rice because it taste great and succulent. Therefore, if this happens, more calories will be consumed and  your dietary goals won't be achieved.

4. Blinded by Imported Fruits
Some people actually think that imported fruits contain better and more nutrition. This is not always true, because some fruit lose its freshness from long transport time.

5. Relying on Fruits as Sources for Vitamin
Some fruit don't contain as many vitamins as we thought it would be. But if you want to fulfill your needs for vitamin, it's not wise to just rely it on fruits. You also have to consume it from other kinds of food. You can also fulfill it by consuming multivitamin and multimineral supplements.

Yes, fruits are highly nutritional foods and are good to consume daily. However, it is also important to pay attention on how you consume it. Consume it wisely!

12 Easy Steps to Lose Some Weight (Part 2)

Before reading this post, you'd better be finished reading the previous post. It's important to read it first, because you need to read it in order.

6. Choose a balanced menu. Never disregard one kind of nutrition. Fat is important too, but consume healthy fats such as fat from beans, fish, avocado, olive oil, or canola oil. Use supplements such as Omega 3 supplements to help you fulfill your healthy fat requirement. Besides its role in dissolving vitamins, fat are needed to balance your the hormones in your body.

7. Eat enough protein. Some of the sources of protein are chicken, fish, beef, tofu, tempe, egg (the whites), and beans. If you want to lose weight, and workout regularly, you have to consume large sum of protein.

image credit to thomshillaw.com

8. Some people still don't understand what carbohydrate is. Carbohydrate is the main energy source for our body, which also used as spontaneous energy in our body. To lose some weight, we have to know that while our body still use carbohydrate as its energy source, then the energy from fat only serves as energy reserves. Energy reserves won't be used as long as the main energy sources is still there. Therefore, lessening carbohydrate consumption usually works in weight loss.

NEVER substitute rice with noodles, because they're the same thing (noodles are carbohydrates too.....). What you need to know is it's important to have some carbohydrates after a workout. Not only it's important, but you HAVE to consume it immediately. You can also consume it after morning workouts, but choose only good carbohydrates.

9. Know your carbohydrates. Good carbohydrates are those that are slowly-absorbed, commonly known from its glycemic index (GI). You can click here for list of carbohydrate GI. If your carbohydrate is not on the list, you can also search it here. For a good diet, eat carbohydrate with less than 55 GI. If it's higher than that, eat it after a workout. However, a really high GI foods (such as sugar) should not be eaten while you're on a diet. In cooking, use other sweeteners other than sugar.

10. Consume enough fiber. It's better if you eat apple in its fruit form rather than blending it into apple juice. The blending process destroys the fibers in apples. Eat enough veggies too. Fibers are important for your digestive system, and also helps slowing down the calorie-absorption.

11. Drink enough water. Drinking 2,5 liters of water daily is compulsory.

12. When buying foods or biscuits, take a look at its Nutrition Facts. You don't want to destroy you diet, right? You have to look at the label of the food you're buying. Don't consume high fructose corn syrup because it has a really high GI. Make sure there's no hydrogenated vegetable oil too. Hydrogenated is a process of solidifying oil, and this will destroy your metabolism. For example, margarine and butter. Avoid these as much as possible.

After reading the 12 steps, analyze your activities and foods. Have you done any of those things?

There are some people that already know how to lose some weight, yet still underestimates them. For example, drinking 2,5 liters of water everyday. Many still don't understand why they have to drink that much, or they think they drink enough, when they still need lots.

My point is, you have to stick to those steps. It's the simplest summary to help you lose weight. If you still can't lose some weight, check the steps again, make sure nothing is missed.

I hope it helps :)

Yummy and Healthy Beverages

To achieve your ideal own ideal weight, it's really important to have some variations in your diet menu. Drink variations in your diet menu are as important as food variations. There are a lot of drink nowadays that are high in sugar, also artificial coloring and sweetener. Our body won't be in its best condition by consuming those drinks. So here I'm gonna post some of the healthy drinks that you can add into your diet menu :)

image credit to howtojuice.org

Orange Juice
The favorite drink that people usually add into their diet menu is orange juice. Orange juice got this natural flavor that people tend to like, and it's easy to prepare too. Besides its high content of healthy vitamin C and phyto-nutrition, eight ounce of orange juice had the same potassium content as it is in bananas. With its many vitamins and nutrition in it, orange juice has been believed to lower the blood pressure.

Apple Juice
Apple juice is a compulsory drink that you have to have in your diet menu. The right way to serve it is without sugar, because apples have enough sugar content to get the natural sweet taste. Fresh apple juice contains many useful vitamins and minerals. The malic acid in apples can be your additional energy when working out. The old saying of "an apple a day can keep the doctor away" is true, apparently, because there are already some research that indicates how apples can prevent heart diseases and lower the cholesterol.

Cranberry Juice
Another healthy drink is cranberry juice. The antioxidants from cranberry juice has been long known for its curing ability for urinary tract infections. The acidic taste from cranberry juice can prevent the growth of the germs causing the infections. A cranberry juice in your diet menu can keep you fit everyday.

Besides the three drinks, you can also combine it with other kinds of fruits and vegetables such as pineapples, carrots, and also tomatoes. With the three choices, you can be closer into the workout goal that you want to achieve :)

Go Bananas for Bananas!

In the last post, I posted about the ten foods that are good for our heart, and also a meal plan that can help you lose weight. In both posts, you can see that fruits and vegetables have important parts in a healthy meal plan for their many benefits. Out of the many choices of fruits, I just love bananas :D In a tropical country like Indonesia or Malaysia, it's easy to find them, and it also has many nutrition that are good for our body :)

image credit to threebananas.com

Bananas help our body store calcium, nitrogen, and phosphor, which are good for our tissue recovery and regeneration. Bananas are also rich in essentials vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin B complex, vitamin C, and also potassium, magnesium, phosphor, and calcium.

One of the most important benefit of bananas is to fight and cure digestive disease, such as ulcer. Bananas can neutralize the gastric acid by coating the gastric surfaces, thus making bananas a "safe" fruit for people with ulcers. Other medical benefits of bananas are to cure constipation, diarrhea, rheumatoid, and also anemia.

Aside from that, bananas can also be used to treat burns and other kinds of wound. You just pound ripe bananas until they're soft, and spread it into the burn or wound to ease the pain. After that, wrap the wound with a fabric bandage. Banana leaves can also be used as a cooler compress for burns or any kinds of wound.

So, get ready to get bananas with some bananas?